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 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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 Marshfield the Observer 
 (5r the Death-Dance
 
 MARSHFIELD 
 IHE OBSERVER 
 
 The Death-Dance 
 
 STUDIES OF CHARACTER & ACTION 
 
 BY 
 
 EGERTON CASTLE 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PRIDE OF JENNICO," "YOUNG APRIL,' 
 "CONSEQUENCES," ETC., ETC. 
 
 HERBERT S. STONE W COMPANY 
 
 CHICAGO ^ NEW YORK 
 
 MDCCCC
 
 COPYRIGHT 1900, BY 
 HERBERT S. STONE & CO
 
 ? "pl^ 
 
 
 TO 
 
 ALEXANDER GALT ROSS 
 
 MY FRIEND AND CANDID CRITIC 
 
 534768 
 
 UXRARI
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Marshfield the Observer 
 
 A Foreword i 
 
 Mrs. Tollmage i 
 
 The Guests of the Wolfmaster . . . -43 
 
 The Devil's Whisper 93 
 
 The Herd-Widdiefow 131 
 
 Endymion in Barracks 163 
 
 The Death-Dance 211
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 CONCERNING MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 If there happen, among my readers, to be any 
 who recollect an early book of mine, "La Bella 
 and Others," they may possibly recall one 
 particular tale in that collection, "The Baron's 
 Quarry," in which a certain Marshfield figures 
 as teller of the story and as Chores in the 
 development of its action. 
 
 The same personage plays a similar part in 
 most of the present tales. 
 
 His was a curious, or at least a very unusual 
 personality. I say was, for although I have no 
 positive proof of his disappearance from this 
 world, it is already a very long time since I 
 have seen or heard anything of him. 
 
 Among the many classes into which it would 
 be possible to divide intellectual characteristics, 
 there are two very broad ones, especially 
 antithetical. There are the men whose main 
 energies tend ever towards action and crea- 
 tion ; towards doing and producing. And there 
 are those whose great and all-sufficient hap-
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 piness is to study, to know; who revel in 
 observation and theory ; who thesaurise knowl- 
 edge for its bare sake, unproductively, even as 
 the miser thesaurises means of wealth for no 
 ulterior purpose. Marsh field was one of these 
 latter. 
 
 I had known him ever since my now distant 
 university days, and never met at any time a 
 more promising subject. The great brain 
 power of the man and his truly marvellous 
 capacity for digesting and assimilating knowl- 
 edge, were of the kind which should have led 
 him in life, through the portals of brilliant 
 degrees, to the very acme and pitch of any 
 profession. He might have selected any line 
 he pleased, artistic, literary, legal, scientific; 
 what not? On leaving college he was equipped 
 for a fair start in any career. His knowledge 
 of art, for instance, being so young a man, was 
 truly wonderful. A classical scholar and 
 master of many modern tongues, he was armed 
 not only with an exact understanding of all 
 accepted philological discoveries, but with 
 theories of his own which, had he chosen to 
 work them out, would undoubtedly have made 
 his name famous. The same, in his case, 
 might have been augured of natural sciences, 
 or law. Yet, as years fell away, he never rose 
 from the status of mere student and theorist. 
 Never was such a man for "getting up," as the 
 
 ii
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 jargon has it, an out-of-the-way subject, but 
 there his energies stopped; when he had 
 secured it, he fairly revelled for a time in the 
 new-acquired knowledge for all its practical 
 uselessness, even as the collecting maniac revels 
 in the possession of some rare, if intrinsically 
 worthless, bibelot. He was, so to speak, an 
 Intellectual Miser. But never, from the 
 moment he had emerged from his status 
 pupillaris, did the fellow make the slightest 
 attempt to increase his small (but, happily for 
 him, settled) income by any profitable pursuit. 
 
 Among his intimates he was long known (for 
 all the prodigious amount of work he had 
 always on hand) as the Idler; which, hearing 
 one day, he mildly corrected, with some com- 
 placency, to the Observer. And the sobriquet 
 cleaved to him. Indeed, as some men succumb 
 to a passion for sport, and others to one for 
 gambling or dissipation, Marshfield, once 
 absolutely his own master, became more than 
 ever a prey to this lust of unregulated study 
 and investigation. 
 
 When we fell in together again, some years 
 after our college days, I found that the uncon- 
 ventional (and, in consequence, somewhat 
 unpopular) undergraduate had already devel- 
 oped into a decided eccentric. But, oddly 
 enough, he had become an accepted person; 
 
 • • • 
 
 111
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 something even of a favourite, at least in 
 certain circles. 
 
 His only permanent dwelling was a small set 
 of rooms, attics in the dingiest and ghostliest 
 comer of old Clifford's Inn. There, during 
 the intervals between fitful flittings, mysterious 
 and sudden disappearances, he lived like a sort 
 of rat-in-a-cheese, surrounded by untidy masses 
 of books, papers and incomprehensible collec- 
 tions of odds and ends, evidently fraught for 
 the moment with absorbing interest. 
 
 A curious-looking creature was this pre- 
 maturely old-looking young man. Broad- 
 headed, small-mouthed and large-eyed; with 
 no hair on his sallow face but singularly 
 marked eyebrows, which contrasted oddly with 
 a very thin and pointed black moustache ; with 
 an utterly unemotional countenance, he recalled 
 at the very first sight the physiognomy of an 
 experienced and philosophical tom-cat. The 
 impression was strengthened by a narrow chest 
 and stooping shoulders which, in repose, 
 irresistibly suggested the humpy and tucked- 
 up attitude of the meditative grimalkin. And, 
 like those of that absorbingly selfish and 
 observant creature, his eyes, though wide and 
 clear, were singularly unexpressive. 
 
 Bodily, it were difficult to imagine a less 
 vigorous - looking personality ; thin - armed, 
 thin-thighed, with hands and feet shapely 
 
 iv
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 enough but much too small, with pale cheeks 
 and bloodless lips, he might have stood forth 
 as a type of the great disinherited of manhood. 
 He undoubtedly passed for such among those 
 who knew him little. And yet a stronger con- 
 stitution I never knew of. It is not on record 
 that he was ever ill, or even indisposed. 
 There was apparently no wear and tear in the 
 man — an instance which would seem to point 
 out that the chief source of vital waste is to be 
 sought in emotional life. For, whereas with 
 most of us the greatest luxury of mental vigour 
 is to achieve and to give out, with this cold- 
 souled being the height of delight was reached 
 when he had mastered a new conception, taken 
 unto himself a new entity — that sufficed. To 
 his haunting curiosity a new, fully-realised, 
 mental image was as satisfying as a personal 
 experience. 
 
 No one, not even I, his most intimate, ever 
 knew anything positive of Marshfield's private 
 life. In its own way it was decidedly epicurean, 
 but everything points to the conclusion that he 
 was singularly devoid of the cardinal human 
 passions — Love, Hatred, and Ambition. I 
 believe he was incapable, certainly not desir- 
 ous, of experiencing the rack or the joy of 
 them personally. Yet I never came across a 
 "neurotic subject" who could appreciate more 
 exactly the yearning or ecstasy of Love, or the
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 lust of Hate ; but, like Ambition, that load-star 
 of vigorous lives, all this was simply an 
 abstract, if well-defined, conception. 
 
 I have called him an Intellectual Miser, 
 rejoicing in, but making no use of, his con- 
 stant acquisitions. The simile is apt in yet 
 another sense. Just as the miser jealously 
 ascertains the genuineness of his new treasure 
 before locking it up and looking out for 
 another, Marshfield always took measures to 
 ascertain whether any freshly-acquired stone 
 in the mosaic of his encyclopaedic knowledge 
 was perfect at all points. And his method in 
 so doing was original. 
 
 I forget which philosopher said: "Wouldst 
 thou acquire some knowledge, read; more 
 exact knowledge, write; quite exact knowl- 
 edge, teach!" Now, it did not enter into 
 Marshfield's independent scheme of life to 
 teach, in the regular sense of the word. More- 
 over what, in such circumstances, he would 
 have had to teach would rarely have proved of 
 sound educational value. But, to suit his end, 
 he worked on lines which afforded the didactic 
 opportunities he required. 
 
 When, after a more or less prolonged retreat, 
 either "in his own cheese" up in his Inn 
 chambers, or in the reading-room of the British 
 Museum, he felt his mind as full of his new- 
 chosen subject as the oft-quoted egg is full of 
 
 vi
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 meat, he would waylay some devoted friend in 
 some likely spot. This might be in his own 
 rooms, or a club corner, over a cigar. There, 
 with pertinacious sagacity, he would shape the 
 course of converse to the subject at hand, and 
 regardless of all deprecation, expatiate from 
 Alpha to Omega on the selected topic. It was, 
 truly, like the process of "forcing" a card. As, 
 however, his monologues (under the ostensible 
 flag of discussion) were beyond doubt marvels 
 of clearness, he almost invariably achieved his 
 purpose. 
 
 In this manner, and often at the oddest times 
 and places, I was on innumerable occasions 
 seized upon and made the "corpus vile" on 
 which to try the "experimentum" which was 
 to prove the complete acquisition by Marsh- 
 field of some preposterous subject of investiga- 
 tion. It might be The Genesis of the Straight 
 Line, based on the Theory of Linkages ; or The 
 Life-purpose of the Earthworm in Soil Trans- 
 formation; or The Existence of Aryan Races 
 in Peru ; or yet again new theories concerning 
 The Imitative Tendencies of Orchid-forms 
 . . . Que sais-je! 
 
 I knew Marshfield's peculiar way of ringing 
 at my door, and his stealthy step on my stair. 
 And when I heard the sound (mostly of an 
 evening when I had reckoned upon a quiet 
 spell of musing or work of my own) I knew 
 
 vii
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 also that my fate was to endure several hours 
 of one-sided conversation on topics far removed 
 from my own choosing. 
 
 And yet there was an undeniable fascination 
 about the man. He spoke so well ! Too well 
 even, for his speech was invariably pedantic; 
 but it compelled attention. He sat, very calm 
 always, half-smiling, smoking one after the 
 other without interval some half-dozen of the 
 best Havanas he expected to find under my 
 roof — and there was no getting him away, or 
 getting away from him, until he had gone 
 through his intended performance. After 
 which he drank his stirrup-cup, selected his 
 last cigar and departed, satisfied, serene, full of 
 benign theoretical friendship, to show no 
 further sign of life for weeks; sometimes for 
 months. 
 
 He was, on the whole, a great solitary. Yet 
 he had the knack of forcing himself into any 
 society that at the time might have an interest 
 for him; and curiously enough he was, as I 
 said, generally looked upon as a decided 
 acquisition. 
 
 Marshfield, son of a learned but quite obscure 
 professor at one of the smaller universities and 
 of a well-to-do North Country yeoman's daugh- 
 ter; Marshfield, who even admitted (with some 
 show of interest in the matter) that an unmis- 
 takable strain of Gipsy blood ran in his veins, 
 
 viii
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 had no claim to the invidious degree of lineage 
 and ancestry. But nowadays, to the great 
 benefit of the modern nation, birth is only one 
 and by no means an indispensable factor of the 
 status of a gentleman; and Marshfield the 
 scholar, with the speech and bearing of the 
 highly-cultured, with the quiet manners of the 
 independent-minded, self-reliant man, suffi- 
 ciently attentive to the importance of suitable 
 garb on all occasions, Marshfield, eccentric as 
 he was, never seemed out of place in any 
 society. 
 
 There is no denying, however, that had it 
 not been for the fact that he was, after all, a 
 man of comfortable private means, he might 
 have passed, when he moved away from his 
 own den, for something like a chartered para- 
 site. There was nothing of the "client" or 
 lap-dog about the man ; but it never occurred 
 to him to dread the position of what the French 
 pithily call pique-assiette. When it suited his 
 purpose to establish his dwelling in the mansion 
 of some kindly host, he did so in the quiet, 
 uncompromising, absolutely detached manner 
 of the domestic cat he otherwise resembled, 
 without ever considering the possibility of out- 
 lasting his welcome, so long as the place 
 pleased him. And if he was never greatly 
 loved, he was always tolerated. He was a 
 character, was such a useful talker, so full of 
 
 ix
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 information; had, for instance, such a prodi- 
 gious memory for "chapter and verse" ready 
 against any case in point. He was, in short, 
 like Dominie Sampson, a sort of literary dumb- 
 waiter. But above all, he was a harmless, 
 unobtrusive, unsophisticated fellow, so every 
 one said. 
 
 Such was the character Marshfield bore in 
 society! It may readily be realised what a 
 coign of vantage a reputation of that kind could 
 afford a man, one of whose main delights in 
 life was the scanning and analyzing of "human 
 documents." 
 
 I have said that Marshfield was a creature of 
 essentially cold temperament, dispassionate and 
 speculative. No one has ever known him to 
 be in love, for instance, or to care for beauty 
 otherwise than in an artistic, critical manner ; or 
 to evince anything approaching to enthusiasm 
 and warmth of heart. But it might almost 
 be said that his interest in psychological display 
 among his fellow men — in the action and 
 reaction between human character and outside 
 events — was all the keener for being so imper- 
 sonal. To him the observation of a chain of 
 passional episodes could be as congenial a 
 scientific or critical exercise as the study of a 
 microscopic slide or the deciphering of an 
 occult manuscript. 
 
 Now, when, in his excursions into the world,
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 he had lighted upon one of those innumerable 
 dramas of the soul, which around us come 
 constantly to the surface, like eddies in the 
 ever-flowing stream of life, to swirl awhile, 
 disappear and be replaced by others, he rarely 
 passed the new revelation, duly classified, to 
 his treasury of facts and memories, without 
 taking an opportunity of giving it a finished 
 shape and pleasing to the mood of the moment, 
 and testing it upon some hearer of his own 
 selection. 
 
 I, for instance, could fill several volumes 
 with the Observer's stories, were it not that 
 the majority of these were undeniably more 
 suited to the uncompromising realism of a 
 Maupassant than to the reticence of an English 
 pen. The five episodes related in this book, 
 however, are in their variety sufficiently typical 
 of Marshfield's ways of reporting his observa- 
 tions—or rather, as he was fond of calling 
 them, "his cases in point." For the bias of 
 his general trend of thought, whenever he 
 expatiated on human actions, was always felt : 
 no story of incident and passion ever came 
 from his lips but as an exemplification, so to 
 speak, of some broad Law of Nature. 
 
 The story of "Mrs. Tollmage," for instance 
 (further strengthened by the account of the 
 married Don Juan, among "The Guests of the 
 Wolf master"), was complacently advanced as
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 an instance of the symmetry of "elective" with 
 chemical affinities. 
 
 The history of Edward Dalrymple's haunt- 
 ings was meant to illustrate a long thesis he 
 had one night argued on the subject of his 
 latest subjects of study — the Dreaming State 
 and Hallucinations, to wit. That night I 
 undoubtedly learned much that was interesting 
 on the theory of "subexpectation" and "psy- 
 cho-sensorial visualising' ' — yet not so interest- 
 ing as the love visions of "Endymion in 
 Barracks, ' ' the account of which crowned the 
 evening's converse. 
 
 The tale I have called "The Devil's Whisper" 
 is based on one of Marshfield's early student 
 days' reminiscences, brought up on an occasion 
 when (for once more sceptical than my friend 
 himself) I had expressed a doubt of the exist- 
 ence of any "remorse" apart from hidden fear 
 of detection. Marshfield, however, saw in it 
 (among other things) an instance of "unstable 
 equilibrium!" How he worked out the theo- 
 rem I now forget. 
 
 As for the legend of the ' ' Herd-Widdiefow" — 
 which personage I understand to have been one 
 of Marshfield's forbears — it was, in some round- 
 about way, introduced into a discussion on the 
 characteristics of the many strong races which 
 go to make up what we are pleased to call now 
 the Anglo-Saxon people. 
 
 Xll
 
 FOREWORD 
 
 Although I have not seen my friend for a 
 considerable time, it is possible that he may 
 reappear on my path in life at some time or 
 other, fresh from some distant whimsical 
 expedition, and in his usual manner, just as 
 if we had only parted the day before. In such 
 a case it is more than probable that he will 
 have new dramas of his own observing to 
 report. Indeed, as I have often thought, 
 Marshfield, like a latter-day Sydney Carton to 
 some modern Stryver, would prove an invalu- 
 able "jackal" to a fiction-writing "lion." 
 Most of his succinct stories might easily be 
 used as main themes for fully developed 
 romances or novels. I have, however, pre- 
 ferred to place these on record very much in 
 the form they assumed when they came to be 
 told ; and merely qualified in the retelling by 
 the literary mood of the moment. 
 
 "The Death Dance" is a "true story" of the 
 Hungarian Home Rule War of 1849. Although 
 many of the characters who figured in that 
 almost incredible episode are still living, at 
 this distance of time I have not thought it 
 necessary to disguise the Hungarian localities 
 and patronymics in any way, and but very 
 slightly the English names themselves. 
 
 xiu
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE
 
 Mrs. Tollmage 
 
 We were a small but sufficient party in the 
 snug alcove end of the club smoking-room. 
 We had arrived at the first petit verre^ and were 
 thinking of our second course of smoke, when 
 there entered upon us Marshfield. 
 
 Now there is, as I have said, not a single 
 topic of discussion, scientific, literary, artistic, 
 social, or merely fanciful, about which this 
 singular being ever fails to set forth blandly 
 vsome novel line of discussion. His egotistic 
 mastery in the art of bringing dialogue (even 
 among men who, like ourselves, essentially 
 resent all tendency to "pontifying") exactly, 
 and withal quite naturally, to the starting 
 point he has in view, is a thing delightful to 
 watch. 
 
 When he joins, in his mild, stealthy way, in 
 the general talk, the casual stranger would be 
 apt to regard him at first as an unobtrusive 
 young man with a gift of modesty and quite a 
 talent for listening. But those who know him 
 feel no amazement when, presently, the con- 
 
 3
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 versation frames itself under his guidance 
 to the exact preamble necessary to one of 
 his paradoxical assertions ready for defence 
 at all points, some audacious hypothesis or 
 out-of-the-way tale: and the measured voice 
 ends by wearying all others into silence. 
 
 Thus, from my corner, behind the misty 
 breath of a church-warden, it was with both 
 amusement and curiosity that I watched the 
 newcomer softly manipulate the subject of dis- 
 cussion till he had introduced the particular 
 point upon which it was evidently his intention 
 this afternoon to discourse. 
 
 "I could give you a case in point," said 
 Marshfield, by-and-by, looking up from the 
 circle of his glass of chartreuse around upon 
 his audience — "an instance of the workings, 
 upon two thinking bodies, of that associating 
 and dissociating force of nature we call affinity, 
 and which is popularly supposed to act only on 
 chemical atoms and molecules. 
 
 "You know," added he, after another sip, 
 settling himself down in his chair and to his 
 narration with a leisurely zest that was truly 
 ominous, "that if the ultimate law of Nature 
 be Harmony (as no doubt most of us must hold 
 it) then the deduction logical is that human 
 society has not yet emerged from Chaos 
 
 4
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 Harmony in its true sense is the exception in 
 human relations ; and that, of course, because 
 we are still plunged in the inevitable incipient 
 state of all things natural. This is what makes 
 the observation of an obvious case of simple 
 working affinity among our fellows, such as I 
 had occasion to witness in the household of my 
 good friend Dr. Tollmage, so very interesting. 
 I do not know whether any one here remem- 
 bers the incident? It was town talk at one 
 time." 
 
 "What, the Tollmage scandal?" asked our 
 reverend antiquary, rising in his chair with an 
 alacrity of interest for which he presently 
 blushed. "But that was three years ago or 
 more. Is there anything new about it?" 
 
 ' ' Nothing really new, ' ' answered Marshfield, 
 turning round to the speaker. "Only I again 
 came across some of the chief actors in it but a 
 very short time ago, and I am more than ever 
 impressed by what indeed was my feeling from 
 the very beginning — that in them the workings 
 of affinity have successfully combined a stable 
 out of two unstable compounds. It is a com- 
 fort to see one's theories so agreeably illus- 
 trated," he added, with his well-known little 
 cackle. 
 
 Now the majority of his listeners, not 
 chemists nor yet psychologists, were already 
 beginning to tire of Mr. Marshfield's special 
 
 5
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 views on Pain and Pleasure, Action and Reac- 
 tion, and the "equilibrium of happiness," how- 
 ever ingenious these might be. But we all 
 pricked our ears at the word scandal as at the 
 approach of a topic of more intelligibly human 
 interest. 
 
 He had gained his point, as usual. He now 
 proceeded to deliver his story from his own odd 
 standpoint. 
 
 "The sensation created at the time by Arch- 
 deacon ToUmage's marital difficulty," said he, 
 surveying his audience placidly, and dropping 
 into that manner of speech which I knew so 
 well and which was as of one dictating, "was, 
 I believe, chiefly confined to ecclesiastical 
 circles, as the journalese language has it. 
 But, no doubt, many a society paragraphist 
 would at the time have given more than a trifle 
 to know the exact bearings of the case, as it 
 was my lot to discriminate them. For it so 
 fell out that I was present at the first act — no, 
 by the way, it was, of course, the second — of 
 the singularly simple drama which in the space 
 of one hour placed the unfortunate archdeacon 
 in such an unexpectedly painful position. 
 
 "The dramatis personce were three, if we do 
 not reckon the Confidant, which was of course 
 myself. To my mind the most interesting, 
 because the most active, was Cosmo Cameron 
 
 6
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 — Lord Cosmo, by courtesy, who, as you know, 
 is the younger son of an historic family, justly 
 celebrated in those bygone times when men 
 who had a strong temperament did not scruple 
 to yield to its influence. 
 
 "Now, hereditary characteristics were un- 
 commonly developed in Lord Cosmo, and his 
 temperament is, I am bound to state, a trifle 
 too strong for the conventionalities of modern 
 social life, though, of course, none the less 
 entertaining to me on that account. I had met 
 him once or twice at the houses of mutual 
 friends. But it was on the coasts of Japan, on 
 board his yacht, that we cemented our friend- 
 ship, if so can be called an odd sort of attrac- 
 tion to each other without the smallest ap- 
 proach to affection on his side or trust on mine. 
 
 "What he appreciated in me were, no doubt, 
 my unconventional views of human action. To 
 me, his companionship became in time a never 
 failing source of enjoyment; for he was then 
 just the fellow to plan and carry through, with 
 that sporting instinct and strength which I 
 lack, all sorts of risky enterprises productive of 
 the most precious observations to me. Besides 
 which this descendant of a long line of exalted 
 Highland brigands — although a pure Gael 
 through almost all his ascendants and there- 
 fore not a representative of the strongest 
 existing race — was and is an ideally beautiful 
 
 7
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 son of Nature's vigour, and one whom the pol- 
 ish of modern luxurious life has had no power 
 to deteriorate. 
 
 "A more perfect type of manhood, at least to 
 my mind (for I dislike your hulking pink-and- 
 white Saxon as much as I admire his destiny), 
 never stepped this earthly crust. As to face, 
 he belongs, according to my classification, to 
 the hawk genus of physiognomy ; a head and 
 forehead of classic smallness, though not, for- 
 sooth, of classic insipidity; nose clear-cut and 
 straight, though of decidedly predatory char- 
 acter ; eyes wide apart and wide open, in repose 
 blue as steel, and with all the inflexible direct- 
 ness of steel, but black with an abnormal dila- 
 tion of pupils under the slightest emotion; 
 swarthy as to skin and hair, the latter crisply 
 intractable in its exuberance. 
 
 "There is great expression, I hold, in teeth. 
 His teeth drew my eyes strangely when he 
 smiled — though his smile, I must tell you, was 
 something delicious in its guileless candour, 
 and many a man and woman has trusted him 
 to their undoing on the strength of that child- 
 smile. But his teeth! They are ferocious, 
 carnivorous; withal small, white and close 
 under very red, thinnish lips. As to figure, of 
 middle height only, lean and wiry, square- 
 shouldered, deep-chested, slender of wrist and 
 ankle, without a blemish in his strength; a 
 
 8
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 man without nerves — save for delight or 
 ferocity. ' ' 
 
 There was something almost pathetic in this 
 unwonted enthusiasm on the pale mouth of 
 Marshfield; Marshfield the large-headed, the 
 white-faced, the spindle-shanked, and narrow- 
 chested, who, as he himself admitted, had been 
 driven to adopt as his consolatory motto: A 
 man is but what he knows. 
 
 "Such is Cosmo Cameron, the outer animal 
 at least," continued he after a pause of retro- 
 spective admiration. "Those who have known 
 him in London, trim and correct in Piccadillian 
 attire, speak of him as a 'deuced good-looking 
 fellow. ' — Ah ! They should have seen him, cleav- 
 ing the blue water of the tropic sea, seen him 
 as I saw him bearing down on me through 
 waves of death, swift, noiseless, like a shark 
 himself ! 
 
 "He used to have a long swim at sunrise, 
 from the yacht, during our South Sea cruise, a 
 thing that I should detest, even if I could 
 swim. That it was he who contrived the 
 booby-trap which sent me overboard, to have 
 the amusement of fishing me out when I was 
 three parts drowned, and thus to vary the 
 monotony of his day, I never had a doubt. Be 
 
 9
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 it as it may, however, it would be difficult to 
 imagine anything more beautiful than the 
 sheen of his swarthy skin through the blue 
 water over my drowning eyes ; anything more 
 superb than the masterly grip which postponed 
 my demise. I used the word shark — that 
 morning bath is inextricably associated with 
 the phantom. Barely had this young Anteus 
 lifted me spluttering and blinded, clear of the 
 brine, on to the companion, when a gleaming 
 shape, monstrous and indefinable, leapt up at 
 us, nearly reaching my pendant heel. Cosmo 
 gave a strident laugh, and with one more 
 heave landed me sprawling on deck. 
 
 "And, as we leant over the bulwark, there 
 indeed was the sinister black fin of a shark, 
 shearing the surface of the water below us. My 
 preserver — for so I must call him, I presume, 
 after all — never admitted that he had descried 
 the devil brute making for me from afar before 
 plunging to the rescue. But, like the polished 
 barbarian he was, thought the joke excellent. 
 Half an hour later, when we had hauled the 
 beast on board, it was fine to watch the savage 
 glee on his face, as, with the carpenter's axe, 
 he dealt its death blows." 
 
 Thus far, as many of us must have thought, 
 the question of chemical affinities seemed as 
 
 lO
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 remote as ever. But Marshfield always adheres 
 to his own line of country, over which those 
 who wish to be in at the death must be content 
 to follow him. 
 
 "As to the moral side of this remarkable but 
 somewhat dangerous friend of mine, at least in 
 the everyday conventional sense, it is simpler 
 to say there is none: he has only Instincts. 
 His feelings for me reminded me of the 
 anomalous affection some widely differentiated 
 animals develop for each other — a horse for a 
 cat, to give an instance — for, as a rule, he 
 shewed the most absolute contempt for all 
 natures not animally vigorous. I knew how 
 far it could be relied upon, and would certainly 
 not have trusted myself blindly where interests 
 of life and death materially differed. Indeed, 
 on one occasion I imagine it was rather a 
 happy thought of mine to have retained posses- 
 sion of the last revolver. . . . This, however, 
 would be too long a story. When we were safe 
 again and in comparatively civilized parts once 
 more, he was highly delighted with me and 
 thought all the more of the weak-armed student 
 for his Machiavelian distrust and forethought, 
 and told me so, laughing. However, if one is 
 to go by his actions alone, there is no contro- 
 verting the fact that he was — I have reason to 
 
 II
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 think he is altered now, but that is all in 
 accordance with my theory, as you will see — 
 the most cynical scamp ever tolerated by 
 Society. 
 
 "Yet, with all his contempt for the conven- 
 tional tenets of modern morals — and to say, for 
 example, that his behaviour to women was 
 scandalous, is to state matters with the feeble- 
 ness of polite language — I do not suppose there 
 was ever a more widely popular being. He 
 was such a man among men, did such rare 
 fighting with his Highlanders in Africa during 
 the short time that army discipline knew him 
 — a born leader, a bom sportsman, the breezy 
 healthiness of his nature was simply infectious. 
 So openly selfish, too, as to be beyond envy. 
 
 "As for the man among women. . . . The 
 epic Don Juan of the Spanish legend comes up 
 flabbily to the minds of those who have known 
 my friend Cosmo ! 
 
 ''MilV e tre! That is nothing. Numbers 
 are nothing. 'Twas the station, the pride, the 
 unaccountable downfall of this man's prizes, as 
 a rule, which struck one with abstract admira- 
 tion ; all of which was not, of course, without 
 consequences. That, rich as he is, he has not 
 been ruined by repeated costs, is due to the 
 fact that in an unregenerate world all the 
 spouses of frail wives do not find them out; 
 and that those who do, sometimes find it to 
 
 12
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 their better interests to put tip with them ; or, 
 not having necessarily clean sheets themselves, 
 refrain from legal appeal; or, again, are non- 
 plussed by cross actions. ' ' 
 
 "But there is also the argument more imme- 
 diately ad Jiominem" put in one who evidently 
 did not share Marshfield's critical apprecia- 
 tion of his hero, "Horsewhipping and such. 
 Is not such chastisement on record?" 
 
 " 'The bastinado is a good dependence,' " 
 quoted Marshfield calmly. "That is," he pro- 
 ceeded, "when the premise is secure, you know. 
 It is apt, however, on occasion to fail in prac- 
 tice. There was, no doubt, something in 
 Cosmo's eye, even more than in his depth of 
 chest, which stood as a warning to theoretical 
 thrashers. But on two occasions, I under- 
 stand, the experiment was actually tried. On 
 the first, the Outraged Husband was comically 
 run out by the elbow and the nape of the neck, 
 and dismissed with a caution : he was a little 
 man. 
 
 "On the second, the Big Brother, dear to the 
 novelist, called with a hunting crop (which is 
 now in Cosmo's collection), and without loss of 
 time fared thus : It seems that his blundering 
 attack just grazed Cosmo on the lip ; whereat 
 Cosmo showed his teeth, closed, seized the 
 man's arm by the wrist, and snapped it at the 
 elbow on his knee; then escorted him home in 
 
 13
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 a fainting condition and explained courteously 
 at the door that there had been a little accident. 
 Still, notwithstanding this constant superiority 
 to circumstances, England did really at one 
 time become too hot a place for my friend. 
 But it was more for fear of being at last 
 brought to book and being driven into mar- 
 riage, than from any sense of shame, that he saw 
 the advisability of disappearing for a while. 
 
 "He hired a large yacht, which he made his 
 home for the time, and on board which I 
 eventually became his guest, when, as I said, 
 we came across each other during my Japanese 
 expedition. 
 
 ' ' ' But why, ' I asked of him one day, when 
 he had expatiated at some length on one of his 
 disgraceful episodes, as he himself mockingly 
 dubbed them — 'why put yourself to such 
 infinite trouble in the cause, if you never find 
 real pleasure in woman's company? You 
 speak like an utter blas^, and yet you will risk 
 not only your own life (for to juggle with that 
 is, I know, an amusement to you) but your 
 friend's — meaning me — which ought to be a 
 more serious consideration, to try some fresh 
 experiment in this seeking for 
 
 "The light that lies in woman's eyes," 
 and which has certainly been your "life's 
 undoing," as much as that of poor Tommy 
 Moore himself. ' 
 
 14
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 "I here alluded to a recent adventure of his 
 — of ours, rather — in an Eastern port, which 
 had well-nigh brought us both to the most 
 disastrous of ends. 
 
 "The look he gave me in reply was anything 
 but that of the used-up man. 
 
 " 'The risk to your precious skin, my judi- 
 cious bottle-holder,' he said drily, 'put that 
 down to your own insatiable curiosity. Con- 
 cerning myself,' he continued, in a musing 
 tone, 'I foresee that the rest of my life may 
 still be spent in the search of an impression. ' 
 
 " 'Oh, if you are still seeking for new 
 impressions!' cried I, and added after an 
 eloquent pause — 'By this time, surely, unless 
 you have a power of classification far beyond 
 the conceivable, )'ou must always be falling 
 back into the old. ' 
 
 "He again remained musing for a moment. 
 Then his reply threw a curious side-light upon 
 what I knew of his life. 
 
 " 'No,' he said, rather shortly, 'it is not a 
 new impression I long for — it is an old one.' 
 And, for the first and only time, I saw some- 
 thing approaching to a pathetic look on his 
 masterful face. It was very transient. 
 
 "He had been away for three years when we 
 returned together to England and thereupon 
 parted. 
 
 "But during the shooting season of that same 
 
 15
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 year I fell in again with my peripatetic friend, 
 in an unexpected and, to me, gratifying way. 
 I was then on a visit to Archdeacon Tollmage 
 — and this brings us round to the starting point 
 of my tale — at his rectory of Chillingburgh. 
 
 "Archdeacon Tollmage was an old friend of 
 my father's, and used, in consequence, to be 
 very condescendingly kind to me. 
 
 "He was then — I hardly know what he is 
 now — a superb epicurean, on the wrong side 
 of fifty, with a superb belief in himself, which, 
 considering the scholar, the polished gentleman 
 he was, his fine taste for old wine and for artistic 
 beauty, his talent for apt Horatian quotation, 
 the green erectness of his person, his stature 
 and his features, struck one as not only justi- 
 fied, but demanded by the fitness of things. 
 
 "He had a taste, as I have said, for things of 
 beauty. The most beautiful appanage of the 
 great man's household was undoubtedly his 
 second wife. I understand that his first, to 
 judge by the children she bequeathed him, was 
 not so handsome ; but she was an error of his 
 youth, so to speak, and he atoned to his 
 aesthetic principles by the choice of the second 
 Mrs. Tollmage. 
 
 "When I was first introduced to her, I ran- 
 sacked my brain to recall which demi-god of 
 the chisel or palette could have foreshadowed 
 such a face or form. The figure was gorgeous, 
 
 16
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 under a plain — ridiculously plain — close-fitting 
 dress of sombre hue, and would have made the 
 mind dwell upon antique statuary, did not the 
 warm colouring of skin, eyes, and hair cause 
 wandering memories of some voluptuous can- 
 vas of Titian. 
 
 "But, oddly enough, in presence of that 
 magnificent person there was no element of 
 attractiveness beyond a purely intellectual 
 admiration. I do not speak of myself, who 
 have no passion but one, and that, from its 
 nature, cold-blooded — I mean the lust of obser- 
 vation; but others have confirmed my own 
 impression. She, with her beautiful head, set 
 in massive plaits of auburn hair, the waves of 
 which no amount of barbarously decorous close 
 dressing could subdue; with her deep eyes, 
 shaded under long black lashes — eyes that 
 should have smitten an anchorite with fire, had 
 any soul been felt behind their glance — failed 
 to produce aught but almost a numbing effect. 
 Never was there such absolute coldness. Her 
 Juno-like affability, if I may be allowed such 
 an apparently absurd simile, was extended to 
 all about her, without exception, in precisely 
 the same degree ; to her husband, no less nor 
 more than to the casual visitor; to the guest 
 under his roof-tree; to the servants; to the 
 pale-eyed step-children, who yet seemed to 
 hang about her skirts with uncouth adoration. 
 
 17
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "Nevertheless, this calm, beautiful manner, 
 however distant and uninspired it might leave 
 strangers and friends — not to speak of her 
 spouse — was beyond doubt precisely suited to 
 the taste of the archdeacon. This was interest- 
 ing, for it must be noted that there was noth- 
 ing 'Venerable' about him but his title of 
 courtesy, for all the silvering of his hair. 
 Decorousness, in every element of life, in the 
 relaxation of pleasure no less than in the per- 
 formance of duty, was not only an indispen- 
 sable but obviously a chief • factor of his 
 self-satisfaction. 
 
 "On the evening of the third day of my visit 
 the archdeacon casually made an announce- 
 ment which I hailed with pleasurable surprise. 
 We were at dinner — I placed at one side of the 
 noble old mahogany, well-laden in old-fash- 
 ioned style wdth massive plate and rare cut 
 glass, between the insignificant wife of the 
 curate and my host, who grandly operated upon 
 the turbot at one end and sent ever and anon, 
 in the interval of condescending converse 
 with his guests, winged words of information 
 to his consort who sat in beauty at the other. 
 
 " 'I called at the Castle on my way back,' 
 said he, deftly detaching the neatest of fillets 
 as he spoke, 'and I met one of their new guests 
 for the shooting; who, when I happened to 
 mention your name, Marshfield,' turning 
 
 i8
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 affably to me, 'said he knew you well — Lord 
 Cosmo Cameron. Yes, ' he pursued, in answer 
 to my exclamation, 'he appeared curious to see 
 you again, and so I asked him, if it were fine, 
 to walk over after dinner, and have coffee with 
 us.' 
 
 "The archdeacon and Lord Cosmo! this 
 would be worth seeing. 
 
 "But the archdeacon was addressing his 
 wife. 
 
 " 'This young man, my dear, I must tell you, 
 has rather — ah — a notorious reputation. 
 There are, I understand, not a few — what shall 
 I say? — indiscreet episodes in his past. In 
 fact, most people have heard of his escapades, 
 and perhaps you had rather not make his 
 acquaintance — in which case I shall have him 
 shown into the study, ' 
 
 "Mrs. Tollmage raised her fine brows with a 
 slight display of astonishment. 
 
 " 'Surely,' replied she in her quiet melodious 
 voice, 'I can have no objection to any one in 
 whom you take an interest — a friend of Mr. 
 Marshfield, too, ' with a conventionally amiable 
 smile at me. 
 
 " 'We spoke indeed mainly about you. Marsh- 
 field, ' pursued the host, giving a quick proud 
 look at the spouse, who invariably spoke the 
 fitting answer. 'He talked in a most enter- 
 taining manner' — this with a private smile 
 
 19
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 which made me guess pretty shrewdly that the 
 entertainment had been altogether at my 
 expense. 
 
 "The ladies had retired, and we were dis- 
 cussing our second glass of '51 port with 
 becoming gravity, when Lord Cosmo was 
 announced, and burst into the subdued atmos- 
 phere like a blast of sea air. His breeziness 
 might indeed have seemed offensive to the 
 archdeacon and patronising to me but for the 
 subtle indescribable charm by which this dog 
 of a fellow carried all things before him. 
 
 "No longer the most important guest, I was 
 now able to retire into observation; and it 
 tickled my fancy most agreeably to perceive 
 how the life and dash of this very loose fish 
 seemed to infect even our magnificent host. 
 As to the bashful, lymphatic curate, his timid 
 soul was here brought for the first time in his 
 life, I should say, in contact with the fascina- 
 tion of wickedness, and his 'facile descent' was 
 comic in its rapidity. It culminated in an ex- ' 
 plosive cachinnation at a somewhat broad but 
 indubitably witty innuendo which had escaped 
 Lord Cosmo in his headlong brilliancy of utter- 
 ance, and which the archdeacon, holding his 
 third glass of port critically up to the light, 
 perhaps to hide a twinkle of inward apprecia- 
 tion, had allowed to slip by unrebuked.
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 •'But the little parson's indelicacy spoilt it 
 all. The archdeacon arose from his chair in 
 majesty, fixed a look of withering reprimand 
 upon his curate (not upon the real offender, 
 mind you), and then, laying his hand — it was 
 the hand of a bishop, I always thought, plump, 
 taper, white, and full of persuasion — on 
 Cosmo's shoulder, moved an adjournment to 
 the purifying company of the ladies. 
 
 "As we filed into the drawing-room, I must 
 admit that there was a quite unwonted spici- 
 ness to me in the thought of watching my 
 friend's behaviour — never having, as it hap- 
 pened, seen him in the presence of European 
 ladies up to this — when it became incumbent 
 on him to entertain two such extremes of 
 womankind as the proud Mrs. Tollmage and 
 her pretty, washed-out, insanely domestic com- 
 panion. 
 
 "He was received with unimpeachable 
 graciousness by the former, and with quite a 
 flutter of affability by her companion, who no 
 doubt, like many other estimable persons, 
 dearly loved a lord, 
 
 "When we were duly installed— Lord Cosmo 
 having sunk easily into a low chair, close to 
 the Liberty draperies of Mrs. Curate (whose 
 spouse, not yet recovered from his agony of 
 blushes, hung miserably about the back- 
 ground), the archdeacon commanding us all 
 
 21
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 from the hearthrug, with the firelight throwing 
 his symmetrical nether limbs into high relief, 
 and I in the chimney corner, where there was 
 just darkness enough outside the circles of pink 
 shades to enable me to study unnoticed the 
 faces of my actors — they were kind enough to 
 begin the play for me. 
 
 "I was amused to mark that our hostess alone 
 of us all seemed absolutely undisturbed by the 
 exciting influence of Lord Cosmo's personality. 
 Would this pique my prince of Lotharios? I 
 wondered. He seemed, after the glance of 
 almost startled admiration which the first sight 
 of that rare creature never failed to draw from 
 man or woman, to be content to devote himself 
 to the curate's wife. But presently, as he bent 
 his dark head over the latter's 'tatting,' he fell 
 silent. I saw him shoot a strange, eager look 
 at Mrs. Tollmage, and the great pupils of his 
 eyes contracted till they became no larger than 
 a pin's head; then they grew large and black 
 again with startling suddenness. 
 
 "Presently, he flung himself back against the 
 cushions of his chair and closed his eyes, to 
 hide, I thought, heaven (or the devil) knew 
 what now passed behind them; while Mrs. 
 Tollmage stitched on serenely ; while the arch- 
 deacon held forth in genial dissertation, the 
 mellow port beaming from his countenance. 
 
 " 'Perhaps you can give us a day or two 
 
 22
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 before you leave these regions, my dear Lord 
 Cosmo, ' he was saying ; the subject was of his 
 cellar and Lord Cosmo's enthusiasm over the 
 '51 vintage having been so generous a thing as 
 to linger pleasingly in his memory. 'I should 
 like you to taste my old Brdne Mouton. It was 
 got for me at the sale of a famous Belgian cel- 
 lar. They know good wine, I assure you, in 
 that little comer of the world — and if you care 
 to come to us, my Lord ' 
 
 " 'Ah, do not tempt me, Archdeacon, cried 
 Lord Cosmo, suddenly opening his eyes and 
 looking up at the ponderous black form with 
 that charming smile of his. 'I do not think it 
 is good for me to see too much of a home like 
 this. It makes one feel what an outcast one 
 is, don't you know — sort of Peri out of Para- 
 dise, if I may be allowed to compare myself to 
 a Peri. A fellow like me is destined to be a 
 wanderer, and to my wanderings I had better 
 betake myself again. ' 
 
 "Here he sighed lugubriously. I wondered 
 what he was making for; but the archdeacon 
 fell guilelessly in with his humour. 
 
 " 'But surely,' said he, with paternal mansue- 
 tude, 'it need depend only upon yourself to be 
 as happy as other men, if indeed the quieter 
 charms of home life appeal to you more now 
 than the stronger excitements of a nomadic 
 life? Does not Horace felicitously ' 
 
 23
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "Lord Cosmo burked the looming quotation 
 with a laugh and a deprecatory gesture. 
 
 *' 'Woe is me! that is outside the pale of 
 probability — the deed of my fate, in that con- 
 nection, was sealed, a7id lost, many years ago. 
 And in trying to recover it again I have brewed 
 for myself a cauldron of trouble. It has 
 pleased heaven to keep me and the one woman 
 I could marry apart, up to now. Oh, I have 
 been maddened sometimes to think how close 
 we may have been to each other, and not 
 known. I believe we have never even heard 
 each other's name.' 
 
