day ~ you must have been thinking of THE ROSE AND THE KEY. something else—that yonr mamma will have in the course of the year, I thiuk it was CHAPTER XXXlX. THOUGH SOME PEOPLE GO four medical appointraents, rirtually in ber HOME, THE BALL GOES ON. gift; including the supply of medicines to FOR a time neither lady seemed disposed the county jail, which wUl be given to to talk, whatever candidate she supports. And Maud's i-uminatlons were exciting and they arc altogether worth between eleven • unsatisfactory. She had acted a good deal and twelve hundred a year, I think he said, from impulse, and, as she nOAv, perhaps, and that's the reason why Doctor Malkin secretly thought, neither very wisely nor is so frequent a risitor just now." very kindly, She expected a lecture from " I should be very glad," said Maud. MarimlUa. She would have preferred com­ "I don't care twopence who gets them," bat to her own solitary self-upbraidings. said Maximilla, resignedly. " There Is At all events, she quickly grew weary of some Doctor Murchlson—I think that was her reflections, and, turning her eyes to her the name—who is a rather formidable silent companion in the shadow of her own competitor." comer, she said: " Did Ethel Tintern dance much to­ "I quite forgot to ask Lady Mardykes night ?" asked the yonng lady. who her solemn friend,' with the black "Not a ^reat deal. I don't think she square beard, is. Did you ?" seeraed to care for the baU." "Yes—if you mean did I forget; at Here carae a silence. And after two or least, I don't think I had an opportunity. three minutes Miss Max said suddenly: But, to tell you the truth," here Miss Max "It strikes me yon have been sowing yawned, "I don't much care. He looks the wind to-night, ray dear." Hke a foreigner." " Sowing the wind ! How? What have " Yes. He has good eyes. There is some­ I done ?" thing quiet and masterly in his air, I saw " Come, Mand, yon know as well as I him afterwards talking to Doctor Malkin." what you have been doing. You have treated : '' Yes, so didl, I can't endure that man," Mr. Marston very ill; and you have pre­ exclaimed Miss Max. "Wliat on eai'tli pared, you may he sure, an animated scene brings him to a ball, of all places ?" at home. I can tell you, Barbara will be "I don't know, unless he hopes some of extremely angry; aud not without very the old squires may have an apoplexy at good reason." supper," answered Maud Vernon. "You meanabout Captain Vivian?" said "It misrht have been wiser if he had Maud, a Httle sulkily. •J _ stayed at home, I daresay Barbara would " Of course I mean about Captain Virian," repHed Miss Max, have had him to tea if he had looked in, and be would have had the advantage of a "Well there^s no good in taUtiug abont tete-a-tete," said MaximUla. it now. It's done, and I can't help it, and, " The advantage—what do yon mean ?" indeed, I could not have prevented it; and asked Maud. I dou't want to talk about it," said Maud, "Why, Mr. Foljambe told us yester­ pettishly.

VOL.V. 530 [Mar G, 1371,] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Uanduclodby

"And what is Mr. Marston to think ?" dancing this time. It is so crowded," says "What he ^pleascs," iMaud answered. Miss Tintern. ''Ton know what mamma thinks of the "I'm so glad," says lie. "There is n Mavstons. I think my chance of going to quadrille after this. You must come where Lady Mardykes' would have been pretty wc shall be quiet for two or three minutes;'* well ended if she heard that I gave Mr. In the recess outside the ball-room, on Marston a great many dances, and she will the lobby at the head of the great staircase, 'know everything about this ball. It was an old-fashioned sofii is placed. not my fiiult. Captain Virian asking for Skirting the dancers, to this he led her. EiU those dances. I'm very glad he did. I When she had sat down, hope people remarked it. I hope mamma "Ethel," he said, "you are very angry win hear of it. If she does she wUl think —that is to say, very unjust. What have of Clothing else, I dare say." I done?" The young lady laughed, and then she "What have you done?" -she repeats. siohed. " Tou have placed me In the most miserable "Upon my word you are complicating situation. How am I to look Maud Vcruon the situation very prettily," said Miss Max. in the face again ? What wiU papa think " I suppose I am doing everything that of me ? Is not concealment enough ? Why is wrong and foolish; yet I beHeve it is should you practise positive deception ? I best as it is," said the yoiuig lady. " I did don't Hke it. I'm entirely against it. You not want to vex Mr, Marston; and If he make me utterly miserable." has any sense he'll understand perfectly that " Now, Ethel, don't be unreasonable. I did not; and what need I cai'c whether You must not blame me, for that which old Lord Hawkshawe, or Mr, Pindles, or neither you nor I can prevent. When Mr. Wylder, or any of the people who in­ the time comes I'll speak out frankly tended I should stay all night, dancing with enough. I could not help coming to Roy­ them in that hot room, are pleased or not ?" don. I could not refuse, T^dtliout a risk " Captain Vivian w^as determined cer­ of vexing Mr. Dawe very much, and that, tainly to make the most of his oppor­ for fifty reasons, would never do. I can't tunity," obsei'ved Miss Max. tell you all IVe suffered, being so near, aud And again the conversation flagged, and unable to contrive a meeting, with scarcely Miss Medwyn's active mind was employed an opportunity even of writing. Don't upon the problem, and busy in conjecturing suppose that the vexation has been all Captain Vivian's motive. yours; I have been positively miserable, " Either he wishes to pique Barbara," she and I knew veiy well all the ridiculous thought, " or he means to try his chances things that were said; and how they must of success, in good fiiith, with Mniid. I can have pained you. A little patience, a Httle quite understand that. But he is not the time," kind of person Maud would ever like, and " I know all that very well, and I have I do think she Hkes Mr. Marston." suffered fi-om those strange rumours, and I Then again she recalled Captain Vivian's have suffered to-night. I feel so treacherous sayings and doings that night at Wymer­ and deceitful. I w^on't be made an accom­ ing', to try to discover new lights and plice in such things. I hate myself, for hesi­ Idddeii meanings, to guide her to a right tating to tell Maud how It really Is." re;iding of that little episode. " My dear Ethel, you must not he foolish. While these two ladies are driving Living down here so much in the country, along the moon-Ht roads towards Roydon you make too much of trifles. What can EaU, the festivities of Wymering have lost it signify my dancing a few dances, more nothing of their energy. or less, with Miss Vernon ? Do you fancy I shall ask you, therefore, to peep uito she cares about me, or that any one seri­ th e ball-room for a few minutes more, ously, thinks there can bo anything more where you will find that Captain Vivian than that she likes my dancing, and that 1 has just begged of old Mr. Tintern to Intro­ admire her diamonds ? Why, dancing two duce him to Miss Tintern. That young or three dances at a ball means, absolutely larlv says to Mr. Tintern, hastily: nothing. Every one knows that. There "Oh, don't, please!" is nothing in It but this—that people won't But her papa, not hearing, or, at least, guess anything of the real state of things. not heeding, does present Captain Vivian, They won't see anything, for instance, in who carries off' the young lady on his arm. onr quiet little talk here." " If yon don't mind, 1 should prefer not Miss Buffins here passing by, with her

^ ==5' T

^•. Charles Dickena, Jan.] THE ROSE AND THE KET. [Mdye,lS71.] 531

hand on Captaiu Bamme's arm, stops, her in confidence, and even intimacy. Call cheeks flushed and radiant with her tri­ when he miy. Lady Vernon is never de­ umphs, and remarks what a jolly ball It nied to liim now. is, and how hot the roora is, and how every " Her ladyship is in the library, sir." one seeras to be enjoying it so much, and "Oh!" so she gabbles on. Captain Bamme, smiHng, And Mr, Tintern foUows the tall foot­ with his mouth open, and his face hot and man through the silent, stately rooms, to shining, is not able to get In a word, face­ the door he knows so well. tious or comphmentary, and Miss Buffins, He is announced, and very graciously as she entertains Miss Tintern, is scanning received. her di-ess, and estimating its value in detail, "You have come to consult about your while more slyly still, she inspects Captain projected road, I snppose? And, oddly Vivian. enough, I had just been looking over the At length, the crowd setting in a stronger map with Mi\ Penrhyn." current towards the supper-room. Captain " Well, thanks. Yes, any tirae, you Bamme and his fair charge are hurried know, that suits you, Lady Vernon, would away, smiHng, towards chickens, tongue, do for that; hut I happened to be pass­ lobster - salad, and those other comforts ing this way, and I thought I raight which the gallant captain loves with a as well look in and tell you one or two secret, middle-aged affection that quite things that struck me last night at the supersedes the sentimental vanities of baU. You'll not be surprised, perhaps, earher years. I thhik, with all his osten­ but I was, a good deal; It is so unaccount­ tatious gallantry, just then, the gay de­ able, except, indeed, on oue supposition. ceiver, who is jostling among elbows and I know how you feel about It, but, certainly, shoulders, aud bawling to waiters for cold it does confirm my very high ideas, Lady salmon or lobster for this lady with a Vernon, of your penetration. Only think, ciilvalric self-sacrifice, wishes her all the I'm going to teU you what I heard from time, if the truth wei^ knovrn, at the bot­ the man himself! Miss Vernon obtained tom of the Red Sea. But he will return, from old Lomax, the keeper of the Old Hall after he has restored her to her mother, in Inn, you know, an order of admission to quiet moments, when people, who know the gallery of the town-hall for Miss Med­ less of life, are busy dancing, and, with a wyn and her maid. And with this order shrewd gourmandise, will task the energies Miss Medwyn went; and who do you think of the waiters, and strip chickens of their \rith her? Not her maid; by no means; liver-wings, crunch lobster-salad, plunge no, Ifc was Miss Vernon, and dressed in into Strasbourg pates, drink champagne, some old stuff—such a dress, I'ra told, I arid, with shining forehead and reckless snppose a lady's-maid would not be seen in enthusiasm, leave to-morrow's headache to it; and Miss Medwyn, I'm assured, tried take care of itself. to dissuade her, and they had a little dis­ pute about it. But it would not do, and CHAPTER XL. LADY VERNON GROWS ANXIOUS, so Miss Vernon of Roydon carried her THE morning after the ball Mr. Tintern point, and presented herself as Miss Med­ was prodit^iously uncomfortable. He was wyn's servant!" now, indeed, quite easy about Lady Vernon's " It is a continuation of the same vein— fancied matrimonial designs; but rehef at nothing new. It only shows how per­ one point is too often accompanied by an sistent it is," says Lady Vernon, closing acute pressure at another. her eyes with a littie frown, and running Captain Vivian had been audacious, nay, one finger tip meditatively to and fro over ostentatious, in his devotion to Miss Vernou her finely pencilled black eyebrow. at the Wymering baU. Whatever his " Only think," repeats Mr, Tintern, with reason, he seemed to wish that people a little shrug, lowering his voice eagerly, should remark his attentions, and the and expanding his hands like a man raaking youug lady had certainly shown no un­ a painful exposition, "withoutthe slightest willingness to permit them. teraptatiou, nothing on earth to make it Next raorning, before twelve o'clock, inteUigible." Mr. Tintern was at Roydon Hall, full of ^* I am afraid, Mr. Tintern, it is not very the occurrences of the night before. easy to account for all this; upon any Mr. Tintern has observed, with satis­ pleasant theoiy I mean." faction, that for more than a year his rela­ " I thought it my dnty. Lady Vernon, tions with Lady Vernon have been growing considering the terms of, I raay say, confi-

