" Even as she thought about it the old hooded waggon came lumbering 
 down among the snow-drifts." (Page 118.)
 
 PH 
 7 
 
 A GREAT EMERG r & 
 
 AND OTHER TALES. 
 
 JULIANA HORATIA EWING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING," "SIX TO SIXTEEN," ETC., ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1886.
 
 PZ 
 7 
 
 IW, 
 
 gtbicattb t0 
 
 JOHN, 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF FREDERICTON, 
 AND TO HIS DEAR WIFE 
 
 MARGARET, 
 
 IN PLEASANT AND GRATEFUL MEMORY OF 
 
 NEW BRUNSWICK, 
 
 BY J. H. E.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGB 
 II 
 
 RUPERT'S LECTURES THE OLD YELLOW LEA 
 
 THER BOOK ..... 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HENRIETTA A FAMILY CHRONICLE THE 
 
 SCHOOL MIMIC MY FIRST FIGHT . . 14 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHOOL CRICKET LEMON-KALI THE BOYS* 
 
 BRIDGE AN UNEXPECTED EMERGENCY . 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DOUBTFUL BLESSING A FAMILY FAILING 
 OLD\ BATTLES THE CANAL-CARRIER'S HOME 23 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NAVY CAPTAIN SEVEN PARROTS IN A 
 FUCHSIA TREE THE HARBOUR LION AND 
 THE SILVER CHAIN THE LEGLESS GIANTS 
 DOWN BELOW JOHNSON'S WHARF . . 25 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 S. PHILIP AND S. JAMES THE MONKEY-BARGE 
 AND THE DOG WAR, PLAGUE, AND FIRE 
 THE DULNESS OF EVERYDAY LIFE . . 28 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 30 
 
 WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY SCRUPLES BABY 
 CECIL I PREPARE I RUN AWAY . 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WE GO ON BOARD THE PIE AN EXPLOSION- 
 MR. ROWE THE BARGE-MASTER THE WHITE 
 LION TWO LETTERS WE DOUBT MR. ROWE'S () 
 GOOD FAITH . . . . -34 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 A COASTING VOYAGE MUSK ISLAND LINNET 
 FLASH MR. ROWE AN OLD TAR THE DOG- 
 FANCIER AT HOME . . . -37 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LOCKS WE THINK OF GOING ON THE TRAMP 
 PYEBRIDGE WE SET SAIL . . .40 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 MR. ROWE ON BARGE-WOMEN THE RIVER- 
 NINE ELMS A MYSTERIOUS NOISE ROUGH 
 QUARTERS A CHEAP SUPPER JOHN'S BERTH 
 WE MAKE OUR ESCAPE OUT INTO THE 
 WORLD . . . . . -42 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EMERGENCIES AND POLICEMEN FENCHURCH 
 STREET STATION THIRD CLASS TO CUSTOM 
 HOUSE A SHIP FOREST 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A DIRTY STREET A BAD BOY SHIPPING AND 
 MERCHANDISE WE STOWAWAY ON BOARD* 
 THE 'ATALANTA' A SALT TEAR . . 49 
 
 46 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A GLOW ON THE HORIZON A FANTASTIC PEAL 
 WHAT I SAW WHEN THE ROOF FELL IN 
 
 54 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 HENRIETTA'S DIARY A GREAT EMERGENCY . 55 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MR. ROWE ON THE SUBJECT OUR COUSIN 
 WESTON GETS INTO PRINT THE HARBOUR'S 
 MOUTH WHAT LIES BEYOND . . 57
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 A FAMILY FAILING . . . -63 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ILL-TEMPERED PEOPLE AND THEIR FRIENDS- 
 NARROW ESCAPES THE HATCHET-QUARREL 63 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 \VARNINGS-MY AUNT ISOBEL MR. RAMPANT'S 
 TEMPER, AND HIS CONSCIENCE . . 66 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CASES OF CONSCIENCE ETHICS OF ILL-TEMPER 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CELESTIAL FIRE I CHOOSE A TEXT . . 73 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THEATRICAL PROPERTIES I PREPARE A PLAY 
 PHILIP BEGINS TO PREPARE THE SCENERY 
 A NEW FRIEND . . . -74 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE 
 A QUARREL BOBBY IS WILLING EXIT PHILIP 78 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I HEAR FROM PHILIP A NEW PART WANTED 
 I LOSE MY TEMPER WE ALL LOSE OUR 
 TEMPERS . . . i .80 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SELF-REPROACH FAMILY DISCOMFORT OUT 
 ON THE MARSH VICTORY . . . 83 
 
 OUR FIELD 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 PART I. . 
 PART II. 
 
 . 107 
 
 . 122
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY.
 
 1 Send danger frcm the east unto the west, 
 So honour cross it from the north to south, 
 And let them grapple !" 
 
 K. Henry IV., Act I.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 RUPERT'S LECTURES THE OLD YELLOW 
 LEATHER BOOK. 
 
 WE were very happy I, Rupert, Henrietta, 
 and Baby Cecil. The only thing we found 
 fault with in our lives was that there were 
 so few events in them. 
 
 It was particularly provoking, because 
 we were so well prepared for events any 
 events. Rupert prepared us. He had 
 found a fat old book in the garret, bound 
 in yellow leather, at the end of which were 
 " Directions how to act with presence of 
 mind in any emergency ;" and he gave 
 lectures out of this in the kitchen garden. 
 
 Rupert was twelve years old. He was 
 the eldest. Then came Henrietta, then I, 
 and last of all Baby Cecil, who was only 
 four. The day I was nine years old, 
 Rupert came into the nursery, holding up 
 his handsome head with the dignified air 
 which became him so well, that I had 
 more than once tried to put it on myself 
 before the nursery looking-glass, and said 
 to me, " You are quite old enough now, 
 Charlie, to learn what to do whatever 
 happens ; so every half-holiday, when I 
 am not playing cricket, I'll teach you pre- 
 sence of mind near the cucumber frame, 
 if you're punctual. I've put up a bench." 
 
 I thanked him warmly, and the next 
 day he put his head into the nursery at 
 
 three o'clock in the afternoon, and said 
 " The lecture." 
 
 I jumped up, and so did Henrietta. 
 
 "It's not for girls," said Rupert; 
 "women are not expected to do things 
 when there's danger." 
 
 " We take care of them" said I, wonder- 
 ing if my mouth looked like Rupert's when 
 I spoke, and whether my manner impressed 
 Henrietta as much as his impressed me. 
 She sat down again and only said, " I 
 stayed in all Friday afternoon, and worked 
 in bed on Saturday morning to finish your 
 net." 
 
 "Come along," said Rupert. "You 
 know I'm very much obliged to you for 
 the net ; it's a splendid one." 
 
 " I'll bring a camp-stool if there's not 
 room on the bench," said Henrietta 
 cheerfully. 
 
 " People never take camp-stools to lec- 
 tures," said Rupert, and when we got to 
 the cucumber frame we found that the old 
 plank, which he had raised on inverted 
 flower-pots, would have held a much larger 
 audience than he had invited. Opposite 
 to it was a rhubarb-pot, with the round 
 top of a barrel resting on it. On this stood 
 a glass of water. A delightful idea thrilled 
 through me, suggested by an imperfect re- 
 membrance of a lecture on chemistry 
 which I had attended. 
 
 "Will there be experiments?" I whis- 
 pered.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 " I think not," Henrietta replied. 
 " There are glasses of water at the mis- 
 sionary meetings, and there are no ex- 
 periments." 
 
 Meanwhile Rupert had been turning 
 over the leaves of the yellow leather book. 
 To say the truth, I think he was rather 
 nervous ; but if we have a virtue among 
 us it is that of courage ; and after dropping 
 
 frowning. I am inclined now to think that 
 he could not answer my question off-hand; 
 for though he looked cross then, after re- 
 ferring to the book he answered me: "It's 
 a fire, or drowning, or an apoplectic fit, or 
 anything of that sort." After which ex- 
 planation, he hurried on. If what he said 
 next came out of his own head, or whether 
 he had learned it by heart, I never knew. 
 
 the book twice, and drinking all the water 
 at a draught, he found his place, and 
 began. 
 
 " How to act in an emergency." 
 "What's an emergency?" I asked. I 
 was very proud of being taught by Rupert, 
 and anxious to understand everything as 
 we went along. 
 
 " You .shouldn't interrupt," said Rupert, 
 
 " There is no stronger sign of good- 
 breeding than presence of mind in an 
 
 " apoplectic fit,' I suggested. I was 
 giving the keenest attention, and Rupert 
 had hesitated, the wind having blown 
 over a leaf too many of the yellow leather 
 book. 
 
 "An emergency" he shouted, when he 
 had found his place. "Now we'll have
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 one each time. The one for to-day is 
 How to act in a case of drowning." 
 
 To speak the strict truth, I would rather 
 not have thought about drowning. I had 
 my own private horror over a neighbouring 
 milldam, and I had once been very much 
 frightened by a spring-tide at the sea ; but 
 cowardice is not an indulgence for one of my 
 race, so I screwed up my lips and pricked 
 my ears to learn my duty in the unpleasant 
 emergency of drowning. 
 . " It doesn't mean being drowned your- 
 self," Rupert continued, " but what to do 
 when another person has been droAvned." 
 
 The emergency was undoubtedly easier, 
 and I gave a cheerful attention as Rupert 
 began to question us. 
 
 " Supposing a man had been drowned 
 in the canal, and was brought ashore, and 
 you were the only people there, what 
 would you do with him ?" 
 
 I was completely nonplussed. I felt 
 quite sure I could do nothing with him, 
 he would be so heavy ; but I felt equally 
 certain that this was not the answer which 
 Rupert expected, so I left the question to 
 Henrietta's readier wit. She knitted her 
 thick eyebrows for some minutes, partly 
 with perplexity, and partly because of the 
 sunshine reflected from the cucumber 
 frame, and then said : 
 
 " We should bury him in a vault ; 
 Charlie and I couldn't dig a grave deep 
 enough." 
 
 I admired Henrietta's foresight, but 
 Rupert was furious. 
 
 " How silly you are !" he exclaimed, 
 knocking over the top of the rhubarb-pot 
 table and the empty glass in his wrath. 
 " Of course I don't mean a dead man. I 
 mean what would you do to bring a partly 
 drowned man to life again ?" 
 
 " That wasn't what you said" cried 
 Henrietta, tossing her head. 
 
 " I let you come to my lecture,"grumbled 
 Rupert bitterly, as he stooped to set his 
 
 table right, " and this is the way you 
 behave !" 
 
 " I'm very sorry, Rupert dear !" said 
 Henrietta. " Indeed, I only mean to do 
 my best, and I do like your lecture so very 
 much !" 
 
 "So do I," I cried, "very, very much !"' 
 And by a simultaneous impulse Henrietta 
 and I both clapped our hands vehemently. 
 This restored Rupert's self-complacency, 
 and he bowed and continued the lecture. 
 From this we learned that the drowned 
 man should be turned over on his face to 
 let the canal water run out of his mouth 
 and ears, and that his wet clothes should 
 be got off, and he should be made dry and 
 warm as quickly as possible, and placed in 
 a comfortable position, with the head and 
 shoulders slightly raised. All this seemed 
 quite feasible to us. Henrietta had dressed 
 and undressed lots of dolls, and I pictured 
 myself filling a hot-water bottle at the 
 kitchen boiler with an air of responsibility 
 that should scare all lighter-minded folk. 
 But the directions for " restoring breath- 
 ing " troubled our sincere desire to learn ; 
 and this even though Henrietta practised 
 for weeks afterwards upon me. I repre- 
 sented the drowned man, and she drew my 
 arms above my head lor " inspiration" and 
 counted " one, two ;" and doubled them 
 and drove them back for "expiration;" 
 but it tickled, and I laughed, and we could 
 not feel at all sure that it would have made 
 the drowned man breathe again. 
 
 Meanwhile Rupert went on with the 
 course of lectures, and taught us how to 
 behave in the event of a fire in the house, 
 an epidemic in the neighbourhood, a bite 
 from a mad dog, a chase by a mad bull, 
 broken limbs, runaway horses, a chimney 
 on fire, or a young lady burning to death. 
 The lectures were not only delightful in 
 themselves, but they furnished us with a 
 whole set of new games, for Henrietta and 
 I zealously practised every emergency as
 
 M 
 
 far as the nature of things would allow. 
 Covering our faces with wet cloths to keep 
 off the smoke, we crept on our hands and 
 knees to rescue a fancy cripple from an 
 imaginary burning house, because of the 
 current of air which Rupert told us was to 
 be found near the floor. We fastened 
 Baby Cecil's left leg to his right by pocket- 
 handkerchiefs at the ankle, and above and 
 below the knee, pretending that it was 
 broken, and must be kept steady till we 
 could convey him to the doctor. But for 
 some unexplained reason Baby Cecil took 
 offence at this game, and I do not think 
 he could have howled and roared louder 
 under the worst of real compound fractures. 
 We had done it so skilfully, that we were 
 greatly disgusted by his unaccommodating 
 spirit, and his obstinate refusal to be put 
 into the litter we had made out of Hen- 
 rietta's stilts and a railway rug. We put 
 the Scotch terrier in instead ; but when 
 one end of the litter gave way and he fell 
 out, we were not sorry that the emergency 
 was a fancy one, and that no broken limbs 
 were really dependent upon our well-meant 
 efforts. 
 
 There was one thing about Rupert's lec- 
 tures which disappointed me. His emergen- 
 cies were all things that happened in the 
 daytime. Now I should not have liked the 
 others to know that I was ever afraid of 
 anything; but, really and truly, I was 
 sometimes a little frightened not of 
 breaking my leg, or a house on fire, or an 
 apoplectic fit, or anything of that sort, but 
 of things in the dark. Every half- 
 holiday I hoped there would be some- 
 thing about what to do with robbers or 
 ghosts, but there never was. I do not 
 think there can have been any emer- 
 gencies of that kind in the yellow leather 
 book. 
 
 On the whole, I fancy Rupert found us 
 satisfactory pupils, for he never did give 
 up the lectures in a huff, though he some- 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 times threatened to do so, when I asked 
 stupid questions, or Henrietta argued a 
 point. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HENRIETTA A FAMILY CHRONICLE THE 
 
 SCHOOL MIMIC MY FIRST FIGHT. 
 
 HENRIETTA often argued points, which 
 made Rupert very angry. He said that 
 even if she were in the right, that had 
 nothing to do with it, for girls oughtn't to 
 dispute or discuss. And then Henrietta 
 argued that point too. 
 
 Rupert and Henrietta often squabbled, 
 and always about the same sort of thing. 
 I am sure he would have been very kind 
 to her if she would have agreed with him, 
 and done what he wanted. He often told 
 me that the gentlemen of our family had 
 always been courteous to women, and 
 I think he would have done anything for 
 Henrietta if it had not been that she 
 would do everything for herself. 
 
 When we wanted to vex her very much, 
 we used to call her " Monkey," because 
 we knew she liked to be like a boy. She 
 persuaded Mother to let her have her 
 boots made like ours, because she said the 
 roads were so rough and rnuddy (which they 
 are). And we found two of her books with 
 her name written in, and she had put 
 " Henry," and Rupert wrote Etta after it, 
 and " Monkey " after that. So she tore 
 the leaves out. Her hair was always 
 coming out of curl. It was very dark, 
 and when it fell into her eyes she used to 
 give her head a peculiar shake and toss, 
 so that half of it fell the wrong way, and 
 there was a parting at the side, like our 
 partings. Nothing made Rupert angrier 
 than this.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Henrietta was very good at inventing 
 things. Once she invented a charade 
 quite like a story. Rupert was very much 
 pleased with it, because he was to act the 
 hero, who was to be a young cavalier of a 
 very old family our family. He was to 
 arrive at an inn ; Henrietta made it the 
 real old inn in the middle of the town, 
 and I was the innkeeper, with Henrietta's 
 pillow to make me fat, and one of Nurse's 
 clean aprons. Then he was to ask to 
 spend a night in the old Castle, and 
 Henrietta made that the real Castle, which 
 was about nine miles off, and which 
 belonged to our cousin, though he never 
 spoke to us. And a ghost was to appear. 
 The ghost of the ancestor in the miniature 
 in Mother's bedroom. Henrietta did the 
 ghost in a white sheet ; and with her hair 
 combed, and a burnt-cork moustache, she 
 looked so exactly like the picture that 
 Rupert started when she came in, and 
 stared ; and Mother said he had acted 
 splendidly. 
 
 Henrietta was wonderfully like the 
 picture. Much more like than Rupert 
 ever was, which rather vexed him, because 
 that ancestor was one of the very bravest, 
 and his name was Rupert. He was rather 
 vexed, too, when she rode the pony bare- 
 backed which had kicked him off. But I 
 think the pony was fonder of Henrietta, 
 which perhaps made it easier for her to 
 manage ; t. She used to feed it with bits 
 of bread. It got them out of her 
 pocket. 
 
 One of the things Henrietta could not 
 do as well as Rupert was cricket. Rupert 
 was one of the best players in the school. 
 Henrietta used to want to play with us at 
 home, and she and I did play for a bit, 
 before breakfast, in the drying ground ; 
 but Rupert said, if I encouraged her in 
 being unladylike, he would not let me 
 come to the school matches. He said I 
 might take my choice, and play either 
 
 with girls or boys, but not with both. But 
 I thought it would be very mean to leave 
 Henrietta in the lurch. So I told her I 
 would stick by her, as Rupert had not 
 actually forbidden me. He had given me 
 my choice, and he always kept his word. 
 But she would not let me. She pretended 
 that she did not mind ; but I know she 
 did, for I could see afterwards that she had 
 been crying. However, she would not 
 play, and Mother said she had much 
 rather she did not, as she was so afraid of 
 her getting hit by the ball. So that 
 settled it, and I was very glad not to have 
 to give up going to the school matches. 
 
 The school we went to was the old town 
 grammar school. It was a very famous 
 one ; but it was not so expensive as big 
 public schools are, and I believe this was 
 why we lived in this town after my father's 
 death, for Mother was not at all rich. 
 
 The grammar school was very large, and 
 there were all sorts of boys there some 
 of gentlemen, and tradesmen, and farmers. 
 Some of the boys were so very dirty, and 
 had such horrid habits out of school, that 
 when Rupert was thirteen, and I was ten, 
 he called a council at the beginning of the 
 half, and a lot of the boys formed a 
 committee, and drew up the code of 
 honour, and we all subscribed to it. 
 
 The code of honour was to forbid a lot 
 of things that had been very common in 
 the school. Lying, cheating over bargains, 
 telling tales, bragging, bad language, and 
 what the code called " conduct unbecom- 
 ing schoolfellows and gentlemen." There 
 were a lot of rules in it, too, about clean 
 nails, and shirts, and collars and socks, 
 and things of that sort. If any boy refused 
 to agree to it, he had to fight with Thomas 
 Johnson. 
 
 There could not have been a better 
 person than Rupert to make a code of 
 honour. We have always been taught that 
 honour was the watch-word of our family
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 dearer than anything that could be 
 gained or lost, very much dearer than 
 mere life. The motto of our arms came 
 from an ancestor who lost the favour of 
 the King by refusing to do something 
 against his conscience for which he would 
 have been rewarded. It is "Honour 
 before honours." 
 
 I can just remember the man, with 
 iron-grey hair and gold spectacles, who 
 came to our house after my father's death. 
 I think he was a lawyer. He took lots of 
 snuff, so that Henrietta sneezed when he 
 kissed her, which made her very angry. 
 He put Rupert and me in front of him, to 
 see which of us was most like my father, 
 and I can recall the big pinch of snuff 
 he took, and the sound of his voice 
 saying, " Be like your father, boys ! He 
 was as good as he was gallant. And 
 there never lived a more honourable 
 gentleman." 
 
 Every one said the same. We were 
 very proud of it, and always boasted about 
 our father to the new nursemaids, or any 
 other suitable hearer. I was a good deal 
 annoyed by one little maid, who when 
 I told her, over our nursery tea, that my 
 father had been the most honourable of 
 men, began to cry about her father, who 
 was dead too, and said he was "just the 
 same ; for in the one and twenty years he 
 kept a public-house, he never put so much 
 as a pinch of salt into the beer, nor even 
 a gill of water, unless it was in the evening 
 at fair-time, when the only way to keep the 
 men from fighting was to give them their 
 liquor so that it could not do them much 
 harm." I was very much offended by the 
 comparison of my father, who was an 
 officer and a gentleman of rank, with her 
 father, who was a village publican ; but I 
 should like to say, that I think now that I 
 was wrong and Jane was right. If her 
 father gave up profit for principle, he was 
 like my father, and like the ancestor we 
 
 get the motto from, and like every other 
 honourable man, of any rank or any 
 trade. 
 
 Every time I boasted in the nursery of 
 my father being so honourable, I always 
 finished my saying, that that was why 
 he had the word Honourable before his 
 name, as men in old times used to be 
 called " the Good " or " the Lion Heart." 
 The nursemaids quite believed it, and I 
 believed it myself, till the first week I went 
 to school. 
 
 It makes me hot all over to remember 
 what I suffered that week, and for long 
 afterwards. But I think it cured me of 
 bragging, which is a mean ungentlemanly 
 habit, and of telling everybody everything 
 about myself and my relations, which is 
 very weak-minded. 
 
 The second day I was there, one of the 
 boys came up to me and said, with a mock 
 ceremony and politeness which unfortu- 
 nately took me in, " If I am not mistaken, 
 sir, that esteemed lady, your mother, is an 
 Honourable ?" 
 
 He was nearly five years older than I, 
 his name was Weston ; he had a thin 
 cadaverous face, a very large nose, and a 
 very melancholy expression. I found out 
 afterwards that he was commonly called 
 " the clown," and was considered by boys 
 who had been to the London theatres to 
 surpass the best professional comic actors 
 when he chose to put forth his powers. 
 I did not know this then. I thought him 
 a little formal, but particularly courteous 
 in his manner, and not wishing to be be- 
 hindhand in politeness, I replied, with as 
 much of his style as I could assume, " Cer- 
 tainly, sir. But that is because my father 
 was an Honourable. My father, sir, was 
 the most honourable of men." 
 
 A slight spasm appeared to pass over 
 Weston's face, and then he continued the 
 conversation in a sadder tone than the 
 subject seemed to require, but I supposed
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 that this was due to his recalling that my 
 father was dead. 
 
 I confess that it did not need many 
 leading inquiries to draw from me such a 
 narrative of my father's valour and high 
 principle, as well as the noble sentiments 
 and conspicuous bravery which have 
 marked our family from Saxon times, as I 
 was well accustomed to pour forth for the 
 edification of our nursemaids. I had not 
 proceeded far, when my new friend said, 
 " Won't you walk in and take a seat ?" It 
 was recreation time, and the other boys 
 were all out in the playground. I had no 
 special friend as yet ; Rupert had stuck to 
 me all the first day, and had qow left me 
 to find my own level. I had lingered near 
 the door as we came out, and there Weston 
 had joined me. He now led me back 
 into the deserted schoolroom, and we sat 
 down together on an old black oak locker, 
 at the bottom of the room. 
 
 How well I remember the scene ! The 
 dirty floor, the empty benches, the torn 
 books sprinkled upon the battered desks, 
 the dusty sunshine streaming in, the white- 
 faced clock on the wall opposite, over 
 which the hands moved with almost incre- 
 dible rapidity. But when does time ever 
 fly so fast as with people who are talking 
 about themselves or their relations ? 
 
 Once the mathematical master passed 
 through the room. He glanced at us 
 curiously, but Weston's face was inscru- 
 table, and I tracing some surprise that I 
 should have secured so old and so fine- 
 mannered a boy for a friend held up my 
 head, and went on with my narrative, as 
 fluently as I could, to show that I had 
 parts which justified Weston in his pre- 
 ference. 
 
 Tick, tack ! went the clock. Click, 
 clack ! went my tongue. I fear that quite 
 half an hour must have passed, when a 
 big boy, with an open face, blue eyes, and 
 closely curling fair hair, burst in. On sec- 
 
 ing us he exclaimed, " Hulloh !" and then 
 stopped, I suspect in obedience to Weston's 
 eyes, which met his in a brief but ex- 
 pressive gaze. Then Weston turned to me. 
 
 "Allow me," said he, "to introduce Mr. 
 Thomas Johnson. He bears a very high 
 character in this school, and it will afford 
 him the keenest satisfaction to hear an 
 authentic account of such a man as your 
 esteemed father, whose character should 
 be held up for the imitation of young 
 gentlemen in every establishment for the 
 education of youth." 
 
 I blushed with pride and somewhat with 
 nervousness as Mr. Thomas Johnson 
 seated himself on the locker on the other 
 side of me and begged (with less elegance 
 of expression than my first friend) that I 
 would " go ahead." 
 
 I did so. But a very few minutes ex- 
 hausted the patience of my new hearer. 
 When he had kicked a loose splinter of 
 wood satisfactorily off the leg of one of 
 the desks he began to look at the clock, 
 which quickened my pace from my remoter 
 ancestors to what the colonel of the regi- 
 ment in which my father was an ensign 
 had said of him. I completed my nar- 
 rative at last with the lawyer's remark, and 
 added, "and everybody says the same. 
 And that is why my father had ' The 
 
 Honourable ' before his name, just as " 
 
 &c., &c. 
 
 I had no sooner uttered these words 
 than Johnson started from his seat, and, 
 covering his face with a spotted silk pocket- 
 handkerchief, rushed precipitately from the 
 schoolroom. For one brief iristant I 
 fancied I heard him choking with laughter, 
 but when I turned to Weston he got up 
 too, with a look of deep concern. " Mr. 
 Johnson is taken very unwell, I fear," said 
 he. " It is a peculiar kind of spasm to 
 which he is subject. Excuse me !" 
 
 He hurried anxiously after his friend, 
 and I was left alone in the schoolroom, 
 2
 
 iS 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 into which the other boys shortly began 
 to pour. 
 
 " Have you been all alone, old fellow ?" 
 said Rupert kindly ; " I hoped you had 
 picked up a chum." 
 
 " So I have," was my proud reply ; " two 
 chums." 
 
 " I hope they're decent fellows," said 
 Rupert. (He had a most pestilent trick 
 of perpetually playing monitor, to the wet- 
 blanketing of all good fellowship.) 
 
 "You know best," said I pertly; "it's 
 Weston and Johnson. We've been to- 
 gether a long time." 
 
 " Weston ?" cried Rupert. " I hope to 
 goodness, Charlie, you've not been play- 
 ing the fool ?" 
 
 "You can ask them," said I, and 
 tossing my head I went to my proper 
 place. 
 
 For the rest of school-time I wore a 
 lofty and Rupert an anxious demeanour. 
 Secure on the level of a higher friendship, 
 I was mean enough to snub the friendly 
 advances of one or two of the younger 
 boys. 
 
 When we went home at night, I found my 
 mother much more ready than Rupert to 
 believe that my merits had gained for me 
 the regard of two of the upper boys. I 
 was exultingly happy. Not a qualm dis- 
 turbed the waking dreams in which (after 
 I was in bed) I retold my family tale at 
 even greater length than before, except 
 that I remembered one or two incidents, 
 which in the excitement of the hour I had 
 forgotten when in school. 
 
 I was* rather sorry, too, that, bound by 
 the strictest of injunctions from Rupert 
 and my own promise, I had not been able, 
 ever so casually, to make my new friends 
 aware that among my other advantages 
 was that of being first cousin to a peer, 
 the very one who lived at the Castle. The 
 Castle was a show place, and I knew that 
 many ot my schoolfellows were glad 
 
 enough to take their friends and go them- 
 selves to be shown by the housekeeper the 
 pictures of my ancestors. On this point 
 they certainly had an advantage over me. 
 I had not seen the pictures. Our cousin 
 never called on us, and never asked us to 
 the Castle, and of course we could not go 
 to our father's old home like common 
 holiday-making townspeople. 
 
 I would rather not say very much about the 
 the next day. It must seem almost incredible 
 that I could have failed to see that Weston 
 and Johnson were making fun of me ; and 
 I confess that it was not for want of warn- 
 ings that I had made a fool of myself. 
 
 I had looked forward to going to school 
 with about equal measures of delight and 
 dread ; my pride and ambition longed for 
 this first step in life, but Rupert had filled 
 me with a wholesome awe of its stringent 
 etiquette, its withering ridicule, and un- 
 sparing severities. However, in his anxiety 
 to make me modest and circumspect, I 
 think he rather overpainted the picture, 
 and when I got through the first day 
 without being bullied, and made such 
 creditable friends on the second, I began 
 to think that Rupert's experience of school 
 life must be due to some lack of those 
 social and conversational powers with 
 which I seemed to be better endowed. 
 And then Weston's acting would have 
 deceived a wiser head than mine. And 
 the nursemaids had always listened so 
 willingly ! 
 
 As it happened, Rupert was unwell next 
 day and could not go to school. He was 
 obviously afraid of my going alone, but I 
 had no fears. My self-satisfaction was not 
 undone till playtime. Then not a boy dis- 
 persed to games. They all gathered round 
 Weston in the playground, and with a 
 confident air I also made my way to his 
 side. As he turned his face to me I was 
 undeceived. 
 
 Weston was accustomed at such times
 
 A GREA T EMERGENCY. 
 
 as suited his caprice and his resources 
 to give exhibitions of his genius for mimicry 
 to the rest of the boys. I had heard from 
 Rupert of these entertainments, which were 
 much admired by the school. They com- 
 monly consisted of funny dialogues between 
 various worthies of the place well known 
 to everybody, which made Weston's 
 audience able to judge of the accuracy of 
 his imitations. From the head-master to 
 the idiot who blew the organ bellows in 
 church, every inhabitant of the place who 
 was gifted with any recognisable peculiarity 
 was personated at one time or another by 
 the wit of our school. The favourite 
 imitation of all was supposed to be one of 
 the Dialogues of Plato, " omitted by some 
 strange oversight in the edition which 
 graces the library of our learned and 
 respected doctor," Weston would say with 
 profound gravity. The Dialogue was be- 
 tween Dr. Jessop and Silly Billy the idiot 
 already referred to and the apposite 
 Latin quotations of the head-master and 
 his pompous English, with the inapposite 
 replies of the organ-blower, given in the 
 local dialect and Billy's own peculiar jabber, 
 were supposed to form a masterpiece of 
 mimicry. 
 
 Little did I think that my family 
 chronicle was to supply Weston with a 
 new field for his talents ! 
 
 In the midst of my shame, I could 
 hardly help admiring the clever way in 
 which he had remembered all the details, 
 and twisted them into a comic ballad, 
 which he had composed overnight, and 
 which he now recited with a mock heroic 
 air and voice, which made every point tell, 
 and kept the boys in convulsions of 
 laughter. Not a smile crossed his long, 
 lantern-jawed face ; but Mr. Thomas 
 Johnson made no effort this time to hide a 
 severe fit of his peculiar spasms in his 
 spotted handkerchief. 
 
 Sometimes at night in the very bottom 
 
 of my own heart, when the darkness 
 seemed thick with horrors, and when I 
 could not make up my mind whether to 
 keep my ears strained to catch the first 
 sound of anything dreadful, or to pull the 
 blankets over my head and run the risk 
 of missing it, in such moments, I say, I 
 have had a passing private doubt whether 
 I had inherited my share of the family 
 instinct of courage at a crisis. 
 
 It was therefore a relief to me to feel 
 that in this moment of despair, when I 
 was only waiting till the boys, being n 
 longer amused by Weston, should turn to 
 amuse themselves with me, my first and 
 strongest feeling was a sense of relief that 
 Rupert was not at school, and that I could 
 bear the fruits of my own folly on my own 
 shoulders. To be spared .his hectoring 
 and lecturing, his hurt pride, his reproaches, 
 and rage with me, and a probable fight 
 with Weston, in which he must have been 
 seriously hurt and I should have been 
 blamed this was some comfort. 
 
 I had got my lesson well by heart. 
 Fifty thousand preachers in fifty thousand 
 pulpits could never have taught me so 
 effectually as Weston's ballad, and the 
 laughter of his audience, that there is less 
 difference than one would like to believe 
 between the vanity of bragging of one's 
 self and the vanity of bragging of one's 
 relations. Also that it is not dignified or 
 discreet to take new acquaintance into 
 your entire confidence; and that even if 
 one is blessed with friends of such quick 
 sympathy that they really enjoy hearing 
 'about people they have never seen, it is 
 well not to abuse the privilege, and now 
 and then to allow them an " innings " at de- 
 scribing their remarkable parents, brothers, 
 sisters, and remoter relatives. 
 
 I realised all this fully as I stood, with 
 burning cheeks and downcast eyes, at the 
 very elbow of my tormentor. But I am 
 glad to know that I would not have run 
 
 2 2
 
 A GEE A T EMERGENCY. 
 
 away even if I could. My resolution 
 grew stubborner with every peal of laughter 
 to bear whatever might come with pluck 
 and good temper. I had been a fool, 
 but I would show that I was not a 
 coward. 
 
 I was very glad that Rupert's influenza 
 kept him at home for a few days. I told 
 him briefly that I had been bullied, but 
 that it was my own fault, and I would 
 rather say no more about it. I begged 
 him to promise that he would not take up 
 my quarrel in any way, but leave me to 
 fight it out for myself, which he did. 
 When he came back I think he regretted 
 his promise. Happily he never heard all 
 the ballad, but the odd verses which the 
 boys sang about the place put him into a 
 fury. It was a long time before he for- 
 gave me, and I doubt if he ever quite for- 
 gave Weston. 
 
 I held out as well as I could. I made 
 no complaint, and kept my temper. I 
 must say that Henrietta behaved un- 
 commonly well to me at this time. 
 
 "After all, you know, Charlie," she 
 said, " you've not done anything really 
 wronger dishonourable" This was true, 
 and it comforted me. 
 
 Except Henrietta, I really had not a 
 friend ; for Rupert was angry with me, 
 and the holding up at school only made 
 me feel worse at home. 
 
 At last the joke began to die out, and I 
 was getting on very well, but for one boy, 
 a heavy-looking fellow with a pasty face, 
 who was always creeping after me, and 
 asking me to tell him about my father. 
 " Johnson Minor," we called him. He 
 was a younger brother of Thomas Johnson, 
 the champion of the code of honour. 
 
 He was older than I, but he was below 
 me in class, and though he was bigger, he 
 was not a very great deal bigger ; and if 
 there is any truth in the stories I have so 
 often told, our family has been used to 
 
 fight against odds for many genera- 
 tions. 
 
 I thought about this a good deal, and 
 measured Johnson Minor with my eye. 
 At last I got Henrietta to wrestle and box 
 with me for practice. 
 
 She was always willing to do anything 
 Tomboyish, indeed she was generally 
 willing to do anything one wanted, and 
 her biceps were as hard as mine, for I 
 pinched them to see. We got two pairs of 
 gloves, much too big for us, and stuffed 
 cotton wool in to make them like boxing- 
 gloves, as we used to stuff out the buff- 
 coloured waistcoat when we acted old 
 gentlemen in it. But it did not do much 
 good ; for I did not like to hurt Henrietta 
 when I got a chance, and I do not think 
 she liked to hurt me. So I took to dumb- 
 belling every morning in my night-shirt ; 
 and at last I determined I would have it 
 out with Johnson Minor, once for all. 
 
 One afternoon, when the boys had been 
 very friendly wifh me, and were going to 
 have me in the paper chase on Saturday, 
 he came up in the old way and began 
 asking me aboujt my father, quite gravely, 
 like a sort of poor imitation of Weston. 
 So I turned round and said, " Whatever 
 my father was he's dead. Your father's 
 alive, Johnson, and if you weren't a 
 coward, you wouldn't go on bullying a 
 fellow who hasn't got one." 
 
 " I'm a coward, am I, Master Honour- 
 able ?" said Johnson, turning scarlet, and 
 at the word Honourable I thought he had 
 broken my nose. I never felt such pain 
 in my life, but it was the only pain I felt 
 on the occasion ; afterwards I was much 
 too much excited. I am sorry that I 
 cannot remember very clearly about it, 
 which I should have liked to do, as it was 
 my first fight. 
 
 There was no time to fight properly. I 
 was obliged to do the best I could. I 
 made a sort of rough plan in my head, that
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 I would cling to Johnson as long as I was 
 able, and hit him whenever I got a chance. 
 I did not quite know when he was hitting 
 me from when I was hitting him ; but I 
 know that I held on, and that the ground 
 seemed to be always hitting us both. 
 
 How long we had been struggling and 
 cuffing and hitting (less scientifically but 
 more effectually than when Henrietta and 
 I flourished our stuffed driving gloves, 
 with strict and constant reference to the 
 woodcuts in a sixpenny Boxer's Guide) 
 before I got slightly stunned, I do not 
 know ; when I came round I was lying in 
 Weston's arms, and Johnson Minor was 
 weeping bitterly (as he believed) over my 
 corpse. I fear Weston had not allayed his 
 remorse. 
 
 My great anxiety was to shake hands 
 with Johnson. I never felt more friendly 
 towards any one. 
 
 He met me in the handsomest way. 
 He apologised for speaking of my father 
 " since you don't like it," he added, with 
 an appearance of sincerity which puzzled 
 me at the time, and which I did not 
 understand till afterwards and I apolo- 
 gised for calling him a coward. We were 
 always good friends, and our fight made 
 an end of the particular chaff which had 
 -caused it. 
 
 It reconciled Rupert to me too, which 
 was my greatest gain. 
 
 Rupert is quite right. There is nothing 
 like being prepared for emergencies. I 
 suppose, as I was stunned, that Johnson 
 got the best of it; but judging from his 
 appearance as we washed ourselves at the 
 .school pump, I was now quite prepared 
 for the emergency of having to defend 
 myself against any boy not twice my own 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SCHOOL CRICKET LEMON-KALI THE BOYS' 
 BRIDGE AN UNEXPECTED EMERGENCY. 
 
 RUPERT and I were now the best of good 
 friends again. I cared more for his favour 
 than for the goodwill of any one else, and 
 kept as much with him as I could. 
 
 I played cricket with him in the school 
 matches. At least I did not bat or bowl, 
 but I and some of the junior fellows 
 " fielded out," and when Rupert was 
 waiting for the ball, I would have given 
 my life to catch quickly and throw deftly. 
 I used to think no one ever looked so 
 handsome as he did in his orange-coloured 
 shirt, white flannel trousers, and the cap 
 which Henrietta made him. He and I 
 had spent all our savings on that new 
 shirt, for mother would not get him a new 
 one. She did not like cricket, or any- 
 thing at which people could hurt them- 
 selves. But Johnson Major had got a 
 new sky-blue shirt and cap, and we did 
 not like Rupert to be outdone by him, 
 for Johnson's father is only a canal- 
 carrier. 
 
 But the shirt emptied our pockets, and 
 made the old cap look worse than ever. 
 Then Henrietta, without saying a word to 
 us, bought some orange flannel, and 
 picked the old cap to pieces, and cut out 
 a new one by it, and made it all herself, 
 with a button, and a stiff peak and every- 
 thing, and it really did perfectly, and 
 looked very well in the sunshine over 
 Rupert's brown face and glossy black 
 hair. 
 
 There always was sunshine when we 
 played cricket. The hotter it was the 
 better we liked it. We had a bottle of 
 lemon-kali powder on the ground, and I 
 used to have to make a fizzing-cup in a tin
 
 22 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 mug for the other boys. I got the water 
 from the canal. 
 
 Lemon-kali is delicious on a very hot 
 day so refreshing ! But I sometimes 
 fancied I felt a little sick afterwards, if I 
 had had a great deal. And Bustard (who 
 was always called Bustard-Plaster, because 
 he was the doctor's son) said it was the 
 dragons out of the canal water lashing 
 their tails inside us. He had seen them 
 under his father's microscope. 
 
 The field where we played was on the 
 banks of the canal, the opposite side to 
 the town. I believe it was school pro- 
 perty. At any rate we had the right of 
 playing there. 
 
 We had to go nearly a quarter of a mile 
 out of the way before there was a bridge, 
 and it was very vexatious to toil a quarter 
 f a mile down on one side and a quarter 
 of a mile up on the other to get at a 
 meadow which lay directly opposite to the 
 school. Weston wrote a letter about it to 
 the weekly paper asking the town to build 
 us a bridge. He wrote splendid letters, 
 and this was one of his very best. He 
 said that if the town council laughed at 
 the notion of building a bridge for boys, 
 they must remember that the Boys of 
 to-day were the Men of to-morrow (which 
 we all thought a grand sentence, though 
 MacDonald, a very accurate-minded fellow, 
 said it would really be some years before 
 most of us were grown up). Then Weston 
 called us the Rising Generation, and 
 showed that, in all probability, the Prime 
 Minister, Lord Chancellor, and Primate of 
 the years to come now played " all uncon- 
 scious of their future fame " in the classic 
 fields that lay beyond the water, and 
 promised that in the hours of our coming 
 greatness we would look back with grati- 
 tude to the munificence of our native city. 
 He put lots of Latin in, and ended with 
 some Latin verses of his own, in which he 
 made the Goddess of the Stream plead 
 
 for us as her sons. By the stream he 
 meant the canal, for we had no river, 
 which of course Weston couldn't help. 
 
 How we watched for the next week's 
 paper ! But it wasn't in. They never did 
 put his things in, which mortified him 
 sadly. His greatest ambition was to get 
 something of his own invention printed. 
 Johnson said he believed it was because 
 Weston always put something personal in 
 the things he wrote. He was very sar- 
 castic, and couldn't help making fun of 
 people. 
 
 It was all the kinder of Weston to do 
 his best about the bridge, because he was 
 not much of a cricketer himself. He said 
 he was too short-sighted, and that it suited 
 him better to poke in the hedges for 
 beetles. He had a splendid collection of 
 insects. Bustard used to say that he 
 poked with his nose, as if he were an 
 insect himself, and it was a proboscis ; 
 but he said too that his father said it was 
 a pleasure to see Weston make a section 
 of anything, and prepare objects for the 
 microscope. His fingers were as clever 
 as his tongue. 
 
 It was not long after Rupert got his 
 new shirt and cap that a very sad thing 
 happened. 
 
 We were playing cricket one day as 
 usual. It was very hot, and I was mixing 
 some lernon-kali at the canal, and holding 
 up the mug to tempt Weston over, who 
 was on the other side with his proboscis 
 among the water-plants collecting larvae. 
 Rupert was batting, and a new fellow, 
 who bowled much more swiftly than we 
 were accustomed to, had the ball. I was 
 straining my ears to catch what Weston 
 was shouting to me between his hands, 
 when I saw him start and point to the 
 cricketers, and turning round I saw Rupert 
 lying on the ground. 
 
 The ball had hit him on the knee and 
 knocked him down. He struggled up,
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 and tried to stand; but whilst he was 
 saying it was nothing, and scolding the 
 other fellows for not going on, he fell 
 down again fainting from pain. 
 
 "The leg's broken, depend upon it," 
 said Bustard-Plaster ; " shall I run for my 
 father?" 
 
 I thanked him earnestly, for I did not 
 like to leave Rupert myself. But Johnson 
 Major, who was kicking off his cricketing 
 shoes, said, "It'll take an hour to get 
 round. I'll go. Get him some water, and 
 keep his cap on. The sun is blazing." 
 And before we could speak he was in the 
 canal and swimming across. 
 
 I went back to the bank for my mug, 
 in which the lemon-kali was fizzing itself 
 out, and with this I got some water for 
 Rupert, and at last he opened his eyes. 
 As I was getting the water I saw Weston 
 unmooring a boat which was fastened a 
 little farther up. He was evidently coming 
 to help us to get Rupert across the canal. 
 
 Bustard's words rang in my ears. Per- 
 haps Rupert's leg was broken. Bustard 
 was a doctor's son, and ought to know. 
 And I have often thought it must be a 
 very difficult thing to know, for people's 
 legs don't break right off when they break. 
 My first feeling had been utter bewilder- 
 ment and misery, but I collected my senses 
 with the reflection that if I lost my pre- 
 sence of mind in the first real emergency 
 that happened to me, my attendance at 
 Rupert's lectures had been a mocker}', 
 and I must be the first fool and coward of 
 my family. And if I failed in the emer- 
 gency of a broken leg, how could I ever 
 hope to conduct myself with credit over a 
 case of drowning? I did feel thankful 
 that Rupert's welfare did not depend on 
 our pulling his arms up and down in a 
 particular way; but as Weston was just 
 coming ashore, I took out my pocket- 
 handkerchief, and kneeling down by 
 Rupert said, with as good an air as I 
 
 could assume, "We must tie the broken 
 leg to the other at the " 
 
 " Don't touch it, you young fool !" 
 shrieked Rupert. And though directly 
 afterwards he begged my pardon for speak- 
 ing sharply, he would not hear of my 
 touching his leg. So they got him into 
 the boat the best way they could, and 
 Weston sat by him to hold him up, and 
 the boy who had been bowling pulled 
 them across. I wasn't big enough to do 
 either, so I had to run round by the 
 bridge. 
 
 I fancy it must be easier to act with 
 presence of mind if the emergency has 
 happened to somebody who has not been 
 used to order you about as much as Rupert 
 was used to order me. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A DOUBTFUL BLESSING A FAMILY FAIL- 
 ING OLD BATTLES THE CANAL-CARr 
 
 RIER'S HOME. 
 
 WHEN we found that Rupert's leg was not 
 broken, and that it was only a severe blow 
 on his knee, we were all delighted. But 
 when weeks and months went by and he 
 was still lame and very pale and always 
 tired, we began to count for how long 
 past, if the leg had been broken, it would 
 have been set, and poor Rupert quite well. 
 And when Johnny Bustard said that legs 
 and arms were often stronger after being 
 broken than before (if they were properly 
 set, as his father could do them), we felt 
 that if Gregory would bowl for people's 
 shins he had better break them at once, 
 and let Mr. Bustard make a good job of 
 them. 
 
 The first part of the time Rupert made
 
 24 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 light of his accident, and wanted to go 
 back to school, and was very irritable and 
 impatient. But as the year went on he 
 left off talking about its being all nonsense, 
 and though he suffered a great deal he 
 never complained. I used quite to miss 
 his lecturing me, but he did not even 
 squabble with Henrietta now. 
 
 This reminds me of a great fault of 
 mine I am afraid it was a family failing, 
 though it is a very mean one I was 
 jealous. If I was "particular friends" 
 with any one, I liked to have him all to 
 myself; when Rupert was "out" with me 
 because of the Weston affair, I was " par- 
 ticular friends" with Henrietta. I did 
 not exactly give her up when Rupert and 
 I were all right again, but when she com- 
 plained one day (I think she was jealous 
 too !) I said, " I'm particular friends with 
 you as a sister still ; but you know Rupert 
 and I are both boys." 
 
 I did love Rupert very dearly, and I 
 would have given up anything and every- 
 thing to serve him and wait upon him 
 now that he was laid up; but I would 
 rather have had him all to myself, whereas 
 'Henrietta was now his particular friend. 
 It is because I know how meanly I felt 
 about it that I should like to say how good 
 she was. My Mother was very delicate, 
 and she had a horror of accidents; but 
 Henrietta stood at Mr. Bustard's elbow 
 all the time he was examining Rupert's 
 knee, and after that she always did the 
 fomentations and things. At first Rupert 
 said she hurt him, and would have Nurse 
 to do it; but Nurse hurt him so much 
 more, that then he would not let anybody 
 but Henrietta touch it. And he never 
 called her Monkey now, and I could see 
 how she tried to please him. One day 
 she came down to breakfast with her hair 
 all done up in the way that was in fashion 
 then, like a grown-up young lady, and I 
 think Rupert was pleased, though she 
 
 looked rather funny and very red. And 
 so Henrietta nursed him altogether, and 
 used to read battles to him as he lay on 
 the sofa, and Rupert made plans of the 
 battles on cardboard, and moved bits of 
 pith out of the elder-tree about for the 
 troops, and showed Henrietta how if he 
 had had the moving of them really, and 
 had done it quite differently to the way 
 the generals did, the other side would have 
 won instead of being beaten. 
 
 And Mother used to say, "That's just 
 the way your poor father used to go on ! 
 As if it wasn't enough to have to run the 
 risk of being killed or wounded once or 
 twice yourself, without bothering your head 
 about battles you've nothing to do with." 
 
 And when he did the battle in which 
 my father fell, and planted the battery 
 against which he led his men for the last 
 time, and where he was struck under the 
 arm, with which he was waving his sword 
 over his head, Rupert turned whiter than 
 ever, and said, "Good Heavens, Henri- 
 etta ! Father limbed up to that battery ! 
 He led his men for two hours, after he 
 was wounded in the leg, before he fell 
 and here I sit and grumble at a knock 
 from a cricket-ball !" 
 
 Just then Mr. Bustard came in, and 
 when he shook Rupert's hand he kept his 
 fingers on it, and shook his own head ; 
 and he said there was " an abnormal con- 
 dition of the pulse," in such awful tones, 
 that I was afraid it was something that 
 Rupert would die of. But Henrietta 
 understood better, and she would not let 
 Rupert do that battle any more. 
 
 Rupert's friends were very kind to him 
 when he was ill, but the kindest of all was 
 Thomas Johnson. 
 
 Johnson's grandfather was a canal- 
 carrier, and made a good deal of money, 
 and Johnson's father got the money and 
 went on with the business. We had a 
 great discussion once in the nursery as to
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 whether Johnson's father was a gentleman, 
 and Rupert ran downstairs, and into the 
 drawing-room, shouting, " Now, Mother ! 
 is a carrier a gentleman ?" 
 
 And Mother, who was lying on the sofa, 
 said, " Of course not. What silly things 
 you children do ask ! Why can't you 
 amuse yourselves in the nursery? It is 
 very hard you should come and disturb 
 me for such a nonsensical question." 
 
 Rupert was always good to Mother, and 
 he shut the drawing-room door very gently. 
 Then he came rushing up to the nursery 
 to say that Mother said, " Of course not." 
 But Henrietta said, "What did you ask 
 her?" And when Rupert told her she 
 said, " Of course Mother thought you 
 meant one of those men who have carts 
 to carry things, with a hood on the top 
 and a dog underneath." 
 
 Johnson's father and grandfather were 
 not carriers of that kind. They owned a 
 lot of canal-boats, and one or two big 
 barges, which took all kinds of things all 
 the way to London. 
 
 Mr. Johnson used to say, "In my 
 father's time men of business lived near 
 their work both in London and the 
 country. That's why my house is close 
 to the wharf. I am not ashamed of my 
 trade, and the place is very comfortable, 
 so I shall stick to it. Tom may move 
 into the town and give the old house to 
 the foreman when I am gone, if he likes to 
 play the fine gentleman." 
 
 Tom would be very foolish if he did. 
 It is the dearest old house one could wish 
 for. It was built of red brick, but the ivy 
 has covered it so thickly that it is clipped 
 round the old-fashioned windows like a 
 hedge. The gardens are simply perfect. 
 In summer you can pick as many flowers 
 and eat as much fruit as you like, and if 
 that is not the use and beauty of a garden, 
 I do not know what is. 
 
 Johnson's father was very proud of him, 
 
 and let him have anything he liked, and 
 in the midsummer holidays Johnson used 
 to bring his father's trap and take Rupert 
 out for drives, and Mrs. Johnson used to 
 put meat pies and strawberries in a basket 
 under the seat, so that it was a kind of 
 picnic, for the old horse had belonged to 
 Mr. Bustard, and was a capital one for 
 standing still. 
 
 It was partly because of the Johnsons 
 being so kind to Rupert that Johnson Minor 
 and I became chums at school, and partly 
 because the fight had made us friendly, 
 and I had no Rupert now, and was rather 
 jealous of his taking completely to Hen- 
 rietta, and most of all, I fancy, because 
 Johnson Minor was determined to be 
 friends with me. He was a very odd 
 fellow. There was nothing he liked so 
 much as wonderful stories about people, 
 and I never heard such wonderful stories 
 as he told himself. When we became 
 friends he told me that he had never 
 meant to bully me when he asked about 
 my father; he really did want to hear 
 about his battles and so forth. 
 
 But the utmost I could tell him about 
 my father was nothing to the tales he told 
 me about his grandfather, the navy captain. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE NAVY CAPTAIN SEVEN PARROTS IN 
 A FUCHSIA TREE THE HARBOUR LION 
 AND THE SILVER CHAIN THE LEGLESS 
 
 GIANTS DOWN BELOW JOHNSON'S 
 
 WHARF. 
 
 THE Johnsons were very fond of their 
 father, he was such a good, kind man ; but 
 I think they would have been glad if he 
 had had a profession instead of being a
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 canal-carrier, and I am sure it pleased 
 them to think that Mrs. Johnson's father 
 had been a navy captain, and that his 
 portrait uniform and all hung over the 
 horsehair sofa in the dining-room, near 
 the window where the yellow roses used to 
 come in. 
 
 If I could get the room to myself, I 
 used to kneel on the sofa, on one of the 
 bolsters, and gaze at the faded little picture 
 till I lost my balance on the slippery horse- 
 hair from the intensity of my interest in 
 the hero of Johnson Minor's tales. Every 
 time, I think, I expected to see some 
 change in the expression of the captain's 
 red face, adapting it better to what, by his 
 grandson's account, his character must 
 have been. It seemed so odd he should t 
 look so wooden after having seen so 
 much. 
 
 The captain had been a native of South 
 Devon. 
 
 "Raleigh, Drake, my grandfather, and 
 lots of other great sailors were born in 
 Devonshire," Johnson said. He certainly 
 did brag; but he spoke so slowly and 
 quietly, that it did not sound as like 
 bragging as it would have done if he had 
 talked faster, I think. 
 
 The captain had lived at Dartmouth, 
 and of this place Johnson gave me such 
 descriptions, that to this day the name of 
 Dartmouth has a romantic sound in my 
 ears, though I know now that all the 
 marvels were Johnson's own invention, 
 and barely founded upon the real quaint- 
 ness of the place, of which he must have 
 heard from his mother. It became the 
 highest object of my ambition to see the 
 captain's native city. That there must be 
 people shopkeepers, for instance, and a 
 man to keep the post office who lived 
 there all along, was a fact that I could 
 not realise sufficiently to envy them. 
 
 Johnson or Fred, as I used to call 
 him by this time only exaggerated the 
 
 truth about the shrubs that grow in the 
 greenhouse atmosphere of South Devon, 
 when he talked of the captain's fuchsia 
 trees being as big as the old willows by 
 the canal wharf; but the parrots must 
 have been a complete invention. He said 
 the captain had seven. Two green, two 
 crimson, two blue, and one violet with an 
 orange-coloured beak and grey lining to 
 his wings ; and that they built nests in the 
 fuchsia trees of sandal-wood shavings, and 
 lined them with the captain's silk pocket- 
 handkerchiefs. He said that though the 
 parrots stole the captain's handkerchiefs, 
 they were all very much attached to him ; 
 but they quarrelled among themselves, 
 and swore at each other in seven dialects 
 of the West Coast of Africa. 
 
 Mrs. Johnson herself once showed me a 
 little print of the harbour, and told me 
 that it was supposed that in old times an 
 iron chain was stretched from rock to rock 
 across its mouth as a means of defence. 
 And that afternoon Fred told me a 
 splendid story about the chain, and how 
 it was made of silver, and that each link 
 was worth twenty pounds, and how at the 
 end where it was fastened with a padlock 
 every night at sunset, to keep out the 
 French, a lion sat on a ledge of rock at 
 the harbour's mouth, with the key tied 
 round his neck by a sea-green ribbon. He 
 had to have a new ribbon on the first 
 Sunday in every month, Fred said, because 
 his mane dirtied them so fast. A story 
 which Fred had of his grandfather's single- 
 handed encounter with this lion on one 
 occasion, when the gallant captain would 
 let a brig in distress into the harbour after 
 sunset, and the lion would not let him 
 have the key, raised my opinion of his 
 courage and his humanity to the highest 
 point. But what he did at home was 
 nothing to the exploits which Fred re- 
 counted of him in foreign lands. 
 
 I fancy Fred must have read some real
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 accounts of South America, the tropical 
 forests, the wonderful birds and flowers, 
 and the ruins of those buried cities which 
 have no history ; and that on these real 
 marvels he built up his own romances of 
 the Great Stone City, where the captain 
 encountered an awful race of giants with 
 no legs, who carved stones into ornaments 
 with clasp-knives, as the Swiss cut out 
 pretty things in wood, and cracked the 
 cocoa-nuts with their fingers. I am sure 
 he invented flowers as he went along when 
 he was telling me about the forests. He 
 used to look round the garden (which 
 would have satisfied any one who had not 
 seen or heard of what the captain had 
 come across) and say in his slow way, 
 " The blue chalice flower was about the 
 shape of that magnolia, only twice as big, 
 and just the colour of the gentians in the 
 border, and it had a great white tassel 
 hanging out like the cactus in the parlour 
 window, and all the leaves were yellow 
 underneath ; and it smelt like rosemary." 
 
 If the captain's experiences in other 
 countries outshone what had befallen him 
 in his native land, both these paled before 
 the wonders he had seen, and the emer- 
 gencies he had been placed in at sea. 
 Fred told me that his grandfather had a 
 diving-bell of his own on board his own 
 ship, and the things he saw when he went 
 down in it must have made his remem- 
 brances of the South American forests 
 appear tame by comparison. 
 
 Once, in the middle of the Pacific, the 
 captain dropped down in his bell into the 
 midst of a society of sea people who had 
 no hair, but the backs of their heads were 
 shaped like sou'-wester hats. The front rim 
 formed one eyebrow for both eyes, and 
 they could move the peak behind as 
 beavers move their tails, and it helped 
 them to go up and down in the water. 
 They were not exactly mermaids, Fred 
 said, they had no particular tail, it all 
 
 ended in a kind of fringe of sea-weed, 
 which swept after them when they moved, 
 like the train of a lady's dress. The captain 
 was so delighted with them that he stayed 
 below much longer than usual ; but in an 
 unlucky moment some of the sea people 
 let the water into the diving-bell, and the 
 captain was nearly drowned. He did be- 
 come senseless, but when his body floated, 
 it was picked up and restored to life by 
 the first mate, who had been cruising, with 
 tears in his eyes, over the spot in the 
 ship's boat for seven days without taking 
 anything to eat. " He was a Dartmouth 
 man, too," said Fred Johnson. 
 
 " He evidently knew what to do in the 
 emergency of drowning," thought I. 
 
 I feel as if any one who hears of Fred's 
 stories must think he was a liar. But he 
 really was not. Mr. Johnson was very 
 strict with the boys in some ways, though 
 he was so good-natured, and Fred had 
 been taught to think a lie to get himself 
 out of a scrape or anything of that sort 
 quite as wrong as we should have thought 
 it. But he liked telling things. I believe 
 he made them up and amused himself 
 with them in his own head if he had no 
 one to listen. He used to say, " Come 
 and sit in the kitchen garden this after- 
 noon, and I'll tell you." And whether he 
 meant me to think them true or not, I 
 certainly did believe in his stories. 
 
 One thing always struck me as very odd 
 about Fred Johnson. He was very fond 
 of fruit, and when we sat on the wall and 
 ate the white currants with pounded sugar 
 in a mug between us, I believe he always 
 ate more than I did, though he was 
 " telling " all the time, and I had nothing 
 to do but to listen and eat. 
 
 He certainly talked very slowly, in a 
 dreary, monotonous sort of voice, which 
 suited his dull, pasty face better than it 
 suited the subject of his exciting narratives. 
 But I think it seemed to make one all the
 
 23 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 more impatient to hear what was coming. 
 A very favourite place of ours for "telling " 
 was the wharf (Johnson's wharf, as it was 
 called), where the canal boats came and 
 went, and loaded and unloaded. We made 
 a "coastguard station" among some old 
 timber in the corner, and here we used to 
 sit and watch for the boats. 
 
 When a real barge came we generally 
 went over it, for the men knew Fred, and 
 were very good-natured. The barges 
 seemed more like ships than the canal 
 boats did. They had masts, and could 
 sail when they got into the river. Some- 
 times we went down into the cabin, and 
 peeped into the little berths with sliding 
 shutter fronts, and the lockers, which were 
 like a fixed seat running round two sides 
 of the cabin, with lids opening and show- 
 ing places to put away things in. I was 
 not famous in the nursery for keeping my 
 things very tidy, but I fancied I could 
 stow my clothes away to perfection in a 
 locker, and almost cook my own dinner 
 with the bargeman's little stove. 
 
 And every time a barge was loaded up, 
 and the bargemaster took his post at the 
 rudder, whilst the old horse strained him- 
 self to start and when the heavy boat 
 swung slowly down the canal and passed 
 out of sight, I felt more and more sorry to 
 be left behind upon the wharf. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 S. PHILIP AND S. JAMES THE MONKEY- 
 BARGE AND THE DOG WAR, PLAGUE, 
 
 AND FIRE THE DULNESS OF EVERY- 
 DAY LIFE. 
 
 THERE were two churches in our town. 
 Not that the town was so very large or the 
 churches so very small as to make this 
 needful. On the contrary, the town was 
 
 of modest size, with no traces of having 
 ever been much bigger, and the churches 
 were very large and very handsome. That 
 is, they were fine outside, and might have 
 been very imposing within but for the 
 painted galleries which blocked up the 
 arches above and the tall pews which 
 dwarfed the majestic rows of pillars below. 
 They were not more than a quarter of a 
 mile apart. One was dedicated to S. Philip 
 and the other to S. James, and they were 
 commonly called " the brother churches." 
 In the tower of each hung a peal of eight 
 bells. 
 
 One clergyman served both the brother 
 churches, and the services were at S. Philip 
 one week and at S. James the next. We 
 were so accustomed to this that it never 
 struck us as odd. What did seem odd, 
 and perhaps a little dull, was that people 
 in other places should have to go to the 
 same church week after week. 
 
 There was only one day in the year on 
 which both the peals of bells were heard, 
 the Feast of SS. Philip and James, which 
 is also May Day. Then there was morn- 
 ing prayer at S. Philip and evening prayer 
 at S. James, and the bells rang changes 
 and cannons, and went on ringing by turns 
 all the evening, the bellringers being 
 escorted from one church to another with 
 May garlands and a sort of triumphal pro- 
 cession. The churches were decorated, 
 and flags put out on the towers, and every- 
 body in the congregation was expected to 
 carry a nosegay. 
 
 Rupert and I and Henrietta and Baby 
 Cecil and the servants always enjoyed this 
 thoroughly, and thought the churches de- 
 lightfully sweet ; but my mother said the 
 smell of the cottage nosegays and the 
 noise of the bells made her feel very ill, 
 which was a pity. 
 
 Fred Johnson once told me some won- 
 derful stories about the brother churches. 
 We had gone over the canal to a field not
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 29 
 
 far from the cricketing field, but it was a 
 sort of water-meadow, and lower down, 
 and opposite to the churches, which made 
 us think of them. We had gone there 
 partly to get yellow flags to try and grow 
 them in tubs as Johnson's father did water- 
 lilies, and partly to watch for a canal-boat, 
 or " monkey-barge," which was expected 
 
 fact that people not connected with barges 
 took the liberty of walking on the canal 
 banks. 
 
 " HeVe been a-going up and down with 
 me these fifteen year," said the old man, 
 " and he barks at 'em still." He barked 
 so fiercely at us that Fred would not go 
 on board, to my great annoyance, for I 
 
 : Fred knew the old man, and we hoped to go home as part of th cargo, if the old man's 
 dog would let us." 
 
 up with coal. Fred knew the old man, 
 and we hoped to go home as part of the 
 cargo if the old man's dog would let us; 
 but he was a rough terrier, with an exag- 
 gerated conscience, and strongly objected 
 to anything coming on board the boat 
 which was not in the bill of lading. He 
 could not even reconcile himself to the 
 
 never feel afraid of dogs, an^ was quite 
 sure I could see a disposition to wag about 
 the stumpy tail of the terrier in spite of his 
 " bowfs." 
 
 I may have been wrong, but once or 
 twice I fancied that Fred shirked ad- 
 ventures which seemed nothing to me ; 
 and I felt this to be very odd, because I
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 am not as brave as I should like to be, 
 and Fred is grandson to the navy captain. 
 
 I think Fred wanted to make me forget 
 the canal-boat, which I followed with re- 
 gretful eyes, for he began talking about 
 the churches. 
 
 " It must be splendid to hear all sixteen 
 bells going at once," said he. 
 
 "They never do," said I, unmollified. 
 
 " They do sometimes," said Fred slowly, 
 and so impressively that I was constrained 
 to ask " When ?" 
 
 " In great emergencies," was Fred's 
 reply, which startled me. But we had 
 only lived in the place for part of our 
 lives, and Fred's family belonged to it, so 
 he must know better than I. 
 
 "Is it to call the doctor?" I asked, 
 thinking of drowning, and broken bones, 
 and apoplectic fits. 
 
 " It's to call everybody," said Fred ; 
 " that is in time of war, when the town is 
 in danger. And when the Great Plague 
 was here, S. Philip and S. James both 
 tolled all day long with their bells muffled. 
 But when there's a fire they ring back 
 wards, as witches say prayers, you know/' 
 
 War and the plague had not been here 
 for a very long time, and there had been 
 no fire in the town in my remembrance ; 
 but Fred said that awful calamities of the 
 kind had happened within the memory of 
 man, when the town was still built in great 
 part of wood, and that one night, during a 
 high gale, the whole place, except a few 
 houses, had been destroyed by fire. After 
 this the streets were rebuilt of stone and 
 bricks. 
 
 These new tales which Fred told me, 
 of places I knew, had a terrible interest 
 peculiarly their own. For the captain's 
 dangers were over for good now, but war, 
 plague, and fire in the town might come 
 again. 
 
 I thought of them by day, and dreamed 
 of them by night. Once I remember being 
 
 awakened, as I fancied, by the clanging of 
 the two peals in discordant unison, and as 
 I opened my eyes a bright light on the 
 wall convinced me that the town was on 
 fire. Fred's vivid descriptions rushed to 
 my mind, and I looked out expecting to 
 see S. Philip and S. James standing up 
 like dark rocks in a sea of dancing flames, 
 their bells ringing backwards, " as witches 
 say prayers." It was only when I saw 
 both the towers standing grey and qjuiet 
 above the grey and quiet town, and when 
 I found that the light upon the wall came 
 from the street lamp below, that my head 
 seemed to grow clearer, and I knew that 
 no bells were ringing, and that those I 
 fancied I heard were only the prolonged 
 echoes of a bad dream. 
 
 I was very glad that it was so, and I did 
 not exactly wish for war or the plague to 
 come back ; and yet the more I heard of 
 Fred's tales the more restless I grew, 
 because the days were so dull, and because 
 we never went anywhere, and nothing ever 
 happened. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 WE RESOLVE TO RUN AWAY SCRUPLES 
 BABY CECIL 1 PREPARE 1 RUN AWAY. 
 
 I THINK it was Fred's telling me tales of 
 the navy captain's boyhood which put it 
 into our heads that the only way for people 
 at our age, and in our position, to begin a 
 life of adventure is to run away. 
 x The captain had run away. He ran 
 away from school. But then the school 
 was one which it made your hair stand on 
 end to hear of. The master must have 
 been a monster of tyranny, the boys little 
 prodigies of wickedness and misery, and 
 the food such as would have been rejected 
 by respectably reared pigs.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 It put his grandson and me at a dis- 
 advantage that we had no excuses of the 
 kind for running away from the grammar 
 school. Dr. Jessop was a little pompous, 
 but he was sometimes positively kind. 
 There was not even a cruel usher. I was 
 no dunce, nor was Fred though he was 
 below me in class so that we had not 
 even a grievance in connection with our 
 lessons. This made me feel as if there 
 would be something mean and almost dis- 
 honourable in running away from school. 
 " I think it would not be fair to the 
 Doctor," said I ; "it would look as if he 
 had driven us to it, and he hasn't. We 
 had better wait till the holidays." 
 
 Fred seemed more willing to wait than 
 I had expected ; but he planned what we 
 were to do when we did go as vigorously 
 as ever. 
 
 It was not without qualms that I thought 
 of running away from home. My mother 
 would certainly be greatly alarmed; but 
 then she was greatly alarmed by so many 
 things to which she afterwards became 
 reconciled ! My conscience reproached 
 me more about Rupert and Henrietta. 
 Not one of us had longed for "events" 
 and exploits so earnestly as my sister; 
 and who but Rupert had prepared me for 
 emergencies, not perhaps such as the 
 captain had had to cope with, but of the 
 kinds recognised by the yellow leather 
 book ? We had been very happy together 
 Rupert, Henrietta, Baby Cecil, and I 
 and we had felt in common the one defect 
 of our lives that there were no events in 
 them ; and now I was going to begin a 
 life of adventure, to run away and seek 
 my fortune, without even telling them 
 what I was going to do. 
 
 On the other hand, that old mean 
 twinge of jealousy was one of my strongest 
 impulses to adventure-seeking, and it urged 
 me to perform my exploits alone. Some 
 people seem to like dangers and adventures 
 
 whilst the dangers are going on ; Henrietta 
 always seemed to think that the pleasantest 
 part ; but I confess that I think one of the 
 best parts must be when they are over and 
 you are enjoying the credit of them. When 
 the captain's adventures stirred me most 
 I looked forward with a thrill of anticipa- 
 tion to my return home modest from a 
 justifiable pride in my achievements, and 
 so covered with renown by my deeds of 
 daring that I should play second fiddle in 
 the family no more, and that Rupert and 
 Henrietta would outbid each other for my 
 "particular" friendship, and Baby Cecil 
 dog my heels to hear the stories of my 
 adventures. 
 
 The thought of Baby Cecil was the 
 heaviest pang I felt when I was dissatisfied 
 with the idea of running away from home. 
 Baby Cecil was the pet of the house. He 
 had been born after my father's death, 
 and from the day he was born everybody 
 conspired to make much of him. Dandy, 
 tlje Scotch terrier, would renounce a 
 romping ramble with us to keep watch 
 over Baby Cecil when he was really a 
 baby, and was only carried for a dull 
 airing in the nursemaid's amis. I can 
 quite understand Dandy's feelings ; for if 
 when one was just preparing for a paper- 
 chase, or anything of that sort, Baby Cecil 
 trotted up and, flinging himself head first 
 into one's arms, after his usual fashion, 
 cried, "Baby Cecil 'ants Charlie to tell 
 him a long, long story so much!" it 
 always ended in one's giving up the race 
 or the scramble, and devoting one's self as 
 sedately as Dandy to his service. But I 
 consoled myself with the thought of how 
 Baby Cecil would delight in me, and what 
 stories I should be able to tell him on my 
 return. 
 
 The worst of running away nowadays is 
 that railways and telegrams run faster. I 
 was prepared for any emergency except that 
 of being found and brought home again.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Thinking of this brought to my mind 
 one of Fred's tales of the captain, about 
 how he was pursued by bloodhounds and 
 escaped by getting into water. Water not 
 only retains no scent, it keeps no track. I 
 think perhaps this is one reason why boys 
 so often go to sea when they run away, 
 that no one may be able to follow them. 
 It helped my decision that we would go to 
 sea when we ran away, Fred and I. Be- 
 sides, there was no other road to strange 
 countries, and no other way of seeing the 
 sea people with the sou'-wester heads. 
 
 Fred did not seem to have any scruples 
 about leaving his home, which made me 
 feel how much braver he must be than I. 
 But his head was so full of the plans he 
 made for us, and the lists he drew up of 
 natural products of the earth in various 
 places on which we could live without 
 paying for our living, that he neglected his 
 school work, and got into scrapes about it. 
 This distressed me very much, for I was 
 working rny very best that half on purpose 
 that no one might say that we ran away from 
 our lessons, but that it might be understood 
 that we had gone solely in search of ad- 
 venture, like sea-captains or any other 
 grown-up travellers. 
 
 All Fred's talcs now began with the 
 word "suppose." They were not stories 
 of what had happened to his grandfather, 
 but of what might happen to us. The 
 half-holiday that Mr. Johnson's hay was 
 carted we sat behind the farthest haycock 
 all the afternoon with an old atlas on our 
 knees, and Fred " supposed " till my brain 
 whirled to think of all that was coming on 
 us. " Suppose we get on board a vessel 
 bound for Singapore, and hide behind 
 some old casks " he would say, coasting 
 strange continents with his stumpy little 
 forefinger, as recklessly as the captain him- 
 self; on which of course I asked, "What 
 is Singapore like ?" which enabled Fred to 
 close the atlas and lie back among the hay 
 
 and say whatever he could think of and I 
 could believe. 
 
 Meanwhile we saved up our pocket- 
 money and put it in a canvas bag, as being 
 sailor-like. Most of the money was Fred's, 
 but he was very generous about this, and said 
 I was to take care of it as I was more 
 managing than he. And we practised 
 tree-climbing to be ready for the masts, 
 and ate earth-nuts to learn to live upon 
 roots in case we were thrown upon a desert 
 island. Of course we did not give up our 
 proper meals, as we were not obliged to 
 yet, and I sometimes felt rather doubtful 
 about how we should feel living upon 
 nothing but roots for breakfast, dinner, 
 and tea. However, I had observed that 
 whenever the captain was wrecked a barrel 
 of biscuits went ashore soon afterwards, 
 and I hoped it might always be so in 
 wrecks, for biscuits go a long way, 
 especially sailors' biscuits, which are large. 
 
 I made a kind of handbook for adven- 
 ture-seekers, too, in an old exercise book, 
 showing what might be expected and 
 should be prepared for in a career like the 
 captain's. I divided it under certain head t 
 Hardships, Dangers, Emergencies, Won- 
 ders, &c. These were subdivided again, 
 thus : Hardships i, Hunger ; 2, Thirst ; 
 3, Cold ; 4, Heat ; 5, No Clothes ; and so 
 forth. I got all my information from Fred, 
 and I read my lists over and over again to 
 get used to the ideas, and to feel brave. 
 And on the last page I printed in red ink 
 the word " Glory." 
 
 And so the half went by and came to 
 an end; and when the old Doctor gave 
 me my three prizes, and spoke of what he 
 hoped I would do next half, my blushes 
 were not solely from modest pride. 
 
 The first step of our runaway travels 
 had been decided upon long ago. We were 
 to go by barge to London. " And from 
 London you can go anywhere," Fred said. 
 
 The day after the holidays began I saw
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 33 
 
 a canal-boat lading at the wharf, and find- 
 ing she was bound for London I told Fred 
 of it. But he said we had better wait for 
 a barge, and that there would be one on 
 Thursday. "Or if you don't think you 
 can be ready by then, we can wait for the 
 next," he added. He seemed quite willing 
 to wait, but (remembering that the cap- 
 tain's preparations for his longest voyage 
 had only taken him eighteen and a half 
 minutes by the chronometer, which was 
 afterwards damaged in the diving-bell acci- 
 dent, and which I had seen with my own 
 eyes, in confirmation of the story) I said I 
 should be ready any time at half an hour's 
 notice, and Thursday was fixed as the day 
 of our departure. 
 
 To facilitate matters it was decided that 
 Fred should invite me to spend Wednes- 
 day with him, and to stay all night, for the 
 barge was to start at half-past six o'clock 
 on Thursday morning. 
 
 I was very busy on Wednesday. I 
 wrote a letter to my mother in which I 
 hoped I made it quite clear that ambition and 
 not discontent was leading me to run away. 
 I also made a will, dividing my things 
 fairly between Rupert, Henrietta, and 
 Baby Cecil, in case I should be drowned 
 at sea. My knife, my prayer-book, the 
 ball of string belonging to my kite, and 
 my little tool-box I took away with me. I 
 also took the match-box from the writing- 
 table, but I told mother of it in the letter. 
 The captain used to light his fires by rub- 
 bing sticks together, but I had tried it, 
 and thought matches would be much 
 better, at any rate to begin with. 
 
 Rupert was lying under the crab-tree, 
 and Henrietta was reading to him, when 
 I went away. Rupert was getting much 
 stronger ; he could walk with a stick, and 
 was going back to school next half. I felt 
 a very unreasonable vexation because they 
 seemed quite cheerful. But as I was 
 leaving the garden to go over the fields, 
 
 Baby Cecil came running after me, with 
 his wooden spade in one hand and a plant 
 of chickweed in the other, crying : " Charlie, 
 dear ! Come and tell Baby Cecil a story." 
 I kissed him, and tied his hat on, which 
 had come off as he ran. 
 
 " Not now, Baby," I said ; " I am going 
 out now, and you are gardening." 
 
 " I don't want to garden," he pleaded. 
 "Where are you going? Take me with 
 you." 
 
 " I am going to Fred Johnson's," I said 
 bravely. 
 
 Baby Cecil was a very good child, 
 though he was so much petted. He gave 
 a sigh of disappointment, but only said 
 very gravely, "Will you promise, onyer- 
 onner, to tell me one when you come 
 back?" 
 
 " I promise to tell you lots when I come 
 back, on my honour," was my answer. 
 
 I had to skirt the garden-hedge for a 
 yard or two before turning off across the 
 meadow. In a few minutes I heard a 
 voice on the other side. Baby Cecil had 
 run down the inside, and was poking 
 his face through a hole, and kissing both 
 hands to me. There came into my head 
 a wonder whether his face would be much 
 changed next time I saw it. I little 
 guessed when and how that would be. 
 But when he cried, "Come back very 
 soon, Charlie dear," my imperfect valour 
 utterly gave way, and hanging my head I 
 ran, with hot tears pouring over my face, 
 all the way to Johnson's wharf. 
 
 When Fred saw my face he offered to 
 give up the idea if I felt faint-hearted about 
 it. Nothing that he could have said 
 would have dried my tears so soon. 
 Every spark of pride in me blazed up to 
 reject the thought of turning craven now. 
 Besides, I longed for a life of adventure 
 most sincerely; and I was soon quite 
 happy again in the excitement of being so 
 near to what I had longed for.
 
 34 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 WE GO ON BOARD THE PIE AN EX- 
 PLOSION MR. ROWE THE BARGE- 
 MASTER THE WHITE LION TWO 
 LETTERS WE DOUBT MR. ROWE'S GOOD 
 FAITH. 
 
 THE dew was still heavy on the grass 
 when Fred and I crossed the drying- 
 ground about five o'clock on Thursday 
 morning, and scrambled through a hedge 
 into our old " coast-guard " corner on the 
 wharf. We did not want to be seen by 
 the barge-master till we were too far from 
 home to be put ashore. 
 
 The freshness of early morning in sum- 
 mer has some quality which seems to go 
 straight to the heart. I felt intensely 
 happy. There lay the barge, the sun 
 shining on the clean deck, and from the 
 dewy edges of the old ropes, and from the 
 barge-master's zinc basin and pail put out 
 to sweeten in the air. 
 
 " She won't leave us behind this time !" 
 I cried, turning triumphantly to Fred. 
 
 " Take care of the pie," said Fred. 
 
 It was a meat-pie which he had taken 
 from the larder this morning; but he had 
 told Mrs. Johnson about it in the letter he 
 had left behind him ; and had explained 
 that we took it instead of the breakfast we 
 should otherwise have eaten. We felt that 
 earth-nuts might not be forthcoming on 
 the canal banks, or even on the wharf at 
 Nine Elms when we reached London. 
 
 At about a quarter to six Johnson's 
 wharf was quite deserted. The barge- 
 master was having breakfast ashore, and 
 the second man had gone to the stable. 
 "We had better hide ourselves now," I 
 said. So we crept out and went on board. 
 We had chosen our hiding-place before. 
 Not in the cabin, of course, nor among 
 
 the cargo, where something extra thrown in 
 at the last moment might smother us if it 
 did not lead to our discovery, but in the 
 fore part of the boat, in a sort of well or 
 hold, where odd things belonging to the 
 barge itself were stowed away, and made 
 sheltered nooks into which we could creep 
 out of sight. Here we found a very con- 
 venient corner, and squatted down, with 
 the pie at our feet, behind a hamper, a 
 box, a coil of rope, a sack of hay, and a 
 very large ball, crossed four ways with 
 rope, and with a rope-tail, which puzzled 
 me extremely. 
 
 " It's like a giant tadpole," I whispered 
 to Fred. 
 
 "Don't nudge me," said Fred. "My 
 pockets are full, and it hurts." 
 
 My pockets were far from light. The 
 money-bag was heavily laden with change 
 small in value but large in coin. The 
 box of matches was with it and the knife. 
 String, nails, my prayer-book, a pencil, 
 some writing-paper, the handbook, and a 
 more useful hammer than the one in my 
 tool-box filled another pocket. Some 
 gooseberries and a piece of cake were in 
 my trousers, and I carried the tool-box in 
 my hands. We each had a change of 
 linen, tied up in a pocket-handkerchief. 
 Fred would allow of nothing else. He 
 said that when our jackets and trousers 
 were worn out we must make new clothes 
 out of an old sail. 
 
 Waiting is very dull work. After awhile, 
 however, we heard voices, and the tramp 
 of the horse, and then the barge-master 
 and Mr. Johnson's foreman and other 
 men kept coming and going on deck, and 
 for a quarter of an hour we had as many 
 hairbreadth escapes of discovery as the 
 captain himself could have had in the 
 circumstances. At last somebody threw 
 the barge-master a bag of something (fortu- 
 nately soft) which he was leaving behind, 
 and which he chucked on to the top of
 
 A GREA T EMERGENCY. 
 
 35 
 
 my head. Then the driver called to his 
 horse, and the barge gave a jerk, which 
 threw Fred on to the pie, and in a moment 
 more we were gliding slowly and smoothly 
 down the stream. 
 
 When we were fairly off we ventured to 
 peep out a little, and stretch our cramped 
 limbs. There was no one on board but the 
 barge-master, and he was at the other end 
 of the vessel, smoking and minding his 
 rudder. The driver was walking on the 
 towing-path by the old grey horse. The 
 motion of the boat was so smooth that we 
 seemed to be lying still whilst villages and 
 orchards and green banks and osier-beds 
 went slowly by, as though the world were 
 coming to show itself to us, instead of our 
 going out to see the world. 
 
 When we passed the town we felt some 
 anxiety for fear we should be stopped ; 
 but there was no one on the bank, and 
 though the towers of S. Philip and S. James 
 appeared again and again in lessening size 
 as we looked back, there came at last a 
 bend in the canal, when a high bank of 
 gorse shut out the distance, and we saw 
 them no more. 
 
 In about an hour, having had no break- 
 fast, we began to speak seriously of the 
 pie. (I had observed Fred breaking little 
 corners from the crust with an absent 
 air more than once.) Thinking of the 
 first subdivision under the word Hard- 
 ships in my handbook, I said, " I'm afraid 
 we ought to wait till we are worse 
 hungry: 1 
 
 But Fred said, " Oh no !" And that 
 out adventure-seeking it was quite im- 
 possible to save and plan and divide your 
 meals exactly, as you could never tell what 
 might turn up. The captain always said, 
 " Take good luck and bad luck and pot- 
 luck as they come !" So Fred assured 
 me, and we resolved to abide by the 
 captain's rule. 
 
 " We may have to weigh out our food 
 
 with a bullet, like Admiral Bligh, next 
 week," said Fred. 
 
 " So we may," said I. And the thought 
 must have given an extra relish to the 
 beefsteak and hard-boiled eggs, for I never 
 tasted anything so good. 
 
 Whether the smell of the pie went aft, 
 or whether something else made the barge- 
 master turn round and come forward, I do 
 not know ; but when we were encumbered 
 with open clasp-knives, and full mouths, 
 we saw him bearing down upon us, and in 
 a hasty movement of retreat I lost my 
 balance, and went backward with a crash 
 upon a tub of potatoes. 
 
 The noise this made was not the worst 
 part of the business. I was tightly wedged 
 amongst the odds and ends, and the 
 money-bag being sharply crushed against 
 the match-box, which was by this time 
 well warmed, the matches exploded in a 
 body, and whilst I was putting as heroic a 
 face as I could on the pain I was enduring 
 in my right funny-bone, Fred cried, " Your 
 jacket's smoking. You're on fire !" 
 
 Whether Mr. Rowe, the barge-master, had 
 learnt presence of mind out of a book, I 
 do not know ; but before Fred and I could 
 even think of what to do in the emergency, 
 my jacket was off, the matches were over- 
 board, and Mr. Rowe was squeezing the 
 smouldering fire out of my pocket, rather 
 more deliberately than most men brush 
 their hats. Then, after civilly holding the 
 jacket for me to put it on again, he took 
 off his hat, took his handkerchief out of it, 
 and wiped his head, and replacing both, 
 with his eyes upon us, said, more deliber- 
 ately still, " Well, young gentlemen, this is 
 a nice start !" 
 
 It was impossible to resist the feeling of 
 confidence inspired by Mr. Rowe's manner, 
 his shrewd and stolid appearance, and his 
 promptness in an emergency. Besides, 
 we were completely at his mercy. We 
 appealed to it, and told him our plans. 
 32
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 We offered him a share of the pie too, 
 which he accepted with conscious con- 
 descension. When the dish was empty 
 he brought his handkerchief into use once 
 more, and then said, in a peculiarly oracu- 
 lar manner, " You just look to me, young 
 gentlemen, and I'll put you in the way of 
 everythink." 
 
 The immediate advantage we took of 
 this offer was to ask about whatever in- 
 terested us in the landscape constantly 
 passing before our eyes, or the barge- 
 furniture at our feet. The cord -com- 
 pressed balls were shore-fenders, said Mr. 
 Rowe, and were popped over the side 
 when the barge was likely to grate against 
 the shore, or against another vessel. 
 
 " Them's osier-beds. They cuts 'em 
 every year or so for basket-work. Wot's 
 that little bird a-hanging head downwards ? 
 It's a titmouse looking for insects, that is. 
 There's scores on 'em in the osier-beds. 
 Aye, aye, the yellow lilies is pretty enough, 
 but there's a lake the other way a mile 
 or two beyond your father's, Master Fred 
 where there's white water-lilies. They're 
 pretty, if you like ! It's a rum thing in 
 spring," continued Mr. Rowe, between 
 puffs of his pipe, " to see them lilies come 
 up from the bottom of the canal; the 
 leaves packed as neat as any parcel, and 
 when they git to the top, they turns down 
 and spreads out on the water as flat as you 
 could spread a cloth upon a table." 
 
 As a rule, Mr. Rowe could give us no 
 names for the aquatic plants at which we 
 clutched as we went by, nor for the shells 
 we got out of the mud ; but his eye for a 
 water-rat was like a terrier's. It was the 
 only thing which seemed to excite him. 
 
 About mid-day we stopped by a village, 
 where Mr. Rowe had business. The horse 
 was to rest and bait here ; and the barge- 
 master told us that if we had " a shilling 
 or so about " us, we might dine on excel- 
 lent bread and cheese at the White Lion, 
 
 or even go so far as poached eggs and yet 
 more excellent bacon, if our resources 
 allowed of it. We were not sorry to go 
 ashore. There was absolutely no shelter 
 on the deck of the barge from the sun- 
 shine, which was glaringly reflected by the 
 water. The inn parlour was low, but it 
 was dark and cool. I felt doubtful about 
 the luxury even of cheese after that beef- 
 steak-pie ; but Fred smacked his lips and 
 ordered eggs and bacon, and I paid for 
 them out of the canvas-bag. 
 
 As we sat together I said, " I wrote a 
 letter to my mother, Fred. Did you write 
 to Mrs. Johnson?" 
 
 Fred nodded, and pulled a scrap of 
 dirty paper from his pocket, saying, 
 " That's the letter ; but I made a tidy 
 copy of it afterwards." 
 
 I have said that Fred was below me in 
 class, though he is older ; and he was very 
 bad at spelling. Otherwise the letter did 
 very well, except for smudges. 
 
 DEAR MOTHER, 
 
 Charlie and I are going to run 
 away at least by the time you get this we 
 have run away but never mind for wen 
 weve seen the wurld were cumming back 
 we took the pi wich I hope you wont mind 
 as we had no brekfust and I'll bring back 
 the dish we send our best love and I've 
 no more to tell you to-day from your affec- 
 tionate son FRED. 
 
 I saw Mr. Rowe myself very busy in the 
 bar of the White Lion, with a sheet of 
 paper and an old steel pen, which looked 
 as if the point had been attenuated to that 
 hair-like fineness by sheer age. He started 
 at the sight of me, which caused him to 
 drop a very large blot of ink from the very 
 sharp point of the pen on to his paper. I 
 left him wiping it up with his handker- 
 chief. But it never struck me that he was 
 writing a letter on the same subject as
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Fred and I had been writing about. He 
 was, however : and Mr. Johnson keeps it 
 tied up with Fred's to this day. The 
 spelling was of about the same order. 
 
 Mr. JOHNSON. HONERD SIR. 
 
 i rites in duty bound to acqaint 
 you that the young genlemen is with me, 
 looking out for Advenchurs and asking 
 your pardon i wish they may find them as 
 innercent as 2 Babes in the Wood on the 
 London and Lancingford Canal were they 
 come aboard quite unknown to me and 
 blowed theirselves up with lucifers the fust 
 go off and youve no need to trubble your- 
 self sir ill keep my I on them and bring 
 em safe to hand with return cargo and 
 hoping you'll excuse the stamp not expect- 
 ing to have to rite from the fust stoppige 
 your obedient humble servant 
 
 SAMUEL ROWE. 
 
 As I have said, we did not suspect that 
 Mr. Rowe had betrayed us by post; but 
 in the course of the afternoon Fred said 
 to me, " I'll tell you what, Charlie, I know 
 old Rowe well, and he's up to any trick, 
 and sure to want to keep in with my 
 father. If we don't take care he'll take us 
 back with him. And what fools we shall 
 look then !" 
 
 The idea was intolerable ; but I warned 
 Fred to carefully avoid betraying that we 
 suspected him. The captain had had 
 worse enemies to outwit, and had kept a 
 pirate in good humour for a much longer 
 voyage by affability and rum. We had no 
 means of clouding Mr. Rowe's particularly 
 sharp wits with grog, but we resolved to 
 be amiable and wary, and when we did 
 get to London to look out for the first 
 opportunity of giving the barge-master the 
 slip. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A COASTING VOYAGE MUSK ISLAND 
 LINNET FLASH MR. ROWE AN OLD TAR 
 TKE DOG-FANCIER AT HOME. 
 
 IT was a delightful feature of our first 
 voyage and one which we could not 
 hope to enjoy so often in voyages to come 
 that we were always close to land, and 
 this on both sides. We could touch either 
 coast without difficulty, and as the barge 
 stopped several times during the day to 
 rest the horse, Fred and I had more than 
 one chance of going ashore. 
 
 I hope to have many a voyage yet, and 
 to see stranger people and places than I 
 saw then, but I hardly hope ever to enjoy 
 myself so much again. I have long ago 
 found out that Fred's stories of the captain's 
 adventures were not true stories, and as I 
 have read and learned more about the 
 world than I knew at that time, I know 
 now that there ace only certain things 
 which one can meet with by land or by 
 sea. But when Fred and I made our first 
 voyage in emulation of his grandfather 
 there was no limit to my expectations, or 
 to what we were prepared to see or ex- 
 perience at every fresh bend of the London 
 and Lancingford Canal. 
 
 I remember one of Fred's stories about 
 the captain was of his spending a year and 
 a day on an island called Musk Island, in 
 the Pacific. He had left the ship, Fred 
 said, to do a little exploring alone in his 
 gig. Not knowing at that time that the 
 captain's gig is a boat, I was a good deal 
 puzzled, I remember, to think of Mrs. 
 Johnson's red-faced father crossing the sea 
 in a gig like the one Mr. Bustard used to 
 go his professional "rounds" in. And 
 when Fred spoke of his "pulling himself" 
 I was yet more bewildered by the unavoid-
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 able conclusion that they had no horse on 
 board, and that the gallant and ever-ready 
 captain went himself between the shafts. 
 The wonder of his getting to Musk Island 
 in that fashion was, however, eclipsed by 
 the wonders he found when he did get 
 there. Musk-hedges and bowers ten feet 
 high, with flowers as large as bindweed 
 blossoms, and ladies with pale gold hair 
 all dressed in straw-coloured satin, and 
 with such lovely faces that the captain 
 vowed that no power on earth should 
 move him till he had learned enough of 
 the language to propose the health of the 
 Musk Island beauties in a suitable speech 
 after dinner. " And there he would have 
 lived and died, I believe," Fred would 
 say, " if that first mate, who saved his life 
 before, had not rescued him by main force, 
 and taken him back to his ship." 
 
 I am reminded of this story when I 
 think of the island in Linnet Lake, for we 
 were so deeply charmed by it that we very 
 nearly broke our voyage, as the captain 
 broke his, to settle on it. 
 
 Mr. Rowe called the lake Linnet Flash. 
 Wherever the canal seemed to spread out, 
 and then go on again narrow and like a 
 river, the barge-master called these lakes 
 " flashes " of the canal. There is no other 
 flash on that canal so large or so beautiful 
 as Linnet Lake, and in the middle of the 
 lake lies the island. 
 
 . It was about three o'clock, the hottest 
 part of a summer's day, and Fred and I, 
 rather faint with the heat, were sitting on 
 a coil of rope holding a clean sheet, which 
 Mr. Rowe had brought up from the cabin 
 to protect our heads and backs from sun- 
 stroke. We had refused to take shelter 
 below, and sat watching the fields and 
 hedges, which seemed to palpitate in the 
 heat as they went giddily by, and Mr. 
 Rowe, who stood quite steady, conversing 
 coolly with the driver. The driver had 
 been on board for the last hour, the way 
 
 being clear, and the old horse quite able 
 to take care of itself and us, and he and 
 the barge-master had pocket-handkerchiefs 
 under their hats like the sou'-wester flaps 
 of the captain's sea-friends. Fred had 
 dropped his end of the sheet to fall asleep, 
 and I was protecting us both, when the 
 driver bawled some directions to the horse 
 in their common language, and the barge- 
 master said, "Here's a bit of shade for 
 you, Master Fred ;" and we roused up and 
 found ourselves gliding under the lee of 
 an island covered with trees. 
 
 " Oh, do stop here !" we both cried. 
 
 " Well, I don't mind," said Mr. Rowe, 
 removing his hat, and mopping himself 
 with his very useful pocket-handkerchief. 
 " Jem, there's a bit of grass there, let her 
 have a mouthful." 
 
 " I thought you'd like this," he continued; 
 " there ain't a prettier bit between here and 
 Pyebridge." 
 
 It was so lovely, that the same idea 
 seized both Fred and me : Why not settle 
 here, at least for a time ? It was an un- 
 inhabited island, only waiting to be claimed 
 by some adventurous navigator, and ob- 
 viously fertile. The prospect of blackberries 
 on the mainland was particularly fine, and 
 how they would ripen in this blazing sun ! 
 Birds sang in the trees above ; fish leaping 
 after flies broke the still surface of the 
 water with a musical splash below ; and 
 beyond a doubt there must be the largest 
 and sweetest of earth-nuts on the island, 
 easy to get out of the deep beds of un- 
 touched leaf-mould. And when Mr. Rowe 
 cried " Look !" and we saw a water-fowl 
 scud across the lake, leaving a sharp trail 
 like a line of light behind her, we felt that 
 we might spend all our savings in getting 
 to the Pacific Ocean, and not find when 
 we got there a place which offered more 
 natural resources to the desert islander. 
 
 If the barge-master would have gone 
 ashore on the mainland out of the way,
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 39 
 
 and if we could have got ashore on the 
 island without help, we should not have 
 confided our plans to so doubtful a friend. 
 As it was, we were obliged to tell Mr. 
 Rowe that we proposed to found a settle- 
 ment in Linnet Lake, and he was completely 
 opposed to the idea. 
 
 It was only when he said (with that air 
 of reserved and funded knowledge which 
 gave such unfathomable depth to his irony, 
 and made his sayings so oracular) 
 " There's very different places in the 
 world to Linnet Flash" that we began 
 to be ashamed of our hasty enthusiasm, 
 and to think that it would be a pity to 
 stop so short in our adventurous career. 
 
 So we decided to go on ; but the masterly 
 way in which Mr. Rowe spoke of the world 
 made me think he must have seen a good 
 deal of it, and when we had looked our 
 last upon the island, and had crept with 
 lowered mast under an old brick bridge 
 where young ferns hung down from the 
 archway, and when we were once more 
 travelling between flat banks and coppices 
 that gave us no shelter, I said to the 
 barge-master "Have you ever been at 
 sea, Mr. Rowe?" 
 
 "Seventeen- year in the Royal Navy," 
 said Mr. Howe, with a strong emphasis 
 upon teen, as if he feared we might do 
 him the injustice of thinking he had only 
 served his Queen and country for seven. 
 
 For the next two hours Fred and I sat, 
 indifferent alike to the sunshine and the 
 shore, in rapt attention to Mr. Rowe's 
 narrative of his experiences at sea under 
 the flag that has 
 
 4 ' Braved a. thousand years the battle and the 
 breeze.-" 
 
 I believe Fred enjoyed them simply as 
 stories, but they fanned in my heart that 
 restless fever for which sea-breezes are the 
 only cure. I think Mr. Rowe got excited 
 himself as he recalled old times. And 
 
 when he began to bawl sea-songs with a 
 voice like an Atlantic gale, and when he 
 vowed in cadence 
 
 44 A sailor's life is the life for me," 
 
 I felt that it was the life for me also, and 
 expressed myself so strongly to that effect 
 that Mr. Rowe became alarmed for the 
 consequences of his indiscretion, and 
 thenceforward told us sea-stories with the 
 obvious and quite futile intention of dis- 
 gusting me with what I already looked 
 upon as my profession. 
 
 But the barge-master's rapid change of 
 tactics convinced me more and more that 
 we could not safely rely on him to help us 
 in our plans. 
 
 About five o'clock he made tea on 
 board, and boiled the water on the little 
 stove in the cabin. I was very anxious to 
 help, and it was I who literally made the 
 tea, whilst Mr. Rowe's steadier hand cut 
 thick slices of bread and butter from a 
 large loaf. There was only one cup and 
 saucer. Fred and I shared the cup, and 
 the barge-master took the saucer. By 
 preference, he said, as the tea cooled 
 quicker. 
 
 The driver had tea after we returned to 
 the deck and could attend to the horse 
 and boat. 
 
 Except the island in Linnet Lake, the 
 most entertaining events of the first day of 
 our voyage were our passing villages or 
 detached houses on the canal banks. 
 
 Of the latter by far the most interesting 
 was that of a dog-fancier, from whose 
 residence melodious howls, in the dog- 
 dialect of every tribe deserving to be repre- 
 sented in so choice a company, were wafted 
 up the stream, and met our ears before our 
 eyes beheld the landing-stage of the estab- 
 lishment, where the dog-fancier and some 
 of his dogs were lounging in the cool of 
 the evening, and glad to see the barge. 
 
 The fancier knew Mr. Rowe, and re-
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 freshed him (and us) with shandy-gaff in 
 horn tumblers. Some of the dogs who 
 did not, barked incessantly at us, wagging 
 their tails at the same time, however, as if 
 they had some doubts of the correctness 
 of their judgment in the matter. One 
 very small, very white, and very fluffy toy- 
 dog, with a dove-coloured ribbon, was no 
 doubt incurably ill-tempered and inhos- 
 pitable ; but a large brindled bull-dog, 
 trying politely but vainly to hide his teeth 
 and tongue, wagged what the fancier had 
 left him of a tail, and dribbled with the 
 pleasure of making our acquaintance, after 
 the wont of his benevolent and much- 
 maligned family. I have since felt pretty 
 certain that Mr. Rowe gave his friend a 
 sketch of our prospects and intentions in 
 the same spirit in which he had written to 
 Mr. Johnson, and I distinctly overheard 
 the dog-fancier make some reply, in which 
 the words "hoffera reward" were audible. 
 But the barge-master shook his head at 
 suggestions probably drawn from his friend's 
 professional traditions, though the fancier 
 told him some very good story about the 
 ill-tempered toy-dog, to which he referred 
 with such violent jerks of the head as 
 threatened to throw his fur cap on to that 
 of the brindled gentleman who sat dripping 
 and smiling at his feet. 
 
 When Mr. Rowe began to tell him 
 something good in return, and in spite of 
 my utmost endeavours not to hear any- 
 thing, the words " Linnet Flash " became 
 audible, I blushed to hear the fancier 
 choking over his shandy-gaff with laughter, 
 I feared at our project for settling on the 
 island. 
 
 The interview was now at an end, but 
 as Mr. Rowe stepped briskly on board, 
 the fur cap nodded to the forehatch, where 
 Fred and I were sitting on coiled ropes, 
 and the fancier said very knowingly, 
 "The better the breed the gamier the 
 beast." 
 
 He patted the bull-dog as he said it, and 
 the bull-dog kissed his dirty hand. 
 
 " Hup to hanythink," were Mr. Rowe's 
 parting words, as he went aft, and the 
 driver called to his horse. 
 
 He may have referred to the bull-dog, 
 but I had some doubts about it, even 
 then. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LOCKS WE THINK OF GOING ON THE 
 TRAMP PYE-BRIDGE WE SET SAIL. 
 
 DURING our first day's voyage we passed 
 two locks. There was one not very far 
 from home, and Fred and I had more than 
 once been to see a barge pass it, sitting on 
 the bank whilst the boat gradually sank to 
 the level of the water below. 
 
 It was great fun being on board whilst the 
 barge went down and down, though I must 
 say we did not feel anything peculiar, we 
 sank so gradually. 
 
 " Just fancy if it was a hole in the ship's 
 bottom," said Fred, " and we were settling 
 down with all on board. Some ships do, 
 and are never heard of again." 
 
 We amused ourselves as we went along 
 by guessing beforehand on which shore 
 the next house or hamlet would appear. 
 We betted shillings on the result, but 
 neither of us won or lost, for however 
 often the shillings changed hands, they 
 remained in the canvas bag. 
 
 Perhaps places look more as if events 
 happened in them if you do not know 
 them well. I noticed that even our town 
 looked more interesting from the water 
 than I had ever seen it look, so I dare say 
 to strangers it does not appear so dull as 
 it is. All the villages on the canal banks 
 looked interesting. We passed one soon
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 after tea, where the horse rested under 
 some old willows by the towing-path, and 
 we and Mr. Rowe went ashore. Whilst 
 the barge-master delivered a parcel to a 
 friend, Fred and I strolled into a lane 
 which led us past cottages with very gay 
 gardens to the church. The church was 
 not at all like S. Philip or S. James. It 
 was squat, and ivy-covered, and carefully 
 restored ; and it stood in a garden where 
 the flowers almost hid the graves. Just 
 outside the lych-gate, four lanes met, and 
 all of them were so shady and inviting, and 
 it was so impossible to say what they might 
 not lead to, that I said to Fred : 
 
 "You said the only way to run away 
 besides going to sea was to tramp. It 
 sounds rather low, but we needn't beg, and 
 I think walking would be nice for a change, 
 and I don't believe it would be much 
 slower than the barge, and it would be so 
 much shadier. And we could get off from 
 Old Rowe at once, and hide if we heard 
 anybody coming. I wonder how far it is 
 to London now ?" 
 
 " Not far, I dare say," said Fred, who 
 was pleased by the idea ; " and if we keep 
 on we must get there in time. And we 
 can get things to eat in the hedges, which 
 we can't do on the barge." 
 
 At this moment there passed a boy, to 
 whom I said, "Which is the way to 
 London, if you please?" for there' were four 
 roads to choose from. 
 
 " What d' say ?" said the boy. 
 
 I repeated my question. 
 
 " Dunno," he replied, trying to cram 
 half his hand into his mouth. The captain 
 would have thought him very stupid if he 
 had met him as a native in one of the 
 islands of the Pacific, I am sure ; but I 
 followed him, and begged him to try and 
 think if he had not heard of people going 
 to London. 
 
 At last his face brightened. He was 
 looking over my head down the lane. 
 
 " There's a man a-cummin yonder's always 
 a-going to Lunnon," said he. Visions of a 
 companion on our tramp also perhaps 
 in search of adventures made me look 
 briskly round. " Him with the pipe, as 
 b'longs to the barge," the boy exclaimed. 
 
 It was indeed Mr. Rowe come to look 
 for us, and we had to try and seem glad 
 to see him, and to go on board once 
 more. 
 
 Towards evening the canal banks be- 
 came dotted with fishers of all ages and 
 degrees, fishing very patiently, though they 
 did not seem to catch much. 
 
 Soon after dark we reached the town of 
 Pyebridge. 
 
 When the barge lay-to for the night, and 
 the driver was taking the horse away to a 
 stable, Mr. Rowe confronted us, in his 
 firmest manner, with the question, "And 
 where are you going to sleep, young 
 gentlemen ?" 
 
 "Where are you going to sleep, Mr. 
 Rowe ?" said I, after a thoughtful pause. 
 
 " / sleeps below, but the captain's cabin 
 is guv up to no one unless it be the 
 Queen," replied the barge-master, humour- 
 ously but decidedly. 
 
 "We should like to sleep on deck/' 
 said I. 
 
 But Mr. Rowe would not hear of it, on 
 account of various dreadful diseases which 
 he assured us would be contracted by 
 sleeping "in the damps of the water," 
 " the dews of the /fair," and " the rays of 
 the moon." 
 
 " There's a hotel " he began ; but I 
 
 said at once, " We couldn't afford a hotel, 
 but if you know of any very cheap place 
 we should be much obliged." 
 
 Mr. Rowe took off his hat and took out 
 his handkerchief, though it was no longer 
 hot. Having cleared his brain, he said 
 he " would see," and he finally led us along 
 one of the pebbled streets of Pyebridge to 
 a small house with a small shop-window
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 for the sale of vegetables, and with a card 
 announcing that there were beds to let. A 
 very little old woman got up from behind 
 a very big old geranium in the window as 
 we entered, and with her Mr. Rowe made 
 our arrangements for the night. We got a 
 clean bed, and had a mug of milk and a 
 slice of bread and treacle apiece for break- 
 fast the next morning, and I paid two 
 shillings. As I thanked the old lady and 
 bade her good day, she called to me to 
 hold out my hat, which she filled with 
 cherries, and then stood at the door and 
 watched us out of sight. 
 
 There was a railway station in Pye- 
 bridge, and we might easily have escaped 
 from Mr. Rowe, and gone by train to 
 London. But besides the fact that our 
 funds were becoming low, the water had a 
 new attraction for us. We had left the canal 
 behind, and were henceforward on a river. 
 If the wind favoured us we were to sail. 
 
 " A canal's nothing to a river," said Mr. 
 Rowe, " same as a river's nothing to the 
 sea," and when Fred had some difficulty 
 in keeping his hat on in the gusty street 
 (mine was in use as a fruit-basket), and 
 the barge-master said it was a " nice fresh 
 morning," I felt that life on Linnet Island 
 would have been tame indeed compared 
 to the hopes and fears of a career which 
 depended on the winds and waves. 
 
 And when the boom went up the barge's 
 mast, and the tightly corded roll of dark 
 canvas began to struggle for liberty, and 
 writhe and flap with throttling noises above 
 our heads, and when Mr. Rowe wrestled 
 yrith it and the driver helped him, and 
 Fred and I tried to, and were all but swept 
 overboard in consequence, whilst the barge- 
 master encouraged himself by strange and 
 savage sounds and when the sunshine 
 caught our nut-brown sail just as she 
 spread gallantly to the breeze, our excite- 
 ment grew till we both cried in one breath : 
 
 " This is something like being at sea !" 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 MR. ROWE ON BARGE-WOMEN THE RIVER 
 NINE ELMS A MYSTERIOUS NOISE 
 
 ROUGH QUARTERS A CHEAP SUPPER 
 
 JOHN'S BERTH WE MAKE OUR ESCAPE 
 OUT INTO THE WORLD. 
 
 MR. ROWE is quite right. A canal is 
 nothing to a river. 
 
 There was a wide piece of water between 
 us and one of the banks now, and other 
 barges went by us, some sailing, some 
 towing only, and two or three with women 
 at the rudder, and children on the deck. 
 
 " I wouldn't have my wife and fam'ly 
 on board for something !" said Mr. Rowe 
 grimly. 
 
 "Have you got a family, Mr. Rowe?" I 
 inquired. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the barge-master. " I 
 have, like other folk. But women and 
 children's best ashore." 
 
 " Of course they are," said I. 
 
 " If you was to turn over in your mind 
 what they might be good for now, he con- 
 tinued, with an unfathomable eye on the 
 mistress of a passing canal-boat, " you'd 
 say washing the decks and keeping the 
 pots clean. And they don't do it as well 
 as a man' not by half." 
 
 " They seem to steer pretty well," 
 said I. 
 
 " I've served in very different vessels 
 to what I'm in now," said Mr. Rowe, 
 avoiding a reply, " and I may come 
 as low as a monkey-barge and coal ; but 
 I'm blessed if ever I see myself walk on 
 the towing-path and leave the missus in 
 command on board." 
 
 At this moment a barge came sailing 
 alongside of us. 
 
 " Oh look !" cried Fred, " it's got a 
 white horse painted on the sail."
 
 A GREA T EMERGENCY. 
 
 " That's a lime barge, sir," said Mr. 
 Rowe ; "all lime targes is marked that 
 way." 
 
 She was homeward bound, and empty, 
 and soon passed us, but we went at a 
 pretty good pace ourselves. The wind kept 
 favourable, a matter in which Fred and I 
 took the deepest interest. We licked our 
 fingers, and held them up to see which 
 side got cooled by the breeze, and when- 
 ever this experiment convinced me that it 
 was still behind us, I could not help 
 running back to Fred to say with triumph, 
 "The wind's dead aft," as if he knew 
 nothing about it. 
 
 At last this seemed to annoy him, so I 
 went to contain myself by sitting on the 
 potato-tub and watching the shore. 
 
 We got into the Thames earlier than 
 usual, thanks to the fair wind. 
 
 The world is certainly a very beautiful 
 place. I suppose when I get right out 
 into it, and go to sea, and to other countries, 
 I shall think nothing of England and the 
 Thames, but it was all new and wonderful 
 to Fred and me then. The green slopes 
 and fine trees, and the houses with gardens 
 down to the river, and boats rocking by 
 the steps, the osier islands, which Mr. 
 Rowe called " Aits," and the bridges where 
 the mast had to be lowered, all the craft 
 on the water the red-sailed barges with 
 one man on board the steamers with 
 crowded decks and gay awnings the 
 schooners, yachts, and pleasure boats 
 and all the people on shore, the fishers, 
 and the people with water-dogs and sticks, 
 the ladies with fine dresses and parasols, 
 and the ragged boys who cheered us as 
 we went by everything we saw and heard 
 delighted us, and the only sore place in 
 my heart was where I longed for Rupert 
 and Henrietta to enjoy it too. 
 
 Later on we saw London. It was in 
 the moonlight that we passed Chelsea. 
 Mr. Rowe pointed out the Hospital, in 
 
 which the pensioners must have been 
 asleep, for not a wooden leg was stirring. 
 In less than half an hour afterwards we 
 were at the end of our voyage. 
 
 The first thing which struck me about 
 Nine Elms was that they were not to be 
 seen. I had thought of those elms more 
 than once under the burning sun of the 
 first day. I had imagined that we should 
 land at last on some green bank, where 
 the shelter of a majestic grove might tempt 
 Mr. Rowe to sleep, while Fred and I 
 should steal gently away to the neighbour- 
 ing city, and begin a quite independent 
 search for adventures. But I think I must 
 have mixed up with my expectations a 
 story of one of the captain's escapes from 
 a savage chief in a mango-grove. 
 
 Our journey's end was not quite what I 
 had thought it would be, but it was novel 
 and interesting enough. We seemed to 
 have thoroughly got to the town. Very 
 old houses with feeble lights in their paper- 
 patched windows made strange reflections 
 on the river. The pier looked dark and 
 dirty even by moonlight, and threw blacker 
 and stranger shadows still. 
 
 Mr. Rowe was busy and tired, and 
 we thought a little inclined to be cross. 
 
 " I wonder where we shall sleep ! " said 
 Fred, looking timidly up at the dark old 
 houses. 
 
 I have said before that I find it hard 
 work to be very brave after dark, but I put 
 a good face on the matter, and said I 
 dared say old Rowe would find us a cheap 
 bedroom. 
 
 " London's an awful place for robbers 
 and murders, you know," said Fred. 
 
 I was hoping the cold shiver running 
 down my back was due to what the barge- 
 master called " the damps from the water " 
 when a wail like the cry of a hurt child 
 made my skin stiffen into goose-prickles. 
 A wilder moan succeeded, and then one of 
 the windows of one of the dark houses was
 
 44 
 
 A GREA T EMERGENCY. 
 
 opened, and something thrown out which 
 fell heavily down. Mr. Rowe was just coming 
 on board again, and I found courage in the 
 emergency to gasp out, " What was that ?" 
 
 " Wot's wot ?" said Mr. Rowe testily. 
 
 " That noise and the falling thing." 
 
 "Somebody throwing somethin' at a 
 cat," said the barge-master. " Stand aside, 
 sir, if you please." 
 
 It was a relief, but when at length Mr. 
 Rowe came up to me with his cap off, in 
 the act of taking out his handkerchief, and 
 said, " I suppose you're no richer than 
 you was yesterday, young gentlemen how 
 about a bed ?" I said, " No o. That is, 
 I mean if you can get us a cheap one in a 
 safe I mean a respectable place." 
 
 " If you leaves a comfortable 'ome, sir," 
 moralised the barge-master, " to go a-look- 
 ing for adventures in this fashion, you 
 must put up with rough quarters, and wot 
 you can get." 
 
 " We'll go anywhere you think right, 
 Mr. Rowe," said I diplomatically. 
 
 " I knows a waterman," said Mr. Rowe, 
 " that was in the Royal Navy like myself. 
 He lives near here, and they're decent 
 folk. The place is a poor place, but you'll 
 have to make the best of it, young gentle- 
 men, and a shilling '11 cover the damage. 
 If you wants supper you must pay for it. 
 Give the missis the money, and she'll do 
 the best she can, and bring you the change 
 to a half-farthing." 
 
 My courage was now fully restored, but 
 Fred was very much overwhelmed by the 
 roughness of the streets we passed through, 
 the drunken, quarrelling, poverty-struck 
 people, and the grim, dirty old houses. 
 
 " We shall be out of it directly," I whis- 
 pered, and indeed in a few minutes more 
 Mr. Rowe turned up a shabby entry, and 
 led us to one of several lower buildings 
 round a small court. The house he 
 stopped at was cleaner within than with- 
 out, and the woman was very civil. 
 
 " It's a very poor place, sir," said she ; 
 " but we always keep a berth, as his father 
 calls it, for our son John." 
 
 "But we can't take your son's bed," 
 said I ; " we'll sit up here, if you will let 
 us." 
 
 " Bless ye, love," said the woman, 
 " John's in foreign parts. He's a sailor, 
 sir, like his father before him ; but John's 
 in the merchant service." 
 
 Mr. Rowe now bade us good-night. 
 " I'll be round in the morning," said he. 
 
 " What o'clock, Mr. Rowe ?" I asked ; 
 I had a reason for asking. 
 
 " There ain't much in the way of return 
 cargo," he replied ; " but I've a bit of 
 business to do for your father, Mr. Fred, 
 that'll take me until half-past nine. I'll be 
 here by then, young gentlemen, and show 
 you about a bit." 
 
 " It's roughish quarters for you," added 
 the barge-master, looking round ; " but 
 you'll find rougher quarters at sea, Master 
 Charles." 
 
 Mr. Rowe's moralisings nettled me, and 
 they did no good, for my whole thoughts 
 were now bent on evading his guardian- 
 ship and getting to sea, but poor Fred 
 was quite overpowered. " I wish we were 
 safe home again," he almost sobbed when 
 I went up to the corner into which he had 
 huddled himself. 
 
 " You'll be all right when we're afloat," 
 said I. 
 
 " I'm so hungry," he moaned. 
 
 I was hungry myself, and decided to 
 order some supper, so when the woman 
 came up and civilly asked if she could do 
 anything for us before we went to bed, 
 I said, " If you please we're rather hungry, 
 but we can't afford anything very expen- 
 sive. Do you think you can get us any- 
 thing rather cheap for supper ?" 
 
 " A red herring ?" she suggested. 
 
 " What price are they ?" I felt bound to 
 inquire.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 45 
 
 " Mrs. Jones has them beautiful and 
 mild at two for a penny. You can get 'em 
 at three a penny, but you wouldn't like 
 'em, sir." 
 
 I felt convinced by the expression of 
 her face that I should not, so I ordered 
 two. 
 
 "And a penny loaf?" suggested our 
 landlady, getting her bonnet from behind 
 the door. 
 
 "If you please." 
 
 " And a bunch of radishes and a pint 
 of fourpenny would be fivepence-halfpenny 
 the lot, sir." 
 
 " If you please. And, if you please, that 
 will do," said I, drawing a shilling from the 
 bag, for the thought of the herrings made 
 me ravenous, and I wanted her to go. 
 She returned quickly with the bread and 
 herrings. The " fourpenny" proved to be 
 beer. She gave me sixpence-halfpenny in 
 change, which puzzled my calculations. 
 
 " You said fourpenny" said I, indicating 
 the beer. 
 
 " Yes, sir, but it's a pint," was the reply ; 
 and it was only when in after-years I 
 learned that beer at fourpence a quart is 
 known to some people as " fourpenny " that 
 I got that part of the reckoning of the 
 canvas bag straight in my own mind. 
 
 The room had an unwholesome smell 
 about it, which the odour from our fried 
 herrings soon pleasantly overpowered. The 
 bread was good, and the beer did us no 
 harm. Fred picked up his spirits again, 
 when Mr. Rowe's old mate came home he 
 found us very cheerful and chatty. Fred 
 asked him about the son who was at sea, 
 but I had some more important questions 
 to put, and I managed so to do, and with 
 a sufficiently careless air. 
 
 " I suppose there are lots of ships at 
 London ?" said I. 
 
 " In the Docks, sir, plenty," said our host. 
 
 " And where are the Docks," I inquired. 
 " Are they far from you ?" 
 
 "Well, you see, sir, there's a many 
 docks. There's the East India Docks, 
 St. Katharine's Docks, and the Commer- 
 cial Docks, and Victoria Dock, and lots 
 more." 
 
 I pondered. Ships in the East India 
 Dock probably went only to India. St. 
 Katharine conveyed nothing to my mind. 
 I did not fancy Commercial Docks. I felt 
 a loyal inclination towards the Victoria 
 Dock. 
 
 " How do people get from here to Vic- 
 toria Dock now, if they want to ?" I asked. 
 
 " Well, of course, sir, you can go down 
 the river, or part that way and then by rail 
 from Fenchurch Street." 
 
 " Where is Fenchurch Street, Mr. 
 Smith?" said I, becoming a good deal 
 ashamed of my pertinacity. 
 
 " In the city, sir," said Mr. Smith. 
 
 The city ! Now I never heard of any 
 one in any story going out into the world 
 to seek his fortune, and coming to a city, 
 who did not go into it to see what was to 
 be seen. Leaving the king's only daughter 
 and those kinds of things, which belong 
 to story-books, out of the question, I do 
 not believe the captain would have passed 
 a new city without looking into it. 
 
 " You go down the river to Fenchurch 
 Street in a barge ?" I suggested. 
 
 " Bless ye, no, sir !" said Mr. Smith, 
 getting the smoke of his pipe down his 
 throat the wrong way with laughing, till I 
 thought his coughing-fit would never allow 
 him to give me the important information 
 I required. " There's boats, sir, plenty on 
 'em. I could take you myself, and be 
 thankful, and there's steamers calls at the 
 wharf every quarter of an hour or so 
 through the day, from nine in the morning, 
 and takes you to London Bridge for 
 threepence. It ain't many minutes' walk 
 to Fenchurch Street, and the train takes 
 you straight to the Docks."
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 faring matters. Mr. Smith was not a 
 very able-bodied man, in consequence of 
 many years' service in unhealthy climates, 
 he said ; and he complained of his trade 
 as a " poor one," and very different from 
 what it had been in his father's time, and 
 before new London Bridge was built, 
 which "anybody and anything could get 
 through " now without watermen's assist- 
 ance. In his present depressed condition 
 he seemed to look back on his seafaring 
 days with pride and tender regret, and 
 when we asked for tales of his adventures 
 he was checked by none of the scruples 
 which withheld Mr. Rowe from encourag- 
 ing me to be a sailor. 
 
 " John's berth " proved to be a truckle- 
 bed in a closet which just held it, and 
 which also held more nasty smells than I 
 could have believed there was room for. 
 Opening the window seemed only to let in 
 fresh ones. When Fred threw himself on 
 his face on the bed, and said, " What a 
 beastly hole !" and cried bitterly, I was 
 afraid he was going to be ill ; and when I 
 had said my prayers and persuaded him 
 to say his and come to bed, I thought 
 that if we got safely through the night we 
 would make the return voyage with Mr. 
 Rowe, and for the future leave events and 
 emergencies to those who liked danger 
 and discomfort. 
 
 But when we woke with the sun shining 
 on our faces, and through the little window 
 beheld it sparkling on the river below us, 
 and on the distant city, we felt all right 
 again, and stuck to our plans. 
 
 " Let's go by the city," said Fred, " I 
 should like to see some of the town." 
 
 "If we don't get off before half-past 
 nine we're lost," said I. 
 
 We found an unexpected clog in Mr. 
 Smith, who seemed inclined to stick to us 
 and repeat the stories he had told us 
 overnight. At about half-past eight, how- 
 ever, he went off to his boat, saying he 
 
 supposed we should wait for Mr. Rowe, 
 and when his wife went into a neighbour's 
 house I laid a shilling on the table, and 
 Fred and I slipped out and made our way 
 to the pier. 
 
 Mr. Rowe was not there, and a church 
 clock near struck nine. This was echoed 
 from the city more than once, and then 
 we began to look anxiously for the 
 steamer. Five, ten minutes must have 
 passed they seemed hours to me when 
 I asked a man who was waiting also when 
 the steamer from London Bridge would 
 come. 
 
 " She'll be here soon," said he. 
 
 " So will old Rowe," whispered Fred. 
 
 But the steamer came first, and we went 
 on board ; and the paddles began to 
 splash, and our escape was accom- 
 plished. 
 
 It was a lovely morning, and the tall, 
 dirty old houses looked almost grand in 
 the sunlight as we left Nine Elms. The 
 distant city came nearer and shone 
 brighter, and when the fretted front of the 
 Houses of Parliament went by us like a 
 fairy palace, and towers and blocks of 
 buildings rose solidly one behind another 
 in shining tints of white and grey against 
 the blue summer sky, and when above the 
 noise of our paddle-wheels came the dis- 
 tant roar of the busy streets Fred pressed 
 the arm I had pushed through his and 
 said, " We're out in the world at last !" 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EMERGENCIES AND POLICEMEN FEN- 
 CHURCH STREET STATION THIRD CLASS 
 
 TO CUSTOM HOUSE A SHIP FOREST. 
 
 POLICEMEN are very useful people. I do 
 not know how we should have got from 
 the London Bridge Pier to the Fenchurch
 
 A GREA T EMERGENCY. 
 
 47 
 
 Street Station if it had not been that Fred 
 told me he knew one could ask policemen 
 the way to places. There is nothing to 
 pay, which I was very glad of, as the 
 canvas bag was getting empty. 
 
 Once or twice they helped us through 
 emergencies. We had to go from one 
 footpath to another, straight across the 
 street, and the street was so full of carts 
 and cabs and drays and omnibuses, that 
 one could see that it was quite an impossi- 
 bility. We did it, however, for the police- 
 man made us. I said, " Hadn't we better 
 wait till the crowd has gone ?" But the 
 policeman laughed, and said then we had 
 better take lodgings close by and wait at 
 the window. So we did it. Fred said 
 ( the captain once ran in a little cutter 
 ' between two big ships that were firing 
 into him, but I do not think that can have 
 been much worse than running between 
 a backing dray, full of rolling barrels, and 
 a hansom cab pulled up and ramping like 
 a rocking-horse at the lowest point of the 
 rockers. 
 
 When we were safely on the other 
 pavement we thanked the policeman very 
 much, and then went on, asking our way 
 till we got to Fenchurch Street. 
 
 I" anything could smell nastier than 
 John's berth in Nine Elms it is Fenchurch 
 Street Station. And I think it is worse in 
 this way : John's berth smelt horribly, but 
 it was warm and weather-tight. You 
 never swallow a drop of pure air in 
 Fenchurch Street Station, and yet you 
 cannot find a corner in which you can get 
 out of the draughts. 
 
 With one gale blowing on my right 
 from an open door, and another gale 
 blowing on my left down some steps, and 
 nasty smells blowing from every point of 
 the compass, I stood at a dirty little hole 
 in a dirty wooden wall and took our 
 tickets. I had to stand on tiptoe to 
 make the young man see me. 
 
 " What is the cheapest kind of tickets 
 you have, if you please ?" I inquired, with 
 the canvas bag in my hand. 
 
 "Third class," said the young man, 
 staring very hard at me, which I thought 
 rather rude. " Except working men's 
 tickets, and they're #iot for this train." 
 
 "Two third-class tickets for Victoria 
 Dock, then, if you please," said I. 
 
 " Single or return ?" said he. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ?" I said, for I was 
 puzzled. 
 
 "Are you coming back to-day?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 " Oh dear, no !" said I, for some of the 
 captain's voyages had lasted for years; 
 but the question made me anxious, as 
 I knew nothing of railway rules, and I 
 added, " Does it matter?" 
 
 " Not by no means," replied the young 
 man smartly, and he began to whistle, but 
 stopped himself to ask, "Custom House 
 or Tidal Basin ?" 
 
 I had no alternative but to repeat, " I 
 beg your pardon ?" 
 
 He put his face right through the hole 
 and looked at me. " Will you take your 
 ticket for Custom House or Tidal Basin ?" 
 he repeated ; " either will do for Victoria 
 Docks." 
 
 "Then whichever you please," said I, 
 as politely as I could. 
 
 The young man took out two tickets 
 and snapped them impatiently in some- 
 thing ; and as a fat woman was squeezing 
 me from behind, I was glad to take what 
 I could get and go back to Fred. 
 
 He was taking care of our two bundles 
 and the empty pie-dish. 
 
 That pie-dish was a good deal in our 
 way. Fred wanted to get rid of it, and 
 said he was sure his mother would not 
 want us to be bothered with it ; but Fred 
 had promised in his letter to bring it back, 
 and he could not break his word. I told 
 him so, but I said as he did not like to
 
 4 3 
 
 A GREA T EMERGENCY. 
 
 be seen with it I would carry it. So I 
 did. 
 
 With a strong breeze aft, we were driven 
 upstairs in the teeth of a gale, and ran 
 before a high wind down a platform where, 
 after annoying one of the railway men very 
 much by not being able to guess which 
 was the train, and having to ask him, we 
 got in among a lot of rough-looking people, 
 who were very civil and kind. A man 
 with a black face and a white jacket said 
 he would tell us when we got to Custom 
 House, and he gave me his seat by the 
 window, that I might look out. 
 
 What struck me as rather odd was that 
 everybody in the third-class carriage 
 seemed to have bundles like ours, and 
 yet they couldn't all be running away. 
 One thin woman with a very troublesome 
 baby had three. Perhaps it is because 
 portmanteaus and things of that sort are 
 rather expensive. 
 
 Fred was opposite to me. It was a 
 bright sunny morning, a fresh breeze blew, 
 and in the sunlight the backs of endless 
 rows of shabby houses looked more cheer- 
 ful than usual, though very few of the 
 gardens had anything in them but dirt 
 and cats, and very many of the windows 
 had the week's wash hanging out on 
 strings and poles. The villages we had 
 passed on the canal banks all looked 
 pretty and interesting, but I think that 
 most of the places we saw out of the 
 window of the train would look very ugly 
 on a dull day. 
 
 I fancy there were poplar-trees at a place 
 called Poplar, and that I thought it must 
 be called after them ; but Fred says No, 
 and we have never been there since, so I 
 cannot be sure about it. If not, I must 
 have dreamt it. 
 
 I did fall asleep in the corner, I know, 
 I was so very much tired, and we had had 
 no breakfast, and I sat on the side where 
 the wind blows in, which I think helped 
 
 to make me sleepy. I was wakened partly 
 by the pie-dish slipping off my lap, and 
 partly by Fred saying in an eager 
 tone : 
 
 "Oh, Charlie! LOOK! Are tJiey all 
 ships r 
 
 We stuffed our heads through the win- 
 dow, and my hat was nearly blown away, 
 so the man with the black face and the 
 white jacket gave it to the woman with 
 the troublesome baby to take care of for 
 me, and he held us by our legs for fear we 
 should fall out. 
 
 On we flew ! There was wind enough 
 in our faces to have filled the barge-sail 
 three times over, and Fred licked his lips 
 and said, " I do believe there's salt in it !" 
 
 But what he woke me up to show me . 
 drove me nearly wild. When I had seen 
 a couple of big barges lying together with 
 their two bare rnasts leaning towards each 
 other I used to think how dignified and 
 beautiful they looked. But here were 
 hundreds of masts, standing as thick as 
 tree-trunks in a fir-wood, and they were 
 not bare poles, but lofty and slender, and 
 crossed by innumerable yards, and covered 
 with ropes in orderly profusion, which 
 showed in the sunshine as cobwebs shine 
 out in a field in summer. Gay flags and 
 pennons fluttered in the wind ; brown 
 sails, grey sails, and gleaming white sails 
 went up and down ; and behind it all the 
 water sparkled and dazzled our eyes like 
 the glittering reflections from a mirror 
 moving in the sun. 
 
 As we ran nearer the ropes looked 
 thicker, and we could see the devices on 
 the flags. And suddenly, straining his 
 eyes at the yards of a vessel in the thick 
 of the ship-forest, on which was something 
 black, like a spider with only four legs, 
 Fred cried, " It's a sailor !" 
 
 I saw him quite well. And seeing him 
 higher up than on any tree one could ever 
 climb, with the sunny sky above him and
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 49 
 
 the shining water below him, I could only 
 mutter out with envious longing " How 
 happy he must be !" 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A DIRTY STREET A BAD BOY SHIPPING 
 
 AND MERCHANDISE WE STOWAWAY ON 
 BOARD THE "ATALANTA" A SALT TEAR. 
 
 THE man in the white jacket helped us 
 out, smiling as he did so, so that his teeth 
 shone like ivory in his black face. We 
 took the pie-dish and our bundles, and 
 thanked him very much, and the train 
 went on and took him with it, which we 
 felt sorry for. For when one is out in 
 the world, you know, one sometimes feels 
 rather lonely, and sorry to part with a kind 
 friend. 
 
 Everybody else went through a little 
 gate into the street, so we did the same. 
 It was a very dirty street, with houses on 
 one side and the railway on the other. 
 There were cabbages and carrots and old 
 shoes and fishes' heads and oyster-shells 
 and potato-peelings in the street, and a 
 goat was routing among it all with its nose, 
 as if it had lost something and hoped to 
 find it by-and-by. 
 
 Places like this always seemed to de- 
 press Fred's courage. Besides which, he 
 was never in good spirits when he had to 
 go long without food, which made me fear 
 he would not bear being cast adrift at sea 
 without provisions as well as his grand- 
 father had done. I was not surprised 
 when he said : 
 
 " What a place ! And I don't believe 
 one can get anything fit to eat, and I am 
 so hungry !" 
 
 J looked at the houses. There was a 
 
 pork-butcher's shop, and a real butcher's 
 shop, and a slop shop, and a seedy jewel- 
 ler's shop with second-hand watches, which 
 looked as if nothing would ever make them 
 go, and a small toy and sweetmeat shop, 
 but not a place that looked like breakfast. 
 I had taken Fred's bundle because he was 
 so tired, and I suppose it was because I 
 was staring helplessly about that a dirty 
 boy a good deal bigger than either of us 
 came up and pulled his dirty hair and 
 said: 
 
 " Carry your things for you, sir ?" 
 
 "No, thank you," said I, moving on 
 with the bundles and the pie-dish ; but as 
 the boy would walk by me I said : 
 
 "We want some breakfast very much, 
 but we haven't much money." And, re- 
 membering the cost of our supper, I 
 added, "Could we get anything here for 
 about twopence-halfpenny or threepence 
 apiece ?" 
 
 There was a moment's pause, and then 
 the boy gave a long whistle. 
 
 " Vy, I thought you wos swells !" said 
 he. 
 
 I really do not know whether it was 
 because I did not like to be supposed to 
 be a poor person when it came to the 
 point, or whether it was because of that 
 bad habit of mine of which even Weston's 
 ballad has not quite cured me, of being 
 ready to tell people more about my affairs 
 than it can be interesting for them to hear 
 or discreet for me to communicate, but I 
 replied at once : " We are gentlemen ; but 
 we are going in search of adventures, and 
 we don't want to spend more money than 
 we can help till we see what we may want 
 it for when we get to foreign countries." 
 
 " You're going to sea, then, hare you ?" 
 said the boy, keeping up with us. 
 
 " Yes," said I ; " but could you tell us 
 where to get something to eat before we 
 go?" 
 
 " There's a shop I knows on," said our
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 new friend, " where they sells prime pud- 
 ding at a penny a slice. The plums goes 
 all through and no mistake. Three slices 
 would be threepence : one for you, one 
 for him, and one for my trouble in showing 
 you the way. Threepence more's a quart 
 of stout, and we drink fair by turns. Shall 
 I take your purse and pay it for you? 
 They might cheat a stranger." 
 
 "No, thank you," said I; "but we 
 should like some pudding if you will show 
 us the way." 
 
 The slices were small, but then they 
 were very heavy. We had two each. I 
 rejected the notion of porter, and Fred 
 said he was not thirsty ; but I turned back 
 again into the shop to ask for a glass of 
 water for myself. The woman gave it me 
 very civilly, looking as she did so with a 
 puzzled manner, first at me and then at 
 my bundles and the pie-dish. As she 
 took back the tumbler she nodded her 
 head towards the dirty boy, who stood in 
 the doorway, and said : 
 
 " Is that young chap a companion of 
 yours, my dear?" 
 
 " Oh, dear no," said I, " only he showed 
 us the way here." 
 
 " Don't have nothing to do with him," 
 she whispered ; " he's a bad un." 
 
 In spite of this warning, however, as 
 there was no policeman to be seen, and 
 the boy would keep up with us, I asked 
 him the way to Victoria Dock. 
 
 It was not so easy to get to the ships as 
 I had expected. There were gates to pass 
 through, and they were kept by a porter. 
 He let some people in and turned others 
 back. 
 
 " Have you got an order to see the 
 docks ?" asked the boy. 
 
 I confessed that we had not, but added 
 that we wanted very much to get in. 
 
 " My eyes !" said the bad boy, doubling 
 himself in a fit of amusement, " I believe 
 you're both going for stowaways." 
 
 " What do you mean by stowaways ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Stowaways is chaps that hides aboard 
 vessels going out of port, to get their 
 passage free gratis for nothing." 
 
 " Do a good many manage it ?" I asked 
 with an anxious mind. 
 
 " There ain't a vessel leaves the docks 
 without one and sometimes more aboard. 
 The captain never looks that way, not by 
 no accident whatsoever. He don't lift no 
 tarpaulins while the ship's in dock. But 
 when she gets to sea the captain gets his 
 eyesight back, and he takes it out of the 
 stowaways for their wittles then. Oh, yes, 
 rather so !" said the bad boy. 
 
 There was a crowd at the gates. 
 
 " Hold your bundles down on your 
 right side," said the boy, " and go in 
 quickly after any respectable-looking cove 
 you see." 
 
 Fred had got his own bundle now, and 
 we followed our guide's directions, and 
 went through the gates after an elderly, 
 well-dressed man. The boy seemed to try 
 to follow us, squeezing very close up to me, 
 but the gatekeeper stopped him. When 
 we were on the other side I saw him bend 
 down and wink backwards at the gate- 
 keeper through his straddled legs. Then 
 he stood derisively on his head. After 
 which he went away as a catherine-wheel, 
 and I saw him no more. 
 
 We were among the ships at last ! 
 Vessels very different from Mr. Rowe's 
 barge, or even the threepenny steamboat. 
 Lofty and vast, with shining decks of 
 marvellous cleanliness, and giant figure- 
 heads like dismembered Jins out of some 
 Arabian tale. Streamers of many colours 
 high up in the forest of masts, and seamen 
 of many nations on the decks and wharves 
 below, moved idly in the breeze, which 
 was redolent of many kinds of cargo. 
 Indeed, if the choice of our ship had not 
 been our chief care, the docks and ware-
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 houses would have fascinated us little less 
 than the shipping. Here were huge bales 
 of cotton packed as thickly as bricks in a 
 brick-field. There were wine -casks in- 
 numerable, and in another place the air 
 was aromatic with so large a cargo of 
 coffee that it seemed as if no more could 
 be required in this country for some 
 generations. 
 
 It was very entertaining, and Fred was 
 always calling to me to look at something 
 new, but my mind was with the shipping. 
 There was a good deal of anxiety on it 
 too. The sooner we chose our ship and 
 "stowed away" the better. I hesitated 
 between sailing-vessels and steamers. I 
 did not believe that one of the captain's 
 adventures happened on board any ship 
 that could move faster than it could sail. 
 And yet I was much attracted by some 
 grand -looking steamships. Even their 
 huge funnels had a look of power, I 
 thought, among the masts, like old and 
 hollow oaks in a wood of young and 
 slender trees. 
 
 One of these was close in dock, and 
 we could see her well. There were some 
 casks on deck, and by them lay a piece of 
 tarpaulin which caught my eye, and re- 
 called what the bad boy had said about 
 captains and stowaways. Near the gang- 
 way were standing two men who did not 
 seem to be sailors. They were respect- 
 ably dressed, one had a book and a pencil, 
 and they looked, I thought, as if they 
 might have authority to ask our business 
 in the docks, so I drew Fred back under 
 shelter of some piled-up boxes. 
 
 " When does she sail ?" asked the man 
 with the book. 
 
 " To-morrow morning, sir," replied the 
 other. 
 
 And then they crossed the gangway and 
 went into a warehouse opposite. 
 
 It was noon, and being the men's 
 dinner-time, the docks were not very busy. 
 
 At this moment there was not a soul in 
 sight. I grasped Fred's arm, and hoisted 
 the bundle and pie-dish well under my own. 
 
 " That's our ship," I said triumphantly ; 
 " come along !" 
 
 We crossed the gangway unperceived. 
 " The casks !" I whispered, and we made 
 our way to the corner I had noticed. If 
 Fred's heart beat as chokingly as mine 
 did, we were far too much excited to 
 speak, as we settled ourselves into a 
 corner, not quite as cosy as our hiding- 
 place in the forehold of the barge ; and 
 drew the tarpaulin over our heads, resting 
 some of the weight of it on the casks 
 behind, that we might not be smothered. 
 
 I have waited for the kitchen kettle to 
 boil when Fred and I wanted to make 
 "hot grog" with raspberry-vinegar and 
 nutmeg at his father's house ; I have 
 waited for a bonfire to burn up, when w r e 
 wanted to roast potatoes; I have waited 
 for it to leave off raining when my mother 
 would not let us go out for fear of catching 
 colds; but I never knew time pass so 
 slowly as when Fred and I were stowaways 
 on board the steam-ship Atalanta. 
 
 He was just beginning to complain, 
 when we heard men coming on board. 
 This amused us for a bit, but we were 
 stowed so that we could not see them, 
 and we dared not look out. Neither 
 dared we speak, except when we heard 
 them go a good way off, and then we 
 whispered. So second after second, and 
 minute after minute, and hour after hour 
 went by, and Fred became very restless. 
 
 " She's to sail in the morning," I whis- 
 pered. 
 
 " But where are we to get dinner and 
 tea and supper ?" asked Fred indignantly. 
 I was tired, and felt cross on my own 
 account. 
 
 " You said yourself we might have to 
 weigh out our food with a bullet like 
 Admiral Bligh, next week." 
 
 4 2
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 " He must have had something, or he 
 couldn't have weighed it," retorted Fred ; 
 " and how do we know if they'll ever give 
 us anything to eat on board this ship ?" 
 
 " I dare say we can buy food at first, 
 till they find us something to do for our 
 meals," said I. 
 
 " How much money is there left ?" asked 
 Fred. 
 
 I put my hand into my pocket for the 
 canvas bag but it was gone ! 
 
 There could be little doubt that the bad 
 boy had picked my pocket at the gate, but 
 I had a sense of guiltiness about it, for 
 most of the money was Fred's. This 
 catastrophe completely overwhelmed him, 
 and he cried and grumbled till I was 
 nearly at my wits' end. I could not stop 
 him, though heavy steps were coming quite 
 close to us. 
 
 " Sh ! Sh !" muttered I, " if you go on 
 like that they'll certainly find us, and then 
 we shall have managed all this for nothing, 
 and might as well have gone back with old 
 Rowe." 
 
 " Which, wind and weather permitting, 
 young gentlemen, you will," said a voice 
 just above us, though we did not hear it. 
 
 " I wish we could," sobbed Fred, " only 
 there's no money now. But I'm going to 
 get out of this beastly hole any way." 
 
 " You're a nice fellow to tell me about 
 your grandfather," said I, in desperate 
 exasperation ; "I don't believe you've the 
 pluck for a common sailor, let alone a 
 Great Discoverer." 
 
 " You've hit the right nail on the head 
 there, Master Charles," said the voice. 
 
 " Fiddlesticks about my grandfather !" 
 said Fred. 
 
 In the practical experiences of the last 
 three days my faith in Fred's tales had 
 more than once been rather rudely shaken ; 
 but the contemptuous tone in which he 
 disposed of our model, the Great Sea 
 Captain, startled me so severely that I do 
 
 not think I felt any additional shock of 
 astonishment when strong hands lifted the 
 tarpaulin from our heads, and grave amid 
 several grinning faces we saw the barge- 
 master. 
 
 How he reproached us, and how Fred 
 begged him to take us home, and how I 
 besought him to let us go to sea, it would 
 be tedious to relate. I have no doubt 
 now that he never swerved from his inten- 
 tion of taking us back, but he preferred to 
 do it by fair means if possible. So he 
 fubbed me off, and took us round the 
 docks to amuse us, and talked of dinner 
 in a way that went to Fred's heart. 
 
 But when I found that we were ap- 
 proaching the gates once more, I stopped 
 dead short. As we went about the docks 
 I had replied to the barge-master's remarks 
 as well as I could, but I had never ceased 
 thinking of the desire of my heart, and I 
 resolved to make one passionate appeal to 
 his pity. 
 
 " Mr. Rowe," I said, in a choking voice, 
 " please don't take me home ! I would 
 give anything in the world to go to sea. 
 Why shouldn't I be a sailor when I want 
 to ? Take Fred home if he wants to go, 
 and tell them that I'm all right, and mean 
 to do my duly and come back a credit to 
 them." 
 
 Mr. Rowe's face was inscrutable, and I 
 pleaded harder. 
 
 "You're an old navy man, you know, 
 Rowe," I said, " and if you recommended 
 me to the captain of one of these ships for 
 a cabin-boy, I'll be bound they'd take 
 me." 
 
 "Mr. Charles," said the old man 
 earnestly, "you couldn't go for a cabin- 
 boy, you don't know " 
 
 "You think I can't rough it," I inter- 
 rupted impatiently, " but try me, and see. 
 I know what I'm after," I added, conse- 
 quentially ; " and I'll bear what I have to 
 bear, and do what I'm set to do if I can
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 53 
 
 get afloat. I'll be a captain some day, and 
 give orders instead of taking them." 
 
 Mr. Rowe drew up to attention and took 
 off his hat. " And wanting an able-bodied 
 seaman in them circumstances, sir, for any 
 voyage you likes to make," said he emphati- 
 cally, " call for Samuel Rowe." He then 
 wiped the passing enthusiasm from the 
 crown of his head with his handkerchief, 
 and continued with the judicious diplo- 
 macy for which he was remarkable " But 
 of course, sir, it's the Royal Navy you'll 
 begin in, as a midshipman. It's seaman- 
 shipyau wants to learn, not swabbing decks 
 or emptying buckets below whilst others is 
 aloft. Your father's son would be a good 
 deal out of place, sir, as cabin-boy in a 
 common trading vessel." 
 
 Mr. Rowe's speech made an impression, 
 and I think he saw that it did. 
 
 " Look here, Master Charles," said he, 
 " you've a gentleman's feelings : come 
 home now, and bear me out with your 
 widowed mother and your only sister, sir, 
 and with Master Fred's father, that I'm in 
 duty bound to, and promised to deliver 
 safe and sound as return cargo, wind and 
 weather permitting." 
 
 " Oh, come home ! come home !" 
 reiterated Fred. 
 
 I stood speechless for a minute or two. 
 All around and above me rose the splendid 
 masts, trellised with the rigging that I 
 longed to climb. The refreshing scent of 
 tar mingled with the smells of Jthe various 
 cargoes. The coming and going of men 
 who came and went to and fro the ends of 
 the earth stirred all my pulses to restless- 
 ness. And above the noises of their coming 
 and going I heard the lapping of the water 
 of the incoming tide against the dock, 
 which spoke with a voice more powerful 
 than that of Mr. Rowe. 
 
 And yet I went with him. 
 
 It was not because the canvas bag was 
 empty, not because Fred would not stay 
 
 with me (for I had begun to think that the 
 captain's grandson was not destined to be 
 the hero of exploits on the ocean), but 
 when Mr. Rowe spoke of my widowed 
 mother and of Henrietta, he touched a 
 sore point on my conscience. I had had 
 an uneasy feeling from the first that there 
 was something rather mean in my desertion 
 of them. Pride, and I hope some less 
 selfish impulse, made me feel that I could 
 never be quite happy even on the main- 
 mast top if I knew that I had behaved 
 ill to them. 
 
 I could not very well speak, but I turned 
 round and began to walk in the direction 
 of the dock-gates. Mr. Rowe behaved 
 uncommonly kindly. He said nothing 
 more, but turned as if I had given the 
 word of command, and walked respectfully 
 just behind me. I resolved not to look 
 back, and I did not. I, was quite deter- 
 mined too about one thing; Mr. Rowe 
 should never be able to say he had seen 
 me make a fool of myself after I had made 
 up my mind. But in reality I had very 
 hard work to keep from beginning to cry, 
 just when Fred was beginning to leave 
 off. 
 
 I screwed up my eyes and kept them 
 dry, however, but as we went through the 
 gate there came in a sailor with a little 
 bundle like ours, and a ship's name on his 
 hat. His hat sat as if a gale were just 
 taking it off, and his sea-blue shirt was 
 blown open by breezes that my back was 
 turned upon. In spite of all I could do 
 one tear got through my eyelashes and ran 
 down, and I caught it on my lips. 
 
 It was a very bitter tear, and as salt as 
 the salt, salt sea !
 
 54 
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A GLOW ON THE HORIZON A FANTASTIC 
 PEAL WHAT I SAW WHEN THE ROOF 
 FELL IN. 
 
 IT was the second day of our return voyage. 
 Mr. Rowe had been very kind, and 
 especially so to me. He had told us tales 
 of seafaring life, but they related exclusively 
 to the Royal Navy, and not unfrequently 
 bore with disparagement on the mercantile 
 marine. 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, are grades of rank 
 more strongly marked with professional 
 discipline and personal independence 
 better combined than in the army and 
 navy. But the gulf implied by Mr. Rowe 
 between the youngest midshipman and the 
 highest seaman who was not an officer 
 was, I think, in excess of the fact. As to 
 becoming cabin-boy to a trading vessel in 
 hopes of rising to be a captain, the barge- 
 master contrived to impress me with the 
 idea that I might as well take the situation 
 of boot and knife cleaner in the Royal 
 Kitchen, in hopes of its proving the first 
 step towards ascending the Throne. 
 
 We seemed to have seen and done so 
 much since we were on the canal before, 
 that I felt quite sentimental as we glided 
 into Linnet Flash. 
 
 "The old place looks just the same, 
 Barge-master," said I with a travelled 
 air. 
 
 " So it do, sir," said Mr. Rowe ; and he 
 added " There's no place like Home." 
 
 I hardly know how near we were to the 
 town, but I know that it was getting late, 
 that the dew was heavy on the towing- 
 path, and that among the dark pencilled 
 shadows of the sallows in the water the 
 full moon's reflection lay like a golden 
 
 shield ; when the driver, who was ahead, 
 stepped back and shouted " The bells 
 are ringing !" 
 
 When we got a little nearer we heard 
 them quite clearly, .and just when I was 
 observing a red glow diffuse itself in the 
 cold night sky above the willow hedge on 
 our left, Mr. Rowe said, " There must be 
 a queer kind of echo somewhere, I heard 
 sixteen bells." 
 
 And then I saw the driver, whose figure 
 stood out dark against the moonlit moor- 
 land on our right, point with his arm to 
 the fast crimsoning sky, and Mr. Rowe 
 left the rudder and came forward, and 
 Fred, who had had his head low down 
 listening, ran towards us from the bows and 
 cried : 
 
 " There are sixteen, and they're ringing 
 backwards ifs a fire /" 
 
 The driver mounted the horse, which 
 was put to the trot, and we hurried on. 
 The bells came nearer and nearer with 
 their fantastic clanging, and the sky grew 
 more lurid as they rang. Then there was 
 a bend in the canal, and we caught sight 
 of the two towers of S. Philip and S. 
 James, dark against the glow. 
 
 " The whole town is in flames !" cried 
 Fred. 
 
 " Not it," said the barge-master ; " it's 
 ten to one nothing but a rubbish-heap 
 burning, or the moors on fire beyond the 
 town." 
 
 Mr. Rqwe rather snubbed Fred, but 
 I think he was curious about the matter. 
 The driver urged his horse, and the good 
 barge Betsy swung along at a pace to 
 which she was little accustomed. 
 
 When we came by the cricket-field Mr. 
 Rowe himself said " It's in the middle of 
 the town." 
 
 Through the deafening noise of the 
 bells I contrived to shout in his ear a 
 request that I might be put ashore, as we 
 were now about on a level with my home.
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 55 
 
 Mr. Rowe ran a plank quickly out and 
 landed me, without time for adieux. 
 
 I hastened up to the town. The first 
 street I got into was empty, but it seemed 
 to vibrate to S. Philip's peal. And after 
 that I pushed my way through people, 
 hurrying as I was hurrying, and the nearer 
 I got to home the thicker grew the crowd 
 and the ruddier became the glow. And 
 now, in spite of the bells, I caught other 
 noises. The roar of irresistible fire, 
 which has a strange likeness to the roar of 
 irresistible water, the loud crackling of 
 the burning wood, and the moving and 
 talking of the crowd, which was so dense 
 that I could hardly get forward. 
 
 I contrived to squeeze myself along, 
 however, and as I turned into our street I 
 felt the warmth of the fire, and when I 
 looked at my old home it was a mass of 
 flames. 
 
 I tried to get people to make way for 
 me by saying " It's my house, please let 
 me through !" But nobody seemed to 
 hear me. And yet there was a pause, 
 which was only filled by that curious sound 
 when a crowd of people gasp or sigh ; and 
 if every man had been a rock it could not 
 have been more impossible to move back- 
 wards or forwards. It was dark, except 
 for the moonlight, where I stood, but in a 
 moment or two the flames burst from the 
 bedroom windows, and the red light spread 
 farther, and began to light up faces near 
 me. I was just about to appeal to a man 
 I knew, when a roar began which I knew 
 was not that of the fire. It was the roar 
 of human voices. And when it swelled 
 louder, and was caught up as it came 
 along, and then broke into deafening 
 cheers, I was so wild with excitement and 
 anxiety that I began to kick the legs of 
 the man in front of me to make him let 
 me go to the home that was burning 
 beiore my eyes. 
 
 What he would have done in return, I 
 
 don't know, but at this moment the crowd 
 broke up, and we were pushed, and 
 pressed, and jostled about, and people 
 kept calling to " Make way !" and after 
 tumbling down, and being picked up 
 twice, I found myself in the front row of a 
 kind of lane that had been made through 
 the crowd, down which several men were 
 coming, carrying on their shoulders an 
 arm-chair with people in it. 
 
 As they passed me there was a crash, 
 which seemed to shake the street. The 
 roof of our house had fallen in ! 
 