 "All eyes, even Mrs. Tollmage's, turned 
 with different expressions of wonder towards 
 the speaker, who, having made his singular 
 statement with admirable simplicity, lay 
 back in his chair once more and gazed up 
 at the ceiling with hands locked behind his 
 head, 
 
 " 'Oh, how romantic!' gurgled the curate's 
 wife. 
 
 " 'Very curious,' said the archdeacon en- 
 couragingly from the chimney corner, against 
 which he now leaned in the stately attitude 
 which suited his figure. 
 
 "Mrs. Tollmage said nothing, but after that 
 swift inquiring glance she prepared to listen. 
 At least, her fingers, which had been deftly 
 busy over some embroidery, according to her 
 
 24
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 placid habit, now rested in her lap, and she 
 gazed abstractedly at the floor. 
 
 " 'Be it what you like to term it,' said 
 Cosmo, 'romantic, or chiefly selfish, or wholly 
 foolish, one thing is certain — I have lived years 
 in the haunting hope of knowing once more 
 that soaring of the soul from earth to heaven 
 which men call love. It was mine, for a 
 trance-like moment — once — at the touch of a 
 girl's hand. And no girl, or woman, I have 
 ever met since has ever called it into being 
 again. To that unknown my love is pledged. 
 You see. Archdeacon, ' he continued, his tones 
 passing from soft dreaminess to their usual 
 alertness, 'that my matrimonial prospects are 
 remote.' Then addressing himself to Mrs. 
 Tollmage, who sat with black lashes almost 
 resting on her cheeks, he said sharply — 
 
 " 'It would not be right, I am sure you will 
 agree with me, for me to marry whilst this love 
 for the lost unknown lives in my heart, grow- 
 ing stronger and stronger every year. ' 
 
 "Her response was singular. She slowly 
 raised her full lids and looked straight at him. 
 Then, neglecting his query, said in a low 
 imperious voice — 
 
 " 'Tell the story.' 
 
 "There had come, to my thinking, an inde- 
 finable change upon her. She was immobile 
 as ever, it is true, but it seemed, if I can use 
 
 25
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 such a simile, as the immobility of a bow at 
 full tension. 
 
 "Cosmo's eyes gleamed, and from that 
 moment until he ceased to speak he scarcely 
 took them from her face. 
 
 " 'Yes,' echoed the archdeacon, with more 
 courteous inflection, as if to remove the 
 impression of peremptoriness which he evi- 
 dently noticed, and with transient disapproval, 
 in his wife's tones. 'Pray tell us, Lord 
 Cosmo. An episode which has pledged a man 
 like you to celibacy must be interesting, if it 
 can be told, ' he added prudentially ; and then 
 with a smile, Quicquid ainoi' Jiissit . . . / yet, 
 perhaps, after all it may be a case of conscience 
 which can be solved.' 
 
 " ' 'Tis hardly a case of conscience,' returned 
 Cosmo, rather shortly; and it amused me to 
 see how his conventions and civilities were 
 dropping from him one by one. 'It was a 
 very simple idyll, or rather a midsummer 
 night's dream.' 
 
 " 'How nice!' exclaimed the curate's wife, 
 rattling her bangles. 
 
 " 'And it happened thus,' wehton Cosmo, 
 with absolute disregard of the interruption. 
 He was seated, one arm hanging over the back 
 of his chair, half turned to face Mrs. Tollmage, 
 who reclined in statuesque attitude, her shapely 
 feet crossed and resting on a stool, her eyes, 
 
 26
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 which I had never seen so large or so brilliant, 
 fixed haughtily, as I thought, on the speaker. 
 
 " 'It was in one of our Mediterranean sta- 
 tions, at a ball given by the Governor, the very 
 night before the date fixed for my regiment's 
 departure. I was not then the bearded travel- 
 ler you see here, but a callow subaltern of 
 Highlanders. The place, an old palace, was 
 thronged, giddy with colour and music — the 
 sort of atmosphere, you know, that drives a 
 young fool ofE his head, I was pretty exhila- 
 rated with the fumes of it already, when a fel- 
 low (one of the stewards) took me up to a girl 
 that was standing out. He did not know either 
 of our names, evidently, so he made the mum- 
 ble that is sufiicient for etiquette. I did not 
 care a jot then, anyhow; and when she looked 
 up, rather shyly, and my eyes plunged down 
 into the marvellous depths of hers, sea blue, 
 there shot a kind of pang into my heart, and all 
 sublunary matters vanished into dim space. 
 Which of you have known love at first sight, 
 love that is love, and can understand what I 
 mean?' 
 
 "There was a curious hoarse alteration in 
 Cosmo's voice, and he stopped as if absorbed; 
 but after a little while he resumed his tale, and 
 this time, in the tones of one revelling in 
 exquisite memories : 
 
 " 'We never spoke a word to each other. 
 
 27
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 She rose and yielded a bending, divinely young 
 waist to my arm, and I carried her along 
 through the whirl of a waltz. From that 
 delicious head by my shoulder to my brain 
 bewitched, passed thoughts unspoken — un- 
 spoken except in music. How I knew I can- 
 not tell you, but I knew that as I felt she felt ; 
 that like me she was floating in a waking 
 dream through enchantment. You know, in 
 dreams, how free one is: pleasure is never 
 marred by any of the interferences of waking 
 life, duty, appearances, consequences, and 
 such like drags! We halted at last near an 
 open door that gave on terraced gardens, and 
 again we looked at each other without speak- 
 ing. The grounds were lit by hanging tinted 
 lamps, and the night sky was deep blue and 
 strewn with stars; in this darkness made 
 visible there flitted by groups and couples. 
 We stood face to face on the threshold, alone 
 in our united thoughts, in the midst of the 
 noisy throng. Little puffs of air came up to 
 us from the flower-beds, intoxicating even as 
 our delight. I could not speak. I could have 
 sung like a soaring lark, but spoken words 
 were impossible; yet in her eyes I read my 
 own desire, and so we walked forth, her hand 
 trembling on my arm! The fortune of love 
 brought us quickly apart from all the rest, and 
 there in the quaint old garden — between the 
 
 28
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 geranium hedges — do you know what a warm 
 pungent scent they have, after the heat of the 
 day? — there I kissed her wavy hair, the lids of 
 her eyes, sweeter than all dim violets, and 
 when our lips met, she yielding her soul to me 
 as willingly as I mine to her, I, kilted sub- 
 altern, was made a god in the glory of 
 Olympian joy! And thus I found and lost in 
 the same hour the woman whose body and soul 
 are by right, by the order of universal fitness, 
 mine: and shall be mine yet, if ever her path 
 crosses my own again. ' 
 
 "As he said his tale a dark flush rose in 
 Cosmo's cheek, and at the last few words there 
 was, although he did not raise his voice — how 
 shall I express it? — a kind of suppressed roar 
 in it, and the veins swelled on his forehead. 
 
 "A mantle of restraint, variously diversified, 
 .had fallen on the company. The archdeacon, 
 when I stole a glance at him, looked dubious, 
 and, in a manner far removed from his usual 
 complacency, was surveying his unimpeach- 
 able silken ankles. The curate's wife, shocked 
 in all the best feelings of the British matron, 
 was exchanging glances of dismay with her 
 freshly-blushing husband. Mrs, Tollmage sate 
 white and still; her eyes were cast down 
 heavily ; her straight brow slightly knitted as 
 if under an effort of thought. As for me, I 
 felt something of the unpleasant suspense of 
 
 29
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 one who foresees a coming explosion ; but none 
 the less did I find the situation of rare interest. 
 
 "After a short silence the archdeacon, with 
 the instinct of the man of the world, trying to 
 hide his annoyance at a turn of conversation so 
 little suited to an archdeaconal drawing-room, 
 said, with a palpable effort to appear uncon- 
 cerned and to treat the indecorum as of no 
 importance — 
 
 " 'It appears to me. Lord Cosmo, that since 
 you were so madly bent on making this ... ah, 
 very exceptional young lady your wife, fate has 
 perhaps been kind to you in keeping your paths 
 separate. And yet, having so far aroused our 
 curiosity, pray let me remind you that you have 
 not yet told us how you lost her ; how, with all 
 this — ah — ardour, you never succeeded in 
 meeting her again?' 
 
 " 'Alas,' cried Cosmo, with an exhilaration 
 of manner much at variance with the words, 
 'you ask me the question I have so often and 
 vainly asked myself! How could I have so 
 lost her who was my second self? How could 
 I, having grasped my happiness, have allowed 
 it to escape me? And yet the answer is so 
 obvious. It all happened so easily, so fatally 
 easy ! How long we kissed I cannot tell, such 
 poignancy of bliss is not to be measured by 
 time; but the awakening came. Some fools 
 came crunching down our path — and, like a 
 
 30
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 startled dream, she melted away; slipped 
 frightened from my arms, and was gone. As 
 ill-luck would have it, it was my confounded 
 old colonel who had borne down upon us. He 
 kept me, bantering me upon my timid partner, 
 like the idiot he was, for five precious minutes. 
 When I was free I sought her like a madman — 
 sought her in vain. The aide who had intro- 
 duced us had cause to remember me that night 
 — the way I pestered the fellow, but to no good ! 
 
 '* 'He swore by all his gods he had no notion 
 whom he had introduced to whom ; and in the 
 end told me that I had had too much cham- 
 pagne, and advised me to go to bed or to the 
 devil. 
 
 " *No one else of my acquaintances had 
 noticed, it seems, my slender girl-beauty. 
 She must have belonged to some casual visit- 
 ors, and next day we were steaming away 
 towards Africa. I had some thoughts of 
 deserting, but the madness just stopped short 
 of that. When the regiment returned home, I 
 left the service and began again my wild hunt 
 for the unknown, but never with a glimmer of 
 success. And so,' he added, smiling, with 
 dancing eyes, 'no hope for me but in a freak 
 of fate. Yet, after all, as the old saw has it, 
 everything comes at last to him who waits. ' 
 
 " 'A most extraordinary story,' quoth the 
 archdeacon sarcastically; 'but surely you do 
 
 31
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 not mean to give us to understand that, no 
 matter in what circumstances you find this 
 person again, you are prepared to make her 
 your wife. Judging from what you have told 
 us of her — ah — hum — peculiar behaviour with 
 you — I should be inclined to fear — hum — 
 aha. ' 
 
 "The archdeacon did not conclude his sen- 
 tence, but left us to gather his inference, which 
 was unmistakable. 
 
 " 'Oh, fie, how uncharitable!' cried Lord 
 Cosmo, with a mocking laugh; 'why, my good 
 Shepherd of Souls, I should think of the pre- 
 cept : Let him who has never sinned ' 
 
 "The archdeacon flushed and drew himself 
 up. He was evidently deeply annoyed at being 
 drawn into such a discussion. But neither his 
 dignity, nor the old Adam in him, would allow 
 him to grant this reprobate the last word. 
 
 " 'Far be it from me to condemn any one, 
 my Lord, ' he remarked, with solemn acerbity. 
 ' I sincerely trust that this young girl may have^ 
 as years advanced, perceived the beauty of that 
 modesty and discretion which are women's fair- 
 est adornments ; and I trust also that if you do 
 meet her, you will find her ready to turn with 
 horror from the remembrance of her past folly 
 and trifling — um — aha — perhaps unwilling even 
 to renew the acquaintance with one who — 
 ahem — ^has perhaps shown since a levity of 
 
 32
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 appreciation of — ah — the relative value of 
 justice and— sin!' 
 
 "But Lord Cosmo, who had now risen and 
 seemed to walk on air in increasing exultation, 
 was irrepressible. 
 
 " 'Nay, if you mean me,* he retorted, 'I 
 should tell her that if I have sinned, sinned 
 repeatedly, sinned to perdition, it was through 
 the loss of her; that in all my madness she 
 never was once out of my mind and heart — not 
 once; that such a life as I have led has but 
 taught me all the more, if such a thing were 
 possible, that there is only one woman in the 
 world for me, and that woman, she. And 
 when I meet her again, I shall say: Come. 
 And she will come. She will come to me from 
 her mother's side, from out of convent walls, 
 from husband or from children. Aye, she will 
 come, for she is mine. And were she in heaven 
 she would come to me in hell. ' 
 
 "The bomb was cast. Impossible to describe 
 
 the awfulness of the silence which followed 
 
 these awful words. 
 
 " ' Bei ihm, bei ihm ist Seligkeit 
 Und ohne Cosmo HoUe,' 
 
 murmured I idiotically, in the vain hope of 
 giving a lighter direction to the terrible serious- 
 ness of my friend's misdeed; but neither he, 
 nor any one else, had a thought to spare to 
 such insignificance as myself. 
 
 33
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 •'Cosmo had halted opposite Mrs. Tollmage, 
 and when he ceased speaking their eyes met ; I 
 saw the look that passed between them, and I 
 would fain describe it to you — it was a flame. 
 You fellows," said Marshfield, turning to the 
 novelist and to us generally — "you have so 
 twisted and tortured our wholesome English 
 tongue out of all exactness in your struggles 
 after the novel and the realistic, that if one 
 wants to convey a strong impression nowadays, 
 one is, willy-nilly, driven into hyperbole. That 
 interchange of glances between those two 
 made me feel as if it would have scorched me, 
 had I come between. 
 
 "Then I saw the tension of her whole beau- 
 tiful body relax. A tide of colour swept over 
 her face and her lips parted. After a second 
 she rose ; as did immediately every one else in 
 the room. 
 
 "The archdeacon, outraged in his most 
 sacred susceptibilities, was speechless; prin- 
 cipally, I should say, from a sense of the 
 inadequacy of all decorous language to such an 
 emergency. In the pause the curate and his 
 wife took their leave, conveying in their adieux 
 to their hosts much melancholy sympathy, and 
 in their bows to Cosmo and myself a Christian 
 abhorrence. 
 
 "Mrs. Tollmage took two or three steps with 
 them towards the door, and there stood, half 
 
 34
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 turned away from tis, her proud head a little 
 bent, as if listening. 
 
 "Cosmo next came forward. 
 
 '* 'It is time to depart,' he said quietly, dans 
 le vague; and composed, airy, deliciously 
 unconscious of offence, walked up to his swell- 
 ing host on the hearthrug. 
 
 " *Is there not an up-train which stops at 
 Chillinburgh about this time, and can you tell 
 me exactly when it is due?* 
 
 " 'Ten thirty-five,' said the archdeacon, too 
 pleased at the prospect of getting rid of his 
 troublesome guest to note the oddness of the 
 query from one who had taken up his abode in 
 the neighbourhood, for the time, at least. (But 
 I noted it.) 
 
 "Cosmo took out his watch, 'There are just 
 a few minutes to spare, ' he said emphatically. 
 
 "Mrs. ToUmage here moved out of the room 
 and closed the door behind her. 
 
 " 'Well, good-night. Archdeacon,' went on 
 Cosmo, smiling pleasantly; 'I hope I have not 
 scandalised you. ' 
 
 " 'I shall not speak about myself,' said the 
 divine, with much dignity, 'but I fear you have 
 strongly displeased Mrs. Tollmage,' looking 
 round significantly at her empty place. 'She 
 has not been accustomed to such talk in her 
 drawing-room.' 
 
 " *I should be sorry to think I had offended 
 
 35
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 her,' returned the culprit, suavely. 'I hope I 
 may soon have occasion to efface all bad 
 impressions.' And, with consummate assur- 
 ance, he shook the archdeacon warmly by the 
 hand, and nodding familiarly to me, left us, 
 
 "For a moment the archdeacon, surprised 
 almost into rigidness by such unwonted treat- 
 ment, stood lost in reflection, then, turning 
 somewhat ruefully to me — 
 
 " 'I am afraid, Marshfield,' he said, 'that 
 your friend is a little mad. ' 
 
 "'Perhaps,' said I; yet could not help 
 adding, for I felt that the bomb was yet to 
 burst, 'but I must say there seems to be much 
 method in his madness. ' 
 
 "Whereupon, whether impelled by the 
 desire of beholding so dangerous a person 
 safely off the premises, or by his duties as host, 
 or yet by curiosity, the archdeacon proceeded 
 with stately gait to the hall to see the last of 
 Lord Cosmo Cameron. 
 
 ."We found him just encased in his fur-lined 
 coat, standing apart from the servants, and I 
 thought that his face now looked pale. But, 
 even as we appeared, there came a swift rustle 
 of silk upon the stairs, and he threw back his 
 head with a gesture of exultant triumph, 
 
 "It was Mrs. Tollmage, who hurried forward, 
 enveloped in a long crimson cloak, the hood 
 of which she was drawing over her head as 
 
 36
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 she came. I could see her little black satin 
 slippers gleam in and out under a froth of 
 lace. 
 
 " 'Why, Olivia!' ejaculated the archdeacon. 
 She never even turned her head ; but, slacken- 
 ing the rapidity of her steps, continued to walk 
 towards the open hall door with her usual 
 stately demeanour. 
 
 ' ' Through the still night air came the distant 
 roar and shriek of the approaching up-train. 
 Lord Cosmo glanced over his shoulder at us 
 and smiled: it was the smile of a Lucifer who 
 had reconquered Heaven by his wiles. Then 
 he made a low bow and offered his arm to 
 the archdeacon's wife; and together they 
 passed out between the model footman, who 
 strained a rolling eye after them, and the 
 dignified butler, second in majesty only to his 
 master. 
 
 "The archdeacon made a sudden movement, 
 but meeting his butler's impassable glance, 
 arrested himself. 
 
 ' ' ' Marshfield, ' said he with a strong effort at 
 pretending unconcern, but with a strangled 
 voice, 'shall we take a turn too? The night is 
 fine.' 
 
 "There was some slight delay: while the 
 footman darted for overcoats and the butler 
 presented hats, I stood with every sense keen- 
 ly on the alert. I heard the swing-gate at 
 
 37
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 the end of the garden fall to with rhythmic 
 thuds. 
 
 "It was a beautiful night; but that half- 
 hour's walk under the dim starlight along the 
 gravel paths of the rectory gardens, listening 
 to the miserable platitudes by which the unfor- 
 tunate man endeavoured to baffle the horrible 
 anxiety growing upon him, though all the time 
 he was straining his ears to catch the sound of 
 those footsteps which were never to return, and 
 nursing the vials of his wrath for that curtain 
 lecture which was never to be delivered, was 
 one of the most uncomfortable experiences of 
 my life. 
 
 "And then, when the pretence of waiting 
 could be no longer kept up, there was still a 
 little interlude when the deserted husband, 
 clutching at the last shreds of his self-respect, 
 prated of his apprehension of accidents and 
 sudden sickness; upon which we started "to 
 make inquiries, beginning, by tacit under- 
 standing, at the station. 
 
 "And there, at last, the bomb burst. Of 
 course I knew from the beginning what had 
 happened, and I must confess that, much as I 
 liked Cosmo — and even sympathised with him 
 to a certain extent (that is, in the abstract), 
 even here — that my thoughts turned many a 
 
 38
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 time that dreary night with something like 
 revolt to the picture I could conceive of the 
 unalloyed raptures of the reunited couple, while 
 they steamed away unconcerned, as in a dream, 
 of all consequences, leaving ruin and misery 
 behind them. 
 
 "He had said: 'Come,' and she had gone. 
 And the poor archdeacon had to bear his 
 humiliation and dishonour with as good forti- 
 tude as he could muster. 
 
 "This is the whole story in a nutshell. 
 
 "However," said Marshfield, in conclusion, 
 "this abduction under the very eyes of the hus- 
 band was not really the most curious point of 
 the case. It might perhaps rank only as one 
 of Lord Cosmo's variegated amatory ventures, 
 but for the fact that it has been the last of the 
 long series." 
 
 "Indeed!" said our reverend antiquary, no 
 doubt hoping to hear at length a tale of retribu- 
 tion. "Has their sin been brought home to 
 them, then?" 
 
 "Brought home to the innocent, deserted 
 archdeacon. But not to Cosmo, nor to his 
 mistress — mistress still, faute de mieux, for the 
 abandoned husband has taken, whether inten- 
 tionally or not, the only revenge in his power : he 
 never sought a divorce, his reading of the Scrip- 
 tures, he said, not admitting of such a remedy. 
 
 "That is the only drop of bitterness in 
 
 39
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 Cosmo's cup; curiously enough, she seems to 
 care little or nothing about the matter. 
 
 * ' But Cosmo, as he told me, characteristically, 
 feels himself capable of coming back to Eng- 
 land and strangling the archdeacon if the latter 
 has not soon the tact to retire from existence, 
 and so allow the legitimation of the young 
 Camerons present and to come. Otherwise a 
 more perfect life-harmony I have never seen. 
 I have the pleasantest recollection of my recent 
 visit to them in Paris. 
 
 "I confess that what I witnessed there aston- 
 ished me not a little, until I had applied my 
 little theory to the case. The change was 
 integral. Cosmo the volatile, Cosmo the selfish, 
 the irrepressible, with whose adventures — even 
 the comparatively few I happen to know — I 
 could fill several novelist's note-books, had all 
 his passion, energy, all his life's desires, his 
 pride, his every moment's thought centred 
 upon his mate; she, the cold, the impassible, the 
 haughty Mrs. Tollmage, after more than three 
 years of this interloping union, showed without 
 a thought of reserve all the ardour of a newly- 
 won mistress, looked years younger, and wore 
 on a face more beautiful than ever the nearest 
 approach to the serenity of happiness I have 
 ever seen. If anything happens to either of 
 that couple before the taming of old age, I am 
 positive the other will not exist alone. 
 
 40
 
 MRS. TOLLMAGE 
 
 "But to return to my original strain of 
 similes. Here," said Marshfield, "is a pretty 
 example of the universal working of the prin- 
 ciple of affinity : a free molecule possessed of 
 high potential energy ready to 'run down,' as 
 the jargon has it, roams in highly unstable 
 condition in the chaos of unsettledness, that is 
 with its destiny unfulfilled, until it comes in 
 contact with a certain other molecule, anti- 
 thetically situated ; whether free and unstable 
 like itself, or attached to another of lesser 
 affinity, it matters not. The meeting takes 
 place, and behold the sudden action, inevitable, 
 irresistible, and above all the absolute change 
 in the two agents' innermost nature after the 
 disruption of the weaker compound and the 
 expulsion of the less attractive element. 
 
 "I do not know," concluded Marshfield, ris- 
 ing at last and, with his little cackle, pulling 
 the creases out of his coat after the long sit- 
 ting, "whether I make myself understood, but 
 I assure you that it is a description, in words 
 of broad theory, of the Tollmage affair." 
 
 41
 
 I
 
 THE GUESTS 
 
 of the 
 WOLFMASTER
 
 The Guests of the Wolfmaster 
 
 "Such a bout as we have just seen," said I 
 to Marshfield, as we emerged from the Fencing 
 Club one day, "is all very well, most brilliant 
 and all that — but it is absolutely inconceivable 
 at sharps." 
 
 "Ah!" said Marshfield enigmatically, 
 
 I noticed that he looked as though he could a 
 tale unfold. I knew then that he had sought 
 me that afternoon in my most likely haunt to 
 pour into my willing ear one of his latest 
 stories. 
 
 "You recollect," he went on presently, in his 
 usual complacent, measured manner — "you 
 recollect Cosmo Cameron — I mean you remem- 
 ber my speaking of him?" 
 
 The sound of the name whipped up my 
 attention at once. I had never met the man, 
 but had none the less learned to take a vivid 
 interest in his singular personality. Rapidly, 
 while Marshfield paused, evidently for the pur- 
 pose of allowing me to do so, I recalled the 
 salient points of what Marshfield had told me of 
 this man's career. . . . So, the wild Cameron 
 was again to the fore, and in a duel ! It then 
 
 45
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 flashed upon me that, as previously described 
 by Marshfield, he was none of your academic 
 swordsmen, and the vision of that masterly, 
 deliberate, terrible thrust which had concluded 
 the encounter we had just witnessed on the 
 floor of the Fencing Club rose vivedly before 
 my mind's eye. 
 
 "The deuce!" said I, with a definite pang of 
 regret and disappointment. ' ' Is that the end 
 of it all?" And then, moralising: "Jealousy, 
 I suppose. It could not go on for ever. 
 Jealousy — on his side, of course." 
 
 But, as I looked for confirmation, Marshfield 
 was still smiling his thin smile quite inscru- 
 tably. 
 
 "Jealousy?" he replied; "not exactly. At 
 least, not the sort of jealousy any one has heard 
 of for some centuries. It was curious enough, 
 the whole story — motive, execution, and finale. " 
 
 The utter absence of concern upon the speak- 
 er's face struck me with surprise. Cold- 
 blooded creature ! Why, the man had been his 
 friend for years! But Marshfield, as I have 
 already said, has his own way of telling his 
 tales; and so I listened, as we continued our 
 western trend beneath the skeleton trees of the 
 Parks. 
 
 "You are probably aware," said he, starting 
 upon his narrative with measured delivery and 
 
 46
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 chosen epithets, as one lecturing from his 
 notes, "that the wolf, an extinct animal in 
 England, is still to be found on the Continent. 
 To this day there exists in France an office 
 which savours quaintly of the old world, that 
 of wolfmaster, or Lieutenant de Louveterie, 
 whose work it is to assist in carrying out 
 annually the destruction of as many wolves as 
 possible, 
 
 "When I was lately in Paris, the guest of that 
 incomparable couple, Lord Cosmo Cameron 
 and his wife — now regularly so, for the Vener- 
 able, the Archdeacon, my good old friend, had 
 fallen victim to the influenza a year ago— 
 they received an invitation to spend a week at 
 the chateau of a certain M. de Sourdes, who, 
 holding an appointment such as I have 
 described, was hospitably inclined to extend 
 its rare privilege to a select few in wolfing- 
 time. Cosmo, eager to accept but bound to 
 me, asked and obtained permission for me to 
 accompany them, though, truth to say, I am 
 hardly the type of individual the wolfmaster 
 generally invited on such occasions. 
 
 "The chateau of La Motte-Herbault is one 
 of those eighteenth-century French country 
 mansions, all for luxury and comfort, and with 
 nothing left of mediaeval sternness about it, 
 for all that it was built upon the foundation of 
 an antique stronghold, as its name implies. It 
 
 47
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 stands well in the Sologne district — good 
 sporting country, as you know — midway 
 between Berry and Touraine. I like," said 
 Marshfield, with a little pedantic nod, "to 
 speak of France in terms of the old provinces : 
 it means so much more, historically, than 
 their new-fangled departments. A very per- 
 fect house, with pointed roofs of slate and 
 much curvetting ironwork. The main body, 
 originally a hunting-box of the first Bourbon 
 king, broad and stately, with double marble 
 stairs leading in Renaissance style to the great 
 door, is flanked at right angles by two pavil- 
 ions of later "Rococo" times, which must have 
 witnessed, in their pristine days of powder and 
 patch and general dissoluteness, a number of 
 tender adventures and souper fins. These 
 buildings, in conjunction with a noble iron 
 gate, inclose what the architects of such places 
 term the cour d'honneur. The winter from 
 which we are barely emerging has been, you 
 may conceive, propitious to the seekers of 
 wolf -premiums ; and M. de Sourdes, as lieuten- 
 ant of the district, had had more opportunities 
 to carry out the duties of his office than, as he 
 told me, for the last ten years. It is not, how- 
 ever, of the mysteries of Louveterie that I 
 would entertain you now, but rather of Cosmo, 
 and I will leave our adventures with hound and 
 gun out of sight. 
 
 48
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 "Cosmo, who, in loco, shows himself quite 
 continental, gave me what he called 'la carte 
 du pays, mon cher. ' But, save our host, the 
 Camerons themselves, one beauteous Madame 
 Andreassy (of whom more anon) and the fine 
 man that she held as her cavalier, my fellow- 
 guests, good specimens of the fashionable 
 French male and female, ready of speech, 
 excellent of manners, and loose of morals, 
 most of them, had no special interest for me. 
 
 "Vicomte de Sourdes (a descendant, by the 
 way, of the fourth Henry of France, from the 
 wrong side, of course), the owner, not only of 
 the chateau and its demesne, but also of 
 enormous tracts in the wild Sologne, is a 
 thorough sportsman, a type rarer in France 
 than among us, but nevertheless to be found 
 occasionally, for all our traditional jokes; a 
 hard rider, a first-class whip and shot, with 
 that intense and intelligent appreciation for 
 things English that seems not only the mark of 
 every true sportsman, but, in these days of 
 systematic democratisation over yonder, the 
 acme of bon ton among the exclusive set. A 
 middle-aged widower who, having suitably 
 married ofE all his daughters, has resumed the 
 demeanour of th^ Vert-Galant, that forebear 
 he is so proud of and whom he undoubtedly 
 recalls to the mind ; merry-eyed, deep-chested, 
 with ringing laugh and conquering upturned 
 
 49
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 grey moustache ; drinking his three bottles of 
 Burgundy, and loving the company of pretty 
 women in his house as much (though not more) 
 as that of men that are men. '' Des hommes, 
 jarnidieii . . . pas des mannequins, palsavibleu!' 
 as he says (for he has adopted a selection of 
 expletives suited to his ancestry and appear- 
 ance). Fellows who can paddle the half -frozen 
 marshes with eye and hand on the alert, who 
 can do justice to his piqueurs' sagacity in the 
 boar-hunt, follow him up steeps and across 
 torrents that would make an M. F. H. stare; 
 fellows, besides, who can come in the evening 
 to the choice dinner and his old Volnay, and 
 turn a wide-awake eye, jarnicoton! upon the 
 new toilettes, and a gallant ear to the conversa- 
 tion of his fairer guests. I think it was dis- 
 tinctly understood in the world that none but 
 fair faces on the one hand, and thorough paced 
 good and stout fellows on the other, were ever 
 entertained by the Vicomte at La Motte-Her- 
 bault; and invitations were appreciated 
 accordingly. Howl came to be there," com- 
 mented Marshfield, "was owing to the fact that 
 M. de Sourdes had nothing to refuse Cosmo. 
 
 "Of course, the long tale of the latter 's 
 adventures, amorous and otherwise, was well 
 known to the set in which our Vicomte lived ; 
 his unbreakable vigour of health and strength, 
 and the magnificence of his wife's beauty, were 
 
 SO
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 equally eloquent qualifications for the freedom 
 of La Motte-Herbault. 
 
 ' ' The house, as I have said, was full. And 
 if in one way it was a perfect Walhalla for lov- 
 ers of sport, it was also in another a veritable 
 Abbey of Thelema for the lovers of those easy, 
 ephemeral and transparent plots of gallantry 
 which are the very salt of life in an idle society. 
 Delightfully appointed, full of tempting and 
 luxurious nooks, it formed so handy a shelter 
 for the carrying on of amorous intrigue, more 
 or less openly conducted under the smiling and 
 knowing eyes of the jolly Vicomte, and the 
 spectacles of his eminently respectable, but 
 eminently dense, sister, that it is difficult to 
 conceive its perfection in that direction other- 
 wise than as the result of system. Be this as 
 it may, the only two unpardonable crimes at 
 La Motte-Herbault were: not to be amusing or 
 not to know how to amuse oneself. 
 
 "Cosmo and his wife — it is impossible now 
 to reckon one without the other — came, how- 
 ever, perilously close to the first offence. But 
 he redeemed the situation, as you will see, 
 with his usual brilliancy." 
 
 Marshfield paused a moment, his eyes 
 absently lost in the copper mist hanging over 
 distant Kensington. 
 
 51
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "That I am," he pursued, taking up the 
 interrupted thread of his story and his stroll in 
 the same leisurely fashion, "of the cold-blooded 
 order of vertebrates, is, I believe, the figur- 
 ative (and, as usual, un technical) way my 
 friends have of describing me. I am incapable 
 of creating the warmth requisite for enthusiasm. 
 Yet my interest in the Camerons began to run 
 curiously near such weakness. In my eyes 
 Cosmo has always been the most splendid type 
 of the natural man. A civilised being, if you 
 will, artistic too, and cultivated in a certain odd 
 way, but one in whom civilised polish has 
 deadened nothing of man's native savagery. 
 These characteristics were remarkable enough 
 in his "dishevelled youth-time" (as the French 
 have it), but their workings after he had, as any 
 Viking or Northman of old might have done, 
 snatched and carried off the woman he wanted, 
 were immeasurably more wonderful. 
 
 "I can only think of the superb mating of 
 the lion in the midst of minor weaker life of 
 the world, terrible yet admirable, all sufficient 
 and serenely scornful of aught beyond the 
 ^go'isme cl deux. Byron has a rhyme some- 
 where, I believe, anent his yearning that the 
 whole of beautiful womankind had but one 
 mouth, that he might kiss it. Now, my 
 Cosmo had found what was to him the living 
 realisation of all feminine glory and delight in 
 
 52
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 this willing captive of his bow and spear. In 
 fact, the love of the whilom Don Juan seemed, 
 after these years, to grow more and more 
 exalted. 
 
 "To watch this man and this woman in the 
 midst of the most artificial, the most subtly- 
 corrupt society imaginable, to see them remain 
 as wholly, selfishly, single-mindedly centred in 
 each other as the first pair themselves might 
 have been in the Garden of Eden, was, you 
 will admit, to one whose passion is to observe, 
 above all to observe human nature, a spectacle 
 as interesting as it was rare. Conceive, if you 
 can . . . but no, you could not conceive the 
 delicate delight of the moral anatomist with 
 such phenomena under his scalpel ! 
 
 "Our host, however, I fancy, had hardly 
 reckoned upon such a state of things when he 
 had asked the couple down as his guests of 
 honour. * Cest du ddire, positivement, ' he said 
 to me, the first evening, 'this passion of your 
 friend for his spouse ! There is only one case 
 like it on record, that of my ancestor, the great 
 Henri, for my ancestress, the beautiful 
 d'Estree . . . and that, you know, had at least 
 the excuse of irregularity. It is, perhaps, not 
 so amusing for us others as if it was . . . well, 
 the other way, but, sangrebleu, I understand it 
 —yes, I understand it. Peste! what a superb 
 woman, your friend's wife!' 
 
 53
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "As for me, I have seldom passed a more 
 agreeable time' than those^ three days of the 
 great snowstorm. It was a terrific blizzard, 
 and there was no question of man, far less of 
 horse, venturing into the country. In conse- 
 quence, the whole society was thrown upon its 
 own resources for enjoyment indoors. At first, 
 no doubt, the whole feminine camp, and perhaps 
 some of the men, too, welcomed the situation. 
 
 "But in the circumstances you can imagine 
 what sort of a forcing house La Motte-Herbault 
 became for the development of what in that 
 society is euphemistically called flirtage. In a 
 very short time, the wholesome equilibrium 
 between the business of sport and the relaxa- 
 tion of ladies' society being destroyed, a loaded 
 atmosphere of storm began to be felt within as 
 well as without. Our host, I think, foresaw it. 
 (Perhaps he had had some previous experience 
 of the kind!) He spent most of the ample 
 spare time between meals, prolonged as 
 festively as "possible, in anxiously tapping the 
 weather-glass, in vainly scanning the thick fall- 
 ing flakes for a peep of sky, or in useless con- 
 sultation with sundry brick-coloured, odd-faced 
 piqueurs. 
 
 "The ladies, who up to now had been all 
 sweetness with each other and with their 
 admitted swains, began to discover elements of 
 disturbance in the new joy of having the latter 
 
 54
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 in attendance from morning till night— too 
 severe a test at the best of times. Lovers' 
 quarrels ensued, and raids (whether in perverse 
 initiative or for mere reprisals) into camps 
 hitherto respected; acerbity in some cases, 
 exchange of hostages in others. 
 
 "Towards the third day relations in this 
 small, very earthly, paradise became exceed- 
 ingly strained indeed, and natural observation 
 from a perfectly neutral standpoint correspond- 
 ingly amusing. On the evening of the fourth 
 the storm suddenly abated outside; but it 
 broke out indoors; produced, in fact, the strong 
 diversion required to clear the atmosphere of 
 latent discontent. 
 
 ' ' For some time Madame Andreassy, of the 
 whole company, had, under my watchful eye, 
 exhibited the most obvious signs of exaspera- 
 tion. Of this lady I have promised further 
 details. Hers was an interesting personality, 
 one that at any time would have well repaid 
 special study. A Levantine Greek, married to 
 some immensely rich financier of her own 
 nationality, who did not accompany her to La 
 Motte-Herbault, she was (barring Lady Cosmo) 
 far and away the most beautiful woman of the 
 party, in her own limber, luxurious, Oriental 
 way. And it did not need the pantomime of 
 my genial host's countenance and gesture 
 when referring to her to make me form a 
 
 55
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 pretty shrewd conjecture as to what particular 
 class of feminine temperament she belonged. 
 I heard she had known Cosmo in days gone by. 
 — That Cosmo ! it would seem as if there had 
 never been a notoriously pretty woman in the 
 world he had not known. Before I had 
 observed her in his company for the space of 
 three minutes, I drew clear conclusions as to 
 the nature of her previous acquaintance with 
 my handsome friend, and to her readiness to 
 renew it on the same footing, all present little 
 impediments notwithstanding. 
 
 "She had nevertheless a very fine swain of 
 her own — a man in a thousand, certainly, in 
 the eyes of a woman of her nature. By the 
 way, you may have heard of him ; he is a cele- 
 brated frequenter of the salles d'armes, and 
 has had as many duels as Bussy d'Amboise — 
 the Chevalier de Navarrenx." 
 
 "Manuel de Navarrenx, do you mean?" I 
 exclaimed. The name brought back at once 
 to my mind the starting point of my friend's 
 tale. "Why, of course. I have crossed a 
 courteous blade with him myself at the Mirli- 
 tons in Paris. He is "one of the first four." A 
 handsome fellow. A little too theatrical per- 
 haps, but it suits him uncommonly. To see 
 him, in his black velvet, fall on guard with his 
 
 56
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 die-away airs and his white, melancholy face, so 
 odd in its contrast to that fierce, up-turned 
 moustache that stabs the moon — well, it is 
 worth seeing ! He looks as if he had just stepped 
 out of a Velasquez canvas. Then to feel the 
 masterly touch of his blade, revealing in a 
 second the whole affectation of his seeming 
 languor. . . ! Yet he makes it go down. " 
 
 "That is the very man," continued Marsh- 
 field. "Well, despite the fact that, as I said, 
 he was her special servant (a recent conquest 
 too, evidently, for I thought to detect a certain 
 ardour under the languorous mien you have 
 described), the little lady was nevertheless 
 quite ready to throw him overboard for Cosmo. 
 That was apparent to me the very first time I 
 laid eyes upon them together. 
 
 "I was in the great white and gold salon 
 early and watched the guests file in. Madame 
 Andreassy arrived, with calculated effect, just 
 one moment after the dinner announcement : I 
 think she flattered herself she was the last and 
 certainly the most noticeable of the assembly. 
 But she had reckoned without the Cosmos; 
 for, even as she swung herself into the room, 
 clad in the most daring of the late lamented 
 Worth's creations, and was revelling in the 
 
 57
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 little stir her appearance created, the English 
 couple halted side by side on the threshold of 
 another door opposite, and all eyes turned with 
 a sort of amazed admiration upon them. 
 
 "I hardly ever realised so strongly before 
 how much our own race, at its best, surpasses 
 all others than at the moment when I saw the 
 magnificent pair advance upon us in the midst 
 of all that was vigorous among men and fair 
 among women in France. 
 
 "Cosmo looked to me as distinctly beautiful 
 as might an antique god (if we can imagine an 
 antique god swarthy and aquiline) who had 
 stepped down from his heathen paradise among 
 the common herd of men ; his wife, in her trail- 
 ing dress of white velvet, large and sumptuous, 
 yet simple, as superior to all women present in 
 herself as was the noble cut and hang of her 
 robes to their elaborate toilets. Cosmo, as he 
 told me later, insisted upon a yearly dress-buy- 
 ing pilgrimage to Vienna, the only place on this 
 planet, according to his wide and special knowl- 
 edge of such matters, where justice could be 
 done to a splendour of that standard. 
 
 "The general movement which greeted their 
 entrance was almost equivalent to an outcry, 
 and, unobserved, I noticed the extraordinary 
 series of changes which passed over Madame 
 Andreassy's face. If ever a devil looked out 
 of a woman's eyes, he looked out of the fair 
 
 58
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 Levantine's as she shot a glance from her 
 former admirer to his wife and back again. 
 
 ' ' Presently Cosmo, perfect in affable suavity, 
 was assigned to convey her in to dinner ; the 
 host, I fancy, must have had a little delicate 
 hint from the Andreassy woman to that effect. I 
 have given you to tmderstand that M. de Gour- 
 des had a genial sympathy with most p^chds 
 mignons^ above all, as he told me, with one of 
 his great laughs, when committed by p^cher- 
 esses mignonnes. After the first shock, caused by 
 the Englishwoman's appearance, Madame An- 
 dreassy had recovered all her native confidence. 
 She knew — none better — the power of her own 
 audacious charm. Moreover, it could never 
 enter into her conception of ethics that it were 
 possible to prefer the fruits of one's own lawful 
 preserves, be they never so luscious, to those 
 that could be rifled from a neighbour's ground. 
 
 "I sat opposite. The lady to whom I was 
 entrusted having, in a very short time, openly 
 showed that she did not consider me game 
 worth)'- of her shot, I was able, over an 
 exquisite fare, to devote all my attention to 
 them. Madame Andreassy spoke English — a 
 language unfamiliar at our end of the table, 
 therefore more private ; and though she must 
 have ^seen that I was listening, and been well 
 aware that she was revealing little secrets, she 
 did not seem to care — probably for the same 
 
 59
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 reason that all through life has induced people 
 of that kind to treat me as of no account. It 
 is not flattering, but it is convenient. 
 
 "She was delightful to watch, laying her 
 snares as deftly, as eagerly, as restlessly as a 
 spider ; with the same seeming purposelessness 
 covering the same exactness of design. And 
 yet Cosmo, as he looked down at the beauty 
 that displayed itself by his side, ripe as a peach, 
 and as tempting, had nought but perfunctory 
 glances of civility. At first she was demure 
 and simple — airs that contrasted piquantly with 
 the depth of knowledge in her brown eyes, 
 where the devil that was enthroned was now 
 of the most alluring kind. But, presently, she 
 realised the necessity of more vigorous attack. 
 
 " ' Mon Dieii! how strange they should meet 
 again — she who had thought they never would 
 — never ! Did he remember how many years 
 ago? — the yacht, the dear yacht!' 
 
 "Cosmo bowed with an air that might pass 
 for one of delicate discretion — that discretion 
 which is as salt to the other savours of a 
 romantic understanding. But his eyes wan- 
 dered rather listlessly from his neighbour down 
 the long row of faces till they caught Lady 
 Cosmo's gaze, and then they brightened with 
 that wonderful flame I had first seen in them 
 the day he had recognised his lost love in the 
 poor Archdeacon's drawing-room. 
 
 60
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 "Then, as if refreshed and satisfied, he 
 turned suddenly a polite but extinguished 
 glance upon Madame Andreassy, and she, with 
 a mock-modest eyelid upon her cheek, pro- 
 ceeded upon her reminiscences. 
 
 " 'That night at Smyrna, when the moon 
 rose, and she and her poor father— pauvre 
 papa, il est viort, vous saves — had supped with 
 Lord Cosmo; and — did he remember? — poor 
 papa had fallen so fast asleep; Lord Cosmo 
 had sat near her on deck, and he had said 
 things — oh, but things!' 
 
 '*She laughed, but her laugh was, designedly 
 or not, a little tremulous, 
 
 " *Eh? If she had listened to him that night 
 when he wanted to give the order to let the 
 white wings of the dear yacht to the wind, if 
 they had sailed together away ' 
 
 "She paused, and Cosmo, with a light laugh, 
 cried, in his airy French — 
 
 " ' Tiens, and did I offer to run away with 
 papa, too?' 
 