^ F T =fe 532 [MayG, 1B7L] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conducted by

dence to which you have been so good as to " I hope I have done right in telHng admit me, to mention this ; and, also, per­ yon. Lady Vernon ?" said Mr. Tintern, haps another circumstance which excited, who was in no haste to see Miss Vernon I may say, very general observation last married, no more indeed thau Lady Vernon night at the ball, and I fancy you would was, prefer my being quite straight and above " Of course, you know, we should all iDoard in giring you my opinion aud the be glad, the whole county I mean, to see result of my observation." her suitably mangled," he continued, "aud " Certainly, I shall thank you very suitably in her case would, of course, mean much," said the lady, raising ber eyes splendidly; and less than that would not, I suddenly, and fixing them upon him with think, satisfy expectation. But a creature a rather stern expectation. *—a—a whipper-snapper like that," he "Well, Ibelieve it is hut right to teU said, with his head on one side, and his you that your guest, Captain Virian, de­ hands expanded, and a little shrug in voted hiraself In, I may say, an extraordi­ plaintive expostulation, " an adventurer, nary way to Miss Vemon, your daughter. and I—really for the Hfe of me, I cau't see Now, I don't know what that young man's anything to make up for it." position or expectations may be; but it is " People see with different eyes, Mr. Tin­ of course quite possible he may be in many tern," she said, looking on the rings that respects an eHgible parti for Miss Vernon. covered the fingers of her finely formed But if he be, perhaps considering all you hand ; " and ycu saw this yourself?" have been so good as to tell me, don't you "I saw it, and you may trust my report. think, a—eh? he ought to be a—a— I say there is—I don't say a romance— warned, don't you think ?" but a great deal more than a romance, " Captain Virian," she answered, with established in that quarter — and — you the fire that comes with excitement In know, it would amount to this, that the each cheek, " Mr, Dawe tells me, has young lady would be simply sacrificed!" scarcely four hundred a year, and has no And Mr. Tintern threw back his arms chance of succeeding to anything, unless, with his hands open, and a look of wild Indeed, Mr. Dawe should leave hira some­ stupefaction, which plainly conveyed the tliing, which, of course, may never happen. despair in which such a catastrophe would I need not tell you that nothing could be plunge this loyal county, more amazing than any such pretensions. "But a ball is a kind of thing," said Pray let me know why yon suppose them Lady Vernon, meditatively, "at which un­ possible." real flirtation is always carried on. You "The eridence," replied Mr. Tintern, may be looking at this in much too serious " was patent to every one at Wyraering last a Hght, Mr. Tintern," night. Nothing conld be more raarked, and " Oh, pardon me, Lady Vemon, I make I am bound to say, speaking to you, Lady every allowance, but this was nothing of Vemon, what I should hesitate to say to the kiud. It would be misleading you any one else, I say he was received as most unjustifiably if I were to acquiesce In favourably as he conld have hoped. In any such supposition," fact, if he were the greatest muff in Eng­ " Well, you know, it would he, as you land, and he is far from being anything say, utterly untenable and monstrous," of the kind, he could not have failed to began Lady Vemon, " And, of course " see it, aud see it he did." " One moment," he Interrupted, lifting Lady Vernon was looking down upon his finger suddenly, as something caught the table, foUowing with her pencil's point his eye outside the window. " I beg par­ the lines of her monogram engraved upon don a thousand times, but—but—yes— the gold plate on the side of her blotting- there they are !" exclaimed Mr. Tintern. book, aud continuing to do so, with a very He had approached the window, aud black countenance, smiling sourly on the was pointing, with his extended hand, to­ interlacing initials, she said: ward the terrace-walk before the house, " There has been a great deal of duplicity "There, there, there, you see; it Is, upon then; I fancied one evening I did see my life ! Only look. You see, eh ?" something, but it seemed quite to have died He stepped backward a pace or two, a out by next day, and never was renewed little Into the shade. —great duplicity; it is morbid, it Is not an Lady Vemon watched them darkly as amiable trait, not attractive, but, of coni-se, they passed, and what Lady Vernon saw we must riew it with charity." did not please her.

^: 'IP ^ Obarlefl UkkenB, Jan.] THE ROSE AND THE KEY. [May6.1S71.] 533

The young lady yielded a flower she when the time comes for filing his affidavit had in her fingers to the young gentleman, he will also swear it." who placed it In his button-hole over his It is the desire that governs the will, heart, to which he pressed its stem with an and the will the intellect. Let every man expressive glance at her. keep his heart, then, as he would his house, Lady Vernon changed colour a little, and and beware how he admits a villain to Hve looked down again on the table. in it. Quite unconscious of being observed at Mr. Tintern is a gentleman of sensitive that moment, the young people passed on. honour andunexceptionablemorallty. Forty "She has always been perverse and un­ years ago, when duels were still fought, he governable, always," said Lady Vernon, perforated the Honourable Whiffle New­ with cold bitterness ; "and a want of self- gate's hat with a pistol-buUet, for daring restraint induces the riolent and hysterical to call his veracity in question. And did he state in which she often is. I leave to other not proceed criminally against the radical persons the task of explaining her whims county paper, simply to gain the opportu­ and extravagances, her excursion to Car­ nity of filing his affidavit, and afterwards of dylHon, and such eccentricities as that of undergoing examination and cross-examina­ her risit to the gallery last night, dressed tion in the witness-box, iu rindication of his as a lady's-maid." probity ? "And a very humble sort of maid too," And does not Lady Vemon walk this said Mr, Tintern, " And—what is one to viorld a pattern and a reproach to sinners, think ? / entirely agree with you. What and a paragon among the godly ? cau one say?" And, alas! is not the heart of man de­ Lady Vernon's large dark eyes, hollow ceitful above all things, and desperately and strangely tired now, were lowered to wicked ? Soraething we can do for our­ the little cluster of seals upon the table, selves. Not a great deal, but still indispens­ with which the tip of her taper finger able. As much as his fi^iends could do for played softly. There was the same brilHant Lazarus. "Take ye away the stone," and flush in each cheek, aud au odd slight draw­ when that is done, Into the sepulchre enters ing of her handsome lips—a look Hke that the miraculous infiuence—actual life and of a person who witnesses a cruel but in- Hght, and the voice of power, where before eritable operation. was the silence of darkness. Lady Vernon is too proud to betray to " It is aU veiy painful, Mr. Tintern, Mr. Tintern the least particle of what she miserably painful," she says faintly, still really suffers by the smaUest voluntary sign. looking dowm. And then with a sigh she It IS not the belief that foi-ms the desire, picks up the pretty little cluster of seals, but the desire that shapes the behef. Little aud drops them into tiieii' place In the desk, originates in the head. Nearly aU has its and shuts it down and locks it, inception in the heart. The brain is its CHAPTER XLI. LADY VERNON TAEES EVIDENCE. slave, and does task-work. That which it is your interest or your wish to beHeve, yon WHEN Mr. Tintern had taken his de­ do beHeve. The thing you desire is the parture, with the comfortable feeling that thing you will think. Men not only speak, he had done what was right, Lady Vernon but actually think well of those with whom sighed deeply, they have a community of interest and " Mr. Tintern," she thought, "lives iu profit, and e%dl of those who stand in their castles of his own building. He is always way. Government, by party, proceeds thinking of poor papa's will, and the re­ npon this ascertained law of humanity. As version of Roydon, and the money In the a rule, the brain does not lead. It is the funds. If he knew all he would be easy instrument and the slave of the desire. enough respecting them. All the better There is another occult force, a me­ he doesn't. I can't spare hira yet. He is chanical power, as it were, always formid­ very sensitive about Maud's marrying. ably at the service of the deril and the He exaggerates, I dare say, I'U see Maxi- sonl. The inclined plane by which the mUla; she teUs truth. Poor Mr, Tintern mind gHdes imperceptibly from perversion can think of nothing but himself. How into perjury. nervous he has made me ! What business I once heard an attorney of great abUity has Maud walking out alone with hhn ? I and experience remark: " You may take think Maximilla might have prevented it as a rule that in every case, if your client that, A selfish world. No, no, no ! My says an untruth in support of his own case. God! it can't be. That would make rae

^ ^ =i^ 534 [May 6,1S71J ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [OondQotOd by

mad^quite mad. If I could go back to " I think she said, coming home, two childhood and die!" quadrilles and three round dances," She went to the window, but she did not "That was very Httle-" any longer see Mand and Captain Vivian. " Oh, I need not tell you she could have Her clouded dark eyes swept so much of danced everything if sho had Hked," said the landscape as was visible from the win­ Miss Max, complacently. dow in which she stood, in vain. " To whom did she give the fast dances ?" She touched the bell, and her footman asks Lady Vemon. appeared, "To Captain Vivian." "Have yon seen Miss Medwyn?" " Well, but there were three." "Miss Medwyn is in the first drawing- "AU to Captain Vivian." room, ray lady." " Really? She must have been very rude, "TeU Miss Medwyn, please, that I'm then, to other people," said Lady Vernon. coming to Her in a moment," said Lady " It can't have pleased thera, I fancy. Vemon. Lord Heyduke, a very good-looking young She got up and sighed heavUy, with her man, and clever they say, looked so angry. hand pressed to her heart, I really thought he'd have been rude after­ "Barbara, Barbara, you must command wards to Captain Virian and old Lord yourself. Say what they will, you can do Hawkshawe." that." " That is so foolish of Maud," said Lady She frowned and shook her head a little, Vernon. " She knows nothing, absolutely, and so seemed to shake off the bewildered about Captain Virian, except that he Is look that had settled on her features ; and gentleman-like aud good-looking. But I she resumed her usual air and countenance, happen to know that, over and above his except that she was very pale; and she commission, he has not three hundred a walked serenely iuto the great drawing- year in the world." room. " But you know Maud, as well as I do, " Well, MaximUla, I have just got rid of and that consideration is not Hkely to weigh my tiresome neighbour, Mr. Tintern, who with her for a moment," said Maximilla, has been boring me about fifty things, aud '* She Is so perverse," said Lady Ver­ I want you to tell me all about the ball last non, darkening with great severity. night, and I was so afraid you might run " Weil, Barbara, it Isn't all perversity. away before I had locked up my letters. That kind of impetuosity runs very much Miss Max lowered her little gold glasses In families, and you certainly did notmaiiy aud the newspaper she had been reading, for money." aud looked up from her chair near the "That is a kind reminder," said Lady window Into Lady Vernon's face. Vernon, with a fierce smile. " I beg " Well, my dear, it was, I should say— pardon for interrupting you, hut some of you know it Is four years, or five, since I my friends (you among them) know pretty was last at one of your Wymering baHs; well that I have never ceased to repent but I think it was a very good ball, and that one hasty step ; and if I was a fool, seemed to go off very spiritedly. There as you remind me a little crnelJy, I'd rather were the Wycombes, and the Heybrokcs, she regarded me in that gTeat mistake of and the Forresters, and the Gystans; and my life, not as an example, but as a warn- Hawkshawe was there." And so she went on ing ; and certainly neither you nor I, at our with an enumeration interesting to county years, should encourage her." people, but scarcely so much so to others'; " She is the last person on earth to be and then she went iuto the events, and the either encouraged or discouraged by our soup, and the ices, and the flirtations, and opinions—mine, perhaps, I should say" the gossip of the chaperons. Lady Vemon answered Miss Max. " But don't let us now and then reviving a recollection, or quarrel about it, Barbara, lor I rather opening a subject by a question. think that upon this point we are both very " And how did Maud look ?" she asked nearly agreed." at last, carelessly. Hereupon she very honestly related her " Perfectly lovely," answered Miss Max, reasons for thinking Captain Virian very with decision- much in love with Maud, and added her "Did she dance?" opinion that, "unless she Hkes him, which " Not a great deal." I don't believe, and has made up her mind "About how many dances do yon snp­ not to trifle with him, she ought not to pose?" encourage him." V ^: ^ Charlea Dickens, Jim.] THE THOUGHTS OF FISHES, i:MayG,lS7I.l 535