 As it fell the flames burst upon every side 
 and in the sudden glare the street became 
 as bright as day, and every little thing 
 about one seemed to spring into sight. 
 Half the crowd was known to me in a 
 moment. 
 
 Then I looked at the chair which was 
 being carried along ; and by a large chip 
 on one of the legs I knew it was my 
 father's old arm-chair. 
 
 And in the chair I saw Rupert in his 
 shirt and trousers, and Henrietta in a 
 petticoat and an out-door jacket, with so 
 white a face that even the firelight seemed 
 to give it no colour, and on her lap was 
 Baby Cecil in his night-gown, with black 
 smut marks on his nose and chin. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 HENRIETTA'S DIARY A GREAT EMER- 
 GENCY. 
 
 RUPERT never was a fellow who could 
 give descriptions of things, and Henrietta 
 was ill for some time after the fire, and 
 Mr. Bustard said she wasn't to talk about 
 it. 
 
 But she knew I wanted to know, so one 
 day when she was downstairs with me in
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 the " Miniature Room " (it was at the 
 Castle) she gave me a manuscript book, 
 and said, "It's my diary, Charlie, so I 
 know you won't look. But I've put in two 
 marks for the beginning and end of the 
 bit about the fire. I wrote it that evening, 
 you know, before Mr. Bustard came, and 
 my head got so bad." 
 
 Of course I made her show me exactly 
 where to begin and leave off, and then I 
 read it. This was it. 
 
 " It had been a very hot day, and I had 
 got rather a headache and gone to bed. The 
 pain kept me awake a good bit, and when I 
 did get to sleep I think I slept rather lightly. 
 I was partly awakened by noises which 
 seemed to have been going in my head all 
 night till I could bear tJiem no longer, so I 
 woke up, and found that people were shout- 
 ing outside, and that there was a dreadful 
 smell of burning. I had got on my flannel 
 petticoat when Rupert called me and said, 
 ' Henny dear, the house is on fire I Just 
 put something round you, and come quickly? 
 
 "Just outside the door we met Cook; 
 sJie said, ' The Lord be thanked I it's you, 
 Hiss Henrietta. Come along !' 
 
 " Rupert said, ' Where's Mother, CookT 
 
 " ' Missus was took with dreadful faint- 
 ing fits,' she replied, ' and they've got her 
 over to the Crown. We're all to go there, 
 and everything that can be saved? 
 
 " ' Where's Baby] said I, ' and Jane T 
 
 " ' With your Ma, miss, I expect,' Cook 
 said ; and as we came out sJie asked some 
 one, who said, ' / saw Jane at the door of 
 the Crown just now.' I had been half 
 asleep till then, but when we got into the 
 street and saw the smoke coming out of the 
 dining-room window, Rupert and I wanted 
 to stay and try to save something, but one 
 of the men who was there said, ' You and 
 your brother's not strong enough to be of no 
 great use, miss ; you're only in the way of 
 the engine. Everybody's doing their best to 
 save your things, and if you'll go to the 
 
 Crown to your mamma, you'll do the best 
 that could be.' 
 
 " The people who were saving our things 
 saved them all alike. They threw them out 
 of the window, and as I had seen the big 
 blue china jar smashed to shivers, I felt a 
 longing to go and show them what to do ; 
 but Rupert said, ' The fellow's quite right, 
 Henny,' and he seized me by the hand and 
 dragged me off to the Crown. Jane was in 
 the hall, looking quite ivild, and she said to- 
 us, ' Where's Master Cecil T I didn't stop 
 to ask her how it was that she didn't know. 
 I ran out again, and Rupert came after me. 
 I suppose we both looked up at the nursery 
 window when we came near, and there was 
 Baby Cecil standing and screaming for help. 
 Before we got to the door other people had 
 seen him, and two or three men pushed into 
 the house. They came out gasping and 
 pitffing without Cecil, and I heard one man 
 say, ' It 's too far gone. It wouldn't bear a 
 child's weight, and if you got up you'd never 
 come down again.' 
 
 "' God help the poor child I' said the 
 other man, who was the chemist, and had a 
 large family, I know. I looked round and 
 saw by Ruperfs face that he had heard. It 
 was like a stone. I don't know how it was, 
 but it seemed to come into my head : ' If Baby 
 Cecil is burnt it will kill Rupert too.' And 
 I began to think ; and I thought of the 
 back stairs. There was a pocket-handkerchief 
 in my jacket pocket, and I soaked it in the 
 water on the ground. The town burgesses 
 wouldn't buy a new hose when we got the new 
 steam fire-engine, and when they used the old 
 one it burst in five places, so that every thing- 
 was swimming, for the water was laid on 
 from the canal. I think my idea must have 
 been written on my face, for though I didnt 
 speak, Rupert seemed to guess at once, and 
 he ran after me, crying, ' Let me go, Henri- 
 etta !' but I pretended not to hear. 
 
 " When we got to the back of the house 
 the fire was not nearly so bad, and we got
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 57 
 
 in. But though it wasn't exactly on fire 
 w}iere we were, the smoke came rolling down 
 the passage from the front of the house, and 
 by the time we got to the back stairs we 
 could not see or breathe, in spite of wet 
 cloths over our faces, and our eyes smarted 
 with the smoke. ' Go down on all fours, 
 Henny] said Rupert. So I did. It was 
 wonderful. When I got down with my 
 face close to the ground there was a bit of 
 quite fresh air, and above this the smoke 
 rolled like a cloud. I could see the castors 
 of the legs of a table in the hall, but no 
 higher up. In this way we saw the foot of 
 the back stairs, and climbed up them on our 
 hands and knees. But in spite of the bit of 
 fresh air near the ground the smoke cer- 
 tainly grew thicker, and it got hotter and 
 hotter, and we could hear the roaring of the 
 tfames coming nearer, and the clanging of 
 the bells outside, and I never knew what it 
 was to feel thirst before then t IVhen we 
 were up the first flight, and the smoke was 
 suffocating, I heard Rupert say, ' Oh, 
 Henny, you good girl, shall we ever get 
 doivn again /' / couldn't speak, my throat 
 was so sore, but I remember thinking, ' Ifs 
 like going up through the clouds into 
 Jiecften ; and we shall find Baby Cecil 
 t/iere' Biit after that it got rather clearer, 
 because the fire was in the lower part of the 
 house then, and when we got to the top we 
 stood up, and found our way to the nursery 
 by hearing Baby Cecil scream. 
 
 " The great difficulty was to get him 
 doii'n, for we couldn't carry him and keep 
 close to the ground. So I said, ' You go 
 first on your hands and knees backwards, 
 and tell him to do as you do, and I'll come 
 last, so that he may see me doing the same 
 and imitate me? Baby was very good about 
 it, and when the heat worried him and he 
 stopped, Rupert said, ' Come on, Baby, or 
 Henny will run over you ,' and he scrambled 
 down as good as gold. 
 
 " And w/ien we got to the door the people 
 
 began to shout and to cheer, and I thought ih^y 
 would have torn Baby to bits. It made me very 
 giddy, and so did the clangingof those dreadful 
 bells ; and then I noticed that Rupert was 
 limping, and I said, ' Oh, Rupert, have you 
 hurt your knee T and he said, ' Ifs nothing, 
 come to the Crown.' But there were two of 
 the young men from Jones's shop there, and 
 they said, ' Don't you walk and hurt your 
 knee, sir ; we'll take you' And they pushed 
 up my father's arm-chair, which had been 
 saved and was outside, and Rupert sat 
 drnvn, I believe, because he could not stand. 
 Then they said, ' There's room for you, 
 miss,' and Rupert told me to come, and I 
 took Baby on my lap ; but I felt so ill I 
 thought I should certainly fall out when they 
 lifted us up. 
 
 " The way the people cJieered made me 
 very giddy ; I think I shall always feel sick 
 when I hear hurrahing now. 
 
 " Riipert is very good if you re ill. He 
 looked at me and said, ' You're the bravest 
 girl I ever knew, but don't faint if you can 
 help it, or Baby will fall out.' 
 
 " I 'didn't ; and I wouldn't have fainted 
 when we got to the Crown if I could have 
 stopped myself by anything I could do." 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 MR. ROWE ON THE SUBJECT OUR COUSIN 
 
 WESTON GETS INTO PRINT THE 
 
 HARBOUR'S MOUTH WHAT LIES BE- 
 YOND. 
 
 MR. ROWE'S anxiety to see Rupert and 
 Henrietta, and to "take the liberty of 
 expressing himself" about their having 
 saved Baby Cecil's life was very great, but 
 the interview did not take place for some 
 time. The barge Betsy took two voyages 
 to Nine Elms and home again before
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 Henrietta was downstairs and allowed to 
 talk about the fire. 
 
 Rupert refused to see the barge-master 
 when he called to ask after Henrietta ; 
 he was vexed because people made a fuss 
 about the affair, and when Rupert was 
 vexed he was not gracious. When Hen- 
 rietta got better, however, she said, " We 
 ought to see old Rowe and thank him for 
 his kindness to Charlie;" so the next time 
 he called, we all went into the house- 
 keeper's room to see him. 
 
 He was very much pleased and excited, 
 which always seemed to make him inclined 
 to preach. He set forth the noble motives 
 which must have moved Rupert and Hen- 
 rietta to their heroic conduct in the emer- 
 gency, so that I felt more proud of them 
 than ever. But Rupert frowned, and said, 
 "Nonsense, Rowe, I'm sure I never 
 thought anything of the kind. I don't 
 believe we either of us thought anything 
 at all." 
 
 But Mr. Rowe had not served seventeen 
 years in the Royal Navy to be put down 
 when he expounded a point of valour. 
 
 "That's where it is, Master Rupert," 
 said he. " It wouldn't have been you or 
 Miss Henrietta either if you had. 'A man 
 overboard,' says you that's enough for 
 one of your family, sir. They never stops 
 to think ' Can I swim ?' but in you goes, 
 up the stairs that wouldn't hold the weight 
 of a new-born babby, and right through 
 the raging flames." 
 
 " Oh, dear !" cried Henrietta, " that's 
 just what Cook and all kinds of people 
 will say. But it was the front stairs 
 that were on fire. We only went up the 
 back stairs, and they weren't burning 
 at all." 
 
 The barge-master smiled in reply. But 
 it was with the affability of superior know- 
 ledge, and I feel quite sure that he always 
 told the story (and believed it) according 
 to this impossible version. 
 
 It was on the third day after the fire 
 that our cousin called at the Crmvn. He 
 had never been to see us before, and, as 
 I have said, we had never been to the 
 Castle. But the next day he sent a close 
 carriage for Henrietta and my mother, and 
 a dog-cart for Rupert and me, and brought 
 us up to the Castle. We were there for 
 three months. 
 
 It was through him that Rupert went to 
 those baths abroad, which cured his knee 
 completely. And then, because my mother 
 could not afford to do it, he sent him to a 
 grander public school than Dr. Jessop's 
 old grammar school, and Mr. Johnson 
 sent Thomas Johnson there too, for Tom 
 could not bear to be parted from Rupert, 
 and his father never refused him any- 
 thing. 
 
 But what I think was so very kind of 
 our cousin was his helping me. Rupert 
 and Henrietta had been a credit to the 
 family, but I deserved nothing. I had 
 only run away in the mean hope of out- 
 shining them, and had made a fool of my- 
 self, whilst they had been really great in 
 doing their duty at home. However, he 
 did back me up with mother about going 
 to sea, and got me on board the training- 
 ship Albion ; and my highest hope is to 
 have the chance of bringing my share of 
 renown to my father's name, that his 
 cousin may never regret having helped me 
 to my heart's desire. 
 
 Fred Johnson and I are very good 
 friends, but since our barge voyage we 
 have never been quite so intimate. I 
 think the strongest tie between us was his 
 splendid stories of the captain, and I do 
 not believe in them now. 
 
 Oddly enough, my chief friend of the 
 whole lot is Weston. Rupert always said 
 I had a vulgar taste in the choice of 
 friends, so it seems curious that of our old 
 schoolmates Johnson should be his friend 
 and Weston mine. For Johnson's father
 
 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 59 
 
 is only a canal-carrier, and Western is a 
 fellow of good family. 
 
 He is so very clever ! And I have such 
 a habit of turning my pockets inside out 
 for everybody to see, that I admire his 
 reticence; and then, though he is so 
 ironical with himself, as well as other 
 people, he has very fine ideas and am- 
 bitions and very noble and upright prin- 
 ciples when you know him well. 
 
 " It's an ill wind that blows nobody 
 good," and the fire that burned down 
 our house got Weston into print at 
 last. 
 
 It was not a common letter either, in 
 the " correspondence " part, with small 
 type, and the editor not responsible. It 
 was a leading article, printed big, and it 
 was about the fire and Rupert and Hen- 
 rietta. Thomas Johnson read it to us, 
 and we did not know who wrote it ; but 
 it was true, and in good taste. After 
 the account of the fire came a quotation 
 from Horace : 
 
 " Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis." 
 
 And Johnson cried " That's Weston, 
 depend upon it. He's in the Weekly 
 Spectator at last !" 
 
 And then, to my utter amazement, 
 came such a chronicle of the valiant 
 deeds of Rupert's ancestors as Weston 
 could only have got from one source. 
 What had furnished his ready pen with 
 matter for a comic ballad to punish my 
 bragging had filled it also to do honour 
 to Rupert and Henrietta's real bravery, 
 and down to what the colonel of my 
 father's regiment had said of him it was 
 all there. 
 
 Weston came to see me the other day 
 at Dartmouth, where our training-ship 
 Albion lies, and he was so charmed by the 
 old town with its carved and gabled 
 houses, and its luxuriant gardens rich with 
 pale-blossomed laurels, which no frost 
 
 dwarfs, and crimson fuchsias gnarled with 
 age, and its hill-embosomed harbour, 
 where the people of all grades and ages, 
 and of both sexes, flit hither and thithei 
 in their boats as landlubbers would take 
 an evening stroll that I felt somewhat 
 justified in the romantic love I have foi 
 the place. 
 
 And when we lay in one of the Albion's 
 boats, rocking up and down in that sooth- 
 ing swell which freshens the harbour's 
 mouth, Weston made me tell him all about 
 the lion and the silver chain, and he called 
 me a prig for saying so often that I did not 
 believe in it now. I remember he said, 
 " In this sleepy, damp, delightful Dart- 
 mouth, who but a prig could deny the 
 truth of a poetical dream?" 
 
 He declared he could see the lion in a 
 cave in the rock, and that the poor beast 
 wanted a new sea-green ribbon. 
 
 Weston speaks so much more cleverly 
 than I can, that I could not explain to 
 him then that I am still but too apt to 
 dream ! But the harbour's mouth is now 
 only the beginning of my visions, which 
 stretch far over the sea beyond, and over 
 the darker line of that horizon where the 
 ships come and go. 
 
 I hope it is not wrong to dream. My 
 father was so modest as well as ambitious, 
 so good as well as so gallant, that I would 
 rather die than disgrace him by empty con- 
 ceit and unprofitable hopes. 
 
 Weston is a very religious fellow, though 
 he does not " cant " at all. When I was 
 going away to Dartmouth, and he saw me 
 off (for we were great friends), one of the 
 last things he said to me was, " I say, 
 don't leave off saying your prayers, you 
 know." 
 
 I haven't, and I told him so this last 
 time. I often pray that if ever I am great 
 I may be good too ; and sometimes I pray 
 that if I try hard to be good God will let 
 me be great as well.
 
 60 A GREAT EMERGENCY. 
 
 The most wonderful thing was old often think how odd it is that in my vain, 
 
 Rowe's taking a cheap ticket and coming jealous wild-goose chase after adventures 
 
 down to see me last summer. I never can I missed the chance of distinguishing my- 
 
 regret my voyage with him in the Betsy, self in the only Great Emergency which 
 
 for I did thoroughly enjoy it, though I has yet occurred in our family.
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY.
 
 1 Finding, following, keeping, struggling, 
 Is HE sure to bless?" 
 
 Hymn of the Eastern Church.
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 A FAMILY FAILING. 
 
 WE are a very ill-tempered family. 
 
 I want to say it, and not to unsay it by 
 any explanations, because I think it is 
 good for us to face the fact in the un- 
 adorned form in which it probably presents 
 itself to the minds of our friends. 
 
 Amongst ourselves we have always ad- 
 mitted it by pieces, as it were, or in 
 negative propositions. We allow that we 
 are firm of disposition ; we know that we 
 are straightforward ; we show what we feel. 
 We have opinions and principles of our 
 own ; we are not so thick-skinned as 
 some good people, nor as cold-blooded 
 as others. 
 
 When two of us quarrelled (and Nurse 
 used to say that no two of us ever agreed), 
 the provocation always seemed, to each of 
 us, great enough amply to excuse the 
 passion. But I have reason to think 
 that people seldom exclaimed, "What 
 grievances those poor children are exas- 
 perated with !" but that they often said, 
 " What terrible tempers they all have !" 
 
 There are five of us : Philip and I are 
 the eldest ; we are twins. My name is 
 Isobel, and I never allow it to be shortened 
 into the ugly word Bella, nor into the still 
 more hideous word Izzy, by either the 
 servants or the children. My aunt Isobel 
 never would, and neither will I. 
 
 "The children" are the other three. 
 They are a good deal younger than Philip 
 and I, so we have always kept them in 
 order. I do not mean that we taught 
 them to behave wonderfully well, but I 
 mean that we made them give way to 
 us elder ones. Among themselves they 
 squabbled dreadfully. 
 
 We are a very ill-tempered family. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ILL-TEMPERED PEOPLE AND THEIR FRIENDS 
 NARROW ESCAPES THE HATCHET- 
 QUARREL. 
 
 I DO not wish for a moment to defend ill- 
 temper, but I do think that people who 
 suffer from ill-tempered people often talk 
 as if they were the only ones who do suffer 
 in the matter ; and as if the ill-tempered 
 people themselves quite enjoyed being in 
 a rage. 
 
 And yet how much miseiy is endured 
 by those who have never got the victory 
 over their own ill-temper ! To feel wretched 
 and exasperated by little annoyances which 
 good-humoured people get over with a 
 shrug or a smile ; to have things rankle in 
 my mind like a splinter in the flesh, which 
 glide lightly off yours, and leave no mark ; 
 to be unable to bear a joke, knowing that
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 one is douply laughed at because one 
 can't ; to have this deadly sore at heart 
 " I cannot forgive ; I cannot forget," there 
 is no pleasure in these things. The tears 
 of sorrow are not more bitter than the 
 tears of anger, of hurt pride or thwarted 
 will.. As to the fit of passion in which 
 one is giddy, blind, and deaf, if there is a 
 relief to the overcharged mind in saying 
 the sharpest things and hitting the heaviest 
 blows one can at the moment, the pleasant- 
 ness is less than momentary, for almost as 
 we strike we foresee the pains of regret 
 and of humbling ourselves to beg pardon 
 which must ensue. Our friends do not 
 always pity as well as blame us, though 
 they are sorry for those who were pos- 
 sessed by devils long ago. 
 
 Good-tempered people, too, who I fancy 
 would find it quite easy not to be pro- 
 voking, and to be a little patient and for- 
 bearing, really seem sometimes to irritate 
 hot-tempered ones on purpose, as if they 
 thought it was good for them to get used 
 to it. 
 
 I do not mean that I think ill-tempered 
 people should be constantly yielded to, as 
 Nurse says Mrs. Rampant and the servants 
 have given way to Mr. Rampant till he 
 has got to be quite as unreasonable and 
 nearly as dangerous as most maniacs, and 
 his friends never cross him, for the same 
 reason that they would not stir up a mad 
 bull. 
 
 Perhaps I do not quite know how I 
 would have our friends treat us who are 
 cursed with bad tempers. I think to 
 avoid unnecessary provocation, and to be 
 patient with us in the height of our passion, 
 is wise as well as kind. But no principle 
 should be conceded to us, and rights that 
 we have unjustly attacked should be faith- 
 fully defended when we are calm enough 
 to listen. I fancy that where gentle Mrs. 
 Rampant is wrong is that she allows Mr. 
 Rampant to think that what really are 
 
 concessions to his weakness are conces- 
 sions to his wisdom. And what is not 
 founded on truth cannot do lasting good. 
 And if, years ago, before he became a 
 sort of gunpowder cask at large, he had 
 been asked if he wished Mrs. Rampart to 
 persuade herself, and Mrs. Rampant, the 
 little Rampants, and the servants to 
 combine to persuade him, that he was 
 right when he was wrong, and wise when 
 he was foolish, and reasonable when he 
 was unjust, I think he would have said 
 No. I do not believe one could deliber- 
 ately desire to be befooled by one's family 
 for all the best years of one's life. And 
 yet how many people are ! 
 
 I do not think I am ever likely to be so 
 loved and feared by those I live with as 
 to have my ill-humours made into laws. 
 I hope not. But I am sometimes thankful, 
 on the other hand, that GOD is more for- 
 bearing with us than we commonly are 
 with each other, and does not lead us into 
 temptation when we are at our worst and 
 weakest. 
 
 Anyone who has a bad temper must 
 sometimes look back at the years before 
 he learned self-control, and feel thankful 
 that he is not a murderer, or burdened for 
 life by the weight on his conscience of 
 some calamity of which he was the cause. 
 If the knife which furious Fred threw at 
 his sister before he was out of petticoats 
 had hit the child's eye instead of her fore- 
 head, could he ever have looked into the 
 blinded face without a pang ? If the blow 
 with which impatient Annie flattered her- 
 self she was correcting her younger brother 
 had thrown the naughty little lad out of 
 the boat instead of into the sailor's arms, 
 and he had been drowned at ten years 
 old a murderess, how could she endure 
 for life the weight of her unavailing re- 
 morse ? 
 
 I very nearly killed Philip once. It 
 makes me shudder to think of it, and I
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 often wonder I ever could lose my temper 
 again. 
 
 We were eight years old, and out in the 
 garden together. We had settled to build 
 a moss-house for my dolls, and had bor- 
 rowed the hatchet out of the wood-house, 
 without leave, to chop the stakes with. It 
 was entirely my idea, and I had collected 
 all the moss and most of the sticks. It 
 was I, too, who had taken the hatchet. 
 Philip had been very tiresome about not 
 helping me in the hard part ; but when I 
 had driven in the sticks by leaning on 
 them with all my weight, and had put in 
 bits of brushwood where the moss fell out 
 and Philip laughed at me, and, in short, 
 when the moss-house was beginning to 
 look quite real, Philip was very anxious to 
 work at it, and wanted the hatchet. 
 
 " You wouldn't help me over the hard 
 work," said I, " so I shan't give it you 
 now ; I'll make my moss-house myself." 
 
 " No, you won't," said Philip. 
 
 " Yes, I shall," said I. 
 
 " No, you won't," he reiterated ; " for I 
 shall pull it down as fast as you build it." 
 
 " You'd better not," I threatened. 
 
 Just then we were called in to dinner. 
 I hid the hatchet, and Philip said no 
 more ; but he got out before me, and 
 when I returned to work I found that the 
 moss-house walls, which had cost me so 
 much labour, were pulled to pieces and 
 scattered about the shrubbery. Philip was 
 not to be seen. 
 
 My heart had been so set upon my 
 project that at first I could only feel the 
 overwhelming disappointment. I was not 
 a child who often cried, but I burst into 
 tears. 
 
 I was sobbing my hardest when Philip 
 sprang upon me in triumph, and laughing 
 at my distress. 
 
 " I kept my promise," said he, tossing 
 his head, " and I'll go on doing it." 
 
 I am sure those shocks of fury which 
 
 seize one like a fit must be a devil pos- 
 sessing one. In an instant my eyes were 
 as dry as the desert in a hot wind, and my 
 head reeling with passion. I ran to the 
 hatchet, and came back brandishing it. 
 
 " If you touch one stake or bit of moss 
 of mine again," said I, " I'll throw my 
 hatchet at your head. I can keep promises 
 too." 
 
 My intention was only to frighten him. 
 I relied on his not daring to brave such a 
 threat ; unhappily he relied on my not 
 daring to carry it out. He took up some 
 of my moss and threw it at me by way of 
 reply. 
 
 I flung the hatchet ! 
 
 My Aunt Isobel has a splendid figure, 
 with such grace and power as one might 
 expect from her strong health and ready 
 mind. I had not seen her at the moment, 
 for I was blind with passion, nor had 
 Philip, for his back was turned towards 
 her. I did not see distinctly how she 
 watched, as one watches for a ball, and 
 caught the hatchet within a yard of Philip's 
 head. 
 
 My Aunt Isobel has a temper much 
 like the temper of the rest of the family. 
 When she had caught it in her left hand 
 she turned round and boxed my ears with 
 her right hand till I could see less than 
 ever. (I believe she suffered for that out- 
 burst for months afterwards. She was 
 afraid she had damaged my hearing, as 
 that sense is too often damaged or de- 
 stroyed by the blows of ill-tempered parents, 
 teachers, and nurses.) 
 
 Then she turned back and shook Philip 
 as vigorously as she had boxed me. " I 
 saw you, you spiteful, malicious boy !" said 
 my Aunt Isobel. 
 
 All the time she was shaking him, Philip 
 was looking at her feet. Something that 
 he saw absorbed his attention so fully that 
 he forgot to cry. 
 
 "You're bleeding, Aunt Isobel," said
 
 65 
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 he, when she gave him breath enough to 
 speak. 
 
 The truth was this : the nervous force 
 which Aunt Isobel had summoned up to 
 catch the hatchet seemed to cease when 
 it was caught ; her arm fell powerless, and 
 the hatchet cut her ankle. That left arm 
 was useless for many months afterwards, 
 to my abiding reproach. 
 
 Philip was not hurt, but he might have 
 been killed. Everybody told me so often 
 that it was a warning to me to correct my 
 terrible temper, that I might have revolted 
 against the reiteration if the facts had been 
 less grave. But I never can feel lightly 
 about that hatchet-quarrel. It opened a 
 gulf of possible wickedness and life-long 
 misery, over the brink of which my temper 
 would have dragged me, but for Aunt 
 Isobel's strong arm and keen eye, and 
 over which it might succeed in dragging 
 me any day, unless I could cure myself of 
 my besetting sin. 
 
 I never denied it. It was a warning. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WARNINGS MY AUNT ISOBEL MR. RAM- 
 PANT'S TEMPER, AND HIS CONSCIENCE. 
 
 I WAS not the only scarecrow held up 
 before my own mind. 
 
 Nurse had a gallery of historical cha- 
 racters, whom she kept as beacons to warn 
 our stormy passions of their fate. The 
 hot-tempered boy who killed his brother 
 when they were at school; the hot-tempered 
 farmer who took his gun to frighten a 
 trespasser, and ended by shooting him ; 
 the young lady who destroyed the price- 
 less porcelain in a pet ; the hasty young 
 gentleman who kicked his favourite dog 
 
 and broke its ribs ; they were all warn- 
 ings : so was old Mr. Rampant, so was 
 my Aunt Isobel. 
 
 Aunt Isobel's story was a whispered 
 tradition of the nursery for many years 
 before she and I were so intimate, in 
 consequence of her goodness and kind- 
 ness to me, that one day I was bold 
 enough to say to her, " Aunt Isobel, is it 
 true that the reason why you never married 
 is because you and he quarrelled, and you 
 were very angry, and he went away, and 
 he was drowned at sea ?" 
 
 Child as I was, I do not think I should 
 have been so indelicate as to have asked 
 this question if I had not come to fancy 
 that Nurse made out the story worse than 
 it really was, for my behoof. Aunt Isobel 
 was so cheerful and bright with us ! and 
 I was not at that time able to believe that 
 anyone could mend a broken heart with 
 other people's interests so that the marks 
 should show so little ! 
 
 My aunt had a very clear skin, but in 
 an instant her face was thick with a heavy 
 blush, and she was silent. I marvelled 
 that these were the only signs of dis- 
 pleasure she allowed herself to betray, for 
 the question was no sooner out of my 
 mouth than I wished it unsaid, and felt 
 how furious she must naturally feel to hear 
 that her sad and sacred story was bandied 
 between servants and children as a nursery- 
 tale with a moral to it. 
 
 But oh, Aunt Isobel ! Aunt Isobel ! you 
 had at this time progressed far along that 
 hard but glorious road of self-conquest 
 which I had hardly found my way to. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," I began, before 
 she spoke. 
 
 "You ought to," said my aunt she 
 never spoke less than decisively "I 
 thought you had more tact, Isobel, than 
 to tell anyone what servants have said of 
 one's sins or sorrows behind one's back." 
 
 " I am very sorry," I repeated with
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 shame ; " but the thing is, I didn't believe 
 it was true, you always seem so happy. I 
 am very sorry." 
 
 " It is true," said Aunt Isobel. " Child, 
 whilst we are speaking of it for the first 
 and the last time let it be a warning for 
 you to illustrate a very homely proverb : 
 ' Don't cut off your nose to spite your 
 own face.' Ill-tempered people are always 
 doing it, and I did it to my life-long loss. 
 I was angry with him, and like Jonah I 
 said to myself, ' I do well to be angry.' 
 And though I would die twenty deaths 
 harder than the death he died to see his 
 face for five minutes and be forgiven, I 
 am not weak enough to warp my judgment 
 with my misery. I was in the right, and 
 he was in the wrong. But I forgot how 
 much harder a position it is to be in the 
 wrong than in the right in a quarrel. I 
 did not think of how, instead of making 
 the return path difficult to those who err, 
 we ought to make it easy, as GOD does for 
 us. I gave him no chance of unsaying 
 with grace or credit what he could not fail 
 to regret that he had said. Isobel, you 
 have a clear head and a sharp tongue, as 
 I have. You will understand when I say 
 that I had the satisfaction of proving that 
 I was in the right and he was in the 
 wrong, and that I was firmly, conscien- 
 tiously determined to make no concessions, 
 no half-way advances, though our Father 
 goes to meet His prodigals. Merciful 
 Heaven ! I had the satisfaction of parting 
 myself for all these slow years from the 
 most honest the tenderest-hearted " 
 
 My Aunt Isobel had overrated her 
 strength. After a short and vain struggle 
 in silence she got up and went slowly out 
 of the room, resting her hand for an 
 instant on my little knick-knack table by the 
 door as she went out the only time I 
 ever saw her lean upon anything. 
 
 * * * * * 
 
 Old Mr. Rampant was another, of my 
 
 " warnings." He to v/hose face no one 
 dared hint that he could ever be in the 
 wrong would have been more astonished 
 than Aunt Isobel to learn how plainly 
 nay, how contemptuously the servants 
 spoke behind his back of his unbridled 
 temper and its results. They knew that 
 the only son was somewhere on the other 
 side of the world, and that little Mrs. 
 Rampant wept tears for him and sent 
 money to him in secret, and they had no 
 difficulty in deciding why : " He'd got his 
 father's temper, and it stood to reason that 
 he and the old gentleman couldn't put 
 up their horses together." The moral was 
 not obscure. From no lack of affection, 
 but for want of self-control, the son was 
 condemned to homelessness and hardships 
 in his youth, and the father was sonless in 
 his old age. 
 
 But that was not the point of Nurse's 
 tales about Mr. Rampant which impressed 
 me most, not even the endless anecdotes 
 of his unreasonable passions which leaked 
 out at his back-door and came up our 
 back-stairs to the nursery. They rather 
 amused us. That assault on the butcher's 
 boy, who brought ribs of beef instead of 
 sirloin, for which he was summoned and 
 fined ; his throwing the dinner out of the 
 window, and going to dine at the village 
 inn by which the dogs ate the dinner 
 and he had to pay for two dinners, and to 
 buy new plates and dishes. 
 
 We laughed at these things, but in my 
 serious moments, especially on the first 
 Sunday of the month, I was haunted by 
 something else which Nurse had told me 
 about old Mr. Rampant. 
 
 In our small parish a dull village on 
 the edge of a marsh the Holy Communion 
 was only celebrated once a month. It 
 was not because he was irreligious that old 
 Mr. Rampant was one of the too numerous 
 non-communicants. " It's his temper, 
 poor gentleman," said Nurse. " He 
 52
 
 63 
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 can't answer for himself, and he has that 
 religious feeling he wouldn't like to come 
 unless he was fit. The housekeeper 
 overheard Mrs. Rampant a-begging of him 
 last Christmas. It was no listening either, 
 for he bellowed at her like a bull, and 
 swore dreadful that whatever else he was 
 he wouldn't be profane." 
 
 " Couldn't he keep his temper for a 
 week, don't you think ?" said I sadly, 
 thinking of my mother's old copy of the 
 "Week's Preparation" for the Lord's 
 Supper. 
 
 " It would be as bad if he got into one 
 of his tantrums directly afterwards," said 
 Nurse; "and with people pestering for 
 Christmas-boxes, and the pudding and 
 turkey, and so many things that might go 
 wrong, it would be as likely as not he 
 would. It's a sad thing too," she added, 
 " for his neck's terribly short, and they say 
 all his family have gone suddenly with the 
 apoplexy. It's an awful thing, Miss Isobel, 
 to be taken sudden and unprepared." 
 
 The awe of it came back on me every 
 month when the fair white linen covered 
 the rustiness of the old velvet altar-cloth 
 which the marsh damps were rotting, and 
 the silver vessels shone, and the village 
 organist played out the non-communicants 
 with a somewhat inappropriate triumphal 
 march, and little Mrs. Rampant knelt on 
 with buried face as we went out, and Mr. 
 Rampant came out with us, looking more 
 glum than usual, and with such a short 
 neck ! 
 
 Now I think poor Mr. Rampant was 
 wrong, and that he ought to have gone 
 with Mrs. Rampant to the Lord's Supper 
 that Christmas. He might have found 
 grace to have got through all the little ups 
 and downs and domestic disturbances of a 
 holiday season without being very fero- 
 cious ; and if he had tried and failed 
 I think GOD would have forgiven him. 
 
 And he might it is possible that he 
 might during that calm and solemn 
 Communion, have forgiven his son as he 
 felt that Our Father forgave him. So 
 Aunt Isobel says ; and I have good 
 reason to think that she is likely to be 
 right. 
 
 I think so too now, but then I was 
 simply impressed by the thought that an 
 ill-tempered person was, as Nurse expressed 
 it, " unfit " to join in the highest religious 
 worship. It is true that I was also im- 
 pressed by her other saying, " It's an 
 awful thing, Miss Isobel, to be taken 
 sudden and unprepared ;" but there was a 
 temporary compromise in my own case. 
 I could not be a communicant till I was 
 confirmed. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 CASES OF CONSCIENCE ETHICS OF ILL- 
 TEMPER. 
 
 CONFIRMATIONS were not very frequent in 
 our little village at this time. About once 
 in three years the Bishop came to us. He 
 came when I was twelve years old. 
 Opinions were divided as to whether I 
 was old enough, but I decided the matter 
 by saying I would rather wait till the next 
 opportunity. 
 
 " I may be more fit by that time," was 
 my thought, and it was probably not un- 
 like some of Mr. Rampant's self-com- 
 munings. 
 
 The time came, and the Bishop also; 
 I was fifteen. 
 
 I do not know why, but nobody had 
 proposed that Philip should be confirmed 
 at twelve years old. Fifteen was thought 
 to be quite early enough for him, and so it 
 came about that vre were confirmed to- 
 gether.
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 I am very thankful that, as it happened, I 
 had Aunt Isobel to talk to. 
 
 " You're relieved from one perplexity at 
 any rate," said she, when I had been speak- 
 ing of that family failing which was also 
 mine. " You know your weak point. I 
 remember a long talk I had, years ago, 
 with Mrs. Rampant, whom I used to know 
 very well when we were young. She said 
 one of her great difficulties was not being 
 able to find out her besetting sin. She 
 said it always made her so miserable when 
 clergymen preached on that subject, and 
 said that every enlightened Christian must 
 have discovered one master passion 
 amongst the others in his soul. She had 
 tried so hard, and could only find a lot, 
 none much bigger or much less than the 
 others. Some vanity, some selfishness, 
 some distrust and weariness, some peevish- 
 ness, some indolence, and a lapful of omis- 
 sions. Since she married," continued my 
 aunt, slowly pulling her thick black eye- 
 lashes, after a fashion she had, " I believe 
 she has found the long-lost failing. It 
 is impatience with Mr. Rampant, she 
 thinks." 
 
 I could not help laughing. 
 
 " However, Isobel, we may be sure of 
 this, people of soft, gentle temperaments 
 have their own difficulties with their own 
 souls which we escape. Perhaps in the 
 absence of such marked vices as bring one 
 to open shame one might be slower to 
 undertake vigorous self-improvement. You 
 and I have no difficulty in seeing the sin 
 lying at our door." 
 
 " N no," said I. 
 
 "Well, have your said Aunt Isobel, 
 facing round. " Bless me," she added 
 impetuously, " don't say you haven't if you 
 have. Never let anyone else think for 
 you, child !" 
 
 " If you'll only have patience and let me 
 explain " 
 
 " I'm patience its very self !" interrupted 
 
 my aunt, " but I do hate a No that means 
 Yes." 
 
 My patience began to evaporate. 
 
 " There are some things, Aunt Isobel, 
 you know, which can't be exactly squeezed 
 into No and Yes. But if you don't want 
 to be bothered I won't say anything, or I'll 
 say yes or no, whichever you like." 
 
 And I kicked the shovel. (My aunt 
 had shoved the poker with her slipper.) 
 She drew her foot back and spoke very 
 gently : 
 
 " I beg your pardon, my dear. Please 
 say what you were going to say, and in 
 your own way." 
 
 There is no doubt that good-humour 
 like bad is infectious. I drew nearer to 
 Aunt Isobel, and fingered the sleeve of 
 her dress caressingly. 
 
 " You know, dear Aunt Isobel, that 
 I should never think of saying to the 
 Rector what I want to say to you. And I 
 don't mean that I don't agree to whatever 
 he tells us about right and wrong, but still 
 I think if one can be quite convinced in 
 the depths of one's own head, too, it's a 
 good thing, as well as knowing that he 
 must be right." 
 
 " Certainly," said Aunt Isobel. 
 
 " To begin with, I don't want you to 
 think me any better than I am. When we 
 were very very little, Philip and I used to 
 spit at each other, and pull each other's 
 hair out. I do not do nasty or unladylike 
 things now when I am angry, but, Aunt 
 Isobel, my ' besetting sin ' is not conquered, 
 it's only civilized." 
 
 " I quite agree with you," said Aunt 
 Isobel ; which rather annoyed me. I 
 gulped this down, however, and went on : 
 
 " The sin of ill-temper, if it is a sin" I 
 began. I paused, expecting an outburst, 
 but Aunt Isobel sat quite composedly, 
 and fingered her eyelashes. 
 
 " Of course the Rector would be horri- 
 fied if I said such a thing at the confir-
 
 7 
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 mation-class," I continued, in a dissatisfied 
 tone. 
 
 " Don't invent grievances, Isobel, for I 
 see you have a real stumbling-block, when 
 we can come to it. You are not at the 
 confirmation-class, and I am not easily 
 horrified." 
 
 " Well, there are two difficulties I ex- 
 plain very stupidly," said I with some 
 sadness. 
 
 " We'll take them one at a time," replied 
 Aunt Isobel with an exasperating blandness, 
 which fortunately stimulated me to plain- 
 speaking. 
 
 "Ever) body says one ought to 'restrain ' 
 one's temper, but I'm not sure if I think 
 one ought. Isn't it better to have things 
 outl Look at Philip. He's going to be 
 confirmed, and then he'll go back to 
 school, and when he and another boy 
 quarrel, they'll fight it out, and feel com- 
 fortable afterwards. Aunt Isobel, I can 
 quite understand feeling friendly after 
 you've had it out, even if you're the one 
 who is beaten, if it has been a fair fight. 
 Now restraining your temper means 
 forcing yourself to be good outside, and 
 feeling all the worse inside, and feeling it 
 longer. There is that utterly stupid little 
 schoolroom-maid, who is under my orders, 
 that I may teach her. Aunt Isobel, you 
 would not credit how often I tell her the 
 same thing, and how politely she says 
 ' Yes, miss !' and how invariably she 
 doesn't do it after all. I say, ' You know 
 I told you only yesterday. What is the 
 use of my trying to teach you ?' and all 
 kinds of mild things like that ; but really 
 I quite hate her for giving me so much 
 trouble and taking so little herself, and I 
 wish I might discharge her. Now, if only 
 it wasn't wrong to throw what are those 
 things hot-tempered gentlemen always 
 throw at their servants ?" 
 
 " Don't ask me, my dear ; ask Mr. 
 Rampant." 
 
 " Oh, he throws everything. Bootjacks 
 that's it. Now, if only I might throw a 
 bootjack at her, it would waken her up, 
 and be such a relief to my feelings, that I 
 shouldn't feel half so unforgiving towards 
 her all along. Then as to swearing, Aunt 
 Isobel 
 
 " Swearing !" ejaculated my aunt.' 
 
 " Of course swearing is very wrong, and 
 all profane-speaking ; but I do think it 
 would be a help if there was some innocent 
 kind of strong language to use when one 
 feels strongly." 
 
 " If we didn't use up all our innocent 
 strong language by calling things awful 
 and horrible that have not an element of 
 awe or horror in them, we should have 
 some left for our great occasions," said 
 Aunt Isobel. 
 
 " Perhaps," said I, " but that's not ex- 
 actly what I mean. Now do you think it 
 would be wrong to invent expletives that 
 mean nothing bad ? As if Mr. Rampant 
 were to say, ' Cockatoos and kingfishers \ 
 where are my shooting-boots ?' For you 
 know I do think it would make him more 
 comfortable to put it in that way, espe- 
 ciallyif he had been kept waiting for them." 
 
 I paused, and Aunt Isobel turned 
 round. 
 
 " Let us carry your idea well forward, 
 Isobel. Bootjacks and expletives would 
 no doubt be a relief to the thrower when 
 hurled at servants or some one who could 
 not (or from principle would not) retaliate, 
 and the angry feelings that propelled them, 
 might be shortened by 'letting off the 
 steam,' so to speak. But imagine yourself 
 to have thrown a bootjack at Philip to 
 relieve your feelings, and Philip (to relieve 
 his) flinging it back at you. This would 
 only give fresh impetus to your indjgna- 
 tion, and whatever you threw next would 
 not be likely to soothe his." 
 
 " Please don't !" said I. " Aunt Isobel, 
 I could never throw a hatchet again."
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 " You are bold to promise to stop short 
 anywhere when relieving passionate feel- 
 ings by indulgence has begun on two 
 sides. And, my dear, matters are no 
 better where the indulgence is in words 
 instead of blows. In the very mean and 
 undignified position of abusing those who 
 cannot return your abuse it might answer; 
 but ' innocent strong language ' would 
 cease to be of any good when it was re- 
 turned. If to 'Cockatoos .and king- 
 fishers ! where are my shooting-boots?' an 
 equally violent voice from below replied, 
 ' Bats and blackbeetles ! look for them 
 yourself!' some stronger vent for the 
 steam of hot temper would have to be 
 found, and words of any kind would soon 
 cease to relieve the feelings. Isobel, I 
 have had long and hard experience, and 
 your ideas are not new ones to me. Be- 
 lieve me, child, the only real relief is in ab- 
 solute conquest, and the earlier the battle 
 begins, the easier and the shorter it will 
 be. If one can keep irritability under, 
 one may escape a struggle to the death 
 with passion. I am not cramming prin- 
 ciples down your throat I say as a matter 
 of personal practice, that I do not know, 
 and never hope to find, a smoother or a 
 shorter way. But I can say also after 
 Victory comes Peace." 
 
 I gave a heavy sigh. 
 
 " Thank you, Aunt Isobel, I will try ; 
 but it makes my second difficulty all the 
 worse. I can fancy that I might possibly 
 learn self-control ; I can fancy by main 
 force holding my tongue, or compelling it 
 to speak very slowly and civilly : but one 
 can't force one's feelings. Aunt Isobel, if 
 I had been very much insulted or pro- 
 voked, I might keep on being civil for 
 years on the outside, but how I should 
 hate! You can't prevent yourself hating. 
 People talk about ' forgive and forget.' If 
 forgiving means doing no harm, and for- 
 getting means behaving quite civilly, as if 
 
 nothing had happened, one could. But of 
 course it's nonsense to talk of making 
 yourself really forget anything. And I 
 think it's just as absurd to talk of making 
 yourself forgive, if forgiveness means feel- 
 ing really kindly and comfortable as you 
 did before. The very case in which I am 
 most sure you are right about self-control 
 is one of the worst the other way. I ought 
 to be ashamed to speak of it but I mean 
 the hatchet-quarrel. If I had been very 
 good instead of very wicked, and had re- 
 strained myself when Philip pulled all my 
 work to pieces, and jeered at me for being 
 miserable, I couldrit have loved him again 
 as I did before. Forgive and forget ! One 
 would often be very glad to. I have often 
 awoke in the morning and known that I 
 had forgotten something disagreeable, and 
 when it did come back I was sorry ; but 
 one's memory isn't made of slate, or one's 
 heart either, that one can take a wet 
 sponge and make it clean. Oh dear ! 
 I wonder why ill-tempered people are 
 allowed to live ! They ought to be 
 smothered in their cradles." 
 
 Aunt Isobel was about to reply, but I 
 interrupted her. 
 
 " Don't think me humble-minded, Aunt 
 Isobel, for I'm not. Sometimes I feel in 
 clined to think that ill-tempered people 
 have more sense of -justice and of the 
 strict rights and wrongs of things at least 
 if they are not very bad," I interpolated, 
 thinking of Mr. Rampant "than people 
 who can smile and look pleasant at every- 
 thing and everybody like Lucy Lambent, 
 who goes on calling me darling when I 
 know I'm scowling like a horned-owl. 
 Nurse says she's the ' sweetest tempered 
 young lady she ever did know!' Aunt 
 Isobel, what a muddle life is !" 
 
 " After some years of it," said my aunt, 
 pulling her lashes hard, " / generally say, 
 What a muddle my head is ! Life is too 
 much for it."
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 " I am quite willing to put it that way," 
 sighed I, laying my muddle-head on the 
 table, for I was tired. " It comes to much 
 the same thing. Now there is my great 
 difficulty! I give in about the other one, 
 but you can't cure this, and the truth is, 
 I am not fit to go to a confirmation-class, 
 much less to the Holy Communion." 
 
 "Isobel," said my aunt, folding her 
 hands on her lap, and bending her very 
 thick brows on the fire, " I want you to 
 clearly understand that I speak with great 
 hesitation, and without any authority. I 
 can do nothing for you but tell you what 
 I have found myself in my struggles." 
 
 " Thank you a thousand times," said I, 
 " that's what I want. You know I hear 
 two sermons every Sunday, and I have a 
 lot of good books. Mrs. Welment sends 
 me a little book about ill-temper every 
 Christmas. The last one was about say- 
 ing a little hymn before you let yourself 
 speak whenever you feel angry. Philip 
 got hold of it, and made fun of it. He 
 said it was like the recipe for catching a 
 sparrow by putting salt on its tail, because 
 if you were cool enough to say a hymn, 
 there would then be no need for saying it. 
 What do you think, Aunt Isobel ?" 
 
 " My dear, I have long ago given up the 
 idea that everybody's weak points can all 
 be strengthened by one plaster. The 
 hymn might be very useful in some cases, 
 though I confess that it would not be in 
 mine. But prayer is ; and I find a form 
 of prayer necessary. At the same time I 
 have such an irritable taste, that there are 
 very few forms of devotion that give me 
 much help but the Prayer-Book collects 
 and Jeremy Taylor. I do not know if you 
 may find it useful to hear that in this 
 struggle I sometimes find prayers more 
 useful, if they are not too much to the 
 sore point. A prayer about ill-temper 
 might tend to make me cross, when the 
 effort to join my spirit with the temptation- 
 
 tried souls of all ages in a solemn prayer 
 for the Church Universal would lift me out 
 of the petty sphere of personal vexations, 
 better than going into my grievances even 
 piously. I speak merely of myself, mind." 
 
 " Thank you," I said. " But about 
 what I said about hating. Aunt Isobel, 
 did you ever change your feelings by force ? 
 Do you suppose anybody ever did ?" 
 
 " I believe it is a great mistake to trouble 
 one's self with the spiritual experiences of 
 other people when one cannot fully know 
 their circumstances, so I won't suppose at 
 all. As to what I am sure of, Isobel, you 
 know I speak the truth." 
 
 " Yes," said I ; it would have been im- 
 pertinence to say more. 
 
 "7 have found that if one fights for 
 good behaviour, GOD makes one a present 
 of the good feelings. I believe you will 
 find it so. Even when you were a child, 
 if you had tried to be good, and had 
 managed to control yourself, and had not 
 thrown the hatchet, I am quite sure you 
 would not have hated Philip for long. 
 Perhaps you would have thought how 
 much better Philip used to behave before 
 your father and mother died, and a little 
 elder-sisterly, motherly feeling would have 
 mixed with your wrath at seeing him with 
 his fat legs planted apart, and his shoulders 
 up, the very picture of wilful naughtiness. 
 Perhaps you might have thought you had 
 repulsed him a little harshly when he 
 wanted to help, as you were his chief 
 playmate and twin sister." 
 
 " Please don't," said I. " How I wish 
 I had ! Indeed I don't know how I can 
 ever speak of hating one of the others 
 when there are so few of us, and we are 
 orphans. But everybody isn't one's brother. 
 And oh, Aunt Isobel, at the time one 
 does get so wild, and hard, and twisted in 
 one's heart !" 
 
 " I don't think it is possible to overrate 
 the hardness of the first close struggle with
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 73 
 
 any natural passion," said my aunt ear- 
 nestly ; " but indeed the easiness of after- 
 steps is often quite beyond one's expec- 
 tations. The free gift of grace with which 
 GOD perfects our efforts may come in many 
 ways, but I am convinced that it is the 
 common experience of Christians that it 
 does come." 
 
 " To everyone, do you think ?" said I. 
 "I've no doubt it comes to you, Aunt 
 Isobel, but then you are so good." 
 
 " For pity's sake don't say I am good," 
 said my aunt, and she kicked down all the 
 fire-irons; and then begged my pardon, 
 and picked them up again. 
 
 We were silent for awhile. Aunt Isobel 
 sat upright with her hands folded in her 
 lap, and that look which her large eyes 
 wear when she is trying to see all the 
 sides of a question. They were dilated 
 with a sorrowful earnestness when she 
 spoke again. 
 
 " There may be some souls," she said, 
 " whose brave and bitter lot it is to conquer 
 comfortless. Perhaps some terrible in- 
 heritance of strong sin from the father is 
 visited upon the son, and, only able to 
 keep his purpose pure, he falls as fast as 
 he struggles up, and still struggling falls 
 again. Soft moments of peace with GOD 
 and man may never come to him. He 
 may feel himself viler than a thousand 
 trumpery souls who could not have borne 
 his trials for a day. Child, for you and 
 for me is reserved no such cross and no 
 such crown as theirs who falling still fight, 
 and fighting fall, with their faces Zion- 
 wards, into the arms of the Everlasting 
 Father. 'As one whom his mother 
 comforteth' shall be the healing of their 
 \vounds." 
 
 There was a brisk knock at the door, 
 and Philip burst in. 
 
 " Look here, Isobel, if you mean to be 
 late for confirmation-class I'm not going 
 to wait for you. I hate sneaking in with 
 
 the benches all full, and old Bartram 
 blinking and keeping your place in the 
 catechism for you with his fat forefinger." 
 
 " I am very sorry, Philip dear," said I ; 
 " please go without me, and I'll come on 
 as quickly as I can. Thank you very 
 much for coming to remind me." 
 
 "There's no such awful hurry," said 
 Philip in a mollified tone ; " I'll wait for 
 you downstairs." 
 
 Which he did, whistling. 
 
 Aunt Isobel and I are not demonstrative, 
 it does not suit us. She took hold of my 
 arms, and I laid my head on her shoulder. 
 
 "Aunt Isobel, GOD help me, I will 
 fight on to the very end." 
 
 " HE will help you," said Aunt Isobel. 
 
 I could not look at her face and doubt 
 it. Oh, my weak soul, never doubt it 
 more! 
 
 CHAPTE V. 
 
 CELESTIAL FIRE I CHOOSE A TEXT. 
 
 WE were confirmed. 
 
 As Aunt Isobel had said, I was spared 
 perplexity by the unmistakable nature of 
 my weakest point. There was no doubt 
 as to what I should pray against and strive 
 against. But on that day it seemed not 
 only as if I could never give way to ill- 
 temper again, but as if the trumpery 
 causes of former outbreaks could never 
 even tempt me to do so. As the lines of 
 that ancient hymn to the Holy Ghost 
 " Veni Creator" rolled on, I prayed 
 humbly enough that my unworthy efforts 
 might yet be crowned by the sevenfold 
 gifts of the Spirit ; but that a soul which 
 sincerely longed to be " lightened with 
 celestial fire" could be tempted to a 
 common fit of sulks or scolding by the
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAltlLY. 
 
 rub of nursery misdeeds and mischances, 
 felt then so little likely as hardly to be 
 worth deprecating on my knees. 
 
 And yet, when the service was over, the 
 fatigue of the mental strain and of long 
 kneeling and standing began to tell in a 
 feeling that came sadly near to peevish- 
 ness. I spent the rest of the day reso- 
 lutely in my room and on my knees, 
 hoping to keep up those high thoughts 
 and emotions which had made me feel 
 happy as well as good. And yet I all but 
 utterly broke down into the most common- 
 place crossness because Philip did not do 
 as I did, but romped noisily with the 
 others, and teased me for looking grave 
 at tea. 
 
 I just did not break down. So much 
 remained alive of the " celestial fire," that 
 I kept my temper behind my teeth. Long 
 aftenvards, when I learnt by accident that 
 Philip's "good resolve" on the occasion 
 had been that he would be kinder to " the 
 little ones," I was very glad that I had 
 not indulged my uncharitable impulse to 
 lecture him on indifference to spiritual 
 progress. 
 
 That evening Aunt Isobel gave me a 
 new picture for my room. It was a fine 
 print of the Crucifixion, for which I had 
 often longed, a German woodcut in the 
 powerful manner of Albert Diirer, after a 
 design by Michael Angelo. It was neither 
 too realistic nor too mediaeval, and the 
 face was very noble. Aunt Isobel had 
 had it framed, and below on an illumi- 
 nated scroll was written " What are these 
 wounds in Thine Hands? Those with 
 which I was wounded in the house of My 
 friends." 
 
 " I often think," she said, when we had 
 hung it up and were looking at it, " that it 
 is not in our Lord's Cross and Passion 
 that His patience comes most home to us. 
 To be patient before an unjust judge or 
 brutal soldiers might be almost a part of 
 
 self-respect; but patience with the daily 
 disappointments of a life 'too good for 
 this world,' as people say, patience with 
 the follies, the unworthiness, the ingratitude 
 of those one loves these things are our 
 daily example. For wounds in the house 
 of our enemies pride may be prepared ; 
 wounds in the house of our friends take 
 human nature by surprise, and GOD only 
 can teach us to bear them. And with all 
 reverence I think that we may say that 
 ours have an element of difficulty in which 
 His were wanting. They are mixed with 
 blame on our own parts." 
 
 " That is why you have put that text for 
 me ?" said I. My aunt nodded. 
 
 I was learning to illuminate, and I took 
 much pride in my room. I determined 
 to make a text for myself, and to choose a 
 very plain passage about ill-temper. Mrs. 
 Welment's books supplied me with plenty. 
 I chose " Let not the sun go down upon 
 your wrath," but I resolved to have the 
 complete text as it stands in the Bible. It 
 seemed fair to allow myself to remember 
 that anger is not always a sin, and I thought 
 it useful to remind myself that if by obstinate 
 ill-temper I got the victory in a quarrel, it 
 was only because the devil had got the 
 victory over me. So the text ran full 
 length : " Be ye angry, and sin not ; let 
 not the sun go down upon your wrath : 
 neither give place to the devil." It made 
 a very long scroll, and I put it up over 
 my window, and fastened it with drawing- 
 pins. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THEATRICAL PROPERTIES I PREPARE A 
 PLAY PHILIP BEGINS TO PREPARE THE 
 SCENERY A NEW FRIEND. 
 
 PHILIP was at school during the remainder 
 of the year, but I tried to put my good
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 resolves in practice with the children, and 
 it made us a more peaceful household than 
 usual. When Philip came home for the 
 Christmas holidays we were certainly in 
 very pleasant moods for an ill-tempered 
 family. 
 
 Our friends allow that some quickness 
 of wits accompanies the quickness of our 
 tempers. From the days when we were 
 very young our private theatricals have 
 been famous in our own little neighbour- 
 hood. I was paramount in nursery mum- 
 meries, and in the children's charade 
 parties of the district, for Philip was not 
 very reliable when steady help was needed ; 
 but at school he became stage-manager of 
 the theatricals there. 
 
 I do not know that he learned to act 
 very much better than I, and I think 
 Alice (who was only twelve) had twice the 
 gift of either of us, but every half he came 
 back more ingenious than before in matters 
 for which we had neither the talent nor the 
 tools. He glued together yards of canvas 
 or calico, and produced scenes and drop- 
 curtains which were ambitious and effective, 
 though I thought him a little reckless both 
 about good drawing and good clothes. 
 His glue-kettles and size-pots were always 
 steaming, his paint was on many and more 
 inappropriate objects than the canvas. A 
 shilling's worth of gilding powder went 
 such a long way that we had not only 
 golden crowns and golden sceptres, and 
 golden chains for our dungeon, and golden 
 wings for our fairies, but the nursery fur- 
 niture became irregularly and uninten- 
 tionally gilded, as well as nurse's stuff 
 dress, when she sat on a warrior's shield, 
 which was drying in the rocking-chair. 
 
 But these were small matters. Philip 
 gave us a wonderful account of the " pro- 
 perties" he had made for school theatricals. 
 A dragon painted to the life, and with 
 matches so fixed into the tip of him that 
 the boy who acted as the life and soul of 
 
 this ungainly carcase could wag a fiery tail 
 before the amazed audience, by striking it 
 on that particular scale of his dragon's 
 skin which was made of sand -paper. 
 Rabbit-skin masks, cotton-wool wigs and 
 wigs of tow, seven-league boots, and 
 witches' hats, thunder with a tea-tray, and 
 all the phases of the moon with a moderator 
 lamp with all these things Philip enriched 
 the school theatre, though for some time 
 he would not take so much trouble for our 
 own. 
 
 But during this last half he had written 
 me three letters and three very kind 
 ones. In the latest he said that partly 
 because he had been making some things 
 for us, and partly because of changes in 
 the school-theatrical affairs he should 
 bring home with him a box of very valu- 
 able "properties" for our use at Christ- 
 mas. He charged me at once to prepare 
 a piece which should include a prince dis- 
 guised as a woolly beast on two legs with 
 large forepaws (easily shaken off), a fairy 
 godmother with a tow wig and the highest 
 hat I could ever hope to see, a princess 
 turned into a willow-tree (painted from 
 memory of the old one at home, and with 
 fine gnarls and knots, through which the 
 princess could see everything, and prompt 
 (if needful), a disconsolate parent, and a 
 faithful attendant, to be acted by one 
 person, with as many belated travellers as 
 the same actor could personate into the 
 bargain. These would all be eaten up by 
 the dragon at the right wing, and re-enter 
 more belated than ever at the left, without 
 stopping longer than was required to roll 
 a peal of thunder at the back. The fifth and 
 last character was to be the dragon him- 
 self. The forest scene would be wanted, 
 and I was to try and get an old cask for a 
 cave. 
 
 I must explain that I was not expected 
 to write a play. We never took the trouble 
 to " learn parts." We generally took some
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 story which pleased us out of Grimm's 
 Fairy Tales or the Arabian Nights, and 
 arranged for the various scenes. We each 
 had a copy of the arrangement, and our 
 proper characters were assigned to us. 
 After this we did the dialogue as if it had 
 been a charade. We were well accustomed 
 to act together, and could trust each other 
 and ourselves. Only Alice's brilliancy ever 
 took us by surprise. 
 
 By the time that Philip came home I 
 had got in the rough outline of the plot. 
 He arrived with a box of properties, the 
 mere size of which raised a cheer of wel- 
 come from the little ones, and red-hot for 
 our theatricals. 
 
 Philip was a little apt to be red-hot over 
 projects, and to cool before they were 
 accomplished ; but on this occasion we 
 had no forebodings of such evil. Besides, 
 he was to play the dragon ! When he did 
 fairly devote himself to anything, he 
 grudged no trouble and hesitated at no 
 undertakings. He was so much pleased 
 with my plot and with the cave, that he 
 announced that he should paint a new 
 forest scene for the occasion. I tried to 
 dissuade him. There were so many other 
 things to be done, and the old scene was 
 very good. But he had learnt several new 
 tricks of the scene-painter's trade, and was 
 bent upon putting them into practice. So 
 he began his new scene, and I resolved to 
 work all the harder at the odds and ends 
 of our preparations. To be driven into a 
 corner and pressed for time always stimu- 
 lated instead of confusing me. I think 
 the excitement of it is pleasant. Alice 
 had the same dogged way of working at a 
 crisis, and we felt quite confident of being 
 able to finish up "at a push," whatever 
 Philip might leave undone. The theatricals 
 were to be on Twelfth Night. 
 
 Christmas passed very happily on the 
 whole. I found my temper much oftener 
 tried since Philip's return, but this was not 
 
 only because' he was very wilful and very 
 fond of teasing, but because with the 
 younger ones I was always deferred to. 
 
 One morning we were very busy in the 
 nursery, which was our workshop. Philip's 
 glue-pots and size-pots were steaming, there 
 were coloured powders on every chair, 
 Alice and I were laying a coat of invisible 
 green over the cave-cask, and Philip, in 
 radiant good-humour, was giving distance 
 to his woodland glades in the most artful 
 manner with powder-blue, and calling on 
 us for approbation when the housemaid 
 came in. 
 
 " It's not lunch-time ?" cried Alice. " It 
 can't be !" 
 
 "Get away, Mary," said Philip, "and 
 tell cook if she puts on any more meals 
 I'll paint her best cap pea-green. She's 
 sending up luncheons and dinners all day 
 long now : just because she knows we're 
 busy." 
 
 Mary only laughed, and said, "It's a 
 gentleman wants to see you, Master 
 Philip," and she gave him a card. Philip 
 read it, and we waited with some curiosity. 
 
 " It's a man I met in the train," said he, 
 " a capital fellow. He lives in the town. 
 His father's a doctor there. Granny must 
 invite him to the theatricals. Ask him 
 to come here, Mary, and show him the 
 way." 
 
 "Oughtn't you to go and fetch him 
 yourself?" said I. 
 
 " I can't leave this," said Philip. "He'll 
 be all right. He's as friendly as possible." 
 
 I must say here that "Granny" was 
 our maternal grandmother, with whom we 
 lived. My mother and father were cousins, 
 and Granny's husband was of that im- 
 petuous race to which we belonged. If 
 he had been alive he would have kept us 
 all in good order, no doubt. But he was 
 dead, and Granny was the gentlest of old 
 ladies: I fear she led a terrible life with 
 us all !
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 77 
 
 Philip's friend came upstairs. He was 
 very friendly ; in fact Alice and I thought 
 him forward, but he was several years 
 older than Philip, who seemed proud of 
 the acquaintance. Perhaps Alice and I 
 were biassed by the fact that he spoilt our 
 pleasant morning. He was one of those 
 people who look at everything one has 
 been working at with such unintelligent 
 eyes that their indifference ought not to 
 dishearten one ; and yet it does. 
 
 " It's for our private theatricals," said 
 Philip, as Mr. Clinton's amazed stare 
 passed from our paint-covered selves to 
 the new scene. 
 
 " My cousins in Dublin have private 
 theatricals," said Mr. Clinton. " My uncle 
 has built on a room for the theatre. All 
 the fittings and scenes come from London, 
 and the first costumiers in Dublin send in 
 all the dresses and everything that is re- 
 quired on the afternoon before the per- 
 formance." 
 
 " Oh, we're in a much smaller way," 
 said Philip ; ' but I've some properties here 
 that don't look bad by candlelight." But 
 Mr. Clinton had come up to the cask, and 
 was staring at it and us. I knew by the 
 way Alice got quietly up, and shook some 
 chips with a decided air out of her apron, 
 that she did not like being stared at. But 
 her movement only drew Mr. Clinton's 
 especial attention. 
 
 " You'll catch it from your grandmamma 
 for making such a mess of your clothes, 
 won't you ?" he asked. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ?" said Alice, with 
 so perfect an air of not having heard him 
 that he was about to repeat the question, 
 when she left the nursery with the exact 
 exit which she had made as a Discreet 
 Princess repelling unwelcome advances 
 in last year's play. 
 
 I was afraid of an outburst from Philip, 
 and said in hasty civility, " This is a cave 
 we are making." 
 
 " They'd a splendid cave at Covent 
 Garden last Christmas," said Mr. Clinton. 
 "It covered half the stage. An enormously 
 tall man dressed in cloth of silver stood in 
 the entrance, and waved a spear ten or 
 twelve feet long over his head. A fairy 
 was let down above that, so you may be 
 sure the cave was pretty big." 
 
 " Oh, here's the dragon," said Philip, 
 who had been rummaging in the property 
 box. " He's got a fiery tail." 
 
 "They were quite the go in panto- 
 mimes a few years ago," said Mr. Clinton, 
 yawning. " My uncle had two or three 
 bigger than that, of course." 
 
 Philip saw that his friend was not in- 
 terested in amateur property-making, and 
 changed the subject. 
 
 " What have you been doing this morn- 
 ing ?" said he. 
 
 " I drove here with my father, who had 
 got to pass your gates. I say, there's 
 splendid shooting on the marsh now. I 
 want you to come out with me, and we : ll 
 pot a wild duck or two." 
 
 " I've no gun," said Philip, and to soften 
 the statement added, "there's no one here 
 to go out with." 
 
 " I'll go out with you. And I say, we 
 could just catch the train back to the town, 
 and if you'll come and lunch with us, we'll 
 go out a bit this afternoon and look round. 
 But you must get a gun." 
 
 "I should like some fresh air," said 
 Philip, "and as you've come over for 
 me " 
 
 I knew the appealing tone in his voice 
 was for my ears, for my face had fallen. 
 
 " Could I be going on with it?" I asked, 
 nodding towards the forest scene. 
 
 " Oh dear no ! I'll go at it again to- 
 night. It ought all to be painted by candle- 
 light by rights. I'm not going to desert 
 my post," he added. 
 
 "I hope not," said I as good-humouredly 
 as I could ; but dismay was in my heart.
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A QUARREL BOBBY IS WILLING EXIT 
 PHILIP. 
 
 PHILIP came back by an evening train, 
 and when he had had something to eat he 
 came up to the nursery to go on with the 
 scene. We had got everything ready for 
 him, and he worked for about half an 
 hour. But he was so sleepy, with cold 
 air and exercise, that he did not paint 
 well, and then he got impatient, and threw 
 it up " till the morning." 
 
 In the morning he set to work, talking 
 all the time about wild duck and teal, and 
 the price of guns ; but by the time he had 
 put last night's blunders straight, the front 
 door bell rang, and Mary announced 
 " Mr. Clinton." 
 
 Phih'p was closeted in his room with his 
 new friend till twelve o'clock. Then they 
 went out into the yard, and finally Mr. 
 Clinton stayed to luncheon. But I held 
 my peace, and made Alice hold hers. Mr. 
 Clinton went away in the afternoon, but 
 Philip got the plate-powder and wash- 
 leather, and occupied himself in polishing 
 the silver fittings of his dressing-case. 
 
 "I think you might do that another 
 time, Philip," said I ; " you've not been 
 half an hour at the properties to-day, and 
 you could clean your bottles and things 
 quite as well after the theatricals.' 1 
 
 " As it happens I just couldn't," said 
 Philip ; " I've made a bargain, and bar- 
 gains won't wait." 
 
 Alice and I screamed in o.ne breath, 
 "You're not going to give away the dress- 
 ing-case !" for it had been my father's. 
 
 " I said a bargain" replied Philip, 
 rubbing harder than ever ; " you can't get 
 hold of a gun every day without paying 
 down hard cash." 
 
 " I hate Mr. Clinton !" said Alice. 
 
 It was a very unfortunate speech, for it 
 declared open war ; and when this is done 
 it cannot be undone. There is no taking 
 back those sharp sayings which the family 
 curse hangs on the tips of our tongues. 
 
 Philip and Alice exchanged them pretty 
 freely. Philip called us selfish, inhospit- 
 able, and jealous. He said we grudged 
 his enjoying himself in the holidays, when 
 he had been working like a slave for us 
 during the half. That we disliked his 
 friend because he was his friend, and (not 
 to omit the taunt of sex) that Clinton was 
 too manly a fellow to please girls, etc., 
 etc. In self-defence Alice was much 
 more out-spoken about both Philip and 
 Mr. Clinton than she had probably in- 
 tended to be. That Philip began things 
 hotly, and that his zeal cooled before they 
 were accomplished that his imperious- 
 ness laid him open to flattery, and the 
 necessity of playing first-fiddle betrayed 
 him into second-rate friendships, which 
 were thrown after the discarded hobbies 
 that Mr. Clinton was ill-bred, and with 
 that vulgarity of mind which would make 
 him rather proud than ashamed of getting 
 the best of a bargain with his friend 
 these things were not the less taunts 
 because they were true. 
 
 If the violent scenes which occur in ill- 
 -tempered families felt half as undignified 
 and miserable as they look, surely they 
 would be less common ! I believe Philip 
 and Alice would have come to blows if I 
 had not joined with him to expel her from 
 the room. I was not happy about it, for 
 my sympathy was on her side of the 
 quarrel, but she had been the one to 
 declare war, and I could not control 
 Philip. In short, it is often not easy to 
 keep the peace and be just too, as I 
 should like to have said to Aunt Isobel, if 
 she had been at home. But she was to 
 be away until the 6th.
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 79 
 
 Alice defeated, I took Philip seriously 
 to task. Not about his friend the 
 subject was too sore, and Alice had told 
 him all that we thought, and rather more 
 than we thought on that score but about 
 the theatricals. I said if he really was 
 tired of the business we would throw it up, 
 and let our friends know that the pro- 
 posed entertainment had fallen through, 
 but that if he wanted it to go forward he 
 must decide what help he would give, and 
 then abide by his promise. 
 
 We came to terms. If I would let him 
 have a day or two's fun with his gun, 
 Philip promised to "spurt," as he called 
 it, at the end. I told him we would be 
 content if he would join in a " thorough 
 rehearsal," the afternoon before, and 
 devote himself to the business on the day 
 of the performance. 
 
 "Real business, you know," I added, 
 "with nobody but ourselves. Nobody 
 coming in to interrupt." 
 
 " Of course," said Philip ; " but I'll do 
 more than that, Isobel. There's the 
 scene " 
 
 " We'll finish the scene," said I, " if you 
 don't aggravate Alice so that I lose her 
 help as well as yours." 
 
 Alice was very sulky, which I could 
 hardly wonder at, and I worked alone, 
 except for Bobby, the only one with 
 anything like a good temper among us, 
 who roasted himself very patiently with 
 my size-pot, and hammered bits of ivy, 
 and of his fingers, rather neatly over the 
 cave. But Alice was impulsive and kind- 
 hearted. When I got a bad headache, 
 from working too long, she came round, 
 and helped me. Philip was always going 
 to do so, but as a matter of fact he went 
 out every day with the old fowling-piece 
 for which he had given his dressing- 
 case. 
 
 When the ice bore Charles also deserted 
 us, but Alice and I worked steadily on at 
 
 dresses and scenery. And Bobby worked 
 with us. 
 
 The 5th of January arrived, the day 
 before the theatricals. Philip spent the 
 morning in cleaning his gun, and after 
 luncheon he brought it into the nursery to 
 " finish " with a peculiarly aggravating air. 
 
 " When shall you be ready to rehearse ?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "Oh, presently," said Philip, "there's 
 plenty of time yet. It's a great nuisance," 
 he added. " I'll never have anything to 
 do with theatricals again. They make a 
 perfect slave of one." 
 
 " You've not slaved much, at any rate," 
 said Charles. 
 
 " You'd better not give me any of your 
 cheek," said Philip threateningly. 
 
 " We've done without him for a week, I 
 don't know why we shouldn't dp without 
 him to-morrow," muttered Alice from the 
 corner where she was sewing gold paper 
 stars on to the Enchanted Prince's tunic. 
 
 "I wish you could," growled Philip, 
 who took the suggestion more quietly than 
 I expected ; " anybody could do the 
 Dragon, there's no acting in it !" 
 
 " I won't," said Charles, " Isobel gave 
 me the Enchanted Prince or the Woolly 
 Beast, and I shall stick to my part." 
 
 "Could I do the Dragon?" asked 
 Bobby, releasing his hot face from the 
 folds of an old blue cloak lined with red, 
 in which he was rehearsing his walk as a 
 belated wayfarer. 
 
 "Certainly not," said I," you're the 
 Bereaved Father and the Faithful Attend- 
 ant to begin with, and I hope you won't 
 muddle them. And you're Twelve 
 Travellers as well, and the thunder, 
 remember !" 
 
 " I don't care how many I do, if only I 
 can," said Bobby, drawing his willing arm 
 across his steaming forehead. " I should 
 like to have a fiery tail." 
 
 "You can't devour yourself once let
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 alone twelve times," said I sternly. 
 " Don't be silly, Bob." 
 
 It was not Bob I was impatient with in 
 reality, it was Philip. 
 
 " If you really mean to desert the 
 theatricals after all you promised, I would 
 much rather try to do without you," said I 
 indignantly. 
 
 " Then you may !" retorted Philip. " I 
 wash my hands of it and of the whole lot 
 of you, and of every nursery entertainment 
 henceforward !" and he got the fragments 
 of his gun together with much clatter. 
 But Charles had posted himself by the 
 door to say his say, and to be ready to 
 escape when he had said it. 
 
 " You're ashamed of it," that's it, said he; 
 " you want to sit among the grown-ups with 
 a spy-glass, now you've got Apothecary 
 Clinton's son for a friend," and after this 
 brief and insulting summary of the facts, 
 Charles vanished. But Philip, white with 
 anger, was too quick for him, and at the 
 top of the backstairs he dealt him such a 
 heavy blow that Charles fell headlong 
 down the first flight. 
 
 Alice and I flew to the rescue. I lived 
 in dread of Philip really injuring Charles 
 some day, for his blows were becoming 
 serious ones as he grew taller and stronger, 
 and his self-control did not seem to wax 
 in proportion. And Charles's temper was 
 becoming very aggressive. On this occa- 
 sion, as soon as he had regained breath, 
 and we found that no bones were broken, 
 it was only by main force that we held him 
 back from pursuing Philip. 
 
 "I'll hit him I'll stick to him," he 
 sobbed in his fury, shaking his head like a 
 terrier, and doubling his fists. But he 
 was rather sick with the fall, and we made 
 him lie down to recover himself, whilst 
 Alice, Bobby and I laid our heads 
 together to plan a substitute for Philip in 
 the Dragon. 
 
 When bed-time came, and Philip was 
 
 still absent, we became uneasy, and as I 
 lay sleepless that night I asked myself if I 
 had been to blame for the sulks in which 
 he had gone off. In fits of passion Philip 
 had often threatened to go away and 
 never let us hear of him again. I knew 
 that such things did happen, and it made 
 me unhappy when he went off like this, 
 although his threats had hitherto been no 
 more than a common and rather unfair 
 device of ill-temper. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I HEAR FROM PHILIP A NEW PART 
 WANTED I LOSE MY TEMPER WE ALL 
 LOSE OUR TEMPERS. 
 
 NEXT morning's post brought the follow- 
 ing letter from Philip : 
 
 " MY DEAR ISOBEL, 
 
 "You need not bother about the 
 Dragon I'll do it. But I wish you would 
 put another character into the piece. It 
 is for Clinton. He says he will act with 
 us. He says he can do anything if it is a 
 leading part. He has got black velvet 
 knickerbockers and scarlet stockings, and 
 he can have the tunic and cloak I wore 
 last year, and the flap hat ; and you must 
 lend him your white ostrich feather. 
 Make him some kind of a grandee. If you 
 can't, he must be the Prince, and Charles 
 can do some of the Travellers. We are 
 going out on the marsh this morning, but 
 I shall be with you after luncheon, and 
 Clinton in the evening. He does not 
 want any rehearsing, only a copy of the 
 plan. Let Alice make it, her writing is 
 the clearest, and I wish she would make 
 me a new one ; I've torn mine, and it is so
 
 A VERY ILL TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 81 
 
 dirty, I shall never be able to read it 
 inside the Dragon. Don't forget. 
 " Your affectionate brother, 
 
 PHILIP." 
 
 There are limits to one's patience, and 
 with some of us they are not very wide. 
 Philip had passed the bounds of mine, and 
 my natural indignation was heightened by 
 a sort of revulsion from last night's anxiety 
 on his account. His lordly indifference 
 to other people's feelings was more 
 irritating than the trouble he gave us by 
 Changing his mind. 
 
 "You won't let him take the Woolly 
 Beast from me, Isobel?" cried Charles. 
 " And you know you promised to lend me 
 your ostrich plume." 
 
 " Certainly not," said I. " And you 
 shall have the feather. I promised." 
 
 " If Mr. Clinton acts I shan't," said 
 Alice. 
 
 " Mr. Clinton won't act," said I, " I 
 can't alter the piece now. But I wish, 
 Alice, you were not always so very ready 
 to drive things into a quarrel." 
 
 " If we hadn't given way to Philip so 
 much he wouldn't think we can bear any- 
 thing," said Alice. 
 
 I could not but feel that there was some 
 truth in this, and that it was a dilemma 
 not provided against in Aunt Isobel's 
 teaching, that one may be so obliging to 
 those one lives with as to encourage, if 
 not to teach them to be selfish. 
 
 Perhaps it would have been well if on 
 the first day when Philip deserted us 
 Alice and I had spent the afternoon with 
 Lucy Lambent, and if we had continued 
 to amuse ourselves with our friends when 
 Philip amused himself with his. We should 
 then have been forced into a common 
 decision as to whether the play should 
 be given up, and, without reproaches or 
 counter- reproaches, Philip would have 
 learned that he could not leave all the 
 
 work to us, and then arrange and dis- 
 arrange the plot at his own pleasure, or 
 rather, he would never have thought that 
 he could. But a plan of this kind requires 
 to be carried out with perfect coolness to 
 be either justifiable or effective. And we 
 have not a cool head amongst us. 
 
 One thing was clear. I ought to keep 
 faith with the others who had worked 
 when Philip would not. Charles should 
 not be turned out of his part. I rather 
 hustled over the question of a new part 
 for Mr. Clinton in my mind. I disliked 
 him, and did not want to introduce him. 
 I said to myself that it was quite unreason- 
 able out of the question in fact and I 
 prepared to say so to Philip. 
 
 Of course he was furious that I knew 
 he would be ; but I was firm. 
 
 "Charles can be the Old Father, and 
 the Family Servant too," said he. " They're 
 both good parts." 
 
 "Then give them to Mr. Clinton," 
 said I, well knowing that he would not. 
 " Charles has taken a great deal of pains 
 with his part, and these are his holidays as 
 well as yours, and the Prince shall not be 
 taken from him." 
 
 " Well, I say it shall. And Charles may 
 be uncommonly glad if I let him act at all 
 after the way he behaved yesterday." 
 
 " The way you behaved, you mean," 
 said I for my temper was slipping from 
 my grasp ; " you might have broken his 
 neck." 
 
 " All the more danger in his provoking 
 me, and in your encouraging him." 
 
 I began to feel giddy, which is always a 
 bad sign with us. It rang in my mind's 
 ear that this was what came of being for- 
 bearing with a bully like Philip. But I 
 still tried to speak quietly. 
 
 " If you think," said I through my teeth, 
 " that I am going to let you knock the 
 others about, and rough-ride it over our 
 theatricals, you are mistaken." 
 
 6
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 " Your theatricals !" cried Philip, mimick- 
 ing me. " I like that ! Whom do the 
 properties belong to, pray ?" 
 
 " If it goes by buying," was my reply to 
 this rather difficult question, "most of 
 them belong to Granny, for the canvas 
 and the paints and the stuff for the dresses, 
 have gone down in the bills; and if it goes 
 by work, I think we have done quite as 
 much as you. And if some of the pro- 
 perties are yours, the play is mine. And 
 as to the scene you did the distance in 
 the middle of the wood, but Alice and I 
 painted all the foreground." 
 
 " Then you may keep your foreground, 
 and I'll take my distance," roared Philip, 
 and in a moment his pocket-knife was 
 open, and he had cut a hole a foot-and-a- 
 half square in the centre of the Enchanted 
 Forest, and Bobby's amazed face (he was 
 running a tuck in his cloak behind the 
 scenes) appeared through the aperture. 
 
 If a kind word would have saved the 
 fruits of our week's hard labour, not one 
 of us would have spoken it. We sacrifice 
 anything we possess in our ill-tempered 
 family except our wills. 
 
 " And you may take your play, and I'll 
 take my properties," continued Philip, 
 gathering up hats, wigs, and what not 
 from the costumes which Alice and I had 
 arranged in neat groups ready for the 
 green-room. " I'll give everything to 
 Clinton this evening for his new theatre, 
 and we'll see how you get on without the 
 Fiery Dragon." 
 
 " Clinton can't want a fiery dragon when 
 he's got you," said Charles, in a voice of 
 mock compliment. 
 
 The Fairy Godmother's crabstick was in 
 Philip's hand. He raised it, and flew at 
 Charles, but I threw myself between them 
 and caught Philip's arm. 
 
 "You shall not hit him," I cried. 
 
 Aunt Isobel is right about one thing. 
 If one does mean to stop short in a quarrel 
 
 one must begin at a very early stage. It 
 is easier to smother one's feelings than to 
 check one's words. By the time it comes 
 to blows it is like trying to pull up a run- 
 away horse. The first pinch Philip gave 
 to my arm set my brain on fire. When he 
 threw me heavily against the cave with a 
 mocking laugh, and sprang after Charles, 
 I could not have yielded an inch to him 
 to save my life not to earn Fortunatus' 
 purse, or three fairy wishes not to save 
 whatever I most valued. 
 
 What would have induced me ? I do 
 not know, but I know that I am very glad 
 it is not quite so easy to sell one's soul at 
 one bargain as fairy-tales make out ! 
 
 My struggle with Philip had given 
 Charles time to escape. Philip could not 
 find him, and rough as were the words 
 with which he returned to me, I fancy 
 they cost him some effort of self-control, 
 and they betrayed to Alice's instinct and 
 mine that he would have been glad to get 
 out of the extremity to which our tempers 
 had driven matters. 
 
 " Look here !" said he in a tone which 
 would have been perfect if we had been 
 acting a costermonger and his wife. " Are 
 you going to make Clinton the Prince or 
 not ?" 
 
 " I am not," said I, nursing my elbow, 
 which was cut by a nail on the cask. " I 
 am not going to do anything whatever for 
 Mr. Clinton, and I ought to be cured of 
 working for you." 
 
 " You have lost an opening to make 
 peace," said an inner voice. " You've 
 given the yielding plan a fair trial, and it 
 has failed," said self-justification the 
 swiftest pleader I know. " There are 
 some people, with self-satisfied, arbitrary 
 tempers, upon whom gentleness is worse 
 than wasted, because it misleads them. 
 They have that remnant of savage notions 
 which drives them to mistake generosity 
 for weakness. The only way to convince
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 them is to hit them harder than they hit 
 you. And it is the kindest plan for every- 
 body concerned." 
 
 I am bound to say though it rather 
 confuses some of my ideas that experience 
 has convinced me that this last statement 
 is not without truth. But I am also bound 
 to say that it was not really applicable to 
 Philip. He is not as generous as Alice, 
 but I had no good reason to believe that 
 kindly concession would be wasted on 
 him. 
 
 When I had flung my last defiance, 
 Philip replied in violent words of a kind 
 which girls in our class of life do not 
 (happily !) use, even in a rage. They were 
 partly drowned by the clatter with which 
 he dragged his big box across the floor, 
 and filled it with properties of all kinds, 
 from the Dragon to the foot-light re- 
 flectors. 
 
 " I am going by the 4.15 to the town," 
 said he, as ho pulled the box out towards 
 his own room. "You need not wait for 
 either Clinton or me. Pray 'ring up' 
 punctually !" 
 
 At this moment having fully realised 
 the downfall of the theatricals Bobby 
 burst into a howl of weeping. Alice 
 scolded him for crying, and Charles re- 
 proached her for scolding him, on the 
 score that her antipathy to Mr. Clinton 
 had driven Philip to this extreme point of 
 insult and ill-temper. 
 
 Charles's own conduct had been so far 
 from soothing, that Alice had abundant 
 material for retorts, and she was not likely 
 to be a loser in the war of words. What 
 she did say I did not hear, for by that 
 time I had locked myself up in my own 
 room, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SELF-REPROACH FAMILY DISCOMFORT 
 
 OUT ON THE MARSH VICTORY. 
 
 IF I could have locked myself up any- 
 where else I should have preferred it. I 
 would have justified my own part in the 
 present family quarrel to Aunt Isobel her- 
 self, and yet I would rather not have been 
 alone just now with the text I had made 
 and pinned up, and with my new picture. 
 However, there was nowhere else to go 
 to. 
 
 A restless way I have of pacing up and 
 down when I am in a rage, has often 
 reminded me of the habits of the more 
 ferocious of the wild beasts in the Zoo- 
 logical Gardens, and has not lessened my 
 convictions on the subject of the family 
 temper. For a few prowls up and down 
 my den I managed to occupy my thoughts 
 with fuming against Philip's behaviour, 
 but as the first flush of anger began to 
 cool, there was no keeping out of my head 
 the painful reflections which the sight of 
 my text, my picture, and my books 
 suggested the miserable contrast between 
 my good resolves and the result. 
 
 " It only shows," I muttered to myself, 
 in a voice about as amiable as the growlings 
 of a panther, " it only shows that it is quite 
 hopeless. We're an ill-tempered family 
 a hopelessly ill-tempered family; and to 
 try to cure us is like patching the lungs of 
 a consumptive family. I don't even wish 
 that I could forgive Philip. He doesn't 
 deserve it." 
 
 And then as I nursed the cut on my 
 elbow, and recalled the long hours of work 
 at the properties, the damaged scene, the 
 rifling of the green-room, and Philip's 
 desertion with the Dragon, his probable 
 6 *
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 industry for Mr. Clinton's theatricals, and 
 the way he had left us to face our own 
 disappointed audience, fierce indignation 
 got the upper hand once more. 
 
 " I don't care," I growled afresh ; " if I 
 have lost my temper, I believe I was right 
 to lose it at least, that no one could have 
 been expected not to lose it. I will never 
 beg his pardon for it, let Aunt Isobel say 
 what she will. I should hate him ever 
 after if I did, for the injustice of the thing. 
 Pardon, indeed !" 
 
 I turned at the top of the room and 
 paced back towards the window, towards 
 the long illuminated text, and that 
 
 " Noble face, 
 So sweet and full of grace," 
 
 which bent unchangeable from the emblem 
 of suffering and self-sacrifice. 
 
 I have a trick of talking to myself and 
 to inanimate objects. I addressed myself 
 now to the text and the picture. 
 
 " But if I don't," I continued, " if after 
 being confirmed with Philip in the autumn, 
 we come to just one of our old catastrophes 
 in the very next holidays, as bad as ever, 
 and spiting each other to the last I shall 
 take you all down to-morrow ! I don't 
 pretend to be able to persuade myself that 
 black is white like Mrs. Rampant ; but I 
 am not a hypocrite, I won't ornament my 
 room with texts, and crosses, and pictures, 
 and symbols of Eternal Patience, when I 
 do not even mean to try to sacrifice myself, 
 or to be patient." 
 
 It is curious how one's faith and practice 
 hang together. I felt very doubtful whether 
 itwas even desirable that I should. "\Vhether 
 we did not misunderstand GOD'S will, in 
 thinking that it is well that people in the 
 right should ever sacrifice themselves for 
 those who are in the wrong. I did not 
 however hide from myself, that to say this 
 was to unsay all my resolves about my 
 besetting sin. I decided to take down 
 
 my texts, pictures, and books, and grimly 
 thought that I would frame a fine photo- 
 graph Charles had given me of a lioness, 
 and would make a new inscription, the 
 motto of the old Highland Clan Chattan 
 with which our family is remotely con- 
 nected " Touch not the cat but a glove."* 
 
 " Put on "your gloves next time, Master 
 Philip !" I thought. " I shall make no 
 more of these feeble attempts to keep in 
 my claws, which only tempt you to irritate 
 me beyond endurance. We're an ill- 
 tempered family, and you're not the most 
 amiable member of it. For my own part, 
 I can control my temper when it is not 
 running away with me, and be fairly kind 
 to the little ones, so long as they do what 
 I tell them. But, at a crisis like this, I 
 can no more yield to your unreasonable 
 wishes, stifle my just anger, apologise for a 
 little wrong to you who owe apologies for 
 a big one, and pave the way to peace with 
 my own broken will, than the leopard can 
 change his spots." 
 
 " And yet if I could !" 
 
 It broke from me almost like a cry, " If 
 my besetting sin is a sin, if I have given 
 way to it under provocation if this moment 
 is the very hardest of the battle, and the 
 day is almost lost and if now, even now, 
 I could turn round and tread down this 
 Satan under my feet. If this were to- 
 morrow morning, and I had done it O 
 my soul, what triumph, what satisfaction 
 in past prayers, what hope for the future ! 
 Then thou shouldest believe the old legends 
 of sinners numbered with the saints, of 
 tyrants taught to be gentle, of the unholy 
 learning to be pure for one believes with 
 heartiness what he has experienced then 
 text and picture and cross should hang on, 
 in spite of frailty, and in this sign shalt 
 thou conquer." 
 
 One ought to be very thankful for the 
 blessings of good health and strong nerves, 
 * Anglic}, " without a glove."
 
 A VERY ILL TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 but I sometimes wish I could cry more 
 easily. I should not like to be like poor 
 Mrs. Rampant, whose head or back is 
 always aching, and whose nerves make me 
 think of the strings of an yEolian harp, on 
 which Mr. Rampant, like rude Boreas, is 
 perpetually playing with the tones of his 
 voice, the creak of his boots, and the bang 
 of his doors. But her tears do relieve, if 
 they exhaust her, and back-ache cannot 
 be as bad as heart-ache hot, dry heart- 
 ache, or cold, hard heart-ache. I think if 
 I could have cried I could have felt softer. 
 As it was I began to wish that I could do 
 what I felt sure that I could not. 
 
 If I dragged myself to Philip, and got 
 out a few conciliatory words, I should 
 break down in a worse fury than before if 
 he sneered or rode the high horse, " as he 
 probably would," thought I. 
 
 On my little carved Prayer-book shelf, 
 lay with other volumes a copy of A'Kempis, 
 which had belonged to my mother. Honesty 
 had already whispered that if I deliberately 
 gave up the fight with evil this must be 
 banished with my texts and pictures. At 
 the present moment a familiar passage 
 came into my head : 
 
 " When one that was in great anxiety of mind, 
 often wavering between fear and hope, did once 
 humbly prostrate himself in prayer, and said, ' O 
 if I knew that I should persevere !' he presently 
 heard within him an answer from GOL>, which 
 said, ' If thou didst know it, what would'st thou 
 do? Do what thou would'st do then, and thou 
 shall be safe.' " 
 
 Supposing I began to do right, and 
 trusted the rest? I could try to speak to 
 Philip, and it would be something even if 
 I stopped short and ran away. Or if I 
 could not drag my feet to him, I could 
 take Aunt Isobel's advice, and pray. I 
 might not be able to speak civilly to 
 Philip, or even to pray about him in my 
 present state of mental confusion, but I 
 could repeat some prayer reverently. Would 
 
 it not be better to start on the right road, 
 even if I fell by the way ? 
 
 I crossed the room in three strides to 
 the place where I usually say my prayers. 
 I knelt, and folded my hands, and shut 
 my eyes, and began to recite the Te Deum 
 in my head, trying to attend to it. I did 
 attend pretty well, but it was mere atten- 
 tion, till I felt slightly softened at the 
 verse " Make them to be numbered with 
 Thy saints in glory everlasting." For my 
 young mother was very good, and I always 
 think of her when the choir comes to that 
 verse on Sundays. 
 
 " Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this 
 day without sin." " It's too late to ask 
 that," thought I, with that half of my brain 
 which was not attending to the words of 
 the Te Deum, "and yet there is a little 
 bit of the day left which will be dedicated 
 either to good or evil." 
 
 I prayed the rest, " O Lord, have mercy 
 upon us, have mercy upon us. O Lord, 
 let Thy mercy lighten upon us, as our 
 trust is in Thee. O Lord, in Thee have 
 I trusted, let me never be confounded !" 
 and with the last verse there came from 
 my heart a very passion of desire for 
 strength to do the will of GOD at the 
 sacrifice of my own. I flung myself on 
 the floor with inarticulate prayers that 
 were very fully to the point now, and they 
 summed themselves up again in the old 
 words, "In Thee, O Lord, have I trusted, 
 let me never be confounded !" 
 
 When I raised my head I caught sight 
 of the picture, and for an instant felt a 
 superstitious thrill. The finely drawn face 
 shone with a crimson glow. But in a 
 moment more I saw the cause, and ex- 
 claimed "The sun is setting! I must 
 speak to Philip before it goes down." 
 
 What should I say ? Somehow, now, 
 my judgment felt very clear and decisive. 
 I would not pretend that he had been in 
 the right, but I would acknowledge where
 
 86 
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 I had been in the wrong. I had been 
 disobliging about Mr. Clinton, and I would 
 say so, and offer to repair that matter. I 
 would regret having lost my temper, and 
 say nothing about his. I would not offer 
 to deprive Charles of his part, or break 
 my promise of the white feather; but I 
 would make a new part for Mr. Clinton, 
 and he should be quite welcome to any 
 finery in my possession except Charles's 
 plume. This concession was no difficulty 
 to me. Bad as our tempers are, I am 
 thankful to say they are not mean ones. 
 If I dressed out Mr. Clinton at all, it 
 would come natural to do it liberally. I 
 would do all this if I could. I might 
 break down into passion at the mere sight 
 of Philip and the properties, but at least I 
 would begin " as if I knew I should per- 
 severe." 
 
 At this moment the front door was shut 
 with a bang which shook the house. 
 
 It was Philip going to catch the 4.15. 
 I bit my lips, and began to pull on my 
 boots, watching the red sun as it sank 
 over the waste of marshland which I could 
 see from my window. I must try to over- 
 take him, but I could run well, and I 
 suspected that he would not walk fast. I 
 did not believe that he was really pleased 
 at the break up of our plans and the 
 prospect of a public exposure of our 
 squabbles, though as a family we are 
 always willing to make fools of ourselves 
 rather than conciliate each other. 
 
 My things were soon on, and I hurried 
 from my room. In the window-seat of the 
 corridor was Alice. The sight of her re- 
 proached me. She slept in my room, but 
 I jealously retained full power over it, and 
 when I locked myself in she dared not 
 disturb me. 
 
 "I'm afraid you've been wanting to 
 come in," said I. " Do go in now." 
 
 " Thank you," said Alice, " I've nowhere 
 
 to go to." Then tightening her lips, she 
 added, " Philip's gone." 
 
 " I know," said I. " I'm going to try 
 and get him back." Alice stared in amaze- 
 ment. 
 
 "You always do spoil Philip, because 
 he's your twin," she said, at last ; " you 
 wouldn't do it for me." 
 " Oh, Alice, you don't know. I'd much 
 rather do it for you, girls are so much less 
 aggravating than boys. But don't try and 
 make it harder for me to make peace." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Isobel. If you do, 
 you're an angel. I couldn't, to save my 
 life." 
 
 At the head of the stairs I met Charles. 
 
 " He's gone," said he significantly, and 
 bestriding the balustrades, he shot to the 
 foot. When I reached him he was pinch- 
 ing the biceps muscle of his arm. 
 
 "Feel, Isobel," said he. "It's hard, 
 isn't it ?" 
 
 " Very, Charles, but I'm in a hurry." 
 
 "Look here," he continued, with an 
 ugly expression on his face, "I'm going 
 into training. I'm going to eat bits of raw 
 mutton, and dumb-bell. Wait a year, wait 
 half a year, and I shall be able to thrash 
 him. I'll make him remember these 
 theatricals. I don't forget. I haven't 
 forgot his bursting my football out of 
 spite." 
 
 It is not pleasant to see one's own sins 
 reflected on other faces. I could not 
 speak. 
 
 By the front door was Bobby. He was 
 by way of looking out of the portico 
 window, but his swollen eyes could not 
 possibly have seen anything. 
 
 "Oh, Isobel, Isobel!" he sobbed, 
 " Philip's gone, and taken the D d d 
 dragon with him, and we're all m m m 
 miserable." 
 
 " Don't cry, Bobby," said I, kissing 
 him. " Finish your cloak, and be doinj
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 anything you can. I'm going to try and 
 bring Philip back." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, thank you, Isobel ! If 
 only he'll come back I don't care what I 
 do. Or I'll give up my parts if he wants 
 them, and be a scene-shifter, if you'll lend 
 me your carpet-slippers, and make me a 
 paper cap." 
 
 " GOD has given you a very sweet temper, 
 Bobby," said I, solemnly. " I wish I had 
 one like it." 
 
 " You're as good as gold," said Bobby. 
 His loving hug added strength to my 
 resolutions, and I ran across the garden 
 and jumped the ha-ha, and followed Philip 
 over the marsh. I do not know whether 
 he heard my steps when I came nearly up 
 with him, but I fancy his pace slackened. 
 Not that he looked round. He was much 
 too sulky. 
 
 Philip is a very good-looking boy, much 
 handsomer than I am, though we are 
 alike. But the family curse disfigures his 
 face when he is cross ; more than anyone's, 
 and the back view of him is almost worse 
 than the front. His shoulders get so 
 humped up, and his whole figure is stiff 
 with cross-grained obstinacy. 
 
 " I shall never hold out if he speaks as 
 ungraciously as he looks," thought I in 
 despair. " But I'll not give in till I can 
 hold out no longer." 
 
 " Philip !" I said. He turned round, 
 and his face was no prettier to look at than 
 his shoulders. 
 
 "What do you want?" (in the coster- 
 monger tone.) 
 
 " I want you to come back, Philip " 
 {here I choked). 
 
 " I dare say," he sneered, "and you want 
 the properties ! But you've got your play, 
 and your amiable Charles, and your 
 talented Alice, and your ubiquitous Bobby. 
 And the audience will be entertained with 
 an unexpected after-piece entitled 'The 
 disobliging disobliged.' " 
 
 Oh it was hard ! I think if I had 
 looked at Philip's face I must have broken 
 down, but I kept my eyes steadily on the 
 crimson sun, which loomed large through 
 the marsh mists that lay upon the horizon, 
 as I answered with justifiable vehemence : 
 
 " I have a very bad temper, Philip " (I 
 checked the disposition to add " and so 
 have you "), " but I never tell a lie. I 
 have not come after the properties. The 
 only reason for which I have come is to 
 try and make peace." At this point I 
 gathered up all my strength and hurried 
 on, staring at the sun till the bushes near 
 us and the level waste of marsh beyond 
 seemed to vanish in the glow. " I came 
 to say that I am sorry for my share of the 
 quarrel. I lost my temper, and I beg 
 your pardon for that. I was not very 
 obliging about Mr. Clinton, but you had 
 tried me very much. However, what you 
 did wrong, does not excuse me, I know, 
 and if you like to come back, I'll make a 
 new part as you wanted. I can't give 
 him Charles's part, or the feather, but any- 
 thing I can do, or give up of my own, I 
 will. It's, not because of to-night, for you 
 know as well as I do that I do not care 
 twopence what happens when I'm angry, 
 and, after all, we can only say that you've 
 taken the things. But I wanted us to get 
 through these holidays without quarrelling, 
 and I wanted you to enjoy them, and I 
 want to try and be good to you, for you 
 are my twin brother, and for my share of 
 the quarrel I beg your pardon I can do 
 no more." 
 
 Some of this speech had been about as 
 pleasant to say as eating cinders, and 
 when it was done I felt a sudden sensation 
 (very rare with me) of unendurable fatigue. 
 As the last words left my lips the sun set, 
 but my eyes were so bedazzled that I am 
 not sure that I should not have fallen, but 
 for an unexpected support. What Philip 
 had been thinking of during my speech I
 
 88 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 do not know, for I had avoided looking at " You ill-tempered !" he roared. "You've 
 him, but when it was done he threw the the temper of an angel, or you would never 
 
 " ' Philip,' I said. He turned round, and his face was no prettier to look at 
 than his shoulders." (Page 87.) 
 
 properties out of his arms, and flung have come after me like this. Isobel, I 
 them around me with the hug of a Polar am a brute, I have behaved like a brute 
 bear. all the week, and I beg your pardon."
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 89 
 
 I retract my wishes about crying, for 
 when I do begin, I cry in such a very dis- 
 agreeable way no spring shower, but a 
 perfect tempest of tears. Philip's un- 
 expected generosity upset me, and I 
 sobbed till I frightened him, and he said 
 I was hysterical. The absurdity of this 
 idea set me off into fits of laughing, which, 
 oddly enough, seemed to distress him so 
 much that I stopped at last, and found 
 breath to say, " Then you'll come home ?" 
 
 " If you'll have me. And never mind 
 about Clinton, I'll get out of it. The 
 truth is, Isobel, you and Alice did snub 
 him from the first, and that vexed me ; but 
 I am disappointed in him. He does brag 
 so, and I've had to take that fowling-piece 
 to the gunsmith's already, so I know what 
 it's worth. I did give Clinton a hint abont 
 it, and would you believe it? he laughed, 
 and said he thought he had got the 
 best of that bargain. I said, ' I hope you 
 have, if it isn't an even one, for I should 
 be very sorry to think / had cheated a 
 friend !' But he either did not or wouldn't 
 see it. He's a second-rate sort of fellow, 
 I'm sure, and I'm sorry I promised to let 
 him act. But I'll get out of it, you shan't 
 be bothered by him." 
 
 " No, no," said I, " if you promised 
 I'd much rather. It won't bother me 
 at all." 
 
 (It is certainly a much pleasanter kind 
 of dispute when the struggle is to give, 
 and not to take !) 
 
 " You can't fit him in now ?" said Philip 
 doubtfully. 
 
 "Oh yes, I can." I felt sure that I 
 could. I have often been short of temper 
 for our amusements, but never of ideas. 
 Philip tucked the properties under one 
 arm, and me under the other, and as we 
 ran homewards over the marsh, I threaded 
 Mr. Clinton into the plot with perfect ease. 
 
 " We'll have a second Prince, and he 
 shall have an enchanted shield, which 
 
 shall protect him from you though he 
 can't kill you for Charles must do that. 
 He shall be in love with the Princess too, 
 but just when he and Charles are going to 
 fight for her, the Fairy Godmother shall 
 sprinkle him with the Waters of Memory, 
 and break a spell which had made him 
 forget his own Princess in a distant land. 
 You know, Philip, if he does act well, he 
 may make a capital part of it. It will be a 
 splendid scene. We have two real metal 
 swords, and as they are flashing in the air 
 enter the Fairy with the carved claret 
 jug. When he is sprinkled he must drop 
 his sword, and put his hands to his head. 
 He will recall the picture of his own 
 Princess, and draw it out and kiss it (I can 
 lend him my locket miniature of great- 
 grandpapa). Charles and he must swear 
 eternal friendship, and then he will pick 
 up his sword, and exit right centre, waving 
 the golden shield, to find his Princess. It 
 will look very well, and as he goes out the 
 Princess can enter left in distraction about 
 the combat, and she and Charles can fall 
 in each other's arms, and be blessed by 
 the Fairy." 
 
 " Capital !" said Philip. " What a head 
 you have ! But you're out of breath ? 
 We're running too fast." 
 
 " Not a bit," said I, " it refreshes me. 
 Do you remember when you and I used' 
 to run hand in hand from the top to the 
 bottom of Breakneck Hill? Oh, Philip, 
 I do wish we could never quarrel any 
 more ! I think we might keep our tempers 
 if we tried." 
 
 " You might," said Philip, "because 
 you are good. But I shall always be a 
 brute." 
 
 (Just what /said to Aunt Isobel ! Must 
 everyone learn his own lessons for himself? 
 I had a sort of unreasonable feeling that 
 my experience ought to serve for the 
 rest of our ill-tempered family into the 
 bargain.)
 
 9 o 
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY, 
 
 Philip's spirits rose higher and higher. 
 Of course he was delighted to be out of 
 the scrape. I am sure he was glad to be 
 friendly again, and he was hotter than ever 
 for the theatricals. 
 
 So was I. I felt certain that they would 
 be successful now. But far above and 
 beyond the comfort of things "coming 
 right," and the pleasure of anticipated fun, 
 my heart was rocked to a higher peace. 
 In my small religious experiences I had 
 never known this triumph, this thankful- 
 ness before. Circumstances, not self- 
 control, had helped me out of previous 
 quarrels; I had never really done battle, 
 and gained a conquest over my besetting 
 sin. Now, however imperfectly and awk- 
 wardly, I yet had fought. If Philip had 
 been less generous I might have failed, 
 but the effort had been real and it had 
 been successful. Henceforth my soul 
 should fight with the prestige of victory, 
 with the courage that comes of having 
 striven and won, trusted and not been 
 confounded. 
 
 The first person we met after we got 
 in was Aunt Isobel. She had arrived in 
 our absence. No doubt she had heard 
 the whole affair, but she is very good, and 
 never gauche, and she only said 
 
 " Here come the stage-managers ! Now 
 what can I do to help ? I have had some 
 tea, and am ready to obey orders till the 
 curtain rings up." 
 
 Boys do not carry things off well. Philip 
 got very red, but I said " Oli, please 
 come to the nursery, Aunt Isobel. There 
 are lots of things to do." She came, and 
 was invaluable. I never said anything 
 about the row to her, and she never said 
 anything to me. That is what I call a 
 friend ! 
 
 The first thing Philip did was to unlock 
 the property-box in his room and bring 
 the Dragon and things back. The second 
 thing he did was to mend the new scene 
 
 by replacing the bit he had cut out, glue- 
 ing canvas on behind it, and touching up 
 with paint where it joined. 
 
 We soon put straight what had been 
 disarranged. Blinds were drawn, candles 
 lighted, seats fixed, and the theatre began 
 to look like itself. Aunt Isobel and I were 
 bringing in the footlights, when we saw 
 Bobby at the extreme right of the stage 
 wrapped in his cloak, and contemplating, 
 with apparent satisfaction, twelve old hats 
 and six pasteboard bandboxes which were 
 spread before him. 
 
 " My dear Bobby, what are these ?" said 
 Aunt Isobel. Bobby hastily almost stam- 
 meringly explained. 
 
 " I am Twelve Travellers, you know, 
 Aunt Isobel." 
 
 " Dear me !" said Aunt Isobel. 
 
 " I'll show you how I am going to do 
 it," said Bobby. 
 
 " Here are twelve old hats I have had 
 such work to collect them ! and six band- 
 boxes." 
 
 " Only six ?" said Aunt Isobel with com- 
 mendable gravity. 
 
 " But there are the lids," said Bobby, 
 " six of them, and six boxes, make twelve, 
 you know. I've only one cloak, but it's 
 red on one side and blue on the other, 
 and two kinds of buttons. Well ; I come 
 on left for the First Traveller, with my 
 cloak the red side out, and this white 
 chimney-pot hat." 
 
 " Ah !" said Aunt Isobel. 
 
 " And one of the bandboxes under my 
 cloak. The Dragon attacks me in the 
 centre, and drives me off the right, where 
 I smash up the bandbox, which sounds 
 like him crunching my bones. Then I 
 roll the thunder, turn my cloak to the blue 
 side, put on this wideawake, and come on 
 again with a bandbox lid and crunch that, 
 and roll more thunder, and so on. I'm 
 the Faithful Attendant and the Bereaved 
 Father as well," added Bobby, with justi-
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 fiable pride, " and I would have done the 
 Dragon if they would have let me." 
 
 But even Bobby did not outdo the rest 
 of us in willingness. Alice's efforts were 
 obvious tokens of remorse ; she waited on 
 Philip, was attentive to Mr. Clinton (who, 
 I think, to this day believes that he made 
 himself especially acceptable to " the young 
 ladies") and surpassed herself on the 
 stage. Charles does not " come round " 
 so quickly, but at the last moment he 
 came and offered to yield the white plume. 
 I confess I was rather vexed with Mr. 
 Clinton for accepting it, but Alice and I 
 despoiled our best hats of their black 
 ostrich feathers to make it up to Charles, 
 and he said, with some dignity, that he 
 should never have offered the white one 
 if he had not meant it to be accepted. 
 
 One thing took us by surprise. We 
 had had more trouble over the dressing of 
 the new Prince than the costumes and 
 make-up of all the rest of the characters 
 together cost he was only just torn from 
 the big looking-glass by his " call " to the 
 stage, and, to our amazement, he seemed 
 decidedly unwilling to go on. 
 
 "It's a very odd thing, Miss Alice," 
 said he in accents so pitiable that I did 
 not wonder that Alice did her best to 
 encourage him, "it's a most extraor- 
 dinary thing, but I feel quite nervous." 
 
 "You'll be all right when you're once 
 on," said Alice ; " mind you don't forget 
 that it depends on you to explain that it's 
 an invincible shield." 
 
 " Which arm had I better wear it on ?" 
 said Mr. Clinton, shifting it nervously 
 from side to side. 
 
 "The left, the left!" cried Alice. 
 " Now you ought to be on." 
 
 " Oh what shall I say ?" cried our new 
 hero. 
 
 " Say c Devastating Monster ! my arm 
 is mortal, and my sword was forged by 
 
 human fingers, but this shield is in- 
 vincible as ' " 
 
 "Second Prince," called Charles im- 
 patiently, and Mr. Clinton was hustled on. 
 
 He was greeted with loud applause. 
 He said afterwards that this put his part 
 out of his head, that Alice had told him 
 wrong, and that the shield was too small 
 for him. 
 
 As a matter of fact he hammered and 
 stammered and got himself and the piece 
 into such confusion, that Philip lost 
 patience as he lay awaiting his cue. With 
 a fierce bellow he emerged from his cask, 
 and roaring, " Avaunt, knight of the 
 invincible shield and craven heart !" he 
 crossed the stage with the full clatter of his 
 canvas joints, and chased Mr. Clinton off 
 at the left centre. 
 
 Once behind the scenes, he refused to 
 go on again. He said that he had never 
 played without a proper part at his uncle's 
 in Dublin, and thought our plan quite a 
 mistake. Besides which, he had got 
 toothache, and preferred to join the 
 audience, which he did, and the play went 
 on without him. 
 
 I was acting as stage-manager in the 
 intervals of my part, when I noticed Mr. 
 Clinton (not the ex-Prince, but his father, 
 the surgeon) get up, and hastily leave his 
 place among the spectators. But just as I 
 was wondering at this, I was recalled to 
 business by delay on the part of Bobby, 
 who ought to have been on (with the 
 lights down) as the Twelfth Traveller. 
 
 I found him at the left wing, with all 
 the twelve hats fitted one over another, 
 the whole pile resting on a chair. 
 
 " Bob, what are you after ? You ought 
 to be on." 
 
 " All right," said Bob, " Philip knows. 
 He's lashing his tail and doing some 
 business till I'm ready. Help me to put 
 this cushion under my cloak for a hump-
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 back, will you ? I didn't like the twelfth 
 hat, it's too like the third one, so I'm 
 going on as a Jew Pedlar. Give me that 
 box. Now !" And before I could speak 
 a roar of applause had greeted Bobby as 
 he limped on in his twelve hats, crying, 
 " Oh tear, oh tear ! dish ish the tarkest 
 night I ever shaw." 
 
 But either we acted unusually well, or 
 our audience was exceptionally kind, for it 
 applauded everything and everybody till 
 the curtain fell. 
 
 " Behind the scenes " is always a place 
 of confusion after amateur theatricals ; at 
 least it used to be with us. We ran 
 hither and thither, lost our every-day 
 shoes, washed the paint from our faces, 
 and mislaid any number of towels, and 
 combs, and brushes, ate supper by 
 snatches, congratulated ourselves on a 
 successful evening, and were kissed all 
 around by Granny, who came behind the 
 scenes for the purpose. 
 
 All was over, and the guests were gone, 
 when I gave an invitation to the others to 
 come and make lemon-brew over my bed- 
 room fire as an appropriate concluding 
 festivity. (It had been suggested by 
 Bobby.) I had not seen Philip for some 
 time, but we were all astonished to hear 
 that he had gone out. We kept his 
 " brew " hot for him, and Charles and 
 Bobby were both nodding though they 
 stoutly refused to go to bed, when his 
 step sounded in the corridor, and he 
 knocked and came hastily in/ 
 
 Everybody roused up. 
 
 "Oh, Philip, we've been wondering 
 where you were ! Here's your brew, and 
 we've each kept a little drop, to drink 
 your good health." 
 
 (" Mine is all pips," observed Bobby as 
 a parenthesis.) But Philip was evidently 
 thinking of something else. 
 
 " Isobel," he said, standing by the 
 table, as if he were making a speech, " I 
 shall never forget your coming after me 
 to-day. I told you you had the temper of 
 an angel." 
 
 " So did I," said Alice. 
 
 " Hear ! hear !" said Bobby, who was 
 sucking his pips one by one and laying 
 them by " to plant in a pot," as he after- 
 wards explained. 
 
 " You not only saved the theatricals," 
 continued Philip, " you saved my life I 
 believe." 
 
 No " situation " in the play had been 
 half so startling as this. We remained 
 open-mouthed and silent, whilst Philip sat 
 down as if he were tired, and rested his 
 head on his hands, which were dirty, and 
 stained with something red. 
 
 " Haven't you heard about the acci- 
 dent ?" he asked. 
 
 We all said " No." 
 
 "The 4. 1 5 ran into the express where 
 the lines cross, you know. Isobel, there 
 were only two first-class carriages, and 
 everybody in them was killed but one man, 
 They have taken both his legs off, and 
 he's not expected to live. Oh, poor 
 fellow, he did groan so !" 
 
 Bobby burst into passionate tears, and 1 
 Philip buried his head on his arms. 
 
 Neither Alice nor I could speak, but 
 Charles got up and went round and stood 
 by Philip. 
 
 "You've been helping," he said em- 
 phatically, " I know you have. You're a 
 good fellow, Philip, and I beg your pardon 
 for saucing you. I am going to forget 
 about the football too. I was going to 
 have eaten raw meat, and dumb-belled, to 
 make myself strong enough to thrash you," 
 added Charles remorsefully. 
 
 " Eat a butcher's shop full, if you like," 
 replied Philip with contempt. And I 
 think it showed that Charles was begin-
 
 A VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY. 
 
 93 
 
 ning to practise forbearance, that he made 
 no reply. 
 
 Some years have passed since those 
 Twelfth Night theatricals. The Dragon has 
 long been dissolved into his component 
 scales, and we never have impromptu per- 
 formances now. The passing fame which a 
 terrible railway accident gave to our 
 insignificant station has also faded. But 
 it set a seal on our good resolutions which 
 I may honestly say has not been lightly 
 broken. 
 
 There, on the very spot where I had 
 almost resolved never to forgive Philip, 
 never to try to heal the miserable wounds 
 of the family peace, I learned the news of 
 the accident in which he might have been 
 killed. Philip says that if anything could 
 make him behave better to me it is the 
 
 thought that I saved his life, as he calls it. 
 But if anything could help me to be good 
 to him, surely it must be the remem- 
 brance of how nearly I did not save 
 him. 
 
 I put Alice on an equality in our bed- 
 room that night, and gave her part-owner- 
 ship of the text and the picture. We are 
 very happy together. 
 
 We have all tried to improve, and I 
 think I may say we have been fairly 
 successful. 
 
 More than once I have heard (one does 
 hear many things people say behind one's 
 back) that new acquaintances people 
 who have only known us lately have 
 expressed astonishment, not unmixed with 
 a generous indignation, on hearing that we 
 were ever described by our friends as A 
 VERY ILL-TEMPERED FAMILY.
 
 OUR FIELD.
 
 Though nothing can bring back the hour 
 
 Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower ; 
 
 We will grieve not, rather find 
 
 Strength in what remains behind, 
 
 In the primal sympathy 
 
 Which, having been, must ever be. 
 
 ******* 
 
 And, O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, 
 
 Think not of any severing of our loves ! 
 
 Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might ; 
 
 ******* 
 
 Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 
 
 Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears : 
 
 To me the meanest flower that blows can give 
 
 Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears. 
 
 Wordsworth.
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 THERE were four of us, and three of us 
 had godfathers and godmothers. Three 
 each. Three times three make nine, and 
 not a fairy godmother in the lot. That 
 was what vexed us. 
 
 It was very provoking, because we 
 knew so well what we wanted if we had 
 one, and she had given us three wishes 
 each. Three times three make nine. We 
 could have got all we wanted out of nine 
 wishes, and have provided for Perronet 
 into the bargain. It would not have been 
 any good Perronet having wishes all to 
 himself, because he was only a dog. 
 
 We never knew who it was that drowned 
 Perronet, but it was Sandy who saved his 
 life and brought him home. It was when 
 he was coming home from school, and he 
 brought Perronet with him. Perronet 
 was not at all nice to look at when we 
 first saw him, though we were very sorry 
 for him. He was wet all over, and 
 his eyes shut, and you could see his ribs, 
 and he looked quite dark and sticky. 
 But when he dried, he dried a lovely 
 yellow, with two black ears like velvet. 
 People sometimes asked us what kind of 
 dog he was, but we never knew, except 
 that he was the nicest possible kind. 
 
 When we had got him, we were afraid we 
 were not going to be allowed to have him. 
 Mother said we could not afford him, 
 because of the tax and his keep. The 
 
 tax was five shillings, but there wanted 
 nearly a year to the time of paying it. Of 
 course his keep began as soon as he 
 could eat, and that was the very same 
 evening. We were all very miserable, 
 because we were so fond of Perronet at 
 least, Perronet was not his name then, but 
 he was the same person and at last it 
 was settled that all three of us would give 
 up sugar, towards saving the expense of 
 his keep, if he might stay. It was hardest 
 for Sandy, because he was particularly 
 fond of sweet things ; but then he was 
 particularly fond of Perronet. So we all 
 gave up sugar, and Perronet was allowed 
 to remain. 
 
 About the tax, we thought we could 
 save any pennies or half-pennies we got 
 during the year, and it was such a long 
 time to the time for paying, that we should 
 be almost sure to have enough by then. 
 We had not any money at the time, or we 
 should have bought a savings-box; but 
 lots of people save their money in 
 stockings, and we settled that we would. 
 An old stocking would not do, because of 
 the holes, and I had not many good 
 pairs ; but we took one of my winter ones to 
 use in the summer, and then we thought 
 we could pour the money into one of my 
 good summer ones when the winter came. 
 
 What we most of all wanted a fairy 
 godmother for was about our " homes." 
 7
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 There was no kind of play we liked better 
 than playing at houses and new homes. 
 But no matter where we made our 
 " home," it was sure to be disturbed. If 
 it was indoors, and we made a palace 
 under the big table, as soon as ever we 
 had got it nicely divided into rooms 
 according to where the legs came, it was 
 certain to be dinner-time, and people put 
 their feet into it. The nicest house we 
 ever had was in the out-house ; we had it, 
 and kept it quite a secret, for weeks. 
 
 It was always the same. If we wanted to 
 play at Thames Tunnel under the beds, 
 we were not allowed ; and the day we did 
 Aladdin in the store-closet, old Jane came 
 and would put away the soap, just when 
 Aladdin could not possibly have got the 
 door of the cave open. 
 
 It was one day early in May a very 
 hot day for the time of year, which had 
 made us rather cross when Sandy came 
 in about four o'clock, smiling more 
 broadly even than usual, and said to 
 
 And then the new load of wood came and 
 covered up everything, our best oyster- 
 shell dinner-service and all. 
 
 Anyone can see that it is impossible 
 really to fancy anything when you are 
 constantly interrupted. You can't have 
 any fun out of a railway train stopping at 
 stations, when they take all your carriages 
 to pieces because the chairs are wanted 
 for tea ; any more than you can play 
 properly at Grace Darling in a life-boat, 
 when they say the old cradle is too good 
 to be knocked about in that way. 
 
 Richard and me, " I've got a fairy god- 
 mother, and she's given us a field." 
 
 Sandy was very fond of eating, especi- 
 ally sweet things. He used to keep back 
 things from meals to enjoy afterwards, and 
 he almost always had a piece of cake in 
 his pocket. He brought a piece out now, 
 and took a large mouthful, laughing at us 
 with his eyes over the top of it. 
 
 "What's the good of a field ? : ' said 
 Richard. 
 
 " Splendid houses in it," said Sandy. 
 
 "I'm quite tired of fancying homes,"
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 said I. " It's ho good ; we always get 
 turned out." 
 
 " It's quite a new place," Sandy con- 
 tinued ; " you've never been there," and 
 he took a triumphant bite of the cake. 
 
 " How did you get there ?" asked 
 Richard. 
 
 " The fairy godmother showed me," 
 was Sandy's reply. 
 
 There is such a thing as nursery 
 honour. We respected each other's pre- 
 tendings unless we were very cross, but I 
 didn't disbelieve in his fairy godmother. 
 I only said, "You shouldn't talk with 
 your mouth full," to snub him for making 
 a secret about his field. 
 
 Sandy is very good-tempered. He only 
 laughed and said, "Come along. It's much 
 cooler out now. The sun's going down." 
 
 He took us along Gipsy Lane. We 
 had been there once or twice, for walks, 
 but not very often, for there was some 
 horrid story about it which rather 
 frightened us. I do not know what it 
 was, but it was a horrid one. Still we 
 had been there, and I knew it quite well. 
 At the end of it there is a stile, by which 
 you go into a field, and at the other end 
 you get over another stile, and find your- 
 self in the high road. 
 
 " If this is our field, Sandy," said I, 
 when we got to the first stile, " I'm very 
 sorry, but it really won't do. I know that 
 lots of people come through it. We 
 should never be quiet here." 
 
 Sandy laughed. He didn't speak, and 
 he didn't get over the stile ; he went 
 through a gate close by it leading into 
 a little sort of bye-lane that was all 
 mud in winter and hard cart-ruts in 
 summer. I had never been up it, but I 
 had seen hay and that sort of thing go in 
 and come out of it. 
 
 He went on and we followed him. 
 The ruts were very disagreeable to walk 
 on, but presently he led us through a hole 
 
 in the hedge, and we got into a field. It 
 was a very bare-looking field, and went, 
 rather uphill. There was no path, but 
 Sandy walked away up it, and we went 
 after him. There was another hedge at 
 the top, and a stile in it It had very 
 rough posts, one much longer than the 
 other, and the cross step was gone, but 
 there were two rails, and we all climbed 
 over. And when we got to the other side, 
 Sandy leaned against the big post and 
 gave a wave with his right hand and said, 
 " This is our field." 
 
 It sloped down hill, and the hedges 
 round it were rather high, with awkward 
 branches of blackthorn sticking out here 
 and there without any leaves, and with the 
 blossom lying white on the black twigs 
 like snow. There were cowslips all over 
 the field, but they were thicker at the 
 lower end, which was damp. The great 
 heat of the day was over. The sun shone 
 still, but it shone low down and made 
 such splendid shadows that we all walked 
 about with grey giants at our feet ; and it 
 made the bright green of the grass, and 
 the cowslips down below, and the top of 
 the hedge, and Sandy's hair, and every- 
 thing in the sun and the mist behind the 
 elder bush which was out of the sun, so 
 yellow so very yellow that just for a 
 minute I really believed about Sandy's 
 godmother, and thought it was a story 
 come true, and that everything was turning 
 into gold. 
 
 But it was only for a minute ; of course 
 I know that fairy tales are not true. But 
 it was a lovely field, and when we had put 
 our hands to our eyes and had a good 
 look at it, I said to Sandy, " I beg your 
 pardon, Sandy, for telling you not to talk 
 with your mouth full. It is the best field 
 I ever heard of." 
 
 "Sit down," said Sandy, doing the 
 honours ; and we all sat down under the 
 hedge. 
 
 72
 
 100 
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 " There are violets just behind us," he 
 continued. " Can't you smell them ? 
 But whatever you do, don't tell anybody 
 of those, or we shan't keep our field to 
 ourselves for a day. And look here." 
 He had turned over on to his face, and 
 Richard and I did the same, whilst Sandy 
 fumbled among the bleached grass and 
 brown leaves. 
 
 "Hyacinths," said Richard, as Sandy 
 displayed the green tops of them. 
 
 " As thick as peas," said Sandy. This 
 bank will be blue in a few weeks ; and 
 fiddle-heads everywhere. There will be 
 no end of ferns. May to any extent it's 
 only in bud yet and there's a wren's 
 
 nest in there " At this point he rolled 
 
 suddenly over on to his back and looked up. 
 
 " A lark," he explained ; " there was one 
 singing its head off, this morning. I say, 
 Dick, this will be a good field for a kite, 
 won't it ? But wait a bit." 
 
 After every fresh thing that Sandy 
 showed us in our field, he always finished 
 by saying, " Wait a bit"; and that was 
 because there was always something else 
 better still. 
 
 " There's a brook at the bottom there," 
 he said, " with lots of fresh-water shrimps. 
 I wonder whether they would boil red. 
 J3ut wait a bit. This hedge, you see, has 
 got a very high bank, and it's worn into 
 kind of ledges. I think we could play at 
 ' shops ' there but wait a bit" 
 
 " It's almost too good, Sandy dear !" 
 said I, as we crossed the field to the 
 opposite hedge. 
 
 "The best is to come," said Sandy. 
 " I've a very good mind not to let it out 
 till to-morrow." And to our distraction 
 he sat down in the middle of the field, put 
 his arms round his knees, as if we were 
 playing at " Honey-pots," and rocked 
 himself backwards and forwards with a 
 face of brimming satisfaction. 
 
 Neither Richard nor I would have 
 
 been so mean as to explore on our own 
 account, when the field was Sandy's dis- 
 covery, but we tried hard to persuade him 
 to show us everything. 
 
 He had the most provoking way of 
 laughing and holding his tongue, and he 
 did that now, besides slowly turning all 
 his pockets inside-out into his hands, and 
 mumbling up the crumbs and odd 
 currants, saying, " Guess !" between every 
 mouthful. 
 
 But when there was not a crumb left 
 in the seams of his pockets, Sandy turned 
 them back, and jumping up, said " One 
 can only tell a secret once. It's a hollow 
 oak. Come along !" 
 
 He ran and we ran, to the other side of 
 Our Field. I had read of hollow oaks, 
 and seen pictures of them, and once I 
 dreamed of one, with a witch inside, but 
 we had never had one to play in. We 
 were nearly wild with delight. It looked 
 all solid from the field, but when we pushed 
 behind, on the hedge side, there was the 
 door, and I crept in, and it smelt of wood, 
 and delicious damp. There could not be 
 a more perfect castle, and though there 
 were no windows in the sides, the light 
 came in from the top, where the polypody 
 hung over like a fringe. Sandy was quite 
 right. It was the very best thing in Our 
 Field. 
 
 Perronet was as fond of the field as we 
 were. What he liked were the little birds. 
 At least, I don't know that he liked them, 
 but they were what he chiefly attended to. 
 I think he knew that it was our field, and 
 thought he was the watch-dog of it, and 
 whenever a bird settled down anywhere, 
 he barked at it, and then it flew away, and 
 he ran barking after it till he lost it ; and 
 by that time another had settled down, 
 and then Perronet flew at him, and so on, 
 all up and down the hedge. He never 
 caught a bird, and never would let one sit 
 down, if he could see it.
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 101 
 
 We had all kinds of games in Our Field. 
 Shops for there were quantities of things 
 to sell and sometimes I was a moss- 
 merchant, for there were ten different kinds 
 of moss by the brook, and sometimes I 
 was a jeweller, and sold daisy-chains and 
 pebbles, and coral sets made of holly 
 berries, and oak-apple necklaces ; and 
 
 and paid for them with money made of 
 elder-pith, sliced into rounds. The first 
 shop I kept was to sell cowslips, and 
 Richard and Sandy lived by the brook, 
 and were wine merchants, and made 
 cowslip wine in a tin mug. 
 
 The elder-tree was a beauty. In July 
 the cream-coloured flowers were so sweet, 
 
 sometimes I kept provisions, like earth- 
 nuts, and mallow-cheeses, and mushrooms ; 
 and sometimes I kept a flower-shop, and 
 sold nosegays and wreaths, and umbrellas 
 made of rushes. I liked that kind of shop, 
 because I am fond of arranging flowers, 
 and I always make our birthday wreaths. 
 And sometimes I kept a whole lot of shops, 
 and Richard and Sandy bought my things, 
 
 we could hardly sit under it, and in the 
 autumn it was covered with berries ; but 
 we were always a little disappointed that 
 they never tasted in the least like elder- 
 berry syrup. Richard used to make flutes 
 out of the stalks, and one really did to 
 play tunes on, but it always made Perronet 
 bark. 
 
 Richard's every-day cap had a large hole
 
 102 
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 in the top, and when we were in Our Field 
 we always hung it on the top of the tallest 
 of the two stile-posts, to show that we were 
 there ; just as the Queen has a flag hung 
 out at Windsor Castle, when she is at 
 home. 
 
 We played at castles and houses, and 
 when we were tired of the houses, we pre- 
 tended to pack up, and went to the seaside 
 for change of air by the brook. Sandy 
 and I took off our shoes and stockings 
 and were bathing-women, and we bathed 
 Perronet ; and Richard sat on the bank 
 and was a " tripper," looking at us through 
 a telescope; for when the elder-stems 
 cracked and wouldn't do for flutes, he 
 made them into telescopes. And before 
 we went down to the brook we made jam 
 of hips and haws from tke hedge at the 
 top of the field, and put it into acom cups, 
 and took it with us, that the children 
 might not be short of roly-polies at the 
 seaside. 
 
 Whatever we played at we were never 
 disturbed. Birds, and cows, and men and 
 horses ploughing in the distance, do not 
 disturb you at all. 
 
 We were very happy that summer : the 
 boys were quite happy, and the only thing 
 that vexed me was thinking of Perronet's 
 tax-money. For months and months went 
 on and we did not save it. Once we got 
 as far as twopence halfpenny, and then 
 one day Richard came to me and said, 
 "I must have some more string for the 
 kite. You might lend me a penny out of 
 Perronet's stocking, till I get some money 
 of my own." 
 
 So I did ; and the next day Sandy came 
 and said, " You lent Dick one of Perronet's 
 coppers ; I'm sure Perronet would lend me 
 one," and then they said it was ridiculous 
 to leave a halfpenny there by itself, so we 
 spent it in acid drops. 
 
 It worried me so much at last, that I 
 began to dream horribb dreams about 
 
 Perronet having to go away because we 
 hadn't saved his tax-money. And then I 
 used to wake up and cry, till the pillow 
 was so wet, I had to turn it. The boys 
 never seemed to mind, but then boys don't 
 think about things ; so that I was quite 
 surprised when one day I found Sandy 
 alone in our field with Perronet in his 
 arms, crying, and feeding him with cake ; 
 and I found he was crying about the tax- 
 money. 
 
 I cannot bear to see boys cry. I would 
 much rather cry myself, and I begged 
 Sandy to leave off, for I said I was quite 
 determined to try and think of something. 
 
 It certainly was" remarkable that the 
 very next day should be the day when we 
 heard about the flower-show. 
 
 It was in school the village school, for 
 mother could not afford to send us any- 
 where else and the schoolmaster rapped 
 on his desk and said, " Silence, children !" 
 and that at the agricultural show there was 
 to be a flower show this year, and that an 
 old gentleman was going to give prizes to 
 the school-children for window-plants and 
 for the best arranged wild flowers. There 
 were to be nosegays and wreaths, and there 
 was to be a first-prize of five shillings, and 
 a second prize of half-a-crown, for the best 
 collection of wild flowers with the names 
 put to them. 
 
 " The English names," said the school- 
 master ; " and there may be silence, 
 children ! there may be collections of 
 ferns, or grasses, or mosses to compete, 
 too, for the gentleman wishes to encourage 
 a taste for natural history.'"' 
 
 And several of the village children said, 
 " What's that ?" and I squeezed Sandy's 
 arm, who was sitting next to me, and 
 whispered, " Five shillings !" and the 
 schoolmaster said, " Silence, children !" 
 and I thought I never should have finished 
 my lessons that day for thinking of Per- 
 ronet's tax-money.
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 103 
 
 July is not at all a good month for wild 
 flowers ; May and June are far better. 
 However, the show was to be in the first 
 week in July. 
 
 I said to the boys, " Look here : I'll do 
 a collection of flowers. I know the names, 
 and I can print. It's no good two or 
 three people muddling with arranging 
 flowers; but if you will get me what I 
 want, I shall be very much obliged. If 
 either of you will make another collection, 
 you know there are ten kinds of mosses by 
 the brook ; and we have names for them 
 of our own, and they are English. Perhaps 
 they'll do. But everything must come out 
 of Our Field." 
 
 The boys agreed, and they were very 
 good. Richard made me a box, rather 
 high at the back. We put sand at the 
 bottom and damped it/ and then Feather 
 Moss, lovely clumps of it, and into that I 
 stuck the flowers. They all came out of 
 Our Field. I like to see grass with flowers, 
 and we had very pretty grasses, and between 
 every bunch of flowers I put a bunch of 
 grass of different kinds. I got all the 
 flowers and all the grasses ready first, and 
 printed the names on pieces of cardboard 
 to stick in with them, and then I arranged 
 them by my eye, and Sandy handed me 
 what I called for, for Richard was busy at 
 the brook making a tray of mosses. 
 
 Sandy knew the flowers and the names 
 of them quite as well as I did, of course ; 
 we knew everything that lived in Our 
 Field ; so when I called, " Ox-eye daisies, 
 cock's-foot grass, labels ; meadow-sweet, 
 fox-tail grass, labels; dog-roses, shivering 
 grass, labels ;" and so "on, he gave me the 
 right things, and I had nothing to do but 
 to put the colours that looked best together 
 next to each other, and to make the grass 
 look light, and pull up bits of the moss to 
 show well. And at the very end I put in 
 a label, " All out of Our Field." 
 
 I did not like it when it was done ; but 
 
 Richard praised it so much, it cheered 
 me up, and I thought his mosses looked 
 lovely. 
 
 The flower-show day was very hot. I 
 did not think it could be hotter anywhere 
 in the world than it was in the field where 
 the show was ; but it was hotter in the 
 tent. 
 
 We should never have got in at all 
 for you had to pay at the gate but they 
 let competitors in free, though not at first. 
 When we got in, there were a lot of grown- 
 up people, and it was very hard work 
 getting along among them, and getting to 
 see the stands with the things on. We 
 kept seeing tickets with " ist Prize" and 
 " 2nd Prize," and struggling up ; but they 
 were sure to be dahlias in a tray, or fruit 
 that you mightn't eat, or vegetables. The 
 vegetables disappointed us so often, I got 
 to hate them. I don't think I shall ever 
 like very big potatoes (before they are 
 boiled) again, particularly the red ones. 
 It makes me feel sick with heat and 
 anxiety to think of them. 
 
 We had struggled slowly all round the 
 tent, and seen all the cucumbers, onions, 
 lettuces, long potatoes, round potatoes, 
 and everything else, when we saw an old 
 gentleman, with spectacles and white hair, 
 standing with two or three ladies. And 
 then we saw three nosegays in jugs, with 
 all the green picked off, and the flowers 
 tied as tightly together as they would go, 
 and then we saw some prettier ones, and 
 then we saw my collection, and it had got 
 a big label in it marked " ist Prize," and 
 next to it came Richard's moss-tray, with 
 the Hair-moss, and the Pincushion-moss, 
 and the Scale-mosses, and a lot of others 
 with names of our own, and it was marked 
 "2nd Prize." And I gripped one of 
 Sandy's arms just as Richard seized the 
 other, and we both cried, " Perronet is 
 paid for !"
 
 104 
 
 OUR FIELD. 
 
 There was two-and-sixpence over. We 
 never had such a feast ! It was a picnic 
 tea, and we had it in Our Field. I thought 
 Sandy and Perronet would have died of 
 cake, but they were none the worse. 
 
 We were very much frightened at first 
 when the old gentleman invited himself; 
 but he would come, and he brought 
 a lot of nuts, and he did get inside 
 the oak, though it is really too small for 
 him. 
 
 I don't think there ever was anybody so 
 kind. If he were not a man, I should 
 really and truly believe in Sandy's fairy 
 godmother. 
 
 Of course I don't really believe tn 
 fairies. I am not so young as that. And 
 I know that Our Field does not exactly 
 belong to us. 
 
 I wonder to whom it does belong? 
 Richard says he believes it belongs to the 
 gentleman who lives at the big red house 
 among the trees. But he must be wrong ; 
 for we see that gentleman at church every 
 Sunday, but we never saw him in Our 
 Field. 
 
 And I don't believe anybody could have 
 such a field of their very own, and never 
 come to see it, from one end of Summer 
 to the other.
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY.
 
 "Like little body with a mighty heart." 
 
 A7- Henry K, Act 2.
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY, 
 
 PART I. 
 
 IT was not her real name : it was given to 
 her by her brothers and sister. People 
 with very marked qualities of character do 
 sometimes get such distinctive titles, to 
 rectify the indefiniteness of those they 
 inherit and those they receive in baptism. 
 The ruling peculiarity of a character is apt 
 to show itself early in life, and it showed 
 itself in Madam Liberality when she was a 
 little child. 
 
 Plum-cakes were not plentiful in her 
 home when Madam Liberality was young, 
 and such as there were, were of the 
 " wholesome " kind plenty of bread-stuff, 
 and the currants and raisins at a respect- 
 ful distance from each other. But few as 
 the plums were, she seldom ate them. 
 She picked them out very carefully, and 
 put them into a box, which was hidden 
 under her pinafore. 
 
 When we grown-up people were chil- 
 dren, and plum-cake and plum-pudding 
 tasted very much nicer than they do now, 
 we also picked out the plums. Some of 
 us ate them at once, and had then to toil 
 slowly through the cake or pudding, and 
 some valiantly despatched the plainer 
 portion of the feast at the beginning, 
 and kept the plums to sweeten the end. 
 Sooner or later we ate them ourselves, but 
 
 Madam Liberality kept her plums for 
 other people. 
 
 When the vulgar meal was over that 
 commonplace refreshment ordained and 
 superintended by the elders of the house- 
 hold Madam Liberality would withdraw 
 into a comer, from which she issued notes 
 of invitation to all the dolls. They were 
 " fancy written " on curl papers and folded 
 into cocked hats. 
 
 Then began the real feast. The dolls 
 came, and the children with them. Madam 
 Liberality had no toy tea-sets or dinner- 
 sets, but there were acorn-cups filled to 
 the brim, and the water tasted deliciously, 
 though it came out of the ewer in the 
 night nursery, and had not even been 
 filtered. And before every doll was a flat 
 oyster-shell covered with a round oyster- 
 shell, a complete^ set of complete pairs, 
 which had been collected by degrees, like 
 old family plate. And when the upper 
 shell was raised, on every dish lay a plum. 
 It was then that Madam Liberality got 
 her sweetness out of the cake. 
 
 She was in her glory at the head of the 
 inverted tea-chest ; and if the raisins would 
 not go round, the empty oyster-shell was 
 hers, and nothing offended her more than 
 to have this noticed. That was her spirit,
 
 io8 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 then and always. She could " do without " 
 anything, if the wherewithal to be hospit- 
 able was left to her. 
 
 When one's brain is no stronger than 
 mine is, one gets very much confused in 
 disentangling motives and nice points of 
 character. I have doubted whether Madarn 
 Liberality's besetting virtue were a virtue 
 at all. Was it unselfishness or love of 
 approbation, benevolence or fussiness, the 
 gift of sympathy or the lust of power? 
 Or was it something else? She was a 
 very sickly child, with much pain to bear, 
 and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as 
 doctors say, "an effort of nature," to make 
 her live outside herself and be happy in 
 the happiness of others ? 
 
 Equal doubt may hang over the con- 
 duct of her brothers and sister towards 
 her. Did they more love her, or find her 
 useful ? Was their gratitude as gratitude 
 has been defined to be " a keen sense of 
 favours to come " ? They certainly got 
 used to her services, and to begging and 
 borrowing the few things that were her 
 " very own," without fear of refusal. But 
 if they rather took her benevolence for 
 granted, and thought that she "liked 
 lending her things," and that it was her 
 way of enjoying possessions, they may 
 have been right ; for next to one's own 
 soul, one's own family is perhaps the best 
 judge of one's temper and disposition. 
 
 And they called her Madam Liberality, 
 so Madam Liberality she shall remain. 
 
 It has been hinted .that there was a 
 reason for the scarceness of the plums in 
 the plum-cake. Madam Liberality's father 
 was dead, and her mother was very poor, 
 and had several children. It was not an 
 easy matter with her to find bread for the 
 family, putting currants and raisins out of 
 the question. 
 
 Though poor, they were, however, gentle- 
 folk, and had, for that matter, rich rela- 
 tions. Very rich relations indeed ! Madam 
 
 Liberality's mother's first cousin had fifteen 
 thousand a year. His servants did not 
 spend ten thousand. (As to what he spent 
 himself, it was comparatively trifling.) The 
 rest of the money accumulated. Not that 
 it was being got together to do something 
 with by-and-by. He had no intention of 
 ever spending more than he spent at pre- 
 sent. Indeed, with a lump of coal taken 
 off here, and a needless candle blown out 
 there, he rather hoped in future to spend 
 less. 
 
 His wife was Madam Liberality's god- 
 mother. She was a good-hearted woman, 
 and took real pleasure in being kind to 
 people, in the way she thought best for 
 them. Sometimes it was a graceful and 
 appropriate way, and very often it was not. 
 The most acceptable act of kindness she 
 ever did to her god-daughter was when 
 the child was recovering from an illness, 
 and she asked her to visit her at the sea- 
 side. 
 
 Madam Liberality had never seen the 
 sea, and the thought of it proved a better 
 stimulus than the port wine which her 
 doctor ordered so easily, and her mother 
 got with such difficulty. 
 
 When new clothes were bought, or old 
 ones refurbished, Madam Liberality, as a 
 rule, went to the wall. Not because her 
 mother was ever guilty of favouritism, but 
 because such occasions afforded an oppor- 
 tunity of displaying generosity towards her 
 younger sister. 
 
 But this time it was otherwise; for what- 
 ever could be spared towards " summer 
 things " for the two little girls was spent 
 upon Madam Liberality's outfit for the 
 seaside. There was a new dress, and a 
 jacket " as good as new," for it was cut out 
 of " mother's " cloth cloak and made up, 
 with the best binding and buttons in the 
 shop, by the village tailor. And he was 
 bribed, in a secret visit, and with much 
 coaxing from the little girls, to make real
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 109 
 
 pockets instead of braided shams. The 
 second best frock was compounded of two 
 which had hitherto been very bests 
 Madam Liberality's own, eked out by 
 " Darling's " into a more fashionable ful- 
 ness, and with a cape to match. 
 
 There was a sense of solid property 
 , to be derived from being able to take 
 in at a glance the stock of well-mended 
 under-garments, half of which were gene- 
 rally at the wash. Besides, they had been 
 added to, and all the stockings were 
 darned, and only one pair in the legs 
 where it would show, below short petti- 
 coat mark. 
 
 Then there was a bonnet newly turned 
 and trimmed, and a pair and a half of 
 new boots, for surely boots are at least 
 half new when they have been (as the 
 village cobbler described it in his bill) 
 " souled and healed "? 
 
 Poor little Madam Liberality ! When 
 she saw the things which covered her bed 
 in their abundance, it seemed to her an 
 outfit for a princess. And yet when her 
 godmother asked Podmore, the lady's 
 maid, " How is the child off for clothes ?" 
 Podmore unhesitatingly replied, " She've 
 nothing fit to be seen, ma'am," which 
 shows how differently the same things 
 appear in different circumstances. 
 
 Podmore was a good friend to Madam 
 Liberality. She had that open-handed 
 spirit which one acquires quite naturally 
 in a house where everything goes on on a 
 large scale, at somebody else's expense. 
 Now Madam Liberality's godmother, from 
 the very largeness of her possessions, was 
 obliged to leave the care of them to others, 
 in such matters as food, dress, the gardens, 
 the stables, etc. So, like many other 
 people in a similar case, she amused her- 
 self and exercised her economical instincts 
 by troublesome little thriftinesses, by 
 making cheap presents, dear bargains, and 
 so forth. She was by nature a managing 
 
 woman ; and when those very grand people, 
 the butler, the housekeeper, the head- 
 gardener, and the lady's maid had divided 
 her household duties among them, there 
 was nothing left for her to be clever about, 
 except such little matters as joining the 
 fag-ends of the bronze sealing-wax sticks 
 which lay in the silver inkstand on the 
 malachite writing-table, and being good- 
 natured at the cheapest rate at which her 
 friends could be benefited. 
 
 Madam Liberality's best neckerchief 
 had been very pretty when it was new, 
 and would have been pretty as well as 
 clean still if the washerwoman had not 
 used rather too hot an iron to it, so that 
 the blue in the check pattern was some- 
 what faded. And yet it had felt very 
 smart as Madam Liberality drove in the 
 carrier's cart to meet the coach at the 
 outset of her journey. But when she sat 
 against the rich blue leather of her god- 
 mother's coach as they drove up and down 
 the esplanade, it was like looking at fairy 
 jewels by daylight when they turn into 
 faded leaves. 
 
 " Is that your best neckerchief, child ?" 
 said the old lady. 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," blushed Madam Liber- 
 ality. 
 
 So when they get home her godmother 
 went to her odds-and-ends drawer. 
 
 Podmore never interfered with this 
 drawer. She was content to be despotic 
 among the dresses, and left the old lady to 
 faddle to her heart's content with bits of 
 old lace and ribbon which she herself would 
 not have condescended to wear. 
 
 The old lady fumbled them over. There 
 were a good many half-yards of ribbon 
 with very large patterns, but nothing really 
 fit for Madam Liberality's little neck but a 
 small Indian scarf of many-coloured silk. 
 It was old, and Podmore would never 
 have allowed her mistress to drive on the 
 esplanade in anything so small and
 
 110 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 youthful-looking ; but the colours were 
 quite bright, and there was no doubt but 
 that Madam Liberality might be provided 
 for by a cheaper neck-ribbon. So the 
 .old lady shut the drawer, and toddled 
 down the corridor that led to Podinore's 
 room. 
 
 She had a good general idea that Pod- 
 more's perquisites were large, but perqui- 
 sites seem to be a condition of valuable 
 sen-ants in large establishments, and then 
 anything which could be recovered from 
 what had already passed into Podmore's 
 room must be a kind of economy. So she 
 resolved that Podmore should "find some- 
 thing " for Madam Liberality's neck. 
 
 " I never noticed it, ma'am, till I 
 brought your shawl to the carriage," said 
 Podmore. " If I had seen it before, the 
 young lady shouldn't have come with you 
 so. I'll see to it, ma'am." 
 
 " Thank you, Podmore." 
 
 " Can you spare me to go into the 
 town this afternoon, ma'am ?" added the 
 lady's maid. " I want some things at 
 Huckaback and Woolsey's." 
 
 Huckaback and Woolsey were the 
 linendrapers where Madam Liberality's 
 godmother "had an account." It was 
 one of the things on a large scale 
 over the details of which she had no 
 control. 
 
 "You'll be back in time to dress 
 me?" 
 
 " Oh dear, yes, ma'am." And having 
 settled the old lady's shawl on her 
 shoulders, and drawn out her cap-lappets, 
 Podmore returned to her work. 
 
 It was a work of kindness. The old 
 lady might deal shabbily with her faded 
 ribbons and her relations, but the butler, 
 the housekeeper, and the lady's maid did 
 their best to keep up the credit of the 
 family. 
 
 It was well known that Madam Liber- 
 ality was a ccusin. and Podmore resolved 
 
 that she should have a proper frock to go 
 down to dessert in. 
 
 So she had been very busy making a 
 little slip out of a few yards of blue silk 
 which had been over and above one of 
 the old lady's dresses, and now she 
 betook herself to the draper's to get 
 spotted muslin to cover it and ribbons to- 
 trim it with. 
 
 And whilst Madam Liberality's god- 
 mother was still feeling a few twinges 
 about the Indian scarf, Podmore ordered 
 a pink neckerchief shot with white, and 
 with pink and white fringes, to be included 
 in the parcel. 
 
 But it was not in this way alone that 
 Podmore was a good friend to Madam 
 Liberality. 
 
 She took her out walking, and let her 
 play on the beach, and even bring home 
 dirty weeds and shells. Indeed, Podmore 
 herself was not above collecting cowries in 
 a pill-box for her little nephews. 
 
 When Mrs. Podmore met acquaint- 
 ances on the beach, Madam Liberality 
 played alone, and these were her happiest 
 moments. She played amongst the rotting, 
 weed-grown stakes of an old pier, and 
 " fancied " rooms among them suites of 
 rooms in which she would lodge her 
 brothers and sisters if they came to visit 
 her, and where with cockle-shells for 
 teacups, and lava for vegetables, and 
 fucus-pods for fish they should find 
 themselves as much enchanted as Beauty 
 in the palace of the Beast. 
 
 Again and again she " fancied " Darling 
 into her shore-palace, the delights of 
 which should only be marred by the 
 growls which she herself would utter from 
 time to time from behind the stakes, in 
 the character of a sea-beast, and which 
 should but enhance the moment when she 
 would rush out and throw her arms round 
 Darling's neck and reveal herself as Madam 
 Liberality.
 
 MAP AM LIBERALITY. 
 
 ill 
 
 " Darling " was the pet name of Madam 
 Liberality's sister her only sister, on whom 
 shelavished the intensest affection of a heart 
 which was always a large one in propor- 
 tion to her little body. It seemed so 
 strange to play at any game of fancies 
 without Darling, that Madam Liberality 
 could hardly realize it. 
 
 She might be preparing by herself a 
 larger treat than usual for the others ; but 
 it was incredible that no one would come 
 after all, and that Darling would never see 
 the palace on the beach, and the state- 
 rooms, and the limpets, and the sea-weed, 
 and the salt-water soup, and the real fish 
 (a small dab discarded from a herring- 
 net) which Madam Liberality had got for 
 her. 
 
 Her mind was filled with day-dreams 
 of Darling's coming, and of how she 
 would display to her all the wonders of 
 the seashore, which would reflect almost 
 as much credit upon her as if she had 
 invented razor-shells and crabs. She 
 thought so much about it that she began- 
 quite to expect it. 
 
 Was it not natural that her godmother 
 should see that she must be lonely, and 
 ask Darling to come and be with her? 
 Perhaps the old lady had already done so, 
 and the visit was to be a surprise. Madam 
 Liberality could quite imagine doing a 
 nice thing like this herself, and she hoped 
 it so strongly that she almost came to 
 believe in it. 
 
 Every day she waited hopefully, first for 
 the post, and then for the time when the 
 coach came in, the hour at which she her- 
 self had arrived ; but the coach brought no 
 Darling, and the post brought no letter 
 to say that she was coming, and Madam 
 Liberality's hopes were disappointed. 
 
 Madam Liberality was accustomed to 
 disappointment. 
 
 From her earliest years it had been a 
 
 family joke that poor Madam Liberality 
 was always in ill-luck's way. 
 
 It is true that she was constantly plan- 
 ning ; and if one builds castles, one must 
 expect a few loose stones about one's ears 
 now and then. But, besides this, her little 
 hopes were constantly being frustrated by 
 fate. 
 