 ' ' ' Oh, non—je me tronipe, ' said the Levan- 
 tine with a sudden daring look, and sinking 
 her voice as she relapsed once more into 
 English; 'that night papa was not of the com- 
 pany. ' 
 
 " ''Mon Dieu, Madame,' said he, with a 
 shrug of his shoulders, 'moonlight or starlight, 
 at Smyrna or in Japan, those nights on the 
 
 6i
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 yacht were all so like each other that — ma 
 foi . . .' 
 
 "The rebuke was radical. It required all 
 the masterfulness of a Cosmo to dare such a 
 one. 
 
 "Madame Andreassy grew a little pale. I 
 saw the diamonds on her bosom scintillate 
 under the quickened pulse of her heart. After 
 a scarcely perceptible pause, however, she 
 said, with admirable composure — 
 
 " 'I see. All the past is to be forgotten, 
 then. So much the better; what is past is 
 finished, and what is finished is stupid. We 
 must then remake acquaintance, Milord. It is 
 the present that is the good time. ' 
 
 " 'Ah, the present,' repeated Cosmo, his eyes 
 playing truant again; 'yes, the present is good, 
 as you say, Madame.' 
 
 "Madame Andreassy followed his eyes, and, 
 with a sudden petulant movement, rolled her 
 bread between her fingers as if she would have 
 kneaded a little cake of poison. 
 
 "Meanwhile, her own particular cavalier ate 
 his dinner, quite undisturbed, between the 
 smiles of two minois chiffon^s, one of which 
 belonged to the neglectful dame allotted to me. 
 There was no jealous quiver on his conquering 
 moustache, no anxious roll of his fatal eye. In 
 fact, if truth be told, he stared a good deal him- 
 self at Lady Cosmo, who was well within his 
 
 62
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 range of vision. He was an experienced 
 Thelemite. 
 
 " 'How changed he is, your Cosmo!' said the 
 little lady to me suddenly, after dinner that 
 night, and with an angry look, as if she held 
 me in some way responsible. 'I knew him 
 long ago, but it's not the same man. Say, then, 
 what has happened to him? He used to be so 
 gay, so full of talk!' Then, as if struck with 
 fresh indignation, 'Cest qiCil est abruti, ce 
 pauvre Cosmo! It is that terribly large Eng- 
 lishwoman, that statue in low dress! Ah, what 
 a marriage! And ^ propos,' dropping her 
 voice, 'is it a marriage, en par enthuse? You 
 can tell. One hears funny things. Our good 
 hostess is all propriety, of course, and she 
 would hardly ask us to meet a faux manage if 
 she knew.' 
 
 "And Madame Andreassy modestly rear- 
 ranged a camellia in the deep valley of her 
 bosom, casting down her eyes with a sudden 
 assumption of particularity that was quite 
 charming. 'It would be a little strong, hein?' 
 
 " 'Oh, reassure yourself,' I said. 'Lady 
 Cosmo is Lady Cosmo Cameron as fully as law 
 or church can make her. ' 
 
 ' ' ' Tant mieux, ' said Madame tartly, closing 
 her fan with a snap; 'and since how long?' 
 
 " 'Madame,' said I, 'I believe the eldest 
 child is nearly three years old. ' 
 
 63
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "She gave me a quick look, smiled a curious 
 little smile, nodded her head, and then turned 
 to welcome the approach of those moustaches 
 which — such was the infection of the easy 
 immorality of our surroundings — I had already 
 come, myself, to consider as lawfully her own 
 property. 
 
 "Ignoring her first repulse, the dauntless 
 dame began her attack afresh the next day. I 
 almost admired her perseverance, her unshak- 
 able belief in her own power and in the frailty 
 of masculine resolution, in the face of the 
 rebuffs which, though now with the most per- 
 fect breeding in the world, Cosmo continued to 
 administer. She left no wile untried, down to 
 extravagant eulogies of Lady Cosmo's beauty 
 and effusive civility to the latter (who, by the 
 way, received it after the stony fashion that I 
 defy any one but an Englishv/oman to adopt in 
 perfection). The next move was an affected 
 coldness, a blasting scorn and indifference, and 
 a melting show of favour towards her own 
 chevalier. This last note, in her endeavour, 
 no doubt, to awaken some answering chord in 
 Cosmo's system, she pitched somewhat too high 
 even for her sympathetic surroundings; but 
 the beau Navarrenx, for all his blas^ air, 
 seemed to turn the tune to pleasant account 
 for himself. 
 
 "These undercurrents, so long as the busy 
 
 64
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 life, which kept the men out of doors during 
 the best part of the day, lasted, did not make 
 much difference in the social intercourse at 
 La Motte-Herbault. But during the great 
 imprisonment, when the general harmony 
 began, as I have informed you, to be seriously 
 disturbed, the married lovers became the butt 
 for either the mockery or the ill-humour of the 
 company. 
 
 "Now the men, as a rule, would have been 
 content to accept them just as they were; in 
 fact, it pleased me to note the unconscious 
 respect which marked their intercourse with 
 the English beauty. But, to the ladies — even 
 to those who did not regard the pair with 
 vindictiveness — the pair were a bore and a 
 restraint, and I am not prepared to say that in 
 the end their host did not find them so too. 
 Madame Andreassy's bitter tongue had a cease- 
 less gibe at their intention, be they absent or 
 present. 'Milady Eve has gone to bed,' I 
 heard her inform Navarrenx one evening in the 
 smoking-room, as he squatted at her little 
 feet, smoking with ecstatically upturned eyes 
 each half-finished cigarette as she handed it to 
 him. 'You saw her leave just now in the mid- 
 dle of cette ch^re Nasha's pretty Spanish song 
 — ^''Besito.'' Milord Adam went after her to 
 light the candles. Through the door I saw 
 them; I saw him plant a great kiss there, on 
 
 65
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 the nape of her neck. It is becoming quite 
 indecent,' said the Levantine, viciously twist- 
 ing (as no one was within sight but myself) a 
 lock of the chevalier's black hair. 
 
 "Next day — the last — Lady Cosmo pleaded a 
 headache, and would not come down at all. In 
 the evening, as I issued from my room at 
 dinner-time, I collided with Cosmo, who was 
 emerging from his wife's apartment: we were 
 both located in the same corridor in a side 
 wing overlooking the garden. He was march- 
 ing along very absently, a smile and the note 
 of a song on his lip; his cheek was flushed. 
 He stepped back from contact with me, and 
 seemed to fall awake from some glorious 
 dream. 
 
 " 'My God, Marshfield,' he said in an altered 
 voice — 'my God, how I do love that 
 woman . . . !' 
 
 "The repast that night, perhaps by reason of 
 Lady Cosmo's absence, was the most exuber- 
 antly mirthful I had yet known even in that 
 jovial house. Even before the circulation of 
 the champagne (which, in the usual French 
 style, appeared late, just before dessert) the 
 gaiety of the party was great ; then it became 
 boisterous, and the talk, at all times free round 
 that table, such as fully justified Lady Cosmo's 
 retirement. 
 
 "M. de Sourdes was in high spirits at the 
 
 66
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 announced prospect of a break in the weather, 
 and, like a mettled steed confined overlong to 
 stables on high diet, in a rare state of physical 
 exuberance. His great laugh rang out and 
 made the glasses tingle, Cosmo, however, 
 was in a dangerous mood. Those that knew 
 him less well might have accused him of having 
 what the French call une pointe de vin; but, 
 whatever the cause of the secret intoxication 
 that fired his eye, he alone of the noisy com- 
 pany — excepting of course myself — was that 
 night sober in the accepted sense when dessert 
 came round. 
 
 "As for Madame Andreassy, if I suspected her 
 of entertaining divers minor devils before, I can 
 vouch she seemed possessed of Lucifer himself 
 then — and infernally pretty she looked, too. 
 Some of her attentions, these languorous and 
 mysterious, she bestowed upon the cavalier at 
 her side, whose pale face seemed almost death- 
 like in contrast with the somewhat heated 
 countenances around, but whose long and white 
 fingers made as good play with cup and beaker 
 as the best of them. But Cosmo, opposite to 
 her, was as usual her butt, the mark for her 
 shrillest gibes, her most daring mockery. He 
 met them with imperturbable, if insolent, good 
 humour, underlying which I felt — how shall I 
 describe it? — a sort of deadly purpose, ready to 
 spring, yet biding its time. 
 
 67
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "The servants withdrew; the ladies lingered; 
 the Vicomte, his handsome face ominously 
 crimsoned, passed the wine and called for 
 healths. 
 
 '"'''' Ah qa! A little more energy, you there! 
 Madame, a glass of wine to the most beautiful 
 eyes in the world! Milord, empty me that 
 glass a little quicker than that. Mon Colonel, 
 just you fill Milord's glass, please; we are 
 going to drink to ces dames. ' 
 
 " 'Pardon,' said Cosmo, lying negligently 
 back in his chair, as all the men rose with a 
 half -tipsy shout of approval. ''Pardon, you will 
 excuse me: a matter of principle, my dear 
 host. I have drunk enough to ces dames in my 
 life. At present and for the future I drink 
 only to my wife. ' 
 
 "The slight emphasis on the words ces dames 
 could, by any one disposed to see it in an 
 implied meaning, be taken as a piece of 
 supreme impertinence. Everybody paused, 
 some with glasses arrested midway to their 
 lips, some amused, some curious, some inclined 
 to be angry — Madame Andreassy, her small 
 head craned forward, her eyes fixed as you may 
 see a lovely little viper poised for the dart. 
 
 " ' I drink, ' said Cosmo, who now rose to his 
 feet and swung slowly a brimming glass with 
 a kind of suppressed fierceness, 'I drink to My 
 Lady.' 
 
 68
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 "He drained it to the last drop, set it down, 
 and sent his eyes round the tables — steel blue, 
 with contracted pupils, challenging. 
 
 '' ''Voila qui est fort,' said the Levantine, at 
 last breaking the silence. ' Lady Cosmo must 
 be proud, my faith, to have such a paladin for 
 her knight ! Yet, in these days can be gallant 
 that way who will.' She went on speaking 
 with loud intent to Navarrenx^ and shrugging 
 her audacious shoulders: 'An Englishman, 
 above all: it can cost him nothing but the 
 trouble to say the words. It is not the fashion 
 now with Englishmen to consider their words 
 worth maintaining. . . . Now, in olden days 
 a man who would exalt his wife at the expense 
 of other women — ah, then it was more serious! 
 He would have thought twice about it. . . . ' 
 
 "There was an indescribable uproar upon 
 this, the spell of surprise at Cosmo's curious 
 behaviour being broken: high notes of femi- 
 nine protest, the loud laughter of a few men, 
 the mock anger of others, and the loud 
 voice of M. de Sourdes from the end of 
 the table, accompanied by thumps of his great 
 fist. 
 
 " 'Jarnidieu! I do not exactly say I am 
 with you, my good Cosmo. I have too much 
 of the temper of my great ancestor for that, 
 ventre saint-gris! But I can admire you for it, 
 and by my soul, I do — ,eJi, Mesdames, do not 
 
 69
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 tear my eyes out — ha, ha, ha! One may 
 admire without itnita.tmg, Jarnicofon/ I have 
 a large heart and the devil * 
 
 <(■ 
 
 'In the midst of this hubbub Navarrenx 
 slowly subsided into his seat and fell to dissect- 
 ing a slice of pineapple upon his plate, with 
 heavy lids cast down and the greatest nicety 
 possible. Madame Andreassy shot a sidelong 
 look at him, and her nostrils quivered. Cosmo 
 still of the whole company remained standing, 
 waiting as if eager to speak, but unwilling that 
 his words should be lost ; and Madame called 
 attention to his attitude with a small, vindic- 
 tive, pointed forefinger. 
 
 " 'Silence, if you please. Messieurs et 
 Mesdames! Let the model husband speak 
 once more — if it is not very amusing, it may be 
 instructive for us poor people — Well, Milord 
 of the fine phrases?' 
 
 " 'Madame,' said Cosmo, his countenance lit 
 by an extraordinary joyousness, 'you spoke of 
 olden days — the fine olden days when a knight 
 could maintain his lady's supremacy at the 
 point of his lance. They were good times, you 
 think ... so do I. A man could then show 
 what his love meant, to the shedding of his 
 blood .... or, better still, the blood of others. 
 Ladies could judge of the value of their lover's 
 devotion. But are we now really so degener- 
 ate in this house of the great Vert-Galant's son 
 
 70
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 as you seem to think? — I cannot believe it. 
 We cannot, it is true, tilt with lance and mace ; 
 but cannot we wield the sword? ... I say 
 that I drink to My Lady as the fairest and first 
 of women. I am ready to uphold my word, 
 and, gentlemen, I challenge you to drink the 
 toast ! Are there no cavaliers round this table 
 ready to maintain their lady's fairness as I do 
 mine?' 
 
 "Again his eye ranged the table, passing 
 over many an astounded face to fix itself on the 
 bent black head opposite to him. 
 
 " 'Chevalier de Navarrenx,' he cried, and 
 his voice rang like a clarion — *beau Chevalier 
 de Navarrenx, what say you?' 
 
 "Navarrenx looked up with a surprised 
 countenance; then, meeting Cosmo's provok- 
 ing smile, he drew his brows together. But 
 without giving him time to speak, Madame 
 Andreassy, in a voice which her excitement 
 pitched almost to a scream, cried out — 
 
 " 'M. de Navarrenx, Milord Cosmo Cameron 
 desires to know if you will take up the glove in 
 the name of any of the ladies he has to-night 
 insulted — in the name of your neighbour, for 
 example?' 
 
 "It appeared to me that the noted duellist, 
 the almost professional swordsman, the man 
 who had already more than one human life on 
 his conscience, seemed annoyed, and required 
 
 71
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 a certain amount of imoustillage before making 
 up his mind to take up this singular and 
 irregular challenge — I believe, m.oreover, he 
 had a real liking for Cosmo. But, with the 
 latter's mocking smile in front of him and 
 his mistress's fury at his elbow, the issue was 
 inevitable. Indolently stretching his long 
 limbs as one weary and discontented, he half rose 
 from his chair, bowed profoundly to Madame 
 Andreassy, and then nodded across the table 
 at Cosmo, who let himself instantly fall back, 
 on his seat with a subdued cry of triumph. 
 
 " 'Bravo! — so that is arranged at last! Ah, 
 Madame, if you knew how thankful I am! 
 How nicely you have helped me out of the 
 problem I was turning over ! Sourdes, if your 
 blood does not lie — and blood like yours could 
 not — we shall give you to-night an entertain- 
 ment after your own heart, I am sure. A 
 tournament in your coiir d'honneur.' 
 
 " 'To-night?' quoth the Vicomte, in goggle- 
 eyed amazement. ' Tudieii, how you are going 
 it ! A little affair of this kind ' 
 
 (< 
 
 'Must be settled at once,' interrupted 
 Cosmo, who added, including us all in that 
 irresistible smile of his which made him look 
 for the moment as candid and innocent as a 
 child, 'because, you understand, if my wife 
 knew, she would not let me see it out.' 
 
 "Navarrenx looked at his host resignedly, 
 
 72
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 and shrugged his shoulders. The Vicomte 
 burst out laughing. 
 
 " 'Cosmo, my friend,' he cried, 'you are a 
 veritable madman — this won't do!' But his 
 eyes sparkled in his inflamed countenance. 
 
 " 'Bah, it must do, my dear Vicomte. M. 
 de Navarrenx has no objection — have you. 
 Chevalier? Well, then, it is a spectacle we 
 give to these ladies to amuse them after these 
 dull days. Settled, is it not?' " 
 
 "And so it was settled," said Marshfield. 
 "If Cosmo had not been like a madman that 
 night, as Sourdes said ; if that excellent gentle- 
 man himself, as well as the rest of the com- 
 pany, had not been pretty considerably tipsy, 
 and if Navarrenx had not been the fool of that 
 little Greek devil, such a reckless piece of busi- 
 ness could never have been planned, much less 
 carried out. ' * 
 
 "I thought you were never coming to the 
 duel," said I. "You have a way of spreading 
 your stories which even to my practised 
 patience is a little trying. Well, now, what 
 next?" 
 
 Marshfield laughed, not ill-pleased at my 
 eagerness. 
 
 "The story is worth hearing," he declared 
 confidently, and added; "One last detail 
 
 73 
 
 ty
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 before I come to the climax. While M. de 
 Sourdes, having rung the bell, roared out 
 orders to his servants, while the ladies whis- 
 pered and the men wondered, and Cosmo 
 inhaled a cigarette with his eyes turned to the 
 goddesses and cupids of the ceiling, Madame 
 Andreassy suddenly laid her jewelled hand on 
 Navarrenx's sleeve and tightened it there like 
 a little claw. I bent to listen, and heard — 
 
 " 'Navarrenx^' she whispered, 7« vas me le 
 tuerf 
 
 "He raised his eyebrow nonchalantly, and 
 turned to his wine again. 
 
 "The scene outside, ten minutes later, was 
 one which would be best reproduced by your 
 modern draughtsman in counterchanged black 
 and white. The storm had been followed by 
 a dead calm, a complete anticyclone. The air 
 was as still as in a closed room. The world lay 
 silent under its thick mantle of snow ; tmder 
 the three-quarter moon riding high — it was 
 then about ten o'clock — everything in the uni- 
 verse was dazzling white, or, by contrast, of 
 densest black, save for the touch of colour 
 given by the lighted windows, yellow upon the 
 black walls, and the eight lanterns held by four 
 piqueurs in the middle of the court of honour, 
 which had that very morning been cleared of 
 snow and neatly sanded, for the exercise of the 
 stud under the Vicomte's own eyes. 
 
 74
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 •''These huntsmen, summoned in haste upon 
 an unknown errand (to be on the safe side with 
 a master who was particular about smartness 
 and entertained right old-fashioned notions 
 upon the treatment of dependents) , had donned 
 the correct attire of their calling ; and in the 
 glare of their own illumination, cut out upon 
 the white background, they stood forth, fan- 
 tastic figures, belted, with hunting-knife on 
 thigh and the great horn saltirewise. They 
 had, no doubt, already seen many odd things in 
 their days at La Motte-Herbault, but they 
 must have been pretty well astonished at the 
 procession which presently marched down the 
 marble steps. 
 
 "First the Vicomte and a certain Colonel of 
 Spahis, the latter armed with a stick, the 
 former carrying the swords ; both buttoned up 
 in fur coats, as were also Messieurs Paradol and 
 Marshfield, the appointed seconds, who came 
 next. Lastly, coatless and bareheaded, but 
 with cloaks thrown over their shoulders, Cosmo 
 and Navarrenx, each with a cigarette between 
 his lips, followed leisurely together, more like 
 friends than men who were about to snatch at 
 each other's life. 
 
 "The rest of the gentlemen flocked out to see 
 the sport, but remained discreetly at the top of 
 the steps. As I turned to look back, I saw an 
 indistinct kaleidoscopic medley of shifting 
 
 75
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 silhouettes, moving behind the high windows 
 of the hall : our fair companions were pressing 
 their heads together close to the panes to watch 
 this nineteenth-century tilt at sharps 'for the 
 love of a lady. ' 
 
 "What followed seems to me like one of 
 those vivid dreams, that sort of dream which 
 one remembers keenly in waking life. . . . 
 Under the directing cane of the Colonel (who, 
 I thought, did not walk very straight, but who 
 nevertheless performed quite regularly his 
 duties as master of the camp), the four hunts- 
 men spread out, each holding his couple of lan- 
 terns shoulder high. Then M, de Sourdes 
 called out cheerfully, 'Messieurs!' Upon 
 which Navarrenx quietly removed his cloak, 
 and Cosmo tossed his on one side. Then both 
 advanced to take up the weapons that were 
 handed to them crosswise, stepped back, and 
 confronted each other — the Frenchman, with 
 an easy bow and a restrained but intensely 
 courteous and cavalierlike flourish of his blade, 
 which flashed flax-blue in the moonlight; 
 Cosmo, with a proud, vigorous, English mili- 
 tary salute of the sword. 
 
 "Ah, if it had only been a claymore that he 
 held, I perhaps would not have felt the tight- 
 ening which, I don't mind confessing, then 
 seized me by the throat. No doubt M. de 
 Sourdes would never have consented to such 
 
 76
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 an irregular duel under his aegis had he really 
 understood his Scottish friend, his fierceness, 
 his foolhardiness, and his absolute ignorance 
 of the conventions of that deadly art upon 
 which his life now hung. 
 
 "The clock in the roof began to strike ten; 
 somehow or other, as by tacit accord, every 
 one waited till the last vibration of the last 
 stroke had died away. Then, clearing his 
 throat, the Colonel extended his stick, over 
 which the sword points crossed, and, after a 
 second, called out: — 
 
 •' 'Allez, Messieurs/ " 
 
 Here Marshfield paused, a little tantalisingly. 
 We were then in darkness (amid the bushes of 
 a side walk) ; the tip of the cigar he was reviv- 
 ing glowed fitfully, 
 
 "Well," he continued, "I said, as I was 
 watching your friend this afternoon, that there 
 was a good deal in fencing. Beyond the 
 shadow of a doubt Manuel de Navarrenx, 
 practised duellist though he was, would have 
 been massacred in three seconds but for the 
 marvellous precision which I understand now 
 (after what I have seen to-day again) must 
 become as a man's second nature before he can 
 hope to resist a certain kind of opponent. 
 
 77
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "Cosmo was no fencer, though he had fleshed 
 his sword on more than one occasion during 
 his brief soldier's career. But, in earnest, he 
 was a tiger. Ah, I take it, M. de Navarrenx, 
 who had dipped his point into some twenty 
 French bodies and one Italian already, must 
 have been astonished at the truly infernal 
 onslaught of the inexpert Englishman! He 
 first, indeed, broke ground for three paces 
 beneath it ; then, as if recovering his wits and 
 coming to a sudden decision, stood firm again 
 to meet, with unerring parries only, the tor- 
 nado of iron, the shower of deadly stabs hurled 
 at him, until the flashes of the blades, blue or 
 yellow as they caught moon or candle light, 
 with now and then a red spark of bruised 
 steel, became bewildering to my starting eyes. 
 Even to him it was a matter of life or death : 
 the ground was bad, the light was bad ; that 
 mattered not for Cosmo in his mad ignorance, 
 but the swordsman of twenty years' experience 
 knew too much, I believe, to risk an attack or 
 even a riposte in front of such reckless fury. 
 
 "And yet it was more than mere fury with 
 my friend: it was all the gorgeousness of his 
 happiness, of his pride, that was at stake in 
 this insane freak — I really seem to have lived 
 in his brain at that moment of intense excite- 
 ment, as with hissing breath he furiously 
 sought to pierce the impassable circles of his 
 
 78
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 antagonist's defence— it was the woman now 
 waiting for him in the distant room, it was 
 years more of her love, years more of that per- 
 fection on earth ! I felt all that with him, and 
 would then, I swear, have given my hand to 
 see the Navarrenx hurled down, with Cosmo's 
 swordhilt upon his chest. . . . But, as the 
 great Bazancourt has it, 'principles in arms' 
 will prevail. 
 
 "Well, Navarrenx did not risk an attack, as 
 I said, but he found a loophole for a riposte, 
 — a ferocious one ! I was on the right of my 
 man: I saw him stop short as if shot, the 
 Frenchman's blade half -buried under his arm, 
 as it seemed. The Colonel bounded forward 
 and laid his cane against the sword that 
 Cosmo was brandishing now above his head. 
 Then only did Navarrenx attempt to with- 
 draw his blade and step back just out of 
 distance, where he remained, calm, quite cor- 
 rect, his point on the ground, I ran up — my 
 hands were very cold and my face was burning. 
 I saw a broad black patch appear on Cosmo's 
 shirt, spreading rapidly wider and wider down 
 to the hip. He did not fall, nor speak ; but I 
 heard him gnash his teeth. 
 
 " ^Palsambleu!' said M. de Sourdes, approach- 
 ing likewise and mopping his face. 
 
 " '' Saperlotte r said the Colonel, now, I fancy, 
 quite sobered. 
 
 79
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "And then, together, struck (a little late, I 
 thought) by the same idea — 
 
 " 'And no surgeon!' 
 
 "At that moment Cosmo's sword escaped 
 from his hand. I stood close by him, waiting 
 for him to fall. Yet he stood. Only I fancied 
 he swayed, and so I caught him under the 
 arm. 
 
 " 'Badly hurt?' I asked. 
 
 "'Think not,' he said, 'but beaten ! '—this 
 with a snarl — 'I can't go on,' 
 
 " 'Bah, what of that?' cried I. 'My God, I 
 thought you were dead! Dead — think of 
 it . . . and of her!' I went on, helping him 
 towards the steps, but hardly knowing what I 
 was saying. 
 
 " 'By heaven, yes!' muttered he, panting 
 still. 'What a fool I must have been to risk it! 
 It was a narrow thing, Marshfield.' Then 
 with an angry laugh that sounded most odd 
 from a man besmeared with blood as he was : 
 'I did think, though, I was going to get in at 
 last. But not a bit of it — stopped dead! I 
 feel as if I was run through, clean open . . . 
 yet I can breathe all right. ' 
 
 ' ' Here the Vicomte caught him on the other 
 side. In this way we slowly marched into 
 the hall in procession again, principals and 
 seconds, huntsmen and all. 
 
 "Some of the ladies fled before the blood- 
 
 80
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 covered vision. Others hung on our flank, 
 holding on to each other in tremulation. 
 Madame Andreassy, seated amid the bearskins 
 of a great divan that occupied the middle of the 
 hall, watched us with affected indifference ; but 
 there was a sullen drawing in of her mouth. 
 Indeed, there could be no doubt that, although 
 defeated in the court of arms, Cosmo was still 
 the hero of the moment : people were, uncon- 
 sciously, so grateful to him for not being dead 
 after all, and he looked so handsome and 
 dauntless in his bloody shirt! And when the 
 party approached her and she actually had to 
 arise and give place to the wounded man, 
 according to the directions of Sourdes, now 
 intent only on his friend's behalf, the little 
 woman who had had murder in her heart 
 glanced blackly enough at the servant who had 
 so incompletely executed her mandate. As a 
 matter of fact, Navarrenx was gazing with 
 much interest, but without a trace of vindic- 
 tiveness, at his handiwork. 
 
 "If, as Cosmo had fondly imagined, it had 
 been a narrow thing for his opponent, he him- 
 self had only escaped death by a hair's- 
 breadth. Although not really dangerous, it 
 was a wonderful wound! Navarrenx 's riposte, 
 fit to run through a Goliath, had, it was seen, 
 entered under the breast ; but, slipping on the 
 ribs and tearing between flesh and bone, it had 
 
 3i
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 but ploughed a deep and gaping furrow half- 
 way round the athletic torso. 
 
 *'A kind of whistle, expressive at the same 
 time of astonishment and relief, came to 
 Sourdes's lips as the case revealed itself. 
 
 " ' Tudieu! friend Cosmo, a rogue boar could 
 not have unstitched you in better style. But 
 anything better than broaching the barrel, eh ! 
 aha ! Two fellows have gone, grand gallop, for 
 the doctor ' 
 
 " 'Hang the doctor!' said Cosmo promptly. 
 'Let Mathieu here' — pointing to the head 
 piqueur, who was still holding the lantern at 
 his head — 'do the trick. I'll trust his skill 
 sooner than any Pill-box or Sawbones. I 
 saw him mend up your bitch Bella not five 
 days ago, and the creature is fit as a fiddle 
 already. ' 
 
 "The old huntsman grunted approval. At a 
 sign from his master, who also approved with 
 one of his great 'ahas,' he ran ofE to procure 
 his tools, and, on his return, in as business- 
 like a manner as if one of his own hounds had 
 been in question, screwing up his countenance 
 into a comical twist, set about his task with 
 rude but skilful fingers. 
 
 "In the reaction from the first emotion which 
 every one had felt, if in different degrees, 
 many of the men had fallen back into some- 
 thing of their former gaiety. Monsieur de 
 
 82
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 Sourdes, his legs apart, his arms akimbo, stood 
 watching the operation with judicial interest; 
 now making a suggestion full of sporting 
 flavour, now laughing portentously at some 
 joke of his own. Cosmo, half lying on the 
 sofa, propping up his livid head (he had been 
 bleeding like a pig) with his hand, looked into 
 space, unheeding, absorbed it seemed in the 
 bitterness of his defeat, and apparently callous 
 to the pain he was enduring. Except Madame 
 Andreassy, the ladies had now all retired ; she 
 stood at the further end of the great hall. 
 Near her was Navarrenx, also apparently lost 
 in reflection, for he did not speak. Behind 
 them, again, an eager group of servants, won- 
 dering, no doubt, at the strange manners and 
 customs of the masters. 
 
 "Just as the huntsman was about to apply a 
 cool bandage to his neatly-concluded piece of 
 work, there came on the stairs a sound of open- 
 ing doors, of rustling garments and flying foot- 
 steps; the servants parted hastily, and Lady 
 Cosmo burst in upon us. 
 
 "Enveloped in a great loose white cloth 
 dressing-gown, an ivory brush in one hand, 
 her hair unbraided, falling in royal masses 
 around her, she had evidently rushed off just 
 as she was, upon the first alarm. She swept 
 upon one side the burly form of the Vicomte, 
 who hastened to meet her, full of benevolent 
 
 83
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 reassurances, and threw herself upon her knees 
 beside her husband. 
 
 " 'Cosmo, beloved!' 
 
 "The ring of anguish in her voice I shall 
 never forget; to the crowd of those men 
 around, who took most things in life, and love 
 above all, so flippantly, it must have been a 
 revelation. Cosmo raised himself, and the 
 colour rushed to his face again, 
 
 '* ' It is nothing, ' he said earnestly — 'nothing. ' 
 
 " 'Wait, Madame,' interposed the piqueur, 
 raising the bandage from the bloody flank, 
 while a smile of conscious pride displayed his 
 toothless gums — 'only in the meat, see, and all 
 well sewn up. . . . ' 
 
 " 'Idiot!' cried Cosmo, with furious gesture, 
 wrapping himself up in the bearskin — Though 
 he had lost a deal of it, he had plenty of hot 
 blood left in him. But the well-meaning 
 brutality of the old fellow had carried convic- 
 tion ; Lady Cosmo drew a quick gasping breath, 
 rose to her feet, straightened herself, and 
 looked searchingly round the hall till her eyes 
 rested upon Navarrenx the impassible, with 
 the sword still in his hand. She then brought 
 her gaze, dark with the recent terror, laden 
 with a burning reproach, back to her husband. 
 
 " 'Cosmo,* she said, in a deep, vibrating 
 voice, 'is our life together so slight a thing to 
 you that you can play with it thus?' 
 
 84
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 "He hung his head like a chidden child. 
 And in the almost breathless pause of wonder 
 and admiration which this woman in her 
 statuesque grandeur, with all her living beauty 
 and her love-passion, imposed upon us, the 
 laugh of Madame Andreassy, who now pressed 
 forward to stare insolently upon the scene, 
 sounded with vulgar incongruity. Lady Cosmo 
 turned. 
 
 " 'You laugh," she said; 'to you, Madame, it 
 is amusing that a woman should go near to lose 
 all that makes up life for her ! What indeed 
 can you, or such as you, understand by the love 
 of an honest woman for her husband?' 
 
 "Madame Andreassy became scarlet. 
 Thrusting her face forward, and in the aban- 
 donment of sudden fury planting her hands on 
 her hips like a very fishwife, all the hidden 
 depths of her native Levantine mud stirred 
 within her came as it were frothing to her 
 lips. 
 
 " 'Honest woman!' she cried with a screech. 
 'Rumour whispers not always so honest, nor 
 was the present lover always the husband, my 
 lady!' 
 
 "There fell for a second a terrible silence, as 
 if every one were gathering the full enormity 
 of this irretrievable speech. Then Cosmo 
 wrenched himself half up from the sofa; his 
 face was working with such an anger as I had 
 
 85
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 not yet seen on it, but he could not bring out a 
 word ; there was a sort of rattle in his throat. 
 The Vicomte blushed to the top of his bald 
 head. Navarrenx frowned. But Lady Cosmo, 
 erect and stately, never wavered. 
 
 "With a motion full of dignity, she depre- 
 cated any interference from her host, and look- 
 ing down from her magnificent height upon the 
 creature who had insulted her : 
 
 " 'A woman who has sinned, I may be, 
 Madame, ' she said, in a voice as clear and true 
 as a perfect bell, and to which her slight Eng- 
 lish accent in French gave an additional touch 
 of sweetness. 'And my husband was indeed 
 my lover first, when he could be nothing more. 
 But if I have sinned once, Madame, it was for 
 love — not for amusement. That no doubt is 
 what you cannot understand. And if such 
 love brings a happiness, a happiness which a 
 woman such as you, who in love know nothing 
 but the love of yourself and who light-heartedly 
 risk your own lover's life to prop your vanity, 
 can never conceive ; if it brings joys beyond all 
 words, it brings also pain, ever present and 
 poignant — the pain of fear, the fear of loss. If 
 I have sinned then — a subject with you for 
 mockery — and if I deemed myself yet unfor- 
 given, the anguish I have just endured, those 
 years of terror I lived between my room and 
 this place, during the time it took me to run 
 
 86
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 down here to-night — such agony must surely 
 have expiated !' 
 
 "She raised her hand to her forehead, where, 
 as the impression returned upon her, great 
 beads had gathered. 
 
 " 'Olivia!' cried Cosmo, his voice breaking 
 on a kind of sob; then to me, growling like a 
 wild cat, 'Marshfield, you fool, let me go!' 
 
 "Lady Cosmo seized her heavy hair with both 
 hands and once more glanced upon us; the odd 
 group of huntsmen gazing at her with stolid 
 sympathy; the amazed, whispering servants; 
 the gentlemen who, for an instant shaken from 
 their flippancy and scepticism of mere men of 
 pleasure, watched and hearkened in uncon- 
 scious admiration ; and she seemed to wake up 
 suddenly, to awaken to her position. Her face 
 and throat became suffused with crimson, and 
 with a gesture all womanly, a shame almost 
 divine, she sank again beside her husband and 
 hid her face on his breast. He flung his arm 
 around her, and over her bent head shot at us 
 a look as proud again and as defiant as when 
 he had proposed the toast. 
 
 " 'Eh! by the blood of my great ancestor,' 
 shouted Sourdes, 'that is a woman! Milady' 
 — laying a hand kindly and reverently upon her 
 shoulder — 'such love as that which you have so 
 nobly spoken of is a very beautiful thing. 
 But he returns it to you, your husband; and 
 
 87
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 well — allez! It was to uphold you as the fair- 
 est of all women that he staked to-night that 
 life that is so precious to you. Ah, Vheiireux 
 coqiiin! We ought not to have allowed it. 
 But all is well that ends well, as your "divine 
 Williams" says. With all our admiration for 
 you, we could not be so ungallant, we thought, 
 as to drink his toast. And he ioVi^X—jarnico- 
 ton! fought. Milady, shed his blood like apreux 
 chevalier of old, to maintain his word and his 
 lady. And, veiitre-saint-gris!' cried the noble 
 gentleman, fairly enkindled by the recollection 
 of the past no less than by the present power 
 of Lady Cosmo's beauty, 'we recognise that he 
 was right. What we have just seen has con- 
 vinced us. Milady Cosmo Cameron is the 
 queen of women, and as such we shall toast 
 her now — what do you say. Messieurs?' 
 
 "Infected by his enthusiasm, moved too by 
 their own, all the men acclaimed a loud con- 
 sent (the more readily perhaps that none of 
 their liege ladies were then present to witness 
 the defection) all, except Navarrenx, who re- 
 mained still motionless and dumb. When, how- 
 ever, Madame Andreassy, with now jaundiced 
 face, crept up to him and plucked at his hand, 
 hissing, 'Did I not tell thee to kill him?' he 
 turned his long eyes slowly upon her; then, 
 without speaking, shook off her touch as a man 
 might a fly and advanced towards the couch. 
 
 88
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 i( (■ 
 
 'Milord,' he said, seeking Cosmo's eyes, 
 and as he spoke he bowed, and laid his blood- 
 stained sword at his feet, 'you are wounded, it 
 is true — it is a marvel you are not dead. But 
 I am vanquished none the less. Sourdes, a 
 glass for me!' 
 
 "As the servants bustled in with the wine, 
 the Vicomte, whose Gallic blood seemed now 
 fairly aflame, made a commanding gesture to 
 the piqueurs, who unslung their horns and 
 ranged themselves against the wall. 
 
 " 'Allons, vous autresja fanfare dhonneur! ' 
 he called out. '£l vous, Messieurs, tin rouge- 
 bordr 
 
 "And as we each raised our own beakerful of 
 ruby, the brazen horns struck up the old hunt- 
 ing flourish, the savage tune which has been 
 handed down from those hardy ancient days 
 when the gentlemen of France were more 
 commonly of the type of our sturdy host him- 
 self. And I tell you, it has not been given to 
 many to be transported, as we were that night, 
 right back into the heart of a bygone century. 
 The old walls round us, unchanged since the 
 days of their royal master, must have deemed, 
 at that splendid, wild blast, which made them 
 ring again, that the past had risen before them 
 once more. There moved the Vert-Galant 
 himself, surrounded by his gallant gentlemen 
 and his huntsmen, proclaiming, in his most 
 
 89
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 congenial style, the triumph of a grander, a 
 more perfect woman than even the beautiful 
 Gabrielle. 
 
 "In the midst of this barbaric clangour, 
 through the circle of excited drinkers with now 
 empty glasses, yet uplifted in ovation, in burst 
 the little country doctor, blue with cold, fussy, 
 encrusted to the knees with frozen snow — and 
 behold!" said Marshfield, cackling, "we were 
 back in our fiti-de-siecle in double-quick time. 
 I leave you to guess his amazement at the 
 scene, and the prompt dispersal of all romantic 
 illusion on his appearance. . . . And yet my 
 last mental picture of that night was not with- 
 out picturesqueness: — It was the spectacle of 
 Cosmo's state retirement to his apartments, 
 supported upon one side by the arm of his 
 wife, upon the other by the very hand that had 
 dealt him his wound. Madame Andreassy had 
 disappeared. I never saw her again." 
 
 "And hereupon," concluded my friend, giv- 
 ing me one of his slipshod handshakes, "I must 
 separate from you. The story is finished as 
 far as interest is concerned. I have seen what 
 I wanted to see — both assault and combat." 
 
 His voice died away and his form melted into 
 darkness. 
 
 90
 
 GUESTS OF THE WOLFMASTER 
 
 Across the open spaces, over the roofs, upon 
 the wings of the easterly breeze, the distant 
 boom of Big Ben striking the eighth hour 
 carried me from the hunting-box in the depths 
 of Sologne back into the heart of busy, hum- 
 ming London. 
 
 91
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER
 
 The Devil's Whisper 
 
 This is the singular experience of a certain 
 English student in the noble, ancient city of 
 Mainz. 
 
 The case is in many ways curious, and may 
 be worth recording as an unusual manifestation 
 of the obscure mental disorder called Remorse. 
 And the manner in which the Englishman 
 came, most fortuitously, to be made acquainted 
 with the drama in question, and even to play 
 an actual part in its scenes, is not devoid of 
 picturesque interest. 
 
 During the hour when it was fated that his 
 path should cross that of the unfortunate man 
 who had once listened to the devil's whisper 
 the student was musing in the dim, low-ceiled 
 wine-room, well known in Mainz, at the sign of 
 the "Ducal Tun." It was a hot July after- 
 noon. In that cool chamber — every decoration 
 of which, elaborately quaint, ponderously 
 archaic, aimed, in deference to the national 
 bias, at adding romantic zest to the delight a 
 German can pour out of a long-necked flask — 
 he was installed by the small-paned window 
 
 95
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 which overlooks the cathedral porch, a flagon 
 of Franconian wine at his elbow, and an open 
 book under his dreaming eyes. 
 
 At the University this young man's studies, 
 with ulterior views of academic distinction, 
 bore among other things upon Philology. But 
 the study of languages was with him a labour 
 of love, an attractive pursuit ; he found an ever 
 fresh fascination in the cultivation of new 
 systems of speech. During that summer the 
 energies of his mind were altogether bent on 
 mastering the intricacies of German phrase- 
 ology. By favour of earlier circumstances he 
 was already a very sufficient adept in many 
 tongues of Latin root; he had, in fact, that 
 singular power, rare in an Englishman, of 
 assimilating, by keenness of fancy and intel- 
 lectual sympathy, the spirit of other climes. 
 Every newly acquired tittle of power in 
 expressing that spirit by words and manners 
 was to him, so to speak, what each fresh treas- 
 ure is to the collector — a source of subtle per- 
 sonal pride, with all its attendant indescribable 
 pleasures. 
 
 No one perhaps in modern times realised 
 better the truth of the historic saying of the 
 great Charles the Fifth of Austria and First of 
 Spain: — "So many different tongues do I 
 speak, so many different men can I be." 
 Indeed, the English youth, who, at home, was 
 
 96
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 an undeniable Briton, with a disposition some- 
 what reticent and tincompromising and a ruling 
 taste for work, when he lived in Spain imbibed 
 with the sun-rays and the warm-coloured words 
 something of the grandiloquent mode of 
 thought and the grave laziness of that happy, 
 self-admiring, easy-living country. 
 
 In Italy he grew good-natured and demon- 
 strative, and feasted his soul in the rippling 
 music of a tongue so bright and clear as to 
 seem the only natural speech of man in happi- 
 ness. In Paris he would become sceptical, 
 fluent, and very precisely superficial, and be 
 voted a pleasant companion, singularly un- 
 English. 
 
 But the mighty German tongue was a harder 
 conquest to undertake, although the under- 
 graduate was already beginning to consort 
 with its Gothic soul, and was once again experi- 
 encing the curious satisfaction of evolving 
 brain-pictures out of an assemblage of hitherto 
 unknown sounds. Some quatrains in the 
 "Book of Songs" had newly made his heart 
 beat with the unspeakable twilight longing 
 which Heine, single among the world's poets, 
 has fixed by human words ; and aided by his 
 imagination, he had already re-read in its own 
 native music the epic legend of Doctor Faustus. 
 But Teutonic prose was still fatiguing to 
 unravel ; and thus he had yielded to musing on 
 
 97
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 this sultry summer day, and abandoned his 
 book — Hoffman's "Elixir" — at a fantastic but 
 terrifyingly long sentence. 
 
 For some time he had been the sole occupant 
 of the wine-room. Presently there entered to 
 him one whom he remembered having noticed 
 before about the town. This man, lithe and 
 well-built, though of no great stature, had, 
 beyond contest, a most characteristic presence, 
 which once seen could hardly be forgotten. 
 
 His was a face of the most perfect masculine 
 beauty, one to haunt the romantic fancy, with 
 its clear-cut features and fiery dark eyes, deeply 
 shaded under straight brows, the blackness of 
 which seemed intense in contrast with a sin- 
 gularly even paleness of skin, and hair of dull 
 copper hue. It was, as the Englishman 
 thought at the first glance, a face which the 
 best travelled man would hardly have expected 
 to see out of a picture by Vandyck. 
 
 The stranger, after a vague salutation, took 
 a seat at a neighbouring table, ordered wine, 
 and then proceeded to reperuse, in lingering 
 fashion, a letter, the contents of which he was 
 evidently already master of. And, as he 
 read, the student had opportunity to examine 
 and admire him more particularly. 
 