Lady Vernon looked out of the window, spoken, a little disappointed at the equani­ and, still looking out, said carelessly : mity with which haughty, jealous Barbara, ^^ And you don't think there is anything took the news, the irritating nature of in it?" which she had he&x at no special pains to "I did not say that. I don't think it mitigate. possible that a young mai^ could be for so '' She may smile as she pleases," she long in the same honse without being im­ thought, looking after her as the door pressed by her ; she is so very beautiful. I closed, " but I am certain she is nettled. I should not be at all surprised If he were think she likes him, and I^m a littie curious very much in love with her ; and you know, to see what she wUl do." my dear Barbara, if he has any ambition, and thinks himself an Adonis, what is likely to follow? As to Maud, my belief THE THOUGHTS OP PISHES. Is she is not in love with hhn. I don't think she cares about him; but young BIRDS and beasts think, Why shouldn't ladies are so mysterious, I can only speak fishes also think ? ou conjectui^e, aud she may—it is quite When a knowing old pointer is sent possible—she uiay Hke him. I should be into the turnip-fields with a shocking bad Sony to take it on me to say positively she shot, he soon arrives at his own conclu­ does not." sions. Regarding the sportsman with a " It has set people talking, at all events," look of contempt, he sets hira down as a said Lady Vernon, carelessly, " and nothing very poor stick on finding shot fired after could be more absurd, Bnt, as you say, shot without bringing down a bmd, and there may be nothing in it." thinks it is not worth taking the trouble " I think, perhaps, it might not be amiss to point any longer for snch a muff. to let her go about a little to friends' When Jenny Wren has half-finished a houses, and make some rislts, and she will nest, she looks at it critically, aud think.^ soon forget him, if she ever cared about to herself, " No, this won't do. The twigs him. I should be delighted to have her, won't support it properly; it wUl tumble but I have promised so soon to go to Lady on oue side." She beq'ins anotliern and Mardykes', and I know she wishes ever so when that is half done, she looks at ifc, much to have Maud. She saw her at the aud after reflection says, "That won't do. Tinterns, and liked her so much, and I either. The foundation is good, but tho said I would ask yon, and I think she situation is ranch too exposed. Silly Httlo could not risit at a better house. I'm to short-sighted thing that I was, I did not be with her in a fortnight or less, and I notice the footpath close at hand, on which would meet her there. What do you say ? birds'-nesting schoolboys go to and fro." WUl you let her go ?" So she begins a third, and finding it satis­ "I don't see anything very particular factory in every respect—support, situation, against it at present," said Lady Vernon, shelter^she finishes it, aud fills it with her thinkino\ "But you know I have not seen tiny brood. her since her mairiage, aud all that fmud, In like manner, when you drag the lake I may call it, and violence, on Warhamp­ In your park, or the pond In your pasture, tou's part, has occurred since. I certainly for the pm^pose of tasting a dish of stewed should not have her here, nor any raember carp, you sniTomid your "finny tribes" of that family. But Maud may choose her with a circle of network, till escape fi*om ifc fi^Icnds for herself. I need not know them. seems impossible. But look at that fine I have reasons for not caring to send or feUow with his snout just ont of the water, take her to the Wycombes, or old Lady smelHug; at the corks that fl.oat vour nets. Heyduke's, or the^ Frogworths, or the " He thinks he has me," says Cyprinus to Gystans, and a great raany raore I could himself, "and is settling in his mind with name. I should prefer Lady Mardykes, what sauce he wIU eat me. I think he and your being there at the same time hasn't me. I wish he may get me !" Then, would make me feel quite comfortable going back to make a better leap, he makes about her. We can talk it over, you and a rush to the front, clears the net as cleanly I, Max, by-and-bye." as the winning horse at a steeple - chase And with a more cheerful countenance clears the last hurdle, and, imitating' human she left the room. diplomatists who wish to avoid putting in Miss Miix had a little good-natured mis­ then- appearance, forthwith takes to his bed chief in her, and was, if the truth were in the mud.

^ >5: 536 [May 6,1S7L] ALL THE TEAR ROUND- [Oondncted by

The psychological faculties of fishes have desperate fiight. The needful intervals of been underrated, because it has been sup­ repose are perfectly possible. Even in posed that they do not sleep, and conse­ mountain streams, that leap from rock to quently that if they never sleep they are rock, there are deep calm pools in which, never very wide awake. True, fishes can­ if clear, you can see trout lying as still as not shut their eyes, but we have heard of stones. As, in a gale of wind, there are people sleeping with one eye open, who buildings, trees, and hanks of earth, behind were not the stupidest of their race. And which shelter can be found, so, in the surely if any Hving creature is under the course of rushing rivers, there are bends necessity of taking rest in that uncomfort­ and eddies, blocks of stone, and beds of able way, it is a fisli. Fishes are friendless water-weeds, where the wayworn fish, tired In the world; every fish is every other ^rith the gymnastic exercises by which he fish's enemy ; every fish's month Is opened earns his daily bread, may find a temporaiy against every other fish. How many fishes, resting-place. It may sound paradoxical, not per cent, bnt per million, die quietly In but in salt water, quiet Is even more easily their beds a natural death? The number found than in fresh. However the surface must be infiniteslmally small, if not an ab­ may be lashed by tempests, to reach a calm, solute nullity. the fish has only to descend, and by so The cause of this cruel fate is simple. doing reaches another means of safety— The sea contains Httle besides fishes to darkness. It appears that at the bottom eat, and, with little else to eat, fish must of the great deep absolute stillness reigns. cat fish. They wage an internecine war­ Minute shells that sink from the top to the fare, more reasonable than the battles of bottom are found to be without the sHghtest civilised beUIgerents. To kill men for the abrasion or injury, and quite unmixed with sake of eating them, as the New Zea- sand or gravel. There is not current landers and Sandwich Islanders have done enough in those depths to disturb a particle from time immemorial, is an explicable, of down if it could reach thera. There is logical, and accountable practice. Such a delicate white-fleshed fish, the ferrat, wars have a clear and assignable reason peculiar to the Lake of Geneva and one why. But to kill meu by hundreds of or two other Swiss waters, which can thousands, only to bury them, or perhaps only be caught when it comes to the sur­ to leave them to rot unburied, infecting the face, at the season when it takes a fancy to survivors with pestilence, is absurdity, see the world. It passes the rest of the folly, and wastefulness, peculiar to certain year in strict retirement, at the bottom of terrestrial bipeds. In the sea nothing is those indigo depths. Do we suppose that wasted, its inhabitants kill to eat; they do It caunot sleep there quietly, a week at a not kill for kilUng's sake. If a seal take a tirae if so disposed, slumbering, perhaps bite ont of oue salmon for breakfast, an­ even dreaming a little, undisturbed, except other bite out of another for dinner, and a when the great lake trout, the salmo-ferox, cut from the middle of a third for supper; now aud then swoops down upon it, Hke if a shark docs the same with dolphins and an eagle from the watery sky, and imme­ bonitos, there is nothing lost to the general diately takes its upward flight with a commissariat of the ocean. The remnants drowsy ferrat in its hooked under-jaw ? serve to feed less active and less powerful Hunger, oue of the prime motives of members of the marine society; they are action in the life of every animated crea­ the crumbs that faU from the rich raan's ture, presses, we have seen, with peculiar table. Seals and sharks are fish-bntchers stress on fishes, aud necessarily sharpens and sportsmen, who aid the feebler popu­ their faculties. For most of them, there is lation of the deep with a small supply. nothing to eat but fish; they are ichthyo­ True, there are seaweeds to serve as food^ phagous, whether they will or no. They but the number of purely herbivorous fishes have, at the same time, to catch, and to is smaU. Seaweeds supply fish-food in­ avoid being caught. It has been said that, directly by sustaining shell-fish and the in fishes, the brain is too small to allow like, which become the prey of full-grown them a large share of intelligence. But fish, and by harbouring animalcules which phi'enology is scarcely applicable to this supply welcome nutiiment to the minor division of the animal kingdom. The fry. Every atom of organised matter in structure of a fish's brain is quite dif­ the sea is utUIsed in one way or another. ferent in plan to that of a quadruped's; A fish's existence ought to be one of in­ but who can say that it is not msely tense excitement, a Hfe of ardent pursuit or adapted to a fish's condition? In mam-

0^: -^ Charlea Dickene, Jun,] THE THOUGHTS OF FISHES. [May C, 1871, 537

malia and birds, the brain presents a ho­ A fish's ear Is simpler than our own; mogeneous mass, circumvolved and wound, but the wortlnes who undervalue it as less as it were, round itself, like a ball of perfect, forget the fact that fishes swim in thread. The brains of fishes appear to be water. Sound travels In air at the rate of unwound, and arc developed into a series about eleven hundred, and in fresh water of lobes, Hke a double string of beads. at the same temperature at nearly five And then, their brains do not fill their thousand feet per second; in sea-water still brain-boxes, as ours do. They float in the more rapidly. That is to say, a fisli hears midst of a sort of jelly. In consequence of a distant sound more than four times as this they receive, without injury, a much quickly as we humans do. The sense of taste more violent blow than a bird or a quad- in fishes is supposed to be dull; but there is raped. The concussion is deadened before uo apparent reason why it should be duller it reaches the brain. One favourite way than with birds. And yet birds discriminate. of kilHng eels is to knock them, not on the The vulture prefers his carrion high, while head, but on the tad, where, it appears, the eagle stipulates for fresh-slain meat; part of their susceptibilities are centred. the hen will leave bread-crumbs for a nice Apropos to which, the tails of eels prove red worm, and the siskin may be taught that they are acquainted with at least one tricks by tempting it with hempseed. of the mechanical powers. M. Le Paute, Fishes may taste then food pleasantly, as the conservator of the Bois de Vincennes, we sometimes do ours unpleasantly, for a one day had the fancy to put a number of considerable time after they have swallowed tiny eels into an aquarium containing a it. And if not gastronomers of the purest population of very small salmon. A .short v^ater, fishes at least enjoy the blessings of time afterwards the eels were aU gone. a good appetite and an easy digestion. What had become of them? Had the salmon What a comfort to be able, Hke the cod, eaten them ? It was not unlikely. to eat a hearty dinner of crabs, shells To make sure, he put a certain number and all! of each in a bell-glass of water, which he As to feeling, people fancy fishes can't covered with a plate and then reversed, so feel, simply because they do not scream that the glass of water stood on the plate. when hurt. A cod takes his crimping By this arrangement all escape seemed philosophically, and eels are so used to prevented. Not so. However. After trying being skinned alive that they rather like in vain with their heads, the little eels in­ It, So say cooks and fishermen. If we serted the tips of their tails into the narrow gagged our garroters while receiving their chink between the glass and the plate, and due of cat-o'-nine-tails, their silence would so squeezed theraselves out backwards. lead to a similar inference, namely, that They knew the consequences of forcing in pain was not included In their list of sen­ the thin end of a wedge. sations. Nor are the senses of fishes blunt, as That fishes are tameable Is notorious,, some suppose. In many their olfactory from innumerable examples of carp and organs receive impressions by means of gold-fish. The minnow may be easily four nostrils, instead of the two vouch­ tamed, so as to come to the surface of the safed to the rest of the world. Their eyes water, and take a worm held between the are large in proportion to those of bu'ds finger and thamb. The tame codfish of Gal­ and quadrupeds. In some the eye is enor­ loway have often been quoted. In the fish­ mously developed, giving the fish a popular ponds belonging to the establishment at Con* name. In the streets of Havi'e the fish- carnean, the tnrbot supplied there with board women cry, not "Dorades," but "Gros and lodging, until It is their turn to travel yeux, gros yeux !" " Big eyes, hig eyes !" to the Paris market, recognise their keeper's The globe-lens of American photographers footstep. At the whistle which announces is copied from a fish's eye. The risual their dinner hour, they quit the bottom, in angle of fishes is very great; the eyeball is which they lay hid with their eyes aud gifted with such mobility that it can look gills only uncovered hy mud and sand, and before or behind, upwards or downwards. rise to the surface, where, with a rapid and There are even fishes which can look two undulating movement, they seize and make ways at once. The hippocampus^s eyes are off with the portions of fish doled out to independent of each other ; one eye cau ogle thera. On the other hand, fishes arc more a lady hippocampus gracefully sailing to the cunning and distrustful the more they arc right, while the other eye jealously surveys angled for. Experience teaches them to be­ the movements of a rival on the left. ware of the presence of biped enemies. The :p -^ z: =3. 538 [Mflye,1371.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Conduoccilliy