 If the pigs or the hens got into the 
 garden, Madam Liberality's bed was sure 
 to be laid waste before anyone came to> 
 the rescue. When a picnic or a teaparty 
 was in store, if Madam Liberality did not 
 catch cold, so as to hinder her from going,, 
 she was pretty sure to have a quinsy 
 from fatigue or wet feet afterwards. When 
 she had a treat she paid for the pleasur- 
 able excitement by a headache, just as- 
 when she ate sweet things they gave her 
 toothache. 
 
 But if her luck was less than other 
 people's, her courage and good spirits 
 were more than common. She could 
 think with pleasure about the treat when* 
 she had forgotten ' the headache. One 
 side of her little face would look fairly- 
 cheerful when the other was obliterated 
 by a flannel bag of hot camomile flowers, 
 and the whole was redolent of every 
 horrible domestic remedy for toothache,, 
 from oil of cloves and creosote to a baked 
 onion in the ear. No sufferings abated 
 her energy for fresh exploits, or quenched 
 the hope that cold, and damp, and fatigue 
 would not hurt her " this time." 
 
 In the intervals of wringing out hot 
 flannels for her own quinsy, she \vould 
 amuse herself by devising a desert island 
 expedition on a larger and possibly a 
 damper scale than hitherto, against the 
 time when she should be out again. 
 
 It is a very old simile, but Madam 
 Liberality really was like a cork rising on. 
 the top of the very wave of ill-luck that 
 had swallowed up her hopes. Her little
 
 112 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 white face and undaunted spirit bobbed up 
 after each mischance or malady as ready 
 and hopeful as ever. 
 
 Though her day-dream about Darling 
 and the shore palace was constantly dis- 
 appointed, this did not hinder her from 
 indulging new hopes and fancies in another 
 place to which she went with Podmore ; a 
 place which was filled with wonders of a dif- 
 ferent kind from the treasures of the palace 
 on the shore. 
 
 It was called the Bazaar. It would be 
 a very long business to say what was in it. 
 But amongst other things there were foreign 
 cage-birds, musical-boxes, and camp-stools, 
 and baskets, and polished pebbles, and 
 paper patterns, and a little ladies' and 
 children's millinery, and a good deal of 
 mock jewellery, and some very bad soaps 
 and scents, and some very good children's 
 toys. 
 
 It was Madam Liberality's godmother 
 who first took her to the bazaar. A titled 
 lady of her acquaintance had heard that 
 wire flower-baskets of a certain shape 
 could be bought in the bazaar cheaper 
 (by twopence-halfpenny each) than in 
 London ; and after writing to her friend 
 to ascertain the truth of the statement, 
 she wrote again to authorize her to pur- 
 chase three on her behalf. So Madam 
 Liberality's godmother ordered out the 
 blue carriage and pair, and drove with 
 her little cousin to the bazaar. 
 
 And as they came out, followed by a 
 bearded man, bowing very low, and carry- 
 ing the wire baskets, Madam Liberality's 
 godmother stopped near the toystall to 
 button her glove. And when she had 
 buttoned it (which took a long time, 
 because her hands were stout, and Pod- 
 more generally did it with a hook), she 
 said to Madam Liberality, " Now, child, 
 I want to tell you that if you are very 
 good whilst you are with me, and Pod- 
 more gives me a good report of you, I 
 
 will bring you here before you go home, 
 and buy you a present." 
 
 Madam Liberality's heart danced with 
 delight. She wished her godmother would 
 stand by the toystall for an hour, that she 
 might see what she most hoped the present 
 would be. But the footman tucked them 
 into the carriage, and the bearded man 
 bowed himself back into the bazaar, and 
 they drove home. Then Madam Liber- 
 ality's godmother directed the butler to 
 despatch the wire baskets to her ladyship, 
 which he did by coach. And her lady- 
 ship's butler paid the carriage, and tipped 
 the man who brought the parcel from the 
 coach-office, and charged these items in 
 his account. And her ladyship wrote a 
 long letter of thanks to Madam Liberality's 
 godmother for her kindness in saving her 
 unnecessary expense. 
 
 The old lady did not go to the bazaar 
 again for some time, but Madam 
 Liberality went there with Podmore. 
 She looked at the toys and wondered 
 which of them might one day be her 
 very own. The white china tea-service 
 with the green rim, big enough to make 
 real tea in, was too good. to be hoped for, 
 but there were tin tea-sets where the lids 
 would come off, and wooden ones where 
 they were stuck on ; and there were all 
 manner of toys that would be invaluable 
 for all kinds of nursery games and fancies. 
 
 They helped a "fancy" of Madam 
 Liberality even then. She used to stand 
 by the toy-stall, and fancy that she was as 
 rich as her godmother, and was going to 
 give Christmas-boxes to her brothers and 
 sisters, and her amusement was to choose, 
 though she could not buy them. 
 
 Out of this came a deep mortification. 
 She had been playing at this fancy one 
 afternoon, and having rather confused 
 herself by changing her mind about the 
 toys, she went through her final list in an 
 undertone, to get it clearly into her head.
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 The shopman was serving a lady, and 
 Madam Liberality thought he could not 
 hear her as she murmured, "The china 
 tea-set, the box of beasts, the doll's 
 furniture for Darling," etc., etc. But the 
 shopman's hearing was very acute, and he 
 darted forward, crying, "The china tea- 
 set, did you say, miss ?" 
 
 The blood rushed up to poor Madam 
 Liberality's face till it seemed to choke 
 her, and the lady, whom the shopman had 
 been serving, said kindly, "I think the 
 little girl said the box of beasts." 
 
 Madam Liberality hoped it was a 
 dream, but having pinched herself, she 
 found that it was not. 
 
 Her mother had often said to her, 
 "When you can't think what to say, tell 
 the truth." It was not a very easy rule, 
 but Madam Liberality went by it. 
 
 " I don't want anything, thank you," 
 said she; "at least, I mean I have no 
 money to buy anything with : I was only 
 counting the things I should like to get if 
 I had." 
 
 And then, as the floor of the bazaar 
 would not open and swallow her up, she 
 ran away, with her red face and her empty 
 pocket, to shelter herself with Podmore at 
 the mock-jewellery stall, and she did not go 
 to the bazaar any more. 
 
 Once again disappointment was in store 
 for Madam Liberality. The end of her 
 visit came, and her godmother's promise 
 seemed to be forgotten. But the night 
 before her departure, the old lady came 
 into her room and said : 
 
 " I couldn't take you with me to-day, 
 child, but I didn't forget my promise. 
 Podmore says you've been very good, and 
 so I've brought you a present. A very 
 useful one, I hope," added the old lady, in 
 a tone as if she were congratulating her- 
 self upon her good sense. " And tell 
 Catherine that's your mother, child 
 with my love, always to have you dressed 
 
 for the evening. I like to see children 
 come in to dessert, when they have good 
 manners which I must say you have ; 
 besides, it keeps the nurses up to their 
 work." 
 
 And then she drew out from its paper a 
 little frock of pink mousseline-de-laine, very 
 prettily tacked together by the young 
 woman at the millinery-stall, and very 
 cheap for its gay appearance. 
 
 Down came all Madam Liberality's 
 visions in connection with the toy-stall : 
 but she consoled herself that night with 
 picturing Darling's delight when she gave 
 her (as she meant to give her) the pink 
 dress. 
 
 She had another source of comfort and 
 anticipation tJie scallop shells. 
 
 But this requires to be explained. The 
 greatest prize which Madam Liberality had 
 gained from her wanderings by the sea- 
 shore was a complete scallop shell. 
 When washed the double shell was as 
 clean and as pretty as any china muffin- 
 dish with a round top ; and now her 
 ambition was to get four more, and thus 
 to have a service for doll's feasts which 
 should far surpass the oyster shells. She 
 was talking about this to Podmore one 
 day when they were picking cowries 
 together, and Podmore cried, " Why, this 
 little girl would get you them, miss, I'll 
 be bound !" 
 
 She was a bare-footed little girl, who 
 sold pebbles and seaweed, and salt water 
 for sponging with, and she had under- 
 taken to get the scallop-shells, and had 
 run off to pick seaweed out of a newly 
 landed net before Madam Liberality could 
 say " Thank you." 
 
 She heard- no more of the shells, how- 
 ever, until the day before she went away, 
 when the butler met her as she came 
 indoors, and told her that the little girl 
 was waiting. And it was not till Madam 
 Liberality saw the scallop shells lying 
 8
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 clean and pink in a cotton handkerchief 
 that she remembered that she had no 
 money to pay for them. 
 
 Here was another occasion for painful 
 truthtelling ! But to make humiliating 
 confession before the butler seemed 
 almost beyond even Madam Liberality's 
 moral courage. He went back to his 
 pantry, however, and she pulled off her 
 pretty pink neckerchief and said : 
 
 " I am very sorry, little girl, but I've 
 got no money of my own ; but if you 
 
 would like this instead " And the 
 
 little girl seemed quite pleased with her 
 bargain, and ran hastily off, as if afraid 
 that the young lady would change her 
 mind. 
 
 And this was how Madam Liberality 
 got her scallop shells. 
 
 It may seem strange that Madam 
 Liberality should ever have been accused 
 of meanness, and yet her eldest brother 
 did once shake his head at her and say, 
 " You're the most meanest and generoust- 
 est person I ever knew !" And Madam 
 Liberality wept over the accusation, 
 although her brother was then too young 
 to form either his words or his opinions 
 correctly. 
 
 But it was the touch of truth in it which 
 made Madam Liberality cry. To the 
 end of their lives Tom and she were alike 
 and yet different in this matter. Madam 
 Liberality saved, and pinched, and planned, 
 and then gave away, and Tom gave away 
 without the pinching and saving. This 
 sounds much handsomer, and it was poor 
 Tom's misfortune that he always believed it 
 to be so; though he gave away what did not 
 belong to him, and fell back for the supply 
 of his own pretty numerous wants upon 
 other people, not forgetting Madam 
 Liberality. 
 
 Painful experience convinced Madam 
 Liberality in the end that his way was a 
 
 wrong one, but she had her doubts many 
 times in her life whether there were not 
 something unhandsome in her own 
 decided talent for economy. Not that 
 economy was always pleasant to her. 
 When people are very poor for their 
 position in life, they can only keep 
 out of debt by stinting on many occasions 
 when stinting is very painful to a liberal 
 spirit. And it requires a sterner virtue 
 than good-nature to hold fast the truth 
 that it is nobler to be shabby and 
 honest than to do things handsomely in 
 debt. 
 
 But long before Tom had a bill even 
 for bull's-eyes and Gibraltar Rock. 
 Madam Liberality was pinching and 
 plotting, and saving bits of coloured 
 paper and ends of ribbon, with a thrifti- 
 ness which seemed to justify Tom's view 
 of her character. 
 
 The object of these savings was two- 
 fold : birthday presents and Christmas- 
 boxes. They were the chief cares and 
 triumphs of Madam Liberality's child- 
 hood. It was with the next birthday or 
 the approaching Christmas in view that 
 she saved her pence instead of spending 
 them, but she so seldom had any money 
 that she chiefly relied on her own 
 ingenuity. Year by year it became more 
 difficult to make anything which would 
 " do for a boy ;" but it was easy to please 
 Darling, and " Mother's " unabated appre- 
 ciation of pincushions, and of needle- 
 books made out of old cards, was most 
 satisfactory. 
 
 To break the mystery in which it 
 always pleased Madam Liberality to 
 shroud her small preparations, was to give 
 her dire ' offence. As a rule, the others 
 respected this caprice, and would even 
 feign a little more surprise than they felt, 
 upon occasion. But if during her pre- 
 parations she had given umbrage to one 
 of the boys, her retreat was soon invaded
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 with cries of " Ah ! I see you, making 
 birthday presents out of nothing and a 
 quarter of a yard of ribbon !" Or 
 " There you are ! At it again, with two 
 old visiting cards and a ha'porth of 
 flannel !" And only Darling's tenderest 
 kisses could appease Madam Liberality's 
 wrath and dry her tears. 
 
 She had never made a grander project 
 for Christmas, or had greater difficulty in 
 carrying it out, than in the winter which 
 followed her visit to the seaside. It was 
 in the house of her cousin that she had 
 first heard of Christmas-trees, and to 
 surprise the others with a Christmas-tree 
 she was quite resolved. But as the time 
 drew near, poor Madam Liberality was 
 almost in despair about her presents, and 
 this was doubly provoking, because a nice 
 little fir-tree had been promised her. 
 There was no blinking the fact that 
 " Mother " had been provided with pin- 
 cushions to repletion. And most of these 
 made the needles rusty, from being stuffed 
 with damp pig-meal, when the pigs and 
 the pincushions were both being fattened 
 for Christmas. 
 
 Madam Liberality sat with her little 
 pale face on her hand and her slate 
 before her, making her calculations. She 
 wondered what emery-powder cost. Sup- 
 posing it to be very cheap, and that she 
 could get a quarter of a pound for " next 
 to nothing," how useful a present might 
 be made for " Mother " in the shape of an 
 emery pincushion, to counteract the evil 
 effects of the pig-meal ones ! It would be 
 a novelty even to Darling, especially if 
 hers were made by glueing a tiny bag of 
 emery into the mouth of a " boiled fowl 
 cowry." Madam Liberality had seen such 
 a pincushion in Podmore's work-basket. 
 She had a shell of the kind, and the 
 village carpenter would always let her put 
 a stick into his glue-pot if she went to the 
 shop. 
 
 But then, if emery were only a penny a 
 pound, Madam Liberality had not a 
 farthing to buy a quarter of a pound with. 
 As she thought of this her brow con- 
 tracted, partly with vexation, and partly 
 because of a jumping pain in a big tooth, 
 which, either from much illness or many 
 medicines, or both, was now but the 
 wreck of what a tooth should be. But as 
 the toothache grew worse, a new hope 
 dawned upon Madam Liberality. Per- 
 haps one of her troubles would mend the 
 other ! 
 
 Being very tender-hearted over children's 
 sufferings, it was her mother's custom to 
 bribe rather than coerce when teeth had 
 to be taken out. The fixed scale of reward 
 was sixpence for a tooth without fangs, and 
 a shilling for one with them. If pain were 
 any evidence, this tooth certainly had fangs. 
 But one does not have a tooth taken out 
 if one can avoid it, and Madam Liberality 
 bore bad nights and painful days till they 
 could be endured no longer ; and then, 
 because she knew it distressed her mother 
 to be present, she went alone to the 
 doctor's house to ask him to take out her 
 tooth. 
 
 The doctor was a very kind old man, 
 and he did his best, so we will not say 
 anything about his antique instruments, 
 or the number of times he tied a pocket- 
 handkerchief round an awful-looking claw, 
 and put both into Madam Liberality's 
 mouth without effect. 
 
 At last he said he had got the tooth 
 out, and he wrapped it in paper, and 
 gave it to Madam Liberality, who, having 
 thought that it was her head he had 
 extracted from its socket, was relieved to 
 get away. 
 
 As she ran home she began to plan 
 how to lay out her shilling for the best, 
 and when she was nearly there she opened 
 the bit of paper to look at her enemy, and 
 it had no fanp;s !
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 " I'm sure it was more than a sixpenny 
 one," she sobbed ; " I believe he has left 
 them in." 
 
 It involved more than the loss of half 
 the funds she had reckoned upon. Perhaps 
 this dreadful pain would go on even on 
 Christmas Day. Her first thought was to 
 carry her tears to her mother ; her second 
 that, if she only could be brave enough to 
 have the fangs taken out, she might spare 
 Mother all distress about it till it was over, 
 when she would certainly like her sufferings 
 to be known and sympathised with. She 
 knew well that courage does not come 
 with waiting, and making a desperate rally 
 of stout-heartedness, she ran back to the 
 doctor. 
 
 He had gone out, but his assistant was 
 in. He looked at Madam Liberality's 
 mouth, and said that the fangs were 
 certainly left in and would be much better 
 out. 
 
 "Would it hurt very much?" asked 
 Madam Liberality, trembling. 
 
 The assistant blinked the question of 
 " hurting." 
 
 " I think I could do it," said he, " if 
 you could sit still. Not if you were jump- 
 ing about." 
 
 " I will sit still," said Madam Liberality. 
 
 "The boy shall hold your head," said 
 the assistant. 
 
 But Madam Liberality rebelled ; she 
 could screw up her sensitive nerves to 
 endure the pain, but not to be coerced by 
 " the boy." 
 
 " I give you my word of honour I will 
 sit still," said she, with plaintive earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 And the assistant (who had just remem- 
 bered that the boy was out with the gig) 
 said, " Very well, miss." 
 
 We need not dwell upon the next few 
 seconds. The assistant kept his word, 
 and Madam Liberality kept hers. She 
 sat still, and went on sitting still after the 
 
 operation was over till the assistant became 
 alarmed, and revived her by pouring some 
 choking stuff down her throat. After which 
 she staggered to her feet and put out her 
 hand and thanked him. 
 
 He was a strong, rough, good-natured 
 young man, and little Madam Liberality's 
 pale face and politeness touched him. 
 
 "You're the bravest little lady I ever 
 knew," he said kindly ; " and you keep 
 your word like a queen. There's some 
 stuff to put to the place, and there's six- 
 pence, miss, if you'll take it, to buy 
 lollipops with. You'll be able to eat them 
 now." 
 
 After which he gave her an old pill-box 
 to carry the fragments of her tooth in, and 
 it was labelled " three to be taken at bed- 
 time." 
 
 Madam Liberality staggered home, 
 very giddy, but very happy. Moralists 
 say a great deal about pain treading so 
 very closely on the heels of pleasure in 
 this life, but they are not always wise or 
 grateful enough to speak of the pleasure 
 which springs out of pain. And yet there 
 is a bliss which comes just when pain has 
 ceased, whose rapture rivals even the high 
 happiness of unbroken health ; and there 
 is a keen relish about small pleasures 
 hardly earned, in which the full measure 
 of those who can afford anything they want 
 is sometimes lacking. 
 
 Relief is certainly one of the most 
 delicious sensations which poor humanity 
 can enjoy ! Madam Liberality enjoyed it 
 to the full, and she had more happiness 
 yet in her cup. I fear praise was very 
 pleasant to her, and the assistant had 
 praised her, not undeservedly, and she 
 knew that further praise was in store from 
 the dearest source of approbation from 
 her mother. Ah ! how pleased she would 
 be ! And so would Darling, who always 
 cried when Madam Liberality was in great 
 pain.
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 117 
 
 And this was only the beginning of 
 pleasures. The sixpence would amply 
 provide " goodies " for the Christmas- 
 tree, and much might be done with the 
 forthcoming shilling. And if her con- 
 duct on the present occasion would not 
 support a request for a few ends of 
 candles from the drawing-room candle- 
 sticks, what profit would there be in being 
 a heroine ? 
 
 When her mother gave her two shillings 
 instead of one, Madam Liberality felt in 
 honour bound to say that she had already 
 been rewarded with sixpence ; but her 
 mother only said : 
 
 "You quite deserved it, I'm sure," and 
 she found herself in possession of no less 
 than half-a-crown. 
 
 And now it is sad to relate that mis- 
 fortune again overtook Madam Liberality. 
 All the next day she longed to go into the 
 village to buy sweetmeats, but it snowed 
 and rained, and was bitterly cold, and she 
 could not. 
 
 Just about dusk the weather slightly 
 cleared up, and she picked her way 
 through the melting snow to the shop. 
 Her purchases were most satisfactory. 
 How the boys would enjoy them ! Madam 
 Liberality enjoyed them already, though 
 her face was still sore, and the pain had 
 spread to her throat, and though her ideas 
 seemed unusually brilliant, and her body 
 pleasantly languid, which, added to a 
 peculiar chill trembling of the knees 
 generally forewarned her of a coming 
 quinsy. But warnings were thrown away 
 upon Madam Liberality's obdurate hope- 
 fulness. 
 
 Just now she could think of nothing but 
 the coming Christmas-tree. She hid the 
 sweetmeats, and put her hand into her 
 pocket for the two shillings, the exact out- 
 lay of which, in the neighbouring town, 
 by means of the carrier, she had already 
 arranged. But the two shillings were 
 
 gone ! How she had lost them Madam 
 Liberality had no idea. 
 
 She trudged through the dirty snow once 
 more to the shop, and the counter was 
 examined, and old Goody looked under 
 the flour scales and in the big chinks of 
 the stone floor. But the shillings were 
 not there, and Madam Liberality kept her 
 eyes on the pavement as she ran home, 
 with as little result. Moreover, it was 
 nearly dark. 
 
 It snowed heavily all night, and Madam 
 Liberality slept very little from pain and 
 anxiety; but this did not deter her from 
 going out with the first daylight in the 
 morning to rake among the snow near the 
 door, although her throat was sore beyond 
 concealment, her jaws stiff, and the pleasant 
 languor and quick-wittedness had given 
 way to restless fever. 
 
 Her conscience did prick her a little for 
 the anxiety she was bringing upon her 
 mother (her own sufferings she never 
 forecast) ; but she could not give up her 
 Christmas-tree without a struggle, and she 
 hoped by a few familiar remedies to drive 
 back the threatened illness. 
 
 Meanwhile, if the shillings were not 
 found before eleven o'clock it would be 
 too late to send to the town shop by the 
 carrier. But they were not found, and 
 the old hooded cart rumbled away with- 
 out them. 
 
 It was Christmas Eve. The boys were 
 bustling about with holly. Darling was 
 perched on a very high chair in the kitchen, 
 picking raisins in the most honourable 
 manner, without eating one, and Madam 
 Liberality ought to have been the happiest 
 of all. 
 
 Even now she dried her tears, and made 
 the best of her ill-luck. The sweetmeats 
 were very good ; and it was yet in her 
 power to please the others, though by a 
 sacrifice from which she had shrunk. 
 She could divide her scallopshells among
 
 I.I AD AM LIBERALITY. 
 
 them. It was economy economy of 
 resources which made her hesitate. 
 Separated they would please the boys 
 once, and then be lost. Kept together 
 in her own possession they would be a 
 constant source of triumph for herself, 
 and of treats for her brothers and 
 sister. 
 
 Meanwhile, she would gargle her throat 
 with salt and water. As she crept up- 
 stairs with this purpose, she met her 
 mother. 
 
 Madam Liberality had not looked in 
 the looking-glass lately, so she did not 
 understand her mother's exclamation of 
 distress when they met. Her face was 
 perfectly white, except where dark marks 
 lay under her eyes, and her small lips 
 formed between them .the rigid line of 
 pain. It was impossible to hold out any 
 longer, and Madam Liberality broke down 
 and poured forth all her woes. 
 
 " I'll put my feet in hot water, and do 
 anything you like, mother dear," said 
 she, " if only you'll let me try and have a 
 tree, and keep it secret from the others. I 
 do so want to surprise them." 
 
 " If you'll go to your room, my darling, 
 and do as I tell you, I'll keep your secret, 
 and help you with your tree," said her 
 mother. " Don't cry, my child, don't cry ; 
 it's so bad for your throat. I think I can 
 find you some beads to make a necklace 
 for Darling, and three pencils for the 
 boys, and some paper which you can cut 
 up into drawing-books for them." 
 
 A little hope went a long way with 
 Madam Liberality,- and she began to take 
 heart. At the same time she felt her ill- 
 ness more keenly now there was no need 
 for concealing it. She sat over the fire 
 and inhaled steam from an old teapot, 
 and threaded beads, and hoped she would 
 be allowed to go to church next day, and 
 to preside at her Christmas-tree after- 
 wards. 
 
 In the afternoon her throat grew rapidly 
 worse. She had begged almost im- 
 patiently that Darling would not leave 
 the Christmas preparations to sit with her, 
 and as talking was bad for her, and as she 
 had secret preparations to make on her 
 own account, her mother had supported 
 her wish to be left alone. 
 
 But when it grew dusk, and the draw- 
 ing-books were finished, Madam Liberality 
 felt lonely. She put a shawl round her 
 head, and went to the window. There 
 was not much to be seen. The fields 
 were deeply buried in snow, and looked 
 like great white feather beds, shaken up 
 unequally against the hedges. The road 
 was covered so deeply that she could 
 hardly have traced it, if she had not 
 known where it was. How dark the old 
 church tower looked amid so much 
 whiteness ! 
 
 And the snow-flakes fell like sugar-plums 
 among the black trees. One could almost 
 hear the keen wind rustling through the 
 bending sedges by the pond, where the 
 ice looked quite " safe " now. Madam 
 Liberality hoped she would be able to 
 get out before this fine frost was over. 
 She knew of an old plank which would 
 make an admirable sledge, and she had a 
 plan for the grandest of winter games all 
 ready in her head It was to be called 
 Arctic Discovery and she was to be the 
 chief discoverer. 
 
 As she fancied herself starving but 
 scientific, chilled to the bone, yet un- 
 daunted discovering a north-west passage 
 at the upper end of the goose-pond, the 
 clofk struck three from the old Church 
 tower. Madam Liberality heard it with a 
 pang. At three o'clock if he had had 
 her shillings she would have been expect- 
 ing the return of the carrier, with the 
 presents for her Christmas-tree. 
 
 Even as she thought about it, the old 
 hooded waggon came lumbering down
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 119 
 
 among the snow-drifts in the lane. There 
 was a bunch of mistletoe at the head, and 
 the old carrier went before the horse, and 
 the dog went before the carrier. And 
 they were all three up to their knees in 
 snow, and all three had their noses down, 
 as much as to say, " Such is life ; but we 
 must struggle on." 
 
 Poor Madam Liberality ! The sight of 
 the waggon and the mistletoe overwhelmed 
 her. It only made matters worse to see 
 the waggon come towards the house. She 
 rather wondered what the carrier was 
 bringing ; but whatever it was, it was not 
 the toys. 
 
 She went back to her seat by the fire, 
 and cried bitterly ; and, as she cried, the 
 ball in her throat seemed to grow larger, 
 till she could hardly breathe. She was 
 glad when the door opened, and her 
 mother's kind face looked in. 
 
 " Is Darling here ?" she asked. 
 
 "No, mother," said Madam Liberality 
 huskily. 
 
 " Then you may bring it in," said her 
 mother to some one outside, and the 
 servant appeared, carrying a wooden box, 
 which she put down before Madam Libe- 
 rality, and then withdrew. " Now don't 
 speak," said her mother, "it is bad for 
 you, and your eyes have asked fifty ques- 
 tions already, my child. Where did the 
 box come from ? The carrier brought it. 
 Who is it for? It's for you. Who sent 
 it ? That I don't know. What is inside ? 
 I thought you would like to be the first to 
 see. My idea 'is that perhaps your god- 
 mother has sent you a Christmas-box, and 
 I thought that there might be things in it 
 which would help you with your Christmas- 
 tree, so I have not told anyone about it." 
 
 To the end of her life Madam Liberality 
 never forgot that Christmas-box. It did 
 not come from her godmother, and the 
 name of the giver she never knew. The 
 first thing in it was a card, on which was 
 
 written " A Christmas-box from an un- 
 known friend ;" and the second thing in it 
 was the set of china tea-things with the 
 green rim ; and the third thing was a box 
 of doll's furniture. 
 
 " Oh, mother!" cried Madam Liberality, 
 " they're the very things I was counting 
 over in the bazaar, when the shopman 
 heard me." 
 
 "Did anybody else hear you?" asked 
 her mother. 
 
 " There was a lady, who said, ' I think 
 the little girl said the box of beasts.' And, 
 oh ! mother, mother ! here is the box of 
 beasts ! They're not common beasts, you 
 know not wooden ones, painted ; they're 
 rough, something like hair. And feel the 
 old elephant's ears, they're quite leathery, 
 and the lion has real long hair for his 
 mane and the tip of his tail. They are 
 such thorough beasts. Oh, how the boys 
 will like them ! Tom shall have the darling 
 brown bear. I do think he is the very 
 best beast of all; his mouth is a little 
 open, you know, and you can see his 
 tongue, and it's red. And mother ! the 
 sheep are curly ! And oh,, what a dog ! 
 with real hair. I think I must keep the 
 dog. And I shall make him a paper 
 collar, and print ' Faithful ' on it, and let 
 him always stand on the drawers by our 
 bed, and he'll be Darling's and my watch- 
 dog." 
 
 Happiness is sometimes very whole- 
 some, but it does not cure a quinsy off 
 hand. Darling cried that night when the 
 big pillow was brought out, which Madam 
 Liberality always slept against in her quin- 
 sies, to keep her from choking. She did 
 not know of that consolatory Christmas- 
 box in the cupboard. 
 
 On Christmas Day Madam Liberality 
 was speechless. The quinsy had pro- 
 gressed very rapidly. 
 
 " It generally breaks the day I have to 
 write on my slate," Madam Liberality
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 wrote, looking up at her mother with 
 piteous eyes. 
 
 She was conscious that she had been 
 greatly to blame for what she was suffer- 
 ing, and was anxious to "behave well 
 about it " as an atonement. She begged 
 on her slate that no one would stay 
 away from church on her account, but her 
 mother would not leave her. 
 
 " And now the others are gone," said 
 Mother, "since you won't let the Christ- 
 mas-tree be put off, I propose that we 
 have it up, and I dress it under your 
 orders, whilst the others are out, and then 
 it can be moved into the little book-room, 
 all ready for to-night." 
 
 Madam Liberality nodded like a china 
 mandarin. 
 
 "But you are in sad pain, I fear?" said 
 her mother. 
 
 "One can't have everything," wrote 
 Madam Liberality on her slate. Many 
 illnesses had made her a very philosophical 
 little woman ; and, indeed, if the quinsy 
 broke and she were at ease, the combina- 
 tion of good things would be more than 
 anyone could reasonably expect, even at 
 Christmas. 
 
 Every beast was labelled, and hung up 
 by her orders. The box of furniture was 
 addressed to herself and Darling, as a 
 joint possession, and the sweetmeats were 
 tied in bags of muslin. The tree looked 
 charming. The very angel at the top 
 seemed proud of it. 
 
 " I'll leave the tea-things upstair?," said 
 Mother. 
 
 But Madam Liberality shook her head 
 vigorously. She had been making up her 
 mind, as she sat steaming over the old 
 teapot; and now she wrote on her slate, 
 "Put a white cloth round the tub, and 
 put out the tea-things like a tea-party, and 
 put a ticket in the slop-basin For Dar- 
 ling. With very, VERY Best Love. Make 
 the last 'very' very big." 
 
 Madam Liberality's mother nodded, but 
 she was printing a ticket ; much too large 
 a ticket, however, to go into the green and 
 white slop-basin. When it was done she 
 hung it on the tree, under the angel. The 
 inscription was From Madam Liberality. 
 
 When supper was over, she came up to 
 Madam Liberality's room, and said : 
 
 " Now, my dear, if you like to change 
 your mind and put off the tree till you are 
 better, I will say nothing about it." 
 
 But Madam Liberality shook her head 
 more vehemently than before, and her 
 mother smiled and went away. 
 
 Madam Liberality strained her ears. 
 The book-room door opened she knew 
 the voice of the handle there was a rush 
 and a noise, but it died away into the 
 room. The tears broke down Madam 
 Liberality's cheeks. It was hard not to 
 be there now. Then there was a patter 
 up the stairs, and flying steps along the 
 landing, and Madam Liberality's door 
 was opened by Darling. She was dressed 
 in the pink dress, and her cheeks were 
 pinker still, and her eyes full of tears. 
 And she threw herself at Madam Libe- 
 rality's feet, crying : 
 
 " Oh fww good, how very good you 
 are !" 
 
 At this moment a roar came up from 
 below, and Madam Liberality wrote : 
 
 "What is it?" and then dropped the 
 slate to clutch the arms of her chair, for 
 the pain was becoming almost intolerable. 
 Before Darling could open the door her 
 mother came in, and Darling repeated the 
 question 
 
 " What is it ?" 
 
 Blit at this moment the reply came from 
 below, in Tom's loudest tones. It rang 
 through the house, and up into the bed- 
 room. 
 
 " Three cheers for Madam Liberality ! 
 Hip, hip, hooray !" 
 
 The extremes of pleasure and of pain
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 121 
 
 seemed to meet in Madam Liberality's " Tell Tom I am very much obliged to 
 
 little head. But overwhelming gratifica- him." 
 
 tion got the upper hand, and, forgetting But what they did tell Tom was that 
 
 even her quinsy, she tried to speak, and the quinsy had broken, on which he gave 
 
 after a brief struggle she said, with toler- three cheers more. 
 
 able distinctness :
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY grew up into much 
 the same sort of person that she was when 
 a child. She always had been what is 
 termed old-fashioned, and the older she 
 grew the better her old-fashionedness be- 
 came her, so that at last her friends would 
 say to her, " Ah, if we all wore as well as 
 you do, my dear ! You've hardly changed 
 at all since we remember you in short 
 petticoats." So far as she did change the 
 change was for the better. (It is to be 
 hoped we do improve a little as we get 
 older !) She was still liberal and econom- 
 ical. She still planned and hoped indefa- 
 tigably. She was still tender-hearted in 
 the sense in which Gray speaks : 
 
 " To each his sufferings, all are men 
 
 Condemned alike to groan, 
 
 The tender for another's pain, 
 
 The unfeeling for his own." 
 
 She still had a good deal of ill-health and 
 ill-luck, and a good deal of pleasure in 
 spite of both. She was still happy in the 
 happiness of others, and pleased by their 
 praise. But she was less headstrong and 
 opinionated in her plans, and less fretful 
 when they failed. It is possible, after one 
 has cut one's wisdom-teeth, to cure one's 
 self even of a good deal of vanity, and to 
 learn to play the second fiddle very grace- 
 fully ; and Madam Liberality did not 
 resist the lessons of life. 
 
 GOD teaches us wisdom in divers ways. 
 Why He suffers some people to have so 
 many troubles and so little of what we 
 call pleasure in this world we cannot in 
 this world know. The heaviest blows 
 
 often fall on the weakest shoulders, and 
 how these endure and bear up under them 
 is another of the things which GOD knows 
 better than we. 
 
 I will not pretend to decide whether 
 grown-up people's troubles are harder to 
 bear than children's troubles, but they are 
 of a graver kind. It is very bitter when 
 the boys melt the nose of one's dearest 
 doll against the stove, and living pets with 
 kind eyes and friendly paws grow aged 
 and die ; but the death of friends is a 
 more serious and lasting sorrow, if it is 
 not more real. 
 
 Madam Liberality shed fewer tears after 
 she grew up than she had done before, 
 but she had some heartaches which did 
 not heal. 
 
 The thing which did most to cure her 
 of being too managing for the good of 
 other people was Darling's marriage. If 
 ever Madam Liberality had felt proud of 
 self-sacrifice and success, it was about this. 
 But when Darling was fairly gone, and 
 "Faithful" very grey with dust and 
 years kept watch over only one sister in 
 " the girls' room," he might have seen 
 Madam Liberality's nightly tears if his 
 eyes had been made of anything more 
 sensitive than yellow paint. 
 
 Desolate as she was, Madam Liberality 
 would have hugged her grief if she could 
 have had her old consolation, and been 
 happy in the happiness of another. Dar- 
 ling never said she was not happy. 
 It was what she left out, not what she 
 put into. the long letters she sent from
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 India that cut Madam Liberality to the 
 heart. 
 
 Darling's husband read all her letters, 
 and he did not like the home ones to be 
 too tender as if Darling's mother and 
 sister pitied her. And he read Darling's 
 letters before they went away by the 
 mail. 
 
 From this it came about that the sisters' 
 letters were very commonplace on- the 
 surface. And though Madam Liberality 
 cried when Darling wrote, " Have swallows 
 built in the summer-house this year ? Have 
 you put my old doll's chest of drawers back 
 in its place since the room was papered ? 
 What colour is the paper?" the Major 
 only said that stuff like that was hardly 
 worth the postage to England. And when 
 Madam Liberality wrote, " The clump of 
 daffodils in your old bed was enormous 
 this spring. I have not touched it since 
 you left. I made mother's birthday wreath 
 out of the flowers in your bed and mine. 
 Jemima broke the slop-basin of the green 
 and white tea-set to-day. It was the last 
 piece left. I am trying to forgive her," 
 the major made no harsher remark than, 
 " A storm in a slop-basin ! Your sister is 
 not a brilliant letter-writer, certainly." 
 
 The source of another heartache for 
 Madam Liberality was poor Torn. He 
 was as liberal and hospitable as ever in 
 his own way. He invited his friends to 
 stay with his mother, and when they and 
 Tom had gone, Madam Liberality and 
 her mother lived without meat to get the 
 housekeeping book straight again. Their 
 great difficulty in the matter was the un- 
 certain nature of Tom's requirements. 
 And when he did write for money he 
 always wrote in such urgent need that 
 there was no refusing him if" by the art of 
 " doing without " his wants could be sup- 
 plied. 
 
 But Tom had a kindly heart ; he sent 
 his sister a gold locket, and wrote on the 
 
 box, " For the best and most generous of 
 sisters." 
 
 Madam Liberality liked praise, and 
 she dearly liked praise from Tom ; but on 
 this occasion it failed to soothe her. She 
 said curtly, " I suppose it's not paid for. 
 If we can't afford much, we can afford to 
 live at our own expense, and not on the 
 knavery or the forbearance of tradesmen." 
 With which she threw the locket into a 
 box of odds and ends, and turned the key 
 with some temper. 
 
 Years passed, and Madam Liberality 
 was alone. Her mother was dead, and 
 Tom poor Tom ! had been found 
 drowned. Darling was still in India, and' 
 the two living boys were in the colonies, 
 farming. 
 
 It seemed to be an aggravation of the 
 calamity of Tom's death that he died, as 
 he had lived, in debt. But, as regards 
 Madam Liberality, it was not an unmixed 
 evil. It is one of our bitterest pangs when 
 we survive those we love that with death 
 the opportunity has passed for being kind 
 to them, though we love them more than 
 ever. By what earthly effort could Madam 
 Liberality's mother now be pleased, whom 
 so little had pleased heretofore ? 
 
 But for poor Tom it was still possible 
 to plan, to economise, to be liberal and 
 by these means to pay his debts, and save 
 the fair name of which he had been as 
 reckless as of everything else which he 
 possessed. 
 
 Madam Liberality had had many a 
 hard struggle to get Tom a birthday 
 present, but she had never pinched and 
 planned and saved on his behalf as she 
 did now. There is a limit, however, to 
 the strictest economies. It would have 
 taken a longer time to finish her labour of 
 love but for " the other boys." They were 
 good, kind fellows, and having had to earn 
 daily bread where larks do not fall ready 
 cooked into the mouth, they knew more
 
 124 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 of the realities of life than poor Tom had 
 ever learned. They were prosperous no\v, 
 and often sent a few pounds to Madam 
 Liberality " to buy a present with." 
 
 " And none of your old ' Liberality ' 
 tricks, mind !" George wrote on one occa- 
 sion. " Fit yourself thoroughly out in the 
 latest fashions, and do us credit !" 
 
 But it all went to Tom's tailor. 
 
 She felt hardly justified in diverting 
 George's money from his purpose ; but 
 she had never told the boys of Tom's 
 debts. There was something of her old 
 love of doing things without help in this, 
 and more of her special love for Tom. 
 
 It was not from the boys alone that 
 help came to her. Madam Liberality's 
 godmother died, and left her fifty pounds. 
 In one lump she had now got enough to 
 finish her work. 
 
 The acknowledgments of these last pay- 
 ments came on Tom's birthday. More 
 and more courteous had grown the trades- 
 men's letters, and Madam Liberality felt a 
 foolish pleasure in seeing how respectfully 
 they all spoke now of "Your lamented 
 brother, Madam !" 
 
 The jeweller's bill was the last ; and 
 when Madam Liberality tied up the 
 bundle, she. got out Tom's locket and put 
 a bit of his hair into it, and tied it round 
 her throat, sobbing as she did so, " Oh, 
 Tom, if you could have lived and been 
 happy in a small way ! Your debts are 
 paid now, my poor boy. I wonder if you 
 know. Oh, Tom, Tom !" 
 
 It was her greatest triumph to have 
 saved Tom's fair name in the place where 
 he had lived so foolishly and died so 
 sadly. 
 
 But the triumphs of childhood cast 
 fewer shadows. There was no one now 
 to say, "Three cheers for Madam Liber- 
 ality ! : ' 
 
 ;t was a ve~y cold writer, but Madam 
 
 Liberality and Jemima, the maid-of-all- 
 work, were warmer than they had been for 
 several previous winters, because they kept 
 better fires. Time heals our sorrows in 
 spite of us, and Madam Liberality was a 
 very cheerful little body now, and as busy 
 as ever about her Christmas-boxes. Those 
 for her nephews and nieces were already 
 despatched. " The boys " were married ; 
 Madam Liberality was godmother to several 
 children she had never seen ; but the 
 Benjamin of his aunt's heart was Darling's 
 only child Tom though she had not 
 seen even him. 
 
 Madam Liberality was still in the thick 
 of her plans, which were chiefly to benefit 
 the old people and the well-behaved 
 children of the village. All the Christ- 
 mas-boxes were to be " surprises," and 
 Jemima was in every secret but the one 
 which most concerned her. 
 
 Madam Liberality had even some plans 
 for her own benefit. George had talked 
 of coming home in the summer, and she 
 began to think of saving up for a new 
 carpet for the drawing-room. Then the 
 last time she went to the town she saw 
 some curtains of a most artistic pattern, 
 and particularly cheap. So much good 
 taste for so little money was rare in pro- 
 vincial shops. By-and-by she might do 
 without something which would balance 
 the cost of the curtains. And she had 
 another ambition to provide Jemima 
 with black dresses and white muslin 
 aprons for afternoon wear in addition to 
 her wages, that the outward aspect of that 
 good soul might be more in accordance 
 than hitherto with her intrinsic excel- 
 lence. 
 
 She was pondering this when Jemima 
 burst in in her cooking apron, followed 
 up the passage by the steam of Christmas 
 cakes, and carrying a letter. 
 
 " It's a big one, Miss," said she. 
 " Perhaps it's a Christmas-box, Miss."
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 And beaming with geniality and kitchen 
 warmth, Jemima returned to her labours. 
 
 Madam Liberality made up her mind 
 about the dresses and aprons ; then she 
 opened her letter. 
 
 It announced the death of her cousin, 
 her godmother's husband. It announced 
 also that, in spite of the closest search for 
 a will, which he was supposed to have 
 made, this could not be found. 
 
 Possibly he had destroyed it, intending 
 to make another. As it was he had died 
 intestate, and succession not being limited 
 to heirs male, and Madam Liberality being 
 the eldest child of his nearest relative 
 the old childish feeling of its being a 
 dream came over her. 
 
 She pinched herself, however, to no 
 purpose. There lay the letter, and after 
 a second reading Madam Liberality picked 
 up the thread of the narrative and arrived 
 at the result she had inherited fifteen 
 thousand a year. 
 
 The first rational idea which came to 
 her was that there was no difficulty now 
 about getting the curtains; and the second 
 was that their chief merit was a merit no 
 more. What is the good of a thing being 
 cheap when one has fifteen thousand a 
 year ? 
 
 Madam Liberality poked the fire ex- 
 travagantly, and sat down to think. 
 
 The curtains naturally led her to house- 
 hold questions, and those to that invaluable 
 person, Jemima. That Jemima's wages 
 should be doubled, trebled, quadrupled, 
 was a thing of course. What post she 
 was to fill in the new circumstances was 
 another matter. Remembering Podmore, 
 and recalling the fatigue of dressing herself 
 after her pretty numerous illnesses, Madam 
 Liberality felt that a lady's-maid would be 
 a comfort to be most thankful for. But 
 she could not fancy a Jemima in that 
 capacity, or as a housekeeper, or even as 
 head housemaid or cook. She had lived 
 
 for years with Jemima herself, but she 
 could not fit her into a suitable place in 
 the servants' hall. 
 
 However, with fifteen thousand a year, 
 Madam Liberality could buy, if needful, a 
 field, and build a house, and put Jemima 
 into it with a servant to wait upon her. 
 The really important question was about 
 her new domestics. Sixteen servants are 
 a heavy responsibility. 
 
 Madam Liberty had very high ideas of 
 the parental duties involved in being the 
 head of a household. She had suffered 
 more than Jemima over Jemima's lack 
 of scruple as to telling lies for good pur- 
 poses. Now a footman is a young man 
 who has, no doubt, his own peculiar 
 temptations. What check could Madam 
 Liberality keep upon him ? Possibly she 
 might under the strong pressure of moral 
 responsibility give good general advice 
 to the footman ; but the idea of the butler 
 troubled her. 
 
 When one has lived alone in a little 
 house for many years one gets timid. She 
 put a case to herself. Say that she knew 
 the butler to be in the habit of stealing 
 the wine, and suspected the gardener of 
 making a good income by the best of the 
 wall fruit, would she have the moral 
 courage to be as firm with these important 
 personages as if she had caught one of the 
 school-children picking and stealing in the 
 orchard? And if not, would not family 
 prayers be a mockery ? 
 
 Madam Liberality sighed. Poor dear 
 Tom ! He had had his faults certainly ; 
 but how well he would have managed a 
 butler ! 
 
 This touched the weak point of her 
 good fortune to the core. It had come 
 too late to heap luxuries about dear 
 " Mother "; too late to open careers for 
 the boys ; too late to give mad frolics and 
 girlish gaieties to light hearts, such as she 
 and Darling had once had. Ah, if they
 
 125 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 could have enjoyed it together years 
 ago! 
 
 There remained, however, Madam 
 Liberality's old consolation : one can be 
 happy in the happiness of others. There 
 were nephews and nieces to be provided 
 for, and a world so full of poor and 
 struggling folk that fifteen thousand a year 
 would only go a little way. It was, per- 
 haps, useful that there had been so many 
 articles lately in the papers about begging 
 letters, and impostors, and the evil effects 
 of the indiscriminate charity of elderly 
 ladies ; but the remembrance of them 
 made Madam Liberality's head ache, and 
 troubled her dreams that night. 
 
 It was well that the next day was 
 Sunday. Face to face with those greater 
 interests common to the rich and the 
 poor, the living and the dead, Madam 
 Liberality grew calmer under her new 
 cares and prospects. It did not need that 
 brief pause by her mother's grave to 
 remind her how little money can do for 
 us ; and the sight of other people whole- 
 somely recalled how much it can effect. 
 Near the church porch she was passed by 
 the wife of a retired chandler, who 
 dressed in very fine silks, and who was 
 accustomed to eye Madam Liberality's 
 old clothes as she bowed to her more 
 obviously than is consistent with good 
 breeding. The little lady nodded very 
 kindly in return. With fifteen thousand a 
 year one can afford to be quite at ease in 
 an old shawl. 
 
 The next day was Christmas Eve. 
 Madam Liberality caught herself think- 
 ing that if the legacy had been smaller 
 say fifty pounds a year she would at 
 once have treated herself to certain little 
 embellishments of the old house, for 
 which she had long been ambitious. 
 But it would be absurd to buy two or 
 three yards of rosebud chintz, and tire 
 herself by making covers to two very old 
 
 sofa-cushions, when the point to be 
 decided was in which of three grandly 
 furnished mansions she would first take up 
 her abode. She ordered a liberal supper, 
 however, which confirmed Jemima in her 
 secret opinion that the big letter had 
 brought good news. 
 
 When, therefore, another letter of 
 similar appearance arrived, Jemima 
 snatched up the waiter and burst breath- 
 lessly in upon Madam Liberality, leaving 
 the door open behind her, though it was 
 bitterly cold and the snow fell fast. 
 
 And when Madam Liberality opened 
 this letter she learned that her cousin's 
 will had been found, and that (as seems to 
 be natural) he had left his money where it 
 would be associated with more money and 
 kept well together. His heir was a 
 cousin also, but in the next degree an 
 old bachelor, who was already wealthy ; 
 and he had left Madam Liberality five 
 pounds to buy a mourning ring. 
 
 It had been said that Madam Liberality 
 was used to disappointment, but some 
 minutes passed before she quite realized 
 the downfall of her latest visions. Then 
 the old sofa-cushions resumed their im- 
 portance, and she flattened the fire into a 
 more economical shape, and set vigorously 
 to work to decorate the house with the 
 Christmas evergreens. ' She had just 
 finished and gone upstairs to wash her 
 hands when the church clock struck 
 three. 
 
 It was an old house, and the window of 
 the bedroom went down to the floor, and 
 had a deep window-seat. Madam Liber- 
 ality sat down in it and looked out. She 
 expected some linsey-woolsey by the 
 carrier, to make Christmas petticoats, and 
 she was glad to see the hooded waggon 
 ploughing its way through the snow. The 
 goose -pond was firmly frozen, and every- 
 thing looked as it had looked years ago, 
 except that the carrier's young son went
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 127 
 
 before the waggon and a young dog went 
 before him. They passed slowly out of 
 sight, but Madam Liberality sat on. She 
 gazed dreamily at the old church, and the 
 trees, and the pond, and thought of the 
 past ; of her mother, and of poor Tom, 
 and of Darling, and she thought till she 
 fancied that she heard Darling's voice in 
 the passage below. She got up to go down 
 to Jemima, but as she did so she heard a 
 footstep on the stairs, and it was not 
 Jemima's tread. It was too light for the 
 step of any man or woman. 
 
 Then the door opened, and on the 
 threshold of Madam Liberality's room 
 stood a little boy dressed in black, with 
 his little hat pushed back from the love- 
 liest of baby faces set in long flaxen hair. 
 The 'carnation colour of his cheeks was 
 deepened by the frost, and his bright eyes 
 were brighter from mingled daring and 
 doubt and curiosity, as he looked leisurely 
 round the room and said in a slow, high- 
 pitched, and very distinct tone, 
 
 " Where are you, Aunt Liberality ?" 
 
 But, lovely as he was, Madam Liberality 
 ran past him, for another figure was in the 
 doorway now, also in black, and with a 
 widow's cap ; and Madam Liberality and 
 Darling fell sobbing into each other's 
 arms. 
 
 " This is better than fifteen thousand 
 a year," said Madam Liberality. 
 
 It is not necessary to say much more. 
 The Major had been killed by a fall from 
 horseback, and Darling came back to 
 live at her old home. She had a little 
 pension, and the sisters were not parted 
 again. 
 
 It would be idle to dwell on Madam 
 Liberality's devotion to her nephew, or the 
 princely manner in which he accepted her 
 services. That his pleasure was the object 
 of a new series of plans, and presents, and 
 
 surprises, will be readily understood. The 
 curtains were bought, but the new carpet 
 had to be deferred in consequence of an 
 extravagant outlay on mechanical toys. 
 When the working of these brought a 
 deeper tint into his cheeks, and a brighter 
 light into his eyes, Madam Liberality was 
 quite happy ; and when he broke them 
 one after another, his infatuated aunt be- 
 lieved this to be a precocious develop- 
 ment of manly energies. 
 
 The longest lived, if not the favourite, 
 toys with him were the old set of scallop 
 shells, with which he never wearied of 
 making feasts, to which Madam Liberality 
 was never weary of being invited. He 
 had more plums than had ever sweetened 
 her childhood, and when they sat together 
 on two footstools by the sofa, and Tom 
 announced the contents of the dishes in 
 his shrillest voice and lifted the covers, 
 Madam Liberality would say in a tone of 
 apology, 
 
 " It's very odd, Darling, and I'm sure 
 at my time of life it's disgraceful, but I 
 cannot feel old !" 
 
 We could hardly take leave of Madam 
 Liberality in pleasanter circumstances. 
 Why should we ask whether, for the rest of 
 her life, she was rich or poor, when we may 
 feel so certain that she was contented ? 
 No doubt she had many another hope 
 and disappointment to keep life from 
 stagnating. 
 
 As a matter of fact she outlived the 
 bachelor cousin, and if he died intestate 
 she must have been rich after all. Per- 
 haps she was. Perhaps she never suffered 
 again from insufficient food or warmth. 
 Perhaps the illnesses of her later years 
 were alleviated by skill and comforts such 
 as hitherto she had never known. Perhaps 
 Darling and she enjoyed a sort of second 
 spring in their old age, and went every 
 year to the Continent, and grew wonderful 
 flowers in the greenhouse, and sent Tom
 
 128 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 to Eton, and provided for their nephews 
 and nieces, and built churches to their 
 mother's memory, and never had to with- 
 hold the liberal hand from helping because 
 it was empty ; and so passed by a time of 
 wealth to the hour of death. 
 
 Or perhaps the cousin took good care 
 to bequeath his money where there was 
 more money for it to stick to. And 
 Madam Liberality pinched out her little 
 presents as heretofore, and kept herself 
 warm with a hot bottle when she could 
 not afford a fire, and was too thankful to 
 have Darling with her when she was ill to 
 
 want anything else. And perhaps Darling 
 and she prepared Tom for school, and 
 (like many another widow's son) he did 
 them credit. And perhaps they were quite 
 happy with a few common pot-plants in 
 the sunny window, and kept their mother's 
 memory green by flowers about her grave, 
 and so passed by a life of small cares and 
 small pleasures to where 
 
 "Divided households reunite." 
 Of one thing we may be quite certain. 
 Rich or poor, she was always 
 
 MADAM LIBERALITY. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 EILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS GUILDFORD,
 
 
 "All I knew of him was his portrait, a. silhouette, deeply framed in black wood 
 which hung against the nursery wall. I was ignorant of his surname and history, 
 I had never examined his features. But I knew that happily he had been very 
 stout, since his ample coat and waistcoat, cut out in black paper, converted the 
 glass which covered them into an excellent mirror for mv dolls. Worthy Mr. 
 Joseph ! Here he was coming in useful again ! " (Page ^~)
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S 
 REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "A FLAT IRON FOR A FARTHING," "JAN OF^ 
 THE WINDMILL," "JACKANAPES," ETC. ETC. 
 
 WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY J. A. PASQUIER AND J. WOLF. 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 GEORC.K BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1886. 
 
 [77/<r right of Translation is reserved.}
 
 iswrcK PKESS: c. WHITTINCHAM AND co., TOOKS COURT,
 
 TO MY HUSBAND 
 
 A. E. 
 
 IN REMEMBRANCE OF 
 1866 AND 1867. 
 
 J. H. E.
 
 MRS. Moss 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SNORING GHOST ... 41 
 
 REKA DOM 5 
 
 KERGUELEN'S LAND . . , . t ......... 107
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MR. JOSEPH Frontispiece. 
 
 THE PRIMROSES 19 
 
 WATCHING CLOUDS 47 
 
 THE IRISH GENTLEMAN 57 
 
 THE SNORING GHOST 63 
 
 TEA WITH MRS. OVERTHEWAY ... 71 
 
 THE STONE AMONG THE LILIES 87 
 
 THE LONDON MERCHANT 94 
 
 IN THE STUDY 103 
 
 THE NEST OF THE ALBATROSS 113 
 
 The Nest of the Albatross is by J. WOLF ; the other Illustrations by J. A. PASQUIER.
 
 I D A.
 
 .... " Thou shalt not lack 
 The flower that's like thy face, pale Primrose." 
 
 Cymbeline.
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 IDA. 
 
 nPHE little old lady lived over the way, 
 -I- through a green gate that shut with a 
 click, and up three white steps. Every 
 morning at eight o'clock the church bell 
 chimed for Morning Prayer chim ! 
 chime ! chim ! chime ! and every morn- 
 ing at eight o'clock the little old lady 
 came down the white steps, and opened 
 the gate with a click, and went where the 
 bells were calling. 
 
 About this time little Ida would kneel 
 on a chair at her nursery window in the 
 opposite house to watch the old lady 
 come out and go. The old lady was one 
 of those people who look always the 
 same. Every morning her cheeks looked 
 like faded rose leaves, and her white hair 
 like a snow-wreath in a garden laughing at 
 the last tea-rose. Every morning she wore 
 the same black satin bonnet, and the same 
 white shawl; had delicate gloves on the 
 smallest of hands, and gathered her skirt 
 daintily up from the smallest of feet. 
 Every morning she carried a clean pocket- 
 handkerchief, and a fresh rose in the same 
 hand with her Prayer-book; and as the 
 Prayer-book being bound up with the 
 Bible was very thick, she seemed to have 
 some difficulty in so doing. Every morn- 
 ing, whatever the weather might be, she 
 stood outside the green gate, and looked 
 up at the sky to see if this were clear, and 
 
 down at the ground to see if that were 
 dry ; and so went where the bells were 
 calling. 
 
 Ida knew the little old lady quite well 
 by sight, but she did not know her name. 
 Perhaps Ida's great-uncle knew it ; but he 
 was a grave, unsociable man, who saw very 
 little of his neighbours, so perhaps he did 
 not ; and Ida stood too much in awe of 
 him to trouble him with idle questions. 
 She had once asked Nurse, but Nurse did 
 not know ; so the quiet orphan child asked 
 no more. She made up a name for the 
 little old lady herself, however, after the 
 manner of Mr. John Bunyan, and called 
 her Mrs. Overtheway ; and morning after 
 morning, though the bread-and-milk break- 
 fast smoked upon the table, she would 
 linger at the window, beseeching 
 
 " One minute more, dear Nurse ! Please 
 let me wait till Mrs. Overtheway has gone 
 to church." 
 
 And when the little old lady had come 
 out and gone, Ida would creep from her 
 perch, and begin her breakfast. Then, if 
 the chimes went on till half the basinful 
 was eaten, little Ida would nod her head 
 contentedly, and whisper : 
 
 " Mrs. Overtheway was in time." 
 
 Little Ida's history was a sad one. Her 
 troubles began when she was but a year 
 old, with the greatest of earthly losses
 
 AIRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 for then her mother died, leaving a sailor 
 husband and their infant child. The sea- 
 captain could face danger, but not an 
 empty home; so he went back to the 
 winds and the waves, leaving his little 
 daughter with relations. Six long years had 
 he been away, and Idahad had many homes, 
 and yet, somehow, no home, when one 
 day the postman brought her a large letter, 
 with her own name written upon it in a 
 large hand. This was no old envelope 
 sealed up again no make-believe epistle 
 to be put into the post through the nursery 
 door ; it was a real letter, with a real seal, 
 real stamps, and a great many post-marks ; 
 and when Ida opened it there were two 
 sheets written by the Captain's very own 
 hand, in round fat characters, easy to read, 
 with a sketch of the Captain's very own 
 ship at the top, and most welcome above 
 all ! the news that the Captain's very own 
 self was coming home. 
 
 " I shall have a papa all to myself very 
 soon, Nurse," said Ida. " He has written 
 a letter to me, and made me a picture of 
 his ship ; it is the Bonne Esperance, which 
 he says means Good Hope. I love this 
 letter better than anything he has ever sent 
 me." 
 
 Nevertheless, Ida took out the carved 
 fans and workboxes, the beads and hand- 
 kerchiefs and feathers, the dainty foreign 
 treasures the sailor-father had sent to her 
 from time to time; dusted them, kissed 
 them, and told them that the Captain was 
 coming home. But the letter she wore in 
 her pocket by day, and kept under her 
 pillow by night. 
 
 " Why don't you put your letter into 
 one of your boxes, like a tidy young lady, 
 Miss Ida ? " said Nurse. " You'll wear it 
 all to bits doing as you do." 
 
 " It will last till the ship comes home," 
 said Miss Ida. 
 
 It had need then to have been written 
 on the rock, graven with an iron pen for 
 
 ever ; for the Bonne Esperance (like other 
 earthly hopes) had perished to return no 
 more. She foundered on her homeward 
 voyage, and went down into the great 
 waters, whilst Ida slept through the stormy 
 night, with the Captain's letter beneath her 
 pillow. 
 
 Alas ! Alas ! Alas 
 
 # * # # 
 
 Two or three months had now passed 
 away since Ida became an orphan. She 
 had become accustomed to the crape- 
 hung frock ; she had learnt to read the 
 Captain's letter as the memorial of a good 
 hope which it had pleased GOD to disap- 
 point ; she was fairly happy again. It was 
 in the midst of that new desolation in her 
 lonely life that she had come to stay with 
 her great-uncle, and had begun to watch 
 the doings of the little old lady who lived 
 over the way. When dolls seemed vanity, 
 and Noah's Ark a burden, it had been a 
 quiet amusement, demanding no exertion, 
 to see what little she could see of the old 
 lady's life, and to speculate about what 
 she could not ; to wonder and fancy what 
 Mrs. Overtheway looked like without her 
 bonnet, and what she did with herself 
 when she was not at church. Ida's imagi- 
 nation did not carry her far. She believed 
 her friend to be old, immeasurably old, in- 
 definitely old ; and had a secret faith that 
 she had never been otherwise. She felt 
 sure that she wore a cap indoors, and that 
 it was a nicer one than Nurse's ; that she 
 had real tea, with sugar and cream, instead 
 of milk-and-water, and hot toast rather than 
 bread-and-treacle for tea ; that she helped 
 herself at meals, and went to bed accord- 
 ing to her own pleasure and convenience ; 
 was perhaps on these grounds utterly 
 happy, and had always been so. 
 
 " I am only a little girl," said Ida, as she 
 pressed her face sadly to the cold window- 
 pane. "I am only a little girl, and very 
 sad, you know, because Papa was drowned
 
 IDA. 
 
 at sea ; but Mrs. Overtheway is very old, 
 and always happy, and so I love her." 
 
 And in this there was both philosophy 
 and truth. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the happi- 
 ness of others is always a distasteful sight 
 to the sad at heart. There are times in 
 which life seems shorn of interests and 
 bereaved of pleasure, when it is a relief, 
 almost amounting to consolation, to be- 
 lieve that any one is happy. It is some 
 feeling of this nature, perhaps, which makes 
 the young so attractive to the old. It 
 soothes like the sound of harmonious 
 music, the sight of harmonious beauty. 
 It witnesses to a conviction lying deep 
 even in the most afflicted souls that (come 
 what may), all things were created good, 
 and man made to be blessed ; before which 
 sorrow and sighing flee away. 
 
 This was one of many things which 
 formed the attraction for Ida in the little 
 old lady who lived over the way. That 
 green gate shut in a life of which the child 
 knew nothing, and which might be one of 
 mysterious delights ; to believe that such 
 things could be was consoling, and to 
 imagine them was real entertainment. Ida 
 would sometimes draw a chair quietly >to 
 the table beside her own, and fancy that 
 Mrs. Overtheway was having tea with her. 
 She would ask the old lady if she had been 
 in time for church that morning, beg her 
 to take off her bonnet, and apologize 
 politely for the want of hot tea and toast. 
 So far all was well, for Ida could answer 
 any of these remarks on Mrs. Overthe- 
 way's behalf; but it may be believed that 
 after a certain point this one-sided con- 
 versation flagged. One day Nurse over- 
 heard Ida's low murmurs. 
 
 " What are you talking about, Miss 
 Ida ? " said she. 
 
 " I am pretending to have Mrs. Over- 
 theway to tea," said Ida. 
 
 "Little girls shouldn't pretend what's 
 
 not true," replied Nurse, in whose philo- 
 sophy fancy and falsehood were not dis- 
 tinguished. "Play with your dolls, my 
 dear, and don't move the chairs out of 
 their places." 
 
 With which Nurse carried off the chair 
 into a corner as if it had been a naughty 
 child, and Ida gave up her day-dream 
 with a sigh ; since to have prolonged the 
 fancy that Mrs. Overtheway was present, 
 she must have imagined her borne off at 
 the crisis of the meal after a fashion not 
 altogether consistent with an old lady's 
 dignity. 
 
 Summer passed, and winter came on. 
 There were days when the white steps 
 looked whiter than usual ; when the snow- 
 drift came halfway up the little green gate, 
 and the snow-flakes came softly down with 
 a persistency which threatened to bury the 
 whole town. Ida knew that on such days 
 Mrs. Overtheway could not go out ; but 
 whenever it was tolerably fine the old lady 
 appeared as usual, came daintily down the 
 steps, and went where the bells were call- 
 ing. Chim ! chime ! chim ! chime ! They 
 sounded so near through the frosty air, 
 that Ida could almost have fancied that 
 the church was coming round through the 
 snowy streets to pick up the congregation. 
 
 Mrs. Overtheway looked much the same 
 in winter as in summer. She seemed as 
 fresh and lively as ever, carried her Prayer- 
 book and handkerchief in the same hand, 
 was only more warmly wrapped up, and 
 wore fur-lined boots which were charming. 
 There was one change, however, which 
 went to Ida's heart. The little old lady 
 had no longer a flower to take to church 
 with her. At Christmas she took a sprig 
 of holly, and after that a spray of myrtle, 
 but Ida felt that these were poor substi- 
 tutes for a rose. She knew that Mrs. 
 Overtheway had flowers somewhere, it is 
 true, for certain pots of forced hyacinths 
 had passed through the little green gate to
 
 16 
 
 S. VER THE WA Y 'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 the Christmas church decorations; but 
 one's winter garden is too precious to be 
 cropped as recklessly as summer rose- 
 bushes, and the old lady went flowerless 
 to church and enjoyed her bulbs at home. 
 But the change went to Ida's heart. 
 
 Spring was early that year. At the be- 
 ginning of February there was a good deal 
 of snow on the ground, it is true, but the 
 air became milder and milder, and towards 
 the end of the month there came a real 
 spring day, and all the -snow was gone. 
 
 "You may go and play in the garden, 
 Miss Ida," said Nurse, and Ida went. 
 
 She had been kept indoors for a long 
 time by the weather and by a cold, and it 
 was very pleasant to get out again, even 
 when the only amusement was to run up 
 and down the shingly walks and wonder 
 how soon she might begin to garden, and 
 whether the gardener could be induced to 
 give her a piece of ground sufficiently ex- 
 tensive to grow a crop of mustard-and-cress 
 in the form of a capital I. It was the 
 kitchen garden into which Ida had been 
 sent. At the far end it was cut off from the 
 world by an overgrown hedge with large 
 gaps at the bottom, through which Ida 
 could see the high road, a trough for water- 
 ing horses, and beyond this a wood. The 
 hedge was very thin in February, and Ida 
 had a good view in consequence, and sit- 
 ting on a stump in the sunshine she peered 
 through the gap to see if any horses came 
 to drink. It was as good as a peep j show, 
 and indeed much better. 
 
 *'The snow has melted," gurgled the 
 water, "here I ani." It was everywhere. 
 The sunshine made the rich green mosses 
 look dry, but in reality they were wet, and 
 so was everything else. Slish ! slosh ! Put 
 your feet where you would, the water was 
 everywhere. It filled the stone trough, 
 which, being old and grey and steady, kept 
 it still, and bade it reflect the blue sky and 
 the gorgeous mosses ; but the trough soon 
 
 overflowed, and then the water slipped 
 over the side, and ran off in a wayside 
 stream. " Winter is gone ! " it spluttered 
 as it ran. "Winter is gone, winter-is-gone, 
 winterisgone ! " And, on the principle that 
 a good thing cannot be said too often, it 
 went on with this all through the summer, 
 till the next winter came and stopped its 
 mouth with icicles. As the stream chat- 
 tered, so the birds in the wood sang, 
 Tweet ! tweet ! chirrup ! throstle ! Spring ! 
 Spring ! Spring ! and they twittered from 
 tree to tree, and shook the bare twigs with 
 melody; whilst a single blackbird sitting 
 still upon a bough below, sang " Life ! " 
 " Life !" "Life !" with the loudest pipe of 
 his throat, because on such a day it was 
 happiness only to be alive. 
 
 It was like a wonderful fairy-tale, to 
 which Ida listened with clasped hands. 
 
 Presently another song came from the 
 wood ; it was a hymn sung by children's 
 voices, such as one often hears carolled by 
 a troop of little urchins coming home 
 from school. The words fell familiarly on 
 Ida's ears ; 
 
 " Quite through the streets, with silver sound, 
 
 The flood of life doth flow ; 
 Upon whose banks on every side 
 
 The wood of life doth grow. 
 
 "Thy gardens and thy gallant walks 
 
 Continually are green ; 
 There grow such sweet and pleasant flowers 
 
 As nowhere else are seen. 
 
 ' ' There trees for evermore bear fruit, 
 
 And evermore do spring ; 
 There evermore the Angels sit, 
 
 And evermore do siflg." 
 
 Here the little chorus broke off, and the 
 children came pouring out of the wood 
 with chattering and laughter. Only one 
 lingered, playing under a tree, and finishing 
 the song. The child's voice rose shrill and 
 clear like that of the blackbird above him. 
 He also sang of Life Eternal Life know- 
 ing little more than the bird of the mean-
 
 IDA, 
 
 ing of his song, and having little less of 
 that devotion of innocence in which happi 
 ness is praise. 
 
 But Ida had ceased to listen to the 
 singing. Her whole attention was given 
 to the children as they scampered past the 
 hedge, dropping bits of moss and fungi 
 and such like woodland spoil. For, tightly 
 held in the grubby hands of each plucked 
 with reckless indifference to bud and stalk, 
 and fading fast in their hot prisons were 
 primroses. Ida started to her feet, a 
 sudden idea filling her brain. The birds 
 were right, Spring had come, and there 
 were flowers -floivers for Mrs. Overthe- 
 way. 
 
 Ida was a very quiet, obedient little girl 
 as a general rule ; indeed, in her lonely life 
 she had small temptation to pranks or 
 mischief of any kind. She had often been 
 sent to play in the back garden before, and 
 had never thought of straying beyond its 
 limits ; but to-day a strong new feeling 
 had been awakened by the sight of the 
 primroses. 
 
 "The hole is very large," said Ida, look- 
 ing at the gap in the hedge ; "if that dead 
 root in the middle were pulled up, it would 
 be wonderfully large." 
 
 She pulled the root up, and, though 
 wonderful is a strong term, the hole was 
 certainly larger. 
 
 " It is big enough to put one's head 
 through," said Ida, and, stooping down, 
 she exemplified the truth of her observa- 
 tion. 
 
 "Where the head goes, the body will 
 follow," they say, and Ida's little body was 
 soon on the other side of the hedge ; the 
 adage says nothing about clothes, how- 
 ever, and part of Ida's dress was left 
 behind. It had caught on the stump as 
 she scrambled through. But accidents 
 will happen, and she was in the road, 
 which was something. 
 
 " It is like going into the world to seek 
 
 one's fortune," she thought ; " thus Gerda 
 went to look for little Kay, and so Joringel 
 sought for the enchanted flower. One 
 always comes to a wood." 
 
 And into the wood she came. Dame 
 Nature had laid down her new green car- 
 pets, and everything looked lovely ; but, 
 as has been before said, it certainly was 
 damp. The little singer under the tree 
 cared no more for this, however, than the 
 blackbird above him. 
 
 "Will you tell me, please, where you 
 got your primroses ? " asked Ida. 
 
 The child made a quaint, half-military 
 salute, and smiled. 
 
 "Yonder," he said laconically, and, 
 pointing up the wood, he went on with 
 the song that he could not understand : 
 
 "Ah, my sweet home, Jerusalem, 
 
 Would GOD I were in thee ! 
 Would GOD my woes were at an end, 
 
 Thy joys that I might see ! " 
 
 Ida went on and on, looking about her as 
 she ran. Presently the wood sloped down- 
 wards, and pretty steeply, so that it was 
 somewhat of a scramble; yet still she kept 
 a sharp look-out, but no primroses did she 
 see, except a few here and there upon the 
 ground, which had been plucked too close 
 to their poor heads to be held in anybody's 
 hands. These showed the way, however, 
 and Ida picked them up in sheer pity and 
 carried them with her. 
 
 " This is how Hop-o'-my-thumb found 
 his way home," she chought. 
 
 At the bottom of the hill ran a little 
 brook, and on the opposite side of the 
 brook was a bank, and on the top of the 
 bank was a hedge, and under the hedge 
 were the primroses. But the brook was 
 between ! 
 
 Ida "looked and hesitated. It was too 
 wide to jump across, and here, as elsewhere, 
 there was more water than usual. To turn 
 back, however, was out of the question. 
 Gerda would not have been daunted in her
 
 i8 
 
 MRS. VER THE WA Y 'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 search by coming to a stream, nor would 
 any one else that ever was read of in fairy 
 tales. It is true that in Fairy-land there 
 are advantages which cannot always be 
 reckoned upon by commonplace children 
 in this commonplace world. When the 
 straw, the coal, and the bean came to a 
 rivulet in their travels, the straw laid him- 
 self across as a bridge for the others, and 
 had not the coal been a degree too hot on 
 one unlucky occasion, they might (for any- 
 thing Ida knew to the contrary) still have 
 been pursuing their journey in these favour- 
 able circumstances. But a travelling-com- 
 panion who expands into a bridge on an 
 emergency is not to be met with every 
 day ; and as to poor Ida she was alone. 
 She stood first on one leg, and then on the 
 other, she looked at the water, and then 
 at the primroses, and then at the water 
 again, and at last perceived that in one 
 place there was a large, flat, moss-covered 
 stone in the middle of the stream, which 
 stood well out of the water, and from 
 which could she but reach it she might 
 scramble to the opposite bank. But how 
 to reach it ? that nice, large, secure, com- 
 fortable-looking stone. 
 
 "I must put some more stones," thought 
 Ida. There were plenty in the stream, and 
 Ida dragged them up, and began to make 
 a ford by piling them together. It was 
 chilly work, fora cloud had come over the 
 sun; and Ida was just a little bit frightened 
 by the fresh-water shrimps, and some 
 queer, many-legged beasts, who shot off 
 the stones as she lifted them. At last the 
 ford was complete. Ida stepped daintily 
 over the bridge she had made, and jumped 
 triumphantly on to the big stone. Alas ! 
 for trusting to appearances. The stone 
 that looked so firm, was insecurely ba- 
 lanced below, and at the first shock one 
 side went down with a splash, and Ida 
 went with it. What a triumph for the 
 shrimps ! She scrambled to the bank, 
 
 however, made up a charming bunch of 
 primroses, and turned to go home. Never 
 mind how she got back across the brook. 
 We have all waded streams before now, 
 and very good fun it is in July, but rather 
 chilly work in February ; and, in spite of 
 running home, Ida trembled as much with 
 cold as with excitement when she stood at 
 last before Mrs. Overtheway's green gate. 
 
 Click ! Ida went up the white steps, 
 marking them sadly with her wet feet, and 
 gave a valiant rap. The door was opened, 
 and a tall, rather severe-looking house- 
 keeper asked : 
 
 " What do you want, my dear ? " 
 
 A shyness, amounting to terror, had 
 seized upon Ida, and she could hardly find 
 voice to answer. 
 
 " If you please, I have brought these 
 for " 
 
 For whom? Ida's pale face burnt 
 crimson as she remembered that after all 
 she did not know the little old lady's 
 name. Perhaps the severe housekeeper 
 was touched by the sight of the black 
 frock, torn as it was, for she said kindly : 
 
 " Don't be frightened, my dear. What 
 do you want ? " 
 
 " These primroses," said Ida, who was 
 almost choking. " They are for Mrs. 
 Overtheway to take to church with her. I 
 am very sorry, if you please, but I don't 
 know her name, and I call her Mrs. Over- 
 theway because, you know, she lives over 
 the way. At least " Ida added, look- 
 ing back across the road with a sudden 
 confusion in her ideas, " at least I mean 
 you know we live over the way." And 
 overwhelmed with shame at her own stu- 
 pidity, Ida stuffed the flowers into the 
 woman's hand, and ran home as if a lion 
 were at her heels. 
 
 " WELL ! Miss Ida," began Nurse, as 
 Ida opened the nursery-door (and there 
 was something terrible in her " well ") ; 
 " if I ever ' and Nurse seized Ida by
 
 "Will you tell me, please, where you got your primroses?" asked Ida. (P. 17.)
 
 MRS. OVERTHE WAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 the arm, which was generally premonitory 
 of her favourite method of punishment 
 " a good shaking." But Ida clung close 
 and flung her arms round Nurse's neck. 
 
 " Don't shake me, Nursey. dear," she 
 begged, " my head aches so. I have been 
 very naughty, I know. I've done every- 
 thing you can think of; I've crept through 
 the hedge, and been right through the 
 wood, and made a ford, and tumbled into 
 the brook, and waded back, and run all 
 the way home, and been round by the town 
 for fear you should see me. And I've done 
 something you could never, never think of 
 if you tried till next Christmas, I've got 
 some flowers for Mrs. Overtheway, only I 
 did it so stupidly; she will think me a 
 perfect goose, and perhaps be angry," and 
 the tears came into Ida's eyes. 
 
 "She'll think you a naughty, trouble- 
 some child- as you are," said Nurse, who 
 seldom hesitated to assume the responsi- 
 bility of any statement that appeared to 
 be desirable; "you're mad on that old 
 lady, I think. Just look at that dress ! " 
 
 Ida looked, but her tears were falling 
 much too fast for her to have a clear view 
 of anything, and the torn edges of the rent 
 seemed fringed with prismatic colours. 
 
 To crown all she was sent to bed. In 
 reality, this was to save the necessity of 
 wearing her best frock till the other was 
 mended, and also to keep her warm in 
 case she should have caught cold; but 
 Nurse spoke of it as a punishment, and 
 Ida wept accordingly. And this was a 
 triumph of that not uncommon line of 
 nursery policy which consists in elaborately 
 misleading the infant mind for good. 
 
 Chim ! chime ! went the bells next morn- 
 ing, and Mrs. Overtheway came down the 
 white steps and through the green gate 
 with a bunch of primroses in her hand. 
 She looked up as usual, but not to the sky. 
 She looked to the windows of the houses 
 over the way, as if she expected some one 
 
 to be looking for her. There was no face 
 to be seen, however; and in the house 
 directly opposite, one of the upper blinds 
 was drawn down. Ida was ill. 
 
 How long she was ill, and of what was 
 the matter with her, Ida had no very clear 
 idea. She had visions of toiling through 
 the wood over and over again, looking 
 vainly for something that could never be 
 found ; of being suddenly surrounded and 
 cut off by swollen streams; and of crawl- 
 ing, unclean beasts with preternatural 
 feelers who got into her boots. Then 
 these heavy dreams cleared away in part, 
 and the stream seemed to ripple like the 
 sound of church bells, and these chimed 
 out the old tune 
 
 " Quite through the streets, with silver sound," &c. 
 
 And then, at last, she awoke one fine 
 morning to hear the sweet chim-chiming 
 of the church bells, and to see Nurse sit- 
 ting by her bedside. She lay still for a 
 few moments to make quite sure, and then 
 asked in a voice so faint that it surprised 
 herself: 
 
 "Has Mrs. Overtheway gone to church?" 
 
 On which, to her great astonishment, 
 Nurse burst into tears. For this was the 
 first reasonable sentence that poor Ida had 
 spoken for several days. 
 
 To be very ill is not pleasant ; but the 
 slow process of getting back strength is 
 often less pleasant still. One afternoon 
 Ida knelt in her old place at the window. 
 She was up, but might not go out, and 
 this was a great grief. The day had been 
 provokingly fine, and even now, though 
 the sun was setting, it seemed inclined to 
 make a fresh start, so bright was the re- 
 juvenated glow with which it shone upon 
 the. opposite houses, and threw a mystic 
 glory over Mrs. Overthe way's white steps 
 and green railings. Oh ! how Ida had 
 wished to go out that afternoon ! How 
 long and clear the shadows were ! It
 
 IDA. 
 
 seemed to Ida that whoever was free to 
 go into the open air could have nothing 
 more to desire. " Out of doors " looked 
 like Paradise to the drooping little maid, 
 and the passers-by seemed to go up and 
 down the sunny street in a golden dream. 
 Ida gazed till the shadows lengthened, and 
 crept over the street and up the houses ; 
 till the sunlight died upon the railings, and 
 then upon the steps, and at last lingered 
 for half an hour in bright patches among 
 the chimney-stacks, and then went out 
 altogether, and left the world in shade. 
 
 Twilight came on and Ida sat by the 
 fire, which rose into importance now that 
 _the sunshine was gone; and, moreover, 
 spring evenings are cold. 
 
 Ida felt desolate, and, on the whole, 
 rather ill-used. Nurse had not been up- 
 stairs for hours, and though she had pro- 
 mised real tea and toast this evening, there 
 were no signs of either as yet. The poor 
 child felt too weak to play, and reading 
 made her eyes ache. If only there were 
 some one to tell her a story. 
 
 It grew dark, and then steps came out- 
 side the door, and a fumbling with the lock 
 .. which made Ida nervous. 
 
 " Do come in, Nursey ! ". she cried. 
 
 The door opened, and some one spoke ; 
 but the voice was not the voice of Nurse. 
 It was a sweet, clear, gentle voice ; musical, 
 though no longer young ; such a voice as 
 one seldom hears and never forgets, which 
 came out of the darkness, saying : 
 
 " It is not Nurse, my dear; she is making 
 the tea, and gave me leave to come up 
 alone. I am Mrs. Overtheway." 
 
 And there in the firelight stood the little 
 
 " old lady, as she has been before described, 
 
 except that instead of her Prayer-book she 
 
 carried a large pot hyacinth in her two 
 
 little hands. 
 
 " I have brought you one of my pets, 
 my dear," said she. " I think we both love 
 flowers." 
 
 The little old lady had come to tea. 
 This was charming. She took off her 
 bonnet, and her cap more than fulfilled 
 Ida's expectations, although it was nothing 
 smarter than a soft mass of tulle, tied with 
 white satin strings. But what a face looked 
 out of it ! Mrs. Overtheway's features were 
 almost perfect. The beauty of her eyes 
 was rather enhanced by the blue shadows 
 that Time had painted round them, and 
 they were those good eyes which remind 
 one of a clear well, at the bottom of which 
 he might see truth. When young she must 
 have been exquisitely beautiful, Ida thought. 
 She was lovely still. 
 
 In due time Nurse brought up tea, and 
 Ida could hardly believe that her fancies 
 were realized at last ; indeed more than 
 realized for no bread-and-treacle dimin- 
 ished the dignity of the entertainment; 
 and Nurse would as soon have thought 
 of carrying off the Great Mogul on his 
 cushions, as of putting Mrs. Overtheway 
 and her chair into the corner. 
 
 But there is a limit even to the space of 
 time for which one can enjoy tea and but- 
 tered toast. The tray was carried off, the 
 hyacinth put in its place, and Ida curled 
 herself up in an easy-chair on one side of 
 the fire, Mrs. Overtheway being opposite. 
 
 "You see I am over the way still," 
 laughed the little old lady. " Now, tell 
 me all about the primroses." So Ida told 
 everything, and apologized for her awk- 
 ward speeches to the housekeeper. 
 
 " I don't know your name yet," said 
 she. 
 
 " Call me Mrs. Overtheway still, my 
 dear, if you please," said the little old 
 lady. " I like it." 
 
 So Ida was no wiser on this score. 
 
 " I was so sorry to hear that you had 
 been made ill on my account," said Mrs. 
 Overtheway. " I have been many times 
 to ask after you, and to-night I asked leave 
 to come to tea. I wish I could do some-
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY' S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 thing to amuse you, you poor little invalid. 
 I know you must feel dull." 
 
 Ida's cheek flushed. 
 
 " If you would only tell me a story," 
 she said, " I do so like hearing Nurse's 
 stories. At least she has only one, but I 
 like it. It isn't exactly a story either, but 
 it is about what happened in her last place. 
 But I am rather tired of it. There's Master 
 Henry I like him very much, he was 
 always in mischief ; and there's Miss Ade- 
 laide, whose hair curled naturally at least 
 with a damp brush I like her ; but I don't 
 have much of them ; for Nurse generally 
 goes off about a quarrel she had with the 
 cook, and I never could tell what they 
 quarrelled about, but Nurse said cook was 
 full of malice and deceitfulness, so she left. 
 I am rather tired of it." 
 
 " What sort of a story shall I tell you ? " 
 asked Mrs. Overtheway. 
 
 " A true one, I think," said Ida. " Some- 
 thing that happened to you yourself, if you 
 please. You must remember a great many 
 things, being so old." 
 
 And Ida said this in simple good faith, 
 believing it to be a compliment. 
 
 "It is quite true," said Mrs. Overthe- 
 way, " that one remembers many things at 
 the end of a long life, and that they are 
 often those things which happened a long 
 while ago, and which are sometimes so 
 slight in themselves that it is wonderful 
 that they should not have been forgotten. 
 I remember, for instance, when I was about 
 your age, an incident that occurred which 
 gave me an intense dislike to a special shade 
 of brown satin. I hated it then, and at 
 the end of more than half a century, I hate 
 it still. The thirig in itself was a mere 
 
 folly ; the people concerned with it have 
 been dead for many years, and yet at the 
 present time I should find considerable 
 difficulty in seeing the merits of a person 
 who should dress in satin of that peculiar 
 hue." 
 
 " What was it ? " asked Ida. 
 
 "It was not amber satin, and it was not 
 snuff-coloured satin ; it was one of the 
 shades of brown known by the name of 
 feuille-morte, or dead-leaf colour. It is 
 pretty in itself, and yet I dislike it." 
 
 " How funny," said Ida, wriggling in 
 the arm-chair with satisfaction. " Do tell 
 me about it." 
 
 " But it is not funny in the least, unfor- 
 tunately," said Mrs. Overtheway, laughing. 
 " It isn't really a story, either. It is not 
 even like Nurse's experiences. It is only 
 a strong remembrance of my childhood, 
 that isn't worth repeating, and could hardly 
 amuse you." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed it would," said Ida. 
 " I like the sound of it. Satin is so 
 different from cooks." 
 
 Mrs. Overtheway laughed. 
 
 " Still, I wish I could think of some- 
 thing more entertaining," said she. 
 
 " Please tell me that," said Ida, ear- 
 nestly; "I would rather hear something 
 about you than anything else." 
 
 There was no resisting this loving argu- 
 ment. Ida felt that she had gained her point, 
 and curled herself up into a listening atti- 
 tude accordingly. The hyacinth stood in 
 solemn sweetness as if it were listening 
 also ; and Mrs. Overtheway, putting her 
 little feet upon the fender to warm, began 
 the story of
 
 MRS. MOSS.
 
 " It did not move my grief, to see 
 
 The trace of human step departed, 
 
 Because the garden was deserted, 
 The blither place for me ! 
 
 " Friends, biame me not .' a narrow ken 
 Hath childhood 'twixt the sun and sward : 
 We draw the moral afterward 
 
 We feel the gladness then." 
 
 E. BARRETT BROWNING.
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 I REMEMBER/' said Mrs. Overtheway, 
 " old as I am, I remember distinctly 
 many of the unrecognized vexations, long- 
 ings, and disappointments of childhood. 
 By unrecognized, I mean those vexations, 
 longings, and disappointments which could 
 not be understood by nurses, are not con- 
 fided even to mothers, and through which, 
 even in our cradles, we become subject to 
 that law of humanity which gives to every 
 heart its own secret bitterness to be en- 
 dured alone. These are they which some- 
 times outlive weightier memories, and 
 produce life-long impressions dispropor- 
 tionate to their value; but oftener, per- 
 haps, are washed away by the advancing 
 tide of time, the vexations, longings, and 
 disappointments of the next period of our 
 lives. These are they which are apt to be 
 forgotten too soon to benefit our children, 
 and which in the forgetting make child- 
 hood all bright to look back upon, and 
 foster that happy fancy that there is one 
 division of mortal life in which greedy de- 
 sire, unfulfilled purpose, envy, sorrow, 
 weariness, and satiety, have no part, by 
 which every man believes himself at least 
 to have been happy as a child. 
 
 "My childhood on the whole was a very 
 happy one. The story that I am about to 
 relate is only a fragment of it. 
 
 " As I look into the fire, and the hot 
 coals shape themselves into a thousand 
 memories of the past, I seem to be staring 
 with childish eyes at a board that stares 
 back at me out of a larch plantation, and 
 
 gives notice that ' This House is to Let.' 
 Then, again, I seem to peep through rusty 
 iron gates at the house itself an old red 
 house, with large windows, through which 
 one could see the white shutters that were 
 always closed. To look at this house, 
 though only with my mind's eye, recalls 
 the feeling of mysterious interest with 
 which I looked at it more than fifty years 
 ago, and brings back the almost oppres- 
 sive happiness of a certain day, when 
 Sarah, having business with the couple 
 who kept the empty manor, took me with 
 her, and left me to explore the grounds 
 whilst she visited her friends. 
 
 "Next to a companion with that rare 
 sympathy of mind to mind, that excep- 
 tional coincidence of tastes, which binds 
 some few friendships in a chain of mes- 
 meric links, supplanting all the compla- 
 cencies of love by intuition, is a companion 
 whose desires and occupations are in har- 
 mony, if not in unison, with one's own. 
 That friend whom the long patience of the 
 angler does not chafe, the protracted plea- 
 sures of the sketcher do not weary, because 
 time flies as swiftly with him whilst he 
 pores over his book, or devoutly seeks 
 botanical specimens through the artist's 
 middle distance; that friend, in short 
 that valuable friend who is blessed with 
 the great and good quality of riding a 
 hobby of his own, and the greater and 
 better quality of allowing other people to 
 ride theirs. 
 
 " I did not think out all this fifty years
 
 MRS. OVERTHE WAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 ago, neither were the tastes of that excel- 
 lent housemaid, Sarah, quite on a level 
 with those of which I have spoken ; but I 
 remember feeling the full comfort of the 
 fact that Sarah's love for friendly gossip 
 was quite as ardent as mine for romantic 
 discovery ; that she was disposed to linger 
 quite as long to chat as I to explore ; and 
 that she no more expected me to sit 
 wearily through her kitchen confidences, 
 than I imagined that she would give a 
 long afternoon to sharing my day-dreams 
 in the gardens of the deserted manor. 
 
 " We had ridden our respective hobbies 
 till nearly tea-time before she appeared. 
 
 " ' I'm afraid you must be tired of wait- 
 ing, Miss Mary,' said she. 
 
 " ' Tired ! ' I exclaimed, ' not in the 
 least. I have been so happy, and I am so 
 much obliged to you, Sarah.' 
 
 " Need I say why I was so happy that 
 afternoon ? Surely most people have felt 
 at least in childhood the fascination of 
 deserted gardens, uninhabited houses, 
 ruined churches. They have that advan- 
 tage over what is familiar and in use that 
 undiscovered regions have over the com- 
 fortable one that the traveller leaves to 
 explore them, that the secret which does 
 not concern me has over the facts which 
 do, that what we wish for has over what 
 we possess. 
 
 " If you, my dear, were to open one of 
 those drawers, and find Nurse's Sunday 
 dress folded up in the corner, it would 
 hardly amuse you ; but if, instead thereof, 
 you found a dress with a long stiff bodice, 
 square at the neck, and ruffled round the 
 sleeves, such as you have seen in old pic- 
 tures, no matter how old or useless it 
 might be, it would shed round it an atmo- 
 sphere of delightful and mysterious specu- 
 lation. This curiosity, these fancies, 
 roused by the ancient dress, whose wearer 
 has passed away, are awakened equally by 
 empty houses where some one must once 
 
 have lived, though his place knows him no 
 more. It was so with the manor. How 
 often had I peeped through the gates, 
 catching sight of garden walks, and won- 
 dering whither they led, and who had 
 walked in them ; seeing that the shutters 
 behind one window were partly open, and 
 longing to look in ! 
 
 " To-day I had been in the walks and 
 peeped through the window. This was 
 the happiness. 
 
 "Through the window I had seen a 
 large hall with a marble floor and broad 
 stone stairs winding upwards into unknown 
 regions. By the walks I had arrived at 
 the locked door of the kitchen garden, at 
 a small wood or wilderness of endless de- 
 lights (including a broken swing), and at a 
 dilapidated summer-house. I had wan- 
 dered over the spongy lawn, which was cut 
 into a long green promenade by high dipt 
 yew-hedges, walking between which, in 
 olden times, the ladies grew erect and 
 stately, as plants among brushwood stretch 
 up to air and light. 
 
 " Finally, I had brought away such relics 
 as it seemed to me that honesty would 
 allow. I had found half a rusty pair of 
 scissors in the summer-house. Perhaps 
 some fair lady of former days had lost 
 them here, and swept distractedly up and 
 down the long walks seeking them. Per- 
 haps they were a present, and she had 
 given a luck-penny for them, lest they 
 should cut love. Sarah said the house- 
 keeper might have dropped them there ; 
 but Sarah was not a person of sentiment. 
 I did not show her the marble I found by 
 the hedge, the acorn I picked up in the 
 park, nor a puny pansy which, half way 
 back to a wild heartsease, had touched me 
 as a pathetic memorial of better days. 
 When I got home, I put the scissors, the 
 marble, and the pansy into a box. The 
 acorn I hung in a bottle of water it was 
 to be an oak tree.
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 " Properly speaking, I was not at home 
 just then, but on a visit to my grand- 
 mother and a married aunt without chil- 
 dren who lived with her. A fever had 
 broken out in my own home, and my visit 
 here had been prolonged to keep me out 
 of the way of infection. I was very happy 
 and comfortable except for one signal 
 vexation, which was this : 
 
 " I slept on a little bed in what had 
 once been the nursery, a large room which 
 was now used as a work-room. A great 
 deal of sewing was done in my grand- 
 mother's house, and the sewing-maid and 
 at least one other of the servants eat there 
 every evening. A red silk screen was put 
 before my bed to shield me from the 
 candle-light, and I was supposed to be 
 asleep when they came upstairs. But I 
 never remember to have been otherwise 
 than wide awake, nervously awake, wearily 
 awake. This was the vexation. I was not 
 a strong child, and had a very excitable 
 brain ; and the torture that it was to hear 
 those maids gossiping on the other side of 
 the dim red light of my screen I cannot 
 well describe, but I do most distinctly re- 
 member. I tossed till the clothes got hot, 
 and threw them off till I got cold, and 
 stopped my ears, and pulled the sheet over 
 my face, and tried not to listen, and lis- 
 tened in spite of all. They told long 
 stories, and made many jokes that I 
 couldn't understand; sometimes I heard 
 names that I knew, and fancied I had 
 learnt some wonderful secret. Sometimes, 
 on the contrary, I made noises to intimate 
 that I was awake, when one of them would 
 re-arrange my glaring screen, and advise 
 me to go to sleep, and then they talked in 
 whispers, which was more distracting still. 
 " One evening some months after my 
 ramble round the manor the maids went 
 out to tea, and I lay in peaceful silence 
 watching the shadows which crept noise- 
 lessly about the room as the fire blazed, 
 
 and wishing Sarah and her colleagues 
 nothing less than a month of uninterrupted 
 tea-parties. I was almost asleep when 
 Aunt Harriet came into the room. She 
 brought a candle, put up my screen (the 
 red screen again !) and went to the work- 
 table. She had not been rustling with the 
 work things for many minutes when my 
 grandmother followed her, and shut the 
 door with an air which seemed to promise 
 a long stay. She also gave a shove to my 
 screen, and then the following conversation 
 began : 
 
 " ' I have been to Lady Sutfield's to- 
 day, Harriet.' 
 
 " ' Indeed, ma'am.' But my aunt re- 
 spectfully continued her work, as I could 
 hear by the scraping of the scissors along 
 the table. 
 
 '"I heard some news there. The manor 
 is let.' 
 
 "I almost jumped in my bed, and Aunt 
 Harriet's scissors paused. 
 
 " ' Let, ma'am ! To whom ?' 
 
 "'To a Mrs. Moss. You must have 
 heard me speak of her. I knew her years 
 ago, when we were both young women. 
 Anastatia Eden, she was then.' 
 
 " I could hear my aunt move to the fire, 
 and sit down. 
 
 " ' The beautiful Miss Eden ? Whom 
 did she marry at last? Was there not 
 some love-afifair of hers that you knew 
 about ? ' 
 
 " ' Her love-affairs were endless. But 
 you mean Mr. Sandford. She treated him 
 ill very ill.' 
 
 "There was a pause, while the fire 
 crackled in the silence ; and then, to the 
 infinite satisfaction of my curiosity, Aunt 
 Harriet said : 
 
 " ' I've forgotten the story, ma'am. He 
 was poor, was he not ? ' 
 
 " ' He had quite enough to marry on,' 
 my grandmother answered, energetically, 
 ' but he was not a great match. It was the
 
 28 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 old story, my dear. The world ! The 
 world ! The world ! I remember sitting 
 up with Anastatia after a ball, where he 
 had been at her side all the evening. We 
 sipped hot posset, and talked of our part- 
 ners. Ah, dear ! ' And here my grand- 
 mother heaved a sigh ; partly, perhaps, 
 because of the follies of youth, and partly, 
 perhaps, because youth had gone, and 
 could come back no more. 
 
 " ' Anastatia talked of him,' she con- 
 tinued. ' I remember her asking me if 
 " her man " were not a pretty fellow, and 
 if he had not sweet blue eyes and the 
 greatest simplicity I ever knew but in a 
 child. It was true enough ; and he was 
 a great deal more than that a great deal 
 more than she ever understood. Poor 
 Anastatia ! I advised her to marry him, 
 but she seemed to look on that as im- 
 possible. I remember her saying that it 
 would be different if she were not an ac- 
 knowledged beauty; but it was expected 
 that she would marry well, and he was 
 comparatively poor, and not even singular. 
 He was accomplished, and the soul of 
 honour, but simple, provokingly simple, 
 with no pretensions to carry off the toast 
 of a county. My dear, if he had been no- 
 torious in any way for dissipation, for 
 brawling, for extravagance I believe it 
 would have satisfied the gaping world, and 
 he would have had a chance. But there 
 was nothing to talk about, and Anastatia 
 had not the courage to take him for him- 
 self. She had the world at her feet, and 
 paid for it by being bound by its opinion.' 
 
 "Here my grandmother, who was apt 
 to moralize, especially when relating bio- 
 graphies of young ladies, gave another 
 sigh. 
 
 " ' Then why did she encourage him ? ' 
 inquired Aunt Harriet ; who also moralized, 
 but with more of indignation and less of 
 philosophy. 
 
 " ' I believe she loved him in spite of 
 
 herself; but at the last, when he offered, 
 she turned prudent and refused him.' 
 
 " ' Poor man ! Did he ever marry ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes, and very happily a charming 
 woman. But the strange part of the story 
 is, that he came quite unexpectedly into 
 a large property that was in his family.' 
 
 " ' Did he ? Then he would have been 
 as good a match as most of her admirers ? ' 
 
 " ' Better. It was a fine estate. Poor 
 Anastatia ! ' 
 
 " ' Serve her right,' said my aunt, 
 shortly. 
 
 " ' She was very beautiful,' my grand- 
 mother gently recommenced. She said 
 this, not precisely as an excuse, but with 
 something of the sort in her tone. ' Very 
 beautiful ! How stately she did look that 
 night, to be sure ! She did not paint, and 
 her complexion (a shade too high by day) 
 was perfection by candlelight. I can see 
 her now, my dear, as she stood up for a 
 minuet with him. We wore hoops, then ; 
 and she had a white brocade petticoat, 
 embroidered with pink rosebuds, and a 
 train and bodice of pea-green satin, and 
 green satin shoes with pink heels. You 
 never saw anything more lovely than that 
 brocade. A rich old aunt had given it to 
 her. The shades of the rosebuds were 
 exquisite. I embroidered the rosebuds. on 
 that salmon-coloured cushion downstairs 
 from a piece that Anastatia gave me as a 
 pattern. Dear me ! What a dress it was, 
 and how lovely she looked in it ! Her 
 eyes were black, a thing you rarely see, 
 and they shone and glittered under her 
 powdered hair. She had a delicately 
 curved nose ;' splendid teeth, too, and 
 showed them when she smiled. Then 
 such a lovely throat, and beautifully-shaped 
 arms ! I don't know how it is, my dear 
 Harriet,' added my grandmother, thought- 
 fully, 'but you don't see the splendid 
 women now-a-days that there were svhen I 
 was young. There are plenty of pretty,
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 -9 
 
 lively girls (rather too lively in my old- 
 fashioned judgment), but not the real 
 stately beauty that it was worth a twenty 
 miles' drive there and back, just to see, at 
 one of the county balls.' 
 
 " My aunt sniffed, partly from a depress- 
 ing consciousness of being one of a dege- 
 nerate generation, and of a limited expe- 
 rience in the matter of county balls ; 
 partly also to express her conviction that 
 principle is above beauty. She said: 
 
 " 'Then Miss Eden married, ma'am?' 
 
 " ' Yes, rather late, Mr. Moss ; a weal- 
 thy Indian merchant, I believe. She lost 
 all her children, I know, one after another, 
 and then he died. Poor Anastatia ! It 
 seems like yesterday. And to think she 
 should be coming here ! ' 
 
 " My grandmother sighed again, and I 
 held my breath, hoping for some further 
 particulars of the lovely heroine of this ro- 
 mance. But I was disappointed. My 
 uncle's voice at this moment called loudly 
 from below, and Aunt Harriet hurried off 
 with a conscious meritoriousness about her 
 becoming a lady who had married the 
 right man, and took great care of him. 
 
 " ' Supper, ma'am, I think,' she said, as 
 she left the room. 
 
 " My grandmother sat still by the fire, 
 sighing gently now and then, and I lay 
 making up my mind to brave all and tell 
 her that I was awake. In the first place 
 (although I was not intentionally eaves- 
 dropping, and my being awake was cer- 
 tainly not my fault), I felt rather uneasy 
 at having overheard what I knew was not 
 intended for my hearing. Besides this, I 
 wanted to hear some more stories of the 
 lovely Mrs. Moss, and to ask how soon she 
 would come to the manor. After a few 
 seconds my grandmother rose and toddled 
 across the room. I made an effort, and 
 spoke just above my breath : 
 " ' Granny ! ' 
 " But my grandmother was rather deaf. 
 
 Moreover, my voice may have been 
 drowned in the heavy sigh with which she 
 closed the nursery door. 
 
 " The room was empty again ; the glare 
 of the red screen was tenderly subdued in 
 the firelight ; but for all this I did not go 
 to sleep. I took advantage of my free- 
 dom to sit up in bed, toss my hair from 
 my forehead, and clasping my knees with 
 my arms, to rock myself and think. My 
 thoughts had one object ; my whoh mind 
 was filled with one image Mrs. Moss. 
 The future inhabitant of my dear deserted 
 manor would, in any circumstances, have 
 been an interesting subject for my fancies. 
 The favoured individual whose daily walk 
 might be between die yew hedges on that 
 elastic lawn ; who should eat, drink, and 
 sleep through the commonplace hours of 
 this present time behind those mystical 
 white shutters ! But when the individual 
 added to this felicitous dispensation of 
 fortune the personal attributes of unparal- 
 leled beauty and pea-green satin ; of having 
 worn high hoops, high heels, and powder ; 
 of countless lovers, and white brocade 
 with pink rosebuds ; well might I sit, my 
 brain whirling with anticipation, as I 
 thought : ' She is coming here : I shall see 
 her ! ' For though, of course, I knew that 
 having lived in those (so to speak) prehis- 
 toric times when my old grandmother was 
 young, Mrs. Moss must now be an aged 
 woman ; yet, strange as it may seem, my 
 dear, I do assure you that I never realized 
 the fact. I thought of her as I had heard 
 of her young and beautiful and mo- 
 dslled my hopes accordingly. 
 
 ' Most people's day-dreams take, sooner 
 c iiter, a selfish turn. I seemed to iden- 
 tify myself with the beautiful Anastatia. I 
 thought of the ball as one looks back to the 
 past. I fancied myself moving through 
 the minuet de la cour, whose stately paces 
 scarcely made the silken rosebuds rustle. 
 I rejected en masse countless suitors of
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAVS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 fabulous wealth and nobility ; but when it 
 came to Mr. Sandford, I could feel with 
 Miss Eden no more. My grandmother 
 had said that she loved him, that she en- 
 couraged him, and that she gave him up 
 for money. It was a mystery ! In her 
 place, I thought, I would have danced 
 every dance with him ; I would have knit- 
 ted for him in winter, and gathered flowers 
 for him in the summer hedges. To whom 
 should one be most kind, if not to those 
 whom one most loves ? To love, and take 
 pleasure in giving pain to balance a true 
 heart and clear blue eyes against money, 
 and prefer money was not at that time 
 comprehensible by me. I pondered, and 
 (so to speak) spread out the subject before 
 my mind, and sat in judgment upon it. 
 
 " Money that is, golden guineas (my 
 grandmother had given me one on my 
 birthday), crowns, shillings, sixpences, 
 pennies, halfpennies, farthings ; and when 
 you come to consider how many things a 
 guinea judiciously expended in a toy-shop 
 will procure, you see that money is a great 
 thing, especially if you have the full con- 
 trol of it, and are not obliged to spend it 
 on anything useful. 
 
 " On the other hand, those whom you 
 love, and who love you not in childhood, 
 thank GOD, the smallest part of one's 
 acquaintance. 
 
 " I made a list on my own account. It 
 began with my mother, and ended with my 
 yellow cat. (It included a crusty old gar- 
 dener, who was at times, especially in the 
 spring, so particularly cross that I might 
 have been tempted to exchange him for 
 the undisputed possession of that stock of 
 seeds, tools, and flowerpots which formed 
 our chief subject of dispute. But this is a 
 digression.) I took the lowest. Could I 
 part with Sandy Tom for any money, or 
 for anything that money would buy? I 
 thought of a speaking doll, a miniature 
 piano, a tiny carriage drawn by four yellow 
 
 mastiffs, of a fairy purse that should never 
 be empty, with all that might thereby be 
 given to others or kept for oneself: and 
 then I thought of Sandy Tom of his 
 large, round, soft head ; his fine eyes (they 
 were yellow, not blue, and glared with in- 
 finite tenderness) ; his melodious purr; his 
 expressive whiskers; his incomparable 
 tail. 
 
 "Love rose up as an impulse, an in- 
 stinct ; it would not be doubted, it utterly 
 refused to be spread out to question. 
 
 " ' Oh, Puss ! ' I thought, ' if you could 
 but leap on to the bed at this moment I 
 would explain it all to our mutual compre- 
 hension and satisfaction. My dear Sandy,' 
 I would say, 'with you to lie on the 
 cushioned seat, a nice little carriage, and 
 four yellow mastiffs, would be perfection ; 
 but as to comparing what I love to wit, 
 you, Sandy! with what I want to wit, 
 four yellow mastiffs and a great many other 
 things besides I should as soon think of 
 cutting off your tail to dust the doll's house 
 with.' Alas ! Sandy Tom was at home ; 
 I could only imagine the gentle rub of the 
 head with which he would have assented. 
 Meanwhile, I made up my mind firmly on 
 one point. My grandmother was wrong. 
 Miss Anastatia Eden had not loved Mr. 
 Sandford. 
 
 " Smash ! The fire, which had been 
 gradually becoming hollow, fell in at this 
 moment, and I started to find myself 
 chilly and cramped ; and so lay down. 
 Then my thoughts took another turn. I 
 wondered if I should grow up beautiful, 
 (ike Mrs. Moss. It was a serious ques- 
 tion. I had often looked at myself in the 
 glass, but I had a general idea that I 
 looked much like other little girls of my 
 age. I began gravely to examine myself 
 in detail, beginning from the top of my 
 head. My hair was light, and cropped on 
 a level with the lobes of my ears ; this, 
 however, would amend itself with time; and
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 I had long intended that my hair should 
 be of raven blackness, and touch the 
 ground at least ; ' but that will not be till 
 I am grown up,' thought I. Then my 
 eyes : they were large ; in fact the undue 
 proportions they assumed when I looked 
 ill or tired formed a family joke. If size 
 were all that one requires in eyes, mine 
 would certainly pass muster. Moreover, 
 they had long curly lashes. I fingered 
 these slowly, and thought of Sandy's 
 whiskers. At this point I nearly fell asleep, 
 but roused myself to examine my nose. 
 My grandmother had said that Mrs. 
 Moss's nose was delicately curved. Now, 
 it is certainly true that a curve may be 
 either concave or convex ; but I had heard 
 of the bridge of a nose, and knew well 
 enough which way the curve should go ; 
 and I had a shrewd suspicion that if so 
 very short a nose as mine, and with so 
 round a tip, could be said to be curved 
 at all, the curve went the wrong way; 
 at the same time, I could not feel sure. 
 For I must tell you that to lie in a com- 
 fortable bed, at an hour long beyond 
 the time when one ought naturally to be 
 asleep, and to stroke one's nose, is a pro- 
 ceeding not favourable to forming a clear 
 judgment on so important a point as one's 
 personal appearance. The very shadows 
 were still as well as silent, the fire had 
 ceased to flicker, a delicious quietude per- 
 vaded the room, as I stroked my nose 
 and dozed, and dozed and stroked my 
 nose, and lost all sense of its shape, and 
 fancied it a huge lump growing under my 
 fingers. The extreme unpleasantness of 
 this idea just prevented my falling asleep ; 
 and I roused myself and sat up again. 
 
 " ' It's no use feeling,' I thought, ' I'll 
 look in the glass.' 
 
 "There was one mirror in the room. It 
 hung above the mantelpiece. It was old, 
 deeply framed in dark wood, and was so 
 hung as to slope forwards into the room. 
 
 "In front of the fire stood an old- 
 fashioned, cushioned armchair, with a very 
 high back, and a many-frilled chintz cover. 
 A footstool lay near it. It was here that 
 my grandmother had been sitting. I 
 jumped out of bed, put the footstool into 
 the chair that I might get to a level with 
 the glass, and climbed on to it. Thanks 
 to the slope of the mirror, I could now 
 see my reflection as well as the dim fire- 
 light would permit. 
 
 "'What a silly child!' you will say, 
 Ida. Very silly, indeed, my dear. And 
 how one remembers one's follies ! At the 
 end of half a century, I recall my reflection 
 in that old nursery mirror more clearly 
 than I remember how I looked in the 
 glass before which I put on my bonnet 
 this evening to come to tea with you : the 
 weird, startled glance of my eyes, which, 
 in their most prominent stage of weariness, 
 gazed at me out of the shadows of the 
 looking-glass, the tumbled tufts of hair, 
 the ghostly effect of my white night-dress. 
 As to my nose, I could absolutely see 
 nothing of its shape; the firelight just 
 caught the round tip, which shone like a 
 little white toadstool from the gloom, and 
 this was all. 
 
 " ' One can't see the shape, full face,' I 
 thought. ' If I had only another looking- 
 glass.' 
 
 " But there was not another. I knew 
 it, and yet involuntarily looked round the 
 room. Suddenly I exclaimed aloud, ' Mr. 
 Joseph will do ! ' 
 
 " Who was Mr. Joseph you will ask. 
 My dear Ida, I really do not know. I 
 have not the least idea. I had heard 
 him called Mr. Joseph, and I fancy he 
 was a connection of the family. All I 
 knew of him was his portrait, a silhouette, 
 deeply framed in black wood, which 
 hung against the nursery wall. I was igno- 
 rant of his surname ad history. I had 
 never examined his features. But I knew
 
 MRS. OVERTffE WAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 that happily he had been very stout, since 
 his ample coat and waistcoat, cut out in 
 black paper, converted the glass which 
 covered them into an excellent mirror for 
 my dolls. 
 
 "Worthy Mr. Joseph! Here he was 
 coming in useful again. How much we 
 owe to our forefathers ! I soon unhooked 
 him, and climbing back into the chair, 
 commenced an examination of my profile 
 by the process of double reflection. But 
 all in vain ! Whether owing to the dusty 
 state of the mirror, or to the dim light, or 
 to the unobliging shapeliness of Mr. 
 Joseph's person, I cannot say, but turn 
 and twisjt as I would, I could not get a 
 view of my profile sufficiently clear and 
 complete to form a correct judgment 
 upon. I held Mr. Joseph, now high, now 
 low ; I stooped, I stood on tiptoe, I moved 
 forward, I leant backward. It was this 
 latest manoeuvre thai aggravated the natu- 
 ral topheaviness of the chair, and endan- 
 gered its balance. The fore-legs rose, my 
 spasmodic struggle was made in the wrong 
 direction, and I, the armchair, and Mr. 
 Joseph fell backwards together. 
 
 " Two of us were light enough, and 
 happily escaped unhurt. It was the arm- 
 chair which fell with such an appalling 
 crash, and whether it were any the worse 
 or no, I could not tell as it lay. As soon 
 as I had a little recovered from the shock, 
 therefore, I struggled to raise it, whilst 
 Mr. Joseph lay helplessly upon the 
 ground, with his waistcoat turned up to 
 the ceiling. 
 
 " It was thus that my aunt found us. 
 
 "If only' Mr. Joseph and I had fallen 
 together, no one need have been the wiser ; 
 but that lumbering armchair had come 
 down with a bump that startled the sober 
 trio at supper in the dining-room below. 
 
 " ' What is the matter ? ' said Aunt 
 Harriet. . 
 
 " I was speechless. 
 
 " ' What have you been doing ? ' 
 
 " I couldn't speak ; but accumulating 
 misfortune was gradually overpowering me, 
 and I began to cry. 
 
 " ' Get into bed,' said Aunt Harriet. 
 
 " I willingly obeyed, and Aunt Harriet 
 seated herself at the foot. 
 
 " ' Now, think before you speak, Mary,' 
 she said quietly, ' and then tell me the 
 truth. What have you been doing ? ' 
 
 " One large tear rolled over my nose and 
 off the tip as I feebly began 
 
 " ' I got into the chair ' 
 
 " ' Well ? ' said Aunt Harriet. 
 
 " ' to look in the glass.' 
 
 " ' What for ? ' said Aunt Harriet. 
 
 "Tears flowed unrestrainedly over my 
 face as I howled in self-abasement 
 
 " ' To look at the shape of my nose.' 
 
 " At this point Aunt Harriet rose, and 
 turning her back rather abruptly, crossed 
 the room, and picked up Mr. Joseph. (I 
 have since had reason to believe that she 
 was with difficulty concealing a fit of 
 laughter.) 
 
 " ' What have you had this picture down 
 for?' she inquired, still with her back to 
 me. 
 
 " ' I couldn't see,' I sobbed, ' and I got 
 Mr. Joseph to help me.' 
 
 "My aunt made no reply, and still care- 
 fully concealing her face, restored Mr. 
 Joseph to his brass nail with great de- 
 liberation. 
 
 "There is nothing like full confession. 
 I broke the silence. 
 
 " ' Aunt Harriet, I was awake when you 
 and Granny were here, and heard what 
 you said.' 
 
 " ' You are a very silly, naughty child,' 
 my aunt severely returned. 'Why don't 
 you go to sleep when you are sent to 
 bed?' 
 
 " ' I can't,' I sobbed, ' with talking and 
 candles.' 
 
 " You've got the screen,' said Aunt
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 33 
 
 Harriet ; and I cannot tell why, but some- 
 how I lacked courage to say that the red 
 screen was the chief instrument of torture. 
 
 " ' Well, go to sleep now,' she concluded, 
 'and be thankful you're not hurt. You 
 might have killed yourself.' 
 
 " Encouraged by the gracious manner in 
 which she tucked me up, I took a short 
 cut to the information which I had failed 
 to attain through Mr. Joseph. 
 
 " ' Aunt Harriet,' I said, ' do you think 
 I shall ever be as beautiful as Mrs. Moss?' 
 
 " ' I'm ashamed of you,' said Aunt 
 Harriet. 
 
 " I climbed no more into the trea- 
 cherous armchair. I eschewed the mirror. 
 I left Mr. Joseph in peace upon the wall. 
 I took no further trouble about the future 
 prospects of my nose. But night and day 
 I thought of Mrs. Moss. I found the old 
 cushion, and sat by it, gazing at the faded 
 tints of the rosebuds, till I imagined the 
 stiff brocade in all its beauty and fresh- 
 ness. I took a vigorous drawing fit ; but 
 it was only to fill my little book with in- 
 numerable sketches of Mrs. Moss. My 
 uncle lent me his paint-box, as he was 
 wont; and if the fancy portraits that I 
 made were not satisfactory even to myself, 
 they failed in spite of cheeks blushing with 
 vermilion, in spite of eyes as large and 
 brilliant as lamp-black could make them, 
 and in spite of the most accurately curved 
 noses that my pencil could produce. The 
 amount of gamboge and Prussian blue that 
 I wasted in vain efforts to produce a satis- 
 factory pea-green, leaves me at this day an 
 astonished admirer of my uncle's patience. 
 At this time I wished to walk along no 
 other road than that which led to my dear 
 manor, where the iron gates were being 
 painted, the garden made tidy, and the 
 shutters opened ; but above all the chief 
 object of my desires was to accompany 
 my grandmother and aunt in their first 
 visit to Mrs. Moss. 
 
 " Once I petitioned Aunt Harriet on 
 this subject. Her answer was 
 
 " ' My dear, there would be nothing to 
 amuse you ; Mrs. Moss is an old woman.' 
 
 " ' Granny said she was so beautiful,' I 
 suggested. 
 
 '"So she was, my dear, when your 
 grandmother was young.' 
 
 " These and similar remarks I heard 
 and heeded not. They did not add one 
 wrinkle to my ideal of Mrs. Moss : they 
 in no way whatever lessened my desire to 
 see her. I had never seen my grand- 
 mother young, and her having ever been 
 so seemed to me at the most a matter of 
 tradition ; on the other hand, Mrs. Moss 
 had been presented to my imagination in 
 the bloom of youth and beauty, and, say 
 what they would, in the bloom of youth 
 and beauty I expected to see her still. 
 
 " One afternoon, about a week after the 
 arrival of Mrs. Moss, I was busy in the 
 garden, where I had been working for an 
 hour or more, when I heard carriage 
 wheels drive up and stop at our door. 
 Could it be Mrs. Moss? I stole gently 
 round to a position where I could see 
 without being seen, and discovered that 
 the carriage was not that of any caller, 
 but my uncle's. Then Granny and Aunt 
 Harriet were going out. I rushed up to 
 the coachman, and asked where they 
 were going. He seemed in no way over- 
 powered by having to reply 'To the 
 manor, Miss.' 
 
 " That was to Mrs. Moss, and I was to 
 be left behind ! I stood speechless in 
 bitter disappointment, as my grandmother 
 rustled out in her best silk dress, followed 
 by Aunt Harriet and my uncle, who, when 
 he saw me, exclaimed 
 
 " ' Why, there's my little Mary ! Why 
 don't you take her? I'll be bound she 
 wants to go.' 
 
 " ' I do, indeed ! ' I exclaimed, in Cin- 
 derella-like tones. 
 
 c
 
 34 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWATS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 " ' But Mrs. Moss is such an old lady,' 
 said Aunt Harriet, whose ideas upon chil- 
 dren were purely theoretical, and who 
 could imagine no interests for them apart 
 from other children, from toys or definite 
 amusements ' What could the child do 
 with herself?' 
 
 '"Do ! ' said my uncle, who took a 
 rough and cheery view of life, ' why, look 
 about her, to be sure. And if Mrs. M. is 
 an old lady, there'll be all the more Indian 
 cabinets and screens, and japanned tables, 
 and knick-knacks, and lapdogs. Keep 
 your eyes open, Miss Mary; I've never 
 seen the good lady or her belongings, but 
 I'll stake my best hat on the japan ware 
 and the lapdog. Now, how soon can you 
 be dressed ? ' 
 
 " Later in life the selfish element mixes 
 more largely with our admirations. A few 
 years thence, and in a first interview with 
 the object of so many fancies, I should 
 have thought as much of my own appear- 
 ance on the occasion, as of what I was 
 myself to see. I should have taken some 
 pains with my toilette. At that time, the 
 desire to see Mrs. Moss was too absorbing 
 to admit of any purely personal considera- 
 tions. I dashed into the nursery, scrubbed 
 my hands and face to a raw red com- 
 plexion, brushed my hair in three strokes, 
 and secured my things with one sweep. I 
 hastily pocketed a pincushion of red cloth, 
 worked with yellow silk spots, in the like- 
 ness of a strawberry. It was a pet treasure 
 of mine, and I intended it as an offering 
 to Mrs. Moss. I tied my hood at the top 
 of the stairs, fastened my tippet in the hall, 
 and reached the family coach by about 
 three of those bounds common to all 
 young animals. 
 
 " ' Halloa!' said my uncle, with his face 
 through the carriage door. 'You've not 
 thanked me yet.' 
 
 " I flung my arms round his starched 
 neckcloth. 
 
 " ' You're a darling ! ' I exclaimed, with 
 an emphatic squeeze. 
 
 " You're another,' he replied, returning 
 the embrace upon my hood. 
 
 "With this mutual understanding we 
 parted, and I thought that if Mrs. Moss 
 were not certain to fulfil my ideal, I should 
 have wished her to be as nearly like Uncle 
 James as the circumstances of the case 
 would permit. I watched his yellow waist- 
 coat and waving hands till they could be 
 seen no longer, and then I settled myself 
 primly upon the back seat, and ventured 
 upon a shy conciliating promise to be 
 ' very good.' 
 
 "'You're quite welcome to come, child,' 
 said Aunt Harriet ; ' but as I said, there 
 are neither children nor playthings for 
 you.' 
 
 " Children or playthings ! What did I 
 want with either ? I put my arm through 
 the loop by the window and watched the 
 fields as they came and vanished, with 
 vacant eyes, and thought of Mrs. Moss. 
 A dozen times had I gone through the 
 whole scene in my mind before we drove 
 through the iron gates. I fancied myself 
 in the bare, spacious hall, at which I had 
 peeped ; I seemed to hear a light laugh, 
 and to see the beautiful face of Mrs. Moss 
 look over the banisters ; to hear a rustle, 
 and the scraping of the stiff brocade, as 
 the pink rosebuds shimmered, and the 
 green satin shoes peeped out, and tap, tap, 
 tap, the high pink heels resounded from 
 the shallow stairs. 
 
 " I had dreamed this day-dream many 
 times over before the carriage stopped with 
 a shake, and Aunt Harriet roused me, 
 asking if I were asleep. In another minute 
 or so we were in the hall, and here I met 
 with my first disappointment. 
 
 " To begin with, I had seen the hall un- 
 furnished, and had not imagined it other- 
 wise. I had pictured Mrs. Moss in her 
 beauty and rose brocade, the sole ornament
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 35 
 
 of its cold emptiness. Then (though I 
 knew that my grandmother and aunt must 
 both be present) I had really fancied my- 
 self the chief character in this interview 
 with Mrs. Moss. I had thought of myself 
 as rushing up the stairs to meet her, and 
 laying the pincushion at her green satin 
 feet. And now that at last I was really in 
 the hall, I should not have known it again. 
 It was carpeted from end to end. Fra- 
 grant orange-trees stood in tubs, large 
 hunting-pictures hung upon the walls, 
 below which stood cases of stuffed birds, 
 and over all presided a footman in livery, 
 who himself looked like a stuffed specimen 
 of the human race with unusually bright 
 plumage. 
 
 "No fa.ce peeped over the banisters, 
 and when we went upstairs, the footman 
 went first (as seemed due to him), then my 
 grandmother, followed by my aunt, and 
 lastly I, in the humblest insignificance, 
 behind them. My feet sank into the soft 
 stair-carpets, I vacantly admired the elegant 
 luxury around me, with an odd sensation 
 of heartache. Everything was beautiful, 
 but I had wanted nothing to be beautiful 
 but Mrs. Moss. 
 
 " " Already the vision began to fade. 
 That full-fed footman troubled my fancies. 
 His scarlet plush killed the tender tints of 
 the rosebuds in my thoughts, and the 
 streaky powder upon his hair seemed a 
 mockery of the toupee I hoped to see, 
 whose whiteness should enhance the lustre 
 of rare black eyes. He opened the draw- 
 ing-room door and announced my grand- 
 mother and aunt. I followed, and (so far 
 as one may be said to face anything when 
 one stands behind the skirts of two inter- 
 vening elders) I was face to face with Mrs. 
 Moss. 
 
 " That ;s, I was face to face with a tall, 
 dark, old woman, with stooping shoulders, 
 a hooked nose, black eyes that smouldered 
 in their sunken sockets, and a distinct 
 
 growth of beard upon her chin. Mr. Moss 
 had been dead many years and his widow 
 had laid aside her weeds. She wore a 
 dress of feuille-morte satin, and a black 
 lace shawl. She had a rather elaborate cap 
 with a tendency to get on one side, per- 
 haps because it would not fit comfortably 
 on the brown front with bunchy curls which 
 was fastened into its place by a band of 
 broad black velvet. 
 
 " And this was Mrs. Moss ! This was 
 the end of all my fancies ! There was no- 
 thing astonishing in the disappointment ; 
 the only marvel was that I should have 
 indulged so foolish a fancy for so long. 
 I had been told more than once that Mrs. 
 Moss was as old as my grandmother. 
 As it was she looked older. Why I 
 could not tell then, though I know now. 
 
 " My grandmother, though never a 
 beauty, had a sweet smile of her own, and 
 a certain occasional kindling of the eyes, 
 the outward signs of a character full of 
 sentiment and intelligence; and these had 
 outlasted youth. She had\ always been 
 what is called ' pleasing,' and she was 
 pleasing still. But in Mrs. Moss no 
 strength, no sentiment, no intellect filled 
 the place of the beauty that was gone. 
 Features that were powerful without cha- 
 racter, and eyes that glowed without ex- 
 pression, formed a wreck with little to 
 recall the loveliness which had bewildered 
 Mr. Sandford and me. 
 
 " There is not much more to tell, Ida. 
 That was the disappointment. This is the 
 cause of my dislike for a certain shade of 
 feuille-morte satin. It disappointed me of 
 that rose brocade which I was never to 
 see. You shall hear how I got through 
 the visit, however. This meeting which 
 (like so many meetings) had proved the 
 very reverse of what was hoped. 
 
 "Through an angle of Aunt Harriet's 
 pelisse, I watched the meeting between my 
 grandmother* and Mrs. Moss. They kissed
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWATS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 and then drew back and looked at each 
 other, still holding hands. I wondered if 
 my grandmother felt as I felt. I could 
 not tell. With one of her smiles, she bent 
 forward and, kissing Mrs. Moss again, 
 said, 
 
 " ' GOD bless you, Anastatia.' 
 
 " ' GOD bless you, Elizabeth.' 
 
 " It was the first time Mrs. Moss had 
 spoken, and her voice was rather gruff. 
 Then both ladies sat down, and my grand- 
 mother drew out her pocket-handkerchief 
 and wiped her eyes. Mrs. Moss began (as 
 I thought) to look for hers, and not finding 
 it, called 
 
 'Metcalfe!' 
 
 on which a faded little woman, with a fore- 
 finger in a faded-looking book, came out 
 from behind some window-curtains and 
 rummaging Mrs. Moss's chair with a prac- 
 tised hand, produced a large silver snuff- 
 box, from which Mrs. Moss took a pinch, 
 and then offered it to Granny, who shook 
 her head. Mrs. Moss took another and a 
 larger pinch. It was evident what made 
 her voice so gruff. 
 
 " Aunt Harriet was introduced as ' My 
 daughter Harriet,' and made a stiff curtsey 
 as Mrs. Moss smiled, and nodded, and 
 bade her ' sit down, my dear.' Through- 
 out the whole interview she seemed to be 
 looked upon by both ladies as a child, and 
 played the part so well, sitting prim and 
 silent on her chair, that I could hardly 
 help humming as I looked at her : 
 
 ' Hold up your head, 
 Turn out your toes, 
 Speak when you're spoken to, 
 Mend your clothes.' 
 
 I was introduced, too, as ' a grandchild,' 
 made a curtsey the shadow of Aunt Har- 
 riet's, received a nod, the shadow of that 
 bestowed upon her, and got out of the way 
 as soon as I could, behind my aunt's chair, 
 where coming unexpectedly upon three fat 
 
 pug-dogs on a mat, I sat down among 
 them and felt quite at home. 
 
 " The sight of the pugs brought Uncle 
 James to my mind, and when I looked 
 round the room, it seemed to me that he 
 must be a conjuror at least, so true was 
 everything he had said. A large Indian 
 screen hid the door ; japanned boxes stood 
 on a little table to correspond in front of 
 it, and there were two cabinets having 
 shallow drawers with decorated handles, 
 and a great deal of glass, through which 
 odd teacups, green dragons, Indian gods, 
 and Dresden shepherdesses were visible 
 upon the shelves. The room was filled 
 with knickknacks, and here were the pug- 
 dogs, no less than three of them ! They 
 were very fat, and had little beauty except 
 as to their round heads, and black wrinkled 
 snouts, which I kissed over and over 
 again. 
 
 " ' Do you mind Mrs. Moss's being old, 
 and dressing in that hideous brown dress ?' 
 I asked in a whisper at the ear of one of 
 these round heads. ' Think of the rose- 
 buds on the brocade, and the pea-green 
 satin, and the high-heeled shoes. Ah ! ' I 
 added, ' you are only a pug, and pugs 
 don't think.' Nevertheless, I pulled out 
 the pincushion, and showed it to each dog 
 in turn, and the sight of it so forcibly re- 
 minded me of my vain hopes, that I could 
 not help crying. A hot tear fell upon the 
 nose of the oldest and fattest pug, which 
 so offended him that he moved away to 
 another mat at some distance, and as both 
 the others fell fast asleep, I took refuge in 
 my own thoughts. 
 
 "The question arose why should not 
 Mrs. Moss have the pincushion after all? 
 I had expected her to be young and beau- 
 tiful, and she had proved old and ugly, it 
 is true ; but there is no reason why old 
 and ugly people should not have cushions 
 to keep their pins in. It was a struggle to 
 part with my dear strawberry- pincushion in
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 37 
 
 the circumstances, but I had fairly resolved 
 to do so, when the rustle of leave-taking 
 began, and I had to come out of my 
 corner. 
 
 " ' Bid Mrs. Moss good-day, Mary,' said 
 my grandmother ; and added, ' the child 
 has been wild to come and see you, Anas- 
 tatia.' 
 
 " Mrs. Moss held out her hand good- 
 naturedly. 'So you wanted to see me, 
 my dear ? ' said she. 
 
 " I took my hand out of my pocket, 
 where I had been holding the pincushion, 
 and put both into Mrs. Moss's palm. 
 
 " ' I brought this for you, ma'am,' I said. 
 ' It is not a real strawberry ; it is emery ; I 
 made it myself.' 
 
 " And the fact of having sacrificed some- 
 thing for Mrs. Moss made me almost fond 
 of her. Moreover, there was an expression 
 in her eyes at that moment which gave 
 them beauty. She looked at my grand- 
 mother and laid her hand on my head. 
 
 " ' I lost all mine, Elizabeth.' 
 
 " I thought she was speaking of her pin- 
 cushions, and being in a generous mood, 
 said hastily, 
 
 " ' When that is worn out, ma'am, I will 
 make you another.' 
 
 " But she was speaking of her children. 
 Poor Mrs. Moss ! She took another huge 
 pinch of snuff, and called, ' Metcalfe.' 
 
 " The faded little woman appeared once 
 more. 
 
 " ' I must give you a keepsake in return, 
 my dear,' said Mrs. Moss. 'The china 
 pug, Metcalfe ! ' 
 
 " Metcalfe (whose face always wore a 
 smile that looked as if it were just about 
 to disappear, and who, indeed, for that 
 matter always looked as if she were just 
 about to disappear herself) opened one of 
 the cabinets, and brought out a little toy 
 pug in china, very delicately coloured, and 
 looking just like one of my friends on the 
 mat. I fell in love with it at once, and 
 
 it was certainly a handsome exchange for 
 the strawberry pincushion. 
 
 " ' You will send the child to me now 
 and then, Elizabeth ? ' said Mrs. Moss as 
 we retired. 
 
 " In the end Mrs. Moss and I became 
 great friends. I put aside my dream 
 among the ' vain fancies ' of life, and took 
 very kindly to the manor in its new aspect. 
 Even the stuffed footman became familiar, 
 and learnt to welcome me with a smile. 
 The real Mrs. Moss was a more agreeable 
 person than I have, I fear, represented 
 her. She had failed to grasp solid happi- 
 ness in life, because she had chosen with 
 the cowardice of an inferior mind; but 
 she had borne disappointment with dig- 
 . nity, and submitted to heavy sorrows with 
 patience ; and a greater nature could not 
 have done more: She was the soul of 
 good humour, and the love of small chat, 
 which contrasted so oddly with her fierce 
 appearance, was a fund of entertainment 
 for me, as I fed my imagination and stored 
 my memory with anecdotes of the good 
 old times in the many quiet evenings we 
 spent together. I learnt to love her the 
 more heartily, I confess, when she bought 
 a new gown and gave \.\\tfetttlle-?norte satin 
 to Mrs. Metcalfe. 
 
 *"Mrs. Metcalfe was 'humble compa- 
 nion ' to Mrs. Moss. She was in reality 
 single, but she exacted the married title as 
 a point of respect. At the beginning of 
 our acquaintance I called her ' Miss Met- 
 calfe,' and this occasioned the only check 
 our friendship ever received. Now I would, 
 with the greatest pleasure, have addressed 
 her as ' My Lord Archbishop,' or in any 
 other style to which she was not entitled, 
 it being a matter of profound indifference 
 to me. But the question was a serious 
 one to her, and very serious she made it, 
 till I almost despaired of our ever coming 
 to an understanding on the subject. 
 
 " On every other point she was unassum-
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY' S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 ing almost to nonentity. She was weak- 
 minded to the verge of mental palsy. She 
 was more benevolent in deed, and more 
 wandering in conversation, than any one I 
 have met with since. That is, in ordinary 
 life. In the greenhouse or garden (with 
 which she and the head gardener alone 
 had any real acquaintance) her accurate 
 and profound knowledge would put to 
 shame many professed garden botanists I 
 have met with since. From her I learnt 
 what little I know of the science of horti- 
 culture, and with her I spent many happy 
 hours over the fine botanical works in the 
 manor library, which she alone ever opened. 
 "And so I became reconciled to things 
 as they were, though to this day I connect 
 with that shade of feuille-morte satin a dis- 
 appointment not to be forgotten. 
 .'#" 
 
 " It is a dull story, is it not, Ida ? " said 
 the little old lady, pausing here. She had 
 not told it in precisely these words, but 
 this was the sum and substance of it 
 
 Ida nodded. Not that she had thought 
 the story dull, so far as she had heard it, 
 and whilst she was awake; but she had 
 fallen asleep, and so she nodded. 
 
 Mrs. Overtheway looked back at the 
 fire, to which, indeed, she had been talk- 
 ing for some time past. 
 
 " A child's story," she thought. " A tale 
 of the blind, wilful folly of childhood ? Ah, 
 my soul ! Alas, my grown-up friends ! Does 
 the moral belong to childhood alone? 
 Have manhood and womanhood no pas- 
 sionate, foolish longings, for which we blind 
 ourselves to obvious truth, and of which 
 the vanity does not lessen the disappoint- 
 ment ? Do we not still toil after rosebuds 
 to find feuilles-mortes ? " 
 
 No voice answered Mrs. Overtheway's 
 fanciful questions. The hyacinth nodded 
 fragrantly on its stalk, and Ida nodded in 
 her chair. She was fast asleep happily 
 asleep with a smile upon her face. 
 
 The shadow nodded gently on the walls, 
 and like a shadow the little old lady stole 
 quietly away. 
 
 When Ida awoke, she found herself 
 lying partly in the arm-chair, and partly in 
 the arms of Nurse, who was lifting her up. 
 A candle flared upon the table, by the fire 
 stood an empty chair, and the heavy scent 
 which filled the room was as sweet as the 
 remembrance of past happiness. The little 
 old lady had vanished, and, but for the 
 hyacinth, Ida would almost have doubted 
 whether her visit had not been a dream. 
 
 " Has Mrs. Overtheway been long gone, 
 Nursey?" she asked, keeping her eyes 
 upon the flower-pot. 
 
 " Ever so long ! " said Nurse, " and here 
 you've been snoring away, and the old 
 lady's been downstairs, telling me how 
 comfortably you were asleep, and she's 
 coming again to-morrow evening, if you're 
 good." 
 
 It was precisely twelve minutes since 
 Mrs. Overtheway left the house, but Nurse 
 was of a slightly exaggerative turn of mind, 
 and few people speak exactly on the sub- 
 ject of time, especially when there is an op- 
 portunity of triumphing over someone who 
 has been asleep before bed-time. The 
 condition of Ida's being good was also the 
 work of Nurse's own instructive fancy, but 
 Ida caught eagerly at the welcome news of 
 another visit. 
 
 "Then she is not angry with me for 
 falling asleep, Nursey? I was so comfort- 
 able, and she has such a nice voice, I 
 couldn't help it ; I think I left off about 
 the pugs. I wish I had a pug with a wrinkled 
 black snout, don't you, Nursey ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't, Miss Ida. My 
 father kept all sorts of pigs, and we used to 
 have one with a black snout and black 
 spots, but it was as ugly as ugly could be ; 
 and I never could fancy the bacon would 
 be fit to eat. You must have been dream-
 
 MRS. MOSS. 
 
 39 
 
 ing, I'm sure; the old lady would never 
 tell you about such rubbish, I know." 
 
 " It's pugs, not pigs, Nursey ; and they're 
 dogs, you know," said Ida, laughing. 
 " How funny you are ! And indeed she 
 did tell me, I couldn't have dreamt it ; I 
 never dreamt anything so nice in my life." 
 
 "And never will, most likely," said 
 Nurse, who was very skilful in concluding 
 a subject which she did not want to dis- 
 cuss, and who was apt to do so by a rapid 
 twist in the line of argument, which Ida 
 would find somewhat bewildering. " But, 
 dear Miss Ida," she continued, ".do leave 
 off clutching at that chair-arm, when I'm 
 lifting you up ; and your eyes '11 drop out 
 of your head, if you go on staring like 
 that." 
 
 Ida relaxed the nervous grasp, to which 
 she had been impelled by her energy on 
 the subject of the pugs, let down her eye- 
 brows, and submitted to be undressed. 
 The least pleasant part of this ceremony 
 related to her hair. Ida's hair was dark, 
 and soft, and smooth, but Nurse thought 
 fit to make it wavy by damping and plait- 
 ing. She had heavy hands, and did not 
 understand the art of brushing. Ida 
 winced as the bristles struck vertically, 
 and accommodated her head as best she 
 might to the sharp tugs which formed 
 part of the process of plaiting in Nurse's 
 rather rough fingers. Perhaps, however, 
 her mind may have been running a little 
 upon grievances, which made her say : 
 
 " You know, Nursey, how you are 
 always telling me I ought to be thankful 
 for having things, and not having things, 
 and ' 
 
 " I wish you'd talk sense, and not give 
 way with your head so when I'm plaiting, 
 Miss Ida," retorted Nurse, " having things, 
 and not having things ; I don't know what 
 you mean." 
 
 " Well, you know, Nursey, the other day 
 when I said I didn't like bread-and-treacle 
 
 treacled so long befdre, and soaked in, and 
 you said I ought to be thankful that I had 
 bread-and-treacle at all, and that I hadn't 
 a wooden leg, and to eat anything I could 
 get, like the old sailor-man at the corner ; 
 well, do you know, I've thought of some- 
 thing I am so thankful for, and that is that 
 I haven't a red screen to my bed." 
 
 " I really do think, Miss Ida," said 
 Nurse, " that you'll go out of your mind 
 some day, with your outlandish fancies. 
 And where you get them, I can't think. 
 I'm sure 7 never put such things into your 
 head." 
 
 Ida laughed again. 
 
 " Never mind, Nursey, it all belongs to 
 the pug story. Am I done now ? And 
 when you've tucked me up, please, would 
 you mind remembering to put the flower 
 where I can see it when I wake ? " 
 
 Nurse did as she was asked, and Ida 
 watched the hyacinth till she fell asleep ; 
 and she slept well. 
 
 In the morning, she took her old post 
 at the window. The little old lady had 
 never seemed so long in making her ap- 
 pearance, nor the bells so slow to begin. 
 Chim ! chime ! chim ! chime ! There 
 they were at last, and there was Mrs. 
 Overtheway. She looked up, waved a 
 bunch of snowdrops, and went after the 
 bells. Ida kissed her hand, and waved it 
 over and over again, long after the little 
 old lady was out of sight. 
 
 " There's a kiss for you, dear Mrs. Over- 
 theway," she cried, " and kisses for your 
 flowers, and your house, and everything 
 belonging to you, and for the bells and 
 the church, and everybody in it this morn- 
 ing, and " 
 
 But, at this point of universal benevo- 
 lence, Nurse carried her off to breakfast. 
 
 The little old lady came to tea as before. 
 She looked as well as ever, and Nurse was 
 equally generous of the matter of tea and 
 toast. Mrs. Overtheway told over again
 
 4 o 
 
 MRS. VER THE WA Y 'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 what Ida had missed'in the story of Mrs. 
 Moss, and Ida apologized, with earnest 
 distress, for her uncivil conduct in falling 
 asleep. 
 
 " There I was snoring away, when you 
 were telling me such a delightful story ! " 
 she exclaimed, penitently. 
 
 " Not snoring exactly, my dear," smiled 
 the little old lady, " but you looked very 
 
 happy. 
 
 thought Nursey said so," said Ida. 
 " Well, I'm very glad. It would have been 
 too rude. And you know I don't know 
 how it was, for I am so fond of stories ; I 
 like nothing so well." 
 
 "Well, shall I try again?" said Mrs. 
 Overtheway. " Perhaps I may find a more 
 amusing one, and if it does put you to 
 sleep, it won't do any harm. Indeed, I 
 think the doctor will say I'm very good 
 company for you." 
 
 " You are very good ! That / can tell 
 him," said Ida, fervently, " and please let 
 it be about yourself again, if you can re- 
 member anything. I like true stories." 
 
 " Talking of snoring," said Mrs. Over- 
 
 theway, " reminds me of something that 
 happened in my youth, and it is true, 
 though, do you know, it is a ghost story." 
 
 Ida danced in her chair. 
 
 " That is just what I should like ! " she 
 exclaimed : "Nurse has a ghost story, be- 
 longing to a farm-house, which she tells 
 the housemaid, but she says she can't tell 
 me till I am older, and I should so like to 
 hear a ghost story, if it isn't too horrid." 
 
 "This ghost story isn't too horrid, I 
 think," laughed the little old lady, " and 
 if you will let me think a few minutes, and 
 then forgive my prosy way of telling it, you 
 shall have it at once." 
 
 There was a pause. The little old lady 
 sat silent, and so sat Ida also, with her 
 eyes intently fixed on Mrs. Overtheway's 
 face, over which an occasional smile was 
 passing. 
 
 " It's about a ghost who snored," said 
 the little old lady, doubtfully. 
 
 " Delicious ! " responded Ida. The two 
 friends settled themselves comfortably, and 
 in some such words as these was told the 
 following story.
 
 THE SNORING GHOST.
 
 Clown. Madman, thou errest : I say there is no darkness but Igno- 
 rance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians in their 
 fog. . . . What is the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl? 
 
 Malvolio. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. 
 
 CZcnvn, What thinkest thou of his opinion ? 
 
 Malvolio I think nobly of the soul, and in no way approve his 
 opinion. Twelfth Night, iv. 2.
 
 THE SNORING GHOST. 
 
 " T REMEMBER," said Mrs. Overthe- 
 
 1 way, " I remember my first visit. 
 That is, I remember the occasion when I 
 and my sister Fatima did, for the first time 
 in our lives, go out visiting without our 
 mother, or any grown-up person to take 
 care of us." 
 
 " Do you remember your mother ? " 
 asked Ida. 
 
 " Quite well, my dear, I am thankful to 
 say. The best and kindest of mothers ! " 
 
 " Was your father alive, too ? " Ida asked, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 The old lady paused, pitying the anxious 
 little face opposite, but Ida went on eagerly : 
 
 "Please. tell me what he was like." 
 
 " He was a good deal older than my 
 mother, who had married very early. He 
 was a very learned man. His tastes and 
 accomplishments were many and various, 
 and he was very young-hearted and enthu- 
 siastic in the pursuit of them all his life. 
 He was apt to take up one subject of in- 
 terest after another, and to be for the time 
 completely absorbed in it. And, I must 
 tell you, that whatever the subject might 
 be, so long as his head was full of it, the 
 house seemed full of it too. It influenced 
 the conversation at meals, the habits of 
 the household, the names of the pet ani- 
 mals, and even of the children. I was 
 called Mary, in a fever of chivalrous enthu- 
 siasm for the fair and luckless Queen of 
 Scotland, and Fatima received her name 
 when the study of Arabic had brought 
 about an eastern mania. My father had 
 
 wished to call her Shahrazad, after the 
 renowned sultana of the ' Arabian Nights,' 
 but when he called upon the curate to 
 arrange for the baptism, that worthy man 
 flatly rebelled. A long discussion ended 
 in my father's making a list of eastern 
 names, from which the curate selected 
 that of Fatima as being least repugnant to 
 the sobriety of the parish registers. So 
 Fatima she was called, and as she grew 
 up pale, and moon- faced, and dark-eyed, 
 the name became her very well." 
 
 " Was it this Fatima who went out visit- 
 ing with you ? " asked Ida. 
 
 "Yes, my dear; and now as to the 
 visit. The invitation came on njy thir- 
 teenth birthday. 
 
 " One's birthday is generally a day of 
 some importance. A very notable day 
 whilst one is young, but less so when one 
 is old, when one is being carried quickly 
 through the last stages of life, and when it 
 seems hardly worth while to count time so 
 near the end of the journey. Even in 
 youth, however, some birthdays are more 
 important than others. I remember look- 
 ing forward to my tenth birthday as to a 
 high point of dignity and advancement ; 
 and the just pride of the occasion on 
 which I first wrote my age with more 
 figures than one. With similar feelings, I 
 longed to be thirteen. The being able to 
 write my age with two figures had not, 
 after all, shed any special lustre upon life ; 
 but when I was ' in my teens ' it must 
 ' feel different somehow.' So I thought.
 
 MAS. OVERTHEWAYS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 Moreover, this birthday was really to bring 
 with it solid advantages. I was now to be 
 allowed to read certain books of a more 
 grown-up character than I had read 
 hitherto, and to sit up till nine o'clock. I 
 was to wear sandals to my shoes. My hair 
 was henceforth to grow as long as I and 
 the Fates would permit, and the skirts of 
 my frocks were to take an inch in the 
 same direction. ' In four more years,' I 
 said to Fatima, as we sat on the eve of my 
 birthday, discussing its manifold advan- 
 tages, 'in four more years I shall be 
 grown up. Miss Ansted was introduced 
 at seventeen.' The prospect was illimi- 
 table. 
 
 " ' Do people always grow much on their 
 birthdays ? ' asked one of the little ones. I 
 had boasted in the nursery, that when I 
 was thirteen I should be ' nearly grown 
 up,' and I myself had hardly outlived the 
 idea that on one's birthday one was a year 
 older than on the previous day, and might 
 naturally expect to have made a year's 
 growth during the night. 
 
 " This birthday, however, produced no 
 such striking change. As usual, the pre- 
 sents were charming ; the wreath as lovely 
 as Fatima's deft fingers could make it, the 
 general holiday and pleasure-making almost 
 too much of a good thing. Otherwise, there 
 was little to mark it from other days in the 
 year. 
 
 " Towards evening we were all sitting on 
 the grass, the boys with their heads on the 
 sisters' laps, and there had been an outcry 
 for a story, to which no one had responded ; 
 partly, perhaps, because the exquisite air of 
 evening seemed a sufficient delight, the still- 
 ness too profound to be lightly disturbed. 
 We had remained for some time without 
 speaking, and the idea was becoming gene- 
 ral among the girls that the boys were nap- 
 ping, when the summer silence was broken 
 by the distant footfalls of a horse upon the 
 high road. 
 
 " ' Trotting ! ' 
 
 observed one of the supposed sleepers. 
 We were not, as a family, given to expla- 
 nations, and we drew a few more breaths 
 of the evening air in silence. Then some- 
 one said : 
 
 " ' We might make a story out of that, 
 and fancy all sorts of things. Who is it ? 
 Where does he come from, and where is 
 he going to ? ' 
 
 " ' It is a messenger from the seat of 
 war/ drawled the boy in my lap, without 
 moving. Then, lifting his curly head for 
 a moment, he cried, 'To horse ! gentlemen, 
 to horse ! The enemy will be at Carter's 
 Mill by midnight ! ' 
 
 " There was a pause ; the' solitary foot- 
 falls came nearer through the evening 
 mists, and a small brother, of a quaint 
 turn of mind, much given to the study of 
 the historical portions of the Old Testa- 
 ment, sat up and said, slowly: 
 
 " ' It is one of Job's messengers. The 
 Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell 
 upen the camels, and have carried them away, 
 yea, and slain the servants wit Jf the edge of 
 the sword ; and I only am escaped alone to 
 tell thee: 
 
 "The other boys laughed, but he lay 
 down again, as solemnly as he had risen. 
 
 " ' That was a foot-messenger,' said my 
 boy, contemptuously. 
 
 " ' It doesn't say so,' retorted the small 
 brother. 
 
 " ' Well, any way, the camels had been 
 carried off so what did he ride upon ? ' 
 
 " A squabble was imminent. I covered 
 my boy's face with a handkerchief, to keep 
 him quiet. 
 
 " ' Listen ! ' I said. ' It's the post. The . 
 mail from the north was stopped on the 
 highway, but he has saved the bags, and is 
 riding hard for London.' 
 
 " But the new suggestion was drowned 
 in a general shout of
 
 THE SNORING GHOST. 
 
 45 
 
 u ' It's coming up the lane ! ' 
 
 "The footfalls had diverged from the 
 main road, and were coming up the sandy 
 lane that skirted our wall. The boys lifted 
 their heads, and we sat expectant. There 
 was a pause, and a familiar gate-click, and 
 then the footfalls broke upon the carriage- 
 road, close by us. A man in livery, upon 
 a well-groomed horse nothing more, but 
 we lived very quietly in a quiet neighbour- 
 hood, and it was not an every-day sight 
 with us. Moreover, the man and his livery 
 were strange, and the horse looked tired. 
 
 " This event broke up the sitting, and 
 we were strolling up to the house, when a 
 maid met us, saying that my mother wished 
 to see me and Fatima. 
 
 " We found my mother sewing, with an 
 opened letter beside her. It was written 
 on one of the large quarto sheets then in 
 use, and it was full of dashes, and covered 
 and crossed, at every available corner, in 
 a vague, scratchy hand. 
 
 " ' I have heard from an old friend of 
 mine, Mary,' said my mother. ' She has 
 come to live about fifteen miles from here. 
 There is something in the letter abodt you 
 and Fatima, and you may read that part 
 aloud, if you can. The top of the last 
 page.' 
 
 " I found the place, and, with some diffi- 
 culty, deciphered : ' The dear Major was 
 all delicacy and consideration ' 
 
 " ' No, no ! ' said my mother, ' the next 
 sentence.' 
 
 " ' Dear Cecilia was all sweetness. The 
 dress was ' 
 
 " My mother took the letter, and found 
 the right place herself, and then I read : 
 
 " ' If you cannot come yourself, at least 
 let us renew acquaintance in our children. 
 I think you have two girls about thirteen? 
 My Lucy, a dear child just fifteen, feels 
 keenly the loss of her only sister, and some 
 young companions would be a boon, as all 
 our company will be elders. Pray send 
 
 them. They can come by the coach, and 
 shall be met at Durnford, at the Elephant 
 and Castle.' 
 
 "'Is the other sister dead?' asked 
 Fatima, pityingly, when we had discussed 
 our personal interest in the subject. 
 
 '"Oh, no! only married,' said my 
 mother. ' 
 
 " It was decided that we should go. 
 This decision was not arrived at at once, 
 or without some ups and downs. My 
 mother could not go herself, and had 
 some doubts as to our being old enough, 
 as yet, to go out visiting alone. It will be 
 believed that I made much of being able to 
 say ' But you know, I am thirteen, now.' 
 
 " Next day, in the evening, my father 
 was busy in his study, and my mother sat 
 at the open window, with Fatima and me 
 at her feet. The letter of acceptance had 
 been duly sent by the messenger, but she 
 had yet a good deal of advice to give, and 
 some doubts to express. She was one of 
 those people who cannot sit with idle 
 fingers, and as she talked she knitted. We 
 found it easy enough to sit idle upon two 
 little footstools, listening to the dear kind 
 voice, and watching two little clouds, frag- 
 ments of a larger group, which had de- 
 tached themselves, and were sailing slowly 
 and alone across the heavens. 
 
 " ' They are like us two,' Fatima had 
 whispered to me ; ' perhaps they are going 
 to see some other clouds.' 
 