 It was a noble countenance in repose ; withal 
 apparently a sensitive mirror of fleeting emo- 
 tion. 
 
 98
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 "Verily here is one who must have turned 
 many a woman's head," commented the 
 observing youth, and, as he further marked the 
 smile that ever and anon played on the other's 
 lips, settled to his own satisfaction that the 
 missive which could give scope for such drawn- 
 out pleasure had been of a certainty penned by 
 some woman. 
 
 At length the letter was refolded and 
 replaced on the reader's heart, who then filled 
 his glass with wine. A shaft of sunlight dart- 
 ing over the minster pinnacles in through the 
 tavern window, broke itself in a golden splash 
 on a corner of the brown oak table. The man, 
 shifting his chair, placed his glass under the 
 sun-shaft; and on the moment the beaker of 
 ruddy Assmanshaiiser, in the midst of the sur- 
 rounding russet gloom, assumed the glory of 
 some monstrous scintillating ruby. 
 
 Sympathetic to the glow of the wine, or so 
 the Englishman thought, the stranger's eyes 
 brightened, and, as he peered through the 
 glass, his white teeth gleamed again under the 
 red cavalier moustache. Yet his thoughts 
 were not of wine, for he toyed with the glass 
 without even tasting the liquid light. And 
 presently he seemed to fall into a deeper 
 reverie, while the brightness faded from his 
 face; he rested his head on one hand, and 
 with, what appeared a creeping melancholy, 
 
 99
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 absently watched the sun-ray travel from the 
 glass along the table until it fell away and was 
 lost on the dull floor. 
 
 For some time, from his coign of vantage, 
 the Englishman sat pondering with lazy inter- 
 est on the circumstances of this silent com- 
 panion. Then the deep throbbing of the 
 cathedral bell, warning of the flight of irrepar- 
 able time, reminded him of the ever-present 
 duty. He debated for a moment whether he 
 would intrude on the stranger's privacy and 
 amiably practise the German speech with him, 
 or resume the unravelling of Hoffman's 
 incurved sentences. The stranger's counte- 
 nance made it seem possible that an interruption 
 to what was clearly a dismal train of thought 
 might not be unwelcome. 
 
 As he hesitated, the dreamer, likewise roused 
 by the boom of the clock, with a sigh raised his 
 eyes from the contemplation of his glass, 
 looked around in an absent manner, and 
 encountered the Englishman's glance. 
 
 "A sultry day, sir," he said, addressing him 
 in German, with pretty civility. 
 
 The Englishman made suitable reply in the 
 same tongue; but as they exchanged the 
 further banalities of an opening conversation 
 he was struck by an unusual intonation in his 
 interlocutor's speech, and began to have doubts 
 as to his nationality. Selecting his most fluent 
 
 lOO
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 and secure sentences, and delivering himself 
 of these, he noted presently a quick look of 
 interest, one which almost suggested anx- 
 iety, leap on to the sensitive face opposite 
 him. 
 
 "You are a foreigner, sir," said the gentle- 
 man then with excellent command of the lan- 
 guage, but with that outlandish qualifying tone 
 that had already awakened the student's curi- 
 osity. "A foreigner, sir, are you not, if you 
 will forgive my inquiry?" 
 
 "Yes, as you perceive, and hard at work 
 upon learning German. I am English, but 
 find your tongue hard to master." The last 
 words were tentative. They should have 
 elicited a similar declaration of nationality. 
 But the stranger, the tension of his whole 
 frame perceptibly relaxing, gave a slight sigh, 
 and ignored the bait. 
 
 "Then I drink to your greater success," he 
 said, and raised his glass, "You already speak 
 with much correctness. ' ' 
 
 " It is very good of you to say so, ' ' vaguely 
 responded the baffled Englishman. 
 
 "With your permission," then said the 
 stranger more cheerily, and rising as he spoke, 
 "I will sit at your table. What are you read- 
 ing, you permit? Ah, the 'Devil's Elixir.' I 
 do not know the book." Then, musingly — 
 ' ' How many people glibly talk and write of the 
 
 lOI
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 devil, who have never known him ! Germans 
 are especially fond of adverting to him, and 
 swearing by him. 'The devil's in it,' they say, 
 on slightest occasions. Oh, this is wrong! 
 There should be less light talk   of the great 
 enemy." He spoke slowly, and the English- 
 man listened amused and curious. But, in try- 
 ing to respond in extemporised phrases, he 
 broke down in the unfamiliar speech, and 
 again on a second trial came to a dead stop for 
 want of verbs. 
 
 "I am ashamed," he said, blushing with 
 vexation, "and after three months, too!" 
 
 The other smiled in benevolent sympathy. 
 He was still fingering the book in front of him, 
 on the open cover of which was a small book- 
 plate; then pointing to the Latin epigraph 
 under the crest — 
 
 "Patience, dear sir," he said, "the first steps 
 are hard, but this motto of yours, Propositi 
 tenax^ is one which will lead you through 
 greater difficulties than this German language. 
 Gaudet patientia duris. I regret I do not know 
 English myself. ' ' 
 
 As the Latin words escaped the speaker, 
 with a certain archaic air of scholarship that 
 was not without its quaintness, the young 
 philologist pricked his ears; the riddle was 
 solved; the hardness of the middle s and e, the 
 guttural X were unmistakable indices. In none 
 
 J-9Z
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 but a Castilian school could this Latin have 
 been learned. 
 
 With much of that sense of relief felt by the 
 inexpert musician as he abandons the decipher- 
 ing- of an intricate piece for an old familiar 
 favourite, the student played truant from his 
 self-imposed school and lapsed from laboured 
 German into fluent Spanish. 
 
 The result of this innocent departure was re- 
 markable. From the first sentence the stranger 
 grew livid, raised his head with a jerk, as 
 though he had been struck, and clutching the 
 edge of the table and pushing back his chair, 
 stared a moment in silence at the amazed youth. 
 
 "What is this? What is the meaning of 
 this?" he gasped forth at last, while a purple 
 glow flashed into the dilated pupils of his eyes 
 — whether from anger or dread it was impos- 
 sible to distinguish. "Why do you speak to 
 me in that language?" he asked again, and this 
 time with obvious distress, unaware seemingly 
 that he now used the same tongue himself. 
 
 The student was astounded; all he had 
 said was, "Am I wrong, sir, in thinking that 
 you speak Castilian?" and he would have added, 
 "In that tongue at least my converse would not 
 be an affliction to you." But the man's altera- 
 tion of manner stopped him abruptly, and he 
 made answer, when he had sufficiently recov- 
 ered from his confusion — 
 
 103
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 **Why — why, because it is a language I know 
 well, and love well. And my speaking it was 
 meant in courtesy. But since you resent it, I 
 crave your pardon — and I will retire. ' ' 
 
 His companion shook his head and gave a 
 deprecating wave of his shapely hand. 
 
 "No, sir," he replied, motioning him down 
 again in a markedly unconventional manner, 
 "you must sit there." 
 
 The bidding was so singularly expressed that 
 the student's first thought (that here was some 
 criminal, intent on hiding his nationality and 
 aghast at being detected) vanished as suddenly 
 as it had taken shape. He sat down again; 
 and there ensued a long silence. He could see 
 the man's luminous brown eyes still fixed, but 
 their speculation was now inwards. 
 
 "He is a madman," was the second thought; 
 and to humour one who might be dangerous if 
 thwarted — "Well, sir!" he said courteously, 
 preparing to listen. At the ring of the Span- 
 ish words again the stranger drew in his breath 
 and turned pale once more, while his counte- 
 nance assumed a pathetic, deprecating, almost 
 imploring look, which changed all vague 
 thoughts of fear into what was almost 
 sympathy. 
 
 "So you speak my language, sir," said his 
 strange companion in a low voice and with his 
 eyes cast down; "what a misfortune — what a 
 
 104
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 misfortune! Ah me! that you should have 
 spoken! Now you must listen. I must tres- 
 pass on your time, for you must hear." 
 
 He drew his chair closer, thrust his arms for- 
 ward on the table, and twisted nervously the 
 signet ring he wore on his little finger. Then, 
 sighing faintly, he raised his eyes full on his 
 companion; and compelling and holding his 
 attention, began his say — 
 
 "You have now to hear what really happened, 
 it is already many years ago, in the officers' 
 room at the Military School of Segovia, between 
 a young man whose forefathers had all stain- 
 lessly borne these arms, and Ramon Echegorri, 
 an honourable man, once a sergeant in the 
 Regiment- Loyalty. It has to be told, and you 
 must hear it." 
 
 His voice had changed after the first few 
 words and assumed a strange character ; it was 
 low, yet limpid in its great precision, and abso- 
 lutely toneless, as though the speaker read out 
 a mere statement. The contrast between the 
 voice and the words from the outset impressed 
 the listener, who, now quite recovered from 
 his alarms, began fervently to hope that the 
 stillness of the wine-room might not pre- 
 maturely be disturbed. 
 
 "I must assure you, sir, that, up to that day, 
 the young officer was blameless of aught that 
 befits not a gentleman. And yet then he did, 
 
 105
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 for no reason than can be urged in excuse, 
 that which it turns me sick to remember. 
 Many and many a time have I marvelled how 
 much less dreadful some vulgar crime of blood 
 or treason, which might be expiated in manly 
 fashion, would be to look back upon. But this 
 youth's action was merely one of low cunning. 
 It was not even theft. When I think of it, I 
 think as of putrid dust, of obscene spittle." 
 There was no change in the man's voice; but 
 the listener, enthralled by this passion of con- 
 tempt, could see a dew of sweat-drops gather- 
 ing on his temples. 
 
 " It is good that you should know, ' ' the voice 
 went on. ' ' This young man was one of a party 
 of ensigns sent to Segovia to work out a course. 
 They were very strictly kept, and were natur- 
 ally not allowed much money. This Ramiro I 
 speak of, a little older than the greater num- 
 ber, was the most likely candidate for the first 
 place at the coming examination. He was a 
 keen and hard-working youth; one, I proclaim, 
 who had then the stuff in him for a good man. 
 It was two days before the passing out, and he 
 had received a small sum of money from his 
 family, who, though of ancient race and good 
 position, kept him, on principle, to the simple 
 necessary during his probation. Strict was the 
 discipline in the school on matters of payment. 
 
 "All was well up to that day; all was well 
 
 1 06
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 even up to the night, although the money 
 which was to pay for the month's catering was 
 no longer his. He had been a fool that day, 
 but had not yet stooped. But, in the evening, 
 as he sat in the officers' room, deserted then 
 and gloomy, warming himself at the brazier, 
 even as Peter before his treachery — for it was 
 bitter cold and the town was soft with snow — a 
 fatal shabbiness of mood began to defile his 
 mind. His thoughts were dismal and cold as 
 the air outside as he bent them on the missing 
 moneys; recalling with contempt how but an 
 hour before they had been yielded, as in a 
 dream, and passed into the bosom of the gipsy- 
 girl, to win one by one a smile and a song from 
 her red lips; recalling with white fury how, in 
 mocking ceremony, the little demon had 
 restored to him at the last one of the smallest 
 coins — the sole occupant now of his miserably 
 flat purse — as a superstitious sacrifice to luck, 
 no doubt, before thrusting him forth into the 
 snowy road, gibing at him for the booby that 
 he was. 
 
 "And now, with elbows on his knees and 
 head resting in his hands as he gazed into the 
 burning brazier, he pondered. Would he be 
 believed if he claimed to have lost his funds by 
 accident? Yet, so lost they must appear. A 
 manly confession of the true use made of what 
 was due to the military chest would be ruinous 
 
 107
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 to his prospects. The lie must be told. This 
 was the first step downward ; one, you see, he 
 could hardly avoid. So the young man drew 
 his last piece; he called the steward and 
 ordered his evening coffee, and tossed the coin 
 to him. 
 
 "This steward was an honourable man; a 
 fine and good soldier, strong and straight ; his 
 great chest was bright with the crosses of many 
 actions. He was a Basque. His name was 
 Ramon Echegorri, and, as I said, he was a man 
 of probity. This man spoke to the young 
 officer with respectful interest. He was only 
 a sergeant, but had seen much fighting, and 
 the officer was on the threshold of his career. 
 
 " 'I am told. Sir Lieutenant,' said he as he 
 brought the cup, 'that you are most like for the 
 first place. I shall rejoice to hear it so. It is 
 good the book-work will soon be over, for you 
 look more fatigued than I have seen you before. ' 
 Such were his words, and they were kind. 
 
 "And when this Ramon had retired, the 
 officer, thinking of the morrow, and how it 
 might well be that he had already jeopardised 
 almost sure success by one hour of folly, was 
 seized again with fury against himself. He 
 flung the empty purse into the red fire, and 
 cursed his fortune. In the next room the 
 steward was piling up the day's cash, and the 
 chink of coin, faint as it was, was grievous to 
 
 io8
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 the ear. He walked out of the room, down 
 the great icy stairs, out once more into the 
 white and black streets, devising where he 
 should lose his money. And then the thought 
 that the brass rings of the purse might be 
 found in the brazier stopped him short — I 
 remember where this thought occurred ; it was 
 under the arch of the aqueduct which towers 
 over the housetops. And although this was 
 but a trivial thing after all, it struck colder at 
 my heart than the wind that hissed among the 
 old stones. ' ' 
 
 The speaker, unaware of his self-betrayal, 
 turned his agonised gaze here appealingly upon 
 the listener, who, seemingly bound by some- 
 thing of the same spell, hung silently upon his 
 words. 
 
 "This was the beginning of the evil itself, 
 although I assure you, sir, that it was yet 
 unformed and unadopted. If we believe in 
 the devil, it was he who at that moment whis- 
 pered to me: 'The rings of the purse!' , . . 
 Anyhow, the officer returned, half running, to 
 the room, intent only on seeking among the 
 coals for the unconsumed evidence. But, as 
 he entered, panting with the hurry, he found 
 the sergeant again. 
 
 "The man turned to him inquiringly. He 
 had a pleasant, smiling face, 
 
 " 'Forgotten something, my Lieutenant?' he 
 
 109
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 asked, and looked round and about with polite 
 solicitude. 
 
 *' 'Yes — yes, Echegorri. I think I left my 
 purse on the table, ' This time it was the devil 
 himself who spoke, for the officer had not 
 intended saying that. And as soon as the lie 
 was out, cold again seized him by the heart. 
 The blood flew to his head. But it was said. 
 Ah me ! sir, you see, it was said. 
 
 "Ramon Echegorri turned grave on the 
 instant. He cast his eyes quickly around once 
 more, and then firmly looked into his officer's 
 eyes, saying — • 
 
 " 'No, my Lieutenant, you have not left it 
 here. ' The young man's heart trembled. But 
 there was no retreat possible. 
 
 " 'I have left it here, Echegorri. In fact, I 
 remember placing it on that table. You must 
 inquire at once. ' Echegorri shook his head. 
 It seemed as if his honest brown eyes filled the 
 whole space of the room with their blaze — 
 
 " 'I tell you, sir, no one has been here but 
 myself.' 
 
 "The soldier knew that his officer lied, and 
 told him so to his face, by the tone if not by 
 the words. And now the younger man felt 
 that he was actually assailed ; with the instinct 
 of self-preservation he clutched desperately at 
 the suggestion of infinite malice, unknown till 
 then in his soul. 
 
 no I
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 "'Sergeant Echegorri,' he said roughly, 
 'stand to order and beware. I can still let you 
 off; but that purse I must have back.' 
 
 "But even as he spoke his guilty eyes wan- 
 dered unconsciously towards the brazier. In 
 an instant the sergeant saw, and it seemed to 
 me as if he understood all. Oh, the curse of 
 that instant! I boldly took the prompting 
 whisper of the devil. 
 
 "There was still a smell of burnt silk hang- 
 ing upon the air. I sniffed the nauseous odour 
 and affected to be struck by a sudden idea: 
 'My purse!' cried I, in a voice of thunder. In 
 one stride I was by the fire and peering into 
 the coals ; a little green flame danced over the 
 embers; with the tongs I drew forth the fatal 
 rings and shook them in the sergeant's darkling 
 face. 'Oh, fool!' I called out, 'you have 
 betrayed yourself. Now where is the money?' 
 
 "He gave me but one look, and with a con- 
 tempt one would think unwarrantable under 
 any circumstances in a subordinate towards his 
 superior, turned his back upon me, saying, 
 'You know that better than I do.' 
 
 "Footsteps were ascending the stairs. I 
 heard them. 'Where is the money, and no 
 more insolence? ' I cried, beside myself. He 
 swung on his heels and turned to me again 
 with burning eyes, stamping his foot in sudden 
 indignation ; we were both goaded to madness. 
 
 Ill
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 'No insolence, man!' I screamed; 'you stand 
 here a self-convicted thidf, Sergeant Eche- 
 gorri. ' 
 
 "I had hardly spoken before the stroke of his 
 open hand fell on my cheek with a fury that 
 seemed to fill the room with flames. To be 
 struck by a sergeant! 
 
 "I would have sought my sword to kill him, 
 but my wrist was paralysed in his grip, and at 
 that moment two officers entered upon us. 
 Suddenly recalled to reason, he stepped back 
 from me and stood silent, awaiting his fate. 
 The guard was called up and the innocent 
 man, guilty of a capital offence, was marched 
 away forthwith. ' * 
 
 The speaker paused. The dark flush which 
 had suffused his face slowly ebbed away, but 
 his right cheek remained curiously marked 
 with an angry redness, as if still stinging from 
 the shaming blow. His eyes were fixed on the 
 Englishman. In the respite there came to the 
 latter floating thoughts of the Ancient Mariner 
 and "his glittering eye"; but here the deed 
 confessed was of human interest, and, unlike 
 the wedding guest, he longed to hear further. 
 Yet he spoke not a word, unconsciously fear- 
 ing to break the spell. 
 
 After a silence, slowly measured by the beat 
 of the Nuremberg clock high on the wains- 
 coting, the tale was resumed in precisely the 
 
 112
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 same tone, and as if answering an unspoken 
 query. 
 
 "No, sir, the man was not shot. But what 
 mattered that? The whole night was spent by 
 the young officer over his books ; it was as if 
 the slap in the face had cleared his head of 
 doubt; his brain was active, luminous. On 
 the morrow he stood before the commandant 
 of the place and reported, with simple military 
 brevity, the remarkable disappearance of his 
 money, the melancholy and suspicious behav- 
 iour of the hitherto blameless and trusted 
 sergeant, ending up with his insane assault on 
 a superior. The commandant was much 
 struck by Don Ramiro's excellent and moder- 
 ate bearing, and still more so when, the official 
 report being over, the latter begged, with 
 much feeling, that only the undeniable and 
 military crime of striking an officer should be 
 charged against the culprit, and not the ques- 
 tion of theft to the shaming of the Regiment- 
 Loyalty. 
 
 " 'A refined sentiment of military honour, 
 young man,' said the commandant, who had 
 belonged to the Loyalty himself ; 'never lose 
 that spirit. As for the sergeant, it will be as 
 you wish. ' ' 
 
 "And the magnanimous youth went on his 
 way once more under the black aqueduct, with 
 upright bearing, toward the examination room. 
 
 "3
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 As every one expected, he passed out first, and 
 thus began a brilliant military career. He 
 never saw Echegorri again, save on the day of 
 trial. The prisoner's offence was of course 
 inexcusable under any provocation; the ques- 
 tion of provocation, moreover, for the reasons 
 I have mentioned, was, by the direction of the 
 commandant, strictly kept back. By special 
 mercy, in consideration of his meritorious serv- 
 ices, the man was only condemned to the 
 penal settlements. It was noticed that, at the 
 reading of the sentence, he looked up at his 
 accuser long and darkly, which was attrib- 
 uted to baffled hatred; and that the accuser 
 blushed deep, but only on the side that had 
 been struck by the culprit, and that was put 
 down to his generous blood. 
 
 "And this, sir, is the true story of Ramon 
 Echegorri," said the Spaniard, who now took 
 away his eyes from the Englishman's face. 
 
 Then, with a laugh that sounded perilously 
 like a sob, he dropped his forehead on both his 
 hands, and, in that posture, remained long 
 absorbed in brooding. 
 
 The chime of the half-hour fell solemnly 
 from the cathedral tower into the sombre 
 room. 
 
 The student was a man of broad and 
 generous views for all his still young years. 
 
 1:4
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 He did not require to meditate much on this 
 miserable tale to realise the long expiation, 
 untold in actual words yet so poignantly 
 patent. He reached across the table and 
 touched the stranger gently on the arm. There 
 was a sympathetic quality in the contact, and 
 the man looked up at once. On his face, now 
 tired and drawn like that of one just free from 
 a racking trance, there was a look of astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 "You have heard," he murmured wonder- 
 ingly — the inflections of waking life had 
 returned to his speech. "You are, no doubt, 
 a man of honour, and yet " 
 
 The Englishman raised his hand in denega- 
 tion. Choosing his words with decision, as a 
 mental surgeon rapidly and tenderly dealing 
 with a wounded mind: "I have heard," he 
 said, "a tale of fate — of the irremediable 
 consequences of an act more thoughtless than 
 intrinsically evil — I have heard the tale of a 
 moment's temptation, despicable enough in 
 itself, but the results of which were not fore- 
 seen, and therefore not weighed. I have 
 heard, above all, a tale of never absent 
 remorse, and I remember (although I am not 
 given to that sort of quotation) that there is 
 mercy for every sin. ' ' 
 
 The Spaniard had listened to the young 
 man's indulgent casuistry with a countenance 
 
 "5
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 of doubt, yet not untouched by relief. "You 
 are the only one, ' ' he said, with a weary voice, 
 "who has ever listened to my story with 
 sympathy — and such sympathy is balm to me, ' ' 
 touching his heart with a pathetic look. 
 ' ' Indeed, you are the only man who has heard 
 it to the end. When this incomprehensible 
 vertigo, this fatal impulse to unfold the true 
 account of my dishonour seizes me, men 
 generally escape, with deprecatory words, as 
 from a madman. " 
 
 "And, if I might advise you, sir," said the 
 Englishman, his native practicality coming 
 once more to the fore, "it would be to curb, 
 once for all, this tendency — no doubt arising 
 from a penitential spirit — thus to accuse your- 
 self of a dead and past misdeed to the casual 
 stranger. It is time, believe me, to shake off 
 an incubus which, (it may even be argued) could 
 not continue to feed upon your mind were it 
 not in essence a loyal and generous one. This 
 pragmatic impulse will degenerate into mad- 
 ness if you do not take care. ' ' 
 
 "It is already so, beyond doubt," said the 
 Spanish gentleman, stroking his forehead 
 with distressful gesture. "In all other re- 
 spects I am miserably sane, but the impulse, 
 when it comes, is unconquerable. Men have 
 been known, on the brink of a precipice, to be 
 so drawn as to fling themselves into its horror. 
 
 ii6
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 The language which I used for my sin I have 
 now to use for my punishment. I cannot, as 
 you have seen, even hear the beautiful, the 
 noble tongue of my country without also hear- 
 ing that call which has become irresistible. I 
 sought a cure in flight, in the sound of other 
 speech in other lands, and thought I had 
 found in this exile of mind and tongue, peace 
 at last. To-day's events prove how futile is 
 the hope." 
 
 He paused for a while, with his head resting 
 on his hand, gazing in desolation at the strip 
 of blue through the open window. Presently 
 he resumed : 
 
 "The curse came upon me only when one 
 would have thought the sin of my youth might 
 well have passed into oblivion even in my own 
 mind. It was years after. I bore on my 
 tunic then as many crosses almost as did 
 Ramon Echegorri once. I had proved myself 
 a good officer, a humane soldier, a loyal 
 gentleman — with that one exception you know 
 of. It was as if God himself had forgiven. 
 Everything prospered to me. I had come into 
 my title, and an unexpected fortune. I was 
 well known in the world, of high repute in my 
 service. 
 
 "After the Carlist War it was my fate to 
 return to Segovia, this time as a staff exam- 
 iner. One evening, in the officers' casino, as I 
 
 117
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 was conversing pleasantly after cards, and 
 when nothing was further for the moment 
 from my mind than the stings of remembrance, 
 despite of my surroundings, a soldier brought 
 in the day's mails. 
 
 •' 'The captain has had some good news,' 
 cried an officer beside me as I opened the first 
 letter, and the whole friendly company looked 
 round smiling at my flaming cheek. You have 
 doubtless noticed, sir," said the Spaniard, 
 interrupting his story, "this curious infirmity 
 of mine, this brand of shame upon which, in 
 this very room, I felt your eye but a little 
 while ago. How could I ever have thought 
 the wrath of God allayed when this warn- 
 ing had never quitted me ; when at all moments 
 of deep emotion, more especially in hours of ela- 
 tion and pride, it grew so conspicuous, though 
 understood of me alone, as to have become 
 a byword among my comrades? And thus 
 they called to me that night: 'Is it a new 
 decoration, Don Ramiro, or a new appoint- 
 ment?' 
 
 "What the letter said I can repeat word for 
 word ; I have it in my eyes as when they first 
 read it. After the compliments which it is 
 usual with us to prefix to all courteous com- 
 munications, it went on thus : — 
 
 " 'When you receive this letter, forwarded 
 by the Father confessor against prison rules, 
 
 ii8
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 and which therefore you must destroy once 
 read, Ramon Echegorri will be dead of this 
 prison fever. I have, by my suffering Sav- 
 iour's mercy, lost all hatred for you, for the 
 prison surgeon has assured the good Father 
 that I have little time to prepare for death. 
 You have made me suffer, sir, greatly ; I never 
 harmed you, and even in thought and deed 
 have done you well. But, on my hope of sal- 
 vation, I wish you to know that at my last hour 
 I have forgiven you. ' 
 
 "There the letter ended with ceremonious 
 formula, as befitted the relations of a common 
 sergeant with a gentleman of position, his 
 officer. 
 
 "Had he cursed me, I think I could have 
 borne it; but his forgiveness struck at my 
 heart. It struck at my brain. What had for 
 these years been but a dormant canker in my 
 secret self became from that moment aroused 
 to virulent disease. 
 
 "By-and-by, amid the constant effort to con- 
 ceal from my honourable associates the misery 
 that was consuming me, there grew a new and 
 horrible desire to clean my soul of the unsa- 
 voury tale. I first began to yield to the mania 
 in indirect fashion; narrated hypothetical 
 cases similar to mine. But, like a drunkard, 
 the craving increased as I compromised with 
 it. The next step was to tell the story in its 
 
 119
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 entirety, concealing only names and places. 
 People began to look askance ; I was becoming 
 a dreaded infliction. In time the inevitable 
 occurred. A friend whom I met alone in a rail- 
 way station, changed his carriage at the next 
 station, without apology. He took me for 
 mad. . . . 
 
 " 'I assure you, my officer,' said a rapscallion 
 host at Avila, with an impudent grin as he 
 presented me with a bill quadruple of the right 
 amount, 'I feel certain that you are able to pay 
 your score ; you will not find here your purse 
 in the brazier.' He took me for a vulgar 
 rogue like himself. ... I paid and fled. 
 
 "At last, I found myself pouring forth my 
 infamy to my best friend, the man I most 
 esteemed. He knew I spoke the truth. 
 
 " 'My dear comrade,' he said, 'you are too 
 ill to remain with us. It will not do. Some 
 of us might one day begin to imagine there 
 was a background of fact to these ravings of 
 yours. After your honourable services it is 
 but just that you should now think of your- 
 self. I would recommend travel, prolonged 
 travel . . . abroad.' 
 
 "I can never forget the scorn of his look, 
 the coldness of his voice. I sent in my demis- 
 sion. He also obtained leave, and never 
 quitted me till I was out of the country. We 
 had faced death together only the year before, 
 
 1 20
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 but the honour of the regiment was dear to 
 him. 
 
 "The mills of God grind slowly," went on 
 Don Ramiro, "but I believe He will yet spare 
 me a remnant of livable life. Here in this 
 country I have first found peace, I knew a 
 little German ; and in a strange language the 
 maniac impulse has never made itself felt. 
 And of late I had even begun to think I might 
 taste happiness again. 
 
 "Now you know how it is that what should 
 be the sweetest sound to an exile's ear, the 
 sound of my mother tongue, has become to 
 me the most dreaded. I have never yet heard 
 it in these parts ; and when it came from your 
 English lips it was unexpected indeed, and 
 once more turned the old tide full against me." 
 
 "I regret it," said the Englishman, with 
 some feeling. 
 
 There fell a long silence upon the two men. 
 At length, with a deep sigh, Don Ramiro 
 roused himself, and rising as if to take his 
 leave, said, speaking German once more — 
 
 ' ' I thank you, sir, for your patience with me, 
 and your sympathy. ' ' 
 
 "Give me your company a little longer, 
 pray," returned the student heartily, he too 
 resuming the German tongue in tacit acquies- 
 cence, "and if you will but prolong your 
 indulgence to my linguistic labours, I shall feel 
 
 121
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 that I may order another bottle with a clear 
 conscience. ' ' 
 
 And in this new mood they sat together dis- 
 cussing the wine and such desultory subjects as 
 came to mind, until the student began almost 
 to feel as if the secret buried between them 
 had been but a dream of his own active brain 
 between the two bottles of subtle and generous 
 Rhenish. 
 
 As they walked at length together out of the 
 cool, dim wine-room into the mellowing sun- 
 light and parted at divergent streets, only a 
 spirit of perhaps exaggerated delicacy pre- 
 vented the Englishman from begging that this 
 meeting might not be the last. 
 
 For many days he haunted the tavern at 
 likely hours; lingered in the public gardens 
 and searched through throngs of broad-visaged 
 Teutons for a glimpse of the Vandyck head, in 
 vain. By-and-by he grew to think that the 
 Spaniard was determinedly avoiding him ; and 
 the old city having exhausted its interest for 
 him, he prepared to wing his flight to some 
 other quaint haunt wherein congenially to 
 prosecute his investigation of the German 
 speech. 
 
 But one afternoon shortly before his pro- 
 posed departure, as he was strolling, as usual 
 book in hand, along the red sandstone quays 
 that curb the mighty flow of the Rhine, 
 
 122
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 he lighted once more on his singular acquaint- 
 ance. 
 
 Each absorbed, one in his book, the other 
 seemingly in his thoughts, they only became 
 aware of the encounter when already face to 
 face. Whether it was pleasing or not to the 
 Spaniard it would have been impossible to tell; 
 with exquisite breeding he saluted his compan- 
 ion and extended his hand. 
 
 "Always at work, my dear sir, I see. I 
 admire your industry. ' ' He spoke in the odd 
 precise German already familiar to the stu- 
 dent ; his manner was easy, as of one who had 
 only parted from an acquaintance a few hours 
 before. There was a stronger ring in his tone, 
 a new elasticity in his bearing which instantly 
 struck the Englishman. With quick scrutiny 
 he scanned the speaker's countenance and dis- 
 covered also a new serenity, a look almost of 
 happiness. 
 
 They stood a moment in converse, and then 
 walked together some little distance, talking on 
 indifferent topics with much mutual civil defer- 
 ence. It was then that the explanation of the 
 changed bearing of Don Ramiro came upon 
 the wondering undergraduate, and that he 
 remembered him of the letter the Spaniard had 
 so long lingered over on the day of their first 
 meeting. 
 
 A sentry, mounting guard at the gates of one 
 
 123
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 of the noble red mansions overlooking the 
 river, suddenly presented arms; and with loudly 
 clanking svi^ord, a square grey-whiskered man 
 in colonel's uniform emerged from the wide 
 portals, accompanied by a young girl in flutter- 
 ing summer dress. At sight of the latter the 
 Spaniard's eyes shot fire; and, although he 
 had too much inborn courtesy to show it, 
 it was evident that his tavern-friend's com- 
 pany had become inopportune. But be- 
 fore the latter could take an unaffected leave, 
 the officer and his fair companion had drawn 
 close and exchanged greeting with Don 
 Ramiro. 
 
 And now, according to the etiquette of the 
 land, in answer to an inquiring glance, the 
 Englishman had to be introduced, and this the 
 Spaniard did with good grace. 
 
 "Mr. Marshfield, an English student," he 
 said, mentioning the name, "who has come 
 here to study German." And having likewise 
 presented the officer as the Colonel command- 
 ing the Dragoon regiment in garrison and his 
 future father-in-law, Don Ramiro, without 
 taking apparent notice of the impression pro- 
 duced by the announcement thus incidentally 
 conveyed to the possessor of his secret, devoted 
 his attentions to the lady. Of her the under- 
 graduate forthwith took curious and interested 
 note as a pretty, plump specimen of the dark 
 
 124
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 German, pleasing enough, though not perhaps 
 the mate he would have fancied for his 
 romantic-looking mysterious Spaniard. 
 
 There could be no doubt, however, that the 
 couple were deeply enamoured; there was a 
 pathetic tenderness in his eyes, as they rested 
 upon her ; and she, with all the national aban- 
 donment in matters of intercourse between 
 betrothed, showed herself wrapt heart and soul 
 in her handsome cavalier. 
 
 As a sequel to this incident the Englishman, 
 in his character of friend to the bridegroom- 
 elect, found himself at once treated with 
 amiable consideration by the colonel, and 
 invited, as a matter of course, to the ante- 
 nuptial festivities of the Polterabend which 
 were to be celebrated the next day. The 
 betrothal, it seemed, was already of long stand- 
 ing, and from the officer's converse it was evi- 
 dent that it gave general happiness. 
 
 Now, although the student was not without 
 some misgivings, whether it would not be the 
 more kindly act, in the circumstances, to avoid 
 the invitation he had at first so warmly accepted, 
 his constitutional curiosity and his interest in the 
 strange bridegroom finally overrode the deli- 
 cate scruples ; and thus the next evening he 
 found himself one of the seething crowd in the 
 great rooms of the colonel's house, where the 
 pot-breaking and other traditional methods of 
 
 125
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 merry-making were being carried out with 
 typical thoroughness and clamour. 
 
 An utter stranger, and naturally somewhat 
 lost among so many, he was quite content to 
 play the simple part of spectator ; and unable 
 even to approach the bridal pair, only caught 
 occasional glimpses of Don Ramiro's counte- 
 nance, pale yet radiant, and of the bride's 
 darkly glowing face, somewhat too obtrusively 
 sentimental for his English taste. 
 
 As the last hour drew near, and the fun was 
 fast and furious, there came a sudden inter- 
 ruption to the usual course of proceedings 
 which gave him again an undesired activity in 
 connection with the Spaniard's affairs. The 
 host, standing on a chair, was demanding 
 silence in the voice of one long accustomed to 
 instant obedience, and a comparative lull 
 inspired by vivid curiosity fell on the good- 
 humoured assembly. The student pressed 
 forward with the rest. 
 
 At the table reserved for the family and 
 their intimates there had evidently been a 
 hearty succession of toasts. Just then most of 
 the countenances round it were exchanging 
 benevolent glances of intelligence, becks and 
 wreathed smiles. The bride, blushing more 
 deeply than ever, was, standing, a slender 
 beaker foaming in her hand, her swimming 
 eyes fixed upon Don Ramiro, who, with a look 
 
 126
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 of smiling mystification, was just rising to his 
 feet. 
 
 "My betrothed," she began, with not unbe- 
 coming confusion at hearing her own voice in 
 the midst of the expectant silence, "you have 
 covered me with presents, the most magnifi- 
 cent, the most lovingly devised ; but I too have 
 for you a special gift to show my love and con- 
 stant thought. It has been difficult to secure, 
 and even more difiicult to keep secret from 
 you till now. I want to be praised," she 
 added, "both for keeping it so well and for my 
 diligence." She smiled on him with ponder- 
 ous coquettishness ; and subdued guttural 
 exclamations, sentimentally greeting her little 
 speech, rustled through the room. 
 
 And now the Englishman's heart almost 
 stood still ; the bride was no longer speaking 
 German. God of Mercy! these were Spanish 
 words that fell upon the air! "My beloved," 
 she was saying with triumphant enunciation, 
 "I drink to thee, to our happiness. I am 
 
 proud to tell thee " She broke off in 
 
 amazement, and there followed an instant's 
 breathless silence ; nothing for a moment was 
 heard but the rain-drops of the storm that had 
 been brewing all day, beating on the panes. 
 
 At the first fatal words Don Ramiro had 
 thrown his hands forward with a terrified, 
 deprecating gesture. As she went on, from 
 
 127
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 his open mouth came unformed sounds such as 
 escape a man only in the horror of nightmare. 
 
 Speechless, he despairingly clapped his palm 
 on his lips in adjuration for her to stop. And 
 then, in the silence, above the driving of the 
 rain came his voice at last, exhausted and com- 
 plaining as that of a dying man. 
 
 "What is this?" he murmured, looking round 
 unseeingly; "what is the meaning of this? 
 Oh! why do you speak to me in Spanish? Ah 
 me! Love of my soul, that you should have 
 spoken! Now you must listen — you too must 
 hear. Come ! Come away ! ' ' 
 
 No one, perhaps, but the girl and the Eng- 
 lishman understood his language — none but 
 the latter the real meaning of his words ; and 
 in the confusion that ensued he instantly 
 decided to interfere. He cleaved without cere- 
 mony the crowd of guests that gathered thickly 
 round, calling out in Spanish, to the increased 
 astonishment of every one — 
 
 "Don Ramiro, conquer this weakness!" 
 Then turning to the terrified girl and pointing 
 to his heart, "Be not too much alarmed, 
 madam," he said, plunging into the first 
 excuse that came, " my friend is subject occa- 
 sionally to these attacks. I know he will be 
 better presently, but I must attend to him" — 
 and, seizing the Spaniard by the wrist and 
 shoulder, he fairly rushed him out of the room. 
 
 128
 
 THE DEVIL'S WHISPER 
 
 To his own astonishment he found that the 
 unfortunate bridegroom only offered passive 
 resistance, and suffered himself to be dragged 
 without expostulation through the first open 
 door into the garden, and thence into a back 
 street. The evening was dark; it rained in 
 torrents ; the wind blew in fitful gusts, and the 
 streets were abandoned. The two men, bare- 
 headed and uncloaked under the downpour, 
 were spared the intrusive observation of 
 passers-by. 
 
 They walked, almost ran, silently for some 
 time, in unknown ways, without a word. A 
 chance turning in the intricate network of 
 small alleys brought them presently into a 
 blind lane, and so to a standstill. The Eng- 
 lishman released his grip, and, placing his back 
 against a wall under a dim-blinking street- 
 lamp, faced his companion and addressed him 
 with forced cheeriness. 
 
 "Well," said he, "you are better, are you 
 not, Don Ramiro? The vertige is over. Shall 
 we return now? The spell is broken, you 
 know. It was lucky I was there ; but now it is 
 conquered. Courage, Don Ramiro, be a 
 man ! ' ' 
 
 But Don Ramiro made no answer. He held 
 his face raised to the spilling rain; his eyes 
 were closed. Along his drawn cheeks the 
 drops ran down in rivulets; the student 
 
 129
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 thought they were mixed with tears, and, at 
 his wits' end, he abruptly ceased what seemed 
 but a patter of foolish words in the presence 
 of irremediable misery. Presently he heard in 
 the distance the rattle of a cab, and thought of 
 endeavouring at least to convey this stricken 
 man to shelter. He ran to the turning and 
 hailed in his lusty young voice. Then he 
 looked round for his comrade, apprehensive 
 to have left his side even for a moment. But 
 the dim spaces were empty, and as he ran 
 hither and thither, desperately calling on his 
 name, he caught a glimpse of a dark, bent 
 figure, slinking with the swift, self-effacing 
 motion of a cat, round a distant turning. 
 
 And the path of the Spanish gentleman's 
 life, from that moment, diverged from that of 
 the student for ever. 
 
 130
 
 THE 
 HERD-WIDDIEFOW
 
 The Herd-Widdiefow 
 
 This is my great-grandmother's story as she 
 told it to my grandmother, and as my mother 
 heard it from my grandmother's lips. 
 
 It is still a favourite story for a winter's 
 evening by the hearth when the lassies sit to 
 their spinning; and I have known not a few 
 to sigh in secret for the old evil days when a 
 woman's heart was ever ready to spring to her 
 mouth at a footstep outside, and when none 
 knew if the cow were safe in the byre, or the 
 bonnie lass in her chamber, for fear of the 
 reiving, thieving Highlandman — the Herd- 
 Widdiefow, as such a fellow was known in his 
 own uncouth tongue! But I for one have 
 never ceased to regret that my great-grand- 
 mother should have sat brooding by the fire, 
 that September night a hundred and fifty 
 years ago, instead of drawing bolts and bars 
 and fastening up the house ; for by that lazy 
 fit of hers did our good Lowland farm come 
 into the hands of the Highland race, and our 
 good Lowland name become exchanged for an 
 ill-sounding, heathen one and the fine breed of 
 
 ^33
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 Haseltine suffer the intermixture of the fierce, 
 wildcat, mountain blood. Whereby a family 
 that had been noted for straight limbs, sleek 
 skins and canny heads, have brought forth ever 
 since little else but swarthy, hairy, squat- 
 figured loons, and thriftless black-eyed lasses ; 
 settle-to-naught and ne'er-do-weels. 
 
 Now my great-grandmother was an only 
 child and a great match the whole country side 
 over. She was a comely dame, I have heard 
 my mother say, even as she had known her in 
 her old age; and when she was young, so the 
 legend goes, her hair was the colour of the 
 inner husk of the chestnut, and the skin of her 
 face was as pink and white as the wild roses in 
 the hedgerows. Her name was Margaret. 
 And being, as I say, his only child born to him 
 after long years of barren wedlock when he 
 himself was an old man, 'twas but natural that 
 her father should yearn to see her wed before 
 he died. 
 
 Her heart inclined to a cousin of her own, 
 John Haseltine by name; a true chip of the 
 old block, with the bluest eyes between Tyne 
 and Clyde. And her father approved of her 
 choice. John Haseltine the younger had been 
 seven years at Hazelburn, working under his 
 uncle. He was a douce lad, so tall that my 
 great-grandmother, who was a tall woman, had 
 to look up to him and to stand on tip-toe if she 
 
 134
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 wanted to kiss him. He had a slow way 
 with him and a slow speech, but he never 
 did nor said anything that was not to his 
 advantage ; and my great-grandmother thought 
 that they would be very happy and that he 
 would take good care of the farm and of 
 herself. 
 
 On the night I am telling you about, a Sep- 
 tember night, with an angry wind and a storm 
 brewing behind the hills, the master of the 
 farm and all the men, who had worked from 
 dawn at bringing in the harvest before the rain 
 should come, were dog-tired ; so tired that old 
 John had snored over his supper and young 
 John had fallen asleep even as he sat, accord- 
 ing to his wont alone with his betrothed after 
 the rest had retired. He looked a very fine 
 figure of a man, my great-grandmother 
 thought, as he lay back beside her with his 
 legs outstretched and his curly head propped 
 against the angle of the oak settle. The sun 
 had burnt his face deep red, but where the 
 shirt lay open at the neck, his skin was as 
 white as her own. 
 
 But, all at once, as she sat gazing at him, 
 her heart grew hot and angry against him, 
 she could not have said why; and she 
 flounced away from him and knocked over 
 the creepy stool. John Haseltine sat up with 
 a start. 
 
 135
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "Faith, Meg," said he, and smacked a kiss 
 upon her cheek, and yawned, "I beheve I have 
 been noddin'." 
 
 Whereupon he rose and staggered, sleep- 
 drunken, from the room, and she heard his 
 heavy stumbles on the wooden stairs as he 
 mounted to his bed in the loft. 
 