fact is certain, indisputaible. Parisian anglers Curiosity was stretched to the utmost; are well aware, that the fishes iu the Seine but dignity kept curiosity in check. For and the Marne are much more difficult to no earthly consideration would the baffled catch than those which live m out-of-the- inquirer have asked his vanquisher for In­ way streams In out-of-the-^A'ay departments. formation, so vexed and humiliated was he Why ? Because they are angled for Sunday at fiuding a child checkmating hhn with so and working-day, from morning till night, little ceremony. Chance—the good genius and from night till morning. of fishermen—at last came tohis assistance. Nevertheless, fishes have their weak­ His young friend caught sight of a passing nesses, as instanced, in the case of the roach, playmate, and shouted: by Monsieur H. Dc la Blanchere, the author " He'! 'sidore ! He'! ToU m'man to of an interesting Httle book* which has make me a pancake. Mine is finished,'* served as the text of the present discourse. The secret was out. The instant that a Roach-fishing is a veritable trial, not of pancake was mentioned, the answer to the strength, hut of finesse, between the angler enigma was given. Our fisherman slyly and the angled. When the wind meddles stepped into a cottage hard by, and found with the Imsiness, it Is often the angled the good woman, busy preparing the roach's who gets the best of it, while the angler has pastiy. his trouble for his pains. It would be too " By St, Peter—the patron of fishermen much to assert that the roach is a glutton; —I have it!" the enlightened amatem^ ex­ but it is only doing him justice to say that claimed with delight. " Nevertheless, I am he is an epicure. How were his favourite hound to consider whether I ought to di­ dishes discovered ? How- ? We can ouly vulge the secret and rob myself of its sole suppose, by some lucky accident. It was possession, for the benefit of the angling at Essones, near Paris, that our author hy fraternity. There is matter here for ample chance found out a marvellous roachy pre­ reflection; but generosity before egotism. paration. His preceptor was a hoy belong­ All men are brothers, and it is as well to be ing to the factory. influenced hy that fact in a matter of such One fine morning he had taken his vital importance. Here then is the receipt! place at the foot of some old poplars, which" Stir a little water into a large tablespoonful form a tuft of verdure at oue of the bends of flour, add a pinch of salt; pom* tins of the little stream. A lad, in the traditional paste into a frying-pan slightly greased. Let schoolboy's blouse, with a wide-awake it fry till it is set, white not brown. Turn countenance aud hair dishevelled like a It, let the other side fiy wdiite. Serve hot, misty comet, came and sat himself down and cany it off iu your waistcoat-pocket." without ceremony at a few paces' distance. With a pancake manufactured by the Forthwith, he tlirew iuto the water a primi­ inothei', the angler returned and unblush- tive line fastened to the end of a rod, ingly entered into competition with the which might have been a French beanstick son. To what unscrupulous acts will not snatched in haste from the paternal haricot human passion load ! He soon showed the garden. poor lad that, thanks to the pancake, he The amateur stared sullenly while the knew as much about roach-fishing as he young rogue was filling his bag with roach did—perhaps more. His conscience, how­ after roach, and casting a knowing look ever, was not quite easy, so he atoned for his now and then at the elaborate baits and treachery by presenting the lad ^rith some diverse woims, nnsncoessfuUy employed by Limerick hooks. Then, packing np his traps, his fellow-fisherman. Every minute, a he strolled back to his lodging, and after roach swung in mid-air, and after describing supping off roach, slept the sleep of the just. a gi-acefal curve was dancing on the grass. The roach practises a system of mutual Every angler—every man of common instruction. On the banks of the Loir— human feeling—will guess that, from that please not to confound le Loir \rith la Loire moment, our angler's raost ardent wish —there stands an abbey. Opposite the was to know what potent bait the boy em­ abbey, in the midst of the meadows, some ployed. After every catch, he took out of cold springs of purest water break out, and his pocket a flat and thin piece of some white uniting, hasten to join the Loir in a broad, Eub-stance, off which he tore a little bit and shallow, chiUy stream which is known in then returned the rest to its hiding-place. the neighbourhood as the Gue-Froid, the Cold Ford, and is the resort of whole shoals of magnificent roach. Now fish have their • L'Esprit dea PoiasonSj par H. De la Elanehere. Parifl, P. Brunch editeur, 31, Eue Bonaparte. iS70. perversities, as well as men; and not a

^- J: (3iule5 Dickens, Jun.J AN EVENING AT MOPETOWN. [llaye, 1871.J 539

single angler, for miles round about, could though they were throwing dice; aud who, ever get a fish to take a book in the Gu<5- according to the rules of such places, are Froid. One June morning, M. De la Blan­ obHged to deposit a sum for hire and gas, chere resolved to try, employing a mode of before they can open the doors. With fishing unknown in those parts, and con­ these it is often a perfect lottery: heads, sequently unknown to the fish of the place. meaning a smaU fortune of two pounds ten : Every kind of fishing was practised there tails, beggary, and forfeiture of the meagre except fly-fishing, which determined him properties and stock. to make the experiment, with a fiue kitchen We have all of us, through various acci­ blue-bottle stuck on the barb of his hook. dents, been forced to stay at various Mope- Scarcely had It touched the water before towns, up and down the kingdom—a place one, two, three, ten, twenty, fifty roach, of two or three straggling streets winding passed, oue after the other, into his basket, up a hill, to where the railway station is until it made his shoulders ache. He re­ planted. It is sometimes in the South, turned as proud as—well, Lucifer. Bnt sometimes in the North; but wherever it nobody would believe he had caught that lies, we are sure to sec on the inilway in the Gue-Froid. arch, or the gloomy blue stone wall that The only way to convince the incredu­ skirts the road, the "posters" of these lous, was to take them with him, oue by jocund " entertainers " whose whole life is one, and by revealing the secret, enable given up to coaxing a rough and clmrHsh them to have the same success, which was pubHc to be amused. No raore disraal life what he did. can be imagined than that of these un­ The first time, he and his friend had a less happy beings, whose very appearance is abundant catch than when he tried the utterly opposed to their professed calHng, trick alone. Nevertheless, the sport was and who ruefully bear about with them such not bad. They each of them took some jorial misceUauics as the Wallet of Wit— thirty roach. Everybody was now con­ Mirth and Momus—Two Houi^s of Shake­ vinced, as well they might be. spearian Vagaries, and the lUte, The more Next day, he returned to the Gue-Froid florid and gorgeous the programmes that with fourteen companions. He got six greet us as we trundle into Mopetown, the roach; nobody else got anything. raore desponding do thoy leave us ; though The day after, twenty anglers went to in the flamboyant and exciting pictures work. Everybody's share was—exactly of flying horses, and noble gymnasts, who nothing at all. The roach had completed seera like inferior mythological heroes (and their education. indeed we have seen frescoes of inferior All fish, therefore, are not absolute fools. merit), there is, it is true, always soraething But we should know much more about fish dashing and noble. than we do if every angler were a savant, Once being forced to remain a night at which would become oppressive to the Mopetown, I found on the table of the reading public, or if every savant were au Dolphin coffee-room a number of little pro- angler, which might be harder Hues on gm,ramcs, note-paper size, setting forth an fiahes than they reaUy deserve. entertainment for that very night. I give it "textually," as our distracted nelgkhonrs across the Channel would say; AN EVENING AT MOPETOWN. THE ROOMS, MOPETOWN, Under distinguished patronage. For two nights only. THERE is a class of persons who Hve by MKS. MOUNTAIN, their wits, and whose condition seeras, above Formerly preceptress in the family of Sir JAMES aU others, descrring of pity. These are the SADDLETREE, Bart,, whose youthfui family she had poor wanderers who entertain us, who spend the honour of grounding in the reEaing branehea of their lives posting wearily from country education, will give town to country town, dragging along the TWO EEADIKGS, The first from Shakeapeare^a I^IaaterpieCd, few tra ps with which they set up their show. KING JOHN"! Some are highly prosperous: have raade A,3 read by her at Saddletree, during Christmas, 18i7, frieuds and connexions, and can always io presence of Sir James Saddletree, Bart., and family, confidently rely on plenty of patronage. of the High Sheriff, and an 6\\it party of guests. But there are other poor stragglers who This noble play has been specially prepared—all inde­ creep into Mopctown on their first risit; licacies removed—while the characters of King John, Constance, Falconbridge, and Hubert, will be calied who secure the "Rooms " at the Mechanics' up before tbe spectator in a life-like manner bv Institute with as fluttering a heart as ilES, MOUNTAIJS'- V

=&l 540 [May6,lS7l.] ALL THE TEAR ROUND, [Oondnctedby

Mrs, ilountain will take tho opportunity of introducing operation—a severe pass examination. The her daughter, time for commencing was past by some MISS THEOUOIiA ilOUI^TATN, minutes, when there entered, with noisy Who will recite the aoul-stirring and decisive tread, a tall, officer-like CHARGII 01" TUB LIGHT BRIGADE! man, who looked round ruefuHy at the With other pieces. prison-like desolation into which he had Places may be secured at the Rooms, whoro also may entered. A soft whisper, which the vast be seen the testimonial referring to Mrs. Mountain's connexion with Sir James Saddletree, Bart. echoes of the room enlarged into loud *#* Carriages to set down with the horses* heads towards speech, was borne to us from behind, to the Pump-lano. And gentlemen are requested to give efFect that this was ^' Captain Spunner." their coachmen instructions accordingly. It was getting more and more desolating; Grotesque as was this HiU of fare, and pro- wo grew impatient, as did the sole stick bahle as it was that the performance would and umbrella present, which feebly pro­ correspond to this odd promise, I yet felt tested. At last one of the deal doors opened, a aort of uneasiness that it was too late to A tall and rather pretty young girl led secure a place, aud that my money might in a severe-looking elderly lady, with a he refused at the doors. Hurriedly setting front of grey curls fixed at each side of out, I made my way to the " Rooms"—a her head, much as "winkers" are on a horse. new, staring, plasteiy, uncomfortable place, She cariied her book in her hand, and sur­ too obviously, like such places all the icings veyed the audience with an air of disdainful dom over, groaning under a load of debt, severity. The clergyman and his wife, who and presenting a most uuprosperous ap­ had, by-the-bye, the air of "orders," ap­ pearance. I entered up spacious steps, into plauded in a friendly but patronising way. a white, illuminated roominess, which is But she would not relax her severity. The another chamcterlstic of snch places. My tall yonng girl, who was dressed in white, footsteps echoed, and the sense of desertion with a broad blue ribbon of the Garter across was almost painful. The entertainment must her, came forward to address ns, in a quiet, have begun. '" No, I was quite iu time," I composed manner, "vvas assured by the person who took money. " My mamma wishes me to say," were It was the " smaUer hall," with glaring her words, " that she is about to read the white walls, white gaUeiy, deal smelling tragedy of King John, exactly as she read floor, and a vast crowd—not of people, it at Saddletree, in the year 1847, before a alas ! but of pale, spindly cane-bottomed distinguished audience. My mamma also chairs, clustered together helplessly, Hke wishes me to state that everything impro­ lean geese. On the front row—the "re­ per or indelicate has been removed, and served seats"—sat the clergyman and his that there will he nothing heard to-night wife—the sole tenants of that sacred en­ that could bring a blush into the cheek of closure. In the seats of the second dignity the youngest child present." were a severe-looking father and mother, It was impossible to laugh, she said this and a goveiness; while in the "body of with such earnestness and sincerity, though the h^l/' as it was entitled, half a dozen the ofBcer grinned, and stared through his homely and honest-looking folk clung con­ glass. Then the yonng lady sat down vulsively to the barrier, which separated in a chair at the side, while her mamma them from the nobler portion of the area, deliberately wiped her tortoise-shell glasses, and seemed to be too scared by the hollow and finding much difficulty in arranging sound of their own footsteps to move about. the Hght, at last placed the candle between There were three or four stray people herself aud the book, and, after a severe looking down from the gallery, as from a look round, began her task, deck. As I entered, every head was screwed Poor soul! It was one low " mumble," rouud to survey me. The rostrum or very slow and deUberate, much as she platform was flanked by two new deal would have read out a domestic letter, and doors, nnpaintcd by reason of the cxliansted was quite inaudible in the gaUery. After state of the funds of the concern, and a a quarter of an hour of this murmuring, sort of sepulchi-al or sacrificial table, with a blunt voice came from the gallery, one candle, was set out in the centre. The "Speak up, marm, please!" and filled us look of that gaunt and deserted platform all with consternation. It proceeded from aflected me \vith the strangest mixture of an honest-faced operative, leaning on his feelings: the meagrely ascetic air, the elbows, and utterly indiff'erent to the con­ general bareness, forcibly suggested the centrated gaze of the half-dozen faces iu block and scaffold—an impending surgical the select rows now turned fuU on him. =^

