13137	----	THE SECRET OF DREAMS by YACKI RAIZIZUN, PH. D. Price, Fifty Cents CONTENTS The Dreamer 5 Varieties of Dreams 12 How to Evolve the Large Consciousness 37 DREAMS Everybody dreams, but there are few who place any importance to the phenomena of sleep. Before we can begin to comprehend or even analyze dreams, whether our dreams are symbolic or otherwise, we must first divert from our mind our materialistic conceptions of what the individual called man really is. The external or physical man, is no more the man than the coat he wears. The physical man is only an instrument of which the real inner man or soul expresses itself in the physical universe. Various materialistic theories have been given in the past, trying to explain the mighty phenomena of dreams, but these theories have always been more or less unsatisfactory. Why? Because the-materialist tries to explain the riddle of human existence without an individual human spirit his explanation will always be unsatisfactory. Dreams afford a separation of soul and body. As soon as the senses become torpid, the inner man withdraws from the outer. There are three different ways which afford this separation. First, natural sleep. Second, induced sleep, such as hypnotism, mesmerism or trance. Third, death. In the above two cases the man has only left his physical body temporarily, whereas in death he has left it forever. In the case of death, the link which unites soul and body, as seen by clairvoyant vision, is broken, but in trance or sleep it is released. The real man is then in the astral world. He now functions in his astral body, which becomes a vehicle for expressing consciousness, just as the physical body is an instrument for expressing consciousness in the waking state. Consciousness is not annihilated when the man is in the Astral world, it is only temporarily suspended. Just the same as in the case of death. The man is fully conscious in the astral regions clothed in the body of the Astral matter. This Astral body is in the physical and extends little beyond it. The Astral world is here and now, interpenetrating the physical, and not in some remote region above the clouds as so many imagine. * * * * * Man is a soul. He has a body. He expresses himself in three worlds. While he functions in the physical body, viz., physical, emotional and mental worlds. Just as the Astral interpenetrates the physical the mental interpenetrates the Astral. The Astral body in which man functions during sleep is the body of emotions and desires and he expresses these desires and emotions in the physical life. * * * * * The Astral body in which man functions during sleep is very subtle matter. It resembles the physical. In fact, it is an exact reproduction of it, but it can only be seen by clairvoyant vision. When a man leaves his body in sleep or death, the spirit must leave the physical body before it will be rested and recuperated to enable it to undergo the strenuous daily toil of physical life. Here is an example. Let a man go to bed say ten o'clock. Let him sleep until six next morning. The ordinary man will awaken feeling refreshed and ready for his daily toil. Let him go to bed at ten, lie awake all night, next morning he will not feel refreshed and during the day he may feel sluggish and sleepy. Let him go to bed and lie awake night after night for a few weeks, what will be the result? He will be a physical wreck. Although he may have the same amount of hours lying in bed, he will not feel recuperated and refreshed unless he has had his natural sleep and this can only come to pass. When the soul or spirit withdraws from the physical body, the physical body is not the man, and as long as our materialistic writers who endeavor to interpret dreams fail to grasp the nature of the inner man, the real self, they will be forever groping in the dark. The first question that naturally arises in the mind of the layman is this: How can a man leave his body in sleep and continue its natural functions such as digestion, circulation of blood, etc. We do not consciously direct the circulation of the blood, or any of the natural bodily functions during our waking state. These things go on whether we will them or not. Although the spirit leaves the body in sleep as previously stated, there is still a magnetic connection with soul and body. This magnetic connection acts on the sympathetic nervous system and the cerebro spinal which controls the functions of the human organism. In sleep the astral man may be in the immediate vicinity of his sleeping recuperating physical body or it may be thousands of miles away in space, the magnetic connection still exists regardless of the distance. No matter what distance the astral man is away from his physical body, he can return to it with the rapidity of thought, as the saying is, for it is the soul that thinks, the brain is only an instrument of the soul. Many of our dreams may be attributed to subconscious memory, for when our mind is centered on a certain train of thought these thoughts are apt to filter through into the conscious state in sleep. The subconscious memory cannot be truthfully called a dream, for it is only a memory of something we have previously perceived in reality or imagination. One only has to examine his subconscious dream in the light of reason to eliminate them. Telepathy does explain some of our dreams, for just as it is possible for minds to receive telepathic communications (thought transference) from another in the walking state, it is also possible for the so-called dead to have telepathic communication with the living, for thought is a power, its limitation is unknown. While many of our dreams may be traced to subconscious memory or telepathy and happenings of material affairs of our daily lives, others are undoubtedly the astral happenings of the ego while functioning in the etheric regions. There we meet not only the misnamed dead but also many of those who are still in the physical body, and let me state here that many of our difficult problems of physical life are worked out in sleep. The old axiom, "I will go to sleep on it," has a greater significance than is generally attributed to it, for sleep and dreams have more to do in shaping your lives than you have any idea of. You can go to school in sleep and study anything you are studying in physical life and make marvelous progress. This requires much training, however. Keeping the mind free from evil thoughts is most essential to enable the sincere investigator to enter that larger state of consciousness, for the thoughts of our waking state have a more or less effect on the ego during sleep. Every individual harbors a certain train of thought, whether at business or pleasure this train of thought has a tremendous influence on the ego, in fact it shapes ones destiny. Choose well your thoughts for your choice is brief and yet endless. --Anna Besant in Thought Power Man may be said to live two lives in one, one when he is fully awake and the other when he is sound asleep. These two lives, of course, is the expression of his one existence. The highly developed, spiritual man as he retires into the interior world during sleep, realizes a state of spiritual bliss that is far beyond the stage of ordinary mortals. Man has been in the habit of looking at himself as a mass of flesh and muscle with a slight chance of realizing the Divinity within him. As the earnest soul gradually arouses himself he finds his proper place in the universe, for within him are all the attributes of deity, and when he reaches the end of the long evolutionary journey that is ahead of him he will find himself and know what he is destined to be, a God. VARIETIES OF DREAMS In order to distinguish and classify the different kinds of dreams in which everyone has an experience they may be divided into four variations. Nearly all dreams may be classified under this heading: 1. Physical Stimulus. 2. Subconscious memory. 3. Telepathy. 4. The Actual Astral experience of the Ego or Soul in the Astral region. Physical Stimulus may be the direct cause of impressing certain ideas on the physical brain which may appear to be a reality. The falling of a book, picture or any article in the room may cause the sleeper to dream of firearms; a soldier may dream of a battlefield; a sensitive female may dream it is a burglar; a person who throws the bed clothes off him on a cold night may dream of snow and ice; the continual dropping of water from a faucet in the room of the sleeper has been the direct cause of a friend of mine dreaming of a passenger train; the steady tramping of footsteps overhead may be the cause of dreaming of thunder storms, etc. We must also take into consideration the physical and mental environments of the sleeper. THE SUBCONSCIOUS MEMORY The subconscious memory may be the direct cause of certain dreams. When the mind is centered on certain things, the sleeper goes over his life again and again in phantom fashion. He lives over the experiences of his daily life. Very often the ego enlightens the sleeper of some material thing for his own benefit, which he may use advantageously in his waking state, but as he generally looks at the phenomena of dreams as an hallucination of the brain, he allows many a golden opportunity to slip through his fingers because the materialist's brain cannot grasp things of the spirit. All the knowledge and rubbish of our past lives is stored up in the subconscious mind where it remains in minute form. Memory is only the awakening of the sub-conscious mind, a long and forgotten incident, that has made a deep impression on the mind, is apt to filter through into the conscious state in dreams. In time of illness or when one's vitality is low, the dream picture of the past is apt to play a very prominent part in one's sleep. Childhood and long-forgotten scenes come up frequently and appear as real and genuine as if they had only happened the previous day. They frequently give the dreamer joy or sorrow, according to the stages he passed through. Even action of past lives may come up into the subconscious. Dreams of running around nude without any feeling of shame may be the memory of a previous existence. Falling from a high cliff or trees. Being chased around by some wild animals may be attributed to a primitive past. Dreaming of primitive people, places and things, only takes the dreamer a step nearer the stone age, from whence he came. Instead of looking at these subconscious dreams with horror and dread as some people do they should study them and shape their lives accordingly. TELEPATHIC DREAMS OR THOUGH TRANSFERENCE. Telepathy is a known and established fact. The connection between minds without material means of any kind, has often been demonstrated by the very simple method of one person acting as a sender, while the other acts as a receiver. The sender thinks of a certain subject selected before-hand. He may write it down on slate or paper. This often helps him to keep his mind concentrated on the subject he wishes to send to the receiver. The receiver places himself in as receptive a position as possible, and Keeping his mind calm, the impression he receives he makes note of. After a few experiences he may find the message to be correct, word for word. This is telepathy. In sleep there is often telepathic conditions between minds who are in close sympathy with each other, such as man and wife, mother and children, or people whose business brings them close together, may exchange thoughts during sleep. For instance, in one case a mother received the thought of her boy, who was away from home, telling of his sickness. A few days later she received a letter verifying her dream. A salesman dreams of a friend telling him of his company doing a big business in a neighboring town. Upon his friend's return his dream was found to be correct. A lady in San Francisco (whose husband was in Australia) for three successive nights, dreamed of his returning to America. She did not expect him until early in the fall of the year. She was dreaming of him in the spring. On the fourth morning after her dream she received a letter telling her about his unexpected return. These are so-called telepathic dreams, usually from minds of living people, although telepathic connection from minds of disincarnate beings is possible. THE ACTUAL ASTRAL EXPERIENCE OF THE EGO DURING SLEEP IN THE ASTRAL WORLD. The actual Astral experience in which the ego sees distant sights, sights and visions which he knows do not actually exist upon the physical plane, such as communicating with the dead, recovery of lost and stolen property; having premonitions of a certain thing which actually happens, such as approaching danger or death. Above are but a few of the actual astral experiences of the ego which it endeavors to impress on the physical brain. Sometimes it impresses them by symbols, for symbols are the true language of the soul, and to know how to interpret the meaning of the symbols of your dreams is of the utmost importance to the beginner. A symbolic dream, which is an actual astral experience, can only be interpreted by the dreamer himself, for no one lives your life but yourself. The first impression you receive intuitively, of a dream you see symbolically, is usually correct. The reason the layman does not interpret his dreams correctly, by following his intuition, is because he generally has some material idea of his own concerning dreams. Here is a dream that may be said to be an actual experience of the ego. Taken from the Chicago American, July 17, 1920: Dreams sons drowned; found bodies in river, Burlington, Vt. The dream was responsible for the finding of the bodies of George Raymond, Jr., 14 years, son of George Raymond, and his uncle, Winford Raymond, in the Lamoille river at Fletcher. According to Winford's father, the vision of the boy's mother appeared before him in a dream and directed him to look for the boys in the river. They had been absent from home since Sunday. The dream was so vivid that the father wakened and at 2 o'clock went to the river bank, where he found the boys' clothing. At daybreak the bodies were recovered. Here is a dream of the so-called dead who, many believe, exist in a state of dreamless sleep or annihilation, appearing in a vision, and so impressing on the astral brain of the sleeper where the boy's bodies were, that he actually brought the vision or astral experience through into the waking consciousness. Here is proof of a mother looking over her children, even if she is separated from them through the doorway of the tomb. No sane person today can actually believe the tomb to be the doorway to the night of oblivion. Many of the misnamed dead are present, and when we go to sleep at night we meet them and converse with them just the same as if they were inhabiting their mortal bodies. We do not claim, however, that the dead are all-knowing; but free from the physical bodies, the spiritually enlightened ones have a broader vision of things, especially if there is a close sympathetic feeling between the dead and the living, as there appeared to have been in this case, for the conditions must be absolutely harmonious before one may bring his actual astral experience into the waking consciousness. An interesting case of the dead appearing in a dream was as that of Mrs. Marie Menge, 15 West Schiller street, Chicago. Mr. Charles Peterson, former lieutenant of the Danish army, was a roomer with Mrs. Menge for a number of years. He had no relatives or near friends in America. Mr. Peterson had been ill for some time with asthma and finally was taken to the Hahnemann Hospital, 2814 Ellis avenue, Chicago. In less than a half hour before she received the telephone call telling of his death she suddenly awakened and told her husband Mr. Peterson had appeared to her in a dream. She states, he appeared in a white cloud and seemed well and happy. He died about 1:30 A.M., Saturday, March 18, 1921. It was an easy matter for C. Peterson to appear in a vision to the only one who had shown any sympathy and kindness toward him during his illness, and his landlady being asleep, was functioning in her astral body, which becomes a vehicle of consciousness, and as there was sympathy between the two it was possible for her to retain her astral vision in waking suddenly as she did. The dead are not dead at all, as many imagine. This man is only physically dead because he has lost his physical body. He is not intellectually and emotionally dead because he has not lost that part of his mechanism of consciousness which is the seat of thought and emotion. The physical body only allows us to express ourselves in the physical world, but it is not the man, any more than the clothes he wears. Extract from the Sunday Herald-Examiner, May 8, 1921: NEW GHOSTS ARE WRITING POETRY BY UNIVERSAL SERVICE. Paris, May 7.--Can a ghost write poetry? You betcha, says Baron Maurice de Waleffe, the French satirist, who tells of a remarkable book of spirits' poems just published in Paris under the title of "The Glory of Illusion." Three years ago died Judith Gautier, niece of Theophile Gautier, and left a collection of slightly--er--passionate novels and collections of poems which were circulated among friends. One of these friends was a girl, Judith's most intimate companion. A year after Judith's death this girl dreamed a dream. In the dream Judith appeared and commanded her to seize a pencil and write to dictation. The result was a series of poems of an exoteric character which are triumphs of meter and scan perfectly. They are published in the name of the girl friend, Mlle. S. Meyer Zundel, but Mlle. Zundel says they're not really her works at all, but were directly dictated by her dead friend. Previous to Judith's death, Mlle. Zundel says she never wrote a line of poetry. Here we have direct proof of an invisible intelligence directing this young lady to write poems which she admits she never wrote before her friend's death. The materialistic skeptic who is always ready to interpret dreams as coincidences cannot call this a coincidence before the testimony of such facts when they are brought to the eyes of an intelligent public. The would-be interpreter of human existence remains baffled and silent; they can neither deny these facts nor do they dare to explain them. Friday, May 6, 1921, Chicago Daily News (by Marion Holmes): Dear Marion Holmes: I should like just out of curiosity to get the opinion of some of your corner readers, as well as your own, on the enclosed sketch of a dream I had when working out west. About 26 years ago I was working in the West near the mining country, and one night I dreamed I was in a mining town, the name of which I did not know in my dream, nor had I ever seen it in reality. I was crossing the street to a store building painted white, and in my hand I carried an envelope that I was to deliver to the boss of the store. When I arrived at the center of the street I was met by three men who were coming from the opposite side, one of whom stopped me, saying: "Come with me and I will show you where there is a gold mine." I replied: "I haven't time to go now," but he insisted, "Well, come anyway and when you have time you can go and get it." So I went. We started off in the direction of what I have since learned is the richest locality in gold mines and after walking a while we seemed to float through space; then we came to the ground a few feet from the top of the mountain. We walked up to the top and again floated in the air in a semi-circle, landing at the foot of another mountain a few miles to the west. The stranger said: "I want you to note the peculiar formation of this country and this stream and right here, walking a short distance, is where you will find the gold." About three months later I decided to return to Chicago, and in the train I met a cigar salesman who, as we soon became friendly, insisted that I should locate in one of the towns on his route and gave me a letter to a certain friend of his in the mining district. When the friend had read the letter he wrote another to a friend of his own on whom I was to call. As I went down the street I carried the letter in my hand and as I crossed the street I stopped short, for the store I sought was the store of my dream. Three years ago at a summer resort where a company of us were telling strange dreams, I remarked that the weak part of my dream was that one of my guides was supposed to be a dead relative of my own, and my mother remarked at once, "I had an uncle, a prospector, who died out West in the mining country, but nobody ever knew just where." Chicago. CURIOUS. MARION HOLMES' ANSWER. Dr. Peterson, the New York neurologist, in a recent magazine article on dreams and their meaning, points out that many dreams thought to be prophetic can be accounted for physiologically and avers that there never was a purely prophetic dream. He would contend, no doubt, that your waking thoughts having been a good deal engaged with Western life, your dream carried the same train of thought straight through. He would probably characterize the incidents of the rich mines, the store and the relative as merely coincidental, yet as the writer of a text-book on mental philosophy observes, to call such dreams coincidences leaves the mystery as great as before. It is evident Curious is not as curious as what he signs himself. If he had investigated his dream he may have found it to his advantage. * * * * * WARDEN DREAMS OF JAIL DELIVERY--FOILS ATTEMPT. Chicago American, February 24, 1921. New Orleans, Feb. 24.--Because Capt. H.J. Ruffier, warden of the House of Detention, dreamed there was a jail delivery on, a general effort to escape from the prison was frustrated. Forty prisoners confined in one big room, on the Tulane avenue side of the building, were detected working at the bars of a window and picking at brickworks under another window when discovered. This dream may be attributed to mental telepathy. The prisoners evidently have been planning their escape for days. (Creating thought forms.) It was possible for the warden in sleep, out of his body, to be mentally impressed of the delivery and bring it through into waking consciousness. * * * * * DREAMING TO SOME PURPOSE. Chicago Daily News, February 24, 1921. Huntington, W. Va.--Mrs. Mattie Estep was told in a dream to write songs. She did so, and two of them were accepted and published in New York. PAINTS PICTURE IN DREAM, GHOST GUIDES HER BRUSH. Chicago Evening American, June 8, 1921. Peoria is all excited today over the announcement by Benjamin H. Serkowich of the Peoria Art League that a canvas painted by a woman in her dream with the hand of the immortal and long since departed Whistler guiding her brush, is on display at a local theater mezzanine floor which gave space to the annual exhibit of the League. Mrs. William Hawley Smith, wife of Dr. W.H. Smith of Peoria, is the woman. She and her husband are among the wealthiest and most socially prominent families in Peoria. Dr. William Hawley Smith is well known as a student and writer on sociological problems. Both he and Mrs. Smith claim to have frequently received spirit messages from the dead. Several weeks ago Mrs. Smith says she was sleeping soundly when Whistler appeared in a dream. The famous artist commanded her to don her artist smock and get her brushes, paints and palette; then she translated to canvas the instructions he imparted, and frequently his hand guided her brush. She worked feverishly all night, and in the morning awoke fatigued, but the picture was finished. Chicago Tribune, Saturday, March 12, 1921. Dreams being led to hiding place of missing girls. Mother's vision of her daughter comes true. Girl of my dreams. Sounds like the title of a new song, doesn't it. The girl is Evelyn Niedziezko, 17 years old. She lives at 3939 South Campbell avenue. Last Wednesday night she disappeared from home. That night and on Thursday night her mother dreamed of her. In both dreams she saw her daughter enter a flat building. It seems to her in her dreams it was on Cottage Grove avenue, near 27th street. Last night Mrs. Niedziezko reported the girl's disappearance to the police. Lieut. Ben Burns, to whom the mother talked, asked her if she had any idea as to where the girl might be staying. She told her dreams. TOLD TO GO THROUGH WITH IT. "Do you think it would be any use to go over to Cottage Grove avenue and look around?" she asked. "I haven't much faith in dreams myself, and I guess the police would think I was crazy if I asked them to make a search on the strength of a dream." Lieut. Burns believes in dreams and hunches and such things, and he advised Mrs. Niedziezko to go through with it. Mrs. Niedziezko went over to Cottage Grove avenue, and walked around until she saw a flat building that looked just like the picture that had come to her that night in her vision. She had seen her girl sitting in a dining room of such a flat. The house proved to be 2727, mystic numbers. The family of William Llewellyn lives there. GET POLICE TO HELP FIND GIRLS. Mrs. Niedziezko went to the Cottage Grove avenue Police Station, and asked for help to search the flat for her girl. She did not say anything about her dream for fear they would laugh at her. Detectives Pieroth and Fitzgerald accompanied her to the building. In answer to the ring Evelyn herself came to the door. Evelyn had been visiting a friend. The mother had, no doubt, been thinking daily of her daughter's disappearance and unconsciously impressed the idea on the ego, and as the ego carries out the impressions of our waking state, she actually brought the knowledge of her astral experience into the waking consciousness, and the intense desire on the mother's part was the direct cause of her bringing the same experience through two successive nights, showing the ego can impress on the mind important information. The ego is also the source of premonitory dreams. HAS PREMONITION--DROPS DEAD IN HOTEL LA SALLE. Chicago Evening American, Friday, March 25, 1921. Christian H. Ronne, 60, president of the C.H. Ronne Warehouse, 372 West Ontario street, dropped dead in the Traffic Club on the eighteenth floor of the Hotel La Salle two weeks after he had informed his son-in-law, C.A. Christensen, cashier of the Mid-City Trust and Savings Bank, of a premonition of death. LOCKLEAR FORECAST DEATH--FRIEND OF AVIATOR TELLS OF STUNT-FLYER'S PREMONITION. Chicago Evening American, Aug. 4, 1920. Fort Dodge, Ia., Aug. 4.--Lieut. Homer Locklear, famous stunt flyer, killed in a fall at Los Angeles, Monday evening, had a premonition several weeks ago that he would meet his death this summer, according to Shirley Short, Goldfield Iowa, original Locklear pilot. Short was married recently and is passing his honeymoon at his home. He left Locklear in Canada three weeks ago and had planned to rejoin him in a week. "For more than a year we went together doing stunts," said Short. "During that time Locklear laughed at the idea of danger until about a month ago. It was shortly after I left him that he became depressed and told me several times that he would get knocked off this summer. It worried me because it was so unlike Locklear." WRITES DEATH POEM ON FATAL PLANE FLIGHT. Chicago Evening American, June 11, 1921. Washington, June 1.--How Lieut. Cleveland W. McDermott penned a death poem in the plane in which he and six others were crashed to death Saturday night was revealed here today. It is the story of perhaps the most remarkable premonition of death that ever has been recorded before the fatal flight. McDermott, who was a seasoned world-war veteran and accustomed to hazardous flights, wrote seven letters to as many friends. These he placed in the hands of a fellow officer with instructions that they be mailed in the event of his death. The poem was discovered in the lieutenant's personal effects, written on a piece of scratch paper. It had been stuffed in a breast pocket of his uniform. The writing was scraggly, due to the vibration of the motors. This is the death poem: Another hour and far away I fly; A last farewell to my friends I cry; Then up to the rosy dawn in flight; A battle with the elements I must fight. Lost in the fog and mist and rain; Tossed hither and yonder I strive in vain To again win out as I have in the past; Little I knew this was to be my last. Sharp crash, and my wings are broken back; Every wire is useless with too much slack. Down, down I swirl and slip and spin; Thinking only of all my worldly sin. The earth seems rushing up to me; While rigged crags raise their heads to greet me. As twisting and twirling downward I swirl; I bid a sad good-bye to a little girl. Lower down into the trees I crash; My plane and I have gone to smash. Up from the Mass call me, My untouched, unfettered spirit flies Straight to mother's waiting overhead. Although no one, so far as is known, saw Lieutenant McDermott write the poem, his fellow officers at Golding field pointed out today that every indication points to it having been written during the hour preceding the fatal crash. His first act following the premonition was to write the farewell letters, said a fellow officer today. The poem obviously was written under the vibration of engines, so it follows it must have been set down during the last few minutes of his life. The officer to whom Lieutenant McDermott intrusted the farewell letters mailed them a few minutes after he heard of the fatality. In this case the premonition seems to have served its purpose advantageously. Death had no terrors for Lieutenant McDermott. SON'S DREAM LOCATES HIS FATHER'S BODY. Chicago Herald-Examiner, Thursday, June 23, 1921 Dickinson, N.D., June 22--A dream in which he saw the spot where his father's body lay led Raymond Everetts, 11, to discover the body yesterday. Tom Everetts, the father, was one of three section men drowned by a flood near Medora Saturday. Several years ago the boy announced the death of an aunt shortly before a telegram confirmed his prophesy. When the ego impresses the lower mind of approaching danger, in dreams or otherwise, it is simply for the individual to be prepared for what is in store for him, just as a wise physician tells his patient when the end is near to be prepared. Miss Miller, 375 Brenner street, Muncie, Germany, had a premonition of her brother drowning. She states: "My brother was a great swimmer. Two weeks before he was drowned I had a premonition of his death. In my dream I saw him diving into the river. His head struck a rock, then I saw his lifeless body float before me for three successive nights. I told him of my dream. I begged him not to go bathing, but he only laughed at me, saying, 'I can protect myself in the water.' His death was the exact working out of the premonition of his death." The student of dream-lore knows the ego is ever watchful, and it always impresses the lower mind when danger approaches. There are also cases which appear to indicate when the ego is unable to impress the individual. The information is often conveyed through another person, as the above would indicate, who is sensitive enough to bring the information in the waking state. HOW TO EVOLVE THE LARGER CONSCIOUSNESS. It is a very difficult matter for the layman to bring his actual astral experiences into the waking state (but fortunately for us) any faculty that is lacking may be evolved. It takes a very sensitive instrument to register all that is seen, heard and done while out of the body. It also requires physical, emotional and mental harmony, or the dreamer is apt to mistake an actual astral experience for an automaton of the physical brain, or vice versa. To what extent the ego would guide us and warn us, if we were only sensitive and responsive to the delicate vibrations sent down into the physical brain, it is impossible to guess, says L.W. Rogers in his volume, "Dreams and Premonitions." The extent by which we are guided and warned from the ego depends upon how much we are not swayed by our physical methods of artificial civilization implying the power to impress the astral experience on the physical brain. The habit of our scattering thoughts must also be brought under control. One must be able to concentrate his mind on what he wants to think about. Camille Flammarion says nineteen-hundredths of the human family never think at all. They are merely shallow receptives for the thoughts of others. As you acquire the habit of controlling your thoughts and with the emotions well under control, then you begin to turn the consciousness back upon self, and as the sleeper lays his body down to rest he gives the ego an opportunity to impress itself on the lower mind. Gradually the mind is brought under control. This connects the two different states of consciousness. At first you begin to see pictures, landscapes, faces, etc., only for a flash. Then you will fall into unconsciousness. Once this state is attained, if continued the rest will not be so difficult. With practice, you will be conscious of yourself leaving your body, conscious of yourself looking down on your body asleep, and seeing yourself going on a journey to inspire a friend or to acquire some knowledge of something you are studying in physical life. In this way you make your nights, as well as your days, to be of assistance to others. Your nights may be made useful even if you are not conscious of yourself out of the body, by suggesting to yourself upon retiring, that you will go somewhere, and meet some one and assist them in an unselfish act. If you persist in your suggestion on retiring, your spirit will go where you demand it to go, although you may not remember your experience in your waking state. Just as it is possible for you to render help to another in sleep, so you can influence them for a good purpose. It is also possible for you to influence another selfishly, and let me warn you here, if you do, you are practicing black art, and as surely as night follows day it will return and burn you as you justly deserve, so beware and think well before you act. He who dabbles in occult teachings for selfish ends treads on dangerous ground, and he will not attain his desires, but rather the reverse. The unselfish soul who acts unselfishly can be of much service to his fellow-man, not only the living but also the misnamed dead, and they can often remember their astral happenings in waking consciousness to the minutest detail. This requires rigid training. The beginner will find it to his advantage, to resolve before falling asleep that he will bring his astral experience through into his waking consciousness. It is also well to keep a notebook at hand and write down your dreams in the morning, if you cannot remember your dreams. Speak to no one. Do not leave your sleeping chamber. Before the day is many hours old your dream will come to you. In this way if the student is patient and sincere he will, in time, be able to find out many things of the invisible realm where his soul functions during the time his body sleeps. I do not claim that our physical plane affairs should be guided entirely by dreams, nor are dreams of the fortune-telling variety to be relied upon. You must use your reason and judgment in this the same as anything else, and only when the student has attained to that point in his development where there is no break in consciousness, may he be guided by the astral life. The mystic, and sages, go beyond the astral life. They go into a state of dreamlessness. Listen to what a great mystic said: "In waking state we are conscious of the objective universe. In dreaming we are conscious of the inner world. Then we are of great help to the living, and also the misnamed dead. In dreamlessness the true seer turns the light of consciousness back upon itself and in its own light sees the gloom of nothingness. Imagine for a moment the absolute non-existence of the vast world devoid of sight and sound. What remains a vast space. Imagine the vast space to be void of ether and the subtle seeds of creation. Perfect stillness reigns supreme over the ocean of universal space, beginningless and endless. What supports it? It is supportless, soundless, cloudless. He does not see. Yet he is not blind, does not hear, yet he is not deaf. He goes beyond the feeling of time and space. Every time the true seer enters a state of dreamless sleep he enjoys the span of Ethereal Glory; his consciousness is centered in the bosom of the Absolute." LIST OF BOOKS BY YACKI RAIZIZUN Breathing Exercise--Price, 15c, Paper Cover, Postage Free. The Psychology of Success--Price, 35c, Paper Cover, Postage Free. The Secret of Dreams--Price, 50c, Paper Cover, Postage Free. Reincarnation Lecture--Price, 25c, Paper Cover, Postage Free. Unfired Food and Trophotherapy--Price $4.00, By GEORGE J. DREWS, AL. D.N.D., Bound in Black Cloth, Postage Free. * * * * * ADDRESS ALL ORDERS TO: YACKI RAIZIZUN ---- West Schiller Street Chicago, Illinois. 
20842	----	DREAMS BY HENRI BERGSON TRANSLATED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY EDWIN E. SLOSSON NEW YORK B. W. HUEBSCH 1914 COPYRIGHT, 1913, By THE INDEPENDENT COPYRIGHT, 1914, By B. W. HUEBSCH First printing, April, 1914 Second printing, November, 1914 PRINTED IN U. S. A. INTRODUCTION Before the dawn of history mankind was engaged in the study of dreaming. The wise man among the ancients was preëminently the interpreter of dreams. The ability to interpret successfully or plausibly was the quickest road to royal favor, as Joseph and Daniel found it to be; failure to give satisfaction in this respect led to banishment from court or death. When a scholar laboriously translates a cuneiform tablet dug up from a Babylonian mound where it has lain buried for five thousand years or more, the chances are that it will turn out either an astrological treatise or a dream book. If the former, we look upon it with some indulgence; if the latter with pure contempt. For we know that the study of the stars, though undertaken for selfish reasons and pursued in the spirit of charlatanry, led at length to physical science, while the study of dreams has proved as unprofitable as the dreaming of them. Out of astrology grew astronomy. Out of oneiromancy has grown--nothing. That at least was substantially true up to the beginning of the present century. Dream books in all languages continued to sell in cheap editions and the interpreters of dreams made a decent or, at any rate, a comfortable living out of the poorer classes. But the psychologist rarely paid attention to dreams except incidentally in his study of imagery, association and the speed of thought. But now a change has come over the spirit of the times. The subject of the significance of dreams, so long ignored, has suddenly become a matter of energetic study and of fiery controversy the world over. The cause of this revival of interest is the new point of view brought forward by Professor Bergson in the paper which is here made accessible to the English-reading public. This is the idea that we can explore the unconscious substratum of our mentality, the storehouse of our memories, by means of dreams, for these memories are by no means inert, but have, as it were, a life and purpose of their own, and strive to rise into consciousness whenever they get a chance, even into the semi-consciousness of a dream. To use Professor Bergson's striking metaphor, our memories are packed away under pressure like steam in a boiler and the dream is their escape valve. That this is more than a mere metaphor has been proved by Professor Freud and others of the Vienna school, who cure cases of hysteria by inducing the patient to give expression to the secret anxieties and emotions which, unknown to him, have been preying upon his mind. The clue to these disturbing thoughts is generally obtained in dreams or similar states of relaxed consciousness. According to the Freudians a dream always means something, but never what it appears to mean. It is symbolic and expresses desires or fears which we refuse ordinarily to admit to consciousness, either because they are painful or because they are repugnant to our moral nature. A watchman is stationed at the gate of consciousness to keep them back, but sometimes these unwelcome intruders slip past him in disguise. In the hands of fanatical Freudians this theory has developed the wildest extravagancies, and the voluminous literature of psycho-analysis contains much that seems to the layman quite as absurd as the stuff which fills the twenty-five cent dream book. It is impossible to believe that the subconsciousness of every one of us contains nothing but the foul and monstrous specimens which they dredge up from the mental depths of their neuropathic patients and exhibit with such pride. Bergson's view seems to me truer as it is certainly more agreeable, that we keep stored away somewhere all our memories, the good as well as the evil, the pleasant together with the unpleasant. There may be nightmares down cellar, as we thought as a child, but even in those days we knew how to dodge them when we went after apples; that is, take down a light and slam the door quickly on coming up. Maeterlinck, too, knew this trick of our childhood. When in the Palace of Night scene of his fairy play, the redoubtable Tyltyl unlocks the cage where are confined the nightmares and all other evil imaginings, he shuts the door in time to keep them in and then opens another revealing a lovely garden full of blue birds, which, though they fade and die when brought into the light of common day, yet encourage him to continue his search for the Blue Bird that never fades, but lives everlastingly. The new science of dreams is giving a deeper significance to the trite wish of "Good night and pleasant dreams!" It means sweet sanity and mental health, pure thoughts and good will to all men. Professor Bergson's theory of dreaming here set forth in untechnical language, fits into a particular niche in his general system of philosophy as well as does his little book on _Laughter_. With the main features of his philosophy the English-reading public is better acquainted than with any other contemporary system, for his books have sold even more rapidly here than in France. When Professor Bergson visited the United States two years ago the lecture-rooms of Columbia University, like those of the Collège de France, were packed to the doors and the effect of his message was enhanced by his eloquence of delivery and charm of personality. The pragmatic character of his philosophy appeals to the genius of the American people as is shown by the influence of the teaching of William James and John Dewey, whose point of view in this respect resembles Bergson's. During the present generation chemistry and biology have passed from the descriptive to the creative stage. Man is becoming the overlord of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms. He is learning to make gems and perfumes, drugs and foods, to suit his tastes, instead of depending upon the chance bounty of nature. He is beginning consciously to adapt means to ends and to plan for the future even in the field of politics. He has opened up the atom and finds in it a microcosm more complex than the solar system. He beholds the elements melting with fervent heat and he turns their rays to the healing of his sores. He drives the lightning through the air and with the product feeds his crops. He makes the desert to blossom as the rose and out of the sea he draws forth dry land. He treats the earth as his habitation, remodeling it in accordance with his ever-varying needs and increasing ambitions. This modern man, planning, contriving and making, finds Paley's watch as little to his mind as Lucretius's blind flow of atoms. A universe wound up once for all and doing nothing thereafter but mark time is as incomprehensible to him as a universe that never had a mind of its own and knows no difference between past and future. The idea of eternal recurrence does not frighten him as it did Nietzsche, for he feels it to be impossible. The mechanistic interpretation of natural phenomena developed during the last century he accepts at its full value, and would extend experimentally as far as it will go, for he finds it not invalid but inadequate. To minds of this temperament it is no wonder that Bergson's _Creative Evolution_ came with the force of an inspiration. Men felt themselves akin to this upward impulse, this _élan vital_, which, struggling throughout the ages with the intractableness of inert matter, yet finally in some way or other forces it to its will, and ever strives toward the increase of vitality, mentality, personality. Bergson has been reluctant to commit himself on the question of immortality, but he of late has become quite convinced of it. He even goes so far as to think it possible that we may find experimental evidence of personal persistence after death. This at least we might infer from his recent acceptance of the presidency of the British Society for Psychical Research. In his opening address before the Society, May 28, 1913, he discussed the question of telepathy and in that connection he explained his theory of the relation of mind and brain in the following language. I quote from the report in the London _Times_: The _rôle_ of the brain is to bring back the remembrance of an action, to prolong the remembrance in movements. If one could see all that takes place in the interior of the brain, one would find that that which takes place there corresponds to a small part only of the life of the mind. The brain simply extracts from the life of the mind that which is capable of representation in movement. The cerebral life is to the mental life what the movements of the baton of a conductor are to the Symphony. The brain, then, is that which allows the mind to adjust itself exactly to circumstances. It is the organ of attention to life. Should it become deranged, however slightly, the mind is no longer fitted to the circumstances; it wanders, dreams. Many forms of mental alienation are nothing else. But from this it results that one of the _rôles_ of the brain is to limit the vision of the mind, to render its action more efficacious. This is what we observe in regard to the memory, where the _rôle_ of the brain is to mask the useless part of our past in order to allow only the useful remembrances to appear. Certain useless recollections, or dream remembrances, manage nevertheless to appear also, and to form a vague fringe around the distinct recollections. It would not be at all surprising if perceptions of the organs of our senses, useful perceptions, were the result of a selection or of a canalization worked by the organs of our senses in the interest of our action, but that there should yet be around those perceptions a fringe of vague perceptions, capable of becoming more distinct in extraordinary, abnormal cases. Those would be precisely the cases with which psychical research would deal. This conception of mental action forms, as will be seen, the foundation of the theory of dreams which Professor Bergson first presented in a lecture before the _Institut psychologique_, March 26, 1901. It was published in the _Revue scientifique_ of June 8, 1901. An English translation, revised by the author and printed in _The Independent_ of October 23 and 30, 1913, here appears for the first time in book form. In this essay Professor Bergson made several contributions to our knowledge of dreams. He showed, in the first place, that dreaming is not so unlike the ordinary process of perception as had been hitherto supposed. Both use sense impressions as crude material to be molded and defined by the aid of memory images. Here, too, he set forth the idea, which he, so far as I know, was the first to formulate, that sleep is a state of disinterestedness, a theory which has since been adopted by several psychologists. In this address, also, was brought into consideration for the first time the idea that the self may go through different degrees of tension--a theory referred to in his _Matter and Memory_. Its chief interest for the general reader will, however, lie in the explanation it gives him of the cause of some of his familiar dreams. He may by practice become the interpreter of his own visions and so come to an understanding of the vagaries of that mysterious and inseparable companion, his dream-self. EDWIN E. SLOSSON. NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 10, 1914. DREAMS The subject which I have to discuss here is so complex, it raises so many questions of all kinds, difficult, obscure, some psychological, others physiological and metaphysical; in order to be treated in a complete manner it requires such a long development--and we have so little space, that I shall ask your permission to dispense with all preamble, to set aside unessentials, and to go at once to the heart of the question. A dream is this. I perceive objects and there is nothing there. I see men; I seem to speak to them and I hear what they answer; there is no one there and I have not spoken. It is all _as if_ real things and real persons were there, then on waking all has disappeared, both persons and things. How does this happen? But, first, is it true that there is nothing there? I mean, is there not presented a certain sense material to our eyes, to our ears, to our touch, etc., during sleep as well as during waking? Close the eyes and look attentively at what goes on in the field of our vision. Many persons questioned on this point would say that nothing goes on, that they see nothing. No wonder at this, for a certain amount of practise is necessary to be able to observe oneself satisfactorily. But just give the requisite effort of attention, and you will distinguish, little by little, many things. First, in general, a black background. Upon this black background occasionally brilliant points which come and go, rising and descending, slowly and sedately. More often, spots of many colors, sometimes very dull, sometimes, on the contrary, with certain people, so brilliant that reality cannot compare with it. These spots spread and shrink, changing form and color, constantly displacing one another. Sometimes the change is slow and gradual, sometimes again it is a whirlwind of vertiginous rapidity. Whence comes all this phantasmagoria? The physiologists and the psychologists have studied this play of colors. "Ocular spectra," "colored spots," "phosphenes," such are the names that they have given to the phenomenon. They explain it either by the slight modifications which occur ceaselessly in the retinal circulation, or by the pressure that the closed lid exerts upon the eyeball, causing a mechanical excitation of the optic nerve. But the explanation of the phenomenon and the name that is given to it matters little. It occurs universally and it constitutes--I may say at once--the principal material of which we shape our dreams, "such stuff as dreams are made on." Thirty or forty years ago, M. Alfred Maury and, about the same time, M. d'Hervey, of St. Denis, had observed that at the moment of falling asleep these colored spots and moving forms consolidate, fix themselves, take on definite outlines, the outlines of the objects and of the persons which people our dreams. But this is an observation to be accepted with caution, since it emanates from psychologists already half asleep. More recently an American psychologist, Professor Ladd, of Yale, has devised a more rigorous method, but of difficult application, because it requires a sort of training. It consists in acquiring the habit on awakening in the morning of keeping the eyes closed and retaining for some minutes the dream that is fading from the field of vision and soon would doubtless have faded from that of memory. Then one sees the figures and objects of the dream melt away little by little into phosphenes, identifying themselves with the colored spots that the eye really perceives when the lids are closed. One reads, for example, a newspaper; that is the dream. One awakens and there remains of the newspaper, whose definite outlines are erased, only a white spot with black marks here and there; that is the reality. Or our dream takes us upon the open sea--round about us the ocean spreads its waves of yellowish gray with here and there a crown of white foam. On awakening, it is all lost in a great spot, half yellow and half gray, sown with brilliant points. The spot was there, the brilliant points were there. There was really presented to our perceptions, in sleep, a visual dust, and it was this dust which served for the fabrication of our dreams. Will this alone suffice? Still considering the sensation of sight, we ought to add to these visual sensations which we may call internal all those which continue to come to us from an external source. The eyes, when closed, still distinguish light from shade, and even, to a certain extent, different lights from one another. These sensations of light, emanating from without, are at the bottom of many of our dreams. A candle abruptly lighted in the room will, for example, suggest to the sleeper, if his slumber is not too deep, a dream dominated by the image of fire, the idea of a burning building. Permit me to cite to you two observations of M. Tissié on this subject: "B---- Léon dreams that the theater of Alexandria is on _fire_; the flame lights up the whole place. All of a sudden he finds himself transported to the midst of the fountain in the public square; a line of _fire_ runs along the chains which connect the great posts placed around the margin. Then he finds himself in Paris at the exposition, which is on _fire_. He takes part in terrible scenes, etc. He wakes with a start; his eyes catch the rays of light projected by the dark lantern which the night nurse flashes toward his bed in passing. M---- Bertrand dreams that he is in the marine infantry where he formerly served. He goes to Fort-de-France, to Toulon, to Loriet, to Crimea, to Constantinople. He sees lightning, he hears thunder, he takes part in a combat in which he sees _fire_ leap from the mouths of cannon. He wakes with a start. Like B., he was wakened by a flash of light projected from the dark lantern of the night nurse." Such are often the dreams provoked by a bright and sudden light. Very different are those which are suggested by a mild and continuous light like that of the moon. A. Krauss tells how one day on awakening he perceived that he was extending his arm toward what in his dream appeared to him to be the image of a young girl. Little by little this image melted into that of the full moon which darted its rays upon him. It is a curious thing that one might cite other examples of dreams where the rays of the moon, caressing the eyes of the sleeper, evoked before him virginal apparitions. May we not suppose that such might have been the origin in antiquity of the fable of Endymion--Endymion the shepherd, lapped in perpetual slumber, for whom the goddess Selene, that is, the moon, is smitten with love while he sleeps? I have spoken of visual sensations. They are the principal ones. But the auditory sensations nevertheless play a rôle. First, the ear has also its internal sensations, sensations of buzzing, of tinkling, of whistling, difficult to isolate and to perceive while awake, but which are clearly distinguished in sleep. Besides that we continue, when once asleep, to hear external sounds. The creaking of furniture, the crackling of the fire, the rain beating against the window, the wind playing its chromatic scale in the chimney, such are the sounds which come to the ear of the sleeper and which the dream converts, according to circumstances, into conversation, singing, cries, music, etc. Scissors were struck against the tongs in the ears of Alfred Maury while he slept. Immediately he dreamt that he heard the tocsin and took part in the events of June, 1848. Such observations and experiences are numerous. But let us hasten to say that sounds do not play in our dreams so important a rôle as colors. Our dreams are, above all, visual, and even more visual than we think. To whom has it not happened--as M. Max Simon has remarked--to talk in a dream with a certain person, to dream a whole conversation, and then, all of a sudden, a singular phenomenon strikes the attention of the dreamer. He perceives that he does not speak, that he has not spoken, that his interlocutor has not uttered a single word, that it was a simple exchange of thought between them, a very clear conversation, in which, nevertheless, nothing has been heard. The phenomenon is easily enough explained. It is in general necessary for us to hear sounds in a dream. From nothing we can make nothing. And when we are not provided with sonorous material, a dream would find it hard to manufacture sonority. There is much more to say about the sensations of touch than about those of hearing, but I must hasten. We could talk for hours about the singular phenomena which result from the confused sensations of touch during sleep. These sensations, mingling with the images which occupy our visual field, modify them or arrange them in their own way. Often in the midst of the night the contact of our body with its light clothing makes itself felt all at once and reminds us that we are lightly clothed. Then, if our dream is at the moment taking us through the street, it is in this simple attire that we present ourselves to the gaze of the passers-by, without their appearing to be astonished by it. We are ourselves astonished in the dream, but that never appears to astonish other people. I cite this dream because it is frequent. There is another which many of us must have experienced. It consists of feeling oneself flying through the air or floating in space. Once having had this dream, one may be quite sure that it will reappear; and every time that it recurs the dreamer reasons in this way: "I have had before now in a dream the illusion of flying or floating, but this time it is the real thing. It has certainly proved to me that we may free ourselves from the law of gravitation." Now, if you wake abruptly from this dream, you can analyze it without difficulty, if you undertake it immediately. You will see that you feel very clearly that your feet are not touching the earth. And, nevertheless, not believing yourself asleep, you have lost sight of the fact that you are lying down. Therefore, since you are not lying down and yet your feet do not feel the resistance of the ground, the conclusion is natural that you are floating in space. Notice this also: when levitation accompanies the flight, it is on one side only that you make an effort to fly. And if you woke at that moment you would find that this side is the one on which you are lying, and that the sensation of effort for flight coincides with the real sensation given you by the pressure of your body against the bed. This sensation of pressure, dissociated from its cause, becomes a pure and simple sensation of effort and, joined to the illusion of floating in space, is sufficient to produce the dream. It is interesting to see that these sensations of pressure, mounting, so to speak, to the level of our visual field and taking advantage of the luminous dust which fills it, effect its transformation into forms and colors. M. Max Simon tells of having a strange and somewhat painful dream. He dreamt that he was confronted by two piles of golden coins, side by side and of unequal height, which for some reason or other he had to equalize. But he could not accomplish it. This produced a feeling of extreme anguish. This feeling, growing moment by moment, finally awakened him. He then perceived that one of his legs was caught by the folds of the bedclothes in such a way that his two feet were on different levels and it was impossible for him to bring them together. From this the sensation of inequality, making an irruption into the visual field and there encountering (such at least is the hypothesis which I propose) one or more yellow spots, expressed itself visually by the inequality of the two piles of gold pieces. There is, then, immanent in the tactile sensations during sleep, a tendency to visualize themselves and enter in this form into the dream. More important still than the tactile sensations, properly speaking, are the sensations which pertain to what is sometimes called internal touch, deep-seated sensations emanating from all points of the organism and, more particularly, from the viscera. One cannot imagine the degree of sharpness, of acuity, which may be obtained during sleep by these interior sensations. They doubtless already exist as well during waking. But we are then distracted by practical action. We live outside of ourselves. But sleep makes us retire into ourselves. It happens frequently that persons subject to laryngitis, amygdalitis, etc., dream that they are attacked by their affection and experience a disagreeable tingling on the side of their throat. When awakened, they feel nothing more, and believe it an illusion; but a few hours later the illusion becomes a reality. There are cited maladies and grave accidents, attacks of epilepsy, cardiac affections, etc., which have been foreseen and, as it were, prophesied in dreams. We need not be astonished, then, that philosophers like Schopenhauer have seen in the dream a reverberation, in the heart of consciousness, of perturbations emanating from the sympathetic nervous system; and that psychologists like Schemer have attributed to each of our organs the power of provoking a well-determined kind of dream which represents it, as it were, symbolically; and finally that physicians like Artigues have written treatises on the semeiological value of dreams, that is to say, the method of making use of dreams for the diagnosis of certain maladies. More recently, M. Tissié, of whom we have just spoken, has shown how specific dreams are connected with affections of the digestive, respiratory, and circulatory apparatus. I will summarize what I have just been saying. When we are sleeping naturally, it is not necessary to believe, as has often been supposed, that our senses are closed to external sensations. Our senses continue to be active. They act, it is true, with less precision, but in compensation they embrace a host of "subjective" impressions which pass unperceived when we are awake--for then we live in a world of perceptions common to all men--and which reappear in sleep, when we live only for ourselves. Thus our faculty of sense perception, far from being narrowed during sleep at all points, is on the contrary extended, at least in certain directions, in its field of operations. It is true that it often loses in energy, in _tension_, what it gains in extension. It brings to us only confused impressions. These impressions are the materials of our dreams. But they are only the materials, they do not suffice to produce them. They do not suffice to produce them, because they are vague and indeterminate. To speak only of those that play the principal rôle, the changing colors and forms, which deploy before us when our eyes are closed, never have well-defined contours. Here are black lines upon a white background. They may represent to the dreamer the page of a book, or the facade of a new house with dark blinds, or any number of other things. Who will choose? What is the form that will imprint its decision upon the indecision of this material? This form is our memory. Let us note first that the dream in general creates nothing. Doubtless there may be cited some examples of artistic, literary and scientific production in dreams. I will recall only the well-known anecdote told of Tartini, a violinist-composer of the eighteenth century. As he was trying to compose a sonata and the muse remained recalcitrant, he went to sleep and he saw in a dream the devil, who seized his violin and played with master hand the desired sonata. Tartini wrote it out from memory when he woke. It has come to us under the name of "The Devil's Sonata." But it is very difficult, in regard to such old cases, to distinguish between history and legend. We should have auto-observations of certain authenticity. Now I have not been able to find anything more than that of the contemporary English novelist, Stevenson. In a very curious essay entitled "A Chapter on Dreams," this author, who is endowed with a rare talent for analysis, explains to us how the most original of his stories have been composed or at least sketched in dreams. But read the chapter carefully. You will see that at a certain time in his life Stevenson had come to be in an habitual psychical state where it was very hard for him to say whether he was sleeping or waking. That appears to me to be the truth. When the mind creates, I would say when it is capable of giving the effort of organization and synthesis which is necessary to triumph over a certain difficulty, to solve a problem, to produce a living work of the imagination, we are not really asleep, or at least that part of ourselves which labors is not the same as that which sleeps. We cannot say, then, that it is a dream. In sleep, properly speaking, in sleep which absorbs our whole personality, it is memories and only memories which weave the web of our dreams. But often we do not recognize them. They may be very old memories, forgotten during waking hours, drawn from the most obscure depths of our past; they may be, often are, memories of objects that we have perceived distractedly, almost unconsciously, while awake. Or they may be fragments of broken memories which have been picked up here and there and mingled by chance, composing an incoherent and unrecognizable whole. Before these bizarre assemblages of images which present no plausible significance, our intelligence (which is far from surrendering the reasoning faculty during sleep, as has been asserted) seeks an explanation, tries to fill the lacunæ. It fills them by calling up other memories which, presenting themselves often with the same deformations and the same incoherences as the preceding, demand in their turn a new explanation, and so on indefinitely. But I do not insist upon this point for the moment. It is sufficient for me to say, in order to answer the question which I have propounded, that the formative power of the materials furnished to the dream by the different senses, the power which converts into precise, determined objects the vague and indistinct sensations that the dreamer receives from his eyes, his ears, and the whole surface and interior of his body, is the memory. Memory! In a waking state we have indeed memories which appear and disappear, occupying our mind in turn. But they are always memories which are closely connected with our present situation, our present occupation, our present action. I recall at this moment the book of M. d'Hervey on dreams; that is because I am discussing the subject of dreams and this act orients in a certain particular direction the activity of my memory. The memories that we evoke while waking, however distant they may at first appear to be from the present action, are always connected with it in some way. What is the rôle of memory in an animal? It is to recall to him, in any circumstance, the advantageous or injurious consequences which have formerly arisen in analogous circumstances, in order to instruct him as to what he ought to do. In man memory is doubtless less the slave of action, but still it sticks to it. Our memories, at any given moment, form a solid whole, a pyramid, so to speak, whose point is inserted precisely into our present action. But behind the memories which are concerned in our occupations and are revealed by means of it, there are others, thousands of others, stored below the scene illuminated by consciousness. Yes, I believe indeed that all our past life is there, preserved even to the most infinitesimal details, and that we forget nothing, and that all that we have felt, perceived, thought, willed, from the first awakening of our consciousness, survives indestructibly. But the memories which are preserved in these obscure depths are there in the state of invisible phantoms. They aspire, perhaps, to the light, but they do not even try to rise to it; they know that it is impossible and that I, as a living and acting being, have something else to do than to occupy myself with them. But suppose that, at a given moment, I become _disinterested_ in the present situation, in the present action--in short, in all which previously has fixed and guided my memory; suppose, in other words, that I am asleep. Then these memories, perceiving that I have taken away the obstacle, have raised the trapdoor which has kept them beneath the floor of consciousness, arise from the depths; they rise, they move, they perform in the night of unconsciousness a great dance macabre. They rush together to the door which has been left ajar. They all want to get through. But they cannot; there are too many of them. From the multitudes which are called, which will be chosen? It is not hard to say. Formerly, when I was awake, the memories which forced their way were those which could involve claims of relationship with the present situation, with what I saw and heard around me. Now it is more vague images which occupy my sight, more indecisive sounds which affect my ear, more indistinct touches which are distributed over the surface of my body, but there are also the more numerous sensations which arise from the deepest parts of the organism. So, then, among the phantom memories which aspire to fill themselves with color, with sonority, in short with materiality, the only ones that succeed are those which can assimilate themselves with the color-dust that we perceive, the external and internal sensations that we catch, etc., and which, besides, respond to the affective tone of our general sensibility.[1] When this union is effected between the memory and the sensation, we have a dream. In a poetic page of the Enneades, the philosopher Plotinus, interpreter and continuator of Plato, explains to us how men come to life. Nature, he says, sketches the living bodies, but sketches them only. Left to her own forces she can never complete the task. On the other hand, souls inhabit the world of Ideas. Incapable in themselves of acting, not even thinking of action, they float beyond space and beyond time. But, among all the bodies, there are some which specially respond by their form to the aspirations of some particular souls; and among these souls there are those which recognize themselves in some particular body. The body, which does not come altogether viable from the hand of nature, rises toward the soul which might give it complete life; and the soul, looking upon the body and believing that it perceives its own image as in a mirror, and attracted, fascinated by the image, lets itself fall. It falls, and this fall is life. I may compare to these detached souls the memories plunged in the obscurity of the unconscious. On the other hand, our nocturnal sensations resemble these incomplete bodies. The sensation is warm, colored, vibrant and almost living, but vague. The memory is complete, but airy and lifeless. The sensation wishes to find a form on which to mold the vagueness of its contours. The memory would obtain matter to fill it, to ballast it, in short to realize it. They are drawn toward each other; and the phantom memory, incarnated in the sensation which brings to it flesh and blood, becomes a being with a life of its own, a dream. The birth of a dream is then no mystery. It resembles the birth of all our perceptions. The mechanism of the dream is the same, in general, as that of normal perception. When we perceive a real object, what we actually see--the sensible matter of our perception--is very little in comparison with what our memory adds to it. When you read a book, when you look through your newspaper, do you suppose that all the printed letters really come into your consciousness? In that case the whole day would hardly be long enough for you to read a paper. The truth is that you see in each word and even in each member of a phrase only some letters or even some characteristic marks, just enough to permit you to divine the rest. All of the rest, that you think you see, you really give yourself as an hallucination. There are numerous and decisive experiments which leave no doubt on this point. I will cite only those of Goldscheider and Müller. These experimenters wrote or printed some formulas in common use, "Positively no admission;" "Preface to the fourth edition," etc. But they took care to write the words incorrectly, changing and, above all, omitting letters. These sentences were exposed in a darkened room. The person who served as the subject of the experiment was placed before them and did not know, of course, what had been written. Then the inscription was illuminated by the electric light for a very short time, too short for the observer to be able to perceive really all the letters. They began by determining experimentally the time necessary for seeing one letter of the alphabet. It was then easy to arrange it so that the observer could not perceive more than eight or ten letters, for example, of the thirty or forty letters composing the formula. Usually, however, he read the entire phrase without difficulty. But that is not for us the most instructive point of this experiment. If the observer is asked what are the letters that he is sure of having seen, these may be, of course, the letters really written, but there may be also absent letters, either letters that we replaced by others or that have simply been omitted. Thus an observer will see quite distinctly in full light a letter which does not exist, if this letter, on account of the general sense, ought to enter into the phrase. The characters which have really affected the eye have been utilized only to serve as an indication to the unconscious memory of the observer. This memory, discovering the appropriate remembrance, _i.e._, finding the formula to which these characters give a start toward realization, projects the remembrance externally in an hallucinatory form. It is this remembrance, and not the words themselves, that the observer has seen. It is thus demonstrated that rapid reading is in great part a work of divination, but not of abstract divination. It is an externalization of memories which take advantage, to a certain extent, of the partial realization that they find here and there in order to completely realize themselves. Thus, in the waking state and in the knowledge that we get of the real objects which surround us, an operation is continually going on which is of quite the same nature as that of the dream. We perceive merely a sketch of the object. This sketch appeals to the complete memory, and this complete memory, which by itself was either unconscious or simply in the thought state, profits by the occasion to come out. It is this kind of hallucination, inserted and fitted into a real frame, that we perceive. It is a shorter process: it is very much quicker done than to see the thing itself. Besides, there are many interesting observations to be made upon the conduct and attitude of the memory images during this operation. It is not necessary to suppose that they are in our memory in a state of inert impressions. They are like the steam in a boiler, under more or less tension. At the moment when the perceived sketch calls them forth, it is as if they were then grouped in families according to their relationship and resemblances. There are experiments of Münsterberg, earlier than those of Goldscheider and Müller, which appear to me to confirm this hypothesis, although they were made for a very different purpose. Münsterberg wrote the words correctly; they were, besides, not common phrases; they were isolated words taken by chance. Here again the word was exposed during the time too short for it to be entirely perceived. Now, while the observer was looking at the written word, some one spoke in his ear another word of a very different significance. This is what happened: the observer declared that he had seen a word which was not the written word, but which resembled it in its general form, and which besides recalled, by its meaning, the word which was spoken in his ear. For example, the word written was "tumult" and the word spoken was "railroad." The observer read "tunnel." The written word was "Trieste" and the spoken word was the German "Verzweiflung" (despair). The observer read "Trost," which signifies "consolation." It is as if the word "railroad," pronounced in the ear, wakened, without our knowing it, hopes of conscious realization in a crowd of memories which have some relationship with the idea of "railroad" (car, rail, trip, etc.). But this is only a hope, and the memory which succeeds in coming into consciousness is that which the actually present sensation had already begun to realize. Such is the mechanism of true perception, and such is that of the dream. In both cases there are, on one hand, real impressions made upon the organs of sense, and upon the other memories which encase themselves in the impression and profit by its vitality to return again to life. But, then, what is the essential difference between perceiving and dreaming? What is sleep? I do not ask, of course, how sleep can be explained physiologically. That is a special question, and besides is far from being settled. I ask what is sleep psychologically; for our mind continues to exercise itself when we are asleep, and it exercises itself as we have just seen on elements analogous to those of waking, on sensations and memories; and also in an analogous manner combines them. Nevertheless we have on the one hand normal perception, and on the other the dream. What is the difference, I repeat? What are the psychological characteristics of the sleeping state? We must distrust theories. There are a great many of them on this point. Some say that sleep consists in isolating oneself from the external world, in closing the senses to outside things. But we have shown that our senses continue to act during sleep, that they provide us with the outline, or at least the point of departure, of most of our dreams. Some say: "To go to sleep is to stop the action of the superior faculties of the mind," and they talk of a kind of momentary paralysis of the higher centers. I do not think that this is much more exact. In a dream we become no doubt _indifferent_ to logic, but not _incapable_ of logic. There are dreams when we reason with correctness and even with subtlety. I might almost say, at the risk of seeming paradoxical, that the mistake of the dreamer is often in reasoning too much. He would avoid the absurdity if he would remain a simple spectator of the procession of images which compose his dream. But when he strongly desires to explain it, his explanation, intended to bind together incoherent images, can be nothing more than a bizarre reasoning which verges upon absurdity. I recognize, indeed, that our superior intellectual faculties are relaxed in sleep, that generally the logic of a dreamer is feeble enough and often resembles a mere parody of logic. But one might say as much of all of our faculties during sleep. It is then not by the abolition of reasoning, any more than by the closing of the senses, that we characterize dreaming. Something else is essential. We need something more than theories. We need an intimate contact with the facts. One must make the decisive experiment upon oneself. It is necessary that on coming out of a dream, since we cannot analyze ourselves in the dream itself, we should watch the transition from sleeping to waking, follow upon the transition as closely as possible, and try to express by words what we experience in this passage. This is very difficult, but may be accomplished by forcing the attention. Permit, then, the writer to take an example from his own personal experience, and to tell of a recent dream as well as what was accomplished on coming out of the dream. Now the dreamer dreamed that he was speaking before an assembly, that he was making a political speech before a political assembly. Then in the midst of the auditorium a murmur rose. The murmur augmented; it became a muttering. Then it became a roar, a frightful tumult, and finally there resounded from all parts timed to a uniform rhythm the cries, "Out! Out!" At that moment he wakened. A dog was baying in a neighboring garden, and with each one of his "Wow-wows" one of the cries of "Out! Out!" seemed to be identical. Well, here was the infinitesimal moment which it is necessary to seize. The waking ego, just reappearing, should turn to the dreaming ego, which is still there, and, during some instants at least, hold it without letting it go. "I have caught you at it! You thought it was a crowd shouting and it was a dog barking. Now, I shall not let go of you until you tell me just what you were doing!" To which the dreaming ego would answer, "I was doing nothing; and this is just where you and I differ from one another. You imagine that in order to hear a dog barking, and to know that it is a dog that barks, you have nothing to do. That is a great mistake. You accomplish, without suspecting it, a considerable effort. You take your entire memory, all your accumulated experience, and you bring this formidable mass of memories to converge upon a single point, in such a way as to insert exactly in the sounds you heard that one of your memories which is the most capable of being adapted to it. Nay, you must obtain a perfect adherence, for between the memory that you evoke and the crude sensation that you perceive there must not be the least discrepancy; otherwise you would be just dreaming. This adjustment you can only obtain by an effort of the memory and an effort of the perception, just as the tailor who is trying on a new coat pulls together the pieces of cloth that he adjusts to the shape of your body in order to pin them. You exert, then, continually, every moment of the day, an enormous effort. Your life in a waking state is a life of labor, even when you think you are doing nothing, for at every minute you have to choose and every minute exclude. You choose among your sensations, since you reject from your consciousness a thousand subjective sensations which come back in the night when you sleep. You choose, and with extreme precision and delicacy, among your memories, since you reject all that do not exactly suit your present state. This choice which you continually accomplish, this adaptation, ceaselessly renewed, is the first and most essential condition of what is called common sense. But all this keeps you in a state of uninterrupted tension. You do not feel it at the moment, any more than you feel the pressure of the atmosphere, but it fatigues you in the long run. Common sense is very fatiguing. "So, I repeat, I differ from you precisely in that I do nothing. The effort that you give without cessation I simply abstain from giving. In place of attaching myself to life, I detach myself from it. Everything has become indifferent to me. I have become disinterested in everything. To sleep is to become disinterested. One sleeps to the exact extent to which he becomes disinterested. A mother who sleeps by the side of her child will not stir at the sound of thunder, but the sigh of the child will wake her. Does she really sleep in regard to her child? We do not sleep in regard to what continues to interest us. "You ask me what it is that I do when I dream? I will tell you what you do when you are awake. You take me, the me of dreams, me the totality of your past, and you force me, by making me smaller and smaller, to fit into the little circle that you trace around your present action. That is what it is to be awake. That is what it is to live the normal psychical life. It is to battle. It is to will. As for the dream, have you really any need that I should explain it? It is the state into which you naturally fall when you let yourself go, when you no longer have the power to concentrate yourself upon a single point, when you have ceased to will. What needs much more to be explained is the marvelous mechanism by which at any moment your will obtains instantly, and almost unconsciously, the concentration of all that you have within you upon one and the same point, the point that interests you. But to explain this is the task of normal psychology, of the psychology of waking, for willing and waking are one and the same thing." This is what the dreaming ego would say. And it would tell us a great many other things still if we could let it talk freely. But let us sum up briefly the essential difference which separates a dream from the waking state. In the dream the same faculties are exercised as during waking, but they are in a state of tension in the one case, and of relaxation in the other. The dream consists of the entire mental life minus the tension, the effort and the bodily movement. We perceive still, we remember still, we reason still. All this can abound in the dream; for abundance, in the domain of the mind, does not mean effort. What requires an effort is the precision of adjustment. To connect the sound of a barking dog with the memory of a crowd that murmurs and shouts requires no effort. But in order that this sound should be perceived as the barking of a dog, a positive effort must be made. It is this force that the dreamer lacks. It is by that, and by that alone, that he is distinguished from the waking man. From this essential difference can be drawn a great many others. We can come to understand the chief characteristics of the dream. But I can only outline the scheme of this study. It depends especially upon three points, which are: the incoherence of dreams, the abolition of the sense of duration that often appears to be manifested in dreams, and, finally, the order in which the memories present themselves to the dreamer, contending for the sensations present where they are to be embodied. The incoherence of the dream seems to me easy enough to explain. As it is characteristic of the dream not to demand a complete adjustment between the memory image and the sensation, but, on the contrary, to allow some play between them, very different memories can suit the same sensation. For example, there may be in the field of vision a green spot with white points. This might be a lawn spangled with white flowers. It might be a billiard-table with its balls. It might be a host of other things besides. These different memory images, all capable of utilizing the same sensation, chase after it. Sometimes they attain it, one after the other. And so the lawn becomes a billiard-table, and we watch these extraordinary transformations. Often it is at the same time, and altogether that these memory images join the sensation, and then the lawn will be a billiard-table. From this come those absurd dreams where an object remains as it is and at the same time becomes something else. As I have just said, the mind, confronted by these absurd visions, seeks an explanation and often thereby aggravates the incoherence. As for the abolition of the sense of time in many of our dreams, that is another effect of the same cause. In a few seconds a dream can present to us a series of events which will occupy, in the waking state, entire days. You know the example cited by M. Maury: it has become classic, and although it has been contested of late, I regard it as probable, because of the great number of analogous observations that I found scattered through the literature of dreams. But this precipitation of the images is not at all mysterious. When we are awake we live a life in common with our fellows. Our attention to this external and social life is the great regulator of the succession of our internal states. It is like the balance wheel of a watch, which moderates and cuts into regular sections the undivided, almost instantaneous tension of the spring. It is this balance wheel which is lacking in the dream. Acceleration is no more than abundance a sign of force in the domain of the mind. It is, I repeat, the precision of adjustment that requires effort, and this is exactly what the dreamer lacks. He is no longer capable of that attention to life which is necessary in order that the inner may be regulated by the outer, and that the internal duration fit exactly into the general duration of things. It remains now to explain how the peculiar relaxation of the mind in the dream accounts for the preference given by the dreamer to one memory image rather than others, equally capable of being inserted into the actual sensations. There is a current prejudice to the effect that we dream mostly about the events which have especially preoccupied us during the day. This is sometimes true. But when the psychological life of the waking state thus prolongs itself into sleep, it is because we hardly sleep. A sleep filled with dreams of this kind would be a sleep from which we come out quite fatigued. In normal sleep our dreams concern themselves rather, other things being equal, with the thoughts which we have passed through rapidly or upon objects which we have perceived almost without paying attention to them. If we dream about events of the same day, it is the most insignificant facts, and not the most important, which have the best chance of reappearing. I agree entirely on this point with the observation of W. Robert, of Delage and of Freud. I was in the street, I was waiting for a street-car, I stood beside the track and did not run the least risk. But if, at the moment when the street-car passed, the idea of possible danger had crossed my mind or even if my body had instinctively recoiled without my having been conscious of feeling any fear, I might dream that night that the car had run over my body. I watch at the bedside of an invalid whose condition is hopeless. If at any moment, perhaps without even being aware of it, I had hoped against hope, I might dream that the invalid was cured. I should dream of the cure, in any case, more probably than that I should dream of the disease. In short, the events which reappear by preference in the dream are those of which we have thought most distractedly. What is there astonishing about that? The ego of the dream is an ego that is relaxed; the memories which it gathers most readily are the memories of relaxation and distraction, those which do not bear the mark of effort. It is true that in very profound slumber the law that regulates the reappearance of memories may be very different. We know almost nothing of this profound slumber. The dreams which fill it are, as a general rule, the dreams which we forget. Sometimes, nevertheless, we recover something of them. And then it is a very peculiar feeling, strange, indescribable, that we experience. It seems to us that we have returned from afar in space and afar in time. These are doubtless very old scenes, scenes of youth or infancy that we live over then in all their details, with a mood which colors them with that fresh sensation of infancy and youth that we seek vainly to revive when awake. It is upon this profound slumber that psychology ought to direct its efforts, not only to study the mechanism of unconscious memory, but to examine the more mysterious phenomena which are raised by "psychical research." I do not dare express an opinion upon phenomena of this class, but I cannot avoid attaching some importance to the observations gathered by so rigorous a method and with such indefatigable zeal by the Society for Psychical Research. If telepathy influences our dreams, it is quite likely that in this profound slumber it would have the greatest chance to manifest itself. But I repeat, I cannot express an opinion upon this point. I have gone forward with you as far as I can; I stop upon the threshold of the mystery. To explore the most secret depths of the unconscious, to labor in what I have just called the subsoil of consciousness, that will be the principal task of psychology in the century which is opening. I do not doubt that wonderful discoveries await it there, as important perhaps as have been in the preceding centuries the discoveries of the physical and natural sciences. That at least is the promise which I make for it, that is the wish that in closing I have for it. FOOTNOTES: [1] Author's note (1913). This would be the place where especially will intervene those "repressed desires" which Freud and certain other psychologists, especially in America, have studied with such penetration and ingenuity. (See in particular the recent volumes of the _Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, published in Boston by Dr. Morton Prince.) When the above address was delivered (1901) the work of Freud on dreams (_Die Traumdeutung_) had been already published, but "psycho-analysis" was far from having the development that it has to-day. (H. B.) 
32859	----	PERCHANCE TO DREAM By Richard Stockham Illustrated by Kelly Freas [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science Fiction May 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] [Sidenote: _If you wish to escape, if you would go to faraway places, then go to sleep and dream. For sometimes that is the only way...._] All along the line of machines, the men's hands and arms worked like the legs of spiders spinning a web. They wound wire and hammered bolts, tied knots and welded pieces of steel and fitted gears. They did not look at each other or sing or whistle or talk or laugh. And then--he made a mistake. Instantly he stepped back and a trouble shooter moved into his place. The trouble shooter's hands flew over the controls. The trouble shooter finished and the workman took his place. His arms moved ceaselessly again. He was a tall man, slim and wiry, his dress identical to that of the others--grey coveralls that fit like tights. Suddenly a red light flashed in his eyes and he began to tremble. He took two steps backward. The trouble shooter moved into the empty space. The man stood for a moment, like a soldier at attention, turned and walked smartly toward the mouth of a corridor. The silence was like a motion picture with a dead sound track. There was only motion--and him walking down the line of machines where the hands reached out, working, working. In the corridor now, he looked straight ahead, marching. The walls glowed like water beneath a shallow sea. He raised his arm, felt the door strike and the heel of his hand; felt it swing open; saw the desk suspended from the ceiling by luminous, silver chains. A man with a massive, white-maned head and a pink, smiling face rose from behind the desk. His suit was like that of a general. "Well, Twenty-three." The Superfather stared down at the dossier on his desk. "Two mistakes in three months. Too bad. Just when you were on your way to the head of the machine room." "I don't know what's the matter with me," said Twenty-three. "I'm afraid we'll have to drop you back to a less responsible position." "Of course." The Superfather looked up quickly. "You accept this? No depression? No threat of suicide?... You _are_ in bad shape." He handed a packet of cards to Twenty-three. "Put these in your dream machine tonight. Go to your new job tomorrow." Twenty-three stood motionless, staring over the other man's shoulder. The Superfather sat down. "Tell me about the dreams you have when you don't use the machine." Twenty-three made a quick decision. He couldn't tell him he didn't use the standard dream cards anymore. And he certainly couldn't tell about the _other_ dream cards he'd been getting from the little man he'd met on the street. He'd simply answer the factual truth to the question that had been asked. "Well," he said, as though he were confessing a crime. "I dream I'm walking in the city. It's dark. I feel like I've got to find something. I don't know what. But the feeling's very strong. All of a sudden I notice the city's empty. There're just buildings and streets and a faint glow of light. And it comes to me that everybody's dead and buried. Then I know what I'm looking for. I've got to find something alive or I'll die too. So I start running around, in and out buildings, up and down streets. But there's nothing. I'm breathing so hard I think my heart's going to burst. Finally I fall down. I feel myself beginning to die. I try to get up but I can't! I try to yell! I've got no voice! I'm so afraid, I can't stand it! Then I wake up." The Superfather frowned. "Incredible. Several other cases like yours have turned up in the last month. We're working on them. But yours is the worst yet. You had such high capabilities. Your tests showed, when you first began to work, ten years ago, that you were capable of going to the head of your production line. But you're not doing it. Also your normal dreams should correspond to the ones on the cards. And they don't.... Are you using the standard cards every other night?" Twenty-three lied. "Yes." "And the nights you don't use them, you have a dream like the one you just told me." "That's right." "Incredible." The Superfather shook his head. "It just doesn't add up. As you know, you get the prescribed dreams every other night and that's supposed to condition your mind to dreaming those same dreams, by itself, on the nights you don't use the machine. The prescribed dreams merely show you the true way of life. And when you're on your own you're supposed to follow that way of life whether you're asleep or awake. That's what the dream machine is for. I'm sure you're aware of all this?" "Yes," said Twenty-three. "Yes." "Now we Superfathers _never_ have to use the dream machines. We're so filled with the way of life they advocate and it's become such an integral part of us, we simply _are_ what our prescribed dreams are. And the more successful a person is in the city, the less he has to use the dream machine. Now you have to use it every other night. That's entirely too much for a man of your potential. You realize this, of course. "Oh I do," said Twenty-three shaking his head sadly. "Well now," said the Superfather, "that means something's wrong. _Very_ wrong." He rubbed his chin, thinking. "Your prescribed dreams show you working faster and faster on the machines, going on month after month year after year, with one hundred percent accuracy. They show you happy in your work, driven by ambition on up to the end of your capabilities. They show you contented there to the end of your working life." He paused. "And you're _doing_ just the opposite ... I suppose your wife is--concerned?" Twenty-three nodded. "After all, the marriage center assured her your index was right for her. _Her_ sleep cards were coordinated with yours. The normal dreams of both of you, without the machine, should be identical.... Yet you come up with this horror--running through the city, alone, falling, dying." Twenty-three's mouth twitched. "Well." The Superfather stood. "If you can't adjust to normal, we'll simply have to send you to the pre-frontal lobotomy men. You wouldn't want that." "Oh no!" "Good!" The Superfather held out another packet of cards. "Use these _tomorrow_ night. It's a concentration pattern which should be dense enough to make you dream of being, well--perhaps even President, eh?" "Yes." Twenty-three hesitated. "Well?" said the Superfather. "I'd--like to ask a question." The Superfather nodded. "What--what use," went on Twenty-three, "is all this--work being put to--that we do--along the machine lines--every day? We don't, seem to really be _making_ anything. Just working." The Superfather's eyes narrowed. "You're kept busy. You get paid. You live. The city is here. That's all. That's enough." "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Twenty-three turned abruptly, marched to the door and stepped into the empty, silent corridor. * * * * * Twenty-three looked up at the glowing dome of the city that curved away to the horizon. He wondered if there really was a white ball beyond it sometimes and tiny dots of light, set in blue black. And at other times did a ball of fire flame up there, giving light and heat and life? And if there was this life and light up there, _why_ the great dome over the city? _Why_ the factories and machine lines replacing it section after section, generation after generation? The slabs that the workers fused together this year and the next and the next, pushing back this life and light and heat. Why not let it pour down into the city and warm all the people? Why not go to the space out there and the depth and freedom? Why this great shell that closed them away? For the sake of the Superfathers maybe? And the Superfathers-plus? For the sake of the ones, like himself maybe who worked and built? For the sake of them, so they wouldn't become dangerous maybe and tear the great wall down and rush out into whatever was beyond? Why else? But it could be all a farce. They could all be working in the great dome because they didn't know what was beyond. Who could know if they'd never been beyond? And so they were held under the domes with the buildings and the machines that carried them all around in the city; held with the plumbing and the theatres and all the intricate mechanisms that spoke to them and fed them, that washed them and poured thoughts into their minds, that healed them when they were sick and rested them when they were tired. The same as they were held with the great dome. Held and shackeled with the replacing of parts that didn't need replacing; the making over and over again of the tiny and large pieces of the mechanisms and the taking of the old mechanisms and the melting of them or smashing of them to powder so that this dust or molten metal could be fashioned again and again into the same pieces that they had been for so many thousands of years. All this to keep them busy? All this to keep something outside that was supposed to be destructive because once it had been so five thousand years ago or ten or fifty? All this because that was the way it had been for as long as the hundreds and the thousands of years that history had been recorded? He walked on through the silence, dimly aware now of the people moving about him, of the automobiles rolling past, as though moved by some invisible force. He passed row upon row of movie theatres that called to him with invisible vibrations. He turned away. Where was the little man? He stopped, moving only his eyes. After a moment, he saw the little man step out of a shop-front and stand waiting. Twenty-three, a cigarette in his mouth, walked over and asked for a light. The little man touched a lighter to the cigarette, at the same time dropping a packet of cards into Twenty-three's pocket. Twenty-three moved on. He felt the pounding of his heart. If only his wife were asleep so he would not have to wait to look at these new cards. As he walked, his thoughts cried out against the silence. He glanced suspiciously from side to side. If only he could hear the sounds of the city. But except for human voices and music, the city had always been silent. The human voices spoke only words written by the Superfathers, and the music came from records that had been composed by them--all this back when the city had first come into being. Other than these sounds there could be only the quiet all around. No chugging motors or scraping footsteps. No crashing engines in the sky, or pounding of steel on stone. No shrieking of factory whistles or clanging steeple bells or honking automobile horns. None of this to pluck and pound at nerves, to suggest that this place was not the most soothing and gentle of all places to be in. There were no winds to swirl and moan away into the distance. The chirp of birds had long since been stilled, and so had the patter of rain and the crash of thunder. There must not be any of these sounds either to lure the imagination into some distance where danger and excitement might be waiting. Now he was walking toward the door of his apartment house. It swung open. Thirty seconds later he stopped before another door. It too swung open. His wife stood in the middle of the room, between two traveling bags. He moved slowly toward her and stopped just out of arm's reach. "What's this?" He gestured toward the bags. "Where're you going?" She stared at him for a long moment, her face set. She was of his height and build and wore a suit the same light grey as his. Their hair cuts were identical, their faces sharp featured and pale. They might have been brother and sister--or two brothers, or two sisters. "I'm going to the marriage center." "What for?" He had tried to inject surprise into his voice. But the tone was listless. "The Superfather called about your dream." Twenty-three turned away, lighted a cigarette. He should beg her to stay, should promise to change. But the silence was in him, like a sickness. "A terrible thing's happening to you. I don't want any part of it." She picked up the bags. "When you come to your senses, you know where to reach me.... _If_ I haven't already made another contract, I _might_ come back to you." She hesitated at the door. "There's one thing I don't understand. You haven't begged me to stay. You haven't broken down. You haven't threatened suicide." She paused. "It's standard procedure, you know. It might even make me decide to wait awhile." "I don't want you to stay," he said. He felt a shock of surprise. It was as though a voice had spoken from behind him. He watched the door shut between them. * * * * * Dressed in his pajamas, he stood beside the metal tube, in which for so many years he had slept his regulation sleep and dreamed his regulation dreams. There was something of the finely made casket about this tube--the six foot length and three foot diameter; the lid along its top and the dull shine of the metal and the quiet of it, as though it were asleep and lying in wait for a tired body to bring it awake so that it could put the body to sleep and live in the dreams it would give to the sleeper. Beside his own tube stood its twin, where his wife had also slept and dreamed through the years. Leaning slightly forward, he felt the press of metal against his hip bones, felt the tube roll an inch with his weight. He rested one hand on the metal top, felt its warmth and smoothness, was aware of its cleanness, like that of a surgical instrument. Now he glanced at the glistening black panel that stood two feet high at the tube's head; quickly checked its four illuminated dials and three gleaming arrows and at the same time raised his hand to drop the cards into the softly glowing slot at the panel's top. Suddenly his hand stopped. He bent forward. What was this? A feeling of strangeness. Vague. Like sensing some subtle change in a picture that has hung for twenty years above the fireplace in one's home. He drew closer, squinting. The dials and meters seemed to be the same as they had yesterday and the day before and the year before. And yet? The dials. Larger? By a fraction? And the tiny gleaming arrows of the meters. Barely longer? And the marks on the dials and meters? One extra each, very faintly, like a piece of hair. He was very still for a long moment. Then he moved around the foot of his own sleeping tube, pushed between the two and stood at the head of the other one. He checked its dials and meters. They were as they had been for many years. He stepped back to the panel of his own and pressed a button. As the glistening metal top rose, silently, he ran his hand around the yawning interior, felt the downy softness and the body-like warmth. Then his hand touched a pliable metal plate. That should not be there. He stood back, remembering the workmen who had come into the house that morning for the routine checkup of the tubes. His wife had already left for work and he had just stepped through the door when they had met him in the corridor. They had gone on into the rooms and he had sensed vaguely that something was wrong. Then he had put the feeling out of his mind and gone to his work. Now suddenly, he turned to the illuminated four inch square panel above the door, read April 15, 2563. The workmen had checked a day early. He frowned. Either the Superfather had ordered the machine changed, which was highly improbable, because every object in the city was standardized and any change would upset the established order, or the workmen were tied up with the man who had given him the different dream cards.... In any event he had to sleep in the tube that night and he definitely wanted to dream the dreams on the cards he had just gotten from the man on the corner. He dropped the cards into the slot at the top of the panel, climbed into the tube and pressed a button. The top closed over him, like a hand. He lay still, feeling the warm clasp wash over his body. There was darkness and silence and a cool motion of antiseptic air. He could try the first dream. If it wasn't right, he could shut it off and sleep without dreams. He pressed another button. Silence. The sound of his regular breathing. Then a sighing came into his mind, and a green haze. The sighing became a soft breeze; the green, tree-covered hills rolling off to the horizon. He relaxed, aware in a fading, sinking part of his consciousness that the machine worked as usual. He would dream and wait and hope.... And so the wind was breathing across the land from off a vast stretch of blue water, which broke along a sandy beach in foamy white breakers. The surf thundered all through his body. The wind brushed against him like a great, purring cat. He looked up at the blue sky and seemed to feel himself rising and sinking, both at the same time, up into its depths. As his sight touched the sun there was an explosion of brightness which blinded him. He turned away then to the rolling green sea of hills, saw the trees bending from the surge of wind and heard the rustling of leaves. And then a deep voice moved through his mind. "Outside the city," it said, "all this exists. During the terrible burning of the Earth back in the wars of its antiquity, the city was built as a place of life for those who yet lived. But those people were not aware that the Earth would come alive again and they made the city so that no death could enter it from without and no life could escape from within. And they turned away from the Earth and lived only with the city so that it became their universe--to all but a very few of us. We still held a faint awareness of what the Earth had been--this passed down to us for many generations, in whisperings, by the wise ones of our people, back in the beginning of the city. And in those times, we had been in the city too long, for thousands of years. We knew that there must be freedom beyond the walls, if we could get through. But the walls were thick and high and without a flaw, making a sky over us. We worked for five hundred years on a machine to get us through the wall. Now a few of us have succeeded and more will follow us to the freedom out here in the good land. There is room for everyone here, there are no boundaries and no ceilings and no walls anywhere. And you may join us some time in the near future, if you wish." Twenty-three sighed in his sleep. Now a great city faded into his mind. There were long, tree lined streets and buildings, some built in rising spirals, some in spreading squares, others in ovals, domes and curved half circles. The wind wandered among the buildings and the bursts of green. People, dressed in white, flowing robes or black tights, walked the streets. He could hear their footsteps on the stone or grassy walk, could hear the hum of vehicles rolling along the streets or flying through the air. They were long and streamlined or short and round, or they were curved like gondolas or squat like saucers. And they were moving at many speeds. Yet there was order. And the air was sweet and clean. A black line of clouds was rising across the horizon. Soon there would be lightning and thunder and cool rain. The deep voice touched him again. "This is the city that can be. A city of life, open to the sky and the earth, a city in which people can find and follow their own lives. After the wars, the cities were built to shut out the death of Earth. But the Earth has come to life again. And so can the cities." The silence came while the picture changed and Twenty-three stirred, waiting. A figure grew in his mind, wavered, and became a woman. Twenty-three saw the long body and the softness; saw the flowing hair and the smile as she watched him. He saw the gentleness in her face; saw a strength under the softness, like the storm that lies below the charged quiet of a summer evening. Her lips moved. "Paul. Dream your dreams for _us_." The words seemed to fall on him. He trembled and cried out. And he felt a violent stirring in his body and a breaking away as though he had flung himself through the walls of a tomb. The picture blew away while the voice continued: "She is a woman, not a woman who half resembles a man." A pause. "When you wish to leave the city, ask for the final card. You are welcome." There was silence and darkness. Twenty-three stirred. He opened his eyes. The glow from the city outside filtered into the room through the translucent walls. He lay motionless. Paul. He was Paul. Not Twenty-three. A man with a name. Wonder came into him, and a sense of strength, and a willingness to remember without fear. His mind ran back to the first mistake, almost a year past. He remembered the horror of failure then and the terror at his being subjected to a mistake. He remembered the inference from the Superfather that there might be a bad strain in his blood line. He remembered taking the dream cards that were to have set him straight, that were to have shown him working over the machines with super speed, moving up along the production line to its pinnacle and on up to the position of Superfather and on up to Superfather-plus and on up to the place of Father of The City. But the cards had been sabotaged, so that from them into his mind had come the dreams of the trees and the oceans and the green earth spreading off to the horizon and the expanse of blue sky. And then the words had directed him to the little man who had given him the cards on the street corner. They had known him, the words had said, through what was called telepathetic screening, for ones suitable to leave the city. He was one of those chosen, because he, like a few others, had been unable to adjust completely to the demands of the city. He was one of those in whom a rebellious nature had been passed down from generation to generation, by attitudes and acts of his ancestors, by a word spoken here and one there, by an intangible reaching out toward the sky and the green growing things and the need to understand who and what he was. But in him now this feeling was weak and close to death and would die in him if it were not brought out into life of the Earth. Now the memories receded; he lay motionless, listening to his breathing and his heartbeat, feeling his body press against the softness that held him. * * * * * Suddenly a shaft of light fell on him through the transparent square. Opening his eyes, he saw his wife's face staring down at him. She moved her hand. The lid of the tube raised. He lay watching her, feeling naked and, for a moment, helpless. "I talked for a long while with your Superfather," she said. "I feel better. He told me you'd promised to take the prescribed dreams tonight." Twenty-three turned his face away from her. She began to undress. "I'm going out for a walk." He stepped from the machine. She watched him dress, her look a mixture of curiosity and fright. When he left it was as though he were leaving an empty room and she watched him as though he were not quite human. The glow of the city was all around him as he walked toward the corner where the little man stood. The telepathic advertisers reached out from the places of entertainment, pulling at him. The voices enveloped him for a moment so that he almost turned back to them. But then he saw, in his mind, his arms working over the machines, saw them make a wrong motion that smashed a gear, saw the flashing red light and the heavy, expressionless face of the Superfather. He was aware that his memory would be erased and the skies, and the ocean, and the green hills. His name would be gone. Paul would die. And the city would be his tomb. Quickly he turned down a side street, saw the small figure leaning against the corner of the building. Walking rapidly toward him, as though he were being chased, he saw the lean, ruddy face smile and the deep, blue eyes look at him; heard the voice gently say: "Welcome, Paul." "The last card," said Twenty-three. The little man handed it to him, quickly. "Good luck. Turn the dials one extra point on the control panel. Our men have made the machine ready. It's time now." Twenty-three thrust the card into the inner pocket of his jacket. So that _was_ it. They _had_ changed the machine. "One extra point," he repeated, glancing up and down the street. "And remember," said the little man. "Destroy all the cards you've used before. They were designed particularly for you. If you don't make it across to us, the Superfathers will use the cards against you." Twenty-three whirled around. The little man had gone. Twenty-three suddenly felt weak. My God! The other cards! Left in the machine! If his wife--! He stood very still for a long moment, then he ran! The door to his apartment swung open. The room beyond was empty. A light shown faintly. He stood for a moment, listening. Silence. He stepped to the bedroom. The top of his wife's sleeping tube was closed. He could see her face through the transparent square, could hear her quiet breathing. In one quick, silent motion, he stepped to the side of his own tube, pulling the last card from his pocket, and dropped it into the glowing slot at the top of the black control panel. Then he turned the dials to the extra point. Several minutes later he pressed the button at the bottom of the control panel. The top opened. At the same moment, he heard a step behind him. He whirled around. The Superfather stood in the doorway. At his back hovered the dark bulks of two other men. Twenty-three felt his muscles lock. He saw the Superfather's dead smile and then his wife stepping down to the floor and hurrying to the side of the Superfather. "Those pictures," she said, shuddering. "They were so--strange." The Superfather held his eyes on Twenty-three but spoke to the woman. "Thank God you were strong. It was commendable of you to call us." "I don't know what made me look at his dreams," she cried. "Maybe it was when I asked him if he'd taken the prescribed dreams and he didn't answer.... Anyway, I tested his machine. It was insane!" "Dreams made by some twisted mind," the Superfather said. "Remember. They've no real existence. Nothing lives or moves outside the city. There were old myths but they've been dead for countless generations." He paused. "Where _are_ the pictures?" "I burned them." "Good." He motioned to the men behind him. They came forward and stood on each side of Twenty-three. "Twenty-three," said the Superfather, "we may have to erase your memories and your present individuality." He cleared his throat. "Our records show that some two thousand people have disappeared in the last five years. Your case has much to do with it.... Where'd you get the new cards?" Twenty-three was silent. The Superfather pulled out a pack of cards. "Before we leave this room, you'll be a different man. If you tell us,"--he waggled the cards in his right hand--"this'll be your new life. You'll have dreams of outdoing every man on the machine lines and fix your body so you'll have the capacity to do it. You _will_ do it. You'll become a Superfather. You'll burn to excel them. You'll push on up, become a Superfather-plus. You'll work with ideas, ways of increasing efficiency, pushing the workmen faster and faster. And you'll find ways of conditioning them to meet the greater and greater demands for speed. The city and people'll be at your fingertips. There'll be rooms of marble and gold for you. Soft carpets and buttons to push that'll give you any desire instantly. You'll _have_ everything and _be_ everything!" He paused and took a deep breath. "All this'll be yours if you'll tell us where you got the cards, without forcing us to probe your mind with the electric-scalpel...." With an effort, Twenty-three raised his eyes to the Superfather's face. "And if I don't tell you?" "Moving a lever back and forth twice a minute hour after hour, year after year. Living in a bare cubicle. No entertainment. No desires." He paused. "And no _memories_." Twenty-three looked over the Superfather's shoulder. The last card, he thought, is in the machine. Escape from the city. They said that, from outside. I've got to know. No matter what they put in the machine, that card will show first. Even if it's only for ten seconds or thirty or sixty, or however long--I'll know. "No," he said, "I won't tell you...." The woman gasped and hid her face. The Superfather, scowling, made a motion. The two dark men took hold of Twenty-three. They lifted him into the tube. The Superfather dropped the second pack of cards into the panel and pressed the button. The top closed silently, like a mouth. Twenty-three's eyes closed; his body waited. * * * * * For an instant--blackness, and silence, like a moment after death, or a moment before birth. Then twilight, or dusk, over an ocean. A sky of pale blue. A shine on the gently surging waters. A scent of clean air. Sea spray. The cool sound of wind. Then a man's voice, deep and flowing: "You know that there is no entrance or exit to this city. It is sealed off and will always be so. But the dream machine in which you lie has been changed by our agents inside the city. The last card you dropped into it is different from the others. These changes have been made so your dream will become a reality. Your mind will be transmitted to us here among the hills and under the trees and by the ocean. And a new body, that we have grown, artificially, from all the elements, a body like the one you will leave behind, will be waiting for you. You need not be afraid." Twenty-three felt himself moving forward. Sight and hearing and sensation, without a body. Time dropping away, like a forgetting of yesterday and tomorrow. There was only this moment. And then he felt the great humming surging power of the machine, like an ocean rushing him toward some unseen shore. He was caught in a gigantic tingling shock wave, and felt like a tremendously outsized torch, lit and flaming, and carried, still burning, in the green tide of sizzling electricity. The machine screamed. The machine chanted. The machine raved. Dimly, he heard his wife cry, and above him felt the Superfather scrabbling at the machine, the guards shouting. The machine shrieked and the great tidal wave of power jolted and flung him, white-hot kindling, through air, through sky, up and down! Down upon a white shore, upon creaming sands, leaving him to quiet, to silence, to a pulling away of the tide.... Now the scent of sea came strong into him. He heard the crash and roar of surf and the rustling of leaves and the sweep of wind. There were bird songs and the cries of animals. He saw the spread of rolling hills, saw a stream searching its way among great rocks and swelling and rolling full into a river and the river flowing and sinking into the sea. He felt the earth upon his feet and the touch of grass. Breezes, heavy with green from the land eddied all around him and filled his body and washed him. He heard his name--saw people coming toward him saying, "Welcome." He felt their arms, embracing him. He saw an open city growing among the hills. Its buildings rolled away with the hills of the Earth and became a part of the Earth. The people took him by the hand and led him toward it speaking to him of no one hurting the other, and no one locked in a cell and all the walls of this world outside, tumbled down.... He was happy and repeated the name they spoke to him. "Paul." * * * * * Back in the city, in the room, the wife cried out. The Superfather, too, seeing the strange look on the face of the man inside the chrysalis of the dream-maker, quickly touched the button that raised the lid. He bent down and took the wrist of the cold man lying there. "Dead." "Are you sure?" The Superfather bent still further down and listened to the chest, and the wife came close, and they both stood there, half-bent. The mouth of the dead man was open and the Superfather listened for any faint whisper of breath. The wife listened. They both looked at each other for a long time. Because, from the open mouth of the cold man lying there, faintly, far away, and fading slowly into silence, they heard quiet laughter, and the sound of many birds and voices, and trees rustling in the late afternoon. Then it was gone and no matter how the two people bending there waited and listened, it was like putting their ear to a white stone. 
51668	----	DREAM WORLD By R. A. LAFFERTY Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine June 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] It was the awfullest dream in the world, no doubt about it. In fact, it seemed to be the only dream there was! He was a morning type, so it was unusual that he should feel depressed in the morning. He tried to account for it, and could not. He was a healthy man, so he ate a healthy breakfast. He was not too depressed for that. And he listened unconsciously to the dark girl with the musical voice. Often she ate at Cahill's in the mornings with her girl friend. Grape juice, pineapple juice, orange juice, apple juice ... why did people look at him suspiciously just because he took four or five sorts of juice for breakfast? * * * * * "Agnes, it was ghastly. I was built like a sack. A sackful of skunk cabbage, I swear. And I was a green-brown color and had hair like a latrine mop. Agnes, I was sick with misery. It just isn't possible for anybody to feel so low. I can't shake it at all. And the whole world was like the underside of a log. It wasn't that, though. It wasn't just one bunch of things. It was everything. It was a world where things just weren't worth living. I can't come out of it...." "Teresa, it was only a dream." * * * * * Sausage, only four little links for an order. Did people think he was a glutton because he had four orders of sausage? It didn't seem like very much. "My mother was a monster. She was a wart-hoggish animal. And yet she was still recognizable. How could my mother look like a wart-hog and still look like my mother? Mama's pretty!" "Teresa, it was only a dream. Forget it." * * * * * The stares a man must suffer just to get a dozen pancakes on his plate! What was the matter with people who called four pancakes a tall stack? And what was odd about ordering a quarter of a pound of butter? It was better than having twenty of those little pats each on its coaster. * * * * * "Agnes, we all of us had eyes that bugged out. And we stank! We were bloated, and all the time it rained a dirty green rain that smelled like a four letter word. Good grief, girl! We had hair all over us where we weren't warts. And we talked like cracked crows. We had crawlers. I itch just from thinking about it. And the dirty parts of the dream I won't even tell you. I've never felt so blue in my life. I just don't know how I'll make the day through." "Teresa, doll, how could a dream upset you so much?" * * * * * There isn't a thing wrong with ordering three eggs sunny-side up, and three over easy, and three poached ever so soft, and six of them scrambled. What law says a man should have all of his eggs fixed alike? Nor is there anything wrong with ordering five cups of coffee. That way the girl doesn't have to keep running over with refills. Bascomb Swicegood liked to have bacon and waffles after the egg interlude and the earlier courses. But he was nearly at the end of his breakfast when he jumped up. "What did she say?" He was surprised at the violence of his own voice. "What did who say, Mr. Swicegood?" "The girl that was just here, that just left with the other girl." "That was Teresa, and the other girl was Agnes. Or else that was Agnes and the other girl was Teresa. It depends on which girl you mean. I don't know what either of them said." Bascomb ran out into the street. "Girl, the girl who said it rained dirty green all the time, what's your name?" "My name is Teresa. You've met me four times. Every morning you look like you never saw me before." "I'm Agnes," said Agnes. "What did you mean it rained dirty green all the time? Tell me all about it." "I will not, Mr. Swicegood. I was just telling a dream I had to Agnes. It isn't any of your business." "Well, I have to hear all of it. Tell me everything you dreamed." "I will not. It was a dirty dream. It isn't any of your business. If you weren't a friend of my Uncle Ed Kelly, I'd call a policeman for your bothering me." "Did you have things like live rats in your stomach to digest for you? Did they--" "Oh! How did you know? Get away from me. I _will_ call a policeman. Mr. McCarty, this man is annoying me." "The devil he is, Miss Ananias. Old Bascomb just doesn't have it in him any more. There's no more harm in him than a lamp post." "Did the lamp posts have hair on them, Miss Teresa? Did they pant and swell and smell green--" "Oh! You couldn't know! You awful man!" "I'm Agnes," said Agnes; but Teresa dragged Agnes away with her. "What is the lamp-post jag, Bascomb?" asked Officer Mossback McCarty. "Ah--I know what it is like to be in hell, Mossback. I dreamed of it last night." "And well you should, a man who neglects his Easter duty year after year. But the lamp-post jag? If it concerns anything on my beat, I have to know about it." "It seems that I had the same depressing dream as the young lady, identical in every detail." * * * * * Not knowing what dreams are (and we do not know) we should not find it strange that two people might have the same dream. There may not be enough of them to go around, and most dreams are forgotten in the morning. Bascomb Swicegood had forgotten his dismal dream. He could not account for his state of depression until he heard Teresa Ananias telling pieces of her own dream to Agnes Schoenapfel. Even then it came back to him slowly at first, but afterwards with a rush. The oddity wasn't that two people should have the same dream, but that they should discover the coincidence, what with the thousands of people running around and most of the dreams forgotten. Yet, if it were a coincidence, it was a multiplex one. On the night when it was first made manifest it must have been dreamed by quite a number of people in one medium-large city. There was a small piece in an afternoon paper. One doctor had five different worried patients who had had dreams of rats in their stomachs, and hair growing on the insides of their mouths. This was the first publication of the shared-dream phenomenon. The squib did not mention the foul-green-rain background, but later investigation uncovered that this and other details were common to the dreams. But it was a reporter named Willy Wagoner who really put the town on the map. Until he did the job, the incidents and notices had been isolated. Doctor Herome Judas had been putting together some notes on the Green-Rain Syndrome. Doctor Florenz Appian had been working up his evidence on the Surex Ventriculus Trauma, and Professor Gideon Greathouse had come to some learned conclusions on the inner meaning of warts. But it was Willy Wagoner who went to the people for it, and then gave his conclusions back to the people. Willy said that he had interviewed a thousand people at random. (He hadn't really; he had talked to about twenty. It takes longer than you might think to interview a thousand people.) He reported that slightly more than sixty-seven per cent had had a dream of the same repulsive world. He reported that more than forty-four per cent had had the dream more than once, thirty-two per cent more than twice, twenty-seven per cent more than three times. Many had had it every damned night. And many refused frostily to answer questions on the subject at all. This was ten days after Bascomb Swicegood had heard Teresa Ananias tell her dream to Agnes. Willy published the opinions of the three learned gentlemen above, and the theories and comments of many more. He also appended a hatful of answers he had received that were sheer levity. But the phenomenon was not local. Wagoner's article was the first comprehensive (or at least wordy) treatment of it, but only by hours. Similar things were in other papers that very afternoon, and the next day. It was more than a fad. Those who called it a fad fell silent after they themselves experienced the dream. The suicide index arose around the country and the world. The thing was now international. The cacophonous ditty _Green Rain_ was on all the jukes, as was _The Wart-Hog Song_. People began to loathe themselves and each other. Women feared that they would give birth to monsters. There were new perversions committed in the name of the thing, and several orgiastic societies were formed with the stomach rat as a symbol. All entertainment was forgotten, and this was the only topic. Nervous disorders took a fearful rise as people tried to stay awake to avoid the abomination, and as they slept in spite of themselves and suffered the degradation. * * * * * It is no joke to experience the same loathsome dream all night every night. It had actually come to that. _All_ the people were dreaming it _all_ night _every_ night. It had passed from being a joke to being a universal menace. Even the sudden new millionaires who rushed their cures to the market were not happy. They also suffered whenever they slept, and they knew that their cures were not cures. There were large amounts posted for anyone who could cure the populace of the wart-hog-people dreams. There was presidential edict and dictator decree, and military teams attacked the thing as a military problem, but they were not able to subdue it. Then one night a nervous lady heard a voice in her noisome dream. It was one of the repulsive cracked wart-hog voices. "You are not dreaming," said the voice. "This is the real world. But when you wake you will be dreaming. That barefaced world is not a world at all. It is only a dream. This is the real world." The lady awoke howling. And she had not howled before, for she was a demure lady. Nor was she the only one who awoke howling. There were hundreds, then thousands, then millions. The voice spoke to all and engendered a doubt. Which was the real world? Almost equal time was now spent in each, for the people had come to need more sleep and most of them had arrived at spending a full twelve hours or more in the nightmarish world. "It could be" was the title of a headlined article on the subject by the same Professor Greathouse mentioned above. It could be, he said, that the world on which the green rain fell incessantly was the real world. It could be that the wart-hogs were real and the people a dream. It could be that rats in the stomach were normal, and other methods of digestion were chimerical. And then a very great man went on the air in worldwide broadcast with a speech that was a ringing call for collective sanity. It was the hour of decision, he said. The decision would be made. Things were at an exact balance, and the balance would be tipped. "But we can decide. One way or the other, we _will_ decide. I implore you all in the name of sanity that you decide right. One world or the other will be the world of tomorrow. One of them is real and one of them is a dream. Both are with us now, and the favor can go to either. But listen to me here: whichever one wins, the other _will have always been_ a dream, a momentary madness soon forgotten. I urge you to the sanity which in a measure I have lost myself. Yet in our darkened dilemma I feel that we yet have a choice. Choose!" And perhaps that was the turning point. The mad dream disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared. The world came back to normal with an embarrassed laugh. It was all over. It had lasted from its inception six weeks. * * * * * Bascomb Swicegood, a morning type, felt excellent this morning. He breakfasted at Cahill's, and he ordered heavily as always. And he listened with half an ear to the conversation of two girls at the table next to his. "But I should know you," he said. "Of course. I'm Teresa." "I'm Agnes," said Agnes. "Mr. Swicegood, how could you forget? It was when the dreams first came, and you overheard me telling mine to Agnes. Then you ran after us in the street because you had had the same dream, and I wanted to have you arrested. Weren't they horrible dreams? And have they ever found out what caused them?" "They were horrible, and they have not found out. They ascribe it to group mania, which is meaningless. And now there are those who say that the dreams never came at all, and soon they will be nearly forgotten. But the horror of them! The loneliness!" "Yes, we hadn't even pediculi to curry our body hair. We almost hadn't any body hair." Teresa was an attractive girl. She had a cute trick of popping the smallest rat out of her mouth so it could see what was coming into her stomach. She was bulbous and beautiful. "Like a sackful of skunk cabbage," Bascomb murmured admiringly in his head, and then flushed green at his forwardness of phrase. Teresa had protuberances upon protuberances and warts on warts, and hair all over her where she wasn't warts and bumps. "Like a latrine mop!" sighed Bascomb with true admiration. The cracked clang of Teresa's voice was music in the early morning. All was right with the earth again. Gone the hideous nightmare world when people had stood barefaced and lonely, without bodily friends or dependents. Gone that ghastly world of the sick blue sky and the near-absence of entrancing odor. Bascomb attacked manfully his plate of prime carrion. And outside the pungent green rain fell incessantly. 
51773	----	SCENT MAKES A DIFFERENCE By JAMES STAMERS Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] What I wanted was a good night's sleep. What I got was visitation rights with the most exasperating pack of sleepwalkers in history. A fried egg came floating up through the stone steps of the Medical Center and broke on my shoe. According to my watch, it was time for the breakfast I didn't have that morning, so I waited a moment for the usual two rashers of bacon. When they materialized, I hopped aside to avoid them and went back into the building, where the elevator took me straight up to the psychiatric floor, without asking. "Your blood pressure, salts, minerals, vitamins, basal metabolism, brain pattern, nervous reflexes and skin temperature control are within accepted tolerances," it droned, opening the doors to let me off. "You have no clinical organic disorders; you weigh a hundred and fifty-two pounds, Earth, measure six feet one inch, and have a clear pallid complexion and an egg on your shoe." I walked down the corridor to Dr. Doogle Spacio-Psycho Please Enter and went determinedly in. "Name, please," said the blonde receptionist, tapping her nail eroder. "Jones. Harry Jones." "Mr. Harry K. Jones, the physicist?" "Yes." "Oh, no," she said, fiddling with the appointment list, "Mr. Harry K. Jones has just had his morning appointment and left." "I know," I said. "An important piece of clinical data has just turned up. I have returned with an egg on my shoe." "I think you'd better see the doctor." I sat down to wait and took the little bottle of pills from my pocket. "From the Galaxy to you, through Dr. Doogle, Spacio-Psycho," it said on the label. "The last word in tranquilizers. Conservative Zen methods only, appointments any hour, first consultation free, no obligation, call personal transmitter DDK 51212-6790, Earth. Active ingredients oxylatohydrobenzoic-phe-ophenophino, sugar, coloring to 100%." * * * * * The inner office door opened and Dr. Doogle smiled fatly at me from behind his expensive desk. "Do come in," he called, "and tell me all about it." "It's happened again," I said, going into his office. "Well, why not, if you feel that way? Nurse, bring me Mr. Hing-humph's case history." "Mr. Har-ry K. Jo-nes' film is in the transcriber, Doctor," said the receptionist. "Mr. Jones, the physicist." "Ah, yes, of course. Please sit down, Mr. Jones. Now what exactly is the trouble? Hold nothing back, tell me all, reveal your intimate thoughts." "The main entrance just served me the breakfast that your diet forbids," I said, sitting down. "Plain case of wish fulfillment. Put it down to poltergeists, Mr. Jones." "And what exactly do you mean by that?" "Well, now," Dr. Doogle said, drumming his fat fingers, "I don't think we need to go into technicalities, Mr. Jones." "Look," I said firmly. "I came to you to get a quiet night's sleep. No more insomnia, you said, leave your problems in the laboratory, let not the nucleii banish sleep, work hard, sleep hard, take tranquilizers and enjoy the useful recuperation of the daily wear on body tissues, deep dreamless sleep of the innocent." He look at me suspiciously. "It sounds like the sort of advice I might have given," he admitted. "Well, at least I managed to keep my dreams in my head until I started your treatment. I have an urgent problem to solve that vitally affects national security. I can't have this sort of thing happening in the middle of an experiment." I pointed to the fried egg on my shoe and shook it off on the pile of his green carpet. "Yes. Well," he said, peering over the desk at it. "If you feel that strongly, Mr. Jones, perhaps you'd better give up the diet and just take the pills." "I want to know how it happens," I said, and I settled firmly into the consulting chair. Dr. Doogle coughed professionally. "Of course, of course. You are an intelligent man, Mr. Jones. One of our leading physical scientists. Naturally you wish to know the precise mechanism of such phenomena. Very commendable and entirely natural. Think no more about it." "Dr. Doogle, do you know what you are doing?" "Spacio-Psycho is still in its early stages, Mr. Jones. You are really privileged to be a pioneer, you know. We have had some most interesting results with that new tranquilizer. I hope you're not losing faith, Mr. Jones?" "I accept the orthodox philosophy of Spacio-Psycho, it is only the basic philosophy of Ch'anna or Zen, and I had the routine scientific education, naturally." "Ah," said Dr. Doogle with rapture, "the substratum of the universe is no-mind, and thus all material things are in constant unimpeded mutual solution. Ji-ji-muge, the appleness of an apple is indistinguishable from the cupness of a cup." "And an egg on the shoe is the breakfast I didn't have," I said. "Here," he said. "I think those pills are sending your sleeping mind down beyond the purely personal level of your own emotions and subconscious cerebrations. Take these, in a little water, half an hour before going to bed." I stood up and walked over to the door. "What are they?" I asked. "Same as before, only stronger. Should send you right down to the root of things. Pass quiet nights in no-mind, Mr. Jones, sleep beyond the trammels of self, support yourself on the universal calm sea of no-mind." "If these don't work, there'll be no-fee," I told him. * * * * * I took three of the stronger pills that night, turned off the light and lay back in bed, waiting for sleep to come and get me. The antiseptic odor of the Medical Center recalled itself, but nothing else happened, and I was still waiting to go to sleep when I woke up next morning. No dreams of a breakfast I couldn't eat, no dreams at all. I had been smelling the memory of formaldehyde and just slid off to sleep. I could still smell it, for that matter, as if it were coming from the slightly open bedroom window. I looked up. "Hallo," said the tall skinny man in a doctor's coat on the window sill. "Hallo yourself," I said. "Go away, I'm awake." "Yes, you are. At least I assume you are. But I'm not." I sat up and looked at him, and he obligingly turned his head to profile against the brightness of the window. He had a sharp, beaky face that was familiar. "Haven't we met somewhere?" I asked. "Certainly," he said, in a slightly affected voice. "Well?" "I don't know your name," he said, "but I have a very important post-operative case at present, and you keep charging around the ward when you're asleep. I just came over, as soon as I could get a few hours' sleep myself, to ask you to stop doing it, if you don't mind." "I've done no such thing." "You were doing it all last night, my friend." "I was not," I said. "I spent last night here in my own bed. I didn't even dream." "Ah, that probably accounts for it. Tell me, do you take drugs, tranquilizers, by any chance? We've had a lot of trouble with that. They seem to cause a bubble in the sequence of probabilities and things shift about. I've been taking a new one myself, while this case is on. I suspect that although I'm dreaming you, I think, you are not asleep at all. At least I wasn't when you made all that noise in my ward last night." "No, I'm awake," I said. "Very much so." "I see. Well, I shall wake up soon myself and go back to my own world, of course. But while I'm here, I suppose you haven't any advanced works on post-operative hyperspace relapse? "Pity," he said, as I shook my head. "I suppose you have no information on the fourth octave of ultra-uranium elements?" He shook his head. "Didn't even know they existed," he said. "I don't believe they do in my probable time. What are you, a physicist? Ah," he added, as I nodded, "I wanted to specialize in physics when I was in college, but I went in for medicine instead." "So did I," I said, "medicine, I mean, but I never passed pharmacology with all those confusing extraterrestrial derivatives." "Really?" he said interestedly. "It's my weakest subject, too. I'm a pretty good surgeon, but an awful fool with medications. I suppose that's how we got together. You won't come busting up the ward again, will you?" "I'd like to be obliging, but if I don't dream and I don't know where I am when I'm asleep, I don't see what I can do to stop it. It's not as if I'm really there, is it?" * * * * * He crossed his arms and frowned at me. "Look," he said. "In my probable time, you're as much physically there as I am now in your time here. I'll prove it. I know I'm asleep in the emergency surgeon's room in my hospital. You know you're awake in your bedroom." He held out his hand and walked across the floor to me. "My name's Jones," he said. "So's mine," I answered, shaking his solid hand. "This must be a very vivid dream to you." We smiled at each other, and as he turned away, I caught sight of his reflection in the wall mirror beside my hairbrush on the cabinet. "Good heavens!" I said. "In a mirror, you look exactly like me. Is your name Harry Jones?" He stopped, walked over to the mirror and moved about until he could see me in it. "Harold K. Jones," he said. "You've got the face I shave every morning, but I've only just recognized you. You're me." "I prefer to think you are me," I said. "So you did fail that final pharmacology exam, eh? And I didn't, in my probability. Well, well. I must admit it seemed more probable I would fail at the time, but I passed." "It was that tramp Kate's fault. She said yes too easily." He coughed and looked at his fingers. "She said no to me. And, as a matter of fact, after I passed I married her. She's my wife." "I'm sorry. I meant nothing personal." "You never married?" "I never really got over Kate," I said. "I wonder what would have happened if I had qualified and then not married her." "You mean what _did_ happen--to the Harry K. Jones who passed in pharmacology but did not marry Kate. He must be around in another probability somewhere, the same as we are. Good heavens," I shouted, "somewhere I may have solved the fourth octave equation." "You're right, Harry. And I may have found out how to get hyperspace relapse under control." "Harold," I said, "This is momentous! It is more probable that you-I and I-you will make a mess of things, but there must be other probability sequences where we are successful." "And we can get to them," he shouted, jumping up. "Are you using oxylatohydrobenzoic-pheophenophino?" "Something like that." "Three pills last thing at night?" "Yes." "Ever have foreign bodies materialize into your time-space?" "Several breakfasts," I said. "The last egg was yesterday, on my shoe." "It was Virginia ham with me, so I stopped dieting and increased the dosage." "So did I," I said. "I suppose, apart from major points where a whole probability branches off, we lead much the same lives. But eggs don't dream. How did the ham get into your waking world?" "Harry, really! I have a tendency to jump to conclusions, which you must control. How do you know eggs don't dream? I would have thought, though, that a pig was peculiarly liable to the nightmare that it will end up as a rasher--any reasonably observant pig, that is. But I don't think that is necessary. Obviously, we are dipping down to a stratum where things coexist in fact, and not merely one in fact and the other in mind, or one probability and not its twin alternative. Now, how do I get hold of the me that solved this hyperspace relapse business?" "And I the ultra-uranium octave relationship," I added. "Look out," he said. "I'm waking up. Good-by, Harry. Look after myself...." He flickered, paused in recovery and then faded insubstantially away. I looked around my empty bedroom. Then, because it was time to go to work at the laboratory, I shaved, dressed and left my apartment, as usual. * * * * * Some high brass and politicians had been visiting the laboratory, showing off to their females how they were important enough to visit the top-secret bomb proving labs, and the thick perfume was hanging in the sealed rooms like a damp curtain. "I wish they wouldn't bring women into the unventilated labs," I grumbled to my assistant. "Never mind, Chief. If you can make this bomb work, they'll let you build your own lab in the Nevada desert, with no roads to it. Have you found the solution?" "I'll tell you when I have," I said. "But I do have a new approach to the problem." And as soon as I could, I left the labs and went back to my apartment downtown, took three pills and lay still, waiting for sleep. I could not get the smell of that perfume in the lab out of my nose. It was a heavy gardenia-plus-whatnot odor. I woke up in the middle of the night with the perfume still clinging to the air. The room was dark and I crossed my fingers as I leaned over to turn on the bedside lamp. If mental concentration on all the possible errors in my work was the key, the successful me should be here in the room, snatched from his own segment of probability. I turned on the light. There was no one else in the room. "Hell," I said. Perhaps it just meant he, or that me, was not asleep, or was perversely not using tranquilizers. Or didn't that matter? No, I controlled this alone and had gone wrong. "Did you say something, Harry?" asked Kate, stepping out of the bathroom and pulling the top of her nightgown into, I guess, place. "Ooo, fancy dreaming about you. This is odd." I sat up and covered myself protectively in the bedsheets. "Look, Kate," I said. "I don't want to see you. I'm not your husband, really. He's a pleasant fellow, I met him today, and he's not me. I never became a doctor. No doubt you remember what I was doing instead of studying." That was a mistake, for she came and sat on the edge of the bed and ran her fingers into my hair. "I thought it was odd I should dream about my husband," she said. "I'll believe you, because I don't know how I got here and you do look like the Harry I used to know, before he went all high scientific surgeon and no time for fun." She curved more fully than she had when she was eighteen, but there was neat symmetry to her sine formulae, and she still had blonde hair. Her perfume was the same as the one in the lab I had been smelling all day, it was now reaching me at high amperage. So that was the key, the evocative power of smell association. I sniffed deeply at the perfume in appreciation. "Like it?" Kate asked, wriggling. "Only for its scientific values," I said. "It suggests a most valuable line of research." "I'm in favor," she said, and pressed me to the bed. "Your husband is coming!" I shouted, and it worked. She disappeared. Presumably she woke up in her own probability time-space. And no doubt Kate's reflexes by now were trained to snap her awake and away at the suggestion that her husband was around. It was highly improbable that Kate would alter much. I got up to make myself some coffee. There was no point in wasting sleep without a plan. Clearly, I had to take the pills and fix the appropriate smell in my mind, and when I woke up I would drag the proper slice of another probability with me. And then I would interview the me who had solved the ultra-uranium heavy element equation. And the bomb to end all bombs would be perfected. The test was ready, waiting for me to say, "Let's go, boys. We know what will happen this time." But there was, it struck me, the difficulty of finding the right scent to evoke the right probable me. * * * * * I collected all the toothpaste, deodorant, shaving stick, aftershave lotion I could find in the bathroom and started on the toothpaste. I inhaled deeply and lay down, with the first tube on my chest. But after the coffee, I slept very briefly, and when I looked up there was only a toothbrush on the carpet. It was not mine in this world and I had no idea whose it was, or rather which probable me it belonged to. But at least this established the principle. The smell produced the object--and, if I went deep enough in sleep, it would produce the whole Jones. I dressed quickly and went out for a walk in the night air, breathing deeply and memorizing every scent I came across. Then I went back to the apartment, sniffed hard at the row of personal unguents, and lay down to sleep. When I woke up, it was morning and the room was full of people. There were about a dozen of me, some wearing very odd clothes, some scowling, others grinning unbecomingly, and some looking just plain stupid. "Gentlemen," I said, standing up on my bed, "I am sorry to disturb your dreams but a matter of vital consequence has made me call you all here. I am Harry, or Harold K. Jones, and I became a physicist. I need your help. Do any of you know anything about the octaves of elements beyond uranium?" There was a babble, through which I heard chiefly: "The man's mad.... He says he's me.... Who are you, anyway?... No, you're not. _I'm_ Jones...." "Please, gentlemen," I said. "I don't expect we have much time before some of you wake up in your own probability. You, sir, in the armchair--yes, you in the tight pants--how about you?" "Me?" he said. "I'm Captain Jones. Third Vector Spacefleet. Engineer rank. Who the galactic hellix are you, eh?" Even from the bed, I could detect the smell of sweat and grease from his working uniform. "I suppose you took up flight engineering at high school?" I suggested. "Quite right," he snapped. An early deviation, obviously. I remembered being enthralled with the arrival when I was a kid of the early space rockets, but my enthusiasm was daunted by old Birchall, who made us stick to airplanes. Obviously, his was not. "How about you?" I asked, pointing to the thinnest me in the room. "Penal colony on Arcetus," he said. "Eternal labor." "Oh, I'm sorry. I wonder which time--well, how many physicists are there here, or physical chemists, or astronomers, or even general scientists?" I walked around the room, detecting toothpaste brands A, B, C and Whitebrighter, and a range of toilet preparations with manly odors contributing to our popularity with friends, relatives, girls and bosses, but no other physicist. Not a trace of research in my line. And one or two of them were already showing signs of waking up elsewhere and disappearing from the room. I was about to start tracing it back to the point when I abandoned a medical career, and I could still smell the formaldehyde, when Dr. Harold K. Jones appeared. "Look," he said, "I want you to keep away from Kate. Perhaps I didn't make that clear yesterday.... Good heavens, where did you get all of these me from? Does anyone here know anything about post-operative hyperspace relapse?" * * * * * Disgustedly, I saw that more than half of them did. Perhaps I should have been a doctor, after all. The probabilities were heavily represented in medicine. I sat on the bed and stared at my toes while the doctors babbled excitedly together. I gathered that Dr. Harold K. Jones had solved his problem, anyway. "Excuse me," said a thoughtful me in a very quiet voice. "I didn't want to make myself obtrusive, but I did do a certain amount of research on the theoretical possibilities of elements heavier than uranium. It seemed to me they might go on being discovered almost indefinitely." "They are," I said quickly, "octave after octave of them. Tell me about it, please." "Look," he said, "it was only an idea. I really specialized in biochemistry, but we do use trace elements, and the formula I worked out at the time was--let me see...." "Please try to remember," I said. "Ah, yes, it was this," he said, and the strain of remembering woke him up and he disappeared back to his own probability. "This was damned well planned, Harry!" said Dr. Harold K. Jones enthusiastically. "I think we can save hundreds of people every year now. I always knew I had it in me." "Listen, Jones," said Captain Jones of the Third Vector Spacefleet, pushing himself through the crowd. "I've been talking to one or two of the others, see, and if you have the galactic gall to disturb my sleep again, I'm going to blast you. Is that clear?" "Perfectly," I said. "It's tricky out in space, you know. No hard feelings, but the fraction of a micro-error and _poof_! You see what I mean. I must get a sound sleep at stand-down." "Don't forget what I said about Kate," Dr. Harold K. Jones remembered to warn me. "I know how to do it, too. And you can have an accident with my instruments--easily." He disappeared. I watched as the others woke up and went, one by one, even the felon from Arcetus, until they were all gone and I was alone with dark thoughts on heavy elements. It was so improbable that I was the only me who had worked on these lines, and very probable that if two of us with similar minds did work on the same problem, we could between us find the answer. Look at Dr. Jones and his hyperspace relapse. Thinking of Dr. Jones made me think of Kate, and I fell asleep again with the memory of her scent in my head, as if I were really smelling it. When I woke up again, halfway through the morning, there she was in my room. She was at least dressed this time, but she smiled familiarly at me. "For God's sake, Kate," I said, "go back to your husband!" * * * * * She began to cry. "Oh, Haroldkin," she said. "I'm so glad to see you. I must be dreaming, because I know you're dead, but I've kept everything just the way it was. Look--I haven't even touched your messy desk." "Are you sitting in a room?" I asked. "I'm in your study, Haroldkin," she said, surprised. "Can't you see?" "No, as a matter of fact, I can't." "Oh! Then I can throw out all these old papers?" "What old papers?" "Oh, I don't know, Haroldkin," Kate said. "You made such a fuss about failing that silly medical exam that you never let me touch your desk when you graduated in physics." "Physics!" "Yes," said Kate, throwing paper after paper onto the carpet. She made sweeping motions in the air and dumped a mass of notes into her lap. They appeared on her fingertips, but they stayed in existence when she dropped them on the carpet. "How did I die?" I asked, bending down and thumbing rapidly over the papers. "A bomb went off," she said. "I really don't want to talk about it. But you were so _eminent_, Haroldkin!" I must have been very soft in the discrimination to have allowed that revolting nickname, I thought, but it was clear from the papers I was holding that I knew my physics. And there it was, printed in an issue of the _Commission's Journal_ that never existed in my time-space, the whole equation I was looking for. It was so obvious when I read it that I could not understand how I failed to think of it for myself--for my own myself, that is. When I looked up, this probable Kate had gone. I wanted to thank her, but the evening would do. Meanwhile, here was the ultra-uranium fourth octave equation. I called the laboratory, read it off to my assistant, and told him to get on with the test. "Right, Chief. I'll go down myself and give you a report when I get back." I said fine and took the rest of the day off. It was the peak of my career so far, and from the widow Kate's comments, it seemed as if I had a great probable career to come. Of course, I would have to redouble our safety precautions at the labs and it would be best if I never went near the proving grounds. That other physicist me probably made some error that I would avoid, being forewarned. By evening, I decided to try to locate that probable Kate again, to thank her, and to find out exactly how that poor me blew himself up with a bomb. With care, I recalled the perfume and also the musty smell of the papers, for I did not want Dr. Harold K. Jones' Kate appearing. Then I removed all other odoriferous substances from the bedroom, took three pills and was about to lie down to sleep when my assistant called to report on the test. "That you, Chief? What a success! We're made. Your name's in lights, Chief! It was the most colossal explosion I've ever seen. It burned the area like toast. It even smelled like toast, with a touch of ozone and sulphur. Very strong smell...." "Stop!" I screamed. "Stop!" But it was too late. I could smell it clearly as he had described it. And now the pills are working. How in the name of heaven am I going to stay awake? Because once I fall asleep.... 
926	----	None 
856	----	DREAMS By Jerome K. Jerome The most extraordinary dream I ever had was one in which I fancied that, as I was going into a theater, the cloak-room attendant stopped me in the lobby and insisted on my leaving my legs behind me. I was not surprised; indeed, my acquaintanceship with theater harpies would prevent my feeling any surprise at such a demand, even in my waking moments; but I was, I must honestly confess, considerably annoyed. It was not the payment of the cloak-room fee that I so much minded--I offered to give that to the man then and there. It was the parting with my legs that I objected to. I said I had never heard of such a rule being attempted to be put in force at any respectable theater before, and that I considered it a most absurd and vexatious regulation. I also said I should write to The Times about it. The man replied that he was very sorry, but that those were his instructions. People complained that they could not get to and from their seats comfortably, because other people's legs were always in the way; and it had, therefore, been decided that, in future, everybody should leave their legs outside. It seemed to me that the management, in making this order, had clearly gone beyond their legal right; and, under ordinary circumstances, I should have disputed it. Being present, however, more in the character of a guest than in that of a patron, I hardly like to make a disturbance; and so I sat down and meekly prepared to comply with the demand. I had never before known that the human leg did unscrew. I had always thought it was a fixture. But the man showed me how to undo them, and I found that they came off quite easily. The discovery did not surprise me any more than the original request that I should take them off had done. Nothing does surprise one in a dream. I dreamed once that I was going to be hanged; but I was not at all surprised about it. Nobody was. My relations came to see me off, I thought, and to wish me "Good-by!" They all came, and were all very pleasant; but they were not in the least astonished--not one of them. Everybody appeared to regard the coming tragedy as one of the most-naturally-to-be-expected things in the world. They bore the calamity, besides, with an amount of stoicism that would have done credit to a Spartan father. There was no fuss, no scene. On the contrary, an atmosphere of mild cheerfulness prevailed. Yet they were very kind. Somebody--an uncle, I think--left me a packet of sandwiches and a little something in a flask, in case, as he said, I should feel peckish on the scaffold. It is "those twin-jailers of the daring" thought, Knowledge and Experience, that teach us surprise. We are surprised and incredulous when, in novels and plays, we come across good men and women, because Knowledge and Experience have taught us how rare and problematical is the existence of such people. In waking life, my friends and relations would, of course, have been surprised at hearing that I had committed a murder, and was, in consequence, about to be hanged, because Knowledge and Experience would have taught them that, in a country where the law is powerful and the police alert, the Christian citizen is usually pretty successful in withstanding the voice of temptation, prompting him to commit crime of an illegal character. But into Dreamland, Knowledge and Experience do not enter. They stay without, together with the dull, dead clay of which they form a part; while the freed brain, released from their narrowing tutelage, steals softly past the ebon gate, to wanton at its own sweet will among the mazy paths that wind through the garden of Persephone. Nothing that it meets with in that eternal land astonishes it because, unfettered by the dense conviction of our waking mind, that nought outside the ken of our own vision can in this universe be, all things to it are possible and even probable. In dreams, we fly and wonder not--except that we never flew before. We go naked, yet are not ashamed, though we mildly wonder what the police are about that they do not stop us. We converse with our dead, and think it was unkind that they did not come back to us before. In dreams, there happens that which human language cannot tell. In dreams, we see "the light that never was on sea or land," we hear the sounds that never yet were heard by waking ears. It is only in sleep that true imagination ever stirs within us. Awake, we never imagine anything; we merely alter, vary, or transpose. We give another twist to the kaleidoscope of the things we see around us, and obtain another pattern; but not one of us has ever added one tiniest piece of new glass to the toy. A Dean Swift sees one race of people smaller, and another race of people larger than the race of people that live down his own streets. And he also sees a land where the horses take the place of men. A Bulwer Lytton lays the scene of one of his novels inside the earth instead of outside. A Rider Haggard introduces us to a lady whose age is a few years more than the average woman would care to confess to; and pictures crabs larger than the usual shilling or eighteen-penny size. The number of so called imaginative writers who visit the moon is legion, and for all the novelty that they find, when they get there, they might just as well have gone to Putney. Others are continually drawing for us visions of the world one hundred or one thousand years hence. There is always a depressing absence of human nature about the place; so much so, that one feels great consolation in the thought, while reading, that we ourselves shall be comfortably dead and buried before the picture can be realized. In these prophesied Utopias everybody is painfully good and clean and happy, and all the work is done by electricity. There is somewhat too much electricity, for my taste, in these worlds to come. One is reminded of those pictorial enamel-paint advertisements that one sees about so often now, in which all the members of an extensive household are represented as gathered together in one room, spreading enamel-paint over everything they can lay their hands upon. The old man is on a step-ladder, daubing the walls and ceiling with "cuckoo's-egg green," while the parlor-maid and the cook are on their knees, painting the floor with "sealing-wax red." The old lady is doing the picture frames in "terra cotta." The eldest daughter and her young man are making sly love in a corner over a pot of "high art yellow," with which, so soon as they have finished wasting their time, they will, it is manifest, proceed to elevate the piano. Younger brothers and sisters are busy freshening up the chairs and tables with "strawberry-jam pink" and "jubilee magenta." Every blessed thing in that room is being coated with enamel paint, from the sofa to the fire-irons, from the sideboard to the eight-day clock. If there is any paint left over, it will be used up for the family Bible and the canary. It is claimed for this invention that a little child can make as much mess with it as can a grown-up person, and so all the children of the family are represented in the picture as hard at work, enameling whatever few articles of furniture and household use the grasping selfishness of their elders has spared to them. One is painting the toasting fork in a "skim-milk blue," while another is giving aesthetical value to the Dutch oven by means of a new shade of art green. The bootjack is being renovated in "old gold," and the baby is sitting on the floor, smothering its own cradle with "flush-upon-a-maiden's cheek peach color." One feels that the thing is being overdone. That family, before another month is gone, will be among the strongest opponents of enamel paint that the century has produced. Enamel paint will be the ruin of that once happy home. Enamel paint has a cold, glassy, cynical appearance. Its presence everywhere about the place will begin to irritate the old man in the course of a week or so. He will call it, "This damn'd sticky stuff!" and will tell the wife that he wonders she didn't paint herself and the children with it while she was about it. She will reply, in an exasperatingly quiet tone of voice, that she does like that. Perhaps he will say next, that she did not warn him against it, and tell him what an idiot he was making of himself, spoiling the whole house with his foolish fads. Each one will persist that it was the other one who first suggested the absurdity, and they will sit up in bed and quarrel about it every night for a month. The children having acquired a taste for smudging the concoction about, and there being nothing else left untouched in the house, will try to enamel the cat; and then there will be bloodshed, and broken windows, and spoiled infants, and sorrows and yells. The smell of the paint will make everybody ill; and the servants will give notice. Tradesmen's boys will lean up against places that are not dry and get their clothes enameled and claim compensation. And the baby will suck the paint off its cradle and have fits. But the person that will suffer most will, of course, be the eldest daughter's young man. The eldest daughter's young man is always unfortunate. He means well, and he tries hard. His great ambition is to make the family love him. But fate is ever against him, and he only succeeds in gaining their undisguised contempt. The fact of his being "gone" on their Emily is, of itself, naturally sufficient to stamp him as an imbecile in the eyes of Emily's brothers and sisters. The father finds him slow, and thinks the girl might have done better; while the best that his future mother-in-law (his sole supporter) can say for him is, that he seems steady. There is only one thing that prompts the family to tolerate him, and that is the reflection that he is going to take Emily away from them. On that understanding they put up with him. The eldest daughter's young man, in this particular case, will, you may depend upon it, choose that exact moment when the baby's life is hovering in the balance, and the cook is waiting for her wages with her box in the hall, and a coal-heaver is at the front door with a policeman, making a row about the damage to his trousers, to come in, smiling, with a specimen pot of some new high art, squashed-tomato-shade enamel paint, and suggest that they should try it on the old man's pipe. Then Emily will go off into hysterics, and Emily's male progenitor will firmly but quietly lead that ill-starred yet true-hearted young man to the public side of the garden-gate; and the engagement will be "off." Too much of anything is a mistake, as the man said when his wife presented him with four new healthy children in one day. We should practice moderation in all matters. A little enamel paint would have been good. They might have enameled the house inside and out, and have left the furniture alone. Or they might have colored the furniture, and let the house be. But an entirely and completely enameled home--a home, such as enamel-paint manufacturers love to picture on their advertisements, over which the yearning eye wanders in vain, seeking one single square inch of un-enameled matter--is, I am convinced, a mistake. It may be a home that, as the testimonials assure us, will easily wash. It may be an "artistic" home; but the average man is not yet educated up to the appreciation of it. The average man does not care for high art. At a certain point, the average man gets sick of high art. So, in these coming Utopias, in which out unhappy grandchildren will have to drag out their colorless existence, there will be too much electricity. They will grow to loathe electricity. Electricity is going to light them, warm them, carry them, doctor them, cook for them, execute them, if necessary. They are going to be weaned on electricity, rocked in their cradles by electricity, slapped by electricity, ruled and regulated and guided by electricity, buried by electricity. I may be wrong, but I rather think they are going to be hatched by electricity. In the new world of our progressionist teachers, it is electricity that is the real motive-power. The men and women are only marionettes--worked by electricity. But it was not to speak of the electricity in them, but of the originality in them, that I referred to these works of fiction. There is no originality in them whatever. Human thought is incapable of originality. No man ever yet imagined a new thing--only some variation or extension of an old thing. The sailor, when he was asked what he would do with a fortune, promptly replied: "Buy all the rum and 'baccy there is in the world." "And what after that?" they asked him. "Eh?" "What would you buy after that--after you had bought up all the rum and tobacco there was in the world--what would you buy then?" "After that? Oh! 'um!" (a long pause). "Oh!" (with inspiration) "why, more 'baccy!" Rum and tobacco he knew something of, and could therefore imagine about. He did not know any other luxuries, therefore he could not conceive of any others. So if you ask one of these Utopian-dreaming gentry what, after they had secured for their world all the electricity there was in the Universe, and after every mortal thing in their ideal Paradise, was done and said and thought by electricity, they could imagine as further necessary to human happiness, they would probably muse for awhile, and then reply, "More electricity." They know electricity. They have seen the electric light, and heard of electric boats and omnibuses. They have possibly had an electric shock at a railway station for a penny. Therefore, knowing that electricity does three things, they can go on and "imagine" electricity doing three hundred things, and the very great ones among them can imagine it doing three thousand things; but for them, or anybody else, to imagine a new force, totally unconnected with and different from anything yet known in nature, would be utterly impossible. Human thought is not a firework, ever shooting off fresh forms and shapes as it burns; it is a tree, growing very slowly--you can watch it long and see no movement--very silently, unnoticed. It was planted in the world many thousand years ago, a tiny, sickly plant. And men guarded it and tended it, and gave up life and fame to aid its growth. In the hot days of their youth, they came to the gate of the garden and knocked, begging to be let in, and to be counted among the gardeners. And their young companions without called to them to come back, and play the man with bow and spear, and win sweet smiles from rosy lips, and take their part amid the feast, and dance, not stoop with wrinkled brows, at weaklings' work. And the passers by mocked them and called shame, and others cried out to stone them. And still they stayed there laboring, that the tree might grow a little, and they died and were forgotten. And the tree grew fair and strong. The storms of ignorance passed over it, and harmed it not. The fierce fires of superstition soared around it; but men leaped into the flames and beat them back, perishing, and the tree grew. With the sweat of their brow have men nourished its green leaves. Their tears have moistened the earth about it. With their blood they have watered its roots. The seasons have come and passed, and the tree has grown and flourished. And its branches have spread far and high, and ever fresh shoots are bursting forth, and ever new leaves unfolding to the light. But they are all part of the one tree--the tree that was planted on the first birthday of the human race. The stem that bears them springs from the gnarled old trunk that was green and soft when white-haired Time was a little child; the sap that feeds them is drawn up through the roots that twine and twist about the bones of the ages that are dead. The human mind can no more produce an original thought than a tree can bear an original fruit. As well might one cry for an original note in music as expect an original idea from a human brain. One wishes our friends, the critics, would grasp this simple truth, and leave off clamoring for the impossible, and being shocked because they do not get it. When a new book is written, the high-class critic opens it with feelings of faint hope, tempered by strong conviction of coming disappointment. As he pores over the pages, his brow darkens with virtuous indignation, and his lip curls with the Godlike contempt that the exceptionally great critic ever feels for everybody in this world, who is not yet dead. Buoyed up by a touching, but totally fallacious, belief that he is performing a public duty, and that the rest of the community is waiting in breathless suspense to learn his opinion of the work in question, before forming any judgment concerning it themselves, he, nevertheless, wearily struggles through about a third of it. Then his long-suffering soul revolts, and he flings it aside with a cry of despair. "Why, there is no originality whatever in this," he says. "This book is taken bodily from the Old Testament. It is the story of Adam and Eve all over again. The hero is a mere man! with two arms, two legs, and a head (so called). Why, it is only Moses's Adam under another name! And the heroine is nothing but a woman! and she is described as beautiful, and as having long hair. The author may call her 'Angelina,' or any other name he chooses; but he has evidently, whether he acknowledges it or not, copied her direct from Eve. The characters are barefaced plagiarisms from the book of Genesis! Oh! to find an author with originality!" One spring I went a walking tour in the country. It was a glorious spring. Not the sort of spring they give us in these miserable times, under this shameless government--a mixture of east wind, blizzard, snow, rain, slush, fog, frost, hail, sleet and thunder-storms--but a sunny, blue-sky'd, joyous spring, such as we used to have regularly every year when I was a young man, and things were different. It was an exceptionally beautiful spring, even for those golden days; and as I wandered through the waking land, and saw the dawning of the coming green, and watched the blush upon the hawthorn hedge, deepening each day beneath the kisses of the sun, and looked up at the proud old mother trees, dandling their myriad baby buds upon their strong fond arms, holding them high for the soft west wind to caress as he passed laughing by, and marked the primrose yellow creep across the carpet of the woods, and saw the new flush of the field and saw the new light on the hills, and heard the new-found gladness of the birds, and heard from copse and farm and meadow the timid callings of the little new-born things, wondering to find themselves alive, and smelt the freshness of the earth, and felt the promise in the air, and felt a strong hand in the wind, my spirit rose within me. Spring had come to me also, and stirred me with a strange new life, with a strange new hope I, too, was part of nature, and it was spring! Tender leaves and blossoms were unfolding from my heart. Bright flowers of love and gratitude were opening round its roots. I felt new strength in all my limbs. New blood was pulsing through my veins. Nobler thoughts and nobler longings were throbbing through my brain. As I walked, Nature came and talked beside me, and showed me the world and myself, and the ways of God seemed clearer. It seemed to me a pity that all the beautiful and precious thoughts and ideas that were crowding in upon me should be lost to my fellow-men, and so I pitched my tent at a little cottage, and set to work to write them down then and there as they came to me. "It has been complained of me," I said to myself, "that I do not write literary and high class work--at least, not work that is exceptionally literary and high-class. This reproach shall be removed. I will write an article that shall be a classic. I have worked for the ordinary, every-day reader. It is right that I should do something now to improve the literature of my beloved country." And I wrote a grand essay--though I say it who should not, though I don't see why I shouldn't--all about spring, and the way it made you feel, and what it made you think. It was simply crowded with elevated thoughts and high-class ideas and cultured wit, was that essay. There was only one fault about that essay: it was too brilliant. I wanted commonplace relief. It would have exhausted the average reader; so much cleverness would have wearied him. I wish I could remember some of the beautiful things in that essay, and here set them down; because then you would be able to see what they were like for yourselves, and that would be so much more simpler than my explaining to you how beautiful they were. Unfortunately, however, I cannot now call to mind any of them. I was very proud of this essay, and when I got back to town I called on a very superior friend of mine, a critic, and read it to him. I do not care for him to see any of my usual work, because he really is a very superior person indeed, and the perusal of it appears to give him pains inside. But this article, I thought, would do him good. "What do you think of it?" I asked, when I had finished. "Splendid," he replied, "excellently arranged. I never knew you were so well acquainted with the works of the old writers. Why, there is scarcely a classic of any note that you have not quoted from. But where--where," he added, musing, "did you get that last idea but two from? It's the only one I don't seem to remember. It isn't a bit of your own, is it?" He said that, if so, he should advise me to leave it out. Not that it was altogether bad, but that the interpolation of a modern thought among so unique a collection of passages from the ancients seemed to spoil the scheme. And he enumerated the various dead-and-buried gentlemen from whom he appeared to think I had collated my article. "But," I replied, when I had recovered my astonishment sufficiently to speak, "it isn't a collection at all. It is all original. I wrote the thoughts down as they came to me. I have never read any of these people you mention, except Shakespeare." Of course Shakespeare was bound to be among them. I am getting to dislike that man so. He is always being held up before us young authors as a model, and I do hate models. There was a model boy at our school, I remember, Henry Summers; and it was just the same there. It was continually, "Look at Henry Summers! he doesn't put the preposition before the verb, and spell business b-i-z!" or, "Why can't you write like Henry Summers? He doesn't get the ink all over the copy-book and half-way up his back!" We got tired of this everlasting "Look at Henry Summers!" after a while, and so, one afternoon, on the way home, a few of us lured Henry Summers up a dark court; and when he came out again he was not worth looking at. Now it is perpetually, "Look at Shakespeare!" "Why don't you write like Shakespeare?" "Shakespeare never made that joke. Why don't you joke like Shakespeare?" If you are in the play-writing line it is still worse for you. "Why don't you write plays like Shakespeare's?" they indignantly say. "Shakespeare never made his comic man a penny steamboat captain." "Shakespeare never made his hero address the girl as 'ducky.' Why don't you copy Shakespeare?" If you do try to copy Shakespeare, they tell you that you must be a fool to attempt to imitate Shakespeare. Oh, shouldn't I like to get Shakespeare up our street, and punch him! "I cannot help that," replied my critical friend--to return to our previous question--"the germ of every thought and idea you have got in that article can be traced back to the writers I have named. If you doubt it, I will get down the books, and show you the passages for yourself." But I declined the offer. I said I would take his word for it, and would rather not see the passages referred to. I felt indignant. "If," as I said, "these men--these Platos and Socrateses and Ciceros and Sophocleses and Aristophaneses and Aristotles and the rest of them had been taking advantage of my absence to go about the world spoiling my business for me, I would rather not hear any more about them." And I put on my hat and came out, and I have never tried to write anything original since. I dreamed a dream once. (It is the sort of thing a man would dream. You cannot very well dream anything else, I know. But the phrase sounds poetical and biblical, and so I use it.) I dreamed that I was in a strange country--indeed, one might say an extraordinary country. It was ruled entirely by critics. The people in this strange land had a very high opinion of critics--nearly as high an opinion of critics as the critics themselves had, but not, of course, quite--that not being practicable--and they had agreed to be guided in all things by the critics. I stayed some years in that land. But it was not a cheerful place to live in, so I dreamed. There were authors in this country, at first, and they wrote books. But the critics could find nothing original in the books whatever, and said it was a pity that men, who might be usefully employed hoeing potatoes, should waste their time and the time of the critics, which was of still more importance, in stringing together a collection of platitudes, familiar to every school-boy, and dishing up old plots and stories that had already been cooked and recooked for the public until everybody had been surfeited with them. And the writers read what the critics said and sighed, and gave up writing books, and went off and hoed potatoes; as advised. They had had no experience in hoeing potatoes, and they hoed very badly; and the people whose potatoes they hoed strongly recommended them to leave hoeing potatoes, and to go back and write books. But you can't do what everybody advises. There were artists also in this strange world, at first, and they painted pictures, which the critics came and looked at through eyeglasses. "Nothing whatever original in them," said the critics; "same old colors, same old perspective and form, same old sunset, same old sea and land, and sky and figures. Why do these poor men waste their time, painting pictures, when they might be so much more satisfactorily employed on ladders painting houses?" Nothing, by the by, you may have noticed, troubles your critic more than the idea that the artist is wasting his time. It is the waste of time that vexes the critic; he has such an exalted idea of the value of other people's time. "Dear, dear me!" he says to himself, "why, in the time the man must have taken to paint this picture or to write this book, he might have blacked fifteen thousand pairs of boots, or have carried fifteen thousand hods of mortar up a ladder. This is how the time of the world is lost!" It never occurs to him that, but for that picture or book, the artist would, in all probability, have been mouching about with a pipe in his mouth, getting into trouble. It reminds me of the way people used to talk to me when I was a boy. I would be sitting, as good as gold, reading "The Pirate's Lair," when some cultured relative would look over my shoulder and say: "Bah! what are you wasting your time with rubbish for? Why don't you go and do something useful?" and would take the book away from me. Upon which I would get up, and go out to "do something useful;" and would come home an hour afterward, looking like a bit out of a battle picture, having tumbled through the roof of Farmer Bate's greenhouse and killed a cactus, though totally unable to explain how I came to be on the roof of Farmer Bate's greenhouse. They had much better have left me alone, lost in "The Pirate's Lair!" The artists in this land of which I dreamed left off painting pictures, after hearing what the critics said, and purchased ladders, and went off and painted houses. Because, you see, this country of which I dreamed was not one of those vulgar, ordinary countries, such as exist in the waking world, where people let the critics talk as much as ever they like, and nobody pays the slightest attention to what they say. Here, in this strange land, the critics were taken seriously, and their advice followed. As for the poets and sculptors, they were very soon shut up. The idea of any educated person wanting to read modern poetry when he could obtain Homer, or caring to look at any other statue while there was still some of the Venus de Medicis left, was too absurd. Poets and sculptors were only wasting their time. What new occupation they were recommended to adopt, I forget. Some calling they knew nothing whatever about, and that they were totally unfitted for, of course. The musicians tried their art for a little while, but they, too, were of no use. "Merely a repetition of the same notes in different combinations," said the critics. "Why will people waste their time writing unoriginal music, when they might be sweeping crossings?" One man had written a play. I asked what the critics had said about him. They showed me his tomb. Then, there being no more artists or _litterateurs_ or dramatists or musicians left for their beloved critics to criticise, the general public of this enlightened land said to themselves, "Why should not our critics come and criticise us? Criticism is useful to a man. Have we not often been told so? Look how useful it has been to the artists and writers--saved the poor fellows from wasting their time? Why shouldn't we have some of its benefits?" They suggested the idea to the critics, and the critics thought it an excellent one, and said they would undertake the job with pleasure. One must say for the critics that they never shirk work. They will sit and criticise for eighteen hours a day, if necessary, or even, if quite unnecessary, for the matter of that. You can't give them too much to criticise. They will criticise everything and everybody in this world. They will criticise everything in the next world, too, when they get there. I expect poor old Pluto has a lively time with them all, as it is. So, when a man built a house, or a farm-yard hen laid an egg, the critics were asked in to comment on it. They found that none of the houses were original. On every floor were passages that seemed mere copies from passages in other houses. They were all built on the same hackneyed plan; cellars underneath, ground floor level with the street, attic at the top. No originality anywhere! So, likewise with the eggs. Every egg suggested reminiscences of other eggs. It was heartrending work. The critics criticised all things. When a young couple fell in love, they each, before thinking of marriage, called upon the critics for a criticism of the other one. Needless to say that, in the result, no marriage ever came of it. "My dear young lady," the critics would say, after the inspection had taken place, "I can discover nothing new whatever about the young man. You would simply be wasting your time in marrying him." Or, to the young man, it would be: "Oh, dear, no! Nothing attractive about the girl at all. Who on earth gave you that notion? Simply a lovely face and figure, angelic disposition, beautiful mind, stanch heart, noble character. Why, there must have been nearly a dozen such girls born into the world since its creation. You would be only wasting your time loving her." They criticised the birds for their hackneyed style of singing, and the flowers for their hackneyed scents and colors. They complained of the weather that it lacked originality--(true, they had not lived out an English spring)--and found fault with the Sun because of the sameness of his methods. They criticised the babies. When a fresh infant was published in a house, the critics would call in a body to pass their judgment upon it, and the young mother would bring it down for them to sample. "Did you ever see a child anything like that in this world before?" she would say, holding it out to them. "Isn't it a wonderful baby? _You_ never saw a child with legs like that, I know. Nurse says he's the most extraordinary baby she ever attended. Bless him!" But the critics did not think anything of it. "Tut, tut," they would reply, "there is nothing extraordinary about that child--no originality whatever. Why, it's exactly like every other baby--bald head, red face, big mouth, and stumpy nose. Why, that's only a weak imitation of the baby next door. It's a plagiarism, that's what that child is. You've been wasting your time, madam. If you can't do anything more original than that, we should advise you to give up the business altogether." That was the end of criticism in that strange land. "Oh! look here, we've had enough of you and your originality," said the people to the critics, after that. "Why, _you_ are not original, when one comes to think of it, and your criticisms are not original. You've all of you been saying exactly the same thing ever since the time of Solomon. We are going to drown you and have a little peace." "What, drown a critic!" cried the critics, "never heard of such a monstrous proceeding in our lives!" "No, we flatter ourselves it is an original idea," replied the public, brutally. "You ought to be charmed with it. Out you come!" So they took the critics out and drowned them, and then passed a short act, making criticism a capital offense. After that, the art and literature of the country followed, somewhat, the methods of the quaint and curious school, but the land, notwithstanding, was a much more cheerful place to live in, I dreamed. But I never finished telling you about the dream in which I thought I left my legs behind me when I went into a certain theater. I dreamed that the ticket the man gave me for my legs was No. 19, and I was worried all through the performance for fear No. 61 should get hold of them, and leave me his instead. Mine are rather a fine pair of legs, and I am, I confess, a little proud of them--at all events, I prefer them to anybody else's. Besides, number sixty-one's might be a skinny pair, and not fit me. It quite spoiled my evening, fretting about this. Another extraordinary dream I had was one in which I dreamed that I was engaged to be married to my Aunt Jane. That was not, however, the extraordinary part of it; I have often known people to dream things like that. I knew a man who once dreamed that he was actually married to his own mother-in-law! He told me that never in his life had he loved the alarm clock with more deep and grateful tenderness than he did that morning. The dream almost reconciled him to being married to his real wife. They lived quite happily together for a few days, after that dream. No; the extraordinary part of my dream was, that I knew it was a dream. "What on earth will uncle say to this engagement?" I thought to myself, in my dream. "There's bound to be a row about it. We shall have a deal of trouble with uncle, I feel sure." And this thought quite troubled me until the sweet reflection came: "Ah! well, it's only a dream." And I made up my mind that I would wake up as soon as uncle found out about the engagement, and leave him and Aunt Jane to fight the matter out between themselves. It is a very great comfort, when the dream grows troubled and alarming, to feel that it is only a dream, and to know that we shall awake soon and be none the worse for it. We can dream out the foolish perplexity with a smile then. Sometimes the dream of life grows strangely troubled and perplexing, and then he who meets dismay the bravest is he who feels that the fretful play is but a dream--a brief, uneasy dream of three score years and ten, or thereabouts, from which, in a little while, he will awake--at least, he dreams so. How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams--waking dreams, I mean--the dreams that we call "castles in the air," built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey's nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life. Providence, like a father with a tired child, lures us ever along the way with tales and promises, until, at the frowning gate that ends the road, we shrink back, frightened. Then, promises still more sweet he stoops and whispers in our ear, and timid yet partly reassured, and trying to hide our fears, we gather up all that is left of our little stock of hope and, trusting yet half afraid, push out our groping feet into the darkness. 