 Thus was my great-grandmother left alone 
 in the kitchen, all the household a-bed but she. 
 She drew the creepy stool to the hearth and 
 sat looking into the embers. What had come 
 upon her she never knew to her dying day, 
 whether it was the scent of the hay that had 
 gone to her head or the gathering storm that 
 had turned her sour like the milk ; but there 
 was nothing but black bitterness within her 
 breast against all the world, above all against 
 her good John. 
 
 The thunder began to rumble overhead and 
 the hail hissed down the chimney, and she was 
 glad, because it just suited her mood. The 
 windows rattled and the doors shook as the 
 blast raged round the house ; and glancing over 
 her shoulder, she saw that John had forgotten 
 to draw the bars and bolts as was his nightly 
 duty. 
 
 "Plague take the sleepy loon," said she. "I 
 trow I have a pretty life before me!" 
 
 She rocked herself backwards and forwards, 
 staring at the turf that was crumbling away 
 
 136
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 into white ash, and rubbing her cheek with 
 her hand where it had been kissed by him. 
 
 "Upon my word," said she, "I might as well 
 have been Aunt Deb, for all the warmth in his 
 lips!" 
 
 The thunder crackled, down came the rain as 
 if all heaven's sluices were opened. The 
 lightning flashed this side and that. Uneasily 
 the cattle began to low without ; it seemed as 
 if between the noise of the thunder and rain 
 and the wind, she could hear the patter of their 
 feet drawing close to the house for shelter. 
 Suddenly the yard dog raised a fierce clamour, 
 and as suddenly fell silent. And then the 
 thunder roared again and swallowed all. 
 
 "The dumb beasts know there is danger," 
 thought she, and her lip curled, "but overhead 
 they lie like logs, and the place might be burnt 
 about our ears, before they would think of 
 turning on their pillows." 
 
 Now, even as she thought this to herself, 
 there came the most terrible thunder-clap there 
 had been yet, so that it was as if the whole sky 
 had turned into metal and was breaking itself 
 upon the world ; and the lightning hissed across 
 the sleeting rain. She sprang to her feet, 
 clasping her hands and gazing around in terror. 
 
 Then, even in the shimmering of the light- 
 ning, she saw a face looking in upon her 
 through the window — a man's face, strong and 
 
 137
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 wild, with teeth and eyes gleaming white. 
 The next instant it was gone with the flash. 
 
 She stood terrified, straining her ear; the 
 storm still growled and grumbled, but it was 
 wearing away. The rain came lighter and 
 steadier and the blast was dying off, but there 
 were strange rumours without; the patter of 
 feet and hoofs on the soft ground, whispers of 
 muffled voices, and the cattle were lowing with 
 angry plaintive note. Yet the yard dog was 
 silent. 
 
 * ' Things are no canny the night, ' ' said my 
 great-grandmother. Then she tried to laugh 
 at herself. 
 
 "I am going daft!" said she, and poked the 
 dying embers into flame. After which, 
 emboldened by the cheerful light and the 
 familiar objects around her and the relief of the 
 returning serenity outside, she walked across 
 the floor to draw the bolts of the great door. 
 She was raising the main bar (and though she 
 was a strong lass it was a hard job for her) 
 when there rang a crash of broken glass upon 
 the bricks under the kitchen window, and, 
 before she had even time to call out, some- 
 thing leaped upon her with the spring of a 
 mountain cat. A hand was clapped over her 
 mouth, she felt herself seized and held. She 
 fought hard, all her sturdy womanhood at bay, 
 but the grip that held her was as strong as 
 
 138
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 steel. There was a chuckle in her ear as if of 
 triumph. 
 
 The next moment a heavy plaid, reeking of 
 peat smoke, was flung over her head, stifling 
 her cries. This was so wound and knotted 
 about her that her arms were pinned by her 
 side ; and in a trice she had become as helpless 
 as an infant in its swaddling clothes. Then 
 she was whipped from her feet and borne 
 away at a quick, steady trot, and she felt the 
 fresh outer wind flutter her petticoats and blow 
 against her feet, which were all she had free. 
 
 "He will be a strong man," she thought, 
 however, "who can carry the finest wench in 
 the dale many yards at such a rate. ' ' And she 
 struggled on with might and main. Little it 
 helped her. In another minute she was flung 
 across the saddle-bow of a horse with no more 
 ado than if she had been a bag of meal, and 
 with legs hanging, dangling one side and head 
 the other, she was borne through the night at a 
 cruel pace. 
 
 All was now a blank and hideous medley to 
 her till the time (she knew not whether it 
 came after minutes or hours) when she found 
 herself delivered from her bonds and placed 
 erect before her captor with the free air upon 
 her burning face. Afar away they must have 
 ridden, for by the dim light, the waste where 
 they now halted looked all strange to her. 
 
 139
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 And yet, by the stars, the night was not yet on 
 the wane. 
 
 She shifted herself in the saddle and turned 
 to look upon the rider behind her. The same 
 wild face that she had seen in the lightning 
 flash looked back, so close to hers in the eerie 
 glimmer that she started as if she would have 
 dashed herself from the nag. 
 
 "Whither do you bring me?" cried my great- 
 grandmother, "and what do you want with me? 
 If it be money, take me back to my father or 
 set me down that I may make my way home 
 on foot, and I promise you that whatever ran- 
 som you ask, so it be within our means, it shall 
 be honorably paid and no vengeance attempted 
 for this night's work." 
 
 By which you will see that my great-grand- 
 mother was a canny lass and kept her wits 
 about her. 
 
 But the fierce face, out of the dark masses of 
 tangled hair, that seemed as strange and fear- 
 ful to her as might some wild beast of the 
 woods to a tender farm lamb, only flashed 
 mocking white teeth upon her and the sinewy 
 arms but held her closer. And the rider urged 
 his steed, which seemed as unkempt, as sturdy, 
 as squat as himself, once again into a trot 
 which shook the breath out of her body. Then 
 a fury rose and broke within her like a storm. 
 She fell upon him first with stinging words, 
 
 140
 
 "THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 then with buffets and hair-wrenchings, with 
 pinchings and scratchings. He bore it all as if 
 he had been insensible alike to insult or injury. 
 But after a while, as her passion gave way to 
 weariness and shame, he suddenly reined in, 
 and disengaging one hand carelessly wiped the 
 blood from his face. 
 
 "Now hark ye, lassie," said he, and he spoke 
 English to her fluently enough, though with 
 some care, as if it did not come ready to his 
 tongue, "rave and scrawb as much as ye like, 
 'twon't avail ye much, and 'twon't hurt me 
 much. But it is as well ye suld ken what is in 
 my mind about ye. When we came to the 
 farm, the lads and I, the bit kine was all we 
 wanted — and ye maun say that it is but fair we 
 should have our turn with a fat heifer now and 
 again, for a Highland man must live as well as 
 his Lowland neighbour. But even as the puir 
 beasties were being driven off as doucely (they 
 were skeered by the storm, puir things!) as if 
 they were going to pasture, the deil took me to 
 look in at the window. Then I saw ye sitting, 
 with the fire playing on your bonny hair and 
 on the bend of your waist. And I thought 
 within myself — 'twas as if the lightning had set 
 fire to a dry rick — 'That is the wife for Donald 
 MacBane!' And so, my bonny dou, I am not 
 for taking ye back to your father or setting ye 
 on your legs to rin hame to him. But 'tis the 
 
 141
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 kind gudeman I'll make ye," said he, "and 
 once we are wed, nane will do us harm. And 
 if ye have the maist siller, 'tis I have the maist 
 luve, and siller never hurt naught." 
 
 Whereupon, my great-grandmother said 
 she gave the most terrible skreek ever 
 was heard. So shrill it rang that it fright- 
 ened even herself, and the little horse 
 stopped as if it had been shot, and the birds 
 in the low whin bushes all about rose com- 
 plaining from their sleep and flapped circling 
 round their heads. 
 
 And then on they trotted again, and she 
 remembered no more, till they halted in a 
 waste, yet wilder than the first. The dawn 
 was breaking white and dreary upon a lower- 
 ing sky. 
 
 "Now," said Donald MacBane, "we will have 
 a spell of sleep, for 'tis full weary I am, and a 
 man maun sleep, be he in luve, in war, or in 
 business. " 
 
 He jumped from the pony as he spoke, and 
 lifted her down. The grasp of his lean hands 
 was as terrible, my great-grandmother thought, 
 and as strong as ever. And as he lifted her, 
 she, being stifE and trembling, fell into his 
 arms, for she could not hold herself; and he 
 kissed her as he caught her. She had just the 
 power left to clout him for it, whereat he 
 laughed till the whole moor rang. Then twist- 
 
 142
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 ing- the nag's rein round his right arm, he 
 spread half the plaid and flung himself upon it. 
 
 "And the other half is for ye," he said, smil- 
 ing with all his wicked face. 
 
 "Oh!" cried my great-grandmother, and 
 would have struck him again, had she had the 
 energy to lift her arm. 
 
 "Have it as ye wull," says he. "Ye maun 
 gang your ain gait a wheen bit longer, and then 
 it's my douce little wife ye'll be. Rin awa if 
 ye like," says he, "for ye are bound to win 
 back to me. Ye do not ken the moor, so ye 
 will just go in a circle as round as a wedding- 
 ring. May be t' will amuse ye!" 
 
 And so saying he rolled over in the plaid, 
 and in another minute he was snoring. And 
 the pony began cropping at the poor grass, and 
 my great-grandmother felt abandoned by God 
 and man. 
 
 At first she thought to make off on the pony, 
 but it was as cunning as its master, and let out 
 with its heels at her if she so much as came 
 within a yard of it. And then she tried, 
 though in truth her limbs could scarce bear 
 her, to start away alone by herself over the 
 desolate moor, but sure enough, when she had 
 gone but a little way she found herself (and 
 she never could explain why) rounding back 
 again to where the Highlandman slept beside 
 the cropping pony. And so, in despair, she 
 
 143
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 flung herself upon the turf, and before she 
 knew it she too was asleep. 
 
 In her sleep she dreamed a wild and fretted 
 dream, And presently, out of the turmoil of it, 
 she thought that she was by the ingle-nook and 
 John Haseltine beside her, and that John 
 kissed her ; but not as he had kissed her that 
 night (and even in her dream she remembered 
 'this in grudge against him), with a cool, 
 brotherly touch. These were kisses of love; 
 passionate, masterful, fiery. And as he kissed 
 her, he crooned to her: "My bonnie, bonnie 
 bride ! ' ' And to the fire of love in the words 
 and in the kisses her heart leapt. 
 
 Now as her heart leapt she woke up, and 
 there was the blank morning sky above her 
 and the wide, wide moor around her, and 
 beside her sat the squatting Highlandman. 
 He was gazing upon her with a flame in his 
 eyes. 
 
 *' My bonnie bride!" said he; and thus she 
 knew whose were the kisses that yet lay so 
 hot upon her lips. 
 
 I have made it clear, I think, that my great- 
 grandmother was a quick-tempered lass; but 
 never, so she told my grandmother, had she 
 known such a frenzy of anger in her life before 
 or since as that which now took her. She 
 sprang to her feet and scrubbed her mouth as 
 if she would have laid her lips raw. 
 
 144
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 "Your bride!" said she, and had to laugh, or 
 she would have screamed. "Not so long as 
 there is a knife in the whole of Scotland." 
 And indeed, if she had had a knife to her 
 hand, she felt it in her then to have driven it 
 to his heart. 
 
 "Canny!" said he, smiling at her. "Never 
 boast, hinny! No ain of us can tell in the 
 morn what the day may bring forth. See yon 
 sun?" said he, stretching out his haggard arm 
 and pointing to the horizon where the sun still 
 hung low, but very beautiful and dazzling, 
 with rays all round it piercing the clouds, as 
 you may see it pictured in the old Bible. 
 "Who knows," said he, "but what before yon 
 sun has travelled half its course to-day, it may 
 shine upon us, man and wife ! ' ' 
 
 He grinned in her face as he spoke ; his teeth 
 were very white and strong, as she had noticed 
 before. She set her lips and turned her head 
 away. She felt she hated him the more for the 
 savage beauty of his countenance, and beauti- 
 ful it was, though marred by her nails that 
 night. So she let him lead her once more to 
 the pony and set her on it, after the fashion 
 she had by this time grown wofuUy accustomed 
 to, and she never so much as asked him 
 whither he was taking her, for indeed she was 
 almost too weary to think at all. This much 
 she knew, that she could not escape upon the 
 
 145
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 moor ; and one faint hope she had of obtaining 
 help if they should but win to some spot where 
 she could appeal to a fellow human. 
 
 Thus they set forth once more to the jogging 
 trot to which her every bone answered with 
 sore greeting, and in a very little while her 
 heart was cheered by the sight of a cultivated 
 patch of field, the white gleam of the high 
 road, the shelter of trees, and blue smoke ris- 
 ing against the threatening yellow sky. Yet 
 'twas but a wretched hamlet, and though the 
 shanty at which they halted was of a slightly 
 better quality than the four or five others 
 clustering round it, that was very little to say, 
 for it was a miserably poor place with volumes 
 of turf smoke rushing out through a hole in the 
 thatched roof and through the glassless win- 
 dow. There was a great dung heap before the 
 door, about which a little herd of ragged chil- 
 dren were playing, more dirty, she thought, 
 than it was conceivable for any creature to 
 become, and shrieking to each other in Gaelic. 
 A dry bush hung above the half-open door, 
 that was itself falling from its hinges, and by 
 this she knew it was an inn. 
 
 Upon the arrival of the new-comers, the wild 
 urchins ran squealing like a disturbed litter of 
 piglets into the dark reeking of the hovel. At 
 the same moment Donald MacBane dismounted 
 and called. Out came a stunted, weather- 
 
 146
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 beaten woman with black elf-locks hanging 
 about her face, who flung up her hands, as she 
 caught sight of them, and poured forth a tor- 
 rent of words in a tongue as uncouth, to great- 
 grandmother's ears, and as intelligible to her 
 as if it had been the language of beasts. 
 
 She sat still mute, therefore, clinging to the 
 pony's rough mane, and indeed the dumb nag 
 and the wild moor now seemed to her prefer- 
 able to the unknown horror of that Highland 
 cottage. In the track of the inn-woman pres- 
 ently followed a squat man, and after him an 
 old hag, and then a slatternly slut of some six- 
 teen years, and a couple of slouching black 
 a'vised lads. Indeed, my great-grandmother 
 said, they seemed to come pouring out upon her 
 till it was a marvel to her how the wretched hut 
 could contain so many. And they all shouted in 
 the Gaelic at Donald MacBane, and he shouted 
 back at them till the poor young woman felt 
 her brain reel. And some faces expressed fear 
 and some admiration, some a sort of envy, yet 
 all a great surprise. All looked upon her as 
 curiously as if she were a being from another 
 world. 
 
 At length Donald MacBane came up to her, 
 lifted her down and handed her over to the 
 first woman, saying : 
 
 * ' Gae with her, hinny, she is a gude creature 
 and she will give you water to lave your face 
 
 147
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 and a drink of milk to refresh ye, before we 
 start again upon our journey. And as for 
 me," he said, "I maun hae a drop of the 
 usquebaugh, for the very soul of me is dry." 
 
 My great-grandmother turned to look at the 
 woman and seemed truly to read a kind of 
 womanly pity in that wild face. The thought 
 of the clean water and the milk was pleasant 
 to her, so she suffered the ragged wife to take 
 her into the hovel, through the dim room, 
 where the peat smoke scalded her eyes and 
 caught at her throat, and on to a sort of back 
 room or shed, open to the winds of heaven. 
 
 Here she fell upon a bench, and the woman 
 brought her milk, hot from the cow, in a 
 broken yellow cup. The milk was laced with 
 spirits, and as she drank it ran warm through 
 her trembling body, and braced her sinking 
 courage. And then, by signs, she got her 
 hostess to fetch her water in a pail, and she 
 washed and washed till some of the horror of 
 the night seemed to be washed from her. 
 
 Next she plucked out her high comb and 
 shook down her chestnut hair. The Highland 
 woman threw up her hands and cried aloud in 
 admiration . 
 
 But even as my great-grandmother shook it 
 out and drove the comb through it as well as 
 she could, she saw through the ruddy veil how 
 the woman's face changed suddenly to a dirty 
 
 148
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 grey, how she bent her ear to listen and how 
 her smiling lips became convulsed as if in 
 terror. 
 
 "What is it?" cried my great-grandmother, 
 forgetting that the poor creature could not 
 understand a word. But the woman lifted up 
 her hand as one who bids her be silent and 
 listen, and then was heard a regular tramping 
 and a jingle, jingle, jingle, as of mounted 
 soldiers without. There came a sharp word of 
 command that rang upon the air like a pistol 
 shot, and then the tramping ceased and there 
 was no sound but the snort of a horse and the 
 ring of a bit or the stamp of an impatient hoof. 
 Upon this there rose a storm of Gaelic within 
 the shanty which was as suddenly hushed, and 
 all at once my great-grandmother found 
 Donald MacBane standing at her elbow. 
 
 His breath came a little short, and his cheek 
 too was curiously faded beneath its deep tan ; 
 but his eyes looked at her as a hawk's upon its 
 prey. 
 
 "Now, hinny," said he, "if ye want to see 
 me hangit ye have got but to say the word ! 
 The soldiers are without," said he, "seeking 
 you and me. ' * 
 
 "God be praised!" cried my great-grand- 
 mother, flinging back her hair and clasping her 
 hands in joy. And then, "God forbid," she 
 said, "I don't want you to hang." 
 
 149
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 He had made a gesture to simulate the twist- 
 ing of a rope round his neck, and flung his 
 head on one side with his tongue out and a 
 horrible suggestion of a thrawn neck. She 
 lifted her hands to shut out the horrid sight. 
 
 Just then, from the other room, there broke 
 forth afresh a screech of Gaelic like a whole 
 pondful of geese and fowl disturbed, and above 
 all the ring of the clean English voice. She 
 pointed to the wide moor beyond the yard. 
 
 "Away with you!" said she, in a breathless 
 whisper. He smiled back at her and pointed 
 too; she saw the bayonet of a dragoon rise 
 above the little hedge even as she looked, and 
 another a few feet beyond; and she knew the 
 place was ringed. 
 
 "Nay," said he, "I maun hang. Ye shall 
 see me hang, lassie. ' 
 
 Now my great-grandmother always said that 
 if he had shown the smallest cowardice, she 
 thinks she would have indeed found it in her 
 heart to let him go to his death. But though 
 he stood so close to her that his shoulder 
 touched her, there was not a quiver in his 
 frame, not a flicker in the lid of the eye that 
 fixed her with its keen, far-away, indomitable 
 look. And yet she knew he did not want to 
 die because his cheek had become so bloodless 
 that the scratches she had given him now stood 
 out in fiery lines. 
 
 150
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 "Whatever happens," thought she to her- 
 self, "that is a man. " And then she made up 
 her mind. "I will not have 3'ou hang," she 
 said. 
 
 He flushed suddenly. 
 
 "Say as I bid ye," he said, "and ye can save 
 me yet. ' ' 
 
 "And if I do," says she, hanging back as he 
 would have led her forward into the outer 
 room, in which the noise was rising and sinking 
 like the wind in a night of storm, "if I do, will 
 ye set me free?" 
 
 "I give ye myaith," said he, "that, an ye 
 will not wed me of ye ain will, I will bring ye 
 back to your father!" 
 
 "Do you swear?" said she. 
 
 He did so. It was an oath so fearful that it 
 made her blood run cold. Then he snapped the 
 shawl from the woman's shoulders and flung it 
 over my great-grandmother's head; and drew 
 the brass wedding-ring from her hand and 
 slipped it on my great-grandmother's finger. 
 
 "Now follow me," said he, and marched 
 into the guest-room with as bold a step as if he 
 were lord of the land. Peeping through the 
 shawl, my great-grandmother followed him 
 and saw how the dark hovel was full of heavy- 
 booted dragoons, and how the chief of them, 
 an officer with a keen English face and fine 
 powdered hair, sat at a table, with the wild 
 
 151
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 Highland people drawn up before him, penned 
 round by soldiers, as if they had been so many 
 wild beasts. 
 
 The dragoon captain wheeled round upon his 
 stool and looked at the new-comers with eager 
 blue eyes. 
 
 "Ha!" said he, "whom have we here?" 
 
 MacBane advanced, saluted ; and, in his glib 
 yet studied English, explained at some length 
 that he was a Highland drover returning from 
 the fair at Kinross with his new Lowland bride. 
 
 "Ha!" said the Captain again, "come for- 
 ward, young woman. Take off that shawl. 
 
 Margaret Haseltine obeyed. There was a 
 murmur among the men at sight of that golden 
 head in so dark and evil a place. 
 
 The Sergeant and the Captain whispered 
 together. 
 
 "It is damnably like the description," said 
 the Captain. "Hark, you rascal," said he to 
 the pretended drover, "your story is plausible 
 enough, but that countenance of yours bears 
 vastly different evidence. I verily believe," 
 said the Captain, "that you are none other 
 than the scoundrel I am in search of, and that 
 there stands Miss Haseltine, the young woman 
 for whom we have ridden since dawn. ' ' 
 
 Upon this the Sergeant clapped Donald Mac- 
 Bane upon the shoulder, and there was a sin- 
 ister clink of handcuffs. 
 
 152
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 <«i 
 
 'Do not be afraid, Miss," said the Captain 
 gently to my great-grandmother, "you are 
 quite safe, and none can do you harm. ' ' And 
 then he added, laughing, "And you have 
 marked that gentleman's face in a way that is 
 like to carry him to the gallows. ' * 
 
 "Bide a wee, bide a wee," said Donald, as 
 cool as a cucumber. "Let my gude wife 
 speak for herself. Do not be in too great a 
 hurry, Captain. Mak sure ye've got the right 
 bird before you clap the cage door. Hinny, ' ' 
 said he, turning to Margaret, "tell these 
 gentlemen that I have spoken the truth and 
 that you are my wife." 
 
 Now my great-grandmother found herself 
 answering before she knew what she was 
 doing ; and what she said was this : 
 1 am. 
 
 "What?" cried the Captain, in great sur- 
 prise, "is this man your husband, mistress?" 
 
 My great-grandmother looked round upon 
 them all, and then at Donald MacBane; and 
 upon his unflinching eyes (yellow they were, 
 with black pupils that expanded and con- 
 tracted as they watched her) her wondering 
 eyes rested. 
 
 Then she said as one may speak in sleep : 
 
 ' ' He is my husband. ' ' 
 
 "And she is my wife," said Donald Mac- 
 Bane, promptly, and took up her hand to show 
 
 153
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 the wedding-ring. * 'And as for the scratches, * ' 
 said he, smiling slyly, "well, your Honour is 
 not a married man, or he'd not make so muckle 
 account of them. ' ' 
 
 The soldiers tittered and nudged each other, 
 but the Captain looked stern. Donald MacBane 
 thereupon made his bow, and my great grand- 
 mother thought it was strange to see the ease 
 and grace of him, cateran though he was ; then 
 he took her by the arm and drew her back with 
 him to the shed and no one sought to stay them. 
 
 But ere she turned Margaret Haseltine saw 
 the Captain's blue eyes shoot clear contempt 
 upon her, and her pride smarted her sorely that 
 even for an hour she should pass for the bride 
 of the Herd-Widdiefow. 
 
 She could not have said what sharp conflict 
 was in her heart when she heard, by the run- 
 ning of the soldiers at their Captain's order 
 and the trampling of the horses once again, by 
 the musical jingle of spur and bit, and the 
 clank of a flying scabbard, that the little troop 
 were riding away across the moor. 
 
 She flung the dirty screen from her head, 
 twisted her hair into a decent knot, and called 
 fiercely upon the reiver, who from the open 
 shed was watching the last bobbing, vanishing 
 red coat. 
 
 "Now," said she, "I've kept my word, see 
 that you keep yours. ' ' 
 
 154
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 He wheeled about and gave her a long look. 
 
 Just then from the inner room there burst a 
 sound of shouting and hand-clapping and a 
 shrill crow of woman's laughter. It was like 
 the freeing of mighty waters. 
 
 "Take me out of this!" said my great- 
 grandmother, and stamped her foot. 
 
 Donald MacBane answered by no word, but 
 took her hand and led her forth once more. 
 Under his glance the clamorous crew fell 
 quiet, and drew back, and whispered together, 
 eyeing her more curiously than before. 
 
 She handed the hostess back her wedding- 
 ring, sore vexed that she had naught to give 
 her for her civility but a word of thanks in a 
 strange tongue. As the poor creature took the 
 trinket, if ever woman (so my great-grand- 
 mother thought), from her own sore knowl- 
 edge of life, took pity upon a sister, that 
 woman took pity upon her ; so much so that at 
 sight of her face a cold sweat started upon her 
 own brow. 
 
 A ragged urchin was holding a fresh pony in 
 readiness for them, and the plaid that had 
 acted so important a part in the night's work 
 was now neatly folded across its withers, form- 
 ing a not too uncomfortable pillion. The 
 Highlander mounted and she was hauled up 
 into her place. 
 
 That he should let her ride as a lady, behind, 
 
 155
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 instead of as a prisoner, before him, seemed in 
 itself an earnest of his good intentions. And 
 yet, as they left the wretched hamlet behind 
 them, and as the shouts and the laughter that 
 had broken out in valedictory greeting died 
 away in the brisk heather-scented air, she hung 
 her head and wondered what dull oppression 
 lay upon her spirits. 
 
 They ambled for a while in silence down the 
 road which inclined between two stretches of 
 moorland toward a distant and apparently 
 cultivated valley. The sky had brightened 
 into clear blue, and the autumn tints upon 
 whinbush and bracken and heather were 
 glorious to see. 
 
 "How soon shall we be home?" said my 
 great-grandmother. 
 
 "Hame, is it?" said Donald MacBane. 
 
 ' ' May be a twa-three hours. ' ' 
 
 He turned the pony from the highroad as he 
 spoke, and took a sort of sheep track that 
 seemed to lead indefinitely across the moor, 
 
 "Is this a short cut?" said she. 
 
 "Aye," Donald MacBane replied. 
 
 On they went again, when the silence and 
 the stillness and the strangeness began to 
 revive her apprehensions; she looked about 
 her in the hope of descrying a familiar land- 
 mark. But 'twas the most desolate, god-for- 
 saken waste one could imagine. 
 
 156
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 ««i 
 
 'I do not recognize this place," she 
 exclaimed suddenly. 
 
 Donald MacBane made no reply. Struck to 
 the heart, all at once, she gave a great cry: 
 
 "Fool, fool that I was to put trust in the 
 faith of a Highlandman ! " 
 
 He drew rein and turned to look at her over 
 his shoulder, for the first time since they had 
 started. 
 
 "And what did I promise ye, hinnie?" said he. 
 
 "To bring me home to my father, if I saved 
 your neck, you false loon!" she cried, and 
 made as bold a front as she could with so fear- 
 ful and throbbing a heart. 
 
 "Whisht, whisht," said he, "I made nae sic 
 promise. I promised to bring ye to your 
 father an ye would not wed me of your ain free 
 will." 
 
 "Where are you taking me to, in the name 
 of God?" she cried wildly. 
 
 He looked back at her over his shoulder 
 again, and the pony stood still and took to 
 cropping the turf under his loose hand. 
 
 "I am taking ye hame," said he, with a 
 dreadful smile of triumph. "Where else maun 
 a man take his bride upon his wedding day? 
 Hame, hinnie, hame to your gude man's 
 house!" 
 
 She flung herself off the pony as if she had 
 been sitting behind the devil ; yet so possessed 
 
 157
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 by terror was she that then she stood still star- 
 ing at him, and could not find breath to ask the 
 meaning of his words. 
 
 Donald MacBane leisurely twisted round in 
 the saddle and brought one lean bare leg to 
 join its fellow. He sat sideways on the pony, 
 and looked at her as if amused, yet with that 
 singular steadiness of eye which had already 
 reminded her of a striking hawk's. 
 
 "Have ye not claimed me as yer husband 
 before witnesses?" said he, "before as gude 
 witnesses as ever man or maid could wish? 
 And have I not claimed ye? Does that not 
 bind us as fast as kirk or book? Do ye not ken 
 the law of Scotland?" 
 
 Then the whole truth flashed upon my 
 unfortunate great-grandmother's mind. She 
 saw how, out of his very death peril, the wild 
 Highland thief had laid a trap for her, and 
 how in her womanly pity she had fallen into it. 
 
 She felt her heart stop and then bound as if 
 it would break. And the worst of all the 
 agony within her was a kind of dreadful joy 
 she felt within herself, to kill which she could 
 have killed herself. And, being but a poor 
 young lassie, when all was said and done, her 
 courage suddenly failed her; she cast herself 
 down on the turf, and for the first time in all 
 this dreadful night and day, burst into a pas- 
 sion of tears. 
 
 158
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 Through her sobs and long-drawn breaths 
 and over the hammering of her pulses she 
 could hear the crisp sound of the pony's crop- 
 ping teeth and his snorting breath as he nipped 
 the grass in a circle about her. When she 
 looked up at last it was to find Donald Mac- 
 Bane squatting on the turf beside her, watch- 
 ing her as he had watched her sleep that 
 morning. 
 
 "Wha kens but that, if you will," said he, 
 as their eyes met, "ye may hae the chance of 
 seeing me hangit yet ! So dinna greet so sair. 
 There's naught so bad as can't be mended." 
 Then he edged a little closer to her and 
 stretched out that strong arm the grasp of 
 which she knew so well. 
 
 "Natheless, being wed," said he, "ye canna 
 rid yourself of my being, woman, unless by 
 death. Sic is the law, and the law's a terrible 
 thing!" He pressed her waist as he spoke. 
 " Whafs your name, my bonnie wife?" 
 
 "Margaret," she sobbed. 
 
 "Buss me, Margaret!" said he. He drew 
 her head to his shoulder gently and kissed her. 
 
 "Now," said he, "we are man and wife, and 
 ye maun to my hame before I go to yours. ' ' 
 
 When my great-grandmother returned from 
 the mountain fastness to her old home, there 
 was at first great rejoicing because she had 
 
 159
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 been mourned as dead ; and then the great dole 
 because of the savage mate she had brought 
 with her; and old Haseltine was all for having 
 him given up to justice for his crime; and 
 young Haseltine swore he would stand beneath 
 the gallows and see him safe hanged before 
 wedding the widow. But Margaret would 
 have none of this. He was her husband, she 
 told them briefly, and as such she must put up 
 with him. Whereupon her father took to his 
 bed, and young Haseltine left the farm in dire 
 enmity with his fair cousin. But indeed, as 
 my grandmother told me, although her mother 
 had returned in evil plight enough and bore 
 upon her face the stamp of much suffering, 
 never was she heard to regret her first lover or 
 to bewail her present master. 
 
 Yet my great-grandfather, Donald MacBane 
 that is, made but an ill ruler of the farm, and 
 was always skirmishing off to his wild com- 
 panions or engaged upon some mad plot or 
 expedition. In spite of these restless ways, 
 'twas said that he loved my great-grandmother 
 fiercely to the end of his life. She bore him a 
 whole house-full of swarthy, gypsy-looking lads 
 and lassies ; and when he died — and such as he 
 do not die in their beds — she wore black for 
 him till her time came to lie beside him once 
 again. 
 
 And thus it comes that I who speak to you 
 
 i6o
 
 THE HERD-WIDDIEFOW 
 
 have a pair of eyes like a hawk's under my 
 great-grandmother's chestnut curls; and that, 
 though (left heiress to the farm, even as she 
 was before me) I wedded back into the old 
 stock, the babe that lies in yonder cradle has a 
 black skin and a frowning brow, and I know 
 that the blood of the Herd-Widdiefow will run 
 strong in our veins so long as Haseltine reigns 
 at Haselbum. 
 
 i6i
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS
 
 Endymlon in Barracks 
 
 A smile was on his countenance; he seem'd, 
 
 To common lookers-on, like one who dream 'd 
 
 Of idleness in groves Elysian : 
 
 But there were some who feelingly could scan 
 
 A lurking trouble in his nether lip, 
 
 And see that oftentimes the reins would slip 
 
 Through his forgotten hands : then they would sigh 
 
 And think of yellow leaves, of owlet's cry, 
 
 Of logs piled solemnly. Ah, well-a-day, 
 
 Why should our young Endymion pine away ! 
 
 — Keats. 
 
 The marked influence of some kinds of 
 hallucinations on the course of mental life in 
 the otherwise perfectly sane, is matter not 
 only of tradition but of tested history. One 
 needs hardly hark back as far as the well- 
 known "Demon" of Socrates: the "voices" 
 th£.t ran in Joan of Arc's brain had per- 
 suasion enough to change in radical manner 
 the current of her existence. Less generally 
 known, but striking enough, was that ghostly 
 companion with the compelling whisper that 
 dog'ged Descartes' steps in his own world of 
 profound thought. Malebranche also had his 
 sod-directing visions. So had Torquato 
 Tasso. In these and many other well authen- 
 
 165
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 ticated instances of phantasm the influence 
 of the brain-born "familiar," whether upon 
 ignorant village -maid or on scholar-poet, or 
 again on analytical, deep-dredging philos- 
 opher, proved potent and far-reaching. 
 
 How many more cases (had we but the 
 records of such hauntings in the lives of thou- 
 sands of brain- workers unknown to biography) 
 could be adduced to illustrate this theme, no 
 one can tell, of course. But it appears that 
 Marshfield has been able to observe at least 
 one modern instance. 
 
 The case of Edward Dalrymple, examined 
 in the light of what one knows of the history 
 of such visions, is not unique ; but it must be 
 of rare nature, for even Marshfield, ingenious 
 ferreter of human documents as he is, has not 
 been able to find anything akin to it in the 
 modern records of specialists. 
 
 One evening, in Piccadilly, it seems he met 
 this Dalrymple, a college friend of old, who, 
 after many years, had but lately returned 
 from India with his regiment. The young 
 soldier was passing through the shaft of light 
 thrown by the brilliant portals of Walsingham 
 House, and, to use Marshfield's own pedantic 
 language, it was interesting to notice the loDk 
 of genuine pleasure that came into his wice- 
 open grey eyes as he recognised his comrade 
 of other days. 
 
 i66
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 "Marshfield! by all that is good!" he 
 exclaimed cheerily. And Marshfield the 
 Observer was immediately annexed for that 
 evening. They must dine together, at the Pig 
 and Whistle, first of all — ("Beg pardon, the 
 Naval and Military Club, I mean," laughed 
 Dalrymple, with unnecessary explanation. 
 "We're having a regular beano, some fellows 
 of ours, together to-night.") After dinner 
 they would be able to talk over old times. 
 Talk over old times . . . That sweetest of all 
 communing for those whose ways have long 
 been widely sundered ! 
 
 In this wise Marshfield, as supernumerary, 
 was made to take part in a remarkable entertain- 
 ment — a most welcome event to one like him, 
 ever on the look-out for novel impressions. Two 
 rapid hours were spent amid the best joviality of 
 subalterns on short leave, keen for a little dis- 
 sipation after a long turn of foreign service. 
 
 And a refreshing experience it was for the 
 saturnine observer, steeped in the gravity ot 
 solitary town habits, to see round a table none 
 but young, healthy, weather-burnt counte- 
 nances; to mark the cross fire of so many 
 pairs of merry eyes — guiltless enough at all 
 times of any complicated speculation, but 
 vigorous, and well open to the simpler enjoy- 
 ment of life; to hearken to the obvious but 
 hearty jokelet ; to the post-prandial witticism, 
 
 167
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 bounding forth before exuberance of spirits as 
 the cork flies before champagne foam ; to the 
 stingless irony and anodyne personality ban- 
 died between brethren in arms who had been 
 in more than one "tight place" together during 
 the last few years. 
 
 All this was as fresh fields and pastures new 
 to the inveterate note-taker; a sort of blood- 
 transfusion into the veins of a man whose 
 heart never seemed to beat from any personal 
 impulse; whose merely receptive soul never 
 originated any personal enthusiasm or sub- 
 jective emotion. 
 
 Unconsciously affectionate pride gilded 
 every allusion of the young ^men to their 
 Corps, in their converse with "the underdone 
 literary Johnny, Dalrymple's pal" — as they 
 designated their chance guest — unconscious 
 that they themselves were in his eyes little 
 more than interesting presentments of psycho- 
 logical phenomena. Civilised youths (Marsh- 
 field docketted them), who had, every one of 
 them, fleshed his blade, rushed through the 
 clamour, chaos and execrations of carnage, 
 dealt with Death and grinned in his face, and 
 yet thought no more of it all afterwards than 
 did their long-haired, naked, pagan forbears. 
 Great in its way was Marshfield's appreciation 
 under his pale, reluctant smile. 
 
 If these, he thought, were average samples, 
 
 i68
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 there was nought but the happiest opinion to 
 be formed of the brotherhood in which Fortune 
 had cast Dalrymple's lot — all the happier for 
 the high popularity that enigmatical fellow 
 appeared to enjoy among them. 
 
 "Oh — Dalrymple? He is our show man, you 
 know," had a neighbour whispered to Marsh- 
 field. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 Every step of that evening was as a whet to 
 the Observer's elemental curiosity; for, as a 
 matter of fact, the Army was the very last place 
 where he would have expected the man he had 
 known as "Dalrymple of ^Trinity," to find a 
 congenial abode. 
 
 The Dalrymple he remembered was essen- 
 tially a college-bred man — and, moreover, a 
 creature specially equipped, both by nature and 
 self-training, for the higher transcendent 
 flights of purely intellectual life — that rarefied 
 life with all its artistic sensitiveness, its prac- 
 tical uselessness, its few but subtle joys and 
 its general misery. And here, facing him now, 
 was a placid, good-humoured young Briton, 
 typical of that rude-health, common-sense kind 
 of manhood which most helps to keep an 
 empire together. 
 
 Since they had parted company in the old 
 days of Trinity, great indeed had been Marsh- 
 field's desire to see for himself how this fas- 
 
 169
 
 / 
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 tidious exquisite fared in the atmosphere of 
 martial life generally, and, particularly, in the 
 close one of a smart regimental mess. For 
 Marshfield, who knows most things, knew that 
 the most disqualifying offence (short of ungen- 
 tlemanly conduct) that can be committed by a 
 subaltern, is any attempt at "intellectual" 
 converse — a form of "side" too pestilent for 
 words ! 
 
 From the little he had already seen, however, 
 it was evident that if ever a man appeared to 
 have taken to his proper element, it was 
 Edward Dalrymple. His bronzed face had 
 settled into the typical countenance of the 
 British officer. There was the energetic set of 
 eyes and mouth; the look of calm, unobtrusive 
 self-reliance; the reticence to any emotional 
 display save that of merriment or contempt for 
 the "outsider" or the "nigger." His very 
 tone of voice, every shred of his phraseology, 
 were so strictly tuned to the accepted pitch of 
 his class that they seemed positively natural. 
 Indeed, although Marshfield had recognised 
 him at first glance by his clean-cut features 
 and by something unmistakable in his carriage, 
 on closer observation he could now hardly 
 recall one single element of the original Dal- 
 rymple — whose name was still a byword in 
 the University — Dalrymple the high-strung 
 esthete, whom even the "Deuced Superior 
 
 170
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 Set" used at times to consider, in perplexed 
 dismay, as perhaps a trifle of a shade too 
 exclusive in his artistic culture. 
 
 Physically, the man who had been noted for 
 a somewhat fragile perfection of build sug- 
 gestive of a decadent Greek type, and for a 
 temperament best described as "a bundle of 
 nerves, ' ' was now square and solid even to a 
 promise of future stoutness. The only thing 
 that had not changed was a peculiar sweetness 
 in the smile, which was as striking on his now 
 essentially vigorous as it had been on his 
 whilom nervously sensitive, rather worn, 
 countenance. 
 
 Intellectually he seemed to have sunk wholly 
 into that elementary scepticism of apprecia- 
 tion ; that preference for the obvious in ideas ; 
 that level disdain of mere sentiment; that 
 habit of mind, in short, which, in combination 
 with clean athletic tastes and a reverence for 
 the sacred character of Sport, is all-suflficient 
 (but all-necessary) for the achievement of 
 popularity in the military world. 
 
 What had happened? pondered Marshfield. 
 Truly here was a vein of observation to be 
 followed up. A rich one. 
 
 The classical scholar, the poetic prizeman, 
 the lover of TibuUus and Ovid, the worshipper 
 of sensuous music, the intense dreamer who 
 in other days would express his ideals in lines 
 
 171
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 of Keats, Swinburne or Rossetti — this same 
 creature now displayed a seemingly appre- 
 ciative acquaintance with the latest wit of the 
 Pink 'Un; and on every forcible occasion 
 quoted an apposite modern instance in the 
 careers of Jorrocks or Soapy Sponge — Prodi- 
 gious ! 
 
 Marshfield, at bottom, was not quite con- 
 vinced of the integrality of the metamorphosis. 
 Thus the breaking up in due time of that jovial 
 party was on the whole welcome: he longed 
 for a little more private intercourse. 
 
 When the other men had departed, the old 
 fellow-students remained behind and lounged 
 and conversed for a while in a desultory way 
 over the cigars. 
 
 Now, when Marshfield is on his observing 
 path, he handles, as we all know, the leading 
 thread of conversation with great skill. But 
 never, even during this second stage, could he 
 elicit anything from his friend which did not 
 tally with the first impression. Yes ... of a 
 verity, he reluctantly admitted, there was a 
 creature in perfect peace of mind, in possession 
 of that placidity which in a young man can 
 only co-exist (so Marshfield diagnosed) with a 
 total absence of ideals. Everything on that 
 tranquil face, in those clear eyes behind which 
 perpetually lurked a merry twinkle, proclaimed 
 that Life was very good. 
 
 172
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 Indeed, at every drift, the man's talk justi- 
 fied the proclamation : Nothing better than the 
 time he had had these few years: The regi- 
 ment was the best of earthly homes (besides 
 being the most superb corps conceivable) : No 
 existence could possibly be half so full of 
 excellence as that of a soldier of the Empire 
 — the hardships of active service, past or pros- 
 pective, were in themselves the noblest incen- 
 tive to self-esteem, for they gave dignity to 
 the leisure of peace-times. . . . (At this point 
 Marshfield pricked his ears : there was a touch 
 of the old speculative Dalrymple in that dis- 
 tinction) : Between Duty well executed and the 
 heads of Sport, so many and so pleasant and 
 withal so exacting, there was evidently no time 
 for unprofitable aspiration. 
 
 Such, as to colour, was Dalrymple's autobio- 
 graphical account. It was delivered with eyes 
 ever smiling when they met the Observer's 
 searching glance, in contented tones; and with 
 that studiously restricted vocabulary of the 
 mess-room, that preference for vague jargon 
 words which is the best safeguard against the 
 capital error of "talking too clever." 
 
 Still Marshfield was not satisfied. He had 
 not known Dalrymple so long in the character 
 of "Jeune Fdroce" to accept implicitly this 
 new personation of inarticulate subaltern. 
 
 In this unsatisfying manner the hour of the 
 
 173
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 last train to Chatham drew near. Dalrymple 
 rose, and eyed his old friend with a quizzical 
 look — as if he guessed well enough his per- 
 plexed frame of mind. 
 
 "If you have nothing better to do," he sug- 
 gested in his genial way, "come down with me 
 to Chatham. I can give you a shake-down to- 
 night, and instal you more comfortably to- 
 morrow. ' ' 
 
 Marshfield closed greedily with the offer, 
 and, having passed by his chambers to take 
 up the occasional portmanteau, found himself 
 for the next hour whirling along the most 
 bone-shaking line in England. During the 
 best part of that time he pursued, but without 
 better success in front of that quiet contented 
 face, his veiled course of cross-examination. 
 Not one single allusion, however, to the frame 
 of mind that had prevailed in the days of old 
 was to be elicited from Dalrymple, who 
 serenely eluded all suggestions, direct or in- 
 direct. 
 