Chftrles Dickens. Jan.] SEA SONG. [May G, 1S7I.] 541

The old lady stopped. Her daughter rose at Stalybridge. The merchants at Staly- aud came forward. bridge, when my mamma was taken ill "My mamma," she said, softly, "is suf­ there, were vei-y kind to ns; and to put on fering from a cold to-night, and is forbiddeu record her sense of their goodness, my by the physicians to exert herself in the mamma wi^ote the following lines." level passages. As the occasions of the The severe old lady here pulled her tragedy require it, she wIU endeavour to do daughter to her, aud whispered for a mi­ justice to the grand scenes Ulustrated by nute, nodding and frowning. the genius of Mrs. SIddons and her brother " And my mamma wishes me to add, the late John Philip Kemble." that they were afterwards pnbHshed in the In homage to these illustrious names the Stalybridge Mercury, and much admired." umbrella and stick involuntarily made noise She then delivered eight or ten stanzas, —also in indignant protest at the inter­ of which the following, or nearly the fol­ ruption. The operative was awe-stricken; lowing, was a specimen: though I fancy he must have referred the Merchants of Stalybridge 3 Staljbridge merchants \ allusion to the '' level passages," to the ap­ Kindly and esccHent men. Hearts full of feeling, as full as your purses. proaches of the building. After this epi­ Lavish, again and again ! sode the old lady resumed her task, in The world it la cold—as empty as cold, rather a lower voice than before. Ungrateful and hollow to see. Though ne'er we may meet, I shaU never forg:et, It began to grow rather depressing. How kindly you've acted to me. Twenty minutes more went by; the cler­ Merchants of Stalybridge I gyman fell asleep. Suddenly, with an Merchants of Stalybridge! Stalybridge merchants! audible yawn of impatience, the officer rose, and tramped steadily and leisurely At the third stanza, and when the bur­ dowu the hall, throwing down the umbrella, den recurred, ''Merchants of Stalybridge, which projected at an angle. But the Stalybridge merchants!" a sort of hys­ reproof he received was masterly. The terical merriment came on me, and I felt reader stopped dehberately, wiped her that, if the burden came again—which It glasses, and foUowed his retreating form must do—exposure of a disgraceful order with her eyes all down the hall, until it would take place. It did recur : and I dis­ disappeared through the furthest doorway. graced myself. The tortoise-shell glasses She then resumed. We dared not budge, were instantly levelled—it seemed like an she had ns so completely under her despo­ order for the police to remove mc—I grew tism. But, by the time we reached the red in the face, exploded once, and whUe the conclusion of the first act, it was apparent young lady paused, rose abruptly and fled. that things could not be protracted further, and, after a little whispering, the youug SEA SOUG. lady came forward, GAIL not the old life back, oh sea. In the grave where it Hes there let it be, " My mamma bids me say that she is too "Wake not the pale ghost up for me ; exhausted to repeat any more of Shake- Call not tbe dead love back. speai-e's tragedy of King John, or go be­ Bid not the tranquil pulses throng. yond the level passages to-night. Her To tumult and passion, fret and wi-ong, physicians have warned her against work­ Hush the sad memories in thy song, Call not the dead love back. ing up the exciting scenes of this great "Was not its brief life fuU of pain, tragedy. With your permission we will Of weary waiting and struggle vainl'' proceed to the second part of the perform­ Bid it not waken to weep again, ance," Call not the dead love back. At this news we ali re-settled ourselves Lurid aod bright was its morning ray, Fierce was the glare of its noontide sway, in our places, making the attenuated legs of Cold o'er its death closed the gloaming grey, the cane-bottomed chairs scream on the CaU not the dead love back. new floor. The relief was something de- There let it lie in its fatal charm, Hcious: the clergyman woke up, and we "With its closen eye and its folded palm ; There let it lie in its solemn calm, looked forward to something refreshing. Call not the dead love back. After arranging her blue ribbon, aud re­ Sing of the upwards glorious power, ceiving many directions from the elderly Sing of the present's harvest hour. lady, who was regarding us severely, with Sing of the future's golden dower. her glasses ready for action, the young lady Call not the dead love back. came forward. Sing on, eing on, in thy mighty chime. Of the world to come and its joys eubUme, " My mamma," she said, " wishes me to But, oh 1 in the terrible came of Time, recite for yon a poem which she composed Call not the dead love back.

•?^ T- V

542 [May G, 187J.1 ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [Oondncted by

Sing of the work tbat is waiting still, sheep. I could watch this dissolving view For the earnest hand and the steady will, Of the great crusade against want and ill. from the window throngh a light green Oh sea, call nothing back. screen, formed by a young plane-tree which grew just before it. Oloron is quite the town of plane-trees, which grow every­ MAT-DAY AMONG THE MULES. where, forming most delectable shady boulevards and allees, their curiously blis­ IT had been an old promise that I should, tered trunks giving a sickly yellow green before finally leaving the south of France, tint to the chequered sunlight. At this spend a May-day at Oloron for the purpose time of the year they afibrd shelter to in- of seeing the great mule fair held there. numerahle nightingales, who in this conn- Accordingly, on the 30th of April, I8G8, we ti^y sing as much by day as by night, aud started from Pan, stopping to lunch at keep up what our pretty little waitress Belair, so celebrated for its beautiful view (who, I suppose, thought nothing could of the neit^hbourlno; mountains. While be charming but herself) called a "vilain waiting at the inn up drove a Pan acqualnt- tapage." auce In the person of the Marquis de Ohe- The table d'hote dinner foUowed, the rizet, out of whose pony-carriage was lifted cuisine and service, though extremely a square box, which proved to contain a simple, being clean and quite sufficiently poor little hearling of about a month old, good. The five sisters officiate as waitresses, whose mother had been shot and itself cap­ an arrangement which must go far towards tured, the day before, in the mountains near; rendering their hotel profitable. The re­ Urdos r and very sulky and strange the poor. past was somewhat dull. A lady would ap­ little orphan looked, as we peered at him pear to be an unusual apparibiun, and the through the bars, which confined him to his efiect of my presence seemed to depress extemporised prison. the company, chiefly composed of commls- From Belair to Oloron the drive is very voyageura, to a point fully justifying Sir beautiful, and it was enlivened by the freaks Walter Scott's remark on the invariable and antics of the mules we passed, whose stupidity of their English brethren. Si­ owners were bringing them from all parts' lently the meal progressed; the only talker for the sale of next day, for hy far the being, fortunately for me, my immediate greater number of these animals seeu iu neighbour, whom I found an intelhgent Spain, aud called Spanish, are iu reality and pleasant man, aud wdio afterwards reared on the French side of the Pyrenees. procured us useful infoi'mation as to an At the old-fashioned inn we were wel­ expedition we were planning to make in comed by the five spinster sisters, joint the Val d'Aspc. hostesses of the Hotel Soustalot, who have The following luoming wc breakfasted not yet abandoned the gracious old custom at eight o'clock on tea and trout, before of attending iu person, to welcome the mounting the zigzag road, in company with coming, and speed the pai'ting guest. We strings of mules and pigs, to the Hante­ declined the rooms first ofi'cred to us, per^ ville. The day was roasting hot, but the celving that being over the portail which little plane-planted Place was a delightful formed an archway over the road, all refuge from the rays of the sun. Thus the mules aud muleteers would have to early there was no crowd within its pre­ pass underneath, on their way from the cincts, and I could observe at leisure the Basse to the Hanteville, where the fair curious scene, EucircHng the wall, and was to take place next day j and their in­ crowding over it, were innumerable heads cessant tramping throughout the night of mules, donkeys, horses, and ponies, many would he but a bad preparation for a hard deep, forming a queer, fantastic kind of set­ day's sight-seeing; so we took up our ting to the green oval Place. There was quarters In a queer little excrescence of a remarkably Httle struggling or movement. room, buUt out from the house, so as to! Their places once taken, the patient beasts have three windows and three aspects, stood gazing longingly with their soft brown commanding respectively the river, the eyes into the coo), shady plane.grove, giving ridge on which the oldest part of the town but small sign of life, save by the switching is built, and a steep hank with an escarped' of their tails and the twitching of their long road thronged by a grotesque procession ears. The owners hovered near, sat on the of Spaniards in their strange costumes, wall, or bestrode the animals, bnt at this Bcamais peasants in their more sober stage there appeared to be but little busi­ dresses, horses, mules, donkeys, pigs, and ness doing. The fair lasts three days.

^ ^ :& Oharles Diekens,Jun.] iLAT-DAY AMONG THE MULES. [May 6,1871.] 543

Imagine what a reign of obstinacy, a three to be enjoyed by the fair-goers. Here half days' mule and pig fair! These last ap­ a dozen peasants discussed their business peared to give the most trouble, and their and their cold omelette, seated in a row on grunting remonstrances against the coer­ the wall- ouly inteiTupted by the necessity cion they were subjected to, were very ve­ of administering gentle raps on the smooth hement in the neighbouring street. moist nose of a pertinaciously hungry mule, The shouts of the pubhc cheese-weigherj who totaUy disregarded such abusive re- however, took my attention from the doleftU moustrances as "Enfant gate tais-toi," complaints of the pigs, and I watched Spaniards lounged on the sunny south with some interest the operation by which waU, or crowded the windows of surround­ each mountaineer ascerta,ius, for the sum ing cabarets, whence they had a good view of one sou, the precise weight of his store of their prospective purchases. Moun- of cheese. The contents of the cradle in tanieers wearing wide shady berets, look­ whicli the cheeses are carried, duly weighed ing, in thefr huge peaked bcrnouses, aud and ticketed, and the sou paid, a presiding with thefr long hair streaming over their sergent de viUe presents him with a corre­ shoulders, like figui'es out of Stothard's sponding certificate; and off he marches Canterbury PUgrtms, reUeved gnai'd, so as to another quai-ter to dispose of his goods to aUow thefr bris-ht-fichued womenkind to as he best may* rest and refresh themselves, after thefr weary A doleful whining bleat, close by, be­ watching of the mules. Tenderly and affec­ trayed some unfortunate black and white tionately many petted the beasts they hoped lambs lying In groups under the trees, ready so soon to lose. for sale. Each small beast formed a tiny Miniatui'e cai-ters and drovers, in and triangle, his luckless little legs being tied below then- teens, herded together in this together at an angle with his outstretched spare honr to narrate thefr' adventures and head and tail: each woolly coat was to compare their failings. As one glanced marked by the owner in some fantastic at their strongly marked features and way or colour. I never saw so ghastly an square-bnUt Httle forms, be-bereted and effect, as that produced hy smearing with be-bloused precisely like their elders, as blue the eyes of the black lambs. they stood cracking their whips with mimic A really very pretty Httle pony was force, one remarked how truly the Basque -offered to me for sixty fi-ancs, which would and Bearnais chUd is father to the man. have been ^voHh at least four times that Swarthv weU-dressed o-irls fiocked into amount in En*i'land. the Plane Place to see whether there was A good-natured limonadiere lent me a any prospect of dancing. Tins, I was told chair, and while I was drinking some of by my friend the lemonade vender, would her lemonade, I was violently assaulted by depend on whether " suffiaamment de a smaU gipsy urchin to whom I had been jennessse" assembled. I conclude this did rash enough to give a handful of bon-bons not prove the case, as there were no signs earlier in the day. He poked his brown of a ball when we left the HanteviUe, at Uttle fist into my ^' poca," and on its being twelve o'clock. We sauntered through the ^ectcd, he proceeded to abuse and to cuff crowded town before returning to the inn, me, with all his five-year-old strength. and crreatlv admfred some of the mules and That filthy, half-naked, unkept Bohemian horses, especiaUy two young bays, which lamily formed a strong contrast to their would make beautiful ladies' horses a year surroundings, and presented precisely the hence. The inoment we were observed to foil wanted by an artist's eye to the weU- look at a horse, his owner or groom would dressed, prosperous crowd. There was the commonly produce a crumpled piece of old hag of a grandmother, her wrinkles paper, which proved to be a certificate from black with dirt grabbing with her long the Haras, telHng his pedigree and age. homy finders at her impish grandchildren, The Spanish costumes disappolnied me as they darted mischievously in and out in number and brilHancy. One farmer, among the bystanders, whUe the handsome indeed, I saw so weU and cleanly dressed, mother looked on with the expression of a that I covetod his long mauve sash, so diffi­ wild beast, half sUly, half savage, unable cult to find iu France, where the orthodox or unwilling to check her young barbarians colour for sashes is red or green. Touching as they audaciously filched nuts and plums it with one hand, and holding my purse in from the staUs. the other, I offered to buy it; but he marched About twelve o'clock luncheon groups away, either offended or not understanding began to form, and something like society my meaning- F o 544 [May G, 1871.] ALL THE TEAR EOTJND. [Oondnctedby