39833	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Internet Archive. [Illustration: Book Cover] THE OLD PINCUSHION OR AUNT CLOTILDA'S GUESTS [Illustration: 'I DON'T BELIEVE YOU CARE ONE BIT.'--(_PAGE_ 9.)] THE OLD PINCUSHION OR _AUNT CLOTILDA'S GUESTS_ BY MRS. MOLESWORTH AUTHOR OF 'CARROTS,' 'THE PALACE IN THE GARDEN,' ETC. _Illustrated By Mrs. Adrian Hope_ [Illustration] LONDON GRIFFITH FARRAN OKEDEN & WELSH SUCCESSORS TO NEWBERY AND HARRIS AND SYDNEY TO THREE DEAR THOUGH UNKNOWN LITTLE FRIENDS BERTHA HILDA LESLEY CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. THE LETTER WITH BAD NEWS, 9 II. PHILIPPA'S IDEA, 22 III. AUNT CLOTILDA'S REPLY, 39 IV. AT TY-GWYN, 54 V. A GRAVE PREDICAMENT, 69 VI. THE WHITE HOUSE AT LAST, 84 VII. BREAKFAST IN BED, 102 VIII. NEWS FROM PHILIPPA, 117 IX. THE COTTAGE NEAR THE CREEK, 130 X. A PLAGUE OF FEATHERS, 146 XI. THE PINCUSHION MANUFACTORY, 160 XII. FOUND, 176 LIST OF FULL PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. 'I DON'T BELIEVE YOU CARE ONE BIT,' _Frontispiece_ 'LET'S SIT QUIETLY IN THE OLD ARBOUR,' 29 THE AFTER-DINNER PLAY-TIME IN THE GARDEN, 47 'THERE'S YOUR WORK FOR YOU, SO TO SPEAK, MISS,' 61 HE SAT DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF THE CART, AND TOOK KATHIE HALF INTO HIS ARMS, 89 A FIGURE WAS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY, 97 'IT IS DELICIOUS,' SAID KATHLEEN, 105 'LOOK, IT'S NEVER BEEN POSTED AT ALL!' 123 'WHERE ARE THE CAVES, NEVILLE?' 135 WHAT _WAS_ THE MATTER? 147 THEY FOUND A NOOK ... TO EAT THEIR DINNER IN, 161 'THAT IS ALL,' SAID NEVILLE, 185 CHAPTER I. THE LETTER WITH BAD NEWS. [Illustration: Decorative N] o, Kathie, I don't believe you care one bit; I really don't,' said Neville reproachfully. Kathie was seated as she loved to be--on the edge of a rather high table. Her skirts were short and her legs were long; from her present elevation she could swing the latter about delightfully. She gave them an extra energetic fling before she replied to her brother, and then, trying her best to look concerned and distressed, and only succeeding in giving to her funny little face an expression of comical demureness, she turned to Neville,-- 'I do care. You haven't any right to say I don't. If I didn't care for myself, I'd care because you do, and because _they_ do. I'm not a--a--unnatural monster. I'd cry if it was my way, but you know it isn't; and a good thing too. A nice life I'd have had _here_,' with great contempt, 'if I'd been a crying child like little Philippa Harley. She's tired everybody out. But what's more, I do care for myself too. I've been looking forward to them coming home, and nice proper holidays, like other children. Yes, indeed, I should just think I had.' 'Holidays only!' Neville repeated. 'It would have been much better than holidays--for you, any way. They wouldn't have left you here. I'd have stayed at school, I suppose--boys must; but I don't mind school. I'd like it very well if I had a home besides.' Kathie did not seem to have noticed his last words. A new expression had come into her face, as she repeated softly to herself, 'They wouldn't have left me here. I never thought of that.' 'You'll begin to care really now, I suppose,' said her brother, rather bitterly. 'I didn't think you were so selfish.' The little girl faced about at that. 'I'm not selfish--at least, if selfish means only caring about oneself and not about other people. I don't pretend not to care about myself _too_. I'm one of the people in the world as well as being myself. I should care for myself. But I care for others too. I'm sorry for you, and for _them_, though not as sorry as for you, because I know you and I don't know them. That's natural. I can't pretend to care for them the same as if I knew them. People who want their children to care a lot for them shouldn't leave them when they're too little to remember, and never see them again for years and years.' 'It isn't much "shouldn't" about it,' the boy replied. 'It's nothing but "can't." Papa and mamma would be only too glad to come home if they could. I'm sure you might know that, Kathie.' 'Well, I've been looking forward to their coming as well as you,' said Kathie, rather grumpily. 'I'm sure I've thought about it ever since last year, when mamma wrote they'd be _sure_ to come before this next summer. I don't see but what if that hor--' she stopped; 'if that old aunt wouldn't leave papa anything else, she might at least have left him money enough to come home on a visit, as she had promised to pay it.' 'Kathie,' said Neville, in a rather awe-struck tone, 'you shouldn't speak that way when she is dead.' 'I don't see any harm in it,' the little girl replied, undauntedly. 'She should have settled things properly, and then we could have felt nicely sorry about her. I don't understand you, Neville--I don't think you're fair to me. First you scold me for not being sorry and not caring, and then when you've regularly worked me up, you turn upon me for saying what I feel.' Neville looked rather at a loss. 'I don't mean to do that,' he said. 'I suppose the truth is, I'm so dreadfully disappointed that I don't know what to say. But I must be going, Kathie. I suppose you don't want me to leave you the letter?' and as he spoke he half held out to her an envelope he held in his hand. Kathie shook her head. 'No, you'd better keep it. You'll answer it at once, I suppose. I shouldn't know what to say. You tell them from me that I'm awfully sorry, and I'll write next week.' 'And,' Neville went on, 'about writing to Aunt Clotilda? Can't you write to her, Kathie? Mamma says one of us should.' 'Well, you'd do it far better than I. I shouldn't like to send it without you seeing it first, any way. I don't feel inclined to write to her--I think she's been very stupid--she might have managed better if she really cares for them as she makes out.' 'Kathie!' said Neville--this time with real displeasure in his tone, 'I do think that's too bad of you. Poor Aunt Clotilda! You see, papa says she is almost the most to be pitied of anybody. And there's another thing, Kathie: I don't think it's right of you always to speak of papa and mamma as "they" or "them." It's not--not respectful; not as if you cared for them.' 'Oh, bother!' said Kathie; 'if you're going to begin again about my not caring, Neville, I just wish you'd go. I'm tired of explaining to you, and--there; _I_ must go. Miss Eccles is sending for me;' and as the footsteps her quick ears had heard coming along the passage stopped at the door, Kathleen slid down from the table, and stood erect and demure, as a girl of seventeen or so, with a sharp, dark face looked in. 'Miss Powys,' she said, 'it is time to get ready for dinner. You must be up-stairs in five minutes;' and so saying, disappeared. 'Good-bye, Kathie,' said Neville, as he kissed her. 'It was kind of Mr. Fanshaw to let me come, wasn't it? And--oh! I forgot--Mrs. Fanshaw's going to write to Miss Eccles to ask if you may spend next Wednesday with us--all day: that's to say, to come to dinner and stay till the evening. I'm to fetch you walking, and bring you back in a hansom.' 'That will be _splucious_!' said Kathie, her eyes sparkling. 'Oh! I say, I do hope old Eccles will let me go.' A slight look of annoyance crossed the boy's face. He disliked to hear his little sister talking slang, or any approach to it. 'Old Eccles!' he repeated. 'I wish you wouldn't say that, Kathie. "Splucious" I don't mind--it was our own nursery word.' 'Neville, you _are_ a prig!' said Kathie. 'However, I'll forgive you in return for the good news. Good-bye till Wednesday, and do thank them awfully. I do wish old Eccles was like them.' [Illustration] And already, in the prospect of the immediate pleasure, more than half forgetting the important bad news which her brother had come to tell her, Kathleen flew along the passage, and up-stairs two steps at a time, by way of working off some of her excitement. She was only twelve years old, though, to judge by her height, she might have been older. But she had the thin, lanky look of a fast-growing child; there was nothing the least precocious about her. 'She is such a baby still,' thought Neville, as he made his way soberly along the street. 'I suppose she can't help it,' he went on, with a vague idea of excusing her to himself for he scarcely knew what. 'But I do wish, oh! how I do wish they were coming home! Five years more, papa says; five years more it will be. It won't matter for me so much. I've been so fortunate in being with the Fanshaws; and any way, I'd have had to be going to a big school by now. But for Kathie, she'll be seventeen, and she won't have been with mamma for eleven years. It doesn't seem _right_, somehow. And just now, when everything might have been easy. Oh dear! I wonder why things go wrong when they might just as well go right!' Neville Powys was only thirteen and a half, barely eighteen months older than Kathleen. But in mind and temperament he was twice her age. And he seemed to himself to have grown years older since that very same morning when the Indian mail had brought the letter which had been the reason of his visit to his sister. It had been a terrible disappointment to him, and he had hoped for thorough sympathy from Kathie. Yet again, perhaps it was well that she had not taken it to heart so acutely as he. She was less happily placed under Miss Eccles' trustworthy, but cold and unloving care, than he in the Fanshaw family. And had she been of a more sensitive or less buoyant nature, she might have been in some ways dwarfed and crushed painfully. But she was strong and elastic; so far, her six years of stiff and prim school life had done her no harm beyond leaving her, in several ways, as much of a 'baby' as when they had first begun. Still, Neville's instinct that it was more than time that Kathie should be in other hands, that the 'womanliness' in her would suffer unless there were some change, was a correct one. 'If only Mrs. Fanshaw could have had her too,' he said to himself, as he had often said before. But that he knew was impossible. The Fanshaws had four boys of their own, and no daughter, which had naturally led to their taking only boy boarders. 'I don't like to make things worse by writing to mamma that I don't think Kathie is improving,' he went on, thinking. 'I know it must be very difficult for them to pay what they do for us. And Mrs. Fanshaw always says that Miss Eccles' school is far better, though it is old-fashioned and prim, than many of those great, big, fashionable, girls' schools, which cost twice as much.' Suddenly a thought struck him. 'I don't see why I shouldn't write about Kathie to Aunt Clotilda,' he said to himself. 'She is free now, even though she's poor. She might surely have Kathie with her if papa gave what he does to Miss Eccles. And she's often said she would have had us every holiday if Mrs. Wynne hadn't been so old and queer. I think Aunt Clotilda must be nice--she is so fond of papa. She might at least have Kathie there on a visit.' And with a rather more hopeful feeling about things in general since this idea had struck him, poor Neville rang at Mr. Fanshaw's door, which he had now reached. He had met with plenty of sympathy from his kind friends in his disappointment. It was Mrs. Fanshaw who had suggested to her husband to give the boy an hour or two's holiday to go off to see his sister, though not an orthodox day for the two meeting, and who had furthermore promised the invitation which had so delighted Kathleen. But a feeling of loyalty prevented Neville's telling how slightly the bad news seemed to have affected the little girl, and besides this, a sort of instinct that the less family matters are talked of out of the family the better, made him resolve not to say very much more about the matter in the Fanshaw household. What the bad news was it is quite time to explain. Neville and Kathleen Powys were the children of an officer in the army. Captain Powys was poor, but not without reasonable hopes of becoming much richer before his boy and girl should have reached the age at which education and the other many advantages which good parents desire for their children, grow expensive and difficult to obtain for those who have very small means. One disadvantage--a disadvantage at all ages--that of separation from their parents, had to be submitted to, however, when Neville and Kathleen were only five and six years old. For at that time Captain Powys's regiment was ordered to India, and he had, of course, to accompany it. 'Never mind--or, at least, mind it as little as you can,' he said to his wife. 'Let us be thankful they are still so young. By the time they are at an age when it really would matter greatly, we may quite hope to be settled at home again.' And in this hope the last few years had been passed. It was not an unreasonable hope by any means, as you shall hear. Captain Powys had an old cousin, who was also his godmother, by name Mrs. Wynne. And for many years this lady had openly announced her intention of making him her heir. Only last year she had written to beg him to try to get leave to come home for some months, as she felt she had not long to live, and there were many things she wished to say to him. She undertook to pay all the expenses of this visit for himself and his wife, and the little girl Vida, who had been born since their return to India. And as a reason the more for it, she reminded him that it was high time Neville and Kathleen should see their parents again. Captain Powys, as may be imagined, was only too glad to agree to her proposal, and for the last few months the parents in India and the children at home had been counting the weeks--in Neville's case, indeed, almost the days--till they should meet, when, alas! all these plans were dashed to the ground! Mrs. Wynne died suddenly, and after her death no will was to be found. In consequence of this, all her property would go to a nephew of her husband's, already a rich man, who did not need it, and, to do him justice, scarcely cared for it. This was the news which Miss Clotilda Powys, the children's aunt, who had lived with the old lady and helped to manage her affairs, had to write to her brother in India. And this too was the news contained in the letter from his father which had so distressed poor Neville. It was a curious story altogether. Clotilda was completely puzzled. Mrs. Wynne was a careful and methodical person, not likely to have delayed seeing to business matters, and just the sort of woman to have prided herself on leaving everything in perfect order. And a day or two before her death she had given her cousin a sealed envelope, on which was written, 'Directions where to find my will;' saying to her at the same time, 'You will see--all will be right for David.' So Miss Clotilda's mind had been quite at rest, till on opening the envelope, a few hours after the old lady's death, she drew forth a blank sheet of note-paper! Even then, however, she was not completely discouraged. That the will was somewhere in the house she felt certain, for she had often heard Mrs. Wynne say that she would trust no important papers to any one's keeping but her own. And in the presence of the lawyer, Mr. Jones, and of Mr. Wynne-Carr, the nephew, a thorough search was made. Every cupboard, every bookcase, every wardrobe, every chest of drawers was turned out--nay, more, the walls were tapped, the planks of the floors examined, for it was a very old and quaintly contrived house, to see if there was any secret place where the will could have been concealed. But all in vain. Every other paper or document of importance was found in its place, neatly labelled in the old lady's own handwriting, in her private _secrétaire_ in the library. But no will! And even though poor Miss Clotilda went on for days and weeks searching, searching, thinking of nothing else by day, dreaming of nothing else by night, all was useless, and it became evident that there would not much longer be any pretext for preventing Mr. Wynne-Carr's taking possession. Mr. Wynne-Carr behaved well. He had never expected to succeed, and was not eager about it. He could not, however, help himself--he had a son and grandson--he could not give up the property even if Captain Powys could have been brought to accept it from him. But he told Miss Clotilda to take her time. He gave her leave to stay on in the house as long as she liked, and to continue searching. But as weeks went on, her last hopes faded, and she wrote again to her brother, advising him to make up his mind that the will would never be found. Then Captain Powys wrote to Neville--he had put off doing so as long as he could--telling him all, and saying that even the visit to England must be given up, as he had no money to spare for it, and no hopes of gaining anything by it. If Miss Clotilda had not succeeded in finding the will, there was no chance that any one else would. Neville was old enough, and thoughtful enough, thoroughly to understand the whole. No wonder he was troubled and distressed, and disappointed by Kathie's childishness. He wished his Aunt Clotilda had written to him. It would have made it much easier for him to have confided to her his feelings about his sister. It was many years since Miss Clotilda had seen the children, for she had not left Wales for long, and Mrs. Wynne had never invited the children to visit her. She was too old for it, she said, and she had never had children of her own, and did not understand their ways. So Neville and Kathleen had been entirely left to the care of strangers, though Neville had once or twice been asked to spend some holidays at a companion's house, and Kathie was taken every year to the seaside with two other 'little Indians,' for three weeks by Miss Eccles. But of real happy home-life neither knew anything, except by hearsay. And Kathleen was not the sort of child to trouble herself much about anything which did not actually come in her way. CHAPTER II. PHILIPPA'S IDEA. [Illustration: Decorative K] athleen was met at the schoolroom door by a little, pale-faced, fair-haired girl, who was just coming out. 'Oh, Kathie!' she said anxiously, 'do be quick if you're not ready for dinner. The bell's just going to ring. Have you washed your hands? No? Then let's go at once.' 'Why, are you not ready, either?' said Kathie. 'There's no excuse for you, Philippa; you've not been called downstairs to see your brother.' 'I am ready,' said Philippa. 'I've been ready ever so long. But when you didn't come at once after Miss Fraser went for you, I was so frightened that I asked if I might go to fetch a handkerchief, and I thought I'd run along the passage to see if you were coming, and to hurry you.' 'You're a good little soul,' said Kathleen condescendingly, 'but you really needn't bother about me. I've had scoldings enough by this time not to mind, I should rather think.' Philippa looked up at her doubtfully. Kathie's hard, careless way of speaking distressed her vaguely, much as it did Neville, though she scarcely understood it. She was new to school life, and she had had the happiness till a few months ago of never being separated from her mother. So, though she was three years younger than Kathleen, there were some things she knew more of. 'I don't think you should speak that way,' she said. 'It can't be a good thing not to mind. I do think they scold us too much. _Mamma_ never scolded at all, though of course she was sometimes vexed with me, only there was always sense in it. But I think there's _generally_ some sense in Miss Eccles' scolding. I try to find it out, only it's rather hard,' and her soft eyes filled with tears. 'Come now, Philippa,' said Kathleen, 'don't begin to cry. You'd be ever so much nicer if you wouldn't. There, now; I'm all ready,' and she flung the towel, with which she had been wiping her hands, on to the rail as she spoke. 'Let's race back; see if you can run as fast as I without making any noise. Don't I do it splendidly? There now; the bell hasn't sounded. Won't Miss Fraser be disappointed not to have to scold?' And it was true that a rather sour look overspread the under-teacher's face as the two children demurely entered the room. [Illustration] 'Did your brother bring you any letters, Kathie?' whispered Philippa, as they filed downstairs to dinner with the seven or eight girls who made up Miss Eccles' school. 'I do so want to know.' 'Yes; I have lots to tell you,' said Kathie, 'and no good news either. If I were _you_, Philippa, I should be crying my eyes out by this time.' Philippa covered her ears with her hands. 'Oh! don't tell me, then, please don't,' she said. 'If it's anything sad about your mamma, or anything like that, I shall begin crying: I know I shall, whether you do or not, and then they'll all see. Don't tell me till after dinner, Kathie.' 'I've no intention of doing so,' said Kathleen, smiling rather importantly. 'I'll tell you in the garden this afternoon.' Her smile somewhat reassured the tender-hearted little friend; still more so the fact that Kathleen's appetite was in no way affected by the news, whatever it was, that she had just heard. There was a gooseberry pudding for dinner that day, and Philippa marvelled to herself when she saw Kathie's plate sent up for a second allowance. 'I can't finish my first helping even,' she whispered, disconsolately. 'I can't help wondering if your mamma's ill, and it makes me think of _my_ mamma. Oh, Kathie!' she went on, 'do just tell me it isn't that your mamma's ill, is it? Do tell me, or I'll never be able to finish my pudding, and they will so scold me!' 'You goose!' whispered Kathie. 'No; of course it isn't that my mamma's ill, or your mamma's ill, or anybody's mamma's ill.' 'Miss Powys and Miss Harley _whispering_! I am surprised at you,' said Miss Eccles' voice from behind the now diminished gooseberry pudding at the other end of the table. 'There, now,' muttered Kathie; and Philippa, feeling that her friend's reproaches as well as her teacher's disapproval would be more than she could bear, subsided, and set to work to clear her plate in earnest. The friendship between these two was rather an odd one. It had been brought on in the first place by a sort of half-contemptuous, half-pitying curiosity, with which Kathleen had seen Philippa's agony of distress on having to part with her mother. And poor Mrs. Harley, in her bewilderment, had credited Kathie with more feeling and sympathy than the girl was really conscious of. 'You will be good to her--you look as if you were sorry for her,' she said, struck by the interest in Kathleen's pretty bright eyes. '_You_ know what it is to be separated from your mother.' 'I--I haven't seen mamma for a long time,' Kathie replied, too honest to 'sham,' and yet feeling rather ashamed of herself. 'There are several girls here whose mothers are in India. But I will be good to Philippa. We'll all be sorry for her. I suppose it's worse when one's as big as she is. I was very little.' And Mrs. Harley thanked her, and Philippa clung to her, and having given the promise, Kathleen kept it, even though it was sometimes a little tiresome to have to forsake the society of the merry, hearty, older girls, in order to devote herself to the poor little home-sick child. But during the last few months things had changed. Two or three of the older girls had left, and Kathleen did not care much for those that remained. And by degrees Philippa had grown to some extent reconciled to her new life, and had transferred to Kathleen some considerable share of the devotion with which her loving little heart was running over. And Philippa, young as she was, was a friend worth having; in after-years Kathleen came to see how much she owed to the child's unconscious influence. The hour in the garden after dinner, and before lessons began again, was the hour of all the twenty-four during which Miss Eccles' pupils were the most at liberty. Before Philippa came it had usually been spent by Kathleen in playing; she was so tall and nimble that she was in great request among the older girls for lawn-tennis, or any other games, and it had been one of her small acts of self-denial--acts showing that, for all her heedless talking and surface indifference, her heart was in the right place--to give up joining in these for the sake of talking or listening to the disconsolate little stranger. But now that Philippa had learnt to understand things better, she would not allow Kathleen to make such sacrifices. Though not strong enough herself for much active exercise, she loved to watch her friend's successes, and her pale face would glow with excitement when Kathie specially distinguished herself. But to-day was to be an exception. 'You're going to play lawn-tennis, aren't you, Kathie?' said Philippa. 'I don't want to play anything; and Miss Fraser doesn't mind, when it's so hot that I won't catch cold. I'll sit near and watch you.' [Illustration: 'LET'S SIT QUIETLY IN THE OLD ARBOUR.'] 'No, you just won't,' said Kathie. 'I'm not going to play. I know you are dying to hear what Neville came about, and I want to tell it to somebody, and you're the only person I can tell it to. So let's sit quietly in the old arbour--nobody will want us, and I'll tell you everything. You'll be sorry enough for me, Philippa, when you hear the first bit of it, even though it isn't nearly the worst. Just fancy'--by this time the two children were settled in the summer-house--'papa and mamma are not coming home this year, after all.' Philippa's blue eyes opened very widely, and a look of consternation spread over her face. 'Your papa and mamma aren't coming home?' she repeated, as if she could not take in the sense of the words. 'Oh, Kathie!' and the corners of her mouth went down, and her eyelids began to quiver in a suspicious way. 'Now, Phil, no crying,' said Kathleen, sharply. 'If I don't cry for myself, I don't see that you need to do it for me.' 'I'm so--so dreadfully sorry for you,' said Philippa apologetically. 'Thank you. I knew you'd be. But though their not coming's a dreadful disappointment, there's worse than that. It isn't only that it's put off, Philippa: it's given up altogether. I don't hardly think they'll _ever_ come home now. I believe they'll stay out there always, till I'm grown up, and then when I'm seventeen or so, I'll be sent out to them--to a father and mother I shan't know a bit. Isn't it _horrid_, Philippa?' 'But why is it? What's made them change so?' asked the little girl. 'I'll tell you. Only you must listen a great deal. It's really rather hard to understand: just like a story in a book, Phil, about wills, and heirs, and lawyers, and all that.' And in her own fashion, as intelligibly as she could, Kathleen proceeded to narrate the contents of her father's letter to Neville, and all Neville's comments thereupon, to her most interested and attentive listener. 'What a shame it seems!' was Philippa's first remark. 'All to go to somebody that doesn't need it. How unfair it is! Kathie, if he was really a very good, nice man, don't you think he'd give it all back to your father?' 'Papa wouldn't take it, not from _him_,' said Kathie indignantly, though, truth to tell, her own first idea on hearing the story had been a similar one; 'and besides--that other man's got children, and Neville says there's some law that you can't give away what comes to you if you've got children.' 'Oh,' said Philippa, meekly. 'I didn't know.' 'Of course not. How could you know, a little girl like you? Why, _I_ didn't till Neville told me,' said Kathie condescendingly. 'But, all the same, that part of it doesn't matter. Papa wouldn't take anything from anybody like that.' Philippa sat silent for a little while. But though silent, she was thinking deeply. Her eyes were gazing before her, though seeing but little of the objects in view--the prim bit of London garden, with the evergreen shrubs bordering the gravel-walk, and the figures of the girls darting backwards and forwards in their light-coloured frocks, while they called out to each other in the excitement of the game. And the child's lips were compressed as if she were thinking out some knotty problem. Kathie looked at her in surprise and with growing impatience. She did not fully understand Philippa, for in reality the nine years old maiden was in some respects older than Kathleen herself. Her thoughtfulness and powers of reflection had been brought out by living in close companionship with her mother, and the dearth of playfellows of her own age had made her what servants call 'old-fashioned,' quaint, and in a sense precocious. 'What are you going to sleep about Philippa?' said Kathleen at last, irritably. 'I thought you'd have had lots of questions to ask. It's not every day one hears anything so queer and interesting as what I have been telling you.' Philippa slowly unfastened her eyes, so to speak, from staring at vacancy, and turned them on her friend. 'It's not that I don't care, Kathie; you might know that, I'm sure. I think it's _dreadful_! I can't bear to think of how unhappy your papa and mamma must be, _'specially_ your mamma, just when she'd been planning about coming home and having you with her. I daresay she made a day list--you know what I mean--and that she'd been scratching out every day to see the long rows get shorter. I know,' she added mysteriously, 'I know mammas _do_ do that sometimes, just as well as children.' 'I don't think mine would be quite so silly,' said Kathleen disdainfully. 'She must be pretty well used to being at the other side of the world from us by now. For my part, I don't think people should marry if they know they're going to have to live in India--not, at least, till doctors find out some sort of medicine that would keep children quite strong and well there. I do think doctors are too stupid. But still, of course,' she went on, 'I _am_ very sorry for mamma, and I'm very sorry for us all. Not quite so sorry for myself, perhaps. I don't think I do mind so very much. I'd feel more disappointed if I couldn't go to the Fanshaws on Wednesday, and come home in a hansom with Neville. I'm made so, I suppose.' And she flung herself back on her seat with a would-be 'Miller of the Dee' air, which, however, was rather lost on Philippa, who just glanced at her calmly. 'I don't believe you,' she said. 'You're not as bad as you would make yourself out. But I do wonder you haven't thought of one thing, Kathie, you that are so quick and clever. It came into my head the moment I heard it all.' 'What?' said Kathleen carelessly. 'Why, it's what I'd do in your place. I'd settle to _find the will_!' 'To find the will!' repeated Kathie, sitting bolt upright, and staring at Philippa as if she thought the little girl was taking leave of her senses. '_Me_ find the will! You little goose! how could I find it when that stupid Miss Clotilda and all the lawyers and people haven't been able to find it? Why, even Neville never thought of such a thing.' 'Perhaps he will, though; and if he doesn't, if I were you, I'd put it into his head. If Miss Clotilda is really stupid'-- 'Oh! I don't know that she is--it's just my way of speaking.' Philippa looked rather disappointed. 'I don't know anything about her except that she's an old maid, and old maids are either crabbed or stupid; and they say she's not crabbed,' said Kathie. 'But seriously, Phil, what do you mean? How could I find the will, or even look for it? It isn't here in London, and very likely it's nowhere at all. Very likely old Mrs. Wynne never wrote it.' 'Oh, Kathie!' exclaimed Philippa, 'I do think you can't have a very good mind to fancy such things. She would have had to be a really naughty old lady to have pretended so, and tricked everybody for nothing. Of course she must have written it; you told me the letter with nothing in it was marked "Directions where to find my will."' 'Ye-es,' said Kathleen, 'so it was. But what then? It seems to me the first thing to do would be to find the paper that should have been in that envelope.' 'Of course,' said Philippa, her face flushing. 'I never thought of that. You see, Kathie, you are quick and clever when you really think.' 'I never said I wasn't,' Kathleen replied composedly. 'But that's the beginning and end of my thinking about this thing. Let's talk about something else now, Phil.' 'No,' said the little girl decidedly. 'I don't care to talk of anything else. Just _think_, Kathie, how lovely it would be if you did find it, and all came right, and your papa and mamma came home to that beautiful place in Wales; you'd invite me sometimes for the holidays, wouldn't you?' 'Of course,' said Kathie heartily. 'I never thought of that. But by-the-by, Phil, you should be glad of this going wrong if you care for me. I'd have been leaving school if it had been all right.' 'I know, said Philippa quietly. 'I did think of that, and of course it would break my heart for you to go. But I'd rather it did break--_quite_,' she went on, as if she understood thoroughly all about the process, 'rather than that your poor papa and mamma shouldn't be able to come home, and you all be happy together at that lovely place.' 'I don't know that it's lovely,' observed Kathie. 'I fancy it's just a funny old-fashioned place. But it's in the country and near the sea--I love the country and the sea--of course it would be awfully nice. It's very good of you, Phil, to care about it all so much. I only wish it would come right. If I _could_ find that paper or the will! It wouldn't matter which. If I were _there_, I'd hunt. I'd poke into all sorts of corners, that perhaps Aunt Clotilda has never thought of.' 'Well, I think you should manage to go there,' said Philippa. 'I don't see why your aunt shouldn't ask you to pay her a visit while she's still there, now that the old lady is dead.' 'Yes; I think she might,' Kathleen agreed. 'Any way, it would be a change from that going to Bognor for three weeks that I dislike so. I am so sick of Bognor. And you won't be there, Phil; you're going to your grandmother's.' 'Yes,' said Philippa; 'I didn't much want to go while I thought you were to be here. But if you were going away, I shouldn't mind.' 'I'll ask Neville about it,' said Kathie. 'He has said something once or twice about wishing I could go to Aunt Clotilda, but I always told him I shouldn't like it, and that unless papa and mamma regularly _ordered_ me to go, I wouldn't. I do so dislike old maids.' 'Why, who do you know that's old maids?' asked Philippa. 'Why do you dislike them?' 'Oh! there's Miss Eccles--and, after all, I'm not sure that I do dislike her. No, I don't think I do,' she went on, meditatively. 'But there's Miss Fraser; there now, Philippa, we _may_ dislike her--nasty, spying, sharp, spiteful thing!' Philippa considered. It never occurred even to her to dispute the right of all the school to dislike Miss Fraser--her mind was considering another aspect of the question. 'But are you sure she is an old maid?' she said. 'She can't be more than twenty. When do old maids begin?' 'I don't know,' Kathie replied vaguely. 'I don't think there's any settled age. I suppose it's just that some are always going to be old maids. But let's talk of something nicer, Phil. Let's plan that place in Wales--Ty--Tig--I can't say the name of it in Welsh, but I know it means the White House. Let's plan all about it, how the rooms go, and everything, and fancy you're coming to stay with us there. Let me see--shall it be haunted?' 'No, no,' cried Philippa, with a little scream, putting her hands over her ears, relapsing suddenly into the sort of plaintive childishness which made her such an inconsistent little person. 'No, no, Kathie. It's very unkind of you to frighten me. I'll _never_ come to stay with you if you're going to plan that it's haunted.' 'Then it shan't be,' said Kathie reassuringly. 'Don't be silly, Phil.' CHAPTER III. AUNT CLOTILDA'S REPLY. [Illustration: Decorative W] ednesday came in due course, and as Mrs. Fanshaw's invitation had been received, and graciously accepted by Miss Eccles for Kathleen, the young lady was ready and waiting when her brother called for her. [Illustration] 'Good-bye, Kathie darling,' whispered a little voice over the balusters, 'and don't forget.' 'No, dear, and good-bye,' Kathleen replied. 'Who was that on the stairs?' Neville asked, when the two were making their way down the street. 'Philippa--Philippa Harley,' Kathie answered. 'The little girl who cries so?' inquired Neville. 'Oh, she's rather left off crying. She's very sensible in some ways,' said Kathleen. '_That's_ sensible,' said Neville. 'Still I don't know that I don't like her for having cried a good deal. I like people to _mind_ things.' He spoke quite naturally, but Kathleen was rather porcupinish on this subject. She stood quite still, and faced round upon her brother. Fortunately the street was not at all a crowded one. 'Now, Neville,' she said, 'I'm not going to have you go on again like that about my not caring. I know it's that you mean, and I just won't have it. I care a great deal more than if I sat down and cried about it.' Neville stared at her. 'Kathie,' he said, 'I wasn't thinking about you when I said that. I wasn't indeed. I know you do care when you really think about things. And if you didn't, it wouldn't in a way be your fault. You've been so alone as it were; nobody except me, and we've not been much together after all, to talk about home things to. But don't be vexed with me, Kathie.' Kathleen's face had softened while Neville spoke. She turned and walked on quietly beside him. 'Yes,' she said, 'it's true what you say. I've felt it still more since Philippa's been there. She's been so much with her mother, and she is so fond of her. It must be dreadfully nice to have a mother you know so well that you can love her like that. Neville,' she went on, 'it does seem hard that I should just be getting to feel more like you about it, when there's no chance of them coming home, and our being with them.' Neville sighed. 'Yes,' he said, 'it does seem hard. All the same, Kathie, I'm very glad you're getting to feel more that way. Philippa must be a nice little girl.' 'She's a _very_ nice little girl,' said Kathie heartily. 'But she's funny--she's such a queer mixture of babyishness and old-for-her-age-ness.' And then, as her own words recalled some of her conversation with Philippa, she suddenly exclaimed-- 'Neville, are you sure, quite sure, that there's no chance of things coming right for papa?' 'What do you mean?' asked Neville in surprise. 'Do you think there's no chance of the will ever being found--or the paper telling where it is? The paper that should have been in the envelope?' 'I should think _that's_ the least likely thing of all--a little sheet of paper! A will's rather a big thing--at least, generally. Mr. Fanshaw says it's written on parchment, and that even a short will is rather a bulky thing. That's why it seems so queer it should be lost. But the bit of paper could easily have been lost. Aunt Clotilda thinks that the blank bit was put in by mistake, you know, so most likely the right bit was torn up long ago. Mrs. Wynne was getting a little blind.' 'Still,' persisted Kathleen, 'as the _will_ can't be found, _I_ think they should have a hunt for the paper. You see, if the will's rather a big thing, it's pretty sure they'd have found it unless it had been really hidden. And, besides, Mrs. Wynne's meaning to leave directions where to find it, shows it wasn't anywhere to be found easily.' 'Yes, of course,' said Neville, surprised at Kathleen's reasoning powers. 'Well then,' she went on, 'I'd look for the paper. It might be in ever so many places where the _will_ couldn't be. I wonder if they've hunted through Mrs. Wynne's desk and blotting books, and places like that?' 'I wonder too,' said Neville. 'But they'd only laugh at us if we said anything, you see, Kathie, because we're children.' 'Yes,' Kathleen agreed. 'People are very stupid about children, often.' Neville did not answer for a moment. Then, 'Kathie,' he said half hesitatingly. 'Well.' 'I think I'll tell you something'--but he was interrupted. They had got into a crowded part by this time, and Neville had to catch hold of Kathleen and make a sudden rush for it, to avoid being knocked down by an unexpected hansom appearing round a corner which they had not been observing. 'There now,' Neville went on, 'it would have been very nice if I had got you run over, Kathie. We mustn't talk where it's so crowded. Wait till we get into Mayhew Street.' But when they reached Mayhew Street, at the farther end of which was Neville's present home, they were overtaken by Mr. Fanshaw himself. So there was no more opportunity for talking privately. And kind Mrs. Fanshaw had arranged a sight-seeing expedition in the afternoon for the two Powys children and two of the other boys. From this they did not get home till tea-time, and after tea there were games in the schoolroom, and then music in the drawing-room when Mr. and Mrs. Fanshaw and the elder boys came up from dinner. It was all very delightful, and Kathleen enjoyed it thoroughly. But it drove other thoughts out of her head, and gave her endless subject for chatter in the hansom on her way home. It was not till they drew up at Miss Eccles' gate that she suddenly remembered Neville's unfinished sentence. 'What was it you were going to say to me just when that cab came up, this morning?' she asked. Neville hesitated. 'I'll tell you the next time. It would take too long now. Perhaps it will never come to anything; perhaps you wouldn't like it if it did, and perhaps you'd be disappointed if it didn't. And it's best to say no more about it yet.' And this oracular reply was all Kathie could extract from Neville before they had to bid each other good-night. Philippa was a good deal disappointed the next day that Kathleen had no more to tell her. 'You promised to speak to your brother about looking for the paper,' she said. 'Well, so I did,' said Kathie. 'Yes; but what you said was no good. You should have planned with him about going there. It'll be too late soon; once your aunt has left the house you'd never have a chance of going there.' 'Oh, bother!' said Kathleen; 'I've no chance as it is. I don't believe it'll ever be found--the paper or the will either. It's no good thinking any more about it.' Philippa's face flushed. 'I think you're a very silly girl, and a very selfish one too,' she said. 'I'm sure if there was the least little tiniest bit of a chance of my finding any paper that would do _my_ papa and mamma any good, I'd--I'd--' 'What would you do, Miss Unselfish?' said Kathie teasingly. 'I'd run away and dress myself like a little servant so as to get into the house, or--or--anything,' said Philippa. 'And get put into prison for poking about among other people's things. That would be _very_ nice for papa and mamma! Your head's far too full of fanciful stories and rubbish!' said Kathleen. And for some days there was a decided coolness between the friends. But on the fourth day something happened which quickly set this unusual state of things to rights. A rather thick letter arrived for 'Miss Powys' by the morning post. It was addressed in Neville's clear, boyish handwriting; and as this was at once recognised by Miss Eccles, she gave it to Kathleen without any remark or inquiry. And though there was only a quarter of an hour between breakfast and morning lessons beginning, Kathie managed to gain a pretty fair idea of its contents before taking her place in the schoolroom. But it was not till the after-dinner play-time in the garden that she was able to tell what the letter contained to her little confidante. All she had time to whisper to her--for it was a very busy morning--was, 'I _have_ got something to tell you, Phil, so you're not to look cross at me any more. You will open your eyes when you hear it.' Philippa opened her eyes wide enough only to know she was _going_ to hear it! What could it be? Kathie looked so pleased and excited that Philippa almost fancied news must have come of the will having been found. Of course it would be very nice, she said to herself, _very_ nice, if it were so; but still she was conscious of a little feeling of disappointment at the idea. She was rather what is called a romantic little girl; she liked to make up wonderful stories in her head; but this was the first time that she had ever come across in actual life anything to make a really good one about, so, naturally, she felt that it would be quite a pity for it to come to an end too soon. It would be like a book finishing up all in a hurry in the middle. She thought so much about it that she was very sharply reproved by Miss Fraser for inattention and carelessness, which forced her out of her dreams, though the pleasant feeling of having something out of the common to look forward to prevented her taking the scolding much to heart. [Illustration: THE AFTER-DINNER PLAY-TIME IN THE GARDEN.] And at last--at last, though really it did seem as if the morning would never come to an end--the two friends found themselves together in the arbour again, and Kathleen drew the fat-looking letter out of her pocket. 'Oh, Kathie,' Philippa exclaimed, 'I'm all trembling to know what it is! Only just tell me quick! Is it that the will's found?' She could hardly for the moment have said whether she wished the answer to be 'yes' or 'no,' but she was not long left in suspense. 'You goose!' said Kathleen, which was answer of itself; 'of course not. I do believe you thought it was in this letter. I don't believe, for my part, it ever will be found. But that's not the question. What I've got to tell you is just what you've been wishing for. I--we--Neville and I--are to go to Aunt Clotilda's for the holidays.' 'Oh!' exclaimed Philippa, in a tone of deep satisfaction. 'Then _did_ you speak of it to your brother, Kathie? Were you only teasing me when you said you hadn't?' 'No, no. It was done before. I mean Neville had thought of it before. He began to tell me something, and then he stopped; I think he wasn't sure if I'd like it. He's not sure now; you'll see when you read what he says. And to tell you the truth, Phil, if you hadn't put it into my head about hunting for that paper'-- 'No,' interrupted Philippa; 'it was your own thought about looking for the _paper_. I said the will.' 'Never mind,' said Kathie impatiently; 'it's the same thing. You put the hunting into my head. And, as I was saying, if you hadn't, I don't believe I would have wanted to go there. You see, it's left to my own wishes principally,' she went on importantly. '_That's_ sensible of Aunt Clotilda, anyway. There,' and she held out the letter to Philippa, 'you may read it all. Can you make out the writing? If not, I'll read it to you. Neville's writing is plain enough; read it first.' Philippa eagerly obeyed. Neville's letter was just a short one, sending on to his sister a larger one which he had received from their aunt, and saying how much he hoped Kathleen would like the idea of the visit Miss Clotilda proposed, and which he frankly said he had written to suggest. 'I've read Neville's,' said Philippa; 'but the writing of the other is rather difficult. Please read it to me, Kathie.' Kathleen unfolded it, and made Philippa come quite close to her. 'I don't want to speak loud,' she said. 'I don't care for the other girls to hear.' 'MY DEAR NEVILLE,' the letter began, 'I am very glad you wrote to me. I have thought a great deal about you and dear Kathleen since the terrible disappointment which you heard all about from your father. It is very sad for both of you, and perhaps especially so for Kathleen, to be so long separated from your dear parents, and to have now--alas!--such a very uncertain prospect of seeing them again for long. I had already been considering if it would not be possible for you both to spend your next holidays with me here. Mr. Wynne-Carr has--I suppose I must say _kindly_, but I think you are old enough to understand that it is difficult for me to feel grateful under the circumstances--given me leave to stay here till October, when I must go I know not where. But I am very poor. I have for the time a house in which to receive you, but that is about all. All the servants are dismissed already, except old Martha. And I am obliged to live in the simplest way. Then, again, I had a feeling that it would be painful and tantalising for you to come here, and to get to know and love the dear old place which should have been by now your own home. I should like you and little Kathleen'-- '_Little_ Kathleen, indeed!' said Kathie, with a snort. 'to think it over'-- 'Yes; that's sensible of her, isn't it?' 'and to let me know what you feel about it before I do anything in the matter. I am quite sure your dear papa and mamma'-- 'Did you ever see such a lot of "dears" as she sticks in? I'm afraid she must be rather a kissey-cry-ey sort of person, Phil.' 'would have no objection to your coming, and if you both think you would like it, and will let me know as soon as possible, I will write to Miss Eccles and to Mr. Fanshaw, and try to get all arranged. I think you could safely make the journey alone, as there is no change from Paddington to Frewern Bay, where you leave the railway, and where I should meet you by the coach. Of course, had things been as we hoped, I should have sent some one to town to escort you, but that, alas! is now out of the question. With love to Kathleen, and hoping to hear from you very soon--Believe me, my dear Neville, your affectionate aunt, 'CLOTILDA WYNNE POWYS.' 'She writes as if she would have sent a couple of powdered footmen for us, doesn't she?' said Kathie. 'I say, Phil, it won't be very cheerful if she's going to go on groaning all the time over departed grandeur, will it? And I'm rather afraid about the'--Kathleen hesitated. She was in an excited, mischievous mood, and she wanted to shock Philippa by using slang. But she wasn't sure whether the proper expression for what she wanted to say was 'tuck,' or 'grub,' or 'prog,' or no one of the three, so she discreetly changed the form of the sentence. 'I've just a little misgiving that we shall not have enough to eat,' she went on. 'Do you suppose she'll give us porridge three times a day? I always think of porridge when people speak of living very simply.' 'Porridge is very good,' said Philippa; 'with _cream_ I think it's'-- 'Heavenly!' put in Kathie. 'Yes, so do I. For breakfast, that's to say. But for dinner and tea too! I warn you, Phil, if we go, and if we're starved, it'll all lie on your shoulders.' Her voice was so solemn, and she put such an alarming expression into her face, that Philippa looked really frightened, and half ready to cry. 'I don't understand you, Kathie,' she said. 'I wish you wouldn't open your eyes at me like that. _I_ think it's a very nice, kind letter, and I don't see why you turn everything into mocking. I can't think what makes you do it.' Kathleen's face grew grave. 'I'm very sorry for vexing you, poor little Phil,' she said. 'I won't do it any more. But you needn't be vexed at my saying seriously, that I don't think I'd have wanted to go to Aunt Clotilda's but for your idea of hunting for the will. I'm sure she's very unhappy, and I daresay she'd rather not be bothered with us.' 'You should try to make her happier, then. It's for all of you she's so unhappy, poor thing.' 'Yes, that's true. And anyway, it's better than Bognor. I'll promise to be very good, Phil; I really will. But you _mustn't_ be disappointed if I don't find the will, for I'm very much afraid I shan't.' 'You haven't patience enough,' said the little girl. 'I wish _I_ was going there.' 'I'm sure I wish you were. But it will be nice to see the place, and to find out if our plans about it are something like. I'll write you long letters to your grandmamma's, and tell you all about it.' CHAPTER IV. AT TY-GWYN. [Illustration: Decorative H] is aunt's letter, though so kind, had caused Neville some disappointment. It was evident to him that there was no hope of her being able to have Kathleen to live with her. And indeed, these coming holidays were probably the only ones they could ever hope to spend with her. 'Poor Aunt Clotilda!' thought the boy. 'It is really very sad for her. Papa has always told us what a good sister she was to him, and of course if they had come home and gone to live there she would always have stayed with us. I wonder what she will do? I wish I were old enough to earn money, somehow, so that we three, aunt and Kathie and I, could live together till papa and mamma come home. It seems a shame for her to have to work, and yet I suppose she'll have to do something like being a governess or a companion; perhaps she's too old to be a governess. She's much older than papa.' The thought of his aunt seemed to bring out all the chivalry in his nature. 'When I'm a man,' he went on thinking to himself, 'if Kathleen and little Vida are not married, and poor, I won't marry till I've got enough for them to be comfortable. Of course it was different for papa, for he was so sure of Mrs. Wynne's money. It's very kind of Aunt Clotilda to want me too to go. I should like to see the place, though it will be rather horrid too to know it should have been ours. I do hope Kathie will like the idea of going.' All fears on this score were soon put an end to. The very next morning brought him back his aunt's long letter enclosed in a rather scrawly note from Kathleen, condescendingly expressing her approval of the scheme, the reason of which was, to tell the truth, principally contained in the postscript. 'We'll have a good hunt for the will ourselves. I'm sure Aunt Clotilda is rather a goose. I don't believe she's half hunted for it. Just think, Neville, _if_ we found it!' And Neville's face flushed with a momentary enthusiasm as he pictured to himself the delight of such a possibility. But the glow quickly faded again. 'No, there's no use thinking of it,' he said to himself; 'better not. Kathie mustn't get it into her head, though I'm glad in one way to see that she has thought about it seriously. But I'm quite sure Aunt Clotilda has done everything that could be done. Kathie has no business to say she's a goose. Now I can write to her and say we should like very much to go to her. I hope it won't bother her much.' [Illustration] His letter was sent that very afternoon. But it was not till nearly noon on the following day that it reached its destination. In what Miss Clotilda Powys herself and many of her neighbours, not to speak of old Martha, were already beginning to call 'the old days,' a groom used regularly to be sent from Mrs. Wynne's to the two miles distant post-office, where the letters arrived by mail-cart early in the morning. Now-a-days the White House had to take its turn with the rest of the world in the out-of-the way village, and to wait the good pleasure of old John Parry, who stumped along at his own sweet will, the canvas bag slung across his shoulders, seeing no reason why he should hurry. Nay, more, if there happened to be any piece of work at his own cottage that he was anxious to get finished betimes, the letters might wait--half an hour or so couldn't make such a mighty difference, and he was quite secure that no one in the village would ever notice it or complain if they did. Miss Clotilda Powys was perhaps the only person the least likely to mind whether her share of the post-bag's contents reached her at ten o'clock or twelve. And lately, since the excitement that immediately followed Mrs. Wynne's death had subsided, since there were no more lawyer's letters of advice or inquiry to look for--for everybody by this time had come to believe that either the will would never be found or did not exist--Miss Clotilda cared little more about post-time than anybody else. She had no heart left to feel interest in the outside world, and she was a woman whose chief interests would always be those of her own belongings. For she had lived in a small sphere all her life--her one great affection had been for her younger brother, David Powys, the father of Neville and Kathleen; like a stream, dammed on all sides but one, this affection had deepened and strengthened till it had become the one idea of her life. It is easy, therefore, to understand that Captain Powys was right when he said that his sister was perhaps the most to be pitied of all concerned. Old Martha had been many years in Mrs. Wynne's household. She knew Miss Clotilda well--better, probably, than did any one else. She had admired her patience with the old lady, her self-denial and gentleness, and she sympathised almost more than any one in the terrible disappointment. And lately she had begun to feel very unhappy about Miss Clotilda. Since she had come to lose hope, the poor lady had grown listless and low-spirited, so that Martha sometimes almost feared she would fall ill, and not care to get well again. 'I must have deserved it,' she would say sometimes to the old servant. 'I fear I have been selfish--caring too much for my own dear brother, and thinking of nothing else.' 'Oh, miss,' Martha would remonstrate, 'how could you ever think so? I'm sure no lady could have been kinder than yourself to all the poor folk about. You've never been one to turn a deaf ear to anybody's troubles.' 'But in my heart,' said her mistress, 'in my heart my one thought has been David, and that cannot be right, for now it seems as if there was nothing left, now that I can no longer plan for his happiness. I don't know what to do with myself, Martha. I'm getting old, and I am useless; at least, I feel that I shall be useless away from here. I should like to become a sister, and work among the poor, but I am afraid I should not understand it, away from here.' 'Never fear, miss,' Martha would say consolingly. 'A way will show for those as really wishes to do right. You've done what was your duty well till now. I'm sure no lady knows better how to see to a garden or a dairy; and for poultry, miss, you've quite a special calling. Don't you worry, miss.' And this she would say, though her own heart was sad. She feared she would have to leave Miss Clotilda, and it was hard to think of going to work among strangers at her age. But she was a truly good and faithful-hearted old woman. She believed that, as she said, no one really anxious to do right will ever be left for long at a loss. Many a night had Martha lain awake, thinking about the lost will. She turned over in her head every possible, or impossible, place in which Mrs. Wynne could have hidden it. More than once, indeed, she had got up in the dark, and lighted a candle to go peeping into some cupboard or drawer which it had struck her had not been thoroughly turned out. But all in vain. And now she, too, like Miss Clotilda herself and the rest of the world, had begun to think all hope was over. She was very delighted when the boy Neville's first letter came, for of course she was at once told of its contents. And she saw that it brought a light to Miss Clotilda's eyes, and a colour to her cheeks, that had not been there since Mrs. Wynne's death. [Illustration: 'THERE'S YOUR WORK FOR YOU, SO TO SPEAK, MISS.'] 'There now, missy dear,' said the old servant, for Clotilda, whom she had known for more than thirty years, still seemed a child to her sometimes, 'didn't I tell you it would be shown you what to do? There's that dear little girl, by her brother's account--and an uncommon well-thinking young gentleman he must be--sorely in need of a mother's care; and who could do so well instead of a mother as her own aunt, I'd like to know? There's your work for you, so to speak, miss.' 'But, Martha,' said Miss Clotilda, 'I can't have her to live with me, as Neville hints. Even if David were to give me what he pays for her now--and it would go hard with me to take it--I have no house. And I am not clever enough to teach her;' and again Miss Clotilda's face fell. 'Wait a bit, miss,' said Martha again; 'there's no telling how things may turn out yet. The first thing to do is to have the young lady and her brother for the holidays, so you'll get to know them, and they you. And maybe a way will be shown for you to have them more with you after that.' 'But, Martha,' said Clotilda again, '_can_ I have them with me even for the holidays? I've so very little money left. And children have good appetites, and it would be dreadful not to give them nice things and plenty.' 'We'll manage it,' said Martha. 'We've still the use of the garden, and some of the poultry's your very own, miss. And the cow is still giving milk. Mr. Wynne-Carr said nothing about that.' 'No. I think if I wrote to him about the children he would tell me I might use all there is in the place. And we don't need much, you and I, Martha--we need hardly anything that has to be bought, and I can be even more careful till my half-year's money comes,' for she had fifty pounds a year of her own, but that was all. 'If I can make the children happy these holidays, I don't care what happens afterwards,' she added brightly. 'I can always go to one or other of my old friends for a few weeks till I find some kind of situation.' 'To be sure,' Martha agreed. So the letter was sent which we have read. And then Miss Clotilda and the old servant went into all sorts of discussions as to ways and means. Mr. Wynne-Carr was written to, and in reply he, as Martha expressed it, 'made Miss Clotilda free of the cow and the garden,' and told her to consider _all_ the poultry as hers, to eat or sell, as she preferred. That was grand. Martha disposed of several couple almost at once, and proceeded to fatten up others. And when the news of the 'Captain's children' coming to visit their aunt was told to some of the neighbours, several substantial proofs of goodwill were forthcoming. Old Thomas Evans, the principal tenant, begged Miss Clotilda to allow him to send her a forequarter of mutton every time he killed a sheep, while the young people should be with her; and Mary Jones, the village schoolmistress, humbly presented a beautiful dish of honeycomb. Old Martha was triumphant, and maintained that troubles are often blessings in disguise, as they show us good points in our neighbours which otherwise might never be suspected. And the next day or two were much more busy and cheerful than their predecessors, though Miss Clotilda felt anxious to hear again from Neville, and in the day or two which had to pass before the boy's reply could possibly come she had time enough to worry herself with all sorts of fears and misgivings. 'It would be too disappointing if they decided they did not care to come now that we have settled all so nicely, would it not, Martha?' she kept repeating. 'I hope my letter was not too discouraging, so to say. What I said about being so poor now. I trust that will not make them afraid of coming.' 'What you said, miss, was just the plain truth--that you'd do your best for them, and give them a hearty welcome. You couldn't pretend things would be as in the old days, or as they _should_ be if the Captain had his rights. But don't worry, miss; Master Neville's a sensible young gentleman and his father's own son, or I'm much mistaken, and the little girl is just a child. It'll be all right, you'll see.' It was, however, very provoking, that the morning Neville's letter was on its way, the very first day that there could possibly have been an answer from him, old John should have been particularly late. Twenty times that morning did Miss Clotilda open the front door, and stand gazing along the drive in hopes of perceiving the familiar figure of the old letter-carrier, and at least half as many times was Martha despatched to the cottage at the corner of the road which he _must_ pass, to make sure that he had not already done so. To tell the truth, Martha only went once, and there would have been no use in her going oftener, for she explained the matter to her namesake, Martha Price, the owner of the said cottage, and made her promise to send the old man, 'anyways,' to say so, even if there were not a letter. But nevertheless, every time Miss Clotilda's voice was heard calling 'Martha, you might just run to the cottage,' the cunning old body called out, 'To be sure, miss, to be sure.' And when the inquiry came down the kitchen passage--'Well, Martha?'--'Not yet awhile, miss. Old John's not in sight just yet,' she would reply. The longest lane has its turning, however, and the longest waiting comes to an end. It was nearly one o'clock when Parry at last appeared, smiling and complacent, so that Miss Clotilda found it impossible to meet him with the scolding she felt sure he deserved. He'd have been sharper, to be sure, if he'd known the lady was in a hurry for her letter--there was but the one for the White House--another time if she'd give him a hint a day or two before, he'd see to it she wasn't kept waiting. But she had no patience to listen to his polite speeches, she seized the letter and hurried off with it to her own room to read it in private. Poor loving-hearted Miss Clotilda! Her nerves had been sadly tried of late. She really felt that if the letter were to say they were not coming after all, she might be guilty of bursting into tears, and that it would not do even for Martha to see! It was all right, however. The first word or two reassured her. 'MY DEAR AUNT,' wrote Neville, 'Kathie and I thank you very much for your kind letter. I have not seen Kathie, but I wrote to her, and we are both sure we should like very much to come. I am very sorry about all the trouble. I am so sorry it should make you poorer too. I should like to be grown-up, and to work hard to help papa and mamma and my sisters and you. It will not make us unhappy to see the place. We shall like to see it. Please write to Mr. Fanshaw and Miss Eccles. Kathie's holidays begin in three weeks, and I could come then too. I am sure we should be all right to come third-class. A boy here, whose people are very rich, goes third with his sister, because his father says it's better than second. Mr. Fanshaw can find the trains if you'll fix the day.--Your affectionate nephew, 'NEVILLE W. POWYS.' Again Miss Clotilda's voice sounded along the kitchen passage. 'It's all right, Martha,' it said joyfully. 'The dear children are coming. I think I'll just slip on my bonnet and run up to Mr. Parry's' (_this_ Mr. Parry was the vicar), 'and see if he's got a--a clergy list--oh, dear me! what am I saying? I mean a railway-guide, and then if I mark down the best train I can write at once to Miss Eccles and to Mr. Fanshaw. It will save them all trouble, and of course I must choose a train which will arrive in good time at Frewern Bay, on account of the long drive, you see, Martha.' 'To be sure, miss, to be sure,' Martha agreed. 'But you'll have some luncheon first, miss. They'll be at theirs at the vicarage.' 'Very well, Martha,' said Miss Clotilda submissively. She felt far too excited to eat, but still she did not want to delay Martha's own dinner. The calling this mid-day repast 'luncheon' was a pious fiction, for, for many years past, even in the so-called 'old days,' it had been the real dinner. Mrs. Wynne had been too delicate to take a substantial meal late in the day, and now, alas! there were serious reasons why Miss Clotilda should be content with but one such. And with her present economical intention, I am afraid even her luncheon was not a luxurious meal. But the thought of the little visitors for whom they were made sweetened and cheered her self-sacrifices. 'I've been thinking, miss,' said Martha, as she waited upon her mistress, 'that if I was a little saving with the milk this week or two, we might get a pound or so of butter to sell at the market with the chickens next week. I've spoke to widow Jones about it, and she'll be pleased to sell whatever we like with hers.' 'A very good idea,' said Miss Clotilda approvingly. 'Of course, it's nonsense for me and you to use all the milk. For my part, I don't care about cream in my tea at all. I meant to have told you so. Nor do I care about butter--just now, in the hot weather too. You may save all the milk you can for churning, as far as I'm concerned, only don't stint yourself, Martha, mind.' Martha murmured something like 'No fear of that.' But all the same it was scanty milk and no butter that fell to the share of the old servant's tea. Miss Clotilda, too, was satisfied that she herself was practising the utmost economy, though more than once she remarked to Martha that the red cow's milk seemed nicer than ever. 'In my tea I should really not tell it from cream.' And silly little Kathie all this time never thought and seldom spoke of her aunt except as 'that stupid old maid,' and thought herself, I rather suspect, very condescending for having made up her mind to spend the holidays at the White House. CHAPTER V. A GRAVE PREDICAMENT. [Illustration: Decorative I] t was a hot, close morning in July when Neville and Kathleen found themselves at Paddington, waiting to start by the ten o'clock train for Frewern Bay. They had rather a long journey before them, longer than it need have been in one sense, for they could not travel by the express as they were to go third-class. It had been decided by all the authorities concerned that as little as possible must be spent upon the railway fares, for there had not, of course, been time to write to Captain Powys, and have his instructions. Up to the last there had been some uncertainty as to the day of their going. Miss Clotilda had named Wednesday or Thursday in her last letter, saying that if she did not hear to the contrary she would not expect them till Thursday, and would arrange to meet them that day at Frewern Bay. But late on Monday evening came a note from Neville to ask if Kathie could be ready for Wednesday. Mr. Fanshaw, who was to see them off, had an unexpected engagement on Thursday, and if Wednesday would not do, their leaving must be delayed till Friday. But this would not at all have suited Kathleen. She was eager to be off, and even twenty-four hours more at school seemed intolerable to her. And to Miss Eccles, one day or the other, provided Miss Fraser could guarantee the young lady's packing being completed in time, was the same. Miss Fraser, to tell the truth, was quite as eager to get rid of Kathie as Kathie was pleased to say good-bye to her. Poor Miss Fraser! her sharp face had looked a little more amiable of late, and her voice had had a softer ring. She had the prospect of a holiday at last, after two years' incessant work, for so many of the girls were this year disposed of among their various relations that Miss Eccles had given up the usual visit to Bognor, and the young governess was in consequence to have three weeks to herself. And Philippa Harley was to travel down to Cheltenham this same Thursday under Miss Fraser's convoy. 'Of course I can be ready for Wednesday!' Kathleen exclaimed, when she read Neville's note. 'Wait till Friday, indeed! And you leaving on Thursday, Phil. I should die of dulness before Friday morning.' 'It'll be rather horrid for me on Wednesday,' said Philippa. 'I wish we had been going the same day, as it was settled.' 'Oh, poor Phil,' said Kathleen, ashamed of her thoughtlessness. 'I quite forgot. Never mind, dear; you are so good, you know. You wouldn't have liked to think of me alone here all Thursday.' And Philippa's impending tears were thus warded off. Thoughtful Neville had enclosed a note, ready addressed and stamped, for Kathie to post at once to Miss Clotilda if Wednesday was decided upon. She was also to let him know at once, which she did. [Illustration] So on Wednesday morning a four-wheeler with some luggage on the top drew up at Miss Eccles' door, and Neville jumped out. Kathleen was ready, of course; she had been ready for half an hour at least. There was nothing more to do except to give Philippa a last hug for the twentieth time, and to tell her not to cry, and to be sure, quite sure, to write. 'And, Kathie, don't, _promise_ me you won't, give up looking for the will,' whispered Philippa at the very last moment. 'Oh, how I wish I were going with you! How I would hunt!' 'I won't forget, I promise you,' Kathie replied. 'But don't fancy there's any chance of it, Phil. There isn't, I'm afraid, and you'd only be disappointed. But I'll write to you, darling, I promise you.' The first part of the journey was performed to the children's entire satisfaction, for they had the carriage to themselves. 'After all,' said Kathie, 'third-class isn't so bad, is it, Neville? And I'm sure papa and mamma will think it _awfully_ good of us to have saved the money.' 'I don't know that they will,' said Neville. 'They will think it sensible--as we're going to be poor it's best to get accustomed to it. But besides that, if we hadn't come third, we couldn't have come at all.' Kathleen sat silent for a minute or two. 'Do you really think we are going to be poor always, Neville?' she said. 'Do you think there's no chance of the will ever being found?' Neville shook his head. 'I don't believe there's the least,' he said. 'I'm sure Aunt Clotilda has looked everywhere.' Kathleen sighed. 'It does seem too bad,' she said. 'Things don't often happen like that--in that story-book sort of way. I don't see why it should have come to us.' 'I don't see why it should have come to poor papa and mamma--staying out there in India just to get money for us when they'd gladly be at home, or to poor Aunt Clotil'-- 'Oh, bother Aunt Clotilda!' said Kathleen impatiently. 'You'll really make me dislike her, Neville, if you keep on pestering so about her. I'm much more sorry for ourselves than for her--she's an old maid, and I don't suppose _she_ was forced to travel third-class when she was a little girl.' 'A minute or two ago you thought third-class was very comfortable,' said Neville. 'You change about so, Kathie. I don't understand you.' Kathleen did not always quite understand herself. She looked about eagerly as if in search of an excuse for her bad temper. 'I'm hot,' she said, 'and--yes--I'm almost sure I'm rather hungry. I didn't eat much breakfast, Neville, I was in such a fuss.' Neville opened the little basket in which their provisions were packed. Miss Eccles--or Miss Fraser rather--had contented herself with some rather thick sandwiches made of cold beef, and a few Albert biscuits. But kind Mrs. Fanshaw had given Neville a little parcel of toast sandwiches--toast and egg--which are much nicer for children and don't get nearly so dry in hot weather as meat ones; and besides this, she had given him some slices of home-made plum-cake and a few grapes and a little bottle of lemonade, not too sweet--so there was really quite a nice little railway dinner. And when Neville had spread it all out, Kathleen's spirits got up again, and she did full justice to Mrs. Fanshaw's good things. After this refreshment they both got out their books and began to read, but before they had read very long Kathie's head gave a great bump, and half opening her eyes she discovered she had been asleep. So she shut up her book and propped her head against the corner as well as she could, and settled herself for a little nap, for by a glance at the opposite corner she had seen that this was what Neville had done. They slept comfortably enough for an hour or more, and very likely, taking into account the sultry weather, they would have slept on still longer had they not been awakened by the train stopping and some one--or more than one--getting in. 'What a bore!' said Kathie to herself. 'Dear me, the carriage will be quite full,' and in they continued to come. Two women with big baskets, another with two babies, and then two oldish men, of a class above the women apparently, for the latter were evidently simple peasants, returning from market very likely, and chattering to each other in Welsh. The sound of their queer talk made Kathie a little forget her ill temper at being disturbed; she sat up and listened, and Neville, opposite to her, did the same. But after a while they grew tired of listening to what they could not understand a word of, and they took out their books and read for half an hour or so. At the end of that time the train stopped again, and to their great relief the three women, the two babies, and the two baskets all got, or were got out, and the brother and sister were left alone with the two elderly men. When the train went on again these two began talking to each other in English, though with a curious accent, and now and then some words of what they were saying fell on the children's ears, though without catching their attention. Suddenly, however, Kathleen heard a name and then another which made her listen more closely, and looking across at Neville, she saw that he too was on the alert. The names were those of 'Miss Wynne,' and 'Ty-Gwyn.' 'Yes,' one of the old worthies was saying to the other, 'it is a strange story. She was--was Mrs. Wynne, a good old lady, though she had her ways, but she was not one to play a trick on nobody.' 'No, surely,' said the other. 'That was what I always heard. And she was careful and exact.' 'She had not her match for that. She never forgot a promise, she never but paid all she owed, to a day. No--no--there was no carelessness about her. Why, last Christmas as ever was she came down to see my wife, who was very bad with her rheumatiz just then; couldn't stir hand nor foot, and now she's hearty enough and the poor old lady gone! Well, she came down with a present she had made for her; she was wonderful handy with her fingers, and my wife and she was very old friends. "Here, Ellen," says she, "here's a pincushion I've made for you my own self. You'll keep it, Ellen, and show to your great-grandchildren maybe, as the work of an old woman of eighty-three. It may be the last Christmas I'll be here." And that was a true word, surely.' 'Dear, dear,' said the other old man. Then after a moment's silence he spoke again. 'You don't think now, as she could have had any reason for changing at the last? The Captain's a right sort of a young man by all accounts--he can't have done anything to displease the old lady?' At this point Kathie and Neville looked at each other. Neville grew very red and Kathie's eyes flashed. Suddenly, before Kathie knew what he was going to do, Neville stood up and went a step or two towards the two old men, who were at the other end of the carriage. They stopped talking and looked at him. 'I--I think you should know,' he began, growing redder still, 'before you say any more of Captain Powys, that I am his son. And if anybody were to say anything against him'-- He had no time to finish his sentence. The older of the two farmers, for such they appeared to be, interrupted him eagerly. 'Say aught against him! Bless you, little master, if you'd waited a minute you'd have heard what I was a-going to say to my friend here. Not that he was a-going to say any wrong, but he's not from our part, and he doesn't know Master David. And so you're Master David's boy, to be sure, and missy there?' And he nodded his head towards Kathleen inquiringly. 'Yes, I'm his daughter,' said Kathie; 'you wouldn't expect to see us travelling third-class, I daresay, but it's because of what you were speaking about, our papa's not getting the property, you know.' The old man's face grew very sympathetic. 'To be sure,' he said, 'to be sure. And you and master here,' he went on, 'you'll be going to Ty-gwyn--to Miss Powys's? To be sure.' 'To Miss Clotilda Powys,' Kathleen corrected. '_I'm_ Miss Powys.' 'Oh, indeed,' he said, looking rather mystified. 'And miss--the lady from Ty-gwyn--she'll be meeting you at the station, at Frewern Bay, no doubt. It's a long ride from there to Ty-Gwyn.' 'Is it?' said Neville. 'I thought the village--Hafod--was quite near Frewern Bay.' The farmer shook his head. 'It's a good sixteen mile,' he said, 'and it's going to be a wet evening. But if Miss--the lady from Ty-gwyn, meets you, it'll be all right. She'll have got a fly.' A very slight misgiving came over Neville. He began to hope Aunt Clotilda _would_ meet them. It would have certainly been more satisfactory had there been time to have had another letter from her after their deciding on Wednesday. 'Are we near Frewern Bay now?' he asked the farmer. 'In half an hour we should be there,' said he. Then he went on to tell them that he had been away for a day or two about a horse he was going to buy, and that he was going to stay the night at Frewern Bay with his daughter, who was married to the principal grocer there, and the next morning he should be going home to Hafod. 'Oh, do you live there?' exclaimed the children, with fresh interest. 'To be sure,' he said. 'Not a mile from Ty-gwyn. A pretty place it is, and many a time I've seen Master David when he used to be there as a boy.' 'And a sad pity it shouldn't be his own now he's a man,' said the other old farmer, by way of making amends for the speech which had so nearly given offence to Master David's children. 'Mr. Wynne-Carr will never live there. He has a fine place already. 'Twill be a pity to see Ty-gwyn let to strangers.' In this opinion, it is needless to say, Neville and Kathleen thoroughly concurred. Kathleen began to look upon their two old fellow-travellers more indulgently, and to allow to herself that there might be decent people to be met with in a third-class carriage. But they had not time for much more conversation before the train began to slacken in preparation for coming to a stand-still in Frewern Bay station. Neville's head was poked out of the window long before this, of course. He had never seen his aunt since he was a baby, and could not possibly have recognised her, but he expected to identify her somehow. And in a little country station this is not so difficult. But he looked in vain. There was nobody who could by any possibility be supposed to be Miss Clotilda Powys. And he drew his head in again, for the train had quite stopped by now, and it was time to be getting Kathleen out and to be seeing after her luggage. 'Do you see her?' asked Kathie, as he handed her down. Neville shook his head. 'It's raining so awfully,' he said. 'She may be in the waiting-room'--for the station was only a half covered-in one--'or, she may not have come herself on account of the weather, and may have sent some one. I'll see in a minute. Just you get under shelter while I look after the luggage.' But when the luggage was got, and the train had moved on again, leaving the little station all but deserted, the two children looked round in bewilderment and perplexity. It was too evident that no one had come to meet them. What was to be done? The terribly heavy rain seemed to make it much worse, and above all, the information the old farmer had given them as to the distance of Ty-gwyn from the station. It was impossible, quite impossible to think of waiting; but yet again, where were they to get the fly, or how were they to pay it if they did get one? 'I have only five shillings over our fares,' said Neville. 'Mr. Fanshaw thought it was quite enough, as we were sure to be met. And I should not like Aunt Clotilda to have to pay any extra for us when we know she has so little.' 'But we can't stay here all night,' said Kathleen impatiently; which was certainly true enough. 'And it's her own fault for not coming to meet us. Neville, you must do something.' [Illustration] Neville looked round in a sort of despair. There were two or three vehicles still standing just outside the gate of the station. A cart or two, and a queer sort of canvas-hooded van, into which the porter was hoisting some parcels, though it seemed already pretty full of sacks of flour or grain of some kind. Neville opened his umbrella and went to where these carts were standing, looking about him for some promising sort of person to apply to in his distress. 'Can you tell me,' he began to the porter, but the porter was shouting in Welsh to the man in the van, and did not hear him. Neville thought he had better wait a minute, and he stood still, shivering with cold and vexation, the rain pouring down as surely never before rain had poured. Suddenly a voice beside him made him turn round; it was that of the old farmer, who had till now been engaged in the stationmaster's room, talking about the horse which was coming the next day. 'Is the lady not come? Is there no one to meet you?' he asked. 'No, indeed,' said Neville, 'and I don't know _what_ to do.' The old man looked sorry and perplexed, but Neville's face brightened at having found a friend. Just then the porter emerged again from the van. 'Hi, John Williams!' the farmer called out, and then followed some colloquy in Welsh, amid which Neville distinguished the words 'Hafod' and 'Ty-gwyn.' The farmer turned to the boy. 'This is the Hafod carrier,' he said. 'He is going there now. He is very full, but he says as it is for Ty-gwyn he will make a push and take you and the young lady. But he can't take your boxes, not to-day. Still, it's a chance to get him to take yoursel's, and if you can make shift to do till to-morrow'-- 'Of course,' said Neville; 'it's the only thing to do, and thank you very much indeed, Mr.'-- 'John Davis, sir, John Davis of Dol-bach, if you please.' 'Mr. Davis,' continued Neville. 'Kathie,'--for by this time Kathie's anxiety had drawn her out into the rain too,--'you hear?' And he rapidly explained the state of matters. 'If it hadn't been for Mr. Davis, the carrier wouldn't have taken us.' 'No,' said the farmer, looking pleased. 'I can't say as I think he would.' But Kathleen could not join in thanking him. She was tired and cross, and not a little annoyed at having to make their appearance at Ty-gwyn in such ignominious fashion. 'It's really a _shame_ of Aunt Clotilda,' she said. 'I do wish we hadn't come. I hate Wales already.' CHAPTER VI. THE WHITE HOUSE AT LAST. [Illustration: Decorative N] eville and the old farmer and the carrier all helped Kathleen up into the van, where John Williams had made her as comfortable a place as he could on the bench that was fixed at one end, with some of the sacks to lean against, and some to put her feet upon. Neville undid his railway rug and wrapped it round her, for the rain had made the air very chilly. The trunks were given into the charge of the porter to be fetched the next day, as Miss Clotilda might direct, and with repeated thanks from Neville to the old farmer, and a cordial shake of the hand at parting, off they set. At another time, on a fine day perhaps, and not at the end of a tiring railway journey, Kathleen might have found it amusing. And as a rule, she was far merrier and high-spirited than Neville, though, to see them now, one would scarcely have believed it. But Neville had learnt to think of others more than of himself. _There_ was the difference. Kathleen could be bright and laughing when all went well with her, but it never occurred to her that it may be a duty to be cheerful and even merry when one is _not_ inclined to be so, so she just yielded to her feelings of fatigue and depression, and sat silently in her place, thinking herself, to tell the truth, very good indeed not to grumble aloud. Neville did his best. _He_ was tired too--tired and cold, for he had given his rug to Kathie, and hungry, perhaps hungrier than Kathie, for she had had the lion's share of their dinner. He was anxious and uneasy as well,--blaming himself for not having decided to wait till Friday, by which day there would have been time for an answer from their aunt,--blaming himself vaguely for the whole affair, which he felt from first to last had been his doing. And he was afraid as to what might yet be before them. It seemed impossible that Miss Clotilda should not have got the letter fixing for Wednesday. So what could be the matter? Had she fallen ill? Had Mr. Wynne-Carr suddenly changed his mind, and turned her out of the house? What might they not find when they got to Ty-gwyn? If, indeed, they ever got there! It did not seem very like it just then, certainly. They were going up a hill at a foot's pace, and they seemed to have been doing so, with very rare intervals, ever since they left the station. How the van lurched and jolted! and, oh, how it did rain! 'Kathleen,' said Neville timidly. 'Well,' she replied, in a very unpromising tone. It was so dark in the depths of the van--and, indeed, it was getting dusk outside already--that they could scarcely see each other's faces. 'I'm so very sorry for you, Kathie,' Neville went on. 'I'm afraid it's somehow my fault.' 'It's no good saying that now,' Kathleen replied, and her voice sounded a little mollified. 'Of course it isn't your fault. It's all Aunt Clotilda. Neville, I'm sure she can't be nice. If she had had anything to gain by hiding it, I declare I should have believed she herself had hidden the will--or burnt it, or something. Just _fancy_ her letting us--her brother's own children--arrive like this! I daresay it was just selfishness, because it was such a bad day, that kept her from coming.' 'Oh, Kathie!' said Neville. He felt sure in his heart that Miss Clotilda was not the least like what Kathleen said, but in her present humour he knew that it was worse than useless to contradict or even disagree with his sister. 'I wish there was something to eat,' he said. 'If we could but have had some tea at the station, but there was no sort of refreshment-room.' 'Wales is horrid,' said Kathleen, with great emphasis. 'If papa had got that place I should have made him sell it.' 'I do wish the man would drive a little faster,' said Neville, rather with a view to changing the subject, as he could not agree with Kathie. The wish in this case proved father to the deed. Scarcely had the words passed his lips when, with a crack of his whip and some mysterious communication to his horse in Welsh, Mr. John Williams's van began to move forward at what, in comparison with their former rate of progression, seemed to the children break-neck speed. For a minute or so their spirits rose. 'We've got up the hill now, I suppose,' said Neville cheerily. 'If we go on like this we'll soon be there.' But an exclamation from Kathie--'Oh, Neville! I shall die if we go on like this. It does shake me, and knock me about so. I'm all black and blue already!'--made him change. 'I'm _so_ sorry, Kathie,' he repeated. 'Stay; is there nothing I can put on the seat to make it softer? Or supposing you sit right down among the sacks? I do think that would be better.' It did seem so for a little while. But, after all, there was not much need for the precautions. Scarcely was Kathie settled among the sacks when the jogging and rattling came to an untimely end, and the slow grind and creak began again. Another hill, doubtless. Alas! it was so--another and yet another; the bits of level road seemed so few and far between, that long before the end of the journey Kathie would have borne the jolts and the bruises with philosophy, just for the sake of feeling they were getting over the ground. It grew into a sort of nightmare--the still pouring rain, the darkness, just rendered more visible by the faint flicker from the lantern which John Williams had now lighted, and which hung from the top of the van in front, the creaking and groaning of the wheels, the queer sounds Williams addressed from time to time to his horse--it came to seem at last to the children, as they every now and then fell asleep in a miserable half-awake kind of way, only to start up again giddy and confused--it came to seem as if they had _always_ been grinding along like that, and as if it would never come to an end. 'Neville,' whispered Kathie more than once,--a very subdued Kathie now, far too worn out to be cross even,--'Neville, I feel as if I should _die_ before we get there.' [Illustration: HE SAT DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF THE CART, AND TOOK KATHIE HALF INTO HIS ARMS.] Neville did all he could. He sat down on the floor of the cart, and took Kathie half into his arms, so that she could lean her head on his shoulder and not be so bumped, for every now and then they would go quickly for a few minutes, and Kathie was too weak and stiff now to be able to hold on to anything. In this way she managed to get a little sleep, and at last, _at last_, John Williams grunted out from the front of the van, 'Close to, now, master. I've come round by Ty-gwyn a-purpose, afore going through the village.' And in a few minutes he drew up, and got down to open a gate. Then on they went again, slowly and softly. Neville could feel they were on a gravel drive, though it was far too dark to see anything. How Williams had found his way in the pouring rain, with only the flickering light of the lantern, was really wonderful. The drive seemed to be a long one, and the wheels made very little sound on the soft slushy gravel. When they stopped altogether, Neville would not have known they were near a house at all, but for what the man had said. There was no light visible, no sound, not even the barking of a dog to be heard, nothing but the drip, drip of the rain. Kathleen sat up--the stopping had awakened her. 'Where are we?' she said. 'Are we, oh, are we there?' But before Neville had time to reply she began to tremble and shake. 'Oh, Neville,' she said, 'we can't be there. It's all dark. Oh, I believe we're in some dreadful forest, and that the man's going to murder us.' Fortunately, John Williams was out of the van by this time. He had got down and was fumbling about to find a bell or a knocker; but when he reached up to unhook the lantern, finding it impossible to see anything without it, Kathie almost screamed. It was all Neville could do to quiet her, and at last he had to speak quite sharply. 'Be quiet, Kathie,' he said. 'They will be opening the door and will hear you. It's all right. Don't be silly.' And gradually she grew calm, and sat anxiously listening. It was some minutes before John Williams's loud knocking brought any response. And no wonder--Miss Clotilda and Martha had been comfortably asleep for the last three if not four hours, for it was now one o'clock, the heavy roads having made the journey from Frewern Bay quite a third longer than usual for the carrier's cart, and their dreams were undisturbed by visions of any such arrival as had come to pass. 'I do trust it will be fine to-morrow,' were Miss Clotilda's last words ere she went off to bed. 'It would be such a cheerless welcome for the dear children if it were such a day as this has been, even though Mr. Mortimer is kindly sending the covered waggonette. Wake me early, Martha. There are still several little things to see to, and I must start by twelve. It will take more than three hours to Frewern Station with the roads so wet--and the horses should have three or four hours' rest, he said. The train is due at seven.' 'But it's often late, miss. You mustn't worry even if it's half an hour or more late. I'll wake you in good time, never fear.' They were both tired and slept soundly, for they had been working hard at all the preparations for the expected guests. It was Miss Clotilda who first heard through her sleep the loud knocking at the door. She sat up in bed and listened; then, as John Williams had for a minute or two desisted, to wait the effect of his last volley, she lay down again, thinking her fancy had deceived her. 'A small sound seems so loud through one's sleep,' she said. 'I daresay it was only the tapping of the branches against the window. Besides, what else _could_ it be? Dear, dear, how it does rain!' But scarcely had her head touched the pillow, when she again started up. There was no mistake this time--somebody was knocking, _banging_ at the front door. Miss Clotilda's heart was in her mouth, she could scarcely speak for trembling when she found her way to Martha's door! Good old Martha--she had heard it too now, and in an incredibly short space of time made her appearance in a much less eccentric costume, by the way, than Miss Clotilda. 'I'll see who it is. Don't ye be frightened, miss. Just stay you at the stairs-top till I call out.' But Miss Clotilda, in her old-fashioned flowered muslin-de-laine dressing-gown, and lace-frilled nightcap, followed tremulously behind; she was only half-way downstairs, however when Martha was at the door. 'Who's there? Speak out, and say who you are and what you want--waking up decent folk at this hour of the night,' shouted the old woman, as if the unseen person behind the door, _could_ have told their business before. 'It's me, John Williams, carrier,' a gruff voice replied. 'And you should know what I've brought you--a young gentleman and lady for Ty-Gwyn.' He spoke English, as Martha had done so. The question and reply were therefore quite intelligible to poor Miss Clotilda. 'Oh, Martha!' she exclaimed, with something between a scream and a sob, 'the children! _What_ an arrival!--oh dear, dear--what a disappointment!' She stood there half wringing her hands, till Martha gently pushed her towards the stairs. 'Up with you, miss--get yourself dressed as well as you can, not to let them see you like you are--you make yourself look sixty with them caps. I'll take them into the kitchen and make up a fire, and then I'll call you. It'll be all right; but bless me,'--'_pless_ me,' she really said with her funny Welsh accent,--'how ever has there been such a mistake?' She was busy unbolting and unbarring by now, and Miss Clotilda had disappeared. There was but one candle in the hall, but to the children's dazzled eyes it looked at first like a blaze of light. Neville was already on the doorstep, and somehow or other Kathleen was got out of the van without falling. Both started when they caught sight of Martha. 'Can _she_ be Aunt Clotilda,' whispered Kathie, feeling that if it were so it would but be of a piece with everything else. And for a moment or two even Neville felt some misgiving. 'Are you--? We are'--and again he hesitated. 'To be sure, to be sure. Your aunty'll be down in a moment, sir; but to be sure there has indeed been some great mistake. Now, John Williams, good-night to you, and off with you. 'Tis no time for talking.' She added something to the effect that he might call the next day to be paid, but as she spoke Welsh, the children did not understand. 'I can't have him bothering about,' she said, as she closed the door. 'But our trunks,' said Neville. 'They're left at the station;' on which Martha opened the door again, and began scolding the poor man for not having told her so. 'It wasn't his fault,' said Neville, who could tell by her tone that poor John Williams was getting small thanks for his good-nature in bringing themselves, though without their luggage; 'he only brought us because we didn't know what else to do.' And in the end it was settled that the carrier should call the next morning for orders about the trunks. Then Martha led the children into the kitchen. 'You'll excuse it,' she said. 'The fire will soon light up again, and you must be near dead with cold--dear--dear!' [Illustration: A FIGURE WAS STANDING IN THE DOORWAY.] She bustled about and soon got a little blaze to show. Kathie had sunk down on one of the old-fashioned wooden chairs, too tired to speak, almost to think, when a little sound made both her and Neville look round. A figure was standing in the doorway, peering in with anxious face and short-sighted eyes,--a tall, thin figure in a dark dress and with smooth dark hair, and a gentle voice was saying-- 'Are they here, Martha? My poor dear children! Are they really here?' Neville darted forward. 'Aunt Clotilda!' he exclaimed. In a moment her arms were round him, and she was kissing him fondly. 'Neville,' she said, 'my own dear boy! David's boy! And where is little Kathleen? Oh, my poor children! What an arrival!--what a journey! How can I have made such a mistake?' 'Kathie,' said Neville, and Kathleen slowly got up from her seat and came forward. 'She is half dead, Aunt Clotilda,' said Neville apologetically. But Miss Clotilda wanted no apologies. Her heart was far too unselfish and tender to think of anything but the children themselves. 'Kathleen!' she exclaimed. 'Can this be little Kathie? Why, my darling, you will soon be as tall as your old aunt. But all the more you must be dreadfully tired--you cannot be very strong, my dear, growing so fast. Oh, I shall never, never forgive myself. What can we give them to eat, Martha?' Martha was already concocting something in a little pan on the fire. 'I'm heating up some milk, miss, and I'll have an egg beat in a moment, and we'd better add a spoonful of sherry wine. And there's the plum-cake, or some nice bread and butter.' 'Which would you rather have, dear children?' said Miss Clotilda. Neville decided in favour of bread and butter, and though Kathleen said she was too tired to eat, she succeeded in the end in getting through two good slices of the delicious home-made bread and fresh butter. Thanks to this and the cup of hot milk, her spirits began to revive, and she even got the length of smiling graciously when poor Miss Clotilda's self-reproaches grew too vehement, and assuring her aunt that she would be all right again to-morrow. Indeed, it would have required a much harder heart than childish, impulsive Kathie's to have resisted any one so affectionate and devoted as their father's sister, and already Neville's eyes sparkled with pleasure as he said to himself it felt almost like having a mother again. Then old Martha, who had been busy up-stairs, came back to say the rooms were ready,--so far ready, that is to say, as they could be on such short notice. 'Not but that they were _nearly_ ready,' said Miss Clotilda, as she led the way; 'we were looking for you to-morrow without fail. But it was all my fault for saying I would expect you on Thursday if I did _not_ hear to the contrary. I should have asked you to write again.' 'But I did write,' cried Neville. 'I wrote at once, and sent on the letter to Kathie to post. You should have had it yesterday morning.' 'Yes,' said Kathie, 'I--I gave it to Miss Fraser with my note to Neville, saying, that I could be ready on Wednesday. You got my note, of course, Neville. And I--yes, I am sure I gave the one for Aunt Clotilda to be posted at the same time.' But Aunt Clotilda had never got it. So, _she_, at any rate, was undeserving of all the blame Kathleen had been heaping upon her in the last few hours. 'It must be that careless old John Parry,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I must speak to him in the morning. No doubt he will be bringing the letter, and say it had been overlooked or something. And, my dear children, you must forgive all deficiencies. I had arranged all so nicely. Our neighbour, Mr. Mortimer, was to lend me his covered waggonette to go to meet you in. It is too provoking!' There were no deficiencies, however, so far, that the children were conscious of, excepting the want of their luggage. Their rooms were charming--so quaint and country-like, with a pleasant odour of lavender and dried rose leaves pervading everything. And Miss Clotilda got out her keys and opened an old wardrobe in Kathie's room, whence she chose a little nightdress of the finest material trimmed with 'real' lace, which Martha aired at the kitchen fire by way of precaution against damp, though the whole house was so dry, she assured them, that such care was really not necessary. 'It is one of Mrs. Wynne's--one of a set that she never wore,' explained Miss Clotilda, 'and it will be just about right for you, Kathie dear, for, tall as you are, you will have to grow some inches yet to be up to _me_. Mrs. Wynne was quite one of the old school; she had linen enough laid by to have lasted her another twenty years. And Mr. Wynne-Carr wishes all such things to be considered mine,' she added, with a little sigh, 'so I am free to give you the use of it, you see.' This was the first allusion to the great disappointment. Tired as she was, Kathie could not help thinking of it as she was falling asleep. And her dreams were haunted by fancies about the lost will--it turned up in all sorts of places. The queerest dream of all was that she found it boiling in the pan in which Martha had heated the milk! CHAPTER VII. BREAKFAST IN BED. [Illustration: Decorative N] otwithstanding her great fatigue, it was very early the next morning when Kathleen woke. At first she could not remember where she was, then a slight aching in her head and stiff pains in her legs reminded her of the long and trying journey of the day before. Now that it was over, however, it really seemed like a dream. And one glance towards the window, of which the blind had only been half drawn down, made it almost impossible to believe in the darkness and dreariness of their arrival the night before. The rain was gone; the sun, though it could not be more than six o'clock, was shining brilliantly in an unclouded sky. From where Kathie lay she could see the fresh green leaves of the trees as they moved gently in the soft summer air; she could faintly hear the birds' busy, cheerful twitter, as they flew from branch to branch. 'Oh, I do love the country!' thought the little girl, with a sudden feeling of warmth and joyfulness in her heart. 'I do wish--oh, how I do wish it were going to be our home!' Then there returned to her the remembrance of Miss Clotilda's last words the night before. The cupboard door had not been quite shut, and it had gradually swung open, revealing piles of linen neatly arranged on one shelf, on another various dresses folded away, and on a lower shelf, which Kathie could see into more clearly, some rolls of canvas, bundles of Berlin wool, and in one corner two or three square-looking objects of various colours, which puzzled her as to what they could be. 'I will ask Aunt Clotilda,' she thought. 'I daresay she will show me Mrs. Wynne's things. Some of them must be very old and curious. What a funny room this is!--all corners, and the window such a queer shape! I feel quite in a hurry to see all the house. I daresay it is very nice--the hall and the staircase seemed beautifully wide last night, and the steps were so broad and shallow. But, oh dear! I wish my legs didn't ache so! Poor Aunt Clotilda! I am very sorry I called her stupid, and all that. She is so kind.' But in the midst of all these thinkings she fell asleep again, and slept for more than two hours. When she woke she heard a cuckoo clock outside her room striking eight. 'Dear me!' she said to herself; 'how late it is! and I meant to be up so early;' and she was just beginning to get out of bed when a soft tap came to the door. 'Come in,' said Kathleen; and in came Aunt Clotilda, her kind face and gentle eyes looking brighter and younger by daylight, and behind her, Martha, carrying a tray covered with a snow-white cloth, on which was arranged a most dainty little breakfast for the young lady, whom Miss Clotilda evidently intended to pet a great deal to make up for yesterday's misfortunes. 'Oh, aunty,' said Kathie, 'I was just going to get up. I am so sorry to give you so much trouble,' and she lifted up her face to kiss Miss Clotilda. 'No, no, my dear,' her aunt replied. 'You are to rest to-day as much as you like. Neville is up, and he and I have had our breakfast. He peeped in an hour ago, and saw you were fast asleep, as I was glad to hear. It is just nine o'clock, so I thought you must be getting hungry.' 'Nine o'clock!' Kathleen repeated. 'Why, I thought the cuckoo struck eight.' 'He is a lazy bird,' said Miss Clotilda smiling. 'He is always an hour behind. I must get him put right--at least,' she went on, correcting herself, 'I meant to have done so. It is not worth while now. Now, dear, see if we have brought you what you like for your breakfast. [Illustration: 'IT IS DELICIOUS' SAID KATHLEEN.] 'It is delicious!' said Kathleen. 'I could live on the bread and butter alone, without anything else. And honey! Oh, how lovely! Aunt Clotilda, I have never been so petted before,' she burst out, 'never in all my life. How very good you are! Do you know I've been more than six years at school without ever having what _I_ call a holiday till now? Do kiss me, aunty.' Kathie's heart was fairly won. There were tears in Miss Clotilda's eyes as she stooped to kiss her. 'But they are not unkind to you at school, dear?' she said. 'If you are ever ill, for instance.' 'Oh, no, they are kind enough; but it's different--not the least like _home_. I can understand better already what other girls who can remember their homes meant when they said so. Philippa Harley, you know, aunty--oh no, of course you don't know; but I'll tell you about her. She has always been with her mother till lately, and she was always saying how different _home_ was.' Martha had by this time disappeared. Miss Clotilda sat down by the bed-side, while Kathie proceeded to eat her breakfast, chattering in the intervals. 'You make me very happy, dear Kathie, when you say you have already a home feeling with me,' said Miss Clotilda--'very happy, and,' with the sigh that Kathleen was at no loss to translate, 'very unhappy.' For a few moments neither spoke. Then Kathleen began again. 'Aunty, even though the house isn't going to be yours any more, or ours, you'll show us all the things in it, won't you?' 'Certainly, my dear. I want you to know it well, and to remember it always,' Miss Clotilda replied. Kathie's glance just then fell on the lace frills of her night-gown, and thence strayed to the half-open cupboard. 'What are those queer-looking square things of different colours in there, aunty?' she asked. Miss Clotilda's glance followed hers. Just at that moment Neville put his head in at the door, and asked if he might come in. His face beamed with pleasure when he saw Kathleen and his aunt chatting together so 'friendlily.' 'Those things in the cupboard?' said Miss Clotilda. 'Oh! they are some of Mrs. Wynne's pincushions. I wrapped up the new ones--one or two she had just finished, poor dear, when she was taken ill--and those are some old ones that were to have been fresh covered. I have lots of beautiful pieces of old-fashioned silk.' 'Oh, how nice!' said Kathleen. 'I hope you will let me see them, aunty. But please tell me'-- At that moment, however, Martha came to the door to say that John Williams had called for orders about fetching the trunks from the station. 'He must have some writing to show, he says,' said the old woman. 'But he's so stupid--maybe he doesn't understand.' 'It's better, perhaps, to give him a note to the station-master,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I'll come and speak to him.' 'I'll write the note,' said Neville running off. 'Aunty,' said Kathie, as Miss Clotilda was preparing to follow him, 'mayn't I get up now? I'm only a little stiff, but I'm not at all tired; and I'm in such a hurry to see the house, and the garden, and everything.' 'Very well, dear,' her aunt replied. 'Martha will get your bath ready. Can you manage with the things you have till your trunk comes this evening?' 'Oh, yes,' said Kathleen. 'My frock did not get wet at all. It's only rather crushed. And I brought my house shoes in my hand-bag. Philippa made me; she said it was such a good plan.' 'She must be a very sensible little girl,' said Miss Clotilda. 'She's a dear little girl every way,' said Kathie. 'I'm sure you'd like her _dreadfully_, aunty.' She was feeling very cordial to Philippa this morning, thinking how much the little girl had tried to influence her to come to Ty-gwyn. 'But for her,' thought Kathleen, 'I'm not at all sure that I would have come. I was so sure I shouldn't like Aunt Clotilda.' As soon as she was dressed she ran off in search of Neville, who was 'somewhere about,' old Martha told her. She found him in the garden, and together they began their explorings. By daylight the White House was far from the desolate-looking place they had fancied it the night before. It was a long house, built half-way up a gentle slope, and the entrance was, so to speak, at the back. You did not see anything of the pretty view on which looked out the principal rooms till you had crossed the large, dark-wainscoted hall, and made your way down the long corridor from whence opened the drawing-room, and library and dining-room, all large and pleasant rooms, with old-fashioned furniture, and everywhere the same faint scent, which Kathleen had noticed more strongly up-stairs, of lavender and dried rose-leaves. This part of the house was more modern than the hall and kitchens, and two other rooms, in the very old days the 'parlours,' no doubt--now called the study and the office. For the house had been added to by a Mr. Wynne, the late owner's father, a grand-uncle to David and Clotilda Powys. 'Then the old part is very old indeed, I suppose?' said Neville to his aunt, who by this time had joined them. 'Very old indeed,' she said. 'And up-stairs it seems very rambling, for there are good rooms built over the pantry and dairy and the other offices, all of which are very large. I had it all planned in my head,' she went on, 'and even Mrs. Wynne herself used often to talk of what rooms would suit you all best when it came to be your father's. Up this little stair'--for by this time they were on the first floor again--'there are two rooms which would have made such nice nurseries for little Vida, and the "office," as we call it, could easily have been turned into a very pleasant schoolroom.' The children were delighted with it all. Up-stairs, indeed, it was precisely the sort of house to captivate young people. It was so full of mysterious passages and unexpected staircases, and corner windows and queer doors, and steps up and steps down, that it seemed larger than it really was, and of course the usual praise was pronounced upon it, that it would be 'just the place for a game at hide-and-seek.' Then when the house had been seen, Miss Clotilda sent them out, with directions not to wander too far, as they must be home for dinner at two o'clock. 'You cannot lose your way,' she said, 'if you take a good view all round. The sea is only a mile off on two sides--west and south--and this house therefore faces the sea, though the little hill in front hides it.' 'The sea!' exclaimed Kathie. 'Why, aunty, if I had known we were so near the sea, I should have been in such a hurry to see it, I wouldn't have slept all night. Did you know, Neville?' 'I didn't know it was _so_ near,' said Neville. 'Go up the little hill, and then you will understand where you are,' said Miss Clotilda. 'There is the old church, too, and the ruins of the abbey beside it. You will find there is plenty to see at Hafod.' 'I don't care much for churches,' said Kathie, 'but I'd like to see the ruins.' 'Then set off at once; it is fine and sunny just now, but I don't think the weather is very settled. Near the sea we have to expect sudden changes,' said Miss Clotilda. [Illustration] The children eagerly followed her advice. They climbed up the hill, which they reached by a path through the garden, and then they were well rewarded for their trouble. The view before them was a beautiful and uncommon one. At their feet, so to speak, lay the wide-stretching ocean, sparkling and gleaming in the sunshine, and further inland stood the grand old church and ruins, with the white cottages of the scattered village dotted about in various directions. 'How queer it is to see that great church in such a little place!' said Kathleen. 'It doesn't seem to belong to it, and yet it looks grander than if it was in the middle of a town; doesn't it, Neville?' 'I suppose there was a great monastery, or something like that, here once,' said Neville; 'perhaps before there was any village at all. I think I have read something about it. We must ask Aunt Clotilda. Isn't it a beautiful place, Kathleen? Oh, don't you wish dreadfully it was going to be our home?' Kathleen sighed. She had not before understood _how_ much she should wish it. 'Look there, Neville,' she said, pointing to a white thread which wound over the hills, sometimes hidden for a little, then emerging again, 'that must be the road from Frewern Bay that we came along last night. Don't we seem far away from London and from everywhere? Do you like the feeling? I think I rather do, except for poor old Phil.' But Neville did not at once answer her. He was standing with his eyes fixed on the sea. 'I don't feel so far from papa and mamma here as in London,' he said; 'I like it for that.' Kathleen's gaze followed his. 'Poor papa and mamma!' she said. 'Oh, Neville, _how_ I wish we could find the will!' They spent the rest of the morning, greatly to their own satisfaction, in visiting the ruins, and, as by a fortunate chance the door was open, the church also. It was so unlike anything they had ever seen, that even Kathie was full of admiration, and determined to learn all she could of its history. 'We must ask Aunt Clotilda to tell us all about it,' she said. 'I daresay she has books where we can read about it, too. Papa and mamma would be pleased if we--oh dear! there it comes in about that will to spoil things again! I suppose it's best not to write much about things here to them; it would only make it seem worse to them.' 'Perhaps it would,' said Neville; 'but we can say lots about Aunt Clotilda, and that will please papa and mamma. Oh, Kathie, _don't_ you like her?' Kathie grew rather red. 'Yes,' she said, 'I do. I like her awfully. I _love_ her, Neville, and--and--I'm very sorry I called her stupid, and all that.' 'Dear Kathie,' said Neville, 'you didn't know her.' 'Well, no more did you,' said Kathleen; 'but you're much better than me, Neville. So is Philippa.' 'Dear Kathie,' said Neville again, 'it's only that you've not had mamma with you, or anybody like that. I was older than you, you know, when they left us. And Philippa's always had her mother. But now you have aunty.' 'Yes,' said Kathleen; but she sighed as she said it. [Illustration] They turned to go home again, for they had not yet half explored the garden, which bid fair to be quite as delightful as the house. A little door in the wall was standing half open, and peeping in, they saw that it led by a footpath to the front door. There Miss Clotilda was standing talking to a funny-looking old man with a canvas bag slung over his back. Miss Clotilda seemed rather annoyed, and was speaking very earnestly. 'You are sure, then, John Parry, quite sure, you have not dropped or left it at the wrong house, or anything like that?' The old man only smiled amiably in a sort of superior way. 'Sure, miss? To be sure I am. You'll see miss, the letter has never been posted. Good-day to you, miss. Indeed, I am glad the young gentleman and lady's got safe here;' and he trotted off. 'It's about your letter, Neville,' said his aunt. 'I was certain it would turn up this morning. But it has not come, and it makes me uneasy. Just think, if one of your dear papa's letters was to be lost. I have got fidgety about letters and papers, I suppose.' 'It's very queer,' said Neville. 'All our other letters have come quite rightly.' 'Yes,' said Miss Clotilda. 'However, my dears, as I've got you safe here I must not grumble.' She went back into the house to fetch her garden-hat, in which, Kathie could not help whispering to Neville, she _did_ look a funny old dear. For the hat was about the size of a small clothes-basket, and Miss Clotilda despised all such invisible modes of fastening as elastic and hat-pins. She secured her head-dress with a good honest pair of black ribbon strings, firmly tied, for Ty-gwyn was a blowy place, as might have been expected from its nearness to the sea. The three spent the rest of the morning most happily in the garden, visiting, too, the now disused dairy, and the poultry-yard, where Miss Clotilda's cocks and hens, in blissful ignorance of the fate before them, were clucking and pecking about. 'I must fatten and kill them all off before the autumn,' she said; 'at least, nearly all. I could not have the heart to kill my special pets. I will give some to the neighbours.' 'Aunty,' said Kathleen, as they were returning to the house, 'there is something I wanted to ask you, and I can't remember what it is.' Miss Clotilda's memory could not help her. 'Perhaps you will think of it afterwards,' she said. And probably Kathie would have done so, had it not happened that her aunt had that morning, while the children were out, closed and locked the old cupboard in the little girl's room. So there was nothing to remind her of what she had been on the point of asking Miss Clotilda about Mrs. Wynne's old pincushions. CHAPTER VIII. NEWS FROM PHILIPPA. [Illustration: Decorative T] he next two or three days passed most pleasantly. The weather, as if to make up for its bad behaviour on the day of their journey, was particularly fine, and the children were out from morning till night. Old Martha thought privately to herself that it was a good thing the neighbours were so kind, for they were even 'better than their word,' in sending all sorts of good things to Ty-gwyn for the Captain's children, as Neville and Kathleen's appetites, thanks to the change of air and the sea breezes, were really rather alarming. And Miss Clotilda was so perfectly happy to see them both so bright and well, that she tried to banish all painful thoughts as much as she could. Still they were _there_; and when the poor lady was alone in her room at night, it was often more than she could do to restrain her tears. For the happier the children were, the more she learned to love them, the more bitterly, as was natural, did she feel the disappointment of not being able to hope to see much more of them. But she said little or nothing of her feelings, and the children--Kathie especially--little suspected their depth. Kathie was living entirely in the present; she but rarely gave a thought to the ideas Philippa had suggested. And Neville, though less carelessly light-hearted and forgetful, was slower both of thought and speech. He could see nothing to be done, and for some time he rather shrank from coming upon the subject with his aunt. It came to be spoken of at last, however, and this was how it happened. One morning, about the fourth or fifth of their visit, old John Parry, with a great air of importance, as if he were doing her a special service, handed to Kathleen a rather fat letter, addressed to herself. 'You see, miss, to be sure I never make no mistakes,' he said. For he was quite aware that Miss Clotilda still in her heart, somehow or other, associated him with the mysterious loss of Neville's letter, and he wished to keep up his dignity in the eyes of the stranger young lady. 'Oh yes, thank you,' said Kathie, not quite knowing what else to say. For in London one's personal acquaintance with the postman--or post_men_, rather--is necessarily of the slightest. 'What a comical old fellow he is!' she said to herself, as she ran off. 'I daresay he did lose the letter, after all. How amused Phil would be at the people here, and the funny way they talk! Dear old Phil! I wonder what she has got to say, and what she has written such a long letter about?' For the moment she got it in her hand she recognised little Philippa's careful, childish handwriting on the envelope. 'Aren't you coming out, Kathie?' Neville called out from some mysterious depths, where he was absorbed in arranging his fishing-tackle. 'Not yet. I've got a long letter from Philippa. You'll find me in the library if you look in in a few minutes.' [Illustration] And in a comfortable corner of the deep window seat Kathie established herself to enjoy Philippa's budget. It was in the library that Miss Clotilda and the children spent most of their time. The drawing-room was a more formal and less cosy room, and the library gave old Martha less to do in the way of dusting and daily putting to rights. It was a dear old room, filled with books from floor to ceiling, many of them doubtless of little value, others probably of great worth in a connoisseur's eyes--had connoisseurs ever come to Ty-gwyn--for all were old, very old. 'How Philippa would like this room!' thought Kathie to herself. 'Phil is like Neville; she's far more sentimental and poetical, and all that sort of thing, than I am. I do hope she's enjoying her holidays.' She opened the envelope as she spoke. Out tumbled another letter, closed, addressed, and stamped, but which had evidently never been through the post. It was Neville's letter to Miss Clotilda! 'Oh!' Kathie ejaculated. Then she turned to Philippa's own letter. It was dated, 'Cheltenham,' and she began, child fashion, by telling that she had got there safe, and she hoped Kathleen and her brother had got to Ty-gwyn safe, and that they were both quite well. Then she went on with rather doleful news. Her poor grandmother was ill; she had been taken ill the very night Philippa came, and though she was a little better the doctor said she would not be well for a long time, and she was to go away somewhere for change of air. Philippa was not allowed to see her, and her uncle did not know what to do, but he had told Philippa he was afraid she would have to go back to school, and stay there for the rest of the holidays. 'Uncle is kind, but he doesn't know how awful it will be,' wrote the poor little girl; 'and I don't like to tell him, because he is so troubled about grandmamma. It is most because you won't be there, dear Kathie. That Wednesday was as long as a week, when you had gone. I am afraid I am to go in three or four days. Uncle will take me. Do write quick to poor little Phil, _and don't' forget your promise_.' Then came a postscript, Philippa having evidently been too absorbed by her own woes to think of anything else while she was writing the letter. 'I found this letter in your old serge frock pocket--the one that was too shabby to take with you. I meant to send it to you before, but I wasn't sure how to write the address; you wrote it on such a scrap of paper. I will keep this till to-night, and ask uncle to help me. I hope it won't matter, for as you are there your aunt won't need letters from you. I was feeling in your pocket for my new bit of india-rubber that I lent you, but it wasn't there.' Kathie sat quite still for a minute or two after reading all this. Then she took up Neville's letter and looked at it vaguely. 'Yes,' she said to herself, 'I must have slipped it into my pocket, meaning to have it posted with my own note to Neville. How careless of me! and to think how I went on about aunty not meeting us at the station.' It was a good lesson for Kathie. The softening process had begun, and she was already ashamed to remember the way in which she had spoken of Miss Clotilda. And she was not a little mortified at now finding that she, and she alone, had been to blame. But Kathleen was courageous and honest. After a moment or two's hesitation, she got up and marched off, letters in hand, to the dining-room, where she knew she should find her aunt at that time of day. [Illustration: 'LOOK, IT'S NEVER BEEN POSTED AT ALL!'] 'Aunty,' she said, and Miss Clotilda looked up from the fine old damask tablecloth she was carefully darning--she prided herself on her darning, and though the table-linen, as well as everything else, was Mr. Wynne-Carr's now, she would not on that account relax in her carefulness--'Aunty, I've got something to tell you. It wasn't old John Parry's fault about that letter, nor anybody's but mine. Look,' and she held it up, 'it's never been posted at all;' and she went on to explain to Miss Clotilda how it had been found. 'I am so sorry,' she said at the end. Just then Neville came in. 'I have been looking everywhere for you, Kathie,' he said; and then the story had to be told to him again. 'I am sorry,' Kathie repeated, 'and ashamed,' she added, in a lower voice, and Neville saw that the tears were quivering on her eyelids. He understood. 'Poor dear child,' said Miss Clotilda, 'you shouldn't take it to heart so. It'll be a little lesson to you to be more careful about such things; will it not, dear?' 'Yes, indeed,' said Kathleen. She could not tell her kind aunt why she felt it so much--it would have been wrong to pain her by repeating the naughty, foolish things she had said of her--and this in itself made the impression still deeper. 'And the little girl--your friend who has written to you--is she not the same one you were speaking of the other day?' asked Miss Clotilda, to change the subject. 'Yes, aunty; and oh, I am so sorry for her! May I tell you what she says?' And Kathie read aloud Philippa's letter. 'Poor little girl!' said Miss Clotilda. 'What does she mean by asking you at the end not to forget your promise?' 'Oh,' said Kathleen, 'she's a little silly about that. She--I told her about the will, aunty--you don't mind? I didn't tell any one else'-- 'It matters very little,' said Miss Clotilda. 'There is no secret about it. Everybody here knows the whole story. But what was your promise?' 'Phil had an idea that nobody had looked enough--for the will, or for the letter telling where it was to be found,' said Kathleen. 'She said she was sure _she_ would think of new places to look in if she were here, and she made me promise to try. But--I am sure you have looked everywhere, aunty--it would seem impertinent of Neville and me to try to look.' 'Not that, my dear,' said Miss Clotilda, 'but really and truly there is nowhere else to look. Do you know we have taken down and shaken every book in the library? A man, accustomed to such things, came on purpose. I have thought about the letter of directions too, but it is much less likely to be found than the will itself. It would be so small. If Mrs. Wynne had not given me the envelope containing the blank paper, so very shortly before her death, I should have begun to think that she had changed her mind and made no will at all. And yet--it was so unlike her. No, I feel sure the blank paper was put in by mistake.' Miss Clotilda had left off her darning in the interest of the conversation. For a minute or two no one spoke. Then with a little effort Miss Clotilda seemed to recall her thoughts to the present. 'She must be a very nice child--that little Philippa,' she said, 'and very unselfish. It is not many children who would be able to think of anything but their own affairs in her place just now. I do feel for her, poor dear, having to go back to school, and all her companions away.' She hesitated, as if on the point of saying more, but no words came. Then she took up her darning again. 'I wish'--Kathie began, and then she too stopped short. Neville glanced at her. 'I believe I know what you wish,' he said. 'And,' he went on boldly, 'I believe aunty is thinking of the very same thing.' Again the poor tablecloth came off badly. Miss Clotilda let it fall, and in her turn she looked at both the children. 'I daresay you do know what was in my mind, Neville,' she said. 'It would be almost unnatural not to think of it.' 'You mean,' said Kathie, half timidly, 'if we could ask poor Phil to come here--if _you_ could, I should say, aunty.' 'Yes,' said Miss Clotilda, 'that was what I was thinking. I do feel so for the poor dear child. I know so well, so sadly well, what it is to be alone in that way. My mother, you know, dears, your grandmother, died when I was thirteen, and till her death I had never been separated from her. And then I was sent to school altogether, holidays and all, for three years, for your grandfather went abroad. I did not even see my little brother--dear little David--for all that time, for one of our aunts who had children of her own took care of him. It did not so much matter to him, for he was only a year old when our mother died, and so he was only four when we were together again. And it seems to him--I do like to feel that--that I was always with him. But for me those three years were--really--dreadful. Even now I can scarcely bear to think of them;' and Miss Clotilda gave a little shiver. 'Philippa cried awfully when she first came,' said Kathleen. 'She really did nothing but cry. 'And you were good to her--I am sure you were, as she is so fond of you,' said her aunt. Kathie blushed a little. 'Her mother asked me to be kind to her,' she said, 'and I tried to be because I promised. But I didn't care much for her at first, aunty. I didn't understand her caring so dreadfully, and you mustn't think me horrid, for I do understand better now--it bothered me. But she got so fond of me--she fancied I was so much kinder than I really was, that--that I got very fond of her. And I think I've learnt some things from her--the same sort of things you make me feel, aunty.' This was a wonderfully 'sentimental' speech to come from thoughtless Kathie. But both her hearers 'understood.' 'She must be a dear little girl,' said Miss Clotilda again. 'I should love to have her here, if--' 'I know, aunty,' Neville interrupted. 'It is the expense. I know it is already a great deal for you to have _us_.' 'No, dear,' said Miss Clotilda, 'it really is not so. People--my old neighbours and friends--are so kind. They are always sending presents just now. And one other little girl could not make much difference. It is more a sort of shrinking that I have from explaining things to strangers--a sort of false shame, perhaps. It _should_ all have been so different.' 'Dear aunty,' said both the children, 'we wouldn't like you to do it if you feel that way.' But Miss Clotilda was evidently not satisfied. 'She is a simple-minded child, is she not?' she asked in a little. 'Not the kind of child to be discontented with plain ways--our having only one servant, and so on, you know?' '_Of course_ not,' said Kathleen. 'She would think it all lovely. And, aunty,' she went on, 'it _is_ lovely. You don't know how it all looks to us after school. Everything is so cold and stiff, and--and--not pretty there. And the things to eat here are so delicious; aren't they, Neville? The fruit and the milk and the bread and butter. Oh, aunty!' 'What, my dear?' '_Don't_ you think you could? What room would Phil have?' 'I was thinking of the one next yours. It is small, but we could make it look nice. There is no dearth of anything in the way of linen and such things in the house. Mrs. Wynne had such beautiful napery--that is the old word for it, you know--and she took such a pride in it. I must show you the linen-room some day, Kathie. I have taken great pleasure in keeping it in perfect order for your mother.' Again the sad feeling of disappointment. 'Kathie,' said, Neville, a minute or two later when their aunt had left the room, 'I want you to come out with me. You're not going to write to Philippa to-day, are you? 'No,' said Kathleen, 'not to-day. But I should like to send the letter to-morrow, for fear of her leaving her grandmother's. I will write to her this afternoon or this evening. I've lots to tell her--all about the journey, and the funny old farmer, and the carrier's cart.' 'Yes,' said Neville. 'If she comes here, Kathie, we'll manage better than that. I wonder if aunty would let us go to Hafod to meet her. Any way, I might go. Perhaps you'd rather stay to welcome her here--to put flowers in her room, and that sort of thing. Girls do so like all that.' 'So do boys too--at least, some boys. You _always_ bring me a nosegay on my birthday. I am sure you like flowers as much as any girl could,' said Kathie. 'I didn't mean flowers only. I meant--oh, fussing,' said Neville vaguely. But Kathleen was too much taken up by the idea of Philippa's coming to be in a touchy humour. 'Do you really think, Neville,' she said,--'do you really and truly think aunty is going to ask her?' 'I don't know. I'm sure she'd like to--if she can. She's so awfully good and kind.' 'Yes,' Kathleen heartily agreed. 'I never even thought before that anybody _could_ be so kind.' CHAPTER IX. THE COTTAGE NEAR THE CREEK. [Illustration: Decorative K] athleen was just finishing a long letter to Philippa that afternoon in the library, when Miss Clotilda came into the room with her usual quiet step. Kathleen did not hear her till her aunt laid her hand on her shoulder. The little girl started. 'Oh, aunty,' she said, 'I've been writing to poor Phil. Such a long letter!' 'And long as it is, I'm afraid you will have to make it still a little longer,' said Miss Clotilda. Something in the tone of her voice made Kathleen look up. Miss Clotilda was smiling, and her pale cheeks were a little pinker than usual. 'Listen to me, dear,' she said. 'I have thought it over, and it seems to me really right, only right and kind, to ask that poor child to come to us here. I have written to her uncle to propose it, and I have explained things just a little, saying that I am only here for a short time more, and that things are not as they used to be, but that we shall make her most welcome. I thought it best to write to the uncle, as her grandmother is so ill. You can give me the exact address, I suppose, and the uncle's name?' [Illustration] Kathie held up Philippa's letter. 'Yes, aunty,' she said. 'You see, it is written at the top. She told me to put "care of" to her uncle, because her name is not the same as his and her grandmother's. He is her mother's brother. But oh, dear aunty, I can scarcely believe you are really going to let her come! It is _too_ delicious.' 'It does not rest only with me, however, dear, you must remember,' Miss Clotilda said. 'You must not count upon it too surely till we hear from her friends. They may not approve of it, or there may be difficulties in the way of bringing her. It is rather a long way from Cheltenham, and an expensive journey.' 'I don't think that would matter,' said Kathleen. 'I'm almost sure Phil's relations are rich, and she is an only child.' 'Well, let us hope they will let her come,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I will send my letter separately; but I wanted to ask you what you thought of telling the little girl herself about it. Do you think it best to say nothing to her till we hear from her uncle, and to leave it to him to tell her?' Kathie considered. 'No, aunty,' she said. 'I think we needn't do that. Philippa is such a _very_ sensible little girl, I'm sure her uncle would talk to her about it immediately. So may I write and tell her? Oh dear, how lovely!' 'Yes, certainly. You haven't very much time. The letters must go in half an hour, but as you are hoping now to see her soon, you won't need to say so very much.' Kathie's pen flew along the paper. She could have filled pages with the anticipated delights of Philippa's visit, and it was just as well her time was limited. One argument she brought to bear with great force in favour of the visit. 'Be sure to tell your uncle,' she wrote, 'that your mamma gave you into my charge at school, and that I promised her to try to make you happy. So I am sure, if there was time to ask her, that _she_ would like you to come.' 'I think that's very clever of me,' she said to herself, as she folded up the letter, 'and I'm sure it's quite true. But how shall I get through the next two or three days till we can hear if she is coming? I must get Neville to take me tremendously long walks.' The next day, fortunately, was very fine. 'Aunty,' said Kathleen at breakfast, 'I do feel in such a fidget about Philippa coming that I'm afraid I shall get quite unbearable. Don't you think the best thing would be for Neville and me to go a very long walk to calm me down?' 'Do very long walks generally have that desirable effect?' asked Miss Clotilda. 'I have no objection, provided you don't lose your way.' 'Oh! we won't lose our way,' said Neville. 'I have a pocket compass. Besides, as you said yourself, aunty, it is a very easy country to find one's way in. There's always a hill one can climb, and once you see the sea, you can easily make out where you are.' 'And any of the cottagers about can direct you to Ty-gwyn,' said Miss Clotilda. 'Well, then, if you ask Martha to make you some sandwiches, and to give you some rock cakes for "pudding," you might take your dinners with you, and not come back till the afternoon. And,' she added, glancing out of the window as she spoke, 'I think you would do well to make hay while the sun shines, at present--that is to say, to go a long walk while it is fine, for I don't think this weather is going to last above a day or two.' 'Oh!' Kathie exclaimed, 'I do hope it won't rain all the time Philippa is here.' 'Kathie,' said Neville, 'you are too silly. Aunty only meant that we might have _some_ rain. She never said it would rain for weeks.' 'That it seldom, indeed never, does here,' said Miss Clotilda. 'But, you know, in a very hilly district you must expect uncertain weather. I think there is no fear for to-day, however.' And an hour or two later the children set off. 'Which way shall we go?' said Kathleen. 'To the sea?' Neville looked round. 'Suppose we go over there, towards that hill,' he said. 'There's a sort of creek between two little hills there--or more perhaps as if it was cut in the middle of one--that must be very pretty. Martha told me about it. I forget the name she called it in Welsh. She said the smugglers used to run their boats in there, for there are caves they could hide things in.' 'Oh, what fun!' said Kathie. 'Do let us go! Are there no smugglers now, Neville? What a pity!' she went on, as her brother shook his head. 'It would be so romantic to find a smugglers' cave.' 'I don't think it would be romantic at all--at least, it wouldn't be at all pleasant,' said sensible Neville. 'In the days when there were smugglers, if they had found us poking about their caves they wouldn't have been very amiable to us.' 'What would they have done to us?' asked Kathleen. 'Pitched us into the sea, or--or gagged us, and tied our hands behind us, and left us among the rocks on the chance of any one finding us,' said Neville grimly. Kathleen shuddered. They were soon at the entrance to the little creek which Martha had described, coming upon it suddenly, as a turn in the path brought them sharply down to a lower level. It was very picturesque. Against the strip of blue sky seen through the fissure or cleft which formed the creek, stood out clearly the outline of a small fishing craft, drawn up on the shingly beach; while down below, the water, darkened by the shade of the rocks on each side, gleamed black and mysterious. [Illustration: 'WHERE ARE THE CAVES, NEVILLE?'] 'What a queer place!' said Kathleen. 'Where are the caves, Neville? I don't see any.' 'I suppose they are facing the sea. We must make our way round over the stones at the edge of the water if we want to see them. It isn't deep, though it looks so dark. You needn't be afraid,' said Neville, beginning the scramble. But Kathleen hung back. 'Neville,' she said, 'you're quite sure there aren't any smugglers now?' 'Of course not,' said Neville, rather disdainfully. 'Kathie, you shouldn't be so boasting about never being frightened, and all that, if you are really so babyish.' 'I'm not babyish. Neville, you're very unkind. You never were so unkind in London,' said Kathie, looking ready to cry. 'I don't mean to be unkind,' said Neville, stopping short in his progress, one foot on a big stone, the other still on the grass near the edge of the water. 'But if you're the least afraid, Kathie, either of smugglers or of the scramble--it will be a scramble, I see--you'd better not come. Supposing you go up to that little cottage--there's quite a nice old woman living there--while I go on to the caves? I'll come back for you in ten minutes or so.' 'Very well,' said Kathie; 'I think I'd better, perhaps. It isn't for the smugglers, Neville. I wouldn't let _you_ go if there was any chance of there being any. But I'm rather afraid of tumbling. Are you sure it's safe for you, Neville?' 'Oh, yes. Aunty told me I might go any day. She explained all about it to me.' 'Well, then, don't be long;' and so saying, Kathleen began making her way up the slope to the little cottage Neville had pointed out. It was a very tiny place. There was no garden, but a little patch of grass had been roughly railed in, and on this two or three chickens were pecking about. A very old woman came to the door on seeing Kathleen approaching, with a smile on her brown, wrinkled, old face. 'Good morning, miss,' she said in very good English. 'Would you like to rest a bit?' 'Thank you,' said Kathie; 'I'd like to wait a few minutes, if you don't mind, till my brother comes to fetch me. He's gone down to see the caves.' 'To be sure,' said the old woman. 'Perhaps you'd like best to wait outside; it's pleasant in the air this morning;' and she quickly brought out a chair, and set it for Kathie against the wall of the cottage. 'And you'll be the young lady and gentleman from Ty-gwyn? Dear, dear!' 'What do you say that for?' asked Kathie, not quite sure if she was pleased or vexed at the state of the family affairs being evidently understood by this old woman. 'No offence, miss,' said the dame. 'I'm not of this country, miss, though I've lived here nigh thirty years, and I've seen a deal in my time. I was kitchen-maid when I was a girl in London town.' 'Indeed,' said Kathleen; 'that must have been a _very_ long time ago;' which was perhaps not a very polite speech. 'And so it is--a very long time ago. A matter of fifty years, miss.' 'Indeed,' said Kathleen, opening her eyes; 'that is a very long time.' [Illustration] 'And yet I can remember things as happened then as if they'd been yesterday,' said the old woman. 'There was a queer thing happened in the house of my missis's father. He was a very old man, not to say quite right in his head, and when he died there was papers missing that had to do with the money some way. And would you believe, miss, where they was found? In his pillow, hid right away among the feathers! There's many folk as'll hide money and papers in a mattress, but I never heard tell before or since of hiding in a pillow; and it's been in my mind ever since Farmer Davis told me of the trouble at Ty-gwyn to ask the lady if she'd ever thought of looking in the pillows.' 'Who is Farmer Davis?' asked Kathleen, for the name seemed familiar. 'Him who lives at Dol-bach,' said the old woman. 'He travelled in the railway with you and the young gentleman. You should go to see him some day, miss. He'd be proud; and the old lady thought a deal of him and his wife.' 'Yes,' said Kathleen, 'I'd like to go to see him. He was very kind to us. There's my brother coming,' she went on, as she caught sight of Neville coming up the hill. 'Thank you very much for letting me wait here,' and she got up to go. 'And you won't forget about the pillows, miss?' said the old body. 'No, I won't,' Kathleen replied. 'She's such a funny old woman, Neville,' she said, when they met. And then she went on to repeat what the dame had told her about the pillows. 'Oh,' said Neville, 'they are all gossiping about it. It is nonsense--Mrs. Wynne wasn't out of her mind'. 'Then do you think it's no use looking anywhere?' said Kathleen. 'Certainly not in the pillows,' said Neville, laughing. 'I think we'd better have our dinner now, Kathie, don't you? Over there, just between this hill and the next, I should think there would be a nice place.' And having found a snug corner, they established themselves comfortably. 'Were the caves nice?' asked Kathleen. 'Not very--at least, I didn't like to go very far alone. There was one that looked as if it would be very nice--a great, deep, black place, but one would need a light. I'll try to go again some day, if I can get anyone to go with me. It's not fit for girls.' Suddenly Kathleen gave a deep sigh. 'What's the matter?' asked Neville. 'It's only what that old woman said. It's put it all into my head again,' said Kathleen. 'I should have liked to tell Phil we had searched _somewhere_.' 'Wait till she comes,' said Neville. 'She'll soon see for herself that there's _nowhere_ to search. I've thought and thought about it, and I'm sure aunty has done everything anybody could.' So no more was said about it, and they finished their dinner comfortably. Then they set off again, and climbed the hill from whence they had been told the view was so beautiful. Nor were they disappointed--the day was unusually clear, with the clearness that tells of rain at no great distance, and on all sides they could see over many miles. 'How lovely the sea is!' said Kathleen. 'The only fault I can find with Ty-gwyn is that you can't see the sea from the house. Now that house over there, Neville--over towards the sea, but a good way from it--on the side of a hill,' and she pointed towards it, 'must have a lovely view of the sea. I wonder what house it is? It looks so pretty.' 'I know,' said Neville. 'It is the old farmer's. It is Dol-bach.' 'Old Farmer Davis's?' said Kathleen. 'Oh, that reminds me the old woman at the cottage said we should go to see him, and thank him for being so kind the day we came. Indeed, we should have gone already.' 'Did she say so?' said Neville; 'she must be rather an impertinent old woman. It's no business of hers.' 'Oh no, she isn't impertinent at all,' said Kathleen. '_She_ didn't say we should have gone already. That was only my own thought. She said he'd be "proud" to see us--I think that sounds very nice, Neville--and that Mrs. Wynne thought "a deal" of him and his wife. Supposing we go now, Neville, on our way home?' 'No,' said Neville. 'I don't think it would be right to go anywhere without asking Aunt Clotilda. But I daresay she'll let us go. I remember old Davis said something about knowing Mrs. Wynne very well.' 'We'll ask her,' said Kathie. 'It would be something nice to do, to keep my mind off Phil's coming. And we might dress nicely, Neville. It would be more of a compliment to them, you know, if we went nicely dressed--like paying a real call.' They met Miss Clotilda coming to meet them, when, after a good long ramble among the hills, they made their way home. 'I have come along the road two or three times to look for you,' she said. 'Have you had a nice walk, and any adventures?' 'Oh, yes,' said Kathie, and she launched at once into an account of her old woman. But Neville noticed that she did not mention the anecdote about the pillow. 'Perhaps it is better not to keep reminding aunty of it,' he thought. 'I am glad Kathie is so thoughtful.' 'And may we go to see Farmer Davis, aunty?' asked Kathie eagerly. 'Oh, certainly,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I was thinking of proposing it. It would have been no use going to-day, as both he and his wife were at Hafod Market, I know. There are many of our neighbours I should have liked to take you to see, both the gentlepeople and others; but it is impossible to go about much without a horse of any kind,' she ended, with a little sigh. 'May we go to Dol-bach to-morrow?' asked Kathie. 'I want to keep myself from fidgeting.' Miss Clotilda could not help smiling at her. 'I have no objection,' she said, 'if the weather holds up; which, however, I have my doubts of.' [Illustration] And her doubts proved well founded. 'To-morrow' proved a very rainy day--a thoroughly and hopelessly rainy day, such as seldom is to be seen in the middle of summer, and Kathleen's spirits sank to zero. She was sure they were not going to have any more fine weather; sure a letter would come from Philippa's uncle refusing the invitation; and very angry with Neville for remarking that if the first prediction was fulfilled, it was almost to be hoped the second would come to pass also. And when the morning after broke again dull and gloomy, Miss Clotilda felt really distressed at Kathie's gloom. 'My dear,' she said, 'you must make an effort to be cheerful and patient. You cannot, at soonest, have an answer from Philippa till to-morrow, and you cannot go to Dol-bach to-day; even if the rain leaves off, the roads will be terribly bad. Try to think of something to do in the house that will occupy and interest you. I am almost sure that to-morrow will be fine.' Kathleen listened respectfully enough, but with a most depressed look in her face, to the beginning of this speech. Half-way through it, however, her face suddenly cleared, and a light came into her eyes. 'Thank you, aunty,' she said. 'Yes, I have something I should like to do up in my own room. I won't grumble any more,' and off she set. 'She is a dear child,' thought her aunt. 'A word suffices with her.' Poor Miss Clotilda! She scarcely knew her volatile, flighty little niece as yet. CHAPTER X. A PLAGUE OF FEATHERS. [Illustration: Decorative A] n hour or two later, Miss Clotilda, having completed her housekeeping arrangements for the day, went up to Kathie's room to see what she was about. Neville had gone off for a walk, as the rain was now slight, and of course, as he said himself, 'for a boy it was different.' 'Poor, dear child!' said Miss Clotilda, as she reached Kathleen's door; 'I hope she isn't feeling dull, all alone.' The door was locked. 'Kathie,' she called, 'it is I--aunty.' A scattering inside, and then Kathleen's voice, sounding rather odd, replied, 'In a moment, aunty. Oh dear, oh dear! I wish I'-- 'What is the matter, Kathie? Open at once, my dear; you alarm me!' Miss Clotilda exclaimed. Thus adjured, Kathleen had no choice. She drew the bolt; Miss Clotilda entered. [Illustration: WHAT _WAS_ THE MATTER?] What _was_ the matter? For an instant or two she was too bewildered to tell. The room seemed filled with fluff; a sort of dust was in the air; Kathie's own dress and hair looked as if they had been snowed upon; every piece of furniture in the room was covered with what on closer inspection proved to be feathers! And Kathleen herself, the image of despair, stood in helpless distress. 'Oh, aunty,' she said, reminding one of the merchant in 'The Arabian Nights,' when he had let the genii out of the bottle, 'I _can't_ get them in again.' Poor Kathie--her genii were to be reckoned by thousands! 'What is it? What _have_ you been doing? Feathers!' exclaimed Miss Clotilda, stooping to examine a whitey-grey heap on the floor, which, disturbed even by her gentle movements, forthwith flew up in clouds, choking and blinding her. '_Feathers_--my dear child!' 'Oh, aunty,' said Kathleen, bursting into tears, 'I never knew they were such horrid things. It's my pillow, and one off Neville's bed, and two off yours, and one off the big green-room bed, and--I got them all in here;' and then amidst her sobs she went on to tell her aunt of the old woman's story and the search it had suggested. 'I didn't mean to empty the pillows, but they kept coming out so when I put my arm in to feel, and I thought at last it would be easier to shake them all out and fill the covers again, so that I couldn't have missed even a small piece of paper. But it's no good; and oh, I've made such a mess!' There was no denying this last fact. Miss Clotilda hurried Kathie out of the room--for, as everybody knows, the fluff of feathers is really injurious to the throat and lungs--and hurried Martha up to see what could be done. It ended in a woman having to be sent for from the village to re-imprison the flighty feathers in their cases; but even after this was done, Kathleen could not sleep in her room that night. 'I am so sorry, aunty,' she said, so humbly that kind Miss Clotilda could not but forgive her, though she made her promise for the future to attempt no more 'searches' without consulting her elders. 'Of course I'll promise that and more than that,' said Kathie, as she dried her eyes; 'I won't search _at all_ for that nasty will. I didn't want to, only I thought Philippa would say I should have tried to find it. But I'll just show her it's no use.' And Neville was so sorry to see her distress that he did not even remind her of _his_ having told her that searching the pillows would be no use; which, in my opinion, was truly generous of him. All troubles were, however, cast into the shade when the next morning brought a letter from Mr. Wentworth, Philippa's uncle, most heartily thanking Miss Clotilda for her kindness, and eagerly accepting her invitation. Mr. Wentworth wrote that he had been quite distressed at the idea of sending the poor child back to school, but till Miss Clotilda's proposal came he had seen no help for it. He went on to say that he would bring Philippa himself to Hafod if Miss Clotilda could send to meet her there, but that he could only make the journey _at once_. If 'Thursday' were too soon for Philippa to come, would Miss Powys telegraph to say so--in that case he feared the visit would have to be put off till he could hear of an escort. 'Thursday!' Miss Clotilda exclaimed, 'that is to-morrow. Telegraph! It is plain Mr. Wentworth does not know much of this part of the country. There is no telegraph office nearer than Boyneth, and that is half-way to Hafod.' 'But, aunty,' said Kathleen, looking up from the little scrap to herself which Philippa had slipped into her uncle's letter, 'need you think of telegraphing? Mayn't she come to-morrow? She is so happy--oh, aunty, do read her dear little letter.' Aunty did not need much persuasion. 'If we can get things ready, and if Mr. Mortimer can lend us his waggonette,' she said hesitatingly. 'There is your room still upset, you know, Kathie,' at which Kathleen grew very red; 'and I don't know'-- 'Can't I go to Mr. Mortimer's and ask him?' said Neville. 'It isn't very far, and I can find the way, I'm sure.' 'That might do,' said his aunt; 'and if the waggonette is not to be had, perhaps he would lend us the pony-carriage. That would do for two, besides the one driving.' So it turned out. The waggonette was required to meet friends of the Mortimers themselves, arriving to-morrow, but Miss Clotilda was welcome to the pony-cart, and the strong pony which drew it would be quite able for the two journeys, with a good rest between. And the little girl's luggage might come up with that of the Mortimers' friends, and be left at Ty-gwyn on the way. There was only one drawback; Kathleen could not go to the station. Miss Clotilda would drive, and Neville must go with her to open gates, etc., in case of need. And Kathleen must content herself for staying at home by adorning Philippa's room with flowers, as Neville had suggested. 'Only, whatever you do, please leave the pillows alone my dear,' said Miss Clotilda, as they drove off the next morning. Kathie was quite cured of searching for the lost will, though not sorry to be able to assure her eager little friend that she really _had_ done so. The day passed quickly enough, however; for, to make up for the trouble she had given the day before, she set herself to be particularly useful to Martha. And by seven o'clock, the time at which the pony-carriage might be _begun_ to be looked for--for Philippa was to come by a much earlier train than the London express--Kathleen, having helped to set the tea-table and bake the cakes, and having given the last touch to Philippa's little room, was hopping about in front of the house, looking very neat and nice in a clean white frock, her face and eyes, indeed her whole little person, in a perfect glow of happy expectation. [Illustration] Nor was her patience long put to the test. It was not more than twenty minutes past seven when approaching wheels were to be heard. Kathie scuttered back into the house; she wanted to be standing just within the door, not outside, when they arrived; and in another half minute there they were. Neville had jumped down and was helping out a little familiar figure, while Miss Clotilda smiled brightly at the sight of the children's delight. 'My dear old Phil!' 'My darling Kathie!' and for a moment or two hugs and kisses had it all to themselves. Then Miss Clotilda got out, and Neville got in again to drive the pony home, with many charges to be quick. 'Tea is quite ready,' Kathie called after him; 'and I'm so hungry that I can fancy what you must all be.' 'Take Philippa up to her room, Kathie,' said her aunt. 'Her luggage won't be here for an hour or two, but you can lend her a pair of slippers, I daresay.' 'Oh, mine would be far too big, aunty; but you may be sure Phil has got a pair in her bag,' said Kathie, laughing. 'She's a regular old maid, you know;' and she held up the bag in question for her aunt to see. 'Your room will just suit you, Phil,' she ran on; 'it's as tiny as yourself and as neat as a pin.' And Philippa's exclamations of delight when they entered it, well rewarded Kathleen for all the trouble she had taken. 'Oh, Kathie,' said the little girl, 'what a _perfect_ place Ty-gwyn is! and how kind and sweet your aunt is, and how good of you all to have me; and oh, Kathie, have you hunted well for the will?' 'Don't speak of it--horrid thing!' said Kathleen with a grimace. 'Yes, I have hunted for it--all to please you, Phil. I'll just tell you what I did,' and she proceeded to relate the unfortunate experience with the pillows. Philippa was deeply interested. 'I don't think it's likely she hid it in a pillow,' she remarked. 'But I have such a feeling that it is somewhere in the house. I am sorry you don't mean to look any more, Kathie.' 'Oh well, don't talk about it any more just now,' said Kathleen. 'We want to be as happy as ever we can be. If only the weather is fine, and it does look better to-day,--oh, you don't know how it rained yesterday, and the day before worse still,--we can go such lovely walks. You know we're quite near the sea here--up there from that hill we can see it,' and she pointed out of the window. 'Can we really?' said Philippa. 'How nice! I do think it is the loveliest place I ever saw, Kathie. How I do wish it was going to be your home for always!' 'Ah well! there's no use thinking of that,' said Kathleen, 'though of course we can't help wishing it. It's worst for aunty--isn't she sweet, Phil? Come now, are you ready? We'll just take a peep into my room on the way down--isn't it a jolly room, the very next door to yours, do you see? And afterwards I'll show you all the house--there are such lots of rooms, and all so nice and queer. Don't you smell that nice old-fashioned sort of scent, Phil? Like lavender and dried rose-leaves; and it's partly the scent of the wood of the wainscoting, aunty says.' 'Yes,' said Philippa, sniffing about with her funny little nose; 'it's very nice, and everything is so _beautifully_ clean, Kathie. Grandmamma's house is very nice, but it hasn't the same sort of look and feeling this dear old house has.' 'I am so glad you like it, dear,' said Kathie, very amiably. 'But we must run down. I am sure you must be _very_ hungry.' 'I think I'm too happy to be very, very hungry,' said Philippa. She managed, however, to do justice to the good things Martha had prepared, and Miss Clotilda told her she would be very disappointed indeed if three weeks at Ty-gwyn did not make her both fatter and rosier. 'But she's looking much better than she did at school, aunty,' said Kathleen. 'Last spring she was a miserable little object.' 'But that was because I was so very unhappy about mamma going away,' said Philippa, getting rather red. 'Poor, dear child!' said Miss Clotilda. 'Ah, well! I can sympathise in that. But you will be able to send your mother a very cheerful letter from here, I hope.' 'Yes, indeed,' said the little girl. 'And I'm so glad now that we didn't write last week to tell her of grandmamma being ill, and my having to go back to school. Uncle and I talked it over, and we thought we might wait till this week, and now she'll hear of grandmamma's being better and me coming here, at the same time, so it won't make her unhappy.' 'Your uncle seems very kind indeed,' said Miss Clotilda. 'I was quite sorry for him to have to make such a long journey, and to go straight back again.' 'Yes,' said Philippa. 'But, you see,' she went on, in her funny little prim way, 'he wouldn't have felt happy to have left grandmamma longer alone. He will be home by eleven to-night.' This first evening was not a very long one, for after tea Philippa's box arrived, and Kathleen had, of course, to go up-stairs with her little friend to help her to unpack her things and put them away. And Miss Clotilda told the children that they must go to bed early, as Philippa would be tired. 'Have you been very tidy, Kathie, without me?' asked Philippa. 'I'm sure you must often have wanted me to put your belongings neat, and to find your pencils and gloves, and all the things you lose.' 'No; I've got on very well indeed, thank you, Miss Conceit,' said Kathie, laughing. 'It's much easier here than at school. There's so much more room, and one isn't so hurried.' 'Still, it would show a good deal if you were very untidy,' said Philippa. 'The house does look so neat all over. Have you done any work, Kathie? I am in such a fuss about what I can make to send to mamma for her birthday. I've always made her something every year as long as I can remember, and I wouldn't like to miss this year, the first I've been away from her.' 'We'll have to think of something. Aunt Clotilda is very clever at work,' said Kathie. 'You should see her darning.' 'Grandmamma was going to have helped me to get something pretty to work for mamma, only then she got ill,' said Philippa. 'Uncle is going to send out a box soon, so it needn't be a very little thing, not like for going by post. I shall be so glad if your aunt can think of anything.' 'I'm sure she will,' said Kathleen. But just then Martha tapped at the door with some hot water for 'the young lady,' which was a broad hint that it was time for Philippa to go to bed. 'Good-night, dear,' said Kathleen. 'I think it's going to be fine to-morrow--the sky looks nice and reddy--and we shall be out nearly all day. You like going long walks, don't you, dear?' 'Yes, of course I do; at least, if it isn't _too_ far. But we could always have nice rests, couldn't we? It isn't like going out walks in town, where one has to go on and on, however tired one is.' 'No, indeed. There are lovely places to rest. And, by-the-by, that reminds me--but I won't keep you up, Phil. I'll tell you to-morrow.' For suddenly there had flashed into Kathie's flighty head the remembrance of the visit she had been eager to pay to the old farmer at Dol-bach. It would be such a nice expedition for Philippa's first day. 'I'll ask aunty early to-morrow morning if we mayn't go,' she thought, as she fell asleep. But to-morrow morning brought fifty other ideas to volatile Kathie. There were so many things to show Philippa; the house, and the garden, and the poultry, and the dairy absorbed the morning, and in the afternoon Miss Clotilda went out with them herself to show the little guest some of the prettiest views, ending up by a visit to the beach. 'Isn't _this_ sea different to the beach at Bognor, Philippa?' said Kathleen. 'All crowded with people, and Miss Fraser scolding, and no hills or trees. Oh, I forgot! you hadn't been long enough at school to have been at Bognor. That's a pleasure to come for next year. Oh dear! how I wish'-- But she stopped herself, and said no more. Everybody knew _what_ she wished, but they all knew too that there was no use in speaking about it. 'Kathie,' said Neville, partly to change the conversation, 'what's become of our visit to Dol-bach? You were in such a fuss about it two or three days ago.' 'Oh,' said Kathie, 'I forgot. Aunty,' she went on, 'may we go there to-morrow? If it's as fine as it is to-day, mightn't we take our dinner with us, like the other day? And then we could go to Dol-bach on our way home in the afternoon, and very likely they'd give us some milk, and perhaps some cake.' Aunty had no objection, and so it was settled. By the next day Philippa had quite got over her tiredness, though Miss Clotilda warned Neville and Kathleen that they must remember she was not quite as strong as they. And the three children set off on their expedition in high spirits. 'You don't want to see your old woman in the cottage near the creek, do you, Kathie? Don't you think, perhaps, you should tell her about the results of searching the pillows?' said Neville mischievously. Kathleen looked at him indignantly. 'I think you are very unkind,' she said, 'and very mean. You know I don't want to quarrel just as Philippa's come, and you're just taking advantage of it.' 'Come now, Kathie,' said Neville good-humouredly. 'I don't think really you need be so touchy.' 'I only did it to please _you_, Phil,' Kathie went on. Philippa opened her eyes at this. 'To please me?' she repeated. 'Well, you know you said you were sure you'd find _it_ if you were in the house, and I didn't want you to think I hadn't looked at all.' 'I didn't say I was sure I'd find it,' said Philippa. 'If I thought that, I'd ask Miss Clotilda's leave to look now I am in the house. But I _have_ a very queer feeling that it _is_ in the house; and last night--now don't laugh at me, Kathie--I had such a queer dream.' 'Do tell it to us,' said both Neville and Kathleen. But Philippa was a little out of breath with climbing. 'Let's wait till we sit down to eat our dinner, and then I'll tell it you,' she said. So they agreed to wait till then. CHAPTER XI. THE PINCUSHION MANUFACTORY. [Illustration: Decorative A] [Illustration: THEY FOUND A NOOK ... TO EAT THEIR DINNER IN.] fter a while the three children had had enough of climbing and scrambling about, besides which they began to feel hungry. They found a nook which, as Philippa said, 'seemed made on purpose to eat their dinner in,' and there they comfortably established themselves for that purpose. Dinner over, Kathleen reminded Philippa of her dream. 'Oh yes,' said the little girl, 'it really was a very funny one. I thought I was at school, and Miss Fraser was calling to Kathie and me to be quick, and just as we ran out of the room--which had turned into Kathie's room at Ty-gwyn, only that there were seats all round like a railway-carriage, and the door was like a railway-carriage door--Kathie's frock tore, and she called to me for a pin. I put my hand into my pocket to feel for my little pincushion, which I always keep there, and my pocket was all full of some sort of stuff like--like'-- 'Like feathers,' said Kathie; 'it was my telling you about the pillows.' 'No,' Philippa went on, 'it wasn't like feathers--it was more powdery.' 'Like dried rose-leaves?' again suggested Kathie. 'What aunty calls "pot-pourri." We were talking of the scent of it last night.' 'Oh, Kathie, do be quiet!' said Neville. 'You can't always explain dreams like that--indeed, you very seldom can.' 'Bits of them you very often can,' Kathleen maintained. 'But it wasn't dried rose-leaves either,' said Philippa. 'I remember the feeling of it in my fingers. If I remember afterwards what it was like, I'll tell you. Well, I pulled my hand out again, and I found I was holding something--not my pincushion. The thing was a little book, only it wasn't made of paper, but of lovely bits of silk, all fastened together, for the leaves. And the funniest thing was that though they were of all sorts of patterns and colours, there seemed to be words on them all, which you could read through the patterns somehow. I fancied that the words on the first page were, "For dear mamma, from her loving Philippa;" and immediately I called out, "Oh, Kathie, see! it's a present for me to send to mamma, only I haven't made it myself." Still I went on turning the leaves. I can't remember any of the words on them till I came to the last, and on it I read, "Look in the----" and then it seemed all a muddle, only I knew it meant the place where the will was. I tried and tried to read it, but I couldn't; and then I called to Kathie to try, and I suppose I must have really made a little squeak in my sleep, for just as I thought I was calling her very loud, I woke.' 'And all the time I was waiting for the pin,' said Kathleen. 'Well, yes, it was a very queer dream, though I could explain a good deal of it. You see, you'-- But Neville put his fingers in his ears. 'We don't want it explained,' he said. 'It's much more interesting to fancy what it could mean--like--like the dreams in the Bible, you know.' 'You're very irreverent, Neville,' said Kathie. 'I'm not,' said Neville. 'Dreams do come sometimes that mean things.' 'But I _can't_ think what the stuff in my pocket could be,' said Philippa; and neither of the others could help her to an idea. 'I think,' said Neville, 'we'd better be going on to old Davis's. It's about twenty minutes' walk from here.' 'Very well,' said the little girls; and they set off, Philippa declaring that she was now 'quite, quite rested.' They were heartily welcomed at Dol-bach. Mr. Davis introduced his wife, who was as pleasant-looking for an old woman as he for an old man. He had been 'hoping they'd look in some of these days,' he said; and Mrs. Davis had evidently heard all about them, though she, and Mr. Davis too for that matter, looked puzzled as to where Philippa had come from. They were very much interested to hear all about her, and congratulated her on having had a pleasanter ending to her journey than had fallen to the share of her friends. 'It didn't seem so far a way from Hafod to Ty-gwyn yesterday as in the carrier's cart, did it, sir?' said Davis to Neville. 'But the road's a deal better than in my young days; and Mrs. Wynne, she's many a time told us how her mother--the Captain's great-aunt she'd be--never went to Hafod but once a year, and thought a long time about it before she did that. She was a clever lady too--you'll have seen the chairs she worked--wasn't it chairs?' he added, turning to his wife. 'Yes, indeed,' she said. 'Your aunty's not showed them to you? Ah, well, she must feel it hard, things being as they are. But our lady,--that's what we call Mrs. Wynne,--she was handy with her fingers too. I can show you the present she brought me last Christmas as ever was.' 'Oh, yes!' Kathie exclaimed. 'The pincushion! Mr. Davis told us of it.' It was duly fetched and exhibited. It was rather a new-fashioned kind of pincushion, being one of those made out of a small cigar-box, which served for box and pincushion at once. It was most neatly made, covered with rich and uncommon-looking brocaded satin, which Mrs. Davis eyed with great approval, and edged with a narrow frill of old thread lace. [Illustration] 'Such a useful shape, too,' said Mrs. Davis; 'I'd never seen one like it before, but Mrs. Wynne told me she'd covered a many. The old silk was a piece of a gown of her mother's. I believe there's some fine things of the old lady's still at Ty-gwyn.' 'Yes, aunty has some lovely pieces; she's promised to show us them,' said Kathie. 'Perhaps she'll give us some, Phil.' Philippa looked up eagerly at this. She had been examining the pincushion with the greatest attention. 'Do you think she would perhaps, really?' she asked, when they were on their way home, having promised Mr. and Mrs. Davis to come to see them again some day soon. 'I daresay she would,' said Kathleen. 'Why are you in such a fuss about it, Phil?' 'Oh, because--because,' said the little girl, 'I _have_ got such an idea into my head. If I could but manage it! Do you think, Kathie, I could possibly make a pincushion like that to send to mamma for her birthday? It would be so beautiful!' 'I don't see why you shouldn't,' said Kathie; 'I don't think it would be so very difficult. And I'm almost sure aunty would give you some bits.' 'If I had one very pretty piece for the top,' said Philippa, 'a plainer kind would do to frill round it, and _quite_ plain would do to line it--just silk that one could get in any shop. And I could get some lace that would do very well. I have some money, you know. Couldn't we write to some shop in London?' 'I should think so. And you'd have to get some stuff to scent it--that one was scented, didn't you notice? What fun it would be to make it! If I had anybody to make one for, I'd like to make one too.' 'Kathie!' Philippa exclaimed, 'you have your own mamma!' 'Oh, but,' said Kathleen, blushing a little, 'I don't remember her, you see. I've never made her anything. It's different from you. Still--if I thought she'd like it. She's often written about my learning to sew and to be neat-handed, and I don't like that sort of thing, so I never answer that part of her letters.' 'It would be _very_ nice for you to make her something, to show her you are neat-handed. Wouldn't it, Neville? Don't you think so too?' asked Philippa. 'Yes,' Neville replied. 'I think it would be very nice. Only there's one difficulty--where are you to get the boxes? There must be a box for that kind of pincushion.' Philippa's face fell; but Kathie's, on the contrary, brightened up. 'I know,' she said. 'I have an idea. But I won't tell you just yet. Leave it to me, Philippa--you'll see.' 'But, Kathie,' said the little girl plaintively, 'you won't forget, will you? You so often do, you know. I've only a fortnight before the box goes. Uncle and grandmamma had got it nearly all ready before she got ill; there are books and lots of things going out to papa, that can't wait. And if I can't do the pincushion, I must think of something else.' 'Oh, I won't forget,' said Kathie confidently. 'The first wet day--and it's sure to be rain again soon; that's how it does in these hilly places; it's never long the same thing. Well, the first wet day, it would be a capital way of getting through the time to make pincushions.' Philippa said nothing, but Neville noticed that her little face still looked dissatisfied. 'Never mind, Philippa,' he whispered; 'she's only teasing you. I'll see that she doesn't forget. And if she can't get a box for you, I'll try if I can't.' 'Thank you, Neville! oh, thank you so much!' said Philippa fervently, drawing a deep breath. 'How I wish you were my brother!' Kathleen caught the last word. 'That's always the way,' she said. 'Perhaps if he was your brother, he wouldn't be so nice to you as he is.' Kathie was in one of her mischievous, teasing moods, and when this was the case she said things she did not really mean. But Philippa was rather matter-of-fact. She looked quite distressed. 'Oh, Kathie!' she began. 'Well?' said Kathie. 'You don't really mean that, do you? I know you've often told me that Neville was a _very_ good brother to you. I'm sure she doesn't really mean it, Neville.' Neville smiled at her anxious little face. 'No, I'm sure she doesn't,' he said. 'It is a shame of you to tease Phil, Kathie. You've made her look quite troubled, poor child.' 'I'm very sorry,' said Kathleen. 'Phil isn't to look troubled _once_ the whole time she's here. Tell me, dear, what can I do to make up for teasing you?' Philippa slipped her hand through Kathie's arm. 'Kathie,' she said, 'if you would but see about the pincushions without waiting for a wet day. Now I've got it into my head, I do so want to do it. And I think it would take a good while to make, do you know--longer than you think, to do it quite neatly.' 'Very well, you little fusser,' said Kathie. 'I'll see what I can do. But mind, I'm not going to be mewed up sewing and bothering at pincushions all day, if it's beautiful, fine weather like this.' 'I don't want you to do anything of the kind,' said Philippa. 'That's why it's so much better not to put off about it. We can take several days to them, and do a little every day.' 'Humph!' was Kathleen's reply. 'Why do you say that?' asked Philippa. 'Oh,' said Kathie, 'I know what your "doing a little bit every day" means. I know it of old. When she gets a thing in her head, Neville, she fidgets at it till it's done, and won't give herself any peace.' 'Well, then, Kathie,' said Philippa, 'I just promise you I won't do that way about the pincushion, if only you'll set my mind at rest by helping me to get it begun.' And she looked so pitiful, speaking in her quaint, earnest way, that Kathleen could not help kissing her, and promising to do what she could at once. That evening, after tea, Kathie touched her aunt's arm as they were leaving the dining-room. 'I want to speak to you a moment, aunty,' she said, and Miss Clotilda turned back with her. 'Do you remember, aunty,' she said, 'that one day, when I first came, you said you would show me some of the pieces of old silk and things of Mrs. Wynne's? And I think you said you'd give me one or two. Would you let us see them? And do you think you could give Phil some? She's taken such a fancy in her head;' and Kathie went on to explain about the box going out to India, and the pincushion old Mrs. Davis had shown them, which Philippa so much wished to copy for her mother. 'And,' Kathie went on, 'I've another idea too. We were thinking it would be very difficult to get a box to make it with. That morning when the cupboard was left open in my room, I saw several old pincushions that you said you had meant to cover fresh. Might, oh! _might_ we have two of them? We could easily get some plain thin silk for lining them with--Phil has some money, and I have a very little--if some of the nice old pieces would do for the outside.' Miss Clotilda looked a little bewildered. 'Two, my dear?' she said. 'I thought it was Philippa who wanted to make one. Do you want one too?' Kathie blushed a little. 'They said,' she began, 'Neville and Phil said, it would be so nice if I made one for mamma too. I've never made her anything--I don't like sewing, you know, aunty, and she's always writing about things like that.' Miss Clotilda patted Kathie's head. 'Yes, dear,' she said; 'I do think it would be very nice indeed. I am sure it would please your mamma. I am almost sure I can give you two of the soiled ones that you can undo and cover and line freshly. If you undo them carefully, you will see exactly how they are made without my helping you. You would rather make them all by yourselves, would you not?' 'Yes,' said Kathie, 'if we can. It would be much nicer, as they are to be presents to our mothers. Thank you _so_ much, aunty.' 'I will bring down the bundle of old pieces this evening, if you like,' Miss Clotilda went on. 'I know exactly where they are; I can put my hand upon them in a moment. It will amuse us to look them over and choose which will do.' And the kind creature set off up-stairs at once to fetch them, while Kathie, overjoyed, ran to tell Philippa the success of her application. The pieces of silk proved quite as interesting as they expected. 'It reminds me,' said Miss Clotilda, with a smile, 'of Mrs. Goodrich in "The Fairchild Family," a story I read when I was little, when she gave Bessy and Lucy and Emily each two pieces of old brocaded silk or satin as a test of their neat-handedness. You have never seen the book, but it was a very favourite one of mine as a child.' And she went on to tell them the rest of the story of the patches of silk, how the good little girls turned theirs to purpose, and how the poor naughty girl threw a bottle of ink over hers. 'Poor naughty girl!' said Kathie. 'I am afraid I must be rather like her, aunty. And Philippa is like all the good little girls rolled into one. Oh, aunty! what a lovely piece that is!' [Illustration] It was a narrow satin and silk stripe of a curious salmon colour, and here and there were little daisies embroidered in gold thread. There was another pale grey satin, with wreaths of flowers running all over it, which was greatly to Philippa's taste; and as there was enough for the purpose of each of these, Miss Clotilda gave them to the children. Then a letter had to be written to be sent by the carrier to the draper's at Hafod, where Mrs. Wynne had always dealt, to order a yard of plain rose-coloured silk for Philippa, and the same quantity of white for Kathie, as linings for both pincushions. A contrast would be best, Miss Clotilda told them, as it was all but impossible to match the strange and delicate shades of the old silks, except perhaps in very rich and expensive materials. Bedtime had come before all this was done, and the children went off to dream of 'flowered padusoy,' and pearl-grey satins 'that would stand alone.' Miss Clotilda had some difficulty the next morning in persuading them to go for a walk early and not to set to work till later. 'It will be very hot this afternoon,' she said. 'Indeed, I think there is thunder not far off. You will have a nice quiet time for getting to work after dinner, and I will look out the old pincushions this morning.' They set off, though rather reluctantly, for Kathie, now that she had taken up the idea, was more full of it than even Philippa. And she was much less ready than Philippa to yield her wishes and opinions to those of others. It did not rain that afternoon, but, as Miss Clotilda had foreseen, it was very hot. And the children, all three--for Neville too seemed bitten by the pincushion mania--found it very pleasant to sit round a table in the nice cool library, busy with their work. There was not much they could do at first beyond unpicking and measuring. Miss Clotilda had given them two of the pincushions out of the cupboard, and, as Philippa had foreseen, when they came to take them carefully to pieces, they found that there would really be more work to do than they had expected. 'What patience Mrs. Wynne must have had,' said Kathie, 'to do them so beautifully! Did you ever see anything so neat? Just look at the hemming of this frill, Phil.' Philippa took it up to admire. 'We might hem our frills this afternoon,' she said, 'and then to-morrow, when we have the silk from Hafod, we can go on with the linings.' 'I do hope to-morrow will be a wet day,' said Kathie. 'We could get on so splendidly if it were.' Neville looked up suddenly from one of the now uncovered pincushions which he had been examining. 'You've forgotten about the scent,' he said. 'No, we haven't,' said Kathleen. 'Aunty has some sachet-powder she is going to give us.' 'And I'll tell you what,' he went on, 'you'd better get some fresh bran. This cushion does smell a little musty, and it won't be much trouble to unfasten it from the top of the box, and fill it fresh. Look, it's only tacked down at the corners. The silk top keeps it in its place. Mrs. Wynne must have been a faddy old lady. Just see--there's a sheet of note-paper under the cushion--and the date she made it.' He drew out the paper as he spoke. On it was written, as he said, the date, 'Ty-gwyn, January 24th, 1865.' 'What a good plan!' said Philippa; 'the thick paper keeps it all so nice and even--perhaps she did it for that too. Let us put papers in ours with the date, Kathie. Perhaps our great-grandchildren will find them some day. We'd better put our names too.' Kathie had no objection. And Neville very good-naturedly went off to the 'shop' to get some nice bran, to be ready for to-morrow. CHAPTER XII. FOUND. [Illustration: Decorative I] t actually rained the next day! 'Who would have thought it?' said Kathie, with a face of great content. 'The weather so seldom does what one wants.' 'We can set to work immediately after breakfast,' said Philippa. For the rose-coloured silk and the white had come from Hafod the evening before, 'just what one wanted,' and Miss Clotilda had given them the satchet-powder, and had promised to look out some lace that would do for edging. 'We have got everything right now,' the little girl went on, her eyes sparkling. So they established themselves in the library, with a newspaper spread out on the table to catch all the shreds and cuttings. 'And the bran,' added Neville, as he brought in a paper bag filled with the article in question. 'Bran's awfully messy stuff.' He opened the bag as he spoke, and plunged his hand in. 'I like the feeling of it,' he said. Philippa stood gazing at the paper bag. 'Is that bran?' she said, 'Let me feel it too. I didn't know bran was like that,' she went on; 'I thought it was something like cotton-wool.' 'Oh, you silly girl,' said Kathie, but Neville checked her. 'How should she know?' he said. 'She's never been in England till this year.' But Philippa was not attending. She had pulled back her sleeve, and had plunged her arm into the bag. 'Kathie,' she said, '_that's_ the stuff my pocket was filled with in my dream. _Isn't_ it funny? For I didn't know about making the pincushions then--and I didn't know till this minute what bran was like.' She was quite excited about it, and the others agreed it was very curious. But the work soon engrossed them all. Neville had something to do too this morning. He took charge of emptying the cushions of the old bran, and re-filling them, and most interesting work he found it, the first part especially. He shook out the cushions on to another newspaper, and for some minutes did not speak. Then Kathie looked round and asked him what he was doing. 'Oh,' he said, 'this is such jolly fun! Just look here, Kathie and Phil,' and he pointed to a row of needles and a few pins at the side of his newspaper. 'I've found all these in the bran. And I expect there are a lot more, and some ends of old brooch pins--looks like real gold,' he went on, holding up one--'it's as good as a hunt. You have to spread the stuff out quite thin and flat, and even then you've no idea how the needles hide. Hullo! here's another.' [Illustration] Kathie and Philippa watched him for a few moments. 'Yes,' said Kathie, 'it's very interesting. But we must get on with our work. And when are you going to fill the cushions with the new bran for us, Neville? I can stitch them up as soon as they are filled, and we must put a little bag in near the top with the scent-powder, Phil.' 'They won't take five minutes to do,' said Neville. 'Will you fetch me a big spoon, Kathie? It'll make less mess.' And in a very few minutes, as he said, the cushions were filled. Then Neville went back to his needle-hunt, and for a quarter of an hour or so he was quite silent. Then he began to fidget. 'I wish I had some more to do,' he said. 'Kathie, hasn't aunty any more to be made over?' Kathie shook her head. 'No; the other two she wants to keep as they are for the present, she says,' Kathie replied. 'I've finished this stuff,' said Neville. 'Here--you may divide the needles among you. There are more than thirty. I'm going to keep these brooch pins to test if they're pure gold. Oh, I wish it would leave off raining!' Suddenly he jumped up and ran out of the room. In about ten minutes he was back again, another old pincushion and two or three pieces of silk in his hand. 'Aunty says I may undo this one,' he said, waving it over his head. 'It's the one out of my own room. I just remembered it was very shabby, and aunty says I may undo it and fill it fresh, if one of you girls will help me to cover the top again. The frill isn't the same silk, you see, and it isn't dirty--the top's all pin-holed. I expect there'll be a jolly good lot of needles in this one. Here goes!' And he took the scissors and began to unpick it. 'How funny you are, Neville!' said Kathie. 'You're quite excited over your needle-hunting. Now just see here, Phil; should we turn in the inside lining or tack it down _outside_?' and a discussion ensued between the two girls, and they paid no more attention to Neville. On his side he was very quiet for some minutes. Neither Kathleen nor Philippa heard a curious sound--a sort of smothered exclamation--which escaped him. Nor did his sister notice that he had left his seat and was standing beside her, till he touched her on the arm. 'Kathie,' he said, and his voice sounded strange and almost hoarse, and Kathie, looking up, saw that he was deadly pale. 'Oh, Neville,' she exclaimed, 'what is the matter? Have you swallowed a needle?' He could scarcely help smiling. 'Nonsense, Kathie,' he said. 'Nothing's the matter. It is this,' and he held out a sheet of note-paper, with some writing on it. The paper looked rather yellow, and was marked here and there at the edges as if it had been stitched. 'This is the paper that was in my pincushion, just like the others. It was meant to have the date upon it, I suppose. But it isn't that--look what it is instead. I can scarcely believe it. I feel as if I was dreaming. I want you to read the words.' And Kathie read--though with some difficulty, for she too felt as if she were dreaming, and the lines danced before her eyes. They were very few, however, and very legible, in Mrs. Wynne's clear, precise handwriting. 'My will, and some other papers of less importance, will be found in the plate-chest--containing the best silver--underneath the lining of green baize in the bottom of the box. The lining is only tacked in and will be easily removed. 'DAVIDA WYNNE.' Kathie, without speaking, turned the sheet of paper round. On the other side was written, what Neville had not noticed, a date, 'Ty-gwyn, May 15th, 1859,' just as there had been in the other pincushions, only this was an older one. Kathie's eyes sparkled, and the power of speech seemed to return to her. 'Yes,' she said, 'she had thought this was a blank sheet, and she put the blank sheet in the envelope of "directions," and sealed it up, by mistake. Neville, Neville, Phil, it's _it_!' Neville was trembling so, he could scarcely stand. 'What shall we do?' he said. 'I can't bear to risk any more disappointment for aunty. If we could look ourselves, first, but we can't. Suppose it isn't there after all--or suppose it doesn't leave things as they think. She may have changed--Mrs. Wynne, I mean.' 'No,' said Kathleen, 'I'm not afraid of the will _if it's there_. Mrs. Wynne told aunty almost the last thing that it would be all right. But she may have changed the place of keeping it--though it's not likely. I'll tell you what, Neville--I'll ask aunty if she has ever looked in that plate-chest, and see what she says.' 'Yes,' said Neville, who was recovering his composure by now. 'We might do that. It would make it less of a disappointment if it _weren't_ there.' 'Oh,' said Kathie, 'we could get her to show us the plate-chest even without that. Yes--that will be best. I'm sure I can manage it.' 'But then,' said Neville, 'we'd have to tell her about this paper all the same. We couldn't conceal it.' 'No; but don't you see that there would be no _disappointment_ about it. She would know at once that it wasn't there before she could hope or wonder about it. I don't think she could bear any more "hoping," Neville.' 'No,' he agreed, 'I don't think she could.' And he felt both pleased and surprised at Kathie's womanly thoughtfulness for her aunt. 'We _can't_ work any more till we know for sure about it,' said little Phil. 'Oh, Kathie, do settle something quickly.' 'I'm going to,' said Kathie. 'Put all our things together neatly, Phil. I'll be back in a minute.' And in less than five she was back. 'Phil, Neville,' she called out, 'you're to come up-stairs to the locked-up room where aunty keeps the best linen, and the best china, and the best silver. Aunty's going to show it all to us because it's a wet day, and we don't want to work any more.' 'It is better not to tire yourselves over the pincushions,' said Miss Clotilda's gentle voice behind her, 'and you will have all the afternoon for them. I am sure it is not going to clear. So come along. I have got my keys. It is a very good idea of yours, Kathie.' Up jumped Neville and Phil. Kathie was already nearly at the top of the staircase, Miss Clotilda following more slowly. From the long passage which ran almost the length of the house on the first floor, she led the way down a shorter one, then up a little flight of steps ending in a small landing where there were two doors. Miss Clotilda pointed to one on the right. 'That was the old butler's room,' she said. 'He left last year, for he was too old to work and he would not rest while here.' 'Is he dead?' asked Neville. 'Yes,' she replied; 'he died a week or so before Mrs. Wynne did. I have often thought,' she added, with a sigh, 'that he might have known something had he been alive.' She chose a key and opened the other door. It led into a fair-sized room. All round three sides were large cupboards; one or two big cases stood on the floor, and at one side were two strongly-made wooden chests. 'The linen is in those cupboards,' Miss Clotilda went on, 'and the best china near the window. In those boxes there are some new blankets and counterpanes that Mrs. Wynne never saw. They had just been ordered. And those are the two plate chests. Nearly all the silver is laid away.' Kathie looked at Neville. 'Best and every-day silver all together?' 'Oh, no,' said Miss Clotilda. 'The _best_ is in this one,' and she touched it; 'the other was only brought up here for greater security when Mrs Wynne died, and I had to stay on here alone with Martha. Now, what shall I show you first, children? The china, perhaps, would please you the most?' 'No, thank you, aunty,' said Neville and Kathleen; 'please show us the best silver first.' Miss Clotilda looked a little surprised. 'Well, I daresay, it _is_ interesting,' she said. 'There are some very curious old things.' She chose another key as she spoke, and in another moment the lock, which was an excellent one, though very old, was opened. Inside, the chest was divided into several compartments, all lined with green baize; all filled with every kind of silver articles, carefully enveloped in tissue paper. 'You may lift out a tray at a time,' his aunt said to Neville; 'it is astonishing how many there are, and what that box will hold.' Neville obeyed, indeed he did more than obey; he went on lifting out tray after tray, and placing them in rows on the floor. 'Stop, my dear boy,' said Miss Clotilda, 'let us look at one at a time. You will cover the floor with them--and'-- 'Let me take all out,' said Neville. 'I want to get to the bottom of the box. I know how to put them back again.' Miss Clotilda said no more. Kathie and Philippa came to Neville and peered into the chest. [Illustration: 'THAT IS ALL,' SAID NEVILLE.] 'That is all,' said Neville. He had grown very pale again, but his aunt did not notice it. Kathie leant over and felt at the bottom. 'It is soft down here,' she said. 'Is there nothing underneath, aunty?' 'There is a thin cushion. The baize is lined with cotton-wool,' Miss Clotilda replied. 'Some of the trays are the same.' But Kathie kept feeling about. 'Neville,' she whispered, 'try if you can't pull up one corner. It seems loose. I'll keep aunty from looking.' She turned to Miss Clotilda, who was already unwrapping some of the papers, with some little question about their contents. Neville bent down over the chest without speaking. [Illustration] Suddenly he gave a sort of smothered cry, and the little girls looking round saw that he held something in his hand--two things indeed--two packets, not very thick, but long and flat, both sealed and both labelled in clear writing--the one 'Various papers, inventories, &c., to be looked over by David and Clotilda Powys,' and the other--oh, the other! 'My last Will and Testament.' Neville could not speak. Kathie flew forward. 'Tell her!' he half whispered. _How_ they told her they could not afterwards recollect. The wits and perceptions are strangely sharpened on some occasions. I suspect very little 'telling' was required, though of course when their aunt had somewhat recovered from the first overwhelming surprise and joy, she was deeply interested in the history of the sheet of paper, and touched by the children's thought for her. Some hours of suspense had still to be endured, for Miss Clotilda would not open the precious packet except in presence of the lawyer, and Neville was sent off at once to Boyneth to telegraph for him to Hafod, and to beg him to come at once. He came that very afternoon, and then indeed all doubts were set at rest. All proved to be as had been expected, and as Mrs. Wynne had always led her relations to believe would be the case. Everything was provided for, nobody was forgotten; the legacy which Mr. Wynne-Carr had reason to look for was to be his, so that no ill-feeling would be caused to any one. 'Yes, it is most fair and satisfactory in every particular,' said Mr. Price, the lawyer, 'if only my respected friend, Mrs. Wynne, had been less obstinate and eccentric in insisting on keeping the document in her possession! What trouble it would have saved!' 'But,' said Kathie, whom even Mr. Pryce's presence did not overawe, 'I don't think we should have cared about it at all as much as we do if we had never known what it was to lose it;' and in this Miss Clotilda and Neville, and Philippa, who seemed to have become quite one of them, agreed, though as for Mr. Pryce's opinion I cannot take upon myself to answer. He was honestly delighted, however, and went off that evening laden with directions of all kinds, among them a telegram to be despatched to India at once, 'regardless of expense':-- 'From Clotilda Powys, to Captain Powys, 200th regt. 'Will found. All right. Arrange to come home as soon as possible.' Those, I think, were the words it contained. 'And oh, aunty,' said Kathie, dancing with delight, 'just _fancy_ what papa and mamma will think when they read it. Phil, why don't you look happy? What are you so grave about?' The little girl blushed. 'I don't mean to be selfish,' she said, 'but--I would so like to go on making my pincushion. You know I've only about ten days more to make it in.' 'Of course you shall, my dear,' said Miss Clotilda. 'Selfish! No indeed, that you are not. And but for you, I do not believe we should ever have found the will at all.' Philippa looked intensely pleased. 'I always had a feeling it was in the house,' she said. 'And then my dream was very queer. But it wasn't much good, for it was such a muddle.' 'Dreams generally are,' said Miss Clotilda. 'No, I wasn't thinking of your dream. It was your wishing to make something for your mother in the first place'-- 'And our going to Dol-bach and seeing the pincushion there, and our travelling with the farmer, and my seeing the old ones in the cupboard--_that_ came of my not posting the letter to aunty, so that our trunks hadn't come, and aunty had to open the cupboard to get out a night-gown for me--and--and--oh, dear, how strange it seems! Really as if it was a good thing I forgot to post the letter.' Miss Clotilda could not help smiling. 'Don't let that encourage you to think carelessness of any kind "a good thing," my dear Kathie,' she said, 'even though good does sometimes come of ill.' 'And it was a _sort_ of carelessness that caused all the trouble, you see. If the old lady--old Mrs. Wynne--had only looked at the paper before she put it in the envelope, there wouldn't have been any, would there?' said Philippa, in her little prim way. 'Poor Mrs. Wynne!' said Miss Clotilda. 'She would have been the last to wish to cause any of us any trouble.' 'Well, all's well that ends well, aunty,' said Neville cheerily. 'We have nothing but nice and jolly things to think of now. Do let us talk about how soon papa and mamma can possibly get home.' 'All's well that ends well,' as Neville said, and what is more, when 'all is well,' there is very little to tell about it. Sooner almost than could have been hoped for came a telegram in reply from Captain Powys, announcing the date at which he and the children's mother and little sister might be expected. The leaves were still on the trees, and Ty-gwyn looking _almost_ as pretty as in full summer when the travellers arrived to find Kathleen still with her aunt, though poor little Philippa had had to go back to school at the end of the holidays. But she came to see her friends again before long, and this time for more than a visit, for it had been arranged that during the three years of her parents' absence she was to live with the Powyses altogether, and share Kathie's lessons. So Miss Clotilda's pleasant castles in the air came to be realized. I doubt if any happier family was to be found _anywhere_ than the good people, big and little, in the old white house near the sea, that Christmas when Neville came home for his holidays, to find them all there together. And in one corner of the library, under a glass shade and on a little stand all to itself, is a queer old-fashioned-looking sort of box, covered in faded silk, and seemingly rather out of place among the pretty things with which the room is adorned. But no one thinks it out of place when its history is told, and it is known to be the old pincushion, the _very_ identical old pincushion, which for so many years had held the secret of the missing will! [Illustration] 
30974	----	JIMBO MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA · MADRAS MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO DALLAS · ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LIMITED TORONTO JIMBO A FANTASY _By_ ALGERNON BLACKWOOD MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1930 COPYRIGHT _First Published_ 1909 _The Caravan Library_ 1930 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. "RABBITS" 7 II. MISS LAKE COMES--AND GOES 24 III. THE SHOCK 40 IV. ON THE EDGE OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS 49 V. INTO THE EMPTY HOUSE 54 VI. HIS COMPANION IN PRISON 69 VII. THE SPELL OF THE EMPTY HOUSE 87 VIII. THE GALLERY OF ANCIENT MEMORIES 102 IX. THE MEANS OF ESCAPE 111 X. THE PLUNGE 131 XI. THE FIRST FLIGHT 142 XII. THE FOUR WINDS 153 XIII. PLEASURES OF FLIGHT 165 XIV. AN ADVENTURE 177 XV. THE CALL OF THE BODY 193 XVI. PREPARATION 204 XVII. OFF! 219 XVIII. HOME 232 JIMBO CHAPTER I "RABBITS" Jimbo's governess ought to have known better--but she didn't. If she had, Jimbo would never have met with the adventures that subsequently came to him. Thus, in a roundabout sort of way, the child ought to have been thankful to the governess; and perhaps, in a roundabout sort of way, he was. But that comes at the far end of the story, and is doubtful at best; and in the meanwhile the child had gone through his suffering, and the governess had in some measure expiated her fault; so that at this stage it is only necessary to note that the whole business began because the Empty House happened to be really an Empty House--not the one Jimbo's family lived in, but another of which more will be known in due course. Jimbo's father was a retired Colonel, who had married late in life, and now lived all the year round in the country; and Jimbo was the youngest child but one. The Colonel, lean in body as he was sincere in mind, an excellent soldier but a poor diplomatist, loved dogs, horses, guns and riding-whips. He also really understood them. His neighbours, had they been asked, would have called him hard-headed, and so far as a soft-hearted man may deserve the title, he probably was. He rode two horses a day to hounds with the best of them, and the stiffer the country the better he liked it. Besides his guns, dogs and horses, he was also very fond of his children. It was his hobby that he understood them far better than his wife did, or than any one else did, for that matter. The proper evolution of their differing temperaments had no difficulties for him. The delicate problems of child-nature, which defy solution by nine parents out of ten, ceased to exist the moment he spread out his muscular hand in a favourite omnipotent gesture and uttered some extraordinarily foolish generality in that thunderous, good-natured voice of his. The difficulty for himself vanished when he ended up with the words, "Leave that to me, my dear; believe me, I know best!" But for all else concerned, and especially for the child under discussion, this was when the difficulty really began. Since, however, the Colonel, after this chapter, mounts his best hunter and disappears over a high hedge into space so far as our story is concerned, any further delineation of his wholesome but very ordinary type is unnecessary. One winter's evening, not very long after Christmas, the Colonel made a discovery. It alarmed him a little; for it suggested to his cocksure mind that he did not understand _all_ his children as comprehensively as he imagined. Between five o'clock tea and dinner--that magic hour when lessons were over and the big house was full of shadows and mystery--there came a timid knock at the study door. "Come in," growled the soldier in his deepest voice, and a little girl's face, wreathed in tumbling brown hair, poked itself hesitatingly through the opening. The Colonel did not like being disturbed at this hour, and everybody in the house knew it; but the spell of Christmas holidays was still somehow in the air, and the customary order was not yet fully re-established. Moreover, when he saw who the intruder was, his growl modified itself into a sort of common sternness that yet was not cleverly enough simulated to deceive the really intuitive little person who now stood inside the room. "Well, Nixie, child, what do you want now?" "Please, father, will you--we wondered if----" A chorus of whispers issued from the other side of the door: "Go on, silly!" "Out with it!" "You promised you would, Nixie." "... if you would come and play Rabbits with us?" came the words in a desperate rush, with laughter not far behind. The big man with the fierce white moustaches glared over the top of his glasses at the intruders as if amazed beyond belief at the audacity of the request. "Rabbits!" he exclaimed, as though the mere word ought to have caused an instant explosion. "Rabbits!" "Oh, _please_ do." "Rabbits at this time of night!" he repeated. "I never heard of such a thing. Why, all good rabbits are asleep in their holes by now. And you ought to be in yours too by rights, I'm sure." "We don't sleep in holes, father," said the owner of the brown hair, who was acting as leader. "And there's still a nour before bedtime, _really_," added a voice in the rear. The big man slowly put his glasses down and looked at his watch. He looked very savage, but of course it was all pretence, and the children knew it. "If he was _really_ cross he'd pretend to be nice," they whispered to each other, with merciless perception. "Well--" he began. But he who hesitates, with children, is lost. The door flung open wide, and the troop poured into the room in a medley of long black legs, flying hair and outstretched hands. They surrounded the table, swarmed upon his big knees, shut his stupid old book, tried on his glasses, kissed him, and fell to discussing the game breathlessly all at once, as though it had already begun. This, of course, ended the battle, and the big man had to play the part of the Monster Rabbit in a wonderful game of his own invention. But when, at length, it was all over, and they were gathered panting round the fire of blazing logs in the hall, the Monster Rabbit--the only one with any breath at his command--looked up and spoke. "Where's Jimbo?" he asked. "Upstairs." "Why didn't he come and play too?" "He didn't want to." "Why? What's he doing?" Several answers were forthcoming. "Nothing in p'tickler." "Talking to the furniture when I last saw him." "Just thinking, as usual, or staring in the fire." None of the answers seemed to satisfy the Monster Rabbit, for when he kissed them a little later and said good-night, he gave orders, with a graver face, for Jimbo to be sent down to the study before he went to bed. Moreover, he called him "James," which was a sure sign of parental displeasure. "James, why didn't you come and play with your brothers and sisters just now?" asked the Colonel, as a dreamy-eyed boy of about eight, with a mop of dark hair and a wistful expression, came slowly forward into the room. "I was in the middle of making pictures." "Where--what--making pictures?" "In the fire." "James," said the Colonel in a serious tone, "don't you know that you are getting too old now for that sort of thing? If you dream so much, you'll fall asleep altogether some fine day, and never wake up again. Just think what that means!" The child smiled faintly and moved up confidingly between his father's knees, staring into his eyes without the least sign of fear. But he said nothing in reply. His thoughts were far away, and it seemed as if the effort to bring them back into the study and to a consideration of his father's words was almost beyond his power. "You must run about more," pursued the soldier, rubbing his big hands together briskly, "and join your brothers and sisters in their games. Lie about in the summer and dream a bit if you like, but now it's winter, you must be more active, and make your blood circulate healthily,--er--and all that sort of thing." The words were kindly spoken, but the voice and manner rather deliberate. Jimbo began to look a little troubled, as his father watched him. "Come now, little man," he said more gently, "what's the matter, eh?" He drew the boy close to him. "Tell me all about it, and what it is you're always thinking about so much." Jimbo brought back his mind with a tremendous effort, and said, "I don't like the winter. It's so dark and full of horrid things. It's all ice and shadows, so--so I go away and think of what I like, and other places----" "Nonsense!" interrupted his father briskly; "winter's a capital time for boys. What in the world d'ye mean, I wonder?" He lifted the child on to his knee and stroked his hair, as though he were patting the flank of a horse. Jimbo took no notice of the interruption or of the caress, but went on saying what he had to say, though with eyes a little more clouded. "Winter's like going into a long black tunnel, you see. It's downhill to Christmas, of course, and then uphill all the way to the summer holidays. But the uphill part's so slow that----" "Tut, tut!" laughed the Colonel in spite of himself; "you mustn't have such thoughts. Those are a baby's notions. They're silly, silly, silly." "Do you _really_ think so, father?" continued the boy, as if politeness demanded some recognition of his father's remarks, but otherwise anxious only to say what was in his mind. "You wouldn't think them silly if you really knew. But, of course, there's no one to tell you in the stable, so you _can't_ know. You've never seen the funny big people rushing past you and laughing through their long hair when the wind blows so loud. _I_ know several of them almost to speak to, but you hear only wind. And the other things with tiny legs that skate up and down the slippery moonbeams, without ever tumbling off--they aren't silly a bit, only they don't like dogs and noise. And I've seen the furniture"--he pronounced it furchinur--"dancing about in the day-nursery when it thought it was alone, and I've heard it talking at night. I know the big cupboard's voice quite well. It's just like a drum, only rougher...." The Colonel shook his head and frowned severely, staring hard at his son. But though their eyes met, the boy hardly saw him. Far away at the other end of the dark Tunnel of the Months he saw the white summer sunshine lying over gardens full of nodding flowers. Butterflies were flitting across meadows yellow with buttercups, and he saw the fascinating rings upon the lawn where the Fairy People held their dances in the moonlight; he heard the wind call to him as it ran on along by the hedgerows, and saw the gentle pressure of its swift feet upon the standing hay; streams were murmuring under shady trees; birds were singing; and there were echoes of sweeter music still that he could not understand, but loved all the more perhaps on that account.... "Yes," announced the Colonel later that evening to his wife, spreading his hands out as he spoke. "Yes, my dear, I _have_ made a discovery, and an alarming one. You know, I'm rarely at fault where the children are concerned--and I've noted all the symptoms with unusual care. James, my dear, is an imaginative boy." He paused to note the effect of his words, but seeing none, continued: "I regret to be obliged to say it, but it's a fact beyond dispute. His head is simply full of things, and he talked to me this evening about tunnels and slippery moonlight till I very nearly lost my temper altogether. Now, the boy will never make a man unless we take him in hand properly at once. We must get him a governess, or something, without delay. Just fancy, if he grew up into a poet or one of these--these----" In his distress the soldier could only think of horse-terms, which did not seem quite the right language. He stuck altogether, and kept repeating the favourite gesture with his open hand, staring at his wife over his glasses as he did so. But the mother never argued. "He's very young still," she observed quietly, "and, as you have always said, he's not a bit like other boys, remember." "Exactly what I say. Now that your eyes are opened to the actual state of affairs, I'm satisfied." "We'll get a sensible nursery-governess at once," added the mother. "A practical one?" "Yes, dear." "Hard-headed?" "Yes." "And well educated?" "Yes." "And--er--firm with children. She'll do for the lot, then." "If possible." "And a young woman who doesn't go in for poetry, and dreaming, and all that kind of flummery." "Of course, dear." "Capital. I felt sure you would agree with me," he went on. "It'd be no end of a pity if Jimbo grew up an ass. At present he hardly knows the difference between a roadster and a racer. He's going into the army, too," he added by way of climax, "and you know, my dear, the army would never stand _that_!" "Never," said the mother quietly, and the conversation came to an end. Meanwhile, the subject of these remarks was lying wide awake upstairs in the bed with the yellow iron railing round it. His elder brother was asleep in the opposite corner of the room, snoring peacefully. He could just see the brass knobs of the bedstead as the dying firelight quivered and shone on them. The walls and ceiling were draped in shadows that altered their shapes from time to time as the coals dropped softly into the grate. Gradually the fire sank, and the room darkened. A feeling of delight and awe stole into his heart. Jimbo loved these early hours of the night before sleep came. He felt no fear of the dark; its mystery thrilled his soul; but he liked the summer dark, with its soft, warm silences better than the chill winter shadows. Presently the firelight sprang up into a brief flame and then died away altogether with an odd little gulp. He knew the sound well; he often watched the fire out, and now, as he lay in bed waiting for he knew not what, the moonlight filtered in through the baize curtains and gradually gave to the room a wholly new character. Jimbo sat up in bed and listened. The house was very still. He slipped into his red dressing-gown and crept noiselessly over to the window. For a moment he paused by his brother's bed to make sure that he really was asleep; then, evidently satisfied, he drew aside a corner of the curtain and peered out. "Oh!" he said, drawing in his breath with delight, and again "oh!" It was difficult to understand why the sea of white moonlight that covered the lawn should fill him with such joy, and at the same time bring a lump into his throat. It made him feel as if he were swelling out into something very much greater than the actual limits of his little person. And the sensation was one of mingled pain and delight, too intense for him to feel for very long. The unhappiness passed gradually away, he always noticed, and the happiness merged after a while into a sort of dreamy ecstasy in which he neither thought nor wished much, but was conscious only of one single unmanageable yearning. The huge cedars on the lawn reared themselves up like giants in silver cloaks, and the horse-chestnut--the Umbrella Tree, as the children called it--loomed with motionless branches that were frosted and shining. Beyond it, in a blue mist of moonlight and distance, lay the kitchen-garden; he could just make out the line of the high wall where the fruit-trees grew. Immediately below him the gravel of the carriage drive sparkled with frost. The bars of the windows were cold to his hands, yet he stood there for a long time with his nose flattened against the pane and his bare feet on the cane chair. He felt both happy and sad; his heart longed dreadfully for something he had not got, something that seemed out of his reach because he could not name it. No one seemed to believe all the things he _knew_ in quite the same way as he did. His brothers and sisters played up to a certain point, and then put the things aside as if they had only been assumed for the time and were not real. To him they were always real. His father's words, too, that evening had sorely puzzled him when he came to think over them afterwards: "They're a baby's notions.... They're silly, silly, silly." Were these things real or were they not? And, as he pondered, yearning dumbly, as only these little souls can yearn, the wistfulness in his heart went out to meet the moonlight in the air. Together they wove a spell that seemed to summon before him a fairy of the night, who whispered an answer into his heart: "We are real so long as you believe in us. It is your imagination that makes us real and gives us life. Please, never, never stop believing." Jimbo was not quite sure that he understood the message, but he liked it all the same, and felt comforted. So long as they believed in one another, the rest did not matter very much after all. And when at last, shivering with cold, he crept back to bed, it was only to find through the Gates of Sleep a more direct way to the things he had been thinking about, and to wander for the rest of the night, unwatched and free, through the wonders of an Enchanted Land. Jimbo, as his father had said, was an imaginative child. Most children are--more or less; and he was "more," at least, "more" than his brothers and sisters. The Colonel thought he had made a penetrating discovery, but his wife had known it always. His head, indeed, was "full of things,"--things that, unless trained into a channel where they could be controlled and properly schooled, would certainly interfere with his success in a practical world, and be a source of mingled pain and joy to him all through life. To have trained these forces, ever bursting out towards creation, in his little soul,--to have explained, interpreted, and dealt fairly by them, would perhaps have been the best and wisest way; to have suppressed them altogether, cleaned them out by the process of substitution, this might have succeeded too in less measure; but to turn them into a veritable rout of horror by the common method of "frightening the nonsense out of the boy," this was surely the very worst way of dealing with such a case, and the most cruel. Yet, this was the method adopted by the Colonel in the robust good-nature of his heart, and the utter ignorance of his soul. So it came about that three months later, when May was melting into June, Miss Ethel Lake arrived upon the scene as a result of the Colonel's blundering good intentions. She brought with her a kind disposition, a supreme ignorance of unordinary children, a large store of self-confidence--and a corded yellow tin box. CHAPTER II MISS LAKE COMES--AND GOES The conversation took place suddenly one afternoon, and no one knew anything about it except the two who took part in it: the Colonel asked the governess to try and knock the nonsense out of Jimbo's head, and the governess promised eagerly to do her very best. It was her first "place"; and by "nonsense" they both understood imagination. True enough, Jimbo's mother had given her rather different instructions as to the treatment of the boy, but she mistook the soldier's bluster for authority, and deemed it best to obey him. This was her first mistake. In reality she was not devoid of imaginative insight; it was simply that her anxiety to prove a success permitted her better judgment to be overborne by the Colonel's boisterous manner. The wisdom of the mother was greater than that of her husband. For the safe development of that tender and imaginative little boy of hers, she had been at great pains to engage a girl--a clergyman's daughter--who possessed sufficient sympathy with the poetic and dreamy nature to be of real help to him; for true help, she knew, can only come from true understanding. And Miss Lake was a good girl. She was entirely well-meaning--which is the beginning of well-doing, and her principal weakness lay in her judgment, which led her to obey the Colonel too literally. "She seems most sensible," he declared to his wife. "Yes, dear." "And practical." "I think so." "And firm and--er--wise with children." "I hope so." "Just the sort for young Jimbo," added the Colonel with decision. "I trust so; she's a little young, perhaps." "Possibly, but one can't get everything," said her husband, in his horse-and-dog voice. "A year with her should clean out that fanciful brain of his, and prepare him for school with other boys. He'll be all right once he gets to school. My dear," he added, spreading out his right hand, fingers extended, "you've made a most wise selection. I congratulate you. I'm delighted." "I'm so glad." "Capital, I repeat, capital. You're a clever little woman. I knew you'd find the right party, once I showed you how the land lay." * * * * * The Empty House, that stood in its neglected garden not far from the Park gates, was built on a point of land that entered wedgewise into the Colonel's estate. Though something of an eyesore, therefore, he could do nothing with it. To the children it had always been an object of peculiar, though not unwholesome, mystery. None of them cared to pass it on a stormy day--the wind made such odd noises in its empty corridors and rooms--and they refused point-blank to go within hailing distance of it after dark. But in Jimbo's imagination it was especially haunted, and if he had ceased to reveal to the others what he _knew_ went on under its roof, it was only because they were unable to follow him, and were inclined to greet his extravagant recitals with "Now, Jimbo, you know _perfectly_ well you're only making up." The House had been empty for many years; but, to the children, it had been empty since the beginning of the world, since what they called the "_very_ beginning." They believed--well, each child believed according to his own mind and powers, but there was at least one belief they all held in common: for it was generally accepted as an article of faith that the Indians, encamped among the shrubberies on the back lawn, secretly buried their dead behind the crumbling walls of its weedy garden--the "dead" provided by the children's battles, be it understood. Wakeful ears in the night-nursery had heard strange sounds coming from that direction when the windows were open on hot summer nights; and the gardener, supreme authority on all that happened in the night (since they believed that he sat up to watch the vegetables and fruit-trees ripen, and never went to bed at all), was evidently of the same persuasion. When appealed to for an explanation of the mournful wind-voices, he knew what was expected of him, and rose manfully to the occasion. "It's either them Redskins aburyin' wot you killed of 'em yesterday," he declared, pointing towards the Empty House with a bit of broken flower-pot, "or else it's the ones you killed last week, and who was always astealin' of my strorbriz." He looked very wise as he said this, and his wand of office--a dirty trowel--which he held in his hand, gave him tremendous dignity. "That's just what _we_ thought, and of course if you say so too, that settles it," said Nixie. "It's more'n likely, missie, leastways from wot you describes, which it is a hempty house all the same, though I can't say as I've heard no sounds, not very distinct that is, myself." The gardener may have been anxious to hedge a bit, for fear of a scolding from headquarters, but his cryptic remarks pleased the children greatly, because it showed, they thought, that they knew more than the gardener did. Thus the Empty House remained an object of somewhat dreadful delight, lending a touch of wonderland to that part of the lane where it stood, and forming the background for many an enchanting story over the nursery fire in winter-time. It appealed vividly to their imaginations, especially to Jimbo's. Its dark windows, without blinds, were sometimes full of faces that retreated the moment they were looked at. That tangled ivy did not grow over the roof so thickly for nothing; and those high elms on the western side had not been planted years ago in a semicircle without a reason. Thus, at least, the children argued, not knowing exactly what they meant, nor caring much, so long as they proved to their own satisfaction that the place was properly haunted, and therefore worthy of their attention. It was natural they should lead Miss Lake in that direction on one of their first walks together, and it was natural, too, that she should at once discover from their manner that the place was of some importance to them. "What a queer-looking old house," she remarked, when they turned the corner of the lane and it came into view. "Almost a ruin, isn't it?" The children exchanged glances. A "ruin" did not seem the right sort of word at all; and, besides, was a little disrespectful. Also, they were not sure whether the new governess ought to be told everything so soon. She had not really won their confidence yet. After a slight pause--and a children's pause is the most eloquent imaginable--Nixie, being the eldest, said in a stiff little voice: "It's the Empty House, Miss Lake. _We_ know it very well indeed." "It looks empty," observed Miss Lake briskly. "But it's not a ruin, of course," added the child, with the cold dignity of chosen spokesman. "Oh!" said the governess, quite missing the point. She was talking lightly on the surface of things, wholly ignorant of the depths beneath her feet, intuition with her having always been sternly repressed. "It's a gamekeeper's cottage, or something like that, I suppose," she said. "Oh, no; it isn't a bit." "Doesn't it belong to your father, then?" "No. It's somebody else's, you see." "Then you can't have it pulled down?" "Rather not! Of course not!" exclaimed several indignant voices at once. Miss Lake perceived for the first time that it held more than ordinary importance in their mind. "Tell me about it," she said. "What is its history, and who used to live in it?" There came another pause. The children looked into each others' faces. They gazed at the blue sky overhead; then they stared at the dusty road at their feet. But no one volunteered an answer. Miss Lake, they felt, was approaching the subject in an offensive manner. "Why are you all so mysterious about it?" she went on. "It's only a tumble-down old place, and must be very draughty to live in, even for a gamekeeper." Silence. "Come, children, don't you hear me? I'm asking you a question." A couple of startled birds flew out of the ivy with a great whirring of wings. This was followed by a faint sound of rumbling, that seemed to come from the interior of the house. Outside all was still, and the hot sunshine lay over everything. The sound was repeated. The children looked at each other with large, expectant eyes. Something in the house was moving--was coming nearer. "Have you _all_ lost your tongues?" asked the governess impatiently. "But you see," Nixie said at length, "somebody _does_ live in it now." "And who is he?" "I didn't say it was a _man_." "Whoever it is--tell me about the person," persisted Miss Lake. "There's really nothing to tell," replied the child, without looking up. "Oh, but there must be something," declared the logical young governess, "or you wouldn't object so much to its being pulled down." Nixie looked puzzled, but Jimbo came to the rescue at once. "But _you_ wouldn't understand if we did tell you," he said, in a slow, respectful voice. His tone held a touch of that indescribable scorn heard sometimes in a child's tone--the utter contempt for the stupid grown-up creature. Miss Lake noticed, and felt annoyed. She recognised that she was not getting on well with the children, and it piqued her. She remembered the Colonel's words about "knocking the nonsense out" of James' head, and she saw that her first opportunity, in fact her first real test, was at hand. "And why, pray, should I not understand?" she asked, with some sharpness. "Is the mystery so _very_ great?" For some reason the duty of spokesman now devolved unmistakably upon Jimbo; and very seriously too, he accepted the task, standing with his feet firmly planted in the road and his hands in his trousers' pockets. "You see, Miss Lake," he began gravely, "we know such a lot of Things in there, that they might not like us to tell you about them. They don't know you yet. If they did it might be different. But--but--you see, it isn't." This was rather crushing to the aspiring educator, and the Colonel's instructions gained additional point in the light of the boy's explanation. "Fiddlesticks!" she laughed, "there's probably nothing at all in there, except rats and cobwebs. 'Things,' indeed!" "I knew you wouldn't understand," said Jimbo coolly, with no sign of being offended. "How could you?" He glanced at his sisters, gaining so much support from their enigmatical faces that he added, for their especial benefit, "How could she?" "The gard'ner said so too," chimed in a younger sister, with a vague notion that their precious Empty House was being robbed of its glory. "Yes; but, James, dear, I do understand perfectly," continued Miss Lake more gently, and wisely ignoring the reference to the authority of the kitchen-garden. "Only, you see, I cannot really encourage you in such nonsense----" "It isn't nonsense," interrupted Jimbo, with heat. "But, believe me, children, it _is_ nonsense. How do you know that there's anything inside? You've never been there!" "You can know perfectly well what's inside a thing without having gone there," replied Jimbo with scorn. "At least, _we_ can." Miss Lake changed her tack a little--fatally, as it appeared afterwards. "I know at any rate," she said with decision, "that there's nothing good in there. Whatever there may be is bad, thoroughly bad, and not fit for you to play with." The other children moved away, but Jimbo stood his ground. They were all angry, disappointed, sore hurt and offended. But Jimbo suddenly began to feel something else besides anger and vexation. It was a new point of view to him that the Empty House might contain bad things as well as good, or perhaps, only bad things. His imagination seized upon the point at once and set to work vigorously to develop it. This was his way with all such things, and he could not prevent it. "Bad Things?" he repeated, looking up at the governess. "You mean Things that could hurt?" "Yes, of course," she said, noting the effect of her words and thinking how pleased the Colonel would be later, when he heard it. "Things that might run out and catch you some day when you're passing here alone, and take you back a prisoner. Then you'd be a prisoner in the Empty House all your life. Think of that!" Miss Lake mistook the boy's silence as proof that she was taking the right line. She enlarged upon this view of the matter, now she was so successfully launched, and described the _Inmate of the House_ with such wealth of detail that she felt sure her listener would never have anything to do with the place again, and that she had "knocked out" this particular bit of "nonsense" for ever and a day. But to Jimbo it was a new and horrible idea that the Empty House, haunted hitherto only by rather jolly and wonderful Red Indians, contained a Monster who might take him prisoner, and the thought made him feel afraid. The mischief had, of course, been done, and the terror in his eyes was unmistakable, when the foolish governess saw her mistake. Retreat was impossible: the boy was shaking with fear; and not all Miss Lake's genuine sympathy, or Nixie's explanations and soothings, were able to relieve his mind of its new burden. Hitherto Jimbo's imagination had loved to dwell upon the pleasant side of things invisible; but now he had been severely frightened, and his imagination took a new turn. Not only the Empty House, but all his inner world, to which it was in some sense the key, underwent a distressing change. His sense of horror had been vividly aroused. The governess would willingly have corrected her mistake, but was, of course, powerless to do so. Bitterly she regretted her tactlessness and folly. But she could do nothing, and to add to her distress, she saw that Jimbo shrank from her in a way that could not long escape the watchful eye of the mother. But, if the boy shed tears of fear that night in his bed, it must in justice be told that she, for her part, cried bitterly in her own room, not that she had endangered her "place," but that she had done a cruel injury to a child, and that she was helpless to undo it. For she loved children, though she was quite unsuited to take care of them. Her just reward, however, came swiftly upon her. A few nights later, when Jimbo and Nixie were allowed to come down to dessert, the wind was heard to make a queer moaning sound in the ivy branches that hung over the dining-room windows. Jimbo heard it too. He held his breath for a minute; then he looked round the table in a frightened way, and the next minute gave a scream and burst into tears. He ran round and buried his face in his father's arms. After the tears came the truth. It was a bad thing for Miss Ethel Lake, this little sighing of the wind and the ivy leaves, for the Djin of terror she had thoughtlessly evoked swept into the room and introduced himself to the parents without her leave. "What new nonsense is this now?" growled the soldier, leaving his walnuts and lifting the boy on to his knee. "He shouldn't come down till he's a little older, and knows how to behave." "What's the matter, darling child?" asked the mother, drying his eyes tenderly. "I heard the bad Things crying in the Empty House." "The Empty House is a mile away from here!" snorted the Colonel. "Then it's come nearer," declared the frightened boy. "Who told you there were bad things in the Empty House?" asked the mother. "Yes, who told you, indeed, I should like to know!" demanded the Colonel. And then it all came out. The Colonel's wife was very quiet, but very determined. Miss Lake went back to the clerical family whence she had come, and the children knew her no more. "I'm glad," said Nixie, expressing the verdict of the nursery. "I thought she was awfully stupid." "She wasn't a real lake at all," declared another, "she was only a sort of puddle." Jimbo, however, said little, and the Colonel likewise held his peace. But the governess, whether she was a lake or only a puddle, left her mark behind her. The Empty House was no longer harmless. It had a new lease of life. It was tenanted by some one who could never have friendly relations with children. The weeds in the old garden took on fantastic shapes; figures hid behind the doors and crept about the passages; the rooks in the high elms became birds of ill-omen; the ivy bristled upon the walls, and the trivial explanations of the gardener were no longer satisfactory. Even in bright sunshine a Shadow lay crouching upon the broken roof. At any moment it might leap into life, and with immense striding legs chase the children down to the very Park gates. There was no need to enforce the decree that the Empty House was a forbidden land. The children of their own accord declared it out of bounds, and avoided it as carefully as if all the wild animals from the Zoo were roaming its gardens, hungry and unchained. CHAPTER III THE SHOCK One immediate result of Miss Lake's indiscretion was that the children preferred to play on the other side of the garden, the side farthest from the Empty House. A spiked railing here divided them from a field in which cows disported themselves, and as bulls also sometimes were admitted to the cows, the field was strictly out of bounds. In this spiked railing, not far from the great shrubberies where the Indians increased and multiplied, there was a swinging gate. The children swung on it whenever they could. They called it Express Trains, and the fact that it was forbidden only added to their pleasure. When opened at its widest it would swing them with a rush through the air, past the pillars with a click, out into the field, and then back again into the garden. It was bad for the hinges, and it was also bad for the garden, because it was frequently left open after these carnivals, and the cows got in and trod the flowers down. The children were not afraid of the cows, but they held the bull in great horror. And these trivial things have been mentioned here because of the part they played in Jimbo's subsequent adventures. It was only ten days or so after Miss Lake's sudden departure when Jimbo managed one evening to elude the vigilance of his lawful guardians, and wandered off unnoticed among the laburnums on the front lawn. From the laburnums he passed successfully to the first laurel shrubbery, and thence he executed a clever flank movement and entered the carriage drive in the rear. The rest was easy, and he soon found himself at the Lodge gate. For some moments he peered through the iron grating, and pondered on the seductiveness of the dusty road and of the ditch beyond. To his surprise he found, presently, that the gate was moving outwards; it was yielding to his weight. One thing leads easily to another sometimes, and the open gate led easily on to the seductive road. The result was that a minute later Jimbo was chasing butterflies along the green lane, and throwing stones into the water of the ditch. It was the evening of a hot summer's day, and the butterflies were still out in force. Jimbo's delight was intense. The joy of finding himself alone where he had no right to be put everything else out of his head, and for some time he wandered on, oblivious of all but the intoxicating sense of freedom and the difficulty of choosing between so many butterflies and such a magnificently dirty ditch. At first he yielded to the seductions of the ditch. He caught a big, sleepy beetle and put it on a violet leaf, and sent it sailing out to sea; and when it landed on the farther shore he found a still bigger leaf, and sent it forth on a voyage in another direction, with a cargo of daisy petals, and a hairy caterpillar for a bo'sun's mate. But, just as the vessel was getting under way, a butterfly of amazing brilliance floated past insolently under his very nose. Leaving the beetle and the caterpillar to navigate the currents as best they could, he at once gave chase. Cap in hand, he flew after the butterfly down the lane, and a dozen times when his cap was just upon it, it sailed away sideways without the least effort and escaped him. Then, suddenly, the lane took a familiar turning; the ditch stopped abruptly; the hedge on his right fell away altogether; the butterfly danced out of sight into a field, and Jimbo found himself face to face with the one thing in the whole world that could, at that time, fill him with abject terror--the Empty House. He came to a full stop in the middle of the road and stared up at the windows. He realised for the first time that he was alone, and that it was possible for brilliant sunshine, even on a cloudless day, to become somehow lustreless and dull. The walls showed a deep red in the sunset light. The house was still as the grave. His feet were rooted to the ground, and it seemed as if he could not move a single muscle; and as he stood there, the blood ebbing quickly from his heart, the words of the governess a few days before rushed back into his mind, and turned his fear into a dreadful, all-possessing horror. In another minute the battered door would slowly open and the horrible Inmate come out to seize him. Already there was a sound of something moving within, and as he gazed, fascinated with terror, a shuddering movement ran over the ivy leaves hanging down from the roof. Then they parted in the middle, and something--he could not in his agony see what--flew out with a whirring sound into his face, and then vanished over his shoulder towards the fields. Jimbo did not pause a single second to find out what it was, or to reflect that any ordinary thrush would have made just the same sound. The shock it gave to his heart immediately loosened the muscles of his little legs, and he ran for his very life. But before he actually began to run he gave one piercing scream for help, and the person he screamed to was the very person who was unwittingly the cause of his distress. It was as though he knew instinctively that the person who had created for him the terror of the Empty House, with its horrible Inmate, was also the person who could properly banish it, and undo the mischief before it was too late. He shrieked for help to the governess, Miss Ethel Lake. Of course, there was no answer but the noise of the air whistling in his ears as his feet flew over the road in a cloud of dust; there was no friendly butcher's cart, no baker's boy, or farmer with his dog and gun; the road was deserted. There was not even the beetle or the caterpillar; he was beyond reach of help. Jimbo ran for his life, but unfortunately he ran in the wrong direction. Instead of going the way he had come, where the Lodge gates were ready to receive him not a quarter of a mile away, he fled in the opposite direction. It so happened that the lane flanked the field where the cows lived; but cows were nothing compared to a Creature from the Empty House, and even bulls seemed friendly. The boy was over the five-barred gate in a twinkling and half-way across the field before he heard a heavy, thunderous sound behind him. Either the Thing had followed him into the field, or it was the bull. As he raced, he managed to throw a glance over his shoulder and saw a huge, dark mass bearing down upon him at terrific speed. It must be the bull, he reflected--the bull grown to the size of an elephant. And it appeared to him to have two immense black wings that flapped at its sides and helped it forward, making a whirring noise like the arms of a great windmill. This sight added to his speed, but he could not last very much longer. Already his body ached all over, and the frantic effort to get breath nearly choked him. There, before him, not so very far away now, was the swinging gate. If only he could get there in time to scramble over into the garden, he would be safe. It seemed almost impossible, and behind him, meanwhile, the sound of the following creature came closer and closer; the ground seemed to tremble; he could almost feel the breath on his neck. The swinging gate was only twenty yards off; now ten; now only five. Now he had reached it--at last. He stretched out his hands to seize the top bar, and in another moment he would have been safe in the garden and within easy reach of the house. But, before he actually touched the iron rail, a sharp, stinging pain shot across his back;--he drew one final breath as he felt himself being lifted, lifted up into the air. The horns had caught him just behind the shoulders! There seemed to be no pain after the first shock. He rose high into the air, while the bushes and spiked railing he knew so well sank out of sight beneath him, dwindling curiously in size. At first he thought his head must bump against the sky, but suddenly he stopped rising, and the green earth rushed up as if it would strike him in the face. This meant he was sinking again. The gate and railing flew by underneath him, and the next second he fell with a crash upon the soft grass of the lawn--upon the other side. He had been tossed over the gate into the garden, and the bull could no longer reach him. Before he became wholly unconscious, a composite picture, vivid in its detail, engraved itself deeply, with exceeding swiftness, line by line, upon the waxen tablets of his mind. In this picture the thrush that had flown out of the ivy, the Empty House itself, and its horrible, pursuing Inmate were all somehow curiously mingled together with the black wings of the bull, and with his own sensation of rushing--flying headlong--through space, as he rose and fell in a curve from the creature's horns. And behind it he was conscious that the real author of it all was somewhere in the shadowy background, looking on as though to watch the result of her unfortunate mistake. Miss Lake, surely, was not very far away. He associated her with the horror of the Empty House as inevitably as taste and smell join together in the memory of a certain food; and the very last thought in his mind, as he sank away into the blackness of unconsciousness, was a sort of bitter surprise that the governess had not turned up to save him before it was actually too late. Moreover, a certain sense of disappointment mingled with the terror of the shock; for he was dimly aware that Miss Lake had not acted as worthily as she might have done, and had not played the game as well as might have been expected of her. And, somehow, it didn't all seem quite fair. CHAPTER IV ON THE EDGE OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS Jimbo had fallen on his head. Inside that head lay the mass of highly sensitive matter called the brain, on which were recorded, of course, the impressions of everything that had yet come to him in life. A severe shock, such as he had just sustained, was bound to throw these impressions into confusion and disorder, jumbling them up into new and strange combinations, obliterating some, and exaggerating others. Jimbo himself was helpless in the matter; he could exercise no control over their antics until the doctors had once again reduced them to order; he would have to wander, lost and lonely, through the comparative chaos of disproportioned visions, generally known as the region of delirium, until the doctor, assisted by mother nature, restored him once more to normal consciousness. For a time everything was a blank, but presently he stirred uneasily in the grass, and the pictures graven on the tablets of his mind began to come back to him line by line. Yet, with certain changes: the bull, for instance, had so far vanished into the background of his thoughts that it had practically disappeared altogether, and he recalled nothing of it but the wings--the huge, flapping wings. Of the creature to whom the wings belonged he had no recollection beyond that it was very large, and that it was chasing him from the Empty House. The pain in his shoulders had also gone; but what remained with undiminished vividness were the sensations of flight without escape, the breathless race up into the sky, and the swift, tumbling drop again through the air on to the lawn. This impression of rushing through space--short though the actual distance had been--was the dominating memory. All else was apparently oblivion. He forgot where he came from, and he forgot what he had been doing. The events leading up to the catastrophe, indeed everything connected with his existence previously as "Master James," had entirely vanished; and the slate of memory had been wiped so clean that he had forgotten even his own name! Jimbo was lying, so to speak, on the edge of unconsciousness, and for a time it seemed uncertain whether he would cross the line into the region of delirium and dreams, or fall back again into his natural world. Terror, assisted by the horns of the black bull, had tossed him into the borderland. His last scream, however, had reached the ears of the ubiquitous gardener, and help was near at hand. He heard voices that seemed to come from beyond the stars, and was aware that shadowy forms were standing over him and talking in whispers. But it was all very unreal; one minute the voices sounded up in the sky, and the next in his very ears, while the figures moved about, sometimes bending over him, sometimes retreating and melting away like shadows on a shifting screen. Suddenly a blaze of light flashed upon him, and his eyes flew open; he tumbled back for a moment into his normal world. He wasn't on the grass at all, but was lying upon his own bed in the night nursery. His mother was bending over him with a very white face, and a tall man dressed in black stood beside her, holding some kind of shining instrument in his fingers. A little behind them he saw Nixie, shading a lamp with her hand. Then the white face came close over the pillow, and a voice full of tenderness whispered, "My darling boy, don't you know me? It's mother! No one will hurt you. Speak to me, if you can, dear." She stretched out her hands, and Jimbo knew her and made an effort to answer. But it seemed to him as if his whole body had suddenly become a solid mass of iron, and he could control no part of it; his lips and his hands both refused to move. Before he could make a sign that he had understood and was trying to reply, a fierce flame rushed between them and blinded him, his eyes closed, and he dropped back again into utter darkness. The walls flew asunder and the ceiling melted into air, while the bed sank away beneath him, down, down, down into an abyss of shadows. The lamp in Nixie's hands dwindled into a star, and his mother's anxious face became a tiny patch of white in the distance, blurred out of all semblance of a human countenance. For a time the man in black seemed to hover over the bed as it sank, as though he were trying to follow it down; but it, too, presently joined the general enveloping blackness and lost its outline. The pain had blotted out everything, and the return to consciousness had been only momentary. Not all the doctors in the world could have made things otherwise. Jimbo was off on his travels at last--travels in which the chief incidents were directly traceable to the causes and details of his accident: the terror of the Empty House, the pursuit of its Inmate, the pain of the bull's horns, and, above all, the flight through the air. For everything in his subsequent adventures found its inspiration in the events described, and a singular parallel ran ever between the Jimbo upon the bed in the night-nursery and the other emancipated Jimbo wandering in the regions of unconsciousness and delirium. CHAPTER V INTO THE EMPTY HOUSE The darkness lasted a long time without a break, and when it lifted all recollection of the bedroom scene had vanished. Jimbo found himself back again on the grass. The swinging gate was just in front of him, but he did not recognise it; no suggestion of "Express Trains" came back to him as his eyes rested without remembrance upon the bars where he had so often swung, in defiance of orders, with his brothers and sisters. Recollection of his home, family, and previous life he had absolutely none; or at least, it was buried so deeply in his inner consciousness that it amounted to the same thing, and he looked out upon the garden, the gate, and the field beyond as upon an entirely new piece of the world. The stars, he saw, were nearly all gone, and a very faint light was beginning to spread from the woods beyond the field. The eastern horizon was slowly brightening, and soon the night would be gone. Jimbo was glad of this. He began to be conscious of little thrills of expectation, for with the light surely help would also come. The light always brought relief, and he already felt that strange excitement that comes with the first signs of dawn. In the distance cocks were crowing, horses began to stamp in the barns not far away, and a hundred little stirrings of life ran over the surface of the earth as the light crept slowly up the sky and dropped down again upon the world with its message of coming day. Of course, help would come by the time the sun was really up, and it was partly this certainty, and partly because he was a little too dazed to realise the seriousness of the situation, that prevented his giving way to a fit of fear and weeping. Yet a feeling of vague terror lay only a little way below the surface, and when, a few moments later, he saw that he was no longer alone, and that an odd-looking figure was creeping towards him from the shrubberies, he sprang to his feet, prepared to run unless it at once showed the most friendly intentions. This figure seemed to have come from nowhere. Apparently it had risen out of the earth. It was too large to have been concealed by the low shrubberies; yet he had not been aware of its approach, and it had appeared without making any noise. Probably it was friendly, he felt, in spite of its curious shape and the stealthy way it had come. At least, he hoped so; and if he could only have told whether it was a man or an animal he would easily have made up his mind. But the uncertain light, and the way it crouched half-hidden behind the bushes, prevented this. So he stood, poised ready to run, and yet waiting, hoping, indeed expecting every minute a sign of friendliness and help. In this way the two faced each other silently for some time, until the feeling of terror gradually stole deeper into the boy's heart and began to rob him of full power over his muscles. He wondered if he would be able to run when the time came, and whether he could run fast enough. This was how it first showed itself, this suggestion of insidious fear. Would he be able to keep up the start he had? Would it chase him? Would it run like a man or like an animal, on four legs or on two? He wished he could see more clearly what it was. He still stood his ground pluckily, facing it and waiting, but the fear, once admitted to his mind, was gaining strength, and he began to feel cold and shivery. Then suddenly the tension came to an end. In two strides the figure came up close to his side, and the same second Jimbo was lifted off his feet and borne swiftly away across the field. He felt quite unable to offer the least resistance, and at the same time he felt a sense of relief that something had happened at last. He was still not sure that the figure was unkind; only its shape filled him with a feeling that was certainly the beginning of real horror. It was the shape of a man, he thought, but of a very large and ill-constructed man; for it certainly had moved on two legs and had caught him up in a pair of tremendously strong arms. But there was something else it had besides arms, for a kind of soft cloak hung all round it and wrapped the boy from head to foot, preventing him seeing his captor properly, and at the same time filling his body with a kind of warm drowsiness that mitigated his active fear and made him rather like the sensation of being carried along so easily and so fast. But was he being carried? The pace they were going was amazing, and he moved as easily as a sailing boat, and with the same swinging motion. Could it be some animal like a horse after all? Jimbo tried to see more, but found it impossible to free himself from the folds of the enveloping substance, and meanwhile they were swinging forward at what seemed a tremendous pace over fields and ditches, through hedges, and down long lanes. The odours of earth, and dew-drenched grass, and opening flowers came to him. He heard the birds singing, and felt the cool morning air sting his cheeks as they raced along. There was no jolting or jarring, and the figure seemed to cover the ground as lightly as though it hardly touched the earth. It was certainly not a dream, he was sure of that; but the longer they went on the drowsier he became, and the less he wondered whether the figure was going to help him or to do something dreadful to him. He was now thoroughly afraid, and yet, strange contradiction, he didn't care a bit. Let the figure do what it liked; it was only a sort of nightmare person after all, and might vanish as suddenly as it had arrived. For a long time they raced forward at this great speed, and then with a bump and a crash they stopped suddenly short, and Jimbo felt himself let down upon the solid earth. He tried to free himself at once from the folds of the clinging substance that enveloped him, but, before he could do so and see what his captor was really like, he heard a door slam and felt himself pushed along what seemed to be the hallways of a house. His eyes were clear now and he could see, but the darkness had come down again so thickly that all he could discover was that the figure was urging him along the floor of a large empty hall, and that they were in a dark and empty building. Jimbo tried hard to see his captor, but the figure, dim enough in the uncertain light, always managed to hide its face and keep itself bunched up in such a way that he could never see more than a great, dark mass of a body, from which long legs and arms shot out like telescopes, draped in a sort of clinging cloak. Now that the rapid motion through the air had ceased, the boy's drowsiness passed a little, and he began to shiver with fear and to feel that the tears could not be kept back much longer. Probably in another minute he would have started to run for his life, when a new sound caught his ears and made him listen intently, while a feeling of wonder and delight caught his heart, and made him momentarily forget the figure pushing him forward from behind. Was it the wind he heard? Or was it the voices of children all singing together very low? It was a gentle, sighing sound that rose and fell with mournful modulations and seemed to come from the very centre of the building; it held, too, a strange, far-away murmur, like the surge of a faint breeze moving in the tree-tops. It might be the wind playing round the walls of the building, or it might be children singing in hushed voices. One minute he thought it was outside the house, and the next he was certain it came from somewhere in the upper part of the building. He glanced up, and fancied for one moment that he saw in the darkness a crowd of little faces peering down at him over the banisters, and that as they disappeared he heard the sound of many little feet moving, and then a door hurriedly closing. But a push from the figure behind that nearly sent him sprawling at the foot of the stairs, prevented his hearing very clearly, and the light was far too dim to let him feel sure of what he had seen. They passed quickly along deserted corridors and through winding passages. No one seemed about. The interior of the house was chilly, and the keen air nipped. After going up several flights of stairs they stopped at last in front of a door, and before Jimbo had a moment to turn and dash downstairs again past the figure, as he had meant to do, he was pushed violently forward into a room. The door slammed after him, and he heard the heavy tread of the figure as it went down the staircase again into the bottom of the house. Then he saw that the room was full of light and of small moving beings. Curiosity and astonishment now for a moment took the place of fear, and Jimbo, with a thumping heart and clenched fists, stood and stared at the scene before him. He stiffened his little legs and leaned against the wall for support, but he felt full of fight in case anything happened, and with wide-open eyes he tried to take in the whole scene at once and be ready for whatever might come. But there seemed no immediate cause for alarm, and when he realised that the beings in the room were apparently children, and only children, his rather mixed sensations of astonishment and fear gave place to an emotion of overpowering shyness. He became exceedingly embarrassed, for he was surrounded by children of all ages and sizes, staring at him just as hard as he was staring at them. The children, he began to take in, were all dressed in black; they looked frightened and unhappy; their bodies were thin and their faces very white. There was something else about them he could not quite name, but it inspired him with the same sense of horror that he had felt in the arms of the Figure who had trapped him. For he now realised definitely that he had been trapped; and he also began to realise for the first time that, though he still had the body of a little boy, his way of thinking and judging was sometimes more like that of a grown-up person. The two alternated, and the result was an odd confusion; for sometimes he felt like a child and thought like a man, while at others he felt like a man and thought like a child. Something had gone wrong, very much wrong; and, as he watched this group of silent children facing him, he knew suddenly that what was just beginning to happen to him _had happened to them long, long ago_. For they looked as if they had been a long, long time in the world, yet their bodies had not kept pace with their minds. Something had happened to stop the growth of the body, while allowing the mind to go on developing. The bodies were not stunted or deformed; they were well-formed, nice little children's bodies, but the minds within them were grown-up, and the incongruity was distressing. All this he suddenly realised in a flash, intuitively, just as though it had been most elaborately explained to him; yet he could not have put the least part of it into words or have explained what he saw and felt to another. He saw that they had the hands and figures of children, the heads of children, the unlined faces and smooth foreheads of children, but their gestures, and something in their movements, belonged to grown-up people, and the expression of their eyes in meaning and intelligence was the expression of old people and not of children. And the expression in the eyes of every one of them he saw was the expression of terror and of pain. The effect was so singular that he seemed face to face with an entirely new order of creatures: a child's features with a man's eyes; a child's figure with a woman's movements; full-grown souls cramped and cribbed in absurdly inadequate bodies and little, puny frames; the old trying uncouthly to express itself in the young. The grown-up, old portion of him had been uppermost as he stared and received these impressions, but now suddenly it passed away, and he felt as a little boy again. He glanced quickly down at his own little body in the alpaca knickerbockers and sailor blouse, and then, with a sigh of relief, looked up again at the strange group facing him. So far, at any rate, he had not changed, and there was nothing yet to suggest that he was becoming like them in appearance at least. With his back against the door he faced the roomful of children who stood there motionless and staring; and as he looked, wild feelings rushed over him and made him tremble. Who was he? Where had he come from? Where in the world had he spent the other years of his life, the forgotten years? There seemed to be no one to whom he could go for comfort, no one to answer questions; and there was such a lot he wanted to ask. He seemed to be so much older, and to know so much more than he ought to have known, and yet to have forgotten so much that he ought not to have forgotten. His loss of memory, however, was of course only partial. He had forgotten his own identity, and all the people with whom he had so far in life had to do; yet at the same time he was dimly conscious that he had just left all these people, and that some day he would find them again. It was only the surface-layers of memory that had vanished, and these had not vanished for ever, but only sunk down a little below the horizon. Then, presently, the children began to range themselves in rows between him and the opposite wall, without once taking their horrible, intelligent eyes off him as they moved. He watched them with growing dread, but at last his curiosity became so strong that it overcame everything else, and in a voice that he meant to be very brave, but that sounded hardly above a whisper, he said: "Who are you? And what's been done to you?" The answer came at once in a whisper as low as his own, though he could not distinguish who spoke: "Listen and you shall know. You, too, are now one of us." Immediately the children began a slow, impish sort of dance before him, moving almost with silent feet over the boards, yet with a sedateness and formality that had none of the unconscious grace of children. And, as they danced, they sang, but in voices so low, that it was more like the mournful sighing of wind among branches than human voices. It was the sound he had already heard outside the building. "We are the children of the whispering night, Who live eternally in dreadful fright Of stories told us in the grey twilight By--_nurserymaids_! We are the children of a winter's day; Under our breath we chant this mournful lay; We dance with phantoms and with shadows play, And have no rest. We have no joy in any children's game, For happiness to us is but a name, Since Terror kissed us with his lips of flame In wicked jest. We hear the little voices in the wind Singing of freedom we may never find, Victims of fate so cruelly unkind, We are unblest. We hear the little footsteps in the rain Running to help us, though they run in vain, Tapping in hundreds on the window-pane In vain behest. We are the children of the whispering night, Who dwell unrescued in eternal fright Of stories told us in the dim twilight By--_nurserymaids_!" The plaintive song and the dance ceased together, and before Jimbo could find any words to clothe even one of the thoughts that crowded through his mind, he saw them moving towards a door he had not hitherto noticed on the other side of the room. A moment later they had opened it and passed out, sedate, mournful, unhurried; and the boy found that in some way he could not understand the light had gone with them, and he was standing with his back against the wall in almost total darkness. Once out of the room, no sound followed them, and he crossed over and tried the handle of the door. It was locked. Then he went back and tried the other door; that, too, was locked. He was shut in. There was no longer any doubt as to the Figure's intentions; he was a prisoner, trapped like an animal in a cage. The only thought in his mind just then was an intense desire for freedom. Whatever happened he must escape. He crossed the floor to the only window in the room; it was without blinds, and he looked out. But instantly he recoiled with a fresh and overpowering sense of helplessness, for it was three storeys from the ground, and down below in the shadows he saw a paved courtyard that rendered jumping utterly out of the question. He stood for a long time, fighting down the tears, and staring as if his heart would break at the field and trees beyond. A high wall enclosed the yard, but beyond that was freedom and open space. Feelings of loneliness and helplessness, terror and dismay overwhelmed him. His eyes burned and smarted, yet, strange to say, the tears now refused to come and bring him relief. He could only stand there with his elbows on the window-sill, and watch the outline of the trees and hedges grow clearer and clearer as the light drew across the sky, and the moment of sunrise came close. But when at last he turned back into the room, he saw that he was no longer alone. Crouching against the opposite wall there was a hooded figure steadily watching him. CHAPTER VI HIS COMPANION IN PRISON Shocks of terror, as they increase in number, apparently lessen in effect; the repeated calls made upon Jimbo's soul by the emotions of fear and astonishment had numbed it; otherwise the knowledge that he was locked in the room with this mysterious creature beyond all possibility of escape must have frightened him, as the saying is, out of his skin. As it was, however, he kept his head in a wonderful manner, and simply stared at the silent intruder as hard as ever he could stare. How in the world it got in was the principal thought in his mind, and after that: what in the world was it? The dawn must have come very swiftly, or else he had been staring longer than he knew, for just then the sun topped the edge of the world and the window-sill simultaneously, and sent a welcome ray of sunshine into the dingy room. It turned the grey light to silver, and fell full upon the huddled figure crouching against the opposite wall. Jimbo caught his breath, and stared harder than ever. It was a human figure, the figure, apparently, of a man, sitting crumpled up in a very uncomfortable sort of position on his haunches. It sat perfectly still. A black cloak, with loose sleeves, and a cowl or hood that completely concealed the face, covered it from head to foot. The material of the cloak could not have been very thick, for inside the hood he caught the gleam of eyes as they roamed about the room and followed his movements. But for this glitter of the moving eyes it might have been a figure carved in wood. Was it going to sit there for ever watching him? At first he was afraid it was going to speak; then he was afraid it wasn't. It might rise suddenly and come towards him; yet the thought that it would not move at all was worse still. In this way the two faced each other for several minutes until, just as the position was becoming simply unbearable, a low whisper ran round the room: "At last! Oh! I've found him at last!" Jimbo was not quite sure of the words, though it was certainly a human voice that had spoken; but, the suspense once broken, the boy could not stand it any longer, and with a rush of desperate courage he found his voice--a very husky one--and moved a step forward. "Who are you, please, and how _did_ you get in?" he ventured with a great effort. Then he fell back against the wall, amazed at his own daring, and waited with tightly-clenched fists for an answer. But he had not to wait very long, for almost immediately the figure rose awkwardly to its feet, and came over to where he stood. Its manner of moving may best be described as shuffling; and it stretched in front of it a long cloaked arm, on which the sleeve hung, he thought, like clothes on a washing line. He breathed hard, and waited. Like many other people with strong wills and sensitive nerves, Jimbo was both brave and a coward: he hoped nothing horrid was going to happen, but he was quite ready if it should. Yet, now that the actual moment had come, he had no particular fear, and when he felt the touch of the hand on his shoulder, the words sprang naturally to his lips with a little trembling laugh, more of wonder perhaps than anything else. "You do look a horrid ... _brute_," he was going to say, but at the last moment he changed it to "_thing_," for, with the true intuition of a child, he recognised that the creature inside the cloak was a kind creature and well disposed towards him. "But how did you get in?" he added, looking up bravely into the black visage, "because the doors are both locked on the outside, and I couldn't get out?" By way of reply the figure shuffled to one side, and, taking the hand from his shoulder, pointed silently to a trap-door in the floor behind him. As he looked, he saw it was being shut down stealthily by some one beneath. "Hush!" whispered the figure, almost inaudibly. "He's watching!" "Who's watching?" he cried, curiosity taking the place of every other emotion. "I want to see." He ran forward to the spot where the trap-door now lay flush with the floor, but, before he had gone two steps, the black arms shot out and caught him. He turned, struggling, and in the scuffle that followed the cloak shrouding the figure became disarranged; the hood dropped from the face, and he found himself looking straight into the eyes, not of a man, but of a woman! "It's you!" he cried, "YOU--!" A shock ran right through his body from his head to his feet, like a current of electricity, and he caught his breath as though he had been struck. For one brief instant the sinister face of some one who had terrified him in the past came back vividly to his mind, and he shrank away in terror. But it was only for an instant, the twentieth part of an instant. Immediately, before he could even remember the name, recognition passed into darkness and his memory shut down with a snap. He was staring into the face of an utter stranger, about whom he knew nothing and had no feelings particularly one way or another. "I thought I knew you," he gasped, "but I've forgotten you again--and I thought you were going to be a man, too." "Jimbo!" cried the other, and in her voice was such unmistakable tenderness and yearning that the boy knew at once beyond doubt that she was his friend, "Jimbo!" She knelt down on the floor beside him, so that her face was on a level with his, and then opened both her arms to him. But though Jimbo was glad to have found a friend who was going to help him, he felt no particular desire to be embraced, and he stood obstinately where he was with his back to the window. The morning sunshine fell upon her features and touched the thick coils of her hair with glory. It was not, strictly speaking, a pretty face, but the look of real human tenderness there was very welcome and comforting, and in the kind brown eyes there shone a strange light that was not merely the reflection of the sunlight. The boy felt his heart warm to her as he looked, but her expression puzzled him, and he would not accept the invitation of her arms. "Won't you come to me?" she said, her arms still outstretched. "I want to know who you are, and what I'm doing here," he said. "I feel so funny--so old and so young--and all mixed up. I can't make out who I am a bit. What's that funny name you call me?" "Jimbo is your name," she said softly. "Then what's _your_ name?" he asked quickly. "My name," she repeated slowly after a pause, "is not--as nice as yours. Besides, you need not know my name--you might dislike it." "But I must have something to call you," he persisted. "But if I told you, and you disliked the name, you might dislike _me_ too," she said, still hesitating. Jimbo saw the expression of sadness in her eyes, and it won his confidence though he hardly knew why. He came up closer to her and put his puzzled little face next to hers. "I like you very much already," he whispered, "and if your name is a horrid one I'll change it for you at once. Please tell me what it is." She drew the boy to her and gave him a little hug, and he did not resist. For a long time she did not answer. He felt vaguely that something of dreadful importance hung about this revelation of her name. He repeated his question, and at length she replied, speaking in a very low voice, and with her eyes fixed intently upon his face. "My name," she said, "is Ethel Lake." "Ethel Lake," he repeated after her. The words sounded somehow familiar to him; surely he had heard that name before. Were not the words associated with something in his past that had been unpleasant? A curious sinking sensation came over him as he heard them. His companion watched him intently while he repeated the words over to himself several times, as if to make sure he had got them right. There was a moment's hesitation as he slowly went over them once again. Then he turned to her, laughing. "I like your name, Ethel Lake," he said. "It's a nice name--Miss--Miss----" Again he hesitated, while a little warning tremor ran through his mind, and he wondered for an instant why he said "Miss." But it passed as suddenly as it had come, and he finished the sentence--"Miss Lake, I shall call you." He stared into her eyes as he said it. "Then you don't remember me at all?" she cried, with a sigh of intense relief. "You've quite forgotten?" "I never saw you before, did I? How can I remember you? I don't remember any of the things I've forgotten. Are you one of them?" For reply she caught him to her breast and kissed him. "You precious little boy!" she said. "I'm so glad, oh, so glad!" "But do you remember _me_?" he asked, sorely puzzled. "Who am I? Haven't I been born yet, or something funny like that?" "If you don't remember _me_," said the other, her face happy with smiles that had evidently come only just in time to prevent tears, "there's not much good telling you who _you_ are. But your name, if you really want to know, is----" She hesitated a moment. "Be quick, Eth--Miss Lake, or you'll forget it again." She laughed rather bitterly. "Oh, I never forget. I can't!" she said. "I wish I could. Your name is James Stone, and Jimbo is 'short' for James. Now you know." She might just as well have said Bill Sykes for all the boy knew or remembered. "What a silly name!" he laughed. "But it can't be my real name, or I should know it. I never heard it before." After a moment he added, "Am I an old man? I feel just like one. I suppose I'm grown up--grown up so fast that I've forgotten what came before----" "You're not grown up, dear, at least, not exactly----" She glanced down at his alpaca knickerbockers and brown stockings; and as he followed her eyes and saw the dirty buttoned-boots there came into his mind some dim memory of where he had last put them on, and of some one who had helped him. But it all passed like a swift meteor across the dark night of his forgetfulness and was lost in mist. "You mustn't judge by these silly clothes," he laughed. "I shall change them as soon as I get--as soon as I can find----" He stopped short. No words came. A feeling of utter loneliness and despair swept suddenly over him, drenching him from head to foot. He felt lost and friendless, naked, homeless, cold. He was ever on the brink of regaining a whole lot of knowledge and experience that he had known once long ago, ever so long ago, but it always kept just out of his reach. He glanced at Miss Lake, feeling that she was his only possible comfort in a terrible situation. She met his look and drew him tenderly towards her. "Now, listen to me," she said gently, "I've something to tell you--about myself." He was all attention in a minute. "I am a discharged governess," she began, holding her breath when once the words were out. "Discharged!" he repeated vaguely. "What's that? What for?" "For frightening a child. I told a little boy awful stories that weren't true. They terrified him so much that I was sent away. That's why I'm here now. It's my punishment. I am a prisoner here until I can find him--and help him to escape----" "Oh, I say!" he exclaimed quickly, as though remembering something. But it passed, and he looked up at her half-bored, half-politely. "Escape from what?" he asked. "From here. This is the Empty House I told the stories about; _and you are the little boy I frightened_. Now, at last, I've found you, and am going to save you." She paused, watching him with eyes that never left his face for an instant. Jimbo was delighted to hear he was going to be rescued, but he felt no interest at all in her story of having frightened a little boy, who was himself. He thought it was very nice of her to take so much trouble, and he told her so, and when he went up and kissed her and thanked her, he saw to his surprise that she was crying. For the life of him he could not understand why a discharged governess whom he met, apparently, for the first time in the Empty House, should weep over him and show him so much affection. But he could think of nothing to say, so he just waited till she had finished. "You see, if I can save you," she said between her sobs, "it will be all right again, and I shall be forgiven, and shall be able to escape with you. I want you to escape, so that you can get back to life again." "Oh, then I'm dead, am I?" "Not exactly dead," she said, drying her eyes with the corner of her black hood. "You've had a funny accident, you know. If your body gets all right, so that you can go back and live in it again, then you're not dead. But if it's so badly injured that you can't work in it any more, then you are dead, and will have to stay dead. You're still joined to the body in a fashion, you see." He stared and listened, not understanding much. It all bored him. She talked without explaining, he thought. An immense sponge had passed over the slate of the past and wiped it clean beyond recall. He was utterly perplexed. "How funny you are!" he said vaguely, thinking more of her tears than her explanations. "Water won't stay in a cracked bottle," she went on, "and you can't stay in a broken body. But they're trying to mend it now, and if we can escape in time you can be an ordinary, happy little boy in the world again." "Then are you dead, too?" he asked, "or nearly dead?" "I am out of my body, like you," she answered evasively, after a moment's pause. He was still looking at her in a dazed sort of way, when she suddenly sprang to her feet and let the hood drop back over her face. "Hush!" she whispered, "he's listening again." At the same moment a sound came from beneath the floor on the other side of the room, and Jimbo saw the trap-door being slowly raised above the level of the floor. "Your number is 102," said a voice that sounded like the rushing of a river. Instantly the trap-door dropped again, and he heard heavy steps rumbling away into the interior of the house. He looked at his companion and saw her terrified face as she lifted her hood. "He always blunders along like that," she whispered, bending her head on one side to listen. "He can't see properly in the daylight. He hates sunshine, and usually only goes out after dark." She was white and trembling. "Is that the person who brought me in here this morning at such a frightful pace?" he asked, bewildered. She nodded. "He wanted to get in before it was light, so that you couldn't see his face." "Is he such a fright?" asked the boy, beginning to share her evident feeling of horror. "He _is_ Fright!" she said in an awed whisper. "But never talk about him again unless you can't help it; he always knows when he's being talked about, and he likes it, because it gives him more power." Jimbo only stared at her without comprehending. Then his mind jumped to something else he wanted badly to have explained, and he asked her about his number, and why he was called No. 102. "Oh, that's easier," she said, "102 is your number among the Frightened Children; there are 101 of them, and you are the last arrival. Haven't you seen them yet? It is also the temperature of your broken little body lying on the bed in the night nursery at home," she added, though he hardly caught her words, so low were they spoken. Jimbo then described how the children had sung and danced to him, and went on to ask a hundred questions about them. But Miss Lake would give him very little information, and said he would not have very much to do with them. Most of them had been in the House for years and years--so long that they could probably never escape at all. "They are all frightened children," she said. "Little ones scared out of their wits by silly people who meant to amuse them with stories, or to frighten them into being well behaved--nursery-maids, elder sisters, and even governesses!" "And they can never escape?" "Not unless the people who frightened them come to their rescue and _run the risk of being caught themselves_." As she spoke there rose from the depths of the house the sound of muffled voices, children's voices singing faintly together; it rose and fell exactly like the wind, and with as little tune; it was weird and magical, but so utterly mournful that the boy felt the tears start to his eyes. It drifted away, too, just as the wind does over the tops of the trees, dying into the distance; and all became still again. "It's just like the wind," he said, "and I do love the wind. It makes me feel so sad and so happy. Why is it?" The governess did not answer. "How old am I _really_?" he went on. "How can I be so old and so ignorant? I've forgotten such an awful lot of knowledge." "The fact is--well, perhaps, you won't quite understand--but you're really two ages at once. Sometimes you feel as old as your body, and sometimes as old as your soul. You're still connected with your body; so you get the sensations of both mixed up." "Then is the body younger than the soul?" "The soul--that is yourself," she answered, "is, oh, so old, awfully old, as old as the stars, and older. But the body is no older than itself--of course, how could it be?" "Of course," repeated the boy, who was not listening to a word she said. "How could it be?" "But it doesn't matter how old you are or how young you feel, as long as you don't hate me for having frightened you," she said after a pause. "That's the chief thing." He was very, very puzzled. He could not help feeling it had been rather unkind of her to frighten him so badly that he had literally been frightened out of his skin; but he couldn't remember anything about it, and she was taking so much trouble to save him now that he quite forgave her. He nestled up against her, and said of course he liked her, and she stroked his curly head and mumbled a lot of things to herself that he couldn't understand a bit. But in spite of his new-found friend the feeling of over-mastering loneliness would suddenly rush over him. She might be a protector, but she was not a _real_ companion; and he knew that somewhere or other he had left a lot of other _real_ companions whom he now missed dreadfully. He longed more than he could say for freedom; he wanted to be able to come and go as he pleased; to play about in a garden somewhere as of old; to wander over soft green lawns among laburnums and sweet-smelling lilac trees, and to be up to all his old tricks and mischief--though he could not remember in detail what they were. In a word, he wanted to escape; his whole being yearned to escape and be free again; yet here he was a wretched prisoner in a room like a prison-cell, with a sort of monster for a keeper, and a troop of horrible frightened children somewhere else in the house to keep him company. And outside there was only a hard, narrow, paved courtyard with a high wall round it. Oh, it was too terrible to think of, and his heart sank down within him till he felt as if he could do nothing else but cry. "I shall save you in time," whispered the governess, as though she read his thoughts. "You must be patient, and do what I tell you, and I promise to get you out. Only be brave, and don't ask too many questions. We shall win in the end and escape." Suddenly he looked up, with quite a new expression in his face. "But I say, Miss Cake, I'm frightfully hungry. I've had nothing to eat since--I can't remember when, but ever so long ago." "You needn't call me Miss Cake, though," she laughed. "I suppose it's because I'm so hungry." "Then you'll call me Miss Lake when you're thirsty, perhaps," she said. "But, anyhow, I'll see what I can get you. Only, you must eat as little as possible. I want you to get very thin. What you feel is not really hunger--it's only a memory of hunger, and you'll soon get used to it." He stared at her with a very distressful little face as she crossed the room making this new announcement; and just as she disappeared through the trap-door, only her head being visible, she added with great emphasis, "The thinner you get the better; because the thinner you are the lighter you are, and the lighter you are the easier it will be to escape. Remember, the thinner the better--the lighter the better--and don't ask a lot of questions about it." With that the trap-door closed over her, and Jimbo was left alone with her last strange words ringing in his ears. CHAPTER VII THE SPELL OF THE EMPTY HOUSE It was not long before Jimbo realised that the House, and everything connected with it, spelt for him one message, and one only--a message of fear. From the first day of his imprisonment the forces of his whole being shaped themselves without further ado into one intense, single, concentrated desire to _escape_. Freedom, escape into the world beyond that terrible high wall, was his only object, and Miss Lake, the governess, as its symbol, was his only hope. He asked a lot of questions and listened to a lot of answers, but all he really cared about was how he was going to escape, and when. All her other explanations were tedious, and he only half-listened to them. His faith in her was absolute, his patience unbounded; she had come to save him, and he knew that before long she would accomplish her end. He felt a blind and perfect confidence. But, meanwhile, his fear of the House, and his horror for the secret Being who meant to keep him prisoner till at length he became one of the troop of Frightened Children, increased by leaps and bounds. Presently the trap-door creaked again, and the governess reappeared; in her hand was a small white jug and a soup plate. "Thin gruel and skim milk," she explained, pouring out a substance like paste into the soup plate, and handing him a big wooden spoon. But Jimbo's hunger had somehow vanished. "It wasn't real hunger," she told him, "but only a sort of memory of being hungry. They're trying to feed your broken body now in the night-nursery, and so you feel a sort of ghostly hunger here even though you're out of the body." "It's easily satisfied, at any rate," he said, looking at the paste in the soup plate. "No one actually eats or drinks here----" "But I'm solid," he said, "am I not?" "People always think they're solid everywhere," she laughed. "It's only a question of degree; solidity _here_ means a different thing to solidity _there_." "I can get thinner though, can't I?" he asked, thinking of her remark about escape being easier the lighter he grew. She assured him there would be no difficulty about that, and after replying evasively to a lot more questions, she gathered up the dishes and once more disappeared through the trap-door. Jimbo watched her going down the ladder into the black gulf below, and wondered greatly where she went to and what she did down there; but on these points the governess had refused to satisfy his curiosity, and every time she appeared or disappeared the atmosphere of mystery came and went with her. As he stared, wondering, a sound suddenly made itself heard behind him, and on turning quickly round he saw to his great surprise that the door into the passage was open. This was more than he could resist, and in another minute, with mingled feelings of dread and delight, he was out in the passage. When he was first brought to the house, two hours before, it had been too dark to see properly, but now the sun was high in the heavens, and the light still increasing. He crept cautiously to the head of the stairs and peered over into the well of the house. It was still too dark to make things out clearly; but, as he looked, he thought something moved among the shadows below, and for a moment his heart stood still with fear. A large grey face seemed to be staring up at him out of the gloom. He clutched the banisters and felt as if he hardly had strength enough in his legs to get back to the room he had just left; but almost immediately the terror passed, for he saw that the face resolved itself into the mingling of light and shadow, and the features, after all, were of his own creation. He went on slowly and stealthily down the staircase. It was certainly an empty house. There were no carpets; the passages were cold and draughty; the paper curled from the damp walls, leaving ugly discoloured patches about; cobwebs hung in many places from the ceiling, the windows were more or less broken, and all were coated so thickly with dirt that the rain had traced little furrows from top to bottom. Shadows hung about everywhere, and Jimbo thought every minute he saw moving figures; but the figures always resolved themselves into nothing when he looked closely. He began to wonder how far it was safe to go, and why the governess had arranged for the door to be opened--for he felt sure it was she who had done this, and that it was all right for him to come out. Fright, she had said, was never about in the daylight. But, at the same time, something warned him to be ready at a moment's notice to turn and dash up the stairs again to the room where he was at least comparatively safe. So he moved along very quietly and very cautiously. He passed many rooms with the doors open--all empty and silent; some of them had tables and chairs, but no sign of occupation; the grates were black and empty, the walls blank, the windows unshuttered. Everywhere was only silence and shadows; there was no sign of the frightened children, or of where they lived; no trace of another staircase leading to the region where the governess went when she disappeared down the ladder through the trap-door--only hushed, listening, cold silence, and shadows that seemed for ever shifting from place to place as he moved past them. This illusion of people peering at him from corners, and behind doors just ajar, was very strong; yet whenever he turned his head to face them, lo, they were gone, and the shadows rushed in to fill their places. The spell of the Empty House was weaving itself slowly and surely about his heart. Yet he went on pluckily, full of a dreadful curiosity, continuing his search, and at length, after passing through another gloomy passage, he was in the act of crossing the threshold of an open door leading out into the courtyard, when he stopped short and clutched the door-posts with both hands. Some one had laughed! He turned, trying to look in every direction at once, but there was no sign of any living being. Yet the sound was close beside him; he could still hear it ringing in his ears--a mocking sort of laugh, in a harsh, guttural voice. The blood froze in his veins, and he hardly knew which way to turn, when another voice sounded, and his terror disappeared as if by magic. It was Miss Lake's voice calling to him over the banisters at the top of the house, and its tone was so cheerful that all his courage came back in a twinkling. "Go out into the yard," she called, "and play in the sunshine. But don't stay too long." Jimbo answered "All right" in a rather feeble little voice, and went on down the passage and out into the yard. The June sunshine lay hot and still over the paved court, and he looked up into the blue sky overhead. As he looked at the high wall that closed it in on three sides, he realised more than ever that he was caught in a monstrous trap from which there could be no ordinary means of escape. He could never climb over such a wall even with a ladder. He walked out a little way and noticed the rank weeds growing in patches in the corners; decay and neglect left everywhere their dismal signs; the yard, in spite of the sunlight, seemed as gloomy and cheerless as the house itself. In one corner stood several little white upright stones, each about three feet high; there seemed to be some writing on them, and he was in the act of going nearer to inspect, when a window opened and he heard some one calling to him in a loud, excited whisper: "Hst! Come in, Jimbo, at once. Quick! Run for your life!" He glanced up, quaking with fear, and saw the governess leaning out of the open window. At another window, a little beyond her, he thought a number of white little faces pressed against the glass, but he had no time to look more closely, for something in Miss Lake's voice made him turn and run into the house and up the stairs as though Fright himself were close at his heels. He flew up the three flights, and found the governess coming out on the top landing to meet him. She caught him in her arms and dashed back into the room, as if there was not a moment to be lost, slamming the door behind her. "How in the world did you get out?" she gasped, breathless as himself almost, and pale with alarm. "Another second and He'd have had you----!" "I found the door open----" "He opened it on purpose," she whispered, looking quickly round the room. "He meant you to go out." "But you called to me to play in the yard," he said. "I heard you. So of course I thought it was safe." "No," she declared, "I never called to you. That wasn't my voice. That was one of his tricks. I only this minute found the door open and you gone. Oh, Jimbo, that was a narrow escape; you must never go out of this room till--till I tell you. And never believe any of these voices you hear--you'll hear lots of them, saying all sorts of things--but unless you _see_ me, don't believe it's my voice." Jimbo promised. He was very frightened; but she would not tell him any more, saying it would only make it more difficult to escape if he knew too much in advance. He told her about the laugh, and the gravestones, and the faces at the other window, but she would not tell him what he wanted to know, and at last he gave up asking. A very deep impression had been made on his mind, however, and he began to realise, more than he had hitherto done, the horror of his prison and the power of his dreadful keeper. But when he began to look about him again, he noticed that there was a new thing in the room. The governess had left him, and was bending over it. She was doing something very busily indeed. He asked her what it was. "I'm making your bed," she said. It was, indeed, a bed, and he felt as he looked at it that there was something very familiar and friendly about the yellow framework and the little brass knobs. "I brought it up just now," she explained. "But it's not for sleeping in. It's only for you to lie down on, and also partly to deceive Him." "Why not for sleeping?" "There's no sleeping at all here," she went on calmly. "Why not?" "You can't sleep out of your body," she laughed. "Why not?" he asked again. "Your body goes to sleep, but _you_ don't," she explained. "Oh, I see." His head was whirling. "And my body--my real body----" "Is lying asleep--unconscious they call it--in the night-nursery at home. It's sound asleep. That's why you're here. It can't wake up till you go back to it, and you can't go back to it till you escape--even if it's ready for you before then. The bed is only for you to rest on, for you can _rest_ though you can't _sleep_." Jimbo stared blankly at the governess for some minutes. He was debating something in his mind, something very important, and just then it was his Older Self, and not the child, that was uppermost. Apparently it was soon decided, for he walked sedately up to her and said very gravely, with her serious eyes fixed on his face, "Miss Lake, are you _really_ Miss Lake?" "Of course I am." "You're not a trick of His, like the voices, I mean?" "No, Jimbo, I am really Miss Lake, the discharged governess who frightened you." There was profound anxiety in every word. Jimbo waited a minute, still looking steadily into her eyes. Then he put out his hand cautiously and touched her. He rose a little on tiptoe to be on a level with her face, taking a fold of her cloak in each hand. The soul-knowledge was in his eyes just then, not the mere curiosity of the child. "And are you--_dead_?" he asked, sinking his voice to a whisper. For a moment the woman's eyes wavered. She turned white and tried to move away; but the boy seized her hand and peered more closely into her face. "I mean, if we escape and I get back into my body," he whispered, "will you get back into yours too?" The governess made no reply, and shifted uneasily on her feet. But the boy would not let her go. "Please answer," he urged, still in a whisper. "Jimbo, what funny questions you ask!" she said at last, in a husky voice, but trying to smile. "But I want to know," he said. "I must know. I believe you are giving up everything just to save me--_everything_; and I don't want to be saved unless you come too. Tell me!" The colour came back to her cheeks a little, and her eyes grew moist. Again she tried to slip past him, but he prevented her. "You must tell me," he urged; "I would rather stay here with you than escape back into my body and leave you behind." Jimbo knew it was his Older Self speaking--the freed spirit rather than the broken body--but he felt the strain was very great; he could not keep it up much longer; any minute he might slip back into the child again, and lose interest, and be unequal to the task he now saw so clearly before him. "Quick!" he cried in a louder voice. "Tell me! You are giving up everything to save me, aren't you? And if I escape you will be left alone----quick, answer me! Oh, be quick, I'm slipping back----" Already he felt his thoughts becoming confused again, as the spirit merged back into the child; in another minute the boy would usurp the older self. "You see," began the governess at length, speaking very gently and sadly, "I am bound to make amends whatever happens. I must atone----" But already he found it hard to follow. "Atone," he asked, "what does '_atone_' mean?" He moved back a step, and glanced about the room. The moment of concentration had passed without bearing fruit; his thoughts began to wander again like a child's. "Anyhow, we shall escape together when the chance comes, shan't we?" he said. "Yes, darling, we shall," she said in a broken voice. "And if you do what I tell you, it will come very soon, I hope." She drew him towards her and kissed him, and though he didn't respond very heartily, he felt he liked it, and was sure that she was good, and meant to do the best possible for him. Jimbo asked nothing more for some time; he turned to the bed where he found a mattress and a blanket, but no sheets, and sat down on the edge and waited. The governess was standing by the window looking out; her back was turned to him. He heard an occasional deep sigh come from her, but he was too busy now with his own sensations to trouble much about her. Looking past her he saw the sea of green leaves dancing lazily in the sunshine. Something seemed to beckon him from beyond the high wall, and he longed to go out and play in the shade of the elms and hawthorns; for the horror of the Empty House was closing in upon him steadily but surely, and he longed for escape into a bright, unhaunted atmosphere, more than anything else in the whole world. His thoughts ran on and on in this vein, till presently he noticed that the governess was moving about the room. She crossed over and tried first one door and then the other; both were fastened. Next she lifted the trap-door and peered down into the black hole below. That, too, apparently was satisfactory. Then she came over to the bedside on tiptoe. "Jimbo, I've got something very important to ask you," she began. "All right," he said, full of curiosity. "You must answer me very exactly. Everything depends on it." "I will." She took another long look round the room, and then, in a still lower whisper, bent over him, and asked: "Have you any pain?" "Where?" he asked, remembering to be exact. "Anywhere." He thought a moment. "None, thank you." "None at all--anywhere?" she insisted. "None at all--anywhere," he said with decision. She seemed disappointed. "Never mind; it's a little soon yet, perhaps," she said. "We must have patience. It will come in time." "But I don't want any pain," he said, rather ruefully. "You can't escape till it comes." "I don't understand a bit what you mean." He began to feel alarmed at the notion of escape and pain going together. "You'll understand later, though," she said soothingly, "and it won't hurt _very_ much. The sooner the pain comes, the sooner we can try to escape. Nowhere can there be escape without it." And with that she left him, disappearing without another word into the hole below the trap, and leaving him, disconsolate yet excited, alone in the room. CHAPTER VIII THE GALLERY OF ANCIENT MEMORIES With every one, of course, the measurement of time depends largely upon the state of the emotions, but in Jimbo's case it was curiously exaggerated. This may have been because he had no standard of memory by which to test the succession of minutes; but, whatever it was, the hours passed very quickly, and the evening shadows were already darkening the room when at length he got up from the mattress and went over to the window. Outside the high elms were growing dim; soon the stars would be out in the sky. The afternoon had passed away like magic, and the governess still left him alone; he could not quite understand why she went away for such long periods. The darkness came down very swiftly, and it was night almost before he knew it. Yet he felt no drowsiness, no desire to yawn and get under sheets and blankets; sleep was evidently out of the question, and the hours slipped away so rapidly that it made little difference whether he sat up all night or whether he slept. It was his first night in the Empty House, and he wondered how many more he would spend there before escape came. He stood at the window, peering out into the growing darkness and thinking long, long thoughts. Below him yawned the black gulf of the yard, and the outline of the enclosing wall was only just visible, but beyond the elms rose far into the sky, and he could hear the wind singing softly in their branches. The sound was very sweet; it suggested freedom, and the flight of birds, and all that was wild and unrestrained. The wind could never really be a prisoner; its voice sang of open spaces and unbounded distances, of flying clouds and mountains, of mighty woods and dancing waves; above all, of wings--free, swift, and unconquerable wings. But this rushing song of wind among the leaves made him feel too sad to listen long, and he lay down upon the bed again, still thinking, thinking. The house was utterly still. Not a thing stirred within its walls. He felt lonely, and began to long for the companionship of the governess; he would have called aloud for her to come only he was afraid to break the appalling silence. He wondered where she was all this time and how she spent the long, dark hours of the sleepless nights. Were all these things really true that she told him? Was he actually out of his body, and was his name really Jimbo? His thoughts kept groping backwards, ever seeking the other companions he had lost; but, like a piece of stretched elastic too short to reach its object, they always came back with a snap just when he seemed on the point of finding them. He wanted these companions very badly indeed, but the struggling of his memory was painful, and he could not keep the effort up for very long at one time. The effort once relaxed, however, his thoughts wandered freely where they would; and there rose before his mind's eye dim suggestions of memories far more distant--ghostly scenes and faces that passed before him in endless succession, but always faded away before he could properly seize and name them. This memory, so stubborn as regards quite recent events, began to play strange tricks with him. It carried him away into a Past so remote that he could not connect it with himself at all, and it was like dreaming of scenes and events that had happened to some one else; yet, all the time, he knew quite well those things had happened to him, and to none else. It was the memory of the soul asserting itself now that the clamour of the body was low. It was an underground river coming to the surface, for odd minutes, here and there, showing its waters to the stars just long enough to catch their ghostly reflections before it rolled away underground again. Yet, swift and transitory as they were, these glimpses brought in their train sensations that were too powerful ever to have troubled his child-mind in its present body. They stirred in him the strong emotions, the ecstasies, the terrors, the yearnings of a much more distant past; whispering to him, could he but have understood, of an infinitely deeper layer of memories and experiences which, now released from the burden of the immediate years, strove to awaken into life again. The soul in that little body covered with alpaca knickerbockers and a sailor blouse seemed suddenly to have access to a storehouse of knowledge that must have taken centuries, rather than a few short years, to acquire. It was all very queer. The feeling of tremendous age grew mysteriously over him. He realised that he had been wandering for ages. He had been to the stars and also to the deeps; he had roamed over strange mountains far away from cities or inhabited places of the earth, and had lived by streams whose waves were silvered by moonlight dropping softly through whispering palm branches.... Some of these ghostly memories brought him sensations of keenest happiness--icy, silver, radiant; others swept through his heart like a cold wave, leaving behind a feeling of unutterable woe, and a sense of loneliness that almost made him cry aloud. And there came Voices too--Voices that had slept so long in the inner kingdoms of silence that they failed to rouse in him the very slightest emotion of recognition.... Worn out at length with the surging of these strange hosts through him, he got up and went to the open window again. The night was very dark and warm, but the stars had disappeared, and there was the hush and the faint odour of coming rain in the air. He smelt leaves and the earth and the moist things of the ground, the wonderful perfume of the life of the soil. The wind had dropped; all was silent as the grave; the leaves of the elm trees were motionless; no bird or insect raised its voice; everything slept; he alone was watchful, awake. Leaning over the window-sill, his thoughts searched for the governess, and he wondered anew where she was spending the dark hours. She, too, he felt sure, was wakeful somewhere, watching with him, plotting their escape together, and always mindful of his safety.... His reverie was suddenly interrupted by the flight of an immense night-bird dropping through the air just above his head. He sprang back into the room with a startled cry, as it rushed past in the darkness with a great swishing of wings. The size of the creature filled him with awe; it was so close that the wind it made lifted the hair on his forehead, and he could almost feel the feathers brush his cheeks. He strained his eyes to try and follow it, but the shadows were too deep and he could see nothing; only in the distance, growing every moment fainter, he could hear the noise of big wings threshing the air. He waited a little, wondering if another bird would follow it, or if it would presently return to its perch on the roof; and then his thoughts passed on to uncertain memories of other big birds--hawks, owls, eagles--that he had seen somewhere in places now beyond the reach of distinct recollections.... Soon the light began to dawn in the east, and he made out the shape of the elm trees and the dreadful prison wall; and with the first real touch of morning light he heard a familiar creaking sound in the room behind him, and saw the black hood of the governess rising through the trap-door in the floor. "But you've left me alone all night!" he said at once reproachfully, as she kissed him. "On purpose," she answered. "He'd get suspicious if I stayed too much with you. It's different in the daytime, when he can't see properly." "Where's he been all night, then?" asked the boy. "Last night he was out most of the time--hunting----" "Hunting!" he repeated, with excitement. "Hunting what?" "Children--frightened children," she replied, lowering her voice. "That's how he found you." It was a horrible thought--Fright hunting for victims to bring to his dreadful prison--and Jimbo shivered as he heard it. "And how did you get on all this time?" she asked, hurriedly changing the subject. "I've been remembering, that is half-remembering, an awful lot of things, and feeling, oh, so old. I never want to remember anything again," he said wearily. "You'll forget quick enough when you get back into your body, and have only the body-memories," she said, with a sigh that he did not understand. "But, now tell me," she added, in a more serious voice, "have you had any pain yet?" He shook his head. She stepped up beside him. "None _there_?" she asked, touching him lightly just behind the shoulder blades. Jimbo jumped as if he had been shot, and uttered a piercing yell. "That hurts!" he screamed. "I'm so glad," cried the governess. "That's the pains coming at last." Her face was beaming. "Coming!" he echoed, "I think they've _come_. But if they hurt as much as that, I think I'd rather not escape," he added ruefully. "The pain won't last more than a minute," she said calmly. "You must be brave and stand it. There's no escape without pain--from anything." "If there's no other way," he said pluckily, "I'll try,--but----" "You see," she went on, rather absently, "at this very moment the doctor is probing the wounds in your back where the horns went in----" But he was not listening. Her explanations always made him want either to cry or to laugh. This time he laughed, and the governess joined him, while they sat on the edge of the bed together talking of many things. He did not understand all her explanations, but it comforted him to hear them. So long as somebody understood, no matter who, he felt it was all right. In this way several days and nights passed quickly away. The pains were apparently no nearer, but as Miss Lake showed no particular anxiety about their non-arrival, he waited patiently too, dreading the moment, yet also looking forward to it exceedingly. During the day the governess spent most of the time in the room with him; but at night, when he was alone, the darkness became enchanted, the room haunted, and he passed into the long, long Gallery of Ancient Memories. CHAPTER IX THE MEANS OF ESCAPE A week passed, and Jimbo began to wonder if the pains he so much dreaded, yet so eagerly longed for, were ever coming at all. The imprisonment was telling upon him, and he grew very thin, and consequently very light. The nights, though he spent them alone, were easily borne, for he was then intensely occupied, and the time passed swiftly; the moment it was dark he stepped into the Gallery of Memories, and in a little while passed into a new world of wonder and delight. But the daytime seemed always long. He stood for hours by the window watching the trees and the sky, and what he saw always set painful currents running through his blood--unsatisfied longings, yearnings, and immense desires he never could understand. The white clouds on their swift journeys took with them something from his heart every time he looked upon them; they melted into air and blue sky, and lo! that "something" came back to him charged with all the wild freedom and magic of open spaces, distance, and rushing winds. But the change was close at hand. One night, as he was standing by the open window listening to the drip of the rain, he felt a deadly weakness steal over him; the strength went out of his legs. First he turned hot, and then he turned cold; clammy perspiration broke out all over him, and it was all he could do to crawl across the room and throw himself on to the bed. But no sooner was he stretched out on the mattress than the feelings passed entirely, and left behind them an intoxicating sense of strength and lightness. His muscles became like steel springs; his bones were strong as iron and light as cork; a wonderful vigour had suddenly come into him, and he felt as if he had just stepped from a dungeon into fresh air. He was ready to face anything in the world. But, before he had time to realise the full enjoyment of these new sensations, a stinging, blinding pain shot suddenly through his right shoulder as if a red-hot iron had pierced to the very bone. He screamed out in agony; though, even while he screamed, the pain passed. Then the same thing happened in his other shoulder. It shot through his back with equal swiftness, and was gone, leaving him lying on the bed trembling with pain. But the instant it was gone the delightful sensations of strength and lightness returned, and he felt as if his whole body were charged with some new and potent force. The pains had come at last! Jimbo had no notion how they could possibly be connected with escape, but Miss Lake--his kind and faithful friend, Miss Lake--had said that no escape was possible without them; and had promised that they should be brief. And this was true, for the entire episode had not taken a minute of time. "ESCAPE, ESCAPE!"