 " ' I have observed two things which are 
 apt to befall young people who go out 
 visiting,' said my mother, as she turned a 
 row in her knitting, 'one is, that they 
 neglect little good habits while they are 
 away, and the other is, that they make 
 themselves very disagreeable when they 
 come back.' 
 
 " The clouds drifted on, and my mother 
 continued her knitting, arming us with 
 many wise counsels on small matters con- 
 nected with this great event; to which
 
 4 6 
 
 MRS. VER THE WA Y 'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 Fatima and I gratefully gave half our 
 minds, whilst with the other half we made 
 rosy pictures of unparalleled excellence 
 under trying circumstances, by which, 
 hereafter, we should prove these warnings 
 and counsels to have been, in our case, 
 unnecessary and superfluous. 
 
 " ' Most families and most people,' said 
 my mother, 'have little good habits and 
 customs of their own which they feel bound 
 to keep, although they are not among the 
 great general duties which bind every one. 
 So long as young people are at home, these 
 matters are often simple enough, but when 
 they go away certain difficulties arise. 
 They go amongst people whose little habits 
 are not the same as those to which they 
 have been accustomed. Sometimes they 
 come to very uncharitable conclusions 
 upon their friends' characters in conse- 
 quence. And, I must say, that I have 
 never met with any one who could be more 
 severe than young people of your age are 
 apt to be. I remember it of myself, and I 
 have seen it in so many other girls. Home 
 is naturally the standard, and whatever is 
 different seems wrong. As life goes on, 
 these young critics learn (or should learn) 
 to distinguish between general and particu- 
 lar duties; and also coming to know a 
 larger number of people, they find that all 
 good persons are not cut to the same pat- 
 tern, and that one's friends' little ways are 
 not therefore absurd, because one does not 
 happen to be used to them. On the other 
 hand, if going amongst other people may 
 tempt you to be critical of their little 
 habits, it is also apt to make you neglect 
 your own. Perhaps you think this cannot 
 much matter, as they are not the great 
 duties, and as other people seem to get on 
 quite well without them. But one learns 
 in the end, that no character of any value 
 is formed without the discipline of indi- 
 vidual rules, and that rules are of no 
 use that are not held to against circum- 
 
 stances. " Charitable to others, severe to 
 himself," seems a maxim for grown-up 
 people in grown-up things; but, I believe, 
 my little daughters, that the doubts and 
 difficulties of life begin very early, earlier 
 than they are commonly provided against ; 
 I think that innumerable girls struggle 
 miserably in the practice of duty, from a 
 radical ignorance of its principles, and 
 that the earlier these are learnt, the smaller 
 is the burden of regret one heaps together 
 to oppress the future, and the sooner one 
 finds that peace of mind which is not 
 common even amongst the young, and 
 should-be lighthearted.' 
 
 " In these, or words to this effect, my 
 dear mother prepared us for our first plunge 
 into society. We discussed the little good 
 habits we were to maintain, and, amongst 
 others, certain little Sunday customs for 
 we were to be away for a week. 
 
 " ' We can't take all our good habits with 
 us, if you won't come,' I said. ' What is 
 to become of the Sunday readings ? ' 
 
 " For my mother used to read to us 
 every Sunday evening, and we were just in 
 the middle of that book of wondrous fas- 
 cination ' The Pilgrim's Progress.' 
 
 " ' If it were not for the others, and if 
 you would trust us with it,' said Fatima, 
 thoughtfully, ' we might take the book 
 with us, and Mary might read to me, if 
 she would, I like her reading.' 
 
 " My mother consented. There was 
 another copy in the house, and though 
 this volume was a favourite, she said it 
 was time we learnt to take care of valuable 
 books. So it was settled. We talked no 
 more that evening ; and the clouds drifted 
 out of sight. 
 
 " ' They have gone to bed in a big dark 
 cloud on the other side,' said Fatima, 
 yawning ; and we went to bed also. 
 
 " My story wanders, Ida ; this is because 
 it is an old woman's tale. Old people of 
 my age become prosy, my dear. They love
 
 My mother sat at the open window, with Fatima and me at her feet." (P. 45.)
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 to linger over little remembrances of youth, 
 and to recall the good counsels of kind 
 voices long silent. But I must not put 
 you to sleep a second time, so I will not 
 describe the lists of good habits which 
 Fatima and I drew up in fine Roman 
 characters, and which were to be kept as 
 good resolutions had never been kept 
 before. We borrowed the red ink, to 
 make them the more impressive to the 
 eye, and, unfortunately, spilt it. A bad 
 beginning, as many of our rules had re- 
 ference to tidiness. Neither will I give. 
 you the full account of how we packed. 
 How our preparations began at once, and 
 were only stopped by the necessity of 
 setting off when the day arrived. How 
 we emptied all our drawers and cup- 
 boards, and disarranged both our book- 
 shelves ; and, in making ready for the life 
 of order and tidiness we were to live 
 abroad, passed that week at home with 
 our room in such chaos as it had never 
 been in before. How we prepared against 
 an amount of spare time, that experience 
 eventually teaches one is not to be found 
 out visiting; and, with this object, took 
 more sewing than we should have per- 
 formed in a month at home ; books, that 
 we had not touched for years ; drawings, 
 that were fated to be once touched, and 
 no more. 
 
 " I will not describe the big box, which 
 my father lent to us, nor the joys of pack- 
 ing. How Fatima's workbox dove-tailed 
 with my desk. How the books (not having 
 been chosen with reference to this great 
 event) were of awkward sizes, and did not 
 make comfortable paving for the bottom 
 of the trunk ; whilst folded stockings may 
 be called the packer's delight, from their 
 usefulness to fill up corners. How, having 
 packed the whole week long, we were 
 barely ready, and a good deal flurried at 
 the last moment ; and how we took all our 
 available property with us, and left the key 
 
 of the trunk behind. Fancy for yourself, 
 how the green coach picked us up at the 
 toll-bar, and how, as it jingled on, we felt 
 the first qualm of home-sickness, and, 
 stretching our heads and hands out of the 
 window, waved adieux and kisses innume- 
 rable to Home, regardless of our fellow- 
 traveller in the corner, an old gentleman, 
 with a yellow silk-handkerchief on his head, 
 who proved in the end a very pleasant com- 
 panion. I remember that we told him 
 our family history, with minutest particu- 
 lars, and conjugated four regular Latin 
 verbs by his orders ; and that he rewarded 
 our confidences and learning with the most 
 clear, the most sweet, the most amber- 
 coloured sticks of barley-sugar I have ever 
 had the good fortune to meet with. I re- 
 member also how, in the warmth of our 
 new friendship, Fatima unveiled to him 
 the future, which, through some joke of 
 my father's, we had laid out for ourselves. 
 
 " ' I am to marry a Sultan, for I am 
 moon-faced ; but Mary is to be a linguist, 
 for she has large eyes.' 
 
 " ' Then Miss Mary is not to marry ? ' 
 said the old gentleman, with a grim 
 smile. 
 
 " I shook my head in sage disdain. 
 'When I am sixteen, I shall be an Amazon.' 
 
 " Precisely what I meant by this I don't 
 think I knew myself, but my dreams were 
 an odd compound of heroic and fairy lore, 
 with a love and ambition for learning that 
 were simply an inheritance. Many a night 
 did I fancy myself master of all the lan- 
 guages of the world, hunting up and down 
 the windy hills in a dress of Lincoln green. 
 I had a mighty contempt for men, and 
 a high respect for myself, that was the 
 greatest of my many follies. 
 
 " After these interesting revelations we 
 had barley-sugar all round, and the coach 
 rattled into Durnford. 
 
 " Shall I tell you how we were met at 
 the Elephant and Castle by a footman of
 
 THE SNORING GHOST. 
 
 49 
 
 most gentlemanlike appearance (his livery 
 excepted), who, with a sagacity which some- 
 what puzzled us, discovered that we were 
 ' the young ladies that were expected,' and 
 led us to the carriage, firmly opposing my 
 efforts to fulfil the last home orders I had 
 received, to ' look after the box ? ' How 
 in the carriage we found a lady hand- 
 somely dressed in black, who came out to 
 meet us, and seemed so anxious for our 
 comfort, and so much interested in our 
 arrival, that we naturally supposed her to 
 be the lady who had invited us, till we dis- 
 covered that she was the lady's maid ; and 
 on arriving found our hostess quite another 
 sort of person, with no appearance at all 
 of being particularly interested in our 
 arrival, which I have since found to be the 
 case with the heads of some other country 
 houses. 
 
 " It was a large house, reminding me of 
 the Manor within, but prettier outside ; 
 old and irregularly built, with mullioned 
 windows, and odd wings and corners. A 
 glowing, well-k ept garden contrasted prettily 
 with the grey stone, and the grounds seemed 
 magnificent to our eyes. 
 
 " We were shown into the drawing-room, 
 where the real lady of the house sat at a 
 dainty writing-table, scratching away at a 
 letter that was no doubt as affectionate as 
 the one which my mother had received. 
 She was shortsighted, which seemed to be 
 the case also with most of the other ladies 
 in the room ; this, perhaps, was why they 
 stared so hard at us, and then went on 
 with the elaborate pieces of needlework on 
 which all of them were engaged. It seemed 
 to take our hostess a second or two to see 
 us, and another second or two to recall 
 who we were ; then she came forward very 
 kindly, showed us where to sit, and asked 
 after my mother. Whilst I was replying, 
 she crossed to the fireplace, and rang the 
 bell ; and I felt slightly surprised by her 
 seeming to wish for no further news of her 
 
 old friend. She asked if we had had a plea- 
 sant journey, and Fatima had hardly pro- 
 nounced a modest yes, before she begged 
 we would allow her to finish her letter, and 
 went back to the spindle-legged table. Whilst 
 she scratched we looked around us. Three 
 or four ladies were in the room, more or 
 less young, more or less pretty, more or less 
 elegantly dressed, and all with more or less 
 elaborate pieces of needlework. There was 
 one gentleman, young and dark, with large 
 brown eyes, who seemed to be employed 
 in making paper pellets of an old letter, 
 chatting the while in a low voice to a young 
 lady with a good deal of red hair. We 
 afterwards found out that he was an Irish- 
 man, familiarly called ' Pat' by some of the 
 young ladies, who seemed to be related to 
 him. We had seen all this when the man- 
 servant appeared at the door. 
 
 '"Where is Miss Lucy, Thompson ?' our 
 hostess asked, sharply. 
 
 " ' I will inquire, ma'am,' Thompson 
 replied, with the utmost softness, and 
 vanished. 
 
 "The scratching began again, the Irish- 
 man went on gently chatting, and it all 
 felt very like a horrid dream. Then 
 Thompson reappeared. 
 
 " ' Miss Lucy is out, ma'am.' 
 
 " ' Did she know what time these young 
 ladies were to arrive ? ' 
 
 " 'Miss Lucy knew that the carriage had 
 gone to meet them, ma'am.' 
 
 " ' Very thoughtless ! Very thoughtless 
 indeed!' said the lady. Thompson paused 
 respectfully, as if to receive the full weight 
 of the remark, and then vanished noise- 
 lessly, as before. 
 
 " There was an awkward pause. Our 
 hostess left off scratching, and looked very 
 cross ; the Irishman fired one of his pellets 
 across the room, and left off chatting ; and. 
 the red-haired young lady got up, and 
 rustled across to us. I remember her so 
 well, Ida, for we fell deeply in love with 
 
 D
 
 MA'S. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 her and her kindness. I remember her 
 green and white dress. She had a fair 
 round face, more pleasant than really 
 pretty, a white starlike forehead, almost 
 too firm a mouth, but a very gentle voice, 
 at least so we thought, when she said : 
 
 " ' As Lucy is out, may I take these 
 young ladies to their room ? ' 
 
 " Our hostess hesitated, and murmured 
 something about Bedford, who was the 
 lady's maid. The starlike forehead con- 
 tracted, and the red-haired young lady 
 said, rather emphatically : 
 
 " ' As Lucy is not in to receive her 
 friends, I thought I might perhaps supply 
 her place.' 
 
 " ' Well, my dear Kate, if you will be so 
 kind,' said our hostess. ' I must finish these 
 letters.' 
 
 " ' The yellow room ? ' said the young 
 lady, abruptly, and swept us off without 
 further parley. The Irish gentleman 
 opened the door for us, staring with a 
 half-puzzled, half-amused look at the lofty 
 air with which the young lady passed out. 
 He followed us into the hall, where we 
 left him discharging his remaining pellets 
 at the furniture, and whistling ' Kathleen 
 Mavourneen,' as clearly as a bird. 
 
 " The yellow room was a large airy one, 
 with white painted wainscoting, a huge 
 four-post bed with yellow curtains, and a 
 pretty view from the windows. In the 
 middle of the floor we saw our box stand- 
 ing in all its dignity, uncorded, and ready. 
 Then itwas that the terrible fact broke upon 
 our minds that the key was left behind. 
 My sufferings during the few seconds before 
 I found courage to confide this misfortune 
 to our new friend^ were considerable. 
 When I did tell her, the calmness and 
 good nature with which she received the 
 confession were both surprising and de- 
 lightful. 
 
 "'The lock doesn't look a very un- 
 common one,' she said, as she opened the 
 
 door. ' I dare say I may find a key to fit 
 it.' 
 
 " ' What's the matter?' said a voice out- 
 side. It was the Irish gentleman. She 
 explained. 
 
 " ' Keys ? ' said the Irish gentleman ; 
 ' got lots in my pocket, besides their being 
 totally unnecessary, as I'm a capital hand 
 at lock-picking. Let me see.' 
 
 "With which he slipped in, seeming 
 quite as much at his ease as in the drawing- 
 room, and in another second had squatted 
 upon the floor before our box, where he 
 seemed to be quite as comfortable as in 
 the arm-chair he had left. Here he poked, 
 and fitted, and whistled, and chatted with- 
 out a pause. 
 
 " ' I've locks and keys to everything I 
 possess,' he cheerfully remarked ; ' and as 
 I never lock up anything, there's no damage 
 done if the keys are left behind, which is 
 a good thing, you see, as I always leave 
 everything everywhere.' 
 
 " ' Do you make a principle of it ? ' 
 asked the young lady, coldly. 
 
 " ' I'm afraid I make a practice of it.' 
 He had opened the box, and was leaning 
 against the bed-post, with a roguish 
 twinkle in his brown eyes, which faded, 
 however, under the silent severity of the 
 red-haired young lady, and gave place to 
 a look of melancholy that might have 
 melted granite, as he added : 
 
 " ' I'm all alone, you see, that's what 
 does it. I believe I'm the neatest creature 
 breathing, if I'd only somebody to keep 
 me up to it.' 
 
 " Neither his hardened untidiness nor 
 his lonely lot seemed, however, to weigh 
 heavily on his mind; for he withdrew 
 whistling, and his notes were heard about 
 the passages for some little time. When 
 they had died away in a distant part ot 
 the house, the red-haired young lady left 
 us also. 
 
 " I shall not give you a lengthened ac-
 
 THE SNORING GHOST. . 
 
 count of our unpacking, dear Ida ; though 
 it was as enjoyable, but less protracted 
 than the packing-up had been. How we 
 revelled in the spacious drawers and cup- 
 boards, over which we were queens, and 
 how strictly we followed one of our 
 mother's wise counsels 'unpack to the 
 bottom of your box at once, however short 
 your visit may be; it saves time in the 
 end. ; We did unpack to the lowest book 
 (an artificial system of memory, which I 
 had long been purposing to study, which I 
 thought to find spare moments to practise 
 here, and which, I may as well confess, I 
 did not look at during the visit, and have 
 not learnt to this day). We divided shelves 
 and pegs with all fairness, and as a final 
 triumph found a use for the elaborate 
 watch-pockets that hung above our pillows. 
 They were rich with an unlimited expendi- 
 ture of quilled ribbon, and must have 
 given a great deal of trouble to someone 
 who had not very many serious occupa- 
 tions in this life. Fatima and I wished 
 that we had watches to put in them, till 
 the happy thought suddenly struck one of 
 us, that we could keep in them our respec- 
 tive papers of good habits. 
 
 " Bedford came in whilst we were in the 
 midst of our labours, and warmly begged 
 us to leave everything to her, as she would 
 put our things away for us. The red- 
 haired young lady had sent her, and she 
 became a mainstay of practical comfort to 
 us during pur visit. She seemed a haven 
 of humanity after the conventions of the 
 drawing-room. From her we got inci- 
 dental meals when we were hungry, spirits 
 of wine when Fatima's tooth ached, warn- 
 ings when we were near to being late for 
 breakfast, little modern and fashionable 
 turns to our hair and clothes, and familiar 
 anecdotes of this household and of others 
 in which she had lived. I remember her 
 with gratitude. 
 
 " Miss Lucy came home before our put- 
 
 ting away was fairly finished, and we had 
 tea with her in the schoolroom. She was 
 a slight, sharp, lively young lady, looking 
 older than fifteen to us, rather pretty, and 
 very self-possessed. She scanned us from 
 head to foot when we first met, and I felt 
 as if her eyes had found defects innume- 
 rable, which seemed the less likely, as she 
 also was shortsighted. As her governess 
 was away visiting a sick relative, Miss 
 Lucy did the honours of the schoolroom. 
 She was cold and inattentive at first, be- 
 came patronizing at tea, and ended by 
 being gracious. In her gracious mood she 
 was both affectionate and confidential. She 
 called us 'my dear girls,' put her arms 
 round us as we sat in the dark, and chat- 
 tered without a pause about herself, her 
 governesses, her sister, and her sister's 
 husband. 
 
 "'A wedding in the house,' she ob- 
 served, ' is very good fun, particularly if you 
 take a principal part in it. I was chief 
 bride's-maid you know, my dear girls. But 
 I'll tell you the whole affair from the first. 
 You know I had never been bride's-maid 
 before, and I couldn't make up my mind 
 about how I should like the dresses,' &c., 
 &c. And we had got no further in the 
 story than Miss Lucy's own costume, when 
 we were called to dress and go downstairs. 
 
 " What are you going to put on ? ' she 
 asked, balancing herself at our door and 
 peering in. 
 
 " ' White muslin ! ' we said with some 
 pride, for they were new frocks, and splen- 
 did in our eyes. 
 
 " ' I have had so many muslins, I am 
 tired of them,' she said ; ' I shall wear a 
 pink silk to-night. The trimming came 
 from London. Perhaps I may wear a 
 muslin to-morrow ; I have an Indian one. 
 But you shall see my dresses to-morrow, 
 my dear girls.' 
 
 " With which she left us, and we put on 
 our new frocks (which were to be the
 
 MRS. OVERTXEWAYS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 evening dresses of our visit) in depressed 
 spirits. This was owing to the thought of 
 the pink silk, and of the possibility of a 
 surfeit of white muslin. 
 
 " During the evening we learnt another 
 of Miss Lucy's peculiarities. Affectionate 
 as she had been when we were alone to- 
 gether, she was no sooner among the grown- 
 up young ladies downstairs than she kept 
 with them as much as she was permitted, 
 and seemed to forget us altogether. Per- 
 haps a fit of particularly short sight attacked 
 her ; for she seemed to look over us, away 
 from us, on each side of us, anywhere but 
 at us, and to be quite unconscious of our 
 existence. The red-haired young lady had 
 made her fetch us a large scrap-book, and 
 we sat with this before our eyes, and the 
 soft monotonous chit-chat of our hostess in 
 our ears, as she talked and worked with 
 some elder ladies on the sofa. It seemed 
 a long gossip, with no particular end or be- 
 ginning, in which tatting, trimmings, mili- 
 tary distinction, linen, servants, honour- 
 able conduct, sentiment, settlements, 
 expectations, and Bath waters were finely 
 blended. From the constant mention of 
 Cecilia and the dear major, it was evident 
 that the late wedding was the subject of 
 discourse ; indeed, for that matter, it re- 
 mained the prime topic of conversation 
 during our stay. 
 
 "Cecilia and the dear major were at 
 Bath, and their letters were read aloud at 
 the breakfast-table. I remember wonder- 
 ing at the deep interest that all the ladies 
 seemed to take in the bride's pretty flow of 
 words about the fashions, the drives, and 
 the pump-room, and the long lists of 
 visitors' names; this, too, without any 
 connection between the hearers and the 
 people and places mentioned. When any- 
 body did recognize a name, however, about 
 which she knew anything, it seemed like 
 the finding of a treasure. All the ladies 
 bore down upon it at once, dug up the 
 
 family history to its farthest known point, 
 and divided the subject among them. 
 Miss Lucy followed these letters closely, 
 and remembered them wonderfully, though 
 (as I afterwards found) she had never seen 
 Bath, and knew no more of the people 
 mentioned than the little hearsay facts she 
 had gathered from former letters. 
 
 "It is a very useful art, my dear Ida, 
 and one in which I have sadly failed all 
 my life, to be able to remember who is re- 
 lated to whom, what watering-place such a 
 family went to the summer before last, and 
 which common friends they met there, &c. 
 But like other arts it demands close atten- 
 tion, forbids day-dreaming, and takes up a 
 good deal of time. 
 
 " ' Wasn't it odd,' said Miss Lucy, one 
 morning after breakfast, ' that Cecilia and 
 the major should meet those Hicksons?' 
 
 " ' Who are the Hicksons ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' Oh ! my dear girl, don't you remem- 
 ber, in Cecilia's last letter, her telling us 
 about the lady she met in that shop when 
 they were in town, buying a shawl the 
 counterpart of her own ? and it seems so 
 odd they should turn up in Bath, and be 
 such nice people ! -Don't you remember 
 mamma said it must be the same family 
 as that Colonel Hickson who was engaged 
 to a girl with one eye, and she caught the 
 small-pox and got so much marked, and 
 he broke it off? ' 
 
 " ' Small-pox and one eye would look 
 very ugly,' Fatima languidly observed ; 
 and this subject drifted after the rest. 
 
 " One afternoon, I remember, it chanced 
 that we were left alone with our hostess in 
 the drawing-room. No one else happened 
 to be in the way to talk to, and the good 
 lady talked to us. We were clever girls 
 for our age, I fancy, and we had been 
 used to talk a good deal with our mother ; 
 at any rate we were attentive listeners, and 
 I do not think our hostess required -much 
 more of us. I think she was glad of any-
 
 THE SCORING GHOST, 
 
 53 
 
 body who had not heard the whole affair 
 from beginning to end, and so she put up 
 her feet on the sofa, and started afresh 
 with the complete history of her dear 
 Cecilia from the cradle ; and had gone on 
 to the major, his military exploits abroad, 
 his genteel connections at home, and the 
 tendency to gout in the family which 
 troubled him at times, and was a sad 
 anxiety to her dear child, when visitors 
 were announced. 
 
 " Our intelligent attention had gained 
 favour for us; and we were introduced 
 to these ladies as ' daughters of a very 
 dear friend of mine, whom I have not 
 seen for years,' on which one lady gave 
 a sweet glance and a tight smile and mur- 
 mured : 
 
 " ' So pleasant to renew acquaintance in 
 the children ; ' and the other ladies gave 
 sweet glances, and tight smiles also, and 
 echoed : 
 
 " ' So pleasant ! ' 
 
 " ' Such sensible girls ! ' said our hostess, 
 as if we were not there ; ' like women of 
 fifty. So like their dear mother ! Such 
 treasures to my little Lucy ! You know 
 she has lost her dear sister,' &c., &c. 
 
 " For then the ladies drew together, and 
 our hostess having got a fresh audience, 
 we retired to distant armchairs, a good 
 deal bewildered. 
 
 " But to return to our first evening. 
 
 " Miss Lucy and we retired together, 
 and no sooner had the drawing-room door 
 closed behind us, than she wound her 
 arms round our waists, and became as 
 devoted as if we had been side by side the 
 whole evening. 
 
 " I'll tell you what I'll do, my dear 
 girls,' she said when we reached our room ; 
 ' I'll come and sleep with you (there's lots 
 of room for three), and then I can go on 
 about Cecilia's affair, and if we don't finish 
 to-night we can go on to-morrow morning 
 before we get up. I always wake early, 
 
 so I can call you. I'll come back when 
 I'm ready for bed. 
 
 " And she vanished. 
 
 "We were in bed when she returned. 
 Her hair had been undergoing some won- 
 derful process, and was now stowed away 
 under a large and elaborate night-cap. 
 
 " ' Bedford was so slow,' said she ; ' and 
 then, you know, I got into bed, and let 
 her tidy the room, and then when she was 
 fairly gone, out I got, and here I am. We 
 shall be as comfortable as possible ; I'll 
 be in the middle, and then I can have you 
 on each side of me, my dear girls ; ' and 
 in she sprang. 
 
 "'Did you notice this?' she asked, 
 holding up her hand, and pointing out the 
 edging on the sleeve of her night-dress ; 
 ' it's a new pattern ; do you know it ? Oh ! 
 my dears, the yards and yards of tatting 
 that Cecilia had for her trousseau ! ' 
 
 "Tatting was a fashionable kind of 
 work in those days, Ida. Ladies had 
 pretty little shuttles for it of ivory or 
 silver, and used them very dexterously ; 
 but Fatima and I were not rich in tatting 
 edgings, and rejoiced when the conversa- 
 tion took another turn. 
 
 " ' About the proposal,' she rambled on ; 
 ' do you know I don't really know where- 
 abouts Henry that is the major, my 
 brother-in-law ' she added, with one of the 
 little attacks of dignity to which she was 
 subject, ' proposed or what he said. I 
 asked Cecy, but she wouldn't tell me. 
 She was very cross, often ; I'm very glad 
 she's married. I think sisters ought to 
 marry off as fast as they can ; they never 
 get on well in a house together, you know.' 
 
 " I fairly gasped at this idea, and Fatima 
 said bluntly : 
 
 " ' There are lots of us, and we get on.' 
 
 " ' Ah ! ' said Miss Lucy, in tones of 
 wisdom ; ' wait till you're a little older, 
 and you'll see. Cecy was at school with 
 two sisters who hated each other like
 
 54 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWArS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 poison, and they were obliged to dress 
 alike, and the younger wore out her things 
 much faster than the other one, but she 
 was obliged to wear them till her sister's 
 were done. She used to wish so her 
 sister would marry, Cecy said, but they 
 are neither of them married yet. I 
 shouldn't wonder if they're both old maids, 
 and go on quarrelling to the end of their 
 days. Cecy and I weren't like that ; but 
 still I'm very glad she is married. Now 
 wasn't it stupid of her not to tell me? I 
 should never have told anybody, you 
 know. And don't you wonder what gentle- 
 men do say, and how they say it? He 
 couldn't propose sitting, and I think stand- 
 ing would be very awkward. I suppose 
 he knelt. Aunt Maria doesn't approve of 
 gentlemen kneeling ; she says it's idolatry. 
 I think they must look very silly. Cecy 
 wouldn't even tell me what he said. She 
 said he spoke to mamma, and mamma 
 said his conduct was highly honourable ; 
 but I think it was very stupid. Do you 
 know, my dears, I have a cousin who was 
 really married at Gretna Green? She 
 married an officer. He was splendidly 
 handsome ; but people said things against 
 him, and her parents objected. So they 
 eloped, and then went to Wales, to such a 
 lovely place ! Wasn't it romantic ? They 
 quarrelled afterwards though; he lives 
 abroad now. People ought to be careful. 
 I shall be very careful myself; I mean to 
 refuse the first few offers I get' 
 
 ' And so Miss Lucy rambled on, talking 
 nonsense, and rather spiteful indelicate 
 nonsense on serious and tender subjects, 
 which she was not old enough to quite 
 understand, or wise enough to duly appre- 
 ciate. We were too young to see it fully ; 
 but her frivolity and a certain vulgarity of 
 mind, jarred upon us, though she amused 
 us, and excited our curiosity. She was 
 not worse than many other young people, 
 with plenty of inquisitiveness and sharp 
 
 sense, and not too much refinement and 
 feeling ; whose accomplishments are leamt 
 from the 'first masters/ and whose prin- 
 ciples are left to be picked up from gossip, 
 servants, and second-rate books ; digested 
 by ignorant, and undisciplined minds. 
 
 " I won't try to recall any more of it, 
 dear Ida. I remember it was a continuous 
 stream of unedifying gossip, varied by 
 small boastings about her own family. 
 ' We've so many connections,' was a fa- 
 vourite phrase of Miss Lucy's, and it seemed 
 to mean a great deal. ' Do you like mak- 
 ing trees ? ' she asked. I was getting 
 sleepy, and without much thought replied, 
 ' Oh yes, I am very fond of trees, and I 
 like growing oak trees in bottles.' Miss 
 Lucy's, ' My dear girl, I mean family trees, 
 genealogical trees,' was patronizing to 
 scorn. ' Ours is in the spring drawer of 
 the big oak cabinet in the drawing-room,' 
 she added. 'We are descended from 
 King Stephen.' 
 
 " I believe I was the first to fall asleep 
 that night. The last words I remember 
 hearing were ' We've so many connections.' 
 
 "The next day's post brought news 
 from Bath of more general interest to the 
 household. The plans of Cecilia and the 
 major were changed; they were coming to 
 her mother's on the following Monday. 
 
 " ' My dear girls, I am so glad ! ' said 
 Miss Lucy; 'you'll see them. But you 
 will have to move out of your room, I am 
 sorry to say.' 
 
 " And for the next twelve hours Miss 
 Lucy was more descriptive of her family 
 glories in general, and of the glories of her 
 sister and brother-in-law in particular, than 
 ever. 
 
 " Sunday was a day of mixed experi- 
 ences to us ; some pleasant and some the 
 reverse. Miss Lucy in her best clothes 
 was almost intolerably patronizing, and a 
 general stiffness seemed to pervade even-- 
 thing, the ladies' silk dresses included 

 
 THE SNORING GHOST. 
 
 55 
 
 After breakfast we dawdled about till it 
 was time to dress for church, and as most 
 of the ladies took about five minutes more 
 than they had allowed for, it seemed likely 
 that we should be late. At the last 
 moment, Miss Lucy lost her Prayer Book, 
 and it was not till another five minutes 
 had gone in the search that she re- 
 membered having left it in church the 
 Sunday before. This being settled we all 
 stowed away in the carriages and drove 
 off. It was only a short drive ; but when 
 we came in sight of the quaint little church 
 there was no sound of bells, and it became 
 evident that we were late. In the porch 
 we shook out our dresses, the Irishman 
 divided the burden of Prayer Books he 
 had been gallantly bearing, our hostess 
 turned back from the half-open door to 
 say in a loud and encouraging whisper, 
 'It's only the Confession;' and we swept 
 up the little church into a huge square 
 pew. 
 
 " My dear Ida, I must tell you that 
 we had been brought up to have a just 
 horror of being late for service, this being 
 a point on which my father was what is 
 called ' very particular.' Fatima and I 
 therefore felt greatly discomposed by our 
 late and disturbing entrance, though we 
 were in no way to blame. We had also 
 been taught to kneel during the prayers, 
 and it was with a most uncomfortable 
 sensation of doubt and shame-facedness 
 that we saw one lady after another sit 
 down and bend her bonnet over her lap, 
 and hesitated ourselves to follow our own 
 customs in the face of such a majority. 
 But the red-haired young lady seemed 
 fated to help us out of our difficulties. 
 She sank at once on her knees in a corner 
 of the pew, her green silk falling round 
 round her ; we knelt by her side, and the 
 question was settled. The little Irishman 
 cast a doubtful glance at her for a moment, 
 and then sat down, bending his head 
 
 deeply into his hat. We went through a 
 similar process about responding, which 
 did not seem to be the fashion with our 
 hostess and her friends. The red-haired 
 young lady held to her own customs, how- 
 ever, and we held with her. Our responses 
 were the less conspicuous as they were a 
 good deal drowned by the voice of an 
 old gentleman in the next pew. Diversity 
 seemed to prevail in the manners of 
 the congregation. This gentleman stood 
 during prayers, balancing a huge Prayer 
 Book on the corner of the pew, and re- 
 sponding in a loud voice, more devout 
 than tuneful, keeping exact time with the 
 parson also, as if he had a grudge against 
 the clerk and felt it due to himself to 
 keep in advance of him. I remember, 
 Ida, that as we came in, he was just say- 
 ing, ' those things which we ought not to 
 have done,' and he said it in so terrible a 
 voice, and took such a glance at us over 
 his gold-rimmed spectacles, that I wished 
 the massive pulpit-hangings would fall and 
 bury my confusion. When the text of the 
 sermon had been given out, our hostess 
 rustled up, and drew the curtains well 
 round our pew. Opposite to me, how- 
 ever, there was a gap through which I 
 could see the old gentleman. He had 
 settled himself facing the pulpit, and sat 
 there gazing at the preacher with a rigid 
 attention which seemed to say' Sound 
 doctrine, if you please.' 
 
 " We returned as we came. 
 
 " ' Is there afternoon service?' I asked 
 Miss Lucy. 
 
 " ' Oh, yes ! ' was the reply, ' the ser- 
 vants go in the afternoon.' 
 
 " ' Don't you ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' Oh, no ! ' said Miss Lucy, ' once is 
 enough. You can go with the maids, if 
 you want to, my dears,' she added, with 
 one of the occasional touches of insolence 
 in which she indulged. 
 
 " Afternoon arrived, and I held con-
 
 MA'S. VEK THE WA VS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 saltation with Fatima as to what we were 
 to do. 
 
 " When once roused, Fatima was more 
 resolute than I. 
 
 " ' Of course we'll go,' said she ; ' what's 
 the use of having written out all our good 
 rules and sticking at this? We always 
 go twice at home. Let's look for Bed- 
 ford.' 
 
 " On which mission I set forth, but 
 when I reached the top of the stairs I 
 caught sight of the red-haired young lady, 
 in her bonnet and shawl, standing at the 
 open door, a Prayer Book in her hand. 
 I dashed downstairs, and entered the hall 
 just as the Irishman came into it by 
 another door. In his hand was a Prayer 
 Book also, and he picked up his hat, and 
 went smiling towards her. But as he 
 approached the young lady, she looked 
 so much annoyed not to say cross that 
 I hesitated to go forwards, 
 
 " ' Are you going to church ? ' said the 
 little Irishman, with a pleased look. 
 
 " ' I don't know,' said the young lady, 
 briefly, ' are you ? ' 
 
 " ' I was ' he began, and stopped 
 
 short, looking puzzled and vexed. 
 
 "'Is no one else going?' he asked, 
 after a moment's pause. 
 
 " ' No one else ever does go,' she said, 
 impatiently, and moved into the hall. 
 
 " The Irishman coloured. 
 
 " ' I am in the habit of going twice 
 myself, though you may not think it,' he 
 said quietly; 'my poor mother always 
 did. But I do not pretend to go to such 
 good purpose as she did, or as you would, 
 so if it is to lie between us ' and, with- 
 out finishing his sentence, he threw his 
 book (not too gently) on to the table, 
 and, just lifting his hat as he passed her, 
 dashed out into the garden. 
 
 " I did not at all understand this little 
 scene, but, as soon as he was gone, I ran 
 up to ask our friend if she were going to 
 
 church, and would take us. She con- 
 sented, and I went back in triumph to 
 Fatima. As there was no time to lose, 
 we dressed quickly enough ; so that I was 
 rather surprised, when we went down, to 
 find the Irish gentleman, with his face re- 
 stored to its usual good humour, standing 
 by our friend, and holding her Prayer 
 Book as well as his own. The young lady 
 did not speak, but, cheerfully remarking 
 that we had plenty of time before us, he 
 took our books also, and we all set forth. 
 
 " I remember that walk so well, Ida ! 
 The hot, sweet summer afternoon the 
 dusty plants by the pathway the clematis 
 in the hedges (I put a bit into my Prayer 
 Book, which was there for years) the 
 grasshoppers and flies that our dresses 
 caught up from the long grass, and which 
 reappeared as we sat during the sermon. 
 
 "The old gentleman was in his pew, 
 but his glance was almost benevolent, as, 
 in good time, we took our places. We 
 (literally) followed his example with much 
 heartiness in the responses; and, if he 
 looked over into our pew during prayers 
 (and from his position he could hardly 
 avoid it), he must have seen that even the 
 Irishman had rejected compromises, and 
 that we all knelt together. 
 
 " There was one other feature of that 
 service not to be forgotten. When the 
 sermon was ended, and I had lost sight 
 of the last grasshopper in my hasty rising, 
 we found that there was to be a hymn. 
 It was the old custom of this church so to 
 conclude Evening Prayer. No one seemed 
 to use a book it was Bishop Ken's even- 
 ing hymn, which every one knew, and, I 
 think, every one sang. But the feature of 
 it to us was when the Irishman began to 
 sing, From her startled glance, I think 
 not even the red-haired young lady had 
 known that he possessed so beautiful a 
 voice. It had a clearness without effort, 
 a tone, a truth, a pathos, such as I have
 
 Is o one seemed to use a book it was Bishop Ken's evening hymn, which 
 every one knew, and, I think, every one sang. But the feature of it to us was 
 when the Irishman began to sing." (P. 56.)
 
 58 
 
 not often heard. It sounded strangely 
 above the nasal tones of the school-chil- 
 dren, and the scraping of a solitary fiddle. 
 Even our neighbour, who had lustily fol- 
 lowed the rhythm of the tune, though 
 without much varying from the note on 
 which he responded, softened his own 
 sounds and turned to look at the Irish- 
 man, who sang on without noticing it, 
 till, in the last verse, he seemed disturbed 
 to discover how many eyes were on him. 
 Happily, self-consciousness had come too 
 late. The hymn was ended. 
 
 " We knelt again for the Benediction, 
 and then went back through the summer 
 fields. 
 
 " The red-haired young lady talked 
 very little. Once she said : 
 
 " ' How is it we have never heard you 
 sing?' 
 
 " To which the Irishman replied : 
 
 " ' I don't understand music, I sing by 
 ear ; and I hate ' company ' performances. 
 I will sing to you whenever you like.' 
 
 " ' Mary,' said Fatima, when we were 
 in our room again, ' I believe jthose two 
 will marry each other some day.1 
 
 " ' So do I,' I answered ; ' but don't say 
 anything about it to Lucy.' 
 
 " ' No, indeed ! " said Fatima, warmly. 
 So we kept this idea sacred from Miss 
 Lucy's comments why, I do not think 
 either of us could have told in words. 
 
 " Pity, that pleasant impressions pity, 
 that most impressions pass away so 
 soon ! 
 
 " The evening was not altogether so 
 satisfactory as the afternoon had been. 
 First, Miss Lucy took us to see her sister's 
 wedding-presents, most of which were still 
 in her mother's keeping. They were splen- 
 
 OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 did, and Miss Lucy wac eloquent. From 
 them we dawdled on into her room, where 
 she displayed her own treasures, with a 
 running commentary on matters of taste 
 and fashion, which lasted till it was time 
 to dress for the evening, when she made 
 the usual inquiry, ' What shall you put on 
 to-night, my dear girls?' and we blushed 
 to own that there was nothing further of 
 our limited toilettes to reveal. 
 
 " In the drawing-room, similar subjects 
 of conversation awaited us. Our hostess 
 and her friends did not seem to care 
 much for reading, and, as they did not 
 work on Sunday evening, they talked the 
 more. The chatter ran chiefly upon the 
 Bath fashions, and upon some ball which 
 had been held somewhere, where some- 
 body had been dressed after a manner 
 that it appeared needful to protest against ; 
 whilst somebody else (a cousin of our 
 hostess) was at all points so perfectly 
 attired, that it seemed as if she should 
 have afforded ample consolation for the 
 other lady's defects. 
 
 " Upon the beauty of this cousin, her 
 father's wealth, and her superabundant 
 opportunities of matrimony, Miss Lucy 
 enlarged to us, as we sat in a corner. 
 Another of her peculiarities, by-the-by, 
 was this. By her own account, all her 
 relatives and friends were in some sense 
 beautiful. The men were generally ' splen- 
 didly handsome;' the ladies, 'the loveliest 
 creatures.' If not 'lovely,' they were 'dis- 
 tinguished;' if nothing else, they were 
 ' charming.' For those who were beyond 
 the magic circle, this process was reversed. 
 If pretty, they ' wanted style.' If the 
 dress was beyond criticism, the nose, the 
 complexion, the hand was at fault. I have 
 met with this trait in other cliques, since 
 then. 
 
 " My dear Ida, I wish to encourage no 
 young lady of the hoydenish age of thir- 
 teen, in despising nice dressing and pretty
 
 THE SNORING GHOST. 
 
 59 
 
 looks and manners ; or in neglecting to 
 pick up any little hints which she may 
 glean in such things from older friends. 
 But there are people to whom these ques- 
 tions seem of such first importance, that 
 to be with them when you are young and 
 impressionable, is to feel every defect in 
 your own personal appearance to be a 
 crime, and to believe that there is neither 
 worth, nor love, nor happiness (no life, in 
 fact, worth living for,) connected with 
 much less than ten thousand a year, and 
 ' connections.' Through some such ordeal 
 we passed that Sunday evening, in seeing 
 and hearing of all the expensive luxuries 
 without which it seemed impossible to feed, 
 dress, sleep, go out in fact, exist ; and all 
 the equally expensive items of adornment, 
 without which it appeared to be impossible 
 to have (or at any rate retain) the respect 
 and affection of your friends. 
 
 "Meanwhile the evening slipped by, and 
 our Sunday reading had not been accom- 
 plished. We had found little good habits 
 less easy to maintain in a strange house- 
 hold than we had thought, and this one 
 seemed likely to follow some others that 
 had been allowed to slip. The red-haired 
 young lady had been absent for about half 
 an hour, and the Irishman had been prowl- 
 ing restlessly round the room, performing 
 murderous-looking fidgets with the paper- 
 knives, when she returned with a book in 
 her hand, which she settled herself reso- 
 lutely to read. The Irishman gave a 
 comical glance at the serious-looking 
 volume, and then seating himself on a 
 chair just behind her, found apparent 
 peace in the effort to sharpen a flat ruler 
 on his knees. The young lady read on. 
 It was evident that her Sunday customs 
 were not apt to be disturbed by circum- 
 stances. 
 
 " I began to feel uncomfortable. Fatima 
 was crouched down near Lucy, listening to 
 the history of a piece of lace. I waited 
 
 some little time to catch her eye, and then 
 beckoned her to me. 
 
 " ' We haven't read,' I whispered. 
 
 " ' Dare you go ? ' asked Fatima. 
 
 " ' We ought,' I said. 
 
 " It required more daring than may ap- 
 pear. To such little people as ourselves 
 it was rather an undertaking to cross the 
 big drawing-room, stealing together over 
 the soft carpet ; to attack the large, smooth 
 handle, open the heavy door, and leave the 
 room in the face of the company. We did 
 it, however, our confusion being much in- 
 creased by the Irish gentleman, who jumped 
 up to open the door for us. We were utterly 
 unable to thank him, and stumbling over 
 each other in the passage, flew up to our 
 own room like caged birds set free. 
 
 " Fatima drew out the pillows from the 
 bed, and made herself easy on the floor. 
 I found the book, and climbed into the 
 window-seat. The sun was setting, the 
 light would not last much longer ; yet I 
 turned over the pages slowly, to find the 
 place, which was in the second part, think- 
 ing of the conversation downstairs. Fatima 
 heaved a deep sigh among her cushions, 
 and said : ' I wish we were rich.' 
 
 " ' I wish we were at home,' I answered. 
 
 "'When one's at home,' Fatima con- 
 tinued, in doleful tones, ' one doesn't feel 
 it, because one sees nobody but people 
 one knows; but when one goes among 
 strangers, it is wretched not to have plenty 
 of money and things. And it's no good 
 saying it isn't,' she added hurriedly, as if 
 to close the subject. 
 
 " ' It's getting dark,' I said. 
 
 " ' I beg your pardon : go on,' sighed 
 Fatima. 
 
 " I lifted up my voice, and read till I 
 could see no longer. It was about the 
 Valley of Humiliation, through which Mr. 
 Greatheart led Christiana and her children. 
 The ' green valley, beautified with lilies,' 
 in whose meadows the air was pleasant ;
 
 6o 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAVS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 where ' a man shall be free from the noise 
 and from the hurryings of this life ; ' and 
 where ' in former times men have met with 
 angels.' 
 
 " The last streaks of crimson were fading 
 in the sky when I read the concluding lines 
 of the shepherd-boy's song 
 
 ' Fulness to such a burden is, 
 That go on pilgrimage, 
 Here little, and hereafter bliss, 
 Is best from age to age.' 
 
 " ' Here little, and hereafter bliss ! ' 
 
 " It is not always easy to realize what 
 one believes. One needs sometimes to get 
 away from the world around, 'from the 
 noise and from the hurryings of this life,' 
 and to hear, read, see, or do something to 
 remind one that there is a standard which 
 is not of drawing-rooms; that petty troubles 
 are the pilgrimage of the soul ; that great 
 and happy lives have been lived here by 
 those who have had but little ; and that 
 satisfying bliss is not here, but hereafter. 
 
 "We went downstairs slowly, hand in 
 hand. 
 
 " ' I wonder what Mother is doing,' said 
 Fatima. 
 
 " The next day Miss Lucy very good- 
 naturedly helped us to move our belong- 
 ings into the smaller room we were now to 
 occupy. It was in another part of the 
 house, and we rather enjoyed the running 
 to and fro, especially as Miss Lucy was 
 gracious and communicative in the ex- 
 treme. 
 
 " ' This is the oldest part of the house/ 
 she said, as we sat on the bed resting from 
 our labours, for the day was sultry ; ' and 
 it breaks off here in an odd way. There 
 are no rooms beyond this. There were 
 some that matched the other side of the 
 house, but they were pulled down.' 
 
 " 'Why?' we asked. 
 
 " ' Well, there's a story about it, in the 
 family/ said Miss Lucy, mysteriously. 'But 
 
 it's a ghost story. I'll tell you, if you like. 
 But some people are afraid of ghost stories. 
 I'm not; but if you are, I won't tell it.' 
 
 " Of course we declared we were not 
 afraid. Sitting there together, on a sunny 
 summer's afternoon, perhaps we were not. 
 
 " ' It's years and years ago/ began Miss 
 Lucy; ' you know the place has belonged 
 to another branch of our family for genera- 
 tions. Well, at last it came down to an 
 old Mr. Bartlett, who had one daughter, 
 who, of course, was to be the heiress. Well, 
 she fell in love with a man whose name I 
 forget, but he was of inferior family, and 
 very queer character ; and her father would 
 not hear of it, and swore that if she married 
 him he would disinherit her. She would 
 have married the man in spite of this, 
 though ; but what he wanted was her 
 money ; so, when he found that the old 
 man was quite resolute, and that there 
 was no chance of his dying soon, he mur- 
 dered him.' 
 
 " We both exclaimed ; for this sudden 
 catastrophe fairly took away our breath. 
 Miss Lucy's nerves were not sensitive, 
 however, and she rattled on. 
 
 " ' He smothered him in bed, and, as he 
 was a very old man, and might easily have 
 died in the night some other way, and as 
 nothing could be proved, he got off. Well, 
 he married the daughter, and got the pro- 
 perty ; but the very first evening after he 
 took possession, as he was passing the door 
 of the old man's room, he heard some- 
 body breathing heavily inside, and when 
 he looked in, there was the old father 
 asleep in his bed.' 
 
 " ' Not really ? ' we said. 
 
 " ' Of course not really/ said Miss Lucy, 
 ' but so it was said. That's the ghost part 
 of it. Well, do what he would, he never 
 could get rid of the old man, who was 
 always there asleep ; so he pulled the 
 rooms down, and at last he went abroad, 
 and there both he and his wife died, and
 
 THE SNORING GHOST. 
 
 61 
 
 the property went to a cousin, who took 
 the name of Bartlett.' 
 
 " ' How awful ! ' we murmured. But 
 Miss Lucy laughed, and told us other 
 family anecdotes, and the ghost story 
 somewhat passed from our minds, espe- 
 cially as a little later we heard wheels, 
 and, peeping from the landing window, be- 
 held a post-chaise drive up. 
 
 " ' It's Cecilia ! ' screamed Miss Lucy, 
 and left us at once. 
 
 " I may as well say here, my dear Ida, 
 that Cecilia and the major proved alto- 
 gether different from our expectations. 
 Cecilia, in travelling gear, taking off an 
 old bonnet, begging for a cup of tea, and 
 complaining in soft accents that butter 
 was a halfpenny a pound dearer in Bath 
 than at home, seemed to have no connec- 
 tion with that Cecilia into the trimmings 
 of whose dresses bank-notes had recklessly 
 dissolved. The major, an almost middle- 
 aged man, of roughish exterior, in plain 
 clothes, pulling his moustache over a letter 
 that had arrived for him, dispelled our 
 visions of manly beauty and military pomp 
 even more effectually. Later on, we dis- 
 covered that Cecilia was really pretty, soft, 
 and gentle, a good deal lectured by her 
 mother, and herself more critical of Miss 
 Lucy's dress and appearance than that 
 young lady had been of ours. The major 
 proved kind and sensible. He was well- 
 to-do, and had ' expectations,' which facts 
 shed round him a glory invisible to us. 
 They seemed a happy couple ; more like 
 the rest of the world than we had been led 
 to suppose. 
 
 " The new-comers pretty well absorbed 
 our attention during the evening, and it 
 was not till we were fairly entering the 
 older part of the house on our way to bed, 
 that the story of the old man's ghost re- 
 curred to my mind. It was a relief to meet 
 Bedford at this point, to hear her cheerful 
 good-night, and to see her turn into a room 
 
 only two doors from ours. Once while we 
 were undressing I said : 
 
 "'What a horrid story that was, that 
 Lucy told us ! ' 
 
 "Towhich sensible Fatima made answer: 
 1 Don't talk about it.' 
 
 "We dismissed the subject by consent, 
 got into bed, and I fell asleep. I do not 
 quite know how far on it was into the night 
 when I was roused by Fatima's voice re- 
 peating my name over and over again, in 
 tones of subdued terror. I know nothing 
 more irritatingly alarming, when one is 
 young and nervous, than to be roused 
 thus, by a voice in which the terror is 
 evident and the cause unknown. 
 
 "What's the matter?" I asked. 
 
 " Don't you hear ? ' gasped Fatima, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 If she had said at once that there was a 
 robber under the bed, a burglar at the 
 window, or a ghost in the wardrobe, I 
 should have prepared for the worst, and 
 it would have been less alarming than this 
 unknown evil. 
 
 " ' I hear nothing,' I said, pettishly. ' I 
 wish you'd go to sleep, Fatima.' 
 
 " ' There ! now ! ' said Fatima. 
 
 " I held my breath, and in the silence 
 hearo! distinctly the sound of some one 
 snoring in an adjoining apartment. 
 
 " ' It's only some one snoring,' I said. 
 
 " ' Where ? ' asked Fatima, with all the 
 tragedy in her voice unabated. 
 
 " ' In the room behind us, of course,' I 
 said, impatiently. ' Can't you hear? ' 
 
 " Fatima's voice might have been the 
 voice of a shadow as she answered : ' There 
 is no room there? 
 
 " And then a cold chill crept over me 
 also ; for I remembered that the wall from 
 behind which the snoring unmistakeably 
 proceeded was an outer wall. There had 
 been the room of old Mr. Bartlett, which 
 his son-in-law and murderer had pulled 
 down. There he had been heard ' breath-
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 ing heavily,' and had been seen asleep upon 
 his bed, long after he was smothered in his 
 own pillows, and his body shut up in the 
 family vault. At least, so it was said, and 
 at that particular moment we felt no com- 
 fort from the fact that Miss Lucy had said 
 that ' of course it wasn't true.' I said some- 
 thing, to which Fatima made no reply, and 
 I could feel her trembling, and hear a half- 
 choked sob. I think fear for her over- 
 powered my other alarm, and gave me a 
 sort of strength. 
 
 " ' Don't, dear,' I begged. ' Let's be 
 brave. It must be something else. And 
 there's nothing in the room. Let's go to 
 Bedford. She's next door but one.' 
 
 " Fatima could speak no more. By the 
 moonlight through the blind, I jumped up, 
 and half dragged, half helped her out of 
 bed and across the room. Opening the 
 door was the worst. To touch anything 
 at such a moment is a trial. We groped 
 down the passage ; I felt the handle of the 
 first door, and turned that of the second, 
 and in we went. The window-blind of 
 this room was drawn up, and the moon- 
 light streamed over everything. A nest of 
 white drapery covered one chair, a muslin 
 dress lay like a sick ghost over a second, 
 some little black satin shoes and web-like 
 stockings were on the floor, a gold watch 
 and one or two feminine ornaments lay on 
 the table; and in the bed reposed not 
 Bedford, but our friend Kate, fast asleep, 
 with one arm over the bed-clothes, and her 
 long red hair in a pigtail streaming over 
 the pillow. I climbed up and treated her 
 as Fatima had treated me, calling her in 
 low, frightened tones over and over again. 
 She woke at last, and sat up. 
 
 " ' You sprites ! What is the matter ? ' 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " I stumbled through an account of our 
 misfortunes, in the middle of which the 
 young lady lay down, and before it was 
 ended I believe she was asleep again. 
 
 Poor Fatima, who saw nothing before us 
 but to return to our room with all its 
 terrors, here began to sob violently, which 
 roused our friend once more, and she 
 became full of pity. 
 
 " ' You poor children ! ' she said, ' I'm 
 so sleepy. I cannot get up and go after 
 the ghost now; besides, one might meet 
 somebody. But you may get into bed if 
 you like ; there's plenty of room, and 
 nothing to frighten you.' 
 
 " In we both crept, most willingly. She 
 gave us the long tail of her hair, and said, 
 ' If you want me, pull. But go to sleep, 
 if you can ! ' and, before she had well 
 finished the sentence, her eyes closed 
 once more. In such good company a 
 snoring ghost seemed a thing hardly to be 
 realized. We held the long plait between 
 us, and, clinging to it as drowning men to 
 a rope, we soon slept also. 
 
 " When we returned to our room next 
 day, there was no snoring to be heard, and 
 in the full sunshine of a summer morning 
 our fright seemed so completely a thing of 
 the past, that I persuaded myself to sug- 
 gest that it might have been ' fancy ' 
 (Kate had already expressed her delibe- 
 rate opinion to this effect), to which 
 Fatima, whose convictions were of a more 
 resolute type than mine, replied, ' What's 
 the use of trying to believe what's not 
 true ? I heard it ; and shall know that I 
 heard it, if I live till I'm a hundred.' 
 
 " In all correct ghost stories, when the 
 hero comes down to breakfast in the 
 morning, valiant, but exhausted from the 
 terrors of the night, his host invariably 
 asks him how he slept. When we came 
 down, we found Kate and the Irishman 
 alone together in the breakfast-room. 
 Now it certainly was in keeping with our 
 adventure when he stepped forward, and, 
 bowing profoundly, asked how we had 
 passed the night; but, in spite of the 
 gravity of his face, there was a twinkle in
 
 "Fatima could speak no more. By the moonlight through the blind, I jumped 
 up, and half dragged, half helped her out of bed and across the room. ... A nest 
 of white drapery covered one chair, a muslin dress lay like a sick ghost over a 
 second." (P. 62.)
 
 MAS. OVERTHEIVAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 the big brown eyes which showed us that 
 we were being made fun of; and I felt 
 slightly indignant with our friend, who 
 had faithfully promised not to betray us to 
 Miss Lucy, and might, I thought, have 
 saved us from the ridicule of the Irishman. 
 The rest of the company began to assemble, 
 however, and to our relief the subject was 
 dropped. But though the Irishman kept 
 our secret, we had every reason to suspect 
 that he did not forget it; he looked 
 terribly roguish through breakfast, and 
 was only kept in order by Kate's severe 
 glances. 
 
 " ' Always breathe through the nose/ 
 he suddenly began. ' It moderates the 
 severity of the air, is less trying to the 
 lungs, and prevents snoring.' 
 
 " ' Very true,' said the major, who was 
 sensible, and liked instructive observations. 
 
 "'It may be laid down as an axiom,' 
 continued the Irishman, gravely, ' that the 
 man who snores is sure to disturb some- 
 body ; and also that the man who doesn't 
 snore till he dies, is not likely to live to 
 be a snoring ghost when he is dead.' 
 
 " Kate looked daggers. The major 
 laughed, and said, ' Let me give you some 
 beef.' \Yhen he didn't understand a re- 
 mark he always laughed, and generally 
 turned the conversation to eatables, in 
 which he was pretty safe ; for food is com- 
 mon ground, and a slight laugh answers 
 most remarks, unless at a serious meeting 
 or a visit of condolence. A little later the 
 Irishman asked : ' What's the origin of the 
 expression, to stir up with a long pole ? ' 
 which turned the conversation to wild 
 beasts. But he presently inquired : 
 ' What's the meaning of putting a thing up 
 the spout ? ' 
 
 " ' Pawning it,' said the major, promptly. 
 
 " ' People pawn their family jewels some- 
 times,' said Pat. ' Did you ever hear of 
 anybody pawning the family ghosts ? ' he 
 asked, suddenly turning to me. I gave a 
 
 distressed ' No,' and he continued, in a 
 whisper, 'You never saw a ghost up the 
 spout ? ' 
 
 " But, before I could answer, he caught 
 Kate's eye, and, making a penitent face, 
 became silent. 
 
 "We were in the drawing-room after 
 breakfast, when the Irishman passed the 
 window outside, whistling ' Kathleen Ma- 
 vourneen.' We were sitting at Kate's feet, 
 and she got up, and whispering, ' He's got 
 something to show you, but he wouldn't 
 let me tell,' went out into the garden, we 
 following her. 
 
 " There we found the Irishman, with a 
 long pole, which he was waving trium- 
 phantly in the air. He bowed as we 
 approached. 
 
 " ' This, young ladies,' he said, ' is the 
 original long pole spoken of at the break- 
 fast-table. With this I am about to stir 
 up and bring forth for your inspection the 
 living and identical ghost whose snoring 
 disturbed your repose last night.' 
 
 " The little Irishman's jokes reassured 
 me. I guessed that he had found some 
 clue to our mysterious noise; but with 
 Fatima it was otherwise. She had been 
 too deeply frightened to recover so easily. 
 She clung trembling to me, as I was fol- 
 lowing him, and whispered ' I'd rather not.' 
 
 " On her behalf I summoned courage to 
 remonstrate. 
 
 " ' If you please, sir,' I said, ' Fatima 
 would rather not ; and, if you please, don't 
 tease us any more.' 
 
 " The young lady added her entreaties, 
 but they were not needed. The good- 
 natured little gentleman no sooner saw 
 Fatima's real distress than he lowered his 
 pole, and sank upon his knees on the 
 grass, with a face of genuine penitence. 
 
 " ' I am so sorry I've been tormenting 
 you so ! ' he exclaimed. ' I forgot you 
 were really frightened, and you see I knew 
 it wasn't a ghost.'
 
 THE SNOXING GHOST. 
 
 " ' I heard it,' murmured Fatima, re- 
 solutely, with her eyes half shut. 
 
 "'So did I,' said the Irishman, gaily; 
 4 I've heard it dozens of times. It's the 
 owls.' 
 
 " We both exclaimed. 
 
 " ' Ah ! ' he said, comically, ' I see you 
 don't believe me ! That's what comes of 
 telling so many small fibs. But it's true, 
 I assure you. (And the brown eyes did 
 look particularly truthful.) Barn-door 
 owls do make a noise that is very like the 
 snoring of an old man. And there are 
 some young ones who live in the spout at 
 the corner of the wall of your room. 
 They're snoring and scrambling in and 
 out of that spout all night.' 
 
 " It was quite true, Ida, as we found, 
 when Fatima was at last persuaded to 
 visit the corner where the rooms had been 
 pulled down, and where, decorated with 
 ivy, the old spout formed a home for the 
 
 65 
 
 snoring owls. By the aid of the long pole 
 he brought out a young one to our view, a 
 shy, soft, lovely, shadow-tinted creature, 
 ghostly enough to behold, who felt like an 
 impalpable mass of fluff, utterly refused to 
 be kissed, and went savagely blinking back 
 into his spout at the earliest possible op- 
 portunity. His snoring alarmed us no 
 more." 
 
 "And the noise really was that?' said 
 Ida. 
 
 " It really was, my dear." 
 
 " It's a splendid story," said Ida ; " you 
 see, I didn't go to sleep this time. And 
 what became of everybody, please ? Did 
 the red-haired young lady marry the. 
 Irishman ? " 
 
 " Very soon afterwards, my dear," said 
 Mrs. Overtheway. " We kept up our 
 friendship, too, in after life ; and I have 
 many times amused their children with 
 the story of the Snoring Ghost."
 
 REKA DOM.
 
 " What is home, and where, but with the loving ?" 
 
 FELICIA HEMANS.
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 AT last Ida was allowed to go out. 
 She was well wrapped up, and es- 
 corted by Nurse in a short walk for the 
 good of her health. It was not very 
 amusing, but the air was fresh and the 
 change pleasant, although the street did 
 not prove quite that happy region it had 
 looked from the nursery windows. More- 
 over, however strong one may fancy one 
 has become indoors, the convalescent's 
 first efforts out of doors are apt to be as 
 feeble as those of a white moth that has 
 just crept from the shelter of its cocoon, 
 giddy with daylight, and trembling in the 
 open air. By-and-by this feeling passed 
 away, and one afternoon Ida was allowed 
 to go by herself into the garden, " just for 
 a run." 
 
 The expression was metaphorical, for 
 she was far from being able to run ; but 
 she crept quietly up and down the walks, 
 and gathered some polyanthuses, putting 
 them to her face with that pleasure which 
 the touch of fresh flowers gives to an in- 
 valid. Then she saw that the hedge was 
 budding, and that the gap through which 
 she had scrambled was filled up. Ida 
 thought of the expedition and smiled. It 
 had certainiy made her very ill, but it 
 had led to Mrs. Overtheway. 
 
 The little old lady did not come that 
 day, and in the evening Ida was sent for 
 by her uncle. She had not been down- 
 stairs in the evenings since her illness. 
 These interviews with the reserved old 
 gentleman were always formal, uncomfort- 
 
 able affairs, from which Ida escaped with 
 a sense of relief, and that evening being 
 weak with illness and disappointed by 
 Mrs. Overtheway's absence her nervous- 
 ness almost amounted to terror. 
 
 Nurse did her best in the way of en- 
 couragement. It was true that Ida's uncle 
 was not a merry gentleman, but there was 
 such a nice dessert ! What could a well- 
 behaved young lady desire more than to 
 wear her best frock, and eat almonds and 
 raisins in the dining-room, as if she were 
 the lady of the house ? 
 
 "Though I am sorry for the child," 
 Nurse confided to the butler when she 
 had left Ida with her uncle, " for his looks 
 are enough to frighten a grown person, let 
 alone a little girl. And do you go in 
 presently, like a good soul, if you can 
 find an excuse, and let her see a cheerful 
 face." 
 
 But before the kind-hearted old man- 
 servant could find a plausible pretext for 
 intruding into the dining-room, and giving 
 an encouraging smile from behind his 
 master's chair, Ida was in the nursery once 
 more. 
 
 She had honestly endeavoured to be 
 good. She had made her curtsey at the 
 door without a falter weak as she was. 
 She had taken her place at the head of the 
 table with all dignity, and had accepted 
 the almonds and raisins with sufficiently 
 audible thanks. She had replied prettily 
 enough to her uncle's inquiries after her 
 health ; and, anxious to keep up the con-
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWATS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 versation, had told him that the hedge was 
 budding. 
 
 " Whafs the matter with the hedge ? " 
 he had asked rather sharply; and when 
 Ida repeated her bit of spring news, he 
 had not seemed to be interested. It was 
 no part of the gardener's work. 
 
 Ida relapsed into silence, and so did her 
 uncle. But this was not all. He had 
 sharp eyes, and fierce bushy eyebrows, 
 from under which he was apt to scrutinize 
 Ida in a way that seemed to scatter all her 
 presence of mind. This night of all nights 
 she found his eyes upon her oftener than 
 usual. Whenever she looked up he was 
 watching her, and her discomfort increased 
 accordingly. At last he broke the silence 
 abruptly by saying : 
 
 " You were very sorry, child, were you 
 not, when the news came of your father's 
 death ? " 
 
 The sudden introduction of this sacred 
 subject made Ida's head reel. 
 
 " What ? " she cried, and could get no 
 further. 
 
 " Have you forgotten already? " the old 
 gentleman said, almost reprovingly. " You 
 did not know him, it is true; but you must 
 remember hearing that your poor father 
 had been drowned at sea ? " 
 
 Ida's only reply was such a passionate 
 outburst of weeping that her uncle rang 
 the bell in helpless dismay, and was thank- 
 ful when the old butler lifted the child 
 tenderly in his arms and carried her back 
 to Nurse. The old gentleman's feelings 
 were more kindly than his looks, and he 
 was really as much concerned as puzzled 
 by the effect of his remarks. When the 
 butler returned with the report that Ida 
 was going quietly to bed, he sent her his 
 " love " (the word seemed to struggle with 
 some difficulty from behind his neckcloth), 
 and all the remaining almonds and raisins. 
 
 "I can't eat them," said Ida, smiling 
 feebly, for her head was aching, " but it is 
 
 very kind of him ; and please tell Brown 
 to tell him that I am very sorry, and please 
 put the almonds and raisins into my box. 
 I will make a doll's feast with them, if ever 
 I make dolls' feasts again." 
 
 With which the weary little maid turned 
 upon her pillow, and at last forgot her 
 troubles in sleep. 
 
 The next morning Brown delivered a 
 similar message from the old gentleman. 
 He had gone away by an early train on 
 business, but had left Ida his love. 
 
 " It's very kind of him," said Ida, again. 
 But she went sadly on with some paper 
 she was cutting into shapes. She was in 
 low spirits this morning. 
 
 Comfort was at hand, however. In the 
 course of the day there came a message 
 from Mrs. Overtheway, asking Nurse to 
 allow Ida to go to tea with her that even- 
 ing. And Nurse consented. 
 
 Ida could hardly believe her senses 
 when she found herself by the little old 
 lady's own fireside. How dainty her room 
 was ! How full the bookshelves were ! 
 How many pictures hung upon the walls ! 
 
 Above a little table, on which were in- 
 numerable pretty things, hung two pictures. 
 One of these was a portrait of a man who, 
 from his apparent age, might have been 
 the old lady's son, but that he was not at 
 all like her. He might have been good- 
 looking, though, Ida thought, and he had 
 a kind, intelligent face, full of energy and 
 understanding, and that is better still. 
 Close under his portrait hung a little 
 sketch. It was of a road running by a 
 river. Opposite to the river was a house 
 and some trees. It was a pretty sketch, 
 Ida thought, and the road looked interest- 
 ing, as some roads do in pictures making 
 one wish to get into the frame and walk 
 down them to see whither they lead. 
 Below the sketch were some curious-look- 
 ing characters written in ink, and of these 
 Ida could make nothing.
 
 "The white cloth seemed to Ida the whitest she had ever seen, the silver and 
 glass glittered, the china was covered with a rosebud pattern, and a reading-lamp 
 threw a clear soft light over all. . . . Even the waiting-maid was pretty, and 
 had something of the old lady's smile." (P. 72.)
 
 J/A'S. VER THE WA Y 'S REMEMBRA NCES. 
 
 Tea was soon ready. It was spread out 
 on a little table by itself. The white cloth 
 seemed to Ida the whitest she had ever 
 seen, the silver and glass glittered, the 
 china was covered with a rosebud pattern, 
 and a reading-lamp threw a clear soft light 
 over all. The tea, the cream, the brown 
 bread and butter, the fresh eggs, and the 
 honey all were of the very best even 
 the waiting-maid was pretty, and had some- 
 thing of the old lady's smile. 
 
 When she had finished her duties by 
 taking away the things, and putting the 
 tea-table into a corner, the two friends 
 drew up to the fire. 
 
 "You look better for tea, my child," 
 said the little old lady. "Do you eat 
 enough at home ? " 
 
 "As much as I can," said Ida; "but I 
 am more hungry when somebody else has 
 tea with me. There very seldom was any- 
 body till you came though. Only once 
 or twice Lady Cheetham's housekeeper 
 has been to tea. She is Nurse's father's 
 first cousin, and 'quite the lady,' Nurse 
 says. So she won't let her have tea in the 
 kitchen, so both she and Nurse have tea in 
 the nursery, and we have lots of tea-cakes 
 and jam, and Nurse keeps saying, ' Help 
 yourself, Miss Ida ! Make yourself at 
 home, Mrs. Savory ! ' And, you know, 
 at other times, she's always telling me 
 not to be all night over my tea. So I 
 generally eat a good deal then, and I 
 often laugh, for Nurse and Mrs. Savory 
 are so funny together. But Mrs. Savory's 
 very kind, and last time she came she 
 brought me a pincushion, and the time 
 before she gave me a Spa mug and two 
 apples." 
 
 Mrs. Overtheway laughed, too, at Ida's 
 rambling account, and the two were in 
 high good-humour. 
 
 " What shall I do to amuse you ?" asked 
 the little old lady. 
 
 " You couldn't tell me another story ? " 
 
 said Ida, with an accent that meant, " I 
 hope you can !" 
 
 " I would, gladly, my dear, but I don't 
 know what to tell you about ; " and she 
 looked round the room as if there were 
 stories in the furniture, which perhaps there 
 were. Ida's eyes followed her, and then 
 she remembered the picture, and said : 
 
 " Oh ! would you please tell me what 
 the writing means under that pretty little 
 sketch?" 
 
 The little old lady smiled rather sadly, 
 and looked at the sketch in silence for a 
 fe\v moments. Then she said : 
 
 " It is Russian, my dear. Their letters 
 are different from ours. The words are 
 ' Reka Dom,' and they mean ' River 
 House.'" 
 
 Ida gazed at the drawing with increased 
 interest. 
 
 " Oh, do you remember anything about 
 it ? If you would tell me about that /" she 
 cried. 
 
 But Mrs. Overtheway was silent again. 
 She was looking down, and twisting some 
 of the rings upon her little hand, and Ida 
 felt ashamed of having asked. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she said, implor- 
 ingly. " I was very rude, dear Mrs. Over- 
 theway ; tell me what you like, please." 
 
 " You are a good child," said the little 
 old lady, "a very good child, my dear. I 
 do remember so much about that house, 
 that I fall into day-dreams when I look at 
 it. It brings back the memories of a 
 great deal of pleasure, and a great deal of 
 pain. But it is one advantage of being 
 old, little Ida, that Time softens the pain- 
 ful remembrances, and leaves us the happy 
 ones, which grow clearer every day." 
 
 "Is it about yourself?" Ida asked, 
 timidly. She had not quite understood 
 the little old lady's speech ; indeed, she 
 did not understand many things that Mrs. 
 Overtheway said, but they were very satis- 
 factory companions for all that.
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 73 
 
 "Yes, it is about myself. And since 
 there is a dear child who cares about old 
 Mrs. Overtheway, and her prosy stories, 
 and all that befell her long ago," said the 
 little old lady, smiling affectionately at Ida, 
 " I will tell her the story my story the 
 story of Reka Dom." 
 
 " Oh, how good of you !" cried Ida. 
 
 " There is not much merit in it," said 
 the little old lady. " The story is as much 
 for myself as you. I tell myself bits of it 
 every evening after tea, more so now than 
 I used to do. I look far back, and I en- 
 deavour to look far forward. I try to pic- 
 ture a greater happiness, and companion- 
 Ship more perfect than any I have known ; 
 and when I shall be able to realize them, 
 I shall have found a better Home than 
 Reka Dom," 
 
 Ida crept to the little old lady's feet, and 
 softly stroked the slipper that rested on the 
 fender. Then, while the March wind 
 howled beyond the curtains, she made her- 
 self a cosy corner by the fire, and com- 
 posed herself to hear the story. 
 
 " I remember," said Mrs. Overtheway. 
 "I remember Reka Dom. It was our 
 new home. 
 
 " Circumstances had made it necessary 
 that we should change our residence, and 
 the new home was to be in a certain quiet 
 little town, not much bigger than some 
 big villages a town of pebbled streets and 
 small shops, silent, sunny, and rather dull 
 on the banks of a river. 
 
 " My health at this time was far from 
 robust ; but there is compensation even 
 for being delicate in that spring-time of 
 youth, when the want of physical strength 
 is most irksome. If evening parties are 
 forbidden, and long walks impossible, the 
 fragile member! of the family is, on the 
 other hand, the first to be considered in 
 the matter of small comforts, or when there 
 is an opportunity for ' change of air.' I 
 experienced this on the occasion when our 
 
 new home was chosen. It had been an- 
 nounced to us that our father and mother 
 were going away for one night, and that 
 we were to be very good irf the absence of 
 those authorized keepers of the peace. 
 We had not failed ourselves to enlarge this 
 information by the discovery that they 
 were going to the little town by the river, 
 to choose the house that was to be our 
 home ; but it was not till the night before 
 their departure that I was told that I was 
 to go with them. I had been unusually 
 drooping, and it was supposed that the 
 expedition would revive me. My own joy 
 was unbounded, and that of my brothers 
 and sisters was hardly less. They were 
 generously glad for my sake, and they were 
 glad, also, that one of the nursery conclave 
 should be on the spot when the great 
 choice was made. We had a shrewd sus- 
 picion that in the selection of a house our 
 elders would be mainly influenced by ques- 
 tions of healthy situation, due drainage, 
 good water supply, moderate rent, and so 
 forth ; to the neglect of more important 
 considerations, such as odd corners for 
 hide-and-seek, deep window-seats, plenty 
 of cupboards, and a garden adapted to the 
 construction of bowers rather than to the 
 cultivation of vegetables. I do not think 
 my hopes of influencing the parental deci- 
 sion were great ; but still we all felt that it 
 was well that I should be there, and my 
 importance swelled with every piece of ad- 
 vice I received from the rest of the party. 
 " ' It must be a big house, but, of course, 
 that adds to the expense,' said one of the 
 elder boys, who prided himself upon being 
 more grown-up in his views than the rest, 
 and considering the question from an 
 elderly point of view. ' But if you don't 
 take it out one way, you have it another,' 
 he continued. A manly-sounding sen- 
 tence, which impressed us all. ' Don't 
 think about smartness, Mary,' he went on, 
 with a grand air of renouncing vanities ;
 
 74 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 ' fine entrance, you know, and front door. 
 But a good back yard, if possible, and 
 some empty outhouses for carpenters' 
 shops ; and if you could meet with a place 
 with a few old boxes and barrels lying 
 about, for rafts on the river and so forth, 
 it would be a good thing.' 
 
 " ' I want a tidy box for a new baby- 
 house, dreadfully ',' added a sister. 
 
 " ' I hope there'll be deep window- 
 places,' sighed the luxurious Fatima, ' with 
 print patchwork cushions, like those at the 
 farm. And I hope some of them will face 
 west, for the sunsets.' 
 
 " ' Above all ' and it was the final and 
 most impressive charge I received ' what- 
 ever else is wanting, let us have two tall 
 trees for a swing.' 
 
 " Laden with responsibility, but other- 
 wise light-hearted enough, I set out with 
 my parents by the early coach, which was 
 to put us down about mid-day in the little 
 town by the river. 
 
 " I liked travelling with my father. 
 What a father he was ! But, indeed, he 
 was an object of such special devotion to 
 me, and his character exercised so strong 
 an influence over my young days, that I 
 think, my dear Ida, that I must take the 
 old woman's privilege of discursiveness, 
 and tell you something about him. 
 
 " I remember that he was a somewhat 
 mysterious personage in our young eyes. 
 We knew little of his early life, and what 
 we did know only enhanced the romantic 
 mystery which we imagined to hang round 
 it. We knew that he had seen many 
 foreign lands, and in those days much 
 travelling was rare. This accounted for 
 the fact that, absent and somewhat unprac- 
 tical as he was at home, he was invaluable 
 on a journey, making arrangements, and 
 managing officials with the precision of old 
 habit. Where he had learnt his peculiar 
 courtesy and helpfulness with those under 
 his charge was less obvious. My mother 
 
 said he had been accustomed to 'good 
 society' in his youth, though we lived 
 quietly enough now. We knew that, as a 
 lad, he had been at sea, and sailors are 
 supposed to be a handy and gentle-man- 
 nered race with the weak and dependent. 
 Where else he had been and what he had 
 done, we did not exactly know; but I 
 think we vaguely believed him to have 
 been concerned in not a few battles by 
 land and sea ; to be deep in secrets of state, 
 and to have lived on terms of intimacy 
 with several kings and queens. His ap- 
 pearance was sufficiently striking to favour 
 our dreams on his behalf. He had a tall, 
 ungainly figure, made more ungainly by 
 his odd, absent ways ; but withal he was 
 an unmistakable gentleman. I have heard 
 it said of him that he was a man from 
 whom no errors in taste could be feared, 
 and with whom no liberties could ever be 
 taken. He had thick hair of that yellow 
 over which age seems to have no power, 
 and a rugged face, wonderfully lighted up 
 by eyes of rare germander blue. His hair 
 sometimes seemed to me typical of his 
 mind and tastes, which Time never robbed 
 of their enthusiasm. 
 
 " With age and knowledge the foolish 
 fancies I wove about my father melted 
 away, but the peculiar affection I felt for 
 him, over and above my natural love as a 
 daughter, only increased as I grew up. 
 Our tastes were harmonious, and we al- 
 ways understood each other; whereas 
 Fatima was apt to be awed by his stateli- 
 ness, puzzled by his jokes, and at times 
 provoked by his eccentricities. Then I 
 was never very robust in my youth ; and 
 the refined and considerate politeness 
 which he made a point of displaying in his 
 own family were peculiarly grateful to me. 
 That good manners (like charity) should 
 begin at home, was a pet principle with 
 him, and one which he often insisted upon 
 to us.
 
 A'A'A DOM. 
 
 75 
 
 " ' If you will take my advice, young 
 people,' he would say, ' you will be careful 
 never to let your sisters find other young 
 gentlemen more ready and courteous, nor 
 your brothers find other young ladies more 
 gentle and obliging than those at home.' 
 
 " My father certainly practised what he 
 preached, and it would not have been easy 
 to find a more kind and helpful travelling 
 companion than the one with whom my 
 mother and I set forth that early morning 
 in search of our new abode. 
 
 '' I was just becoming too much tired to 
 care to look any longer out of the window, 
 when the coach rumbled over the pebbly 
 street into the courtyard of the Saracen's 
 Head. 
 
 " I had never stayed at an inn before. 
 What a palace of delights it seemed to me ! 
 It is true that the meals were neither 
 better nor better cooked than those at 
 home, and that the little room devoted to 
 my use was far from being as dainty as 
 that which Fatima and I habitually shared; 
 but the keen zest of novelty pervaded 
 everything, and the faded chintz and wavy 
 looking-glass of No. 25 are pleasant me- 
 mories still. Moreover, it had one real 
 advantage over my own bedroom. High 
 up, at the back of the house, it looked out 
 and down upon the river. How the water 
 glittered and sparkled ! The sun was re- 
 flected from its ripples as if countless hosts 
 of tiny naiads each held up a mirror to 
 catch his rays. My home had been inland, 
 and at some distance from a river, and the 
 sight of water was new and charming to 
 me. I could see people strolling along 
 the banks ; and then a boat carrying sails 
 of a rich warm brown came into view and 
 passed slowly under my eyes, with a stately 
 grace and a fair wind. I was watching her 
 with keen interest, when I was summoned 
 to dinner. 
 
 " Here, again, novelty exercised its 
 charm. At home I think I may say that 
 
 the nursery party without exception re- 
 garded dinner in the light cf a trouble- 
 some necessity of existence. We were apt 
 to grudge the length and formalities of the 
 meal ; to want to go out, or not to want to 
 come in ; or possibly the dining-room had 
 been in use as a kite manufactory, or a 
 juvenile artist's studio, or a doll's dress- 
 maker's establishment, and we objected to 
 make way for the roast meat and pudding. 
 But on this occasion I took an interest in 
 the dignities of the dinner-table, and exa- 
 mined the plates and dishes, and admired 
 the old-fashioned forks and spoons, and 
 puzzled over the entwined initials on their 
 handles. 
 
 " After dinner we went out into the 
 town, and looked through several houses 
 which were to let. My high hopes and 
 eager interest in the matter were soon 
 quenched by fatigue ; but, faithful to my 
 promise, I examined each house in turn. 
 None of them proved satisfactory to my 
 parents, and they were even less so to me. 
 They were all new, all commonplace, and 
 all equally destitute of swing-trees, inte- 
 resting corners, deep window-seats, or 
 superannuated boxes. Heat, fatigue, and 
 disappointment at last so overpowered me 
 that my pale face attracted notice, and my 
 father brought me back to the inn. He 
 carried me upstairs to the sofa, and point- 
 ing out a bookshelf for my amusement, 
 and telling me to order tea if I wished for 
 it, went back to my mother. 
 
 " It was a shabby little collection of 
 volumes, that parlour library in the ' Sara- 
 cen's Head.' There was an old family 
 Bible, a torn copy of Culpepper's ' Herbal,' 
 the Homilies in inexpressibly greasy black 
 calf, a book of songs, a volume called 
 ' Evelina,' which seemed chiefly remark- 
 able for dashes and notes of admiration, 
 and the book I chose. 
 
 " The book I chose would look very dull 
 in your eyes, I dare say, my dear Ida ; you
 
 7 6 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 who live in an age of bright, smart story- 
 books, with clear type, coloured pictures, 
 and gorgeous outsides. You don't know 
 what small, mean, inartistic ' cuts ' en- 
 livened your grandmother's nursery library, 
 that is, when the books were illustrated at 
 all. You have no idea how very little 
 amusement was blended with the instruc- 
 tion, and how much instruction with the 
 amusement in our playbooks then, and 
 how few there were of them, and how 
 precious those few were ! You can hardly 
 imagine what a treasure I seemed to have 
 found in a volume which contained se- 
 veral engravings the size of the page, 
 besides many small wood-cuts scattered 
 through the letter-press. I lost sight 
 alike of fatigue and disappointment, as 
 I pored over the pictures, and read bits 
 here and there. 
 
 " And such charming pictures there 
 were ! With quaint anglers in steeple- 
 crowned hats, setting forth to fish, or 
 breakfasting under a tree (untrammelled 
 by the formalities of a nursery meal), or 
 bringing their spoils to a wayside inn with 
 a painted fish upon the signboard, and a 
 hostess in a high hat and a stiff-bustled 
 dress at the door. Then there were small 
 woodcuts which one might have framed 
 for a doll's house ; portraits of fish of all 
 kinds, not easily distinguishable by the 
 unpractised eye ; and nicer woodcuts still 
 of country scenes, and country towns, and 
 almost all of these with a river in them. 
 By the time that my father and mother re- 
 turned, I had come to the conclusion that 
 the bank of a river was, of all situations, 
 the most desirable for one's home, and had 
 built endless bowers in the air like that in 
 which the anglers are seated in the picture 
 entitled ' The Farewell ; ' and had ima- 
 gined myself in a tall hat and a stiff-bustled 
 dress cooking fish for my favourite bro- 
 thers after the receipts in Walton and 
 Cotton's ' Complete Angler/ 
 
 " They came back with disappointment 
 on their faces. They had not got a house, 
 but my mother had got a headache, and 
 we sat down to tea a dispirited party. 
 
 "It is sometimes fortunate as well as 
 remarkable, how soon everybody knows 
 everything about everybody else, especi- 
 ally in a small town. As the tea-things 
 went downstairs, our landlord came up to 
 help us in our difficulty. Had the gentle- 
 man succeeded in obtaining a house ? If 
 none of the new lot suited him, the land- 
 lord believed that one or more of older 
 date were to let near the river. It was not 
 the fashionable quarter, but there had 
 been well-to-do people and some good 
 substantial residences there. 
 
 "Our hopes rose again, and the idea of 
 an old and substantial residence in an un- 
 fashionable quarter was so much more 
 favourable to nursery interests than the 
 smart gimcrack houses at which we had 
 been looking, that I should have been 
 anxious to explore that part of the town to 
 which he directed us, even if it had not 
 possessed a charm that was now pre-emi- 
 nent in my eyes. It was near the river. 
 
 " My mother was too much tired to 
 attempt further investigations, but I had 
 completely recovered from my fatigues, 
 and was allowed to go with my father on 
 the new search. He and I were very good 
 company, despite the difference in age be- 
 tween us. We were never in each other's 
 way, and whether we chatted or did not 
 speak, we were happy together, and en- 
 joyed ourselves in our respective fashions. 
 
 " It was a lovely evening. Hand in 
 hand we turned out of the ' Saracen's 
 Head' into the shingly street, took the 
 turning which led to the unfashionable 
 quarter, and strolled on and on, in what 
 Scott calls ' social silence.' I was very 
 happy. It was not only a lovely evening 
 it was one <5f those when the sunlight 
 seems no longer mere sunlight, but has a
 
 JtEKA DOM. 
 
 77 
 
 kind of magical glow, as if a fairy spell had 
 been cast over everything ; when all houses 
 look interesting all country lanes inviting 
 when each hedge, or ditch, or field 
 seems a place made to play in at some 
 wonderful game that should go on for 
 years. 
 
 "As we wandered on, we passed a line 
 of small bright-looking houses, which 
 strongly caught my fancy. Each had its 
 gay little garden, its shrubbery of lilac, 
 holly, or laurustinus, and its creeper- 
 covered porch. They looked so compact 
 and cosy, so easy to keep tidy, so snug 
 and sunny, that one fancied the people 
 who lived in them must be happy, and 
 wondered who they were. 
 
 " ' Oh, father ! ' I exclaimed, ' what de- 
 lightful houses ! ' 
 
 " ' They are very pretty, my dear,' he 
 answered ; ' but they are much too small 
 for us ; besides which, they are all occu- 
 pied.' 
 
 " I sighed, and we were passing on, 
 when I held him back with another excla- 
 mation. 
 
 '"Oh ! look at the carnations I ' for in one 
 of the gardens large clumps of splendid 
 scarlet cloves caught my eye. 
 
 " My father humoured me, and we drew 
 near to the laurustinus hedge, and looked 
 over into the gay little garden. As we 
 looked, we became conscious of what ap- 
 peared like a heap or bundle of clothing 
 near one of the beds, which on lifting it- 
 self up, proved to be a tall slender lady of 
 middle age, who, with her dress tucked 
 neatly round her, a big print hood on her 
 head, and a trowel in her hand, was busily 
 administering such tender little attentions 
 as mothers will lavish on their children, 
 and garden lovers on their flowers. She 
 was not alone in the garden, as we soon 
 perceived. A shorter and stouter and 
 younger lady sat knitting by the side of a 
 gentleman in a garden-chair, who, from 
 
 some defect in his sight, wore a large green 
 shade, which hid the greater part of his 
 face. The shade was made of covered 
 pasteboard, and was large and round, 
 and so very like a lamp-shade, that I 
 hardly ever look at one of those modern 
 round globe lamps, my dear, if it has a 
 green shade, without being reminded of 
 old Mr. Brooke. 
 
 " ' Was that his name? ' Ida asked. 
 
 " ' Yes, my dear ; but that we did not 
 know till afterwards. When the good lady 
 lifted herself up, she saw us, and seemed 
 startled. My father raised his hat, and 
 apologized politely. ' My little girl was so 
 much taken with your carnations, madam,' 
 he said, ' that we made bold to come near 
 enough to look at them, not knowing that 
 any one was in the garden.' 
 
 "She seemed rather flustered, but pushed 
 back her hood, and made a stiff little curt- 
 sey in answer to my father's bow, and 
 murmured something about our being 
 welcome. 
 
 " ' Would you care to have some, my 
 dear?' she added, looking at me. I gave 
 a delighted assent, and she had gathered 
 two lovely carnations, when we heard a 
 quavering voice from under the green 
 shade inquire 
 
 "'What is it?' 
 
 " Our friend was at the old gentleman's 
 side in a moment, speaking very distinctly 
 into his ear, as if he were deaf, whereby we 
 heard her answer, 
 
 "'It'sagentlemanandhislittledaughter, 
 James, admiring our carnations, and I am 
 gathering a few for the young lady, dear 
 James.' 
 
 " ' Quite right, quite right,' he croaked. 
 ' Anything that we have. Anything that 
 we have have.' 
 
 " It was a great satisfaction to me after- 
 wards to remember that my father had 
 thanked these good people ' properly,' as I 
 considered. As for myself, I had only
 
 JJA'S. O VER THE WA 'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 been able to blush and stammer out some- 
 thing that was far from expressing my de- 
 light with the lovely nosegay I received. 
 Then the slender lady went back to her 
 gardening. Her sister took up the knit- 
 ting which she had laid down, the old 
 gentleman nodded his lamp-shade in the 
 direction where he supposed us to be, and 
 said, ' Good evening, sir, Good evening, 
 miss ; ' and we went our way. 
 
 " The road wound on and on, and down 
 and down, until we found ourselves on the 
 edge of the river. A log lay conveniently 
 on the bank, and there we seated ourselves. 
 The tide was out, and the river bed was a 
 bed of mud, except for a narrow stream of 
 water that ran down the middle. But ah ! 
 how the mud glistened in the evening sun- 
 shine which was reflected on it in prismatic 
 colours. Little figures were dotted here 
 and there over its surface, and seawards 
 the masts of some vessels loomed large 
 through the shining haze. 
 
 " ' How beautiful everything looks this 
 evening ! ' I exclaimed. 
 
 " ' I see them walking in an air of glory,' 
 murmured my father, dreamily. 
 
 " He was quoting from a favourite old 
 poem, which begins 
 
 ' They are all gone into a world of light, 
 And I alone sit lingering here.' l 
 
 " This ' air of glory,' indeed, was over 
 everything. The mud and the tide pools, 
 the dark human figures, the black and 
 white seagulls that sat like onyx pebbles on 
 the river bed, the stream that spread sea- 
 wards like a silver scroll, the swans that 
 came sailing, sailing down the stream with 
 just such a slow and stately pace as white- 
 winged ships might have come down the 
 river with the tide, to pass (as the swans 
 did pass) into that 'world of light,' that 
 shining seaward haze, where your eye 
 
 could not follow them unless shaded by 
 your hand. 
 
 " I do not quite know how long we sat 
 gazing before us in silent enjoyment. 
 Neither do I know what my father's 
 thoughts were, as he sat with his hands 
 clasped on his knees and his blue eyes on 
 the river. For my own part, I fancied 
 myself established in one of the little 
 houses as ' hostess,' with a signboard having 
 a fish painted upon it hanging outside the 
 door, and a bower of woodbine, sweetbriar, 
 jessamine, and myrtle commanding a view 
 of the river. The day-dream was broken 
 by my father's voice. 
 
 " ' Mary, my dear, we must go about 
 our business, or what will your mother say 
 to us? We must see after these houses. 
 We can't live on the river's bank.' 
 
 " ' I wish we could,' I sighed ; and 
 though he had risen and turned away, I 
 lingered still. At this moment my father 
 exclaimed 
 
 "' Bless my soul !' and I jumped up and 
 turned round. 
 
 " He was staring at a wall with a gate- 
 way in it, enclosing a house and garden on 
 the other side of the road. On the two 
 gateposts were printed in black Roman 
 letters two words that I could not under- 
 stand Reka >om. 
 
 " ' What does it mean ? ' I asked. 
 
 " ' Reka Dom,' said my father, thought- 
 fully (and he pronounced it Rayka Dome). 
 4 It is Russian. It means River House. 
 Very curious ! I suppose the people who 
 live here are Russians. It's a nice situa- 
 tion a lovely view lovely /" and he had 
 turned round to the river, but I caught his 
 arm. 
 
 " ' Father, dear, no one lives here. 
 Look ! ' and I pointed to a board beyond 
 the gateway, which stated in plain English 
 that the house was to let. 
 
 " Departed Friends." Henry Vaughan, 1654. " By the time that we returned to my
 
 RE 1C A DOM. 
 
 79 
 
 mother, Reka Dom was to all intents and 
 purposes our home. 
 
 "It is true that the house was old, 
 rambling, and out of repair, and that what 
 we heard of the landlord was not encou- 
 raging. He was rich, we were told, but 
 miserly ; and ' a very queer old gentleman,' 
 whose oddness almost amounted to in- 
 sanity. He had ' made himself so unplea- 
 sant ' to various people who had thought 
 of taking the house, that they drew back, 
 and Reka Dom had been un tenanted for 
 some time. The old woman who took 
 care of it, and from whom we got this in- 
 formation, prophesied further that he would 
 ' do nothing to the old place. He'd let it 
 fall about his ears first.' 
 
 " It is also true that standing in the 
 garden (which in its rambling, disorderly 
 way was charming, and commanded a 
 lovely view), my father, who had doffed 
 his hat, as he often did in a country spot 
 where the air was fresh and pleasant, ran 
 one hand ruefully through his thick yellow 
 hair, and said 
 
 " ' You know, Mary, your mother's chief 
 objection to our latest home was that the 
 grounds were so much too large for our 
 means of keeping them in order ; and this 
 garden is the larger of the two, I fear.' 
 
 " And he did not seem to derive pro- 
 portionate comfort from my reply. 
 
 " ' But, father dear, you know you 
 needn't keep it in order, and then we can 
 have it to play in.' 
 
 " And yet we took Reka Dom. 
 
 " The fact is that my father and I took 
 a fancy to the place. On my side this is 
 easily to be accounted for. If all the other 
 houses at which we had looked had proved 
 the direct reverse of what I (on behalf of 
 myself and my brothers and sisters) was 
 in search of, Reka Dom in a remarkable 
 degree answered our requirements. To 
 explore the garden was like a tour in fairy 
 land. It was oddly laid out. Three grass- 
 
 plots or lawns, one behind another, were 
 divided by hedges of honeysuckle and 
 sweetbriar. The grass was long, the flower- 
 borders were borders of desolation, where 
 crimson peonies and some other hardy 
 perennials made the best of it, but the 
 odour of the honeysuckle was deliciously 
 sweet in the evening air. And what a 
 place for bowers! The second lawn had 
 greater things in store for me. There, be- 
 tween two tall elm trees, hung a swing. 
 With a cry of delight, I seated myself, 
 seized the ropes, and gave a vigorous 
 push. But the impetus was strong, and 
 the ropes were rotten, and I and the swing 
 came to the ground together. This did 
 not deter me, however, from exploring the 
 third lawn, where I made a discovery to 
 which that of the swing was as nothing. 
 
 " It was not merely that a small path 
 through the shrubbery led me into a little 
 enclosed piece of ground devoted to those 
 many-shaped, box-edged little flower-beds 
 characteristic of ' children's gardens,' it 
 was not alone that the beds were shaped 
 like letters, and that there was indisputably 
 an M among them, but they were six in 
 number. Just one apiece for myself and 
 my brothers and sisters ! And though 
 families of six children are not so very un- 
 common as to make it improbable that my 
 father's predecessor should have had the 
 same number of young ones as himself, the 
 coincidence appeared to my mind almost 
 supernatural. It really seemed as if some 
 kind old fairy had conjured up the whole 
 place for our benefit. And bless the 
 good godmother ! to crown all, there were 
 two old tea-chests and a bottomless barrel 
 in the yard. 
 
 " Doubtless many causes influenced my 
 father in his leaning towards Reka Dom, 
 and he did not confide them to me. But 
 I do truly believe that first and foremost 
 of the attractions was its name. To a real 
 hearty lover of languages there is a charm
 
 So 
 
 MXS. OVERTHE WAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 in the sight of a strange character new 
 words, a yet unknown tongue, which can- 
 not be explained to those who do not share 
 the taste. And perhaps next to the mystic 
 attraction of words whose meaning is yet 
 hidden, is to discover traces of a foreign 
 language in some unexpected and unlikely 
 place. Russian is not extensively culti- 
 vated ; my father's knowledge of it was but 
 slight, and this quiet little water-side town 
 an unlikely place for an inscription in that 
 language. It was curious, and then inte- 
 resting, and then the quaint simple title of 
 the house took his fancy. Besides this, 
 though he could not but allow that there 
 was reason in my mother's views on the 
 subject of large grounds in combination 
 with one man-of-all-work, he liked plenty 
 of space and shrubbery where he could 
 wander about his hands behind his back 
 without being disturbed ; and for his 
 own part ha had undoubtedly felt more 
 pleasure in the possession of large grounds 
 than annoyance at seeing them neglected. 
 So the garden tempted him. Finally, there 
 was a room opening upon a laurel walk, 
 which had at one time been a library. The 
 shelves old, common, dirty, and broken 
 were still there, and on the most secure 
 of them the housekeeper kept her cheese 
 and candles, and an old shawl and bonnet. 
 
 "'The place is made for us!" I ex- 
 claimed on my return from discovering the 
 old barrel and tea-chests, My father was 
 standing in the library looking out upon 
 the garden, and he did not say No. 
 
 " From the old woman we learnt some- 
 thing of the former tenants. She was a 
 good-natured old soul, with an aggrieved 
 tone of voice, due probably to the depress- 
 ing effects of keeping an empty house for 
 a cantankerous landlord. The former 
 tenant's name was Smith, she said (unmis- 
 takably English this !). But his lady was 
 a Roosian, she believed. They had lived 
 in Roosia, and some of the children, having 
 
 been born there, were little Roosians, and 
 had Roosian names. She could not speak 
 herself, having no knowledge of the coun- 
 try, but she had heard that the Roosians 
 were heathens, though Mr. Smith and his 
 family went regularly to church. They 
 had lived by a river, she believed, and their 
 old home was called by the same outland- 
 ish name they had given to this. She 
 had heard that it meant a house by the 
 water-side, but could not say, knowing no 
 language but her own, and having (she 
 was thankful to say) found it sufficient for 
 all purposes. She knew that before Mr. 
 Smith's time the house was called Mon- 
 tague Mount, and there was some sense in 
 that name. Though what the sense was, 
 she did not offer to explain. 
 
 " ' Please, please take it ! ' I whispered 
 in a pause of the conversation ; ' there are 
 six little gardens, and 
 
 " My father broke in with mock horror 
 on his face : ' Don't speak of six gardens !' 
 he exclaimed. 'The one will condemn 
 the place, I fear, but we must go home and 
 consult your mother.' 
 
 " I suppose we did consult her. 
 
 " I know we described all the charms of 
 the house and garden, and passed rather a 
 poor examination as to their condition, 
 and what might be expected of the land- 
 lord. That my father endeavoured to 
 conceal his personal bias, and that I made 
 no secret of mine. At last my mother in- 
 terrupted some elaborately practical details 
 by saying in her gentle voice 
 
 " ' I think choosing a home is something 
 like choosing a companion for life. It is 
 chiefly important to like it. There must 
 be faults everywhere. Do you take to the 
 place, my dear ? ' 
 
 " ' I like it certainly,' said my father. 
 ' But the question is not what I like, but 
 what you like.' 
 
 " Then I knew it was settled, and 
 breathed freely. For though my father
 
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 81 
 
 always consulted my mother's wishes, she 
 generally contrived to choose what she 
 knew he would prefer. And she chose 
 Reka Dom. 
 
 " Henceforth good luck seemed to follow 
 our new home. 
 
 " First, as to the landlord. The old 
 woman had certainly not exaggerated his 
 oddity. But one of his peculiarities was a 
 most fortunate one for us. He was a bib- 
 liomaniac a lover and collector of valu- 
 able and curious books. When my father 
 called on him to arrange about the house, 
 he found him sitting almost in rags, appa- 
 rently dining upon some cheese-parings, 
 and surrounded by a library, the value of 
 which would have fed and clothed him 
 with comfort for an almost indefinite 
 period. Upon the chair behind him sat a 
 large black cat -with yellow eyes. 
 
 " When my father was ushered in, he 
 gazed for a moment in silent astonishment 
 at the unexpected sight. Books in shelf 
 after shelf up to the ceiling, and piled in 
 heaps upon the floor. As he stood speech- 
 less, the little old man put down the plate, 
 gathered his ragged dressing-gown about 
 him, and, followed by the cat, scrambled 
 across the floor and touched his arm. 
 
 " ' You look at books as if you loved 
 them ? ' he said. 
 
 " My father sighed as if a spell had been 
 broken. 
 
 '"I am nearly half a century old,' he 
 said, ' and I do not remember the day 
 when I did not love them.' 
 
 " He confessed afterwards to my mother 
 that not less than two hours elapsed before 
 Reka Dom was so much as spoken of. 
 Then his new acquaintance was as anxious 
 to secure him for a tenant as he had been 
 to take the house. 
 
 " ' Put down on paper what you think 
 wants doing, and it shall be done,' was the 
 old gentleman's liberal order on the sub- 
 
 ject of repairs. ' Dear, dear, dear ! ' he 
 went on, ' it's one thing to have you, and 
 another thing to put the house right for 
 men who don't know an Elzevir from an 
 annual in red silk. One fellow came here 
 who would have given me five pounds 
 more than I wanted for the place ; but he 
 put his vile hat upon my books. Dear, 
 dear, dear ! ' 
 
 "The old man's strongest effort in my 
 father's favour, however, was the proposal 
 of a glass of wine. He seemed to have 
 screwed himself up to the offer, and to 
 be proportionately relieved when it was 
 declined. 
 
 " 'You're quite right,' he said frankly; 
 'my wine is not so good as my books. 
 Come and see them whenever you like.' 
 
 " ' The book-shelves shall be repaired, 
 sir,' was his final promise in answer to a 
 hint from my father, who (it being success- 
 ful, and he being a very straightforward 
 man) was ever afterwards ashamed of this 
 piece of diplomacy. ' And the fire-place 
 must be seen to. Dear, dear, dear ! A 
 man can live anywhere, but valuable books 
 must be taken care of. Would you believe 
 it ? I have a fire in this room three times 
 a week in bad weather. And fuel is ter- 
 ribly dear, terribly dear. And that slut in 
 the kitchen burns as much as if she had 
 the care of the Vatican Library; She said 
 she couldn't roast the meat without. 
 ' Then give me cold meat ! ' I said ; but 
 she roasts and boils all the same. So last 
 week I forbade the butcher the house, and 
 we've lived on cheese ever since, and thafs 
 eightpence a pound. Food is terribly dear 
 here, sir; everything is dear. It's enough 
 to ruin a man. And you've got a family. 
 Dear, dear, dear ! How a man can keep a 
 family and books together, I can't imagine. 
 However, I suppose children live chiefly 
 on porridge.' 
 
 " Which supposition served for long as 
 a household joke against my brothers,
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 whose appetite for roast meat was not less 
 than that of other healthy boys of the 
 period. 
 
 " It was a happy moment when my 
 father came back from this interview, and 
 Reka Dom was fairly ours. But a more 
 delightful one was that in which I told the 
 successful result of my embassy to the 
 nursery conclave. I certainly had not the 
 remotest claim to credit in the matter, but 
 I received an ovation proportionate to the 
 good news I brought. I told my story 
 skilfully, and made the six gardens the 
 crowning point ; at which climax my 
 brother and sisters raised a shout that so 
 far exceeded the average of even nursery 
 noises, that my mother hurried to the spot, 
 where our little sister Phil flung herself 
 into her arms, and almost sobbing with 
 excitement, cried 
 
 " ' Oh, Mother dear ! we're hooraying for 
 Reka Dom ! ' 
 
 " It was sagely prophesied by our nurse 
 and others that we should soon be tired of 
 our new fancy, and find ' plenty to com- 
 plain of in Reka Dom as elsewhere. (It 
 is nursery wisdom to chasten juvenile en- 
 thusiasm by such depressing truths.) And 
 undoubtedly both people and places are 
 apt to disappoint one's expectations on in : 
 timate acquaintance ; but there are people 
 and places who keep love always, and such 
 an one was Reka Dom. 
 
 " I hardly know what to tell you of it, 
 Ida. The happy years we spent there 
 were marked by no wonderful occurrences, 
 and were not enlivened by any particular 
 gaiety. Beyond our own home our prin- 
 cipal treat was to take tea in the snug 
 little house where we made our first ac- 
 quaintances. Those good ladies proved 
 kind friends to us. Their buns were not 
 to be surpassed, and they had pale albums, 
 and faded treasures of the 
 ration, which it was our 
 
 j preceding gene- 
 delight to over- 
 
 haul. The two sisters lived with their 
 invalid brother, and that was the house- 
 hold. Their names were Martha and 
 Mary, and they cherished a touching bit 
 of sentiment in reference to the similarity 
 between their circumstances and those of 
 the Family of Bethany. 
 
 "'I think it reminds us of what we 
 ought to be, my dear,' Miss Mary said to 
 me one day. ' Only it is I who should 
 have been called Martha, for Martha is far 
 more spiritually minded.' Humility was 
 the most prominent virtue in the charactei 
 of these good ladies, and they carried it 
 almost to excess. 
 
 " I remember as a child thinking that 
 even the holy sisters of Bethany could 
 hardly have been more good than the 
 Misses Brook, but I was quite unable to 
 connect any sentiment with the invalid 
 brother. He spoke little and did less, and 
 yet his sisters continually quoted his say- 
 ings and criticisms, and spoke of his fine 
 taste and judgment ; but of all that he was 
 supposed to say, only a few croaking com- 
 mon-places ever met our ears. 
 
 " ' Dear James was so much pleased 
 with that little translation you showed me,' 
 or, 'Dear James hopes that his young 
 friends keep up their practising. He 
 considers music such a resource,' &c. &c. 
 
 " I believe they did hold conversations 
 with him in which he probably assented to 
 their propositions, and they persuaded 
 themselves that he was very good com- 
 pany. And indeed he may have been all 
 that they believed ; I can only say that to 
 me dear James's remarks never exceeded, 
 ' Good day, Miss. How are your excellent 
 parents ? ' or some similar civility. I really 
 was afraid of him. There is something 
 appalling in a hoarse voice coming from 
 under a green shade, and connected with 
 eyes you cannot meet, and features that 
 are always hidden/ Beyond that shade we 
 never saw to the day of his death.
 
 REKA DOM:. 
 
 "This occurred about four years after 
 we first knew them. I well remember the 
 visit of condolence on which I accom- 
 panied my mother, the bitter grief of the 
 sisters, and the slow dropping of Miss 
 Mary's tears on to her black dress. Won- 
 derful indeed is love ! The most talented 
 and charming companion in the world 
 could not have filled to them the place of 
 the helpless, uninteresting invalid who had 
 passed away. 
 
 " The Misses Brooke caused a commo- 
 tion in the gossiping world of our little 
 town by going to the funeral. It was not 
 the custom for ladies to go to funerals, 
 and, as a general rule, the timid sisters 
 would not have ventured to act against 
 public opinion ; but on this occasion they 
 were resolute. To hear the voice of au- 
 thority meet them with the very words 
 wherewith Divine lips had comforted those 
 other sisters, would comfort them, as no- 
 thing else could. I remember how from a 
 window we watched the funeral with child- 
 ish awe and curiosity the thrill with 
 which we heard a maid announce 'the 
 coffin,' and caught sight of the flapping 
 pall, and tried to realize that old Mr. 
 Brooke was underneath. Then close be- 
 hind it came the two figures we knew so 
 well, veiled, black, and bent, and clinging 
 together in the agony of that struggle be- 
 tween faith and loss which every loving 
 soul is some time called on to endure. As 
 we leant out of the open window, crying 
 bitterly in sympathy with them, and with 
 the gloomy excitement of the occasion, 
 they raised themselves a little and walked 
 more steadily. The rector's clear voice 
 was cutting the air with the pathos of an 
 unusual sympathy. 
 
 ' I am the Resurrection and the Life-^-saith the 
 Lord.' 
 
 " I understood then, and have never 
 wondered since, how it was that the Misses 
 
 Brooke braved the gossip of the neighbour- 
 hood, and followed their brother's body to 
 the grave. 
 
 " These good people were, as I have 
 said, our chief friends ; but Reka Dom 
 itself afforded us ample amusement. The 
 six children who had lived there before us 
 were a source of unfailing interest. The 
 old woman of the house remained about 
 the place for a short time in the capacity 
 of charwoman, and she suffered many in- 
 quiries on our part as to the names, ages, 
 and peculiarities of our predecessors. As 
 she had ' charred ' for them, she was able 
 to satisfy our curiosity to a considerable 
 extent, and then great was the pleasure of 
 retailing to our mother, as she sat knitting 
 in the twilight, the anecdotes we had col- 
 lected of the Little Russians.' 
 
 " ' The Little Russians ' certainly did 
 much to cement our attachment to Reka 
 Dom. Their history was the history of our 
 home. It was the romance of the walks 
 we played in, the swing we sat in, the gar- 
 dens we tended every day. To play at 
 being the Little Russians superseded all 
 other games. To ( pretend ' that the Little 
 Russians were with us, and to give dolls' 
 entertainments in their honour, supplanted 
 all former fancies. Their gardens, by-the- 
 by, were not allotted to their successors 
 without some difficulty, and the final de- 
 cision involved a disappointment to me. 
 It seemed as if there could not be two 
 opinions as to the propriety of my having 
 the letter M. But on further consideration 
 it appeared that as the remaining letters 
 did not fit the names of my brothers and 
 sisters, some other way of distributing them 
 must be found. My mother at last de- 
 cided that the letters of the six beds were 
 to be written on six separate bits of paper, 
 and put in a bag, and that one was to be 
 drawn by each in turn. I still hoped that 
 I might draw the letter M, but it was not 
 to be. That large and sunny bed fell to
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 my youngest brother, and I drew the letter 
 I. Now not only was the bed little more 
 than a fourth of the size of that which I 
 had looked on as my own, but being very 
 much in the shade, it was not favourable to 
 flowers. Then the four divisions of the 
 letter M afforded some scope for those 
 effective arrangements which haunt one's 
 spring dreams for the coming summer; 
 but what could be done with a narrow strip 
 with two narrower ends where the box- 
 edging almost met, and where nothing 
 would blossom but lilies of the valley ? 
 
 (" Capricious things those lilies are ! So 
 obdurate undej coaxing when transplanted 
 to some place they do not like, so immov- 
 ably flourishing in a home that suits them !) 
 
 "What I did was to make the best of 
 my fate. After trying to reduce the lilies 
 of the valley to one neat group, and to 
 cultivate gayer flowers in the rest of the 
 bed, and after signally failing in both at- 
 tempts, I begged a bit of spare ground in 
 the big garden for my roses and carnations, 
 and gave up my share of the Russian plat 
 to the luxuriant lilies. 
 
 " It had belonged to the eldest boy. 
 One of those born in Russia, and with the 
 outlandish names of which the charwoman 
 spoke. His name was Ivan. Many a 
 time did I wish it had been William or 
 Matthew, and once, I remember, I dreamt 
 a tantalizing dream of discovering that it 
 was Oliver, and digging up the middle of 
 the O, and effecting a round bed of un- 
 rivalled brilliancy with a white rose for 
 the centre-piece and crown. Once in the 
 year, however, I had my revenge. In 
 spring my lilies of the valley were the 
 finest to be seen. We had a custom that 
 all through the flower season a bouquet 
 was laid by my mother's plate before she 
 came down to breakfast, and very proud 
 we were when they came from our own 
 gardens. There were no horticultural 
 wonders in these nosegays, but in my 
 
 short season of triumph, the size and fra- 
 grance of my flowers never failed to excite 
 admiration ; and many grown-up people 
 besides my mother were grateful for bou- 
 quets from my narrow bed. Credit in the 
 matter I deserved none, for Ivan's lilies 
 took care of themselves. 
 
 " Having learnt the names of the little 
 Russians, we had no difficulty in discover- 
 ing to which of them the respective letter 
 beds had belonged ; and one of our 
 amusements was that each should endea- 
 vour to carry out what (so far as we could 
 learn) had been the habits and customs of 
 the little Russian to whose garden he had 
 succeeded. Then we had a whole class of 
 partisan games which gave us wonderful 
 entertainment. Sometimes we pretended 
 to be Scottish chieftains, or feudal barons 
 of England, or chiefs of savage tribes. 
 Our gardens were always the lands we had 
 inherited or conquered, and we called our- 
 selves by the names of the little Russians. 
 When we were Highland chiefs, I remem- 
 ber we put Mac indiscriminately before all 
 the names ; in some cases with a comical, 
 and in others with a very satisfactory effect, 
 As chief of the Maclvans I felt justly proud 
 of my title, but a brother who represented 
 the MacElizabeths was less fortunate. In 
 the sham battles our pet animals (we each 
 had one) did duty for retainers, much to 
 their bewilderment. The dogs, indeed, 
 would caper about, and bark round the 
 opposing parties in a way that was at least 
 inspiriting ; but my Sandy Tom bran- 
 dished his tail and took flying leaps upon 
 no principle whatever, and as to Fatima's 
 tortoise it never budged from the begin- 
 ning of the conflict to the end. Once, 
 indeed, by strewing dandelion heads in 
 the direction of the enemy's ground she 
 induced him to advance, and at the cry of 
 ' Forward, MacPeters I ' he put forth a lazy 
 leg, and with elephantine dignity led the 
 attack, on the way to his favourite food.
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 But (in spite of the fable) his slow pace 
 was against him, and in the ensuing melee 
 he was left far behind. 
 
 " I could not learn much about Ivan, 
 but of what I did discover some things 
 were easy enough for me to follow. He 
 was fond of boating, a taste I was not al- 
 lowed to cultivate ; but also he was fond 
 of books, the old woman said, and fond of 
 sitting in the swing and reading, and I 
 heartily approved his choice in this 
 respect. 
 
 " In helping to unpack my father's 
 library, I had discovered a copy of Walton 
 and Cotton's ' Angler,' similar in every 
 respect, but its good condition, to the one 
 that had charmed me -at the inn. Some- 
 times the precious volume was lent to me, 
 and with it in my lap, and my arms round 
 the ropes of the swing, I passed many a 
 happy hour. What fancies I wove after 
 studying those quaint, suggestive old 
 prints ! As sweet as that ' contexture of 
 woodbines, sweetbriar, and myrtle ' in 
 which the anglers sat and sipped orange 
 punch at Tottenham. The characters of 
 Piscator, Venator, and Auceps, and the 
 style of their conversations by the wayside, 
 I found by no means unlike those of the 
 Pilgrim's Progress. The life-like descrip- 
 tions of nature (none the less attractive at 
 my age from being quaintly mixed with 
 fable and symbolism, and pointed with 
 pious morals) went straight to my heart; and 
 though I skipped many of the fish chapters, 
 I re-read many of the others, and ' The 
 Complete Angler' did not a little to feed my 
 strong natural love for out-door life and 
 country pleasures, to confirm my habit of 
 early rising, and to strengthen my attach- 
 ment to the neighbourhood of a river. 
 
 " But my father's library furnished ano- 
 ther volume for my garden studies. From 
 him I inherited some of that taste which 
 finds a magic attraction in dictionaries and 
 grammars; and I only wish that I had 
 
 properly mastered about half the languages 
 in which it was the delight of my girlhood 
 to dabble. As yet, however, I only looked 
 at the ' grammar corner ' with ambitious 
 eyes, till one day there came upon me the 
 desire to learn Russian. I asked my 
 father for a Russian grammar, and he 
 pointed out the only one that he possessed. 
 My father seldom refused to lend us his 
 books, and made no inquiries as to why 
 we wanted them; but he was intensely 
 strict about their proper treatment, so that 
 we early learnt to turn over leaves from the 
 top, to avoid dogs' ears, and generally to 
 treat books properly and put them away 
 punctually. Thus I got the grammar, and 
 carried it off to the swing. Alas ! it was 
 not even Russian and English. It was a 
 fat old French edition, interleaved for 
 notes. The notes were my father's, and in 
 English, which was of some assistance, 
 and I set myself resolutely to learn the 
 alphabet. But my progress was slow, and 
 at last I got my father to write Reka Dom 
 for me in Russian character, as I had de- 
 termined to master these few letters first 
 and then proceed. I soon became familiar 
 with them, and was not a little proud of 
 the achievement. I made a large copy to 
 fasten upon the nursery wall ; I wrote it in 
 all my books ; and Fatima, who could not 
 be induced to attack the fat grammar with 
 me, became equally absorbed on her part 
 in the effort to reduce the inscription to 
 cross-stitch for the benefit of her sampler. 
 
 " I borrowed the fat grammar again, 
 and, in spite of my father's warnings that 
 it was too difficult for me as yet, I hoped 
 soon to be proficient in the language of the 
 little Russians. But warnings from one's 
 elders are apt to come true, and after a 
 few vain efforts I left the tough old volume 
 in its corner and took to easier pas- 
 times. 
 
 " I had always an inventive turn, and 
 was, as a rule, the director-in-chief of our
 
 86 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 amusements. I know I was often very 
 tiresome and tyrannical in the ensuing 
 arrangements, and can only hope the 
 trouble I took on these occasions on be- 
 half of my brothers and sisters, served in 
 their eyes to balance my defects. I re- 
 member one device of mine that proved 
 particularly troublesome. 
 
 " When sham battles had ended in real 
 quarrels, and following in the footsteps of 
 the little Russians was becoming irksome 
 (especially to Fatima, whose predecessor 
 Peter had been of a military turn, and 
 had begun fortifications near the kitchen 
 garden which she was incompetent to 
 carry out) a new idea struck me. I an- 
 nounced that letters properly written and 
 addressed to the little Russians, 'Reka 
 Dom, Russia,' and posted in the old rhu- 
 barb-pot by the tool-house, would be duly 
 answered. The replies to be found in a 
 week's time at the same office. 
 
 "The announcement was received with 
 delight, and no doubt was ever expressed 
 as to the genuineness of the answers which 
 I regularly supplied, written, by-the-by, in 
 excellent English, but with Reka Dom 
 neatly effected in Russian characters on 
 the note-paper. In the first place, I al- 
 lowed no awkward inquiries into the 
 machinery of my little plots for the benefit 
 of the rest ; and in the second, we had all, 
 I think, a sort of half-and-half belief, a 
 wilful credulity in reference to our many 
 fancies (such as fairies and the like), of 
 which it is impossible to give the exact 
 measure. But when, the six weekly letters 
 having become rather burdensome, I left 
 off writing answers from Ivan to myself, 
 the others began to inquire why Ivan never 
 wrote now. As usual, I refused to give 
 any explanations, and after inventing seve- 
 ral for themselves which answered for a 
 while, they adopted by general consent an 
 idea put forth by little Phillis. The child 
 was sitting one day with her fat cheek on 
 
 her hand, and her eyes on the rhubarb- 
 'pot, waiting for her share of the corre- 
 spondence to be read aloud to her, when 
 the fancy seemed to strike her, and she 
 said quietly, but with an air of full con- 
 viction 
 
 " ' /know what it is Ivan is dead! 
 
 " The idea took strange hold of us all. 
 We said, ' Perhaps he is dead/ and spoke 
 and thought of him as dead, till I think we 
 were fully persuaded of it. No chair was 
 set for him at the dolls' feasts, and I 
 gained a sort of melancholy distinction as 
 being without a partner now. ' You know 
 Mary has no little Russian, since Ivan is 
 dead.' 
 
 " When our visible pets died, we buried 
 them with much pomp, to the sound of a 
 drum and a tin trumpet, in a piece of 
 ground by the cabbage-bed ; but in the 
 present instance that ceremony was im- 
 possible. We resolved, however, to erect 
 a gravestone to the memory of our fancy 
 friend in his own garden. I had seen 
 letters cut on stone, and was confident 
 that with a chisel and hammer nothing 
 could be easier. These the nursery tool- 
 box furnished. I wrote out an elaborate 
 inscription headed by Reka Dom in Rus- 
 sian characters, and we got a stone and set 
 to work. The task, however, was harder 
 than we had supposed. My long compo- 
 sition was discarded, and we resolved to 
 be content with this simple sentence, To 
 the memory of Ivan. But ' brevity is the 
 soul of wit,' and the TO took so long to 
 cut, that we threw out three more words, 
 and the epitaph finally stood thus : 
 
 TO IVAN. 
 
 "In a rude fashion this was accom- 
 plished ; and with crape on our arms and 
 the accustomed music we set up the stone 
 among the lilies. 
 
 " In time, Ida, we grew up, as it is
 
 "we resolved to be content with this simple sentence, To the memory of Ivan. 
 But ' brevity is the soul of wit, ' and the TO took so long to cut, that we threw out 
 three more words, and the epitaph finally stood thus : 
 
 TO IVAN." (P. 86.)
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 called. Almost before we knew it, and 
 whilst we still seemed to be looking for- 
 ward to our emancipation from nursery 
 authority and childish frocks, Fatima and 
 I found ourselves grown-up young ladies, 
 free to fashion our costume to our own 
 tastes, and far from Reka Dom. Yes, we 
 had changed our home again. The River 
 House was ours no longer. Childhood 
 also had slipped from our grasp, but 
 slowly as the years had seemed to pass, 
 they had not sufficed to accomplish every 
 project we had made in them. Not one 
 of those long summers by the river had. 
 seen that gorgeous display of flowers in 
 our garden which in all good faith and 
 energy we planned with every spring. I 
 had not learnt Russian. Years had gone 
 by since I first took up the fat grammar, 
 but I had acquired little since that time 
 beyond the familiar characters of the well- 
 beloved name, Reka Dom. 
 
 " The country town that circumstances 
 had now made our home possessed at 
 least one attraction for us. It was here 
 that our old friends the Misses Brooke 
 had settled when their brother's death broke 
 up the quiet little household. I was very 
 fond of the good ladies ; not less so now 
 than I had been as a child, when their 
 home-made buns and faded albums made 
 an evening festive, and were looked for- 
 ward to as a treat. They were good 
 women, severe to themselves and charitable 
 to others, who cultivated the grace of 
 humility almost in excess. One little 
 weakness, however, in their otherwise 
 estimable characters had at times dis- 
 turbed the even course of our friendship. 
 I hardly know what to call it. It was not 
 want of candour. More truthful women 
 do not exist than they were, and I believe 
 they never wilfully deceived any one. I 
 can only describe it as a habit of indulg- 
 ing in small plots and suspicions ; a want 
 of trust in other people, partly traceable, 
 
 perhaps, to a lack of due confidence in 
 themselves, but which was very provoking 
 to one as young, eager, and sincerely affec- 
 tionate as I was. I was indignant to dis- 
 cover little plots laid to test my sincerity ; 
 and to find my genuine (if not minutely 
 measured), expressions of feeling doubted. 
 If this peculiarity had been troublesome in 
 the early stages of our acquaintance, it 
 was doubly so when we met again, after 
 the lapse of some years. For one thing, 
 the dear ladies were older, and fidgety, 
 foolish little weaknesses of this kind some- 
 times increase with years. Then I was 
 older also, and if they had doubted their 
 own powers of entertainment when I was 
 a child, they would still less believe that I 
 could enjoy their society now that I was a 
 ' young lady.' Whereas the truth was, 
 that though my taste for buns and my 
 reverence for smooth pencil drawings in 
 impossible perspective had certainly dimi- 
 nished, my real enjoyment of a quiet 
 evening with my old friends was greater 
 than before. I liked to take my sewing to 
 their undisturbed fireside, and not a few 
 pieces of work which had flagged under 
 constant interruptions at home were rapidly 
 finished as I chatted with them. I liked 
 to draw out the acquirements which they 
 would not believe that they possessed. I 
 enjoyed rubbing my modern and desultory 
 reading against their old-fashioned but 
 solid knowledge. I admired their high 
 and delicate principles, and respected their 
 almost fatiguing modesty. At an age 
 - when religious questions move and often 
 seriously trouble girls' minds, I drew com- 
 fort from their piety, which (although as 
 quiet and modest as all their other virtues) 
 had been for years, under my eyes, the 
 ruling principle of all they did, the only 
 subject on which they had the courage to 
 speak with decision, the crown of their 
 affections and pleasures, and the sufficient 
 consolation of their sorrow. In addition
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 89 
 
 to all this, when I went to them, I knew 
 that my visit gave pleasure. 
 
 " It seemed hard that they could not 
 always repose a similar confidence in me. 
 And yet so it was. The consistent affec- 
 tion of years had failed to convince them 
 that ' a young, pretty, lively girl ' (as they 
 were pleased to call me) could find plea- 
 sure in the society of ' two dull old wo- 
 men.' So they were apt to suspect either 
 a second motive for my visit, or affectation 
 in my appearance of enjoyment. At 
 times I was chafed almost beyond my 
 powers of endurance by these fancies ; and 
 on one occasion my vexation broke all 
 bounds of respect. 
 
 " ' You think me uncandid, ma'am,' I 
 cried; 'and what are you? If you were 
 to hear that I had spoken of you, else- 
 where, as two dull old women, you would 
 be as much astonished as angered. You 
 know you would. You know you don't 
 think I think so. I can't imagine why you 
 say it ! ' 
 
 " And my feelings being as much in the 
 way of my logic as those of most other 
 women, I got no further, but broke down 
 into tears. 
 
 " ' She says we're uncandid, Mary,' 
 sobbed Miss Martha. 
 
 " ' So we are, I believe,' said Miss 
 Mary, and then we all cried together. 
 
 " I think the protracted worry of this 
 misunderstanding (which had been a long 
 one) had made me almost hysterical. I 
 clearly remember the feeling of lying with 
 my face against the horsehair sofa in the 
 little dining-room, feebly repeating, ' You 
 shouldn't, you know. You shouldn't ! ' 
 amid my tears, my hair being softly stroked 
 the while by the two sisters, who com- 
 forted me, and blamed themselves with a 
 depth of self-abasement that almost made 
 me laugh. It had hardly seemed possible 
 that their customary humility could go 
 lower. The affair was wound up with a 
 
 good deal of kissing, and tea, and there 
 were no more suspicions for a long time. 
 
 "Thdre had been peace, as I said, for 
 long. But as, at the best of times, the 
 Misses Brooke never gave us an invitation 
 without going through the form of apolo- 
 gizing for the probable dulness of the 
 entertainment, I was not surprised one 
 morning to find myself invited to tea at 
 Belle Vue Cottage for the following even- 
 ing, on the strict condition that I should 
 refuse the invitation if I felt disinclined to 
 go. I had met the good ladies as we 
 came out of church. There was Morning 
 Prayer on Wednesdays and Fridays at one 
 church in the town, and if the two little 
 straw bonnets of the Misses Brooke had 
 not been seen bending side by side at 
 every service, the rest of the scanty con- 
 gregation would have been as much as- 
 tonished as if every one in the town who 
 had time and opportunity for public wor- 
 ship had availed themselves of the privilege. 
 On this day they had been there as usual, 
 and when we turned up the street together, 
 the invitation was given. 
 
 " ' And could you induce your respected 
 father to come with you, Mary dear?' 
 added Miss Mary. ' You know our rooms 
 are small, or we should be so glad to see 
 Fatima. But we have a few friends com- 
 ing, and she will understand/ 
 
 " ' Only a few,' Miss Martha said, hastily. 
 ' Don't make her think there's anything 
 worth coming for, Mary. And mind, Mary 
 dear, if you don't care to come, that you 
 say so. There's no need for " excuses " 
 with us. And you know exactly what our 
 tea parties are.' 
 
 " ' Now, Miss Martha,' I said, shaking 
 my fist at her, ' I won't bear it ! ' 
 
 " ' Well, my dear, you know it's true. 
 And if you should have an invitation to 
 the Lodge between now and to-morrow 
 night, mind you throw us over. There's
 
 MXS. OVERTIIEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 no dancing and heavy supper at the cot- 
 tage.' 
 
 " ' I'll eat a pound of beefsteak and have 
 a private hornpipe to fortify me before I 
 come, ma'am. And if the Lightfoots 
 should ask me between now and then, I'll 
 think about throwing over my oldest 
 friends to oblige you ! ' 
 
 " ' You're very clever, my dear,' sighed 
 Miss Martha, ' and it's easy to laugh at a 
 stupid old woman like me.' 
 
 " Now this was rather unfair, for I had 
 only taken to banter on these occasions 
 because a serious treatment of the subject 
 had failed. I made my peace, however, 
 by grave and affectionate assurances that 
 I wished to come, and would like to come ; 
 and by adding a solemn promise that if I 
 felt averse from it when the time came, I 
 would stay at home. 
 
 " I was vexed to find symptoms of the 
 old misunderstanding arising. The good 
 ladies were evidently in a fidgety. humour 
 to-day ; and going home full of it, I poured 
 out my vexation to Fatima. 
 
 " Fatima's composure was not so easily 
 ruffled as mine. She was apt to sit in 
 easy, graceful attitudes, looking very idle, 
 but getting through a wonderful amount 
 of exquisite needlework, and listening to 
 my passing grievances without being much 
 disturbed herself. 
 
 " ' I don't think I would worry myself,' 
 she said, as she rapidly sorted the greens 
 for a leaf in her embroidery. ' My idea is, 
 that you will find the party more lively 
 than usual. I have often noticed that 
 when the old ladies are particularly full of 
 apologies, something or somebody is ex- 
 pected.' 
 
 " ' I didn't want anything or anybody,' 
 I said, dolefully ; ' but I wish they wouldn't 
 take fancies, and I wish they wouldn't put 
 one through such cross-examinations about 
 nothing. As to the party, who could there 
 be, but the old set ? ' 
 
 " ' Nobody, I suppose. There'll be the 
 Wilkinsons, of course; ' and Fatima marked 
 the fact with an emphatic stitch. ' And 
 Mr. Ward, I suppose, and Dr. Brown, and 
 the Jones's girls, and ' 
 
 " ' Oh, the rooms wouldn't hold more ! ' 
 I said. 
 
 " ' There's always room for one more 
 for a gentleman, at any rate ; and depend 
 upon it, it is as I say.' 
 
 " Fatima was not so fond of the Misses 
 Brooke as I was. She did not scruple to 
 complain of the trouble it cost to maintain 
 intimate relations with the excellent but 
 touchy old ladies, and of the hot water 
 about trifles into which one must perpetu- 
 ally fall. 
 
 " I hope I am pretty trustworthy,' she 
 would say, ' and I am sure you are, Mary. 
 And if we are not, let them drop our 
 acquaintance. But they treat their friends 
 as we used to treat our flowers at Reka 
 Dom ! They are always taking them up 
 to see how they are going on, and I like to 
 vegetate in peace.' 
 
 " I could not have criticized my dear 
 and respected old friends so freely ; but 
 yet I knew that Fatima only spoke the 
 truth. 
 
 " The subject was unexpectedly renewed 
 at dinner. 
 
 " ' Mary,' said my father, l is there any 
 mystery connected with this tea-party at 
 Miss Brooke's?' 
 
 " Fatima gave me a mischievous glance. 
 
 " ' If there is, sir,' said I, ' I am not in 
 the secret.' 
 
 " ' I met them in the town,' he went on, 
 'and they were good enough to invite 
 me ; and as I must see Ward about some 
 registers, I ventured to ask if he were to 
 be of the party (thinking to save my old 
 legs a walk to his place). The matter was 
 simple enough, but Miss Martha seemed 
 to fancy that I wanted to know who was 
 going to be there. I fully explained my
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 real object, but either she did not hear or 
 she did not believe me, I suppose, for she 
 gave me a list of the expected company.' 
 
 " ' I am sure she would have believed 
 you, sir, if she had realized what you were 
 saying,' I said. ' I know the sort of thing, 
 but I think that they are generally so ab- 
 sorbed in their own efforts to do what they 
 think you want, they have no spare atten- 
 tion for what you say.' 
 
 " ' A very ingenious bit of special 
 pleading, my dear, but you have not heard 
 all. I had made my best bow and was 
 just turning away, when Miss Martha, beg- 
 ging me to excuse her, asked with a good 
 deal of mystery and agitation it you had 
 commissioned me to find out who was to 
 be at the party. I said I had not seen you 
 since breakfast, but that I was quite able 
 to assure her that if you had wished to find 
 out anything on the subject, you would 
 have gone direct to herself, with which I 
 repeated my best bow in my best style, 
 and escaped.' 
 
 " I was too much hurt to speak, and 
 Fatima took up the conversation with my 
 father. 
 
 " You will go, sir ? ' she said. 
 
 " ' Of course, my dear, if Mary wishes 
 it. Besides, Ward is to be there. I learnt 
 so much.' 
 
 " ' You learnt more, sir,' said Fatima, 
 'and please don't leave us to die of 
 curiosity. Who is to be there, after all ? ' 
 
 " The Wilkinsons, and Miss Jones and 
 her sister, and Ward, and an old friend of 
 Miss Brooke's, a merchant.' 
 
 " ' But his name, please !' cried Fatima, 
 for my father was retreating to his study. 
 
 " ' Smith John Smith,' he answered 
 laughing, and we were left alone. 
 
 " I was very much disposed to be in- 
 jured and gloomy, but Fatima would not 
 allow it. She was a very successful com- 
 forter. In the first place, she was tho- 
 roughly sympathetic ; and in the second, 
 
 she had a great dislike to any disturbance 
 of the general peace and harmony, and at 
 last, her own easy, cheerful view of things 
 became infectious where no very serious 
 troubles were concerned. 
 
 " ' People must have their little weak- 
 nesses,' she said, ' and I am sure they 
 haven't many failings.' 
 
 " ' This weakness is so unworthy of 
 them,' I complained. 
 
 " ' All good people's weaknesses are un- 
 worthy of them, my dear. And the better 
 they are, the more unworthy the weakness 
 appears. Now, Mary, do be reasonable ! 
 You know at the bottom how true they 
 are, and how fond of you. Pray allow 
 them a few fidgety fancies, poor old dears. 
 No doubt we shall be just as fidgety when 
 we are as old. I'm sure I shall have as 
 many^ fancies as hairs in my wig, and as to 
 you, considering how little things weigh 
 on your mind now ' 
 
 " Fatima's reasoning was not conclusive, 
 but I think I came at last to believe that 
 Miss Brooke's distrust was creditable to 
 herself, and complimentary to me so it 
 certainly must have been convincing. 
 
 " ' And now,' she concluded, ' come up- 
 stairs and forget it. For I have got two 
 new ideas on which I want your opinion. 
 The first is a new stitch, in which I pur- 
 pose to work some muslin dresses for us 
 both. I thought of it in bed this morn- 
 ing. The second is a new plan for braid- 
 ing your hair, which came into my head 
 whilst father was reading aloud that speech 
 to us last night. I had just fastened up 
 the last plait when he laid down the 
 paper.' 
 
 " ' You absurd Fatima ! ' I cried. ' How 
 could you ! And it was so interesting ! ' 
 
 " ' Don't look shocked,' said Fatima. 
 ' I shall never be a politician. Of all stu- 
 dies, that of politics seems to me the most 
 disturbing and uncomfortable. If some 
 angel, or inspired person would tell me
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 which side was in the right, and whom to 
 believe in, I could be a capital partisan. 
 As it is, I don't worry myself with it : and 
 last night when you were looking flushed 
 and excited at the end of the speech, I was 
 
 calmly happy ' 
 
 " ' But, Fatima,' I broke in, ' you don't 
 
 mean to say ' 
 
 " ' If it had lasted five minutes longer,' 
 said Fatima, ' I should have comfortably 
 decided whether ferns or ivy would com- 
 bine better with the loops.' 
 
 " ' But Fatima ! were you really not lis- 
 tening when ' 
 
 " ' On the whole I decide for ivy,' said 
 Fatima, and danced out of the room, I 
 following and attempting one more re- 
 monstrance in the hall. 
 
 " ' But Fatima ! ' 
 
 " ' With perhaps a suspicion of white 
 chrysanthemums,' she added over the 
 banisters. 
 
 " ' Both the new ideas promised to be 
 successful, and the following evening my 
 hair was dressed in what Fatima now called 
 the political plaits. From the first evening 
 of my introduction into society she had 
 established herself as my lady's maid. She 
 took a generous delight in dressing me up, 
 and was as clever as she was kind about 
 it. This evening she seemed to have sur- 
 passed herself, as I judged by the admiring 
 exclamations of our younger sister Phillis 
 a good little maid, who stood behind 
 my chair with combs and pins in her hand 
 as Fatima's aide-de-camp. Finally, the 
 dexterous fingers interwove some sprays of 
 ivy with the hair, and added white rose- 
 buds for lack of chrysanthemums. 
 
 " ' Perfect ! ' Fatima exclaimed, stepping 
 backwards with gestures of admiration 
 that were provokingly visible in the glass 
 before which I sat. ' And to think that it 
 should be wasted on an uninteresting tea- 
 party ! You will not wear your new muslin, 
 of course ? ' 
 
 " ' Indeed I shall,' I answered. ' You 
 know I always make myself smart for the 
 cottage.' Which was true, and my reason 
 for it was this. I had once gone there to 
 a quiet tea-party in a dress that was rather 
 too smart for the occasion, and which 
 looked doubly gay by contrast with the 
 sombre costume of the elderly friends 
 whom I met. I was feeling vexed with 
 myself for an error in taste, when Miss 
 Mary came up to me, and laying her 
 hands affectionately on me, and smoothing 
 my ribbons, thanked me for having come 
 in such a pretty costume. 
 
 " ' You come in, my dear,' she said, 
 'like a fresh nosegay after winter. You 
 see we are old women, my love, and dress 
 mostly in black, since dear James's death ; 
 and our friends are chiefly elderly and 
 sombre-looking also. So it is a great treat 
 to us to look at something young and 
 pretty, and remember when we were 
 girls, and took pains with such things 
 ourselves.' 
 
 " ' I was afraid I was too smart, Miss 
 Mary,' I said. 
 
 "'To be sure it is a waste to wear your 
 pretty things here,' Miss Mary added ; 
 ' but you might let us know sometimes 
 when you are going to a grand party, and 
 we will come and look at you.' 
 
 "I was touched by the humble little 
 lady's speech, and by the thought of how 
 little one is apt to realize the fact that 
 faded, fretful, trouble-worn people in 
 middle life have been young, and remem- 
 ber their youth. 
 
 "Thenceforward I made careful toilettes 
 for the cottage, and this night was not an 
 exception to the rule. 
 
 "I was dressed early; my father was 
 rather late, and we three girls had nearly 
 an hour's chat before I had to go. 
 
 "We began to discuss the merchant 
 who was to vary the monotony of our small 
 social circle. Phillis had heard that a
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 93 
 
 strange gentleman had arrived in the town 
 this afternoon by the London stage. 
 Fatima had an idea on the subject which 
 she boldly stated. One of the Misses 
 Brooke was going to be married to this 
 London merchant. We were just at an 
 age when a real life romance is very at- 
 tractive, and the town was not rich in 
 romances at least in our little society. 
 So Fatima's idea found great favour with 
 us, and, as she described it, seemed really 
 probable. Here was an old friend, a friend 
 of their youth, and probably a lover, 
 turned up again, and the sisters were in a 
 natural state of agitation. (It fully ac- 
 counted for Miss Martha's suspicious sen- 
 sitiveness yesterday, and I felt ashamed of 
 having been aggrieved.) Doubtless the 
 lovers had not been allowed to marry in 
 early life because he was poor. They had 
 been parted, but had remained faithful. 
 He had made a fortune, like Dick Whit- 
 tington, and now, a rich London merchant, 
 had come back to take his old love home. 
 Being an old friend, it was obviously a 
 youthful attachment; and being a mer- 
 chant, he must be very rich. This happy 
 combination universal in fiction, though 
 not invariable in real life was all that 
 could be desired, and received strong con- 
 firmation from the fact of his coming from 
 London ; for in those days country girls 
 seldom visited the metropolis, and we re- 
 garded the great city with awe, as the 
 centre of all that was wealthy and wonder- 
 ful. It was a charming story, and though 
 we could not but wish that he had returned 
 before Miss Martha took to a ' front ' and 
 spectacles, yet we pictured a comfortable 
 domestic future for them ; and Fatima was 
 positive that 'worlds' might be done for 
 the appearance of the future Mrs. Smith 
 by more tasteful costume, and longed ar- 
 dently to assume the direction of her 
 toilette. 
 
 " ' I don't believe that she need wear a 
 
 front,' she pleaded. ' I dare say she has 
 plenty of pretty grey hair underneath. 
 Spectacles are intellectual, if properly 
 worn : which, by -the-by, they need not be 
 at meals when your husband is looking at 
 you across the table ; and as to caps ' 
 
 "But here my father knocked at the 
 door, and I put on my cloak and hood, 
 and went with him. 
 
 " The Misses Brooke received us affec- 
 tionately, but I thought with some excite- 
 ment, and a flush on Miss Martha's cheeks 
 almost made me smile. I could not keep 
 Fatima's fancy out of my head. Indeed, 
 I was picturing my old friend in more 
 cheerful and matronly costume presiding 
 over the elegant belongings of a stout, well- 
 to-do, comfortable Mr. John Smith, as I 
 moved about in the little room, and ex- 
 changed mechanical smiles and greetings 
 with the familiar guests. I had settled 
 the sober couple by their fireside, and was 
 hesitating between dove-colour and laven- 
 der-grey for the wedding silk, when Miss 
 Martha herself disturbed me before I had 
 decided the important question. I fancied 
 a slight tremor in her voice as she said 
 
 " ' Mr. John Smith.' 
 
 " I dropped a more formal curtsey than 
 I had hitherto done, as was due to a stran- 
 ger and a gentleman, and looked once at 
 the object of my benevolent fancies, and 
 then down again at my mittens. His head 
 was just coming up from a low bow, and 
 my instantaneous impression was, ' He 
 wears a brown wig.' But in a moment 
 more he was upright, and I saw that he 
 
 did not. And he certainly was not 
 
 suitable in point of age. I took one more 
 glance to make sure, and meeting his eyes, 
 turned hastily, and plunged into conver- 
 sation with my nearest neighbour, not 
 noticing at the instant who it was. As I 
 recovered from my momentary confusion, 
 I became aware that I was talking to the 
 rector's wife, and had advanced some
 
 "I fancied a slight tremor in her voice as she said 'Mr. John Smith, 
 dropped a more formal curtsey than I had hitherto done, as was due to a stranger 
 and a gentleman, and looked once more at the object of my benevolent fancies, and 
 then down 'again at my mittens." (P. 93.)
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 95 
 
 opinions on the subject of the weather 
 which she was energetically disputing. I 
 yielded gracefully, and went back to my 
 thoughts. I hoped Miss Martha did not 
 feel as I did the loss of that suitable, com- 
 fortable, middle-aged partner my fancy had 
 provided for her. It did seem a pity that 
 he had no existence. I thought that pro- 
 bably marriage was the happiest condition 
 for most people, and felt inclined to dis- 
 cuss the question with the rector's wife, 
 who had had about twenty-two years' ex- 
 emplary experience of that state. Then I 
 should like to have helped to choose the 
 silk 
 
 " At this point I was asked to play. 
 
 " I played some favourite things of Miss 
 Brooke's and some of my own, Mr. Smith 
 turning over the leaves of my music ; and 
 then he was asked to sing, and to my 
 astonishment, prepared to accompany him- 
 self. Few English gentlemen (if any) could 
 accompany their own songs on the piano- 
 forte in my youth, Ida; most of them then 
 had a wise idea that the pianoforte was an 
 instrument ' only fit for women,' and would 
 have as soon thought of trying to learn to 
 play upon it as of studying the spinning- 
 t wheel. I do not know that I had ever 
 heard one play except my father, who had 
 lived- much abroad. When Mr. Smith sat 
 down at the instrument, I withdrew into a 
 corner, where Miss Martha followed me as 
 if to talk. But when he began, I think 
 every one was silent. 
 
 " The song he sang is an old one now, 
 Ida, but it was comparatively new then, 
 and it so happened that very few of us had 
 heard it before. It was ' Home, Sweet 
 Home.' He had a charming voice, with 
 a sweet pathetic ring about it, and his 
 singing would have redeemed a song of 
 far smaller merit, and of sentiment less 
 common to all his hearers. As it was, our 
 sympathies were taken by storm. The 
 rector's wife sobbed audibly, but, I believe, 
 
 happily, with an oblique reference to the 
 ten children she had left at home; and 
 poor Miss Martha, behind me, touched 
 away tear after tear with her thin finger- 
 tips, and finally took to her pocket-hand- 
 kerchief, and thoughts of the dear dead 
 brother, and the little house and garden, 
 and I know not what earlier home still. 
 As for me, I thought of Reka Dom. 
 
 "We had had many homes, but that was 
 the home/ar excellence the beloved of my 
 father, the beloved of us all. And as the 
 clear voice sang the refrain, which sounded 
 in some of our ears like a tender cry of re- 
 call to past happiness, 
 
 ' Home Home sweet, sweet Home ! 
 
 I stroked Miss Martha's knee in silent 
 sympathy, and saw Reka Dom before my 
 eyes. The river seemed to flow with the 
 melody. I swung to the tune between the 
 elm-trees, with Walton and Cotton on my 
 lap. What would Piscator have thought 
 of it, had the milkmaid sung him this song? 
 I roamed through the three lawns that were 
 better to me than pleasures and palaces, 
 and stood among the box-edged gardens. 
 Then the refrain called me back again 
 
 ' Home Home sweet, sweet Home ! ' 
 
 I was almost glad that it ended before I, 
 too, quite broke down. 
 
 " Everybody crowded round the singer 
 with admiration of the song, and inquiries 
 about it. 
 
 " ' I heard it at a concert in town the 
 other day,' he said, ' and it struck me as 
 pretty, so I got a copy. It is from an 
 English opera called " Clari," and seems 
 the only pretty thing in it/ 
 
 " ' Do you not like it ? ' Miss Jones 
 asked me ; I suppose because I had not 
 spoken. 
 
 " ' I think it is lovely,' I said, ' as far 
 as I can judge ; but it carries one away 
 from criticism ; I do not think I was
 
 9 6 
 
 MRS. O VER THE WA Y'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 thinking of the music ; I was thinking of 
 Home.' 
 
 " ' Exactly.' 
 
 " It was not Miss Jones who said ' Ex- 
 actly,' but the merchant, who was standing 
 by her; and he said it, not in that inde- 
 finite tone of polite assent with which 
 people commonly smile answers to each 
 other's remarks at evening parties, but as 
 if he understood the words from having 
 thought the thought. We three fell into 
 conversation about the song about ' Clari ' 
 about the opera the theatre about 
 London ; and then Dr. Brown, who had 
 been educated in the great city, joined us, 
 and finally he and Miss Jones took the 
 London subject to themselves, and the 
 merchant continued to talk to me. He 
 was very pleasant company, chiefly from 
 being so alive with intelligence that it was 
 much less trouble to talk with him than 
 with any one I had ever met, except my 
 father. He* required so mupfr less than 
 the average amount of explanation. It 
 hardly seemed possible to use too few 
 words for him to seize your meaning by 
 both ends, so to speak ; the root your idea 
 sprang from, and the conclusion to which 
 it tended. 
 
 " We talked of music of singing of 
 the new song, and of the subject of it 
 home. And so of home-love, and patriot- 
 ism, and the characters of nations in which 
 the feeling seemed to predominate. 
 
 " ' Like everything else, it depends partly 
 on circumstances, I suppose,' he said. ' I 
 sometimes envy people who have only one 
 home the eldest son of a landed pro- 
 prietor, for instance. I fancy I have as 
 much home-love in me as most people, 
 but it has been divided ; I have had more 
 homes than one.' 
 
 " '/have had more homes than one,' I 
 said ; ' but with me I do not think it has 
 been divided. At least, one of the homes 
 has been so much dearer than the others.' 
 
 " ' Do you not think so because it is 
 the latest, and your feelings about it are 
 freshest ? " he asked. 
 
 " I laughed. ' A bad guess. It is not 
 my present home. This one was near a 
 river.' 
 
 " ' Exactly.' 
 
 " This time the ' exactly ' did not seem 
 so appropriate as before, and I explained 
 further. 
 
 " ' For one thing we were there when I 
 was at an age when attachment to a place 
 gets most deeply rooted, I think. As a 
 mere child one enjoys and suffers like a 
 kitten from hour to hour. But when one 
 is just old enough to form associations and 
 weave dreams, and yet is still a child it 
 is then, I fancy, that a home gets almost 
 bound up with one's life.' 
 
 " He simply said ' Yes,' and I went on. 
 Why, I can hardly tell, except that to talk 
 on any subject beyond mere current chit- 
 chat, and be understood, was a luxury we 
 did not often taite at the tea-parties of the 
 town. 
 
 " ' And yet I don't know if my theory 
 will hold good, even in our case,' I went 
 on, ' for my father was quite as much de- 
 voted to the place as we were, and fell in f 
 love with it quite as early. But the foreign 
 name was the first attraction to him, I 
 think.' 
 
 " ' It was abroad, then ? ' he asked. 
 
 " I explained, and again I can hardly 
 tell why, but I went on talking till I had 
 given him nearly as full a history of Reka 
 Dom as I have given to you. For one 
 thing he seemed amazingly interested in 
 the recital, and drew out many particulars 
 by questions ; and then the song had filled 
 my head with tender memories, and happy 
 little details of old times, and it was always 
 pleasant to prose about the River Home, 
 as indeed, my child, it-is pleasant still. 
 
 " We were laughing over some childish 
 reminiscence, when Miss Martha tapped 

 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 97 
 
 me on the shoulder, and said rather louder 
 than usual 
 
 " ' Dear Mary, there are some engrav- 
 ings here, my love, I should like you to 
 look at.' 
 
 " I felt" rather astonished, for I knew 
 every book and picture in the house as 
 well as I knew my own, but I followed her 
 to a table, when she added in a fluttering 
 whisper 
 
 " ' You'll excuse my interrupting you, 
 my love, I'm sure ; but it was becoming 
 quite particular.' 
 
 " I blushed redder than the crimson silk 
 binding of the ' Keepsake ' before me. I 
 wished I could honestly have misunder- 
 stood Miss Martha's meaning. But I could 
 not. Had I indeed talked too much and 
 too long to a gentleman and a stranger ? 
 (It startled me to reflect how rapidly we 
 had passed that stage of civil common- 
 place which was the normal condition of 
 my intercourse with the gentlemen of the 
 town.) I was certainly innocent of any 
 intentional "transgression of those bounds 
 of reticence and decorum which are a young 
 lady's best friends, but as to the length of 
 my conversation with the merchant I felt 
 quite uncertain and unspeakably alarmed. 
 '"I was indulging a few hasty and dis- 
 mal reflections when Miss Martha con- 
 tinued 
 
 " ' When I was young, dear Mary, I 
 remember a valuable piece of- advice that 
 was given me by my excellent friend and 
 schoolmistress, Miss Peckham, " If you are 
 only slightly acquainted with a gentleman, 
 talk of indifferent matters. If you wish 
 to be friendly but not conspicuous, talk of 
 his affairs ; but only if you mean to be 
 very intimate, speak of yourself;"' and 
 adding, ' I'm sure you'll forgive me, my 
 love,' Miss Martha fluttered from the 
 table. 
 
 " At the moment I was feeling provoked 
 both with her and with myself, and did not 
 
 feel so sure about the forgiveness as she 
 professed to be; but of one thing I felt 
 perfectly certain. Nothing but sheer ne- 
 cessity should induce me to speak another 
 syllable to the London merchant. 
 
 " Circumstances did not altogether fa- 
 vour my resolution. I scrupulously avoided 
 so much as a look at Mr. Smith, though 
 in some mysterious way I became con- 
 scious that he and my father were having 
 a long tete-a-tete conversation in a corner. 
 I devoted myself exclusively to the rector's 
 wife till supper, and then I carefully 
 chose the opposite side of the table to 
 that to which the merchant seemed to be 
 going. But when I was fairly seated, for 
 some reason he gave up his place to some- 
 one else, and when it was impossible for 
 me to change my seat, he took the one 
 next to it. It was provoking, but I steadily 
 resisted his attempts to talk, and kept my 
 face as much averted as possible. Once 
 or twice he helped me to something on the 
 table, but I barely thanked him, and never 
 lifted my eyes to his face. I could not, 
 however, avoid seeing the hand that helped 
 me, and idly noticing a ring that I had 
 remarked before, when he was playing. 
 It was a fine blue stone, a lapis lazuli, 
 curiously and artistically set. ' Rich mer- 
 chants can afford such baubles ! ' I thought. 
 It was very tasteful, however, and did not 
 look like English work. There was some- 
 thing engraven upon it, which did not look 
 like English either. Was it Greek? I 
 glanced at it with some curiosity, for it 
 reminded me of but that was nonsense, 
 a fancy that came because the subject was 
 in my mind. At this moment the hand 
 and ring were moved close to me and I 
 looked again. 
 