We came upon a fine old Norman church hnildiugs are an hotel kept by a Spanmrd, now used as a warehouse for lamb-skins. and two bath houses. There are, besides This, however, is not the profanation it at Comte de Barrante's own pretty chalet, first sight appears. The altar above, in a two smaller ones for letting. Roman Catholic country, constitutes the The Commandery of the Knights Hos­ consecrated part of a church, and this pitallers of St. Christau was situated in being removable at pleasure, leaves the ancient times between Lurhe and Eysus, church, so to speak, disconsecrated. The and was closely connected with the mo­ hides of lambs are prepared and made into nastery of St. Christine, of which the ruing gloves, which are here honestly sold as may still be seen from Urdos. gants d'Agneau, but which I recognised as This religious house was either founded being the same sort of glove bought by or re-established about the year 1126, hy poor deluded folk at Pan and'Bayonne, as Gaston the Fourth, Vicomte de Beam, kid. Other ai^ticles of commerce here are His father it was who rebuilt the town linen, crimson sashes, checked fichus, and and cathedral of Oloron, or, as it was an­ iron, A large number of youug meu aud ciently called, lUurona, or Civitas EHoro- women are employed at Oloron in wool- neusium. A worthy son of this same Ceu- stapling. The shops are unpretending but tuUe the Fourth, Gaston's first thought on good, and arranged with taste. The por­ returning from the Crusades was to benefit celain tiles largely sold here form a very Beam by spending his newly-acqufrcd pretty feature in the shop windows. A less riches in founding and endowing various pleasing merchandise is wicker traps, much religious establishments. Not only at resembling the bottoms of baskets, made the siege of Jerusalem had Gaston dlstlu- here for sale, as we were told, among Spa­ guished himself, but he had proved himself niards. We begged to know what could so valuable an ally to Alphonse le Bataillaut, he entrapped by sueh clumsy means, and King of Navarre aud Arragon, iu his con­ were assured that they were invaluable for quest of Saragossa, that King Alphonse insertion in beds to secure immunity from conferred on him the title of " Segnor iu hugs ! The necessity for such contrivances Saragoza." By this elevation Gaston also does not give a pleasant impression of our acquired the title of first " RIcomhre" of Spanish neighbours. Haviug walked about Saragossa; a dignity which, it would ap­ long enough, we returned to the Inn to pear, raised the possessor to a position little lunch, and then drove to St. Chrlstau de short of equality with the king. The Lurhe, a small watering-place lately brought children of the "Ricombres" bore the iuto notice by its new proprietor, the Comte name of "Infants," and the chevaliers in de Barraute. The five miles drive along a their service of " Cavalleros de Honor;" natural terrace shaded by oak and beech is and the king In return for their services was lovely. From it we could see the first part obliged to take counsel with the " Ri­ of the road to the Val d'Aspe, running combres" in every impoi^tant matter of along an almost parallel crest. We over­ government. Gaston spent ten years in took numbers of peasants returning on his "Ricombrerle," at Saragossa, before their donkeys to Lurhe and neighbouring returning to his native Beam. To none villages, with their purchases made at the of his new foundations did he so especially grande foire; including lambs, who would devote himself as to the monastery of St. certainly rejoice when they had attained Christine, whose position on the summit of the end of their journey. Each miserable the Highest mountain, commanding the Httle quadruped was squeezed down into entrance to the Port d'Aspe on the road to one end of the long striped purse-hke Jaca and Saragossa, gave it great import­ market bag, used by the Bearnais peasant. ance. It afforded a blessed refuge to This was slung throngh the girths of the pilgrims, merchants, and peasants, sur­ donkey, and out of the slit mouths at each prised by winter storms in these dangerous end, the poor Httle beasts' heads protruded passes. The neighbouring commandery and peered piteously, close to the dangling had a monastery attached to it in connexion and spurred heels of the riders. The with that of St. Christine, both of which modern St. Christau consists of a cluster assumed the arms of the Knights of St. of houses and buildings connected with the Christau, viz., a white pigeon with a cross estabhshment, and has a very park-like in its beak. The following legend is told appearance. It is prettily laid ont with as the origin of these armorial bearings. walks and avenues, and is for a sraall The workmen who were employed to build watermg-place one of the most attractive I the monastery were baffled in several at­ have seeu in the Pyrenees. The ouly large tempts to lay the foundations, owing to

^ =1 ^ Ohadea Dickens. Jun,] MAY^DAY AMONG THE MULES. [May G, 1S71.] 545

the special difficulties presented by the found the " grande foire," or the day after soil, and position of the site first chosen. the fair, whicli we spent iu the Val d'Aspe, No better fortune attended the second aud the more enjoyable. The early part of the third venture, and the builders were iu drive on leaving Oloron, was indeed scarcely despair, when one morning they perceived so picturesque as that of St. Christau, a white pigeon bearing a cross in its beak. but it perhaps enhanced the marvellously They pursued the bird, which perched on a beautiful scenery into which we emerged box-tree, but though it flew away on their on reaching Asaspe. There the Basque near approach, they found in the branches country begins, and from this point the the cross it had left. They took this as a views continue increasing, if possible, in good omen, and proceeded successfully to picturesqueness and beauty, till Urdos is lay the foundations on the spot where the reached. The mouutains, it is true, are tree had stood. On the altar was carved less bold aud rugged than In other of the the blessed sign aud its winged bearer, Pyreueau gorges, but they are so distri­ which later became also the convent arms. buted aud thrown about, as to present an A somewhat similar story to that of infinitely greater variety of tints, while they Prince Bladud's discovery of the vfr-tues charm by the very contrast they offer to the of the Bath waters, is told of the St, hetter known excursions. Christau springs. The discoverer is sup­ A gi^adual ascent along a capital road posed to have been a neatherd who Hved foUows the course of the Gave d'Oloron, about the year A.D. 1300, and to have be­ which is crossed at Escob, after passing longed to the despised race of Cagots, who, the rugged Pene or Bolt, near which a whatever the origin of their much dis­ Latin inscription, cut in the rock, com- cussed name may have been, appear, at all memoi-ates the making of this road by the events, to have been descendants of those Romans under Valerius. Passing through who were suspected of being sufferers frora Sarrauce we still fallow the line of the the introduction of leprosy into Beam, by Gave to Bedous. The colour of the water the crusaders ou thefr return from the East. Is a pretty soft brown, like the ground of a The then governors of the country made cameo, or the liquid shadow of Dante's all possible efforts to isolate those afflicted, Lethe, " Bruna, bruna, sotto I'ombra per- or supposed to be afflicted, by this horrible petua," quite different from the beautiful disease. Separate houses, and iu the beryl tint of the other Gaves of the Pyre­ churches separate doors and henitiers, nees. WhUe the horses were being changed effected this object in Hfe, while in death at Bedous, we breakfasted at the tidy little they were condemned to lie in special inn, two Basque farmers making conversa­ cemeteries. One law restricted their em­ tion for us the while. They told us of a ployment to out-of-door trades, such as compatriot, an English clergyman of good shepherding, thatching, aud cutting wood. family, who has adopted this beautiful It was one of these humble shepherds who, country as his own, married a mountain dwelling iu a cabin close to St. Christau, beauty, and, entirely giving up his pro- used to water his animals at the neigh­ fesslon and native land, settled in the half bouring source, and also take it for his own Protestant village of Osse, near Bedous, use. He found his malady gradually dis­ where he divides his time between cultivat­ appearing, which he attributed to the effects ing a Httle "propriete," fishing, and paint­ of the sparkling fountain. This he made ing the lovely scenery by which he is sur­ known to his fellow-sufferers, and its fame rounded. The singular isolated French spread until Cagots flocked from all partes Protestant community of Osse consists of to profit by it. The particular spring—for about thirty famUies, who have preserved there are five in all, frequented by these their faith for ages in the midst of thefr poor creatures—still retains the name it Roman Catholic nelghbom^s. The two then acquired of " eau des ladi'es," or " des churches are equally ancient, and there is dartres." no rivalry uor enmity ou the part of the Owing to the miserable prejudices of the majority towards the small Protestant Bearnais, they shunned the resort of the minority; on the contrary, Intermarriages Cagots to their own loss, and it was long are not uncommon nor objected to by the before the general public benefitted hy these priests, showing how curiously tradition waters, which are now used hoth for drink­ and habit will induce tolerance, as well as ing and bathing in cases not only of skin the contrary. Some years ago we spent a disorders, but also of intermittent fever, raorning in the viUage of Osse, Honised by rheumatism, asthma, &c, &c. the pasteur, but as it lies somewhat off the It would be hard to say '^vhether we main road, and we were anxious to push on

./^ 546 [May G,1S71.1 ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Condncted hy to Urdos, we were unable on this occasion France, which is capable of holding three to visit it, or to see the veiy ancient and thousand raen. A zigzag road conducts, curious Roman church at Accous, "Aspa by a succession of stages, to the fort, which Luca." Here the Pyrenean Burns, Des- is at a height of five hundred feet, over^- ponrrius, was born, and an obelisk is looking a precipice, which is connected, by erected to his memory. a drawbridge spanning the abyss, with Briskly om^ Bedous horses trotted up the rock on which the fort stands. The the valley, obedient to the howls and destruction of this bridge would, of course, shrieks of the energetic " cochcr," who be an easy matter to the garrison, should never for one minute subsided into silence. it be wished to internipt communication Indifferent to his somewhat paralytic whip, between France and Spain. Only one the steeds were attentive to his voice, company of soldiers is stationed at IJrdoH, which, when for a moment not required to and this Is changed every six months. exhort them, went off into a wild kiud of Though the main part of the regiment chant, and agaiu, without a moment's was quartered at Pan, remarkably little in­ pause, relapsed into yeUs of encourage­ tercourse appeared to be kept up with these ment. exiles in the solitary fort. The officers, we As we left the Bassin de Bedous, we presume, receive newspapers and letters, passed from one magnificent defile to an­ bnt the men were in utter Ignomnce of other, and threaded the uan*ow streets of recent news, not even having heard of the Aigun and Etsaut—streets so narrow that late successes of the EngHsh army iu to pass another vehicle would have been Abyssinia. They took a lively interest in absolutely impossible. The story occurred Pan news, especially iu hearing what to our minds in which snch a perplexing music thefr baud, of which they aro justly case is suggested to that most charming proud, had been playing lately. It has of elderly heroiues, the " my lady" of been quite a pleasure to us since our trip Mrs. Gaskell, who, after much considera­ to Urdos to forward to these poor billiard- tion, thus solved the problem: " The less, paperless Frenchmen our local Pyre­ youngest creation must hack." For­ nean journal. That tbey appreciate sncli tunately, it was not necessnry for us to re­ resources is evident from the extensive use sort to this aristocratic but inconvenient made of a library provided for the garrison process, nothing of nobler creation than by the kindness of the sous-prefet, and for mules appearing to Impede our progi^ess. which the monthly subscription amounts The roadside walls were hung with lamb­ to one sou per member. A private soldier skins in process of drying, ready formaking who accompanied us in our inspection of iuto ffloves. We now approached the last the fort was deep in Mrs, Ga.skeU's novel, defile, leading to the foot of the fort of Nord et Sud. We were amused at meet­ Urdos, or Portalet, which commands and ing onr old friend in French disguise in bars the entrance to the valley, by the this out-ot-the-way corner of the world. magnificent road made by the great Napo­ The reader informed us he found it the more leon, to facilitate the conveyance of timber interesting because of the recent agitation for ship-building from the neighbouring in France ou the subject of strikes. forests. The fort of Portalet, though in its This airy bracing place must be the way unique, reminds one of Gibraltar and best possible change for the soldiers who Ehrenbreltsteln. It is hewn in the natural have suffered from the had fever, which rock, within the shoulder of an almost per­ has of late infested the unhealthy barracks pendicular hill, the facades only and the at Pan. It was touching to hear with domed roofs to the innumerable long pas­ what gratitude and feeling the men spoke sages being formed of masonry, which is of the devotion aud death of a sister of battlemcnted and flanked by bartezan tur­ charity at Pan, who had especially taken rets. Loopholes and embrasures for cannon under her charge sick soldiers, from whom are pierced in the face of the fortress. But she eventually caught her fatal Ulue>sR. the exterior gives the spectator no idea of Scenr Fehcite was a lady by hirtli, hut de­ the extent and number of the galleries, voted herself and her fortune to the aUevia- stairs, and batteries excavated in Its in­ tion of those who, Hke her own dearly loved terior. They remind one more of the in­ brother, wereinthe serviceof their country. tricate construction of the architect bee, or " She nursed me through the fever, and some such ingenious insect, than of any­ saved my life," said 6ne man to mo ; " and thing else. More than ten years were oc­ ungrateful it seemed for me to be here^ cupied In forming this gigantic outpost of breathing this fine air and to be growing <^: & CharleB DiekenB, Jun.] PLOGARRIAN. [iTay^, ISTL: 547