--the words rushed through him like a flame of fire. Out of this dreadful Empty House, into the open spaces; beyond the prison wall; out where the wind and the rain could touch him; where he could feel the grass beneath his feet, and could see the whole sky at once, instead of this narrow strip through the window. His thoughts flew to the stars and the clouds.... But a strange humming of voices interrupted his flight of imagination, and he saw that the room was suddenly full of moving figures. They were passing before him with silent footsteps, across the window from door to door. How they had come in, or how they went out, he never knew; but his heart stood still for an instant as he recognised the mournful figures of the Frightened Children filing before him in a slow procession. They were singing--though it sounded more like a chorus of whispering than actual singing--and as they moved past with the measured steps of their sorrowful dance, he caught the words of the song he had heard them sing when he first came into the house:-- "We hear the little voices in the wind Singing of freedom we may never find." Jimbo put his fingers into his ears, but still the sound came through. He heard the words almost as if they were inside himself--his own thoughts singing:-- "We hear the little footsteps in the rain Running to help us, though they run in vain, Tapping in hundreds on the window-pane." The horrible procession filed past and melted away near the door. They were gone as mysteriously as they had come, and almost before he realised it. He sprang from the bed and tried the doors; both were locked. How in the world had the children got in and out? The whispering voices rose again on the night air, and this time he was sure they came from outside. He ran to the open window and thrust his head out cautiously. Sure enough, the procession was moving slowly, still with the steps of that impish dance across the courtyard stones. He could just make out the slow waving arms, the thin bodies, and the white little faces as they passed on silent feet through the darkness, and again a fragment of the song rose to his ears as he watched, and filled him with an overpowering sadness:-- "We have no joy in any children's game, For happiness to us is but a name, Since Terror kissed us with his lips of flame." Then he noticed that the group was growing smaller. Already the numbers were less. Somewhere, over there in the dark corner of the yard, the children disappeared, though it was too dark to see precisely how or where. "We dance with phantoms, and with shadows play," rose to his ears. Suddenly he remembered the little white upright stones he had seen in that corner of the yard, and understood. One by one they vanished just behind those stones. Jimbo shivered, and drew his head in. He did not like those upright stones; they made him uncomfortable and afraid. Now, however, the last child had disappeared and the song had ceased. He realised what his fate would be if the escape were not successful; he would become one of this band of Frightened Children; dwelling somewhere behind the upright stones; a terrified shadow, waiting in vain to be rescued, waiting perhaps for ever and ever. The thought brought the tears to his eyes, but he somehow managed to choke them down. He knew it was the young portion of him only that felt afraid--the body; the older self could not feel fear, and had nothing to do with tears. He lay down again upon the hard mattress and waited; and soon afterwards the first crimson streaks of sunrise appeared behind the high elms, and rooks began to caw and shake their wings in the upper branches. A little later the governess came in. Before he could move out of the way--for he disliked being embraced--she had her arms round his neck, and was covering him with kisses. He saw tears in her eyes. "You darling Jimbo!" she cried, "they've come at last." "How do you know?" he asked, surprised at her knowledge and puzzled by her display of emotion. "I heard you scream to begin with. Besides, I've been watching." "Watching?" "Yes, and listening too, every night, every single night. You've hardly been a minute out of my sight," she added. "I think it's awfully good of you," he said doubtfully, "but----" A flood of questions followed--about the upright stones, the shadowy children, where she spent the night "watching him," and a hundred other things besides. But he got little satisfaction out of her. He never did when it was Jimbo, the child, that asked; and he remained Jimbo, the child, all that day. She only told him that all was going well. The pains had come; he had grown nice and thin, and light; the children had come into his room as a hint that he belonged to their band, and other things had happened about which she would tell him later. The crisis was close at hand. That was all he could get out of her. "It won't be long now," she said excitedly. "They'll come to-night, I expect." "What will come to-night?" he asked, with querulous wonder. "Wait and see!" was all the answer he got. "Wait and see!" She told him to lie quietly on the bed and to have patience. With asking questions, and thinking, and wondering, the day passed very quickly. With the lengthening shadows his excitement began to grow. Presently Miss Lake took her departure and went off to her unknown and mysterious abode; he watched her disappear through the floor with mingled feelings, wondering what would have happened before he saw her again. She gave him a long, last look as she sank away below the boards, but it was a look that brought him fresh courage, and her eyes were happy and smiling. Tingling already with expectancy he got into the bed and lay down, his brain alive with one word--ESCAPE. From where he lay he saw the stars in the narrow strip of sky; he heard the wind whispering in the branches; he even smelt the perfume of the fields and hedges--grass, flowers, dew, and the sweet earth--the odours of freedom. The governess had, for some reason she refused to explain, taken his blouse away with her. For a long time he puzzled over this, seeking reasons and finding none. But, while in the act of stroking his bare arms, the pains of the night before suddenly returned to both shoulders at once. Fire seemed to run down his back, splitting his bones apart, and then passed even more quickly than before, leaving him with the same wonderful sensations of lightness and strength. He felt inclined to shout and run and jump, and it was only the memory of the governess's earnest caution to "lie quietly" that prevented his new emotions passing into acts. With very great effort he lay still all night long; and it was only when the room at last began to get light again that he turned on his side, preparatory to getting up. But there was something new--something different! He rested on his elbow, waiting. Something had happened to him. Cautiously he sat on the edge of the bed, and stretched out one foot and touched the floor. Excitement ran through him like a wave. There was a great change, a tremendous change; for as he stepped out gingerly on to the floor _something followed him from the bed_. It clung to his back; it touched both shoulders at once; it stroked his ribs, and tickled the skin of his arms. Half frightened, he brought the other leg over, and stood boldly upright on both feet. But the weight still clung to his back. He looked over his shoulder. Yes! it was trailing after him from the bed; it was fan-shaped, and brilliant in colour. He put out a hand and touched it; it was soft and glossy; then he took it deliberately between his fingers; it was smooth as velvet, and had numerous tiny ribs running along it. Seizing it at last with all his courage, he pulled it forward in front of him for a better view, only to discover that it would not come out beyond a certain distance, and seemed to have got caught somehow between his shoulders--just where the pains had been. A second pull, more vigorous than the first, showed that it was not caught, but _fastened_ to his skin; it divided itself, moreover, into two portions, one half coming from each shoulder. "I do believe they're feathers!" he exclaimed, his eyes almost popping out of his head. Then, with a sudden flash of comprehension, he saw it all, and understood. They were, indeed, feathers; but they were something more than feathers merely. _They were wings!_ Jimbo caught his breath and stared in silence. He felt dazed. Then bit by bit the fragments of the weird mosaic fell into their proper places, and he began to understand. Escape was to be by flight. It filled him with such a whirlwind of delight and excitement that he could scarcely keep from screaming aloud. Lost in wonder, he took a step forward, and watched with bulging eyes how the wings followed him, their tips trailing along the floor. They were a beautiful deep red, and hung down close and warm beside his body; glossy, sleek, magical. And when, later, the sun burst into the room and turned their colour into living flame, he could not resist the temptation to kiss them. He seized them, and rubbed their soft surfaces over his face. Such colours he had never seen before, and he wanted to be sure that they really belonged to him and were intended for actual use. Slowly, without using his hands, he raised them into the air. The effort was a perfectly easy muscular effort from the shoulders that came naturally, though he did not quite understand how he accomplished it. The wings rose in a fine, graceful sweep, curving over his head till the tips of the feathers met, touching the walls as they rose, and almost reaching to the ceiling. He gave a howl of delight, for this sight was more than he could manage without some outlet for his pent-up emotion; and at the same moment the trap-door shot open, and the governess came into the room with such a bang and a clatter that Jimbo knew at once her excitement was as great as his own. In her hands she carried the blouse she had taken away the night before. She held it out to him without a word. Her eyes were shining like electric lamps. In less than a second he had slipped his wings through the neatly-made slits, but before he could practise them again, Miss Lake rushed over to him, her face radiant with happiness. "Jimbo! My darling Jimbo!" she cried--and then stopped short, apparently unable to express her emotion. The next instant he was enveloped, wings and all, in a warm confusion of kisses, congratulations and folds of hood. When they became disentangled again the governess went down on her knees and made a careful examination; she pulled the wings out to their full extent and found that they stretched about four feet and a half from tip to tip. "They _are_ beauties!" she exclaimed enthusiastically, "and full grown and strong. I'm not surprised they took so long coming." "Long!" he echoed, "I thought they came awfully quickly." "Not half so quickly as they'll go," she interrupted; adding, when she saw his expression of dismay, "I mean, you'll fly like the wind with them." Jimbo was simply breathless with excitement. He wanted to jump out of the window and escape at once. The blue sky and the sunshine and the white flying clouds sent him an irresistible invitation. He could not wait a minute longer. "Quick," he cried, "I can't wait! They may go again. Show me how to use them. Oh! do show me." "I'll show you everything in time," she answered. There was something in her voice that made him pause in his excitement. He looked at her in silence for some minutes. "But how are _you_ going to escape?" he asked at length. "You haven't got"----he stopped short. The governess stepped back a few paces from him. She threw back the hood from her face. Then she lifted the long black cloak that hung like a cassock almost to her ankles and had always enveloped her hitherto. Jimbo stared. Falling from her shoulders, and folding over her hips, he saw long red feathers clinging to her; and when he dashed forward to touch them with his hands, he found they were just as sleek and smooth and glossy as his own. "And you never told me all this time?" he gasped. "It was safer not," she said. "You'd have been stroking and feeling your shoulders the whole time, and the wings might never have come at all." She spread out her wings as she spoke to their full extent; they were nearly six feet across, and the deep crimson on the under side was so exquisite, gleaming in the sunlight, that Jimbo ran in and nestled beneath the feathers, tickling his cheeks with the fluffy surface and running his fingers with childish delight along the slender red quills. "You precious child," she said, tenderly folding her wings round him and kissing the top of his head. "Always remember that I really love you; no matter what happens, remember that, and I'll save you." "And we shall escape together?" he asked, submitting for once to the caresses with a good grace. "We shall escape from the Empty House together," she replied evasively. "How far we can go after that depends--on you." "On me?" "If you love me enough--as I love you, Jimbo--we can never separate again, because love ties us together for ever. Only," she added, "it must be mutual." "I love you very much," he said, puzzled a little. "Of course I do." "If you've really forgiven me for being the cause of your coming here," she said, "we can always be together, but----" "I don't remember, but I've forgiven you--that _other you_--long ago," he said simply. "If you hadn't brought me here, I should never have met you." "That's not real forgiveness--quite," she sighed, half to herself. But Jimbo could not follow this sort of conversation for long; he was too anxious to try his wings for one thing. "Is it _very_ difficult to use them?" he asked. "Try," she said. He stood in the centre of the floor and raised them again and again. They swept up easily, meeting over his head, and the air whistled musically through them. Evidently, they had their proper muscles, for it was no great effort, and when he folded them again by his side they fell into natural curves over his arms as if they had been there all his life. The sound of the feathers threshing the air filled him with delight and made him think of the big night-bird that had flown past the window during the night. He told the governess about it, and she burst out laughing. "I was that big bird!" she said. "You!" "I perched on the roof every night to watch over you. I flew down that time because I was afraid you were trying to climb out of the window." This was indeed a proof of devotion, and Jimbo felt that he could never doubt her again; and when she went on to tell him about his wings and how to use them he listened with his very best attention and tried hard to learn and understand. "The great difficulty is that you can't practise properly," she explained. "There's no room in here, and yet you can't get out till you _fly_ out. It's the first swoop that decides all. You have to drop straight out of this window, and if you use the wings properly they will carry you in a single swoop over the wall and right up into the sky." "But if I miss----?" "You can't miss," she said with decision, "but, if you did, you would be a prisoner here for ever. HE would catch you in the yard and tear your wings off. It is just as well that you should know this at once." Jimbo shuddered as he heard her. "When can we try?" he asked anxiously. "Very soon now. The muscles must harden first, and that takes a little time. You must practise flapping your wings until you can do it easily four hundred times a minute. When you can do that it will be time for the first start. You must keep your head steady and not get giddy; the novelty of the motion--the ground rushing up into your face and the whistling of the wind--are apt to confuse at first, but it soon passes, and you must have confidence. I can only help you up to a certain point; the rest depends on you." "And the first jump?" "You'll have to make that by yourself," she said; "but you'll do it all right. You're very light, and won't go too near the ground. You see, we're like bats, and cannot rise from the earth. We can only fly by dropping from a height, and that's what makes the first plunge rather trying. But you won't fall," she added, "and remember, I shall always be within reach." "You're awfully kind to me," said Jimbo, feeling his little soul more than ever invaded by the force of her unselfish care. "I promise you I'll do my best." He climbed on to her knee and stared into her anxious face. "Then you are beginning to love me a little, aren't you?" she asked softly, putting her arms round him. "Yes," he said decidedly. "I love you very much already." Four hundred times a minute sounded a very great deal of wing-flapping; but Jimbo practised eagerly, and though at first he could only manage about twice a second, or one hundred and twenty times a minute, he found this increased very soon to a great deal more, and before long he was able to do the full four hundred, though only for a few minutes at a time. He stuck to it pluckily, getting stronger every day. The governess encouraged him as much as possible, but there was very little room for her while he was at work, and he found the best way to practise was at night when she was out of the way. She told him that a large bird moved its wings about four times a second, two up-strokes and two down-strokes; but a small bird like a partridge moved its wings so rapidly it was impossible for the eye to distinguish or count the strokes. A middle course of four hundred suited his own case best, and he bent all his energies to acquire it. He also learned that the convex outside curve of wings allowed the wind to escape over them, while the under side, being concave, held every breath. Thus the upward stroke did not simply counterbalance the downward and keep him stationary. Moreover, she showed him how the feathers underlapped each other so that the downward stroke pressed them closely together to hold the wind, whereas in the upward stroke they opened and separated, letting the air slip easily through them, thus offering less resistance to the atmosphere. By the end of a week Jimbo had practised so hard that he could keep himself off the floor in mid-air for half an hour at a time, and even then without feeling any great fatigue. His excitement became intense; and, meanwhile, in his body on the nursery bed, though he did not know it, the fever was reaching its crisis. He could think of nothing else but the joys of flying, and what the first, awful plunge would be like, and when Miss Lake came up to him one afternoon and whispered something in his ear, he was so wildly happy that he hugged her for several minutes without the slightest coaxing. "It's bright and clear," she explained, "and Fright will not come after us, for he fears the light, and can only fly on dark and gloomy nights." "So we can start----?" he stammered joyfully. "To-night," she answered, "for our first practice-flight." CHAPTER X THE PLUNGE To enter the world of wings is to enter a new state of existence. The apparent loss of weight; the ability to attain full speed in a few seconds, and to stop suddenly in a headlong rush without fear of collapse; the power to steer instantly in any direction by merely changing the angle of the body; the altered and enormous view of the green world below--looking down upon forests, seas and clouds; the easy voluptuous rhythm of rising and falling in long, swinging undulations; and a hundred other things that simply defy description and can be appreciated only by actual experience, these are some of the delights of the new world of wings and flying. And the fearful joy of very high speed, especially when the exhilaration of escape is added to it, means a condition little short of real ecstasy. Yet Jimbo's first flight, the governess had been careful to tell him, could not be the flight of final escape; for, even if the wings proved equal to a prolonged effort, escape was impossible until there was somewhere safe to escape to. So it was understood that the practice flights might be long, or might be short; the important thing, meanwhile, was to learn to fly as well as possible. For skilled flying is very different to mere headlong rushing, and both courage and perseverance are necessary to acquire it. With rare common sense Miss Lake had said very little about the possibility of failure. Having warned him about the importance of not falling, she had then stopped, and the power of suggestion had been allowed to work only in the right direction of certain success. While the boy knew that the first plunge from the window would be a moment fraught with the highest danger, his mind only recognised the mere off-chance of falling and being caught. He felt confidence in himself, and by so much, therefore, were the chances of disaster lessened. For the rest of the afternoon Jimbo saw nothing of his faithful companion; he spent the time practising and resting, and when weary of everything else, he went to the window and indulged in thrilling calculations about the exact height from the ground. A drop of three storeys into a paved courtyard with a monster waiting to catch him, and a high wall too close to allow a proper swing, was an alarming matter from any point of view. Fortunately, his mind dwelt more on the delight of prospective flight and freedom than on the chances of being caught. The yard lay hot and naked in the afternoon glare and the enclosing wall had never looked more formidable; but from his lofty perch Jimbo could see beyond into soft hayfields and smiling meadows, yellow with cowslips and buttercups. Everything that flew he watched with absorbing interest: swift blackbirds, whistling as they went, and crows, their wings purple in the sunshine. The song of the larks, invisible in the sea of blue air sent a thrill of happiness through him--he, too, might soon know something of that glad music--and even the stately flight of the butterflies, which occasionally ventured over into the yard, stirred anticipations in him of joys to come. The day waned slowly. The butterflies vanished; the rooks sailed homewards through the sunset; the wind dropped away, and the shadows of the high elms lengthened gradually and fell across the window. The mysterious hour of the dusk, when the standard of reality changes and other worlds come close and listen, began to work its subtle spell upon his soul. Imperceptibly the shadows deepened as the veil of night drew silently across the sky. A gentle breathing filled the air; trees and fields were composing themselves to sleep; stars were peeping; wings were being folded. But the boy's wings, trembling with life to the very tips of their long feathers, these were not being folded. Charged with excitement, like himself, they were gathering all their forces for the supreme effort of their first journey out into the open spaces where they might touch the secret sources of their own magical life. For a long, long time he waited; but at last the trap-door lifted and Miss Lake appeared above the floor. The moment she stood in the room he noticed that her wings came through two little slits in her gown and folded down close to the body. They almost touched the ground. "Hush!" she whispered, holding up a warning finger. She came over on tiptoe and they began to talk in low whispers. "He's on the watch; we must speak very quietly. We couldn't have a better night for it. The wind's in the south and the moon won't be up till we're well on our way." Now that the actual moment was so near the boy felt something of fear steal over him. The night seemed so vast and terrible all of a sudden--like an immense black ocean with no friendly islands where they could fold their wings and rest. "Don't waste your strength thinking," whispered the governess. "When the time comes, act quickly, that's all!" She went over to the window and peered out cautiously, after a while beckoning the child to join her. "He is there," she murmured in his ear. Jimbo could only make out an indistinct shadowy object crouching under the wall, and he was not even positive of that. "Does he know we're going?" he asked in an awed whisper. "He's there on the chance," she muttered, drawing back into the room. "When there's a possibility of any one getting frightened he's bound to be lurking about somewhere near. That's Fright all over. But he can't hurt you," she added, "because you're not going to get frightened. Besides, he can only fly when it's dark; and to-night we shall have the moon." "I'm not afraid," declared the boy in spite of a rather fluttering heart. "Are you ready?" was all she said. At last, then, the moment had come. It was actually beside him, waiting, full of mystery and wonder, with alarm not far behind. The sun was buried below the horizon of the world, and the dusk had deepened into night. Stars were shining overhead; the leaves were motionless; not a breath stirred; the earth was silent and waiting. "Yes, I'm ready," he whispered, almost inaudibly. "Then listen," she said, "and I'll tell you exactly what to do: Jump upwards from the window ledge as high as you can, and the moment you begin to drop, open your wings and strike with all your might. You'll rise at once. The thing to remember is to _rise as quickly as possible_, because the wall prevents a long, easy, sweeping rise; and, whatever happens, you must clear that wall!" "I shan't touch the ground then?" asked a faint little voice. "Of course not! You'll get near it, but the moment you use your wings you'll stop sinking, and rise up, up, up, ever so quickly." "And where to?" "To me. You'll see me waiting for you above the trees. Steering will come naturally; it's quite easy." Jimbo was already shaking with excitement. He could not help it. And he knew, in spite of all Miss Lake's care, that Fright was waiting in the yard to catch him if he fell, or sank too near the ground. "I'll go first," added the governess, "and the moment you see that I've cleared the wall you must jump after me. Only do not keep me waiting!" The girl stood for a minute in silence, arranging her wings. Her fingers were trembling a little. Suddenly she drew the boy to her and kissed him passionately. "Be brave!" she whispered, looking searchingly into his eyes, "and strike hard--you can't possibly fail." In another minute she was climbing out of the window. For one second he saw her standing on the narrow ledge with black space at her feet; the next, without even a cry, she sprang out into the darkness, and was gone. Jimbo caught his breath and ran up to see. She dropped like a stone, turning over sideways in the air, and then at once her wings opened on both sides and she righted. The darkness swallowed her up for a moment so that he could not see clearly, and only heard the threshing of the huge feathers; but it was easy to tell from the sound that she was rising. Then suddenly a black form cleared the wall and rose swiftly in a magnificent sweep into the sky, and he saw her outlined darkly against the stars above the high elm tree. She was safe. Now it was his turn. "Act quickly! Don't think!" rang in his ears. If only he could do it all as quickly as she had done it. But insidious fear had been working all the time below the surface, and his refusal to recognise it could not prevent it weakening his muscles and checking his power of decision. Fortunately something of his Older Self came to the rescue. The emotions of fear, excitement, and intense anticipation combined to call up the powers of his deeper being: the boy trembled horribly, but the old, experienced part of him sang with joy. Cautiously he began to climb out on to the window-sill; first one foot and then the other hung over the edge. He sat there, staring down into black space beneath. For a minute he hesitated; despair rushed over him in a wave; he could never take that awful jump into emptiness and darkness. It was impossible. Better be a prisoner for ever than risk so fearful a plunge. He felt cold, weak, frightened, and made a half-movement back into the room. The wings caught somehow between his legs and nearly flung him headlong into the yard. "Jimbo! I'm waiting for you!" came at that moment in a faint cry from the stars, and the sound gave him just the impetus he needed before it was too late. He could not disappoint her--his faithful friend. Such a thing was impossible. He stood upright on the ledge, his hands clutching the window-sash behind, balancing as best he could. He clenched his fists, drew a deep, long breath, and jumped upwards and forwards into the air. Up rushed the darkness with a shriek; the air whistled in his ears; he dropped at fearful speed into nothingness. At first everything was forgotten--wings, instructions, warnings, and all. He even forgot to open his wings at all, and in another second he would have been dashed upon the hard paving-stones of the courtyard where his great enemy lay waiting to seize him. But just in the nick of time he remembered, and the long hours of practice bore fruit. Out flew the great red wings in a tremendous sweep on both sides of him, and he began to strike with every atom of strength he possessed. He had dropped to within six feet of the ground; but at once the strokes began to tell, and oh, magical sensation! he felt himself rising easily, lightly, swiftly. A very slight effort of those big wings would have been sufficient to lift him out of danger, but in his terror and excitement he quite miscalculated their power, and in a single moment he was far out of reach of the dangerous yard and anything it contained. But the mad rush of it all made his head swim; he felt dizzy and confused, and, instead of clearing the wall, he landed on the top of it and clung to the crumbling coping with hands and feet, panting and breathless. The dizziness was only momentary, however. In less than a minute he was on his feet and in the act of taking his second leap into space. This time it came more easily. He dropped, and the field swung up to meet him. Soon the powerful strokes of his wings drove him at great speed upwards, and he bounded ever higher towards the stars. Overhead, the governess hovered like an immense bird, and as he rose up he caught the sound of her wings beating the air, while far beneath him, he heard with a shudder a voice like the rushing of a great river. It made him increase his pace, and in another minute he found himself among the little whirlwinds that raced about from the beating of Miss Lake's great wings. "Well done!" cried the delighted governess. "Safe at last! Now we can fly to our heart's content!" Jimbo flew up alongside, and together they dashed forward into the night. CHAPTER XI THE FIRST FLIGHT There was not much talking at first. The stress of conflicting emotions was so fierce that the words choked themselves in his throat, and the desire for utterance found its only vent in hard breathing. The intoxication of rapid motion carried him away headlong in more senses than one. At first he felt as if he never would be able to keep up; then it seemed as if he never would get down again. For with wings it is almost easier to rise than to fall, and a first flight is, before anything else, a series of vivid and audacious surprises. For a long time Jimbo was so dizzy with excitement and the novelty of the sensation that he forgot his deliverer altogether. And what a flight it was! Instead of the steady race of the carrier pigeon, or of the rooks homeward bound at evening, it was the see-saw motion of the wren's swinging journey across the lawn; only heavier, faster, and with more terrific impetus. Up and down, each time with a rise and fall of twenty feet, he careered, whistling through the summer night; at the drop of each curve, so low that the scents of dewy grass rose into his face; at the crest of it, so high that the trees and hedges often became mere blots upon the dark surface of the earth. The fields rushed by beneath him; the white roads flashed past like streaks of snow. Sometimes he shot across sheets of water and felt the cooler air strike his cheeks; sometimes over sheltered meadows, where the sunshine had slept all day and the air was still soft and warm; on and on, as easily as rain dropping from the sky, or wind rushing earthwards from between the clouds. Everything flew past him at an astonishing rate--everything but the bright stars that gazed calmly down overhead; and when he looked up and saw their steadfastness it helped to keep within bounds the fine alarm of this first excursion into the great vault of the sky. "Gently, child!" gasped Miss Lake behind him. "We shall never keep it up at this rate." "Oh! but it's so wonderful," he cried, drawing in the air loudly between his teeth, and shaking his wings rapidly like a hawk before it drops. The pace slackened a little and the girl drew up alongside. For some time they flew forward together in silence. They had been skirting the edge of a wood, when suddenly the trees fell away and Jimbo gave a scream and rose fifty feet into the air with a single bound. Straight in front of him loomed an immense, glaring disc that seemed to swim suddenly up into the sky above the trees. It hung there before his eyes and dazzled him. "It's only the moon," cried Miss Lake from below. Jimbo dropped through the air to her side again with a gasp. "I thought it was a big hole in the sky with fire rushing through," he explained breathlessly. The boy stared, full of wonder and delight, at the huge flaming circle that seemed to fill half the heavens in front of him. "Look out!" cried the governess, seizing his hand. Whish! whew! whirr! A large bird whipped past them like some winged imp of darkness, vanishing among the trees far below. There would certainly have been a collision but for the girl's energetic interference. "You must be on the look-out for these night-birds," she said. "They fly so unexpectedly, and, of course, they don't see us properly. Telegraph wires and church steeples are bad too, but then we shan't fly over cities much. Keep a good height, it's safer." They altered their course a little, flying at a different angle, so that the moon no longer dazzled them. Steering came quite easily by turning the body, and Jimbo still led the way, the governess following heavily and with a mighty business of wings and flapping. It was something to remember, the glory of that first journey through the air. Sixty miles an hour, and scarcely an effort! Skimming the long ridges of the hills and rushing through the pure air of mountain tops; threading the star-beams; bathing themselves from head to foot in an ocean of cool, clean wind; swimming on the waves of viewless currents--currents warmed only by the magic of the stars, and kissed by the burning lips of flying meteors. Far below them the moonlight touched the fields with silver and the murmur of the world rose faintly to their ears, trembling, as it were, with the inarticulate dreams of millions. Everywhere about them thrilled and sang the unspeakable power of the night. The mystery of its great heart seemed laid bare before them. It was like a wonder-journey in some Eastern fairy tale. Sometimes they passed through zones of sweeter air, perfumed with the scents of hay and wild flowers; at others, the fresh, damp odour of ploughed fields rose up to them; or, again, they went spinning over leagues of forest where the tree-tops stretched beneath them like the surface of a wide, green sea, sleeping in the moonlight. And, when they crossed open water, the stars shone reflected in their faces; and all the while the wings, whirring and purring softly through the darkness, made pleasant music in their ears. "I'm tired," declared Jimbo presently. "Then we'll go down and rest," said his breathless companion with obvious relief. She showed him how to spread his wings, sloping them towards the ground at an angle that enabled him to shoot rapidly downwards, at the same time regulating his speed by the least upward tilt. It was a glorious motion, without effort or difficulty, though the pace made it hard to keep the eyes open, and breathing became almost impossible. They dropped to within ten feet of the ground and then shot forward again. But, while the boy was watching his companion's movements, and paying too little attention to his own, there rose suddenly before him out of the ground a huge, bulky form of something--and crash--he flew headlong into it. Fortunately it was only a haystack; but the speed at which he was going lodged his head several inches under the thatch, whence he projected horizontally into space, feet, arms, and wings gyrating furiously. The governess, however, soon released him with much laughter, and they dropped down into the fallen hay upon the ground with no worse result than a shaking. "Oh, what a lark!" he cried, shaking the hay out of his feathers, and rubbing his head rather ruefully. "Except that larks are hardly night-birds," she laughed, helping him. They settled with folded wings in the shadow of the haystack; and the big moon, peeping over the edge at them, must have surely wondered to see such a funny couple, in such a place, and at such an hour. "Mushrooms!" suddenly cried the governess, springing to her feet. "There must be lots in this field. I'll go and pick some while you rest a bit." Off she went, trapesing over the field in the moonlight, her wings folded behind her, her body bent a little forward as she searched, and in ten minutes she came back with her hands full. That was undoubtedly the time to enjoy mushrooms at their best, with the dew still on their tight little jackets, and the sweet odour of the earth caught under their umbrellas. Soon they were all eaten, and Jimbo was lying back on a pile of hay, his shoulders against the wall of the stack, and his wings gathered round him like a warm cloak of feathers. He felt cosy and dozy, full of mushrooms inside and covered with hay and feathers outside. The governess had once told him that a sort of open-air sleep sometimes came after a long flight. It was, of course, not a real sleep, but a state in which everything about oneself is forgotten; no dreams, no movement, no falling asleep and waking up in the ordinary sense, but a condition of deep repose in which recuperation is very great. Jimbo would have been greatly interested, no doubt, to know that his real body on the bed had also just been receiving nourishment, and was now passing into a quieter and less feverish condition. The parallel always held true between himself and his body in the nursery, but he could not know anything about this, and only supposed that it was this open-air sleep that he felt gently stealing over him. It brought at first strange thoughts that carried him far away to other woods and other fields. While Miss Lake sat beside him eating her mushrooms, his mind was drawn off to some other little folk. But it was always stopped just short of them. He never could quite see their faces. Yet his thoughts continued their search, groping in the darkness; he felt sure he ought to be sharing his adventures with these other little persons, whoever they were; they ought to have been sitting beside him at that very moment, eating mushrooms, combing their wings, comparing the length of their feathers, and snuggling with him into the warm hay. But they obstinately hovered just outside his memory, and refused to come in and surrender themselves. He could not remember who they were, and his yearnings went unsatisfied up to the stars, as yearnings generally do, while his thoughts returned weary from their search and he yielded to the seductions of the soothing open-air sleep. The moon, meanwhile, rose higher and higher, drawing a silver veil over the stars. Upon the field the dews of midnight fell silently. A faint mist rose from the ground and covered the flowers in their dim seclusion under the hedgerows. The hours slipped away swiftly. "Come on, Jimbo, boy!" cried the governess at length. "The moon's below the hills, and we must be off!" The boy turned and stared sleepily at her from his nest in the hay. "We've got miles to go. Remember the speed we came at!" she explained, getting up and arranging her wings. Jimbo got up slowly and shook himself. "I've been miles away," he said dreamily, "miles and miles. But I'm ready to start at once." They looked about for a raised place to jump from. A ladder stood against the other side of the haystack. The governess climbed up it and Jimbo followed her drowsily. Hand in hand they sprang into the air from the edge of the thatched roof, and their wings spread out like sails to catch the wind. It smote their faces pleasantly as they plunged downwards and forwards, and the exhilarating rush of cool air banished from the boy's head the last vestige of the open-air sleep. "We must keep up a good pace," cried the governess, taking a stream and the hedge beyond in a single sweep. "There's a light in the east already." As she spoke a dog howled in a farmyard beneath them, and she shot upwards as though lifted by a sudden gust of wind. "We're too low," she shouted from above. "That dog felt us near. Come up higher. It's easier flying, and we've got a long way to go." Jimbo followed her up till they were several hundred feet above the earth and the keen air stung their cheeks. Then she led him still higher, till the meadows looked like the squares on a chess-board and the trees were like little toy shrubs. Here they rushed along at a tremendous speed, too fast to speak, their wings churning the air into little whirlwinds and eddies as they passed, whizzing, whistling, tearing through space. The fields, however, were still dim in the shadows that precede the dawn, and the stars only just beginning to fade, when they saw the dark outline of the Empty House below them, and began carefully to descend. Soon they topped the high elms, startling the rooks into noisy cawing, and then, skimming the wall, sailed stealthily on outspread wings across the yard. Cautiously dropping down to the level of the window, they crawled over the sill into the dark little room, and folded their wings. CHAPTER XII THE FOUR WINDS The governess left the boy to his own reflections almost immediately. He spent the hours thinking and resting; going over again in his mind every incident of the great flight and wondering when the real, final escape would come, and what it would be like. Thus, between the two states of excitement he forgot for a while that he was still a prisoner, and the spell of horror was lifted temporarily from his heart. The day passed quickly, and when Miss Lake appeared in the evening, she announced that there could be no flying again that night, and that she wished instead to give him important instruction for the future. There were rules, and signs, and times which he must learn carefully. The time might come when he would have to fly alone, and he must be prepared for everything. "And the first thing I have to tell you," she said, exactly as though it was a schoolroom, "is: _Never fly over the sea._ Our kind of wings quickly absorb the finer particles of water and get clogged and heavy over the sea. You finally cannot resist the drawing power of the water, and you will be dragged down and drowned. So be very careful! When you are flying high it is often difficult to know where the land ends and the sea begins, especially on moonless nights. But you can always be certain of one thing: if there are no sounds below you--hoofs, voices, wheels, wind in trees--you are over the sea." "Yes," said the child, listening with great attention. "And what else?" "The next thing is: _Don't fly too high._ Though we fly like birds, remember we are not birds, and we can fly where they can't. We can fly in the ether----" "Where's that?" he interrupted, half afraid of the sound. She stooped and kissed him, laughing at his fear. "There is nothing to be frightened about," she explained. "The air gets lighter and lighter as you go higher, till at last it stops altogether. Then there's only ether left. Birds can't fly in ether because it's too thin. We can, because----" "Is that why it was good for me to get lighter and thinner?" he interrupted again in a puzzled voice. "Partly, yes." "And what happens in the ether, please?" It still frightened him a little. "Nothing--except that if you fly too high you reach a point where the earth ceases to hold you, and you dash off into space. Weight leaves you then, and the wings move without effort. Faster and faster you rush upwards, till you lose all control of your movements, and then----" Miss Lake hesitated a moment. "And then----?" asked the fascinated child. "You may never come down again," she said slowly. "You may be sucked into anything that happens to come your way--a comet, or a shooting star, or the moon." "I should like a shooting star best," observed the boy, deeply interested. "The moon frightens me, I think. It looks so dreadfully clean." "You won't like any of them when the time comes," she laughed. "No one ever gets out again who once gets in. But you'll never be caught that way after what I've told you," she added, with decision. "I shall never want to fly as high as that, I'm sure," said Jimbo. "And now, please, what comes next?" The next thing, she went on to explain, was the _weather_, which, to all flying creatures, was of the utmost importance. Before starting for a flight he must always carefully consider the state of the sky, and the direction in which he wished to go. For this purpose he must master the meaning and character of the Four Winds and be able to recognise them in a moment. "Once you know these," she said, "you cannot possibly go wrong. To make it easier, I've put each Wind into a little simple rhyme, for you." "I'm listening," he said eagerly. "The North Wind is one of the worst and most dangerous, because it blows so much faster than you think. It's taken you ten miles before you think you've gone two. In starting with a North Wind, always fly _against_ it; then it will bring you home easily. If you fly _with_ it, you may be swept so far that the day will catch you before you can get home; and then you're as good as lost. Even birds fly warily when this wind is about. It has no lulls or resting-places in it; it blows steadily on and on, and conquers everything it comes against--everything except the mountains." "And its rhyme?" asked Jimbo, all ears. "It will show you the joy of the birds, my child, You shall know their terrible bliss; It will teach you to hide, when the night is wild, From the storm's too passionate kiss. For the Wind of the North Is a volleying forth That will lift you with springs In the heart of your wings, And may sweep you away To the edge of the day. So, beware of the Wind of the North, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the North!" "I think I like him all the same," said Jimbo. "But I'll remember always to fly against him." "The East Wind is worse still, for it hurts," continued the governess. "It stings and cuts. It's like the breath of an ice-creature; it brings hail and sleet and cold rain that beat down wings and blind the eyes. Like the North Wind, too, it is dreadfully swift and full of little whirlwinds, and may easily carry you into the light of day that would prove your destruction. Avoid it always; no hiding-place is safe from it. This is the rhyme: "It will teach you the secrets the eagles know Of the tempests' and whirlwinds' birth; And the magical weaving of rain and snow As they fall from the sky to the earth. But an Easterly wind Is for ever unkind; It will torture and twist you And never assist you, But will drive you with might To the verge of the night. So, beware of the Wind of the East, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the East." "The West Wind is really a very nice and jolly wind in itself," she went on, "but it's dangerous for a special reason: _it will carry you out to sea_. The Empty House is only a few miles from the coast, and a strong West Wind would take you there almost before you had time to get down to earth again. And there's no use struggling against a really steady West Wind, for it's simply tireless. Luckily, it rarely blows at night, but goes down with the sun. Often, too, it blows hard to the coast, and then drops suddenly, leaving you among the fogs and mists of the sea." "Rather a nice, exciting sort of wind though," remarked Jimbo, waiting for the rhyme. "So, at last, you shall know from their lightest breath To which heaven each wind belongs; And shall master their meaning for life or death By the shout of their splendid songs. Yet the Wind of the West Is a wind unblest; It is lifted and kissed By the spirits of mist; It will clasp you and flee To the wastes of the sea. So, beware of the Wind of the West, my child, Fly not with the Wind of the West!" "A jolly wind," observed Jimbo again. "But that doesn't leave much over to fly with," he added sadly. "They all seem dangerous or cruel." "Yes," she laughed, "and so they are till you can master them--then they're kind, only one that's really always safe and kind is the Wind of the South. It's a sweet, gentle wind, beloved of all that flies, and you can't possibly mistake it. You can tell it at once by the murmuring way it stirs the grasses and the tops of the trees. Its taste is soft and sweet in the mouth like wine, and there's always a faint perfume about it like gardens in summer. It is the joy of this wind that makes all flying things sing. With a South Wind you can go anywhere and no harm can come to you." "Dear old South Wind," cried Jimbo, rubbing his hands with delight. "I hope it will blow soon." "Its rhyme is very easy, too, though you will always be able to tell it without that," she added. "For this is the favourite Wind of all, Beloved of the stars and night; In the rustle of leaves you shall hear it call To the passionate joys of flight. It will carry you forth in its wonderful hair To the far-away courts of the sky, And the breath of its lips is a murmuring prayer For the safety of all who fly. For the Wind of the South Is like wine in the mouth, With its whispering showers And perfume of flowers, When it falls like a sigh From the heart of the sky." "Oh!" interrupted Jimbo, rubbing his hands, "that _is_ nice. That's _my_ wind!" "It will bear you aloft With a pressure so soft That you hardly shall guess Whose the gentle caress." "Hooray!" he cried again. "It's the kindest of weathers For our red feathers, And blows open the way To the Gardens of Play. So, fly out with the Wind of the South, my child, With the wonderful Wind of the South." "Oh, I love the South Wind already," he shouted, clapping his hands again. "I hope it will blow very, _very_ soon." "It may be rising even now," answered the governess, leading him to the window. But, as they gazed at the summer landscape lying in the fading light of the sunset, all was still and resting. The air was hushed, the leaves motionless. There was no call just then to flight from among the tree-tops, and he went back into the room disappointed. "But why can't we escape at once?" he asked again, after he had given his promise to remember all she had told him, and to be extra careful if he ever went out flying alone. "Jimbo, dear, I've told you before, it's because your body isn't ready for you yet," she answered patiently. "There's hardly any circulation in it, and if you forced your way back now the shock might stop your heart beating altogether. Then you'd be really dead, and escape would be impossible." The boy sat on the edge of the bed staring intently at her while she spoke. Something clutched at his heart. He felt his Older Self, with its greater knowledge, rising up out of the depths within him. The child struggled with the old soul for possession. "Have _you_ got any circulation?" he asked abruptly at length. "I mean, has _your_ heart stopped beating?" But the smile called up by his words froze on her lips. She crossed to the window and stood with her back to the fading light, avoiding his eyes. "My case, Jimbo, is a little different from yours," she said presently. "The important thing is to make certain about your escape. Never mind about me." "But escape without you is nothing," he said, the Older Self now wholly in possession. "I simply wouldn't go. I'd rather stay here--with you." The governess made no reply, but she turned her back to the room and leaned out of the window. Jimbo fancied he heard a sob. He felt a great big heart swelling up within his little body, and he crossed over beside her. For some minutes they stood there in silence, watching the stars that were already shining faintly in the sky. "Whatever happens," he said, nestling against her, "I shan't go from here without you. Remember that!" He was going to say a lot more, but somehow or other, when she stooped over to kiss his head--he hardly came up to her shoulder--it all ran suddenly out of his mind, and the little child dropped back into possession again. The tide of his thoughts that seemed about to rise, fast and furious, sank away completely, leaving his mind a clean-washed slate without a single image; and presently, without any more words, the governess left him and went through the trap-door into the silence and mystery of the house below. Several hours later, about the middle of the night, there came over him a most disagreeable sensation of nausea and dizziness. The ground rose and fell beneath his feet, the walls swam about sideways, and the ceiling slid off into the air. It only lasted a few minutes, however, and Jimbo knew from what she had told him that it was the Flying Sickness which always followed the first long flight. But, about the same time, another little body, lying in a night-nursery bed, was being convulsed with a similar attack; and the sickness of the little prisoner in the Empty House had its parallel, strangely enough, in the half-tenanted body miles away in a different world. CHAPTER XIII PLEASURES OF FLIGHT Since the night when Jimbo had nearly fallen into the yard and risked capture, Fright, the horrible owner of the house, had kept himself well out of the way, and had allowed himself to be neither seen nor heard. But the boy was not foolish enough to fall into the other trap, and imagine, therefore, that He did not know what was going on. Jimbo felt quite sure that He was only waiting his chance; and the governess's avoidance of the subject tended to confirm this supposition. "He's disappeared somewhere and taken the children with him," she declared when he questioned her. "And now you know almost as much as I do." "But not quite!" he laughed mischievously. "Enough, though," she replied. "We want all our energy for escape when it comes. Don't bother about anything else for the moment." During the day, when he was alone, his thoughts and fancies often terrified him; but at night, when he was rushing through the heavens, the intense delight of flying drove all minor emotions out of his consciousness, and he even forgot his one great desire--to escape. One night, however, something happened that brought it back more keenly than ever. He had been out flying alone, but had not gone far when he noticed that an easterly wind had begun to rise and was blowing steadily behind him. With the recent instructions fresh in his head, he thought it wiser to turn homewards rather than fight his way back later against a really strong wind from this quarter. Flying low along the surface of the fields so as to avoid its full force, he suddenly rose up with a good sweep and settled on the top of the wall enclosing the yard. The moonlight lay bright over everything. His approach had been very quiet. He was just about to sail across to the window when something caught his eye, and he hesitated a moment, and stared. Something was moving at the other end of the courtyard. It seemed to him that the moonlight suddenly grew pale and ghastly; the night air turned chilly; shivers began to run up and down his back. He folded his wings and watched. At the end of the yard he saw several figures moving busily to and fro in the shadow of the wall. They were very small; but close beside them all the time stood a much larger figure which seemed to be directing their movements. There was no need to look twice; it was impossible to mistake these terrible little people and their hideous overseer. Horror rushed over the boy, and a wild scream was out in the night before he could possibly prevent it. At the same moment a cloud passed over the face of the moon and the yard was shrouded in darkness. A minute later the cloud passed off; but while it was still too dark to see clearly, Jimbo was conscious of a rushing, whispering sound in the air, and something went past him at a tremendous pace into the sky. The wind stirred his hair as it passed, and a moment later he heard voices far away in the distance--up in the sky or within the house he could not tell--singing mournfully the song he now knew so well:-- We dance with phantoms and with shadows play. But when he looked down at the yard he saw that it was deserted, and the corner by the little upright stones lay in the clear moonlight, empty of figures, large or small. Shivering with fright, he flew across to the window ledge, and almost tumbled into the arms of the governess who was standing close inside. "What's the matter, child?" she asked in a voice that trembled a little. And, still shuddering, he told her how he thought he had seen the children working by the gravestones. All her efforts to calm him at first failed, but after a bit she drew his thoughts to pleasanter things, and he was not so certain after all that he had not been deceived by the cunning of the moonlight and the shadows. A long interval passed, and no further sign was given by the owner of the house or his band of frightened children. Jimbo soon lost himself again in the delights of flying and the joy of his increasing powers. Most of all he enjoyed the quiet, starlit nights before the moon was up; for the moon dazzled the eyes in the rarefied air where they flew, whereas the stars gave just enough light to steer by without making it uncomfortable. Moreover, the moon often filled him with a kind of faint terror, as of death; he could never gaze at her white face for long without feeling that something entered his heart with those silver rays--something that boded him no good. He never spoke of this to the governess; indeed, he only recognised it himself when the moon was near the full; but it lay always in the depths of his being, and he felt dimly that it would have to be reckoned with before he could really escape for good. He took no liberties when the moon was at the full. He loved to hover--for he had learned by this time that most difficult of all flying feats; to hold the body vertical and whirr the wings without rising or advancing--he loved to hover on windless nights over ponds and rivers and see the stars reflected in their still pools. Indeed, sometimes he hovered till he dropped, and only saved himself from a wetting by sweeping up in a tremendous curve along the surface of the water, and thus up into the branches of the trees where the governess sat waiting for him. And then, after a little rest, they would launch forth again and fly over fields and woods, sometimes even as far as the hills that ran down the coast of the sea itself. They usually flew at a height of about a thousand feet, and the earth passed beneath them like a great streaked shadow. But as soon as the moon was up the whole country turned into a fairyland of wonder. Her light touched the woods with a softened magic, and the fields and hedges became frosted most delicately. Beneath a thin transparency of mist the water shone with a silvery brilliance that always enabled them to distinguish it from the land at any height; while the farms and country houses were swathed in tender grey shadows through which the trees and chimneys pierced in slender lines of black. It was wonderful to watch the shadows everywhere spinning their blue veil of distance that lent even to the commonest objects something of enchantment and mystery. Those were wonderful journeys they made together into the pathways of the silent night, along the unknown courses, into that hushed centre where they could almost hear the beatings of her great heart--like winged thoughts searching the huge vault, till the boy ached with the sensations of speed and distance, and the old yellow moon seemed to stagger across the sky. Sometimes they rose very high into freezing air, so high that the earth became a dull shadow specked with light. They saw the trains running in all directions with thin threads of smoke shining in the glare of the open fire-boxes. But they seemed very tiny trains indeed, and stirred in him no recollections of the semi-annual visits to London town when he went to the dentist, and lunched with the dreaded grandmother or the stiff and fashionable aunts. And when they came down again from these perilous heights, the scents of the earth rose to meet them, the perfume of woods and fields, and the smells of the open country. There was, too, the delight, the curious delight of windy nights, when the wind smote and buffeted them, knocking them suddenly sideways, whistling through their feathers as if it wanted to tear them from their sockets; rushing furiously up underneath their wings with repeated blows; turning them round, and backwards and forwards, washing them from head to foot in a tempestuous sea of rapid and unexpected motion. It was, of course, far easier to fly with a wind than without one. The difficulty with a violent wind was to get down--not to keep up. The gusts drove up against the under-surfaces of their wings and kept them afloat, so that by merely spreading them like sails they could sweep and circle without a single stroke. Jimbo soon learned to manoeuvre so that he could turn the strength of a great wind to his own purposes, and revel in its boisterous waves and currents like a strong swimmer in a rough sea. And to listen to the wind as it swept backwards and forwards over the surface of the earth below was another pleasure; for everything it touched gave out a definite note. He soon got to know the long sad cry from the willows, and the little whispering in the tops of the poplar trees; the crisp, silvery rattle of the birches, and the deep roar from oaks and beech woods. The sound of a forest was like the shouting of the sea. But far more lovely, when they descended a little, and the wind was more gentle, were the low pipings among the reeds and the little wayward murmurs under the hedgerows. The pine trees, however, drew them most, with their weird voices, now far away, now near, rising upwards with a wind of sighs. There was a grove of these trees that trooped down to the waters of a little lake in the hills, and to this spot they often flew when the wind was low and the music likely, therefore, to be to their taste. For, even when there was no perceptible wind, these trees seemed always full of mysterious, mournful whisperings; their branches held soft music that never quite died away, even when all other trees were silent and motionless. Besides these special expeditions, they flew everywhere and anywhere. They visited the birds in their nests in lofty trees, and exchanged the time of night with wise-eyed owls staring out upon them from the ivy. They hovered up the face of great cliffs, and passed the hawks asleep on perilous ledges; skimmed over lonely marshes, frightening the water-birds paddling in and out among the reeds. They followed the windings of streams, singing among the meadows, and flew along the wet sands as they watched the moon rise out of the sea. These flights were unadulterated pleasure, and Jimbo thought he could never have enough of them. He soon began to notice, too, that the trees emanated something that affected his own condition. When he sat in their branches this was very noticeable. Currents of force passed from them into himself. And even when he flew over their crests he was aware that some woods exhaled vigorous, life-giving forces, while others tired and depleted him. Nothing was visible actually, but fine waves seemed to beat up against his eyes and thoughts, making him stronger or weaker, happy or melancholy, full of hope and courage, or listless and indifferent. These emanations of the trees--this giving-forth of their own personal forces--were, of course, very varied in strength and character. Oaks and pines were the best combination, he found, before the stress of a long flight, the former giving him steadiness, and the latter steely endurance and the power to steer in sinuous, swift curves, without taking thought or trouble. Other trees gave other powers. All gave something. It was impossible to sit among their branches without absorbing some of the subtle and exhilarating tree-life. He soon learned how to gather it all into himself, and turn it to account in his own being. "Sit quietly," the governess said. "Let the forces creep in and stir about. Do nothing yourself. Give them time to become part of yourself and mix properly with your own currents. Effort on your part prevents this, and you weaken them without gaining anything yourself." Jimbo made all sorts of experiments with trees and rocks and water and fields, learning gradually the different qualities of force they gave forth, and how to use them for himself. Nothing, he found, was really dead. And sometimes he got himself into strange difficulties in the beginning of his attempts to master and absorb these nature-forces. "Remember," the governess warned him more than once, when he was inclined to play tricks, "they are in quite a different world to ours. You cannot take liberties with them. Even a sympathetic soul like yourself only touches the fringe of their world. You exchange surface-messages with them, nothing more. Some trees have terrible forces just below the surface. They could extinguish you altogether--absorb you into themselves. Others are naturally hostile. Some are mere tricksters. Others are shifty and treacherous, like the hollies, that move about too much. The oak and the pine and the elm are friendly, and you can always trust them absolutely. But there are others----!" She held up a warning finger, and Jimbo's eyes nearly dropped out of his head. "No," she added, in reply to his questions, "you can't learn all this at once. Perhaps----" She hesitated a little. "Perhaps, if you don't escape, we should have time for all manner of adventures among the trees and other things--but then, we _are_ going to escape, so there's no good wasting time over _that_!" CHAPTER XIV AN ADVENTURE But Miss Lake did not always accompany him on these excursions into the night; sometimes he took long flights by himself, and she rather encouraged him in this, saying it would give him confidence in case he ever lost her and was obliged to find his way about alone. "But I couldn't get really lost," he said once to her. "I know the winds perfectly now and the country round for miles, and I never go out in fog----" "But these are only practice flights," she replied. "The flight of escape is a very different matter. I want you to learn all you possibly can so as to be prepared for anything." Jimbo felt vaguely uncomfortable when she talked like this. "But you'll be with me in the Escape Flight--the final one of all," he said; "and nothing ever goes wrong when you're with me." "I should like to be always with you," she answered tenderly, "but it's well to be prepared for anything, just the same." And more than this the boy could never get out of her. On one of these lonely flights, however, he made the unpleasant discovery that he was being followed. At first he only imagined there was somebody after him because of the curious vibrations of the very rarefied air in which he flew. Every time his flight slackened and the noise of his own wings grew less, there reached him from some other corner of the sky a sound like the vibrations of large wings beating the air. It seemed behind, and generally below him, but the swishing of his own feathers made it difficult to hear with distinctness, or to be certain of the direction. Evidently it was a long way off; but now and again, when he took a spurt and then sailed silently for several minutes on outstretched wings, the beating of distant, following feathers seemed unmistakably clear, and he raced on again at full speed more than terrified. Other times, however, when he tried to listen, there was no trace of this other flyer, and then his fear would disappear, and he would persuade himself that it had been imagination. So much on these flights he knew to be imagination--the sentences, voices, and laughter, for instance, that filled the air and sounded so real, yet were actually caused by the wind rushing past his ears, the rhythm of the wing-beats, and the tips of the feathers occasionally rubbing against the sides of his body. But at last one night the suspicion that he was followed became a certainty. He was flying far up in the sky, passing over some big city, when the sound rose to his ears, and he paused, sailing on stretched wings, to listen. Looking down into the immense space below, he saw, plainly outlined against the luminous patch above the city, the form of a large flying creature moving by with rapid strokes. The pulsations of its great wings made the air tremble so that he both heard and felt them. It may have been that the vapours of the city distorted the thing, just as the earth's atmosphere magnifies the rising or setting of the moon; but, even so, it was easy to see that it was something a good deal larger than himself, and with a much more powerful flight. Fortunately, it did not seem this time to be actually on his trail, for it swept by at a great pace, and was soon lost in the darkness far ahead. Perhaps it was only searching for him, and his great height had proved his safety. But in any case he was exceedingly terrified, and at once turned round, pointed his head for the earth, and shot downwards in the direction of the Empty House as fast as ever he could. But when he spoke to the governess she made light of it, and told him there was nothing to be afraid of. It might have been a flock of hurrying night-birds, she said, or an owl distorted by the city's light, or even his own reflection magnified in water. Anyhow, she felt sure it was not chasing him, and he need pay no attention to it. Jimbo felt reassured, but not quite satisfied. He knew a flying monster when he saw one; and it was only when he had been for many more flights alone, without its reappearance, that his confidence was fully restored, and he began to forget about it. Certainly these lonely flights were very much to his taste. His Older Self, with its dim hauntings of a great memory somewhere behind him, took possession then, and he was able to commune with nature in a way that the presence of the governess made impossible. With her his Older Self rarely showed itself above the surface for long; he was always the child. But, when alone, Nature became alive; he drew force from the trees and flowers, and felt that they all shared a common life together. Had he been imprisoned by some wizard of old in a tree-form, knowing of the sunset and the dawn only by the sweet messages that rustled in his branches, the wind could hardly have spoken to him with a more intimate meaning; or the life of the fields, eternally patient, have touched him more nearly with their joys and sorrows. It seemed almost as if, from his leafy cell, he had gazed before this into the shining pools with which the summer rains jewelled the meadows, sending his soul in a stream of unsatisfied yearning up to the stars. It all came back dimly when he heard the wind among the leaves, and carried him off to the woods and fields of an existence far antedating this one---- And on gentle nights, when the wind itself was half asleep and dreaming, the pine trees drew him most of all, for theirs was the song he loved above all others. He would fly round and round the little grove by the mountain lake, listening for hours together to their sighing voices. But the governess was never told of this, whatever she may have guessed; for it seemed to him a joy too deep for words, the pains and sweetness being mingled too mysteriously for him ever to express in awkward sentences. Moreover, it all passed away and was forgotten the moment the child took possession and usurped the older memory. One night, when the moon was high and the air was cool and fragrant after the heat of the day, Jimbo felt a strong desire to get off by himself for a long flight. He was full of energy, and the space-craving cried to be satisfied. For several days he had been content with slow, stupid expeditions with the governess. "I'm off alone to-night," he cried, balancing on the window ledge, "but I'll be back before dawn. Good-bye!" She kissed him, as she always did now, and with her good-bye ringing in his ears, he dropped from the window and rose rapidly over the elms and away from earth. This night, for some reason, the stars and the moon seemed to draw him, and with tireless wings he mounted up, up, up, to a height he had never reached before. The intoxication of the strong night air rose into his brain and he dashed forward ever faster, with a mad delight, into the endless space before him. Mile upon mile lay behind him as he rushed onwards, always pointing a little on the upward slope, drunk with speed. The earth faded away to a dark expanse of shadow beneath him, and he no longer was conscious of the deep murmur that usually flowed steadily upwards from its surface. He had often before risen out of reach of the earth noises, but never so far that this dull reverberating sound, combined of all the voices of the world merged together, failed to make itself heard. To-night, however, he heard nothing. The stars above his head changed from yellow to diamond white, and the cold air stung his cheeks and brought the water to his eyes. But at length the governess's warning, as he explored these forbidden regions, came back to him, and in a series of gigantic bounds that took his breath away completely, he dropped nearer to the earth again and kept on at a much lower level. The hours passed and the position of the moon began to alter noticeably. Some of the constellations that were overhead when he started were now dipping below the horizon. Never before had he ventured so far from home, and he began to realise that he had been flying much longer than he knew or intended. The speed had been terrific. The change came imperceptibly. With the discovery that his wings were not moving quite so easily as before, he became suddenly aware that this had really been the case for some little time. He was flying with greater effort, and for a long time this effort had been increasing gradually before he actually recognised the fact. Although no longer pointing towards the earth he seemed to be sinking. It became increasingly difficult to fly upwards. His wings did not seem to fail or weaken, nor was he conscious of feeling tired; but something was ever persuading him to fly lower, almost as if a million tiny threads were coaxing him downwards, drawing him gradually nearer to the world again. Whatever it was, the earth had come much closer to him in the last hour, and its familiar voices were pleasant to hear after the boundless heights he had just left. But for some reason his speed grew insensibly less and less. His wings moved apparently as fast as before, but it was harder to keep up. In spite of himself he kept sinking. The sensation was quite new, and he could not understand it. It almost seemed as though he were being _pulled_ downwards. Jimbo began to feel uneasy. He had not lost his bearings, but he was a very long way from home, and quite beyond reach of the help he was so accustomed to. With a great effort he mounted several hundred feet into the air, and tried hard to stay there. For a short time he succeeded, but he soon felt himself sinking gradually downwards again. The force drawing him was a constant force without rise or fall; and with a deadly feeling of fear the boy began to realise that he would soon have to yield to it altogether. His heart beat faster and his thoughts turned to the friend who was then far away, but who alone could save him. She, at least, could have explained it and told him what best to do. But the governess was beyond his reach. This problem he must face alone. Something, however, had to be done quickly, and Jimbo, acting more as the man than as the boy, turned and flew hurriedly forward in another direction. He hoped this might somehow counteract the force that still drew him downwards; and for a time it apparently did so, and he flew level. But the strain increased every minute, and he looked down with something of a shudder as he realised that before very long he would be obliged to yield to this deadly force--and drop! It was then for the first time he noticed a change had come over the surface of the earth below. Instead of the patchwork of field and wood and road, he saw a vast cloud stretching out, white and smooth in the moonlight. The world was hidden beneath a snowy fog, dense and impenetrable. It was no longer even possible to tell in what direction he was flying, for there was nothing to steer by. This was a new and unexpected complication, and the boy could not understand how the change had come about so quickly; the last time he had glanced down for indications to steer by, everything had been clear and easily visible. It was very beautiful, this carpet of white mist with the silver moon shining upon it, but it thrilled him now with an unpleasant sense of dread. And, still more unpleasant, was a new sound which suddenly broke in upon the stillness and turned his blood into ice. He was certain that he heard wings behind him. He was being followed, and this meant that it was impossible to turn and fly back. There was nothing now to do but fly forwards and hope to distance the huge wings; but if he was being followed by the powerful flyer he had seen a few nights before, the boy knew that he stood little chance of success, and he only did it because it seemed the one thing possible. The cloud was dense and chill as he entered it; its moisture clung to his wings and made them heavy; his muscles seemed to stiffen, and motion became more and more difficult. The wings behind him meanwhile came closer. He was flying along the surface of the mist now, his body and wings hidden, and his head just above the level. He could see along its white, even top. If he sank a few more inches it would be impossible to see at all, or even to judge where he was going. Soon it rose level with his lips, and at the same time he noticed a new smell in the air, faint at first, but growing every moment stronger. It was a fresh, sweet odour, yet it somehow added to his alarm, and stirred in him new centres of uneasiness. He tried vainly to increase his speed and distance the wings which continued to gain so steadily upon him from behind. The cloud, apparently, was not everywhere of the same density, for here and there he saw the tops of green hills below him as he flew. But he could not understand why each green hill seemed to have a little lake on its summit--a little lake in which the reflected moon stared straight up into his face. Nor could he quite make out what the sounds were which rose to his ears through the muffling of the cloud--sounds of tumultuous rushing, hissing, and tumbling. They were continuous, these sounds, and once or twice he thought he heard with them a deep, thunderous roar that almost made his heart stop beating as he listened. Was he, perhaps, over a range of high mountains, and was this the sound of the tumbling torrents? Then, suddenly, it came to him with a shock that the ordinary sounds of the earth had wholly ceased. Jimbo felt his head beginning to whirl. He grew weaker every minute; less able to offer resistance to the remorseless forces that were sucking him down. Now the mist had closed over his head, and he could no longer see the moonlight. He turned again, shaking with terror, and drove forward headlong through the clinging vapour. A sensation of choking rose in his throat; he was tired out, ready to drop with exhaustion. The wings of the following creature were now so close that he thought every minute he would be seized from behind and plunged into the abyss to his death. It was just then that he made the awful discovery that the world below him was not stationary: the _green hills were moving_. They were sweeping past with a rushing, thundering sound in regular procession; and their huge sides were streaked with white. The reflection of the moon leaped up into his face as each hill rolled hissing and gurgling by, and he knew at last with a shock of unutterable horror that it was THE SEA! He was flying over the sea, and the waters were drawing him down. The immense, green waves that rolled along through the sea fog, carrying the moon's face on their crests, foaming and gurgling as they went, were already leaping up to seize him by the feet and drag him into their depths. He dropped several feet deeper into the mist, and towards the sea, terror-stricken and blinded. Then, turning frantically, not knowing what else to do, he struck out, with his last strength, for the upper surface and the moonlight. But as he did so, turning his face towards the sky he saw a dark form hovering just above him, covering his retreat with huge outstretched wings. It was too late; he was hemmed in on all sides. At that moment a huge, rolling wave, bigger than all the rest, swept past and wet him to the knees. His heart failed him. The next wave would cover him. Already it was rushing towards him with foaming crest. He was in its shadow; he heard its thunder. Darkness rushed over him--he saw the vast sides streaked with grey and white--when suddenly, the owner of the wings plucked him in the back, mid-way between the shoulders, and lifted him bodily out of the fog, so that the wave swept by without even wetting his feet. The next minute he saw a dim, white sheet of silvery mist at his feet, and found himself far above it in the sweet, clean moonlight; and when he turned, almost dead with terror, to look upon his captor, he found himself looking straight into the eyes of--the governess. The sense of relief was so great that Jimbo simply closed his wings, and hung, a dead weight, in the air. "Use your wings!" cried the governess sharply; and, still holding him, while he began to flap feebly, she turned and flew in the direction of the land. "You!" he gasped at last. "It was you following me!" "Of course it was me! I never let you out of my sight. I've always followed you--every time you've been out alone." Jimbo was still conscious of the drawing power of the sea, but he felt that his companion was too strong for it. After fifteen minutes of fierce flight he heard the sounds of earth again, and knew that they were safe. Then the governess loosened her hold, and they flew along side by side in the direction of home. "I won't scold you, Jimbo," she said presently, "for you've suffered enough already." She was the first to break the silence, and her voice trembled a little. "But remember, the sea draws you down, just as surely as the moon draws you up. Nothing would please Him better than to see you destroyed by one or the other." Jimbo said nothing. But, when once they were safe inside the room again, he went up and cried his eyes out on her arm, while she folded him in to her heart as if he were the only thing in the whole world she had to love. CHAPTER XV THE CALL OF THE BODY One night, towards the end of the practice flights, a strange thing happened, which showed that the time for the final flight of escape was drawing near. They had been out for several hours flying through a rainstorm, the thousand little drops of which stung their faces like tiny gun-shot. About two in the morning the wind shifted and drove the clouds away as by magic; the stars came out, at first like the eyes of children still dim with crying, but later with a clear brilliance that filled Jimbo and the governess with keen pleasure. The air was washed and perfumed; the night luminous, alive, singing. All its tenderness and passion entered their hearts and filled them with the wonder of its glory. "Come down, Jimbo," said the governess, "and we'll lie in the trees and smell the air after the rain." "Yes," added the boy, whose Older Self had been whispering mysterious things to him, "and watch the stars and hear them singing." He led the way to some beech trees that lined a secluded lane, and settled himself comfortably in the top branches of the largest, while the governess soon found a resting-place beside him. It was a deserted spot, far from human habitation. Here and there through the foliage they could see little pools of rain-water reflecting the sky. The group of trees swung in the wind, dreaming great woodland dreams, and overhead the stars looked like a thousand orchards in the sky, filling the air with the radiance of their blossoms. "How brilliant they are to-night," said the governess, after watching the boy attentively for some minutes as they lay side by side in the great forked branch. "I never saw the constellations so clear." "But they have so little shape," he answered dreamily; "if we wore lights when we flew about we should make much better constellations than they do." "The Big and Little Child instead of the Big and Little Bear," she laughed, still watching him. "I'm slipping away----" he began, and then stopped suddenly. He saw the expression of his companion's eyes, which were looking him through and through with the most poignant love and yearning mingled in their gaze, and something clutched at his heart that he could not understand. "----not slipping out of the tree," he went on vaguely, "but slipping into some new place or condition. I don't understand it. Am I--going off somewhere--where you can't follow? I thought suddenly--I was losing you." The governess smiled at him sadly and said nothing. She stroked his wings and then raised them to her lips and kissed them. Jimbo watched her, and folded his other wing across into her hands; he felt unhappy, and his heart began to swell within him; but he didn't know what to say, and the Older Self began slowly to fade away again. "But the stars," he went on, "have they got things they send out too--forces, I mean, like the trees? Do they send out something that makes us feel sad, or happy, or strong, or weak?" She did not answer for some time; she lay watching his face and fondling his smooth red wings; and, presently, when she did begin to explain, Jimbo found that the child in him was then paramount again, and he could not quite follow what she said. He tried to answer properly and seem interested, but her words were very long and hard to understand, and after a time he thought she was talking to herself more than to him, and he gave up all serious effort to follow. Then he became aware that her voice had changed. The words seemed to drop down upon him from a great height. He imagined she was standing on one of those far stars he had been asking about, and was shouting at him through an immense tube of sky and darkness. The words pricked his ears like needle-points, only he no longer heard them as words, but as tiny explosions of sound, meaningless and distant. Swift flashes of light began to dance before his eyes, and suddenly from underneath the tree, a wind rose up and rushed, laughing, across his face. Darkness in a mass dropped over his eyes, and he sank backwards somewhere into another corner of space altogether. The governess, meanwhile, lay quite still, watching the limp form in the branches beside her and still holding the tips of his red wings. Presently tears stole into her eyes, and began to run down her cheeks. One deep sigh after another escaped from her lips; but the little boy, or the old soul, who was the cause of all her emotion, apparently was far away and knew nothing of it. For a long time she lay in silence, and then leaned a little nearer to him, so as to see his full face. The eyes were wide open and staring, but they were looking at nothing she could see, for the consciousness cannot be in two places at the same time, and Jimbo just then was off on a little journey of his own, a journey that was but preliminary to the great final one of all. "Jimbo," whispered the girl between her tears and sighs, "Jimbo! Where have you gone to? Tell me, are they getting ready for you at last, and am I to lose you after all? Is this the only way I can save you--by losing you?" There was no answer, no sign of movement; and the governess hid her face in her hands and cried quietly to herself, while her tears dropped down through the branches of the tree and fell into the rain-pools beneath. For Jimbo's state of oblivion in the tree was in reality a momentary return to consciousness in his body on the bed, and the repaired mechanism of the brain and muscles had summoned him back on a sort of trial visit. He remembered nothing of it afterwards, any more than one remembers the experiences of deep sleep; but the fact was that, with the descent of the darkness upon him in the branches, he had opened his eyes once again on the scene in the night-nursery bedroom where his body lay. He saw figures standing round the bed and about the room; his mother with the same white face as before, was still bending over the bed asking him if he knew her; a tall man in a long black coat moved noiselessly to and fro; and he saw a shaded lamp on a table a little to the right of the bed. Nothing seemed to have changed very much, though there had probably been time enough since he last opened his eyes for the black-coated doctor to have gone and come again for a second visit. He held an instrument in his hands that shone brightly in the lamplight. Jimbo saw this plainly and wondered what it was. He felt as if he were just waking out of a nice, deep sleep--dreamless and undisturbed. The Empty House, the Governess, Fright and the Children had all vanished from his memory, and he knew no more about wings and feathers than he did about the science of meteorology. But the bedroom scene was a mere glimpse after all; his eyes were already beginning to close again. First they shut out the figure of the doctor; then the bed-curtains; and then the nurse moved her arm, making the whole scene quiver for an instant, like some huge jelly-shape, before it dipped into profound darkness and disappeared altogether. His mother's voice ran off into a thin trickle of sound, miles and miles away, and the light from the lamp followed him with its glare for less than half a second. All had vanished. "Jimbo, dear, where have you been? Can you remember anything?" asked the soft voice beside him, as he looked first at the stars overhead, and then from the tracery of branches and leaves beneath him to the great sea of tree-tops and open country all round. But he could tell her nothing; he seemed dreamy and absent-minded, lying and staring at her as if he hardly knew who she was or what she was saying. His mind was still hovering near the border-line of the two states of consciousness, like the region between sleeping and waking, where both worlds seem unreal and wholly wonderful. He could not answer her questions, but he evidently caught some reflex of her emotions, for he leaned towards her across the branches, and said he was happy and never wanted to leave her. Then he crawled to the end of the big bough and sprang out into the air with a shout of delight. He was the child again--the flying child, wild with the excitement of tearing through the night air at fifty miles an hour. The governess soon followed him and they flew home together, taking a long turn by the sea and past the great chalk cliffs, where the sea sang loud beneath them. These lapses became with time more frequent, as well as of longer duration; and with them the boy noticed that the longing to escape became once again intense. He wanted _to get home_, wherever home was; he experienced a sort of nostalgia for the body, though he could not remember where that body lay. But when he asked the governess what this feeling meant, she only mystified him by her answers, saying that every one, in the body or out of it, felt a deep longing for their final _home_, though they might not have the least idea where it lay, or even to be able to recognise, much less to label, their longing. His normal feelings, too, were slowly returning to him. The Older Self became more and more submerged. As he approached the state of ordinary, superficial consciousness, the characteristics of that state reflected themselves more and more in his thoughts and feelings. His memory still remained a complete blank; but he somehow felt that the things, places, and people he wanted to remember, had moved much nearer to him than before. Every day brought them more within his reach. "All these forgotten things will come back to me soon, I know," he said one day to the governess, "and then I'll tell you all about them." "Perhaps you'll remember me too then," she answered, a shadow passing across her face. Jimbo clapped his hands with delight. "Oh," he cried, "I should like to remember you, because that would make you a sort of two-people governess, and I should love you twice as much." But with the gradual return to former conditions the feelings of age and experience grew dim and indefinite, his knowledge lessened, becoming obscure and confused, showing itself only in vague impressions and impulses, until at last it became quite the exception for the child-consciousness to be broken through by flashes of intuition and inspiration from the more deeply hidden memories. For one thing, the deep horror of the Empty House and its owner now returned to him with full force. Fear settled down again over the room, and lurked in the shadows over the yard. A vivid dread seized him of the _other door_ in the room--the door through which the Frightened Children had disappeared, but which had never opened since. It gradually became for him a personality in the room, a staring, silent, listening thing, always watching, always waiting. One day it would open and he would be caught! In a dozen ways like this the horror of the house entered his heart and made him long for escape with all the force of his being. But the governess, too, seemed changing; she was becoming more vague and more mysterious. Her face was always sad now, and her eyes wistful; her manner became restless and uneasy, and in many little ways the child could not fail to notice that her mind was intent upon other things. He begged her to name the day for the final flight, but she always seemed to have some good excuse for putting it off. "I feel frightened when you don't tell me what's going on," he said to her. "It's the preparations for the last flight," she answered, "the flight of escape. He'll try to prevent us going together so that you should get lost. But it's better you shouldn't know too much," she added. "Trust me and have patience." "Oh, that's what you're so afraid of," he said, "_separation_!" He was very proud indeed of the long word, and said it over several times to himself. And the governess, looking out of the window at the fading sunlight, repeated to herself more than to him the word he was so proud of. "Yes, that's what I'm so afraid of--separation; but if it means your salvation----" and her sentence remained unfinished as her eyes wandered far above the tops of the trees into the shadows of the sky. And Jimbo, drawn by the sadness of her voice, turned towards the window and noticed to his utter amazement that he could _see right through her_. He could see the branches of the trees _beyond_ her body. But the next instant she turned and was no longer transparent, and before the boy could say a word, she crossed the floor and disappeared from the room. CHAPTER XVI PREPARATION Now that he was preparing to leave it, Jimbo began to realise more fully how things in this world of delirium--so the governess sometimes called it--were all terribly out of order and confused. So long as he was wholly in it and of it, everything had seemed all right; but, as he approached his normal condition again, the disorder became more and more apparent. And the next few hours brought it home with startling clearness, and increased to fever heat the desire for final escape. It was not so much a nonsense-world--it was too alarming for that--as a world of nightmare, wherein everything was distorted. Events in it were all out of proportion; effects no longer sprang from adequate causes; things happened in a dislocated sort of way, and there was no sequence in the order of their happening. Tiny occurrences filled him with disproportionate, inconceivable horror; and great events, on the other hand, passed him scathless. The spirit of disorder--monstrous, uncouth, terrifying--reigned supreme; and Jimbo's whole desire, though inarticulate, was to escape back into order and harmony again. In contrast to all this dreadful uncertainty, the conduct of the governess stood out alone as the one thing he could count upon: she was sure and unfailing; he felt absolute confidence in her plans for his safety, and when he thought of her his mind was at rest. Come what might, she would always be there in time to help. The adventure over the sea had proved that; but, childlike, he thought chiefly of his own safety, and had ceased to care very much whether she escaped with him or not. It was the older Jimbo that preferred captivity to escape without her, whereas every minute now he was sinking deeper into the normal child state in which the intuitive flashes from the buried soul became more and more rare. Meanwhile, there was preparation going on, secret and mysterious. He could feel it. Some one else besides the governess was making plans, and the boy began to dread the moment of escape almost as much as he desired it. The alternative appalled him--to live for ever in the horror of this house, bounded by the narrow yard, watched by Fright listening ever at his elbow, and visited by the horrible Frightened Children. Even the governess herself began to inspire him with something akin to fear, as her personality grew more and more mysterious. He thought of her as she stood by the window, with the branches of the tree visible through her body, and the thought filled him with a dreadful and haunting distress. But this was only when she was absent; the moment she came into the room, and he looked into her kind eyes, the old feeling of security returned, and he felt safe and happy. Once, during the day, she came up to see him, and this time with final instructions. Jimbo listened with rapt attention. "To-night, or to-morrow night we start," she said in a quiet voice. "You must wait till you hear me calling----" "But sha'n't we start together?" he interrupted. "Not exactly," she replied. "I'm doing everything possible to put him off the scent, but it's not easy, for once Fright knows you he's always on the watch. Even if he can't prevent your escape, he'll try to send you home to your body with such a shock that you'll be only 'half there' for the rest of your life." Jimbo did not quite understand what she meant by this, and returned at once to the main point. "Then the moment you call I'm to start?" "Yes. I shall be outside somewhere. It depends on the wind and weather a little, but probably I shall be hovering above the trees. You must dash out of the window and join me the moment you hear me call. Clear the wall without sinking into the yard, and mind he doesn't tear your wings off as you fly by." "What will happen, though, if I don't find you?" he asked. "You might get lost. If he succeeds in getting me out of the way first, you're sure to get lost----" "But I've had long flights without getting lost," he objected. "Nothing to this one," she replied. "It will be tremendous. You see, Jimbo, it's not only distance; it's change of condition as well." "I don't mind what it is so long as we escape together," he said, puzzled by her words. He kept his eyes fixed on her face. It seemed to him she was changing even as he looked at her. A sort of veil lifted from her features. He fancied he could see the shape of the door through her body. "Oh, please, Miss Lake----" he began in a frightened voice, taking a step towards her. "What is the matter? You look so different!" "Nothing, dearest boy, is the matter," she replied faintly. "I feel sad at the thought of your--of our going, that's all. But that's nothing," she added more briskly, "and remember, I've told you exactly what to do; so you can't make any mistake. Now good-bye for the present." There was a smile on her face that he had never seen there before, and an expression of tenderness and love that he could not fail to understand. But even as he looked she seemed to fade away into a delicate, thin shadow as she moved slowly towards the trap-door. Jimbo stretched out his arms to touch her, for the moment of dread had passed, and he wanted to kiss her. "No!" she cried sharply. "Don't touch me, child; don't touch me!" But he was already close beside her, and in another second would have had his arms round her, when his foot stumbled over something, and he fell forward into her with his full weight. Instead of saving himself against her body, however, he fell _clean through her_! Nothing stopped him; there was no resistance; he met nothing more solid than air, and fell full length upon the floor. Before he could recover from his surprise and pick himself up, something touched him on the lips, and he heard a voice that was faint as a whisper saying, "Good-bye, darling child, and bless you." The next moment he was on his feet again and the room was empty. The governess had gone through the trap-door, and he was alone. It was all very strange and confusing, and he could not understand what was happening to her. He never for a moment realised that the change was in himself, and that as the tie between himself and his body became closer, the things of this other world he had been living in for so long must fade gradually away into shadows and emptiness. But Jimbo was a brave boy; there was nothing of the coward in him, though his sensitive temperament made him sometimes hesitate where an ordinary child with less imagination would have acted promptly. The desire to cry he thrust down and repressed, fighting his depression by the thought that within a few hours the voice might sound that should call him to the excitement of the last flight--and freedom. The rest of the daylight slipped away very quickly, and the room was full of shadows almost before he knew it. Then came the darkness. Outside, the wind rose and fell fitfully, booming in the chimney with hollow music, and sighing round the walls of the house. A few stars peeped between the branches of the elms, but masses of cloud hid most of the sky, and the air felt heavy with coming rain. He lay down on the bed and waited. At the least sound he started, thinking it might be the call from the governess. But the few sounds he did hear always resolved themselves into the moaning of the wind, and no voice came. With his eyes on the open window, trying to pierce the gloom and find the stars, he lay motionless for hours, while the night wore on and the shadows deepened. And during those long hours of darkness and silence he was conscious that a change was going on within him. Name it he could not, but somehow it made him feel that living people like himself were standing near, trying to speak, beckoning, anxious to bring him back into their own particular world. The darkness was so great that he could see only the square outline of the open window, but he felt sure that any sudden flash of light would have revealed a group of persons round his bed with arms outstretched, trying to reach him. The emotion they roused in him was not fear, for he felt sure they were kind, and eager only to help him; and the more he realised their presence, the less he thought about the governess who had been doing so much to make his escape possible. Then, too, voices began to sound somewhere in the air, but he could not tell whether they were actually in the room, or outside in the night, or only within himself--in his own head:--strange, faint voices, whispering, laughing, shouting, crying; fragments of stories, rhymes, riddles, odd names of people and places jostled one another with varying degrees of clearness, now loud, now soft, till he wondered what it all meant, and longed for the light to come. But besides all this, something else, too, was abroad that night--something he could not name or even think about without shaking with terror down at the very roots of his being. And when he thought of this, his heart called loudly for the governess, and the people hidden in the shadows of the room seemed quite useless and unable to help. Thus he hovered between the two worlds and the two memories, phantoms and realities shifting and changing places every few minutes. A little light would have saved him much suffering. If only the moon were up! Moonlight would have made all the difference. Even a moon half hidden and misty would have put the shadows farther away from him. "Dear old misty moon!" he cried half aloud to himself upon the bed, "why aren't you here to-night? My last night!" Misty Moon, Misty Moon! The words kept ringing in his head. Misty Moon, Misty Moon! They swam round in his blood in an odd, tumultuous rhythm. Every time the current of blood passed through his brain in the course of its circulation it brought the words with it, altered a little, and singing like a voice. Like a voice! Suddenly he made the discovery that it actually _was_ a voice--and not his own. It was no longer the blood singing in his veins, it was some one singing outside the window. The sound began faintly and far away, up above the trees; then it came gradually nearer, only to die away again almost to a whisper. If it was not the voice of the governess, he could only say it was a very good imitation of it. The words forming out of the empty air rose and fell with the wind, and, taking his thoughts, flung them in a stream through the dark sky towards the hidden, misty moon: "O misty moon, Dear, misty moon, The nights are long without thee; The shadows creep Across my sleep, And fold their wings about me!" And another silvery voice, that might have been the voice of a star, took it up faintly, evidently from a much greater distance: "O misty moon, Sweet, misty moon, The stars are dim behind thee; And, lo, thy beams Spin through my dreams And weave a veil to blind me!" The sound of this beautiful voice so delighted Jimbo that he sprang from his bed and rushed to the window, hoping that he might be able to hear it more clearly. But, before he got half-way across the room, he stopped short, trembling with terror. Underneath his very feet, in the depths of the house, he heard the awful voice he dreaded more than anything else. It roared out the lines with a sound like the rushing of a great river: "O misty moon, Pale misty moon, Thy songs are nightly driven, Eternally, From sky to sky, O'er the old, grey Hills of Heaven!" And after the verse Jimbo heard a great peal of laughter that seemed to shake the walls of the house, and rooted his feet to the floor. It rolled away with thundering echoes into the very bowels of the earth. He just managed to crawl back to his mattress and lie down, when another voice took up the song, but this time in accents so tender, that the child felt something within him melt into tears of joy, and he was on the verge of recognising, for the first time since his accident, the voice of his mother: "O misty moon, Shy, misty moon, Whence comes the blush that trembles In sweet disgrace O'er half thy face When Night her stars assembles?" But his memory, of course, failed him just as he seemed about to grasp it, and he was left wondering why the sound of that one voice had brought him a moment of radiant happiness in the midst of so much horror and pain. Meanwhile the answering voices went on, each time different, and in new directions. But the next verse somehow brought back to him all the terror he had felt in his flight over the sea, when the sound of the hissing waters had reached his ears through the carpet of fog: "O misty moon, Persuasive moon, Earth's tides are ever rising; By the awful grace Of thy weird white face Leap the seas to thy enticing!" Then followed the voice that had started the horrid song. This time he was sure it was not Miss Lake's voice, but only a very clever imitation of it. Moreover, it again ended in a shriek of laughter that froze his blood: "O misty moon, Deceiving moon, Thy silvery glance brings sadness; Who flies to thee, From land or sea, Shall end--his--days--in--MADNESS!" Other voices began to laugh and sing, but Jimbo stopped his ears, for he simply could not bear any more. He felt certain, too, that these strange words to the moon had all been part of a trap--a device to draw him to the window. He shuddered to think how nearly he had fallen into it, and determined to lie on the bed and wait till he heard his companion calling, and knew beyond all doubt that it was she. But the night passed away and the dawn came, and no voice had called him forth to the last flight. Hitherto, in all his experiences, there had been only one absolute certainty: the appearance of the governess with the morning light. But this time sunrise came and the clouds cleared away, and the sweet smells of field and air stole into the little room, yet without any sign of the governess. The hours passed, and she did not come, till finally he realised that she was not coming at all, and he would have to spend the whole day alone. Something had happened to prevent her, or else it was all part of her mysterious "plan." He did not know, and all he could do was to wait, and wonder, and hope. All day long he lay and waited, and all day long he was alone. The trap-door never once moved; the courtyard remained empty and deserted; there was no sound on the landing or on the stairs; no wind stirred the leaves outside, and the hot sun poured down out of a cloudless sky. He stood by the open window for hours watching the motionless branches. Everything seemed dead; not even a bird crossed his field of vision. The loneliness, the awful silence, and above all, the dread of the approaching night, were sometimes more than he seemed able to bear; and he wanted to put his head out of the window and scream, or lie down on the bed and cry his heart out. But he yielded to neither impulse; he kept a brave heart, knowing that this would be his last night in prison, and that in a few hours' time he would hear his name called out of the sky, and would dash through the window to liberty and the last wild flight. This thought gave him courage, and he kept all his energy for the great effort. Gradually, once more, the sunlight faded, and the darkness began to creep over the land. Never before had the shadows under the elms looked so fantastic, nor the bushes in the field beyond assumed such sinister shapes. The Empty House was being gradually invested; the enemy was masquerading already under cover of these very shadows. Very soon, he felt, the attack would begin, and he must be ready to act. The night came down at last with a strange suddenness, and with it the warning of the governess came back to him; he thought quakingly of the stricken children who had been caught and deprived of their wings; and then he pulled out his long red feathers and tried their strength, and gained thus fresh confidence in their power to save him when the time came. CHAPTER XVII OFF! With the full darkness a whole army of horrors crept nearer. He felt sure of this, though he could actually see nothing. The house was surrounded, the courtyard crowded. Outside, on the stairs, in the other rooms, even on the roof itself, waited dreadful things ready to catch him, to tear off his wings, to make him prisoner for ever and ever. The possibility that something had happened to the governess now became a probability. Imperceptibly the change was wrought; he could not say how or when exactly; but he now felt almost certain that the effort to keep her out of the way had succeeded. If this were true, the boy's only hope lay in his wings, and he pulled them out to their full length and kissed them passionately, speaking to the strong red feathers as if they were living little persons. "You must save me! You will save me, won't you?" he cried in his anguish. And every time he did this and looked at them he gained fresh hope and courage. The problem _where he was to fly to_ had not yet insisted on a solution, though it lay always at the back of his mind; for the final flight of escape without a guide had never been even a possibility before. Lying there alone in the darkness, waiting for the sound of the voice so longed-for, he found his thoughts turning again to the moon, and the strange words of the song that had puzzled him the night before. What in the world did it all mean? Why all this about the moon? Why was it a cruel moon, and why should it attract and persuade and entice him? He felt sure, the more he thought of it, that this had all been a device to draw him to the window--and perhaps even farther. The darkness began to terrify him; he dreaded more and more the waiting, listening things that it concealed. Oh, when would the governess call to him? When would he be able to dash through the open window and join her in the sky? He thought of the sunlight that had flooded the yard all day--so bright it seemed to have come from a sun fresh made and shining for the first time. He thought of the exquisite flowers that grew in the fields just beyond the high wall, and the night smells of the earth reached him through the window, wafted in upon a wind heavy with secrets of woods and fields. They all came from a Land of Magic that after to-night might be for ever beyond his reach, and they went straight to his heart and immediately turned something solid there into tears. But the tears did not find their natural expression, and Jimbo lay there fighting with his pain, keeping all his strength for the one great effort, and waiting for the voice that at any minute now might sound above the tree-tops. But the hours passed and the voice did not come. How he loathed the room and everything in it. The ceiling stretched like a white, staring countenance above him; the walls watched and listened; and even the mantelpiece grew into the semblance of a creature with drawn-up shoulders bending over him. The whole room, indeed, seemed to his frightened soul to run into the shape of a monstrous person whose arms were outstretched in all directions to prevent his escape. His hands never left his wings now. He stroked and fondled them, arranging the feathers smoothly and speaking to them under his breath just as though they were living things. To him they were indeed alive, and he knew when the time came they would not fail him. The fierce passion for the open spaces took possession of his soul, and his whole being began to cry out for freedom, rushing wind, the stars, and a pathless sky. Slowly the power of the great, open Night entered his heart, bringing with it a courage that enabled him to keep the terrors of the House at a distance. So far, the boy's strength had been equal to the task, but a moment was approaching when the tension would be too great to bear, and the long pent-up force would rush forth into an act. Jimbo realised this quite clearly; though he could not exactly express it in words, he felt that his real hope of escape lay in the success of that act. Meanwhile, with more than a child's wisdom, he stored up every particle of strength he had for the great moment when it should come. A light wind had risen soon after sunset, but as the night wore on it began to fail, dropping away into little silences that grew each time longer. In the heart of one of these spells of silence Jimbo presently noticed a new sound--a sound that he recognised. Far away at first, but growing in distinctness with every dropping of the wind, this new sound rose from the interior of the house below and came gradually upon him. It was voices faintly singing, and the tread of stealthy footsteps. Nearer and nearer came the sound, till at length they reached the door, and there passed into the room a wave of fine, gentle sound that woke no echo and scarcely seemed to stir the air into vibration at all. The door had opened, and a number of voices were singing softly under their breath. And after the sounds, creeping slowly like some timid animal, there came into the room a small black figure just visible in the faint starlight. It peered round the edge of the door, hesitated a moment, and then advanced with an odd rhythmical sort of motion. And after the first figure came a second, and after the second a third; and then several entered together, till a whole group of them stood on the floor between Jimbo and the open window. Then he recognised the Frightened Children and his heart sank. Even they, he saw, were arrayed against him, and took it for granted that he already belonged to them. Oh, why did not the governess come for him? Why was there no voice in the sky? He glanced with longing towards the heavens, and as the children moved past, he was almost certain that he saw the stars _through_ their bodies too. Slowly they shuffled across the floor till they formed a semicircle round the bed; and then they began a silent, impish dance that made the flesh creep. Their thin forms were dressed in black gowns like shrouds, and as they moved through the steps of the bizarre measure he saw that their legs were little more than mere skin and bone. Their faces--what he could see of them when he dared to open his eyes--were pale as ashes, and their beady little eyes shone like the facets of cut stones, flashing in all directions. And while they danced in and out amongst each other, never breaking the semicircle round the bed, they sang a low, mournful song that sounded like the wind whispering through a leafless wood. And the words stirred in him that vague yet terrible fear known to all children who have been frightened and made to feel afraid of the dark. Evidently his sensations were being merged very rapidly now into those of the little boy in the night-nursery bed. "There is Someone in the Nursery Whom we never saw before; --Why hangs the moon so red?-- And he came not by the passage, Or the window, or the door; --Why hangs the moon so red?-- And he stands there in the darkness, In the centre of the floor. --See, where the moon hangs red!-- Someone's hiding in the passage Where the door begins to swing; --Why drive the clouds so fast?-- In the corner by the staircase There's a dreadful waiting thing: --Why drive the clouds so fast?-- Past the curtain creeps a monster With a black and fluttering wing; --See, where the clouds drive fast!-- In the chilly dusk of evening; In the hush before the dawn; --Why drips the rain so cold?-- In the twilight of the garden, In the mist upon the lawn, --Why drips the rain so cold?-- Faces stare, and mouth upon us, Faces white and weird and drawn; --See, how the rain drips cold!-- Close beside us in the night-time, Waiting for us in the gloom, --O! Why sings the wind so shrill?-- In the shadows by the cupboard, In the corners of the room, --O! Why sings the wind so shrill?-- From the corridors and landings Voices call us to our doom. --O! how the wind sings shrill!"-- By this time the dreadful dancers had come much closer to him, shifting stealthily nearer to the bed under cover of their dancing, and always _between him and the window_. Suddenly their intention flashed upon him; they meant to prevent his escape! With a tremendous effort he sprang from the bed. As he did so a dozen pairs of thin, shadowy arms shot out towards him as though to seize his wings; but with an agility born of fright he dodged them, and ran swiftly into the corner by the mantelpiece. Standing with his back against the wall he faced the children, and strove to call out for help to the governess; but this time there was an entirely new difficulty in the way, for he found to his utter dismay that his voice refused to make itself heard. His mouth was dry and his tongue would hardly stir. Not a sound issued from his lips, but the children instantly moved forwards and hemmed him in between them and the wall; and to reach the window he would have to break through this semicircle of whispering, shadowy forms. Above their heads he could see the stars shining, and any moment he might hear Miss Lake's voice calling to him to come out. His heart rose with passionate longing within him, and he gathered his wings tightly about him ready for the final dash. It would take more than the Frightened Children to hold him prisoner when once he heard that voice, or even without it! Whether they were astonished at his boldness, or merely waiting their opportunity later, he could not tell; but anyhow they kept their distance for a time and made no further attempt to seize his feathers. Whispering together under their breath, sometimes singing their mournful, sighing songs, sometimes sinking their voices to a confused murmur, they moved in and out amongst each other with soundless feet like the shadows of branches swaying in the wind. Then, suddenly, they moved closer and stretched out their arms towards him, their bodies swaying rhythmically together, while their combined voices, raised just above a whisper, sang to him-- "Dare you fly out to-night, When the Moon is so strong? Though the stars are so bright, There is death in their song; You're a hostage to Fright, And to us you belong! Dare you fly out alone Through the shadows that wave, When the course is unknown And there's no one to save? You are bone of our bone, And for ever His slave!" And, following these words, came from somewhere in the air that voice like the thunder of a river. Jimbo knew only too well to whom it belonged as he listened to the rhyme of the West Wind-- "For the Wind of the West Is a wind unblest, And its dangerous breath Will entice you to death! Fly not with the Wind of the West, O child, With the terrible Wind of the West!" But the boy knew perfectly well that these efforts to stop him were all part of a trap. They were lying to him. It was not the Wind of the West at all; _it was the South Wind_! That at least he knew by the odours that were wafted in through the window. Again he tried to call to the governess, but his tongue lay stiff in his mouth and no sound came. Meanwhile the children began to draw closer, hemming him in. They moved almost imperceptibly, but he saw plainly that the circle was growing smaller and smaller. His legs began to tremble, and he felt that soon he would collapse and drop at their feet, for his strength was failing and the power to act and move was slowly leaving him. The little shadowy figures were almost touching him, when suddenly a new sound broke the stillness and set every nerve tingling in his body. Something was shuffling along the landing. He heard it outside, pushing against the door. The handle turned with a rattle, and a moment later the door slowly opened. For a second Jimbo's breath failed him, and he nearly fell in a heap upon the floor. Round the edge of the door he saw a dim huge figure come crawling into the room--creeping along the floor--and trailing behind it a pair of immense black wings that stretched along the boards. For one brief second he stared, horror-stricken, and wondering what it was. But before the whole length of the creature was in, he knew. It was Fright himself! _And he was making steadily for the window!_ The shock instantly galvanised the boy into a state of activity again. He recovered the use of all his muscles and all his faculties. His voice, released by terror, rang out in a wild shriek for help to the governess, and he dashed forward across the room in a mad rush for the window. Unless he could reach it before the other, he would be a prisoner for the rest of his life. It was now or never. The instant he moved, the children came straight at him with hands outstretched to stop him; but he passed through them as if they were smoke, and with almost a single bound sprang upon the narrow window-sill. To do this he had to clear the head and shoulders of the creature on the floor, and though he accomplished it successfully, he felt himself clutched from behind. For a second he balanced doubtfully on the window ledge. He felt himself being pulled back into the room, and he combined all his forces into one tremendous effort to rush forward. There was a ripping, tearing sound as he sprang into the air with a yell of mingled terror and exultation. His prompt action and the fierce impetus had saved him. He was free. But in the awful hand that seized him he had left behind the end feathers of his right wing. A few inches more and it would have been not merely the feathers, but the entire wing itself. He dropped to within three feet of the stones in the yard, and then, borne aloft by the kind, rushing Wind of the South, he rose in a tremendous sweep far over the tops of the high elms and out into the heart of the night. Only there was no governess's voice to guide him; and behind him, a little lower down, a black pursuing figure with huge wings flapped heavily as it followed with laborious flight through the darkness. CHAPTER XVIII HOME But it was the sound of something crashing heavily through the top branches of the elms that made the boy realise he was actually being followed; and all his efforts became concentrated into the desire to put as much distance as possible between himself and the horror of the Empty House. He heard the noise of big wings far beneath him, and his one idea was to out-distance his pursuer and then come down again to earth and rest his wings in the branches of a tree till he could devise some plan how to find the governess. So at first he raced at full speed through the air, taking no thought of direction. When he looked down, all he could see was that something vague and shadowy, shaking out a pair of enormous wings between him and the earth, move along with him. Its path was parallel with his own, but apparently it made no effort to rise up to his higher level. It thundered along far beneath him, and instinctively he raised his head and steered more and more upwards and away from the world. The gap at the end of his right wing where the feathers had been torn out seemed to make no difference in his power of flight or steering, and he went tearing through the night at a pace he had never dared to try before, and at a height he had never yet reached in any of the practice flights. He soared higher even than he knew; and perhaps this was fortunate, for the friction of the lower atmosphere might have heated him to the point of igniting, and some watcher at one of earth's windows might have suddenly seen a brilliant little meteor flash through the night and vanish into dust. At first the joy of escape was the only idea his mind seemed able to grasp; he revelled in a passionate sense of freedom, and all his energies poured themselves into one concentrated effort to fly faster, faster, faster. But after a time, when the pursuer had been apparently outflown, and he realised that escape was an accomplished fact, he began to search for the governess, calling to her, rising and falling, darting in all directions, and then hovering on outstretched wings to try and catch some sound of a friendly voice. But no answer came, either from the stars that crowded the vault above, or from the dark surface of the world below; only silence answered his cries, and his voice was swallowed up and lost in the immensity of space almost the moment it left his lips. Presently he began to realise to what an appalling distance he had risen above the world, and with anxious eyes he tried to pierce the gaping emptiness beneath him and on all sides. But this vast sea of air had nothing to reveal. The stars shone like pinholes of gold pricked in a deep black curtain; and the moon, now rising slowly, spread a veil of silver between him and the upper regions. There was not a cloud anywhere and the winds were all asleep. He was alone in space. Yet, as the swishing of his feathers slackened and the roar in his ears died away, he heard in the short pause the ominous beating of great wings somewhere in the depths beneath him, and knew that the great pursuer was still on his track. The glare of the moon now made it impossible to distinguish anything properly, and in these huge spaces, with nothing to guide the eye, it was difficult to know exactly from what direction the sound came. He was only sure of one thing--that it was far below him, and that for the present it did not seem to come much nearer. The cry for help that kept rising to his lips he suppressed, for it would only have served to guide his pursuer; and, moreover, a cry--a little thin, despairing cry--was instantly lost in these great heavens. It was less than a drop in an ocean. On and on he flew, always pointing away from the earth, and trying hard to think where he would find safety. Would this awful creature hunt him all night long into the daylight, or would he be forced back into the Empty House in sheer exhaustion? The thought gave him new impetus, and with powerful strokes he dashed onwards and upwards through the wilderness of space in which the only pathways were the little golden tracks of the starbeams. The governess would turn up somewhere; he was positive of that. She had never failed him yet. So, alone and breathless, he pursued his flight, and the higher he went the more the tremendous vault opened up into inconceivable and untold distances. His speed kept increasing; he thought he had never found flying so easy before; and the thunder of the following wings that held persistently on his track made it dangerous for him to slacken up for more than a minute here and there. The earth became a dark blot beneath him, while the moon, rising higher and higher, grew weirdly bright and close. How black the sky was; how piercing the points of starlight; how stimulating the strong, new odours of these lofty regions! He realised with a thrill of genuine awe that he had flown over the very edge of the world, and the moment the thought entered his mind it was flung back at him by a voice that seemed close to his ear one moment, and the next was miles away in the space overhead. Light thoughts, born of the stars and the moon and of his great speed, danced before his mind in fanciful array. Once he laughed aloud at them, but once only. The sound of his voice in these echoless spaces made him afraid. The speed, too, affected his vision, for at one moment thin clouds stretched across his face, and the next he was whirling through perfectly clear air again with no vestige of a cloud in sight. The same reason doubtless explained the sudden presence of sheets of light in the air that reflected the moonlight like particles of glittering ice, and then suddenly disappeared again. The terrific speed would explain a good many things, but certainly it was curious how creatures formed out of the hollow darkness, like foam before a steamer's bows, and moved noiselessly away on either side to join the army of dim life that crowded everywhere and watched his passage. For, in front and on both sides, there gathered a vast assembly of silent forms more than shadows, less than bodily shapes, that opened up a pathway as he rushed through them, and then immediately closed up their ranks again when he had passed. The air seemed packed with living creatures. Space was filled with them. They surrounded him on all sides. Yet his passage through them was like the passage of a hand through smoke; it was easy to make a pathway, but the pathway left no traces behind it. More smoke rushed in and filled the void. He could never see these things properly, face to face; they always kept just out of the line of vision, like shadows that follow a lonely walker in a wood and vanish the moment he turns to look at them over his shoulder. But ever by his side, with a steady, effortless motion, he knew they kept up with him--strange inhabitants of the airless heights, immense and misty-winged, with veiled, flaming eyes and silent feathers. He was not afraid of them; for they were neither friendly nor hostile; they were simply the beings of another world, alien and unknown. But what puzzled him more was that the light and the darkness seemed separate things, each distinctly visible. After each stroke of his wings he _saw the darkness_ sift downwards past him through the air like dust. It floated all round him in thinnest diaphanous texture--visible, not because the moonlight made it so, but because in its inmost soul it was itself luminous. It rose and fell in eddies, swirling wreaths, and undulations; inwoven with starbeams, as with golden thread, it clothed him about in circles of some magical primordial substance. Even the stars, looking down upon him from terrifying heights, seemed now draped, now undraped, as if by the sweeping of enormous wings that stirred these sheets of visible darkness into a vast system of circulation through the heavens. Everything in these oceans of upper space apparently made use of wings, or the idea of wings. Perhaps even the great earth itself, rolling from star to star, was moved by the power of gigantic, invisible wings!... Jimbo realised he had entered a forbidden region. He began to feel afraid. But the only possible expression of his fear, and its only possible relief, lay in his own wings--and he used them with redoubled energy. He dashed forward so fast that his face begun to burn, and he kept turning his head in every direction for a sign of the governess, or for some indication of where he could _escape to_. In the pauses of the wild flight he heard the thunder of the following wings below. They were still on his trail, and it seemed that they were gaining on him. He took a new angle, realising that his only chance was to fly high; and the new course took him perpendicularly away from the earth and straight towards the moon. Later, when he had out-distanced the other creature, he would drop down again to safer levels. Yet the hours passed and it never overtook him. A measured distance was steadily kept up between them as though with calculated purpose. Curious distant voices shouted from time to time all manner of sentences and rhymes in his ears, but he could neither understand nor remember them. More and more the awful stillness of the vast regions that lie between the world and the moon appalled him. Then, suddenly, a new sound reached him that at first he could not in the least understand. It reached him, however, not through the ears, but by a steady trembling of the whole surface of his body. It set him in vibration all over, and for some time he had no idea what it meant. The trembling ran deeper and deeper into his body, till at last a single, powerful, regular vibration took complete possession of his whole being, and he felt as though he was being wrapped round and absorbed by this vast and gigantic sound. He had always thought that the voice of Fright, like the roar of a river, was the loudest and deepest sound he had ever heard. Even that set his soul a-trembling. But this new, tremendous, rolling-ocean of a voice came not that way, and could not be compared to it. The voice of the other was a mere tickling of the ear compared to this awful crashing of seas and mountains and falling worlds. It must break him to pieces, he felt. Suddenly he knew what it was,--and for a second his wings failed him:--he had reached such a height that he could hear the roar of the world as it thundered along its journey through space! That was the meaning of this voice of majesty that set him all a-trembling. And before long he would probably hear, too, the voices of the planets, and the singing of the great moon. The governess had warned him about this. At the first sound of these awful voices she told him to turn instantly and drop back to the earth as fast as ever he could drop. Jimbo turned instinctively and began to fall. But, before he had dropped half a mile, he met once again the ascending sound of the wings that had followed him from the Empty House. It was no good flying straight into destruction. He summoned all his courage and turned once more towards the stars. Anything was better than being caught and held for ever by Fright, and with a wild cry for help that fell dead in the empty spaces, he renewed his unending flight towards the stars. But, meanwhile, the pursuer had distinctly gained. Appalled by the mighty thunder of the stars' voices above, and by the prospect of immediate capture if he turned back, Jimbo flew blindly on towards the moon, regardless of consequences. And below him the Pursuer came closer and closer. The strokes of its wings were no longer mere distant thuds that he heard when he paused in his own flight to listen; they were the audible swishing of feathers. It was near enough for that. Jimbo could never properly see what was following him. A shadow between him and the earth was all he could distinguish, but in the centre of that shadow there seemed to burn two glowing eyes. Two brilliant lights flashed whenever he looked down, like the lamps of a revolving lighthouse. But other things he saw, too, when he looked down, and once the earth rose close to his face so that he could have touched it with his hands. The same instant it dropped away again with a rush of whirlwinds, and became a distant shadow miles and miles below him. But before it went, he had time to see the Empty House standing within its gloomy yard, and the horror of it gave him fresh impetus. Another time when the world raced up close to his eyes he saw a scene of a different kind that stirred a passionately deep yearning within him--a house overgrown with ivy and standing among trees and gardens, with laburnums and lilacs flowering on smooth green lawns, and a clean gravel drive leading down to a big pair of iron gates. Oh, it all seemed so familiar! Perhaps in another minute the well-known figures would have appeared and spoken to him. Already he heard their voices behind the bushes. But, just before they appeared, the earth dropped back with a roar of a thousand winds, and Jimbo saw instead the shadow of the Pursuer mounting, mounting, mounting towards him. Up he shot again with terror in his heart, and all trembling with the thunder of the great star-voices above. He felt like a leaf in a hurricane, "lost, dizzy, shelterless." Voices, too, now began to be heard more frequently. They dropped upon him out of the reaches of this endless void; and with them sometimes came forms that shot past him with amazing swiftness, racing into the empty Beyond as though sucked into a vast vacuum. The very stars seemed to move. He became part of some much larger movement in which he was engulfed and merged. He could no longer think of himself as Jimbo. When he uttered his own name he saw merely a mass of wind and colour through which the great pulses of space and the planets beat tumultuously, lapping him round with the currents of a terrific motion that seemed to swallow up his own little personality entirely, while giving him something infinitely greater.... But surely these small voices, shrill and trumpet-like, did not come from the stars! these deep whispers that ran round the immense vault overhead and sounded almost familiarly in his ears-- "Give it him the moment he wakes." "Bring the ice-bag ... quick!" "Put the hot bottle to his feet IMMEDIATELY!" The voices shrieked all round him, turning suddenly into soft whispers that died away somewhere among his feathers. The soles of his feet began to glow, and he felt a gigantic hand laid upon his throat and head. Almost it seemed as if he were lying somewhere on his back, and people were bending over him, shouting and whispering. "Why hangs the moon so red?" cried a voice that was instantly drowned in a chorus of unintelligible whispering. "The black cow must be killed," whispered some one deep within the sky. "Why drips the rain so cold?" yelled one of the hideous children close behind him. And a third called with a distant laughter from behind a star-- "Why sings the wind so shrill?" "QUIET!" roared an appalling voice below, as if all the rivers of the world had suddenly turned loose into the sky. "QUIET!" Instantly a star, that had been hovering for some time on the edge of a fantastic dance, dropped down close in front of his face. It had a glaring disc, with mouth and eyes. An icy hand seemed laid on his head, and the star rushed back into its place in the sky, leaving a trail of red flame behind it. A little voice seemed to go with it, growing fainter and fainter in the distance-- "We dance with phantoms and with shadows play." But, regardless of everything, Jimbo flew onwards and upwards, terrified and helpless though he was. His thoughts turned without ceasing to the governess, and he felt sure that she would yet turn up in time to save him from being caught by the Fright that pursued, or lost among the fearful spaces that lay beyond the stars. For a long time, however, his wings had been growing more and more tired, and the prospect of being destroyed from sheer exhaustion now presented itself to the boy vaguely as a possible alternative--vaguely only, because he was no longer able to think, properly speaking, and things came to him more by way of dull feeling than anything else. It was all the more with something of a positive shock, therefore, that he realised the change. For a change had come. He was now sudden by conscious of an influx of new power--greater than anything he had ever known before in any of his flights. His wings now suddenly worked as if by magic. Never had the motion been so easy, and it became every minute easier and easier. He simply flashed along without apparent effort. An immense driving power had entered into him. He realised that he could fly for ever without getting tired. His pace increased tenfold-- increased alarmingly. The possibility of exhaustion vanished utterly. Jimbo knew now that something was wrong. This new driving power was something wholly outside himself. His wings were working far too easily. Then, suddenly, he understood: _His wings were not working at all!_ He was not being driven forward from behind; he was being drawn forward from in front. He saw it all in a flash: Miss Lake's warning long ago about the danger of flying too high; the last song of the Frightened Children, "Dare you fly out alone through the shadows that wave, when the course is unknown and there's no one to save?" the strange words sung to him about the "relentless misty moon," and the object of the dreadful Pursuer in steadily forcing him upwards and away from the earth. It all flashed across his poor little dazed mind. He understood at last. He had soared too high and had entered the sphere of the moon's attraction. "The moon is too strong, and there's death in the stars!" a voice bellowed below him like the roar of a falling mountain, shaking the sky. The child flew screaming on. There was nothing else he could do. But hardly had the roar died away when another voice was heard, a tender voice, a whispering, sympathetic voice, though from what part of the sky it came he could not tell-- "Arrange the pillows for his little head." But below him the wings of the Pursuer were mounting closer and closer. He could almost feel the mighty wind from their feathers, and hear the rush of the great body between them. It was impossible to slacken his speed even had he wished; no strength on earth could have resisted that terrible power drawing upwards towards the moon. Instinctively, however, he realised that he would rather have gone forwards than backwards. He never could have faced capture by that dreadful creature behind. All the efforts of the past weeks to escape from Fright, the owner of the Empty House, now acted upon him with a cumulative effect, and added to the suction of the moon-life. He shot forward at a pace that increased with every second. At the back of his mind, too, lay some kind of faint perception that the governess would, after all, be there to help him. She had always turned up before when he was in danger, and she would not fail him now. But this was a mere ghost of a thought that brought little comfort, and merely added its quota of force to the speed that whipped him on, ever faster, into the huge white moon-world in front. For this, then, he had escaped from the horror of the Empty House! To be sucked up into the moon, the "relentless, misty moon"--to be drawn into its cruel, silver web, and destroyed. The Song to the Misty Moon outside the window came back in snatches and added to his terror; only it seemed now weeks ago since he had heard it. Something of its real meaning, too, filtered down into his heart, and he trembled anew to think that the moon could be a great, vast, moving Being, alive and with a purpose.... But why, oh, why did they keep shouting these horrid snatches of the song through the sky? Trapped! Trapped! The word haunted him through the night: Thy songs are nightly driven, From sky to sky, Eternally, O'er the old, grey hills of heaven! _Caught!_ Caught at last! The moon's prisoner, a captive in her airless caves; alone on her dead white plains; searching for ever in vain for the governess; wandering alone and terrified. By the awful grace Of thy weird white face. The thought crazed him, and he struggled like a bird caught in a net. But he might as well have struggled to push the worlds out of their courses. The power against him was the power of the universe in which he was nothing but a little, lost, whirling atom. It was all of no avail, and the moon did not even smile at his feeble efforts. He was too light to revolve round her, too impalpable to create his own orbit; he had not even the consistency of a comet; he had reached the point of stagnation, as it were--the dead level--the neutral zone where the attractions of the earth and moon meet and counterbalance one another--where bodies have no weight and existence no meaning. Now the moon was close upon him; he could see nothing else. There lay the vast, shining sea of light in front of him. Behind, the roar of the following creature grew fainter and fainter, as he outdistanced it in the awful swiftness of the huge drop down upon the moon mountains. Already he was close enough to its surface to hear nothing of its great singing but a deep, confused murmur. And, as the distance increased, he realised that the change in his own condition increased. He felt as if he were flying off into a million tiny particles--breaking up under the effects of the deadly speed and the action of the new moon-forces. Immense, invisible arms, half-silver and half-shadow, grew out of the white disc and drew him downwards upon her surface. He was being merged into the life of the moon. There was a pause. For a moment his wings stopped dead. Their vain fluttering was all but over.... Hark! Was that a voice borne on the wings of some lost wind? Why should his heart beat so tumultuously all at once? He turned and stared into the ocean of black air overhead till it turned him dizzy. A violent trembling ran through his tired being from head to foot. He had heard a voice--a voice that he knew and loved--a voice of help and deliverance. It rang in shrill syllables up the empty spaces, and it reached new centres of force within him that touched his last store of courage and strength. "Jimbo, hold on!" it cried, like a faint, thin, pricking current of sound almost unable to reach him through the seas of distance. "I'm coming; hold on a little longer!" It was the governess. She was true to the end. Jimbo felt his heart swell within him. She was mounting, mounting behind him with incredible swiftness. The sound of his own name in these terrible regions recalled to him some degree of concentration, and he strove hard to fight against the drawing power that was seeking his destruction. He struggled frantically with his wings. But between him and the governess there was still the power of Fright to be overcome--the very Power she had long ago invoked. It was following him still, preventing his turning back, and driving him ever forward to his death. Again the voice sounded in the night; and this time it was closer. He could not quite distinguish the words. They buzzed oddly in his ears ... other voices mingled with them ... the hideous children began to shriek somewhere underneath him ... wings with eyes among their burning feathers flashed past him. His own wings folded close over his little body, drooping like dead things. His eyes closed, and he turned on his side. A huge face that was one-half the governess and the other half the head gardener at home, thrust itself close against his own, and blew upon his eyelids till he opened them. Already he was falling, sinking, tumbling headlong through a space that offered no resistance. "Jimbo!" shrieked a voice that instantly died away into a wail behind him. He opened his eyes once more--for it was that loved voice again--but the glare from the moon so dazzled him that he could only fancy he saw the figure of the governess, not a hundred feet away, struggling and floundering in the clutch of a black creature that beat the air with enormous wings all round her. He saw her hair streaming out into the night, and one wing seemed to hang broken and useless at her side. He was turning over and over, like a piece of wood in the waves of the sea, and the governess, caught by Fright, the monster of her own creation, drifted away from his consciousness as a dream melts away in the light of the morning.... From the gleaming mountains and treeless plains below Jimbo thought there rose a hollow roar like the mocking laughter of an immense multitude of people, shaking with mirth. The Moon had got him at last, and her laughter ran through the heavens like a wave. Revolving upon his own little axis so swiftly that he neither saw nor heard anything more, he dropped straight down upon the great satellite. The light of the moon flamed up into his eyes and dazzled him. But what in the world was this? How could the moon dwindle so suddenly to the size of a mere lamp flame? How could the whole expanse of the heavens shrink in an instant to the limits of a little, cramped room? In a single second, before he had time to realise that he felt surprise, the entire memory of his recent experiences vanished from his mind. The past became an utter blank. Like a wreath of smoke everything melted away as if it had never been at all. The functions of the brain resumed their normal course. The delirium of the past few hours was over. Jimbo was lying at home on his bed in the night-nursery, and his mother was bending over him. At the foot of the bed stood the doctor in black. The nurse held a lamp, only half shaded by her hand, as she approached the bedside. This lamp was the moon of his delirium--only he had quite forgotten now that there had ever been any moon at all. The little thermometer, thrust into his teeth among the stars, was still in his mouth. A hot-water bottle made his feet glow and burn. And from the walls of the sick-room came as it were the echoes of recently-uttered sentences: "Take his temperature! Give him the medicine the moment he wakes! Put the hot bottle to his feet.... Fetch the ice-bag.... Quick!" "Where am I, mother?" he asked in a whisper. "You're in bed, darling, and must keep quite quiet. You'll soon be all right again. It was the old black cow that tossed you. The gardener found you by the swinging gate and carried you in.... You've been unconscious!" "How long have I been uncon----?" Jimbo could not manage the whole word. "About three hours, darling." Then he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, and when he woke long after it was early morning, and there was no one in the room but the old family nurse, who sat watching beside the bed. Something--some dim memory--that had stirred his brain in sleep, immediately rushed to his lips in the form of an inconsequent question. But before he could even frame the sentence, the thought that prompted it had slipped back into the deeper consciousness he had just left behind with the trance of deep sleep. But the old nurse, watching every movement, waiting upon the child's very breath, had caught the question, and she answered soothingly in a whisper-- "Oh, Miss Lake died a few days after she left here," she said in a very low voice. "But don't think about her any more, dearie! She'll never frighten children again with her silly stories." "_DIED!_" Jimbo sat up in bed and stared into the shadows behind her, as though his eyes saw something she could not see. But his voice seemed almost to belong to some one else. "She was really dead all the time, then," he said below his breath. Then the child fell back without another word, and dropped off into the sleep which was the first step to final recovery. THE END PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. [Transcriber's Note: The following corrections were made: p. 52: removed paragraph break after comma (whispered, "My darling boy,) p. 87: acccomplish to accomplish (she would accomplish) p. 96: removed paragraph break after comma (and said very gravely, with her serious eyes fixed on his face, "Miss Lake,) p. 123: achoed to echoed ("Long!" he echoed,) p. 181: existance to existence (an existence far antedating) p. 197: conciousness to consciousness (the consciousness cannot) p. 204: so to no (no sequence in the order) Minor punctuation errors and missing spaces between words have been corrected without note. An oe-ligature in the word manoeuvre has been replaced with "oe" in the plain text versions. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have not been corrected.] 
15489	----	Proofreading Team. DREAM PSYCHOLOGY _PSYCHOANALYSIS FOR BEGINNERS_ BY PROF. DR. SIGMUND FREUD AUTHORIZED ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY M.D. EDER WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ANDRÉ TRIDON Author of "Psychoanalysis, its History, Theory and Practice." "Psychoanalysis and Behavior" and "Psychoanalysis, Sleep and Dreams" NEW YORK THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY 1920 THE JAMES A. McCANN COMPANY PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. INTRODUCTION The medical profession is justly conservative. Human life should not be considered as the proper material for wild experiments. Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions. Remember the scornful reception which first was accorded to Freud's discoveries in the domain of the unconscious. When after years of patient observations, he finally decided to appear before medical bodies to tell them modestly of some facts which always recurred in his dream and his patients' dreams, he was first laughed at and then avoided as a crank. The words "dream interpretation" were and still are indeed fraught with unpleasant, unscientific associations. They remind one of all sorts of childish, superstitious notions, which make up the thread and woof of dream books, read by none but the ignorant and the primitive. The wealth of detail, the infinite care never to let anything pass unexplained, with which he presented to the public the result of his investigations, are impressing more and more serious-minded scientists, but the examination of his evidential data demands arduous work and presupposes an absolutely open mind. This is why we still encounter men, totally unfamiliar with Freud's writings, men who were not even interested enough in the subject to attempt an interpretation of their dreams or their patients' dreams, deriding Freud's theories and combatting them with the help of statements which he never made. Some of them, like Professor Boris Sidis, reach at times conclusions which are strangely similar to Freud's, but in their ignorance of psychoanalytic literature, they fail to credit Freud for observations antedating theirs. Besides those who sneer at dream study, because they have never looked into the subject, there are those who do not dare to face the facts revealed by dream study. Dreams tell us many an unpleasant biological truth about ourselves and only very free minds can thrive on such a diet. Self-deception is a plant which withers fast in the pellucid atmosphere of dream investigation. The weakling and the neurotic attached to his neurosis are not anxious to turn such a powerful searchlight upon the dark corners of their psychology. Freud's theories are anything but theoretical. He was moved by the fact that there always seemed to be a close connection between his patients' dreams and their mental abnormalities, to collect thousands of dreams and to compare them with the case histories in his possession. He did not start out with a preconceived bias, hoping to find evidence which might support his views. He looked at facts a thousand times "until they began to tell him something." His attitude toward dream study was, in other words, that of a statistician who does not know, and has no means of foreseeing, what conclusions will be forced on him by the information he is gathering, but who is fully prepared to accept those unavoidable conclusions. This was indeed a novel way in psychology. Psychologists had always been wont to build, in what Bleuler calls "autistic ways," that is through methods in no wise supported by evidence, some attractive hypothesis, which sprung from their brain, like Minerva from Jove's brain, fully armed. After which, they would stretch upon that unyielding frame the hide of a reality which they had previously killed. It is only to minds suffering from the same distortions, to minds also autistically inclined, that those empty, artificial structures appear acceptable molds for philosophic thinking. The pragmatic view that "truth is what works" had not been as yet expressed when Freud published his revolutionary views on the psychology of dreams. Five facts of first magnitude were made obvious to the world by his interpretation of dreams. First of all, Freud pointed out a constant connection between some part of every dream and some detail of the dreamer's life during the previous waking state. This positively establishes a relation between sleeping states and waking states and disposes of the widely prevalent view that dreams are purely nonsensical phenomena coming from nowhere and leading nowhere. Secondly, Freud, after studying the dreamer's life and modes of thought, after noting down all his mannerisms and the apparently insignificant details of his conduct which reveal his secret thoughts, came to the conclusion that there was in every dream the attempted or successful gratification of some wish, conscious or unconscious. Thirdly, he proved that many of our dream visions are symbolical, which causes us to consider them as absurd and unintelligible; the universality of those symbols, however, makes them very transparent to the trained observer. Fourthly, Freud showed that sexual desires play an enormous part in our unconscious, a part which puritanical hypocrisy has always tried to minimize, if not to ignore entirely. Finally, Freud established a direct connection between dreams and insanity, between the symbolic visions of our sleep and the symbolic actions of the mentally deranged. There were, of course, many other observations which Freud made while dissecting the dreams of his patients, but not all of them present as much interest as the foregoing nor were they as revolutionary or likely to wield as much influence on modern psychiatry. Other explorers have struck the path blazed by Freud and leading into man's unconscious. Jung of Zurich, Adler of Vienna and Kempf of Washington, D.C., have made to the study of the unconscious, contributions which have brought that study into fields which Freud himself never dreamt of invading. One fact which cannot be too emphatically stated, however, is that but for Freud's wishfulfillment theory of dreams, neither Jung's "energic theory," nor Adler's theory of "organ inferiority and compensation," nor Kempf's "dynamic mechanism" might have been formulated. Freud is the father of modern abnormal psychology and he established the psychoanalytical point of view. No one who is not well grounded in Freudian lore can hope to achieve any work of value in the field of psychoanalysis. On the other hand, let no one repeat the absurd assertion that Freudism is a sort of religion bounded with dogmas and requiring an act of faith. Freudism as such was merely a stage in the development of psychoanalysis, a stage out of which all but a few bigoted camp followers, totally lacking in originality, have evolved. Thousands of stones have been added to the structure erected by the Viennese physician and many more will be added in the course of time. But the new additions to that structure would collapse like a house of cards but for the original foundations which are as indestructible as Harvey's statement as to the circulation of the blood. Regardless of whatever additions or changes have been made to the original structure, the analytic point of view remains unchanged. That point of view is not only revolutionising all the methods of diagnosis and treatment of mental derangements, but compelling the intelligent, up-to-date physician to revise entirely his attitude to almost every kind of disease. The insane are no longer absurd and pitiable people, to be herded in asylums till nature either cures them or relieves them, through death, of their misery. The insane who have not been made so by actual injury to their brain or nervous system, are the victims of unconscious forces which cause them to do abnormally things which they might be helped to do normally. Insight into one's psychology is replacing victoriously sedatives and rest cures. Physicians dealing with "purely" physical cases have begun to take into serious consideration the "mental" factors which have predisposed a patient to certain ailments. Freud's views have also made a revision of all ethical and social values unavoidable and have thrown an unexpected flood of light upon literary and artistic accomplishment. But the Freudian point of view, or more broadly speaking, the psychoanalytic point of view, shall ever remain a puzzle to those who, from laziness or indifference, refuse to survey with the great Viennese the field over which he carefully groped his way. We shall never be convinced until we repeat under his guidance all his laboratory experiments. We must follow him through the thickets of the unconscious, through the land which had never been charted because academic philosophers, following the line of least effort, had decided _a priori_ that it could not be charted. Ancient geographers, when exhausting their store of information about distant lands, yielded to an unscientific craving for romance and, without any evidence to support their day dreams, filled the blank spaces left on their maps by unexplored tracts with amusing inserts such as "Here there are lions." Thanks to Freud's interpretation of dreams the "royal road" into the unconscious is now open to all explorers. They shall not find lions, they shall find man himself, and the record of all his life and of his struggle with reality. And it is only after seeing man as his unconscious, revealed by his dreams, presents him to us that we shall understand him fully. For as Freud said to Putnam: "We are what we are because we have been what we have been." Not a few serious-minded students, however, have been discouraged from attempting a study of Freud's dream psychology. The book in which he originally offered to the world his interpretation of dreams was as circumstantial as a legal record to be pondered over by scientists at their leisure, not to be assimilated in a few hours by the average alert reader. In those days, Freud could not leave out any detail likely to make his extremely novel thesis evidentially acceptable to those willing to sift data. Freud himself, however, realized the magnitude of the task which the reading of his _magnum opus_ imposed upon those who have not been prepared for it by long psychological and scientific training and he abstracted from that gigantic work the parts which constitute the essential of his discoveries. The publishers of the present book deserve credit for presenting to the reading public the gist of Freud's psychology in the master's own words, and in a form which shall neither discourage beginners, nor appear too elementary to those who are more advanced in psychoanalytic study. Dream psychology is the key to Freud's works and to all modern psychology. With a simple, compact manual such as _Dream Psychology_ there shall be no longer any excuse for ignorance of the most revolutionary psychological system of modern times. ANDRÉ TRIDON. 121 Madison Avenue, New York. November, 1920. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I DREAMS HAVE A MEANING 1 II THE DREAM MECHANISM 24 III WHY THE DREAM DISGUISES THE DESIRES 57 IV DREAM ANALYSIS 78 V SEX IN DREAMS 104 VI THE WISH IN DREAMS 135 VII THE FUNCTION OF THE DREAM 164 VIII THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PROCESS--REGRESSION 186 IX THE UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS--REALITY 220 DREAM PSYCHOLOGY I DREAMS HAVE A MEANING In what we may term "prescientific days" people were in no uncertainty about the interpretation of dreams. When they were recalled after awakening they were regarded as either the friendly or hostile manifestation of some higher powers, demoniacal and Divine. With the rise of scientific thought the whole of this expressive mythology was transferred to psychology; to-day there is but a small minority among educated persons who doubt that the dream is the dreamer's own psychical act. But since the downfall of the mythological hypothesis an interpretation of the dream has been wanting. The conditions of its origin; its relationship to our psychical life when we are awake; its independence of disturbances which, during the state of sleep, seem to compel notice; its many peculiarities repugnant to our waking thought; the incongruence between its images and the feelings they engender; then the dream's evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it--all these and many other problems have for many hundred years demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory. Before all there is the question as to the meaning of the dream, a question which is in itself double-sided. There is, firstly, the psychical significance of the dream, its position with regard to the psychical processes, as to a possible biological function; secondly, has the dream a meaning--can sense be made of each single dream as of other mental syntheses? Three tendencies can be observed in the estimation of dreams. Many philosophers have given currency to one of these tendencies, one which at the same time preserves something of the dream's former over-valuation. The foundation of dream life is for them a peculiar state of psychical activity, which they even celebrate as elevation to some higher state. Schubert, for instance, claims: "The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter." Not all go so far as this, but many maintain that dreams have their origin in real spiritual excitations, and are the outward manifestations of spiritual powers whose free movements have been hampered during the day ("Dream Phantasies," Scherner, Volkelt). A large number of observers acknowledge that dream life is capable of extraordinary achievements--at any rate, in certain fields ("Memory"). In striking contradiction with this the majority of medical writers hardly admit that the dream is a psychical phenomenon at all. According to them dreams are provoked and initiated exclusively by stimuli proceeding from the senses or the body, which either reach the sleeper from without or are accidental disturbances of his internal organs. The dream has no greater claim to meaning and importance than the sound called forth by the ten fingers of a person quite unacquainted with music running his fingers over the keys of an instrument. The dream is to be regarded, says Binz, "as a physical process always useless, frequently morbid." All the peculiarities of dream life are explicable as the incoherent effort, due to some physiological stimulus, of certain organs, or of the cortical elements of a brain otherwise asleep. But slightly affected by scientific opinion and untroubled as to the origin of dreams, the popular view holds firmly to the belief that dreams really have got a meaning, in some way they do foretell the future, whilst the meaning can be unravelled in some way or other from its oft bizarre and enigmatical content. The reading of dreams consists in replacing the events of the dream, so far as remembered, by other events. This is done either scene by scene, _according to some rigid key_, or the dream as a whole is replaced by something else of which it was a _symbol_. Serious-minded persons laugh at these efforts--"Dreams are but sea-foam!" One day I discovered to my amazement that the popular view grounded in superstition, and not the medical one, comes nearer to the truth about dreams. I arrived at new conclusions about dreams by the use of a new method of psychological investigation, one which had rendered me good service in the investigation of phobias, obsessions, illusions, and the like, and which, under the name "psycho-analysis," had found acceptance by a whole school of investigators. The manifold analogies of dream life with the most diverse conditions of psychical disease in the waking state have been rightly insisted upon by a number of medical observers. It seemed, therefore, _a priori_, hopeful to apply to the interpretation of dreams methods of investigation which had been tested in psychopathological processes. Obsessions and those peculiar sensations of haunting dread remain as strange to normal consciousness as do dreams to our waking consciousness; their origin is as unknown to consciousness as is that of dreams. It was practical ends that impelled us, in these diseases, to fathom their origin and formation. Experience had shown us that a cure and a consequent mastery of the obsessing ideas did result when once those thoughts, the connecting links between the morbid ideas and the rest of the psychical content, were revealed which were heretofore veiled from consciousness. The procedure I employed for the interpretation of dreams thus arose from psychotherapy. This procedure is readily described, although its practice demands instruction and experience. Suppose the patient is suffering from intense morbid dread. He is requested to direct his attention to the idea in question, without, however, as he has so frequently done, meditating upon it. Every impression about it, without any exception, which occurs to him should be imparted to the doctor. The statement which will be perhaps then made, that he cannot concentrate his attention upon anything at all, is to be countered by assuring him most positively that such a blank state of mind is utterly impossible. As a matter of fact, a great number of impressions will soon occur, with which others will associate themselves. These will be invariably accompanied by the expression of the observer's opinion that they have no meaning or are unimportant. It will be at once noticed that it is this self-criticism which prevented the patient from imparting the ideas, which had indeed already excluded them from consciousness. If the patient can be induced to abandon this self-criticism and to pursue the trains of thought which are yielded by concentrating the attention, most significant matter will be obtained, matter which will be presently seen to be clearly linked to the morbid idea in question. Its connection with other ideas will be manifest, and later on will permit the replacement of the morbid idea by a fresh one, which is perfectly adapted to psychical continuity. This is not the place to examine thoroughly the hypothesis upon which this experiment rests, or the deductions which follow from its invariable success. It must suffice to state that we obtain matter enough for the resolution of every morbid idea if we especially direct our attention to the _unbidden_ associations _which disturb our thoughts_--those which are otherwise put aside by the critic as worthless refuse. If the procedure is exercised on oneself, the best plan of helping the experiment is to write down at once all one's first indistinct fancies. I will now point out where this method leads when I apply it to the examination of dreams. Any dream could be made use of in this way. From certain motives I, however, choose a dream of my own, which appears confused and meaningless to my memory, and one which has the advantage of brevity. Probably my dream of last night satisfies the requirements. Its content, fixed immediately after awakening, runs as follows: _"Company; at table or table d'hôte.... Spinach is served. Mrs. E.L., sitting next to me, gives me her undivided attention, and places her hand familiarly upon my knee. In defence I remove her hand. Then she says: 'But you have always had such beautiful eyes.'.... I then distinctly see something like two eyes as a sketch or as the contour of a spectacle lens...."_ This is the whole dream, or, at all events, all that I can remember. It appears to me not only obscure and meaningless, but more especially odd. Mrs. E.L. is a person with whom I am scarcely on visiting terms, nor to my knowledge have I ever desired any more cordial relationship. I have not seen her for a long time, and do not think there was any mention of her recently. No emotion whatever accompanied the dream process. Reflecting upon this dream does not make it a bit clearer to my mind. I will now, however, present the ideas, without premeditation and without criticism, which introspection yielded. I soon notice that it is an advantage to break up the dream into its elements, and to search out the ideas which link themselves to each fragment. _Company; at table or table d'hôte._ The recollection of the slight event with which the evening of yesterday ended is at once called up. I left a small party in the company of a friend, who offered to drive me home in his cab. "I prefer a taxi," he said; "that gives one such a pleasant occupation; there is always something to look at." When we were in the cab, and the cab-driver turned the disc so that the first sixty hellers were visible, I continued the jest. "We have hardly got in and we already owe sixty hellers. The taxi always reminds me of the table d'hôte. It makes me avaricious and selfish by continuously reminding me of my debt. It seems to me to mount up too quickly, and I am always afraid that I shall be at a disadvantage, just as I cannot resist at table d'hôte the comical fear that I am getting too little, that I must look after myself." In far-fetched connection with this I quote: "To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us, To guilt ye let us heedless go." Another idea about the table d'hôte. A few weeks ago I was very cross with my dear wife at the dinner-table at a Tyrolese health resort, because she was not sufficiently reserved with some neighbors with whom I wished to have absolutely nothing to do. I begged her to occupy herself rather with me than with the strangers. That is just as if I had _been at a disadvantage at the table d'hôte_. The contrast between the behavior of my wife at the table and that of Mrs. E.L. in the dream now strikes me: _"Addresses herself entirely to me."_ Further, I now notice that the dream is the reproduction of a little scene which transpired between my wife and myself when I was secretly courting her. The caressing under cover of the tablecloth was an answer to a wooer's passionate letter. In the dream, however, my wife is replaced by the unfamiliar E.L. Mrs. E.L. is the daughter of a man to whom I _owed money_! I cannot help noticing that here there is revealed an unsuspected connection between the dream content and my thoughts. If the chain of associations be followed up which proceeds from one element of the dream one is soon led back to another of its elements. The thoughts evoked by the dream stir up associations which were not noticeable in the dream itself. Is it not customary, when some one expects others to look after his interests without any advantage to themselves, to ask the innocent question satirically: "Do you think this will be done _for the sake of your beautiful eyes_?" Hence Mrs. E.L.'s speech in the dream. "You have always had such beautiful eyes," means nothing but "people always do everything to you for love of you; you have had _everything for nothing_." The contrary is, of course, the truth; I have always paid dearly for whatever kindness others have shown me. Still, the fact that _I had a ride for nothing_ yesterday when my friend drove me home in his cab must have made an impression upon me. In any case, the friend whose guests we were yesterday has often made me his debtor. Recently I allowed an opportunity of requiting him to go by. He has had only one present from me, an antique shawl, upon which eyes are painted all round, a so-called Occhiale, as a _charm_ against the _Malocchio_. Moreover, he is an _eye specialist_. That same evening I had asked him after a patient whom I had sent to him for _glasses_. As I remarked, nearly all parts of the dream have been brought into this new connection. I still might ask why in the dream it was _spinach_ that was served up. Because spinach called up a little scene which recently occurred at our table. A child, whose _beautiful eyes_ are really deserving of praise, refused to eat spinach. As a child I was just the same; for a long time I loathed _spinach_, until in later life my tastes altered, and it became one of my favorite dishes. The mention of this dish brings my own childhood and that of my child's near together. "You should be glad that you have some spinach," his mother had said to the little gourmet. "Some children would be very glad to get spinach." Thus I am reminded of the parents' duties towards their children. Goethe's words-- "To earth, this weary earth, ye bring us, To guilt ye let us heedless go"-- take on another meaning in this connection. Here I will stop in order that I may recapitulate the results of the analysis of the dream. By following the associations which were linked to the single elements of the dream torn from their context, I have been led to a series of thoughts and reminiscences where I am bound to recognize interesting expressions of my psychical life. The matter yielded by an analysis of the dream stands in intimate relationship with the dream content, but this relationship is so special that I should never have been able to have inferred the new discoveries directly from the dream itself. The dream was passionless, disconnected, and unintelligible. During the time that I am unfolding the thoughts at the back of the dream I feel intense and well-grounded emotions. The thoughts themselves fit beautifully together into chains logically bound together with certain central ideas which ever repeat themselves. Such ideas not represented in the dream itself are in this instance the antitheses _selfish, unselfish, to be indebted, to work for nothing_. I could draw closer the threads of the web which analysis has disclosed, and would then be able to show how they all run together into a single knot; I am debarred from making this work public by considerations of a private, not of a scientific, nature. After having cleared up many things which I do not willingly acknowledge as mine, I should have much to reveal which had better remain my secret. Why, then, do not I choose another dream whose analysis would be more suitable for publication, so that I could awaken a fairer conviction of the sense and cohesion of the results disclosed by analysis? The answer is, because every dream which I investigate leads to the same difficulties and places me under the same need of discretion; nor should I forgo this difficulty any the more were I to analyze the dream of some one else. That could only be done when opportunity allowed all concealment to be dropped without injury to those who trusted me. The conclusion which is now forced upon me is that the dream is a _sort of substitution_ for those emotional and intellectual trains of thought which I attained after complete analysis. I do not yet know the process by which the dream arose from those thoughts, but I perceive that it is wrong to regard the dream as psychically unimportant, a purely physical process which has arisen from the activity of isolated cortical elements awakened out of sleep. I must further remark that the dream is far shorter than the thoughts which I hold it replaces; whilst analysis discovered that the dream was provoked by an unimportant occurrence the evening before the dream. Naturally, I would not draw such far-reaching conclusions if only one analysis were known to me. Experience has shown me that when the associations of any dream are honestly followed such a chain of thought is revealed, the constituent parts of the dream reappear correctly and sensibly linked together; the slight suspicion that this concatenation was merely an accident of a single first observation must, therefore, be absolutely relinquished. I regard it, therefore, as my right to establish this new view by a proper nomenclature. I contrast the dream which my memory evokes with the dream and other added matter revealed by analysis: the former I call the dream's _manifest content_; the latter, without at first further subdivision, its _latent content_. I arrive at two new problems hitherto unformulated: (1) What is the psychical process which has transformed the latent content of the dream into its manifest content? (2) What is the motive or the motives which have made such transformation exigent? The process by which the change from latent to manifest content is executed I name the _dream-work_. In contrast with this is the _work of analysis_, which produces the reverse transformation. The other problems of the dream--the inquiry as to its stimuli, as to the source of its materials, as to its possible purpose, the function of dreaming, the forgetting of dreams--these I will discuss in connection with the latent dream-content. I shall take every care to avoid a confusion between the _manifest_ and the _latent content_, for I ascribe all the contradictory as well as the incorrect accounts of dream-life to the ignorance of this latent content, now first laid bare through analysis. The conversion of the latent dream thoughts into those manifest deserves our close study as the first known example of the transformation of psychical stuff from one mode of expression into another. From a mode of expression which, moreover, is readily intelligible into another which we can only penetrate by effort and with guidance, although this new mode must be equally reckoned as an effort of our own psychical activity. From the standpoint of the relationship of latent to manifest dream-content, dreams can be divided into three classes. We can, in the first place, distinguish those dreams which have a _meaning_ and are, at the same time, _intelligible_, which allow us to penetrate into our psychical life without further ado. Such dreams are numerous; they are usually short, and, as a general rule, do not seem very noticeable, because everything remarkable or exciting surprise is absent. Their occurrence is, moreover, a strong argument against the doctrine which derives the dream from the isolated activity of certain cortical elements. All signs of a lowered or subdivided psychical activity are wanting. Yet we never raise any objection to characterizing them as dreams, nor do we confound them with the products of our waking life. A second group is formed by those dreams which are indeed self-coherent and have a distinct meaning, but appear strange because we are unable to reconcile their meaning with our mental life. That is the case when we dream, for instance, that some dear relative has died of plague when we know of no ground for expecting, apprehending, or assuming anything of the sort; we can only ask ourself wonderingly: "What brought that into my head?" To the third group those dreams belong which are void of both meaning and intelligibility; they are _incoherent, complicated, and meaningless_. The overwhelming number of our dreams partake of this character, and this has given rise to the contemptuous attitude towards dreams and the medical theory of their limited psychical activity. It is especially in the longer and more complicated dream-plots that signs of incoherence are seldom missing. The contrast between manifest and latent dream-content is clearly only of value for the dreams of the second and more especially for those of the third class. Here are problems which are only solved when the manifest dream is replaced by its latent content; it was an example of this kind, a complicated and unintelligible dream, that we subjected to analysis. Against our expectation we, however, struck upon reasons which prevented a complete cognizance of the latent dream thought. On the repetition of this same experience we were forced to the supposition that there is an _intimate bond, with laws of its own, between the unintelligible and complicated nature of the dream and the difficulties attending communication of the thoughts connected with the dream_. Before investigating the nature of this bond, it will be advantageous to turn our attention to the more readily intelligible dreams of the first class where, the manifest and latent content being identical, the dream work seems to be omitted. The investigation of these dreams is also advisable from another standpoint. The dreams of _children_ are of this nature; they have a meaning, and are not bizarre. This, by the way, is a further objection to reducing dreams to a dissociation of cerebral activity in sleep, for why should such a lowering of psychical functions belong to the nature of sleep in adults, but not in children? We are, however, fully justified in expecting that the explanation of psychical processes in children, essentially simplified as they may be, should serve as an indispensable preparation towards the psychology of the adult. I shall therefore cite some examples of dreams which I have gathered from children. A girl of nineteen months was made to go without food for a day because she had been sick in the morning, and, according to nurse, had made herself ill through eating strawberries. During the night, after her day of fasting, she was heard calling out her name during sleep, and adding: "_Tawberry, eggs, pap_." She is dreaming that she is eating, and selects out of her menu exactly what she supposes she will not get much of just now. The same kind of dream about a forbidden dish was that of a little boy of twenty-two months. The day before he was told to offer his uncle a present of a small basket of cherries, of which the child was, of course, only allowed one to taste. He woke up with the joyful news: "Hermann eaten up all the cherries." A girl of three and a half years had made during the day a sea trip which was too short for her, and she cried when she had to get out of the boat. The next morning her story was that during the night she had been on the sea, thus continuing the interrupted trip. A boy of five and a half years was not at all pleased with his party during a walk in the Dachstein region. Whenever a new peak came into sight he asked if that were the Dachstein, and, finally, refused to accompany the party to the waterfall. His behavior was ascribed to fatigue; but a better explanation was forthcoming when the next morning he told his dream: _he had ascended the Dachstein_. Obviously he expected the ascent of the Dachstein to be the object of the excursion, and was vexed by not getting a glimpse of the mountain. The dream gave him what the day had withheld. The dream of a girl of six was similar; her father had cut short the walk before reaching the promised objective on account of the lateness of the hour. On the way back she noticed a signpost giving the name of another place for excursions; her father promised to take her there also some other day. She greeted her father next day with the news that she had dreamt that _her father had been with her to both places_. What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes. The following child-dream, not quite understandable at first sight, is nothing else than a wish realized. On account of poliomyelitis a girl, not quite four years of age, was brought from the country into town, and remained over night with a childless aunt in a big--for her, naturally, huge--bed. The next morning she stated that she had dreamt that _the bed was much too small for her, so that she could find no place in it_. To explain this dream as a wish is easy when we remember that to be "big" is a frequently expressed wish of all children. The bigness of the bed reminded Miss Little-Would-be-Big only too forcibly of her smallness. This nasty situation became righted in her dream, and she grew so big that the bed now became too small for her. Even when children's dreams are complicated and polished, their comprehension as a realization of desire is fairly evident. A boy of eight dreamt that he was being driven with Achilles in a war-chariot, guided by Diomedes. The day before he was assiduously reading about great heroes. It is easy to show that he took these heroes as his models, and regretted that he was not living in those days. From this short collection a further characteristic of the dreams of children is manifest--_their connection with the life of the day_. The desires which are realized in these dreams are left over from the day or, as a rule, the day previous, and the feeling has become intently emphasized and fixed during the day thoughts. Accidental and indifferent matters, or what must appear so to the child, find no acceptance in the contents of the dream. Innumerable instances of such dreams of the infantile type can be found among adults also, but, as mentioned, these are mostly exactly like the manifest content. Thus, a random selection of persons will generally respond to thirst at night-time with a dream about drinking, thus striving to get rid of the sensation and to let sleep continue. Many persons frequently have these comforting _dreams_ before waking, just when they are called. They then dream that they are already up, that they are washing, or already in school, at the office, etc., where they ought to be at a given time. The night before an intended journey one not infrequently dreams that one has already arrived at the destination; before going to a play or to a party the dream not infrequently anticipates, in impatience, as it were, the expected pleasure. At other times the dream expresses the realization of the desire somewhat indirectly; some connection, some sequel must be known--the first step towards recognizing the desire. Thus, when a husband related to me the dream of his young wife, that her monthly period had begun, I had to bethink myself that the young wife would have expected a pregnancy if the period had been absent. The dream is then a sign of pregnancy. Its meaning is that it shows the wish realized that pregnancy should not occur just yet. Under unusual and extreme circumstances, these dreams of the infantile type become very frequent. The leader of a polar expedition tells us, for instance, that during the wintering amid the ice the crew, with their monotonous diet and slight rations, dreamt regularly, like children, of fine meals, of mountains of tobacco, and of home. It is not uncommon that out of some long, complicated and intricate dream one specially lucid part stands out containing unmistakably the realization of a desire, but bound up with much unintelligible matter. On more frequently analyzing the seemingly more transparent dreams of adults, it is astonishing to discover that these are rarely as simple as the dreams of children, and that they cover another meaning beyond that of the realization of a wish. It would certainly be a simple and convenient solution of the riddle if the work of analysis made it at all possible for us to trace the meaningless and intricate dreams of adults back to the infantile type, to the realization of some intensely experienced desire of the day. But there is no warrant for such an expectation. Their dreams are generally full of the most indifferent and bizarre matter, and no trace of the realization of the wish is to be found in their content. Before leaving these infantile dreams, which are obviously unrealized desires, we must not fail to mention another chief characteristic of dreams, one that has been long noticed, and one which stands out most clearly in this class. I can replace any of these dreams by a phrase expressing a desire. If the sea trip had only lasted longer; if I were only washed and dressed; if I had only been allowed to keep the cherries instead of giving them to my uncle. But the dream gives something more than the choice, for here the desire is already realized; its realization is real and actual. The dream presentations consist chiefly, if not wholly, of scenes and mainly of visual sense images. Hence a kind of transformation is not entirely absent in this class of dreams, and this may be fairly designated as the dream work. _An idea merely existing in the region of possibility is replaced by a vision of its accomplishment._ II THE DREAM MECHANISM We are compelled to assume that such transformation of scene has also taken place in intricate dreams, though we do not know whether it has encountered any possible desire. The dream instanced at the commencement, which we analyzed somewhat thoroughly, did give us occasion in two places to suspect something of the kind. Analysis brought out that my wife was occupied with others at table, and that I did not like it; in the dream itself _exactly the opposite_ occurs, for the person who replaces my wife gives me her undivided attention. But can one wish for anything pleasanter after a disagreeable incident than that the exact contrary should have occurred, just as the dream has it? The stinging thought in the analysis, that I have never had anything for nothing, is similarly connected with the woman's remark in the dream: "You have always had such beautiful eyes." Some portion of the opposition between the latent and manifest content of the dream must be therefore derived from the realization of a wish. Another manifestation of the dream work which all incoherent dreams have in common is still more noticeable. Choose any instance, and compare the number of separate elements in it, or the extent of the dream, if written down, with the dream thoughts yielded by analysis, and of which but a trace can be refound in the dream itself. There can be no doubt that the dream working has resulted in an extraordinary compression or _condensation_. It is not at first easy to form an opinion as to the extent of the condensation; the more deeply you go into the analysis, the more deeply you are impressed by it. There will be found no factor in the dream whence the chains of associations do not lead in two or more directions, no scene which has not been pieced together out of two or more impressions and events. For instance, I once dreamt about a kind of swimming-bath where the bathers suddenly separated in all directions; at one place on the edge a person stood bending towards one of the bathers as if to drag him out. The scene was a composite one, made up out of an event that occurred at the time of puberty, and of two pictures, one of which I had seen just shortly before the dream. The two pictures were The Surprise in the Bath, from Schwind's Cycle of the Melusine (note the bathers suddenly separating), and The Flood, by an Italian master. The little incident was that I once witnessed a lady, who had tarried in the swimming-bath until the men's hour, being helped out of the water by the swimming-master. The scene in the dream which was selected for analysis led to a whole group of reminiscences, each one of which had contributed to the dream content. First of all came the little episode from the time of my courting, of which I have already spoken; the pressure of a hand under the table gave rise in the dream to the "under the table," which I had subsequently to find a place for in my recollection. There was, of course, at the time not a word about "undivided attention." Analysis taught me that this factor is the realization of a desire through its contradictory and related to the behavior of my wife at the table d'hôte. An exactly similar and much more important episode of our courtship, one which separated us for an entire day, lies hidden behind this recent recollection. The intimacy, the hand resting upon the knee, refers to a quite different connection and to quite other persons. This element in the dream becomes again the starting-point of two distinct series of reminiscences, and so on. The stuff of the dream thoughts which has been accumulated for the formation of the dream scene must be naturally fit for this application. There must be one or more common factors. The dream work proceeds like Francis Galton with his family photographs. The different elements are put one on top of the other; what is common to the composite picture stands out clearly, the opposing details cancel each other. This process of reproduction partly explains the wavering statements, of a peculiar vagueness, in so many elements of the dream. For the interpretation of dreams this rule holds good: When analysis discloses _uncertainty_, as to _either_--_or_ read _and_, _taking_ each section of the apparent alternatives as a separate outlet for a series of impressions. When there is nothing in common between the dream thoughts, the dream work takes the trouble to create a something, in order to make a common presentation feasible in the dream. The simplest way to approximate two dream thoughts, which have as yet nothing in common, consists in making such a change in the actual expression of one idea as will meet a slight responsive recasting in the form of the other idea. The process is analogous to that of rhyme, when consonance supplies the desired common factor. A good deal of the dream work consists in the creation of those frequently very witty, but often exaggerated, digressions. These vary from the common presentation in the dream content to dream thoughts which are as varied as are the causes in form and essence which give rise to them. In the analysis of our example of a dream, I find a like case of the transformation of a thought in order that it might agree with another essentially foreign one. In following out the analysis I struck upon the thought: _I should like to have something for nothing_. But this formula is not serviceable to the dream. Hence it is replaced by another one: "I should like to enjoy something free of cost."[1] The word "kost" (taste), with its double meaning, is appropriate to a table d'hôte; it, moreover, is in place through the special sense in the dream. At home if there is a dish which the children decline, their mother first tries gentle persuasion, with a "Just taste it." That the dream work should unhesitatingly use the double meaning of the word is certainly remarkable; ample experience has shown, however, that the occurrence is quite usual. Through condensation of the dream certain constituent parts of its content are explicable which are peculiar to the dream life alone, and which are not found in the waking state. Such are the composite and mixed persons, the extraordinary mixed figures, creations comparable with the fantastic animal compositions of Orientals; a moment's thought and these are reduced to unity, whilst the fancies of the dream are ever formed anew in an inexhaustible profusion. Every one knows such images in his own dreams; manifold are their origins. I can build up a person by borrowing one feature from one person and one from another, or by giving to the form of one the name of another in my dream. I can also visualize one person, but place him in a position which has occurred to another. There is a meaning in all these cases when different persons are amalgamated into one substitute. Such cases denote an "and," a "just like," a comparison of the original person from a certain point of view, a comparison which can be also realized in the dream itself. As a rule, however, the identity of the blended persons is only discoverable by analysis, and is only indicated in the dream content by the formation of the "combined" person. The same diversity in their ways of formation and the same rules for its solution hold good also for the innumerable medley of dream contents, examples of which I need scarcely adduce. Their strangeness quite disappears when we resolve not to place them on a level with the objects of perception as known to us when awake, but to remember that they represent the art of dream condensation by an exclusion of unnecessary detail. Prominence is given to the common character of the combination. Analysis must also generally supply the common features. The dream says simply: _All these things have an "x" in common_. The decomposition of these mixed images by analysis is often the quickest way to an interpretation of the dream. Thus I once dreamt that I was sitting with one of my former university tutors on a bench, which was undergoing a rapid continuous movement amidst other benches. This was a combination of lecture-room and moving staircase. I will not pursue the further result of the thought. Another time I was sitting in a carriage, and on my lap an object in shape like a top-hat, which, however, was made of transparent glass. The scene at once brought to my mind the proverb: "He who keeps his hat in his hand will travel safely through the land." By a slight turn the _glass hat_ reminded me of _Auer's light_, and I knew that I was about to invent something which was to make me as rich and independent as his invention had made my countryman, Dr. Auer, of Welsbach; then I should be able to travel instead of remaining in Vienna. In the dream I was traveling with my invention, with the, it is true, rather awkward glass top-hat. The dream work is peculiarly adept at representing two contradictory conceptions by means of the same mixed image. Thus, for instance, a woman dreamt of herself carrying a tall flower-stalk, as in the picture of the Annunciation (Chastity-Mary is her own name), but the stalk was bedecked with thick white blossoms resembling camellias (contrast with chastity: La dame aux Camelias). A great deal of what we have called "dream condensation" can be thus formulated. Each one of the elements of the dream content is _overdetermined_ by the matter of the dream thoughts; it is not derived from one element of these thoughts, but from a whole series. These are not necessarily interconnected in any way, but may belong to the most diverse spheres of thought. The dream element truly represents all this disparate matter in the dream content. Analysis, moreover, discloses another side of the relationship between dream content and dream thoughts. Just as one element of the dream leads to associations with several dream thoughts, so, as a rule, the _one dream thought represents more than one dream element_. The threads of the association do not simply converge from the dream thoughts to the dream content, but on the way they overlap and interweave in every way. Next to the transformation of one thought in the scene (its "dramatization"), condensation is the most important and most characteristic feature of the dream work. We have as yet no clue as to the motive calling for such compression of the content. In the complicated and intricate dreams with which we are now concerned, condensation and dramatization do not wholly account for the difference between dream contents and dream thoughts. There is evidence of a third factor, which deserves careful consideration. When I have arrived at an understanding of the dream thoughts by my analysis I notice, above all, that the matter of the manifest is very different from that of the latent dream content. That is, I admit, only an apparent difference which vanishes on closer investigation, for in the end I find the whole dream content carried out in the dream thoughts, nearly all the dream thoughts again represented in the dream content. Nevertheless, there does remain a certain amount of difference. The essential content which stood out clearly and broadly in the dream must, after analysis, rest satisfied with a very subordinate rôle among the dream thoughts. These very dream thoughts which, going by my feelings, have a claim to the greatest importance are either not present at all in the dream content, or are represented by some remote allusion in some obscure region of the dream. I can thus describe these phenomena: _During the dream work the psychical intensity of those thoughts and conceptions to which it properly pertains flows to others which, in my judgment, have no claim to such emphasis_. There is no other process which contributes so much to concealment of the dream's meaning and to make the connection between the dream content and dream ideas irrecognizable. During this process, which I will call _the dream displacement_, I notice also the psychical intensity, significance, or emotional nature of the thoughts become transposed in sensory vividness. What was clearest in the dream seems to me, without further consideration, the most important; but often in some obscure element of the dream I can recognize the most direct offspring of the principal dream thought. I could only designate this dream displacement as the _transvaluation of psychical values_. The phenomena will not have been considered in all its bearings unless I add that this displacement or transvaluation is shared by different dreams in extremely varying degrees. There are dreams which take place almost without any displacement. These have the same time, meaning, and intelligibility as we found in the dreams which recorded a desire. In other dreams not a bit of the dream idea has retained its own psychical value, or everything essential in these dream ideas has been replaced by unessentials, whilst every kind of transition between these conditions can be found. The more obscure and intricate a dream is, the greater is the part to be ascribed to the impetus of displacement in its formation. The example that we chose for analysis shows, at least, this much of displacement--that its content has a different center of interest from that of the dream ideas. In the forefront of the dream content the main scene appears as if a woman wished to make advances to me; in the dream idea the chief interest rests on the desire to enjoy disinterested love which shall "cost nothing"; this idea lies at the back of the talk about the beautiful eyes and the far-fetched allusion to "spinach." If we abolish the dream displacement, we attain through analysis quite certain conclusions regarding two problems of the dream which are most disputed--as to what provokes a dream at all, and as to the connection of the dream with our waking life. There are dreams which at once expose their links with the events of the day; in others no trace of such a connection can be found. By the aid of analysis it can be shown that every dream, without any exception, is linked up with our impression of the day, or perhaps it would be more correct to say of the day previous to the dream. The impressions which have incited the dream may be so important that we are not surprised at our being occupied with them whilst awake; in this case we are right in saying that the dream carries on the chief interest of our waking life. More usually, however, when the dream contains anything relating to the impressions of the day, it is so trivial, unimportant, and so deserving of oblivion, that we can only recall it with an effort. The dream content appears, then, even when coherent and intelligible, to be concerned with those indifferent trifles of thought undeserving of our waking interest. The depreciation of dreams is largely due to the predominance of the indifferent and the worthless in their content. Analysis destroys the appearance upon which this derogatory judgment is based. When the dream content discloses nothing but some indifferent impression as instigating the dream, analysis ever indicates some significant event, which has been replaced by something indifferent with which it has entered into abundant associations. Where the dream is concerned with uninteresting and unimportant conceptions, analysis reveals the numerous associative paths which connect the trivial with the momentous in the psychical estimation of the individual. _It is only the action of displacement if what is indifferent obtains recognition in the dream content instead of those impressions which are really the stimulus, or instead of the things of real interest_. In answering the question as to what provokes the dream, as to the connection of the dream, in the daily troubles, we must say, in terms of the insight given us by replacing the manifest latent dream content: _The dream does never trouble itself about things which are not deserving of our concern during the day, and trivialities which do not trouble us during the day have no power to pursue us whilst asleep_. What provoked the dream in the example which we have analyzed? The really unimportant event, that a friend invited me to a _free ride in his cab_. The table d'hôte scene in the dream contains an allusion to this indifferent motive, for in conversation I had brought the taxi parallel with the table d'hôte. But I can indicate the important event which has as its substitute the trivial one. A few days before I had disbursed a large sum of money for a member of my family who is very dear to me. Small wonder, says the dream thought, if this person is grateful to me for this--this love is not cost-free. But love that shall cost nothing is one of the prime thoughts of the dream. The fact that shortly before this I had had several _drives_ with the relative in question puts the one drive with my friend in a position to recall the connection with the other person. The indifferent impression which, by such ramifications, provokes the dream is subservient to another condition which is not true of the real source of the dream--the impression must be a recent one, everything arising from the day of the dream. I cannot leave the question of dream displacement without the consideration of a remarkable process in the formation of dreams in which condensation and displacement work together towards one end. In condensation we have already considered the case where two conceptions in the dream having something in common, some point of contact, are replaced in the dream content by a mixed image, where the distinct germ corresponds to what is common, and the indistinct secondary modifications to what is distinctive. If displacement is added to condensation, there is no formation of a mixed image, but a _common mean_ which bears the same relationship to the individual elements as does the resultant in the parallelogram of forces to its components. In one of my dreams, for instance, there is talk of an injection with _propyl_. On first analysis I discovered an indifferent but true incident where _amyl_ played a part as the excitant of the dream. I cannot yet vindicate the exchange of amyl for propyl. To the round of ideas of the same dream, however, there belongs the recollection of my first visit to Munich, when the _Propyloea_ struck me. The attendant circumstances of the analysis render it admissible that the influence of this second group of conceptions caused the displacement of amyl to propyl. _Propyl_ is, so to say, the mean idea between _amyl_ and _propyloea_; it got into the dream as a kind of _compromise_ by simultaneous condensation and displacement. The need of discovering some motive for this bewildering work of the dream is even more called for in the case of displacement than in condensation. Although the work of displacement must be held mainly responsible if the dream thoughts are not refound or recognized in the dream content (unless the motive of the changes be guessed), it is another and milder kind of transformation which will be considered with the dream thoughts which leads to the discovery of a new but readily understood act of the dream work. The first dream thoughts which are unravelled by analysis frequently strike one by their unusual wording. They do not appear to be expressed in the sober form which our thinking prefers; rather are they expressed symbolically by allegories and metaphors like the figurative language of the poets. It is not difficult to find the motives for this degree of constraint in the expression of dream ideas. The dream content consists chiefly of visual scenes; hence the dream ideas must, in the first place, be prepared to make use of these forms of presentation. Conceive that a political leader's or a barrister's address had to be transposed into pantomime, and it will be easy to understand the transformations to which the dream work is constrained by regard for this _dramatization of the dream content_. Around the psychical stuff of dream thoughts there are ever found reminiscences of impressions, not infrequently of early childhood--scenes which, as a rule, have been visually grasped. Whenever possible, this portion of the dream ideas exercises a definite influence upon the modelling of the dream content; it works like a center of crystallization, by attracting and rearranging the stuff of the dream thoughts. The scene of the dream is not infrequently nothing but a modified repetition, complicated by interpolations of events that have left such an impression; the dream but very seldom reproduces accurate and unmixed reproductions of real scenes. The dream content does not, however, consist exclusively of scenes, but it also includes scattered fragments of visual images, conversations, and even bits of unchanged thoughts. It will be perhaps to the point if we instance in the briefest way the means of dramatization which are at the disposal of the dream work for the repetition of the dream thoughts in the peculiar language of the dream. The dream thoughts which we learn from the analysis exhibit themselves as a psychical complex of the most complicated superstructure. Their parts stand in the most diverse relationship to each other; they form backgrounds and foregrounds, stipulations, digressions, illustrations, demonstrations, and protestations. It may be said to be almost the rule that one train of thought is followed by its contradictory. No feature known to our reason whilst awake is absent. If a dream is to grow out of all this, the psychical matter is submitted to a pressure which condenses it extremely, to an inner shrinking and displacement, creating at the same time fresh surfaces, to a selective interweaving among the constituents best adapted for the construction of these scenes. Having regard to the origin of this stuff, the term _regression_ can be fairly applied to this process. The logical chains which hitherto held the psychical stuff together become lost in this transformation to the dream content. The dream work takes on, as it were, only the essential content of the dream thoughts for elaboration. It is left to analysis to restore the connection which the dream work has destroyed. The dream's means of expression must therefore be regarded as meager in comparison with those of our imagination, though the dream does not renounce all claims to the restitution of logical relation to the dream thoughts. It rather succeeds with tolerable frequency in replacing these by formal characters of its own. By reason of the undoubted connection existing between all the parts of dream thoughts, the dream is able to embody this matter into a single scene. It upholds a _logical connection_ as _approximation in time and space_, just as the painter, who groups all the poets for his picture of Parnassus who, though they have never been all together on a mountain peak, yet form ideally a community. The dream continues this method of presentation in individual dreams, and often when it displays two elements close together in the dream content it warrants some special inner connection between what they represent in the dream thoughts. It should be, moreover, observed that all the dreams of one night prove on analysis to originate from the same sphere of thought. The causal connection between two ideas is either left without presentation, or replaced by two different long portions of dreams one after the other. This presentation is frequently a reversed one, the beginning of the dream being the deduction, and its end the hypothesis. The direct _transformation_ of one thing into another in the dream seems to serve the relationship of _cause_ and _effect_. The dream never utters the _alternative "either-or,"_ but accepts both as having equal rights in the same connection. When "either-or" is used in the reproduction of dreams, it is, as I have already mentioned, to be replaced by "_and_." Conceptions which stand in opposition to one another are preferably expressed in dreams by the same element.[2] There seems no "not" in dreams. Opposition between two ideas, the relation of conversion, is represented in dreams in a very remarkable way. It is expressed by the reversal of another part of the dream content just as if by way of appendix. We shall later on deal with another form of expressing disagreement. The common dream sensation of _movement checked_ serves the purpose of representing disagreement of impulses--a _conflict of the will_. Only one of the logical relationships--that of _similarity, identity, agreement_--is found highly developed in the mechanism of dream formation. Dream work makes use of these cases as a starting-point for condensation, drawing together everything which shows such agreement to a _fresh unity_. These short, crude observations naturally do not suffice as an estimate of the abundance of the dream's formal means of presenting the logical relationships of the dream thoughts. In this respect, individual dreams are worked up more nicely or more carelessly, our text will have been followed more or less closely, auxiliaries of the dream work will have been taken more or less into consideration. In the latter case they appear obscure, intricate, incoherent. When the dream appears openly absurd, when it contains an obvious paradox in its content, it is so of purpose. Through its apparent disregard of all logical claims, it expresses a part of the intellectual content of the dream ideas. Absurdity in the dream denotes _disagreement, scorn, disdain_ in the dream thoughts. As this explanation is in entire disagreement with the view that the dream owes its origin to dissociated, uncritical cerebral activity, I will emphasize my view by an example: _"One of my acquaintances, Mr. M----, has been attacked by no less a person than Goethe in an essay with, we all maintain, unwarrantable violence. Mr. M---- has naturally been ruined by this attack. He complains very bitterly of this at a dinner-party, but his respect for Goethe has not diminished through this personal experience. I now attempt to clear up the chronological relations which strike me as improbable. Goethe died in 1832. As his attack upon Mr. M---- must, of course, have taken place before, Mr. M---- must have been then a very young man. It seems to me plausible that he was eighteen. I am not certain, however, what year we are actually in, and the whole calculation falls into obscurity. The attack was, moreover, contained in Goethe's well-known essay on 'Nature.'"_ The absurdity of the dream becomes the more glaring when I state that Mr. M---- is a young business man without any poetical or literary interests. My analysis of the dream will show what method there is in this madness. The dream has derived its material from three sources: 1. Mr. M----, to whom I was introduced at a dinner-party, begged me one day to examine his elder brother, who showed signs of mental trouble. In conversation with the patient, an unpleasant episode occurred. Without the slightest occasion he disclosed one of his brother's _youthful escapades_. I had asked the patient the _year of his birth_ (_year of death_ in dream), and led him to various calculations which might show up his want of memory. 2. A medical journal which displayed my name among others on the cover had published a _ruinous_ review of a book by my friend F---- of Berlin, from the pen of a very _juvenile_ reviewer. I communicated with the editor, who, indeed, expressed his regret, but would not promise any redress. Thereupon I broke off my connection with the paper; in my letter of resignation I expressed the hope that our _personal relations would not suffer from this_. Here is the real source of the dream. The derogatory reception of my friend's work had made a deep impression upon me. In my judgment, it contained a fundamental biological discovery which only now, several years later, commences to find favor among the professors. 3. A little while before, a patient gave me the medical history of her brother, who, exclaiming "_Nature, Nature!_" had gone out of his mind. The doctors considered that the exclamation arose from a study of _Goethe's_ beautiful essay, and indicated that the patient had been overworking. I expressed the opinion that it seemed more _plausible_ to me that the exclamation "Nature!" was to be taken in that sexual meaning known also to the less educated in our country. It seemed to me that this view had something in it, because the unfortunate youth afterwards mutilated his genital organs. The patient was eighteen years old when the attack occurred. The first person in the dream-thoughts behind the ego was my friend who had been so scandalously treated. _"I now attempted to clear up the chronological relation."_ My friend's book deals with the chronological relations of life, and, amongst other things, correlates _Goethe's_ duration of life with a number of days in many ways important to biology. The ego is, however, represented as a general paralytic (_"I am not certain what year we are actually in"_). The dream exhibits my friend as behaving like a general paralytic, and thus riots in absurdity. But the dream thoughts run ironically. "Of course he is a madman, a fool, and you are the genius who understands all about it. But shouldn't it be the _other way round_?" This inversion obviously took place in the dream when Goethe attacked the young man, which is absurd, whilst any one, however young, can to-day easily attack the great Goethe. I am prepared to maintain that no dream is inspired by other than egoistic emotions. The ego in the dream does not, indeed, represent only my friend, but stands for myself also. I identify myself with him because the fate of his discovery appears to me typical of the acceptance of _my own_. If I were to publish my own theory, which gives sexuality predominance in the ætiology of psychoneurotic disorders (see the allusion to the eighteen-year-old patient--_"Nature, Nature!"_), the same criticism would be leveled at me, and it would even now meet with the same contempt. When I follow out the dream thoughts closely, I ever find only _scorn_ and _contempt_ as _correlated with the dream's absurdity_. It is well known that the discovery of a cracked sheep's skull on the Lido in Venice gave Goethe the hint for the so-called vertebral theory of the skull. My friend plumes himself on having as a student raised a hubbub for the resignation of an aged professor who had done good work (including some in this very subject of comparative anatomy), but who, on account of _decrepitude_, had become quite incapable of teaching. The agitation my friend inspired was so successful because in the German Universities an _age limit_ is not demanded for academic work. _Age is no protection against folly._ In the hospital here I had for years the honor to serve under a chief who, long fossilized, was for decades notoriously _feebleminded_, and was yet permitted to continue in his responsible office. A trait, after the manner of the find in the Lido, forces itself upon me here. It was to this man that some youthful colleagues in the hospital adapted the then popular slang of that day: "No Goethe has written that," "No Schiller composed that," etc. We have not exhausted our valuation of the dream work. In addition to condensation, displacement, and definite arrangement of the psychical matter, we must ascribe to it yet another activity--one which is, indeed, not shared by every dream. I shall not treat this position of the dream work exhaustively; I will only point out that the readiest way to arrive at a conception of it is to take for granted, probably unfairly, that it _only subsequently influences the dream content which has already been built up_. Its mode of action thus consists in so coördinating the parts of the dream that these coalesce to a coherent whole, to a dream composition. The dream gets a kind of façade which, it is true, does not conceal the whole of its content. There is a sort of preliminary explanation to be strengthened by interpolations and slight alterations. Such elaboration of the dream content must not be too pronounced; the misconception of the dream thoughts to which it gives rise is merely superficial, and our first piece of work in analyzing a dream is to get rid of these early attempts at interpretation. The motives for this part of the dream work are easily gauged. This final elaboration of the dream is due to a _regard for intelligibility_--a fact at once betraying the origin of an action which behaves towards the actual dream content just as our normal psychical action behaves towards some proffered perception that is to our liking. The dream content is thus secured under the pretense of certain expectations, is perceptually classified by the supposition of its intelligibility, thereby risking its falsification, whilst, in fact, the most extraordinary misconceptions arise if the dream can be correlated with nothing familiar. Every one is aware that we are unable to look at any series of unfamiliar signs, or to listen to a discussion of unknown words, without at once making perpetual changes through _our regard for intelligibility_, through our falling back upon what is familiar. We can call those dreams _properly made up_ which are the result of an elaboration in every way analogous to the psychical action of our waking life. In other dreams there is no such action; not even an attempt is made to bring about order and meaning. We regard the dream as "quite mad," because on awaking it is with this last-named part of the dream work, the dream elaboration, that we identify ourselves. So far, however, as our analysis is concerned, the dream, which resembles a medley of disconnected fragments, is of as much value as the one with a smooth and beautifully polished surface. In the former case we are spared, to some extent, the trouble of breaking down the super-elaboration of the dream content. All the same, it would be an error to see in the dream façade nothing but the misunderstood and somewhat arbitrary elaboration of the dream carried out at the instance of our psychical life. Wishes and phantasies are not infrequently employed in the erection of this façade, which were already fashioned in the dream thoughts; they are akin to those of our waking life--"day-dreams," as they are very properly called. These wishes and phantasies, which analysis discloses in our dreams at night, often present themselves as repetitions and refashionings of the scenes of infancy. Thus the dream façade may show us directly the true core of the dream, distorted through admixture with other matter. Beyond these four activities there is nothing else to be discovered in the dream work. If we keep closely to the definition that dream work denotes the transference of dream thoughts to dream content, we are compelled to say that the dream work is not creative; it develops no fancies of its own, it judges nothing, decides nothing. It does nothing but prepare the matter for condensation and displacement, and refashions it for dramatization, to which must be added the inconstant last-named mechanism--that of explanatory elaboration. It is true that a good deal is found in the dream content which might be understood as the result of another and more intellectual performance; but analysis shows conclusively every time that these _intellectual operations were already present in the dream thoughts, and have only been taken over by the dream content_. A syllogism in the dream is nothing other than the repetition of a syllogism in the dream thoughts; it seems inoffensive if it has been transferred to the dream without alteration; it becomes absurd if in the dream work it has been transferred to other matter. A calculation in the dream content simply means that there was a calculation in the dream thoughts; whilst this is always correct, the calculation in the dream can furnish the silliest results by the condensation of its factors and the displacement of the same operations to other things. Even speeches which are found in the dream content are not new compositions; they prove to be pieced together out of speeches which have been made or heard or read; the words are faithfully copied, but the occasion of their utterance is quite overlooked, and their meaning is most violently changed. It is, perhaps, not superfluous to support these assertions by examples: 1. _A seemingly inoffensive, well-made dream of a patient. She was going to market with her cook, who carried the basket. The butcher said to her when she asked him for something: "That is all gone," and wished to give her something else, remarking; "That's very good." She declines, and goes to the greengrocer, who wants to sell her a peculiar vegetable which is bound up in bundles and of a black color. She says: "I don't know that; I won't take it."_ The remark "That is all gone" arose from the treatment. A few days before I said myself to the patient that the earliest reminiscences of childhood _are all gone_ as such, but are replaced by transferences and dreams. Thus I am the butcher. The second remark, _"I don't know that"_ arose in a very different connection. The day before she had herself called out in rebuke to the cook (who, moreover, also appears in the dream): "_Behave yourself properly_; I don't know _that_"--that is, "I don't know this kind of behavior; I won't have it." The more harmless portion of this speech was arrived at by a displacement of the dream content; in the dream thoughts only the other portion of the speech played a part, because the dream work changed an imaginary situation into utter irrecognizability and complete inoffensiveness (while in a certain sense I behave in an unseemly way to the lady). The situation resulting in this phantasy is, however, nothing but a new edition of one that actually took place. 2. A dream apparently meaningless relates to figures. _"She wants to pay something; her daughter takes three florins sixty-five kreuzers out of her purse; but she says: 'What are you doing? It only cost twenty-one kreuzers.'"_ The dreamer was a stranger who had placed her child at school in Vienna, and who was able to continue under my treatment so long as her daughter remained at Vienna. The day before the dream the directress of the school had recommended her to keep the child another year at school. In this case she would have been able to prolong her treatment by one year. The figures in the dream become important if it be remembered that time is money. One year equals 365 days, or, expressed in kreuzers, 365 kreuzers, which is three florins sixty-five kreuzers. The twenty-one kreuzers correspond with the three weeks which remained from the day of the dream to the end of the school term, and thus to the end of the treatment. It was obviously financial considerations which had moved the lady to refuse the proposal of the directress, and which were answerable for the triviality of the amount in the dream. 3. A lady, young, but already ten years married, heard that a friend of hers, Miss Elise L----, of about the same age, had become engaged. This gave rise to the following dream: _She was sitting with her husband in the theater; the one side of the stalls was quite empty. Her husband tells her, Elise L---- and her fiancé had intended coming, but could only get some cheap seats, three for one florin fifty kreuzers, and these they would not take. In her opinion, that would not have mattered very much._ The origin of the figures from the matter of the dream thoughts and the changes the figures underwent are of interest. Whence came the one florin fifty kreuzers? From a trifling occurrence of the previous day. Her sister-in-law had received 150 florins as a present from her husband, and had quickly got rid of it by buying some ornament. Note that 150 florins is one hundred times one florin fifty kreuzers. For the _three_ concerned with the tickets, the only link is that Elise L---- is exactly three months younger than the dreamer. The scene in the dream is the repetition of a little adventure for which she has often been teased by her husband. She was once in a great hurry to get tickets in time for a piece, and when she came to the theater _one side of the stalls was almost empty_. It was therefore quite unnecessary for her to have been in _such a hurry_. Nor must we overlook the absurdity of the dream that two persons should take three tickets for the theater. Now for the dream ideas. It was _stupid_ to have married so early; I _need not_ have been _in so great a hurry_. Elise L----'s example shows me that I should have been able to get a husband later; indeed, one a _hundred times better_ if I had but waited. I could have bought _three_ such men with the money (dowry). [1] "Ich möchte gerne etwas geniessen ohne 'Kosten' zu haben." A a pun upon the word "kosten," which has two meanings--"taste" and "cost." In "Die Traumdeutung," third edition, p. 71 footnote, Professor Freud remarks that "the finest example of dream interpretation left us by the ancients is based upon a pun" (from "The Interpretation of Dreams," by Artemidorus Daldianus). "Moreover, dreams are so intimately bound up with language that Ferenczi truly points out that every tongue has its own language of dreams. A dream is as a rule untranslatable into other languages."--TRANSLATOR. [2] It is worthy of remark that eminent philologists maintain that the oldest languages used the same word for expressing quite general antitheses. In C. Abel's essay, "Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworter" (1884, the following examples of such words in England are given: "gleam--gloom"; "to lock--loch"; "down--The Downs"; "to step--to stop." In his essay on "The Origin of Language" ("Linguistic Essays," p. 240), Abel says: "When the Englishman says 'without,' is not his judgment based upon the comparative juxtaposition of two opposites, 'with' and 'out'; 'with' itself originally meant 'without,' as may still be seen in 'withdraw.' 'Bid' includes the opposite sense of giving and of proffering." Abel, "The English Verbs of Command," "Linguistic Essays," p. 104; see also Freud, "Ueber den Gegensinn der Urworte"; _Jahrbuch für Psychoanalytische und Psychopathologische Forschungen_, Band II., part i., p. 179).