 "It was not a fancy. There was no 
 mistaking the inscription this time. I had 
 learnt it too thoroughly written it too 
 often loved it too well it was Reka 
 Dom. 
 
 G
 
 9 8 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 " For a moment I sat in blind astonish- 
 ment. Then the truth suddenly flashed 
 upon me. The merchant's name was the 
 name of our predecessors at Reka Dom. 
 True, it was such a common one that I 
 had met more than one family of Smiths 
 since then without dreaming of any con- 
 nection between them and the River 
 House. And yet of course it was there 
 that the Misses Brooke had known him. 
 Before our time. Which could he be? 
 He was too young to be the father, and 
 there was no John among the little Rus- 
 siansunless yes, it was the English ver- 
 sion of one of the Russian names and 
 this was Ivan. 
 
 " It crowned my misfortunes. What 
 would Miss Martha say if she knew what 
 had been the subject of our conversation ? 
 Would that that excellent rule which had 
 been the guide of her young ladyhood had 
 curtailed the conversational propensities 
 of mine ! I thought of the three degrees 
 of intimacy with a shudder. Why had we 
 not been satisfied with discussing the 
 merits of the song ? 
 
 " We had gone on to talk of him and 
 his homes, and, as if that were not enough, 
 had proceeded further to me and mine. I 
 got red as I sat listening to some civil 
 chat from Mr. Ward the curate (eminently 
 in the most innocent stage of the first 
 degree), and trying to recall what we had 
 not spoken of in connection with that 
 Home which had been so beloved of both 
 of us, and that Ivan whose lilies I had 
 tended for years. 
 
 " I grew nearly frantic as I thought that 
 he must think that I had known who he 
 was, and wildly indignant with the fancy 
 for small mysteries which had kept Miss 
 Brooke from telling us whom we were 
 going to meet. 
 
 " At last the evening came to an end. 
 I was cloaking myself in the hall when the 
 merchant came up and offered his help, 
 
 which I declined. But he did not go, and 
 stood so that I could not help seeing a 
 distressed look in his eyes, and the nervous 
 way in which he was turning the blue ring 
 upon his finger. 
 
 " ' I have so wanted to speak to you 
 again/ he said, ' I wanted to say ' 
 
 "But at this moment I caught Miss 
 Martha's eye in the parlour doorway, and 
 dropping a hasty curtsey, I ran to my 
 father. 
 
 " ' A very nice young fellow,' my father 
 observed, as I took his arm outside : ' a 
 superior, sensible, well-informed gentle- 
 man, such as you don't meet with every 
 day.' 
 
 " I felt quite unequal to answering the 
 remark, and he went on : 
 
 " ' What funny little ways your old 
 friends have, my dear, to be sure. Con- 
 sidering how few strangers come to the 
 place, it would have been natural for them 
 to tell us all about the one they asked us 
 to meet ; and as they had known both him 
 and us, as tenants of Reka Dom, it was 
 doubly natural that they should speak of 
 him to us, and of us to him. But he told 
 me that we were just the people present of 
 whom he had not heard a word. He 
 seems both fond of them and to appre- 
 ciate their little oddities. He told me he 
 remembers, as a boy, that they never 
 would call him Ivan, which is as much his 
 name as any by which a man was ever 
 baptized. They thought it might give him 
 a tendency to affectation to bear so sin- 
 gular a name in England. They always 
 called him John, and keep up the disci- 
 pline still. When he arrived yesterday 
 they expressed themselves highly satisfied 
 with the general improvement in him, and 
 he said he could hardly help laughing as 
 Miss Martha added, 'And you seem to 
 have quite shaken off that little habit of 
 affectation which you'll excuse me, dear 
 John you had as a boy.' He says that,
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 99 
 
 to the best of his belief, his only approach 
 to affectation consisted in his being rather 
 absent and ungainly, and in a strong aver- 
 sion from Mr. Brooke.' 
 
 " ' Did the old gentleman wear that 
 frightful shade in his time?' I asked. 
 
 " ' Not always,' he says, ' but he looked 
 worse without it. He told me a good 
 deal about him that I had never heard. 
 He remembered hearing it spoken of as a 
 boy. It appears that the brother was 
 very wild and extravagant in his youth ; 
 drank, too, I fancy, and gave his poor 
 sisters a world of trouble, after breaking 
 the heart of the widowed mother who had 
 spoiled him. When she died the sisters 
 lived together, and never faltered in their 
 efforts to save him never shut their doors 
 against him when he would return and 
 paid his debts over and over again. He 
 spent all his own fortune, and most of 
 theirs, besides being the means of break- 
 ing off comfortable marriages for both. 
 Mr. Smith thinks that a long illness 
 checked his career, and eventually he re- 
 formed." 
 
 " ' I hope he was grateful to his poor 
 sisters,' I said. 
 
 " ' One naturally thinks that he must 
 have been so, but Smith's remark was very 
 just. He said, "I fancy he was both 
 penitent and grateful as far as he was able, 
 but I believe he had been too long accus- 
 tomed to their unqualified self-sacrifice to 
 feel it very sensitively ! " And I believe 
 he is right. Such men not seldom re- 
 form in conduct if they live long enough, 
 but few eyes that have been blinded by 
 years of selfishness are opened to see 
 clearly in this world.' 
 
 " ' It ought to make one very tender 
 with the good ladies' little weaknesses,' I 
 said, self-reproach fully ; and I walked 
 home in a more peaceful state of mind. 
 I forgave poor Miss Martha, also I was 
 secretly satisfied that my father had found 
 
 the merchant's conversation attractive. It 
 seemed to give me some excuse for my 
 breach of Miss Peckham's golden rule. 
 Moreover, little troubles and offences 
 which seemed mountains at Bellevue Cot- 
 tage were apt to dwindle into very sur- 
 mountable molehills with my larger-minded 
 parents. I was comparatively at ease 
 again. My father had evidently seen no- 
 thing unusual in my conduct, so I hoped 
 that it had not been conspicuous. Pos- 
 sibly I might never meet Mr. Smith any 
 more. I rather hoped not. Life is long, 
 and the world wide, and it is sometimes 
 possible to lose sight of people with whom 
 one has disagreeable associations. And 
 then it was a wholesome lesson for the 
 future. 
 
 " ' And what was the old gentleman 
 like ? ' was Fatima's first question, when I 
 came upstairs. I had just been talking of 
 Mr. Brooke, and no other old gentleman 
 occurred to my memory at that moment. 
 
 " ' What old gentleman ? ' I asked 
 dreamily. 
 
 " ' Miss Martha's old gentleman, the 
 merchant wasn't he there, after all ? ' 
 
 " I blushed at my stupidity, and at a 
 certain feeling of guiltiness in connection 
 with the person alluded to. 
 
 " ' Oh, yes, he was there,' I answered ; 
 ' but he is not an old gentleman.' 
 
 " ' What is he, then ?' Fatima asked 
 curiously. 
 
 " It is undoubtedly a luxury to be the 
 bearer of a piece of startling intelligence, 
 and it is well not to spoil the enjoyment 
 of it by over haste. I finished unsnapping 
 my necklace, and said, very deliberately 
 
 " ' He is one of the little Russians.' 
 
 " Fatima's wit jumped more quickly 
 than mine had done. It was she who 
 added 
 
 " ' Then he is Ivan.' 
 
 " My hopes in reference to Mr. Smith
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 were disappointed. I had not seen the 
 last of him. My mother was at this time 
 from home,, and I was housekeeper in her 
 absence It was on the morning following 
 the Bellevue tea-party that my father said 
 to me 
 
 " ' Mr. Smith is coming up to refer to a 
 book of mine to-day, my dear ; and I asked 
 him to stay to dinner. I suppose it will 
 be convenient ? ' 
 
 " I said, ' Certainly, sir.' 
 
 " I could plead no domestic incon- 
 venience; but I thought that Mr. Smith 
 might have gone quietly back to London 
 by the early coach, and spared me the 
 agitation which the prospect of seeing him 
 again undoubtedly excited. He came, how- 
 ever. It was the first visit, but by no means 
 the last; and he lingered in the town, 
 greatly to my father's satisfaction (who had 
 taken a strong fancy for him), but not, 
 apparently, to that of the Misses Brooke. 
 
 " As I afterwards found the clue to the 
 somewhat strange conduct of our old 
 friends at this time, I may as well briefly 
 state how it was. 
 
 "When the merchant first announced 
 to them his proposed business visit to the 
 town, and his intention of calling on them, 
 the good ladies (in their affection for me, 
 and having a high opinion of him) planned 
 a kindly little romance of which he and I 
 were to be the hero and heroine, and which 
 was to end in our happy marriage. With 
 this view they arranged for our meeting at 
 the tea-party, and avoided all mention of 
 each to the other, that we might meet in 
 the (so to speak) incidental way charac- 
 teristic of real love stories. With that 
 suspiciousness of people in general, and 
 of young people in particular, which 
 haunted Miss Martha, she attributed my 
 ready acceptance of the invitation to my 
 having heard of Mr. Smith's arrival, and 
 to the unusual attraction of an eligible 
 gentleman at the tea-party. Little did she 
 
 guess the benevolent plans which on my 
 part I had formed for her, and which the 
 merchant's youthful appearance had dashed 
 to the ground. 
 
 " It is sometimes the case, my dear Ida, 
 that people who make these kind plans for 
 their friends, become dissatisfied with the 
 success of their arrangements if they them- 
 selves cease to be the good genii of the 
 plot. If, that is, matters seem likely to 
 fall out as they wish, but without their 
 assistance. It was so with the Misses 
 Brooke, and especially with Miss Martha. 
 Fully aware of the end which she in her 
 own mind proposed to our acquaintance, 
 my long conversation with the merchant 
 struck her as an indelicate readiness to 
 accept attentions which had matrimony in 
 her perspective, and which she had de- 
 signed to be the gradual result of sundry 
 well-chaperoned and studiously incidental 
 interviews at the Cottage. And when, so 
 far from thankfully accepting these inci- 
 dental meetings, the merchant took upon 
 himself to become an almost daily visitor 
 at our house, and delayed his return to 
 London far beyond the time proposed for 
 his departure, the good lady's view under- 
 went a decided change. It was ' a pity ' 
 that a young man like John Smith should 
 neglect his business. It was also ' a pity ' 
 that dear Mary's mother was not at home. 
 And when I took occasion casually to 
 allude to the fact that Mr. Smith's visits 
 were paid to my father, and (with the ex- 
 ception of an occasional meal) were passed 
 in the study amongst German pamphlets, 
 my statement was met by kind, incredulous 
 smiles, and supplemented with general and 
 somewhat irritating observations on the 
 proper line of conduct for young ladies at 
 certain crises of life. Nothing could be 
 kinder than Miss Martha's intentions, and 
 her advice might have been a still greater 
 kindness if she would have spoken straight- 
 forwardly, and believed what I said. As
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 it was, I left off going to Bellevue Cottage, 
 and ardently wished that the merchant 
 would go back to his merchandise, and 
 leave our quiet little town to its own dull 
 peace. 
 
 " Sometimes I thought of the full-grown 
 man whose intelligent face, and the faintly 
 foreign accent of whose voice were now 
 familiar in our home, the busy merchant, 
 the polite and agreeable gentleman. And 
 then I thought of the Ivan I seemed to 
 have known so much better so long ago ! 
 The pale boy wandering by the water 
 reading in the swing dead by that other 
 river buried beneath the lilies. Oh ! 
 why had he lived to come back in this 
 new form to trouble me ? 
 
 " One day he came to my father as 
 usual, and I took the opportunity to call 
 on my old friends. I felt ashamed .of 
 having neglected them, and as I knew 
 that Mr. Smith was at our house, I could 
 not be suspected of having hoped to meet 
 him at theirs. But I called at an unfor- 
 tunate moment. Miss Martha had just 
 made up her mind that in the absence 
 of my mother, and the absentness of 
 my father, it was the duty of old friends 
 like herself to give me a little friendly 
 counsel. As she took a great deal of credit 
 to herself for being 'quite candid, my 
 dear,' and quietly but persistently refused 
 to give me credit for the same virtue, I 
 was too much irritated to appreciate the 
 kindness which led her to undertake the 
 task of interference in so delicate a matter; 
 and found her remarks far from palatable. 
 In the midst of them, the merchant was 
 announced. 
 
 "If I could have looked innocent it 
 would have done me no good. As it was, 
 I believe I looked very guilty. After sitting 
 for a few minutes longer I got up to go, 
 when to my horror the merchant rose also. 
 The old ladies made no effort to detain 
 him, but Miss Martha's face spoke volumes 
 
 as we left the house. Half mad with vexa- 
 tion, I could hardly help asking him why 
 he was stupid enough to come away just 
 at the moment I had chosen for leaving ; 
 but he forestalled the inquiry by a volun- 
 tary explanation. He wished to speak to 
 me. He had something to say. 
 
 " When he had said it, and had asked 
 me to marry him, my cup was full. I re- 
 fused him with a vehemence which must 
 have surprised him, modest as he was, and 
 rushed wildly home. 
 
 " For the next few days I led a life of 
 anything but comfort. First as to Ivan. 
 My impetuous refusal did not satisfy him, 
 and he wrote me a letter over which I shed 
 bitter tears of indescribable feeling. 
 
 "Then as to my father. The whole 
 affair took him by surprise. He was as- 
 tonished, and very much put out, espe- 
 cially as my mother was away. So far 
 from its having been, as with the Misses 
 Brooke, the first thing to occur to him, he 
 repeatedly and emphatically declared that 
 it was the very last thing he should have 
 expected. He could neither imagine what 
 had made the merchant think of propos- 
 ing to me, nor what had made me so 
 ready to refuse him. Then they were in 
 the very middle of a crabbed pamphlet, 
 in which Ivan's superior knowledge of 
 German had been invaluable. It was most 
 inconvenient. 
 
 " ' Why didn't I like poor Ivan?' 
 
 " Ah, my child, did I not like him i 
 
 " ' Then why was I so cross to him ? ' 
 
 " Indeed, Ida, I think the old ladies' 
 
 ' ways ' were chiefly to blame for this. 
 
 Their well-meant but disastrous ways of 
 
 making you feel that you were doing 
 
 wrong, or in the wrong, over matters the 
 
 most straightforward and natural. But I 
 
 was safe under the wing of my mother, 
 
 before I saw Ivan again ; and many as 
 
 were the years he and I were permitted to 
 
 spend together I think I may truthfully
 
 AfRS. OVER THE WAY'S REMEMBRANCES, 
 
 say that I never was cross to him any 
 more. 
 
 " ' What did he say in that letter that 
 made me cry ? ' 
 
 " He asked to be allowed to make him- 
 self better known to me, before I sent him 
 quite away. And this developed an in- 
 genious notion in my father's brain, that 
 no better opportunity could, from every 
 point of view, be found for this, than that 
 I should be allowed to sit with them in the 
 study, whilst he and Ivan went on with the 
 German pamphlet. 
 
 " The next call I paid at Bellevue Cot- 
 tage was to announce my engagement, and 
 I had some doubt of the reception my news 
 might meet with. But I had no kinder or 
 more loving congratulations than those of 
 the two sisters. Small allusion was made 
 to bygones. But when Miss Martha mur- 
 mured in my ear 
 
 " ' You'll forgive my little fussiness and 
 over-anxiety, dear Mary. One would be 
 glad to guard one's young friends from 
 some of the difficulties and disappoint- 
 ments one has known oneself ' I 
 
 thought of the past life of the sisters, and 
 returned her kiss with tenderness. Doubt- 
 less she had feared that the merchant might 
 be trifling with my feelings, and that a thou- 
 sand other ills might happen when the little 
 love affair was no longer under her careful 
 management. But all ending well, was 
 well ; and not even the Bellevue cats were 
 more petted by the old ladies than we two 
 were in our brief and sunny betrothal. 
 
 " Sunny, although for the most part it 
 was winter time. When we would sit by 
 the fireside in the privileged idleness of 
 lovers, sometimes at home, sometimes in 
 the cottage parlour ; and Ivan would tell 
 of the Russian Reka Dom, and of all the 
 winter beauties and pleasures of that other 
 river which was for months a frozen high- 
 way, with gay sleighs flying, jingling over 
 the snow roads, and peasants wrapped in 
 
 sheepskin crossing from the country to 
 market in the town. How dogs and chil- 
 dren rolled together in snow so dry from 
 intense cold that it hardly wet them more 
 than sand. And how the river closed, and 
 when it opened, with all the local traditions 
 connected with these events ; and of the 
 stratagems resorted to to keep Jack Frost 
 out of the houses, and of the stores laid 
 up against the siege of the Winter King. 
 
 " But through the most interesting of his 
 narratives Fatima's hands were never idle. 
 She seemed to have concentrated all her 
 love for me into those beautiful taper fin- 
 gers, which laboured ceaselessly in exqui- 
 site needlework on my wedding clothes. 
 
 " And when the lilies of the valley were 
 next in blossom, Ivan and I were married. 
 
 " The blue-stoned ring was cut down to 
 fit my finger, and was, by my desire, my 
 betrothal ring, and I gave Ivan another 
 instead of it. Inside his was engraven the 
 inscription we had cut upon his tombstone 
 at Reka Dom, 
 
 '"TO IVAN.'" 
 
 It was a long story, and Nurse had been 
 waiting some little time in the old lady's 
 kitchen- when it came to an end. 
 
 " And is Ivan ? " Ida hesitatingly 
 
 began. 
 
 " Dead. Many years since, my child," 
 said the little old lady ; " you need not be 
 afraid to speak of him, my dear. All that 
 is past. We used to hope that we should 
 neither of us long outlive the other, but 
 GOD willed it otherwise. It was very bitter 
 at first, but it is different now. The days 
 and hours that once seemed to widen our 
 separation are now fast bringing us together 
 again." 
 
 "Was he about papa's age when he 
 died?" Ida gently asked. 
 
 " He was older than your father can have 
 been, my love, I think. He was a more 
 than middle-aged man. He died of fever.
 
 ^^fffc ! 
 
 -" this developed an ingenious notion in my father's brain, that no better oppor- 
 tunity could, from every point of view, be found for this, than that I should be 
 allowed to sit with them in the study, whilst he and Ivan went on with the German 
 pamphlet." (P. 102.)
 
 104 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAYS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 It was in London, but in his delirium he 
 fancied that the river was running by the 
 windows, and when I bathed his head he 
 believed that the cooling drops were from 
 the waters of his old home." 
 
 " Didn't he know you ? " Ida asked, with 
 sudden sympathy. 
 
 "He knew the touch of my hands 
 always, my dear. It was my greatest 
 comfort. That, and the short time of 
 perfect reason before he sank to rest. We 
 had been married thirty years, and I had 
 worn my silver wedding-ring with even 
 more pride than the golden one. There 
 have been lilies on the grave of the true 
 Ivan for half that time, and will be, per- 
 haps, for yet a little while, till I also am 
 laid beneath them. 
 
 " So ends the story, my dear," the little 
 old lady added, after a pause. 
 
 " I should like to know what became of 
 the old landlord, please," Ida said. 
 
 " If you will ask an old woman like me 
 the further history of the people she knew 
 in her youth," said Mrs. Overtheway, 
 smiling, "you must expect to hear of 
 deaths. Of course he died many a long 
 year since. We became very intimate 
 with him whilst we were his tenants, and, 
 I believe, cheered the close of his life. 
 He and my father were fast friends, but it 
 was to my mother that he became especially 
 devoted. He said she was an exception 
 to her sex, which from his point of view 
 was a high compliment. He had un- 
 bounded confidence in her judgment, and, 
 under her influence, eventually modified 
 many of his peculiar habits. She persuaded 
 him to allot a very moderate sum to house- 
 keeping expenses, and to indulge in the 
 economical luxury of a trustworthy servant. 
 He consented to take into use a good suit 
 of clothes which he possessed, and in these 
 the old man was wont at last to accom- 
 pany us to church, and to eat his Sunday 
 dinner with us afterwards. I do not think 
 
 he was an illiberal man at heart, but he 
 had been very poor in his youth ( ' So 
 poor, ma'am,' he said one day to my 
 mother, ' that I could not live with honour 
 and decency in the estate of a gentleman. 
 I did not live. I starved and bought 
 books,') and he seemed unable to shake 
 off the pinching necessity of years. A 
 wealthy uncle who had refused to help 
 him whilst he lived, bequeathed all his 
 money to him when he died. But when 
 late in life the nephew became rich, habits 
 of parsimony were a second nature, and 
 seemed to have grown chronic and exagge- 
 rated under the novel anxieties of wealth. 
 He still ' starved and bought books.' 
 During the last years of his life he con- 
 sulted my mother (and, I fancy, other 
 people also) on the merits of various pubh'c 
 charities in the place and elsewhere; so 
 that we were not astonished after his death 
 to learn from his will that he had divided 
 a large part of his fortune amongst chari- 
 table institutions. With the exception of 
 a few trifling legacies to friends, the rest of 
 his money was divided in equal and mode- 
 rate bequests to relatives. He left some 
 valuable books to my father, and the bulk 
 of his library to the city where he was 
 born." 
 
 "Was your mother with him when he 
 died? "Ida asked. 
 
 " She was, my dear. But, sadly enough, 
 only at the very last. We were at the sea- 
 side when he was seized by his last illness, 
 and no one told us, for indeed it is pro- 
 bable that few people knew. At last a 
 letter from the servant announced that he 
 was dying, and had been most anxious to 
 see my mother, and she hastened home. 
 The servant seemed relieved by her arrival, 
 for the old gentleman was not altogether 
 an easy patient to nurse. He laughed at 
 the doctor, she said, and wouldn't touch a 
 drop of his medicine, but otherwise was 
 as patient as a sick gentleman could be,
 
 REKA DOM. 
 
 105 
 
 and sat reading his Bible all the day long. 
 It was on the bed when my mother found 
 him, but his eyes were dimning fast. He 
 held out his hands to my mother, and as 
 she bent over him said something of 
 which she could only catch three words 
 ' the true riches.' He never spoke again." 
 
 " Poor man ! " said Ida : " I think he 
 was very nice. What became of his cat ?' 
 
 " Dead dead dead ! " said the little 
 old lady ; " Ida, my child, I will answer 
 no more questions." 
 
 " One more, please," said Ida ! " where 
 is that dear, dear Fatima ? " 
 
 " No, my child; no ! Nothing more 
 about her. Dear, dear Fatima, indeed ! 
 And yet I will just tell you that she mar- 
 ried, and that her husband (older even 
 than I am, and very deaf) is living still. 
 He and I are very fond of each other, 
 though, having been- a handsome man, he 
 is sensitive about his personal appearance, 
 and will not use a trumpet, which I con- 
 sider weak. But we get on very well. He 
 smells my flowers, and smiles and nods to 
 me, and says something in a voice'so low 
 that I can't hear it ; and I stick a posy in 
 his button-hole, and smile and nod to 
 him, and say something in a voice so loud 
 that he can't hear it ; and so we go on. 
 One day in each year we always spend 
 together, and go to church. The first of 
 November." 
 
 "That is ?" said Ida. 
 
 " The Feast of All Saints, my child." 
 
 "Won't you tell me any more?" Ida 
 asked. 
 
 "No, my dear. Not now, at any rate. 
 Remember I am old, and have outlived 
 almost all of those I loved in my youth. 
 It is right and natural that death should 
 be sad in your eyes, my child, and I will 
 not make a tragedy of the story of Reka 
 Dom." 
 
 "Then your real name," said Ida, as 
 
 she gave the old lady a farewell kiss, 
 
 " is " 
 
 " Mary Smith, my dear," said Mrs. 
 Overtheway. 
 
 Next morning the little old lady went 
 to church as usual, and Ida was at the 
 window when she returned. When the 
 child had seen her old friend into the 
 house she still kept her place, for the post- 
 man was coming down the street, and it 
 was amusing to watch him from door to 
 door, and to see how large a bundle of 
 letters he delivered at each. At Mrs. 
 Overtheway's he delivered one, a big one, 
 and an odd curiosity about this letter 
 took possession of Ida. She wished she 
 knew what it was about, and from whom 
 it came, though, on the face of it, it was 
 not likely she would be much the wiser if 
 she did. She was still at the window 
 when the door of the opposite house was 
 opened, and the little old lady came hur- 
 riedly out. She had only her cap upon 
 her head, and she held an open letter in 
 her hand ; the letter, it was evident. When 
 she reached the little green gate she 
 seemed to recollect herself, and, putting 
 her hand to her head, went back into the 
 house. Ida waited anxiously to see if she 
 would come out again, and presently she 
 appeared, this time in her bonnet, but 
 still with the letter in her hand. She 
 crossed the street, and seemed to be 
 coming to the house. Then the bell rang, 
 and in she came. Ida's curiosity became 
 intense, and was not lessened by the fact 
 that the little old lady did not come to 
 her, but stayed below talking with some 
 one. The old gentleman* had not re- 
 turned, so it must be Nurse. 
 
 At last the conversation came to an end, 
 and Mrs. Overtheway came upstairs. 
 
 She kissed Ida very tenderly, and in- 
 quired after her health ; but though she 
 seemed more affectionate than usual, Ida
 
 io6 
 
 MRS. OVER 'THE WAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 felt persuaded that something was the 
 matter. She drew a chair to the fire, and 
 the old lady sat down, saying 
 
 " May I stay a little with you, my dear ?" 
 
 "Oh, thank you!" said Ida, and put a 
 footstool for the old lady's feet. 
 
 Mrs. Overtheway stroked her head ten- 
 derly for some time in silence, and then 
 said, in a gentle voice 
 
 " I have something to tell you, my dear." 
 
 " Another story ? " Ida asked. " Oh, 
 thank you, if it is another story." 
 
 The old lady was silent, but at last she 
 said, as if to herself 
 
 " Perhaps best so," and added : " Yes, 
 my love, I will tell you a story." 
 
 Ida thanked her warmly, and another 
 pause ensued. 
 
 " I hardly know where to begin, or what 
 to tell you of this story," said the little old 
 lady at last, seeming to falter for the first 
 time in her Scharazad-like powers of nar- 
 ration. 
 
 " Let it be about a Home, please ; if 
 you can," said Ida. 
 
 "A home!" said the old lady, and 
 strangely enough, she seemed more agitated 
 than when she had spoken of Reka Dom 
 " It should have begun with a broken 
 home, but it shall not. It should end 
 with a united home, GOD willing. ,A 
 home ! I must begin with a far-away one, 
 a strange one, on the summit of high cliffs, 
 the home of fearless, powerful creatures, 
 white-winged like angels." 
 
 " It's a fairy tale," said Ida. 
 
 " No, my child, it is true." 
 
 " It sounds like a fairy tale," Ida said. 
 
 " It shall be a tale of that description if 
 you like," said the old lady, after a pause, 
 "but, as I said, the main incidents are 
 true." 
 
 " And the white-winged creatures ?" Ida 
 asked. " Were they fairies?" 
 
 " No, my love ; birds. But if to see 
 
 snowy albatrosses with their huge white 
 wings wheeling in circles about a vessel 
 sailing in mid ocean be anything like what 
 I have read of and heard described, fairy- 
 land could hardly show anything more 
 beautiful and impressive." 
 
 " Do they fly near ships then ? " Ida 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, my child. I remember my hus- 
 band describing them to me as he had 
 once seen them in southern seas. He said 
 that when he saw them, great, white, and 
 majestic, holding no intercourse with any- 
 one on board the ship, and yet spreading 
 their wings above her day and night for 
 hundreds of miles over the ocean, with 
 folded feet, the huge white pinions, except 
 for an occasional flap, outstretched in 
 steady sail, never resting, and seemingly 
 never weary, they looked like guardian 
 angels keeping watch over the crew." 
 
 " I wonder if they are sorry for the ships 
 that go down ?" said Ida, thoughtfully. 
 
 Mrs. Overtheway took her hand. 
 
 " Do you think it unkind in me to talk 
 of ships, my love ?" she asked. 
 
 " No, no, no !" Ida exclaimed, " I don't 
 mind your talking about it. I wish I 
 could talk to the birds that saw Papa's 
 ship go down, if there were any, and ask 
 them how it was, and if he minded it 
 much, and if he remembered me. I used 
 to wish I had been with him, and one 
 night I dreamed about it ; but when the 
 water touched me, I was frightened, and 
 screamed, and woke ; and then I was glad 
 I hadn't been there, for perhaps he wouldn't 
 have loved me so much if he had seen 
 that I wasn't brave." 
 
 The little old lady kissed her tenderly. 
 
 " And now the story, please," said Ida, 
 after a pause. 
 
 And Mrs. Overtheway began the follow- 
 ing story.
 
 KERGUELEN'S LAND.
 
 '' ' Down in the deep, with freight and crew, 
 
 Past any help she lies, 
 And never a bale has come to shore 
 
 Of all thy merchandise.' 
 
 ' For cloth o' gold and comely frieze, : 
 Winstanley said, and sigh'd. 
 For velvet coif, or costly coat, 
 They fathoms deep may bide. 
 
 ' O thou, brave skipper, blithe and kind, 
 
 O mariners bold and true, 
 Sorry at heart, right sorry am I, 
 
 A-thinking of yours and you. ' " 
 
 "WINSTANLEY" (JEAN INGELOW).
 
 KERGUELEN'S LAND. 
 
 FATHER Albatross had been out all 
 day, and was come home to the 
 island which gives its name to this story. 
 He had only taken a short flight, for his 
 wife was hatching an egg, and he kept 
 comparatively near the island where her 
 nest was situated. There was only one 
 egg, but parental affection is not influenced 
 by numbers. There is always love enough 
 for the largest family, and everything that 
 could be desired in an only child, and 
 Mother Albatross was as proud as if she 
 had been a hen sitting on a dozen. 
 
 "The Father Albatross was very con- 
 siderate. Not only did he deny himself 
 those long flights which he and his mate 
 had before so greatly enjoyed, but he 
 generally contrived to bring back from his 
 shorter trips some bits of news for her 
 amusement. Their island home lay far 
 out of the common track of ships, but 
 sometimes he sighted a distant vessel, and 
 he generally found something to tell of 
 birds or fish, whales or waterspouts, ice- 
 bergs or storms. When there was no news 
 he discussed the winds and waves, as we 
 talk of the weather and the crops. 
 
 " Bits of news, like misfortunes, are apt 
 to come together. The very day on which 
 the egg hatched, Father Albatross returned 
 from his morning flight so full of what he 
 had seen, that he hardly paid any atten- 
 tion to his mate's announcement of the 
 addition to his family. 
 
 " ' Could you leave the nest for a quar- 
 ter of an hour, my dear ? ' he asked. 
 
 " ' Certainly not,' said Mother Albatross ; 
 'as I have told you, the egg is hatched at last.' 
 
 " 'These things always happen at the 
 least convenient moments,' said the father 
 bird. ' There's a ship within a mere wing- 
 stretch, untold miles out of her course, 
 and going down. I came away just as 
 she was sinking, that you might have a 
 chance of seeing her. It is a horrible 
 sight.' 
 
 " ' It must be terrible to witness,' she 
 replied, ' and I would give worlds to see it ; 
 but a mother's first duty is the nest, and it 
 is quite impossible for me to move. At 
 the same time I beg that you will return, 
 and see whatever there is to be seen.' 
 
 " ' It is not worth while,' he answered ; 
 ' there was not a moment to lose, and by 
 this time she must be at the bottom with 
 all belonging to her.' 
 
 " ' Could none of them fly away ? ' the 
 Mother Albatross asked. 
 
 " ' No men have wings,' replied her mate, 
 ' nor, for that matter, fins or scales either. 
 They are very curious creatures. The fancy 
 they have for wandering about between sea 
 and sky, when Nature has ' not enabled 
 them to support themselves in either, is 
 truly wonderful. Go where you will over 
 the ocean you meet men, as you meet fish 
 and birds. Then if anything disables these 
 ships that they contrive to go about in, 
 down they go, and as the men can neither 
 float nor fly, they sink to the bottom like 
 so many stones.' 
 
 " ' Were there many on the ship you 
 saw ? ' the mother bird asked. 
 
 " ' More than one likes to see drowned 
 in a batch,' said Father Albatross ; ' and I 
 feel most sorry for the captain. He was a
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWATS REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 fine fellow, with bright eyes and dark curly 
 plumage, and would have been a hand- 
 some creature if he had had wings. He 
 was going about giving orders with despe- 
 rate and vain composure, and wherever he 
 went there went with him a large dog with 
 dark bright curls like his own. I have 
 seen the ship before, and I know the dog. 
 His name is Carlo. He is the captain's 
 property, and the ship's pet. Usually he 
 is very quiet, and sometimes, when it 
 blows, he is ill ; but as a rule he lay on 
 the deck, blinking with the most self- 
 sufficient air you can imagine. However, 
 to-day, from the moment that danger was 
 imminent, he seemed to be aware of it, 
 and to have only one idea on the subject, 
 to keep close to his master. He got in 
 front of him as he moved about, sat down 
 at his feet when he stood still, jumped on 
 him when he shouted his orders, and licked 
 his hands when he seized the ropes. In 
 fact, he was most troublesome. But what 
 can you expect of a creature that requires 
 four legs to go about with, and can't rise 
 above the earth even with these, and 
 doesn't move as many yards in a day as I 
 go miles in an hour ? He can swim, but 
 only for a certain length of time. How- 
 ever, he is probably quiet enough now ; 
 and perhaps some lucky chance has 
 rolled him to his master's feet below the 
 sea.' 
 
 " ' Have men no contrivance for escap- 
 ing on these occasions ? ' the mother bird 
 inquired. 
 
 " ' They have boats, into which they go 
 when the ship will hold them no longer. 
 It is much as if you should put out the 
 little one to fly in a storm, against which 
 your own wings failed.' 
 
 " ' Perhaps the boats are in good order 
 when the ship is not,' said Mother Alba- 
 tross, who had a practical gift. 'Were 
 there boats to this one ? ' 
 
 " ' There were. I saw one lowered, and 
 
 quickly filled with men, eager to snatch 
 this last chance of life.' 
 
 " ' Was the captain in it ? ' she asked. 
 
 " * No. He stayed on the ship and gave 
 orders. The dog stayed with him. Another 
 boat was lowered and filled just as the ship 
 went down.' 
 
 " ' Was the captain in it ? ' 
 
 " ' Again, no. He stayed with the vessel 
 and some others with him. They were 
 just sinking as I came for you. With the 
 last glance I gave I saw the captain stand- 
 ing quite still near the wheel. The dog 
 was sitting on his feet. They were both 
 looking in one direction away over the 
 sea. But why should you distress yourself? 
 It is all over long since. Think of the 
 little one, and let us be thankful that we 
 belong to a superior race. We might have 
 been born without wings, like poor sailors.' 
 
 '"I cannot help grieving for the captain,' 
 said Mother Albatross. ' When you spoke 
 of his bright eyes and handsome plumage 
 I thought of you ; and how should I feel 
 if you were to die ? I wish he had gone 
 in the boats.' 
 
 " ' I doubt if he would have fared better, 
 said the father bird. ' The second boat must 
 have been swamped in the sinking of the 
 ship ; and it is far from probable that the 
 other will get to land.' 
 
 " ' Nevertheless, I hope you will fly in 
 that direction to-morrow,' she said, 'and 
 bring me word whether there are any 
 traces of the catastrophe.' 
 
 "The following morning Father Alba- 
 tross set forth as he was desired. The 
 ship had foundered quite near to the other 
 side of the island, and including a little ex- 
 cursion to see if the first boat were still above 
 water, he expected to be back very shortly. 
 
 " He returned even sooner than the 
 Mother Albatross had hoped, and de- 
 scended to the side of their nest with as 
 much agitation as his majestic form was 
 capable of displaying.
 
 KERGUELEN'S LAND. 
 
 " ' Wonders will never cease ! ' he ex- 
 claimed. ' What do you think are on the 
 island ? ' 
 
 " ' I couldn't guess if I were to try from 
 now till next hatching season,' said his 
 mate ; ' and I beg you will not keep me in 
 suspense. I am not equal to the slightest 
 trial of the nerves. It is quite enough to 
 be a mother.' 
 
 " ' The captain and one or two more 
 men are here,' said the Albatross. " What 
 do you think of that ? You will be able 
 to see him for yourself, and to show the 
 youngster what men are like into the bar- 
 gain. It's very strange how they have 
 escaped ; and that lazy, self-sufficient dog 
 is with them.' 
 
 " I cannot possibly leave our young one 
 at present,' said the Mother Albatross, 'and 
 he certainly cannot get so far. It will be 
 very provoking if the men leave the island 
 before I can see them.' 
 
 " ' There is not much fear of that,' 
 her mate answered. 'A lucky wave has 
 brought them to shore, but it will take a 
 good many lucky waves to bring a ship to 
 carry them home.' 
 
 " Father Albatross was right ; but his 
 mate saw the strangers sooner than she 
 expected. Her nest, though built on the 
 ground, was on the highest point of the 
 island, and to this the shipwrecked men 
 soon made their way ; and there the 
 Mother Albatross had ample chance of 
 seeing the bright eyes of the captain as 
 they scanned the horizon line with keen 
 anxiety. Presently they fell upon the bird 
 herself. 
 
 " ' What splendid creatures they are ! ' 
 he said to his companion ; ' and so grandly 
 fearless. I was never on one of these islands 
 where they breed before. What a pity it 
 is that they cannot understand one ! That 
 fellow there, who is just stretching his noble 
 wings, might take a message and bring us 
 help.' 
 
 " He is a fine creature,' said the Mother 
 Albatross, peeping at the captain from her 
 nest ; ' that is, he would be if he had 
 wings, and could speak properly, instead 
 of making that unmusical jabbering like a 
 monkey.' 
 
 " ' I would give a good deal to one of 
 them for a report of the first boat,' the 
 captain went on. ' Heaven knows I would 
 be content to die here if I could know that 
 it was safe. But I'm afraid I'm afraid ; 
 oh ! dear ! ' 
 
 " And the captain paced up and down, 
 the other consoling him. 
 
 " ' He doesn't seem as tame as one 
 might expect,' said the Mother Alba- 
 tross, ' he's so restless. But possibly he 
 is hungry.' 
 
 "Truly it was a great amusement for 
 the mother bird to watch the strangers 
 from her nest, and to question her mate 
 on their peculiarities. 
 
 "'What is he doing now?' she asked 
 on one occasion, when the captain was 
 reading a paper which he had taken from 
 the note-book in his pocket. 
 
 "'That is a letter,' said the Father 
 Albatross. And from the look of it I 
 gather that, like ourselves, he has got a 
 young one somewhere, wherever his nest 
 may be.' 
 
 " ' How do you gather that ? ' his mate 
 inquired. 
 
 " Because the writing is so large,' 
 answered the Father Albatross. 'It is 
 one of the peculiarities of these creatures 
 that the smaller they are the larger they 
 write. That letter is from a young one ; 
 probably his own.' 
 
 " ' Very remarkable indeed,' said the 
 Mother Albatross. ' And what is he doing 
 nowT 
 
 " ' Now he is writing himself,' said her 
 mate ; ' and if you observe you will see 
 my statement confirmed. See how much 
 smaller he writes ! '
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 " The captain had indeed torn a sheet 
 from his note-book, and was busy scrib- 
 bling upon his knees. Whether the sight 
 of papers was a familiar memory with 
 Carlo, or whether he was merely moved 
 by one of those doggish impulses we so 
 little understand, it is impossible to say ; 
 but when the captain began to write, Carlo 
 began to wag his tail, and he wagged it 
 without pause or weariness till the captain 
 had finished, keeping his nearest eye half 
 open, and fixed upon the paper and the 
 captain's moving hand. Once he sat up 
 on his haunches and put his nose on the 
 letter. 
 
 " ' That is right, old fellow, kiss it,' said 
 the captain. ' I am just telling her about 
 you. Heaven send she may ever read it, 
 poor child ! ' 
 
 " At this Carlo became so frantic, and 
 so persistent in pushing his nose on to the 
 paper, that the captain was fain to pocket 
 his writing materials, and have a game at 
 play with the ' ship's dog,' in which the 
 latter condescendingly joined for a few 
 minutes, and then lay down as before, 
 shutting his eyes with an air which seemed 
 to imply 
 
 " ' I see, poor fellow, you don't under- 
 stand me.' 
 
 " The hardships endured by this small 
 remnant of the ship's company were not 
 very great. They managed to live. The 
 weather was fine, and they did not at first 
 trouble themselves about any permanent 
 shelter. Perhaps, too, in spite of their 
 seaman's knowledge of the position they 
 were in, some dim hope of a ship out of 
 her course as they had been, picking them 
 off, buoyed them up with the fancy that 
 ' it was not worth while.' But no ship ap- 
 peared ; and they built themselves a hut 
 near the albatross's nest, and began to talk 
 of other seasons, and provision for the 
 future. They kept a look-out by turns 
 through the daylight, and by night when 
 
 the moon and stars made the distance 
 visible. Every morning the sun rising 
 above the sea met the captain's keen eyes 
 scanning the horizon, and every evening 
 that closed a day's fruitless watch, the sun 
 going down saw the captain's brown hands 
 clasped together as he said, ' GOD'S will be 
 done !' 
 
 " So days became weeks, and weeks 
 ripened into months, and Carlo became 
 used to his new home, and happy in it, 
 and kept watch over his master, and took 
 his ease as usual. But the men's appear- 
 ance changed, and their clothes began to 
 look shabby. In the first place they were 
 wearing out, and secondly they seemed 
 as we say to be 'getting too large' for 
 them, and to hang loosely and untidily 
 upon their gaunt frames. The captain's 
 eyes looked larger and sadder, and his 
 voice grew hollow at sunset, and threads 
 of white began to show among his dark 
 curls, and increased in number day by 
 day. 
 
 " ' His plumage will be as white as your 
 own very soon,' said the Mother Albatross. 
 ' I suppose it's the climate that does it.' 
 
 " ' He is getting older,' said her mate : 
 'men, like ourselves, get white as they 
 get old.' 
 
 " ' But he has been here so short a 
 time,' said Mother Albatross. 
 
 " ' He is so much the older, however,' 
 said the father bird, and his mate said no 
 more ; for she knew by the tone of his 
 voice when he had got to the end of his 
 available information on any subject, and 
 that .beyond this point he did not like to 
 be pressed. 
 
 " ' It's hard, it's very hard, Captain, and 
 I can't submit as you do,' said one of the 
 men one day. He and the captain were 
 sitting side by side at the look-out, their 
 elbows on their knees, and their chins 
 upon their hands. 
 
 " ' And yet it's harder for me than ibr
 
 '"He doesn't understand you*' said the Mother Albatross, . . . ' Couldn't you 
 take a message to the ship yourself? It is nothing to your magnificent wings, and 
 H is not his fault, poor creature, that he is not formed like you. (P. 114.)
 
 114 
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 you,' said the captain. 'One must die 
 some day. It's not that. And you are a 
 single man, Barker, without ties.' 
 
 " The man stooped down, . and taking 
 one of Carlo's long ears in his hand, played 
 absently with it, as he said 
 
 " ' No, sir. I am not married, it's true, 
 and have no children. I feel for you, sir, 
 from my heart. But, in a little house just 
 out of Plymouth, that, GOD above knows, 
 I can see this moment as clearly as I see 
 you, there's a girl that has either forgotten 
 me, or is breaking as good a heart as ever 
 beat in woman's breast for the man that 
 should have been her husband, and that's 
 fast bound here upon a rock with sea- 
 birds. The Lord knows best, Captain, 
 but it comes hard. We all have our 
 troubles, sir.' 
 
 "The captain laid his hand upon his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " ' Forgive me,' he said. ' GOD comfort 
 you ! GOD bless you ! ' And, rising hur- 
 riedly, he went forward, the big tears 
 breaking over his cheeks, and sea and sky 
 dancing together before his eyes. 
 
 " ' What do you dream of at night, 
 Barker ? ' said the captain, on another day. 
 
 " ' Home, sir,' said Barker. 
 
 " ' Strange ! ' said the captain. ' So do 
 I. In all the time we have been here, I 
 have never once dreamed of this island, or 
 of our day's .work, nor even of seeing a sail. 
 I dream of England night after night.' 
 
 " ' It's the same with myself, sir,' said 
 Barker. ' I'm in Plymouth half my time, 
 I may say. And off and on I dream of 
 my father's old home in Surrey.' 
 
 " ' Are the men going to change their 
 feathers, do you think?' the Mother Alba- 
 tross inquired of her mate. ' They have 
 a most wretched appearance. Only the 
 dog looks like himself.' (The first excite- 
 ment of pity and curiosity had subsided, 
 and the good couple were now naturally 
 inclined to be critical.) 
 
 " ' I detest that dog,' said Father Alba- 
 tross. ' His idleness and arrogance make 
 me quite sick. I think I want exercise, 
 too, and I mean to have a good flight to- 
 day ;' and, spreading his broad wings, the 
 bird sailed away. 
 
 " His excursion did not quite dispel his 
 irritability. When he returned, he settled 
 down by the captain, who was sitting list- 
 lessly, as usual, with Carlo at his feet. 
 
 " ' If you would only exert yourself,' 
 began Father Albatross, ' something might 
 come of it. You are getting as bad as the 
 dog. Spread out those arms of yours, and 
 see what you can do with them ! If you 
 could only fly a matter of a few miles, you 
 would see a sail and that's more than we 
 had any reason to expect.' 
 
 " ' What can be the matter with the 
 birds to-day?' said the captain, who was 
 in rather an irritable mood himself. ' They 
 are silent enough generally' for the voice 
 of the albatross is rarely heard at sea. 
 
 " ' Move your arms, I tell you ! ' croaked 
 the albatross. ' Up and down so ! and 
 follow me.' 
 
 " ' I shall have the dog going at them 
 next,' muttered the captain. ' Come along, 
 Carlo.' And turning his back on Father 
 Albatross, he moved away. 
 
 " ' He doesn't understand you,' said the 
 Mother Albatross, who endeavoured, as is 
 proper, to soothe her mate's irritability, and 
 make peace. ' Couldn't you take a mes- 
 sage to the ship yourself? It is nothing 
 to your magnificent wings, and it is not 
 his fault, poor creature, that he is not 
 formed like you.' 
 
 " ' You speak very sensibly, my dear,' 
 said Father Albatross ; and once more he 
 took flight over the sea. 
 
 " But he returned in even worse mood 
 than before. 
 
 " ' Nothing can ; equal the stupidity of 
 human beings,' he observed. ' I addressed 
 myself to the captain. "There's an island
 
 KERGUELEN'S LAND. 
 
 with shipwrecked men on it a few miles to 
 the north-east," said I. "We shall see 
 land in about ten days, ma'am," says the 
 captain to a lady on deck. "There's as 
 big a fool as yourself wrecked on an island 
 north-east by north," I cried. " If you 
 had the skill of a sparrow you could see it 
 with your own eyes in five minutes." 
 " It's very remarkable," said the captain, 
 " I never heard one of those albatross 
 make a sound before." " And never will 
 again," said I ; " it's a waste of time to 
 talk to yqw. It won't take long to put you 
 and yours under water like the rest." And 
 away I came.' 
 
 " ' I don't understand the cry of human 
 beings myself,' said his mate, ' and I'm 
 rather glad I do not ; it would only irritate 
 me. Perhaps he did not understand you.' 
 
 " ' They are all stupid alike,' said the 
 father bird ; ' but I have done my best, 
 and shall not disturb myself any more.' 
 
 "The captain watched till sunset, and 
 folded his hands, and bent his head as 
 usual, and at last lay down to sleep. He 
 dreamt of England, and of home of a 
 home that had been his long since, of a 
 young wife, dead years ago. He dreamt 
 that he lay, at early morning, in a sunny 
 room in a little cottage where they had 
 lived, and where, in summer, the morning 
 sim awoke them not much later than the 
 birds. He dreamt that his wife was by 
 him, and that she thought that he was 
 asleep, and that, so thinking, she put her 
 arms round his neck to awaken him that 
 he lay still, and pretended to be slumber- 
 ing on, and that, so lying, he saw her face 
 bright with an unearthly beauty, and her 
 eyes fixed on him with such intensity of 
 expression that they held him like a spell. 
 Then he felt her warm face come near 'to 
 his, and she kissed his cheeks, and he 
 heard her say, 'Wake up, my darling, I 
 have something to show you.' Again she 
 repeated vehemently, ' Awake ! Awake ! 
 
 r Look! Look!' and then he opened his 
 'eyes. 
 
 " He was lying at the look-out, and 
 Carlo was licking his face. It was a dream, 
 and yet the voice was strong and clear in 
 his ears, ' Awake ! Awake ! Look ! Look ! ' 
 
 "A heavier hand than his wife's was op 
 his shoulder, and Barker's rough voice 
 (hoarser than usual), repeated the words 
 of his dream. 
 
 "The captain's eyes followed the out- 
 stretched fingers to the horizon ; and then 
 his own voice grew hoarse, as he ex- 
 claimed 
 
 " ' My GOD ! it is a sail ! ' 
 
 Ida was not leaning on the little old 
 lady's footstool now. She sat upright, her 
 pale face whiter than its wont. 
 
 "Did the ship take them away?" she 
 asked eagerly. 
 
 "Yes, my dear. Their signals were 
 seen, and the ship took them home to 
 their friends who had believed them to be 
 dead." 
 
 " Do people who have been drowned 
 I mean who have been thought to be 
 drowned ever come home really ? " the 
 child asked. 
 
 " Yes, really. Ida, my dear, I want you 
 to remember that, as regards the captain 
 and the crew, this is a true story." 
 
 Ida clasped her hands passionately to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Overtheway ! Do you think 
 papa will ever come home ? " 
 
 " My child ! my dear child ! " sobbed 
 the little old lady. " I think he will." .... 
 
 " And he is alive he is coming home !" 
 Ida cried, as she recounted Mrs. Overthe- 
 way's story to Nurse, who knew the prin- 
 cipal fact of it already. " And she told it 
 to me in this way not to frighten me. I 
 did cry and laugh though, and was very 
 silly ; but she said I must not be foolish,
 
 MRS. OVERTHEWAY'S REMEMBRANCES. 
 
 but brave like a captain's daughter, and 
 that I ought to thank GOD for being so good 
 to me, when the children of the other poor 
 men who died will never have their fathers 
 back in this world : and I am thankful, so 
 thankful ! Only it is like a mill going in 
 my head, and I cannot help crying. And 
 papa wrote me a long letter when he was 
 on the island, and he sent it to Mrs. Over- 
 theway because Uncle Garbett told him 
 that I was fond of her, and that she would 
 tell me nicely, and she was to read it, and 
 to give it to me when she had told me. 
 And it is such a lovely letter, with all 
 about the island, and poor Barker, and 
 dear old Carlo, and about the beautiful 
 birds too, only Mrs. Overtheway made up 
 a great deal of that herself. And please, 
 Nursey, take off my black frock and never 
 let me see it again, for the captain is really 
 coming home, and oh ! how I wish he 
 would come ! " 
 
 The poor child was terribly excited, 
 but her habits of obedience stood her in 
 good stead, for though she was vehemently 
 certain that she could not possibly go to 
 sleep, in compliance with Nurse's wishes, 
 she went to bed, and there at last slept 
 heavily and long ; so that when she awoke 
 there was only just time to dress and be 
 ready to meet her father. She was putting 
 out her treasures for him to look at the 
 carved fans and workboxes, the beads and 
 handkerchiefs and feathers, the new letter 
 and the old one when the Captain came. 
 
 A week after the postman had delivered 
 the letter which contained such wonderful 
 news for Ida, he brought another to Mrs. 
 Overtheway's green gate, addressed in the 
 same handwriting the Captain's. It was 
 not from the Captain, however, but from 
 Ida. 
 
 " MY DEAR, DEAR MRS. OVERTHEWAY, 
 
 "We got here on Saturday night, and 
 
 are so happy. Papa says when will you 
 come and see us? I have got a little 
 room to myself, and I have got a glass 
 case under which I keep all the things 
 that Papa ever sent me, and his letters. 
 I bought it with part of a sovereign Uncle 
 Garbett gave me when I came away. Do 
 you know he was so very kind when I 
 came away. He kissed me, and said, 
 ' GOD bless you, my dear ! You are a 
 good child, a very good child ; ' and you 
 know it was very kind of him, for I don't 
 think I ever was good somehow with him. 
 But he was so kind it made me cry, so I 
 couldn't say anything, but I gave him a 
 great many kisses, for I did not want him 
 to know I love Papa the best. Carlo will 
 put his nose on my knee, and I can't help 
 making blots. He came with us in the 
 railway carriage, and ate nearly all my 
 sandwiches. When he and Papa roll on 
 the hearthrug together, I mix their curls 
 up and pretend I can't tell which is which. 
 Only really Papa's have got some grey hairs 
 in them : we know why. I always kiss the 
 white hairs when I find them, and he says 
 he thinks I shall kiss the colour into them 
 again. He is so kind ! I said I didn't 
 like Nurse to wear her black dress noui, 
 and she said it was the best one she had, 
 and she must wear it in the afternoon ; so 
 Papa said he would get us all some bright 
 things, for he says English people dress in 
 mud-colour, while people who live in much 
 sunnier, brighter countries wear gay clothes. 
 So we went into a shop this morning, and 
 I asked him to get my things all blue, be- 
 cause it is his favourite colour. But he 
 said he should choose Nurse's things him- 
 self. So he asked for a very smart dress, 
 and the man asked what kind ; and I said 
 it was for a nurse, so he brought out a lot 
 of prints, and at last Papa chose one with 
 a yellow ground and carnations on it. He 
 wanted very much to have got another one 
 with very big flowers, but the man said it
 
 KERGUELEN'S LAND. 
 
 117 
 
 was meant for curtains, not for dresses, so 
 I persuaded him not to get it j but he says 
 now he wishes he had, as it was much the 
 best. Then he got a red shawl, and a 
 bonnet ribbon of a kind of green tartan. 
 Nurse was very much pleased, but she said 
 they were too smart by half. But papa 
 told her it was because she knew no better, 
 and had never seen the parrots in the East 
 Indian Islands. Yesterday we all went to 
 church. Carlo came too, and when we 
 got to the porch, Papa put up his hand, 
 and said, ' Prayers, sir ! ' and Carlo lay 
 down and stayed there till we came out. 
 Papa says that he used to do so when he 
 was going to say prayers on board ship, 
 and that Carlo always lay quietly on deck 
 till the service was over. Before we went 
 to church Papa gave me a little parcel 
 sealed up, to put in the plate. I asked him 
 what it was, and he said it was a thank- 
 offering. Before one of the prayers the 
 clergyman said something. I don't quite 
 remember the words, but it began, ' A 
 sailor desires to thank GOD ' and oh ! I 
 knew who it was, and I squeezed his hand 
 very tight, and I tried to pray every word 
 of that prayer, only once I began to think 
 of the island but I did try ! And indeed 
 I do try to be very, very thankful, for I am 
 so very happy ! Papa got a letter from 
 Barker this morning, and we are going out 
 to choose him a wedding present. He 
 sent a photograph of the girl he is going 
 to marry, and I was rather disappointed, 
 for I thought she would be very lovely, 
 only, perhaps, rather sad-looking ; but she 
 doesn't look very pretty, and is sitting in 
 rather a vulgar dress, with a photograph 
 book in her hand. Her dress is tartan, 
 and queer-looking about the waist, you 
 know, like Nurse's, and it is coloured in 
 the picture, and her brooch is gilt. Papa 
 laughs, and says Barker likes colour, as he 
 does ; and he says he thinks she has a nice 
 face, and he knows she is very good, and 
 
 very fond of Barker, and that Barker thinks 
 her beautiful. He didn't write before he 
 went to see her, like Papa. He just walked 
 up to the house, and found her sitting at 
 the window with his photograph in her 
 hand. She said she had been so restless 
 all day, she could do nothing but sit and 
 look at it. Wasn't it funny? She had 
 been very ill with thinking he was dead, 
 and Barker says she nearly died of the joy 
 of seeing him again. Papa sends you his 
 love, and I send lots and lots of mine, and 
 millions of kisses. And please, please come 
 and see us if you can, for I miss you every 
 morning, and I do love you, and am always 
 your grateful and affectionate 
 
 " IDA." 
 
 " P.S. I am telling Papa all your stories 
 by bits. And do you know he went to 
 sleep whilst I was telling him Mrs. Moss !" 
 
 Chim ! chime ! chim ! chime ! chim ! 
 chime ! 
 
 The story is ended, but the bells still 
 call to Morning Prayer, and life goes on. 
 The little -old lady comes through the 
 green gate, and looks over the way, but 
 there is no face at that window now : 
 something in it made her start for an in- 
 stant, but it is .only a looking-glass, for the 
 smart toilette-table has been brought back 
 to the window where Ida used to kneel, 
 and the nursery is a spare bedroom once 
 more. That episode in this dull house in 
 the quiet street is over and gone by. The 
 old lady thinks so rather sadly as she goes 
 where the bells are calling. The pale, 
 eager, loving little face that turned to her 
 in its loneliness, now brightens a happy 
 home ; but the remembrance of it is with 
 the little old lady still, pleasant as the re- 
 membrance of flowers when winter has 
 come. Yes, truly, not the least pleasant 
 of Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances.
 
 CHISWICK PRESS I C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO., TOOKS COURT, 
 CHANCERY LANK. 
 
 J
 
 1 Well, I suppose I am, sir,' said the bee-master, and in he came." P.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD: 
 
 A BOOK FOR BOYS. 
 
 BY JULIANA HORATIA EWING, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'MEI.CHIOR'S DREAM, AND OTHER TALES," "JAN OF THE WINDMILL,' 
 "JACKANAPES," ETC. 
 
 WITH SEVEN ILLUSTRATIONS BY W. L. JONES. 
 
 NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON : 
 GEORGE BELL AND SONS, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
 
 Brttcatrt 
 
 TO MY TWELVE NEPHEWS, 
 WILLIAM, FRANCIS, STEPHEN, PHILIP, LEONARD, 
 
 GODFREY, AND DAVID SMITH; 
 
 REGINALD, NICHOLAS, AND IVOR GATTY; 
 
 ALEXANDER, AND CHARLES SCOTT GATTY. 
 
 J. H. E.
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 'WELL, I SUPPOSE I AM, SIR,' SAID THE BEE-MASTER" .... Frontispiece 
 
 ' THERE WERE TWELVE NICE LITTLE BLACK BALLS IN MY HAND " 10 
 
 ; FOR NEARLY A MILE WE RAN AS HARD AS WE COULD GO " 40 
 
 1 1 RODE IN AND OUT OF THE TOWN EVERY DAY ON ROB ROY " . . 49 
 
 1 1 WAS WAKENED BY A TOUCH ON MY HEAD " 59 
 
 1 WITHOUT MORE ADO HE LET FLY THE WATER "........ 69 
 
 JUMP ON THE BULWARKS, AND THEN FOLLOW ME" 81
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 "All these common features of English landscape evince 
 a calm and settled security, and hereditary transmission of 
 home-bred virtues and local attachments, that speak deeply 
 and touchingly for the moral character of the nation." 
 
 Washington Irving s Sketch Book. 
 
 IT was a great saying of my poor mother's, es- 
 pecially if my father had been out of spirits 
 about the crops, or the rise in wages, or our pro- 
 spects, and had thought better of it again, and 
 showed her the bright side of things, "Well, my 
 dear, I'm sure we've much to be thankful for." 
 
 Which they had, and especially, I often think, 
 for the fact that I was not the eldest son. I gave 
 them more trouble than I can think of with a com- 
 fortable conscience as it was ; but they had Jem to 
 tread in my father's shoes, and he was a good son 
 to them GOD bless him for it ! 
 
 I can remember hearing my father say "It's 
 bad enough to have Jack with his nose in a book, 
 and his head in the clouds, on a fine June day, 
 with the hay all out, and the glass falling : but if 
 Jem had been a lad of whims and fancies, I think 
 it would have broken my poor old heart." 
 
 I often wonder what made me bother my head 
 with books, and where the perverse spirit came 
 from that possessed me, and tore me, and drove 
 me forth into the world. It did not come from my 
 parents. My mother's family were far from being 
 literary or even enterprising, and my father's 
 people were a race of small yeomen squires, whose 
 talk was of dogs and horses and cattle and the 
 price of hay. We were north-of-England people, 
 but not of a commercial or adventurous class, 
 though we were within easy reach of some of the 
 great manufacturing centres. Quiet country folk 
 we were ; old-fashioned, and boastful of our old- 
 fashionedness, albeit it meant little more than that 
 our manners and customs were a generation behind- 
 hand of the more cultivated folk, who live nearer 
 to London. We were proud of our name too, 
 which is written in the earliest registers and re- 
 
 cords of the parish, honourably connected with the 
 land we lived on ; but which may be searched 
 for in vain in the lists of great or even learned 
 Englishmen. 
 
 It never troubled dear old Jem that there had 
 not been a man of mark among all the men who 
 had handed on our name from generation to gene- 
 ration. He had no feverish ambitions, and as to 
 books, I doubt if he ever opened a volume, if he 
 could avoid it, after he wore out three horn-books 
 and our mother's patience in learning his letters 
 not even the mottle-backed prayer-books which 
 were handed round for family prayers, and out of 
 which we said the psalms for the day, verse about 
 with my father. I generally found the place, and 
 Jem put his arm over my shoulder and read with, 
 me. 
 
 He was a yeoman born. I can just remember 
 when I was not three years old and he was barely 
 four the fright our mother got from his fearless 
 familiarity with the beasts about the homestead. 
 He and 1 were playing on the grass plat before the 
 house when Dolly, an ill-tempered dun cow we 
 knew well by sight and name, got into the garden 
 and drew near us. As I sat on the grass my 
 head at no higher level than the buttercups in the 
 field beyond Dolly loomed so large above me 
 that I felt frightened and began to cry. But Jem, 
 only conscious that she had no business there, 
 picked up a stick nearly as big as himself, and 
 trotted indignantly to drive her out. Our mother 
 caught sight of him from an upper window, and 
 knowing that the temper of the cow was not to be 
 trusted, she called wildly to Jem, "Come in, dear, 
 quick ! Come in ! Dolly's loose ! " 
 
 "I drive her out !" was Master Jem's reply: 
 and with his little straw hat well on the back of 
 his head, he waddled bravely up to the cow, 
 flourishing his stick. The process interested me, 
 and I dried my tears and encouraged my brother ; 
 but Dolly looked sourly at him, and began to 
 lower her horns.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 " Shoo! shoo !'' shouted Jem, waving his arms 
 in farming-man fashion, and belabouring Dolly's 
 neck with the stick. " Shoo ! shoo ! " 
 
 Dolly planted her forefeet, and dipped her head 
 for a push, but catching another small whack on 
 her face, and more authoritative ' ' Shoos ! " she 
 changed her mind, and swinging heavily round, 
 trotted off towards the field, followed by Jem, 
 waving, shouting, and victorious. My mother got 
 out in time to help him to fasten the gate, which 
 he was much too small to do by himself, though, 
 with true squirely instincts, he was trying to secure 
 it. 
 
 But from our earliest days we both lived on in- 
 timate terms with all the live stock. "Laddie," 
 an old black cart-horse, was one of our chief 
 friends. Jem and I used to sit, one behind the 
 other, on his broad back, when our little legs could 
 barely straddle across, and to "grip" with our 
 knees in orthodox fashion was a matter of prin- 
 ciple, but impossible in practice. Laddie's pace 
 was always discreet, however, and I do not think 
 we should have found a saddle any improvement, 
 even as to safety, upon his warm, satin-smooth 
 back. We steered him more by shouts and smacks 
 than by the one short end of a dirty rope which 
 was our apology for reins ; that is, if we had any 
 hand in guiding his course. I am now disposed 
 to think that Laddie guided himself. 
 
 But our beast friends were many. The yellow 
 yard-dog always slobbered joyfully at our ap- 
 proach ; partly moved, I fancy, by love for us, 
 and partly by the exciting hope of being let off 
 his chain. When we went into the farmyard the 
 fowls came running to our feet for corn, the 
 pigeons fluttered down over our heads for peas, 
 and the pigs humped themselves against the wall 
 of the stye as tightly as they could lean, in hopes 
 of having their backs scratched. The long sweet 
 faces of the plough horses, as they turned in the 
 furrows, were as familiar to us as the faces of any 
 other labourers in our father's fields, and we got 
 fond of the lambs and ducks and chickens, and 
 got used to their being killed and eaten when our 
 acquaintance reached a certain date, like other 
 farm-bred folk, which is one amongst the many 
 proofs of the adaptability of human nature. 
 
 So far so good, on my part as well as Jem's. 
 That I should like the animals " on the place " 
 the domesticated animals, the workable animals, 
 the eatable animals this was right and natural, 
 and befitting my father's son. But my far greater 
 fancy for wild, queer, useless, mischievous, and 
 even disgusting creatures often got me into trouble. 
 Want of sympathy became absolute annoyance as 
 I grew older, and wandered farther, and adopted 
 a perfect menagerie, of odd beasts in whom my 
 
 friends could see no good qualities : such as the 
 snake I kept warm in my trousers-pocket ; the 
 stickleback that I am convinced I tamed in his 
 own waters ; the toad for whom I built a red 
 house of broken drainpipes at the back of the 
 strawberry bed, where I used to go and tickle his 
 head on the sly ; and the long-whiskered rat in the 
 barn, who knew me well, and whose death nearly 
 broke my heart, though I had seen generations of 
 unoffending ducklings pass to the kitchen without 
 a tear. 
 
 I think it must have been the beasts that made 
 me take to reading : I was so fond of Buffon's 
 "Natural History," of which there was an Eng- 
 lish abridgment on the dining-room bookshelves. 
 
 But my happiest reading days began after the 
 bookseller's agent came round, and teased my 
 father into taking in the "Penny Cyclopaedia ;" 
 and those numbers in which there was a beast, 
 bird, fish, or reptile were the numbers for me ! 
 
 I must, however, confess that if a love for read- 
 ing had been the only way in which I had gone 
 astray from the family habits and traditions, I 
 don't think I should have had much to complain of 
 in the way of blame. 
 
 My father "pish"ed and " pshaw "ed when he 
 caught me "poking over" books, but my dear 
 mother was inclined to regard me as a genius, 
 whose learning might bring renown of a new kind 
 into the family. In a quiet way of her own, as 
 she went gently about household matters, or knitted 
 my father's stockings, she was a great day-dreamer 
 one of the most unselfish kind, however; a 
 builder of air-castles, for those she loved to dwell 
 in ; planned, fitted, and furnished according to the 
 measure of her affections. 
 
 It was perhaps because my father always began 
 by disparaging her suggestions that (by the balanc- 
 ing action of some instinctive sense of justice) he 
 almost always ended by adopting them, whether 
 they were wise or foolish. He came at last to 
 listen very tolerantly when she dilated on my 
 future greatness. 
 
 "And if he isn't quite so good a farmer as Jem, 
 it's not as if he were the eldest, you know, my 
 dear. I'm sure we've much to be thankful for 
 that dear Jem takes after you as he does. But if 
 Jack turns out a genius, which please God we may 
 live to see and be proud of, he'll make plenty of 
 money, and he must live with Jem when we're 
 gone, and let Jem manage it for him, for clever 
 people are never any good at taking care of what 
 they get. And when their families get too big for 
 the old house, love, Jack must build, as he'll be 
 well able to afford to do, and Jem must let him 
 have the land. The Ladycroft would be as good 
 as anywhere, and a pretty name for the house.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 It would be a good thing to have some one at 
 that end of the property too, and then the boys 
 would always be together." 
 
 Poor dear mother ! The kernel of her speech 
 lay in the end of it " The boys would always be 
 together." I am sure in her tender heart she 
 blessed my bookish genius, which was to make 
 wealth as well as fame, and so keep me " about 
 the place," and the home birds for ever in the 
 nest. 
 
 I knew nothing of it then, of course ; but at 
 this time she used to turn my father's footsteps to- 
 wards the Ladycroft every Sunday, between the 
 services, and never wearied of planning my house. 
 
 She was standing one day, her smooth brow 
 knitted in perplexity, before the big pink thorn, 
 and had stood so long absorbed in this brown 
 study, that my father said, with a sly smile 
 
 " Well, love, and where are you now? " 
 
 "In the dairy, my dear," she answered quite 
 gravely. " The window is to the north of course, 
 and I'm afraid the thorn must come down." 
 
 My father laughed heartily. He had some sense 
 of humour, but my mother had none. She was 
 one of the sweetest-tempered women that ever 
 lived, and never dreamed that any one was laugh- 
 ing at her. I have heard my father say she lay 
 awake that night, and when he asked her why she 
 could not sleep he found she was fretting about 
 the pink thorn. 
 
 "It looked so pretty to-day, my dear; and 
 thorns are so bad to move ! " 
 
 My father knew her too well to hope to console 
 her by joking about it. He said gravely : ' ' There's 
 plenty of time yet, love. The boys are only just 
 in trousers ; and we may think of some way to 
 spare it before we come to bricks and mortar." 
 
 "I've thought of it every way, my dear, I'm 
 afraid," said my mother with a sigh. But she had 
 full confidence in my father a trouble shared with 
 him was half cured, and she soon fell asleep. 
 
 She certainly had a vivid imagination, though it 
 never was cultivated to literary ends. Perhaps, 
 after all, I inherited that idle fancy, those unsatis- 
 fied yearnings of my restless heart, from her ! 
 Mental peculiarities are said to come from one's 
 mother. 
 
 It was Jem who inherited her sweet temper. 
 
 Dear old Jem ! He and I were the best of good 
 friends always, and that sweet temper of his had 
 no doubt much to do with it. He was very much 
 led by me, though I was the younger, and what- 
 ever mischief we got into it was always my fault. 
 
 It was I who persuacled him to run away from 
 school, under the, as it proved, insufficient dis- 
 guise of walnut-juice on our faces and hands. It 
 was I who began to dig the hole which was to 
 
 take us through from the kitchen-garden 1o the 
 other side of the world. (Jem helped me to fill it 
 up again, when the gardener made a fuss about 
 our having chosen the asparagus-bed as the point 
 of departure, which we did because the earth was 
 soft there. ) In desert islands or castles, balloons 
 or boats, my hand was first and foremost, and mis- 
 chief or amusement of every kind, by earth, air, or 
 water, was planned for us by me. 
 
 Now and then, however, Jem could crow over me. 
 How he did deride me when I asked our mother 
 the foolish question " Have bees whiskers ?" 
 
 The bee who betrayed me into this folly was a 
 bumble of the utmost beauty. The bars of his 
 coat "burned" as " brightly" as those of the tiger 
 in Wombwell's menagerie, and his fur was softer 
 than my mother's black velvet mantle. I knew, 
 for I had kissed him lightly as he sat on the 
 window-frame. I had seen him brushing first one 
 side and then the other side of his head, with an 
 action so exactly that of my father brushing his 
 whiskers on Sunday morning, that I thought the 
 bee might be trimming his ; not knowing that he 
 was sweeping the flower-dust off his antennae with 
 his legs, and putting it into his waistcoat pocket 
 to make bee bread of. 
 
 It was the liberty I took in kissing, him that 
 made him not sit still any more, and hindered me 
 from examining his cheeks for myself. He began 
 to dance all over the window, humming his own 
 tune, and before he got tired of dancing he found 
 a chink open at the top sash, and sailed away like 
 a spot of plush upon the air. 
 
 I had thus no opportunity of becoming intimate 
 with him, but he was the cause of a more lasting 
 friendship my friendship with Isaac Irvine, the 
 beekeeper. For when I asked that silly question, 
 my mother said, "Not that I ever saw, love;" 
 and my father said, " If he wants to know about 
 bees, he should go to old Isaac. He'll tell him 
 plenty of queer stories about them. " 
 
 The first time I saw the beekeeper was in church, 
 on Catechism Sunday, in circumstances which led 
 to my disgracing myself in a manner that must 
 have been very annoying to my mother, who had 
 taken infinite pains in teaching us. 
 
 The provoking part of it was that I'had not had 
 a fear of breaking down. With poor Jem it was 
 very different. He took twice as much pains as I 
 did, but he could not get things into his head, 
 and even if they did stick there he found it almost 
 harder to say them properly. We began to learn 
 the Catechism when we were three years old, and 
 we went on till long after we were in trousers ; 
 and I ,am sure Jem never got the three words 
 " and an inheritor" tidily off the tip of his tongue 
 within my remembrance. And I have seen both
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 him and my mother crying over them on a hot 
 Sunday afternoon. He was always in a fright 
 when we had to say the Catechism in church, and 
 that day, I remember, he shook so that I could 
 hardly stand straight myself, and Bob Furniss, the 
 blacksmith's son, who stood on the other side of 
 him, whispered quite loud, " Eh ! see thee, how 
 Master Jem dodders ! " for which Jem gave him an 
 eye as black as his father's shop afterwards, for 
 Jem could use his fists if he could not learn by 
 heart. 
 
 But at the time he could not even compose him- 
 self enough to count down the line of boys and 
 calculate what question would come to him. I 
 did, and when he found he had only got the First 
 Commandment, he was more at ease, and though 
 the second, which fell to me, is much longer, I 
 was not in the least afraid of forgetting it, for I 
 could have done the whole of my duty to my 
 neighbour if it had been necessary. 
 
 Jem got through very well, and I could hear my 
 mother blessing him over the top of the pew be- 
 hind our backs ; but just as he finished, no less 
 than three bees, who had been hovering over the 
 heads of the workhouse boys opposite, all settled 
 down together on Isaac Irvine's bare hand. 
 
 At the puhlic catechising, which came once a 
 year, and after the second lesson at evening prayer, 
 the grown-up members of the congregation used 
 to draw near to the end of their pews to see and 
 hear how we acquitted ourselves, and, as it hap- 
 pened on this particular occasion, Master Isaac 
 was standing exactly opposite to me. As he 
 leaned forward, his hands crossed on the pew-top 
 before him, I had been a good deal fascinated by 
 his face, which was a very noble one in its rugged 
 way, with snow-white hair and intense, keenly 
 observing eyes, and when I saw the three bees 
 settle on him without his seeming to notice it, I 
 cried, "They'll sting you! "before I thought of 
 what I was doing ; for I had been severely stung 
 that week myself, and knew what it felt like, and 
 how little good powder-blue does. 
 
 With attending to the bees I had not heard the 
 
 E arson say, "Second Commandment?" and as 
 e was rather deaf he did not hear what I said. 
 But of course he knew it was not long enough for 
 the right answer, and he said, "Speak up, my 
 boy," and Jem tried to start me by whispering, 
 "Thou shall not make to thyself" but the three 
 bees went on sitting on Master Isaac's hand, and 
 though I began the Second Commandment, I 
 could not take my eyes off them, and when Master 
 Isaac saw this he smiled and nodded his white 
 head, and said, " Never you mind me, sir. They 
 won't sting the old beekeeper." This assertion so 
 completely turned my head that every other idea 
 
 went out of it, and after saying "or in the earth 
 
 beneath" three times, and getting no further, the 
 
 f arson called out, " Third Commandment ? " and 
 was passed over "out of respect to the 
 
 family," as I was reminded for a twelvemonth 
 afterwards and Jem pinched my leg to comfort 
 me, and my mother sank down on the seat, and 
 did not take her face out of her pocket-handker- 
 chief till the workhouse boys were saying "the 
 sacraments." 
 
 My mother was our only teacher till Jem was 
 nine and I was eight years old. We had a thin, soft- 
 backed reading book, bound in black cloth, on the 
 cover of which in gold letters was its name " Chick- 
 seed without Chick-weed ; " and in this book she 
 wrote our names, and the date at the end of each 
 lesson we conned fairly through. I had got into 
 Part II., which was " in words of four letters," 
 and had the chapter about the Ship in it, before 
 Jem's name figured at the end of the chapter about 
 the Dog in Part I. 
 
 My mother was veiy glad that this chapter 
 seemed to please Jem, and that he learned to read 
 it quickly, for, good-natured as he was, Jem was 
 too fond of fighting and laying about him : and 
 though it was only "in words of three letters," 
 this brief chapter contained a terrible story, and 
 an excellent moral, which I remember well even 
 now. 
 
 It was called "The Dog." 
 
 " Why <lo you cry? The Dog has bit my leg. 
 Why did he do so? I had my bat and I hit him 
 as he lay on the mat, so he ran at me and bit my 
 leg. Ah, you may not use the bat if you hit the 
 Dog. It is a hot day, and the dog may go mad. 
 One day a Dog bit a boy in the arm, and the boy 
 had his arm cut off, for the Dog was mad. And 
 did the boy die ? Yes, he did die in a day or two. 
 It is not fit to hit a Dog if he lie on the mat and 
 is not a bad Dog. Do not hit a Dog, or a cat, or 
 a boy. " 
 
 Jem not only got through this lesson much 
 better than usual, but he lingered at my mother's 
 knees, to point with his own little stumpy fore- 
 finger to each recurrence of the words "hit a 
 Dog," and read them all by himself. 
 
 "F^'good boy," said Mother, who was much 
 pleased. " And now read this last sentence once 
 more, and very nicely." 
 
 " Do not hit a dog or a cat or a 
 boy," read Jem in a high sing-song, and with a 
 face of blank indifference, and then with a hasty 
 dog's-ear he turned back to the previous page, and 
 spelled out, " I had my bat and I hit him as he 
 lay on the mat" so well, that my mother caught 
 him to her bosom and covered him with kisses. 
 
 " He'll be as good a scholar as Jack yet ! " she
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 exclaimed. "But don't forget, my darling, that 
 my Jem must never ' hit a dog, or a cat, or a boy." 
 Now, love, you may put the book away." 
 
 Jem stuck out his lips and looked down, and 
 hesitated. He seemed almost disposed to go on 
 with his lessons. But he changed his mind, and 
 shutting the book with a bang, he scampered off. 
 As he passed the ottoman near the door, he saw 
 Kitty, our old tortoise-shell puss, lying on it, and 
 (moved perhaps by the occurrence of the word cat 
 in the last sentence of the lesson) he gave her such 
 a whack with the flat side of "Chick-seed" that 
 she bounced up into the air like a sky-rocket, Jem 
 crying out as he did so, "I had my bat, and i hit 
 him as he lay on the mat." 
 
 It was seldom enough that Jem got anything by 
 heart, but he had certainly learned this ; for when 
 an hour later I went to look for him in the garden, 
 I found him panting with the exertion of having 
 laid my nice, thick, fresh green crop of mustard 
 and cress flat with ' the back of the coal-shovel, 
 which he could barely lift, but with which he was 
 still battering my salad-bed, chanting triumphantly 
 at every stroke, " I had my bat, and I hit him as 
 he lay on the mat." He was quite out of breath, 
 and I had not much difficulty in pummelling him 
 as he deserved. 
 
 Which shows how true it is, as my dear mother 
 said, that "you never know what to do for the 
 best in bringing up boys." 
 
 Just about the time that we outgrew " Chick- 
 seed," and that it was allowed on all hands that 
 even for quiet country-folk with no learned notions 
 it was high time we were sent to school, our 
 parents were spared the trouble of looking out for 
 a school for us by the fact that a school came to 
 us instead, and nothing less than an " Academy " 
 was opened within three-quarters of a mile of my 
 father's gate. 
 
 Walnut-tree Farm was an old house that stood 
 some little way from the road in our favourite lane 
 a lane full of wild roses and speedwell, with a 
 tiny footpath of disjointed flags like an old pack- 
 horse track. Grass and milfoil grew thickly be- 
 tween the stones, and the turf stretched half-way 
 over the road from each side, for there was little 
 traffic in the lane, beyond the yearly rumble of 
 the harvesting waggons ; and few foot-passengers, 
 except a labourer now and then, a pair or two of 
 rustic lovers at sundown, a few knots of children 
 in the blackberry season and the cows coming 
 home to milking. 
 
 Jem and I played there a good deal, but then 
 we lived close by. 
 
 We were very fond of the old place and there 
 were two good reasons for the charm it had in our 
 eyes. In the first place, the old man who lived 
 
 alone in it (for it had ceased to be the dwelling- 
 house of a real farm) was an eccentric old miser, 
 the chief object of whose existence seemed to be 
 to thwart any attempt to pry into the daily details 
 of it. What manner of stimulus this was to 
 boyish curiosity needs no explanation, much as it 
 needs excuse. 
 
 In the second place, Walnut-tree Farm was so 
 utterly different from the house which was our 
 home, that everything about it was attractive from 
 mere unaccustomedness. 
 
 Our house had been rebuilt from the foundations 
 by my father. It was square-built and very ugly, 
 but it was in such excellent repair that one could 
 never indulge a more lawless fancy towards any 
 chink or cranny about it than a desire to " point" 
 the same with a bit of mortar. 
 
 Why it was that my ancestor, who built the old 
 house, and who was not a bit better educated or 
 farther-travelled than my father, had built a pretty 
 one, whilst my father built an ugly one, is one of 
 the many things I do not know, and wish I did. 
 
 From the old sketches of it which my grand- 
 father painted on the parlour handscreens, I think 
 it must have been like a larger edition of the farm ; 
 that is, with long mullioned windows, a broad and 
 gracefully proportioned doorway with several 
 shallow steps and quaintly-ornamented lintel ; bits 
 of fine work and ornamentation about the wood- 
 work here and there, put in as if they had been 
 done, not for the look of the thing, but for the 
 love of it, and whitewash over the house-front, 
 and over the apple-trees in the orchard. 
 
 That was what our ancestor's home was like ; 
 and it was the sort of house that became Walnut- 
 tree Academy, where Jem and I went to school. 
 
 (fa 
 loo 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Sable: "Ha, you! A little more upon the dismal 
 nning their countenances) ; this fellow has a good mortal, 
 k, place him near the corpse ; that wamscoat face jnust 
 be o' top of the stairs ; that fellow's almost in a fright (that 
 looks as if he were full of some strange misery) at the end 
 of the hall. So but I'll fix you all myself. Let's have no. 
 laughing now on any provocation." 
 
 The Funeral, STEELE. 
 
 AT one time I really hoped to make the 
 acquaintance of the old miser of Walnut- 
 tree Farm. It was when we saved the life of his 
 cat. 
 
 He was very fond of that cat, I think, and it 
 was, to say the least of it, as eccentric-looking as 
 its master. One eye was yellow and the other was 
 blue, which gave it a strange, uncanny expression,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 and its rust-coloured fur was not common either as 
 to tint or markings. 
 
 How dear old Jem did belabour the boy we 
 found torturing it ! He was much older and 
 bigger than we were, but we were two to one, 
 which we reckoned fair enough, considering his 
 size, and that the cat had to be saved somehow. 
 The poor thing's forepaws were so much hurt that 
 it could not walk, so we carried it to the farm, and 
 I stood on the shallow doorsteps, and under the 
 dial, on which was written 
 
 M Tempera mutantur ! " 
 
 and the old miser came out, and we told him about 
 the cat, and he took it and said we were good 
 boys, and I hoped he would have asked us to go 
 in, but he did not, though we lingered a little ; he 
 only put his hand into his pocket, and very slowly 
 brought out sixpence. 
 
 "No, thank you," said I, rather indignantly. 
 " We don't want anything for saving the poor 
 cat." 
 
 "I am very fond of it," he said apologetically, 
 and putting the sixpence carefully back ; but I 
 believe he alluded to the cat. 
 
 I felt more and more strongly that he ought to 
 invite us into the parlour if there was a parlour 
 and I took advantage of a backward movement 
 on his part to move one shallow step nearer, and 
 said, in an easy conversational tone, "Your cat 
 has very curious eyes. " 
 
 He came out again, and his own eyes glared in 
 the evening light as he touched me with one of 
 his fingers in a way that made me shiver, and said, 
 " If I had been an old woman, and that cat had 
 lived with me in the days when this house was 
 built, I should have been hanged, or burned as a 
 witch. Twelve men would have done it twelve 
 reasonable and respectable men ! " He paused, 
 looking over my head at the sky, and then added, 
 "But in all good conscience mind, in all good 
 conscience ! " 
 
 And after another pause he touched me again 
 (this time my teeth chattered), and whispered 
 loudly in my ear, " Never serve on a jury ! " 
 After which he banged the door in our faces, and 
 Jem caught hold of my jacket and cried; '" Oh ! 
 he's quite mad, he'll murder us ! " and we took 
 each other by the hand and ran home as fast as 
 our feet would carry us. 
 
 We never saw the old miser again, for he died 
 some months afterwards, and, strange to relate, 
 Jem and I were invited to the funeral. 
 
 It was a funeral not to be forgotten. The old 
 man had left the money for it, and a memorandum, 
 with the minutest directions, in the hands of his 
 lawyer. If he had wished to be more popular 
 
 after his death than he had been in his lifetime, 
 he could not have hit upon any better plan to con- 
 ciliate in a lump the approbation of his neighbours 
 than that of providing for what undertakers call 
 "a first-class funeral." The good custom of 
 honouring the departed, and committing their 
 bodies to the earth with care and respect, was 
 carried, in our old-fashioned neighbourhood, to a 
 point at which what began in reverence ended in 
 what was barely decent, and what was meant to 
 be most melancholy became absolutely comical. 
 But a sense of the congruous and the incongruous 
 was not cultivated amongst us, whereas solid value 
 (in size, quantity and expense) was perhaps over- 
 estimated. So our furniture, our festivities, and 
 our funerals bore witness. 
 
 No one had ever seen the old miser's furniture, 
 and he gave no festivities ; but he made up for it 
 in his funeral. 
 
 Children, like other uneducated classes, enjoy 
 domestic details, and going over the ins and outs 
 of other people's affairs behind their backs ; espe- 
 cially when the interest is heightened by a touch of 
 gloom, or perfected by the addition of some per- 
 sonal importance in the matter. Jem and I were 
 always fond of funerals, but this funeral, and the 
 fuss that it made in the parish, we were never 
 likely to forget. 
 
 Even our own household was so demoralised by 
 the grim gossip of the occasion that Jem and I 
 were accused of being unable to amuse ourselves, 
 and of listening to our elders. It was perhaps 
 fortunate for us that a favourite puppy died the 
 day before the funeral, and gave us the oppor- 
 tunity of burying him. 
 
 " As if our whole vocation 
 Were endless imitation " 
 
 Jem and I had already laid our gardens waste, and 
 built a rude wall of broken bricks round them to 
 make a churchyard ; and I can clearly remember 
 that we had so far profited by what we had over- 
 heard among our elders, that I had caught up 
 some phrases which I was rather proud of display- 
 ing, and that I quite overawed Jem by the air 
 with which I spoke of " the melancholy occasion" 
 the " wishes of deceased " and the " feelings 
 of survivors " when we buried the puppy. 
 
 It was understood that I could not attend the 
 puppy's funeral in my proper person, because I 
 wished to be the undertaker ; but the happy 
 thought struck me of putting my wheelbarrow 
 alongside of the brick wall with a note inside it 
 to the effect that I had " sent my carriage as a 
 mark of respect." 
 
 In one point we could not emulate the real 
 funeral ; that was carried out " regardless of ex-
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 pense." The old miser had left a long list of the 
 names of the people who were to be invited to it 
 and to its attendant feast, in which was not only 
 my father's name, but Jem's and mine. Three 
 yards was the correct length of the black silk 
 scarves which it was the custom in the neighbour- 
 hood to send to dead people's friends ; but the old 
 miser's funeral-scarves were a whole yard longer, 
 and of such stiffly ribbed silk that Mr. Soot, the 
 mourning draper, assured my mother that " it 
 would stand of itself." The black gloves cost six 
 shillings a pair, and the sponge-cakes, which used 
 to be sent "with the gloves and scarves, were on 
 this occasion ornamented with weeping willows in 
 white sugar. 
 
 Jem and I enjoyed the cake, but the pride we 
 felt in our scarves and gloves was simply boundless. 
 What pleased us particularly was that our funeral 
 finery was not enclosed with my father's. Mr. 
 Soot's man delivered three separate envelopes at 
 the door, and they looked like letters from some 
 bereaved giant. The envelopes were twenty inches 
 by fourteen, and made of cartridge-paper ; the 
 black border was two inches deep, and the black 
 seals must have consumed a stick of sealing-wax 
 among them. They contained the gloves and the 
 scarves, which were lightly gathered together in 
 the middle with knots of black gauze ribbon. 
 
 How exquisitely absurd Jem and I must have 
 looked with four yards of stiff black silk attached 
 to our little hats I can imagine, if I cannot clearly 
 remember. My dear mother dressed us and saw 
 us off (for, with some curious relic of pre-civilised 
 notions, women were not allowed to appear at 
 funerals), and I do not think she perceived any- 
 thing odd in our appearance. She was very gentle, 
 and approved of everything that was considered 
 right by the people she was used to, and she had 
 only two anxieties about our scarves : first, that 
 they should show the full four yards of respect to 
 the memory of the deceased ; and secondly, that 
 we should keep them out of the dust, so that they 
 might "come in useful afterwards." 
 
 She fretted a little because she had not thought 
 of changing our gloves for smaller sizes (they were 
 eight and a quarter) ; but my father " pish "ed and 
 "pshaw"ed, and said it was better than if they 
 had been too small, and that we should be sure to 
 be late if my mother went on fidgeting. So we 
 pulled them on with ease and picked up the 
 tails of our hatbands with difficulty and fol- 
 lowed my father, our hearts beating with pride, 
 and my mother and the maids watching us from 
 the door. We arrived quite half an hour earlier 
 than we need have done, but the Lane was already 
 crowded with complimentary carriages, and curious 
 bystanders, before whom we held our heads and 
 
 hatbands up ; and the scent of the wild roses was 
 lost for that day in an all-pervading atmosphere of 
 black dye. We were very tired, 1 remember, by 
 the time that our turn came to be put into a car- 
 riage by Mr. Soot, who murmured " Pocket 
 handkerchiefs, gentlemen " and, following the 
 example of a very pale-faced stranger who was 
 with us, we drew out the clean handkerchiefs with 
 which our mother had supplied us, and covered 
 our faces with them. 
 
 At least Jem says he shut his eyes tight, and 
 kept his face covered the whole way, but he always 
 was so conscientious ! I held my handkerchief as 
 well as I could with my gloves ; but I contrived 
 to peep from behind it, and to see the crowd that 
 lined the road to watch us as we wound slowly 
 on. 
 
 If these outsiders, who only saw the procession 
 and the funeral, were moved almost to enthusiasm 
 by the miser's post-mortem liberality, it may be 
 believed that the guests who were bidden to the 
 feast did not fail to obey the ancient precept, and 
 speak well of the dead. The tables (they were 
 rickety) literally groaned under the weight of 
 eatables and drinkables, and the dinner was so 
 prolonged that Jem and I got terribly tired, in 
 spite of the fun of watching the faces of the men 
 we did not know, to see which got the reddest. 
 
 My father wanted us to go home before the 
 reading of the will, which took place in the front 
 parlour; but the lawyer said, " I think the young 
 gentlemen should remain," for which we were very 
 much obliged to him ; though the pale-faced man 
 said quite crossly "Is there any special reason 
 for crowding the room with children, who are not 
 even relatives of the deceased ? " which made us 
 feel so much ashamed that I think we should have 
 slipped out by ourselves ; but the lawyer, who> 
 made no answer, pushed us gently before him to 
 the top of the room, which was soon far too full 
 to get out of by the door. 
 
 it -was very damp and musty. In several places 
 the paper hung in great strips from the walls, and 
 the oddest part of all was that every article of 
 furniture in the room, and even the hearthrug, was 
 covered with sheets of newspaper pinned over to 
 preserve it. I sat in the corner of a sofa, where I 
 could read the trial of a man who murdered some- 
 body twenty-five years before, but I never got to 
 the end of it, for it went on behind a very fat man 
 who sat next to me, and he leaned back all the 
 time and hid it. Jem sat on a little footstool, and 
 fell asleep with his head on my knee, and did not 
 wake till I nudged him, when our names were 
 read out in the will. Even then he only half 
 awoke, and the fat man drove his elbow into me 
 and l->rt me dreadfully for whispering in Jem's ear
 
 8 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 that the old miser had left us ten pounds apiece, 
 for having saved the life of his cat. 
 
 I do not think any of the strangers (they were 
 distant connections of the old man ; he had no 
 near relations) had liked our being there ; and the 
 lawyer, who was very kind, had had to tell them 
 several times over that we really had been invited 
 to the funeral. After our legacies were known 
 about they were so cross that we managed to 
 scramble through the window, and wandered round 
 the garden. As we sat under the trees we could 
 hear high words within, and by-and-by all the men 
 came out and talked in angry groups about the 
 will. For when all was said and done, it appeared 
 that the old miser had not left a penny to any one 
 of the funeral party but Jem and me, and that he 
 had left Walnut-tree Farm to a certain Mrs. Wood/ 
 of whom nobody knew anything. 
 
 ' ' The wording is so peculiar, " the fat man said 
 to the pale-faced man and a third who had come 
 out with them, " ' left to her as a sign of sympathy, 
 if not an act of reparation. ' He must have known 
 whether he owed her any reparation or not, if he 
 were in his senses." 
 
 " Exactly. IF he were in his senses," said the 
 third man. 
 
 "Where's the money? that's what I say," said 
 the pale-faced man. 
 
 " Exactly, sir. That's what / say, too," said 
 the fat man. 
 
 " There are only two fields, besides the house," 
 said the third. ' ' He must have had money, and 
 the lawyer knows of no investments of any kind, 
 he says. " 
 
 " Perhaps he has left it to his cat," he added, 
 looking very nastily at Jem and me. . 
 
 " It's oddly put, too," murmured the pale-faced 
 relation. "The two fields, the house and furni- 
 ture, and eveiything of every sort therein con- 
 tained." And the lawyer coming up at that 
 moment, he went slowly back into the house, 
 looking about him as he went, as if he had lost 
 something. 
 
 As the lawyer approached, the fat man got very 
 red in the face. 
 
 " He was as mad as a hatter, sir, "he said, "and 
 we shall dispute the will." 
 
 " I think you will be wrong," said the lawyer, 
 blandly. " He was eccentric, my dear sir, very 
 eccentric ; but eccentricity is not insanity, and you 
 will find that the will will stand." 
 
 Jem and I were sitting on an old garden-seat, 
 but the men had talked without paying any atten- 
 tion to us. At this moment Jem, who had left me 
 a minute or two before, came running back and 
 said : " Jack ! Do come and look in at the parlour 
 window. That man with the white face is peeping 
 
 everywhere, and under all the newspapers, and 
 he's made himself so dusty ! It's such fun ! " 
 
 Too happy at the prospect of anything in the 
 shape of fun, I followed Jem on tiptoe, and when 
 we stood by the open window with our hands over 
 our mouths to keep us from laughing, the pale- 
 faced man was just straggling with the inside lids 
 of an old japanned tea-caddy. 
 
 He did not see us, he was too busy, and he did 
 not hear us, for he was talking to himself, and we 
 heard him say, ' ' Everything of every sort therein 
 contained." 
 
 I suppose the lawyer was right, and that the fat 
 man was convinced of it, for neither he nor any 
 one else disputed the old miser's will. Jem and I 
 each opened an account in the Savings Bank, and 
 Mrs. Wood came into possession of the place. 
 
 Public opinion went up and down a good deal 
 about the old miser still. When it leaked out that 
 he had worded the invitation to his funeral to the 
 effect that being quite unable to tolerate the follies 
 of his fellow-creatures, and the antics and absurdi- 
 ties which were necessary to entertain them, be 
 had much pleasure in welcoming his neighbours to 
 a feast, at which he could not reasonably be ex- 
 pected to preside everybody who heard it agreed 
 that he must have been mad. 
 
 But it xvas a long sentence to remember, and not 
 a very easy one to understand, and those who saw 
 the plumes and the procession, and those who had 
 a talk with the undertaker, and those who got a 
 yard more than usual of such very good black silk, 
 and those who were able to remember what they 
 had had for dinner, were all charitably inclined to 
 believe that the old man's heart had not been far 
 from being in the right place, at whatever angle 
 his head had been set on. 
 
 And then by degrees curiosity moved to Mrs. 
 Wood. W'ho was she? What was she like? 
 What was she to the miser? Would she live at 
 the farm ? 
 
 To some of these questions the carrier, who was 
 the first to see her, replied. She was "a quiet, 
 genteel-looking sort of a grey-haired widow lady, 
 who looked as if she'd seen a deal of trouble, and 
 was badly off." 
 
 The neighbourhood was not unkindly, and many 
 folk were ready to be civil to the widow if she 
 came to live there. 
 
 "But she never will," everybody said. "She 
 must let it. Perhaps the new doctor might think 
 of it at a low rent, he'd be glad of the field for his 
 horse. What could she do with an old place like 
 that, and not a penny to keep it up with ?" 
 
 What she did do was to have a school there, 
 and that was how Walnut-tree Farm became 
 Walnut-tree Academy.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "What are little boys made of, made of? 
 What are little boys made of? " 
 
 Nursery Rhyme. 
 
 WHEN the school was opened, Jem and I 
 were sent there at once. Everybody said 
 it was "time we were sent somewhere," and that 
 " we were getting too wild for home." 
 
 I got so tired of hearing this at last, that one 
 day I was goaded to reply that "home was getting 
 too tame for me." And Jem, who always backed 
 me up, said, "And me too." For which piece of 
 swagger we forfeited our suppers ; but when we 
 went to bed we found pieces of cake under our 
 pillows, for my mother could not bear us to bp 
 short of food, however badly we behaved. 
 
 I do not know whether the trousers had any- 
 thing to do with it, but about the time that Jem 
 and I were put into trousers we lived in a chronic 
 state of behaving badly. What makes me feel par- 
 ticularly ashamed in thinking of it is, that I know 
 it was not that we came under the pressure of 
 any overwhelming temptations to misbehave and 
 yielded through weakness, but that, according to 
 an expressive nursery formula, we were "seeing 
 how naughty we could be." I think we were 
 genuinely anxious to see this undesirable climax ; 
 in some measure as a matter of experiment, to 
 which all boys are prone, and in which dangerous 
 experiments, and experiments likely to be followed 
 by explosion, are naturally preferred. Partly, too, 
 from an irresistible impulse to " raise a row," and 
 take one's luck of the results. This craving to 
 disturb the calm current of events, and the good 
 conduct and composure of one's neighbours as a 
 matter of diversion, must be incomprehensible by 
 phlegmatic people, who never feel it, whilst some 
 Irishmen, I fancy, never quite conquer it, perhaps 
 because they never quite cease to be boys. In 
 any degree I do not for an instant excuse it, and 
 in excess it must be simply intolerable by better- 
 regulated minds. 
 
 But really, boys who are pickles should be put 
 into jars with sound stoppers, like other pickles, 
 and I wonder that mothers and cooks do not get 
 pots like those that held the forty thieves, and 
 doit. 
 
 I fancy it was because we happened to be in 
 this rough, defiant, mischievous mood, just about 
 the time that Mrs. Wood opened her school, that 
 we did not particularly like our schoolmistress. 
 If I had been fifteen years older, I should soon 
 have got beyond the first impression created by 
 
 her severe dress, close widow's cap and straight 
 grey hair, and have discovered that the outline of 
 her face was absolutely beautiful, and I might 
 possibly have detected, what most people failed to 
 detect, that an odd unpleasing effect, caused by 
 the contrast between her general style, and an 
 occasional lightness and rapidity and grace of 
 movement in her slender figure, came from the 
 fact that she was 'much younger than she looked 
 and affected to be. The impression I did receive 
 of her appearance I communicated to my mother 
 in far from respectful pantomime. 
 
 "Well, love, and what do you think of Mrs. 
 Wood? "said she. 
 
 " I think," chanted I, in that high brassy pitch 
 of voice which Jem and I had adopted for this 
 bravado period of our existence "I think she's 
 like our old white hen that turned up its eyes and 
 died of the pip. Lack-a-daisy-dee ! Lack-a-daisy- 
 dee ! " 
 
 And I twisted my body about, and strolled up 
 and down the room with a supposed travestie of 
 Mrs. Wood's movements. 
 
 "So she is," said faithful Jem. "Lack-a- 
 daisy-dee ! Lack-a-daisy-dee ! " and he wriggled 
 about after me, and knocked over the Berlin wool- 
 basket. 
 
 ' ' Oh dear, oh dear ! " said our poor mother. 
 
 Jem righted the basket, and I took a run and a 
 flying leap over it, and having cleared it success- 
 fully, took another, and yet another, each one 
 soothing my feelings to the extent by which it 
 shocked my mother's. At the third bound, Jem, 
 not to be behindhand, uttered a piercing yell from 
 behind the sofa. 
 
 ' ' Good gracious, what's the matter ? " cried my 
 mother. 
 
 " It's the war-whoop of the Objibeway Indians," 
 I promptly explained, and having emitted another, 
 to which I flattered myself Jem's had been as 
 nothing for hideousness, we departed in file to- 
 raise a row in the kitchen. 
 
 Summer passed into autumn. Jem and I really 
 liked going to school, but it was against our prin- 
 ciples at that time to allow that we liked anything 
 that we ought to like. 
 
 Some sincere but mistaken efforts to improve 
 our principles were made, I remember, by a middle- 
 aged single lady, who had known my mother in 
 her girlhood, and who was visiting her at this 
 unlucky stage of our career. Having failed to 
 cope with us directly, she adopted the plan of 
 talking improvingly to our mother and at us, and 
 very severe some of her remarks were, and I don't 
 believe that Mother liked them any better than we 
 did. 
 
 The severest she ever made were I think
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 "There were twelve nice little black balls in my hand when Jem came back 
 with the pill box." P. n. 
 
 heightened in their severity by the idea that we 
 were paying unusual attention, as we sat on the 
 floor a little behind her one day. We were paying 
 a great deal of attention, but it was not so much 
 to Miss Martin as to a stock of woodlice which I 
 had collected, and which I was arranging on the 
 carpet that Jem might see how they roll them- 
 
 selves into smooth tight balls when you tease 
 them. But at last she talked so that we could not 
 help attending. I dared not say anything to her, 
 but her own tactics were available. I put the 
 woodlice back in my pocket, and stretching my 
 arms yawningly above my head, I said to Jem, 
 " How dull it is ! I wish I were a bandit."
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 Jem generally outdid me if possible, from sheer 
 willingness and loyalty of spirit. 
 
 "/should like to be a burglar," said he. 
 And then we both left the room very quietly and 
 politely. But when we got outside I said, " I 
 hate that woman." 
 
 "So do I," said Jem; "she regularly hectors 
 over mother I hate her worst for that." 
 " So do I. Jem, doesn't she take pills ? " 
 ' ' I don't know why ? " 
 
 "I believe she does; I'm certain I saw a box 
 on her dressing-table. Jem, run like a good chap 
 and see, and if there is one, empty out the pills 
 and bring me the pill-box. " 
 
 Jem obeyed, and I sat down on the stairs and 
 began to get the woodlice out again. There were 
 twelve nice little black balls in my hand when 
 Jem came back with the pill-box. 
 
 "Hooray!" I cried; "but knock out all the 
 powder, it might smother them. Now, give it to 
 me." 
 
 Jem danced with delight when I put the wood- 
 lice in and put on the lid. 
 
 " I hope she'll shake the box before she opens 
 it," I said as we replaced it on the dressing-table. 
 " I hope she will, or they won't be tight. Oh, 
 Jack ! Jack ! How many do you suppose she takes 
 at a time ? " 
 
 We never knew", and what is more, we never 
 knew what became of the woodlice, for, for some 
 reason, she kept our counsel as well as her own 
 about the pill-box. 
 
 One thing that helped to reconcile us to spending 
 a good share of our summer days in Walnut-tree 
 Academy was that the schoolmistress made us very 
 comfortable. Boys at our age are not very sen- 
 sitive about matters of taste and colour and so 
 forth, but even we discovered that Mrs. Wood 
 had that knack of adapting rooms to their inhabit- 
 ants, and making them pleasant to'the eye, which 
 seems to be a trick at the end of some people's 
 fingers, and quite unlearnable by others. When 
 she had made the old miser's rooms to her mind, 
 we might have understood, if we had specula ed 
 about it, how it was that she had not profited by 
 my mother's sound advice to send all his "rubbishy 
 odds and ends " (the irregularity and ricketiness 
 and dustiness of which made my mother shudder) 
 to be "sold at the nearest auction-rooms, and buy 
 some good solid furniture of the cabinet-maker 
 who furnished for everybody in the neighbourhood, 
 which would be the cheapest in the long-run, be- 
 sides making the rooms look like other people's at 
 last." That she evaded similar recommendations 
 of paperhangers and upholsterers, and of wall- 
 papers and carpets, and curtains with patterns that 
 would "stand," and wear best, and show dirt 
 
 least, was a trifle in the eyes of all good house- 
 keepers, when our farming-man's daughter brought 
 the amazing news with her to Sunday tea, that 
 "the missus" had had in old Sally, and had torn 
 the paper off the parlour, and had made Sally 
 ' ' limewash the walls, for all the world as if it was 
 a cellar." Moreover, she had "gone over" the 
 lower part herself, and was now painting on the 
 top of that. There was nothing for it, after this 
 news, but to sigh and conclude that there was 
 something about the old place which made every- 
 body a little queer who came to live in it. 
 
 But when Jem and I saw the parlour (which 
 was now the school-room), we decided that it 
 " looked very nice," and was " uncommonly com- 
 fortable." The change was certainly amazing, 
 and made the funeral day seem longer ago than it 
 really was. The walls were not literally lime- 
 washed ; but (which is the same thing, except for 
 a little glue !) they were distempered, a soft pale 
 pea-green. About a yard deep above the wainscot 
 this was covered with a dark sombre green tint, 
 and along the upper edge of this, as a border all 
 round the room, the schoolmistress had painted a 
 trailing wreath of white periwinkle. The border 
 was painted with the same materials as the walls, 
 and with very rapid touches. The white flowers 
 were skilfully relieved by the dark ground, and 
 the varied tints of the leaves, from the deep ever- 
 green of the old ones to the pale yellow of the 
 young shoots, had demanded no new colours, and 
 were wonderfully life-like and pretty. There was 
 another border, right round the top of the room ; 
 but that was painted on paper and fastened on. It 
 was a Bible text ' ' Keep Innocency, and take 
 heed to the thing that is right, for that shall bring 
 a man Peace at the last." And Mrs. Wood had 
 done the text also. 
 
 There were no curtains to the broad, mullioned 
 window, which was kept wide open at every lat- 
 tice ; and one long shoot of ivy that had pushed in 
 farther than the rest had been seized, and pinned 
 to the wall inside, where its growth was a subject 
 of study and calculation, during the many moments 
 when we were " trying to see how little we could 
 learn of our lessons. The black board stood on a 
 polished easel ; but the low seats and desks were 
 of plain pine like the floor, and they were scrupu- 
 lously scrubbed. The cool tint of the walls was 
 somewhat cheered by coloured maps and prints, 
 and the schoolmistress's chair (an old carved oak 
 one that had been much revived by bees-wax 
 and turpentine since the miser's days) stood on 
 the left-hand side of the window under "Keep 
 Innocency," and looking towards "Peace at the 
 last." I know, for when we were all writing or 
 something of that sort, so that she could sit still,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 she used to sit with her hands folded and look up 
 at it, which was what made Jem and me think of 
 the old white hen that turned up its eyes ; and 
 made Horace Simpson say that he believed she 
 had done one of the letters wrong, and could not 
 help looking at it to see if it showed. And by the 
 schoolmistress's chair was the lame boy's sofa. It 
 was the very old sofa covered, with newspapers on 
 which I had read about the rriurder, when the 
 lawyer was reading the will. But she had taken 
 off the paper, and covered it with turkey red, and 
 red cushions, and a quilt of brown holland and 
 red bordering, to hide his crumpled legs, so that 
 he looked quite comfortable. 
 
 I remember so well the first day that he came. 
 His father was a parson on the moors, and this 
 boy had always wanted to go to school in spite of 
 his infirmity, and at last his father brought him in 
 a light cart down from the moors, to look at it ; 
 and when he got him out of the cart, he carried 
 him in. He was a big man, I remember, with 
 grey hair and bent shoulders, and a very old coat, 
 for it split a little at one of the seams as he was 
 carrying him in, and we laughed. 
 
 When they got into the room, he put the boy 
 down, keeping his arm round him, and wiped his 
 face and said "How deliciously cool!" and 
 the boy stared all round with his great eyes, and 
 then he lifted them to his father's face and said 
 " I'll come here. I do like it. But not to-day, 
 my back is so bad." 
 
 And what makes me know that Horace was 
 wrong, and that Mrs. Wood had made no mistake 
 about the letters of the text, is that "Cripple 
 Charlie " as we called him could see it so well 
 with lying down. And he told me one day that 
 when his back was very bad, and he got the fidgets 
 and could not keep still, he used to fix his eyes on 
 " Peace, " which had gold round the letters, and 
 shone, and that if he could keep steadily to it, for 
 a good bit, he always fell asleep at the last. But 
 he was very fanciful, poor chap ! 
 
 I do not think it was because Jem and I had 
 any real wish to become burglars that we made a 
 raid on the walnuts that autumn. I do not even 
 think that we cared very much about the walnuts 
 themselves. 
 
 But when it is understood that the raid was to 
 be a raid by night, or rather in those very early 
 hours of the morning which real burglars are said 
 almost to prefer ; that it was necessary to provide 
 ourselves with thick sticks ; that we should have 
 to force the hedge and climb the trees ; that the 
 said trees giew directly under the owner's bedroom 
 window, which made the chances of detection 
 hazardously great ; and that walnut juice (as I 
 have mentioned before) is of a peculiarly unac- 
 
 commodating nature, since it will neither disguise 
 you at the time nor wash off afterwards it will be 
 obvious that the dangers and delights of the ad- 
 venture were sufficient to blunt, for the moment, 
 our sense of the fact that we were deliberately 
 going a-thieving. 
 
 " Shall we wear black masks?" said Jem. 
 
 On the whole I said " No," for 1 did not know 
 where we should get them, nor, if we did, how we 
 should keep them on. 
 
 " If she has a blunderbuss, and fires," said I, 
 "you must duck your head, remember; but if 
 she springs the rattle we must cut and run." 
 
 " Will her blunderbuss be loaded, do you think?" 
 asked Jem. " Mother says the one in their room 
 isn't ; she told me so on Saturday. But she says 
 we're never to touch it, all the same, for you never 
 can be sure about things of that sort going off. 
 Do you think Mrs. W'ood's will be loaded ? " 
 
 " It may be," said I, " and of course she might 
 load it if she thought she heard robbers. " 
 
 " I heard father say that if you shoot a burglar 
 outside it's murder," said Jem, who seemed rather 
 troubled by the thought of the blunderbuss ; "but 
 if you shoot him inside it's self-defence." 
 
 " Well, you may spring a rattle outside, any- 
 way/' said I ; " and if hers makes as much noise 
 as ours, it'll be heard all the way here. So mind, 
 if she begins, you must jump 'own and cut home 
 like mad." 
 
 Armed with these instructions and our thick 
 sticks, Jem and I crept out of the house before the 
 sun was up or a bird awake. The air seemed cold 
 after our warm beds, and the dew was so drenching 
 in the hedge bottoms, and on the wayside weeds 
 of our favourite lane, that we were soaked to the 
 knees before we began to force the hedge. I did 
 not think that grass and wild flowers could have 
 held so much wet. By the time that we had 
 crossed the orchard, and I was preparing to grip 
 the grandly scored trunk of the nearest walnut- 
 tree with my chilly legs, the heavy peeling, the 
 hard cracking, and the tedious picking of a green 
 walnut was as little pleasurable a notion as I had 
 in my brain. 
 
 All the same, I said (as firmly as my chattering 
 teeth would allow) that I was very glad we had 
 come when we did, for that there certainly were 
 fewer walnuts on the tree than there had been the 
 day before. 
 
 "She's been at them, "said I, almost indignantly. 
 
 "Pickling," responded Jem with gloomy con- 
 ciseness ; and spurred by this discovery to fresh 
 enthusiasm for our exploit, we promptly planned 
 operations. 
 
 " I'll go up the tree," said I, "and beat, and 
 you can pick them as they fall. "
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 Jem was, I fear, only too well accustomed to 
 my arrogating the first place in our joint under- 
 takings, and after giving me "a leg up" to an 
 available bit of foothold, and handing up my 
 stick, he waited patiently below to gather what I 
 beat down. 
 
 The walnuts were few and far between, to say 
 nothing of leaves between, which in walnut-trees 
 are large. The morning twilight was dim, my 
 hands were cold and feebler than my resolution. I 
 had battered down a lot of leaves and twigs, and 
 two or three walnuts ; the sun had got up at last, 
 but rather slowly, as if he found the morning 
 chillier than he expected, and a few rays were 
 darting here and there across the lane, when Jem 
 gave a warning " Hush ! " and I left off rustling in 
 time to hear Mrs. Wood's bedroom lattice opened, 
 and to catch sight of something pushed out into 
 the morning mists. 
 
 " Who's there ?" said the schoolmistress. 
 
 Neither Jem nor I took upon us to inform her, 
 and we were both seized with anxiety to know 
 what was at the window. He was too low down 
 and I too much buried in foliage to see clearly. 
 Was it the rattle ? I took a hasty step downwards 
 at the thought. Or was it the blunderbuss ? In 
 my sudden move I slipped on the dew-damped 
 .branch, and cracked a rotten one with my elbow, 
 which made an appalling crash in the early still- 
 ness, and sent a walnut pop ! on to Jem's hat, 
 who had already ducked to avoid the fire of the 
 blunderbuss, and now fell on his face under the 
 fullest conviction that he had been shot. 
 
 "Who's there?" said the schoolmistress, and 
 (my tumble having brought me into a more ex- 
 posed position) she added, " Is that you, Jack 
 and Jem?" 
 
 "It's me," said I, ungrammatically but stoutly, 
 hoping that Jem at any rate would slip off. 
 
 But he had recovered himself and his loyalty, 
 and unhesitatingly announced, "No, it's me, "and 
 was picking the bits of grass off his cheeks and 
 knees when I got down beside him. 
 
 " I'm sorry you came to take my walnuts like 
 this," said the voice from above. She had a par- 
 ticularly clear one, and we could hear it quite well. 
 " I got a basketful on purpose for you yesterday 
 afternoon. If I let it down by a string, do you 
 think you can take it ? " 
 
 Happily she did not wait for a reply, as we 
 could not have got a word out between us ; but 
 by-and-by the basketful of walnuts was pushed 
 through the lattice and began to descend. It came 
 slowly and unsteadily, and we had abundant lei- 
 sure to watch it, and also, as we looked up, to 
 discover what it was that had so puzzled me in 
 Mrs. Wood's appearance that when I first dis- 
 
 covered that it was a head and not a blunderbuss 
 at the window I had not recognised it for hers. 
 
 She was without her widow's cap, which re- 
 vealed the fact that her hair, though the two 
 narrow, smooth bands of it which appeared every 
 day beyond her cap were unmistakably grey, was 
 different in some essential respects from (say) Mrs. 
 Jones's, our grey-haired washer-woman. The 
 more you saw of Mrs. Jones's head, the less hair 
 you perceived her to have, and the whiter that 
 little appeared. Indeed, the knob into which it 
 was twisted at the back was much of the colour as 
 well as of the size of a tangled reel of dirty white 
 cotton. But Mrs. Wood's hair was far more 
 abundant than our mother's, and it was darker 
 underneath than on the top a fact which was 
 more obvious when the knot into which it was 
 gathered in her neck was no longer hidden. Deep 
 brown streaks were mingled with the grey in the 
 twists of this, and I could see them quite well, for 
 the outline of her head was dark against the white- 
 washed mullion of the window, and framed by ivy- 
 leaves. As she leaned out to lower the basket we 
 could see her better and better, and, as it touched 
 the ground, the jerk pulled her forward, and the 
 knot of her hair uncoiled and rolled heavily over 
 the window-sill. 
 
 By this time the rays of the sun were level with 
 the windows, and shone full upon Mrs. Wood's 
 face. I was very much absorbed in looking at 
 her, but I could not forget our peculiar position, 
 and I had an important question to put, which I 
 did without more ado. 
 
 " Please, madam, shall you tell Father ?" 
 
 " We only want to know," added Jem. 
 
 She hesitated a minute, and then smiled. " No ; 
 I don't think you'll do it again ; " after which she 
 disappeared. 
 
 "She's certainly no sneak," said I, with an 
 effort to be magnanimous, for I would much rather 
 she had sprung the rattle or fired the blunderbuss. 
 
 " And I say," said Jem, "isn't she pretty with- 
 out her cap?" 
 
 We looked ruefully at the walnuts. We had 
 lost all appetite for them, and they seemed dis- 
 gustingly damp, with their green coats reeking 
 with black bruises. But we could not have left 
 the basket behind, so we put our sticks through 
 the handles, and carried it like the Sunday picture 
 of the spies carrying the grapes of Eshcol. 
 
 And Jem and I have often since agreed that we 
 never in all our lives felt so mean as on that 
 occasion, and we sincerely hope that we never 
 may. 
 
 Indeed, it is only in some books and some ser- 
 mons that people are divided into " the wicked " 
 and "the good," and that "the wicked" have no
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 consciences at all. Jem and I had wilfully gone 
 thieving, but we were far from being utterly har- 
 dened, and the schoolmistress's generosity weighed 
 heavily upon ours. Repentance and the desire to 
 make atonement seem to go pretty naturally to- 
 gether, and in my case they led to the following 
 dialogue with Jem, on the subject of two exquisite 
 little bantam hens and a cock, which were our 
 joint property, and which were known in the farm- 
 yard as "the Major and his wives." 
 
 These titles (which vexed my dear mother from 
 the first) had suggested themselves to us on this 
 wise. There was a certain little gentleman who 
 came to our church, a brewer by profession, and a 
 major in the militia by choice, who was so small 
 and strutted so much that to the insolent observa- 
 tion of boyhood he was "exactly like" our new 
 bantam cock. Young people are very apt to over- 
 hear what is not intended for their knowledge, and 
 somehow or other we learned that he was " court- 
 ing " (as his third wife) a lady of our parish. His 
 former wives are buried in our churchyard. Over 
 the first he had raised an obelisk of marble, so 
 costly and affectionate that it had won the hearts 
 of his neighbours in general, and of his second 
 wife in particular. When she died the gossips 
 wondered whether the Major would add her name 
 to that of her predecessor, or "go to the expense " 
 of a new monument. He erected a second obelisk, 
 and it was taller than the first (height had a curious 
 fascination for him), and the inscription was more 
 touching than the other. This time the material 
 was Aberdeen granite, and as that is most difficult 
 to cut, hard to polish, and heavy to transport, the 
 expense was enormous. These two monstrosities 
 of mortuary pomp were the pride of the parish, 
 and they were familiarly known to us children 
 (and to many other people) as "the Major's 
 wives." 
 
 When we called the cock "the Major," we 
 naturally called the hens "the Major's wives." 
 
 " My dears, I don't like that name at all," said 
 my mother. "I never like jokes about people 
 who are dead. And for that matter, it really 
 sounds as if they were both alive, which is worse." 
 
 It was during our naughty period, and I strutted 
 on my heels till I must have looked very like the 
 little brewer himself, and said, " And why shouldn't 
 they both be alive ? Fancy the Major with two 
 wives, one on each arm, and both as tall as the 
 monuments ! What fun ! " 
 
 As I said the words " one on each arm," I put 
 up first one and then the other of my own, and 
 having got a satisfactory impetus during the rest 
 of my sentence, I crossed the parlour as a cathe- 
 rine-wheel under my mother's nose. It was a new 
 accomplishment, of which I was very proud, and 
 
 poor Jem somewhat envious. He was clumsy and 
 could not manage it. 
 
 "Oh ! " ejaculated my mother, "Jack, I must 
 speak to your father about those dangerous tricks 
 of yours. And it quite shocks me to hear you 
 talk in that light way about wicked things." 
 
 Jem was to my rescue in a moment, driving his 
 hands into the pockets of his blouse, and turning 
 them up to see how soon he might hope that his 
 fingers would burst through the lining. 
 
 "Jacob had two wives," he said; and he 
 chanted on, quoting imperfectly from Dr. Watts's 
 "Scripture Catechism." "And Jacob was a 
 good man, therefore his brother hated him." 
 
 " No, no, Jem," said I, " that was Abel. Jacob 
 was Isaac's younger son, and " 
 
 "Hush! Hush! Hush!" said my mother. 
 " You're not to do Sunday lessons on weekdays. 
 What terrible boys you are ! " And, avoiding to 
 fight about Jacob's wives with Jem, who was 
 pertinacious and said veiy odd things, my mother 
 did what women often do and are often wise in 
 doing she laid down her weapons and began to 
 beseech. 
 
 "My darlings, call your nice little hens some 
 other names. Poor old mother doesn't like those. " 
 
 I was melted in an instant, and began to cast 
 about in my head for new titles. But Jem was 
 softly obstinate, and he had inherited some of 
 iny mother's wheedling ways. He took his hands 
 from his pockets, flung his arms recklessly round 
 her clean collar, and began stroking (or pooring, 
 as we called it) her head with his grubby paws. 
 And as he poored he coaxed "Dear nice old 
 mammy ! It's only us. What can it matter ? Do 
 let us call our bantams what we like." 
 
 And my mother gave in before I had time to. 
 
 The dialogue I held with Jem about the bantams 
 after the walnut raid was as follows : 
 
 ' ' Jem, you're awfully fond of the ' Major and 
 his wives,' I suppose?" 
 
 " Ye-es," said Jem, " lam. But I don't mind, 
 Jack, if you want them for your very own. I'll 
 give up my share," and he sighed. 
 
 " I never saw such a good chap as you are, Jem. 
 But it's not that. I thought we might give them 
 to Mrs. Wood. It was so beastly about those 
 disgusting walnuts. " 
 
 "I can't touch walnut pickle now," said Jem, 
 feelingly. 
 
 " It'd be a very handsome present," said I. 
 
 "They took a prize at the Agricultural," said 
 Jem. 
 
 " I know she likes eggs. She beats 'em into a 
 froth and feeds Charlie with 'em," said I. 
 
 " I think I could eat walnut pickle again if I 
 knew she had the bantams," sighed Jem, who was
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 really devoted to the little cock-major and the 
 auburn-feathered hens. 
 
 " We'll take 'em this afternoon," I said. 
 
 We did so in a basket, Eshcol-grape-wise, like 
 the walnuts. When we told mother, she made no 
 objection. She would have given her own head 
 off her shoulders if, by ill-luck, any passer-by had 
 thought of asking for it. Besides, it solved the 
 difficulty of the objectionable names. 
 
 Mrs. Wood was very loth to take our bantams, 
 but of course Jem and I were not going to recall 
 a gift, so she took them at last, and I think she 
 was very much pleased with them. 
 
 She had got her cap on again, tied under her 
 chin, and nothing to be seen of her hair but the 
 very grey piece in front. It made her look so 
 different that I could not keep my eyes off her 
 whilst she 'was talking, though I knew quite well 
 how rude it is to stare. And my head got so full 
 of it that I said at last, in spite of myself, " Please, 
 madam, why is it that part of your hair is grey 
 and part of it dark ? " 
 
 Her face got rather red, she did not answer for 
 a minute ; and Jem, to my great relief, changed the 
 subject, by saying, " We were very much obliged 
 to you for not telling Father about the wal- 
 nuts." 
 
 Mrs. Wood leaned back against the high carving 
 of her old chair and smiled, and said very slowly, 
 " Would he have been very angry ? " 
 
 " He'd have flogged us, I expect," said I. 
 
 "And I expect," continued Jem, "that he'd 
 have said to us what he said to Bob Furniss when 
 he took the filberts : ' If you begin by stealing 
 nuts, you'll end by being transported.' Do you 
 think Jack and I shall end by being transported ?" 
 added Jem, who had a merciless talent for applying 
 general principles to individual cases. 
 
 Mrs. Wood made no reply, neither did she 
 move, but her eyelids fell, and then her eyes 
 looked far worse than if they had been shut, for 
 there was a little bit open, with nothing but white 
 to be seen. She was still rather red, and she did 
 not visibly breathe. I have no idea for how many 
 seconds I had gazed stupidly at her, when Jem 
 gasped, "Is she dead?" 
 
 Then I became terror-struck, and crying, "Let's 
 find Mary Anne ! " fled into the kitchen, closely 
 followed by Jem. 
 
 " She's took with them fits occasional," said 
 Mary Anne, and depositing a dripping tin she ran 
 to the parlour. We followed in time to see her 
 stooping over the chair and speaking very loudly 
 in the schoolmistress's ear 
 
 " I'll lay ye down, ma'am, shall I ? " 
 
 But still the widow was silent, on which Mary 
 Anne took her up in her brawny arms, and laid 
 
 her on " Cripple Charlie's " sofa, and covered her 
 with the quilt. 
 
 We settled the Major and his wives into their 
 new abode, and then hurried home to my mother, 
 who put on her bonnet, and took a bottle of some- 
 thing, and went off to the farm. 
 
 She did not come back till tea-time, and then 
 she was full of poor Mrs. Wood. " Most curious 
 attacks," she explained to my father ; "she can 
 neither move nor speak, and yet she hears every- 
 thing, though she doesn't always remember after- 
 wards. She said she tnought it was 'trouble,' 
 poor soul ! " 
 
 " What brought this one on?" said my father. 
 
 " I can't make out," said my mother. " I hope 
 you boys did nothing to frighten her, eh? Are 
 you sure you didn't do one of those dreadful 
 wheels, Jack ? " 
 
 This I indignantly denied, and Jem supported 
 me. 
 
 My mother's sympathy had been so deeply en- 
 listed, and her report was so detailed, that Jem 
 and I became bored at last, besides resenting the 
 notion that we had been to blame. I gave one 
 look into the strawberry jam pot, and finding it 
 empty, said my grace and added, " Women are a 
 poor lot, always turning up their eyes and having 
 fits about nothing. I know one thing, nobody'll 
 ever catch me being bothered with a wife." 
 
 "Nor me neither," said Jem. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 " The bee, a more adventurous colonist than man." 
 
 tV. C. Bryant. 
 
 " Some silent laws our hearts will make, 
 
 Which they shall long obey ; 
 We for the year to come may take 
 
 Our temper from to-day." 
 
 Wordswerth. 
 
 " "\ .TOU know what an Apiary is, Isaac, of 
 j[ course." 
 
 I was sitting in the bee-master's cottage, opposite 
 to him, in an arm-chair, which was the counterpart 
 of his own, both of them having circular backs, 
 diamond-shaped seats, and chintz cushions with 
 frills. It was the summer following that in which 
 Jem and I had tried to see how badly we could 
 behave ; this uncivilised phase had abated : Jem 
 used to ride about a great deal with my father, and 
 I had become intimate with Isaac Irvine. 
 
 " You know what an Apiary is, Isaac ?" said I. 
 
 " A what, sir ? " 
 
 "AnA-P-I-A-R-Y." 
 
 " To be sure, sir, to be sure," said Isaac. "An 
 appyary " (so he was pleased to pronounce it), " I
 
 i6 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 should be familiar with the name, sir, from my 
 bee-book, but I never calls my own stock anything 
 but the beehives. Beehives is a good straightfor- 
 ward sort of a name, sir, and it serves my turn." 
 
 " Ah, but you see we haven't come to the B's 
 yet," said I, alluding to what I was thinking of. 
 
 "Does your father think of keeping 'em, sir?" 
 said Isaac, alluding to what he was thinking of. 
 
 "Oh, he means to have them bound, I believe," 
 was my reply. 
 
 "The bee-master now betrayed his bewilder- 
 ment, and we had a hearty laugh when we dis- 
 covered that he had been talking about bees whilst 
 I had been talking about the weekly numbers of 
 the " Penny Cyclopaedia," which had not as yet 
 reached the letter B, but in which I had found an 
 article on Master Isaac's craft, under the word 
 Apiary, which had greatly interested me, and 
 ought, I thought, to be interesting to the bee- 
 keeper. Still thinking of this I said 
 
 " Do you ever take your bees away from home, 
 Isaac?" 
 
 " They're on the moors now, sir," said Isaac. 
 
 " Are they ? " I exclaimed. " Then you're like 
 the Egyptians, and like the French, and the Pied- 
 montese ; only you didn't take them in a barge." 
 
 " Why, no, sir. The canal don't go nigh-hand 
 of the moors at all." 
 
 "The Egyptians," said I, leaning back into the 
 capacious arms of my chair, and epitomising what 
 I had read, " who live in Lower Egypt put all 
 their beehives into boats and take them on the 
 river to Upper Egypt. Right up at that end of 
 the Nile the flowers come out earliest, and the 
 bees get all the good out of them there, and then 
 the boats are moved lower down to where the same 
 kind of flowers are only just beginning to blossom, 
 and the bees get all the good out of them there, 
 and so on, and on, and on, till they've travelled 
 right through Egypt, with all the hives piled up, 
 and come back in the boats to where they started 
 from. " 
 
 " And every hive a mighty different weight to 
 what it was when they did start, I'll warrant," 
 said Master Isaac enthusiastically. " Did you find 
 all that in those penny numbers, Master Jack ? " 
 
 "Yes, and oh, lots more, Isaac! About lots 
 of things and lots of countries." 
 
 " Scholarship's a fine thing," said the bee- 
 master, "and seeing foreign parts is a fine thing, 
 and many's the time I've wished for both. I 
 suppose that's the same Egypt that's in the Bible, 
 sir ? " 
 
 "Yes," said I, "and the same river Nile that 
 Moses was put on in the ark of bulrushes." 
 
 " There's no countries I'd like to see better than 
 them Bible countries," said Master Isaac, "and 
 
 I've wished it more ever since that gentleman was 
 here that gave that lecture in the school, with the 
 Holy Land magic-lantern. He'd been there him- 
 self, and he explained all the slides. They were 
 grand, some of 'em, when you got 'em straight and 
 steady for a bit. They're an awkward thing to 
 manage, is slides, sir, and the schoolmaster he 
 wasn't much good at 'em, he said, and that young 
 scoundrel Bob Furniss and another lad got in a 
 hole below the platform and pulled the sheet. 
 But when you did get 'em, right side up, and the 
 light as it should be, they were grand ! There 
 was one they called the Wailing Place of the Jews, 
 with every stone standing out as fair as the flags 
 on this floor. John Binder, the mason, was at 
 my elbow when that came on, and he clapped his 
 hands, and says he, ' \Vell, yon beats all ! ' But 
 the one for my choice, sir, was the Garden of 
 Gethsemane by moonlight. I'd only gone to the 
 penny places, for I'm a good size and can look 
 over most folks' heads, but I thought I must see 
 that a bit nearer, cost what it might. So I found 
 a shilling, and I says to the young fellow at the 
 door (it was the pupil-teacher), ' I must go a bit 
 nearer to yon.' And he says, 'You're not going 
 into the reserved seats, Isaac ? ' So I says, ' Don't 
 put yourself about, my lad, I shan't interfere with 
 the quality ; but if half a day's wage'll bring me 
 nearer to the Garden of Gethsemane, I'm bound 
 to go.' And I went. I didn't intrude myself on 
 nobody, though one gentleman was for making 
 room for me at once, and twice over he offered 
 me a seat beside him. But I knew my manners, 
 and I said, ' Thank you, sir, I can see as I stand.' 
 And I did see right well, and kicked Bob Furniss 
 too, which was good for all parties. But I'd like 
 to see the very places, themselves, Master Jack." 
 
 "So should I," said I ; "but I should like to 
 go farther, all round the world, I think. Do you 
 know, Isaae, you wouldn't believe what curious 
 beasts there are in other countries, and what won- 
 derful people and places ! Why, we've only got 
 to ATH No. 135 now ; it leaves off at Athana- 
 gilJe, a captain of the Spanish Goths he's nobody, 
 but there are such apes in that number ! The 
 Mono there's a picture of him, just like a man 
 with a tail and horrid feet, who used to sit with 
 the negro women when they were at work, and 
 play with bits of paper ; and a Quata, who used 
 to be sent to the tavern for wine, and when the 
 children pelted him he put down the wine and 
 threw stones at them. And there are pictures in 
 all the numbers, of birds and ant-eaters and ante- 
 lopes, and I don't know what. The Mono and 
 the Quata live in the West Indies, I think. You 
 see, I think the A's are rather good numbers ; very 
 likely, for there's America, and Asia, and Africa,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 and Arabia, and Abyssinia, and there'll be Aus- 
 tralia before we come to the B's. Oh, Isaac ! I 
 do wish I could go round the world ! " 
 
 I sighed, and the bee-master sighed also, with 
 a profundity that made his chair creak, well- 
 seasoned as it was. Then he said, " But I'll say 
 this, Master Jack, next to going to such places the 
 reading about 'em must come. A penny a week's 
 a penny a week to a poor man, but I reckon I 
 shall have to make shilt to take in those numbers 
 myself." 
 
 Isaac did not take them in, however, for I used 
 to take ours down to his cottage, and read them 
 aloud to him instead. He liked this much better 
 than if he had had to read to himself he said he 
 could understand reading better when he heard it 
 than when he saw it. For my own part I enjoyed 
 it very much, and I fancy I read rather well, it 
 being a point on which Mrs. Wood expended 
 much trouble with us. 
 
 " Listen, Isaac," said I on my next visit; "this 
 is what I meant about the barge " and resting 
 the Penny Number on the arm of my chair, I read 
 aloud to the attentive bee-master "'Goldsmith 
 describes from his own observation a kind of float- 
 ing apiary in some parts of France and Piedmont. 
 They have on board of one barge, he says, three- 
 score or a hundred beehives ' " 
 
 "That's an appy-ary if ye like, sir ! " ejaculated 
 Master Isaac, interrupting his pipe and me to 
 make way for the observation. 
 
 "Somebody saw 'a convoy of four thousand 
 
 hives ' on the Nile," said I. 
 
 The bee-master gave a resigned sigh. " Go on, 
 Master Jack," said he. 
 
 "' well defended from the inclemency of an 
 accidental storm,'" I proceeded; "'and with 
 these the owners float quietly down the stream ; 
 one beehive yields the proprietor a considerable 
 income. Why, he adds, a method sin-iilar to this 
 has never been adopted in England, where we 
 have more gentle rivers and more flowery banks 
 than in any other part of the world, I know not ; 
 certainly it might be turned to advantage, and 
 yield the possessor a secure, though perhaps a 
 moderate, income. ' " 
 
 I was very fond of the canal which ran near us 
 (and was, for that matter, a parish boundary) : 
 and the barges, with their cargoes, were always 
 interesting to me ; but a bargeful of bees seemed 
 something quite out of the common. I thought I 
 should rather like to float down a gentle river 
 between flowery banks, surrounded by beehives 
 on which I could rely to furnish me with a secure 
 though moderate income ; and I said so. 
 
 ' ' So should- 1, sir, " said the bee-master. ' ' And 
 I should uncommon like to ha' seen the one bee- 
 
 hive that brought in a considerable income. Honey 
 must have been very dear in those parts, Master 
 Jack. However, it's in the book, so I suppose it's 
 right enough." 
 
 I made no defence of the veracity of the "Cyclo- 
 paedia," for I was thinking of something else, of 
 which, after a few moments, I spoke. 
 
 "Isaac, you don't stay with your bees on the 
 moors. Do you ever go to see them ? " 
 
 "To be sure I do, Master Jack, nigh every 
 Sunday through the season. I start after I get 
 back from morning church, and I come home in 
 the dark, or by moonlight. My missus goes to 
 church in the afternoons, and for that bit she locks 
 up the house." 
 
 "Oh, I wish you'd take me the next time !" 
 said I. 
 
 " To be sure I will, and too glad sir, if you're 
 allowed to go." 
 
 That was the difficulty, and I knew it. No one 
 who has not lived in a household of old-fashioned 
 middle-class country folk of our type has any 
 notion how difficult it is for anybody to do any- 
 thing unusual therein. In such a well-fitted but 
 unelastic establishment the dinner-hour, the car- 
 riage horses, hot water, bedtime, candles, the post, 
 the wash-day, and an extra blanket, from being 
 the ministers of one's comfort, become the stern 
 arbiters of one's fate. Spring cleaning which is 
 something like what it would be to build, paint, 
 and furnish a house, and to "do it at home" 
 takes place as naturally as the season it celebrates ; 
 but if you want the front door kept open after the 
 usual hour for drawing the bolts and hanging the 
 robbers' bell, it's odds if the master of the house 
 has not an apoplectic fit, and if servants of twelve 
 and fourteen years' standing do not give warning. 
 
 And what is difficult on weekdays is on Sundays 
 next door to impossible, for obvious reasons. 
 
 But one's parents, though they have their little 
 ways like other people, are, as a rule oh, my 
 heart ! made sadder and wiser by the world's 
 rough experiences, bear witness ! very indulgent ; 
 and after a good many ups and downs, and some 
 compromising and coaxing, I got my way. 
 
 On one point my mother was firm, and I feared 
 this would be an insuperable difficulty. I must go 
 twice to church, as our Sunday custom was a 
 custom which she saw no good reason for me to 
 break. It is easy to smile at her punctiliousness 
 on this score ; but after all these years, and on the 
 whole, I think she was right. An unexpected 
 compromise came to my rescue, however : Isaac 
 Irvine's bees were in the parish of Cripple Charlie's 
 father, within a stone's throw (by the bee-master's 
 strong arm) of the church itself, which was a small 
 minster among the moors. Here I promised faith- 
 c
 
 iS 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 fully to attend evening prayer, for which we should 
 be in time ; and I started, by Isaac Irvine's side, 
 on my first real "expedition " on the first Sunday 
 in August, with my mother's blessing and a three- 
 penny-bit with a hole in it, " in case of a collec- 
 tion." 
 
 We dined before we started, I with the rest, and 
 Isaac in our kitchen ; but I had no great appetite 
 I was too much excited and I villingly accepted 
 some large sandwiches made with thick slices of 
 home-made bread and liberal layers of home-made 
 potted meat, ' ' in case I should feel hungry " before 
 I got there. 
 
 It pains me to think how distressed my mother 
 was because I insisted on carrying the sandwiches 
 in a red and orange spotted handkerchief, which I 
 had purchased with my own pocket-money, and to 
 which I was deeply attached, partly from the 
 bombastic nature of the pattern, and partly because 
 it was big enough for any grown-up man. "It 
 made me look like a tramping sailor," she said. 
 I did not tell her that this was precisely the effect 
 at which I aimed, though it was the case ; but I 
 coaxed her into permitting it, and I abstained from 
 passing a certain knowing little ash stick through 
 the knot, and hoisting the bundle over my left 
 shoulder, till I was well out of the grounds. 
 
 My efforts to spare her feelings on this point, 
 however, proved vain. She ran to the landing- 
 window to watch me out of sight, and had a full 
 view of my figure as I swaggered with a business- 
 like gait by Isaac's side up the first long hill, 
 having set my hat on the back of my head with an 
 affectation of profuse heat, my right hand in the 
 bee-master's coat-pocket for support, and my left 
 holding the stick and bundle at an angle as showy 
 and sailor-like as I could assume. 
 
 "And they'll just meet the Ebenezer folk com- 
 ing out of chapel, ma'am ! " said our housemaid 
 over my mother's shoulder, by way of consolation. 
 
 Our journey was up-hill, for which I was quite 
 prepared. The blue and purple outline of the 
 moors formed the horizon line visible from our 
 gardens, whose mistiness or clearness was pro- 
 phetic of the coming weather, and over which the 
 wind was supposed to blow with uncommon 
 " healthfulness." I had been there once to blow 
 away the whooping-cough, and I could remember 
 that the sandy road wound up and up, but I did 
 not appreciate till that Sunday how tiring a steady 
 ascent of nearly, five miles may be. 
 
 We were within sight of the church and within 
 hearing of the bells, when we reached a wayside 
 trough, whose brimming measure was for ever 
 overflowed by as bright a rill as ever trickled down 
 a hill-side. 
 
 "It's only_ the first peal," said Master Isaac, 
 
 seating himself on the sandy bank, and wiping his 
 brows. 
 
 My well-accustomed ears confirmed his state- 
 ment. The bells moved too slowly for either the 
 second or the third peal, and we had twenty 
 minutes at our disposal. 
 
 It was then that I knew (for the first but not 
 the last time) what refreshment for the weary a 
 spotted handkerchief may hold. The bee-master 
 and I divided the sandwiches, and washed them 
 down with handfuls of the running rill, so fresh, 
 so cold, so limpid, that (like the saints and martyrs 
 of a faith) it would convert any one to water- 
 drinking who did not reflect on the commoner and 
 less shining streams which come to us through 
 lead pipes and in evil communication with sewers. 
 
 We were cool and tidy by the time that the 
 little " Tom Tinkler " bell began to "hurry up." 
 
 " You're coming, aren't you ? " said I, checked 
 at the churchyard gate by an instinct of some 
 hesitation on Isaac's part. 
 
 "Well, I suppose I am, sir," said the bee- 
 master, and in he came. 
 
 The thick walls, the stained windows, and the 
 stone floor, which was below the level of the 
 churchyard, made the church very cool. Master 
 Isaac and I seated ourselves so that we had a good 
 view within and could also catch a peep through 
 the open porch of the sunlit country outside. 
 Charlie's father was in his place when we got in ; 
 his threadbare coat was covered by the white linen 
 of his office, and I do not think it would have 
 been possible even to my levity to have felt any- 
 thing but a respectful awe of him in church. 
 
 The cares of this life are not as a rule improving 
 to the countenance. No one who watches faces 
 can have failed to observe that more beauty is 
 marred and youth curtailed by vulgar worry than 
 by almost any other disfigurement. In the less 
 educated glasses, where self-control is not very 
 habitual, and where interests beyond petty and 
 personal ones are rare, the soft brows and tender 
 lips of girlhood are too often puckered and har- 
 dened by mean anxieties, even where these do 
 not affect the girls personally, but only imitatively, 
 and as the daily interests of their station in life. 
 In such cases the discontented, careworn look is 
 by no means a certain indication of corresponding 
 suffering, but there are too many others in which 
 tempers that should have been generous, and faces 
 that should have been noble, and aims that should 
 have been high, are blurred and blunted by the 
 real weight of real everyday care. 
 
 There are yet others ; in which the spirit is too 
 strong for mortal accidents to pull it down minds 
 that the narrowest career cannot vulgarise faces 
 to which care but adds a look of pathos souls
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 which keep their aims and faiths apart from the 
 fluctuations of " the things that are seen." The 
 personal influence of natures of this type is gene- 
 rally very large, and it was very large in the case 
 of Cripple Charlie's father, and made him a sort 
 of Prophet, Priest, and King over a rough and 
 scattered population, with whom the shy, scholarly 
 poorgentleman had not otherwise much in common. 
 
 It was his personal influence, I am sure, which 
 made the congregation so devout ! There is one 
 rule which, I believe, applies to all congregations, 
 of every denomination, and any kind- of ritual, and 
 that is, that the enthusiasm of the congregation is 
 in direct proportion to the enthusiasm of the 
 minister ; not merely to his personal worth, nor 
 even to his popularity, for people who rather dis- 
 like a clergyman, and disapprove of his service, 
 will say a louder Amen at his giving of thanks if 
 his own feelings have a touch of fire, than they 
 would to that of a more perfunctory parson whom 
 they liked better. As is the heartiness of the 
 priest, so is the heartiness of the people with 
 such strictness that one is disposed almost to 
 credit some of it to actual magnetism. Response 
 is no empty word in public worship. 
 
 It was no empty word* on this occasion. From 
 the ancient clerk (who kept a life-interest in what 
 were now the duties of a choir) to some gaping 
 farm-lads at my back, everybody said and sang to 
 the utmost of his ability. I may add that Isaac 
 and I involuntarily displayed a zeal which was in 
 excess of our Sunday customs ; and if my tongue 
 moved glibly enough with the choir, the bee- 
 master found many an elderly parishioner besides 
 himself and the clerk who "took" both prayer 
 and praise at such independent paces as suited 
 their individual scholarship, spectacles, and notions 
 of reverence. 
 
 It crowned my satisfaction when I found that 
 there was to be a collection. The hymn to which 
 the churchwardens moved about, gathering the 
 pence, whose numbers and noisiness seemed in 
 keeping with the rest of the service, was a well- 
 known one to us all. It was the favourite evening 
 hymn of the district. I knew every syllable of it, 
 for Jem and I always sang hymns (and invariably 
 this one) with my dear mother, on Sunday evening 
 after supper. When we were good, we liked it, 
 and, picking one favourite after another, we often 
 sang nearly through the hymn-book. When we 
 were naughty, we displayed a good deal of skill in 
 making derisive faces behind my mother's back, as 
 she sat at the piano, without betraying ourselves, 
 and in getting our tongues out and in again during 
 the natural pauses and convolutions of the tune. 
 But these occasional fits of boyish profanity did 
 not hinder me from having an equally boyish fund 
 
 of reverence and enthusiasm at the bottom of my 
 heart, and it was with proud and pleasurable 
 emotions that I heard the old clerk give forth the 
 familiar first lines 
 
 " Soon shall the evening star with silver ray 
 Shed its mild lustre o'er this sacred day," 
 
 and got my threepenny-bit ready between my 
 finger and thumb. 
 
 Away went the organ, which was played by the 
 vicar's eldest daughter away went the vicar's 
 second daughter, who "led the singing " from the 
 vicarage pew with a voice like a bird away went 
 the choir, which, in spite of surplices, could not 
 be cured of waiting half a beat for her and away 
 went the congregation young men and maidens, 
 old men and children in one broad tide of some- 
 what irregular harmony. Isaac did not know the 
 words as well as I did, so I lent him my hymn- 
 book ; one result of which was, that the print 
 being small, and the sense of a hymn being in his 
 view a far more important matter than the sound 
 of it, he preached rather than sang in an unequal 
 cadence which was perturbing to my more musical 
 ear the familiar lines 
 
 " Still let each awful truth our thoughts engage, 
 That shines revealed on inspiration's page ; 
 Nor those blest hours in vain amusement waste 
 Which all who lavish shall lament at last." 
 
 During the next verse my devotions were a little 
 distracted by the gradual approach of a church- 
 warden for my threepenny-bit, which was hot 
 with three verses of expectant fingering. Then, 
 to my relief, he took it, and the bee-master's con- 
 tribution, and I felt calmer, and listened to the 
 little prelude which it was always the custom for 
 the organist to play before the final verse of a 
 hymn. It was also the custom to sing the last 
 verse as loudly as possible, though this is by no 
 means invariably appropriate. It fitted the pre- 
 sent occasion fairly enough. From where I stood 
 I could see the bellows-blower (the magnetic 
 current of enthusiasm flowed even to the back of 
 the organ) nerve himself to prodigious pumping 
 Charlie's sister drew out all the stops the vicar 
 passed from the prayer-desk to the pulpit with the 
 rapt look of a man who walks in a prophetic 
 dream we pulled ourselves together, Master Isaac 
 brought the hymn-book close to his glasses, and 
 when the tantalising prelude was past we burst 
 forth with a volume which merged all discre- 
 pancies. As far as I am able to judge of my own 
 performance, I fear I bawled (I'm sure the boy 
 behind me did) 
 
 " Father of Heaven ; in Whom our hopes confide. 
 Whose power defends us, and Whose precepts guide, 
 In life our Guardian, and in death our Friend, 
 Glory supreme be Thine till time shall end ! "
 
 20 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 The sermon was short, and when the service was 
 over Master Isaac and I spent a delightful after- 
 noon with his bees among the heather. The 
 "evening star" had come out when we had some 
 tea in the village inn, and we walked home by 
 moonlight. There was neither wind nor sun, but 
 the air was almost oppressively pure. The moon- 
 shine had taken the colour out of the sandy road 
 and the heather, and had painted black shadows 
 by every boulder, and most things looked asleep 
 except the rill that went on running. Only we 
 and the rabbits, and the night moths and the 
 beetles, seemed to be stirring. An occasional bat 
 appeared and vanished like a spectral illusion, and 
 I saw one owl flap across the moor with level 
 wings against the moon. 
 
 " Oh, I have enjoyed it ! " was all I could say 
 when I parted from the bee-master. 
 
 ' ' And so have I, Master Jack, " was his reply, 
 and he hesitated as if he had something more to 
 say, and then he said it. "I never enjoyed it as 
 much, and you can thank your mother, sir, with 
 old Isaac's duty, for sending us to church. I'm 
 sure I don't know why I never went before when I 
 was up yonder, for I always took notice of the 
 bells. I reckon I thought I hadn't time, but you 
 can say, with my respects, sir, that please GOD I 
 shan't miss again." 
 
 I believe he never did; and "Cripple Charlie's" 
 father came to look on him as half a parishioner. 
 
 I was glad I had not shirked Evening Prayer 
 myself, though (my sex and age considered) it was 
 not to be expected that I should comfort my 
 mother's heart by confessing as much. Let me 
 confess it now, and confess also that if it was the 
 first time, it was not the last that I have had cause 
 ' to realise oh women, for our sakes remember it ! 
 into what light and gentle hands GOD lays the 
 reins that guide men's better selves. 
 
 The most remarkable event of the day happened 
 at the, end of it. Whilst Isaac was feeling the 
 weight of one of his hives, and just after I lost 
 chase of a very peculiar-looking beetle, from his 
 squeezing himself away from me under a boulder, 
 1 had caught sight of a bit of white heather, and 
 then bethought me of gathering a nosegay (to 
 include this rarity) of moor flowers and grasses for 
 Mrs. Wood. So when we reached the lane on 
 our way home, I bade Isaac good-night, and said 
 I would just run in by the back way into the 
 farm (we never called it the Academy) and leave 
 the flowers, that the schoolmistress might put them 
 in water. Mary Ann was in the kitchen. 
 
 " Where's Mrs. Wood?" said I, when she had 
 got over that silly squeak women always give when 
 you come suddenly on them. 
 
 " Dear, dear, Master Jack ! what a turn you did 
 give me ! I thought it was the tramp." 
 
 " What tramp ? " said I. 
 
 "Why, a great lanky man that came skulking 
 here a bit since, and asked for the missus. She 
 was down the garden, and I've half a notion he 
 went after her. I wish you'd go and look for her, 
 Master Jack, and fetch her in. It's as damp as 
 dear knows what, and she takes no more care of 
 herself than a baby. And I'd be glad to know 
 that man was off the place. There's wall-fruit 
 and lots of things about, a low fellow like that 
 might pick up." 
 
 My ears felt a little hot at this allusion to low 
 fellows and garden thieving, and I hurried off to 
 do Mary Ann's bidding without further parley. 
 There was a cloud over the moon as I ran down 
 the back garden, but when I was nearly at the end 
 the moon burst forth again, so that I could see, 
 And this is what I saw : 
 
 First, a white thing lying on the ground, and it 
 was the widow's cap, and then Mrs. Wood herself, 
 with a gaunt lanky-looking man, such as Mary 
 Ann had described. Her head came nearly to his 
 shoulder, as I was well able to jadge, for he was 
 holding it in his hands arid had laid his own upon 
 it, as if it were a natural resting-place. And his 
 hair coming against the darker part of hers, I 
 could see that his was grey all over. Up to this 
 point I had been too much stupefied to move, and 
 I had just become conscious that I ought to go, 
 when the white cap lying in the moonlight seemed 
 to catch his eye as it had caught mine ; and he set 
 his heel on it with a vehemence that made me 
 anxious to be off. I could not resist one look 
 back as I left the garden, if only to make sure 
 that I had not been dreaming. No, they were 
 there still, and he was lifting the coil of her hair, 
 which I suppose had come down when the cap 
 was pulled off, and it took the full stretch of his 
 arm to do so, before it fell heavily from his fingers. 
 
 When I presented myself to my mother with the 
 bunch of flowers still in my hand, she said, " Did 
 my Jack get these for mother ?" 
 
 I shook my head. "No, mother. For Mrs. 
 Wood." 
 
 " You might have called at the farm as you 
 passed," said she. 
 
 " I did ! " said I. 
 
 " Couldn't you see Mrs. Wood, love ? " 
 
 " Yes, I saw her, but she'd got the tramp with her.'' 
 
 " What tramp?" asked my mother in a horror- 
 struck voice, which seemed quite natural to me, 
 for I had been brought up to rank tramps in the 
 same "dangerous class" with mad dogs, stray 
 bulls, drunken men, and other things which it is 
 undesirable to meet.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 'The great lanky one," I explained, quoting 
 from Mary Ann. 
 