stronger every day, while she was dying Before leaving the foUowing day, the of infection aud bad air, I was not even third of the fair and the principal day for present at her funeral, the saint! Ah ! pleasure purposes, we took a stroll in the but she understands all that now, without Place of the Basse Ville, among the booth-s, doubt!" gambhug - tables, menageries, &c., which Such talk whiled away the time as I sat were thronged by peasants and townsfolk, in the concierge's quarters, while the rest I gambled at the china and glass rotatory of the party inspected the fort more fnlly table, and won ouce ont of three times, but than I was able to do, not feeling Inclined instead of gaining the imposing candlestick to go down by subterranean passages to which had been offered to bribe me, I was the bed of the Gave, only to remount before put off with a lop-sided salt-ceUar. This I descending the zigzag road to meet our presented to a juvenile bystander, who carriage. I amused myself by watching seemed quite overwhelmed with the magni­ the chivalrous attentions paid by the tude of the gift. soldiers to the concierge's niece, the only We recoMised some old Cauterets faces specimen of the fair sex Inhabiting this In the crowd, among others that of a fur desolate stronghold. Much inclined, ap­ dealer who for three weeks persisted in try­ parently, to give herself afrs, the Queen of ing to cheat us into buying black fox-skins Urdos must infallibly be spoilt for any with artificial brushes. Here we were for­ other sphere in which her subjects may be tunate in finding and buying a fine speci­ fewer, and their devotion more divided. men with a good brush, and its owu! We reluctantly took leave of Urdos in We bought two trifling photographs of all its rugged beauty, and descended to the Oloron, but could get none of beautiful road, where the carriage was awaiting us Urdos, which would bo so good a subject on its return from the village of Urdos, for photography. That Oloron and Urdos, about a mile distant, where the horses, aud which are within such easy reach of Pan, doubtless the melodious Jehu also, had should be but Httle known by onr erratic been refreshed. country people, is singular. That it is so, The Marquis de Cherizet's bear cub was is proved by the fact that at none of the caught on a mountain near Urdos. We numerous photograph shops at Pau could have heard lately that the poor little fellow I get a single view, taken in or near the has been presented to the Jardiu des Val d'Aspe. An Oloron tradesniau, who Plantes at Paris, having proved sulky and combines a little photographing with his intractable at Pau. In the month of June many other vocations, and who migrates iu we saw a magnificent bear-skin offered for the summer to Cauterets, promised to take sale in one of the Pyrenean villages, which for me some views of the valley and fort. turned out to be that of the father of this Por the nonce I was obliged to content my­ cub, killed close to Urdos, as he, poor beast, self with buying some trifling failings as was prowliug about, regardless of his own souvenirs of a previous pleasant visit to safety, in search of his wounded wife with Oloron. Certainly, ifc was necessary to gefc her little one. up a little romance to enhance the value of We returned at a great pace to Bedous, these bagatelles, for the intrinsic worth of where we again picked up our own horses. the wicker fish (whose interior is intended, We had, In the moruing, overtaken Spa­ I canuot say calculated, to contain knitting- niards leading, driving, or riding' home needles, to be inserted at the nostrUs) and thefr newly bought mules; and we now of the glim specimen of jewellery I chose, met strings of the handsome sleek skittish scarcely recommends theui as the vrals brutes going to Spain with their bizarre and bijoux, the loquacious vender represented dirty-looking'owners. Pretty as the groups them to be! were, the eye almost wearied of the endless aud conftised procession of li-isky beasts, PLOGARRIAN. especially as they seriously retarded our re­ turn by their pranks and meanderings ; ac­ IX SEVEN CHAPTEKS. CHAPTER VT. quaintance with their new masters being so WITH the exception, perhaps, of the recent as to make numbers of thera, loose as coast of Norway, there is not so wUd, so they were, more than half inclined to turn dreary, so savage a seaboard iu Europe as round, and foUow our carriage back to that of the coast of Brittany. Genei'ally Oloron. We returned late to a solitary the ocean seems to put off some at least of dinner, and were glad to go to hed after the terrors of its grandeur, its might, and our long day in the mountains. its loneliness when it comes to meet the

••^. '^

^ =5: 548 [MayG, 1871.1 ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Condacted by

land. On the iron-bound shores of Flnis­ tion of the young cure into his new duties terre and the Cotes du Nord it is not so. on this wild coast, and amid these wUd There it seems, as if the ocean had Im­ people, yet raore dreary and weird in all its pressed all Its character on the land, in­ accompaniments than it might otherwise stead of receiving any modification from it. have been, that he arrived in his parish in And the parish of Tregastel, to which the wirier. He arrived iu the winter, and Delaroche had been sent, is situated on It is difficult to make a reader, wlio has the wildest part of this wild coast. The never visited that coast, realise the exceed­ population, amoug whom He was sum­ ing desolation of the spot that was assigned moned to labour, seemed to bear, in every to him as a habitation, even In summer. part of thefr character, the same impress as Far protruding into the sea stretches a that which marked the Inanimate world long, narrow promontory, which gives more around them. They are a sombre people, or less of shelter to a small, scattered village as the sky above them is sombre. They of fishermen's huts, situated on the shore are marked by that species of wild me­ at the promontory's base. But the land, as lancholy, which seeras to be the charac­ is very freqnentiy the case, rises rapidly teristic of the lonely promontories and sea- from tlus base, and rises even raore and worn bays they inhabit. Though a moral more till the furthermost point of the pro­ race, as regards many of the matters with montory Is reached. The village is the vil­ which the immoi-allty of other peoples is lage of Tregastel; but the church, which concerned, they are not, or were not, au so poor a collection of dweUIngs could easy people for their spiritual pastors to hardly claim to have in its immediate deal with. The nature of the coast is one vicinity, rather than at any other spot in terribly fatal to ships, and the Bretons of the wide-spread parish, is built—in accord­ the coast are, or were, inveterate wreckers. ance with the long, lingering feeling, which And the practice very naturally leads, as it once prompted raen to worship on high is easy to understand, to lawlessness of all places—on the high ground at the end of sorts, and often to crimes of the darkest the promontory. And, as according to old, character. Then, again, strange as it may and, probably, stiU orthodox ideas, the seera to the reader of the present age in priest's daily business lay more with the England, at the date of the events here church than with the congregation, the narrated—in the early part of the present habitation provided for him stood away century, that is to say—Christianity had from all the other dwellings of the little by no means altogether yet succeeded in village, by the side of the cliurch. substituting itself for the old Druldical It was a very humble little dwelling, paganism ! And this, also, it raay readily sturdily built and strong, however, with be beHeved, did not tend to facilitate the very thick walls; for stone, if nothing else. task of a Christian priest. Is abundant In Tregastel. And it was roofed Nevertheless, the Bretons are a very re­ with huge slabs of the same material, the ex­ ligious people. They are not Hke the in­ treme massiveness of which had served to habitants of sorae more smiling lands, dis­ save the labour of splitting them, and still posed to live in, and for, the visible, to the served to secure the little homestead from neglect of the invisible. The sombre and being unroofed by the terrible blasts that severe scenery around them, which has often sweep all that coast, and especially fashioned their characters in its own .simili­ the exposed headlands of it. Sonic little tude, has made it impossible that this shelter was obtained in oue direction from should he the case. For the inhabitant of a huge, naked rock, which formed tho cul­ the Breton coast there are voices in every minating point of the promontory, aud lay wailing wind that sweeps his rocky shore; there, on the highest point of another naked there are the outlines of forms in the mists block of granite, wdiich thru.st out its bald that so frequently environ him; there are head above the thin soil. The shelter thus tokens iu the drifting clouds; aud warn­ obtained might have seemed to a man of ings of sinister import in the dull roar of nervous temperament less desirable than the waves, wliich are for ever scooping the unmitigated exposure to the wind. For echoing caverns, or carving the rocks the huge mass, weighing many hundred into fantastic shapes and grim likenesses. tons, was a rocking stone, of which there Whether Pagan or Christian, the raind of are sevei-al among the colossal masses which tlie Breton is saturated with superstitions, have been tossed in weird confusion upon and they aro all of a gloomy kind. this coast, as if they were the monstrous It so happened, as if to make the initia­ fi^agments of an anudiluvian world; aud

V ^^ /^ Oharles Dickena, Jun.J PLOGARRIAN". [May e, 1S71.] 549

in certain gales, when the hurricane was beneficent purposes of Heaven were re­ strong enough, and chanced to blow with sorted to! all its force exactly on the right spot, the It was about an hour before midnight, huge, dumb monster, with the weight of that Delaroche was awakened by a knock­ ages on its head, might be seen to nod ing against the window-pane of the room visibly. But it had continued to nod for in which he slept, aud voices outside the more hundreds of years than raan's records window. could tell, and had never fallen yet; so On rising from his sleep, and going to that the little parsonage had every right the w^indow, he was accosted by a young to consider the rocking stone among the man, who asked if he were Monsieur le friendly forces of nature rather than among Cure, "because," continued the voice, "if those with which it and its inhabitants had so, your reverence must come, if you please, to contend. to le Pere Morvenec, who is dying." And these were raany in that wild winter ^'Le Pere Morvenec! Where does he time. The parish was, though small in the live ?" asked the cure, to whom the name number of souls which made np its popu­ was unknown, and who had not yet been lation, yet large in its territorial extent. long enough in his parish to have made And the summons that calls the priest to acquaintance with snch of his more distant the bedside of a perhaps dying parishioner parishioners as were not church-goers. is one that brooks not either neglect or de­ " At Tresneven, ou the other side of the lay. For may not the eternal weal or woe bay," replied the fii^st speaker. of a Iniman soul be hanging in the balance ? '* At Tresneven !" exclaimed Delaroche ; To do them justice, very few soldiers of ''why it is three hours' jomney at tho Rome's black army are ever slack to obey least! How am I to get thei'e at this time those calls to arms. And assuredly the of night ? I will dress myself directly. Reverend Jean Delaroche was not likely to Come round to the door that I may let you be one of these, let the call corae when and In out of the storm." where it might. Hurrying to the door the cure admitted It was about mid-winter, when he had two men, evidently fisbermen^—him who been in his cure ouly two or three months, had spoken, and an older mau, apparently that a summons of this kind reached him under the authority of the younger, under circumstances that raight have made ^'How am I to make such a journey as many a man not so alert to obey it as he that?" said the cure, again shutting the might otherwise have been. door, not without an effort of strength The day had been rainy, but without against the driving wind aud rain. wind. But as the sun went down, a wind *' We must cross the bay," said the began to blow from the north-west, which young fisherman. " Tresneven is a good soon sent the great billows tumbling in three hours or more frora here to go rouud upon the coast, Iu masses that broke upon by land; but we may cross the bay in half the distant rocks with a dull sound like an hour, if we have luck." the report of cannon. It is the north­ " Did you come that way ?" west wind that blows, when Ocean is in " Yes; our boat is under the lee of the the mind to throw a prize or two upon the rock yonder beneath the moving stone," coast for the benefit of his Breton chUdren ; " It Is not a nice night for the job, is and, doubtless, on many a headland there it?" said the cure, who was all the time were eyes looking out into the storm, that dressing himself as hastily as he could. night, to watch for any such blessing that '' No, your reverence ; it is not a pretty Heaven might please to send. Well, if night to cross to Tresneven in; nor a there were no contrivances in action ; such, pretty night to die in. And le Pere for example, as a cow, with her head tied Morvenec won't last till morning." down to her knee, and a lantern fixed to "Now, I am ready!" said the cui-e, her horn, so that, when she should be driven finishing his toilet by throwing a large along the shore, t!ie movement of the light black serge cloak around him; "I must might resemble that of a ship's lantern fixed call my servant to shut the door behind us, to a mast, and induce unhappy mariners if she can manage to do it." to imagine that a vessel was there safely It took some minutes to wake the old ploughing the waves, and that the deadly woman, who was the cure's sole domestic shore must yet be far off, aud so might aud fellow-inhabitant of his lonely parson­ entice them to thefr destruction on the age, and make her understand the errand rocky coast. WeU, if no such aids to the ou which he was bound.