--TRANSLATOR. III WHY THE DREAM DISGUISES THE DESIRES In the foregoing exposition we have now learnt something of the dream work; we must regard it as a quite special psychical process, which, so far as we are aware, resembles nothing else. To the dream work has been transferred that bewilderment which its product, the dream, has aroused in us. In truth, the dream work is only the first recognition of a group of psychical processes to which must be referred the origin of hysterical symptoms, the ideas of morbid dread, obsession, and illusion. Condensation, and especially displacement, are never-failing features in these other processes. The regard for appearance remains, on the other hand, peculiar to the dream work. If this explanation brings the dream into line with the formation of psychical disease, it becomes the more important to fathom the essential conditions of processes like dream building. It will be probably a surprise to hear that neither the state of sleep nor illness is among the indispensable conditions. A whole number of phenomena of the everyday life of healthy persons, forgetfulness, slips in speaking and in holding things, together with a certain class of mistakes, are due to a psychical mechanism analogous to that of the dream and the other members of this group. Displacement is the core of the problem, and the most striking of all the dream performances. A thorough investigation of the subject shows that the essential condition of displacement is purely psychological; it is in the nature of a motive. We get on the track by thrashing out experiences which one cannot avoid in the analysis of dreams. I had to break off the relations of my dream thoughts in the analysis of my dream on p. 8 because I found some experiences which I do not wish strangers to know, and which I could not relate without serious damage to important considerations. I added, it would be no use were I to select another instead of that particular dream; in every dream where the content is obscure or intricate, I should hit upon dream thoughts which call for secrecy. If, however, I continue the analysis for myself, without regard to those others, for whom, indeed, so personal an event as my dream cannot matter, I arrive finally at ideas which surprise me, which I have not known to be mine, which not only appear _foreign_ to me, but which are _unpleasant_, and which I would like to oppose vehemently, whilst the chain of ideas running through the analysis intrudes upon me inexorably. I can only take these circumstances into account by admitting that these thoughts are actually part of my psychical life, possessing a certain psychical intensity or energy. However, by virtue of a particular psychological condition, the _thoughts could not become conscious to me_. I call this particular condition "_Repression_." It is therefore impossible for me not to recognize some casual relationship between the obscurity of the dream content and this state of repression--this _incapacity of consciousness_. Whence I conclude that the cause of the obscurity is _the desire to conceal these thoughts_. Thus I arrive at the conception of the _dream distortion_ as the deed of the dream work, and of _displacement_ serving to disguise this object. I will test this in my own dream, and ask myself, What is the thought which, quite innocuous in its distorted form, provokes my liveliest opposition in its real form? I remember that the free drive reminded me of the last expensive drive with a member of my family, the interpretation of the dream being: I should for once like to experience affection for which I should not have to pay, and that shortly before the dream I had to make a heavy disbursement for this very person. In this connection, I cannot get away from the thought _that I regret this disbursement_. It is only when I acknowledge this feeling that there is any sense in my wishing in the dream for an affection that should entail no outlay. And yet I can state on my honor that I did not hesitate for a moment when it became necessary to expend that sum. The regret, the counter-current, was unconscious to me. Why it was unconscious is quite another question which would lead us far away from the answer which, though within my knowledge, belongs elsewhere. If I subject the dream of another person instead of one of my own to analysis, the result is the same; the motives for convincing others is, however, changed. In the dream of a healthy person the only way for me to enable him to accept this repressed idea is the coherence of the dream thoughts. He is at liberty to reject this explanation. But if we are dealing with a person suffering from any neurosis--say from hysteria--the recognition of these repressed ideas is compulsory by reason of their connection with the symptoms of his illness and of the improvement resulting from exchanging the symptoms for the repressed ideas. Take the patient from whom I got the last dream about the three tickets for one florin fifty kreuzers. Analysis shows that she does not think highly of her husband, that she regrets having married him, that she would be glad to change him for some one else. It is true that she maintains that she loves her husband, that her emotional life knows nothing about this depreciation (a hundred times better!), but all her symptoms lead to the same conclusion as this dream. When her repressed memories had rewakened a certain period when she was conscious that she did not love her husband, her symptoms disappeared, and therewith disappeared her resistance to the interpretation of the dream. This conception of repression once fixed, together with the distortion of the dream in relation to repressed psychical matter, we are in a position to give a general exposition of the principal results which the analysis of dreams supplies. We learnt that the most intelligible and meaningful dreams are unrealized desires; the desires they pictured as realized are known to consciousness, have been held over from the daytime, and are of absorbing interest. The analysis of obscure and intricate dreams discloses something very similar; the dream scene again pictures as realized some desire which regularly proceeds from the dream ideas, but the picture is unrecognizable, and is only cleared up in the analysis. The desire itself is either one repressed, foreign to consciousness, or it is closely bound up with repressed ideas. The formula for these dreams may be thus stated: _They are concealed realizations of repressed desires_. It is interesting to note that they are right who regard the dream as foretelling the future. Although the future which the dream shows us is not that which will occur, but that which we would like to occur. Folk psychology proceeds here according to its wont; it believes what it wishes to believe. Dreams can be divided into three classes according to their relation towards the realization of desire. Firstly come those which exhibit a _non-repressed, non-concealed desire_; these are dreams of the infantile type, becoming ever rarer among adults. Secondly, dreams which express in _veiled_ form some _repressed desire_; these constitute by far the larger number of our dreams, and they require analysis for their understanding. Thirdly, these dreams where repression exists, but _without_ or with but slight concealment. These dreams are invariably accompanied by a feeling of dread which brings the dream to an end. This feeling of dread here replaces dream displacement; I regarded the dream work as having prevented this in the dream of the second class. It is not very difficult to prove that what is now present as intense dread in the dream was once desire, and is now secondary to the repression. There are also definite dreams with a painful content, without the presence of any anxiety in the dream. These cannot be reckoned among dreams of dread; they have, however, always been used to prove the unimportance and the psychical futility of dreams. An analysis of such an example will show that it belongs to our second class of dreams--a _perfectly concealed_ realization of repressed desires. Analysis will demonstrate at the same time how excellently adapted is the work of displacement to the concealment of desires. A girl dreamt that she saw lying dead before her the only surviving child of her sister amid the same surroundings as a few years before she saw the first child lying dead. She was not sensible of any pain, but naturally combatted the view that the scene represented a desire of hers. Nor was that view necessary. Years ago it was at the funeral of the child that she had last seen and spoken to the man she loved. Were the second child to die, she would be sure to meet this man again in her sister's house. She is longing to meet him, but struggles against this feeling. The day of the dream she had taken a ticket for a lecture, which announced the presence of the man she always loved. The dream is simply a dream of impatience common to those which happen before a journey, theater, or simply anticipated pleasures. The longing is concealed by the shifting of the scene to the occasion when any joyous feeling were out of place, and yet where it did once exist. Note, further, that the emotional behavior in the dream is adapted, not to the displaced, but to the real but suppressed dream ideas. The scene anticipates the long-hoped-for meeting; there is here no call for painful emotions. There has hitherto been no occasion for philosophers to bestir themselves with a psychology of repression. We must be allowed to construct some clear conception as to the origin of dreams as the first steps in this unknown territory. The scheme which we have formulated not only from a study of dreams is, it is true, already somewhat complicated, but we cannot find any simpler one that will suffice. We hold that our psychical apparatus contains two procedures for the construction of thoughts. The second one has the advantage that its products find an open path to consciousness, whilst the activity of the first procedure is unknown to itself, and can only arrive at consciousness through the second one. At the borderland of these two procedures, where the first passes over into the second, a censorship is established which only passes what pleases it, keeping back everything else. That which is rejected by the censorship is, according to our definition, in a state of repression. Under certain conditions, one of which is the sleeping state, the balance of power between the two procedures is so changed that what is repressed can no longer be kept back. In the sleeping state this may possibly occur through the negligence of the censor; what has been hitherto repressed will now succeed in finding its way to consciousness. But as the censorship is never absent, but merely off guard, certain alterations must be conceded so as to placate it. It is a compromise which becomes conscious in this case--a compromise between what one procedure has in view and the demands of the other. _Repression, laxity of the censor, compromise_--this is the foundation for the origin of many another psychological process, just as it is for the dream. In such compromises we can observe the processes of condensation, of displacement, the acceptance of superficial associations, which we have found in the dream work. It is not for us to deny the demonic element which has played a part in constructing our explanation of dream work. The impression left is that the formation of obscure dreams proceeds as if a person had something to say which must be agreeable for another person upon whom he is dependent to hear. It is by the use of this image that we figure to ourselves the conception of the _dream distortion_ and of the censorship, and ventured to crystallize our impression in a rather crude, but at least definite, psychological theory. Whatever explanation the future may offer of these first and second procedures, we shall expect a confirmation of our correlate that the second procedure commands the entrance to consciousness, and can exclude the first from consciousness. Once the sleeping state overcome, the censorship resumes complete sway, and is now able to revoke that which was granted in a moment of weakness. That the _forgetting_ of dreams explains this in part, at least, we are convinced by our experience, confirmed again and again. During the relation of a dream, or during analysis of one, it not infrequently happens that some fragment of the dream is suddenly forgotten. This fragment so forgotten invariably contains the best and readiest approach to an understanding of the dream. Probably that is why it sinks into oblivion--_i.e._, into a renewed suppression. Viewing the dream content as the representation of a realized desire, and referring its vagueness to the changes made by the censor in the repressed matter, it is no longer difficult to grasp the function of dreams. In fundamental contrast with those saws which assume that sleep is disturbed by dreams, we hold the _dream as the guardian of sleep_. So far as children's dreams are concerned, our view should find ready acceptance. The sleeping state or the psychical change to sleep, whatsoever it be, is brought about by the child being sent to sleep or compelled thereto by fatigue, only assisted by the removal of all stimuli which might open other objects to the psychical apparatus. The means which serve to keep external stimuli distant are known; but what are the means we can employ to depress the internal psychical stimuli which frustrate sleep? Look at a mother getting her child to sleep. The child is full of beseeching; he wants another kiss; he wants to play yet awhile. His requirements are in part met, in part drastically put off till the following day. Clearly these desires and needs, which agitate him, are hindrances to sleep. Every one knows the charming story of the bad boy (Baldwin Groller's) who awoke at night bellowing out, "_I want the rhinoceros_." A really good boy, instead of bellowing, would have _dreamt_ that he was playing with the rhinoceros. Because the dream which realizes his desire is believed during sleep, it removes the desire and makes sleep possible. It cannot be denied that this belief accords with the dream image, because it is arrayed in the psychical appearance of probability; the child is without the capacity which it will acquire later to distinguish hallucinations or phantasies from reality. The adult has learnt this differentiation; he has also learnt the futility of desire, and by continuous practice manages to postpone his aspirations, until they can be granted in some roundabout method by a change in the external world. For this reason it is rare for him to have his wishes realized during sleep in the short psychical way. It is even possible that this never happens, and that everything which appears to us like a child's dream demands a much more elaborate explanation. Thus it is that for adults--for every sane person without exception--a differentiation of the psychical matter has been fashioned which the child knew not. A psychical procedure has been reached which, informed by the experience of life, exercises with jealous power a dominating and restraining influence upon psychical emotions; by its relation to consciousness, and by its spontaneous mobility, it is endowed with the greatest means of psychical power. A portion of the infantile emotions has been withheld from this procedure as useless to life, and all the thoughts which flow from these are found in the state of repression. Whilst the procedure in which we recognize our normal ego reposes upon the desire for sleep, it appears compelled by the psycho-physiological conditions of sleep to abandon some of the energy with which it was wont during the day to keep down what was repressed. This neglect is really harmless; however much the emotions of the child's spirit may be stirred, they find the approach to consciousness rendered difficult, and that to movement blocked in consequence of the state of sleep. The danger of their disturbing sleep must, however, be avoided. Moreover, we must admit that even in deep sleep some amount of free attention is exerted as a protection against sense-stimuli which might, perchance, make an awakening seem wiser than the continuance of sleep. Otherwise we could not explain the fact of our being always awakened by stimuli of certain quality. As the old physiologist Burdach pointed out, the mother is awakened by the whimpering of her child, the miller by the cessation of his mill, most people by gently calling out their names. This attention, thus on the alert, makes use of the internal stimuli arising from repressed desires, and fuses them into the dream, which as a compromise satisfies both procedures at the same time. The dream creates a form of psychical release for the wish which is either suppressed or formed by the aid of repression, inasmuch as it presents it as realized. The other procedure is also satisfied, since the continuance of the sleep is assured. Our ego here gladly behaves like a child; it makes the dream pictures believable, saying, as it were, "Quite right, but let me sleep." The contempt which, once awakened, we bear the dream, and which rests upon the absurdity and apparent illogicality of the dream, is probably nothing but the reasoning of our sleeping ego on the feelings about what was repressed; with greater right it should rest upon the incompetency of this disturber of our sleep. In sleep we are now and then aware of this contempt; the dream content transcends the censorship rather too much, we think, "It's only a dream," and sleep on. It is no objection to this view if there are borderlines for the dream where its function, to preserve sleep from interruption, can no longer be maintained--as in the dreams of impending dread. It is here changed for another function--to suspend the sleep at the proper time. It acts like a conscientious night-watchman, who first does his duty by quelling disturbances so as not to waken the citizen, but equally does his duty quite properly when he awakens the street should the causes of the trouble seem to him serious and himself unable to cope with them alone. This function of dreams becomes especially well marked when there arises some incentive for the sense perception. That the senses aroused during sleep influence the dream is well known, and can be experimentally verified; it is one of the certain but much overestimated results of the medical investigation of dreams. Hitherto there has been an insoluble riddle connected with this discovery. The stimulus to the sense by which the investigator affects the sleeper is not properly recognized in the dream, but is intermingled with a number of indefinite interpretations, whose determination appears left to psychical free-will. There is, of course, no such psychical free-will. To an external sense-stimulus the sleeper can react in many ways. Either he awakens or he succeeds in sleeping on. In the latter case he can make use of the dream to dismiss the external stimulus, and this, again, in more ways than one. For instance, he can stay the stimulus by dreaming of a scene which is absolutely intolerable to him. This was the means used by one who was troubled by a painful perineal abscess. He dreamt that he was on horseback, and made use of the poultice, which was intended to alleviate his pain, as a saddle, and thus got away from the cause of the trouble. Or, as is more frequently the case, the external stimulus undergoes a new rendering, which leads him to connect it with a repressed desire seeking its realization, and robs him of its reality, and is treated as if it were a part of the psychical matter. Thus, some one dreamt that he had written a comedy which embodied a definite _motif_; it was being performed; the first act was over amid enthusiastic applause; there was great clapping. At this moment the dreamer must have succeeded in prolonging his sleep despite the disturbance, for when he woke he no longer heard the noise; he concluded rightly that some one must have been beating a carpet or bed. The dreams which come with a loud noise just before waking have all attempted to cover the stimulus to waking by some other explanation, and thus to prolong the sleep for a little while. Whosoever has firmly accepted this _censorship_ as the chief motive for the distortion of dreams will not be surprised to learn as the result of dream interpretation that most of the dreams of adults are traced by analysis to erotic desires. This assertion is not drawn from dreams obviously of a sexual nature, which are known to all dreamers from their own experience, and are the only ones usually described as "sexual dreams." These dreams are ever sufficiently mysterious by reason of the choice of persons who are made the objects of sex, the removal of all the barriers which cry halt to the dreamer's sexual needs in his waking state, the many strange reminders as to details of what are called perversions. But analysis discovers that, in many other dreams in whose manifest content nothing erotic can be found, the work of interpretation shows them up as, in reality, realization of sexual desires; whilst, on the other hand, that much of the thought-making when awake, the thoughts saved us as surplus from the day only, reaches presentation in dreams with the help of repressed erotic desires. Towards the explanation of this statement, which is no theoretical postulate, it must be remembered that no other class of instincts has required so vast a suppression at the behest of civilization as the sexual, whilst their mastery by the highest psychical processes are in most persons soonest of all relinquished. Since we have learnt to understand _infantile sexuality_, often so vague in its expression, so invariably overlooked and misunderstood, we are justified in saying that nearly every civilized person has retained at some point or other the infantile type of sex life; thus we understand that repressed infantile sex desires furnish the most frequent and most powerful impulses for the formation of dreams.[1] If the dream, which is the expression of some erotic desire, succeeds in making its manifest content appear innocently asexual, it is only possible in one way. The matter of these sexual presentations cannot be exhibited as such, but must be replaced by allusions, suggestions, and similar indirect means; differing from other cases of indirect presentation, those used in dreams must be deprived of direct understanding. The means of presentation which answer these requirements are commonly termed "symbols." A special interest has been directed towards these, since it has been observed that the dreamers of the same language use the like symbols--indeed, that in certain cases community of symbol is greater than community of speech. Since the dreamers do not themselves know the meaning of the symbols they use, it remains a puzzle whence arises their relationship with what they replace and denote. The fact itself is undoubted, and becomes of importance for the technique of the interpretation of dreams, since by the aid of a knowledge of this symbolism it is possible to understand the meaning of the elements of a dream, or parts of a dream, occasionally even the whole dream itself, without having to question the dreamer as to his own ideas. We thus come near to the popular idea of an interpretation of dreams, and, on the other hand, possess again the technique of the ancients, among whom the interpretation of dreams was identical with their explanation through symbolism. Though the study of dream symbolism is far removed from finality, we now possess a series of general statements and of particular observations which are quite certain. There are symbols which practically always have the same meaning: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) always mean the parents; room, a woman[2], and so on. The sexes are represented by a great variety of symbols, many of which would be at first quite incomprehensible had not the clews to the meaning been often obtained through other channels. There are symbols of universal circulation, found in all dreamers, of one range of speech and culture; there are others of the narrowest individual significance which an individual has built up out of his own material. In the first class those can be differentiated whose claim can be at once recognized by the replacement of sexual things in common speech (those, for instance, arising from agriculture, as reproduction, seed) from others whose sexual references appear to reach back to the earliest times and to the obscurest depths of our image-building. The power of building symbols in both these special forms of symbols has not died out. Recently discovered things, like the airship, are at once brought into universal use as sex symbols. It would be quite an error to suppose that a profounder knowledge of dream symbolism (the "Language of Dreams") would make us independent of questioning the dreamer regarding his impressions about the dream, and would give us back the whole technique of ancient dream interpreters. Apart from individual symbols and the variations in the use of what is general, one never knows whether an element in the dream is to be understood symbolically or in its proper meaning; the whole content of the dream is certainly not to be interpreted symbolically. The knowledge of dream symbols will only help us in understanding portions of the dream content, and does not render the use of the technical rules previously given at all superfluous. But it must be of the greatest service in interpreting a dream just when the impressions of the dreamer are withheld or are insufficient. Dream symbolism proves also indispensable for understanding the so-called "typical" dreams and the dreams that "repeat themselves." Dream symbolism leads us far beyond the dream; it does not belong only to dreams, but is likewise dominant in legend, myth, and saga, in wit and in folklore. It compels us to pursue the inner meaning of the dream in these productions. But we must acknowledge that symbolism is not a result of the dream work, but is a peculiarity probably of our unconscious thinking, which furnishes to the dream work the matter for condensation, displacement, and dramatization. [1] Freud, "Three Contributions to Sexual Theory," translated by A.A. Brill (_Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease_ Publishing Company, New York). [2] The words from "and" to "channels" in the next sentence is a short summary of the passage in the original. As this book will be read by other than professional people the passage has not been translated, in deference to English opinion.--TRANSLATOR. IV DREAM ANALYSIS Perhaps we shall now begin to suspect that dream interpretation is capable of giving us hints about the structure of our psychic apparatus which we have thus far expected in vain from philosophy. We shall not, however, follow this track, but return to our original problem as soon as we have cleared up the subject of dream-disfigurement. The question has arisen how dreams with disagreeable content can be analyzed as the fulfillment of wishes. We see now that this is possible in case dream-disfigurement has taken place, in case the disagreeable content serves only as a disguise for what is wished. Keeping in mind our assumptions in regard to the two psychic instances, we may now proceed to say: disagreeable dreams, as a matter of fact, contain something which is disagreeable to the second instance, but which at the same time fulfills a wish of the first instance. They are wish dreams in the sense that every dream originates in the first instance, while the second instance acts towards the dream only in repelling, not in a creative manner. If we limit ourselves to a consideration of what the second instance contributes to the dream, we can never understand the dream. If we do so, all the riddles which the authors have found in the dream remain unsolved. That the dream actually has a secret meaning, which turns out to be the fulfillment of a wish, must be proved afresh for every case by means of an analysis. I therefore select several dreams which have painful contents and attempt an analysis of them. They are partly dreams of hysterical subjects, which require long preliminary statements, and now and then also an examination of the psychic processes which occur in hysteria. I cannot, however, avoid this added difficulty in the exposition. When I give a psychoneurotic patient analytical treatment, dreams are always, as I have said, the subject of our discussion. It must, therefore, give him all the psychological explanations through whose aid I myself have come to an understanding of his symptoms, and here I undergo an unsparing criticism, which is perhaps not less keen than that I must expect from my colleagues. Contradiction of the thesis that all dreams are the fulfillments of wishes is raised by my patients with perfect regularity. Here are several examples of the dream material which is offered me to refute this position. "You always tell me that the dream is a wish fulfilled," begins a clever lady patient. "Now I shall tell you a dream in which the content is quite the opposite, in which a wish of mine is _not_ fulfilled. How do you reconcile that with your theory? The dream is as follows:-- _"I want to give a supper, but having nothing at hand except some smoked salmon, I think of going marketing, but I remember that it is Sunday afternoon, when all the shops are closed. I next try to telephone to some caterers, but the telephone is out of order.... Thus I must resign my wish to give a supper."_ I answer, of course, that only the analysis can decide the meaning of this dream, although I admit that at first sight it seems sensible and coherent, and looks like the opposite of a wish-fulfillment. "But what occurrence has given rise to this dream?" I ask. "You know that the stimulus for a dream always lies among the experiences of the preceding day." _Analysis._--The husband of the patient, an upright and conscientious wholesale butcher, had told her the day before that he is growing too fat, and that he must, therefore, begin treatment for obesity. He was going to get up early, take exercise, keep to a strict diet, and above all accept no more invitations to suppers. She proceeds laughingly to relate how her husband at an inn table had made the acquaintance of an artist, who insisted upon painting his portrait because he, the painter, had never found such an expressive head. But her husband had answered in his rough way, that he was very thankful for the honor, but that he was quite convinced that a portion of the backside of a pretty young girl would please the artist better than his whole face[1]. She said that she was at the time very much in love with her husband, and teased him a good deal. She had also asked him not to send her any caviare. What does that mean? As a matter of fact, she had wanted for a long time to eat a caviare sandwich every forenoon, but had grudged herself the expense. Of course, she would at once get the caviare from her husband, as soon as she asked him for it. But she had begged him, on the contrary, not to send her the caviare, in order that she might tease him about it longer. This explanation seems far-fetched to me. Unadmitted motives are in the habit of hiding behind such unsatisfactory explanations. We are reminded of subjects hypnotized by Bernheim, who carried out a posthypnotic order, and who, upon being asked for their motives, instead of answering: "I do not know why I did that," had to invent a reason that was obviously inadequate. Something similar is probably the case with the caviare of my patient. I see that she is compelled to create an unfulfilled wish in life. Her dream also shows the reproduction of the wish as accomplished. But why does she need an unfulfilled wish? The ideas so far produced are insufficient for the interpretation of the dream. I beg for more. After a short pause, which corresponds to the overcoming of a resistance, she reports further that the day before she had made a visit to a friend, of whom she is really jealous, because her husband is always praising this woman so much. Fortunately, this friend is very lean and thin, and her husband likes well-rounded figures. Now of what did this lean friend speak? Naturally of her wish to become somewhat stouter. She also asked my patient: "When are you going to invite us again? You always have such a good table." Now the meaning of the dream is clear. I may say to the patient: "It is just as though you had thought at the time of the request: 'Of course, I'll invite you, so you can eat yourself fat at my house and become still more pleasing to my husband. I would rather give no more suppers.' The dream then tells you that you cannot give a supper, thereby fulfilling your wish not to contribute anything to the rounding out of your friend's figure. The resolution of your husband to refuse invitations to supper for the sake of getting thin teaches you that one grows fat on the things served in company." Now only some conversation is necessary to confirm the solution. The smoked salmon in the dream has not yet been traced. "How did the salmon mentioned in the dream occur to you?" "Smoked salmon is the favorite dish of this friend," she answered. I happen to know the lady, and may corroborate this by saying that she grudges herself the salmon just as much as my patient grudges herself the caviare. The dream admits of still another and more exact interpretation, which is necessitated only by a subordinate circumstance. The two interpretations do not contradict one another, but rather cover each other and furnish a neat example of the usual ambiguity of dreams as well as of all other psychopathological formations. We have seen that at the same time that she dreams of the denial of the wish, the patient is in reality occupied in securing an unfulfilled wish (the caviare sandwiches). Her friend, too, had expressed a wish, namely, to get fatter, and it would not surprise us if our lady had dreamt that the wish of the friend was not being fulfilled. For it is her own wish that a wish of her friend's--for increase in weight--should not be fulfilled. Instead of this, however, she dreams that one of her own wishes is not fulfilled. The dream becomes capable of a new interpretation, if in the dream she does not intend herself, but her friend, if she has put herself in the place of her friend, or, as we may say, has identified herself with her friend. I think she has actually done this, and as a sign of this identification she has created an unfulfilled wish in reality. But what is the meaning of this hysterical identification? To clear this up a thorough exposition is necessary. Identification is a highly important factor in the mechanism of hysterical symptoms; by this means patients are enabled in their symptoms to represent not merely their own experiences, but the experiences of a great number of other persons, and can suffer, as it were, for a whole mass of people, and fill all the parts of a drama by means of their own personalities alone. It will here be objected that this is well-known hysterical imitation, the ability of hysteric subjects to copy all the symptoms which impress them when they occur in others, as though their pity were stimulated to the point of reproduction. But this only indicates the way in which the psychic process is discharged in hysterical imitation; the way in which a psychic act proceeds and the act itself are two different things. The latter is slightly more complicated than one is apt to imagine the imitation of hysterical subjects to be: it corresponds to an unconscious concluded process, as an example will show. The physician who has a female patient with a particular kind of twitching, lodged in the company of other patients in the same room of the hospital, is not surprised when some morning he learns that this peculiar hysterical attack has found imitations. He simply says to himself: The others have seen her and have done likewise: that is psychic infection. Yes, but psychic infection proceeds in somewhat the following manner: As a rule, patients know more about one another than the physician knows about each of them, and they are concerned about each other when the visit of the doctor is over. Some of them have an attack to-day: soon it is known among the rest that a letter from home, a return of lovesickness or the like, is the cause of it. Their sympathy is aroused, and the following syllogism, which does not reach consciousness, is completed in them: "If it is possible to have this kind of an attack from such causes, I too may have this kind of an attack, for I have the same reasons." If this were a cycle capable of becoming conscious, it would perhaps express itself in _fear_ of getting the same attack; but it takes place in another psychic sphere, and, therefore, ends in the realization of the dreaded symptom. Identification is therefore not a simple imitation, but a sympathy based upon the same etiological claim; it expresses an "as though," and refers to some common quality which has remained in the unconscious. Identification is most often used in hysteria to express sexual community. An hysterical woman identifies herself most readily--although not exclusively--with persons with whom she has had sexual relations, or who have sexual intercourse with the same persons as herself. Language takes such a conception into consideration: two lovers are "one." In the hysterical phantasy, as well as in the dream, it is sufficient for the identification if one thinks of sexual relations, whether or not they become real. The patient, then, only follows the rules of the hysterical thought processes when she gives expression to her jealousy of her friend (which, moreover, she herself admits to be unjustified, in that she puts herself in her place and identifies herself with her by creating a symptom--the denied wish). I might further clarify the process specifically as follows: She puts herself in the place of her friend in the dream, because her friend has taken her own place relation to her husband, and because she would like to take her friend's place in the esteem of her husband[2]. The contradiction to my theory of dreams in the case of another female patient, the most witty among all my dreamers, was solved in a simpler manner, although according to the scheme that the non-fulfillment of one wish signifies the fulfillment of another. I had one day explained to her that the dream is a wish of fulfillment. The next day she brought me a dream to the effect that she was traveling with her mother-in-law to their common summer resort. Now I knew that she had struggled violently against spending the summer in the neighborhood of her mother-in-law. I also knew that she had luckily avoided her mother-in-law by renting an estate in a far-distant country resort. Now the dream reversed this wished-for solution; was not this in the flattest contradiction to my theory of wish-fulfillment in the dream? Certainly, it was only necessary to draw the inferences from this dream in order to get at its interpretation. According to this dream, I was in the wrong. _It was thus her wish that I should be in the wrong, and this wish the dream showed her as fulfilled._ But the wish that I should be in the wrong, which was fulfilled in the theme of the country home, referred to a more serious matter. At that time I had made up my mind, from the material furnished by her analysis, that something of significance for her illness must have occurred at a certain time in her life. She had denied it because it was not present in her memory. We soon came to see that I was in the right. Her wish that I should be in the wrong, which is transformed into the dream, thus corresponded to the justifiable wish that those things, which at the time had only been suspected, had never occurred at all. Without an analysis, and merely by means of an assumption, I took the liberty of interpreting a little occurrence in the case of a friend, who had been my colleague through the eight classes of the Gymnasium. He once heard a lecture of mine delivered to a small assemblage, on the novel subject of the dream as the fulfillment of a wish. He went home, dreamt _that he had lost all his suits_--he was a lawyer--and then complained to me about it. I took refuge in the evasion: "One can't win all one's suits," but I thought to myself: "If for eight years I sat as Primus on the first bench, while he moved around somewhere in the middle of the class, may he not naturally have had a wish from his boyhood days that I, too, might for once completely disgrace myself?" In the same way another dream of a more gloomy character was offered me by a female patient as a contradiction to my theory of the wish-dream. The patient, a young girl, began as follows: "You remember that my sister has now only one boy, Charles: she lost the elder one, Otto, while I was still at her house. Otto was my favorite; it was I who really brought him up. I like the other little fellow, too, but of course not nearly as much as the dead one. Now I dreamt last night that _I saw Charles lying dead before me. He was lying in his little coffin, his hands folded: there were candles all about, and, in short, it was just like the time of little Otto's death, which shocked me so profoundly_. Now tell me, what does this mean? You know me: am I really bad enough to wish my sister to lose the only child she has left? Or does the dream mean that I wish Charles to be dead rather than Otto, whom I like so much better?" I assured her that this interpretation was impossible. After some reflection I was able to give her the interpretation of the dream, which I subsequently made her confirm. Having become an orphan at an early age, the girl had been brought up in the house of a much older sister, and had met among the friends and visitors who came to the house, a man who made a lasting impression upon her heart. It looked for a time as though these barely expressed relations were to end in marriage, but this happy culmination was frustrated by the sister, whose motives have never found a complete explanation. After the break, the man who was loved by our patient avoided the house: she herself became independent some time after little Otto's death, to whom her affection had now turned. But she did not succeed in freeing herself from the inclination for her sister's friend in which she had become involved. Her pride commanded her to avoid him; but it was impossible for her to transfer her love to the other suitors who presented themselves in order. Whenever the man whom she loved, who was a member of the literary profession, announced a lecture anywhere, she was sure to be found in the audience; she also seized every other opportunity to see him from a distance unobserved by him. I remembered that on the day before she had told me that the Professor was going to a certain concert, and that she was also going there, in order to enjoy the sight of him. This was on the day of the dream; and the concert was to take place on the day on which she told me the dream. I could now easily see the correct interpretation, and I asked her whether she could think of any event which had happened after the death of little Otto. She answered immediately: "Certainly; at that time the Professor returned after a long absence, and I saw him once more beside the coffin of little Otto." It was exactly as I had expected. I interpreted the dream in the following manner: "If now the other boy were to die, the same thing would be repeated. You would spend the day with your sister, the Professor would surely come in order to offer condolence, and you would see him again under the same circumstances as at that time. The dream signifies nothing but this wish of yours to see him again, against which you are fighting inwardly. I know that you are carrying the ticket for to-day's concert in your bag. Your dream is a dream of impatience; it has anticipated the meeting which is to take place to-day by several hours." In order to disguise her wish she had obviously selected a situation in which wishes of that sort are commonly suppressed--a situation which is so filled with sorrow that love is not thought of. And yet, it is very easily probable that even in the actual situation at the bier of the second, more dearly loved boy, which the dream copied faithfully, she had not been able to suppress her feelings of affection for the visitor whom she had missed for so long a time. A different explanation was found in the case of a similar dream of another female patient, who was distinguished in her earlier years by her quick wit and her cheerful demeanors and who still showed these qualities at least in the notion, which occurred to her in the course of treatment. In connection with a longer dream, it seemed to this lady that she saw her fifteen-year-old daughter lying dead before her in a box. She was strongly inclined to convert this dream-image into an objection to the theory of wish-fulfillment, but herself suspected that the detail of the box must lead to a different conception of the dream.[3] In the course of the analysis it occurred to her that on the evening before, the conversation of the company had turned upon the English word "box," and upon the numerous translations of it into German, such as box, theater box, chest, box on the ear, &c. From other components of the same dream it is now possible to add that the lady had guessed the relationship between the English word "box" and the German _Büchse_, and had then been haunted by the memory that _Büchse_ (as well as "box") is used in vulgar speech to designate the female genital organ. It was therefore possible, making a certain allowance for her notions on the subject of topographical anatomy, to assume that the child in the box signified a child in the womb of the mother. At this stage of the explanation she no longer denied that the picture of the dream really corresponded to one of her wishes. Like so many other young women, she was by no means happy when she became pregnant, and admitted to me more than once the wish that her child might die before its birth; in a fit of anger following a violent scene with her husband she had even struck her abdomen with her fists in order to hit the child within. The dead child was, therefore, really the fulfillment of a wish, but a wish which had been put aside for fifteen years, and it is not surprising that the fulfillment of the wish was no longer recognized after so long an interval. For there had been many changes meanwhile. The group of dreams to which the two last mentioned belong, having as content the death of beloved relatives, will be considered again under the head of "Typical Dreams." I shall there be able to show by new examples that in spite of their undesirable content, all these dreams must be interpreted as wish-fulfillments. For the following dream, which again was told me in order to deter me from a hasty generalization of the theory of wishing in dreams, I am indebted, not to a patient, but to an intelligent jurist of my acquaintance. "_I dream_," my informant tells me, "_that I am walking in front of my house with a lady on my arm. Here a closed wagon is waiting, a gentleman steps up to me, gives his authority as an agent of the police, and demands that I should follow him. I only ask for time in which to arrange my affairs._ Can you possibly suppose this is a wish of mine to be arrested?" "Of course not," I must admit. "Do you happen to know upon what charge you were arrested?" "Yes; I believe for infanticide." "Infanticide? But you know that only a mother can commit this crime upon her newly born child?" "That is true."[4] "And under what circumstances did you dream; what happened on the evening before?" "I would rather not tell you that; it is a delicate matter." "But I must have it, otherwise we must forgo the interpretation of the dream." "Well, then, I will tell you. I spent the night, not at home, but at the house of a lady who means very much to me. When we awoke in the morning, something again passed between us. Then I went to sleep again, and dreamt what I have told you." "The woman is married?" "Yes." "And you do not wish her to conceive a child?" "No; that might betray us." "Then you do not practice normal coitus?" "I take the precaution to withdraw before ejaculation." "Am I permitted to assume that you did this trick several times during the night, and that in the morning you were not quite sure whether you had succeeded?" "That might be the case." "Then your dream is the fulfillment of a wish. By means of it you secure the assurance that you have not begotten a child, or, what amounts to the same thing, that you have killed a child. I can easily demonstrate the connecting links. Do you remember, a few days ago we were talking about the distress of matrimony (Ehenot), and about the inconsistency of permitting the practice of coitus as long as no impregnation takes place, while every delinquency after the ovum and the semen meet and a foetus is formed is punished as a crime? In connection with this, we also recalled the mediæval controversy about the moment of time at which the soul is really lodged in the foetus, since the concept of murder becomes admissible only from that point on. Doubtless you also know the gruesome poem by Lenau, which puts infanticide and the prevention of children on the same plane." "Strangely enough, I had happened to think of Lenau during the afternoon." "Another echo of your dream. And now I shall demonstrate to you another subordinate wish-fulfillment in your dream. You walk in front of your house with the lady on your arm. So you take her home, instead of spending the night at her house, as you do in actuality. The fact that the wish-fulfillment, which is the essence of the dream, disguises itself in such an unpleasant form, has perhaps more than one reason. From my essay on the etiology of anxiety neuroses, you will see that I note interrupted coitus as one of the factors which cause the development of neurotic fear. It would be consistent with this that if after repeated cohabitation of the kind mentioned you should be left in an uncomfortable mood, which now becomes an element in the composition of your dream. You also make use of this unpleasant state of mind to conceal the wish-fulfillment. Furthermore, the mention of infanticide has not yet been explained. Why does this crime, which is peculiar to females, occur to you?" "I shall confess to you that I was involved in such an affair years ago. Through my fault a girl tried to protect herself from the consequences of a _liaison_ with me by securing an abortion. I had nothing to do with carrying out the plan, but I was naturally for a long time worried lest the affair might be discovered." "I understand; this recollection furnished a second reason why the supposition that you had done your trick badly must have been painful to you." A young physician, who had heard this dream of my colleague when it was told, must have felt implicated by it, for he hastened to imitate it in a dream of his own, applying its mode of thinking to another subject. The day before he had handed in a declaration of his income, which was perfectly honest, because he had little to declare. He dreamt that an acquaintance of his came from a meeting of the tax commission and informed him that all the other declarations of income had passed uncontested, but that his own had awakened general suspicion, and that he would be punished with a heavy fine. The dream is a poorly-concealed fulfillment of the wish to be known as a physician with a large income. It likewise recalls the story of the young girl who was advised against accepting her suitor because he was a man of quick temper who would surely treat her to blows after they were married. The answer of the girl was: "I wish he _would_ strike me!" Her wish to be married is so strong that she takes into the bargain the discomfort which is said to be connected with matrimony, and which is predicted for her, and even raises it to a wish. If I group the very frequently occurring dreams of this sort, which seem flatly to contradict my theory, in that they contain the denial of a wish or some occurrence decidedly unwished for, under the head of "counter wish-dreams," I observe that they may all be referred to two principles, of which one has not yet been mentioned, although it plays a large part in the dreams of human beings. One of the motives inspiring these dreams is the wish that I should appear in the wrong. These dreams regularly occur in the course of my treatment if the patient shows a resistance against me, and I can count with a large degree of certainty upon causing such a dream after I have once explained to the patient my theory that the dream is a wish-fulfillment.[5] I may even expect this to be the case in a dream merely in order to fulfill the wish that I may appear in the wrong. The last dream which I shall tell from those occurring in the course of treatment again shows this very thing. A young girl who has struggled hard to continue my treatment, against the will of her relatives and the authorities whom she had consulted, dreams as follows: _She is forbidden at home to come to me any more. She then reminds me of the promise I made her to treat her for nothing if necessary, and I say to her: "I can show no consideration in money matters."_ It is not at all easy in this case to demonstrate the fulfillment of a wish, but in all cases of this kind there is a second problem, the solution of which helps also to solve the first. Where does she get the words which she puts into my mouth? Of course I have never told her anything like that, but one of her brothers, the very one who has the greatest influence over her, has been kind enough to make this remark about me. It is then the purpose of the dream that this brother should remain in the right; and she does not try to justify this brother merely in the dream; it is her purpose in life and the motive for her being ill. The other motive for counter wish-dreams is so clear that there is danger of overlooking it, as for some time happened in my own case. In the sexual make-up of many people there is a masochistic component, which has arisen through the conversion of the aggressive, sadistic component into its opposite. Such people are called "ideal" masochists, if they seek pleasure not in the bodily pain which may be inflicted upon them, but in humiliation and in chastisement of the soul. It is obvious that such persons can have counter wish-dreams and disagreeable dreams, which, however, for them are nothing but wish-fulfillment, affording satisfaction for their masochistic inclinations. Here is such a dream. A young man, who has in earlier years tormented his elder brother, towards whom he was homosexually inclined, but who had undergone a complete change of character, has the following dream, which consists of three parts: (1) _He is "insulted" by his brother._ (2) _Two adults are caressing each other with homosexual intentions._ (3) _His brother has sold the enterprise whose management the young man reserved for his own future._ He awakens from the last-mentioned dream with the most unpleasant feelings, and yet it is a masochistic wish-dream, which might be translated: It would serve me quite right if my brother were to make that sale against my interest, as a punishment for all the torments which he has suffered at my hands. I hope that the above discussion and examples will suffice--until further objection can be raised--to make it seem credible that even dreams with a painful content are to be analyzed as the fulfillments of wishes. Nor will it seem a matter of chance that in the course of interpretation one always happens upon subjects of which one does not like to speak or think. The disagreeable sensation which such dreams arouse is simply identical with the antipathy which endeavors--usually with success--to restrain us from the treatment or discussion of such subjects, and which must be overcome by all of us, if, in spite of its unpleasantness, we find it necessary to take the matter in hand. But this disagreeable sensation, which occurs also in dreams, does not preclude the existence of a wish; every one has wishes which he would not like to tell to others, which he does not want to admit even to himself. We are, on other grounds, justified in connecting the disagreeable character of all these dreams with the fact of dream disfigurement, and in concluding that these dreams are distorted, and that the wish-fulfillment in them is disguised until recognition is impossible for no other reason than that a repugnance, a will to suppress, exists in relation to the subject-matter of the dream or in relation to the wish which the dream creates. Dream disfigurement, then, turns out in reality to be an act of the censor. We shall take into consideration everything which the analysis of disagreeable dreams has brought to light if we reword our formula as follows: _The dream is the (disguised) fulfillment of a (suppressed, repressed) wish_. Now there still remain as a particular species of dreams with painful content, dreams of anxiety, the inclusion of which under dreams of wishing will find least acceptance with the uninitiated. But I can settle the problem of anxiety dreams in very short order; for what they may reveal is not a new aspect of the dream problem; it is a question in their case of understanding neurotic anxiety in general. The fear which we experience in the dream is only seemingly explained by the dream content. If we subject the content of the dream to analysis, we become aware that the dream fear is no more justified by the dream content than the fear in a phobia is justified by the idea upon which the phobia depends. For example, it is true that it is possible to fall out of a window, and that some care must be exercised when one is near a window, but it is inexplicable why the anxiety in the corresponding phobia is so great, and why it follows its victims to an extent so much greater than is warranted by its origin. The same explanation, then, which applies to the phobia applies also to the dream of anxiety. In both cases the anxiety is only superficially attached to the idea which accompanies it and comes from another source. On account of the intimate relation of dream fear to neurotic fear, discussion of the former obliges me to refer to the latter. In a little essay on "The Anxiety Neurosis,"[6] I maintained that neurotic fear has its origin in the sexual life, and corresponds to a libido which has been turned away from its object and has not succeeded in being applied. From this formula, which has since proved its validity more and more clearly, we may deduce the conclusion that the content of anxiety dreams is of a sexual nature, the libido belonging to which content has been transformed into fear. [1] To sit for the painter. Goethe: "And if he has no backside, how can the nobleman sit?" [2] I myself regret the introduction of such passages from the psychopathology of hysteria, which, because of their fragmentary representation and of being torn from all connection with the subject, cannot have a very enlightening influence. If these passages are capable of throwing light upon the intimate relations between the dream and the psychoneuroses, they have served the purpose for which I have taken them up. [3] Something like the smoked salmon in the dream of the deferred supper. [4] It often happens that a dream is told incompletely, and that a recollection of the omitted portions appear only in the course of the analysis. These portions subsequently fitted in, regularly furnish the key to the interpretation. _Cf._ below, about forgetting in dreams. [5] Similar "counter wish-dreams" have been repeatedly reported to me within the last few years by my pupils who thus reacted to their first encounter with the "wish theory of the dream." [6] See _Selected Papers on Hysteria and other Psychoneuroses_, p. 133, translated by A.A. Brill, _Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases_, Monograph Series. V SEX IN DREAMS The more one is occupied with the solution of dreams, the more willing one must become to acknowledge that the majority of the dreams of adults treat of sexual material and give expression to erotic wishes. Only one who really analyzes dreams, that is to say, who pushes forward from their manifest content to the latent dream thoughts, can form an opinion on this subject--never the person who is satisfied with registering the manifest content (as, for example, Näcke in his works on sexual dreams). Let us recognize at once that this fact is not to be wondered at, but that it is in complete harmony with the fundamental assumptions of dream explanation. No other impulse has had to undergo so much suppression from the time of childhood as the sex impulse in its numerous components, from no other impulse have survived so many and such intense unconscious wishes, which now act in the sleeping state in such a manner as to produce dreams. In dream interpretation, this significance of sexual complexes must never be forgotten, nor must they, of course, be exaggerated to the point of being considered exclusive. Of many dreams it can be ascertained by a careful interpretation that they are even to be taken bisexually, inasmuch as they result in an irrefutable secondary interpretation in which they realize homosexual feelings--that is, feelings that are common to the normal sexual activity of the dreaming person. But that all dreams are to be interpreted bisexually, seems to me to be a generalization as indemonstrable as it is improbable, which I should not like to support. Above all I should not know how to dispose of the apparent fact that there are many dreams satisfying other than--in the widest sense--erotic needs, as dreams of hunger, thirst, convenience, &c. Likewise the similar assertions "that behind every dream one finds the death sentence" (Stekel), and that every dream shows "a continuation from the feminine to the masculine line" (Adler), seem to me to proceed far beyond what is admissible in the interpretation of dreams. We have already asserted elsewhere that dreams which are conspicuously innocent invariably embody coarse erotic wishes, and we might confirm this by means of numerous fresh examples. But many dreams which appear indifferent, and which would never be suspected of any particular significance, can be traced back, after analysis, to unmistakably sexual wish-feelings, which are often of an unexpected nature. For example, who would suspect a sexual wish in the following dream until the interpretation had been worked out? The dreamer relates: _Between two stately palaces stands a little house, receding somewhat, whose doors are closed. My wife leads me a little way along the street up to the little house, and pushes in the door, and then I slip quickly and easily into the interior of a courtyard that slants obliquely upwards._ Any one who has had experience in the translating of dreams will, of course, immediately perceive that penetrating into narrow spaces, and opening locked doors, belong to the commonest sexual symbolism, and will easily find in this dream a representation of attempted coition from behind (between the two stately buttocks of the female body). The narrow slanting passage is of course the vagina; the assistance attributed to the wife of the dreamer requires the interpretation that in reality it is only consideration for the wife which is responsible for the detention from such an attempt. Moreover, inquiry shows that on the previous day a young girl had entered the household of the dreamer who had pleased him, and who had given him the impression that she would not be altogether opposed to an approach of this sort. The little house between the two palaces is taken from a reminiscence of the Hradschin in Prague, and thus points again to the girl who is a native of that city. If with my patients I emphasize the frequency of the Oedipus dream--of having sexual intercourse with one's mother--I get the answer: "I cannot remember such a dream." Immediately afterwards, however, there arises the recollection of another disguised and indifferent dream, which has been dreamed repeatedly by the patient, and the analysis shows it to be a dream of this same content--that is, another Oedipus dream. I can assure the reader that veiled dreams of sexual intercourse with the mother are a great deal more frequent than open ones to the same effect. There are dreams about landscapes and localities in which emphasis is always laid upon the assurance: "I have been there before." In this case the locality is always the genital organ of the mother; it can indeed be asserted with such certainty of no other locality that one "has been there before." A large number of dreams, often full of fear, which are concerned with passing through narrow spaces or with staying, in the water, are based upon fancies about the embryonic life, about the sojourn in the mother's womb, and about the act of birth. The following is the dream of a young man who in his fancy has already while in embryo taken advantage of his opportunity to spy upon an act of coition between his parents. _"He is in a deep shaft, in which there is a window, as in the Semmering Tunnel. At first he sees an empty landscape through this window, and then he composes a picture into it, which is immediately at hand and which fills out the empty space. The picture represents a field which is being thoroughly harrowed by an implement, and the delightful air, the accompanying idea of hard work, and the bluish-black clods of earth make a pleasant impression. He then goes on and sees a primary school opened ... and he is surprised that so much attention is devoted in it to the sexual feelings of the child, which makes him think of me."_ Here is a pretty water-dream of a female patient, which was turned to extraordinary account in the course of treatment. _At her summer resort at the ... Lake, she hurls herself into the dark water at a place where the pale moon is reflected in the water._ Dreams of this sort are parturition dreams; their interpretation is accomplished by reversing the fact reported in the manifest dream content; thus, instead of "throwing one's self into the water," read "coming out of the water," that is, "being born." The place from which one is born is recognized if one thinks of the bad sense of the French "la lune." The pale moon thus becomes the white "bottom" (Popo), which the child soon recognizes as the place from which it came. Now what can be the meaning of the patient's wishing to be born at her summer resort? I asked the dreamer this, and she answered without hesitation: "Hasn't the treatment made me as though I were born again?" Thus the dream becomes an invitation to continue the cure at this summer resort, that is, to visit her there; perhaps it also contains a very bashful allusion to the wish to become a mother herself.[1] Another dream of parturition, with its interpretation, I take from the work of E. Jones. _"She stood at the seashore watching a small boy, who seemed to be hers, wading into the water. This he did till the water covered him, and she could only see his head bobbing up and down near the surface. The scene then changed to the crowded hall of a hotel. Her husband left her, and she 'entered into conversation with' a stranger."_ The second half of the dream was discovered in the analysis to represent a flight from her husband, and the entering into intimate relations with a third person, behind whom was plainly indicated Mr. X.'s brother mentioned in a former dream. The first part of the dream was a fairly evident birth phantasy. In dreams as in mythology, the delivery of a child _from_ the uterine waters is commonly presented by distortion as the entry of the child _into_ water; among many others, the births of Adonis, Osiris, Moses, and Bacchus are well-known illustrations of this. The bobbing up and down of the head in the water at once recalled to the patient the sensation of quickening she had experienced in her only pregnancy. Thinking of the boy going into the water induced a reverie in which she saw herself taking him out of the water, carrying him into the nursery, washing him and dressing him, and installing him in her household. The second half of the dream, therefore, represents thoughts concerning the elopement, which belonged to the first half of the underlying latent content; the first half of the dream corresponded with the second half of the latent content, the birth phantasy. Besides this inversion in order, further inversions took place in each half of the dream. In the first half the child _entered_ the water, and then his head bobbed; in the underlying dream thoughts first the quickening occurred, and then the child left the water (a double inversion). In the second half her husband left her; in the dream thoughts she left her husband. Another parturition dream is related by Abraham of a young woman looking forward to her first confinement. From a place in the floor of the house a subterranean canal leads directly into the water (parturition path, amniotic liquor). She lifts up a trap in the floor, and there immediately appears a creature dressed in a brownish fur, which almost resembles a seal. This creature changes into the younger brother of the dreamer, to whom she has always stood in maternal relationship. Dreams of "saving" are connected with parturition dreams. To save, especially to save from the water, is equivalent to giving birth when dreamed by a woman; this sense is, however, modified when the dreamer is a man. Robbers, burglars at night, and ghosts, of which we are afraid before going to bed, and which occasionally even disturb our sleep, originate in one and the same childish reminiscence. They are the nightly visitors who have awakened the child to set it on the chamber so that it may not wet the bed, or have lifted the cover in order to see clearly how the child is holding its hands while sleeping. I have been able to induce an exact recollection of the nocturnal visitor in the analysis of some of these anxiety dreams. The robbers were always the father, the ghosts more probably corresponded to feminine persons with white night-gowns. When one has become familiar with the abundant use of symbolism for the representation of sexual material in dreams, one naturally raises the question whether there are not many of these symbols which appear once and for all with a firmly established significance like the signs in stenography; and one is tempted to compile a new dream-book according to the cipher method. In this connection it may be remarked that this symbolism does not belong peculiarly to the dream, but rather to unconscious thinking, particularly that of the masses, and it is to be found in greater perfection in the folklore, in the myths, legends, and manners of speech, in the proverbial sayings, and in the current witticisms of a nation than in its dreams. The dream takes advantage of this symbolism in order to give a disguised representation to its latent thoughts. Among the symbols which are used in this manner there are of course many which regularly, or almost regularly, mean the same thing. Only it is necessary to keep in mind the curious plasticity of psychic material. Now and then a symbol in the dream content may have to be interpreted not symbolically, but according to its real meaning; at another time the dreamer, owing to a peculiar set of recollections, may create for himself the right to use anything whatever as a sexual symbol, though it is not ordinarily used in that way. Nor are the most frequently used sexual symbols unambiguous every time. After these limitations and reservations I may call attention to the following: Emperor and Empress (King and Queen) in most cases really represent the parents of the dreamer; the dreamer himself or herself is the prince or princess. All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, and umbrellas (on account of the stretching-up which might be compared to an erection! all elongated and sharp weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, are intended to represent the male member. A frequent, not very intelligible, symbol for the same is a nail-file (on account of the rubbing and scraping?). Little cases, boxes, caskets, closets, and stoves correspond to the female part. The symbolism of lock and key has been very gracefully employed by Uhland in his song about the "Grafen Eberstein," to make a common smutty joke. The dream of walking through a row of rooms is a brothel or harem dream. Staircases, ladders, and flights of stairs, or climbing on these, either upwards or downwards, are symbolic representations of the sexual act. Smooth walls over which one is climbing, façades of houses upon which one is letting oneself down, frequently under great anxiety, correspond to the erect human body, and probably repeat in the dream reminiscences of the upward climbing of little children on their parents or foster parents. "Smooth" walls are men. Often in a dream of anxiety one is holding on firmly to some projection from a house. Tables, set tables, and boards are women, perhaps on account of the opposition which does away with the bodily contours. Since "bed and board" (_mensa et thorus_) constitute marriage, the former are often put for the latter in the dream, and as far as practicable the sexual presentation complex is transposed to the eating complex. Of articles of dress the woman's hat may frequently be definitely interpreted as the male genital. In dreams of men one often finds the cravat as a symbol for the penis; this indeed is not only because cravats hang down long, and are characteristic of the man, but also because one can select them at pleasure, a freedom which is prohibited by nature in the original of the symbol. Persons who make use of this symbol in the dream are very extravagant with cravats, and possess regular collections of them. All complicated machines and apparatus in dream are very probably genitals, in the description of which dream symbolism shows itself to be as tireless as the activity of wit. Likewise many landscapes in dreams, especially with bridges or with wooded mountains, can be readily recognized as descriptions of the genitals. Finally where one finds incomprehensible neologisms one may think of combinations made up of components having a sexual significance. Children also in the dream often signify the genitals, as men and women are in the habit of fondly referring to their genital organ as their "little one." As a very recent symbol of the male genital may be mentioned the flying machine, utilization of which is justified by its relation to flying as well as occasionally by its form. To play with a little child or to beat a little one is often the dream's representation of onanism. A number of other symbols, in part not sufficiently verified are given by Stekel, who illustrates them with examples. Right and left, according to him, are to be conceived in the dream in an ethical sense. "The right way always signifies the road to righteousness, the left the one to crime. Thus the left may signify homosexuality, incest, and perversion, while the right signifies marriage, relations with a prostitute, &c. The meaning is always determined by the individual moral view-point of the dreamer." Relatives in the dream generally play the rôle of genitals. Not to be able to catch up with a wagon is interpreted by Stekel as regret not to be able to come up to a difference in age. Baggage with which one travels is the burden of sin by which one is oppressed. Also numbers, which frequently occur in the dream, are assigned by Stekel a fixed symbolical meaning, but these interpretations seem neither sufficiently verified nor of general validity, although the interpretation in individual cases can generally be recognized as probable. In a recently published book by W. Stekel, _Die Sprache des Traumes_, which I was unable to utilize, there is a list of the most common sexual symbols, the object of which is to prove that all sexual symbols can be bisexually used. He states: "Is there a symbol which (if in any way permitted by the phantasy) may not be used simultaneously in the masculine and the feminine sense!" To be sure the clause in parentheses takes away much of the absoluteness of this assertion, for this is not at all permitted by the phantasy. I do not, however, think it superfluous to state that in my experience Stekel's general statement has to give way to the recognition of a greater manifoldness. Besides those symbols, which are just as frequent for the male as for the female genitals, there are others which preponderately, or almost exclusively, designate one of the sexes, and there are still others of which only the male or only the female signification is known. To use long, firm objects and weapons as symbols of the female genitals, or hollow objects (chests, pouches, &c.), as symbols of the male genitals, is indeed not allowed by the fancy. It is true that the tendency of the dream and the unconscious fancy to utilize the sexual symbol bisexually betrays an archaic trend, for in childhood a difference in the genitals is unknown, and the same genitals are attributed to both sexes. These very incomplete suggestions may suffice to stimulate others to make a more careful collection. I shall now add a few examples of the application of such symbolisms in dreams, which will serve to show how impossible it becomes to interpret a dream without taking into account the symbolism of dreams, and how imperatively it obtrudes itself in many cases. 1. The hat as a symbol of the man (of the male genital): (a fragment from the dream of a young woman who suffered from agoraphobia on account of a fear of temptation). "I am walking in the street in summer, I wear a straw hat of peculiar shape, the middle piece of which is bent upwards and the side pieces of which hang downwards (the description became here obstructed), and in such a fashion that one is lower than the other. I am cheerful and in a confidential mood, and as I pass a troop of young officers I think to myself: None of you can have any designs upon me." As she could produce no associations to the hat, I said to her: "The hat is really a male genital, with its raised middle piece and the two downward hanging side pieces." I intentionally refrained from interpreting those details concerning the unequal downward hanging of the two side pieces, although just such individualities in the determinations lead the way to the interpretation. I continued by saying that if she only had a man with such a virile genital she would not have to fear the officers--that is, she would have nothing to wish from them, for she is mainly kept from going without protection and company by her fancies of temptation. This last explanation of her fear I had already been able to give her repeatedly on the basis of other material. It is quite remarkable how the dreamer behaved after this interpretation. She withdrew her description of the hat, and claimed not to have said that the two side pieces were hanging downwards. I was, however, too sure of what I had heard to allow myself to be misled, and I persisted in it. She was quiet for a while, and then found the courage to ask why it was that one of her husband's testicles was lower than the other, and whether it was the same in all men. With this the peculiar detail of the hat was explained, and the whole interpretation was accepted by her. The hat symbol was familiar to me long before the patient related this dream. From other but less transparent cases I believe that the hat may also be taken as a female genital. 2. The little one as the genital--to be run over as a symbol of sexual intercourse (another dream of the same agoraphobic patient). "Her mother sends away her little daughter so that she must go alone. She rides with her mother to the railroad and sees her little one walking directly upon the tracks, so that she cannot avoid being run over. She hears the bones crackle. (From this she experiences a feeling of discomfort but no real horror.) She then looks out through the car window to see whether the parts cannot be seen behind. She then reproaches her mother for allowing the little one to go out alone." Analysis. It is not an easy matter to give here a complete interpretation of the dream. It forms part of a cycle of dreams, and can be fully understood only in connection with the others. For it is not easy to get the necessary material sufficiently isolated to prove the symbolism. The patient at first finds that the railroad journey is to be interpreted historically as an allusion to a departure from a sanatorium for nervous diseases, with the superintendent of which she naturally was in love. Her mother took her away from this place, and the physician came to the railroad station and handed her a bouquet of flowers on leaving; she felt uncomfortable because her mother witnessed this homage. Here the mother, therefore, appears as a disturber of her love affairs, which is the rôle actually played by this strict woman during her daughter's girlhood. The next thought referred to the sentence: "She then looks to see whether the parts can be seen behind." In the dream façade one would naturally be compelled to think of the parts of the little daughter run over and ground up. The thought, however, turns in quite a different direction. She recalls that she once saw her father in the bath-room naked from behind; she then begins to talk about the sex differentiation, and asserts that in the man the genitals can be seen from behind, but in the woman they cannot. In this connection she now herself offers the interpretation that the little one is the genital, her little one (she has a four-year-old daughter) her own genital. She reproaches her mother for wanting her to live as though she had no genital, and recognizes this reproach in the introductory sentence of the dream; the mother sends away her little one so that she must go alone. In her phantasy going alone on the street signifies to have no man and no sexual relations (coire = to go together), and this she does not like. According to all her statements she really suffered as a girl on account of the jealousy of her mother, because she showed a preference for her father. The "little one" has been noted as a symbol for the male or the female genitals by Stekel, who can refer in this connection to a very widespread usage of language. The deeper interpretation of this dream depends upon another dream of the same night in which the dreamer identifies herself with her brother. She was a "tomboy," and was always being told that she should have been born a boy. This identification with the brother shows with special clearness that "the little one" signifies the genital. The mother threatened him (her) with castration, which could only be understood as a punishment for playing with the parts, and the identification, therefore, shows that she herself had masturbated as a child, though this fact she now retained only in memory concerning her brother. An early knowledge of the male genital which she later lost she must have acquired at that time according to the assertions of this second dream. Moreover the second dream points to the infantile sexual theory that girls originate from boys through castration. After I had told her of this childish belief, she at once confirmed it with an anecdote in which the boy asks the girl: "Was it cut off?" to which the girl replied, "No, it's always been so." The sending away of the little one, of the genital, in the first dream therefore also refers to the threatened castration. Finally she blames her mother for not having been born a boy. That "being run over" symbolizes sexual intercourse would not be evident from this dream if we were not sure of it from many other sources. 3. Representation of the genital by structures, stairways, and shafts. (Dream of a young man inhibited by a father complex.) "He is taking a walk with his father in a place which is surely the Prater, for the _Rotunda_ may be seen in front of which there is a small front structure to which is attached a captive balloon; the balloon, however, seems quite collapsed. His father asks him what this is all for; he is surprised at it, but he explains it to his father. They come into a court in which lies a large sheet of tin. His father wants to pull off a big piece of this, but first looks around to see if any one is watching. He tells his father that all he needs to do is to speak to the watchman, and then he can take without any further difficulty as much as he wants to. From this court a stairway leads down into a shaft, the walls of which are softly upholstered something like a leather pocketbook. At the end of this shaft there is a longer platform, and then a new shaft begins...." Analysis. This dream belongs to a type of patient which is not favorable from a therapeutic point of view. They follow in the analysis without offering any resistances whatever up to a certain point, but from that point on they remain almost inaccessible. This dream he almost analyzed himself. "The Rotunda," he said, "is my genital, the captive balloon in front is my penis, about the weakness of which I have worried." We must, however, interpret in greater detail; the Rotunda is the buttock which is regularly associated by the child with the genital, the smaller front structure is the scrotum. In the dream his father asks him what this is all for--that is, he asks him about the purpose and arrangement of the genitals. It is quite evident that this state of affairs should be turned around, and that he should be the questioner. As such a questioning on the side of the father has never taken place in reality, we must conceive the dream thought as a wish, or take it conditionally, as follows: "If I had only asked my father for sexual enlightenment." The continuation of this thought we shall soon find in another place. The court in which the tin sheet is spread out is not to be conceived symbolically in the first instance, but originates from his father's place of business. For discretionary reasons I have inserted the tin for another material in which the father deals, without, however, changing anything in the verbal expression of the dream. The dreamer had entered his father's business, and had taken a terrible dislike to the questionable practices upon which profit mainly depends. Hence the continuation of the above dream thought ("if I had only asked him") would be: "He would have deceived me just as he does his customers." For the pulling off, which serves to represent commercial dishonesty, the dreamer himself gives a second explanation--namely, onanism. This is not only entirely familiar to us, but agrees very well with the fact that the secrecy of onanism is expressed by its opposite ("Why one can do it quite openly"). It, moreover, agrees entirely with our expectations that the onanistic activity is again put off on the father, just as was the questioning in the first scene of the dream. The shaft he at once interprets as the vagina by referring to the soft upholstering of the walls. That the act of coition in the vagina is described as a going down instead of in the usual way as a going up, I have also found true in other instances[2]. The details that at the end of the first shaft there is a longer platform and then a new shaft, he himself explains biographically. He had for some time consorted with women sexually, but had then given it up because of inhibitions and now hopes to be able to take it up again with the aid of the treatment. The dream, however, becomes indistinct toward the end, and to the experienced interpreter it becomes evident that in the second scene of the dream the influence of another subject has begun to assert itself; in this his father's business and his dishonest practices signify the first vagina represented as a shaft so that one might think of a reference to the mother. 4. The male genital symbolized by persons and the female by a landscape. (Dream of a woman of the lower class, whose husband is a policeman, reported by B. Dattner.) ... Then some one broke into the house and anxiously called for a policeman. But he went with two tramps by mutual consent into a church,[3] to which led a great many stairs;[4] behind the church there was a mountain,[5] on top of which a dense forest.[6] The policeman was furnished with a helmet, a gorget, and a cloak.[7] The two vagrants, who went along with the policeman quite peaceably, had tied to their loins sack-like aprons.[8] A road led from the church to the mountain. This road was overgrown on each side with grass and brushwood, which became thicker and thicker as it reached the height of the mountain, where it spread out into quite a forest. 5. A stairway dream. (Reported and interpreted by Otto Rank.) For the following transparent pollution dream, I am indebted to the same colleague who furnished us with the dental-irritation dream. "I am running down the stairway in the stair-house after a little girl, whom I wish to punish because she has done something to me. At the bottom of the stairs some one held the child for me. (A grown-up woman?) I grasp it, but do not know whether I have hit it, for I suddenly find myself in the middle of the stairway where I practice coitus with the child (in the air as it were). It is really no coitus, I only rub my genital on her external genital, and in doing this I see it very distinctly, as distinctly as I see her head which is lying sideways. During the sexual act I see hanging to the left and above me (also as if in the air) two small pictures, landscapes, representing a house on a green. On the smaller one my surname stood in the place where the painter's signature should be; it seemed to be intended for my birthday present. A small sign hung in front of the pictures to the effect that cheaper pictures could also be obtained. I then see myself very indistinctly lying in bed, just as I had seen myself at the foot of the stairs, and I am awakened by a feeling of dampness which came from the pollution." Interpretation. The dreamer had been in a book-store on the evening of the day of the dream, where, while he was waiting, he examined some pictures which were exhibited, which represented motives similar to the dream pictures. He stepped nearer to a small picture which particularly took his fancy in order to see the name of the artist, which, however, was quite unknown to him. Later in the same evening, in company, he heard about a Bohemian servant-girl who boasted that her illegitimate child "was made on the stairs." The dreamer inquired about the details of this unusual occurrence, and learned that the servant-girl went with her lover to the home of her parents, where there was no opportunity for sexual relations, and that the excited man performed the act on the stairs. In witty allusion to the mischievous expression used about wine-adulterers, the dreamer remarked, "The child really grew on the cellar steps." These experiences of the day, which are quite prominent in the dream content, were readily reproduced by the dreamer. But he just as readily reproduced an old fragment of infantile recollection which was also utilized by the dream. The stair-house was the house in which he had spent the greatest part of his childhood, and in which he had first become acquainted with sexual problems. In this house he used, among other things, to slide down the banister astride which caused him to become sexually excited. In the dream he also comes down the stairs very rapidly--so rapidly that, according to his own distinct assertions, he hardly touched the individual stairs, but rather "flew" or "slid down," as we used to say. Upon reference to this infantile experience, the beginning of the dream seems to represent the factor of sexual excitement. In the same house and in the adjacent residence the dreamer used to play pugnacious games with the neighboring children, in which he satisfied himself just as he did in the dream. If one recalls from Freud's investigation of sexual symbolism[9] that in the dream stairs or climbing stairs almost regularly symbolizes coitus, the dream becomes clear. Its motive power as well as its effect, as is shown by the pollution, is of a purely libidinous nature. Sexual excitement became aroused during the sleeping state (in the dream this is represented by the rapid running or sliding down the stairs) and the sadistic thread in this is, on the basis of the pugnacious playing, indicated in the pursuing and overcoming of the child. The libidinous excitement becomes enhanced and urges to sexual action (represented in the dream by the grasping of the child and the conveyance of it to the middle of the stairway). Up to this point the dream would be one of pure, sexual symbolism, and obscure for the unpracticed dream interpreter. But this symbolic gratification, which would have insured undisturbed sleep, was not sufficient for the powerful libidinous excitement. The excitement leads to an orgasm, and thus the whole stairway symbolism is unmasked as a substitute for coitus. Freud lays stress on the rhythmical character of both actions as one of the reasons for the sexual utilization of the stairway symbolism, and this dream especially seems to corroborate this, for, according to the express assertion of the dreamer, the rhythm of a sexual act was the most pronounced feature in the whole dream. Still another remark concerning the two pictures, which, aside from their real significance, also have the value of "Weibsbilder" (literally _woman-pictures_, but idiomatically _women_). This is at once shown by the fact that the dream deals with a big and a little picture, just as the dream content presents a big (grown up) and a little girl. That cheap pictures could also be obtained points to the prostitution complex, just as the dreamer's surname on the little picture and the thought that it was intended for his birthday, point to the parent complex (to be born on the stairway--to be conceived in coitus). The indistinct final scene, in which the dreamer sees himself on the staircase landing lying in bed and feeling wet, seems to go back into childhood even beyond the infantile onanism, and manifestly has its prototype in similarly pleasurable scenes of bed-wetting. 6. A modified stair-dream. To one of my very nervous patients, who was an abstainer, whose fancy was fixed on his mother, and who repeatedly dreamed of climbing stairs accompanied by his mother, I once remarked that moderate masturbation would be less harmful to him than enforced abstinence. This influence provoked the following dream: "His piano teacher reproaches him for neglecting his piano-playing, and for not practicing the _Etudes_ of Moscheles and Clementi's _Gradus ad Parnassum_." In relation to this he remarked that the _Gradus_ is only a stairway, and that the piano itself is only a stairway as it has a scale. It is correct to say that there is no series of associations which cannot be adapted to the representation of sexual facts. I conclude with the dream of a chemist, a young man, who has been trying to give up his habit of masturbation by replacing it with intercourse with women. _Preliminary statement._--On the day before the dream he had given a student instruction concerning Grignard's reaction, in which magnesium is to be dissolved in absolutely pure ether under the catalytic influence of iodine. Two days before, there had been an explosion in the course of the same reaction, in which the investigator had burned his hand. Dream I. _He is to make phenylmagnesium-bromid; he sees the apparatus with particular clearness, but he has substituted himself for the magnesium. He is now in a curious swaying attitude. He keeps repeating to himself, "This is the right thing, it is working, my feet are beginning to dissolve and my knees are getting soft." Then he reaches down and feels for his feet, and meanwhile (he does not know how) he takes his legs out of the crucible, and then again he says to himself, "That cannot be.... Yes, it must be so, it has been done correctly." Then he partially awakens, and repeats the dream to himself, because he wants to tell it to me. He is distinctly afraid of the analysis of the dream. He is much excited during this semi-sleeping state, and repeats continually, "Phenyl, phenyl."_ II. _He is in ... ing with his whole family; at half-past eleven. He is to be at the Schottenthor for a rendezvous with a certain lady, but he does not wake up until half-past eleven. He says to himself, "It is too late now; when you get there it will be half-past twelve." The next instant he sees the whole family gathered about the table--his mother and the servant girl with the soup-tureen with particular clearness. Then he says to himself, "Well, if we are eating already, I certainly can't get away."_ Analysis: He feels sure that even the first dream contains a reference to the lady whom he is to meet at the rendezvous (the dream was dreamed during the night before the expected meeting). The student to whom he gave the instruction is a particularly unpleasant fellow; he had said to the chemist: "That isn't right," because the magnesium was still unaffected, and the latter answered as though he did not care anything about it: "It certainly isn't right." He himself must be this student; he is as indifferent towards his analysis as the student is towards his synthesis; the _He_ in the dream, however, who accomplishes the operation, is myself. How unpleasant he must seem to me with his indifference towards the success achieved! Moreover, he is the material with which the analysis (synthesis) is made. For it is a question of the success of the treatment. The legs in the dream recall an impression of the previous evening. He met a lady at a dancing lesson whom he wished to conquer; he pressed her to him so closely that she once cried out. After he had stopped pressing against her legs, he felt her firm responding pressure against his lower thighs as far as just above his knees, at the place mentioned in the dream. In this situation, then, the woman is the magnesium in the retort, which is at last working. He is feminine towards me, as he is masculine towards the woman. If it will work with the woman, the treatment will also work. Feeling and becoming aware of himself in the region of his knees refers to masturbation, and corresponds to his fatigue of the previous day.... The rendezvous had actually been set for half-past eleven. His wish to oversleep and to remain with his usual sexual objects (that is, with masturbation) corresponds with his resistance. [1] It is only of late that I have learned to value the significance of fancies and unconscious thoughts about life in the womb. They contain the explanation of the curious fear felt by so many people of being buried alive, as well as the profoundest unconscious reason for the belief in a life after death which represents nothing but a projection into the future of this mysterious life before birth. _The act of birth, moreover, is the first experience with fear, and is thus the source and model of the emotion of fear._ [2] Cf. _Zentralblatt für psychoanalyse_, I. [3] Or chapel--vagina. [4] Symbol of coitus. [5] Mons veneris. [6] Crines pubis. [7] Demons in cloaks and capucines are, according to the explanation of a man versed in the subject, of a phallic nature. [8] The two halves of the scrotum. [9] See _Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse_, vol. i., p. 2. VI THE WISH IN DREAMS That the dream should be nothing but a wish-fulfillment surely seemed strange to us all--and that not alone because of the contradictions offered by the anxiety dream. After learning from the first analytical explanations that the dream conceals sense and psychic validity, we could hardly expect so simple a determination of this sense. According to the correct but concise definition of Aristotle, the dream is a continuation of thinking in sleep (in so far as one sleeps). Considering that during the day our thoughts produce such a diversity of psychic acts--judgments, conclusions, contradictions, expectations, intentions, &c.--why should our sleeping thoughts be forced to confine themselves to the production of wishes? Are there not, on the contrary, many dreams that present a different psychic act in dream form, _e.g._, a solicitude, and is not the very transparent father's dream mentioned above of just such a nature? From the gleam of light falling into his eyes while asleep the father draws the solicitous conclusion that a candle has been upset and may have set fire to the corpse; he transforms this conclusion into a dream by investing it with a senseful situation enacted in the present tense. What part is played in this dream by the wish-fulfillment, and which are we to suspect--the predominance of the thought continued from, the waking state or of the thought incited by the new sensory impression? All these considerations are just, and force us to enter more deeply into the part played by the wish-fulfillment in the dream, and into the significance of the waking thoughts continued in sleep. It is in fact the wish-fulfillment that has already induced us to separate dreams into two groups. We have found some dreams that were plainly wish-fulfillments; and others in which wish-fulfillment could not be recognized, and was frequently concealed by every available means. In this latter class of dreams we recognized the influence of the dream censor. The undisguised wish dreams were chiefly found in children, yet fleeting open-hearted wish dreams _seemed_ (I purposely emphasize this word) to occur also in adults. We may now ask whence the wish fulfilled in the dream originates. But to what opposition or to what diversity do we refer this "whence"? I think it is to the opposition between conscious daily life and a psychic activity remaining unconscious which can only make itself noticeable during the night. I thus find a threefold possibility for the origin of a wish. Firstly, it may have been incited during the day, and owing to external circumstances failed to find gratification, there is thus left for the night an acknowledged but unfulfilled wish. Secondly, it may come to the surface during the day but be rejected, leaving an unfulfilled but suppressed wish. Or, thirdly, it may have no relation to daily life, and belong to those wishes that originate during the night from the suppression. If we now follow our scheme of the psychic apparatus, we can localize a wish of the first order in the system Forec. We may assume that a wish of the second order has been forced back from the Forec. system into the Unc. system, where alone, if anywhere, it can maintain itself; while a wish-feeling of the third order we consider altogether incapable of leaving the Unc. system. This brings up the question whether wishes arising from these different sources possess the same value for the dream, and whether they have the same power to incite a dream. On reviewing the dreams which we have at our disposal for answering this question, we are at once moved to add as a fourth source of the dream-wish the actual wish incitements arising during the night, such as thirst and sexual desire. It then becomes evident that the source of the dream-wish does not affect its capacity to incite a dream. That a wish suppressed during the day asserts itself in the dream can be shown by a great many examples. I shall mention a very simple example of this class. A somewhat sarcastic young lady, whose younger friend has become engaged to be married, is asked throughout the day by her acquaintances whether she knows and what she thinks of the fiancé. She answers with unqualified praise, thereby silencing her own judgment, as she would prefer to tell the truth, namely, that he is an ordinary person. The following night she dreams that the same question is put to her, and that she replies with the formula: "In case of subsequent orders it will suffice to mention the number." Finally, we have learned from numerous analyses that the wish in all dreams that have been subject to distortion has been derived from the unconscious, and has been unable to come to perception in the waking state. Thus it would appear that all wishes are of the same value and force for the dream formation. I am at present unable to prove that the state of affairs is really different, but I am strongly inclined to assume a more stringent determination of the dream-wish. Children's dreams leave no doubt that an unfulfilled wish of the day may be the instigator of the dream. But we must not forget that it is, after all, the wish of a child, that it is a wish-feeling of infantile strength only. I have a strong doubt whether an unfulfilled wish from the day would suffice to create a dream in an adult. It would rather seem that as we learn to control our impulses by intellectual activity, we more and more reject as vain the formation or retention of such intense wishes as are natural to childhood. In this, indeed, there may be individual variations; some retain the infantile type of psychic processes longer than others. The differences are here the same as those found in the gradual decline of the originally distinct visual imagination. In general, however, I am of the opinion that unfulfilled wishes of the day are insufficient to produce a dream in adults. I readily admit that the wish instigators originating in conscious like contribute towards the incitement of dreams, but that is probably all. The dream would not originate if the foreconscious wish were not reinforced from another source. That source is the unconscious. I believe that _the conscious wish is a dream inciter only if it succeeds in arousing a similar unconscious wish which reinforces it_. Following the suggestions obtained through the psychoanalysis of the neuroses, I believe that these unconscious wishes are always active and ready for expression whenever they find an opportunity to unite themselves with an emotion from conscious life, and that they transfer their greater intensity to the lesser intensity of the latter.[1] It may therefore seem that the conscious wish alone has been realized in a dream; but a slight peculiarity in the formation of this dream will put us on the track of the powerful helper from the unconscious. These ever active and, as it were, immortal wishes from the unconscious recall the legendary Titans who from time immemorial have borne the ponderous mountains which were once rolled upon them by the victorious gods, and which even now quiver from time to time from the convulsions of their mighty limbs; I say that these wishes found in the repression are of themselves of an infantile origin, as we have learned from the psychological investigation of the neuroses. I should like, therefore, to withdraw the opinion previously expressed that it is unimportant whence the dream-wish originates, and replace it by another, as follows: _The wish manifested in the dream must be an infantile one_. In the adult it originates in the Unc., while in the child, where no separation and censor as yet exist between Forec. and Unc., or where these are only in the process of formation, it is an unfulfilled and unrepressed wish from the waking state. I am aware that this conception cannot be generally demonstrated, but I maintain nevertheless that it can be frequently demonstrated, even when it was not suspected, and that it cannot be generally refuted. The wish-feelings which remain from the conscious waking state are, therefore, relegated to the background in the dream formation. In the dream content I shall attribute to them only the part attributed to the material of actual sensations during sleep. If I now take into account those other psychic instigations remaining from the waking state which are not wishes, I shall only adhere to the line mapped out for me by this train of thought. We may succeed in provisionally terminating the sum of energy of our waking thoughts by deciding to go to sleep. He is a good sleeper who can do this; Napoleon I. is reputed to have been a model of this sort. But we do not always succeed in accomplishing it, or in accomplishing it perfectly. Unsolved problems, harassing cares, overwhelming impressions continue the thinking activity even during sleep, maintaining psychic processes in the system which we have termed the foreconscious. These mental processes continuing into sleep may be divided into the following groups: 1, That which has not been terminated during the day owing to casual prevention; 2, that which has been left unfinished by temporary paralysis of our mental power, _i.e._ the unsolved; 3, that which has been rejected and suppressed during the day. This unites with a powerful group (4) formed by that which has been excited in our Unc. during the day by the work of the foreconscious. Finally, we may add group (5) consisting of the indifferent and hence unsettled impressions of the day. We should not underrate the psychic intensities introduced into sleep by these remnants of waking life, especially those emanating from the group of the unsolved. These excitations surely continue to strive for expression during the night, and we may assume with equal certainty that the sleeping state renders impossible the usual continuation of the excitement in the foreconscious and the termination of the excitement by its becoming conscious. As far as we can normally become conscious of our mental processes, even during the night, in so far we are not asleep. I shall not venture to state what change is produced in the Forec. system by the sleeping state, but there is no doubt that the psychological character of sleep is essentially due to the change of energy in this very system, which also dominates the approach to motility, which is paralyzed during sleep. In contradistinction to this, there seems to be nothing in the psychology of the dream to warrant the assumption that sleep produces any but secondary changes in the conditions of the Unc. system. Hence, for the nocturnal excitation in the Force, there remains no other path than that followed by the wish excitements from the Unc. This excitation must seek reinforcement from the Unc., and follow the detours of the unconscious excitations. But what is the relation of the foreconscious day remnants to the dream? There is no doubt that they penetrate abundantly into the dream, that they utilize the dream content to obtrude themselves upon consciousness even during the night; indeed, they occasionally even dominate the dream content, and impel it to continue the work of the day; it is also certain that the day remnants may just as well have any other character as that of wishes; but it is highly instructive and even decisive for the theory of wish-fulfillment to see what conditions they must comply with in order to be received into the dream. Let us pick out one of the dreams cited above as examples, _e.g._, the dream in which my friend Otto seems to show the symptoms of Basedow's disease. My friend Otto's appearance occasioned me some concern during the day, and this worry, like everything else referring to this person, affected me. I may also assume that these feelings followed me into sleep. I was probably bent on finding out what was the matter with him. In the night my worry found expression in the dream which I have reported, the content of which was not only senseless, but failed to show any wish-fulfillment. But I began to investigate for the source of this incongruous expression of the solicitude felt during the day, and analysis revealed the connection. I identified my friend Otto with a certain Baron L. and myself with a Professor R. There was only one explanation for my being impelled to select just this substitution for the day thought. I must have always been prepared in the Unc. to identify myself with Professor R., as it meant the realization of one of the immortal infantile wishes, viz. that of becoming great. Repulsive ideas respecting my friend, that would certainly have been repudiated in a waking state, took advantage of the opportunity to creep into the dream, but the worry of the day likewise found some form of expression through a substitution in the dream content. The day thought, which was no wish in itself but rather a worry, had in some way to find a connection with the infantile now unconscious and suppressed wish, which then allowed it, though already properly prepared, to "originate" for consciousness. The more dominating this worry, the stronger must be the connection to be established; between the contents of the wish and that of the worry there need be no connection, nor was there one in any of our examples. We can now sharply define the significance of the unconscious wish for the dream. It may be admitted that there is a whole class of dreams in which the incitement originates preponderatingly or even exclusively from the remnants of daily life; and I believe that even my cherished desire to become at some future time a "professor extraordinarius" would have allowed me to slumber undisturbed that night had not my worry about my friend's health been still active. But this worry alone would not have produced a dream; the motive power needed by the dream had to be contributed by a wish, and it was the affair of the worriment to procure for itself such wish as a motive power of the dream. To speak figuratively, it is quite possible that a day thought plays the part of the contractor (_entrepreneur_) in the dream. But it is known that no matter what idea the contractor may have in mind, and how desirous he may be of putting it into operation, he can do nothing without capital; he must depend upon a capitalist to defray the necessary expenses, and this capitalist, who supplies the psychic expenditure for the dream is invariably and indisputably _a wish from the unconscious_, no matter what the nature of the waking thought may be. In other cases the capitalist himself is the contractor for the dream; this, indeed, seems to be the more usual case. An unconscious wish is produced by the day's work, which in turn creates the dream. The dream processes, moreover, run parallel with all the other possibilities of the economic relationship used here as an illustration. Thus, the entrepreneur may contribute some capital himself, or several entrepreneurs may seek the aid of the same capitalist, or several capitalists may jointly supply the capital required by the entrepreneur. Thus there are dreams produced by more than one dream-wish, and many similar variations which may readily be passed over and are of no further interest to us. What we have left unfinished in this discussion of the dream-wish we shall be able to develop later. The "tertium comparationis" in the comparisons just employed--_i.e._ the sum placed at our free disposal in proper allotment--admits of still finer application for the illustration of the dream structure. We can recognize in most dreams a center especially supplied with perceptible intensity. This is regularly the direct representation of the wish-fulfillment; for, if we undo the displacements of the dream-work by a process of retrogression, we find that the psychic intensity of the elements in the dream thoughts is replaced by the perceptible intensity of the elements in the dream content. The elements adjoining the wish-fulfillment have frequently nothing to do with its sense, but prove to be descendants of painful thoughts which oppose the wish. But, owing to their frequently artificial connection with the central element, they have acquired sufficient intensity to enable them to come to expression. Thus, the force of expression of the wish-fulfillment is diffused over a certain sphere of association, within which it raises to expression all elements, including those that are in themselves impotent. In dreams having several strong wishes we can readily separate from one another the spheres of the individual wish-fulfillments; the gaps in the dream likewise can often be explained as boundary zones. Although the foregoing remarks have considerably limited the significance of the day remnants for the dream, it will nevertheless be worth our while to give them some attention. For they must be a necessary ingredient in the formation of the dream, inasmuch as experience reveals the surprising fact that every dream shows in its content a connection with some impression of a recent day, often of the most indifferent kind. So far we have failed to see any necessity for this addition to the dream mixture. This necessity appears only when we follow closely the part played by the unconscious wish, and then seek information in the psychology of the neuroses. We thus learn that the unconscious idea, as such, is altogether incapable of entering into the foreconscious, and that it can exert an influence there only by uniting with a harmless idea already belonging to the foreconscious, to which it transfers its intensity and under which it allows itself to be concealed. This is the fact of transference which furnishes an explanation for so many surprising occurrences in the psychic life of neurotics. The idea from the foreconscious which thus obtains an unmerited abundance of intensity may be left unchanged by the transference, or it may have forced upon it a modification from the content of the transferring idea. I trust the reader will pardon my fondness for comparisons from daily life, but I feel tempted to say that the relations existing for the repressed idea are similar to the situations existing in Austria for the American dentist, who is forbidden to practise unless he gets permission from a regular physician to use his name on the public signboard and thus cover the legal requirements. Moreover, just as it is naturally not the busiest physicians who form such alliances with dental practitioners, so in the psychic life only such foreconscious or conscious ideas are chosen to cover a repressed idea as have not themselves attracted much of the attention which is operative in the foreconscious. The unconscious entangles with its connections preferentially either those impressions and ideas of the foreconscious which have been left unnoticed as indifferent, or those that have soon been deprived of this attention through rejection. It is a familiar fact from the association studies confirmed by every experience, that ideas which have formed intimate connections in one direction assume an almost negative attitude to whole groups of new connections. I once tried from this principle to develop a theory for hysterical paralysis. If we assume that the same need for the transference of the repressed ideas which we have learned to know from the analysis of the neuroses makes its influence felt in the dream as well, we can at once explain two riddles of the dream, viz. that every dream analysis shows an interweaving of a recent impression, and that this recent element is frequently of the most indifferent character. We may add what we have already learned elsewhere, that these recent and indifferent elements come so frequently into the dream content as a substitute for the most deep-lying of the dream thoughts, for the further reason that they have least to fear from the resisting censor. But while this freedom from censorship explains only the preference for trivial elements, the constant presence of recent elements points to the fact that there is a need for transference. Both groups of impressions satisfy the demand of the repression for material still free from associations, the indifferent ones because they have offered no inducement for extensive associations, and the recent ones because they have had insufficient time to form such associations. We thus see that the day remnants, among which we may now include the indifferent impressions when they participate in the dream formation, not only borrow from the Unc. the motive power at the disposal of the repressed wish, but also offer to the unconscious something indispensable, namely, the attachment necessary to the transference. If we here attempted to penetrate more deeply into the psychic processes, we should first have to throw more light on the play of emotions between the foreconscious and the unconscious, to which, indeed, we are urged by the study of the psychoneuroses, whereas the dream itself offers no assistance in this respect. Just one further remark about the day remnants. There is no doubt that they are the actual disturbers of sleep, and not the dream, which, on the contrary, strives to guard sleep. But we shall return to this point later. We have so far discussed the dream-wish, we have traced it to the sphere of the Unc., and analyzed its relations to the day remnants, which in turn may be either wishes, psychic emotions of any other kind, or simply recent impressions. We have thus made room for any claims that may be made for the importance of conscious thought activity in dream formations in all its variations. Relying upon our thought series, it would not be at all impossible for us to explain even those extreme cases in which the dream as a continuer of the day work brings to a happy conclusion and unsolved problem possess an example, the analysis of which might reveal the infantile or repressed wish source furnishing such alliance and successful strengthening of the efforts of the foreconscious activity. But we have not come one step nearer a solution of the riddle: Why can the unconscious furnish the motive power for the wish-fulfillment only during sleep? The answer to this question must throw light on the psychic nature of wishes; and it will be given with the aid of the diagram of the psychic apparatus. We do not doubt that even this apparatus attained its present perfection through a long course of development. Let us attempt to restore it as it existed in an early phase of its activity. From assumptions, to be confirmed elsewhere, we know that at first the apparatus strove to keep as free from excitement as possible, and in its first formation, therefore, the scheme took the form of a reflex apparatus, which enabled it promptly to discharge through the motor tracts any sensible stimulus reaching it from without. But this simple function was disturbed by the wants of life, which likewise furnish the impulse for the further development of the apparatus. The wants of life first manifested themselves to it in the form of the great physical needs. The excitement aroused by the inner want seeks an outlet in motility, which may be designated as "inner changes" or as an "expression of the emotions." The hungry child cries or fidgets helplessly, but its situation remains unchanged; for the excitation proceeding from an inner want requires, not a momentary outbreak, but a force working continuously. A change can occur only if in some way a feeling of gratification is experienced--which in the case of the child must be through outside help--in order to remove the inner excitement. An essential constituent of this experience is the appearance of a certain perception (of food in our example), the memory picture of which thereafter remains associated with the memory trace of the excitation of want. Thanks to the established connection, there results at the next appearance of this want a psychic feeling which revives the memory picture of the former perception, and thus recalls the former perception itself, _i.e._ it actually re-establishes the situation of the first gratification. We call such a feeling a wish; the reappearance of the perception constitutes the wish-fulfillment, and the full revival of the perception by the want excitement constitutes the shortest road to the wish-fulfillment. We may assume a primitive condition of the psychic apparatus in which this road is really followed, _i.e._ where the wishing merges into an hallucination, This first psychic activity therefore aims at an identity of perception, _i.e._ it aims at a repetition of that perception which is connected with the fulfillment of the want. This primitive mental activity must have been modified by bitter practical experience into a more expedient secondary activity. The establishment of the identity perception on the short regressive road within the apparatus does not in another respect carry with it the result which inevitably follows the revival of the same perception from without. The gratification does not take place, and the want continues. In order to equalize the internal with the external sum of energy, the former must be continually maintained, just as actually happens in the hallucinatory psychoses and in the deliriums of hunger which exhaust their psychic capacity in clinging to the object desired. In order to make more appropriate use of the psychic force, it becomes necessary to inhibit the full regression so as to prevent it from extending beyond the image of memory, whence it can select other paths leading ultimately to the establishment of the desired identity from the outer world. This inhibition and consequent deviation from the excitation becomes the task of a second system which dominates the voluntary motility, _i.e._ through whose activity the expenditure of motility is now devoted to previously recalled purposes. But this entire complicated mental activity which works its way from the memory picture to the establishment of the perception identity from the outer world merely represents a detour which has been forced upon the wish-fulfillment by experience.[2] Thinking is indeed nothing but the equivalent of the hallucinatory wish; and if the dream be called a wish-fulfillment this becomes self-evident, as nothing but a wish can impel our psychic apparatus to activity. The dream, which in fulfilling its wishes follows the short regressive path, thereby preserves for us only an example of the primary form of the psychic apparatus which has been abandoned as inexpedient. What once ruled in the waking state when the psychic life was still young and unfit seems to have been banished into the sleeping state, just as we see again in the nursery the bow and arrow, the discarded primitive weapons of grown-up humanity. _The dream is a fragment of the abandoned psychic life of the child._ In the psychoses these modes of operation of the psychic apparatus, which are normally suppressed in the waking state, reassert themselves, and then betray their inability to satisfy our wants in the outer world. The unconscious wish-feelings evidently strive to assert themselves during the day also, and the fact of transference and the psychoses teach us that they endeavor to penetrate to consciousness and dominate motility by the road leading through the system of the foreconscious. It is, therefore, the censor lying between the Unc. and the Forec., the assumption of which is forced upon us by the dream, that we have to recognize and honor as the guardian of our psychic health. But is it not carelessness on the part of this guardian to diminish its vigilance during the night and to allow the suppressed emotions of the Unc. to come to expression, thus again making possible the hallucinatory regression? I think not, for when the critical guardian goes to rest--and we have proof that his slumber is not profound--he takes care to close the gate to motility. No matter what feelings from the otherwise inhibited Unc. may roam about on the scene, they need not be interfered with; they remain harmless because they are unable to put in motion the motor apparatus which alone can exert a modifying influence upon the outer world. Sleep guarantees the security of the fortress which is under guard. Conditions are less harmless when a displacement of forces is produced, not through a nocturnal diminution in the operation of the critical censor, but through pathological enfeeblement of the latter or through pathological reinforcement of the unconscious excitations, and this while the foreconscious is charged with energy and the avenues to motility are open. The guardian is then overpowered, the unconscious excitations subdue the Forec.; through it they dominate our speech and actions, or they enforce the hallucinatory regression, thus governing an apparatus not designed for them by virtue of the attraction exerted by the perceptions on the distribution of our psychic energy. We call this condition a psychosis. We are now in the best position to complete our psychological construction, which has been interrupted by the introduction of the two systems, Unc. and Forec. We have still, however, ample reason for giving further consideration to the wish as the sole psychic motive power in the dream. We have explained that the reason why the dream is in every case a wish realization is because it is a product of the Unc., which knows no other aim in its activity but the fulfillment of wishes, and which has no other forces at its disposal but wish-feelings. If we avail ourselves for a moment longer of the right to elaborate from the dream interpretation such far-reaching psychological speculations, we are in duty bound to demonstrate that we are thereby bringing the dream into a relationship which may also comprise other psychic structures. If there exists a system of the Unc.--or something sufficiently analogous to it for the purpose of our discussion--the dream cannot be its sole manifestation; every dream may be a wish-fulfillment, but there must be other forms of abnormal wish-fulfillment beside this of dreams. Indeed, the theory of all psychoneurotic symptoms culminates in the proposition _that they too must be taken as wish-fulfillments of the unconscious_. Our explanation makes the dream only the first member of a group most important for the psychiatrist, an understanding of which means the solution of the purely psychological part of the psychiatric problem. But other members of this group of wish-fulfillments, _e.g._, the hysterical symptoms, evince one essential quality which I have so far failed to find in the dream. Thus, from the investigations frequently referred to in this treatise, I know that the formation of an hysterical symptom necessitates the combination of both streams of our psychic life. The symptom is not merely the expression of a realized unconscious wish, but it must be joined by another wish from the foreconscious which is fulfilled by the same symptom; so that the symptom is at least doubly determined, once by each one of the conflicting systems. Just as in the dream, there is no limit to further over-determination. The determination not derived from the Unc. is, as far as I can see, invariably a stream of thought in reaction against the unconscious wish, _e.g._, a self-punishment. Hence I may say, in general, that _an hysterical symptom originates only where two contrasting wish-fulfillments, having their source in different psychic systems, are able to combine in one expression_. (Compare my latest formulation of the origin of the hysterical symptoms in a treatise published by the _Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft_, by Hirschfeld and others, 1908). Examples on this point would prove of little value, as nothing but a complete unveiling of the complication in question would carry conviction. I therefore content myself with the mere assertion, and will cite an example, not for conviction but for explication. The hysterical vomiting of a female patient proved, on the one hand, to be the realization of an unconscious fancy from the time of puberty, that she might be continuously pregnant and have a multitude of children, and this was subsequently united with the wish that she might have them from as many men as possible. Against this immoderate wish there arose a powerful defensive impulse. But as the vomiting might spoil the patient's figure and beauty, so that she would not find favor in the eyes of mankind, the symptom was therefore in keeping with her punitive trend of thought, and, being thus admissible from both sides, it was allowed to become a reality. This is the same manner of consenting to a wish-fulfillment which the queen of the Parthians chose for the triumvir Crassus. Believing that he had undertaken the campaign out of greed for gold, she caused molten gold to be poured into the throat of the corpse. "Now hast thou what thou hast longed for." As yet we know of the dream only that it expresses a wish-fulfillment of the unconscious; and apparently the dominating foreconscious permits this only after it has subjected the wish to some distortions. We are really in no position to demonstrate regularly a stream of thought antagonistic to the dream-wish which is realized in the dream as in its counterpart. Only now and then have we found in the dream traces of reaction formations, as, for instance, the tenderness toward friend R. in the "uncle dream." But the contribution from the foreconscious, which is missing here, may be found in another place. While the dominating system has withdrawn on the wish to sleep, the dream may bring to expression with manifold distortions a wish from the Unc., and realize this wish by producing the necessary changes of energy in the psychic apparatus, and may finally retain it through the entire duration of sleep.[3] This persistent wish to sleep on the part of the foreconscious in general facilitates the formation of the dream. Let us refer to the dream of the father who, by the gleam of light from the death chamber, was brought to the conclusion that the body has been set on fire. We have shown that one of the psychic forces decisive in causing the father to form this conclusion, instead of being awakened by the gleam of light, was the wish to prolong the life of the child seen in the dream by one moment. Other wishes proceeding from the repression probably escape us, because we are unable to analyze this dream. But as a second motive power of the dream we may mention the father's desire to sleep, for, like the life of the child, the sleep of the father is prolonged for a moment by the dream. The underlying motive is: "Let the dream go on, otherwise I must wake up." As in this dream so also in all other dreams, the wish to sleep lends its support to the unconscious wish. We reported dreams which were apparently dreams of convenience. But, properly speaking, all dreams may claim this designation. The efficacy of the wish to continue to sleep is the most easily recognized in the waking dreams, which so transform the objective sensory stimulus as to render it compatible with the continuance of sleep; they interweave this stimulus with the dream in order to rob it of any claims it might make as a warning to the outer world. But this wish to continue to sleep must also participate in the formation of all other dreams which may disturb the sleeping state from within only. "Now, then, sleep on; why, it's but a dream"; this is in many cases the suggestion of the Forec. to consciousness when the dream goes too far; and this also describes in a general way the attitude of our dominating psychic activity toward dreaming, though the thought remains tacit. I must draw the conclusion that _throughout our entire sleeping state we are just as certain that we are dreaming as we are certain that we are sleeping_. We are compelled to disregard the objection urged against this conclusion that our consciousness is never directed to a knowledge of the former, and that it is directed to a knowledge of the latter only on special occasions when the censor is unexpectedly surprised. Against this objection we may say that there are persons who are entirely conscious of their sleeping and dreaming, and who are apparently endowed with the conscious faculty of guiding their dream life. Such a dreamer, when dissatisfied with the course taken by the dream, breaks it off without awakening, and begins it anew in order to continue it with a different turn, like the popular author who, on request, gives a happier ending to his play. Or, at another time, if placed by the dream in a sexually exciting situation, he thinks in his sleep: "I do not care to continue this dream and exhaust myself by a pollution; I prefer to defer it in favor of a real situation." [1] They share this character of indestructibility with all psychic acts that are really unconscious--that is, with psychic acts belonging to the system of the unconscious only. These paths are constantly open and never fall into disuse; they conduct the discharge of the exciting process as often as it becomes endowed with unconscious excitement To speak metaphorically they suffer the same form of annihilation as the shades of the lower region in the _Odyssey_, who awoke to new life the moment they drank blood. The processes depending on the foreconscious system are destructible in a different way. The psychotherapy of the neuroses is based on this difference. [2] Le Lorrain justly extols the wish-fulfilment of the dream: "Sans fatigue sérieuse, sans être obligé de recourir à cette lutte opinâtre et longue qui use et corrode les jouissances poursuivies." [3] This idea has been borrowed from _The Theory of Sleep_ by Liébault, who revived hypnotic investigation in our days. (_Du Sommeil provoqué_, etc.; Paris, 1889.) VII THE FUNCTION OF THE DREAM Since we know that the foreconscious is suspended during the night by the wish to sleep, we can proceed to an intelligent investigation of the dream process. But let us first sum up the knowledge of this process already gained. We have shown that the waking activity leaves day remnants from which the sum of energy cannot be entirely removed; or the waking activity revives during the day one of the unconscious wishes; or both conditions occur simultaneously; we have already discovered the many variations that may take place. The unconscious wish has already made its way to the day remnants, either during the day or at any rate with the beginning of sleep, and has effected a transference to it. This produces a wish transferred to the recent material, or the suppressed recent wish comes to life again through a reinforcement from the unconscious. This wish now endeavors to make its way to consciousness on the normal path of the mental processes through the foreconscious, to which indeed it belongs through one of its constituent elements. It is confronted, however, by the censor, which is still active, and to the influence of which it now succumbs. It now takes on the distortion for which the way has already been paved by its transference to the recent material. Thus far it is in the way of becoming something resembling an obsession, delusion, or the like, _i.e._ a thought reinforced by a transference and distorted in expression by the censor. But its further progress is now checked through the dormant state of the foreconscious; this system has apparently protected itself against invasion by diminishing its excitements. The dream process, therefore, takes the regressive course, which has just been opened by the peculiarity of the sleeping state, and thereby follows the attraction exerted on it by the memory groups, which themselves exist in part only as visual energy not yet translated into terms of the later systems. On its way to regression the dream takes on the form of dramatization. The subject of compression will be discussed later. The dream process has now terminated the second part of its repeatedly impeded course. The first part expended itself progressively from the unconscious scenes or phantasies to the foreconscious, while the second part gravitates from the advent of the censor back to the perceptions. But when the dream process becomes a content of perception it has, so to speak, eluded the obstacle set up in the Forec. by the censor and by the sleeping state. It succeeds in drawing attention to itself and in being noticed by consciousness. For consciousness, which means to us a sensory organ for the reception of psychic qualities, may receive stimuli from two sources--first, from the periphery of the entire apparatus, viz. from the perception system, and, secondly, from the pleasure and pain stimuli, which constitute the sole psychic quality produced in the transformation of energy within the apparatus. All other processes in the system, even those in the foreconscious, are devoid of any psychic quality, and are therefore not objects of consciousness inasmuch as they do not furnish pleasure or pain for perception. We shall have to assume that those liberations of pleasure and pain automatically regulate the outlet of the occupation processes. But in order to make possible more delicate functions, it was later found necessary to render the course of the presentations more independent of the manifestations of pain. To accomplish this the Forec. system needed some qualities of its own which could attract consciousness, and most probably received them through the connection of the foreconscious processes with the memory system of the signs of speech, which is not devoid of qualities. Through the qualities of this system, consciousness, which had hitherto been a sensory organ only for the perceptions, now becomes also a sensory organ for a part of our mental processes. Thus we have now, as it were, two sensory surfaces, one directed to perceptions and the other to the foreconscious mental processes. I must assume that the sensory surface of consciousness devoted to the Forec. is rendered less excitable by sleep than that directed to the P-systems. The giving up of interest for the nocturnal mental processes is indeed purposeful. Nothing is to disturb the mind; the Forec. wants to sleep. But once the dream becomes a perception, it is then capable of exciting consciousness through the qualities thus gained. The sensory stimulus accomplishes what it was really destined for, namely, it directs a part of the energy at the disposal of the Forec. in the form of attention upon the stimulant. We must, therefore, admit that the dream invariably awakens us, that is, it puts into activity a part of the dormant force of the Forec. This force imparts to the dream that influence which we have designated as secondary elaboration for the sake of connection and comprehensibility. This means that the dream is treated by it like any other content of perception; it is subjected to the same ideas of expectation, as far at least as the material admits. As far as the direction is concerned in this third part of the dream, it may be said that here again the movement is progressive. To avoid misunderstanding, it will not be amiss to say a few words about the temporal peculiarities of these dream processes. In a very interesting discussion, apparently suggested by Maury's puzzling guillotine dream, Goblet tries to demonstrate that the dream requires no other time than the transition period between sleeping and awakening. The awakening requires time, as the dream takes place during that period. One is inclined to believe that the final picture of the dream is so strong that it forces the dreamer to awaken; but, as a matter of fact, this picture is strong only because the dreamer is already very near awakening when it appears. "Un rêve c'est un réveil qui commence." It has already been emphasized by Dugas that Goblet was forced to repudiate many facts in order to generalize his theory. There are, moreover, dreams from which we do not awaken, _e.g._, some dreams in which we dream that we dream. From our knowledge of the dream-work, we can by no means admit that it extends only over the period of awakening. On the contrary, we must consider it probable that the first part of the dream-work begins during the day when we are still under the domination of the foreconscious. The second phase of the dream-work, viz. the modification through the censor, the attraction by the unconscious scenes, and the penetration to perception must continue throughout the night. And we are probably always right when we assert that we feel as though we had been dreaming the whole night, although we cannot say what. I do not, however, think it necessary to assume that, up to the time of becoming conscious, the dream processes really follow the temporal sequence which we have described, viz. that there is first the transferred dream-wish, then the distortion of the censor, and consequently the change of direction to regression, and so on. We were forced to form such a succession for the sake of _description_; in reality, however, it is much rather a matter of simultaneously trying this path and that, and of emotions fluctuating to and fro, until finally, owing to the most expedient distribution, one particular grouping is secured which remains. From certain personal experiences, I am myself inclined to believe that the dream-work often requires more than one day and one night to produce its result; if this be true, the extraordinary art manifested in the construction of the dream loses all its marvels. In my opinion, even the regard for comprehensibility as an occurrence of perception may take effect before the dream attracts consciousness to itself. To be sure, from now on the process is accelerated, as the dream is henceforth subjected to the same treatment as any other perception. It is like fireworks, which require hours of preparation and only a moment for ignition. Through the dream-work the dream process now gains either sufficient intensity to attract consciousness to itself and arouse the foreconscious, which is quite independent of the time or profundity of sleep, or, its intensity being insufficient it must wait until it meets the attention which is set in motion immediately before awakening. Most dreams seem to operate with relatively slight psychic intensities, for they wait for the awakening. This, however, explains the fact that we regularly perceive something dreamt on being suddenly aroused from a sound sleep. Here, as well as in spontaneous awakening, the first glance strikes the perception content created by the dream-work, while the next strikes the one produced from without. But of greater theoretical interest are those dreams which are capable of waking us in the midst of sleep. We must bear in mind the expediency elsewhere universally demonstrated, and ask ourselves why the dream or the unconscious wish has the power to disturb sleep, _i.e._ the fulfillment of the foreconscious wish. This is probably due to certain relations of energy into which we have no insight. If we possessed such insight we should probably find that the freedom given to the dream and the expenditure of a certain amount of detached attention represent for the dream an economy in energy, keeping in view the fact that the unconscious must be held in check at night just as during the day. We know from experience that the dream, even if it interrupts sleep, repeatedly during the same night, still remains compatible with sleep. We wake up for an instant, and immediately resume our sleep. It is like driving off a fly during sleep, we awake _ad hoc_, and when we resume our sleep we have removed the disturbance. As demonstrated by familiar examples from the sleep of wet nurses, &c., the fulfillment of the wish to sleep is quite compatible with the retention of a certain amount of attention in a given direction. But we must here take cognizance of an objection that is based on a better knowledge of the unconscious processes. Although we have ourselves described the unconscious wishes as always active, we have, nevertheless, asserted that they are not sufficiently strong during the day to make themselves perceptible. But when we sleep, and the unconscious wish has shown its power to form a dream, and with it to awaken the foreconscious, why, then, does this power become exhausted after the dream has been taken cognizance of? Would it not seem more probable that the dream should continually renew itself, like the troublesome fly which, when driven away, takes pleasure in returning again and again? What justifies our assertion that the dream removes the disturbance of sleep? That the unconscious wishes always remain active is quite true. They represent paths which are passable whenever a sum of excitement makes use of them. Moreover, a remarkable peculiarity of the unconscious processes is the fact that they remain indestructible. Nothing can be brought to an end in the unconscious; nothing can cease or be forgotten. This impression is most strongly gained in the study of the neuroses, especially of hysteria. The unconscious stream of thought which leads to the discharge through an attack becomes passable again as soon as there is an accumulation of a sufficient amount of excitement. The mortification brought on thirty years ago, after having gained access to the unconscious affective source, operates during all these thirty years like a recent one. Whenever its memory is touched, it is revived and shows itself to be supplied with the excitement which is discharged in a motor attack. It is just here that the office of psychotherapy begins, its task being to bring about adjustment and forgetfulness for the unconscious processes. Indeed, the fading of memories and the flagging of affects, which we are apt to take as self-evident and to explain as a primary influence of time on the psychic memories, are in reality secondary changes brought about by painstaking work. It is the foreconscious that accomplishes this work; and the only course to be pursued by psychotherapy is the subjugate the Unc, to the domination of the Forec. There are, therefore, two exits for the individual unconscious emotional process. It is either left to itself, in which case it ultimately breaks through somewhere and secures for once a discharge for its excitation into motility; or it succumbs to the influence of the foreconscious, and its excitation becomes confined through this influence instead of being discharged. It is the latter process that occurs in the dream. Owing to the fact that it is directed by the conscious excitement, the energy from the Forec., which confronts the dream when grown to perception, restricts the unconscious excitement of the dream and renders it harmless as a disturbing factor. When the dreamer wakes up for a moment, he has actually chased away the fly that has threatened to disturb his sleep. We can now understand that it is really more expedient and economical to give full sway to the unconscious wish, and clear its way to regression so that it may form a dream, and then restrict and adjust this dream by means of a small expenditure of foreconscious labor, than to curb the unconscious throughout the entire period of sleep. We should, indeed, expect that the dream, even if it was not originally an expedient process, would have acquired some function in the play of forces of the psychic life. We now see what this function is. The dream has taken it upon itself to bring the liberated excitement of the Unc. back under the domination of the foreconscious; it thus affords relief for the excitement of the Unc. and acts as a safety-valve for the latter, and at the same time it insures the sleep of the foreconscious at a slight expenditure of the waking state. Like the other psychic formations of its group, the dream offers itself as a compromise serving simultaneously both systems by fulfilling both wishes in so far as they are compatible with each other. A glance at Robert's "elimination theory," will show that we must agree with this author in his main point, viz. in the determination of the function of the dream, though we differ from him in our hypotheses and in our treatment of the dream process. The above qualification--in so far as the two wishes are compatible with each other--contains a suggestion that there may be cases in which the function of the dream suffers shipwreck. The dream process is in the first instance admitted as a wish-fulfillment of the unconscious, but if this tentative wish-fulfillment disturbs the foreconscious to such an extent that the latter can no longer maintain its rest, the dream then breaks the compromise and fails to perform the second part of its task. It is then at once broken off, and replaced by complete wakefulness. Here, too, it is not really the fault of the dream, if, while ordinarily the guardian of sleep, it is here compelled to appear as the disturber of sleep, nor should this cause us to entertain any doubts as to its efficacy. This is not the only case in the organism in which an otherwise efficacious arrangement became inefficacious and disturbing as soon as some element is changed in the conditions of its origin; the disturbance then serves at least the new purpose of announcing the change, and calling into play against it the means of adjustment of the organism. In this connection, I naturally bear in mind the case of the anxiety dream, and in order not to have the appearance of trying to exclude this testimony against the theory of wish-fulfillment wherever I encounter it, I will attempt an explanation of the anxiety dream, at least offering some suggestions. That a psychic process developing anxiety may still be a wish-fulfillment has long ceased to impress us as a contradiction. We may explain this occurrence by the fact that the wish belongs to one system (the Unc.), while by the other system (the Forec.), this wish has been rejected and suppressed. The subjection of the Unc. by the Forec. is not complete even in perfect psychic health; the amount of this suppression shows the degree of our psychic normality. Neurotic symptoms show that there is a conflict between the two systems; the symptoms are the results of a compromise of this conflict, and they temporarily put an end to it. On the one hand, they afford the Unc. an outlet for the discharge of its excitement, and serve it as a sally port, while, on the other hand, they give the Forec. the capability of dominating the Unc. to some extent. It is highly instructive to consider, _e.g._, the significance of any hysterical phobia or of an agoraphobia. Suppose a neurotic incapable of crossing the street alone, which we would justly call a "symptom." We attempt to remove this symptom by urging him to the action which he deems himself incapable of. The result will be an attack of anxiety, just as an attack of anxiety in the street has often been the cause of establishing an agoraphobia. We thus learn that the symptom has been constituted in order to guard against the outbreak of the anxiety. The phobia is thrown before the anxiety like a fortress on the frontier. Unless we enter into the part played by the affects in these processes, which can be done here only imperfectly, we cannot continue our discussion. Let us therefore advance the proposition that the reason why the suppression of the unconscious becomes absolutely necessary is because, if the discharge of presentation should be left to itself, it would develop an affect in the Unc. which originally bore the character of pleasure, but which, since the appearance of the repression, bears the character of pain. The aim, as well as the result, of the suppression is to stop the development of this pain. The suppression extends over the unconscious ideation, because the liberation of pain might emanate from the ideation. The foundation is here laid for a very definite assumption concerning the nature of the affective development. It is regarded as a motor or secondary activity, the key to the innervation of which is located in the presentations of the Unc. Through the domination of the Forec. these presentations become, as it were, throttled and inhibited at the exit of the emotion-developing impulses. The danger, which is due to the fact that the Forec. ceases to occupy the energy, therefore consists in the fact that the unconscious excitations liberate such an affect as--in consequence of the repression that has previously taken place--can only be perceived as pain or anxiety. This danger is released through the full sway of the dream process. The determinations for its realization consist in the fact that repressions have taken place, and that the suppressed emotional wishes shall become sufficiently strong. They thus stand entirely without the psychological realm of the dream structure. Were it not for the fact that our subject is connected through just one factor, namely, the freeing of the Unc. during sleep, with the subject of the development of anxiety, I could dispense with discussion of the anxiety dream, and thus avoid all obscurities connected with it. As I have often repeated, the theory of the anxiety belongs to the psychology of the neuroses. I would say that the anxiety in the dream is an anxiety problem and not a dream problem. We have nothing further to do with it after having once demonstrated its point of contact with the subject of the dream process. There is only one thing left for me to do. As I have asserted that the neurotic anxiety originates from sexual sources, I can subject anxiety dreams to analysis in order to demonstrate the sexual material in their dream thoughts. For good reasons I refrain from citing here any of the numerous examples placed at my disposal by neurotic patients, but prefer to give anxiety dreams from young persons. Personally, I have had no real anxiety dream for decades, but I recall one from my seventh or eighth year which I subjected to interpretation about thirty years later. The dream was very vivid, and showed me _my beloved mother, with peculiarly calm sleeping countenance, carried into the room and laid on the bed by two (or three) persons with birds' beaks_. I awoke crying and screaming, and disturbed my parents. The very tall figures--draped in a peculiar manner--with beaks, I had taken from the illustrations of Philippson's bible; I believe they represented deities with heads of sparrowhawks from an Egyptian tomb relief. The analysis also introduced the reminiscence of a naughty janitor's boy, who used to play with us children on the meadow in front of the house; I would add that his name was Philip. I feel that I first heard from this boy the vulgar word signifying sexual intercourse, which is replaced among the educated by the Latin "coitus," but to which the dream distinctly alludes by the selection of the birds' heads. I must have suspected the sexual significance of the word from the facial expression of my worldly-wise teacher. My mother's features in the dream were copied from the countenance of my grandfather, whom I had seen a few days before his death snoring in the state of coma. The interpretation of the secondary elaboration in the dream must therefore have been that my mother was dying; the tomb relief, too, agrees with this. In this anxiety I awoke, and could not calm myself until I had awakened my parents. I remember that I suddenly became calm on coming face to face with my mother, as if I needed the assurance that my mother was not dead. But this secondary interpretation of the dream had been effected only under the influence of the developed anxiety. I was not frightened because I dreamed that my mother was dying, but I interpreted the dream in this manner in the foreconscious elaboration because I was already under the domination of the anxiety. The latter, however, could be traced by means of the repression to an obscure obviously sexual desire, which had found its satisfying expression in the visual content of the dream. A man twenty-seven years old who had been severely ill for a year had had many terrifying dreams between the ages of eleven and thirteen. He thought that a man with an ax was running after him; he wished to run, but felt paralyzed and could not move from the spot. This may be taken as a good example of a very common, and apparently sexually indifferent, anxiety dream. In the analysis the dreamer first thought of a story told him by his uncle, which chronologically was later than the dream, viz. that he was attacked at night by a suspicious-looking individual. This occurrence led him to believe that he himself might have already heard of a similar episode at the time of the dream. In connection with the ax he recalled that during that period of his life he once hurt his hand with an ax while chopping wood. This immediately led to his relations with his younger brother, whom he used to maltreat and knock down. In particular, he recalled an occasion when he struck his brother on the head with his boot until he bled, whereupon his mother remarked: "I fear he will kill him some day." While he was seemingly thinking of the subject of violence, a reminiscence from his ninth year suddenly occurred to him. His parents came home late and went to bed while he was feigning sleep. He soon heard panting and other noises that appeared strange to him, and he could also make out the position of his parents in bed. His further associations showed that he had established an analogy between this relation between his parents and his own relation toward his younger brother. He subsumed what occurred between his parents under the conception "violence and wrestling," and thus reached a sadistic conception of the coitus act, as often happens among children. The fact that he often noticed blood on his mother's bed corroborated his conception. That the sexual intercourse of adults appears strange to children who observe it, and arouses fear in them, I dare say is a fact of daily experience. I have explained this fear by the fact that sexual excitement is not mastered by their understanding, and is probably also inacceptable to them because their parents are involved in it. For the same son this excitement is converted into fear. At a still earlier period of life sexual emotion directed toward the parent of opposite sex does not meet with repression but finds free expression, as we have seen before. For the night terrors with hallucinations (_pavor nocturnus_) frequently found in children, I would unhesitatingly give the same explanation. Here, too, we are certainly dealing with the incomprehensible and rejected sexual feelings, which, if noted, would probably show a temporal periodicity, for an enhancement of the sexual _libido_ may just as well be produced accidentally through emotional impressions as through the spontaneous and gradual processes of development. I lack the necessary material to sustain these explanations from observation. On the other hand, the pediatrists seem to lack the point of view which alone makes comprehensible the whole series of phenomena, on the somatic as well as on the psychic side. To illustrate by a comical example how one wearing the blinders of medical mythology may miss the understanding of such cases I will relate a case which I found in a thesis on _pavor nocturnus_ by _Debacker_, 1881. A thirteen-year-old boy of delicate health began to become anxious and dreamy; his sleep became restless, and about once a week it was interrupted by an acute attack of anxiety with hallucinations. The memory of these dreams was invariably very distinct. Thus, he related that the _devil_ shouted at him: "Now we have you, now we have you," and this was followed by an odor of sulphur; the fire burned his skin. This dream aroused him, terror-stricken. He was unable to scream at first; then his voice returned, and he was heard to say distinctly: "No, no, not me; why, I have done nothing," or, "Please don't, I shall never do it again." Occasionally, also, he said: "Albert has not done that." Later he avoided undressing, because, as he said, the fire attacked him only when he was undressed. From amid these evil dreams, which menaced his health, he was sent into the country, where he recovered within a year and a half, but at the age of fifteen he once confessed: "Je n'osais pas l'avouer, mais j'éprouvais continuellement des picotements et des surexcitations aux _parties_; à la fin, cela m'énervait tant que plusieurs fois, j'ai pensé me jeter par la fenêtre au dortoir." It is certainly not difficult to suspect: 1, that the boy had practiced masturbation in former years, that he probably denied it, and was threatened with severe punishment for his wrongdoing (his confession: Je ne le ferai plus; his denial: Albert n'a jamais fait ça). 2, That under the pressure of puberty the temptation to self-abuse through the tickling of the genitals was reawakened. 3, That now, however, a struggle of repression arose in him, suppressing the _libido_ and changing it into fear, which subsequently took the form of the punishments with which he was then threatened. Let us, however, quote the conclusions drawn by our author. This observation shows: 1, That the influence of puberty may produce in a boy of delicate health a condition of extreme weakness, and that it may lead to a _very marked cerebral anæmia_. 2. This cerebral anæmia produces a transformation of character, demonomaniacal hallucinations, and very violent nocturnal, perhaps also diurnal, states of anxiety. 3. Demonomania and the self-reproaches of the day can be traced to the influences of religious education which the subject underwent as a child. 4. All manifestations disappeared as a result of a lengthy sojourn in the country, bodily exercise, and the return of physical strength after the termination of the period of puberty. 5. A predisposing influence for the origin of the cerebral condition of the boy may be attributed to heredity and to the father's chronic syphilitic state. The concluding remarks of the author read: "Nous avons fait entrer cette observation dans le cadre des délires apyrétiques d'inanition, car c'est à l'ischémie cérébrale que nous rattachons cet état particulier." VIII THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PROCESS--REGRESSION In venturing to attempt to penetrate more deeply into the psychology of the dream processes, I have undertaken a difficult task, to which, indeed, my power of description is hardly equal. To reproduce in description by a succession of words the simultaneousness of so complex a chain of events, and in doing so to appear unbiassed throughout the exposition, goes fairly beyond my powers. I have now to atone for the fact that I have been unable in my description of the dream psychology to follow the historic development of my views. The view-points for my conception of the dream were reached through earlier investigations in the psychology of the neuroses, to which I am not supposed to refer here, but to which I am repeatedly forced to refer, whereas I should prefer to proceed in the opposite direction, and, starting from the dream, to establish a connection with the psychology of the neuroses. I am well aware of all the inconveniences arising for the reader from this difficulty, but I know of no way to avoid them. As I am dissatisfied with this state of affairs, I am glad to dwell upon another view-point which seems to raise the value of my efforts. As has been shown in the introduction to the first chapter, I found myself confronted with a theme which had been marked by the sharpest contradictions on the part of the authorities. After our elaboration of the dream problems we found room for most of these contradictions. We have been forced, however, to take decided exception to two of the views pronounced, viz. that the dream is a senseless and that it is a somatic process; apart from these cases we have had to accept all the contradictory views in one place or another of the complicated argument, and we have been able to demonstrate that they had discovered something that was correct. That the dream continues the impulses and interests of the waking state has been quite generally confirmed through the discovery of the latent thoughts of the dream. These thoughts concern themselves only with things that seem important and of momentous interest to us. The dream never occupies itself with trifles. But we have also concurred with the contrary view, viz., that the dream gathers up the indifferent remnants from the day, and that not until it has in some measure withdrawn itself from the waking activity can an important event of the day be taken up by the dream. We found this holding true for the dream content, which gives the dream thought its changed expression by means of disfigurement. We have said that from the nature of the association mechanism the dream process more easily takes possession of recent or indifferent material which has not yet been seized by the waking mental activity; and by reason of the censor it transfers the psychic intensity from the important but also disagreeable to the indifferent material. The hypermnesia of the dream and the resort to infantile material have become main supports in our theory. In our theory of the dream we have attributed to the wish originating from the infantile the part of an indispensable motor for the formation of the dream. We naturally could not think of doubting the experimentally demonstrated significance of the objective sensory stimuli during sleep; but we have brought this material into the same relation to the dream-wish as the thought remnants from the waking activity. There was no need of disputing the fact that the dream interprets the objective sensory stimuli after the manner of an illusion; but we have supplied the motive for this interpretation which has been left undecided by the authorities. The interpretation follows in such a manner that the perceived object is rendered harmless as a sleep disturber and becomes available for the wish-fulfillment. Though we do not admit as special sources of the dream the subjective state of excitement of the sensory organs during sleep, which seems to have been demonstrated by Trumbull Ladd, we are nevertheless able to explain this excitement through the regressive revival of active memories behind the dream. A modest part in our conception has also been assigned to the inner organic sensations which are wont to be taken as the cardinal point in the explanation of the dream. These--the sensation of falling, flying, or inhibition--stand as an ever ready material to be used by the dream-work to express the dream thought as often as need arises. That the dream process is a rapid and momentary one seems to be true for the perception through consciousness of the already prepared dream content; the preceding parts of the dream process probably take a slow, fluctuating course. We have solved the riddle of the superabundant dream content compressed within the briefest moment by explaining that this is due to the appropriation of almost fully formed structures from the psychic life. That the dream is disfigured and distorted by memory we found to be correct, but not troublesome, as this is only the last manifest operation in the work of disfigurement which has been active from the beginning of the dream-work. In the bitter and seemingly irreconcilable controversy as to whether the psychic life sleeps at night or can make the same use of all its capabilities as during the day, we have been able to agree with both sides, though not fully with either. We have found proof that the dream thoughts represent a most complicated intellectual activity, employing almost every means furnished by the psychic apparatus; still it cannot be denied that these dream thoughts have originated during the day, and it is indispensable to assume that there is a sleeping state of the psychic life. Thus, even the theory of partial sleep has come into play; but the characteristics of the sleeping state have been found not in the dilapidation of the psychic connections but in the cessation of the psychic system dominating the day, arising from its desire to sleep. The withdrawal from the outer world retains its significance also for our conception; though not the only factor, it nevertheless helps the regression to make possible the representation of the dream. That we should reject the voluntary guidance of the presentation course is uncontestable; but the psychic life does not thereby become aimless, for we have seen that after the abandonment of the desired end-presentation undesired ones gain the mastery. The loose associative connection in the dream we have not only recognized, but we have placed under its control a far greater territory than could have been supposed; we have, however, found it merely the feigned substitute for another correct and senseful one. To be sure we, too, have called the dream absurd; but we have been able to learn from examples how wise the dream really is when it simulates absurdity. We do not deny any of the functions that have been attributed to the dream. That the dream relieves the mind like a valve, and that, according to Robert's assertion, all kinds of harmful material are rendered harmless through representation in the dream, not only exactly coincides with our theory of the twofold wish-fulfillment in the dream, but, in his own wording, becomes even more comprehensible for us than for Robert himself. The free indulgence of the psychic in the play of its faculties finds expression with us in the non-interference with the dream on the part of the foreconscious activity. The "return to the embryonal state of psychic life in the dream" and the observation of Havelock Ellis, "an archaic world of vast emotions and imperfect thoughts," appear to us as happy anticipations of our deductions to the effect that _primitive_ modes of work suppressed during the day participate in the formation of the dream; and with us, as with Delage, the _suppressed_ material becomes the mainspring of the dreaming. We have fully recognized the rôle which Scherner ascribes to the dream phantasy, and even his interpretation; but we have been obliged, so to speak, to conduct them to another department in the problem. It is not the dream that produces the phantasy but the unconscious phantasy that takes the greatest part in the formation of the dream thoughts. We are indebted to Scherner for his clew to the source of the dream thoughts, but almost everything that he ascribes to the dream-work is attributable to the activity of the unconscious, which is at work during the day, and which supplies incitements not only for dreams but for neurotic symptoms as well. We have had to separate the dream-work from this activity as being something entirely different and far more restricted. Finally, we have by no means abandoned the relation of the dream to mental disturbances, but, on the contrary, we have given it a more solid foundation on new ground. Thus held together by the new material of our theory as by a superior unity, we find the most varied and most contradictory conclusions of the authorities fitting into our structure; some of them are differently disposed, only a few of them are entirely rejected. But our own structure is still unfinished. For, disregarding the many obscurities which we have necessarily encountered in our advance into the darkness of psychology, we are now apparently embarrassed by a new contradiction. On the one hand, we have allowed the dream thoughts to proceed from perfectly normal mental operations, while, on the other hand, we have found among the dream thoughts a number of entirely abnormal mental processes which extend likewise to the dream contents. These, consequently, we have repeated in the interpretation of the dream. All that we have termed the "dream-work" seems so remote from the psychic processes recognized by us as correct, that the severest judgments of the authors as to the low psychic activity of dreaming seem to us well founded. Perhaps only through still further advance can enlightenment and improvement be brought about. I shall pick out one of the constellations leading to the formation of dreams. We have learned that the dream replaces a number of thoughts derived from daily life which are perfectly formed logically. We cannot therefore doubt that these thoughts originate from our normal mental life. All the qualities which we esteem in our mental operations, and which distinguish these as complicated activities of a high order, we find repeated in the dream thoughts. There is, however, no need of assuming that this mental work is performed during sleep, as this would materially impair the conception of the psychic state of sleep we have hitherto adhered to. These thoughts may just as well have originated from the day, and, unnoticed by our consciousness from their inception, they may have continued to develop until they stood complete at the onset of sleep. If we are to conclude anything from this state of affairs, it will at most prove _that the most complex mental operations are possible without the coöperation of consciousness_, which we have already learned independently from every psychoanalysis of persons suffering from hysteria or obsessions. These dream thoughts are in themselves surely not incapable of consciousness; if they have not become conscious to us during the day, this may have various reasons. The state of becoming conscious depends on the exercise of a certain psychic function, viz. attention, which seems to be extended only in a definite quantity, and which may have been withdrawn from the stream of thought in Question by other aims. Another way in which such mental streams are kept from consciousness is the following:--Our conscious reflection teaches us that when exercising attention we pursue a definite course. But if that course leads us to an idea which does not hold its own with the critic, we discontinue and cease to apply our attention. Now, apparently, the stream of thought thus started and abandoned may spin on without regaining attention unless it reaches a spot of especially marked intensity which forces the return of attention. An initial rejection, perhaps consciously brought about by the judgment on the ground of incorrectness or unfitness for the actual purpose of the mental act, may therefore account for the fact that a mental process continues until the onset of sleep unnoticed by consciousness. Let us recapitulate by saying that we call such a stream of thought a foreconscious one, that we believe it to be perfectly correct, and that it may just as well be a more neglected one or an interrupted and suppressed one. Let us also state frankly in what manner we conceive this presentation course. We believe that a certain sum of excitement, which we call occupation energy, is displaced from an end-presentation along the association paths selected by that end-presentation. A "neglected" stream of thought has received no such occupation, and from a "suppressed" or "rejected" one this occupation has been withdrawn; both have thus been left to their own emotions. The end-stream of thought stocked with energy is under certain conditions able to draw to itself the attention of consciousness, through which means it then receives a "surplus of energy." We shall be obliged somewhat later to elucidate our assumption concerning the nature and activity of consciousness. A train of thought thus incited in the Forec. may either disappear spontaneously or continue. The former issue we conceive as follows: It diffuses its energy through all the association paths emanating from it, and throws the entire chain of ideas into a state of excitement which, after lasting for a while, subsides through the transformation of the excitement requiring an outlet into dormant energy.[1] If this first issue is brought about the process has no further significance for the dream formation. But other end-presentations are lurking in our foreconscious that originate from the sources of our unconscious and from the ever active wishes. These may take possession of the excitations in the circle of thought thus left to itself, establish a connection between it and the unconscious wish, and transfer to it the energy inherent in the unconscious wish. Henceforth the neglected or suppressed train of thought is in a position to maintain itself, although this reinforcement does not help it to gain access to consciousness. We may say that the hitherto foreconscious train of thought has been drawn into the unconscious. Other constellations for the dream formation would result if the foreconscious train of thought had from the beginning been connected with the unconscious wish, and for that reason met with rejection by the dominating end-occupation; or if an unconscious wish were made active for other--possibly somatic--reasons and of its own accord sought a transference to the psychic remnants not occupied by the Forec. All three cases finally combine in one issue, so that there is established in the foreconscious a stream of thought which, having been abandoned by the foreconscious occupation, receives occupation from the unconscious wish. The stream of thought is henceforth subjected to a series of transformations which we no longer recognize as normal psychic processes and which give us a surprising result, viz. a psychopathological formation. Let us emphasize and group the same. 1. The intensities of the individual ideas become capable of discharge in their entirety, and, proceeding from one conception to the other, they thus form single presentations endowed with marked intensity. Through the repeated recurrence of this process the intensity of an entire train of ideas may ultimately be gathered in a single presentation element. This is the principle of _compression or condensation_. It is condensation that is mainly responsible for the strange impression of the dream, for we know of nothing analogous to it in the normal psychic life accessible to consciousness. We find here, also, presentations which possess great psychic significance as junctions or as end-results of whole chains of thought; but this validity does not manifest itself in any character conspicuous enough for internal perception; hence, what has been presented in it does not become in any way more intensive. In the process of condensation the entire psychic connection becomes transformed into the intensity of the presentation content. It is the same as in a book where we space or print in heavy type any word upon which particular stress is laid for the understanding of the text. In speech the same word would be pronounced loudly and deliberately and with emphasis. The first comparison leads us at once to an example taken from the chapter on "The Dream-Work" (trimethylamine in the dream of Irma's injection). Historians of art call our attention to the fact that the most ancient historical sculptures follow a similar principle in expressing the rank of the persons represented by the size of the statue. The king is made two or three times as large as his retinue or the vanquished enemy. A piece of art, however, from the Roman period makes use of more subtle means to accomplish the same purpose. The figure of the emperor is placed in the center in a firmly erect posture; special care is bestowed on the proper modelling of his figure; his enemies are seen cowering at his feet; but he is no longer represented a giant among dwarfs. However, the bowing of the subordinate to his superior in our own days is only an echo of that ancient principle of representation. The direction taken by the condensations of the dream is prescribed on the one hand by the true foreconscious relations of the dream thoughts, an the other hand by the attraction of the visual reminiscences in the unconscious. The success of the condensation work produces those intensities which are required for penetration into the perception systems. 2. Through this free transferability of the intensities, moreover, and in the service of condensation, _intermediary presentations_--compromises, as it were--are formed (_cf._ the numerous examples). This, likewise, is something unheard of in the normal presentation course, where it is above all a question of selection and retention of the "proper" presentation element. On the other hand, composite and compromise formations occur with extraordinary frequency when we are trying to find the linguistic expression for foreconscious thoughts; these are considered "slips of the tongue." 3. The presentations which transfer their intensities to one another are _very loosely connected_, and are joined together by such forms of association as are spurned in our serious thought and are utilized in the production of the effect of wit only. Among these we particularly find associations of the sound and consonance types. 4. Contradictory thoughts do not strive to eliminate one another, but remain side by side. They often unite to produce condensation _as if no contradiction_ existed, or they form compromises for which we should never forgive our thoughts, but which we frequently approve of in our actions. These are some of the most conspicuous abnormal processes to which the thoughts which have previously been rationally formed are subjected in the course of the dream-work. As the main feature of these processes we recognize the high importance attached to the fact of rendering the occupation energy mobile and capable of discharge; the content and the actual significance of the psychic elements, to which these energies adhere, become a matter of secondary importance. One might possibly think that the condensation and compromise formation is effected only in the service of regression, when occasion arises for changing thoughts into pictures. But the analysis and--still more distinctly--the synthesis of dreams which lack regression toward pictures, _e.g._ the dream "Autodidasker--Conversation with Court-Councilor N.," present the same processes of displacement and condensation as the others. Hence we cannot refuse to acknowledge that the two kinds of essentially different psychic processes participate in the formation of the dream; one forms perfectly correct dream thoughts which are equivalent to normal thoughts, while the other treats these ideas in a highly surprising and incorrect manner. The latter process we have already set apart as the dream-work proper. What have we now to advance concerning this latter psychic process? We should be unable to answer this question here if we had not penetrated considerably into the psychology of the neuroses and especially of hysteria. From this we learn that the same incorrect psychic processes--as well as others that have not been enumerated--control the formation of hysterical symptoms. In hysteria, too, we at once find a series of perfectly correct thoughts equivalent to our conscious thoughts, of whose existence, however, in this form we can learn nothing and which we can only subsequently reconstruct. If they have forced their way anywhere to our perception, we discover from the analysis of the symptom formed that these normal thoughts have been subjected to abnormal treatment and _have been transformed into the symptom by means of condensation and compromise formation, through superficial associations, under cover of contradictions, and eventually over the road of regression_. In view of the complete identity found between the peculiarities of the dream-work and of the psychic activity forming the psychoneurotic symptoms, we shall feel justified in transferring to the dream the conclusions urged upon us by hysteria. From the theory of hysteria we borrow the proposition that _such an abnormal psychic elaboration of a normal train of thought takes place only when the latter has been used for the transference of an unconscious wish which dates from the infantile life and is in a state of repression_. In accordance with this proposition we have construed the theory of the dream on the assumption that the actuating dream-wish invariably originates in the unconscious, which, as we ourselves have admitted, cannot be universally demonstrated though it cannot be refuted. But in order to explain the real meaning of the term _repression_, which we have employed so freely, we shall be obliged to make some further addition to our psychological construction. We have above elaborated the fiction of a primitive psychic apparatus, whose work is regulated by the efforts to avoid accumulation of excitement and as far as possible to maintain itself free from excitement. For this reason it was constructed after the plan of a reflex apparatus; the motility, originally the path for the inner bodily change, formed a discharging path standing at its disposal. We subsequently discussed the psychic results of a feeling of gratification, and we might at the same time have introduced the second assumption, viz. that accumulation of excitement--following certain modalities that do not concern us--is perceived as pain and sets the apparatus in motion in order to reproduce a feeling of gratification in which the diminution of the excitement is perceived as pleasure. Such a current in the apparatus which emanates from pain and strives for pleasure we call a wish. We have said that nothing but a wish is capable of setting the apparatus in motion, and that the discharge of excitement in the apparatus is regulated automatically by the perception of pleasure and pain. The first wish must have been an hallucinatory occupation of the memory for gratification. But this hallucination, unless it were maintained to the point of exhaustion, proved incapable of bringing about a cessation of the desire and consequently of securing the pleasure connected with gratification. Thus there was required a second activity--in our terminology the activity of a second system--which should not permit the memory occupation to advance to perception and therefrom to restrict the psychic forces, but should lead the excitement emanating from the craving stimulus by a devious path over the spontaneous motility which ultimately should so change the outer world as to allow the real perception of the object of gratification to take place. Thus far we have elaborated the plan of the psychic apparatus; these two systems are the germ of the Unc. and Forec, which we include in the fully developed apparatus. In order to be in a position successfully to change the outer world through the motility, there is required the accumulation of a large sum of experiences in the memory systems as well as a manifold fixation of the relations which are evoked in this memory material by different end-presentations. We now proceed further with our assumption. The manifold activity of the second system, tentatively sending forth and retracting energy, must on the one hand have full command over all memory material, but on the other hand it would be a superfluous expenditure for it to send to the individual mental paths large quantities of energy which would thus flow off to no purpose, diminishing the quantity available for the transformation of the outer world. In the interests of expediency I therefore postulate that the second system succeeds in maintaining the greater part of the occupation energy in a dormant state and in using but a small portion for the purposes of displacement. The mechanism of these processes is entirely unknown to me; any one who wishes to follow up these ideas must try to find the physical analogies and prepare the way for a demonstration of the process of motion in the stimulation of the neuron. I merely hold to the idea that the activity of the first [Greek: Psi]-system is directed _to the free outflow of the quantities of excitement_, and that the second system brings about an inhibition of this outflow through the energies emanating from it, _i.e._ it produces a _transformation into dormant energy, probably by raising the level_. I therefore assume that under the control of the second system as compared with the first, the course of the excitement is bound to entirely different mechanical conditions. After the second system has finished its tentative mental work, it removes the inhibition and congestion of the excitements and allows these excitements to flow off to the motility. An interesting train of thought now presents itself if we consider the relations of this inhibition of discharge by the second system to the regulation through the principle of pain. Let us now seek the counterpart of the primary feeling of gratification, namely, the objective feeling of fear. A perceptive stimulus acts on the primitive apparatus, becoming the source of a painful emotion. This will then be followed by irregular motor manifestations until one of these withdraws the apparatus from perception and at the same time from pain, but on the reappearance of the perception this manifestation will immediately repeat itself (perhaps as a movement of flight) until the perception has again disappeared. But there will here remain no tendency again to occupy the perception of the source of pain in the form of an hallucination or in any other form. On the contrary, there will be a tendency in the primary apparatus to abandon the painful memory picture as soon as it is in any way awakened, as the overflow of its excitement would surely produce (more precisely, begin to produce) pain. The deviation from memory, which is but a repetition of the former flight from perception, is facilitated also by the fact that, unlike perception, memory does not possess sufficient quality to excite consciousness and thereby to attract to itself new energy. This easy and regularly occurring deviation of the psychic process from the former painful memory presents to us the model and the first example of _psychic repression_. As is generally known, much of this deviation from the painful, much of the behavior of the ostrich, can be readily demonstrated even in the normal psychic life of adults. By virtue of the principle of pain the first system is therefore altogether incapable of introducing anything unpleasant into the mental associations. The system cannot do anything but wish. If this remained so the mental activity of the second system, which should have at its disposal all the memories stored up by experiences, would be hindered. But two ways are now opened: the work of the second system either frees itself completely from the principle of pain and continues its course, paying no heed to the painful reminiscence, or it contrives to occupy the painful memory in such a manner as to preclude the liberation of pain. We may reject the first possibility, as the principle of pain also manifests itself as a regulator for the emotional discharge of the second system; we are, therefore, directed to the second possibility, namely, that this system occupies a reminiscence in such a manner as to inhibit its discharge and hence, also, to inhibit the discharge comparable to a motor innervation for the development of pain. Thus from two starting points we are led to the hypothesis that occupation through the second system is at the same time an inhibition for the emotional discharge, viz. from a consideration of the principle of pain and from the principle of the smallest expenditure of innervation. Let us, however, keep to the fact--this is the key to the theory of repression--that the second system is capable of occupying an idea only when it is in position to check the development of pain emanating from it. Whatever withdraws itself from this inhibition also remains inaccessible for the second system and would soon be abandoned by virtue of the principle of pain. The inhibition of pain, however, need not be complete; it must be permitted to begin, as it indicates to the second system the nature of the memory and possibly its defective adaptation for the purpose sought by the mind. The psychic process which is admitted by the first system only I shall now call the _primary_ process; and the one resulting from the inhibition of the second system I shall call the _secondary_ process. I show by another point for what purpose the second system is obliged to correct the primary process. The primary process strives for a discharge of the excitement in order to establish a _perception_ identity with the sum of excitement thus gathered; the secondary process has abandoned this intention and undertaken instead the task of bringing about a _thought identity_. All thinking is only a circuitous path from the memory of gratification taken as an end-presentation to the identical occupation of the same memory, which is again to be attained on the track of the motor experiences. The state of thinking must take an interest in the connecting paths between the presentations without allowing itself to be misled by their intensities. But it is obvious that condensations and intermediate or compromise formations occurring in the presentations impede the attainment of this end-identity; by substituting one idea for the other they deviate from the path which otherwise would have been continued from the original idea. Such processes are therefore carefully avoided in the secondary thinking. Nor is it difficult to understand that the principle of pain also impedes the progress of the mental stream in its pursuit of the thought identity, though, indeed, it offers to the mental stream the most important points of departure. Hence the tendency of the thinking process must be to free itself more and more from exclusive adjustment by the principle of pain, and through the working of the mind to restrict the affective development to that minimum which is necessary as a signal. This refinement of the activity must have been attained through a recent over-occupation of energy brought about by consciousness. But we are aware that this refinement is seldom completely successful even in the most normal psychic life and that our thoughts ever remain accessible to falsification through the interference of the principle of pain. This, however, is not the breach in the functional efficiency of our psychic apparatus through which the thoughts forming the material of the secondary mental work are enabled to make their way into the primary psychic process--with which formula we may now describe the work leading to the dream and to the hysterical symptoms. This case of insufficiency results from the union of the two factors from the history of our evolution; one of which belongs solely to the psychic apparatus and has exerted a determining influence on the relation of the two systems, while the other operates fluctuatingly and introduces motive forces of organic origin into the psychic life. Both originate in the infantile life and result from the transformation which our psychic and somatic organism has undergone since the infantile period. When I termed one of the psychic processes in the psychic apparatus the primary process, I did so not only in consideration of the order of precedence and capability, but also as admitting the temporal relations to a share in the nomenclature. As far as our knowledge goes there is no psychic apparatus possessing only the primary process, and in so far it is a theoretic fiction; but so much is based on fact that the primary processes are present in the apparatus from the beginning, while the secondary processes develop gradually in the course of life, inhibiting and covering the primary ones, and gaining complete mastery over them perhaps only at the height of life. Owing to this retarded appearance of the secondary processes, the essence of our being, consisting in unconscious wish feelings, can neither be seized nor inhibited by the foreconscious, whose part is once for all restricted to the indication of the most suitable paths for the wish feelings originating in the unconscious. These unconscious wishes establish for all subsequent psychic efforts a compulsion to which they have to submit and which they must strive if possible to divert from its course and direct to higher aims. In consequence of this retardation of the foreconscious occupation a large sphere of the memory material remains inaccessible. Among these indestructible and unincumbered wish feelings originating from the infantile life, there are also some, the fulfillments of which have entered into a relation of contradiction to the end-presentation of the secondary thinking. The fulfillment of these wishes would no longer produce an affect of pleasure but one of pain; _and it is just this transformation of affect that constitutes the nature of what we designate as "repression," in which we recognize the infantile first step of passing adverse sentence or of rejecting through reason_. To investigate in what way and through what motive forces such a transformation can be produced constitutes the problem of repression, which we need here only skim over. It will suffice to remark that such a transformation of affect occurs in the course of development (one may think of the appearance in infantile life of disgust which was originally absent), and that it is connected with the activity of the secondary system. The memories from which the unconscious wish brings about the emotional discharge have never been accessible to the Forec., and for that reason their emotional discharge cannot be inhibited. It is just on account of this affective development that these ideas are not even now accessible to the foreconscious thoughts to which they have transferred their wishing power. On the contrary, the principle of pain comes into play, and causes the Forec. to deviate from these thoughts of transference. The latter, left to themselves, are "repressed," and thus the existence of a store of infantile memories, from the very beginning withdrawn from the Forec., becomes the preliminary condition of repression. In the most favorable case the development of pain terminates as soon as the energy has been withdrawn from the thoughts of transference in the Forec., and this effect characterizes the intervention of the principle of pain as expedient. It is different, however, if the repressed unconscious wish receives an organic enforcement which it can lend to its thoughts of transference and through which it can enable them to make an effort towards penetration with their excitement, even after they have been abandoned by the occupation of the Forec. A defensive struggle then ensues, inasmuch as the Forec. reinforces the antagonism against the repressed ideas, and subsequently this leads to a penetration by the thoughts of transference (the carriers of the unconscious wish) in some form of compromise through symptom formation. But from the moment that the suppressed thoughts are powerfully occupied by the unconscious wish-feeling and abandoned by the foreconscious occupation, they succumb to the primary psychic process and strive only for motor discharge; or, if the path be free, for hallucinatory revival of the desired perception identity. We have previously found, empirically, that the incorrect processes described are enacted only with thoughts that exist in the repression. We now grasp another part of the connection. These incorrect processes are those that are primary in the psychic apparatus; _they appear wherever thoughts abandoned by the foreconscious occupation are left to themselves, and can fill themselves with the uninhibited energy, striving for discharge from the unconscious_. We may add a few further observations to support the view that these processes designated "incorrect" are really not falsifications of the normal defective thinking, but the modes of activity of the psychic apparatus when freed from inhibition. Thus we see that the transference of the foreconscious excitement to the motility takes place according to the same processes, and that the connection of the foreconscious presentations with words readily manifest the same displacements and mixtures which are ascribed to inattention. Finally, I should like to adduce proof that an increase of work necessarily results from the inhibition of these primary courses from the fact that we gain a _comical effect_, a surplus to be discharged through laughter, _if we allow these streams of thought to come to consciousness_. The theory of the psychoneuroses asserts with complete certainty that only sexual wish-feelings from the infantile life experience repression (emotional transformation) during the developmental period of childhood. These are capable of returning to activity at a later period of development, and then have the faculty of being revived, either as a consequence of the sexual constitution, which is really formed from the original bisexuality, or in consequence of unfavorable influences of the sexual life; and they thus supply the motive power for all psychoneurotic symptom formations. It is only by the introduction of these sexual forces that the gaps still demonstrable in the theory of repression can be filled. I will leave it undecided whether the postulate of the sexual and infantile may also be asserted for the theory of the dream; I leave this here unfinished because I have already passed a step beyond the demonstrable in assuming that the dream-wish invariably originates from the unconscious.[2] Nor will I further investigate the difference in the play of the psychic forces in the dream formation and in the formation of the hysterical symptoms, for to do this we ought to possess a more explicit knowledge of one of the members to be compared. But I regard another point as important, and will here confess that it was on account of this very point that I have just undertaken this entire discussion concerning the two psychic systems, their modes of operation, and the repression. For it is now immaterial whether I have conceived the psychological relations in question with approximate correctness, or, as is easily possible in such a difficult matter, in an erroneous and fragmentary manner. Whatever changes may be made in the interpretation of the psychic censor and of the correct and of the abnormal elaboration of the dream content, the fact nevertheless remains that such processes are active in dream formation, and that essentially they show the closest analogy to the processes observed in the formation of the hysterical symptoms. The dream is not a pathological phenomenon, and it does not leave behind an enfeeblement of the mental faculties. The objection that no deduction can be drawn regarding the dreams of healthy persons from my own dreams and from those of neurotic patients may be rejected without comment. Hence, when we draw conclusions from the phenomena as to their motive forces, we recognize that the psychic mechanism made use of by the neuroses is not created by a morbid disturbance of the psychic life, but is found ready in the normal structure of the psychic apparatus. The two psychic systems, the censor crossing between them, the inhibition and the covering of the one activity by the other, the relations of both to consciousness--or whatever may offer a more correct interpretation of the actual conditions in their stead--all these belong to the normal structure of our psychic instrument, and the dream points out for us one of the roads leading to a knowledge of this structure. If, in addition to our knowledge, we wish to be contented with a minimum perfectly established, we shall say that the dream gives us proof that the _suppressed, material continues to exist even in the normal person and remains capable of psychic activity_. The dream itself is one of the manifestations of this suppressed material; theoretically, this is true in _all_ cases; according to substantial experience it is true in at least a great number of such as most conspicuously display the prominent characteristics of dream life. The suppressed psychic material, which in the waking state has been prevented from expression and cut off from internal perception _by the antagonistic adjustment of the contradictions_, finds ways and means of obtruding itself on consciousness during the night under the domination of the compromise formations. _"Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo."_ At any rate the interpretation of dreams is the _via regia_ to a knowledge of the unconscious in the psychic life. In following the analysis of the dream we have made some progress toward an understanding of the composition of this most marvelous and most mysterious of instruments; to be sure, we have not gone very far, but enough of a beginning has been made to allow us to advance from other so-called pathological formations further into the analysis of the unconscious. Disease--at least that which is justly termed functional--is not due to the destruction of this apparatus, and the establishment of new splittings in its interior; it is rather to be explained dynamically through the strengthening and weakening of the components in the play of forces by which so many activities are concealed during the normal function. We have been able to show in another place how the composition of the apparatus from the two systems permits a subtilization even of the normal activity which would be impossible for a single system. [1] _Cf._ the significant observations by J. Bueuer in our _Studies on Hysteria_, 1895, and 2nd ed. 1909. [2] Here, as in other places, there are gaps in the treatment of the subject, which I have left intentionally, because to fill them up would require on the one hand too great effort, and on the other hand an extensive reference to material that is foreign to the dream. Thus I have avoided stating whether I connect with the word "suppressed" another sense than with the word "repressed." It has been made clear only that the latter emphasizes more than the former the relation to the unconscious. I have not entered into the cognate problem why the dream thoughts also experience distortion by the censor when they abandon the progressive continuation to consciousness and choose the path of regression. I have been above all anxious to awaken an interest in the problems to which the further analysis of the dreamwork leads and to indicate the other themes which meet these on the way. It was not always easy to decide just where the pursuit should be discontinued. That I have not treated exhaustively the part played in the dream by the psychosexual life and have avoided the interpretation of dreams of an obvious sexual content is due to a special reason which may not come up to the reader's expectation. To be sure, it is very far from my ideas and the principles expressed by me in neuropathology to regard the sexual life as a "pudendum" which should be left unconsidered by the physician and the scientific investigator. I also consider ludicrous the moral indignation which prompted the translator of Artemidoros of Daldis to keep from the reader's knowledge the chapter on sexual dreams contained in the _Symbolism of the Dreams_. As for myself, I have been actuated solely by the conviction that in the explanation of sexual dreams I should be bound to entangle myself deeply in the still unexplained problems of perversion and bisexuality; and for that reason I have reserved this material for another connection. IX THE UNCONSCIOUS AND CONSCIOUSNESS--REALITY On closer inspection we find that it is not the existence of two systems near the motor end of the apparatus but of two kinds of processes or modes of emotional discharge, the assumption of which was explained in the psychological discussions of the previous chapter. This can make no difference for us, for we must always be ready to drop our auxiliary ideas whenever we deem ourselves in position to replace them by something else approaching more closely to the unknown reality. Let us now try to correct some views which might be erroneously formed as long as we regarded the two systems in the crudest and most obvious sense as two localities within the psychic apparatus, views which have left their traces in the terms "repression" and "penetration." Thus, when we say that an unconscious idea strives for transference into the foreconscious in order later to penetrate consciousness, we do not mean that a second idea is to be formed situated in a new locality like an interlineation near which the original continues to remain; also, when we speak of penetration into consciousness, we wish carefully to avoid any idea of change of locality. When we say that a foreconscious idea is repressed and subsequently taken up by the unconscious, we might be tempted by these figures, borrowed from the idea of a struggle over a territory, to assume that an arrangement is really broken up in one psychic locality and replaced by a new one in the other locality. For these comparisons we substitute what would seem to correspond better with the real state of affairs by saying that an energy occupation is displaced to or withdrawn from a certain arrangement so that the psychic formation falls under the domination of a system or is withdrawn from the same. Here again we replace a topical mode of presentation by a dynamic; it is not the psychic formation that appears to us as the moving factor but the innervation of the same. I deem it appropriate and justifiable, however, to apply ourselves still further to the illustrative conception of the two systems. We shall avoid any misapplication of this manner of representation if we remember that presentations, thoughts, and psychic formations should generally not be localized in the organic elements of the nervous system, but, so to speak, between them, where resistances and paths form the correlate corresponding to them. Everything that can become an object of our internal perception is virtual, like the image in the telescope produced by the passage of the rays of light. But we are justified in assuming the existence of the systems, which have nothing psychic in themselves and which never become accessible to our psychic perception, corresponding to the lenses of the telescope which design the image. If we continue this comparison, we may say that the censor between two systems corresponds to the refraction of rays during their passage into a new medium. Thus far we have made psychology on our own responsibility; it is now time to examine the theoretical opinions governing present-day psychology and to test their relation to our theories. The question of the unconscious, in psychology is, according to the authoritative words of Lipps, less a psychological question than the question of psychology. As long as psychology settled this question with the verbal explanation that the "psychic" is the "conscious" and that "unconscious psychic occurrences" are an obvious contradiction, a psychological estimate of the observations gained by the physician from abnormal mental states was precluded. The physician and the philosopher agree only when both acknowledge that unconscious psychic processes are "the appropriate and well-justified expression for an established fact." The physician cannot but reject with a shrug of his shoulders the assertion that "consciousness is the indispensable quality of the psychic"; he may assume, if his respect for the utterings of the philosophers still be strong enough, that he and they do not treat the same subject and do not pursue the same science. For a single intelligent observation of the psychic life of a neurotic, a single analysis of a dream must force upon him the unalterable conviction that the most complicated and correct mental operations, to which no one will refuse the name of psychic occurrences, may take place without exciting the consciousness of the person. It is true that the physician does not learn of these unconscious processes until they have exerted such an effect on consciousness as to admit communication or observation. But this effect of consciousness may show a psychic character widely differing from the unconscious process, so that the internal perception cannot possibly recognize the one as a substitute for the other. The physician must reserve for himself the right to penetrate, by a process of deduction, from the effect on consciousness to the unconscious psychic process; he learns in this way that the effect on consciousness is only a remote psychic product of the unconscious process and that the latter has not become conscious as such; that it has been in existence and operative without betraying itself in any way to consciousness. A reaction from the over-estimation of the quality of consciousness becomes the indispensable preliminary condition for any correct insight into the behavior of the psychic. In the words of Lipps, the unconscious must be accepted as the general basis of the psychic life. The unconscious is the larger circle which includes within itself the smaller circle of the conscious; everything conscious has its preliminary step in the unconscious, whereas the unconscious may stop with this step and still claim full value as a psychic activity. Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; _its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs_. A series of dream problems which have intensely occupied older authors will be laid aside when the old opposition between conscious life and dream life is abandoned and the unconscious psychic assigned to its proper place. Thus many of the activities whose performances in the dream have excited our admiration are now no longer to be attributed to the dream but to unconscious thinking, which is also active during the day. If, according to Scherner, the dream seems to play with a symboling representation of the body, we know that this is the work of certain unconscious phantasies which have probably given in to sexual emotions, and that these phantasies come to expression not only in dreams but also in hysterical phobias and in other symptoms. If the dream continues and settles activities of the day and even brings to light valuable inspirations, we have only to subtract from it the dream disguise as a feat of dream-work and a mark of assistance from obscure forces in the depth of the mind (_cf._ the devil in Tartini's sonata dream). The intellectual task as such must be attributed to the same psychic forces which perform all such tasks during the day. We are probably far too much inclined to over-estimate the conscious character even of intellectual and artistic productions. From the communications of some of the most highly productive persons, such as Goethe and Helmholtz, we learn, indeed, that the most essential and original parts in their creations came to them in the form of inspirations and reached their perceptions almost finished. There is nothing strange about the assistance of the conscious activity in other cases where there was a concerted effort of all the psychic forces. But it is a much abused privilege of the conscious activity that it is allowed to hide from us all other activities wherever it participates. It will hardly be worth while to take up the historical significance of dreams as a special subject. Where, for instance, a chieftain has been urged through a dream to engage in a bold undertaking the success of which has had the effect of changing history, a new problem results only so long as the dream, regarded as a strange power, is contrasted with other more familiar psychic forces; the problem, however, disappears when we regard the dream as a form of expression for feelings which are burdened with resistance during the day and which can receive reinforcements at night from deep emotional sources. But the great respect shown by the ancients for the dream is based on a correct psychological surmise. It is a homage paid to the unsubdued and indestructible in the human mind, and to the demoniacal which furnishes the dream-wish and which we find again in our unconscious. Not inadvisedly do I use the expression "in our unconscious," for what we so designate does not coincide with the unconscious of the philosophers, nor with the unconscious of Lipps. In the latter uses it is intended to designate only the opposite of conscious. That there are also unconscious psychic processes beside the conscious ones is the hotly contested and energetically defended issue. Lipps gives us the more far-reaching theory that everything psychic exists as unconscious, but that some of it may exist also as conscious. But it was not to prove this theory that we have adduced the phenomena of the dream and of the hysterical symptom formation; the observation of normal life alone suffices to establish its correctness beyond any doubt. The new fact that we have learned from the analysis of the psychopathological formations, and indeed from their first member, viz. dreams, is that the unconscious--hence the psychic--occurs as a function of two separate systems and that it occurs as such even in normal psychic life. Consequently there are two kinds of unconscious, which we do not as yet find distinguished by the psychologists. Both are unconscious in the psychological sense; but in our sense the first, which we call Unc., is likewise incapable of consciousness, whereas the second we term "Forec." because its emotions, after the observance of certain rules, can reach consciousness, perhaps not before they have again undergone censorship, but still regardless of the Unc. system. The fact that in order to attain consciousness the emotions must traverse an unalterable series of events or succession of instances, as is betrayed through their alteration by the censor, has helped us to draw a comparison from spatiality. We described the relations of the two systems to each other and to consciousness by saying that the system Forec. is like a screen between the system Unc. and consciousness. The system Forec. not only bars access to consciousness, but also controls the entrance to voluntary motility and is capable of sending out a sum of mobile energy, a portion of which is familiar to us as attention. We must also steer clear of the distinctions superconscious and subconscious which have found so much favor in the more recent literature on the psychoneuroses, for just such a distinction seems to emphasize the equivalence of the psychic and the conscious. What part now remains in our description of the once all-powerful and all-overshadowing consciousness? None other than that of a sensory organ for the perception of psychic qualities. According to the fundamental idea of schematic undertaking we can conceive the conscious perception only as the particular activity of an independent system for which the abbreviated designation "Cons." commends itself. This system we conceive to be similar in its mechanical characteristics to the perception system P, hence excitable by qualities and incapable of retaining the trace of changes, _i.e._ it is devoid of memory. The psychic apparatus which, with the sensory organs of the P-system, is turned to the outer world, is itself the outer world for the sensory organ of Cons.; the teleological justification of which rests on this relationship. We are here once more confronted with the principle of the succession of instances which seems to dominate the structure of the apparatus. The material under excitement flows to the Cons, sensory organ from two sides, firstly from the P-system whose excitement, qualitatively determined, probably experiences a new elaboration until it comes to conscious perception; and, secondly, from the interior of the apparatus itself, the quantitative processes of which are perceived as a qualitative series of pleasure and pain as soon as they have undergone certain changes. The philosophers, who have learned that correct and highly complicated thought structures are possible even without the coöperation of consciousness, have found it difficult to attribute any function to consciousness; it has appeared to them a superfluous mirroring of the perfected psychic process. The analogy of our Cons. system with the systems of perception relieves us of this embarrassment. We see that perception through our sensory organs results in directing the occupation of attention to those paths on which the incoming sensory excitement is diffused; the qualitative excitement of the P-system serves the mobile quantity of the psychic apparatus as a regulator for its discharge. We may claim the same function for the overlying sensory organ of the Cons. system. By assuming new qualities, it furnishes a new contribution toward the guidance and suitable distribution of the mobile occupation quantities. By means of the perceptions of pleasure and pain, it influences the course of the occupations within the psychic apparatus, which normally operates unconsciously and through the displacement of quantities. It is probable that the principle of pain first regulates the displacements of occupation automatically, but it is quite possible that the consciousness of these qualities adds a second and more subtle regulation which may even oppose the first and perfect the working capacity of the apparatus by placing it in a position contrary to its original design for occupying and developing even that which is connected with the liberation of pain. We learn from neuropsychology that an important part in the functional activity of the apparatus is attributed to such regulations through the qualitative excitation of the sensory organs. The automatic control of the primary principle of pain and the restriction of mental capacity connected with it are broken by the sensible regulations, which in their turn are again automatisms. We learn that the repression which, though originally expedient, terminates nevertheless in a harmful rejection of inhibition and of psychic domination, is so much more easily accomplished with reminiscences than with perceptions, because in the former there is no increase in occupation through the excitement of the psychic sensory organs. When an idea to be rejected has once failed to become conscious because it has succumbed to repression, it can be repressed on other occasions only because it has been withdrawn from conscious perception on other grounds. These are hints employed by therapy in order to bring about a retrogression of accomplished repressions. The value of the over-occupation which is produced by the regulating influence of the Cons. sensory organ on the mobile quantity, is demonstrated in the teleological connection by nothing more clearly than by the creation of a new series of qualities and consequently a new regulation which constitutes the precedence of man over the animals. For the mental processes are in themselves devoid of quality except for the excitements of pleasure and pain accompanying them, which, as we know, are to be held in check as possible disturbances of thought. In order to endow them with a quality, they are associated in man with verbal memories, the qualitative remnants of which suffice to draw upon them the attention of consciousness which in turn endows thought with a new mobile energy. The manifold problems of consciousness in their entirety can be examined only through an analysis of the hysterical mental process. From this analysis we receive the impression that the transition from the foreconscious to the occupation of consciousness is also connected with a censorship similar to the one between the Unc. and the Forec. This censorship, too, begins to act only with the reaching of a certain quantitative degree, so that few intense thought formations escape it. Every possible case of detention from consciousness, as well as of penetration to consciousness, under restriction is found included within the picture of the psychoneurotic phenomena; every case points to the intimate and twofold connection between the censor and consciousness. I shall conclude these psychological discussions with the report of two such occurrences. On the occasion of a consultation a few years ago the subject was an intelligent and innocent-looking girl. Her attire was strange; whereas a woman's garb is usually groomed to the last fold, she had one of her stockings hanging down and two of her waist buttons opened. She complained of pains in one of her legs, and exposed her leg unrequested. Her chief complaint, however, was in her own words as follows: She had a feeling in her body as if something was stuck into it which moved to and fro and made her tremble through and through. This sometimes made her whole body stiff. On hearing this, my colleague in consultation looked at me; the complaint was quite plain to him. To both of us it seemed peculiar that the patient's mother thought nothing of the matter; of course she herself must have been repeatedly in the situation described by her child. As for the girl, she had no idea of the import of her words or she would never have allowed them to pass her lips. Here the censor had been deceived so successfully that under the mask of an innocent complaint a phantasy was admitted to consciousness which otherwise would have remained in the foreconscious. Another example: I began the psychoanalytic treatment of a boy of fourteen years who was suffering from _tic convulsif_, hysterical vomiting, headache, &c., by assuring him that, after closing his eyes, he would see pictures or have ideas, which I requested him to communicate to me. He answered by describing pictures. The last impression he had received before coming to me was visually revived in his memory. He had played a game of checkers with his uncle, and now saw the checkerboard before him. He commented on various positions that were favorable or unfavorable, on moves that were not safe to make. He then saw a dagger lying on the checker-board, an object belonging to his father, but transferred to the checker-board by his phantasy. Then a sickle was lying on the board; next a scythe was added; and, finally, he beheld the likeness of an old peasant mowing the grass in front of the boy's distant parental home. A few days later I discovered the meaning of this series of pictures. Disagreeable family relations had made the boy nervous. It was the case of a strict and crabbed father who lived unhappily with his mother, and whose educational methods consisted in threats; of the separation of his father from his tender and delicate mother, and the remarrying of his father, who one day brought home a young woman as his new mamma. The illness of the fourteen-year-old boy broke out a few days later. It was the suppressed anger against his father that had composed these pictures into intelligible allusions. The material was furnished by a reminiscence from mythology, The sickle was the one with which Zeus castrated his father; the scythe and the likeness of the peasant represented Kronos, the violent old man who eats his children and upon whom Zeus wreaks vengeance in so unfilial a manner. The marriage of the father gave the boy an opportunity to return the reproaches and threats of his father--which had previously been made because the child played with his genitals (the checkerboard; the prohibitive moves; the dagger with which a person may be killed). We have here long repressed memories and their unconscious remnants which, under the guise of senseless pictures have slipped into consciousness by devious paths left open to them. I should then expect to find the theoretical value of the study of dreams in its contribution to psychological knowledge and in its preparation for an understanding of neuroses. Who can foresee the importance of a thorough knowledge of the structure and activities of the psychic apparatus when even our present state of knowledge produces a happy therapeutic influence in the curable forms of the psychoneuroses? What about the practical value of such study some one may ask, for psychic knowledge and for the discovering of the secret peculiarities of individual character? Have not the unconscious feelings revealed by the dream the value of real forces in the psychic life? Should we take lightly the ethical significance of the suppressed wishes which, as they now create dreams, may some day create other things? I do not feel justified in answering these questions. I have not thought further upon this side of the dream problem. I believe, however, that at all events the Roman Emperor was in the wrong who ordered one of his subjects executed because the latter dreamt that he had killed the Emperor. He should first have endeavored to discover the significance of the dream; most probably it was not what it seemed to be. And even if a dream of different content had the significance of this offense against majesty, it would still have been in place to remember the words of Plato, that the virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life. I am therefore of the opinion that it is best to accord freedom to dreams. Whether any reality is to be attributed to the unconscious wishes, and in what sense, I am not prepared to say offhand. Reality must naturally be denied to all transition--and intermediate thoughts. If we had before us the unconscious wishes, brought to their last and truest expression, we should still do well to remember that more than one single form of existence must be ascribed to the psychic reality. Action and the conscious expression of thought mostly suffice for the practical need of judging a man's character. Action, above all, merits to be placed in the first rank; for many of the impulses penetrating consciousness are neutralized by real forces of the psychic life before they are converted into action; indeed, the reason why they frequently do not encounter any psychic obstacle on their way is because the unconscious is certain of their meeting with resistances later. In any case it is instructive to become familiar with the much raked-up soil from which our virtues proudly arise. For the complication of human character moving dynamically in all directions very rarely accommodates itself to adjustment through a simple alternative, as our antiquated moral philosophy would have it. And how about the value of the dream for a knowledge of the future? That, of course, we cannot consider. One feels inclined to substitute: "for a knowledge of the past." For the dream originates from the past in every sense. To be sure the ancient belief that the dream reveals the future is not entirely devoid of truth. By representing to us a wish as fulfilled the dream certainly leads us into the future; but this future, taken by the dreamer as present, has been formed into the likeness of that past by the indestructible wish. 
48593	----	As the Goose Flies _Written & Illustrated_ _By_ Katharine Pyle Published by Little, Brown & Co. Boston * * * * * _Copyright, 1901_, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY _All rights reserved_ PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA * * * * * Contents Chapter Page I BEHIND THE BOOKCASE 9 II BEYOND THE WALL 15 III THE FIVE LITTLE PIGS AND THE GOAT 24 IV UP IN THE CLOUD-LAND 45 V THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN LITTLE DWARFS 58 VI THE GREAT GRAY WOLF 77 VII THE MAGIC LAMP 89 VIII BLUEBEARD'S HOUSE 108 IX BEYOND THE MIST 120 X IN THE HOUSE OF THE QUEERBODIES 137 XI THE PRINCESS GOLDENHAIR 156 XII HOME AGAIN 175 * * * * * List of Illustrations "Then away he flew toward the dark line of forest" _Frontispiece_ "Ellen stood at the nursery window" _page_ 9 "Presently she shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at the sky" _page_ 16 "Mother Goose told her how to do it" _page_ 22 "Ellen thought they were the cunningest little things for dolls that she had ever seen" _page_ 34 "As her eyes grew used to the gloom she saw a very large and very ugly goat" _page_ 40 "The gander and Ellen began to let the rope slip" _face page_ 55 "There stood a little dwarf holding a great wooden spoon" _page_ 59 "It beat and buffeted them with its wings and hissed so piercingly in their ears that they did not know what was after them" _face page_ 73 "Close to her was an enormous gray wolf" _page_ 78 "Spread its wings and flew up over his head" _page_ 86 "The slaves threw themselves down before her" _face page_ 91 "A terrible black genie appeared before her" _page_ 100 "Ellen climbed upon the gander's back and she then could just reach the knocker" _page_ 112 "Ellen raised the horn to her lips and blew" _page_ 122 "Still he kept whispering in its ear" _page_ 126 "An enormous dragon lay stretched in a rocky defile" _page_ 129 "She saw a tall man oddly dressed in green and yellow" _page_ 138 "Timidly the little girl took the white hand" _face page_ 154 "The fairy knelt before her and lifted the edge of the cloak" _page_ 162 "The fairy drew his sword and pointed it at her" _face page_ 171 "Ellen put her ear against the golden wall" _page_ 179 Tailpiece _page_ 183 * * * * * [Illustration] _Chapter One_ _Behind the Bookcase_ Ellen stood at the nursery window looking out at the gray sky and the wet, blowing branches of the trees. It had been raining and blowing all day. The roof pipes poured out steady waterfalls; the lilacs bent over, heavy with the rain. Up in the sky a bird was trying to beat its way home against the wind. But Ellen was not thinking of any of these things. She was thinking of the story that her grandmother had forgotten again. Ellen's grandmother was very old; so old that she often called Ellen by the names of her own little children; children who had grown up or died years and years ago. She was so old she could remember things that had happened seventy years before, but then she forgot a great many things, even things that had occurred only a few minutes before. Sometimes she forgot where her spectacles were when they were pushed back on her head. Most of all she forgot the stories she tried to tell Ellen. She would just get to a very interesting place, and then she would push her spectacles up on her forehead and look vaguely about her. "I forget what came next," she would say. Very often Ellen could help her out. "Why, granny, don't you know the little bear's voice was so thin and shrill it woke little Silverhair right up? Then when she opened her eyes and saw the three bears--" or, "Why then when Jack saw the giant was fast asleep he caught up the golden hen--" and so the little girl would go on and finish the story for the old grandmother. But there was one story that Ellen could not finish for her grandmother. It was a story that she had never heard; at least she had never heard the end of it. It was about a little princess named Goldenlocks who always had to wear a sooty hood over her beautiful shining hair, and who had a wicked stepmother. Again and again the grandmother had begun the story, but she never got further in it than where Goldenlocks was combing her hair at night all alone in the kitchen. When she had reached that point she would stop and say, "Ah, what was it that came next? What was it, little Clara? Can't you remember? It's so long since I have told it." Clara was the name by which the grandmother oftenest called Ellen. Sometimes the little girl tried to make up an ending to the story, but always the grandmother would shake her head. "No, no," she would cry, "that's not it. What was it? What was it? Ah, if I could but remember!" She worried and fretted so over the story that Ellen was always sorry to have her begin it. Sometimes the old grandmother almost cried. Now as the child stood looking through the window at the rainy world outside, her thoughts were upon the story, for the grandmother had been very unhappy over it all day; Ellen had not been able to get her to talk or think of anything else. The house was very quiet, for it was afternoon. The mother was busy in the sewing-room, grandmother was taking a nap, and nurse was crooning softly to the baby in the room across the hall. Ellen had come to the nursery to get a book of jingles; she was going to read aloud to her mother. Now as she turned from the window it occurred to her that she would put the bookcase in order before she went down to the sewing-room. That was just the thing to do on a rainy day. She sat down before the shelves and began pulling the books out, now and then opening one to look at a picture or to straighten a bookmarker. The nursery walls were covered with a flowered paper, and when Ellen had almost emptied the shelves she noticed that the paper back of them was of a different color from that on the rest of the room. It had not faded. The blue color between the vines looked soft and cloudlike, too, and almost as though it would melt away at a touch. Ellen put her hand back to feel it. Instead of touching a hard, cold wall as she had expected, her hand went right through between the vines as though there were nothing there. Ellen rose to her knees and put both hands across the shelf. She found she could draw the vines aside just as though they were real. She even thought she caught a glimpse of skies and trees between them. In haste she sprang to her feet and pushed the bookcase to one side so that she could squeeze in behind it. She caught hold of the wall-paper vines and drew them aside, and then she stepped right through the wall and into the world beyond. _Chapter Two_ _Beyond the Wall_ It was not raining at all beyond the wall. Overhead was a soft, mild sky, neither sunny nor cloudy. Before her stretched a grassy green meadow, and far away in the distance was a dark line of forest. Just at the foot of the meadow was a little house. It was such a curious little house that Ellen went nearer to look at it. It was not set solidly upon the ground, but stood upon four fowls' legs, so that you could look clear under it; and the roof was covered with shining feathers that overlapped like feathers upon the back of a duck. Beside the door, hitched to a post by a bridle just as a horse might be, was an enormous white gander. While Ellen stood staring with all her eyes at the house and the gander, the door opened, and a little old woman, in buckled shoes, with a white apron over her frock and a pointed hat on her head, stepped out, as if to look about her and enjoy the pleasant air. Presently she shaded her eyes with her hand and looked up at the sky; then she looked at the meadows, and last her eyes fell upon the little girl who stood there staring at her. The old woman gazed and gazed. [Illustration] "Well, I declare," she cried, "if it isn't a little girl! What are you doing here, child?" "I'm just looking at your house." "But how did you happen to come here?" "I came through the nursery wall. I didn't know it was soft before." A number of queer-looking little people had come out from the house while Ellen and the old woman were talking, and they gathered about in a crowd and stared so hard and were so odd-looking that Ellen began to feel somewhat shy. They kept coming out and coming out until she wondered how the house could have held them all. There was a little boy with a pig in his arms, and now and then the pig squealed shrilly. There was a maid with a cap and apron, and her sleeves were so full of round, heavy things that the seams looked ready to burst. A pocket that hung at her side was full, too, and bumped against her as she walked. She came quite close to Ellen, and the child could tell by the smell that the things in her sleeves and pocket were oranges. There was one who Ellen knew must be a king by the crown on his head; he was a jolly-looking fellow, and had a pipe in one hand and a bowl in the other. There were big people and little people, young people and old; and a dish and spoon came walking out with the rest. But what seemed almost the strangest of all to Ellen was to see an old lady come riding out through the door of the house on a white horse. "I wonder where she keeps it," thought the little girl to herself. "I shouldn't think it would be very pleasant to have a horse in the house with you." The old lady's hands were loaded with rings, and as the horse moved there was a jingling as of bells. The words of a nursery rhyme rang through Ellen's head in time to the jingling:-- "_Rings on her fingers And bells on her toes, She shall have music Wherever she goes._" "Why," she cried, "it's the old lady of Banbury Cross. And"--she looked around at the crowd--"why, I do believe they're _all_ out of Mother Goose rhymes." "Of course they are," said the little old woman with the pointed hat. "What did you suppose would live in Mother Goose's house?" "And are you Mother Goose?" asked Ellen. "Yes, I am. Don't you think I look like the pictures?" "But--but--I didn't know you were alive. I thought you were only a rhyme." "Only a rhyme! Well, I should think not. How do you suppose there could be rhymes unless there was something to make them about?" "And all the rest, too," said Ellen dreamily, looking about her. "'Tom, Tom, the piper's son,' and 'Dingty, Diddlety, my mammy's maid,' and 'Old King Cole'--why, they're _all_ alive. How queer it seems! I wonder if the stories are alive, too." "Yes, just as alive as we are." "And the story grandmother forgot--oh, _do_ you suppose I could find that story?" "The story she forgot!" answered Mother Goose thoughtfully. "What was it about?" "Why, that's it; I don't know. Nobody knows only just grandmother, and she's forgotten." Mother Goose shook her head. "If every one's forgotten it, I'm afraid it must be at the house of the Queerbodies. That's where they send all the forgotten stories; then they make them over into new ones." "Couldn't I go there to find it?" "I don't know. I've never been there myself. Of course, they wouldn't let me in. But you're a real child. Maybe you could get in. Only, how would you get there? It's a long, long journey, through the forest and over hills and streams." "I don't know," said Ellen. "I've never journeyed very far; only just to Aunt Josephine's." Mother Goose knitted her brows and began to think hard. Suddenly her face brightened. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lend you my gander; and he'll carry you there in short order, however far it is." "Oh, thank you, but I don't believe I could ride him! I'd fall off, I'm sure." "No, you wouldn't. He goes as smoothly as a dream goose, and almost as fast. Yes, I'll lend him to you. But there's one thing I'd like you to do for me in return when you reach the house of the Queerbodies." "What is that?" "I'd like you to ask about a rhyme I used to have. I think they must have it there, for I've lost it; and if it hasn't been made over yet, perhaps you could manage to get it for me." "What's its name?" asked Ellen. "Well, it hasn't any name, but it looks like this:-- "_Johnnykin learned to ride the wind, But he wouldn't let any one on behind. But the wind ran away With Johnny one day, And that wasn't such fun I have heard him say._" Ellen promised to do what she could about it, and then Mother Goose sent Little Boy Blue to unhitch the gander and bring him to them. Ellen felt rather nervous about mounting him, but Mother Goose told her how to do it. [Illustration] Then the white gander spread his wings. The wind rustled through them like the sound made by the leaves of a book when they are turned. Up, up rose the gander as smoothly as a bubble rises through the air and then away he flew toward the dark line of forest that Ellen saw in the distance. _Chapter Three_ _The Five Little Pigs and the Goat_ On and on went the white gander so smoothly and swiftly that the country slipped away beneath just as the leaves of a book do when they slip from under your finger too fast for you to see the print or pictures. "I wonder what that is," said Ellen as a spot of red shone out among the green beneath. The gander stayed his wings so that Ellen could look. It was a little red brick house. Around it were other houses that looked as though they were built of sods. They had chimneys and from two or three of these chimneys thin lines of smoke rose through the still air. As the gander hovered above them from a knoll a little way beyond there suddenly sounded a shrill and piteous squeaking. "Oh, what's that?" cried Ellen. "It must be a pig and I'm afraid some one is hurting it. Oh dear!" "Do you want to go and see mistress?" asked the gander. Ellen said she did, so the gander turned in that direction. When they reached the knoll they found that it was indeed a pig that was making the noise, but Ellen could not see why it was shrieking so. It sat there all alone under an oak tree and with its pink nose lifted to the sky and its eyes shut it wept aloud. The tears trickled down its bristly cheeks. Suddenly it stopped squeaking, and getting up began quietly hunting about for acorns, and craunching them as though it found them very good. "What's the matter, you poor little pig?" asked Ellen, looking down at it from the gander's back. She had not spoken with any idea of receiving any answer. The little pig looked up when he heard her voice. As soon as he saw her he sat down and began squeaking so shrilly that Ellen felt like covering her ears. "Week! Week! Week!" he cried. "Can't find my way home." For a moment Ellen was so surprised at hearing the pig speak that she could not say anything. Then she asked, "Where do you live?" But the pig did not hear her. "Where do you live?" she repeated in a louder tone; then she shouted, "Hush!" so loudly that the little pig stopped short with his mouth half open and the tears still standing in his eyes. "Where do you live?" she asked for the third time. "I live over by the wood in the little sod house next to the brick one," answered the little pig. "Well, isn't that it there?" and Ellen pointed to the sod houses over which she had just flown. The little pig looked. "Why, so it is," he cried. Then curling up his little tail he trotted away in that direction. The white gander flew beside him and Ellen talked as they went. "Why didn't you see it before?" "I was coming home from market with my brother; he's quite a big pig; and I stopped to eat some acorns, so he said he wouldn't wait for me any longer, and he went on and that lost me." "But if you'd just looked you would have seen it." "I couldn't look because I was hunting for acorns, and then I began to cry, and then I hunted for some more acorns." It sounded so foolish, Ellen couldn't help laughing. "I think I'd better go home with you or you may get lost again," she said. Presently she asked, "How many brothers have you?" "Four," answered the pig. "One of them's going to have roast beef for dinner." Suddenly he sat down and began to cry again. "What in the world's the matter now?" asked Ellen in desperation. "Oweek! Oweek! Maybe he's eaten it all." "Well you'd better hurry home and see. If you keep on sitting here and crying, I know you won't get any." This thought made the little pig jump up and start toward home as fast as his short legs would carry him. When they reached the sod house next to the brick one another pig was standing in the doorway looking out. He was larger than Ellen's companion. He stared hard at the little girl and her gander, but when he spoke it was to the little pig. "You naughty little pig, why didn't you come home?" The little pig did not answer this question. "Has Middling finished his roast beef?" he asked. "There's some fat left." As the little pig hurried in through the door, Ellen asked of the other, "Is this your house?" "Yes," grunted the pig. Three other pigs had appeared in the doorway by this time. They all stared at the little girl. "It's a dear little house," said Ellen. "Would you like to look inside?" asked the largest pig. Ellen said she would. She slipped from the gander and the pigs made way for her to go in; but she only looked through the doorway, without entering. The littlest pig was seated at a table eating beef fat as fast as he could. Ellen did not think he ate very nicely. "It's a dear little house," she repeated. Then she looked about her. At the window of one of the other houses she caught a glimpse of a head. It looked like a cat's head. "Who live in all these other houses?" she asked. "Well, in that brick house lives another pig," answered the pig they called Middling. "Sometimes he comes to see us, but he doesn't have _very_ much to do with us, because he's in a story; a _real_ story you know, and we're only in a rhyme." "What story is he in?" asked Ellen. "The story of the wolf that huffed and puffed and blew the house in. He had two brothers, and one built a house of leaves and one built a house of straw, and the wolf came and blew their houses in and ate them up, but this one built his house of bricks, so when the wolf came to it--" "Oh, yes, I know that story," interrupted Ellen, for she had heard it so often she was rather tired of it. "Who lives in the house beyond that?" "The seven little kids. A wolf really did swallow them once, but their mother cut him open with her scissors while he was asleep and they all got out." "And who lives in the little furry house with the chimneys like pointed ears?" "An old cat. She's nothing but a rhyme. She's very particular, though. Why, one time she was just as _mad_ at her kittens, just because they lost some mittens she had knitted for them." So Middling went on talking of all the people who lived in the village, while Ellen listened and wondered. It seemed so strange she could hardly believe it was all true. "What fun you must have together!" she said at last. The pigs looked at each other and grunted. "We would have," said a slim pig that the others called Ringling, "if it wasn't for an old goat that lives in a cave down at the end of the street." "Oh, but he's a naughty one," broke in Thumbie, the fattest pig. "He's always doing mischief and playing tricks on us." "That was a bad trick he played on you, Thumbie," said Middling. "What was that?" asked the little girl. "Well, we were all away except Thumbie, and he was asleep in the doorway, and the old goat saw him and brought a paint pot and painted his back so it looked like a big fat face lying there. So when we came home we didn't know what it was, and we were scared, but Thumbie woke up and began to get up, and Ringling she squeaked, 'Run! run! Big face is after us,' so we all began to run. Thumbie he saw us all running, so he got scared too, and he ran after us, and the faster we ran the faster he ran. After a while he tripped and fell, and then he began to cry and we knew who it was." "Oh, yes, he's as mean as mean can be," went on Middling. "Why, one time when our raspberries were ripe old Shave-head came here--" "Who's Shave-head?" interrupted Ellen. "Oh, he's the goat. Old Shave-head came here and asked if he couldn't have some of our raspberries, and we said yes he could if he'd give us a present, and he said he would, so he went home and brought a big pannikin and put it on the table. It was covered. "Then he went out in the garden and began to pick raspberries as fast as ever he could. "We all sat round and wondered what was in the pannikin. "Littlesie guessed it was acorns, and Thumbie thought it was apple parings, and I thought it was pancakes because it was in a pannikin." "And what was it?" asked Ellen, very much interested. "Well, it was a joke," said Middling slowly. "He'd fixed up a sort of big jumping-jack inside, and when we took off the lid it jumped out at us and said, 'Woof!' It scared us so we all squeaked and jumped back in our chairs, and the chairs upset and down we came, _clatterly-slam-bang_!" Ellen could not help laughing at that. "He painted all our dolls, too," said Fatty, "and almost spoiled them." "Have you dolls?" cried Ellen in surprise. [Illustration] "Oh, yes, indeed. I'll show them to you," and Thumbie ran into the house to get them. When he brought them out Ellen thought they were the cunningest little things for dolls that she had ever seen. They were little wooden pigs just like the real pigs themselves only very small. But they were painted in the funniest way. One was bright purple with a yellow nose, and one was pea-green with red legs, another was sky-blue spotted all over with pink, and the other two were just as funny-looking. After Ellen had looked at them she asked, "Did the goat paint them that way?" "Yes, he did, and I think it's real mean." It was Middling who answered. "What are some of the other tricks he plays?" Middling thought awhile. "I don't remember any more." "There was that Fourth-o'-July trick he played on the mother of the seven kids," suggested Ringling. "Oh, yes. That was mean too; she's so good. She bakes us cookies sometimes and then she gives the old goat some. She's always good to him and nobody likes him either." "What was the trick?" "He took torpedoes and put them all down the path at the Mother Goat's. It was a gravel path, and she thought the torpedoes were just part of it. Fourth-o'-July morning she came out to get a pail of water and when she struck a torpedo with her hard hoof it went off, bang! It scared her so she jumped up in the air, and when she came down it was on some more torpedoes. Bang! bang! they went. Every time she made a leap and came down some more torpedoes went off. Mother Goat was so scared she went to bed for all the rest of the day, and it was Fourth-o'-July, too. I just wish we could drive him away." "So do we," cried all the other pigs. "Then we'd be happy. He's just an ugly old baldhead, anyway." "I never saw a bald goat," said Ellen. "His master shaved him," said Ringling, "he was so bad." "Why? What did he do?" "Well, his master had three sons, and he sent them one at a time to take the goat out to pasture. Every time before the boy brought the goat home he would ask, 'Goat, have you had enough?' And the goat would answer: "'_I am satisfied quite; No more can I bite._' Then the boy would bring him home and put him in the stable. But the father always wanted to be sure his goat had had enough, so he would go out himself and say, 'Goat have you had enough to-day?' Then it would answer: "'_I only jumped about the fields, And never found a bite._' It made the father so angry to think his sons should have treated the goat that way that he drove them away from home." "I know," Ellen interrupted. "Then when the father found out that the goat had deceived him and made him send his sons away--" "He shaved the goat's head and drove it away with a yard-stick," cried Middling, raising his voice. He wanted to tell the story himself. "Then it hid in a bear's cave--" "I know." "And the bear was afraid to go home, for he could just see the goat's eyes shining in the cave and he didn't know what it was, and he was afraid to go in; but a bee said it would see, so it went in and stung the goat on the head and then the goat jumped out of the cave and ran till it came here, and I do wish somebody would take it away." "I would," said Ellen, "if I knew where to take it." She was not afraid of the goat, for she had a pet one at home that drew a little wagon. Littlesie, who had finished his roast beef and had come to the door, looked frightened. "You couldn't," he cried. "Why Baldhead would butt you right over if you tried to touch him." "Mistress," said the white gander, "I know how you could make the goat go away." "How?" asked Ellen. Then the gander told his plan, while Ellen and all the five pigs listened. "Good, good," cried the pigs when they had heard it, and they clapped their hoofs and leaped up into the air. Ellen, too, thought it a good plan and said she would do everything as the gander told her. The pigs showed her where the goat lived, and then they ran back home, for the gander said it would be better for Ellen and him to go to see the goat by themselves. It was in a sort of a cave under a hillock that he lived. The cave had but one window and that was only a hole through the earth, but it had a doorway and a wooden door. There Ellen knocked and a rough voice within asked, "Who is that knocking at my door?" And Ellen answered, "Some one who never was here before." Again the rough voice spoke: "_Then lift the latch that I may see Who dares to come and knock for me._" Then Ellen lifted the latch and after a moment's hesitation pushed open the door and stepped inside. [Illustration] At first it seemed so dark in the cave after the brightness outside that she could see nothing, but as her eyes grew used to the gloom she saw that one end of the cave was almost filled with straw, and upon this was sitting a very large and very ugly goat. His hair was rough and shaggy; his head was shaved and his little eyes looked at Ellen fiercely from under his curving horns. "What do you mean by coming and disturbing me here in my cave?" he asked. His voice was so very harsh that for a moment Ellen was rather frightened, but she remembered her pet goat at home and spoke up bravely: "If you please, I've come to ask you whether you won't go away and find some other place to live." "_Go!_" cried the goat, half rising. "Me go?" "Yes," answered Ellen. "You see, you tease and bother the animals that live here so much that they all want you to go, and I told the pigs I would come and tell you." "Then you can tell them," howled the goat in a rage, "that I'll never go. Have I sent three sons packing from their father's house and frightened a bear from his cave to be ordered out of my house at last by some pigs?" "I don't know," said Ellen, "but you'll have to go anyway." "I won't go," howled the goat. "Yes, you'll have to," said Ellen. "But I won't," howled the goat. Then Ellen did what the gander had told her to do. She put her hands to her mouth and buzzed into them like a bee. The goat started up as though he had been shot. Ever since he had been stung out of the bear's cave there was nothing in the world that he feared like a bee. He began to shiver and shake, and his bald head turned quite pale, "Oh don't sting me," he cried. "Please don't, and I'll do whatever you wish." "Then come with me," said Ellen, "and I won't hurt you." "What are you going to do with me," asked the goat quite meekly, getting up and coming to her. "I don't know just yet, but you can't stay here any longer. I'll try to find a good home for you somewheres." Then she fastened a stout twine, that the pigs had given her, about the goat's neck, and led him forth. The animals in the village had heard from the pigs how Ellen had gone to try to get the old goat to go away, and they were all standing at their doors watching. They had expected to see Ellen and the gander come running from the cave with the old goat butting them. How surprised they were to see their enemy come out trotting meekly at Ellen's heels, following wherever she chose to lead it. They all murmured together of their surprise but they were still too much afraid of the goat to shout or show the delight they felt. Ellen nodded shyly to the animals as she walked down the street. When she reached the pigs' house they were all watching for her. Middling ran out and pushed something into her hand. "It's a present for you," he whispered. Then he ran back to join the others, but he was so glad the goat was going that he could not help jumping up into the air and squeaking as he ran. The present he had given Ellen was the prettiest of the little wooden pigs; the one that was painted sky-blue with pink spots. _Chapter Four_ _Up in the Cloud-Land_ Ellen walked on toward the forest, followed by the white gander and the goat. She wondered what she could do with the goat. She could not take it with her, and if she turned it loose it would go and worry some other animals, she was sure. Over toward the right at the very edge of the wood was a house. Ellen thought perhaps the people who lived there would take care of the goat, so she went over toward it. When she reached the house, she found it was a very comfortable one with a porch covered with vines, and a stable and out-buildings at the back. On the porch sat a gray-haired woman dressed in silk. She was looking up toward the quiet sky and listening to music that sounded from within the house. Ellen had never heard such beautiful music in all her life. As long as it sounded she could do nothing but stand and listen. Through the open window the little girl could see the top of a golden harp. She supposed some one must be playing on it, but she had never known before that any one in the world could play as beautifully as that. When the music stopped the woman on the porch stirred and sighed. Then she lowered her eyes and her gaze fell upon Ellen. She rose and came to the edge of the porch. "Good-morning, child," she said. "Did you want to see me?" "Yes," said Ellen. "I wanted to know whether you didn't want a goat." "Why, no," answered the woman with some surprise, "I don't. We have all the animals about the place that we want." "I wish you _would_ take this one," urged Ellen. "I don't know what to do with it." "How do you come to be leading it about the country? Is it your goat?" "Not exactly." She began to tell the woman all her story of how she had followed the little pig to the village; of how she had found the animals were being worried by the goat, and of how she had made it come away with her. It all sounded so strange, Ellen was half afraid the woman would not believe it. She did not seem to think it surprising, however; but when Ellen had ended she shook her head. "No," she said; "we wouldn't want such a mischievous animal about, I'm sure; but I'll ask my son." Then she called, "Jack, Jack!" In answer a tall, stout lad came to the door. "What is it, mother?" he asked. "Here's a child who has a goat, and she says this, that, and the other" (and the woman repeated Ellen's story). "Now the end of the matter is, she wants to leave the goat here with us." "I don't see how we can--" began the lad slowly, when suddenly he stopped and listened intently with a strange, scared look on his face. His mother caught him by the arm. "What is it, Jack?" she cried. "What are you listening to? It isn't--" Jack nodded without answering. And now all listened, and Ellen knew that a sound she had heard some minutes before, without particularly noticing it, was the voice of some one weeping and complaining. The voice was very faint and far off, but in the silence the little girl could make out the words, "I can't get down! I can't get down! Woe is me, but it's lonely up here." Ellen could not tell where the voice came from, but it seemed to come from the sky. There was silence for a moment and then it began again lamenting and weeping. The woman threw her silk apron over her head and began to rock herself and sob. "Oh, the poor thing! I can't stand it, Jack," she cried. "You've got to get her down somehow. You've _got_ to." The lad had turned somewhat pale. "What can I do, mother?" he asked. "You know I've tried everything I know, but there's never a ladder in all the world that would reach that far, and we have no more such beans as those." "Who is it?" asked Ellen in a whisper. The woman put down her apron and wiped her eyes. "It's that giant's poor wife," she answered. "You see it all came from Jack's selling our cow for a hatful of beans. I punished him well for it, but what good did that do? Then he planted them, and one of them grew so fast it grew right up to the sky." "Oh; Jack and the Beanstalk!" cried Ellen. "Then nothing would do but Jack must climb up and see what was at the top of the beanstalk. He climbed and he climbed," the woman went on, her voice broken by sobs, "until at last he climbed right up to the sky. There he found a wonderful country and a giant had a castle there. The giant was very rich. Besides his other treasures he had two bags of golden money, a golden hen, and a golden harp that played of itself. Perhaps you heard the harp playing as you came up." "Yes, I did," said Ellen. "All these things Jack managed to steal, one at a time, and brought them down the beanstalk with him. That was all right enough, for those things had once belonged to Jack's father, and had been stolen from him by the giant. Jack had no trouble in getting away with the bags of money and the hen, but the time he brought the harp the giant discovered him and chased him. He came clambering down the beanstalk after the lad, and would have killed us both without doubt, but Jack ran in and got a hatchet and chopped down the beanstalk. The giant, who was only half way down, fell with it and was killed, and I never was sorry for him a moment, for he was a wicked, cruel giant. The only thing I grieve about is his poor wife. She was so good to Jack, and now she is left there all alone in the giant's house, and no way of getting her down again, as far as I can see." The woman began to sob again more bitterly than ever. As for Jack, he turned away and, putting his arm against the wall, hid his face in it. The white gander plucked Ellen by the skirt. "Mistress, Mistress! Come with me a moment," he whispered. Ellen followed him a little apart. "I think I might help you to get the giant's wife down," he said. "How would you do it?" "Do you mount upon my back and I'll fly up there with you, for wings can fly where never ladder can reach. When we're once up there we'll soon find some way to get her down." Ellen was pleased with this advice, and returning to the porch she told Jack and his mother what the gander had said. They were filled with joy and gratitude. "If you only will get her down there is nothing you can ask for that we will not give you," cried the mother, "even the golden harp itself." Ellen seated herself upon the gander's back and gathered the reins into her fingers. Then the bird spread its strong wings and rose in the air. Up and up it flew. The sky seemed to grow nearer and Jack and his mother and the old bald goat shrank to mere specks below. Up, up, until Ellen grew dizzy with the height and closed her eyes. There was a slight jar, and then the gander spoke, "Mistress, we are here." Ellen unclosed her eyes and looked about her. She was in a wide gray country, such as she had never seen before. Everything about her was gray, the trees, the grass, the streams and sky--everything; and not far away was a gigantic, shadowy gray castle. Close to where the gander had alighted stood a little old woman with her hands clasped. She was looking at Ellen with wide, wondering eyes. Presently she came nearer, and timidly stretching out her hand she touched Ellen with her finger. "Are you real, or are you only a dream?" she asked. "Why I'm real, of course," said Ellen. The little old woman caught her by the arm and began to sob with joy. "Oh, I'm so glad, so glad," she cried. "I've been so lonely up here. You won't go away and leave me here alone again, will you?" "I've come to take you down," said Ellen. "Oh, that's better still. It's many a long and weary year since my foot has been on the dear green grass. But how will you get me down?" "I thought maybe the gander would carry us," said Ellen, but the white gander shook his head. "No, no; my wings are not strong enough for that, and if I should fall we would all three break our necks." "Then what shall we do?" "I have a rope," said the little old woman timidly. "While I have been up here alone I spent my time making it, and now I think it is long enough. I often thought I would try to lower myself to the earth by it, but I was afraid." Ellen looked at the gander. "That might do," he said. "Bring it here, and bring a basket, too; the biggest one you have." The little old woman hastened away, and in a short time returned with the rope and a basket. "Now tie them together," said the gander. Ellen and the old woman did this, seeing to it that the knots were tight. [Illustration] Then the white gander made Ellen twist the rope around a tree, so that the basket would hang down just over the cloudy edge of the sky country. "Now get in the basket," said the gander. The little old woman looked rather frightened, but she did as she was bid. Then the gander and Ellen began to let the rope slip, and as it slipped the basket slowly sank from sight. The weight did not seem great because of the rope's being twisted about the tree. Down and down went the basket and the little old woman in it; down and down went the rope. Ellen thought they never would get done letting it slip. At last there was no more pull on it. "She has reached the ground," said the gander. "And now, mistress, get on my back and we will fly down." "Oh, I'm almost afraid, we are so far up." "Shut your eyes and hold me by the neck." Ellen seated herself upon the gander's back. Then she clasped her arms about its neck and closed her eyes, as she was bid and then the gander flew out over the edge of the cloud-land. It took but a little while for them to find themselves once more down in front of the vine-covered porch, and there was the little old woman with Jack and his mother, and they were joyful indeed. "And now what will you have as a reward?" asked Jack's mother. "Will you have the golden harp? Or will you have a bag of golden money? Or what?" But Ellen said she would not take anything, for she did not wish to burden down the gander. All she asked was that they would keep the goat and be kind to him, and that they would tell her how to get to the Queerbodies' House. "The first I will gladly do," said Jack's mother, "but as to the second, all I can tell you is that the Queerbodies' House lies on the other side of the forest; but if you ask the forest folk, no doubt they can direct you how to go." "This you must take at least," cried the little old woman; "it is all I brought from the gray country." She lifted her skirt, and from the pocket of the petticoat beneath she drew out an egg. It was just the size of a hen's egg and shaped like one, but Ellen exclaimed with admiration when she saw it, for it was all of pure yellow gold, and shone like glass. "Take it," said the little old woman, "I have no need of it now, for Jack and his mother have promised that I shall live here with them and share all that they have. You see you can easily carry this." Ellen took the egg and thanked the little old woman. Then bidding good-by to all, she seated herself upon her gander, and away they flew so swiftly that almost immediately the vine-covered house was far away, and they found themselves at the edge of the deep, green forest. _Chapter Five_ _The House of the Seven Little Dwarfs_ "Mistress," said the gander, "you will have to alight now if we are to go in here in search of the forest folk. It would only bruise my wings for nothing if I tried to fly where the trees are so thick." "Very well," answered Ellen, stepping down from his back to the ground. "And I do believe," she added, "that I see a house now beyond those bushes. Don't you?" "Yes, I believe I do," said the gander. "Let us go over in that direction and see." A very short walk brought them to the house. It was a very cunning little house, with a door and windows just about large enough for a large child. Ellen went up to the door and knocked. She could hear some one rattling about inside and moving things around, but there was no answer to her rap, so she knocked again. [Illustration] A moment's silence followed, and then the door was suddenly and violently thrown open. There stood a little dwarf holding a great wooden spoon in his hand as though it were a club. His eyes had a scared look. "Who are you, and what do you want here?" he cried, in a voice that he tried to make very big and bold, though it trembled in spite of him. "I am Ellen," answered the little girl, "and I stopped here to ask if you could tell me the way to the Queerbodies' house." "Oh, is that all," said the dwarf with a sigh of relief. "I was afraid when you first knocked that you might be one of those bad underground dwarfs. But come in; come in. I don't know the way myself, but maybe one of my brothers may. They'll be here soon if you'll come in and wait a bit. I'm just cooking dinner for them." "Thank you," said Ellen. "May my gander come in too?" "Yes, yes; bring him in." As Ellen followed the dwarf into the house she looked about her and thought it was the very cunningest little house she had ever seen. In the middle of the room was a long low table set with seven wooden bowls, seven wooden forks, and seven wooden spoons. Around the table were seven little chairs just the right size for children or dwarfs. There were also a wooden dresser painted red, a dough-trough, a clock, and a settee; but everything was small. Ellen thought what fun it would be to keep house there. The only big thing in the room was a huge black pot that stood on the stove, and in which something was cooking. The dwarf was obliged to stand on a stool in order to reach over and stir it with his big spoon. "Porridge," he said looking over his shoulder at Ellen. Then he repeated in a tone of contempt, "_Porridge!