 " What was he doing with Mrs. Wood? " asked 
 my mother anxiously. 
 
 I had not yet recovered from my own bewilder- 
 ment, and was reckless of the shock inflicted by 
 my reply. 
 
 " Pooring her head, and kissing it." 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 " To each his sufferings ; all are men 
 Condemned alike to groan. 
 
 The tender for another's pain " 
 
 Gray. 
 
 NOT even the miser's funeral had produced in 
 the neighbourhood anything like the excite- 
 ment which followed that Sunday evening. At 
 first my mother her mind filled by the simplest 
 form of the problem, namely, that Mrs. Wood was 
 in the hands of a tramp wished my father to take 
 the blunderbuss in his hand and step down to the 
 farm. He had "pish"ed and "psha"ed about 
 the blunderbuss, and was beginning to say more, 
 when I was dismissed to bed, where I wandered 
 back over the moors in uneasy dreams, and woke 
 with the horror of a tramp's hand upon my 
 shoulder. After suffering the terrors of night for 
 some time, and finding myself no braver with my 
 head under the bedclothes than above them, I 
 began conscientiously to try my mother's family 
 recipe for ''bad dreams and being afraid in the 
 dark." This was to "say over" the Benedicite 
 correctly, which (if by a rare chance one were still 
 awake at the end) was to be followed by a suc- 
 cession of the hymns one knew by heart. It 
 required an effort to begin, and to really try, but 
 the children of such mothers as ours are taught to 
 make efforts, and once fairly started, and holding 
 on as a duty, it certainly did tend to divert the 
 mind from burglars and ghosts, to get the beasts, 
 creeping things, and fowls of the air into their 
 right places in the chorus of benedictions. That 
 Jem never could discriminate between the "Dews 
 and Frosts" and " Frost and Cold " verses needs 
 no telling. I have often finished and still been 
 frightened and had to fall back upon the hymns, 
 but this night I began to dream pleasanter dreams 
 of Charlie's father and the bee-master before I got 
 to the holy and humble men of heart. 
 
 I slept long then, and Mother would not let me 
 be awakened. When I did open my eyes Jem 
 was sitting at the end of my bed, dying to tell me 
 the news. 
 
 ' ' Jack ! you have waked, haven't you ? I see 
 your eyes. Don't shut 'em again. What do you 
 think ? Mrs. Wood's husband has come home ! " 
 
 I never knew the ins and outs of the story very 
 exactly. At the time that what did become gene- 
 rally known was fresh in people's minds Jem and 
 I were not by way of being admitted to " grown- 
 up " conversations ; and though Mrs. Wood's 
 husband and I became intimate friends, I neither 
 wished nor dared to ask him more about his past 
 than he chose to tell, for I knew enough to know 
 that it must be almost intolerable pain to recall it. 
 
 What we had all heard of the story was this. 
 Mr. Wood had been a head clerk in a house of 
 business. A great forgery was committed against 
 his employers, and he was accused. He was 
 tried, condemned, and sentenced to fourteen years' 
 penal servitude, which, in those days, meant trans- 
 portation abroad. For some little time the jury 
 had not been unanimous. One man doubted the 
 prisoner's guilt the man we afterwards knew as 
 the old miser of Walnut-tree Farm. But he was 
 over-persuaded at last, and Mr. Wood was con- 
 victed and sentenced. He had spent ten years of 
 his penal servitude in Bermuda when a man lying 
 in Maidstone Jail under sentence of death for 
 murder, confessed (amongst other crimes of which 
 he disburdened his conscience), that it was he, 
 and not the man who had been condemned, who 
 had committed the forgery. Investigation con- 
 firmed the truth of this statement, and Mr. Wood 
 was ' * pardoned " and brought home. 
 
 He had just come. He was the tramp. 
 
 In this life the old miser never knew that his 
 first judgment had been the just one, but the doubt 
 which seems always to have haunted him whether 
 he had not helped to condemn the innocent was 
 the reason of his bequest to the convict's wife, 
 and explained much of the mysterious wording of 
 the will. 
 
 It was a tragic tale, and gave a terrible interest 
 to the gaunt, white-haired, shattered-looking man 
 who was the hero of it. It had one point of spe- 
 cial awe for me, and I used to watch him in church 
 and think of it, till I am ashamed to say that I 
 forgot even when to stand up and sit down. He 
 had served ten years of his sentence. Ten years ! 
 Ten times three hundred and sixty-five days ! All 
 the days of the years of my life. The weight of 
 that undeserved punishment had fallen on him the 
 year that I was born, and all that long, long time 
 of home with Mother and Father and Jem all the 
 haymaking summers and snowballing winters 
 whilst Jem and I had never been away from home, 
 and had had so much fun, and nothing very horrid 
 that I could call to mind except the mumps he 
 had been an exile working in chains. I remember
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 rousing up with a start from the realisation of this 
 one Sunday to find myself still standing in the 
 middle of the Litany. My mother was behaving 
 too well herself to find me out, and though Jem 
 was giggling he dared not move, because he was 
 kneeling next my father, whose back was turned 
 to me. I knelt down, and started to hear the 
 parson say "show Thy pity upon all prisoners 
 and captives ! " And then I knew what it is to 
 wish when it is too late. For I did so wish I had 
 really prayed for prisoners and captives every Sun- 
 day, because then I should have prayed for that 
 poor man nearly all the long time he had been so 
 miserable ; for we began to go to church very 
 early, and one learns to pray easier and sooner 
 than one learns anything else. 
 
 All this had happened in the holidays, but 
 when they were over school opened as before, and 
 with additional scholars ; for sympathy was wide 
 and warm with the schoolmistress. Strangely 
 enough, both partners in the firm which had prose- 
 cuted Mr. Wood were dead. Their successors 
 offered him employment, but he could not face 
 the old associations. I believe he found it so hard 
 to face any one, that this was the reason of his 
 staying at home for a time and helping in the 
 school. I don't think we boys made him uncom- 
 fortable as grown-up strangers seemed to do, and 
 he was particularly fond of " Cripple Charlie." 
 
 This brought me into contact with him, for 
 Charlie and I were great friends. He was as well 
 pleased to be read to out of the penny numbers as 
 the bee-master, and he was interested in things of 
 which Isaac Irvine was Completely ignorant. 
 
 Our school was a day-school, but Charlie had 
 been received by Mrs. Wood as a boarder. His 
 poor back could not have borne to be jolted to 
 and from the moors every day. So he lived at 
 Walnut-tree Farm, and now and then his father 
 would come down in a light cart, lent by one of 
 the parishioners, and take Charlie home from 
 Saturday to Monday, and then bring him back 
 again. 
 
 The sisters came to see him too, by turns, some- 
 times walking and sometimes riding a rough- 
 coated pony, who was well-content to be tied to a 
 gate, and eat some of the grass that overgrew the 
 lane . And often Charlie came to us, especially in 
 haytime, for haycocks seem very comfortable (for 
 people whose backs hurt) to lean against ; and we 
 could cover his legs with hay too, as he liked 
 them to be hidden. There is no need to say how 
 tender my mother was to him, and my father used 
 to look at him half puzzledly and half pitifully, and 
 always spoke to him in quite a different tone of 
 voice to the one he used with other boys. 
 
 Jem gave Charlie the best uuppy out of the 
 
 curly brown spaniel lot ; but he didn't really like 
 being with him, though he was sorry for him, and 
 he could not bear seeing his poor legs. 
 
 " They make me feel horrid," Jem said. "And 
 even when they're covered up, I know they're 
 there. " 
 
 " You're a chip of the old block, Jem," said my 
 father. " I'd give a guinea to a hospital any day 
 sooner than see a patient. I'm as sorry as can be 
 for the poor lad, but he turns me queer, though I 
 feel ashamed of it. I like things sound. Your 
 mother's different ; she likes 'em better for being 
 sick and sorry, and I suppose Jack takes after 
 her." 
 
 My father was wrong about me. Pity for 
 Charlie was not half of the tie between us. When 
 he was talking, or listening to the penny numbers, 
 I never thought about his legs or his back, and I 
 don't now understand how anybody could. 
 
 He read and remembered far more than I did, 
 and he was even wilder about strange countries. 
 He had as adventurous a spirit as any lad in the 
 school, cramped up as it was in that misshapen 
 body. I knew he'd have liked to go round the 
 world as well as I, and he often laughed and said 
 "What's more, Jack, if I'd the money I would. 
 People are very kind to poor wretches like me all 
 over the world. I should never want a helping 
 hand, and the only difference between us would 
 be, that I should be carried on board-ship by 
 some kindhearted blue-jacket, and you'd have to 
 scramble for yourself. " 
 
 He was very anxious to know Isaac Irvine, and 
 when I brought the bee-master to see him, they 
 seemed to hold friendly converse with their looks 
 even before either of them spoke. It was a bad 
 day with Charlie, but he set his lips against the 
 pain, and raised himself on one arm to stare out of 
 his big brown eyes at the old man, who met them 
 with as steady a gaze out of his. Then Charlie 
 lowered himself again, and said in a tone of voice 
 by which I knew he was pleased, " I'm so glad 
 you've come to see me, old Isaac. It's very kind 
 of you. Jack says ycu know a lot about live 
 things, and that you like the numbers we like in 
 the ' Penny Cyclopaedia. ' I wanted to see you, 
 for I think you and I are much in the same boat ; 
 you're old, and I'm crippled, and we're both too 
 poor to travel. But Jack's to go, and when he's 
 gone, you and I'll follow him on the map." 
 
 "Goo willing, sir," said the bee-master; and 
 when he said that, I knew how sorry he felt for 
 poor Charlie, for when he was moved he always 
 said very short things, and generally something 
 religious. 
 
 And for all Charlie's whims and fancies, and in 
 all his pain and fretfulness, and through fits of
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 silence and sensitiveness, he had never a better 
 friend than Isaac Irvine. Indeed the bee-master 
 was one of those men (to be found in all ranks), 
 whose delicate tenderness might not be guessed 
 from the size and roughness of the outer man. 
 
 Our neighbours were all very kind tb Mr. Wood, 
 in their own way, but they were a little impatient 
 of his slowness to be sociable, and had, I think, a 
 sort of feeling that the ex-convict ought not only 
 to enjoy evening parties more than other people, 
 but to be just a little more grateful for being 
 invited. 
 
 However, one must have a strong and sensitive 
 imagination to cultivate wide sympathies when one 
 lives a quiet, methodical life in the place where 
 one's father and grandfather lived out quiet metho- 
 dical lives before one ; and I do not think we 
 were an imaginative race. 
 
 The schoolmaster (as we used to call him) had 
 seen and suffered so much more of life than we, 
 that I do not think he resented the clumsiness of 
 our sympathy ; but now I look back I fancy that 
 he must have felt as if he wanted years of peace 
 and quiet in which to try and forget the years of 
 suffering. Old Isaac said one day, " I reckon the 
 master feels as if he wanted to sit down and say to 
 hisself over and over again, ' I'm a free man, I'm 
 a free man, I'm a free man,' till he can fair trust 
 himself to believe it." 
 
 Isaac was probably right, and perhaps evening 
 parties, though they are meant for treats, are not 
 the best places to sit down and feel free in, par- 
 ticularly when there are a lot of strange people 
 who have heard a dreadful story about you, and 
 want to see what you look like after it. 
 
 During the summer holidays Jem and I were 
 out the whole day long. When we came in I was 
 ready for the Penny Numbers, but Jem always fell 
 asleep, even if he did not go to bed at once. My 
 father did just the same. I think their feeling about 
 houses was of a perfectly primitive kind. They 
 looked upon them as comfortable shelter for sleep- 
 ing and eating, but not at all as places in which to 
 pursue any occupation. Life, for them, was lived 
 out-of-doors. 
 
 I know now, how dull this must have made the 
 evenings for my mother, and that it was very 
 selfish of me to wait till my father was asleep (for 
 fear he should say "no"), and then to ask her 
 leave to take the Penny Numbers down to the 
 farm and sit with Cripple Charlie. 
 
 Now and then she would go too, and chat with 
 Mrs. Wood, whilst the schoolmaster and I were 
 turning the terrestrial globe by Charlie's sofa ; but 
 as a rule Charlie and I were alone, and the Woods 
 went round the homestead together, and came 
 home, hand in hand, through the garden, and we 
 
 laughed to think how we had taken him for a 
 tramp. 
 
 And sometimes on a summer's evening, when 
 we talked and read aloud to each other across a 
 quaint oak table that had been the miser's, of far- 
 away lands and strange birds of gorgeous plumage, 
 the schoolmaster sat silent in the arm-chair by the 
 open lattice, resting his white head against the 
 mullion that the ivy was creeping up, and listened 
 to the blackbirds and thrushes as their songs 
 dropped by odd notes into silence, and gazed at 
 the near fields and trees, and the little homestead 
 with its hayricks on the hill, when the grass was 
 apple-green in the gold mist of sunset : and went 
 on gazing when that had faded into fog, and the 
 hedgerow elms were black against the sky, as if 
 the eye could not be filled with seeing, nor the ear 
 with hearing ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 "Who, doomed to go in company with Pain, 
 Turns his necessity to glorious gain." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 "TACK," said Charlie, " listen ! " 
 
 * He was reading bits out of the numbers to 
 me, whilst I was rigging a miniature yacht to sail 
 on the dam ; and Mrs. Wood's husband was 
 making a plan of something at another table, and 
 occasionally giving me advice about my masts and 
 sails. "It's about the South American forests," 
 said Charlie. ' ' ' There every tree has a character 
 of its own ; each has its peculiar foliage, and pro- 
 bably also a tint unlike that of the trees which 
 surround it. Gigantic vegetables of the most 
 different families intermix their branches ; five- 
 leaved bignonias grow by the side of bonduc-trees ; 
 cassias shed their yellow blossoms upon the rich 
 fronds of arborescent ferns ; myrtles and eugenias, 
 with their thousand arms contrast with the elegant 
 simplicity of palms ; and among the airy foliage of 
 the mimosa the ceropia elevates its giant leaves 
 and heavy candelabra-shaped branches. Of some 
 trees the trunk is perfectly smooth, of others it is 
 defended by enormous spines, and the whole are 
 often apparently sustained by the slanting stems 
 of a huge wild fig-tree. With us, the oak, tjie 
 chestnut, and the beech seem as if they bore no 
 flowers, so small are they and so little distinguish- 
 able except by naturalists ; but in the forests of 
 South America it is often the most gigantic trees 
 ( that produce the most brilliant flowers ; cassias 
 'hang down their pendants of golden blossoms, 
 vochisias unfold their singular bunches ; corollas,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 longer than those of our foxglove, sometimes yel- 
 low or sometimes purple, load the arborescent 
 bignonias ; while the chorisias are covered, as it 
 were, with lilies, only their colours are richer and 
 more varied ; grasses also appear in form of bam- 
 boos, as the most graceful of trees ; bauhinias, 
 bignonias, and aroideous plants cling round the 
 trees like enormous cables ; orchideous plants and 
 bromelias overrun their limbs, or fasten themselves 
 to them when prostrated by the storm, and make 
 even their dead remains become verdant with 
 leaves and flowers not their own.' " 
 
 Though he could read very well, Charlie had, 
 so far, rather stumbled through the long names in 
 this description, but he finished off with fluency, 
 not to say enthusiasm. " ' Such are the ancient 
 forests, flourishing in a damp and fertile soil, and 
 clothed with perpetual green.' " 
 
 I was half-way through a profound sigh when I 
 caught the schoolmaster's eye, who had paused in 
 his plan-making and was listening with his head, 
 upon his hand. 
 
 " What a groan ! " he exclaimed. "What's the 
 matter ? " 
 
 "It sounds so splendid!" I answered, "and 
 I'm so afraid I shall never see it. I told Father 
 last night I should like to be a sailor, but he only 
 said 'Stuff and nonsense,' and that there was a 
 better berth waiting for me in Uncle Henry's office 
 than any of the Queen's ships would provide for 
 me ; and Mother begged me never to talk of it 
 any more, if I didn't want to break her heart " 
 and I signed again. 
 
 The schoolmaster had a long smooth face, which 
 looked longer from melancholy, and he turned it 
 and his arms over the back of the chair, and looked 
 at me with the watchful listening look his eyes 
 always had ; but I am not sure if he was really 
 paying much attention to me, for he talked (as he 
 often did) as if he were talking to himself. 
 
 "I wanted to be a soldier," he said, "and my 
 father wouldn't let me. I often used to wish I had 
 run away and enlisted, when I was with Quarter- 
 master McCulloch, of the Engineers (he'd risen 
 from the ranks and was younger than me), in 
 Bermuda. " 
 
 " Bermuda ! That's not very far from South 
 America, is it ? " said I, looking across to the big 
 map of the world. " Is it very beautiful, too?" 
 
 The schoolmaster's eyes contracted as if he were 
 short-sighted, or looking at something inside his 
 own head. But he smiled as he answered : 
 
 ' ' The poet says 
 
 " ' A pleasing land of drowsy-head it is, 
 Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye ; 
 And of gay castles in the clouds that pass. 
 For ever flushing round a summer sky.'" 
 
 "But are there any curious beasts and plants 
 and that sort of tiling ? " 1 asked. 
 
 " I believe there were no native animals ori- 
 ginally," said the schoolmaster. " I mean inland 
 ones. But the lowls of the air and the fishes of 
 the sea are of all lovely forms and colours. And 
 such corals and sponges, and sea-anemones, bloom- 
 ing like flowers in the transparent pools of the 
 warm blue water that washes the coral reefs and 
 fills the little creeks and bays ! " 
 
 I gasped and he went on. "The commonest 
 trees, I think, are palms and cedars. Lots of the 
 old houses were built of cedar, and I've heard of 
 old cedar furniture to be picked up here and there, 
 as some people buy old oak out of English farm- 
 houses. It is very durable and deliciously scented. 
 People used to make cedar bonfires when the 
 smallpox was about, to keep away infection. The 
 gardens will grow anything, and plots of land are 
 divided by oleander hedges of many colours." 
 
 "Oh h!" ejaculated I, in long-drawn notes of 
 admiration. The schoolmaster's eyes twinkled. 
 
 "Not only," continued he, "do very gaudy 
 lobsters and quaint cray-fish and crabs with lanky 
 legs dispute your attention on the shore with the 
 shell-fish of the loveliest hues ; there is no lack of 
 remarkable creatures indoors. Monstrous spiders, 
 whose bite is very unpleasant, drop from the roof; 
 tarantulas and scorpions get into your boots, and 
 cockroaches, hideous to behold and disgusting to 
 smell, invade every place from your bed to your 
 store-cupboard. If you possess anything, from 
 food and clothing to books and boxes, the ants 
 will find it and devour it, and if you possess a 
 garden the mosquitoes will find you and devour 
 you." 
 
 " Oh h ! " I exclaimed once more, but this 
 time in a different tone. 
 
 Mr. Wood laughed heartily. " Tropical loveli- 
 ness has its drawbacks, Jack. Perhaps some day 
 when your clothes are moulded, and your brain 
 feels mouldy too with damp heat, and you can 
 neither work in the sun nor be at peace in the 
 shade, you may wish you were sitting on a stool 
 in your uncle's office, undisturbed by venomous 
 insects, and cool in a November fog." 
 
 I laughed too, but I shook my head. 
 
 "No. I shan't mind the insects if I can get 
 there. Charlie, were those wonderful ants old Isaac 
 said you'd been reading about, Bermuda ants ?" 
 
 I did not catch Charlie's muttered reply, and 
 when I looked round I saw that his face was 
 buried in the red cushions, and that he was (what 
 Jem used to call) "in one of his tempers." 
 
 I don't exactly know how it was. I don't think 
 Charlie was jealous or really cross, but he used to 
 take fits of fancying he was in the way, and out of
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 it all (from being a cripple), if we seemed to be 
 very busy without him, especially about such 
 things as planning adventures. I knew what was 
 the matter directly, but I'm afraid my consolation 
 was rather clumsy. 
 
 " Don't be cross, Charlie," I said ; " I thought 
 you were listening too, and if it's because you 
 think you won't be able to go, I don't believe 
 there's really a bit more chance of my going, 
 though my legs are all right." 
 
 "Don't bother about me," said Charlie; "but 
 I wish you'd put these numbers down, they're in 
 ray way." And he turned pettishly over. 
 
 Before I could move, the schoolmaster had 
 taken the papers, and was standing over Charlie's 
 couch, with his right hand against the wall, at the 
 level of his head, and his left arm hanging by his 
 side ; and I suppose it was his attitude which 
 made me notice, before he began to speak, what 
 a splendid figure he had, and how strong he 
 looked. He spoke in an odd, abrupt sort of 
 voice, very different from the way he had been 
 talking to me, but he looked down at Charlie so 
 intensely, that I think he felt it through the 
 cushions, and lifted his head. 
 
 " When your father has been bringing you 
 down here, or at any time when you have been 
 out amongst other people, have you ever over- 
 heard them saying, ' Poor chap ! it's a sad thing,' 
 and things of that kind, as if they were sorry for 
 you?" 
 
 Cripple Charlie's face flushed scarlet, and my 
 own cheeks burned, as I looked daggers at the 
 schoolmaster, for what seemed a brutal insensibility 
 to the lame boy's feelings. He did not condescend, 
 however, to meet my eyes. His own were still 
 fixed steadily on Charlie's, and he went on. 
 
 " I've heard it. My ears are quick, and for 
 many a Sunday after I came I caught the whispers 
 behind me as I went up the aisle, ' Poor man ! ' 
 ' Poor gentleman ! ' He looks bad, too ! ' One 
 morning an old woman, in a big black bonnet, 
 said, ' Poor soul ! ' so close to me, that I looked 
 clown, and met her withered eyes, full of tears 
 for me ! and I said, 'Thank you, mother,' and 
 she fingered the sleeve of my coat with her trem- 
 bling hand (the veins were standing out on it like 
 ropes), and said, ' I've knowed trouble myself, my 
 dear. The Lord bless yours to you ! ' " 
 
 " It must have been Betty Johnson," I interpo- 
 lated ; but the schoolmaster did not even look at 
 me. 
 
 " You and I," he said, bending nearer to Cripple 
 Charlie, "have had our share of this life's pain so 
 dealt out to us that any one can see and pity us. 
 My boy, take a fellow-sufferer's word for it, it is 
 wise and good not to shrink from the seeing and 
 
 pitying. The weight of the cross spreads itself 
 and becomes lighter if one learns to suffer with 
 others as well as with oneself, to take pity and to 
 give it. And as one learns to be pained with the 
 
 Eains of others, one learns to be happy in their 
 appiness and comforted by their sympathy, and 
 then no man's life can be quite empty of pleasure. 
 I don't know if my troubles have been lighter or 
 
 heavier ones than yours " 
 
 The schoolmaster stopped short, and turned his 
 head so that his face was almost hidden against his 
 hand upon the wall. Charlie's big eyes were full 
 of tears, and I am sure I distinctly felt my ears 
 poke forwards on my head with anxious curiosity 
 to catch what Mr. Wood would tell us about that 
 dreadful time of which he had never spoken. 
 
 " When I was your age," he said bluntly, " I 
 was unusually lithe and active and strong for mine. 
 When I was half as old again, I was stronger than 
 any man I knew, and had many a boyish triumph 
 out of my strength, because I was slender and 
 graceful, and this concealed my powers. I had 
 all the energies and ambitions natural to unusual 
 vigour and manly skill. I wanted to be a soldier, 
 but it was not to be, and I spent my youth at a 
 desk in a house of business. I adapted myself, 
 but none the less I chafed whenever I heard of 
 manly exploits, and of the delights and dangers 
 that came of seeing the world. I used to think I 
 could bear anything to cross the seas and see 
 foreign climes. I did cross the Atlantic at last 
 a convict in a convict ship (GOD help any man 
 who knows what that is !), and I spent the ten 
 best years of my manhood at the hulks working in 
 chains. You've never lost freedom, my lad, so 
 you have never felt what it is not to be able to 
 believe you've got it back. You don't know what 
 it is to turn nervous at the responsibility of being 
 your own master for a whole day, or to wake in a 
 dainty room, with the birds singing at the open 
 window, and to shut your eyes quickly and pray 
 to go on dreaming a bit, because you feel sure 
 you're really in your hammock in the hulks." 
 
 The schoolmaster lifted his other hand above 
 his head, and pressed both on it, as if he were in 
 
 rin. What Charlie was doing I don't know, but 
 felt so miserable I could not help crying, and 
 had to hunt for my pocket-handkerchief under the 
 table. It was full of acorns, and by the time I 
 had emptied it and.dried my eyes, Mr. Wood was 
 lifting Charlie in his arms, and arranging his 
 cushions. 
 
 "Oh, thank you !" Charlie said, as he leant 
 back ; "how comfortable you have made me ! " 
 
 " I have been sick-nurse, amongst other trades. 
 For some months I was a hospital warder. " 
 
 " Was that when " Charlie began, and then
 
 26 
 
 WE AND THE v/ORLD, 
 
 he stopped short, and said, ' ' Oh, I beg your 
 pardon ! " 
 
 " Yes ; it was when I was a convict," said the 
 schoolmaster. ' ' No offence, my boy. If I preach 
 I must try to practise. Jack's eyes are dropping 
 out of his head to hear more of Bermuda, and you 
 and I will put our whims and moods on one side, 
 and we'll all tell travellers' tales together." 
 
 Cripple Charlie kept on saying ' s Thank you," 
 and I know he was very sorry not to be able to 
 think of anything more to say, for he told me so. 
 He wanted to have thanked him better, because he 
 knew that Mr. Wood had talked about his having 
 been a convict, when he did not like to talk about 
 it, just to show Charlie that he knew what pain, 
 and not being able to do what you want, feel like, 
 and that Charlie ought not to fancy he was 
 neglected. 
 
 And that was the beginning of all the stories 
 the schoolmaster used to tell us, and of the natural 
 history lessons he gave us, and of his teaching me 
 to stuff birds, and do all kinds of things. 
 
 We used to say to him, "You're better than 
 the penny numbers, for you're quite as interesting, 
 and we're sure you're true." And the odd thing 
 was that he made Charlie much more contented, 
 because he started him with so many collections, 
 whilst he made me only more and more anxious 
 to see the world. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 "Much would have more, and lost all." 
 
 English Proverb. 
 
 " Learn you to an ill habit, and ye'll ca't custom." 
 
 Scotch Proverb. 
 
 * 1 ""HE lane was full of colour that autumn, the 
 J_ first autumn of the convict's return. The 
 leaves turned early, and fell late, and made the 
 hedges gayer than when the dog-roses were out ; 
 for not only were the leaves of all kinds brighter 
 than many flowers, but the berries (from the holly 
 and mountain-ash to the hips and haws) were so 
 thick set, and so red and shining, that, as my dear 
 mother said, " they looked almost artificial." 
 
 I remember it well, because of two things. 
 First, that Jem got five of the largest hips we had 
 ever seen off a leafless dog-rose branch which 
 stuck far out of the hedge, and picked the little 
 green coronets off, so that they were smooth and 
 glossy, and egg-shaped, and crimson on one side 
 and yellow on the other ; and then he got an 
 empty chaffinch's nest close by and put the five 
 hips into it, and took it home, and persuaded 
 
 Alice our new parlourmaid that it was a robin 
 redbreast's nest with eggs in it. And she believed 
 it, for she came from London and knew no better. 
 
 The second thing I remember that autumn by, 
 is that everybody expected a hard winter because 
 of the berries being so fine, and the hard winter 
 never came, and the birds ate worms and grubs 
 and left most of the hedge fruits where they were. 
 
 November was bright and mild, and the morning 
 frosts only made the berries all the glossier when 
 the sun came out. We had one or two snow- 
 storms in December, and then we all said, " Now . 
 it's coming ! " but the snow melted away and left 
 no bones behind. In January the snow lay longer, 
 and left big bones on the moors, and Jem and I 
 made a slide to school on the pack track, and 
 towards the end of the month the milldam froze 
 hard, and we had slides fifteen yards long, and 
 skating ; and Winter seemed to have come back 
 in good earnest to fetch his bones away. 
 
 Jem was great fun in frosty weather ; Charlie 
 and I used to die of laughing at him. I think 
 cold made him pugnacious; he seemed always 
 ready for a row, and was constantly in one. The 
 January frost came in our Christmas holidays, so 
 Jem had lots of time on his hands ; he spent 
 almost all of it out of doors, and he devoted a 
 good deal of it to fighting with the rough lads of 
 the village. There was a standing subject of 
 quarrel, which is a great thing for either tribes or 
 individuals who have a turn that way. A pond at 
 the corner of the lower paddock was fed by a 
 stream which also fed the milldam ; and the mill- 
 dam was close by, though, as it happened, not on 
 my father's property. Old custom made the mill- 
 dam the winter resort of all the village sliders and 
 skaters, and my father displayed a good deal of 
 toleration when those who could not find room for 
 a new slide, or wished to practise their "outer 
 edge" in a quiet spot, came climbing over the 
 wall (there was no real thoroughfare) and invaded 
 our pond. 
 
 Perhaps it is because gratitude is a fatiguing 
 virtue, or perhaps it is because self-esteem has no 
 practical limits, that favours are seldom regarded 
 as such for long. They are either depreciated, or 
 claimed as rights ; very often both. And what is 
 common in all classes is almost universal amongst 
 the uneducated. You have only to make a system 
 of giving your cast-off clothes to some shivering 
 family, and you will not have to wait long for an 
 eloquent essay on their shabbiness, or for an out- 
 burst of sincere indignation if you venture to reserve 
 a warm jacket for a needy relative. Prescriptive 
 rights, in short, grow faster than pumpkins, which 
 is amongst the many warnings life affords us to be 
 just as well as generous. Thence it had come
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 about that the young roughs of the village regarded 
 our pond to all winter intents and purposes as 
 theirs, and my father as only so far and so objec- 
 tionably concerned in the matter that he gave 
 John Binder a yearly job in patching up the wall 
 which it took them three months' trouble to kick 
 a breach in. 
 
 Our neighbours were what is called ' ' very inde- 
 pendent " folk. In the grown-up people this was 
 modified by the fact that no one who has to earn 
 his own livelihood can be quite independent of 
 other people ; if he would live he must let live, 
 and throw a little civility into the bargain. But 
 boys of an age when their parents found meals and 
 hobnailed boots for them whether they behaved 
 well or ill, were able to display independence in 
 its roughest form. And when the boys of our 
 neighbourhood were rough, they were very rough 
 indeed. 
 
 The village boys had their Christmas holidays 
 about the same time that we had ours, which left 
 them as much spare time for sliding and skating 
 as we had, but they had their dinner at twelve 
 o'clock, whilst we had ours at one, so that any 
 young roughs who wished to damage our pond 
 were just comfortably beginning their mischief as 
 Jem and I were saying grace before meat, and the 
 thought of it took away our appetites again and 
 again. 
 
 That winter they were particularly aggravating. 
 The December frost was a very imperfect one, and 
 the milldam never bore properly, so the boys 
 swarmed over our pond, which was shallow and 
 safe. Very few of them could even hobble on 
 skates, and those few carried the art no farther 
 than by cutting up the slides. But thaw came on, 
 so that there was no sliding, and then the young 
 roughs amused themselves with stamping holes in 
 the soft ice with their hobnailed heels. When 
 word came to us that they were taking the stones 
 off our wall and pitching them down on to the soft 
 ice below, to act as skaters' stumblingblocks for 
 the rest of that hard winter which we expected, 
 Jem's indignation was not greater than mine. My 
 father was not at home, and indeed, when we had 
 complained before, he rather snubbed us, and said 
 that we could not want the whole of the pond to 
 ourselves, and that he had always lived quietly 
 with his neighbours and we must learn to do the 
 same, and so forth. No action at all calculated to 
 assuage our thirst for revenge was likely to be 
 taken by him, so Jem and I held a council by 
 Charlie's sofa, and it was a council of war. At 
 the end we all three solemnly shook hands, and 
 Charlie was left to write and despatch brief notes 
 of summons to our more distant schoolmates, whilst 
 Jem and I tucked up our trousers, wound our com- 
 
 forters sternly round our throats, and went forth in 
 different directions to gather the rest. 
 
 (Having lately been reading about the High- 
 landers, who used to send round a fiery cross when 
 the clans were called to battle, I should have liked 
 to do so in this instance ; but as some of the 
 Academy boys were no greater readers than Jem, 
 they might not have known what k meant, so we 
 abandoned the notion.) 
 
 There was not an Academy boy worth speaking 
 of who was in time for dinner the following day ; 
 and several of them brought brothers, or cousins 
 to the fray. By half-past twelve we had crept 
 down the field that was on the other side of our 
 wall, and had hidden ourselves in various corners 
 of a cattle-shed, where a big cart and some sail- 
 cloth and a turnip heap provided us with ambush. 
 By-and-by certain familiar whoops and hullohs 
 announced that the enemy was coming. One or 
 two bigger boys made for the dam (which 1 confess 
 was a relief to us), but our own particular foes 
 advanced with-,a rush upon the wall. 
 
 " They hevn't coomed yet, hev they?" we heard 
 the sexton's son say, as he peeped over at our 
 pond. 
 
 "Noa," was the reply. "It's not gone one 
 yet." 
 
 " It's gone one by t' church. I yeard it as we 
 was coming up t' lane. " 
 
 "T* church clock's always hafe-an hour fasst, 
 thee knows." 
 
 "It isn't!" 
 
 "It is." 
 
 "T' church clock's t' one to go by, anyhow," 
 the sexton's son maintained. 
 
 His friend guffawed aloud. 
 
 " And it's a reight un to go by too, my sakes ! 
 when thee feyther shifts t' time back'ards and 
 for'ards every Sunday morning to suit hissen." 
 
 "To suit hissen ! To suit t' ringers, ye mean !" 
 said the sexton's son. 
 
 ' ' What's thou to do wi' t' ringers ? " was the 
 reply, enforced apparently by a punch in the back, 
 and the two lads came cuffing and struggling up 
 the field, much to my alarm, but fortunately they 
 were too busy to notice us. 
 
 Meanwhile, the rest had not been idle at the 
 wall. Jem had climbed on the cart, and peeping 
 through a brick hole he could see that they had 
 with some difficulty disengaged a very heavy stone. 
 As we were turning our heads to watch the two 
 lads fighting near our hiding-place, we heard the 
 stone strike with a heavy thud upon the rotten ice 
 below, and it was echoed by a groan of satisfaction 
 from above. 
 
 (" Ready ! " I whispered.) 
 
 " Yon'll break somebody's nose when it's frosted
 
 28 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 in," cried Bob Furniss, in a tone of sincere gratifi- 
 cation. 
 
 "Eh, Tim Binder! there'll be a rare job for 
 thee feyther next spring, fettling up this wall, by 
 t' time we've done wi' it." 
 
 "Let me come," we heard Tim say. "Thou 
 can't handle a stone. Let me come. Th' ice is as 
 soft as loppered milk, and i' ten minutes I'll fill 
 yon bit they're so chuff of skating on, as thick wi' 
 stones as a quarry." 
 
 ("Now!" I said.) 
 
 Our foes considerably outnumbered us, but I 
 think they were at -a disadvantage. They had 
 worked off a, good deal of their steam, and ours 
 was at explosion point. We took them by surprise 
 and in the rear. They had had some hard exer- 
 cise, and we were panting to begin. As a matter 
 of fact those who could get away ran away. We 
 caught all we could, and punched and pummelled 
 and rolled them in the snow to our hearts' con- 
 tent. 
 
 Jem never was much of a talker, and I never 
 knew him speak when he was fighting ; but three 
 several times on this occasion, I heard him say 
 very stiffly and distinctly (he was on the top of 
 Tim Binder), " I'll fettle thee ! I'll fettle thee ! 
 I'll fettle thee ! " 
 
 The battle was over, the victory was ours, but 
 the campaign was not ended, and thenceforward 
 the disadvantages would be for us. Even real 
 warfare is complicated when men fight with men 
 less civilized than themselves ; and we had learnt 
 before now that when we snowballed each other or 
 snowballed the rougher " lot " of village boys, we 
 did so under different conditions. We had our 
 own code of honour and fairness, but Bob Furniss 
 was not above putting a stone into a snowball if he 
 owed a grudge. 
 
 So when we heard a rumour that the bigger 
 " roughs " were going to join the younger ones, 
 and lie in wait to "pay Us off" the first day we 
 came down to the ice, I cannot say we felt com- 
 fortable, though we resolved to be courageous. 
 Meanwhile, the thaw continued, which suspended 
 operations, and gave time, which is good for 
 healing ; and Christmas came, and we and our 
 foes met and mingled in the mummeries of the 
 season, and wished each other Happy New Years, 
 and said nothing about the pond. 
 
 How my father came to hear of the matter we 
 did not know at the time, but one morning he 
 summoned Jem and me, and bade us tell, him all 
 about it. I was always rather afraid of my father, 
 and I should have made out a very stammering 
 story, but Jem flushed up like a turkey-cock, and 
 gave our version of the business very straight- 
 forwardly. The other side of the tale my father 
 
 had evidently heard, and we fancied he must have 
 heard also of the intended attack on us, for it 
 never took place, and we knew of interviews which 
 he had with John Binder and others of our neigh- 
 bours ; and when the frost came in January, we 
 found that the stones had been taken out of the 
 pond, and my father gave us a sharp lecture 
 against being quarrelsome and giving ourselves 
 airs, and it ended with " The pond is mine. I 
 wish you to remember it because it makes it your 
 duty to be hospitable and civil to the boys I allow 
 to go on it. And I have very decidedly warned 
 them and their parents to remember it, because if 
 my permission for fair amusement is abused to 
 damage and trespass, I shall withdraw the favour 
 and prosecute intruders. But the day I shut up 
 my pond from my neighbours, I shall forbid you 
 and Jack to go on it again unless the fault is more 
 entirely on one side than it's likely to be when 
 boys squabble." 
 
 My father waved our dismissal, but I hesitated. 
 
 ' ' The boys won't think we told tales to you to 
 get out of another fight ? " I gasped. 
 
 "Everybody knows perfectly well how I heard. 
 It came to the sexton's ears, and he very properly 
 informed me." 
 
 I felt relieved, and the first day we had on the 
 ice went off very fairly. The boys were sheepish 
 at first and slow to come on, and when they had 
 assembled in force they were inclined to be bully- 
 ing. But Jem and I kept our tempers, and by- 
 and-by my father came down to see us, and headed 
 a long slide in which we and our foes were com- 
 bined. As he left he pinched Jem's frosty ear, 
 and said, " Let me hear if there's any real malice, 
 but don't double your fists at every trifle. Slide 
 and let slide ! slide and let slide ! " And he took 
 a pinch of snuff and departed. 
 
 And Jem was wonderfully peaceable for the 
 rest of the day. A word from my father went a 
 long way with him. They were very fond of each 
 other. 
 
 I had no love of fighting for fighting's sake, and 
 I had other interests besides sliding and skating ; 
 so I was well satisfied that we got through the 
 January frost without further breaches of the peace. 
 Towards the end of the month we all went a good 
 deal upon the milldam, and Mr. Wood (assisted 
 by me as far as watching, handing tools and ask- 
 ing questions went) made a 'ough sledge, in which 
 he pushed Charlie before him is he skated ; and I 
 believe the village boys, as well .rs his own school- 
 fellows, were glad that Cripple Charlie had a 
 share in the winter fun, for wherever Mr. Wood 
 drove him, both sliders and skaters made way. 
 
 And even on the pond there were no more real 
 battles that winter. Only now and then some
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 mischievous urchin tripped up our brand-new 
 skates, and begged our pardon as he left us on 
 our backs. And more than once, when "the 
 island" in the middle of the pond was a very 
 fairyland of hoar-frosted twigs and snow-plumed 
 larches, I have seen its white loveliness rudely 
 shaken, and skating round to discover the cause, 
 have beheld Jem, with cheeks redder than his 
 scarlet comforter, return an "accidental" shove 
 with interest; opposed like aruffled robin redbreast, 
 to defend a newly-made slide against intruders. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 " He it was who sent the snowflakes 
 Sifting, hissing through the forest ; 
 Froze the ponds, the lakes, the rivers 
 
 Shinbegis, the div 
 
 feared not." 
 The Song of Hiawathc. 
 
 r T"'HE first day of February was mild, and foggy, 
 J_ and cloudy, and in the night I woke feeling 
 very hot, and threw off my quilt, and heard the 
 dripping of soft rain in the dark outside, and 
 thought, "There goes our skating." Towards 
 morning, however, I woke again, and had to pull 
 the quilt back into its place, and when I started 
 after breakfast to see what the dam looked like, 
 there was a sharpish frost, which, coming after a 
 day of thaw, had given the ice such a fine smooth 
 surface as we had not had for long. 
 
 I felt quite sorry for Jem, because he was going 
 in the dogcart with my father to see a horse, and 
 as I hadn't got him to skate with, I went down to 
 the farm after breakfast, to see what Charlie and 
 the Woods were going to do. Charlie was not 
 well, but Mr. Wood said he would come to the 
 dam with me after dinner, as he had to go to the 
 next village on business, and the dam lay in his 
 way. 
 
 "Keep to the pond this morning, Jack," he 
 added, to my astonishment. " Remember it 
 thawed all yesterday ; and if the wheel was freed 
 and has been turning, it has run water off from 
 under the ice, and all may not be sound that's 
 smooth." 
 
 The pond was softer than it looked, but the 
 milldam was most tempting. A sheet of "glare 
 ice," as Americans say, smooth and clear as a 
 newly-washed window-pane. I did not go on it, 
 but 1 brought Mr. W T ood to it early in the after- 
 noon, in the full hope that he would give me 
 leave. 
 
 We found several young men on the bank, some 
 
 fastening their skates and some trying the ice with 
 their heels, and as we stood there the numbers 
 increased, and most of them went on without 
 hesitation ; and when they rushed in groups to- 
 gether, I noticed that the ice slightly swayed. 
 
 "The ice bends a good deal," said Mr. Wood 
 to a man standing next to us. 
 
 "They say it's not so like to break when it 
 bends," was the reply; and the man moved on. 
 
 A good many of the elder men from the village 
 had come up, and a group, including John Binder, 
 now stood alongside of us. 
 
 "There's a good sup of water atop of it," said 
 the mason ; and I noticed then that the ice seemed 
 to look wetter, like newly-washed glass still, but 
 like glass that wants wiping dry. 
 
 " i'm afraid the ice is not safe," said the school- 
 master. 
 
 " It's a tidy thickness, sir," said John Binder, 
 and a heavy man, with his hands in his pockets 
 and his back turned to us, stepped down and gave 
 two or three jumps, and then got up again, and, 
 with his back still turned towards us, said 
 
 "It's reight enough." 
 
 ' ' It's right enough for one man, but not for a 
 crowd, I'm afraid. Was the waterwheel freed last 
 night, do you know ? " 
 
 "It was loosed last night, but it's froz again," 
 said a bystander. 
 
 " It's not freezing now," said the schoolmaster, 
 " and you may see how much larger that weak 
 place where the stream is has got since yesterday. 
 However," he added, good-humouredly, "I sup- 
 pose you think you know your own milldam and its 
 ways better than I can ? " 
 
 " Well," said the heavy man, still with his back 
 to us, " I reckon we've slid on this dam a many 
 winters afore you come. No offence, I hope?" 
 
 "By no means," said the schoolmaster; "but 
 if you old hands do begin to feel doubtful as the 
 afternoon goes on, call off those lads at the other 
 end in good time. And if you could warn them 
 not to go in rushes together but perhaps they 
 would not listen to you," he added with a spice of 
 malice. 
 
 "I don't suppose they would, sir," said John 
 Binder, candidly. "They're very venturesome, 
 is lads." 
 
 " I reckon they'll suit themselves," said the 
 heavy man, and he jumped on to the ice, and went 
 off, still with his back to us. 
 
 " If I hadn't lived so many years out of England 
 and out of the world/' said the schoolmaster, 
 turning to me with a half- vexed laugh, "I don't 
 suppose I should discredit myself to no purpose by 
 telling fools they are in danger. Jack ! will you 
 promise me not to go on the dam this afternoon ? y
 
 3 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 "It is dangerous, is it?" I asked reluctantly; 
 for I wanted sorely to join the rest. 
 
 "That's a matter of opinion, it seems. But I 
 have a wish that you should not go on till I come 
 back. I'll be as quick as I can. Promise me." 
 
 " I promise," said I. 
 
 "Will you walk with me?" he asked. But I 
 refused. I thought I would rather watch the 
 others ; and accordingly, after I had followed the 
 schoolmaster with my eyes as he strode off at a 
 pace that promised soon to bring him back, I put 
 my hands into my pockets and joined the groups 
 of watchers on the bank. I suppose if I had 
 thought about it, I might have observed that 
 though I was dawdling about, my nose and ears 
 and fingers were not nipped. Mr. Wood was 
 right, it had not been freezing for hours past. 
 
 The first thing I looked for was the heavy man. 
 He was so clumsy looking that I quite expected 
 him to fall when he walked off on to ice only fit 
 for skaters. But as I looked closer I saw that the 
 wet on the top was beginning to have a curdled 
 look, and that the glassiness of the milldam was 
 much diminished. The heavy man's heavy boots 
 got good foothold, and several of his friends, seeing 
 this, went after him. And my promise weighed 
 sorely on me. 
 
 The next thing that drew my attention was a 
 lad of about seventeen, who was skating really 
 well. Indeed, everybody was looking at him, for 
 he was the only one of the villagers who could 
 perform in any but the clumsiest fashion, and, with 
 an active interest that hovered between jeering and 
 applause, his neighbours followed him up and 
 down the dam. As I might not go on, I wan- 
 dered up and down the bank too, and occasionally 
 joined in a murmured cheer when he deftly evaded 
 some intentional blunderer, or cut a figure at the 
 request of his particular friends. I got tired at 
 last, and went down to the pond, where I ploughed 
 about for a time on my skates in solitude, for the 
 pond was empty. Then I ran up to the house to 
 see if Jem had come back, but he had not, and 
 I returned to the dam to wait for the school- 
 master. 
 
 The crowd was larger than before, for every- 
 body's work-hours were over ; and the skater was 
 still displaying himself. He was doing very diffi- 
 cult figures now, and I ran round to where the 
 bank was covered with people watching him. In 
 the minute that followed I remember three things 
 with curious distinctness. First, that I saw Mr. 
 Wood coming back, only one field off, and 
 beckoned to him to be quick, because the lad was 
 beginning to cut a double three backwards, and I 
 wanted the schoolmaster to see it. Secondly, that 
 the sight of him seemed suddenly to bring to my 
 
 mind that we were all on the far side of the dam, 
 the side he thought dangerous. And thirdly, 
 that, quickly as my eyes passed from Mr. Wood 
 to the skater, I caught sight of a bloated-looking 
 young man, whom we all knew as a sort of typical 
 " bad lot," standing with another man who was a 
 great better, and from a movement between them, 
 it just flashed through my head that they were 
 betting as to whether the lad would cut the double 
 three backwards or not. 
 
 He cut one two and then he turned too 
 quickly and his skate caught in the softening ice, 
 and when he came headlong, his head struck, and 
 where it struck it went through. It looked so 
 horrible that it was a relief to see him begin to 
 struggle ; but the weakened ice broke around him 
 with every effort, and he went down. 
 
 For many a year afterwards I used to dream of 
 his face as he sank, and of the way the ice heaved 
 like the breast of some living thing, and fell back, 
 and of the heavy waves that rippled over it out of 
 that awful hole. But great as was the shock, it 
 was small to the storm of shame and agony that 
 came over me when I realized that every comrade 
 who had been around the lad had saved himself 
 by a rush to the bank, %vhere we huddled together, 
 a gaping crowd of foolhardy cowards, without 
 skill to do anything or heart to dare anything to 
 save him. 
 
 At the time it maddened me so, that I felt that 
 if I could not help the lad I would rather be 
 drowned in the hole with him, and I began to 
 scramble in a foolish way down the bank, but 
 John Binder caught me by the arm and pulled me 
 back, and said (I suppose to soothe me), 
 
 " Yon's the schoolmaster, sir ; " and then I saw 
 Mr. Wood fling himself over the hedge by the 
 alder thicket (he was rather good at high jumps), 
 and come flying along the bank towards us, when 
 he said 
 
 ' ' What's the matter ? " 
 
 I threw my arms round him and sobbed, " He 
 was cutting a double three backwards, and he 
 went in." 
 
 Mr. Wood unclasped my arms and turned to the 
 rest. 
 
 "What have you done with him?" he said. 
 " Did he hurt himself ? " 
 
 If the crowd was cowardly and helpless, it was 
 not indifferent ; and I shall never forget the hag- 
 gard faces that turned by one impulse, where a 
 dozen grimy hands pointed to the hole. 
 
 "He's drowned dead." "He's under t' ice." 
 " He went right down," several men hastened to 
 reply, but most of them only enforced the mute 
 explanation of their pointed finder, with "He's 
 yonder."
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 For yet an instant I don't think Mr. Wood 
 believed it, and then he seized the man next to 
 him (without looking, for he was blind with rage) 
 and said 
 
 "He's yonder, and you're here? " 
 
 As it happened, it was the man who had talked 
 with his back to us. He was very big and very 
 heavy, but he reeled when Mr. Wood shook him, 
 like a feather caught by a storm. 
 
 "You were foolhardy enough an hour ago," 
 said the schoolmaster. " Won't one of you 
 venture on to your own dam to help a drowning 
 man?" 
 
 " There's none on us can swim, sir," said John 
 Binder. "It's a bad job" and he gave a sob 
 that made me begin to cry again, and several other 
 people too "but where'd be t' use of drowning 
 five or six more atop of him ? " 
 
 " Can any of you run if you can't swim ? " said 
 the schoolmaster. " Get a stout rope as fast as 
 you can, and send somebody for the doctor and a 
 bottle of brandy, and a blanket or two to carry 
 him home in. Jack ! Hold these." 
 
 I took his watch and his purse, and he went 
 down the bank and walked on to the ice ; but 
 after a time his feet went through as the skater's 
 head had gone. 
 
 "It ain't a bit of use. There's naught to be 
 done," said the bystanders : for, except those who 
 had run to do Mr. Wood's bidding, we were all 
 watching and all huddled closer to the edge than 
 ever. The schoolmaster went down on his hands 
 and knees, on which a big lad, with his hands in 
 his trouser pockets, guffawed. 
 
 " What's he up to now ? " he asked. 
 
 " Thee may haud thee tongue if thee can do 
 naught," said a mill-girl who had come up. " I 
 reckon he knows what he's efter better nor thee." 
 She had pushed to the front, and was crouched 
 upon the edge, and seemed very much excited. 
 " GOD bless him for trying to save t' best lad in t' 
 village i' any fashion, say I ! There's them that's 
 nearer kin to him and not so kind." 
 
 Perhaps the strict justice of this taunt prevented 
 a reply (for there lurks some fairness in the rough- 
 est of us), or perhaps the crowd, being chiefly 
 men, knew from experience that there are occa- 
 sions when it is best to let a woman say her say. 
 
 " Ye see he's trying to spread hisself out," John 
 Binder explained in pacific tones. " I reckon he 
 thinks it'll bear him if he shifts half of his weight 
 on to his hands." 
 
 The girl got nearer to the mason, and looked up 
 at him with her eyes full of tears. 
 
 "Thank ye, John," she said. "D'ye think 
 he'll get him out ? " 
 
 "Maybe, he will, my lass. He's a man that 
 
 knows what he's doing. I'll say so much for 
 him." 
 
 " Nay ! " added the mason sorrowfully. " Th' 
 ice '11 never hold him his hand's in and there 
 goes his knee. Maester ! maester ! " he shouted, 
 "Come off! come off!" and many a voice be- 
 sides mine echoed him, " Come off ! come off ! " 
 
 The girl got John Binder by the arm, and said 
 hoarsely, "Fetch him off! He's a reight good 
 'un over good to be drownded, if if it's of no 
 use." And she sat down on the bank, and pulled 
 her millshawl over her head, and cried as I had 
 never seen anyone cry before. 
 
 I was so busy watching her that I did not see 
 that Mr. Wood had got back to the bank. Several 
 hands were held out to help him, but he shook his 
 head and said " Got a knife ? " 
 
 Two or three jack knives were out in an instant. 
 He pointed to the alder thicket. " I want two 
 poles," he said, "sixteen feet long, if you can, 
 and as thick as my wrist at the bottom." 
 
 " All right, sir." 
 
 He sat down on the bank, and I rushed up and 
 took one of his cold wet hands in both mine, and 
 said, " Please please, don't go on any more." 
 
 " He must be dead ever so long ago," I added, 
 repeating what I had heard. 
 
 "He hasn't been in the water ten minutes," 
 said the schoolmaster, laughing. "Jack! Jack ! 
 you're not half ready for travelling yet. You must 
 learn not to lose your head and your heart and 
 your wits and your sense of time in this fashion, if 
 you mean to be any good at a pinch to yourself or 
 your neighbours. Has the rope come ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Those poles ?" said the schoolmaster, getting 
 up. 
 
 " They're here ! " I shouted, as a young forest 
 of poles came towards us, so willing had been the 
 owners of the jack-knives. The thickest had been 
 cut by the heavy man, and Mr. Wood took it first. 
 
 " Thank you, friend," he said. The man didn't 
 speak, and he turned his back as usual, but he 
 gave a sideways surly nod before he turned. The 
 schoolmaster chose a second pole, and then pushed 
 both before him right out on to the ice, in such a 
 way that with the points touching each other they 
 formed a sort of huge A, the thicker ends being 
 the nearer to the bank. 
 
 "Now Jack," said he, " pay attention ; and no 
 more blubbering. There's always plenty of time 
 for giving way afterwards. " 
 
 As he spoke he scrambled on to the poles, and 
 began to work himself and them over the ice, 
 wriggling in a kind of snake fashion in the direc- 
 tion of the hole. We watched him breathlessly, 
 but within ten yards of the hole he stopped. He
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 evidently dared not go on ; and the same thought 
 seized all of us " Can he get back ? " Spreading 
 "his legs and arms he now lay flat upon the poles, 
 peering towards the hole as if to try if he could 
 see anything of the drowning man. It was only 
 for an instant, then he rolled over on to the rotten 
 ice, smashed through, and sank more suddenly 
 - than the skater had done. 
 
 The mill-girl jumped up with a wild cry and 
 rushed te the water, but John Binder pulled her 
 back as he had pulled me. Martha, our house- 
 maid, said afterwards (and was ready to take oath 
 on the gilt-edged church service my mother gave 
 her) that the girl was so violent that it took 
 fourteen men to hold her; but Martha wasn't 
 there, and I only saw two, one at each arm, and 
 when she fainted they laid her down and left her, 
 and hurried back to see what was going on. For 
 tenderness is an acquired grace in men, and it was 
 not common in our neighbourhood. 
 
 What was going on was that John Binder had 
 torn his hat from his head and was saying, " I 
 don't know if there's aught we can do, but I can't 
 go home myself and leave him yonder. I'm a 
 married man with a family, but I don't vally my 
 life if " 
 
 But the rest of this speech was -drowned in 
 noise more eloquent than words, and then it broke 
 into cries of "See thee ! It is it's t'maester ! 
 and he has no ! yea ! he has he's gotten him. 
 Poily, lass ! he's fetched up thy Arthur by t' hair 
 of his heead." 
 
 It was strictly true. The schoolmaster told me 
 afterwards how it was. When he found that the 
 ice would bear no longer, he rolled into the water 
 on purpose, but, to his horror, he felt himself 
 seized by the drowning man, which pulled him 
 suddenly down. The lad had risen once, it seems, 
 though we had not seen him, and had got a breath 
 of air at the hole, but the edge broke in his 
 numbed fingers, and he sank again and drifted 
 under the ice. When he rose the second time, by 
 an odd chance it was just where Mr. Wood broke 
 in, and his clutch of the schoolmaster nearly cost 
 both their lives. 
 
 " If ever," said Mr. Wood, when he was talking 
 about it afterwards, " if ever, Jack, when you're 
 out in the world you get under water, and some- 
 body tries to save you ; when he grips you, don't 
 seize him, if you can muster self-control to avoid 
 it. If you cling to him, you'll either drown both, 
 or you'll force him to do as I did throttle you, to 
 keep you quiet." 
 
 "Did you?" I gasped. 
 
 " Of course I did. I got him by the throat and 
 dived with him the only real risk I ran, as I did 
 not know how deep the dam was." 
 
 "It's an old quarry," said I. 
 
 "I know now. We went down well, and I 
 squeezed his throat as we went. As soon as he 
 was still we naturally rose, and I turned on my 
 back and got him by the head. I looked about 
 for the hole, and saw it glimmering atove me like 
 a moon in a fog, and then up we came." 
 
 When they did come up, our joy was so great 
 that for the moment we felt as if all was accom- 
 plished ; but far the hardest part really was to 
 come. When the schoolmaster clutched the poles 
 once more, and drove one under the lad's arms 
 and under his own left arm, and so kept his 
 burden afloat whilst he broke a swimming path 
 for himself v:ith the other, our admiration of his 
 cleverness gave place to the blessed thought that it 
 might now be possible to help him. The sight of 
 the poles seemed suddenly to suggest it, and in a 
 moment every spare pole had been seized, and, 
 headed by our heavy friend, eight or ten men 
 plunged in, and, smashing the ice before them, 
 waded out to meet the schoolmaster. On the 
 bank we were dead silent ; in the water they 
 neither stopped nor spoke till it was breast high 
 round their leader. 
 
 I have often thought, and have always felt quite 
 sure, that if the heavy man had gone on till the 
 little grey waves and the bits of ice closed over 
 him, not a soul of those who followed him would 
 nay, could have turned back. Heroism, like 
 cowardice, is contagious, and I do not think there- 
 was one of us by that time who would have feared 
 to dare or grudged to die. 
 
 As it was, the heavy man stood still and shouted 
 for the rope. It had come, and perhaps it was 
 not the smallest effect of the day's teaching, that 
 those on the bank paid it out at once to those in 
 the water till it reached the leader, without waiting 
 to ask why he wanted it. The grace of obedience 
 is slow to be learnt by disputatious northmen, but 
 we had had some hard teaching that afternoon. 
 
 When the heavy man got the rope he tied the 
 middle part of it round himself, and, coiling the 
 shorter end, he sent it, as if it had been a quoit, 
 skimming over the ice towards the schoolmaster. 
 As it unwound itself it slid along, and after a 
 struggle Mr. Wood grasped it. I fancy he fastened 
 it round the lad's body ; and got his own hands 
 freer to break the ice before them. Then the 
 heavy man turned, and the long end of the line, 
 passing from hand to hand in the water, was 
 seized upon the bank by every one who could get 
 hold of it. I never was more squeezed and 
 buffeted in my life ; but we fairly fought for the 
 privilege of touching if it were but a strand of the 
 rope that dragged them in. 
 
 And a flock of wild birds, resting on their
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 33 
 
 journey at the other end of the milldam, rose in 
 terror and pursued their seaward way ; so wild 
 and so prolonged were the echoes of that strange, 
 speechless cry in which collective man gives vent 
 to overpowering emotion. 
 
 It is odd, when one comes to think of it, but I 
 know it is true, for two sensible words would have 
 stuck in my own throat and choked me, but I 
 cheered till I could cheer no longer. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " In doubtful matters Courage may do much : In despe- 
 rate Patience." 
 
 Old Proverb. 
 
 'THHE young skater duly recovered, and thence- 
 _1_ forward Mr. Wood's popularity in the village 
 was established, and the following summer he 
 started a swimming-class, to which the young men 
 flocked with more readiness than they commonly 
 showed for efforts made to improve them. 
 
 For my own part I had so realised, to my shame, 
 that one may feel very adventurous and yet not 
 know how to venture or what to venture in the 
 time of need, that my whole heart was set upon 
 getting the schoolmaster to teach me to swim and 
 to dive, with any other lessons in preparedness of 
 body and mind which I was old enough to profit 
 by. And if the true tales of his own experiences 
 were more interesting than the Penny Numbers, 
 it was better still to feel that one was qualifying in 
 one's own proper person for a life of adventure. 
 
 During the winter Mr. Wood built a boat, which 
 was christened the Adela, after his wife. It was 
 an interesting process to us all. I hung about and 
 did my best to be helpful, and both Jem and I 
 spoiled our everyday trousers, and rubbed the 
 boat's sides, the day she was painted. It was 
 from the Adela that Jem and I had our first swim- 
 ming-lessons, Mr. Wood lowering us with a rope 
 under our arms, by which he gave us as much sup- 
 port as was needed, whilst he taught us how to 
 strike out. 
 
 We had swimming-races on the canal, and 
 having learned to swim and dive without our 
 clothes, we learnt todo so in them, and found it 
 much more difficult for swimming and easier for 
 diving. It was then that the trousers we had 
 damaged when the Adela was built came in most 
 usefully, and saved us from having to attempt the 
 at least equally difficult task of persuading my 
 mother to let us spoil good ones in an amusement 
 which had the unpardonable quality of being "very 
 odd." 
 
 Dear old Charlie had as much fun out of the 
 boat as we had, though he could not learn to dive. 
 He used to look as if every minute of a pull up the 
 canal on a sunny evening gave him pleasure ; and 
 the brown Irish spaniel Jem gave him used to 
 swim after the boat and look up in Charlie's face 
 as if it knew how he enjoyed it. And later on, 
 Mr. Wood taught Bob Furniss to row and Charlie 
 to steer ; so that Charlie could sometimes go out 
 and feel quite free to stop the boat when and where 
 he liked. That was after he started so many col- 
 lections of insects and water-weeds, and shells, and 
 things you can only see under a microscope. Bob 
 and he used to take all kinds of pots and pans and 
 nets and dippers with them, so that Charlie could 
 fish up what he wanted, and keep things separate. 
 He was obliged to keep the live things he got for 
 his fresh-water aquarium in different jam-pots, 
 because he could never be sure which would eat 
 up which till he knew them better, and the water- 
 scorpions and the dragon-fly larvae ate everything. 
 Bob Furniss did not mind pulling in among the 
 reeds and waiting as long as you wanted. Mr. 
 Wood sometimes wanted to get back to his work, 
 but Bob never wanted to get back to his. And 
 he was very good-natured about getting into the 
 water and wading and grubbing for things ; indeed, 
 I think he got to like it. 
 
 At first Mr. Wood had been rather afraid of 
 trusting Charlie with him. He thought Bob 
 might play tricks with the boat, even though he 
 knew how to manage her, when there was only 
 one helpless boy with him. But Mrs. Furniss 
 said, "Nay! Our Bob's a bad 'un, but he's not 
 one of that sort, he'll not plague them that's 
 afflicted." And she was quite right ; for though 
 his father said he could be trusted with nothing 
 else, we found he could be trusted with Cripple* 
 Charlie. 
 
 It was two days before the summer holidays 
 came to an end that Charlie asked me to come 
 down to the farm and help him to put away his 
 fern collection and a lot of other things into the 
 places that he had arranged for them in his room ; 
 for now that the schoolroom was wanted again, 
 he could not leave his papers and boxes about 
 there. Charlie lived at the farm altogether now. 
 He was better there than on the moors, so he 
 boarded there and went home for visits. The 
 room Mrs. Wood had given him was the one 
 where the old miser had slept. In a memorandum 
 left with his will it appeared that he had expressed 
 a wish that the furniture of that room should not 
 be altered, which was how they knew it was his. 
 So Mrs. Wood had kept the curious old oak bed 
 (the back of which was fastened into the wall), 
 and an old oak press, with a great number of 
 D
 
 34 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 drawers with brass handles to them, and all the 
 queer furniture that she found there, just as it was. 
 Even the brass warming-pan was only rubbed and 
 put back in its place, and the big bellows were 
 duly hung up by the small fireplace. But every- 
 thing was so polished up and cleaned, the walls 
 repapered with a soft grey-green paper spangled 
 with dogdaisies, and the room so brightened up 
 with fresh blinds and bedclothes, and a bit of 
 bright carpet, that it did not look in the least 
 dismal, and Charlie was very proud and very fond 
 of tt. It had two windows, one where the bee- 
 hive was, and one very sunny one, where he had a 
 balm of Gilead that Isaac's wife gave him, and his 
 old medicine-bottles full of cuttings on the upper 
 ledge. The old women used to send him "slip- 
 pings" off their fairy roses and myrtles and fuchsias, 
 and they rooted very well in that window, there 
 was so much sun. 
 
 Charlie had only just begun a fern collection, 
 and I had saved my pocket-money (I did not want 
 it for anything else) and had bought him several 
 quires of cartridge-paper ; and Dr. Brown had 
 given him a packet of medicine-labels to cut up into 
 strips to fasten his specimens in with, and the 
 collection looked very well and very scientific ; 
 and all that remained was to find a good place to 
 put it away in. The drawers of the press were of 
 all shapes and sizes, but there were two longish 
 very shallow ones that just matched each other, 
 and when I pulled one of them out, and put the 
 fern-papers in, they fitted exactly, and the drawer 
 just held half the collection. I called Charlie to 
 look, and he hobbled up on his crutches and was 
 delighted, but he said he should like to put the 
 others in himself, so I got him into a chair, and 
 shut up the full drawer and pulled out the empty 
 one, and went downstairs for the two mole-skins 
 we were curing, and the glue-pot, and the toffy- 
 tin, and some other things that had to be cleared 
 out of the schoolroom now the holidays were over. 
 
 When I came back the fern-papers were still 
 outside, and Charlie was looking flushed and 
 
 " I don't know how you managed," he said, 
 "but I can't get them in. This drawer must be 
 shorter than the other ; it doesn't go nearly so far 
 back." 
 
 "Oh yes, it does, Charlie!" I insisted, for I 
 felt as certain as people always do feel about little 
 details of that kind. "The drawers are exactly 
 alike ; you can't have got the fern-sheets quite 
 flush with each other," and I began to arrange the 
 trayful of things I had brought upstairs in the 
 bottom of the cupboard. 
 
 " I know it's the drawer," I heard Charlie say. 
 (" He's as obstinate as possible," thought I.) 
 
 Then I heard him banging at the wood with his 
 fists and his crutch. (" He is in a temper ! " was 
 my mental comment.) After this my attention 
 was distracted for a second or two by seeing what 
 I thought was a bit of toffy left in the tin, and 
 biting it and finding it was a piece of sheet-glue. 
 I had not spit out all the disgust of it, when 
 Charlie called me in low, awe-struck tones : "Jack! 
 come here. Quick !" 
 
 I ran to him. The drawer was open, but it 
 seemed to have another drawer inside it, a long, 
 narrow, shallow one. 
 
 "I hit the back, and this sprang out," said 
 Charlie. " It's a secret drawer and look ! " 
 
 I did look. The secret drawer was closely 
 packed with rolls of thin leaflets, which we 
 were old enough to recognize as bank-notes, 
 and with little bags of wash-leather ; and when 
 Charlie opened the little bags they were filled 
 with gold. 
 
 There was a paper with the money, written by 
 the old miser, to say that it was a codicil to his 
 will, and that the money was all for Mrs. Wood. 
 Why he had not left it to her in the will itself 
 seemed very puzzling, but his lawyer (whom the 
 Woods consulted about it) said that he always did 
 things in a very eccentric way, but generally for 
 some sort of reason, even it were rather a freaky 
 one, and that perhaps he thought that the rela- 
 tions would be less spiteful at first if they did 
 not know about the money, and that Mrs. Wood 
 would soon find it, if she used and valued his old 
 press. 
 
 I don't quite know whether there was any fuss 
 with the relations about this part of the bequest, 
 but I suppose the lawyer managed it all right, for 
 the Woods got the money and gave up the school. 
 But they kept the old house, and bought some 
 more land, and Walnut-tree Academy became 
 Walnut-tree Farm once more. And Cripple 
 Charlie lived on with them, and he was so happy, 
 it really seemed as if my dear mother was right 
 when she said to my father, " I am so pleased, my 
 clear, for that poor boy's sake, I can hardly help 
 crying. He's got two homes and two fathers and 
 mothers, where many a young man has none, as if 
 to make good his affliction to him." 
 
 It puzzles me, even now, to think how my 
 father could have sent Jem and me to Crayshaw's 
 School. (Nobody ever called him Mr. Crayshaw 
 except the parents of pupils who lived at a dis- 
 tance. In the neighbourhood he and his whole 
 establishment were lumped under the one word 
 Crayshaw's, and as a farmer hard by once said to 
 me, "Crayshaw's is universally disrespected.") 
 
 I do not think it was merely because ' ' Cray- 
 shaw's " was cheap that we were sent there, though
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 35 
 
 my father had so few reasons to give for his choice 
 that he quoted that among them. A man with 
 whom he had had business dealings (which gave 
 him much satisfaction for some years, and more 
 dissatisfaction afterwards) did really, I think, per- 
 suade my father to send us to this school, one 
 evening when they were dining together. 
 
 Few things are harder to guess at than the 
 grounds on which an Englishman of my father's 
 type '' makes up his mind "; and yet the question 
 is an important one, for an idea once lodged in bis 
 head, a conviction once as much his own as the 
 family acres, and you will as soon part him from 
 the one as from the other. I have known little 
 matters of domestic improvements, in which my 
 mother's comfort was concerned and her experi- 
 ence conclusive, for which he grudged a few 
 shillings, and was absolutely impenetrable by her 
 persuasions and representations. And I have 
 known him waste pounds on things of the most 
 curious variety, foisted on him by advertising 
 agents without knowledge, trial, or rational ground 
 of confidence. I suppose that persistency, a 
 glibber tongue than he himself possessed, a mass of 
 printed rubbish which always looks imposing to 
 the unliterary, that primitive combination of autho- 
 ritativeness and hospitality which makes some men 
 as ready to say Yes to a stranger as they are to say 
 No at home, and perhaps some lack of moral 
 courage, may account for it. I can clearly re- 
 member how quaintly sheepish my father used to 
 look after committing some such folly, and how, 
 after the first irrepressible fall of countenance, my 
 mother would have defended him against any- 
 body else's opinion, let alone her own. Young as 
 I was I could feel that, and had a pretty accurate 
 estimate of the value of the moral lecture on faith 
 in one's fellow-creatures, which was an unfailing 
 outward sign of my father's inward conviction that 
 he had been taken in by a rogue. I knew too, 
 well enough, that my mother's hasty and earnest 
 Amen to this discourse was an equally reliable 
 token of her knowledge that my father sorely 
 needed defending, and some instinct made me 
 aware also that my father knew that this was so. 
 That he knew that it was that tender generosity 
 towards one's beloved, in which so many of her 
 sex so far exceed ours, and not an intellectual con- 
 viction of his wisdom, which made her support 
 what he had done, and that feeling this he felt 
 dissatisfied, and snapped at her accordingly. 
 
 The dislike my dear mother took to the notion 
 of our going to Crayshaw's only set seals to our 
 fate, and the manner of her protests was not more 
 fortunate than the matter. She was timid and 
 vascillating from wifely habit, whilst motherly 
 anxiety goaded her to lie persistent and almost 
 
 irritable on the subject. Habitually regarding 
 her own wishes and views as worthless, she quoted 
 the Woods at every turn of her arguments, which 
 was a mistake, for my father was sufficiently like 
 the rest of his neighbours not to cotton very 
 warmly to people whose tastes, experiences, and 
 lines of thought were so much out of the common 
 as those of the ex-convict and his wife. More- 
 over, he had made up his mind, and when one 
 has done that, he is proof against seventy men 
 who can render a reason. 
 
 To rumours which accused "Crayshaw's" of 
 undue severity, of discomfort, of bad teaching and 
 worse manners, my father opposed arguments 
 which he allowed were " oldfashioned " and 
 which were far-fetched from the days of our great- 
 grandfather. 
 
 A strict schoolmaster was a good schoolmaster, 
 and if more parents were as wise as Solomon on 
 the subject of the rod, Old England would not be 
 discredited by such a namby-pamby race as young 
 men of the present day seemed by all accounts to 
 be. It was high time the boys did rough it a bit ; 
 would my mother have them always tied to her 
 apron-strings ? Great Britain would soon be 
 Little Britain if boys were to be brought up like 
 young ladies. As to teaching, it was the fashion 
 to make a fuss about it, and a pretty pass learning 
 brought some folks to, to judge by the papers and 
 all one heard. His own grandfather lived to 
 ninety-seven, and died sitting in his chair, in a 
 bottle-green coat and buff breeches. He wore a 
 pigtail to the day of his death, and never would 
 be contradicted by anybody. He had often told 
 my father that at the school he went to, the master 
 signed the receipts for his money with a cross, but 
 the usher was a bit of a scholar, and the boys had 
 cream to their porridge on Sundays. And the old 
 gentleman managed his own affairs to ninety-seven, 
 and threw the doctor's medicine-bottles out of the 
 window then. He died without a doubt on his 
 mind or a debt on his books, and my father 
 (taking a pinch out of Great-Grandfather's snuff- 
 box) hoped Jem and I might do as well. 
 
 In short, we were sent to " Crayshaw's." 
 
 It was not a happy period of my life. It was 
 not a good or wholesome period ; and I am not 
 fond of recalling it. The time came when I 
 shrank from telling Charlie everything, almost as 
 if he had been a girl. His life was lived in such 
 a different atmosphere, under such different condi- 
 tions. I could not trouble him, and I did not 
 believe he could make allowances for me. But on 
 our first arrival I wrote him a long letter (Jem 
 never wrote letters), and the other day he showed 
 it to me. It was a first impression, but a suffi- 
 ciently vivid and truthful one, so I give it here.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 CRAYSHAW'S (for that's what they call it here, 
 and a beastly hole it is). 
 
 Monday. 
 
 MY DEAR OLD CHARLIE, We came earlier 
 than was settled, for father got impatient and 
 there was nothing to stop us, but I don't think 
 old Crayshaw liked our coming so soon. You 
 never saw such a place, it's so drear)'. A boy 
 showed us straight into the schoolroom. There 
 are three rows of double desks running down the 
 room and disgustingly dirty, I don't know what 
 Mrs. Wood would say, and old Crayshaw's desk 
 is in front of the fire, so that he can see all the 
 boys sideways, and it just stops any heat coming 
 to them. And there he was, and I don't think 
 father liked the look of him particularly, you never 
 saw an uglier. Such a naming face and red eyes 
 like Bob Furniss's ferret and great -tig whiskers; 
 but I'll make you a picture of him, at least I'll 
 make two pictures, for Lewis Lorraine says he's 
 got no beard on Sundays, and rather a good one 
 on Saturdays. Lorraine is a very rum fellow, but 
 I like him. It was he showed us in, and he did 
 catch it afterwards, but he only makes fun of it. 
 Old Crayshaw's desk had got a lot of canes on 
 one side of it and a most beastly dirty snuffy red and 
 green handkerchief on the other, and an ink-pot 
 in the middle. He made up to father like any- 
 thing and told such thumpers. He said there 
 were six boys in one room, but really there's 
 twelve. Jem and I sleep together. There's 
 nothing to wash in and no prayers. If you say 
 them you get boots at your head, and one hit Jem 
 behind the ear, so I pulled his sleeve and said, 
 "Get up, you can say them in bed." But you 
 know Jem, and he said, "Wait till I've done, 
 God bless father and mother" and when he had, 
 he went in and fought, and I backed him up, and 
 then old Crayshaw found us, and oh, how he did 
 beat us ! 
 
 Wednesday. Old Snuffy is a regular brute, 
 
 and I don't care if he finds this and sees what I 
 say. But he won't, for the milkman is taking it. 
 He always does if you can pay him. But I've put 
 most of my money into the bank. Three of the 
 top boys have a bank, and we all have to deposit, 
 only I kept fourpence in one of my boots. They 
 give us bank-notes for a penny and a halfpenny ; 
 they make them themselves. The sweetshop 
 takes them. They only give you eleven penny 
 notes for a shilling in the bank, or else it would 
 burst. At dinner we have a lot of pudding to 
 begin with, and it's very heavy. You can hardly 
 eat anything afterwards. The first day Lorraine 
 said quite out loud and very polite, " Did you say 
 duff before meat, young gentlemen?" and I couldn't 
 help laughing, and old Snuffy beat his head 
 
 horridly with his dirty fists. But Lorraine minds 
 nothing ; he says he knows old Snuffy will kill 
 him some day, but he says he doesn't want to live, 
 for his father and mother are dead ; he only wants 
 to catch old Snuffy in three more booby-traps 
 before he dies. He's caught him in four already. 
 You see, when old Snuffy is cat-walking he wears 
 goloshes that he may sneak about better, and the 
 way Lorraine makes boobytraps is by balancing 
 cans of water on the door when it's ajar, so that 
 he gets doused, and the can falls on his head, and 
 strings across the bottom of the door, not far from 
 the ground, so that he catches his goloshes and 
 comes down. The other fellows say that old 
 Crayshaw had a lot of money given him in trust 
 for Lorraine, and he's spent it all, and Lorraine 
 has no one to stick up for him, and that's why 
 Crayshaw hates him. 
 
 Saturday, I could not catch the milkman, 
 
 and now I've got your letter, though Snuffy read 
 it first. Jem and I cry dreadful in bed. That's 
 the comfort of being together. I'll try and be as 
 good as I can, but you don't know what this place 
 is. It's very different to the farm. Do you 
 remember the row about that book Horace Simp- 
 son got ? I wish you could see the books the 
 boys have here. At least I don't wish it, for I 
 wish I didn't look at them, the milkman brings 
 them ; he always will if you can pay him. When 
 I saw old Snuffy find one in Smith's desk, I ex- 
 pected he would half kill him, but he didn't do 
 much to him, he only took the book away ; and 
 Lorraine says he never does beat them much for 
 that, because he doesn't want them to leave off 
 buying them, because he wants them himself. 
 Don't tell the Woods this. Don't tell mother 
 Jem and I cry, or else she'll be miserable. I don't 
 so much mind the beatings (Lorraine says you get 
 hard in time), nor the washing at the sink nor 
 the duff puddings but it is such a beastly hole, 
 and he is such an old brute, and I feel so dreadful 
 I can't tell you. Give my love to Mrs. Wood and 
 to Mr. Wood, and to Carlo and to Mary Anne, and 
 to your dear dear self, and to Isaac when you see 
 him. 
 
 And I am your affectionate friend, 
 
 JACK. 
 
 P.S. Jem sends his best love, and he's got two 
 black eyes. 
 
 P. S. No. 2. You would be sorry for Lorraine 
 if you knew him. Sometimes I'm afraid he'll kill 
 himself, for he says there's really nothing in the 
 Bible about suicide. So I said killing yourself 
 is as bad as killing anybody else. So he said is 
 stealing from yourself as bad as stealing from any- 
 body else ? And we had a regular argue. Some
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 37 
 
 of the boys argle-bargle on Sundays, he says, but 
 most of them fight. When they differ, they put 
 tin-tacks with the heads downwards on each 
 other's places on the forms in school, and if they 
 run into you and you scream, old Snuffy beats you. 
 The milkman brings them, by the half ounce, with 
 very sharp points, if you can pay him. Most of 
 the boys are a horrid lot, and so dirty. Lorraine 
 is as dirty as the rest, and I asked him why, and 
 he said it was because he'd thrown up the sponge ; 
 but he got rather red, and he's washed himself 
 cleaner this morning. He says he has an uncle in 
 India, and some time ago he wrote to him, and 
 told him about Crayshaw's, and gave the milkman 
 a diamond pin, that had been his father's, and 
 Snuffy didn't know about, to post it with plenty of 
 stamps, but he thinks he can't have put plenty on, 
 for no answer ever came. I've told him I'll post 
 another one for him in the holidays. Don't say 
 anything about this back in your letters. He 
 reads 'em all. 
 
 Monday. I've caught the milkman at last, 
 
 he'll take it this evening. The lessons here are 
 regular rubbish. I'm so glad I've a good knife, 
 for if you have you can dig holes in your desk to 
 put collections in. The boy next to me has ear- 
 wigs, but you have to keep a look-out, or he puts 
 them in your ears. I turned up a stone near the 
 sink this morning, and got five woodlice for mine. 
 It's considered a very good collection. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " But none inquired how Peter used the rope, 
 Or what the bruise that made the stripling stoop ; 
 None could the ridges on his back behold, 
 None sought him shiv'ring in the winter's cold. 
 
 The pitying women raised a clamour round." 
 
 Crabbe, " The Borough." 
 
 A GREAT many people say that all suffering 
 is good for one, and I am sure pain does im- 
 prove one very often, and in many ways. It 
 teaches one sympathy, it softens and it strengthens. 
 But I cannot help thinking that there are some 
 evil experiences which only harden and stain. 
 The best I can say for what we endured at Cray- 
 shaw's is that it ivas experience, and so I suppose 
 could not fail to teach one something, which, as 
 Jem says, was " more than Snuffy did."' 
 
 The affection with which I have heard men 
 speak of their schooldays and schoolmasters makes 
 me know that Mr. Crayshaw was not a common 
 type of pedagogue. He was not a common type 
 of man, happily ; but I have met other specimens in 
 
 other parts of the world in which his leading 
 quality was as fully developed, though their lives 
 had nothing in common with his except the oppor- 
 tunities of irresponsible power. 
 
 The old wounds are scars now, it is long past 
 and over, and I am grown up, and have roughed it 
 in the world ; but I say quite deliberately that I 
 believe that Mr. Crayshaw was not merely a harsh 
 man, uncultured and inconsiderate, having need 
 and greed of money, taking pupils cheap, teaching 
 them little or nothing, and keeping a kind of 
 rough order with too much flogging, but that the 
 mischief of him was that he was possessed by a 
 passion (not the less fierce because it was unna- 
 tural) which grew with indulgence and oppor- 
 tunity, as other passions grow, and that this was a 
 passion for cruelty. 
 
 One does not rough it long in this wicked world 
 without seeing more cruelty both towards human 
 beings and towards animals than one cares to 
 think about ; but a large proportion of common 
 cruelty comes of ignorance, bad tradition and un- 
 cultured sympathies. Some painful outbreaks of 
 inhumanity, where one would 'least expect it, are 
 no doubt strictly to be accounted for by disease. 
 But over and above these common and these ex- 
 ceptional instances, one cannot escape the con- 
 viction that irresponsible power is opportunity in 
 all hands and a direct temptation in some to 
 cruelty, and that it affords horrible development 
 to those morbid cases in which cruelty becomes a 
 passion. 
 
 That there should ever come a thirst for blood 
 in menQS well as tigers, is bad enough but con- 
 ceivable when linked with deadly struggle, or at 
 the wild dictates of revenge. But a lust for cruelty 
 growing fiercer by secret and unchecked indul- 
 gence, a hideous pleasure in seeing and inflicting 
 pain, seems so inhuman a passion that we shrink 
 from acknowledging that this is ever so. 
 
 And if it belonged to the past alone, to bar- 
 barous despotisms or to savage life, one might 
 wisely forget it ; for the dark pages of human 
 history are unwholesome as well as unpleasant 
 reading, unless the mind be very sane in a body 
 very sound. But those in whose hands lie the 
 destinies of the young and of the beasts who serve 
 and love us, of the weak, the friendless, the sick 
 and the insane, have not, alas ! this excuse for 
 ignoring the black records of man's abuse of 
 power ! 
 
 Tne records of Its abuse in the savage who loads 
 women's slender shoulders with his burdens, leaves 
 his sick to the wayside jackal, and knocks his 
 aged father on the head when he is past work ; 
 the brutality of slave-drivers, the iniquities of 
 vice-maddened eastern despots ; such things
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 those who never have to deal with them may 
 afford to forget. 
 
 But men who act for those who have no natural 
 protectors, or have lost the power of protecting 
 themselves, who legislate for those who have no 
 voice in the making of laws, and for the brute 
 creation, which we win to our love and domesticate 
 for our convenience ; who apprentice pauper boys 
 and girls, who meddle with the matters of weak 
 women, sick persons, and young children, are 
 bound to face a far sadder issue. That even in 
 these days, when human love again and again 
 proves itself not only stronger than death, but 
 stronger than all the selfish hopes of life ; when 
 the everyday manners of everyday men are conces- 
 sions of courtesy to those who have not the strength 
 to claim it ; when children and pet animals are 
 spoiled to grotesqueness ; when the good deeds of 
 priest and physician, nurse and teacher, surpass 
 "all earthly record of them man, as man, is no 
 more to be trusted with unchecked power than 
 hitherto. 
 
 The secret histories of households, where power 
 should be safest in the hands of love ; of hos- 
 pitals, of schools, of orphanages, of poorhouses, of 
 lunatic-asylums, of religious communities founded 
 for GOD'S worship and man's pity, of institutions 
 which assume the sacred title as well as the 
 responsibilities of Home from the single guar- 
 dian of some rural idiot to the great society which 
 bears the blessed Name of Jesus have not each 
 and all their dark stories, their hushed-up scandals, 
 to prove how dire is the need of public opinion 
 without, and of righteous care within, that*vhat is 
 well begun should be well continued ? 
 
 If anyone doubts this, let him pause on each 
 instance, one by one, and think of what he has 
 seen, and heard, and read, and known of; and 
 he will surely come to the conviction that human 
 nature cannot, even in the very service of charity, 
 be safely trusted with the secret exercise of irre- 
 sponsible power, and that no light can be too 
 fierce to beat upon and purify every spot where the 
 weak are committed to the tender mercies of the 
 consciences of the strong. 
 
 Mr. Crayshaw's conscience was not a tender one, 
 and very little light came into his out-of-the-way 
 establishment, and no check whatever upon his 
 cruelty. It had various effects on the different 
 boys. It killed one in my day, and the doctor 
 (who had been " in a difficulty " some years back, 
 over a matter through which Mr. Crayshaw helped 
 him with bail and testimony) certified to heart 
 disease, and we all had our pocket-handkerchiefs 
 washed, and went to the funeral. And Snuffy 
 had cards printed with a black edge, and several 
 angels and a broken lily, and the hymn 
 
 ' ' Death has been here and borne away 
 
 A brother from our side ; 
 Just in the morning of his day, 
 
 As young as we he died." 
 
 and sent them to all the parents. But the pupils 
 had to pay for the stamps. And my dear mother 
 cried dreadfully, first because she was so sorry for 
 the boy, and secondly because she ever had felt 
 uncharitably towards Mr. Crayshaw. 
 
 Crayshaw's cruelty crushed others, it made liars 
 and sneaks of boys naturally honest, and it pro- 
 duced in Lorraine an unchildlike despair that was 
 almost grand, so far was the spirit above the flesh 
 in him. But I think its commonest and strangest 
 result was to make the boys bully each other. 
 
 One of the least cruel of the tyrannies the big 
 boys put upon the little ones, sometimes bore very 
 hardly on those who were not strong. They used 
 to ride races on our backs and have desperate 
 mounted battles and tournaments. In many a 
 playground and home since then I have seen boys 
 tilt and race, and steeplechase, with smaller boys 
 upon their backs, and plenty of wholesome rough- 
 and-tumble in the game ; and it has given me a 
 twinge of heartache to think how, even when we 
 were at play, Crayshaw's baneful spirit cursed us 
 with its example, so that the big and strong could 
 not be happy except at the expense of the little and 
 weak. 
 
 For it was the big ones who rode the little ones, 
 with neatly-cut ash-sticks and clumsy spurs. I 
 can see them now, with the thin legs of the small 
 boys tottering under them, like a young donkey 
 overridden by a coalheaver. 
 
 I was a favourite horse, for I was active and 
 nimble, and (which was more to the point) well 
 made. It was the shambling, ill-proportioned 
 lads who suffered most. The biggest boy in school 
 rode me, as a rule, but he was not at all a bad 
 bully, so I was lucky. He never spurred me, and 
 he boasted of my willingness and good paces. I 
 am sure he did not know, I don't suppose he ever 
 stopped to think, how bad it was for me, or what 
 an aching lump of prostration I felt when it was 
 over. The day I fainted after winning a steeple- 
 chase, he turned a bucket of cold water over me, 
 and as this roused me into a tingling vitality of 
 pain, he was quite proud of his treatment, and 
 told me nothing brought a really good horse round 
 after a hard day like a bucket of clean water. And 
 (so much are we the creatures of our conditions !) 
 I remember feeling something approaching to 
 satisfaction at the reflection that I had "gone till 
 I dropped," and had been brought round after the 
 manner of the best-conducted stables. 
 
 It was not that that made Jem and me run away. 
 (For we did run away.) Overstrain and collapse,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 39 
 
 ill-usage short of torture, hard living and short 
 commons, one got a certain accustomed ness to, 
 according to the merciful law which within certain 
 limits makes a second nature for us out of use and 
 wont. The one pain that knew no pause, and 
 allowed of no revival, the evil that overbore us, 
 mind and body, was the evil of constant dread. 
 Upon us little boys fear lay always, and the terror 
 of it was that it was uncertain. What would come 
 next, and from whom, we never knew. 
 
 It was I who settled we should run away. I 
 did it the night that Jem gave in, and would do 
 nothing but cry noiselessly into his sleeve and wish 
 he was dead. So I settled it and told Lorraine. I 
 wanted him to come too, but he would not. He 
 pretended that he did not care, and he said he had 
 nowhere to go to. But he got into Snuffy's very 
 own room at daybreak whilst we stood outside 
 and heard him snoring ; and very loud he must 
 have snored too, for I could hear my heart thump- 
 ing so I should not have thought I could have 
 heard anything else. And Lorraine took the 
 back-door key off the drawers, and let us out, and 
 took it back again. He feared nothing. There 
 was a walnut-tree by the gate, and Jem said, 
 "Suppose we do our faces like gipsies, so that 
 nobody may know us." (For Jem was terribly 
 frightened of being taken back.) So we found 
 some old bits of peel and rubbed our cheeks, but 
 we dared not linger long over it, and I said, "We'd 
 better get further on, and we can hide if we hear 
 steps or wheels. " So we took each other's hands, 
 and for nearly a mile we ran as hard as we could 
 go, looking back now and then over our shoulders, 
 like the picture of Christian and Hopeful running 
 away from the Castle of Giant Despair. 
 
 We were particularly afraid of the milkman, for 
 milkmen drive about early, and be had taken a 
 runaway boy back to Crayshaw's years before, 
 and Snuffy gave him five shillings. They said he 
 once helped another boy to get away, but it was a big 
 one, who gave him his gold watch. He would do 
 anything if you paid him. Jem and I had each a 
 little bundle in a handkerchief, but nothing in 
 them that the milkman would have cared for. 
 We managed very well, for we got behind a wall 
 when he went by, and I felt so much cheered up 
 I thought we should get home that day, far as it 
 was. But when we got back into the road, I 
 found that Jem was limping, for Snuffy had 
 stamped on his foot when Jem had had it stuck 
 out beyond the desk, when he was writing ; and 
 the running had made it worse, and at last he sat 
 down by the roadside, and said I was to go on 
 home and send back for him. It was not very 
 likely I would leave him to the chance of being 
 pursued by Mr. Crayshaw ; but there he sat, and 
 
 I thought I never should have persuaded him to 
 get on my back, for good-natured as he is, Jem is 
 as obstinate as a pig. But I said, " What's the 
 use of my having been first horse with the heaviest 
 weight in school, if I can't carry you?" So he 
 got up and 1 carried him a long way, and then a 
 cart overtook us, and we got a lift home. And 
 they knew us quite well, which shows how little 
 use walnut-juice is, and it is disgusting to get off. 
 
 I think, as it happened, it was very unfortunate 
 that we had discoloured our faces ; for though my 
 mother was horrified at our being so thin and 
 pinched-looking, my father said that of course we 
 looked frights with brown daubs all over our 
 cheeks and necks. But then he never did notice 
 people looking ill. He was very angry indeed, at 
 first, about our running away, and would not 
 listen to what we said. He was angry too with 
 my dear mother, because she believed us, and 
 called Snuffy a bad man and a brute. And he 
 ordered the dog-eart to be brought round, and 
 said that Martha was to give us some breakfast, 
 and that we might be thankful to get that instead 
 of a flogging, for that when he ran away from 
 school to escape a thrashing, his father gave him 
 one thrashing while the dog-cart was being brought 
 round, and drove him straight back to school, 
 where the schoolmaster gave him another. 
 
 ."And a very good thing for me," said my 
 father, buttoning his coat, whilst my mother and 
 Martha went about crying, and Tern and I stood 
 silent. If we were to go back, the more we told, 
 the worse would be Snuffy's revenge. An un- 
 pleasant hardness was beginning to creep over me. 
 "The next time I run away," was my thought, 
 " I shall not run home." But with this came a 
 rush of regret for Jem's sake. I knew that "Cray- 
 shaw's " did more harm to him than to me, and 
 almost involuntarily I put my arms round him, 
 thinking that if they would only let him stay, I 
 could go back and bear anything, like Lewis 
 Lorraine. Jem had been crying, and when he-hid 
 his face on my shoulder, and leaned against me, I 
 thought it was for comfort, but he got heavier and 
 heavier, till I called out, and he rolled from my 
 arms and was caught in my father's. He had 
 been standing about on the bad foot, and pain 
 and weariness and hunger and fright overpowered 
 him, and he had fainted. 
 
 The dog-cart was counter-ordered, and Jem was 
 put to bed, and Martha served me a breakfast that 
 would have served six full-grown men. I ate far 
 more than satisfied me, but far less than satisfied 
 Martha, who seemed to hope that cold fowl and 
 boiled eggs, fried bacon and pickled beef, plain 
 cakes and currant cakes, jam and marmalade, 
 buttered toast, strong tea and unlimited sugar and
 
 4 o 
 
 WE AND THE IVCRLD. 
 
 " So we took each other's hands, and for nearly a mile we ran as hard as we 
 could go." (P. 39) 
 
 and yellow cream, would atone for the past in 
 proportion to the amount I ate, if it did not fatten 
 
 present but at home ; and my father decided that 
 he would not send him back to Crayshaw's at all, 
 
 me under her eyes. I really think I spent the but to a much more expensive school in the south 
 
 rest of the day in stupor. I am sure it was not 
 /ill the following morning that I learned the de- 
 cision to which my father had come about us. 
 Jem was too obviously ill to be anywhere at 
 
 of England, to which the parson of our parish 
 was sending one of his sons. I was to return to 
 Crayshaw's at once ; he could not afford the ex- 
 pensive school for us both, and Jem was the
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 eldest. Besides which, he was not going to coun- 
 tenance rebellion in any school to which he sent 
 his sons, or to insult a man so highly recom- 
 mended to him as Mr. Crayshaw had been. 
 There certainly seemed to have been some se- 
 verity, and the boys seemed to be a veiy rough 
 lot ; but Jem would fight, and if he gave he must 
 take. His great-grandfather was just the same, 
 and he fought the Putney Pet when he was five- 
 and-twenty, and his parents thought he was sit- 
 ting quietly at his desk in Fetter Lane. 
 
 I loved Jem too well to be jealous of him, but 
 I was not the less conscious of the tender tone in 
 which my father always spoke even of his faults, 
 and of the way it stiffened and cooled when he 
 added that I was not so ready with my fists, but 
 that I was as fond of my own way as Jem was of 
 a fight ; but that setting up for being unlike other 
 people didn't do for school life, and that the 
 Woods had done me no kindness by making a 
 fool of me. He added, however, that he should 
 request Mr. Crayshaw, as a personal favour, that 
 I should receive no punishment for running away, 
 as I had suffered sufficiently already. 
 
 We had told very little of the true history of 
 Crayshaw's before Jem fainted, and I felt no dis- 
 position to further confidences. I took as cheerful 
 a farewell of my mother as I could, for her sake ; 
 and put on a good deal of swagger and "don't 
 care" to console Jem. He said, "You're as 
 plucky as Lorraine," and then his eyes shut 
 again. He was too ill to think much, and I 
 kissed his head and left him. After which I got 
 stoutly into the dog-cart, and we drove back up 
 the dreaiy hills down which Jem and I had run 
 away. 
 
 That Snuffy was bland to cringing before my 
 father did not give me a hope that I should escape 
 his direst revenge ; and the expression of Lor- 
 raine's face showed me, by its sympathy, what he 
 expected. But we were both wrong, and for 
 reasons which we then knew nothing about. 
 
 Cruelty was, as I have said, Mr. Crayshaw's 
 ruling passion, but it was not his only vice. There 
 was a whispered tradition that he had once been 
 in jail for a misuse of his acquirements in the art 
 of penmanship ; and if you heard his name crop- 
 ping up in the confidential conversation of such 
 neighbours as small farmers, the postman, the 
 parish overseer, and the like, it was sure to be 
 linked with unpleasingly suggestive expressions, 
 such as "a dirty bit of business," "a nasty job 
 that," " an awkward affair," " very near got into 
 trouble," "a bit of bother about it, but Driver 
 and Quills pulled him through ; theirs isn't a nice 
 business, and they're men of t' same feather as 
 Crayshaw, so I reckon they're friends." Many 
 
 such hints have I heard, for the " White Lion" 
 was next door to the sweetshop, and in summer, 
 refreshment of a sober kind, with conversation to 
 match, was apt to be enjoyed on the benches out- 
 side. The good wives of the neighbourhood used 
 no such euphuisms as their more prudent hus- 
 bands, when they spoke of Crayshaw's. Indeed 
 one of the whispered anecdotes of Snuffy's past 
 was of a hushed-up story that was just saved from 
 becoming a scandal, but in reference to which 
 Mr. Crayshaw was even more narrowly saved 
 from a crowd of women who had taken the too- 
 tardy law into their own hands. I remember 
 myself the retreat of an unpaid washerwoman 
 from the back premises of Crayshaw's on one 
 occasion, and the unmistakable terms in which 
 she expressed her opinions. 
 
 " Don't tell me ! I know Crayshaw's well 
 enough ; such folks is a curse to a country side, 
 but judgment overtakes 'em at last." 
 
 "Judgment," as the good woman worded it, 
 kept threatening Mr. Crayshaw long before it 
 overtook him, as it is apt to disturb scoundrels 
 who keep a hypocritical good name above their 
 hidden misdeeds. As it happened, at the very 
 time Jem and I ran away from him, Mr. Crayshaw 
 himself was living in terror of one or two revela- 
 tions, and to be deserted by two of his most 
 respectably connected boys was an ill-timed mis- 
 fortune. The countenance my father had been so 
 mistaken as to afford to his establishment was 
 very important to him, for we were the only pupils 
 from within fifty miles, and our parents' good 
 word constituted an " unexceptionable reference." 
 
 Thus it was that Snuffy pleaded humbly (but in 
 vain) for the return of Jem, and that he not only 
 promised that I should not suffer, but to my 
 amazement kept his word. 
 
 Judgment lingered over the head of Crayshaw's 
 for two years longer, and I really think my being 
 there had something to do with maintaining its 
 tottering reputation. I was almost the only lad 
 in the school whose parents were alive and at 
 hand and in a good position, and my father's 
 name stifled scandal. Most of the others were 
 orphans, being cheaply educated by distant rela- 
 tives or guardians, or else the sons of poor widows 
 who were easily bamboozled by Snuffy's fluent 
 letters, and the religious leaflets which it was his 
 custom to enclose. (In several of these cases, he 
 was "managing" the poor women's "affairs" 
 for them.) One or two boys belonged to people 
 living abroad. Indeed, the worst bully in the 
 school was a half-caste, whose smile, when he 
 showed his gleaming teeth, boded worse than any 
 other boy's frown. He was a wonderful acrobat, 
 and could do extraordinary tricks of all sorts. My
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 being nimble and ready made me very useful to 
 him as a confederate in the exhibitions which his 
 intense vanity delighted to give on half-holidays, 
 and kept me in his good graces till I was old 
 enough to take care of myself. Oh, how every 
 boy who dreaded him applauded at these enter- 
 tainments ! And what dangerous feats I per- 
 formed, every other fear being lost in the fear of 
 him ! I owe him no grudge for what he forced 
 me to do (though I have had to bear real fire 
 without flinching when he failed in a conjuring- 
 trick, which should only have simulated the real 
 thing) ; what I learned from him has come in so 
 useful since, that I forgive him all. 
 
 I was there for two years longer. Snuffy bullied 
 me less, and hated me the more. I knew it, and 
 he knew that I knew it. It was a hateful life, but 
 I am sure the influence of a good home holds one 
 up in very evil paths. Every time we went back 
 to our respective schools my father gave us ten 
 shillings, and told us to mind our books, and my 
 mother kissed us and made us promise we would 
 say our prayers every day. I could not bear to 
 break my promise, though I used to say them in 
 bed (the old form we learnt from her), and often 
 in such a very unfit frame of mind, that they were 
 what it is very easy to call "a mockery." 
 
 GOD knows (Who alone knows the conditions 
 under which each soul blunders and spells on 
 through life's hard lessons) if they were a mockery. 
 / know they were unworthy to be offered to Him, 
 but that the habit helped to keep me straight I am 
 equally sure. Then I had a good home to go to 
 during the holidays. That was everything, and it 
 is in all humbleness that I say that I do not think 
 the ill experiences of those years degraded me 
 much. I managed to keep some truth and tender- 
 ness about me ; and I am thankful to remember 
 that I no more cringed to Crayshaw than Lorraine 
 did, and that though I stayed there till I was a big 
 boy, I never maltreated a little one. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 " Whose powers shed round him in the common strife 
 Or mild concerns of ordinary life, 
 
 i peculiar grace ; 
 
 A constant influ 
 
 Or if an unexpected call succeed, 
 
 Come when it will, is equal to the need." 
 
 Wordsworth's " Happy Warrior" 
 
 JUDGMENT came at last. During my first 
 3 holidays I had posted a letter from Lewis 
 Lorraine to the uncle in India to whom he had 
 before endeavoured to appeal. The envelope did 
 
 not lack stamps, but the address was very imperfect, 
 and it was many months in reaching him. He 
 wrote a letter, which Lewis never received, Mr. 
 Crayshaw probably knew why. But twelve 
 months after that Colonel Jervois came to Eng- 
 land, and he lost no time in betaking himself to 
 Crayshaw's. From Crayshaw's he came to my 
 father, the only "unexceptionable reference" left 
 to Snuffy to put forward. 
 
 The Colonel came with a soldier's promptness, 
 and, with the utmost courtesy of manner, went 
 straight to the point. His life had not accustomed 
 him to our neighbourly unwillingness to interfere 
 with anything that did not personally concern us, 
 nor to the prudent patience with which country 
 folk will wink long at local evils. In the upshot 
 what he asked was what my mother had asked 
 three years before. Had my father personal know- 
 ledge or good authority for believing the school to 
 be a well-conducted one, and Mr. Crayshaw a fit 
 man for his responsible post ? Had he ever heard 
 rumours to the man's discredit? 
 
 Replies that must do for a wife will not always 
 answer a man who puts the same questions. My 
 great-grand father's memory was not evoked on this 
 occasion, and my father frankly confessed that his 
 personal knowledge of Crayshaw's was very small, 
 and that the man on whose recommendation he 
 had sent us to school there had just proved to be 
 a rascal and a swindler. Our mother had certainly 
 heard rumours of severity, but he had regarded her 
 maternal anxiety as excessive, etc., etc. In short, 
 my dear father saw that he had been wrong, and 
 confessed it, and was now as ready as the Colonel 
 to expose Snuffy's misdeeds. 
 
 No elaborate investigation was needed. An 
 attack once made on Mr. Crayshaw's hollow 
 reputation, it cracked on every side ; first hints 
 crept out, then scandals flew. The Colonel gave 
 no quarter, and he did not limit his interest to his 
 own nephew. 
 
 " A widow's son, ma'am," so he said to my 
 mother, bowing over her hand as he led her in to 
 dinner, in a style to which we were quite nn- 
 accustomed ; " a widow's son, ma'am, should find 
 a father in every honest man who can assist him." 
 
 The tide having turned against Snuffy, his friends 
 (of the Driver and Quills type) turned with it. 
 But they gained nothing, for one morning he got 
 up as early as we had done, and ran away, and I 
 never heard of him again. And before nightfall 
 the neighbours, who had so long tolerated his 
 wickedness, broke every pane of glass in his 
 windows. 
 
 During all this, Lewis Lorraine and his uncle 
 stayed at our house. The Colonel spent his time 
 between holding indignant investigations, writing
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 43 
 
 indignant letters (which he allowed us to seal with 
 his huge signet), and walking backwards and for- 
 wards to the town to buy presents for the little 
 boys. 
 
 When Snuffy ran away, and the school was left 
 to itself, Colonel Jervois strode off to the nearest 
 farm, requisitioned a waggon, and having packed 
 the boys into it, bought loaves and milk enough 
 to breakfast them all, and transported the whole 
 twenty-eight to our door. He left four with my 
 mother, and marched off with the rest. The 
 Woods took in a large batch, and in the course of 
 the afternoon he had for love or money quartered 
 them all. He betrayed no nervousness in dealing 
 with numbers, in foraging for supplies, or in asking 
 for what he wanted. Whilst other people had 
 been doubting whether it might not ' ' create un- 
 pleasantness" to interfere in this case and that, the 
 Colonel had fought each boy's battle, and seen 
 most of them off" on their homeward journeys. He 
 was used to dealing with men, and with emergencies, 
 and it puzzled him when my Uncle Henry con- 
 sulted his law-books and advised caution, and my 
 father saw his agent on farm business, whilst the 
 fate of one of Crayshaw's victims yet hung in the 
 balance. 
 
 When all was over the Colonel left us, and took 
 Lewis with him, and his departure raised curiously 
 mixed feelings of regret and relief. 
 
 He had quite won my mother's heart, chiefly by 
 his energy and tenderness for the poor boys, and 
 partly by his kindly courtesy and deference towards 
 her. Indeed all ladies liked kim all, that is, 
 who knew him. Before they came under the 
 influence of his pleasantness and politeness, he 
 shared the half-hostile reception to which any 
 person or anything that was foreign to our daily 
 experience was subjected in our neighbourhood. 
 So that the first time Colonel Jervois appeared in 
 our pew, Mrs. Simpson (the wife of a well-to-do 
 man of business who lived near us) said to my 
 mother after church, " I see you've got one of the 
 military with you," and her tone was more critical 
 than congratulatory. But when my mother, with 
 unconscious diplomacy, had kept her to luncheon, 
 and the Colonel had handed her to her seat, and 
 had stroked his moustache, and asked in his best 
 manner if she meant to devote her son to the 
 service of his country, Mrs. Simpson undid her 
 bonnet-strings, fairly turned her back on my father, 
 and was quite unconscious when Martha handed 
 the potatoes ; and she left us wreathed in smiles, 
 and resolved that Mr. Simpson should buy their 
 son Horace a commission instead of taking him 
 into the business. Mr. Simpson did not share 
 her views, and I believe he said some rather nasty 
 things about swaggering, and not having one six- 
 
 pence to rub against another. And Mrs. Simpson 
 (who was really devoted to Horace and could 
 hardly bear him out of her sight) reflected that it 
 was possible to get shot as well as to grow a 
 moustache if you went into the army ; but she still 
 maintained that she should always remember the 
 Colonel as a thorough gentleman, and a wonderful 
 judge of the character of boys. 
 
 The Colonel made great friends with the Woods, 
 and he was deeply admired by our rector, who, 
 like many parsons, had a very military heart, and 
 delighted in exciting tales of the wide world which 
 he could never explore. It was perhaps natural 
 that my father should hardly be devoted to a 
 stranger who had practically reproached his negli- 
 gence, but the one thing that did draw him towards 
 the old Indian officer was his habit of early rising. 
 My father was always up before any of us, but he 
 generally found the Colonel out before him, enjoy- 
 ing the early hours of the day as men who have 
 lived in hot climates are accustomed to do. They 
 used to come in together in very pleasant moods 
 to breakfast ; but with the post-bag Lorraine's 
 uncle was sure to be moved to voluble indignation, 
 or pity, or to Utopian plans to which my father 
 listened with puzzled impatience. He did not 
 understand the Colonel, which was perhaps not to 
 be wondered at. 
 
 His moral courage had taken away our breath, 
 and physical courage was stamped upon his out- 
 ward man. If he was anything he was manly. It 
 was because he was in some respects very womanly 
 too, that he puzzled my father's purely masculine 
 brain. The mixture, and the vehemence of the 
 mixture, were not in his line. He would have 
 turned " Crayshaw's" matters over in his own 
 mind as often as hay in a wet season before 
 grappling with the whole bad business as the 
 Colonel had done. And on the other hand, it 
 made him feel uncomfortable and almost ashamed 
 to see tears standing in the old soldier's eyes as he 
 passionately blamed himself for what had been 
 suffered by "my sister's son." 
 
 The servants one and all adored Colonel Jer- 
 vois. They are rather acute judges of good 
 breeding, and men and maids were at one on the 
 fact that he was a visitor who conferred social 
 distinction on the establishment. They had decided 
 that we should " dine late so long as The Gentle- 
 man" was with us, whilst my mother was thinking 
 how to break so weighty an innovation to such 
 valuable servants. They served him with alacrity, 
 and approved of his brief orders and gracious 
 thanks. The Colonel did unheard-of things with 
 impunity threw open his bed-room shutters at 
 night, and more than once unbarred and unbolted 
 the front door to go outside for a late cigar. No-
 
 WE AND 7'HE WORLD. 
 
 thing puzzled Martha more than the nattiness with 
 which he put all the bolts and bars back into their 
 places, as if he had been used to the door as long 
 as she had. 
 
 Indeed he had all that power of making himself 
 at home, which is most fully acquired by having 
 had to provide for yourself in strange places, but 
 he carried it too far. 
 
 One day he penetrated into the kitchen (having 
 previously been rummaging the kitchen-garden) 
 and insisted upon teaching our cook how to make 
 curry. The lesson was much needed, and it was 
 equally well intended, but it was a mistake. 
 Everything cannot be carried by storm, whatever 
 the military may think. Jane said, " Yes, sir," at 
 every point that approached to a pause in the 
 Colonel's ample instructions, but she never moved 
 her eyes from the magnificent moustache which 
 drooped above the stew-pan, nor her thoughts from 
 the one idea produced by the occasion that The 
 Gentleman had caught her without her cap. In 
 short our curries were no worse, and no better, in 
 consequence of the shock to kitchen-etiquette (for 
 that was all) which she received. 
 
 And yet we modified our household ways for 
 him, as they were never modified for anyone else. 
 On Martha's weekly festival for cleaning the bed- 
 rooms (and if a room was occupied for a night, 
 she scrubbed after the intruder as if he had brought 
 the plague in his portmanteau) the smartest visitor 
 we ever entertained had to pick his or her way 
 through the upper regions of the house, where 
 soap and soda were wafted on high and unexpected 
 breezes along passages filled with washstands and 
 clothes-baskets, cane-seated chairs and baths, 
 mops, pails and brooms. But the Colonel had 
 " given such a jump" on meeting a towel-horse at 
 large round a sharp corner, and had seemed so 
 uncomfortable on finding everything that he thought 
 was inside his room turned outside, that for 
 that week Martha left the lower part of the house 
 uncleaned, and did not turn either the dining or 
 drawing rooms into the hall on their appointed days. 
 She had her revenge when he was gone. 
 
 On the day of his departure, my lamentations 
 had met with the warmest sympathy as I stirred 
 toffy over Jane's kitchen fire, whilst Martha lingered 
 with the breakfast things, after a fashion very un- 
 usual with her, and gazed at the toast -rack and 
 said, " the Colonel had eaten nothing of a break- 
 fast to travel on." But next morning, I met her 
 in another mood. It was a mood to which we 
 were not strangers, though it did not often occur. 
 In brief, Martha (like many another invaluable 
 domestic) " had a temper of her own ;" but to do 
 her justice her ill feelings generally expended 
 themselves in a rage for work, and in taking as 
 
 little ease herself as she allowed to other peo]; 
 I knew what it meant when I found her cl 
 the best silver when she ought to have been eating 
 her breakfast ; but my head was so full of the 
 Colonel, that I could not help talking about him, 
 even if the temptation to tease Martha had not 
 been overwhelming. No reply could I extract ; 
 only once, as she passed swiftly to the china cup- 
 board, with the whole Crown Derby tea and 
 coffee service on one big tray (the Colonel had 
 praised her coffee), I heard her mutter " Soldiers 
 is very upsetting." Certainly, considering what 
 she did in the way of scolding, scouring, black- 
 leading, polishing and sand-papering that week, it 
 was not Martha's fault if we did not ' ' get straight 
 again," furniture and feelings. I've heard her say 
 that Calais sand would "fetch anything off," and 
 I think it had fetched the Colonel off her heart by 
 the time that the cleaning was done. 
 
 It had no such effect on mine. Lewis Lorraine 
 himself did not worship his uncle more devoutly 
 than I. Colonel Jervois had given me a new 
 ideal. It was possible, then, to be enthusiastic 
 without being unmanly ; to live years out of Eng- 
 land, and come back more patriotic than many 
 people who stayed comfortably at home ; to go 
 forth into the world and be the simpler as well as 
 the wiser, the softer as well as the stronger for the 
 experience ? So it seemed. And yet Lewis had 
 told me, with such tears as Snuffy never made him 
 shed, how tender his uncle was to his unworthiness, 
 what allowances he made for the worst that Lewis 
 could say of himself, and what hope he gave him 
 of a good and happy future. 
 
 " He cried as bad as I did," Lewis said, "and 
 begged me to forgive him for having trusted so 
 much to my other guardian. Do you know, Jack, 
 Snuffy regularly forged a letter like my hand- 
 writing, to answer that one Uncle Eustace wrote, 
 which he kept back ? He might well do such 
 good copies, and write the year of Our Lord with 
 a swan at the end of the last flourish ? And you 
 remember what we heard about his having been in 
 prison but, oh, dear ! I don't want to remember. 
 He says I am to forget, and he forbade me to talk 
 about Crayshavv's, and said I was not to trouble 
 my head about anything that had happened there. 
 He kept saying, ' Forget, my boy, forget ! Say 
 GOD help me, and look forward. While there's 
 life there's always the chance of a better life for 
 everyone. Forget ! forget !'" 
 
 Lewis departed with his uncle. Charlie went 
 for two nights to the moors. Jem's holidays had 
 not begun, and in our house we were "cleaning 
 down" after the Colonel as if he had been the 
 sweeps. 
 
 I went to old Isaac for sympathy. He had
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 45 
 
 become very rheumatic the last two years, but he 
 was as intelligent as ever, and into his willing ear 
 I poured all that I could tell of my hero, and much 
 that I only imagined. 
 
 His sympathy met me more than half-way. 
 The villagers as a body were unbounded in their 
 approval of the Colonel, and Mrs. Irvine was even 
 greedier than old Isaac for every particular I could 
 impart respecting him. 
 
 "He's a handsome gentleman," said the bee- 
 master's wife, ' ' and he passed us (my neighbour, 
 Mrs. Mettam, and me) as near, sir, as I am to you, 
 with a gold-headed stick in his hand, and them lads 
 following after him, for all the world like the 
 Good Shepherd and his flock." 
 
 I managed not to laugh, and old Isaac added, 
 "There's a many in this village, sir, would have 
 been glad to have taken the liberty of expressing 
 themselves to the Colonel, and a depitation did 
 get as far as your father's gates one night, but they 
 turned bashful and come home again. And I 
 know, for one, Master Jack, that if me and my 
 missus had had a room fit to offer one of them 
 poor young gentlemen, I'd have given a week's 
 wage to do it, and the old woman would have 
 been happy to her dying day." 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 " GOD help me ! save I take my part 
 
 Of danger on the roaring sea, 
 A devil rises in my heart, 
 
 Far worse than any death to me." 
 
 Tennyson's "Sailor-boy." 
 
 r ~pHE fact that my father had sent me back 
 J_ against my will to a school where I had 
 suffered so much and learnt so little, ought perhaps 
 to have drawn us together when he discovered his 
 mistake. Unfortunately it did not. He was 
 deeply annoyed with himself for having been taken 
 in by Snuffy, but he transferred some of this annoy- 
 ance to me, on grounds which cut me to the soul, 
 and which I fear I resented so much that I was 
 not in a mood that was favourable to producing a 
 better understanding between us. The injustice 
 which I felt so keenly was, that my father 
 reproached me with having what he called "kept 
 him in the dark" about the life at Crayshaw's. 
 At my age I must have seen how wicked the man 
 and his system were. 
 
 I reminded him that I had run away from them 
 once, and had told all that I dared, but that he 
 would not hear me then. He would not hear me 
 now. 
 
 " I don't wish to discuss the subject. It is a 
 very painful one," he said (and I believe it was as 
 physically distressing to him as the thought of 
 Cripple Charlie's malformation). " I have no 
 wish to force your confidence when it is too late," 
 he added (and it was this which I felt to be so 
 hard). " I don't blame you ; you have other 
 friends who suit you better, but you have never 
 been fully open with me. All I can say is, if Mr. 
 Wood was better informed than I have been, and 
 did not acquaint me, he has behaved in a manner 
 
 which . There don't speak ! we'll dismiss 
 
 the subject. You have suffered enough, if you 
 have not acted as I should have expected you to 
 act. I blame myself unutterably, and I hope I 
 see my way to such a comfortable and respectable 
 start in life for you that these three years in that 
 vile place may not be to your permanent dis- 
 advantage." 
 
 I was just opening my lips to thank him, when 
 he got up and went to his tall desk, where he took 
 a pinch of snuff, and then added as he turned 
 away, ' ' Thank GOD I have one son who is frank 
 with his father ! " 
 
 My lips were sealed in an instant. This, then, 
 was my reward for that hardf journey of escape, 
 with Jem on my back, which had only saved him ; 
 for having stifled envy in gladness for his sake, 
 when (in those bits of our different holidays which 
 overlapped each other) I saw and felt the contrast 
 between our opportunities ; for having suffered my 
 harder lot in silence that my mother might not fret, 
 when I felt certain that my father would not 
 interfere ! My heart beat as if it would have 
 pumped the tears into my eyes by main force, but 
 I kept them back, and said steadily enough, " Is 
 that all, sir?" 
 
 My father did not look up, but he nodded his 
 head and said, " Yes ; you may go." 
 
 As I went he called me back. 
 
 ' ' Are you going to the farm this afternoon ? " 
 
 To my own infinite annoyance I blushed as I 
 answered, "I was going to sit with Charlie a bit, 
 unless you have any objection." 
 
 "Not at all. I only asked for information. I 
 have no wish to interfere with any respectable 
 friends you may be disposed to give your confidence 
 to. But I should like it to be understood that 
 either your mother or I must have some knowledge 
 of your movements." 
 
 " Mother knew quite well I was going !" I 
 exclaimed. " Why, I've got a parcel to take to 
 Mrs. Wood from her." "Very good. There's no 
 occasion to display temper. Shut the door after 
 you." 
 
 I shut it very gently. (If three years at Cray- 
 shaw's had taught me nothing else, it had taught me
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 much self-control. ) Then I got away to the first 
 hiding-place I could find, and buried my head 
 upon my arms. Would not a heating from Snuffy 
 have been less hard to bear ? Surely sore bones 
 from those one despises are not so painful as a sore 
 heart from those one loves. 
 
 Our household affections were too sound at the 
 core for the mere fact of displeasing my father not 
 to weigh heavily on my soul. But I could not help 
 defending myself in my own mind against what I 
 knew to be injustice. 
 
 Jem " frank with his father " ? Well he might 
 t>e, when our father's partiality met him half way 
 at every turn. That was no fancy of mine. I had 
 the clearest of childish remembrances of an occasion 
 when I wanted to do something which our farming 
 man thought my father would not approve, and 
 how when I urged the fact that Jem had already 
 done it with impunity, he shook his head wise- 
 acrely, and said, " Aye, aye, Master Jack. But ye 
 know they say some folk may steal a horse, when 
 other folks mayn't look over the hedge." 
 
 The vagueness of "some folks" and "other 
 folks " had left the proverb dark to my under- 
 standing when I heard it, but I remembered it till 
 I understood it. % 
 
 I never was really jealous of Jem. He was far 
 too good-natured and unspoilt, and I was too fond 
 of him. Besides which, if the mental tone of our 
 country lives was at rather a dull level, it was also 
 wholesomely unfavourable to the cultivation of 
 morbid grievances, or the dissection of one's own 
 hurt feelings. If I had told anybody about me, 
 from my dear mother down to our farming-man, 
 that I was misunderstood and wanted sympathy, I 
 should probably have been answered that many a 
 lad of my age was homeless and wanted boots. As 
 a matter of reasoning the reply would have been 
 defective, but for practical purposes it would have 
 been much to the point. And it is fair to this 
 rough-and-ready sort of philosophy to defend it 
 from a common charge of selfishness. It was not 
 that I should have been the happier because another 
 lad was miserable, but that an awakened sympathy 
 with his harder fate would tend to dwarf egotistic 
 absorption in my own. Such considerations, in 
 short, are no justification of those who are re- 
 sponsible for needless evil or neglected good, but 
 they are handy helps to those who suffer from them, 
 and who feel sadly sorry for themselves. 
 
 I am sure the early-begun and oft-reiterated 
 teaching of daily thankfulness for daily blessing 
 was very useful to me at Crayshaw's and has been 
 useful to me ever since. With my dear mother 
 herself it was merely part of that pure and constant 
 piety which ran through her daily life, like a stream 
 that is never frozen and never runs dry. In me it 
 
 had no such grace, but it was an early-taught good 
 habit (as instinctive as any bodily habit) to feel 
 " Well, I'm thankful things are not so with me ;" 
 as quickly as "Ah, it might have been thus!" 
 Looking at the fates and fortunes and dispositions 
 of other boys, I had, even at Snuffy's " much to 
 be thankful for " as well as much to endure, and it 
 was a good thing for me that I could balance the 
 two. For if the grace of thankfulness does not 
 solve the riddles of life, it lends a willing shoulder 
 to its common burdens. 
 
 I certainly had needed all my philosophy at home 
 as well as at school. It was hard to come back, one 
 holiday-time after another, ignorant except for 
 books that I devoured in the holidays, and for my 
 own independent studies of maps, and an old 
 geography book at Snuffy's from which I was 
 allowed to give lessons to the lowest form ; rough 
 in looks, and dress, and manners (I knew it, but 
 it requires some self-respect even to use a nail-brush, 
 and self-respect was next door to impossible at 
 Crayshaw's) ; and with my north-country accent 
 deepened, and my conversation disfigured by slang 
 which, not being fashionable slang, was as inad- 
 misable as thieves' lingo. It was hard, I say, to 
 come back thus, and meet dear old Jem, and 
 generally one at least of his schoolfellows whom he 
 had asked to be allowed to invite both of them 
 well dressed, well cared for, and well mannered, 
 full of games that were not in fashion at Crayshaw's, 
 and slang as "correct " as it was unintelligible. 
 
 Tern's heart was as true to me as ever, but he 
 was not so thin-skinned as I am. He was never a 
 fellow who worried himself much about anything, 
 and I don't think it struck him I could feel hurt or 
 lonely. He would say, " I say, Jack, what a 
 beastly way your hair is cut. I wish Father would 
 let you come to our school : " or, " Don't say it was 
 a dirty trick say it was a beastly chouse, or some- 
 thing of that sort. We're awfully particular about 
 
 talking at 's, and I don't want Cholmondley to 
 
 hear you." 
 
 Jem was wonderfully polished-up himself, and 
 as pugnacious on behalf of all the institutions of 
 his school as he had once been about our pond. I 
 got my hair as near right as one cutting and the 
 town hair-cutter could bring it, and mended my 
 manners and held my own with good temper. 
 When it came to feats of skill or endurance, I more 
 than held my own. Indeed, I so amazed one very 
 "swell" little friend of Jem's whose mother (a 
 titled lady) had allowed him to spend part of the 
 summer holidays with Jem for change of air, that 
 he vowed I must go and stay with him in the winter, 
 and do juggler and acrobat at their Christmas 
 theatricals. But he may have reported me as being 
 rough as well as ready, for her ladyship never
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 ratified the invitation. Not that I would have left 
 home at Christmas, and not that I lacked pleasure 
 in the holidays. But other fashions of games and 
 speech and boyish etiquette lay between me and 
 Jem ; hospitality, if not choice, kept him closely 
 with his schoolfellows, and neither they nor he had 
 part in the day-dreams of my soul. 
 
 For the spell of the Penny Numbers had not 
 grown weaker as I grew older. In the holidays I 
 came back to them as to friends. At school they 
 made the faded maps on Snuffy's dirty walls alive 
 with visions, and many a night as I lay av/ake witli 
 pain and over-weariness in the stifling dormitory, 
 my thoughts took refuge not in dreams of home nor 
 in castles of the air, but in phantom ships that sailed 
 for ever round the world. 
 
 The day of the interview with my father I roused 
 myself from my grievances to consider a more 
 practical question. Why should I not go to sea ? 
 No matter whose fault it was, there was no doubt 
 that I was ill-educated, and that I did not please 
 my father as Jem did. On the other hand I was 
 strong and hardy, nimble and willing to obey ; and 
 I had roughed it enough, in all conscience. I must 
 have ill-luck indeed, if I lit upon a captain more 
 cruel than Mr. Crayshaw. I did not know exactly 
 how it was to be accomplished, but I knew enough 
 to know that I could not aim at the Royal Navy. 
 Of course I should have preferred it. I had never 
 seen naval officers, but if they were like officers in 
 the army, like Colonel Jervois, for instance, it was 
 with such a port and bearing that I would fain have 
 carried myself when I grew up to be a man. I 
 guessed, however, that money and many other 
 considerations might make it impossible for me to 
 be a midshipman ; but I had heard of boys being 
 apprenticed to merchant-vessels, and I resolved to 
 ask my father if he would so apprentice me. 
 
 He refused, and he accompanied his refusal with 
 an unfavourable commentary on my character and 
 conduct, which was not the less bitter because the 
 accusations were chiefly general. 
 
 This sudden fancy for the sea well, if it were 
 not a sudden fancy, but a dream of my life, what 
 a painful instance it afforded of my habitual want 
 of frankness ! This long-concealed project which 
 I had suddenly brought to the surface I had 
 talked about it to my mother years ago, had I, but 
 it had distressed her, and even to my father, but 
 he had snubbed me ? then I had been deliberately 
 fostering aims and plans to which I had always 
 known that my parents would be opposed. My 
 father didn't believe a word of it. It was the old 
 story. I must be peculiar at any price. I must 
 have something new to amuse me, and be unlike 
 the rest of the family. It was always the same. 
 For years I had found more satisfaction from the 
 
 conversation of a man who had spent ten years of 
 his life in the hulks than from that of my own 
 father. Then this Indian Colonel had taken my 
 fancy, and it had made him sick to see the 
 womanish he could call it no better, the weak- 
 womanish way in which I worshipped him. If 
 I were a daughter instead of a son, my caprices 
 would distress and astonish him less. He could 
 have sent me to my mother, and my mother 
 might have sent me to my needle. In a son, 
 from whom he looked for manly feeling and good 
 English common-sense, it was painful in the ex- 
 treme. Vanity, the love of my own way, and 
 want of candour (my father took a pinch of snuff 
 between each count of the indictment) these were 
 my besetting sins, and would lead me into serious 
 trouble. This new fad, just, too, when he had 
 made most favourable arrangements for my admis- 
 sion into my Uncle Henry's office as the first step 
 in a prosperous career. I didn't know; didn't I? 
 Perhaps not. Perhaps I had been at the Woods' 
 when he and my mother were speaking of it. 
 But now I did know. The matter was decided, 
 and he hoped I should profit by my opportuni- 
 ties. I might go, and I was to shut the door after 
 me. - 
 
 I omit what my father said of "he matter from a 
 religious point of view, though he accused me of 
 flying in the face of Providence as well as the 
 Fifth Commandment. The piety which kept a 
 pure and GoD-fearing atmosphere about my home, 
 and to which I owe all the strength I have found 
 against evil since I left it, was far too sincere in 
 both my parents for me to speak of any phase of it 
 with disrespect. Though I may say here that I 
 think it is to be wished that more good people 
 exercised judgment as well as faith in tracing the 
 will of Heaven in their own. Practically I did 
 not even then believe that I was more "called " to 
 that station of life which was to be found in Uncle 
 Henry's office, than to that station of life which I 
 should find on board a vessel in the Merchant 
 Service, and it only discredited truth in my inmost 
 soul when my father put his plans for my career in 
 that light. Just as I could not help feeling it 
 unfair that a commandment which might have 
 been fairly appealed to if I had disobeyed him, 
 should be used against me in argument because I 
 disagreed with him. 
 
 I did disagree with him utterly. Uncle Henry's 
 office was a gloomy place, where I had had to 
 endure long periods of waiting as a child when my 
 mother took us in to the dentist, and had shopping 
 and visiting of uncertain length to do. Uncle 
 Henry himself was no favourite with me. He was 
 harder than my father if you vexed him, and less 
 genial when you didn't. And I wanted to go to
 
 4 s 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 sea. But it did not seem a light matter to me to 
 oppose my parents, and they were both against 
 me. My dear mother was thrown into the pro- 
 foundest distress by the bare notion. In her view 
 to be at sea was merely to run an imminent and 
 ceaseless risk of shipwreck ; and even this jeopardy 
 of life and limb was secondary to the dangers that 
 going ashore in foreign places would bring upon 
 my mind and morals. 
 
 So when my father spoke kindly to me at 
 supper, and said that he had arranged with Mr. 
 Wood that I should read with him for two hours 
 every evening, in preparation for my future life as 
 an articled clerk, my heart was softened. I 
 thanked him gratefully, and resolved for my own 
 part to follow what seemed to be the plain path of 
 duty, though it led to Uncle Henry's office, and 
 not out into the world. 
 
 The capacity in which I began life in Uncle 
 Henry's office was that of office boy, and the 
 situation was attended in my case with many 
 favourable conditions. Uncle Henry wished me 
 to sleep on the premises, as my predecessor had 
 done, but an accidental circumstance led to my 
 coming home daily, which I infinitely preferred. 
 This was nothingness than an outbreak of boils all 
 over me, upon which every domestic application 
 having failed, and gallons of herb tea only making 
 me worse, Dr. Brown was called in, and pro- 
 nounced my health in sore need of restoration. 
 The regimen of Crayshaw's was not to be reco- 
 vered from in a day, and the old doctor would not 
 hear of my living altogether in the town. If I 
 went to the office at all, he said, I must ride in 
 early, and ride out in the evening. So much 
 fresh air and exercise were imperative, and I must 
 eat two solid meals a day under no less careful an 
 eye than that of my mother. 
 
 She was delighted. She thought (even more 
 than usual) that Doctor Brown was a very Solomon 
 in spectacles, and I quite agreed with her. The 
 few words that followed gave a slight shock to her 
 favourable opinion of his wisdom, but I need 
 hardly say that it confirmed mine. 
 
 He had given me a kindly slap on the shoulder, 
 which happened at that moment to be the sorest 
 point in my body, and I was in no small pain 
 from head to foot. I only tightened my lips, but 
 I suppose he bethought himself of what he had 
 done, and he looked keenly at me and said, "You 
 can bear pain, Master Jack ? " 
 
 " Oh, Jack's a very brave boy," said my dear 
 mother. " Indeed, he's only too brave. He 
 upset his father and me terribly last week by 
 wanting to go to sea instead of to the office." 
 
 "And much better for him, ma'am," said the 
 old doctor, promptly; "he'll make a first-rate 
 
 sailor, and if Crayshaw's is all the schooling he's 
 had, a very indifferent clerk." 
 
 "That's just what I think ! " I began, but my 
 mother coloured crimson with distress, and I 
 stopped, and went after her worsted ball which 
 she had dropped, whilst she appealed to Doctor 
 Brown. 
 
 " Pray don't say so, Doctor Brown. Jack is 
 very good, and it's all qriite decided. I couldn't 
 part with him, and his father would be so annoyed 
 
 if the subject " 
 
 "Tut, tut, ma'am !" said the doctor, pocketing 
 his spectacles; " I never interfere in family affairs, 
 and I never repeat what I hear. The first rules 
 of the profession, young gentleman, and very good 
 general rules for anybody." 
 
 I got quite well again, and my new life began. 
 I rode in and out of the town every day on Rob 
 Roy, our red-haired pony. After tea I went to 
 the farm to be taught by Mr. Wood, and at every 
 opportunity I devoured such books as I could lay 
 my hands on. I fear I had very little excuse for 
 not being contented now. And yet I was not 
 content. 
 
 It seems absurd to say that the drains had any- 
 thing to do with it, but the horrible smell which 
 pervaded the office added to the distastefulness of 
 the place, and made us all feel ill and fretful, ex- 
 cept my uncle, and Moses Benson, the Jew clerk. 
 He was never ill, and he said he smelt nothing ; 
 which shows that one may have a very big nose to 
 very little purpose. 
 
 My uncle pooh-poohed the unwholesome state 
 of the office, for two reasons which certainly had 
 some weight. The first was that he himself had 
 been there for five and twenty years without suf- 
 fering by it ; and the second was, that the defects 
 of drainage were so radical that (the place belong- 
 ing to that period of house-building when the 
 system of drainage was often worse than none at 
 all) half the premises, if not half the street, would 
 have to be pulled down for any effectual remedy. 
 So it was left as it was, and when Mr. Burton, the 
 head clerk, had worse headaches than usual, he 
 used to give me sixpence for chloride of lime, 
 which I distributed at my discretion, and on those 
 days Moses Benson used generally to say that he 
 ' ' fancied he smelt something. " 
 
 Moses Benson was an articled clerk to my uncle, 
 but he had no pretensions to be considered a gen- 
 tleman. His father kept a small shop where 
 second-hand watches were the most obvious goods ; 
 but the old man was said to have money, though 
 the watches did not seem to sell very fast, and his 
 son had duly qualified for his post, and had paid a 
 good premium. Moses was only two or three 
 years older than I, not that I could have told any-
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 ' I got quite well again, and my new life began. T rode in and out of the town 
 every day on Rob Roy, our red-haired pony." P. 48. 
 
 thing about his age from his looks. He was than it was, for it was thick and very black, and 
 
 sallow, and had a big nose ; his hands were fat, though it was curly, it was not like Jem's ; the 
 
 his feet were small, and I think his head was curls were more like short ringlets, and if he bent 
 
 large, but perhaps his hair made it look larger over his desk they hid his forehead, and when he
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 put his head back to think, they lay on his coat- 
 collar. And I suppose it was partly because he 
 could not smell with his nose, that he used such 
 very strong hair-oil, and so much of it. It used to 
 make his coat-collar in a horrid state, but he 
 always kept a little bottle of " scouring drops " on 
 the ledge of his desk, and when it got very bad, I 
 knelt behind him on the corner of his stool and 
 scoured his coat-collar with a little bit of flannel. 
 Not that I did it half so well as he could. He 
 wore very odd-looking clothes, but he took great 
 care of them, and was always touching them up, 
 and " reviving " his hat with one of Mrs. O'Flan- 
 nagan's irons. He used to sell bottles of the 
 scouring drops to the other clerks, and once he 
 got me to get my mother to buy some. He gave 
 me a good many little odd jobs to do for him, 
 but he always thanked me, and from the beginning 
 to the end of our acquaintance he was invariably 
 kind. 
 
 I remember a very odd scene that happened at 
 the beginning of it. 
 
 Mr. Burton (the other clerk, whose time was to 
 expire the following year, which was to make a 
 vacancy for me) was a very different man from 
 Moses Benson. He was respectably connected, 
 and looked down on "the Jew-boy," but he was 
 hot-tempered, and rather slow-witted, and I think 
 Moses could manage him ; and I think it was he 
 who kept their constant "tiffs "from coming to 
 real quarrels. 
 
 One day, very soon after I began office-life, 
 Benson sent me out to get him some fancy note- 
 paper, and when I came back I saw the red-haired 
 Mr. Burton standing by the desk and looking 
 rather more sickly and cross than usual. I laid 
 down the paper and the change, and asked if 
 Benson wanted anything else. He thanked me 
 exceedingly kindly, and said "No," and I went 
 out of the enclosure and back to the corner where 
 I had been cutting out some newspaper extracts 
 for my uncle. At the same time I drew from 
 under my overcoat which was lying there, an old 
 railway volume of one of Cooper's novels which 
 Charlie had lent me. I ought not to have been 
 reading novels in office-hours, but I had had to 
 stop short last night because my candle went out 
 just at the most exciting point, and I had had no 
 time to see what became of everybody before I 
 Started for town in the morning. I could bear 
 suspense no longer, and plunged into my book. 
 
 How it was in these circumstances that I heard 
 what the two clerks were saying, I don't know. 
 They talked constantly in these open enclosures, 
 when they knew I was within hearing. On this 
 occasion I suppose they thought I had gone out, 
 and it was some minutes before I discovered that 
 
 they were talking of me. Burton spoke first, and 
 in an irritated tone. 
 
 " You treat this young shaver precious different 
 to the last one." 
 
 The Jew spoke very softly, and with an occa- 
 sional softening of the consonants in his words. 
 " How obsherving you are ! " said he. 
 
 Burton snorted. " It don't take much observa- 
 tion to see that. But I suppose you have your 
 reasons. You Jews are always so sly. That's 
 how you get on so, I suppose." 
 
 "You Gentiles," replied Moses (and the Jew's 
 voice had tones which ave him an infinite advan- 
 tage in retaliating scorn), " you Gentiles would do 
 as well as we do if you were able to foresee and 
 knew how to wait. You have all the selfishness 
 for success, my dear, but the gifts of prophecy and 
 patience are wanting to you:." 
 
 " That's nothing to do with your little game 
 about the boy," said Burton; "however, I sup- 
 pose you can keep your own secrets." 
 
 " I have no secrets," said Moses gently. "And 
 if you take my advice, you never will have. If 
 you have no secrets, my dear, they will never be 
 found out. If you tell your little designs, your 
 best friends will be satisfied, and will not invent 
 less creditable ones for you." 
 
 " If they did, you'd talk 'em down," said Burton 
 roughly. " Short of a woman I never met such a 
 
 hand at jaw. You'll be in Parliament yet " 
 
 ("It is possible !" said the Jew hastily,) "with 
 that long tongue of yours. But you haven't told 
 us about the boy, for all you've said. " 
 
 " About this boy," said Moses, "a proverb will 
 be shorter than my jaw. ' The son of the house is 
 not a servant for ever.' As to the other he was 
 taken for charity and dismissed for theft, is it not 
 so ? He came from the dirt, and he went back to 
 the dirt. They often do. Why should I be civil 
 to him ? " 
 
 What reply Mr. Burton would have made to 
 this question I had no opportunity of judging. 
 My uncle called him, and he ran hastily upstairs. 
 And when he had gone, the Jew came slowly out, 
 and crossed the office as if he were going into the 
 street. By this time my conscience was pricking 
 hard, and I shoved my book under my coat and 
 called to him : " Mr. Benson." 
 
 "You? "he said. 
 
 "I am very sorry," I stammered, blushing, 
 "but I heard what you were saying. I did not 
 mean to listen. I thought you knew that I was 
 there." 
 
 " It is of no importance, " he said, turning away ; 
 " I have no secrets." 
 
 But I detained him. 
 
 " Mr. Benson ! Tell me, please. You were 

 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 talking about me, weren't you? What did you 
 mean about the son of the house not being a ser- 
 vant for ever ? " 
 
 He hesitated for an instant, and then turned 
 round and came nearer to me. 
 
 "It is true, is it not? "he said. "Next year 
 you may be clerk. In time you may be your 
 uncle's confidential clerk, which I should like to 
 be myself. You may eventually be partner, as I 
 should like to be ; and in the long run you may 
 succeed him, as I should like to do. It is a good 
 business, my dear, a sound business, a business of 
 which much, very much, more might be made. 
 You might die rich, very rich. You might be 
 mayor, you might be member, you might but 
 what is the use. You -will not. You do not see 
 it, though I am telling you. You will not wait 
 for it, though it would come. What is that book 
 you hid when I came in ? " 
 
 " It is about North American Indians," said I, 
 dragging it forth. " I am very sorry, but I left 
 off last night at such an exciting bit." 
 
 The Jew was thumbing the pages, with his 
 black ringlets close above them. 
 
 " Novels in office-hours ! " said he ; but he was 
 very good-natured about it, and added, "I've one 
 or two books at home, if you're fond of this kind 
 of reading, and will promise me not to forget your 
 duties." 
 
 " Oh, I promise ! " said I. 
 
 "I'll put them under my desk in the corner," 
 he said; "indeed, I would part with some of 
 them for a trifle." 
 
 I thanked him warmly, but what he had said 
 was still hanging in my mind, and I added, " Are 
 there real prophets among the Jews nowadays, Mr. 
 Benson ? " 
 
 "They will make nothing by it, if there are," 
 said he ; and there was a tone of mysteriousness 
 in his manner of speaking which roused my 
 romantic curiosity. " A few of ush (very few, my 
 dear !) mould our own fates, and the lives of the 
 rest are moulded by what men have within them 
 rather than by what they find without. If there 
 were a true prophet in every market-place to tell 
 each man of his future, it would not alter the 
 destinies of seven men in thish wide wprld." 
 
 As Moses spoke the swing door was pushed 
 open, and one of my uncle's clients entered. He 
 was an influential man, and a very tall one. The 
 Jew bent his ringlets before him, almost beneath 
 his elbow, and slipped out as he came in. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 " Then, hey for boot and horse, lad, 
 
 And round the world away ! 
 Young blood must have its course, lad, 
 
 And every dog his day." 
 
 C. Kingsley. 
 
 MOSES BENSON was as good as his word 
 in the matter of books of adventure. Dirty 
 books, some without backs, and some with very 
 greasy ones (for which, if I bought them, I seldom 
 paid more than half-price), but full of dangers and 
 discoveries, the mightiness of manhood, and the 
 wonders of the world. I read them at odd 
 moments of my working hours, and dreamed of 
 them when I went home to bed. And it was 
 more fascinating still to look out, with Charlie's 
 help, in the Penny Numbers, for the foreign places, 
 and people, and creatures mentioned in the tales, 
 and to find that the truth was often stranger than 
 the fiction. 
 
 To live a fancy-life of adventure in my own 
 head, was not merely an amusement to me at this 
 time it was a refuge. Matters did not really 
 improve between me and my father, though I had 
 obeyed his wishes. It was by his arrangement 
 that I spent so much of my time at home with the 
 Woods, and yet it remained a grievance that I 
 liked to do so. Whether my clear mother had 
 given up all hopes of my becoming a genius I do 
 not know, but my father's contempt for my absorp- 
 tion in a book was unabated. I felt this if he 
 came suddenly upon me with my head in my 
 hands and my nose in a tattered volume ; and if I 
 went on with my reading it was with a sense of 
 being in the wrong, whilst if I shut up the book 
 and tried to throw myself into outside interests, 
 my father's manner showed me that rny efforts had 
 only discredited my candour. 
 
 As is commonly the case, it was chiefly little 
 things that pulled the wrong way of the stuft of 
 life between us, but they pulled it very much 
 askew. I was selfishly absorbed in my own 
 dreams, and I think my dear father made a mis- 
 take which is a too common bit of tyranny between 
 people who love each other and live together. 
 He was not satisfied with my doing \\\wA. he liked, 
 he expected me to be what lie liked, that is, to be 
 another person instead of myself. W'ives and 
 daughters seem now and then to respond to this 
 expectation as to the call of duty, and to become 
 inconsistent echoes, odd mixtures of severity and 
 hesitancy, hypocrites on the highest grounds ; but 
 sons are not often so self-effacing, and it was not 
 the case with me. It was so much the case with
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 my dear mother, that she never was of the slightest 
 use (which she might have been) when my father 
 and I misunderstood each other. By my father's 
 views of the moment she always hastily set her 
 own, whether they were fair or unfair to me ; and 
 she made up for it by indulging me at every point 
 that did not cross an expressed wish of my father's, 
 or that could not annoy him because he was not 
 there. She never held the scales between us. 
 
 And yet it was the thought of her which kept 
 me from taking my fate into my own hands again 
 and again. To have obeyed my father seemed to 
 have done so little towards making him satisfied 
 with me, that I found no consolation at home for 
 the distastefulness of the office ; and more than 
 once I resolved to run away, and either enlist or 
 go to Liverpool (which was at no great distance 
 from us) and get on board some vessel that was 
 about to sail for other lands. But when I thought 
 of my mother's distress, I could not face it, and I 
 let my half-formed projects slide again. 
 
 Oddly enough, it was Uncle Henry who brought 
 matters to a crisis. I think my father was disap- 
 pointed (though he did not blame me) that I 
 secured no warmer a place in Uncle Henry's 
 affections than I did. Uncle Henry had no 
 children, and if he took a fancy to me and I 
 pleased him, such a career as the Jew-clerk had 
 sketched for me would probably be mine. This 
 dawned on me by degrees through chance remarks 
 from my father and the more open comments of 
 friends. For good manners with us were not of a 
 sensitively refined order, and to be clapped on the 
 back with " Well, Jack, you've got into a good 
 berth, I hear. I suppose you look to succeed your 
 uncle some day?" was reckoned a friendly fami- 
 liarity rather than an offensive impertinence. 
 
 I learned that my parents had hoped that, as I 
 was his nephew, Uncle Henry would take me as 
 clerk without the usual premium. Indeed, when 
 my uncle first urged my going to him, he had 
 more than hinted that he should not expect a pre- 
 mium with his brother's son. But he was fond of 
 his money (of which he had plenty), and when 
 people are that, they are apt to begin to grudge, if 
 there is time, between promise and performance. 
 Uncle Henry had a whole year in which to think 
 about foregoing two or three hundred pounds, and 
 as it drew to a close, it seemed to worry him to 
 such a degree, that he proposed to take me for 
 half the usual premium instead of completely re- 
 mitting it ; and he said something about my being 
 a stupid sort of boy, and of very little use to him 
 for some time to come. He said it to justify him- 
 self for drawing back, I am quite sure, but it did 
 me no good at home. 
 
 My father had plenty of honourable pride, and 
 
 he would hear of no compromise. He said that 
 he should pay the full premium for me that Uncle 
 Henry's other clerks had had to pay, and from this 
 no revulsion of feeling on my uncle's part would 
 move him. He was quite bland with Uncle 
 Henry, and he was not quite bland towards me. 
 
 When I fairly grasped the situation (and I con- 
 trived to get a pretty clear account of it from my 
 mother), there rushed upon me the conviction that 
 a new phase had come over my prospects. When 
 I put aside my own longings for my father's will ; 
 and every time that office-life seemed intolerable 
 to me, and I was tempted to break my bonds, and 
 thought better of it and settled down again, this 
 thought had always remained behind: "I will 
 try ; and if the worst comes to the worst, and I 
 really cannot settle down into a clerk, I can but 
 run away then." But circumstances had altered 
 my case. I felt that now I must make up my 
 mind for good and all. My father would have to 
 make some little sacrifices to find the money, and 
 when it was once paid, I could not let it be in 
 vain. Come what might, I must stick to the 
 office then, and for life. 
 
 Some weeks passed whilst I was turning this over 
 and over in my mind. I was constantly forgetting 
 things in the office, but Moses Benson helped me 
 out of every scrape. He was kinder and kinder, 
 so that I often felt sorry that I could not feel 
 fonder of him, and that his notions of fun and 
 amusement only disgusted me instead of making 
 us friends. They convinced me of one thing. 
 My dear mother's chief dread about my going out 
 of my own country was for the wicked ways I 
 might learn in strange lands. A town with an 
 unpronounceable name suggested foreign iniquities 
 to her tender fears, but our own town, where she 
 and everbody we knew bought everything we daily 
 used, did not frighten her at all. I did not tell 
 her, but I was quite convinced myself that I might 
 get pretty deep into mischief in my idle hours, 
 even if I lived within five miles of home, and had 
 only my uncle's clerks for my comrades. 
 
 During these weeks Jem came home for the 
 holidays. He was at a public school now, which 
 many of our friends regarded as an extravagant 
 folly on my father's part. We had a very happy 
 time together, and this would have gone far to 
 keep me at home, if it had not, at the same time, 
 deepened my disgust with our town, and my com- 
 panions in the office. In plain English, the train- 
 ing of two good schools, and the society of boys 
 superior to himself, had made a gentleman of Jem, 
 and the contrast between his looks and ways, and 
 manners, and those of my uncle's clerks were not 
 favourable to the latter. How proud my father 
 was of him ! With me he was in a most irritable
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 53 
 
 mood (and one grumble to which I heard him 
 give utterance, that it was very inconvenient to 
 have to pay this money just at the most expensive 
 period of Jem's education), went heavily into the 
 scale for running away. And that night, as it 
 happened, Jem and I sat up late, and had a long 
 and loving chat. He abused the office to my 
 heart's content, and was very sympathetic when I 
 told him that I had wished to go to sea, and how 
 my father had refused to allow me. 
 
 " I think he made a great mistake," said Jem ; 
 and he told me of "a fellow's brother" that he 
 knew about, who was in the Merchant Service, 
 and how well he was doing. " It's not even as if 
 Uncle Henry were coming out generously," he 
 added. 
 
 Dear, dear ! How pleasant it was to hear some- 
 body else talk on my side of the question. And 
 who was I that I should rebuke Jem for calling 
 our worthy uncle a curmudgeon, and stigmatizing 
 the Jew-clerk as a dirty beast ? I really dared not 
 tell him that Moses grew more familiar as my time 
 to be articled drew near ; that he called me Jack 
 Sprat, and his dearest friend, and offered to pro- 
 cure me the "silver-top" (or champagne) which 
 he said I must "stand" on the day I took my 
 place at the fellow desk to his of the first quality 
 and at less than cost price ; and that he had pro- 
 vided me gratis with a choice of " excuses " (they 
 were unblushing lies) to give to our good mother 
 for spending that evening in town, and "having a 
 spree." 
 
 From my affairs we came to talk of Jem's, and I 
 found that even he, poor chap ! was not without 
 his troubles. He confided to me, with many ex- 
 pressions of shame and vexation, that he had got 
 into debt, but having brought home good reports 
 and even a prize on this occasion, he hoped to 
 persuade my father to pay what he owed. 
 
 " You see, Jack, he's awfully good to me, but 
 he will do things his own way, and what's worse, 
 the way they were done in his young days. You 
 remember the row we had about his giving me an 
 allowance ? He didn't want to, because he never 
 had one, only tips from his governor when the old 
 gentleman was pleased with him. And he said it 
 was quite enough to send me to such a good and 
 expensive school, and I ought to think of that, 
 and not want more because I had got much. We'd 
 an awful row, for I thought it was so unfair his 
 making out I was greedy and ungrateful, and I 
 told him so, and I said I was quite game to go to 
 a cheap school if he liked, only wherever I was I 
 did want to be ' like the other fellows.' I begged 
 him to take me away and to let me go somewhere 
 cheap with you ; and I said, if the fellows there 
 had no allowances, we could do without. As I 
 
 told him, it's not the beastly things that you buy 
 that you care about, only of course you don't like 
 to be the only fellow who can't buy 'em. So then 
 he came round, and said I should have an allow- 
 ance, but I must do with a very small one. So I 
 said, very well, then I mustn't go in for the games. 
 Then he wouldn't have that ; so then I made out 
 a list of what the subscriptions are to cricket, and 
 so on, and then your flannels and shoes, and it 
 came to double what he offered me. He said it 
 was simply disgraceful that boys shouldn't be able 
 to be properly educated, and have an honest game 
 at cricket for the huge price he paid, without the 
 parents being fleeced for all sorts of extravagances 
 at exorbitant prices. And I know well enough its 
 disgraceful, what we have to pay for school books 
 and for things of all sorts you have to get in the 
 town ; but, as I said to the governor, why don't 
 you kick up a dust with the head master, or write 
 to the papers what's the good of rowing us ? 
 One must have what other fellows have, and get 
 'em where other fellows get 'em. But he never 
 did I wish he would. I should enjoy fighting 
 old Pompous if I were in his place. But they're 
 as civil as butter to each other, and then old 
 Pompous goes on feathering his nest, and backing 
 up the tradespeople, and the governor pitches into 
 the young men of the present day." 
 
 " He did give you the bigger allowance, didn't 
 he ? " said I, at this pause in Jem's rhetoric. 
 