 The obstinate stand-off began to try Marsh - 
 field's patience not a little. 
 
 ' * Look here, "' Edward Dalrymple, Sir, ' ' he 
 said at last, irritated by the smile of his antag- 
 onist — a smile so obviously fraught with wilful 
 unconsciousness — "this is becoming ridiculous 
 in the extreme ! Your masquerading in a new 
 character is all very well, especially as the 
 
 174
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 character is so excellent and fits you so nicely 
 — yes, I am bound to admit that it does agree 
 with your face and shoulders — but between you 
 and me, my friend, it is masquerade ! I take it 
 you have not lost all memory. What I want 
 to know, what I mean to know, is, how you! 
 have managed to cast off the old self to make 
 room for the new. The two cannot co-exist. 
 You understand perfectly well what I mean." 
 
 Dalrymple continued to smile at his cigar, 
 with the air of one who mentally says: "Ah, 
 I was waiting for you there. ' ' But when he 
 looked up^he merely said, carelessly : 
 
 "Yes, yes, you mean all that tommy-rot we 
 used to talk at the 'Varsity. Lord, what high 
 falutin we did go in for!" 
 
 And Marshfield found out that frontal attack 
 was as futile as side manoeuvring. 
 
 "You renegade!" cried he, with forced tragic 
 accent, and gave up the siege. But he felt 
 annoyed, more annoyed indeed than the case 
 justified. 
 
 On his side Dalrymple seemed now struck 
 into a musing spell. For the rest of the 
 journey the two remained silent, gazing 
 reflectively at each other under the twinkle of 
 the roof -lamp. 
 
 Nor did the conversation revive when they 
 sallied forth into the darkness outside Chatham 
 Station. There was no fly in attendance; it 
 
 175
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 was a keen frosty night, clear and star- 
 bespangled to the utmost glory. In silence, 
 covering their heads and shoulders with the 
 same rug, for the breeze, slight as it blew, was 
 nipping to ears and nape, they tramped up the 
 steep slopes towards the Barracks. Not a word 
 was pronounced, save when Dalrymple, in his 
 clear ringing voice, answered with the Shib- 
 boleth, ''Friends!'' the challenging, ''Halt, 
 who goes there?'' of the various sentries they 
 passed from time to time. 
 
 Chatham Barracks have now been pulled 
 down and replaced by modern improvements. 
 In those days the officers' quarters were 
 aligned, a long row of ricketty houses, on an 
 elm-grown terrace overlooking the parade 
 ground ; they wore, especially in dusky light, 
 a picturesque look, of the kind more usually 
 associated with old world alms-houses than 
 with military buildings. There was, in fact, 
 something almost collegiate, Inn-of-Courts 
 like, about the wooden stairs, winding and 
 crazy, about the low-ceiled, panelled rooms, 
 the uneven board flooring, the diamond paned 
 windows, the queer old fire grates, adorned 
 with the monogram of Georgius Tertius Rex 
 and canting arms of the Ordnance Store 
 Department which had supplied these wasteful 
 contrivances. 
 
 176
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 In one of these still glowed darkly an enor- 
 mous stack of the Government's bituminous 
 slate, Dalrymple, who on coming into the 
 warmer atmosphere of his own ground seemed 
 to have recovered all his gaiety, announced his 
 purpose of devoting this chamber to his guest's 
 comfort for the night. He addressed himself 
 vigorously to the task of poking the coals into 
 a blaze, heating water for a night-cap (stiff and 
 strong) and ministering general hospitaHty in 
 the best style of soldier-like geniality. 
 
 Then, with a last look round and a parting 
 smile at the Observer from the doorway, which 
 he filled almost entirely, he announced his 
 intention "to go and roost next door," 
 
 Marshfield was so desirous of inspecting in 
 greater detail the modern dwelling of this per- 
 plexing fellow — for a bachelor's room, he 
 held, is full of revelation concerning his true 
 inwardness — that he never even thought of 
 deprecating, however feebly, the surrender by 
 his host of what was in all probability the only 
 decent quarter available just then. No sooner 
 was he alone than he began his "journey round 
 my room." 
 
 Of course the most immediately attractive 
 points of interest on such a journey are the 
 book-cases. Within limits, they stand as an 
 implied confession of personal tastes and drift 
 of mind. Here, however, indications again 
 
 177
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 failed to show any variance from what Marsh- 
 field persisted in regarding as a mere pretence 
 of character in his friend. The array of 
 printed matter, goodly enough for one of no 
 fixed abode, displayed only the thin red line of 
 military "Manuals" of drill and encampment; 
 of musketry, signalling, fieldworks, military 
 law at large with special conspectus of courts- 
 martial ; of range-finding and meat-inspection, 
 with now and then a more bulky tome on forti- 
 fication, administration, operations of war and 
 applied tactics — all stuff to the same purpose, 
 as the Observer noted with unabating scepti- 
 cism. 
 
 He looked for a Bible, suddenly recollecting 
 how Dalrymple had been wont to quote with 
 enthusiasm from the "Song of Songs" and the 
 Psalms ; how he had revelled in all that glow- 
 ing imagery of old-world Eastern thought, 
 rendered into noblest English: ... he found 
 only the regulation New Testament, bound^ in 
 oilcloth. 
 
 On the walls neither picture nor print; on 
 the mantelpiece, not even the photograph of 
 some "girl at home," "fashionable beauty," 
 dancer or favourite actress — those all but 
 inevitable adornments of the subaltern's 
 quarters. 
 
 Two ordnance maps (much pointed) of the 
 Northwest Frontier, and of Burmah; another 
 
 178
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 of Kent (on a large, hunting scale), afforded the 
 only relief to the bareness of the panels. As 
 for the rest of the movables, limited to the 
 strict necessary, it was of the most cunning 
 camp-furniture order. 
 
 Not the habitat of the over-imaginative, con- 
 cluded Marshfield, more and more interested. 
 The only symptom which might, in accordance 
 with the modern doctrine of degeneracy, indi- 
 cate a step away from barbarian simplicity, 
 was the studious symmetry, the precision of 
 neatness, which prevailed in the room. Swords 
 and belts, revolvers, field-glasses, single-sticks, 
 canes, hunting crops, polo-clubs, gun case and 
 bandoliers, a couple of pig-sticking lances, were 
 arranged with a luxury of smartness which 
 made Marshfield pause in his puzzled contem- 
 plation. The shadow of a smile crept at 
 length on his lips. 
 
 *'It almost points to the7mental weakness of 
 the Total Abstainer. . . . An odd case," he 
 mused, as he prepared at last to retire into the 
 truckle bed, hard and narrow — a couch by no 
 means suggestive of that "Throne of Dreams," 
 about which the Dalrymple of old had so often 
 waxed dithyrambic. "I am glad I have seen 
 it." 
 
 • ••••« 
 
 Sound or prolonged sleep is not a thing to 
 which the unaccustomed visitor in Barracks 
 
 179
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 can look forward. Marshfield was awakened 
 by reveille. And being kept awake by the 
 increasing turmoil; being moreover not par- 
 ticularly warm or comfortable on his succinct 
 couch, he rose and dressed, all in the grey 
 light of a frosty morning, and sallied forth for 
 a brisk tramp. 
 
 When, an hour later, he returned to his 
 quarters, mistaking the door on his landing, he 
 found he had entered the room into which, with 
 hospitable renunciation, Dalrymple had re- 
 tired. It was a kind of servant's bunk, con- 
 taining a barrack bedstead, a small company 
 of treed boots on a shelf, a saddle or two, the 
 morning tub and can, empty portmanteaux 
 and regimentals on their stretchers. 
 
 Rolled up in sundry blankets, with a great- 
 coat under his head, for the bed was unfitted, 
 Dalrymple seemed profoundly asleep. Marsh- 
 field, having contemplated the scene for a 
 moment, was about to retire quietly, when his 
 attention was aroused by the singular expres- 
 sion on the sleeper's face. 
 
 The young man was lying on his back ; the 
 head was thrown up in a striking attitude ; one 
 hand was under the nape of the neck and the 
 other rested on the forehead, palm upwards. 
 This position of. the arms higher than the 
 shoulders is one preliminary to the waking 
 change after deep slumber — as Marshfield 
 
 i8o
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 knew, who was the learned in many such 
 unconsidered facts. That alone might have 
 tempted him to pursue a short physiognomical 
 study from his point of vantage ; for nothing is 
 sacred to the Observer, But what riveted his 
 interest for the moment was the ecstatic 
 drawing of the man's features. 
 
 The winter sun, darting in a clear blue sky 
 over the crest of Chatham lines, had just begun 
 to peer into the little room. A pale gold shaft 
 of light was even then moving across the sleep- 
 er's face. Now, under its caress, the lips 
 grew tremulous; the nostrils quivered for an 
 instant; the lids became lengthened under 
 raised brows, and all of a sudden they were 
 filled with tears, which presently streamed on 
 his cheek. Then, with a great sigh, the 
 sleeper awoke; there came a certain rigidity 
 over his frame, and the hurried rhythm of his 
 breath ceased. But for some time he made no 
 movement. 
 
 After a while, however, he sat bolt upright, 
 opened his eyes and gazed into space. What 
 he still saw before him was evidently marvel- 
 lous ; never had Marshfield seen on human face 
 an expression of such overpowering wonder, 
 such ecstatic joy! 
 
 He, too, held his breath and watched, and 
 for a long while silence filled the room. Pres- 
 ently, however, heavy steps resounded on the 
 
 i8i
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 stairs, and a soldier-servant, laden with hot- 
 water cans, pushed the door open with his 
 foot. The dreamer's spell was broken. Dal- 
 rymple started, turned his head, and perceived 
 his friend's presence. 
 
 "Ah, Marshfield," he said, with the effort of 
 one whose brain action is divided. There was 
 an instinctive attempt at cheeriness, but the 
 voice was toneless. "Up before me? . . . 
 Goodman! . . . Cold? . . . Go down to the 
 Mess, there'll be a fire. . . . The fellows'll 
 look after you. . . . I'll be round in a jiffy." 
 
 Even as he spoke with spasmodic joviality, 
 the absent, dazed expression had not left his 
 face. Marshfield left him standing upright, 
 and still wistfully contemplating his inner 
 thought. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 The duty that devolved that morning on Dal- 
 rymple was the command of the Convict 
 Picket. 
 
 This is the most unpleasant day's work that 
 falls to the lot of every subaltern in the garri- 
 son of Chatham. At nine o'clock the officer 
 detailed marches his party, served with ball 
 cartridge, to the guard-house at the Prison 
 Gate. There, until nightfall (when the army 
 of felons is once more returned to its cells and 
 bolted in) he has to dwell, strapped and 
 buckled, girded against all emergencies and 
 
 182
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 backed by the most explicit and draconian 
 orders. 
 
 As a rule, however, the actual work is 
 limited to the frequent visiting of sentries, the 
 reiterated turning out of the guard on the 
 approach of blue, drab or yellow parties of 
 slaves, as they are marched out to daily toil, 
 or back to midday food, or in again for the 
 night's lock-up. 
 
 But for the officer in his dismal office next to 
 the soldier's room the hours wearily drag their 
 length. On this account, and although against 
 regulations, the custom of the service tolerates 
 the practice of harbouring visitors, so long as 
 the Queen's Service is not allowed to suffer. 
 Thus it was that the afternoon found Marsh- 
 field, expectant, scalpel in hand, so to speak, 
 as "anatomiser of melancholy," in the com- 
 pany of his subject. 
 
 A change had come over Dalrymple, singular 
 indeed by contrast to the buoyant serenity of 
 the previous day. 
 
 He was as a man who has sustained a severe 
 mental shock, whose natural system of thought 
 is unhinged. That morning, in the messroom, 
 over the hasty breakfast before march- 
 ing off his picket, he had been silent, absent- 
 minded ; he had mused over his cup, which he 
 left half full, and if he had eaten anything it 
 had been mere mechanical nibbling — ^he had 
 
 183
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 seemed barely to hear what was said to him or 
 around him, and had spoken at random. He had 
 been, in fact, as one who listens to unheard 
 voices, who gazes through stone walls at 
 unseen vistas. 
 
 "Dalrymple seems chippy, poor chappy," 
 genially remarked in the vernacular one young 
 warrior to the guest. "Never seen him like 
 this before. Generally crisp as celery in the 
 morning. I thought he was too full of beans, 
 when he went up yesterday. The little village 
 seems to have knocked it out of him!" 
 
 And Marshfield had pondered. 
 
 And now, as they sat on wooden chairs one 
 on each side of the fire, in the bare, ochre- 
 washed cell, the same haunting spirit seemed 
 to hang over the scarlet-tunicked, white-belted 
 youth. 
 
 But, whereas, in the mess-room his impa- 
 tience of talk around him, his unconscious 
 dread of questions which might force him to 
 speak himself, had been the main symptom 
 observable, in the silent intimacy of the guard- 
 house there seemed to rise in him a new 
 desire, a yearning to speak, merely restrained 
 by a sort of bashfulness; the bashfulness of 
 surrender. 
 
 Marshfield was in his element, and handled 
 the situation in his best manner. He sat still, 
 seemingly immersed in the absolute enjoy- 
 
 184
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 ment of the best of cigars, but gazing at his 
 friend with his cat-like look, to all appearance 
 profoundly indifferent, yet alertly observant. 
 
 Over and over again did Dalrymple take the 
 breath which, like the catch of a clock about 
 to strike, portends coming speech, then closed 
 his parting lips and remained dumb, staring 
 musingly at the fiery bars of the hearth, or, 
 with head thrown back, through the frost- 
 framed windows into grey-blue space. 
 
 At last he began — no longer with the studied 
 disjointedness, the slang of camp and mess, 
 but with that cultured precision of wording 
 and phrasing which had been one of the lead- 
 ing marks in the "Deuced Superior Set." 
 
 "Marshfield," he said, "I have that on my 
 mind which must find voice . . . had I to tell 
 it to the clouds, to the winds, to the rushes!" 
 
 Marshfield pricked up his ears, if possible, 
 more attentively than before. Dalrymple had 
 risen and was now pacing the narrow cell in 
 some excitement. His steel scabbard clanked 
 against the wall at each short turn. 
 
 "It is a wondrous coincidence that you 
 should be near me to-day; for, certes, there is 
 no one I know at present to whom I would 
 tell what has happened to me. Coincidence? 
 Indeed, it is to you I owe the delight, the 
 revelation " 
 
 He stopped a moment, with his fingers 
 
 i8s
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 lightly pressing his temples, plunged again 
 into a sudden depth of wondering. "It is your 
 doing, of course. Yes, you are the uncon- 
 scious evoker — Did you not call out, Renegade ! 
 . . . Renegade? Ah, great Gods!" 
 
 For a moment something like a reflex of the 
 ecstatic look that had transfigured the sleeping 
 man that morning passed over his face, 
 Marshfield, on his side, still silent, was the 
 living image of expectant curiosity. His 
 friend, from the midst of his dream, noted the 
 expression and was once more brought back to 
 the actual. 
 
 "Listen, Marshfield," he said, sitting down 
 again and mechanically beginning to stir the 
 fire. "I shall tell you. Yesterday you wanted 
 to know ; to-day you shall know. It is curious, 
 and you are perhaps the only one who could 
 understand such a posture of affairs. More- 
 over, it was undoubtedly brought about by 
 your talk, by the siege you laid before my con- 
 demned thoughts. I had shut out a portion of 
 my House of Life, as a man might cut off a 
 haunted wing of his mansion, and you guessed 
 it. I will tell you, while the impress is still 
 fresh upon me. To-morrow it may have faded 
 already. Yes, no doubt, to-morrow it will 
 have faded. * ' 
 
 This was said after a pause, on the wake of a 
 light sigh. But he pulled himself together : 
 
 i86
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 "You know," he pursued, "the sort of man 
 I was in the old days. ' ' 
 
 This Marshfield knew indeed, and nodded 
 with some impatience. 
 
 "But you don't know, perhaps, at what a 
 pace that pride of mental self-indulgence was 
 making for mental disgrace. I realised it one 
 day ; not a day too soon ! And yet ' ' 
 
 He hesitated one moment, as though some 
 unseen pressure at his elbow had cautioned 
 him — Then : 
 
 "Reason prevailed in time," he went on, 
 with an effort. "Free-will was still untouched. 
 One morning, waking from some mad Olym- 
 pian dream to the dreary imperfection of this 
 every-day world, in despair I asked myself: 
 Which was the real existence — the dream of 
 my own special world, the dream that could 
 make impressions so much more vivid than 
 anything experienced in waking life, that could 
 wring my soul, aye, stir my senses, to a pitch 
 of exquisiteness inconceivable in the midst of 
 waking reason? or the world of my neighbour 
 man, which at almost every step disclosed 
 some hideousness of pain, sorrow, ugliness; 
 at almost every hour trammelled my yearning 
 for perfection in delight and beauty with its 
 Briarean arms of duty, impotence, reason, 
 morals, pity and what not ; that ever clutched 
 at my imagination and pinned me to grimy 
 
 187
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 earth? that waking world that never allows 
 any one more than a transient, flash-like 
 revelation of the ideal — revelation born of 
 some startling phrase in the unknown tongue 
 of music, some mysteriously eloquent harmony 
 of words in verse, some burst of colour, glor- 
 ious beyond realisation or delicate beyond 
 belief; some perfume swoon sweet, robbing 
 one of all strength and will?" 
 
 Marshfield revelled in his case. Not more 
 jubilantly could the detective watch the sudden 
 unravelling by unforeseen confession, of a 
 baffling tangle of mere surmises. 
 
 "I remember," said Dalrymple, "that crit- 
 ical morning. It was a miserable November 
 day. Even our noble old college courts 
 seemed trivial and dreary, ugly beyond the 
 mending of hope. And when, with greater 
 wakefulness, it forced itself upon me that this 
 trivial world of ours was the real world after 
 all, a sort of despair encompassed my soul. 
 Then, oddly enough, a sudden reaction set in — 
 Whence it came, I cannot tell, for I was far 
 gone already in that mental hyperaesthesia 
 which means the very emasculation of the 
 soul. . . . Suddenly, as I said, the reaction 
 came. A sort of terror stole over me; tJiat way 
 lay madness! Not only unfitness to fulfil man's 
 part in this fighting world, but positive mad- 
 ness.' This ever present shadow of feeble 
 
 x88
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 melancholia, the futile yearning for the trans- 
 cendental, the weak dread of all ugly impres- 
 sions, the abject fear of painful sights. . . . 
 An evil smell, a discordant noise — calamities! 
 Mere coarseness of thought or speech, sufficient 
 to cast a shadow of odiousness on the moment. 
 What is it all, but madness? On the other 
 hand, the mysterious note of a thrush saluting 
 the sinking sun sufficing to hypnotise one into 
 visions untranslatable, a strain of passionate 
 melody to make you soar into visions of joy 
 unrealisable, a glint of slanting sunrays in liv- 
 ing verdure, a whisper of the breeze soughing 
 among the branches, becoming a sort of 
 mystic, elusive aphrodisiacs, that sets one 
 musing upon loves of goddesses on Mount 
 Latmos — madness again! Madness which 
 made one look upon living women and the 
 real world with disgust and contempt!" 
 
 During this curious confession Marshfield 
 noted how the serene impassiveness that had 
 baffled him so completely on the previous da)'-, 
 had now, like a mask, fallen away from his 
 friend's countenance. Here was once more 
 the face of the high-strung degenerate of old, 
 the face on which every pulse of thought 
 seemed to play as on a harp. 
 
 Dalrymple had paused, as if he found a 
 difficulty in formulating his ideas. 
 
 'Well," he cried at last, "words — words in 
 
 189 
 
 n-\
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 prose, at least — are incompetent to record 
 impressions so evanescent yet so haunting. 
 Suffice it to say that I had a fright. What was 
 to be done? I remember there were, at that 
 time, two suicides whose story had come under 
 my notice. One was that of an adoring disciple 
 of Wagner, who, in despair of ever reaching 
 the plane of the Master, of ever being able 
 even to fathom to the full the endless sugges- 
 tion of his music, poisoned himself, thus leav- 
 ing behind him the misery of a hunt for the 
 unattainable. . . . Leaving also the reputa- 
 tion of a madman, though I knew him to be as 
 sane as I myself. Ay sane as I — as I! The 
 other was that of an artist, quite obscure, yet a 
 genius in his way, who spent his soul in repro- 
 ducing, in thousands, sketches of a woman's 
 head, all weird, demoniacal almost, but no two 
 alike! Yet he said they were portraits of the 
 same phantom! One morning he was found 
 dead in his studio arm-chair. Charcoal was his 
 remedy! On the stone floor was a pile of ashes : 
 every sketch had been burned, and, with the 
 smoke of the holocaust, his distracted soul had 
 evaporated. Verdict: unsound mind! Now, I 
 had not an idea of suicide. But, as I contem- 
 plated the endless dissatisfaction of this dual life, 
 a great dread came over me. Was I also em- 
 barked upon that dismal current? What was 
 to be done? Something had to be done if I 
 
 190
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 was not to drift into some such neurotic, 
 hysterical decadent, dying of a rose, sobbing 
 over a sunset; a bag of nervous selfishness, 
 with perhaps opium or hasheesh in perspective 
 to complete the degradation! Whether the 
 fright was greater than the case justified I do 
 not know, but a complete break seemed the 
 only salvation. No compromise. Temper- 
 ance would not do: it was a case of total 
 abstinence! Now you begin to understand?" 
 
 "I see it as if I had been there," said Marsh- 
 field. "You have done it well, I must own," 
 he added, not without a touch of admiration. 
 
 Indeed, it was a curious thing to listen to the 
 square-shouldered, deep-chested Dalrymple, 
 with his cropped soldier head, in his trim, 
 tight scarlet and gold, portraying his past self 
 in these terms of aestheticism. 
 
 "So, from one day to the other, the resolve 
 was made. I burnt my poems, sold my books, 
 locked my piano — nor has any one these eight 
 years even suspected I could play aught but 
 the vamping to a music-hall song. . , . Ad- 
 mit, Marshfield, this was strength of mind!" 
 he added, looking up at his friend suddenly 
 with something of a rueful gleam in his eyes. 
 "There was just time to get through the Army 
 examinations — Well . . . well, and here we 
 are," he concluded, getting up. "And the 
 oddest thing about it all is that, hard as the 
 
 191
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 wrench from the old vice was at first, and hard 
 the new education — for it was like beginning 
 life afresh — I have been perfectly happy. 
 Peace of mind, you know, peace of mind. No 
 self-communing, but one simple rule: duty. 
 Or, in less high-sounding words: the day's 
 work . . . and the custom of the service ! You 
 have no idea how fresh and strong that makes 
 one feel. No groping, no yearning, no moodi- 
 ness, no melancholia. Thankfulness for small 
 mercies, that is, for small pleasure, and crude 
 satisfaction in life, if shorn of transcendent 
 joys: they are too dearly bought, 'twere better 
 never to have had taste of them, for they seem 
 to take unto themselves for their brief 
 moments all the salt and scent of life, and 
 leave the work-a-day world ashen to every 
 sense." 
 
 Dalrymple remained a moment musing. 
 
 "The transcendent temperament," he 
 resumed at last, sitting down again and look- 
 ing thoughtfully into his friend's expectant 
 eyes, "must really be a vice. It is like the 
 relentless fiend, always keeping watchful siege 
 on those who have once dallied with him, let 
 them believe themselves never so secure; 
 always ready to assail at the first unguarded 
 moment. It is a veritable temptation of St. 
 Anthony! The stout old Saint resisted, we 
 are told. But then perhaps he had not so 
 
 192
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 many weak intellectual joints as the modern 
 visionary, so many traitors in his citadel, so 
 to speak. He resisted . . . and suffered. But 
 he could not have suffered as we. And at 
 least his temptation ended in relief, when the 
 vision disappeared, whereas " 
 
 "Whereas, with you, you love your tempta- 
 tion ! ' ' said Marshfield, who had hitherto pru- 
 dently refrained from any comment, which 
 might break the spell of revelation. 
 
 The athletic chest rose under a weary sigh. 
 
 "Aye, I fear I do! — I have had a relapse, 
 most obviously. And what is worse, I feel that 
 I would not, for a fortune, for anything I can 
 think of, except my own self-esteem, that this 
 strange, this marvellous vision had passed me 
 by." His voice rose with suppressed enthusi- 
 asm. "Since it was that word of yours, caba- 
 listic it would seem, that has evoked it, I shall 
 even finish my confession. Phrases of accepted 
 language are inadequate to describe ; they can 
 only suggest. We can paint in words some- 
 thing of horror and pain, and sorrow, because 
 horror, pain and sorrow are always so near to 
 our lives that words have associations with 
 them. Whereas ideal beauty and unmixed, 
 soul- ravishing joys are too far removed from 
 life. You must interpret, interpret as the 
 artist, as the poet does, by music, by symbol- 
 ism, by allegory. You, I know, will not be 
 
 193
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 able to realise what happened to me this morn- 
 ing, you can only suspect. . . . But listen : 
 
 "Somewhere, in Time and Space, as I lay this 
 morning, there came upon me, from amid the 
 annihilation of deepest sleep, a consciousness of 
 some new life-infused personality, fast unfold- 
 ing, as one may see behind the blue sky line of 
 a hill some dazzling white cloud rise and 
 spread itself in splendour. It was an inex- 
 plicable feeling of glorious expectation. 
 Then, I saw Her— the Vision, but more real," 
 said the young man, without an inflection, and 
 looking wistfully beyond, not at his friend, 
 "more real than you." 
 
 "Ah, a woman!" said Marshfield, and his 
 lips parted in their thin satirical smile. 
 
 "A woman, of course," repeated the other, 
 unmoved, "for when we must symbolise the 
 Beautiful, the most abstract, we must of neces- 
 sity materialise it under lines of beauty, the 
 most perfect in themselves, the most har- 
 monious in their changes. Yet, though She 
 stood before me, a symbol, it was a living 
 woman. Instinct, indeed, with so much 
 vitality that, as she looked at me with pro- 
 found luminous eyes, she seemed to fill me 
 with unbounded life and make my whole being 
 attuned, as a bell, to the vibration of her 
 voice. 
 
 "There was a sort of wistful joy on her face, 
 
 194
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 the shadow of a smile, a brilliancy of passion 
 trembling upon realisation. When I say I 
 saw, I might as aptly say I felt or I heard, for 
 every fibre of me was responsive to her pres- 
 ence. 'Ah, Renegade,' said she, and there came 
 into the glance, tinder which I was encom- 
 passed as by a caressing mantle, an enchant- 
 ment beyond words ; it was a sort of mocking 
 tenderness, under the joy of recovered love. 
 ' I knew you would come back ' ' ' 
 
 Dalrymple's voice, as he repeated these 
 words, had changed, as if in his own manly 
 tones he unconsciously sought to echo some 
 distant impossible note, 
 
 "'Ah, Well Beloved,' said she (She, the 
 Great Joy of Man's Desire! — thus only can I 
 attempt to describe her), and extended her 
 arms. And as, slowly, irresistibly as Fate, she 
 gathered me close to her, the touch of her 
 shoulder was a thing to marvel at, smooth and 
 fresh as polished marble yet pulsing and 
 responsive to passionate blood. She smiled, 
 and in the transient gleam of her teeth between 
 lips of living rose, in the proud flash of her eye 
 — green-brown, like a gleam of sun through a 
 forest in June — all the glory of the world's 
 colour burst before my vision. With a laugh 
 that was like the joyous ripple of a brook, she 
 swayed in my arms as the sapling sways in the 
 breeze, and her hair, Aphrodite's own mane, 
 
 195
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 fell like a golden cataract over me, filling the 
 air with the fragrance of Paradise — the breath 
 of the red rose in its pride, the flower of Great 
 Desire, with its endless, unattainable, incom- 
 prehensible perfection. She bent to me, and 
 the taste of her lips ..." 
 
 Here the young man fell to silence, becom- 
 ing once more, as Marshfield saw, quite ab- 
 stracted from his surroundings. In the little 
 dark room his countenance seemed almost to 
 be faintly luminous, as if actually reflecting 
 some distant glory of light. Of his own 
 accord, however, and to all appearance as 
 unconsciously as he had ceased it, after a while 
 he resumed his narrative. 
 
 "She said to me — in the words of Thais of 
 Athens — she said: 'Thou shalt indeed be 
 King among men, and I, thy goddess, shall 
 give thee that kingdom. ' And on her words 
 vast horizons were spread before me, resplen- 
 dent with colour, alive with Olympian revela- 
 tion. Her voice was a melody, heart-stirring 
 to exquisite pain. Her whole presence, while 
 it filled my intellectual faculties with that com- 
 pleteness of joy that baffles even Desire, roused 
 my bodily senses to an equal pitch of delight. 
 I have still," said Dalrymple, opening his hand 
 and nervously stretching his fingers, "some- 
 thing of that unspeakable sensation of touch. 
 It came back as an echo just now, even as I 
 
 196
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 felt the cold hilt of my sword. 'Thou shalt be 
 King among men ..." I almost wish, ' ' he 
 added, with a sort of anger, "shehad not said 
 that. The words haunt me. ' ' 
 
 There was a silence, broken only by the 
 pacing of the sentry outside, and the muffled 
 sound of hoarse laughter *" from the adjacent 
 guard-room. 
 
 "It was Aspasia's saying, you know — not 
 Thais'," said Marshfield (the omniscient even 
 to the tradition of the great Priestesses of 
 Love), unable to resist the pedantic oppor- 
 tunity— "But, well?" 
 
 "Well," said Dalrymple, who started from 
 his fresh musing and looked round with a blank 
 stare, "that is all. Something disturbed me. 
 The glory faded. I found myself bare and 
 cold, and j'-et half-drunk with the memory. 
 And now " 
 
 Here, suddenly, arose from without the 
 raucous call of the sentry: "Guard, turn out!" 
 Hurried footsteps, the clanging of butt ends 
 on the pavement, the sergeant's rapid com- 
 mand, told of the picket falling in, and rudely 
 called back the forgetful Dalrymple from his 
 classical roaming. He sprang up, but not 
 before the door was angrily opened to admit 
 the Captain of the day. 
 
 It was an Officer of Engineers, rusty of hair, 
 purple of countenance, who, without acknowl- 
 
 197
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 edging the subaltern's salute, called out in 
 needlessly overbearing tones : 
 
 "What is the meaning of this, Sir? Your 
 guard never turned out till I was almost at the 
 door. Your men don't know their work, Sir. 
 What were you about — Asleep? You don't 
 look quite awake yet. Now, Sir, nothing to 
 report? Of course ! This is not the way to do 
 duty, as I shall take care that you are made 
 aware. Perhaps, in future, the rules as to 
 convict guard may be better enforced!" with a 
 frown at the impassible Marshfield. "Now 
 you may turn your guard in." And the 
 Engineer, delighted no doubt at bottom to 
 catch a linesman tripping, betook himself to 
 another part of his round. 
 
 Dalrymple, blushing with vexation, stood a 
 moment silent, biting his lip; then he went 
 out and mechanically dismissed the guard. 
 
 "Never had to swallow a snake of that 
 kind, ' ' he muttered, as he came back, casting 
 a rueful glance at his friend — "and from a 
 
 d d carrotty weather-glass sapper!" he 
 
 added, cursing with a sharp return to garrison 
 vernacular, expressive of corps prejudice. 
 
 Then after a while: "Is it not like a warn- 
 ing? A sobering descent from the heights, old 
 friend ! I did forget to visit that last sentry, 
 you know. I really feel as if I had been 
 bewitched. But never again ! " 
 
 198
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 It was near sundown; in due course Dal- 
 rymple marched off his party, in great gloom. 
 Marshfield, on his side, slowly returned, deeply 
 pensive and discovering, at odd corners of his 
 meditation, sundry instances comparable to 
 his friend's psychological struggle in other 
 phenomena: — the stamp of previous impres- 
 sions on the brain of younger life, reappearing 
 in unforeseen wise, even as the die once 
 applied on soft clay, smooth it and obliterate it 
 as you will on the potter's wheel, will reassert 
 itself in the baking. Or again the inevitable 
 ecstatic neurosis of the contemplative anchoret, 
 living in the midst of yearning for irrealisable 
 images — while, on the other hand, the simple 
 abnegation, the devotion to the work-a-day 
 task, in the Sister of Charity (mental material 
 of the same stuff), lead to the wondrous 
 serenity of spirit which is the glory of such a life. 
 
 How long would Dalrymple's peace, his 
 satisfaction with self and with the ambient 
 world, be disturbed by this visionary excur- 
 sion, Tannhaiiser-like, to a Venusberg of mod- 
 ern conception? It would be curious to see — 
 and Marshfield, with his characteristic calm 
 selfishness, resolved to throw no hint of any 
 likelihood of his departure for some days to 
 come. 
 
 That evening, however, beyond a certain 
 consciousness and forced joviality, there was 
 
 199
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 little to observe about his friend's manner in 
 mess or ante-room. There was, on the other 
 hand, a certain tendency to taciturnity when 
 they found themselves once more alone in their 
 quarters and no further anatomising of Dal- 
 rymple's thoughts could be achieved. All 
 that was apparent was a shade of feverish ness 
 in his eyes and on his lips ; and all that could 
 be noted of any import was the valediction, 
 about midnight: 
 
 "I shall leave you to your slumbers. As for 
 me, you know," with an attempt at self- 
 banter, "I should have abandoned you much 
 sooner if another meeting such as that you 
 heard of to-day could ever occur again. But 
 dreams are not bespoken — worse luck!" 
 
 On this confession of weakness Marshfield 
 saw the red and gold jacket disappear. But 
 for many hours, until he himself dropped 
 asleep, he could hear his neighbour moving 
 about restlessly in the next room. 
 
 The morning brought its budget. It was 
 Dalrymple who called up the Observer. The 
 young soldier's face was tired, and there were 
 blue lines under his eyes, but a hardly subdued 
 joyousness lighted his countenance. That was 
 ominous. 
 
 "I have to take a musketry party to Graves- 
 end — have you a mind to march twenty miles 
 
 200
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 with us? Yes? Right! We shall not be back 
 till night." 
 
 And thus, on the second day, Marshfield 
 found himself tramping the weary road across 
 a snow-covered country, on the flank of a 
 strong company. 
 
 Something fresh had evidently happened to 
 his friend. Dalrymple seemed to tread upon 
 air; joyousness radiated from his whole being. 
 True, he was absent minded at times, but now 
 it was with no moodiness. Once the freedom 
 of the "march at ease" had been reached, as 
 the men began to light their pipes and to swing 
 along merrily to the trolling of an occasional 
 song, his laugh and jest and gait were of the 
 merriest. But never a word would he vouch- 
 safe in answer to the insinuating inquiries of 
 the Observer. 
 
 It was only on the return march, when ani- 
 mal spirits had much evaporated, and when 
 the occasional fits of abstraction became more 
 frequent, that Marshfield, having reached the 
 end of his tether of patience, fired his point- 
 blank question : 
 
 "To judge by your mood," he said, "you 
 have not renewed your Endymion-like experi- 
 ence last night ' ' 
 
 Dalrymple looked up quickly. 
 
 "On the contrary," he said, but further 
 remained mute. 
 
 20I
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 "So ho!" said Marshfield. "And what liv- 
 ing shape did the Symbol of the World's 
 Beauty assume this time?" 
 
 Dalrymple seemed to hesitate for want of 
 words. 
 
 "It was the same- — the same, Marshfield, " he 
 whispered at length, with an odd thrill in his 
 voice. "And yet, there was a difference. The 
 first time she came, what shall I say? ... it 
 was like the almond blossom. Last night . . . 
 can you understand? it was the pomegranate 
 — the cactus in flower!" 
 
 "I think I do. Campaspe made you King?" 
 
 After a moment's reflection Dalrymple 
 looked round and nodded. 
 
 "And yet you seem pretty well reconciled 
 to this damp and muddy world," remarked 
 Marshfield, with some resentment, dragging 
 his weary feet along by the side of his brisk- 
 stepping companion. 
 
 Gaily answered Dalrymple, his eyes bright 
 with joyous fire: 
 
 "Were this world 'ten times more dismal, I 
 have the key of another, of the real one!" 
 
 "Well?" insisted Marshfield. 
 
 The Officer turned his head abruptly away, 
 and, with a smile on his lips, swung on in fine 
 rhythm to some unheard march of joy. Bars 
 of pallid winter sunshine were breaking the 
 western clouds and gilding the wreaths of 
 
 202
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 vapour that hung over the distant town, their 
 goal. Every man's face in the Company, 
 tramping towards this faint sunset, caught up 
 some of its yellow gleam. But Marshfield saw, 
 as once before in the convict guard-room, that 
 Dalrymple's countenance, palely luminous, like 
 an alabaster lamp, was lit as from within. 
 
 " ' The light that never was, on sea or land,' " 
 he quoted to himself. Then, under an increas- 
 ing sense of irritation, he spoke again, with 
 something of 'a sneer: 
 
 "Well, and what happened?" 
 
 Dalrymple halted a second and threw the 
 secret flame of his eyes upon his friend. He 
 seemed, from a great height, to look down with 
 wonder upon a world grown strange to him. For 
 the third time Marshfield reiterated his query : 
 
 "What then, Endymion?" 
 
 "Ah," cried Dalrymple, and the inner glow 
 seemed to flash out in an extraordinary smile — 
 "what then! Can Endymion tell, do you 
 think?" 
 
 His voice broke upon this note of exultation, 
 and, the next moment, he had caught up the 
 tramp of his men, leaving the tired and dis- 
 comfited Observer to hobble in rear, as slowly 
 as he list, towards the dying sunset. 
 
 That evening, at mess, Dalrymple, whose 
 suppressed exultation contrasted oddly with his 
 
 203
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 tired face, elicited some sensation and a cer- 
 tain amount of indulgent disapproval among 
 his peers by occasional lapses into unintel- 
 ligible phraseology, alternating with fits of 
 dreaminess. And, after dinner, as if yielding 
 to an irresistible attraction, he was observed to 
 draw nearer and nearer the piano. Then, 
 softly, his eyes lifted as if trying to recall some 
 fleeting memory, he began to pick out a 
 strange, weird chant, broken now and then 
 with startling harmonies. It was halting and 
 unfinished, like some incomprehensible thought 
 that has no logical conclusion — like the song of 
 the thrush, a fragment of audible beauty, end- 
 ing, incomplete, in sudden vacancy. 
 
 To Marshfield the unchastened melody was 
 admirably alluring, for he fully guessed its 
 origin. But the red-jacketed youths rebelled 
 loudly at "the infernal miawing. Dalrymple! 
 — What the dickens was the matter with the 
 fellow to-night? Let them have Chin-Chin 
 CJiinaman, something with a tune in it, or 
 something a fellow could make head and tail 
 of, anyhow!" 
 
 Whereupon Dalrymple, the sweet-tempered, 
 got up in a sudden inexplicable heat of anger 
 and left the room. Marshfield promptly fol- 
 lowed ; and as his friend showed a disposition 
 to part at the bedroom door without further 
 parley, arrested him with the blunt remark : 
 
 204
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 "That was the voice of your Vision, of 
 course? I wish I could have it noted, if it is 
 still with you." 
 
 Dalrymple shook his head vehemently. 
 
 "It cannot be noted! What I tried to put 
 into sound was no nearer the truth than the 
 sketch of a man who cannot draw would be to 
 the grace of his Love's face. It is not to be 
 noted in waking music. Besides," he added 
 vaguely, "waking music has no sense." 
 
 Marshfield, if truth be said, began to feel a 
 commencement of alarm for his friend's brain. 
 In his mind flitted for a moment a reminis- 
 cence of Slav traditions concerning the Vam- 
 pire. He forthwith resolved that one of his 
 future investigations should be whether the 
 fons et origo of the legends might not be traced 
 to similar neurotic break-down, more frequent 
 among a dreamy, musical, over-imaginative 
 and especially melancholy people, than among 
 occidental races. 
 
 The next morning he found Dalrymple in a 
 deplorable frame of mind. Sleep, the young 
 man said, in a tone of suppressed rage, had 
 forsaken him. An absolutely wakeful night is 
 distressing enough at all times, but a sleepless- 
 ness that means the loss of a treasure greater 
 than all the world can give is Hell. So Dal- 
 
 205
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 rymple said, with a look more expressive even 
 than the word itself. 
 
 Even if Marshfield's all-dominating curiosity 
 had not urged him to remain by his friend's 
 side, mere humanity would have made him do 
 so. 
 
 On the third day the dreamer was in a 
 parlous state. Not a minute, not a second, of 
 the expectant hours had blessed unconscious- 
 ness descended upon him. The magnificent 
 look of vigour which, on the first occasion of 
 their meeting, had been so striking an element 
 of his whole presence, was already a thing 
 which memory could hardly realise. 
 
 The Major in command, who held the lad in 
 special affection (they had spent a hard time 
 together among the Afridis), insisted on his 
 going on leave, to recruit. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that Marshfield took 
 charge of the patient (who now eagerly clung 
 to the one companion capable of realising his 
 condition), and that he was able to watch the 
 progress of this rare mental disease. His notes 
 are full of interest, and would furnish matter 
 (indeed, they may some day) for a weirdly fan- 
 tastic tale. 
 
 There supervened in Dalrymple a condition 
 of life which Marshfield describes as an intel- 
 
 206
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 lectual phthisis, a consumption of the soul. It 
 was a crepuscule of the mind, which, as the 
 crepuscule of day, leads to nothing but dark- 
 ness. 
 
 He had lost all interest in real life. The 
 fate he had dreaded in older days had overtaken 
 him to the full. 
 
 "Our common world," he would assert, "is 
 nothing but greyness, my friend. There is 
 not a taste in your Universe, not an impres- 
 sion which is more than a muffled parody of 
 what I have known." 
 
 "The world is not meant solely for trans- 
 cendent delight," Marshfield would object, 
 with an exact sense that unanswerable plati- 
 tudes are the best foils to dithyrambics. 
 "There are other intellectual goals to be 
 reached, during this incarnation." 
 
 The vision never returned. Sleep, indeed, 
 was ultimately restored to him in a measure; 
 and that doubtless saved him from madness. 
 But his fits of despair after the nights that he 
 had "slept in vain," as he expressed it, were 
 at first more passionate even than after the 
 nights of waking agonised invocations. 
 
 Melancholy had now finally marked Dal- 
 rymple for her own. But the manliness, innate 
 and cultivated in the youth, saved him from 
 degradation. There could be no joy, but there 
 was at least some rest in the fulfilment of 
 
 207
 
 MARSHFIELD THE OBSERVER 
 
 Duty — with this he never allowed anything to 
 interfere. 
 
 A curious characteristic, one which displayed 
 the soundness of the youth's mental strength 
 at core for all its accidental fever, was that 
 melancholia with him never turned to sourness 
 or irritability. He never seemed to lose his 
 winning sweetness of temper among his 
 brother officers, or his solicitude for the wel- 
 fare and pleasures of his men. Gradually he 
 resumed the healthy tenor of a soldier's life, 
 and in all appearance save in gaiety became 
 something like his old self again. His work, 
 however, was performed with what might be 
 compared to the dry perfection of an automa- 
 ton, and both comrades and men long missed 
 the joyous alertness that had endeared him to 
 all. 
 