_" Giving it a last stir he stepped down from the stool, and using all his strength he pushed the pot to the back part of the stove. Then he came and sat down opposite to Ellen. "I suppose you think porridge is a strange thing to have for dinner," he said, still speaking bitterly. "So do I. And to think I had a good dinner all ready and cooked just a little while ago!" "What became of it?" asked Ellen. "Why I just went a little way into the forest to see if my brothers were coming, and in that little time that I was away those bad underground dwarfs were here, and when I came back the meat was gone, and the potatoes were gone, and ashes were dropped in the soup, so it was fit for nothing but to be thrown out. Oh, they're bad ones, they are." "So then you cooked some porridge?" "It was the best I could do at this hour of the day. There'll be grumbling enough about it when my brothers come home. Those underground dwarfs are always up to some mischief or other. They weren't so much trouble--indeed they didn't trouble us at all as long as the good Bear Prince was about. They were too much afraid of him even if he was enchanted; but he broke the enchantment and married Snow-White and went to live in his castle, far away. Now the underground dwarfs have no one to be afraid of, and we daren't leave the house alone a minute or they're up to some mischief." Ellen sat staring at the dwarf. She knew the story of that Bear Prince very well. It was all about how he came to the house where Rose-Red and Snow-White lived and asked for shelter one bitter winter night. He was in the shape of a bear then because he had been enchanted by a wicked dwarf, but afterward he caught the dwarf and killed him, and then his bear-skin dropped from him. So he came back to his true shape of a handsome prince and married little Snow-White. Ellen knew the story almost by heart, but never before had she believed that it was really true. "And did you really see that enchanted Prince with your very own eyes?" she asked. "Oh, yes; we knew him well while he was a bear. Many and many a time has he lain there before that very stove snoring away. But after he once began going to the widow's house he stopped coming here. The widow was the mother of Snow-White and Rose-Red. "Perhaps it was just as well though, anyway. He might have frightened our own beautiful Snowdrop, for she was keeping house for us then." "Who was Snowdrop?" asked Ellen. "She was the daughter of a king, but she had a wicked stepmother who hated her. The stepmother gave her to a huntsman bidding him kill her, but the man had pity on the poor child. He helped her to escape and then killed a deer and took its heart to the wicked stepmother, pretending it was Snowdrop's heart. Then Snowdrop came here to live with us. We sheltered her and loved her, but the wicked stepmother hunted her out and came here to take the poor child's life." "Oh, I know," cried Ellen eagerly. "It's the story of the magic mirror." But the dwarf went on as though he had not heard her. His thoughts were all of those past days when Snowdrop had made their little house bright with her beauty. "Yes, she came here, that wicked Queen. She came in disguise while we were away, pretending to have laces and stays for sale. We had warned Snowdrop to beware of all strangers, but the child was so good and innocent herself that she could not think harm of any one. "She talked to the stepmother and looked at her wares without knowing her. She bought a beautiful pair of stays, too. Then the wicked Queen said she would lace them up for her. She laced them, and suddenly drew the cord so tight that Snowdrop could not breathe, but fell down as though dead. "She was not dead, however, and when we came home we cut the cord so she could breathe, and so we saved her. "Once the wicked one brought a poisoned comb and gave it to Snowdrop, and as soon as it was put in her hair Snowdrop fell down as though dead. Then too we saved her, drawing out the comb. "But the third time we could do nothing. It was a piece of a poisoned apple that the stepmother brought her. Snowdrop took a bite of the apple and it lodged in her throat. When we came home, there she lay on the floor as though dead and we could not tell what it was that ailed her. "We put her in a crystal casket, meaning to keep her always. "But a prince came by that way and saw Snowdrop lying there motionless. Though she could not move nor speak he loved her so dearly that when he begged for her we could not refuse him. We gave her to him and he carried her away, but on the journey the apple jolted out and she opened her eyes and spoke and lived. "She is a great queen now, but she has never forgotten us. Every month she comes to see us in her great chariot drawn by six white horses and with out-riders. Oh, you should see her then, so grand and beautiful. But she is not proud. She sits and eats with us just as she used to do. Yes, and she cooked us a dinner, too, one time. Cooked it with her own royal hands, laughing all the while." "Oh, I _wish_ I could see her," cried Ellen. The dwarf sat smiling to himself and rubbing one hand over the hairy back of the other. Suddenly he started from his thoughts. "There come my brothers," he cried. Gathering up the wooden bowls he carried them over to the porridge pot and began to fill them. There was a sound of footsteps and voices outside, and presently in through the doorway came six more sturdy dwarfs, all looking as like the one by the stove as one pea is like another. They all stopped and stared at Ellen. "Who is this?" asked one of them. "Oh, it's just a child from the real world," said the dwarf by the stove. "Nothing to be afraid of. She just stopped here to ask her way to the Queerbodies' house, but I don't know how to tell her." "I know the way," said one of the new-comers. "But sit down, child; you must have a bite and a sup with us before you go." "Thank you, I don't think I'm hungry," said Ellen. "What's this?" cried another dwarf, eying the porridge that had been set before him. "Where's our good dinner of soup and meat?" While the stay-at-home told his story of the lost dinner the looks of the other dwarfs grew blacker and blacker. "See now," cried one of them, striking his hairy fist upon the table; "'tis just as I tell you; those underground dwarfs grow more bold and mischievous every day. There's nothing for it but for two of us to stay at home, one to cook and one to act as guard." "But, brother, how can we do that?" asked another. "Our hands are few enough as it is, for the work to be done." "If there were but some way to frighten them off," said another mournfully. "But I don't see how we could do that." "Why don't you make a scarecrow to frighten them away? That's the way we do at home," Ellen suggested. "What is a scarecrow?" asked another dwarf hopefully, but when Ellen told him he shook his head. "No, no; they're so quick they'd guess in a minute that we were trying to trick them, and that it couldn't move." "Well, I know what we'll do," cried Ellen. "We won't make a scarecrow; we'll make a scare-gander. We'll dress the gander up like a figure and it shall sit there quietly, and then, when the dwarfs come in to look at it, it can fly up and beat them with its wings so they'll never dare to come back again." The gander stretched its great wings up and beat them loudly. "Yes, yes," it hissed. "That might do," said the dwarfs; "but first we'll have our dinners, for we have been working hard and we're hungry." So, as soon as they had finished eating their porridge they dressed the white gander. Ellen put her hat on its head and her shoes on its feet. They tied an apron that had belonged to Snowdrop about his neck, and put on a veil that hung down over his beak. Then they set him in a chair, and he looked so funny that Ellen could hardly help laughing. "Now we'll all go back to our work," said the oldest dwarf, "and when those evil ones count that all seven of us have gone they'll soon be here to see what mischief they can do about the house." So the dwarfs all put on their caps, and, shouldering their drills and picks, off they started, leaving the white gander sitting in the chair. As for Ellen, she hid in the dresser, keeping the door just a crack open so she could see out. She had only been in there a few minutes when there was a noise at the window and an evil looking dwarf peered in. He peered all about the kitchen and then he cried, "It's all right. They've all gone and left the house to take care of itself. They'll be sorry enough they left it when they come back. Quick! In, all of us, and see what mischief we can do." With that he dropped back from the window, and in a minute a great crowd of dwarfs came tumbling in through the door. They were not as large as the good dwarfs, but they looked so spiteful and evil that Ellen was frightened and wished she and her white gander were well out of it. "What mischief shall we begin with?" cried one. "Let's pull all the pots and pans out of the dresser first," said another, "and see what ones we can break." "Yes, yes," cried still others. Several of them started over toward the dresser where Ellen was hidden, and if they had found her there it would have gone hard with her, but at the same moment one of them cried, "Oh, look here! Just see this puppet they've dressed up. Did they think they could scare us with that? Let's tear it to pieces before we do anything else." All the dwarfs rushed pell-mell toward the chair where the gander sat, dressed in Ellen's hat and shoes and with a veil over its face. It sat as still as a stone until they were close upon it. Then up rose the great white gander with a hiss. It spread its wide strong wings, and before the dwarfs could escape it had brought them down with such a blow that three of the dwarfs were knocked head over heels. The rest cried out in terror at the sight, and hastened towards the door, but the goose was after them. [Illustration] It beat and buffeted them with its wings and hissed so piercingly in their ears that they did not know what was after them. Out through the door they went and away over stump and through brier with the great white gander after them. The forest re-echoed with their harsh cries of fear. The good dwarfs heard it, and came hastening home to learn how Ellen's plot had succeeded. Just after they came in, back came the gander, and if ever a bird laughed it was laughing then. "Mistress, did I not beat them well?" "You did indeed," said Ellen, and all the dwarfs agreed with a loud voice. Then Ellen showed them how to take a pillow and dress it up as the gander had been dressed. They set it in a chair and moved the chair in front of the window, so that when you look at it from the outside it was exactly as though it were the gander itself sitting there. "I think they'll be afraid ever to come near the house again as long as that is there," said Ellen. "They will indeed," cried all the dwarfs. Then the child again begged them to tell her which way she was to go to find the Queerbodies' house. "That's easily told," answered the oldest dwarf. "All you have to do is to watch the leaves and follow the way they turn, and that will soon bring you where you want to go." "How queer!" cried Ellen. "With us the leaves turn every which way, as the wind happens to blow." "I don't see much use in that," said the dwarf. "I don't see how you ever find your way through the woods if that's the way they do. Come, look here." He led Ellen out under the trees in front of the house. There was no breath of air and the leaves all hung motionless. "Now take a few steps," said the dwarf. Ellen did so and immediately all the leaves stirred and began pointing toward the right, like wise little green fingers. "That's your way," said the dwarf. "Only remember and follow the direction they point out and you can't lose it." Ellen thanked the kindly dwarfs, and she and her gander started briskly off toward the right. On and on they went, and after a while they passed close to where there was a great heap of rocks; something kept bobbing about back of this heap, now appearing, now disappearing. At first Ellen thought it was a big bird, but as she went nearer the gander spoke: "Mistress, it's one of those wicked dwarfs." Ellen stopped short, feeling rather frightened, but now the dwarf climbed on top of the rock and called to her: "Child, child, did you see a little house in the woods as you came along?" "Yes, I did," answered Ellen. "And did you stop there?" "Yes, I did." "And did you see anything of the big doll that beats you with flails?" He meant the gander and its wings. "Oh, yes," said Ellen; "I saw that too." "And is it still there?" "No, they haven't that one, but they have another doll half as big again. It sits by the window, and if you'll go and look you'll see it there now." "No, no," cried the dwarf. "If that's true we'll never go near the house again," and away he went, hopping over the rocks and disappearing in a big crack, and Ellen saw no more of him or his kind. _Chapter Six_ _The Great Gray Wolf_ On and on went Ellen and the gander, following the pointing of the leaves, and all the while the forest kept growing deeper and greener and lonelier. There were no flowers now as there had been at first, but here and there on the trees or ground grew wonderful fungi. Some were yellow as gold, some were red as blood, and still others were streaked and spotted as beautifully as sea-shells. The only flowers to be seen were the wax-white "Indian-pipes" and there were whole clumps of them. Ellen had just stooped to pick some, when suddenly the gander hissed, and at the same moment a harsh voice spoke so close to her ear that it made her start, "Good morning!" [Illustration] Ellen glanced around, and there, standing close to her, was an enormous gray wolf, ragged and scarred. The sound of his paws had been so muffled by the moss that she had not heard him coming. "Good morning," answered Ellen, her heart beating a little faster at sight of him. "Where are you going this pleasant day?" asked the wolf. "I am on my way to the Queerbodies' house." "The Queerbodies! I never heard of them. Are they good to eat?" said the wolf. Then he added hastily, "No, no; I don't mean that. I meant are they pleasant, merry people?" "I don't know," answered Ellen. "I've never seen them, and I'm not sure whether I can find them at all. But if I mean to get to their house to-day I think I'd better be going; so good-bye," and she began to walk on, for she did not like to be there in that lonely spot with a great gray wolf for company. The wolf, however, trotted along beside her. "Not good-bye," he said, "for I have nothing to do just now, so I'll just go with you part of the way for the sake of the walk and the company." Ellen said nothing, but quickened her steps, while the gander and the gray wolf kept up with her, the one on one side, the other on the other. Presently the wolf began again. "Now about those Queerbodies, it's curious I never heard of them, for I thought I knew everybody hereabouts: the dwarfs, and Little Red Riding Hood, and the three bears, and--" he hesitated for a moment, and then added with a gulp, "and the woodsmen; but no Queerbodies that I ever heard tell of." "Who lives there?" asked Ellen, pointing to a little house she had just caught sight of in a dank and lonely glade. It had occurred to her that she might stop there for a glass of water and so rid herself of the wolf's company. The wolf grinned, as though he guessed her thought. "Nobody lives there now. Queer looking house isn't it?" Ellen thought it was indeed a queer looking house. "Why, what is it made of?" she asked. "Bread and cake and barley sugar. But wouldn't you like to see it closer? You might eat some of it, too, if you like, for no one ever visits it now except the wind and rain." Ellen walked over toward the house, while the wolf stopped a moment to bite out a burr that had stuck between his toes. "I'll be with you in a moment," he called after her. "Mistress," said the gander stretching up its neck to whisper in Ellen's ear, "that old Gray-coat means no good to us." "He frightens me," Ellen whispered back, "but what can I do?" "He isn't looking now. Let's slip inside the house and lock the door." Ellen glanced back over her shoulder. The wolf was still busy over the burr, but it was some distance to the house. "Do you think we can get there before him?" she asked. "We can but try." "Come, then," and Ellen began to run toward the house; while the gander ran beside her, helping himself along with his wings. At the noise they made, the wolf looked up, and then with a howl of rage came tearing after them with long swift bounds. By the time Ellen and the gander were on the threshold of the house he was at the foot of the steps, but, turning, the little girl slammed the door and shot the bolt into place. With a howl of rage, the wolf flung himself against it so that it shook again, and Ellen and the gander trembled as they stood within; but the good door held, the bolt was true, and the wolf might do his worst; they were safe from him for the time at least. Finding that he could do nothing, old Gray-coat sat down panting, his fierce eyes fixed upon the house. "Wait a bit," he muttered to himself. "You have escaped me this time, but I have as much time to spend as you, and how will it be when you have to come out again?" Ellen, who heard this, looked at the gander. "What he says is true," she whispered. "We are safe now, but we can't stay here; and how are we to get away without his catching us?" "Let us think about that, perhaps we can contrive some way," the gander made answer. He began to look about. The inside of the house was not built of cake and bread like the outside, but of wood, and the furniture was wooden also. At one end of the room was a great iron cage with a door and a padlock and key to fasten it. The cage was open at the top, but the bars were too high for any one but a monkey to climb out over them. "I believe I know exactly what house this is," Ellen cried suddenly. "It's the house where Hänsel and Gretel came when they were lost in the forest; the house where the wicked witch lived. And this is the cage where she kept Hänsel. You know she put him in the cage and shut the door and fastened him in." Stooping, she picked up some hard red bits of shell from the floor. "Crabs' claws! Yes, now I know it's the same. Don't you know the story says, 'the best of food was cooked for poor Hänsel, but Gretel received nothing to eat but crabs' claws.'" The gander walked into the cage and looked it over carefully. "Mistress, I believe I can get rid of the wolf," he said. "How is that?" "In this way," and the gander began to tell his scheme, while the little girl listened eagerly. "Yes, yes," she cried; "that might do. And I'm to hide in the cupboard while you open the door. Yes, and then to slip out and fasten the lock. Yes, I'll do it." After they had their plan all arranged Ellen did as she said. She tiptoed across the floor and hid herself in the closet. The gander waited until she was safely settled and all was quiet, and then he waddled over to the house door and peeped out through the keyhole. There at the foot of the steps sat the wolf, his red tongue hanging out over his long white teeth, his fierce eyes fixed on the house. Suddenly with a rattle and noise the gander unbolted the door and flung it open. Like a flash the wolf bounded up and into the house. He gave a glance about him. Ellen was not to be seen, because she was hiding in the cupboard, but there was the plump white gander. It had flown away from the door as if in a great fright and into the cage. "Just where it is easy to catch you!" cried the wolf, as he bounded into the cage in pursuit of it, every tooth in his head showing. The gander, however, was not to be so easily caught as the wolf had thought. In a moment it spread its wings and flew up over his head, while at the same time Ellen slipped out of the cupboard and shut the cage door, turning the key, tick-a-lock. There was the wolf safely fastened behind the iron bars, but the gander flew out over the top of the cage and alighted on the floor at Ellen's side. "Come, Mistress," he said, "the way is clear now, and we can journey on as soon as we choose." [Illustration] [Illustration] How the wicked old wolf did howl and threaten! But it was no good. Ellen and the gander let him make all the noise he chose, but they left him there. All they would do was to promise to send the first woodsman they met in the woods to take charge of the cruel old Gray-coat. They had scarcely travelled beyond sound of his howls when they met a huntsman with horn and gun journeying along under the trees. He greeted the two, and would have passed on, but Ellen stopped him. "If you please," said she, "there's a wolf fastened in a cage in the little cake house back there. If you live near here would you mind taking care of him and seeing that he gets food and water?" "A wolf!" cried the huntsman. "Who caught it?" "This gander and I," and Ellen began telling the huntsman all about their meeting it, and what a narrow escape they had had. The huntsman could not wonder enough. "I know that old wolf well enough," he said. "You have had a narrow escape, child. That is the same wolf that came so near to eating up Red Riding Hood." The man then went on to say that he would get some of his fellows and they would bind the wolf and carry him to King Thrush-beard, who was making a collection of wild animals. He begged the little girl to come with him as the king would be sure to give a large reward for such a large, fierce beast, but Ellen said she had no time. She must hasten on if she wished to reach the Queerbodies' house that day. "Then at least accept this horn," and the huntsman unslung the one that he carried at his shoulder. "It is all I have to offer you, but it may serve to remind you of your adventure." Ellen thought the horn very pretty, and was delighted. She thanked the huntsman, and then, bidding him good-by, she and her gander started forward once more upon their journey. _Chapter Seven_ _The Magic Lamp_ "Mistress, I think we must be coming to the end of the forest," said the gander. "The trees are not so close together, and I seem to see a light beyond." "I hope we are," answered the little girl. "Once we are out from under the trees I can use my wings and then we'll get along faster," the gander added. Even sooner than he had thought, they came to the edge of the forest, where the open country began. It seemed very bright after the leafy shade where they had travelled so long. Before them was the gentle slope of a hill, and away beyond it stood a castle that shone like gold against the sky. "Oh see," cried Ellen, "a castle. Let's go nearer and look at it." "Very well," answered the gander. "Seat yourself upon my back and we'll soon be there." As the little girl was settling herself between his wings they heard a far-off sound of trumpets, and saw a number of people coming out of the castle. Even at that distance she could tell by the way the sunlight glittered on their clothing that they must be very magnificently dressed. There were horses, too, with nodding plumes. They all seemed to be forming in a procession, and then with another sound of trumpets they began to move away in an opposite direction. "Oh hurry," cried Ellen, almost falling off the gander in her eagerness. "It must be a parade." The gander spread his wings and flew as fast as he could, but when he reached the castle the procession had disappeared. No one was to be seen but two slavesstanding at the foot of the steps before the door. They were very magnificent, being dressed all in cloth of gold, and wearing about their necks collars of diamonds and rubies. [Illustration] "Was that a parade that just went away?" asked Ellen, as the gander alighted softly upon the palace steps. The slaves seemed struck with terror and amazement at her sudden appearance. They threw themselves down before her hiding their eyes. "Do not harm us," they cried. "We are only poor slaves." "Why I'm not going to hurt you," said Ellen. "I couldn't, anyway. I'm only a little girl." "But surely you must be a magician to ride through the air in this way," and one of the slaves raised his head a little. Ellen felt like laughing. "No, I'm not anything but a child, and this is Mother Goose's gander." The slaves now rose from the ground with a relieved look, "And you are really not a magician?" "No, of course not. But what was all that we saw? We thought it was a parade." "It was our master Aladdin with his slaves and guards riding away to pay a visit to his father-in-law, the sultan." "_Aladdin!_ Do you mean the Aladdin who has the wonderful lamp?" "Even the same." "Oh, I do wish I could see the lamp," and the child clasped her hands in her eagerness. "I never believed it was true before. Don't you think he would let me look at it?" "He is away now, as we have just told you." "But couldn't you let me see it? I've always wondered what it looked like, and thought what I'd wish for, if I had it." The slaves looked at her suspiciously and began to whisper together. Then one of them turned to her again and spoke, "I cannot promise," he said, "but if you will be pleased to follow me it may be that the soldiers will allow you to see the lamp." The gander plucked at Ellens sleeve. "Mistress, Mistress, do not follow him," he whispered. "I don't know why, but I fear danger." Ellen, however, was too eager to heed what the gander said. It was too wonderful a chance to lose; the chance of really seeing--perhaps even handling--the lamp of Aladdin. So she drew her sleeve away, and as the slaves led the way she followed them into a great hallway all of gold, set with patterns of rubies and emeralds. The hall was empty with no one in sight except themselves, though Ellen could hear a distant sound of music and singing from some other part of the castle. Along the hall they went, and up a flight of golden steps. After this there was another hall and more stairs and winding ways, until Ellen felt completely lost. At last they came to a barred and bolted door before which stood two soldiers with drawn swords in their hands. As they saw Ellen and the gander coming up the hall they crossed their swords before the door. "Who are these whom you have dared to bring hither?" they cried to the slaves. The slaves made a deep reverence. "If you please," answered one of them, "it is one who says she is a child, and who comes begging to see the lamp of Aladdin." Ellen began to feel somewhat timid, the soldiers looked at her so frowningly and suspiciously. "If you don't mind," she began, "I thought I would like to see it, but if it's too much trouble, of course it doesn't matter." The foremost slave advanced with great respect and began whispering to the soldiers. They frowned more and more heavily as they listened. At last as the slave finished whispering they lowered their swords. "Very well," said one of them to Ellen, "you shall see the lamp." He made a motion and the slaves sprang forward and unbolted and unbarred the door. At a gesture from the soldier Ellen stepped inside. On the instant, and before the gander had time to follow her in, the door was shut behind her with a crash, and she heard the bolts and bars falling into place. With a sudden fear she turned and tried to open the door. It was fast. They had made her a prisoner. "Let me out! Let me out!" she called, but there was no answer. "It's nothing but a fairy tale," whispered the child to herself. "Nothing but a fairy tale, so of course they can't hurt me, but I wish my gander was in here, too. I wonder why they shut the door, anyway. They said I might come in." Then a sudden suspicion struck her. "I wonder if they thought I had come here to steal the lamp?" Breathing rather fast, she turned and looked about her. The room where she stood was very large and high. Like the halls it was made entirely of gold, and the walls were polished until it seemed as though they must be too slippery for even a fly to crawl upon them. There was no door except the one by which she had come in, and though there were two windows they were very narrow, and set so high in the wall that it would have needed a long ladder to climb up to them. Ellen walked all around the room. There seemed no possible way of getting out. Half way up one of the walls and far out of reach was a little shelf set with rubies and diamonds and other precious stones, and upon this shelf stood a battered, rusty old lamp. As Ellen's eyes fell upon it she felt sure it must be the magic lamp. Suddenly she was startled by something coming against the opening of one of the windows and darkening it. There was a sound of brushing and rustling, and her gander flew down beside her. "Here I am, Mistress," he said. "Oh dear, Gander," cried Ellen, "I'm so glad you've come! Why did they shut the door?" "Well, from the talk I heard around me, they were afraid you wanted to steal that lamp up there on the shelf and run away with it, and that's why they locked you in here. I don't see why any one should want to steal that lamp though. Why it's not even gold,--nothing but copper." "No, but then I think it must be Aladdin's magic lamp," Ellen explained. She found that the gander had never even heard of the lamp and the genie, so she told him all about it. She told him of its being a magic lamp, and of how, if any one rubbed it a great genie would appear who would do whatever he was told to do by the one who held the lamp. "Well!" said the gander, drawing a long breath as she finished. "No wonder they thought you wanted to steal it, if it's like that. Why it's as good as a wishing stone." "But of course I didn't want to take it," cried Ellen indignantly. "Why didn't they ask me, and I'd have told them I didn't." "Well, the great thing now is how are you to get out?" said the gander. "Why don't you take me up on your wings and fly out of the window?" The gander looked up doubtfully at the narrow slit where he had just come in. "I'm afraid I can't. That window was a tight fit even for me, and I never could get you through." "Then what _am_ I to do?" The gander thought for awhile. "Did you say that if you held that lamp and rubbed it a genie would come?" "Yes, I suppose he would." "And he would do whatever you bade him?" "Yes." "Then the thing for you to do is to rub the lamp and when the genie comes to tell him to set you free." Ellen felt frightened at the idea of calling up a great black genie. "But I couldn't reach the lamp away up there, even if I wanted to," she said. "No trouble about that," and the gander spread his wings, "I can help you there." So saying, he flew up to where the shelf was. As he reached it he struck at the lamp with his wing, but he missed it; again he tried, and this time he just grazed it with his feathers; a third time and then he struck it fairly and the lamp fell clattering and rattling and rolled across the golden floor to Ellen's feet. Trembling, the little girl picked it up. "Rub it; rub it, Mistress," said the gander. "I hear the soldiers coming." But Ellen hesitated. "I'm afraid," she cried. "Quick," and the gander flapped his wings in his excitement. "If they catch you again you may never get away." Then Ellen brushed her thumb across the side of the lamp. [Illustration] Immediately, and with a sound like a thunder-clap a terrible black genie appeared before her. "What wouldst thou have?" he cried in a great voice. "I am ready to obey thee as thy slave and the slave of all those who have the lamp in their hands." The little girl was so frightened at the sight of this terrible being she had called up that she stood there unable to move. "Speak, Mistress!" cried the gander, "for here come the soldiers." And indeed at that moment the door was thrown open and the soldiers burst into the room. They had heard the noise of the genie's coming and were afraid Ellen was getting away. But as they saw a terrible black being crouching there before the little girl, they shrank back in terror. The next instant, however, one of the boldest of them sprang forward to tear the lamp from Ellen's hands. At that she found her voice. "I wish," she cried, "to be in a place of safety with my gander." Immediately, before she could catch her breath, she found herself being whisked through the air by the genie. Then before she could catch her breath she was set gently upon the ground. When she could look about her she saw that she and the gander were standing on a grassy plain some distance from the castle. She still held the lamp in her hands, and the genie was still with her. "Hast thou any further commands?" asked he, in his terrible voice. "No," answered Ellen, trembling violently. "Then I will go," said the genie, and he began to fade away. "Oh, wait a minute," the child called after him. "What shall I do with the lamp?" "Wouldst thou not wish to keep it?" "Why no, it isn't mine." "Shall I return it to the castle?" "Oh no, Mistress," the gander interrupted, "they might rub it and tell the genie to bring us back and keep us prisoners." "Then destroy it," the genie suggested. "But what would become of Aladdin and his castle and everything if I did?" "They would stay as they are. And moreover if the lamp were destroyed he would no longer be tormented with fears lest an enemy should steal it and send me to destroy all he has." "Very well," said Ellen, "I'll do it. But I can't break the lamp. How _can_ I destroy it?" "I will cause the earth to open,--to open down to the great fires below. Then throw the lamp in and the flames will destroy it." "Very well," said the little girl. The genie struck his foot upon the ground and muttered some magic words. Immediately the ground was rent open, and down in this chasm could be heard the roaring of the under fires. "Make haste," he cried. "Cast the lamp into the flames or they will devour thee." Hardly knowing what she did Ellen threw the lamp from her down into the fiery chasm. Immediately there was a loud roaring like thunder. The earth and sky seemed to shake and the castle to tremble from its foundation to its highest turret. A mist came before Ellen's eyes. When it cleared away all was still. The chasm had closed and the distant castle was still in its place. The gander, which had crouched down in its terror with its head and neck stretched along the ground, arose slowly and looked about it. The genie had become as thin as smoke, but he was standing there dark and gigantic as before. "I am free! I am free!" he cried in a joyful voice. "At last I may come and go as I choose, no longer a slave of the lamp. It is you, child, who have freed me, and I am not ungrateful, as you shall soon see. If I have made Aladdin rich and powerful, I will make you ten times more so. You shall have a castle even more magnificent than his with slaves and treasures and horses and chariots." Ellen gasped. "Oh no," she said, "I don't think I want all that. I have to go home pretty soon, and I don't believe I'd like to have to live in a castle." "But you could still go home," said the genie. "You could go home in such magnificence as you never dreamed of, with outriders and trumpeters and dressed in cloth of gold and precious stones." But the thought of such magnificence frightened Ellen. "No, no," she repeated. "I'm afraid my mother wouldn't like it." The genie looked disappointed. "Well," he said, "Of course, it's just as you like." He was still fading away and growing more mistlike. "I wish," Ellen exclaimed, "that Aladdin knew what had become of the lamp." "Thy wish shall be granted," answered the genie. "I will myself tell him that it has been destroyed. And now farewell, and remember if thou shouldst ever wish to have that castle thou needst only clap thy hands three times and call upon the genie of the lamp to fulfil his promise and it shall be thine." The genie had grown so transparent now that it was only by straining her eyes that Ellen could still see his shape as one sees an empty glass. Then he was gone entirely. "Thank you very much," she called after him. She waited a moment and as there was no answer she called again, "Thank you!" Then she turned to the gander. "I think he's gone," she said, adding in a whisper, "and I'm glad he has, because he _did_ frighten me a little, he was so very big and black." The gander made no answer except to ask Ellen if she were ready to go. He seemed anxious for them to be on their way once more, so the little girl mounted on his back and they were soon flying swiftly along. "I hope," said Ellen after a silence, "that Aladdin won't mind about the lamp being burned up." "I should think he would be glad," replied the gander. "He must have been terribly afraid all the time that enemies would get it and make the genie destroy him and his castle." "Yes, that is true," said Ellen; then she added after another silence, "And how glad that poor genie was that I had set him free at last." _Chapter Eight_ _Bluebeard's House_ "Mistress, do you see that gray mist before us?" said the gander. "I think we have reached the border of the Fairy Tale Country, and beyond that mist lies the country of the Queerbodies." Ellen drew rein, and the gander allowed himself to sink slowly to the ground. There he folded and settled his wings, and he and his mistress stood looking at the wall of mist before them. It was like the mist that hangs over streams in the early morning. They could not tell at all how high it was. Sometimes it looked quite low, and sometimes it seemed to reach up to the sky itself so that they could not tell where one ended and the other began. "Look," cried Ellen in a whisper. "Do you suppose that is one of the Queerbodies?" A gigantic shadow had appeared upon the wall of mist. It moved with such tremendous strides that it was out of sight in a moment. And now they saw other shadows. Some seemed to be bending over and taking up handfuls of earth and examining them as if in search of something. Others seemed to reach up as if after invisible fruit. Some were talking and nodding together, and every now and then one would turn and hurry away, as if suddenly remembering some business. They were not all as big as the first shadow, though some of them stretched up so high that their heads and shoulders were lost in the grayness of the sky. "They must be the Queerbodies," said the gander in a low tone, "for I'm sure they're not fairy tales." "But they look so big,--like giants. Do you think they'll hurt us? Just suppose they were wicked giants who ate children like so many radishes." Ellen had read some place in a fairy story of giants who did that. "Maybe we'd better stop and ask some place," suggested the gander. "If they ate children I'm sure they'd eat ganders too, for some people who don't eat children at all eat ganders." Then Ellen looked about and saw that not far away stood a very large, fine house. It was not by any means as magnificent as Aladdin's, but still it was very handsome. "Let us ask at that house," said Ellen. "They live so close to the mist that I'm sure they must know what goes on beyond, even if they have never been there." The gander was more than willing for this; so he took Ellen up and flew with her to the house. There she alighted and mounted the steps, but the door was so very grand and tall that she could not reach the knocker, and had to knock with her knuckles. There was a moment's silence, and then a voice within called, "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, did you hear anything?" Another voice answered, "I heard the brushing of the vine leaves against the lattice, but I heard nothing else." "Your knuckles are too soft, Mistress," said the gander; "let me knock," and with his bill he struck against the door. Again the same voice within called, "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you hear nothing now?" And the second voice answered, "I hear a woodpecker tapping upon a branch outside, but that is all." "Mistress, it is no use," said the gander, "you will have to climb upon my back so as to reach the knocker, or they will never hear us." So Ellen climbed upon the gander's back and then she found she could just reach the knocker. Rap, rap, rap! she struck upon the door. "Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you still hear nothing?" cried the first voice. [Illustration] "Yes, now I hear some one knocking upon the door." In a moment the door opened and a lady stood in the doorway gazing with wonder at the child and the gander. "What is it, Sister? Who is there?" called the first voice impatiently. "It's a child," answered the lady in the doorway. "A real child it looks like." Almost instantly another lady came hurrying down the hall and joined the one at the door. She was more beautiful than the first, but her face had a scared look as though she had once had such a fright that she had never gotten over it. "Why, yes, it is a real child," she cried. "You are a real child, aren't you? Where did you come from, and where are you going? Is that your gander? What are you going to do with it?" There were so many questions that Ellen hardly knew which to answer first, but she began, "I came through the nursery wall, and I'm trying to find the Queerbodies' house, and this is Mother Goose's gander. She just lent it to me for awhile." "Going to the Queerbodies' house!" The beautiful lady glanced at her sister. Then she took Ellen by the hand and drew her gently in. "Come in and tell me all about it." "I think I must hurry on," said Ellen. "It's been a longer journey than I thought;" but she allowed herself to be drawn in. The room where the strange ladies took her was very magnificently furnished, and there the beautiful one whose name was Fatima made her sit in a big armed chair. She offered another chair to the gander and he seated himself in it as gravely as possible, resting his wings on the arms. "And now," cried Fatima eagerly, "tell me all about it." So Ellen began and told her about her journey, while Fatima listened with her chin in her hand, and her eyes never leaving the child's face. Sister Anne listened too. "But now," Ellen ended, "I feel afraid to go any further, for it looks as though there were giants beyond that mist. Do you know whether they're cross giants or not?" Fatima started up and clasped her hands. "Oh if I only knew what they _are_ like," she cried. "I watch from my window and long so to know what they are doing and how they look that sometimes it seems as if I could not bear it. Some day I know I shall go through the mist just to find out." "Fatima! Fatima!" cried Sister Anne warningly. Then she added, turning to Ellen, "She's so curious. She always has been so, and that's what all her troubles came from." "Oh yes," murmured Fatima, dropping back in her chair. "I suppose you know my story? I suppose you've heard of Bluebeard, haven't you?" and leaning forward again she looked eagerly at Ellen. "Oh yes, I have all about him in a book at home. It has colored pictures, and there's a picture of Fatima with her hair all down, and one of Sister Anne up on the tower and the brothers coming in, and ever so many more." "Oh yes, I shall never forget that time when my brothers came rushing in. And then that day when I looked in the room and saw all the heads in a row and dropped the key--" Fatima shuddered, and hid her face in her hands. "Are you really that Fatima?" asked Ellen. She was afraid it was hardly polite to ask, but she did want so much to know. "Yes, she is," Sister Anne answered for her, for Fatima seemed unable to speak. "And I often remind her of all the troubles her curiosity brought on her that time. A little more and her head would have been chopped off; but she doesn't seem to have learned anything. She'd go off to the Queerbodies' country now if I'd let her, just so as to see what they're like. Then the first thing she knew they'd be making her into another story, and she'd never get back." "Yes, I _do_ want to know," cried Fatima. She leaned forward, and caught Ellen by the wrist so suddenly that it startled her. "Couldn't _you_ come back and tell me all about it," she cried. "Why I--I don't know whether I come back this way; I hoped there was a shorter way home," and Ellen's lip trembled, for she was getting a little tired of her long journeyings in spite of her wish to find the lost story. "Then your gander; maybe he could come back." "Oh yes," answered the gander, "I'll have to come back this way. But the thing is, do we want to go any further. I didn't like the looks of those giants myself." "Oh yes," urged Fatima. "I wouldn't be afraid. Maybe it's only their shadows that are so big. And then I tell you what; I'll give you something that may help you along. Look!" With fingers that trembled with eagerness she drew a key-ring from her pocket and slipped from it a key. The key seemed to be of pure gold, but upon one side of it was a rusty spot. Ellen wondered whether it was the key that had unlocked the door of the forbidden chamber. "Take this," said Fatima. "It is a magic key, and there is never a lock it will not fit nor a catch it will not undo." Ellen was slow about taking it. She glanced at the gander. "I don't believe I want to go back, but I don't know." The gander answered her look. "We'll go on then," he said, "and if we have that key they can't keep us locked up, and my wings will be always good to carry us out of trouble." "And you'll bring me back word?" cried Fatima. "Yes, I will," the gander promised. And now Fatima was eager for them to go. It seemed as though she could not wait to have her curiosity satisfied. Sister Anne would have had them stay and rest awhile and have some refreshment after their long journey, but Fatima could not hide her impatience to have them start. And indeed Ellen and the gander were in as much haste as she. Fatima went with them to the very edge of the wall of mist and the last thing they heard as they plunged into it was her voice calling after them, "Don't forget, you are to bring me word, and make haste; make haste." _Chapter Nine_ _Beyond the Mist_ "Oh how cold and still and gray," cried Ellen. They were in the very heart of the mist. She could hear the steady beat of the gander's wings, but the grayness around was so thick that she could see nothing but the dim outline of his neck before her. She would not have known whether they were moving at all if it had not been for the stir of air against her face. "Mistress, do you see light before us?" asked the gander. "No, nothing but the grayness." "One might travel around and around in this mist, and yet never find one's way out," said the gander half to itself. On and on it flew. "Is there no light before us yet?" it asked again, and its wings seemed to flag. "No, there is nothing." "Can you hear any sound?" Ellen listened. "Nothing but the beating of your wings." "Mistress, I no longer know whether I am flying forward or not. For all I can tell I may be going around in a circle." The child looked helplessly about her. "I wonder if I were to blow upon the horn the huntsman gave me whether some one would hear and answer?" she suggested. "You might try it." Ellen raised the horn to her lips and blew. They both listened, but there was no reply. Again she blew. Still silence. The third time she drew a deep breath and blew with all her might. The gander stayed his flight to listen, and now, away toward the right hand, there sounded a faint halloo. The gander turned and flew in that direction, and they had gone but a little way when the grayness before them grew lighter. Another moment or so, and they were through the mists and out upon the other side. [Illustration] But Ellen looked about her in dismay. They were in the midst of a great barren desert. There was no tree nor house in sight, no bird nor living thing. Yes, there was one thing alive, for just as Ellen thought this, something stirred and stood up from a heap of rocks nearby. It was a lad of about twelve or thirteen. At first Ellen thought it was the son of the gardener they had at home; it certainly looked like him. The little girl was very fond of this lad, though people used to say he was queer and not quite right in his mind. He often made up stories and told them to her. She never had felt as glad to see him, though, as she felt then. When she went closer, however, the lad did not seem to know her, so she wondered whether it was the gardener's son after all. It certainly looked like him. "Was that you blowing a horn?" asked the lad. "Yes; we were lost in the mist and wanted to get out, but we wanted to get out on the side where the Queerbodies live." "Well, this is it." Ellen looked about her. "But where are they? I saw their shadows on the mist." The lad laughed. "Oh that's nothing. Why, I used to see their shadows against the sky even when I was at home, but you'll have to travel far from here before you find them. I suppose you have a compass." "No. What for?" "To find your way across the desert. Now I have a compass all right, but I'm so tired I can't go a step further." The lad paused and looked at the gander. "I don't suppose your gander could carry double?" "No, I couldn't," answered the gander. "Well, I didn't think you could, but it's too bad, for I could have told you how to go. If I only had brought anything to begin with I'd make something to ride on; but I didn't know the journey would be so long and weary." "Do you mean," said Ellen, "that if you had anything to begin with you could _really_ make something to ride on?" "Oh yes. Almost everybody, before they start out for the Queerbodies', learns to make something out of nothing; but I was in such a hurry to start I only learned to make much out of little, and that's the trouble now." "Haven't you anything in your pocket to begin on?" asked Ellen, for the lad's pockets were bulging with something that jingled every time he moved. "Nothing that would do. It must be something that was once alive. Now you don't happen to have such a thing about you as a twig or a chip of wood?" "No. That is, nothing but a little wooden pig, and it was never alive." "No, but the wood was when it was growing. Will you let me see it?" As Ellen drew the toy from her pocket the boy took it from her eagerly. His eyes sparkled. "The very thing!" he cried. "I can make a magnificent riding-horse out of this." Holding the pig to his mouth, the boy began to whisper magic in its wooden ear. As he did so the pig began to grow. It grew and it grew, while Ellen stared in wonder. When it was too large for the boy to hold in his hands he set it down on the ground. Still he kept whispering in its ear and the pig kept on growing, until at last it was as large as a pony. When it was that big the lad stopped. "There!" he said to Ellen, looking at the pig with pride, "how is that for a riding-horse?" [Illustration] "I think it's fine, but I shouldn't call it a riding-_horse_; I think it's more of a riding-_pig_." "All the same," said the lad. "Now the next thing is a bridle. When a magic pig like this once does start going it won't stop for a word. I suppose you haven't anything about you that would serve for a bridle." "Nothing but this," and Ellen touched the golden chain that the dwarfs had hung about her neck. "That will do," cried the boy; "give it here." He seemed to feel so sure that Ellen would lend him the chain that she did not know how to say no, so she took it off and handed it to him. The lad quickly arranged it as a bridle, and then before he mounted the pig he took out his compass and made sure of the direction in which they were to go. "And now I'm ready," he cried; "follow me." With that he leaped on the pig's back, and no sooner had he touched it than away it went like the wind. Its blue legs with the pink spots twinkled along so fast that it took all the gander knew to keep up with them. On and on they went; the wind whistled past Ellen's ears, and the ground sped away beneath so fast that she grew almost dizzy. The lad, however, did not seem to mind how fast they went. Now and then he settled himself more comfortably on the pig's back, and now and then he took out his compass and looked at it to make sure they were going in the right direction. After they had gone a long distance in this way he drew rein. "There!" he said, "the desert is passed; but there is a greater danger than it to come." "What is that?" "Look!" And the lad pointed. Ellen looked, and then she saw that what she had thought was a stretch of grass and rocks before them, was really an enormous green and gray dragon that lay stretched in a rocky defile. His neck and tail were coiled upon the ground; his wings stretched up the rocky walls on each side of him, and their tips were like tall green trees against the sky. Presently he turned his head and Ellen could see his big blinking eyes, each as big as a barrel. He yawned and his mouth was like a red cavern. Ellen was frightened. "Suppose he comes at us," she whispered. [Illustration] "Oh no, he won't pay any attention to us," the lad assured her. "That is, unless we try to go past him, and then he'd snap us up in a twinkling." "Couldn't we go round?" "No, this is the only way, right between these rocks." "I could fly over," said the gander boldly. The lad laughed. "Fly over! Why look at his wings. He'd catch you in a minute. Have you ever seen a bird after a little butterfly? That's the way he'd catch you if you tried any such tricks as that." "Then what _are_ we to do?" asked Ellen. "Wait," answered the lad. "They'll come to feed him after a while; maybe in a week or so; and after he's been fed he always sleeps for ten minutes; then we can safely go past, for nothing will waken him for those ten minutes. You might hit him on the head with an axe and he wouldn't stir." "A week or so!" cried Ellen in dismay. "Why I can't wait a week or so, I have to be home this evening before dark." "Well, I don't see what we can do unless you have something to feed him with." "I have a golden egg. That's all." "A golden egg!" cried the lad joyfully. "Why didn't you say so before? Why, it's just the thing. Give it to me." He took the egg from Ellen and slowly rode over toward the dragon. The great creature watched him with its blinking eyes, and when the lad seemed to be coming too near it raised its head and hissed warningly. Ellen trembled, the sound was so loud and terrible, as though a dozen engines were letting off steam all at once. The lad, however, did not seem at all frightened. He checked the pig and motioned to the dragon to open its mouth. Ellen had seen people motion to the elephant at the Zoo in that same way when they wanted it to lift up its trunk, and open its mouth to have peanuts thrown in. The dragon seemed to understand, for after the boy had motioned once or twice it opened its great jaws. Then the lad threw the golden egg in, and it seemed just as small a thing for the dragon as a peanut or a currant would to an elephant. The dragon waited a while with its mouth still open for the boy to throw some more in. As he did not do this, however, it closed its mouth and began to chew the golden egg. It chewed, and it chewed, and it chewed, and all the while it chewed it seemed to be growing sleepier and sleepier. At last it swallowed the egg, and then its eyes shut tight and it went fast asleep. The boy turned and beckoned to Ellen. "Come on," he shouted at the top of his lungs. "Oh don't talk so loud," Ellen whispered, coming up to him as fast as she could. "You might waken him." The lad burst into a shout of laughter that made the little girl tremble. "Not I," he cried. "He'll sleep for nine minutes yet. One minute has gone already." "Then let's hurry." The gander flew up and on, and the boy was not slow to follow, riding his blue and pink pig right over the dragon. Ellen was in terror lest it should waken in spite of what the boy had said, but he did not seem in the least afraid. He even seemed to take pleasure in making the pig trot the full length of the dragon's tail just as children take pleasure in walking along a railroad track. At last they were safely over, and Ellen drew a sigh of relief. On and on they went, and instead of the rocky walls on either side of them growing lower they grew higher and higher, arching over more and more until at last they met and made a sort of gallery. There was very little light here, and when at last the pig stopped and the gander settled to the ground Ellen had to look twice before she saw that they were in front of a heavily barred door. "Where are we now?" she asked. The eyes of the boy were flashing with eagerness. "It is the door of the Queerbodies' house," he cried. He sprang from the pig, and, taking hold of the handle, he tried to open it. "Locked!" he added. Slipping his hand into his pocket he drew from it a whole handful of keys. Then Ellen knew that they were what had jingled every time he moved. He began to try one key after another, but none of them seemed to fit. As he was busy in this way a curious roar sounded through the gallery, echoing and re-echoing from the rocky walls. "What's that?" cried Ellen. "Oh, only the dragon yawning. He must have wakened up," answered the lad coolly, still busy with his keys. "But won't he follow us?" "No; he only guards the entrance to the defile." Finding that none of the keys he first held would open the lock the lad had drawn out another handful; but these were no better than the others. One after another he tried all that he had, but not any would unlock the door. Having tried the last of all, the boy threw it down and sank upon the floor in despair. "It is no good," he cried. "It is just as I feared. And yet I've been collecting those keys for the last seven months." "Can't you unlock it?" "No." "Then what are you going to do?" "I don't know. I didn't mind the desert or the dragon, but this was what I was afraid of all along." "Mistress," said the gander, "Where is the key that the lady Fatima gave you? If what she said was true, it should unlock the door." "Oh yes!" cried Ellen. "I forgot it." With eager fingers she took the key from her pocket and pressed it into the lad's hand. "Try this," she said. Very hopelessly the boy arose and put the key to the lock. His face changed as he found it seemed to go in it easily. He turned the key, the lock slipped back, the door opened, and Ellen, following close at his heels, entered at last the House of the Queerbodies. _Chapter Ten_ _In the House of the Queerbodies_ Ellen and her companions were standing in a circular golden hall. All around the hall were arched doorways, and overhead, supported by golden pillars, was a blue dome studded with jewels that shone like stars. There were no windows to be seen, but all the hall was filled with a clear and pleasant light that seemed to come from the dome. As Ellen looked wonderingly about, she heard a tapping sound behind her, and turning saw a tall man oddly dressed in green and yellow, and holding in his hand an ivory rod tipped with gold. It was this rod that she had heard as it tapped on the floor. [Illustration] The man stood looking at her and her friends in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "Now how did you all get in here I should like to know; I have not opened the door to any one this morning." "I had a key," answered Ellen, "and it fitted the door, so this lad unlocked it. We didn't know there was any one here to open it for us." "Yes, I am the keeper of the gate, but I don't open for every one that knocks. But how did you find your way to the door, in the first place?" "I came on this gander; it's Mother Goose's gander, you know." "Oh, then, that is all right. But how about this lad? Did he come on the gander too?" "No, I came on the pig," answered the boy, speaking for himself. "I don't know that pig. Where did you get it?" The lad told him. The gate-keeper shook his head. "It isn't really your pig, you know. You ought to have made it out of nothing. But did you come across the desert?" "Yes." "And you passed the dragon?" "Yes." "And unlocked the door! Well, I suppose it's all right. And what do you want to set about, now that you are here?" "I should like to try my hand at fitting a puzzle together," answered the lad boldly. Ellen stared. She had never heard anything so curious; for the lad to have come all that way and through all those dangers, and then want to play with a puzzle the first thing. The gate-keeper, however, did not seem at all surprised. He walked over to one of the golden pillars and took a key from the bunch at his side. And now Ellen noticed that in each of the pillars was a narrow door. The gate-keeper unlocked the one in front of which he stood, and when he opened it the little girl could see that the pillar was hollow and fitted with shelves just like a closet. From a shelf the man took a box of puzzle blocks and put it in the lad's hand. "That's your room in there," he said, pointing to one of the arched doorways. The lad took the puzzle, and hastened away with such eager joy that he seemed to have quite forgotten Ellen and everything, even the magic pig that followed close at his heels. The little girl looked after him. "I should think if he just wanted a puzzle he could have gotten one at home," she said. "Not such puzzles as these," answered the man. "Did you ever see a Queerbodies' puzzle when it was finished?" "I don't think I did." "Then come here, and I'll show you some." The man led Ellen over to a large case and opening the lid he bade her look in. There, all placed in rows, were countless boxes of puzzles,--puzzles that were finished. As Ellen looked she gave a little cry of astonishment and delight. The pictures she saw were just such as one might see upon any puzzle blocks,--pictures of children swinging in a garden, of a farm-yard scene, or a child's birthday party. The difference was that all of these were alive. The swing really swung up and down; the trees and flowers stirred their leaves; the tiny cows switched their tails to scare away flies too small for Ellen to see, and a cock upon the fence swelled his neck and crowed. The children at the party looked at the gifts and then began to play. Ellen even fancied that she could hear their voices very tiny and clear as they laughed and talked together. "Do you have puzzles like that at home?" asked the keeper of the gate. "Oh no," cried Ellen. She drew a long breath as the man closed the case. "Can everybody that comes here make puzzles like those?" "No, indeed. Sometimes even when they get the puzzles finished they don't come alive, and then they're good for nothing but to be thrown away. Do you see all these doorways?" "Yes." "Well, there are people in all those rooms, and in every room they're doing something different." "What are some of the things they do?" "Over there," and the man pointed to one of the doorways, "they're making garments out of thin air; in the room next to that they're stringing stars." "Stringing stars?" "Yes. They fish for them with nets from the windows and then string them for crowns and necklaces. It's very pretty to see. Then there's a whole room where they do nothing but make forgotten stories over into new ones." "Oh! Oh!" cried Ellen, clasping her hands. "That's what I came for. I came to look for a forgotten story. _Do_ you suppose it's there?" "Why, I don't know. I shouldn't wonder. But do you want to make it over?" "No, I want to find it the way it is. My grandmamma used to know it, but she's forgotten it now, so I want to find it, so as to tell her about it." "Well, I don't know," said the man doubtfully. "We might go and ask about it. I don't know very much about the different rooms myself, but come and we'll see." The room of the forgotten stories, to which the gate-keeper now led Ellen was very large. So large that when the little girl stood in the doorway and looked about her she could hardly see where it ended. Upon the floor in rows stood countless golden jars. Among these rows figures were moving about or pausing at different jars to take something from them. They all seemed very busy, though Ellen could not make out what they were doing at first. Quite near the door a girl or a woman was standing; Ellen could not tell which she was. She looked like a woman, but her hair hung down her back in a heavy plait. She wore some sort of loose brown garments. Her hands were clasped before her and she seemed to be thinking deeply; so deeply that she did not notice the gate-keeper nor Ellen nor the gander as they stood looking at her. Suddenly she began to smile to herself, and, bending over one of the jars, she thrust her hand into it and brought it forth filled with some substance like wet clay, only much more beautiful than clay, for it glistened and shone between her fingers with all the colors of the rainbow. This she began to pat and mould into shape as she held it, humming softly to herself meanwhile as if from sheer happiness. The gate-keeper waited a few minutes to see whether she would notice him, and then he tapped upon the floor with his ivory staff. The Queerbody looked around at the sound. "Excuse me," said the man, "but here's a little girl who has just come, and she says she's come to look for a forgotten story; can you tell her anything about it?" The Queerbody gazed earnestly at Ellen. "A forgotten story!" she repeated slowly. "This is the place to come for forgotten stories, but it may be that it has been made into something else. How long is it since it was forgotten,--this story that you want?" Ellen told her a long time; ever since her grandmother was a little girl. The Queerbody shook her head. "I'm afraid it may have been made over," she said; "but there's no telling. There are some stories that have been here for many, many years; this one I was just beginning to use, for instance," and she held out her hands full of the shimmering stuff for Ellen to see. "Why, is that a forgotten story?" asked Ellen. "I didn't know stories ever looked like that." "This is only part of a story. When a story has been forgotten it is all divided up and put into different jars. Wondercluff we call it then. When we make a new story we take a handful from this and a handful from that, and when it's done you'd never know it was just old things pieced together. But what did your forgotten story look like? Can you tell me anything about it?" Ellen could not tell her very much. "It was about a little princess called Goldenhair, and she had a wicked stepmother. The stepmother made her wear a sooty hood, but the fairies helped the princess. Then one time Goldenhair was combing her hair in the scullery and the stepmother came in and made her cut all her hair off; and I don't know the rest." The Queerbody began to laugh. She held out the handful of wondercluff toward Ellen. "Why this is a part of that very story," she cried, "and you came just in time. A little later and it would have been made into something else. Wait a bit. See if I can't put it together." She reached down into other jars, and took out handful after handful of different wondercluff. Heaping it on a marble table she began to pat and mould it, working deftly with her slim long fingers. And as she worked, beneath her hands a figure began to grow. Ellen watched, as if fascinated. First the head with a golden crown. "It must have a crown because the story's about a princess and royal folk," the Queerbody explained. Next appeared the body in a long flowing robe fastened by an embroidered girdle. Then beautiful white hands and arms. At last it was all done but the feet. With her eyes fixed lovingly upon the figure she had made, the Queerbody reached down into a jar that she had not touched before. Suddenly her look changed. The smile faded from her face and she turned her eyes on Ellen. "Oh, I forgot," she said in a low, sad voice. She drew her hand from the jar. There was nothing in it. "What did you forget?" asked the little girl. "I forgot the castle. I can't finish the story after all." "But why not? She's all done but her feet. I should think you could easily do those." "No, you see they have to be made of castle wondercluff. There was a castle in the story, and I haven't used any of that yet." "What _do_ you mean?" "You see, when a story is broken to pieces all the parts of it are put in different jars, as I told you. All the king wondercluff in a jar, and birds in another jar, magic in another, witches in another, and so on. All the castles were put in this jar, and now I remember another Queerbody was making a story this morning and she used the last piece of castle there was. Look for yourself. The jar is empty." Ellen looked in the jar. There was nothing there. "Can't you use something else?" "Of course not." The Queerbody spoke with some impatience. "Don't you remember the story begins with a castle where the princess lives?" Suddenly, like a flash, Ellen remembered the genie and his promise. At the same moment the gander plucked at her sleeve. "Mistress, the castle you were promised," he whispered. There was no need of his reminding her. "If I were to get a castle for you could you finish the story?" she asked the Queerbody hesitatingly. "Yes, but where could you get a castle, you little girl?" "I think I can get one." Ellen looked about. "We'd better go out in the hall," she whispered. She was afraid if she summoned the genie in there it would frighten the busy people around her. She led the way back into the silent, empty hall while the gatekeeper and the Queerbody followed her wondering. Ellen walked on until she stood under the centre of the dome. Then she stopped and looked at the others. "You needn't be afraid," she said, "he won't hurt you;" but she herself felt a little nervous at the idea of calling up the genie again. However, she drew a long breath, and then, clapping her hands three times, she summoned him to appear. There was a loud noise as of thunder that made the gander cower behind Ellen, while the gatekeeper and the Queerbody trembled and turned pale. Immediately the genie appeared, more gigantic and terrible-looking than ever. "Thou hast called me, and I am here at thy command," he said to Ellen. "Wilt thou now have the castle, the treasures, the slaves and horsemen that I promised thee?" "Not the treasures and all that," answered Ellen, and her voice sounded very little and soft after the genie's, "but I should like the castle now if I may have it?" "It shall be thine. And where wilt thou have it?" "I'd like it in a golden jar over in that room," said Ellen, pointing over to the forgotten story room. "In a jar!" cried the genie in amaze, and he scowled as though he thought Ellen was making fun of him. But when she explained how it was, and why she wanted the castle, he burst into a roar of laughter that echoed and re-echoed against the blue dome. "I have heard of a genie in a bottle, but never of a castle in a jar," he cried. "However, it shall be thine. But hast thou no further wishes?" "No, that's all," said Ellen. "Then look in the jar and thou wilt find it there. Henceforth I appear to thee no more." Immediately, and with another crash as of thunder, the genie was resolved into air and disappeared. For a moment the hall seemed clouded with a thin gray vapor and then that too faded away and all was as it had been before. Ellen and the others looked at each other while the gander craned its neck this way and that, as if to make sure that the genie had really gone. The Queerbody was the first to speak. She drew a long breath. "I shouldn't like to see _him_ again," she said. "But I wonder if he really put the castle there." "I believe he did," said Ellen. "Let us go and see." The Queerbody was all eagerness. They hastened back to the room of the forgotten stories and bent over the castle jar. The Queerbody gave a cry of joy. It was half full of glistening wondercluff. Reaching down into the jar she brought out great handfuls that shone and glistened. "_Now_ I can finish the story," she cried. She began patting and moulding with hands that trembled with eagerness and under her fingers the silvery feet of the fairy tale seemed almost to shape themselves. Then suddenly the figure stood complete, a tall and shining lady with a crown upon her head. The eyes, however, were blank and unseeing, and there was no breath to stir the silver robe. "Take her hand," the Queerbody said to Ellen. Timidly the little girl took the white hand of the Fairy Tale in hers. It was very cold, but as she held it, it seemed to grow warm and soft in her fingers. "Speak to her," the Queerbody now commanded. At first Ellen could not think of what to say. Then, "Are you,--are you the forgotten Story I came to find?" she whispered. Slowly the color flushed into the Fairy Tale's face; the life came into her eyes. Slowly very slowly she turned her head and looked down into Ellen's eager face. "Am I that Story?" she murmured. "Look in my eyes and see." [Illustration] She bent toward the child, and Ellen looked into her eyes. Such wonderful eyes they were. As she looked, Ellen seemed to lose herself in their clear depths. She lost all sense of where she was--even of the lady herself. She never could tell afterward whether the lady spoke and told her the story, or whether she saw it mirrored in those eyes, or whether she was herself the little Princess Goldenhair living it all, but this was the fairy tale. _Chapter Eleven_ _The Princess Goldenhair_ There were once a king and queen who had no children, though they greatly longed for them. One day the queen was sitting at the window sewing, and the sunlight shone upon the golden thimble she wore, so that it fairly dazzled the eyes. "I wish," said the queen, "that I had a little daughter and that her hair was as golden as my thimble in the sun." Soon after this a daughter was indeed born to the queen, and the hair upon her head was of pure gold, but in the hour that she was born the queen herself died. As the little princess grew up, her hair was the wonder of all and because it was so beautiful she was always called the Princess Goldenhair or Goldilocks. The king was prouder of his daughter's beauty than of all his treasures, and there was nothing he loved better than to see her unfasten her shining hair and shake it down about her, and then it was so long and bright that it covered her like a golden mantle. But one day the king went hunting, and in the chase he rode so fast that at last he left all his followers behind. He had reached a deep and lonely glade when suddenly his horse reared under him, and there, standing directly in his path was a beautiful woman dressed all in black. Her hair, too, was black as a raven's wing and her eyes were strangely bright. She stood looking at the king and she did not speak. The king did not speak either, at first, for there was something in her look that made him ill at ease, even while he wondered at her beauty. "Who are you?" he said at last; but she made no answer. Then he questioned her whence she came, but she was still silent. But when he asked her if she would go back to the palace with him she nodded her head. So the king took her up before him and rode home with her. After that the stranger lived at the palace. She spoke little and when she did her voice was hoarse and croaking, but she was very beautiful, and the king loved her and made her his queen. There were great rejoicings over the marriage; but Goldenhair wept and wept; she feared the stepmother with her black hair and her bright round eyes. Nevertheless at first the new queen was kind enough to the child. But then, little by little, she began to show the hatred she felt toward her. After a while it was nothing but hard words and harder looks. Above all, she could not bear the sight of the princess's hair, but shuddered every time she saw it. After a while she had a dark hood made, and she obliged the princess to wear it, so that her hair might be hidden. The child never dared to take off the hood by day, but every evening after the maids had left the scullery she would steal down there with a candle. It was very dark in the scullery, and the mice and beetles scuttled to and fro, but as Goldenhair opened the door she would say, "_Nimble mice that fear the light, Small, black beetles of the night, Shadows lurking here and there, I pray you fright not Goldenhair._" Then the mice and the beetles would noiselessly disappear in the cracks; the shadows would shrink into corners, and entering, Goldenhair would take off her hood, and shake down her hair to comb and brush its shining lengths. Then she would bind it up again and cover it with her hood before she went up into the castle. The stepmother knew nothing of this, but every day she grew bolder in her hate. She took from Goldenhair all the beautiful clothes and jewels that her father had had made for her and gave her instead things scarce better than those a kitchen wench might wear. However the princess made no complaint, and the king her father did not even seem to notice it. It was as though the wicked queen had cast a spell over him so that he could see or think of no one but her. One day when Goldenhair's heart was very heavy she wandered off by herself into the deep forest that lay all about the palace. She had not gone far when her cloak caught upon a thorn-bush and was torn. When she saw the rent she was frightened, for she knew her cruel stepmother would make it an excuse for punishing her; and at the thought of her helplessness the child threw herself down at the foot of a tree and began to weep. Suddenly a voice beside her said, "Why do you weep so bitterly, Princess?" Goldenhair looked up, and there, standing close beside her, was a fairy youth. He was very small, and was dressed all in green and silver. He had a cap upon his head, and about his neck was a chain, from which hung a jewel that sparkled brighter than a diamond. Goldenhair gazed at him wonderingly. "I am weeping because I have torn my cloak," she answered, "and I am afraid my stepmother will punish me." And with that she began to sob again. Then the fairy felt sorry for her, as he had never felt sorry for any one before. "Do not weep," he said, "and I may be able to help you." With that he stepped to a toadstool close by, and, feeling under it, he drew out a toadstool thorn, invisible to mortal eyes. This he threaded with a strand of spider-web silk, and then he placed it in Goldenhair's fingers. "Draw together the edges of the cloak where it is torn," he said, "and sew it with this." [Illustration] The princess looked at her fingers, but she could see nothing. Still, she could feel the magic strand. Wondering, she drew the edges of the rent together, and began stitching with the invisible needle; and as she stitched, the torn edges twisted and wove together again, so that they became whole as they had been before. When she had finished, the fairy knelt before her and lifted the edge of the cloak. "Look," he said; "now no one could know that it had ever been torn." And then immediately he vanished like a breath. Goldenhair rubbed her eyes and looked about her. The forest was very still. There was not a living thing to be seen, not even a bird or a squirrel. She lifted her cloak and looked, but she could not see where it had been mended. Then suddenly she felt afraid, and, turning, she ran back to the castle as fast as she could. All the rest of the day she thought and thought about the fairy, and wondered whether she had really seen him, but she could scarcely believe it. The next night when it grew dark Goldenhair stole down as usual to the scullery to comb her hair. She made sure that no one was there, and then she took off her hood and shook down her locks. When she had done that, they almost covered her with their golden strands. She began to brush and comb them, and as she brushed she sang:-- "_I comb my locks, I comb my locks! My father is a king; My stepmother has hair as black As any raven's wing._ "_I comb my locks, I comb my locks! She bids me bind them tight; She makes me wear a sooty hood To hide them from her sight._ "_I comb my locks, I comb my locks! Alas! that only here I dare to lay my hood aside And brush them without fear._" Having brushed her hair until it shone, Goldenhair bound it up again, and covered its brightness with her hood. She took up her candle and was about to leave the scullery when she heard a sound as of some one sighing sadly. She listened, but all was still. "'Twas only the wind that sighed beneath the door," she said to herself, and again she was about to go when she heard the sighing once more, and this time she knew that it was not the wind. The sound came from the outer door of the scullery, the one that opened into the forest. Goldenhair was frightened, but yet she could not think of any one being in distress without longing to help them. She crept over to the door and laid her ear against it. "Who is there?" she asked. There was no answer, but she heard some one grieving softly on the other side of the door. Then all was still. "Who is there?" repeated Goldenhair. "If it is some one in trouble, speak." There was no answer, but a sigh so sad that it went to the heart. She hesitated no longer, but opened the door. The draught of wind almost blew out her candle, but she put her hand around it to shelter it, and by its light she saw leaning against the doorway the same fairy she had seen in the forest. The princess looked and wondered. "Why are you here?" she asked. "Did you come to look for me?" "Alas," sighed the fairy, "I would that I had never seen you." "Why do you say that?" asked the princess. "Because if I had not seen you weeping in the forest I would not have broken the fairy laws, teaching you to mend your cloak with magic such as fairies alone should use. It is for this that sorrow has come upon me and I have been banished from the fairy court. Now I must journey out in the huge rough world like an outcast, until I have accomplished the task set me by the fairy queen for a punishment." When Goldenhair heard this she was greatly troubled, for she felt that she was indeed the cause of it all. "What is this task they have set you?" she asked in a trembling voice. "It is to weave a net of magic gold; the net in whose meshes alone can be caught a wicked enchantress who has been haunting this forest. For a long time she has been darkening it with her wicked spells and now upon me has fallen the heavy task of ridding the forest of her." "But is this magic gold so hard to find? You are a fairy and surely you should know where to seek it." "_Though I am as old as the oldest tree Such gold I never yet did see._ Only this much I know for this the queen told me; it is gold-- _That lives and yet is not alive; That comes neither from earth nor water; Softer than silk and harder to weld than steel._" "_Gold that lives and yet is not alive; That comes neither from earth nor water; Softer than silk but harder to weld than steel_" the princess murmured softly to herself. Then suddenly she gave a cry of joy. Setting down the candle, she slipped off her hood and shook down her hair, so that it fell all about her, glittering in the candle-light. "Is not this the magic gold?" she cried. "See! It lives and yet it is not alive. It comes neither from the earth nor from the water, and it is softer than silk and yet all the hammers in the world could not weld one strand of it." The fairy cried aloud in his wonder and admiration. "It is indeed the magic gold." "Then take it,--take it and weave your net," cried Goldenhair. With hands that trembled with eagerness she drew from her pocket a pair of golden scissors that had been her mother's. With these she clipped strand after strand of the shiny locks, and they fell at the fairy's feet; they lay there in a shining heap. "Enough! enough!" he cried. "Then, quick," said the princess, "let us begin to knot them into a net." "No need of that," answered the fairy. "There is a quicker way than that." Drawing his fairy sword from its sheath, he struck it lightly upon the shining locks. "_Fold on fold, Magic gold, Into a net be knotted and rolled_," he cried. At his spell the silken locks began to twist themselves; they rolled into strands and knotted together in meshes until they were a golden net. Suddenly the princess turned her head and looked behind her. She had heard a sound at the scullery door. The next moment it was thrown open, and there stood the stepmother, peering in with an evil look. Behind her was the king. "Look," cried the queen, pointing at Goldenhair. "Is it not just as I told you? The girl knows that I hate the very sight of her hair, and that I gave her a hood to wear that I might not see it; yet at every chance she has she slips away to comb her locks and weave her wicked spells." "Do you indeed dare to weave your spells against the queen?" cried the king angrily,--for he was under the enchantment of the wicked queen, and he believed all that she wished him to. Goldenhair began to weep. "Alas!" she sobbed, "I know no spells, and I thought that if I came here to comb my hair she would never see it." Suddenly the stepmother spied the scissors, which Goldenhair had let fall upon the floor. Stooping, she snatched them up. "Since you will heed nothing that I say, there is but one way left; your hair shall be shorn close to your head, even to the last lock." But at this moment the fairy stepped forward from the shadow in which he had been standing. In the dark scullery he seemed to shine with light. "There is no need of that," he cried. "I know you, wicked enchantress; and the net has already been woven that shall break your evil spells." [Illustration] The queen gave a hoarse cry and shrank back; but in a moment the fairy had caught up the net from the floor and cast it over her. It was in vain that she struggled; the net only drew closer and closer about her. "Why, what is this?" cried the king, but the queen only croaked hoarsely in reply. The fairy drew his sword and pointed it at her. "By the power of the magic net take your true shape, false queen," he cried. And then--it was no longer a woman who struggled in the net, but only a great black raven, with a curving beak and cruel, angry eyes. It struggled there a while, and then flew out into the dark forest, dragging the net with it, and croaking hoarsely as it went. "Let her go," said the fairy, "for, whatever becomes of her, her power has now gone forever." Suddenly there was a soft strain of music, and the scullery was filled with rosy light. "They are coming, are coming for me," cried the fairy, and his face grew bright with joy. The next moment the fairy queen stood beside him, and with her were a great crowd of attendant fairies. The banished elf sank upon his knee before her, but she raised him graciously. "Your task has been well done," she said. "You have freed the forest from the evil magic that has been haunting it, and now you shall return to the fairy court; and not only this, but you shall be my favorite page and follow in my train." Once more the fairy knelt before her to kiss her hand. The queen turned to Goldenhair. "And you, dear child," she said, "you have suffered so much here,--leave it all. Come with us, and with one touch of my wand you shall become a fairy too." But at this the king started forward. With the breaking of the evil spell all his former love for his little daughter had returned. "Do not leave me, Goldenhair," he cried. "No," said Goldenhair to the fairy, "he is my father, and I may not leave him; he would be lonely without me, now that the queen has gone." "Then, farewell," cried the fairies. "The forest calls us, and we have already lingered too long. Farewell, farewell, Goldenhair." So saying, they disappeared, the light and music fading with them. They were never seen in the castle again; but often in the wood the princess would come upon them dancing in their fairy rings, or hear them call to her from flowers or clumps of fern, for they did not hide from her as they do from others. Time went on, and many kings and princes sought the hand of Goldenhair in marriage; but she would have none of them. At last the old king died, and then suddenly there appeared at the court a tall and noble youth. All wondered at his beauty, but no one but Goldenhair knew that it was the fairy of the wood, who had become a mortal being for her sake. She loved him and gave him her hand, and they were married; and after that they ruled the kingdom together in great peace and happiness. _Chapter Twelve_ _Home Again_ Ellen looked about her. She was still standing in the golden room of the Queerbodies' house. Before her was the Fairy Tale, smiling down into her face with shining eyes. There, too, were the gander and the Queerbody. "Is that the story?" the Queerbody asked. Ellen clasped her hands. "Oh, yes," she cried, looking up into the Fairy Tale's face. "I'm sure you're the one. There were Goldenhair and the sooty hood and all. You 'll stay made up now, won't you?" "Yes," answered the Story; "and more than that, I'm going back with you too." Ellen gave a little cry of delight. She took the Story's hand in hers, and it was so smooth and white she laid her cheek against it, and then kissed it softly. "But how about the rhyme?" asked the gander. "Oh, yes; I'd forgotten to ask for that." Then Ellen told the Queerbody how she had promised Mother Goose that she would try to find a forgotten rhyme for her. The child couldn't tell the Queerbody exactly what the rhyme was, of course, because it was a forgotten one, but she explained as well as she could. The Queerbody seemed to know which one she meant. "Oh, yes, I can easily make that over; but if I do, you must promise to remember it and say it sometimes after you go back." Ellen was very willing to promise. Then the Queerbody bent over another jar and took out some wondercluff. She patted and twisted and pulled, and then she set what she had made upon the floor. It was a funny-looking little rhyme, with a brown belted coat and a pointed cap, and a broad grin on its fat, round face. "Quank! quank!" cried the gander. "There he is again." The Rhyme blinked and looked about him, and then he spoke, still grinning broadly. "Hello! I guess I've been forgotten, haven't I? But somebody seems to have brought me back. Well, there's the old gander, same as ever." He ran over and caught hold of the gander's bridle. "Give me a ride?" he asked. "Yes, I'm going to carry you back with me." "Oh, goody, goody!" And the Rhyme hopped up and down as though its toes were made of rubber. But Ellen looked anxious. "I wonder how we're all to get back," she said, with a glance at the Fairy Tale. "I don't believe the gander can carry us all." "Oh, you're not going back with me," he answered. "The journey's too long for that, and there's an easier way." "Yes, a much easier way," chimed in the Queerbody. "Why, it's so easy that sometimes I go home without even trying." Ellen wondered. "Do you? And then you have to come all that long way to get here again?" "No, it's shorter when you know the way. Sometimes I get back in a minute. But put your ear against the wall and listen." Ellen put her ear against the golden wall. As she listened she gave a little gasp of amazement, and yet what she heard was not so very wonderful; it was only the voices of her mother and the seamstress talking quietly together in the sewing-room. Presently the voices grew fainter. Ellen leaned harder against the wall to catch their tones. Then all in a moment the wall yielded to her weight, just as a snowdrift might, and she fell through it. [Illustration] She put out her hands to save herself, and caught hold of something hard and solid; it was the shelf of the bookcase. She was back in her own familiar nursery. She looked about her. There was no sign of where she had come through, no break in wall or ceiling. With a little cry she leaned forward and thrust her hands back between the book-shelves. They touched only the hard, cold wall. The vines were only painted on the paper; they would not draw aside under her eager fingers. As Ellen turned from the bookcase she saw the shape of the Fairy Tale standing between her and the window. She was sure she saw it. It smiled and waved its hand to her, and then it was gone like the fading of one's breath upon the window-pane. "Dear Fairy Tale, where are you?" cried Ellen; but there was no reply. Ellen waited a moment. "Fairy Tale!" she whispered. Still silence. Opening the door into the entry, the little girl ran down to the sewing-room as fast as she could. "Mamma, mamma!" she called. She burst like a little whirlwind into the room where her mother and the seamstress were quietly at work, and threw herself into her mother's lap. "I've been having the queerest time," she cried excitedly; "and you never could guess where I've been; never." "Wait," said her mother; "you're tumbling my work. And how excited you are, dear!" She put aside her sewing, and took the little girl upon her lap. "Now, what have you been doing?" Breathlessly and with flushing cheeks Ellen told her mother all about her journey and her strange adventures on her way to the Queerbodies' house. The mother listened and wondered. "That was a wonderful dream, indeed," she said. "A dream! Why, it wasn't a dream, mamma. It really happened. And then I saw the Fairy Tale after I came back. And then the Forgotten Story itself; I couldn't have dreamed all that, you know." "But, my dear, it couldn't have been anything but a dream." "Well, wait. I'm going to go down and tell grandmamma about it; and if it's the same story, then you know it _must_ be true." "Very well; only go down quietly, for she may not have wakened from her nap yet." When Ellen peeped in through her grandmother's door, however, she saw the old lady sitting over in her rocking-chair near the window, knitting. "May I come in?" she asked. "Yes, yes, come in, little Clara. I was just wondering where you and all the other children were." The child drew up a little stool and sat down by her grandmother's knee. "Granny," she said, trying to speak quietly, "I think I know what happened to little Goldenhair now. Shall I tell you the story?" "Yes, do, my dear." So Ellen told her grandmother the story of Goldenhair. The grandmother listened, smiling and nodding her head. After a while she grew so interested that she pushed her glasses up on top of her cap. "Yes, yes, that is it. I didn't know anybody remembered that story any more, but that is the way I heard it when I was a child." "Then it's true," cried the child triumphantly; "and I really did find the Queerbodies' house, and see them making stories." "Ah, yes, I knew a Queerbody once, and she used to make stories;--verses, too. She was a lovely girl. It was long ago." "And did she tell you all about the Queerbodies' house and the golden jars?" But the grandmother shook her head. "It is a long time ago, and I forget. I am so old--so old, little Clara." "I knew it was n't a dream," murmured the child; and as she sat there by her grandmother's knee she felt the Fairy Tale was there, smiling gently upon them both, even though no one could see her. * * * * * By Katharine Pyle THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL AS THE GOOSE FLIES NANCY RUTLEDGE IN THE GREEN FOREST WONDER TALES RETOLD TALES OF FOLK AND FAIRIES TALES OF WONDER AND MAGIC FAIRY TALES FROM FAR AND NEAR * * * * * 
44085	----	generously made available by The Internet Archive.) PSYCHOANALYSIS SLEEP and DREAMS PSYCHOANALYSIS AND BEHAVIOR BY ANDRÉ TRIDON "Tridon applies the psychoanalytical doctrine to a number of everyday problems, a business that ought to be undertaken on a far more extensive scale. His chapters on the psychology of war hysteria and of comstockery are acute and constructive."--_H. L. Mencken._ "His presentation of psychoanalysis is admirable."--_New York Medical Journal._ _$2.50 net at all booksellers_ ALFRED A. KNOPF, PUBLISHER, N.Y. PSYCHOANALYSIS SLEEP and DREAMS BY ANDRÉ TRIDON _Author of "Psychoanalysis, its History, Theory and Practice" and "Psychoanalysis and Behavior"_ "Nothing is more genuinely ourselves than our dreams." Nietzsche. NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF 1921 COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FOR ADÈLE LEWISOHN I wish to thank Dr. J. W. Brandeis, Dr. N. Philip Norman, and Dr. Gregory Stragnell, for valuable data and editorial assistance, and Mr. Carl Dreher who lent himself to many experiments. PREFACE St. Augustine was glad that God did not hold him responsible for his dreams. From which we may infer that his dreams must have been "human, all too human" and that he experienced a certain feeling of guilt on account of their nature. His attitude is one assumed by many people, laymen and scientists, some of them concealing it under a general scepticism as to dream interpretation. Few people are willing to concede as Nietzsche did, that "nothing is more genuinely ourselves than our dreams." This is why the psychoanalytic pronouncement that dreams are the fulfilment of wishes meets with so much hostility. The man who has a dream of gross sex or ego gratification dislikes to have others think that the desire for such gross pleasure is a part of his personality. He very much prefers to have others believe that some extraneous agent, some whimsical power, such as the devil, forced such thoughts upon him while the unconsciousness of sleep made him irresponsible and defenceless. This is due in part to the absurd and barbarous idea that it is meet to inflict punishment for mere thoughts, an idea which is probably as deeply rooted in ignorant minds in our days as it was in the mind of the Roman emperor who had a man killed because the poor wretch dreamed of the ruler's death. We must not disclaim the responsibility for our unconscious thoughts as they reveal themselves through dreams. They are truly a part of our personality. But our responsibility is merely psychological; we should not punish people for harbouring in their unconscious the lewd or murderous cravings which the caveman probably gratified in his daily life; nor should we be burdened with a sense of sin because we cannot drive out of our consciousness certain cravings, biologically natural, but socially unjustifiable. The first prerequisite for a normal mental life is the acceptance of all biological facts. Biology is ignorant of all delicacy. The possible presence of broken glass, coupled with the fact that man lacks hoofs, makes it imperative for man to wear shoes. The man who is unconsolable over the fact that his feet are too tender in their bare state to tread roads, and the man who decides to ignore broken glass and to walk barefoot, are courting mental and physical suffering of the most useless type. He who accepts the fact that his feet are tender and broken glass dangerous, and goes forth, shod in the proper footgear, will probably remain whole, mentally and physically. When we realize that our unconscious is ours and ourselves, but not of our own making, we shall know our limitations and our potentialities and be free from many fears. No better way has been devised for probing the unconscious than the honest and scientific study of dreams, a study which must be conducted with the care and the freedom from bias that characterize the chemist's or the physicist's laboratory experiments. Furthermore, dream study and dream study alone, can help us solve a problem which scientists have generally disregarded or considered as solved, the tremendous problem of sleep. Algebra and Latin, which are of no earthly use to 999/1000 of those studying them, are a part of the curriculum of almost every high school. Sleep, in which we spend one-third of our life, is not considered as of any importance. How could we understand sleep unless we understood the phenomena which take place in sleep: dreams? Even Freud, whose research work lifted dream study from the level of witchcraft to that of an accurate science, seems to have been little concerned with the enigma of sleep and sleeplessness. This book is an attempt at correlating sleep and dreams and at explaining sleep through dreams. Briefly stated, my thesis is that we sleep in order to dream and to be for a number of hours our simpler and unrepressed selves. Sleeplessness is due to the fact that, in our fear of incompletely repressed cravings, we do not dare to become, through the unconsciousness of sleep, our primitive selves. In nightmares, repressed cravings which seek gratification under a symbolic cloak, and are therefore unrecognizable, cause us to be tortured by fear. The cure for sleeplessness and nightmares is, accordingly, the acceptance of biological facts observable in our unconscious and our willingness to grant, through the unconsciousness of sleep, dream gratification to conscious and unconscious cravings of a socially objectionable kind which we must, however, accept as a part of our personality. February, 1921. 121 Madison Avenue New York City TABLE OF CONTENTS I. SLEEP DEFINED 1 II. FATIGUE AND REST 11 III. THE FLIGHT FROM REALITY 20 IV. HYPNOGOGIC AND HYPNOPOMPIC VISIONS 32 V. WHERE DREAMS COME FROM 36 VI. CONVENIENCE DREAMS 44 VII. DREAM LIFE 48 VIII. WISH FULFILMENT 58 IX. NIGHTMARES 67 X. TYPICAL DREAMS AND SLEEP WALKING 75 XI. PROPHETIC DREAMS 85 XII. ATTITUDES REFLECTED IN DREAMS 92 XIII. RECURRENT DREAMS 102 XIV. DAY DREAMS 113 XV. NEUROSIS AND DREAMS 118 XVI. SLEEPLESSNESS 127 XVII. DREAM INTERPRETATION 144 BIBLIOGRAPHY 158 CHAPTER I: SLEEP DEFINED Literary quotations and time-worn stereotypes exert a deplorable influence on our thinking. They lead us to consider certain open questions as settled, certain puzzling problems as solved. From time immemorial, the unthinking and thinking alike, have accepted the idea of a kinship between sleep and death. Expressions like "eternal sleep" show by the frequency with which they recur, how constantly associated the two ideas are in the average mind. Not only is that association absurd but its consequences are regrettable, at least from one point of view: if sleep is a form of death, the psychic phenomena connected with it are bound to be misinterpreted and either granted a dignity they do not deserve or scornfully ignored. The superstitious may loose all critical sense and see in sleep and sleep thinking something mysterious and mystical. The scientist, on the other hand, may consider such phenomena as beneath his notice. No sober appreciation of sleep and dreams can be expected from any one who associates in any way the idea of sleep and the idea of death. Respiration seems to be the essential feature of life, and its lack, the essential feature of death. As long as respiration takes place, the two ferments of the body, pepsin and trypsin, break up insoluble food molecules into soluble acid molecules which are then absorbed by the blood and carried to the cells of the body where they are utilized to build up new solid cell matter. When respiration ceases, a degree of acidity is reached which enables the two ferments to digest the body of disintegrating each cell. This is according to Jacques Loeb the meaning of death. No such chemical action is observable in any form of sleep. From that point of view, sleep is a form of life. Sleep is even a more normal form of life than the average waking states. In the normal waking states, the vagotonic nerves of the autonomic system which upbuild the body and insure the continuance of the race should dominate the organism, being checked in emergencies only by the sympathetic nerves which constitute the human safety system. The vagotonic nerves contract the pupil, make saliva and gastric juice flow, slow down the heart beats, decrease the blood pressure, promote sexual activities, etc. The sympathetic nerves on the contrary, dilate the pupil, dry the mouth, stop the gastric activities, increase the heart beats, raise the blood pressure, decrease or arrest the sexual activities, etc. In peaceful sleep, we observe that the vagotonic functions hold full sway. In sleep, our pupils are contracted. Even when they have been dilated by atropine, they become contracted again in sleep. In sleep, the digestive organs continue to perform their specific work, all the popular beliefs to the contrary notwithstanding. Infants and animals generally go to sleep as soon as they finish feeding. Animals digest infinitely better if allowed to sleep after being fed, than if compelled to stay awake, walk or run. The activity of the sexual organs is as great in sleep as in waking life; in certain cases, it is even greater. At certain times, during sleep, the pressure of the blood in the brain is greatly reduced, and certain authors have concluded that sleep was characterized by brain anaemia, which some of them consider as the cause of sleep. Indeed, unconsciousness can be induced by producing a temporary brain anaemia, for instance by compressing the carotid arteries of the neck for a minute or so. Sleepiness almost always appears then and lasts as long as the pressure is exerted. Special manometers show that the fall in the blood pressure invariably precedes the appearance of sleep. In dogs whose skulls have been trephined for purposes of observation, the brain can be seen to turn pale as soon as the animals fall asleep. But we have here simply one of the vagotonic activities mentioned previously. In the normal organism, the blood pressure should be low, rising only in emergencies, when the organism is facing some danger and must be prepared for fight or flight. And in fact, the slightest light, noise, pain or smell stimulus, is sufficient to bring the blood back to the brain during sleep. Our sympathetic nerves are on the watch and even if the subject does not wake up, they rush the blood whenever it is needed for emergency action, in this case, to the general switchboard of the organism, the brain. But this so-called brain anaemia is not constant during the entire period of sleep. The pressure falls gradually before sleep sets in and only reaches its minimum an hour after sleep has begun. Then it increases gradually and becomes normal again about the usual waking time. We shall see later that attention follows an identical curve. It has been pointed out that in sleep the respiration becomes slower and that the amount of air inspired and consequently of oxygen assimilated is lowered. But inaction in the waking states will show exactly the same results. A smaller quantity of carbonic acid is eliminated in sleep, the decrease being about sixteen per cent. But that condition is not due to sleep. It is due to many other factors such as the absence of light, etc. The nature of the food taken before retiring has also a notable influence on the quantity of carbonic acid eliminated by the sleeper; the quantity varies from seventy five per cent after a meat supper to ninety per cent after a diet of starches. The sweat glands of the skin secrete more actively in sleep than in waking life, which is also a vagotonic symptom and is also due to the fact that the sweat centre is easily affected by carbonic acid. This increase in the activity of the skin accounts for the decrease we notice in the activity of the kidneys. (More urine is produced on cold days when the perspiration is scanty than on hot summer days.) The lowering of the temperature in sleep is simply a result of inactivity, not of sleep. We know that many pains, especially neuralgias, disappear in sleep. Many of those ailments, however, are of a neurotic origin and constitute a form of escape from reality. When reality has been practically abolished by unconsciousness, they are no longer "needed." Experiments made on instructors of the University of Iowa who were kept awake for ninety hours showed that the weight of the subjects increased during the experiments, decreasing later when the subjects were allowed to resume their natural life and to sleep. The increase was solely due to the fact that during the experiments, the subjects were relieved of their duties, remained idle in the psychological laboratory and hence consumed less organic matter than if they had led an active life, preparing their courses and teaching several hours a day. It has been stated many times that a form of motor paralysis sets in during sleep. Yet we all know of the many motions performed by every sleeper, turning from side to side, drawing or pushing away the bed clothes, removing stimuli applied to the face, talking, not to mention, of course, sleep walking. Sleep does not even mean complete muscular relaxation, for sentinels have been observed who could sleep standing; some people sleep sitting up in their chairs. Many animals, birds, bats, horses, sleep in positions which make muscular relaxation impossible; when their balance is disturbed by an observer, they re-establish it without awaking. Sleeping ducks keep on paddling in circles to avoid drifting against dangerous shores, etc. In other words, there is not a part of our body which ceases in sleep to perform its specific work. Our lungs continue to breathe, our heart to send blood to all parts of the body, our glands secrete various chemicals; we hear, smell and to a certain extent, see. The lowering of our eyelids is simply a half-conscious effort to remove sight stimuli. Our nails and hair continue to grow, although, for that matter, they do so for some time even after death. Finally our mental activity does not cease during sleep. Wake up a sleeper at any time and he will awaken _from a dream_. He may not be able to tell that dream but he will know for sure that, not only was he dreaming, but had been dreaming for a long while before awaking. Wherein, then, does sleep differ from waking life? Solely in the form of our mental activities. Sleep is not as Manacéine, the author of the most complete book on sleep, stated: the resting time of consciousness. We do not withdraw our attention completely from the environment in sleep. When we make up our minds, for instance, to wake up at a certain time, we seldom fail to carry out our purpose. Which does not mean that we are suddenly aroused out of our unconsciousness by something within ourselves, but more probably that our attention has been concentrated all night on certain stimuli indicating time, distant chimes, activities taking place at a definite hour, and which we had noticed unconsciously, although they may have escaped our conscious attention. It has even been suggested that as respiration and pulse are more or less constant in rest, they are used by the organism as unconscious time-registers. This is possibly one of the phenomena due to the activity of the pituitary body in which may reside the "sense of time" and which controls all the rhythms of the body. Jouffroy, Manacéine and Kempf have remarked that nursing mothers may sleep soundly in spite of the disturbances which take place about them, but that the slightest motion of their infant will awaken them. Many nurses not only can wake up at regular intervals to administer a drug to their patients, but, besides, can be aroused out of a sound sleep by a change in the patient's breathing foreboding some danger. Our withdrawal of attention from reality follows the same curve as that followed by the withdrawal of blood from the brain. Many experiments have been made to determine that curve and to sound the depth of sleep. In one case a metallic ball was allowed to fall from varying heights until the noise awakened the sleeper; in another case electric currents of varying voltage were used to stimulate the subject, etc. All experiments have yielded the same results: Sleep reaches its lowest depth during the first two or three hours, _the average time being shorter during the day than at night_. In the majority of subjects, the greatest depth is reached about the end of the first hour. After the third hour, sleep is easily disturbed, the more so as the usual awakening time approaches. To conclude, we will say that sleep partakes of all the characteristics of normal life, the only essential difference we can establish scientifically being a greater withdrawal of attention from reality in normal sleep than in normal waking life. We insist on using the terms _normal waking life_, for there are forms of abnormal waking life in which attention is withdrawn as completely from reality as it is in normal sleep. In the disease designated by psychiatrists as _dementia praecox_, the patient may become entirely negative, some time regressing to the level of the unborn child, and withdraw even more entirely from reality than the sleeper who, without awaking, is conscious of certain stimuli and performs certain actions showing a comprehension of their nature. CHAPTER II: FATIGUE AND REST What causes sleep? What causes us to withdraw partly our attention from our environment? The answer: brain anaemia, is unsatisfactory for we may ask in turn: what causes brain anaemia? A study of brain anaemia leads one to conclude that it coincides with the usual sleeping period and that it is produced by sleep instead of producing sleep. The large majority of laymen and scientists, however, give a much simpler answer: we go to sleep because we are tired and need rest. Even as sleep and death have been coupled in the literature of all nations, fatigue and sleepiness, rest and sleep have come to be generally considered as synonymous. Fatigue, however, is as difficult to define scientifically as sleep. Drawing a line between physical fatigue and mental fatigue does not simplify the problem; on the contrary, it complicates it by positing it wrongly. We know that there is no purely physical fatigue. Fatigue is only caused in a very restricted measure by the accumulation of "fatigue" products or the depletion of repair stocks. Under certain "mental" influences, our muscles can perform much more than their usual "stint" without showing fatigue. Hypnotize a man and he will do things he could not attempt in the waking state. He can lie rigid, reposing on nothing but his neck and heels; he can even support in that position the weight of a full-sized man. Men on the march can show wonderful endurance provided their "spirits" are kept up by some form of cheer, band music, etc. Ergograph observations show that signs of muscular fatigue appear and disappear without any obvious "physical" reason. Standardized motions which have been made almost automatic, tire us less than conscious activity. We shall not deny that in certain cases fatigue may appear purely "physical." When a continued expenditure of energy, walking, carrying heavy burdens, has induced muscular soreness, the organism must cease exerting itself for a while and recuperate. But relatively few people perform physical activities which actually wear out the organism. Even then, if that form of exhaustion was conducive to sleep, the more complete the exhaustion was, the deeper the sleep should be. Yet we know that people can be "too tired to sleep." This is easily explained through a consideration of a phenomenon known as the "second wind" and which, before Cannon's observations on the chemistry of the emotions, was rather mysterious. Athletes competing on the running track are often seen to falter and fall back, apparently exhausted; after which, they suddenly seem to breathe more freely, they overcome their limpness and start out on a fresh spurt which may cause them to head off steadier runners. What happens in such a case is this: great physical exertion causes a form of asphyxiation. Asphyxiation and the concomitant fear, liberate adrenin which restores the tone of tired muscles and also glycogen (sugar) which supplies the body with new fuel. If the exertion continues long enough to use up all these emergency chemicals, the muscular relaxation necessary for sleep may be obtained. Otherwise, the organism prepared for a struggle with reality, will not lend itself to a flight from it. Although we are "worn out" we toss about in our bed, try all possible sleeping positions and only sleep when the energy which was supplied for a long struggle has been entirely burnt up. The majority of people, after all, busy themselves with tasks which do not really deplete their stores of energy, but which prove monotonous. That monotony is then interpreted as fatigue. In such cases, rest seems to be more easily attained through a change of activity than through mere cessation of activity. A business man has been closeted in his office attending to many tedious details, reading letters and answering them, etc., and by five o'clock he feels "tired." He will then go home, change his day suit for evening wear, attend a dinner at which he will do perhaps much talking, then watch actors for three hours and feel "rested." Or at the end of a "heavy" week, he will gather up his golf outfit and walk miles in the wake of a rubber ball. He returns to his work "rested," although he has only exchanged one form of activity for other forms of activity. Of actual "rest" he has had none. Children "tired" of sitting in a class room will romp wildly, shout at the tops of their lungs, jostle and fight one another and return to meet their teacher "rested." Undirected activity in the young, pleasurable activity in the adult do not seem to make rest necessary, and in fact are a form of "rest." Egotistical gratification easily takes the place of rest. Heads of large businesses have sometimes mentioned to me that they worked much harder than some of their employés. Some of them kept on revolving commercial schemes in their heads or attending business meetings long after their office workers had left. "And yet," they added, "we are not complaining about being tired." Nor were they as tired, after fifteen hours of "free labor" as their employés were after six or eight hours of routine work allowing them very little initiative and independence of action. Edison works eighteen hours a day and only "rests" through sleep some four hours out of the twenty four. I wager that if he were put at work in his own plant, under the direction of a foreman, performing regular, monotonous tasks, he would break down under the strain of such long hours and would have to "rest" twice as much as he does now. His work satisfies him, and every new detail he perfects, every novelty he initiates, vouchsafes him a powerful ego gratification. Napoleon, too, could perform incredible feats of muscular activity and endurance after which four hours' sleep were sufficient to rest him. His life was for many years a continuous round of ego gratifications, won at the cost of great exertions, it is true, but proclaiming to him and the world his almost unrestricted power and luck. One is forced to the conclusion that a desire for rest is a desire, not for decreased activity but for increased activity. I shall make this point clear through a simile. The manufacturer who "attends to business" must, in order to succeed, "concentrate" on a few subjects and exclude all others from his mind. He may for a few hours think of nothing but, let us say, a certain grade of woollens, certain machinery, a certain customer and perhaps a certain engineer and some financial problem connected with those four thoughts. He must therefore exclude from his mind at the time, thoughts of playing golf, buying new clothes, going to the theatre, renting an apartment, repairing his motor car, thoughts of meals, women, card playing, and many other thoughts which are clamouring for admission to consciousness because they all represent human cravings. In his relaxed moments he will let all those other thoughts come to the surface. Which means that, what tired him, was the fact that he had to keep all those subjects down and allow only the other four to rise to consciousness. Mental rest consists in admitting ideas pell mell into consciousness without exercising any censorship on them. It consists in passing from a reduced but directed mental activity to an increased but undirected mental activity. In other words, rest is the free, normal, unimpeded functioning of the vagotonic nerves which upbuild the body and assure the continuance of the race. Ego and sex activities, mental and physical, are constantly struggling for admission to consciousness and for their gratification. They are held down, however, by the sympathetic nerves which play the part of a safety device, moderating or inhibiting the vagotonic activities whenever the latter might endanger the personality. Physical and mental rest, however, being easily attained through a change of activities, cannot be entirely synonymous with sleep. Sleep takes place mainly while we are resting, although we know of cases when sleep sets in regardless of continued muscular activity, but sleep is not exactly "rest." We do not sleep because we need rest. In many cases we can or could rest very well, although in such cases sleep is an impossibility. What then induces sleep? The certainty that we can for a time relax our watch on our environment; a feeling of perfect safety; the conscious or unconscious knowledge that no danger threatens us. Our receptive contact with reality is attained through the action of our vagotonic nerves which, as stated before, upbuild the body and assure the continuance of the race. Our defensive contact, on the other hand is attained through our sympathetic nerves which interrupt all the activities which are not necessary for fight or flight. As long as some stimulus is interpreted by those nerves as indicating a possible danger, we cannot sleep, although we may, under the influence of terrifying fear, fall into unconsciousness. A light flashed on our closed lids at night causes us to wake up because sympathetic activities bid us to prepare for an emergency. A light burning evenly in our bedroom and not too bright to cause physical pain, will, on the other hand, allow us to sleep soundly because the constant character of the stimulus does not cause us to expect any danger therefrom. A mouse rustling a bit of paper will wake us up, but trains passing in front of our window at regular intervals, or the constant rumble of a neighbouring power house will not prove a disturbance as soon as our nerves have learnt to interpret those stimuli as harmless. Conversation with a dull, witless person, unlikely to best us in debate, puts us to sleep. Argument with keen, sharp-minded people, who keep us on the defensive, may lead to sleeplessness for the rest of the night. A dull book in which nothing happens or is expected to happen, acts as a soporific; we cannot close our eyes before we know the dénouement of a thrilling piece of fiction. In other words, monotony transforms itself into a symbol of safety. Safety does not require the muscular tension, the blood stream speed which the organism needs in order to cope with possible emergencies. We "let go" and no longer pay any close attention to our environment. We sleep. CHAPTER III: THE FLIGHT FROM REALITY Monotony symbolizing safety _enables_ us to withdraw our attention from our environment, from a reality which we no longer fear, but it does not _compel_ us to do so. There is in sleep a certain amount of compulsion which is not accounted for by the mere monotony of environmental stimuli. We go to sleep willingly but not entirely of our own free will. We yield to sleep. A consideration of abnormal sleep states will help us considerably in determining the actual cause of sleep. Abnormal states always throw a flood of light on normal states of which they are only an exaggerated variety. The neurosis is the best magnifying glass through which to watch normal life, provided of course that we afterward reduce our observations to the proper scale. The average person sleeps from six to ten hours out of the twenty four, some time between eight at night and ten in the morning. In abnormal cases, on the other hand, we see the duration of sleep considerably prolonged and the onset of sleepiness appearing at times when complete wakefulness is usually the rule. The circumstances surrounding those abnormal cases are never pleasant. We never hear of any one falling asleep while witnessing a very amusing play, while in the company of a very interesting person or while busy with some extremely attractive occupation. One incident from Napoleon's biography will make my meaning clear. During his days of glory Napoleon never slept more than four or five hours out of the twenty four. His physical and intellectual activities were prodigious. He would, at times, ride on horseback for ten hours at a stretch, then hold conferences with his staff until late into the night, then dictate innumerable letters. Yet he did not feel tired or sleepy and a few hours of sleep were sufficient to "relieve his fatigue." On the other hand, let us remember what happened after the battle of Aspern, the first he lost after a series of seventeen victories: He fell asleep after a long, unsuccessful struggle with drowsiness and for thirty-six hours could not be aroused. His biographers also mention that when his life dream was shattered at Waterloo and he was sent into exile on a remote island, he began to sleep as many hours as the average, normal man. After Aspern and after Waterloo, reality had become such, that an escape from it, via the unconsciousness of sleep, must have been welcome. That the reaction of defeat must have been more keenly felt by the young man who lost Aspern and who presented strong neurotic traits, than by the more settled man who lost Waterloo, can be easily understood. Nansen in his Polar exile slept twenty hours a day. He certainly was not in need of rest or recuperation, for his idleness was complete, but the reality of ice and snow which kept him a prisoner, was one from which he was glad to withdraw his attention. I personally observed two cases in which sudden fits of sleepiness could be interpreted as an escape from reality. A gambler could go for several days and nights without sleep, _provided he was winning_. After a heavy loss or a period during which his earnings were offset by his losses, he would go to bed and sleep as much as four days and four nights at a time, arising once or twice a day to partake of some food and returning at once to his slumbers. A neurotic with a strong inferiority complex was overwhelmed by sleepiness every time he encountered a defeat of a sexual or egotistic nature. After a quarrel, or whenever a discussion in which he took part turned to his disadvantage, he had to lie down and "sleep it off." This is probably the key to the enigma of Casper Hauser's case. He was born in Germany at the beginning of the last century and brought up in complete solitude, in a small dark room. At the age of seventeen, he had never seen men, animals or plants, the sun, moon or stars. He then was taken out of his cell, and abandoned on the streets of Nuremberg, dazed and helpless. All the efforts made by kind Samaritans to develop his mentality proved futile. They had only one result: to make him fall asleep. Accustomed for years to the peace, quiet and safety of his cell, he reacted to a new, troublesome and complicated environment as newly born infants do, who in incredibly long periods of sleep, in no wise explainable through fatigue, escape reality and return to the perfect happiness of the fetal state. In certain forms of the disturbance known as sleeping sickness, people merge into a sleep which continues for weeks, months or even years, and which sometimes culminates in death. (In many cases, however, the sleepiness may be totally lacking.) The sleeping sickness was first observed some hundred years ago on the West Coast of Africa and, since then, in an area of the African continent extending from Senegal to the Congo. Negroes are almost the only sufferers, although a few whites have been affected by this disease which, at times, extends to large numbers of the population. According to various medical observers, the sleeping sickness usually appears among slaves doing _arduous, exhausting work_. It is the individuals who stand lowest in intelligence who are most severely affected. In communities where the mental development has been retarded, imitation easily spreads the contagion and this is probably the reason why entire villages are decimated by that curious malady. Whether the sleeping sickness is in certain cases induced by the bite of a fly or appears without obvious physical cause is immaterial.[1] Paranoia induced by syphilis is in no way different from ordinary paranoia. Hence we are justified in linking together certain aspects of the African sleeping sickness and the lethargic ailment which affects the white races in Europe and America. Both have the appearance of normal sleep, the only striking difference, barring certain physical syndromes, being the unusual length of the sleeping period or its onset at unusual and unexpected times. In white subjects, narcolepsy is seldom fatal but has been known to last for years. The most famous case on record is probably that of Karoline Ollson reported in a Salpétrière publication for 1912. Karoline Ollson was born in 1861 in a small town of Sweden. At the age of 14, at the onset of her menstruation, she once came home complaining of toothache, went to bed and remained bedridden till 1908. For thirty-two years she slept all day and all night, waking up now and then for a few minutes, taking dim notice of happenings in her environment and speaking a few words. Two glasses of milk a day seemed to be sufficient to sustain her. She was kept for a fortnight in a hospital from which she was discharged when her ailment was diagnosed as "hysteria." When her mother died in 1905 she woke up and wept as long as the corpse remained in the house. Then she became quiet again and resumed her slumbers. In April, 1908, when her menstruation stopped, she woke up, left her bed and has led a normal life since. Dr. Toedenström who describes the case states that she looked incredibly young. Two weeks after she left her bed she had become strong enough to take charge of the household. Stekel, discussing this strange case in one of his lectures, said: "This woman spent the entire time of her womanhood in sleep, for she fell asleep at the time of her first menstruation period and her awakening coincided with her climacteric. She was a child and wished to remain a child. The first question she asked on arising, 'Where is mama?' shows that she was suffering from psychic infantilism. It is probable that dreams of childhood filled her thirty-year sleep and she may even have dreamt that she was still an unborn child for whom life had not yet begun." Medical literature contains many reports of freakish cases in which the subject falls asleep suddenly, while attending to duties of an uninteresting character; a young waiter, for instance, falling asleep while waiting on a table, remaining absolutely motionless for a whole minute and then waking up and resuming his work. Manacéine mentions two similar cases she observed personally. Both patients were illiterate and of slow intellect. One of them, a housemaid of nineteen, was a sound sleeper at night and yet, in the day time, one could never be sure of her remaining awake. She fell asleep once in the act of announcing a visitor and while bringing in a tray loaded with cups of coffee. The other was a woman of fifty, who was employed as a nurse until one day, falling asleep suddenly, she dropped an infant on the floor and almost killed him. In both the pulse was remarkably slow (a vagotonic symptom): in the girl it varied from 50 to 70 when awake, in the older woman from 40 to 60. An epidemic of sleeping fits, lasting only a few minutes at a time, raged for several years in a small German town near Würzburg. The attacks took place at any moment and were liable to leave the patient immobilized in some curious position. It was the weaker part of the population, physically and mentally, which was affected by that curious trouble, apparently transmitted from parents to children, probably, as all neurotic complaints are, through imitation. Stekel considers hysterical and epileptic fits as forms of morbid sleep during which hysterics gratify sexual cravings and epileptics sadistic cravings. This is how Dr. Isador Abrahamson describes, from recent cases observed at Mount Sinai Hospital, the course of lethargic encephalitis which is one of the scientific names coined to designate the sleeping sickness: "At the onset of the disease, there is a period of variable duration in which the patient experiences increasing difficulty in attending to his work. Next a time of yawning ensues, in which there may be also the _irritability of the overtired_. Then the eyes close, _chiefly from lack of interest_.... (The patient's) pulse, temperature, and respiration may all be of a normal character.... From the depth of this seeming slumber, he may respond immediately when questioned and his _short but coherent answers_ show _no loss either of memory or of orientation_.... His answer given, he straightway resumes his seeming sleep.... _His attitude expresses a desire to be let alone_, a desire which is sometimes articulate in him.... The somnolence may deepen into a stupor from which the patient is not easily aroused to conscious repose.... In the night watches ... a restless delirium of inconstant severity often appears. Spontaneous movements and sounds are made. The movements are purposeful graspings and pointings at unseen things, tossings and turnings...." The author adds in another part of his article that "The depth of the somnolence and also its duration are unrelated to the severity of the cerebral lesions.... _The extent of the mental disturbance bears no correspondence to the extent of the lesions_, the amount of fever or the blood picture...." [Italics mine.] We have a perfect picture of a flight from reality into a somnolence into which the unconscious complexes force at times a terrifying presentation of the dreaded reality through nightmares. The few cases of sleeping sickness reported in recent medical literature show a decided neurotic trend in the subjects affected and reveal circumstances in the patient's life which would make a flight from reality highly desirable. One typical case reported to me by a Boston physician who personally considers the sleeping sickness as being "unquestionably an acute organic disease of the cerebro-spinal system" has all the earmarks of a neurotic affection: "The patient, a middle aged woman lost a child she loved dearly one year and a half before the onset of the disease. The circumstances of the child's death were particularly sad as the mother was not allowed to visit the little sufferer at the hospital on account of the contagious character of his disease. She also felt disturbing doubts as to the competence of the first physician who attended her child. "She had been 'nervous and run down' since the child's death. She is married to a cripple twenty years her senior. She had to go to work in order to help support the household and to live with relatives of her husband's who did not contribute to the pleasantness of her home life." Have we not here all the environmental conditions which would drive a neurotic to withdraw his attention from reality through a protracted period of sleep? From the fact that I have instituted a comparison between sleep and the sleeping sickness, the reader should not draw the conclusion that I attribute to sleep any neurotic character. Sleep is a compromise, as I shall show later, when discussing dream life, between what the human animal was meant to do and what it can do in reality. The neurosis, also is a compromise, but it is a compromise that fails, while sleep is a compromise which is successful, beneficial and acceptable to all. CHAPTER IV: HYPNOGOGIC AND HYPNOPOMPIC VISIONS The curve of sleep depth shows that our withdrawal from reality is not sudden but gradual. The transition from wakefulness to sleep is characterized at first by blurred visions, colours, shapes, moving objects with a scarcely defined outline, and immediately after by curiously symbolical visions, known as hypnogogic visions. Those phenomena are difficult to study for they are forgotten by the end of the night. The observer has to train himself to wake up after a few minutes of unconsciousness, a result which is achieved without difficulty after a few trials. The first visions of the night are in every subject I have asked and in myself, symbolical of the passage from one state to another. One hypnogogic vision I have had many times is of wading slowly into a lake or the sea, until the water reaches to the middle of my body after which I start swimming.[2] One night when I had a little difficulty in falling asleep my hypnogogic vision represented a truckman looking like myself whipping a team of horses hitched to a big load who were crossing a very high bridge leading from the city into the open. Another night, after seeing the "Follies," I dreamt that the police was trying vainly to quell a disturbance and that the rioters succeeded in placing their own police in charge of the disturbance. The newcomers were attired like the front row girls of the Follies. No more symbolical picture of the whole nervous situation could be found. The day's repressions being gradually replaced by the "follies" of dreamland. Not only is the passage from reality into dreamland thus symbolized by appropriate representation but the mental work of reality gradually merges with the mental work of the sleeping state. Thoughts of the day merge directly with the dream thoughts. There is no gap between waking thoughts and sleeping thoughts. This has been demonstrated by Silberer's experiments. "The very first dream," Silberer says, "visualizes, dramatises and interprets the very last waking thought." 1st EXAMPLE: "I applied some boric ointment to the mucous of my nose before retiring to relieve a painful dryness." DREAM: "I see some one offering money to some one else. Only I notice that it is my right hand which is putting money into my left hand." INTERPRETATION: "I have often thought that this medication did not help my nose trouble but simply concealed it. The action is therefore presented as illusory help." 2nd EXAMPLE: "I am thinking of a dramatic scene in which a character would intimate a certain fact to another character without putting the thought into words." DREAM: "One man is offering to another man a hot metallic cup." INTERPRETATION: "The cup transmits an impression of heat which has not to be expressed through spoken words." 3rd EXAMPLE: "I try to remember something which in my sleepy state eludes me." DREAM: "I apply for information to a grouchy clerk who refuses to impart it to me. The interpretation is obvious." 4th EXAMPLE: "I think that many simple arguments could be brought forth to prove some thesis of mine." DREAM: "A drove of white horses moves downward through my field of vision. Interpretation obvious." Likewise sleeping thoughts gradually merge with waking thoughts in the moments preceding awakening. The last dreams of the night or hypnopompic visions generally dramatize our awakening in picturesque, symbolical fashion. Here are several examples collected by Silberer from observations on himself: "I return to my home with a party of people, take leave of them at the door and enter." "After visiting some place, I drive home along the same road which lead me there." "One morning I woke up and decided to doze off for another half hour: I dreamt then that I was locked up in a house and I woke up saying: 'I must have the lock broken open.'" In hypnopompic visions we generally enter a house, a forest, a dark valley or take a train or a boat, or we fall (see typical dreams). CHAPTER V: WHERE DREAMS COME FROM To sleep does not mean "perchance to dream," but to dream from the very second when we close our eyes to the time when we open them again. "But I never dream," some one will surely say. To which I will answer: Make experiments on yourself or some one else. Have some one wake you up fifty times or a hundred times in one night. Repeat the experiment as many nights as your constitution will allow and every time you wake up, you will wake up with the clear or confused memory of some dream. Most people forget their dreams as they forget their waking thoughts. Unless some very striking idea came to my mind yesterday afternoon, I am likely to be embarrassed if some one asks me: "What were you thinking of yesterday afternoon?" We shall see in another chapter that our dream thoughts are not in any way different from our waking thoughts, and that unless they have a special meaning there is no reason why they should obsess us more than our waking thoughts do. In fact, a remembered dream is as important as an obsessive idea and has the same meaning. Thousands of futile dreams dreamt in one night may not leave a deeper impression on our "mind" than thousands of futile thoughts which flit through our consciousness in one day. Before considering the origin of dreams I must restate briefly a proposition which I have discussed at length in _Psychoanalysis and Behaviour_, the indivisibility of the human organism. The words physical and mental are lacking in any real meaning and there is no physical manifestation which it not inseparably linked with some psychic phenomenon. Emotions, secretions and attitudes may be studied separately for the sake of convenience, but in reality there cannot be any emotion which is not unavoidably accompanied by a secretion and betrayed by some attitude, nor can there be any attitude which is not accompanied by a secretion and interpreted by some emotion. This must be constantly borne in mind when we attempt to answer the question: Where do dreams come from? If dreams "come from the stomach" why should distressed minds seek refuge in them? If they are purely psychic phenomena, what relief can they afford to our dissatisfied body? We shall not deny that a full bladder may at times induce urination dreams, that a full stomach may at times conjure up anxiety visions in which heavy masses oppress us, or that long continence and the consequent accumulation of sexual products may be at times responsible for sexual dreams. What the physical theory of dreams, most scientifically and conscientiously expounded by the Scandinavian Mourly Vold, will not explain, however, is that, in one subject, a urination dream may be a pleasurable visualization of relief, leading to continued sleep and, in another, an anxiety episode, picturing frustrated gratification and ending in an unpleasant awakening. A heavy dinner may people one sleeper's visions with large animals treading his stomach, and cause another to dream of vomiting fits which relieve the pressure of food. In one sleeper, sexual desire evokes libidinous visions, in another, terrifying scenes of violence. On the other hand, the very close relation observed in thousands of cases between the sleeper's dreams and his physical condition, invalidates any theory which would revert more or less literally to the belief held in ancient times that dreams were purely psychic phenomena, visions sent by the gods. Maury whose book, "Sleep and Dreams," published in 1865, was probably the first serious attempt at deciphering the enigma of dream thoughts, had various experiments performed on himself to determine what dreams would be brought forth by physical stimuli. He was tickled with a feather on the lips and nostrils. He dreamt that a mask of pitch was applied to his face and then pulled off, tearing the skin. A pair of tweezers was held close to his ear and struck with a metallic object. He heard the tolling of bells and thought of the revolutionary days of 1848. A bottle of perfume was held to his nose. He dreamt of the East and of a trip to Egypt. A lighted match was held close to his nostrils. He dreamt that he was on a ship whose magazine had exploded. A pinch on the back of the neck suggested the application of a blister and evoked the memory of a family physician. A sensation of heat made him dream that robbers had entered the house and were compelling the inmates to reveal where their money was hidden by scorching the soles of their feet. Words were pronounced aloud. He attributed them to some people with whom he had been talking in his dreams. A drop of water was allowed to fall on his forehead. He dreamt that he was in Italy, feeling very hot and drinking wine. A red light suggested to him a storm at sea. Struck on the neck, he dreamt that he was a revolutionist, arrested, tried, sentenced to death and guillotined. I have had some of Maury's experiments repeated on myself and the connection between the physical stimulus and the content of the dream leaves no doubt as to the direct relation between the two. On the other hand, the reader will notice that the same stimuli applied to Maury and to me produced absolutely different results. Compare my first and second experiments with his first and third. 1. I was tickled on the nose with a feather. I dreamt that I was entering a forest and that branches and leaves were brushing against my face. I made an effort to push them away with my hand. (I had taken a ride through Central Park that very day). 2. A bottle of perfume was held open under my nose. I dreamt of a landscape with thick clouds and mist to the left. Two dark figures carrying grips were hurrying toward the right where there seemed to be open fields, flowers, and sunlight. (The day preceding the dream had been cloudy.) 3. My nose was stroked with a piece of paper. I dreamt I met a certain writer who asked me whether another writer had seen a certain lady and her daughter. I answered rather indifferently and went on my way. Then I saw either the other writer or myself seated before a window and showing a tall gaunt woman and another indistinct figure, either Japanese prints or some manuscript, and I woke up. (The day preceding the dream I had revised a manuscript for a woman and also spoken of one of the two writers.) 4. Cold steel was applied to my throat. I dreamt that a cold wind was blowing; I tried to turn up my overcoat collar and woke myself up. Carl Dreher has devised an apparatus which can be set to throw flashes of light at a given time during the night and then wakes him up by means of a buzzer. The flashes have translated themselves in many cases into interesting visions: In one dream the last picture seen before the alarm went off was that of a building in front of which stood very white marble columns standing on a background of intense black. On another occasion extremely bright green snakes hung from trees, the space between the snakes being very dark. On another occasion he was talking to a girl who declares herself to be "intermittently in love." In another dream, he saw himself operating a moving picture machine which threw flashes on the screen regardless of whether he opened or closed the switch. After many such experiments, he saw his apparatus in a dream and woke up without having been directly affected by the light. In this last dream we have a case of dream insight, the dreamer refusing to pay any attention to a stimulus which has become familiar. This explains the phenomenon of adaptation to stimuli. People whose bedroom is near some source of regular constant noise can sleep in spite of that stimulus for their nervous system no longer translates it into fear; nor has it to interpret it lest it might create fear. Every one of the dreams thus produced artificially were closely related to experiences of the day before and to some of the dreamer's memories and complexes. The dreamer's unconscious was merely stimulated by the light flashes to express itself through images including an allusion to those flashes. In other words, the physical stimulus, be it an impression made upon one of the sense organs or an inner secretion, is interpreted by the sleeper according to the ideas which dominate the sleeper's mind at the time, memories of recent experiences or obsessive ideas. Which means that the personality of the dreamer expresses itself through his dreams. We need not heed Pythagoras' warning against eating beans. It is not the stimulus that counts; it is the end result. And the end result seems to depend from the memories which have accumulated in our autonomic nerves. Freud compares the dream work to a promoter who could never carry out his brilliant ideas if he could not draw upon funds accumulated elsewhere (in the unconscious). Silberer says that the appearance of a dream is like the outbreak of a war. There is a popular tendency among the ignorant to attribute a war to some superficial, visible cause, disagreement, insult, invasion. The real causes, however, are much deeper and lie not only in the present but in the past as well. CHAPTER VI: CONVENIENCE DREAMS Some of the hypnogogic visions and experimental dreams I have mentioned contradict the wide-spread belief that sound sleep is untroubled by dreams. The hypnagogic vision I have so often, that I wade into a body of water and finally start swimming, only adds one more pleasant feature to my escape from reality. Swimming is really my favourite sport. When my nose was tickled and I interpreted the stimulus as foliage brushing my face on entering a forest, that vision was not meant to awaken me, but on the contrary to keep me asleep by explaining away the tickling sensation and removing any sense of fear which would have compelled me to take notice once more of reality and protect myself. Such dreams have been designated as convenience dreams. Dreams of urination can be considered as typical convenience dreams. In the morning, when the pressure of urine on the walls of the bladder becomes stronger, dreams build up a convenient explanation around that unpleasant stimulus. Our wish to urinate is either represented as gratified or we are shown the impossibility of gratifying it (no toilet, doors locked, people looking, etc.). Unless the pressure is absolutely unbearable, we generally sleep on, satisfied or discouraged by such convenience dreams. Freud tells in his "Interpretation of Dreams" of a striking convenience dream of his and of a variation it underwent on one occasion: "If in the evening I eat anchovies, olives or any other strongly salted food, I become thirsty at night, whereupon I awaken. The awakening, however, is preceded by a dream, which, each time has the same content, namely that I am drinking. The dream serves a function, the nature of which I soon guess. If I succeed in assuaging my thirst by means of a dream that I am drinking, I need not wake up in order to satisfy that need. The dream substitutes itself for action, as elsewhere in life. This same dream recently appeared in modified form. On this occasion I became thirsty before going to bed and emptied the glass of water which stood on a chest near my bed. Several hours later in the night, came a new attack of thirst, accompanied by discomfort. In order to obtain water I would have had to get up and fetch the glass which stood on a chest near my wife's bed. I appropriately dreamt that my wife was giving me to drink from a vase, an Etruscan cinerary urn. But the water in it tasted so salty, apparently from the ashes, that I had to wake up." On a chilly summer night a woman patient had the following dream: "A man took me in a canoe to the middle of a lake and upset the canoe, saying: 'Now you belong to me.'" She woke up shivering. The lake, the canoe upset and the man in the dream were associated with many conscious thoughts and memories of hers. But this was mainly a convenience dream, which endeavoured to explain away the chilliness of the night through an appropriate scene. When the unavoidable awakening took place it was dramatized, as it is in so many cases of awakening, through a fall accompanied by a certain fear of death. The few examples I have given and which could be multiplied, tend to show that the dream, far from being a disturber of sleep, is sleep's best protector. It seeks to explain away physical stimuli which might cause the sleeper to awake and it visualizes many reasons for not experiencing the fear usually connected with a certain stimulus. In every convenience dream which I have analysed, I have found a close connection between the image conjured up by the dream work and the ideas generally occupying the dreamer's mind in his waking states. In almost every case it could also be noticed that the convenience dream made use of some experience or observation of the previous waking state, which increases the plausibility of the dream's visualization. CHAPTER VII: DREAM LIFE The life we lead in our dreams, especially in healthy, pleasant dreams, is simpler and easier than our waking life. We obliterate distance and transport ourselves wherever our fancy chooses; our strength is herculean; we defy the law of gravitation and rise or soar with or without wings; we brave law and custom; we abandon all modesty and make ourselves the centre of the world, which is OUR world, not any one else's world. The simplification of life is attained in dreams through three processes, visualization, condensation and symbolization. The dream is always a vision. Other sensations than visual ones may be experienced in dreams but they are only secondary elements. In other words, we may now and then hear sounds, perceive odours, etc., but the dream is based primarily on a scene which is perceived visually, not on sounds, odours, etc., now and then accompanied by a visual perception. In fact we seldom hear sounds in our dreams, unless they are actual sounds produced in our immediate environment; the people who address us in dreams do not actually emit sounds but seem to communicate their thought to us directly without any auditory medium. Seldom do we taste or smell things in dreams. On the other hand, we translate every stimulus reaching our senses in sleep, be it sound, taste, smell, touch, into a visual presentation. This process is to be compared to the gesticulation of primitive individuals who attempt to visualize everything they describe, indicating the length, height, bulk of objects through more or less appropriate mimic and who convey the idea of a bad odour by holding their nose, of pleasing food, by rubbing their stomach, etc. The dramatization of every thought and every problem follows the line of least effort. And this explains the popularity of the movies, the enjoyment of which does not presuppose on the part of the audience any capacity to conceive abstract ideas. Movie audiences are undoubtedly the least intelligent aggregations of people. They are not _told_ that a crime has been committed, they are _shown_ the crime while it is being committed. Captions warn them of what they are going to see, that they may not misunderstand the meaning of any scene. The movie, like our unconscious, translates every thought into a visual sensation, and when a psychological change cannot very well be visualized, for instance when the villain decides not to kill the ingenue, the fact is flashed on the screen in large type. Pleasures of the eye are probably stronger and simpler than those vouchsafed by other sensory organs.[3] The most uninteresting parade will attract thousands of people, many more for instance, than free concerts in the open. Illustrated lectures appeal to more people than lectures without illustrations. Displays in shop windows, picturesque signs, possess a greater selling power than the best advertising copy. In our waking life, we express our thoughts to ourselves and others through the algebra of abstract concepts. We speak of length, height, volume, weight, hardness, coldness, etc. It is doubtful, however, whether we can imagine length without thinking specifically of something long. In our dreams, the concept length disappears and is always replaced by something long. We notice that abstract thinking is more tiresome than descriptive thinking, that abstract facts demand more exertion in order to be grasped, than concrete facts. A philosopher expounding his theories to an audience tires himself and the audience quicker than an explorer would, describing his travels and possibly illustrating his talk by means of lantern slides. Dream life is further simplified through condensation. This process is the one through which, in waking life, we reach generalizations. When we think of a house we select the essential characteristics of the various houses we have seen, the properties wherein a house essentially differs from, let us say, a bird or a river. In our dreams, condensation is less subtle and more directly based upon our experience. We combine several persons into one, selecting as a rule the most striking features of every one of them. We may see a dream character with the eyes of one person, the nose of another and the beard of a third one. Freud having made one proposal to two different men, Dr. M. and his brother, the former having a beard and the latter being clean shaven and suffering from hip trouble, combined them in a dream in a figure which looked like Dr. M., but was beardless and limped. One of Ferenczi's patients dreamt of a monster with the head of a physician, the body of a horse and draped in a nightgown. Silberer dreamt of an animal which had the head of a tiger and the body of a horse. This is a process similar to the one which in the infancy of the race gave birth to strange composite gods and mythological creatures like the Assyrian bull a combination of man's intelligence, the bull's strength and the bird's power of flight, the various Egyptian deities in whom the process was reversed, for so many had the heads of animals and the bodies of men, the satyrs and syrens, combining respectively man and goat, woman and fish, Pegasus, the winged horse, etc. Finally, dream life is simplified through the symbolic representation of human beings or inanimate things. In symbolization, one striking characteristic of some complicated object is isolated from the others and some other object with only one characteristic substituted for it. Slang is made up of such symbolizations. Think of the expression "bats in the belfry," in which the complicated human head is replaced by an architectural detail much simpler in character and occupying in an edifice the same position which the head occupies in human anatomy. Then, instead of describing absurd ideas, of a sinister colouring, without definite direction, we simply visualize queer creatures, half bird and half mouse, flitting about blindly. Instead of explaining that the central figure of the christian religion is a godlike creature who died crucified, we select the most striking detail of the Passion, the cross, which to the initiated and uninitiated alike signifies christianity. In many cases we do not even represent the cross as that instrument of torture really looked but we simplify it, we symbolize it, by using a conventional design in which the proportion between the cross pieces has been entirely disregarded. Symbolization is a reduction of an object to one essential detail which has struck us as more important than the others. A child will designate a watch as a "tick-tick," a dog as a "bow-wow," because to his simple mind, ticking and barking are the essential characteristics of a watch and a dog. In dreams, we simplify the concept of the body and often represent it by a house. The authority vested in the father and mother causes them often to be symbolized by important personages, etc. Without any more explanation, I shall sum up the various dream symbols whose selection is easily understood. Birth is often symbolized by a plunge into water or some one climbing out of it or rescuing some one from the water. Death is represented by taking a journey, being dead, by darksome suggestions. A great many symbols in dreams are sexual symbols. The figure 3, all elongated or sharp objects, such as sticks, umbrellas, knifes, daggers, revolvers, plowshares, pencils, files, objects from which water flows, faucets, fountains, animals such as reptiles and fishes, in certain cases hats and cloaks are used to represent the male sex. The female sex is symbolized on the contrary by hollow objects, pits, caves, boxes, trunks, pockets, ships. The breasts are represented by apples, peaches and fruits in general, balconies, etc. Fertility is symbolized by ploughed fields, gardens, etc. I have shown in another book, "Psychoanalysis, Its History, Theory and Practice," that symbols are absolutely universal and that the folklore of the various races and of the various centuries draws upon the same material for the purpose of simplified representation. Differences in climate, fauna and flora are purely superficial. Dwellers of the Polar regions are not likely to compare anything to a palm tree which they have never seen, nor will tropical races symbolize coldness through snowfields. Experiments made by Dr. Karl Schrötter have confirmed Freud's and Jung's theories of symbolization in dreams. To the uninitiated and sceptical, dream symbols generally appear rather ludicrous fancies and not a few opponents of psychoanalysis hold that symbols were resorted to by analysts unable to read an obvious wish fulfilment in every dream. Schrötter hypnotized his patients, then suggested to them a dream outline, ordering them also to indicate through an appropriate gesture when the dream would begin and end. This enabled him, by the way, to record the duration of every dream.[4] He then awakened the subject and made him tell his dream. One of his patients, a woman drawing toward middle age, who had been greatly upset when she learnt that the man she loved was suffering from syphilis, was asked to have a dream symbolizing her state of mind. Here is the vision she had: "I am walking through a forest on an autumn day. The path is steep and I feel chilly. Some one whom I cannot distinguish is near me. I only feel the touch of a hand. I am very thirsty. I would like to slake my thirst at a spring but there is a sign on the spring that means poison: a skull and cross bones." The fancy is rather poetical and this example is quite typical of the symbolization of our life's incidents by the dream work. A patient with a strong resistance to the analytic method saw me in a dream "carrying a fake refrigerator full of make-believe meats, vegetables and fruits." The interpretation is obvious. I am carrying in a deceptive way an assortment of ideas which can be of no use to any one. The refrigerator implies that the ideas are not even new but old and stale. The patient's repressions were such that, although the dream struck him as strange and he remembered it several months, he was unable to puzzle out its meaning. It expressed his mental state at the time and yet having made up his mind not to doubt me or the analytic treatment, he become unable to accept any disparaging thought consciously. Unconsciously, however, he expressed his doubts in most striking symbolism which he did not himself understand. This should be borne in mind if we wish to understand the psychology of nightmares. For in nightmares we may express a wish through a symbol which expresses it fittingly, but which we do not understand and which, on that account, may frighten us. Let those who sneer at the study of symbols watch some of the attitudes assumed by insane people[5] who have reached the lowest level of deterioration. Let them see a picture published in the issue of the _Journal of Mental and Nervous Disease_ for January, 1920, and which represents a hospital patient who has reached the lowest degree of infantilism. The patient hung herself in a blanket attached to a nail in front of a window. There she spent her days in the characteristic attitude of the unborn child in the womb. Everything in that attitude was symbolical of her regression to, not only infancy, but the prenatal condition. CHAPTER VIII: WISH FULFILMENT An evening paper published recently a cartoon showing a kiddie in bed who asks his mother: "What makes me dream?"--"You eat too much meat," the mother answers. The next scene is laid in the kitchen where the mother finds her child ransacking the ice box for meat. Parents could testify to the illustrator's knowledge of the childish soul. Children like to dream and Freud's statement that every dream contains the fulfilment of some wish is confirmed by the dreams of healthy children. Children attain in their sleep visions the simple pleasures which are denied them in their waking states. Freud's little daughter, three and a half years old, being kept one day on a rather strict diet, owing to some gastric disturbance, was heard to call excitedly in her sleep: "Anna Freud, strawberry, huckleberry, omelette, pap." On one occasion she was taken across a lake and enjoyed the trip so much that she cried bitterly at the landing when compelled to leave the boat. The next morning she told the family a dream in which she had been sailing on the lake. Freud's little nephew, Hermann, aged twenty-one months, was once given the task of offering his uncle, as a birthday present, a little basket full of cherries. He performed that duty rather reluctantly. The following day he awakened joyously with the information which could only have been derived from a dream: "Hermann ate all the cherries." The _London Times_ of Nov. 8, 1919, had a report of a lecture by Dr. C. W. Kimmins, chief inspector of the London Education Committee, on the significance of children's dreams. He based his statements on the written records of the dreams of 500 children between the ages of eight and sixteen years. Up to the age of ten, dreams of eating predominated, but their number fell off after ten, when dreams of visits to the country began to increase. Dreams of presents and eating at all ages from eight to fourteen, were much more frequent with children of the poorer classes that with those from well-to-do districts and there was an appreciable increase of their number about Christmas time. Retrospective dreams were very uncommon among all children. Obvious wish fulfilment dreams were less common among boys than among girls, the proportion being respectively twenty-eight and forty-two per cent. Boys below ten had more fear dreams than girls of the same age. In both sexes it was some "old man" who terrified the dreamers. Both sexes suffered equally from the fear of animals, lions, tigers and bulls in the case of the boys, dogs, rats, snakes and mice in the case of the girls. From ten to fifteen a falling off in the number of fear dreams was very noticeable among boys, whereas among girls it rather increased. That increase was especially striking among girls of 16 and over, who were generally frightened by animals and strange men and women. When school life played a part in children's dreams it was more frequently the playgrounds than the classrooms which were visualized. The war affected boys' more than girls' dreams. The dreaming boy was a valorous fighter, mentioned in dispatches, rewarded with the Victoria Cross, thanked personally by the King; or he returned home wildly cheered by crowds. Girls, thirteen or over, saw themselves as Red Cross nurses, but no such dreams were observed in girls below ten. Normal, healthy children delighted in dreaming and telling their dreams with a wealth of detail. Dr. Kimmins mentioned that, while the dreams of school children were generally easy to interpret, the dreams of students from 18 to 22 "were so heavily camouflaged that it would be impossible for any one who was not a trained expert in psychoanalysis to deal with them satisfactorily." We can see how the repression made necessary by life conditions in modern communities slowly but surely transforms the obvious wish-fulfilment dreams of children into the symbolical and often distressing visions of the adult. The development of sexuality in boys and girls and the repression to which it is submitted explains easily the proportion of fear dreams in girls and boys. Sexual talk and sexual curiosity are more common among boys than girls and therefore occupy the boys' minds more constantly than the girls' minds. On the other hand, many of the boys above sixteen find forms of sexual satisfaction of which the girls of the same age are deprived. Fear dreams are therefore more frequent among growing girls, being simply a symbolical form of sexual gratification. The dreams of adults are far from being as uniformly pleasurable as those of young and healthy children. A few of them are frankly pleasant; most of them are apparently indifferent and a few of them frankly unpleasant. The pleasant dreams of the adults require as little interpretation as those of children and are obviously the fulfilment of conscious or unconscious wishes. A patient of mine, camping in the woods alone, dreamt during a rainy night that some of his friends were camping with him, that one of them had gone to a neighbouring inn to secure better accommodations and finally that he was in his own bed at home. Nordenskjold in his book "The Antarctic," published in 1904, mentions that during the winter which he spent in the polar wilderness, his dreams and those of his men "were more frequent and more vivid than they had ever been before. They all referred to the outer world which was so far from us.... Eating and drinking formed the central point around which most of our dreams were grouped. One of us, who was fond of going to big dinner parties, was exceedingly glad when he could report in the morning that he had had a three course dinner. Another dreamed of tobacco, mountains of it; still another dreamed of a ship approaching on the open sea under full sail. Still another dream deserves mention: the postman brought the mail and gave a long explanation of why he had to wait so long.... One can readily understand why we longed for sleep. IT ALONE COULD GIVE US ALL THE THINGS WHICH WE MOST ARDENTLY DESIRED." [Capitals mine.] Other dreams of wish-fulfilment appear at first glance either indifferent or absurd. Interpreted according to the technique outlined in Chapter XVII, however, they soon yield a meaning which is rather convincing. The following dream, recorded by a patient, would not lead the inexperienced interpreter to suspect the sinister death wish which it is meant to express in an indirect way. "I was visiting a factory and saw Charles working as a glassblower." Charles was the first name of a wealthy man who seduced a girl with whom the dreamer was in love. The wealthy man is reduced to the condition of a working man. The patient's unconscious association to _glass blower_ proved to be _consumption_. The patient had once read statistics showing that a large number of glassblowers died from that disease. A very neatly concealed death wish. In other cases the death wish, while obvious in the manifest dream content, appears absurd and may cause the patient some anxiety. One of Ferenczi's patients, who was extremely fond of dogs, dreamt that she was choking a little white dog to death. Word associations brought out the memory of a relative with an unusually _pallid_ face whom she had recently ordered out of her house, saying later that she would not have such a snarling _dog_ about her. It was that white-faced woman, not a white dog, whose neck she wished to wring. Here is another example in which the wish fulfilment is cleverly concealed. "I am standing on a hill with Albert and somebody else. Bombs are falling about us. One of them strikes his car which is destroyed."[6] The patient, a woman, is in love with Albert and enjoys greatly riding with him in his car. Why should she wish to see it wrecked? The key to the enigma was given by the associations to the "somebody else." The somebody else was another woman whom Albert had taken to ride on several occasions and of whom my patient was very jealous. By destroying the car, the jealous woman was putting an end to the rides which had especially aroused her jealousy. The following dream seems rather unpleasant without being however an actual nightmare. DREAM: I heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, I found a man lying on the floor with his coat off and drunk. Later he was hiding from me and running about the house. The man was captured and brought back by another man who cross-examined him. The other man made excuses for the thief and said he probably intended to steal but as he had a toothache he had sought the cellar and drunk to deaden the pain. To prove his explanations he opened the thief's mouth and pointed to a large cavity in one tooth. INTERPRETATION: The patient who brought me the dream was a young woman who, at the time, was worrying lest her husband should discover an indiscretion she had committed in her own house. The thief in the dream turned out to be her lover and the man who captures him, her husband. Everything is made simple and pleasant by the fact that the husband takes it upon himself to make excuses for the man he has captured. The excuse of the cavity was an allusion to alleged visits to a dentist's office which supplied her with alibis on various occasions. We spend a part of the night, if not the entire night, seeking solutions for the problems of the day. Patients who have been trained to remember and record their dreams accurately, sometimes bring a series of visions, apparently unrelated, but which after interpretation, prove to be successive presentations of one and the same problem from different angles. CHAPTER IX: NIGHTMARES The Freudian theory of wish-fulfilment easily accepted by the layman as solving the problem of pleasant or indifferent dreams, meets with a most sceptical reception when it is applied to unpleasant dreams, to nightmares, which are characterized by a varying degree of anxiety. What I said in a previous chapter on the subject of symbols explains why certain wish-fulfilment dreams are perceived and remembered as nightmares. A woman may dream that she is surrounded by snakes, bitten by a dog, pursued by a bull, trampled down by a horse. A man may dream that he is stabbed in the back or that he is sinking slowly into water. In the first case we have a symbolic expression of the woman's desire for sexual intercourse, in the second a symbolic expression of the man's desire for homosexual gratification or for regression to the fetal stage (assuming of course that those various symbols have not a personal significance for the subject). The anxiety connected with those visions is due to the subject's inability or unwillingness to recognize as his the unconscious desires expressed by symbols. In not a few cases, the sleeper creates a dream situation which is distressing, full of danger, but which leads to a triumphal climax in which his ego reaps a rich reward of glory. Stekel in "The Language of the Dream," records a fine dream of his in which his egotism is vouchsafed all forms of gratification. DREAM: "I am in a great hall. On the stage there is a composite, centaurlike creature, half horse and half wolf or tiger. I am standing near the door, fearing that the beast might get out of bounds. In fact the tiger tears himself loose from the horse and leaps toward the door. I slam it shut and lock it up. After a while, I re-enter the hall. I behold a wild panic. Krafft-Ebing, the lion tamer, is rushing here and there. A man with two children is shaking with fear. Trumpet calls are heard coming from the tower." INTERPRETATION: "The dream was connected with a heated discussion in which I had taken part, about Zola's 'The Human Beast.' I contended that in every man there is a pathological strain and that no one is in absolute control of the beast. I see myself under two different aspects. I am the wolf or tiger and I lock the door in order that the wild cravings may not get loose. How great I am in this dream! Krafft-Ebing, the famous expert in sexual pathology, runs about helpless, while I hold the beasts in my power. The fear-stricken fellow with the two children is myself, an obviously tragic figure, symbolizing another side of my nature. The trumpet calls are from Beethoven's Fidelio. My marital faithfulness triumphs over my wildest urges. I am a model for all to imitate and I sound loud warnings." In a dream reported by a patient who was unconsciously trying to break his appointment with me, the anxiety is purely hypocritical, for each new obstacle placed in the dreamer's path is a new excuse for not reaching my office on time. "I was on Riverside Drive, strolling north. Mr. Tridon came along in the same direction, bare-headed and riding on a bicycle. He came near running into a boy, also on a bicycle, but swerved sharply and avoided a collision. "I was hurrying to keep the appointment with Mr. Tridon which I had for 5.30 P. M. (I really had an appointment for 11.30 in the morning) but felt that I could not be there on time. My watch had stopped and the clocks I saw in stores had stopped likewise. The location was the slope of Morningside Heights and my direction still seemed to be northerly. "Another transition and I was climbing a hill near what looked like the 99th Street station of the 3rd Avenue L. Near the summit the going became very steep and I was unable to go on, although I tried to scramble up on my hands and knees. I turned to the left, however, and climbed stairs leading through a white house, which I understood to be a school. There was a woman there with a few children. I then issued into a wide avenue running east and west which looked like Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn. A trolley came along but as I ran for it, it seemed as though I had lost my coat. I turned back anxiously to find it but discovered that I was carrying it on my arm. I woke up before the next car came along." After attempting to ridicule me, the dreamer rehearsed all the excuses he might offer me for missing an appointment: Mistake about the hour, clocks stopped, going to the wrong direction (north instead of south), finally landing in Brooklyn, far from my office and missing several cars, etc.... A young woman who had been invited several times by a friend to come and visit her and who had exhausted all the possible excuses for refusing such an invitation had the following dream after receiving one more letter renewing the invitation: "My friend's abode was a new apartment and I spent a night there. Upon awaking in the morning I discovered something crawling on my bed which looked like a caterpillar. I was disgusted and frightened. I went into the bathroom and there too found insects of the same species but very small in size. They reminded me of spiders and the ceiling and the walls were entirely 'decorated' with them. "I then decided to tell my friend to call this to the attention of the landlady and as I entered my friend's room I found her and the landlady cleaning my friend's bed. "I told the landlady how unpleasant it is to have such creatures in one's apartment and she said: 'The rooms were left unpainted for some time and this is the cause of it.'" An unpleasant dream, containing a little anxiety and some disgust and yet, a solution offered for the young woman's problem, a reason for not accepting the invitation. The place is not clean. The next dream is also an effort at finding a solution for a distressing problem: DREAM: "I was at home; some one looking like a nurse said: 'Come up stairs. You are going to have a baby.' I was neither surprised nor worried. The nurse added: 'When you have had the baby, you can select a husband for yourself.' I followed her and lay on a bed waiting for pains. Feeling nothing I grew impatient and went downstairs. Suddenly I became frightened and decided I must not have the child. I started to think how I could find a doctor to perform an abortion. I awoke suddenly with a tremendous sense of relief." INTERPRETATION: The patient is a southern girl living in New York. Home for her means the small town where her family resides. She has had a liaison and has often worried about possible consequences. The first part of the dream is a solution offered by the dream. She is at home, pregnant, but it seems natural to every one and the nurse (a nurse girl of her childhood days) is not only taking the matter as natural but shows her the advantages of her condition. On the other hand, the girl is frigid in love and used to associate pregnancy with orgasm. The pregnancy means here the fulfilment of her wish for an orgasm. Also it reveals her secret desire that her lover might be compelled to marry her. The lack of labor pains is another form of wish-fulfilment. The end of the dream indicates the mental processes of the patient, and her struggle against a regression. She first attempts to solve the problem by running back to "home and nurse" but insight enables her to analyse her dream and return to real life. There is no doubt but some painful dreams are, without any symbolism or distortion of any kind, dreams of obvious wish-fulfilment. There is a human type which enjoys pain, be it inflicted by others or self-torture, and to which fear and anxiety vouchsafe a good deal of gratification. When we remember the workings of our autonomic nerves we may not wonder at that fact. Pain, anxiety or fear pour into our blood stream fuel which gives us for a few minutes or a few hours a feeling of energy and power we may lack, and secretions which cause an arterial tension translated easily into "excitement," "exhilaration," etc. Children of the masochistic type like to have some one tell them stories of the most nightmarish variety which fill them with terror. We have all met the child who at some time or other makes the strange request: "Scare me." Anxiety dreams may play the part of a bracer and tonic in subjects of that type. The strange ritual of some primitive races, ancient and modern, in which mourners slash themselves or pull their hair or beards, corresponds closely from the endocrine point of view to the craving for terrible fairy tales or the frequency of certain anxiety dreams. The secretions brought forth by that self-inflicted pain may combat successfully the depression due to the loss of a dearly beloved person. CHAPTER X: TYPICAL DREAMS AND SLEEP WALKING Thousands of explanations have been offered for typical dreams which almost every one has had at least once, such as dreams of falling or flying, but none of them should be accepted as covering all cases. The human mind is compelled to do its thinking along certain lines and to use certain categories like time, space, etc. Naturally, dreams, which are in no way different from waking thoughts, must move along certain definite grooves too; but we must remember that no symbol has an absolute meaning. Every symbol is likely to have a slightly different meaning for every individual. We shall see in the chapter on "Attitudes in Dreams" that it is the type of dreams rather than their content which is important psychologically. And it is the type of man who dreams which is important to bear in mind when we try to ferret out the meaning of a typical dream. Generally speaking, flying dreams seem to correspond to one of the most universal cravings of mankind: to liberate itself from the tyranny of the law of gravity and enjoy the freedom which winged creatures enjoy. All races have wished to fly and that desire, never gratified in waking life until recently, was bound to express itself in the dreams of all races at all periods of history. Freud has suggested that such dreams repeat memories of childhood games, rocking, see-sawing; Federn has seen in them a symbol of sexual excitement, both of which explanations sound unconvincing. There may be a symbolism of a different sort about flying dreams. If for some reason or other, our sleep becomes suddenly much deeper, we may represent our "flight" from reality through a flight through the air. We soar to the dream level which we feel to be higher than the waking level, to which on awakening, we fall painfully. Variations in the sleep depth would thus account for the frequent relation of sequence which is observable between flying and falling dreams. Flying dreams are never connected with any fear of anxiety, while falling dreams are almost always nightmares of usually short duration. The Freudians see in many falling dreams memories of falls in childhood. "Nearly all children," Freud writes, "have fallen occasionally and then been picked up and fondled; if they fell out of bed at night, they were picked up by their nurse and taken into her bed." This explanation fits only an insignificant number of cases. The symbolism of the falling dream is found upon analysis to be much richer. In women, dreams of falling are very often symbolical of sexual surrender. Anxiety or pleasure connected with falling dreams reveals the fear or pleasure connected with such a thought in the dreamer's mind. Not a few falling dreams transform themselves after a slight period of anxiety into flying dreams, thus indicating that the feeling of inferiority connected with the idea of surrender was very slight and easily replaced by a feeling of power, freedom and superiority to environment and conventions. Dreams of falling are sometimes "followed" by a terrified awakening. In reality it is the awakening due to some physical stimulus, noise, light, pain, etc., _which is followed by a falling dream_. The dream in that case is symbolical of the act of awaking. The anxiety is the natural displeasure felt by the dreamer when suddenly compelled to pass from dreamland into reality. This symbolism is rather apt, for the awakening lowers us from the free and irresponsible estate of the dream creature to the slavery entailed by leading a real life. We fall from the heights of our dreams to the depths of reality. At times, the dreamer has the impression of being mangled or killed as a result of that fall. Death is again a powerful symbol indicative of the dreamer's attitude. He feels he is dying when compelled to return to reality. Such a type is more dangerously attached to his fiction than the one who only resents awaking as a diminution of his ego and power. Dreams of falling teeth may be symbolical of unconscious onanistic tendencies. The slang of many languages has established a connection which cannot be casual between the pulling of teeth and sexual self-gratification. In dreams in which teeth grow again in the dreamer's mouth we may see a return to childish attitudes and memories of the years when the first teeth fell out and were replaced by stronger ones. An optimistic attitude, if somewhat regressive. When a certain tooth or group of teeth keeps on recurring in dream pictures, an X-ray examination of the entire denture should be made. I have observed several cases in which such dreams revealed the presence of root abscesses causing absolutely no conscious irritation and only felt unconsciously. Those dreams were both a warning and a wish-fulfilment (painless extraction). Dreams of nakedness, like dreams of flying, seem to express one of mankind's cravings, freedom from clothes. In the Earthly Paradise, Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed; all the gods and goddesses of the ancient religions were unclothed; even in our days academic sculptors represent modern heroes naked. Painters and sculptors of all epochs have been inclined to glorify the nude in their works. It is quite unnecessary to construct such dreams as a return to infantilism, as a regression, as the Freudians generally do. The attitude of the onlookers in those dreams contains a very obvious form of wish-fulfilment: whether we sit at a banquet or walk across a drawing room or appear on a street naked or half unclothed, no one seems to notice us. We generally try to hide or to drape ourselves in as dignified a manner as possible in whatever scanty garments we retain, but the anxiety is all on our side. Such dreams cannot be dreams of exhibitionism for they are never accompanied by the wish that people should see us, nor do we ever derive any pleasure from our exposure. I would be inclined to consider them in almost every case as symbolic dreams of attitudes. We are labouring under the burden of some secret which we are afraid of revealing. In spite of our anxiety, we are comforted by the fact that our secret (our total or partial nakedness) escapes the beholders. Our danger and our escape are simply visualized and symbolized. The symbolism of our exposure is quite obvious. The upper part of our body is usually covered up and it is the "lower" part of it which is exposed, and which we awkwardly try to wrap up in our shirt tails or to conceal under a table cloth or behind furniture or bushes. We are concealing something shameful, "low." Everybody knows the symbolism of high and low, right and left, which is expressed by the language of all races. One form of anxiety dream in which we grope our way through endless narrow passages, room after room, up and down flights of stairs, has been considered by some analysts as a memory of the first event of our life, when we were forced violently, painfully, through a narrow passage and finally reached the light of day. When the detail of those dreams is closely analysed it will prove much more valuable and important than a mere regression to the infantile. They will generally turn out to be the sort of dreams that coincide with the solution of a crisis and indicate that an adaptation to life has been reached, that the subject has been "reborn." Sleep walking is one variety of typical dream characterized by a greater motor activity than the usual dream in which we either lie still or only perform incomplete motions. Sleep walkers, like ordinary dreamers, performed in their somnambulistic states actions which they have refrained from performing in their waking states. While the sense of direction and of orientation seems unimpaired in sleep walkers, their perception of reality is very rudimentary. Two cases reported by the Encyclopédie Française and by Krafft-Ebing, respectively, illustrate that point. A young man used to get up at night, go to his study and write. Observers would now and then substitute a sheet of blank paper for the sheet which he had covered with writing. When he had finished, he would read over his manuscript aloud and repeat correctly, while holding the blank sheet before his eyes, the words written on the sheet which had been taken from him. One night the prior of a monastery was seated at his desk. A monk entered, a knife in his hand. He took no notice of the prior but went to the bed and plunged his knife into it several times; after which he returned to his cell. The next morning the monk told the prior of a terrible dream he had had. The prior had killed the monk's mother and the monk had avenged her by stabbing the prior to death. Thereupon he had awakened, horrified, and thanking God that the whole affair had only been a dream. In sleep walking dreams there is an accuracy, a singleness of purpose, a concentration of attention which has always struck all observers. The sleeper often wakes up when called by name, but he generally obeys without waking, all commands of a sensible character, such as to go back to bed. The sleeper often finds his way and locates the objects he may need for the purposes of his dream with his eyes closed, but noises and collisions with objects often fail to bring him back to waking consciousness. Sadger has attempted to point a connection between moonlight and sleep walking, which he calls at times "moon walking." The conclusions which he reaches at the end of his book on the subject are as follows: "Sleep walking, under or without the influence of the moon, represents a motor outbreak of the unconscious and serves, like the dream, the fulfilment of secret, forbidden wishes, first of the present, behind which, however, infantile wishes regularly hide. Both prove themselves _in all the cases analysed_ more or less completely as of a sexual erotic nature. "Also those wishes which present themselves without disguise, are mostly of the same nature. The leading wish may be claimed to be that the sleepwalker, male or female, would climb into bed with the loved object as in childhood. The love object need not belong necessarily to the present; it can much more likely be one of earliest childhood. "Not infrequently the sleep walker identifies himself with the beloved person, sometimes even puts on his clothes, linen or outer garments, or imitates his manner. "Sleep walking can also have an infantile prototype, when the child pretends to be asleep, that it may be able without fear or punishment to experience all sorts of forbidden things, because it cannot be held accountable for what it does 'unconsciously in its sleep.' The same cause works also psychically, when sleep walking occurs mostly in the deepest sleep, even if organic causes are likewise responsible for it. "The motor outbreak during sleep, which drives one from rest in bed and results in sleep walking and wandering under the light of the moon, may be referred to this, that all sleep walkers exhibit a heightened muscular irritability and muscle erotic, the endogenous excitement of which can compensate for the giving up of the rest in bed. In accordance with this, these phenomena are especially frequent in the offspring of alcoholics, epileptics, sadists and hysterics, with preponderating involvement of the motor apparatus. "Sleep walking and moon walking are in themselves as little symptoms of hysteria as of epilepsy; yet they are found frequently in conjunction with the former. "The moon's light is reminiscent of the light in the hand of a beloved parent. Fixed gazing upon the planet also has probably an erotic colouring. "It seems possible that sleep walking and moon walking may be permanently cured through the psychoanalytic method." CHAPTER XI: PROPHETIC DREAMS Every one has heard relations of prophetic dreams which seem to imply a sense of unconscious sight going far beyond the limits of our conscious visual perceptions. It may be that, even as certain vibrations can be sent and received without any transmitting medium except the atmosphere, by wireless, certain visual information can be received, at times, under certain conditions, without any perception of such phenomena reaching the consciousness. At the same time, this is a field on which one must tread most carefully, for telepathy has never been studied very scientifically and the telepathic dreams which have been related to me or which I have read about had been recorded rather carelessly and the circumstances surrounding them had not been noted with the regard for accuracy which must characterize scientific research. A few times in my life, I have had the infinite surprise when lifting the telephone receiver, of hearing the voice of the very person I was going to call up and who had called me up at the same minute. On the other hand, I have endeavoured with the help of very intimate friends to effect synchronic transmission of thought and have failed dismally on every occasion. While I have never had prophetic dreams I have recorded one dream of mine which might be characterized as a "second sight" dream. One day I mislaid some documents which once belonged to my father. That night my father appeared to me and pointed to a desk drawer where the papers would be found. The next morning I looked in that drawer and found the documents. I certainly placed the documents myself in that drawer the day before and forgot the fact. But the unconscious memory of that action was retained and came up at night while my mind was at work solving the problem of the lost documents. If that explanation should meet with scepticism I would remind the reader that the wealth of information with which our unconscious is filled permits of unconscious mental operations of which in our conscious states we would be incapable. Janet's subject, Lucie, who was lacking in mathematical ability, could, in her unconscious states, perform calculations of an extreme complication. He would give her under hypnosis the following order: "When the figures which I am going to read off to you, leave six when subtracted one from the other, make a gesture of the hand." Then he would wake her up, and ask several people to talk to her and to make her talk. Standing at a certain distance from her, he would then read rapidly in a low voice a list of figures, but when the appropriate figures were read, Lucie never failed to make the gesture agreed upon. We notice thousands of things unconsciously, which means simply that every sensorial impression causes a modification of our autonomic system and probably of our sensory-motor system which is never completely effaced. During our waking hours only those memory impressions which are needed rise to consciousness. The many observations we have made, consciously or otherwise, enable us to calculate the distance between us and an automobile, the speed of that automobile, the width of the street, the dryness or the slippery conditions of the pavement, and to select the time for crossing as well as the speed at which we shall cross. In our sleep, when we are revolving the day's problems and searching for solutions, many other facts, stored up in our nervous systems, rise to consciousness and are used in solving the problem. In the personal case I cited, my unconscious applied its searchlight to recent events; in other cases reported in the literature of the subject the unconscious is shown bringing back events which seemed to have been entirely forgotten. Our organism never forgets. Forgotten incidents which suddenly rise to consciousness in dreams are sometimes responsible for visions which on superficial observation appear truly prophetic. Maury cites the following in his book on "Sleep and Dreams": "Mr. F. decided once to visit the house where he had been brought up in Montbrison and which he had not seen in twenty-five years. The night before he started on his trip, he dreamt that he was in Montbrison and that he met a man who told him he was a friend of his father. Several days later, while in Montbrison he actually met the man he had seen in his dream and who turned out to be some one he really knew in his childhood, but had forgotten in the intervening years. The real person was much older than the one in the dream, which is quite natural." One finds in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research many remarkable examples of dreams which, to the uninitiated, appear truly miraculous. Remembering, however, the wonders accomplished by Lucie under the influence of a hypnotic command, we may realize that the book-keepers who suddenly find in a dream the mistakes which have prevented them from balancing their books, or the various people who locate missing objects, are simply continuing in their sleep the day's work, drawing no longer upon their limited store of conscious memories and impressions, but upon all the wealth of information which is contained in their unconscious. Even the famous dream of Professor Hilprecht loses much of its glamour when viewed from this angle. Hilprecht had spent quite some time trying to decipher two small fragments of agate which were supposed to belong to the finger rings of some Babylonian god. He had given up the task and classified the fragments as undecipherable in a book on the subject. One night he had put his "o. k." on the final proofs of that book, feeling, however, rather dissatisfied at his inability to account for the inscriptions found on those ancient stones. He went to bed, weary and exhausted and had a remarkable dream: A tall, thin priest of Nippur appeared to him, led him to the treasure chamber of the temple of Bel and told him that the two fragments in question should be put together, as they were, not finger rings, but earrings made for a god by cutting a votive cylinder into three parts. The next morning he did as the dream priest had told him to do, and was able to read the inscription without any difficulty. I have received many letters from persons relating that they had dreamt of the San Francisco earthquake, of the sinking of the _Lusitania_, of the death of some friend or relative the very night preceding the event. I show in another chapter how treacherous and unreliable our memory of dreams can be at times. Happenings following quickly the awakening are likely to become "parasites" on the night's dreams and to appear as a component part of them. Time and over again, the newspaper one reads at breakfast adds details to the night's remembered dreams. Reading about some accident in the early morning may cause us to believe that we dreamt of the accident in the course of the night. When the German submarines began to sink passenger ships, thousands of dreamers who either wished unconsciously for such sinkings or feared them (which is generally the same thing) and many also who craved the excitement such catastrophes would bring them, must have had dreams in which large ships were sunk. And those thousands must have impressed themselves and their family circle by announcing, when the morning newspaper came out, that they had seen the tragedy enacted in a dream. Here again we are groping our way over uncharted fields and not until thousands of scientific observations made with the care characteristic of the chemical laboratory have been made, all explanations will only be tentative and all positive statements misleading. Those mentioning such dreams to me have at times been rather annoyed when I made them confess the wish lurking in them. One man told me that he had three brothers at the front during the war and that in a dream he saw one of them killed by the Germans. Soon afterward, news of his death reached the family. I asked him point blank why he wanted to get rid of that brother. He avoided giving me a direct answer but admitted that if one of the three was to die, the one whose death he saw in his dream would be least missed by his family as he had always made trouble and was the "black sheep."... Even in such cases the wish fulfilment theory holds good. CHAPTER XII: ATTITUDES REFLECTED IN DREAMS Dreams reveal to us what our unconscious cravings are and this is of course valuable information. But cravings are only symptoms of something more important and less easily dealt with: the subject's attitude to life. The neurosis is merely a wrong attitude to life and its problems. A fear of darkness, an incestuous desire, an abnormal craving for a certain food are no more important in themselves than a small sore appearing on one's lip. But as the sore may mean that the organism is infected with the spirochaeta of syphilis, the "psychic" phenomena I mentioned may mean that the organism has adopted toward reality a negative attitude leading to death instead of life. Owing to its visualizing powers, the dream makes attitudes extremely obvious at the very first glance. We are as we see ourselves in our dreams. Positive, energetic dreams, full of action, indicate strength either in resolve or in resistance. Vague dreams, full of moods rather than of action, indicate stagnation, aimlessness. Dreams of adulthood, dealing with the present or the future, indicate progression. Dreams of childhood or dealing mainly with the past, indicate attempts at a regression. In his latest book, "Introduction to Psychoanalysis," Freud states that "the unconscious in our psychic life is the infantile." This is one of the great Freudian exaggerations. Such a statement is true of the neurotic and explains why he is a neurotic. In fact the more infantile the unconscious appears to be, the more severe the neurosis generally is, until in certain forms of malignant regression, the patient acts like a helpless newly born infant. The predominance of infantile material in dreams indicates a fixation on infantile gratifications which makes the subject especially ill adapted to adult life. But in the normal individual the amount of infantile material is very small indeed. We start gathering unconscious material at the very minutes of our birth, if not before birth, but we keep on accumulating experiences, most of them unconscious and only rising to consciousness when needed, and conscious experiences which become unconscious when not needed. It is the proportion of material from the various periods of our life which enables us to gauge the level a human being has reached through his intelligent, positive acceptance of present day reality. I say acceptance of reality rather than adaptation to reality, for adaptation implies a certain suppression, and suppression may mean neurosis. It is the human being who satisfies all his infantile cravings within a sphere of activity beneficial to himself and the world, who remains healthy. He who tries to satisfy them through infantile or childish ways merges into a neurosis. We have seen that the dreams of children and of simple, normal people are obvious and devoid of any symbolic disfigurement. Children dream of the food or the pleasures they had to forego in the previous waking state. Nordenskjold and his sailors, icebound in the Antarctic, dreamt of fine meals, of tobacco, of ships sailing the open sea, of mail from home, in other words of the things of which they had been deprived for months. The use of symbols in dreams, on the other hand, indicates a lack of freedom of expression due to some fear or repression. A repressed vision appears on the screen of our mind in symbolized form. A highly symbolical dream is almost always a pathological dream. It means that we do not dare, even in our dreams, to visualize directly the thing we are thinking of. The phenomenon which Freud has designated as "displacement" also indicates an attempt at repressing certain important facts by harping on other facts of lesser importance. A child surprised in a part of the house where his presence is suspicious is not likely to reveal abruptly his plans. He will in all likelihood tell some story from which the real reason for his presence is carefully excluded. A young pie fiend found in the pantry would never mention the word pie but make great ado over the "fact" that his ball has rolled under the cupboard. And likewise it is very often the part of a dream which a patient has not told which holds the key to the enigma of the patient's mental disturbance. One of my hypnagogic visions which I have already mentioned, simple as it is, reveals my entire attitude, not only to sleep, but to life in general. I do not feel overwhelmed by sleep. I give myself up to sleep as voluntarily as I wade into the sea or plunge into a swimming pool. Sleep will refresh me as a swim would. When the proper depth is reached I swim out, conscious of my ability and experiencing no fear. I use sleep as a means to exercise my mental activities as I enjoy the muscular exertion necessary for swimming. Finally there is no one in the picture but myself. I am the central figure of the dream. To go into more details, I may confide to the reader that I have never enjoyed any form of sport, indoor or outdoors in which I do not play an important, if not the leading part, or which prevents me from indulging my own whims. Witnessing some one else's athletic performances bores me to extinction and games such as cards, checkers or golf which are surrounded with iron clad regulations appear to me not as a relaxation but as a useless form of hard work. Readers may think that these self-revelations are prompted by egotism, but an analyst should analyse himself as ruthlessly as he analyses others and egotism happens to be the dominant feature of my attitude to life. The following dream draws a remarkable picture of uncertainty, indecision and gloom: DREAM. "I am standing at the foot of marble stairs. I expect some danger from the left where a person clothed in authority, with tyrannical appearance, is approaching. I ask a female figure standing at the top of the steps, and who seems to be some acquaintance, relative, mother or sister, for help. I try to run up the steps but cannot. The figure extends me a helping hand but that hand is so weak, lifeless, that I feel helpless. I wake up in deep anxiety." ATTITUDE. We have in this case a "flight to the mother" coupled with fear of the powerful father. The patient had always suffered from some fear, fear of examinations as a school child, fear of competition in all life matters, fear of marriage, fear of decisions. He lived with his mother and sister and had an affair with a woman considerably older than himself whom he called "mother" and who called him her "boy." We shall now see a dreamer wrestling with a sentimental problem, seeking a solution for it and refusing to accept the solution suggested by an outsider. DREAM. "I was in a car with Albert, sitting in my usual seat but the steering gear had been moved so that I could steer from my seat. I was very inexperienced and felt anxiety. I was going down a steep city street and at the bottom, saw a house before which I wished to park; there were red lanterns and signs, however, which prevented me from stopping there. I went on and Albert disappeared, then I was in the open country climbing a hill and a man (A.T.) stood there and I asked him which way to go. The machinery bothered me, I didn't know what button to push but trusted my intuition and went all right. Finally I reached a desert stretch where there was nothing and in great anxiety awoke." ATTITUDE. The subject in love with a married man, had long hoped that he would secure a divorce and marry her. She often went motoring with him. Their affair was not satisfactory, however, and she had often considered the possibility of a separation. The situation is handled in the dream as follows. She has had her way and is running the car from her usual seat (he has come to her point of view) but she has misgivings about the experiment (unconsciously, she is not very keen any more to marry him); she tries to park in front of a house (their future home); red lanterns (danger signs, obstacles, law, custom) prevent her from doing so. She then starts out without him and asks her analyst for advice. He encourages her to go on her way but she reaches a deserted place and feels so forlorn, so hungry for human company that she escapes from the nightmare through awaking. Even when no change is observable in a patient's condition in the course of an analysis, constant attention to his dreams will enable the analyst to notice unconscious changes which very soon afterward translate themselves into a conscious modification of attitude. The following dreams illustrate that point: At the beginning of the analysis a patient, following in his dreams as well as in his neurosis, the line of least effort, dreamt he had solved a mechanical problem by means of a very simple apparatus consisting in a rocking chair, two thumb tacks and an old rubber coat. Later when he resumed closer contact with life, the machinery of his dreams became real machinery and he continued in his sleeping thoughts the calculations which had occupied him during the day and which to him were a constant source of pleasure. A patient whose ambition was to become a singer but whose husband was decidedly hostile to her plans, first brought me the following dream in which she frankly relied on me for advice: "I am on the stage, singing. I forget my part. A foreign looking conductor prompts me. In the wings, a man is looking at me, weeping. He falls in a faint. I rush to him. He looks like my husband. A foreign looking doctor picks him up and says to me: 'He will sleep now, after which he will feel better.' I go back to the stage and sing beautifully." Later, having acquired more self-confidence she visualized the situation as follows: "I see a man leading a Jersey cow on a rope. The cow is trying to get under the fence but cannot. Then the cow is changed into a yellow bird which flies away, perches on top of a barn and sings joyfully." In the first dream, I am, of course the conductor and the doctor. In the second dream, the cow is an allusion to the patient's tendency to gain weight. The song-bird is a very obvious symbol. A series of dreams reported by a stammering patient not only presented the Freudian feature of wish-fulfilment but indicated clearly the patient's changing attitude and his growing self-confidence, which finally culminated in his complete cure. One of the first dreams he brought me at the beginning of the treatment read as follows: "A congressman called Max Sternberg, who looks like me, is on the platform, making a speech. A gang of little Irish boys in the rear starts a disturbance. The audience, unable to hear the speaker, leaves the hall." On numberless occasions, small boys prevented him in his dreams from accomplishing his object, and in particular, disturbed him when he was speaking. Later the small boys became less and less aggressive. On one occasion he lead a group of them through a museum and they listened to his explanations without interrupting him. One night he had the following dream. "I am near Grand Central and thousands of children are lined on both sides of the avenue to welcome a school principal who is landing from the train. He arrives and they all cheer wildly and I have a feeling that I am that school principal." Little boys never disturbed the dreamer after that. He had conquered his regressive tendencies and his speech was improving. His self-confidence grew to such a point that he had the following dream: "I was in a room with John and Lionel Barrymore and I rehearsed them for a Shakespearian play. Lionel forgot his part and stopped. I prompted him and declaimed a few lines myself very eloquently. This was accompanied by the thought: Very egotistical-good." CHAPTER XIII: RECURRENT DREAMS Whenever one and the same motive, with perhaps slight variations, recurs frequently in dreams we may assume that it is the leading motive of the dreamer's waking life. Whenever a person plays a dominant part in our dreaming, we can rest assured that that person dominates and directs our behaviour directly or indirectly. A man of forty-five, suffering from dizziness, was sent to me by his family physician after numberless tests had failed to attribute his illness to a "physical" cause. The patient had been troubled for two years with vertigo, which he insisted on attributing to arteriosclerosis (against the advice of several physicians). His legs had become very weak and unsteady. He had developed a deep sense of worthlessness and was haunted by suicidal ideas. My query as to his most frequent dream elicited the answer: "I dream very frequently of my father." His father had died two years before, from arteriosclerosis, and his main complaint had been dizziness, weakness of the legs and depression. To any one but the patient, the psychological connection between his illness and his father's illness would have been obvious. He, too, saw some connection between the two, only he placed upon that fact a more sinister construction. The heredity bogey was terrifying him. His father had bequeathed his illness to him, and he was to die as his father had died. It came out in the course of the analysis that he had been from infancy his father's constant companion, working for him till he was over forty years of age. Although he had always been fond of women, he had never thought of marrying until his father died. After reciting the usual arguments of the average bachelor directed against matrimony, he confessed that he had never had the courage to bring to his home any young woman he liked and who might have become his wife. Fear of his father's sarcastic remarks set to nought any plans he might have made for a home of his own. After his father's death, he went half-heartedly into various business ventures of which his father would have disapproved and he naturally lost his investment. Every time he met with a reverse, he would be tortured by remorse. "This is my father's money which I have been squandering." "My father would be furious if he knew what I have done." He would then dream that his father stalked past him, cold, indifferent, stern, and he "knew" his father had "come back" to show him his resentment. The superficial symptoms of the patient's trouble were easily removed when he acquired enough insight to realize that he had been imitating all of his father's attitudes and repressing his own ego. Physical exercise soon restored to his legs the steadiness which they had lost while the patient, imitating his father's helplessness, would sit in his father's chair day after day, never taking a walk. A more critical attitude of mind toward the father whom he worshipped, removed gradually the sense of worthlessness which had almost lead him to suicide. Suicide to him was the road that led back to his father, upon whom he wished to shift his responsibilities, and for whom he wished to work (as a younger man), etc. The case was much more complicated but the few details of it which I have presented are sufficient to show the close connection which existed between the patient's most frequent dream and his imaginary neurotic goal. A homosexual patient always dreamt of her stepmother whom her father married when she, the patient, was only twelve years of age. That marriage was the culmination of a complicated family tragedy, double divorce, unsavoury publicity, bitterness and hostility, puritanical gossip about sex, passion, etc., which made on the child an indelible impression. She felt obscurely then that relations between sexes were something unutterably filthy and while she liked a few boys in her flapper days, she could not master a feeling of disgust whenever their attitude reminded her of the "nasty" things which had wrecked her family. On the other hand, the pretty young woman whom her father introduced into his home, personified in her thoughts sexual attraction in its most irresistible form, a symbol of sin and bliss. To this day she has love affair after love affair with women, every affair followed by a "nervous breakdown" in which she repents her immorality and experiences terrible remorse. At every stay in a sanitarium, however, dreams of her stepmother, representing veiled and symbolized homosexual situations, obsess her night after night. In one of those dreams she took the place of her father and married the young woman, after which the hostility of the family, manifesting itself in various forms, transformed the pleasant fancy into a painful anxiety dream. Another patient, tyrannized over by an aunt who had brought her up, would, whenever an emergency arose and she had to take a decision, dream of the severe, forbidding aunt and feel so depressed the next day that she could not accomplish anything and thus postponed the solution of her difficulties. In certain cases, a recurring dream may bear a strange likeness to a splitting of the personality such as we observed in cases of dual personalities. The famous Rosegger dream, analysed by Freud and Maeder, should be reanalysed in the light of the statements made in the previous chapters. Rosegger went through a hard mental struggle from which he emerged victorious, but the recurring dream he relates in his book "Waldheimat" tells us much about the trials of a little tailor who managed to make a place for himself in the artistic world but for a long while felt out of place in his new environment. "I usually enjoy a sound sleep," Rosegger writes, "but many a night I have no rest. I lead side by side with my life as student and littérateur, the shadow life of a tailor's apprentice. This I have dragged with me through long years, like a ghost, without being able to get rid of it.... Whenever I dreamed, I was the tailor's apprentice, ... working without compensation in my master's workshop.... I felt I did not belong there any more ... and regretted the loss of time in which I could have employed myself more usefully.... How happy I was to wake up after such tedious hours! I resolved that if this insistent dream should come again, I would throw it off and shout: 'This is only a make believe. I am in bed and wish to sleep.' Yet the next time I was again in the tailor's workshop. One night, at last, the master said to me: 'You have no talent for tailoring. You can go, you are dismissed.' I was so frightened by this that I awoke." Freud compares this dream with a similar dream which pestered him for years and in which he saw himself as a young physician, working in a laboratory, making analyses and unable as yet to earn a regular living. This is his interpretation of it: "I had as yet no standing and did not know how to make ends meet; but just then it was clear to me that I might have the choice of several women whom I could have married. I was young again in the dream and she was young too, the wife who had shared with me all those years of hardship. "This betrayed the unconscious dream agent as being one of the insistent gnawing wishes of the aging man. The fight between vanity and self-criticism, waged in other psychic layers, had decided the dream content, but only the deeper rooted wish for youth had made it possible as a dream. Often, awake, we say to ourselves: Everything is all right as it is today and those were hard times, but it was fine at that time. You are still young." Maeder, of Zurich, refuses to accept such a simple explanation and offers a more complicated one, burdened, like many psychological interpretations of the Swiss school, with ethical considerations. "By his own efforts," Maeder writes, "Rosegger had worked himself up to a high position in life. This has made him proud and vain, two faults which easily disturb mankind, for they cause a man to suffer in the presence of superiors and place him in a parvenu position among the lowly.... Deep down, there takes place, in the sensitive poet, a gradual elaboration, a development of the moral personality.... The long series of tormenting dreams shows us the development of the psychic process which ends in a deep but effective humiliation of the dreamer.... His being sent away, dismissed, symbolizes in my opinion, the overcoming of the pride and vanity of the upstart." I agree with Freud on the wish for youth expressed by Rosegger's dream and fulfilled by way of a regression. But neither Freud, bent on introducing a sexual element into his interpretation, nor Maeder, overfond of moralizing, seem to have realized the tremendous meaning of such a series of dreams, culminating as they did in a changed attitude to life. I have shown in another book, "Psychoanalysis and Behavior," that in cases of dual personalities, the second personality is always one that leads a simpler, less arduous life, fraught with lesser responsibilities, than the normal life led by the first personality. The Rev. Ansel Bourne, being tired and needing rest, was transformed for several weeks into A. Brown, a fruit dealer in a small town far away from his home. Miss Beauchamp, prim, overconsciencious, repressed, became the irresponsible Sallie, devoid of manners or taste. The Rev. Thomas Carson Hanna, overworked and a spiritual disciplinarian, woke up from a fit of unconsciousness a newborn baby, helpless and in-organized. Rosegger, rising from manual to intellectual labour, compelled to adapt himself to the mannerisms of a different world, and to adopt a new set of social habits and customs for which his bringing up in a proletarian home had not prepared him, compelled also to ransack his brain constantly for new ideas to express or for new forms in which to clothe old ideas, may have at times regretted unconsciously the simpler life of a tailor, less rich in egotistical satisfactions but more comfortable intellectually and requiring infinitely less ingenuity. And some of the remarks which he appends to his dream, confirm my suspicions. What does he say of his awakening? "I felt as if I had just newly recovered this idylically sweet life of mine, peaceful, poetical, spiritualized, in which so often I had realized human happiness to the uttermost." Undoubtedly he had for a long while failed to enjoy it and unconsciously planned to escape from it through a regression to his former estate. Several lines further down the page we find this statement which is, I think, absolutely conclusive proof of what his mental attitude had been and of the crisis he had lived through. "I no longer dream of my tailoring days _which in their way were so jolly in their simplicity and without demands_." Rosegger's dream is one of those morbid manifestations which enable us to follow a neurotic struggle going on within the organism, a struggle for adaptation to life, a struggle of which the subject is consciously ignorant, because he has burnt his bridges and has repressed the most fleeting thought of a possible change. Rosegger must have smarted under the _demands_ of his new life, but it was out of the question for him to do anything else. The conflict, however, played itself off in his dreams, offering a solution of a regressive type. When, years later, the tailor's adaptation to the life of a writer was completed, his master dismissed him. The dream solution was no longer needed. Recurring dreams often give us valuable indications of physical trouble which should be investigated and remedied at once. Even in ancient times, the relation between recurring dreams of physical disability and some physical disability setting in at a later date had been noticed. In those days, however, the interpretation of such dreams was that the vision was a warning sent by the gods, or that the vision was responsible for the subsequent trouble. We read for instance of a man who dreamt that he had a stone leg. A few days later paralysis set in. In discussing dental dreams I have pointed out the importance of having the denture examined for possible pus pockets. Dreams of animals gnawing at some organ may indicate a cancer developing in that region. Dreams of exhaustion from climbing hills often denote heart disease. H. Addington Bruce had for several months had the same dream: a cat was clawing at his throat. Examination of the throat revealed a small growth which required immediate surgical intervention. The cat never came back. CHAPTER XIV: DAY DREAMS We do not always need to sleep in order to escape _normally_ from reality. Some of us manage to do it with their eyes open. Day dreams are not essentially different from night dreams and would not be mentioned separately but for the fact that they at times verge on a neurosis and that in certain cases they are not easily distinguished from delusions and hallucinations. Whatever was said of night dreams in the preceding chapters holds true of day dreams. There are pleasant day dreams, unpleasant day dreams and even day "nightmares" or anxiety day dreams. Like the sleep walker, the day dreamer manages at times to take just enough notice of reality to direct himself through his house or along the streets, while his mind is elaborating stories of varying complication. A day dreamer who consulted me during the war would imagine himself, while walking along the streets, enlisting, taking a tearful farewell from his relatives and friends and accomplishing deeds of valour which made him famous; after which he would be so affected by his greatness that tears would roll down his cheeks. Or the dream would end tragically and he would die and then again a cascade of tears would be let loose at the thought of all the grief his demise would cause. The result was that day after day he would suddenly "wake up" in some public place, his face wet with tears, annoyed and embarrassed by the attention which his appearance would attract. Those day dreams constituted in spite of their sad cast a fulfilment of his egotistical cravings. Even death was not too high a price to pay for the importance he acquired in his dream, a psychological fancy which is often found at the bottom of some sensational forms of suicide. The anxiety day dream is the form of compensation sought by many neurotics, weak in body and frequently taken advantage of by more vigorous and ruthless persons. It also plays at times the same part as masochistic nightmares, filling as it does, the body with glycogen and a sense of power. I have heard patients suffering from a sense of real or imaginary inferiority tell me of their obsessive anger finding relief in scenes which they made, while walking along the streets or when sleepless of nights, to some absent person whom they held responsible for their troubles. They would then rehearse some annoying or humiliating incident provoked by the offensive person and let loose a torrent of abuse leading unavoidably to a fight in which they would beat, scratch or murder their enemy. The sound of their own voice or the remarks of passers by would generally wake them up at the climax; their hearts then would beat wildly, they would be out of breath, if not bathed in perspiration, but they would experience withal a certain amount of satisfaction from the victory they had won and they would feel full of what a patient of mine termed "almost murderous energy." This form of "abreaction," when it does not assume the form of a constant indulgence taking the place of positive action, is rather desirable. The psychoanalytic treatment consists, in part at least, in the production of day dreams based on memories which free in the patient a certain amount of repressed energy. Thus a great deal of unrelated and unconscious material is made conscious and related. Day dreams, without any definite direction and unchecked, are likely, however, to be very dangerous and to exert a paralysing influence on the dreamer. The concentration and meditation recommended by some Hindoo philosophers can accomplish valuable results if the subject has a clear, analytical mind and knows how to correlate the scraps of thoughts which are thus allowed to rise to consciousness. For childish people, which are easily caught in the meshes of their fancies and let their imagination run away with them, that indulgence is deadly and it has led millions of Orientals into a nirvana-like idleness and weakness, destructive of energy and life, a negative escape from reality. This is one of the reasons why, in many forms of neurosis, a rest cure is the most dangerous form of treatment. The neurotic's attention is generally directed away from reality. His energy is too often deflected toward fictitious goals located outside of the real world. The neurotic has to be brought back into contact with life and human beings; he has to be trained to accept them _as they are_ and to enjoy them _for what they are_, instead of imagining _what they might be_. The idleness and seclusion of the rest cure may negative all efforts in that direction. The rest cure from which day dreams cannot be excluded, is simply an abnormal flight from reality sanctioned and abetted by a physician ignorant of psychology. The day dreams which produce happiness, which promote creation, scientific or artistic, and which lead the individual into the stream of life, are sound and healthy dreams. Those which only lead to more dreaming and away from life, are neurotic phenomena, devoid of any redeeming grace. CHAPTER XV: NEUROSIS AND DREAMS Not infrequently neuroses and psychoses are ushered in by a dream and their termination is announced by a dream. This should not be understood to mean that the dream either "causes" the neurosis or "cures" it. That mistake has often been made by psychologists of the old school. Taine, among others, cites the case of a policeman who once attended a capital execution. This spectacle made such an impression on him that he often dreamt of his own execution and finally committed suicide. It would be absurd to believe that the sight of the execution "put the idea of suicide into his head." He undoubtedly had been consciously or unconsciously revolving death thoughts in his mind. The sight of the execution made those ideas more concrete and more obsessive. The recurrence of a death dream simply showed that the obsession was gradually overpowering his personality and seeking realization. The dream work, endeavouring to solve the problem of how to end his life, offered an easy solution: he did not have to commit suicide; he was being put to death. Finally the death wishes overthrew his personality and he killed himself. An epileptic was tortured every night by a dream in which a group of boys playing Wild West (he personifying the Indian) were pursuing him, throwing sticks and stones at him and finally cornering him. At the very minute where they were laying hands on him, he would experience a "dying" feeling and wake up in great discomfort. One night he turned round to face the gang which dwindled down to one small urchin whom he spanked. That night he slept soundly and the next day his fears of having a new fit disappeared. Neither that dream nor his fits have returned. It was not the dream that gave him fits, nor was it the last dream which cured him. The obsessive dreams were wish-fulfilment dreams, showing him how to dodge life's duties through his sickness which was a convenient, though painful, unconscious excuse and how to solve his life problems by getting out of reality. The last dream revealed a change in his mental attitude. He was not to seek any longer a neurotic escape from reality but face reality and fight his own battles. A patient suffering from delusions had the following dream: "A woman appeared to me and told me that it was all a dream and that all my troubles would soon end." Associations to that dream showed that the woman who appeared to my patient was a midwife who had helped her in a confinement some thirty years before (rebirth symbolism). At that time she almost died from puerperal fever and was also "saved" by a dream in which her grandparents appeared to her and told her that she would recover. Her dreams, in which she placed in the mouth of other people the expression of her own wish for health, corresponded well in their mechanism with her delusions in which she heard people berating her for her imaginary sins. At the time of the dreams, her delusions had lost their terrifying character and were only a mild annoyance to her. She had acquired enough insight to doubt their reality and to refer them to her unconscious thoughts. The woman who imagines that in every voice she hears she can distinguish the voice of the man she unconsciously loves builds up a "story" like the dreamer who, perceiving coldness in her feet at night, saw herself falling into a lake. The technique is exactly the same in both cases. Actual sensations are transformed into delusions closely associated with the dreamer's or the neurotic's complexes. People subject to hallucinations project outside of their body symbolic figures representing wishes they have endeavoured to repress and which they refuse to recognize as a part of their personality. They hear voices which say certain things they are trying not to think of, for they consider such thoughts as obscene, criminal or otherwise unjustifiable. Dreamers likewise represent their disabilities as something entirely separate from their bodies and their personality. The stammering patient dreaming that he was delivering a very eloquent speech but was interrupted by howling hoodlums, repressed out of consciousness the idea of his speech disturbance and gratified his ego by saying: "But for those hoodlums I could speak very well." Trumbull Ladd suffering from inflammation of the eyelids dreamt that he was trying to decipher a book in microscopic type: An attempt at shifting upon the book the responsibility for his difficulties in reading. The dream said: "There is nothing wrong with your eyes, but the type is too small." A young woman struggling with an unjustifiable attachment for a married man told me the following dream: "I was surrounded by little devils carrying pitchforks. I was afraid of them at first, but I finally grabbed them all in a bunch and dropped them into the fireplace. A pit opened under them and closed again and I felt free." Her psychology was the same psychology which in the Middle Ages caused religious people to invent the devil. Her desires which she refused to recognize as hers were little devils endeavouring to tempt her. We deal more easily with a stranger than with ourselves and "the devil tempted me" sounds more forgivable than "I did what I had always wanted to do." What makes it difficult for neurotics at times to tell the difference between their dreams and reality is that the emotions felt in dreams are accompanied by the same inner secretions as when felt in the waking life. A fear dream releases adrenin and a vivid sexual dream is followed by a pollution. The bodily sensations following certain dreams are evidential facts which some neurotics do not know how to controvert. The hallucinations of _delirium tremens_ patients which are generally accompanied by anxiety, illustrate the fact that we can be terrified and tortured by a dream which is a symbolized fulfilment of our conscious or unconscious wishes. It is admitted by all but the very ignorant that immoderate drinking is not induced by a taste for drink but by a desire to escape reality, in the majority of cases, to drown the consciousness of financial or sexual difficulties. The most common hallucinations of drunkards are those of snakes and lice. Snakes are almost without exception symbolical of the male sex. To the majority of neurotics, lice are symbolical of money and American slang recognizes that association in the expression _lousy with money_. The "DT" patient has his wishes fulfilled. He is covered with vermin and snakes crawl about his bed. He has all the symbolical wealth and the symbolical potency or homosexual love he could wish for. But curiously enough he does not understand those symbols and is terrified by the manifest content of his morbid dream. The story of Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel is a fine illustration of the relation between dreams and insanity. The king began to lose his sleep which was disturbed by nightmares. In the morning, however, the memory of those nightmares seemed to be entirely gone. Daniel contrived to reconstruct a forgotten anxiety dream in which the king saw a gigantic figure with head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay and which toppled down when struck by a stone. Here we have a morbid attitude to reality, the king visualizing his position (which unconsciously appeared to him precarious), through that unstable figure, and also expressing a neurotic wish to be delivered from his anxiety through the final catastrophe. Later the king had another dream visualizing his fears and death wishes through a different image: A mighty tree grew till its head reached the heavens. Then an angel cried: "Hew down the tree, leave the stump and roots in the earth, in the tender grass of the field; let it be wet with the dew and let his portion be with the beasts." Fear of defeat and a neurotic desire to escape reality via a regression to the animal level are clearly indicated in this dream and in Daniel's interpretation of it. Very soon after, auditory hallucinations began to appear. "A voice fell from heaven," speaking out the unconscious wishes which the king craved to gratify. In a siege of _dementia praecox_, Nebuchadnezzar ate grass like oxen and his body was wet with the dew from heaven; his hair grew like eagle's feathers and his nails like birds' claws. After a period during which he, like all cases of changed personality, led an easier, simpler, more primitive life, without any responsibilities, Nebuchadnezzar recovered and related thus his return to reality: "My reason returned unto me; for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and lords sought unto me; I was established in my kingdom and excellent majesty was added unto me." In the meantime he had become reconciled with reality and had given up his paranoid attempts at being the mightiest factor in the world. By accepting as a possibility the existence of a mightier power, he protected himself against the ignominy of a possible defeat. Against an omnipotent God, even he could not prevail. Freud writes: "The overestimation of one's mental capacity, which appears absurd to sober judgment, is found alike in insanity and in dreams, and the rapid course of ideas in the dream corresponds to the flight of ideas in the psychosis. Both are devoid of any measure of time. "The dissociation of personality in the dream, which, for instance, distributes one's own knowledge between two persons, one of whom, the strange one, corrects in the dream one's own ego, fully corresponds to the well-known splitting of the personality in hallucinatory paranoia; the dreamer, too, hears his own thoughts expressed by strange voices. "Even the constant delusions find their analogy in the stereotyped recurring pathological dreams. "After recovering from a delirium, patients not infrequently declare that the disease appeared to them like an uncomfortable dream; indeed, they inform us that occasionally, even during the course of their sickness, they have felt that they were only dreaming, just as it frequently happens in the sleeping dreams." CHAPTER XVI: SLEEPLESSNESS I have given in the previous chapters many reasons why human beings are compelled to seek at regular intervals an escape from reality which is made possible by the unconsciousness of sleep. Why is it then, that many people suffer from insomnia? Many physical factors are generally mentioned as the direct causes of sleep disturbances. None of them should be dismissed as unimportant; nor should any one of them, however, be accepted as an exclusive and all-sufficient explanation of sleeplessness. Coffee, tea and cocoa (the latter even in the shape of chocolate candy) taken in large quantities, particularly before retiring, affect our sympathetic or safety nerves. They make us, therefore, more sensitive to slight sound, light, pressure, smell, etc., stimuli, which under ordinary circumstances we would not notice consciously. In other words, they create imaginary "emergencies" which require the usual preparation for fight or flight, that is, keen observation of our environment, arterial tension, etc., all conditions which make sleep impossible. Yet we cannot say that coffee, tea or cocoa, without some other contributing cause would always bring about sleep disturbances. Bleuler writes: "I had been in the habit of drinking every night several cups of very strong tea which never prevented me from sleeping. Since I have had the influenza, things have been very different. I must be careful not to partake of such stimulants before going to bed. But even then, their effect depends on my mental condition. They affect me more at certain times than they do at others. If I am the least bit excited their effect is increased. When I am perfectly relaxed, I may not feel any bad effects." A bedroom into whose windows flashes of light or waves of sound may pour, is the not ideal place in which to seek escape from reality. Yet thousands of people sleep soundly in Pullman berths or even in day coaches, unmindful of the noise, light and bustle. We must keep in mind an observation made by Bleuler at the Zürich clinic: "When many people sleep in the same room, as in an insane asylum, some complain that they cannot sleep because their neighbour is snoring. Whoever tries to prevent the snoring or to move the snorer to another bed will have an endless task. The trouble is with the patient who is disturbed by snoring. It is not the noise itself but the attention he pays to it which disturbs him. One can see in wards for agitated patients most of the patients sleeping peacefully while some one disturbs the ward with the most savage howling. "The trouble lies, not in a special sensitiveness of the nervous system, but in the attitude we take toward a certain noise." Lack of exercise during the day will often cause us to toss and turn many times in our bed after retiring. There seems to be in every living being a craving for activity without any positive aim, activity which accomplishes nothing besides using up unused energy or relieving certain inhibitions. Children and all young animals seem to be unable to remain motionless for any length of time. In children and puppies, for example, the gleeful shouts and barking which accompany that display of muscular activity show unmistakably that it vouchsafes them a great amount of gratification. The satisfaction of the free activity urge which is one of the aspects of the ego-power urge is probably submitted to a strong repression in men and animals at a rather early age by the safety urge; frightened children and animals stop playing and become at times paralysed by fear. On the other hand there are many sluggish individuals who lead an most inactive life and yet sleep long hours without any interruption. Indigestion causes insomnia and so does hunger but it is also a fact that many indiscreet eaters are made drowsy by their very indiscretion and sleep soundly after a meal which would distress many other people. Also we find in the sayings of many races statements to the effect that sleep assuages hunger; the average prisoner sleeps in spite of the insufficient meal served at night in the majority of jails. Constipation seems at times to bear the guilt for restless nights and so do cathartics which, with some subjects, produce intestinal tension several times during the night but whose effect is not noticeable in other subjects until they wake up in the morning at the regular time. Toothache will keep some people awake while others will go to sleep in order to forget their toothache. Examples of that sort could be cited ad infinitum. In case of sleeplessness, the first thing to do is to remove all the possible physical causes which can be reached directly or with the help of a physician. Thyroid irritation for instance may at times make one more sensitive to even faint noises and a thorough medical examination should be undergone. The dentature should be examined with the help of X-ray photography in order that pus pockets, impaction, and other defects, not observable with the naked eye, may be revealed and remedied. The diet should be regulated so as to exclude indigestible foods while assuring, especially at night, sufficient nourishment. All stimulants should be avoided. A walk before retiring is very beneficial in all cases, not because it "tires" the subject, but because it absorbs the chemical products thrown into the blood for emergencies which did not arise in the course of the day. A long walk or any arduous exercise, on the other hand, might do more harm than good if they brought about the phenomenon of the second wind. Any form of physical or mental exercise involving rivalry or competition is to be avoided at night. The excitement caused by the "fear of losing" would again fill the blood with "fight or flight" products. Heated discussions, the witnessing of exciting films or plays, drives with a daredevil chauffeur, etc., are not conducive to peaceful sleep. When all those means fail, many devices have been offered to insomnia sufferers, such as prayer or counting sheep, reading, listening to some monotonous stimulus like the buzzing of a faradic inductor, or of an electric fan. A distinction must be made between stereotyped prayer (such as the Lord's Prayer) and personal prayer rehearsing one's worries and asking for help. The latter kind is not unlikely to revive all the day's problems and to set the would-be-sleeper solving them over again at the very time when he should forget them. The repetition of some passage which was memorized in childhood and which, from long familiarity has become perfectly impersonal, may go a long way toward creating the monotony, and hence the feeling of safety, without which there cannot be any sleep. After following all the rules I have laid down a number of people will still be unable to sleep. When the physico-psychic causes have been removed without improving the condition of the subject, the psychico-physical factors should then receive attention. As I said before, normal people can sleep under almost any conditions because their vagotonic activities function regularly, while neurotics cannot sleep well even under ideal conditions because their sympathicotonic activities are constantly raising a signal danger and imagining emergencies amidst the safest surroundings, mental and physical. The insomnia sufferer is suffering from some fear. That fear has to be determined and uprooted by psychoanalysis. Some people cannot sleep because they have gone through a period of sleeplessness and expect it to endure for ever. The men of the Emmanuel movement often had the following experience: a subject would explain that he could not sleep under any circumstances. The Emmanuel healer would ask him to sit in a chair in which, he said, many people had fallen asleep, and after a few minutes of soothing conversation or concentration, the insomniac would doze off peacefully. In certain cases, such a cure may be permanent; in other cases, when the results are obtained through transference and suggestion, the help of the psychological adviser or hypnotist may be too frequently required. Other subjects are prevented from sleeping by "worry." Telling a careworn insomniac not to worry is as silly and useless as telling a lovelorn person to stop being in love. Discussing a patient's worries with him, however, often accomplishes much good, for it compels him to sift all his evidence, which may be convincing to him but to no one else. The worried person who is beginning to experience doubts as to the magnitude of his trouble, is like the patient suffering from delusions who has lost faith in his delusions. The parasitic fears and cravings which attach themselves to some small worry and, at times, magnify it out of proportion, may in such a way be disintegrated and dissociated from the actual, justified fear. Giving the patient "good reasons" why he should not worry, is again a sort of suggestion of the most futile and least durable type. Obsessive fear which is at the bottom of every worry is due to certain complexes, at times apparently unrelated to the actual disturbance, and which cannot be unearthed and uprooted except by a thoroughgoing psychological analysis. This is especially true of certain cases of insomnia which the patient reports as follows. "I fall asleep with difficulty and with a certain apprehension. I sleep an hour or two during which I have awful dreams which I cannot remember. After which I hardly dare to close my eyes again." This is what I would call the fear of the unknown nightmare, and the anxiety dreams responsible for it must be patiently reconstituted from the scraps which invariably linger in the subject's memory, even when he imagines that he cannot remember any dreams. The procedure will be explained in the next chapter. While the psychoanalytic treatment is being applied, however, the patient must be made aware of a fact which will comfort him to a certain extent. Patients often fear that if their sleeplessness is not relieved "at once" they will "loose their minds." Thereupon they beg to be given some narcotic. We must remember that the results of sleeplessness depend mostly upon the attitude which we assume toward that condition. It may seem paradoxical to state that its bad results are mainly due to our fear of them but it is true nevertheless. We assume that we shall be exhausted by a sleepless night. We go to bed in fear and trembling, wondering whether we will or will not sleep. That anxiety is sufficient to liberate secretions which produce an unpleasant muscular tension and a desire for activity. This keeps us awake until the chemical contained in those secretions have been eliminated. In the meantime, we develop a fit of anger which releases some more of the identical chemicals. After which we are doomed to many hours of unrest and agitation. During those restless hours we toss about angrily and exhaust ourselves physically. About dawn, when sleepiness generally overtakes even the most restless, we finally doze off and are awakened by our alarm clock or some other familiar disturbance and once more relapse into anger at the waste of our sleeping hours and the disability which we feel is sure to result from it. We naturally feel worn out. If, on the other hand, we would resign ourselves to our sleeplessness, realize that rest, even in the waking state, will relieve our organism of all its "fatigue" and that, by complete relaxation in the waking state, we can liberate almost as many of our unconscious cravings as in the unconsciousness of sleep; if we were as careful not to waste uselessly our inner secretions as we are not to touch live wires, we would lie down as motionlessly as possible, and would consign to the scrap heap all the absurd notions as to the dire results of a sleepless night; we would then awaken in the morning as refreshed by the two or three hours of sleep that would finally be vouchsafed us as by the usual eight or ten. The amount of sleep one needs varies with every individual and increases or decreases according to unconscious requirements. Hence, statements to the effect that one needs eight or ten hours' sleep are absurd and dangerous. Many people are worried over the fact that their sleep is irregular, that is, that they sleep six hours one night and ten the next night and possibly only four hours the third night. This is probably as it should be. Our requirements vary with varying conditions. After eating salt fish one may need several glasses of water to slake one's thirst, while one may not need to drink a drop of any liquid after partaking of juicy fruit. One should also dismiss as an idle superstition the dictum according to which sleep before midnight is more beneficial than sleep after midnight. Hundreds of newspapermen, watchmen, policemen, printers, railroadmen, etc., work nights and sleep in the day time and do not contribute more heavily than other professions to the ranks of the mentally deranged. Older people, whose urges are at low ebb and do not require the satisfaction vouchsafed by dream life should become reconciled to the fact that they need few hours sleep; they should refrain from taking narcotics and go to bed later than they do, so as not to "lay awake all night," which generally means that after dozing an hour or two in an armchair and retiring at ten they wake up normally about one or two in the morning. Sleep is important in health but even more so in mental disturbances. The solution for the complicated problems of the neurotic's life depends upon the wealth of facts contained in the unconscious rising freely to the surface in dreams and relieving the uncertainty. The tragedy is that except in cases of sleeping sickness, the neurotic who needs more sleep than the healthy subject, generally gets much less. The neurotic should sleep preferably at night and avoid day sleep. This for two reasons. He should keep in touch with reality when reality is active and obvious, as during the day. With the falling of the shadows, reality acquires a tinge of indefiniteness which lends itself to many misinterpretations and to fancies of the morbid type. Sleeplessness in the ghostly hours of the night is a poison for the neurotic, for everything at such times is exaggerated, distorted and the slightest worry is transformed into a terrible danger. Many children could be spared fits of "night terrors" if they were not forced to go to bed very early, after which they are likely to wake up in the middle of the night, disoriented and fearful. It has been said that insomnia was the cause of insanity and experiments such as those made at the University of Iowa show that men kept awake for a prolonged period of time begin to have delusions and hallucinations similar to those of dementia praecox. But it must be remembered that the men who submitted to those experiments were not allowed to "_rest_." The contrary proposition, that is, that insomnia is induced by insanity is more plausible psychologically. And indeed every psychiatrist has made the observation that some insane people sleep very little, so little in fact that such protracted periods of sleeplessness would kill the average normal person. That observation has been confirmed by Bleuler, who as the head of the Zurich psychiatric clinic and one of the most tireless psychological experimenters in the world, is in a position to speak with authority. Neurotics sleep very little, and the more severe their case is, the less they sleep. Return of normal sleep generally coincides with a cure and has been by many credited with bringing about the cure. Hence the many "rest cures" suggested for the mentally disturbed patient. The truth of the matter is that the absolutely insane person who lives all his absurd dreams in his waking life no longer needs the unconsciousness which the normal individual requires in order to escape from reality. The insane man who knows he is a combination of a Don Juan, a millionaire and a powerful ruler, need not dream of becoming all those characters. He has attained his goal and it is only the continued conflicts with reality which may reach his consciousness in his lucid moments which necessitate the unconsciousness of a few minutes or hours of sleep in which reality no longer intrudes into his absurd world. Since insomniacs can rest without sleep and insomnia does not lead to insanity, there is no reason why narcotics should be administered. There is a very good reason on the other hand why they should never be administered except in case some harrowing pain has to be relieved and shock avoided. For one thing, their effect is problematic and depends also to a great extent from the subject's mental condition. Kraepelin noticed that large doses of alcohol failed to produce the usual muscular lameness in subjects who were agitated. Bleuler makes the interesting suggestion that our central nervous system only "accepts" narcotics when they are "wanted" and keeps drugs, carried about in the blood stream, from being assimilated by the organism when the organism is not "willing" to submit to their influence. But the most cogent reason why narcotics should never be resorted to in "nervous" sleeplessness is that they do not relax the organism but paralyse it by killing it partly. If they only dulled consciousness and freed the unconscious, they would accomplish some good but we do not know of any agent besides sleep, which accomplishes that successfully. Narcotics partly kill both consciousness and unconscious. While their effect lasts, the very phenomenon which makes the neurotic a neurotic is exaggerated. In the neurotic's waking state, unconscious complexes manage to free themselves, somewhat indirectly. In the stupor of drugged sleep, the repression is complete. Hence the horrible feeling which is often experienced when awakening from drug-induced sleep. Normal sleep is brother to life, but drug induced sleep is indeed akin to death. Neither can hypnotic suggestion be recommended as a cure for sleeplessness, except of course, in emergencies. About the end of the nineteenth century, a Swedish physician, Wetterstrand, inaugurated a method of treatment which was founded on a just estimate of the value of sleep, although Wetterstrand himself could not at the time have understood the psychology of it. He had in Upsala a "house of sleep" furnished with innumerable divans and couches on which his patients were allowed to rest for hours in hypnotic sleep. Of course this procedure had two glaring defects: hypnotism is a neurotic phenomenon which should not be applied to the treatment of a neurosis and, secondly, sleep in the daytime is generally enjoyed at the expense of the night's sleep. At the same time, the sleep which patients enjoyed in Wetterstrand's "Grotto of Sleep," as it was called at the time, must have been of a somewhat curative kind; for the house was as silent as a grave. Thick carpets deadened all sounds and all the lights were dimmed. No stimuli were allowed to produce in the sleepers any fear reactions. What Wetterstrand really supplied to his patients was an ideal bedroom and an opportunity for an absolutely uninterrupted sleep of several hours. We do not know, however, how many of them were robbed of the effect of such an ideal environment by the anxiety dreams which the quietest bedroom cannot exclude. The conclusion to be drawn from what has been said in the preceding chapters is that the real mission of sleep is to free the unconscious, to relieve the tension due to repressions and to give absolutely free play to the organic activities which build up the individual. Hence the goal is sleep of sufficient duration, sleep undisturbed by physical stimuli, sleep FULL OF DREAMS but FREE FROM NIGHTMARES. No more potent curative agent could be found than that kind of sleep, whether the ills to be remedied are of a "mental" or of a "physical" nature. Not until all the fear-creating complexes have been disintegrated by psychoanalysis, however, can the insomniac hope to enjoy that perfect form of "rest." CHAPTER XVII: DREAM INTERPRETATION Dream interpretation is not an idle pastime or a mysterious performance. Carried out in accordance with certain scientific rules based on common sense and not on mere theory, it has a positive value in health as well as in sickness. A nightmare whose meaning has been interpreted rightly ceases to be a nightmare. It disappears, or rather, is replaced by an obvious wish-fulfilment dream of the same import, which does not disturb sleep. The same modification is observable in recurrent dreams which, while not burdened with anxiety, may have puzzled us and created a certain apprehension. Insight into our own dreams enables us to release more completely the unconscious cravings which it is the mission of sleep to free from the repressions of waking life. The technique of dream interpretation is unfortunately, like every detail of the psychoanalytic technique, very slow and at times discouraging. The layman trained by quack literature to expect quick results, is apt to appear scornful when a conscientious analyst, asked to interpret offhand an apparently simple dream, refuses to perform that task and confesses that he does not know the meaning of it. When little Anna Freud dreamt that she was feasting on all sorts of dainties, no elaborate technique was needed to ferret out the enigma of such a vision. When Ferenczi's patient, however, saw herself strangling a white dog, the wish-fulfilment formula, applied indiscriminately, would have given poor results. _To the patient_, the white dog symbolized a snarling woman with a very pale face. Dream interpretation must never be attempted without the dreamer's assistance. Snakes are _almost always_ sexual symbols, but if on the day preceding the dream the subject was frightened by a snake or killed one or played with one, we should require a good deal of other evidence before we could safely assert that a snake dream on that night indicated fear, desire or repression of sexual cravings. A tooth pulling dream related by a subject who expects to go through the ordeal of dental extraction should not be hastily admitted to be a symbolical dream. Even apparently obvious dreams may assume an entirely different complexion when we inquire into the associations which every detail of them conjures up from the subject's unconscious. A year ago or so a Chicago woman sued her husband for divorce because he had been, while talking in his sleep, saying endearing things to his stenographer. That woman was both right and wrong. The fact that her husband dreamt of his stenographer was evidence that the girl was "on his mind," consciously or unconsciously. But we could not, without examining the husband's unconscious reactions decide to what extent the stenographer herself, as a distinct personality, obsessed him. Every man is more or less of a fetichist, irresistibly attracted by certain details of the feminine body, for ever seeking those characteristics and appreciating them above all others wherever found. When only one such characteristic and no other attracts a man, the man is known as a perverse fetichist. When the various fetiches which attract a man are found in one woman, let us say red hair, dark eyes and a slender build, we have the foundation for a passionate and durable love. When only one of those characteristics is found in a woman, that characteristic is bound to attract the man's attention regardless of the interest or lack of interest the woman may present for him. A red haired woman, while otherwise totally unattractive, might, to a red hair fetichist, symbolize the beauty he seeks and intrude into his dream pictures, _although she personally could not attract him sexually in his waking state_. Every one has had the experience of embracing in dreams some person who in the waking state would not inspire the dreamer with any desire. If we analyse carefully the appearance of the "ghostly love" we will in every case notice that he or she is endowed with a certain characteristic which is one of the constituting elements of our "love image." The Chicago woman should have taken her troubles to an analyst, not to a judge. I have dwelt at length on that example to show a few of the pitfalls which threaten the careless interpreter of dreams. The second rule I would formulate is this: Do not try to interpret one dream. Wait until you have collected a large number of dreams, let us say, twenty or thirty of them. Then classify them according to their character as follows: Pleasant and unpleasant dreams. Healthy and morbid. Masochistic and sadistic. Childish or adult. Regressive, static or progressive. Positive or negative. Varied or recurrent. Personal or typical. Hypnogogic and hypnapagogic visions, etc. Care must be taken then to note all the words and thoughts which appear most frequently in many dreams and which are likely to refer to important complexes. Whenever possible two versions of each dream should be studied. The subject should write down his dreams as soon as he wakes up, either in the morning or right after an anxiety dream which may have disturbed him in the course of the night. The version of almost any important dream which the subject tells the analyst will be found quite at variance with the version written immediately after awakening. Here is a dream reported orally to me by a patient. "I saw you through a restaurant window, having lunch with your wife." Here is the same dream as I found it in the patient notes: "You were to deliver a lecture in a park. There was a number of good looking girls there. One especially attracted my attention. As there was quite a little mud in the park she wore rubber boots. You were late in appearing and I went to look for you. I saw you sitting at a table in a restaurant with your wife, waving to some acquaintance on the side walk." The discrepancy between the two versions is quite amusing. After that preparatory work of classification and comparison, the actual work of interpretation can begin. Hebbel once wrote: "If a man could make up his mind TO WRITE DOWN ALL HIS DREAMS, WITHOUT ANY EXCEPTIONS OR RESERVATIONS, TRUTHFULLY AND WITHOUT OMITTING ANY DETAILS, TOGETHER WITH A RUNNING COMMENTARY CONTAINING ALL THE EXPLANATIONS OF HIS DREAMS WHICH HE COULD DERIVE FROM HIS LIFE MEMORIES AND FROM HIS READING, he would make to mankind a present of inestimable value. But as long as mankind is what it is, no one is likely to do that." The technique of dream interpretation could not have been described more accurately nor more aptly. The person whose dreams are to be analysed should relax completely, stretched out on a couch in a quiet room, listening for a while to some monotonous noise such as the buzzing of a fan or of an inductor, his mind concentrated on the story of the dream. Then he should tell in a rambling way, without trying to edit the things that rise to his consciousness, all the associations of ideas connected with every word of the dream. While we can interpret our own dreams and jot down our own ideas, the assistance of some sympathetic, discreet person makes the process much simpler. Jotting down notes detracts one's attention from the images rising to consciousness. The assistant, however, should confine himself to mentioning the next word or the next part of the dream as soon as the subject seems to have exhausted the associations brought forth by one part of it. The most surprising results are often obtained in that simple way. Facts which the subject had entirely forgotten, connections he had never been aware of, will suddenly jump into consciousness; the dream will gradually assume a meaning and its interpretation may at times reach an unexpected length. A dream of one line may suggest associations covering five or six pages. It may happen that in spite of the subject's efforts to remember his dreams and of devices such as being awakened in the course of the night, etc., the only memories preserved of the night's visions will be scraps such as "going somewhere," "talking to somebody," "something unpleasant," etc. In such cases, the subject should be allowed to sink into what Boris Sidis calls "hypnoidal sleep" by being made to listen to some continuous noise in a partly darkened room, all the while thinking of the "dream scrap." "While in this hypnoidal state," Sidis writes, "the patient hovers between the conscious and the subconscious, somewhat in the same way as in the drowsy condition, one hovers between wakefulness and sleep. The patient keeps on fluctuating from moment to moment, now falling more deeply into a subconscious condition in which outlived experiences are easily aroused, and again rising to the level of the waking state. Experiences long submerged and forgotten rise to the full height of consciousness. They come in bits, in chips, in fragments, which may gradually coalesce and form a connected series of interrelated systems of experiences apparently long dead and buried. The resurrected experiences then stand out clear and distinct in the patient's mind. The recognition is fresh, vivid, and instinct with life, as if the experiences had occurred the day before." Through this procedure, patients are often enabled to recollect forgotten dreams and nightmares. Certain patients do not forget their dreams but refuse to report them. In such cases the simplest procedure consists in asking the patient to make up a dream while in the analyst's office, that is to put himself in the hypnoidal state described above and to tell the images and thoughts that come to his mind. Or if the analyst suspects the existence of a certain complex, he may ask the patient to build up a dream on a topic so selected that it will touch that complex. A question which audiences have asked me hundreds of times is: "Cannot the patient make up something that will deceive you entirely and throw you on the wrong trail?" My answer to such a question is emphatically negative. A study of the literary and artistic productions of all races has shown that in every "story" and in every work of art, the writer or artist was solely bringing to consciousness his own preoccupations, in a form which may have deceived him but which does not deceive the psychologist slightly familiar with the author's biography. Brill tells somewhere how his attention was first drawn to the value of artificial dreams and of so called "fake dreams." In 1908, he was treating an out of town physician, suffering from severe anxiety hysteria. The patient was very sceptical, did not co-operate with Brill, never talked freely and pretended he never had dreams. One morning, however, he came for his appointment bringing at last one dream. "He had given birth to a child and felt severe labour pains. X., a gynecologist who assisted him, was unusually rough and stuck the forceps into him more like a butcher than a physician." It was a homosexual fancy. Asked who X. was, the patient said he was a friend with whom he had had some unpleasantness. Then he interrupted the conversation, saying: "There is no use fooling you any longer. What I told you was not a dream. I just made it up to show you how ridiculous your dream theories are." Further examination, however, proved that the patient was homosexual and that his anxiety states were due to the cessation of his perverse relations with X. The lie he had made up was simply a distorted wish closely connected with the cause of his neurosis. As Brill states very justly, "everything which necessitates lying must be of importance to the individual concerned." Personally, I have found that, with certain patients, the artificial dream method is productive of better results than the free association method. With the docile patient who has much insight and a positive desire to rid himself of his troubles, the association method reveals quickly the darkest corners of the unconscious. The patient who, on the other hand, constantly answers: "I cannot think of anything," and is always on his guard, the association method wastes much valuable time and is very discouraging to patient and analyst. It is not always advisable for the analyst to reveal to his subjects the import of their dreams. It is especially when the meaning of their dreams is frankly sexual that discretion and tact are necessary. In cases of a severe repression of sexual cravings extending over many years, when, for instance, one has to deal with a woman, no longer young and whose attitude to life has been rather puritanical, a good deal of educational work has to be undertaken before the subject can be enlightened. She must be gradually led to consider sex as a "natural" phenomenon before she can be made to accept the sexual components revealed by her dreams as a part of her personality. Repressed homosexualism is perhaps even harder to reveal to the subject. I have found my task infinitely simpler when the subject had done a good deal of reading along psychoanalytic lines or had attended many lectures on the subject. In fact it is my conviction that when psychoanalytic books are read by a larger proportion of the population, thousands of "sex" cases will disappear, together with the absurd fears based on ignorance which are responsible for many a mental upset. Interpreting a subject's dreams is the best known means of probing and sounding his unconscious, but in the majority of cases it only helps indirectly in treating the case. When we deal with nightmares, however, the results are more direct and more rapidly attained. A nightmare interpreted rightly will never recur, or if it does, WILL NOT FRIGHTEN OR AWAKEN THE SUBJECT. Insight will develop which, even in the sleeping state, will enable the subject to recognize that his dream is only a dream and to sleep on undisturbed. A patient who was often terrorized by a dream in which some man stabbed him in the back, gradually came to recognize his unconscious homosexual leanings and analysed the nightmare in his sleep when it occurred again with excellent results. It did not frighten him and gradually disappeared, being replaced by grosser dreams devoid of anxiety. A patient was bothered by dreams in which he was repelling onslaughts of large beasts with a walking stick or an umbrella which invariably broke and which he was always trying to tip with iron rods or tacks. He finally gained insight into his unconscious fear of impotence which was dispelled by a visit at a specialist's office. Not only did that nightmare disappear but very soon after, his dreams changed to visions of successful sex-gratification. Dream insight based upon the personality of the analyst should not be considered as real insight. When a patient reports, "I dreamt that I was a baby but remembered that Mr. Tridon would call that a regression dream and I awoke," or, "I felt that Mr. Tridon would characterize the whole thing as a masochistic performance and awoke," much work remains to be done. The dreamer must _know_ that his nightmare is a symbol and not merely know that his analyst would call it a symbol. When the dreamer has acquired the technical skill which enables him, after a little concentration and meditation, to interpret his own sleep visions, he is no longer at the mercy of the annoyance called nightmare. When he can see at a glance where the repression seems unbearable, he may devise ways and means to satisfy his cravings more completely if they are justifiable and lawful; if they are unjustifiable or socially taboo, he may seek substitutes for them and, especially as I have explained in another book, free them from the parasitic cravings which make them unduly obsessive. He who can read the indications of his own dreams, has at his disposal an instrument of great precision which indicates to him the slightest fluctuations of his personality and, besides, points out various solutions for the problems of adaptation which the normal, progressive human being must solve every day of his life. Oneiromancy is the algebra which enables us to perform rapidly complicated calculations in the mathematics of psychology. BIBLIOGRAPHY ABRAHAMSON, I.--Mental disturbances in lethargic encephalitis. _Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease._ September 1920. A study of the sleeping sickness based mainly upon cases observed at Mt. Sinai Hospital. ABRAHAM, K.--Dreams and Myths. _Nervous and Mental Disease Monograph Series._ No. 28. A monograph proving that legends and myths are in reality the day dreams of the human race. ADLER, A.--Traum and Traumdeutung. _Zentralblatt f. Ps. A. III_, p. 574. A short essay on dream interpretation from the point of view of the ego urge. ASCHAFFENBURG, G.--Der Schlaf in Kindesalter und seine Störungen. Bergmann, Wiesbaden. Observations on the disturbances of the sleep of children. BRUCE, H. A.--Sleep and Sleeplessness. Little Brown. A popular exposé of the problem of sleeplessness from a modern point of view. CORIAT, I.--The Meaning of Dreams. Little Brown. A small book containing the analyses of many dreams according to the Freudian technique. CORIAT, I.--The Nature of Sleep. _Journal of Abnormal Psycho._ VI. No. 5. CORIAT, I.--The Evolution of Sleep and Hypnosis. Ibidem, VII. No. 2. DELAGE, Y.--La nature des images hypnagogiques. _Bulletin de l' Inst. Gen. Psycho._ 1903, p. 235. DU PREL, CARL.--Künstliche Träume. _Sphinx_, July 1889. A study of artificial dreams. FREUD, S.--The Interpretation of Dreams. Macmillan. FREUD, S.--Dream Psychology, with an introduction by André Tridon. McCann. The most important books on Dream Interpretation. FRÖMNER, E.--Das Problem des Schlafs. Bergmann, Wiesbaden. HENNING, H.--Der Traum ein assoziativer Kurzschluss. Bergmann, Wiesbaden. MAURY, A.--Le Sommeil et les Rêves. Paris 1878. The first attempt at a methodical study of dreams and at correlating them to physical stimuli. MAEDER, A. E.--The Dream Problem. _Nervous and Mental Disease monograph series._ No. 22. A presentation of the subject from the point of view of the Swiss School. HALL, B.--The Psychology of sleep. Moffat Yard. A review of the various sleep theories from the academic point of view. KAPLAN, L.--Ueber wiederkehrende Traumsymbole. _Zentrablatt f. Ps. A._ IV, p. 284. An essay on dream symbolism. MANACÉINE, M. DE.--Sleep, its physiology, pathology, hygiene and psychology. Scribner. The most complete study of sleep from every possible point of view, placing the emphasis, however, on the physical aspects of sleep. SACHS, H.--Traumdeutung und Menschenkenntniss. _Jahrb. d. Ps. A._ III, p. 121. SCHROTTER, K.--Experimentelle Träume. _Zentralblatt f. Psy. A._ II, p. 638. A record of very interesting experiments in the production of artificial dreams through hypnotism. SILBERER, H.--Der Traum Enke. Stuttgart. A very clear primer in dream study, epitomizing the latest hypotheses in interpretation. SILBERER, H.--Ueber die Symbolbildung. _Jahrbuch d. Psy-A._ III, p. 661. SILBERER, H.--Zur Symbolbildung. _Jahrbuch d. Psy-A._ IV, p. 607. SILBERER, H.--Bericht über eine methode Hallucinationserscheinungen herbeizurefen. _Jahrbuch d. Psy.-A._ I, p. 513. STEKEL, W.--Die Sprache des Traumes. Wiesbaden, 1911. STEKEL, W.--Die Traüme der Dichter. Wiesbaden, 1912. STEKEL, W.--Fortschritte in der Traumdeutung. _Zentralblatt f. Psy-A._ III, pp. 154, 426. STEKEL, W.--Individuelle Traumsymbole. _Zentralblatt f. Psy-A._ IV, p. 289. Stekel is essentially a Freudian but his books contain hundreds of illustrations and case histories, making his books more understandable to laymen than Freud's writings. "Die Sprache des Traumes" is the most useful text book of Symbol Study. TRIDON, A.--Psychoanalysis, Its History, Theory and Practice. Huebsch. See Chapter V: Symbols, the language of the dreams, and Chapter VI: The dreams of the human race. TRIDON, A.--Psychoanalysis and Behaviour. Knopf. See part IV, chapter II: Self-knowledge through dream study. TRIDON, A.--Introduction to Freud's "Dream Psychology." McCann. VOLD, J. M.--Ueber den Traum. Leipzig 1910-1912. Void holds that every dream is caused by a physical stimulus. VASCHIDE, N.--Le Sommeil et les Rêves. Paris, 1911. A physical explanation of sleep and dreams. FOOTNOTES: [1] Readers unfamiliar with my previous works might accuse me of placing undue emphasis upon "mental" causes and ignoring the influence of bacilli, toxins, etc., in disease. I refer them to the chapter: Mind and Body, an indivisible unit, in my book, "Psychoanalysis and Behaviour." It is a truism that in tuberculosis for instance the prognosis depends greatly from the "mental" condition of the patient and on his will to live. We are protected against disease germs by the various secretions of the mouth, stomach, intestine, etc. Whenever a "mental" cause, such as fear, intense sorrow, etc., translates itself into an action of the sympathetic system which stops the flow of saliva and gastric juice and the intestinal peristalsis, we can see how the organism is then predisposed to an invasion of pathogenic bacteria. The depressed, the stupid and the ignorant are the first victims in any epidemic, the depressed because their protective vagotonism is too low, the stupid and the ignorant because they are more frequently than the intelligent and well informed a prey to fear. [2] The orthodox Freudian would of course interpret such a vision as a symbol of an attempted regression to the fetal condition, return to the mother's womb, etc. As a matter of fact, sleep is to a certain extent a return to the period of the fetus' almost complete omnipotence of thought. I have noticed, however, that I never dream of swimming except on days when I have been prevented from indulging in my favourite sport at the shore or in the swimming pool. This is to my mind a perfectly obvious dream needing no far fetched interpretation, symbolical only in so far as it expresses my attitude to sleep (See chapter on Attitudes reflected in dreams). [3] Dr. Percy Fridenberg has shown the exaggerated shock reactions felt by the organism after the eye suffers an injury or is operated on, and recalls Crile's saying that our activation patterns come from sight. [4] The duration of a dream is not as short as some of Maury's experiments would lead us to believe. Some of the experimental dreams timed by Schroetter lasted almost as long as it takes to relate them. [5] Insanity is simply a day dream from which we cannot awake at will. [6] All the dreams cited in this book are reported in the patient's own words. 