 " Yes, he did. He's awfully good to me. But 
 you know, Jack, he never paid it quite all, and he 
 never paid it quite in time. I found out from my 
 mother he did it on purpose to make me value it 
 more, and be more careful. Doesn't it seem odd 
 he shouldn't see that I can't pay the subscriptions 
 a few shillings short or a few days late ? One 
 must find the money somehow, and then one has 
 to pay for that, and then you're short, and go on 
 tick, and it runs up, and then they dun you, and 
 you're cleaned out, and there you are ! " 
 
 At which climax old Jem laid his curly head on 
 his arms, and I began to think very seriously. 
 
 ' ' How much do you owe ? " 
 
 Jem couldn't say. He thought he could reckon 
 up, so I got a pencil and made a list from his dic- 
 tation, and from his memory, which was rather 
 vague. When it was done (and there seemed to 
 be a misty margin beyond), I was horrified. 
 " Why, my dear fellow !" I exclaimed, " if you'd 
 had your allowance ever so regularly, it wouldn't 
 have covered this sort of thing." 
 
 "I know, I know," said poor Jem, clutching 
 remorsefully at his curls. "I've been a regular 
 fool ! Jack ! whatever you do never tick. It's 
 the very mischief. You never know what you 
 owe, and so you feel vague and order more. And
 
 54 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 you never know what you don't owe, which is 
 worse, for sometimes you're in such despair, it 
 would be quite a relief to catch some complaint 
 and die. It's like going about with a stone round 
 vour neck, and nobody kind enough to drown you. 
 I can't stand any more of it. I shall make a clean 
 breast to Father, and if he can't set me straight, I 
 won't go back ; I'll work on the farm sooner, and 
 let him pay my bills instead of my schooling and 
 serve old Pompous right." 
 
 Poor Jem ! long after he had cheered up and 
 gone to bed, I sat up and thought. When my 
 premium was paid where was the money for Jem's 
 debts to come from ? And would my father be in 
 the humour to pay them ? If he did not, Jem 
 would not go back to school. Of that I was quite 
 certain. Jem had thought over his affairs, which 
 was an effort for him, but he always thought in 
 one direction. His thoughts never went backwards 
 and forwards as mine did. If he had made up 
 his mind, there was no more prospect of his 
 changing it than if he had been my father. And 
 if the happy terms between them were broken, 
 and Jem's career checked when he was doing so 
 well ! the scales that weighed my own future 
 were becoming very uneven now. 
 
 I clasped my hands and thought. If I ran 
 away, the money would be there for Jem's debts, 
 and his errors would look pale in the light of my 
 audacity, and he would be dearer than ever at 
 home, whilst for me were freedom, independence 
 (for I had not a doubt of earning bread and cheese, 
 if only as a working man) : perhaps a better 
 understanding with my father when I had been 
 able to prove my courage and industry, or even 
 when he got the temperate and dutiful letter I 
 meant to post to him when I was fairly off ; and 
 beyond all, the desire of my eyes, the sight of the 
 world. 
 
 Shouid I stay now ? And for what ? To see 
 old Jem at logger-heads with my father, and per- 
 haps demoralised by an inferior school ? To turn 
 my own back and shut my eyes for ever on all 
 that the wide seas embrace ; my highest goal to 
 be to grow as rich as Uncle Henry or richer, and 
 perhaps as mean or meaner? Should I choose 
 for life a life I hated, and set seals to my choice 
 by drinking silver-top with the Jew-clerk ? No, 
 Moses, no"! 
 
 I got up soon after dawn and was in the garden 
 at sunrise the morning that I ran away. I had 
 made my plans carefully, and carried them out, so 
 far with success. 
 
 Including the old miser's bequest which his 
 lawyer had paid, there were thirteen pounds to my 
 name in the town savings-bank, and this sum I 
 
 had drawn out to begin life with. I wrapped a 
 five-pound note in a loving letter to Jem, and put 
 both into the hymn-book on his shelf I knew it 
 would not be opened till Sunday. Very few run- 
 aways have as much as eight pounds to make a 
 start with : and as one could not be quite certain 
 how my father would receive Jem's confession, I 
 thought he might be glad to have a few pounds of 
 his own, and I knew he had spent his share of the 
 miser's money long ago. 
 
 I meant to walk to a station about seven miles 
 distant, and there take train for Liverpool. I 
 should be clumsy indeed, I thought, if I could not 
 stow away on board some vessel, as hundreds of 
 lads had done before me, and make myself suffi- 
 ciently useful to pay my passage when I was found 
 out. 
 
 When I got into the garden I kicked my foot 
 against something in the grass. It was my mother's 
 little gardening-fork. She had been tidying her 
 pet perennial border, and my father had called 
 her hastily, and she had left it half finished, and 
 had forgotten the fork. A few minutes more or 
 less were of no great importance to me, for it was 
 very early, so I finished the border quite neatly, 
 and took the fork indoors. 
 
 I put it in a corner of the hall where the light 
 was growing stronger and making familiar objects 
 clear. In a house like ours and amongst people 
 like us, furniture was not chopped and changed 
 and decorated as it is now. The place had looked 
 like this ever since I could remember, and it would 
 look like this to-morrow morning, though my eyes 
 would not see it. I stood stupidly by the hall 
 table where my father's gloves lay neatly one upon 
 the other beside his hat. I took them up, almost 
 mechanically, and separated them, and laid them 
 together again finger to finger, and thumb to 
 thumb, and held them with a stupid sort of feel- 
 ing, as if I could never put them down and go 
 away. 
 
 What would my father's face be like when he 
 took them up this very morning to go out and look 
 for me ? and when oh when ! should I see his 
 face again ? 
 
 I began to feel what one is apt to learn too late, 
 that in childhood one takes the happiness of home 
 for granted, and kicks against the pricks of its griev- 
 ances, not having felt the far harder buffetings of 
 the world. Moreover (which one does not think 
 of then), that parental blunders and injustices are 
 the mistakes and tyrannies of a special love that 
 one may go many a mile on one's own wilful way 
 and not meet a second time. Who in the wide 
 world would care to be bothered with my confi- 
 dence, and blame me for withholding it ? Should 
 I taeet many people to whom it would matter if
 
 WE AND THE IVORLD. 
 
 55 
 
 we misunderstood each other? Would anybody 
 hereafter love me well enough to be disappointed 
 in me ? Would other men care so much for my 
 fate as to insist on guiding it by lines of their own 
 ruling? 
 
 I pressed the gloves passionately against my 
 eyes to keep in the tears. If my day-dreams had 
 been the only question, I should have changed my 
 mind now. If the home grievances had been all, 
 I sliould have waited for time and patience to 
 mend them. I could not have broken all these 
 heart-strings. I should never have run away. 
 But there was much more, and my convictions 
 were not changed, though I felt as if I might 
 have managed better as regards my father. 
 
 Would he forgive me ? I hoped and believed 
 so. Would my mother forgive me? I knew she 
 would as GOD forgives. 
 
 And with the thought of her, I knelt down, and 
 put my head on the hall table and prayed from 
 my soul not for fair winds, and prosperous 
 voyages, and good luck, and great adventures ; but 
 that it might please GOD to let me see Home 
 again, and the faces that I loved, ah, so dearly, 
 after all ! 
 
 And then I got up, and crossed the threshold, 
 and went out into the world. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 " A friend in need is a friend indeed." 
 
 Old Proverb. 
 
 I HAVE often thought that the biggest bit of 
 good luck (and I was lucky), which befell me 
 on my outset into the world, was that the man I 
 sat next to in the railway carriage was not a rogue. 
 I travelled third class to Liverpool for more than 
 one reason it was the cheapest way, besides which 
 I did not wish to meet any family friends and 
 the man I speak of was a third-class passenger, 
 and he went to Liverpool too. 
 
 At the time I was puzzled to think how he came 
 to guess that I was running away, that I had 
 money with me, and that I had never been to 
 Liverpool before ; but I can well imagine now 
 how my ignorance and anxiety must have betrayed 
 themselves at every station I mistook for the end of 
 my journey, and with every question which I put, as 
 I flattered myself, in the careless tones of common 
 conversation. I really wonder I had not thought 
 beforehand about my clothes, which fitted very 
 badly on the character I assumed, and the com- 
 pany I chose ; but it was not perhaps to be ex- 
 
 pected that I should know then, as I know now, 
 how conspicuous all over me must have been the 
 absence of those outward signs of hardship and 
 poverty, which they who know poverty and hard- 
 ship know so well. 
 
 I wish / had known them, because then I should 
 have given the man some of my money when we 
 parted, instead of feeling too delicate to do so. I 
 can remember his face too well not to know now 
 how much he must have needed it, and how heroic 
 a virtue honesty must have been in him. 
 
 It did not seem to strike him as at all strange 
 or unnatural that a lad of my age should be seeking 
 his own fortune, but I feel sure that he thought it 
 was misconduct on my part which had made me 
 run away from home. I had no grievance to 
 describe which he could recognize as grievous 
 enough to drive me out into the world. However, 
 I felt very glad that he saw no impossibility in my 
 earning my own livelihood, or even anything very 
 unusual in my situation. 
 
 " I suppose lots of young fellows run away from 
 home and go to sea from a place like this ? " said 
 I, when we had reached Liverpool. 
 
 "And there's plenty more goes that has no 
 homes to run from," replied he sententiously. 
 
 Prefacing each fresh counsel with the formula, 
 " You'll excuse me" he gave me some excellent 
 advice as we threaded the greasy streets, and 
 jostled the disreputable-looking population of the 
 lower part of the town. General counsels as to 
 my conduct, and the desirableness of turning over 
 a new leaf for "young chaps " who had been wild 
 and got into scrapes at home. And particular 
 counsels which were invaluable to me, as to 
 changing my dress, how to hide my money, what 
 to turn my hand to with the quickest chaiice of 
 bread-winning in strange places, and how to keep 
 my own affairs to myself among strange people. 
 
 It was in the greasiest street, and among the 
 most disreputable-looking people, that we found 
 the " slop-shop " where, by my friend's orders, I 
 was to "rig out " in clothes befitting my new line 
 of life. He went in first, so he did not see the 
 qualm that seized me on the doorstep. A revul- 
 sion so violent that it nearly made me sick then 
 and there ; and if someone had seized me by the 
 nape of my neck, and landed me straightway at 
 my desk in Uncle Henry's office, would, I believe, 
 have left me tamed for life. For if this unutter- 
 able vileness of sights and sounds and smells which 
 hung around the dark entry of the slop shop were 
 indeed the world, I felt a sudden and most vehe- 
 ment conviction that I would willingly renounce 
 the world for ever. As it happened, I had not at 
 that moment the choice. My friend had gone in, 
 and I dared not stay among the people outside. I
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 groped my way into the shop, which was so dark 
 as well as dingy that they had lighted a small oil- 
 lamp just above the head of the man who served 
 out the slops. Even so the light that fell on him 
 was dim and fitful, and was the means of giving 
 me another start in which I gasped out " Moses 
 Benson ! " 
 
 The man turned and smiled (he had the Jew- 
 clerk's exact smile), and said softly : 
 
 " Cohen, my dear, not Benson." 
 
 And as he bent at another angle of the oil -lamp 
 I saw that he was older than the clerk, and dirtier ; 
 and though his coat was quite curiously like the 
 one I had so often cleaned, he had evidently either 
 never met with the invaluable " scouring drops," 
 or did not feel it worth while to make use of them 
 in such a dingy hole. 
 
 One shock helped to cure the other. Come 
 what might, I could not sneak back now to the 
 civil congratulations of that other Moses, and the 
 scorn of his eye. But I was so nervous that my 
 fellow-traveller transacted my business for me, and 
 when the oil-lamp flared and I caught Moses 
 Cohen looking at me, I jumped as if Snuffy had 
 come behind me. And when we got out (and it 
 was no easy matter to escape from the various 
 benevolent offers of the owner of the slop-shop), 
 my friend said : 
 
 "You'll excuse me telling you, but whatever 
 you do don't go near that there Jew again. He's 
 no friend for a young chap like you." 
 
 "I should have got your slops cheaper," he 
 added, "if I could have taken your clothes in 
 without you." 
 
 My "slops" were a very loose suit of clothes 
 made of much coarser material than my own, and 
 I suppose they were called " slops " because they 
 
 .fitted in such a peculiarly sloppy manner. The 
 whole "rig out" (it included a strong clasp-knife, 
 and a little leathern bag to keep my money in 
 
 which I was instructed to carry round my neck) 
 was provided by Mr. Cohen in exchange for the 
 clothes I had been wearing before, with the addi- 
 tion of ten shillings in cash. I dipped again into 
 the leathern bag to provide a meal for myself and 
 my friend ; then, by his advice, I put a shilling 
 -and some coppers into my pocket, that I might 
 not have to bring out my purse in public, and with 
 a few parting words of counsel he wrung my hand, 
 and we parted he towards some place of business 
 where he hoped to get employment, and I in the 
 direction of the docks, where the ships come and go. 
 
 "I hope you will get work," were my last 
 words. 
 
 " The same to you, my lad," was his reply, and 
 it seemed to acknowledge me as one of that big 
 brotherhood of toilers who, when they want 
 
 "something to do," want it not to pass time 
 to earn daily bread. 
 
 but 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 ' ' Deark d'on Dearka. " ( " Beg of a . 
 
 . 
 Printer*. 
 
 " . . . . From her way of speaking they also saw imme- 
 diately that she too was an Eirisher .... They must be a 
 bonny family when they are all at home !" The Life of 
 Mansie Waitch, Tailor in Dalkeith. 
 
 " (so ran the 536th of the " Penny 
 \_J Numbers ") is " a place artificially formed 
 for the reception of ships, the entrance of which 
 is generally closed by gates. There are two kinds 
 of docks, dry-docks and wet-docks. The former 
 are used for receiving ships in order to their being 
 inspected and repaired. For this purpose the 
 dock must be so contrived that the water may be 
 admitted or excluded at pleasure, so that a vessel 
 can be floated in when the tide is high, and that 
 the water may run out with the fall of the tide, or 
 be pumped out, the closing of the gates preventing 
 its return. Wet-docks are formed for the purpose 
 of keeping vessels always afloat. . . . One of 
 the chief uses of a dock is to keep a uniform level 
 of water, so that the business of loading and un- 
 loading ships can be carried on without any inter- 
 ruption. . . . The first wet-dock for commercial 
 purposes made in this kingdom was formed in the 
 year 1708 at Liverpool, then a place of no impor- 
 tance." 
 
 The business of loading and unloading ships can 
 be carried on without any interruption. If every- 
 thing that the " Penny Numbers" told of were as 
 true to the life as that, the world's wonders (at 
 least those of them which begin with the first four 
 letters of the alphabet) must be all that I had 
 hoped ; and perhaps that bee-hive about which 
 Master Isaac and I had had our jokes, did really 
 yield a "considerable income " to the fortunate 
 French bee-master ! 
 
 Loading and unloading, coming and going, 
 lifting and lowering, shouting and replying, swear- 
 ing and retorting, creaking and jangling, shrieking 
 and bumping, cursing and chaffing, the noise and 
 restlessness of men and things were utterly be- 
 wildering. I had often heard of a Bab -1 of sounds, 
 but I had never before heard anything so like 
 what one might fancy it must have been when that 
 great crowd of workmen broke up, and left build- 
 ing their tower, in a confounding of language and 
 misunderstanding of speech. For the men who 
 went to and fro in these docks, each his own way, 
 jostling and yelling to each other, were men of all
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 57 
 
 nations, and the confusion was of tongues as well 
 as of work. At one minute I found myself stand- 
 ing ne>ct to a live Chinaman in a pigtail, who was 
 staring as hard as I at some swarthy supple-bodied 
 sailors with eager faces, and scant clothing wrapped 
 tightly round them, chatting to each other" in a 
 language as strange to the Chinaman as to me, 
 their large lustrous eyes returning our curiosity 
 with interest, and contrasting strangely with the 
 tea-caddy countenance of my elbow neighbour. 
 Then a turbaned Turk went by, and then two 
 grinning negroes, and there were lots of men who 
 looked more like Englishmen, but who spokawith 
 other tongues, and amongst those who loaded and 
 unloaded in this busy place, which was once of no 
 importance, Irish brogue seemed the commonest 
 language of all. 
 
 One thing made me hopeful there were plenty 
 of boys no bigger than myself who were busy 
 working, and therefore earning wages, and as I 
 saw several lads who were dressed in suits the very 
 counterpart of my own, I felt sure that my travel- 
 ling companion had done me a good turn when 
 he rigged me out in slops. An incident that 
 occurred in the afternoon made me a little more 
 doubtful about this. 
 
 I really had found much to counterbalance the 
 anxieties of my position in the delightful novelty 
 and variety of life around me, and not a little to 
 raise my hopes ; for I had watched keenly for 
 several hours as much as I could see from the 
 wharf of what was going on in this ship and that, 
 and I began to feel less confused. I perceived 
 plainly that a great deal of every-day sort of work 
 went on in ships as well as in houses, with the 
 chief difference, in dock at any rate, of being 
 done in public. In the most free and easy fashion, 
 to the untiring entertainment of crowds of idlers 
 besides myself, the men and boys on vessel after 
 vessel lying alongside, washed out their shirts and 
 socks, and hung them up to dry, cooked their 
 food, cleaned out their pots and pans, tidied their 
 holes and corners, swept and brushed, and fetched 
 and carried, and did scores of things which I knew 
 I could do perfectly, for want of something better 
 to do. 
 
 " It's clear there's plenty of dirty work to go 
 on with till one learns seamanship," I thought, 
 and the thought was an honest satisfaction to me. 
 
 I had always swept Uncle Henry's office, and 
 that had been light work after cleaning the school- 
 room at Snuffy's. My hands were never likely to 
 be more chapped at sea than they had been with 
 dirt and snow and want of things to dry oneself 
 with at school ; and as to coal-carrying 
 
 Talking of coals, on board the big ship, out of 
 which great white bales, strapped with bars of 
 
 iron, were being pulled up by machinery, and 
 caught and flung about by the " unloaders," there 
 was a man whose business it seemed to be to look 
 after the fires, and who seemed also to have taken 
 a roll in the coal-hole for pleasure ; and I saw him 
 find a tin basin and a square of soap, and a decent 
 rough towel to wash his face and hands, such as 
 would have been reckoned luxurious in a dormitory 
 at Snuffy's. Altogether, when a heavy hand was 
 laid suddenly on my shoulder, and a gruff voice 
 said : 
 
 "Well, my young star-gazing greenhorn, and 
 what do you want ? " 
 
 I replied with alacrity, as well as with more 
 respect than the stranger's appearance was calcu- 
 lated to inspire, " Please, sir, I want to go to sea, 
 and I should like to ship for America." 
 
 He was not a nice-looking man by any means 
 far too suggestive of Snuffy, when Snuffy was 
 partly drunk. But after a pause, he said : 
 
 " All right. Where are your papers ? What 
 was your ship, and why did ye run ?" 
 
 "I have not served in a ship yet, sir," said I, 
 "but I'm sure " 
 
 He did not allow me to go on. With a sudden 
 fierce look that made him more horribly like 
 Snuffy than before, he caught me by my sleeve and 
 a bit of my arm, and shoved me back from the 
 edge of the dock till we stood alone. " Then 
 where did ye steal your slops?" he hissed at me 
 with oaths. " Look here, ye young gallows-bird, 
 if ye don't stand me a liquor, I'll run ye in as a run- 
 away apprentice. So cash up, and look sharp." 
 
 I was startled, but I was not quite such a fool 
 as I looked, mind or body. I had once had a 
 hardish struggle with Snuffy himself whe\i he was 
 savage, and I was strong and agile beyond my 
 seeming. I dived deeply into my trousers-pocket, 
 as if feeling for the price of a "liquor," and the 
 man having involuntarily allowed me little swing 
 for this, I suddenly put up my shoulders, and ran 
 at him as if my head were a battering-ram, and 
 his moleskin waistcoat the wall of a beleagured 
 city, and then wrenching myself from his grasp, 
 and dodging the leg he had put out to trip me, I 
 fled blindly down the quay. 
 
 No one can take orange-peel into account, how- 
 ever. I slipped on a large piece and came head- 
 long, with the aggravation of hearing my enemy 
 breathing hoarsely close above me. As regards 
 him, I suppose it was lucky that my fall jerked 
 the shilling and the penny out of my pocket, for 
 as the shilling rolled away he went after it, and I 
 saw him no more. What I did see when I sat up 
 was the last of my penny (which had rolled in 
 another direction), as it gave one final turn and 
 fell into the dock.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 I could have cried with vexation, and partly 
 with fatigue, for it was getting late, and I was 
 getting tired. I had fallen soft enough, as it hap- 
 pened, for I found myself on a heap of seeds, 
 some kind of small bean, and the yielding mass 
 made a pleasant resting-place. There was no one 
 very near, and I moved round to the back of the 
 heap to be still more out of sight, and sat down 
 to try and think what it was best to do. If my 
 slops were really a sort of uniform to which I was 
 not entitled, they would do me more harm than 
 good. But whom could I ask ? If there were 
 an honest, friendly soul in all this crowd, and I 
 could come across him, I felt that (without telling 
 too much of my affairs) I could explain that I had 
 exchanged some good shore clothes of my own for 
 what I had been told were more suitable to the 
 work I was looking out for, and say further that 
 though I had never yet been at sea, I was hardy, 
 and willing to make myself useful in any way. 
 But how could I tell whom to trust? I might 
 speak fair to some likely-looking man, and he 
 might take me somewhere and strip me of my 
 slops, and find my leather money-bag, and steal 
 that too. When I thought how easily my fellow- 
 traveller might have treated me thus, I felt a thrill 
 of gratitude towards him, and then I wondered 
 how he had prospered in his search for work. As 
 for me, it was pretty clear that if I hoped to work 
 my way in this wicked world, I must suspect a 
 scoundrel in every man I met, and forestall mis- 
 chief by suspicion. As I sat and thought, I sifted 
 the beans through my fingers, and saw that there 
 were lots of strange seeds mixed with them, some 
 of very fantastic shapes ; and I wondered what 
 countries they came from, and with what shape 
 and scent and colour the plants blossomed, and 
 thought how Charlie would like some of them to 
 sow in pots and watch. As I drove my hands 
 deeper into the heap, I felt that it was quite warm 
 inside, and then I put my head down to smell if 
 there was any fragrance in the seeds, and I did 
 not lift it up again, for I fell fast asleep. 
 
 I was awakened by a touch on my head, and a 
 voice just above me, saying: "He's alive anny- 
 how, thank GOD ! " and sitting up among the 
 beans I found that it was dark and foggy, but a 
 lamp at some distance gave me a pretty good 
 view of an old woman who was bending over me. 
 
 She was dressed, apparently, in several skirts of 
 unequal lengths, each one dingier and more useless- 
 looking than the one beneath it. She had a man's 
 coat, with a short pipe in the breast-pocket ; and 
 what her bonnet was like one could not tell, for it 
 was comfortably tied down by a crimson handker- 
 chief with big white spots, which covered it com- 
 pletely. Her face was as crumpled and as dirty 
 
 as her clothes, but she had as fine eyes and as kind 
 eyes as mine had ever met. And every idea of 
 needful wariness and of the wickedness of the 
 world went quite naturally out of my head, and I 
 said, "Did you think I was dead, mother?" 
 
 "I did not ; though how would I know what 
 would be the matter wid ye, lying there those 
 three hours on your face, and not a stir out o' ye ?" 
 
 " You're very kind," I said, dusting the bean- 
 dust off my trousers, and I suppose I looked a 
 little puzzled, for the old woman (helping me by 
 flicking at my sleeve) went on : " I'll not deceive 
 ye, my dear. It was my own Micky that was on 
 my mind ; though now you've lifted your face, 
 barring the colour of his hair, there's no likeness 
 betwixt ye, and I'm the disappointed woman 
 again, GOD help me ! " 
 
 " Is Micky your son ? " I asked. 
 
 " He is, and a better child woman never had, till 
 he tired of everything I would do for him, being 
 always the boy for a change, and went for a stow- 
 away from this very port. " 
 
 "Sit down, mother; stow-aways are lads that 
 hide on board ship, and get taken to sea for 
 nothing, aren't they ? " 
 
 " They are, darlin' ; but it's not for nothing 
 they get kept at sea, ye may take your oath. 
 And many's the one that leaves this in the highest 
 of expictations, and is glad enough to get back to 
 it in a tattered shirt and a whole skin, and with an 
 increase of contintment under the ways of home 
 upon his mind." 
 
 "And you hope Micky '11 come back, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 " Why wouldn't I, acushla? Sure it was by 
 reason o' that I got bothered with the washin' 
 after me poor boy left me, from my mind being 
 continually in the docks, instead of with the clothes. 
 And there I would be at the end of the week, 
 with the captain's jerseys gone to old Miss Hard- 
 ing, and his washing no corricter than hers, though 
 he'd more good nature in him over the accidents, 
 and iron-moulds on the table-cloths, and pocket- 
 ha'hdkerchers missin', and me ruined entirely 
 with making them good, and no thanks for it, till 
 a good-natured sowl of a foreigner that kept a pie- 
 shop larned me to make the coffee, and lint me 
 the money to buy a barra, and he says : ' Go as 
 convanient to the ships as ye can, mother ; it'll 
 aise your mind. My own heart,' says he, laying 
 his hand to it, ' knows what it is to have my body 
 here, and the whole sowl of me far away. 
 
 "Did you pay him back?" I asked. I spoke 
 without thinking, and still less did I mean to be 
 rude ; but it suddenly struck me that I was young 
 and hearty, and that it would be almost a duty to 
 share the contents of my leather bag with this
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 59 
 
 1 I was wakened by a touch on my head, and a voice just above me." P. 58. 
 
 poor old woman, if there were no chance of her 
 being unable to repay the generous foreigner. 
 
 Did I pay him back ? " she screamed. " Would 
 I be the black-hearted thief to him that was kind 
 
 to me ? Sorra bit nor sup but dry bread and 
 water passed me lips till he had his own agin, and 
 the heart's blessings of owld Biddy Macartney 
 along with it."
 
 60 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 I made my peace with old Biddy as well as I 
 could, and turned the conversation back to her 
 son. 
 
 " So you live in the docks with your coffee- 
 barrow, mother, that you may be sure not to miss 
 Micky when he comes ashore? " 
 
 "I do, darlin'. Fourteen years all but three 
 days. He'll be gone fifteen if we all live till 
 Wednesday week." 
 
 "Fifteen? But, mother, if he were like me 
 when he went, he can't be very like me now. He 
 must be a middle-aged man. Do you think you'd 
 know him ? " 
 
 This question was more unfortunate than the 
 other, and produced such howling and weeping, 
 and beating of Biddy's knees as she rocked herself 
 among the beans, that I should have thought every 
 soul in the docks would have crowded round us. 
 But no one took any notice of us, and by degrees 
 I calmed her, chiefly by the assertion "He'll 
 know you, mother, anyhow." 
 
 " He will so, GOD bless him ! " said she. "And 
 haven't I gone over it all in me own mind, often 
 and often, when I'd see the vessels feelin' their 
 way home through the darkness, and the coffee 
 staymin enough to cheer your heart wid the smell 
 of it, and the laste taste in life of something bet- 
 ther in the stone bottle under me petticoats. And 
 then the big ship would be coming in with her 
 lights at the head of her, and myself sitting alone 
 with me patience, GOD helping me, and one and 
 another strange face going by. And then he 
 comes along, cold maybe, and smells the coffee. 
 ' Bedad, but that's a fine smell with it,' says he, 
 for Micky was mighty particular in his aitin' and 
 drinkin'. ' I'll take a dhrop of that,' says he, not 
 noticing me particular, and if ever I'd the saycret 
 of a good cup he gets it, me consayling me face. 
 ' What will it be ? ' says he, setting down the mug. 
 ' What would it be, Micky, from your Mother ? ' 
 says I, and I lifts me head. Arrah, but then 
 there's the heart's delight between us. ' Mother ! ' 
 says he. ' Micky ! ' says I. And he lifts his foot 
 and kicks over the barra, and dances me round in 
 his arms. ' Ochone ! ' says the spictators ; ' there's 
 the fine coffee that's running into the dock.' 'Let 
 it run,' says I, in the joy of me heart, ' and you 
 after it, and the barra on the top of ye, now Micky 
 me son's come home ! ' " 
 
 "Wonderfully jolly !" said I. "And it must 
 be pleasant even to think of it." 
 
 But Biddy's effort of imagination seemed to 
 have exhausted her, and she relapsed into the 
 lowest possible spirits, from which she suddenly 
 roused herself to return to her neglected coffee 
 stall. 
 
 "Bad manners to me, for an old fool ! sitting 
 
 here whineging and lamenting, when there's folks, 
 mayb'e, waiting for their coffee, and yourself would 
 have been the betther of some this half-hour. 
 Come along wid ye." 
 
 And giving a tighter knot to the red kerchief, 
 which had been disordered by her lamentations, 
 the old woman went down the dock, I following 
 her. 
 
 We had not to go far. Biddy's coffee barrow was 
 placed just as the pieman had advised. It was as 
 near the ships as possible. In fact it was actually 
 under the shadow of a big black-looking vessel 
 which loomed large through the fog, and to and 
 from which men were coming and going as usual. 
 With several of these the old woman interchanged 
 some good-humoured chaff as she settled herself 
 in her place, and bade me sit beside her. 
 
 " Tuck your legs under ye, agra ! on that bit of 
 an ould sack. 'Tis what I wrap round me 
 shoulders when the nights do be wet, as it isn't 
 this evening, thank GOD ! And there's the coffee 
 for ye." 
 
 " Mother," said I, "do you think you could sit 
 so as to hide me for a few minutes? All the 
 money I have is in a bag round my neck, and I 
 don't want strangers to see it." 
 
 " Ye'll just keep it there, then," replied Biddy, 
 irately, ' ' and don't go an' insult me wid the show 
 of it." 
 
 And she turned her back on me, whilst I drank 
 my coffee, and ate some excellent cakes, which 
 formed part of her stock-in-trade. One of these 
 she insisted on my putting into my pocket " against 
 the hungry hour. " I thanked her warmly for the 
 gift, whereupon she became mollified, and said I 
 was kindly welcome ; and whilst she was serving 
 some customers, I turned round and looked at the 
 ship. Late as it was, people seemed very busy 
 about her, rather more so than about any I had 
 seen. As I sat, I was just opposite to a yawning 
 hole in the ship's side, into which men were noisily 
 running great bales and boxes, which other men 
 on board were lowering into the depths of the 
 vessel with very noisy machinery and with much 
 shouting in a sort of uncouth rhythm, to which the 
 grating and bumping of the crane and its chains 
 was a trifle. I was so absorbed by looking, and it 
 was so impossible to hear anything else unless one 
 were attending, that I never discovered that Biddy 
 and I were alone again, till the touch of her hand 
 on my head made me jump. 
 
 "I beg your pardon, mother," I said; "I 
 couldn't think what it was." 
 
 " I ax yours, dear. It's just the curls, and I'm 
 the foolish woman to look at 'em. Barrin' the 
 hair, ye don't favour each other the laste." 
 
 I had really heard a good deal about Micky, and
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 61 
 
 was getting tired of him, and inclined to revert to 
 my own affairs. 
 
 "Mother, do you know where this ship comes 
 from ? " 
 
 " I do not. But she sails with the morning for 
 Halifax, I'm told. And that's America way, and 
 I insensed the cook that was him that axed me 
 where I bought my coffee to have an eye out for 
 Micky, in case he might come across him any- 
 where. " 
 
 America way ! To-morrow morning ! A storm 
 of thoughts rushed through my head, and in my 
 passionate longing for help I knelt up by the old 
 Irishwoman and laid my hand upon hers. 
 
 " Mother dear, do help me ! You are so kind, 
 and you've a boy of your own at sea. I want to 
 go to America, and I've no papers or anything. 
 Couldn't I stow away as Micky did ? Couldn't I 
 stow away on this one ? I can work well enough 
 when they find me out, if I could only hide so as 
 to get off ; and you know the ships and the docks 
 so well, you could tell me how, if only you would." 
 I am always ashamed to remember the feeble 
 way in which I finished off by breaking down, 
 though I do not know that I could have used any 
 argument that would have gone so far with Biddy. 
 If it had been a man who had been befriending 
 me, I'm sure I shouldn't have played the fool, but 
 it was a woman, so I felt doubly helpless in 
 having to depend on her, and she felt doubly kind, 
 and in short, I put my face in my hands and 
 sobbed. 
 
 For quite four hours after this I was puzzled to 
 death by smelling stale bad tobacco about myself; 
 then I discovered that by some extraordinary jerk 
 in the vehemence of the embrace which was Biddy's 
 first response to my appeal, the little black pipe 
 had got out of her coat-pocket and tumbled down 
 the breast of my slops. 
 
 I hope my breakdown was partly due to the 
 infectious nature of emotion, of which Biddy was 
 so lavish that my prospects were discussed in a 
 sadly unbusinesslike fashion. My conscience is 
 really quite clear of having led her to hope that I 
 would look out for Micky on the other side of the 
 Atlantic, but I fear that she had made up her mind 
 that we should meet, and that this went far towards 
 converting her to my views for stowing away on 
 the vessel lying alongside of us. However, that 
 important point once reached, the old woman 
 threw herself into the enterprise with a practical 
 knowledge of the realities of the undertaking and 
 a zest for the romance of it which were alike 
 invaluable to me. 
 
 "The botheration of it is," said Biddy, after 
 some talk, tangling her bonnet and handkerchief 
 over her face till I felt inclined to beg her to let 
 
 me put her straight ' ' the botheration of it is, that 
 it's near to closing-time, and when the bell rings 
 every soul'll be cleared out, labourers and idlers, 
 and myself among 'em. Ye'll have to hide, me 
 darlin' but there'll be no mighty difficulty in that, 
 for I see a fine bit of tarpaulin yonder that'd con- 
 sale a dozen of the likes of you. But there's that 
 fool of a watchman that'll come parading and 
 meandering up and down wid all the airs of a 
 sentry on him and none of his good looks, and wid 
 a sneaking bull's-eye of a lantern in his hand. 
 He's at the end of the wharf now, purshuin' to 
 him ! Maybe I'll get him to taste a dhrop of me 
 coffee before the bell rings. Many's the cup I 
 gave to the old watchman before him, peace to 
 his sow], the kindly craythur ! that never did a 
 more ill-natured thing on his beat than sleep like 
 a child. Hide now, darlin', and keep the tail of 
 your eye at a corner where ye'll see the ship. 
 Maybe he'll take a nap yet, for all his airs, and 
 then there's the chance for ye ! And mind now, 
 keep snug till the pilot's gone as I warned ye, and 
 then it's the bold heart and the civil tongue, and just 
 the good-nature of your ways, that'll be your best 
 friends. The cook tells me the captain's as dacent 
 a man as iver he served with, t>o you might aisy 
 do worse, and are not likely to do better. Are ye 
 hid now ? Whisht ! Whisht ! " 
 
 I heard most of this through a lifted corner of 
 the tarpaulin, under which I had the good luck to 
 secrete myself without observation and without 
 difficulty. In the same manner I became witness 
 to the admirable air of indifference with which 
 Biddy was mixing herself a cup of coffee as the 
 watchman approached. I say mixing advisedly, 
 for as he came up she was conspicuously pouring 
 some of the contents of the stone bottle into her 
 cup. Whether this drew the watchman's attention 
 in an -unusual degree, of course I do not know, but 
 he stopped to say, " Good evening, Biddy." 
 
 "Good evening to ye, me dear, and a nasty 
 damp evening it is. 
 
 " You're taking something to keep the damp 
 out, I see, missus." 
 
 " I am, dear; but it's not for a foine milithrary- 
 looking man like yourself to be having the laugh 
 at a poor old craythur with nothin' but the wind 
 and weather in her bones." 
 
 "The wind and weather get into my bones, I 
 can tell you," said the watchman ; "and I begin 
 my work in the fog just when you're getting out 
 of it." 
 
 " And that's thrue, worse luck. Take a dhrop 
 of coffee, alanna, before I lave ye." 
 
 "No, thank ye, missus; I've just had my 
 supper. " 
 
 ' And would that privint ye from takin' the cup
 
 62 
 
 WE AND rHE WORLD. 
 
 I'd be offering ye, wid a taste of somethin' in it 
 against the damps, barrin' the bottle was empty ?" 
 
 " Well, I'm not particular as you are so pres- 
 sing. Thank ye, mum ; here's your good health." 
 
 I heard the watchman say this, though at the 
 moment I dared not peep, and then I heard him 
 cough. 
 
 " My sakes, Biddy, you make your coffee 
 strong. " 
 
 " Strong, darlin' ? It's pure, ye mane. " It's 
 the rale craythur, that, and bedad ! there's a 
 a dhrop or two left that's not worth the removing, 
 and we'll share it annyhow. Here's to them that's 
 far r away." 
 
 " Thank you, thank you, woman." 
 
 " Thim that's near, and thim that's far away ! " 
 said Biddy, improving upon her toast. 
 
 There was a pause. I could hear the old woman 
 packing up her traps, and then the man (upon 
 whom the coffee and whisky seemed to produce a 
 roughening rather than a soothing effect) said 
 coarsely, " You're a rum lot, you Irish ! " 
 
 " We are, dear," replied Biddy, blandly ; " and 
 that's why we'd be comin' all the way to Lanca- 
 shire for the improvement of our manners." And 
 she threw the sacking round her neck, and lifted 
 the handles of her barrow. 
 
 " Good-night, me darlin' ! " said she, raising her 
 voice as she moved off. " We'll meet again, GOD 
 willing." 
 
 " Safe enough, unless you tumble into the dock," 
 replied the watchman. " Go steady, missus. I 
 hope you'll get safe home with that barra o' 
 yours. 
 
 " GOD send all safe home that's far from it ! " 
 shouted Biddy, in tones that rose above the rumb- 
 ling of the wheel and the shuffling of her shoes. 
 
 " Haw ! haw ! " laughed the watchman, and 
 with increased brutalness in his voice he reiterated, 
 " You're a rum lot, Biddy ! and free of most 
 things, blessings and all." 
 
 I was not surprised that the sound of the wheel 
 and the shoes ceased suddenly. Biddy had set 
 down her barrow to retort. But it was with deep 
 gratitude that I found her postpone her own 
 wrath to my safety, and content herself with 
 making her enemy " a prisint of the contimpt of a 
 rogue." 
 
 " And what would I be doing but blessing ye ? " 
 she cried, in a voice of such dramatic variety as 
 only quick wits and warm feelings can give, it was 
 so full at once of suppressed rage, humorous 
 triumph, contemptuous irony, and infinite tender- 
 ness. And I need hardly say that it was raised to 
 a ringing pitch that would have reached my ears 
 had they been buried under twenty tarpaulins. 
 " GOD bless ye for ivermore ! Good luck to ye ! 
 
 fine weather to ye ! health and strength to ye ! 
 May the knaves that would harm ye be made fools 
 for your benefit, and may niver worse luck light 
 on one hair of your head than the best blessings of 
 Biddy Macartney ! " 
 
 Something peculiar in the sound of Biddy's re- 
 treating movements made me risk another glance 
 from an angle of the tarpaulin. 
 
 And upon my honour it is strictly true that I 
 saw the old Irish woman drive her barrow down 
 the dock till she passed out of sight, and that she 
 went neither walking nor running, but dancing; 
 and a good high stepping dance too, that showed 
 her stockings, and shook the handkerchief on her 
 head. And when she reached the end of the 
 wharf she snapped her fingers in the air. 
 
 Then I drew my head back, and I could, hear 
 the watchman guffaw as if he would have split his 
 sides. And even after he began to tramp up and 
 down I could hear him still chuckling as he paced 
 by. 
 
 And if I did not hear Biddy chuckle, it was 
 perhaps because the joke on her side lay deeper 
 down. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " The mariners shout, 
 The ships swing about, 
 The yards are all hoisted, 
 The sails flutter out." 
 
 out. 
 
 Tlie Saga of King Olaf. 
 
 r I ""HE docks were very quiet now. Only a few 
 J_ footfalls broke the silence, and the water 
 sobbed a little round the piles, and there was 
 some creaking and groaning and grinding, and the 
 vessels drifted at their moorings, and bumped 
 against the wharves. 
 
 The watchman paced up and down, and up and 
 down. I did not hear him very clearly from under 
 the tarpaulin, and sometimes when he went farther 
 away I did not hear him at all. At last I was so 
 long without hearing him that I peeped cautiously 
 out. What Biddy had said might be, seemed 
 really to have happened. The watchman was 
 sitting in a sort of armchair of konbound cotton- 
 bales ; his long coat was tucked between his legs, 
 his hat was over his nose, and he was fast asleep. 
 
 I did not need any one to tell me that now was 
 my time ; but it was with limbs that almost refused 
 their office from sheer fright, that I crept past the 
 sleeping man, and reached the edge of the wharf. 
 There was the vessel moving very slightly, and 
 groaning dismally as she moved, and there was 

 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 the hole, and it was temptingly dark. But the 
 gangway that had been laid across from the wharf 
 was gone ! I could have jumped the chasm easily 
 with a run, but I dared not take a run. If I did 
 it all it must be done standing. I tried to fetch a 
 breath free from heart-throbs, but in vain ; so I 
 set my teeth, and pulled nerves and sinews together 
 and jumped. 
 
 It was too much for me, and I jumped short 
 and fell. Then my training under the half-caste 
 told in my favour. I caught the edge of the hole 
 with my hands, and swung suspended over the 
 water, with quite presence of mind enough to hear 
 and think of what was going on about me. What 
 I heard was the watchman, who roused up to call 
 out, "Who's there?" and then he shot a sharp 
 ray of light from his lantern right into the hole. 
 It was very lucky for me that I was so low, for the 
 light went over my head, and he saw nothing of 
 me, my dark clothes making no mark against the 
 ship's black hull. 
 
 My head was cool enough now, and my heart 
 steady, and I listened with an intensity that post- 
 poned fear, though my predicament was not a 
 pleasant one, and the rippling water below me 
 was confusing. 
 
 The suspense was no doubt shorter than it 
 seemed, before the light disappeared, and with a 
 thankful heart I distinctly heard the watchman 
 flop down again among the cotton-bales. Then I 
 drew myself up over the edge and crept noiselessly 
 into the ship. I took care to creep beyond reach 
 of the lantern, and then the swaying of the vessel 
 made me feel so giddy that I had to lie still for a 
 while where I was, before I could recover myself 
 enough to feel about for a suitable hiding-place. 
 
 As I afterwards learnt, I was on the lower deck, 
 which was being used for cargo instead of pas- 
 sengers. The said cargo seemed so tightly packed, 
 that in spite of creeping, and groping, and knock- 
 ing myself pretty hard, I could feel no nook or 
 corner to my mind. Then I turned giddy again 
 and reeled against the door of a cabin, which gave 
 way so far as to let me fall inwards on to a heap of 
 old sails, ropes, and other softish ship lumber 
 stowed away within. As I fell my hand struck 
 something warm, which I fancied gave a writhe 
 out of my grasp. I groped and seized it again, 
 and now there was no mistake. It was some- 
 body's arm, who said in a quick undertone, 
 "Gently, gently, sirs; I'm coming along with ye. 
 I'll gie ye my word I'm after no harm." 
 
 I was taken aback, but thought it well to keep 
 up my position, which appeared to be one of 
 advantage. The young man (for it was a young- 
 ster's voice) was evidently no snip's officer. If he 
 were a dockyard pilferer, it was a nuisance, and a 
 
 complication in my affairs, but I might pull through 
 the difficulty with presence of mind. 
 
 " Speak low ! " I whispered sharply. "What's 
 your name, and where do you come from ? " 
 
 " Alister Auchterlay, they call me" (the whisper 
 was a reluctant one, but I jogged his arm rather 
 fiercely to shake the truth out of him). " I come 
 from Aberdeenshire. But, man ! if ye're for 
 having me up in court, for GOD'S sake let me 
 plead' in another name, for my mother taks the 
 papers. " 
 
 " What are you doing here ?" I whispered in a 
 not very steady whisper, as I think my- prisoner 
 detected. 
 
 "I'm just stowing, away," he said eagerly; 
 " I'm no harming a thing. Eh, sir, if you're a 
 ship's 'prentice, or whatever may be your duties 
 on this vessel, let me bide ! There's scores of 
 stowaways taken every day, and I'll work as few 
 could." 
 
 " Do, do try and speak low," I whispered ; "or 
 we shall both be found out. ftn stowing away 
 myself! " 
 
 " Whew, laddie ! How long will ye have been 
 in Liverpool ?" 
 
 " Only to-day. How long have you been here?" 
 
 " A week, and a sore week too." 
 
 " You've no friends here, have you?" 
 
 "Freens, did ye say? I've no freens nearer 
 than Scotland." 
 
 " You must have had a hard time of it,' 
 whispered. 
 
 " Ye may say so. I've slept four nights in the 
 docks, and never managed to stow till to-night. 
 There's a watchman about. " 
 
 "I know," said I. 
 
 ' ' I shouldn't have got in to-night, but the mis- 
 conducted body's asleep, though I'll say it's the 
 first time I saw him sleeping these four days. Eh, 
 sirs ! there's an awful indifference to responsibility, 
 when a man does a thing like yon. But it'll be 
 whisky, I'm thinking; for I heard him at clish- 
 maclavers with one of these randy, drucken old 
 Eirishers." 
 
 My blood boiled. " She was not drunk ! " said 
 I. And she's she's a great friend of mine." 
 
 " Whisht ! whisht, man ! We'll be heard. I 
 ask your pardon, I'm sure." 
 
 I made no reply. The Scotchman's tone was 
 unpleasantly dry. Besides it was very difficult to 
 give vent to one's just indignation in whispers, and 
 I still felt giddy, though I was resting my back 
 against some of the lumber, rather comfortably. 
 
 "You'll no be Eirish, yourself?" the Scotch- 
 man asked in his own accent, which was as strong 
 in its way as Biddy's. 
 
 " I'm English," I said.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 ' ' Just so. And edyucated, I dare to say ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " Ye've not forgiven me that I wronged the old 
 lady? Indeed, but I ask your pardon, and hers 
 no less. It's not for the best of us to sit in judg- 
 ment on the erring, as my mother has often said 
 to me, unless it comes in the plain path of duty. 
 But maybe your own temper would be a bit soored 
 if your head was as light and your heart as sick as 
 mine with starvation and hope deferred 
 
 " Are you hungry ? " I interrupted. 
 
 " I'll not be sorry when we get a meal." 
 
 " What have you had to-day ? " I asked. 
 
 " I've been in the dock all day," he answered 
 evasively, "but I'm no great eater at the best of 
 times, and I chewed two bits of orange-peel, not 
 to speak of a handful of corn where there was a 
 big heap had been spilt by some wasteful body or 
 another, that had small thoughts of it's coming to 
 use. Now hoo in this world's a man to make 
 honest profit on a commodity he entrusts " 
 
 " Sh ! sh ! You're raising your voice again, 
 said I. "Where's your hand ? It's only a cake, 
 but it'll be better than nothing." And I held out 
 the cake Biddy had made me put in my pocket. 
 
 ' ' I'll no take it from ye. Keep it for your own 
 needs ; I'm harder than yourself, it's likely," he 
 said, pushing my hand aside, and added almost 
 peevishly, " but keep the smell of it from me." 
 
 " I can spare it perfectly," I whispered. " I've 
 had plenty to eat quite lately." 
 
 I shall never forget how he clutched it then. 
 I could hear his teeth clash with the eagerness of 
 his eating. It almost frightened me in the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 ' ' Eh ! man, that was good ! " he gasped. Are 
 
 rsure indeed and in truth ye could spare it all ? 
 didn't think they made such bannocks out of 
 Scotland. But we've much to learn in all matters, 
 doubtless. Thank ye a thousand times." 
 
 "The old Irishwoman gave it me!" I said 
 with some malice. " She made me put it in my 
 pocket, though she had given me a good meal 
 before, for which she would take nothing." 
 
 " It was leeberal of her," said Alister Auchter- 
 lay. " Verra leeberal ; but there are good Chris- 
 tians to be met with, amongst all sorts, there's not 
 a doot aboot it." 
 
 I should probably have pursued my defence of 
 Biddy against this grudging not to say insulting 
 tribute to her charity, if I had not begun to feel 
 too tired to talk, and very much teased by the 
 heaving of the vessel. 
 
 " I wish the ship would be quiet till we start," 
 I said. "We're not at sea yet." 
 
 In reply to this Alister at some length, and with 
 as much emphasis as whispering permitted, ex- 
 
 plained to me that a ship could not, in the nature 
 of things, keep still, except in certain circum- 
 stances, such as being in dry dock for repairs or 
 lying at anchor in absolutely still water. 
 
 " Good gracious ! " I interrupted. " Of course 
 I know all that. You don't suppose I expect it 
 not to move." 
 
 " I understood ye to say that ye wushed it," he 
 replied with dignity, if not offence. 
 
 " I don't know what I wish ! " I moaned. 
 
 My companion's reply to this was to feel about 
 for me and then to begin scrambling over me; 
 then he said "Move on, laddie, to your right, 
 and ye'll find space to lie on the flat of your back, 
 close by the ship's side. I'm feared you're barely 
 fit for the job ye've undertaken, but ye'll be easier 
 if ye lie down, and get some sleep." 
 
 I moved as he told me, and the relief of lying 
 flat was great so great that I began to pull myself 
 together again, and made ready in my mind to 
 thank my unseen companion for the generosity 
 with which he had evidently given me the place 
 he had picked for himself. But whilst I was 
 thinking about it I fell fast asleep. 
 
 When I woke, for the first minute I thought I 
 was at home, and I could not conceive what 
 Martha could be doing, that there should be, as 
 far as one could hear, chimney-sweeping, cinder- 
 riddling, furniture-moving, clock-winding, and 
 spring-cleaning, of the most awful nature, all 
 going on at once, and in a storm of yelling and 
 scolding, which was no part of our domestic ways. 
 But in another minute I knew where I was, and 
 by the light coming through a little round porthole 
 above me, I could see my companion. 
 
 He was still sleeping, so that I could satisfy my 
 keen curiosity, without rudeness. He had indeed 
 given up the only bit of space to me, and was him- 
 self doubled up among lumber in a fashion that 
 must have been very trying to the length of his 
 limbs. For he was taller than I, though not, I 
 thought, much older ; two years or so, perhaps. 
 The cut of his clothes (not their raggedness, though 
 they were ragged as well as patched) confirmed me 
 in my conviction that he was "not exactly a gentle- 
 man " ; but I felt a little puzzled about him, for, 
 broad as his accent was, he was even less exactly 
 of the Tim Binder and Bob Furniss class. 
 
 He was not good-looking, and yet I hardly 
 know any word that would so fittingly describe 
 his face in the repose of sleep, and with that bit of 
 light concentrated upqn it, as the word " noble." 
 It was drawn and pinched with pain and the endu- 
 rance of pain, and I never saw anything so thin, 
 except his hands, which lay close to his sides 
 both clenched. But I do think he would have 
 been handsome if his face had not been almost
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 aggressively intelligent when awake, and if his 
 eyebrows and eyelashes had had any colour. His 
 hair was fair but not bright, and it was straight 
 without being smooth, and tossed into locks that 
 had no grace or curl. And why he made me 
 think of a Bible picture Jacob lying at the foot 
 of the ladder to heaven, or something of that sort 
 I could not tell, and did not puzzle myself to 
 wonder, for the ship was moving, and there was a 
 great deal to be seen out of the window, tiny as it 
 was. 
 
 It looked on to the dock, where men were 
 running about in the old bewildering fashion. To- 
 day it was not so bewildering to me, because I 
 could see that the men were working with some 
 purpose that affected our vessel, though the direc- 
 tions in which they ran, dragging ropes as thick as 
 my leg, to the grinding of equally monstrous 
 chains, were as mysterious as the figures of some 
 dance one does not know. As to the noises they 
 made, men and boys anywhere are given to help 
 on their work with sounds of some sort, but I 
 could not have believed in anything approaching 
 to these, out of a lunatic asylum, unless I had 
 heard them. 
 
 I could hear quite well, I could hear what was 
 said, and a great deal of it, I am sorry to say, 
 would have been better unsaid. But the orders 
 which rang out interested me, for I tried to fit 
 them on to what followed, though without much 
 result. At last the dock seemed to be moving 
 away from me I saw men, but not the same men 
 and every man's eye was fixed on us. Then the 
 thick brown rope just below my window quivered 
 like a bow-string, and tightened (all the water 
 starting from it in a sparkling shower) till it looked 
 as firm as a bar of iron, and I held on tight, for 
 we were swinging round. Suddenly the voice of 
 command sang out (I fancied with a touch of 
 triumph in the tone) " Let go the warp ! " The 
 thick rope sprang into the air, and wriggled like a 
 long snake, and it was all I could do to help join- 
 ing in the shouts that rang from the deck above 
 and from the dock below. Then the very heart of 
 the ship began to beat with a new sound, and the 
 Scotch lad leaped like a deerhound to the window, 
 and put his arm round my shoulder, and whispered, 
 " That's the screw, man ! -we're off! " 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " He that tholes o'ercomes." 
 
 " Tak' your venture, as mony a glide ship has done." 
 Scotch Proverbs. 
 
 I AM disposed to think that a ship is a place 
 where one has occasional moments of excite- 
 ment and enthusiasm that are rare elsewhere, but 
 that it is not to be beaten (if approached) for the 
 deadliness of the despondency to be experienced 
 therein. 
 
 For perhaps a quarter of an hour after our start 
 I felt much excited, and so, I think, did my com- 
 panion. Shoulder to shoulder we were glued to 
 the little round window, pinching each other when 
 the hurrying steps hither and thither threatened to 
 come down our way. We did not talk much, we 
 were too busy looking out, and listening to the 
 rushing water, and the throbbing of the screw. 
 The land seemed to slip quickly by, countless 
 ships, boats and steamers barely gave us time to 
 have a look at them, though Alister (who seemed 
 to have learned a good deal during his four days 
 in the docks) whispered little bits of information 
 about one and another. Then the whole shore 
 seemed to be covered by enormous sheds, and 
 later on it got farther off, and then the land lay 
 distant, and it was very low and marshy and most 
 dreary-looking, and I fancied it was becoming 
 more difficult to keep my footing at the window ; 
 and just when Alister had been pointing out a> 
 queer red ship with one stumpy mast crowned by a 
 sort of cage, and telling me that it was a light- 
 ship, our own vessel began to creak, and groar? 
 worse than ever, and the floor under our feet 
 seemed to run away from them, and by the time 
 you had got used to going down, it caught you 
 and jerked you up again, till my head refused to 
 think anything about anything, and I half dropped 
 and was half helped by Alister on to the flat of my 
 back as before. 
 
 As to him, I may as well say at once, that I 
 never knew him affected at sea by the roughest 
 wind that could blow, and he sat on a box and 
 looked at me half pityingly, and half, I suppose, 
 with the sort of curiosity I had felt about him. 
 
 " I'm feared the life'll be a bit over rough for 
 ye," he said kindly. "Would ye think of going 
 up and disclosing yourself before we're away from 
 all chance of getting ashore ? " 
 
 " No, no ! said I, vehemently, and added more 
 feebly, " I daresay I shall be all right soon." 
 
 " Maybe," said the Scotchman. 
 
 He went back to the window and gazed out, 
 F
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 seeing, I have no doubt, plenty to interest him ; 
 though my eyes, ^f opened for a moment, only 
 shrank back and closed again instinctively, with 
 feelings of indescribable misery. So indefinite 
 time went on, Alister occasionally making whis- 
 pered comments which I did not hear, and did 
 not trouble myself to ask questions about, being 
 utterly indifferent to the answers. But I felt no 
 temptation to give in. I only remember feeling 
 one intense desire and it amounted to a prayer, 
 that if these intolerable sensations did not abate, I 
 might at any rate become master enough of them 
 to do my duty in their teeth. The thought made 
 me more alert, and when the Scotch lad warned 
 me that steps were coming our way, I implored 
 him to hide deeper under the sails, if he wished, 
 without consideration for me, as I had resolved to 
 face my fate at once, and be either killed or 
 cured. 
 
 "Thank ye kindly, "said Alister, "but there's 
 small use in hiding now. They can but pitch us 
 overboard, and I've read that drowning is by far 
 an easier death than being starved, if ye come to 
 that." 
 
 It was in this frame of mind that a sailor found 
 us, and took us prisoners with so little difficulty 
 that he drew the scarcely fair conclusion that we 
 were the cheekiest, coolest hands of all the nasty, 
 sneaking, longshore loafers he had ever had to 
 deal with in all his blessed and otherwise than 
 blessed born days. And wrathful as this outburst 
 was, it was colourless to the indignation in his 
 voice, when (replying to some questions from 
 above) he answered 
 
 " Two on 'em ! " 
 
 Several other sailors came to the help of our 
 captor, and we were dragged up the ladder and 
 on deck, where the young Scotchman looked to 
 better advantage than down below, and where I 
 made the best presentment of myself that my 
 miserable condition would allow. We were soon 
 hauled before the captain, a sensible-faced, red- 
 bearded man, with a Scotch accent rather harsher 
 than Alister's, in which he harangued us in very 
 unflattering phrases for our attempt to "steal a 
 passage," and described the evil fate of which we 
 were certain, if we did not work uncommonly hard 
 for our victuals. 
 
 With one breath I and my companion asserted 
 our willingness to do anything, and that to get a 
 free passage as idlers was our last wish and inten- 
 tion. To this, amid appreciating chuckles from 
 the crew, the captain replied, that, so sneaks and 
 stowaways always said; a taunt which was too 
 vulgar as repartee to annoy me, though I saw 
 Alister's thin hands clenching at his sides. I 
 don't know if the captain did, but he called 
 
 out " Here ! you lankey lad there, show your 
 hands." 
 
 "They're no idle set," said Alister, stretching 
 them out. He lifted his eyes as he said it, and I 
 do not think he could have repressed the flash in 
 them to save his life. Every detail of the scene 
 was of breathless interest to me, and as I watched 
 to see if the captain took offence, I noticed that 
 (though they were far less remarkable from being 
 buried in a fat and commonplace countenance) his 
 eyes, like Alister's were of that bright, cold, sea- 
 blue common among Scotchmen. He did not 
 take offence, and I believe I was right in thinking 
 that the boy's wasted hands struck him much as 
 they had struck me. 
 
 "Don't speak unless I question you. How 
 long will ye have been hanging round the docks 
 before ye'd the impudence to come aboard here ? " 
 
 "I slept four nights in the docks, sir." 
 
 "And where did ye take your meals ? " 
 
 A flush crept over Alister's bony face. " I'm 
 no' a great eater, sir," he said, with his eyes on 
 the deck : and then suddenly lifting a glance at 
 me out of the corner of them, he added, "the last 
 I had was just given me by a freen." 
 
 " That'll do. Put your hands down. Can you 
 sew ? " 
 
 " I ask your pardon, sir ? " 
 
 "Is the fool deaf? Can ye use a needle and 
 thread ? " 
 
 "After a rough fashion, sir, and I can knit a 
 bit." 
 
 "Mr. Waters?" 
 
 A man with a gold band round his cap stepped 
 forward and touched it. 
 
 " Take him to the sailmaker. He can help to 
 patch the old fore-stay-sail on the forecastle. And 
 you can " 
 
 The rest of the order was in a low voice, but 
 Mr. Waters saluted again and replied, " Yes, sir." 
 . The captain saluted Mr. Waters, and then as 
 Alister moved off, he said, "You're not sick, I 
 see. Have you sailed before ? " 
 
 " From Scotland, sir." 
 
 Whether, being a Scotchman himself, the tones 
 of Alister's voice, as it lingered on the word 
 " Scotland," touched a soft corner in the captain's 
 soul, or whether the blue eyes met with an in- 
 voluntary feeling of kinship, or whether the cap- 
 tain was merely struck by Alister's powerful-look- 
 ing frame, and thought he might be very useful 
 when he was better fed, I do not know ; but I feel 
 sure that as he returned my new comrade's salute, 
 he did so in a softened humour. Perhaps this 
 made him doubly rough to me, and I have no 
 doubt I looked as miserable an object as one could 
 (not) wish to see.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 " You' re sick enough, " he said ; " stand straight, 
 sir ! we don't nurse invalids here, and if you stop 
 you'll have to work for your food, whether you 
 can eat it or not." 
 
 "I will, sir, "said I. 
 
 " Put out your hands." 
 
 I did, and he looked keenly, first at them, and 
 then, from head to foot, at me. And then to my 
 horror, he asked the question I had been asked by 
 the man who robbed me of my shilling. 
 
 " Where did you steal your slops ? " 
 
 I hastened to explain. " A working-man, sir, 
 in Liverpool, who was kind enough to advise me, 
 said that I should have no chance of getting work 
 on board-ship in the clothes I had on. So I ex- 
 changed them, and got these, in a shop he took 
 me to, "and being anxious to prove the truth of 
 my tale, and also to speak with the utmost respect 
 of everybody in this critical state of my affairs, I 
 added : "I don't remember the name of the 
 street, sir, but the shop was kept by a by a Mr. 
 Moses Cohen." 
 
 "By Mister who?" 
 
 ' ' Mr. Moses Cohen, sir. " 
 
 When I first uttered the name, I fancied I heard 
 some sniggering among the sailors who still kept 
 guard over me, and this time the captain's face 
 wrinkled, and he turned to another officer standing 
 near him and repeated 
 
 "Mister Moses Cohen ! " and they both burst 
 into a fit of laughter, which became a roar among 
 the subordinates, till the captain cried "Silence 
 there ! " and still chuckling sardonically, added, 
 ' ' Your suit must have been a very spic and span 
 one, young gentleman, if Mister Moses Cohen 
 accepted it in lieu of that rig out." 
 
 "I paid ten shillings as well," said I. 
 
 The laughter recommenced, but the captain 
 looked wrathful. " Oh, you paid ten shillings as 
 well, did you? And what the thunder and light- 
 ning have you tried to steal a passage for when 
 you'd money to pay for one? " 
 
 " I didn't mean to steal a passage, sir," said I, 
 "and I don't mean it now. I tried to get taken 
 as a sailor-lad, but they seemed to expect me to 
 have been to sea before, and to have some papers 
 to show it. So I stowed away, and I'm very 
 sorry if you think it dishonest, sir, but I meant to 
 work for my passage, and I will work hard." 
 
 " And what do you suppose an ignorant land- 
 lubber like you can do, as we don't happen to be 
 short of public speakers ! " 
 
 "I thought I could clean things, and carry 
 coals, and do rough work till I learnt my trade, 
 sir." 
 
 " Can you climb? " said the captain, looking at 
 the rigging. 
 
 " I've never climbed on board-ship, sir, but I 
 was good at athletics when I was at school, and I 
 believe I could." 
 
 " We'll see," said the captain significantly. 
 "And supposing you're of no use, and we kick 
 ye overboard, can ye swim ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, and dive. I'm at home in the 
 water. " 
 
 " It's more than you are on it. Bo'sun ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 "Take this accomplished young gentleman of 
 fortune, and give him something to do. Give him 
 an oil rag and let him rub some of our brass, and 
 stow his own. And, bo 'sun ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Take him first to Mr. Johnson, and say that I 
 request Mr. Johnson to ascertain how much change 
 Mister Moses Cohen has left him, and to take 
 charge of it." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 The captain's witticisms raised renewed chuck- 
 ling among the crew, as I followed the boatswain, 
 duly saluting my new master as I passed him, and 
 desperately trying to walk easily and steadily in 
 my ordinary boots upon the heaving deck. 
 
 Mr. Johnson was the third mate, and I may as 
 well say at once that his shrewdness and kindness, 
 his untiring energy and constant cheerfulness, 
 make his memory very pleasant to me and to all 
 who served with him, and whose reasons for being 
 grateful to him belong to all hours of the day and 
 night, and to every department of our work and 
 our play. 
 
 I was far too giddy to hear what the boatswain 
 said to Mr. Johnson, but I was conscious that the 
 third mate's eyes were scanning me closely as he 
 listened. Then he said, "Have you got any 
 money, youngster ? " 
 
 " Here, sir," said I ; and after some struggles I 
 got the leather bag from my neck, and Mr. John- 
 son pocketed it. 
 
 " Ran away from school, I suppose?" 
 
 I tried to reply, and could not. Excitement 
 had kept me up before the captain, but the stress 
 of it was subsiding, and putting my arms up to 
 get my purse had aggravated the intense nausea 
 that was beginning to overpower me. I managed 
 to shake my head instead of speaking, after which 
 I thought I must have died then and there of the 
 agony across my brow. It seemed probable that I 
 should go far to pay for my passage by the amuse- 
 ment I afforded the crew. Even Mr. Johnson 
 laughed, as he said, " He seems pretty bad. Look 
 after him, and then let him try his hand on those 
 stanchions they're disgraceful. Show him how, 
 and see that he lays on " 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir."
 
 68 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 " And, bo'sun ! don't be too rough on him just 
 yet. We've all of us made our first voyage. " 
 
 "Very true, sir." 
 
 I could have fallen at the man's feet for those few 
 kind words, but his alert step had carried him far 
 away ; and the boatswain had gripped me by the 
 arm, and landed me on a seat, before I could think 
 of how to express my thanks. 
 
 " Stay where ye are, young stowaway," said he, 
 "and I'll fetch the oil and things. But don't fall 
 overboard ! for we can't afford to send a hexpedition 
 on a voyage of discovery barter ye." 
 
 Off went the boatswain, and by the time he came 
 back with a bundle of brass rods under his arm, 
 and an old sardine-tin full of a mixture of oil, 
 vinegar, and sand, and a saturated fragment of a 
 worn-out worsted sock, I had more or less recovered 
 from a violent attack of sickness, and was trying to 
 keep my teeth from being chattered out of my 
 aching head in the fit of shivering that succeeded it. 
 
 " Now, my pea-green beauty !" said he, "pull 
 yourself together, and bear a hand with this tackle. 
 I'll carry the stanchions for you." I jumped up, 
 thanked him, and took the oil tin and etceteras, 
 feeling very grateful that he did carry the heavy 
 brass rods for me on to the poop, where I scrambled 
 after him, and after a short lesson in an art the 
 secret of which appeared to be to rub hard enough 
 and long enough, he left me with the pointed hint 
 that the more I did within the next hour or two, 
 the better it would be for me. ' ' And wicee the 
 worser hif ye learnt what that means when ye wos 
 at school," he added. 
 
 Fully determined to do my best, I rubbed for the 
 dear life, my bones and teeth still shuddering as I 
 did so ; but whatever virtue there was in my efforts 
 was soon its own reward, for the vigorous use of 
 my arms hegan to warm me, so greatly to the relief 
 of my headache aod general misery, that I began 
 to hold myself up, and drink in the life-giving fresh- 
 ness of the salt breezes with something that came 
 quite close to hope, and was not far off enjoyment. 
 As to the stanchions, I was downright proud of 
 them, and was rubbing away, brightening the brass, 
 and getting the blood comfortably circulated 
 through my body, when with the usual running and 
 shouting, a crowd of men poured on to the poop 
 with long-handled scrubbing-brushes, and big tubs, 
 &c., followed by others dragging a fire-hose. No 
 time was lost in charging the hose with water (a 
 plentiful commodity !), and this was squirted into 
 every hole and cranny in all directions, whilst the 
 first lot of men rubbed and scrubbed and brushed 
 most impartially all over the place. 
 
 I went quietly on with my work, but when the 
 stream threatened a group of stanchions, so highly 
 polished that I could not endure the notion of a 
 
 speck on their brightness, I lifted them out of harm's 
 way, and with the clatter of this movement drew 
 the attention of the plier of the hose. 
 
 "Why, bless my stars, garters, and hornaments 
 of hall sorts ! " said he ; " if 'ere ain't the young 
 gentleman of fortin' on the poop deck in his Sunday 
 pumps ! " and without more ado he let fly the water, 
 first at my feet and then upwards, till I was soused 
 from head to foot, and the scrubbers and swabbers 
 laughed at my gasps as I know I could not have 
 moved their sense of humour if I had had the finest 
 wit in the world. However, I suppose they had 
 had to take as well as give such merriment in their 
 time ; and I keenly remember Biddy's parting hint 
 that the "good-nature of my ways" would be my 
 best friend in this rough society. So I laughed 
 and shook myself, and turning up my sleeves to my 
 elbows, and my trousers to my knees, I also 
 denuded myself of boots and socks and put them 
 aside. 
 
 " Is this the correct fashion ? " I inquired a joke 
 which passed muster for very good humour ; and 
 I was squirted at no more on that occasion. The 
 chill had made me feel most miserable again, but 
 I had found by experience that the great thing was 
 to keep my blood circulating, and that rubbing-up 
 the ship's brass answered this purpose exceedingly 
 well. I nibbed it so bright, that when the boat- 
 swain came to summon me to dinner, he signified 
 his approval in his own peculiar fashion, which 
 appeared to be that of an acknowledged wit. 
 
 "H'm ! " said he, " I'll say that for ye, young 
 shore-loafer, that you've learnt that the best part of 
 polishing-paste is elbow-grease. It wasn't all 
 parley-voo and the pianner where you was at 
 boarding-school !" 
 
 I said I hoped not, and laughed as respectfully 
 as it becomes the small to do at the jokes of the 
 great. 
 
 But when I was fairly squatted in a corner of the 
 forecastle, with my plate on my lap, in friendly 
 proximity to Alister, I received a far worse shock 
 than the ship's hose had given me. For under 
 cover of the sailors' talk (and they were even noisier 
 at their dinner than at their work) my comrade 
 contrived to whisper in my ear, "The pilot is still 
 on board." 
 
 I got what comfort I could out of hearing the 
 sailmaker praise Alister as "an uncommon handy 
 young chap," a compliment which he enforced by 
 a general appeal to some one to " give him " a lad 
 that had been brought up to make himself useful, 
 and anybody else was welcome "for him " to fine 
 gentlemen with no learning but school learning. 
 For this side attack on me roused the boatswain to 
 reproduce his jokes about elbow-grease versus 
 parley-voo and the pianner, and to add a general
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 " Without more ado he let fly the water, first at my feet and then upwards, till I was 
 soused from head to foot." P. 68. 
 
 principle on his own account to the effect that it was 
 nothing to him if a lad had been " edicated " in a 
 young ladies' boarding-school, so long as he'd been 
 taught to nib brass till you could "see something 
 more of your face than thumbmarks in it." The 
 general and satisfactory conclusion being (so I 
 hoped) that we were neither of us quite useless, and 
 
 might possibly be spared the ignominy of a return 
 voyage with the pilot. 
 
 About an hour and a half after dinner, when I 
 was "rubbing-up" some "bright things" in the 
 cook's galley, Alister looked in, and rinding me 
 alone, said, "Would ye dare to come on deck? 
 We're passing under bonny big rocks, with a light-
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 house perched up on the height above our heads, for 
 all the world like a big man keeping his outlook 
 with glowering eyes." 
 
 "I don't think I dare," said I. " The cook told 
 me not to stir till these were done. Are we going 
 slower ? That pumping noise is slower than it was, 
 I'm sure." 
 
 "We are so," said Alister; "I'm wondering 
 
 if " He ran out without finishing his sentence, 
 
 but soon returned with a face rather more colourless 
 than usual with repressed excitement. "Jack!" 
 he gasped, " they're lowering a boat. The pilofs 
 going ashore. " 
 
 He remained with me now, sitting with his head 
 on his hands. Suddenly a shout of two or three 
 voices from the water was answered by a hearty 
 cheer from the deck. By one impulse, Alister and I 
 sprang to our feet and gripped each other by the 
 hand ; and I do not believe there were any two 
 sailors on board who sped the parting pilot with 
 more noise than we two made in the cook's galley. 
 
 It was gloriously true. They had kept us both. 
 But, though I have no doubt the captain would 
 have got rid of us if we had proved feckless, I think 
 our being allowed to remain was largely due to the 
 fact that the vessel had left Liverpool short of her 
 full complement of hands. Trade was good at the 
 time, and one man who had joined had afterwards 
 deserted, and another youngster had been taken to 
 hospital only the day before we sailed. He had 
 epileptic fits, and though the second mate (whose 
 chief quality seemed to be an impartial distrust of 
 everybody but himself, and a burning desire to trip 
 up his fellow-creatures at their weak points and 
 jump upon them accordingly) expressed in very 
 strong language his wish that the captain had not 
 sent the lad off, but had kept him for him (the 
 second mate) to cure, the crew seemed all of opinion 
 that there was no " shamming " about it, and that 
 the epileptic sailor-boy would only have fallen from 
 one of the yards in a fit, and given more trouble 
 than his services were worth over picking him up. 
 
 The afternoon was far from being as fine as the 
 morning had been. Each time I turned my eyes 
 that way it seemed to me that the grey sea was 
 looking drearier and more restless, but I stuck 
 steadily to some miscellaneous and very dirty work 
 that I had been put to down below ; and, as the 
 ship rolled more and more under me, as I ran 
 unsteadily about with buckets and the like, I 
 began to wonder if this was the way storms came 
 gradually on, and whether, if the ship went down 
 to-night " with all on board," I should find courage 
 to fit my fate. 
 
 I was meditating gloomily on this subject, when 
 I heard a shrill whistle, and then a series of awful 
 noises, at the sound of which every man below left 
 
 whatever he was at, and rushed on deck. I had 
 read too many accounts of shipwrecks not to know 
 that the deck is the place to make for, so I bolted 
 with the rest, and caught sight of Alister flying in 
 the same direction as we were. When we got up 
 I looked about me as well as I could, but I saw no 
 rocks or vessels in collision with us. The waves 
 were not breaking over us, but four or five men 
 standing on the bulwarks, were pulling things like 
 monstrous grubs out of a sort of trough, and 
 chucking them with more or less accuracy at the 
 heads of the sailors who gathered round. 
 
 "What is it, Alister?" I asked. 
 
 " It's just the serving out of the hammocks that 
 they sleep in," Alister replied. "I'm thinking 
 we'll not be entitled to them." 
 
 "What's that fellow yelling about ?" 
 
 " He's crying to them to respond to their names 
 and numbers. Whisht, man ! till I hear his un- 
 christian lingo and see if he cries on us." 
 
 But in a few minutes the crowd had dispersed, 
 and the hammock-servers with them, and Alister 
 and I were left alone. I felt foolish, and I suppose 
 looked so, for Alister burst out laughing and said 
 " Hech, laddie ! it's a small matter. We'll find a 
 corner to sleep in. And let me tell ye I've tried 
 getting into a hammock myself, and " 
 
 " Hi ! you lads ! " 
 
 In no small confusion at having been found idle 
 and together, we started to salute the third mate, 
 who pointed to a sailor behind him, and said 
 " Follow Francis, and he'll give you hammocks 
 and blankets, and show you how to swing and stow 
 them." 
 
 We .both exclaimed "Thank you, sir! "with 
 such warmth that as he returned our renewed salu- 
 tations he added" I hear good accounts of both 
 of you. Keep it up, and you'll do." 
 
 Alister's sentence had been left unfinished, but I 
 learnt the rest of it by experience. We scrambled 
 down after Francis till we seemed to be about the 
 level where we had stowed away. I did not feel 
 any the better for the stuffiness of the air and an 
 abominable smell of black beetles, but I stumbled 
 along till we all arrived in a very tiny little office 
 where the purser sat surrounded by bags of ships' 
 biscuits (which they pleasantly call " bread " at sea) 
 and with bins of sugar, coffee, &c., &c. I daresay 
 the stuffiness made him cross (as the nasty smells 
 used to make us in Uncle Henry's office), for he 
 used a good deal of bad language, and seemed very 
 unwilling to let us have the hammocks and blankets. 
 However, Francis got them and banged us well 
 with them before giving them to us to carry. They 
 were just like the others canvas-coloured sausages 
 wound about with tarred rope ; and warning us to 
 observe how they were fastened up, as we should
 
 WE \ AND THE WORLD. 
 
 have to put them away " ship-shape " the follow- 
 ing morning, Francis helped us to unfasten and 
 " swing " them in the forecastle. There were hooks 
 in the beams, so that part of the business was easy 
 enough, but, when bedtime came, I found that 
 getting into my hammock was not as easy as getting 
 it ready to get into. 
 
 The sailmaker helped Alister out of his difficulties 
 at once, by showing him how to put his two hands 
 in the middle of his hammock and wriggle himself 
 into it and roll his blankets round him in seaman- 
 like fashion. But my neighbours only watched 
 with delight when I first sent my hammock flying 
 by trying to get in at the side as if it were a bed, 
 and then sent myself flying out on the other side 
 after getting in. As I picked myself up I caught 
 sight of an end of thick rope hanging from a beam 
 close above my hammock, and being a good deal 
 nettled by my own stupidity and the jeers of the 
 sailors, I sprang at the rope, caught it, and swing- 
 ing myself up, I dropped quietly and successfully 
 into my new resting-place. Once fairly in and 
 rolled in my blanket, I felt as snug as a chrysalis 
 in his cocoon, and (besides the fact that lying down 
 is a great comfort to people who are not born with 
 sea-legs), I found the gentle swaying of my ham- 
 mock a delightful relief from the bumping, jumping, 
 and jarring of the ship. I said my prayers, which 
 made me think of my mother, and cost me some 
 tears in the privacy of darkness ; but, as I wept, 
 there came back the familiar thought that I had 
 "much to be thankful for," and I added the 
 General Thanksgiving with an " especially " in the 
 middle of it (as we always used to have when my 
 father read prayers at home, after anything like 
 Jem and me getting well of scarlet fever, or a good 
 harvest being all carried). 
 
 I got all through my " especially," and what 
 with thinking of the workman, and dear old Biddy, 
 and Alister, and Mr. Johnson, and the pilot, it was 
 a very long one ; and I think I finished the 
 Thanksgiving and said the Grace of our LORD 
 after it. But I cannot be quite sure, for it was 
 such a comfort to be at peace, and the hammock 
 swung and rocked till it cradled me to sleep. 
 
 A light sleep, I suppose, for I dreamed very 
 vividly of being at home again, and that I had 
 missed getting off to sea after all ; and that the 
 ship had only been a dream. I thought I was 
 rather sorry it was not real, because I wanted to 
 see the world, but I was very glad to be with Jem, 
 and I thought he and I went clown to the farm to 
 look for Charlie, and they told us he was sitting 
 up in the ash-tree at the end of the field. In my 
 dream I did not feel at all surprised that Cripple 
 Charlie should have got into the ash-tree, or at 
 finding him there high up among the branches 
 
 looking at a spider's web with a magnifying glass. 
 But I thought that the wind was so high I could 
 not make him hear, and the leaves and boughs 
 tossed so that I could barely see him ; and when I 
 climbed up to him, the branch on which I sat 
 swayed so deliciously that I was quite content to 
 rock myself and watch Charlie in silence, when 
 suddenly it cracked, and down I came with a hard 
 bang on my back. 
 
 I woke and sat up, and found that the latter 
 part of my dream had come true, as a lump on the 
 back of my head bore witness for some days. 
 Francis had playfully let me down " with a run by 
 the head," as it is called ; that is, he had undone 
 my hammock-cord and landed me on the floor. 
 He left Alister in peace, and I can only think of 
 two reasons for his selecting me for the joke. 
 First that the common sailors took much more 
 readily to Alister from his being more of their own 
 rank in birth and upbringing, though so vastly 
 superior by education. And secondly, that I was 
 the weaker of the two ; for what I have seen of the 
 world has taught me that there are plenty of strong 
 people who will not only let the weaker go to the 
 wall, but who find an odd satisfaction in shoving 
 and squeezing them there. 
 
 However, if I was young and sea-sick, I was 
 not quite helpless, happily ; I refastened my ham- 
 mock, and got into it again, and being pretty well 
 tired out by the day's work, I slept that sleep of 
 the weary which knows no dream. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 " Yet more ! The billows and the depths have more : 
 High hearts and brave are gathered to thy breast ! 
 
 Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave ! 
 Give back the true and brave !" 
 
 Felicia Hematts. 
 
 " To them their duty was clear, and they did it success- 
 fully ; and the history of the island is written briefly in that 
 little formula ! " 
 
 Daily Telegraph, Dec. 5, 1878. 
 
 I DID not feel as if I had been asleep five 
 minutes, when I was rudely awakened, of 
 course by noise, whistling and inarticulate roaring, 
 and I found that it was morning, and that the 
 boatswain's mate was "turning the hands up" to 
 wash decks. Alister was ready, and I found that 
 my toilet was, if possible, shorter than at Snuffy's 
 in winter. 
 
 "We puts hon our togs fust, and takes our 
 shower-baths harterwards, the boatswain humor- 
 ously explained, as he saw me trying to get the
 
 72 
 
 IVE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 very awkward collar of my " slops" tidy as I fol- 
 lowed with the crowd. 
 
 The boatswain was a curious old fellow. He 
 was born in London, " within sound of Bow bells," 
 as he told me ; but though a Cockney by birth, he 
 could hardly be called a native of anywhere but the 
 world at large. He had sailed in all seas, and 
 seemed to have tried his hand at most trades. He 
 had at one time been a sort of man-of-all-work in 
 a boys' school, and I think it was partly from this, 
 and partly out of opposition to the sailmaker, that 
 he never seemed to grudge my not having been 
 born a poor person, or to fancy I gave myself airs 
 (which I never did), or to take a pleasure in making 
 me feel the roughest edge of the menial work I had 
 to do, like so many of the men. But he knew 
 very well just where things did feel strangest and 
 hardest to me, and showed that he knew it by 
 many a bit of not unkindly chaff. 
 
 His joke about the shower-bath came very 
 strictly true to me. We were all on the main 
 deck, bare-armed and bare -legged, mopping and 
 slopping and swabbing about in the cold sea-water, 
 which was liberally supplied to us by the steam- 
 pump and hose. I had been furnished with a 
 squeegee (a sort of scraper made of india-rubber at 
 the end of a broomstick), and was putting as much 
 * ' elbow-grease " into my work as renewed sea- 
 sickness left me strength for, when the boatswain's 
 mate turned the hose upon me once more. I 
 happened to be standing rather loosely, and my 
 thoughts had flown home on the wings of a wonder 
 what Martha would think of this way of scrubbing 
 a floor all wedded as the domestic mind is to 
 hairy flannel and sticky soap and swollen knees, 
 when the stream of sea-water came in full force 
 against my neck, and I and my squeegee went 
 head-over-heels into the lee scuppers. It was the 
 boatswain himself who picked me out, and who 
 avenged me on his subordinate by a round of abuse 
 which it was barely possible to follow, so mixed 
 were the metaphors, and so cosmopolitan the 
 slang. 
 
 On the whole I got on pretty well that day, and 
 began to get accustomed to the motion of the ship, 
 in spite of the fact that she rolled more than on the 
 day before. The sky and sea were grey enough 
 when we were swabbing the decks in the early 
 morning ; as the day wore on, they only took the 
 deeper tints of gathering clouds which hid the sun. 
 
 If the weather was dull, our course was not less 
 so. We only saw one ship from the deck, a mail- 
 steamer, as neat and trim as a yacht, which passed 
 us at a tremendous pace, with a knot of officers on 
 the bridge. Some black objects bobbing up and 
 down in the distance were pointed out to me as 
 porpoises, and a good many seagulls went by, 
 
 flying landwards. Not only was the sky overcast, 
 but the crew seemed to share the depression of the 
 barometer, which, as everybody told everybody 
 else, was falling rapidly. The captain's voice rang 
 out in brief but frequent orders, and the officers 
 clustered in knots on the bridge, their gold cap- 
 bands gleaming against the stormy sky. 
 
 I worked hard through the day, and was sick off 
 and on as the ship rolled, and the great green waves 
 hit her on the bows, and ran away along her side, 
 and the wind blew and blew, and most of the sails 
 were hauled in and made fast, and one or two were 
 reefed up close, and the big chimney swayed, and 
 the threatening clouds drifted forwards at a diffe- 
 rent pace from our own, till my very fingers felt 
 giddy with unrest ; but not another practical joke 
 did I suffer from that day, for every man's hand 
 was needed for the ship. 
 
 In the afternoon she had rolled so heavily in the 
 trough of the large waves, that no one made any 
 pretence of finding his sea-legs strong enough to 
 keep him steady without clutching here and there 
 for help, and I had been thankful, in a brief inter- 
 val when nobody had ordered me to do anything, 
 to scramble into a quiet corner of the forecastle 
 and lie on the boards, rolling as the ship rolled, 
 and very much resigned to going down with her if 
 she chose to go. 
 
 Towards evening it was thick and foggy, but as 
 the sun set it began to clear, and I heard the men 
 saying that the moon (which was nearly at the full) 
 would make a clear night of it. It was unquestion- 
 ably clearer overhead, and the waves ran smoother, 
 as if the sea were recovering its temper, and Alister 
 and I went below at 9 P.M. and turned into our 
 hammocks for a few hours' sleep, before taking our 
 part in the night-watch that lasts from 12 midnight 
 till 4 A.M. 
 
 It is astonishing what a prompt narcotic the 
 knowledge that you'll have to be up again in an 
 hour or two is. Alister and I wasted no time in 
 conversation. He told me the fall in the barometer 
 was " by-ordinar" (which I knew as well as he) ; 
 and I told him the wind was undoubtedly falling 
 (which he knew as well as I) : and after this inevi- 
 table interchange of the uppermost news and 
 anxieties of the occasion, we bade GOD bless each 
 other, and I said the prayers of my babyhood 
 because they were shortest, and fell fast asleep. 
 
 The noises that woke us were new noises, but 
 they made up the whole of that peculiar sound 
 which is the sum of human excitement. " We are 
 going down this time," was my thought, and I 
 found myself less philosophical about it than I had 
 imagined. Neither Alister nor I were long in 
 putting on our clothes, and we rushed up on deck 
 without exchanging a word. By the time we got
 
 IVE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 73 
 
 there, where the whole ship's crew had gone before 
 us, we were as wildly excited as any one of them, 
 though we had not a notion what it was all about. 
 I knew enough now for the first glance to tell me 
 that the ship was in no special danger. Even I 
 could tell that the gale had gone clown, the night 
 was clear, and between the scudding of black clouds 
 with silver linings, the moon and stars shone very 
 beautifully, though it made one giddy to look at 
 them from the weird way in which the masts and 
 yards seemed to whip across the sky. 
 
 We still rolled, and when the side of the ship 
 went up, it felt almost overhead, and I could see 
 absolutely nothing of the sea, which was vexatious, 
 as that was obviously the point of interest. The 
 rigging on that side was as full of men as a bare 
 garden-tree might be of sparrows, and all along 
 the lee bulwarks they sat and crouched like sea- 
 birds on a line of rock. Suddenly we rolled, 
 down went the leeside, and I with it, but I caught 
 hold of the lowest step of the forecastle ladder and 
 sat fast. Then as we dipp'd I saw all that they 
 were seeing from the masts and rigging the yet 
 restless sea with fast-running waves, alternately 
 inky black, and of a strange bright metallic lead- 
 colour, on which the scud as it drove across the 
 moon made queer racing shadows. And it was on 
 this stormy sea that every eye from the captain's 
 to the cook's was strained. 
 
 Roll ! down we went again to starboard, and up 
 went the bulwarks and I could see nothing but the 
 sky and the stars, and the masts and yards whipping 
 across them as before, though the excitement grew 
 till I could bear it no longer, and scrambled up 
 the ladder on to the forecastle, and pushed my 
 way to the edge and lay face downwards, holding 
 on for my life that I might not be blown away, 
 whilst I was trying to see what was to be seen. 
 
 I found myself by Alister once more, and he 
 helped me to hold on, and pointed where every 
 one else was pointing. There was a lull in the 
 eager talking of the men, and the knot of captain 
 and the officers on the bridge stood still and Alister 
 roared through the wind into my ear "Bide a 
 wee, the moon'll be out again." 
 
 I waited, and the cloud passed from her face or 
 she sailed from beneath it, and at the same instant 
 I saw a streak of light upon the water in which a 
 black object bobbed up and down as the porpoises 
 had bobbed, and all the men burst out again, and 
 a crowd rushed up on to the forecastle. 
 
 "It's half a mile aft." "A bit of wreck." 
 "An old sugar hogshead." "The emperor of 
 the porpoises." "Is it the sea sarpint ye're 
 maning?" "Will hany gentleman lend me 'is 
 hopera-glass ? " "I'm blessed if I don't think 
 we re going to go half-speed. I sailed seven years 
 
 in the ' Amiable ' with old Savage, and I'm blessed 
 if he ever put her a point out of her course for any- 
 thing. ' Every boat for herself, and the sea for us 
 all,' he used to say, and allus kept his eyes 
 forwards in foul weather." "Aisy, Tom, aisy, 
 ye're out of it entirely. It's the Humane Society's 
 gold medal we'll all be getting for saving fire- 
 wood." " Stow your jaw, Pat, that's not wreck, 
 it's- " 
 
 At this moment the third mate's voice rang 
 through the ship 
 
 ' ' A boat bottom up ! " 
 
 The men passed from chaff to a silence whose 
 eagerness could be felt, through which another 
 voice came through the wind from the poop 
 "there's something on her!" and I turned that 
 way, and saw the captain put down his glass, and 
 put his hand to his mouth ; and when he sang out 
 "A MAN " ! we all sprang to our feet, and opened 
 our lips, but the boatswain put up his hand, and 
 cried, "Silence, fore and aft! Steady, lads! 
 Look to the captain ! " 
 
 The gold cap-bands glittered close together, and 
 then, clear to be seen in a sudden gleam of moon- 
 light the captain leaned forward and shouted to the 
 crew, " Fo'cs'le there!" And they sang out, 
 " Aye, aye, sir ! " 
 
 " Volunteers for the whaleboat ! " 
 
 My heart was beating fast enough, but I do not 
 think I could have counted a dozen throbs, before, 
 with a wild hurrah, every man had leaped from 
 the forecastle, Alister among them, and I was left 
 alone. 
 
 I was just wondering if I could possibly be of 
 use, when I heard the captain's voice again. (He 
 had come down, and was where the whaleboat was 
 hanging, which, I learned, was fitted like a life- 
 boat, and the crew were crowding round him.) 
 
 "Steady, lads ! Stand back. Come as you're 
 called. Thunder and lightning, we want to man 
 the boat, not sink her. Mr. Johnson ! " 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir ! " 
 
 "A! B! C! D!"&c. 
 
 " Here, sir ! " " Here, sir ! " " Here, sir ! " 
 
 " Fall back there ! Thank you all, my lads, but 
 she's manned." 
 
 A loud cheer drowned every other sound, and I 
 saw men busy with the boat, and Alister coming 
 back with a dejected air, and the captain jumping 
 up and down, and roaring louder than the wind : 
 " Steward ! rum, and a couple of blankets. Look 
 sharp. Stand back ; in you go ; steady ! Now, 
 mind what I say ; I shall bear up towards the 
 boat. Hi, there ! Stand by the lowering-tackle, 
 and when I say ' Now ! ' lower away handsomely 
 and steadily. Are you ready, Mr. Johnson ? Keep 
 steady, all, and fend her off well when you touch
 
 74 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 the water. Mr. Waters ! let her go off a point or 
 two to the north'ard, Half speed ; port a little 
 steady ! All ready in the boat ? " 
 
 " Aye, aye, sir ! " 
 
 " GOD bless you. Steady ready Now ! " 
 
 I hardly know which more roused my amazement 
 and admiration the behaviour of the men or the 
 behaviour of the whaleboat. Were these alert 
 and silent seamen, sitting side by side, each with 
 his oar held upright in his hand, and his eyes upon 
 his captain, the rowdy roughs of the forecastle? 
 And were those their like companions who crowded 
 the bulwarks, and bent over to cheer, and bless, 
 and envy them ? 
 
 As to boats the only one I had been accustomed 
 to used to be launched on the canal with scraping 
 and shoving, and struggling and balancing, and 
 we did occasionally upset her but when the cap- 
 tain gave the word, the ship's whaleboat and its 
 crew were smoothly lowered by a patent apparatus 
 till it all but touched the big black waves that ran 
 and roared at it. Then came a few moments of 
 intense anxiety till the boat was fairly clear of the 
 ship ; but even when it was quite free, and the 
 men bending to their oars, I thought more than 
 once that it had gone down for ever on the other 
 side of the hills and dales of water which kept 
 hiding it completely from all except those who 
 were high up upon the masts. It was a relief 
 when we could see it, miserable speck as it looked, 
 and we all strained our eyes after it, through many 
 difficulties from the spiteful ways of the winds and 
 waves and clouds, which blinded and buffeted and 
 drenched us when we tried to look, and sent black 
 veils of shadow to hide our comrades from our 
 eyes. In the teeth of the elements, however, the 
 captain was bearing up towards the other boat, 
 and it was now and then quite possible to see with 
 the naked eye that she was upside down, and that 
 a man was clinging to her keel. At such glimpses 
 an inarticulate murmur ran through our midst, but 
 for the most part we, who were only watching, 
 were silent till the whaleboat was fairly alongside 
 of the object of her gallant expedition. Then by 
 good luck the moon sailed forth and gave us a fair 
 view, but it was rather a disappointing one, for the 
 two boats seemed to do nothing but bob about like 
 two burnt corks in the moonlight, and we began 
 to talk again. 
 
 ' ' What 's she doing ? " " The LORD knows ! " 
 "Something's gone wrong." "Why doesn't she 
 go nearer ? " ' ' Cos she'd be stove in, ye fool ! " 
 " Gude save us ! they're both gone." " Not they, 
 they're to the left ; but what the winds and waves 
 
 they're after " " They're trying to make him 
 
 hear, likely enough, and they might as well call 
 on my grandmother. He's as dead as a herring. " 
 
 "Whisht! whisht! He's a living soul! Hech, 
 sirs ! there's nought but the grip o' despair would 
 haud a man on the keel of s boat in waves like 
 yon." " Silence, all ! " 
 
 We turned our heads, for a voice rang from the 
 look-out 
 
 ' ' Man overboard from the whaleboat ! " 
 
 The men were so excited, and crowded so 
 together, that I could hardly find a peeping-place. 
 
 " He's got him." " Nay, they're both gone." 
 " Man ! I'm just thinking that it's ill interfering 
 with the designs of Providence. We may lose 
 Peter and not save Paul." " Stow your discourses, 
 Sandy ! " " They're hauling in our man, and time 
 they did." 
 
 The captain's voice now called to the first mate 
 
 " Do you make it one or both, Mr. Waters? " 
 
 " Both, sir ! " 
 
 "Thank GOD !" 
 
 We hurrahed again, and the whaleboat-men 
 replied but their cheer only came faintly to us, 
 like a wail upon the wind. 
 
 Several men of our group were now called to 
 work, and I was ordered below to bring up a 
 hammock, and swing it in the steerage. I was 
 vexed, as I would have given anything to have 
 helped to welcome the whaleboat back. 
 
 When the odd jobs I had been called to were 
 done with, and I returned to the deck, it was just 
 too late to see her hauled up. I could not see 
 over the thick standing group of men, and I did 
 not, of course, dare to push through them to catch 
 sight of our heroes and the man they had saved. 
 But a little apart from the rest, two Irish sailors 
 were standing and bandying the harshest of brogues 
 with such vehemence that I drew near, hoping at 
 least to hear something of what I could not see. 
 It was a spirited, and one would have guessed an 
 angry dialogue, so like did it sound to the yapping 
 and snapping of two peppery tempered terriers. 
 But it was only vehement, and this was the sum 
 of it. 
 
 ' ' Bedad ! but it's quare ye must have felt at the 
 time." 
 
 ' ' I did not, unless it would be when Tom 
 stepped out into the water, GOD bless him ! with 
 the rope aisy round his waist, and the waves 
 drowning him intirely, and the corpse holding on 
 to the boat's bottom for the dear life." 
 
 " Pat ! " said the other in mysterious tones, 
 " would that that's hanging round his neck be the 
 presarving of him, what ? " 
 
 'And why wouldn't it? But isn't he the big 
 fool to be having it dangling where the wash of a 
 wave, or a pick-pocket, or a worse timptation 
 than either might be staling it away from him ? " 
 
 " And where else would he put it ? "
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 75 
 
 " Did ye ever git the sight of mine ? " 
 
 "I did not." 
 
 " On the back of me ? " 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " Look here, now ! " cried Pat, in the tones of 
 one whose patience was entirely exhausted. His 
 friend drew nearer, and I also ventured to accept 
 an invitation not intended for me, so greatly was 
 my curiosity roused by what the men said. 
 
 Pat turned his back to us as rapidly as he had 
 spoken, and stooping at about half-leap-frog-angle, 
 whipped his wet shirt upwards out of his loosely- 
 strapped trousers, baring his back from his waist 
 to his shoulder blades. The moon was somewhat 
 overcast, but there was light enough for us to see 
 a grotesque semblance of the Crucifixion tattooed 
 upon his flesh in more than one colour, and some 
 accompanying symbols and initials which we could 
 hardly distinguish. 
 
 " Now am I safe for Christian burial or not, in 
 the case I'd be misfortunate enough to be washed 
 up on the shores of a haythen counthry ? " 
 
 " Ye are so ! " 
 
 I never saw a funnier sight than Pat craning and 
 twisting his head in futile efforts to look at it under 
 his own arm. 
 
 " It's a foin piece of work, I'm told," said he. 
 
 "They tould ye no less than the truth that said 
 that, Pat. It's a mighty foin piece of work." 
 
 " They all say so that see it," sighed Pat, tuck- 
 ing his shirt in again, "and that'll be ivry soul but 
 meself, worse luck ! " 
 
 " Shaughnessey ! " 
 
 " Sir ! " 
 
 Pat ran off, and as I turned I saw that the crew 
 of the whaleboat were going below with a crowd 
 of satellites, and that a space was cleared through 
 which I could see the man they had saved still 
 lying on the deck, with the captain kneeling at his 
 head, and looking back as if he were waiting for 
 something. And at that moment the moon shone 
 out once more, and showed me a sight that I'll 
 forget when I forget you Dennis O'Moore ! 
 ****** 
 
 It was a lad that they had saved, "not a full- 
 grown man, except in the sense of his height, 
 which was nearly an inch beyond Alister's. He 
 was insensible, and I thought he was dead, so 
 deathlike was the pallor of his face in contrast with 
 the dark curls of his head and the lashes of his 
 closed eyes. We were dipping to leeward, his 
 head rolled a little on the rough pillow that had 
 been heaped to raise him, and his white face against 
 the inky waves reminded me of the face of the 
 young lord in Charlie's father's church, who died 
 abroad, and a marble figure of him was sent home 
 from Italy, with his dog lying at his feet. His 
 
 shoulders were raised as well as his head, and 
 his jacket and shirt had both been washed open 
 by the waves. 
 
 And that was how I got the key to the Irish- 
 men's dialogue. For round the lad's throat was a 
 black ribbon, pendant from which a small cross of 
 ebony was clear to be seen upon his naked breast ; 
 and .on this there glittered in the moonlight a silver 
 image of the Redeemer of the World. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 " Why, what's that to you, if my eyes I'm a wiping? 
 A tear is a pleasure, d'ye see, in its way ; 
 'Tis nonsense for trifles, I own, to be piping, 
 But they that ha'n't pity, why I pities they. 
 
 The heart and the eyes, you see feel the same motion, 
 And if both shed their drops, 'tis all the same end ; 
 And thus 'tis that every tight lad of the ocean 
 Sheds his blood for his country, his tears for his friend." 
 Charles Dibdin. 
 
 IF one wants to find the value of all he has 
 learned in the way of righteousness, common 
 sense, and real skill of any sort ; or to reap most 
 quickly what he has sown toobedience, industry, and 
 endurance, let him go out and rough it in the world. 
 There he shall find that a conscience early trained 
 to resist temptation and to feel shame will be to 
 him the instinctive clutch that may now and again 
 in an ungraceful, anyhow fashion keep him 
 from slipping down to perdition, and save his soul 
 alive. There he shall find that whatever he has 
 really learned by labour or grasped with inborn 
 talent, will sooner or later come to the surface to 
 his credit and for his good ; but that what he 
 swaggers will not even find fair play. There, in 
 brief, he shall find his level a great matter for 
 most men. There, in fine, he will discover that 
 there being a great deal of human nature in all 
 men, and a great deal that is common to all lives 
 if he has learned to learn and is good-natured 
 withal, he may live pretty comfortably anywhere 
 
 " As a rough rule, 
 The rough world's a good school," 
 
 and if there are a few parlour-boarders it is very 
 little advantage to them. 
 
 For my own part I was almost startled to find 
 how quickly I was beginning to learn something 
 of the ways of the ship and her crew ; and though, 
 when I asked for information about all the various 
 appliances which come under the comprehensive 
 sea-name of "tackle," I was again and again made 
 the victim of a hoax, I soon learned to correct one 
 piece of information by another, and to feel less of 
 an April fool and more of a sailor. Reading sea-
 
 76 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 novels had not really taught me much, for there 
 was not one in all that the Jew-clerk lent or sold 
 me which explained ship s language and customs. 
 But the schoolmaster had given me many useful 
 hints, and experience soon taught me how to apply 
 them. 
 
 The watch in which Alister and I shared just 
 after we picked up Dennis O'Moore, was naturally 
 very much enlivened by news and surmises regard- 
 ing our new "hand." Word soon came up from 
 below that he was alive and likely to recover, and 
 for a brief period I found my society in great re- 
 quest, because I had been employed in some fetch- 
 ing and carrying between the galley and the steer- 
 age, and had "heard the drowned man groan." 
 We should have gossiped more than we did if the 
 vessel had not exacted unusual attention, for the 
 winds and the waves had " plenty of mischief in 
 'em " yet, as I was well able to testify when I was 
 sent aft to help the man at the wheel. 
 
 "That'll take the starch out o' yer Sunday stick- 
 ups ! " said the boatswain's mate, on hearing where 
 I was bound for, when he met me clinging to the 
 wet deck with my stocking-feet, and catching with 
 my hands at every bit of tackle capable of giving 
 support. And as I put out all my strength to help 
 the steersman to force his wheel in the direction 
 he meant it to go, and the salt spray smacked my 
 face and soaked my slops, and every wind of 
 heaven seemed to blow down my neck and up my 
 sleeves and trowsers I heartily agreed with him. 
 
 The man I was helping never spoke, except to 
 shout some brief order into my ear or an occasional 
 reply to the words of command which rang over 
 our heads from the captain on the bridge. Of 
 course I did not speak, I had quite enough to do 
 to keep my footing and take my small part in this 
 fierce bitting and bridling of the elements ; but un- 
 comfortable as it was, I "took a pride and plea- 
 sure in it," as we used to say at home, and I already 
 felt that strenuous something which blows in sea- 
 breezes and gives vigour to mind and body even 
 when it chills you to the bone. 
 
 That is, to some people; there are plenty of 
 men, as I have since discovered, who spend their 
 lives at sea and hate it to the end. Boy and man, 
 they do their hard duty and live by its pitiful 
 recompense. They know the sea as well as other 
 mariners, are used to her uncertain ways, bear her 
 rough usage, control her stormy humours, learn all 
 her moods, and never feel her charm. 
 
 I have seen two such cases, and I have heard of 
 more, yarned with all their melancholy details 
 during those night watches in which men will tell 
 you the ins and outs of many a queer story that 
 they "never talk about." And it has convinced 
 me that there is no more cruel blunder than to send 
 
 a boy to sea, if there is good reason to believe that 
 he will never like it ; unless it be that of with- 
 holding from its noble service those sailor lads 
 born, in whose ears the seashell will murmur till 
 they die. 
 
 It had murmured in mine, and enticed me to my 
 fate. I thought so now that I knew the roughest 
 of the other side of the question, just as much as 
 when I sat comfortably on the frilled cushion of 
 the round-backed armchair and read the ' Penny 
 Numbers' to the beemaster. Barefoot, bare- 
 headed, cold, wet, seasick, hard worked and half- 
 rested, would I even now exchange the life I had 
 chosen for the life I had left ? for the desk next to 
 the Jew-clerk, for the partnership, to be my uncle's 
 heir, to be mayor, to be member ? I asked my- 
 self the question as I stood by the steersman, and 
 with every drive of the wheel I answered it " No, 
 Moses ! No ! No ! " 
 
 It is not wise to think hard when you are work- 
 ing hard at mechanical work, in a blustering wind 
 and a night watch. Fatigue and open air make 
 you sleepy, and thinking makes you forget where 
 you are, and if your work is mechanical you do it 
 unconsciously, and may fall asleep over it. I 
 dozed more than once, and woke with the horrible 
 idea that I had lost my hold, and was not doing 
 my work. That woke me effectually, but even 
 then I had to look at my hands to see that they 
 were there. I pushed, but I could not feel, my 
 fingers were so numb with cold. 
 
 The second time I dozed and started again, I 
 heard the captain's voice close beside us. He was 
 bawling upwardsnow, to Mr. Waters on the bridge. 
 Then he pushed me on one side and took my place 
 at the wheel, shouting to the steersman " I meant 
 the Scotch lad, not that boy." 
 
 " He's strong enough, and steady too," was the 
 
 They both drove the wheel in silence, and I held 
 on by a coil of heavy rope, and sucked my fingers 
 to warm them, and very salt they tasted. Then 
 the captain left the wheel and turned to me again. 
 
 " Are you cold ? " 
 
 "Rather, sir." 
 
 " You may go below, and see if the cook can 
 spare you a cup of coffee." 
 
 " Thank you, sir." 
 
 ' ' But first find Mr. Johnson, and send him 
 here." 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 Whilst the captain was talking, I began to think 
 of Dennis O'Moore, and how he groaned, and to 
 wonder whether it was true that he would get 
 better, and whether it would be improper to ask 
 the captain, who would not be likely to humbug 
 me, if he answered at all.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 77 
 
 "Well?" said the captain sharply, "what are 
 you standing there like a stuck pig for ?" 
 
 I saluted. " Please, sir, a#Y/he get better? " 
 
 " What the Oh, yes. And hi, you ! " 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 ' ' He's in the steerage. You may go and see if 
 he wants anything, and attend on him. You may 
 remain below at present." 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 I lost no time in finding Mr. Johnson, and I got 
 a delicious cup of coffee and half a biscuit from the 
 cook, who favoured me in consequence of the con- 
 scientious scouring I had bestowed upon his pans. 
 Then mightily warmed and refreshed, I made my 
 way to the side of the hammock I had swung for 
 the rescued lad, and by the light of a swinging 
 lamp saw his dark head buried in his arms. 
 
 When I said, "Do you want anything?" he 
 lifted his face with a jerk, and looked at me. 
 
 " Not I much obliged," he said, smiling, and 
 still staring hard. He had teeth like the half-caste, 
 but the resemblance stopped there. 
 
 "The captain said I might come and look after 
 you, but if you want to go to sleep, do," said I. 
 
 " Why would I, if you'll talk to me a bit ? " 
 was his reply ; and resting his head on the edge of 
 his hammock and looking me well over, he added, 
 " Did they pick you up as well ?" 
 
 I laughed and wrung some salt water out of my 
 sleeve. 
 
 " No. I've not been in the sea, but I've been 
 on deck, and it's just as wet. It always is wet at 
 sea," I added in a tone of experience. 
 
 His eyes twinkled as if I amused him. "That, 
 indeed ? And yourself, are ye a midshipman ? " 
 
 It had been taken for granted that our new hand 
 was " a gentleman." I never doubted it, though 
 he spoke with an accent that certainly recalled old 
 Biddy Macartney ; a sort of soft ghost of a brogue 
 with a turn up at the end of it, as if every sentence 
 came sliding and finished with a spring, and I did 
 wish I could have introduced myself as a midship- 
 man instead of having to mutter, " No, I'm a 
 stowaway." 
 
 He raised himself higher in his hammock. 
 
 "A stowaway? What fun! And what made 
 ye go ? Were ye up to some kind of diversion at 
 home, and had to come out of it, eh ? Or were ye 
 bored to extinction, or what? (Country life in 
 England is mighty dull, so they tell me.) I 
 suppose it was French leave that ye took, as ye 
 say you're a stowaway ? I'm asking ye a heap of 
 impertinent questions, bad manners to me ! " 
 
 Which was true. But he asked them so kindly 
 and eagerly, I could only feel that sympathy is a 
 very pleasant thing, even when it takes the form 
 of a catechism that is all questions, and no room 
 
 for the answers. Moreover, I suspect that he 
 rattled on partly to give me time to leave off 
 blushing and feel at ease with him. 
 
 " I ran away because of several things," said I. 
 
 " I always did want to see the world " (" And 
 
 why wouldn't ye?" my new friend hastily inter- 
 polated). " But even if I had stayed at home I 
 don't Lelieve I should ever have got to like being 
 
 a lawyer" (" Small chance of it, I should say, 
 
 the quill-driving thievery 1 ") " It was my uncle's 
 
 office" (" I ask his pardon and yours.") "Oh, 
 
 you may say what you like. I never could get on 
 with him. I don't mean that he was cruel to me 
 in the least, though I think he behaved shab- 
 bily " 
 
 "Faith, it's a way they have! I've an uncle 
 myself that's a sort of first cousin of my father's, 
 and six foot three in his stockings, without a drop 
 of good-nature in the full length of him." 
 
 " Where is your home? " said I, for it certainly 
 was my turn to ask questions. 
 
 "Where would it be but ould Ireland?" Ami 
 after a moment's pause he added, " They call me 
 Dennis O'Moore. What's your name, ye enter- 
 prising little stowaway ? " 
 
 I told him. "And where were you going in 
 your boat, and how did you get upset? " I asked. 
 
 He sighed. " It was the old hooker we started 
 in, bad luck to her ! " 
 
 " Is that the name of the boat you were holding 
 on to ? " 
 
 " That boat ? No ! We borrowed her and 
 now ye remind me, I wouldn't be surprised if Tim 
 Brady was missing her by this, for I had no leisure 
 to ask his leave at the time, and, as a rule, we take 
 our own coracle in the hooker " 
 
 " What is a hooker? " I interrupted, for I was 
 resolved to know. 
 
 "What's a hooker? A hooker what a cate- 
 chetical little chatterbox ye are ! A man can't get 
 a word in edgeways a hooker's a boat. Ours 
 was a twenty-ton, half-decked, cutter-rigged sort 
 of thing, built for nothing in particular, and always 
 used for everything. It was lucky for me we took 
 Tim Brady's boat instead of the coracle, or I'd be 
 now where where poor Barney is. Oh, Barney, 
 Barney ! How'll I ever get over it ? Why did ye 
 never learn to swim, so fond of the water as ye 
 were ? Why couldn't ye hold on to me when I got 
 a good grip of ye ! Barney, dear, I've a notion in 
 my heart that ye left your hold on purpose, and 
 threw away your own life that ye mightn't risk 
 mine. And now I'll never know, for ye'll never 
 be able to tell me. Tim Brady's boat would have 
 held two as easy as one, Barney, and maybe the 
 old hooker'd have weathered the storm with a few 
 more repairs about her, that the squire always
 
 ;s 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 intended, as no one knows better than yourself ! 
 Oh, dear ! oh, dear ! But Heaven forgive us ! 
 putting ofFs been the ruin of the O'Moores from 
 time out of mind. And now you're dead and 
 gone dead and gone ! But oh, Barney, Barney, 
 if prayers can give your soul ease, you'll not want 
 them while Dennis O'Moore has breath to pray ! " 
 
 I was beginning to discover that one of the first 
 wonders of the world is that it contains a great 
 many very good people, who are quite different 
 from oneself and one's near relations. For I really 
 was not conceited enough to disapprove of my new 
 friend because he astonished me, though he certainly 
 did do so. From the moment when Barney (who- 
 ever Barney might be) came into his head, every- 
 thing else apparently went out of it. I am sure he 
 quite forgot me. 
 
 For my own part I gazed at him in blank amaze- 
 ment. I was not used to seeing a man give way 
 to his feelings in public, still less to seeing a man 
 cry in company, and least of all to see a man say 
 his prayers when he was neither getting up nor 
 going to bed, nor at church, nor at family worship, 
 and before a stranger too ! For, as he finished his 
 sentence he touched his curls, and then the place 
 where his crucifix lay, and then made a rapid 
 movement from shoulder to shoulder, and then 
 buried his head in his hands, and lay silent, pray- 
 ing, I had no manner of doubt, for "Barney's" 
 soul. 
 
 His prayers did not take him very long, and he 
 finished with a big sigh, and lifted his head again. 
 When his eyes met mine he blushed, and said, " I 
 ask your pardon, Jack ; I'd forgotten ye. You're 
 a kind-hearted little soul, and I'm mighty dull 
 company for ye." 
 
 "No, you're not," said I. "But I'm very 
 
 sorry for you. Was ' Barney ' your ? " and I 
 
 stopped because I really did not know what 
 relationship to suggest that would account for the 
 outburst I had witnessed. 
 
 ' ' Ah ! ye may well say what was he for what 
 wasn't he to me, anyhow? Jack! my mother 
 died when I was born, and never a soul but Barney 
 brought me up, for I wouldn't let 'em. He'd come 
 with her from her old home when she married ; 
 and when she lay dead he was let into the room 
 to look at her pretty face once more. Times out 
 of mind has he told me how she lay, with the black 
 lashes on her white cheeks, and the black crucifix 
 on her breast, that they were going to bury with 
 her ; the women howling, and me kicking up an 
 indecent row in a cradle in the next apartment, 
 carrying on like a Turk if the nurse came near me, 
 and most outrageously disturbing the chamber of 
 death. And what does Barney do, when he's said 
 a prayer by the side of the mistress, but ask for 
 
 the crucifix off her neck, that she'd worn all her 
 girlhood ? If the women howled before, they 
 double-howled then, and would have turned him 
 out neck and crop, but my father lifted his head 
 from where he was lying speechless in a kind of a 
 fit at the foot of the bed, and says he, ' Barney 
 Barton ! ye knew the sweet lady that lies there 
 long before that too brief privilege was mine. Ye 
 served her well, and ye've served me well for her 
 sake ; whatever ye ask for of her's in this hour 
 ye'll get, Barney Barton. She trusted ye and I 
 may.' ' GOD bless ye, squire,' says Barney ; and 
 what does he do but go up to her and unloose the 
 ribbon from her throat with his own hands. And 
 away he went with the crucifix, past the women 
 that couldn't get a sound out of them now, and 
 past my father as silent as themselves, and into 
 the room where I lay kicking up the devil's own 
 din in my cradle. And when he held it up to me, 
 with the light shining on the silver, and the black 
 ribbons hanging down, never believe him if I 
 didn't stop squalling, and stretch out my hands 
 with a smile as sweet as sunshine. And Barney 
 tied it round my neck, and took me into his arms. 
 And they said he spoke never a word when they 
 told him my mother was dead, and shed never a 
 tear when he saw her lie, but he sobbed his heart 
 out over me." 
 
 " You may well care for him ! " said I. 
 
 " Indeed I may. He kept my mother's memory 
 green in my heart, and he taught me all ever I 
 knew but books. He taught me to walk, and 
 he taught me to ride, and shooting, and fishing, 
 and such like country diversions ; and strange to 
 say, he taught me to swim, the way they learn in 
 my mother's country, with a bundle of bullrushes 
 for the old man couldn't swim a stroke himself, or 
 he might be here now, alive and hearty, please 
 GOD." 
 
 ' ' Were there only you and he in the hooker ? " 
 
 " That's all. It was altogether sheer madness, 
 for the old boat was barely fit for a day's fishing in 
 fine weather, and though Barney nearly killed him- 
 self overhauling her, and patching her sails, I 
 doubt if he knew very well what he was after. I've 
 been thinking, Jack, that his mind was not what 
 it was. He was always a bit obstinate, if he got a 
 notion into his head, but of late the squire himself 
 couldn't turn him. When he wanted to do a thing 
 about the place that Barney did'nt approve, if he 
 didn't give in (as he was apt to do, being easy- 
 tempered) I can tell ye he had to do it on the sly. 
 That was how he ordered the new ploughs that 
 nearly broke Barney's heart, both because of being 
 new-fangled machines, and ready money having to 
 be paid for them. ' I'll see the ould place mined 
 before ye come to your own, Master Dennis,' he
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 79 
 
 told me. And Jack ! that's another thing makes 
 me think what I tell ye. He was for ever talking 
 as if the place was coming to me, and I've two 
 brothers older than myself, let alone my sister. 
 But ye might as well reason with the rock of Croagh 
 Patrick ! Well, if he didn't ask my father to let 
 him and me run round in the hooker with a load of 
 seaweed for Tim Brady's farm, and of course we got 
 leave, and started as pleasant as could be ; barring 
 that if Barney'd been a year or two younger, there'd 
 have been wigs on the green over the cold potatoes, 
 before we got off." 
 
 " Wigs on the green over cold potatoes? " I re- 
 peated, in bewilderment. 
 
 " Tst ! tst ! little Saxon ! I mean we'd have had 
 a row over the provisions. It wasn't two hours' 
 run round to Tim Brady's, and I found the old man 
 stowing away half a peck of cold boiled potatoes, 
 and big bottles of tea, and goodness knows what. 
 ' Is it for ballast ye' re using the potatoes, Barney ? ' 
 says I. ' Mind your own business, Master Dennis' 
 (and I could see he was cross as two sticks), ' and 
 leave the provisioning to them that understands it,' 
 says he. ' How many meals d'ye reckon to eat 
 between this and Tim Brady's?' I went on, just 
 poking my fun at him, when would ye believe 
 it ? the old fellow fired up like a sky-rocket, and 
 asked me if I grudged him the bit of food he ate, 
 and Heaven knows what besides. ' Is it Dennis 
 O'Moore you're speaking to?' says I, for I've not 
 got the squire's easy temper, GOD forgive me ! 
 We were mighty near to a quarrel, Jack, I can tell 
 ye, but some shadow of a notion flitting across my 
 brain that the dear soul was not responsible entirely, 
 stopped my tongue, and something else stopped his 
 which I didn't know till we got to Tim Brady's, 
 and found that all we wanted with him was to 
 borrow his boat, and that the seaweed business 
 was no better than a blind ; for Barney had planned 
 it all out that we were to go down to Galway and 
 fetch the new ploughs home in the hooker, to save 
 
 the cost of the land -car 
 
 iage. 
 
 Sure it's bad 
 
 enough for the squire to be soiling his hands with 
 trumpery made by them English "thieves, that's no 
 more conscience over bothering a gentleman for 
 money nor if he was one of themselves)' said Barney ; 
 'sorra a halfpenny shall the railway rogues rob him 
 of.' Ah, little stowaway, ye may guess my delight ! 
 Aud hadn't we glorious weather at first, and wasn't 
 the dear old man happy and proud ! I can tell ye 
 I yelled, and I sang, and I laughed, when I felt 
 the old hooker begin to bound on the swell when 
 we got out into the open, but not a look would 
 Barney turn on me for minding the boat ; but I 
 could hear him chuckling to himself and muttering 
 about the railway rogues. It wasn't much time we 
 either of us had for talking, by-and-bye. I steered 
 
 and saw to the main sheet, and Barney did look- 
 out and minded the foresail, Tim Brady's boat 
 towing astern, getting such a dance as it never had 
 before, and at last dragging upside down. We'd 
 one thing in our favour, anyhow. There was no 
 disputing or disturbing of our minds as to whether 
 we'd turn back or not, for the gale was at our 
 backs ; and the old hooker was like my father's 
 black mare you might guide her, but she was 
 neither to stop nor turn. How the gallant old boat 
 held out as she did, Heaven knows ! It was not 
 till the mainsail had split into ribbons with a noise 
 like a gun going off, and every seam was strained 
 to leaking, and the sea came in faster than we could 
 bale it out, that we righted Tim Brady's tub and 
 got into her, and bade the old hooker good-bye. 
 The boat was weather-tight enough it was a false 
 move of Barney's capsized her, and I'd a good 
 hold of her with one hand when I gripped him 
 with the other. Oh ! Barney dear ! Why would 
 ye always have your own way ? Oh, why why 
 did ye lose your hold? Ye thought all hope was 
 over, darling, didn't ye ? Ah, if ye had but known 
 
 the brave hearts that " 
 
 I suppose it was because I was crying as well 
 as Dennis that I did not see Mr. Johnson till he 
 was standing by the Irish boy's hammock. I know 
 I got a sound scolding for the state of his pulse 
 (which the third mate seemed to understand, as he 
 understood most things), and was dismissed with 
 some pithy hints about cultivating common sense 
 and not making a fool of myself. I sneaked off, 
 and was thankful to meet Alister and pour out my 
 tale to him, and ask if he thought that our new 
 friend would have brain-fever, because I had let 
 him talk about his shipwreck. 
 
 Alister was not quite so sympathetic as I had 
 expected. He was so much shocked about the 
 crucifix and about Dennis praying for Barney's soul, 
 that he could think of nothing else. He didn't seem 
 to think that he would have fever, but he said he 
 feared we had small reason to reckon on the prayers 
 of the idolatrous ascending to the throne of grace. 
 He told me a long story about the Protestant 
 martyrs who where shut up in a dungeon under the 
 sea, on the coast of Aberdeenshire, and it would 
 have been very interesting if I hadn't been thinking 
 of Dennis. 
 
 We had turned in for some sleep, and I was roll- 
 ing myself in my blanket, when Alister called me : 
 
 "Jack! did ye ever read Fox's 'Book of 
 Martyrs'?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It's a gran' work, and it has some aweful tales 
 in it. When we've a bit of holiday leesure I'll tell 
 ye some. " 
 
 "Thank you, Alister. "
 
 So 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 "A very wise man believed that, if a man were permitted 
 to make all the ballads, he need not care who should make 
 the laws of a nation." Fletcher ofSaltoun in a Utter to the 
 Marquis of Montrose. 
 
 npHE weather was fair enough, and we went 
 J_ along very steadily and pleasantly that after- 
 noon. I was undoubtedly getting my sea-legs, 
 which was well for me, as they were put to the 
 test unexpectedly. I happened to be standing near 
 Alister (we were tarring ropes), when some orders 
 rang out in Mr. Waters' voice, which I found had 
 reference to something to be done to some of the 
 sails. At last came the words " Away aloft ! " 
 which were responded to by a rush of several sailors, 
 who ran and leaped and caught ropes and began 
 climbing the rigging with a nimbleness and 
 dexterity which my own small powers in that line 
 enabled me to appreciate, as I gazed upwards 
 after them. The next order bore unexpected and 
 far from flattering references to me. 
 
 "Hi, there. Francis ! " 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir !" 
 
 "Take that gaping booby up with you. I hear 
 he's ' good at athletics.' " 
 
 The sailors who were rope-tarring sniggered 
 audibly, and Alister lifted his face with a look of 
 anxiety, that did as much as the sniggering to 
 stimulate me not to disgrace myself. 
 
 "Kick off your shoes, and come along," said 
 Francis. "Jump on the bulwarks and then fol- 
 low me. Look aloft that's up, ye know never 
 mind your feet, but keep tight hold of the ratlins 
 so, with your hands, and when you are up aloft, 
 don't let one hand go till you're sure of your hold 
 with the other." 
 
 Up we went, gripping the swaying ropes with 
 
 toes and fingers, till we reached the maintop, 
 where I was allowed to creep through the " Lub- 
 ber's Hole," and Francis swung himself neatly 
 
 over the outside edge of the top, and there he and 
 I stood for a few moments to rest. 
 
 I cannot say I derived much comfort from his 
 favourable comments on my first attempt. I was 
 painfully absorbed by realizing that to climb what 
 is steady, and to climb what is swaying with every 
 wave, are quite different things. Then, in spite of 
 warnings, I was fascinated by the desire to look 
 down ; and when I looked I felt more uncomfort- 
 able than ever ; the ship's deck was like a dancing 
 teatray far below ; my legs and arms began to feel 
 very light, and my head heavy, and I did not hear 
 what Francis was saying to me, so he pinched my 
 arm and then repeated it. 
 
 " Come along and if the other chaps put any 
 larks on you, keep your eyes open, and never lose 
 a grip by one hand somewhere. So long as you 
 hold on to some of the ship's ropes you're bound 
 to find your way back somehow." 
 
 " I'll try," I said. 
 
 Then through the confusion in my head I heard 
 a screaming whistle, and a voice from beneath, 
 and Francis pricked his ears, and then suddenly 
 swung himself back on to the ladder of ropes by 
 which we had climbed. 
 
 "Lucky for you, young shaver, " said he. "Come 
 alorg ! " 
 
 I desired no more definite explanation. Francis 
 was going down, and I willingly did the same, 
 but when my foot touched the deck I staggered 
 and fell. It was Mr. Johnson who picked me up 
 by the neck of my slops, saying, as he did so, 
 " Boatswain ! The Captain will give an extra 
 lot of grog to drink Mr. O'Moore's good health." 
 
 This announcement was received with a cheer, 
 and I heard the boatswain calling to " stow your 
 cleaning-tackle, my lads, and for'ards to the break 
 of the foc'sle. Them that has white ties and kid 
 gloves can wear 'em ; and them that's hout of 
 sech articles must come as they can. Pick up 
 that tar-pot, ye fool ! Now are ye all coming and 
 bringing your voices along with ye ? Hany gentle- 
 man as 'as 'ad the misfortin' to leave his music 
 behind, will oblige the ship's company with an 
 ex-tem-por." 
 
 " Long life to ye, bo'sun ; it's a neat hand at a 
 speech ye are, upon my conscience !" cried Dennis, 
 over my shoulder, and then his arm was around it, 
 shaking with laughter, as we were hurried along 
 by the eager crowd. 
 
 " He's a wag, that old fellow, too. Come 
 along, little Jack ! You're mighty shaky on your 
 feet, considering the festivities that we're bound 
 for. Step it out, my boy, or I'll have to carry 
 ye." 
 
 " Are you coming to the foc'sle ? " said I, being 
 well aware that this was equivalent to a drawing- 
 room visitor taking tea in the kitchen. "You 
 know it's where the common sailors, and Alister 
 and I have our meals ? " I added, for his private 
 ear. 
 
 "Thank ye for the hint. I know it's where I 
 hope to meet the men that offered their lives for 
 mine." 
 
 "That's true, Dennis, I know; but don't be 
 cross. They'll be awfully pleased to see you. " 
 
 " And not without reason, I can tell ye ! Didn't 
 I beard the lion in his den, the Captain in his 
 cabin, to beg for the grog ? And talking of beards, 
 
 of all the fiery , upon my soul he's not safe to 
 
 be near gunpowder. Jack, is he Scotch ? "
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 Si 
 
 " Jump on the bulwarks, and then follow me." P- 80. 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 "They're bad to blarney, and I did my best, I 
 can tell you, for my own sake as well as for the 
 men. I'm as shy with strangers as an owl by day- 
 light, and I'll never get a thank ye out of my 
 throat, unless we've the chance of a bit of socia- 
 bility. However, at last he called to that nice 
 fellow third mate, isn't he Jand. gave orders for 
 
 the rum. ' Two water grog, Mr. Johnson,' says 
 he. 'Ah, Captain,' I said, 'don't be throwing 
 cold water on the entertainment ; they got their 
 share of that last night. It's only the rum that's 
 required to complete us now.' But he's as deaf to 
 fun as he is to blarney. Is he good to you, little 
 stowaway?" 
 
 "Oh, very," said I. "And you should hear 
 G
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 what the men tell about other captains. They all 
 like this one." 
 
 " He has an air of uprightness about him ; and 
 so has that brother-in-adversity of yours, more 
 polish to him ! He must be a noble fellow, though. 
 I can't get over his volunteering, without the most 
 distant obligation to risk his life for me not even 
 a sailor. And yet he won't be friendly, do what 
 I will. As formal as you please that's pride, I 
 suppose he's Scotch too, isn't he ? Blarney's no 
 go with him. Faith, it's like trying to butter 
 short-bread with the thermometer at zero. By 
 Jove, there he is ahead of us. Alister, man ! Not 
 the ghost of a look will he give me. He's fine- 
 looking, too, if his hair wasn't so insanely dis- 
 tracted, and his brow ridged and furrowed deep 
 enough to plant potatoes in. What in the name 
 of fortune's he doing to his hands ?" 
 
 "He's -washing them with a lump of grease," 
 said I. "I saw Francis give it him. It's to get 
 the tar off." 
 
 " That indeed ? Alister ! Alister ! Have ye no 
 eyes in the back of ye ? Here's Jack and myself. " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," said Alister, stiffly. 
 
 "Oh, confound your .rzV-liness !" muttered Den- 
 nis, and added aloud, " Is that pomatum for your 
 hair?" 
 
 Alister laughed in spite of himself. 
 
 "More like hair-a^?, sir," said he, and rubbing 
 desperately at his fingers, he added, "I can't get 
 them decent." 
 
 "Ah, let them rest!" said Dennis. "It's 
 painting the lily to adorn them. On ye go ; and 
 mind ye keep near to us, and we'll make a land- 
 lubber's parliament in a corner to ourselves." 
 
 My first friend had thawed, and went cheerfully 
 ahead of us, as I was very glad to see. Dennis 
 saw it too, but only to relapse into mischief. He 
 held me back, as Alister strode in front, and 
 putting out his thumb and finger, so close to a tuft 
 of hay-coloured hair that stood cocked defiantly up 
 on the Scotchman's crown that I was in all the 
 agony he meant me to be for fear of detection ; he 
 chattered in my ear, "Jack, did ye ever study 
 physiognomy, or any of the science of externals ? 
 Look at this independent tuft. Isn't the whole 
 character of the man in it ? Could mortal man 
 force it down ? Could the fingers of woman coax 
 it? Would ye appeal toil with argument ? Would 
 hair's grease, bear's grease " 
 
 But his peroration was suddenly cut short by a 
 rush from behind, one man tumbling over another 
 on the road to the forecastle. Dennis himself was 
 thrown against Alister, and his hand came heavily 
 down on the stubborn lock of hair. 
 
 " It's these fellows, bad manners to them," he 
 explained ; but I think Alister suspected a joke at 
 
 his expense, and putting his arms suddenly behind 
 him, he seized Dennis by the legs and hoisted him 
 on to his back as if he had been a child. In this 
 fashion the hero of the occasion was carried to a 
 place of honour, and deposited (not too gently) 
 on the top of an inverted deck-tub, amid the cheers 
 and laughter of all concerned. 
 
 Round another tub a shallow oak one, tidily 
 hooped with copper which served as spittoon, a 
 solemn circle of smokers was already assembled. 
 They disturbed themselves to salute Dennis, and 
 to make room for others to join them, and then 
 the enlarged circle puffed and kept silence as be- 
 fore. I was watching the colour come and go on 
 the Irish boy's face, and he was making comical 
 signs to me to show his embarassment, when Mr. 
 Johnson shouted for the grog-tub to be sent aft, 
 and the boatswain summoned me to get it and 
 follow him. 
 
 The smokers were not more silent than we, as 
 the third mate slowly measured the rum half a 
 gill a head into the grog-tub. But when this 
 solemnity was over and he began to add the water, 
 a very spirited dialogue ensued ; Mr. Johnson (so 
 far as I could understand it) maintaining that 
 "two-water grog" was the rule of the ships on 
 their line, and the boatswain pleading that this 
 being a "special issue" was apart from general 
 rules, and that it would be more complimentary 
 to the "young gentleman" to have the grog a 
 little stronger. How it ended I do not know ; I 
 know I thought my "tot" very nasty, and not 
 improved by the reek of strong tobacco in the 
 midst of which we drank it, to Dennis O'Moore's 
 very good health. 
 
 When the boatswain and I got back to the fore- 
 castle, carrying the grog-tub, we found the com- 
 pany as we had left it, except that there was a 
 peculiarly bland expression on every man's face as 
 he listened to a song that the cook was singing. 
 It was a very lovelorn, lamentable, and lengthy 
 song, three qualities which alone would recom- 
 mend it to any audience of Jack Tars, as I have 
 since had many occasions to observe. The intense 
 dolefulness of the ditty was not diminished by the 
 fact that the cook had no musical ear, and having 
 started on a note that was no note in particular, 
 he flattened with every long-drawn lamentation 
 till the ballad became more of a groan than a 
 song. When the grog-tub was deposited, Dennis 
 beckoned to the boatswain, and we made our way 
 to his side. 
 
 " Your cook's a vocal genius, anyhow, bo'sun," 
 said he. "But don't ye think we'd do more 
 justice to our accomplishments, and keep in tune, 
 if we'd an accompaniment? Have ye such a thing 
 as a fiddle about ye ? "
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 The boatswain was delighted. Of course there 
 was a fiddle, and I was dispatched for it. I should 
 find it hanging on a hook at the end of the plate- 
 rack, and if the bow was not beside it it would be 
 upon the shelf, and there used to be a lump of 
 resin and a spare string or two in an empty divi- 
 sion of the spice-box. The whole kit had belonged 
 to a former cook, a very musical nigger, who had 
 died at sea, and bequeathed his violin to his ship. 
 Sambo had been well liked, and there were some 
 old hands would be well pleased to hear his fiddle 
 once more. 
 
 It took me some little time to find everything, 
 and when I got back to Dennis another song had 
 begun. A young sailor I did not know was sing- 
 ing it, and the less said about it the better, except 
 that it very nearly led to a row. It was by way of 
 being a comic song, but except for one line which 
 was rather witty as well as very nasty, there was 
 nothing humorous about it, unless that it was 
 funny that any one could have been indecent 
 enough to write it, and any one else unblushing 
 enough to sing it. I am ashamed to say I had 
 heard some compositions of a similar type at 
 Snuffy's, and it filled me with no particular amaze- 
 ment to hear a good deal of sniggering in the 
 circle round the spittoon, though I felt miserably 
 uncomfortable, and wondered what Mr. O'Moore 
 would think. I had forgotten Alister. 
 
 I was not likely soon to forget his face as I saw 
 it, the blood swelling his forehead, and the white 
 wrath round his lips, when he gripped me by the 
 shoulder, saying, in broader Scotch than usnal, 
 " Come awa' wi' ye, laddie! I'll no let ye stay. 
 Come awa' oot of this accurst hole. I wonder he 
 doesna think black burning shame of himsel' to 
 stand up before greyheided men and fill a callant's 
 ears with filth like yon." 
 
 Happily just indignation had choked Alister's 
 voice as well as his veins, and I don't think many 
 of the company heard this too accurate summary 
 of the situation. The boatswain did, but before 
 he could speak, Dennis O'Moore had sprang to 
 the ground between them, and laying the fiddle 
 over his shoulder played a wild sort of jig that 
 most effectually and unceremoniously drowned the 
 rest of the song, and diverted the attention of the 
 men. 
 
 " The fiddle's an old friend, so the bo'sun tells 
 me," he said, nodding towards the faces that 
 turned to him. 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir," 
 
 " Why, I'm blessed if it isn't Sambo's old 
 thing." 
 
 ' 'It's your honour knows how to bring the heart 
 out of it, anyhow," 
 
 "My eyes, Pat! You should ha' heerd it at 
 
 As the circle gossipped, Dennis tuned the fiddle, 
 king vehemently to the boatswain between whiles. 
 
 the dignity ball we went ashore for at Barbadoes. 
 Did you ever foot the floor with a black washer- 
 woman of eighteen stun, dressed out in muslin the 
 colour o' orange marmalade, and white kid shoes?" 
 ' I did not, the darlin' ! " 
 
 Astt 
 talki 
 
 " Bo'sun ! ye're not to say a word to the boy (sit 
 down, Alister, I tell ye!). I ask it as a favour. 
 He didn't mince matters, I'll allow, but it was 
 GOD'S truth, and no less that he spoke. Come, 
 bo'sun, who's a better judge of manners than your- 
 self? We'd had enough and to spare of that. 
 (Will ye keep quiet, ye cantankerous Scotchman ! 
 Who's harming ye now ? Jack, if ye move an inch, 
 I'll break this fiddle over your head.) Bo'sun ! 
 we're perishing for our grog, are ye aware?" 
 
 The diversion was successful. The boatswain, 
 with a few indignant mutterings, devoted himself 
 to doling out the tots of grog, and then proposed 
 Dennis O'Moore's health in a speech full of his 
 own style of humour, which raised loud applause ; 
 Dennis commenting freely on the text, and filling 
 up awkward pauses with flourishes on Sambo's 
 fiddle. The boatswain's final suggestion that the 
 ship's guest should return thanks by a song, instead 
 of a sentiment, was received with acclamations, 
 during which he sat down, after casting a mis- 
 chievous glance at Dennis, who was once more 
 blushing and fidgeting with shyness. 
 
 ' ' Ye've taken your revenge, bo'sun, " said he. 
 
 "Them that blames should do better, sir," re- 
 plied the boatswain, folding his arms. 
 
 "A song ! A song ! Mr. O'Moore !" shouted 
 the men. 
 
 " I only know a few old Irish songs," pleaded 
 Dennis. 
 
 "Ould Ireland for ever!" cried Pat Shaugh- 
 nessy. 
 
 ' ' Hear ! hear ! Encore, Pat ! " roared the men. 
 They were still laughing. Then one or two of 
 those nearest to us put up their hands to get si- 
 lence. Sambo's fiddle was singing (as only voices 
 and fiddles can sing) a melody to which the heads 
 and toes of the company soon began to nod and 
 beat 
 
 " La, le la la la, la la la, la le la, IS 
 La, le la la la, la la la, la-le la 14," 
 
 hummed the boatswain. "Lor' bless me, Mr. O' 
 Moore, I heard that afore you were born, though 
 I'm blessed if I know where. But it's a genteel 
 pretty thing ! " 
 
 " It's all about roses and nightingales ! " shouted 
 Dennis, with comical grimaces. 
 
 " Hear ! hear !" answered the oldest and hairiest- 
 looking of the sailors, and the echoes of his appro-
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 bation only died away to let the song begin. Then 
 the notes of Sambo's fiddle also dropped off, and I 
 heard Dennis O'Moore's beautiful voice for the first 
 time as he gave his head one desperate toss and 
 began : 
 
 " There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, 
 
 And the nightingale sings round it all the night long. 
 In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream 
 To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song." 
 
 One by one the pipes were rested on the smoker's 
 knees ; they wanted their mouths to hear with. I 
 don't think the assembled company can have looked 
 much like exiles from flowery haunts of the night- 
 ingale, but we all shook our heads, not only in 
 time but in sympathy, as the clear voice rose to a 
 more passionate strain : 
 
 " That bower and its music I never forget : 
 
 But oft when alone in the bloom of the year, 
 I think is the nightingale singing there yet ? 
 Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer ? " 
 
 I and the oldest and hairiest sailor were sighing 
 like furnaces as the melody recommenced with the 
 second verse : 
 
 " No, the roses soon withered that hung o'er the wave, 
 But some blossoms were gathered while freshly they shone, 
 
 And a dew was distilled from their flowers, that gave 
 All the fragrance of summer when summer was gone." 
 
 If making pot-pourri after my mother's old family 
 recipe had been the chief duty of able-bodied sea- 
 men, this could not have elicited more nods of ap- 
 probation. But we listened spell-bound and im- 
 moveable to the passion and pathos with which the 
 singer poured forth the conclusion of his song : 
 
 " Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies, 
 An essence that breathes of it many a year ; 
 
 Thus bright to my soul as 'twas then to my eyes 
 Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer." 
 
 And then (as somebody said) the noise we made 
 was enough to scare the seagulls off the tops of 
 the waves. 
 
 "You scored that time, Mr. O 'Moore, "said the 
 boatswain. ' ' You'd make your fortune in a music- 
 hall, sir." 
 
 " Thank ye, bo' sun. Glad I didn't give ye your 
 revenge, anyhow." 
 
 But the boatswain meant to strike nearer home. 
 A ship's favourite might have hesitated to sing after 
 Dennis, so Alister's feelings may be guessed on 
 hearing the following speech : 
 
 " Mr. O'Moore, and comrades all. I believe I 
 speak for all hands on this vessel, when I say that 
 we ain't likely to forget sech an agreeable addition 
 to a ship's company as the gentleman who has just 
 given us a taste of the nightingale's quality " (loud 
 cheers). "But we've been out-o'-way favoured as 
 I may say, this voyage. We musn't forget that 
 
 there's two other little strangers aboard " (roars of 
 laughter). " They 'olds their 'eads rather 'igh 
 p'raps, for stowaways" ("Hear! hear!"), "but 
 no doubt their talents bears 'em out "("Hear, 
 hear ! " from Dennis, which found a few friendly 
 echoes). " Anyway, as they've paid us a visit, 
 without waiting to ask if we was at 'ome to callers, 
 we may look to 'em to contribute to the general 
 entertainment. Alister Auchterlay will now favour 
 the company with a song." 
 
 The boatswain stood back and folded his arms, 
 and fixed his eyes on the sea-line, from which atti- 
 tude no appeals could move him. I was very sorry 
 for Alister, and so was Dennis, I am sure, for he 
 did his best to encourage him. 
 
 ' ' Sing ' GOD save the Queen, ' and I'll keep well 
 after ye with the fiddle," he suggested. But Alis- 
 ter shook his head. " I know one or two Scotch 
 tunes," Dennis added, and he began to sketch out 
 an air or two with his fingers on the strings. 
 
 Presently Alister stopped him. " Yon's the 
 'Land o' the Leal?"' 
 
 " It is," said Dennis. 
 
 " Play it a bit quicker, man, and I'll try ' Scots 
 wha hae.'" 
 
 Dennis quickened at once, and Alister stood 
 forward. He neither fidgeted nor complained of 
 feeling shy, but as my eyes (I was squatted cross- 
 legged on the deck) were at the level of his knees, 
 I could see them shaking, and pitied him none the 
 less, that I was doubtful as to what might not be 
 before me. Dennis had to make two or three false 
 starts before poor Alister could get a note out of his 
 throat, but when he had fairly broken the ice with 
 the word " Scots !" he faltered no more. 
 
 The boatswain was cheated a second time of his 
 malice. Alister could not sing in the least like 
 Dennis, but he had a strong manly voice, and it 
 had a ring that stirred one's blood, as he clenched 
 his hands, and rolled his Rs to the rugged appeal : 
 
 " Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled, 
 Scots, wham Bruce has Tften led ; 
 Welcome to your gory bed, 
 Or to victory ! " 
 
 Applause didn't seem to steady his legs in the 
 least, and he never moved his eyes from the sea, 
 and and his face only grew whiter by the time he 
 drove all the blood to my heart with 
 
 " Wha will be a traitor knave ? 
 Wha can fill a coward's grave ? 
 Wha sae base as be a slave? 
 Let him turn and flee ! " 
 
 " GOD forbid ! " cried Dennis impetuously. 
 " Sing that verse again, me boy, and give us a 
 chance to sing with ye ! " which we did accord- 
 ingly ; but as Alister and Dennis were rolling Rs
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 like the rattle of musketry on the word turn, Alis- 
 te-r did turn, and stopped suddenly short. The 
 Captain had come up unobserved. 
 
 "Go on ! " said he, waving us back to our 
 places. 
 
 By this time the solo had become a chorus. 
 Beautifully unconscious, for the most part, that the 
 song was by way of stirring Scot against Saxon, its 
 deeper patriotism had seized upon us all. English- 
 men, Scotchmen, and sons of Erin, we all shouted 
 at the top of our voices, Sambo's fiddle not being 
 silent. And I maintain that we all felt the senti- 
 ment with our whole hearts, though I doubt if any 
 but Alister and the Captain knew and sang the 
 precise words : 
 
 " Wha for Scotland's king and Jaw 
 Freedom's sword will strongly draw, 
 Freeman stand, or freeman fa'? 
 Let him on wi' me ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 " Tis strange but true ; for truth is always strange- 
 Stranger than fiction.*' 
 
 Byron. 
 " Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows." 
 
 Gray. 
 
 THE least agreeable part of our voyage came 
 near the end. It was when we were in the 
 fogs off the coast of Newfoundland. The work 
 that tired one to death was not sufficient to keep 
 one warm ; the cold mist seemed to soak through 
 one's flesh as well as one's slops, and to cling to 
 one's bones as it clung to the ship's gear. The 
 deck was slippery and cold, everything, except the 
 funnel, was sticky and cold, and the foghorn made 
 day and night hideous with noises like some un- 
 musical giant trying in vain to hit the note Fa. 
 The density of the fog varied. Sometimes we 
 could not see each other a few feet off, at others 
 we could see pretty well what we were about on 
 the vessel, but could see nothing beyond. 
 
 We went very slowly, and the fog lasted unusu- 
 ally long. It included a Sunday, which is a blessed 
 day to Jack at sea. No tarring, greasing, oiling, 
 painting, scraping or scrtibbingbutwhatis positively 
 necessary, and no yarn-spinning but that of telling 
 travellers' tales, which seamen aptly describe as 
 spinning yarns. I heard a great many that day 
 which recalled the schoolmaster's stories, and filled 
 my head and heart with indefinable longings and 
 impatience. More and more did it seem impos- 
 sible that one could live content in one little corner 
 of this interesting world when one has eyes to see 
 
 and ears to hear, and hands for work, and legs to 
 run away with. 
 
 Not that the tales that were told on this occa- 
 sion were of an encouraging nature, for they were all 
 about fogs and ice ; but they were very interesting. 
 One man had made this very voyage in a ship that 
 got out of her course as it might be where we 
 were then. She was too far to the north 'ard when 
 a fog came on, as it might be the very fog we were 
 in at that moment, and it lasted, lifting a bit and 
 and falling again worse than ever, just the very 
 same as it was a-doing now. Cold ? He believed 
 you this fog was cold, and you might believe him 
 that fog was cold, but the cold of both together 
 would not be a patch upon what it was when your 
 bones chattered in your skin and you heard the ' 
 ship's keel grinding, and said "Ice!" "He'd 
 seen some queer faces dead and living in his 
 time, but when that fog lifted and the sun shone 
 upon walls of green ice on both sides above our 
 head, and the Captain's face as cold and as green 
 as them with knowing all was up " 
 
 At this point the narrator was called away, and 
 somebody asked, 
 
 " Has any one heard him tell how it ended ? " 
 
 " I did," said Pat Shaughnessy, "and it spoih 
 me dinner that time." 
 
 " Go on, Pat ! What happened to them ? " 
 
 ' ' The lowest depths of misfortune. Sorra a soul 
 but himself and a boy escaped by climbing to a 
 ledge on the topmost peak of one of the icebergs 
 just in the nick of time to see the ship cracked like 
 a walnut between your fingers. And the worst 
 was to come, bad luck ! " 
 
 " What ? Go on, Paddy ! What did he and 
 the boy do ? " 
 
 " They just eat each other," faltered Pat. " But, 
 Heaven be praised ! a whaler fetched off the sur- 
 vivor. It was then that he got the bad fever though, 
 so maybe he dreamt the worst." 
 
 I felt great sympathy with Pat's evident dis- 
 relish for this tale, but the oldest and hairiest 
 sailor seemed hardly to regard it as worth calling 
 an adventure. If you wanted to see ice that was 
 ice, you should try the coast of Greenland, he said. 
 " Hartic Hexploration for choice, but seals or 
 blubber took you pretty far up. He remembered 
 the Christmas he lost them two. (And cocking one 
 leg over the other, he drew a worsted sock from 
 his foot, and displayed the fact that his great toe 
 and the one next to it were gone.) They lost more 
 than toes that time too. You might believe it 
 gave you a lonelyish kind of feel when there was 
 no more to be done for the ship but get as much , 
 firewood out of her timber as you could, and all 
 you had in the way of a home was huts on an ice- 
 floe, and a white fox, with a black tip to its tail,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 for a pet. It wouldn't have lasted long, except for 
 discipline," we young 'uns might take notice. 
 " Pleasure's all very well ashore, where a man may 
 go his own way a long time, and show his nasty 
 temper at home, and there's other folks about him 
 doing double duty to make up for it and keep 
 things together ; but when you come to a handful 
 of men cast adrift to make a world for themselves, 
 as one may say, Lord bless you ! there's nothing's 
 any good then but making every man do as he's 
 bid and be content with what he gets and clear- 
 ing him out if he won't. It was a hard winter at 
 that. But regularity pulled us through. Reg'lar 
 work, reg'lar ways, reg'lar rations and reg'lar lime- 
 juice, as long as it lasted. And not half a bad 
 Christmas we didn't have neither, and poor Sal's 
 Christmas-tree, was the best part of it. ' What 
 sort of a Christmas-tree, and why Sal's ? ' Well, 
 the carpenter put it up, and an uncommon neat 
 thing he made too, of pinewood and birch-broom, 
 and some of the men hung it over with paper 
 chains. And then the carpenter opened the bundle 
 Sal made him take his oath he wouldn't open till 
 Christmas, whatever came, and I'm blest if there 
 wasn't a pair of brand-new socks for every soul of 
 the ship's crew. Not that we were so badly off 
 for socks, but washing 'em reg'lar, and never 
 being able able to gef 'em really dry, and putting 
 'em on again like stones, was a mighty different 
 thing to getting all our feet into something dry 
 and warm. 'Who was Sal?' Well, poor Sal 
 was a rum 'un, but she's dead. It's a queer thing, 
 we only lost one hand, and that was the carpenter, 
 and he died the same day poor Sal was murdered 
 down Bermondsey way. It's a queer world, this, 
 no matter where you're cruising ! But there's one 
 thing you'll leam if you live as long as me ; a 
 woman's heart and the ocean deep's much about 
 the same. You can't reckon on 'em, and GOD 
 A'mighty as made 'em, alone knows the depths of 
 'em ; but as our doctor used to say (and he was 
 always fetching things out and putting 'em into bot- 
 tles), it's the rough weather brings the best of it up. " 
 This was not a cheerful story, but it was soon 
 driven out of our heads by others. Fog was the 
 prevailing topic ; yarns of the fogs of the northern 
 seas being varied by "red fogs" off the Cape de 
 Verd Islands ; and not the least dismal of the nar- 
 ratives was told by Alister Auchterlay, of a fog on 
 Ben Nevis, in which his own grandmother's uncle 
 perished, chiefly, as it appeared, in consequence 
 of a constitutional objection to taking advice, or 
 to "going back upon his word," when he had 
 made up his mind to do something or to go some- 
 where. And this drew from the boatswain the 
 sad fate of a comrade of his, who had sailed twice 
 round the world, been shipwrecked four times, in 
 
 three collisions, and twice aboard ships that took 
 fire, had Yellow Jack in the West Indies, and 
 sunstroke at the Cape, lost a middle finger from 
 frost-bite in the north of China, and one eye in a 
 bit of a row at San Francisco, and came safe home 
 after it all, and married a snug widow in a pork- 
 shop at Wapping Old Stairs, and got out of his 
 course steering home through a London fog on 
 Guy Fawkes Day, and walked straight into the 
 river, and was found at low tide next morning 
 with a quid of tobacco in his cheek, and nothing 
 missing about him but his glass eye, which shows, 
 as the boatswain said, that " Fogs is fogs any- 
 where, and a nasty thing too." 
 
 It was towards dark when we had been four- 
 teen days at sea, that our own fog suddenly lifted, 
 and the good news flew from mouth to mouth that 
 we might be "in about midnight." But the fog 
 came down again, and I do not think that the 
 whole fourteen days put together felt so long as 
 the hours of that one night through which the fog- 
 horn blew, and we longed for day. 
 
 I was leaning against the bulwarks at eight 
 o'clock the next morning. White mist was all 
 around us, a sea with no horizon. Suddenly, like 
 the curtain of a theatre, the mist rose. Gradually 
 the horizon-line appeared, then a line of low coast, 
 which, muddy-looking as it was, made one's heart 
 beat thick and fast. Then lines of dark wood ; 
 then the shore was dotted with grey huts ; then 
 the sun came out, the breeze was soft and mild, 
 and the air became strangely scented, and redo- 
 lent of pine forests. Nearer the coast took more 
 shape, though it was still low, rather bare and 
 dotted with brushwood and grey stones low down, 
 and always crowned with pines. Then habitations 
 began to sparkle along the shore. Red roofs, 
 cardboard-looking churches, little white wooden 
 houses, and stiffish trees mixed everywhere. And 
 the pine odour on the breeze was sweeter and 
 sweeter with every breath one drew. 
 
 Suddenly I found Alister's arm round my 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Isn't it glorious ? " I exclaimed. 
 