 But, one day, the summons came to prepare 
 for active service once more. Then, as the 
 weary soldier, after a restless sleep in which he 
 has dimly striven again and again to fulfil his 
 mechanical round of work, awakes at the clear 
 voice of the bugle-call and hails with joy the 
 dawn of the battle-day, so did Edward Dal- 
 rymple, the dreamer, awake. 
 
 He seemed to take up his life again with 
 enthusiasm : and never, as those said who saw 
 him again on that last day, did any one lay it 
 down with a higher heart. They found his 
 
 208
 
 ENDYMION IN BARRACKS 
 
 body on the lip of the enemy's trenches; and 
 it was said that the beauty on his dead face 
 was such, the smile upon his lips so exquisite 
 in its joy, that the very soldiers of the burying 
 party, all hardened to their materialising task, 
 begged to look and look again before wrapping 
 him away in that insatiable earth that had 
 already drunk in so much gallant blood. 
 
 Marshfield often wondered whether at that 
 supreme moment his friend had indeed been 
 vouchsafed once again the glory of his Vision : 
 or whether the smile had been called upon his 
 stiffening lips by the knowledge that, through 
 Duty, he had at last and for ever grasped — 
 Peace. 
 
 209
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 I
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE
 
 TO 
 
 MRS. CHARLES BLUNDELL OF CROSBY 
 
 LOUISE DE VZOVICS, WHOSE CHILD-FEET WERE 
 
 FORCED TO TREAD THE MEASURES 
 
 OF THE DEATH-DANCE.
 
 The Death-Dance 
 
 As age advances upon me, past memories 
 grow sweet to linger over. Strange it is how 
 easily the painful and the terrible in our experi- 
 ences are forgotten in a busy life — forgotten 
 or but recalled with a placid savour of interest. 
 A merciful dispensation no doubt, as the cant 
 phrase runs. Yet, now and again, even to the 
 old man may not a chance concurrence of 
 impressions bring back long-past and seeming 
 dead emotions, and that with well-nigh the 
 poignancy of the actual event? 
 
 This evening as we returned to our home, 
 my wife and I, after a mighty pleasant walk 
 through the woods, where overhead the 
 rising breeze whispered loud as it hurried 
 through the branches, where underfoot the 
 ground was soft and silent save now and then 
 for some breaking twig, we passed from the 
 dim grey twilight into the deserted library 
 wrapped in darkness; shutters already closed 
 and lamps as yet unkindled. There being that 
 day some festivity at our little village to which 
 the servants had permission to go, the neglect 
 was to be viewed with leniency; and, laugh- 
 ing, we groped for lights. My hand was the 
 first to meet the box wherein lay enshrined one 
 
 215
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 solitary match. I struck it; it flashed bril- 
 liantly, and went out. 
 
 Now, in that brief 'illumination, arose before 
 my unexpecting eyes a picture from the past, 
 lurid, terrible, living ; and the darkness which 
 ensued was filled with crowded memories of a 
 scene enacted long ago in my sallet days and 
 far away from this peaceful English land. Yet 
 what really met my sight was only my dear 
 wife's face as it started, eager and half smil- 
 ing, from the impenetrable gloom and then 
 sank into nothingness. 
 
 She is no longer young, in years — facts are 
 facts ; the once glorious sheen of her black hair 
 has changed to the tints of frosted silver ; and 
 though her eyes are brilliant with the light of 
 an ever-youthful soul, though she is still to me 
 the bride of my manhood's love, to all the 
 world we are most undeniably an elderly 
 couple. But the face I seemed to see, which 
 indeed I saw in a strange phantasmagoria born 
 of lightning recollection, was young with the 
 peach-bloom of youth; and the frame of the 
 picture was not the silent, warm library with 
 its carpet and curtains and tall array of books, 
 but the boles of two rugged poplar-trees in the 
 thickest midst of a well-remembered wood — 
 Ap^li-er-doseg. 
 
 I knew it at once, that disastrous forest of 
 
 216
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 elms and ivy-grown poplars between the Waag 
 and the Danube, scene of so much indecisive 
 fighting, so much useless butchery. And the 
 gleam that reveals this fearsome, lovely face 
 peering at me eagerly from out the darkness, 
 is a long flash-in-the-pan of one of those obso- 
 lete muskets used by the Hungarian guerrillas 
 in the year '49, And I, scarce a year free 
 from school thraldom, am riding, clad in the 
 cream-white of the Royal Imperial Chevau- 
 legers, at the head of a reconnoitring party 
 pushing towards Comorn; I am, in fact, an 
 inexperienced cornet filled, half with pride in 
 his responsibilities, half with trepidation, lest 
 by some mischance I should fail in accomplish- 
 ing all that is expected of an Austrian officer 
 and an Englishman to boot. 
 
 A long way to look back — nearly half a cen- 
 tury, forsooth! Yet, behold! I am as livingly 
 in the woods of Ap^li as on the day when I 
 killed my first man on Imperial duty. Over- 
 head the evening breeze sways the tall poplars ; 
 underfoot the soft earth receives the trample 
 of our chargers noiselessly save for the break- 
 ing of some dried twigs. No light but that of 
 a young moon, pale and barely sufficient 
 through the arches of foliage to guide us along 
 the rude forest road. 
 
 All at once the rhythm of the march, with its 
 faint accompaniment of clicking arms and har- 
 
 217
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 ness, is drowned in a hellish clangour. Ahead, 
 on either side, spring, singly and in groups, the 
 long red flashes of musket-fire; the hissing 
 lead crashes through our files, and above us 
 snaps in the branches. 
 
 There is one short moment of suspense, an 
 interval of stillness broken only by the angry 
 guttural orders of my sergeant to the troopers, 
 the plunging and neighing of some wounded 
 horses, and, rapidly approaching, the thudding 
 gallop of our detached files falling back on 
 their supports. Then a shrill whistle sounds, 
 upon which rises all around us the blood-curd- 
 ling Hungarian yell, while, as if vomited by 
 the black earth, leap up into our midst a 
 swarm of fighting demons. Almost before a 
 single pistol-shot can leave our ranks the 
 brown rusty scythes are already at work among 
 our horses' feet, and the noble beasts go down 
 shrieking, mutilated; almost before one loyal 
 blade can leave the scabbard, half my trim and 
 smart dragoons— choice troops trained with 
 precise care in the art of arms— have rolled into 
 the mud, cursing and groaning, and hideously 
 ripped, under the thrust of an uncouth pike or 
 the throw of a peasant's sickle. 
 
 With a wail, the hurried blast from the 
 trumpeter at my side expires almost from the 
 first note as, half turned in the saddle to wind 
 his warning call to the main body, he is hurled 
 
 218
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 from his seat, his back cloven by a woodman's 
 axe. The same savage weapon is next raised 
 upon me, and would send me even then to my 
 last account but for a frantic kick from my 
 poor trumpeter's horse, which, with unusual 
 poetic justice, brains his master's destroyer on 
 the spot. All this within the span of two seconds. 
 
 I am seized with despair. A vision of dis- 
 grace — the wholesale destruction of the party 
 entrusted to me — rises like fire before my mind. 
 And I have not even struck a blow for the 
 honour of the white Atilla. A frenzy to flesh 
 once at least my virgin sword before meeting 
 inevitable death fills my whole being at one 
 shiver. At that moment my own brave 
 charger falls under me, hamstrung and with 
 gaping throat; I am up again in an instant, 
 free of him, and blindly throw myself upon a 
 dark group just visible a few yards in front. 
 
 And here, at last, is something to pierce and 
 to hack; to assuage with deep red draughts, 
 black-dropping in the moonlight, the white 
 fury of my sabre's thirst. And here, as reel- 
 ing round intoxicated with the first taste of 
 destruction, I seek a fresh object to work 
 upon, rises the flash of a well-primed pan, red 
 in the gloom of the close growing trees ; and 
 on the instant a flight of shot strike like so 
 many cuts of a whip deep into my flesh. 
 
 Not because I am badly hit — and this I know 
 
 219
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 though my blood is too hot to feel much pain 
 just then — do I stop, transfixed in my head- 
 long rush, but because of the image which 
 flames into being and is lost with the musket 
 flash. It is a face of weird loveliness, oval, 
 very white, framed darkly by the hair that 
 escapes from under a broad cavalier hat; a 
 young, girlish face, with dilated burning eyes 
 and a small, full-lipped mouth slightly opened, 
 seeming to breathe vengeance even as the eyes 
 dart the most exultant triumph. 
 
 The vision in the midst of carnage — for the 
 rebels are despatching my wounded men, and 
 I hear on every side, with burning heart of 
 shame, German cries for mercy, intermingled 
 with the savage ""Elf en Kossuth!'' and the 
 deep-mouthed imprecation of fight — seems to 
 my darkening senses as some strange revela- 
 tion of the Valkyrie, that wondrous creature of 
 Teutonic imagination, who comes to ease the 
 dying soldier's agony with promises of a 
 glorious Walhalla. 
 
 A moment later a sudden sickness comes 
 upon me, and it is as if the earth rises up to 
 buffet me; I am certain my last hour has 
 come. But, as I fain would compose my mind 
 to a suitable state of compunction, the beauti- 
 ful heathen phantasm ever dances uppermost 
 in the midst of the cloud that is rolling swiftly 
 over all my being 
 
 220 
 
 I
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 "Well, dear," said my wife's tranquil voice, 
 from the depth of darkness, "what are you 
 dreaming about, standing there, so still?" 
 
 As ahe spoke, the door was pushed open, a 
 tardy servant appeared with lights, and the 
 spell was broken. I was once more in the 
 antique, restful library of By cross Hall. Once 
 more I was an old man, hale and happy for all 
 his narrow escapes and all the barbarous scenes 
 witnessed and enacted in younger days. 
 
 "I thought," said I, "that I saw the astral 
 body of Sarolta!" 
 
 And so we fell into memories of the Hun- 
 garian War — it is now, and properly, so digni- 
 fied, though in my young time of Imperial 
 service it was only called a rising, and the 
 Magyars were not "the enemy" but "the 
 rebels" — and we harked back to that reign of 
 terror, through which she then — a mere child 
 — passed unscathed, although it well-nigh 
 encompassed destruction, root and branch, to 
 her family. 
 
 And, by a singular coincidence, the evening's 
 post brought news that night of Klapka's 
 death at Vienna; Klapka, the sturdy defender 
 of Comorn, whom Austria's Grand Execu- 
 tioner, Haynau, would so dearly have loved to 
 hang, yet who, long since reconciled and hon- 
 oured, lived out his peaceful old age under the 
 very yoke he once had laboured to destroy, 
 
 221
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 even as might Kossuth himself, did he not still 
 prefer a sullen self-imposed exile. * 
 
 Now, perhaps, might be a fitting time to 
 write impartially of that extraordinary war 
 which, for all her soldiers' gallantry, brought 
 so little credit to Austria's rule, and which 
 gave Hungary, to compensate so much 
 slaughter and misery, nothing that persistent 
 peaceful agitation might not have secured in 
 later days. A merciless, profitless struggle, 
 degrading alike to Austria's commanders, 
 who, until they received foreign help, failed to 
 achieve victory over Magyar fierceness ; and to 
 Hungarian leaders, who, on the day of final 
 defeat, betrayed each other and cravenly aban- 
 doned their country in her last agonies. 
 
 English favour has, on the whole, weighed 
 on the Hungarian side; on no very precise 
 ground perhaps, for the true case of Royal 
 Hungary against the Empire has hardly been 
 made quite clear. I cannot pretend to dis- 
 criminate, for I saw the events as a soldier; 
 and a soldier must needs be one-sided. All 
 that I am able to say, whilst the impression of 
 my memories is still green on me, is that what- 
 ever may have been the early misdealings of 
 the Emperor with a noble race (now, it must 
 be owned, the strongest prop of a patched 
 Empire), the actual bearing of the Austrian 
 
 *Thi3 was written in 1893. 
 
 222
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 army was never as uniformly ferocious, nor 
 was that of the Magyars themselves invariably 
 as noble and moderate as it has long been the 
 fashion to represent it in England. 
 
 The series of incidents which the small flame 
 of a match thus brought so vividly back to my 
 mind that I am fain to relate them, are 
 sufficiently typical of the state the land was 
 plunged in, towards the end of the long con- 
 flict, to prove maybe of interest to those who 
 judge that bloody period from the sentimental 
 point of view of preconceived sympathy. 
 
 What a toy in the hands of blind fortune is a 
 soldier's life! Platitude, say you? So it is. 
 But there are times when truisms assume a 
 very singular particularity. And, when I 
 recall that time, and realise on what mere acci- 
 dents then depended the thread of an existence 
 which has been very well worth living to me, 
 the old worn saying loses all its triteness. 
 
 The riddling of my young body with 
 blunderbuss shots might, under other circum- 
 stances, have been held as a sufficiently 
 disastrous casualty for the very first engage- 
 ment into which I carried it. As the night 
 went, however, it saved my head from the 
 bloody harvest of the scythe-men. As I fell 
 two black shadows bore down upon me ; one 
 raised a scythe over my neck. I saw it gleam 
 
 223
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 under a moon ray without even the power of 
 turning my fixed eyeballs from the sight; 
 before it had time to descend, however, there 
 came a cry from a curiously high-pitched voice, 
 and again the vision of the Valkyrie's face, 
 this time laughing pallidly in the silver light, 
 swam before me. The beautiful lips let fall 
 some words, no doubt in the language of the 
 gods. There was a hoarse laugh. A bayonet 
 tore its way between my shoulder blade and 
 the flesh, driven as it were in mere jocularity, 
 and the silhouettes passed on. 
 
 In the anguish of the new wound I tried 
 again to concentrate my mind to prayer, but 
 again the beauteous obsession overmastered 
 all. 
 
 Presently it became obvious that I was not 
 progressing with my dying. My wounds 
 beofan to burn in ever more lifelike fashion, 
 and my brain grew clearer. All around was 
 very still save for a groan now and then, or 
 the struggle of some dying charger. 
 
 Through softly waving branches the breeze 
 flustered, and the moonlight fell between the 
 leaves, very cold and fair. With an infinite 
 effort I rolled over on my back and there lay, 
 consorting with dim incongruous phantoms, 
 still waiting for the moment of my passing. 
 So ended my first combat under "the black- 
 and-yellow. ' ' For this I had been initiated an 
 
 224
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 ardent recruit, to the pride of Austrian Serv- 
 ice ; for this had we hastened from the Italian 
 garrison, light-hearted and glorious through 
 the bright summer days ! 
 
 Several engagements, as I learned since, 
 took place that night between our advanced 
 patrols and the Hungarian outposts in the 
 nefarious neighbourhood of Comorn, each with 
 more or less similar result. In all their pre- 
 liminary movements for the concerted Austro- 
 Russian attack upon that stronghold on the 
 unsuccessful second of July, our renowned 
 generals and their seasoned troops were 
 baulked by the indomitable determination of 
 the Hungarian levies and the admirable tactics 
 of Gorgey. In fact, the blame and disgrace I 
 so bitterly dreaded in connection with the 
 inglorious butchery in the Apali woods 
 attached not to me, but to the old-fashioned 
 pedantry and the routine spirit of our generals, 
 who confidently sent the regulation horse- 
 patrol to reconnoitre in a situation where only 
 light infantry should have ventured, 
 
 A badly wounded man has no appreciation 
 of time. To him a given span may seem ah 
 eternity of torture or the flash of a single 
 thought, according to the state of his brain. 
 After a lapse — I cannot tell how long — a line 
 of men advanced steadily but with caution 
 through the underwood. I believe they were 
 
 225
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 our own dragoons, but dismounted this time. 
 One of these trod on my hand as he passed 
 along, and I must have given a cry of pain or 
 anger; at any rate he bent down and exam- 
 ined me, and in German called out to his com- 
 rades. And presently, a helpless mass of 
 suffering humanity, I was carried away in a 
 great-coat. 
 
 The next stage that comes up to memory 
 was my being laid, at dawn, together with a 
 few other white -coated and blood-stained 
 wretches, in a commissariat cart, the merciless 
 jolts of which brought back a miserable con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Then there was an interlude to the monot- 
 onous torture of progression — another skirmish 
 in which a sudden onslaught of hussars, fear- 
 less as hawks, swift and howling as tempest 
 wind, swooping down as it seemed from the 
 clouds, nearly succeeded in cutting off the 
 lumbering convoy. But they were beaten off. 
 And more mangled yet living bodies were laid 
 in the cart, among whom not a few of the 
 hussar blue-coats themselves who, but a few 
 moments before, amidst the flashes of their 
 sabre cuts, had yelled their "" Eljen Kossuth!'' 
 with such irresistible energy. And the dreary 
 procession trundled on again. 
 
 The sun was high and burning when 
 occurred the next break in the nightmare. 
 
 226
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 We were lifted from the cart, laid on a wide 
 stretch of gravel, and then and there laved 
 with blessedly cool water; a draught of some 
 acid nectar was next held to my lips, whilst a 
 woman's face, beautiful, tender, motherly, 
 bent over us. 
 
 It was as if the blessed Mother of God had 
 driven forth my Valkyrie, yet to my fever- 
 ridden mind there was still some fleeting like- 
 ness between the two. 
 
 High in front, and on both sides, rose what 
 seemed in my wandering fancy endless vistas 
 of flaming palaces; for in the sunlight the 
 white stone and glass of the stately building 
 glittered with insufferable brightness. 
 
 The convoy had, it seems, been handed over 
 to a Russian column on the way; the trim 
 white coats were no longer about us, but, in 
 their stead, unkempt troopers in brown caftans 
 and tall brass-spiked helmets. And these, 
 according to custom, had hastened to deposit 
 their profitless burden at^the first available 
 abode. 
 
 And thus it came to pass that, for the 
 remainder of the war, I found myself, to my 
 own immediate benefit and future happiness, 
 an inmate of a noble Magyar household. 
 
 After the inevitable days of fever and 
 delirium, which in an Austrian ambulance 
 would undoubtedly have landed me in six feet 
 
 227
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 of earth without the last snug decency of a 
 coffin, but which the vigilant and humane 
 nursing of the Lady of the House — to use an 
 obsolete but graceful phrase — brought me 
 safely through, I, weak as a ^new-born puppy, 
 began to take notice of my surroundings, and 
 find in life, again, something beyond discom- 
 fort and pain. 
 
 The Castle of Komjath, an imposing, com- 
 paratively modern building, in the French 
 style which finds favour in Hungary, stands 
 conspicuously on an island formed by two 
 unequal arms of the Neutra; this latter is a 
 stream which a few miles lower down in its 
 course joins the Waag, just before the latter 
 meets the Danube below Comorn. A hand- 
 some stone bridge connects the island with 
 either bank and allows a high road to cross the 
 estate from east to west. As but few such 
 structures span the lower course of the Neutra, 
 it was the fate of Komjath to find itself con- 
 stantly on the way of marching troops during 
 the whole of the war. In the early spring, 
 whilst the Hungarian star was still in the 
 ascendant, for days did the columns of exultant 
 volunteers, arrogant and rapacious, defile 
 through the estate on their way to the west. 
 Later on in the year, when (to Austria's 
 eternal shame) Russian aid was called in, again 
 did the bridge at Komjath resound to the tread 
 
 228
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 of moving armies ; and the distracted inmates 
 of the Castle had to watch and keep open 
 house day and night, to attend to the wants of 
 Paskiewiecz's infantry, cossacks, and gunners. 
 
 All that was vexing and ruinous enough ; but 
 at the time of which I am now talking, that is 
 during the second siege of Comorn, and whilst 
 Gorgey still held the field with varying 
 success against the Imperial allies, the sus- 
 pense of the dwellers at the Castle reached a 
 climax. 
 
 It so happened, however, that none of the 
 fierce and merciless engagements which char- 
 acterized the latter part of the war actually 
 took place at that singularly important 
 strategic point; a matter of curiosity to the 
 soldier, for the holding of that bridge would 
 have been of the utmost importance to either 
 party, and certainly one of congratulation to 
 the owners of that magnificent estate. But it 
 more than once happened that, at different 
 hours of one and the same day, detachments, 
 and even whole regiments, of the three nation- 
 alities clattered over the Komjath bridge. 
 This almost incomprehensible state of affairs I 
 myself witnessed on the first day that I was 
 allowed to leave my couch and to be carried 
 from that wing of the Castle set aside for the 
 wounded, to the .drawing-room, where the 
 family was gathered. 
 
 229
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 This was a privilege less due even to my 
 officer's rank among the many wounded of 
 both parties, which the fortune of war had 
 gathered at Komjath (although your true 
 Hungarians are great sticklers for rank and 
 status), than to my extreme youth, and to the 
 motherly tenderness of my gracious nurse. 
 
 As I sank back on the soft couch under the 
 shaded window, where by the Countess's 
 orders I was laid by my bearers — an ancient 
 gate-keeper and an equally grey-headed 
 steward, the only men left on the estate, all 
 others having long since been peremptorily 
 drafted away under the ironical name of 
 volunteers — I looked round the vast room and 
 breathed in its delicious coolness with a sense 
 of returning life-enjoyment. 
 
 One by one my hostess's children — a sturdy 
 boy, and three little dainty maids — came up to 
 kiss my hand, according to the pretty custom 
 of the country. The mother looked on, smil- 
 ing, wonderfully young and fair to own such a 
 romping brood ; beautiful in the deep mourn- 
 ing of recent widowhood, with the character- 
 istic beauty of true Magyar type — rich 
 blooded, bright-eyed, lithe and firm of figure, 
 graceful of motion, and caressing of address. 
 
 "Here," thought I, with grateful heart, "is 
 little of the blind hatred for the Austrian 
 tyrants which is said to animate every Hun- 
 
 230
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 garian soul from the lowest to the highest in 
 the land." 
 
 But even as the thought grew I looked up, I 
 knew not why, to meet the sloe-black eyes of a 
 girl in rich peasant dress who stood sullenly 
 near the door, and seemed to be in attendance 
 on the children. Those eyes shot such bitter 
 animosity at me that, weak as I was, I felt my 
 countenance change. 
 
 The Countess followed the direction of my 
 startled glance, and her smile faded into an 
 expression of stern thoughtfulness I had not 
 seen before upon her tender face. She gave, 
 however, with apparent unconcern, some 
 order to the patriotic damsel — an order for 
 refreshment for me, as it turned out. 
 
 Somewhat curiously watching, I saw the 
 vindictive hatred of the black eyes transferred 
 from me to the Countess, and felt an undefined 
 apprehension, although I was then far from 
 realising the peril to which my hostess's kind- 
 ness to the wounded enemy exposed her, and 
 the bearing which in those troublous times the 
 ill-will and malice of a dependent could have 
 upon the fate of a whole family. 
 
 After a second's defiant pause the girl tossed 
 her plaits of raven hair and disappeared upon 
 her errand. The mistress let her thoughtful 
 gaze fall for a moment on the children ; then 
 with a sigh seemed resolutely to dismiss the 
 
 231
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 disturbing idea, and began a cheerful talk with 
 me. She sat beside my couch by the window, 
 where through the drawn curtains a ray of sun- 
 shine fell slanting on the rich black coils of her 
 hair, and gilt the delicate olive fingers, busy 
 with sweet impartial charity upon lint-making 
 for all the sufferers of the war. 
 
 "Surely," thought I, in dreamy enthusiasm, 
 "this is the very type of noble womanhood!" 
 And content to lie still and admire and wor- 
 ship, the disturbing incident of the maid 
 passed from my mind. 
 
 But this placid state of happiness was not to 
 endure long. The old steward presently 
 entered upon us with disordered mien. Point- 
 ing to the west, through the window, he 
 uttered in his tongue a short phrase, evidently 
 of serious import, and handed the field-glasses 
 to his mistress. She rose, and as the children 
 rushed to the window, drew back the curtains 
 to scan the distant road. Half dazzled by the 
 streaming light, I raised myself on the pillow 
 and looked forth too. 
 
 After a few seconds the Countess paused in 
 her search to exchange a few hurried words 
 with the old man, who, pointing at me, ran 
 into the middle of the room and halted with 
 distracted irresolution. She raised the glasses 
 to her eyes again, then I saw her bosom heave 
 with a deep sigh of relief. She gave a quick 
 
 232
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 order, and sat down again by my side, wliilst 
 the steward hastened from the room. 
 
 ' ' Do not be alarmed, ' ' she said, as she gave 
 another glance out of the window. "These 
 are Russians, and we have not much to fear, 
 except plunder from the men and insoleuce 
 from the officers, so long as Imperial orders 
 are obeyed. Fortunately, with good watch 
 outside, and this little friend here" (tapping 
 the field-glass), "we can always have the 
 black-and-yellow floating in time to show that 
 we are not rebels. ' ' 
 
 Even as she spoke I could see from my couch 
 the black eagle spread on the ample yellow 
 folds of the Austrian standard rapidly running 
 up the stafE over the main gateway. She gave 
 a laugh. 
 
 "Otherwise," she continued, "we should be 
 treated as holding with the revolution. Poor 
 Miklos, faithful servant! " His old legs have 
 much ado to keep up now with Austrian 
 loyalty, now with Hungarian patriotism; for 
 woe would indeed betide us were the Kossuth- 
 ists to find us with the abominated emblem 
 waving over our land. But we have other 
 colours ready against such time when they 
 appear on the scene. I think I had almost 
 rather risk Austrian severity than Hungarian 
 vengeance, but I own to you that my chief 
 object is to avoid giving offence to either side. 
 
 233
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 I should have had to relegate you in haste to 
 your hospitable quarters, were it a body of 
 our patriots that now threatens a visit at 
 Komjath," she added with a smile, "for to 
 find a white-coated monster in our immediate 
 circle would brand us traitors of the deepest 
 dye." 
 
 As she spoke, the rumour had drawn nearer; 
 the clink and tramping of the column, and a 
 melancholy chant, rising and falling to the 
 measure of the men's pace, no doubt by order 
 and for lack of more stirring music, resounded 
 in the courtyard and past the Castle windows, 
 
 "Little mamma," cried the boy in German, 
 "the soldiers are going by." And in truth 
 there seemed to be no sign of their halting. 
 
 • ' Thank God ! ' ' said the lady fervently. 
 
 But the little Count presently whispered in 
 great excitement — 
 
 "Oh, no, there are some riding-men in green 
 — ofiBcers — that stop. Little mamma, they are 
 coming in ! " 
 
 My hostess took up her work again with 
 admirable composure ; and a moment later the 
 old steward, a bleached look of terror on his 
 face, introduced four or five officers, who 
 strode in, arrogantly, cap on head, and cast 
 angry looks around. 
 
 The Countess rose with her usual dignity. 
 But the senior officer, who seemed to be a 
 
 234
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 brigadier, broke out at once, in rasping and 
 incorrect German. 
 
 "What is the meaning of this?" he inquired, 
 without the sHghtest formula of courtesy. 
 "My scouts report that the Imperial flag only 
 appeared on this house on the approach of our 
 troops. Is this another hidden nest of revolu- 
 tionists?" 
 
 As soon as she was allowed to speak, the 
 Countess in her firm and quiet voice briefly 
 explained the situation of the household. 
 Meanwhile, the Russian's suspicious eyes fell 
 upon me in my corner by the window-sill, and 
 his lowering countenance cleared. 
 
 Lying at my ease in the family circle, 
 propped up on cushions, with a half-finished 
 bowl of broth by my side, I was personal and 
 sufficient evidence that an Imperial officer was 
 not looked upon in the house as an enemy. 
 
 After exchanging a few words with me, the 
 brigadier professed himself content with the 
 state of affairs at Komjath, and he and his 
 party, assuming a less hostile manner, drank 
 down with bearish heartiness a few glasses of 
 the Arak which had been, as a matter of 
 course, brought up for their refreshment. 
 One of them unceremoniously refilled a pocket- 
 flask out of the decanter. 
 
 During that time the little Count, somewhat 
 reassured, had stepped up to one of the offi- 
 
 235
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 cers, and looking into his hairy face with art- 
 less interest, stretched forth an audacious little 
 hand towards the gilded hilt of his curved 
 sabre. 
 
 "Wouldst thou like to see it work?" asked 
 the savage in bad German, with a loud though 
 not ill-natured laugh. And he forthwith drew 
 the weapon from the scabbard and struck with 
 a knowing sweep at the nearest thing, a dainty 
 little Vernis Martin table which stood at the 
 Countess's elbow. It was cloven in halves; 
 the Countess could scarcely repress a shriek, 
 and the boy burst into a roar of mingled anger 
 and fear. 
 
 Charmed, however, with his own pleasantry, 
 which his companions had witnessed approv- 
 ingly— 
 
 "Here, young master," exclaimed the giant, 
 awkwardly fumbling in his pocket. From this 
 receptacle he produced a slab of chocolate, 
 which he placed on the palm of his hand, and 
 with the same weapon cut it into several bits, 
 thereby showing a new kind of dexterity. 
 "Here, take and cry no more." There were 
 dried blood-stains on the blade. 
 
 "Thank you," said the Countess, sweeping 
 hurriedly forward, to forestall her son's indig- 
 nant refusal; and taking the chocolate from 
 the Cossack's grimy fingers, "Iss, Paulchen," 
 she said with a compelling look. 
 
 236
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 But the child passionately resisted; and, 
 very much amused, the detestable crew took 
 their departure with what no doubt they con- 
 sidered a good grace. 
 
 "Your presence here to-day has saved us 
 from worse, ' ' said the Countess, with her sweet 
 calm smile, as I too, with youthful heat, began 
 to inveigh against the behaviour of our allies, 
 and lament the damage they had caused. 
 ** There are ghastly tales of the indignities these 
 people have heaped on Magyar households. ' ' 
 
 It pleases me to think that what she said was 
 indeed the fact ; that my presence that day was 
 a protection to her and hers; for it was 
 through the same circumstance — her heavenly 
 goodness to a sick lad — that destruction hov- 
 ered over her whole household but a little 
 while after. 
 
 In due course we heard the welcome sound 
 of the last Russian's departure. Not long 
 afterwards the westerly breeze brought to our 
 ears the first booms of gun-fire in the direction 
 of Comorn, where another general engagement 
 was developed. These terrible whispers of 
 destruction lasted many hours. 
 
 After dusk the unfortunate house was again 
 filled with troops — Honveds this time. At 
 that hour, happily, being still but a poor 
 invalid, I was once again in my bed among the 
 sick and wounded. It was the luck of war that 
 
 837
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 there were at the time actually more Hungari- 
 ans in this extempore hospital than others, for 
 the defeated Kossuthists were not in a mood to 
 treat with leniency a house that harboured too 
 many Imperials. 
 
 During the short glimpse we had of these 
 visitors, I trembled for our benefactress; I 
 little wotted then that if the Magyar, defeated, 
 baffled, and thirsting for vengeance, was to be 
 dreaded, the Magyar exulting in triumph 
 would prove more sinister still. 
 
 The chief of the party that visited the Castle 
 — an enormous man with matted black whis- 
 kers, loathly elf-locks, and dirty bandages 
 hiding half a face one could not find it in one's 
 heart to desire a fuller view of — entered upon 
 the dim silence of the infirmary with a brood- 
 ing air and a vast deal of unnecessary clangour, 
 accompanied by several lantern-bearers. He 
 passed from bed to bed, cynically prodding 
 every man with the tip of his scabbard and 
 questioning him in Hungarian. On those who 
 could but falter their replies in German, he 
 bestowed a curse and an ominous glower of his 
 solitary eye. 
 
 One of our melancholy company, a Russian 
 who had been very feeble all day, was found 
 to be dead ; him the colonel spurned with his 
 foot, and the carcase was forthwith carried 
 away. 
 
 238
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 But, apparently, the account given by the 
 Hungarian wounded of their treatment at 
 Komjath was sufficiently favourable, for the 
 truculent intruder at last went out without 
 further action, only stopping a moment over 
 my bed to examine me with a malevolent grin. 
 
 Here the visitation ended ; and then, for the 
 second time in the same day, did my dear 
 lady's charity — bestowed for no ulterior 
 reason, but solely through the sweet prompt- 
 ings of her woman's heart — conjure misfortune 
 from her home. 
 
 "And so," thought I, "it must always be; 
 here can neither Magyar nor Imperialist ever 
 find aught but to praise and bless." Alas! I 
 was young in those days, and knew not how 
 much lower than the beast man may sink when 
 his passions are unchained in prolonged inter- 
 necine war. 
 
 For two days matters went according to 
 ordinary routine ; the hours that I could bear 
 to be up and dressed were most blissfully spent 
 by me in the Countess's company. It was 
 natural enough that by this time, boy-like, I 
 should have fallen deeply in love with her ; a 
 worshipping, distant love, content to feast on 
 kind looks and gentle words, to treasure the 
 memory of a smile or of the touch of a 
 motherly hand. 
 
 But on the third morning no one came to 
 
 239
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 fetch me as usual. And then I was left, day 
 after day, to drag out their weary length from 
 morn till night, in the melancholy surround- 
 ings of the hospital room — this with a sore 
 heart and wondering, at first; by-and-by with 
 secret ungrateful revilings. 
 
 The Countess passed daily through the ward 
 as usual, but only addressed a few gentle, 
 indifferent questions and remarks to me; the 
 usual attendants brought me food and helped 
 me to dress. 
 
 ' ' She is tired of me, ' ' I thought. "Of course 
 it becomes a bore in the end to have a miser- 
 able invalid to dance attendance upon for so 
 many hours a day. She is tired of me, and 
 now I am to be dropped. Why first be so kind 
 to be now so cruel ! Why not let me die when 
 I was so near death!" I lay outside my camp 
 bed and hugged my injuries in true boy 
 fashion. 
 
 . At length, about the fifth day, there came a 
 rumour among the patients — I can hardly say 
 whence it originated — a grin of exultation 
 spread from one wan, swarthy Hungarian face 
 to another all round the ward, while the few 
 Imperials feigned a mighty indifference. 
 
 There had been some great Hungarian vic- 
 tories; Kossuth now held the whole land 
 indeed ; the National Cause triumphed. When 
 I was being dressed during the day, I rose 
 
 240
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 giddily from my bed, a sudden sense of fury 
 and impotency filling my poor weak frame. 
 The revolutionists triumphant, and I — I of the 
 gallant Chevau-legers — reduced to this! 
 
 A few jocular but not ill-meant taunts — for 
 common sufferings ever tend to fill the chasm 
 of antipathy — were thrown at me by grinning 
 rebels as I passed their beds. At the door I 
 fell upon the old steward, who was just enter- 
 ing with food and wine. 
 
 "Are these news true?" I cried, incautiously. 
 
 The old man looked at me angrily, and 
 motioned me back. I read such terror in his 
 looks — though he had always seemed so craven 
 a body in my foolish eyes that I had hitherto 
 made rather a joke of him to the Countess and 
 her children — that I returned to my bed ; and, 
 as I sat on the edge of it, a miserable object 
 enough, with feeble legs dangling, longing to 
 be up and doing, or, at any rate, back with 
 my hostess to preside in her councils with 
 valuable advice, there came into the room the 
 youngest child laden with a big basket full of 
 fruit. 
 
 It had been the custom of the mother to 
 send her little ones from time to time to bring 
 the "poor sick soldiers" such dainties as she 
 had to give, so I was not astonished at sight of 
 the small messenger. A pretty creature she 
 was, not more than five years old, but bold as 
 
 241
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 a bantam, with a mischievous dark face from 
 which shone out dark hazel eyes as bright as a 
 hawk's. With grave sweetness the little maid 
 distributed her burden. 
 
 When she came to the officer's couch — that 
 was mine — with a broad smile she drew her- 
 self up, tapped her heels together, and made 
 the smartest military salute. All eyes were 
 fixed on her, and there was an answering 
 smile on most of the suffering faces. None 
 but myself, however, took in the message 
 which the child, well-drilled beforehand, 
 delivered in French. 
 
 "Monsieur I'officier," she said, in quaintly 
 precise accents, "ne faites pas I'^tonn^, mais 
 prenez du fruit; et trouvez moyen d'aller 
 bientot dans le long corridor oil vous attend 
 madame ma mbre. . . . C'estun secret," she 
 added, handing me the basket. Then she 
 made another salute and went away laughing. 
 
 By-and-by, leaving my companions in sick- 
 ness engaged upon their afternoon refection, I 
 made my V7ay with a natural air from the 
 ward, and downstairs to the long, cool corridor 
 whither the rendezvous called me. 
 
 In the dark recess of a small passage leading 
 to some unused apartments I found my hostess. 
 She stretched out her hand to me, and — I don't 
 know why — tears rose to my eyes. 
 
 "What must you have thought of our strange 
 
 242
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 discourtesy these last days?" she said, in a 
 melancholy voice, hardly raised above a whis- 
 per. "It has not been our wont, I assure you, 
 to treat honourable guests thus — but, alas, my 
 friend, it was as much for your sake as for our 
 own. I have been denounced — denounced by 
 one of my own people, by a girl to whom I have 
 been as a mother . . . but let that pass. She 
 has a lover in the Kossuth ranks, and, as I say, 
 I have been denounced as an Imperialist. And 
 that, you know, for a full-blooded Hungarian, 
 on Hungarian soil, is the deepest treachery," 
 
 She gave a faint smile and paused, I 
 remembered the dark damsel of the vindictive 
 eyes with growing anticipation of evil. 
 
 "Surely, surely," I cried, "it was not 
 because of your heavenly goodness to me!" 
 
 "Hush!" she whispered, "not so loud! God 
 alone knows how many spies I may now have 
 in my household." Then she added with 
 exquisite simplicity, "Believe me I do not 
 regret the little I have done for you; it has 
 been a sore grief for me to have to neglect my 
 guest. But I am standing, as it were, on a 
 volcano. The Nationalists are victorious on 
 every side, and tales have come to us that they 
 are as unsparing as they are swift in their 
 reprisals. We would have sought safety in 
 flight, I and my little ones and our good 
 Miklos; for two days we have watched our 
 
 243
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 chance, but the servants were also on the 
 watch; we dared not." 
 
 "Perhaps," I stammered in horror, "when I 
 deliver this place from my presence, the cause 
 of irritation will be gone, this senseless ani- 
 mosity against you will die of itself. And, you 
 know, most gracious lady, it is my duty to try 
 and rejoin the colours as soon as ever this cursed 
 weakness allows me to make the attempt." 
 
 "Alas," she said, "and if you do I shall be 
 but doubly convicted of guilt, accused of 
 encompassing your escape." 
 
 I heard her in an anguish of perplexity. I 
 had been looking forward to the instant when 
 I could, with the barest chance of success, 
 make a bold try to reach the nearest Austrian 
 outposts ; for one recurring burden in my long 
 spells of reflection was the dread of any 
 appearance to have tarried too long from the 
 duties of the field. But how could I risk 
 bringing fresh misfortune upon that noble 
 lady to whom, albeit most innocently, I had 
 already been the cause of so much anxiety? 
 
 She, herself, made no attempt to dissuade 
 me from what I had termed my duty. The 
 generosity of her silence smote me to the 
 heart. I took my resolve, and, as I kissed her 
 hand — 
 
 "At least then," I whispered earnestly, "I 
 shall be near you, whatever betide." 
 
 244
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 She looked at me — great gawky lad that I 
 was — as a mother might, and said, quietly: 
 
 "We are in God's hand; but at least you are 
 warned. You understand. And now you must 
 go, for this, too, is dangerous to both of us. " 
 
 Again I kissed her hand and left her. As I 
 emerged from the shade into the light of the 
 great windows at the turning of the passage, I 
 came face to face with the very girl to whom I 
 imputed the base ingratitude of denouncing her 
 mistress. She was in the act of drawing on 
 her shoes, 
 
 I started back with an instant flash of con- 
 viction that we had noiselessly been tracked to 
 our secret interview, and was appalled at the 
 thought of the capital this creature's malice 
 could, under the circumstances, make of our 
 innocent conversation. 
 
 She dropped me an insolent, mocking 
 curtsey, and went by, rapping on her heels, 
 without a word. The look in her eyes was 
 this time triumphant in its hatred. 
 
 Heavy of heart, I re-entered the sickly 
 atmosphere of the ward which, as matters 
 stood, was already much like a prison to me, 
 weighing in the uneven balance of a sick man's 
 mind the pros and cons of a dilemma, the most 
 trying perhaps to a soldier that can be. con- 
 ceived. But the problem, as far as I was con- 
 cerned, was rudely solved that day, 
 
 245
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 Early in the sultry afternoon there came, 
 without, a great clatter of hoofs and trailing 
 scabbards; and vigorous Terejntete's, with 
 other Hungarian expletives bursting from the 
 new-comers, testified fully to the horsemen's 
 nationality even before an under officer of 
 hussars tramped into the room and placed a 
 sentry at the door, after which it was patent 
 that I and my fellow Imperials were to regard 
 ourselves as prisoners. 
 
 Later on there floated in through the open 
 window the blare of military bands, distant at 
 first, then nearer and nearer till it sounded in 
 the court of honour itself, amid an extraor- 
 dinary noise and confusion which presently 
 spread throughout the whole mansion. 
 
 Although no information could be drawn 
 from the taciturn hussar, who, with his drawn 
 sabre on his knees, sat on a bench near the 
 door, smoking his red clay-pipe, it was easy to 
 guess, of course, that the headquarters of 
 some general had been transferred to Kom- 
 jath. But what the gentry were about, to pro- 
 duce such endless bustle, inside and out, such 
 hammering and tramping, exercised my 
 ingenuity in the extreme. 
 
 The mystery thickened when at supper-time 
 a note on official foolscap was brought into the 
 ward by a file of soldiers for "Cornet Ainsdale 
 of the Royal- Imperial Chevau-legers," which 
 
 246
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 note requested his attendance within half-an- 
 hour in the dining-hall, "by request of the 
 Lady of Komjath. " 
 
 "By order of General Nagy-Sandor, " said 
 the soldier who handed me the missive, as I 
 looked up amazed. 
 
 With the calmness born of immediate 
 emergency, and feeling the eyes of all my 
 comrades fixed curiously upon me, I rose from 
 my usual recumbent position, made a deliber- 
 ate toilet, and donned the damning white coat 
 which I had thrown off in the heat of the day. 
 Then, without a word, I followed my guard. 
 
 The house was now as busy as an ant-hill, 
 swarming with men in all conceivable semi- 
 military accoutrements, but bearing peaceably 
 enough dishes, napery or baskets of wine, and 
 driving the distracted maids hither and 
 thither, some with curses, others with laughter 
 and cavalier gallantry. 
 
 On the threshold of the dining-room I 
 stopped amazed: in truth it was a strange 
 sight. The walls were hung with green 
 branches and scarves of the Hungarian 
 colours. The great centre table, spread as for 
 a banquet, was laden with magnificent silver 
 plate, which (as I learned since) had been 
 fished up for the occasion from a safe hiding 
 place at the bottom of the well. The room, 
 brilliantly illuminated, was filled with Honved 
 
 247
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 officers of every rank. A few were in the 
 decent regular Hungarian uniform, the majority 
 were attired, after the melodramatic manner 
 cherished by the revolutionary leaders, in long 
 blue coats tightly compassed by tricolour 
 scarves, high boots, chained and spurred, 
 broad felt hats almost covered by fluttering 
 green or blue plumes, pistols in their belts, 
 and enormous cavalry sabres trailing at their 
 heels. 
 
 In the midst of this unseemly throng I pres- 
 ently distinguished the white dresses of the 
 children; and the Countess herself, a patch of 
 darkness among so much garish colour, in her 
 long mourning robes. 
 