39549	----	scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print archive. Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [Illustration: Book Cover] THE CARVED LIONS. [Illustration: OUR CONSULTATION TOOK A GOOD WHILE.--p. 44.--_Frontispiece._] THE CARVED LIONS BY MRS. MOLESWORTH ILLUSTRATED BY L. LESLIE BROOKE [Illustration] 1895 LONDON MACMILLAN & CO COPYRIGHT, 1895, BY MACMILLAN AND CO. CONTENTS. PAGE CHAPTER I. OLD DAYS 1 CHAPTER II. A HAPPY EVENING 17 CHAPTER III. COMING EVENTS 33 CHAPTER IV. ALL SETTLED 48 CHAPTER V. AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING 63 CHAPTER VI. A NEW WORLD 81 CHAPTER VII. GATHERING CLOUDS 98 CHAPTER VIII. "NOBODY--_NOBODY_" 113 CHAPTER IX. OUT IN THE RAIN 131 CHAPTER X. TAKING REFUGE 148 CHAPTER XI. KIND FRIENDS 163 CHAPTER XII. GOOD NEWS 182 ILLUSTRATIONS. OUR CONSULTATION TOOK A GOOD WHILE _Frontispiece_ "GOOD-BYE!" _To face page_ 71 "LITTLE GIRLS MUST NOT CONTRADICT, AND MUST NOT BE RUDE" 82 "MY POOR LITTLE GIRL, WHAT _IS_ THE MATTER?" 108 I CREPT DOWNSTAIRS, PAST ONE SCHOOLROOM WITH ITS CLOSED DOOR 141 THE BROTHER LIONS ROSE INTO THE AIR 154 MYRA CAME FORWARD GENTLY, HER SWEET FACE LOOKING RATHER GRAVE 174 CHAPTER I. OLD DAYS. It is already a long time since I was a little girl. Sometimes, when I look out upon the world and see how many changes have come about, how different many things are from what I can remember them, I could believe that a still longer time had passed since my childhood than is really the case. Sometimes, on the contrary, the remembrance of things that then happened comes over me so very vividly, so very _real_-ly, that I can scarcely believe myself to be as old as I am. I can remember things in my little girlhood more clearly than many in later years. This makes me hope that the story of some part of it may interest children of to-day, for I know I have not forgotten the feelings I had as a child. And after all, I believe that in a great many ways children are very like each other in their hearts and minds, even though their lives may seem very different and very far apart. The first years of my childhood were very happy, though there were some things in my life which many children would not like at all. My parents were not rich, and the place where we lived was not pretty or pleasant. It was a rather large town in an ugly part of the country, where great tall chimneys giving out black smoke, and streams--once clear sparkling brooks, no doubt--whose water was nearly as black as the smoke, made it often difficult to believe in bright blue sky or green grass, or any of the sweet pure country scenes that children love, though perhaps children that have them do not love them as much as those who have not got them do. I think that was the way with me. The country was almost the same as fairyland to me--the peeps I had of it now and then were a delight I could not find words to express. But what matters most to children is not _where_ their home is, but _what_ it is. And our home was a very sweet and loving one, though it was only a rather small and dull house in a dull street. Our father and mother did everything they possibly could to make us happy, and the trial of living at Great Mexington must have been far worse for them than for us. For they had both been accustomed to rich homes when they were young, and father had never expected that he would have to work so hard or in the sort of way he had to do, after he lost nearly all his money. When I say "us," I mean my brother Haddie and I. Haddie--whose real name was Haddon--was two years older than I, and we two were the whole family. My name--_was_ I was going to say, for now there are so few people to call me by my Christian name that it seems hardly mine--my name is Geraldine. Somehow I never had a "short" for it, though it is a long name, and Haddie was always Haddie, and "Haddon" scarcely needs shortening. I think it was because he nearly always called me Sister or "Sis." Haddie was between ten and eleven years old and I was nine when the great change that I am going to tell you about came over our lives. But I must go back a little farther than that, otherwise you would not understand all about us, nor the meaning of the odd title I have chosen for my story. I had no governess and I did not go to school. My mother taught me herself, partly, I think, to save expense, and partly because she did not like the idea of sending me to even a day-school at Great Mexington. For though many of the families there were very rich, and had large houses and carriages and horses and beautiful gardens, they were not always very refined. There were good and kind and unselfish people there as there are everywhere, but there were some who thought more of being rich than of anything else--the sort of people that are called "purse proud." And as children very often take after their parents, my father and mother did not like the idea of my having such children as my companions--children who would look down upon me for being poor, and perhaps treat me unkindly on that account. "When Geraldine is older she must go to school," my father used to say, "unless by that time our ship comes in and we can afford a governess. But when she is older it will not matter so much, as she will have learnt to value things at their just worth." I did not then understand what he meant, but I have never forgotten the words. I was a very simple child. It never entered my head that there was anything to be ashamed of in living in a small house and having only two servants. I thought it would be _nice_ to have more money, so that mamma would not need to be so busy and could have more pretty dresses, and above all that we could then live in the country, but I never minded being poor in any sore or ashamed way. And I often envied Haddie, who did go to school. I thought it would be nice to have lots of other little girls to play with. I remember once saying so to mamma, but she shook her head. "I don't think you would like it as much as you fancy you would," she said. "Not at present at least. When you are a few years older I hope to send you for some classes to Miss Ledbury's school, and by that time you will enjoy the good teaching. But except for the lessons, I am quite sure it is better and happier for you to be at home, even though you find it rather lonely sometimes." And in his way Haddie said much the same. School was all very well for boys, he told me. If a fellow tried to bully you, you could bully him back. But girls weren't like that--they couldn't fight it out. And when I said to him I didn't want to fight, he still shook his head, and repeated that I wouldn't like school at all--some of his friends' sisters were at school and they hated it. Still, though I did not often speak of it, the wish to go to school, and the belief that I should find school-life very happy and interesting, remained in my mind. I often made up fancies about it, and pictured myself doing lessons with other little girls and reading the same story-books and playing duets together. I could not believe that I should not like it. The truth was, I suppose, that I was longing for companions of my own age. It was since Haddie went to school that I had felt lonely. I was a great deal with mamma, but of course there were hours in the day when she was taken up with other things and could not attend to me. I used to long then for the holidays to come so that I should have Haddie again to play with. My happiest days were Wednesdays and Saturdays, for then he did not go to school in the afternoon. And mamma very often planned some little treat for us on those days, such as staying up to have late tea with her and papa when he came in from his office, or reading aloud some new story-book, or going a walk with her in the afternoon and buying whatever we liked for our own tea at the confectioner's. Very simple treats--but then we were very simple children, as I have said already. Our house, though in a street quite filled with houses, was some little way from the centre of the town, where the best shops were--some years before, our street had, I suppose, been considered quite in the country. We were very fond of going to the shops with mamma. We thought them very grand and beautiful, though they were not nearly as pretty as shops are nowadays, for they were much smaller and darker, so that the things could not be spread out in the attractive way they are now, nor were the things themselves nearly as varied and tempting. There was one shop which interested us very much. It belonged to the principal furniture-maker of Mexington. It scarcely looked like a shop, but was more like a rather gloomy private house very full of heavy dark cabinets and tables and wardrobes and chairs, mostly of mahogany, and all extremely good and well made. Yes, furniture, though ugly, really was very good in those days--I have one or two relics of my old home still, in the shape of a leather-covered arm-chair and a beautifully-made chest of drawers. For mamma's godmother had helped to furnish our house when we came to Mexington, and she was the sort of old lady who when she _did_ give a present gave it really good of its kind. She had had furniture herself made by Cranston--that was the cabinet-maker's name--for her home was in the country only about three hours' journey from Mexington--and it had been first-rate, so she ordered what she gave mamma from him also. But it was not because the furniture was so good that we liked going to Cranston's. It was for quite another reason. A little way in from the front entrance to the shop, where there were glass doors to swing open, stood a pair of huge lions carved in very dark, almost black, wood. They were nearly, if not quite, as large as life, and the first time I saw them, when I was only four or five, I was really frightened of them. They guarded the entrance to the inner part of the shop, which was dark and gloomy and mysterious-looking, and I remember clutching fast hold of mamma's hand as we passed them, not feeling at all sure that they would not suddenly spring forward and catch us. But when mamma saw that I was frightened, she stopped and made me feel the lions and stroke them to show me that they were only wooden and could not possibly hurt me. And after that I grew very fond of them, and was always asking her to take me to the "lion shop." Haddie liked them too--his great wish was to climb on one of their backs and play at going a ride. I don't think I thought of that. What I liked was to stroke their heavy manes and fancy to myself what I would do if, all of a sudden, one of them "came alive," as I called it, and turned his head round and looked at me. And as I grew older, almost without knowing it, I made up all sorts of fairy fancies about the lions--I sometimes thought they were enchanted princes, sometimes that they were real lions who were only carved wood in the day-time, and at night walked about wherever they liked. So, for one reason or another, both Haddie and I were always very pleased when mamma had to look in at Cranston's. This happened oftener than might have been expected, considering that our house was small, and that my father and mother were not rich enough often to buy new furniture. For mamma's godmother seemed to be always ordering something or other at the cabinet-maker's, and as she knew mamma was very sensible and careful, she used to write to her to explain to Cranston about the things she wanted, or to look at them before he sent them home, to see that they were all right. And Cranston was always very polite indeed to mamma. He himself was a stout, red-faced, little, elderly man, with gray whiskers, which he brushed up in a fierce kind of way that made him look like a rather angry cat, though he really was a very gentle and kind old man. I thought him much nicer than his partner, whose name was Berridge, a tall, thin man, who talked very fast, and made a great show of scolding any of the clerks or workmen who happened to be about. Mr. Cranston was very proud of the lions. They had belonged to his grandfather and then to his father, who had both been in the same sort of business as he was, and he told mamma they had been carved in "the East." I didn't know what he meant by the East, and I don't now know what country he was alluding to--India or China or Japan. And I am not sure that he knew himself. But "the East" sounded far away and mysterious--it might do for fairyland or brownieland, and I was quite satisfied. No doubt, wherever they came from, the lions were very beautifully carved. Now I will go on to tell about the changes that came into our lives, closing the doors of these first happy childish years, when there scarcely seemed to be ever a cloud on our sky. One day, when I was a month or two past nine years old, mamma said to me just as I was finishing my practising--I used to practise half an hour every other day, and have a music lesson from mamma the between days--that she was going out to do some shopping that afternoon, and that, if I liked, I might go with her. "I hope it will not rain," she added, "though it does look rather threatening. But perhaps it will hold off till evening." "And I can take my umbrella in case it rains," I said. I was very proud of my umbrella. It had been one of my last birthday presents. "Yes, mamma, I should like to come very much. Will Haddie come too?" For it was Wednesday--one of his half-holidays. "To tell the truth," said mamma, "I forgot to ask him this morning if he would like to come, but he will be home soon--it is nearly luncheon time. I daresay he will like to come, especially as I have to go to Cranston's." She smiled a little as she said this. Our love for the carved lions amused her. "Oh yes, I am sure he will like to come," I said. "And may we buy something for tea at Miss Fryer's on our way home?" Mamma smiled again. "That will be two treats instead of one," she said, "but I daresay I can afford two or three pence." Miss Fryer was our own pet confectioner, or pastry-cook, as we used to say more frequently then. She was a Quakeress, and her shop was very near our house, so near that mamma let me go there alone with Haddie. Miss Fryer was very grave and quiet, but we were not at all afraid of her, for we knew that she was really very kind. She was always dressed in pale gray or fawn colour, with a white muslin shawl crossed over her shoulders, and a white net cap beautifully quilled and fitting tightly round her face, so that only a very little of her soft gray hair showed. She always spoke to us as "thou" and "thee," and she was very particular to give us exactly what we asked for, and also to take the exact money in payment. But now and then, after the business part had been all correctly settled, she would choose out a nice bun or sponge-cake, or two or three biscuits, and would say "I give thee this as a present." And she did not like us to say, "Thank you, Miss Fryer," but "Thank you, friend Susan." I daresay she would have liked us to say, "Thank _thee_," but neither Haddie nor I had courage for that! I ran upstairs in high spirits, and five minutes after when Haddie came in from school he was nearly as pleased as I to hear our plans. "If only it does not rain," said mamma at luncheon. Luncheon was, of course, our dinner, and it was often mamma's dinner really too. Our father was sometimes so late of getting home that he liked better to have tea than a regular dinner. But mamma always called it luncheon because it seemed natural to her. "I don't mind if it does rain," said Haddie, "because of my new mackintosh." Haddie was very proud of his mackintosh, which father had got him for going to and from school in rainy weather. Mackintoshes were then a new invention, and very expensive compared with what they are now. But Haddie was rather given to catching cold, and at Great Mexington it did rain very often--much oftener than anywhere else, I am quite sure. "And Geraldine doesn't mind because of her new umbrella," said mamma. "So we are proof against the weather, whatever happens." It may seem strange that I can remember so much of a time now so very long ago. But I really do--of that day and of those that followed it especially, because, as I have already said, they were almost the close of the first part of our childish life. That afternoon was such a happy one. We set off with mamma, one on each side of her, hanging on her arms, Haddie trying to keep step with her, and I skipping along on my tiptoes. When we got to the more crowded streets we had to separate--that is to say, Haddie had to let go of mamma's arm, so that he could fall behind when we met more than one person. For the pavements at Mexington were in some parts narrow and old-fashioned. Mamma had several messages to do, and at some of the shops Haddie and I waited outside because we did not think they were very interesting. But at some we were only too ready to go in. One I remember very well. It was a large grocer's. We thought it a most beautiful shop, though nowadays it would be considered quite dull and gloomy, compared with the brilliant places of the kind you see filled with biscuits and dried fruits and all kinds of groceries tied up with ribbons, or displayed in boxes of every colour of the rainbow. I must say I think the groceries themselves were quite as good as they are now, and in some cases better, but that may be partly my fancy, as I daresay I have a partiality for old-fashioned things. Mamma did not buy all our groceries at this grand shop, for it was considered dear. But certain things, such as tea--which cost five shillings a pound then--she always ordered there. And the grocer, like Cranston, was a very polite man. I think he understood that though she was not rich, and never bought a great deal, mamma was different in herself from the grandly-dressed Mexington ladies who drove up to his shop in their carriages, with a long list of all the things they wanted. And when mamma had finished giving her order, he used always to offer Haddie and me a gingerbread biscuit of a very particular and delicious kind. They were large round biscuits, of a nice bright brown colour, and underneath they had thin white wafer, which we called "eating paper." They were crisp without being hard. I never see gingerbreads like them now. "This is a lucky day, mamma," I said, when we came out of the grocer's. "Mr. Simeon never forgets to give us gingerbreads when he is there himself." "No," said mamma, "he is a very kind man. Perhaps he has got Haddies and Geraldines of his own, and knows what they like." "And now are we going to Cranston's?" asked my brother. Mamma looked at the paper in her hand. She was very careful and methodical in all her ways, and always wrote down what she had to do before she came out. "Yes," she said, "I think I have done everything else. But I shall be some little time at Cranston's. Mrs. Selwood has asked me to settle ever so many things with him--she is going abroad for the winter, and wants him to do a good deal of work at Fernley while she is away." CHAPTER II. A HAPPY EVENING. Haddie and I were not at all sorry to hear that mamma's call at Cranston's was not to be a hurried one. "We don't mind if you are ever so long," I said; "do we, Haddie?" "No, of course we don't," Haddie agreed. "I should like to spend a whole day in those big show-rooms of his. Couldn't we have jolly games of hide-and-seek, Sis? And then riding the lions! I wish you were rich enough to buy one of the lions, mamma, and have it for an ornament in the hall, or in the drawing-room." "We should need to build a hall or a drawing-room to hold it," said mamma, laughing. "I'm afraid your lion would turn into a white elephant, Haddie, if it became ours." I remember wondering what she meant. How could a lion turn into an elephant? But I was rather a slow child in some ways. Very often I thought a thing over a long time in my mind if I did not understand it before asking any one to explain it. And so before I said anything it went out of my head, for here we were at Cranston's door. There was only a young shopman to be seen, but when mamma told him she particularly wanted to see Mr. Cranston himself, he asked us to step in and take a seat while he went to fetch him. We passed between the lions. It seemed quite a long time since we had seen them, and I thought they looked at us very kindly. I was just nudging Haddie to whisper this to him when mamma stopped to say to us that we might stay in the outer room if we liked; she knew it was our favourite place, and in a few minutes we heard her talking to old Mr. Cranston, who had come to her in the inner show-room through another door. Haddie's head was full of climbing up onto one of the lions to go a ride. But luckily he could not find anything to climb up with, which was a very good thing, as he would have been pretty sure to topple over, and Mr. Cranston would not have been at all pleased if he had scratched the lion. To keep him quiet I began talking to him about my fancies. I made him look close into the lions' faces--it was getting late in the afternoon, and we had noticed before we came in that the sun was setting stormily. A ray of bright orange-coloured light found its way in through one of the high-up windows which were at the back of the show-room, and fell right across the mane of one of the lions and almost into the eyes of the other. The effect on the dark, almost black, wood of which they were made was very curious. "Look, Haddie," I said suddenly, catching his arm, "doesn't it really look as if they were smiling at us--the one with the light on its face especially? I really do think there's something funny about them--I wonder if they are enchanted." Haddie did not laugh at me. I think in his heart he was fond of fancies too, though he might not have liked the boys at school to know it. He sat staring at our queer friends nearly as earnestly as I did myself. And as the ray of light slowly faded, he turned to me. "Yes," he said, "their faces do seem to change. But I think they always look kind." "They do to _us_," I said confidently, "but sometimes they are quite fierce. I don't think they looked at us the way they do now the first time they saw us. And one day one of the men in the shop shoved something against one of them and his face frowned--I'm sure it did." "I wonder if he'd frown if I got up on his back," said Haddie. "Oh, do leave off about climbing on their backs," I said. "It wouldn't be at all comfortable--they're so broad, you couldn't sit cross-legs, and they'd be as slippery as anything. It's much nicer to make up stories about them coming alive in the night, or turning into black princes and saying magic words to make the doors open like in the Arabian Nights." "Well, tell me stories of all they do then," said Haddie condescendingly. "I will if you'll let me think for a minute," I said. "I wish Aunty Etta was here--she does know such lovely stories." "I like yours quite as well," said Haddie encouragingly, "I don't remember Aunty Etta's; it's such a long time since I saw her. You saw her last year, you know, but I didn't." "She told me one about a china parrot, a most beautiful green and gold parrot, that was really a fairy," I said. "I think I could turn it into a lion story, if I thought about it." "No," said Haddie, "you can tell the parrot one another time. I'd rather hear one of your own stories, new, about the lions. I know you've got some in your head. Begin, do--I'll help you if you can't get on." But my story that afternoon was not to be heard. Just as I was beginning with, "Well, then, there was once an old witch who lived in a very lonely hut in the middle of a great forest," there came voices behind us, and in another moment we heard mamma saying, "Haddie, my boy, Geraldine, I am quite ready." I was not very sorry. I liked to have more time to make up my stories, and Haddie sometimes hurried me so. It was Aunty Etta, I think, who had first put it into my head to make them. She was _so_ clever about it herself, both in making stories and in remembering those she had read, and she _had_ read a lot. But she was away in India at the time I am now writing about; her going so far off was a great sorrow to mamma. Haddie and I started up at once. We had to be very obedient, what father called "quickly obedient," and though he was so kind he was very strict too. "My children are great admirers of your lions, Mr. Cranston," mamma said; and the old man smiled. "They are not singular in their taste, madam," he said. "I own that I am very proud of them myself, and when my poor daughter was a child there was nothing pleased her so much as when her mother or I lifted her on to one of them, and made believe she was going a ride." Haddie looked triumphant. "There now you see, Sis," he whispered, nudging me. But I did not answer him, for I was listening to what mamma was saying. "Oh, by the bye, Mr. Cranston," she went on, "I was forgetting to ask how your little grandchild is. Have you seen her lately?" Old Cranston's face brightened. "She is very well, madam, I thank you," he replied. "And I am pleased to say that she is coming to stay with us shortly. We hope to keep her through the winter. Her stepmother is very kind, but with little children of her own, it is not always easy for her to give as much attention as she would like to Myra, and she and Mr. Raby have responded cordially to our invitation." "I am very glad to hear it--very glad indeed," said mamma. "I know what a pleasure it will be to you and Mrs. Cranston. Let me see--how old is the little girl now--seven, eight?" "_Nine_, madam, getting on for ten indeed," said Mr. Cranston with pride. "Dear me," said mamma, "how time passes! I remember seeing her when she was a baby--before we came to live here, of course, once when I was staying at Fernley, just after----" Mamma stopped and hesitated. "Just after her poor mother died--yes, madam," said the old man quietly. And then we left, Mr. Cranston respectfully holding the door open. It was growing quite dark; the street-lamps were lighted and their gleam was reflected on the pavement, for it had been raining and was still quite wet underfoot. Mamma looked round her. "You had better put on your mackintosh, Haddie," she said. "It may rain again. No, Geraldine dear, there is no use opening your umbrella till it does rain." My feelings were divided between pride in my umbrella and some reluctance to have it wet! I took hold of mamma's arm again, while Haddie walked at her other side. It was not a very cheerful prospect before us--the gloomy dirty streets of Mexington were now muddy and sloppy as well--though on the whole I don't know but that they looked rather more cheerful by gaslight than in the day. It was chilly too, for the season was now very late autumn, if not winter. But little did we care--I don't think there could have been found anywhere two happier children than my brother and I that dull rainy evening as we trotted along beside our mother. There was the feeling of _her_ to take care of us, of our cheerful home waiting for us, with a bright fire and the tea-table all spread. If I had not been a little tired--for we had walked a good way--in my heart I was just as ready to skip along on the tips of my toes as when we first came out. "We may stop at Miss Fryer's, mayn't we, mamma?" said Haddie. "Well, yes, I suppose I promised you something for tea," mamma replied. "How much may we spend?" he asked. "Sixpence--do say sixpence, and then we can get enough for you to have tea with us too." "Haddie," I said reproachfully, "as if we wouldn't give mamma something however little we had!" "We'd offer it her of course, but you know she wouldn't take it," he replied. "So it's much better to have really enough for all." His way of speaking made mamma laugh again. "Then I suppose it must be sixpence," she said, "and here we are at Miss Fryer's. Shall we walk on, my little girl, I think you must be tired, and let Haddie invest in cakes and run after us?" "Oh no, please mamma, dear," I said, "I like so to choose too." Half the pleasure of the sixpence would have been gone if Haddie and I had not spent it together. "Then I will go on," said mamma, "and you two can come after me together." She took out her purse and gave my brother the promised money, and then with a smile on her dear face--I can see her now as she stood in the light of the street-lamp just at the old Quakeress's door--she nodded to us and turned to go. I remember exactly what we bought, partly, perhaps, because it was our usual choice. We used to think it over a good deal first and each would suggest something different, but in the end we nearly always came back to the old plan for the outlay of our sixpence, namely, half-penny crumpets for threepence--that meant _seven_, not six; it was the received custom to give seven for threepence--and half-penny Bath buns for the other threepence--seven of them too, of course. And _Bath_ buns, not plain ones. You cannot get these now--not at least in any place where I have lived of late years. And I am not sure but that even at Mexington they were a _spécialité_ of dear old Miss Fryer's. They were so good; indeed, everything she sold was thoroughly good of its kind. She was so honest, using the best materials for all she made. That evening she stood with her usual gentle gravity while we discussed what we should have, and when after discarding sponge-cakes and finger-biscuits, which we had thought of "for a change," and partly because finger-biscuits weighed light and made a good show, we came round at last to the seven crumpets and seven buns, she listened as seriously and put them up in their little paper bags with as much interest as though the ceremony had never been gone through before. And then just as we were turning to leave, she lifted up a glass shade and drew out two cheese-cakes, which she proceeded to put into another paper bag. Haddie and I looked at each other. This was a lovely present. What a tea we should have! "I think thee will find these good," she said with a smile, "and I hope thy dear mother will not think them too rich for thee and thy brother." She put them into my hand, and of course we thanked her heartily. I have often wondered why she never said, "thou wilt," but always "thee will," for she was not an uneducated woman by any means. Laden with our treasures Haddie and I hurried home. There was mamma watching for us with the door open. How sweet it was to have her always to welcome us! "Tea is quite ready, dears," she said. "Run upstairs quickly, Geraldine, and take off your things, they must be rather damp. I am going to have my real tea with you, for I have just had a note from your father to say he won't be in till late and I am not to wait for him." Mamma sighed a little as she spoke. I felt sorry for her disappointment, but, selfishly speaking, we sometimes rather enjoyed the evenings father was late, for then mamma gave us her whole attention, as she was not able to do when he was at home. And though we were very fond of our father, we were--I especially, I think--much more afraid of him than of our mother. And that was such a happy evening! I have never forgotten it. Mamma was so good and thoughtful for us, she did not let us find out in the least that she was feeling anxious on account of something father had said in his note to her. She was just perfectly sweet. We were very proud of our spoils from Miss Fryer's. We wanted mamma to have one cheesecake and Haddie and I to divide the other between us. But mamma would not agree to that. She would only take a half, so that we had three-quarters each. "Wasn't it kind of Miss Fryer, mamma?" I said. "Very kind," said mamma. "I think she is really fond of children though she is so grave. She has not forgotten what it was to be a child herself." Somehow her words brought back to my mind what old Mr. Cranston had said about his little grand-daughter. "I suppose children _are_ all rather like each other," I said. "Like about Haddie, and that little girl riding on the lions." Haddie was not very pleased at my speaking of it; he was beginning to be afraid of seeming babyish. "That was _quite_ different," he said. "She was a baby and had to be held on. It was the fun of climbing up _I_ cared for." "She wasn't a baby," I said. "She's nine years old, he said she was--didn't he, mamma?" "You are mixing two things together," said mamma. "Mr. Cranston was speaking first of his daughter long ago when she was a child, and then he was speaking of _her_ daughter, little Myra Raby, who is now nine years old." "Why did he say my 'poor' daughter?" I asked. "Did you not hear the allusion to her death? Mrs. Raby died soon after little Myra was born. Mr. Raby married again--he is a clergyman not very far from Fernley----" "A clergyman," exclaimed Haddie. He was more worldly-wise than I, thanks to being at school. "A clergyman, and he married a shopkeeper's daughter." "There are very different kinds of shopkeepers, Haddie," said mamma. "Mr. Cranston is very rich, and his daughter was very well educated and very nice. Still, no doubt Mr. Raby was in a higher position than she, and both Mr. Cranston and his wife are very right-minded people, and never pretend to be more than they are. That is why I was so glad to hear that little Myra is coming to stay with them. I was afraid the second Mrs. Raby might have looked down upon them perhaps." Haddie said no more about it. And though I listened to what mamma said, I don't think I quite took in the sense of it till a good while afterwards. It has often been like that with me in life. I have a curiously "retentive" memory, as it is called. Words and speeches remain in my mind like unread letters, till some day, quite unexpectedly, something reminds me of them, and I take them out, as it were, and find what they really meant. But just now my only interest in little Myra Raby's history was a present one. "Mamma," I said suddenly, "if she is a nice little girl like what her mamma was, mightn't I have her to come and see me and play with me? I have never had any little girl to play with, and it is so dull sometimes--the days that Haddie is late at school and when you are busy. Do say I may have her--I'm sure old Mr. Cranston would let her come, and then I might go and play with her sometimes perhaps. Do you think she will play among the furniture--where the lions are?" Mamma shook her head. "No, dear," she answered. "I am quite sure her grandmother would not like that. For you see anybody might come into the shop or show-rooms, and it would not seem nice for a little girl to be playing there--not nice for a carefully brought-up little girl, I mean." "Then I don't think I should care to go to her house," I said, "but I would like her to come here. Please let her, mamma dear." But mamma only said, "We shall see." After tea she told us stories--some of them we had heard often before, but we never tired of hearing them again--about when she and Aunty Etta were little girls. They were lovely stories--real ones of course. Mamma was not as clever as Aunty Etta about making up fairy ones. We were quite sorry when it was time to go to bed. After I had been asleep for a little that night I woke up again--I had not been very sound asleep. Just then I saw a light, and mamma came into the room with a candle. "I'm not asleep, dear mamma," I said. "Do kiss me again." "That is what I have come for," she answered. And she came up to the bedside and kissed me, oh so sweetly--more than once. She seemed as if she did not want to let go of me. "Dear mamma," I whispered sleepily, "I _am_ so happy--I'm always happy, but to-night I feel so _extra_ happy, somehow." "Darling," said mamma. And she kissed me again. CHAPTER III. COMING EVENTS. The shadow of coming changes began to fall over us very soon after that. Indeed, the very next morning at breakfast I noticed that mamma looked pale and almost as if she had been crying, and father was, so to say, "extra" kind to her and to me. He talked and laughed more than usual, partly perhaps to prevent our noticing how silent dear mamma was, but mostly I think because that is the way men do when they are really anxious or troubled. I don't fancy Haddie thought there was anything wrong--he was in a hurry to get off to school. After breakfast mamma told me to go and practise for half an hour, and if she did not come to me then, I had better go on doing some of my lessons alone. She would look them over afterwards. And as I was going out of the room she called me back and kissed me again--almost as she had done the night before. That gave me courage to say something. For children were not, in my childish days, on such free and easy terms with their elders as they are now. And kind and gentle as mamma was, we knew very distinctly the sort of things she would think forward or presuming on our part. "Mamma," I said, still hesitating a little. "Well, dear," she replied. She was buttoning, or pretending to button, the band of the little brown holland apron I wore, so that I could not see her face, but something in the tone of her voice told me that my instinct was not mistaken. "Mamma," I repeated, "may I say something? I have a feeling that--that you are--that there is something the matter." Mamma did not answer at once. Then she said very gently, but quite kindly, "Geraldine, my dear, you know that I tell you as much as I think it right to tell any one as young as you--I tell you more, of our plans and private matters and such things, than most mothers tell their little daughters. This has come about partly through your being so much alone with me. But when I _don't_ tell you anything, even though you may suspect there is something to tell, you should trust me that there is good reason for my not doing so." "Yes," I said, but I could not stifle a little sigh. "Would you just tell me one thing, mamma," I went on; "it isn't anything that you're really unhappy about, is it?" Again mamma hesitated. "Dear child," she said, "try to put it out of your mind. I can only say this much to you, I am _anxious_ more than troubled. There is nothing the matter that should really be called a trouble. But your father and I have a question of great importance to decide just now, and we are very--I may say really _terribly_--anxious to decide for the best. That is all I can tell you. Kiss me, my darling, and try to be your own bright little self. That will be a comfort and help to me." I kissed her and I promised I would try to do as she wished. But it was with rather a heavy heart that I went to my practising. What _could_ it be? I did try not to think of it, but it would keep coming back into my mind. And I was only a child. I had no experience of trouble or anxiety. After a time my spirits began to rise again--there was a sort of excitement in the wondering what this great matter could be. I am afraid I did not succeed in putting it out of my mind as mamma wished me to do. But the days went on without anything particular happening. I did not speak of what mamma had said to me to my brother. I knew she did not wish me to do so. And by degrees other things began to make me forget about it a little. It was just at that time, I remember, that some friend--an aunt on father's side, I think--sent me a present of _The Wide, Wide World_, and while I was reading it I seemed actually to live in the story. It was curious that I should have got it just then. If mamma had read it herself I am not sure that she would have given it to me. But after all, perhaps it served the purpose of preparing me a _little_--a very little--for what was before me in my own life. It was nearly three weeks after the time I have described rather minutely that the blow fell, that Haddie and I were told the whole. I think, however, I will not go on telling _how_ we were told, for I am afraid of making my story too long. And of course, however good my memory is, I cannot pretend that the conversations I relate took place _exactly_ as I give them. I think I give the _spirit_ of them correctly, but now that I have come to the telling of distinct facts, perhaps it will be better simply to narrate them. You will remember my saying that my father had lost money very unexpectedly, and that this was what had obliged him to come to live at Mexington and work so hard. He had got the post he held there--it was in a bank--greatly through the influence of Mrs. Selwood, mamma's godmother, who lived in the country at some hours' distance from the town, and whose name was well known there, as she owned a great many houses and other property in the immediate neighbourhood. Father was very glad to get this post, and very grateful to Mrs. Selwood. She took great interest in us all--that is to say, she was interested in Haddie and me because we were mamma's children, though she did not care for or understand children as a rule. But she was a faithful friend, and anxious to help father still more. Just about the time I have got to in my story, the manager of a bank in South America, in some way connected with the one at Great Mexington, became ill, and was told by the doctors that he must return to England and have a complete rest for two years. Mrs. Selwood had money connection with this bank too, and got to hear of what had happened. Knowing that father could speak both French and Spanish well, for he had been in the diplomatic service as a younger man, she at once applied for the appointment for him, and after some little delay she was told that he should have the offer of it for the two years. Two years are not a very long time, even though the pay was high, but the great advantage of the offer was that the heads of the bank at Mexington promised, if all went well for that time, that some permanent post should be given to father in England on his return. This was what made him more anxious to accept the proposal than even the high pay. For Mrs. Selwood found out that he would not be able to save much of his salary, as he would have a large house to keep up, and would be expected to receive many visitors. On this account the post was never given to an unmarried man. "If he accepts it," Mrs. Selwood wrote to mamma, "you, my dear Blanche, must go with him, and some arrangement would have to be made about the children for the time. I would advise your sending them to school." _Now_ I think my readers will not be at a loss to understand why our dear mother had looked so troubled, even though on one side this event promised to be for our good in the end. Father was allowed two or three weeks in which to make up his mind. The heads of the Mexington bank liked and respected him very much, and they quite saw that there were two sides to the question of his accepting the offer. The climate of the place was not very good--at least it was injurious to English people if they stayed there for long--and it was perfectly certain that it would be madness to take growing children like Haddie and me there. _This_ was the dark spot in it all to mamma, and indeed to father too. They were not afraid for themselves. They were both strong and still young, but they could not for a moment entertain the idea of taking _us_. And the thought of separation was terrible. You see, being a small family, and living in a place like Great Mexington, where my parents had not many congenial friends, and being poor were obliged to live carefully, _home_ was everything to us all. We four were the whole world to each other, and knew no happiness apart. I do not mean to say that I felt or saw all this at once, but looking back upon it from the outside, as it were, I see all that made it a peculiarly hard case, especially--at the beginning, that is to say--for mamma. It seems strange that I did _not_ take it all in--all the misery of it, I mean--at first, nor indeed for some time, not till I had actual experience of it. Even Haddie realised it more in anticipation than I did. He was two years older, and though he had never been at a boarding-school, still he knew something of school life. There were boarders at his school, and he had often seen and heard how, till they got accustomed to it at any rate, they suffered from home-sickness, and counted the days to the holidays. And for us there were not to be any holidays! No certain prospect of them at best, though Mrs. Selwood said something vaguely about perhaps having us at Fernley for a visit in the summer. But it was very vague. And we had no near relations on mamma's side except Aunty Etta, who was in India, and on father's no one who could possibly have us regularly for our holidays. All this mamma grasped at once, and her grief was sometimes so extreme that, but for Mrs. Selwood, I doubt if father would have had the resolution to accept. But Mrs. Selwood was what is called "very sensible," perhaps just a little hard, and certainly not _sensitive_. And she put things before our parents in such a way that mamma felt it her duty to urge father to accept the offer, and father felt it _his_ duty to put feelings aside and do so. They went to stay at Fernley from a Saturday to a Monday to talk it well over, and it was when they came back on the Monday that we were told. Before then I think we had both come to have a strong feeling that something was going to happen. I, of course, had some reason for this in what mamma had said to me, though I had forgotten about it a good deal, till this visit to Fernley brought back the idea of something unusual. For it was _very_ seldom that we were left by ourselves. We did not mind it much. After all, it was only two nights and one _whole_ day, and that a Sunday, when my brother was at home, so we stood at the door cheerfully enough, looking at our father and mother driving off in the clumsy, dingy old four-wheeler--though that is a modern word--which was the best kind of cab known at Mexington. But when they were fairly off Haddie turned to me, and I saw that he was very grave. I was rather surprised. "Why, Haddie," I said, "do you mind so much? They'll be back on Monday." "No, of course I don't mind _that_," he said. "But I wonder why mamma looks so--so awfully trying-not-to-cry, you know." "Oh," I said, "I don't think she's quite well. And she hates leaving us." "No," said my brother, "there's something more." And when he said that, I remembered the feeling I had had myself. I felt rather cross with Haddie; I wanted to forget it quite. "You needn't try to frighten me like that," I said. "I meant to be quite happy while they were away--to please mamma, you know, by telling her so when she comes back." Then Haddie, who really was a very good-natured, kind boy, looked sorry. "I didn't mean to frighten you," he said; "perhaps it was my fancy. I don't want to be unhappy while they're away, I'm sure. I'm only too glad that to-day's Saturday and to-morrow Sunday." And he did his very best to amuse me. We went out a walk that afternoon with the housemaid--quite a long walk, though it was winter. We went as far out of the town as we could get, to where there were fields, which in spring and summer still looked green, and through the remains of a little wood, pleasant even in the dullest season. It was our favourite walk, and the only pretty one near the town. There was a brook at the edge of the wood, which still did its best to sing merrily, and to forget how dingy and grimy its clear waters became a mile or two farther on; there were still a few treasures in the shape of ivy sprays and autumn-tinted leaves to gather and take home with us to deck our nursery. I remember the look of it all so well. It was the favourite walk of many besides ourselves, especially on a Saturday, when the hard-worked Mexington folk were once free to ramble about--boys and girls not much older than ourselves among them, for in those days children were allowed to work in factories much younger than they do now. We did not mind meeting some of our townsfellows. On the contrary, we felt a good deal of interest in them and liked to hear their queer way of talking, though we could scarcely understand anything they said. And we were very much interested indeed in some of the stories Lydia, who belonged to this part of the country, told us of her own life, in a village a few miles away, where there were two or three great factories, at which all the people about worked--men, women, and children too, so that sometimes, except for babies and very old people, the houses seemed quite deserted. "And long ago before that," said Lydia, "when mother was a little lass, it was such a pretty village--cottages all over with creepers and honeysuckle--not ugly rows of houses as like each other as peas. The people worked at home on their own hand-looms then." Lydia had a sense of the beautiful! On our way home, of course, we called at Miss Fryer's--this time we had a whole shilling to spend, for there was Sunday's tea to think of as well as to-day's. We had never had so much at a time, and our consultation took a good while. We decided at last on seven crumpets and seven Bath buns as usual, and in addition to these, three large currant tea-cakes, which our friend Susan told us would be all the better for toasting if not too fresh. And the remaining threepence we invested in a slice of sweet sandwich, which she told us would be perfectly good if kept in a tin tightly closed. The old Quakeress for once, I have always suspected, departed on this occasion from her rule of exact payment for all purchases, for it certainly seemed a very large slice of sweet sandwich for threepence. We were rather tired with our walk that evening and went to bed early. Nothing more was said by Haddie about his misgivings. I think he hoped I had forgotten what had passed, but I had not. It had all come back again, the strange feeling of change and trouble in the air which had made me question mamma that morning two or three weeks ago. But I did not as yet really believe it. I had never known what sorrow and trouble actually are. It is not many children who reach even the age I was then with so sunny and peaceful an experience of life. That anything could happen to us--to _me_--like what happened to "Ellen" in _The Wide, Wide World_, I simply could not believe; even though if any one had talked to me about it and said that troubles must come and _do_ come to all, and to some much more than to others, and that they might be coming to us, I should have agreed at once and said yes, of course I knew that was true. The next day, Sunday, was very rainy. It made us feel dull, I think, though we did not really mind a wet Sunday as much as another day, for we never went a walk on Sunday. It was not thought right, and as we had no garden the day would have been a very dreary one to us, except for mamma. She managed to make it pleasant. We went to church in the morning, and in the evening too sometimes. I think all children like going to church in the evening; there is something grown-up about it. And the rest of the day mamma managed to find interesting things for us to do. She generally had some book which she kept for reading aloud on Sunday--Dr. Adams's _Allegories_, "The Dark River" and others, were great favourites, and so were Bishop Wilberforce's _Agathos_. Some of them frightened me a little, but it was rather a pleasant sort of fright, there was something grand and solemn about it. Then we sang hymns sometimes, and we always had a very nice tea, and mamma, and father too now and then, told us stories about when they were children and what they did on Sundays. It was much stricter for them than for us, though even for us many things were forbidden on Sundays which are now thought not only harmless but right. Still, I never look back to the quiet Sundays in the dingy Mexington street with anything but a feeling of peace and gentle pleasure. CHAPTER IV. ALL SETTLED. That Sunday--that last Sunday I somehow feel inclined to call it--stands out in my memory quite differently from its fellows. Both Haddie and I felt dull and depressed, partly owing no doubt to the weather, but still more, I think, from that vague fear of something being wrong which we were both suffering from, though we would not speak of it to each other. It cleared up a little in the evening, and though it was cold and chilly we went to church. Mamma had said to us we might if we liked, and Lydia was going. When we came in, cook sent us a little supper which we were very glad of; it cheered us up. "Aren't you thankful they're coming home to-morrow?" I said to Haddie. "I've never minded their being away so much before." They had been away two or three times that we could remember, though never for longer than a day or two. "Yes," said Haddie, "I'm very glad." But that was all he said. They did come back the next day, pretty early in the morning, as father had to be at the bank. He went straight there from the railway station, and mamma drove home with the luggage. She was very particular when she went to stay with her godmother to take nice dresses, for Mrs. Selwood would not have been pleased to see her looking shabby, and it would not have made her any more sympathising or anxious to help, but rather the other way. Long afterwards--at least some years afterwards, when I was old enough to understand--I remember Mrs. Selwood saying to me that it was mamma's courage and good management which made everybody respect her. I was watching at the dining-room window, which looked out to the street, when the cab drove up. After the heavy rain the day before, it was for once a fine day, with some sunshine. And sunshine was rare at Great Mexington, especially in late November. Mamma was looking out to catch the first glimpse of me--of course she knew that my brother would be at school. There was a sort of sunshine on her face, at least I thought so at first, for she was smiling. But when I looked more closely there was something in the smile which gave me a queer feeling, startling me almost more than if I had seen that she was crying. I think for my age I had a good deal of self-control of a certain kind. I waited till she had come in and kissed me and sent away the cab and we were alone. Then I shut the door and drew her to father's special arm-chair beside the fire. "Mamma, dear," I half said, half whispered, "what is it?" Mamma gave a sort of gasp or choke before she answered. Then she said, "Why, dear, why should you think--oh, I don't know what I am saying," and she tried to laugh. But I wouldn't let her. "It's something in your face, mamma," I persisted. She was silent for a moment. "We had meant to tell you and Haddie this evening," she said, "father and I together; but perhaps it is better. Yes, my Geraldine, there is something. Till now it was not quite certain, though it has been hanging over us for some weeks, ever since----" "Since that day I asked you--the morning after father came home so late and you had been crying?" "Yes, since then," said mamma. She put her arm round me, and then she told me all that I have told already, or at least as much of it as she thought I could understand. She told it quietly, but she did not try not to cry--the tears just came trickling down her face, and she wiped them away now and then. I think the letting them come made her able to speak more calmly. And I listened. I was very sorry for her, very _very_ sorry. But you may think it strange--I have often looked back upon it with wonder myself, though I now feel as if I understood the causes of it better--when I tell you that I was _not_ fearfully upset or distressed myself. I did not feel inclined to cry, _except_ out of pity for mamma. And I listened with the most intense interest, and even curiosity. I was all wound up by excitement, for this was the first great event I had ever known, the first change in my quiet child-life. And my excitement grew even greater when mamma came to the subject of what was decided about us children. "Haddie of course must go to school," she said; "to a larger and better school--Mrs. Selwood speaks of Rugby, if it can be managed. He will be happy there, every one says. But about you, my Geraldine." "Oh, mamma," I interrupted, "do let me go to school too. I have always wanted to go, you know, and except for being away from you, I would far rather be a boarder. It's really being at school then. I know they rather look down upon day-scholars--Haddie says so." Mamma looked at me gravely. Perhaps she was just a little disappointed, even though on the other hand she may have felt relieved too, at my taking the idea of this separation, which to her over-rode _everything_, which made the next two years a black cloud to her, so very philosophically. But she sighed. I fancy a suspicion of the truth came to her almost at once and added to her anxiety--the truth that I did not the least realise what was before me. "We _are_ thinking of sending you to school, my child," she said quietly, "and of course it must be as a boarder. Mrs. Selwood advises Miss Ledbury's school here. She has known the old lady long and has a very high opinion of her, and it is not very far from Fernley in case Miss Ledbury wished to consult Mrs. Selwood about you in any way, or in case you were ill." "I am very glad," I said. "I should like to go to Miss Ledbury's." My fancy had been tickled by seeing the girls at her school walking out two and two in orthodox fashion. I thought it must be delightful to march along in a row like that, and to have a partner of your own size to talk to as much as you liked. Mamma said no more just then. I think she felt at a loss what to say. She was afraid of making me unnecessarily unhappy, and on the other hand she dreaded my finding the reality all the worse when I came to contrast it with my rose-coloured visions. She consulted father, and he decided that it was best to leave me to myself and my own thoughts. "She is a very young child still," he said to mamma. (All this of course I was told afterwards.) "It is quite possible that she will _not_ suffer from the separation as we have feared. It may be much easier for her than if she had been two or three years older." Haddie had no illusions. From the very first he took it all in, and that very bitterly. But he was, as I have said, a very good boy, and a boy with a great deal of resolution and firmness. He said nothing to discourage me. Mamma told him how surprised she was at my way of taking it, and he agreed with father that perhaps I would not be really unhappy. And I do think that my chief unhappiness during the next few weeks came from the sight of dear mamma's pale, worn face, which she could not hide, try as she might to be bright and cheerful. There was of course a great deal of bustle and preparation, and all children enjoy that, I fancy. Even Haddie was interested about his school outfit. He was to go to a preparatory school at Rugby till he could get into the big school. And as far as school went, he told me he was sure he would like it very well, it was only the--but there he stopped. "The what?" I asked. "Oh, the being all separated," he said gruffly. "But you'd have had to go away to a big school some day," I reminded him. "You didn't want always to go to a day-school." "No," he allowed, "but it's the holidays." The holidays! I had not thought about that part of it. "Oh, I daresay something nice will be settled for the holidays," I said lightly. In one way Haddie was very lucky. Mrs. Selwood had undertaken the whole charge of his education for the two years our parents were to be away. And after that "we shall see," she said. She had great ideas about the necessity of giving a boy the very best schooling possible, but she had not at all the same opinion about _girls'_ education. She was a clever woman in some ways, but very old-fashioned. Her own upbringing had been at a time when _very_ little learning was considered needful or even advisable for our sex. And as she had good practical capacities, and had managed her own affairs sensibly, she always held herself up both in her own mind and to others as a specimen of an _un_learned lady who had got on far better than if she had had all the "'ologies," as she called them, at her fingers' ends. This, I think, was one reason why she approved of Miss Ledbury's school, which, as you will hear, was certainly not conducted in accordance with the modern ideas which even then were beginning to make wise parents ask themselves if it was right to spend ten times as much on their sons' education as on their daughters'. "Teach a girl to write a good hand, to read aloud so that you can understand what she says, to make a shirt and make a pudding and to add up the butcher's book correctly, and she'll do," Mrs. Selwood used to say. "And what about accomplishments?" some one might ask. "She should be able to play a tune on the piano, and to sing a nice English song or two if she has a voice, and maybe to paint a wreath of flowers if her taste lies that way. That sort of thing would do no harm if she doesn't waste time over it," the old lady would allow, with great liberality, thinking over her own youthful acquirements no doubt. I daresay there was a foundation of solid sense in the first part of her advice. I don't see but that girls nowadays might profit by some of it. And in many cases they _do_. It is quite in accordance with modern thought to be able to make a good many "puddings," though home-made shirts are not called for. But as far as the "accomplishments" go, I should prefer none to such a smattering of them as our old friend considered more than enough. So far less thought on Mrs. Selwood's part was bestowed on Geraldine--that is myself, of course--than on Haddon, as regarded the school question. And mamma _had_ to be guided by Mrs. Selwood's advice to a great extent just then. She had so much to do and so little time to do it in, that it would have been impossible for her to go hunting about for a school for me more in accordance with her own ideas. And she knew that personally Miss Ledbury was well worthy of all respect. She went to see her once or twice to talk about me, and make the best arrangements possible. The first of these visits left a pleasanter impression on her mind than the second. For the first time she saw Miss Ledbury alone, and found her gentle and sympathising, and full of conscientious interest in her pupils, so that it seemed childish to take objection to some of the rules mentioned by the school-mistress which in her heart mamma did not approve of. One of these was that all the pupils' letters were to be read by one of the teachers, and as to this Miss Ledbury said she could make no exception. Then, again, no story-books were permitted, except such as were read aloud on the sewing afternoons. But if I spent my holidays there, as was only too probable, this rule should be relaxed. The plan for Sundays, too, struck my mother disagreeably. "My poor Geraldine," she said to father, when she was telling him all about it, "I don't know how she will stand such a dreary day." Father suggested that I should be allowed to write my weekly letter to them on Sunday, and mamma said she would see if that could be. And then father begged her not to look at the dark side of things. "After all," he said, "Geraldine is very young, and will accommodate herself better than you think to her new circumstances. She will enjoy companions of her own age too. And we know that Miss Ledbury is a good and kind woman--the disadvantages seem trifling, though I should not like to think the child was to be there for longer than these two years." Mamma gave in to this. Indeed, there seemed nothing else to do. But the second time she went to see Miss Ledbury, the school-mistress introduced her niece--her "right hand," as she called her--a woman of about forty, named Miss Aspinall, who, though only supposed to be second in command, was really the principal authority in the establishment, much more than poor old Miss Ledbury, whose health was failing, realised herself. Mamma did not take to Miss Aspinall. But it was now far too late to make any change, and she tried to persuade herself that she was nervously fanciful. And here, perhaps, I had better say distinctly, that Miss Aspinall was not a bad or cruel woman. She was, on the contrary, truly conscientious and perfectly sincere. But she was wanting in all finer feelings and instincts. She had had a hard and unloving childhood, and had almost lost the power of caring much for any one. She loved her aunt after a fashion, but she thought her weak. She was just, or wished to be so, and with some of the older pupils she got on fairly well. But she did not understand children, and took small interest in the younger scholars, beyond seeing that they kept the rules and were not complained of by the under teachers who took charge of them. And as the younger pupils were very seldom boarders it did not very much matter, as they had their own homes and mothers to make them happy once school hours were over. Mamma did not know that there were scarcely any boarders as young as I, for when she first asked about the other pupils, Miss Ledbury, thinking principally of lessons, said, "oh yes," there was a nice little class just about my age, where I should feel quite at home. A few days before _the_ day--the day of separation for us all--mamma took me to see Miss Ledbury. She thought I would feel rather less strange if I had been there once, and had seen the lady who was to be my school-mistress. I knew the house--Green Bank, it was called--by sight. It was a little farther out of the town than ours, and had a melancholy bit of garden in front, and a sort of playground at the back. It was not a large house--indeed, it was not really large enough for the number of people living in it--twenty to thirty boarders, and a number of day-scholars, who of course helped to fill the schoolrooms and to make them hot and airless, four resident teachers, and four or five servants. But in those days people did not think nearly as much as now about ventilation and lots of fresh air, and perfectly pure water, and all such things, which we now know to be quite as important to our health as food and clothes. Mamma rang the bell. Everything about Green Bank was neat and orderly, prim, if not grim. So was the maid-servant who opened the door, and in answer to mamma's inquiry for Miss Ledbury, showed us into the drawing-room, a square moderate-sized-room, at the right hand of the passage. I can remember the look of that room even now, perfectly. It was painfully neat, not exactly ugly, for most of the furniture was of the spindle-legged quaint kind, to which everybody now gives the general name of "Queen Anne." There were a few books set out on the round table, there was a cottage piano at one side, there were some faint water-colours on the wall, and a rather nice clock on the white marble mantelpiece, the effect of which was spoilt by a pair of huge "lustres," as they were called, at each side of it. The carpet was very ugly, large and sprawly in pattern, and so was the hearth-rug. They were the newest things in the room, and greatly admired by Miss Ledbury and her niece, who were full of the bad taste of the day in furniture, and would gladly have turned out all the delicate spidery-looking tables and chairs to make way for heavy and cumbersome sofas and ottomans, but for the question of expense, and perhaps for the sake of old association on the elder lady's part. There was no fire, though it was November, and mamma shivered a little as she sat down, possibly, however not altogether from cold. It was between twelve and one in the morning--that was the hour at which Miss Ledbury asked parents to call. Afterwards, when I got to know the rules of the house, I found that the drawing-room fire was never lighted except on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, or on some very special occasion. I stood beside mamma. Somehow I did not feel inclined to sit down. I was full of a strange kind of excitement, half pleasant, half frightening. I think the second half prevailed as the moments went on. Mamma did not speak, but I felt her hand clasping my shoulder. Then at last the door opened. CHAPTER V. AN UNPROMISING BEGINNING. My first sight of Miss Ledbury was a sort of agreeable disappointment. She was not the least like what I had imagined, though till I did see her I do not think I knew that I had imagined anything! She had been much less in my thoughts than her pupils; it was the idea of companions, the charm of being one of a party of other girls, with a place of my own among them, that my fancy had been full of. I don't think I cared very much what the teachers were like. What I did see was a very small, fragile-looking old lady, with quite white hair, a black or purple--I am not sure which, anyway it was dark--silk dress, and a soft fawn-coloured cashmere shawl. She had a white lace cap, tied with ribbons under her chin, and black lace mittens. Looking back now, I cannot picture her in any other dress. I cannot remember ever seeing her with a bonnet on, and yet she must have worn one, as she went to church regularly. Her face was small and still pretty, and the eyes were naturally sweet, sometimes they had a twinkle of humour in them, sometimes they looked almost hard. The truth was that she was a gentle, kind-hearted person by nature, but a narrow life and education had stunted her power of sympathy, and she thought it wrong to give way to feeling. She was conscious of what she believed to be weakness in herself, and was always trying to be firm and determined. And since her niece had come to live with her, this put-on sternness had increased. Yet I was never really afraid of Miss Ledbury, though I never--well, perhaps that is rather too strong--almost never, I should say, felt at ease with her. I was, I suppose, a very shy child, but till now the circumstances of my life had not brought this out. This first time of seeing my future school-mistress I liked her very much. There was indeed something very attractive about her--something almost "fairy-godmother-like" which took my fancy. We did not stay long. Miss Ledbury was not without tact, and she saw that the mention of the approaching parting, the settling the day and hour at which I was to come to Green Bank to _stay_, were very, very trying to mamma. And I almost think her misunderstanding of me began from that first interview. In her heart I fancy she was shocked at my coolness, for she did not know, or if she ever had known, she had forgotten, much about children--their queer contradictory ways of taking things, how completely they are sometimes the victims of their imagination, how little they realise anything they have had no experience of. All that the old lady did not understand in me, she put down to my being spoilt and selfish. She even, I believe, thought me forward. Still, she spoke kindly--said she hoped I should soon feel at home at Green Bank, and try to get on well with my lessons, so that when my dear mamma returned she would be astonished at the progress I had made. I did not quite understand what she said--the word "progress" puzzled me. I wondered if it had anything to do with the pilgrim's progress, and I was half inclined to ask if it had, and to tell her that I had read the history of Christian and his family quite through, two or three times. But mamma had already got up to go, so I only said "Yes" rather vaguely, and Miss Ledbury kissed me somewhat coldly. As soon as we found ourselves outside in the street again, mamma made some little remark. She wanted to find out what kind of impression had been left on me, though she would not have considered it right to ask me straight out what I thought of the lady who was going to be my superior--in a sense to fill a parent's place to me. And I remember replying that I thought Miss Ledbury must be very, very old--nearly a hundred, I should think. "Oh dear no, not nearly as old as that," mamma said quickly. "You must not say anything like that, Geraldine. It would offend her. She cannot be more than sixty." I opened my eyes. I thought it would be very nice to be a hundred. But before I had time to say more, my attention was distracted. For just at that moment, turning a corner, we almost ran into the procession I was so eager to join--Miss Ledbury's girls, returning two and two from their morning constitutional. I felt my cheeks grow red with excitement. I stared at them, and some of them, I think, looked at me. Mamma looked at them too, but instead of getting red, her face grew pale. They passed so quickly, that I was only able to glance at two or three of the twenty or thirty faces. I looked at the smallest of the train with the most interest, though one older face at the very end caught my attention almost without my knowing it. When they had passed I turned to mamma. "Did you see that little girl with the rosy cheeks, mamma? The one with a red feather in her hat. _Doesn't_ she look nice?" "She looked a good-humoured little person," said mamma. In her heart she thought the rosy-faced child rather common-looking and far too showily dressed, but that was not unusual among the rich Mexington people, and she would not have said anything like that to me. "I did notice one _very_ sweet face," she went on, "I mean the young lady at the end--one of the governesses no doubt." I had, as I said, noticed her too, and mamma's words impressed it upon me. Mamma seemed quite cheered by this passing glimpse, and she went on speaking. "She must be one of the younger teachers, I should think. I hope you may be in her class. You must tell me if you are when you write to me, and tell me her name." I promised I would. The next two or three days I have no clear remembrance of at all. They seemed all bustle and confusion--though through everything I recollect mamma's pale drawn face, and the set look of Haddie's mouth. He was so determined not to break down. Of father we saw very little--he was terribly busy. But when he was at home, he seemed to be always whistling, or humming a tune, or making jokes. "How pleased father seems to be about going so far away," I said once to Haddie. But he did not answer. He--Haddie--was to go a part of the way in the same train as father and mamma. They were to start on the Thursday, and I was taken to Green Bank on Wednesday morning. Father took me--and Lydia. I was such a little girl that mamma thought Lydia should go with me to unpack and arrange my things, and she never thought that any one could object to this. For she had never been at school herself, and did not know much about school ways. I think the first beginning of my troubles and disappointments was about Lydia. Father and I were shown into the drawing-room. But when the door opened this time, it was not to admit gentle old Miss Ledbury. Instead of her in came a tall, thin woman, dressed in gray--she had black hair done rather tightly, and a black lace bow on the top of her head. Father was standing looking out of the window, and I beside him holding his hand. I was not crying. I had had one sudden convulsive fit of sobs early that morning when mamma came for a moment into my room, and for the first time it _really_ came over me that I was leaving her. But she almost prayed me to try not to cry, and the feeling that I was helping her, joined to the excitement I was in, made it not so very difficult to keep quiet. I do not even think my eyes were red. Father turned at the sound of the door opening. "Miss Ledbury," he began. "Not Miss Ledbury. I am Miss Aspinall, her _niece_," said the lady; she was not pleased at the mistake. "Oh, I beg your pardon," said poor father. "I understood----" "Miss Ledbury is not very well this morning," said Miss Aspinall. "She deputed me to express her regrets." "Oh certainly," said father. "This is my little daughter--you have seen her before, I suppose?" "No," said the lady, holding out her hand. "How do you do, my dear?" I did not speak. I stared up at her, I felt so confused and strange. I scarcely heard what father went on to say--some simple messages from mamma about my writing to them, and so on, and the dates of the mails, the exact address, etc., etc., to all of which Miss Aspinall listened with a slight bend of her head or a stiff "indeed," or "just so." This was not encouraging. I am afraid even father's buoyant spirits went down: I think he had had some idea that if he came himself he would be able to make friends with my school-mistress and be able to ensure her special friendliness. But it was clear that nothing of this kind was to be done with the niece. So he said at last, "Well, I think that is all. Good-bye, my little woman, then. Good-bye, my darling. She will be a good girl, I am sure, Miss Aspinall; she has been a dear good child at home." His voice was on the point of breaking, but the governess stood there stonily. His praise of me was not the way to win her favour. I do believe she would have liked me better if he had said I had been so naughty and troublesome at home that he trusted the discipline of school would do me good. And when I glanced up at Miss Aspinall's face, something seemed to choke down the sob which was beginning again to rise in my throat. [Illustration: "GOOD-BYE!"] "Good-bye, my own little girl," said father. One more kiss and he was gone. My luggage was in the hall--which was really a passage scarcely deserving the more important name--and beside it stood Lydia. Miss Aspinall looked at her coldly. "Who----" she began, when I interrupted her. "It's Lydia," I said. "She's come to unpack my things. Mamma sent her." "Come to unpack your things," repeated the governess. "There must be some mistake--that is quite unnecessary. There is no occasion for you to wait," she said to poor Lydia, with a slight gesture towards the door. Lydia grew very red. "Miss Geraldine won't know about them all, I'm afraid," she began. "She has not been used to taking the charge of her things yet." "Then the sooner she learns the better," said Miss Aspinall, and Lydia dared not persist. She turned to me, looking ready to burst out crying again, though, as she had been doing little else for three days, one might have thought her tears were exhausted. "Good-bye, dear Miss Geraldine," she said, half holding out her arms. I flew into them. I was beginning to feel very strange. "Good-bye, dear Lydia," I said. "You will write to me, Miss Geraldine?" "Of course I will; I know your address," I said. Lydia was going to her own home to work with a dressmaker sister in hopes of coming back to us at the end of the two years. "Miss Le Marchant" (I think I have never said that our family name was Le Marchant), said a cold voice, "I really cannot wait any longer; you must come upstairs at once to take off your things." Lydia glanced at me. "I beg pardon," she said; and then she too was gone. Long afterwards the poor girl told me that her heart was nearly bursting when she left me, but she had the good sense to say nothing to add to mamma's distress, as she knew that my living at Green Bank was all settled about. She could only hope the other governesses might be kinder than the one she had seen. Miss Aspinall walked upstairs, telling me to follow her. It was not a very large house, but it was a high one and the stairs were steep. It seemed to me that I had climbed up a long way when at last she opened a door half-way down a dark passage. "This is your room," she said, as she went in. I followed her eagerly. I don't quite know what I expected. I had not been told if I was to have a room to myself or not. But at first I think I was rather startled to see three beds in a room not much larger than my own one at home--three beds and two wash-hand stands, a large and a small, two chests of drawers, a large and a small also, which were evidently considered to be toilet-tables as well, as each had a looking-glass, and three chairs. My eyes wandered round. It was all quite neat, though dull. For the one window looked on to the side-wall of the next-door house, and much light could not have got in at the best of times, added to which, the day was a very gray one. But the impression it made upon me was more that of a tidy and clean servants' room than of one for ladies, even though only little girls. I stood still and silent. "This is your bed," said Miss Aspinall next, touching a small white counterpaned iron bedstead in one corner--I was glad it was in a corner. "The Miss Smiths are your companions. They share the large chest of drawers, and your things will go into the smaller one." "There won't be nearly room enough," I said quickly. I had yet to learn the habit of not saying out whatever came into my head. "Nonsense, child," said the governess. "There must be room enough for you if there is room enough for much older and----" she stopped. "At your age many clothes are not requisite. I think, on the whole, it will be better for you not to unpack or arrange your own things. One of the governesses shall do so, and all that you do not actually require must stay in your trunk and be put in the box-room." I did not pay very much attention to what she said. I don't think I clearly understood it, for, as I have said, in some ways I was rather a slow child. And my thoughts were running more on the Miss Smiths and the rest of my future companions than on my wardrobe. If I had taken in that it was not only my clothes that were in question, but that my little household gods, my special pet possessions, were not to be left in my own keeping, I would have minded much more. "Now take off your things at once," said Miss Aspinall. "You must keep on your boots till your shoes are got out, but take care not to stump along the passages. Do your hands want washing? No, you have your gloves on. As soon as you are ready, go down two flights of stairs till you come to the passage under this on the next floor. The door at the end is the second class schoolroom, where you will be shown your place." Then she went away, leaving me to my own reflections. Not a word of sympathy or encouragement, not a pat on my shoulder as she passed me, nor a kindly glance out of her hard eyes. But at the time I scarcely noticed this. My mind was still full of not unpleasant excitement, though I was beginning to feel tired and certainly very confused and bewildered. I sat down for a moment on the edge of my little bed when Miss Aspinall left me, without hastening to take off my coat and bonnet. We wore bonnets mostly in those days, though hats were beginning to come into fashion for young girls. "I wish there were only two beds, not three," I said to myself. "And I would like the little girl with the rosy face to sleep in my room. I wonder if she's Miss Smith perhaps. I wonder if there's several little girls as little as me. I'd like to know all their names, so as to write and tell them to mamma and Haddie." The inclination to cry had left me--fortunately in some ways, though perhaps if I had made my _début_ in the schoolroom looking very woe-begone and tearful I should have made a better impression. My future companions would have felt sorry for me. As it was, when I had taken off my things I made my way downstairs as I had been directed, and opening the schoolroom door--I remember wondering to myself what second class schoolroom could mean: would it have long seats all round, something like a second-class railway carriage?--walked in coolly enough. The room felt airless and close, though it was a cold day. And at the first glance it seemed to me perfectly full of people--girls--women indeed in my eyes many of them were, they were so much bigger and older than I--in every direction, more than I could count. And the hum of voices was very confusing, the _hums_ I should say, for there were two or three different sets of reading aloud, or lessons repeating, going on at once. I stood just inside the door. Two or three heads were turned in my direction at the sound I made in opening it, but quickly bent over their books again, and for some moments no one paid any attention to me. Then suddenly a governess happened to catch sight of me. It was the same sweet-faced girl whom mamma had noticed at the end of the long file in the street. She looked at me once, then seemed at a loss, then she looked at me again, and at last said something to the girl beside her, and getting up from her seat went to the end of the room, and spoke to a small elderly woman in a brown stuff dress, who was evidently another governess. This person--I suppose I should say lady--turned round and stared at me. Then she said something to the younger governess, nothing very pleasant, I fancy, for the sweet-looking one--I had better call her by her name, which was Miss Fenmore--went back to her place with a heightened colour. You may ask how I can remember all these little particulars so exactly. Perhaps I do not quite do so, but still, all that happened just then made a very strong impression on me, and I have thought it over so much and so often, especially since I have had children of my own, that it is difficult to tell quite precisely how much is real memory, how much the after knowledge of how things must have been, to influence myself and others as they did. And later, too, I talked them over with those who were older than I at the time, and could understand more. So there I stood, a very perplexed little person, though still more perplexed than distressed or disappointed, by the door. Now and then some head was turned to look at me with a sort of stealthy curiosity, but there was no kindness in any of the glances, and the young governess kept her eyes turned away. I was not a pretty child. My hair was straight and not noticeable in any way, and it was tightly plaited, as was the fashion, _unless_ a child's hair was thick enough to make pretty ringlets. My face was rather thin and pale, and there was nothing of dimpling childish loveliness about me. I was rather near-sighted too, and I daresay that often gave me a worried, perhaps a fretful expression. After all, I did not have to wait very long. The elderly governess finished the page she was reading aloud--she may have been dictating to her pupils, I cannot say--and came towards me. "Did Miss Aspinall send you here?" she said abruptly. I looked up at her. She seemed to me no better than our cook, and not half so good-natured. "Yes," I said. "Yes," she repeated, as if she was very shocked. "Yes _who_, if you please? Yes, Miss ----?" "Yes, Miss," I said in a matter-of-fact way. "What manners! Fie!" said Miss ----; afterwards I found her name was Broom. "I think indeed it was quite time for you to come to school. If you cannot say my name, you can at least say ma'am." I stared up at her. I think my trick of staring must have been rather provoking, and perhaps even must have seemed rude, though it arose entirely from my not understanding. "I don't know your name, Miss--ma'am," I said. I spoke clearly. I was not frightened. And a titter went round the forms. Miss Broom was angry at being put in the wrong. "Miss Aspinall sent you to my class, _Miss Broom's_ class," she said. "No, ma'am--Miss Broom--she didn't." The governess thought I meant to be impertinent--impertinent, poor me! And with no very gentle hand, she half led, half pushed me towards her end of the room, where there was a vacant place on one of the forms. "Silence, young ladies," she said, for some whispering was taking place. "Go on with your copying out." And then she turned to me with a book. "Let me hear how you can read," she said. CHAPTER VI. A NEW WORLD. I could read aloud well, unusually well, I think, for mamma had taken great pains with my pronunciation. She was especially anxious that both Haddie and I should speak well, and not catch the Great Mexington accent, which was both peculiar and ugly. But the book which Miss Broom had put before me was hardly a fair test. I don't remember what it was--some very dry history, I think, bristling with long words, and in very small print. I did not take in the sense of what I was reading in the very least, and so, of course, I read badly, tumbling over the long words, and putting no intelligence into my tone. I think, too, my teacher was annoyed at the purity of my accent, for no one could possibly have mistaken _her_ for anything but what she was--a native of Middleshire. She corrected me once or twice, then shut the book impatiently. "Very bad," she said, "very bad indeed for eleven years old." "I am not eleven, Miss Broom," I said. "I am only nine past." [Illustration: "LITTLE GIRLS MUST NOT CONTRADICT, AND MUST NOT BE RUDE."] "Little girls must not contradict, and must not be rude," was the reply. What had I said that could be called rude? I tried to think, thereby bringing on myself a reprimand for inattention, which did not have the effect of brightening my wits, I fear. I think I was put through a sort of examination as to all my acquirements. I know I came out of it very badly, for Miss Broom pronounced me so backward that there was no class, not even the youngest, in the school, which I was really fit for. There was nothing for it, however, but to put me into this lowest class, and she said I must do extra work in play hours to make up to my companions. Even my French, which I now _know_ must have been good, was found fault with by Miss Broom, who said my accent was extraordinary. And certainly, if hers was Parisian, mine must have been worse than that of Stratford-le-Bow! Still, I was not unhappy. I thought it must be always like that at school, and I said to myself I really would work hard to make up to the others, who were so much, much cleverer than I. And I sat contentedly enough in my place, doing my best to learn a page of English grammar by heart, from time to time peeping round the table, till, to my great satisfaction and delight, I caught sight of the rosy-cheeked damsel at the farther end of the table. I was so pleased that I wonder I did not jump up from my place and run round to speak to her, forgetful that though I had thought so much of her, she had probably never noticed me at all the only other time of our meeting, or rather passing each other. But I felt Miss Broom's eye upon me, and sat still. I acquitted myself pretty fairly of my page of grammar, leading to the dry remark from the governess that it was plain I "could learn if I chose." As this was the first thing I had been given to learn, the implied reproach was not exactly called for. But none of Miss Broom's speeches were remarkable for being appropriate. They depended much more on the mood she happened to be in herself than upon anything else. I can clearly remember most of that day. I have a vision of a long dining-table, long at least it seemed to me, and a plateful of roast mutton and potatoes which I could not manage to finish, followed by rice pudding with which I succeeded better, though I was not the least hungry. Miss Aspinall was at one end of the table, Miss Broom at the other, and Miss Fenmore, who seemed always to be jumping up to ring the bell or hand the governesses something or other that had been forgotten by the servant, sat somewhere in the middle. No one spoke unless spoken to by one of the teachers. Miss Aspinall shot out little remarks from time to time about the weather, and replied graciously enough to one or two of the older girls who ventured to ask if Miss Ledbury's cold, or headache, was better. Then came the grace, followed by a shoving back of forms, and a march in order of age, or place in class rather, to the door, and thence down the passage to what was called the big schoolroom--a room on the ground floor, placed where by rights the kitchen should have been, I fancy. It was the only large room in the house, and I think it must have been built out beyond the original walls on purpose. And then--there re-echo on my ears even now the sudden bursting out of noise, the loosening of a score and a half of tongues, girls' tongues too, forcibly restrained since the morning. For this was the recreation hour, and on a wet day, to make up for not going a walk, the "young ladies" were allowed from two to three to chatter as much as they liked--in English instead of in the fearful and wonderful jargon yclept "French." I stood in a corner by myself, staring, no doubt. I felt profoundly interested. This was a _little_ more like what I had pictured to myself, though I had not imagined it would be quite so noisy and bewildering. But some of the girls seemed very merry, and their laughter and chatter fascinated me--if only I were one of them, able to laugh and chatter too! Should I ever be admitted to share their fun? The elder girls did not interest me. They seemed to me quite grown-up. Yet it was from their ranks that came the first token of interest in me--of notice that I was there at all. "What's your name?" said a tall thin girl with fair curls, which one could see she was very proud of. She was considered a beauty in the school. She was silly, but very good-natured. She spoke with a sort of lisp, and very slowly, so her question did not strike me as rude. Nor was it meant to be so. It was a mixture of curiosity and amiability. "My name," I repeated, rather stupidly. I was startled by being spoken to. "Yes, your name. Didn't Miss Lardner say what's your name? Dear me--don't stand gaping there like a monkey on a barrel-organ," said another girl. By this time a little group had gathered round me. The girls composing it all laughed, and though it does not sound very witty--to begin with, I never heard of a monkey "gaping"--I have often thought since that there was some excuse for the laughter. I was small and thin, and I had a trick of screwing up my eyes which made them look smaller than they really were. And my frock was crimson merino with several rows of black velvet above the hem of the skirt. I was not offended. But I did not laugh. The girl who had spoken last was something of a tomboy, and looked upon also as a wit. Her name was Josephine Mellor, and her intimate friends called her Joe. She had very fuzzy red hair, and rather good brown eyes. "I say," she went on again, "what _is_ your name? And are you going to stay to dinner every day, or only when it rains, like Lizzie Burt?" Who was Lizzie Burt? That question nearly set my ideas adrift again. But the consciousness of my superior position fortunately kept me to the point. "I am going to be at dinner always," I said proudly. "I am a boarder." The girls drew a little nearer, with evidently increased interest. "A boarder," repeated Josephine. "Then Harriet Smith'll have to give up being baby. You're ever so much younger than her, I'm sure." "What are you saying about me?" said Harriet, who had caught the sound of her own name, as one often does. "Only that that pretty snub nose of yours is going to be put out of joint," said Miss Mellor mischievously. Harriet came rushing forward. She was my rosy-cheeked girl! Her face was redder than usual. I felt very vexed with Miss Mellor, even though I did not quite understand her. "What are you saying?" the child called out. "I'm not going to have any of your teasing, Joe." "It's not teasing--it's truth," said the elder girl. "You're not the baby any more. _She_," and she pointed to me, "she's younger than you." "How old are you?" said Harriet roughly. "Nine past," I said. "Nine and a half." "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted Harriet. "I'm only nine and a month. I'm still the baby, Miss Joe." She was half a head at least taller than I, and broad in proportion. "What a mite you are, to be sure," said Miss Mellor, "nine and a half and no bigger than that." I felt myself getting red. I think one or two of the girls must have had perception enough to feel a little sorry for me, for one of them--I fancy it was Miss Lardner--said in a good-natured patronising way, "You haven't told us your name yet, after all." "It's Geraldine," I said. "That's my first name, and I'm always called it." "Geraldine what?" said the red-haired girl. "Geraldine Theresa Le Marchant--that's all my names." "My goodness," said Miss Mellor, "how grand we are! Great Mexington's growing quite aristocratic. I didn't know monkeys had such fine names." Some of the girls laughed, some, I think, thought her as silly as she was. "Where do you come from?" was the next question. "Come from?" I repeated. "I don't know." At this they all did laugh, and I suppose it was only natural. Suddenly Harriet Smith made a sort of dash at me. "Oh, I say," she exclaimed. "I know. She's going to sleep in our room. I saw them putting sheets on the bed in the corner, but Jane wouldn't tell me who they were for. Emma," she called out loudly to a girl of fourteen or fifteen, "Emma, I say, she's going to sleep in our room I'm sure." Emma Smith was taller and thinner and paler than her sister, but still they were rather like. Perhaps it was for that very reason that they got on so badly--they might have been better friends if they had been more unlike. As it was, they quarrelled constantly, and I must say it was generally Harriet's fault. She was very spoilt, but she had something hearty and merry about her, and so had Emma. They were the daughters of a rich Great Mexington manufacturer, and they had no mother. They were favourites in the school, partly I suspect because they had lots of pocket money, and used to invite their companions to parties in the holidays. But they were not mean or insincere, though rough and noisy--more like boys than girls. Emma came bouncing forward. "I say," she began to me, "if it's true you're to sleep in our room I hope you understand you must do what I tell you. I'm the eldest. You're not to back up Harriet to disobey me." "No," I said. "I don't want to do anything like that." "Well, then," said Harriet, "you'll be Emma's friend, not mine." My face fell, and I suppose Harriet saw it. She came closer to me and looked at me well, as if expecting me to answer. But for the first time since I had been in my new surroundings I felt more than bewildered--I felt frightened and lonely, terribly lonely. "Oh, mamma," I thought to myself, "I wish I could see you to tell you about it. It isn't a bit like what I thought it would be." But I said nothing aloud. I think now that if I had burst out crying it would have been better for me, but I had very little power of expressing myself, and Haddie had instilled into me a great horror of being a cry-baby at school. In their rough way, however, several of the girls were kind-hearted, the two Smiths perhaps as much so as any. Harriet came close up to me. "I'm only in fun," she said; "of course we'll be friends. I'll tell you how we'll do," and she put her fat little arm round me in a protecting way which I much appreciated. "Come over here," she went on in a lower voice, "where none of the big ones can hear what we say," and she drew me, nothing loth, to the opposite corner of the room. As we passed through the group of older girls standing about, one or two fragments of their talk reached my ears. "Yes--I'm sure it's the same. He's a bank clerk, I think. I've heard papa speak of them. They're awfully poor--come-down-in-the-world sort of people." "Oh, then, I expect when she's old enough she'll be a governess--perhaps she'll be a sort of teacher here to begin with." Then followed some remark about looking far ahead, and a laugh at the idea of "the monkey" ever developing into a governess. But after my usual fashion it was not till I thought it over afterwards that I understood that it was I and my father they had been discussing. In the meantime I was enjoying a confidential talk with Harriet Smith--that is to say, I was listening to all she said to me; she did not seem to expect me to say much in reply. I felt flattered by her condescension, but I did not in my heart feel much interest in her communications. They were mostly about Emma--how she tried to bully her, Harriet, because she herself was five years older, and how the younger girl did not intend to stand it much longer. Emma was as bad as a boy. "As bad as a boy," I repeated. "I don't know what you mean." "That's because you've not got a brother, I suppose," said Harriet. "Our brother's a perfect nuisance. He's so spoilt--papa lets him do just as he likes. Emma and I hate the holidays because of him being at home. But it's the worst for me, you see. Emma hates Fred bullying her, so she might know I hate her bullying me." This was all very astonishing to me. "I have a brother," I said after a moment or two's reflection. "Then you know what it is. Why didn't you say so?" asked Harriet. "Because I don't know what it is. Haddie never teases me. I love being with him." "My goodness! Then you're not like most," said Harriet elegantly, opening her eyes. She asked me some questions after this--as to where we lived, how many servants we had, and so on. Some I answered--some I could not, as I was by no means as worldly-wise as this precocious young person. She gave me a great deal of information about school--she hated the governesses, except the old lady, and she didn't care about her much. Miss Broom was her special dislike. But she liked school very well, she'd been there a year now, and before that she had a daily governess at home, and it was very dull indeed. What had I done till now--had I had a governess? "Oh no," I said. "I had mamma." "Was she good to you," asked my new friend, "or was she very strict?" I stared at Harriet. Mamma was strict, but she was very, very good to me. I said so. "Then why are you a boarder?" she asked. "_We_'ve not got a mamma, but even if we had I'm sure she wouldn't teach us herself. I suppose your mamma isn't rich enough to pay for a governess for you." "I don't know," I said simply. I had never thought in this way of mamma's teaching me, but I was not at all offended. "I don't think any governess would be as nice as mamma." "Then why have you come to school?" inquired Harriet. "Because"--"because father and mamma have to go away," I was going to say, when suddenly the full meaning of the words seemed to rush over me. A strange giddy feeling made me shut my eyes and I caught hold of Harriet's arm. "What's the matter?" she said wonderingly, as I opened my eyes and looked at her again. "I'd rather not talk about mamma just now," I said. "I'll tell you afterwards." "Up in our room," said Harriet, "oh yes, that'll be jolly. We've got all sorts of dodges." But before she had time to explain more, or I to ask her why "dodges"--I knew the meaning of the word from Haddie--were required, a bell rang loudly. Instantly the hubbub ceased, and there began a sort of silent scramble--the elder girls collecting books and papers and hurrying to their places; the younger ones rushing upstairs to the other schoolroom, I following. In a few minutes we were all seated round the long tables. It was a sewing afternoon, and to my great delight I saw that Miss Fenmore, the pretty governess whom I had taken such a fancy to, though I had not yet spoken to her, was now in Miss Broom's place. Mamma had provided me with both plain work and a little simple fancy work, but as my things were not yet unpacked, I had neither with me, and I sat feeling awkward and ashamed, seeing all the others busily preparing for business. "Have you no work, my dear?" said Miss Fenmore gently. It was the first kind speech I had had from a governess. "It isn't unpacked," I said, feeling my cheeks grow red, I did not know why. Miss Fenmore hesitated for a moment. Then she took out a stocking--or rather the beginning of one on knitting-needles. "Can you knit?" she asked. "I can knit plain--plain and purl--just straight on," I said. "But I've never done it round like that." "Never mind, you will learn easily, as you know how to knit. Come and sit beside me, so that I can watch you." She made the girls sit a little more closely, making a place for me beside her, and I would have been quite happy had I not seen a cross expression on several faces, and heard murmurs of "favouring," "spoilt pet," and so on. Miss Fenmore, if _she_ heard, took no notice. And in a few moments all was in order. We read aloud in turns--the book was supposed to be a story-book, but it seemed to me very dull, though the fault may have lain in the uninteresting way the girls read, and the constant change of voices, as no one read more than two pages at a time. I left off trying to listen and gave my whole attention to my knitting, encouraged by Miss Fenmore's whispered "very nice--a little looser," or "won't it be nice to knit socks for your father or brother, if you have a brother?" I nodded with a smile. I was burning to tell her everything. Already I felt that I loved her dearly--her voice was as sweet as her face. Yet there were tones in the former and lines in the latter telling of much sorrow and suffering, young as she was. I was far too much of a child to understand this. I only felt vaguely that there was something about her which reminded me of mamma as she had looked these last few weeks. And my heart was won. CHAPTER VII. GATHERING CLOUDS. After that first day at Green Bank, the remembrance of things in detail is not so clear to me. To begin with, the life was very monotonous. Except for the different lessons, one day passed much like another, the principal variety being the coming of Sunday and the two weekly half-holidays--Wednesday and Saturday. But to me the half-holidays brought no pleasure. I think I disliked them more than lesson days, and most certainly I disliked Sundays most of all. Looking back now, I think my whole nature and character must have gone through some curious changes in these first weeks at school. I grew older very rapidly. There first came by degrees the great _disappointment_ of it all--for though I am anxious not to exaggerate anything, it was a bewildering "disillusionment" to me. Nobody and nothing were what I had imagined they would be. Straight out of my sheltered home, where every thought and tone and word were full of love, I was tossed into this world of school, where, though no doubt there were kind hearts and nice natures as there are everywhere, the whole feeling was different. Even the good-nature was rough and unrefined--the tones of voice, the ways of moving about, the readiness to squabble, though very likely it was more a kind of bluster than anything worse, all startled and astounded me, as I gradually awoke from my dream of the delights of being at school surrounded by companions. And there was really a prejudice against me, both among teachers and pupils. A story had got about that my family was very, very poor, that father had had to go abroad on this account, and that my schooling was to be paid for out of charity. So even my gentleness, my soft way of speaking, the surprise I was too innocent to conceal at much that I saw, were all put down to my "giving myself airs." And I daresay the very efforts I made to please those about me and to gain their affection did more harm than good. Because I clung more or less to Harriet Smith, my room-mate, and the nearest to me in age, I was called a little sneak, trying to get all I could "out of her," as she was such a rich little girl. I overheard these remarks once or twice, but it was not for some time that I in the least knew what they meant, and so I daresay the coarse-minded girls who made them thought all the worse of me because I did not resent them and just went quietly on my own way. What I did want from Harriet was sympathy; and when she was in the humour to pay attention to me, she did give me as much as it was in her to give. I shall never forget the real kindness she and Emma too showed me that first night at Green Bank, when a great blow fell on me after we went upstairs to go to bed. Some one had unpacked my things. My night-dress was lying on the bed, my brushes and sponges were in their places, and when I opened the very small chest of drawers I saw familiar things neatly arranged in them. But there seemed so few--and in the bottom drawer only one frock, and that my oldest one, not the pretty new one mamma had got me for Sundays or any special occasion. "Where can all my other things be?" I said to Harriet, who was greatly interested in my possessions. "What more have you?" she said, peering over my shoulder. I named several. "And all my other things," I went on, "not clothes, I don't mean, but my workbox and my new writing-desk, and the picture of father and mamma and Haddie"--it was before the days of "carte-de-visite" or "cabinet" photographs; this picture was what was called a "daguerreotype" on glass, and had been taken on purpose for me at some expense--"and my china dog and the rabbits, and my scraps of silk, and all my puzzles, and, and----" I stopped short, out of breath with bewilderment. "Can they be all together for me to unpack myself?" I said. Emma, the most experienced of the three, shook her head. "I'm afraid," she was beginning, when the door opened, and Miss Broom's face appeared. "Young ladies," she said, "I cannot have this. No talking after the last bell has rung. My dear Miss Smith, you are not usually so forgetful. If it is _you_, Miss Marchant, it is a very bad beginning, disobedience the very first evening." "She didn't know," said both the girls. "It isn't her fault." "And if she had known," Harriet went on, "she couldn't have helped it. Miss Broom, somebody's took such lots of her things. Tell her, Gerry." Under her protection I repeated the list of missing articles, but before I had got to the end the governess interrupted me. "You are a most impertinent child," she said, "to say such a thing. There are no thieves at Green Bank--what a mind you must have! Your things are safely packed away. Such as you really need you shall have from time to time as I or Miss Aspinall think fit. The frock you have on must be kept as your best one, and you must wear the brown check every day. You have far too many clothes--absurd extravagance--no wonder----" but here she had the sense to stop short. I did not care so much about my clothes. "It's the other things I mind," I began, but Miss Broom, who was already at the door, again interrupted. "Nonsense," she said. "We cannot have the rooms littered with rubbish. Miss Aspinall left it to me. You may have your Biblical dissected maps on Sundays, and perhaps some of the other puzzles during the Christmas holidays, but young ladies do not come to school to amuse themselves, but to work hard at their lessons." I dared not say anything more. There may have been some reason in putting away a certain number of my treasures, for dear mamma, in her wish to do all she possibly could for my happiness, had very probably sent more things with me than was advisable. But I was not a silly spoilt child; I had always been taught to be reasonable, and I would have given in quite cheerfully if Miss Broom had put it before me in any kindly way. I was not left quite without defence, however. "I don't see but what you might let her have some things out," said Emma. "Harry and I have. Look at the mantelpiece--the china figures and the Swiss châlets are our ornaments, and there's quite room for some more." But Miss Broom was by this time at the door, which shut after her sharply without her saying another word. "Horrid old cat," said both the Smiths. I said nothing, for if I had I knew I should have burst into tears. But after I was ready for bed and had said my prayers, I could not help the one bitter complaint. "I wouldn't mind anything else if only she'd let me have papa and mamma's picture," I said. "_Of course_ you should have that," said Emma. "I'm sure Miss Ledbury would let you have it. I think even Miss Aspinall would. Don't be unhappy, Gerry, I'll see if I can't do something for you to-morrow." And with this consolation I fell asleep. Nor did Emma forget her promise. The next day I found my daguerreotype installed on the mantelpiece, where it stayed all the time I was at school. My happiest days were those of our French lessons, for then Miss Fenmore was the teacher. She spoke French very well, and she was most kind and patient. Yet for some reason or other she was not much liked in the school. There was a prejudice against her as there was against me: partly, because she did not belong to that part of the country, she was said to "give herself airs"; partly, I think, because she was quiet and rather reserved; partly, I am afraid, because some of the elder girls were jealous of her extreme loveliness. She was as kind to me as she dared to be, but I had no lessons from her except French, and she has since told me that she did not venture to show me anything like partiality, as it would only have made my life still harder and lonelier. The remembrances which stand out the most clearly in my mind will give a fair idea of my time at Green Bank. The next great trouble I had came on my first Sunday there. It had been settled that I was to write to mamma once a week--by every mail, that is to say. The usual day for writing home was Wednesday, the half-holiday, but as the South American mail left England that very day, mamma had arranged with Miss Ledbury that I should be allowed to add a little on Sundays to my letter, as otherwise my news would be a whole week late before it left. So on the first Sunday afternoon I got out my writing things with great satisfaction, and when Miss Broom asked me what I was going to do, I was pleased to be able to reply that Miss Ledbury had given leave for a Sunday letter. Miss Broom said something to Miss Aspinall, but though they both looked very disapproving, they said no more. I wrote a long letter. This time, of course, it had to be a complete one, as I had only come to Green Bank on the Thursday. I poured out my heart to mamma, but yet, looking back now and recalling, as I know I can, pretty correctly, all I said, I do not think it was exaggerated or wrong. I tried to write cheerfully, for childish as I was in many ways, I did understand that it would make mamma miserable to think I was unhappy. I was just closing the envelope when Miss Broom entered the room. "What are you doing?" she said. "Dear, dear, you don't mean to say you have been all this afternoon writing that letter? What a waste of time! No, no, you must not do that. Miss Ledbury will seal it." "It doesn't need sealing," I replied. "It is a gumming-down envelope." But she had come close to me, and drew it out of my hand. "No letters leave this house without being first read by Miss Ledbury or Miss Aspinall," she said. "Why do you stare so? It is the rule at every school," and so in those days I suppose it was. "If you have written nothing you should not, you have no reason to dread its being seen." "Yes, I have," I replied indignantly. Even the three or four days I had been at school had made me months older. "I have," I repeated. "Nobody would say to strangers all they'd say to their own mamma." I felt my face growing very red; I pulled the letter out of the envelope and began to tear it across. But Miss Broom's strong hands caught hold of mine. "You are a very naughty girl," she said, "a very naughty girl indeed. I saw at once how spoilt and self-willed you were, but I never could have believed you would dare to give way to such violent temper." She dragged the letter out of my fingers--indeed, I was too proud to struggle with her--and left the room. I sat there in a sort of stupefied indifference. That day had been the worst I had had. There was not the interest of lessons, nor the daily bustle which had always something enlivening about it. It was so dull, and oh, so different from home! The home-sickness which I was too ignorant to give a name to began to come over me with strides; but for my letter to mamma I felt as if I could not have lived through that afternoon. For even the Smiths were away. They were what was called "weekly boarders," going home every Saturday at noon and staying till Monday morning. The indifference did not last long. Gradually both it and the indignation broke down. I laid my head on the table before me and burst into convulsive crying. I do not think I cried loudly. I only remember the terrible sort of shaking that went through me--I had never felt anything like it in my life--and I remember trying to choke down my sobs for fear of Miss Broom hearing me and coming back. [Illustration: "MY POOR LITTLE GIRL, WHAT _IS_ THE MATTER?"] Some one opened the door and looked in. I tried to be perfectly quiet. But the some one, whoever it was, had seen and perhaps heard me, for she came forward, and in another moment I felt an arm steal gently round me, while a kind voice said softly, very softly, "My poor little girl, what _is_ the matter?" and looking up, I saw that the new-comer was Miss Fenmore. "Oh," I said through my tears, "it's my letter, and she's taken it away--that horrid, _horrid_ Miss Broom." And I told her the whole story. Miss Fenmore was very wise as well as kind. I have often wondered how she had learnt so much self-control in her short life, for though she then seemed quite "old" to me, I now know she cannot have been more than eighteen or nineteen. But she had had a sad life--that of an orphan since childhood. I suppose sorrow had done the work of years in her case--work that is indeed often not done at all! For she had a character which was good soil for all discipline. She was naturally so sweet and joyous--she seemed born with rose-coloured spectacles. "Dear child," she said, "try not to take this so much to heart. I daresay your letter will be sent just as it is. Miss Broom is sure to apply to Miss Aspinall, perhaps to Miss Ledbury. And Miss Ledbury is really kind, and she must have had great experience in such things." But the last words were spoken with more hesitation. Miss Fenmore knew that the class of children composing Miss Ledbury's school had not had a home like mine. Suddenly she started up--steps were coming along the passage. "I must not talk to you any more just now," she said, "I came to fetch a book." After all, the steps did not come to the schoolroom. So after sitting there a little longer, somewhat comforted by the young governess's words, I went up to my own room, where I bathed my eyes and smoothed my hair, mindful of Haddie's warning--not to get the name of a cry-baby! Late that evening, after tea, I was sent for to Miss Ledbury in the drawing-room. It was a very rainy night, so only a few of the elder girls had gone to church. Miss Ledbury herself suffered sadly from asthma, and could never go out in bad weather. This was the first time I had seen her to speak to since I came. I was still too unhappy to feel very frightened, and I was not naturally shy, though I seemed so, owing to my difficulty in expressing myself. And there was something about the old lady's manner, gentle though she was, which added to my constraint. I have no doubt she found me very dull and stupid, and it must have been disappointing, for she did mean to be kind. She spoke to me about my letter which she had read, according to her rule, to which she said she could make no exceptions. I did not clearly understand what she meant, so I just replied "No, ma'am," and "Yes, ma'am." She said the letter should be sent as it was, but she gave me advice for the future which in some ways was very good. Could I not content myself with writing about my own affairs--my lessons, the books I was reading, and so on? What was the use of telling mamma that I did not like Miss Aspinall, and that I could not bear Miss Broom? Would it please mamma, or would it make school-life any happier for me to take up such prejudices? These ladies were my teachers and I must respect them. How could I tell at the end of three days if I should like them or not? I felt I _could_ tell, but I did not dare to say so. All I longed for was to get away. So when the old lady went on putting words into my mouth, as it were, about being wiser for the future, and not touchy and fanciful, and so on, I agreed with her and said "No, ma'am" and "Yes, ma'am" a few more times, meekly enough. Then she kissed me, and again I felt that she meant to be kind and that it was wrong of me to disappoint her, but somehow I could not help it. And I went upstairs to bed feeling more lonely than ever, now that I quite understood that my letters to mamma must never be anything more than I might write to a stranger--a mere mockery, in short. There was but one person I felt that I could confide in. That was Miss Fenmore. But the days went on and she seemed to take less instead of more notice of me. I did not understand that her position, poor girl, was much more difficult than mine. If she had seemed to pet me or make much of me it would only have made Miss Broom still more severe to me, and angry with her. For, as was scarcely to be wondered at, Miss Broom was very indignant indeed at the way I had spoken of her in my letter to mamma. And Miss Fenmore was entirely at that time dependent upon her position at Green Bank. She had no home, and if she brought displeasure upon herself at Miss Ledbury's her future would look very dark indeed. Yet she was far from selfish. Her caution was quite as much for my sake as for her own. CHAPTER VIII. "NOBODY--_NOBODY_." The history of that first week might stand for the history of several months at Green Bank. That is why I have related it as clearly as possible. In one sense I suppose people would say my life grew easier to me, that is to say I got more accustomed to it, but with the "growing accustomed," increased the loss of hope and spring, so I doubt if time did bring any real improvement. I became very dull and silent. I seemed to be losing the power of complaining, or even of wishing for sympathy. I took some interest in my lessons, and almost the only pleasure I had was when I got praise for them. But that did not often happen, not as often as it should have done, I really believe. For the prejudice against me on the part of the upper teachers did not wear off. And I can see now that I must have been a disagreeable child. Nor did I win more liking among my companions. They gradually came to treat me with a sort of indifferent contempt. "It's only that stupid child," I would hear said when I came into the room. The Christmas holidays came and went, without much improving matters. I spent them at school with one or two other pupils, much older than I. Miss Broom went away, and we were under Miss Aspinall's charge, for Miss Ledbury had caught a bad cold and her niece would not leave her. I preferred Miss Aspinall to Miss Broom certainly, but I had half hoped that Miss Fenmore would have stayed. She too went away, however, having got a "holiday engagement," which she was very glad of she told me when she bade me good-bye. I did not understand what she meant, beyond hearing that she was glad to go, so I said nothing about being sorry. "She doesn't care for me," I thought. I saw nothing of Haddie, though he wrote that he was very happy spending the holidays at the house of one of his schoolfellows, and I was glad of this, even while feeling so utterly deserted myself. It was very, very dull, but I felt as if I did not mind. Even mamma's letters once a fortnight gave me only a kind of tantalising pleasure, for I knew I dared not _really_ answer them. The only thing I felt glad of was that she did not know how lonely and unhappy I was, and that she never would do so till the day--the day which I could scarcely believe would ever, _ever_ come--when I should see her again, and feel her arms round me, and know that all the misery and loneliness were over! Some new pupils came after the Christmas holidays, and one or two of the elder girls did not return. But the new boarders were older than I and took no notice of me, so their coming made no difference. One event, however, did interest me--that was the appearance at certain classes two or three times a week of a very sweet-looking little girl about my own age. She was pretty and very nicely dressed, though by no means showily, and her tone of voice and way of speaking were different from those of most of my companions. I wished she had come altogether, and then I might have made friends with her. "Only," I said to myself unselfishly, "she would most likely be as unhappy as I am, so I shouldn't wish for it." One of the classes she came to was the French one--the class which, as I have said, Miss Fenmore taught. And Miss Fenmore seemed to know her, for she called her by her Christian name--"Myra." The first time I heard it I felt quite puzzled. I knew I had heard it before, though I could not remember where or when, except that it was not very long ago. And when I heard her last name, "Raby"--"Miss Raby" one of the other teachers called her--and put the two together--"Myra Raby"--I felt more and more certain I had heard them spoken of before, though I was equally certain I had never seen the little girl herself. I might have asked Miss Fenmore about her, but it did not enter into my head to do so: that was one of my odd childish ways. And it was partly, too, that I was growing more and more reserved and silent. Even to Harriet Smith I did not talk half as much as at first, and she used to tell me I was growing sulky. I took great interest in watching for Myra's appearance. I daresay if I could make a picture of her now she would seem a quaint old-fashioned little figure to you, but to me she seemed perfectly lovely. She had pretty brown hair, falling in ringlets round her delicate little face; her eyes were gray, very soft and gentle, and she had a dear little rosebud of a mouth. She was generally dressed in pale gray merino or cashmere, with white lace frilled round the neck and short sleeves--all little girls wore short sleeves then, even in winter; and once when I caught a glimpse of her getting into a carriage which was waiting for her at the door, I was lost in admiration of her dark green cloth pelisse trimmed with chinchilla fur. "She must be somebody very rich and grand," I thought. But I had no opportunity of getting to know more of her, than a nice little smile or a word or two of thanks if I passed her a book at the class or happened to sit next her. For she always left immediately after the lesson was over. Up to Easter she came regularly. Then we had three weeks' holidays, and as before, Miss Fenmore went away. She was pleased to go, but when she said good-bye to me I thought she looked sad, and she called me "my poor little girl." "Why do you say that?" I asked her. She smiled and answered that she did not quite know; she thought I looked dull, and she wished I were going too. "Are you less unhappy than when you first came to school?" she said, looking at me rather earnestly. It was very seldom she had an opportunity of speaking to me alone. "No," I replied, "I'm much unhappier when I think about it. But I'm getting not to think, so I don't care." She looked still graver at this. I fancy she saw that what I said was true. I was growing dulled and stupefied, as it were, for want of any one to sympathise with me or draw me out, though I did not know quite how to put this in words. As I have said before, I was not a child with much power of expression. Miss Fenmore kissed me, but she sighed as she did so. "I wish----" she began, but then she stopped. "When I come back after Easter," she said more cheerfully, "I hope I may somehow manage to see more of you, dear Geraldine." "Thank you," I answered. I daresay my voice did not sound as if I did thank her or as if I cared, though in my heart I was pleased, and often thought of what she had said during the holidays, which I found even duller than the Christmas ones had been. They came to an end at last, however, but among the returning governesses and pupils there was no Miss Fenmore. Nor did Myra Raby come again to the classes she used to attend. I wondered to myself why it was so, but for some time I knew nothing about Miss Fenmore, and in the queer silent way which was becoming my habit I did not ask. At last one day a new governess made her appearance, and then I overheard some of the girls saying she was to take Miss Fenmore's place. A sort of choke came into my throat, and for the first time I realised that I _had_ been looking forward to the pretty young governess's return. I do not remember anything special happening for some time after that. I suppose Easter must have been early that year, for when the events occurred which I am now going to relate, it was still cold and wintry weather--very rainy at least, and Mexington was always terribly gloomy in rainy weather. It seems a long stretch to look back upon--those weeks of the greatest loneliness I had yet known--but in reality I do not think it could have been more than three or four. I continued to work steadily--even hard--at my lessons. I knew that it would please mamma, and I had a vague feeling that somehow my getting on fast might shorten the time of our separation, though I could not have said why. I was really interested in some of my lessons, and anxious to do well even in those I did not like. But I was not quick or clever, and often, very often, my hesitation in expressing myself made me seem far less intelligent than I actually was. Still I generally got good marks, especially for _written_ tasks, for the teachers, though hard and strict, were not unprincipled. They did not like me, but they were fair on the whole, I think. Unluckily, however, about this time I got a bad cold. I was not seriously ill, but it hung about me for some time and made me feel very dull and stupid. I think, too, it must have made me a little deaf, though I did not know it at the time. I began to get on less well at lessons, very often making mistakes and replying at random, for which I was scolded as if I did it out of carelessness. And though I tried more and more to prepare my lessons perfectly, things grew worse and worse. At last one day they came to a point. I forget what the lesson was, and it does not matter, but every time a question came to me I answered wrongly. Once or twice I did not hear, and when I said so, Miss Broom, whose class it was, was angry, and said I was talking nonsense. It ended in my bursting into tears, which I had never done before in public since I had been at Green Bank. Miss Broom was very annoyed. She said a great deal to me which between my tears and my deafness I did not hear, and at last she must have ordered me to go up to my room, for her tone grew more and more angry. "Do you mean to defy me?" she said, so loud that I heard her plainly. I stared, and I do not know what would have happened if Harriet Smith, who was near me, had not started up in her good-natured way. "She doesn't hear; she's crying so," she said. "Gerry, dear, Miss Broom says you're to go up to your room." I was nothing loth. I got up from my seat and made my way more by feeling than seeing--so blinded was I by crying--to the door, and upstairs. Arrived there, I flung myself on to the end of my bed. It was cold, and outside it was raining, raining--it seems to me now that it never left off raining at Mexington that spring; the sky, if I had looked out of the window, was one dull gray sheet. But I seemed to care for nothing--just at first the comfort of being able to cry with no one to look at me was all I wanted. So I lay there sobbing, though not loudly. After some little time had passed the downstairs bell rang--it was afternoon, and the bell meant, I knew, preparation for tea. So I was not very surprised when the door opened and Emma and Harriet came in--they were both kind, Harriet especially, though her kindness was chiefly shown by loud abuse of Miss Broom. "You'd better take care, Harry," said her sister at last, "or you'll be getting into disgrace yourself, which certainly won't do Gerry any good. Do be quick and make yourself tidy, the tea-bell will be ringing in a moment. Hadn't you better wash your face and brush your hair, Gerry--you do look such a figure." "I can't go down unless Miss Broom says I may," I replied, "and I don't want any tea," though in my heart I knew I was feeling hungry. Much crying often makes children hungry; they are not like grown-up people. "Oh, nonsense," said Emma. "You'd feel ever so much better if you had some tea. What _I_ think you're so silly for is _minding_--why need you care what that old Broom says? She daren't beat you or starve you, and once you're at home again you can snap your fingers at school and governesses and----" Here Harriet said something to her sister in a low voice which I did not hear. It made Emma stop. "Oh, well, I can't help it," she said, or something of that kind. "It doesn't do any good to cry like that, whatever troubles you have," she went on. I got up slowly and tried to wash away some of the traces of my tears by plunging my face in cold water. Then Harriet helped me to smooth my hair and make myself look neat. Emma's words had had the effect of making me resolve to cry no more if I could help it. And a moment or two later I was glad I had followed her advice, for one of the elder girls came to our room with a message to say that I was to go down to tea, and after tea I was to stay behind in the dining-room as Miss Aspinall wished to speak to me. "Very well," I said. But the moment the other girl had gone both Emma and Harriet began again. "That horrid old Broom," said Harriet, "just fancy her complaining to Miss Aspinall." And "Promise me, Gerry," said Emma, "not to mind what she says, and whatever you do, don't cry. There's nothing vexes old Broom so much as seeing we don't care--mean old cat." I could scarcely help laughing, my spirits had got up a little--that is to say, I felt more angry than sad now. I felt as if I really did _not_ much care what was said to me. And I drank my tea and ate my slices of thick bread and butter with a good appetite, though I saw Miss Broom watching me from her end of the table; and when I had finished I felt, as Emma had said I should, "ever so much better"--that is to say, no longer in the least inclined to cry. Nor did I feel nervous or frightened when Miss Aspinall--all the others having gone--seated herself in front of me and began her talk. It began quite differently from what I had expected. She was a good woman, and not nearly so bad-tempered as Miss Broom, though hard and cold, and I am sure she meant to do me good. She talked about how changed I had been of late, my lessons so much less well done, and how careless and inattentive I seemed. There was some truth in it. I knew my lessons had not been so well done, but I also knew I had not been careless or inattentive. "And worst of all," continued the governess, "you have got into such a habit of making excuses that it really amounts to telling untruths. Several times, Miss Broom tells me, you have done a wrong lesson or not done one at all, and you have maintained to her that you had not been told what you _had_ been told--there was something about your French poetry yesterday, which you _must_ have known you were to learn. Miss Broom says you positively denied it." I was getting very angry now--I had wanted to say I was sorry about my lessons, but now that I was accused of not speaking the truth I felt nothing but anger. "I never tell stories," I said very loudly; "and if Miss Broom says I do, I'll write to mamma and tell her. I _won't_ stay here if you say such things to me." Miss Aspinall was quite startled; she had never seen me in a passion before, for I was usually considered in the school as sulky rather than violent-tempered. For a moment or two she stared, too astonished to speak. Then, "Go back to your room," she said. "I am sorry to say I must lay this before Miss Ledbury." I got up from my seat--Miss Aspinall had not kept me standing--and went upstairs again to my room, where I stayed for the rest of the evening, my supper--a cup of milk and a piece of dry bread--being brought me by a servant, and with it a message that I was to undress and go to bed, which I was not sorry to do. I lay there, not asleep, and still burning with indignation, when Harriet came up to bed. She had not been told not to speak to me, very likely the teachers thought I would be asleep, and she was very curious to know what had passed. I told her all. She was very sympathising, but at the same time she thought it a pity I had lost my temper with Miss Aspinall. "I don't know how you'll get on now," she said, "with both her and Miss Broom so against you. You should just not have minded--like Emma said." "Not mind her saying I told stories!" I burst out. Harriet did not seem to think there was anything specially annoying in that. "Well," I went on, "_I_ mind it, whether you do or not. And I'm _going_ to mind it. I shall write to mamma and tell her I can't stay here any more, and I'm sure when she hears it she'll do _something_. She won't let me stay here. Or--or--perhaps father will fix to come home again and not stay as long as two years there." "I don't think he'll do that," said Harriet mysteriously. "What do you mean? What do you know about it?" I asked, for something in her voice struck me. "Oh, nothing--I shouldn't have said it--it was only something I heard," she replied, looking rather confused. "Something you heard," I repeated, starting up in bed and catching hold of her. "Then you _must_ tell me. Do you mean there's been letters or news about father and mamma that I don't know about?" "No, no," said Harriet. "Of course not." "Then what do you mean? You shall tell me--if you don't," I went on, more and more excitedly, "I'll--" I hesitated--"I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go straight downstairs, just as I am, in my nightgown, to Miss Ledbury herself, and tell her what you've said. I don't care if she beats me, I don't care what she does, but I _will_ know." Harriet tried to pull herself away. "What a horrid temper you're getting, Gerry," she said complainingly. "Just when I hurried up to bed as quick as I could to talk to you. It's nothing, I tell you--only something I heard at home, and Emma said I wasn't ever to tell it you." I clutched her more firmly. "You shall tell me, or I'll do what I said." Harriet looked really frightened. "You'll not tell Emma, then? You promise?" I nodded. "I promise." "Well, then, it was only one day--papa was talking about somebody going to South America, and I said that was where your papa and mamma had gone, and papa asked your name, and then he said he had seen your papa at the bank, and it was a pity he hadn't been content to stay there. It was such a bad climate where he'd gone--lots of people got ill and died there, unless they were rich enough to live out of the town, and he didn't suppose any one who'd only been a clerk in the bank here would be that. And Emma said, couldn't your papa and mamma come back if they got ill, and he said if they waited till then it would be rather too late. There's some fever people get there, that comes all of a sudden. And besides that, your papa must have promised he'd stay two years--they always do." As she went on, my heart fell lower and lower--for a moment or two I could not speak. All sorts of dreadful fears and imaginings began to fill my mind; perhaps my parents had already got that terrible illness Harriet spoke of, perhaps one or both of them had already died. I could have screamed aloud. I felt I could not bear it--I must write to mamma a letter that nobody should read. I must see somebody who would tell me the truth--Haddie, perhaps, knew more than I did. If I could go to him! But I had no money and no idea of the way, and Miss Aspinall would never, _never_ let me even write to ask him. Besides, I was in disgrace, very likely they would not believe me if I told them why I was so miserable; they had already said I told stories, and then I must not get Harriet into trouble. What _should_ I do? If only Miss Fenmore had still been there, I felt she would have been sorry for me, but there was nobody--_nobody_. I turned my face away from my little companion, and buried it in the pillow. Harriet grew frightened. "What are you doing, Gerry?" she said. "Why don't you speak? Are you going to sleep or are you crying? Very likely your papa and mamma won't get that illness. I wish I hadn't told you." "Never mind," I said. "I'm going to sleep." "And you won't tell Emma?" Harriet repeated. "Of course not--don't you believe my word? Do you too think that I tell stories?" I tried to get rid of my misery by letting myself grow angry. "You're very cross," said Harriet; but all the same I think she understood me better than she could express, for she kissed me and said, "Do go to sleep--don't be so unhappy." CHAPTER IX. OUT IN THE RAIN. It would be an exaggeration to say that I did not sleep that night. Children often sleep very heavily when they are specially unhappy, and I was unhappy enough, even before Harriet's telling me what she had heard. But though I did sleep, I shall never forget that night. My dreams were so miserable, and when I awoke--very early in the morning--I could scarcely separate them from real things. It was actually not so bad when I was quite awake, for then I set myself thoroughly to think it all over. I could not bear it--I could not go on without knowing if it was true about father and mamma. I could not bear my life at school, if the looking forward to being with them again, before _very_ long, was to be taken from me. I must write a letter to mamma that no one would see; but first--yes, first I must know how much was true. Whom could I ask? Haddie? Perhaps he knew no more than I did, and it was just as difficult to write to him as to mamma. Then suddenly another thought struck me--Mrs. Selwood, old Mrs. Selwood, if I could but see her. Perhaps if I wrote to her she would come to see me; mamma always said she was very kind, though I know she did not care much for children, especially little girls. Still I thought I would try, though it would be difficult, for I should not like Miss Ledbury to know I had written to Mrs. Selwood secretly. She would be so angry, and I did not want to make Miss Ledbury angry. She was much nicer than the others. Once or twice the idea came to me of going straight to her and telling her how miserable I was, but that would bring in Harriet, and oh, how furious the other governesses would be! No, I would try to write to Mrs. Selwood--only, I did not know her address. I only knew the name of her house--Fernley--that would not be enough, at least I feared not. I would try to find out; perhaps Harriet could ask some one when she went home. My spirits rose a little with all this planning. I am afraid that the life I led was beginning to make me unchildlike and concealed in my ways. I enjoyed the feeling of having a secret and, so to say, outwitting my teachers, particularly Miss Broom. So, though I was looking pale and my eyes were still very swollen, I think Harriet was surprised, and certainly very glad, to find that I was not very miserable or upset. A message was sent up to say I was to go down to breakfast with the others. And after prayers and breakfast were over I went into the schoolroom as usual. That morning did not pass badly; it happened to be a day for lessons I got on well with--written ones principally, and reading aloud. So I got into no fresh disgrace. It was a very rainy day, there was no question of going out, and I was sent to practise at twelve o'clock till the dressing-bell rang for the early dinner. That was to keep me away from the other girls. As soon as dinner was over Miss Broom came to me with a French poetry book in her hand. "This is the poem you should have learnt yesterday," she said, "though you denied having been told so. Miss Aspinall desires you to take it upstairs to your room and learn it, as you can do perfectly, if you choose, by three o'clock. Then you are to come downstairs to the drawing-room, where you will find her." "Very well," I said, as I took the book, "I will learn it." They were going to let me off rather easily, I thought, and possibly, just _possibly_, if Miss Ledbury was in the drawing-room too and seemed kind, I might ask her to give me leave to write to Mrs. Selwood just to say how very much I would like to see her, and then if I _did_ see her I could tell her what Harriet had said, without risking getting Harriet into trouble. So I set to work at my French poetry with good will, and long before three o'clock I had learnt it perfectly. There was a clock on the landing half-way down the staircase which struck the quarters and half-hours. I heard the quarter to three strike and then I read the poem right through six times, and after that, closing the book, I said it aloud to myself without one mistake, and then just as the clock began "_burr_-ing" before striking the hour I made my way quietly down to the drawing-room. I tapped at the door. "Come in," said Miss Aspinall. She was standing beside Miss Ledbury, who was sitting in an arm-chair near the fire. She looked very pale, her face nearly as white as her hair, and it made me feel sorry, so that I stared at her and forgot to curtsey as we always were expected to do on entering a room where any of the governesses were. "Do you not see Miss Ledbury?" said Miss Aspinall sharply. I felt my cheeks get red, and I turned back towards the door to make my curtsey. "I--I forgot," I said, and before Miss Aspinall had time to speak again, the old lady held out her hand. "You must try to be more thoughtful," she said, but her voice was gentle. "Now give me your book," she went on, "I want to hear your French verses myself." I handed her the book, which was open at the place. I felt very glad I had learnt the poetry so well, as I wished to please Miss Ledbury. "Begin, my dear," she said. I did so, repeating the six or eight verses without any mistake or hesitation. Miss Ledbury seemed pleased and relieved. "Very well said--now, my dear child, that shows that you can learn well when you try." "Of course she can," said Miss Aspinall. "But more important than learning your lessons well," continued Miss Ledbury, "is to be perfectly truthful and honest. What has distressed me, Geraldine, has been to hear that when--as may happen to any child--you have forgotten a lesson, or learnt it imperfectly, instead of at once owning your fault, you have tried to screen yourself behind insincere excuses. That was the case about these very verses, was it not, Miss Aspinall?" (Miss Ledbury always called her niece "Miss Aspinall" before any of us.) "It was," replied Miss Aspinall. "Miss Broom will tell you all the particulars," and as she spoke Miss Broom came in. Miss Ledbury turned to her. "I wish you to state exactly what you have had to complain of in Geraldine Le Marchant," she said. And Miss Broom, with a far from amiable expression, repeated the whole--my carelessness and ill-prepared lessons for some time past, the frequent excuses I made, saying that she had not told me what she certainly _had_ told me, my forgetting my French poetry altogether, and persisting in denying that it had been given out. I did not hear clearly all she said, but she raised her voice at the end, and I caught her last words. I felt again a sort of fury at her, and I gave up all idea of confiding in Miss Ledbury, or of trying to please any one. Miss Ledbury seemed nervous. "Geraldine has said her French poetry perfectly," she said. "I think she has taken pains to learn it well." "It is some time since she has said any lesson perfectly to _me_, I am sorry to say," snapped Miss Broom. Miss Ledbury handed her the book. "You can judge for yourself," she said. "Repeat the verses to Miss Broom, Geraldine." Then a strange thing happened. I really wanted to say the poetry well, partly out of pride, partly because again something in Miss Ledbury's manner made me feel gentler, but as I opened my mouth to begin, the words entirely left my memory. I looked up--possibly a little help, a syllable just to start me, would have set me right, but instead of that I saw Miss Broom's half-mocking, half-angry face, and Miss Aspinall's cold hard eyes. Miss Ledbury I did not look at. In reality I think both she and Miss Aspinall were afraid of Miss Broom. I do not think Miss Aspinall was as hard as she seemed. I drew a long breath--no, it was no use. I could not recall one word. "I've forgotten it," I said. Miss Aspinall gave an exclamation--Miss Ledbury looked at me with reproach. Both believed that I was not speaking the truth, and that I had determined not to say the verses to Miss Broom. "Impossible," said Miss Aspinall. "Geraldine," said Miss Ledbury sadly but sternly, "do not make me distrust you." I grew stony. Now I did not care. Even Miss Ledbury doubted my word. I almost think if the verses had come back to me then, I would not have said them. I stood there, dull and stupid and obstinate, though a perfect fire was raging inside me. "Geraldine," said Miss Ledbury again, still more sadly and sternly. I was only a child, and I was almost exhausted by all I had gone through. Even my pride gave way. I forgot all that Emma and Harriet had said about not crying, and, half turning away from the three before me, I burst into a loud fit of tears and sobbing. Miss Ledbury glanced at her niece. I think the old lady had hard work to keep herself from some impulsive kind action, but I suppose she would have thought it wrong. But Miss Aspinall came towards me, and placed her arm on my shoulders. "Geraldine," she said, and her voice was not unkind, "I beg you to try to master this naughty obstinate spirit. Say the verses again, and all may be well." "No, no," I cried. "I can't, I can't. It is true that I've forgotten them, and if I could say them I wouldn't now, because you all think me a story-teller." She turned away, really grieved and shocked. "Take her upstairs to her room again," said Miss Ledbury. "Geraldine, your tears are only those of anger and temper." I did not care now. I suffered myself to be led back to my room, and I left off crying almost as suddenly as I had begun, and when Miss Aspinall shut the door, and left me there without speaking to me again, I sat down on the foot of my bed as if I did not care at all, for again there came over me that strange stolid feeling that nothing mattered, that nothing would ever make me cry again. It did not last long, however. I got up in a few minutes and looked out of the window. It was the dullest afternoon I had ever seen, raining, raining steadily, the sky all gloomy no-colour, duller even than gray. It might have been any season, late autumn, mid-winter; there was not a leaf, or the tiniest beginning of one, on the black branches of the two or three trees in what was called "the garden"--for my window looked to the back of the house--not the very least feeling of spring, even though we were some way on in April. I gave a little shiver, and then a sudden thought struck me. It would be a very good time for getting out without any one seeing me--no one would fancy it possible that I would venture out in the rain, and all my schoolfellows and the governesses were still at lessons. What was the use of waiting here? They might keep me shut up in my room for--for ever, perhaps--and I should never know about father and mamma, or get Mrs. Selwood's address or be allowed to write to her, or--or any one. I would go. It took but a few minutes to put on my things. As I have said, there was a queer mixture of childishness and "old-fashionedness," as it is called, about me. I dressed myself as sensibly as if I had been a grown-up person, choosing my thickest boots and warm jacket, and arming myself with my waterproof cape and umbrella. I also put my purse in my pocket--it contained a few shillings. Then I opened the door and listened, going out a little way into the passage to do so. All was quite quiet--not even a piano was to be heard, only the clock on the landing sounded to me much louder than usual. If I had waited long, it would have made me nervous. I should have begun to fancy it was talking to me like Dick Whittington's bells, though, I am sure, it would not have said anything half so cheering! [Illustration: I CREPT DOWNSTAIRS, PAST ONE SCHOOLROOM WITH ITS CLOSED DOOR.] But I did not wait to hear. I crept downstairs, past one schoolroom with its closed door, and a muffled sound of voices as I drew quite close to it, then on again, past the downstairs class-room, and along the hall to the front door. For that was what I had made up my mind was the best, bold as it seemed. I would go right out by the front door. I knew it opened easily, for we went out that way on Sundays to church, and once or twice I had opened it. And nobody would ever dream of my passing out that way. It was all managed quite easily, and almost before I had time to take in what I had done, I found myself out in the road some little distance from Green Bank, for as soon as the gate closed behind me I had set off running from a half-nervous fear that some one might be coming in pursuit of me. I ran on a little farther, in the same direction, that of the town, for Miss Ledbury's house was in the outskirts--then, out of breath, I stood still to think what I should do. I had really not made any distinct plan. The only idea clearly in my mind was to get Mrs. Selwood's address, so that I could write to her. But as I stood there, another thought struck me. I would go home--to the house in the dull street which had never seemed dull to me! For there, I suddenly remembered, I might find one of our own servants. I recollected Lydia's telling me that cook was probably going to "engage" with the people who had taken the house. And cook would be sure to know Mrs. Selwood's address, and--_perhaps_--cook would be able to tell me something about father and mamma. She was a kind woman--I would not mind telling her how dreadfully frightened I was about them since Harriet Smith had repeated what she had heard. I knew the way to our house, at least I thought I did, though afterwards I found I had taken two or three wrong turnings, which had made my journey longer. It was scarcely raining by this time, but the streets were dreadfully wet and muddy, and the sky still dark and gloomy. At last I found myself at the well-known corner of our street--how often I had run round it with Haddie, when we had been allowed to go on some little errand by ourselves! I had not passed this way since mamma went, and the feeling that came over me was very strange. I went along till I came to our house, number 39; then, in a sort of dream, I mounted the two or three steps to the door, and rang the bell. How well I knew its sound! It seemed impossible to believe that Lydia would not open to me, and that if I hurried upstairs I should not find mamma sitting in her usual place in the drawing-room! But of course it was not so. A strange face met me as the door drew back, and for a moment or two I felt too confused to speak, though I saw the servant was looking at me in surprise. "Is--can I see cook?" I got out at last. "Cook," the maid repeated. "I'm sure I can't say. Can't you give me your message--Miss?" adding the last word after a little hesitation. "I'd rather see her, please. I want to ask her for Mrs. Selwood's address. Mrs. Selwood's a friend of mamma's, and I'm sure cook would know. We used to live here, and Lydia said cook was going to stay." The servant's face cleared, but her reply was not encouraging. "Oh," she said, "I see. But it's no use your seeing our cook, Miss. She's a stranger. The other one--Sarah Wells was her name----" "Yes, yes," I exclaimed, "that's her." "She's gone--weeks ago. Her father was ill, and she had to go home. I'm sorry, Miss"--she was a good-natured girl--"but it can't be helped. And I think you'd better go home quick. It's coming on to rain again, and it'll soon be dark, and you're such a little young lady to be out alone." "Thank you," I said, and I turned away, my heart swelling with disappointment. I walked on quickly for a little way, for I felt sure the servant was looking after me. Then I stopped short and asked myself again "what should I do?" The girl had advised me to go "home"--"home" to Green Bank, to be shut up in my room again, and be treated as a story-teller, and never have a chance of writing to Mrs. Selwood or any one! No, that I would not do. The very thought of it made me hasten my steps as if to put a greater distance between myself and Miss Ledbury's house. And I walked on some way without knowing where I was going except that it was in an opposite direction from school. It must have been nearly six o'clock by this time, and the gloomy day made it already dusk. The shops were lighting up, and the glare of the gas on the wet pavement made me look about me. I was in one of the larger streets now, a very long one, that led right out from the centre of the town to the outskirts. I was full of a strange kind of excitement; I did not mind the rain, and indeed it was not very heavy; I did not feel lonely or frightened, and my brain seemed unusually active and awake. "I know what I'll do," I said to myself; "I'll go to the big grocer's where they give Haddie and me those nice gingerbreads, and I'll ask _them_ for Mrs. Selwood's address. I remember mamma said Mrs. Selwood always bought things there. And--and--I won't write to her. I'll go to the railway and see if I've money enough to get a ticket, and I'll go to Mrs. Selwood and tell her how I can't bear it any longer. I've got four shillings, and if that isn't enough I daresay the railway people wouldn't mind if I promised I'd send it them." I marched on, feeling once more very determined and valiant. I thought I knew the way to the big grocer's quite well, but when I turned down a street which looked like the one where it was, I began to feel a little confused. There were so many shops, and the lights in the windows dazzled me, and worst of all, I could not remember the name of the grocer's. It was something like Simpson, but not Simpson. I went on, turning again more than once, always in hopes of seeing it before me, but always disappointed. And I was beginning to feel very tired; I must, I suppose, have been really tired all the time, but my excitement had kept me up. At last I found myself in a much darker street than the others. For there were few shops in it, and most of the houses were offices of some kind. It was a wide street and rather hilly. As I stood at the top I saw it sloping down before me; the light of the tall lamps glimmered brokenly in the puddles, for it was raining again more heavily now. Suddenly, as if in a dream, some words came back to me, so clearly that I could almost have believed some one was speaking. It was mamma's voice. "You had better put on your mackintosh, Haddie," I seemed to hear her say, and then I remembered it all--it came before me like a picture--that rainy evening not many months ago when mamma and Haddie and I had walked home so happily, we two tugging at her arms, one on each side, heedless of the rain or the darkness, or anything except that we were all together. I stood still. Never, I think, was a child's heart more nearly breaking. CHAPTER X. TAKING REFUGE. For a minute or two I seemed to feel nothing; then there came over me a sort of shiver, partly of cold, for it _was_ very cold, partly of misery. I roused myself, however. With the remembrance of that other evening had come to me also the knowledge of where I was. Only a few yards down the sloping street on the left-hand side came a wide stretch of pavement, and there, in a kind of angle, stood a double door, open on both sides, leading into a small outer hall, from which again another door, glazed at the top, was the entrance to Cranston's show-rooms. I remembered it all perfectly. Just beyond the inner entrance stood the two carved lions that Haddie and I admired so much. I wished I could see them again, and--yes--a flash of joy went through me at the thought--I could get Mrs. Selwood's address quite as well from old Mr. Cranston as from the big grocer! As soon as the idea struck me I hurried on, seeming to gain fresh strength and energy. It was almost dark, but a gas-lamp was burning dimly above the lintel, and inside, on the glass of the inner door, were the large gilt letters "Cranston and Co." I ran up the two or three broad shallow steps and pushed open the door, which was a swing one. It was nearly time for closing, but that I did not know. There was no one to be seen inside, not, at least, in the first room, and the door made no noise. But there stood the dear lions--I could not see them very clearly, for the place was not brightly lighted, but I crept up to them, and stroked softly the one nearest me. They seemed like real friends. I had not courage to go into the other show-room, and all was so perfectly still that I could scarcely think any one was there. I thought I would wait a few minutes in hopes of some one coming out, of whom I could inquire if I could see Mr. Cranston. And I was now beginning to feel so tired--so very tired, and so cold. In here, though I did not see any fire, it felt ever so much warmer than outside. There was no chair or stool, but I found a seat for myself on the stand of the farther-in lion--each of them had a heavy wooden stand. It seemed very comfortable, and I soon found that by moving on a little I could get a nice rest for my head against the lion's body. A strange pleasant sense of protection and comfort came over me. "How glad I am I came in here," I said to myself. "I don't mind if I have to wait a good while. It is so cosy and warm." I no longer made any plans. I knew I wanted to ask for Mrs. Selwood's address, but that was all I thought of. What I should do when I had got it I did not know; where I should go for the night, for it was now quite dark, I did not trouble about in the least. I think I must have been very much in the condition I have heard described, of travellers lost in the snow--the overpowering wish to stay where I was and rest, was all I was conscious of. I did not think of going to sleep. I did not know I was sleepy. And for some time I knew nothing. The first thing that caught my attention was a very low murmur--so low that it might have been merely a breath of air playing in the keyhole; I seemed to have been hearing it for some time before it took shape, as it were, and grew into a softly-whispering voice, gradually gathering into words. "Poor little girl; so she has come at last. Well, as you say, brother, we have been expecting her for a good while, have we not?" "Yes, indeed, but speak softly. It would be a pity to awake her. And what we have to do can be done just as well while she sleeps." "I don't agree with you," said the first speaker. "I should much prefer her being awake. She would enjoy the ride, and she is an intelligent child and would profit by our conversation." "As you like," replied number two. "I must be off to fetch the boy. She will perhaps be awake by the time I return." And then--just as I was on the point of starting up and telling them I _was_ awake--came a sound of stamping and rustling, and a sort of whirr and a breath of cold air, which told me the swing door had been opened. And when I sat straight up and looked about me, lo and behold, there was only one lion to be seen--the stand of his brother was empty! "I--please I _am_ awake," I said rather timidly. "It was me you were talking about, wasn't it?" "_I_--'it was _I_'--the verb to be takes the same case after it as before it," was the reply, much to my surprise and rather to my disgust. Who would have thought that the carved lions bothered about grammar! "It was I, then," I repeated meekly. I did not want to give any offence to my new friend. "Please--I heard you saying something--something about going a ride. And where has the--the other Mr. Lion gone? I heard about--a boy." "You heard correctly," my lion replied, and I knew somehow that he was smiling, or whatever lions do that matches smiling. "My brother has gone to fetch _your_ brother--we planned it all some time ago--we shall meet on the sea-shore and travel together. But we should be starting. Can you climb up on to my back?" "Oh yes," I said quite calmly, as if there was nothing the least out of the common in all this, "I'm sure I can." "Catch hold of my mane," said the lion; "don't mind tugging, it won't hurt," and--not to my surprise, for nothing surprised me--I felt my hands full of soft silky hair, as the lion shook down his long wavy mane to help my ascent. Nothing was easier. In another moment I was cosily settled on his back, which felt deliciously comfortable, and the mane seemed to tuck itself round me like a fleecy rug. "Shut your eyes," said my conductor or steed, I don't know which to call him; "go to sleep if you like. I'll wake you when we meet the others." "Thank you," I said, feeling too content and comfortable to disagree with anything he said. Then came a feeling of being raised up, a breath of colder air, which seemed to grow warm again almost immediately, and I knew nothing more till I heard the words, "Here they are." I opened my eyes and looked about me. It was night--overhead in the deep blue sky innumerable stars were sparkling, and down below at our feet I heard the lap-lap of rippling waves. A dark, half-shadowy figure stood at my right hand, and as I saw it more clearly I distinguished the form of the other lion, with--yes, there was some one sitting on his back. "Haddie," I exclaimed. "Yes, yes, Geraldine, it's me," my brother's own dear voice replied. "We're going right over the sea--did you know?--isn't it splendid? We're going to see father and mamma. Hold out your hand so that you can feel mine." [Illustration: THE BROTHER LIONS ROSE INTO THE AIR.] I did so, and my fingers clasped his, and at that moment the brother lions rose into the air, and down below, even fainter and fainter, came the murmur of the sea, while up above, the twinkling stars looked down on what surely was one of the strangest sights they had ever seen in all their long, long experience! Then again I seemed to know nothing, though somehow, all through, I felt the clasp of Haddie's hand and knew we were close together. A beautiful light streaming down upon us, of which I was conscious even through my closed eyelids, was the next thing I remember. It seemed warm as well as bright, and I felt as if basking in it. "Wake up, Geraldine," said Haddie's voice. I opened my eyes. But now I have come to a part of my story which I have never been able, and never shall be able, to put into fitting words. The scene before me was too beautiful, too magically exquisite for me even to succeed in giving the faintest idea of it. Still I must try, though knowing that I cannot but fail. Can you picture to yourselves the loveliest day of all the perfect summer days you have ever known--no, more than that, a day like summer and spring in one--the richness of colour, the balmy fragrance of the prime of the year joined to the freshness, the indescribable hopefulness and expectation which is the charm of the spring? The beauty and delight seemed made up of everything lovely mingled together--sights, sounds, scents, feelings. There was the murmur of running streams, the singing of birds, the most delicious scent from the flowers growing in profusion and of every shade of colour. Haddie and I looked at each other--we still held each other by the hand, but now, somehow, we were standing together on the grass, though I could not remember having got down from my perch on the lion's back. "Where are the lions, Haddie?" I said. Haddie seemed to understand everything better than I did. "They're all right," he replied, "resting a little. You see we've come a long way, Geraldine, and so quick." "And where are we?" I asked. "What is this place, Haddie? Is it fairyland or--or--heaven?" Haddie smiled. "It's not either," he said. "You'll find out the name yourself. But come, we must be quick, for we can't stay very long. Hold my hand tight and then we can run faster." I seemed to know that something more beautiful than anything we had seen yet was coming. I did not ask Haddie any more questions, even though I had a feeling that he knew more than I did. He seemed quite at home in this wonderful place, quite able to guide me. And his face was shining with happiness. We ran a good way, and very fast. But I did not feel at all tired or breathless. My feet seemed to have wings, and all the time the garden around us grew lovelier and lovelier. If Haddie had not been holding my hand so fast I should scarcely have been able to resist stopping to gather some of the lovely flowers everywhere in such profusion, or to stand still to listen to the dear little birds singing so exquisitely overhead. "It must be fairyland," I repeated to myself more than once, in spite of what Haddie had said. But suddenly all thought of fairyland or flowers, birds and garden, went out of my head, as Haddie stopped in his running. "Geraldine," he half whispered, "look there." "There" was a little arbour a few yards from where we stood, and there, seated on a rustic bench, her dear face all sunshine, was mamma! She started up as soon as she saw us and hastened forward, her arms outstretched. "My darlings, my darlings," she said, as Haddie and I threw ourselves upon her. She did look so pretty; she was all in white, and she had a rose--one of the lovely roses I had been admiring as we ran--fastened to the front of her dress. "Mamma, mamma," I exclaimed, as I hugged her, "oh, mamma, I am so happy to be with you. Is this your garden, mamma, and may we stay with you always now? Wasn't it good of the lions to bring us? I have been so unhappy, mamma--somebody said you would get ill far away. But nobody could get ill here. Oh, mamma, you will let us stay always." She did not speak, but looking at Haddie I saw a change in his face. "Geraldine," he said, "I told you we couldn't stay long. The lions would be scolded if we did, and you know you must say your French poetry." And then there came over me the most agonising feeling of disappointment and misery. All the pent-up wretchedness of the last weeks at school woke up and overwhelmed me like waves of dark water. It is as impossible for me to put this into words as it was for me to describe my exquisite happiness, for no words ever succeed in expressing the intense and extraordinary sensations of some dreams. And of course, as you will have found out by this time, the strange adventures I have been relating were those of a dream, though I still, after all the years that have passed since then, remember them so vividly. It was the fatal words "French poetry" that seemed to awake me--to bring back my terrible unhappiness, exaggerated by the fact of my dreaming. "French poetry," I gasped, "oh, Haddie, how can you remind me of it?" Haddie suddenly turned away, and I saw the face of one of the lions looking over his shoulder, with, strange to say, a white frilled cap surrounding it. "You must try to drink this, my dear," said the lion, if the lion it was, for as I stared at him the brown face changed into a rather ruddy one--a round good-humoured face, with pleasant eyes and smile, reminding me of mamma's old nurse who had once come to see us. I stared still more, and sat up a little, for, wonderful to relate, I was no longer in the lovely garden, no longer even in the show-room leaning against the lion: I was in bed in a strange room which I had never seen before. And leaning over me was the owner of the frilled cap, holding a glass in her hand. "Try to drink this, my dearie," she said again, and then I knew it was not the lion but this stranger who had already spoken to me. I felt very tired, and I sank back again upon the pillow. What did it all mean? Where was I? Where had I been? I asked myself this in a vague sleepy sort of way, but I was too tired to say it aloud, and before I could make up my mind to try I fell asleep again. The room seemed lighter the next time I opened my eyes. It was in fact nearly the middle of the day, and a fine day--as clear as it ever was in Great Mexington. I felt much better and less tired now, almost quite well, except for a slight pain in my throat which told me I must have caught cold, as my colds generally began in my throat. "I wonder if it was with riding so far in the night," I first said to myself, with a confused remembrance of my wonderful dream. "I didn't feel at all cold on the lion's back, and in the garden it was lovelily warm." Then, as my waking senses quite returned, I started. It had been only a dream--oh dear, oh dear! But still, _something_ had happened--I was certainly not in my little bed in the corner of the room I shared with Emma and Harriet Smith at Green Bank. When had my dream begun, or was I still dreaming? I raised myself a little, very softly, for now I began to remember the good-humoured face in the frilled cap, and I thought to myself that unless its owner were a dream too, perhaps she was still in the room, and I wanted to look about me first on my own account. What there was to see was very pleasant and very real. I felt quite sure I was not dreaming now, wherever I was. It was a large old-fashioned room, with red curtains at the two windows and handsome dark wood furniture. There was a fire burning cheerfully in the grate and the windows looked very clean, even though there was a prospect of chimney-tops to be seen out of the one nearest to me, which told me I was still in a town. And then I began to distinguish sounds outside, though here in this room it was so still. There were lots of wheels passing, some going quickly, some lumbering along with heavy slowness--it was much noisier than at Miss Ledbury's or at my own old home. Here I seemed to be in the very heart of a town. I began to recall the events of the day before more clearly. Yes, up to the time I remembered leaning against the carved lion in Mr. Cranston's show-room all had been real, I felt certain. I recollected with a little shiver the scene in the drawing-room at Green Bank, and how they had all refused to believe I was speaking the truth when I declared that the French poetry had entirely gone out of my head. And then there was the making up my mind that I could bear school no longer, and the secretly leaving the house, and at last losing my way in the streets. I had meant to go to Mrs. Selwood's, or at least to get her address and write to her--but where was I now?--what should I do? My head grew dizzy again with trying to think, and a faint miserable feeling came over me and I burst into tears. I did not cry loudly. But there was some one watching in the room who would have heard even a fainter sound than that of my sobs--some one sitting behind my bed-curtains whom I had not seen, who came forward now and leant over me, saying, in words and voice which seemed curiously familiar to me, "Geraldine, my poor little girl." CHAPTER XI. KIND FRIENDS. It was Miss Fenmore. I knew her again at once. And she called me "my poor little girl"--the very words she had used when she said good-bye to me and looked so sorry before she went away for the Easter holidays, never to come back, though she did not then know it, to Green Bank. "You remember me, dear?" she said, in the sweet tones I had loved to hear. "Don't speak if you feel too ill or if it tires you. But don't feel frightened or unhappy, though you are in a strange place--everything will be right." I felt soothed almost at once, but my curiosity grew greater. "When did you come?" I said. "You weren't here when I woke before. It was--somebody with a cap--first I thought it was one of the lions." The sound of my own voice surprised me, it was so feeble and husky, and though my throat did not hurt me much I felt that it was thick and swollen. Miss Fenmore thought I was still only half awake or light-headed, but she was too sensible to show that she thought so. "One of the lions?" she said, smiling. "You mean the carved lions that Myra is so fond of. No--that was a very funny fancy of yours--a lion with a cap on! It was old Hannah that you saw, the old nurse. She has been watching beside you all night. When you awoke before, I was out. I went out very early." She spoke in a very matter-of-fact way, but rather slowly, as if she wanted to be sure of my understanding what she said. And as my mind cleared and I followed her words I grew more and more anxious to know all there was to hear. "I don't understand," I said, "and it hurts me to speak. Is this your house, Miss Fenmore, and how do you know about the lions? And who brought me in here, and why didn't I know when I was put in this bed?" Miss Fenmore looked at me rather anxiously when I said it hurt me to speak. But she seemed pleased, too, at my asking the questions so distinctly. "Don't speak, dear," she said quietly, "and I will explain it all. The doctor said you were not to speak if it hurt you." "The doctor," I repeated. Another puzzle! "Yes," said Miss Fenmore, "the doctor who lives in this street--Dr. Fallis. He knows you quite well, and you know him, don't you? Just nod your head a little, instead of speaking." But the doctor's name brought back too many thoughts for me to be content with only nodding my head. "Dr. Fallis," I said. "Oh, I would so like to see him. He could tell me----" but I stopped. "Mrs. Selwood's address" I was going to say, as all the memories of the day before began to rush over me. "Why didn't I know when he came?" "You were asleep, dear, but he is coming again," said Miss Fenmore quietly. "He was afraid you had got a sore throat by the way you breathed. You must have caught cold in the evening down in the show-room by the lions, before they found you." And then she went on to explain it all to me. I was in Mr. Cranston's house!--up above the big show-rooms, where he and old Mrs. Cranston lived. They had found me fast asleep, leaning against one of the lions--the old porter and the boy who went round late in the evening to see that all was right for the night, though when the rooms were shut up earlier no one had noticed me. I was so fast asleep, so utterly exhausted, that I had not awakened when the old man carried me up to the kitchen, just as the servants were about going to bed, to ask what in the world was to be done with me; nor even later, when, on Miss Fenmore's recognising me, they had undressed and settled me for the night in the comfortable old-fashioned "best bedroom," had I opened my eyes or spoken. Old Hannah watched beside me all night, and quite early in the morning Dr. Fallis, who fortunately was the Cranstons' doctor too, had been sent for. "He said we were to let you have your sleep out," said Miss Fenmore, "though by your breathing he was afraid you had caught cold. How is your throat now, dear?" "It doesn't hurt very much," I said, "only it feels very shut up." "I expect you will have to stay in bed all to-day," she replied. "Dr. Fallis will be coming soon and then we shall know." "But--but," I began; then as the thought of it all came over me still more distinctly I hid my face in the pillow and burst into tears. "Must I go back to school?" I said. "Oh, Miss Fenmore, they will be so angry--I came away without leave, because--because I couldn't bear it, and they said I told what wasn't true--that was almost the worst of all. Fancy if they wrote and told mamma that I told lies." "She would not believe it," said Miss Fenmore quietly; "and besides, I don't think Miss Ledbury would do such a thing, and she always writes to the parents herself, I know. And she is kind and good, Geraldine." "P'raps she means to be," I said among my tears, "but it's Miss Aspinall and--and--Miss Broom. I think I hate her, Miss Fenmore. Oh, I shouldn't say that--I never used to hate anybody. I'm getting all wrong and naughty, I know," and I burst into fresh sobs. Poor Miss Fenmore looked much distressed. No doubt she had been told to keep me quiet and not let me excite myself. "Geraldine, dear," she said, "do try to be calm. If you could tell me all about it quietly, the speaking would do you less harm than crying so. Try, dear. You need not speak loud." I swallowed down my tears and began the story of my troubles. Once started I could not have helped telling her all, even if it had hurt my throat much more than it did. And she knew a good deal already. She was a girl of great natural quickness and full of sympathy. She seemed to understand what I had been going through far better than I could put it in words, and when at last, tired out, I left off speaking, she said all she could to comfort me. There was no need for me to trouble about going back to Green Bank just now. Dr. Fallis had said I must stay where I was for the present, and when I saw him I might tell him anything I liked. "He will understand," she said, "and he will explain to Miss Ledbury. I have seen Miss Ledbury this morning already, and----" "Was she dreadfully angry?" I interrupted. "No, dear," Miss Fenmore replied. "She had been terribly frightened about you, and Miss Aspinall and some of the servants had been rushing about everywhere. But Miss Ledbury is very good, as I keep telling you, Geraldine. She is very sorry to hear how unhappy you have been, and if she had known how anxious you were about your father and mother she would have tried to comfort you. I wish you had told her." "I wanted to tell her, but Miss Broom was there, and they thought I told stories," I repeated. "Well, never mind about that now. You shall ask Dr. Fallis, and I am sure he will tell you you need not be so unhappy." It was not till long afterwards that I knew how very distressed poor old Miss Ledbury had been, and how she had blamed herself for not having tried harder to gain my confidence. Nor did I fully understand at the time how very sensibly Miss Fenmore had behaved when Mr. and Mrs. Cranston sent her off to Green Bank to tell of my having, without intending it, taken refuge with them; she had explained things so that Miss Ledbury, and indeed Miss Aspinall, felt far more sorry for me than angry with me. Just as Miss Fenmore mentioned his name there came a tap at the door, and in another moment I saw the kind well-known face of our old doctor looking in. "Well, well," he began, looking at me with a rather odd smile, "and how is the little runaway? My dear child, why did you not come to me, instead of wandering all about Great Mexington streets in the dark and the rain? Not that you could have found anywhere better for yourself than this kind house, but you might have been all night downstairs in the cold! Tell me, what made you run away like that--no, don't tell me just yet. It is all right now, but I think you have talked enough. Has she had anything to eat?" and he turned to Miss Fenmore. Then he looked at my throat and listened to my breathing, and tapped me and felt my pulse and looked at my tongue before I could speak at all. "She must stay in bed all to-day," he said at last. "I will see her again this evening," and he went on to give Miss Fenmore a few directions about me, I fidgeting all the time to ask him about father and mamma, though feeling too shy to do so. "Geraldine is very anxious to tell you one of the chief causes of her coming away from Green Bank as she did," said Miss Fenmore. And then she spoke of the gossip that had reached me through Harriet Smith about the terribly unhealthy climate my parents were in. Dr. Fallis listened attentively. "I wanted to write to Mrs. Selwood, and I thought Mr. Cranston would tell me her address," I said, though I almost started when I heard how hoarse and husky my voice sounded. "Can you tell it me? I do so want to write to her." "Mrs. Selwood is abroad, my dear, and not returning till next month," said Dr. Fallis; but when he saw how my face fell, he added quickly, "but I think I can tell you perhaps better than she about your parents. I know the place--Mr. Le Marchant consulted me about it before he decided on going, as he knew I had been there myself in my young days. Unhealthy? No, not if people take proper care. Your father and mother live in the best part--on high ground out of the town--there is never any fever there. And I had a most cheerful letter from your father quite lately. Put all these fears out of your head, my poor child. Please God you will have papa and mamma safe home again before long. But they must not find such a poor little white shrimp of a daughter when they come. You must get strong and well and do all that this kind young lady tells you to do. Good-bye--good-bye," and he hurried off. I was crying again by this time, but quietly now, and my tears were not altogether because I was weak and ill. They were in great measure tears of relief--I was so thankful to hear what he said about father and mamma. "Miss Fenmore," I whispered, "I wonder why they didn't take me with them, if it's a nice place. And then there wouldn't have been all these dreadful things." "It is quite a different matter to take a child to a hot climate," she said. "Grown-up people can stand much that would be very bad for girls and boys. When I was little my father was in India, and my sister and I had to be brought up by an aunt in England." "Did you mind?" I said eagerly. "And did your papa soon come home? And where was your mamma?" Miss Fenmore smiled, but there was something a little sad in her smile. "I was very happy with my aunt," she said; "she was like a mother to me. For my mother died when I was a little baby. Yes, my father has been home several times, but he is in India again now, and he won't be able to come back for good till he is quite old. So you have much happier things to look forward to, you see, Geraldine." That was true. I felt very sorry for Miss Fenmore as I lay thinking over what she had been telling me. Then another idea struck me. "Is Mrs. Cranston your aunt?" I said. "Is that why you are living here?" Miss Fenmore looked up quickly. "No," she replied; "I thought somehow that you understood. I am here because I am Myra Raby's governess--Myra Raby, who used to come for some lessons to Green Bank." "Oh!" I exclaimed. This explained several things. "Oh yes," I went on, "I remember her, and I know she's Mr. Cranston's grand-daughter--he was speaking of her to mamma one day. I should like to see her, Miss Fenmore. May I?" Miss Fenmore was just going to reply when again there came a tap at the door, and in answer to her "Come in" it opened and two figures appeared. I could see them from where I lay, and I shall never forget the pretty picture they made. Myra I knew by sight, and as I think I have said before, she was an unusually lovely child. And with her was a quite old lady, a small old lady--Myra was nearly as tall as she--with a face that even I (though children seldom notice beauty in elderly people) saw was quite charming. This was Mrs. Cranston. I felt quite surprised. Mr. Cranston was a rather stout old man, with spectacles and a big nose. I had not thought him at all "pretty," and somehow I had fancied Mrs. Cranston must be something like him, and I gave a sigh of pleasure as the old lady came up to the side of the bed with a gentle smile on her face. "Dr. Fallis gave us leave to come in to see you, my dear," she said. "Myra has been longing to do so all the morning." "I've been wanting to see her too," I said, half shyly. "And--please--it's very kind of you to let me stay here in this nice room. I didn't mean to fall asleep downstairs. I only wanted to speak to Mr. Cranston." "I'm sure Mr. Cranston would be very pleased to tell you anything he can that you want to know, my dear. But I think you mustn't trouble just now about anything except getting quite well," said the old lady. "Myra has been wanting to come to see you all the morning, but we were afraid of tiring you." [Illustration: MYRA CAME FORWARD GENTLY, HER SWEET FACE LOOKING RATHER GRAVE.] Myra came forward gently, her sweet face looking rather grave. I put out my hand, and she smiled. "May she stay with me a little?" I asked Mrs. Cranston. "Of course she may--that's what she came for," said the grandmother heartily. "But I don't think you should talk much. Missie's voice sounds as if it hurt her to speak," she went on, turning to Miss Fenmore. "It doesn't hurt me much," I said. "I daresay I shall be quite well to-morrow. I am so glad I'm here--I wouldn't have liked to be ill at school," and I gave a little shudder. "I'm quite happy now that Dr. Fallis says it's not true about father and mamma getting ill at that place, and I don't want to ask Mr. Cranston anything now, thank you. It was about Mrs. Selwood, but I don't mind now." I had been sitting up a little--now I laid my head down on the pillows again with a little sigh, half of weariness, half of relief. Mrs. Cranston looked at me rather anxiously. "Are you very tired, my dear?" she said. "Perhaps it would be better for Myra not to stay just now." "Oh, please let her stay," I said; "I like to see her." So Myra sat down beside my bed and took hold of my hand, and though we did not speak to each other, I liked the feeling of her being there. Mrs. Cranston left the room then, and Miss Fenmore followed her. I think the old lady had made her a little sign to do so, though I did not see it. Afterwards I found out that Mrs. Cranston had thought me looking very ill, worse than she had expected, and she wanted to hear from Miss Fenmore if it was natural to me to look so pale. I myself, though feeling tired and disinclined to talk, was really happier than I had been for a very long time. There was a delightful sensation of being safe and at home, even though the kind people who had taken me in, like a poor little stray bird, were strangers. The very look of the old-fashioned room and the comfortable great big four-post bed made me hug myself when I thought how different it all was from the bare cold room at Green Bank, where there had never once been a fire all the weeks I was there. It reminded me of something--what was it? Oh yes, in a minute or two I remembered. It was the room I had once slept in with mamma at grandmamma's house in London, several years before, when I was quite a little girl. For dear grandmamma had died soon after we came to live at Great Mexington. But there was the same comfortable old-fashioned feeling: red curtains to the window and the bed, and a big fire and the shiny dark mahogany furniture. Oh yes, how well I remembered it, and how enormous the bed seemed, and how mamma tucked me in at night and left the door a little open in case I should feel lonely before she came to bed. It all came back to me so that I forgot where I was for the moment, till I felt a little tug given to the hand that Myra was still holding, and heard her voice say very softly, "Are you going to sleep, Geraldine?" This brought me back to the present. "Oh no," I said, "I'm not sleepy. I was only thinking," and I told her what had come into my mind. She listened with great interest. "How unhappy you must have been when your mamma went away," she said. "I can't remember my own mamma, but mother"--she meant her stepmother--"is so kind, and granny is so sweet. I've never been lonely." "You can't fancy what it's like," I said. "It wasn't only mamma's going away; I know Haddie--that's my brother--loves her as much as I do, but he's not very unhappy, because he likes his school. Oh, Myra, what _shall_ I do when I have to go back to school? I'd rather be ill always. Do you think I'll have to go back to-morrow?" Myra looked most sympathising and concerned. "I don't think you'll be quite well to-morrow," was the best comfort she could give me. "When I have bad colds and sore throats they always last longer than one day." "I'd like to talk a great lot to keep my throat from getting quite well," I said, "but I suppose that would be very naughty." "Yes," said Myra with conviction, "I'm sure it would be. You really mustn't talk, Geraldine; granny said so. Mayn't I read aloud to you? I've brought a book with me--it's an old story-book of mamma's that she had when she was a little girl. Granny keeps them here all together. This one is called _Ornaments Discovered_." "Thank you," I said. "Yes, I should like it very much." And in her gentle little voice Myra read the quaint old story aloud to me. It was old-fashioned even then, for the book had belonged to her mother, if not in the first place to her grandmother. How very old-world it would seem to the children of to-day--I wonder if any of you know it? For I am growing quite an old woman myself, and the little history of my childhood that I am telling you will, before long, be half a century in age, though its events seem as clear and distinct to me as if they had only happened quite recently! I came across the little red gilt-leaved book not long ago in the house of one of Myra's daughters, and with the sight of it a whole flood of memories rushed over me. It was not a very exciting story, but I found it very interesting, and now and then my little friend stopped to talk about it, which I found very interesting too. I was quite sorry when Miss Fenmore, who had come back to the room and was sitting quietly sewing, told Myra that she thought she had read enough, and that it must be near dinner-time. "I will come again after dinner," said Myra, and then I whispered something to her. She nodded; she quite understood me. What I said was this: "I wish you would go downstairs and tell the carved lions that they made me very happy last night, and I _am_ so glad they brought me back here to you, instead of taking me to Green Bank." "Where did they take you to in the night?" said Myra with great interest, though not at all as if she thought I was talking nonsense. "I'll tell you all about it afterwards," I said. "It was beautiful. But it would take a long time to tell, and I'm rather tired." "You are looking tired, dear," said Miss Fenmore, who heard my last words, as she gave me a cupful of beef-tea. "Try to go to sleep for a little, and then Myra can come to sit with you again." I did go to sleep, but Myra was not allowed to see me again that day, nor the next--nor for several days after, except for a very few minutes at a time. For I did not improve as the kind people about me had hoped I would, and Dr. Fallis looked graver when he came that evening than he had done in the morning. Miss Fenmore was afraid she had let me talk too much, but after all I do not think anything would have made any great difference. I had really been falling out of health for months past, and I should probably have got ill in some other way if I had not caught cold in my wanderings. I do not very clearly remember those days of serious illness. I knew whenever I was awake that I was being tenderly cared for, and in the half-dozing, half-dreaming state in which many hours must have been passed, I fancied more than once that mamma was beside me, which made me very happy. And though never actually delirious, I had very strange though not unpleasant dreams, especially about the carved lions; none of them, however, so clear and real as the one I related at full in the last chapter. On the whole, that illness left more peaceful and sweet memories than memories of pain. Through it all I had the delightful feeling of being cared for and protected, and somehow it all seemed to have to do with the pair of lions downstairs in Mr. Cranston's show-room! CHAPTER XII. GOOD NEWS. I don't suppose there was anything really infectious about my illness, though nowadays whenever there is any sort of sore throat people are very much on their guard. Perhaps they were not so cautious long ago. However that may have been, Myra was not banished from my room for very long. I rather think, indeed, that she used to creep in and sit like a little mouse behind the curtains before I was well enough to notice her. But everything for a time seemed dreamy to me. The first event I can quite clearly recall was my being allowed to sit up for an hour or two, or, more correctly speaking, to _lie_ up, for I was lifted on to the sofa and tucked in almost as if I were still in bed. That was a very happy afternoon. It was happy for several reasons, for that morning had brought me the first letter I had had from dear mamma since she had heard of my bold step in running away from school! Lying still and silent for so many hours as I had done, things had grown to look differently to me. I began to see where and how I had been wrong, and to think that if I had been more open about my troubles, more courageous--that is to say, if I had gone to Miss Ledbury and told her everything that was on my mind--I need not have been so terribly unhappy or caused trouble and distress to others. A little of this mamma pointed out to me in her letter, which was, however, so very kind and loving, so full of sorrow that I had been so unhappy, that I felt more grateful than I knew how to express. Afterwards, when we talked it all over, years afterwards even, for we often talked of that time after I was grown up and married, and had children of my own, mamma said to me that she _could_ not blame me though she knew I had not done right, for she felt so broken-hearted at the thought of what I had suffered. It had been a mistake, no doubt, to send me to Green Bank, but mistakes are often overruled for good. I am glad to have had the experience of it, as I think it made me more sympathising with others. And it made me determine never to send any child of mine, or any child I had the care of, to a school where there was so little feeling of _home_, so little affection and gentleness--above all, that dreadful old-world rule of letters being read, and the want of trust and confidence in the pupils, which showed in so many ways. A few days after I received mamma's letter I was allowed to write to her. It was slow and tiring work, for I was only able to write a few lines at a time, and that in pencil. But it was delightful to be free to say just what I wanted to say, without the terrible feeling of Miss Aspinall, or worse still Miss Broom, judging and criticising every line. I thanked mamma with my whole heart for not being angry with me, and to show her how truly I meant what I said, I promised her that when I was well again and able to go back to school I would try my very, very best to get on more happily. But I gave a deep sigh as I wrote this, and Myra, who was sitting beside me, looked up anxiously, and asked what was the matter. "Oh, Myra," I said, "it is just that I can't bear to think of going back to school. I'd rather never get well if only I could stay here till mamma comes home." "Dear little Geraldine," said Myra--she often called me "little" though she was _scarcely_ any taller than I--"dear little Geraldine, you mustn't say that. I don't think it's right. And, you know, when you are quite well again things won't seem so bad to you. I remember once when I was ill--I was quite a little girl then,"--Myra spoke as if she was now a very big girl indeed!--"I think it was when I had had the measles, the least thing vexed me dreadfully. I cried because somebody had given me a present of a set of wooden tea-things in a box, and the tea ran out of the cups when I filled them! Fancy crying for that!" "I know," I said, "I've felt like that too. But this is a _real_ trouble, Myra--a real, very bad, dreadful trouble, though I've promised mamma to try to be good. Do you think, Myra, that when I'm back at school your grandmamma will sometimes ask me to come to see you?" "I'm sure----" my little friend began eagerly. But she was interrupted. For curiously enough, just at that moment Mrs. Cranston opened the door and came in. She came to see me every day, and though at first I was just a tiny bit afraid of her--she seemed to me such a very old lady--I soon got to love her dearly, and to talk to her quite as readily as to kind Miss Fenmore. "What is my little girl sure about?" she said. "And how is my other little girl to-day? Not too tired," and she glanced at my letter. "You have not been writing too much, dearie, I hope?" "No, thank you," I replied, "I'm not tired." "She's only rather unhappy, granny," said Myra. "I think that's a very big 'only,'" said Mrs. Cranston. "Can't you tell me, my dear, what you are unhappy about?" I glanced at Myra, as if asking her to speak for me. She understood. "Granny," she said, "poor little Geraldine is unhappy to think of going away and going back to school." Mrs. Cranston looked at me very kindly. "Poor dear," she said, "you have not had much pleasure with us, as you have been ill all the time." "I don't mind," I said. "I was telling Myra, only she thought it was naughty, that I'd rather be ill always if I was with kind people, than--than--be at school where nobody cares for me." "Well, well, my dear, the troubles we dread are often those that don't come to pass. Try to keep up your spirits and get quite well and strong, so that you may be able to enjoy yourself a little before both you and Myra leave us." "Oh, is Myra going away?" I said. "I thought she was going to live here always," and somehow I felt as if I did not mind _quite_ so much to think of going away myself in that case. "Oh no," said the old lady, "Myra has her own home where she must spend part of her time, though grandfather and I hope to have her here a good deal too. It is easy to manage now Miss Fenmore is with her always." In my heart I thought Myra a most fortunate child--_two_ homes were really hers; and I--I had none. This thought made me sigh again. I don't know if Myra guessed what I was thinking of, but she came close up to me and put her arms round my neck and kissed me. "Geraldine," she whispered, by way of giving me something pleasant to think of, perhaps, "as soon as you are able to walk about a little I want you to come downstairs with me to see the lions." "Yes," I said in the same tone, "but you did give them my message, Myra?" "Of course I did, and they sent you back their love, and they are very glad you're better, and they want you very much indeed to come to see them." Myra and I understood each other quite well about the lions, you see. I went on getting well steadily after that, and not many days later I went downstairs with Myra to the big show-room to see the lions. It gave me such a curious feeling to remember the last time I had been there, that rainy evening when I crept in, as nearly broken-hearted and in despair as a little girl could be. And as I stroked the lions and looked up in their dark mysterious faces, I could not get rid of the idea that they knew all about it, that somehow or other they had helped and protected me, and when I tried to express this to Myra she seemed to think the same. After this there were not many days on which we did not come downstairs to visit our strange play-fellows, and not a few interesting games or "actings," as Myra called them, did we invent, in which the lions took their part. We were only allowed to be in the show-rooms at certain hours of the day, when there were not likely to be any customers there. Dear old Mrs. Cranston was as particular as she possibly could be not to let me do anything or be seen in any way which mamma could possibly have disliked. And before long I began to join a little in Myra's lessons with Miss Fenmore--lessons which our teacher's kind and "understanding" ways made delightful. So that life was really very happy for me at this time, except of course for the longing for mamma and father and Haddie, which still came over me in fits, as it were, every now and then, and except--a still bigger "except"--for the dreaded thought of the return to school which must be coming nearer day by day. Myra and I never spoke of it. I tried to forget about it, and she seemed to enter into my feeling without saying anything. I had had a letter from mamma in answer to the one I wrote to her just after my illness. In it she said she was pleased with all I said, and my promise to try to get on better at Green Bank, but "in the meantime," she wrote, "what we want you to do is to get _quite_ strong and well, so put all troubling thoughts out of your head and be happy with your kind friends." That letter had come a month ago, and the last mail had only brought me a tiny little note enclosed in a letter from mamma to Mrs. Cranston, with the promise of a longer one "next time." And "next time" was about due, for the mail came every fortnight, one afternoon when Myra and I were sitting together in our favourite nook in the show-room. "I have a fancy, Myra," I said, "that something is going to happen. My lion has been so queer to-day--I see a look on his face as if he knew something." For we had each chosen one lion as more particularly our own. "I think they always look rather like that," said Myra dreamily. "But I suppose something must happen soon. I shall be going home next week." "Next week," I repeated. "Oh, Myra!" I could not speak for a moment. Then I remembered how I had made up my mind to be brave. "Do you mind going home?" I asked. "I mean, are you sorry to go?" "I'm always sorry to leave grandpapa and grandmamma," she said, "and the lions, and this funny old house. But I'm very happy at home, and I shall like it still better with Miss Fenmore. No, I wouldn't be unhappy--I'd be very glad to think of seeing father and mother and my little brothers again--I wouldn't be unhappy, except for--you know, Geraldine--for leaving you," and my little friend's voice shook. "Dear Myra," I said. "But you mustn't mind about me. I'm going to try----" but here I had to stop to choke down something in my throat. "After all," I went on, after a moment or two, "more than a quarter of the time that father and mamma have to be away is gone. And perhaps in the summer holidays I shall see Haddie." "I wish----" Myra was beginning, but a voice interrupted her. It was Miss Fenmore's. "I have brought you down a letter that has just come by the second post, Geraldine, dear," she said; "a letter from South America." "Oh, thank you," I said, eagerly seizing it. Miss Fenmore strolled to the other side of the room, and Myra followed her, to leave me alone to read my letter. It was a pretty long one, but I read it quickly, so quickly that when I had finished it, I felt breathless--and then I turned over the pages and glanced at it again. I felt as if I could not believe what I read. It was too good, too beautifully good to be true. "Myra," I gasped, and Myra ran back to me, looking quite startled. I think I must have grown very pale. "No, no," I went on, "it's nothing wrong. Read it, or ask Miss Fenmore--she reads writing quicker. Oh, Myra, isn't it beautiful?" They soon read it, and then we all three kissed and hugged each other, and Myra began dancing about as if she had gone out of her mind. "Geraldine, Geraldine, I can't believe it," she kept saying, and Miss Fenmore's pretty eyes were full of tears. I wonder if any of my readers can guess what this delightful news was? It was not that mamma was coming home--no, that could not be yet. But next best to that it certainly was. It was to tell me this--that _till_ dear father and she returned, my home was to be with Myra, and I was to be Miss Fenmore's pupil too. Wherever Myra was, there I was to be--principally at her father's vicarage in the country, but some part of the year with her kind grandparents at Great Mexington. It was all settled and arranged--of course I did not trouble my head about the money part of it, though afterwards mamma told me that both Mr. and Mrs. Raby and the Cranstons had been most exceedingly kind, making out that the advantage of a companion for their little girl would be so great that all the thanking should be on their side, though, of course, they respected father too much not to let him pay a proper share of all the expense. And it really cost less than my life at Green Bank, though father was now a good deal richer, and would not have minded paying a good deal more to ensure my happiness. There is never so much story to tell when people are happy, and things go rightly; and the next year or two of my life, except of course for the separation from my dear parents, were _very_ happy. Even though father's appointment in South America kept him and mamma out there for nearly three years instead of two, I was able to bear the disappointment in a very different way, with such kind and sympathising friends at hand to cheer me, so that there is nothing bitter or sad to look back to in that part of my childhood. Haddie spent the summer holidays with me, either at Crowley vicarage, or sometimes at the sea-side, where Miss Fenmore took care of us three. Once or twice he and I paid a visit to Mrs. Selwood, which we enjoyed pretty well, as we were together, though otherwise it was rather dull. And oh, how happy it was when father and mamma at last came home--no words can describe it. It was not _quite_ unmixed pleasure--nothing ever is, the wise folk say--for there was the separation from Myra and her family. But after all, that turned out less than we feared. Miss Fenmore married soon after, and as father had now a good post in London, and we lived there, it was settled that Myra should be with us, and join in my lessons for a good part of the year, while I very often went back to Crowley with her for the summer holidays. And never without staying a few days at Great Mexington, to see Mr. and Mrs. Cranston and the lions! * * * * * Many years have passed since I went there for the last time. Myra's grandparents have long been dead--my own dear father and mother are dead too, for I am growing quite old. My grandchildren are older now than I was when I ran away from the school at Green Bank. But once, while mamma was still alive and well, she and I together strolled through the streets of the grim town, which had for a time been our home, and lived over the old days again in fancy. I remember how tightly I clasped her hand when we passed the corner where once was the old Quakeress's shop--all changed now--and walked down the street, still not very different from what it had been, where we used to live. There was no use in going to Mr. Cranston's show-rooms--they had long been done away with. But the lions are still to be seen. They stand in the hall of Myra's pretty house in the country, where she and Haddon, her husband, have lived for many years, ever since my brother left the army and they came home for good from India. I spend a part of every year with them, for I am alone now. They want me to live with them altogether, but I cling to a little home of my own. Our grandchildren know the lions well, and stroke their smooth sides, and gaze up into their dark faces just as Myra and I used to do. So I promised them that sometime I would write out the simple story that I have now brought to a close. THE END. A NEW UNIFORM EDITION OF MRS. MOLESWORTH'S STORIES FOR CHILDREN WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY WALTER CRANE AND LESLIE BROOKE. * * * * * In Ten Volumes. 12mo. Cloth. One Dollar a Volume. * * * * * Tell Me a Story, and Herr Baby. "Carrots," and A Christmas Child. Grandmother Dear, and Two Little Waifs. The Cuckoo Clock, and The Tapestry Room. Christmas-Tree Land, and A Christmas Posy. The Children of the Castle, and Four Winds Farm. Little Miss Peggy, and Nurse Heatherdale's Story, "Us," and The Rectory Children. Rosy, and The Girls and I. Mary. Sheila's Mystery. Carved Lions. * * * * * THE SET, TWELVE VOLUMES, IN BOX, $12.00. * * * * * "It seems to me not at all easier to draw a lifelike child than to draw a lifelike man or woman: Shakespeare and Webster were the only two men of their age who could do it with perfect delicacy and success; at least, if there was another who could, I must crave pardon of his happy memory for my forgetfulness or ignorance of his name. Our own age is more fortunate, on this single score at least, having a larger and far nobler proportion of female writers; among whom, since the death of George Eliot, there is none left whose touch is so exquisite and masterly, whose love is so thoroughly according to knowledge, whose bright and sweet invention is so fruitful, so truthful, or so delightful as Mrs. Molesworth's. Any chapter of _The Cuckoo Clock_ or the enchanting _Adventures of Herr Baby_ is worth a shoal of the very best novels dealing with the characters and fortunes of mere adults."--MRS. A. C. SWINBURNE, in _The Nineteenth Century_. MRS. MOLESWORTH'S STORIES FOR CHILDREN. * * * * * "There is hardly a better author to put into the hands of children than Mrs. Molesworth. I cannot easily speak too highly of her work. It is a curious art she has, not wholly English in its spirit, but a cross of the old English with the Italian. Indeed, I should say Mrs. Molesworth had also been a close student of the German and Russian, and had some way, catching and holding the spirit of all, created a method and tone quite her own.... Her characters are admirable and real."--_St. Louis Globe Democrat._ "Mrs. Molesworth has a rare gift for composing stories for children. With a light, yet forcible touch, she paints sweet and artless, yet natural and strong, characters."--_Congregationalist._ "Mrs. Molesworth always has in her books those charming touches of nature that are sure to charm small people. Her stories are so likely to have been true that men 'grown up' do not disdain them."--_Home Journal._ "No English writer of childish stories has a better reputation than Mrs. Molesworth, and none with whose stories we are familiar deserves it better. She has a motherly knowledge of the child nature, a clear sense of character, the power of inventing simple incidents that interest, and the ease which comes of continuous practice."--_Mail and Express._ "Christmas would hardly be Christmas without one of Mrs. Molesworth's stories. No one has quite the same power of throwing a charm and an interest about the most commonplace every-day doings as she has, and no one has ever blended fairyland and reality with the same skill."--_Educational Times._ "Mrs. Molesworth is justly a great favorite with children; her stories for them are always charmingly interesting and healthful in tone."--_Boston Home Journal._ "Mrs. Molesworth's books are cheery, wholesome, and particularly well adapted to refined life. It is safe to add that Mrs. Molesworth is the best English prose writer for children.... A new volume from Mrs. Molesworth is always a treat."--_The Beacon._ "No holiday season would be complete for a host of young readers without a volume from the hand of Mrs. Molesworth.... It is one of the peculiarities of Mrs. Molesworth's stories that older readers can no more escape their charm than younger ones."--_Christian Union._ "Mrs. Molesworth ranks with George Macdonald and Mrs. Ewing as a writer of children's stories that possess real literary merit."--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ * * * * * THE SET, ELEVEN VOLUMES, IN BOX, $11.00. * * * * * TELL ME A STORY, and HERR BABY. "So delightful that we are inclined to join in the petition, and we hope she may soon tell us more stories."--_Athenæum._ * * * * * "CARROTS"; Just a Little Boy. "One of the cleverest and most pleasing stories it has been our good fortune to meet with for some time. Carrots and his sister are delightful little beings, whom to read about is at once to become very fond of."--_Examiner._ * * * * * A CHRISTMAS CHILD; A Sketch of a Boy's Life. "A very sweet and tenderly drawn sketch, with life and reality manifest throughout."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ "This is a capital story, well illustrated. Mrs. Molesworth is one of those sunny, genial writers who has genius for writing acceptably for the young. She has the happy faculty of blending enough real with romance to make her stories very practical for good without robbing them of any of their exciting interest."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ "Mrs. Molesworth's _A Christmas Child_ is a story of a boy-life. The book is a small one, but none the less attractive. It is one of the best of this year's juveniles."--_Chicago Tribune._ "Mrs. Molesworth is one of the few writers of tales for children whose sentiment though of the sweetest kind is never sickly; whose religious feeling is never concealed yet never obtruded; whose books are always good but never 'goody.' Little Ted with his soft heart, clever head, and brave spirit is no morbid presentment of the angelic child 'too good to live,' and who is certainly a nuisance on earth, but a charming creature, if not a portrait, whom it is a privilege to meet even in fiction."--_The Academy._ * * * * * THE CUCKOO CLOCK. "A beautiful little story.... It will be read with delight by every child into whose hands it is placed."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ * * * * * GRANDMOTHER DEAR. "The author's concern is with the development of character, and seldom does one meet with the wisdom, tact, and good breeding which pervades this little book."--_Nation._ * * * * * TWO LITTLE WAIFS. "Mrs. Molesworth's delightful story of _Two Little Waifs_ will charm all the small people who find it in their stockings. It relates the adventures of two lovable English children lost in Paris, and is just wonderful enough to pleasantly wring the youthful heart."--_New York Tribune._ "It is, in its way, indeed, a little classic, of which the real beauty and pathos can hardly be appreciated by young people.... It is not too much to say of the story that it is perfect of its kind."--_Critic and Good Literature._ "Mrs. Molesworth is such a bright, cheery writer, that her stories are always acceptable to all who are not confirmed cynics, and her record of the adventures of the little waifs is as entertaining and enjoyable as we might expect."--_Boston Courier._ "_Two Little Waifs_ by Mrs. Molesworth is a pretty little fancy, relating the adventures of a pair of lost children, in a style full of simple charm. It is among the very daintiest of juvenile books that the season has yet called forth; and its pathos and humor are equally delightful. The refined tone and the tender sympathy with the feelings and sentiments of childhood, lend it a special and an abiding charm."--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ "This is a charming little juvenile story from the pen of Mrs. Molesworth, detailing the various adventures of a couple of motherless children in searching for their father, whom they had missed in Paris where they had gone to meet him."--_Montreal Star._ "Mrs. Molesworth is a popular name, not only with a host of English, but with a considerable army of young American readers, who have been charmed by her delicate fancy and won by the interest of her style. _Two Little Waifs_, illustrated by Walter Crane, is a delightful story, which comes, as all children's stories ought to do, to a delightful end."--_Christian Union._ * * * * * THE TAPESTRY ROOM. "Mrs. Molesworth is the queen of children's fairyland. She knows how to make use of the vague, fresh, wondering instincts of childhood, and to invest familiar things with fairy glamour."--_Athenæum._ "The story told is a charming one of what may be called the neo-fairy sort.... There has been nothing better of its kind done anywhere for children, whether we consider its capacity to awake interest or its wholesomeness."--_Evening Post._ "Among the books for young people we have seen nothing more unique than _The Tapestry Room_. Like all of Mrs. Molesworth's stories it will please young readers by the very attractive and charming style in which it is written."--_Presbyterian Journal._ "Mrs. Molesworth will be remembered as a writer of very pleasing stories for children. A new book from her pen will be sure of a welcome from all the young people. The new story bears the name of _The Tapestry Room_ and is a child's romance.... The child who comes into possession of the story will count himself fortunate. It is a bright, wholesome story, in which the interest is maintained to the end. The author has the faculty of adapting herself to the tastes and ideas of her readers in an unusual way."--_New Haven Paladium._ * * * * * CHRISTMAS-TREE LAND. "It is conceived after a happy fancy, as it relates the supposititious journey of a party of little ones through that part of fairyland where Christmas-trees are supposed to most abound. There is just enough of the old-fashioned fancy about fairies mingled with the 'modern improvements' to incite and stimulate the youthful imagination to healthful action. The pictures by Walter Crane are, of course, not only well executed in themselves, but in charming consonance with the spirit of the tale."--_Troy Times._ "_Christmas-Tree Land_, by Mrs. Molesworth, is a book to make younger readers open their eyes wide with delight. A little boy and a little girl domiciled in a great white castle, wander on their holidays through the surrounding fir-forests, and meet with the most delightful pleasures. There is a fascinating, mysterious character in their adventures and enough of the fairy-like and wonderful to puzzle and enchant all the little ones."--_Boston Home Journal._ * * * * * A CHRISTMAS POSY. "This is a collection of eight of those inimitable stories for children which none could write better than Mrs. Molesworth. Her books are prime favorites with children of all ages and they are as good and wholesome as they are interesting and popular. This makes a very handsome book, and its illustrations are excellent."--_Christian at Work._ "_A Christmas Posy_ is one of those charming stories for girls which Mrs Molesworth excels in writing."--_Philadelphia Press._ "Here is a group of bright, wholesome stories, such as are dear to children, and nicely tuned to the harmonies of Christmas-tide. Mr. Crane has found good situations for his spirited sketches."--_Churchman._ "_A Christmas Posy_, by Mrs. Molesworth, is lovely and fragrant. Mrs. Molesworth succeeds by right to the place occupied with so much honor by the late Mrs. Ewing, as a writer of charming stories for children. The present volume is a cluster of delightful short stories. Mr. Crane's illustrations are in harmony with the text."--_Christian Intelligencer._ * * * * * THE CHILDREN OF THE CASTLE. "_The Children of the Castle_, by Mrs. Molesworth, is another of those delightful juvenile stories of which this author has written so many. It is a fascinating little book, with a charming plot, a sweet, pure atmosphere, and teaches a wholesome moral in the most winning manner."--_B. S. E. Gazette._ "Mrs. Molesworth has given a charming story for children.... It is a wholesome book, one which the little ones will read with interest."--_Living Church._ "_The Children of the Castle_ are delightful creations, actual little girls, living in an actual castle, but often led by their fancies into a shadowy fairyland. There is a charming refinement of style and spirit about the story from beginning to end; an imaginative child will find endless pleasure in it, and the lesson of gentleness and unselfishness so artistically managed that it does not seem like a lesson, but only a part of the story."--_Milwaukee Sentinel._ "Mrs. Molesworth's stories for children are always ingenious, entertaining, and thoroughly wholesome. Her resources are apparently inexhaustible, and each new book from her pen seems to surpass its predecessors in attractiveness. In _The Children of the Castle_ the best elements of a good story for children are very happily combined."--_The Week._ * * * * * FOUR WINDS FARM. "Mrs. Molesworth's books are always delightful, but of all none is more charming than the volume with which she greets the holidays this season. _Four Winds Farm_ is one of the most delicate and pleasing books for a child that has seen the light this many a day. It is full of fancy and of that instinctive sympathy with childhood which makes this author's books so attractive and so individual."--_Boston Courier._ "Like all the books she has written this one is very charming, and is worth more in the hands of a child than a score of other stories of a more sensational character."--_Christian at Work._ "Still more delicately fanciful is Mrs. Molesworth's lovely little tale of the _Four Winds Farm_. It is neither a dream nor a fairy story, but concerns the fortune of a real little boy, named Gratian; yet the dream and the fairy tale seem to enter into his life, and make part of it. The farm-house in which the child lives is set exactly at the meeting-place of the four winds, and they, from the moment of his birth, have acted as his self-elected godmothers.... All the winds love the boy, and, held in the balance of their influence, he grows up as a boy should, simply and truly, with a tender heart and firm mind. The idea of this little book is essentially poetical."--_Literary World._ "This book is for the children. We grudge it to them. There are few children in this generation good enough for such a gift. Mrs. Molesworth is the only woman now who can write such a book.... The delicate welding of the farm life about the child and the spiritual life within him, and the realization of the four immortals into a delightful sort of half-femininity shows a finer literary quality than anything we have seen for a long time. The light that never was on sea or land is in this little red and gold volume."--_Philadelphia Press._ * * * * * NURSE HEATHERDALE'S STORY. "_Nurse Heatherdale's Story_ is all about a small boy, who was good enough, yet was always getting into some trouble through complications in which he was not to blame. The same sort of things happens to men and women. He is an orphan, though he is cared for in a way by relations, who are not so very rich, yet are looked on as well fixed. After many youthful trials and disappointments he falls into a big stroke of good luck, which lifts him and goes to make others happy. Those who want a child's book will find nothing to harm and something to interest in this simple story."--_Commercial Advertiser._ * * * * * "US." "Mrs. Molesworth's _Us, an Old-Fashioned Story_, is very charming. A dear little six-year-old 'bruvver' and sister constitute the 'us,' whose adventures with gypsies form the theme of the story. Mrs. Molesworth's style is graceful, and she pictures the little ones with brightness and tenderness."--_Evening Post._ "A pretty and wholesome story."--_Literary World._ "_Us, an Old-Fashioned Story_, is a sweet and quaint story of two little children who lived long ago, in an old-fashioned way, with their grandparents. The story is delightfully told."--_Philadelphia News._ "_Us_ is one of Mrs. Molesworth's charming little stories for young children. The narrative ... is full of interest for its real grace and delicacy, and the exquisiteness and purity of the English in which it is written."--_Boston Advertiser._ "Mrs. Molesworth's last story, _Us_, will please the readers of that lady's works by its pleasant domestic atmosphere and healthful moral tone. The narrative moves forward with sufficient interest to hold the reader's attention; and there are useful lessons for young people to be drawn from it."--_Independent._ "Mrs. Molesworth's story ... is very simple, refined, bright, and full of the real flavor of childhood."--_Literary World._ * * * * * THE RECTORY CHILDREN. "It is a book written for children in just the way that is best adapted to please them."--_Morning Post._ "In _The Rectory Children_ Mrs. Molesworth has written one of those delightful volumes which we always look for at Christmas time."--_Athenæum._ "A delightful Christmas book for children; a racy, charming home story, full of good impulses and bright suggestions."--_Boston Traveller._ "Quiet, sunny, interesting, and thoroughly winning and wholesome."--_Boston Journal._ "There is no writer of children's books more worthy of their admiration and love than Mrs. Molesworth. Her bright and sweet invention is so truthful, her characters so faithfully drawn, and the teaching of her stories so tender and noble, that while they please and charm they insensibly distil into the youthful mind the most valuable lessons. In _The Rectory Children_ we have a fresh, bright story, that will be sure to please all her young admirers."--_Christian at Work._ "_The Rectory Children_, by Mrs. Molesworth, is a very pretty story of English life. Mrs. Molesworth is one of the most popular and charming of English story-writers for children. Her child characters are true to life, always natural and attractive, and her stories are wholesome and interesting."--_Indianapolis Journal._ * * * * * ROSY. "_Rosy_, like all the rest of her stories, is bright and pure and utterly free from cant,--a book that children will read with pleasure and lasting profit."--_Boston Traveller._ "There is no one who has a genius better adapted for entertaining children than Mrs. Molesworth, and her latest story, _Rosy_, is one of her best. It is illustrated with eight woodcuts from designs by Walter Crane."--_Philadelphia Press._ "An English story for children of the every-day life of a bright little girl, which will please those who like 'natural' books."--_New York World._ "Mrs. Molesworth's clever _Rosy_, a story showing in a charming way how one little girl's jealousy and bad temper were conquered; one of the best, most suggestive and improving of the Christmas juveniles."--_New York Tribune._ "_Rosy_ is an exceedingly graceful and interesting story by Mrs. Molesworth, one of the best and most popular writers of juvenile fiction. This little story is full of tenderness, is fragrant in sentiment, and points with great delicacy and genuine feeling a charming moral."--_Boston Gazette._ * * * * * THE GIRLS AND I. "Perhaps the most striking feature of this pleasant story is the natural manner in which it is written. It is just like the conversation of a bright boy--consistently like it from beginning to end. It is a boy who is the hero of the tale, and he tells the adventures of himself and those nearest him. He is, by the way, in many respects an example for most young persons. It is a story characterized by sweetness and purity--a desirable one to put into the hands of youthful readers."--_Gettysburg Monthly._ "Jack himself tells the story of _The Girls and I_, assisted of course by Mrs. Molesworth, whose name will recall to the juveniles pleasant memories of interesting reading, full of just the things that children want to know, and of that which will excite their ready sympathies. Jack, while telling the story of the girls, takes the readers into his own confidence, and we like the little fellow rather better than the girls. The interest is maintained by the story of a lost jewel, the ultimate finding of which, in the most unexpected place, closes the story in a very pleasant manner. Jack, otherwise Mrs. Molesworth, tells the tale in a lively style, and the book will attract attention."--_The Globe._ "A delightful and purposeful story which no one can read without being benefited."--_New York Observer._ * * * * * MARY. "Mrs. Molesworth's reputation as a writer of story-books is so well established that any new book of hers scarce needs a word of introduction."--_Home Journal._ * * * * * MACMILLAN & CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. MACMILLAN & CO.'S _CATALOGUE_ OF BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG. * * * * * _Messrs. MACMILLAN & CO. are the agents in the United States for the publications of the Oxford and Cambridge University Presses, and for Messrs. George Bell & Sons, London. Complete catalogues of all books sold by them will be sent, free by mail, to any address on application._ * * * * * =ADVENTURE SERIES, THE.= Large 12mo. Fully Illustrated. $1.50 each volume. =Adventures of a Younger Son.= By JOHN EDWARD TRELAWNY. With an Introduction by EDWARD GARNETT. =Madagascar; or, Robert Drury's Journal= During Fifteen Years' Captivity on that Island, and a Further Description of Madagascar by the Abbé ALEXIS ROCHON. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Captain S. PASFIELD OLIVER, F.S.A., author of "Madagascar." =Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp=, Late Lieutenant in His Majesty's 87th Regiment. Written by Himself. With an Introduction by Major H. M. CHICHESTER. =The Adventures of Thomas Pellow=, of Penryn, Mariner, Twenty-three Years in Captivity among the Moors. Written by Himself; and Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Dr. ROBERT BROWN. Illustrated from Contemporaneous Prints. =The Buccaneers and Marooners of America.= Being an Account of the Famous Adventures and Daring Deeds of Certain Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main. Edited and Illustrated by HOWARD PYLE. =The Log of a Jack Tar; or, The Life of James Choyce, Master Mariner.= Now first published, with O'Brien's Captivity in France. Edited by Commander V. LOVETT CAMERON, R.N., C.B., D.C.L. With Introduction and Notes. =The Story of the Filibusters.= By JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. To which is added "The Life of Colonel David Crockett." With Illustrations. "Mr. Roche has faithfully compared and sifted the statements of those who took part in the various expeditions, and he has also made effectual use of periodicals and official documents. The result is what may safely be regarded as the first complete and authentic account of the deeds of the modern Vikings, who continue to be wonderfully romantic figures even after the gaudy trappings of myth, prejudice, and fiction have been stripped away."--_Boston Beacon._ =The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, the Portuguese.= Done into English by HENRY COGAN, with an Introduction by ARMINIUS VAMB�RY. "It is decidedly reading of the most attractive kind, brimful of adventure piquantly related, and of rare interest in its recital of the experienced of the author, who 'five times suffered shipwreck, was sixteen times sold, and thirteen times made a slave.'"--_Boston Saturday Evening Gazette._ =A Master Mariner.= Being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert William Eastwick. Edited by HERBERT COMPTON. With Illustrations. =Hard Life in the Colonies, and Other Adventures by Sea and Land.= Now first printed. Compiled from Private Letters by C. CASLYON JENKYNS. With Illustrations. Large 12mo. $1.50. =�SOP'S FABLES.= Illustrated. 50 cents. =ANDERSEN= (HANS CHRISTIAN). =Fairy Tales and Sketches.= Translated by C. C. PEACHY, H. WARD, A. PLESNER, etc. With numerous Illustrations by OTTO SPECKTER and others. Seventh thousand. Handsomely bound. 12mo. $1.50. "The translation most happily hits the delicate quaintness of Andersen--most happily transposes into simple English words the tender precision of the famous story-teller; in a keen examination of the book we scarcely recall a single phrase or turn that obviously could have been bettered."--_Daily Telegraph._ =Tales for Children.= With 48 Full-page Illustrations by WEHNERT, and 57 small Engravings on wood by W. THOMAS. Thirteenth thousand. Handsomely bound. 12mo. $1.50. This volume contains several tales that are in no other edition published in this country, and with the preceding volume it forms the most complete English edition. =ARIOSTO. Paladin and Saracen.= Stories from Ariosto. By W. C. HOLLWAY-CALTHROP. With Illustrations. $1.50. =ATKINSON. The Last of the Giant Killers.= By the Rev. J. C. ATKINSON, author of "A Moorland Parish." _Shortly._ =AWDRY (F.). The Story of a Fellow Soldier.= A Life of Bishop Patteson for the Young. 16mo. $1.00. =BAKER. Wild Beasts and Their Ways.= Reminiscences in Asia, Africa, and America. By Sir SAMUEL W. BAKER, F.R.S., etc., author of "Albert Nyanza," etc. With numerous Illustrations. Large 12mo. Cloth extra. Gilt. $3.50. "A book which is destined not only to serve as a chart and compass for every hunter of big game, but which is likewise a valuable study of natural history, placed before the public in a practical and interesting form."--_New York Tribune._ =BEESLY= (Mrs.). =Stories from the History of Rome.= 16mo. 60 cents. "Of all the stories we remember from history none have struck us as so genuinely good--with the right ring--as those of Mrs. Beesly."--_Educational Times._ =BERTZ= (E.). =The French Prisoners:= A Story for Boys. $1.25. "Written throughout in a wise and gentle spirit, and omits no opportunity to deprecate war as a barbaric survival, wholly unnecessary in a civilized age."--_Independent._ "The story is an extremely interesting one, full of incident, told in a quiet, healthful way, and with a great deal of pleasantly interfused information about German and French boys."--_Christian Union._ =BUNCE= (J. T.). =Fairy Tales: Their Origin and Meaning.= 16mo. 75 cents. =CARPENTER. Truth in Tale.= Addresses Chiefly to Children. By W. BOYD CARPENTER, D.D., Bishop of Ripon. $1.00. "These ingenious and interesting tales by Bishop Carpenter are full of poetic beauty and of religious truth.... We would like to see a copy in every Sunday-school library."--_Sunday School Banner._ =CARROLL.= WORKS BY LEWIS CARROLL. =Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.= With 42 Illustrations by TENNIEL. 12mo. $1.00. A German Translation. 12mo. $2.00. A French Translation. 12mo. $2.00. An Italian Translation. 12mo. $2.00. "An excellent piece of nonsense."--_Times._ "That most delightful of children's stories."--_Saturday Review._ "Elegant and delicious nonsense."--_Guardian._ =Through the Looking-glass and What Alice Found There.= 50 Illustrations by TENNIEL. 12mo. $1.00. "Will fairly rank with the tale of her previous experience."--_Daily Telegraph._ "Many of Mr. Tenniel's designs are masterpieces of wise absurdity."--_Athenæum._ "Whether as regarding author or illustrator, this book is a jewel rarely to be found nowadays."--_Echo._ =Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.= In 1 vol. With TENNIEL's Illustrations. 12mo. $1.25. =Rhyme? and Reason?= With 65 Illustrations by ARTHUR B. FROST, and nine by HENRY HOLIDAY. 12mo. $1.50. This book is a reprint, with additions, of the comic portions of "Phantasmagoria, and other Poems," and of the "Hunting of the Snark." =A Tangled Tale.= Reprinted from the "Monthly Packet." With Illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. =Alice's Adventures under Ground.= Being a Fac-simile of the original MS. Book afterward developed into "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." With 37 Illustrations. 12mo. $1.50. =The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits.= By LEWIS CARROLL. With nine Illustrations by HENRY HOLIDAY. New Edition. 12mo. $1.00. =Sylvie and Bruno.= With 46 Illustrations by HARRY FURNISS. 12mo. $1.50. "Alice was a delightful little girl, but hardly more pleasing than are the hero and heroine of this latest book from a writer in whose nonsense there is far more sense than in the serious works of many contemporary authors."--_Morning Post._ "Mr. Furniss's illustrations, which are numerous, are at once graceful and full of humor. We pay him a high compliment when we say he proves himself a worthy successor to Mr. Tenniel in illustrating Mr. Lewis Carroll's books."--_St. James Gazette._ =The Nursery "Alice."= Containing 20 coloured enlargements from TENNIEL's Illustrations to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," with Text adapted to Nursery Readers, by LEWIS CARROLL. 4to. $1.50. "Let the little people rejoice! the most charming book in the world has appeared for them. 'The Nursery Alice,' with its wealth of colored illustrations from Tenniel's Pictures, is certainly the most artistic juvenile that has been seen for many and many a day."--_Boston Budget._ =CHURCH.= WORKS BY THE REV. A. J. CHURCH. =The Story of the Iliad.= With Coloured Illustrations. 12mo. $1.00. =The Story of the Odyssey.= With Coloured Illustrations. 12mo. $1.00. =Stories from the Bible.= With Illustrations after JULIUS SCHNORR. 12mo. $1.50. "Of all the books of this kind, this is the best we have seen."--_Examiner._ "The book will be of infinite value to the student or teacher of the Scriptures, and the stories are well arranged for interesting reading for children."--_Boston Traveller._ =Stories from Bible.= Illustrated. Second Series. _Shortly._ =The Greek Gulliver.= Stories from Lucian. With Illustrations by C. O. MURRAY. New edition. 16mo. Paper. 40 cents. "A curious example of ancient humor."--_Chicago Standard._ =The Burning of Rome.= A Story of the Times of Nero. With Illustrations. 12mo. $1.00. =CLIFFORD= (Mrs. W. K.). =Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise.= With Illustrations. $1.00. =CRAIK.= Works by MRS. CRAIK, author of "John Halifax, Gentleman." =Sermons out of Church.= New Edition. 12mo. $1.75. =Children's Poetry.= Globe 8vo. $1.25. =The Little Lame Prince and His Travelling Cloak.= A Parable for Young and Old. With Illustrations. 12mo. $1.25. =Little Sunshine's Holiday.= Globe 8vo. $1.00. =Adventures of a Brownie.= With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.00. =Alice Learmont.= A Fairy Tale. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.00. =Our Year: a Child's Book.= Illustrated. 16mo. $1.00. =The Fairy Book.= The Best Popular Fairy Stories. Selected and rendered anew. _Golden Treasury Series._ 18mo. $1.25. =DEFOE. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.= Edited from the Original Edition by HENRY KINGSLEY. _Globe Edition._ $1.25. _Golden Treasury Series._ 18mo. $1.00. =DE MORGAN. The Necklace of Princess Florimonde, and other Stories.= By MARY DE MORGAN. Illustrated by WALTER CRANE. New and cheaper Edition, cloth extra. $1.25. "The stories display considerable originality, and Mr. Walter Crane's characteristic illustrations combine with Miss De Morgan's pretty fancies in forming a charming gift-book."--_Graphic._ "A real gem."--_Punch._ =ENGLISH MEN OF ACTION SERIES.= 12mo. Cloth, limp, 60 cents; cloth, uncut edges, 75 cents. "An admirable set of brief biographies.... The volumes are small, attractive, and inexpensive."--_Dial._ "The 'English Men of Action' promises to be a notable series of short biographies. The subjects are well chosen, and the authors almost as well."--_Epoch._ =Gordon.= By Col. Sir W. BUTLER. =Henry the Fifth.= By the Rev. A. J. CHURCH. =Livingstone.= By THOMAS HUGHES. =Lord Lawrence.= By Sir R. TEMPLE. =Wellington.= By GEORGE HOOPER. =Dampier.= By W. CLARK RUSSELL. =Monk.= By JULIAN CORBETT. =Strafford.= By H. D. TRAILL. =Warren Hastings.= By Sir ALFRED LYALL, K.C.B. =Peterborough.= By WILLIAM STEBBING. =Captain Cook.= By WALTER BESANT. =Havelock.= By ARCHIBALD FORBES. =Clive.= By Col. Sir CHARLES WILSON. =Drake.= By JULIAN CORBETT. =Warwick, the King Maker.= By C. W. OMAN. =Napier.= By Col. Sir WILLIAM BUTLER. =Rodney.= By D. G. HANNAY. =Montrose.= By MOWBRAY MORRIS. _Shortly._ =EWING= (J. H.). =We and the World.= A Story for Boys. By the late JULIANA HORATIO EWING. With seven Illustrations by W. L. Jones, and a Pictorial Design on the Cover. 4th Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper boards, 35 cents. "A very good book it is, full of adventure graphically told. The style is just what it should be; simple but not bold, full of pleasant humor, and with some pretty touches of feeling. Like all Mrs. Ewing's tales, it is sound, sensible, and wholesome."--_Times._ =A Flat Iron for a Farthing;= or, Some Passages in the Life of an Only Son. With 12 Illustrations by H. ALLINGHAM, and Pictorial Design on the Cover. 16th Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper boards, 35 cents. "Let every parent and guardian who wishes to be amused, and at the same time to please a child, purchase 'A Flat Iron for a Farthing; or, Some Passages in the Life of an Only Son,' by J. H. Ewing. We will answer for the delight with which they will read it themselves, and we do not doubt that the young and fortunate recipients will also like it. The story is quaint, original, and altogether delightful."--_Athenæum._ =Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances.= Illustrated with nine fine full-page Engravings by PASQUIER, and Frontispiece by WOLF, and Pictorial Design on the Cover. 4th Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper boards, 35 cents. "It is not often nowadays the privilege of a critic to grow enthusiastic over a new work; and the rarity of the occasion that calls forth the delight is apt to lead one into the sin of hyperbole. And yet we think we shall not be accused of extravagance when we say that, without exception, 'Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances' is the most delightful work avowedly written for children that we have ever read."--_Leader._ =Six to Sixteen.= A Story for Girls. With 10 Illustrations by Mrs. ALLINGHAM. 7th Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper boards, 35 cents. "It is scarcely necessary to say that Mrs. Ewing's book is one of the best of the year."--_Saturday Review._ =A Great Emergency.= (A very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madame Liberality.) With four Illustrations. 3d Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper boards, 35 cents. "Never has Mrs. Ewing published a more charming volume of stories, and that is saying a very great deal. From the first to the last the book overflows with the strange knowledge of child-nature which so rarely survives childhood; and, moreover, with inexhaustible quiet humor, which is never anything but innocent and well-bred, never priggish, and never clumsy."--_Academy._ =Jan of the Windmill.= A Story of the Plains. With 11 Illustrations by Mrs. ALLINGHAM and design on the cover. 5th Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper boards, 35 cents. "The life and its surroundings, the incidents of Jan's childhood, are described with Mrs. Ewing's accustomed skill; the village schoolmaster, the miller's wife, and the other children, are extremely well done." =Melchior's Dream.= (The Blackbird's Nest; Friedrich's Ballad; A Bit of Green; Monsieur the Viscount's Friend; The Yew Lane Ghosts; A Bad Habit; A Happy Family.) With eight Illustrations by GORDON BROWNE. 6th Edition. 12mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. 4to. In paper wrapper, 35 cents. "'Melchior's Dream' is an exquisite little story, charming by original humor, buoyant spirits, and tender pathos."--_Athenæum._ =Lob-lie-by-the-fire; or, the Luck of Lingborough, and Other Tales.= With three Illustrations by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 4th Edition. 16mo. $1.00. "Mrs. Ewing has written as good a story as her 'Brownies,' and that is saying a great deal. 'Lob-lie-by-the-fire' has humor and pathos, and teaches what is right without making children think they are reading a sermon."--_Saturday Review._ =The Brownies.= (The Land of Lost Toys; Three Christmas Trees; An Idyl of the Wood; Christmas Crackers; Amelia and the Dwarfs; Timothy's Shoes; Benjy in Beastland.) Illustrated by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK. 7th Edition. 16mo. $1.00. Cheap Illustrated Edition. Fcap. 4to. In paper wrapper, 35 cents. "If a child once begins 'The Brownies,' it will get so deeply interested in it that when bedtime comes it will altogether forget the moral, and will weary its parents with importunities for just a few minutes more to see how everything ends."--_Saturday Review._ =FREILIGRATH-KROEKER. Alice,= and other Fairy Plays for Children, including a Dramatised Version (under sanction) of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland," and three other Plays. By Mrs. FREILIGRATH-KROEKER, with eight original full-page Plates. Cloth, extra gilt. Gilt edges. 2d Edition. 12mo. $1.25. "They have stood a practical ordeal, and stood it triumphantly."--_Times._ =GASKOIN= (Mrs. H.). =Children's Treasury of Bible Stories.= Edited by the Rev. G. F. MACLEAR, D.D. 18mo. Each, 30 cents. Part I. Old Testament. II. New Testament. III. Three Apostles: St. James, St. Paul, St. John. =GATTY= (Mrs.). =Parables from Nature.= With Illustrations by BURNE-JONES, HOLMAN HUNT, TENNIEL, WOLF, and others. Two Series. Each, 35 cents. =GOLDEN TREASURY SERIES.= Uniformly printed in 18mo, with Vignette Titles by J. E. MILLAIS, Sir NOEL PATON, T. WOOLNER, W. HOLMAN HUNT, ARTHUR HUGHES, etc. Engraved on Steel. 18mo. Cloth. Each, $1.00. Also bound in half morocco, $2.50. Half calf, $2.50. Padded calf, $3.00. Or beautifully bound in full morocco, padded, solid gilt edges, in boxes, $2.50. =The Children's Garland from the Best Poets.= Selected and arranged by COVENTRY PATMORE, with a Vignette by T. WOOLNER. "Mr. Patmore deserves our gratitude for having searched through the wide field of English Poetry for these flowers which youth and age can equally enjoy, and woven them into 'The Children's Garland.'"--_London Review._ =The Pilgrim's Progress, from this World to that which is to come.= By JOHN BUNYAN, with a Vignette by W. HOLMAN HUNT. "A beautiful and scholarly reprint."--_Spectator._ =The Fairy Book.= The best popular Fairy Tales. Selected and rendered anew by the Author of "John Halifax, Gentleman," with a Vignette by Sir NOEL PATON. "Miss Mulock has the true instinct into the secret of a perfect Fairy Tale ... delightful selection in a delightful external form."--_Spectator._ =The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.= Edited by J. W. CLARK, M.A., with a Vignette by Sir J. E. MILLAIS. "This cheap and pretty copy, rigidly exact to the original, will be a prize to many book buyers."--_Examiner._ =The Sunday Book of Poetry for the Young.= Selected and arranged by C. F. ALEXANDER. =A Book of Golden Deeds= of All Times and All Countries. Gathered and Narrated Anew. By the Author of "The Heir of Redclyffe." =Children's Treasury of English Song.= Edited by F. T. PALGRAVE. =Tom Brown's School Days.= By an OLD BOY. =Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.= Edited by the Rev. A. AINGER. =GOLDSMITH. The Vicar of Wakefield.= By OLIVER GOLDSMITH. With 182 Illustrations by HUGH THOMSON, and a Preface by AUSTIN DOBSON. Uniform with the Randolph Caldecott Edition of Washington Irving's "Bracebridge Hall" and "Old Christmas." 12mo. Cloth extra. $2.00. "Mr. Thomson hits the exact line of humor which lies in Goldsmith's creations. His work is refined, much of it graceful and dignified, but the humor of the situation never escapes him. The work is English line work, very beautiful, delicate, and effective, with a very perceptible touch of old-time quality, life, and costume in it. The volume itself is such as lovers of good books delight to hold in their hands."--_Independent._ "A more bewitching bit of book work has not reached us for many a day."--_New York Tribune._ =GREENWOOD. The Moon Maiden, and Other Stories.= By JESSY E. GREENWOOD. 12mo. $1.25. "A collection of brightly written and distinctly original stories in which fairy lore and moral allegory are deftly and pleasantly mingled."--_Christian Union._ =GRIMM'S Fairy Tales.= The Household Stories. Translated by LUCY CRANE, and done into pictures by WALTER CRANE. 12mo. $1.25. =HALLWARD= (R. F.). =Flowers of Paradise.= Music--Verse--Design--Illustration. Printed in colors by Edmund Evans. Royal 4to. $2.00. "To our mind one of the prettiest--if not the prettiest--of this year's picture books. The pages are very Blake-like in effect, the drawings harmoniously blending with the music and words, and some of the larger pictures are quite beautiful in thought and feeling as well as in coloring. We ought soon to hear of Mr. Hallward again; he shows much promise."--_Pall Mall Gazette._ =HUGHES.= WORKS BY THOMAS HUGHES. =Tom Brown's School Days.= New Illustrated Edition. 12mo. Cloth. Gilt. $1.00 Pocket Edition, 50 cents. English Edition, $1.25. "The most famous boy's book in the language."--_Daily News._ _Golden Treasury Edition._ 18mo. $1.00. Cheap Edition. With 58 Illustrations by ARTHUR HUGHES and S. P. HALL. 8vo. Paper. 25 cents. =Tom Brown at Oxford.= New Illustrated Edition. 12mo. Cloth. Gilt. $1.50. English Edition. 12mo. $1.25. "In no other work that we can call to mind are the finer qualities of the English gentleman more happily portrayed."--_Daily News._ "A book of great power and truth."--_National Review._ =HULLAH= (M. A.). =Hannah Tarne.= A Story for Girls. With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25. =KEARY.= WORKS BY A. AND E. KEARY. =The Heroes of Asgard.= Tales from Scandinavian Mythology. Illustrated. 16mo. $1.00. =The Magic Valley; or, Patient Antoine.= With Illustrations. 16mo. $1.25. =KINGSLEY.= WORKS BY CHARLES KINGSLEY. =Madam How and Lady Why: First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children.= $1.00. English Edition, $1.25. =The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children.= With Illustrations. $1.00. English Edition. 12mo. $1.25. 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43936	----	The WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ BY L. Frank Baum W. W. Denslow. [Illustration] Geo. M. Hill Co. New York. INTRODUCTION. Folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations. Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident. [Illustration] Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out. L. FRANK BAUM. CHICAGO, APRIL, 1900. [Illustration] Copyright 1899 By L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow. All rights reserved [Illustration] LIST OF CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I.--The Cyclone. CHAPTER II.--The Council with The Munchkins. CHAPTER III.--How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow. CHAPTER IV.--The Road Through the Forest. CHAPTER V.--The Rescue of the Tin Woodman. CHAPTER VI.--The Cowardly Lion. CHAPTER VII.--The Journey to The Great Oz. CHAPTER VIII.--The Deadly Poppy Field. CHAPTER IX.--The Queen of the Field Mice. CHAPTER X.--The Guardian of the Gates. CHAPTER XI.--The Wonderful Emerald City of Oz. CHAPTER XII.--The Search for the Wicked Witch. CHAPTER XIII.--How the Four were Reunited. CHAPTER XIV.--The Winged Monkeys. CHAPTER XV.--The Discovery of Oz the Terrible. CHAPTER XVI.--The Magic Art of the Great Humbug. CHAPTER XVII.--How the Balloon was Launched. CHAPTER XVIII.--Away to the South. CHAPTER XIX.--Attacked by the Fighting Trees. CHAPTER XX.--The Dainty China Country. CHAPTER XXI.--The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts. CHAPTER XXII.--The Country of the Quadlings. CHAPTER XXIII.--The Good Witch grants Dorothy's Wish. CHAPTER XXIV.--Home Again. _This book is dedicated to my good friend & comrade. My Wife L.F.B._ Chapter I. The Cyclone. [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar--except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small, dark hole. When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else. [Illustration: "_She caught Toto by the ear._"] When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled, now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at. Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke. It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long, silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly. [Illustration] To-day, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the door-step and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes. From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction also. Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up. "There's a cyclone coming, Em," he called to his wife; "I'll go look after the stock." Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept. Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of the danger close at hand. "Quick, Dorothy!" she screamed; "run for the cellar!" Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap-door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole. Dorothy caught Toto at last, and started to follow her aunt. When she was half way across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor. A strange thing then happened. The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon. The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather. It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle. Toto did not like it. He ran about the room, now here, now there, barking loudly; but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to see what would happen. Once Toto got too near the open trap-door, and fell in; and at first the little girl thought she had lost him. But soon she saw one of his ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air was keeping him up so that he could not fall. She crept to the hole, caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again; afterward closing the trap-door so that no more accidents could happen. Hour after hour passed away, and slowly Dorothy got over her fright; but she felt quite lonely, and the wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf. At first she had wondered if she would be dashed to pieces when the house fell again; but as the hours passed and nothing terrible happened, she stopped worrying and resolved to wait calmly and see what the future would bring. At last she crawled over the swaying floor to her bed, and lay down upon it; and Toto followed and lay down beside her. In spite of the swaying of the house and the wailing of the wind, Dorothy soon closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. [Illustration] Chapter II. The Council with The Munchkins. [Illustration] [Illustration] She was awakened by a shock, so sudden and severe that if Dorothy had not been lying on the soft bed she might have been hurt. As it was, the jar made her catch her breath and wonder what had happened; and Toto put his cold little nose into her face and whined dismally. Dorothy sat up and noticed that the house was not moving; nor was it dark, for the bright sunshine came in at the window, flooding the little room. She sprang from her bed and with Toto at her heels ran and opened the door. The little girl gave a cry of amazement and looked about her, her eyes growing bigger and bigger at the wonderful sights she saw. The cyclone had set the house down, very gently--for a cyclone--in the midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of green sward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on the dry, gray prairies. While she stood looking eagerly at the strange and beautiful sights, she noticed coming toward her a group of the queerest people she had ever seen. They were not as big as the grown folk she had always been used to; but neither were they very small. In fact, they seemed about as tall as Dorothy, who was a well-grown child for her age, although they were, so far as looks go, many years older. [Illustration: "_I am the Witch of the North._"] Three were men and one a woman, and all were oddly dressed. They wore round hats that rose to a small point a foot above their heads, with little bells around the brims that tinkled sweetly as they moved. The hats of the men were blue; the little woman's hat was white, and she wore a white gown that hung in plaits from her shoulders; over it were sprinkled little stars that glistened in the sun like diamonds. The men were dressed in blue, of the same shade as their hats, and wore well polished boots with a deep roll of blue at the tops. The men, Dorothy thought, were about as old as Uncle Henry, for two of them had beards. But the little woman was doubtless much older: her face was covered with wrinkles, her hair was nearly white, and she walked rather stiffly. When these people drew near the house where Dorothy was standing in the doorway, they paused and whispered among themselves, as if afraid to come farther. But the little old woman walked up to Dorothy, made a low bow and said, in a sweet voice, "You are welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. We are so grateful to you for having killed the wicked Witch of the East, and for setting our people free from bondage." [Illustration] Dorothy listened to this speech with wonder. What could the little woman possibly mean by calling her a sorceress, and saying she had killed the wicked Witch of the East? Dorothy was an innocent, harmless little girl, who had been carried by a cyclone many miles from home; and she had never killed anything in all her life. But the little woman evidently expected her to answer; so Dorothy said, with hesitation, "You are very kind; but there must be some mistake. I have not killed anything." "Your house did, anyway," replied the little old woman, with a laugh; "and that is the same thing. See!" she continued, pointing to the corner of the house; "there are her two toes, still sticking out from under a block of wood." Dorothy looked, and gave a little cry of fright. There, indeed, just under the corner of the great beam the house rested on, two feet were sticking out, shod in silver shoes with pointed toes. "Oh, dear! oh, dear!" cried Dorothy, clasping her hands together in dismay; "the house must have fallen on her. What ever shall we do?" "There is nothing to be done," said the little woman, calmly. [Illustration] "But who was she?" asked Dorothy. "She was the wicked Witch of the East, as I said," answered the little woman. "She has held all the Munchkins in bondage for many years, making them slave for her night and day. Now they are all set free, and are grateful to you for the favour." "Who are the Munchkins?" enquired Dorothy. "They are the people who live in this land of the East, where the wicked Witch ruled." "Are you a Munchkin?" asked Dorothy. "No; but I am their friend, although I live in the land of the North. When they saw the Witch of the East was dead the Munchkins sent a swift messenger to me, and I came at once. I am the Witch of the North." "Oh, gracious!" cried Dorothy; "are you a real witch?" "Yes, indeed;" answered the little woman. "But I am a good witch, and the people love me. I am not as powerful as the wicked Witch was who ruled here, or I should have set the people free myself." "But I thought all witches were wicked," said the girl, who was half frightened at facing a real witch. "Oh, no; that is a great mistake. There were only four witches in all the Land of Oz, and two of them, those who live in the North and the South, are good witches. I know this is true, for I am one of them myself, and cannot be mistaken. Those who dwelt in the East and the West were, indeed, wicked witches; but now that you have killed one of them, there is but one wicked Witch in all the Land of Oz--the one who lives in the West." "But," said Dorothy, after a moment's thought, "Aunt Em has told me that the witches were all dead--years and years ago." "Who is Aunt Em?" inquired the little old woman. "She is my aunt who lives in Kansas, where I came from." The Witch of the North seemed to think for a time, with her head bowed and her eyes upon the ground. Then she looked up and said, "I do not know where Kansas is, for I have never heard that country mentioned before. But tell me, is it a civilized country?" "Oh, yes;" replied Dorothy. "Then that accounts for it. In the civilized countries I believe there are no witches left; nor wizards, nor sorceresses, nor magicians. But, you see, the Land of Oz has never been civilized, for we are cut off from all the rest of the world. Therefore we still have witches and wizards amongst us." "Who are the Wizards?" asked Dorothy. "Oz himself is the Great Wizard," answered the Witch, sinking her voice to a whisper. "He is more powerful than all the rest of us together. He lives in the City of Emeralds." Dorothy was going to ask another question, but just then the Munchkins, who had been standing silently by, gave a loud shout and pointed to the corner of the house where the Wicked Witch had been lying. [Illustration] "What is it?" asked the little old woman; and looked, and began to laugh. The feet of the dead Witch had disappeared entirely and nothing was left but the silver shoes. "She was so old," explained the Witch of the North, "that she dried up quickly in the sun. That is the end of her. But the silver shoes are yours, and you shall have them to wear." She reached down and picked up the shoes, and after shaking the dust out of them handed them to Dorothy. "The Witch of the East was proud of those silver shoes," said one of the Munchkins; "and there is some charm connected with them; but what it is we never knew." Dorothy carried the shoes into the house and placed them on the table. Then she came out again to the Munchkins and said, "I am anxious to get back to my Aunt and Uncle, for I am sure they will worry about me. Can you help me find my way?" The Munchkins and the Witch first looked at one another, and then at Dorothy, and then shook their heads. "At the East, not far from here," said one, "there is a great desert, and none could live to cross it." "It is the same at the South," said another, "for I have been there and seen it. The South is the country of the Quadlings." "I am told," said the third man, "that it is the same at the West. And that country, where the Winkies live, is ruled by the wicked Witch of the West, who would make you her slave if you passed her way." "The North is my home," said the old lady, "and at its edge is the same great desert that surrounds this land of Oz. I'm afraid, my dear, you will have to live with us." Dorothy began to sob, at this, for she felt lonely among all these strange people. Her tears seemed to grieve the kind-hearted Munchkins, for they immediately took out their handkerchiefs and began to weep also. As for the little old woman, she took off her cap and balanced the point on the end of her nose, while she counted "one, two, three" in a solemn voice. At once the cap changed to a slate, on which was written in big, white chalk marks: "LET DOROTHY GO TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS." [Illustration] The little old woman took the slate from her nose, and, having read the words on it, asked, "Is your name Dorothy, my dear?" "Yes," answered the child, looking up and drying her tears. "Then you must go to the City of Emeralds. Perhaps Oz will help you." "Where is this City?" asked Dorothy. "It is exactly in the center of the country, and is ruled by Oz, the Great Wizard I told you of." "Is he a good man?" enquired the girl, anxiously. "He is a good Wizard. Whether he is a man or not I cannot tell, for I have never seen him." "How can I get there?" asked Dorothy. "You must walk. It is a long journey, through a country that is sometimes pleasant and sometimes dark and terrible. However, I will use all the magic arts I know of to keep you from harm." "Won't you go with me?" pleaded the girl, who had begun to look upon the little old woman as her only friend. "No, I cannot do that," she replied; "but I will give you my kiss, and no one will dare injure a person who has been kissed by the Witch of the North." She came close to Dorothy and kissed her gently on the forehead. Where her lips touched the girl they left a round, shining mark, as Dorothy found out soon after. "The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick," said the Witch; "so you cannot miss it. When you get to Oz do not be afraid of him, but tell your story and ask him to help you. Good-bye, my dear." [Illustration] The three Munchkins bowed low to her and wished her a pleasant journey, after which they walked away through the trees. The Witch gave Dorothy a friendly little nod, whirled around on her left heel three times, and straightway disappeared, much to the surprise of little Toto, who barked after her loudly enough when she had gone, because he had been afraid even to growl while she stood by. But Dorothy, knowing her to be a witch, had expected her to disappear in just that way, and was not surprised in the least. Chapter III How Dorothy saved the Scarecrow. [Illustration] When Dorothy was left alone she began to feel hungry. So she went to the cupboard and cut herself some bread, which she spread with butter. She gave some to Toto, and taking a pail from the shelf she carried it down to the little brook and filled it with clear, sparkling water. Toto ran over to the trees and began to bark at the birds sitting there. Dorothy went to get him, and saw such delicious fruit hanging from the branches that she gathered some of it, finding it just what she wanted to help out her breakfast. Then she went back to the house, and having helped herself and Toto to a good drink of the cool, clear water, she set about making ready for the journey to the City of Emeralds. Dorothy had only one other dress, but that happened to be clean and was hanging on a peg beside her bed. It was gingham, with checks of white and blue; and although the blue was somewhat faded with many washings, it was still a pretty frock. The girl washed herself carefully, dressed herself in the clean gingham, and tied her pink sunbonnet on her head. She took a little basket and filled it with bread from the cupboard, laying a white cloth over the top. Then she looked down at her feet and noticed how old and worn her shoes were. "They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto," she said. And Toto looked up into her face with his little black eyes and wagged his tail to show he knew what she meant. At that moment Dorothy saw lying on the table the silver shoes that had belonged to the Witch of the East. "I wonder if they will fit me," she said to Toto. "They would be just the thing to take a long walk in, for they could not wear out." She took off her old leather shoes and tried on the silver ones, which fitted her as well as if they had been made for her. Finally she picked up her basket. "Come along, Toto," she said, "we will go to the Emerald City and ask the great Oz how to get back to Kansas again." She closed the door, locked it, and put the key carefully in the pocket of her dress. And so, with Toto trotting along soberly behind her, she started on her journey. There were several roads near by, but it did not take her long to find the one paved with yellow brick. Within a short time she was walking briskly toward the Emerald City, her silver shoes tinkling merrily on the hard, yellow roadbed. The sun shone bright and the birds sang sweet and Dorothy did not feel nearly as bad as you might think a little girl would who had been suddenly whisked away from her own country and set down in the midst of a strange land. [Illustration] She was surprised, as she walked along, to see how pretty the country was about her. There were neat fences at the sides of the road, painted a dainty blue color, and beyond them were fields of grain and vegetables in abundance. Evidently the Munchkins were good farmers and able to raise large crops. Once in a while she would pass a house, and the people came out to look at her and bow low as she went by; for everyone knew she had been the means of destroying the wicked witch and setting them free from bondage. The houses of the Munchkins were odd looking dwellings, for each was round, with a big dome for a roof. All were painted blue, for in this country of the East blue was the favorite color. Towards evening, when Dorothy was tired with her long walk and began to wonder where she should pass the night, she came to a house rather larger than the rest. On the green lawn before it many men and women were dancing. Five little fiddlers played as loudly as possible and the people were laughing and singing, while a big table near by was loaded with delicious fruits and nuts, pies and cakes, and many other good things to eat. The people greeted Dorothy kindly, and invited her to supper and to pass the night with them; for this was the home of one of the richest Munchkins in the land, and his friends were gathered with him to celebrate their freedom from the bondage of the wicked witch. Dorothy ate a hearty supper and was waited upon by the rich Munchkin himself, whose name was Boq. Then she sat down upon a settee and watched the people dance. When Boq saw her silver shoes he said, "You must be a great sorceress." "Why?" asked the girl. "Because you wear silver shoes and have killed the wicked witch. Besides, you have white in your frock, and only witches and sorceresses wear white." [Illustration: "_You must be a great sorceress._"] "My dress is blue and white checked," said Dorothy, smoothing out the wrinkles in it. "It is kind of you to wear that," said Boq. "Blue is the color of the Munchkins, and white is the witch color; so we know you are a friendly witch." Dorothy did not know what to say to this, for all the people seemed to think her a witch, and she knew very well she was only an ordinary little girl who had come by the chance of a cyclone into a strange land. When she had tired watching the dancing, Boq led her into the house, where he gave her a room with a pretty bed in it. The sheets were made of blue cloth, and Dorothy slept soundly in them till morning, with Toto curled up on the blue rug beside her. She ate a hearty breakfast, and watched a wee Munchkin baby, who played with Toto and pulled his tail and crowed and laughed in a way that greatly amused Dorothy. Toto was a fine curiosity to all the people, for they had never seen a dog before. "How far is it to the Emerald City?" the girl asked. [Illustration] "I do not know," answered Boq, gravely, "for I have never been there. It is better for people to keep away from Oz, unless they have business with him. But it is a long way to the Emerald City, and it will take you many days. The country here is rich and pleasant, but you must pass through rough and dangerous places before you reach the end of your journey." This worried Dorothy a little, but she knew that only the great Oz could help her get to Kansas again, so she bravely resolved not to turn back. She bade her friends good-bye, and again started along the road of yellow brick. When she had gone several miles she thought she would stop to rest, and so climbed to the top of the fence beside the road and sat down. There was a great cornfield beyond the fence, and not far away she saw a Scarecrow, placed high on a pole to keep the birds from the ripe corn. Dorothy leaned her chin upon her hand and gazed thoughtfully at the Scarecrow. Its head was a small sack stuffed with straw, with eyes, nose and mouth painted on it to represent a face. An old, pointed blue hat, that had belonged to some Munchkin, was perched on this head, and the rest of the figure was a blue suit of clothes, worn and faded, which had also been stuffed with straw. On the feet were some old boots with blue tops, such as every man wore in this country, and the figure was raised above the stalks of corn by means of the pole stuck up its back. [Illustration: "_Dorothy gazed thoughtfully at the Scarecrow._"] While Dorothy was looking earnestly into the queer, painted face of the Scarecrow, she was surprised to see one of the eyes slowly wink at her. She thought she must have been mistaken, at first, for none of the scarecrows in Kansas ever wink; but presently the figure nodded its head to her in a friendly way. Then she climbed down from the fence and walked up to it, while Toto ran around the pole and barked. "Good day," said the Scarecrow, in a rather husky voice. "Did you speak?" asked the girl, in wonder. "Certainly," answered the Scarecrow; "how do you do?" "I'm pretty well, thank you," replied Dorothy, politely; "how do you do?" "I'm not feeling well," said the Scarecrow, with a smile, "for it is very tedious being perched up here night and day to scare away crows." "Can't you get down?" asked Dorothy. "No, for this pole is stuck up my back. If you will please take away the pole I shall be greatly obliged to you." Dorothy reached up both arms and lifted the figure off the pole; for, being stuffed with straw, it was quite light. "Thank you very much," said the Scarecrow, when he had been set down on the ground. "I feel like a new man." Dorothy was puzzled at this, for it sounded queer to hear a stuffed man speak, and to see him bow and walk along beside her. "Who are you?" asked the Scarecrow, when he had stretched himself and yawned, "and where are you going?" "My name is Dorothy," said the girl, "and I am going to the Emerald City, to ask the great Oz to send me back to Kansas." "Where is the Emerald City?" he enquired; "and who is Oz?" "Why, don't you know?" she returned, in surprise. "No, indeed; I don't know anything. You see, I am stuffed, so I have no brains at all," he answered, sadly. [Illustration] "Oh," said Dorothy; "I'm awfully sorry for you." "Do you think," he asked, "If I go to the Emerald City with you, that the great Oz would give me some brains?" "I cannot tell," she returned; "but you may come with me, if you like. If Oz will not give you any brains you will be no worse off than you are now." "That is true," said the Scarecrow. "You see," he continued, confidentially, "I don't mind my legs and arms and body being stuffed, because I cannot get hurt. If anyone treads on my toes or sticks a pin into me, it doesn't matter, for I cant feel it. But I do not want people to call me a fool, and if my head stays stuffed with straw instead of with brains, as yours is, how am I ever to know anything?" "I understand how you feel," said the little girl, who was truly sorry for him. "If you will come with me I'll ask Oz to do all he can for you." "Thank you," he answered, gratefully. They walked back to the road, Dorothy helped him over the fence, and they started along the path of yellow brick for the Emerald City. Toto did not like this addition to the party, at first. He smelled around the stuffed man as if he suspected there might be a nest of rats in the straw, and he often growled in an unfriendly way at the Scarecrow. "Don't mind Toto," said Dorothy, to her new friend; "he never bites." "Oh, I'm not afraid," replied the Scarecrow, "he can't hurt the straw. Do let me carry that basket for you. I shall not mind it, for I can't get tired. I'll tell you a secret," he continued, as he walked along; "there is only one thing in the world I am afraid of." "What is that?" asked Dorothy; "the Munchkin farmer who made you?" "No," answered the Scarecrow; "it's a lighted match." Chapter IV. The Road through the Forest. [Illustration] After a few hours the road began to be rough, and the walking grew so difficult that the Scarecrow often stumbled over the yellow bricks, which were here very uneven. Sometimes, indeed, they were broken or missing altogether, leaving holes that Toto jumped across and Dorothy walked around. As for the Scarecrow, having no brains he walked straight ahead, and so stepped into the holes and fell at full length on the hard bricks. It never hurt him, however, and Dorothy would pick him up and set him upon his feet again, while he joined her in laughing merrily at his own mishap. [Illustration] The farms were not nearly so well cared for here as they were farther back. There were fewer houses and fewer fruit trees, and the farther they went the more dismal and lonesome the country became. At noon they sat down by the roadside, near a little brook, and Dorothy opened her basket and got out some bread. She offered a piece to the Scarecrow, but he refused. "I am never hungry," he said; "and it is a lucky thing I am not. For my mouth is only painted, and if I should cut a hole in it so I could eat, the straw I am stuffed with would come out, and that would spoil the shape of my head." Dorothy saw at once that this was true, so she only nodded and went on eating her bread. "Tell me something about yourself, and the country you came from," said the Scarecrow, when she had finished her dinner. So she told him all about Kansas, and how gray everything was there, and how the cyclone had carried her to this queer land of Oz. The Scarecrow listened carefully, and said, "I cannot understand why you should wish to leave this beautiful country and go back to the dry, gray place you call Kansas." [Illustration: "_'I was only made yesterday,' said the Scarecrow._"] "That is because you have no brains," answered the girl. "No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home." The Scarecrow sighed. "Of course I cannot understand it," he said. "If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains." "Won't you tell me a story, while we are resting?" asked the child. The Scarecrow looked at her reproachfully, and answered, "My life has been so short that I really know nothing whatever. I was only made day before yesterday. What happened in the world before that time is all unknown to me. Luckily, when the farmer made my head, one of the first things he did was to paint my ears, so that I heard what was going on. There was another Munchkin with him, and the first thing I heard was the farmer saying, "'How do you like those ears?' "'They aren't straight,' answered the other. "'Never mind,' said the farmer; 'they are ears just the same,' which was true enough. "'Now I'll make the eyes,' said the farmer. So he painted my right eye, and as soon as it was finished I found myself looking at him and at everything around me with a great deal of curiosity, for this was my first glimpse of the world. "'That's a rather pretty eye,' remarked the Munchkin who was watching the farmer; 'blue paint is just the color for eyes.' "'I think I'll make the other a little bigger,' said the farmer; and when the second eye was done I could see much better than before. Then he made my nose and my mouth; but I did not speak, because at that time I didn't know what a mouth was for. I had the fun of watching them make my body and my arms and legs; and when they fastened on my head, at last, I felt very proud, for I thought I was just as good a man as anyone. "'This fellow will scare the crows fast enough,' said the farmer; 'he looks just like a man.' "'Why, he is a man,' said the other, and I quite agreed with him. The farmer carried me under his arm to the cornfield, and set me up on a tall stick, where you found me. He and his friend soon after walked away and left me alone. "I did not like to be deserted this way; so I tried to walk after them, but my feet would not touch the ground, and I was forced to stay on that pole. It was a lonely life to lead, for I had nothing to think of, having been made such a little while before. Many crows and other birds flew into the cornfield, but as soon as they saw me they flew away again, thinking I was a Munchkin; and this pleased me and made me feel that I was quite an important person. By and by an old crow flew near me, and after looking at me carefully he perched upon my shoulder and said, [Illustration] "'I wonder if that farmer thought to fool me in this clumsy manner. Any crow of sense could see that you are only stuffed with straw.' Then he hopped down at my feet and ate all the corn he wanted. The other birds, seeing he was not harmed by me, came to eat the corn too, so in a short time there was a great flock of them about me." "I felt sad at this, for it showed I was not such a good Scarecrow after all; but the old crow comforted me, saying: 'If you only had brains in your head you would be as good a man as any of them, and a better man than some of them. Brains are the only things worth having in this world, no matter whether one is a crow or a man.' "After the crows had gone I thought this over, and decided I would try hard to get some brains. By good luck, you came along and pulled me off the stake, and from what you say I am sure the great Oz will give me brains as soon as we get to the Emerald City." "I hope so," said Dorothy, earnestly, "since you seem anxious to have them." "Oh yes; I am anxious," returned the Scarecrow. "It is such an uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool." [Illustration] "Well," said the girl, "let us go." And she handed the basket to the Scarecrow. There were no fences at all by the road side now, and the land was rough and untilled. Towards evening they came to a great forest, where the trees grew so big and close together that their branches met over the road of yellow brick. It was almost dark under the trees, for the branches shut out the daylight; but the travellers did not stop, and went on into the forest. "If this road goes in, it must come out," said the Scarecrow, "and as the Emerald City is at the other end of the road, we must go wherever it leads us." "Anyone would know that," said Dorothy. "Certainly; that is why I know it," returned the Scarecrow. "If it required brains to figure it out, I never should have said it." After an hour or so the light faded away, and they found themselves stumbling along in the darkness. Dorothy could not see at all, but Toto could, for some dogs see very well in the dark; and the Scarecrow declared he could see as well as by day. So she took hold of his arm, and managed to get along fairly well. "If you see any house, or any place where we can pass the night," she said, "you must tell me; for it is very uncomfortable walking in the dark." Soon after the Scarecrow stopped. "I see a little cottage at the right of us," he said, "built of logs and branches. Shall we go there?" "Yes, indeed;" answered the child. "I am all tired out." So the Scarecrow led her through the trees until they reached the cottage, and Dorothy entered and found a bed of dried leaves in one corner. She lay down at once, and with Toto beside her soon fell into a sound sleep. The Scarecrow, who was never tired, stood up in another corner and waited patiently until morning came. [Illustration] Chapter V. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman [Illustration] [Illustration] When Dorothy awoke the sun was shining through the trees and Toto had long been out chasing birds and squirrels. She sat up and looked around her. There was the Scarecrow, still standing patiently in his corner, waiting for her. "We must go and search for water," she said to him. "Why do you want water?" he asked. "To wash my face clean after the dust of the road, and to drink, so the dry bread will not stick in my throat." "It must be inconvenient to be made of flesh," said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully; "for you must sleep, and eat and drink. However, you have brains, and it is worth a lot of bother to be able to think properly." They left the cottage and walked through the trees until they found a little spring of clear water, where Dorothy drank and bathed and ate her breakfast. She saw there was not much bread left in the basket, and the girl was thankful the Scarecrow did not have to eat anything, for there was scarcely enough for herself and Toto for the day. When she had finished her meal, and was about to go back to the road of yellow brick, she was startled to hear a deep groan near by. "What was that?" she asked, timidly. "I cannot imagine," replied the Scarecrow; "but we can go and see." Just then another groan reached their ears, and the sound seemed to come from behind them. They turned and walked through the forest a few steps, when Dorothy discovered something shining in a ray of sunshine that fell between the trees. She ran to the place, and then stopped short, with a cry of surprise. One of the big trees had been partly chopped through, and standing beside it, with an uplifted axe in his hands, was a man made entirely of tin. His head and arms and legs were jointed upon his body, but he stood perfectly motionless, as if he could not stir at all. Dorothy looked at him in amazement, and so did the Scarecrow, while Toto barked sharply and made a snap at the tin legs, which hurt his teeth. "Did you groan?" asked Dorothy. "Yes," answered the tin man; "I did. I've been groaning for more than a year, and no one has ever heard me before or come to help me." "What can I do for you?" she enquired, softly, for she was moved by the sad voice in which the man spoke. [Illustration] "Get an oil-can and oil my joints," he answered. "They are rusted so badly that I cannot move them at all; if I am well oiled I shall soon be all right again. You will find an oil-can on a shelf in my cottage." Dorothy at once ran back to the cottage and found the oil-can, and then she returned and asked, anxiously, "Where are your joints?" "Oil my neck, first," replied the Tin Woodman. So she oiled it, and as it was quite badly rusted the Scarecrow took hold of the tin head and moved it gently from side to side until it worked freely, and then the man could turn it himself. "Now oil the joints in my arms," he said. And Dorothy oiled them and the Scarecrow bent them carefully until they were quite free from rust and as good as new. The Tin Woodman gave a sigh of satisfaction and lowered his axe, which he leaned against the tree. "This is a great comfort," he said. "I have been holding that axe in the air ever since I rusted, and I'm glad to be able to put it down at last. Now, if you will oil the joints of my legs, I shall be all right once more." So they oiled his legs until he could move them freely; and he thanked them again and again for his release, for he seemed a very polite creature, and very grateful. "I might have stood there always if you had not come along," he said; "so you have certainly saved my life. How did you happen to be here?" "We are on our way to the Emerald City, to see the great Oz," she answered, "and we stopped at your cottage to pass the night." "Why do you wish to see Oz?" he asked. "I want him to send me back to Kansas; and the Scarecrow wants him to put a few brains into his head," she replied. The Tin Woodman appeared to think deeply for a moment. Then he said: "Do you suppose Oz could give me a heart?" "Why, I guess so," Dorothy answered; "it would be as easy as to give the Scarecrow brains." [Illustration: "_'This is a great comfort,' said the Tin Woodman._"] "True," the Tin Woodman returned. "So, if you will allow me to join your party, I will also go to the Emerald City and ask Oz to help me." "Come along," said the Scarecrow, heartily; and Dorothy added that she would be pleased to have his company. So the Tin Woodman shouldered his axe and they all passed through the forest until they came to the road that was paved with yellow brick. The Tin Woodman had asked Dorothy to put the oil-can in her basket. "For," he said, "if I should get caught in the rain, and rust again, I would need the oil-can badly." It was a bit of good luck to have their new comrade join the party, for soon after they had begun their journey again they came to a place where the trees and branches grew so thick over the road that the travellers could not pass. But the Tin Woodman set to work with his axe and chopped so well that soon he cleared a passage for the entire party. Dorothy was thinking so earnestly as they walked along that she did not notice when the Scarecrow stumbled into a hole and rolled over to the side of the road. Indeed, he was obliged to call to her to help him up again. "Why didn't you walk around the hole?" asked the Tin Woodman. "I don't know enough," replied the Scarecrow, cheerfully. "My head is stuffed with straw, you know, and that is why I am going to Oz to ask him for some brains." "Oh, I see;" said the Tin Woodman. "But, after all, brains are not the best things in the world." "Have you any?" enquired the Scarecrow. "No, my head is quite empty," answered the Woodman; "but once I had brains, and a heart also; so, having tried them both, I should much rather have a heart." "And why is that?" asked the Scarecrow. "I will tell you my story, and then you will know." So, while they were walking through the forest, the Tin Woodman told the following story: "I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up I too became a wood-chopper, and after my father died I took care of my old mother as long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone I would marry, so that I might not become lonely. [Illustration] "There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for her; so I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the housework. So the old woman went to the wicked Witch of the East, and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. Thereupon the wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg. "This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tin-smith and had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I was used to it; but my action angered the wicked Witch of the East, for she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin girl. When I began chopping again my axe slipped and cut off my right leg. Again I went to the tinner, and again he made me a leg out of tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I thought that was the end of me. But the tinner happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin. "I thought I had beaten the wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves. Once more the tinner came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl, and did not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her. [Illustration] "My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There was only one danger--that my joints would rust; but I kept an oil-can in my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However, there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a rainstorm, before I thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and I was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her." Both Dorothy and the Scarecrow had been greatly interested in the story of the Tin Woodman, and now they knew why he was so anxious to get a new heart. "All the same," said the Scarecrow, "I shall ask for brains instead of a heart; for a fool would not know what to do with a heart if he had one." "I shall take the heart," returned the Tin Woodman; "for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world." Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her two friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to Kansas and Aunt Em it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had no brains and the Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted. [Illustration] What worried her most was that the bread was nearly gone, and another meal for herself and Toto would empty the basket. To be sure neither the Woodman nor the Scarecrow ever ate anything, but she was not made of tin nor straw, and could not live unless she was fed. Chapter VI. The Cowardly Lion. [Illustration] [Illustration: "_You ought to be ashamed of yourself!_"] [Illustration] All this time Dorothy and her companions had been walking through the thick woods. The road was still paved with yellow brick, but these were much covered by dried branches and dead leaves from the trees, and the walking was not at all good. There were few birds in this part of the forest, for birds love the open country where there is plenty of sunshine; but now and then there came a deep growl from some wild animal hidden among the trees. These sounds made the little girl's heart beat fast, for she did not know what made them; but Toto knew, and he walked close to Dorothy's side, and did not even bark in return. "How long will it be," the child asked of the Tin Woodman, "before we are out of the forest?" "I cannot tell," was the answer, "for I have never been to the Emerald City. But my father went there once, when I was a boy, and he said it was a long journey through a dangerous country, although nearer to the city where Oz dwells the country is beautiful. But I am not afraid so long as I have my oil-can, and nothing can hurt the Scarecrow, while you bear upon your forehead the mark of the good Witch's kiss, and that will protect you from harm." "But Toto!" said the girl, anxiously; "what will protect him?" "We must protect him ourselves, if he is in danger," replied the Tin Woodman. Just as he spoke there came from the forest a terrible roar, and the next moment a great Lion bounded into the road. With one blow of his paw he sent the Scarecrow spinning over and over to the edge of the road, and then he struck at the Tin Woodman with his sharp claws. But, to the Lion's surprise, he could make no impression on the tin, although the Woodman fell over in the road and lay still. Little Toto, now that he had an enemy to face, ran barking toward the Lion, and the great beast had opened his mouth to bite the dog, when Dorothy, fearing Toto would be killed, and heedless of danger, rushed forward and slapped the Lion upon his nose as hard as she could, while she cried out: "Don't you dare to bite Toto! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, a big beast like you, to bite a poor little dog!" "I didn't bite him," said the Lion, as he rubbed his nose with his paw where Dorothy had hit it. "No, but you tried to," she retorted. "You are nothing but a big coward." "I know it," said the Lion, hanging his head in shame; "I've always known it. But how can I help it?" "I don't know, I'm sure. To think of your striking a stuffed man, like the poor Scarecrow!" "Is he stuffed?" asked the Lion, in surprise, as he watched her pick up the Scarecrow and set him upon his feet, while she patted him into shape again. "Of course he's stuffed," replied Dorothy, who was still angry. "That's why he went over so easily," remarked the Lion. "It astonished me to see him whirl around so. Is the other one stuffed, also?" "No," said Dorothy, "he's made of tin." And she helped the Woodman up again. "That's why he nearly blunted my claws," said the Lion. "When they scratched against the tin it made a cold shiver run down my back. What is that little animal you are so tender of?" "He is my dog, Toto," answered Dorothy. "Is he made of tin, or stuffed?" asked the Lion. "Neither. He's a--a--a meat dog," said the girl. "Oh. He's a curious animal, and seems remarkably small, now that I look at him. No one would think of biting such a little thing except a coward like me," continued the Lion, sadly. "What makes you a coward?" asked Dorothy, looking at the great beast in wonder, for he was as big as a small horse. [Illustration] "It's a mystery," replied the Lion. "I suppose I was born that way. All the other animals in the forest naturally expect me to be brave, for the Lion is everywhere thought to be the King of Beasts. I learned that if I roared very loudly every living thing was frightened and got out of my way. Whenever I've met a man I've been awfully scared; but I just roared at him, and he has always run away as fast as he could go. If the elephants and the tigers and the bears had ever tried to fight me, I should have run myself--I'm such a coward; but just as soon as they hear me roar they all try to get away from me, and of course I let them go." "But that isn't right. The King of Beasts shouldn't be a coward," said the Scarecrow. "I know it," returned the Lion, wiping a tear from his eye with the tip of his tail; "it is my great sorrow, and makes my life very unhappy. But whenever there is danger my heart begins to beat fast." "Perhaps you have heart disease," said the Tin Woodman. "It may be," said the Lion. "If you have," continued the Tin Woodman, "you ought to be glad, for it proves you have a heart. For my part, I have no heart; so I cannot have heart disease." "Perhaps," said the Lion, thoughtfully, "if I had no heart I should not be a coward." "Have you brains?" asked the Scarecrow. "I suppose so. I've never looked to see," replied the Lion. "I am going to the great Oz to ask him to give me some," remarked the Scarecrow, "for my head is stuffed with straw." "And I am going to ask him to give me a heart," said the Woodman. "And I am going to ask him to send Toto and me back to Kansas," added Dorothy. "Do you think Oz could give me courage?" asked the cowardly Lion. "Just as easily as he could give me brains," said the Scarecrow. "Or give me a heart," said the Tin Woodman. "Or send me back to Kansas," said Dorothy. "Then, if you don't mind, I'll go with you," said the Lion, "for my life is simply unbearable without a bit of courage." "You will be very welcome," answered Dorothy, "for you will help to keep away the other wild beasts. It seems to me they must be more cowardly than you are if they allow you to scare them so easily." "They really are," said the Lion; "but that doesn't make me any braver, and as long as I know myself to be a coward I shall be unhappy." So once more the little company set off upon the journey, the Lion walking with stately strides at Dorothy's side. Toto did not approve this new comrade at first, for he could not forget how nearly he had been crushed between the Lion's great jaws; but after a time he became more at ease, and presently Toto and the Cowardly Lion had grown to be good friends. During the rest of that day there was no other adventure to mar the peace of their journey. Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing. This made the Tin Woodman very unhappy, for he was always careful not to hurt any living creature; and as he walked along he wept several tears of sorrow and regret. These tears ran slowly down his face and over the hinges of his jaw, and there they rusted. When Dorothy presently asked him a question the Tin Woodman could not open his mouth, for his jaws were tightly rusted together. He became greatly frightened at this and made many motions to Dorothy to relieve him, but she could not understand. The Lion was also puzzled to know what was wrong. But the Scarecrow seized the oil-can from Dorothy's basket and oiled the Woodman's jaws, so that after a few moments he could talk as well as before. [Illustration] "This will serve me a lesson," said he, "to look where I step. For if I should kill another bug or beetle I should surely cry again, and crying rusts my jaw so that I cannot speak." Thereafter he walked very carefully, with his eyes on the road, and when he saw a tiny ant toiling by he would step over it, so as not to harm it. The Tin Woodman knew very well he had no heart, and therefore he took great care never to be cruel or unkind to anything. "You people with hearts," he said, "have something to guide you, and need never do wrong; but I have no heart, and so I must be very careful. When Oz gives me a heart of course I needn't mind so much." Chapter VII. The Journey to The Great Oz. [Illustration] [Illustration] They were obliged to camp out that night under a large tree in the forest, for there were no houses near. The tree made a good, thick covering to protect them from the dew, and the Tin Woodman chopped a great pile of wood with his axe and Dorothy built a splendid fire that warmed her and made her feel less lonely. She and Toto ate the last of their bread, and now she did not know what they would do for breakfast. "If you wish," said the Lion, "I will go into the forest and kill a deer for you. You can roast it by the fire, since your tastes are so peculiar that you prefer cooked food, and then you will have a very good breakfast." "Don't! please don't," begged the Tin Woodman. "I should certainly weep if you killed a poor deer, and then my jaws would rust again." [Illustration] But the Lion went away into the forest and found his own supper, and no one ever knew what it was, for he didn't mention it. And the Scarecrow found a tree full of nuts and filled Dorothy's basket with them, so that she would not be hungry for a long time. She thought this was very kind and thoughtful of the Scarecrow, but she laughed heartily at the awkward way in which the poor creature picked up the nuts. His padded hands were so clumsy and the nuts were so small that he dropped almost as many as he put in the basket. But the Scarecrow did not mind how long it took him to fill the basket, for it enabled him to keep away from the fire, as he feared a spark might get into his straw and burn him up. So he kept a good distance away from the flames, and only came near to cover Dorothy with dry leaves when she lay down to sleep. These kept her very snug and warm and she slept soundly until morning. When it was daylight the girl bathed her face in a little rippling brook and soon after they all started toward the Emerald City. This was to be an eventful day for the travellers. They had hardly been walking an hour when they saw before them a great ditch that crossed the road and divided the forest as far as they could see on either side. It was a very wide ditch, and when they crept up to the edge and looked into it they could see it was also very deep, and there were many big, jagged rocks at the bottom. The sides were so steep that none of them could climb down, and for a moment it seemed that their journey must end. "What shall we do?" asked Dorothy, despairingly. "I haven't the faintest idea," said the Tin Woodman; and the Lion shook his shaggy mane and looked thoughtful. But the Scarecrow said: "We cannot fly, that is certain; neither can we climb down into this great ditch. Therefore, if we cannot jump over it, we must stop where we are." "I think I could jump over it," said the Cowardly Lion, after measuring the distance carefully in his mind. "Then we are all right," answered the Scarecrow, "for you can carry us all over on your back, one at a time." "Well, I'll try it," said the Lion. "Who will go first?" "I will," declared the Scarecrow; "for, if you found that you could not jump over the gulf, Dorothy would be killed, or the Tin Woodman badly dented on the rocks below. But if I am on your back it will not matter so much, for the fall would not hurt me at all." [Illustration] "I am terribly afraid of falling, myself," said the Cowardly Lion, "but I suppose there is nothing to do but try it. So get on my back and we will make the attempt." The Scarecrow sat upon the Lion's back, and the big beast walked to the edge of the gulf and crouched down. "Why don't you run and jump?" asked the Scarecrow. "Because that isn't the way we Lions do these things," he replied. Then giving a great spring, he shot through the air and landed safely on the other side. They were all greatly pleased to see how easily he did it, and after the Scarecrow had got down from his back the Lion sprang across the ditch again. Dorothy thought she would go next; so she took Toto in her arms and climbed on the Lion's back, holding tightly to his mane with one hand. The next moment it seemed as if she was flying through the air; and then, before she had time to think about it, she was safe on the other side. The Lion went back a third time and got the Tin Woodman, and then they all sat down for a few moments to give the beast a chance to rest, for his great leaps had made his breath short, and he panted like a big dog that has been running too long. [Illustration] They found the forest very thick on this side, and it looked dark and gloomy. After the Lion had rested they started along the road of yellow brick, silently wondering, each in his own mind, if ever they would come to the end of the woods and reach the bright sunshine again. To add to their discomfort, they soon heard strange noises in the depths of the forest, and the Lion whispered to them that it was in this part of the country that the Kalidahs lived. "What are the Kalidahs?" asked the girl. "They are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers," replied the Lion; "and with claws so long and sharp that they could tear me in two as easily as I could kill Toto. I'm terribly afraid of the Kalidahs." "I'm not surprised that you are," returned Dorothy "They must be dreadful beasts." The Lion was about to reply when suddenly they came to another gulf across the road; but this one was so broad and deep that the Lion knew at once he could not leap across it. So they sat down to consider what they should do, and after serious thought the Scarecrow said, "Here is a great tree, standing close to the ditch. If the Tin Woodman can chop it down, so that it will fall to the other side, we can walk across it easily." "That is a first rate idea," said the Lion. "One would almost suspect you had brains in your head, instead of straw." The Woodman set to work at once, and so sharp was his axe that the tree was soon chopped nearly through. Then the Lion put his strong front legs against the tree and pushed with all his might, and slowly the big tree tipped and fell with a crash across the ditch, with its top branches on the other side. They had just started to cross this queer bridge when a sharp growl made them all look up, and to their horror they saw running toward them two great beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers. "They are the Kalidahs!" said the Cowardly Lion, beginning to tremble. "Quick!" cried the Scarecrow, "let us cross over." [Illustration: "_The tree fell with a crash into the gulf._"] So Dorothy went first, holding Toto in her arms; the Tin Woodman followed, and the Scarecrow came next. The Lion, although he was certainly afraid, turned to face the Kalidahs, and then he gave so loud and terrible a roar that Dorothy screamed and the Scarecrow fell over backwards, while even the fierce beasts stopped short and looked at him in surprise. But, seeing they were bigger than the Lion, and remembering that there were two of them and only one of him, the Kalidahs again rushed forward, and the Lion crossed over the tree and turned to see what they would do next. Without stopping an instant the fierce beasts also began to cross the tree, and the Lion said to Dorothy, "We are lost, for they will surely tear us to pieces with their sharp claws. But stand close behind me, and I will fight them as long as I am alive." "Wait a minute!" called the Scarecrow. He had been thinking what was best to be done, and now he asked the Woodman to chop away the end of the tree that rested on their side of the ditch. The Tin Woodman began to use his axe at once, and, just as the two Kalidahs were nearly across, the tree fell with a crash into the gulf, carrying the ugly, snarling brutes with it, and both were dashed to pieces on the sharp rocks at the bottom. "Well," said the Cowardly Lion, drawing a long breath of relief, "I see we are going to live a little while longer, and I am glad of it, for it must be a very uncomfortable thing not to be alive. Those creatures frightened me so badly that my heart is beating yet." "Ah." said the Tin Woodman, sadly, "I wish I had a heart to beat." [Illustration] This adventure made the travellers more anxious than ever to get out of the forest, and they walked so fast that Dorothy became tired, and had to ride on the Lion's back. To their great joy the trees became thinner the further they advanced, and in the afternoon they suddenly came upon a broad river, flowing swiftly just before them. On the other side of the water they could see the road of yellow brick running through a beautiful country, with green meadows dotted with bright flowers and all the road bordered with trees hanging full of delicious fruits. They were greatly pleased to see this delightful country before them. "How shall we cross the river?" asked Dorothy. "That is easily done," replied the Scarecrow. "The Tin Woodman must build us a raft, so we can float to the other side." So the Woodman took his axe and began to chop down small trees to make a raft, and while he was busy at this the Scarecrow found on the river bank a tree full of fine fruit. This pleased Dorothy, who had eaten nothing but nuts all day, and she made a hearty meal of the ripe fruit. But it takes time to make a raft, even when one is as industrious and untiring as the Tin Woodman, and when night came the work was not done. So they found a cozy place under the trees where they slept well until the morning; and Dorothy dreamed of the Emerald City, and of the good Wizard Oz, who would soon send her back to her own home again. [Illustration] Chapter VIII. The Deadly Poppy Field. [Illustration] [Illustration] Our little party of travellers awakened next morning refreshed and full of hope, and Dorothy breakfasted like a princess off peaches and plums from the trees beside the river. Behind them was the dark forest they had passed safely through, although they had suffered many discouragements; but before them was a lovely, sunny country that seemed to beckon them on to the Emerald City. To be sure, the broad river now cut them off from this beautiful land; but the raft was nearly done, and after the Tin Woodman had cut a few more logs and fastened them together with wooden pins, they were ready to start. Dorothy sat down in the middle of the raft and held Toto in her arms. When the Cowardly Lion stepped upon the raft it tipped badly, for he was big and heavy; but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman stood upon the other end to steady it, and they had long poles in their hands to push the raft through the water. They got along quite well at first, but when they reached the middle of the river the swift current swept the raft down stream, farther and farther away from the road of yellow brick; and the water grew so deep that the long poles would not touch the bottom. "This is bad," said the Tin Woodman, "for if we cannot get to the land we shall be carried into the country of the wicked Witch of the West, and she will enchant us and make us her slaves." "And then I should get no brains," said the Scarecrow. "And I should get no courage," said the Cowardly Lion. [Illustration] "And I should get no heart," said the Tin Woodman. "And I should never get back to Kansas," said Dorothy. "We must certainly get to the Emerald City if we can," the Scarecrow continued, and he pushed so hard on his long pole that it stuck fast in the mud at the bottom of the river, and before he could pull it out again, or let go, the raft was swept away and the poor Scarecrow left clinging to the pole in the middle of the river. "Good bye!" he called after them, and they were very sorry to leave him; indeed, the Tin Woodman began to cry, but fortunately remembered that he might rust, and so dried his tears on Dorothy's apron. Of course this was a bad thing for the Scarecrow. "I am now worse off than when I first met Dorothy," he thought. "Then, I was stuck on a pole in a cornfield, where I could make believe scare the crows, at any rate; but surely there is no use for a Scarecrow stuck on a pole in the middle of a river. I am afraid I shall never have any brains, after all!" [Illustration] Down the stream the raft floated, and the poor Scarecrow was left far behind. Then the Lion said: "Something must be done to save us. I think I can swim to the shore and pull the raft after me, if you will only hold fast to the tip of my tail." [Illustration] So he sprang into the water and the Tin Woodman caught fast hold of his tail, when the Lion began to swim with all his might toward the shore. It was hard work, although he was so big; but by and by they were drawn out of the current, and then Dorothy took the Tin Woodman's long pole and helped push the raft to the land. They were all tired out when they reached the shore at last and stepped off upon the pretty green grass, and they also knew that the stream had carried them a long way past the road of yellow brick that led to the Emerald City. "What shall we do now?" asked the Tin Woodman, as the Lion lay down on the grass to let the sun dry him. "We must get back to the road, in some way," said Dorothy. "The best plan will be to walk along the river bank until we come to the road again," remarked the Lion. So, when they were rested, Dorothy picked up her basket and they started along the grassy bank, back to the road from which the river had carried them. It was a lovely country, with plenty of flowers and fruit trees and sunshine to cheer them, and had they not felt so sorry for the poor Scarecrow they could have been very happy. They walked along as fast as they could, Dorothy only stopping once to pick a beautiful flower; and after a time the Tin Woodman cried out, "Look!" Then they all looked at the river and saw the Scarecrow perched upon his pole in the middle of the water, looking very lonely and sad. "What can we do to save him?" asked Dorothy. The Lion and the Woodman both shook their heads, for they did not know. So they sat down upon the bank and gazed wistfully at the Scarecrow until a Stork flew by, which, seeing them, stopped to rest at the water's edge. "Who are you, and where are you going?" asked the Stork. "I am Dorothy," answered the girl; "and these are my friends, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion; and we are going to the Emerald City." "This isn't the road," said the Stork, as she twisted her long neck and looked sharply at the queer party. "I know it," returned Dorothy, "but we have lost the Scarecrow, and are wondering how we shall get him again." "Where is he?" asked the Stork. "Over there in the river," answered the girl. "If he wasn't so big and heavy I would get him for you," remarked the Stork. "He isn't heavy a bit," said Dorothy, eagerly, "for he is stuffed with straw; and if you will bring him back to us we shall thank you ever and ever so much." "Well, I'll try," said the Stork; "but if I find he is too heavy to carry I shall have to drop him in the river again." So the big bird flew into the air and over the water till she came to where the Scarecrow was perched upon his pole. Then the Stork with her great claws grabbed the Scarecrow by the arm and carried him up into the air and back to the bank, where Dorothy and the Lion and the Tin Woodman and Toto were sitting. When the Scarecrow found himself among his friends again he was so happy that he hugged them all, even the Lion and Toto; and as they walked along he sang "Tol-de-ri-de-oh!" at every step, he felt so gay. "I was afraid I should have to stay in the river forever," he said, "but the kind Stork saved me, and if I ever get any brains I shall find the Stork again and do it some kindness in return." "That's all right," said the Stork, who was flying along beside them. "I always like to help anyone in trouble. But I must go now, for my babies are waiting in the nest for me. I hope you will find the Emerald City and that Oz will help you." "Thank you," replied Dorothy, and then the kind Stork flew into the air and was soon out of sight. [Illustration: "_The Stork carried him up into the air._"] They walked along listening to the singing of the bright-colored birds and looking at the lovely flowers which now became so thick that the ground was carpeted with them. There were big yellow and white and blue and purple blossoms, besides great clusters of scarlet poppies, which were so brilliant in color they almost dazzled Dorothy's eyes. "Aren't they beautiful?" the girl asked, as she breathed in the spicy scent of the flowers. "I suppose so," answered the Scarecrow. "When I have brains I shall probably like them better." "If I only had a heart I should love them," added the Tin Woodman. "I always did like flowers," said the Lion; "they seem so helpless and frail. But there are none in the forest so bright as these." They now came upon more and more of the big scarlet poppies, and fewer and fewer of the other flowers; and soon they found themselves in the midst of a great meadow of poppies. Now it is well known that when there are many of these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of the flowers he sleeps on and on forever. But Dorothy did not know this, nor could she get away from the bright red flowers that were everywhere about; so presently her eyes grew heavy and she felt she must sit down to rest and to sleep. But the Tin Woodman would not let her do this. "We must hurry and get back to the road of yellow brick before dark," he said; and the Scarecrow agreed with him. So they kept walking until Dorothy could stand no longer. Her eyes closed in spite of herself and she forgot where she was and fell among the poppies, fast asleep. "What shall we do?" asked the Tin Woodman. "If we leave her here she will die," said the Lion. "The smell of the flowers is killing us all. I myself can scarcely keep my eyes open and the dog is asleep already." It was true; Toto had fallen down beside his little mistress. But the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, not being made of flesh, were not troubled by the scent of the flowers. [Illustration] "Run fast," said the Scarecrow to the Lion, "and get out of this deadly flower-bed as soon as you can. We will bring the little girl with us, but if you should fall asleep you are too big to be carried." So the Lion aroused himself and bounded forward as fast as he could go. In a moment he was out of sight. "Let us make a chair with our hands, and carry her," said the Scarecrow. So they picked up Toto and put the dog in Dorothy's lap, and then they made a chair with their hands for the seat and their arms for the arms and carried the sleeping girl between them through the flowers. On and on they walked, and it seemed that the great carpet of deadly flowers that surrounded them would never end. They followed the bend of the river, and at last came upon their friend the Lion, lying fast asleep among the poppies. The flowers had been too strong for the huge beast and he had given up, at last, and fallen only a short distance from the end of the poppy-bed, where the sweet grass spread in beautiful green fields before them. "We can do nothing for him," said the Tin Woodman, sadly; "for he is much too heavy to lift. We must leave him here to sleep on forever, and perhaps he will dream that he has found courage at last." "I'm sorry," said the Scarecrow; "the Lion was a very good comrade for one so cowardly. But let us go on." They carried the sleeping girl to a pretty spot beside the river, far enough from the poppy field to prevent her breathing any more of the poison of the flowers, and here they laid her gently on the soft grass and waited for the fresh breeze to waken her. [Illustration] Chapter IX. The Queen of the Field Mice. [Illustration] [Illustration] "We cannot be far from the road of yellow brick, now," remarked the Scarecrow, as he stood beside the girl, "for we have come nearly as far as the river carried us away." The Tin Woodman was about to reply when he heard a low growl, and turning his head (which worked beautifully on hinges) he saw a strange beast come bounding over the grass towards them. It was, indeed, a great, yellow wildcat, and the Woodman thought it must be chasing something, for its ears were lying close to its head and its mouth was wide open, showing two rows of ugly teeth, while its red eyes glowed like balls of fire. As it came nearer the Tin Woodman saw that running before the beast was a little gray field-mouse, and although he had no heart he knew it was wrong for the wildcat to try to kill such a pretty, harmless creature. So the Woodman raised his axe, and as the wildcat ran by he gave it a quick blow that cut the beast's head clean off from its body, and it rolled over at his feet in two pieces. The field-mouse, now that it was freed from its enemy, stopped short; and coming slowly up to the Woodman it said, in a squeaky little voice, "Oh, thank you! Thank you ever so much for saving my life." "Don't speak of it, I beg of you," replied the Woodman. "I have no heart, you know, so I am careful to help all those who may need a friend, even if it happens to be only a mouse." "Only a mouse!" cried the little animal, indignantly; "why, I am a Queen--the Queen of all the field-mice!" "Oh, indeed," said the Woodman, making a bow. "Therefore you have done a great deed, as well as a brave one, in saving my life," added the Queen. At that moment several mice were seen running up as fast as their little legs could carry them, and when they saw their Queen they exclaimed, [Illustration: "_Permit me to introduce to you her Majesty, the Queen._"] "Oh, your Majesty, we thought you would be killed! How did you manage to escape the great Wildcat?" and they all bowed so low to the little Queen that they almost stood upon their heads. "This funny tin man," she answered, "killed the Wildcat and saved my life. So hereafter you must all serve him, and obey his slightest wish." "We will!" cried all the mice, in a shrill chorus. And then they scampered in all directions, for Toto had awakened from his sleep, and seeing all these mice around him he gave one bark of delight and jumped right into the middle of the group. Toto had always loved to chase mice when he lived in Kansas, and he saw no harm in it. But the Tin Woodman caught the dog in his arms and held him tight, while he called to the mice: "Come back! come back! Toto shall not hurt you." At this the Queen of the Mice stuck her head out from a clump of grass and asked, in a timid voice, "Are you sure he will not bite us?" "I will not let him," said the Woodman; "so do not be afraid." [Illustration] One by one the mice came creeping back, and Toto did not bark again, although he tried to get out of the Woodman's arms, and would have bitten him had he not known very well he was made of tin. Finally one of the biggest mice spoke. "Is there anything we can do," it asked, "to repay you for saving the life of our Queen?" "Nothing that I know of," answered the Woodman; but the Scarecrow, who had been trying to think, but could not because his head was stuffed with straw, said, quickly, "Oh, yes; you can save our friend, the Cowardly Lion, who is asleep in the poppy bed." "A Lion!" cried the little Queen; "why, he would eat us all up." "Oh, no;" declared the Scarecrow; "this Lion is a coward." "Really?" asked the Mouse. "He says so himself," answered the Scarecrow, "and he would never hurt anyone who is our friend. If you will help us to save him I promise that he shall treat you all with kindness." "Very well," said the Queen, "we will trust you. But what shall we do?" "Are there many of these mice which call you Queen and are willing to obey you?" "Oh, yes; there are thousands," she replied. "Then send for them all to come here as soon as possible, and let each one bring a long piece of string." The Queen turned to the mice that attended her and told them to go at once and get all her people. As soon as they heard her orders they ran away in every direction as fast as possible. "Now," said the Scarecrow to the Tin Woodman, "you must go to those trees by the river-side and make a truck that will carry the Lion." So the Woodman went at once to the trees and began to work; and he soon made a truck out of the limbs of trees, from which he chopped away all the leaves and branches. He fastened it together with wooden pegs and made the four wheels out of short pieces of a big tree-trunk. So fast and so well did he work that by the time the mice began to arrive the truck was all ready for them. They came from all directions, and there were thousands of them: big mice and little mice and middle-sized mice; and each one brought a piece of string in his mouth. It was about this time that Dorothy woke from her long sleep and opened her eyes. She was greatly astonished to find herself lying upon the grass, with thousands of mice standing around and looking at her timidly. But the Scarecrow told her about everything, and turning to the dignified little Mouse, he said, "Permit me to introduce to you her Majesty, the Queen." Dorothy nodded gravely and the Queen made a courtesy, after which she became quite friendly with the little girl. The Scarecrow and the Woodman now began to fasten the mice to the truck, using the strings they had brought. One end of a string was tied around the neck of each mouse and the other end to the truck. Of course the truck was a thousand times bigger than any of the mice who were to draw it; but when all the mice had been harnessed they were able to pull it quite easily. Even the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman could sit on it, and were drawn swiftly by their queer little horses to the place where the Lion lay asleep. [Illustration] After a great deal of hard work, for the Lion was heavy, they managed to get him up on the truck. Then the Queen hurriedly gave her people the order to start, for she feared if the mice stayed among the poppies too long they also would fall asleep. [Illustration] At first the little creatures, many though they were, could hardly stir the heavily loaded truck; but the Woodman and the Scarecrow both pushed from behind, and they got along better. Soon they rolled the Lion out of the poppy bed to the green fields, where he could breathe the sweet, fresh air again, instead of the poisonous scent of the flowers. Dorothy came to meet them and thanked the little mice warmly for saving her companion from death. She had grown so fond of the big Lion she was glad he had been rescued. Then the mice were unharnessed from the truck and scampered away through the grass to their homes. The Queen of the Mice was the last to leave. "If ever you need us again," she said, "come out into the field and call, and we shall hear you and come to your assistance. Good bye!" "Good bye!" they all answered, and away the Queen ran, while Dorothy held Toto tightly lest he should run after her and frighten her. After this they sat down beside the Lion until he should awaken; and the Scarecrow brought Dorothy some fruit from a tree near by, which she ate for her dinner. [Illustration] Chapter X. The Guardian of the Gate. [Illustration] [Illustration] It was some time before the Cowardly Lion awakened, for he had lain among the poppies a long while, breathing in their deadly fragrance; but when he did open his eyes and roll off the truck he was very glad to find himself still alive. "I ran as fast as I could," he said, sitting down and yawning; "but the flowers were too strong for me. How did you get me out?" Then they told him of the field-mice, and how they had generously saved him from death; and the Cowardly Lion laughed, and said, "I have always thought myself very big and terrible; yet such small things as flowers came near to killing me, and such small animals as mice have saved my life. How strange it all is! But, comrades, what shall we do now?" "We must journey on until we find the road of yellow brick again," said Dorothy; "and then we can keep on to the Emerald City." So, the Lion being fully refreshed, and feeling quite himself again, they all started upon the journey, greatly enjoying the walk through the soft, fresh grass; and it was not long before they reached the road of yellow brick and turned again toward the Emerald City where the great Oz dwelt. [Illustration] The road was smooth and well paved, now, and the country about was beautiful; so that the travelers rejoiced in leaving the forest far behind, and with it the many dangers they had met in its gloomy shades. Once more they could see fences built beside the road; but these were painted green, and when they came to a small house, in which a farmer evidently lived, that also was painted green. They passed by several of these houses during the afternoon, and sometimes people came to the doors and looked at them as if they would like to ask questions; but no one came near them nor spoke to them because of the great Lion, of which they were much afraid. The people were all dressed in clothing of a lovely emerald green color and wore peaked hats like those of the Munchkins. [Illustration] "This must be the Land of Oz," said Dorothy, "and we are surely getting near the Emerald City." "Yes," answered the Scarecrow; "everything is green here, while in the country of the Munchkins blue was the favorite color. But the people do not seem to be as friendly as the Munchkins and I'm afraid we shall be unable to find a place to pass the night." "I should like something to eat besides fruit," said the girl, "and I'm sure Toto is nearly starved. Let us stop at the next house and talk to the people." So, when they came to a good sized farm house, Dorothy walked boldly up to the door and knocked. A woman opened it just far enough to look out, and said, "What do you want, child, and why is that great Lion with you?" "We wish to pass the night with you, if you will allow us," answered Dorothy; "and the Lion is my friend and comrade, and would not hurt you for the world." "Is he tame?" asked the woman, opening the door a little wider. "Oh, yes;" said the girl, "and he is a great coward, too; so that he will be more afraid of you than you are of him." "Well," said the woman, after thinking it over and taking another peep at the Lion, "if that is the case you may come in, and I will give you some supper and a place to sleep." So they all entered the house, where there were, besides the woman, two children and a man. The man had hurt his leg, and was lying on the couch in a corner. They seemed greatly surprised to see so strange a company, and while the woman was busy laying the table the man asked, "Where are you all going?" "To the Emerald City," said Dorothy, "to see the Great Oz." "Oh, indeed!" exclaimed the man. "Are you sure that Oz will see you?" "Why not?" she replied. "Why, it is said that he never lets any one come into his presence. I have been to the Emerald City many times, and it is a beautiful and wonderful place; but I have never been permitted to see the Great Oz, nor do I know of any living person who has seen him." "Does he never go out?" asked the Scarecrow. "Never. He sits day after day in the great throne room of his palace, and even those who wait upon him do not see him face to face." "What is he like?" asked the girl. "That is hard to tell," said the man, thoughtfully. "You see, Oz is a great Wizard, and can take on any form he wishes. So that some say he looks like a bird; and some say he looks like an elephant; and some say he looks like a cat. To others he appears as a beautiful fairy, or a brownie, or in any other form that pleases him. But who the real Oz is, when he is in his own form, no living person can tell." "That is very strange," said Dorothy; "but we must try, in some way, to see him, or we shall have made our journey for nothing." [Illustration] "Why do you wish to see the terrible Oz?" asked the man. "I want him to give me some brains," said the Scarecrow, eagerly. "Oh, Oz could do that easily enough," declared the man. "He has more brains than he needs." "And I want him to give me a heart," said the Tin Woodman. "That will not trouble him," continued the man, "for Oz has a large collection of hearts, of all sizes and shapes." "And I want him to give me courage," said the Cowardly Lion. "Oz keeps a great pot of courage in his throne room," said the man, "which he has covered with a golden plate, to keep it from running over. He will be glad to give you some." "And I want him to send me back to Kansas," said Dorothy. "Where is Kansas?" asked the man, in surprise. "I don't know," replied Dorothy, sorrowfully; "but it is my home, and I'm sure it's somewhere." "Very likely. Well, Oz can do anything; so I suppose he will find Kansas for you. But first you must get to see him, and that will be a hard task; for the great Wizard does not like to see anyone, and he usually has his own way. But what do you want?" he continued, speaking to Toto. Toto only wagged his tail; for, strange to say, he could not speak. [Illustration: "_The Lion ate some of the porridge._"] The woman now called to them that supper was ready, so they gathered around the table and Dorothy ate some delicious porridge and a dish of scrambled eggs and a plate of nice white bread, and enjoyed her meal. The Lion ate some of the porridge, but did not care for it, saying it was made from oats and oats were food for horses, not for lions. The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman ate nothing at all. Toto ate a little of everything, and was glad to get a good supper again. The woman now gave Dorothy a bed to sleep in, and Toto lay down beside her, while the Lion guarded the door of her room so she might not be disturbed. The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman stood up in a corner and kept quiet all night, although of course they could not sleep. The next morning, as soon as the sun was up, they started on their way, and soon saw a beautiful green glow in the sky just before them. "That must be the Emerald City," said Dorothy. As they walked on, the green glow became brighter and brighter, and it seemed that at last they were nearing the end of their travels. Yet it was afternoon before they came to the great wall that surrounded the City. It was high, and thick, and of a bright green color. In front of them, and at the end of the road of yellow brick, was a big gate, all studded with emeralds that glittered so in the sun that even the painted eyes of the Scarecrow were dazzled by their brilliancy. There was a bell beside the gate, and Dorothy pushed the button and heard a silvery tinkle sound within. Then the big gate swung slowly open, and they all passed through and found themselves in a high arched room, the walls of which glistened with countless emeralds. Before them stood a little man about the same size as the Munchkins. He was clothed all in green, from his head to his feet, and even his skin was of a greenish tint. At his side was a large green box. When he saw Dorothy and her companions the man asked, "What do you wish in the Emerald City?" "We came here to see the Great Oz," said Dorothy. The man was so surprised at this answer that he sat down to think it over. "It has been many years since anyone asked me to see Oz," he said, shaking his head in perplexity. "He is powerful and terrible, and if you come on an idle or foolish errand to bother the wise reflections of the Great Wizard, he might be angry and destroy you all in an instant." [Illustration] "But it is not a foolish errand, nor an idle one," replied the Scarecrow; "it is important. And we have been told that Oz is a good Wizard." "So he is," said the green man; "and he rules the Emerald City wisely and well. But to those who are not honest, or who approach him from curiosity, he is most terrible, and few have ever dared ask to see his face. I am the Guardian of the Gates, and since you demand to see the Great Oz I must take you to his palace. But first you must put on the spectacles." "Why?" asked Dorothy. "Because if you did not wear spectacles the brightness and glory of the Emerald City would blind you. Even those who live in the City must wear spectacles night and day. They are all locked on, for Oz so ordered it when the City was first built, and I have the only key that will unlock them." [Illustration] He opened the big box, and Dorothy saw that it was filled with spectacles of every size and shape. All of them had green glasses in them. The Guardian of the gates found a pair that would just fit Dorothy and put them over her eyes. There were two golden bands fastened to them that passed around the back of her head, where they were locked together by a little key that was at the end of a chain the Guardian of the Gates wore around his neck. When they were on, Dorothy could not take them off had she wished, but of course she did not want to be blinded by the glare of the Emerald City, so she said nothing. Then the green man fitted spectacles for the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion, and even on little Toto; and all were locked fast with the key. Then the Guardian of the Gates put on his own glasses and told them he was ready to show them to the palace. Taking a big golden key from a peg on the wall he opened another gate, and they all followed him through the portal into the streets of the Emerald City. Chapter XI. The Wonderful Emerald City of Oz. [Illustration] Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles Dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City. The streets were lined with beautiful houses all built of green marble and studded everywhere with sparkling emeralds. They walked over a pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the brightness of the sun. The window panes were of green glass; even the sky above the City had a green tint, and the rays of the sun were green. There were many people, men, women and children, walking about, and these were all dressed in green clothes and had greenish skins. They looked at Dorothy and her strangely assorted company with wondering eyes, and the children all ran away and hid behind their mothers when they saw the Lion; but no one spoke to them. Many shops stood in the street, and Dorothy saw that everything in them was green. Green candy and green pop-corn were offered for sale, as well as green shoes, green hats and green clothes of all sorts. At one place a man was selling green lemonade, and when the children bought it Dorothy could see that they paid for it with green pennies. There seemed to be no horses nor animals of any kind; the men carried things around in little green carts, which they pushed before them. Everyone seemed happy and contented and prosperous. The Guardian of the Gates led them through the streets until they came to a big building, exactly in the middle of the City, which was the Palace of Oz, the Great Wizard. There was a soldier before the door, dressed in a green uniform and wearing a long green beard. "Here are strangers," said the Guardian of the Gates to him, "and they demand to see the Great Oz." "Step inside," answered the soldier, "and I will carry your message to him." So they passed through the Palace gates and were led into a big room with a green carpet and lovely green furniture set with emeralds. The soldier made them all wipe their feet upon a green mat before entering this room, and when they were seated he said, politely, "Please make yourselves comfortable while I go to the door of the Throne Room and tell Oz you are here." They had to wait a long time before the soldier returned. When, at last, he came back, Dorothy asked, "Have you seen Oz?" [Illustration] "Oh, no;" returned the soldier; "I have never seen him. But I spoke to him as he sat behind his screen, and gave him your message. He says he will grant you an audience, if you so desire; but each one of you must enter his presence alone, and he will admit but one each day. Therefore, as you must remain in the Palace for several days, I will have you shown to rooms where you may rest in comfort after your journey." "Thank you," replied the girl; "that is very kind of Oz." The soldier now blew upon a green whistle, and at once a young girl, dressed in a pretty green silk gown, entered the room. She had lovely green hair and green eyes, and she bowed low before Dorothy as she said, "Follow me and I will show you your room." So Dorothy said good-bye to all her friends except Toto, and taking the dog in her arms followed the green girl through seven passages and up three flights of stairs until they came to a room at the front of the Palace. It was the sweetest little room in the world, with a soft, comfortable bed that had sheets of green silk and a green velvet counterpane. There was a tiny fountain in the middle of the room, that shot a spray of green perfume into the air, to fall back into a beautifully carved green marble basin. Beautiful green flowers stood in the windows, and there was a shelf with a row of little green books. When Dorothy had time to open these books she found them full of queer green pictures that made her laugh, they were so funny. In a wardrobe were many green dresses, made of silk and satin and velvet; and all of them fitted Dorothy exactly. "Make yourself perfectly at home," said the green girl, "and if you wish for anything ring the bell. Oz will send for you to-morrow morning." She left Dorothy alone and went back to the others. These she also led to rooms, and each one of them found himself lodged in a very pleasant part of the Palace. Of course this politeness was wasted on the Scarecrow; for when he found himself alone in his room he stood stupidly in one spot, just within the doorway, to wait till morning. It would not rest him to lie down, and he could not close his eyes; so he remained all night staring at a little spider which was weaving its web in a corner of the room, just as if it were not one of the most wonderful rooms in the world. The Tin Woodman lay down on his bed from force of habit, for he remembered when he was made of flesh; but not being able to sleep he passed the night moving his joints up and down to make sure they kept in good working order. The Lion would have preferred a bed of dried leaves in the forest, and did not like being shut up in a room; but he had too much sense to let this worry him, so he sprang upon the bed and rolled himself up like a cat and purred himself asleep in a minute. The next morning, after breakfast, the green maiden came to fetch Dorothy, and she dressed her in one of the prettiest gowns--made of green brocaded satin. Dorothy put on a green silk apron and tied a green ribbon around Toto's neck, and they started for the Throne Room of the Great Oz. [Illustration] First they came to a great hall in which were many ladies and gentlemen of the court, all dressed in rich costumes. These people had nothing to do but talk to each other, but they always came to wait outside the Throne Room every morning, although they were never permitted to see Oz. As Dorothy entered they looked at her curiously, and one of them whispered, "Are you really going to look upon the face of Oz the Terrible?" "Of course," answered the girl, "if he will see me." "Oh, he will see you," said the soldier who had taken her message to the Wizard, "although he does not like to have people ask to see him. Indeed, at first he was angry, and said I should send you back where you came from. Then he asked me what you looked like, and when I mentioned your silver shoes he was very much interested. At last I told him about the mark upon your forehead, and he decided he would admit you to his presence." Just then a bell rang, and the green girl said to Dorothy, "That is the signal. You must go into the Throne Room alone." She opened a little door and Dorothy walked boldly through and found herself in a wonderful place. It was a big, round room with a high arched roof, and the walls and ceiling and floor were covered with large emeralds set closely together. In the center of the roof was a great light, as bright as the sun, which made the emeralds sparkle in a wonderful manner. But what interested Dorothy most was the big throne of green marble that stood in the middle of the room. It was shaped like a chair and sparkled with gems, as did everything else. In the center of the chair was an enormous Head, without body to support it or any arms or legs whatever. There was no hair upon this head, but it had eyes and nose and mouth, and was bigger than the head of the biggest giant. As Dorothy gazed upon this in wonder and fear the eyes turned slowly and looked at her sharply and steadily. Then the mouth moved, and Dorothy heard a voice say: "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?" It was not such an awful voice as she had expected to come from the big Head; so she took courage and answered, "I am Dorothy, the Small and Meek. I have come to you for help." The eyes looked at her thoughtfully for a full minute. Then said the voice: "Where did you get the silver shoes?" "I got them from the wicked Witch of the East, when my house fell on her and killed her," she replied. "Where did you get the mark upon your forehead?" continued the voice. "That is where the good Witch of the North kissed me when she bade me good-bye and sent me to you," said the girl. Again the eyes looked at her sharply, and they saw she was telling the truth. Then Oz asked, "What do you wish me to do?" "Send me back to Kansas, where my Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are," she answered, earnestly. "I don't like your country, although it is so beautiful. And I am sure Aunt Em will be dreadfully worried over my being away so long." The eyes winked three times, and then they turned up to the ceiling and down to the floor and rolled around so queerly that they seemed to see every part of the room. And at last they looked at Dorothy again. "Why should I do this for you?" asked Oz. "Because you are strong and I am weak; because you are a Great Wizard and I am only a helpless little girl," she answered. "But you were strong enough to kill the wicked Witch of the East," said Oz. "That just happened," returned Dorothy, simply; "I could not help it." "Well," said the Head, "I will give you my answer. You have no right to expect me to send you back to Kansas unless you do something for me in return. In this country everyone must pay for everything he gets. If you wish me to use my magic power to send you home again you must do something for me first. Help me and I will help you." "What must I do?" asked the girl. "Kill the wicked Witch of the West," answered Oz. "But I cannot!" exclaimed Dorothy, greatly surprised. "You killed the Witch of the East and you wear the silver shoes, which bear a powerful charm. There is now but one Wicked Witch left in all this land, and when you can tell me she is dead I will send you back to Kansas--but not before." The little girl began to weep, she was so much disappointed; and the eyes winked again and looked upon her anxiously, as if the Great Oz felt that she could help him if she would. "I never killed anything, willingly," she sobbed; "and even if I wanted to, how could I kill the Wicked Witch? If you, who are Great and Terrible, cannot kill her yourself, how do you expect me to do it?" [Illustration] "I do not know," said the Head; "but that is my answer, and until the Wicked Witch dies you will not see your Uncle and Aunt again. Remember that the Witch is Wicked--tremendously Wicked--and ought to be killed. Now go, and do not ask to see me again until you have done your task." Sorrowfully Dorothy left the Throne Room and went back where the Lion and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were waiting to hear what Oz had said to her. "There is no hope for me," she said, sadly, "for Oz will not send me home until I have killed the Wicked Witch of the West; and that I can never do." Her friends were sorry, but could do nothing to help her; so she went to her own room and lay down on the bed and cried herself to sleep. The next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the Scarecrow and said, "Come with me, for Oz has sent for you." So the Scarecrow followed him and was admitted into the great Throne Room, where he saw, sitting in the emerald throne, a most lovely lady. She was dressed in green silk gauze and wore upon her flowing green locks a crown of jewels. Growing from her shoulders were wings, gorgeous in color and so light that they fluttered if the slightest breath of air reached them. When the Scarecrow had bowed, as prettily as his straw stuffing would let him, before this beautiful creature, she looked upon him sweetly, and said, "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?" Now the Scarecrow, who had expected to see the great Head Dorothy had told him of, was much astonished; but he answered her bravely. "I am only a Scarecrow, stuffed with straw. Therefore I have no brains, and I come to you praying that you will put brains in my head instead of straw, so that I may become as much a man as any other in your dominions." "Why should I do this for you?" asked the lady. "Because you are wise and powerful, and no one else can help me," answered the Scarecrow. "I never grant favors without some return," said Oz; "but this much I will promise. If you will kill for me the Wicked Witch of the West I will bestow upon you a great many brains, and such good brains that you will be the wisest man in all the Land of Oz." "I thought you asked Dorothy to kill the Witch," said, the Scarecrow, in surprise. [Illustration] "So I did. I don't care who kills her. But until she is dead I will not grant your wish. Now go, and do not seek me again until you have earned the brains you so greatly desire." The Scarecrow went sorrowfully back to his friends and told them what Oz had said; and Dorothy was surprised to find that the great Wizard was not a Head, as she had seen him, but a lovely lady. "All the same," said the Scarecrow, "she needs a heart as much as the Tin Woodman." On the next morning the soldier with the green whiskers came to the Tin Woodman and said, "Oz has sent for you. Follow me," So the Tin Woodman followed him and came to the great Throne Room. He did not know whether he would find Oz a lovely lady or a Head, but he hoped it would be the lovely lady. "For," he said to himself, "if it is the Head, I am sure I shall not be given a heart, since a head has no heart of its own and therefore cannot feel for me. But if it is the lovely lady I shall beg hard for a heart, for all ladies are themselves said to be kindly hearted." But when the Woodman entered the great Throne Room he saw neither the Head nor the Lady, for Oz had taken the shape of a most terrible Beast. It was nearly as big as an elephant, and the green throne seemed hardly strong enough to hold its weight. The Beast had a head like that of a rhinoceros, only there were five eyes in its face. There were five long arms growing out of its body and it also had five long, slim legs. Thick, woolly hair covered every part of it, and a more dreadful looking monster could not be imagined. It was fortunate the Tin Woodman had no heart at that moment, for it would have beat loud and fast from terror. But being only tin, the Woodman was not at all afraid, although he was much disappointed. "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible," spake the Beast, in a voice that was one great roar. "Who are you, and why do you seek me?" [Illustration: "_The Eyes looked at her thoughtfully._"] "I am a Woodman, and made of tin. Therefore I have no heart, and cannot love. I pray you to give me a heart that I may be as other men are." "Why should I do this?" demanded the Beast. "Because I ask it, and you alone can grant my request," answered the Woodman. Oz gave a low growl at this, but said, gruffly, "If you indeed desire a heart, you must earn it." "How?" asked the Woodman. "Help Dorothy to kill the Wicked Witch of the West," replied the Beast. "When the Witch is dead, come to me, and I will then give you the biggest and kindest and most loving heart in all the Land of Oz." So the Tin Woodman was forced to return sorrowfully to his friends and tell them of the terrible Beast he had seen. They all wondered greatly at the many forms the great Wizard could take upon himself, and the Lion said, [Illustration] "If he is a beast when I go to see him, I shall roar my loudest, and so frighten him that he will grant all I ask. And if he is the lovely lady, I shall pretend to spring upon her, and so compel her to do my bidding. And if he is the great Head, he will be at my mercy; for I will roll this head all about the room until he promises to give us what we desire. So be of good cheer my friends for all will yet be well." The next morning the soldier with the green whiskers led the Lion to the great Throne Room and bade him enter the presence of Oz. The Lion at once passed through the door, and glancing around saw, to his surprise, that before the throne was a Ball of Fire, so fierce and glowing he could scarcely bear to gaze upon it. His first thought was that Oz had by accident caught on fire and was burning up; but, when he tried to go nearer, the heat was so intense that it singed his whiskers, and he crept back tremblingly to a spot nearer the door. Then a low, quiet voice came from the Ball of Fire, and these were the words it spoke: [Illustration] "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Who are you, and why do you seek me?" And the Lion answered, "I am a Cowardly Lion, afraid of everything. I come to you to beg that you give me courage, so that in reality I may become the King of Beasts, as men call me." "Why should I give you courage?" demanded Oz. "Because of all Wizards you are the greatest, and alone have power to grant my request," answered the Lion. The Ball of Fire burned fiercely for a time, and the voice said, "Bring me proof that the Wicked Witch is dead, and that moment I will give you courage. But so long as the Witch lives you must remain a coward." The Lion was angry at this speech, but could say nothing in reply, and while he stood silently gazing at the Ball of Fire it became so furiously hot that he turned tail and rushed from the room. He was glad to find his friends waiting for him, and told them of his terrible interview with the Wizard. "What shall we do now?" asked Dorothy, sadly. "There is only one thing we can do," returned the Lion, "and that is to go to the land of the Winkies, seek out the Wicked Witch, and destroy her." "But suppose we cannot?" said the girl. "Then I shall never have courage," declared the Lion. "And I shall never have brains," added the Scarecrow. "And I shall never have a heart," spoke the Tin Woodman. "And I shall never see Aunt Em and Uncle Henry," said Dorothy, beginning to cry. "Be careful!" cried the green girl, "the tears will fall on your green silk gown, and spot it." So Dorothy dried her eyes and said, "I suppose we must try it; but I am sure I do not want to kill anybody, even to see Aunt Em again." "I will go with you; but I'm too much of a coward to kill the Witch," said the Lion. "I will go too," declared the Scarecrow; "but I shall not be of much help to you, I am such a fool." "I haven't the heart to harm even a Witch," remarked the Tin Woodman; "but if you go I certainly shall go with you." Therefore it was decided to start upon their journey the next morning, and the Woodman sharpened his axe on a green grindstone and had all his joints properly oiled. The Scarecrow stuffed himself with fresh straw and Dorothy put new paint on his eyes that he might see better. The green girl, who was very kind to them, filled Dorothy's basket with good things to eat, and fastened a little bell around Toto's neck with a green ribbon. They went to bed quite early and slept soundly until daylight, when they were awakened by the crowing of a green cock that lived in the back yard of the palace, and the cackling of a hen that had laid a green egg. [Illustration: "_The Soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets._"] Chapter XII. The Search for the Wicked Witch. [Illustration] [Illustration] The soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the Emerald City until they reached the room where the Guardian of the Gates lived. This officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends. "Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West?" asked Dorothy. "There is no road," answered the Guardian of the Gates; "no one ever wishes to go that way." "How, then, are we to find her?" enquired the girl. [Illustration] "That will be easy," replied the man; "for when she knows you are in the Country of the Winkies she will find you, and make you all her slaves." "Perhaps not," said the Scarecrow, "for we mean to destroy her." [Illustration] "Oh, that is different," said the Guardian of the Gates. "No one has ever destroyed her before, so I naturally thought she would make slaves of you, as she has of all the rest. But take care; for she is wicked and fierce, and may not allow you to destroy her. Keep to the West, where the sun sets, and you cannot fail to find her." They thanked him and bade him good-bye, and turned toward the West, walking over fields of soft grass dotted here and there with daisies and buttercups. Dorothy still wore the pretty silk dress she had put on in the palace, but now, to her surprise, she found it was no longer green, but pure white. The ribbon around Toto's neck had also lost its green color and was as white as Dorothy's dress. The Emerald City was soon left far behind. As they advanced the ground became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this country of the West, and the ground was untilled. In the afternoon the sun shone hot in their faces, for there were no trees to offer them shade; so that before night Dorothy and Toto and the Lion were tired, and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with the Woodman and the Scarecrow keeping watch. Now the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as powerful as a telescope, and could see everywhere. So, as she sat in the door of her castle, she happened to look around and saw Dorothy lying asleep, with her friends all about her. They were a long distance off, but the Wicked Witch was angry to find them in her country; so she blew upon a silver whistle that hung around her neck. At once there came running to her from all directions a pack of great wolves. They had long legs and fierce eyes and sharp teeth. "Go to those people," said the Witch, "and tear them to pieces." "Are you not going to make them your slaves?" asked the leader of the wolves. "No," she answered, "one is of tin, and one of straw; one is a girl and another a Lion. None of them is fit to work, so you may tear them into small pieces." "Very well," said the wolf, and he dashed away at full speed, followed by the others. It was lucky the Scarecrow and the Woodman were wide awake and heard the wolves coming. "This is my fight," said the Woodman; "so get behind me and I will meet them as they come." He seized his axe, which he had made very sharp, and as the leader of the wolves came on the Tin Woodman swung his arm and chopped the wolf's head from its body, so that it immediately died. As soon as he could raise his axe another wolf came up, and he also fell under the sharp edge of the Tin Woodman's weapon. There were forty wolves, and forty times a wolf was killed; so that at last they all lay dead in a heap before the Woodman. Then he put down his axe and sat beside the Scarecrow, who said, "It was a good fight, friend." They waited until Dorothy awoke the next morning. The little girl was quite frightened when she saw the great pile of shaggy wolves, but the Tin Woodman told her all. She thanked him for saving them and sat down to breakfast, after which they started again upon their journey. [Illustration] Now this same morning the Wicked Witch came to the door of her castle and looked out with her one eye that could see afar off. She saw all her wolves lying dead, and the strangers still travelling through her country. This made her angrier than before, and she blew her silver whistle twice. Straightway a great flock of wild crows came flying toward her, enough to darken the sky. And the Wicked Witch said to the King Crow, "Fly at once to the strangers; peck out their eyes and tear them to pieces." The wild crows flew in one great flock toward Dorothy and her companions. When the little girl saw them coming she was afraid. But the Scarecrow said, "This is my battle; so lie down beside me and you will not be harmed." So they all lay upon the ground except the Scarecrow, and he stood up and stretched out his arms. And when the crows saw him they were frightened, as these birds always are by scarecrows, and did not dare to come any nearer. But the King Crow said, "It is only a stuffed man. I will peck his eyes out." The King Crow flew at the Scarecrow, who caught it by the head and twisted its neck until it died. And then another crow flew at him, and the Scarecrow twisted its neck also. There were forty crows, and forty times the Scarecrow twisted a neck, until at last all were lying dead beside him. Then he called to his companions to rise, and again they went upon their journey. When the Wicked Witch looked out again and saw all her crows lying in a heap, she got into a terrible rage, and blew three times upon her silver whistle. [Illustration] Forthwith there was heard a great buzzing in the air, and a swarm of black bees came flying towards her. "Go to the strangers and sting them to death!" commanded the Witch, and the bees turned and flew rapidly until they came to where Dorothy and her friends were walking. But the Woodman had seen them coming and the Scarecrow had decided what to do. "Take out my straw and scatter it over the little girl and the dog and the lion," he said to the Woodman, "and the bees cannot sting them." This the Woodman did, and as Dorothy lay close beside the Lion and held Toto in her arms, the straw covered them entirely. The bees came and found no one but the Woodman to sting, so they flew at him and broke off all their stings against the tin, without hurting the Woodman at all. And as bees cannot live when their stings are broken that was the end of the black bees, and they lay scattered thick about the Woodman, like little heaps of fine coal. Then Dorothy and the Lion got up, and the girl helped the Tin Woodman put the straw back into the Scarecrow again, until he was as good as ever. So they started upon their journey once more. The Wicked Witch was so angry when she saw her black bees in little heaps like fine coal that she stamped her foot and tore her hair and gnashed her teeth. And then she called a dozen of her slaves, who were the Winkies, and gave them sharp spears, telling them to go to the strangers and destroy them. The Winkies were not a brave people, but they had to do as they were told; so they marched away until they came near to Dorothy. Then the Lion gave a great roar and sprang toward them, and the poor Winkies were so frightened that they ran back as fast as they could. When they returned to the castle the Wicked Witch beat them well with a strap, and sent them back to their work, after which she sat down to think what she should do next. She could not understand how all her plans to destroy these strangers had failed; but she was a powerful Witch, as well as a wicked one, and she soon made up her mind how to act. [Illustration] There was, in her cupboard, a Golden Cap, with a circle of diamonds and rubies running round it. This Golden Cap had a charm. Whoever owned it could call three times upon the Winged Monkeys, who would obey any order they were given. But no person could command these strange creatures more than three times. Twice already the Wicked Witch had used the charm of the Cap. Once was when she had made the Winkies her slaves, and set herself to rule over their country. The Winged Monkeys had helped her do this. The second time was when she had fought against the Great Oz himself, and driven him out of the land of the West. The Winged Monkeys had also helped her in doing this. Only once more could she use this Golden Cap, for which reason she did not like to do so until all her other powers were exhausted. But now that her fierce wolves and her wild crows and her stinging bees were gone, and her slaves had been scared away by the Cowardly Lion, she saw there was only one way left to destroy Dorothy and her friends. [Illustration] So the Wicked Witch took the Golden Cap from her cupboard and placed it upon her head. Then she stood upon her left foot and said, slowly, "Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!" Next she stood upon her right foot and said, "Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!" After this she stood upon both feet and cried in a loud voice, "Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!" Now the charm began to work. The sky was darkened, and a low rumbling sound was heard in the air. There was a rushing of many wings; a great chattering and laughing; and the sun came out of the dark sky to show the Wicked Witch surrounded by a crowd of monkeys, each with a pair of immense and powerful wings on his shoulders. One, much bigger than the others, seemed to be their leader. He flew close to the Witch and said, "You have called us for the third and last time. What do you command?" "Go to the strangers who are within my land and destroy them all except the Lion," said the Wicked Witch. "Bring that beast to me, for I have a mind to harness him like a horse, and make him work." "Your commands shall be obeyed," said the leader; and then, with a great deal of chattering and noise, the Winged Monkeys flew away to the place where Dorothy and her friends were walking. [Illustration] Some of the Monkeys seized the Tin Woodman and carried him through the air until they were over a country thickly covered with sharp rocks. Here they dropped the poor Woodman, who fell a great distance to the rocks, where he lay so battered and dented that he could neither move nor groan. Others of the Monkeys caught the Scarecrow, and with their long fingers pulled all of the straw out of his clothes and head. They made his hat and boots and clothes into a small bundle and threw it into the top branches of a tall tree. The remaining Monkeys threw pieces of stout rope around the Lion and wound many coils about his body and head and legs, until he was unable to bite or scratch or struggle in any way. Then they lifted him up and flew away with him to the Witch's castle, where he was placed in a small yard with a high iron fence around it, so that he could not escape. But Dorothy they did not harm at all. She stood, with Toto in her arms, watching the sad fate of her comrades and thinking it would soon be her turn. The leader of the Winged Monkeys flew up to her, his long, hairy arms stretched out and his ugly face grinning terribly; but he saw the mark of the Good Witch's kiss upon her forehead and stopped short, motioning the others not to touch her. [Illustration: "_The Monkeys wound many coils about his body._"] "We dare not harm this little girl," he said to them, "for she is protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of Evil. All we can do is to carry her to the castle of the Wicked Witch and leave her there." So, carefully and gently, they lifted Dorothy in their arms and carried her swiftly through the air until they came to the castle, where they set her down upon the front door step. Then the leader said to the Witch, "We have obeyed you as far as we were able. The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow are destroyed, and the Lion is tied up in your yard. The little girl we dare not harm, nor the dog she carries in her arms. Your power over our band is now ended, and you will never see us again." Then all the Winged Monkeys, with much laughing and chattering and noise, flew into the air and were soon out of sight. [Illustration] The Wicked Witch was both surprised and worried when she saw the mark on Dorothy's forehead, for she knew well that neither the Winged Monkeys nor she, herself, dare hurt the girl in any way. She looked down at Dorothy's feet, and seeing the Silver Shoes, began to tremble with fear, for she knew what a powerful charm belonged to them. At first the Witch was tempted to run away from Dorothy; but she happened to look into the child's eyes and saw how simple the soul behind them was, and that the little girl did not know of the wonderful power the Silver Shoes gave her. So the Wicked Witch laughed to herself, and thought, "I can still make her my slave, for she does not know how to use her power." Then she said to Dorothy, harshly and severely, "Come with me; and see that you mind everything I tell you, for if you do not I will make an end of you, as I did of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow." Dorothy followed her through many of the beautiful rooms in her castle until they came to the kitchen, where the Witch bade her clean the pots and kettles and sweep the floor and keep the fire fed with wood. Dorothy went to work meekly, with her mind made up to work as hard as she could; for she was glad the Wicked Witch had decided not to kill her. With Dorothy hard at work the Witch thought she would go into the court-yard and harness the Cowardly Lion like a horse; it would amuse her, she was sure, to make him draw her chariot whenever she wished to go to drive. But as she opened the gate the Lion gave a loud roar and bounded at her so fiercely that the Witch was afraid, and ran out and shut the gate again. "If I cannot harness you," said the Witch to the Lion, speaking through the bars of the gate, "I can starve you. You shall have nothing to eat until you do as I wish." So after that she took no food to the imprisoned Lion; but every day she came to the gate at noon and asked, "Are you ready to be harnessed like a horse?" And the Lion would answer, "No. If you come in this yard I will bite you." The reason the Lion did not have to do as the Witch wished was that every night, while the woman was asleep Dorothy carried him food from the cupboard. After he had eaten he would lie down on his bed of straw, and Dorothy would lie beside him and put her head on his soft, shaggy mane, while they talked of their troubles and tried to plan some way to escape. But they could find no way to get out of the castle, for it was constantly guarded by the yellow Winkies, who were the slaves of the Wicked Witch and too afraid of her not to do as she told them. The girl had to work hard during the day, and often the Witch threatened to beat her with the same old umbrella she always carried in her hand. But, in truth, she did not dare to strike Dorothy, because of the mark upon her forehead. The child did not know this, and was full of fear for herself and Toto. Once the Witch struck Toto a blow with her umbrella and the brave little dog flew at her and bit her leg, in return. The Witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before. Dorothy's life became very sad as she grew to understand that it would be harder than ever to get back to Kansas and Aunt Em again. Sometimes she would cry bitterly for hours, with Toto sitting at her feet and looking into her face, whining dismally to show how sorry he was for his little mistress. Toto did not really care whether he was in Kansas or the Land of Oz so long as Dorothy was with him; but he knew the little girl was unhappy, and that made him unhappy too. Now the Wicked Witch had a great longing to have for her own the Silver Shoes which the girl always wore. Her Bees and her Crows and her Wolves were lying in heaps and drying up, and she had used up all the power of the Golden Cap; but if she could only get hold of the Silver Shoes they would give her more power than all the other things she had lost. She watched Dorothy carefully, to see if she ever took off her shoes, thinking she might steal them. But the child was so proud of her pretty shoes that she never took them off except at night and when she took her bath. The Witch was too much afraid of the dark to dare go in Dorothy's room at night to take the shoes, and her dread of water was greater than her fear of the dark, so she never came near when Dorothy was bathing. Indeed, the old Witch never touched water, nor ever let water touch her in any way. But the wicked creature was very cunning, and she finally thought of a trick that would give her what she wanted. She placed a bar of iron in the middle of the kitchen floor, and then by her magic arts made the iron invisible to human eyes. So that when Dorothy walked across the floor she stumbled over the bar, not being able to see it, and fell at full length. She was not much hurt, but in her fall one of the Silver Shoes came off, and before she could reach it the Witch had snatched it away and put it on her own skinny foot. The wicked woman was greatly pleased with the success of her trick, for as long as she had one of the shoes she owned half the power of their charm, and Dorothy could not use it against her, even had she known how to do so. [Illustration] The little girl, seeing she had lost one of her pretty shoes, grew angry, and said to the Witch, "Give me back my shoe!" "I will not," retorted the Witch, "for it is now my shoe, and not yours." "You are a wicked creature!" cried Dorothy. "You have no right to take my shoe from me." "I shall keep it, just the same," said the Witch, laughing at her, "and some day I shall get the other one from you, too." This made Dorothy so very angry that she picked up the bucket of water that stood near and dashed it over the Witch, wetting her from head to foot. Instantly the wicked woman gave a loud cry of fear; and then, as Dorothy looked at her in wonder, the Witch began to shrink and fall away. "See what you have done!" she screamed. "In a minute I shall melt away." "I'm very sorry, indeed," said Dorothy, who was truly frightened to see the Witch actually melting away like brown sugar before her very eyes. "Didn't you know water would be the end of me?" asked the Witch, in a wailing, despairing voice. "Of course not," answered Dorothy; "how should I?" "Well, in a few minutes I shall be all melted, and you will have the castle to yourself. I have been wicked in my day, but I never thought a little girl like you would ever be able to melt me and end my wicked deeds. Look out--here I go!" With these words the Witch fell down in a brown, melted, shapeless mass and began to spread over the clean boards of the kitchen floor. Seeing that she had really melted away to nothing, Dorothy drew another bucket of water and threw it over the mess. She then swept it all out the door. After picking out the silver shoe, which was all that was left of the old woman, she cleaned and dried it with a cloth, and put it on her foot again. Then, being at last free to do as she chose, she ran out to the court-yard to tell the Lion that the Wicked Witch of the West had come to an end, and that they were no longer prisoners in a strange land. [Illustration] Chapter XIII. The Rescue [Illustration] [Illustration] The Cowardly Lion was much pleased to hear that the Wicked Witch had been melted by a bucket of water, and Dorothy at once unlocked the gate of his prison and set him free. They went in together to the castle, where Dorothy's first act was to call all the Winkies together and tell them that they were no longer slaves. There was great rejoicing among the yellow Winkies, for they had been made to work hard during many years for the Wicked Witch, who had always treated them with great cruelty. They kept this day as a holiday, then and ever after, and spent the time in feasting and dancing. "If our friends, the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, were only with us," said the Lion, "I should be quite happy." "Don't you suppose we could rescue them?" asked the girl, anxiously. "We can try," answered the Lion. So they called the yellow Winkies and asked them if they would help to rescue their friends, and the Winkies said that they would be delighted to do all in their power for Dorothy, who had set them free from bondage. So she chose a number of the Winkies who looked as if they knew the most, and they all started away. They travelled that day and part of the next until they came to the rocky plain where the Tin Woodman lay, all battered and bent. His axe was near him, but the blade was rusted and the handle broken off short. The Winkies lifted him tenderly in their arms, and carried him back to the yellow castle again, Dorothy shedding a few tears by the way at the sad plight of her old friend, and the Lion looking sober and sorry. When they reached the castle Dorothy said to the Winkies, "Are any of your people tinsmiths?" "Oh, yes; some of us are very good tinsmiths," they told her. "Then bring them to me," she said. And when the tinsmiths came, bringing with them all their tools in baskets, she enquired, [Illustration: "_The Tinsmiths worked for three days and four nights._"] "Can you straighten out those dents in the Tin Woodman, and bend him back into shape again, and solder him together where he is broken?" The tinsmiths looked the Woodman over carefully and then answered that they thought they could mend him so he would be as good as ever. So they set to work in one of the big yellow rooms of the castle and worked for three days and four nights, hammering and twisting and bending and soldering and polishing and pounding at the legs and body and head of the Tin Woodman, until at last he was straightened out into his old form, and his joints worked as well as ever. To be sure, there were several patches on him, but the tinsmiths did a good job, and as the Woodman was not a vain man he did not mind the patches at all. When, at last, he walked into Dorothy's room and thanked her for rescuing him, he was so pleased that he wept tears of joy, and Dorothy had to wipe every tear carefully from his face with her apron, so his joints would not be rusted. At the same time her own tears fell thick and fast at the joy of meeting her old friend again, and these tears did not need to be wiped away. As for the Lion, he wiped his eyes so often with the tip of his tail that it became quite wet, and he was obliged to go out into the court-yard and hold it in the sun till it dried. "If we only had the Scarecrow with us again," said the Tin Woodman, when Dorothy had finished telling him everything that had happened, "I should be quite happy." "We must try to find him," said the girl. So she called the Winkies to help her, and they walked all that day and part of the next until they came to the tall tree in the branches of which the Winged Monkeys had tossed the Scarecrow's clothes. It was a very tall tree, and the trunk was so smooth that no one could climb it; but the Woodman said at once, "I'll chop it down, and then we can get the Scarecrow's clothes." Now while the tinsmiths had been at work mending the Woodman himself, another of the Winkies, who was a goldsmith, had made an axe-handle of solid gold and fitted it to the Woodman's axe, instead of the old broken handle. Others polished the blade until all the rust was removed and it glistened like burnished silver. As soon as he had spoken, the Tin Woodman began to chop, and in a short time the tree fell over with a crash, when the Scarecrow's clothes fell out of the branches and rolled off on the ground. Dorothy picked them up and had the Winkies carry them back to the castle, where they were stuffed with nice, clean straw; and, behold! here was the Scarecrow, as good as ever, thanking them over and over again for saving him. Now they were reunited, Dorothy and her friends spent a few happy days at the Yellow Castle, where they found everything they needed to make them comfortable. But one day the girl thought of Aunt Em, and said, "We must go back to Oz, and claim his promise." "Yes," said the Woodman, "at last I shall get my heart." "And I shall get my brains," added the Scarecrow, joyfully. "And I shall get my courage," said the Lion, thoughtfully. "And I shall get back to Kansas," cried Dorothy, clapping her hands. "Oh, let us start for the Emerald City to-morrow!" [Illustration] This they decided to do. The next day they called the Winkies together and bade them good-bye. The Winkies were sorry to have them go, and they had grown so fond of the Tin Woodman that they begged him to stay and rule over them and the Yellow Land of the West. Finding they were determined to go, the Winkies gave Toto and the Lion each a golden collar; and to Dorothy they presented a beautiful bracelet, studded with diamonds; and to the Scarecrow they gave a gold-headed walking stick, to keep him from stumbling; and to the Tin Woodman they offered a silver oil-can, inlaid with gold and set with precious jewels. Every one of the travellers made the Winkies a pretty speech in return, and all shook hands with them until their arms ached. Dorothy went to the Witch's cupboard to fill her basket with food for the journey, and there she saw the Golden Cap. She tried it on her own head and found that it fitted her exactly. She did not know anything about the charm of the Golden Cap, but she saw that it was pretty, so she made up her mind to wear it and carry her sunbonnet in the basket. Then, being prepared for the journey, they all started for the Emerald City; and the Winkies gave them three cheers and many good wishes to carry with them. Chapter XIV. The Winged Monkeys [Illustration] [Illustration] You will remember there was no road--not even a pathway--between the castle of the Wicked Witch and the Emerald City. When the four travellers went in search of the Witch she had seen them coming, and so sent the Winged Monkeys to bring them to her. It was much harder to find their way back through the big fields of buttercups and yellow daisies than it was being carried. They knew, of course, they must go straight east, toward the rising sun; and they started off in the right way. But at noon, when the sun was over their heads, they did not know which was east and which was west, and that was the reason they were lost in the great fields. They kept on walking, however, and at night the moon came out and shone brightly. So they lay down among the sweet smelling yellow flowers and slept soundly until morning--all but the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The next morning the sun was behind a cloud, but they started on, as if they were quite sure which way they were going. "If we walk far enough," said Dorothy, "we shall sometime come to some place, I am sure." But day by day passed away, and they still saw nothing before them but the yellow fields. The Scarecrow began to grumble a bit. "We have surely lost our way," he said, "and unless we find it again in time to reach the Emerald City I shall never get my brains." "Nor I my heart," declared the Tin Woodman. "It seems to me I can scarcely wait till I get to Oz, and you must admit this is a very long journey." "You see," said the Cowardly Lion, with a whimper, "I haven't the courage to keep tramping forever, without getting anywhere at all." [Illustration] Then Dorothy lost heart. She sat down on the grass and looked at her companions, and they sat down and looked at her, and Toto found that for the first time in his life he was too tired to chase a butterfly that flew past his head; so he put out his tongue and panted and looked at Dorothy as if to ask what they should do next. "Suppose we call the Field Mice," she suggested. "They could probably tell us the way to the Emerald City." "To be sure they could," cried the Scarecrow; "why didn't we think of that before?" Dorothy blew the little whistle she had always carried about her neck since the Queen of the Mice had given it to her. In a few minutes they heard the pattering of tiny feet, and many of the small grey mice came running up to her. Among them was the Queen herself, who asked, in her squeaky little voice, "What can I do for my friends?" "We have lost our way," said Dorothy. "Can you tell us where the Emerald City is?" [Illustration] "Certainly," answered the Queen; "but it is a great way off, for you have had it at your backs all this time." Then she noticed Dorothy's Golden Cap, and said, "Why don't you use the charm of the Cap, and call the Winged Monkeys to you? They will carry you to the City of Oz in less than an hour." "I didn't know there was a charm," answered Dorothy, in surprise. "What is it?" "It is written inside the Golden Cap," replied the Queen of the Mice; "but if you are going to call the Winged Monkeys we must run away, for they are full of mischief and think it great fun to plague us." "Won't they hurt me?" asked the girl, anxiously. "Oh, no; they must obey the wearer of the Cap. Good-bye!" And she scampered out of sight, with all the mice hurrying after her. Dorothy looked inside the Golden Cap and saw some words written upon the lining. These, she thought, must be the charm, so she read the directions carefully and put the Cap upon her head. "Ep-pe, pep-pe, kak-ke!" she said, standing on her left foot. "What did you say?" asked the Scarecrow, who did not know what she was doing. "Hil-lo, hol-lo, hel-lo!" Dorothy went on, standing this time on her right foot. "Hello!" replied the Tin Woodman, calmly. [Illustration: "_The Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her._"] "Ziz-zy, zuz-zy, zik!" said Dorothy, who was now standing on both feet. This ended the saying of the charm, and they heard a great chattering and flapping of wings, as the band of Winged Monkeys flew up to them. The King bowed low before Dorothy, and asked, "What is your command?" "We wish to go to the Emerald City," said the child, "and we have lost our way." "We will carry you," replied the King, and no sooner had he spoken than two of the Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her. Others took the Scarecrow and the Woodman and the Lion, and one little Monkey seized Toto and flew after them, although the dog tried hard to bite him. The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were rather frightened at first, for they remembered how badly the Winged Monkeys had treated them before; but they saw that no harm was intended, so they rode through the air quite cheerfully, and had a fine time looking at the pretty gardens and woods far below them. Dorothy found herself riding easily between two of the biggest Monkeys, one of them the King himself. They had made a chair of their hands and were careful not to hurt her. "Why do you have to obey the charm of the Golden Cap?" she asked. "That is a long story," answered the King, with a laugh; "but as we have a long journey before us I will pass the time by telling you about it, if you wish." "I shall be glad to hear it," she replied. "Once," began the leader, "we were a free people, living happily in the great forest, flying from tree to tree, eating nuts and fruit, and doing just as we pleased without calling anybody master. Perhaps some of us were rather too full of mischief at times, flying down to pull the tails of the animals that had no wings, chasing birds, and throwing nuts at the people who walked in the forest. But we were careless and happy and full of fun, and enjoyed every minute of the day. This was many years ago, long before Oz came out of the clouds to rule over this land. "There lived here then, away at the North, a beautiful princess, who was also a powerful sorceress. All her magic was used to help the people, and she was never known to hurt anyone who was good. Her name was Gayelette, and she lived in a handsome palace built from great blocks of ruby. Everyone loved her, but her greatest sorrow was that she could find no one to love in return, since all the men were much too stupid and ugly to mate with one so beautiful and wise. At last, however, she found a boy who was handsome and manly and wise beyond his years. Gayelette made up her mind that when he grew to be a man she would make him her husband, so she took him to her ruby palace and used all her magic powers to make him as strong and good and lovely as any woman could wish. When he grew to manhood, Quelala, as he was called, was said to be the best and wisest man in all the land, while his manly beauty was so great that Gayelette loved him dearly, and hastened to make everything ready for the wedding. "My grandfather was at that time the King of the Winged Monkeys which lived in the forest near Gayalette's palace, and the old fellow loved a joke better than a good dinner. One day, just before the wedding, my grandfather was flying out with his band when he saw Quelala walking beside the river. He was dressed in a rich costume of pink silk and purple velvet, and my grandfather thought he would see what he could do. At his word the band flew down and seized Quelala, carried him in their arms until they were over the middle of the river, and then dropped him into the water. "'Swim out, my fine fellow,'" cried my grandfather, "'and see if the water has spotted your clothes.'" Quelala was much too wise not to swim, and he was not in the least spoiled by all his good fortune. He laughed, when he came to the top of the water, and swam in to shore. But when Gayelette came running out to him she found his silks and velvet all ruined by the river. [Illustration] "The princess was very angry, and she knew, of course, who did it. She had all the Winged Monkeys brought before her, and she said at first that their wings should be tied and they should be treated as they had treated Quelala, and dropped in the river. But my grandfather pleaded hard, for he knew the Monkeys would drown in the river with their wings tied, and Quelala said a kind word for them also; so that Gayelette finally spared them, on condition that the Winged Monkeys should ever after do three times the bidding of the owner of the Golden Cap. This Cap had been made for a wedding present to Quelala, and it is said to have cost the princess half her kingdom. Of course my grandfather and all the other Monkeys at once agreed to the condition, and that is how it happens that we are three times the slaves of the owner of the Golden Cap, whomsoever he may be." "And what became of them?" asked Dorothy, who had been greatly interested in the story. "Quelala being the first owner of the Golden Cap," replied the Monkey, "he was the first to lay his wishes upon us. As his bride could not bear the sight of us, he called us all to him in the forest after he had married her and ordered us to always keep where she could never again set eyes on a Winged Monkey, which we were glad to do, for we were all afraid of her. "This was all we ever had to do until the Golden Cap fell into the hands of the Wicked Witch of the West, who made us enslave the Winkies, and afterward drive Oz himself out of the Land of the West. Now the Golden Cap is yours, and three times you have the right to lay your wishes upon us." As the Monkey King finished his story Dorothy looked down and saw the green, shining walls of the Emerald City before them. She wondered at the rapid flight of the Monkeys, but was glad the journey was over. The strange creatures set the travellers down carefully before the gate of the City, the King bowed low to Dorothy, and then flew swiftly away, followed by all his band. "That was a good ride," said the little girl. "Yes, and a quick way out of our troubles." replied the Lion. "How lucky it was you brought away that wonderful Cap!" [Illustration] Chapter XV. The Discovery of OZ, The Terrible. [Illustration] [Illustration] The four travellers walked up to the great gate of the Emerald City and rang the bell. After ringing several times it was opened by the same Guardian of the Gate they had met before. "What! are you back again?" he asked, in surprise. "Do you not see us?" answered the Scarecrow. "But I thought you had gone to visit the Wicked Witch of the West." "We did visit her," said the Scarecrow. "And she let you go again?" asked the man, in wonder. "She could not help it, for she is melted," explained the Scarecrow. "Melted! Well, that is good news, indeed," said the man. "Who melted her?" "It was Dorothy," said the Lion, gravely. "Good gracious!" exclaimed the man, and he bowed very low indeed before her. Then he led them into his little room and locked the spectacles from the great box on all their eyes, just as he had done before. Afterward they passed on through the gate into the Emerald City, and when the people heard from the Guardian of the Gate that they had melted the Wicked Witch of the West they all gathered around the travellers and followed them in a great crowd to the Palace of Oz. The soldier with the green whiskers was still on guard before the door, but he let them in at once and they were again met by the beautiful green girl, who showed each of them to their old rooms at once, so they might rest until the Great Oz was ready to receive them. The soldier had the news carried straight to Oz that Dorothy and the other travellers had come back again, after destroying the Wicked Witch; but Oz made no reply. They thought the Great Wizard would send for them at once, but he did not. They had no word from him the next day, nor the next, nor the next. The waiting was tiresome and wearing, and at last they grew vexed that Oz should treat them in so poor a fashion, after sending them to undergo hardships and slavery. So the Scarecrow at last asked the green girl to take another message to Oz, saying if he did not let them in to see him at once they would call the Winged Monkeys to help them, and find out whether he kept his promises or not. When the Wizard was given this message he was so frightened that he sent word for them to come to the Throne Room at four minutes after nine o'clock the next morning. He had once met the Winged Monkeys in the Land of the West, and he did not wish to meet them again. The four travellers passed a sleepless night, each thinking of the gift Oz had promised to bestow upon him. Dorothy fell asleep only once, and then she dreamed she was in Kansas, where Aunt Em was telling her how glad she was to have her little girl at home again. Promptly at nine o'clock the next morning the green whiskered soldier came to them, and four minutes later they all went into the Throne Room of the Great Oz. Of course each one of them expected to see the Wizard in the shape he had taken before, and all were greatly surprised when they looked about and saw no one at all in the room. They kept close to the door and closer to one another, for the stillness of the empty room was more dreadful than any of the forms they had seen Oz take. [Illustration] Presently they heard a Voice, seeming to come from somewhere near the top of the great dome, and it said, solemnly. "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Why do you seek me?" They looked again in every part of the room, and then, seeing no one, Dorothy asked, "Where are you?" "I am everywhere," answered the Voice, "but to the eyes of common mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you may converse with me." Indeed, the Voice seemed just then to come straight from the throne itself; so they walked toward it and stood in a row while Dorothy said: "We have come to claim our promise, O Oz." "What promise?" asked Oz. "You promised to send me back to Kansas when the Wicked Witch was destroyed," said the girl. "And you promised to give me brains," said the Scarecrow. "And you promised to give me a heart," said the Tin Woodman. "And you promised to give me courage," said the Cowardly Lion. "Is the Wicked Witch really destroyed?" asked the Voice, and Dorothy thought it trembled a little. "Yes," she answered, "I melted her with a bucket of water." "Dear me," said the Voice; "how sudden! Well, come to me to-morrow, for I must have time to think it over." "You've had plenty of time already," said the Tin Woodman, angrily. "We shan't wait a day longer," said the Scarecrow. "You must keep your promises to us!" exclaimed Dorothy. The Lion thought it might be as well to frighten the Wizard, so he gave a large, loud roar, which was so fierce and dreadful that Toto jumped away from him in alarm and tipped over the screen that stood in a corner. As it fell with a crash they looked that way, and the next moment all of them were filled with wonder. For they saw, standing in just the spot the screen had hidden, a little, old man, with a bald head and a wrinkled face, who seemed to be as much surprised as they were. The Tin Woodman, raising his axe, rushed toward the little man and cried out, [Illustration] "Who are you?" "I am Oz, the Great and Terrible," said the little man, in a trembling voice, "but don't strike me--please don't!--and I'll do anything you want me to." Our friends looked at him in surprise and dismay. "I thought Oz was a great Head," said Dorothy. "And I thought Oz was a lovely Lady," said the Scarecrow. "And I thought Oz was a terrible Beast," said the Tin Woodman. "And I thought Oz was a Ball of Fire," exclaimed the Lion. "No; you are all wrong," said the little man, meekly. "I have been making believe." "Making believe!" cried Dorothy. "Are you not a great Wizard?" "Hush, my dear," he said; "don't speak so loud, or you will be overheard--and I should be ruined. I'm supposed to be a Great Wizard." "And aren't you?" she asked. "Not a bit of it, my dear; I'm just a common man." "You're more than that," said the Scarecrow, in a grieved tone; "you're a humbug." "Exactly so!" declared the little man, rubbing his hands together as if it pleased him; "I am a humbug." "But this is terrible," said the Tin Woodman; "how shall I ever get my heart?" "Or I my courage?" asked the Lion. "Or I my brains?" wailed the Scarecrow, wiping the the tears from his eyes with his coat-sleeve. [Illustration: "_Exactly so! I am a humbug._"] "My dear friends," said Oz, "I pray you not to speak of these little things. Think of me, and the terrible trouble I'm in at being found out." "Doesn't anyone else know you're a humbug?" asked Dorothy. "No one knows it but you four--and myself," replied Oz. "I have fooled everyone so long that I thought I should never be found out. It was a great mistake my ever letting you into the Throne Room. Usually I will not see even my subjects, and so they believe I am something terrible." "But, I don't understand," said Dorothy, in bewilderment. "How was it that you appeared to me as a great Head?" "That was one of my tricks," answered Oz. "Step this way, please, and I will tell you all about it." He led the way to a small chamber in the rear of the Throne Room, and they all followed him. He pointed to one corner, in which lay the Great Head, made out of many thicknesses of paper, and with a carefully painted face. "This I hung from the ceiling by a wire," said Oz; "I stood behind the screen and pulled a thread, to make the eyes move and the mouth open." "But how about the voice?" she enquired. "Oh, I am a ventriloquist," said the little man, "and I can throw the sound of my voice wherever I wish; so that you thought it was coming out of the Head. Here are the other things I used to deceive you." He showed the Scarecrow the dress and the mask he had worn when he seemed to be the lovely Lady; and the Tin Woodman saw that his Terrible Beast was nothing but a lot of skins, sewn together, with slats to keep their sides out. As for the Ball of Fire, the false Wizard had hung that also from the ceiling. It was really a ball of cotton, but when oil was poured upon it the ball burned fiercely. "Really," said the Scarecrow, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself for being such a humbug." "I am--I certainly am," answered the little man, sorrowfully; "but it was the only thing I could do. Sit down, please, there are plenty of chairs; and I will tell you my story." So they sat down and listened while he told the following tale: "I was born in Omaha--" "Why, that isn't very far from Kansas!" cried Dorothy. "No; but it's farther from here," he said, shaking his head at her, sadly. "When I grew up I became a ventriloquist, and at that I was very well trained by a great master. I can imitate any kind of a bird or beast." Here he mewed so like a kitten that Toto pricked up his ears and looked everywhere to see where she was. "After a time," continued Oz, "I tired of that, and became a balloonist." "What is that?" asked Dorothy. "A man who goes up in a balloon on circus day, so as to draw a crowd of people together and get them to pay to see the circus," he explained. [Illustration] "Oh," she said; "I know." "Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I travelled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country. "It came down gradually, and I was not hurt a bit. But I found myself in the midst of a strange people, who, seeing me come from the clouds, thought I was a great Wizard. Of course I let them think so, because they were afraid of me, and promised to do anything I wished them to. "Just to amuse myself, and keep the good people busy, I ordered them to build this City, and my palace; and they did it all willingly and well. Then I thought, as the country was so green and beautiful, I would call it the Emerald City, and to make the name fit better I put green spectacles on all the people, so that everything they saw was green." "But isn't everything here green?" asked Dorothy. "No more than in any other city," replied Oz; "but when you wear green spectacles, why of course everything you see looks green to you. The Emerald City was built a great many years ago, for I was a young man when the balloon brought me here, and I am a very old man now. But my people have worn green glasses on their eyes so long that most of them think it really is an Emerald City, and it certainly is a beautiful place, abounding in jewels and precious metals, and every good thing that is needed to make one happy. I have been good to the people, and they like me; but ever since this Palace was built I have shut myself up and would not see any of them. "One of my greatest fears was the Witches, for while I had no magical powers at all I soon found out that the Witches were really able to do wonderful things. There were four of them in this country, and they ruled the people who live in the North and South and East and West. Fortunately, the Witches of the North and South were good, and I knew they would do me no harm; but the Witches of the East and West were terribly wicked, and had they not thought I was more powerful than they themselves, they would surely have destroyed me. As it was, I lived in deadly fear of them for many years; so you can imagine how pleased I was when I heard your house had fallen on the Wicked Witch of the East. When you came to me I was willing to promise anything if you would only do away with the other Witch; but, now that you have melted her, I am ashamed to say that I cannot keep my promises." "I think you are a very bad man," said Dorothy. "Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man; but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit." "Can't you give me brains?" asked the Scarecrow. "You don't need them. You are learning something every day. A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get." "That may all be true," said the Scarecrow, "but I shall be very unhappy unless you give me brains." The false wizard looked at him carefully. "Well," he said, with a sigh, "I'm not much of a magician, as I said; but if you will come to me to-morrow morning, I will stuff your head with brains. I cannot tell you how to use them, however; you must find that out for yourself." [Illustration] "Oh, thank you--thank you!" cried the Scarecrow. "I'll find a way to use them, never fear!" "But how about my courage?" asked the Lion, anxiously. "You have plenty of courage, I am sure," answered Oz. "All you need is confidence in yourself. There is no living thing that is not afraid when it faces danger. True courage is in facing danger when you are afraid, and that kind of courage you have in plenty." "Perhaps I have, but I'm scared just the same," said the Lion. "I shall really be very unhappy unless you give me the sort of courage that makes one forget he is afraid." "Very well; I will give you that sort of courage to-morrow," replied Oz. "How about my heart?" asked the Tin Woodman. "Why, as for that," answered Oz, "I think you are wrong to want a heart. It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart." "That must be a matter of opinion," said the Tin Woodman. "For my part, I will bear all the unhappiness without a murmur, if you will give me the heart." [Illustration] "Very well," answered Oz, meekly. "Come to me to-morrow and you shall have a heart. I have played Wizard for so many years that I may as well continue the part a little longer." "And now," said Dorothy, "how am I to get back to Kansas?" "We shall have to think about that," replied the little man, "Give me two or three days to consider the matter and I'll try to find a way to carry you over the desert. In the meantime you shall all be treated as my guests, and while you live in the Palace my people will wait upon you and obey your slightest wish. There is only one thing I ask in return for my help--such as it is. You must keep my secret and tell no one I am a humbug." They agreed to say nothing of what they had learned, and went back to their rooms in high spirits. Even Dorothy had hope that "The Great and Terrible Humbug," as she called him, would find a way to send her back to Kansas, and if he did that she was willing to forgive him everything. [Illustration] Chapter XVI. The Magic Art of the Great Humbug. [Illustration] [Illustration] Next morning the Scarecrow said to his friends: "Congratulate me. I am going to Oz to get my brains at last. When I return I shall be as other men are." "I have always liked you as you were," said Dorothy, simply. "It is kind of you to like a Scarecrow," he replied. "But surely you will think more of me when you hear the splendid thoughts my new brain is going to turn out." Then he said good-bye to them all in a cheerful voice and went to the Throne Room, where he rapped upon the door. "Come in," said Oz. The Scarecrow went in and found the little man sitting down by the window, engaged in deep thought. "I have come for my brains," remarked the Scarecrow, a little uneasily. "Oh, yes; sit down in that chair, please," replied Oz. "You must excuse me for taking your head off, but I shall have to do it in order to put your brains in their proper place." "That's all right," said the Scarecrow. "You are quite welcome to take my head off, as long as it will be a better one when you put it on again." So the Wizard unfastened his head and emptied out the straw. Then he entered the back room and took up a measure of bran, which he mixed with a great many pins and needles. Having shaken them together thoroughly, he filled the top of the Scarecrow's head with the mixture and stuffed the rest of the space with straw, to hold it in place. When he had fastened the Scarecrow's head on his body again he said to him, "Hereafter you will be a great man, for I have given you a lot of bran-new brains." The Scarecrow was both pleased and proud at the fulfillment of his greatest wish, and having thanked Oz warmly he went back to his friends. Dorothy looked at him curiously. His head was quite bulging out at the top with brains. "How do you feel?" she asked. [Illustration: "_'I feel wise, indeed,' said the Scarecrow._"] "I feel wise, indeed," he answered, earnestly. "When I get used to my brains I shall know everything." "Why are those needles and pins sticking out of your head?" asked the Tin Woodman. "That is proof that he is sharp," remarked the Lion. "Well, I must go to Oz and get my heart," said the Woodman. So he walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door. "Come in," called Oz, and the Woodman entered and said, "I have come for my heart." "Very well," answered the little man. "But I shall have to cut a hole in your breast, so I can put your heart in the right place. I hope it won't hurt you." "Oh, no;" answered the Woodman. "I shall not feel it at all." [Illustration] So Oz brought a pair of tinners' shears and cut a small, square hole in the left side of the Tin Woodman's breast. Then, going to a chest of drawers, he took out a pretty heart, made entirely of silk and stuffed with sawdust. "Isn't it a beauty?" he asked. "It is, indeed!" replied the Woodman, who was greatly pleased. "But is it a kind heart?" "Oh, very!" answered Oz. He put the heart in the Woodman's breast and then replaced the square of tin, soldering it neatly together where it had been cut. "There," said he; "now you have a heart that any man might be proud of. I'm sorry I had to put a patch on your breast, but it really couldn't be helped." "Never mind the patch," exclaimed the happy Woodman. "I am very grateful to you, and shall never forget your kindness." [Illustration] "Don't speak of it," replied Oz. Then the Tin Woodman went back to his friends, who wished him every joy on account of his good fortune. The Lion now walked to the Throne Room and knocked at the door. "Come in," said Oz. "I have come for my courage," announced the Lion, entering the room. "Very well," answered the little man; "I will get it for you." He went to a cupboard and reaching up to a high shelf took down a square green bottle, the contents of which he poured into a green-gold dish, beautifully carved. Placing this before the Cowardly Lion, who sniffed at it as if he did not like it, the Wizard said, "Drink." "What is it?" asked the Lion. "Well," answered Oz, "if it were inside of you, it would be courage. You know, of course, that courage is always inside one; so that this really cannot be called courage until you have swallowed it. Therefore I advise you to drink it as soon as possible." The Lion hesitated no longer, but drank till the dish was empty. "How do you feel now?" asked Oz. "Full of courage," replied the Lion, who went joyfully back to his friends to tell them of his good fortune. Oz, left to himself, smiled to think of his success in giving the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion exactly what they thought they wanted. "How can I help being a humbug," he said, "when all these people make me do things that everybody knows can't be done? It was easy to make the Scarecrow and the Lion and the Woodman happy, because they imagined I could do anything. But it will take more than imagination to carry Dorothy back to Kansas, and I'm sure I don't know how it can be done." Chapter XVII. How the Balloon was Launched. [Illustration] For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz. These were sad days for the little girl, although her friends were all quite happy and contented. The Scarecrow told them there were wonderful thoughts in his head; but he would not say what they were because he knew no one could understand them but himself. When the Tin Woodman walked about he felt his heart rattling around in his breast; and he told Dorothy he had discovered it to be a kinder and more tender heart than the one he had owned when he was made of flesh. The Lion declared he was afraid of nothing on earth, and would gladly face an army of men or a dozen of the fierce Kalidahs. Thus each of the little party was satisfied except Dorothy, who longed more than ever to get back to Kansas. On the fourth day, to her great joy, Oz sent for her, and when she entered the Throne Room he said, pleasantly: "Sit down, my dear; I think I have found the way to get you out of this country." "And back to Kansas?" she asked, eagerly. "Well, I'm not sure about Kansas," said Oz; "for I haven't the faintest notion which way it lies. But the first thing to do is to cross the desert, and then it should be easy to find your way home." "How can I cross the desert?" she enquired. "Well, I'll tell you what I think," said the little man. "You see, when I came to this country it was in a balloon. You also came through the air, being carried by a cyclone. So I believe the best way to get across the desert will be through the air. Now, it is quite beyond my powers to make a cyclone; but I've been thinking the matter over, and I believe I can make a balloon." "How?" asked Dorothy. "A balloon," said Oz, "is made of silk, which is coated with glue to keep the gas in it. I have plenty of silk in the Palace, so it will be no trouble for us to make the balloon. But in all this country there is no gas to fill the balloon with, to make it float." "If it won't float," remarked Dorothy, "it will be of no use to us." "True," answered Oz. "But there is another way to make it float, which is to fill it with hot air. Hot air isn't as good as gas, for if the air should get cold the balloon would come down in the desert, and we should be lost." "We!" exclaimed the girl; "are you going with me?" "Yes, of course," replied Oz. "I am tired of being such a humbug. If I should go out of this Palace my people would soon discover I am not a Wizard, and then they would be vexed with me for having deceived them. So I have to stay shut up in these rooms all day, and it gets tiresome. I'd much rather go back to Kansas with you and be in a circus again." [Illustration] "I shall be glad to have your company," said Dorothy. "Thank you," he answered. "Now, if you will help me sew the silk together, we will begin to work on our balloon." So Dorothy took a needle and thread, and as fast as Oz cut the strips of silk into proper shape the girl sewed them neatly together. First there was a strip of light green silk, then a strip of dark green and then a strip of emerald green; for Oz had a fancy to make the balloon in different shades of the color about them. It took three days to sew all the strips together, but when it was finished they had a big bag of green silk more than twenty feet long. Then Oz painted it on the inside with a coat of thin glue, to make it air-tight, after which he announced that the balloon was ready. "But we must have a basket to ride in," he said. So he sent the soldier with the green whiskers for a big clothes basket, which he fastened with many ropes to the bottom of the balloon. When it was all ready, Oz sent word to his people that he was going to make a visit to a great brother Wizard who lived in the clouds. The news spread rapidly throughout the city and everyone came to see the wonderful sight. Oz ordered the balloon carried out in front of the Palace, and the people gazed upon it with much curiosity. The Tin Woodman had chopped a big pile of wood, and now he made a fire of it, and Oz held the bottom of the balloon over the fire so that the hot air that arose from it would be caught in the silken bag. Gradually the balloon swelled out and rose into the air, until finally the basket just touched the ground. Then Oz got into the basket and said to all the people in a loud voice: "I am now going away to make a visit. While I am gone the Scarecrow will rule over you. I command you to obey him as you would me." The balloon was by this time tugging hard at the rope that held it to the ground, for the air within it was hot, and this made it so much lighter in weight than the air without that it pulled hard to rise into the sky. "Come, Dorothy!" cried the Wizard; "hurry up, or the balloon will fly away." "I can't find Toto anywhere," replied Dorothy, who did not wish to leave her little dog behind. Toto had run into the crowd to bark at a kitten, and Dorothy at last found him. She picked him up and ran toward the balloon. [Illustration] She was within a few steps of it, and Oz was holding out his hands to help her into the basket, when, crack! went the ropes, and the balloon rose into the air without her. [Illustration] "Come back!" she screamed; "I want to go, too!" "I can't come back, my dear," called Oz from the basket. "Good-bye!" "Good-bye!" shouted everyone, and all eyes were turned upward to where the Wizard was riding in the basket, rising every moment farther and farther into the sky. And that was the last any of them ever saw of Oz, the Wonderful Wizard, though he may have reached Omaha safely, and be there now, for all we know. But the people remembered him lovingly, and said to one another, "Oz was always our friend. When he was here he built for us this beautiful Emerald City, and now he is gone he has left the Wise Scarecrow to rule over us." Still, for many days they grieved over the loss of the Wonderful Wizard, and would not be comforted. Chapter XVIII. Away to the South. [Illustration] [Illustration] Dorothy wept bitterly at the passing of her hope to get home to Kansas again; but when she thought it all over she was glad she had not gone up in a balloon. And she also felt sorry at losing Oz, and so did her companions. The Tin Woodman came to her and said, "Truly I should be ungrateful if I failed to mourn for the man who gave me my lovely heart. I should like to cry a little because Oz is gone, if you will kindly wipe away my tears, so that I shall not rust." [Illustration] "With pleasure," she answered, and brought a towel at once. Then the Tin Woodman wept for several minutes, and she watched the tears carefully and wiped them away with the towel. When he had finished he thanked her kindly and oiled himself thoroughly with his jewelled oil-can, to guard against mishap. The Scarecrow was now the ruler of the Emerald City, and although he was not a Wizard the people were proud of him. "For," they said, "there is not another city in all the world that is ruled by a stuffed man." And, so far as they knew, they were quite right. The morning after the balloon had gone up with Oz the four travellers met in the Throne Room and talked matters over. The Scarecrow sat in the big throne and the others stood respectfully before him. "We are not so unlucky," said the new ruler; "for this Palace and the Emerald City belong to us, and we can do just as we please. When I remember that a short time ago I was up on a pole in a farmer's cornfield, and that I am now the ruler of this beautiful City, I am quite satisfied with my lot." "I also," said the Tin Woodman, "am well pleased with my new heart; and, really, that was the only thing I wished in all the world." "For my part, I am content in knowing I am as brave as any beast that ever lived, if not braver," said the Lion, modestly, [Illustration: "_The Scarecrow sat on the big throne._"] "If Dorothy would only be contented to live in the Emerald City," continued the Scarecrow, "we might all be happy together." "But I don't want to live here," cried Dorothy. "I want to go to Kansas, and live with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry." "Well, then, what can be done?" enquired the Woodman. The Scarecrow decided to think, and he thought so hard that the pins and needles began to stick out of his brains. Finally he said: "Why not call the Winged Monkeys, and asked them to carry you over the desert?" "I never thought of that!" said Dorothy, joyfully. "It's just the thing. I'll go at once for the Golden Cap." When she brought it into the Throne Room she spoke the magic words, and soon the band of Winged Monkeys flew in through an open window and stood beside her. "This is the second time you have called us," said the Monkey King, bowing before the little girl. "What do you wish?" "I want you to fly with me to Kansas," said Dorothy. But the Monkey King shook his head. "That cannot be done," he said. "We belong to this country alone, and cannot leave it. There has never been a Winged Monkey in Kansas yet, and I suppose there never will be, for they don't belong there. We shall be glad to serve you in any way in our power, but we cannot cross the desert. Good-bye." And with another bow the Monkey King spread his wings and flew away through the window, followed by all his band. Dorothy was almost ready to cry with disappointment. "I have wasted the charm of the Golden Cap to no purpose," she said, "for the Winged Monkeys cannot help me." "It is certainly too bad!" said the tender hearted Woodman. The Scarecrow was thinking again, and his head bulged out so horribly that Dorothy feared it would burst. "Let us call in the soldier with the green whiskers," he said, "and ask his advice." [Illustration] So the soldier was summoned and entered the Throne Room timidly, for while Oz was alive he never was allowed to come further than the door. "This little girl," said the Scarecrow to the soldier, "wishes to cross the desert. How can she do so?" "I cannot tell," answered the soldier; "for nobody has ever crossed the desert, unless it is Oz himself." "Is there no one who can help me?" asked Dorothy, earnestly. "Glinda might," he suggested. "Who is Glinda?" enquired the Scarecrow. "The Witch of the South. She is the most powerful of all the Witches, and rules over the Quadlings. Besides, her castle stands on the edge of the desert, so she may know a way to cross it." "Glinda is a good Witch, isn't she?" asked the child. "The Quadlings think she is good," said the soldier, "and she is kind to everyone. I have heard that Glinda is a beautiful woman, who knows how to keep young in spite of the many years she has lived." "How can I get to her castle?" asked Dorothy. "The road is straight to the South," he answered, "but it is said to be full of dangers to travellers. There are wild beasts in the woods, and a race of queer men who do not like strangers to cross their country. For this reason none of the Quadlings ever come to the Emerald City." The soldier then left them and the Scarecrow said, "It seems, in spite of dangers, that the best thing Dorothy can do is to travel to the Land of the South and ask Glinda to help her. For, of course, if Dorothy stays here she will never get back to Kansas." "You must have been thinking again," remarked the Tin Woodman. "I have," said the Scarecrow. "I shall go with Dorothy," declared the Lion, "for I am tired of your city and long for the woods and the country again. I am really a wild beast, you know. Besides, Dorothy will need someone to protect her." "That is true," agreed the Woodman. "My axe may be of service to her; so I, also, will go with her to the Land of the South." "When shall we start?" asked the Scarecrow. "Are you going?" they asked, in surprise. "Certainly. If it wasn't for Dorothy I should never have had brains. She lifted me from the pole in the cornfield and brought me to the Emerald City. So my good luck is all due to her, and I shall never leave her until she starts back to Kansas for good and all." "Thank you," said Dorothy, gratefully. "You are all very kind to me. But I should like to start as soon as possible." "We shall go to-morrow morning," returned the Scarecrow. "So now let us all get ready, for it will be a long journey." [Illustration] Chapter XIX. Attacked by the Fighting Trees. [Illustration] [Illustration] The next morning Dorothy kissed the pretty green girl good-bye, and they all shook hands with the soldier with the green whiskers, who had walked with them as far as the gate. When the Guardian of the Gate saw them again he wondered greatly that they could leave the beautiful City to get into new trouble. But he at once unlocked their spectacles, which he put back into the green box, and gave them many good wishes to carry with them. "You are now our ruler," he said to the Scarecrow; "so you must come back to us as soon as possible." "I certainly shall if I am able," the Scarecrow replied; "but I must help Dorothy to get home, first." As Dorothy bade the good-natured Guardian a last farewell she said, "I have been very kindly treated in your lovely City, and everyone has been good to me. I cannot tell you how grateful I am." "Don't try, my dear," he answered. "We should like to keep you with us, but if it is your wish to return to Kansas I hope you will find a way." He then opened the gate of the outer wall and they walked forth and started upon their journey. The sun shone brightly as our friends turned their faces toward the Land of the South. They were all in the best of spirits, and laughed and chatted together. Dorothy was once more filled with the hope of getting home, and the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman were glad to be of use to her. As for the Lion, he sniffed the fresh air with delight and whisked his tail from side to side in pure joy at being in the country again, while Toto ran around them and chased the moths and butterflies, barking merrily all the time. "City life does not agree with me at all," remarked the Lion, as they walked along at a brisk pace. "I have lost much flesh since I lived there, and now I am anxious for a chance to show the other beasts how courageous I have grown." [Illustration: "_The branches bent down and twined around him._"] They now turned and took a last look at the Emerald City. All they could see was a mass of towers and steeples behind the green walls, and high up above everything the spires and dome of the Palace of Oz. "Oz was not such a bad Wizard, after all," said the Tin Woodman, as he felt his heart rattling around in his breast. "He knew how to give me brains, and very good brains, too," said the Scarecrow. "If Oz had taken a dose of the same courage he gave me," added the Lion, "he would have been a brave man." Dorothy said nothing. Oz had not kept the promise he made her, but he had done his best, so she forgave him. As he said, he was a good man, even if he was a bad Wizard. The first day's journey was through the green fields and bright flowers that stretched about the Emerald City on every side. They slept that night on the grass, with nothing but the stars over them; and they rested very well indeed. In the morning they travelled on until they came to a thick wood. There was no way of going around it, for it seemed to extend to the right and left as far as they could see; and, besides, they did not dare change the direction of their journey for fear of getting lost. So they looked for the place where it would be easiest to get into the forest. The Scarecrow, who was in the lead, finally discovered a big tree with such wide spreading-branches that there was room for the party to pass underneath. So he walked forward to the tree, but just as he came under the first branches they bent down and twined around him, and the next minute he was raised from the ground and flung headlong among his fellow travellers. This did not hurt the Scarecrow, but it surprised him, and he looked rather dizzy when Dorothy picked him up. "Here is another space between the trees," called the Lion. [Illustration] "Let me try it first," said the Scarecrow, "for it doesn't hurt me to get thrown about." He walked up to another tree, as he spoke, but its branches immediately seized him and tossed him back again. "This is strange," exclaimed Dorothy; "what shall we do?" "The trees seem to have made up their minds to fight us, and stop our journey," remarked the Lion. "I believe I will try it myself," said the Woodman, and shouldering his axe he marched up to the first tree that had handled the Scarecrow so roughly. When a big branch bent down to seize him the Woodman chopped at it so fiercely that he cut it in two. At once the tree began shaking all its branches as if in pain, and the Tin Woodman passed safely under it. "Come on!" he shouted to the others; "be quick!" They all ran forward and passed under the tree without injury, except Toto, who was caught by a small branch and shaken until he howled. But the Woodman promptly chopped off the branch and set the little dog free. The other trees of the forest did nothing to keep them back, so they made up their minds that only the first row of trees could bend down their branches, and that probably these were the policemen of the forest, and given this wonderful power in order to keep strangers out of it. The four travellers walked with ease through the trees until they came to the further edge of the wood. Then, to their surprise, they found before them a high wall, which seemed to be made of white china. It was smooth, like the surface of a dish, and higher than their heads. "What shall we do now?" asked Dorothy. "I will make a ladder," said the Tin Woodman, "for we certainly must climb over the wall." Chapter XX. The Dainty China Country. [Illustration] [Illustration] While the Woodman was making a ladder from wood which he found in the forest Dorothy lay down and slept, for she was tired by the long walk. The Lion also curled himself up to sleep and Toto lay beside him. The Scarecrow watched the Woodman while he worked, and said to him: "I cannot think why this wall is here, nor what it is made of." "Rest your brains and do not worry about the wall," replied the Woodman; "when we have climbed over it we shall know what is on the other side." After a time the ladder was finished. It looked clumsy, but the Tin Woodman was sure it was strong and would answer their purpose. The Scarecrow waked Dorothy and the Lion and Toto, and told them that the ladder was ready. The Scarecrow climbed up the ladder first, but he was so awkward that Dorothy had to follow close behind and keep him from falling off. When he got his head over the top of the wall the Scarecrow said, "Oh, my!" "Go on," exclaimed Dorothy. So the Scarecrow climbed further up and sat down on the top of the wall, and Dorothy put her head over and cried, "Oh, my!" just as the Scarecrow had done. Then Toto came up, and immediately began to bark, but Dorothy made him be still. The Lion climbed the ladder next, and the Tin Woodman came last; but both of them cried, "Oh, my!" as soon as they looked over the wall. When they were all sitting in a row on the top of the wall they looked down and saw a strange sight. [Illustration: "_These people were all made of china._"] Before them was a great stretch of country having a floor as smooth and shining and white as the bottom of a big platter. Scattered around were many houses made entirely of china and painted in the brightest colours. These houses were quite small, the biggest of them reaching only as high as Dorothy's waist. There were also pretty little barns, with china fences around them, and many cows and sheep and horses and pigs and chickens, all made of china, were standing about in groups. But the strangest of all were the people who lived in this queer country. There were milk-maids and shepherdesses, with bright-colored bodices and golden spots all over their gowns; and princesses with most gorgeous frocks of silver and gold and purple; and shepherds dressed in knee-breeches with pink and yellow and blue stripes down them, and golden buckles on their shoes; and princes with jewelled crowns upon their heads, wearing ermine robes and satin doublets; and funny clowns in ruffled gowns, with round red spots upon their cheeks and tall, pointed caps. And, strangest of all, these people were all made of china, even to their clothes, and were so small that the tallest of them was no higher than Dorothy's knee. No one did so much as look at the travellers at first, except one little purple china dog with an extra-large head, which came to the wall and barked at them in a tiny voice, afterwards running away again. "How shall we get down?" asked Dorothy. They found the ladder so heavy they could not pull it up, so the Scarecrow fell off the wall and the others jumped down upon him so that the hard floor would not hurt their feet. Of course they took pains not to light on his head and get the pins in their feet. When all were safely down they picked up the Scarecrow, whose body was quite flattened out, and patted his straw into shape again. "We must cross this strange place in order to get to the other side," said Dorothy; "for it would be unwise for us to go any other way except due South." They began walking through the country of the china people, and the first thing they came to was a china milk-maid milking a china cow. As they drew near the cow suddenly gave a kick and kicked over the stool, the pail, and even the milk-maid herself, all falling on the china ground with a great clatter. Dorothy was shocked to see that the cow had broken her leg short off, and that the pail was lying in several small pieces, while the poor milk-maid had a nick in her left elbow. "There!" cried the milk-maid, angrily; "see what you have done! My cow has broken her leg, and I must take her to the mender's shop and have it glued on again. What do you mean by coming here and frightening my cow?" "I'm very sorry," returned Dorothy; "please forgive us." But the pretty milk-maid was much too vexed to make any answer. She picked up the leg sulkily and led her cow away, the poor animal limping on three legs. As she left them the milk-maid cast many reproachful glances over her shoulder at the clumsy strangers, holding her nicked elbow close to her side. [Illustration] Dorothy was quite grieved at this mishap. "We must be very careful here," said the kind-hearted Woodman, "or we may hurt these pretty little people so they will never get over it." A little farther on Dorothy met a most beautiful dressed young princess, who stopped short as she saw the strangers and started to run away. Dorothy wanted to see more of the Princess, so she ran after her; but the china girl cried out, "Don't chase me! don't chase me!" She had such a frightened little voice that Dorothy stopped and said, "Why not?" "Because," answered the princess, also stopping, a safe distance away, "if I run I may fall down and break myself." "But couldn't you be mended?" asked the girl. "Oh, yes; but one is never so pretty after being mended, you know," replied the princess. "I suppose not," said Dorothy. "Now there is Mr. Joker, one of our clowns," continued the china lady, "who is always trying to stand upon his head. He has broken himself so often that he is mended in a hundred places, and doesn't look at all pretty. Here he comes now, so you can see for yourself." Indeed, a jolly little Clown now came walking toward them, and Dorothy could see that in spite of his pretty clothes of red and yellow and green he was completely covered with cracks, running every which way and showing plainly that he had been mended in many places. The Clown put his hands in his pockets, and after puffing out his cheeks and nodding his head at them saucily he said, "My lady fair, Why do you stare At poor old Mr. Joker? You're quite as stiff And prim as if You'd eaten up a poker!" "Be quiet, sir!" said the princess; "can't you see these are strangers, and should be treated with respect?" "Well, that's respect, I expect," declared the Clown, and immediately stood upon his head. "Don't mind Mr. Joker," said the princess to Dorothy; "he is considerably cracked in his head, and that makes him foolish." [Illustration] "Oh, I don't mind him a bit," said Dorothy. "But you are so beautiful," she continued, "that I am sure I could love you dearly. Won't you let me carry you back to Kansas and stand you on Aunt Em's mantle-shelf? I could carry you in my basket." "That would make me very unhappy," answered the china princess. "You see, here in our own country we live contentedly, and can talk and move around as we please. But whenever any of us are taken away our joints at once stiffen, and we can only stand straight and look pretty. Of course that is all that is expected of us when we are on mantle-shelves and cabinets and drawing-room tables, but our lives are much pleasanter here in our own country." "I would not make you unhappy for all the world!" exclaimed Dorothy; "so I'll just say good-bye." "Good-bye," replied the princess. They walked carefully through the china country. The little animals and all the people scampered out of their way, fearing the strangers would break them, and after an hour or so the travellers reached the other side of the country and came to another china wall. It was not as high as the first, however, and by standing upon the Lion's back they all managed to scramble to the top. Then the Lion gathered his legs under him and jumped on the wall; but just as he jumped he upset a china church with his tail and smashed it all to pieces. "That was too bad," said Dorothy, "but really I think we were lucky in not doing these little people more harm than breaking a cow's leg and a church. They are all so brittle!" "They are, indeed," said the Scarecrow, "and I am thankful I am made of straw and cannot be easily damaged. There are worse things in the world than being a Scarecrow." Chapter XXI. The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts. [Illustration] [Illustration] After climbing down from the china wall the travellers found themselves in a disagreeable country, full of bogs and marshes and covered with tall, rank grass. It was difficult to walk far without falling into muddy holes, for the grass was so thick that it hid them from sight. However, by carefully picking their way, they got safely along until they reached solid ground. But here the country seemed wilder than ever, and after a long and tiresome walk through the underbrush they entered another forest, where the trees were bigger and older than any they had ever seen. "This forest is perfectly delightful," declared the Lion, looking around him with joy; "never have I seen a more beautiful place." "It seems gloomy," said the Scarecrow. "Not a bit of it," answered the Lion; "I should like to live here all my life. See how soft the dried leaves are under your feet and how rich and green the moss is that clings to these old trees. Surely no wild beast could wish a pleasanter home." "Perhaps there are wild beasts in the forest now," said Dorothy. "I suppose there are," returned the Lion; "but I do not see any of them about." They walked through the forest until it became too dark to go any farther. Dorothy and Toto and the Lion lay down to sleep, while the Woodman and the Scarecrow kept watch over them as usual. When morning came they started again. Before they had gone far they heard a low rumble, as of the growling of many wild animals. Toto whimpered a little but none of the others was frightened and they kept along the well-trodden path until they came to an opening in the wood, in which were gathered hundreds of beasts of every variety. There were tigers and elephants and bears and wolves and foxes and all the others in the natural history, and for a moment Dorothy was afraid. But the Lion explained that the animals were holding a meeting, and he judged by their snarling and growling that they were in great trouble. As he spoke several of the beasts caught sight of him, and at once the great assemblage hushed as if by magic. The biggest of the tigers came up to the Lion and bowed, saying, [Illustration] "Welcome, O King of Beasts! You have come in good time to fight our enemy and bring peace to all the animals of the forest once more." "What is your trouble?" asked the Lion, quietly. "We are all threatened," answered the tiger, "by a fierce enemy which has lately come into this forest. It is a most tremendous monster, like a great spider, with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as a tree trunk. It has eight of these long legs, and as the monster crawls through the forest he seizes an animal with a leg and drags it to his mouth, where he eats it as a spider does a fly. Not one of us is safe while this fierce creature is alive, and we had called a meeting to decide how to take care of ourselves when you came among us." The Lion thought for a moment. "Are there any other lions in this forest?" he asked. "No; there were some, but the monster has eaten them all. And, besides, they were none of them nearly so large and brave as you." "If I put an end to your enemy will you bow down to me and obey me as King of the Forest?" enquired the Lion. "We will do that gladly," returned the tiger; and all the other beasts roared with a mighty roar: "We will!" "Where is this great spider of yours now?" asked the Lion. "Yonder, among the oak trees," said the tiger, pointing with his fore-foot. "Take good care of these friends of mine," said the Lion, "and I will go at once to fight the monster." He bade his comrades good-bye and marched proudly away to do battle with the enemy. The great spider was lying asleep when the Lion found him, and it looked so ugly that its foe turned up his nose in disgust. Its legs were quite as long as the tiger had said, and it's body covered with coarse black hair. It had a great mouth, with a row of sharp teeth a foot long; but its head was joined to the pudgy body by a neck as slender as a wasp's waist. This gave the Lion a hint of the best way to attack the creature, and as he knew it was easier to fight it asleep than awake, he gave a great spring and landed directly upon the monster's back. Then, with one blow of his heavy paw, all armed with sharp claws, he knocked the spider's head from its body. Jumping down, he watched it until the long legs stopped wiggling, when he knew it was quite dead. The Lion went back to the opening where the beasts of the forest were waiting for him and said, proudly, "You need fear your enemy no longer." Then the beasts bowed down to the Lion as their King, and he promised to come back and rule over them as soon as Dorothy was safely on her way to Kansas. Chapter XXII. The Country of the Quadlings [Illustration] [Illustration: "_The Head shot forward and struck the Scarecrow._"] [Illustration] The four travellers passed through the rest of the forest in safety, and when they came out from its gloom saw before them a steep hill, covered from top to bottom with great pieces of rock. "That will be a hard climb," said the Scarecrow, "but we must get over the hill, nevertheless." So he led the way and the others followed. They had nearly reached the first rock when they heard a rough voice cry out, "Keep back!" "Who are you?" asked the Scarecrow. Then a head showed itself over the rock and the same voice said, "This hill belongs to us, and we don't allow anyone to cross it." "But we must cross it," said the Scarecrow. "We're going to the country of the Quadlings." "But you shall not!" replied the voice, and there stepped from behind the rock the strangest man the travellers had ever seen. He was quite short and stout and had a big head, which was flat at the top and supported by a thick neck full of wrinkles. But he had no arms at all, and, seeing this, the Scarecrow did not fear that so helpless a creature could prevent them from climbing the hill. So he said, "I'm sorry not to do as you wish, but we must pass over your hill whether you like it or not," and he walked boldly forward. As quick as lightning the man's head shot forward and his neck stretched out until the top of the head, where it was flat, struck the Scarecrow in the middle and sent him tumbling, over and over, down the hill. Almost as quickly as it came the head went back to the body, and the man laughed harshly as he said, "It isn't as easy as you think!" A chorus of boisterous laughter came from the other rocks, and Dorothy saw hundreds of the armless Hammer-Heads upon the hillside, one behind every rock. The Lion became quite angry at the laughter caused by the Scarecrow's mishap, and giving a loud roar that echoed like thunder he dashed up the hill. Again a head shot swiftly out, and the great Lion went rolling down the hill as if he had been struck by a cannon ball. Dorothy ran down and helped the Scarecrow to his feet, and the Lion came up to her, feeling rather bruised and sore, and said, "It is useless to fight people with shooting heads; no one can withstand them." "What can we do, then?" she asked. "Call the Winged Monkeys," suggested the Tin Woodman; "you have still the right to command them once more." "Very well," she answered, and putting on the Golden Cap she uttered the magic words. The Monkeys were as prompt as ever, and in a few moments the entire band stood before her. "What are your commands?" enquired the King of the Monkeys, bowing low. "Carry us over the hill to the country of the Quadlings," answered the girl. "It shall be done," said the King, and at once the Winged Monkeys caught the four travellers and Toto up in their arms and flew away with them. As they passed over the hill the Hammer-Heads yelled with vexation, and shot their heads high in the air; but they could not reach the Winged Monkeys, which carried Dorothy and her comrades safely over the hill and set them down in the beautiful country of the Quadlings. "This is the last time you can summon us," said the leader to Dorothy; "so good-bye and good luck to you." "Good-bye, and thank you very much," returned the girl; and the Monkeys rose into the air and were out of sight in a twinkling. The country of the Quadlings seemed rich and happy. There was field upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them. The fences and houses and bridges were all painted bright red, just as they had been painted yellow in the country of the Winkies and blue in the country of the Munchkins. The Quadlings themselves, who were short and fat and looked chubby and good natured, were dressed all in red, which showed bright against the green grass and the yellowing grain. The Monkeys had set them down near a farm house, and the four travellers walked up to it and knocked at the door. It was opened by the farmer's wife, and when Dorothy asked for something to eat the woman gave them all a good dinner, with three kinds of cake and four kinds of cookies, and a bowl of milk for Toto. "How far is it to the Castle of Glinda?" asked the child. "It is not a great way," answered the farmer's wife. "Take the road to the South and you will soon reach it." Thanking the good woman, they started afresh and walked by the fields and across the pretty bridges until they saw before them a very beautiful Castle. Before the gates were three young girls, dressed in handsome red uniforms trimmed with gold braid; and as Dorothy approached one of them said to her, "Why have you come to the South Country?" "To see the Good Witch who rules here," she answered. "Will you take me to her?" "Let me have your name and I will ask Glinda if she will receive you." They told who they were, and the girl soldier went into the Castle. After a few moments she came back to say that Dorothy and the others were to be admitted at once. [Illustration] Chapter XXIII. The Good Witch Grants Dorothy's Wish. [Illustration] [Illustration: "_You must give me the Golden Cap._"] [Illustration] Before they went to see Glinda, however, they were taken to a room of the Castle, where Dorothy washed her face and combed her hair, and the Lion shook the dust out of his mane, and the Scarecrow patted himself into his best shape, and the Woodman polished his tin and oiled his joints. When they were all quite presentable they followed the soldier girl into a big room where the Witch Glinda sat upon a throne of rubies. She was both beautiful and young to their eyes. Her hair was a rich red in color and fell in flowing ringlets over her shoulders. Her dress was pure white; but her eyes were blue, and they looked kindly upon the little girl. "What can I do for you, my child?" she asked. Dorothy told the Witch all her story; how the cyclone had brought her to the Land of Oz, how she had found her companions, and of the wonderful adventures they had met with. "My greatest wish now," she added, "is to get back to Kansas, for Aunt Em will surely think something dreadful has happened to me, and that will make her put on mourning; and unless the crops are better this year than they were last I am sure Uncle Henry cannot afford it." Glinda leaned forward and kissed the sweet, upturned face of the loving little girl. "Bless your dear heart," she said, "I am sure I can tell you of a way to get back to Kansas." Then she added: "But, if I do, you must give me the Golden Cap." "Willingly!" exclaimed Dorothy; "indeed, it is of no use to me now, and when you have it you can command the Winged Monkeys three times." "And I think I shall need their service just those three times," answered Glinda, smiling. Dorothy then gave her the Golden Cap, and the Witch said to the Scarecrow, "What will you do when Dorothy has left us?" "I will return to the Emerald City," he replied, "for Oz has made me its ruler and the people like me. The only thing that worries me is how to cross the hill of the Hammer-Heads." "By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged Monkeys to carry you to the gates of the Emerald City," said Glinda, "for it would be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler." "Am I really wonderful?" asked the Scarecrow. "You are unusual," replied Glinda. Turning to the Tin Woodman, she asked: "What will become of you when Dorothy leaves this country?" He leaned on his axe and thought a moment. Then he said, "The Winkies were very kind to me, and wanted me to rule over them after the Wicked Witch died. I am fond of the Winkies, and if I could get back again to the country of the West I should like nothing better than to rule over them forever." "My second command to the Winged Monkeys," said Glinda, "will be that they carry you safely to the land of the Winkies. Your brains may not be so large to look at as those of the Scarecrow, but you are really brighter than he is--when you are well polished--and I am sure you will rule the Winkies wisely and well." Then the Witch looked at the big, shaggy Lion and asked, "When Dorothy has returned to her own home, what will become of you?" "Over the hill of the Hammer-Heads," he answered, "lies a grand old forest, and all the beasts that live there have made me their King. If I could only get back to this forest I would pass my life very happily there." "My third command to the Winged Monkeys," said Glinda, "shall be to carry you to your forest. Then, having used up the powers of the Golden Cap, I shall give it to the King of the Monkeys, that he and his band may thereafter be free for evermore." The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and the Lion now thanked the Good Witch earnestly for her kindness, and Dorothy exclaimed, [Illustration] "You are certainly as good as you are beautiful! But you have not yet told me how to get back to Kansas." "Your Silver Shoes will carry you over the desert," replied Glinda. "If you had known their power you could have gone back to your Aunt Em the very first day you came to this country." "But then I should not have had my wonderful brains!" cried the Scarecrow. "I might have passed my whole life in the farmer's cornfield." "And I should not have had my lovely heart," said the Tin Woodman. "I might have stood and rusted in the forest till the end of the world." "And I should have lived a coward forever," declared the Lion, "and no beast in all the forest would have had a good word to say to me." "This is all true," said Dorothy, "and I am glad I was of use to these good friends. But now that each of them has had what he most desired, and each is happy in having a kingdom to rule beside, I think I should like to go back to Kansas." "The Silver Shoes," said the Good Witch, "have wonderful powers. And one of the most curious things about them is that they can carry you to any place in the world in three steps, and each step will be made in the wink of an eye. All you have to do is to knock the heels together three times and command the shoes to carry you wherever you wish to go." "If that is so," said the child, joyfully, "I will ask them to carry me back to Kansas at once." She threw her arms around the Lion's neck and kissed him, patting his big head tenderly. Then she kissed the Tin Woodman, who was weeping in a way most dangerous to his joints. But she hugged the soft, stuffed body of the Scarecrow in her arms instead of kissing his painted face, and found she was crying herself at this sorrowful parting from her loving comrades. Glinda the Good stepped down from her ruby throne to give the little girl a good-bye kiss, and Dorothy thanked her for all the kindness she had shown to her friends and herself. Dorothy now took Toto up solemnly in her arms, and having said one last good-bye she clapped the heels of her shoes together three times, saying, "Take me home to Aunt Em!" * * * * * [Illustration] Instantly she was whirling through the air, so swiftly that all she could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears. The Silver Shoes took but three steps, and then she stopped so suddenly that she rolled over upon the grass several times before she knew where she was. At length, however, she sat up and looked about her. "Good gracious!" she cried. For she was sitting on the broad Kansas prairie, and just before her was the new farm-house Uncle Henry built after the cyclone had carried away the old one. Uncle Henry was milking the cows in the barnyard, and Toto had jumped out of her arms and was running toward the barn, barking joyously. Dorothy stood up and found she was in her stocking-feet. For the Silver Shoes had fallen off in her flight through the air, and were lost forever in the desert. [Illustration] Chapter XXIV. Home Again. Aunt Em had just come out of the house to water the cabbages when she looked up and saw Dorothy running toward her. "My darling child!" she cried, folding the little girl in her arms and covering her face with kisses; "where in the world did you come from?" "From the Land of Oz," said Dorothy, gravely. "And here is Toto, too. And oh, Aunt Em! I'm so glad to be at home again!" [Illustration] Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been fixed throughout. 
12621	----	Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk THE BOOK OF DREAMS AND GHOSTS PREFACE TO THE NEW IMPRESSION Since the first edition of this book appeared (1897) a considerable number of new and startling ghost stories, British, Foreign and Colonial, not yet published, have reached me. Second Sight abounds. Crystal Gazing has also advanced in popularity. For a singular series of such visions, in which distant persons and places, unknown to the gazer, were correctly described by her, I may refer to my book, The Making of Religion (1898). A memorial stone has been erected on the scene of the story called "The Foul Fords" (p. 269), so that tale is likely to endure in tradition. July, 1899. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION The chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For the sake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different grades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably startling. At the same time an account of the current theories of Apparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities as possible. According to modern opinion every "ghost" is a "hallucination," a false perception, the perception of something which is not present. It has not been thought necessary to discuss the psychological and physiological processes involved in perception, real or false. Every "hallucination" is a perception, "as good and true a sensation as if there were a real object there. The object happens _not_ to be there, that is all." {0a} We are not here concerned with the visions of insanity, delirium, drugs, drink, remorse, or anxiety, but with "sporadic cases of hallucination, visiting people only once in a lifetime, which seems to be by far the most frequent type". "These," says Mr. James, "are on any theory hard to understand in detail. They are often extraordinarily complete; and the fact that many of them are reported as _veridical_, that is, as coinciding with real events, such as accidents, deaths, etc., of the persons seen, is an additional complication of the phenomenon." {0b} A ghost, if seen, is undeniably so far a "hallucination" that it gives the impression of the presence of a real person, in flesh, blood, and usually clothes. No such person in flesh, blood, and clothes, is actually there. So far, at least, every ghost is a hallucination, "_that_" in the language of Captain Cuttle, "you may lay to," without offending science, religion, or common-sense. And that, in brief, is the modern doctrine of ghosts. The old doctrine of "ghosts" regarded them as actual "spirits" of the living or the dead, freed from the flesh or from the grave. This view, whatever else may be said for it, represents the simple philosophy of the savage, which may be correct or erroneous. About the time of the Reformation, writers, especially Protestant writers, preferred to look on apparitions as the work of deceitful devils, who masqueraded in the aspect of the dead or living, or made up phantasms out of "compressed air". The common-sense of the eighteenth century dismissed all apparitions as "dreams" or hoaxes, or illusions caused by real objects misinterpreted, such as rats, cats, white posts, maniacs at large, sleep-walkers, thieves, and so forth. Modern science, when it admits the possibility of occasional hallucinations in the sane and healthy, also admits, of course, the existence of apparitions. These, for our purposes, are hallucinatory appearances occurring in the experience of people healthy and sane. The difficulty begins when we ask whether these appearances ever have any provoking mental cause outside the minds of the people who experience them--any cause arising in the minds of others, alive or dead. This is a question which orthodox psychology does not approach, standing aside from any evidence which may be produced. This book does not pretend to be a convincing, but merely an illustrative collection of evidence. It may, or may not, suggest to some readers the desirableness of further inquiry; the author certainly does not hope to do more, if as much. It may be urged that many of the stories here narrated come from remote times, and, as the testimony for these cannot be rigidly studied, that the old unauthenticated stories clash with the analogous tales current on better authority in our own day. But these ancient legends are given, not as evidence, but for three reasons: first, because of their merit as mere stories; next, because several of them are now perhaps for the first time offered with a critical discussion of their historical sources; lastly, because the old legends seem to show how the fancy of periods less critical than ours dealt with such facts as are now reported in a dull undramatic manner. Thus (1) the Icelandic ghost stories have peculiar literary merit as simple dramatic narratives. (2) Every one has heard of the Wesley ghost, Sir George Villiers's spectre, Lord Lyttelton's ghost, the Beresford ghost, Mr. Williams's dream of Mr. Perceval's murder, and so forth. But the original sources have not, as a rule, been examined in the ordinary spirit of calm historical criticism, by aid of a comparison of the earliest versions in print or manuscript. (3) Even ghost stories, as a rule, have some basis of fact, whether fact of hallucination, or illusion, or imposture. They are, at lowest, "human documents". Now, granting such facts (of imposture, hallucination, or what you will), as our dull, modern narratives contain, we can regard these facts, or things like these, as the nuclei which our less critical ancestors elaborated into their extraordinary romances. In this way the belief in demoniacal possession (distinguished, as such, from madness and epilepsy) has its nucleus, some contend, in the phenomena of alternating personalities in certain patients. Their characters, ideas, habits, and even voices change, and the most obvious solution of the problem, in the past, was to suppose that a new alien personality--a "devil"--had entered into the sufferer. Again, the phenomena occurring in "haunted houses" (whether caused, or not, by imposture or hallucination, or both) were easily magnified into such legends as that of Grettir and Glam, and into the monstrosities of the witch trials. Once more the simple hallucination of a dead person's appearance in his house demanded an explanation. This was easily given by evolving a legend that he was a spirit, escaped from purgatory or the grave, to fulfil a definite purpose. The rarity of such purposeful ghosts in an age like ours, so rich in ghost stories, must have a cause. That cause is, probably, a dwindling of the myth-making faculty. Any one who takes these matters seriously, as facts in human nature, must have discovered the difficulty of getting evidence at first hand. This arises from several causes. First, the cock-sure common-sense of the years from 1660 to 1850, or so, regarded every one who had experience of a hallucination as a dupe, a lunatic, or a liar. In this healthy state of opinion, eminent people like Lord Brougham kept their experience to themselves, or, at most, nervously protested that they "were sure it was only a dream". Next, to tell the story was, often, to enter on a narrative of intimate, perhaps painful, domestic circumstances. Thirdly, many persons now refuse information as a matter of "principle," or of "religious principle," though it is difficult to see where either principle or religion is concerned, if the witness is telling what he believes to be true. Next, some devotees of science aver that these studies may bring back faith by a side wind, and, with faith, the fires of Smithfield and the torturing of witches. These opponents are what Professor Huxley called "dreadful consequences argufiers," when similar reasons were urged against the doctrine of evolution. Their position is strongest when they maintain that these topics have a tendency to befog the intellect. A desire to prove the existence of "new forces" may beget indifference to logic and to the laws of evidence. This is true, and we have several dreadful examples among men otherwise scientific. But all studies have their temptations. Many a historian, to prove the guilt or innocence of Queen Mary, has put evidence, and logic, and common honesty far from him. Yet this is no reason for abandoning the study of history. There is another class of difficulties. As anthropology becomes popular, every inquirer knows what customs he _ought_ to find among savages, so, of course, he finds them. In the same way, people may now know what customs it is orthodox to find among ghosts, and may pretend to find them, or may simulate them by imposture. The white sheet and clanking chains are forsaken for a more realistic rendering of the ghostly part. The desire of social notoriety may beget wanton fabrications. In short, all studies have their perils, and these are among the dangers which beset the path of the inquirer into things ghostly. He must adopt the stoical maxim: "Be sober and do not believe"--in a hurry. If there be truth in even one case of "telepathy," it will follow that the human soul is a thing endowed with attributes not yet recognised by science. It cannot be denied that this is a serious consideration, and that very startling consequences might be deduced from it; such beliefs, indeed, as were generally entertained in the ages of Christian darkness which preceded the present era of enlightenment. But our business in studies of any kind is, of course, with truth, as we are often told, not with the consequences, however ruinous to our most settled convictions, or however pernicious to society. The very opposite objection comes from the side of religion. These things we learn, are spiritual mysteries into which men must not inquire. This is only a relic of the ancient opinion that he was an impious character who first launched a boat, God having made man a terrestrial animal. Assuredly God put us into a world of phenomena, and gave us inquiring minds. We have as much right to explore the phenomena of these minds as to explore the ocean. Again, if it be said that our inquiries may lead to an undignified theory of the future life (so far they have not led to any theory at all), that, also, is the position of the Dreadful Consequences Argufier. Lastly, "the stories may frighten children". For children the book is not written, any more than if it were a treatise on comparative anatomy. The author has frequently been asked, both publicly and privately: "Do you believe in ghosts?" One can only answer: "How do you define a ghost?" I do believe, with all students of human nature, in hallucinations of one, or of several, or even of all the senses. But as to whether such hallucinations, among the sane, are ever caused by psychical influences from the minds of others, alive or dead, not communicated through the ordinary channels of sense, my mind is in a balance of doubt. It is a question of evidence. In this collection many stories are given without the real names of the witnesses. In most of the cases the real names, and their owners, are well known to myself. In not publishing the names I only take the common privilege of writers on medicine and psychology. In other instances the names are known to the managers of the Society for Psychical Research, who have kindly permitted me to borrow from their collections. While this book passed through the press, a long correspondence called "On the Trail of a Ghost" appeared in The Times. It illustrated the copious fallacies which haunt the human intellect. Thus it was maintained by some persons, and denied by others, that sounds of unknown origin were occasionally heard in a certain house. These, it was suggested, might (if really heard) be caused by slight seismic disturbances. Now many people argue, "Blunderstone House is not haunted, for I passed a night there, and nothing unusual occurred". Apply this to a house where noises are actually caused by young earthquakes. Would anybody say: "There are no seismic disturbances near Blunderstone House, for I passed a night there, and none occurred"? Why should a noisy ghost (if there is such a thing) or a hallucinatory sound (if there is such a thing), be expected to be more punctual and pertinacious than a seismic disturbance? Again, the gentleman who opened the correspondence with a long statement on the negative side, cried out, like others, for scientific publicity, for names of people and places. But neither he nor his allies gave their own names. He did not precisely establish his claim to confidence by publishing his version of private conversations. Yet he expected science and the public to believe his anonymous account of a conversation, with an unnamed person, at which he did not and could not pretend to have been present. He had a theory of sounds heard by himself which could have been proved, or disproved, in five minutes, by a simple experiment. But that experiment he does not say that he made. This kind of evidence is thought good enough on the negative side. It certainly would not be accepted by any sane person for the affirmative side. If what is called psychical research has no other results, at least it enables us to perceive the fallacies which can impose on the credulity of common-sense. In preparing this collection of tales, I owe much to Mr. W. A. Craigie, who translated the stories from the Gaelic and the Icelandic; to Miss Elspeth Campbell, who gives a version of the curious Argyll tradition of Ticonderoga (rhymed by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who put a Cameron where a Campbell should be); to Miss Violet Simpson, who found the Windham MS. about the Duke of Buckingham's story, and made other researches; and to Miss Goodrich Freer, who pointed out the family version of "The Tyrone Ghost". CHAPTER I Arbuthnot on Political Lying. Begin with "Great Swingeing Falsehoods". The Opposite Method to be used in telling Ghost Stones. Begin with the more Familiar and Credible. Sleep. Dreams. Ghosts are identical with Waking Dreams. Possibility of being Asleep when we think we are Awake. Dreams shared by several People. Story of the Dog Fanti. The Swithinbank Dream. Common Features of Ghosts and Dreams. Mark Twain's Story. Theory of Common-sense. Not Logical. Fulfilled Dreams. The Pig in the Palace. The Mignonette. Dreams of Reawakened Memory. The Lost Cheque. The Ducks' Eggs. The Lost Key. Drama in Dreams. The Lost Securities. The Portuguese Gold-piece. St. Augustine's Story. The Two Curmas. Knowledge acquired in Dreams. The Assyrian Priest. The Deja Vu. "I have been here before." Sir Walter's Experience. Explanations. The Knot in the Shutter. Transition to Stranger Dreams. Arbuthnot, in his humorous work on Political Lying, commends the Whigs for occasionally trying the people with "great swingeing falsehoods". When these are once got down by the populace, anything may follow without difficulty. Excellently as this practice has worked in politics (compare the warming-pan lie of 1688), in the telling of ghost stories a different plan has its merits. Beginning with the common-place and familiar, and therefore credible, with the thin end of the wedge, in fact, a wise narrator will advance to the rather unusual, the extremely rare, the undeniably startling, and so arrive at statements which, without this discreet and gradual initiation, a hasty reader might, justly or unjustly, dismiss as "great swingeing falsehoods". The nature of things and of men has fortunately made this method at once easy, obvious, and scientific. Even in the rather fantastic realm of ghosts, the stories fall into regular groups, advancing in difficulty, like exercises in music or in a foreign language. We therefore start from the easiest Exercises in Belief, or even from those which present no difficulty at all. The defect of the method is that easy stories are dull reading. But the student can "skip". We begin with common every-night dreams. Sleeping is as natural as waking; dreams are nearly as frequent as every-day sensations, thoughts, and emotions. But dreams, being familiar, are credible; it is admitted that people do dream; we reach the less credible as we advance to the less familiar. For, if we think for a moment, the alleged events of ghostdom--apparitions of all sorts--are precisely identical with the every-night phenomena of dreaming, except for the avowed element of sleep in dreams. In dreams, time and space are annihilated, and two severed lovers may be made happy. In dreams, amidst a grotesque confusion of things remembered and things forgot, we _see_ the events of the past (I have been at Culloden fight and at the siege of Troy); we are present in places remote; we behold the absent; we converse with the dead, and we may even (let us say by chance coincidence) forecast the future. All these things, except the last, are familiar to everybody who dreams. It is also certain that similar, but yet more vivid, false experiences may be produced, at the word of the hypnotiser, in persons under the hypnotic sleep. A hypnotised man will take water for wine, and get drunk on it. Now, the ghostly is nothing but the experience, when men are awake, or _apparently_ awake, of the every-night phenomena of dreaming. The vision of the absent seen by a waking, or apparently waking, man is called "a wraith"; the waking, or apparently waking, vision of the dead is called "a ghost". Yet, as St. Augustine says, the absent man, or the dead man, may know no more of the vision, and may have no more to do with causing it, than have the absent or the dead whom we are perfectly accustomed to see in our dreams. Moreover, the comparatively rare cases in which two or more waking people are alleged to have seen the same "ghost," simultaneously or in succession, have _their_ parallel in sleep, where two or more persons simultaneously dream the same dream. Of this curious fact let us give one example: the names only are altered. THE DOG FANTI Mrs. Ogilvie of Drumquaigh had a poodle named Fanti. Her family, or at least those who lived with her, were her son, the laird, and three daughters. Of these the two younger, at a certain recent date, were paying a short visit to a neighbouring country house. Mrs. Ogilvie was accustomed to breakfast in her bedroom, not being in the best of health. One morning Miss Ogilvie came down to breakfast and said to her brother, "I had an odd dream; I dreamed Fanti went mad". "Well, that _is_ odd," said her brother. "So did I. We had better not tell mother; it might make her nervous." Miss Ogilvie went up after breakfast to see the elder lady, who said, "Do turn out Fanti; I dreamed last night that he went mad and bit". In the afternoon the two younger sisters came home. "How did you enjoy yourselves?" one of the others asked. "We didn't sleep well. I was dreaming that Fanti went mad when Mary wakened me, and said she had dreamed Fanti went mad, and turned into a cat, and we threw him into the fire." Thus, as several people may see the same ghost at once, several people may dream the same dream at once. As a matter of fact, Fanti lived, sane and harmless, "all the length of all his years". {4} Now, this anecdote is credible, certainly is credible by people who know the dreaming family. It is nothing more than a curiosity of coincidences; and, as Fanti remained a sober, peaceful hound, in face of five dreamers, the absence of fulfilment increases the readiness of belief. But compare the case of the Swithinbanks. Mr. Swithinbank, on 20th May, 1883, signed for publication a statement to this effect:-- During the Peninsular war his father and his two brothers were quartered at Dover. Their family were at Bradford. The brothers slept in various quarters of Dover camp. One morning they met after parade. "O William, I have had a queer dream," said Mr. Swithinbank's father. "So have I," replied the brother, when, to the astonishment of both, the other brother, John, said, "I have had a queer dream as well. I dreamt that mother was dead." "So did I," said each of the other brothers. And the mother had died on the night of this dreaming. Mrs. Hudson, daughter of one of the brothers, heard the story from all three. {5a} The distribution of the fulfilled is less than that of the unfulfilled dream by three to five. It has the extra coincidence of the death. But as it is very common to dream of deaths, some such dreams must occasionally hit the target. Other examples might be given of shared dreams: {5b} they are only mentioned here to prove that all the _waking_ experiences of things ghostly, such as visions of the absent and of the dead, and of the non-existent, are familiar, and may even be common simultaneously to several persons, in _sleep_. That men may sleep without being aware of it, even while walking abroad; that we may drift, while we think ourselves awake, into a semi-somnolent state for a period of time perhaps almost imperceptible is certain enough. Now, the peculiarity of sleep is to expand or contract time, as we may choose to put the case. Alfred Maury, the well-known writer on Greek religion, dreamed a long, vivid dream of the Reign of Terror, of his own trial before a Revolutionary Tribunal, and of his execution, in the moment of time during which he was awakened by the accidental fall of a rod in the canopy of his bed, which touched him on the neck. Thus even a prolonged interview with a ghost may _conceivably_ be, in real time, a less than momentary dream occupying an imperceptible tenth of a second of somnolence, the sleeper not realising that he has been asleep. Mark Twain, who is seriously interested in these subjects, has published an experience illustrative of such possibilities. He tells his tale at considerable length, but it amounts to this:-- MARK TWAIN'S STORY Mark was smoking his cigar outside the door of his house when he saw a man, a stranger, approaching him. Suddenly he ceased to be visible! Mark, who had long desired to see a ghost, rushed into his house to record the phenomenon. There, seated on a chair in the hall, was the very man, who had come on some business. As Mark's negro footman acts, when the bell is rung, on the principle, "Perhaps they won't persevere," his master is wholly unable to account for the disappearance of the visitor, whom he never saw passing him or waiting at his door--except on the theory of an unconscious nap. Now, a disappearance is quite as mystical as an appearance, and much less common. This theory, that apparitions come in an infinitesimal moment of sleep, while a man is conscious of his surroundings and believes himself to be awake was the current explanation of ghosts in the eighteenth century. Any educated man who "saw a ghost" or "had a hallucination" called it a "dream," as Lord Brougham and Lord Lyttelton did. But, if the death of the person seen coincided with his appearance to them, they illogically argued that, out of the innumerable multitude of dreams, some _must_ coincide, accidentally, with facts. They strove to forget that though dreams in sleep are universal and countless, "dreams" in waking hours are extremely rare-- unique, for instance, in Lord Brougham's own experience. Therefore, the odds against chance coincidence are very great. Dreams only form subjects of good dream-stories when the vision coincides with and adequately represents an _unknown_ event in the past, the present, or the future. We dream, however vividly, of the murder of Rizzio. Nobody is surprised at that, the incident being familiar to most people, in history and art. But, if we dreamed of being present at an unchronicled scene in Queen Mary's life, and if, _after_ the dream was recorded, a document proving its accuracy should be for the first time recovered, then there is matter for a good dream-story. {8} Again, we dream of an event not to be naturally guessed or known by us, and our dream (which should be recorded before tidings of the fact arrive) tallies with the news of the event when it comes. Or, finally, we dream of an event (recording the dream), and that event occurs in the future. In all these cases the actual occurrence of the unknown event is the only addition to the dream's usual power of crumpling up time and space. As a rule such dreams are only mentioned _after_ the event, and so are not worth noticing. Very often the dream is forgotten by the dreamer till he hears of or sees the event. He is then either reminded of his dream by association of ideas or _he has never dreamed at all_, and his belief that he has dreamed is only a form of false memory, of the common sensation of "having been here before," which he attributes to an awakened memory of a real dream. Still more often the dream is unconsciously cooked by the narrator into harmony with facts. As a rule fulfilled dreams deal with the most trivial affairs, and such as, being usual, may readily occur by chance coincidence. Indeed it is impossible to set limits to such coincidence, for it would indeed be extraordinary if extraordinary coincidences never occurred. To take examples:-- THE PIG IN THE DINING-ROOM Mrs. Atlay, wife of a late Bishop of Hereford, dreamed one night that there was a pig in the dining-room of the palace. She came downstairs, and in the hall told her governess and children of the dream, before family prayers. When these were over, nobody who was told the story having left the hall in the interval, she went into the dining-room and there was the pig. It was proved to have escaped from the sty after Mrs. Atlay got up. Here the dream is of the common grotesque type; millions of such things are dreamed. The event, the pig in the palace, is unusual, and the coincidence of pig and dream is still more so. But unusual events must occur, and each has millions of dreams as targets to aim at, so to speak. It would be surprising if no such target were ever hit. Here is another case--curious because the dream was forgotten till the corresponding event occurred, but there was a slight discrepancy between event and dream. THE MIGNONETTE Mrs. Herbert returned with her husband from London to their country home on the Border. They arrived rather late in the day, prepared to visit the garden, and decided to put off the visit till the morrow. At night Mrs. Herbert dreamed that they went into the garden, down a long walk to a mignonette bed near the vinery. The mignonette was black with innumerable bees, and Wilburd, the gardener, came up and advised Mr. and Mrs. Herbert not to go nearer. Next morning the pair went to the garden. The air round the mignonette was dark with _wasps_. Mrs. Herbert now first remembered and told her dream, adding, "but in the dream they were _bees_". Wilburd now came up and advised them not to go nearer, as a wasps' nest had been injured and the wasps were on the warpath. Here accidental coincidence is probable enough. {10} There is another class of dreams very useful, and apparently not so very uncommon, that are veracious and communicate correct information, which the dreamer did not know that he knew and was very anxious to know. These are rare enough to be rather difficult to believe. Thus:-- THE LOST CHEQUE Mr. A., a barrister, sat up one night to write letters, and about half-past twelve went out to put them in the post. On undressing he missed a cheque for a large sum, which he had received during the day. He hunted everywhere in vain, went to bed, slept, and dreamed that he saw the cheque curled round an area railing not far from his own door. He woke, got up, dressed, walked down the street and found his cheque in the place he had dreamed of. In his opinion he had noticed it fall from his pocket as he walked to the letter-box, without consciously remarking it, and his deeper memory awoke in slumber. {11a} THE DUCKS' EGGS A little girl of the author's family kept ducks and was anxious to sell the eggs to her mother. But the eggs could not be found by eager search. On going to bed she said, "Perhaps I shall dream of them". Next morning she exclaimed, "I _did_ dream of them, they are in a place between grey rock, broom, and mallow; that must be 'The Poney's Field'!" And there the eggs were found. {11b} THE LOST KEY Lady X., after walking in a wood near her house in Ireland, found that she had lost an important key. She dreamed that it was lying at the root of a certain tree, where she found it next day, and her theory is the same as that of Mr. A., the owner of the lost cheque. {11c} As a rule dreams throw everything into a dramatic form. Some one knocks at our door, and the dream bases a little drama on the noise; it constructs an explanatory myth, a myth to account for the noise, which is acted out in the theatre of the brain. To take an instance, a disappointing one:-- THE LOST SECURITIES A lady dreamed that she was sitting at a window, watching the end of an autumn sunset. There came a knock at the front door and a gentleman and lady were ushered in. The gentleman wore an old- fashioned snuff-coloured suit, of the beginning of the century; he was, in fact, an aged uncle, who, during the Napoleonic wars, had been one of the English detenus in France. The lady was very beautiful and wore something like a black Spanish mantilla. The pair carried with them a curiously wrought steel box. Before conversation was begun, the maid (still in the dream) brought in the lady's chocolate and the figures vanished. When the maid withdrew, the figures reappeared standing by the table. The box was now open, and the old gentleman drew forth some yellow papers, written on in faded ink. These, he said, were lists of securities, which had been in his possession, when he went abroad in 18--, and in France became engaged to his beautiful companion. "The securities," he said, "are now in the strong box of Messrs. ---;" another rap at the door, and the actual maid entered with real hot water. It was time to get up. The whole dream had its origin in the first rap, heard by the dreamer and dramatised into the arrival of visitors. Probably it did not last for more than two or three seconds of real time. The maid's second knock just prevented the revelation of the name of "Messrs. ---," who, like the lady in the mantilla, were probably non-existent people. {13} Thus dream dramatises on the impulse of some faint, hardly perceived real sensation. And thus either mere empty fancies (as in the case of the lost securities) or actual knowledge which we may have once possessed but have totally forgotten, or conclusions which have passed through our brains as unheeded guesses, may in a dream be, as it were, "revealed" through the lips of a character in the brain's theatre-- that character may, in fact, be alive, or dead, or merely fantastical. A very good case is given with this explanation (lost knowledge revived in a dramatic dream about a dead man) by Sir Walter Scott in a note to The Antiquary. Familiar as the story is it may be offered here, for a reason which will presently be obvious. THE ARREARS OF TEIND "Mr. Rutherford, of Bowland, a gentleman of landed property in the Vale of Gala, was prosecuted for a very considerable sum, the accumulated arrears of teind (or tithe) for which he was said to be indebted to a noble family, the titulars (lay impropriators of the tithes). Mr. Rutherford was strongly impressed with the belief that his father had, by a form of process peculiar to the law of Scotland, purchased these teinds from the titular, and, therefore, that the present prosecution was groundless. But, after an industrious search among his father's papers, an investigation among the public records and a careful inquiry among all persons who had transacted law business for his father, no evidence could be recovered to support his defence. The period was now near at hand, when he conceived the loss of his law-suit to be inevitable; and he had formed the determination to ride to Edinburgh next day and make the best bargain he could in the way of compromise. He went to bed with this resolution, and, with all the circumstances of the case floating upon his mind, had a dream to the following purpose. His father, who had been many years dead, appeared to him, he thought, and asked him why he was disturbed in his mind. In dreams men are not surprised at such apparitions. Mr. Rutherford thought that he informed his father of the cause of his distress, adding that the payment of a considerable sum of money was the more unpleasant to him because he had a strong consciousness that it was not due, though he was unable to recover any evidence in support of his belief. 'You are right, my son,' replied the paternal shade. 'I did acquire right to these teinds for payment of which you are now prosecuted. The papers relating to the transaction are in the hands of Mr. ---, a writer (or attorney), who is now retired from professional business and resides at Inveresk, near Edinburgh. He was a person whom I employed on that occasion for a particular reason, but who never on any other occasion transacted business on my account. It is very possible,' pursued the vision, 'that Mr. --- may have forgotten a matter which is now of a very old date; but you may call it to his recollection by this token, that when I came to pay his account there was difficulty in getting change for a Portugal piece of gold and we were forced to drink out the balance at a tavern.' "Mr. Rutherford awoke in the morning with all the words of the vision imprinted on his mind, and thought it worth while to walk across the country to Inveresk instead of going straight to Edinburgh. When he came there he waited on the gentleman mentioned in the dream--a very old man. Without saying anything of the vision he inquired whether he ever remembered having conducted such a matter for his deceased father. The old gentleman could not at first bring the circumstance to his recollection, but on mention of the Portugal piece of gold the whole returned upon his memory. He made an immediate search for the papers and recovered them, so that Mr. Rutherford carried to Edinburgh the documents necessary to gain the cause which he was on the verge of losing." The story is reproduced because it is clearly one of the tales which come round in cycles, either because events repeat themselves or because people will unconsciously localise old legends in new places and assign old occurrences or fables to new persons. Thus every one has heard how Lord Westbury called a certain man in the Herald's office "a foolish old fellow who did not even know his own foolish old business". Lord Westbury may very well have said this, but long before his time the remark was attributed to the famous Lord Chesterfield. Lord Westbury may have quoted it from Chesterfield or hit on it by accident, or the old story may have been assigned to him. In the same way Mr. Rutherford may have had his dream or the following tale of St. Augustine's (also cited by Scott) may have been attributed to him, with the picturesque addition about the piece of Portuguese gold. Except for the piece of Portuguese gold St. Augustine practically tells the anecdote in his De Cura pro Mortuis Habenda, adding the acute reflection which follows. {16} "Of a surety, when we were at Milan, we heard tell of a certain person of whom was demanded payment of a debt, with production of his deceased father's acknowledgment, which debt, unknown to the son, the father had paid, whereupon the man began to be very sorrowful, and to marvel that his father while dying did not tell him what he owed when he also made his will. Then in this exceeding anxiousness of his, his said father appeared to him in a dream, and made known to him where was the counter acknowledgment by which that acknowledgment was cancelled. Which when the young man had found and showed, he not only rebutted the wrongful claim of a false debt, but also got back his father's note of hand, which the father had not got back when the money was paid. "Here then the soul of a man is supposed to have had care for his son, and to have come to him in his sleep, that, teaching him what he did not know, he might relieve him of a great trouble. But about the very same time as we heard this, it chanced at Carthage that the rhetorician Eulogius, who had been my disciple in that art, being (as he himself, after our return to Africa, told us the story) in course of lecturing to his disciples on Cicero's rhetorical books, as he looked over the portion of reading which he was to deliver on the following day, fell upon a certain passage, and not being able to understand it, was scarce able to sleep for the trouble of his mind: in which night, as he dreamed, I expounded to him that which he did not understand; nay, not I, but my likeness, while I was unconscious of the thing and far away beyond sea, it might be doing, or it might be dreaming, some other thing, and not in the least caring for his cares. In what way these things come about I know not; but in what way soever they come, why do we not believe it comes in the same way for a person in a dream to see a dead man, as it comes that he sees a living man? both, no doubt, neither knowing nor caring who dreams of their images, or where or when. "Like dreams, moreover, are some visions of persons awake, who have had their senses troubled, such as phrenetic persons, or those who are mad in any way, for they, too, talk to themselves just as though they were speaking to people verily present, and as well with absent men as with present, whose images they perceive whether persons living or dead. But just as they who live are unconscious that they are seen of them and talk with them (for indeed they are not really themselves present, or themselves make speeches, but through troubled senses these persons are wrought upon by such like imaginary visions), just so they also who have departed this life, to persons thus affected appear as present while they be absent, and are themselves utterly unconscious whether any man sees them in regard of their image." {18} St. Augustine adds a similar story of a trance. THE TWO CURMAS A rustic named Curma, of Tullium, near Hippo, Augustine's town, fell into a catalepsy. On reviving he said: "Run to the house of Curma the smith and see what is going on". Curma the smith was found to have died just when the other Curma awoke. "I knew it," said the invalid, "for I heard it said in that place whence I have returned that not I, Curma of the Curia, but Curma the smith, was wanted." But Curma of the Curia saw living as well as dead people, among others Augustine, who, in his vision, baptised him at Hippo. Curma then, in the vision, went to Paradise, where he was told to go and be baptised. He said it had been done already, and was answered, "Go and be truly baptised, for _that_ thou didst but see in vision". So Augustine christened him, and later, hearing of the trance, asked him about it, when he repeated the tale already familiar to his neighbours. Augustine thinks it a mere dream, and apparently regards the death of Curma the smith as a casual coincidence. Un esprit fort, le Saint Augustin! "If the dead could come in dreams," he says, "my pious mother would no night fail to visit me. Far be the thought that she should, by a happier life, have been made so cruel that, when aught vexes my heart, she should not even console in a dream the son whom she loved with an only love." Not only things once probably known, yet forgotten, but knowledge never _consciously_ thought out, may be revealed in a dramatic dream, apparently through the lips of the dead or the never existent. The books of psychology are rich in examples of problems worked out, or music or poetry composed in sleep. The following is a more recent and very striking example:-- THE ASSYRIAN PRIEST Herr H. V. Hilprecht is Professor of Assyriology in the University of Pennsylvania. That university had despatched an expedition to explore the ruins of Babylon, and sketches of the objects discovered had been sent home. Among these were drawings of two small fragments of agate, inscribed with characters. One Saturday night in March, 1893, Professor Hilprecht had wearied himself with puzzling over these two fragments, which were supposed to be broken pieces of finger-rings. He was inclined, from the nature of the characters, to date them about 1700-1140 B.C.; and as the first character of the third line of the first fragment seemed to read KU, he guessed that it might stand for Kurigalzu, a king of that name. About midnight the professor went, weary and perplexed, to bed. "Then I dreamed the following remarkable dream. A tall thin priest of the old pre-Christian Nippur, about forty years of age, and clad in a simple abba, led me to the treasure-chamber of the temple, on its south-east side. He went with me into a small low-ceiled room without windows, in which there was a large wooden chest, while scraps of agate and lapis lazuli lay scattered on the floor. Here he addressed me as follows:-- "'The two fragments, which you have published separately upon pages 22 and 26, _belong together_'" (this amazing Assyrian priest spoke American!). {20} "'They are not finger-rings, and their history is as follows:-- "'King Kurigalzu (about 1300 B.C.) once sent to the temple of Bel, among other articles of agate and lapis lazuli, an inscribed votive cylinder of agate. Then the priests suddenly received the command to make for the statue of the god Nibib a pair of ear-rings of agate. We were in great dismay, since there was no agate as raw material at hand. In order to execute the command there was nothing for us to do but cut the votive cylinder in three parts, thus making three rings, each of which contained a portion of the original inscription. The first two rings served as ear-rings for the statue of the god; the two fragments which have given you so much trouble are parts of them. If you will put the two together, you will have confirmation of my words. But the third ring you have not found yet, and you never will find it.'" The professor awoke, bounded out of bed, as Mrs. Hilprecht testifies, and was heard crying from his study, "It is so, it is so!" Mrs. Hilprecht followed her lord, "and satisfied myself in the midnight hour as to the outcome of his most interesting dream". The professor, however, says that he awoke, told his wife the dream, and verified it next day. Both statements are correct. There were two sets of drawings, one in the study (used that night) one used next day in the University Library. The inscription ran thus, the missing fragment being restored, "by analogy from many similar inscriptions":-- TO THE GOD NIBIB, CHILD OF THE GOD BEL, HIS LORD KURIGALZU, PONTIFEX OF THE GOD BEL HAS PRESENTED IT. But, in the drawings, the fragments were of different colours, so that a student working on the drawings would not guess them to be parts of one cylinder. Professor Hilprecht, however, examined the two actual fragments in the Imperial Museum at Constantinople. They lay in two distinct cases, but, when put together, fitted. When cut asunder of old, in Babylon, the white vein of the stone showed on one fragment, the grey surface on the other. Professor Romaine Newbold, who publishes this dream, explains that the professor had unconsciously reasoned out his facts, the difference of colour in the two pieces of agate disappearing in the dream. The professor had heard from Dr. Peters of the expedition, that a room had been discovered with fragments of a wooden box and chips of agate and lapis lazuli. The sleeping mind "combined its information," reasoned rightly from it, and threw its own conclusions into a dramatic form, receiving the information from the lips of a priest of Nippur. Probably we do a good deal of reasoning in sleep. Professor Hilprecht, in 1882-83, was working at a translation of an inscription wherein came Nabu--Kudurru--usur, rendered by Professor Delitzsch "Nebo protect my mortar-board". Professor Hilprecht accepted this, but woke one morning with his mind full of the thought that the words should be rendered "Nebo protect my boundary," which "sounds a deal likelier," and is now accepted. I myself, when working at the MSS. of the exiled Stuarts, was puzzled by the scorched appearance of the paper on which Prince Charlie's and the king's letters were often written and by the peculiarities of the ink. I woke one morning with a sudden flash of common-sense. Sympathetic ink had been used, and the papers had been toasted or treated with acids. This I had probably reasoned out in sleep, and, had I dreamed, my mind might have dramatised the idea. Old Mr. Edgar, the king's secretary, might have appeared and given me the explanation. Maury publishes tales in which a forgotten fact was revealed to him in a dream from the lips of a dream-character (Le Sommeil et les Reves, pp. 142-143. The curious may also consult, on all these things, The Philosophy of Mysticism, by Karl du Prel, translated by Mr. Massey. The Assyrian Priest is in Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xii., p. 14). On the same plane as the dreams which we have been examining is the waking sensation of the deja vu. "I have been here before, But when or how I cannot tell." Most of us know this feeling, all the circumstances in which we find ourselves have already occurred, we have a prophecy of what will happen next "on the tip of our tongues" (like a half-remembered name), and then the impression vanishes. Scott complains of suffering through a whole dinner-party from this sensation, but he had written "copy" for fifty printed pages on that day, and his brain was breaking down. Of course psychology has explanations. The scene _may_ have really occurred before, or may be the result of a malady of perception, or one hemisphere of the brain not working in absolute simultaneousness with the other may produce a double impression, the first being followed by the second, so that we really have had two successive impressions, of which one seems much more remote in time than it really was. Or we may have dreamed something like the scene and forgotten the dream, or we may actually, in some not understood manner, have had a "prevision" of what is now actual, as when Shelley almost fainted on coming to a place near Oxford which he had beheld in a dream. Of course, if this "prevision" could be verified in detail, we should come very near to dreams of the future fulfilled. Such a thing-- verification of a detail--led to the conversion of William Hone, the free-thinker and Radical of the early century, who consequently became a Christian and a pessimistic, clear-sighted Tory. This tale of the deja vu, therefore, leads up to the marvellous narratives of dreams simultaneous with, or prophetic of, events not capable of being guessed or inferred, or of events lost in the historical past, but, later, recovered from documents. Of Hone's affair there are two versions. Both may be given, as they are short. If they illustrate the deja vu, they also illustrate the fond discrepancies of all such narratives. {24} THE KNOT IN THE SHUTTER "It is said that a dream produced a powerful effect on Hone's mind. He dreamt that he was introduced into a room where he was an entire stranger, and saw himself seated at a table, and on going towards the window his attention was somehow or other attracted to the window- shutter, and particularly to a knot in the wood, which was of singular appearance; and on waking the whole scene, and especially the knot in the shutter, left a most vivid impression on his mind. Some time afterwards, on going, I think, into the country, he was at some house shown into a chamber where he had never been before, and which instantly struck him as being the identical chamber of his dream. He turned directly to the window, where the same knot in the shutter caught his eye. This incident, to his investigating spirit, induced a train of reflection which overthrew his cherished theories of materialism, and resulted in conviction that there were spiritual agencies as susceptible of proof as any facts of physical science; and this appears to have been one of the links in that mysterious chain of events by which, according to the inscrutable purposes of the Divine will, man is sometimes compelled to bow to an unseen and divine power, and ultimately to believe and live." "Another of the Christian friends from whom, in his later years, William Hone received so much kindness, has also furnished recollections of him. " . . . Two or three anecdotes which he related are all I can contribute towards a piece of mental history which, if preserved, would have been highly interesting. The first in point of time as to his taste of mind, was a circumstance which shook his confidence in _materialism_, though it did not lead to his conversion. It was one of those mental phenomena which he saw to be _inexplicable_ by the doctrines he then held. "It was as follows: He was called in the course of business into a part of London quite new to him, and as he walked along the street he noticed to himself that he had never been there; but on being shown into a room in a house where he had to wait some time, he immediately fancied that it was all familiar, that he had seen it before, 'and if so,' said he to himself, 'there is a very peculiar knot in this shutter'. He opened the shutter and found the knot. 'Now then,' thought he, 'here is something I cannot explain on my principles!'" Indeed the occurrence is not very explicable on any principles, as a detail not visible without search was sought and verified, and that by a habitual mocker at anything out of the common way. For example, Hone published a comic explanation, correct or not, of the famous Stockwell mystery. Supposing Hone's story to be true, it naturally conducts us to yet more unfamiliar, and therefore less credible dreams, in which the unknown past, present, or future is correctly revealed. CHAPTER II Veracious Dreams. Past, Present and Future unknown Events "revealed". Theory of "Mental Telegraphy" or "Telepathy" fails to meet Dreams of the unknowable Future. Dreams of unrecorded Past, how alone they can be corroborated. Queen Mary's Jewels. Story from Brierre de Boismont. Mr. Williams's Dream before Mr. Perceval's Murder. Discrepancies of Evidence. Curious Story of Bude Kirk. Mr. Williams's Version. Dream of a Rattlesnake. Discrepancies. Dream of the Red Lamp. "Illusions Hypnagogiques." The Scar in the Moustache. Dream of the Future. The Coral Sprigs. Anglo-Saxon Indifference. A Celtic Dream. The Satin Slippers. Waking Dreams. The Dead Shopman. Dreams in Swoons. Perhaps nothing, not even a ghost, is so staggering to the powers of belief as a well-authenticated dream which strikes the bull's eye of facts not known to the dreamer nor capable of being guessed by him. If the events beheld in the dream are far away in space, or are remote in time past, the puzzle is difficult enough. But if the events are still in the future, perhaps no kind of explanation except a mere "fluke" can even be suggested. Say that I dream of an event occurring at a distance, and that I record or act on my dream before it is corroborated. Suppose, too, that the event is not one which could be guessed, like the death of an invalid or the result of a race or of an election. This would be odd enough, but the facts of which I dreamed must have been present in the minds of living people. Now, if there is such a thing as "mental telegraphy" or "telepathy," {28} my mind, in dream, may have "tapped" the minds of the people who knew the facts. We may not believe in "mental telegraphy," but we can _imagine_ it as one of the unknown possibilities of nature. Again, if I dream of an unchronicled event in the past, and if a letter of some historical person is later discovered which confirms the accuracy of my dream, we can at least _conceive_ (though we need not believe) that the intelligence was telegraphed to my dreaming mind from the mind of a _dead_ actor in, or witness of the historical scene, for the facts are unknown to living man. But even these wild guesses cannot cover a dream which correctly reveals events of the future; events necessarily not known to any finite mind of the living or of the dead, and too full of detail for an explanation by aid of chance coincidence. In face of these difficulties mankind has gone on believing in dreams of all three classes: dreams revealing the unknown present, the unknown past, and the unknown future. The judicious reasonably set them all aside as the results of fortuitous coincidence, or revived recollection, or of the illusions of a false memory, or of imposture, conscious or unconscious. However, the stories continue to be told, and our business is with the stories. Taking, first, dreams of the unknown past, we find a large modern collection of these attributed to a lady named "Miss A---". They were waking dreams representing obscure incidents of the past, and were later corroborated by records in books, newspapers and manuscripts. But as these books and papers existed, and were known to exist, before the occurrence of the visions, it is obvious that the matter of the visions _may_ have been derived from the books and so forth, or at least, a sceptic will vastly prefer this explanation. What we need is a dream or vision of the unknown past, corroborated by a document _not known to exist_ at the time when the vision took place and was recorded. Probably there is no such instance, but the following tale, picturesque in itself, has a kind of shadow of the only satisfactory sort of corroboration. The author responsible for this yarn is Dr. Gregory, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh. After studying for many years the real or alleged phenomena of what has been called mesmerism, or electro-biology, or hypnotism, Dr. Gregory published in 1851 his Letters to a Candid Inquirer on Animal Magnetism. Though a F.R.S. and a Professor of Chemistry, the Doctor had no more idea of what constitutes evidence than a baby. He actually mixed up the Tyrone with the Lyttelton ghost story! His legend of Queen Mary's jewels is derived from (1) the note-book, _or_ (2) a letter containing, or professing to contain, extracts from the note-book, of a Major Buckley, an Anglo-Indian officer. This gentleman used to "magnetise" or hypnotise people, some of whom became clairvoyant, as if possessed of eyes acting as "double-patent-million magnifiers," permeated by X rays. "What follows is transcribed," says the Doctor, "from Major Buckley's note-book." We abridge the narrative. Major Buckley hypnotised a young officer, who, on November 15, 1845, fell into "a deeper state" of trance. Thence he awoke into a "clairvoyant" condition and said:-- QUEEN MARY'S JEWELS "I have had a strange dream about your ring" (a "medallion" of Anthony and Cleopatra); "it is very valuable." Major Buckley said it was worth 60 pounds, and put the ring into his friend's hand. "It belonged to royalty." "In what country?" "I see Mary, Queen of Scots. It was given to her by a man, a foreigner, with other things from Italy. It came from Naples. It is not in the old setting. She wore it only once. The person who gave it to her was a musician." The seer then "saw" the donor's signature, "Rizzio". But Rizzio spelled his name Riccio! The seer now copied on paper a writing which in his trance he saw on vellum. The design here engraved (p. 32) is only from a rough copy of the seer's original drawing, which was made by Major Buckley. [Picture of vellum as described in the text - images/rizzo.gif] "Here" (pointing to the middle) "I see a diamond cross." The smallest stone was above the size of one of four carats. "It" (the cross) "was worn out of sight by Mary. The vellum has been shown in the House of Lords." {31} " . . . The ring was taken off Mary's finger by a man in anger and jealousy: he threw it into the water. When he took it off, she was being carried in a kind of bed with curtains" (a litter). Just before Rizzio's murder Mary was enceinte, and might well be carried in a litter, though she usually rode. The seer then had a view of Sizzle's murder, which he had probably read about. Three weeks later, in another trance, the seer finished his design of the vellum. The words A M DE LA PART probably stand for a Marie, de la part de-- The thistle heads and leaves in gold at the corners were a usual decoration of the period; compare the ceiling of the room in Edinburgh Castle where James VI. was born, four months after Rizzio's murder. They also occur in documents. Dr. Gregory conjectures that so valuable a present as a diamond cross may have been made not by Rizzio, but through Rizzio by the Pope. It did not seem good to the doctor to consult Mary's lists of jewels, nor, if he had done so, would he have been any the wiser. In 1566, just before the birth of James VI., Mary had an inventory drawn up, and added the names of the persons to whom she bequeathed her treasures in case she died in child-bed. But this inventory, hidden among a mass of law-papers in the Record Office, was not discovered till 1854, nine years after the vision of 1845, and three after its publication by Dr. Gregory in 1851. Not till 1863 was the inventory of 1566, discovered in 1854, published for the Bannatyne Club by Dr. Joseph Robertson. Turning to the inventory we read of a valuable present made by David Rizzio to Mary, a tortoise of rubies, which she kept till her death, for it appears in a list made after her execution at Fotheringay. The murdered David Rizzio left a brother Joseph. Him the queen made her secretary, and in her will of 1566 mentions him thus:-- "A Josef, pour porter a celui qui je luy ay dit, une emeraude emaille de blanc. "A Josef, pour porter a celui qui je luy ai dit, dont il ranvoir quittance. "Une bague garnye de vingt cinq diamens tant grands que petis." Now the diamond cross seen by the young officer in 1845 was set with diamonds great and small, and was, in his opinion, a gift from or through Rizzio. "The queen wore it out of sight." Here in the inventory we have a bague (which may be a cross) of diamonds small and great, connected with a secret only known to Rizzio's brother and to the queen. It is "to be carried to one whose name the queen has spoken in her new secretary's ear" (Joseph's), "but dare not trust herself to write". "It would be idle now to seek to pry into the mystery which was thus anxiously guarded," says Dr. Robertson, editor of the queen's inventories. The doctor knew nothing of the vision which, perhaps, so nearly pried into the mystery. There is nothing like proof here, but there is just a presumption that the diamonds connected with Rizzio, and secretly worn by the queen, seen in the vision of 1845, are possibly the diamonds which, had Mary died in 1566, were to be carried by Joseph Rizzio to a person whose name might not safely be written. {35a} We now take a dream which apparently reveals a real fact occurring at a distance. It is translated from Brierre de Boismont's book, Des Hallucinations {35b} (Paris, 1845). "There are," says the learned author, "authentic dreams which have revealed an event occurring at the moment, or later." These he explains by accidental coincidence, and then gives the following anecdote, as within his own intimate knowledge:-- THE DEATHBED Miss C., a lady of excellent sense, religious but not bigoted, lived before her marriage in the house of her uncle D., a celebrated physician, and member of the Institute. Her mother at this time was seriously ill in the country. One night the girl dreamed that she saw her mother, pale and dying, and especially grieved at the absence of two of her children: one a cure in Spain, the other--herself--in Paris. Next she heard her own Christian name called, "Charlotte!" and, in her dream, saw the people about her mother bring in her own little niece and god-child Charlotte from the next room. The patient intimated by a sign that she did not want _this_ Charlotte, but her daughter in Paris. She displayed the deepest regret; her countenance changed, she fell back, and died. Next day the melancholy of Mademoiselle C. attracted the attention of her uncle. She told him her dream; he pressed her to his heart, and admitted that her mother was dead. Some months later Mademoiselle C., when her uncle was absent, arranged his papers, which he did not like any one to touch. Among these was a letter containing the story of her mother's death, with all the details of her own dream, which D. had kept concealed lest they should impress her too painfully. Boismont is staggered by this circumstance, and inclined to account for it by "still unknown relations in the moral and physical world". "Mental telegraphy," of course, would explain all, and even chance coincidence is perfectly conceivable. The most commonly known of dreams prior to, or simultaneous with an historical occurrence represented in the vision, is Mr. Williams's dream of the murder of Mr. Perceval in the lobby of the House of Commons, May 11, 1812. Mr. Williams, of Scorrier House, near Redruth, in Cornwall, lived till 1841. He was interested in mines, and a man of substance. Unluckily the versions of his dream are full of discrepancies. It was first published, apparently, in The Times during the "silly season" of 1828 (August 28). According to The Times, whose account is very minute, Mr. Williams dreamed of the murder thrice before 2 a.m. on the night of May 11. He told Mrs. Williams, and was so disturbed that he rose and dressed at two in the morning. He went to Falmouth next day (May 12), and told the tale to every one he knew. On the evening of the 13th he told it to Mr. and Mrs. Tucker (his married daughter) of Tremanton Castle. Mr. Williams only knew that the _chancellor_ was shot; Mr. Tucker said it must be the Chancellor of the Exchequer. From the description he recognised Mr. Perceval, with whom he was at enmity. Mr. Williams had never been inside the House of Commons. As they talked, Mr. William's son galloped up from Truro with news of the murder, got from a traveller by coach. Six weeks later, Mr. Williams went to town, and in the House of Commons walked up to and recognised the scene of the various incidents in the murder. So far The Times, in 1828. But two forms of a version of 1832 exist, one in a note to Mr. Walpole's Life of Perceval (1874), "an attested statement, drawn up and signed by Mr. Williams in the presence of the Rev. Thomas Fisher and Mr. Charles Prideaux Brune". Mr. Brune gave it to Mr. Walpole. With only verbal differences this variant corresponds to another signed by Mr. Williams and given by him to his grandson, who gave it to Mr. Perceval's great-niece, by whom it was lent to the Society for Psychical Research. These accounts differ toto coelo from that in The Times of 1828. The dream is _not_ of May 11, but "about" May 2 or 3. Mr. Williams is _not_ a stranger to the House of Commons; it is "a place well known to me". He is _not_ ignorant of the name of the victim, but "understood that it was Mr. Perceval". He thinks of going to town to give warning. We hear nothing of Mr. Tucker. Mr. Williams does _not_ verify his dream in the House, but from a drawing. A Mr. C. R. Fox, son of one to whom the dream was told _before_ the event, was then a boy of fourteen, and sixty-one years later was sure that he himself heard of Mr. Williams's dream _before_ the news of the murder arrived. After sixty years, however, the memory cannot be relied upon. One very curious circumstance in connection with the assassination of Mr. Perceval has never been noticed. A rumour or report of the deed reached Bude Kirk, a village near Annan, on the night of Sunday, May 10, a day before the crime was committed! This was stated in the Dumfries and Galloway Courier, and copied in The Times of May 25. On May 28, the Perth Courier quotes the Dumfries paper, and adds that "the Rev. Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam (ob. 1833), has visited Bude Kirk and has obtained the most satisfactory proof of the rumour having existed" on May 10, but the rumour cannot be traced to its source. Mr. Yorstoun authorises the mention of his name. The Times of June 2 says that "the report is without foundation". If Williams talked everywhere of his dream, on May 3, some garbled shape of it may conceivably have floated to Bude Kirk by May 10, and originated the rumour. Whoever started it would keep quiet when the real news arrived for fear of being implicated in a conspiracy as accessory before the fact. No trace of Mr. Williams's dream occurs in the contemporary London papers. The best version of the dream to follow is probably that signed by Mr. Williams himself in 1832. {39a} It may, of course, be argued by people who accept Mr. Williams's dream as a revelation of the future that it reached his mind from the _purpose_ conceived in Bellingham's mind, by way of "mental telegraphy". {39b} DREAM OF MR. PERCEVAL'S MURDER "SUNDHILL, December, 1832. "[Some account of a dream which occurred to John Williams, Esq., of Scorrier House, in the county of Cornwall, in the year 1812. Taken from his own mouth, and narrated by him at various times to several of his friends.] "Being desired to write out the particulars of a remarkable dream which I had in the year 1812, before I do so I think it may be proper for me to say that at that time my attention was fully occupied with affairs of my own--the superintendence of some very extensive mines in Cornwall being entrusted to me. Thus I had no leisure to pay any attention to political matters, and hardly knew at that time who formed the administration of the country. It was, therefore, scarcely possible that my own interest in the subject should have had any share in suggesting the circumstances which presented themselves to my imagination. It was, in truth, a subject which never occurred to my waking thoughts. "My dream was as follows:-- "About the second or third day of May, 1812, I dreamed that I was in the lobby of the House of Commons (a place well known to me). A small man, dressed in a blue coat and a white waistcoat, entered, and immediately I saw a person whom I had observed on my first entrance, dressed in a snuff-coloured coat with metal buttons, take a pistol from under his coat and present it at the little man above-mentioned. The pistol was discharged, and the ball entered under the left breast of the person at whom it was directed. I saw the blood issue from the place where the ball had struck him, his countenance instantly altered, and he fell to the ground. Upon inquiry who the sufferer might be, I was informed that he was the chancellor. I understood him to be Mr. Perceval, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I further saw the murderer laid hold of by several of the gentlemen in the room. Upon waking I told the particulars above related to my wife; she treated the matter lightly, and desired me to go to sleep, saying it was only a dream. I soon fell asleep again, and again the dream presented itself with precisely the same circumstances. After waking a second time and stating the matter again to my wife, she only repeated her request that I would compose myself and dismiss the subject from my mind. Upon my falling asleep the third time, the same dream without any alteration was repeated, and I awoke, as on the former occasions, in great agitation. So much alarmed and impressed was I with the circumstances above related, that I felt much doubt whether it was not my duty to take a journey to London and communicate upon the subject with the party principally concerned. Upon this point I consulted with some friends whom I met on business at the Godolphin mine on the following day. After having stated to them the particulars of the dream itself and what were my own feelings in relation to it, they dissuaded me from my purpose, saying I might expose myself to contempt and vexation, or be taken up as a fanatic. Upon this I said no more, but anxiously watched the newspapers every evening as the post arrived. "On the evening of the 13th of May (as far as I recollect) no account of Mr. Perceval's death was in the newspapers, but my second son, returning from Truro, came in a hurried manner into the room where I was sitting and exclaimed: 'O father, your dream has come true! Mr. Perceval has been shot in the lobby of the House of Commons; there is an account come from London to Truro written after the newspapers were printed.' "The fact was Mr. Percival was assassinated on the evening of the 11th. "Some business soon after called me to London, and in one of the print-shops I saw a drawing for sale, representing the place and the circumstances which attended Mr. Perceval's death. I purchased it, and upon a careful examination I found it to coincide in all respects with the scene which had passed through my imagination in the dream. The colours of the dresses, the buttons of the assassin's coat, the white waistcoat of Mr. Perceval, the spot of blood upon it, the countenances and attitudes of the parties present were exactly what I had dreamed. "The singularity of the case, when mentioned among my friends and acquaintances, naturally made it the subject of conversation in London, and in consequence my friend, the late Mr. Rennie, was requested by some of the commissioners of the navy that they might be permitted to hear the circumstances from myself. Two of them accordingly met me at Mr. Rennie's house, and to them I detailed at the time the particulars, then fresh in my memory, which form the subject of the above statement. "I forbear to make any comment on the above narrative, further than to declare solemnly that it is a faithful account of facts as they actually occurred. (Signed) "JOHN WILLIAMS." {42} When we come to dreams of the future, great historical examples are scarce indeed, that is, dreams respectably authenticated. We have to put up with curious trivialities. One has an odd feature. THE RATTLESNAKE Dr. Kinsolving, of the Church of the Epiphany in Philadelphia, dreamed that he "came across a rattlesnake," which "when killed had _two_ black-looking rattles and a peculiar projection of bone from the tail, while the skin was unusually light in colour". Next day, while walking with his brother, Dr. Kinsolving nearly trod on a rattlesnake, "the same snake in every particular with the one I had had in my mind's eye". This would be very well, but Dr. Kinsolving's brother, who helped to kill the unlucky serpent, says "_he had a single rattle_". The letters of these gentlemen were written without communication to each other. If Mr. Kinsolving is right, the real snake with _one_ rattle was _not_ the dream snake with _two_ rattles. The brothers were in a snaky country, West Virginia. {43} The following is trivial, but good. It is written by Mr. Alfred Cooper, and attested by the dreamer, the Duchess of Hamilton. THE RED LAMP Mr. Cooper says: "A fortnight before the death of the late Earl of L--- in 1882, I called upon the Duke of Hamilton, in Hill Street, to see him professionally. After I had finished seeing him, we went into the drawing-room, where the duchess was, and the duke said, 'Oh, Cooper, how is the earl?' "The duchess said, 'What earl?' and on my answering 'Lord L---,' she replied: 'That is very odd. I have had a most extraordinary vision. I went to bed, but after being in bed a short time, I was not exactly asleep, but thought I saw a scene as if from a play before me. The actors in it were Lord L--- as if in a fit, with a man standing over him with a red beard. He was by the side of a bath, over which a red lamp was distinctly shown. "I then said: 'I am attending Lord L--- at present; there is very little the matter with him; he is not going to die; he will be all right very soon'. "Well he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs. "I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There were two male nurses attending on him; one had been taken ill. But when I saw the other, the dream of the duchess was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the earl, and strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it. It is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind. . . ." This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of Manchester, father of the Duchess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it. The duchess only knew the earl by sight, and had not heard that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again. {45a} In fact, the "vision" was an illusion hypnagogique. Probably most readers know the procession of visions which sometimes crowd on the closed eyes just before sleep. {45b} They commonly represent with vivid clearness unknown faces or places, occasionally known faces. The writer has seen his own in this way and has occasionally "opened his eyes to get rid of" the appearances. In his opinion the pictures are unconsciously constructed by the half-sleeping mind out of blurs of light or dark seen with closed eyes. Mr. Cooper's story would be more complete if he had said whether or not the earl, when visited by him, was in a chair as in the vision. But beds are not commonly found in bathrooms. THE SCAR IN THE MOUSTACHE This story was told to the writer by his old head-master, the Rev. Dr. Hodson, brother of Hodson, of Hodson's Horse, a person whom I never heard make any other allusion to such topics. Dr. Hodson was staying with friends in Switzerland during the holidays. One morning, as he lay awake, he seemed to see into a room as if the wall of his bedroom had been cut out. In the room were a lady well known to him and a man whom he did not know. The man's back was turned to the looker-on. The scene vanished, and grew again. Now the man faced Dr. Hodson; the face was unfamiliar, and had a deep white scar seaming the moustache. Dr. Hodson mentioned the circumstance to his friends, and thought little of it. He returned home, and, one day, in Perth station, met the lady at the book-stall. He went up to accost her, and was surprised by the uneasiness of her manner. A gentleman now joined them, with a deep white scar through his moustache. Dr. Hodson now recalled, what had slipped his memory, that the lady during his absence from Scotland had eloped with an officer, the man of the vision and the railway station. He did not say, or perhaps know, whether the elopement was prior to the kind of dream in Switzerland. Here is a dream representing a future event, with details which could not be guessed beforehand. THE CORAL SPRIGS Mrs. Weiss, of St. Louis, was in New York in January, 1881, attending a daughter, Mrs. C., who was about to have a child. She writes:-- "On Friday night (Jan. 21) I dreamed that my daughter's time came; that owing to some cause not clearly defined, we failed to get word to Mr. C., who was to bring the doctor; that we sent for the nurse, who came; that as the hours passed and neither Mr. C. nor the doctor came we both got frightened; that at last I heard Mr. C. on the stairs, and cried to him: 'Oh, Chan, for heaven's sake get a doctor! Ada may be confined at any moment'; that he rushed away, and I returned to the bedside of my daughter, who was in agony of mind and body; that suddenly I seemed to know what to do, . . . and that shortly after Mr. C. came, bringing a tall young doctor, having brown eyes, dark hair, ruddy brun complexion, grey trousers and grey vest, and wearing a bright blue cravat, picked out with coral sprigs; the cravat attracted my attention particularly. The young doctor pronounced Mrs. C. properly attended to, and left." Mrs. Weiss at breakfast told the dream to Mr. C. and her daughter; none of them attached any importance to it. However, as a snowstorm broke the telegraph wires on Saturday, the day after the dream, Mrs. Weiss was uneasy. On Tuesday the state of Mrs. C. demanded a doctor. Mrs. Weiss sent a telegram for Mr. C.; he came at last, went out to bring a doctor, and was long absent. Then Mrs. Weiss suddenly felt a calm certainty that _she_ (though inexperienced in such cares) could do what was needed. "I heard myself say in a peremptory fashion: 'Ada, don't be afraid, I know just what to do; all will go well'." All did go well; meanwhile Mr. C. ran to seven doctors' houses, and at last returned with a young man whom Mrs. Weiss vaguely recognised. Mrs. C. whispered, "Look at the doctor's cravat". It was blue and coral sprigged, and then first did Mrs. Weiss remember her dream of Friday night. Mrs. Weiss's story is corroborated by Mr. Blanchard, who heard the story "a few days after the event". Mrs. C. has read Mrs. Weiss's statement, "and in so far as I can remember it is quite correct". Mr. C. remembers nothing about it; "he declares that he has no recollection of it, _or of any matters outside his business_, and knowing him as I do," says Mrs. Weiss, "I do not doubt the assertion". Mr. C. must be an interesting companion. The nurse remembers that after the birth of the baby Mrs. C. called Mr. C.'s attention to "the doctor's necktie," and heard her say, "Why, I know him by mamma's description as the doctor she saw in her dreams". {48} The only thing even more extraordinary than the dream is Mr. C.'s inability to remember anything whatever "outside of his business". Another witness appears to decline to be called, "as it would be embarrassing to him in his business". This it is to be Anglo-Saxon! We now turn to a Celtic dream, in which knowledge supposed to be only known to a dead man was conveyed to his living daughter. THE SATIN SLIPPERS On 1st February, 1891, Michael Conley, a farmer living near Ionia, in Chichasow county, Iowa, went to Dubuque, in Iowa, to be medically treated. He left at home his son Pat and his daughter Elizabeth, a girl of twenty-eight, a Catholic, in good health. On February 3 Michael was found dead in an outhouse near his inn. In his pocket were nine dollars, seventy-five cents, but his clothes, including his shirt, were thought so dirty and worthless that they were thrown away. The body was then dressed in a white shirt, black clothes and satin slippers of a new pattern. Pat Conley was telegraphed for, and arrived at Dubuque on February 4, accompanied by Mr. George Brown, "an intelligent and reliable farmer". Pat took the corpse home in a coffin, and on his arrival Elizabeth fell into a swoon, which lasted for several hours. Her own account of what followed on her recovery may be given in her own words:-- "When they told me that father was dead I felt very sick and bad; I did not know anything. Then father came to me. He had on a white shirt" (his own was grey), "and black clothes and slippers. When I came to, I told Pat I had seen father. I asked Pat if he had brought back father's old clothes. He said 'No,' and asked me why I wanted them. I told him father said he had sewed a roll of bills inside of his grey shirt, in a pocket made of a piece of my old red dress. I went to sleep, and father came to me again. When I awoke I told Pat he must go and get the clothes"--her father's old clothes. Pat now telephoned to Mr. Hoffman, Coroner of Dubuque, who found the old clothes in the back yard of the local morgue. They were wrapped up in a bundle. Receiving this news, Pat went to Dubuque on February 9, where Mr. Hoffman opened the bundle in Pat's presence. Inside the old grey shirt was found a pocket of red stuff, sewn with a man's long, uneven stitches, and in the pocket notes for thirty-five dollars. The girl did not see the body in the coffin, but asked about the _old_ clothes, because the figure of her father in her dream wore clothes which she did not recognise as his. To dream in a faint is nothing unusual. {50} THE DEAD SHOPMAN Swooning, or slight mental mistiness, is not very unusual in ghost seers. The brother of a friend of my own, a man of letters and wide erudition, was, as a boy, employed in a shop in a town, say Wexington. The overseer was a dark, rather hectic-looking man, who died. Some months afterwards the boy was sent on an errand. He did his business, but, like a boy, returned by a longer and more interesting route. He stopped as a bookseller's shop to stare at the books and pictures, and while doing so felt a kind of mental vagueness. It was just before his dinner hour, and he may have been hungry. On resuming his way, he looked up and found the dead overseer beside him. He had no sense of surprise, and walked for some distance, conversing on ordinary topics with the appearance. He happened to notice such a minute detail as that the spectre's boots were laced in an unusual way. At a crossing, something in the street attracted his attention; he looked away from his companion, and, on turning to resume their talk, saw no more of him. He then walked to the shop, where he mentioned the occurrence to a friend. He has never during a number of years had any such experience again, or suffered the preceding sensation of vagueness. This, of course, is not a ghost story, but leads up to the old tale of the wraith of Valogne. In this case, two boys had made a covenant, the first who died was to appear to the other. He _did_ appear before news of his death arrived, but after a swoon of his friend's, whose health (like that of Elizabeth Conley) suffered in consequence. NOTE "PERCEVAL MURDER." Times, 25th May, 1812. "A Dumfries paper states that on the night of Sunday, the 10th instant, _twenty-four hours before the fatal deed was perpetrated_, a report was brought to Bude Kirk, two miles from Annan, that _Mr. Perceval was shot on his way to the House of Commons, at the door or in the lobby of that House_. This the whole inhabitants of the village are ready to attest, as the report quickly spread and became the topic of conversation. A clergyman investigated the rumour, with the view of tracing it to its source, but without success." The Times of 2nd June says, "Report without foundation". Perth Courier, 28th May, quoting from the Dumfries and Galloway Courier, repeats above almost verbatim. " . . . The clergyman to whom we have alluded, and who allows me to make use of his name, is Mr. Yorstoun, minister of Hoddam. This gentleman went to the spot and carefully investigated the rumour, but has not hitherto been successful, although he has obtained the most satisfactory proof of its having existed at the time we have mentioned. We forbear to make any comments on this wonderful circumstance, but should anything further transpire that may tend to throw light upon it, we shall not fail to give the public earliest information." The Dumfries and Galloway Courier I cannot find! It is not in the British Museum. CHAPTER III Transition from Dreams to Waking Hallucinations. Popular Scepticism about the Existence of Hallucinations in the Sane. Evidence of Mr. Francis Galton, F.R.S. Scientific Disbelief in ordinary Mental Imagery. Scientific Men who do not see in "the Mind's Eye". Ordinary People who do. Frequency of Waking Hallucinations among Mr. Gallon's friends. Kept Private till asked for by Science. Causes of such Hallucinations unknown. Story of the Diplomatist. Voluntary or Induced Hallucinations. Crystal Gazing. Its Universality. Experience of George Sand. Nature of such Visions. Examples. Novelists. Crystal Visions only "Ghostly" when Veracious. Modern Examples. Under the Lamp. The Cow with the Bell Historical Example. Prophetic Crystal Vision. St. Simon The Regent d'Orleans. The Deathbed of Louis XIV. References for other Cases of Crystal Visions. From dreams, in sleep or swoon, of a character difficult to believe in we pass by way of "hallucinations" to ghosts. Everybody is ready to admit that dreams do really occur, because almost everybody has dreamed. But everybody is not so ready to admit that sane and sensible men and women can have hallucinations, just because everybody has not been hallucinated. On this point Mr. Francis Galton, in his Inquiries into Human Faculty (1833), is very instructive. Mr. Galton drew up a short catechism, asking people how clearly or how dimly they saw things "in their mind's eye". "Think of your breakfast-table," he said; "is your mental picture of it as clearly illuminated and as complete as your actual view of the scene?" Mr. Galton began by questioning friends in the scientific world, F.R.S.'s and other savants. "The earliest results of my inquiry amazed me. . . . The great majority of the men of science to whom I first applied, protested that _mental imagery was unknown to them_, and they looked on me as fanciful and fantastic in supposing that the words 'mental imagery' really expressed what I believed everybody supposed them to mean." One gentleman wrote: "It is only by a figure of speech that I can describe my recollection of a scene as a 'mental image' which I can 'see' with 'my mind's eye'. I do not see it," so he seems to have supposed that nobody else did. When he made inquiries in general society, Mr. Galton found plenty of people who "saw" mental imagery with every degree of brilliance or dimness, from "quite comparable to the real object" to "I recollect the table, but do not see it"--my own position. Mr. Galton was next "greatly struck by the frequency of the replies in which my correspondents" (sane and healthy) "described themselves as subject to 'visions'". These varied in degree, "some were so vivid as actually to deceive the judgment". Finally, "a notable proportion of sane persons have had not only visions, but actual hallucinations of sight at one or more periods of their life. I have a considerable packet of instances contributed by my personal friends." Thus one "distinguished authoress" saw "the principal character of one of her novels glide through the door straight up to her. It was about the size of a large doll." Another heard unreal music, and opened the door to hear it better. Another was plagued by voices, which said "Pray," and so forth. Thus, on scientific evidence, sane and healthy people may, and "in a notable proportion _do_, experience hallucinations". That is to say, they see persons, or hear them, or believe they are touched by them, or all their senses are equally affected at once, when no such persons are really present. This kind of thing is always going on, but "when popular opinion is of a matter-of-fact kind, the seers of visions keep quiet; they do not like to be thought fanciful or mad, and they hide their experiences, which only come to light through inquiries such as those that I have been making". We may now proceed to the waking hallucinations of sane and healthy people, which Mr. Galton declares to be so far from uncommon. Into the _causes_ of these hallucinations which may actually deceive the judgment, Mr. Galton does not enter. STORY OF THE DIPLOMATIST {56a} For example, there is a living diplomatist who knows men and cities, and has, moreover, a fine sense of humour. "My Lord," said a famous Russian statesman to him, "you have all the qualities of a diplomatist, but you cannot control your smile." This gentleman, walking alone in a certain cloister at Cambridge, met a casual acquaintance, a well-known London clergyman, and was just about shaking hands with him, when the clergyman vanished. Nothing in particular happened to either of them; the clergyman was not in the seer's mind at the moment. This is a good example of a solitary hallucination in the experience of a very cool-headed observer. The _causes_ of such experiences are still a mystery to science. Even people who believe in "mental telegraphy," say when a distant person, at death or in any other crisis, impresses himself as present on the senses of a friend, cannot account for an experience like that of the diplomatist, an experience not very uncommon, and little noticed except when it happens to coincide with some remarkable event. {56b} Nor are such hallucinations of an origin easily detected, like those of delirium, insanity, intoxication, grief, anxiety, or remorse. We can only suppose that a past impression of the aspect of a friend is recalled by some association of ideas so vividly that (though we are not _consciously_ thinking of him) we conceive the friend to be actually present in the body when he is absent. These hallucinations are casual and unsought. But between these and the dreams of sleep there is a kind of waking hallucinations which some people can purposely evoke. Such are the visions of _crystal gazing_. Among the superstitions of almost all ages and countries is the belief that "spirits" will show themselves, usually after magical ceremonies, to certain persons, commonly children, who stare into a crystal ball, a cup, a mirror, a blob of ink (in Egypt and India), a drop of blood (among the Maoris of New Zealand), a bowl of water (Red Indian), a pond (Roman and African), water in a glass bowl (in Fez), or almost any polished surface. The magical ceremonies, which have probably nothing to do with the matter, have succeeded in making this old and nearly universal belief seem a mere fantastic superstition. But occasionally a person not superstitious has recorded this experience. Thus George Sand in her Histoire de ma Vie mentions that, as a little girl, she used to see wonderful moving landscapes in the polished back of a screen. These were so vivid that she thought they must be visible to others. Recent experiments have proved that an unexpected number of people have this faculty. Gazing into a ball of crystal or glass, a crystal or other smooth ring stone, such as a sapphire or ruby, or even into a common ink-pot, they will see visions very brilliant. These are often mere reminiscences of faces or places, occasionally of faces or places sunk deep below the ordinary memory. Still more frequently they represent fantastic landscapes and romantic scenes, as in an historical novel, with people in odd costumes coming, going and acting. Thus I have been present when a lady saw in a glass ball a man in white Oriental costume kneeling beside a leaping fountain of fire. Presently a hand appeared pointing downwards through the flame. The _first_ vision seen pretty often represents an invalid in bed. Printed words are occasionally read in the glass, as also happens in the visions beheld with shut eyes before sleeping. All these kinds of things, in fact, are common in our visions between sleeping and waking (illusions hypnagogiques). The singularity is that they are seen by people wide awake in glass balls and so forth. Usually the seer is a person whose ordinary "mental imagery" is particularly vivid. But every "visualiser" is not a crystal seer. A novelist of my acquaintance can "visualise" so well that, having forgotten an address and lost the letter on which it was written, he called up a mental picture of the letter, and so discovered the address. But this very popular writer can see no visions in a crystal ball. Another very popular novelist can see them; little dramas are acted out in the ball for his edification. {58} These things are as unfamiliar to men of science as Mr. Galton found ordinary mental imagery, pictures in memory, to be. Psychology may or may not include them in her province; they may or may not come to be studied as ordinary dreams are studied. But, like dreams, these crystal visions enter the domain of the ghostly only when they are _veracious_, and contribute information previously unknown as to past, present or future. There are plenty of stories to this effect. To begin with an easy, or comparatively easy, exercise in belief. UNDER THE LAMP I had given a glass ball to a young lady, who believed that she could play the "willing game" successfully without touching the person "willed," and when the person did not even know that "willing" was going on. This lady, Miss Baillie, had scarcely any success with the ball. She lent it to Miss Leslie, who saw a large, square, old- fashioned red sofa covered with muslin, which she found in the next country house she visited. Miss Baillie's brother, a young athlete (at short odds for the amateur golf championship), laughed at these experiments, took the ball into the study, and came back looking "gey gash". He admitted that he had seen a vision, somebody he knew "under a lamp". He would discover during the week whether he saw right or not. This was at 5.30 on a Sunday afternoon. On Tuesday, Mr. Baillie was at a dance in a town some forty miles from his home, and met a Miss Preston. "On Sunday," he said, "about half-past five you were sitting under a standard lamp in a dress I never saw you wear, a blue blouse with lace over the shoulders, pouring out tea for a man in blue serge, whose back was towards me, so that I only saw the tip of his moustache." "Why, the blinds must have been up," said Miss Preston. "I was at Dulby," said Mr. Baillie, as he undeniably was. {60a} This is not a difficult exercise in belief. Miss Preston was not unlikely to be at tea at tea-time. Nor is the following very hard. THE COW WITH THE BELL I had given a glass ball to the wife of a friend, whose visions proved so startling and on one occasion so unholy that she ceased to make experiments. One day my friend's secretary, a young student and golfer, took up the ball. "I see a field I know very well," he said, "but there is a cow in it that I never saw; brown, with white markings, and, this is odd in Scotland, she has a bell hanging from her neck. I'll go and look at the field." He went and found the cow as described, bell and all. {60b} In the spring of 1897 I gave a glass ball to a young lady, previously a stranger to me, who was entirely unacquainted with crystal gazing, even by report. She had, however, not infrequent experience of spontaneous visions, which were fulfilled, including a vision of the Derby (Persimmon's year), which enriched her friends. In using the ball she, time after time, succeeded in seeing and correctly describing persons and places familiar to people for whom she "scried," but totally strange to herself. In one case she added a detail quite unknown to the person who consulted her, but which was verified on inquiry. These experiments will probably be published elsewhere. Four people, out of the very small number who tried on these occasions, saw fancy pictures in the ball: two were young ladies, one a man, and one a schoolboy. I must confess that, for the first time, I was impressed by the belief that the lady's veracious visions, however they are to be explained, could not possibly be accounted for by chance coincidence. They were too many (I was aware of five in a few days), too minute, and too remote from the range of ingenious guessing. But "thought transference," tapping the mental wires of another person, would have accounted for every case, with, perhaps, the exception of that in which an unknown detail was added. This confession will, undoubtedly, seem weakly credulous, but not to make it would be unfair and unsportsmanlike. My statement, of course, especially without the details, is not evidence for other people. The following case is a much harder exercise in belief. It is narrated by the Duc de Saint Simon. {62} The events were described to Saint Simon on the day after their occurrence by the Duc d'Orleans, then starting for Italy, in May, 1706. Saint Simon was very intimate with the duke, and they corresponded by private cypher without secretaries. Owing to the death of the king's son and grandson (not seen in the vision), Orleans became Regent when Louis XIV. died in 1714. Saint Simon is a reluctant witness, and therefore all the better. THE DEATHBED OF LOUIS XIV. "Here is a strange story that the Duc d'Orleans told me one day in a tete-a-tete at Marly, he having just run down from Paris before he started for Italy; and it may be observed that all the events predicted came to pass, though none of them could have been foreseen at the time. His interest in every kind of art and science was very great, and in spite of his keen intellect, he was all his life subject to a weakness which had been introduced (with other things) from Italy by Catherine de Medici, and had reigned supreme over the courts of her children. He had exercised every known method of inducing the devil to appear to him in person, though, as he has himself told me, without the smallest success. He had spent much time in investigating matters that touched on the supernatural, and dealt with the future. "Now La Sery (his mistress) had in her house a little girl of eight or nine years of age, who had never resided elsewhere since her birth. She was to all appearance a very ordinary child, and from the way in which she had been brought up, was more than commonly ignorant and simple. One day, during the visit of M. d'Orleans, La Sery produced for his edification one of the charlatans with whom the duke had long been familiar, who pretended that by means of a glass of water he could see the answer to any question that might be put. For this purpose it was necessary to have as a go-between some one both young and innocent, to gaze into the water, and this little girl was at once sent for. They amused themselves by asking what was happening in certain distant places; and after the man had murmured some words over the water, the child looked in and always managed to see the vision required of her. "M. le duc d'Orleans had so often been duped in matters of this kind that he determined to put the water-gazer to a severe test. He whispered to one of his attendants to go round to Madame de Nancre's, who lived close by, and ascertain who was there, what they were all doing, the position of the room and the way it was furnished, and then, without exchanging a word with any one, to return and let him know the result. This was done speedily and without the slightest suspicion on the part of any person, the child remaining in the room all the time. When M. le duc d'Orleans had learned all he wanted to know, he bade the child look in the water and tell him who was at Madame de Nancre's and what they were all doing. She repeated word for word the story that had been told by the duke's messenger; described minutely the faces, dresses and positions of the assembled company, those that were playing cards at the various tables, those that were sitting, those that were standing, even the very furniture! But to leave nothing in doubt, the Duke of Orleans despatched Nancre back to the house to verify a second time the child's account, and like the valet, he found she had been right in every particular. "As a rule he said very little to me about these subjects, as he knew I did not approve of them, and on this occasion I did not fail to scold him, and to point out the folly of being amused by such things, especially at a time when his attention should be occupied with more serious matters. 