 "Aye, aye," he said, and then, as if afraid he 
 had not said enough, he added with an effort : 
 " The toun's built almost entirely of wood, I'm 
 told, with a population of close on 30,000 in- 
 habitants. 
 
 "What a fellow you are !" I groaned : "Alister, 
 aren't you glad we're safe here? Are you ever 
 pleased about anything ? " 
 
 He didn't speak, and I turned in his arm to look 
 up at his face. His eyes, which always remind 
 me of the sea, were looking away over it, but he 
 brought them back to meet mine, and pressed my 
 shoulder.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 "It is bonnie," he said, "verra bonnie. But 
 eh, man ! If strange land shines like yon, hoo'll 
 oor ain shores look whenever we win Home ? " 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 " One, two, three, and away ! " 
 
 WE three were fast friends when our voyage 
 ended, and in planning our future we 
 planned to stick together, "Like the three leaves 
 of the shamrock," as Dennis O'Moore said. 
 
 The Captain would have kept Alister as one of 
 his crew, but the Scotch lad had definite plans for 
 looking up a cousin on this side of the Atlantic, 
 and pushing his fortunes by the help of his rela- 
 tive, so he did not care to make the return voyage. 
 The Captain did not offer the berth to me, but he 
 was very kind, and returned my money, and gave 
 us a written paper testifying to our good conduct 
 and capabilities. He also gave Alister his address, 
 and he and the other officers collected a small sum 
 of money for him as a parting gift. 
 
 That afternoon we three crossed the harbour, 
 and went for a walk in the pinewoods. How I 
 longed for Charlie ! I would have given anything 
 if he could have been there, warmed through by 
 the hot sun, refreshed by the smell of pines, rest- 
 ing his poor back in the deep moss, and getting 
 excited over the strange flowers that grew wild 
 all round our feet. One never forgets the first 
 time one sees unknown flowers growing wild ; and 
 though we were not botanical, like Charlie, we 
 had made ourselves very hot with gathering nose- 
 gays by the time that Dennis summoned us to sit 
 down and talk seriously over our affairs. Our 
 place of council was by the side of a lake, which 
 reflected a sky more blue than I had ever seen. It 
 stretched out of sight, and all about it were pines 
 pines. It was very lovely, and very hot, and 
 very sweet, and the little black flies which swarmed 
 about took tiny bits out of our cheek, and left the 
 blood trickling down, so cleverly, that one did 
 not feel it till afterwards. We did feel the mos- 
 quitos, and fought with them as well as we could, 
 whilst Dennis O'Moore, defending his own face 
 with a big bunch of jack-in-pulpits striped like 
 tabby cats, explained his plans as follows : 
 
 Of course we had no notion of going home 
 awhile. Alister and I had come away on purpose ; 
 and for his own part it had always been the long- 
 ing of his soul to see the world. Times out of 
 mind when he and Barney were on board one of 
 these emigrant ships, that had put into the bay, 
 GOD-speeding an old tenant or acquaintance with 
 
 87 
 
 good wishes and whiskey and what not, he had 
 been more than half inclined to give old Barney 
 and the hooker the slip, and take his luck with the 
 outward bound. And now he was here, and no 
 blame for it, why would he hurry home? The 
 race of the O'Moore's was not likely to become 
 extinct for the loss of him, at the worst ; and the 
 Squire wouldn't grudge him a few months' diver- 
 sion and a peep at the wide world. Far from it ; 
 he'd send him some money, and why not ? He 
 (Dennis) was a bit of a favourite for his mother's 
 sake, and the Squire had a fine heart. The real 
 difficulty was that it would be at least a month 
 before the Squire could get a letter and Dennis 
 could get his money ; but if we couldn't keep our 
 heads above water for a month we'd small chance 
 of pushing our way in the world. 
 
 It is needless to say that I was willing to fall 
 in with Dennis O'Moore's plans, being only too 
 thankful for such companions in my wanderings. I 
 said so, and added that what little money I had 
 was to be regarded as a common purse so long as 
 it lasted. 
 
 When Alister was appealed to, he cast in his lot 
 with no less willingness, but it seemed that he 
 must first look up a relation of his mother's, who 
 lived in Halifax, and to whom his mother had 
 given him a letter of introduction. Alister had 
 never told us his history, and of course we had 
 not asked for it ; but on this occasion some of it 
 crept out. His father had been the minister of a 
 country parish in Scotland, but he had died young, 
 and Alister had been reared in poverty. Dennis 
 and I gathered that he had well-to-do relatives on 
 his father's side, but, as Dennis said, " more kin- 
 ship than kindness about them." "Though I 
 wouldn't wonder if the widow herself had a touch 
 of stiff-neckedness in her," he added. 
 
 However that might be, Alister held with his 
 mother, of course, and he said little enough about 
 his paternal relations, except one, whom he des- 
 cribed as "a guid man, and verra canny, but 
 hard on the failings of the young. " What youth- 
 ful failings in our comrade had helped to snap the 
 ties of home, we did not know, but we knew 
 enough of Alister by this time to feel sure they 
 could not have been very unpardonable, 
 
 It was not difficult to see that it was under the 
 sting of this man's reproaches that the lad had 
 taken his fate into his own hands. 
 
 " I'm not blaming him," said Alister in impar- 
 tial tones ; and then he added, with a flash of his 
 eyes, but " I'll no be indebted to him ! " 
 
 We had returned to the town, and were strolling 
 up the shady side of one of the clean wooden 
 streets, when a strange figure came down it with 
 a swinging gait, at a leisurely pace. She (for.
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 after a moment's hesitation, we decided that it was 
 a woman) was of gipsy colouring, but not of gipsy 
 beauty. Her black hair was in a loose knot on 
 her back, she wore a curious skull cap of black 
 cloth embroidered with beads, a short cloth skirt, 
 a pair of old trousers tucked into leather socks, a 
 small blanket with striped ends folded cunningly 
 over her shoulders, and on her breast a gold cross 
 about twice as large as the one concealed beneath 
 the Irish boy's shirt. And I looked at her with a 
 curious feeling that my dreams were coming true. 
 Dark high-cheeked a blanket and (unless the 
 eyes with which I gazed almost reverentially at 
 the dirty leather socks deceived me) moccassins 
 she was, she must be, a squaw! 
 
 Probably Dennis had come to the same conclu- 
 sion, when, waving the tabby-coloured arums, he 
 said, "I'll ask her what these are," and gaily 
 advanced to carry out his purpose. 
 
 " Ye're daft," said Alister, getting red. 
 
 " It's a North American Indian ! " said I. 
 
 " It's a woman, anyhow !" retorted Dennis over 
 his shoulder, with a twinkle of his eyelashes that 
 drew from Alister in his broadest accent, "The 
 lad's a pairrfect libberrteen! " an expression which 
 he afterwards retracted and apologized for at con- 
 siderable length. 
 
 Within a few feet of the squaw Dennis lifted the 
 broad-brimmed hat which I had bought for him 
 directly we landed, and then advancing with a 
 winning smile, he asked the name of the flowers in 
 very good Irish. The squaw smiled too ; she 
 touched the flowers, and nodded and said some- 
 thing in a soft, rapid and unknown tongue, which 
 only made Dennis shake his head and smile again, 
 on which she spoke in a language still dark to 
 Alister and me, but not so to Dennis, who, to our 
 amazement, replied in the same, and a dialogue 
 so spirited ensued, that they both seemed to be 
 talking at once. Alister's face was a study when 
 Dennis put out his hand towards the squaw's gold 
 cross, and all but touched it, and then (both chat- 
 tering faster than ever) unbuttoned his throat and 
 drew out his crucifix to show her. His last act 
 was to give her half the tabby-striped arums as 
 they parted. Then he lifted the broad hat once 
 more and stood bareheaded, as the squaw came 
 slowly down the wooden causeway, not without 
 one glance at us as she passed. "But at the bottom 
 of the street she turned round to look at Dennis. 
 His hat was still in his hand, and he swung it 
 round his head, crying, " A Dieu, Madame ! " 
 
 "A Dieu ! " said the squaw, and she held up 
 the tabby-striped arums. Very mingled feelings 
 seemed to have been working in Alister's mind, 
 but his respect for the fruits of education was 
 stronger even than his sense of propriety. He 
 
 forgot to scold Dennis for his unseemly familiarity 
 with a stranger, he was so anxious to know in 
 what language he had been speaking, 
 
 "French," said Dennis. "There seems to be 
 a French mission somewhere near here. She's a 
 good Catholic too, but she has a mighty queer 
 accent, and awful feet ! " 
 
 "It's a grand thing to speak with other tongues !" 
 said Alister. 
 
 "If ye want to learn French, I'll teach ye all I 
 can," said Dennis. " Sh sh ! No kindness 
 whatever. I wish we mayn't have idle time for 
 any amount of philology ! '' 
 
 At the top of the hill we parted for a time, and 
 went our ways. Alister to look up his relation, I 
 to buy stationery and stamps for our letters home, 
 and Dennis to convert his gold ring into the cur- 
 rency of the colony. We would not let him pawn 
 his watch, which he was most anxious to do, 
 though Alister and I pointed out how invaluable 
 it might prove to us (it was a good hunting-watch, 
 and had been little damaged by the sea), because, 
 as he said, "he would feel as if he was doing 
 something, anyhow. " 
 
 Alister and I were the last to part, and as we 
 did so, having been talking about Dennis O'Moore, 
 I said, " I knew it was French when I got nearer, 
 but I never learnt French, though my mother 
 began to teach me once. You don't really think 
 you'll learn it from him, do you ? " 
 
 "With perseverance," replied Alister, simply. 
 
 " What good will French be to you ? " I asked. 
 
 " Knowledge is a light burden, and it may carry 
 ye yet, " was Alister's reply. 
 
 When we met again, Dennis was jingling some 
 money in his pocket, which was added to the 
 common fund of which the miser's legacy had 
 formed the base. I had got paper and stamps, 
 and information as to mails, and some more in- 
 formation which was postponed till we found out 
 what was amiss with the Scotch leaf of our Sham- 
 rock. For there were deep furrows on Alister's 
 brow, but far deeper was the despondency of his 
 soul. He was in the lowest possible spirits, and 
 with a Scotchman that is low indeed. He had 
 made out his way to his cousin's place of business, 
 and had heard a very satisfactory report of the 
 commercial success, but the cousin had gone " to 
 the States." 
 
 Alister felt himself very much ill-used by fate, 
 and I believe Dennis felt himself very much ill- 
 used by Alister, that evening, but I maintain that 
 I alone was the person really to be pitied, because 
 I had to keep matters smooth between the two. 
 The gloom into which Alister relapsed, his pro- 
 phecies, prognostications, warnings, raven-like 
 croakings, parallel instances, general reflections
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 89 
 
 and personal applications, as well as his obstinate 
 notion that he would be " a burden and a curse " 
 to "the two of us," and that it would have been 
 small wonder had the sailors cast him forth into 
 the Atlantic, like the Prophet Jonah, as being 
 certain to draw ill-luck on his companions, were 
 trying enough ; but it was no joke that misfortune 
 had precisely the opposite effect upon Dennis. 
 If there was a bit of chaff left unchaffed in all Ire- 
 land, from Malin Head to Barley Cove, I believe 
 it came into Dennis's head on this inappropriate 
 occasion, and he forthwith discharged it at Alister's. 
 To put some natures into a desperate situation 
 seems like putting tartaric acid into soda and 
 water they sparkle up and froth. It certainly 
 was so with Dennis O'Moore ; and if Alister 
 could hardly have been more raven-like upon the 
 crack of doom, the levity of Dennis would, in our 
 present circumstances, have been discreditable to 
 a paroquet. 
 
 For it was no light matter to have lost our one 
 hope of a friend in this strange land ; and yet this 
 was practically what it meant, when we knew that 
 Alister Auchterlay's cousin had gone to the States. 
 But the idea of kinship at last suggested something 
 more sensible than jokes to Dennis O'Moore. 
 
 "Why, I've a cousin of my own in Demerara, 
 and I'd forgotten him entirely ! " he suddenly 
 announced. 
 
 " You haven't a cousin in New York, have 
 you?" I asked, and I proceeded to explain, that 
 having done my business, I had been drawn back 
 to the harbour by all the attractions shipping has 
 for me, and had there been accosted by the mate 
 of a coasting- vessel bound for New York with salt 
 fish, who was in want of hands both to load and 
 man her. The " Water-Lily " had been pointed 
 out to me from a distance, and we might go and 
 see her to-morrow morning if we liked. With the 
 prospect of living for at least a month on our 
 slender stocking, the idea of immediate employ- 
 ment was very welcome, to say nothing of the 
 attraction of further adventures. Alister began to 
 cheer up, and Dennis to sober down. We wrote 
 home, and posted our letters, after which we 
 secured a decent sleeping-room and a good meal 
 of broiled salmon, saffron-coloured cakes, and hot 
 coffee, for a very reasonable sum ; but, moderate 
 as it was, it confirmed us in the conviction that 
 we could not afford to eat the bread of idleness. 
 
 Next day we were early at the wharf. The 
 "Water-Lily" was by no means so white as she 
 was named, and the smell of the salt fish was 
 abominable. But we knew we could not pick and 
 choose when we wanted employment, and wanted 
 to be together; and to this latter point we had 
 nailed our colours. With Alister and me the mate 
 
 came to terms at once, but for a time he made 
 difficulties about Dennis. We " stowaways" had 
 had so much dirty work to do in all weathers for 
 the past fortnight, that we looked sailor-like 
 enough, I dare say ; and as it had honestly been 
 our endeavour to learn all we could, and shirk 
 nothing, and as the Captain's paper spoke well of 
 us, I think the mate got a very good bargain for 
 we were green enough to take lower wages than 
 the customary rate on the strength of a long string 
 of special reasons which he made us swallow. 
 This probably helped towards his giving in about 
 Dennis. The matter about Dennis was that he 
 looked too much of the fine gentleman still, though 
 his homespun suit had seen salt water, and was 
 far from innocent of tar and grease, for he had 
 turned his hand to plenty of rough work during 
 the voyage, partly out of good-nature, and partly 
 to learn all he could get the sailors to teach him. 
 However, his coaxing tongue clinched the bargain 
 at last ; indeed the mate seemed a good deal struck 
 by the idea that he would find it ' ' mighty conve- 
 nient " to have a man on board who was a good 
 scholar and could help him to keep the log. So 
 we signed articles, and went to our duty. 
 
 The " Water-Lily " was loaded, and we sailed 
 in her, and we got to New York. But of all the 
 ill-found tubs that ever put to sea, I should think 
 she might have taken the first prize. We were 
 overhauling her rotten rigging, taking off, putting 
 on, and mending chafing gear every bit of our 
 time, Sunday included. The carpenter used hor- 
 rible language, but for his vexation I could have 
 forgiven him if he had expressed it more decently, 
 for he never had a moment's rest by day ; and 
 though a ship's carpenter is exempt from watches 
 and allowed to sleep at night as a rule, I doubt if 
 he had two nights' rest between Halifax and New 
 York. 
 
 As Dennis put it, there was "any amount of 
 chicanery about the whole affair." Some of our 
 pay was "set against" supplying "duds" for 
 Dennis to do dirty work in ; Alister was employed 
 as sailmaker, and then, like the carpenter, was 
 cheated of his rest. As to food, we were nearly 
 starved, and should have fared even worse than 
 we did, but that the black cook was friendly to- 
 wards us. 
 
 " Dis ' Water-Lily' ob ours a leetle ober-blown, 
 Dennis, I'm linking," said Alfonso, showing all 
 his white teeth. " Hope she not fall to pieces dis 
 voyage." 
 
 " Hope not, Alfonso. She hasn't lost her scent, 
 anyhow!" At which allusion to our unsavoury 
 cargo Alfonso yelled with laughter. 
 
 For our favour with the cook (and it means hot 
 coffee, dry socks, and other little comforts being in
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 favour with the cook) we had chiefly to thank 
 Dennis. Our coal-black comrade loved jokes 
 much, but his own dignity just a little more ; and 
 the instinctive courtesy which was as natural to 
 Dennis as the flow of his fun, made him particu- 
 larly acceptable to Alfonso. 
 
 And for the rest, we came to feel that if we could 
 keep the " Water-Lily " afloat to the end of her 
 voyage, most other considerations were minor ones. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 " May it please GOD not to make our friends so happy as 
 to forget us ! " Old Proverb. 
 
 THE "Water- Lily" was re-christened by Den- 
 nis, with many flourishes of speech and a deck- 
 tubof salt water long before we reached our journey's 
 end. The "Slut," as we now privately called her, 
 defied all our efforts to make her look creditable 
 for New York Harbour, but we were glad enough 
 to get her there at all. 
 
 We made the lights of Barnegat at about six 
 o'clock one fine morning, took a pilot on board at 
 Sandy. Hook, and the " Slut" being by this time 
 as ship-shape as we could get her, we cleaned our- 
 selves to somewhat better purpose, put on our 
 shore-togs, and were at leisure to enjoy one of the 
 most charming sensations in the world, that of 
 making one's way into a beautiful harbour on a 
 beautiful morning. The fresh breeze that favoured 
 us, the sunshine that helped by the enchantment 
 of distance made warehouses look like public 
 buildings, and stone houses like marble palaces, a 
 softening hue of morning mist still clinging about 
 the heights of Brooklyn and over the distant stretch 
 of the Hudson River Islands, the sparkling waves 
 and dancing craft in the bay, and all the dear fa- 
 miliar maze of spars and rigging in the docks ; it 
 is wonderful how such sights, and the knowledge 
 that you are close to the haven where you would 
 be, charm away the sore memories of the voyage 
 past, and incline you to feel that it hasn't been such 
 a bad cruise after all. 
 
 "Poor ole 'Water-Lily!'" sighed Alfonso, 
 under the influence of this feeling, "you and me's 
 called her a heap o' bad names, Dennis ; I 'spects 
 we has to have our grumbles, Dennis. Dat's 'bout 
 whar 't is." 
 
 " She's weathered the storm and got into port, 
 anyhow," said Dennis, "and I suppose you think 
 the best can do no more. Eh?" 
 
 "Jes so, Dennis." 
 
 Alfonso was not far wrong on the subject of 
 grumbling. It is one of a sailor's few luxuries 
 
 and privileges, and acts as safety-valve for heats 
 of just and unjust indignation, which might other- 
 wise come to dangerous explosion. We three had 
 really learned no mean amount of rough-and-ready 
 seamanship by this time, and we had certainly 
 practised the art of grumbling as well. That "of 
 all the dirty ill-found tubs," the "Slut" was the 
 worst we had ever known, our limited experience 
 had made us safe in declaring, and we had also 
 been voluble about the undue length of time 
 during which we had been "humbugging about" 
 between Halifax and New York. But these by- 
 gones we now willingly allowed to be bygones, 
 especially as we had had duff-pudding the day 
 before, though it was not Sunday (Oh, Cray- 
 shaw's ! that I should have lived to find duff- 
 pudding a treat but it is a pleasant change from 
 salt meat), and as the captain had promised 
 some repairs to the ship before we returned to 
 Halifax. 
 
 We were not long in discovering that the pro- 
 mise was a safe one, for he did not mean to return 
 to Halifax at all. Gradually it leaked out, that 
 when the salt-fish was disposed of, we were not 
 going to take in ballast and go back, as we had 
 thought, but to stow away a "general cargo" of 
 cheap manufactured articles (chiefly hardware, toys, 
 trumpery pictures, and looking-glasses) and pro- 
 ceed with them on a trading voyage "down 
 south." "West Indies," said the carpenter. 
 "Bermuda for jcertain, " was another opinion; but 
 Alfonso smiled and said "Demerara." 
 
 "Cap'n berry poor sailor, but berry good trader," 
 he informed us in confidence. " Sell 'm stinking 
 fish and buy gimcracks cheap ; sell gimcracks 
 dear to Portugee store in Georgetown, take in 
 sugar berry good sugar, Demerara sugar and 
 come back to New York." 
 
 Alfonso had made the voyage before on these 
 principles, and was all the more willing to believe 
 that this was to be the programme, because he 
 was at such uncertain intervals as his fate or- 
 dained courting a young lady of colour in George- 
 town, Demerara. I don't think Dennis O'Moore 
 could help sympathising with people, and as a 
 result of this good-natured weakness, he heard a 
 great deal about that young lady of colour, and 
 her genteel clothes, and how she played the piano, 
 and belonged to the Baptist congregation. 
 
 "I've a cousin myself in Demerara, Alfonso," 
 said Dennis. 
 
 " Hope she'm kind to you, Dennis. Hope you 
 can trust her, 'specially if the members walks 
 home with her after meeting." And Alfonso 
 sighed. 
 
 But jokes were far too precious on board the 
 " Slut " for Dennis to spoil this one by explaining
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 that his cousin was a middle-aged gentleman in 
 partnership with the owner of a sugar estate. 
 
 As we had sailed on the understanding that the 
 "Water- Lily" was bound to New York and back 
 again to Halifax, of course we made a fuss and 
 protested at the change. But we had not really 
 much practical choice in the matter, whatever our 
 strict rights were, and on the whole we found it 
 would be to our advantage to go through with it, 
 especially as we did secure a better understanding 
 about our wages, and the captain promised us 
 more rest on Sundays. On one point we still felt 
 anxious our home letters ; so Dennis wrote to 
 the postmaster at Halifax, and arranged for them 
 to be forwarded to us at the post-office, George- 
 town, Demerara. For Alfonso was right, we 
 were bound for British Guiana, it being however 
 understood that we three were not under obliga- 
 tion to make the return voyage in the "Water- 
 Lily." 
 
 An odd incident occurred during our brief stay 
 in New York. It was after the interview in which 
 we came to terms with the captain, and he had 
 given us leave for three hours ashore. You can't 
 see very much of a city when you have no money 
 to spend in it ; but we had walked about till we 
 were very hungry, and yet more thirsty, for it was 
 hot, when we all three caught sight of a small 
 shop (or store, as Americans would call it), and 
 we all spoke at once. 
 
 " Cooling drinks ! " exclaimed Dennis. 
 
 "There's cakes yonder," said Alister. 
 
 "Michael Macartney," muttered I, for that was 
 the name over the door. 
 
 We went in as a customer came out, followed 
 by Michael Macartney's parting words in a rich 
 brogue that might have been old Biddy's own. I 
 took a good look at him, which he returned with 
 a civil comment on the heat, and an inquiry as to 
 what I would take, which Dennis, in the thirsti- 
 ness of his throat, answered for me, leaving me a 
 few moments more of observation. I made a 
 mental calculation, and decided that the man's 
 age would fit Mickey, and in the indescribableness 
 of the colour of his clothes and his complexion he 
 was undoubtedly like Biddy, but if they had been 
 born in different worlds the expression of his eyes 
 could not have been more different. I had the 
 clearest remembrance of hers. One does not so 
 often look into the eyes of a stranger and see 
 genuine feeling that one should forget it. For the 
 rest of him, I was glad that Biddy had allowed 
 that there was no similarity "betwixt us." He 
 had a low forehead, a broad nose, a very wide 
 mouth, full of very large teeth, and the humourous 
 twinkle in his eye did not atone for the complete 
 absence of that steady light of honest tenderness 
 
 which shone from Biddy's as freely and fearlessly 
 as the sun shines. He served Dennis and Alister 
 and turned to me. 
 
 " Have you a mother in Liverpool? " I asked, 
 
 had 
 wanted. 
 
 , 
 before he had time to ask me which " pop " I 
 
 As I have said, his mouth was big, but I was 
 almost aghast at the size to which it opened, be- 
 fore he was able to say, ' ' Murther and ages ! Was 
 ye there lately ? Did ye know her ? " 
 
 "Yes; I know her." 
 
 " And why would ye be standing there with the 
 cold pop, when there's something better within? 
 Come in, me boy. So you're acquainted with my 
 mother ? And how was she ? " 
 
 "No, thank you, I don't drink spirits. Yes; 
 your mother was well when I saw her." 
 
 "GOD be praised! It's a mighty long time 
 since I seen the ould craythur." 
 
 "Fifteen years," said I. 
 
 I looked at Mr. Macartney as I said it, but he 
 had evasive eyes, and they wandered to the door- 
 way. No customers appeared, however, and he 
 looked back to Dennis and Alister, but they had 
 both folded their arms, and were watching us in 
 silence. 
 
 ' ' Murther and ages ! " he repeated, " it doesn't 
 fed the half of it." 
 
 " I fancy it seems longer, if anything, to her. 
 But she has been on the look-out for you every 
 day, you see. You've a good business, Mr. 
 Macartney, so I dare say you're a ready reckoner. 
 Fifteen times three hundred and sixty-five ? Five 
 thousand four hundred and seventy-five, isn't it ? " 
 
 " It's a fine scholar for a sailor-boy that ye 
 are ! " said Mickey ; and there was a touch of 
 mischief in his eye and voice which showed that 
 he was losing his temper. I suppose Dennis heard 
 it, too, for he took one bound to my side in a way 
 that almost made me laugh to feel how ready he 
 was for a row. But I knew that, after all, I had 
 no right over the man's private affairs, warm as 
 was my zeal for old Biddy. 
 
 " And you think I might mind my business and 
 leave you to yours, Mr. Macartney ? " I said. 
 "But you see your mother was very kind to me, 
 very kind indeed ; and when I left Liverpool I 
 promised her if ever I came across you, you should 
 hear of her, and she should hear of you." 
 
 "And why not?" he answered in mollified 
 tones. "It's mighty good-natured in ye, too. 
 But come in, all the three of ye, and have some- 
 thin' to eat and to drink for the sake of the old 
 country." 
 
 We followed him into a back parlour, where 
 there were several wooden rocking-chairs, and a 
 strong smell of stale tobacco. Here he busied
 
 9 2 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 himself in producing cold meat, a squash pie, and 
 a bottle of whiskey, and was as voluble as civil 
 about every subject except the one I wished to 
 talk of. But the memory of his mother was strong 
 upon me, and I had no intention of letting it 
 slide. 
 
 " I'm so glad to have found you," I said. " I 
 am sure you can't have known what a trouble it 
 has been to your mother never to have heard from 
 you all these years." 
 
 "Arrah! And why should she bother herself 
 over me?" he answered impatiently. "Sure I 
 never was anything but a trouble to her, worse 
 luck ! " And before I could speak again, he went 
 on, " But make your mind aisy, I'll be writing 
 to her. Many's the time that I've all but indited 
 the letter, but I'll do it now. Upon me conscience, 
 ye may dipind upon me." 
 
 Could I depend upon his shambling conscience? 
 Every instinct of an honest man about me answered, 
 No. As he had done for fifteen years past, so he 
 would do for fifeen years to come. As long as he 
 was comfortable himself, his mother would never 
 get a line out of him. Perhaps his voice recalled 
 hers, but I almost fancied I could hear her as I 
 sat there. "I ax your pardon, darlin'. It was 
 my own Mickey that was on my mind." 
 
 "Look here, Mr. Macartney," said I; "I want 
 you to do me a favour. I owe your mother a 
 good turn, and it'll ease my mind to repay it. Sit 
 down whilst we're enjoying your hospitality, and 
 just write her a line, and let me have the pleasure 
 of finding a stamp and putting it in the post with 
 my own hands." 
 
 We argued the point for some time, but Mickey 
 found the writing materials at last, and sat down 
 to write. As he proceeded he seemed to become 
 more reconciled to the task ; though he was ob- 
 viously no great scribe, and followed the senti- 
 ments he was expressing with curious contortions 
 of his countenance which it was most funny to 
 behold. By-and-by I was glad to see a tear or 
 two drop on to the paper, though I was sorry that 
 he wiped them up with his third finger, and wrote 
 over the place before it had time to dry. 
 
 "Murther and ages ! But it's mighty pleased 
 that she'll be," said Mr. Macartney when he had 
 finished. He looked mighty pleased with him- 
 self, and he held the letter out to me. 
 
 " Do you mean me to read it?" I asked. 
 
 " I did. And ye can let your friends hear too." 
 
 I read it aloud, wondering as I read. If pen 
 and ink spoke the truth, Biddy's own Mickey's 
 heart was broke entirely with the parting from his 
 mother. Sorra a bit of taste had there been in his 
 food, or a drop of natural rest had he enjoyed for 
 the last fifteen years. ' ' Five thousand four hundred 
 
 and seventy-five days no less." (When I reached 
 this skilful adoption of my calculations, I involun- 
 tarily looked up. There sat Mr. Macartney in his 
 rocking-chair. He was just lighting a short pipe, 
 but he paused in the operation to acknowledge 
 what he evidently believed to be my look of admi- 
 ration with a nod and a wink. I read on.) Times 
 were cruel bad out there for a poor boy that lived 
 by his industry, but thank GOD he'd been spared 
 the worst pangs of starvation (I glanced round the 
 pop-shop, but as Mickey himself would have said, 
 No matther !) ; and did'nt it lighten his heart to 
 hear of his dear mother sitting content and com- 
 fortable at her own coffee-stall. It was murder- 
 ously hot in these parts, and New York bad 
 luck to it was a mighty different place from the 
 dear old Ballywhack where he was born. Would 
 they ever sec old Ireland again? (Here a big 
 blot betrayed how much Mr. Macartney had 
 been moved by his own eloquence. ) The rest of 
 the letter was rich with phrases both of piety and 
 affection. How much of the whole composition 
 was conscious humbug, and whether any of it was 
 genuine feeling, I have as little idea now as I had 
 then. The shallows of the human heart are at 
 least as difficult to sound as its depths, and Mickey 
 Macartney's was quite beyond me. One thing 
 about the letter was true enough. As he said, it 
 would " plaze the ould craythur intirely." 
 
 By the time I had addressed it " Mrs. Biddy 
 Macartney, coffee-seller," to the care of the Dock- 
 gate-keeper, we had not much spare time left in 
 which to stamp and post it, so we took leave of 
 the owner of the pop-shop. He was now very 
 unwilling to let us go. He did not ask another 
 question about his mother, but he was consumed 
 with trivial curiosity about us. Once again he 
 alluded to Biddy. We were standing outside, and 
 his eye fell upon the row of shining pop-taps 
 
 "Wouldn't she be the proud woman now, av 
 she could see me ! " he cried. 
 
 ' ' Why don't you get her out to live with you ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 He shook his head. "I'm a married man, 
 
 Mr. bad luck to me, I've forgotten your name 
 
 now ? " 
 
 " I didn't trouble you with it. Well, I hope 
 you'll go and see her before she dies. " 
 
 But when I came to think of it, I did not feel 
 sure if that was what I wished. Not being a 
 woman, how could I balance the choice of pain ? 
 How could I tell if it were better for her to be 
 disappointed with every ship and every tide, still 
 having faith in her own Mickey, and hope of his 
 coming, or for the tide and the ship to bring him 
 with all his meanness upon the head she loved, a 
 huge disappointment, once for all !
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 93 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 "Roose the fair day at e'en." 
 
 Scotch Proverb. 
 
 AFTER leaving New York, we no longer 
 hugged the coast. We stood right off, and 
 to my great delight, I found we were going to put 
 in at Bermuda for repairs. I never knew, but I 
 always fancy that these were done cheaper there 
 than at New York. Or it may merely have been 
 because when we had been at sea two days the 
 wretched " Slut" leaked so that, though we were 
 pumping day and night, till we were nearly worn 
 out, we couldn't keep the wet from the gimcrack 
 cargo. 
 
 Fortunately for us the weather was absolutely 
 lovely, and though it was hot by day, we wore 
 uncommonly little clothing, and "carried our 
 change of air with us," as Dennis said. 
 
 As to the nights, I never can forget the ideal 
 beauty of the last three before we reached Ber- 
 muda. I had had no conception of what starlight 
 can be and what stars can look like. These 
 hanging lamps of the vast heavens seemed so 
 strangely different from the stars that " twinkle, 
 twinkle," as the nursery book has it, through our 
 misty skies at home. We were, in short, approach- 
 ing the tropics. Very beautiful were the strange 
 constellations of the midnight sky, the magic love- 
 liness of the moonlight, and the phosphoresence of 
 the warm waves, whilst the last exquisite touch of 
 delight was given by the balmy air. By day the 
 heat (especially as we had to work so hard in it) 
 made one's enjoyment less luxurious, but if my 
 love for the sea had known no touch of disap- 
 pointment on the cold swell of the northern At- 
 lantic, it would have needed very dire discomfort 
 to spoil the pleasure of living on these ever-varying 
 blue waters, flecked with white foam and foam- 
 like birds, through the clearness of which we now 
 and then got a peep of a peacock-green dolphin, 
 changing his colour with every leap and gambol, 
 as if he were himself a wave. 
 
 Of living things (and, for that matter, of ships) 
 we saw far less than I expected, though it was 
 more than a fortnight from the time of our leaving 
 Sandy Hook to the night we lay off to the east of 
 the Bermudas the warm lights from human 
 habitations tfwinkling among the islands, and the 
 cold light of the moon making the surf and coral 
 reefs doubly clear against the dark waters wait- 
 ing, but scarcely wishing, for the day. 
 
 As I have said, Alfonso was very black, and 
 Alfonso was very dignified. But his .blackness, 
 
 compared with the blackness of the pilot who 
 came off at St. George's Island, and piloted ns 
 through the Narrows, was as that of a kid -shoe to 
 a boot that has been polished by blacking. As to 
 dignity, no comparison can be made. The dignity 
 of that nigger pilot exceeded anything, regal, 
 municipal, or even parochial, that I have ever seen. 
 As he came up the ship's side, Dennis was looking 
 over it, and when the pilot stood on deck Dennis 
 fled abruptly, and Alister declares it took two 
 buckets of water to recover him from the fit of 
 hysterics in which he found him rolling in the 
 forecastle. 
 
 The pilot's costume bore even, more reference to 
 his dignity than to the weather. He wore a pea- 
 coat, a tall and very shiny black hat, white 
 trousers, and neither shoes nor socks. His feet 
 were like flat-irons turned the wrong way, and 
 his legs seemed to be slipped into the middle of 
 them, like the handles of two queer-shaped hoes. 
 His intense, magnificent importance, and the bom- 
 bastic way he swaggered about the deck, were so 
 perfectly absurd, that we three youngsters should 
 probably have never had any feeling towards him 
 but that of contempt, if it had not been that we 
 were now quite enough of seamen to appreciate 
 the skill with which he took us safely on our 
 dangerous and intricate passage into harbour. 
 How we ever got through the Narrows, how he 
 picked our way amongst the reefs and islands, was 
 a marvel. We came in so close to shore that I 
 thought we must strike every instant, and so we 
 should have done had there been any blundering 
 on his part. 
 
 We went very slowly that day, as became the 
 atmosphere and the scene, the dangers of our way, 
 and the dignity of our guide. 
 
 " It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," said 
 Dennis, as we hung over the side. "If it's for 
 repairs we've put into Paradise, long life to the 
 old tub and her rotten timbers ! I wouldn't have 
 missed this for a lady's berth in the West Indian 
 Mail, and my passage paid ! " 
 "Nor I." 
 "Nor I." 
 
 This was indeed worth having gone through a 
 good deal to see. The channel through which we 
 picked our way was marked out by little buoys, 
 half white and half black, and on either side the 
 coral was just a-wash. Close at hand the water 
 was emerald green or rosy purple, according to its 
 depth and the growths below ; half a mile away it 
 was deep blue against lines of dazzling surf and 
 coral sand ; and the reefs and rocks amongst 
 whose deadly edges our hideous pilot steered for 
 our lives, were like beds of flowers blooming under 
 water. Red, purple, yellow, orange, pale green,
 
 94 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 dark green, in patches quite milky, and in patches 
 a mass of all sorts of seaweed, a gay garden on a 
 white ground, shimmering through crystal ! And 
 down below the crabs crawled about, and the 
 fishes shot hither and thither ; and over the sur r 
 face of the water, from reef to reef and island to 
 island, the tern and sea-gulls skimmed and swooped 
 about. 
 
 We anchored that evening, and the pilot went 
 ashore. Lovely as the day had been, we were 
 (for some mysterious reason) more tired at 
 the end of it than on days when we had been 
 working three times as hard. This, with Dennis, 
 invariably led to mischief, and with Alister to in- 
 tolerance. The phase was quite familiar to me 
 now, and I knew it was coming on when they 
 would talk about the pilot. That the pilot was 
 admirably skilful in his trade, and that he was a 
 most comical-looking specimen of humanity, were 
 obvious facts. I quite agreed with both Alister 
 and Dennis, but that, unfortunately, did not make 
 them agree with each other. Not that Dennis 
 contradicted Alister (he pretended to be afraid to 
 do so), but he made comments that were highly ag- 
 gravating. He did not attempt to deny that it was 
 "a gran sight to see ony man do his wark weel," or 
 that the African negro shared with us " our com- 
 mon 'humanity and our immortal hopes," but he 
 introduced the quite irrelevant question of whether 
 it was not a loss to the Presbyterian Ministry that 
 Alister had gone to sea. He warmly allowed that 
 the pilot probably had his feelings, and added that 
 even he had his ; that the Hat tried them, but 
 that the Feet were "altogether too many for them 
 intirely." He received the information that the 
 pilot's feet were "as his Creator made them," in 
 respectful silence, and a few minutes afterwards 
 asked me if I was aware of the "curious fact in 
 physiology," that it took a surgical operation to 
 get a joke through a Scotchman's brain-pan. 
 
 I was feeling all-overish and rather cross myself 
 towards evening, and found Alister's cantankerous- 
 ness and Dennis O'Moore's chaff almost equally 
 tiresome. To make matters worse, I perceived 
 that Dennis was now so on edge, that to catch 
 sight of the black pilot made him really hysterical, 
 and the distracting thing was, that either because 
 I was done up, or because such folly is far more 
 contagious than any amount of wisdom, I began 
 to get quite as bad, and Alister's disgust only 
 made me worse. I unfeignedly dreaded the ap- 
 proach of that black hat and those triangular feet, 
 for they made me giggle in spite of myself, and I 
 knew a ship's rules far too well not to know how 
 fearful would be the result of any public exhibition 
 of disrespect. 
 
 However, we three were not always together, 
 
 and we had been apart a good bit when we met 
 (as ill-luck would have it) at the moment when 
 the pilot's boat was just alongside, ready for his 
 departure. 
 
 " What's the boat for ? " asked Alister, who had 
 been below. 
 
 "And who would it be for," replied Dennis, 
 "but the gentlemen in the black hat? Alister, 
 dear ! What's the reason I can't tread on a nig- 
 ger's heels without treading on your toes ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " cried I, in torment, "he's coming." 
 
 We stood at attention, but never can I forget 
 the agony of the next few minutes. That hat, that 
 face, those flat black feet, that strut, that smile. I 
 felt a sob of laughter beginning somewhere about 
 my waist-belt, and yet my heart ached with fear 
 for Dennis. Oh, if only His Magnificence would 
 move a little quicker, and let us have it over ! 
 
 There's a fish at Bermuda that is known as the 
 toad-fish (so Alfonso told me), and when you 
 tickle it it blows itself out after the manner of the 
 frog who tried to be as big as an ox. It becomes 
 as round as a football, and if you throw it on the 
 water it floats. If you touch it it sounds (accord- 
 ing to Alfonso) "all same as a banjo.'' It- will 
 live some time out of water ; and if it> shows any 
 signs of subsiding, another tickle will blow^it out 
 again. "Too muchee tickle him burst," said 
 Alfonso. I had heard this decidedly nasty story 
 just before the pilot's departure, and it was now 
 the culmination of all the foolish thoughts that 
 gibbered in my head. I couldn't help thinking of 
 it as I held my breath to suppress my laughter, 
 and quaked for the yet more volatile Dennis. Oh, 
 dear ! Why wouldn't that mass of absurdity walk 
 quicker ? His feet were big enough. Meanwhile 
 we stood like mutes eyes front ! To have looked 
 at each other would have been fatal. "Too 
 muchee tickle him burst." I hoped we looked 
 grave (I have little doubt now that we looked as 
 if we were having our photographs taken). The 
 sob had mounted from my waist to my throat. 
 My teeth were set, my eyes watered, but the pilot 
 was here now. In a moment he would be down 
 the side. With an excess of zeal I found strength 
 to raise my hand for a salute. 
 
 I fear it was this that pleased him, and made 
 him stop ; and we couldn't help looking at him. 
 His hat was a little set back for the heat, his 
 black triangular feet were in the third position of 
 dancing. He smiled. 
 
 There was an explosive sound to my right. I 
 knew what it meant. Dennis had "burst." 
 
 And then I never felt less like laughing in my 
 life. Visions of insubordination, disrespect, mu- 
 tiny, flogging, and black -hole, rushed through my 
 head, and I had serious thoughts of falling on my
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 95 
 
 knees before the insulted pilot. With unfeigned 
 gratitude I record that he was as magnanimous as 
 he was magnificent. He took no revenge, except 
 in words. What he said was : 
 
 "Me one coloured gentleman. You one dam 
 mean white trash ob common sailor. YAH ! " 
 
 And with unimpaired dignity he descended the 
 ladder and was rowed away over the prismatic 
 waters. And Alister and I turned round to look 
 for Dennis, and found him sitting in the scuppers, 
 wiping the laughter-tears out of his thick eyelashes. 
 
 fThere was something fateful about that evening, 
 which was perhaps what made the air so heavy. 
 If I had been keeping the log, I should have 
 made the following entry: "Captain got drunk. 
 A ring round the moon. Alister and Dennis 
 quarrelsome." 
 
 I saw the ring round the moon when I was 
 rowing the captain and the mate back from one of 
 the islands, where they had been ashore. Alfonso 
 afterwards pointed it out to me and said, "Tell 
 you, Jack, I'm glad dis ole tub in harbour now 1" 
 From which I concluded that it was an omen of 
 bad weather. 
 
 Alister and Dennis were still sparring. I began 
 to think we'd better stretch a rope and let them 
 have it out with their fists, but I could not make 
 out that there was anything to fight about except 
 that Alister had accused Dennis of playing the 
 fool, and Dennis had said that Alister was about 
 as good company as a grave-digger. I felt very 
 feverish and said so, on which they both began to 
 apologize, and we all turned in for some sleep. 
 
 Next day we were the best of friends, and we 
 got leave to go ashore for a few hours. We were 
 anchored in Grassy Bay, off Ireland Island that 
 is, off the island where the hulks are, and where 
 the schoolmaster spent those ten long years. 
 Alister and Dennis wanted to take a boat and 
 make for Harrington Sound, a very beautiful land- 
 locked sheet of water, with one narrow entrance 
 through which the tide rashes like a mill-race, but 
 when they heard my reason for wanting to have a 
 look at my friend's old place of labour and im- 
 prisonment, they decided to stay with me, which, 
 as it happened, was very lucky for us all. 
 
 We were all three so languid, that though there 
 was much to see and little time in which to see it, 
 when we found three firm and comfortable resting- 
 places among the blocks of white stone in the 
 dockyard, we sat down on them, and contented 
 ourselves with enjoying the beautiful prospect 
 before us. And it so happened that as Dennis 
 said, "if we'd taken a box for the Opera" we 
 could not have placed ourselves better for the mar- 
 vellous spectacle that it was our good luck to 
 witness. * I must try and tell it in order. 
 
 The first thing we noticed was a change among 
 the sea-birds. They left their careless, graceful 
 skimming and swooping, and got into groups, 
 wheeling about like starlings, and uttering curious 
 cries. And scarcely had we become conscious of 
 this change among the birds than a simultaneous 
 flutter ran through the Bermudian "rig-boats" 
 which had been skimming with equal carelessness 
 about the bay. Now they were hurriedly thrown 
 up into the wind, their wide mainsails lowered 
 and reefed, whilst the impulse spread as if by 
 magic to the men-of-war and ships in the anchor- 
 age. Down came the sails like falling leaves, the 
 rigging swarmed with men bracing yards, lowering 
 top-gallant masts, and preparing we could not 
 conceive for what. 
 
 "What, in the name of fortune " said 
 
 Dennis. 
 
 But at this moment Alister cried, "Look be- 
 hind ye, man ! " 
 
 We turned round, and this was what we saw 
 
 The sky out to seaward was one great half- 
 circle of blue black, but in what sailors call the eye 
 of the storm, was another very regular patch, with 
 true curved outlines of the arc and the horizon. 
 Under this the sea was dazzlingly white, and then 
 in front of that it was a curious green black, and it 
 was tossing and flopping about as if it did not 
 know what to be at. The wind was scarcely to 
 be felt as wind, but we could hear it moaning in a 
 dull way that was indescribably terrifying. Gra- 
 dually the blackness seemed to come down over 
 us as if it would swallow us up, and when I looked 
 back to the bay not a bird was to be seen, and 
 every boat was flying into shelter. 
 
 And as they fled, there arose from the empty 
 sea and sky a strange hissing sound, which gra- 
 dually grew so intense that it became almost a 
 roar ; and, as the noise increased, the white line 
 on the horizon widened and widened. 
 
 Suddenly there came a lull. It quite startled 
 us. But about half a mile away, I could see over 
 Alister's shoulders that the clouds were blacker, 
 and the sea took up the colour and seemed to 
 heave and rock more sulkily than before. There 
 was no white water here, only a greenish ink. 
 And at the same moment Dennis and Alister each 
 laid a hand upon my arm, but none of us spoke. 
 We lost ourselves in intense watching. 
 
 For by degrees the black water, leaving its 
 natural motion, seemed to pile up under the black 
 cloud, and then, very suddenly, before one could 
 see how it happened, either the cloud stretched 
 out a trunk to the sea, or the sea to the cloud, and 
 two funnel-shaped masses were joined together by 
 a long, twisting, whirling column of water that 
 neither sea nor sky seemed able to break away
 
 9 6 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 from. It was a weird sight to see this dark shape 
 writhe and spin before the storm, and at last the 
 base of it struck a coral reef, and it disappeared, 
 leaving nothing but a blinding squall of rain and a 
 tumult of white waves breaking on the reef. And 
 then the water whirled and tossed, and flung its 
 white arms about, till the whole sea, which had 
 been ink a few minutes before, had lashed itself 
 into a vast sheet of foam. 
 
 We relaxed our grip of each other, and drew 
 breath, and Alister stretching his arms seawards 
 after a fashion peculiar to him in moments of ex- 
 treme excitement, gave vent to his feelings in the 
 following words : 
 
 " Sirs ! yon's a water-spout." 
 
 But before we had time to reply, a convict 
 warder, whom we had not noticed, called sharply 
 to us, "Lie down, or you'll be blown down !" 
 and the gale was upon us. We had quite enough 
 to do to hold on to the ground, and keep the 
 stone-dust out of our eyes by shutting them. 
 Further observations were impossible, though it 
 felt as if everything in the world was breaking up, 
 and tumbling about one's ears. 
 
 Luckily nothing did strike us, though not more 
 than a hundred yards away a row of fine trees 
 went down like a pack of cards, each one parallel 
 with its neighbour. House-tiles flew in every 
 direction, shutters where whipped off and whirled 
 away ; palm-trees snapped like fishing-rods, and 
 when the wind-squall had passed, and we sat up, 
 and tried to get the sand out of our ears, we found 
 the whole place a mass of debris. 
 
 But when we looked seaward we saw the black 
 arch going as fast as it came. All sense of fever 
 and lassitude had left us. The air was fresh, and 
 calm, and bright, and within half an* hour the 
 tern and seagulls were fishing over the reef and 
 skimming and swooping above the prismatic waters 
 as before. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 " Be stirring as the time ; be fire with fire ; 
 * * * so shall inferior eyes, 
 That borrow their behaviours from the great, 
 Grow great by your example, and put on 
 The dauntless spirit of resolution." 
 
 King John, v. i. 
 
 "/"CREAKY doors" are said to "hang long," 
 \^, and leaky ships may enjoy a similar lon- 
 gevity. It certainly was a curious fact that the 
 "Water-Lily" hardly suffered in that storm, 
 though the damage done to shipping was very 
 great. Big and little, men-of-war and merchant- 
 
 men, very few escaped scot-free, and some dragged 
 their anchors and were either on the reef in the 
 harbour, or ran foul of one another. 
 
 Repairs were the order of the day, but we 
 managed to get ours done and to proceed on our 
 voyage, with very little extra delay. 
 
 I cannot say it was a pleasant cruise, though it 
 brought unexpected promotion to one of the 
 Shamrock three. In this wise : 
 
 The mate was a wicked brute, neither more nor 
 less. I do not want to get into the sailor fashion 
 of using strong terms about trifles, but to call him 
 less than wicked would be to insult goodness, and 
 if brutality makes a brute, he was brute enough in 
 all conscience ! Being short-handed, at Bermuda, 
 we had shipped a wretched little cabin-boy of 
 Portuguese extraction, who was a native of Deme- 
 rara, and glad to work his' passage there, and the 
 mate's systematic ill-treatment of this poor lad was 
 not less of a torture to us than to Pedro himself, 
 so agonising was it to see, and not dare to inter- 
 fere ; all we could do was to aid him to the best of 
 our power on the sly. 
 
 The captain, though a sneaking, unprincipled 
 kind of man, was neither so brutal nor, unfortu- 
 nately, so good a seaman as the mate ; and the 
 consequence of this was, that the mate was prac- 
 tically the master, and indulged his Snuffy-like 
 passion for cruelty with impunity, and with a 
 double edge. For, as he was well aware, in ill- 
 treating Pedro he made us suffer, and we were all 
 helpless alike. 
 
 His hold over the captain was not from superior 
 seamanship alone. The " Water-Lily " was nomi- 
 nally a "temperance" vessel, but in our case this 
 only meant that no rum was issued to the crew. 
 In the captain's cabin there was plenty of "liquor," 
 and the captain occasionally got drunk, and each 
 time that he did so, the influence of the mate 
 seemed riveted firmer than before. Crews are 
 often divided in their allegiance, but the crew of 
 the " Water 'Lily " were of one mind. From the 
 oldest to the youngest we all detested the mate, 
 and a natural manliness of feeling made us like the 
 captain better than we ought otherwise have done, 
 because (especially as regards the drinking) we 
 considered his relations with the mate to be cha- 
 racterised by anything but "fair play." No love 
 was really lost between them, and if the captain 
 came on deck and took the lead, they were almost 
 certain to quarrel ; (and none the less so, that we 
 rushed with alacrity to obey the captain's orders, 
 whereas with the mate's it was all "dragging 
 work," as nearly as we dare show unwillingness). 
 
 What led to the extraordinary scene I am about 
 to relate, I do not quite know. I suppose a mix- 
 ture of things. Alister's minute, unbroken study
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 97 
 
 of what was now his profession, the " almost 
 monotonous " (so Dennis said) perseverance with 
 which he improved every opportunity, and absorbed 
 all experience and information on the subject of 
 seamanship, could hardly escape the notice of any 
 intelligent captain. Our captain was not much of 
 a seaman, but he was a 'cute trader, and knew "a 
 good article " in any line. The Scotch boy was 
 soon a better sailor than the mate, which will be 
 the less surprising, when one remembers how few 
 men in any trade give more than about a third of 
 their real powers to their work and Alister gave 
 all his. This, and the knowledge that he was 
 supported by the public opinion of a small but 
 able-bodied crew, may have screwed the captain's 
 courage to the sticking-point, or the mate may 
 have pushed matters just too far ; what happened 
 was this : 
 
 The captain and the mate had a worse quarrel 
 than usual, after which the mate rope's-ended 
 poor Pedro till the lad lost consciousness, and 
 whilst I was comforting him below, the brute 
 fumed up and down deck like a hyena (" sight o' 
 blood all same as drink to the likes of him," said 
 Alfonso, " make he drunk for more") and vented 
 some of his rage in abuse of the captain, such as 
 we had often heard, but which no one had ever 
 ventured to report. On this occasion Alfonso did 
 report it. As I have said, I only knew results. 
 
 At eight o'clock next morning all hands were 
 called aft. 
 
 The captain was quite sober, and he made very 
 short work of it. He told us briefly and plainly 
 that the mate was mate no longer, and asked if 
 we had any wish as to his successor, who would 
 be chosen from the crew. We left the matter in 
 his hands, as he probably expected, on which, 
 beckoning to Alister, he said, "Then I select 
 Alister Auchterlay. He has proved himself a 
 good and careful seaman, and I believe you all 
 like and trust him. I beg you to show this now 
 by obeying him. And for the rest of the voyage 
 remember that he is Mister Auchterlay. " 
 
 " Mr. Auchterlay " more than justified the 
 captain's choice. His elevation made no change 
 in our friendship, though the etiquette of the vessel 
 kept us a good deal apart, and Dennis and I were 
 all the "thicker" in consequence. Alister was 
 not only absolutely loyal to his trust, but his grati- 
 tude never wearied of displaying itself in zeal. I 
 often wondered how much of this the captain had 
 foreseen. As Alfonso said, he was "good trader." 
 
 The latter part of the voyage was, in these 
 altered circumstances, a holiday to what had gone 
 before. The captain was never actually drunk 
 again, and the " Water-Lily " got to look clean, 
 thanks largely to the way Pedro slaved at scraping, 
 
 sweeping, swabbing, rubbing, and polishing, to 
 please his new master. She was really in some- 
 thing like respectable harbour trim when we ap- 
 proached the coast of British Guiana. 
 
 Georgetown, so Alfonso told me, looks very 
 odd from the sea. The first thing that strikes you 
 being the tops of the trees, which seem to be 
 growing out of the water ; but as you get nearer 
 you discover that this effect is produced by the 
 low level of the land, which is protected from the 
 sea by a sea-wall and embankment. I have no 
 doubt Alfonso was right, but when the time came 
 I forgot all about it, for it was not in ordinary 
 circumstances that I first saw Georgetown. 
 
 It was one of those balmy, moonlit tropical 
 nights of which I have spoken ; but when we were 
 within about an hour's sail of the mouth of the 
 Demerara river, the sky ahead of us began to 
 redden, as if the evening had forgotten itself and 
 was going back to sunset. We made numberless 
 suggestions, including that of a display of fire- 
 works in our honour ; but as the crimson spread 
 and palpitated like an Aurora Borealis, and then 
 shot up higher and flooded a large area of sky, 
 Alister sang out " Fire ! " and we all crowded for- 
 ward in anxious curiosity. 
 
 As might be expected, Alfonso and Pedro were 
 in a state of the wildest excitement. Alfonso, of 
 course, thought of his lady-love, and would pro- 
 bably have collapsed into complete despair, but for 
 the necessity of keeping up his spirits sufficiently to 
 snub every suggestion made by the cabin-boy, 
 whose rival familiarity with the topography of 
 Georgetown he could by no means tolerate ; whilst 
 Pedro, though docile as a spaniel to us, despised 
 Alfonso as only a half-caste can despise a negro 
 somewhat blacker than himself, and burned for 
 safe opportunities of displaying his superiority. 
 But when Pedro expressed a somewhat contemp- 
 tuous conviction that this glowing sky was the 
 result of rubbish burning on plantations up the 
 country, and skilfully introduced an allusion to 
 relatives of his own who had some property in 
 cane-fields, Alfonso's wrath became sublime. 
 
 "You no listen to dat trash ob cabin-boy, "said 
 he. "Wait a bit, and I'se find him dirty work 
 below dat's fit for he. Keep him from troubling 
 gentlemen like us wid him lies. Plantation? 
 Yah ! He make me sick. Tell you, mj know 
 Demerary well 'nuff. De town is in flamt*. Oh, 
 my Georgiana ! " 
 
 So much, indeed, was beyond doubt before 
 long, and as the fire seemed perilously close to the 
 wharves and shipping, the captain decided to lie 
 off for the night. The thermometer in his cabin 
 stood at ninety degrees, which perhaps accounted 
 for his having no anxiety to go ashore ; but, in 
 H
 
 9 3 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 spite of the heat, Dennis and I were wild to see 
 what was going on, and when Alister called to us 
 to help to lower the jolly-boat, and we found we 
 were to accompany him, we were not dilatory with 
 the necessary preparations, and were soon rapidly 
 approaching the burning town. 
 
 It was a strange sight as we drew nearer and 
 nearer. Before us, on the sea, there was a line 
 where the cold silver of the moonshine met the 
 lurid reflections of the fiery sky, and the same 
 cool light and hot glow changed places over our 
 cheeks as we turned our heads, and contrasted on 
 the two sides of the sail of the jolly-boat. And then 
 we got within ear-shot. A great fire is terrible to 
 see, but it is almost more terrible to hear, and it is 
 curious how like it is to the sound of great waters 
 or a great wind. The roar, the hiss, the crackle. 
 the pitiless approach as Dennis said 
 
 " I'll tell ye what it is, Jack. These elemental 
 giants, when they do break loose from our service, 
 have one note of defiance amongst them ; and it's 
 that awe-ful roar ! " 
 
 When we stood in the street where the fire was, 
 it was deafening, and it kept its own distinctness 
 above all other noises ; and with the fire-bells, the 
 saving and losing of household goods, and the 
 trampling and talking of the crowd, there were 
 noises not a few. Dennis and I were together, 
 for Alister had business to do, but he had given us 
 leave to gratify our curiosity, adding a kindly 
 warning to me to take care of myself, and keep 
 " that feather-brained laddie," Dennis, out of 
 danger's way. We had no difficulty in reaching 
 the point of interest, for, ludicrous to say, the fire 
 was in Water Street ; that is, it was in the street 
 running parallel with the river and the wharves, 
 the main business street of Georgetown. We were 
 soon in the thick of the crowd, protecting our eyes 
 from the falling fragments of burning wood, and 
 acquiring information. That heap of smoking 
 embers so we were told was the big store where 
 it first broke out ; the house yonder, where the 
 engines were squirting away, and the fire putting 
 tongues of flame out of the windows at them, as if 
 in derision, cost two thousand dollars - "Ah ! 
 there goes the roof ! " 
 
 It fell in accordingly ; and, in the sudden blaze 
 of its destruction, I saw a man come riding along, 
 before whom the people made way, and then 
 someone pulled me back and said : 
 
 "The Governor." 
 
 He stopped near us, and beckoned someone to 
 his side. 
 
 "Is he coming?" 
 " He's here, sir ; " 
 
 and then into the vivid glare 
 
 Stepped a tall, graceful, and rather fantast'cal- 
 *0oking young gentleman in a white jacket, and 
 
 with a long fair moustache, who raised his hand 
 with a quick salute, and then stood at the go- 
 vernor's stirrup. 
 
 " I know that fellow, I'm sure," said Dennis. 
 
 " Royal Engineers officer," said my neighbour. 
 " Mark my words, that means gunpowder," and 
 the good man, who was stout and steaming with 
 perspiration, seemed to feel like one who has 
 asked for a remedy for toothache and been an- 
 swered by the dentist "Gunpowder is what it 
 means ! And if pur governor had sent for a cob 
 bier, he'd have said, 'Nothing like leather,' and 
 mended the hose of the steam-pump. And that 
 store of mine, sir, didn't cost a cent less than " 
 
 But I was watching the engineer officer, and 
 catching fragments of the rapid consultation. 
 
 ' ' Quite inevitable, sir, in my opinion. " 
 
 "Very good. You have full powers instruct 
 colonel magazine do your best." 
 
 The engineer officer had very long white hands, 
 which I noticed as one went rapidly to his fore- 
 head, whilst with the other he caressed the dark 
 nose of the governor's horse, which had been rub- 
 bing its head against his shoulder. And then the 
 governor rode away and left him. 
 
 The word " gunpowder " seemed to have 
 brought soldiers to the spot in a sort of natural 
 sequence. There was more quick saluting and 
 short orders, and then all disappeared but one 
 bronzed-looking sergeant, who followed the engi- 
 neer stripling up and down as he jerked his head, 
 and pulled his moustache, and seemed to have 
 some design upon the gutters of the house-eaves, 
 which took a good deal of explaining and saluting. 
 Then we heard wheels and running footsteps, and 
 I became sensible of great relief from the pressure 
 of the crowd. The soldiers had come back again, 
 running a hand -cart with four barrels of gunpowder, 
 and the public made way for them even more re- 
 spectfully than for the governor. As they set it 
 down and wiped their faces, the sergeant began to 
 give orders rather more authoritatively than his 
 superior, and he also pointed to the gutters. On 
 which the soldiers vanished as before. 
 
 " Can't we help, I wonder?" said I. 
 
 ''That's just what I'm thinking," said Dennis, 
 and he strode up to the officer. But he was busy 
 vith his subordinate. 
 
 ' ' Well, sergeant ? " 
 
 "Not a fuse in the place, sir." 
 
 " Pretty state of things ! Get a hatchet." 
 
 "They sent one, sir.' 7 
 
 " All right. This is the house." 
 ' The roof 'as caught, you know, sir ? " 
 
 "The less time to waste," was the reply, and 
 the young man took up a barrel in his hands and 
 walked in with it, kicking the door open with his 

 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 99 
 
 foot. The sergeant must almost have trodden on 
 his officer's heels, as he followed with the second, 
 and before I could speak Dennis had shouldered 
 the third. 
 
 "Here's diversion!" said he, and away he 
 went. 
 
 There was the fourth barrel and there was I. 
 I confess that I felt a twinge, but I followed the 
 rest, and my barrel behaved as well as if it had 
 been a cask of molasses, though the burning wood 
 fell thickly over us all. As I groped my way in, 
 the sergeant and Dennis came out, and by the 
 time that they and some soldiers returned, drag- 
 ging pieces of house-gutters after them, the fan- 
 tastic young officer was pouring the gunpowder 
 into a heap in the middle of the floor, by the 
 light of a corner of the ceiling which was now on 
 fire, and I was holding up a shutter, under his 
 orders, to protect it from premature sparks. When 
 he set down the barrel he shook some dirt from 
 his fingers, and then pushing back his white sh'rt- 
 sleeves from his wrists, he filled his joined hands 
 as full with gunpowder as they would hold, and 
 separating them very slightly let a tiny stream run 
 out on to the floor as he walked backwards ; and 
 as fast as this train was laid, the thin line was 
 covered from falling embers by the gutters turned 
 over it upside down. Through the room, down 
 along a passage between two houses, and so into 
 the street, where the crowd had more or less as- 
 sembled again. Then the officer emptied his 
 hands, dusted them together, and said, "Clear 
 everybody out." 
 
 The sergeant saluted "May I fire it, sir?" 
 
 "^No, thank you, sergeant ; clear everybody 
 out." The sergeant was evidently disappointed, 
 and vented this on the civilian public. " That" 
 said he, turning a blackened thumb over his . 
 shoulder, "is a 'cap of gunpowder. It's just a 
 going to be hexploded." There was no need to 
 "clear everybody out." They -went. And we 
 found ourselves alone with the soldiers, who were 
 laughing, and saying that the crowd had taken a 
 big cast-iron tank for the heap of gunpowder. 
 We stood a little aside in obedience to a wave of 
 the young officer's arm. Then he crossed the 
 street to pick up a long piece of burning wood, 
 and came back, the moonlight and the firelight 
 playing by turns upon him. 
 
 I honestly confess that, fierce as the heat was, 
 I turned cold. The experiences of the next few 
 minutes were as follows : I saw the young engi- 
 neer fire the train, and I heard a puff, and then I 
 saw him fall, face downwards, behind the tank. 
 I gave a cry, and started forward, and was brought 
 up short by a back-hander on my chest from the 
 sergeant. Then came a scrambling, rushing sound, 
 
 which widened into a deep roar, shaking the 
 ground beneath our feet, and then the big building 
 at which we were gaping seemed to breathe out a 
 monstrous sigh, and then it fell in, and tumbled to 
 pieces, quietly, swiftly, and utterly, like a house of 
 cards. 
 
 And the fantastic-looking young officer got up 
 and shook himself, and worried the bits of charred 
 wood out of his long yellow moustaches. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 " Die Welt kann dir nichts darbieten, was sie von dir 
 nicht empfienge." 
 
 SCHILLER. Der Menschenfeind. 
 
 AFTER Alister had done the Captain's busi- 
 ness, he made his way to the post-office and 
 got our letters, thinking, as he cannily observed, 
 that in widespread misfortunes the big are impli- 
 cated with the little, that fire spares public build- 
 ings no more than private residences, and that if 
 the post-office was overtaken by the flames, we 
 might lose not only words of affection, but perhaps 
 enclosures of value. In short, he had brought our 
 letters, and dearly welcome they were. 
 
 I had three ; one from my father, one from my 
 mother (with a postscript by Jem), and a long one 
 from Charlie. I read my father's first ; the others 
 were sure to be tender and chatty, and I could 
 enjoy them at leisure. 
 
 My father's letter was, for him, a wonderful effort 
 of composition, and it was far kinder than I had 
 expected or deserved. He blamed me ; but he 
 took some blame to himself for our misunderstand- 
 ings, which he hoped would never recur. He 
 said (very justly) that if he had spoken harshly, 
 he had acted as he believed to be best for me. 
 Uncle Henry's office was an opening many parents 
 envied for their sons, and he had not really believed 
 that my fancy for the sea was more than a boyish 
 whim. He was the last man in the world to thwart 
 a real vocation, and no doubt (as my Uncle Henry 
 and he had agreed, and, thank GOD, they had had a 
 very pleasant brotherly bit of a chat over old times, 
 and a glass of my grandfather's 1815 port) every 
 Briton had a natural tendency to rule the waves, and 
 it was stronger in some lads than others, as "Robin- 
 son Crusoe" alone would prove, a book which 
 my uncle remembered had nearly cost him his life 
 on a badly-made raft on the mill-dam, when he was 
 a lad, and which would be read by boys with the 
 real stuff in them, when half these modern books 
 the Woods littered the farm parlour with were 
 lighting th fire. My Uncle Henry had come for-
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 ward in a very gratifying way. He had mentioned 
 that Benson, an exceedingly intelligent clerk of his, 
 had spoken of me in the highest terms, and seemed 
 to think that there was hardly anything in the way 
 of distinction in an adventurous career which might 
 not be open to me. I was not to be made vain by 
 this, as Benson appeared to be an affectionate 
 fellow, with a respect for the family of his em- 
 ployer very rare in these days. It had been a great 
 comfort to my father, this visit from Uncle Henry. 
 They were both greyheaded now, and Jem and I 
 were all they had to come after them. Blood was 
 thicker than water. As to my poor mother 
 
 For a few minutes the letter danced up and 
 down as if writ in water ; then I dried my eyes, 
 and found that she bore up pretty well in hopes of 
 my return, and that Uncle Henry was communi- 
 cating by this mail with a man of business in 
 Halifax, N.S., who was instructed to take a pas- 
 sage home for me in a good vessel, and to defray 
 any expenses of a reasonable nature in connection 
 with my affairs. When I was safe home, my father 
 added, he would take the best advice as to sending 
 me to sea in a proper and suitable way. Dr. Brown 
 had some relatives who were large ship-owners, 
 and he seemed to be much interested in my career, 
 out of regard to the family. I was to let nothing 
 hinder me from coming home at once,' as I valued 
 the love and blessing of my affectionate father. 
 
 My mother's letter was infinitely tender, and it 
 was curiously strong. Not a reproach or a lamen. 
 tation, but some good counsel, shrewd as well as 
 noble, and plenty of home news. Only at the end 
 did she even speak of herself: " You see, my son, 
 I have never had men belonging to me who earned 
 their livelihood in foreign countries and by dan- 
 gerous ways, but you may trust your old mother to 
 learn to do and bear what other mothers go through 
 with. She will learn to love the sea because you 
 are a sailor, but, Jack, you must always give her a 
 woman's bitter-sweet privilege of saying good-bye, 
 and of packing up your things. I am getting the 
 time over till you come back with socks. I am 
 afraid they will blister your feet. Martha does not 
 like them because they are like what the boys wear 
 in the coal-pits, but Dr. Brown declares they are 
 just right. He chose the worsted when we went 
 to see Miss Bennet's mother at the Berlin shop, and 
 left it himself as he drove home, with a bottle of 
 red lavender for my palpitations. I shall never 
 forget his kindness. He sat here for an hour and 
 a half on Sunday, and spoke of you to your father 
 as if you had been his own son ; and he said him- 
 self he walked up and down Miss Bennet's, right 
 through the shop and into the back parlour and 
 out again, talking about you, till the place was 
 quite full, and Mrs. Simpson could not remember 
 
 what she had dropped in for, which, as Dr. Brown 
 said, was not to be wondered at, considering Miss 
 Bennet completely forgot to take him upstairs to 
 see her mother, and it never crossed his own mind 
 till he stopped at our door and found the old lady's 
 sleeping draught with my red drops. He says he 
 called at your Uncle Henry's office, and congratu- 
 lated him on having a nephew of spirit, and it was 
 market day, so the office was full. Jem says I am 
 to leave room for him, as he can't think of enough 
 to say to fill a letter of his own, so I will only say 
 GOD bless you ! my darling boy, and bring you 
 safe home to your poor mother. 
 
 "P.S. If you love me come as quick as you 
 can. You shall go off again. " 
 
 This was Charlie's letter : 
 
 " MY DEAR JACK I was so glad to get your 
 letter. I knew you had gone off at last. It did 
 not surprise me, for I was sure you would go some 
 day. I believe I have a very mean spirit, for I felt 
 rather hurt at first that you did not tell me ; but 
 Mr. Wood gave me a good scolding, and said I 
 was not fit to have a friend if I could not trust him 
 out of sight or out of hearing. And that's quite 
 true. Besides, I think I knew more about it after 
 Jem had been down. He has been so jolly to me 
 since you left. It must be a splendid life on board 
 ship, and I am glad you have been in the rigging, 
 and didn't fall off. I wish you had seen an iceberg 
 or a water-spout, but perhaps you will. For two 
 days and two nights I was very miserable, and 
 then Jenny rode down on Shag, and brought me a 
 book that did me a great deal of good, and I'll tell 
 you why. It's about a man whose friend is going 
 to travel round the world, like you, and he has to 
 be left behind, like me. Well, what does he do 
 but make up his mind to travel round his own 
 garden, and write a history of his adventures, just 
 as if he had been abroad. And that's the book ; 
 and you can't tell what a jolly one it is. I mean 
 to do the same, only as you are at sea I shall call 
 it a Log. ' Log of a Voyage round the Garden, 
 the Croft, and the Orchard, by the Friend he left 
 behind him.' That's good, isn't it? I've been 
 rather bothered about whether I should have sepa- 
 rate books for each, or mix them all up ; and then, 
 besides, I've got to consider how to manage about 
 the different times of year, for you know, of course, 
 the plants and the beasts and everything are diffe- 
 rent at different times ; but if I have a log of each 
 place for each month, it would not be done by the 
 time you come home. I think perhaps I shall 
 have note-books for the four seasons, and that'll 
 take a good while. Two of the best chapters in 
 Jenny's book are called ' on my face ' and ' on my 
 back,' and they are about what he sees lying on his 
 face and then on his back. I'm going to do the
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 101 
 
 same, and put down everything, just as it comes ; 
 beetles, chrysalises, flowers, funguses, mosses, earth- 
 nuts, and land-snails, all just as I find them. If 
 one began with different note-books for the crea- 
 tures, and the plants, and the shells, it would be 
 quite endless. I think I shall start at that place 
 in the hedge in the croft where we found the 
 humble-bee^ nest. I should like to find a mole- 
 cricket, but I don't know if they live about here. 
 Perhaps our soil isn't light enough for them to 
 make their tunnels in, but one ought to find no 
 end of curious burrowing creatures when one is on 
 one's face, besides grubs of moths to hatch after- 
 wards. When I am on my back, I fancy what I 
 shall see most of are spiders. You can't conceive 
 what a lot of spiders there are in the world, all 
 sorts and sizes. They are divided into hunters, 
 wanderers, weavers, and swimmers. I expect 
 you'll see some queer ones, if you go to hot places. 
 And oh, Jack! talking of burrows, of course you're 
 in Nova Scotia, and that's where Cape Sable is, 
 where the stormy petrels make their houses in 
 the sand. They are what sailors call Mother 
 Carey's chickens, you know. I'm sure we've read 
 about them in adventure books ; they always come 
 with storms, and sailors think they build their nests 
 on the wave. But they don't, Jack, so you musn't 
 think so. They make burrows in the sand, and 
 ,all day they are out on the wing, picking up what 
 the storms toss to the top, and what the cooks 
 throw overboard, and then they go home, miles 
 and miles and miles at night, and feed their young. 
 They don't take the trouble to make houses if they 
 can find any old rabbit-burrows near enough to the 
 sea, Mr. Wood says ; like the puffins. Do you 
 know, one evening when old Isaac came to see me, 
 I made him laugh about the puffins till the tears 
 ran down his face. It was with showing him that 
 old stuffed puffin, and telling him how the puffin 
 gets into a rabbit-burrow, and when the rabbit 
 comes back they set to and fight, and the puffin 
 generally gets the best of it with having such a 
 great hooked nose. Isaac was so funny. He said 
 he'd seen the rabbits out on the spree many and 
 many a moonlight night when sober folks were in 
 bed ; and then he smacked his knees and said, 
 ' But I'd give owt to see one on 'em just nip home 
 and find a Pooffin upon t'hearthstun.' And, my 
 dear Jack, who else has been to see me, do you 
 think ? Fancy ! Lorraine ! You remember our 
 hearing the poor colonel was dead, and had left 
 Lorraine all that he had ? Well, do you know it 
 is a great deal more than we thought. I mean he's 
 got a regular estate and a big house with old pic- 
 tures inside, and old trees outside. Quite a swell. 
 Poor Lorraine ! I don't mean poor because of the 
 estate, because he's rich, of course ; but do you 
 
 know, I think he's sadder than ever. He's very 
 much cut up that the colonel died, of course, but 
 he seems desperate about everything, and talks 
 more about suicide than he did at Snufty's, Jem 
 says. One thing he is quite changed about ; he's 
 so clean ! and quite a dandy. He looked awfully 
 handsome, and Jenny said he was beautifully 
 dressed. She says his pocket-handkerchief and 
 his tie matched, and that his clothes fitted him so 
 splendidly, though they were rough. Well, he's 
 got a straight back, Jack ; like you ! It's hard he 
 can't be happy. But I'm so sorry for him. He 
 went on dreadfully because you'd gone, and said 
 that was just his luck, and then he wished to 
 Heaven he were with you, and said you were a 
 lucky dog, to be leading a devil-me-care life in the 
 open air, with nothing to bother you. He didn't 
 tell me what he'd got to bother him. Lots of 
 things, he said. And he said life was a wretched 
 affair, all round, and the only comfort was none of 
 his family lived to be old. 
 
 " Wednesday. I had to stop on Monday, my 
 head and back were so bad, and all yesterday too. 
 Dr. Brown came to see me, and talked a lot about 
 you. I am better to-day. I think I had rather 
 wound up my head with note-books. You know I 
 do like having lists of everything, and my sisters 
 have been very good. They got a lot of ruled 
 paper very cheap, and have made me no end of 
 books with brown paper backs, and Dr. Brown 
 has given me a packet of bottle labels. You've 
 only got to lick them and stick them on p and write 
 the titles. He gave me some before, you remem- 
 ber, to cut into strips to fasten the specimens in my 
 fern collection. I've got a dozen and a half books, 
 but there will not be one too many. You see eight 
 will go at once, with the four seasons ' on my face,' 
 and the four 'on my back.' Then I want two or 
 three for the garden. For one thing I must have 
 a list of our perennials. I am collecting a good 
 lot. Old Isaac has brought me no end of new ones 
 out of different gardens in the village, and now the 
 villagers know I want them, they bring me plants 
 from all kinds of out-of-the-way places, when they 
 go to see their friends. I've taken to it a good 
 deal the last few weeks, and I'll tell you why. It 
 was the week before you ran away that Bob Fur- 
 niss came up one evening, and for a long time I 
 could not think what he was after. He brought 
 me a Jack-in-the-green polyanthus and a crimson 
 bergamot from his mother, and he set them and 
 watered them, and said he ' reckoned flowers was 
 a nice pastime for any one that was afflicted,' but I 
 felt sure he'd got something more to say, and at 
 last it came out. He is vexed that he used to play 
 truant so at school and never learned anything.) 
 He can't read a newspaper, and he can't write <*
 
 102 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 reckon, and he said he was ' shamed ' to go to 
 school and learn among little boys, and he knew I 
 was a good scholar, and he'd come to ask if I would 
 teach him now and then in the evening, and he 
 would work in the garden for me in return. I told 
 him I'd teach him without that, but he said he 
 'liked things square and fair,' and Mr. Wood said 
 I was to let him ; so he comes up after work-hours 
 one night and I teach him, and then he comes up 
 the next evening and works in the garden. It's 
 very jolly because now I can plot things out my 
 own way, and do them without hurting my back. 
 I'm going to clear all the old rose-bushes out of 
 the shady border. The trees are so big now, it's 
 so shady that the roses never come to anything but 
 blight, and I mean to make a fernery there instead. 
 Bob says there's a little wood belonging to Lord 
 Beckwith that the trustees have cut down com- 
 pletely, and it's going to be ploughed up. They're 
 stubbing up the stumps now, and we can have as 
 many as we like for the carting away. Nothing 
 makes such good ferneries, you get so many cran- 
 nies and corners. Bob says it's not far from the 
 canal and he thinks he could borrow a hand-cart 
 from the man that keeps the post-office up there, 
 and get a load or two down to the canal-bank, and 
 then fetch them down to our place in the ' Adela. ' 
 Oh, how I wish you were here to help ! Jem's 
 going to. He's awfully kind to me now you're 
 gone. Talking of the ' Adela,' if you are very 
 long away (and some voyages last two or three 
 years), I think I shall finish the garden, and the 
 croft and the orchard, or at any rate one journey 
 round them ; and I think for another of your 
 voyages, I will do the log of the ' Adela ' on the 
 canal, for with water-plants, and shells, and larvae, 
 and beasts that live in the banks, it would be 
 splendid. Do you know one might give a whole 
 book up easily to a list of nothing but willows and 
 osiers, and the different kinds of birds and insects 
 that live in them ? But the number of kinds there 
 are of some things is quite wonderful. What do 
 you think of more than a hundred species of iris, 
 and I've only got five in the garden, but one of 
 them is white. I don't suppose you'll have much 
 time to collect things, but I keep hoping that 
 some day, if I live, you'll command a ship of your 
 own, and take me with you, as they do take scien- 
 tific men some voyages. I hope I shall live. I 
 don't think I get any worse. Cripples do some- 
 times live a long time. I asked Dr. Brown if he 
 believed any cripple had ever lived to be a hun- 
 dred, and he said he didn't know of one, nor yet 
 ninety, nor eighty, for I asked him. But he's sure 
 cripples have lived to be seventy. If I do, I've got 
 fifty-four years yet. That sounds pretty well, but 
 it soon goes, if one has a lot to do. Mr. Wood 
 
 doesn't think it likely you could command a vessel 
 for twenty years at least. That only leaves thirty- 
 four for scientific research, and all the arranging at 
 home besides. I've given up one of my books to 
 plotting this out in the rough, and I see that there's 
 plenty of English work for twenty years, even if I 
 could count on all my time, which (that's the 
 worst of having a bad back and head !) I can't. 
 There's one thing I should like to find out, if ever 
 you think of going to Japan, and that's how they 
 dwarf big plants like white lilacs, and get them to 
 flower in tiny pots. Isaac says he thinks it must 
 be continual shifting that does it shifting and 
 forcing. But I fancy they must have some dodge 
 of taking very small cuttings from particular 
 growths of the wood. I mean to try some expe- 
 riments. I am marking your journeys on a map, 
 and where anything happens to you I put A, for 
 adventure, in red ink. I have put A, where you 
 picked up Dennis O'Moore. He must be very 
 nice. Tell him I hope I shall see him some day, 
 and your Scotch friend too ; I hope they won't 
 make you quite forget your poor friend Charlie. 
 
 "P.S. Since I finished, a parcel came. What 
 do you think Lorraine has done? He has paid 
 for me to be a life member of a great London 
 library, and sent me the catalogue. I can have 
 out fifteen books at a time. There are hundreds 
 of volumes. I can't write any more, my back 
 aches so with putting crosses against the books I 
 want to read. The catalogue is rather heavy. I 
 think I shall use one of my books to make a list in 
 of what I want to read during this year. Isn't it 
 good of Lorraine ? Poor Lorraine ! " 
 
 Having devoured my own letters, I looked up 
 to see how my comrades were enjoying their share 
 of the budget which the Halifax postmaster had 
 faithfully forwarded. 
 
 The expression on Dennis O'Moore's face was 
 so mixed that it puzzled me, but he did not look 
 satisfied with his letter, for he kept drawing it out 
 again, and shaking it, and peeping into the en- 
 velope as if he had lost something. At last he put 
 the whole thing into his pocket with a resigned 
 air, and drove his hands through his black curls, 
 saying 
 
 "The Squire all over, GOD help him ! " 
 
 " What has he done now ? " I asked. 
 
 "Sent me twenty pounds, and forgotten to en- 
 close it ! "
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 " Thus the merry Pau-Puk-Keewis 
 Danced his Beggar's Dance to please them, 
 And, returning, sat down laughing." 
 
 Hiawatha. 
 
 "Goo be thanked, the meanest of His creatures 
 Boasts two soul-sides ; one to face the world with, 
 One to show a woman when he loves her." 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
 ^T^HE fact that when we got back to the 
 J_ "Water-Lily," Alister found the captain 
 dead drunk in his cabin, sealed our resolution to 
 have nothing more to do with her when we were 
 paid off, and our engagement ended (as had been 
 agreed upon) in the Georgetown harbour. There 
 was no fear that we should fail to get berths as 
 common seamen now, if we wanted them ; and 
 there was not a thing to regret about the " Slut," 
 except perhaps Alfonso, of whom we were really 
 fond. As it turned out, we had not even to mourn 
 for him, for he cut cable from the " Water-Lily" 
 too, having plans of his own, about which he 
 made a great deal of mystery and displayed his 
 wonted importance, but whether they were matri- 
 monial or professional, I doubt if even Dennis 
 knew at the time. 
 
 Alister had something to lose. It was not a 
 small consideration to give up his mate's berth, 
 but he said the whole conduct of the ship was 
 "against his conscience," and that settled the 
 matter, to him. 
 
 When we were our own masters once more, we 
 held another big council about our future. If I 
 went home at once, I must, somehow or other, get 
 back to Halifax before I could profit by Uncle 
 Henry's arrangement. If Dennis went home, he 
 must equally depend on himself, for there was no 
 saying when the Squire would, or would not, find 
 out and rectify his omission. Alister' s mother had 
 sent him some stamps for postage, and his paternal 
 relative had sent him a message to the effect that 
 having had neither word nor wittens of him for a 
 considerable period, and having feared the worst, 
 he was thankful to learn of his safe arrival in Hali- 
 fax, Nova Scotia ; and trusted that the step he 
 had taken, if a thought presumptuous at his years, 
 yet betokened a spirit of self-reliance, and might 
 prove not otherwise than conducive to his welfare 
 in the outcome. 
 
 Altogether, we were, practically, as much de- 
 pendent on ourselves as when we sat under the 
 pine-trees in Nova Scotia. 
 
 " We'll look up my cousin, to begin with," said 
 Dennis. 
 
 "Are ye pairfectly convinced that he's here?" 
 asked Alister, warned by his own experience. 
 
 " Certainly," said Dennis. 
 
 ' ' Have ye corresponded with him of late ? " 
 pursued Alister. 
 
 "Not I, indeed. The O'Moores are by no 
 means good letter-writers at the best of times, but 
 he'd have let us know if he was dead, anyhow, 
 and if he's alive, we'll be as welcome as the 
 flowers." 
 
 Before Alister could reply, he was interrupted 
 by a message from our late captain. The " Water- 
 Lily " was still in harbour, and the captain wanted 
 the ex-mate to help him on some matters con- 
 nected with the ship or her cargo. Alister would 
 not refuse, and he was to be paid for the job, so 
 we hastily arranged that he should go, and that 
 Dennis and I should devote the evening to look- 
 ing up the Irish cousin, and we appointed to meet 
 on the " stelling " or wharf, alongside of which 
 the "Water-Lily" lay, at eleven o'clock on the 
 following morning. 
 
 "I was a fool not to speak to that engineer 
 fellow the other night, " said Dennis, as we strolled 
 on the shady side of a wide street, down the 
 middle of which ran a wide water-dyke fringed 
 with oleanders. "He would be certain to know 
 where my cousin's place is." 
 
 "Do you know him?" I asked, with some 
 eagerness, for the young officer was no small hero 
 in my eyes. 
 
 " Oh, yes, quite well. He's a lieutenant in the 
 Engineers. He has often stayed at my father's 
 for shooting. But he has been abroad the last 
 two or three years, and I suppose I've grown. 
 He didn't know " 
 
 " There he is ! " said I. 
 
 He was coming out of a garden-gate on the 
 other side of the street. But he crossed the road, 
 saying, "Hi, my lads!" and putting his hand 
 into his pocket as he came. 
 
 " Here's diversion, Jack ! " chuckled Dennis ; 
 he's going to tip us for our assistance in the gun- 
 powder plot. Look at him now ! Faith, he's as 
 short of change as myself. How that half-crown's 
 eluding him in the corner of his pocket ! It'll be 
 no less, I assure ye. He's a liberal soul. Now 
 for it ! " 
 
 And as the young lieutenant drew near, Dennis 
 performed an elaborate salute. But his eyes were 
 brimming with roguishness, and in another mo- 
 ment he burst out laughing, and after one rapid 
 glance, and a twist of his moustache that I thought 
 must have torn it up by the roots, the young 
 officer exploded in the same fashion. 
 
 "DENNIS ! What in the name of the mother 
 of mischief (and I'm sure she was an O'Moore)
 
 io 4 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 are you masquerading in that dress for, out here ?" 
 But before Dennis could reply, the lieutenant be- 
 came quite grave, and turning him round by the 
 arm, said, " But this isn't masquerading, I see. 
 Dennis, my dear fellow, what does it mean ? " 
 
 " It means that I was a stowaway, and my 
 friend here a castaway I mean that I was a cast- 
 away, and Tack was a stowaway. Willie, do you 
 remember Barton ? " 
 
 "Old Barney? Of course I do. How did he 
 come to let you out of his sight ? " 
 
 Dennis did not speak. I saw that he could not, 
 so I took upon me to explain. 
 
 "They were out in the hooker, off the Irish 
 coast, and she went to pieces in a gale. Old 
 Barney was lost, and we picked Dennis up." 
 
 He nodded to me, and with his hand through 
 Dennis O'Moore's arm, said kindly, " We'll go to 
 my quarters, and talk it over. Where are you 
 putting up ? " 
 
 " We're only just paid off," said I. 
 
 "Then you'll rough it with me, of course, both 
 of you." 
 
 I thanked him, and Dennis said, " Willie, the 
 one thing I've been wanting to ask you is, if you 
 know where that cousin of my father's lives, who 
 as in business out here. Do you know him ? " 
 
 " Certainly. I'm going there to-night, for a 
 dance, and you shall come with me. I can rig 
 you out. " 
 
 They went ahead, arm-in-arm, and I followed 
 .at just sufficient distance behind to catch the back- 
 ward looks of amazement which the young officer's 
 passing friends were too polite to indulge when 
 exactly on a level with him. He capped first one 
 and then another with an air of apparent uncon- 
 sciousness, but the contrast between his smart ap- 
 .pearance and spotless white uniform, and the 
 patched remains of Dennis's homespun suit (to say 
 nothing of the big bundle in which he carried his 
 "duds "), justified a good deal of staring, of which 
 I experienced a humble share myself. 
 
 Very good and pleasant are the comforts of 
 civilization, as we felt when we were fairly estab- 
 lished in our new friend's quarters. Not that the 
 first object of life is to be comfortable, or that I 
 was moved by a hairsbreadth from my aims and 
 : ambitions, but I certainly enjoyed it ; and, as 
 Dennis said, "Oh, the luxury of a fresh-water 
 -wash ! " for salt-water really will not clean one, 
 :and Ihe only way to get a fresh-water wash at sea 
 us to save out of one's limited allowance. We had 
 done this, to the extent of two-thirds of a pailful, 
 as we approached Guiana, and had been glad 
 enough all to soap in the same bucket (tossing for 
 turns) and rinse off with clean sea-water, but real 
 " tubs " were a treat indeed ! 
 
 I had had mine, and, clothed in a white suit, 
 nearly as much too big for me as the old miser's 
 funeral gloves, was reposing in a very easy chair, 
 when Dennis and his friend began to dress for the 
 dance. The lieutenant was in his bedroom, which 
 opened to the left out of the sitting-room where I 
 sat, and Dennis was tubbing in another room 
 similarly placed on the right. Every door and 
 window was open to catch what air was stirring, 
 and they shouted to each other, over my head, so 
 to speak, while the lieutenant's body-servant ran 
 backwards and forwards from one to the other. 
 He was, like so many soldiers, an Irishman, and 
 having been with his master when he visited the 
 O'Moores, he treated Dennis with the utmost re- 
 spect, and me with civility for Dennis' sake. He 
 was waiting on his master when the lieutenant 
 shouted 
 
 " Dennis ! what's your length, you lanky fellow? " 
 
 " Six foot two by the last notch on the front 
 door. I stood in my socks, and the Squire mea- 
 sured it with his tape." 
 
 " Well, there's half an inch between us if he's 
 right ; but that tape's been measuring the O'Moores 
 from the days of St. Patrick, and I've a notion it 
 has shrunk with age. I think my clothes will do 
 for you." 
 
 "Thank you, thank you, Willie ! You're very 
 good." 
 
 In a few minutes O'Brien came out with his 
 arms full of clothes, and pursued by his master's 
 voice. 
 
 " O'Brien's bringing you the things ; can he 
 go in ? Be quick and finish off that fresh-water 
 business, old fellow, and get into them. I pro- 
 mised not to be late." 
 
 I tried to read a newspaper, but the cross-fire of 
 talk forbade anything like attention. 
 
 "Was ye wanting me, sou?" 
 
 " No, no. Never mind me, O'Brien. Attend 
 to Mr. O'Moore. Can he manage with those 
 things ? " 
 
 "He can, sorr. He looks illigant," replied 
 O'Brien from the right-hand chamber. We all 
 laughed, and Dennis began to sing : 
 
 " Oh, once we were illigant people, 
 Though we now live in cabins of mud ; 
 
 And the land that ye see from the steeple, 
 Belonged to us all from the flood. 
 
 My father was then king of Connaught " 
 
 " And mislaid his crown, I'll be bound ! '' 
 shouted the lieutenant. ' ' Look here, Dennis, 
 you'll get no good partners if we're late, and if you 
 don't get a dance with your cousin's daughter, 
 you'll miss a treat, I can tell you. But dancing 
 out here isn't trifled with as it is in temperate 
 climates, and cards are made up early."
 
 WE AND TffB. WORLD. 
 
 105 
 
 By-and-by he shouted again, 
 
 " O'Brien ! " 
 
 "Coming, your honour." 
 
 " I don't want you. But is Mr. O'Moore 
 ready ? " 
 
 " He is, sorr, barring the waistcoat. Take a 
 fresh tie, Master Dennis. The master 1 II not be 
 pleased to take ye out with one like that. Sure ifs 
 haste that's the ruin of the white ties all along. Did 
 ye find the young gentleman a pair of shoes, sorr ? " 
 
 "Won't those I threw in fit you?" asked our 
 host. 
 
 "I've got them. The least bit too large. A 
 thousand thanks." 
 
 " Can you dance in them ? " 
 
 " I'll try," replied Dennis, and judging by the 
 sound, he did try then and there, singing as he 
 twirled, 
 
 " Bad luck to this marching, 
 Pipe-claying and starching, 
 How neat one must be to be killed by the French ! " 
 
 But O'Brien's audible delight and the progress 
 of the song were checked by the lieutenant, who 
 had dressed himself, and was now in the sitting- 
 room. 
 
 " O'Brien ! " 
 
 "Sorr!" 
 
 "If Mr. O'Moore is not ready, I must go with- 
 out him." 
 
 " He's ready and waiting, sorr," replied O'Brien. 
 " Have ye got a pocket-handkerchief, Master Dennis, 
 dear? There's the flower for your coat. Ye" II be 
 
 I give the young gentleman one of your hats, sorr ? " 
 
 " Yes, of course. Be quick ! So there you are 
 at last, you young puppy. Bless me ! how like 
 the squire you are. ' 
 
 The squire must have been amazingly handsome, 
 I thought, as I gazed admiringly at my comrade. 
 Our staring made him shy, and as he blushed and 
 touched up the stephanotis in his buttonhole, the 
 engineer changed the subject by saying, " Talking 
 of the squire, is it true, Dennis, what Jack tells me 
 about the twenty pounds ? Did he really forget to 
 put it in? " 
 
 " As true as gospel," said Dennis, and taking up 
 the tails of his coat he waltzed round the room to 
 the tune of 
 
 " They say some disaster 
 
 Befell the paymaster, 
 
 On my conscience, I think that the money's not there ! " 
 
 I stood out on the verandah to see them off, 
 Dennis singing, and chaffing and chattering to the 
 last. He waved his hat to me as his friend 
 gathered the reins, a groom sprang up behind, and 
 
 apt to give it away, maybe ; let me use a small phi. 
 Did the master not find ye any gloves ? Now av 
 the squire saw ye, ifs a proud man he'd be ! Will 
 
 they were whirled away. The only part of the 
 business I envied them was the drive. 
 
 It was a glorious night, despite the oppressive 
 heat and the almost intolerable biting of mos- 
 quitoes and sandflies. In the wake of the depart- 
 ing trap flew a solitary beetle, making a noise 
 exactly like a scissor-grinder at work. Soft and 
 silent moths some as big as small birds went 
 past my face, I fear to the hanging lamp behind 
 me. Passing footfalls echoed bluntly from the 
 wooden pavement, and in the far-away distance 
 the bullfrogs croaked monotonously. And down 
 below, as I looked upon the trees, I could see fire- 
 flies coming and going, like pulsations of light, 
 amongst the leaves. 
 
 O'Brien waited on me with the utmost care and 
 civility ; served me an excellent supper, with 
 plenty of ice and cooling drinks, and taught me 
 the use of the " swizzle stick " for mixing them. 
 I am sure he did not omit a thing he could 
 think of for my comfort. He had been gone for 
 some time, and I had been writing letters, turning 
 over the engineer's books, and finally dozing in 
 his chair, when I was startled by sounds from his 
 bedroom, as if O'Brien were engaged, first in high 
 argument, and then in deadly struggle with some 
 intruder. I rushed to his assistance, and found 
 him alone, stamping vehemently on the floor. 
 
 "What's the matter ? " said I. 
 
 " Matther is it? Murther's the matther," and 
 he gave another vicious stamp, and then took a 
 stride that nearly cost him his balance, and gave 
 another. " I beg yor pardon, sorr ; but it's the 
 cockroaches. The place swarms wid 'em. Av 
 they'd keep peaceably below, now, but invading 
 the masters bedroom that's for ye, ye thief! 
 and he stamped again. 
 
 "The creatures here are a great plague," said I, 
 slapping a mosquito upon my forehead. 
 
 " And that as true a word as your honour ever 
 spoke. They're murderous no less ! Many's the 
 time I'm wishing myself back in old Ireland, where 
 there's no venomous beasts at all, at all. Arrah ! 
 Would ye, ye skulking " 
 
 I left him stamping, and streaming with perspira- 
 tion, but labouring loyally on in a temperature 
 where labour was little short of heroism. 
 
 I went back to my chair, and began to think 
 over my prospects. It is a disadvantage of idle- 
 ness that one wearies oneself with thinking, though 
 one cannot act. I wondered how the prosperous 
 sugar-planter was receiving Dennis, and whether 
 he would do more for him than one's rich relations 
 are apt to do. The stars began to pale in the 
 dawn without my being any the wiser for my 
 speculations, and then my friends came home. 
 The young officer was full of hopes that I hail
 
 io6 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 been comfortable, and Dennis of regrets that I had 
 not gone with them. His hair was tossed, his 
 cheeks were crimson, and he had lost the flower 
 from his buttonhole. 
 
 " How did you get on with your cousin ? " I 
 asked. The reply confounded me. 
 
 " Oh, charmingly ! Dances like a fairy. I say, 
 Willie, as a mere matter of natural history, d'ye 
 believe any other human being ever had such feet?" 
 
 A vague wonder crept into my brain whether 
 the cousin could possibly have become half a 
 nigger, from the climate, which really felt capable 
 of anything, and have developed feet like our 
 friend the pilot ; but I was diverted from this 
 speculation by seeing that Dennis was clapping 
 his pockets and hunting for something. 
 
 " What have you lost now? " asked his friend. 
 
 " My pocket-handkerchief. Ah, there it is ! " 
 and he drew at from within his waistcoat, and with 
 it came his gloves, and a third one, and they fell 
 on the floor. As he picked the odd one up the 
 lieutenant laughed. 
 
 " What size does she wear, Dennis sixes ? " 
 
 " Five and three-quarters long fingers ; so she 
 tells me." He sighed, and then wandered to the 
 window, whistling "Robin Adair." 
 
 " Now, Dennis, you promised me to go straight 
 to bed. Turn in we must, for I have to be on an 
 early parade." 
 
 ' ' All right, Willie. Good-night, and a thousand 
 thanks to you. It's been a great evening I never 
 was so happy in my life. Come along, Jack. " 
 
 And off he went, tossing his head and singing to 
 the air he had been whistling : 
 
 " Who in the song so sweet ? 
 
 Eileen aroon ! 
 Who in the dance so fleet ! 
 
 Eileen aroon ! 
 
 Dear were her charms to me, 
 Dearer her laughter free, 
 Dearest her constancy, 
 
 Eileen aroon ! " 
 
 " She'll be married to 
 you've cut your wisdom teeth ! 
 engineer from his bed-room. 
 
 " Will she?" retorted Dennis, and half-laughing, 
 half-sentimentally, he sang on louder than before, 
 
 " Were she no longer- true, 
 
 Eileen aroon ! 
 What should her lover do? 
 
 Eileen aroon ! 
 Fly with his broken chain, 
 Far o'er the bounding main, 
 Never to love again, 
 
 Eileen aroon ! " 
 
 Willie made no reply. He evidently meant to 
 secure what sleep there was to be had, and as 
 Dennis did not seem in the mood for discussing 
 our prospects as seamen, I turned into my ham- 
 
 sugar-planter before 
 pptV. i " bawled the 
 
 mock and pulled it well round my ears to keep 
 out bats, night-moths, and the like. 
 
 It was thus that I failed at first to hear when 
 Dennis began to talk to somebody out of the 
 window. But when I lifted my head I could hear 
 what he said, and from the context I gathered 
 that the other speaker was no less than Alister, 
 who, having taken his sleep early in the night, was 
 now refreshing himself by a stroll at dawn. That 
 they were squabbling with unusual vehemence was 
 too patent, and I was at once inclined to lay the 
 blame on Dennis, who ought, I felt, to have been 
 brimming over with generous sympathy, consider- 
 ing how comfortable we had been, and poor 
 Alister had not. But I soon discovered that the 
 matter was no personal one, being neither more 
 nor less than an indignant discussion as to whether 
 the air which Dennis was singing was "Scotch" 
 or "Irish." As I only caught the Irish side of 
 the argument, I am not qualified to pronounce any 
 opinion. 
 
 " Of course facts are facts, no one denies that. 
 And its likely enough your grandmother sang 
 ' Robin Adair ' to it, and your great-grandmother 
 too, rest her soul 1 But it would take an uncom- 
 monly great- grandmother of mine to have sung it 
 when it was new, for it's one of the oldest of old 
 Irish airs." 
 
 " Stole it of course ! as they did plenty more in 
 those times cattle and what not. I'd forgive 
 them the theft, if they hadn't spoilt the tune with 
 a nasty jerk or two that murders the tender grace 
 of it intirely." 
 
 " Alister, me boy ! You're not going ? Ye're 
 not cross, are ye ? Faith, I'd give my life for ye, 
 but I can't give ye Eileen aroon. Come in and 
 have some swizzle ! We're in the height of luxury 
 here, and hospitality as well, and ye'll >e as wel- 
 come as daylight. " 
 
 "Up so late? Up so early, ye mean ! Ah, 
 don't put on that air of incorruptible morality. 
 Wait now till I get in on the one side of my 
 hammock and out at the other, and I'll look as 
 early-rising-proud as yourself. Alister ! Alister, 
 dear ! " 
 
 Through all this the engineer made no sign, 
 and it struck me how wise he was, so I pulled the 
 hammock round me again and fell asleep ; not for 
 long, I fancy, for those intolerable sandflies woke 
 me once more before Dennis had turned in. 
 
 I looked out and saw him still at the window, 
 his eyes on a waning planet, his cheek resting on 
 the little glove laid in his right hand, and singing 
 more sweetly than any nightingale :
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 107 
 
 " Youth must with time decay, 
 
 Eileen aroon ! 
 Beauty must fade away, 
 
 Eileen aroon ! 
 Castles are sacked in war, 
 Chieftains are scattered far, 
 Truth is a fixed star, 
 
 Eileen aroon ! " 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 "Which is why I remark, 
 
 And my language is plain, 
 That for ways that are dark, 
 
 And for tricks that are vain, 
 The heathen Chinee is peculiar." 
 
 Bret Harte. 
 
 A LISTER did more than pick pink-pale 
 j[\. oleanders by the dyke side that morning. 
 His business with the captain was soon des- 
 patched, and in the course of it he "fore-gathered," 
 as he called it, with the man of business who had 
 spoken to us on the night of the great fire, and 
 whose own warehouse was in ruins. He proved 
 to be a Scotchman by birth, and a man of energy 
 (not a common quality in the tropics), and he was 
 already busy about retrieving his fortune. The 
 hasty repair of part of the building, in which to 
 secure some salvage, and other similar matters, 
 was his first object; and he complained bitterly 
 of the difficulty of inducing any of the coloured 
 gentlemen to do a " fair day's work for a fair day's 
 wage," except when immediate need pressed them. 
 They would then work, he said, but they would 
 not go on working till the job was done, only till 
 they had earned enough wages to take another 
 idle " spell " upon. 
 
 Several Chinamen were already busy among the 
 ruins of the burnt houses, as we saw, and it was 
 Chinese labour that Alister's friend had resolved 
 to employ ; but he seemed to think that, though 
 industrious, those smiling, smooth-faced indi- 
 viduals, who looked as if they had come to life off 
 one of my mother's old tea-cups, were not to be 
 trusted alone among the salvage. 
 
 "Every thief among 'em 's as good as a con- 
 juror," he declared, "and can conceal just any- 
 thing up his sleeve. 
 
 Thus it came about that when Dennis and I 
 went down to the stelling to meet Alister, as we 
 had agreed, and delivered the messages of hos- 
 pitality with which the young engineer and 
 Dennis's cousin had charged us, we found that he 
 had made an engagement to help the burnt-out 
 store-owner for such time as we should be out of 
 seamen's work, on terms which were to include 
 his board and lodging. 
 
 " Alister, dear ! I admire ye with all me heart," 
 said Dennis impetuously. " I never saw such an 
 industrious, persevering fellow. If all Scotch lads 
 take the tide of life at the flood as you do, small 
 blame to ye for making your fortunes ; and well 
 ye deserve it." 
 
 " There's not a doubt about it," replied Alister 
 complacently. " And I'll tell ye more. Find me 
 any grand work, if it's at the other end of the 
 airth, whether it's digging a dyke in the desert, or 
 bigging a mountain up to the moon, and I'll find 
 yean Aberdeenshire man not far from the head of it." 
 
 Dennis's face seemed to twitch with a dozen 
 quick thoughts and smiles, as Alister turned away 
 to meet his new employer, who had just appeared 
 on the stelling. 
 
 "They have wonderful qualities," he said 
 gently. " I envy them, I can tell ye, Jack. 
 What's an idle lout like me good for? Will I 
 ever be able to make a home for myself, or for 
 any one else ? They do ! " He spoke earnestly, 
 and theii suddenly relapsing into an imitation of 
 Alister's accent, which was his latest joke, he 
 added with twinkling eyes, " and they save a wee 
 in wages to their ain trumpeters whiles !" 
 
 And having drawled out the word " whiles " to 
 the uttermost possible length, he suddenly began 
 to snap his fingers and dance an Irish jig upon the 
 wooden planks of the stelling. This performance 
 completely demoralised the Chinamen who caught 
 sight of it. ' ' Eyah ! " they cried, they stopped 
 work, they chuckled, they yelled, they doubled 
 themselves up, some of their pig-tails came down, 
 and one and all they laughed so frankly and im- 
 moderately, it was hard to believe that anything 
 like deception could be amongst the faults of these 
 almond-eyed children of the Flowery Land. 
 
 Mr. Macdonald (the store-owner) seemed, how- 
 ever, to think that they required pretty close 
 watching, and I do not think he would have 
 been willing to let Alister go back with us to 
 luncheon at Willie's, but for his appreciation of 
 social rank. It was obvious that it did Alister no 
 harm that he had a friend in an officer of her 
 Majesty's Service, and a comrade in the nephew 
 of a sugar-planter of the uppermost level of Deme- 
 rara society. 
 
 We three held a fresh council as we sat with the 
 young engineer. He and Alister got on admirably, 
 and he threw himself into our affairs with won- 
 derful kindness. One point he disposed of at 
 once, and that was my fate ! There could be no 
 question, he said, that my duty was to get back to 
 Halifax, "report myself" to Uncle Henry's agent 
 there, and then go home. 
 
 " You're ruthlessly dismembering the Shamrock, 
 Willie, " Dennis objected.
 
 io8 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 " I don't see that. You're not to stay here, for 
 instance. " 
 
 "You're mighty positive," said Dennis, blush- 
 ing. 
 
 "Of course I am. I wouldn't encourage you 
 to waste sentiment anyhow ; and the West Indies 
 is no latitude for boys, to go on with. And you 
 know as well as I do, that it's rather more than 
 time the Squire started you in life. You must go 
 home, Dennis ! " 
 
 " If I do, I go with Jack. And what about 
 Alister ? " 
 
 The young officer tugged his moustaches right 
 and left. Then he said, "If I were exactly in 
 your place, Auchterlay " 
 
 " Well, sir?" said Alister, for he had hesitated. 
 
 " I should enlist in the Royal Engineers." 
 
 "Nothing like gunpowder," whispered Dennis 
 to me. I kicked him in return. 
 
 The pros and cons of the matter were not 
 lengthy. If Alister enlisted in any regiment, the 
 two advantages of good behaviour and good edu- 
 cation would tell towards his advancement more 
 rapidly and more certainly than perhaps in any 
 other line of life. If he enlisted into a scientific 
 corps, the chance of being almost immediately 
 employed as a clerk was good, very much of the 
 work would be interesting to an educated and 
 practical man; the "marching, pipe-claying and 
 starching, "of which Dennis sang, was a secondary 
 part of "R. E." duties at any time, and there 
 were special opportunities of employment in 
 foreign countries for superior men. Alister was 
 not at all likely to remain long a private, and it 
 was quite "on the cards" that he might get a 
 commission while he was still young. So much 
 for " peace time." But if in the event of and 
 supposing (here the young engineer made a rapid 
 diversion into the politics of the day) there was a 
 chance of " active service " the Royal Engineers 
 not only offered far more than drill and barrack 
 duties in time of peace, but no branch of the army 
 gave nobler opportunities for distinguished service 
 in time of war. At this point he spoke with such 
 obvious relish, that I saw Dennis was ready to 
 take the Queen's Shilling on the spot. Alister's 
 eyes gave a flash or two, but on the whole he 
 "kept a calm sough," and put the other side of 
 the question. 
 
 He said a good deal, but the matter really lay 
 in small compass. The profession of arms is not 
 highly paid. It was true that the pay was poor 
 enough as a seaman, and the life far harder, but 
 then he was only bound for each voyage. At 
 other times he was his own master, and having 
 ".gained an insight into" trading from his late 
 captain, he saw indefinite possibilities before him. 
 
 Alister seemed to have great faith in openings, 
 opportunities, chances, etc., and he said frankly 
 that he looked upon his acquired seamanship 
 simply as a means of paying his passage to any 
 part of the habitable globe where fortunes could 
 be made. 
 
 " Then why not stick together ? " cried Dennis. 
 "Make your way up to Halifax with us, Alister, 
 dear. Maybe you'll find your cousin at home 
 this time, and if not, at the worst, there's the 
 captain of our old ship promised ye employment. 
 Who knows but we'll all go home in her together? 
 Ah, let's keep the Shamrock whole if we can ?" 
 
 " But you see, Dennis," said the lieutenant, 
 "Alister would regard a voyage to England as a 
 step backward, as far as his objects are concerned. " 
 
 Dennis always maintained that you could never 
 contrive to agree with A'.ister so closely that he 
 would not find room to differ from you. 
 
 So he nudged me again (and I kicked him once 
 more) when Alister began to explain that he 
 wouldn't just say that, for that during the two or 
 three days when he was idle at Liverpool he had 
 been into a free library to look at the papers, and 
 had had a few words of converse with a decent 
 kind of an old body, who was a care-taker in a 
 museum where they bought birds and beasts and 
 the like from seafaring men that got them in 
 foreign parts. So that it had occurred to him 
 that if he could pick up a few natural curiosities 
 in the tropics, he might do worse, supposing his 
 cousin be still absent from Halifax, than keep 
 himself from idleness, by taking service in our old 
 ship, with the chance of doing a little trading at 
 the Liverpool Museum. 
 
 " I wish I hadn't broken that gorgeous lump of 
 coral Alfonso gave me," said Dennis. " But it's 
 as brittle as egg-shell, though I rather fancy the 
 half of it would astonish most museums. You're 
 a wonderful boy, Alister ! Ah, we'll all live to 
 see the day when you're a millionaire, laying the 
 foundation-stone of some of these big things the 
 Aberdeen men build, and speechifying away to the 
 rising generation of how ye began life with nothing 
 but a stuffed Demerary parrot in your pocket. 
 Willie, can't ye lend me some kind of a gun, that 
 I may get him a few of these highly painted fowl 
 of the air ? If I had but old Barney at my elbow 
 now GOD rest his soul ! we'd give a good 
 account of ourselves among the cockatoos. Many's 
 the lot of seabirds we've brought home in the 
 hooker to stuff the family pillows. But I'm no 
 hand at preparing a bird for stuffing." 
 
 "I'll cure them," said I; "the schoolmaster 
 taught me." 
 
 " Then we're complete entirely, and Alisterll 
 die Provost of Aberdeen. Haven't I got the
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 109 
 
 whole plan in my head ? (And it's the first of the 
 O'Moore's that ever developed a genius for busi- 
 ness !) Swap crimson macaws with green breasts 
 in Liverpool for cheap fizzing drinks, trade them 
 in the thirsty tropics for palm-oil ; steer for the 
 north pole, and retail that to the oleaginous Esqui- 
 maux for furs ; sell them in Paris in the autumn 
 for what's left of the summer fashions, and bring 
 these back to the ladies of Demerary ; buy " 
 
 "Dennis! stop that chattering," cried our 
 host ; " there's some one at the door." 
 
 We listened. There was a disturbance below 
 stairs, and the young officer opened the door and 
 shouted for his servant, on which O'Brien came 
 up three at a time. 
 
 " What is it, O'Brien ? " 
 
 " A Chinese, your honour. I asked him his 
 business, and not a word but gibberish will he let 
 out of him. But he's brought no papers nor 
 parcels at all, and sorra peep will I let him have 
 of your honour's room. The haythen thief ! " 
 
 But even as O'Brien spoke, a Chinaman, in a 
 China-blue dress, passed between him and the 
 door-post, and stood in the room. 
 
 "Who are you ? " asked the engineer peremp- 
 torily. 
 
 "Ah-Fo," was the reply, and the Chinaman 
 bowed low. 
 
 "You .can understand English, if you can't 
 speak it, eh ? " 
 
 The Chinaman smiled. His eyes rolled round 
 the room till he caught sight of Alister, then sud- 
 denly producing three letters, fanwise, as if he 
 were holding a hand at whist, he jerked up the 
 centre one, like a " forced " card in a trick, and 
 said softly, "For you" and still looking round 
 with the others in his hand, he added, " For two ; 
 allee same as you," and as Alister distributed them 
 to Dennis and me, his wooden face took a few 
 wrinkles of contempt, and he added, "One 
 nigger bringee. Mister Macdonald, he send me." 
 
 After this expjanation he stood quite still. Even 
 his face was unmoved, but his eyes went round 
 and to every corner of the room. I was so ab- 
 sorbed in watching him that Dennis was reading 
 his letter aloud before I had opened mine. But 
 they were all alike, with the exception of our 
 names. They were on pink paper, and highly 
 scented. This was Dennis O'Moore's : 
 
 "Hymeneal. Mr. Alfonso St. Vincent and 
 Miss Georgiana Juba's compliments are respect- 
 fully offered, and will be happy of Mr. Dennis 
 O'Moore's company on the occasion of the cele- 
 bration of their nuptials. Luncheon at twelve on 
 the auspicious day, Saturday " 
 
 " Oh, botheration ! It's six weeks hence," said 
 Dennis. " Will we be here, I wonder ? " 
 
 " We'll go if we are." " Poor old Alfonso ! " 
 "Well done, Alfonso!" Such were our senti- 
 ments, and we expressed them in three polite 
 notes, which the Chinaman instantaneously ab- 
 sorbed into some part of his person, and having 
 put the hand with which he took them to his 
 head and bowed lowly as before, he went away. 
 And O'Brien, giving one vicious dust with his 
 coat-sleeve of the doorpost, which Ah-Fo had 
 contaminated by a passing touch, followed the 
 " heathen thief" to see him safe off the premises. 
 
 " That's a strange race, now " began Alister, 
 
 but I ran to the window, for Dennis was on the 
 balcony watching for the Chinaman, and remem- 
 bering the scene on the stelling, I anticipated fun. 
 
 " Hi. there ! Fe-fo-fum, or whatever it is that 
 they call ye ! " 
 
 Ah-Fo looked up with a smile of delighted 
 recognition, which, as Dennis gave a few pre- 
 liminary stamps, and began to whistle and shuffle, 
 expanded into such hearty laughter, that he was 
 obliged to sit down to it by the roadside. 
 
 "Look here, Dennis," said our host; "we 
 shall have a crowd collecting if you go on with 
 this tomfoolery. Send him off." 
 
 "All right, old fellow. Beg your pardon. 
 Good-bye Te-to-tum." 
 
 It was not a respectful farewell, but there is a 
 freemasonry of friendliness apart from words. 
 Dennis had a kindly heart toward his fellow- 
 creatures everywhere, and I never knew his fellow- 
 creatures fail to find it out. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Ah-Fo, lingeringly. 
 
 " Good-bye again. I say, old mandarin," added 
 the incorrigible Dennis, leaning confidentially 
 over the balcony, "got on pretty well below 
 there? Or did O'Brien keep the tail of his eye 
 too tight on ye ? Did ye manage to coax a great- 
 coat or a hall-table, or any other trifle of the kind 
 up those sleeves of yours ? " 
 
 This time Ah-Fo looked genuinely bewildered, 
 but he gazed at Dennis as if he would have given 
 anything to understand him. 
 
 " Uppee sleevee you know?" said Dennis, 
 illustrating his meaning by signs. (" Chinese is a 
 mighty easy language, Willie, I find, when you're 
 used to it.) 
 
 A grin of intelligence spread from ear to ear on 
 Ah-Fo's countenance. 
 
 "Eyah !" said he, and with one jerk he pro- 
 duced our three letters, fan-fashion, in his right 
 hand, and then they vanished as quickly, and he 
 clapped his empty palms and cried, " Ha, ha ! 
 Ha, ha ! " 
 
 " It's clever, there's no denying," said Alister, 
 ' ' but its an uncanny kind of cleverness. " 
 
 Something uncannier was to come. Ah-Fo had
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 stood irresolute for a minute or two, then he ap- 
 peared to make up his mind, and coming close 
 under the balcony he smiled at Dennis and said, 
 " You lookee here." Then feeling rapidly in the 
 inner part of his dress he brought out a common 
 needle, which he held up to us, then pricked his 
 finger to show that it was sharp, and held it up 
 again, crying "You see?" 
 
 " I see," said Dennis. "Needle. Alice same 
 as pin, barring that a pin's got a head with no eye 
 in it, and a needle's got an eye with no head to it. " 
 
 " You no talkee, you lookee," pleaded Ah-Fo. 
 
 "One for you, Dennis," laughed the engineer. 
 We looked, and Ah-Fo put the needle into his 
 mouth and swallowed it. He gave himself a pat 
 or two and made some grimaces to show that it 
 felt rather prickly going down, and then he pro- 
 duced a second needle, and tested and then swal- 
 lowed that. In this way he seemed to swallow 
 twelve needles, nor, with the closest watching, 
 could we detect that they went anywhere but into 
 his mouth. 
 
 " Will he make it a baker's dozen, I wonder?" 
 gasped Dennis. 
 
 But this time Ah-Fo produced a small ball of 
 thread, and it followed the needles, after which 
 he doubled himself up in uneasy contortions, 
 which set us into fits of laughter. Then he put 
 his fingers into his mouth we watched closely 
 and slowly, yard after yard, he drew forth the 
 unwound thread, and all the twelve needles were 
 upon it. And whilst we were clapping and cheer- 
 ing him, both needles and thread disappeared as 
 
 Ah-Fo was evidently pleased by our approval, 
 and by the shower of coins with which our host 
 rewarded his performance, but when he had dis- 
 posed of them in his own mysterious fashion, some 
 source of discontent seemed yet to remain. He 
 looked sadly at Dennis and said, " Ah-Fo like to 
 do so, allee same as you." And then began 
 gravely to shuffle his feet about, in vain efforts, as 
 became evident, to dance an Irish jig. We tried 
 to stifle our laughter, but he was mournfully con- 
 scious of his own failure, and, when Dennis 
 whistled the tune, seemed to abandon the task in 
 despair, and console himself by an effort to recall 
 the original performance. After standing for a 
 few seconds with his eyes shut and his head thrown 
 back, so that his pigtail nearly touched the ground, 
 the scene appeared to return to his memory. 
 " Eyah ! " he chuckled, and turned to go, laugh- 
 ing as he went. 
 
 " Don't forget the letters. Uppee sleevee, old 
 Teat ray ! " roared Dennis. 
 
 Ah-Fo flirted them out once more. "Ha! 
 Ha ! Ha ! " laughed he, and went finally away. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 " Das Haar trennt." 
 
 German Proverb. 
 
 WE three were not able to be present at 
 Alfonso's wedding, for the very good 
 reason that we were no longer in British Guiana. 
 But the day we sailed for Halifax, Alfonso and 
 his Georgiana came down to see us on the stelling. 
 " Georgiana " was as black as a coal, but Alfonso 
 had not boasted without reason of the cut of her 
 clothes. She had an upright pretty figure, and 
 her dress fitted it to perfection. It was a white 
 dress, and she had a very gorgeous parasol, deeply 
 fringed, and she wore a kerchief of many colours 
 round her shoulders, and an equally bright silk 
 one cleverly twisted into a little cap on her woolly 
 head. Her costume was, in short, very gay in- 
 deed. 
 
 " Out of all the bounds of nature and feminine 
 modesty," said Alister, 
 
 " Of your grandmother's nature and modesty, 
 maybe," retorted Dennis. "But she's no gayer 
 than the birds of the neighbourhood, anyway, 
 and she's as neat, which is more than ye can say 
 for many a young lady that's not so black in the 
 face. " 
 
 In short, Dennis approved of Alfonso's bride, 
 and I think the lady was conscious of it. She 
 had a soft voice, and very gentle manners, and to 
 Dennis she chatted away so briskly that I won- 
 dered what she could have found to talk about, 
 till I discovered from what Dennis said to Alister 
 afterwards, that the subject of her conversation 
 was Alfonso's professional prospects. 
 
 " Look here, Alister dear," said Dennis ; " don't 
 be bothering yourself whether she employs your 
 aunt's dressmaker or no, but when you're about 
 halfway up that ladder of success, that I'll never 
 be climbing (or I'd do it myself), say a good word 
 for Alfonso to some of these Scotch captains with 
 big ships, that want a steward and stewardess. 
 That's what she's got her eye on for Alfonso, and 
 Alfonso has been a good friend to us. " 
 
 "I'll mind," said Alister. And he did. For 
 (to use his own expression) our Scotch comrade 
 was " aye better than his word." 
 
 Dennis O'Moore's cousin behaved very kindly 
 to us. He was not only willing to find Dennis 
 the money which the Squire had failed to send, 
 but he would have advanced my passage-money 
 to Halifax. I declined the offer for two reasons. 
 In the first place, Uncle Henry had only spoken 
 of paying my passage from Halifax to England,
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 and I did not feel that I was entitled to spend any 
 money that I could avoid spending ; and, secondly, 
 as Alister had to go north before the mast, I chose to 
 stick by my comrade, and rough it with him. This 
 decided Dennis. If Alister and I were going as sea- 
 men, he would not " sneak home as a passenger." 
 
 The elderly cousin did not quite approve of this, 
 but the engineer officer warmly supported Dennis, 
 and he was also upheld in a quarter where praise 
 was still dearer to him, as I knew, for he took me 
 into his confidence, when his feelings became more 
 than he could comfortably keep to himself. 
 
 " Perhaps she won't like your being a common 
 sailor, Dennis," I had said, "and you know Alis- 
 ter and I shall quite understand about it. We 
 know well enough what a true mate you've been 
 to us, and Alister was talking to me about it last 
 night. He said he didn't like to say anything to 
 you, as he wouldn't take the liberty of alluding to 
 the young lady, but he's quite sure she won't like 
 it, and I think so too." 
 
 I said more than I might otherwise have done, 
 because I was very much impressed by Alister's 
 unusual vehemence on the subject. He seldom 
 indeed said a word that was less than a boast of 
 Scotland in general, and Aberdeenshire in parti- 
 cular, but on this occasion it had burst forth that 
 though he had been little "in society "in his 
 native country, he had "seen enough to know that 
 a man would easier live down a breach of a' the 
 ten commandments than of any three of its cus- 
 toms." And when I remembered for my own part, 
 how fatal in my own neighbourhood were any pro- 
 ceedings of an unusual nature, and how all his in- 
 nocence, and his ten years of martyrdom, had not 
 sufficed with many of Mr. Wood's neighbours to 
 condone the "fact" that he had been a convict, I 
 agreed with Alister that Dennis ought not to risk 
 the possible ill effects of what, as he said, had a 
 neer-do-weel, out-at-elbows, or, at last and least, 
 an uncommon look about it ; " and that having re- 
 sumed his proper social position, our Irish comrade 
 would be wise to keep it in the eyes he cared most 
 to please. 
 
 "Alister has a fine heart," said Dennis, "but 
 you may tell him I told her," and he paused. 
 
 " What did she say?" I asked anxiously. 
 
 "She said," answered Dennis slowly, "that 
 she'd small belief that a girl could tell if a man 
 were true or no by what he seemed as a lover, but 
 there was something to be done in the way of 
 judging of his heart by seeing if he was kind with 
 his kith and faithful to his friends." 
 
 It took me two or three revolutions of my brain 
 to perceive how this answer bore upon the ques- 
 tion, and I repeated it to Alister, his comment was 
 almost as enigmatical. 
 
 "A man," he said sententiously, " that has been 
 blessed with a guid mother, and that gives the love 
 of his heart to a guid woman, may aye gang through 
 the ills o' this life, like the children of Israel through 
 the Red Sea, with a wall on's right hand and a wall 
 on's left." 
 
 But it was plain to be seen that the young lady 
 approved of Dennis O'Moore's resolve, when she 
 made us three scarlet night-caps for deck-wear, with 
 a tiny shamrock embroidered on the front of each. 
 
 Indeed, as to clothes and comforts of all sorts, 
 we began our homeward voyage in a greatly reno- 
 vated condition, thanks to our friends. The many 
 kindnesses of the engineer officer were only matched 
 by his brusque annoyance if we " made a fuss about 
 nothing," and between these, and what the sugar- 
 planter thought due to his relative, and what the 
 sugar-planter's daughter did for the sake of Dennis, 
 the only difficulty was to get our kits stowed within 
 reasonable seamen's limits. The sugar-planter's 
 influence was of course invaluable to us in the 
 choice of a ship, and we were very fortuuate. The 
 evening we went on board I accompanied Dennis 
 to his cousin's house to bid good-bye, and when we 
 left, Miss Eileen came with us through the garden 
 to let us out by a short cut and a wicket-gate. She 
 looked prettier even than usual, in some sort of pale 
 greenish-grey muslin, with knots of pink ribbon 
 about it, and I felt very much for Dennis's deplor- 
 able condition, and did my best in the way of 
 friendship by goingwell ahead among the oleanders 
 and evergreens, with a bundle which contained the 
 final gifts of our friends. Indeed I waited at the 
 wicket-gate not only till I was thoroughly tired of 
 waiting, but till I knew we dare wait no longer, 
 and then I went back to look for Dennis. 
 
 About twenty yards back I saw him, as I thought, 
 mixed up in some way with an oleander-bush in 
 pink blossom, but, coming nearer, I found that it 
 was Eileen's grey -green dress with the pink bows, 
 Which, like a slackened sail, was flapping against 
 him in the evening breeze, as he knelt in front of 
 her. 
 
 " Dennis," said I, not too loud ; not loud enough 
 in fact, for they did not hear me ; and all that 
 Dennis said was, " Take plenty, Darlin'!" 
 
 He was kneeling up, and holding back some of 
 the muslin and ribbons with one hand, whilst with 
 the other he held out a forelock of his black curls, 
 and she cut it off with the scissors out of the sailor's 
 housewife which she had made for him. I turned 
 my back and called louder. 
 
 " I know, Jack. I'm coming this instant," said 
 Dennis. 
 
 The night was noisy with the croaking of frogs 
 the whirring and whizzing of insects, the cheeping 
 of bats, and the distant cries of birds, but Dennis
 
 112 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 and Eileen were silent. Then she called out, 
 " Good-bye, Jack, GOD bless you." 
 
 " Good-bye, Miss Eileen, and GOD bless you," 
 said I, feeling nearly as miserable as if I were in 
 love myself. And then we ran all the rest of the 
 way to the stelling. 
 
 Alister was already on board, and the young 
 officer was there to bid us GOD speed, and Dennis 
 was cheerful almost to noisiness. 
 
 But when the shores of British Guiana had 
 become a muddy-looking horizon line, I found 
 him, with his cropped forehead pressed to the open 
 housewife, shedding bitter tears among the new 
 needles and buttons. 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 "Zur tiefen Ruh, wie er sich auch gefunden. 
 
 Scin Geist ist's, der mich ruft." 
 
 Wallenstein's Tod. 
 
 OT the least troublesome part of our enlarged 
 kit was the collection of gay-plumaged birds. 
 
 leir preservation was by no means complete, and 
 I continued it at sea. But between climate and 
 creatures, the destructiveness of the tropics is dis- 
 tracting to the collector, and one or two of my 
 finest specimens fell into heaps of mangled feathers, 
 dust, and hideous larva? under my eyes. It was 
 Dennis O'Moore's collection. He and his engineer 
 friend were both good shots, and they had made an 
 expedition on purpose to get these birds for Alister. 
 There were some most splendid specimens, and the 
 grandest of all, to my thinking, was a Roseate Spoon- 
 bill, a wading, fish-catching bird of all shades of 
 rose, from pale pink to crimson. Even his long 
 horny legs were red. But he was not a pleasant 
 subject for my part of the work. He smelt like 
 the " Water- Lily " at her worst, before we got rid 
 of the fish cargo. 
 
 Knowing that he had got them for Alister, I was 
 rather surprised one day when Dennis began pick- 
 ing out some of the rarest birds and put them aside. 
 It was so unlike him to keep things for himself. 
 But as he turned over the specimens, he began to 
 ask me about Cripple Charlie, whose letter he had 
 read. Meanwhile he kept selecting specimens, and 
 then returning them to the main body again, "Ah, 
 we must'nt be robbing Alister, or he'll never die 
 Provost of Aberdeen. In the end he had gathered 
 a very choice and gorgeous little lot, and then I 
 discovered their destination. " We'll get them set 
 up when we get home," he said ; " I hope Charlie'll 
 
 like 'em. They'll put the old puffin's nose out of 
 joint anyway, for as big as it is ! " 
 
 Our ship was a steamship, a well-found vessel, 
 and we made a good passage. The first mate was 
 an educated man, and fond of science. He kept a 
 meteorological log, and the pleasantest work we 
 ever did was in helping him to take observations. 
 We became very much bitten with the subject, and 
 1 bought three pickle-bottles from the cook, and 
 filled them with gulf-weed and other curiosities for 
 Charlie, and stowed these away with the birds. 
 
 Dennis found another letter from his father 
 awaiting him at the Halifax post-office. The 
 Squire had discovered his blunder, and sent the 
 money, and the way in which Dennis immediately 
 began to plan purchases of all sorts, from a birch- 
 bark canoe to a bearskin rug, gave me a clue to 
 the fortunes of the O'Moores. I do not think he 
 would have had enough left to pay his passage if 
 we had been delayed for long. But our old ship 
 was expected any hour, and when she came in we 
 made our way to her at once, and the upshot of it 
 all was, that Dennis and I shipped in her for the 
 return voyage as passengers, and Alister as a sea 
 man. 
 
 Nothing can make the North Atlantic a pleasant 
 sea. Of the beauty and variety of warmer waters 
 we had nothing, but we had the excitement of some 
 rough weather, and a good deal of sociability and 
 singing when it was fair, ^nd we were very glad to 
 be with our old mates again, and yet more glad 
 that every knot on our course was a step nearer 
 home. Dennis and I were not idle because we 
 were independent, and we enjoyed ourselves tho- 
 roughly. As to Alister, there was no difficulty in 
 seeing. how well he stood with the red-bearded 
 captain, and how good a friend his own energy 
 and perseverance (with perhaps some touch of 
 clannishness to boot) had gained for him. Dennis 
 and I always shared his watches, and they were 
 generally devoted to the discussing and rediscussing 
 of our prospects, interspersed with fragmentary 
 French lessons. 
 
 From the day that Alister had heard Dennis 
 chatter to the squaw, through all our ups and 
 downs, at sea and ashore, he had never flagged in 
 his persistent profiting by Dennis's offer to teach 
 him to speak French. It was not, perhaps, a very 
 scholarly method which they pursued, but we had 
 no time for study, so Dennis started Alister every 
 day with a new word or sentence, and Alister 
 hammered this into his head as he went about his 
 work, and recapitulated what he had learned 
 before. By the time we w ere on our homeward 
 voyage, the sentences had become very complex, 
 and it seemed probable that Alister's ambition to 
 take part in a "two-handed crack" in French
 
 AND THE WORLD. 
 
 with his teacher, before the shamrock fell to pieces, 
 would be realized. 
 
 " What he has learnt is wonderful, I can tell 
 ye," said Dennis to me, " but his accent's horrid ! 
 And we'd get on faster than we do if he didn't 
 argue every step we go, though he doesn't know a 
 word that I've not taught him." 
 
 But far funnier than Alister's corrections of his 
 teacher, was a curious jealousy which the boatswain 
 had of the Scotch lad's new accomplishment. We 
 could not quite make out the grounds of it, except 
 that the boatswain himself had learned one or two 
 words of what he called parly voo when he was in 
 service at the boys' school, and he was jealously 
 careful of the importance which his shreds and 
 scraps of education gave him in the eyes of (he 
 ordinary uneducated seaman. With Dennis and 
 me he was uniformly friendly, and he was a most 
 entertaining companion. 
 
 Owing to head winds,, our passage was longer 
 than the average. A strange thing happened 
 towards the end of it. We had turned in for 
 sleep one night, when I woke to the consciousness 
 that Dennis had got out of his berth, and was 
 climbing past mine, but I was so sleepy that I did 
 not speak, and was only sure that it was not a 
 dream, when Alister and I went on deck for the 
 next watch, and found Dennis walking upland 
 down in the morning mist. 
 
 "Have you had no sleep?" I asked, for his 
 face looked haggard. 
 
 " I couldn't. For dreaming," he said, awk- 
 wardly. 
 
 I laughed at him. 
 
 " What have you been dreaming about ? " 
 " Don't laugh, Jack. I dreamt of Barney." 
 "Well, that's natural enough, Dennis. This 
 end of the voyage must recall the poor fellow. " 
 
 " I wouldn't mind if it was a kindly dream. 
 But I dreamed he'd an old woman's bonnet on 
 and a handkerchief tied over it. It haunts me." 
 
 " Go back to bed," I advised. " Perhaps you'll 
 dream of him again looking like himself, and that 
 will put this out of your head." 
 
 Dennis took my advice, and I stood Alister's 
 watch with him, and by-and-by Dennis appeared 
 on deck again looking more at ease. 
 
 " Did you dream of him again ? " I asked. He 
 nodded. 
 
 "I did just his own dear self. But he was 
 sitting alone on the edge of some wharf gazing 
 down into the water, and not a look could I get 
 out of him till I woke." 
 
 The following morning Dennis was still sound 
 asleep when I rose and went on deck. The coast 
 of Ireland was just coming into sight through the 
 haze when he joined me, but before pointing it 
 
 out to him, I felt curious to know whether he had 
 dreamed a third time of old Barney. 
 
 "Not I," said he ; "all I dreamed of was a 
 big rock standing up out of the sea, and two 
 children sitting on it had hold of each other's 
 hands. " 
 
 " Children you know ? " 
 
 ' ' Oh dear, no ! Just a little barefoot brother 
 and sister." 
 
 He seemed to wish to drop the subject, and at 
 this moment a gleam of sunshine lit up the distant 
 coast line with such ethereal tints, that I did not 
 wonder to see him spring upon the bulwarks and 
 catching a ratlin with one hand, wave his cap 
 above his head with the other, crying, " GOD 
 bless the Emerald Isle ! " 
 
 We reached Liverpool about four o'clock in the 
 afternoon, and as we drew up alongside of the 
 old wharf, my first thought was to look for Biddy 
 Macartney. Alister had to remain on board for a 
 time, but Dennis came willingly with me in search 
 of the old woman and her coffee-barrow. At last 
 we betook ourselves to the Dock-gatekeeper, to 
 make inquiries, and from him we heard a sad 
 story. The old woman had " failed a deal of late," 
 he said. He " had heard she wasn't right in her 
 mind, but whether they'd shifted her to a 'sylum or 
 not, he couldn't say." If she was at home, she 
 was at an address which he gave us. 
 
 "Will you go, Dennis? I must. At once." 
 " Of course." 
 
 Biddy was at home, and never whilst I live can 
 I forget the " home." Four blocks of high houses 
 enclosed a small court into which there was one 
 entrance, an archway through one of the buildings. 
 All the houses opened into the court. There were 
 no back-doors, and no back premises whatever. 
 All the dirt and (as to washing) all the cleanliness 
 of a crowded community living in rooms in flats, 
 the quarrelling and the love-making, the old 
 people's resting, and the children's playing; 
 from emptying a slop-pail to getting a breath of 
 evening air this court was all there was for it. 
 I have since been told that if we had been dressed 
 like gentlemen, we should not have been safe in it, 
 but 1 do not think we should have met with any 
 worse welcome if we had come on the same 
 errand" to see old Biddy Macartney." 
 
 Roughly enough, it is true, we were directed to 
 one of the houses, the almost intolerable stench 
 of which increased as we went up the stairs. By 
 the help of one inmate and another, we made 
 our way to Biddy's door, and then we found it 
 locked. 
 
 "The missis '11 be out," said a deformed girl 
 who was pulling herself along by the balustrades. 
 She was decent-looking and spoke civilly, so I
 
 ir 4 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 ventured to ask, " Do you mean that old Biddy is 
 out?" 
 
 ' ' Nay, not Biddy. The woman that sees to 
 her. When she's got to go out she locks t'old lass 
 up to be safe," and volunteering no further help, 
 the girl rested for a minute against the wall with 
 her hand to her side, and then dragged herself in 
 to one of the rooms and shut the door in our faces. 
 
 The court without and the houses within already 
 resounded so to the squalling of children, that I 
 paid no attention to the fact that more of this 
 particular noise was coming up the stairs ; but in 
 another moment a woman, snaking a screaming 
 baby in her arms and dragging two crying children 
 at her skirts, clenched her disengaged fist (it had 
 a key in it) close to our faces and said, "And 
 which of you vagabones is t'old lass's son ? " 
 
 " Neither of us," said I, "but we want to see 
 her, if we may. Are you the woman who takes 
 care of her?" 
 
 " I've plenty to do minding my own, I can tell 
 ye," she grumbled, "but I couldn't abear to see 
 t'ould lass taken to a 'sylum. They're queer 
 places some on 'em, as I know. And as to 
 t'House ! There's a many folks says, ' Well if 
 t'guardians won't give her no relief, let her go in.' 
 But she got hold on me one day, and she says, 
 ' Sally, darling ' (that's t'ould lass's way, is calling 
 
 ?e Darling. It sounds soft, but she is but an old 
 rish woman, as one may say), ' if ever, ' she says, 
 ' you hear tell of their coming to fetch me, GOD 
 bless ye,' she says, 'just give me a look out of 
 your eye, and I'm gone. I'll be no more trouble 
 to any one, ' she says, ' and maybe I'll make it 
 worth your while too.' " 
 
 At this point in her narrative the woman looked 
 mysterious, nodded her head, craned over the 
 banisters to see that no one was near, slapped the 
 children and shook up the baby as a sort of 
 mechanical protest against the noise they were 
 making (as to effects they only howled the louder), 
 and drawing nearer to us, spoke in lower tones : 
 
 "T'old lass has money, it's my belief, though 
 she gives me nowt for her lodging, and she spends 
 nowt on herself. She's many a time fai r clemmed, 
 I'll assure ye, till I can't abear to see it, and I give 
 her the bit and sup I might have had myself, for 
 I'm not going to rob t'children neither for her nor 
 nobody. Ye see it's her son that's preying on her 
 mind. He wrote her a letter awhile ago, saying 
 times was bad out yonder, and he was fair heart- 
 broke to be so far away from her, and she's been 
 queer ever since. She's wanted for everything 
 herself, slaving and saving to get enough to fetch 
 him home. Where she hides it I know no more 
 nor you, but she wears a sight of old rags, one 
 atop of another, and pockets in all of 'em Tor 
 
 aught I know hold your din, ye unrewly children ! 
 there's folks coming. I'll let ye in. I lock 
 t'old lass up when I go out, for she might be 
 wandering, and there's them hereabouts that would 
 reckon nought of putting her out of t'way and 
 taking what she's got, if they heard tell on't." 
 
 At last the door was unlocked and we went in. 
 And sitting on a low box, dressed as before, even 
 to the old coat and the spotted kerchief over her 
 bonnet, sat Biddy Macartney. 
 
 When she lifted her face, I saw that it was 
 much wasted, and that her fine eyes had got a 
 restless uneasy look in them. Suddenly this 
 ceased, and they lit up with the old intelligence. 
 For half an instant I thought it was at the sight 
 of me, but she did not even see me. It was on 
 Dennis O'Moore that her eyes were bent, and 
 they never moved as she struggled to her feet, and 
 gazed anxiously at his face, his cap, and his sea- 
 faring clothes, whilst, for his part, Dennis gazed 
 almost as wildly at her. At last she spoke : 
 
 "Goo save ye, Squire ! Has the old counthry 
 come to this ? Is the O'Moore an alien, and all ?" 
 
 " No, no. I'm the Squire's son," said Dennis. 
 " But tell me quick, woman, what are you to 
 Barney Barton ?" 
 
 " Barney is it ? Sure he was brother to me, as 
 who knows better than your honour ? " 
 
 " Did you live with us, too ? " 
 
 " I did, acushla. In the heighth of ease and 
 comfort, and done nothin' for it. Wasn't I the 
 big fool to be marryin' so early, not knowin' when 
 I was well off ! " 
 
 " I know. Barney has told me. A Cork man, 
 your husband, wasn't he? A lazy, drunken, ill- 
 natured rascal of a fellow." 
 
 " That's him, your honour ! " 
 
 " Well, you're quit of him long since. And, as 
 your son's in New York, and all I have left of 
 Barney is you " 
 
 "She doesn't hear you, Dennis." 
 
 I interrupted him, because in his impetuosity 
 he had not noticed that the wandering look had 
 come back over the old woman's face, and that 
 she sat down on the box, and fumbled among her 
 pockets for Mickey's letter, and then crouched 
 weeping over it. 
 
 We stayed a long time with her, but she did 
 not really revive. With infinite patience and 
 tenderness, Dennis knelt beside her, and listened 
 to her ramblings about Mickey, and Mickey's 
 hardships, and Mickey's longings for home. Once 
 or twice, I think, she was on the point of telling 
 about her savings, but she glanced uneasily round 
 the room and forbore. Dennis gave the other 
 woman some money, and told her to give Biddy a 
 good meal to have given money to her would 

 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 have been useless and he tried hard to convince 
 the old woman that Mickey was quite able to 
 leave America if he wished. At last she seemed 
 to take this in, and it gave her, I fear, undue 
 comfort, from the conviction that, if this were so, 
 he would soon be home. 
 
 After we left Biddy, we went to seek decent 
 lodgings for the night. For Dennis was anxious 
 to see her again in the morning, and of course I 
 stayed with him. 
 
 " Had you ever seen her before ? " I asked, as 
 we walked. 
 
 " Not to remember her. But Jack, it wasn't 
 Barney I saw in that first dream. It was Bridget." 
 Dennis was full of plans for getting her home 
 with him to Ireland; but when we went back 
 next dry, we found a crowd round the archway 
 that led into the court. Prominent in the group 
 was the woman who ' ' cared for " Biddy. Her 
 baby was crying, her children were crying, and 
 she was crying too. And with every moment 
 that passed the crowd grew larger and larger, 
 as few things but bad news can make a crowd 
 grow. 
 
 We learnt it very quickly. Biddy had been so 
 much cheered up by our visit, that when the 
 woman went out to buy supper for them, she did 
 not lock the door. When she came back, Biddy 
 was gone. To do her neighbours justice, we 
 could not doubt considering how they talked 
 then that they had made inquiries in all the 
 streets and courts around. 
 
 " And wherever t'owld lass can ha' gone ! " 
 sobbed the woman who had been her neighbour, 
 in the noblest sense of neighbourhood. 
 
 I was beginning to comfort her when Dennis 
 gripped me by the arm : 
 
 " I know," said he. "Come along." 
 His face was white, his eyes shone, and he 
 tossed his head so wildly he looked madder than 
 Biddy had looked ; but when he began to run, 
 and roughs in the streets began to pursue him, I 
 ran too, as a matter of safety. We drew breath 
 at the dock -gates. 
 
 The gatekeeper told us that old Biddy, "looking 
 quite herself, only a bit thinner like," had gone 
 through the evening before, to meet someone who 
 was coming off one of the vessels, as he under- 
 stood, but he had not noticed her on her return. 
 He had heard her ask some man about a ship 
 from New York. 
 
 I wanted to hear more, but Dennis clutched me 
 again and dragged me on. 
 
 " I'll know the wharf when I see it," said he. 
 Suddenly he stopped, and pointed. A wharf, 
 but no vessel, only the water sobbing against the 
 stones. 
 
 " That's the wharf," he gasped. " That's where 
 he sat and looked down. She's there ! " 
 
 He was right. We found her there at ebb of 
 tide, with no sign of turmoil or trouble about her, 
 except the grip that never could be loosened with 
 which she held Mickey's one letter fast in her 
 hand. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " Oh ! dream of joy ! is this indeed 
 
 The lighthouse-top I see? 
 
 Is this the hill ? Is this the Kirk ? 
 
 Is this mine own countree? 
 
 " We drifted o'er the harbour bar, 
 
 And I with sobs did pray 
 
 O let me be awake, my GOD ! 
 
 Or let me sleep alway." 
 
 The Ancient Mariner. 
 
 WHEN Alister joined us the first evening 
 after we came back from poor Biddy, he 
 was so deeply interested in hearing abeut her, that 
 he would have gone with us the next morning, if 
 he had not had business on hand. He had a 
 funny sort of remorse for having misjudged her 
 the day she befooled the sentry to get me off. 
 Business connected with Biddy's death detained 
 Dennis in Liverpool for a day or two, and as I had 
 not given any warning of the date of my return to 
 my people, I willingly stayed with him. My com- 
 rades had promised to go home with me before 
 proceeding on their respective ways, but (in answer 
 to the letter which announced his safe arrival in 
 Liverpool) Alister got a message from his mother 
 summoning him to Scotland at once on important 
 family matters, and the shamrock fell to pieces 
 sooner than we had intended. In the course of a 
 few days, Dennis and I heard from our old 
 comrade. 
 
 "The Braes of Buie, 
 
 " MY DEAR TACK AND DENNIS : I am home 
 safe and sound, though not in time for the funeral, 
 which (as partly consequent on the breaking of a 
 tube in one engine, and a trifling damage to the 
 wheels of a second that was attached, if ye under- 
 stand me, with the purpose of rectifying the defi- 
 ciencies of the first, the Company being, in my 
 humble judgment, unwisely thrifty in the matter 
 of second-hand boilers) may be regarded as a Dis- 
 pensation of Providence, and was in no degree 
 lowked upon by any member of the family as a 
 wanting of respect towards the memory of the 
 deceased. With the sole and single exception of 
 Miss Margaret MacCantywhapple, a far-away
 
 116 
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 cousin by marriage, who, though in good circum- 
 stances, and a very virtuous woman, may be said 
 to have seen her best days, and is not what she 
 was in her intellectual judgment, being afflicted 
 with deafness and a species of palsy, besides other 
 infirmities in her faculties. I misdoubt if I was 
 wise in using my endeavours to make the poor 
 body understand that I was at the other side of 
 the world when my cousin was taken sick, all her 
 response being, l they aye say so.' However, at 
 long and last, she was brought to admit that the 
 best of us may misjudge, and as we all have our 
 faults, and hers are for the most part her mis- 
 fortunes, I tholed her imputations on my veracity 
 in the consideration of her bodily infirmities. 
 
 "My dear mother, thank GOD, is in her usual, 
 and overjoyed to see my face once more. She 
 desires me to present her respects to both of you, 
 with an old woman's blessing. I'm aware that it 
 will be a matter of kindly satisfaction to you to 
 learn that her old age is secured in carnal comforts 
 through my father's cousin having left all his 
 worldly gear for her support ; that is, he left it to 
 me, which is the same thing. Not without a tes- 
 timony of respect for my father's memory, that all 
 the gear of Scotland would be cheap to me by the 
 side of; and a few words as to industry, energy, 
 and the like, which, though far from being de- 
 served on my part, sound like voices out of the 
 mist upon the mountain side sweeter and 
 weightier, it may be, than they deserve, when a 
 body hears them, as ye may say, out of the 
 grave. 
 
 "It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, and 
 it's not for me to complain of the downbreak in 
 the engines, seeing that in place of rushing past 
 the coast, we just crawled along the top of these 
 grand cliffs in the bonny sunshine, which hardly 
 wakes a smile upon the stern faces of them, while 
 the white foam breaks at no allowance about their 
 feet. Many's the hour. Jack, I've lain on the 
 moss, and looked down into a dark cove to watch 
 the tide come in, and turn blue, and green, and 
 tawny purple over the weeds and rocks, and fall 
 back again to where the black crags sit in creamy 
 surf with sea-birds on their shoulders. Eh ! man, 
 it's sweet to come home and see it all again ; the 
 folk standing at their doors, and bairns sitting on 
 the dykes with flowers in their hands, and the 
 waving barley-fields on the cliff tops shining 
 against the sea and sky, as lights and shades 
 change their places over a woman's hair. There 
 were some decent bodies in the train beside me, 
 that thought I was daft, with my head out of the 
 window, in an awful draught, at the serious risk 
 of brow-ague, not to speak of coal-smuts, which 
 are horrid if ye get them in your eye. And not 
 
 without reason did they think so, for I'll assure 
 ye I would have been loth to swear whether it 
 was spray or tears that made my cheeks so salt 
 when I saw the bit herring-boats stealing away 
 out into the blue mist, for all the world as if they 
 were laddies leaving home to seek their fortunes, 
 as it might be ourselves. 
 
 "But I'm taking up your time with havers 
 about my own country, and I ask your pardon ; 
 though I'm not ashamed to say that, for what I've 
 seen of the world tropics and all -give me the 
 north-east coast of Scotland ! 
 
 "I am hoping, at your leisure, to hear that ye 
 both reached home, and found all belonging to ye 
 as ye could wish ; and I'm thinking that if Dennis 
 wrote in French, I might make it out, for I've 
 come by an old French Dictionary that was my 
 father's. GOD save the shamrock ! Your affec- 
 tionate friend, 
 
 "ALISTER AUCHTERLAY. 
 
 " I am ill at saying all that I feel, but I'll never 
 forget." 
 
 Dennis and I tramped from Liverpool. Partly 
 for the walk, and partly because we were nearly 
 penniless. His system, as I told him, seemed to 
 be to empty his pockets first, and to think about 
 how he was going to get along afterwards. How- 
 ever, it must be confessed that the number and 
 the needs of the poor Irish we came across in 
 connection with Biddy's death and its attendant 
 ceremonies, were enough to be " the ruination " of 
 a far less tender-hearted Paddy than Dennis 
 O'Moore. 
 
 And so a real sailor with a real bundle under 
 my arm I tramped Home. 
 
 Dennis had been a good comrade out in the 
 world ; but that was a trifle to the tact and sym- 
 pathy he displayed when my mother and father 
 and I were making fools of ourselves in each 
 other's arms. 
 
 He saw everything, and he pretended he saw 
 nothing. He picked up my father's spectacles, 
 and waltzed with the dogs whilst the old gentle- 
 man was blowing his nose. When Martha broke 
 down in hysterics (for which, it was not difficult 
 to see, she would punish herself and us later on, 
 with sulking and sandpaper), Dennis "brought 
 her to " by an affectionate hugging, which, as she 
 afterwards explained, seemed " that natteral " 
 that she never realized its impropriety till it was 
 twenty-four hours too late to remonstrate. 
 
 When my dear mother was calmer, and very 
 anxious about our supper and beds, I ascertained 
 from my father that the Woods were from home, 
 and that Jem had gone down to the farm to sit for
 
 WE AND THE WORLD. 
 
 117 
 
 an hour or so with Charlie ; so, pending the pre- 
 paration of our fatted calf, Dennis and I went to 
 bring both Jem and Charlie back for the night. 
 
 It was a dark, moonless night, only tempered 
 by the reflections of furnace fires among the hills. 
 Dennis thought they were northern lights. The 
 lane was cool, and fresh and damp, and full of 
 autumn scents of fading leaves, and toadstools, 
 and Herb Robert and late Meadow Sweet. And 
 as we crossed the grass under the walnut-trees, I 
 saw that the old schoolroom window was open to 
 the evening air, and lighted from within. 
 
 I signalled silence to Dennis, and we crept up, 
 as Jem' and I had crept years ago to see the pale- 
 faced relation hunting for the miser's will in the 
 tea-caddy. 
 
 In the old arm-chair sat Charlie, propped with 
 cushions. On one side of him Jem leant with 
 elbows on the table, and on the other side sat 
 Master Isaac, spectacles on nose. 
 
 The whole table was covered by a Map of the 
 World, and Charlie's high, eager voice came 
 clearly out into the night. 
 
 "Isaac and I have marked every step they've 
 gone, Jem, but we don't think it would be lucky 
 to make the back-mark over the Atlantic till they 
 are quite safe Home." 
 
 Dennis says, in his teasing way, he never be- 
 lieved in my " athletics " till he saw me leap in 
 through that window. He was not far behind. 
 
 "Jem ! " 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 When Jem released me and I looked round, 
 Charlie was resting in Dennis O'Moore's arms 
 and gazing up in his own odd, abrupt, searching 
 way into the Irish boy's face. 
 
 "Isaac !' r he half laughed, half sobbed : "Dennis 
 is afraid of hurting this poor rickety body of mine. 
 Come here, will you, and. pinch me or pull my 
 hair, that I may be sure it isn't all a dream ! " 
 
 
 CHISWICK PRESS: c. WHITTINGHAM AND co., TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY I.ANE.