 The little ones were clinging to her skirts, 
 too frightened, it seemed, even to cry. The 
 boy, his small sunburnt face puckered into a 
 scowl of defiance, stood by her side, and she 
 now and again passed her hand, as if uncon- 
 sciously, over the short black stubble of his 
 cropped head. She was engaged in earnest 
 intercourse with two officers whose backs were 
 turned to me. A kind of circle was formed 
 round the group, and the cold thought sud- 
 denly struck me that she looked as though 
 standing on her trial. My guards stopped 
 just inside the room, waiting for an order to 
 approach, and I was able to watch undisturbed. 
 
 There was a stillness in the room, a stillness 
 
 248
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 most impressive where so many were gathered 
 together. All looks were bent upon the 
 Countess, and her voice, delicate, refined, and 
 strangely controlled, alone broke the silence. 
 Every word fell from her lips as clear as a 
 drop of water; by her eyes alone I guessed 
 there was deadly mischief afoot; they were 
 dark with anguish, yet they never wavered in 
 their earnest fixing of him who seemed chief 
 of the band — a burly brute of most doubtful 
 and unsavoury mien, and more theatrical even 
 than the rest in magnitude of sash, spurs, and 
 feathers. 
 
 When she ceased he cleared his throat, spat 
 on the polished floor, and began to address her 
 in judicial, deliberate tones, preserving, as he 
 spoke, the same easy insolent attitude, half 
 resting on his sword, one foot negligently 
 crossed over the other. My young blood — the 
 little that the Valkyrie's buckshot had left in 
 me — boiled in my veins. I would gladly have 
 given it all to be able to strike that ruffian's 
 face as he stood in his idiotic frippery before 
 this high-born lady, so noble in her bearing, so 
 touching in her young widowhood, so beauti- 
 ful, and so helpless with her children around 
 her. 
 
 I could make no sense of his words, but I 
 noted how now and then she shook her head in 
 indignant denial. As she interrupted him at 
 
 249
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 length he brutally raised his voice and bore 
 down her disclaimers by sheer strength of 
 lung; and then he let fall a short sentence 
 with unmistakable intent. At this there 
 passed, even to my seeing, who could make 
 nothing of it all, a wave of strong emotion 
 through the whole throng of listeners. 
 
 The Countess recoiled, her pale face 
 blanched to lividness; and with a gesture I 
 have never forgotten, gathered all her children 
 with both arms into the sweep of her wide 
 skirts, as if she would shut out the horror from 
 their ears. 
 
 The general laughed loudly, and wheeling 
 round caught sight of me as I still stood 
 motionless between my two attendants in a 
 frenzy of mute rage, which only an imminent 
 sense of the necessity of self-control enabled 
 me to conceal. 
 
 He looked at me keenly for a moment, then 
 in harsh German : 
 
 "Young man," he asked, "how long have 
 you served under the black-and-yellow?" 
 
 "Six months," I said. 
 
 "You are English?" 
 
 "I am so." 
 
 "Yet the English, I am told, hold for the 
 free Magyar against the accursed Austrian." 
 
 This I would have denied, but he cut me 
 short sharply. 
 
 250
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 "See here, young sir, cast your lot with us 
 and your sword will be at once given back to 
 you, and with it the glorious tricolour sash. 
 Our side is winning and will soon have swept 
 the invaders north, west, and south. You 
 will not be the first — ha, you refuse!" — I had 
 not spoken, but I suppose my face was elo- 
 quent enough — "then take your chance. 
 Please yourself. We want officers for ex- 
 change — or retaliation. And retaliation, just 
 at present, is the most likely," he added, 
 thrusting his ugly face close to mine with an 
 offensive and significant grin, "for by to-day's 
 news there has been more hanging of patriots 
 in Haynau's lines. And now, since it is our 
 wish, on this festive day, to gratify our 
 gracious hostess, who, we understand, loves 
 an Austrian better than her own people, you 
 will please to conduct her to the supper table. ' ' 
 
 Thereupon he bellowed forth some order, on 
 which there was a general and noisy move 
 towards the board. 
 
 Before he left me, the triumphant brigand 
 said three words to one of my escort, who for 
 the remainder of the night shadowed me with 
 silent pertinacity. 
 
 The Countess, whose side I immediately 
 sought, mechanically took my arm and moved 
 with me to the vacant seats which seemed left 
 for us. As I sat down my eyes wandered 
 
 251
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 vaguely round the table, and marked the chil- 
 dren's little heads, in different degrees of 
 proximity to their plates, amidst a group of 
 boyish-looking officers who were laughing and 
 joking with them, kindly enough it must be 
 said. These were at the end, where the 
 juniors of this strange party had collected 
 together. Higher up were less pleasant 
 countenances, hairy and savage, out of which 
 many menacing pairs of eyes were directed 
 towards us. Then, suddenly, as my gaze 
 came nearer home, I saw for the first time the 
 guest who had taken the place of honour on the 
 general's right. 
 
 I was transfixed. 
 
 There could be no mistaking that face: 
 there, in the flash, was the vision-face that had 
 hovered in the darkness of the Ap^li woods! 
 
 Although I remained staring at her with a 
 stupefaction which in my weak state I was 
 long in overcoming, the young woman — the 
 lady I should say, for there was no mistaking 
 her high-bred status, from her composed bear- 
 ing and refinement under her semi-masculine 
 garb — took no notice of me, but carried on a 
 detached conversation with the general, cast- 
 ing, however, ever and anon, a hard look or a 
 cruel smile on my neighbour. And the repast 
 proceeded, noisily on the offxcers' side, in abso- 
 lute silence on ours. 
 
 At length my hostess spoke. She had sat up 
 
 252
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 to this, staring at her untouched plate; but 
 now she turned her eyes upon her children, 
 and then upon the woman who had usurped 
 her place at the head of the table, with a long, 
 agonised gaze. The latter met the look with 
 unflinching hardness, and the Countess sighed 
 as if awaking from a dream. 
 
 "And that is my sister!" she said to me with 
 tragic simplicity. 
 
 Then with her eyes looking as it were into 
 the future — those deep blue eyes, whose beauty 
 was in their sweetness, unlike the haughty 
 Amazon's opposite, which were hard and 
 brilliant as a hawk's — she added — 
 
 "And it may be said, in days to come, when 
 this fearful war is a thing of the past, that a 
 defenceless woman and her children were tor- 
 tured and put to death by people of her own 
 race, through the betrayal of her sister. ' ' 
 
 "Great God! Impossible! I cannot believe 
 it," I stammered aghast. 
 
 As I spoke a thin smile flickering on the red 
 lips of my Valkyrie, showed that, for all her 
 indifferent airs, she was keenly observant of us 
 both. She suddenly leaned forward and fixed 
 me with her burning eyes, and changing her 
 speech to German, which she spoke with a 
 singular hiss, abruptly addressed me, 
 
 "Believe it, Herr Lieutenant, believe it, for 
 it may very well be ! And if it be your own 
 
 253
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 fate to survive, pray repeat the tale far and 
 wide!" 
 
 There fell a dead silence upon the guests as 
 she uttered these words, and all eyes were 
 directed towards our end. The incredible 
 cold-bloodedness of her speech, the insolence 
 of her gaze, the sense of being watched, stung 
 me from my bewilderment into a show of 
 expostulation. 
 
 "It is a hard thing to believe," said I hotly; 
 "the Hungarians are merciless enemies — I 
 have experienced it myself — but they are after 
 all soldiers, civilised men, not savages, to 
 murder women and torture babes. ' ' 
 She answered with bitter emphasis — 
 "So are you Imperials, soldiers, civilised 
 men, not savages, by your account; but you 
 flog Italian and Hungarian women — that is 
 not torture ! You hang patriots, who fight for 
 freedom and rights — that is not murder! 
 Unable to meet us heart to heart, under the 
 fair sun, upon your own strength, you hound 
 up all our rapacious neighbours against us; 
 and these not being yet sufficient to give you 
 victory, you call to your aid tribes of wild 
 beasts from Russia. This is honourable, is it 
 not? So, Herr Lieutenant, we must even 
 fight in the way you taught us. Aye, believe 
 it, believe it! For it is as true as that my 
 betrothed, a noble Magyar fighting for his 
 
 254
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 rights, has been strangled on Austrian gal- 
 lows ; as true as that I, a woman, took his place 
 among soldiers and have been flogged by 
 Austrian rods. You can tell your chief Hay- 
 nau, if so it be that you live to return to him, 
 what you shall have seen, a high lady of the 
 land," — pointing to the Countess — "because 
 she has been proved traitress to her country, 
 hanged at her own gates, yes, and her children, 
 too, that a brood of traitors may not live! 
 Tell him that, Herr Lieutenant, and assure 
 him that there is not a house now, not a comer 
 of our country where treachery, even in 
 thought, can hide itself from Hungarian 
 retribution!" 
 
 Against this extraordinary tirade I could at 
 first find no words. The Countess herself, her 
 eyes fixed with an indescribable expression 
 upon her sister's face, remained dumb, as if 
 realising all the uselessness of argument. 
 
 "And yet," I retorted at last, still making a 
 faltering effort at expostulation, "you inter- 
 ceded in the woods near Comorn to save me 
 from the scythe. It is to your womanly 
 instinct of pity ' ' 
 
 The contemptuous smile that curled her lips 
 froze the eager words upon my tongue. In 
 bantering tones she spoke — 
 
 "Oh, it was you, young sir, was it indeed? 
 And I interceded, say you? You really flatter
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 yourself! No, no, my pretty officer, I thought 
 you were despatched — that my escopette had 
 done its work. I merely told the man 'twould 
 be useless, and would spoil a pretty corpse!" 
 
 There was a loud burst of laughter on this 
 humourous sally at my discomfiture. "But 
 maybe," she added with much significance, 
 "you will lose nothing." 
 
 Then the Valkyrie rose and addressed her 
 comrades with a few ringing sentences in her 
 own tongue. Her words suddenly raised a 
 hellish enthusiasm among them, and all at once 
 every man sprang to his feet, hastily filling 
 brimmers of the blood-red wine. And, with the 
 clatter of swords drawn and chairs cast away, 
 there rose within the room the thundering 
 ^""Eljcn Kossuth!'' which was instantly echoed 
 from outside, where presently the band blared 
 forth in brassy tones the Kossuth March. 
 Thereupon, with spontaneous accord, the 
 feasters' raucous voices took up the chant with 
 much brandishing of swords and dashing of 
 glasses. 
 
 Those who have not witnessed Hungarian 
 enthusiasm cannot realise its truly demoniacal 
 frenzy. Through all this uproar pierced the 
 high-pitched shrieks of the children, who, 
 profiting by the confusion, escaped from their 
 captors to run once more into their mother's 
 arms. 
 
 256
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 To me, choking with indignation, yet held 
 down by bodily weakness and the helplessness 
 of circumstance, the scene was a very night- 
 mare; and that feeling was not a little in- 
 creased when I noted, as I moved away to 
 remain by the side of the Countess and her 
 piteous little bodyguard, when she tremblingly 
 sought a distant corner, that the sentry, whom 
 I had forgotten, still followed me about, close 
 and silent like a shadow. Then I seem to 
 have lost the exact consciousness of all that 
 followed ; but by-and-by, blindly seeking fresh 
 air at the open window, I became aware in the 
 moonlight of many carriages rumbling into 
 the great courtyard; and the band just outside 
 the hall began to play dance music. When I 
 turned round once more I verily believed for a 
 moment that delirium had again overtaken me. 
 
 The banquet hall had become a ball-room, 
 and a number of couples were already swirling 
 to the measures of a heart-stirring waltz ; the 
 ladies in lowest and gayest of ball-dresses, 
 each displaying in some manner and most 
 conspicuously the red-green-white of National- 
 ist sympathy, resting white-gloved hands and 
 bare arms on the dirty, worn tunics of the 
 officers. 
 
 A young hussar lieutenant, who had just 
 halted beside me, smiled his delight with 
 gleaming white teeth under his black mous- 
 
 257
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 tache, laughed openly at my stricken counte- 
 nance, and said, in excellent English — 
 
 "Is this not, sir, an exquisite attention of 
 our general to so many people who, likely, 
 must die to-morrow? Making a pleasure of 
 the muster! A good muster, you see. All 
 right-thinking neighbours have been ordered 
 to attend. How much is patriotism, how much 
 fear — ah, how much love for the dance? Well, 
 dum viviinus, vivamus. It might almost be 
 taken as our National motto. If you, sir, 
 were even a Viennese (let alone Hungarian) 
 instead of a cool Englishman, invalid though 
 you be, you would have enough fresh life put 
 into you by this music to make you dance till 
 dawn. I love Englishmen though," he added, 
 as he prepared with his panting partner to 
 plunge once more into the maze. "I am sorry 
 to see you here, and not of us. Well, the for- 
 tune of war!" and he whirled away from me. 
 
 Presently, among the gyrating couples, the 
 Countess herself, half carried on the arm of the 
 Honved general, passed close in front, her 
 dainty black satin slippers following bravely 
 enough the piercing measures of the waltz, in 
 time with the wornout high boots and the 
 silver spurs ; but on her face was none of the 
 glow that lit up almost every cheek ; the long- 
 lashed eyelids were dropped; already she 
 looked more like a corpse than a living being ; 
 
 258
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 already methought I saw the livid rope mark 
 on that fair throat, and the blood curdled in 
 my veins. A young officer, who found himself 
 without a full-grown partner, had, in cruel fun, 
 seized the youngest child, mute and tearless 
 with terror, and was whirling it at the swiftest 
 pace in and out of the waltzing groups. 
 
 A Danse Macabre of victims and murderers ! 
 And again the word. Fear, so carelessly 
 dropped by the hussar. Fear, antiphon of 
 Patriotism, came to my mind; how many here 
 present had not that grim spectre at the back 
 of their gaiety? 
 
 The devoted victim of the morrow had 
 passed through the arms of some half dozen of 
 the chiefs, for ladies were in a minority at this 
 expiatory funeral ball, and she still main- 
 tained a brave bearing, dimly hoping, perhaps 
 (though a faint resource indeed), to awaken 
 some chivalrous pity in these savages by her 
 undaunted mien, when, through the open win- 
 dows, over the swinging measures of music, 
 came the sound of a tearing gallop on the stone 
 bridge. There was a sharp call, a loud word of 
 command, the music stopped suddenly, and 
 presently, as in the hall the dancing couples 
 halted and separated, an officer of hussars 
 entered, covered with dust and begrimed with 
 sweat, who in a peremptory voice demanded 
 the general. And when the latter advanced 
 
 259
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 and tore open the proffered dispatch, the new- 
 comer looked around with astonished and 
 displeased countenance on the scene of 
 unseasonable revelry. 
 
 The message, brief as it seemed, was evi- 
 dently pregnant with meaning. The general 
 called up his staff around him, a rapid con- 
 sultation ensued, and several officers forthwith 
 disappeared to carry out orders. Nothing 
 more was now heard in the hall but the buck- 
 ling of belts, low-voiced comments of the men, 
 whispered words of the ladies as they withdrew 
 to different corners. I saw my blue hussar, 
 making a low bow to the Countess, who had 
 retreated to the further end of the room, where 
 she was again surrounded by her children, 
 address a few words to her, upon which she 
 disappeared behind a group of her guests. 
 And presently he passed me without looking 
 at me ; but stooping to pick up his fur busby 
 left in a corner of the window, he said again 
 in English — 
 
 "Sir, keep out of sight if you can — best 
 wishes ; farewell. ' ' 
 
 After which with admirable swagger he 
 went to seek his post. 
 
 By this time, in the courtyard, the clarions 
 sounded their panting peals, whilst in the vil- 
 lage hard by the graver notes of the cavalry 
 trumpets called to boot and saddle. And 
 
 260
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 shortly — for the Hungarian levies were dis- 
 ciplined enough when fighting was at hand — 
 some three battalions of foot were steadily- 
 arrayed under the silver moonlight in the wide 
 court of honour; further away, in the night, 
 was heard the champing of horses in long 
 lines ; still further, down the road rattled and 
 rumbled the ordnance train already on the 
 move. 
 
 At last, besides the guests, the prisoners and 
 my motionless warder, there remained none in 
 the room but the Valkyrie (I could never think 
 of her by any other name) and the bepiumed 
 volunteer general. To him, at one time, she 
 spoke inquiringly, pointing with marked 
 significance in the direction of her sister. I 
 guessed the ferocious question. But the man, 
 all engrossed by the present juncture, merely 
 looked round unseeingly, and his eyes reverted 
 to the papers in his hand. At that moment 
 yet another messenger entered the hall, a 
 peasant of the plains in the white smock of his 
 class, who had that to announce which made 
 the general start in anger and hurriedly seek 
 his charger. 
 
 The last to leave us was the Valkyrie. She 
 stood still some moments and looked round 
 pensively at the white group of women in the 
 distant end; then, reluctantly, she walked 
 away with clanking spurs. 
 
 261
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 A few moments later, from the dark masses 
 of men gathered in front of the Castle, rose, 
 like the firing of a powder train ending in 
 explosion, the soaring ''' Eljen'' of the National- 
 ists, as the general galloped past the ranks 
 with the usual words of patriotic exultation. 
 And in ten minutes, to the blood-stirring 
 strains of the Rakoczy March, the partisan 
 force had marched forth : marched on its way to 
 annihilation. For this was the dawn of the 
 23rd of July, 1849, when the long spell of fitful 
 Hungarian victories was broken by the first 
 successful surprise action on our side, com- 
 pleted by Russian pursuit. 
 
 In the Castle of Komjath, as the twilight of 
 returning day warmed from siluer to gold, 
 none were left but the sick and the serving- 
 women as before, together with the gaily 
 attired ladies who had been ordered to attend 
 the dance, and who now waited for their car- 
 riages — waited in vain, for all horses and 
 coachmen had been impressed by the guerrilla. 
 Even the sentry placed over my precious body 
 with such strict injunctions had been unable to 
 resist the wild cheering, and was no doubt now 
 tramping with his comrades and eagerly scent- 
 ing the fight from afar. 
 
 In the house there was all but complete 
 silence. Just as the sun in his splendour 
 peered at us over the hill-top between two 
 
 262
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 poplar-trees, dazzling our tired eyes, yet greet- 
 ing them as a joyous omen, there rolled 
 through the window on the wing of the breeze 
 the distant boom of cannon; and, not many 
 minutes later, the faint crepitation of musketry 
 began to be heard, varied at times by the more 
 formal rattle of volleys. And we knew that the 
 momentous struggle had begun. 
 
 Some of the women were on their knees. 
 
 Still in her corner the Countess sat apart and 
 silent, with her youngest child on her knee, 
 watching the others as they slept on the sofa. 
 As for me, as I noted the great blue circles of 
 exhaustion under her eyes, and the stamp of 
 the terrible strain on her drawn features, cold 
 shivers of impotent fury ran the length of my 
 spine. With what fervour I yearned for bodily 
 strength, for a sturdy horse with which to 
 meet on fair terms, sword in hand, our insolent 
 victors of an hour ago ! 
 
 In such outer stillness and inner turmoil of 
 thought — varied for me at least, for I believe 
 I was at moments light-headed, by intervals 
 of dreaminess — did the morning pass away. 
 Out of this state of things we were awakened 
 by returning commotion in the outer world. I 
 was glued to my chair by weakness; but I 
 remember that, as the sound of horses neared 
 the house, the Countess started to her feet and 
 with the crying child in her arms ran to the 
 
 263
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 balcony. There was a ghastly look of renewed 
 terror on her face ; but after she had peered 
 out for a moment under her slender jewelled 
 hand, it suddenly changed to one of over- 
 powering joy. 
 
 And presently clanging military footsteps 
 resounded again at the door. A burly major 
 of Uhlans entered with an adjutant. The two 
 men stood one moment on the threshold star- 
 ing angrily at the unsparing display of the 
 rebel tricolour and the signs of recent f estive- 
 ness in the room, and next the Major was 
 towering in front of my chair, eyeing me with 
 an appalling look, and severely demanding an 
 explanation concerning the presence of an 
 Imperial officer amidst such surroundings. 
 
 I rose by a desperate effort, with a sickly 
 attempt at cavalry smartness ; but the change 
 of posture was fatal, and I slid down on the 
 parquet floor. After this I recollect nothing 
 for that day, except noticing in one returning 
 glimmer of consciousness, as I was escorted 
 away, that the body of the grey-headed 
 steward — already some hours dead to judge 
 from his limply pendent feet— was swinging 
 under the gateway, and that five noosed ropes, 
 still awaiting their burdens, dangled side by 
 side from the same beam ! 
 
 The posthumous testimony of the faithful 
 old servant corroborating what to a regular 
 
 264
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 soldier must have seemed at first an utterly 
 incredible tale, no doubt saved the Countess 
 from many unmerited troubles at the hands of 
 her very saviours. 
 
 But saviours they really proved. A few days 
 later came the news of the incomprehensible 
 surrender at Vilagos ; that sudden betrayal of 
 the indomitable Hungarian army by Gorgey— 
 Gorgey already traitor to his King, traitor in 
 the end to his own chosen side — which put an 
 end to the National movement. 
 
 Then began, as we all know, the period of 
 ruthless and injudicious Austrian persecution 
 which for so many years kept alive a burning 
 hatred between the two nations. 
 
 It was, however, with a feeling that 
 "poetical" justice had had its course in one 
 case at least, that I learned, soon after my 
 return to duty, that Nagy-Sandor and his staff 
 — among which was the partisan general who 
 had ordered the Death-Dance festivities at 
 Komjath — had been hanged with little cere- 
 mony by General Haynau soon after the fall 
 of Comorn. 
 
 All this is matter of history. What still ap- 
 pertains to the present relation is the influence 
 of that far-off incident on the course of my life. 
 
 The chain was reconnected only some seven- 
 teen years later, in that well-known year of 
 
 265
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 happy forgiveness and reconciliation, when the 
 Kaiser was at last crowned King of Hungary, 
 in his Hungarian capital. I had just left the 
 Imperial service, the immediate cause of this 
 change being an unexpected succession to the 
 Bycross estate. Now, although the event was 
 welcome enough, there was in my thoughts an 
 under-current of sadness at leaving for ever the 
 old regiment in which I had served almost a 
 score of years and which was none the less 
 glorious, indeed was almost all the dearer to 
 me, for that most of its later service had been 
 associated with defeat. 
 
 Before returning to England, on my way 
 back from Pesth, strangely impressed with the 
 barbaric splendours of the coronation, more 
 especially with the marvellous sight of the 
 Magyars' enthusiasm in their restored loyalty 
 to their King, I yielded to an irresistible desire 
 to re-visit the nefarious neighbourhood of 
 Comorn. Riding at leisure, master of my own 
 time, I wended my way from the Apali woods 
 through the rich and peaceful land of Neutra, 
 and pushed as far as the well-remembered 
 strategic bridge of Komjath. 
 
 Over its sounding stones I passed once more 
 and reined in to contemplate the scene. Just 
 the same despite the lapse of years, save for a 
 more prosperous appearance. In the court of 
 honour, amid the heavy laden rose-trees near 
 
 266
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 the walls, fluttered the white dress of a lady 
 attended by maids in the bright national cos- 
 tume : the whole land at that time was airing 
 its national jubilation. 
 
 I boldly entered, and to my question whether 
 the Countess still lived at the Castle — 
 
 "There is the gracious lady herself," 
 answered the gate-keeper reverentially. He 
 took my horse, and I advanced hat in hand. 
 
 Although much aged in face, she was still 
 alert and beautiful, and I knew her at once. 
 But she, of course, could not recognise in the 
 mature Rittmeister who, unannounced, was 
 thus invading her ground, the callow boy that 
 in the old distressful days a Russian ambu- 
 lance had dropped at her door; she eyed me 
 with courteous inquiry. 
 
 "Can the Countess," I asked, "in these 
 times of fraternal reconciliation, recall to mind 
 a certain great ball at Castle Komj^th, where 
 one Cornet Ainsdale, so nearly the cause of 
 irreparable mischief, had the honour to 
 attend?" 
 
 Before the end of my phrase the look of 
 polite affability in the lady's eyes had given 
 place to amazement and pleasure. She 
 dropped the gathered roses with a joyful excla- 
 mation and extended both her hands. 
 
 And thus for the second time I found myself 
 the guest of Komjath. And again, though 
 
 267
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 under no precarious conditions, I remained a 
 long while. And when I left I bore away with 
 me one of that warm-hearted household to con- 
 nect for ever the variegated past with the 
 happy present — Luise, the little dark-eyed 
 messenger of yore. But this is forestalling. 
 
 As we walked towards the entrance, talking 
 of course of the tragic days of old, there 
 appeared in the distance a slender young 
 woman who rode with admirable grace a long- 
 tailed black horse. 
 
 "Does Major Ainsdale," asked my hostess, 
 mimicking my words of self-introduction, 
 "recollect a very tiny child who passed most 
 of that night of emotion in her mother's arms, 
 little conscious of being so near death on the 
 gallows? There she comes — Luise." 
 
 But, when I looked under the new-comer's 
 felt hat, I nearly called aloud. There was 
 before my eyes my Valkyrie again ! The same 
 oval face with its ardent pallor, the same 
 lustrous dark eyes which so long had haunted 
 my memory. The same, yet not the same. 
 For, as smiling and blushing, the rider 
 acknowledged our introduction, the image of 
 the set, revengeful Amazon of my recollections 
 melted for ever into a radiant vision of sweet 
 and timid maidenhood. And I have never seen 
 it again these thirty years until it was evoked 
 again by the transient flash of the matchlight. 
 
 268
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 My hostess read my thoughts instantly. 
 
 "Luise reminds you of some one else," she 
 exclaimed. "Ah! it will please you no doubt 
 to meet again the original, ' ' she added laugh- 
 ingly, "who lives with us, and is here now — fresh 
 returned from the crowning festivities atPesth. " 
 
 I looked at her amazed, hardly realising 
 amidst the fresh memories of the surround- 
 ings the meaning of her words. 
 
 When we moved into the great hall which I 
 knew so well, we found there a rather stout, 
 middle-aged, good-natured, and cosy-looking 
 woman, engaged in presiding over the afternoon 
 coffee, and distributing good things to several 
 young people in a most motherly manner. 
 
 To this personage, in whom I could not trace 
 the smallest likeness to the relentless leader of 
 men I had first seen by powder light, I was 
 introduced by the Countess (with just a shadow 
 of sly emphasis) as having been a witness of 
 certain critical events in the terrible year. 
 
 I kissed her hand — that hand which would 
 have tied the noose round her sister's neck, 
 and the children's little innocent weasands — 
 I was like a man in a dream ; there was no 
 connecting her with the beautiful and relent- 
 less Valkyrie of my boyish days. 
 
 She was affable and apparently unconcerned, 
 though during the course of the meal she 
 paused once with the bread-knife half through 
 
 269
 
 THE DEATH-DANCE 
 
 the loaf she was slicing, gazing into void as if 
 in a profound day-dream. 
 
 It was only later, when she had stretched 
 herself in an arm-chair and was puffing at a 
 long Virginia, whilst the smallest grand- 
 nephew, who was her special pet, sat on her 
 broad lap and watched with delight the opal 
 cloud issuing from her lips, that we fairly 
 broached again the chapter of reminiscences. 
 
 Opposite to us, the Countess, with her 
 daughter by her side, was embroidering some 
 piece of work in the now legalised and 
 ubiquitous national tints, and smilingly listen- 
 ing to the fitful talk. 
 
 I mentioned, in time, to the retired Amazon 
 the five ropes hanging under the portal — my 
 last recollection of that eventful day. 
 
 "Do you not wish," I asked, "that you could 
 efface those dreadful times from your memory, 
 or at least do you not feel thankful that they 
 are now buried so far away in the past?" 
 
 For awhile she answered nought, but mus- 
 ingly caressed the child's fair hair whilst a 
 wistful smile played on her lips. Then she 
 drew a sigh deep from her heavy bosom, kissed 
 the boy, and put him on his feet. 
 
 "Ah!" she said with an effort, as if putting 
 the thought aside, "I was young then." 
 
 During the whole of my stay there the sub- 
 ject was never alluded to again. 
 
 270
 
 By CLINTON ROSS 
 
 THE SCARLET COAT 
 A tale of the siege of Yorktown. 
 
 It is seldom that so much valuable history is to be found in a 
 novel as "The Scarlet Coat" contains. It is one of the inosfr 
 interesting stories of the Revolution that has appeared in many 
 a year— a charming story from first to last.— The Army and Navy 
 Register. 
 
 ' 'The Scarlet Coat' ' is an extremely interesting historical novel. 
 — Springfield Republican. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. $1.25. 
 
 THE PUPPET 
 
 A story of adventure. 
 
 All the work that we have seen thus far glows with happy 
 enthusiasm. His brush is moist with the colors that tell.— 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 Unless we are very much mistaken, he is a literary figure of 
 great importance. There is an ease, combined with delicacy of 
 treatment, which renders his stories peculiarly attractive. Add 
 to this freshness of motive, skill, characterization, and excellent 
 powers of description, and it will be seen that this young 
 romancer has distinct claims on our attention. — Boston Transcript. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. Uniform with " The Scarlet Coat." 
 $1.25. 
 
 THE MEDDLING HUSSY 
 
 The thirteen tales making up this collection have 
 from time to time appeared in the great magazines, 
 and have met witQ great success. Indeed, it was 
 through these "Battle Tales" that Mr. Ross first 
 came to be known by the larger public, and not until 
 the appearance of " The Scarlet Coat " was his genius 
 for the novel recognized. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. Uniform with " The Scarlet Coat." 
 Illustrated. $1.50. 
 
 Heebert S. Stone & Co., Chicago & New York.
 
 By ROBERT HICHENS 
 
 THE LONDONERS: AN ABSURDITY 
 
 " The Green Carnation '' was among the most amus- 
 ing society sketches that recent years have given us. 
 After it Mr, Hichens, perhaps wisely, devoted himself 
 to much more serious work. In " The Londoners " 
 he returns to his original manner without making his 
 burlesque so personal. It is the story of a smart 
 woman, wearied by her position and its duties, who 
 seeks to get out of society. The idea is an original 
 one, and when contrasted with the efforts of a second 
 heroine to get into society, the result is wholly delight- 
 ful. The story has already attained a considerable 
 popularity. 
 
 With a cover designed by Claude F. Bragdon. 
 12mo. Cloth. Second impression. $1.50. 
 
 FLAMES: A LONDON FANTASY 
 
 The book is sure to be widely read. — Buffalo Commercial. 
 
 It carries on the attention of the reader from the first chapter 
 to the last. Full of exciting- incidents, very modern, excessively 
 up to date. — London Daily Telegraph. 
 
 In his last book Mr. Hichens has entirely proved himself. His 
 talent does not so much lie in the conventional novel, but more 
 in his strange and fantastic medium. " Flames " suits him, has 
 him at his best. — Pall Hall Gazette. 
 
 "Flames " is a jvowerful story, not only for the novelty of its 
 plot, but for the skill with which it is M^orked out, the brilliancy 
 of its descriptions of the London streets, of the seamy side of the 
 city's life which night turns to the beholder; but the descriptions 
 are neither erotic nor morbid. * * * We may repudiate the 
 central idea of soul-transference, but the theory is made the 
 vehicle of this striking tale in a manner that is entirely sane and 
 wholesome. It leaves no bad taste in the mouth. * * * 
 "Flames" — it is the author's fancy that the soul is like a little 
 flame, and hence the title — must be read with care. There is 
 much epigrammatic writing in it that will delight the literary 
 palate. It is far and away ahead of anything that Mr. Hichens 
 has ever written before. — Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 With a cover designed by F. R. Kimbrough. 12mo. 
 Cloth. Second impression. $1.50. 
 
 Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago & New York.
 
 By JULIA MAGRUDER 
 
 A REALIZED IDEAL 
 
 Miss Julia Magruder has by this time firmly estab- 
 lished her reputation as one of the most popular of 
 our younger writers. Many readers had their intro- 
 duction to her when "The Princess Sonia" began in 
 the pages of The Century Magazine, and all agreed 
 that the most charming love-story they had read for 
 years came from this almost unknown Southern girl. 
 
 Since then "The Violet" and a volume of short 
 stories, entitled, "Miss Ayr of Virginia," have ap- 
 peared. In the title of this latest volume, Miss 
 Magruder, in a way, makes the confession that she is 
 an old-fashioned writer. At least she is not modern 
 in some of the unpleasant meanings of the word. In 
 her book, " ideals " are sometimes to be " realized," 
 and the whole story is an unobtrusive protest in favor 
 of sweetness and of sentiment in fiction. 
 
 The volume is bound in an exceedingly good design 
 by Frank Hazenplug, in three colors. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. ^1.25. 
 
 MISS AYR OP VIRGINIA AND OTHER 
 STORIES 
 
 By means of original incident and keen portraiture, "Miss 
 Ayr of Virginia, and Other Stories," is made a decidedly read- 
 able collection. In the initial tale the character of the young 
 Southern girl is especially well drawn; Miss Mag^ruder's most 
 artistic work, however, is found at the end of the volume, under 
 the title " Once More."— TAe Outlook. 
 
 The contents of " Miss Ayr of Virginia " are not less fascinat>- 
 ing than the cover. * * * These tales * * * are a delight- 
 ful divereion for a spare hour. They are dreamy without being 
 candidly realistic, and are absolutely refreshing in the simplicity 
 of the author's sX,y\&.— Boston Herald. 
 
 Julia Magruder's stories are so good that one feels like reading 
 passages here and there again and again. In the collection, 
 "Miss Ayr of Virginia and Other Stories," she is at her best, and 
 "Miss Ayr of Virginia," has all the daintiness, the point and 
 pith and charm which the author so well commands. The por- 
 traiture of a sweet, unsophisticated, pretty, smart Southern girl 
 is bewitching. — Minneapolis Times. 
 
 With a cover designed by P. R. Kimbrough. 16mo. 
 $1.25. 
 
 Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago & New York.
 
 By HAROLD FREDERIC 
 
 GLORIA MUNDI: A NOVEL 
 
 Mr. Frederic's two triumphs of the last few years 
 have been "The Damnation of Theron Ware" in 
 serious fiction and "March Hares" in a light and 
 brilliantly witty style which is all his own. " Gloria 
 Mundi " comes as his first work since the publication 
 of these two successful books — and happily enough 
 — it combines the keen thoughtful analysis of the one 
 with the delicacy of touch of the other. Mr. Frederic 
 takes for his hero a young man brought up without 
 much attention in the south of France, who, by a 
 wholly unexpected combination of circumstances, 
 falls heir to an English earldom. His entire training 
 has unfitted him for the position, and Mr. Frederic 
 makes much of the difiiculties it forces upon him. 
 The other characters are some good and bad mem- 
 bers of the nobility, an " actress-lady," and a type- 
 writer. 
 
 12mo. Cloth. Uniform with " The Damnation of 
 Theron Ware." $1.50. 
 
 THE DAMNATION OF THEEON WARE 
 
 It is unnecessary at this time to say much of "The 
 Damnation of Theron Ware" or "Illumination" as 
 it is called in England. The sales have already 
 reached thirty-five thousand, which is in itself the 
 most substantial evidence of the novel's readable- 
 ness. Owing to the failure of its former publishers 
 the book was temporarily out of print, but it is now 
 enjoying a constant and certain success. 
 
 The merit of the booE is worthy of special praise because of 
 the exceptional strength, variety, and originality of the char- 
 acters.— Cfeyetond World. 
 
 Mr. Frederic has written a daring story, and one which is 
 doubly impressive because of the straightforward sunphcity of 
 his manner of presenting his case. His attack is certainly a bold 
 one, and it will be strange if he does not bring down the unani- 
 mous maledictions of the cloth on his devoted hea,d.— Chicago 
 livening Post. 
 
 12mo. Cloth. Thirty-fifth thousand. $1.50. 
 
 Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago & New York.
 
 By H. C. CHATFIELD-TAYLOR 
 
 THE VICE OF FOOLS 
 
 A novel of society life in Washington. 
 
 The great success of Mr. Chatfield-Taylor's society 
 novels gives assurance of a large sale to this new 
 story. It can hardly be denied that few persona in 
 this country are better qualified to treat the " smart 
 set" in various American cities, and the life in 
 diplomatic circles offers an unusually picturesque 
 opportunity. 
 
 Mr. Chatfield-Taylor has brought out a fourth novel, and one 
 ■which is distinctly a gain in style over his previous achievements 
 in that line. As a series of society scenes the panorama of the 
 book is perfect. A dinner at the Hungarian embassy is detailed 
 with much humor, great pictorial power and keen knowledge. 
 The dialogue may be characterized heartily as crisp, witty, and 
 sparkling. Mr. Chatfield-Taylor proves himself a past master of 
 epigram; and if society were to talk a tenth as well as he repre- 
 sents there would be no cause for accusing it of frivolity. — 
 Chicago limes-Herald. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. "With ten full-page illustrations by 
 Raymond M. Crosby. Fifth thousand. $1.50. 
 
 TWO WOMEN AND A FOOL 
 
 The story of an actress, an artist and a very sweet 
 girl. The scenes are laid in Chicago, London, and 
 Paris; in theatres, studios, and bachelor apartments. 
 It is the history of an infatuation — with moral inter- 
 ludes. 
 
 Mr. H. C. Chatfleld-Taylor, whom Paul Bourget has named 
 as the most promising novelist of American social life, has given 
 us a clever story in "Two Women and a Fool." The tale is 
 retrospective; one hears it from the lips of Guy, an artist; and it 
 concerns his love for two women, a very naughty and an ex- 
 tremely nice one, Moira and Dorothy respectively. Moira, who 
 becomes a soubrette, leads Guy, who becomes a successful artist, 
 a tremendous pace, wearying him at length, but still holding the 
 power to revive him with her look that allures. The romance 
 leaps from Chicago to London and Paris and back to the Windy 
 City again. It is steadily entertaining, and its dialogue, which 
 is always witty, is often brilliant. C. D. Gibson's pictures are 
 really illustrative. — Philadelphia Press. 
 
 18mo. Cloth. With frontispiece by C. D. Gibson. 
 Ninth thousand. ?0.75. 
 
 Hebbbbt S. Stone & Co., Chicago & Nbw York.
 
 By F. FRANKFORT MOORE 
 
 THE JESSAMY BRIDE 
 
 One of the best stories of recent years. It had no 
 large success on publication but the sale has steadily 
 increased, every reader recommending it to others. 
 Mr. George Merriam Hyde writes in the Booh Buyer: 
 
 "The story seems to me the strongest and sincerest bit of fic- 
 tion I have read since " Quo Vadis." 
 
 The Bookman says of it: 
 
 " A novel in praise of the most lovable of men of letters, not 
 even excepting Charles Lamb, must be welcome, though in it 
 the romance of Goldsmith's life may be made a little too much 
 of for strict truth * * * Mr. Moore has the history of the time 
 and of the special circle at his finger-ends. He has lived in its 
 atmosphere, and his transcripts are full of vivacity. * * * 
 "The Jessamy Bride " is a very good story, and Mr. Moore has 
 never written anything else so chivalrous to man or woman." 
 
 12mo. Cloth. Third impression. $1.50. 
 
 THE IMPUDENT COMEDIAN AND OTHERS 
 
 A volume of capital short stories relating to seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries characters — Nell 
 Gwynn, Kitty Clive, Oliver Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson, 
 and David Qarrick. They are bright, witty and 
 dramatic. 
 
 The person who has a proper eye to the artistic in fiction will 
 possess them ere another day shall dawn. — Scranton Tribune. 
 
 Full of the mannerisms of the stage and thoroughly Bohemian 
 in atmosphere. — Boston Herald. 
 
 The celebrated actresses whomhe takes for his heroines sparkle 
 with feminine liveliness of mind. — New York Tribune. 
 
 A collection of short stories which has a flash of the pic- 
 turesqueness, the repartee, the dazzle of the age of Garrick and 
 Goldsmith, and Peg Woffington and Kitty Clive.— Hartford 
 Courant. 
 
 Mr. P. Frankfort Moore had a capital idea when he undertook 
 to throw into story form some of the traditional incidents of the 
 history of the stage in its earlier English days. Nell Gw3mn, 
 Kitty Clive, Mrs. Siddons, Mrs. Abbington and others are cleverly 
 depicted, with much of the swagger and flavor of their times.— 
 The Outlook. 
 
 12mo. Cloth. 11.50. 
 Hbbbert S. Stonb & Co., Chicago & New York.
 
 By MARIA LOUISE POOL 
 
 A GOLDEN SORROW 
 
 This novel was running serially in Oodey's Maga- 
 zine at the time of Miss Pool's death. It will not, 
 however, be completed in that periodical, but will be 
 issued at once in book form. It is a story of love and 
 adventure in St. Augustine, much more exciting than 
 Miss Pool's stories usually are, but with all her 
 delightful sense of humor. 
 
 16mo. Cloth, $1.25. 
 
 IN BUNCOMBE COUNTY 
 
 "In Buncombe County" is bubbling over with merriment — 
 one could not be blue with such a companion for an hour. — 
 Boston Times. 
 
 It is brimming over with humor, and the reader who can fol- 
 low the fortunes of the redbird alone, who flutters through the first 
 few chapters, and not be moved to long laughter, must be sadly 
 Insensitive. But laugh as he may, he will always revert to the 
 graver vein which unobtrusively runs from the first to the last 
 page in the book. He will lay down the narrative of almost 
 grotesque adventure with a keen remembrance of its tenderness 
 and pathos.— iS'iSM' York Tribune. 
 
 16mo. Boards. Second impression. $1.25. 
 
 IN A DIKE SHANTY 
 
 Of the same general character as this author's "Tenting on 
 Stony Beach," but written with more vigor and compactness. 
 Each of the persons in this outing-sketch is strongly individual- 
 ized, and an effective little love story is interwoven. The author 
 has a certain hardness of tone which gives strength to her work. 
 — Atlantic Monthly. 
 
 With a cover designed by Frank Hazenplug. 
 16mo. Cloth, $1,25. 
 
 Hbrbekt S, Stone & Co,, Chicago & New York.
 
 By GEORGE ADE 
 
 PINK MARSH 
 A story of the Streets and Town. 
 
 There is, underlying these character sketches, a refinement of 
 feeling that wins and retains one's admiration.— S<. Louis Olobe- 
 Democrat. 
 
 Here is a perfect triumph of characterization . . . Pink 
 must become a household word. — Kansas City Star. 
 
 It is some time since we have met with a more amusing char- 
 acter than is " Pink Marsh," or to give him his full title, William 
 Pinckney Marsh of Chicago. . . . "Pink" is not a conven- 
 tional " coon " of the comic paper and the variety hall, but a 
 genuine flesh and blood type, presented with a good deal of 
 literary and artistic skill.— A'ew York Sun. 
 
 16mo. Clothi. Uniform with " Artie." With forty 
 
 full-page illustrations by John T. McCutcheon. 
 
 Eighth thousand, f 1.25. 
 
 ARTIE 
 A story of the Streets and Town. 
 
 Mr. Ade shows all the qualities of a successful novelist,— 
 Chicago Tribune. 
 
 Artie is a character, and George Ade has limned him deftly as 
 well as amusingly. Under his rollicking abandon and reckless- 
 ness we are made to feel the real sense and sensitiveness, and the 
 worldly wisdom of a youth whose only language is that of a 
 street-gamin. As a study of the peculiar type chosen, it is both 
 typical and inimitable. — Detroit Free Press. 
 
 16mo. Cloth. Uniform with " Pink Marsh." With 
 many illustrations by John T. McCutcheon. Six- 
 teenth thousand. $1.25. 
 Herbert S. Stone & Co., Chicago & New York.
 
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