•^

^ 550 [>tay 6,1S710 ALL THE YEAR ROUND, [Conducted by

'^ Le Pere Morvenec !" grumbled the old came up from the boat. Aud the voices of woman. "- Oh, his time is come, is it ? So the spirits were calHng, and shrieking, and that's what all the hubbub is about, then ? wailing, and laughing iu the caves of It is a tough job your reverence will have Gufrec, as we passed Quirec rocks, enough of it, I can teU ye." to make the sweat run off you, saving your Delaroche supposed that the "hubbub" reverence's presence. They were calling aUudcd to tho waking np of himself and to the poor soul of old Pere Morvenec. his old servant; and that the "tough job" But, please God, your reverence will baulk was the crossing of the bay in the storray 'era yet if we can get to hira in time; hut night. Had he been a resident of longer he won't last till morning, that's very sure ! standing on the Breton coast he might I never heard the voices in Guirec caves have understood that the " hubbub'' alluded howling that way that it did not betoken to was the storm, which the old Breton death near!" woman imagined to be caused by the pass­ They were in the boat by this time, and ing of a soul, which if all tales were true, Delaroche inquired of his conductors If he was caUed aw^ay to a sj^ecially heavy could be of any use in lending a hand. reckoning ; and that the " tough job" was The young man asked him If he could hold the struggle that he (the cure) was to hard the rope attached to the corner of the engage In with the Evil One. sail, after it had been passed round a be- ''Good-night, Mere Corven," he said, laying-piu. It would add very much to turning from the door, and crossing hira­ their safety, he said, if that could be so self with a short muttered prayer as he held, ready to be let go at a word, in­ proceeded to follow his conductors to their stead of being fastened to the side of the boat. boat. " Are you the son of TVfonsIeur Mor­ And thus they went dashing on through venec?" he asked of the younger man, the black waves. Nothing but practised who had hitherto been the sole speaker. skill and perfect knowledge of the locality, '' No, your reverence. Le Pere Mor­ joined to unhesitating intrepidity, could venec has no son, or I should not be here have navigated the boat safely in such a to-night on such au errand as this. It is not sea, aud amid the rocks of such a coast. a pleasant oue, ma foi. But it was a job From the bottom of the bay came out a that a Christian mau could not refuse." long point of dangerous low-lying rocks, " It is a nasty night to be ont, certainly." partially dividing the bay into two portions. "Oh pour ca! It isn't that I mind a These wero the dreaded Guirec rocks. And cupful of rain. I have crossed the bay in there, as the boat passed them, not without worse weather than this. But I had difBculty, the "voices" in the caveshoUowed rather have one of your reverence's cloth out of them were heard rising above the with me in the boat to-night, than any two roar of the wind, and amid the ceaseless of the best searaen in Brest. AUez !" exertion and activity required for the navi­ "You think that God's servant brings a gation of the boat, both the fishermen con­ blessing with him, my friend?" said the trived to kneel for a minute, while they cure. crossed themselves, aud muttered a hasty "No doubt, your reverence," returned prayer. the young fisherman, reverently lifting his The boat reached Tresneven in safety in broad-brimmed round-crowned hat, while less thau an hour after they had left Tre­ the wind blew across his face the long and gastel Point, and the cure was conducted abundant hair that fell upon his shoulders forthwith to a honse, which was evidently —*'no doubt, your reverence! But to­ by far the best in the place, and at once night there are evil things about, that you taken by a middle-aged woraan, whom the can better battle with thau we poor lay­ young raan addressed as Madame Morvenec, men. I saw the Tregastel stone nod three and who a.sked the cure if he would refresh times to the menhir* on Arvan Head as I himself with a mouthful of brandy, before going to his duty, to the bedside of his * The tall, upright etones found in many parts of Brittany are 60 called. They were objects of Drnidical dying parishioner. worship; and the Buperatitious reverence, still paid to Delaroche needed not the voices in the them by the people, is one of the still Hngering; remnants of the old religion. The clergy in many cafiea, finding caves of Guirec, nor the mystic nodding of it imposaible to prevent the people from paying rever­ the Tregastel stone to its old neighbour the ence to these stones, have placed crosses on the top of menhfr upon Arvan Head, to convince him them, in order, as it were, to filch for the profit of a more holy faith, the worship intended for a very diiFe- that the man before him was really dying- rent divinity. He was very much older than the wife with

*8 =TF,

/ ' Charles Dickena, Jan.] PLOGARRIAN. [May 6,187L] 551

whom Delaroche had just spoken, and it exactly legal matters of which bis reverence was plain that his hour had come. Very seeraed to make so much. He was a gentle­ plain, too, shortly It became that le Pere man, though, for all that, andnoble into the Morvenec's soul wa^; fuUv as IU at ease as his bargain, aud the possessor of a fine estate body, and that his shrift would not bo a —the possessor of a fine estate by means short or a Hght one. of the assistance and the crime of him, Of what passed between the dying man. Daniel Morvenec! and his confessor nothine: would of course This was what had happened, and what have ever been kuown, had it not been that he had done. The raan who had tempted the first thing which the latter enjoined on him — the seigneur—had had an elder his penitent for his soul's weal, when he brother, who had died, leaving one child, a had heard his confession, was that an open boy, who, of course, if he had lived, ought avowal should be made to the same effect, to have Inherited the estate. But Monsieur made indeed to him the priest, but made not Gregoire had come to him, and had pro­ "in coufession." To recount the story, there­ posed that the infant, a cMld between one fore, accurately, in the exact order in which and two years of age, should be delivered the facts became knowu to those who pre­ to him, aud that he, Morvenec (and at this served the memory of thera in the record point of his confession the old man wiped from which this narrative is taken, it should the big drops of perspiration from his be said, that the confession was made ; and brow), should take care that the boy was that the priest then, not without consider­ never heard of more. "But I have no able difficulty, Induced his penitent—who, blood — not that boy's hlood — upon ray despite the ominous voices did not die that soul! I am not his mui'derer ! though the night, uor till late tlie following night—to look of him has haunted me from that day request him, the curl, to put down In to this. Why does he come looking at me writing the substance of what he had con­ out of the dark, on nights like this ? I did fessed, as regarded one special transaction, not kiU him. If he died, it was by God's which written document he signed iu the hand—by the waves of the sea; and it Is presence of his wife, and of the young God's hand that makes them sweU and man who had brought the priest across flow—God's hand, your reverence, is it the bay. not?" Having explained this, however, the sub­ " Aud your part in the deed ? What was stance of Pere Morvenec's confession may that ? What did you do with the chUd ?" be told, just as if it had been overheard by asked the priest. the writer. " I received him from the hands of a There,was one matter only respecting woman in a back street in Rennes, whither which the old man's conscience was troubled. I had gone for that purpose, and I brought He admitted, m reply to the priest's ques­ him hither, and I carried him down to tioning, that he had no doubt been gnilty Guirec, aud hid hira in the caves till night­ of many a small matter, not quite accord- fall ; and then I took hira in a boat out to 'ing.to either law or gospel, in the course of the rock called the Chien, and I left him many and many a "winter night's work on there. I did not raise my hand against the coast, when the wind was inshore and him," whined the old man again, in depre­ the haiwest of the coast was to be had for cation of the horror which he thought that the -ontherinQ'. But the cure failed to his confession had caused in the priest, for enable hirn to see or feel, that there was any the latter had started fr-om the chair, in need of great repentance for doing in such which he had been sitting by the bedside, matters what everybody else did. Besides, at the mention of the Chien rock, and was all such matters had been confessed as they pacing up and down the little chamber had occurred in regular course, aud he had with disordered steps. never knowu a Breton priest who thought "I did not raise a finger against the much Harm of thera. But there was one child. I did not hurt him, Monsieur le thing that did lie heavy on his heart, and Cui-e," whimpered the wretched old mau which, tUl the present moraent, he had never again. confessed, though it had happened from "Daniel Morvenec!" said the priest, twenty to five-and-twenty years ago. solemnly mastering his agitation, and re­ He had been tempted by a man, a gentle­ turning to his seat by the side of the bed man, a seigneur, one whom he had known —" Daniel Morvenec, is the Chien rock very well, and in whose company he had covered at high water ?" often been engaged in some of those not " In rough weather and at high tides it

^ TV

^ =.& 552 ALL THE TEAR ROUND. [Maj «, 1871.J

is covered, Monsieur le Cure," said the September, In that same year to which shivering sinner. Morvenec referred, the Belie Louise, out- " And was it such weatlier, or such a Avard bound, had been driven out of her state of the tide, on the night when you course; and how his boat's crew, having carried the child thither, and left him on been sent on shore, on the coast of the the rock ?" asked the priest again. Cotes du Nord, for fresh vegetables, had, " The night was such another night as in pulling off", by God's mercy seen a child this ! May God be merciful to my soul!" npon the rock of the Chien, where, iu an groaned the dying man. another hour the sea would be raging, and " The rock, then, would of a surety be had brought off the child to his ship. At covered aud swept by the waves?" again length, rising frora his knees, the priest demanded the priest. turned and stood at the foot of the sick "Not for three hours after I left the man's bed, and said slowly and with solemn chUd there—not for three hours at least," voice: urged the old man, eagerly. "You see. " Daniel Morvenec, God has been very Monsieur le Cm-e, It was not I who took merciful to you. It is vain to strive to the life of the child; it was the hand of deceive yonr own heart, still worse, to seek God!" to deceive Him by the pretence that your The priest Heaved a deep sigh, and re­ hand was not lifted against the child. In mained silent a few minutes; while the thought and intention you were a mur­ dying man lay trembling all over, and his derer!" teeth audibly striking each other, while the Morvenec groaned heavily, and visibly roar of the wind, and the beating of the trembled from head to foot as he lay in the sea on the rocks close at hand, made a bed. wallbig and disraal music, which seemed to "But God, in His infinite mercy," con­ the passing sinner Hke accusing voices from tinued the priest, " has saved you from the out of the long past, and to the priest like consummation of the crime you purposed. dim, returning memories of a consciousness If you are truly repentant of the intention long since overlaid by the events of later to do that wicked deed, God grants that years. you may die without the weight of murder "Are yon ableto tell the year and the on your soul. For the child, whom yon day of the year on which you left the child left to the mercy of the waves on the Chien on the Chien rock?" the latter said at rock, still lives. He stUl lives to forgive length. you in his own person for the deed, as fuHy " The day Is too well fixed In my heart as I, if you truly repent and make such for me ever to forget it. Monsieur le Cure," restitution as is yet in your power, pro­ the old man repHed. "It was on the 9th nounce to yon the forgiveness of God." of September, now a day or two more thau It is needless to describe the difficulty twenty-three years and five months ago." the cure had, In bringing the mind of the Again there was a pause of silence in the dying man to comprehend and believe the chamber. The priest stepped across the stateraent of the circumstances as they had floor of the little room to a prie-dlen under­ really occurred, aud still more so to follow neath a crucifix on the opposite wall, no the good priest through his efforts to make uncoraraon article of furniture iu the bed­ his penitent understand the meaning and room of a Breton peasant, and there, with the spiritual value of restitution, and to" clasped hands and bowed head, he remained show him that the restitution which it was in earnest prayer—or thanksgiving, per­ still in his power to make, consisted of such haps—for some raiuutes. He, too, had a full and duly attested confession (not that same date well fixed in his mind. For made under the seal of the sacrament of good Captain Morel, before leaving him at the confessional) as would avail to cause Rouen, had thought it right then to let him tardy right and justice to be done. know all that he, the captain, knew about It is sufficient for the purpose of this the manuer in which he had fallen Iuto his narrative to state that such a witnessed hands. He gave him a carefuUy drawn confession was made and signed, and that statement, which Had been prepared at the Daniel Morvenec died in the course of tbe tirae, setting forth how, on the 9th of foUowing night.

'ihs Rioht of Translating Articles from ALL THE YEAR ROUMJ is reserved by the Authors

y Pubiislied at tbe Utfice, 2G, WeUington St Strand. Printed by C. Wmnwo, Beaufort Honae, Dnke Bt. Linooin'B Inn Fields