'Oh, but I have only told you half,' he replied; 'that was just the beginning,' and then he went on to say that, encouraged by the exactitude of the little girl's description of Madame de Nancre's room, he resolved to put to her a more important question, namely, as to the scene that would occur at the death of the king. The child had never seen any one who was about the court, and had never even heard of Versailles, but she described exactly and at great length the king's bedroom at Versailles and all the furniture which was in fact there at the date of his death. She gave every detail as to the bed, and cried out on recognising, in the arms of Madame de Ventadour, a little child decorated with an order whom she had seen at the house of Mademoiselle la Sery; and again at the sight of M. le duc d'Orleans. From her account, Madame de Maintenon, Fagon with his odd face, Madame la duchesse d'Orleans, Madame la duchesse, Madame la princesse de Conti, besides other princes and nobles, and even the valets and servants were all present at the king's deathbed. Then she paused, and M. le duc d'Orleans, surprised that she had never mentioned Monseigneur, Monsieur le duc de Bourgogne, Madame la duchesse de Bourgogne, nor M. le duc de Berri, inquired if she did not see such and such people answering to their description. She persisted that she did not, and went over the others for the second time. This astonished M. le duc d'Orleans deeply, as well as myself, and we were at a loss to explain it, but the event proved that the child was perfectly right. This seance took place in 1706. These four members of the royal family were then full of health and strength; and they all died before the king. It was the same thing with M. le prince, M. le duc, and M. le prince de Conti, whom she likewise did not see, though she beheld the children of the two last named; M. du Maine, his own (Orleans), and M. le comte de Toulouse. But of course this fact was unknown till eight years after." Science may conceivably come to study crystal visions, but veracious crystal visions will be treated like veracious dreams. That is to say, they will be explained as the results of a chance coincidence between the unknown fact and the vision, or of imposture, conscious or unconscious, or of confusion of memory, or the fact of the crystal vision will be simply denied. Thus a vast number of well- authenticated cases of veracious visions will be required before science could admit that it might be well to investigate hitherto unacknowledged faculties of the human mind. The evidence can never be other than the word of the seer, with whatever value may attach to the testimony of those for whom he "sees," and describes, persons and places unknown to himself. The evidence of individuals as to their own subjective experiences is accepted by psychologists in other departments of the study. {66} CHAPTER IV Veracious Waking Hallucinations not recognised by Science; or explained by Coincidence, Imposture, False Memory. A Veracious Hallucination popularly called a Wraith or Ghost. Example of Unveracious Hallucination. The Family Coach. Ghosts' Clothes and other Properties and Practices; how explained. Case of Veracious Hallucination. Riding Home from Mess. Another Case. The Bright Scar. The Vision and the Portrait. Such Stories not usually believed. Cases of Touch: The Restraining Hand. Of Hearing: The Benedictine's Voices; The Voice in the Bath-room. Other "Warnings". The Maoris. The Man at the Lift. Appearances Coincident with Death. Others not Coincident with Anything. In "crystal-gazing" anybody can make experiments for himself and among such friends as he thinks he can trust. They are hallucinations consciously sought for, and as far as possible, provoked or induced by taking certain simple measures. Unsought, spontaneous waking hallucinations, according to the result of Mr. Galton's researches, though not nearly so common as dreams, are as much facts of _sane_ mental experience. Now every ghost or wraith is a hallucination. You see your wife in the dining-room when she really is in the drawing- room; you see your late great-great-grandfather anywhere. Neither person is really present. The first appearance in popular language is a "wraith"; the second is a "ghost" in ordinary speech. Both are hallucinations. So far Mr. Galton would go, but mark what follows! Everybody allows the existence of dreams, but comparatively few believe in dream stories of _veracious_ dreams. So every scientific man believes in hallucinations, {68} but few believe in _veracious_ hallucinations. A veracious hallucination is, for our purpose, one which communicates (as veracious dreams do) information not otherwise known, or, at least, not known to the knower to be known. The communication of the knowledge may be done by audible words, with or without an actual apparition, or with an apparition, by words or gestures. Again, if a hallucination of Jones's presence tallies with a great crisis in Jones's life, or with his death, the hallucination is so far veracious in that, at least, it does not seem meaningless. Or if Jones's appearance has some unwonted feature not known to the seer, but afterwards proved to be correct in fact, that is veracious. Next, if several persons successively in the same place, or simultaneously, have a similar hallucination not to be accounted for physically, that is, if not a veracious, a curious hallucination. Once more, if a hallucinatory figure is afterwards recognised in a living person previously unknown, or a portrait previously unseen, that (if the recognition be genuine) is a veracious hallucination. The vulgar call it a wraith of the living, or a ghost of the dead. Here follow two cases. The first, The Family Coach, {69a} gave no verified intelligence, and would be styled a "subjective hallucination". The second contributed knowledge of facts not previously known to the witness, and so the vulgar would call it a ghost. Both appearances were very rich and full of complicated detail. Indeed, any ghost that wears clothes is a puzzle. Nobody but savages thinks that clothes have ghosts, but Tom Sawyer conjectures that ghosts' clothes "are made of ghost stuff". As a rule, not very much is seen of a ghost; he is "something of a shadowy being". Yet we very seldom hear of a ghost stark naked; that of Sergeant Davies, murdered in 1749, is one of three or four examples in civilised life. {69b} Hence arises the old question, "How are we to account for the clothes of ghosts?" One obvious reply is that there is no ghost at all, only a hallucination. We do not see people naked, as a rule, in our dreams; and hallucinations, being waking dreams, conform to the same rule. If a ghost opens a door or lifts a curtain in our sight, that, too, is only part of the illusion. The door did not open; the curtain was not lifted. Nay, if the wrist or hand of the seer is burned or withered, as in a crowd of stories, the ghost's hand did not produce the effect. It was produced in the same way as when a hypnotised patient is told that "his hand is burned," his fancy then begets real blisters, or so we are informed, truly or not. The stigmata of St. Francis and others are explained in the same way. {70} How ghosts pull bedclothes off and make objects fly about is another question: in any case the ghosts are not _seen_ in the act. Thus the clothes of ghosts, their properties, and their actions affecting physical objects, are not more difficult to explain than a naked ghost would be, they are all the "stuff that dreams are made of". But occasionally things are carried to a great pitch, as when a ghost drives off in a ghostly dogcart, with a ghostly horse, whip and harness. Of this complicated kind we give two examples; the first reckons as a "subjective," the second as a veracious hallucination. THE OLD FAMILY COACH A distinguished and accomplished country gentleman and politician, of scientific tastes, was riding in the New Forest, some twelve miles from the place where he was residing. In a grassy glade he discovered that he did not very clearly know his way to a country town which he intended to visit. At this moment, on the other side of some bushes a carriage drove along, and then came into clear view where there was a gap in the bushes. Mr. Hyndford saw it perfectly distinctly; it was a slightly antiquated family carriage, the sides were in that imitation of wicker work on green panel which was once so common. The coachman was a respectable family servant, he drove two horses: two old ladies were in the carriage, one of them wore a hat, the other a bonnet. They passed, and then Mr. Hyndford, going through the gap in the bushes, rode after them to ask his way. There was no carriage in sight, the avenue ended in a cul-de-sac of tangled brake, and there were no traces of wheels on the grass. Mr. Hyndford rode back to his original point of view, and looked for any object which could suggest the illusion of one old-fashioned carriage, one coachman, two horses and two elderly ladies, one in a hat and one in a bonnet. He looked in vain--and that is all! Nobody in his senses would call this appearance a ghostly one. The name, however, would be applied to the following tale of RIDING HOME FROM MESS In 1854, General Barter, C.B., was a subaltern in the 75th Regiment, and was doing duty at the hill station of Murree in the Punjaub. He lived in a house built recently by a Lieutenant B., who died, as researches at the War Office prove, at Peshawur on 2nd January, 1854. The house was on a spur of the hill, three or four hundred yards under the only road, with which it communicated by a "bridle path," never used by horsemen. That path ended in a precipice; a footpath led into the bridle path from Mr. Barter's house. One evening Mr. Barter had a visit from a Mr. and Mrs. Deane, who stayed till near eleven o'clock. There was a full moon, and Mr. Barter walked to the bridle path with his friends, who climbed it to join the road. He loitered with two dogs, smoking a cigar, and just as he turned to go home, he heard a horse's hoofs coming down the bridle path. At a bend of the path a tall hat came into view, then round the corner, the wearer of the hat, who rode a pony and was attended by two native grooms. "At this time the two dogs came, and crouching at my side, gave low frightened whimpers. The moon was at the full, a tropical moon, so bright that you could see to read a newspaper by its light, and I saw the party above me advance as plainly as if it were noon-day; they were above me some eight or ten feet on the bridle road. . . . On the party came, . . . and now I had better describe them. The rider was in full dinner dress, with white waistcoat and a tall chimney-pot hat, and he sat on a powerful hill pony (dark-brown, with black mane and tail) in a listless sort of way, the reins hanging loosely from both hands." Grooms led the pony and supported the rider. Mr. Barter, knowing that there was no place they could go to but his own house, cried "Quon hai?" (who is it?), adding in English, "Hullo, what the devil do you want here?" The group halted, the rider gathered up the reins with both hands, and turning, showed Mr. Barter the known features of the late Lieutenant B. He was very pale, the face was a dead man's face, he was stouter than when Mr. Barter knew him and he wore _a dark Newgate fringe_. Mr. Barter dashed up the bank, the earth thrown up in making the bridle path crumbled under him, he fell, scrambled on, reached the bridle path where the group had stopped, and found nobody. Mr. Barter ran up the path for a hundred yards, as nobody could go _down_ it except over a precipice, and neither heard nor saw anything. His dogs did not accompany him. Next day Mr. Barter gently led his friend Deane to talk of Lieutenant B., who said that the lieutenant "grew very bloated before his death, and while on the sick list he allowed the fringe to grow in spite of all we could say to him, and I believe he was buried with it". Mr. Barter then asked where he got the pony, describing it minutely. "He bought him at Peshawur, and killed him one day, riding in his reckless fashion down the hill to Trete." Mr. Barter and his wife often heard the horse's hoofs later, though he doubts if any one but B. had ever ridden the bridle path. His Hindoo bearer he found one day armed with a lattie, being determined to waylay the sound, which "passed him like a typhoon". {74} Here the appearance gave correct information unknown previously to General Barter, namely, that Lieutenant B. grew stout and wore a beard before his death, also that he had owned a brown pony, with black mane and tail. Even granting that the ghosts of the pony and lieutenant were present (both being dead), we are not informed that the grooms were dead also. The hallucination, on the theory of "mental telegraphy," was telegraphed to General Barter's mind from some one who had seen Lieutenant B. ride home from mess not very sober, or from the mind of the defunct lieutenant, or, perhaps, from that of the deceased pony. The message also reached and alarmed General Barter's dogs. Something of the same kind may or may not explain Mr. Hyndford's view of the family coach, which gave no traceable information. The following story, in which an appearance of the dead conveyed information not known to the seer, and so deserving to be called veracious, is a little ghastly. THE BRIGHT SCAR In 1867, Miss G., aged eighteen, died suddenly of cholera in St. Louis. In 1876 a brother, F. G., who was much attached to her, had done a good day's business in St. Joseph. He was sending in his orders to his employers (he is a commercial traveller) and was smoking a cigar, when he became conscious that some one was sitting on his left, with one arm on the table. It was his dead sister. He sprang up to embrace her (for even on meeting a stranger whom we take for a dead friend, we never realise the impossibility in the half moment of surprise) but she was gone. Mr. G. stood there, the ink wet on his pen, the cigar lighted in his hand, the name of his sister on his lips. He had noted her expression, features, dress, the kindness of her eyes, the glow of the complexion, and what he had never seen before, _a bright red scratch on the right side of her face_. Mr. G. took the next train home to St. Louis, and told the story to his parents. His father was inclined to ridicule him, but his mother nearly fainted. When she could control herself, she said that, unknown to any one, she had accidentally scratched the face of the dead, apparently with the pin of her brooch, while arranging something about the corpse. She had obliterated the scratch with powder, and had kept the fact to herself. "She told me she _knew_ at least that I had seen my sister." A few weeks later Mrs. G. died. {75} Here the information existed in one living mind, the mother's, and if there is any "mental telegraphy," may thence have been conveyed to Mr. F. G. Another kind of cases which may be called veracious, occurs when the ghost seer, after seeing the ghost, recognises it in a portrait not previously beheld. Of course, allowance must be made for fancy, and for conscious or unconscious hoaxing. You see a spook in Castle Dangerous. You then recognise the portrait in the hall, or elsewhere. The temptation to recognise the spook rather more clearly than you really do, is considerable, just as one is tempted to recognise the features of the Stuarts in the royal family, of the parents in a baby, or in any similar case. Nothing is more common in literary ghost stories than for somebody to see a spectre and afterwards recognise him or her in a portrait not before seen. There is an early example in Sir Walter Scott's Tapestried Chamber, which was told to him by Miss Anna Seward. Another such tale is by Theophile Gautier. In an essay on Illusions by Mr. James Sully, a case is given. A lady (who corroborated the story to the present author) was vexed all night by a spectre in armour. Next morning she saw, what she had not previously observed, a portrait of the spectre in the room. Mr. Sully explains that she had seen the portrait _unconsciously_, and dreamed of it. He adds the curious circumstance that other people have had the same experience in the same room, which his explanation does not cover. The following story is published by the Society for Psychical Research, attested by the seer and her husband, whose real names are known, but not published. {76} THE VISION AND THE PORTRAIT Mrs. M. writes (December 15, 1891) that before her vision she had heard nothing about hauntings in the house occupied by herself and her husband, and nothing about the family sorrows of her predecessors there. "One night, on retiring to my bedroom about 11 o'clock, I thought I heard a peculiar moaning sound, and some one sobbing as if in great distress of mind. I listened very attentively, and still it continued; so I raised the gas in my bedroom, and then went to the window on the landing, drew the blind aside, and there on the grass was a very beautiful young girl in a kneeling posture, before a soldier in a general's uniform, sobbing and clasping her hands together, entreating for pardon, but alas! he only waved her away from him. So much did I feel for the girl that I ran down the staircase to the door opening upon the lawn, and begged her to come in and tell me her sorrow. The figures then disappeared gradually, as in a dissolving view. Not in the least nervous did I feel then; went again to my bedroom, took a sheet of writing-paper, and wrote down what I had seen." {77} Mrs. M., whose husband was absent, began to feel nervous, and went to another lady's room. She later heard of an old disgrace to the youngest daughter of the proud family, her predecessors in the house. The poor girl tried in vain to win forgiveness, especially from a near relative, a soldier, Sir X. Y. "So vivid was my remembrance of the features of the soldier, that some months after the occurrence [of the vision] when I called with my husband at a house where there was a portrait of him, I stepped before it and said, 'Why, look! there is the General!' And sure enough it _was_." Mrs. M. had not heard that the portrait was in the room where she saw it. Mr. M. writes that he took her to the house where he knew it to be without telling her of its existence. Mrs. M. turned pale when she saw it. Mr. M. knew the sad old story, but had kept it to himself. The family in which the disgrace occurred, in 1847 or 1848, were his relations. {78} This vision was a veracious hallucination; it gave intelligence not otherwise known to Mrs. M., and capable of confirmation, therefore the appearances would be called "ghosts". The majority of people do not believe in the truth of any such stories of veracious hallucinations, just as they do not believe in veracious dreams. Mr. Galton, out of all his packets of reports of hallucinations, does not even allude to a veracious example, whether he has records of such a thing or not. Such reports, however, are ghost stories, "which we now proceed," or continue, "to narrate". The reader will do well to remember that while everything ghostly, and not to be explained by known physical facts, is in the view of science a hallucination, every hallucination is not a ghost for the purposes of story-telling. The hallucination must, for story-telling purposes, be _veracious_. Following our usual method, we naturally begin with the anecdotes least trying to the judicial faculties, and most capable of an ordinary explanation. Perhaps of all the senses, the sense of touch, though in some ways the surest, is in others the most easily deceived. Some people who cannot call up a clear mental image of things seen, say a saltcellar, can readily call up a mental revival of the feeling of touching salt. Again, a slight accidental throb, or leap of a sinew or vein, may feel so like a touch that we turn round to see who touched us. These familiar facts go far to make the following tale more or less conceivable. THE RESTRAINING HAND "About twenty years ago," writes Mrs. Elliot, "I received some letters by post, one of which contained 15 pounds in bank notes. After reading the letters I went into the kitchen with them in my hands. I was alone at the time. . . . Having done with the letters, I made an effort to throw them into the fire, when I distinctly felt my hand arrested in the act. It was as though another hand were gently laid upon my own, pressing it back. Much surprised, I looked at my hand and then saw it contained, not the letters I had intended to destroy, but the bank notes, and that the letters were in the other hand. I was so surprised that I called out, 'Who's here?'" {80a} Nobody will call this "the touch of a vanished hand". Part of Mrs. Elliot's mind knew what she was about, and started an unreal but veracious feeling to warn her. We shall come to plenty of Hands not so readily disposed of. Next to touch, the sense most apt to be deceived is hearing. Every one who has listened anxiously for an approaching carriage, has often heard it come before it came. In the summer of 1896 the writer, with a lady and another companion, were standing on the veranda at the back of a house in Dumfriesshire, waiting for a cab to take one of them to the station. They heard a cab arrive and draw up, went round to the front of the house, saw the servant open the door and bring out the luggage, but wheeled vehicle there was none in sound or sight. Yet all four persons had heard it, probably by dint of expectation. To hear articulate voices where there are none is extremely common in madness, {80b} but not very rare, as Mr. Galton shows, among the sane. When the voices are veracious, give unknown information, they are in the same case as truthful dreams. I offer a few from the experience, reported to me by himself, of a man of learning whom I shall call a Benedictine monk, though that is not his real position in life. THE BENEDICTINE'S VOICES My friend, as a lad, was in a strait between the choice of two professions. He prayed for enlightenment, and soon afterwards heard an _internal_ voice, advising a certain course. "Did you act on it?" I asked. "No; I didn't. I considered that in my circumstances it did not demand attention." Later, when a man grown, he was in his study merely idling over some books on the table, when he heard a loud voice from a corner of the room assert that a public event of great importance would occur at a given date. It did occur. About the same time, being abroad, he was in great anxiety as to a matter involving only himself. Of this he never spoke to any one. On his return to England his mother said, "You were very wretched about so and so". "How on earth did you know?" "I heard ---'s voice telling me." Now --- had died years before, in childhood. In these cases the Benedictine's own conjecture and his mother's affection probably divined facts, which did not present themselves as thoughts in the ordinary way, but took the form of unreal voices. There are many examples, as of the girl in her bath who heard a voice say "Open the door" four times, did so, then fainted, and only escaped drowning by ringing the bell just before she swooned. Of course she might not have swooned if she had not been alarmed by hearing the voices. These tales are dull enough, and many voices, like Dr. Johnson's mother's, when he heard her call his name, she being hundreds of miles away, lead to nothing and are not veracious. When they are veracious, as in the case of dreams, it may be by sheer accident. In a similar class are "warnings" conveyed by the eye, not by the ear. The Maoris of New Zealand believe that if one sees a body lying across a path or oneself on the opposite side of a river, it is wiser to try another path and a different ford. THE MAN AT THE LIFT In the same way, in August, 1890, a lady in a Boston hotel in the dusk rang for the lift, walked along the corridor and looked out of a window, started to run to the door of the lift, saw a man in front of it, stopped, and when the lighted lift came up, found that the door was wide open and that, had she run on as she intended, she would have fallen down the well. Here part of her mind may have known that the door was open, and started a ghost (for there was no real man there) to stop her. Pity that these things do not occur more frequently. They do--in New Zealand. {82} These are a few examples of useful veracious waking dreams. The sort of which we hear most are "wraiths". A, when awake, meets B, who is dead or dying or quite well at a distance. The number of these stories is legion. To these we advance, under their Highland title, _spirits of the living_. CHAPTER V "Spirits of the Living." Mistakes of Identity. Followed by Arrival of Real Person. "Arrivals." Mark Twain's Phantom Lady. Phantom Dogcart. Influence of Expectant Attention. Goethe. Shelley. The Wraith of the Czarina. Queen Elizabeth's Wraith. Second Sight. Case at Ballachulish. Experiments in sending Wraiths. An "Astral Body". Evidence discussed. Miss Russell's Case. "Spirits of the Dying." Maori Examples. Theory of Chance Coincidence. In Tavistock Place. The Wynyard Wraith. Lord Brougham's Wraith Story. Lord Brougham's Logic. The Dying Mother. Comparison with the Astral Body. The Vision of the Bride. Animals as affected by the supposed Presence of Apparitions. Examples. Transition to Appearances of the Dead. "Spirits of the living" is the Highland term for the appearances of people who are alive and well--but elsewhere. The common Highland belief is that they show themselves to second-sighted persons, very frequently before the arrival of a stranger or a visitor, expected or unexpected. Probably many readers have had the experience of meeting an acquaintance in the street. He passes us, and within a hundred yards we again meet and talk with our friend. When he is of very marked appearance, or has any strong peculiarity, the experience is rather perplexing. Perhaps a few bits of hallucination are sprinkled over a real object. This ordinary event leads on to what are called "Arrivals," that is when a person is seen, heard and perhaps spoken to in a place to which he is travelling, but whither he has not yet arrived. Mark Twain gives an instance in his own experience. At a large crowded reception he saw approaching him in the throng a lady whom he had known and liked many years before. When she was near him, he lost sight of her, but met her at supper, dressed as he had seen her in the "levee". At that moment she was travelling by railway to the town in which he was. {85a} A large number of these cases have been printed. {85b} In one case a gentleman and lady from their window saw his brother and sister-in-law drive past, with a horse which they knew had not been out for some weeks. The seers were presently joined by the visitors' daughter, who had met the party on the road, she having just left them at their house. Ten minutes later the real pair arrived, horse and all. {85c} This last affair is one of several tales of "Phantom Coaches," not only heard but seen, the coach being a coach of the living. In 1893 the author was staying at a Highland castle, when one of the ladies observed to her nephew, "So you and Susan _did_ drive in the dogcart; I saw you pass my window". "No, we didn't; but we spoke of doing it." The lady then mentioned minute details of the dress and attitudes of her relations as they passed her window, where the drive turned from the hall door through the park; but, in fact, no such journey had been made. Dr. Hack Tuke published the story of the "Arrival" of Dr. Boase at his house a quarter of an hour before he came, the people who saw him supposing him to be in Paris. {86} When a person is seen in "Arrival" cases before he arrives, the affair is not so odd if he is expected. Undoubtedly, expectation does sometimes conjure up phantasms, and the author once saw (as he supposed) a serious accident occur which in fact did not take place, though it seemed unavoidable. Curiously enough, this creation of phantasms by expectant attention seems to be rare where "ghosts" are expected. The author has slept in several haunted houses, but has never seen what he was led to expect. In many instances, as in "The Lady in Black" (infra), a ghost who is a frequent visitor is never seen when people watch for her. Among the many persons who have had delusions as to the presence of the dead, very few have been hoping, praying for and expecting them. "I look for ghosts, but none will force Their way to me: 'Tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead, For surely then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night With love and longings infinite." The Affliction of Margaret has been the affliction of most of us. There are curious historical examples of these appearances of the living. Goethe declares that he once met himself at a certain place in a certain dress, and several years later found himself there in that costume. Shelley was seen by his friends at Lerici to pass along a balcony whence there was no exit. However, he could not be found there. The story of the wraith of Catherine the Great is variously narrated. We give it as told by an eye-witness, the Comte de Ribaupierre, about 1862 to Lady Napier and Ettrick. The Count, in 1862, was a very old man, and more than thirty years have passed since he gave the tale to Lady Napier, whose memory retains it in the following form:-- THE WRAITH OF THE CZARINA "In the exercise of his duties as one of the pages-in-waiting, Ribaupierre followed one day his august mistress into the throne-room of the palace. When the Empress, accompanied by the high officers of her court and the ladies of her household, came in sight of the chair of state which she was about to occupy, she suddenly stopped, and to the horror and astonished awe of her courtiers, she pointed to a visionary being seated on the imperial throne. The occupant of the chair was an exact counterpart of herself. All saw it and trembled, but none dared to move towards the mysterious presentment of their sovereign. "After a moment of dead silence the great Catherine raised her voice and ordered her guard to advance and fire on the apparition. The order was obeyed, a mirror beside the throne was shattered, the vision had disappeared, and the Empress, with no sign of emotion, took the chair from which her semblance had passed away." It is a striking barbaric scene! "Spirits of the living" of this kind are common enough. In the Highlands "second sight" generally means a view of an event or accident some time before its occurrence. Thus an old man was sitting with a little boy on a felled tree beside a steep track in a quarry at Ballachulish. Suddenly he jerked the boy to one side, and threw himself down on the further side of the tree. While the boy stared, the old man slowly rose, saying, "The spirits of the living are strong to-day!" He had seen a mass of rock dashing along, killing some quarrymen and tearing down the path. The accident occurred next day. It is needless to dwell on second sight, which is not peculiar to Celts, though the Highlanders talk more about it than other people. These appearances of the living but absent, whether caused by some mental action of the person who appears or not, are, at least, _unconscious_ on his part. {88} But a few cases occur in which a living person is said, by a voluntary exertion of mind, to have made himself visible to a friend at a distance. One case is vouched for by Baron von Schrenck-Notzig, a German psychologist, who himself made the experiment with success. Others are narrated by Dr. Gibotteau. A curious tale is told by several persons as follows:-- AN "ASTRAL BODY" Mr. Sparks and Mr. Cleave, young men of twenty and nineteen, were accustomed to "mesmerise" each other in their dormitory at Portsmouth, where they were students of naval engineering. Mr. Sparks simply stared into Mr. Cleave's eyes as he lay on his bed till he "went off". The experiments seemed so curious that witnesses were called, Mr. Darley and Mr. Thurgood. On Friday, 15th January, 1886, Mr. Cleave determined to try to see, when asleep, a young lady at Wandsworth to whom he was in the habit of writing every Sunday. He also intended, if possible, to make _her_ see _him_. On awaking, he said that he had seen her in the dining-room of her house, that she had seemed to grow restless, had looked at him, and then had covered her face with her hands. On Monday he tried again, and he thought he had frightened her, as after looking at him for a few minutes she fell back in her chair in a kind of faint. Her little brother was in the room with her at the time. On Tuesday next the young lady wrote, telling Mr. Cleave that she had been startled by seeing him on Friday evening (this is an error), and again on Monday evening, "much clearer," when she nearly fainted. All this Mr. Sparks wrote to Mr. Gurney in the same week. He was inviting instructions on hypnotic experiments, and "launched a letter into space," having read something vague about Mr. Gurney's studies in the newspapers. The letter, after some adventures, arrived, and on 15th March Mr. Cleave wrote his account, Mr. Darley and Mr. Thurgood corroborating as to their presence during the trance and as to Mr. Cleave's statement when he awoke. Mr. Cleave added that he made experiments "for five nights running" before seeing the lady. The young lady's letter of 19th January, 1886, is also produced (postmark, Portsmouth, 20th January). But the lady mentions her _first_ vision of Mr. Cleave as on last _Tuesday_ (not Friday), and her second, while she was alone with her little brother, at supper on Monday. "I was so frightened that I nearly fainted." These are all young people. It may be said that all five were concerned in a complicated hoax on Mr. Gurney. Nor would such a hoax argue any unusual moral obliquity. Surtees of Mainsforth, in other respects an honourable man, took in Sir Walter Scott with forged ballads, and never undeceived his friend. Southey played off a hoax with his book The Doctor. Hogg, Lockhart, and Wilson, with Allan Cunningham and many others, were constantly engaged in such mystifications, and a "ghost-hunter" might seem a fair butt. But the very discrepancy in Miss ---'s letter is a proof of fairness. Her first vision of Mr. Cleave was on "Tuesday last". Mr. Cleave's first impression of success was on the Friday following. But he had been making the experiment for five nights previous, including the Tuesday of Miss ---'s letter. Had the affair been a hoax, Miss --- would either have been requested by him to re-write her letter, putting Friday for Tuesday, or what is simpler, Mr. Sparks would have adopted her version and written "Tuesday" in place of "Friday" in his first letter to Mr. Gurney. The young lady, naturally, requested Mr. Cleave not to try his experiment on her again. A similar case is that of Mrs. Russell, who tried successfully, when awake and in Scotland, to appear to one of her family in Germany. The sister corroborates and says, "Pray don't come appearing to me again". {91a} These spirits of the living lead to the subject of spirits of the dying. No kind of tale is so common as that of dying people appearing at a distance. Hundreds have been conscientiously published. {91b} The belief is prevalent among the Maoris of New Zealand, where the apparition is regarded as a proof of death. {91c} Now there is nothing in savage philosophy to account for this opinion of the Maoris. A man's "spirit" leaves his body in dreams, savages think, and as dreaming is infinitely more common than death, the Maoris should argue that the appearance is that of a man's spirit wandering in his sleep. However, they, like many Europeans, associate a man's apparition with his death. Not being derived from their philosophy, this habit may be deduced from their experience. As there are, undeniably, many examples of hallucinatory appearances of persons in perfect health and ordinary circumstances, the question has been asked whether there are _more_ cases of an apparition coinciding with death than, according to the doctrine of chances, there ought to be. Out of about 18,000 answers to questions on this subject, has been deduced the conclusion that the deaths do coincide with the apparitions to an extent beyond mere accident. Even if we had an empty hallucination for every case coinciding with death, we could not set the coincidences down to mere chance. As well might we say that if "at the end of an hour's rifle practice at long-distance range, the record shows that for every shot that has hit the bull's eye, another has missed the target, therefore the shots that hit the target did so by accident." {92} But as empty hallucinations are more likely to be forgotten than those which coincide with a death; as exaggeration creeps in, as the collectors of evidence are naturally inclined to select and question people whom they know to have a good story to tell, the evidence connecting apparitions, voices, and so on with deaths is not likely to be received with favour. One thing must be remembered as affecting the theory that the coincidence between the wraith and the death is purely an accident. Everybody dreams and out of the innumerable dreams of mankind, a few must hit the mark by a fluke. But _hallucinations_ are not nearly so common as dreams. Perhaps, roughly speaking, one person in ten has had what he believes to be a waking hallucination. Therefore, so to speak, compared with dreams, but a small number of shots of this kind are fired. Therefore, bull's eyes (the coincidence between an appearance and a death) are infinitely less likely to be due to chance in the case of waking hallucinations than in the case of dreams, which all mankind are firing off every night of their lives. Stories of these coincidences between appearances and deaths are as common as they are dull. Most people come across them in the circle of their friends. They are all very much alike, and make tedious reading. We give a few which have some picturesque features. IN TAVISTOCK PLACE {93} "In the latter part of the autumn of 1878, between half-past three and four in the morning, I was leisurely walking home from the house of a sick friend. A middle-aged woman, apparently a nurse, was slowly following, going in the same direction. We crossed Tavistock Square together, and emerged simultaneously into Tavistock Place. The streets and squares were deserted, the morning bright and calm, my health excellent, nor did I suffer from anxiety or fatigue. A man suddenly appeared, striding up Tavistock Place, coming towards me, and going in a direction opposite to mine. When first seen he was standing exactly in front of my own door (5 Tavistock Place). Young and ghastly pale, he was dressed in evening clothes, evidently made by a foreign tailor. Tall and slim, he walked with long measured strides noiselessly. A tall white hat, covered thickly with black crape, and an eyeglass, completed the costume of this strange form. The moonbeams falling on the corpse-like features revealed a face well known to me, that of a friend and relative. The sole and only person in the street beyond myself and this being was the woman already alluded to. She stopped abruptly, as if spell-bound, then rushing towards the man, she gazed intently and with horror unmistakable on his face, which was now upturned to the heavens and smiling ghastly. She indulged in her strange contemplation but during very few seconds, then with extraordinary and unexpected speed for her weight and age she ran away with a terrific shriek and yell. This woman never have I seen or heard of since, and but for her presence I could have explained the incident: called it, say, subjection of the mental powers to the domination of physical reflex action, and the man's presence could have been termed a false impression on the retina. "A week after this event, news of this very friend's death reached me. It occurred on the morning in question. From the family I learned that according to the rites of the Greek Church and the custom of the country he resided in, he was buried in his evening clothes made abroad by a foreign tailor, and strange to say, he wore goloshes over his boots, according also to the custom of the country he died in. . . . When in England, he lived in Tavistock Place, and occupied my rooms during my absence." {95a} THE WYNYARD WRAITH {95b} "In the month of November (1785 or 1786), Sir John Sherbrooke and Colonel Wynyard were sitting before dinner in their barrack room at Sydney Cove, in America. It was duskish, and a candle was placed on a table at a little distance. A figure dressed in plain clothes and a good round hat, passed gently between the above people and the fire. While passing, Sir J. Sherbrooke exclaimed, 'God bless my soul, who's that?' "Almost at the same moment Colonel W. said, 'That's my brother John Wynyard, and I am sure he is dead'. Colonel W. was much agitated, and cried and sobbed a great deal. Sir John said, 'The fellow has a devilish good hat; I wish I had it'. (Hats were not to be got there and theirs were worn out.) They immediately got up (Sir John was on crutches, having broken his leg), took a candle and went into the bedroom, into which the figure had entered. They searched the bed and every corner of the room to no effect; the windows were fastened up with mortar. . . . "They received no communication from England for about five months, when a letter from Mr. Rush, the surgeon (Coldstream Guards), announced the death of John Wynyard at the moment, as near as could be ascertained, when the figure appeared. In addition to this extraordinary circumstance, Sir John told me that two years and a half afterwards he was walking with Lilly Wynyard (a brother of Colonel W.) in London, and seeing somebody on the other side of the way, he recognised, he thought, the person who had appeared to him and Colonel Wynyard in America. Lilly Wynyard said that the person pointed out was a Mr. Eyre (Hay?), that he and John Wynyard were frequently mistaken for each other, and that money had actually been paid to this Mr. Eyre in mistake." A famous tale of an appearance is Lord Brougham's. His Lordship was not reckoned precisely a veracious man; on the other hand, this was not the kind of fable he was likely to tell. He was brought up under the regime of common-sense. "On all such subjects my father was very sceptical," he says. To disbelieve Lord Brougham we must suppose either that he wilfully made a false entry in his diary in 1799, or that in preparing his Autobiography in 1862, he deliberately added a falsehood--and then explained his own marvel away! LORD BROUGHAM'S STORY "December 19, 1799. " . . . At one in the morning, arriving at a decent inn (in Sweden), we decided to stop for the night, and found a couple of comfortable rooms. Tired with the cold of yesterday, I was glad to take advantage of a hot bath before I turned in. And here a most remarkable thing happened to me--so remarkable that I must tell the story from the beginning. "After I left the High School, I went with G---, my most intimate friend, to attend the classes in the University. . . . We actually committed the folly of drawing up an agreement, written with our blood, to the effect that whichever of us died the first should appear to the other, and thus solve any doubts we had entertained of 'the life after death'. G--- went to India, years passed, and," says Lord Brougham, "I had nearly forgotten his existence. I had taken, as I have said, a warm bath, and while lying in it and enjoying the comfort of the heat, I turned my head round, looking towards the chair on which I had deposited my clothes, as I was about to get out of the bath. On the chair sat G---, looking calmly at me. How I got out of the bath I know not, but on recovering my senses I found myself sprawling on the floor. The apparition, or whatever it was that had taken the likeness of G---, had disappeared. . . . So strongly was I affected by it that I have here written down the whole history, with the date, 19th December, and all the particulars as they are now fresh before me. No doubt I had fallen asleep" (he has just said that he was awake and on the point of leaving the bath), "and that the appearance presented so distinctly to my eyes was a dream I cannot for a moment doubt. . . ." On 16th October, 1862, Lord Brougham copied this extract for his Autobiography, and says that on his arrival in Edinburgh he received a letter from India, announcing that G--- had died on 19th December. He remarks "singular coincidence!" and adds that, considering the vast number of dreams, the number of coincidences is perhaps fewer than a fair calculation of chances would warrant us to expect. This is a concession to common-sense, and argues an ignorance of the fact that sane and (apparently) waking men may have hallucinations. On the theory that we _may_ have inappreciable moments of sleep when we think ourselves awake, it is not an ordinary but an extraordinary coincidence that Brougham should have had that peculiar moment of the "dream" of G--- on the day or night of G---'s death, while the circumstance that he had made a compact with G--- multiplies the odds against accident in a ratio which mathematicians may calculate. Brougham was used to dreams, like other people; he was not shocked by them. This "dream" "produced such a shock that I had no inclination to talk about it". Even on Brougham's showing, then, this dream was a thing unique in his experience, and not one of the swarm of visions of sleep. Thus his including it among these, while his whole language shows that he himself did not really reckon it among these, is an example of the fallacies of common-sense. He completes his fallacy by saying, "It is not much more wonderful than that a person whom we had no reason to expect should appear to us at the very moment we had been thinking or speaking of him". But Lord Brougham had _not_ been speaking or thinking of G---; "there had been nothing to call him to my recollection," he says. To give his logic any value, he should constantly when (as far as he knew) awake, have had dreams that "shocked" him. Then _one_ coincidence would have had no assignable cause save ordinary accident. If Lord Brougham fabled in 1799 or in 1862, he did so to make a "sensation". And then he tried to undo it by arguing that his experience was a thoroughly commonplace affair. We now give a very old story, "The Dying Mother". If the reader will compare it with Mr. Cleave's case, "An Astral Body," in this chapter, he will be struck by the resemblance. Mr. Cleave and Mrs. Goffe were both in a trance. Both wished to see persons at a distance. Both saw, and each was seen, Mrs. Goffe by her children's nurse; Mr. Cleave by the person whom he wished to see, but _not_ by a small boy also present. THE DYING MOTHER {101} "Mary, the wife of John Goffe of Rochester, being afflicted with a long illness, removed to her father's house at West Mulling, about nine miles from her own. There she died on 4th June, this present year, 1691. "The day before her departure (death) she grew very impatiently desirous to see her two children, whom she had left at home to the care of a nurse. She prayed her husband to 'hire a horse, for she must go home and die with the children'. She was too ill to be moved, but 'a minister who lives in the town was with her at ten o'clock that night, to whom she expressed good hopes in the mercies of God and a willingness to die'. 'But' said she, 'it is my misery that I cannot see my children.' "Between one and two o'clock in the morning, she fell into a trance. One, widow Turner, who watched with her that night, says that her eyes were open and fixed and her jaw fallen. Mrs. Turner put her hand upon her mouth and nostrils, but could perceive no breath. She thought her to be in a fit; and doubted whether she were dead or alive. "The next morning the dying woman told her mother that she had been at home with her children. . . . 'I was with them last night when I was asleep.' "The nurse at Rochester, widow Alexander by name, affirms, and says she will take her oath on't before a Magistrate and receive the sacrament upon it, that a little before two o'clock that morning she saw the likeness of the said Mary Goffe come out of the next chamber (where the elder child lay in a bed by itself) the door being left open, and stood by her bedside for about a quarter of an hour; the younger child was there lying by her. Her eyes moved and her mouth went, but she said nothing. The nurse, moreover, says that she was perfectly awake; it was then daylight, being one of the longest days in the year. She sat up in bed and looked steadfastly on the apparition. In that time she heard the bridge clock strike two, and a while after said, 'In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, what art thou?' Thereupon the apparition removed and went away; she slipped on her clothes and followed, but what became on't she cannot tell. "Mrs. Alexander then walked out of doors till six, when she persuaded some neighbours to let her in. She told her adventure; they failed to persuade her that she had dreamed it. On the same day the neighbour's wife, Mrs. Sweet, went to West Mulling, saw Mrs. Goffe before her death, and heard from Mrs. Goffe's mother the story of the daughter's dream of her children, Mrs. Sweet not having mentioned the nurse's story of the apparition." That poor Mrs. Goffe walked to Rochester and returned undetected, a distance of eighteen miles is difficult to believe. Goethe has an obiter dictum on the possibility of intercommunion without the aid of the ordinary senses, between the souls of lovers. Something of the kind is indicated in anecdotes of dreams dreamed in common by husband and wife, but, in such cases, it may be urged that the same circumstance, or the same noise or other disturbing cause, may beget the same dream in both. A better instance is THE VISION OF THE BRIDE Colonel Meadows Taylor writes, in The Story of my Life (vol. ii., p. 32): "The determination (to live unmarried) was the result of a very curious and strange incident that befel me during one of my marches to Hyderabad. I have never forgotten it, and it returns to this day to my memory with a strangely vivid effect that I can neither repel nor explain. I purposely withhold the date of the year. In my very early life I had been deeply and devotedly attached to one in England, and only relinquished the hope of one day winning her when the terrible order came out that no furlough to Europe would be granted. "One evening I was at the village of Dewas Kudea, after a very long afternoon and evening march from Muktul, and I lay down very weary; but the barking of village dogs, the baying of jackals and over- fatigue and heat prevented sleep, and I was wide awake and restless. Suddenly, for my tent door was wide open, I saw the face and figure so familiar to me, but looking older, and with a sad and troubled expression; the dress was white and seemed covered with a profusion of lace and glistened in the bright moonlight. The arms were stretched out, and a low plaintive cry of 'Do not let me go! Do not let me go!' reached me. I sprang forward, but the figure receded, growing fainter and fainter till I could see it no more, but the low plaintive tones still sounded. I had run barefooted across the open space where my tents were pitched, very much to the astonishment of the sentry on guard, but I returned to my tent without speaking to him. I wrote to my father. I wished to know whether there were any hope for me. He wrote back to me these words: 'Too late, my dear son--on the very day of the vision you describe to me, A. was married'." The colonel did not keep his determination not to marry, for his Life is edited by his daughter, who often heard her father mention the incident, "precisely in the same manner, and exactly as it is in the book". {103} If thinking of friends and lovers, lost or dead, could bring their forms and voices before the eye and ear of flesh, there would be a world of hallucinations around us. "But it wants heaven-sent moments for this skill," and few bridal nights send a vision and a voice to the bed of a wakeful lover far away. Stories of this kind, appearances of the living or dying really at a distance, might be multiplied to any extent. They are all capable of explanation, if we admit the theory of telepathy, of a message sent by an unknown process from one living man's mind to another. Where more than one person shares the vision, we may suppose that the influence comes directly from A to B, C and D, or comes from A to B, and is by him unconsciously "wired" on to B and C, or is "suggested" to them by B's conduct or words. In that case animals may be equally affected, thus, if B seems alarmed, that may frighten his dog, or the alarm of a dog, caused by some noise or smell, heard or smelt by him, may frighten B, C and D, and make one or all of them see a ghost. Popular opinion is strongly in favour of beasts seeing ghosts. The people of St. Kilda, according to Martin, held that cows shared the visions of second-sighted milk-maids. Horses are said to shy on the scene of murders. Scott's horse ran away (home) when Sir Walter saw the bogle near Ashiestiel. In a case given later the dog shut up in a room full of unexplained noises, yelled and whined. The same dog (an intimate friend of my own) bristled up his hair and growled before his master saw the Grey Lady. The Rev. J. G. Wood gives a case of a cat which nearly went mad when his mistress saw an apparition. Jeremy Taylor tells of a dog which got quite used to a ghost that often appeared to his master, and used to follow it. In "The Lady in Black," a dog would jump up and fawn on the ghost and then run away in a fright. Mr. Wesley's mastiff was much alarmed by the family ghost. Not to multiply cases, dogs and other animals are easily affected by whatever it is that makes people think a ghost is present, or by the conduct of the human beings on these occasions. Absurd as the subject appears, there are stories of the ghosts of animals. These may be discussed later; meanwhile we pass from appearances of the living or dying to stories of appearances of the dead. CHAPTER VI Transition to Appearances of the Dead. Obvious Scientific Difficulties. Purposeless Character of Modern Ghosts. Theory of Dead Men's Dreams. Illustrated by Sleep-walking House-maid. Purposeful Character of the Old Ghost Stories. Probable Causes of the Difference between Old and New Ghost Stories. Only the most Dramatic were recorded. Or the Tales were embellished or invented. Practical Reasons for inventing them. The Daemon of Spraiton. Sources of Story of Sir George Villier's Ghost. Clarendon. Lilly, Douch. Wyndham. Wyndham's Letter. Sir Henry Wotton. Izaak Walton. Anthony Wood. A Wotton Dream proved Legendary. The Ghost that appeared to Lord Lyttleton. His Lordship's Own Ghost. APPEARANCES OF THE DEAD We now pass beyond the utmost limits to which a "scientific" theory of things ghostly can be pushed. Science admits, if asked, that it does not know everything. It is not _inconceivable_ that living minds may communicate by some other channel than that of the recognised senses. Science now admits the fact of hypnotic influence, though, sixty years ago, Braid was not allowed to read a paper on it before the British Association. Even now the topic is not welcome. But perhaps only one eminent man of science declares that hypnotism is _all_ imposture and malobservation. Thus it is not wholly beyond the scope of fancy to imagine that some day official science may glance at the evidence for "telepathy". But the stories we have been telling deal with living men supposed to be influencing living men. When the dead are alleged to exercise a similar power, we have to suppose that some consciousness survives the grave, and manifests itself by causing hallucinations among the living. Instances of this have already been given in "The Ghost and the Portrait," "The Bright Scar" and "Riding Home after Mess". These were adduced as examples of _veracity_ in hallucinations. Each appearance gave information to the seer which he did not previously possess. In the first case, the lady who saw the soldier and the suppliant did not know of their previous existence and melancholy adventure. In the second, the brother did not know that his dead sister's face had been scratched. In the third, the observer did not know that Lieutenant B. had grown a beard and acquired a bay pony with black mane and tail. But though the appearances were _veracious_, they were _purposeless_, and again, as in each case the information existed in living minds, it _may_ have been wired on from them. Thus the doctrine of telepathy puts a ghost of the dead in a great quandary. If he communicates no verifiable information, he may be explained as a mere empty illusion. If he does yield fresh information, and if that is known to any living mind, he and his intelligence may have been wired on from that mind. His only chance is to communicate facts which are proved to be true, facts which nobody living knew before. Now it is next to impossible to demonstrate that the facts communicated were absolutely unknown to everybody. Far, however, from conveying unknown intelligence, most ghosts convey none at all, and appear to have no purpose whatever. It will be observed that there was no traceable reason why the girl with a scar should appear to Mr. G., or the soldier and suppliant to Mrs. M., or Lieutenant B. to General Barker. The appearances came in a vague, casual, aimless way, just as the living and healthy clergyman appeared to the diplomatist. On St. Augustine's theory the dead persons who appeared may have known no more about the matter than did the living clergyman. It is not even necessary to suppose that the dead man was dreaming about the living person to whom, or about the place in which, he appeared. But on the analogy of the tales in which a dream or thought of the living seems to produce a hallucination of their presence in the minds of other and distant living people, so a dream of the dead may (it is urged) have a similar effect if "in that sleep of death such dreams may come". The idea occurred to Shakespeare! In any case the ghosts of our stories hitherto have been so aimless and purposeless as to resemble what we might imagine a dead man's dream to be. This view of the case (that a "ghost" may be a reflection of a dead man's dream) will become less difficult to understand if we ask ourselves what natural thing most resembles the common idea of a ghost. You are reading alone at night, let us say, the door opens and a human figure glides into the room. To you it pays no manner of attention; it does not answer if you speak; it may trifle with some object in the chamber and then steal quietly out again. _It is the House-maid walking in her Sleep_. This perfectly accountable appearance, in its aimlessness, its unconsciousness, its irresponsiveness, is undeniably just like the common notion of a ghost. Now, if ordinary ghosts are not of flesh and blood, like the sleep-walking house-maid, yet are as irresponsive, as unconscious, and as vaguely wandering as she, then (if the dead are somewhat) a ghost _may_ be a hallucination produced in the living by the _unconscious_ action of the mind of the dreaming dead. The conception is at least conceivable. If adopted, merely for argument's sake, it would first explain the purposeless behaviour of ghosts, and secondly, relieve people who see ghosts of the impression that they see "spirits". In the Scotch phrase the ghost obviously "is not all there," any more than the sleep walker is intellectually "all there". This incomplete, incoherent presence is just what might be expected if a dreaming disembodied mind could affect an embodied mind with a hallucination. But the good old-fashioned ghost stories are usually of another type. The robust and earnest ghosts of our ancestors "had their own purpose sun-clear before them," as Mr. Carlyle would have said. They knew what they wanted, asked for it, and saw that they got it. As a rule their bodies were unburied, and so they demanded sepulture; or they had committed a wrong, and wished to make restitution; or they had left debts which they were anxious to pay; or they had advice, or warnings, or threats to communicate; or they had been murdered, and were determined to bring their assassins to the gibbet. Why, we may ask, were the old ghost stories so different from the new? Well, first they were not all different. Again, probably only the more dramatic tales were as a rule recorded. Thirdly, many of the stories may have been either embellished--a fancied purpose being attributed to a purposeless ghost--or they may even have been invented to protect witnesses who gave information against murderers. Who could disobey a ghost? In any case the old ghost stories are much more dramatic than the new. To them we turn, beginning with the appearances of Mr. and Mrs. Furze at Spraiton, in Devonshire, in 1682. Our author is Mr. Richard Bovet, in his Pandaemonium, or the Devil's Cloister opened (1683). The motive of the late Mr. Furze was to have some small debts paid; his wife's spectre was influenced by a jealousy of Mr. Furze's spectre's relations with another lady. THE DAEMON OF SPRAITON IN DEVON {111} ANNO 1682 "About the month of November in the year 1682, in the parish of Spraiton, in the county of Devon, one Francis Fey (servant to Mr. Philip Furze) being in a field near the dwelling-house of his said master, there appeared unto him the _resemblance_ of an _aged gentleman_ like his master's father, with a pole or staff in his hand, resembling that he was wont to carry when living to kill the moles withal. The _spectrum_ approached near the young man, whom you may imagin not a little surprized at the _appearance_ of one that he knew to be dead, but the _spectrum bid him not be afraid of him, but tell his master_ (who was his son) that several _legacies which by his testament he had bequeathed were unpaid, naming ten shillings to one and ten shillings to another, both which persons he named_ to the young man, who replyed that the party he last named was dead, and so it could not be paid to him. The ghost answered _he knew that, but it must be paid to the next relation_, whom he also named. The spectrum likewise ordered him to carry twenty shillings to a gentlewoman, sister to the deceased, living near Totness in the said county, and promised, if these things were performed, to trouble him no further; but at the same time the _spectrum_, speaking of his _second wife_ (who was also dead) _called her wicked woman_, though the gentleman who writ the letter knew her and esteemed her a very good woman. And (having thus related him his mind) the spectrum left the young man, who according to the _direction_ of the _spirit_ took care to see the small legacies satisfied, and carried the twenty shillings that was appointed to be paid the gentlewoman near Totness, but she utterly refused to receive it, being sent her (as she said) from the devil. The same night the young man lodging at her house, the aforesaid spectrum appeared to him again; whereupon the young man challenged his _promise not to trouble him any more_, saying he had performed all according to his appointment, but that the gentlewoman, his sister, would not receive the money. "_To which the spectrum replied that was true indeed_; but withal _directed_ the young man to ride to Totness and buy for her _a ring of that value, which the spirit said she would accept of_, which being provided accordingly, she received. Since the performance of which the ghost or apparition of the old gentleman hath seemed to be at rest, having never given the young man any further trouble. "But the next day after having delivered the ring, the young man was riding home to his master's house, accompanyed by a servant of the gentlewoman's near Totness, and near about the time of their entrance (or a little before they came) into the parish of Spraiton aforesaid, there appeared to be upon the horse behind the young man, the resemblance of the _second wife_ of the old gentleman spoken of before. "This daemon often threw the young man off his horse, and cast him with such violence to the ground as was great astonishment, not only to the gentlewoman's servant (with him), but to divers others who were spectators of the frightful action, the ground resounding with great noise by reason of the incredible force with which he was cast upon it. At his coming into his master's yard, the horse which he rid, though very poor and out of case, leaped at one spring twenty-five foot, to the amazement of all that saw it. Soon after the she-spectre shewed herself to divers in the house, viz., the aforesaid young man, _Mistress Thomasin Gidly, Ann Langdon_, born in that parish, and a little child, which, by reason of the troublesomeness of the spirit, they were fain to remove from that house. She appeared sometimes in her own shape, sometimes in forms very horrid; now and then like a monstrous dog belching out fire; at another time it flew out at the window, in the shape of a horse, carrying with it only one pane of glass and a small piece of iron. "One time the young man's head was thrust into a very strait place betwixt a bed's head and a wall, and forced by the strength of divers men to be removed thence, and that not without being much hurt and bruised, so that much blood appeared about it: upon this it was advised he should be bleeded, to prevent any ill accident that might come of the bruise; after bleeding, the ligature or binder of his arm was removed from thence and conveyed about his middle, where it was strained with such violence that the girding had almost stopp'd his breath and kill'd him, and being cut asunder it made _a strange and dismal noise_, so that the standers by were affrighted at it. At divers other times he hath been in danger to be strangled with cravats and handkerchiefs that he hath worn about his neck, which have been drawn so close that with the sudden violence he hath near been choaked, and hardly escaped death. "The spectre hath shewed great offence at the perriwigs which the young man used to wear, for they are often torn from his head after a very strange manner; one that he esteemed above the rest he put in a small box, and that box he placed in another, which he set against the wall of his chamber, placing a joint-stool with other weight a top of it, but in short time the boxes were broken in sunder and the perriwig rended into many small parts and tatters. Another time, lying in his master's chamber with his perriwig on his head, to secure it from danger, within a little time it was torn from him and reduced into very small fragments. At another time one of his shoe-strings was observed (without the assistance of any hand) to come of its own accord out of its shoe and fling itself to the other side of the room; the other was crawling after it, but a maid espying that, with her hand drew it out, and it strangely _clasp'd_ and _curl'd_ about her hand like a living _eel_ or _serpent_; this is testified by a lady of considerable quality, too great for exception, who was an eye-witness. The same lady shewed Mr. C. one of the young man's gloves, which was torn in his pocket while she was by, which is so dexterously tatter'd and so artificially torn that it is conceived a cutler could not have contrived an instrument to have laid it abroad so accurately, and all this was done in the pocket in the compass of one minute. It is further observable that if the aforesaid young man, or another person who is a servant maid in the house, do wear their own clothes, they are certainly torn in pieces on their backs, but if the clothes belong to any other, they are not injured after that manner. "Many other strange and fantastical freaks have been done by the said daemon or spirit in the view of divers persons; a barrel of salt of considerable quantity hath been observed to march from room to room without any human assistance. "An hand-iron hath seemed to lay itself cross over-thwart a pan of milk that hath been scalding over the fire, and two flitches of bacon have of their own accord descended from the chimney where they were hung, and placed themselves upon the hand-iron. "When the spectre appears in resemblance of her own person, she seems to be habited in the same cloaths and dress which the gentlewoman of the house (her daughter-in-law) hath on at the same time. Divers times the feet and legs of the young man aforesaid have been so entangled about his neck that he hath been loosed with great difficulty; sometimes they have been so twisted about the frames of chairs and stools that they have hardly been set at liberty. But one of the most considerable instances of the malice of the spirit against the young man happened on Easter Eve, when Mrs. C. the relator, was passing by the door of the house, and it was thus:-- "When the young man was returning from his labour, he was taken up by the _skirt_ of his _doublet_ by this _female daemon_, and carried a height into the air. He was soon missed by his Master and some other servants that had been at labour with him, and after diligent enquiry no news could be heard of him, until at length (near half an hour after) he was heard singing and whistling in a bog or quagmire, where they found him in a kind of trance or _extatick fit_, to which he hath sometimes been accustomed (but whether before the affliction he met with from this spirit I am not certain). He was affected much after such sort, as at the time of those _fits_, so that the people did not give that _attention_ and _regard_ to what he said as at other times; but when he returned again to himself (which was about an hour after) he solemnly protested to them that the daemon had carried him so high that his master's house seemed to him to be but _as a hay-cock_, and _that during all that time he was in perfect sense, and prayed to Almighty God not to suffer the devil to destroy him_; and that he was suddenly set down in that quagmire. The workmen found one shoe on one side of his master's house, and the other on the other side, and in the morning espied his perriwig hanging on the top of a tree; by which it appears he had been carried a considerable height, and that what he told them was not a fiction. "After this it was observed that that part of the young man's body which had been on the mud in the quagmire was somewhat benummbed and seemingly deader than the other, whereupon the following _Saturday_, which was the day before _Low Sunday_, he was carried to _Crediton, alias Kirton_, to be bleeded, which being done accordingly, and the company having left him for some little space, at their return they found him in one of his fits, with his _forehead_ much _bruised_, and _swoln_ to a _great bigness_, none being able to guess how it happened, until his recovery from that _fit_, when upon enquiry he gave them this account of it: _that a bird had with great swiftness and force flown in at the window with a stone in its beak, which it had dashed against his forehead, which had occasioned the swelling which they saw_. "The people much wondering at the strangeness of the accident, diligently sought the stone, and under the place where he sat they found not such a stone as they expected but a weight of brass or copper, which it seems the daemon had made use of on that occasion to give the poor young man that hurt in his forehead. "The persons present were at the trouble to break it to pieces, every one taking a part and preserving it in memory of so strange an accident. After this the spirit continued to molest the young man in a very severe and rugged manner, often handling him with great extremity, and whether it hath yet left its violences to him, or whether the young man be yet alive, I can have no certain account." I leave the reader to consider of the extraordinary strangeness of the relation. The reader, considering the exceeding strangeness of the relation, will observe that we have now reached "great swingeing falsehoods," even if that opinion had not hitherto occurred to his mind. But if he thinks that such stories are no longer told, and even sworn to on Bible oath, he greatly deceives himself. In the chapter on "Haunted Houses" he will find statements just as hard narrated of the years 1870 and 1882. In these, however, the ghosts had no purpose but mischief. {118} We take another "ghost with a purpose". SIR GEORGE VILLIERS' GHOST. The variations in the narratives of Sir George Villiers' appearance to an old servant of his, or old protege, and the warning communicated by this man to Villiers' son, the famous Duke of Buckingham, are curious and instructive. The tale is first told in print by William Lilly, the astrologer, in the second part of a large tract called Monarchy or No Monarchy in England (London, 1651), twenty-three years after Buckingham's murder. But while prior in publication, Lilly's story was probably written after, though independent of Lord Clarendon's, in the first book of his History of the Rebellion, begun on 18th March, 1646, that is within eighteen years of the events. Clarendon, of course, was in a position to know what was talked of at the time. Next, we have a letter of Mr. Douch to Glanvil, undated, but written after the Restoration, and, finally, an original manuscript of 1652. Douch makes the warning arrive "some few days" before the murder of Buckingham, and says that the ghost of Sir George, "in his morning gown," bade one Parker tell Buckingham to abandon the expedition to La Rochelle or expect to be murdered. On the third time of appearing the vision pulled a long knife from under his gown, as a sign of the death awaiting Buckingham. He also communicated a "private token" to Parker, the "percipient," Sir George's old servant. On each occasion of the appearance, Parker was reading at midnight. Parker, _after_ the murder, told one Ceeley, who told it to a clergyman, who told Douch, who told Glanvil. In Lilly's version the ghost had a habit of walking in Parker's room, and finally bade him tell Buckingham to abstain from certain company, "or else he will come to destruction, and that suddenly". Parker, thinking he had dreamed, did nothing; the ghost reappeared, and communicated a secret "which he (Buckingham) knows that none in the world ever knew but myself and he". The duke, on hearing the story from Parker, backed by the secret, was amazed, but did not alter his conduct. On the third time the spectre produced the knife, but at _this_ information the duke only laughed. Six weeks later he was stabbed. Douch makes the whole affair pass immediately before the assassination. "And Mr. Parker died soon after," as the ghost had foretold to him. Finally, Clarendon makes the appearances set in six months before Felton slew the duke. The percipient, unnamed, was in bed. The narrative now develops new features; the token given on the ghost's third coming obviously concerns Buckingham's mother, the Countess, the "one person more" who knew the secret communicated. The ghost produces no knife from under his gown; no warning of Buckingham's death by violence is mentioned. A note in the MS. avers that Clarendon himself had papers bearing on the subject, and that he got his information from Sir Ralph Freeman (who introduced the unnamed percipient to the duke), and from some of Buckingham's servants, "who were informed of much of it before the murder of the duke". Clarendon adds that, in general, "no man looked on relations of that sort with less reverence and consideration" than he did. This anecdote he selects out of "many stories scattered abroad at the time" as "upon a better foundation of credit". The percipient was an officer in the king's wardrobe at Windsor, "of a good reputation for honesty and discretion," and aged about fifty. He was bred at a school in Sir George's parish, and as a boy was kindly treated by Sir George, "whom afterwards he never saw". On first beholding the spectre in his room, the seer recognised Sir George's costume, then antiquated. At last the seer went to Sir Ralph Freeman, who introduced him to the duke on a hunting morning at Lambeth Bridge. They talked earnestly apart, observed by Sir Ralph, Clarendon's informant. The duke seemed abstracted all day; left the field early, sought his mother, and after a heated conference of which the sounds reached the ante-room, went forth in visible trouble and anger, a thing never before seen in him after talk with his mother. She was found "overwhelmed with tears and in the highest agony imaginable". "It is a notorious truth" that, when told of his murder, "she seemed not in the least degree surprised." The following curious manuscript account of the affair is, after the prefatory matter, the copy of a letter dated 1652. There is nothing said of a ghostly knife, the name of the seer is not Parker, and in its whole effect the story tallies with Clarendon's version, though the narrator knows nothing of the scene with the Countess of Buckingham. CAVALIER VERSION {121} "1627. Since William Lilly the Rebells Jugler and Mountebank in his malicious and blaspheamous discourse concerning our late Martyred Soveraigne of ever blessed memory (amongst other lyes and falsehoods) imprinted a relation concerning an Aparition which foretold several Events which should happen to the Duke of Buckingham, wherein he falsifies boeth the person to whom it appeared and ye circumstances; I thought it not amis to enter here (that it may be preserved) the true account of that Aparition as I have receaved it from the hande and under the hande of Mr. Edmund Wyndham, of Kellefford in the County of Somersett. I shall sett it downe (ipsissimis verbis) as he delivered it to me at my request written with his own hande. WYNDHAM'S LETTER "Sr. According to your desire and my promise I have written down what I remember (divers things being slipt out of my memory) of the relation made me by Mr. Nicholas Towse concerning the Aparition wch visited him. About ye yeare 1627, {122} I and my wife upon an occasion being in London lay att my Brother Pyne's house without Bishopsgate, wch. was ye next house unto Mr. Nicholas Towse's, who was my Kinsman and familiar acquaintance, in consideration of whose Society and friendship he tooke a house in that place, ye said Towse being a very fine Musician and very good company, and for ought I ever saw or heard, a Vurtuous, religious and wel disposed Gentleman. About that time ye said Mr. Towse tould me that one night, being in Bed and perfectly waking, and a Candle burning by him (as he usually had) there came into his Chamber and stood by his bed side an Olde Gentleman in such an habitt as was in fashion in Q: Elizebeth's tyme, at whose first appearance Mr. Towse was very much troubled, but after a little tyme, recollecting himselfe, he demanded of him in ye Name of God what he was, whether he were a Man. And ye Aparition replyed No. Then he asked him if he were a Divell. And ye answer was No. Then Mr. Towse said 'in ye Name of God, what art thou then?' And as I remember Mr. Towse told me that ye Apparition answered him that he was ye Ghost of Sir George Villiers, Father to ye then Duke of Buckingham, whom he might very well remember, synce he went to schoole at such a place in Leicestershire (naming ye place which I have forgotten). And Mr. Towse tould me that ye Apparition had perfectly ye resemblance of ye said Sr George Villiers in all respects and in ye same habitt that he had often seene him weare in his lifetime. "The said Apparition then tould Mr. Towse that he could not but remember ye much kindness that he, ye said Sr George Villiers, had expressed to him whilst he was a Schollar in Leicestershire, as aforesaid, and that as out of that consideration he believed that he loved him and that therefore he made choyce of him, ye sayde Mr. Towse, to deliver a message to his sonne, ye Duke of Buckingham; thereby to prevent such mischiefe as would otherwise befall ye said Duke whereby he would be inevitably ruined. And then (as I remember) Mr. Towse tould me that ye Apparition instructed him what message he should deliver unto ye Duke. Vnto wch. Mr. Towse replyed that he should be very unwilling to goe to ye Duke of Buckingham upon such an errand, whereby he should gaine nothing but reproach and contempt, and to be esteemed a Madman, and therefore desired to be exscused from ye employment, but ye Apparition pressd him wth. much earnestness to undertake it, telling him that ye Circumstances and secret Discoveries which he should be able to make to ye Duke of such passages in ye course of his life which were known to none but himselfe, would make it appeare that ye message was not ye fancy of a Distempered Brayne, but a reality, and so ye Apparition tooke his leave of him for that night and telling him that he would give him leave to consider till the next night, and then he would come to receave his answer wheather he would undertake to deliver his message or no. "Mr. Towse past that day wth. much trouble and perplexity, debating and reasoning wth. himselfe wether he should deliver his message or not to ye Duke but, in ye conclusion, he resolved to doe it, and ye next night when ye Apparition came he gave his answer accordingly, and then receaved his full instruction. After which Mr. Towse went and founde out Sr. Thomas Bludder and Sr. Ralph Freeman, by whom he was brought to ye Duke of Buckingham, and had sevarall private and lone audiences of him, I my selfe, by ye favoure of a freinde (Sr. Edward Savage) was once admitted to see him in private conference with ye Duke, where (although I heard not there discourses) I observed much earnestnessse in their actions and gestures. After wch. conference Mr. Towse tould me that ye Duke would not follow ye advice that was given him, which was (as I remember) that he intimated ye casting of, and ye rejecting of some Men who had great interest in him, which was, and as I take it he named, Bp. Laud and that ye Duke was to doe some popular Acts in ye ensuing Parliament, of which Parliament ye Duke would have had Mr. Towse to have been a Burgesse, but he refused it, alleadging that unlesse ye Duke followed his directions, he must doe him hurt if he were of ye Parliament. Mr. Towse then toalde that ye Duke of Buckingham confessed that he had toalde him those things wch. no Creature knew but himself, and that none but God or ye Divell could reveale to him. Ye Duke offered Mr. Towse to have ye King knight him, and to have given him preferment (as he tould me), but that he refused it, saying that vnless he would follow his advice he would receave nothing from him. "Mr. Towse, when he made me this relation, he tolde me that ye Duke would inevitably be destroyed before such a time (wch. he then named) and accordingly ye Duke's death happened before that time. He likewise tolde that he had written downe all ye severall discourses that he had had wth. ye Apparition, and that at last his coming was so familiar that he was as litle troubled with it as if it had beene a friende or acquayntance that had come to visitt him. Mr. Towse told me further that ye Archbishop of Canterbury, then Bishop of London, Dr. Laud, should by his Councells be ye authoure of very great troubles to ye Kingdome, by which it should be reduced to ye extremity of disorder and confusion, and that it should seeme to be past all hope of recovery without a miracle, but when all people were in dispayre of seeing happy days agayne, ye Kingdome should suddenly be reduced and resettled agayne in a most happy condition. "At this tyme my father Pyne was in trouble and comitted to ye Gatehouse by ye Lords of ye Councell about a Quarrel betweene him and ye Lord Powlett, upon which one night I saide to my Cosin Towse, by way of jest, 'I pray aske your Appairition what shall become of my father Pyne's business,' which he promised to doe, and ye next day he tolde me that my father Pyne's enemyes were ashamed of their malicious prosecution, and that he would be at liberty within a week or some few days, which happened according. "Mr. Towse, his wife, since his death tolde me that her husband and she living at Windsor Castle, where he had an office that Sumer that ye Duke of Buckingham was killed, tolde her that very day that the Duke was sett upon by ye mutinous Mariners att Portesmouth, saying then that ye next attempt agaynst him would be his Death, which accordingly happened. And att ye instant ye Duke was killed (as she vnderstood by ye relation afterwards) Mr. Towse was sitting in his chayre, out of which he suddenly started vp and sayd, 'Wyfe, ye Duke of Buckingham is slayne!' "Mr. Towse lived not long after that himselfe, but tolde his wife ye tyme of his Death before itt happened. I never saw him after I had seen some effects of his discourse, which before I valued not, and therefore was not curious to enquire after more than he voluntaryly tolde me, which I then entertayned not wth. these serious thoughts which I have synce reflected on in his discourse. This is as much as I can remember on this business which, according to youre desire, is written by "Sr. Yor., &c., "EDMUND WINDHAM. "BOULOGNE, 5th August, 1652." * * * * * This version has, over all others, the merit of being written by an acquaintance of the seer, who was with him while the appearances were going on. The narrator was also present at an interview between the seer and Buckingham. His mention of Sir Ralph Freeman tallies with Clarendon's, who had the story from Freeman. The ghost predicts the Restoration, and this is recorded before that happy event. Of course Mr. Towse may have been interested in Buckingham's career and may have invented the ghost (after discovering the secret token) {127} as an excuse for warning him. The reader can now take his choice among versions of Sir George Villiers' ghost. He must remember that, in 1642, Sir Henry Wotton "spent some inquiry whether the duke had any ominous presagement before his end," but found no evidence. Sir Henry told Izaak Walton a story of a dream of an ancestor of his own, whereby some robbers of the University chest at Oxford were brought to justice. Anthony Wood consulted the records of the year mentioned, and found no trace of any such robbery. We now approach a yet more famous ghost than Sir George's. This is Lord Lyttelton's. The ghost had a purpose, to warn that bad man of his death, but nobody knows whose ghost she was! LORD LYTTELTON'S GHOST "Sir," said Dr. Johnson, "it is the most extraordinary thing that has happened in my day." The doctor's day included the rising of 1745 and of the Wesleyans, the seizure of Canada, the Seven Years' War, the American Rebellion, the Cock Lane ghost, and other singular occurrences, but "the most extraordinary thing" was--Lord Lyttelton's ghost! Famous as is that spectre, nobody knows what it was, nor even whether there was any spectre at all. Thomas, Lord Lyttelton, was born in 1744. In 1768 he entered the House of Commons. In 1769 he was unseated for bribery. He then vanishes from public view, probably he was playing the prodigal at home and abroad, till February, 1772, when he returned to his father's house, and married. He then went abroad (with a barmaid) till 1773, when his father died. In January, 1774, he took his seat in the House of Lords. In November, 1779, Lyttelton went into Opposition. On Thursday, 25th November, he denounced Government in a magnificent speech. As to a sinecure which he held, he said, "Perhaps I shall not keep it long!" _Something had Happened_! On the night before his speech, that of Wednesday, 24th November, Lyttelton had seen the ghost, and had been told that he would die in three days. He mentioned this to Rowan Hamilton on the Friday. {129a} On the same day, or on Friday, he mentioned it to Captain Ascough, who told a lady, who told Mrs. Thrale. {129b} On the Friday he went to Epsom with friends, and mentioned the ghost to them, among others to Mr. Fortescue. {129c} About midnight on 28th November, Lord Lyttelton died suddenly in bed, his valet having left him for a moment to fetch a spoon for stirring his medicine. The cause of death was not stated; there was no inquest. This, literally, is all that is _known_ about Lord Lyttelton's ghost. It is variously described as: (1) "a young woman and a robin" (Horace Walpole); (2) "a spirit" (Captain Ascough); (3) a bird in a dream, "which changed into a woman in white" (Lord Westcote's narrative of 13th February, 1780, collected from Lord Lyttelton's guests and servants); (4) "a bird turning into a woman" (Mrs. Delany, 9th December, 1779); (5) a dream of a bird, followed by a woman, Mrs. Amphlett, in white (Pitt Place archives after 1789); (6) "a fluttering noise, as of a bird, followed by the apparition of a woman who had committed suicide after being seduced by Lyttelton" (Lady Lyttelton, 1828); (7) a bird "which vanished when a female spirit in white raiment presented herself" (Scots Magazine, November-December, 1779). Out of seven versions, a bird, or a fluttering noise as of a bird (a common feature in ghost stories), {130a} with a woman following or accompanying, occurs in six. The phenomena are almost equally ascribed to dreaming and to waking hallucination, but the common-sense of the eighteenth century called all ghosts "dreams". In the Westcote narrative (1780) Lyttelton explains the dream by his having lately been in a room with a lady, Mrs. Dawson, when a robin flew in. Yet, in the same narrative, Lyttelton says on Saturday morning "that he was very well, and believed he should bilk the _ghost_". He was certainly in bed at the time of the experience, and probably could not be sure whether he was awake or asleep. {130b} Considering the remoteness of time, the story is very well recorded. It is chronicled by Mrs. Thrale before the news of Lyttelton's death reached her, and by Lady Mary Coke two days later, by Walpole on the day after the peer's decease, of which he had heard. Lord Lyttelton's health had for some time been bad; he had made his will a few weeks before, and his nights were horror-haunted. A little boy, his nephew, to whom he was kind, used to find the wicked lord sitting by his bed at night, because he dared not be alone. So Lockhart writes to his daughter, Mrs. Hope Scott. {131} He had strange dreams of being in hell with the cruel murderess, Mrs. Brownrigg, who "whipped three female 'prentices to death and hid them in the coal-hole". Such a man might have strange fancies, and a belief in approaching death might bring its own fulfilment. The hypothesis of a premeditated suicide, with the story of the ghost as a last practical joke, has no corroboration. It occurred to Horace Walpole at once, but he laid no stress on it. Such is a plain, dry, statistical account of the most extraordinary event that happened in Dr. Johnson's day. However, the story does not end here. On the fatal night, 27th November, 1779, Mr. Andrews, M.P., a friend of Lyttelton's was awakened by finding Lord Lyttelton drawing his curtains. Suspecting a practical joke, he hunted for his lordship both in his house and in the garden. Of course he never found him. The event was promptly recorded in the next number of the Scots Magazine, December, 1779. {132} CHAPTER VII More Ghosts With A Purpose The Slaying of Sergeant Davies in 1749. The Trial. Scott's Theory. Curious recent Corroboration of Sir Walter's Hypothesis. Other Trials involving Ghostly Evidence. Their Want of Authenticity. "Fisher's Ghost" criticised. The Aylesbury Murder. The Dog o' Mause. The Ghosts of Dogs. Peter's Ghost. Much later in time than the ghost of Sir George Villiers is the ghost of Sergeant Davies, of Guise's regiment. His purpose was, first, to get his body buried; next, to bring his murderers to justice. In this latter desire he totally failed. THE SLAYING OF SERGEANT DAVIES We now examine a ghost with a purpose; he wanted to have his bones buried. The Highlands, in spite of Culloden, were not entirely pacified in the year 1749. Broken men, robbers, fellows with wrongs unspeakable to revenge, were out in the heather. The hills that seemed so lonely were not bare of human life. A man was seldom so solitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or den. The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old useless weapons were given up to the military. But the spirit of the clans was not wholly broken. Even the old wife of Donald Ban, when he was "sair hadden down by a Bodach" (ghost) asked the spirit to answer one question, "Will the Prince come again?" The song expressed the feelings of the people:-- The wind has left me bare indeed, And blawn my bonnet off my heid, But something's hid in Hieland brae, The wind's no blawn my sword away! Traffickers came and went from Prince Charles to Cluny, from Charles in the Convent of St. Joseph to Cluny lurking on Ben Alder. Kilt and tartan were worn at the risk of life or liberty, in short, the embers of the rising were not yet extinct. At this time, in the summer of 1749, Sergeant Arthur Davies, of Guise's regiment, marched with eight privates from Aberdeen to Dubrach in Braemar, while a corporal's guard occupied the Spital of Glenshee, some eight miles away. "A more waste tract of mountain and bog, rocks and ravines, without habitations of any kind till you reach Glenclunie, is scarce to be met with in Scotland," says Sir Walter. The sergeant's business was the general surveillance of the country side. He was a kindly prosperous man, liked in the country, fond of children, newly married, and his wife bore witness "that he and she lived together in as great amity and love as any couple could do, and that he never was in use to stay away a night from her". The sergeant had saved fifteen guineas and a half; he carried the gold in a green silk purse, and was not averse to displaying it. He wore a silver watch, and two gold rings, one with a peculiar knob on the bezel. He had silver buckles to his brogues, silver knee-buckles, two dozen silver buttons on a striped lute-string waistcoat, and he carried a gun, a present from an officer in his regiment. His dress, on the fatal 28th of September, was "a blue surtout coat, with a striped silk vest, and teiken breeches and brown stockings". His hair, of "a dark mouse colour," was worn in a silk ribbon, his hat was silver laced, and bore his initials cut in the felt. Thus attired, "a pretty man," Sergeant Davies said good-bye to his wife, who never saw him again, and left his lodgings at Michael Farquharson's early on 28th September. He took four men with him, and went to meet the patrol from Glenshee. On the way he met John Growar in Glenclunie, who spoke with him "about a tartan coat, which the sergeant had observed him to drop, and after strictly enjoining him not to use it again, dismissed him, instead of making him prisoner". This encounter was after Davies left his men, before meeting the patrol, it being his intention to cross the hill and try for a shot at a stag. The sergeant never rejoined his men or met the patrol! He vanished as if the fairies had taken him. His captain searched the hill with a band of men four days after the disappearance, but to no avail. Various rumours ran about the country, among others a clatter that Davies had been killed by Duncan Clerk and Alexander Bain Macdonald. But the body was undiscovered. In June, one Alexander Macpherson came to Donald Farquharson, son of the man with whom Davies had been used to lodge. Macpherson (who was living in a sheiling or summer hut of shepherds on the hills) said that he "was greatly troubled by the ghost of Sergeant Davies, who insisted that he should bury his bones, and that, he having declined to bury them, the ghost insisted that he should apply to Donald Farquharson". Farquharson "could not believe this," till Macpherson invited him to come and see the bones. Then Farquharson went with the other, "as he thought it might possibly be true, and if it was, he did not know but the apparition might trouble himself". The bones were found in a peat moss, about half a mile from the road taken by the patrols. There, too, lay the poor sergeant's mouse- coloured hair, with rags of his blue cloth and his brogues, without the silver buckles, and there did Farquharson and Macpherson bury them all. Alexander Macpherson, in his evidence at the trial, declared that, late in May, 1750, "when he was in bed, a vision appeared to him as of a man clothed in blue, who said, '_I am Sergeant Davies_!'". At first Macpherson thought the figure was "a real living man," a brother of Donald Farquharson's. He therefore rose and followed his visitor to the door, where the ghost indicated the position of his bones, and said that Donald Farquharson would help to inter them. Macpherson next day found the bones, and spoke to Growar, the man of the tartan coat (as Growar admitted at the trial). Growar said if Macpherson did not hold his tongue, he himself would inform Shaw of Daldownie. Macpherson therefore went straight to Daldownie, who advised him to bury the bones privily, not to give the country a bad name for a rebel district. While Macpherson was in doubt, and had not yet spoken to Farquharson, the ghost revisited him at night and repeated his command. He also denounced his murderers, Clerk and Macdonald, which he had declined to do on his first appearance. He spoke in Gaelic, which, it seems, was a language not known by the sergeant. Isobel MacHardie, in whose service Macpherson was, deponed that one night in summer, June, 1750, while she lay at one end of the sheiling (a hill hut for shepherds or neatherds) and Macpherson lay at the other, "she saw something naked come in at the door, which frighted her so much that she drew the clothes over her head. That when it appeared it came in in a bowing posture, and that next morning she asked Macpherson what it was that had troubled them in the night before. To which he answered that she might be easy, for it would not trouble them any more." All this was in 1750, but Clerk and Macdonald were not arrested till September, 1753. They were then detained in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh on various charges, as of wearing the kilt, till June, 1754, when they were tried, Grant of Prestongrange prosecuting, aided by Haldane, Home and Dundas, while Lockhart and Mackintosh defended. It was proved that Clerk's wife wore Davies's ring, that Clerk, after the murder, had suddenly become relatively rich and taken a farm, and that the two men, armed, were on the hill near the scene of the murder on 28th September, 1749. Moreover, Angus Cameron swore that he saw the murder committed. His account of his position was curious. He and another Cameron, since dead, were skulking near sunset in a little hollow on the hill of Galcharn. There he had skulked all day, "waiting for Donald Cameron, _who was afterwards hanged_, together with some of the said Donald's companions from Lochaber". No doubt they were all honest men who had been "out," and they may well have been on Cluny's business of conveying gold from the Loch Arkaig hoard to Major Kennedy for the prince. On seeing Clerk and Macdonald strike and shoot the man in the silver- laced hat, Cameron and his companion ran away, nor did Cameron mention the matter till nine months later, and then only to Donald (not he who was hanged). Donald advised him to hold his tongue. This Donald corroborated at the trial. The case against Clerk and Macdonald looked very black, especially as some witnesses fled and declined to appear. Scott, who knew Macintosh, the counsel for the prisoners, says that their advocates and agent "were convinced of their guilt". Yet a jury of Edinburgh tradesmen, moved by Macintosh's banter of the apparition, acquitted the accused solely, as Scott believes, because of the ghost and its newly-learned Gaelic. It is indeed extraordinary that Prestongrange, the patron of David Balfour, allowed his witnesses to say what the ghost said, which certainly "is not evidence". Sir Walter supposes that Macpherson and Mrs. MacHardie invented the apparition as an excuse for giving evidence. "The ghost's commands, according to Highland belief, were not to be disobeyed." Macpherson must have known the facts "by ordinary means". We have seen that Clerk and Macdonald were at once suspected; there was "a clatter" against them. But Angus Cameron had not yet told his tale of what he saw. Then who _did_ tell? Here comes in a curious piece of evidence of the year 1896. A friend writes (29th December, 1896):-- "DEAR LANG, "I enclose a tradition connected with the murder of Sergeant Davies, which my brother picked up lately before he had read the story in your Cock Lane. He had heard of the event before, both in Athole and Braemar, and it was this that made him ask the old lady (see next letter) about it. "He thinks that Glenconie of your version (p. 256) must be Glenclunie, into which Allt Chriostaidh falls. He also suggests that the person who was chased by the murderers may have got up the ghost, in order to shift the odium of tale-bearing to other shoulders. The fact of being mixed up in the affair lends some support to the story here related." Here follows my friend's brother's narrative, the name of the witness being suppressed. CONCERNING THE MURDER OF SERGEANT DAVIES There is at present living in the neighbourhood of --- an old lady, about seventy years of age. Her maiden name is ---, {140} and she is a native of Braemar, but left that district when about twenty years old, and has never been back to it even for a visit. On being asked whether she had ever heard the story of Sergeant Davies, she at first persisted in denying all knowledge of it. The ordinary version was then related to her, and she listened quietly until it was finished, when she broke out with:-- "That isn't the way of it at all, for the men _were_ seen, and it was a forbear of my own that saw them. He had gone out to try to get a stag, and had his gun and a deer-hound with him. He saw the men on the hill doing something, and thinking they had got a deer, he went towards them. When he got near them, the hound began to run on in front of him, and at that minute _he saw what it was they had_. He called to the dog, and turned to run away, but saw at once that he had made a mistake, for he had called their attention to himself, and a shot was fired after him, which wounded the dog. He then ran home as fast as he could, never looking behind him, and did not know how far the men followed him. Some time afterwards the dog came home, and he went to see whether it was much hurt, whereupon it flew at him, and had to be killed. They thought that it was trying to revenge itself on him for having left it behind." At this point the old lady became conscious that she was telling the story, and no more could be got out of her. The name of the lady who keeps a secret of 145 years' standing, is the name of a witness in the trial. The whole affair is thoroughly characteristic of the Highlanders and of Scottish jurisprudence after Culloden, while the verdict of "Not Guilty" (when "Not Proven" would have been stretching a point) is evidence to the "common-sense" of the eighteenth century. {141} There are other cases, in Webster, Aubrey and Glanvil of ghosts who tried more successfully to bring their murderers to justice. But the reports of the trials do not exist, or cannot be found, and Webster lost a letter which he once possessed, which would have been proof that ghostly evidence was given and was received at a trial in Durham (1631 or 1632). Reports of old men present were collected for Glanvil, but are entirely too vague. The case of Fisher's Ghost, which led to evidence being given as to a murder in New South Wales, cannot be wholly omitted. Fisher was a convict settler, a man of some wealth. He disappeared from his station, and his manager (also a convict) declared that he had returned to England. Later, a man returning from market saw Fisher sitting on a rail; at his approach Fisher vanished. Black trackers were laid on, found human blood on the rail, and finally discovered Fisher's body. The manager was tried, was condemned, acknowledged his guilt and was hanged. The story is told in Household Words, where Sir Frederick Forbes is said to have acted as judge. No date is given. In Botany Bay, {142} the legend is narrated by Mr. John Lang, who was in Sydney in 1842. He gives no date of the occurrence, and clearly embellishes the tale. In 1835, however, the story is told by Mr. Montgomery Martin in volume iv. of his History of the British Colonies. He gives the story as a proof of the acuteness of black trackers. Beyond saying that he himself was in the colony when the events and the trial occurred, he gives no date. I have conscientiously investigated the facts, by aid of the Sydney newspapers, and the notes of the judge, Sir Frederick Forbes. Fisher disappeared at the end of June, 1826, from Campbeltown. Suspicion fell on his manager, Worral. A reward was offered late in September. Late in October the constable's attention was drawn to blood-stains on a rail. Starting thence, the black trackers found Fisher's body. Worral was condemned and hanged, after confession, in February, 1827. Not a word is said about _why_ the constable went to, and examined, the rail. But Mr. Rusden, author of a History of Australia, knew the medical attendant D. Farley (who saw Fisher's ghost, and pointed out the bloody rail), and often discussed it with Farley. Mr. Souttar, in a work on Colonial traditions, proves the point that Farley told his ghost story _before_ the body of Fisher was found. But, for fear of prejudicing the jury, the ghost was kept out of the trial, exactly as in the following case. THE GARDENER'S GHOST Perhaps the latest ghost in a court of justice (except in cases about the letting of haunted houses) "appeared" at the Aylesbury Petty Session on 22nd August, 1829. On 25th October, 1828, William Edden, a market gardener, was found dead, with his ribs broken, in the road between Aylesbury and Thame. One Sewell, in August, 1829, accused a man named Tyler, and both were examined at the Aylesbury Petty Sessions. Mrs. Edden gave evidence that she sent five or six times for Tyler "to come and see the corpse. . . . I had some particular reasons for sending for him which I never did divulge. . . . I will tell you my reasons, gentlemen, if you ask me, in the face of Tyler, even if my life should be in danger for it." The reasons were that on the night of her husband's murder, "something rushed over me, and I thought my husband came by me. I looked up, and I thought I heard the voice of my husband come from near my mahogany table. . . . I thought I saw my husband's apparition, and the man that had done it, and that man was Tyler. . . . I ran out and said, 'O dear God! my husband is murdered, and his ribs are broken'." Lord Nugent--"What made you think your husband's ribs were broken?" "He held up his hands like this, and I saw a hammer, or something like a hammer, and it came into my mind that his ribs were broken." Sewell stated that the murder was accomplished by means of a hammer. The prisoners were discharged on 13th September. On 5th March, 1830, they were tried at the Buckingham Lent Assizes, were found guilty and were hanged, protesting their innocence, on 8th March, 1830. "In the report of Mrs. Edden's evidence (at the Assizes) no mention is made of the vision." {144} Here end our ghosts in courts of justice; the following ghost gave evidence of a murder, or rather, confessed to one, but was beyond the reach of human laws. This tale of 1730 is still current in Highland tradition. It has, however, been improved and made infinitely more picturesque by several generations of narrators. As we try to be faithful to the best sources, the contemporary manuscript version is here reprinted from The Scottish Standard-Bearer, an organ of the Scotch Episcopalians (October and November, 1894). THE DOG O' MAUSE Account of an apparition that appeared to William Soutar, {145a} in the Mause, 1730. [This is a copy from that in the handwriting of Bishop Rattray, preserved at Craighall, and which was found at Meikleour a few years ago, to the proprietor of which, Mr. Mercer, it was probably sent by the Bishop.--W. W. H., 3rd August, 1846.] "I have sent you an account of an apparition as remarkable, perhaps, as anything you ever heard of, and which, considered in all its circumstances, leaves, I think, no ground of doubt to any man of common-sense. The person to whom it appeared is one William Soutar, a tenant of Balgowan's, who lives in Middle Mause, within about half a mile from this place on the other side of the river, and in view from our windows of Craighall House. He is about thirty-seven years of age, as he says, and has a wife and bairns. "The following is an account from his own mouth; and because there are some circumstances fit to be taken in as you go along, I have given them with reference at the end, {145b} that I may not interrupt the sense of the account, or add anything to it. Therefore, it begins:-- "'In the month of December in the year 1728, about sky-setting, I and my servant, with several others living in the town (farm-steading) heard a scratching (screeching, crying), and I followed the noise, with my servant, a little way from the town (farm-steading throughout). We both thought we saw what had the appearance to be a fox, and hounded the dogs at it, but they would not pursue it. {146a} "'About a month after, as I was coming from Blair {146b} alone, about the same time of the night, a big dog appeared to me, of a dark greyish colour, between the Hilltown and Knockhead {146c} of Mause, on a lea rig a little below the road, and in passing by it touched me sonsily (firmly) on the thigh at my haunch-bane (hip-bone), upon which I pulled my staff from under my arm and let a stroke at it; and I had a notion at the time that I hit it, and my haunch was painful all that night. However, I had no great thought of its being anything particular or extraordinary, but that it might be a mad dog wandering. About a year after that, to the best of my memory, in December month, about the same time of the night and in the same place, when I was alone, it appeared to me again as before, and passed by me at some distance; and then I began to think it might be something more than ordinary. "'In the month of December, 1730, as I was coming from Perth, from the Claith (cloth) Market a little before sky-setting, it appeared to me again, being alone, at the same place, and passed by me just as before. I had some suspicion of it then likewise, but I began to think that a neighbour of mine in the Hilltown having an ox lately dead, it might be a dog that had been at the carrion, by which I endeavoured to put the suspicion out of my head. "'On the second Monday of December, 1730, as I was coming from Woodhead, a town (farm) in the ground of Drumlochy, it appeared to me again in the same place just about sky-setting; and after it had passed me as it was going out of my sight, it spoke with a low voice so that I distinctly heard it, these words, "Within eight or ten days do or die," and it thereupon disappeared. No more passed at that time. On the morrow I went to my brother, who dwells in the Nether Aird of Drumlochy, and told him of the last and of all the former appearances, which was the first time I ever spoke of it to anybody. He and I went to see a sister of ours at Glenballow, who was dying, but she was dead before we came. As we were returning home, I desired my brother, whose name is James Soutar, to go forward with me till we should be passed the place where it used to appear to me; and just as we had come to it, about ten o'clock at night, it appeared to me again just as formerly; and as it was passing over some ice I pointed to it with my finger and asked my brother if he saw it, but he said he did not, nor did his servant, who was with us. It spoke nothing at that time, but just disappeared as it passed the ice. "'On the Saturday after, as I was at my own sheep-cots putting in my sheep, it appeared to me again just after daylight, betwixt day and skylight, and upon saying these words, "Come to the spot of ground within half an hour," it just disappeared; whereupon I came home to my own house, and took up a staff and also a sword off the head of the bed, and went straight to the place where it used formerly to appear to me; and after I had been there some minutes and had drawn a circle about me with my staff, it appeared to me. And I spoke to it saying, "In the name of God and Jesus Christ, what are you that troubles me?" and it answered me, "I am David Soutar, George Soutar's brother. {148a} I killed a man more than five-and-thirty years ago, when you was new born, at a bush be-east the road, as you go into the Isle." {148b} And as I was going away, I stood again and said, "David Soutar was a man, and you appear like a dog," whereupon it spoke to me again, saying, "I killed him with a dog, and therefore I am made to speak out of the mouth of a dog, and tell you you must go and bury these bones". Upon this I went straight to my brother to his house, and told him what had happened to me. My brother having told the minister of Blair, he and I came to the minister on Monday thereafter, as he was examining in a neighbour's house in the same town where I live. And the minister, with my brother and me and two or three more, went to the place where the apparition said the bones were buried, when Rychalzie met us accidentally; and the minister told Rychalzie the story in the presence of all that were there assembled, and desired the liberty from him to break up the ground to search for the bones. Rychalzie made some scruples to allow us to break up the ground, but said he would go along with us to Glasclune {149a}; and if he advised, he would allow search to be made. Accordingly he went straight along with my brother and me and James Chalmers, a neighbour who lives in the Hilltown of Mause, to Glasclune, and told Glasclune the story as above narrated; and he advised Rychalzie to allow the search to be made, whereupon he gave his consent to it. "'The day after, being Friday, we convened about thirty or forty men and went to the Isle, and broke up the ground in many places, searching for the bones, but we found nothing. "'On Wednesday the 23rd December, about twelve o'clock, when I was in my bed, I heard a voice but saw nothing; the voice said, "Come away". {149b} Upon this I rose out of my bed, cast on my coat and went to the door, but did not see it. And I said, "In the name of God, what do you demand of me now?" It answered, "Go, take up these bones". I said, "How shall I get these bones?" It answered again, "At the side of a withered bush, {150} and there are but seven or eight of them remaining". I asked, "Was there any more guilty of that action but you?" It answered, "No". I asked again, "What is the reason you trouble me?" It answered, "Because you are the youngest". Then said I to it, "Depart from me, and give me a sign that I may know the particular spot, and give me time". [Here there is written on the margin in a different hand, "You will find the bones at the side of a withered bush. There are but eight of them, and for a sign you will find the print of a cross impressed on the ground."] On the morrow, being Thursday, I went alone to the Isle to see if I could find any sign, and immediately I saw both the bush, which was a small bush, the greatest stick in it being about the thickness of a staff, and it was withered about half-way down; and also the sign, which was about a foot from the bush. The sign was an exact cross, thus X; each of the two lines was about a foot and a half in length and near three inches broad, and more than an inch deeper than the rest of the ground, as if it had been pressed down, for the ground was not cut. On the morrow, being Friday, I went and told my brother of the voice that had spoken to me, and that I had gone and seen the bush which it directed me to and the above-mentioned sign at it. The next day, being Saturday, my brother and I went, together with seven or eight men with us, to the Isle. About sun-rising we all saw the bush and the sign at it; and upon breaking up the ground just at the bush, we found the bones, viz., the chaft-teeth (jaw-teeth-molars) in it, one of the thigh bones, one of the shoulder blades, and a small bone which we supposed to be a collar bone, which was more consumed than any of the rest, and two other small bones, which we thought to be bones of the sword-arm. By the time we had digged up those bones, there convened about forty men who also saw them. The minister and Rychalzie came to the place and saw them. "'We immediately sent to the other side of the water, to Claywhat, {151} to a wright that was cutting timber there, whom Claywhat brought over with him, who immediately made a coffin for the bones, and my wife brought linen to wrap them in, and I wrapped the bones in the linen myself and put them in the coffin before all these people, and sent for the mort-cloth and buried them in the churchyard of Blair that evening. There were near an hundred persons at the burial, and it was a little after sunset when they were buried.'" "This above account I have written down as dictated to me by William Soutar in the presence of Robert Graham, brother to the Laird of Balgowan, and of my two sons, James and John Rattray, at Craighall, 30th December, 1730. "We at Craighall heard nothing of this history till after the search was over, but it was told us on the morrow by some of the servants who had been with the rest at the search; and on Saturday Glasclune's son came over to Craighall and told us that William Soutar had given a very distinct account of it to his father. "On St. Andrew's Day, the 1st of December, this David Soutar (the ghost) listed himself a soldier, being very soon after the time the apparition said the murder was committed, and William Soutar declares he had no remembrance of him till that apparition named him as brother to George Soutar; then, he said, he began to recollect that when he was about ten years of age he had seen him once at his father's in a soldier's habit, after which he went abroad and was never more heard of; neither did William ever before hear of his having listed as a soldier, neither did William ever before hear of his having killed a man, nor, indeed, was there ever anything heard of it in the country, and it is not yet known who the person was that was killed, and whose bones are now found. "My son John and I went within a few days after to visit Glasclune, and had the account from him as William had told him over. From thence we went to Middle Mause to hear it from himself; but he being from home, his father, who also lives in that town, gave us the same account of it which Glasclune had done, and the poor man could not refrain from shedding tears as he told it, as Glasclune told us his son was under very great concern when he spoke of it to him. We all thought this a very odd story, and were under suspense about it because the bones had not been found upon the search. "(Another account that also seems to have been written by the bishop mentions that the murderer on committing the deed went home, and on looking in at the window he saw William Soutar lying in a cradle-- hence it was the ghaist always came to him, and not to any of the other relations.)" Mr. Hay Newton, of Newton Hall, a man of great antiquarian tastes in the last generation, wrote the following notes on the matter:-- "Widow M'Laren, aged seventy-nine, a native of Braemar, but who has resided on the Craighall estate for sixty years, says that the tradition is that the man was murdered for his money; that he was a Highland drover on his return journey from the south; that he arrived late at night at the Mains of Mause and wished to get to Rychalzie; that he stayed at the Mains of Mause all night, but left it early next morning, when David Soutar with his dog accompanied him to show him the road; but that with the assistance of the dog he murdered the drover and took his money at the place mentioned; that there was a tailor at work in his father's house that morning when he returned after committing the murder (according to the custom at that date by which tailors went out to make up customers' own cloth at their own houses), and that his mother being surprised at his strange appearance, asked him what he had been about, to which inquiry he made no reply; that he did not remain long in the country afterwards, but went to England and never returned. The last time he was seen he went down by the Brae of Cockridge. A man of the name of Irons, a fisherman in Blairgowrie, says that his father, who died a very old man some years ago, was present at the getting of the bones. Mr. Small, Finzyhan, when bringing his daughter home from school in Edinburgh, saw a coffin at the door of a public house near Rychalzie where he generally stopped, but he did not go in as usual, thinking that there was a death in the family. The innkeeper came out and asked him why he was passing the door, and told him the coffin contained the bones of the murdered man which had been collected, upon which he went into the house. "The Soutars disliked much to be questioned on the subject of the Dog of Mause. Thomas Soutar, who was tenant in Easter Mause, formerly named Knowhead of Mause, and died last year upwards of eighty years of age, said that the Soutars came originally from Annandale, and that their name was Johnston; that there were three brothers who fled from that part of the country on account of their having killed a man; that they came by Soutar's Hill, and having asked the name of the hill, were told 'Soutar,' upon which they said, 'Soutar be it then,' and took that name. One of the brothers went south and the others came north." {155a} The appearance of human ghosts in the form of beasts is common enough; in Shropshire they usually "come" as bulls. (See Miss Burne's Shropshire Folklore.) They do not usually speak, like the Dog o' Mause. M. d'Assier, a French Darwinian, explains that ghosts revert "atavistically" to lower forms of animal life! {155b} We now, in accordance with a promise already made, give an example of the ghosts of beasts! Here an explanation by the theory that the consciousness of the beast survives death and affects with a hallucination the minds of living men and animals, will hardly pass current. But if such cases were as common and told on evidence as respectable as that which vouches for appearances of the dead, believers in these would either have to shift their ground, or to grant that Admitted to that equal sky, Our faithful dog may bear us company. We omit such things as the dripping death wraith of a drowned cat who appeared to a lady, or the illused monkey who died in a Chinese house, after which he haunted it by rapping, secreting objects, and, in short, in the usual way. {155c} We adduce PETER'S GHOST A naval officer visited a friend in the country. Several men were sitting round the smoking-room fire when he arrived, and a fox-terrier was with them. Presently the heavy, shambling footsteps of an old dog, and the metallic shaking sound of his collar, were heard coming up stairs. "Here's old Peter!" said his visitor. "_Peter's dead_!" whispered his owner. The sounds passed through the closed door, heard by all; they pattered into the room; the fox-terrier bristled up, growled, and pursued a viewless object across the carpet; from the hearth-rug sounded a shake, a jingle of a collar and the settling weight of a body collapsing into repose. {156} This pleasing anecdote rests on what is called _nautical evidence_, which, for reasons inexplicable to me, was (in these matters) distrusted by Sir Walter Scott. CHAPTER VIII More Ghosts with a Purpose. Ticonderoga. The Beresford Ghost. Sources of Evidence. The Family Version. A New Old-Fashioned Ghost. Half-past One o'clock. Put out the Light! The ghost in the following famous tale had a purpose. He was a Highland ghost, a Campbell, and desired vengeance on a Macniven, who murdered him. The ghost, practically, "cried Cruachan," and tried to rouse the clan. Failing in this, owing to Inverawe's loyalty to his oath, the ghost uttered a prophecy. The tale is given in the words of Miss Elspeth Campbell, who collected it at Inverawe from a Highland narrator. She adds a curious supplementary tradition in the Argyle family. TICONDEROGA It was one evening in the summer of the year 1755 that Campbell of Inverawe {157} was on Cruachan hill side. He was startled by seeing a man coming towards him at full speed; a man ragged, bleeding, and evidently suffering agonies of terror. "The avengers of blood are on my track, Oh, save me!" the poor wretch managed to gasp out. Inverawe, filled with pity for the miserable man, swore "By the word of an Inverawe which never failed friend or foe yet" to save him. Inverawe then led the stranger to the secret cave on Cruachan hill side. None knew of this cave but the laird of Inverawe himself, as the secret was most carefully kept and had been handed down from father to son for many generations. The entrance was small, and no one passing would for an instant suspect it to be other than a tod's hole, {158a} but within were fair-sized rooms, one containing a well of the purest spring water. It is said that Wallace and Bruce had made use of this cave in earlier days. Here Inverawe left his guest. The man was so overcome by terror that he clung on to Inverawe's plaid, {158b} imploring him not to leave him alone. Inverawe was filled with disgust at this cowardly conduct, and already almost repented having plighted his word to save such a worthless creature. On Inverawe's return home he found a man in a state of great excitement waiting to see him. This man informed him of the murder of his (Inverawe's) foster-brother by one Macniven. "We have," said he, "tracked the murderer to within a short distance of this place, and I am here to warn you in case he should seek your protection." Inverawe turned pale and remained silent, not knowing what answer to give. The man, knowing the love that subsisted between the foster-brothers, thought this silence arose from grief alone, and left the house to pursue the search for Macniven further. The compassion Inverawe felt for the trembling man he had left in the cave turned to hate when he thought of his beloved foster-brother murdered; but as he had plighted his word to save him, save him he must and would. As soon, therefore, as night fell he went to the cave with food, and promised to return with more the next day. Thoroughly worn out, as soon as he reached home he retired to rest, but sleep he could not. So taking up a book he began to read. A shadow fell across the page. He looked up and saw his foster-brother standing by the bedside. But, oh, how changed! His fair hair clotted with blood; his face pale and drawn, and his garments all gory. He uttered the following words: "Inverawe, shield not the murderer; blood must flow for blood," and then faded away out of sight. In spite of the spirit's commands, Inverawe remained true to his promise, and returned next day to Macniven with fresh provisions. That night his foster-brother again appeared to him uttering the same warning: "Inverawe, Inverawe, shield not the murderer; blood must flow for blood". At daybreak Inverawe hurried off to the cave, and said to Macniven: "I can shield you no longer; you must escape as best you can". Inverawe now hoped to receive no further visit from the vengeful spirit. In this he was disappointed, for at the usual hour the ghost appeared, and in anger said, "I have warned you once, I have warned you twice; it is too late now. We shall meet again at TICONDEROGA." Inverawe rose before dawn and went straight to the cave. Macniven was gone! Inverawe saw no more of the ghost, but the adventure left him a gloomy, melancholy man. Many a time he would wander on Cruachan hill side, brooding over his vision, and people passing him would see the far-away look in his eyes, and would say one to the other: "The puir laird, he is aye thinking on him that is gone". Only his dearest friends knew the cause of his melancholy. In 1756 the war between the English and French in America broke out. The 42nd regiment embarked, and landed at New York in June of that year. Campbell of Inverawe was a major in the regiment. The lieut.- colonel was Francis Grant. From New York the 42nd proceeded to Albany, where the regiment remained inactive till the spring of 1757. One evening when the 42nd were still quartered at this place, Inverawe asked the colonel "if he had ever heard of a place called Ticonderoga". {160} Colonel Grant replied he had never heard the name before. Inverawe then told his story. Most of the officers were present at the time; some were impressed, others were inclined to look upon the whole thing as a joke, but seeing how very much disturbed Inverawe was about it all, even the most unbelieving refrained from bantering him. In 1758 an expedition was to be directed against Ticonderoga, on Lake George, a fort erected by the French. The Highlanders were to form part of this expedition. The force was under Major-General Abercromby. Ticonderoga was called by the French St. Louis [really "Fort Carillon"], and Inverawe knew it by no other name. One of the officers told Colonel Grant that the Indian name of the place was Ticonderoga. Grant, remembering Campbell's story, said: "For God's sake don't let Campbell know this, or harm will come of it". The troops embarked on Lake George and landed without opposition near the extremity of the lake early in July. They marched from there, through woods, upon Ticonderoga, having had one successful skirmish with the enemy, driving them back with considerable loss. Lord Howe was killed in this engagement. On the 10th of July the assault was directed to be commenced by the picquets. {162} The Grenadiers were to follow, supported by the battalions and reserves. The Highlanders and 55th regiment formed the reserve. In vain the troops attempted to force their way through the abbatis, they themselves being exposed to a heavy artillery and musket fire from an enemy well under cover. The Highlanders could no longer be restrained, and rushed forward from the reserve, cutting and carving their way through trees and other obstacles with their claymores. The deadly fire still continued from the fort. As no ladders had been provided for scaling the breastwork, the soldiers climbed on to one another's shoulders, and made holes for their feet in the face of the work with their swords and bayonets, but as soon as a man reached the top he was thrown down. Captain John Campbell and a few men succeeded at last in forcing their way over the breastworks, but were immediately cut down. After a long and desperate struggle, lasting in fact nearly four hours, General Abercromby gave orders for a retreat. The troops could hardly be prevailed upon to retire, and it was not till the order had been given for the third time that the Highlanders withdrew from the hopeless encounter. The loss sustained by the regiment was as follows: eight officers, nine sergeants and 297 men killed; seventeen officers, ten sergeants and 306 men wounded. Inverawe, after having fought with the greatest courage, received at length his death wound. Colonel Grant hastened to the dying man's side, who looked reproachfully at him, and said: "You deceived me; this is Ticonderoga, for I have seen him". Inverawe never spoke again. Inverawe's son, an officer in the same regiment, also lost his life at Ticonderoga. On the very day that these events were happening in far-away America, two ladies, Miss Campbell of Ederein and her sister, were walking from Kilmalieu to Inveraray, and had reached the then new bridge over the Aray. One of them happened to look up at the sky. She gave a call to her sister to look also. They both of them saw in the sky what looked like a siege going on. They saw the different regiments with their colours, and recognised many of their friends among the Highlanders. They saw Inverawe and his son fall, and other men whom they knew. When they reached Inveraray they told all their friends of the vision they had just seen. They also took down the names of those they had seen fall, and the time and date of the occurrence. The well-known Danish physician, Sir William Hart, was, together with an Englishman and a servant, walking round the Castle of Inveraray. These men saw the same phenomena, and confirmed the statements made by the two ladies. Weeks after the gazette corroborated their statements in its account of the attempt made on Ticonderoga. Every detail was correct in the vision, down to the actual number of the killed and wounded. But there was sorrow throughout Argyll long before the gazette appeared. * * * * * We now give the best attainable version of a yet more famous legend, "The Tyrone Ghost". The literary history of "The Tyrone Ghost" is curious. In 1802 Scott used the tale as the foundation of his ballad, The Eve of St. John, and referred to the tradition of a noble Irish family in a note. In 1858 the subject was discussed in Notes and Queries. A reference was given to Lyon's privately printed Grand Juries of Westmeath from 1751. The version from that rare work, a version dated "Dublin, August, 1802," was published in Notes and Queries of 24th July, 1858. In December, 1896, a member of the Beresford family published in The Nines (a journal of the Wiltshire regiment), the account which follows, derived from a MS. at Curraghmore, written by Lady Betty Cobbe, granddaughter of the ghost-seer, Lady Beresford. The writer in The Nines remembers Lady Betty. The account of 1802 is clearly derived from the Curraghmore MS., but omits dates; calls Sir Tristram Beresford "Sir Marcus "; leaves out the visit to Gill Hall, where the ghost appeared, and substitutes blanks for the names of persons concerned. Otherwise the differences in the two versions are mainly verbal. THE BERESFORD GHOST "There is at Curraghmore, the seat of Lord Waterford, in Ireland, a manuscript account of the tale, such as it was originally received and implicitly believed in by the children and grandchildren of the lady to whom Lord Tyrone is supposed to have made the supernatural appearance after death. The account was written by Lady Betty Cobbe, the youngest daughter of Marcus, Earl of Tyrone, and granddaughter of Nicola S., Lady Beresford. She lived to a good old age, in full use of all her faculties, both of body and mind. I can myself remember her, for when a boy I passed through Bath on a journey with my mother, and we went to her house there, and had luncheon. She appeared to my juvenile imagination a very appropriate person to revise and transmit such a tale, and fully adapted to do ample justice to her subject- matter. It never has been doubted in the family that she received the full particulars in early life, and that she heard the circumstances, such as they were believed to have occurred, from the nearest relatives of the two persons, the supposed actors in this mysterious interview, viz., from her own father, Lord Tyrone, who died in 1763, and from her aunt, Lady Riverston, who died in 1763 also. "These two were both with their mother, Lady Beresford, on the day of her decease, and they, without assistance or witness, took off from their parent's wrist the black bandage which she had always worn on all occasions and times, even at Court, as some very old persons who lived well into the eighteenth century testified, having received their information from eyewitnesses of the fact. There was an oil painting of this lady in Tyrone House, Dublin, representing her with a black ribbon bound round her wrist. This portrait disappeared in an unaccountable manner. It used to hang in one of the drawing-rooms in that mansion, with other family pictures. When Henry, Marquis of Waterford, sold the old town residence of the family and its grounds to the Government as the site of the Education Board, he directed Mr. Watkins, a dealer in pictures, and a man of considerable knowledge in works of art and vertu, to collect the pictures, etc., etc., which were best adapted for removal to Curraghmore. Mr. Watkins especially picked out this portrait, not only as a good work of art, but as one which, from its associations, deserved particular care and notice. When, however, the lot arrived at Curraghmore and was unpacked, no such picture was found; and though Mr. Watkins took great pains and exerted himself to the utmost to trace what had become of it, to this day (nearly forty years), not a hint of its existence has been received or heard of. "John le Poer, Lord Decies, was the eldest son of Richard, Earl of Tyrone, and of Lady Dorothy Annesley, daughter of Arthur, Earl of Anglesey. He was born 1665, succeeded his father 1690, and died 14th October, 1693. He became Lord Tyrone at his father's death, and is the 'ghost' of the story. "Nicola Sophie Hamilton was the second and youngest daughter and co- heiress of Hugh, Lord Glenawley, who was also Baron Lunge in Sweden. Being a zealous Royalist, he had, together with his father, migrated to that country in 1643, and returned from it at the Restoration. He was of a good old family, and held considerable landed property in the county Tyrone, near Ballygawley. He died there in 1679. His eldest daughter and co-heiress, Arabella Susanna, married, in 1683, Sir John Macgill, of Gill Hall, in the county Down. "Nicola S. (the second daughter) was born in 1666, and married Sir Tristram Beresford in 1687. Between that and 1693 two daughters were born, but no son to inherit the ample landed estates of his father, who most anxiously wished and hoped for an heir. It was under these circumstances, and at this period, that the manuscripts state that Lord Tyrone made his appearance after death; and all the versions of the story, without variation, attribute the same cause and reason, viz., a solemn promise mutually interchanged in early life between John le Poer, then Lord Decies, afterwards Lord Tyrone, and Nicola S. Hamilton, that whichever of the two died the first, should, if permitted, appear to the survivor for the object of declaring the approval or rejection by the Deity of the revealed religion as generally acknowledged: of which the departed one must be fully cognisant, but of which they both had in their youth entertained unfortunate doubts. "In the month of October, 1693, Sir Tristram and Lady Beresford went on a visit to her sister, Lady Macgill, at Gill Hall, now the seat of Lord Clanwilliam, whose grandmother was eventually the heiress of Sir J. Macgill's property. One morning Sir Tristram rose early, leaving Lady Beresford asleep, and went out for a walk before breakfast. When his wife joined the table very late, her appearance and the embarrassment of her manner attracted general attention, especially that of her husband. He made anxious inquiries as to her health, and asked her apart what had occurred to her wrist, which was tied up with black ribbon tightly bound round it. She earnestly entreated him not to inquire more then, or thereafter, as to the cause of her wearing or continuing afterwards to wear that ribbon; 'for,' she added, 'you will never see me without it'. He replied, 'Since you urge it so vehemently, I promise you not to inquire more about it'. "After completing her hurried breakfast she made anxious inquiries as to whether the post had yet arrived. It had not yet come in; and Sir Tristram asked: 'Why are you so particularly eager about letters to- day?' 'Because I expect to hear of Lord Tyrone's death, which took place on Tuesday.' 'Well,' remarked Sir Tristram, 'I never should have put you down for a superstitious person; but I suppose that some idle dream has disturbed you.' Shortly after, the servant brought in the letters; one was sealed with black wax. 'It is as I expected,' she cries; 'he is dead.' The letter was from Lord Tyrone's steward to inform them that his master had died in Dublin, on Tuesday, 14th October, at 4 p.m. Sir Tristram endeavoured to console her, and begged her to restrain her grief, when she assured him that she felt relieved and easier now that she knew the actual fact. She added, 'I can now give you a most satisfactory piece of intelligence, viz., that I am with child, and that it will be a boy'. A son was born in the following July. Sir Tristram survived its birth little more than six years. After his death Lady Beresford continued to reside with her young family at his place in the county of Derry, and seldom went from home. She hardly mingled with any neighbours or friends, excepting with Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, of Coleraine. He was the principal personage in that town, and was, by his mother, a near relative of Sir Tristram. His wife was the daughter of Robert Gorges, LL.D. (a gentleman of good old English family, and possessed of a considerable estate in the county Meath), by Jane Loftus, daughter of Sir Adam Loftus, of Rathfarnham, and sister of Lord Lisburn. They had an only son, Richard Gorges, who was in the army, and became a general officer very early in life. With the Jacksons Lady Beresford maintained a constant communication and lived on the most intimate terms, while she seemed determined to eschew all other society and to remain in her chosen retirement. "At the conclusion of three years thus passed, one luckless day "Young Gorges" most vehemently professed his passion for her, and solicited her hand, urging his suit in a most passionate appeal, which was evidently not displeasing to the fair widow, and which, unfortunately for her, was successful. They were married in 1704. One son and two daughters were born to them, when his abandoned and dissolute conduct forced her to seek and to obtain a separation. After this had continued for four years, General Gorges pretended extreme penitence for his past misdeeds, and with the most solemn promises of amendment induced his wife to live with him again, and she became the mother of a second son. The day month after her confinement happened to be her birthday, and having recovered and feeling herself equal to some exertion, she sent for her son, Sir Marcus Beresford, then twenty years old, and her married daughter, Lady Riverston. She also invited Dr. King, the Archbishop of Dublin (who was an intimate friend), and an old clergyman who had christened her, and who had always kept up a most kindly intercourse with her during her whole life, to make up a small party to celebrate the day. "In the early part of it Lady Beresford was engaged in a kindly conversation with her old friend the clergyman, and in the course of it said: 'You know that I am forty-eight this day'. 'No, indeed,' he replied; 'you are only forty-seven, for your mother had a dispute with me once on the very subject of your age, and I in consequence sent and consulted the registry, and can most confidently assert that you are only forty-seven this day.' 'You have signed my death-warrant, then,' she cried; 'leave me, I pray, for I have not much longer to live, but have many things of grave importance to settle before I die. Send my son and my daughter to me immediately.' The clergyman did as he was bidden. He directed Sir Marcus and his sister to go instantly to their mother; and he sent to the archbishop and a few other friends to put them off from joining the birthday party. "When her two children repaired to Lady Beresford, she thus addressed them: 'I have something of deep importance to communicate to you, my dear children, before I die. You are no strangers to the intimacy and the affection which subsisted in early life between Lord Tyrone and myself. We were educated together when young, under the same roof, in the pernicious principles of Deism. Our real friends afterwards took every opportunity to convince us of our error, but their arguments were insufficient to overpower and uproot our infidelity, though they had the effect of shaking our confidence in it, and thus leaving us wavering between the two opinions. In this perplexing state of doubt we made a solemn promise one to the other, that whichever died first should, if permitted, appear to the other for the purpose of declaring what religion was the one acceptable to the Almighty. One night, years after this interchange of promises, I was sleeping with your father at Gill Hall, when I suddenly awoke and discovered Lord Tyrone sitting visibly by the side of the bed. I screamed out, and vainly endeavoured to rouse Sir Tristram. "Tell me," I said, "Lord Tyrone, why and wherefore are you here at this time of the night?" "Have you then forgotten our promise to each other, pledged in early life? I died on Tuesday, at four o'clock. I have been permitted thus to appear in order to assure you that the revealed religion is the true and only one by which we can be saved. I am also suffered to inform you that you are with child, and will produce a son, who will marry my heiress; that Sir Tristram will not live long, when you will marry again, and you will die from the effects of childbirth in your forty- seventh year." I begged from him some convincing sign or proof so that when the morning came I might rely upon it, and feel satisfied that his appearance had been real, and that it was not the phantom of my imagination. He caused the hangings of the bed to be drawn in an unusual way and impossible manner through an iron hook. I still was not satisfied, when he wrote his signature in my pocket-book. I wanted, however, more substantial proof of his visit, when he laid his hand, which was cold as marble, on my wrist; the sinews shrunk up, the nerves withered at the touch. "Now," he said, "let no mortal eye, while you live, ever see that wrist," and vanished. While I was conversing with him my thoughts were calm, but as soon as he disappeared I felt chilled with horror and dismay, a cold sweat came over me, and I again endeavoured but vainly to awaken Sir Tristram; a flood of tears came to my relief, and I fell asleep. "'In the morning your father got up without disturbing me; he had not noticed anything extraordinary about me or the bed-hangings. When I did arise I found a long broom in the gallery outside the bedroom door, and with great difficulty I unhooded the curtain, fearing that the position of it might excite surprise and cause inquiry. I bound up my wrist with black ribbon before I went down to breakfast, where the agitation of my mind was too visible not to attract attention. Sir Tristram made many anxious inquiries as to my health, especially as to my sprained wrist, as he conceived mine to be. I begged him to drop all questions as to the bandage, even if I continued to adopt it for any length of time. He kindly promised me not to speak of it any more, and he kept his promise faithfully. You, my son, came into the world as predicted, and your father died six years after. I then determined to abandon society and its pleasures and not mingle again with the world, hoping to avoid the dreadful predictions as to my second marriage; but, alas! in the one family with which I held constant and friendly intercourse I met the man, whom I did not regard with perfect indifference. Though I struggled to conquer by every means the passion, I at length yielded to his solicitations, and in a fatal moment for my own peace I became his wife. In a few years his conduct fully justified my demand for a separation, and I fondly hoped to escape the fatal prophecy. Under the delusion that I had passed my forty-seventh birthday, I was prevailed upon to believe in his amendment, and to pardon him. I have, however, heard from undoubted authority that I am only forty-seven this day, and I know that I am about to die. I die, however, without the dread of death, fortified as I am by the sacred precepts of Christianity and upheld by its promises. When I am gone, I wish that you, my children, should unbind this black ribbon and alone behold my wrist before I am consigned to the grave.' "She then requested to be left that she might lie down and compose herself, and her children quitted the apartment, having desired her attendant to watch her, and if any change came on to summon them to her bedside. In an hour the bell rang, and they hastened to the call, but all was over. The two children having ordered every one to retire, knelt down by the side of the bed, when Lady Riverston unbound the black ribbon and found the wrist exactly as Lady Beresford had described it--every nerve withered, every sinew shrunk. "Her friend, the Archbishop, had had her buried in the Cathedral of St. Patrick, in Dublin, in the Earl of Cork's tomb, where she now lies." * * * * * The writer now professes his disbelief in any spiritual presence, and explains his theory that Lady Beresford's anxiety about Lord Tyrone deluded her by a vivid dream, during which she hurt her wrist. Of all ghost stories the Tyrone, or Beresford Ghost, has most variants. Following Monsieur Haureau, in the Journal des Savants, I have tracked the tale, the death compact, and the wound inflicted by the ghost on the hand, or wrist, or brow, of the seer, through Henry More, and Melanchthon, and a mediaeval sermon by Eudes de Shirton, to William of Malmesbury, a range of 700 years. Mrs. Grant of Laggan has a rather recent case, and I have heard of another in the last ten years! Calmet has a case in 1625, the spectre leaves The sable score of fingers four on a board of wood. Now for a modern instance of a gang of ghosts with a purpose! When I narrated the story which follows to an eminent moral philosopher, he remarked, at a given point, "Oh, the ghost _spoke_, did she?" and displayed scepticism. The evidence, however, left him, as it leaves me, at a standstill, not convinced, but agreeably perplexed. The ghosts here are truly old-fashioned. My story is, and must probably remain, entirely devoid of proof, as far as any kind of ghostly influence is concerned. We find ghosts appearing, and imposing a certain course of action on a living witness, for definite purposes of their own. The course of action prescribed was undeniably pursued, and apparently the purpose of the ghosts was fulfilled, but what that purpose was their agent declines to state, and conjecture is hopelessly baffled. The documents in the affair have been published by the Society for Psychical Research (Proceedings, vol. xi., p. 547), and are here used for reference. But I think the matter will be more intelligible if I narrate it exactly as it came under my own observation. The names of persons and places are all fictitious, and are the same as those used in the documents published by the S.P.R. HALF-PAST ONE O'CLOCK In October, 1893, I was staying at a town which we shall call Rapingham. One night I and some kinsfolk dined with another old friend of all of us, a Dr. Ferrier. In the course of dinner he asked a propos de bottes:-- "Have you heard of the ghost in Blake Street?" a sunny, pleasant street of respectable but uninteresting antiquity in Rapingham. We had none of us heard of the ghost, and begged the doctor to enlighten our ignorance. His story ran thus--I have it in his own writing as far as its essence goes:-- "The house," he said, "belongs to my friends, the Applebys, who let it, as they live elsewhere. A quiet couple took it and lived in it for five years, when the husband died, and the widow went away. They made no complaint while tenants. The house stood empty for some time, and all I know personally about the matter is that I, my wife, and the children were in the dining-room one Sunday when we heard unusual noises in the drawing-room overhead. We went through the rooms but could find no cause or explanation of the disturbance, and thought no more about it. "About six or seven years ago I let the house to a Mr. Buckley, who is still the tenant. He was unmarried, and his family consisted of his mother and sisters. They preceded him to put the place in order, and before his arrival came to me in some irritation complaining that I had let them _a haunted house_! They insisted that there were strange noises, as if heavy weights were being dragged about, or heavy footsteps pacing in the rooms and on the stairs. I said that I knew nothing about the matter. The stairs are of stone, water is only carried up to the first floor, there is an unused system of hot air pipes. {177a} Something went wrong with the water-main in the area once, but the noises lasted after it was mended. "I think Mr. Buckley when he arrived never heard anything unusual. But one evening as he walked upstairs carrying an ink-bottle, he found his hand full of some liquid. Thinking that he had spilt the ink, he went to a window where he found his hand full of water, to account for which there was no stain on the ceiling, or anything else that he could discover. On another occasion one of the young ladies was kneeling by a trunk in an attic, alone, when water was switched over her face, as if from a wet brush. {177b} There was a small pool of water on the floor, and the wall beyond her was sprinkled. "Time went on, and the disturbances were very rare: in fact ceased for two years till the present week, when Mrs. Claughton, a widow accompanied by two of her children, came to stay with the Buckleys. {177c} She had heard of the disturbances and the theory of hauntings-- I don't know if these things interested her or not. "Early on Monday, 9th October, Mrs. Claughton came to consult me. Her story was this: About a quarter past one on Sunday night, or Monday morning, she was in bed with one of her children, the other sleeping in the room. She was awakened by footsteps on the stair, and supposed that a servant was coming to call her to Miss Buckley, who was ill. The steps stopped at the door, then the noise was repeated. Mrs. Claughton lit her bedroom candle, opened the door and listened. There was no one there. The clock on the landing pointed to twenty minutes past one. Mrs. Claughton went back to bed, read a book, fell asleep, and woke to find the candle still lit, but low in the socket. She heard a sigh, and saw a lady, unknown to her, her head swathed in a soft white shawl, her expression gentle and refined, her features much emaciated. "The Appearance said, 'Follow me,' and Mrs. Claughton, taking the bedroom candle, rose and followed out on to the landing, and so into the adjacent drawing-room. She cannot remember opening the door, which the housemaid had locked outside, and she owns that this passage is dreamlike in her memory. Seeing that her candle was flickering out, she substituted for it a pink one taken from a chiffonier. The figure walked nearly to the window, turned three-quarters round, said 'To-morrow!' and was no more seen. Mrs. Claughton went back to her room, where her eldest child asked:-- "'Who is the lady in white?' "'Only me, mother, go to sleep,' she thinks she answered. After lying awake for two hours, with gas burning, she fell asleep. The pink candle from the drawing-room chiffonier was in her candlestick in the morning. "After hearing the lady's narrative I told her to try change of air, which she declined as cowardly. So, as she would stay on at Mr. Buckley's, I suggested that an electric alarm communicating with Miss Buckley's room should be rigged up, and this was done." Here the doctor paused, and as the events had happened within the week, we felt that we were at last on the track of a recent ghost. "Next morning, about one, the Buckleys were aroused by a tremendous peal of the alarm; Mrs. Claughton they found in a faint. Next morning {179} she consulted me as to the whereabouts of a certain place, let me call it 'Meresby'. I suggested the use of a postal directory; we found Meresby, a place extremely unknown to fame, in an agricultural district about five hours from London in the opposite direction from Rapingham. To this place Mrs. Claughton said she must go, in the interest and by the order of certain ghosts, whom she saw on Monday night, and whose injunctions she had taken down in a note-book. She has left Rapingham for London, and there," said the doctor, "my story ends for the present." We expected it to end for good and all, but in the course of the week came a communication to the doctor in writing from Mrs. Claughton's governess. This lady, on Mrs. Claughton's arrival at her London house (Friday, 13th October), passed a night perturbed by sounds of weeping, "loud moans," and "a very odd noise overhead, like some electric battery gone wrong," in fact, much like the "warning" of a jack running down, which Old Jeffrey used to give at the Wesley's house in Epworth. There were also heavy footsteps and thuds, as of moving weighty bodies. So far the governess. This curious communication I read at Rapingham on Saturday, 14th October, or Sunday, 15th October. On Monday I went to town. In the course of the week I received a letter from my kinsman in Rapingham, saying that Mrs. Claughton had written to Dr. Ferrier, telling him that she had gone to Meresby on Saturday; had accomplished the bidding of the ghosts, and had lodged with one Joseph Wright, the parish clerk. Her duty had been to examine the Meresby parish registers, and to compare certain entries with information given by the ghosts and written by her in her note-book. If the entries in the parish register tallied with her notes, she was to pass the time between one o'clock and half-past one, alone, in Meresby Church, and receive a communication from the spectres. All this she said that she had done, and in evidence of her journey enclosed her half ticket to Meresby, which a dream had warned her would not be taken on her arrival. She also sent a white rose from a grave to Dr. Ferrier, a gentleman in no sympathy with the Jacobite cause, which, indeed, has no connection whatever with the matter in hand. On hearing of this letter from Mrs. Claughton, I confess that, not knowing the lady, I remained purely sceptical. The railway company, however, vouched for the ticket. The rector of Meresby, being appealed to, knew nothing of the matter. He therefore sent for his curate and parish clerk. "Did a lady pass part of Sunday night in the church?" The clerk and the curate admitted that this unusual event _had_ occurred. A lady had arrived from London on Saturday evening; had lodged with Wright, the parish clerk; had asked for the parish registers; had compared them with her note-book after morning service on Sunday, and had begged leave to pass part of the night in the church. The curate in vain tried to dissuade her, and finally, washing his hands of it, had left her to Wright the clerk. To him she described a Mr. George Howard, deceased (one of the ghosts). He recognised the description, and he accompanied her to the church on a dark night, starting at one o'clock. She stayed alone, without a light, in the locked-up church from 1.20 to 1.45, when he let her out. There now remained no doubt that Mrs. Claughton had really gone to Meresby, a long and disagreeable journey, and had been locked up in the church alone at a witching hour. Beyond this point we have only the statements of Mrs. Claughton, made to Lord Bute, Mr. Myers and others, and published by the Society for Psychical Research. She says that after arranging the alarm bell on Monday night (October 9-10) she fell asleep reading in her dressing- gown, lying outside her bed. She wakened, and found the lady of the white shawl bending over her. Mrs. Claughton said: "Am I dreaming, or is it true?" The figure gave, as testimony to character, a piece of information. Next Mrs. Claughton saw a male ghost, "tall, dark, healthy, sixty years old," who named himself as George Howard, buried in Meresby churchyard, Meresby being a place of which Mrs. Claughton, like most people, now heard for the first time. He gave the dates of his marriage and death, which are correct, and have been seen by Mr. Myers in Mrs. Claughton's note-book. He bade her verify these dates at Meresby, and wait at 1.15 in the morning at the grave of Richard Harte (a person, like all of them, unknown to Mrs. Claughton) at the south-west corner of the south aisle in Meresby Church. This Mr. Harte died on 15th May, 1745, and missed many events of interest by doing so. Mr. Howard also named and described Joseph Wright, of Meresby, as a man who would help her, and he gave minute local information. Next came a phantom of a man whose name Mrs. Claughton is not free to give; {182} he seemed to be in great trouble, at first covering his face with his hands, but later removing them. These three spectres were to meet Mrs. Claughton in Meresby Church and give her information of importance on a matter concerning, apparently, the third and only unhappy appearance. After these promises and injunctions the phantoms left, and Mrs. Claughton went to the door to look at the clock. Feeling faint, she rang the alarum, when her friends came and found her in a swoon on the floor. The hour was 1.20. What Mrs. Claughton's children were doing all this time, and whether they were in the room or not, does not appear. On Thursday Mrs. Claughton went to town, and her governess was perturbed, as we have seen. On Friday night Mrs. Claughton _dreamed_ a number of things connected with her journey; a page of the notes made from this dream was shown to Mr. Myers. Thus her half ticket was not to be taken, she was to find a Mr. Francis, concerned in the private affairs of the ghosts, which needed rectifying, and so forth. These premonitions, with others, were all fulfilled. Mrs. Claughton, in the church at night, continued her conversation with the ghosts whose acquaintance she had made at Rapingham. She obtained, it seems, all the information needful to settling the mysterious matters which disturbed the male ghost who hid his face, and on Monday morning she visited the daughter of Mr. Howard in her country house in a park, "recognised the strong likeness to her father, and carried out all things desired by the dead to the full, as had been requested. . . . The wishes expressed to her were perfectly rational, reasonable and of natural importance." The clerk, Wright, attests the accuracy of Mrs. Claughton's description of Mr. Howard, whom he knew, and the correspondence of her dates with those in the parish register and on the graves, which he found for her at her request. Mr. Myers, "from a very partial knowledge" of what the Meresby ghosts' business was, thinks the reasons for not revealing this matter "entirely sufficient". The ghosts' messages to survivors "effected the intended results," says Mrs. Claughton. * * * * * Of this story the only conceivable natural explanation is that Mrs. Claughton, to serve her private ends, paid secret preliminary visits to Meresby, "got up" there a number of minute facts, chose a haunted house at the other end of England as a first scene in her little drama, and made the rest of the troublesome journeys, not to mention the uncomfortable visit to a dark church at midnight, and did all this from a hysterical love of notoriety. This desirable boon she would probably never have obtained, even as far as it is consistent with a pseudonym, if I had not chanced to dine with Dr. Ferrier while the adventure was only beginning. As there seemed to be a chance of taking a ghost "on the half volley," I at once communicated the first part of the tale to the Psychical Society (using pseudonyms, as here, throughout), and two years later Mrs. Claughton consented to tell the Society as much as she thinks it fair to reveal. This, it will be confessed, is a round-about way of obtaining fame, and an ordinary person in Mrs. Claughton's position would have gone to the Psychical Society at once, as Mark Twain meant to do when he saw the ghost which turned out to be a very ordinary person. There I leave these ghosts, my mind being in a just balance of agnosticism. If ghosts at all, they were ghosts with a purpose. The species is now very rare. The purpose of the ghost in the following instance was trivial, but was successfully accomplished. In place of asking people to do what it wanted, the ghost did the thing itself. Now the modern theory of ghosts, namely, that they are delusions of the senses of the seers, caused somehow by the mental action of dead or distant people, does not seem to apply in this case. The ghost produced an effect on a material object. "PUT OUT THE LIGHT!" The Rev. D. W. G. Gwynne, M.D., was a physician in holy orders. In 1853 he lived at P--- House, near Taunton, where both he and his wife "were made uncomfortable by auditory experiences to which they could find no clue," or, in common English, they heard mysterious noises. "During the night," writes Dr. Gwynne, "I became aware of a draped figure passing across the foot of the bed towards the fireplace. I had the impression that the arm was raised, pointing with the hand towards the mantel-piece on which a night-light was burning. Mrs. Gwynne at the same moment seized my arm, _and the light was extinguished_! Notwithstanding, I distinctly saw the figure returning towards the door, and being under the impression that one of the servants had found her way into our room, I leaped out of bed to intercept the intruder, but found and saw nothing. I rushed to the door and endeavoured to follow the supposed intruder, and it was not until I found the door locked, as usual, that I was painfully impressed. I need hardly say that Mrs. Gwynne was in a very nervous state. She asked me what I had seen, and I told her. She had seen the same figure," "but," writes Mrs. Gwynne, "I distinctly _saw the hand of the figure placed over the night-light, which was at once extinguished_". "Mrs. Gwynne also heard the rustle of the 'tall man- like figure's' garments. In addition to the night-light there was moonlight in the room." "Other people had suffered many things in the same house, unknown to Dr. and Mrs. Gwynne, who gave up the place soon afterwards." In plenty of stories we hear of ghosts who draw curtains or open doors, and these apparent material effects are usually called part of the seer's delusion. But the night-light certainly went out under the figure's hand, and was relit by Dr. Gwynne. Either the ghost was an actual entity, not a mere hallucination of two people, or the extinction of the light was a curious coincidence. {186} CHAPTER IX Haunted Houses. Antiquity of Haunted Houses. Savage Cases. Ancient Egyptian Cases. Persistence in Modern Times. Impostures. Imaginary Noises. Nature of Noises. The Creaking Stair. Ghostly Effects produced by the Living but Absent. The Grocer's Cough. Difficulty of Belief. My Gillie's Father's Story. "Silverton Abbey." The Dream that Opened the Door. Abbotsford Noises. Legitimate Haunting by the Dead. The Girl in Pink. The Dog in the Haunted Room. The Lady in Black. Dogs Alarmed. The Dead Seldom Recognised. Glamis. A Border Castle. Another Class of Hauntings. A Russian Case. The Dancing Devil. The Little Hands. Haunted houses have been familiar to man ever since he has owned a roof to cover his head. The Australian blacks possessed only shelters or "leans-to," so in Australia the spirits do their rapping on the tree trunks; a native illustrated this by whacking a table with a book. The perched-up houses of the Dyaks are haunted by noisy routing agencies. We find them in monasteries, palaces, and crofters' cottages all through the Middle Ages. On an ancient Egyptian papyrus we find the husband of the Lady Onkhari protesting against her habit of haunting his house, and exclaiming: "What wrong have I done," exactly in the spirit of the "Hymn of Donald Ban," who was "sair hadden down by a bodach" (noisy bogle) after Culloden. {188a} The husband of Onkhari does not say _how_ she disturbed him, but the manners of Egyptian haunters, just what they remain at present, may be gathered from a magical papyrus, written in Greek. Spirits "wail and groan, or laugh dreadfully"; they cause bad dreams, terror and madness; finally, they "practice stealthy theft," and rap and knock. The "theft" (by making objects disappear mysteriously) is often illustrated in the following tales, as are the groaning and knocking. {188b} St. Augustine speaks of hauntings as familiar occurrences, and we have a chain of similar cases from ancient Egypt to 1896. Several houses in that year were so disturbed that the inhabitants were obliged to leave them. The newspapers were full of correspondence on the subject. The usual annoyances are apparitions (rare), flying about of objects (not very common), noises of every kind (extremely frequent), groans, screams, footsteps and fire-raising. Imposture has either been proved or made very probable in ten out of eleven cases of volatile objects between 1883 and 1895. {188c} Moreover, it is certain that the noises of haunted houses are not equally audible by all persons present, even when the sounds are at their loudest. Thus Lord St. Vincent, the great admiral, heard nothing during his stay at the house of his sister, Mrs. Ricketts, while that lady endured terrible things. After his departure she was obliged to recall him. He arrived, and slept peacefully. Next day his sister told him about the disturbances, after which he heard them as much as his neighbours, and was as unsuccessful in discovering their cause. {189} Of course this looks as if these noises were unreal, children of the imagination. Noises being the staple of haunted houses, a few words may be devoted to them. They are usually the frou-frou or rustling sweep of a gown, footsteps, raps, thumps, groans, a sound as if all the heavy furniture was being knocked about, crashing of crockery and jingling of money. Of course, as to footsteps, people _may_ be walking about, and most of the other noises are either easily imitated, or easily produced by rats, water pipes, cracks in furniture (which the Aztecs thought ominous of death), and other natural causes. The explanation is rather more difficult when the steps pace a gallery, passing and repassing among curious inquirers, or in this instance. THE CREAKING STAIR A lady very well known to myself, and in literary society, lived as a girl with an antiquarian father in an old house dear to an antiquary. It was haunted, among other things, by footsteps. The old oak staircase had two creaking steps, numbers seventeen and eighteen from the top. The girl would sit on the stair, stretching out her arms, and count the steps as they passed her, one, two, three, and so on to seventeen and eighteen, _which always creaked_. {190} In this case rats and similar causes were excluded, though we may allow for "expectant attention". But this does not generally work. When people sit up on purpose to look out for the ghost, he rarely comes; in the case of the "Lady in Black," which we give later, when purposely waited for, she was never seen at all. Discounting imposture, which is sometimes found, and sometimes merely fabled (as in the Tedworth story), there remains one curious circumstance. Specially ghostly noises are attributed to the living but absent. THE GROCER'S COUGH A man of letters was born in a small Scotch town, where his father was the intimate friend of a tradesman whom we shall call the grocer. Almost every day the grocer would come to have a chat with Mr. Mackay, and the visitor, alone of the natives, had the habit of knocking at the door before entering. One day Mr. Mackay said to his daughter, "There's Mr. Macwilliam's knock. Open the door." But there was no Mr. Macwilliam! He was just leaving his house at the other end of the street. From that day Mr. Mackay always heard the grocer's knock "a little previous," accompanied by the grocer's cough, which was peculiar. Then all the family heard it, including the son who later became learned. He, when he had left his village for Glasgow, reasoned himself out of the opinion that the grocer's knock did herald and precede the grocer. But when he went home for a visit he found that he heard it just as of old. Possibly some local Sentimental Tommy watched for the grocer, played the trick and ran away. This explanation presents no difficulty, but the boy was never detected. {191} Such anecdotes somehow do not commend themselves to the belief even of people who can believe a good deal. But "the spirits of the living," as the Highlanders say, have surely as good a chance to knock, or appear at a distance, as the spirits of the dead. To be sure, the living do not know (unless they are making a scientific experiment) what trouble they are giving on these occasions, but one can only infer, like St. Augustine, that probably the dead don't know it either. Thus, MY GILLIE'S FATHER'S STORY Fishing in Sutherland, I had a charming companion in the gillie. He was well educated, a great reader, the best of salmon fishers, and I never heard a man curse William, Duke of Cumberland, with more enthusiasm. His father, still alive, was second-sighted, and so, to a moderate extent and without theory, was my friend. Among other anecdotes (confirmed in writing by the old gentleman) was this:-- The father had a friend who died in the house which they both occupied. The clothes of the deceased hung on pegs in the bedroom. One night the father awoke, and saw a stranger examining and handling the clothes of the defunct. Then came a letter from the dead man's brother, inquiring about the effects. He followed later, and was the stranger seen by my gillie's father. Thus the living but absent may haunt a house both noisily and by actual appearance. The learned even think, for very exquisite reasons, that "Silverton Abbey" {192} is haunted noisily by a "spirit of the living". Here is a case:-- THE DREAM THAT KNOCKED AT THE DOOR The following is an old but good story. The Rev. Joseph Wilkins died, an aged man, in 1800. He left this narrative, often printed; the date of the adventure is 1754, when Mr. Wilkins, aged twenty-three, was a schoolmaster in Devonshire. The dream was an ordinary dream, and did not announce death, or anything but a journey. Mr. Wilkins dreamed, in Devonshire, that he was going to London. He thought he would go by Gloucestershire and see his people. So he started, arrived at his father's house, found the front door locked, went in by the back door, went to his parents' room, saw his father asleep in bed and his mother awake. He said: "Mother, I am going a long journey, and have come to bid you good-bye". She answered in a fright, "Oh dear son, thou art dead!" Mr. Wilkins wakened, and thought nothing of it. As early as a letter could come, one arrived from his father, addressing him as if he were dead, and desiring him, if by accident alive, or any one into whose hands the letter might fall, to write at once. The father then gave his reasons for alarm. Mrs. Wilkins, being awake one night, heard some one try the front door, enter by the back, then saw her son come into her room and say he was going on a long journey, with the rest of the dialogue. She then woke her husband, who said she had been dreaming, but who was alarmed enough to write the letter. No harm came of it to anybody. The story would be better if Mr. Wilkins, junior, like Laud, had kept a nocturnal of his dreams, and published his father's letter, with post-marks. The story of the lady who often dreamed of a house, and when by chance she found and rented it was recognised as the ghost who had recently haunted it, is good, but is an invention! A somewhat similar instance is that of the uproar of moving heavy objects, heard by Scott in Abbotsford on the night preceding and the night of the death of his furnisher, Mr. Bullock, in London. The story is given in Lockhart's Life of Scott, and is too familiar for repetition. On the whole, accepting one kind of story on the same level as the other kind, the living and absent may unconsciously produce the phenomena of haunted houses just as well as the dead, to whose alleged performances we now advance. Actual appearances, as we have said, are not common, and just as all persons do not hear the sounds, so many do not see the appearance, even when it is visible to others in the same room. As an example, take a very mild and lady-like case of haunting. THE GIRL IN PINK The following anecdote was told to myself, a few months after the curious event, by the three witnesses in the case. They were connections of my own, the father was a clergyman of the Anglican Church; he, his wife and their daughter, a girl of twenty, were the "percipients". All are cheerful, sagacious people, and all, though they absolutely agreed as to the facts in their experience, professed an utter disbelief in "ghosts," which the occurrence has not affected in any way. They usually reside in a foreign city, where there is a good deal of English society. One day they left the town to lunch with a young fellow-countryman who lived in a villa in the neighbourhood. There he was attempting to farm a small estate, with what measure of success the story does not say. His house was kept by his sister, who was present, of course, at the little luncheon party. During the meal some question was asked, or some remark was made, to which the clerical guest replied in English by a reference to "the maid-servant in pink". "There is no maid in pink," said the host, and he asked both his other guests to corroborate him. Both ladies, mother and daughter, were obliged to say that unless their eyes deceived them, they certainly _had_ seen a girl in pink attending on them, or, at least, moving about in the room. To this their entertainers earnestly replied that no such person was in their establishment, that they had no woman servant but the elderly cook and housekeeper, then present, who was neither a girl nor in pink. After luncheon the guests were taken all over the house, to convince them of the absence of the young woman whom they had seen, and assuredly there was no trace of her. On returning to the town where they reside, they casually mentioned the circumstance as a curious illusion. The person to whom they spoke said, with some interest, "Don't you know that a girl is said to have been murdered in that house before your friends took it, and that she is reported to be occasionally seen, dressed in pink?" They had heard of no such matter, but the story seemed to be pretty generally known, though naturally disliked by the occupant of the house. As for the percipients, they each and all remain firm in the belief that, till convinced of the impossibility of her presence, they were certain they had seen a girl in pink, and rather a pretty girl, whose appearance suggested nothing out of the common. An obvious hypothesis is discounted, of course, by the presence of the sister of the young gentleman who farmed the estate and occupied the house. Here is another case, mild but pertinacious. THE DOG IN THE HAUNTED ROOM The author's friend, Mr. Rokeby, lives, and has lived for some twenty years, in an old house at Hammersmith. It is surrounded by a large garden, the drawing-room and dining-room are on the right and left of the entrance from the garden, on the ground floor. My friends had never been troubled by any phenomena before, and never expected to be. However, they found the house "noisy," the windows were apt to be violently shaken at night and steps used to be heard where no steps should be. Deep long sighs were audible at all times of day. As Mrs. Rokeby approached a door, the handle would turn and the door fly open. {196} Sounds of stitching a hard material, and of dragging a heavy weight occurred in Mrs. Rokeby's room, and her hair used to be pulled in a manner for which she could not account. "These sorts of things went on for about five years, when in October, 1875, about three o'clock in the afternoon, I was sitting" (says Mrs. Rokeby) "with three of my children in the dining-room, reading to them. I rang the bell for the parlour-maid, when the door opened, and on looking up I saw the figure of a woman come in and walk up to the side of the table, stand there a second or two, and then turn to go out again, but before reaching the door she seemed to dissolve away. She was a grey, short-looking woman, apparently dressed in grey muslin. I hardly saw the face, which seemed scarcely to be defined at all. None of the children saw her," and Mrs. Rokeby only mentioned the affair at the time to her husband. Two servants, in the next two months, saw the same figure, alike in dress at least, in other rooms both by daylight and candle light. They had not heard of Mrs. Rokeby's experience, were accustomed to the noises, and were in good health. One of them was frightened, and left her place. A brilliant light in a dark room, an icy wind and a feeling of being "watched" were other discomforts in Mrs. Rokeby's lot. After 1876, only occasional rappings were heard, till Mr. Rokeby being absent one night in 1883, the noises broke out, "banging, thumping, the whole place shaking". The library was the centre of these exercises, and the dog, a fine collie, was shut up in the library. Mrs. Rokeby left her room for her daughter's, while the dog whined in terror, and the noises increased in violence. Next day the dog, when let out, rushed forth with enthusiasm, but crouched with his tail between his legs when invited to re-enter. This was in 1883. Several years after, Mr. Rokeby was smoking, alone, in the dining-room early in the evening, when the dog began to bristle up his hair, and bark. Mr. Rokeby looked up and saw the woman in grey, with about half her figure passed through the slightly open door. He ran to the door, but she was gone, and the servants were engaged in their usual business. {198a} Our next ghost offered many opportunities to observers. THE LADY IN BLACK A ghost in a haunted house is seldom observed with anything like scientific precision. The spectre in the following narrative could not be photographed, attempts being usually made in a light which required prolonged exposure. Efforts to touch it were failures, nor did it speak. On the other hand, it did lend itself, perhaps unconsciously, to one scientific experiment. The story is unromantic; the names are fictitious. {198b} Bognor House, an eligible family residence near a large town, was built in 1860, and occupied, till his death in 1876, by Mr. S. He was twice married, and was not of temperate ways. His second wife adopted his habits, left him shortly before his death, and died at Clifton in 1878. The pair used to quarrel about some jewels which Mr. S. concealed in the flooring of a room where the ghost was never seen. A Mr L. now took the house, but died six months later. Bognor House stood empty for four years, during which there was vague talk of hauntings. In April, 1882, the house was taken by Captain Morton. This was in April; in June Miss Rose Morton, a lady of nineteen studying medicine (and wearing spectacles), saw the first appearance. Miss Morton did not mention her experiences to her family, her mother being an invalid, and her brothers and sisters very young, but she transmitted accounts to a friend, a lady, in a kind of diary letters. These are extant, and are quoted. Phenomena of this kind usually begin with noises, and go on to apparitions. Miss Morton one night, while preparing to go to bed, heard a noise outside, thought it was her mother, opened the door, saw a tall lady in black holding a handkerchief to her face, and followed the figure till her candle burned out. A widow's white cuff was visible on each wrist, the whole of the face was never seen. In 1882- 84, Miss Morton saw the figure about six times; it was thrice seen, once through the window from outside, by other persons, who took it for a living being. Two boys playing in the garden ran in to ask who was the weeping lady in black. On 29th January, 1884, Miss Morton spoke to her inmate, as the lady in black stood beside a sofa. "She only gave a slight gasp and moved towards the door. Just by the door I spoke to her again, but she seemed as if she were quite unable to speak." {199} In May and June Miss Morton fastened strings at different heights from the stair railings to the wall, where she attached them with glue, but she twice saw the lady pass through the cords, leaving them untouched. When Miss Morton cornered the figure and tried to touch her, or pounce on her, she dodged, or disappeared. But by a curious contradiction her steps were often heard by several of the family, and when she heard the steps, Miss Morton used to go out and follow the figure. There is really no more to tell. Miss Morton's father never saw the lady, even when she sat on a sofa for half an hour, Miss Morton watching her. Other people saw her in the garden crying, and sent messages to ask what was the matter, and who was the lady in distress. Many members of the family, boys, girls, married ladies, servants and others often saw the lady in black. In 1885 loud noises, bumps and turning of door handles were common, and though the servants were told that the lady was quite harmless, they did not always stay. The whole establishment of servants was gradually changed, but the lady still walked. She appeared more seldom in 1887-1889, and by 1892 even the light footsteps ceased. Two dogs, a retriever and a Skye terrier, showed much alarm. "Twice," says Miss Morton, "I saw the terrier suddenly run up to the mat at the foot of the stairs in the hall, wagging its tail, and moving its back in the way dogs do when they expect to be caressed. It jumped up, fawning as it would do if a person had been standing there, but suddenly slunk away with its tail between its legs, and retreated, trembling, under a sofa." Miss Morton's own emotion, at first, was "a feeling of awe at something unknown, mixed with a strong desire to know more about it". {200} This is a pretty tame case of haunting, as was conjectured, by an unhappy revenant, the returned spirit of the second Mrs. S. Here it may be remarked that apparitions in haunted houses are very seldom recognised as those of dead persons, and, when recognised, the recognition is usually dubious. Thus, in February, 1897, Lieutenant Carr Glyn, of the Grenadiers, while reading in the outer room of the Queen's Library in Windsor, saw a lady in black in a kind of mantilla of black lace pass from the inner room into a corner where she was lost to view. He supposed that she had gone out by a door there, and asked an attendant later who she was. There was no door round the corner, and, in the opinion of some, the lady was Queen Elizabeth! She has a traditional habit, it seems, of haunting the Library. But surely, of all people, in dress and aspect Queen Elizabeth is most easily recognised. The seer did not recognise her, and she was probably a mere casual hallucination. In old houses such traditions are common, but vague. In this connection Glamis is usually mentioned. Every one has heard of the Secret Chamber, with its mystery, and the story was known to Scott, who introduces it in The Betrothed. But we know when the Secret Chamber was built (under the Restoration), who built it, what he paid the masons, and where it is: under the Charter Room. {201} These cold facts rather take the "weird" effect off the Glamis legend. The usual process is, given an old house, first a noise, then a hallucination, actual or pretended, then a myth to account for the hallucination. There is a castle on the border which has at least seven or eight distinct ghosts. One is the famous Radiant Boy. He has been evicted by turning his tapestried chamber into the smoking- room. For many years not one ghost has been seen except the lady with the candle, viewed by myself, but, being ignorant of the story, I thought she was one of the maids. Perhaps she was, but she went into an empty set of rooms, and did not come out again. Footsteps are apt to approach the doors of these rooms in mirk midnight, the door handle turns, and that is all. So much for supposed hauntings by spirits of the dead. At the opposite pole are hauntings by agencies whom nobody supposes to be ghosts of inmates of the house. The following is an extreme example, as the haunter proceeded to arson. This is not so very unusual, and, if managed by an impostor, shows insane malevolence. {202} THE DANCING DEVIL On 16th November, 1870, Mr. Shchapoff, a Russian squire, the narrator, came home from a visit to a country town, Iletski, and found his family in some disarray. There lived with him his mother and his wife's mother, ladies of about sixty-nine, his wife, aged twenty, and his baby daughter. The ladies had been a good deal disturbed. On the night of the 14th, the baby was fractious, and the cook, Maria, danced and played the harmonica to divert her. The baby fell asleep, the wife and Mr. Shchapoff's miller's lady were engaged in conversation, when a shadow crossed the blind on the outside. They were about to go out and see who was passing, when they heard a double shuffle being executed with energy in the loft overhead. They thought Maria, the cook, was making a night of it, but found her asleep in the kitchen. The dancing went on but nobody could be found in the loft. Then raps began on the window panes, and so the miller and gardener patrolled outside. Nobody! Raps and dancing lasted through most of the night and began again at ten in the morning. The ladies were incommoded and complained of broken sleep. Mr. Shchapoff, hearing all this, examined the miller, who admitted the facts, but attributed them to a pigeon's nest, which he had found under the cornice. Satisfied with this rather elementary hypothesis, Mr. Shchapoff sat down to read Livingstone's African Travels. Presently the double shuffle sounded in the loft. Mrs. Shchapoff was asleep in her bedroom, but was awakened by loud raps. The window was tapped at, deafening thumps were dealt at the outer wall, and the whole house thrilled. Mr. Shchapoff rushed out with dogs and a gun, there were no footsteps in the snow, the air was still, the full moon rode in a serene sky. Mr. Shchapoff came back, and the double shuffle was sounding merrily in the empty loft. Next day was no better, but the noises abated and ceased gradually. Alas, Mr. Shchapoff could not leave well alone. On 20th December, to amuse a friend, he asked Maria to dance and play. Raps, in tune, began on the window panes. Next night they returned, while boots, slippers, and other objects, flew about with a hissing noise. A piece of stuff would fly up and fall with a heavy hard thud, while hard bodies fell soundless as a feather. The performances slowly died away. On Old Year's Night Maria danced to please them; raps began, people watching on either side of a wall heard the raps on the other side. On 8th January, Mrs. Shchapoff fainted when a large, luminous ball floated, increasing in size, from under her bed. The raps now followed her about by day, as in the case of John Wesley's sisters. On these occasions she felt weak and somnolent. Finally Mr. Shchapoff carried his family to his town house for much-needed change of air. Science, in the form of Dr. Shustoff, now hinted that electricity or magnetic force was at the bottom of the annoyances, a great comfort to the household, who conceived that the devil was concerned. The doctor accompanied his friends to their country house for a night, Maria was invited to oblige with a dance, and only a few taps on windows followed. The family returned to town till 21st January. No sooner was Mrs. Shchapoff in bed than knives and forks came out of a closed cupboard and flew about, occasionally sticking in the walls. On 24th January the doctor abandoned the hypothesis of electricity, because the noises kept time to profane but not to sacred music. A Tartar hymn by a Tartar servant, an Islamite, had no accompaniment, but the Freischutz was warmly encored. This went beyond the most intelligent spontaneous exercises of electricity. Questions were asked of the agencies, and to the interrogation, "Are you a devil?" a most deafening knock replied. "We all jumped backwards." Now comes a curious point. In the Wesley and Tedworth cases, the masters of the houses, like the cure of Cideville (1851), were at odds with local "cunning men". Mr. Shchapoff's fiend now averred that he was "set on" by the servant of a neighbouring miller, with whom Mr. Shchapoff had a dispute about a mill pond. This man had previously said, "It will be worse; they will drag you by the hair". And, indeed, Mrs. Shchapoff was found in tears, because her hair had been pulled. {205} Science again intervened. A section of the Imperial Geographical Society sent Dr. Shustoff, Mr. Akutin (a Government civil engineer), and a literary gentleman, as a committee of inquiry appointed by the governor of the province. They made a number of experiments with Leyden jars, magnets, and so forth, with only negative results. Things flew about, both _from_, and _towards_ Mrs. Shchapoff. Nothing volatile was ever seen to _begin_ its motion, though, in March, 1883, objects were seen, by a policeman and six other witnesses, to fly up from a bin and out of a closed cupboard, in a house at Worksop. {206} Mr. Akutin, in Mrs. Shchapoff's bedroom, found the noises answer questions in French and German, on contemporary politics, of which the lady of the house knew nothing. Lassalle was said to be alive, Mr. Shchapoff remarked, "What nonsense!" but Mr. Akutin corrected him. The bogey was better informed. The success of the French in the great war was predicted. The family now moved to their town house, and the inquest continued, though the raps were only heard near the lady. A Dr. Dubinsky vowed that she made them herself, with her tongue; then, with her pulse. The doctor assailed, and finally shook the faith of Mr. Akutin, who was to furnish a report. "He bribed a servant boy to say that his mistress made the sounds herself, and then pretended that he had caught her trying to deceive us by throwing things." Finally Mr. Akutin reported that the whole affair was a hysterical imposition by Mrs. Shchapoff. Dr. Dubinsky attended her, her health and spirits improved, and the disturbances ceased. But poor Mr. Shchapoff received an official warning not to do it again, from the governor of his province. That way lies Siberia. "Imagine, then," exclaims Mr. Shchapoff, "our horror, when, on our return to the country in March, the unknown force at once set to work again. And now even my wife's presence was not essential. Thus, one day, I saw with my own eyes a heavy sofa jump off all four legs (three or four times in fact), and this when my aged mother was lying on it." The same thing occurred to Nancy Wesley's bed, on which she was sitting while playing cards in 1717. The picture of a lady of seventy, sitting tight to a bucking sofa, appeals to the brave. Then the fire-raising began. A blue spark flew out of a wash-stand, into Mrs. Shchapoff's bedroom. Luckily she was absent, and her mother, rushing forward with a water-jug, extinguished a flaming cotton dress. Bright red globular meteors now danced in the veranda. Mr. Portnoff next takes up the tale as follows, Mr. Shchapoff having been absent from home on the occasion described. "I was sitting playing the guitar. The miller got up to leave, and was followed by Mrs. Shchapoff. Hardly had she shut the door, when I heard, as though from far off, a deep drawn wail. The voice seemed familiar to me. Overcome with an unaccountable horror I rushed to the door, and there in the passage I saw a literal pillar of fire, in the middle of which, draped in flame, stood Mrs. Shchapoff. . . . I rushed to put it out with my hands, but I found it burned them badly, as if they were sticking to burning pitch. A sort of cracking noise came from beneath the floor, which also shook and vibrated violently." Mr. Portnoff and the miller "carried off the unconscious victim". Mr. Shchapoff also saw a small pink hand, like a child's, spring from the floor, and play with Mrs. Shchapoff's coverlet, in bed. These things were too much; the Shchapoffs fled to a cottage, and took a new country house. They had no more disturbances. Mrs. Shchapoff died in child-bed, in 1878, "a healthy, religious, quiet, affectionate woman". CHAPTER X Modern Hauntings The Shchapoff Story of a Peculiar Type. "Demoniacal Possession." Story of Wellington Mill briefly analysed. Authorities for the Story. Letters. A Journal. The Wesley Ghost. Given Critically and Why. Note on similar Stories, such as the Drummer of Tedworth. Sir Waller Scott's Scepticism about Nautical Evidence. Lord St. Vincent. Scott asks Where are his Letters on a Ghostly Disturbance. The Letters are now Published. Lord St. Vincent's Ghost Story. Reflections. Cases like that of Mrs. Shchapoff really belong to a peculiar species of haunted houses. Our ancestors, like the modern Chinese, attributed them to diabolical possession, not to an ordinary ghost of a dead person. Examples are very numerous, and have all the same "symptoms," as Coleridge would have said, he attributing them to a contagious nervous malady of observation in the spectators. Among the most notorious is the story of Willington Mill, told by Howitt, and borrowed by Mrs. Crowe, in The Night Side of Nature. Mr. Procter, the occupant, a Quaker, vouched to Mrs. Crowe for the authenticity of Howitt's version. (22nd July, 1847.) Other letters from seers are published, and the Society of Psychical Research lately printed Mr. Procter's contemporary journal. A man, a woman, and a monkey were the chief apparitions. There were noises, lights, beds were heaved about: nothing was omitted. A clairvoyante was turned on, but could only say that the spectral figures, which she described, "had no brains". After the Quakers left the house there seems to have been no more trouble. The affair lasted for fifteen years. Familiar as it is, we now offer the old story of the hauntings at Epworth, mainly because a full view of the inhabitants, the extraordinary family of Wesley, seems necessary to an understanding of the affair. The famous and excessively superstitious John Wesley was not present on the occasion. THE WESLEY GHOST No ghost story is more celebrated than that of Old Jeffrey, the spirit so named by Emily Wesley, which disturbed the Rectory at Epworth, chiefly in the December of 1716 and the spring of 1717. Yet the vagueness of the human mind has led many people, especially journalists, to suppose that the haunted house was that, not of Samuel Wesley, but of his son John Wesley, the founder of the Wesleyan Methodists. For the better intelligence of the tale, we must know who the inmates of the Epworth Rectory were, and the nature of their characters and pursuits. The rector was the Rev. Samuel Wesley, born in 1662, the son of a clergyman banished from his living on "Black Bartholomew Day," 1666. Though educated among Dissenters, Samuel Wesley converted himself to the truth as it is in the Church of England, became a "poor scholar" of Exeter College in Oxford, supported himself mainly by hack-work in literature (he was one of the editors of a penny paper called The Athenian Mercury, a sort of Answers), married Miss Susanna Annesley, a lady of good family, in 1690-91, and in 1693 was presented to the Rectory of Epworth in Lincolnshire by Mary, wife of William of Orange, to whom he had dedicated a poem on the life of Christ. The living was poor, Mr. Wesley's family multiplied with amazing velocity, he was in debt, and unpopular. His cattle were maimed in 1705, and in 1703 his house was burned down. The Rectory House, of which a picture is given in Clarke's Memoirs of the Wesleys, 1825, was built anew at his own expense. Mr. Wesley was in politics a strong Royalist, but having seen James II. shake "his lean arm" at the Fellows of Magdalen College, and threaten them "with the weight of a king's right hand," he conceived a prejudice against that monarch, and took the side of the Prince of Orange. His wife, a very pious woman and a strict disciplinarian, was a Jacobite, would not say "amen" to the prayers for "the king," and was therefore deserted by her husband for a year or more in 1701-1702. They came together again, however, on the accession of Queen Anne. Unpopular for his politics, hated by the Dissenters, and at odds with the "cunning men," or local wizards against whom he had frequently preached, Mr. Wesley was certainly apt to have tricks played on him by his neighbours. His house, though surrounded by a wall, a hedge, and its own grounds, was within a few yards of the nearest dwelling in the village street. In 1716, when the disturbances began, Mr. Wesley's family consisted of his wife; his eldest son, Sam, aged about twenty-three, and then absent at his duties as an usher at Westminster; John, aged twelve, a boy at Westminster School; Charles, a boy of eight, away from home, and the girls, who were all at the parsonage. They were Emily, about twenty-two, Mary, Nancy and Sukey, probably about twenty-one, twenty and nineteen, and Hetty, who may have been anything between nineteen and twelve, but who comes after John in Dr. Clarke's list, and is apparently reckoned among "the children". {212} Then there was Patty, who may have been only nine, and little Keziah. All except Patty were very lively young people, and Hetty, afterwards a copious poet, "was gay and sprightly, full of mirth, good-humour, and keen wit. She indulged this disposition so much that it was said to have given great uneasiness to her parents." The servants, Robin Brown, Betty Massy and Nancy Marshall, were recent comers, but were acquitted by Mrs. Wesley of any share in the mischief. The family, though, like other people of their date, they were inclined to believe in witches and "warnings," were not especially superstitious, and regarded the disturbances, first with some apprehension, then as a joke, and finally as a bore. The authorities for what occurred are, first, a statement and journal by Mr. Wesley, then a series of letters of 1717 to Sam at Westminster by his mother, Emily and Sukey, next a set of written statements made by these and other witnesses to John Wesley in 1726, and last and worst, a narrative composed many years after by John Wesley for The Arminian Magazine. The earliest document, by a few days, is the statement of Mr. Wesley, written, with a brief journal, between 21st December, 1716, and 1st January, 1717. Comparing this with Mrs. Wesley's letter to Sam of 12th January, 1716 and Sukey's letter of 24th January, we learn that the family for some weeks after 1st December had been "in the greatest panic imaginable," supposing that Sam, Jack, or Charlie (who must also have been absent from home) was dead, "or by some misfortune killed". The reason for these apprehensions was that on the night of 1st December the maid "heard at the dining-room door several dreadful groans, like a person in extremes". They laughed at her, but for the whole of December "the groans, squeaks, tinglings and knockings were frightful enough". The rest of the family (Mr. Wesley always excepted) "heard a strange knocking in divers places," chiefly in the green room, or nursery, where (apparently) Hetty, Patty and Keziah lay. Emily heard the noises later than some of her sisters, perhaps a week after the original groans. She was locking up the house about ten o'clock when a sound came like the smashing and splintering of a huge piece of coal on the kitchen floor. She and Sukey went through the rooms on the ground floor, but found the dog asleep, the cat at the other end of the house, and everything in order. From her bedroom Emily heard a noise of breaking the empty bottles under the stairs, but was going to bed, when Hetty, who had been sitting on the lowest step of the garret stairs beside the nursery door, waiting for her father, was chased into the nursery by a sound as of a man passing her in a loose trailing gown. Sukey and Nancy were alarmed by loud knocks on the outside of the dining-room door and overhead. All this time Mr. Wesley heard nothing, and was not even told that anything unusual was heard. Mrs. Wesley at first held her peace lest he should think it "according to the vulgar opinion, a warning against his own death, which, indeed, we all apprehended". Mr. Wesley only smiled when he was informed; but, by taking care to see all the girls safe in bed, sufficiently showed his opinion that the young ladies and their lovers were the ghost. Mrs. Wesley then fell back on the theory of rats, and employed a man to blow a horn as a remedy against these vermin. But this measure only aroused the emulation of the sprite, whom Emily began to call "Jeffrey". Not till 21st December did Mr. Wesley hear anything, then came thumpings on his bedroom wall. Unable to discover the cause, he procured a stout mastiff, which soon became demoralised by his experiences. On the morning of the 24th, about seven o'clock, Emily led Mrs. Wesley into the nursery, where she heard knocks on and under the bedstead; these sounds replied when she knocked. Something "like a badger, with no head," says Emily; Mrs. Wesley only says, "like a badger," ran from under the bed. On the night of the 25th there was an appalling vacarme. Mr. and Mrs. Wesley went on a tour of inspection, but only found the mastiff whining in terror. "We still heard it rattle and thunder in every room above or behind us, locked as well as open, except my study, where as yet it never came." On the night of the 26th Mr. Wesley seems to have heard of a phenomenon already familiar to Emily--"something like the quick winding up of a jack, at the corner of the room by my bed head". This was always followed by knocks, "hollow and loud, such as none of us could ever imitate". Mr. Wesley went into the nursery, Hetty, Kezzy and Patty were asleep. The knocks were loud, beneath and in the room, so Mr. Wesley went below to the kitchen, struck with his stick against the rafters, and was answered "as often and as loud as I knocked". The peculiar knock which was his own, 1-23456-7, was not successfully echoed at that time. Mr. Wesley then returned to the nursery, which was as tapageuse as ever. The children, three, were trembling in their sleep. Mr. Wesley invited the agency to an interview in his study, was answered by one knock outside, "all the rest were within," and then came silence. Investigations outside produced no result, but the latch of the door would rise and fall, and the door itself was pushed violently back against investigators. "I have been with Hetty," says Emily, "when it has knocked under her, and when she has removed has followed her," and it knocked under little Kezzy, when "she stamped with her foot, pretending to scare Patty." Mr. Wesley had requested an interview in his study, especially as the Jacobite goblin routed loudly "over our heads constantly, when we came to the prayers for King George and the prince". In his study the agency pushed Mr. Wesley about, bumping him against the corner of his desk, and against his door. He would ask for a conversation, but heard only "two or three feeble squeaks, a little louder than the chirping of a bird, but not like the noise of rats, which I have often heard". Mr. Wesley had meant to leave home for a visit on Friday, 28th December, but the noises of the 27th were so loud that he stayed at home, inviting the Rev. Mr. Hoole, of Haxey, to view the performances. "The noises were very boisterous and disturbing this night." Mr. Hoole says (in 1726, confirmed by Mrs. Wesley, 12th January, 1717) that there were sounds of feet, trailing gowns, raps, and a noise as of planing boards: the disturbance finally went outside the house and died away. Mr. Wesley seems to have paid his visit on the 30th, and notes, "1st January, 1717. My family have had no disturbance since I went away." To judge by Mr. Wesley's letter to Sam, of 12th January, there was no trouble between the 29th of December and that date. On the 19th of January, and the 30th of the same month, Sam wrote, full of curiosity, to his father and mother. Mrs. Wesley replied (25th or 27th January), saying that no explanation could be discovered, but "it commonly was nearer Hetty than the rest". On 24th January, Sukey said "it is now pretty quiet, but still knocks at prayers for the king." On 11th February, Mr. Wesley, much bored by Sam's inquiries, says, "we are all now quiet. . . . It would make a glorious penny book for Jack Dunton," his brother-in-law, a publisher of popular literature, such as the Athenian Mercury. Emily (no date) explains the phenomena as the revenge for her father's recent sermons "against consulting those that are called cunning men, which our people are given to, and _it had a particular spite at my father_". The disturbances by no means ended in the beginning of January, nor at other dates when a brief cessation made the Wesleys hope that Jeffrey had returned to his own place. Thus on 27th March, Sukey writes to Sam, remarking that as Hetty and Emily are also writing "so particularly," she need not say much. "One thing I believe you do not know, that is, last Sunday, to my father's no small amazement, his trencher danced upon the table a pretty while, without anybody's stirring the table. . . . Send me some news for we are excluded from the sight or hearing of any versal thing, except Jeffery." The last mention of the affair, at this time, is in a letter from Emily, of 1st April, to a Mr. Berry. "Tell my brother the sprite was with us last night, and heard by many of our family." There are no other contemporary letters preserved, but we may note Mrs. Wesley's opinion (25th January) that it was "beyond the power of any human being to make such strange and various noises". The next evidence is ten years after date, the statements taken down by Jack Wesley in 1726 (1720?). Mrs. Wesley adds to her former account that she "earnestly desired it might not disturb her" (at her devotions) "between five and six in the evening," and it did not rout in her room at that time. Emily added that a screen was knocked at on each side as she went round to the other. Sukey mentioned the noise as, on one occasion, coming gradually from the garret stairs, outside the nursery door, up to Hetty's bed, "who trembled strongly in her sleep. It then removed to the room overhead, where it knocked my father's knock on the ground, as if it would beat the house down." Nancy said that the noise used to follow her, or precede her, and once a bed, on which she sat playing cards, was lifted up under her several times to a considerable height. Robin, the servant, gave evidence that he was greatly plagued with all manner of noises and movements of objects. John Wesley, in his account published many years after date in his Arminian Magazine, attributed the affair of 1716 to his father's broken vow of deserting his mother till she recognised the Prince of Orange as king! He adds that the mastiff "used to tremble and creep away before the noise began". Some other peculiarities may be noted. All persons did not always hear the noises. It was three weeks before Mr. Wesley heard anything. "John and Kitty Maw, who lived over against us, listened several nights in the time of the disturbance, but could never hear anything." Again, "The first time my mother ever heard any unusual noise at Epworth was long before the disturbance of old Jeffrey . . . the door and windows jarred very loud, and presently several distinct strokes, three by three, were struck. From that night it never failed to give notice in much the same manner, against any signal misfortune or illness of any belonging to the family," writes Jack. Once more, on 10th February, 1750, Emily (now Mrs. Harper) wrote to her brother John, "that wonderful thing called by us Jeffery, how certainly it calls on me against any extraordinary new affliction". This is practically all the story of Old Jeffrey. The explanations have been, trickery by servants (Priestley), contagious hallucinations (Coleridge), devilry (Southey), and trickery by Hetty Wesley (Dr. Salmon, of Trinity College, Dublin). Dr. Salmon points out that there is no evidence from Hetty; that she was a lively, humorous girl, and he conceives that she began to frighten the maids, and only reluctantly exhibited before her father against whom, however, Jeffrey developed "a particular spite". He adds that certain circumstances were peculiar to Hetty, which, in fact, is not the case. The present editor has examined Dr. Salmon's arguments in The Contemporary Review, and shown reason, in the evidence, for acquitting Hetty Wesley, who was never suspected by her family. Trickery from without, by "the cunning men," is an explanation which, at least, provides a motive, but how the thing could be managed from without remains a mystery. Sam Wesley, the friend of Pope, and Atterbury, and Lord Oxford, not unjustly said: "Wit, I fancy, might find many interpretations, but wisdom none". {220} As the Wesley tale is a very typical instance of a very large class, our study of it may exempt us from printing the well-known parallel case of "The Drummer of Tedworth". Briefly, the house of Mr. Mompesson, near Ludgarshal, in Wilts, was disturbed in the usual way, for at least two years, from April, 1661, to April, 1663, or later. The noises, and copious phenomena of moving objects apparently untouched, were attributed to the unholy powers of a wandering drummer, deprived by Mr. Mompesson of his drum. A grand jury presented the drummer for trial, on a charge of witchcraft, but the petty jury would not convict, there being a want of evidence to prove threats, malum minatum, by the drummer. In 1662 the Rev. Joseph Glanvil, F.R.S., visited the house, and, in the bedroom of Mr. Mompesson's little girls, the chief sufferers, heard and saw much the same phenomena as the elder Wesley describes in his own nursery. The "little modest girls" were aged about seven and eight. Charles II. sent some gentlemen to the house for one night, when nothing occurred, the disturbances being intermittent. Glanvil published his narrative at the time, and Mr. Pepys found it "not very convincing". Glanvil, in consequence of his book, was so vexed by correspondents "that I have been haunted almost as bad as Mr. Mompesson's house". A report that imposture had been discovered, and confessed by Mr. Mompesson, was set afloat, by John Webster, in a well-known work, and may still be found in modern books. Glanvil denied it till he was "quite tired," and Mompesson gave a formal denial in a letter dated Tedworth, 8th November, 1672. He also, with many others, swore to the facts on oath, in court, at the drummer's trial. {221} In the Tedworth case, as at Epworth, and in the curious Cideville case of 1851, a quarrel with "cunning men" preceded the disturbances. In Lord St. Vincent's case, which follows, nothing of the kind is reported. As an almost universal rule children, especially girls of about twelve, are centres of the trouble; in the St. Vincent story, the children alone were exempt from annoyance. LORD ST. VINCENT'S GHOST STORY Sir Walter Scott, writing about the disturbances in the house occupied by Mrs. Ricketts, sister of the great admiral, Lord St. Vincent, asks: "Who has seen Lord St. Vincent's letters?" He adds that the gallant admiral, after all, was a sailor, and implies that "what the sailor said" (if he said anything) "is not evidence". The fact of unaccountable disturbances which finally drove Mrs. Ricketts out of Hinton Ampner, is absolutely indisputable, though the cause of the annoyances may remain as mysterious as ever. The contemporary correspondence (including that of Lord St. Vincent, then Captain Jervis) exists, and has been edited by Mrs. Henley Jervis, grand-daughter of Mrs. Ricketts. {222} There is only the very vaguest evidence for hauntings at Lady Hillsborough's old house of Hinton Ampner, near Alresford, before Mr. Ricketts took it in January, 1765. He and his wife were then disturbed by footsteps, and sounds of doors opening and shutting. They put new locks on the doors lest the villagers had procured keys, but this proved of no avail. The servants talked of seeing appearances of a gentleman in drab and of a lady in silk, which Mrs. Ricketts disregarded. Her husband went to Jamaica in the autumn of 1769, and in 1771 she was so disturbed that her brother, Captain Jervis, a witness of the phenomena, insisted on her leaving the house in August. He and Mrs. Ricketts then wrote to Mr. Ricketts about the affair. In July, 1772, Mrs. Ricketts wrote a long and solemn description of her sufferings, to be given to her children. We shall slightly abridge her statement, in which she mentions that when she left Hinton she had not one of the servants who came thither in her family, which "evinces the impossibility of a confederacy". Her new, like her former servants, were satisfactory; Camis, her new coachman, was of a yeoman house of 400 years' standing. It will be observed that Mrs. Ricketts was a good deal annoyed even _before_ 2nd April, 1771, the day when she dates the beginning of the worst disturbances. She believed that the agency was human--a robber or a practical joker--and but slowly and reluctantly became convinced that the "exploded" notion of an abnormal force might be correct. We learn that while Captain Jervis was not informed of the sounds he never heard them, and whereas Mrs. Ricketts heard violent noises after he went to bed on the night of his vigil, he heard nothing. "Several instances occurred where very loud noises were heard by one or two persons, when those equally near and in the same direction were not sensible of the least impression." {223} With this preface, Mrs. Ricketts may be allowed to tell her own tale. "Sometime after Mr. Ricketts left me (autumn, 1769) I--then lying in the bedroom over the kitchen--heard frequently the noise of some one walking in the room within, and the rustling as of silk clothes against the door that opened into my room, sometimes so loud, and of such continuance as to break my rest. Instant search being often made, we never could discover any appearance of human or brute being. Repeatedly disturbed in the same manner, I made it my constant practice to search the room and closets within, and to secure the only door on the inside. . . . Yet this precaution did not preclude the disturbance, which continued with little interruption." Nobody, in short, could enter this room, except by passing through that of Mrs. Ricketts, the door of which "was always made fast by a drawn bolt". Yet somebody kept rustling and walking in the inner room, which somebody could never be found when sought for. In summer, 1770, Mrs. Ricketts heard someone walk to the foot of her bed in her own room, "the footsteps as distinct as ever I heard, myself perfectly awake and collected". Nobody could be discovered in the chamber. Mrs. Ricketts boldly clung to her room, and was only now and then disturbed by "sounds of harmony," and heavy thumps, down stairs. After this, and early in 1771, she was "frequently sensible of a hollow murmuring that seemed to possess the whole house: it was independent of wind, being equally heard on the calmest nights, and it was a sound I had never been accustomed to hear". On 27th February, 1771, a maid was alarmed by "groans and fluttering round her bed": she was "the sister of an eminent grocer in Alresford". On 2nd April, Mrs. Ricketts heard people walking in the lobby, hunted for burglars, traced the sounds to a room whence their was no outlet, and found nobody. This kind of thing went on till Mrs. Ricketts despaired of any natural explanation. After mid-summer, 1771, the trouble increased, in broad daylight, and a shrill female voice, answered by two male voices was added to the afflictions. Captain Jervis came on a visit, but was told of nothing, and never heard anything. After he went to Portsmouth, "the most deep, loud tremendous noise seemed to rush and fall with infinite velocity and force on the lobby floor adjoining my room," accompanied by a shrill and dreadful shriek, seeming to proceed from under the spot where the rushing noise fell, and repeated three or four times. Mrs. Ricketts' "resolution remained firm," but her health was impaired; she tried changing her room, without results. The disturbances pursued her. Her brother now returned. She told him nothing, and he heard nothing, but next day she unbosomed herself. Captain Jervis therefore sat up with Captain Luttrell and his own man. He was rewarded by noises which he in vain tried to pursue. "I should do great injustice to my sister" (he writes to Mr. Ricketts on 9th August, 1771), "if I did not acknowledge to have heard what I could not, after the most diligent search and serious reflection, any way account for." Captain Jervis during a whole week slept by day, and watched, armed, by night. Even by day he was disturbed by a sound as of immense weights falling from the ceiling to the floor of his room. He finally obliged his sister to leave the house. What occurred after Mrs. Ricketts abandoned Hinton is not very distinct. Apparently Captain Jervis's second stay of a week, when he did hear the noises, was from 1st August to 8th August. From a statement by Mrs. Ricketts it appears that, when her brother joined his ship, the Alarm (9th August), she retired to Dame Camis's house, that of her coachman's mother. Thence she went, and made another attempt to live at Hinton, but was "soon after assailed by a noise I never before heard, very near me, and the terror I felt not to be described". She therefore went to the Newbolts, and thence to the old Palace at Winton; later, on Mr. Ricketts' return, to the Parsonage, and then to Longwood (to the _old_ house there) near Alresford. Meanwhile, on 18th September, Lady Hillsborough's agent lay with armed men at Hinton, and, making no discovery, offered 50 pounds (increased by Mr. Ricketts to 100 pounds) for the apprehension of the persons who caused the noises. The reward was never claimed. On 8th March, 1772, Camis wrote: "I am very sorry that we cannot find out the reason of the noise"; at other dates he mentions sporadic noises heard by his mother and another woman, including "the murmur". A year after Mrs. Ricketts left a family named Lawrence took the house, and, according to old Lucy Camis, in 1818, Mr. Lawrence very properly threatened to dismiss any servant who spoke of the disturbances. The result of this sensible course was that the Lawrences left suddenly, at the end of the year--and the house was pulled down. Some old political papers of the Great Rebellion, and a monkey's skull, not exhibited to any anatomist, are said to have been discovered under the floor of the lobby, or of one of the rooms. Mrs. Ricketts adds sadly, "The unbelief of Chancellor Hoadley went nearest my heart," as he had previously a high opinion of her veracity. The Bishop of St. Asaph was incredulous, "on the ground that such means were unworthy of the Deity to employ". Probably a modern bishop would say that there were no noises at all, that every one who heard the sounds was under the influence of "suggestion," caused first in Mrs. Ricketts' own mind by vague tales of a gentleman in drab seen by the servants. The contagion, to be sure, also reached two distinguished captains in the navy, but not till one of them was told about disturbances which had not previously disturbed him. If this explanation be true, it casts an unusual light on the human imagination. Physical science has lately invented a new theory. Disturbances of this kind are perhaps "seismic,"--caused by earthquakes! (See Professor Milne, in The Times, 21st June, 1897.) CHAPTER XI A Question for Physicians. Professor William James's Opinion. Hysterical Disease? Little Hands. Domestic Arson. The Wem Case. "The Saucepan began it." The Nurse-maid. Boots Fly Off. Investigation. Emma's Partial Confession. Corroborative Evidence. Question of Disease Repeated. Chinese Cases. Haunted Mrs. Chang. Mr. Niu's Female Slave. The Great Amherst Mystery. Run as a Show. Failure. Later Miracles. The Fire-raiser Arrested. Parallels. A Highland Case. A Hero of the Forty-Five. Donald na Bocan. Donald's Hymn. Icelandic Cases. The Devil of Hjalta-stad. The Ghost at Garpsdal. MORE HAUNTED HOUSES A physician, as we have seen, got the better of the demon in Mrs. Shchapoff's case, at least while the lady was under his care. Really these disturbances appear to demand the attention of medical men. If the whole phenomena are caused by imposture, the actors, or actresses, display a wonderful similarity of symptoms and an alarming taste for fire-raising. Professor William James, the well-known psychologist, mentions ten cases whose resemblances "suggest a natural type," and we ask, is it a type of hysterical disease? {229} He chooses, among others, an instance in Dr. Nevius's book on Demon Possession in China, and there is another in Peru. He also mentions The Great Amherst Mystery, which we give, and the Rerrick case in Scotland (1696), related by Telfer, who prints, on his margins, the names of the attesting witnesses of each event, lairds, clergymen, and farmers. At Rerrick, as in Russia, the _little hand_ was seen by Telfer himself, and the fire-raising was endless. At Amherst too, as in a pair of recent Russian cases and others, there was plenty of fire-raising. By a lucky chance an English case occurred at Wem, in Shropshire, in November, 1883. It began at a farm called the Woods, some ten miles from Shrewsbury. First a saucepan full of eggs "jumped" off the fire in the kitchen, and the tea-things, leaping from the table, were broken. Cinders "were thrown out of the fire," and set some clothes in a blaze. A globe leaped off a lamp. A farmer, Mr. Lea, saw all the windows of the upper story "as it were on fire," but it was no such matter. The nurse-maid ran out in a fright, to a neighbour's, and her dress spontaneously combusted as she ran. The people attributed these and similar events, to something in the coal, or in the air, or to electricity. When the nurse-girl, Emma Davies, sat on the lap of the school mistress, Miss Maddox, her boots kept flying off, like the boot laces in The Daemon of Spraiton. All this was printed in the London papers, and, on 15th November, The Daily Telegraph and Daily News published Emma's confession that she wrought by sleight of hand and foot. On 17th November, Mr. Hughes went from Cambridge to investigate. For some reason investigation never begins till the fun is over. On the 9th the girl, now in a very nervous state (no wonder!) had been put under the care of a Dr. Mackey. This gentleman and Miss Turner said that things had occurred since Emma came, for which they could not account. On 13th November, however, Miss Turner, looking out of a window, spotted Emma throwing a brick, and pretending that the flight of the brick was automatic. Next day Emma confessed to her tricks, but steadfastly denied that she had cheated at Woods Farm, and Weston Lullingfield, where she had also been. Her evidence to this effect was so far confirmed by Mrs. Hampson of Woods Farm, and her servant, Priscilla Evans, when examined by Mr. Hughes. Both were "quite certain" that they saw crockery rise by itself into air off the kitchen table, when Emma was at a neighbouring farm, Mr. Lea's. Priscilla also saw crockery come out of a cupboard, in detachments, and fly between her and Emma, usually in a slanting direction, while Emma stood by with her arms folded. Yet Priscilla was not on good terms with Emma. Unless, then, Mrs. Hampson and Priscilla fabled, it is difficult to see how Emma could move objects when she was "standing at some considerable distance, standing, in fact, in quite another farm". Similar evidence was given and signed by Miss Maddox, the schoolmistress, and Mr. and Mrs. Lea. On the other hand Mrs. Hampson and Priscilla believed that Emma managed the fire-raising herself. The flames were "very high and white, and the articles were very little singed". This occurred also at Rerrick, in 1696, but Mr. Hughes attributes it to Emma's use of paraffin, which does not apply to the Rerrick case. Paraffin smells a good deal--nothing is said about a smell of paraffin. Only one thing is certain: Emma was at last caught in a cheat. This discredits her, but a man who cheats at cards _may_ hold a good hand by accident. In the same way, if such wonders can happen (as so much world-wide evidence declares), they _may_ have happened at Woods Farm, and Emma, "in a very nervous state," _may_ have feigned then, or rather did feign them later. The question for the medical faculty is: Does a decided taste for wilful fire-raising often accompany exhibitions of dancing furniture and crockery, gratuitously given by patients of hysterical temperament? This is quite a normal inquiry. Is there a nervous malady of which the symptoms are domestic arson, and amateur leger-de- main? The complaint, if it exists, is of very old standing and wide prevalence, including Russia, Scotland, New England, France, Iceland, Germany, China and Peru. As a proof of the identity of symptoms in this malady, we give a Chinese case. The Chinese, as to diabolical possession, are precisely of the same opinion as the inspired authors of the Gospels. People are "possessed," and, like the woman having a spirit of divination in the Acts of the Apostles, make a good thing out of it. Thus Mrs. Ku was approached by a native Christian. She became rigid and her demon, speaking through her, acknowledged the Catholic verity, and said that if Mrs. Ku were converted he would have to leave. On recovering her everyday consciousness, Mrs. Ku asked what Tsehwa, her demon, had said. The Christian told her, and perhaps she would have deserted her erroneous courses, but her fellow-villagers implored her to pay homage to the demon. They were in the habit of resorting to it for medical advice (as people do to Mrs. Piper's demon in the United States), so Mrs. Ku decided to remain in the business. {232} The parallel to the case in the Acts is interesting. HAUNTED MRS. CHANG Mr. Chang, of that ilk (Chang Chang Tien-ts), was a man of fifty- seven, and a graduate in letters. The ladies of his family having accommodated a demon with a shrine in his house, Mr. Chang said he "would have none of that nonsense". The spirit then entered into Mrs. Chang, and the usual fire-raising began all over the place. The furniture and crockery danced in the familiar way, and objects took to disappearing mysteriously, even when secured under lock and key. Mr. Chang was as unlucky as Mr. Chin. At _his_ house "doors would open of their own accord, footfalls were heard, as of persons walking in the house, although no one could be seen. Plates, bowls and the teapot would suddenly rise from the table into the air." {233a} Mrs. Chang now tried the off chance of there being something in Christianity, stayed with a native Christian (the narrator), and felt much better. She could enjoy her meals, and was quite a new woman. As her friend could not go home with her, Mrs. Fung, a native Christian, resided for a while at Mr. Chang's; "comparative quiet was restored," and Mrs. Fung retired to her family. The symptoms returned; the native Christian was sent for, and found Mr. Chang's establishment full of buckets of water for extinguishing the sudden fires. Mrs. Chang's daughter-in-law was now possessed, and "drank wine in large quantities, though ordinarily she would not touch it". She was staring and tossing her arms wildly; a service was held, and she soon became her usual self. In the afternoon, when the devils went out of the ladies, the fowls flew into a state of wild excitement, while the swine rushed furiously about and tried to climb a wall. The family have become Christians, the fires have ceased; Mr. Chang is an earnest inquirer, but opposed, for obvious reasons, to any public profession of our religion. {233b} In Mr. Niu's case "strange noises and rappings were frequently heard about the house. The buildings were also set on fire in different places in some mysterious way." The Christians tried to convert Mr. Niu, but as the devil now possessed his female slave, whose success in fortune-telling was extremely lucrative, Mr. Niu said that he preferred to leave well alone, and remained wedded to his idols. {234} We next offer a recent colonial case, in which the symptoms, as Mr. Pecksniff said, were "chronic". THE GREAT AMHERST MYSTERY On 13th February, 1888, Mr. Walter Hubbell, an actor by profession, "being duly sworn" before a Notary Public in New York, testified to the following story:-- In 1879 he was acting with a strolling company, and came to Amherst, in Nova Scotia. Here he heard of a haunted house, known to the local newspapers as "The Great Amherst Mystery". Having previously succeeded in exposing the frauds of spiritualism Mr. Hubbell determined to investigate the affair of Amherst. The haunted house was inhabited by Daniel Teed, the respected foreman in a large shoe factory. Under his roof were Mrs. Teed, "as good a woman as ever lived"; little Willie, a baby boy; and Mrs. Teed's two sisters, Jennie, a very pretty girl, and Esther, remarkable for large grey eyes, pretty little hands and feet, and candour of expression. A brother of Teed's and a brother of Mrs. Cox made up the family. They were well off, and lived comfortably in a detached cottage of two storys. It began when Jennie and Esther were in bed one night. Esther jumped up, saying that there was a mouse in the bed. Next night, a green band-box began to make a rustling noise, and then rose a foot in the air, several times. On the following night Esther felt unwell, and "was a swelling wisibly before the werry eyes" of her alarmed family. Reports like thunder peeled through her chamber, under a serene sky. Next day Esther could only eat "a small piece of bread and butter, and a large green pickle". She recovered slightly, in spite of the pickle, but, four nights later, all her and her sister's bed-clothes flew off, and settled down in a remote corner. At Jennie's screams, the family rushed in, and found Esther "fearfully swollen". Mrs. Teed replaced the bed-clothes, which flew off again, the pillow striking John Teed in the face. Mr. Teed then left the room, observing, in a somewhat unscientific spirit, that "he had had enough of it". The others, with a kindness which did them credit, sat on the edges of the bed, and repressed the desire of the sheets and blankets to fly away. The bed, however, sent forth peels like thunder, when Esther suddenly fell into a peaceful sleep. Next evening Dr. Carritte arrived, and the bolster flew at his head, _and then went back again under Esther's_. While paralysed by this phenomenon, unprecedented in his practice, the doctor heard a metal point scribbling on the wall. Examining the place whence the sound proceeded, he discovered this inscription:-- Esther Cox! You are mine to kill. Mr. Hubbell has verified the inscription, and often, later, recognised the hand, in writings which "came out of the air and fell at our feet". Bits of plaster now gyrated in the room, accompanied by peels of local thunder. The doctor admitted that his diagnosis was at fault. Next day he visited his patient when potatoes flew at him. He exhibited a powerful sedative, but pounding noises began on the roofs and were audible at a distance of 200 yards, as the doctor himself told Mr. Hubbell. The clergy now investigated the circumstances, which they attributed to electricity. "Even the most exclusive class" frequented Mr. Teed's house, till December, when Esther had an attack of diphtheria. On recovering she went on to visit friends in Sackville, New Brunswick, where nothing unusual occurred. On her return the phenomena broke forth afresh, and Esther heard a voice proclaim that the house would be set on fire. Lighted matches then fell from the ceiling, but the family extinguished them. The ghost then set a dress on fire, apparently as by spontaneous combustion, and this kind of thing continued. The heads of the local fire-brigade suspected Esther of these attempts at arson, and Dr. Nathan Tupper suggested that she should be flogged. So Mr. Teed removed Esther to the house of a Mr. White. In about a month "all," as Mrs. Nickleby's lover said, "was gas and gaiters". The furniture either flew about, or broke into flames. Worse, certain pieces of iron placed as an experiment on Esther's lap "became too hot to be handled with comfort," and then flew away. Mr. Hubbell himself now came on the scene, and, not detecting imposture, thought that "there was money in it". He determined to "run" Esther as a powerful attraction, he lecturing, and Esther sitting on the platform. It did not pay. The audience hurled things at Mr. Hubbell, and these were the only volatile objects. Mr. Hubbell therefore brought Esther back to her family at Amherst, where, in Esther's absence, his umbrella and a large carving knife flew at him with every appearance of malevolence. A great arm-chair next charged at him like a bull, and to say that Mr. Hubbell was awed "would indeed seem an inadequate expression of my feelings". The ghosts then thrice undressed little Willie in public, in derision of his tears and outcries. Fire-raising followed, and that would be a hard heart which could read the tale unmoved. Here it is, in the simple eloquence of Mr. Hubbell:-- "This was my first experience with Bob, the demon, as a fire-fiend; and I say, candidly, that until I had had that experience I never fully realised what an awful calamity it was to have an invisible monster, somewhere within the atmosphere, going from place to place about the house, gathering up old newspapers into a bundle and hiding it in the basket of soiled linen or in a closet, then go and steal matches out of the match-box in the kitchen or somebody's pocket, as he did out of mine, and after kindling a fire in the bundle, tell Esther that he had started a fire, but would not tell where; or perhaps not tell her at all, in which case the first intimation we would have was the smell of the smoke pouring through the house, and then the most intense excitement, everybody running with buckets of water. I say it was the most truly awful calamity that could possible befall any family, infidel or Christian, that could be conceived in the mind of man or ghost. "And how much more terrible did it seem in this little cottage, where all were strict members of church, prayed, sang hymns and read the Bible. Poor Mrs. Teed!" On Mr. Hubbell's remarking that the cat was not tormented, "she was instantly lifted from the floor to a height of five feet, and then dropped on Esther's back. . . . I never saw any cat more frightened; she ran out into the front yard, where she remained for the balance (rest) of the day." On 27th June "a trumpet was heard in the house all day". The Rev. R. A. Temple now prayed with Esther, and tried a little amateur exorcism, including the use of slips of paper, inscribed with Habakkuk ii. 3. The ghosts cared no more than Voltaire for ce coquin d'Habacuc. Things came to such a pass, matches simply raining all round, that Mr. Teed's landlord, a Mr. Bliss, evicted Esther. She went to a Mr. Van Amburgh's, and Mr. Teed's cottage was in peace. Some weeks later Esther was arrested for incendiarism in a barn, was sentenced to four months' imprisonment, but was soon released in deference to public opinion. She married, had a family; and ceased to be a mystery. This story is narrated with an amiable simplicity, and is backed, more or less, by extracts from Amherst and other local newspapers. On making inquiries, I found that opinion was divided. Some held that Esther was a mere impostor and fire-raiser; from other sources I obtained curious tales of the eccentric flight of objects in her neighbourhood. It is only certain that Esther's case is identical with Madame Shchapoff's, and experts in hysteria may tell us whether that malady ever takes the form of setting fire to the patient's wardrobe, and to things in general. {239a} After these modern cases of disturbances, we may look at a few old, or even ancient examples. It will be observed that the symptoms are always of the same type, whatever the date or country. The first is Gaelic, of last century. DONALD BAN AND THE BOCAN {239b} It is fully a hundred years ago since there died in Lochaber a man named Donald Ban, sometimes called "the son of Angus," but more frequently known as Donald Ban of the Bocan. This surname was derived from the troubles caused to him by a bocan--a goblin--many of whose doings are preserved in tradition. Donald drew his origin from the honourable house of Keppoch, and was the last of the hunters of Macvic-Ronald. His home was at Mounessee, and later at Inverlaire in Glenspean, and his wife belonged to the MacGregors of Rannoch. He went out with the Prince, and was present at the battle of Culloden. He fled from the field, and took refuge in a mountain shieling, having two guns with him, but only one of them was loaded. A company of soldiers came upon him there, and although Donald escaped by a back window, taking the empty gun with him by mistake, he was wounded in the leg by a shot from his pursuers. The soldiers took him then, and conveyed him to Inverness, where he was thrown into prison to await his trial. While he was in prison he had a dream; he saw himself sitting and drinking with Alastair MacCholla, and Donald MacRonald Vor. The latter was the man of whom it was said that he had two hearts; he was taken prisoner at Falkirk and executed at Carlisle. Donald was more fortunate than his friend, and was finally set free. It was after this that the bocan began to trouble him; and although Donald never revealed to any man the secret of who the bocan was (if indeed he knew it himself), yet there were some who professed to know that it was a "gillie" of Donald's who was killed at Culloden. Their reason for believing this was that on one occasion the man in question had given away more to a poor neighbour than Donald was pleased to spare. Donald found fault with him, and in the quarrel that followed the man said, "I will be avenged for this, alive or dead". It was on the hill that Donald first met with the bocan, but he soon came to closer quarters, and haunted the house in a most annoying fashion. He injured the members of the household, and destroyed all the food, being especially given to dirtying the butter (a thing quite superfluous, according to Captain Burt's description of Highland butter). On one occasion a certain Ronald of Aberardair was a guest in Donald's house, and Donald's wife said, "Though I put butter on the table for you tonight, it will just be dirtied". "I will go with you to the butter-keg," said Ronald, "with my dirk in my hand, and hold my bonnet over the keg, and he will not dirty it this night." So the two went together to fetch the butter, but it was dirtied just as usual. Things were worse during the night and they could get no sleep for the stones and clods that came flying about the house. "The bocan was throwing things out of the walls, and they would hear them rattling at the head of Donald's bed." The minister came (Mr. John Mor MacDougall was his name) and slept a night or two in the house, but the bocan kept away so long as he was there. Another visitor, Angus MacAlister Ban, whose grandson told the tale, had more experience of the bocan's reality. "Something seized his two big toes, and he could not get free any more than if he had been caught by the smith's tongs. It was the bocan, but he did nothing more to him." Some of the clergy, too, as well as laymen of every rank, were witnesses to the pranks which the spirit carried on, but not even Donald himself ever saw him in any shape whatever. So famous did the affair become that Donald was nearly ruined by entertaining all the curious strangers who came to see the facts for themselves. In the end Donald resolved to change his abode, to see whether he could in that way escape from the visitations. He took all his possessions with him except a harrow, which was left beside the wall of the house, but before the party had gone far on the road the harrow was seen coming after them. "Stop, stop," said Donald; "if the harrow is coming after us, we may just as well go back again." The mystery of the harrow is not explained, but Donald did return to his home, and made no further attempt to escape from his troubles in this way. If the bocan had a spite at Donald, he was still worse disposed towards his wife, the MacGregor woman. On the night on which he last made his presence felt, he went on the roof of the house and cried, "Are you asleep, Donald Ban?" "Not just now," said Donald. "Put out that long grey tether, the MacGregor wife," said he. "I don't think I'll do that tonight," said Donald. "Come out yourself, then," said the bocan, "and leave your bonnet." The good-wife, thinking that the bocan was outside and would not hear her, whispered in Donald's ear as he was rising, "Won't you ask him when the Prince will come?" The words, however, were hardly out of her mouth when the bocan answered her with, "Didn't you get enough of him before, you grey tether?" Another account says that at this last visit of the bocan, he was saying that various other spirits were along with him. Donald's wife said to her husband: "I should think that if they were along with him they would speak to us"; but the bocan answered, "They are no more able to speak than the sole of your foot". He then summoned Donald outside as above. "I will come," said Donald, "and thanks be to the Good Being that you have asked me." Donald was taking his dirk with him as he went out, but the bocan said, "leave your dirk inside, Donald, and your knife as well". Donald then went outside, and the bocan led him on through rivers and a birch-wood for about three miles, till they came to the river Fert. There the bocan pointed out to Donald a hole in which he had hidden some plough-irons while he was alive. Donald proceeded to take them out, and while doing so the two eyes of the bocan were causing him greater fear than anything else he ever heard or saw. When he had got the irons out of the hole, they went back to Mounessie together, and parted that night at the house of Donald Ban. Donald, whether naturally or by reason of his ghostly visitant, was a religious man, and commemorated his troubles in some verses which bear the name of "The Hymn of Donald Ban of the Bocan". In these he speaks of the common belief that he had done something to deserve all this annoyance, and makes mention of the "stones and clods" which flew about his house in the night time. Otherwise the hymn is mainly composed of religious sentiments, but its connection with the story makes it interesting, and the following is a literal translation of it. THE HYMN OF DONALD BAN O God that created me so helpless, Strengthen my belief and make it firm. Command an angel to come from Paradise, And take up his abode in my dwelling, To protect me from every trouble That wicked folks are putting in my way; Jesus, that did'st suffer Thy crucifixion, Restrain their doings, and be with me Thyself. Little wonder though I am thoughtful-- _Always at the time when I go to bed The stones and the clods will arise-- How could a saint get sleep there_? I am without peace or rest, Without repose or sleep till the morning; O Thou that art in the throne of grace, Behold my treatment and be a guard to me. Little wonder though I am troubled, So many stories about me in every place. Some that are unjust will be saying, "It is all owing to himself, that affair". Judge not except as you know, Though the Son of God were awaking you; No one knows if I have deserved more Than a rich man that is without care. Although I am in trouble at this time, Verily, I shall be doubly repaid; When the call comes to me from my Saviour, I shall receive mercy and new grace; I fear no more vexation, When I ascend to be with Thy saints; O Thou that sittest on the throne, Assist my speaking and accept my prayer. O God, make me mindful Night and day to be praying, Seeking pardon richly For what I have done, on my knees. Stir with the spirit of Truth True repentance in my bosom, That when Thou sendest death to seek me, Christ may take care of me. The bocan was not the only inhabitant of the spirit-world that Donald Ban encountered during his lifetime. A cousin of his mother was said to have been carried off by the fairies, and one night Donald saw him among them, dancing away with all his might. Donald was also out hunting in the year of the great snow, and at nightfall he saw a man mounted on the back of a deer ascending a great rock. He heard the man saying, "Home, Donald Ban," and fortunately he took the advice, for that night there fell eleven feet of snow in the very spot where he had intended to stay. We now take two modern Icelandic cases, for the purpose of leading up to the famous Icelandic legend of Grettir and Glam the Vampire, from the Grettis Saga. It is plain that such incidents as those in the two modern Icelandic cases (however the effects were produced) might easily be swollen into the prodigious tale of Glam in the course of two or three centuries, between Grettir's time and the complete formation of his Saga. THE DEVIL OF HJALTA-STAD {246} The sheriff writes: "The Devil at Hjalta-stad was outspoken enough this past winter, although no one saw him. I, along with others, had the dishonour to hear him talking for nearly two days, during which he addressed myself and the minister, Sir Grim, with words the like of which 'eye hath not seen nor ear heard'. As soon as we reached the front of the house there was heard in the door an iron voice saying: 'So Hans from Eyrar is come now, and wishes to talk with me, the --- idiot'. Compared with other names that he gave me this might be considered as flattering. When I inquired who it was that addressed me with such words, he answered in a fierce voice, 'I was called Lucifer at first, but now I am called Devil and Enemy'. He threw at us both stones and pieces of wood, as well as other things, and broke two windows in the minister's room. He spoke so close to us that he seemed to be just at our side. There was an old woman there of the name of Opia, whom he called his wife, and a 'heavenly blessed soul,' and asked Sir Grim to marry them, with various other remarks of this kind, which I will not recount. "I have little liking to write about his ongoings, which were all disgraceful and shameful, in accordance with the nature of the actor. He repeated the 'Pater Noster' three times, answered questions from the Catechism and the Bible, said that the devils held service in hell, and told what texts and psalms they had for various occasions. He asked us to give him some of the food we had, and a drink of tea, etc. I asked the fellow whether God was good. He said, 'Yes'. Whether he was truthful. He answered, 'Not one of his words can be doubted'. Sir Grim asked him whether the devil was good-looking. He answered: 'He is far better-looking than you, you --- ugly snout!' I asked him whether the devils agreed well with each other. He answered in a kind of sobbing voice: 'It is painful to know that they never have peace'. I bade him say something to me in German, and said to him Lass uns Teusc redre (sic), but he answered as if he had misunderstood me. "When we went to bed in the evening he shouted fiercely in the middle of the floor, 'On this night I shall snatch you off to hell, and you shall not rise up out of bed as you lay down'. During the evening he wished the minister's wife good-night. The minister and I continued to talk with him during the night; among other things we asked him what kind of weather it was outside. He answered: 'It is cold, with a north wind'. We asked if he was cold. He answered: 'I think I am both hot and cold'. I asked him how loud he could shout. He said, 'So loud that the roof would go off the house, and you would all fall into a dead faint'. I told him to try it. He answered: 'Do you think I am come to amuse you, you --- idiot?' I asked him to show us a little specimen. He said he would do so, and gave three shouts, the last of which was so fearful that I have never heard anything worse, and doubt whether I ever shall. Towards daybreak, after he had parted from us with the usual compliments, we fell asleep. "Next morning he came in again, and began to waken up people; he named each one by name, not forgetting to add some nickname, and asking whether so-and-so was awake. When he saw they were all awake, he said he was going to play with the door now, and with that he threw the door off its hinges with a sudden jerk, and sent it far in upon the floor. The strangest thing was that when he threw anything it went down at once, and then went back to its place again, so it was evident that he either went inside it or moved about with it. "The previous evening he challenged me twice to come out into the darkness to him, and this in an angry voice, saying that he would tear me limb from limb. I went out and told him to come on, but nothing happened. When I went back to my place and asked him why he had not fulfilled his promise, he said, 'I had no orders for it from my master'. He asked us whether we had ever heard the like before, and when we said 'Yes,' he answered, 'That is not true: the like has never been heard at any time'. He had sung 'The memory of Jesus' after I arrived there, and talked frequently while the word of God was being read. He said that he did not mind this, but that he did not like the 'Cross-school Psalms,' and said it must have been a great idiot who composed them. This enemy came like a devil, departed as such, and behaved himself as such while he was present, nor would it befit any one but the devil to declare all that he said. At the same time it must be added that I am not quite convinced that it was a spirit, but my opinions on this I cannot give here for lack of time." In another work {249} where the sheriff's letter is given with some variations and additions, an attempt is made to explain the story. The phenomena were said to have been caused by a young man who had learned ventriloquism abroad. Even if this art could have been practised so successfully as to puzzle the sheriff and others, it could hardly have taken the door off its hinges and thrown it into the room. It is curious that while Jon Espolin in his Annals entirely discredits the sheriff's letter, he yet gives a very similar account of the spirit's proceedings. A later story of the same kind, also printed by Jon Arnason (i., 311), is that of the ghost at Garpsdal as related by the minister there, Sir Saemund, and written down by another minister on 7th June, 1808. The narrative is as follows:-- THE GHOST AT GARPSDAL In Autumn, 1807, there was a disturbance by night in the outer room at Garpsdal, the door being smashed. There slept in this room the minister's men-servants, Thorsteinn Gudmundsson, Magnus Jonsson, and a child named Thorstein. Later, on 16th November, a boat which the minister had lying at the sea-side was broken in broad daylight, and although the blows were heard at the homestead yet no human form was visible that could have done this. All the folks at Garpsdal were at home, and the young fellow Magnus Jonsson was engaged either at the sheep-houses or about the homestead; the spirit often appeared to him in the likeness of a woman. On the 18th of the same month four doors of the sheep-houses were broken in broad daylight, while the minister was marrying a couple in the church; most of his people were present in the church, Magnus being among them. That same day in the evening this woman was noticed in the sheep-houses; she said that she wished to get a ewe to roast, but as soon as an old woman who lived at Garpsdal and was both skilled and wise (Gudrun Jons-dottir by name) had handled the ewe, its struggles ceased and it recovered again. While Gudrun was handling the ewe, Magnus was standing in the door of the house; with that one of the rafters was broken, and the pieces were thrown in his face. He said that the woman went away just then. The minister's horses were close by, and at that moment became so scared that they ran straight over smooth ice as though it had been earth, and suffered no harm. On the evening of the 20th there were great disturbances, panelling and doors being broken down in various rooms. The minister was standing in the house door along with Magnus and two or three girls when Magnus said to him that the spirit had gone into the sitting- room. The minister went and stood at the door of the room, and after he had been there a little while, talking to the others, a pane of glass in one of the room windows was broken. Magnus was standing beside the minister talking to him, and when the pane broke he said that the spirit had gone out by that. The minister went to the window, and saw that the pane was all broken into little pieces. The following evening, the 21st, the spirit also made its presence known by bangings, thumpings, and loud noises. On the 28th the ongoings of the spirit surpassed themselves. In the evening a great blow was given on the roof of the sitting-room. The minister was inside at the time, but Magnus with two girls was out in the barn. At the same moment the partition between the weaving-shop and the sitting-room was broken down, and then three windows of the room itself--one above the minister's bed, another above his writing- table, and the third in front of the closet door. A piece of a table was thrown in at one of these, and a spade at another. At this the household ran out of that room into the loft, but the minister sprang downstairs and out; the old woman Gudrun who was named before went with him, and there also came Magnus and some of the others. Just then a vessel of wash, which had been standing in the kitchen, was thrown at Gudrun's head. The minister then ran in, along with Magnus and the girls, and now everything that was loose was flying about, both doors and splinters of wood. The minister opened a room near the outer door intending to go in there, but just then a sledge hammer which lay at the door was thrown at him, but it only touched him on the side and hip, and did him no harm. From there the minister and the others went back to the sitting-room, where everything was dancing about, and where they were met with a perfect volley of splinters of deal from the partitions. The minister then fled, and took his wife and child to Muli, the next farm, and left them there, as she was frightened to death with all this. He himself returned next day. On the 8th of December, the woman again made her appearance in broad daylight. On this occasion she broke the shelves and panelling in the pantry, in presence of the minister, Magnus, and others. According to Magnus, the spirit then went out through the wall at the minister's words, and made its way to the byre-lane. Magnus and Gudrun went after it, but were received with throwings of mud and dirt. A stone was also hurled at Magnus, as large as any man could lift, while Gudrun received a blow on the arm that confined her to her bed for three weeks. On the 26th of the month the shepherd, Einar Jonsson, a hardy and resolute fellow, commanded the spirit to show itself to him. Thereupon there came over him such a madness and frenzy, that he had to be closely guarded to prevent him from doing harm to himself. He was taken to the house, and kept in his bed, a watch being held over him. When he recovered his wits, he said that this girl had come above his head and assailed him. When he had completely got over this, he went away from Garpsdal altogether. Later than this the minister's horse was found dead in the stable at Muli, and the folks there said that it was all black and swollen. These are the most remarkable doings of the ghost at Garpsdal, according to the evidence of Sir Saemund, Magnus, Gudrun, and all the household at Garpsdal, all of whom will confirm their witness with an oath, and aver that no human being could have been so invisible there by day and night, but rather that it was some kind of spirit that did the mischief. From the story itself it may be seen that neither Magnus nor any other person could have accomplished the like, and all the folk will confirm this, and clear all persons in the matter, so far as they know. In this form the story was told to me, the subscriber, to Samuel Egilsson and Bjarni Oddsson, by the minister himself and his household, at Garpsdal, 28th May, 1808. That this is correctly set down, after what the minister Sir Saemund related to me, I witness here at Stad on Reykjanes, 7th June, 1808. GISLI OLAFSSON * * * * * Notwithstanding this declaration, the troubles at Garpsdal were attributed by others to Magnus, and the name of the "Garpsdale Ghost" stuck to him throughout his life. He was alive in 1862, when Jon Arnason's volume was published. These modern instances lead up to "the best story in the world," the old Icelandic tale of Glam. CHAPTER XII The Story of Glam. The Foul Fords. THE STORY OF GLAM There was a man named Thorhall, who lived at Thorhall-stead in Forsaela-dala, which lies in the north of Iceland. He was a fairly wealthy man, especially in cattle, so that no one round about had so much live-stock as he had. He was not a chief, however, but an honest and worthy yeoman. "Now this man's place was greatly haunted, so that he could scarcely get a shepherd to stay with him, and although he asked the opinion of many as to what he ought to do, he could find none to give him advice of any worth. "One summer at the Althing, or yearly assembly of the people, Thorhall went to the booth of Skafti, the law man, who was the wisest of men and gave good counsel when his opinion was asked. He received Thorhall in a friendly way, because he knew he was a man of means, and asked him what news he had. "'I would have some good advice from you,' said Thorhall. '"I am little able to give that,' said Skafti; 'but what is the matter?' "'This is the way of it,' said Thorhall, 'I have had very bad luck with my shepherds of late. Some of them get injured, and others will not serve out their time; and now no one that knows how the case stands will take the place at all.' "'Then there must be some evil spirit there,' said Skafti, 'when men are less willing to herd your sheep, than those of others. Now since you have asked my advice, I will get a shepherd for you. Glam is his name, he belongs to Sweden, and came out here last summer. He is big and strong, but not very well liked by most people.' "Thorhall said that he did not mind that, if he looked well after the sheep. Skafti answered that there was no hope of other men doing it, if Glam could not, seeing he was so strong and stout-hearted. Their talk ended there, and Thorhall left the booth. "This took place just at the breaking up of the assembly. Thorhall missed two of his horses, and went to look for them in person, from which it may be seen that he was no proud man. He went up to the mountain ridge, and south along the fell that is called Armann's fell. There he saw a man coming down from the wood, leading a horse laden with bundles of brushwood. They soon met each other and Thorhall asked his name. He said he was called Glam. He was tall of body, and of strange appearance; his eyes were blue and staring, and his hair wolf-grey in colour. Thorhall was a little startled when he saw him, and was certain that this was the man he had been told about. "'What work are you best fitted for?' he asked. Glam said that he was good at keeping sheep in winter. "'Will you look after _my_ sheep?' said Thorhall. 'Skafti has put you into my hands.' "'On this condition only will I take service with you,' said Glam, 'that I have my own free will, for I am ill-tempered if anything does not please me.' "'That will not harm me,' said Thorhall, 'and I should like you to come to me.' "'I will do so,' said Glam; 'but is there any trouble at your place?' "'It is believed to be haunted,' said Thorhall. "'I am not afraid of such bug-bears,' said Glam, 'and think that it will be all the livelier for that.' "'You will need all your boldness,' said Thorhall, 'It is best not to be too frightened for one's self there.' "After this they made a bargain between them, and Glam was to come when the winter nights began. Then they parted, and Thorhall found his horses where he had just newly looked for them, and rode home, after thanking Skafti for his kindness. "The summer passed, and Thorhall heard nothing of the shepherd, nor did any one know the least about him, but at the time appointed he came to Thorhall-stead. The yeoman received him well, but the others did not like him, and the good-wife least of all. He began his work among the sheep which gave him little trouble, for he had a loud, hoarse voice, and the flock all ran together whenever he shouted. There was a church at Thorhall-stead, but Glam would never go to it nor join in the service. He was unbelieving, surly, and difficult to deal with, and ever one felt a dislike towards him. "So time went on till it came to Christmas eve. On that morning Glam rose early and called for his food. The good-wife answered: 'It is not the custom of Christian people to eat on this day, for to-morrow is the first day of Christmas, and we ought to fast to-day'. Glam replied: 'You have many foolish fashions that I see no good in. I cannot see that men are any better off now than they were when they never troubled themselves about such things. I think it was a far better life when men were heathens; and now I want my food, and no nonsense.' The good-wife answered: 'I am sure you will come to sorrow to-day if you act thus perversely'. "Glam bade her bring his food at once, or it would be the worse for her. She was afraid to refuse, and after he had eaten he went out in a great rage. "The weather was very bad. It was dark and gloomy all round; snowflakes fluttered about; loud noises were heard in the air, and it grew worse and worse as the day wore on. They heard the shepherd's voice during the forenoon, but less of him as the day passed. Then the snow began to drift, and by evening there was a violent storm. People came to the service in church, and the day wore on to evening, but still Glam did not come home. There was some talk among them of going to look for him, but no search was made on account of the storm and the darkness. "All Christmas eve Glam did not return, and in the morning men went to look for him. They found the sheep scattered in the fens, beaten down by the storm, or up on the hills. Thereafter they came to a place in the valley where the snow was all trampled, as if there had been a terrible struggle there, for stones and frozen earth were torn up all round about. They looked carefully round the place, and found Glam lying a short distance off, quite dead. He was black in colour, and swollen up as big as an ox. They were horrified at the sight, and shuddered in their hearts. However, they tried to carry him to the church, but could get him no further than to the edge of a cleft, a little lower down; so they left him there and went home and told their master what had happened. "Thorhall asked them what had been the cause of Glam's death. They said that they had traced footprints as large as though the bottom of a cask had been set down in the snow leading from where the trampled place was up to the cliffs at the head of the valley, and all along the track there were huge blood-stains. From this they guessed that the evil spirit which lived there must have killed Glam, but had received so much hurt that it had died, for nothing was ever seen of it after. "The second day of Christmas they tried again to bring Glam to the church. They yoked horses to him, but after they had come down the slope and reached level ground they could drag him no further, and he had to be left there. "On the third day a priest went with them, but Glam was not be found, although they searched for him all day. The priest refused to go a second time, and the shepherd was found at once when the priest was not present. So they gave over their attempts to take him to the church, and buried him on the spot. "Soon after this they became aware that Glam was not lying quiet, and great damage was done by him, for many that saw him fell into a swoon, or lost their reason. Immediately after Yule men believed that they saw him about the farm itself, and grew terribly frightened, so that many of them ran away. After this Glam began to ride on the house-top by night, {259} and nearly shook it to pieces, and then he walked about almost night and day. Men hardly dared to go up into the valley, even although they had urgent business there, and every one in the district thought great harm of the matter. "In spring, Thorhall got new men, and started the farm again, while Glam's walkings began to grow less frequent as the days grew longer. So time went on, until it was mid-summer. That summer a ship from Norway came into Huna-water (a firth to the north of Thorhall-stead), and had on board a man called Thorgaut. He was foreign by birth, big of body, and as strong as any two men. He was unhired and unmarried, and was looking for some employment, as he was penniless. Thorhall rode to the ship, and found Thorgaut there. He asked him whether he would enter his service. Thorgaut answered that he might well do so, and that he did not care much what work he did. "'You must know, however,' said Thorhall, 'that it is not good for any faint-hearted man to live at my place, on account of the hauntings that have been of late, and I do not wish to deceive you in any way.' "'I do not think myself utterly lost although I see some wretched ghosts,' said Thorgaut. 'It will be no light matter for others if _I_ am scared, and I will not throw up the place on that account.' "Their bargain was quickly made, and Thorgaut was to have charge of the sheep during the winter. The summer went past, and Thorgaut began his duties with the winter nights, and was well liked by every one. Glam began to come again, and rode on the house-top, which Thorgaut thought great sport, and said that the thrall would have to come to close quarters before he would be afraid of him. Thorhall bade him not say too much about it. 'It will be better for you,' said he, 'if you have no trial of each other.' "'Your courage has indeed been shaken out of you,' said Thorgaut, 'but I am not going to fall dead for such talk.' "The winter went on till Christmas came again, and on Christmas eve the shepherd went out to his sheep. 'I trust,' said the good-wife, 'that things will not go after the old fashion.' "'Have no fear of that, good-wife,' said Thorgaut; 'there will be something worth talking about if I don't come back.' "The weather was very cold, and a heavy drift blowing. Thorgaut was in the habit of coming home when it was half-dark, but on this occasion he did not return at his usual time. People came to church, and they now began to think that things were not unlikely to fall out as they had done before. Thorhall wished to make search for the shepherd, but the church-goers refused, saying that they would not risk themselves in the hands of evil demons by night, and so no search was made. "After their morning meal on Christmas day they went out to look for the shepherd. They first made their way to Glam's cairn, guessing that he was the cause of the man's disappearance. On coming near to this they saw great tidings, for there they found the shepherd with his neck broken and every bone in his body smashed in pieces. They carried him to the church, and he did no harm to any man thereafter. But Glam began to gather strength anew, and now went so far in his mischief that every one fled from Thorhall-stead, except the yeoman and his wife. "The same cattleman, however, had been there for a long time, and Thorhall would not let him leave, because he was so faithful and so careful. He was very old, and did not want to go away either, for he saw that everything his master had would go to wreck and ruin, if there was no one to look after it. "One morning after the middle of winter the good-wife went out to the byre to milk the cows. It was broad daylight by this time, for no one ventured to be outside earlier than that, except the cattleman, who always went out when it began to grow clear. She heard a great noise and fearful bellowing in the byre, and ran into the house again, crying out and saying that some awful thing was going on there. Thorhall went out to the cattle and found them goring each other with their horns. To get out of their way, he went through into the barn, and in doing this he saw the cattleman lying on his back with his head in one stall and his feet in another. He went up to him and felt him and soon found that he was dead, with his back broken over the upright stone between two of the stalls. "The yeoman thought it high time to leave the place now, and fled from his farm with all that he could remove. All the live-stock that he left behind was killed by Glam, who then went through the whole glen and laid waste all the farms up from Tongue. "Thorhall spent the rest of the winter with various friends. No one could go up into the glen with horse or dog, for these were killed at once; but when spring came again and the days began to lengthen, Glam's walkings grew less frequent, and Thorhall determined to return to his homestead. He had difficulty in getting servants, but managed to set up his home again at Thorhall-stead. Things went just as before. When autumn came, the hauntings began again, and now it was the yeoman's daughter who was most assailed, till in the end she died of fright. Many plans were tried, but all to no effect, and it seemed as if all Water-dale would be laid waste unless some remedy could be found. "All this befell in the days of Grettir, the son of Asmund, who was the strongest man of his day in Iceland. He had been abroad at this time, outlawed for three years, and was only eighteen years of age when he returned. He had been at home all through the autumn, but when the winter nights were well advanced, he rode north to Water- dale, and came to Tongue, where lived his uncle Jokull. His uncle received him heartily, and he stayed there for three nights. At this time there was so much talk about Glam's walkings, that nothing was so largely spoken of as these. Grettir inquired closely about all that had happened, and Jokull said that the stories told no more than had indeed taken place; 'but are you intending to go there, kinsman?' said he. Grettir answered that he was. Jokull bade him not do so, 'for it is a dangerous undertaking, and a great risk for your friends to lose you, for in our opinion there is not another like you among the young men, and "ill will come of ill" where Glam is. Far better it is to deal with mortal men than with such evil spirits.' "Grettir, however, said that he had a mind to fare to Thorhall-stead, and see how things had been going on there. Jokull replied: 'I see now that it is of no use to hold you back, but the saying is true that "good luck and good heart are not the same'". Grettir answered: '"Woe stands at one man's door when it has entered another's house". Think how it may go with yourself before the end.' "'It may be,' said Jokull, 'that both of us see some way into the future, and yet neither of us can do anything to prevent it.' "After this they parted, and neither liked the other's forebodings. "Grettir rode to Thorhall-stead, and the yeoman received him heartily. He asked Grettir where he was going, who said that he wished to stay there all night if he would allow him. Thorhall said that he would be very glad if he would stay, 'but few men count it a gain to be guests here for long. You must have heard how matters stand, and I shall be very unwilling for you to come to any harm on my account. And even although you yourself escape safe and sound, I know for certain that you will lose your horse, for no man that comes here can keep that uninjured.' "Grettir answered that there were horses enough to be got, whatever might happen to this one. Thorhall was delighted that he was willing to stay, and gave him the heartiest reception. The horse was strongly secured in an out-house; then they went to sleep, and that night passed without Glam appearing. "'Your coming here,' said Thorhall, 'has made a happy change, for Glam is in the habit of riding the house every night, or breaking up the doors, as you may see for yourself.' "'Then one of two things will happen,' said Grettir; 'either he will not restrain himself for long, or the hauntings will cease for more than one night. I shall stay for another night, and see how things go.' "After this they went to look at Grettir's horse, and found that he had not been meddled with, so the yeoman thought that everything was going on well, Grettir stayed another night, and still the thrall did not come about them. Thorhall thought that things were looking brighter, but when he went to look to Grettir's horse he found the out-house broken up, the horse dragged outside, and every bone in it broken. He told Grettir what had happened, and advised him to secure his own safety, 'for your death is certain if you wait for Glam'. "Grettir answered: 'The least I can get for my horse is to see the thrall'. Thorhall replied that it would do him no good to see him, 'for he is unlike anything in human shape; but I am fain of every hour that you are willing to stay here'. "The day wore on, and when it was bed-time Grettir would not take off his clothes, but lay down on the floor over against Thorhall's bed- closet. He put a thick cloak above himself, buttoning one end beneath his feet, and doubling the other under his head, while he looked out at the hole for the neck. There was a strong plank in front of the floored space, and against this he pressed his feet. The door- fittings were all broken off from the outer door, but there was a hurdle set up instead, and roughly secured. The wainscot that had once stretched across the hall was all broken down, both above and below the cross-beam. The beds were all pulled out of their places, and everything was in confusion. "A light was left burning in the hall, and when the third part of the night was past Grettir heard loud noises outside. Then something went up on top of the house, and rode above the hall, beating the roof with its heels till every beam cracked. This went on for a long time; then it came down off the house and went to the door. When this was opened Grettir saw the thrall thrust in his head; ghastly big he seemed, and wonderfully huge of feature. Glam came in slowly, and raised himself up when he was inside the doorway, till he loomed up against the roof. Then he turned his face down the hall, laid his arms on the cross- beam, and glared all over the place. Thorhall gave no sign during all this, for he thought it bad enough to hear what was going on outside. "Grettir lay still and never moved. Glam saw that there was a bundle lying on the floor, and moved further up the hall and grasped the cloak firmly. Grettir placed his feet against the plank, and yielded not the least. Glam tugged a second time, much harder than before, but still the cloak did not move. A third time he pulled with both his hands, so hard that he raised Grettir up from the floor, and now they wrenched the cloak asunder between them. Glam stood staring at the piece which he held in his hands, and wondering greatly who could have pulled so hard against him. At that moment Grettir sprang in under the monster's hands, and threw his arms around his waist, intending to make him fall backwards. Glam, however, bore down upon him so strongly that Grettir was forced to give way before him. He then tried to stay himself against the seat-boards, but these gave way with him, and everything that came in their path was broken. "Glam wanted to get him outside, and although Grettir set his feet against everything that he could, yet Glam succeeded in dragging him out into the porch. There they had a fierce struggle, for the thrall meant to have him out of doors, while Grettir saw that bad as it was to deal with Glam inside the house it would be worse outside, and therefore strove with all his might against being carried out. When they came into the porch Glam put forth all his strength, and pulled Grettir close to him. When Grettir saw that he could not stay himself he suddenly changed his plan, and threw himself as hard as he could against the monster's breast, setting both his feet against an earth- fast stone that lay in the doorway. Glam was not prepared for this, being then in the act of pulling Grettir towards him, so he fell backwards and went crashing out through the door, his shoulders catching the lintel as he fell. The roof of the porch was wrenched in two, both rafters and frozen thatch, and backwards out of the house went Glam, with Grettir above him. "Outside there was bright moonshine and broken clouds, which sometimes drifted over the moon and sometimes left it clear. At the moment when Glam fell the cloud passed off the moon, and he cast up his eyes sharply towards it; and Grettir himself said that this was the only sight he ever saw that terrified him. Then Grettir grew so helpless, both by reason of his weariness and at seeing Glam roll his eyes so horribly, that he was unable to draw his dagger, and lay well-nigh between life and death. "But in this was Glam's might more fiendish than that of most other ghosts, that he spoke in this fashion: 'Great eagerness have you shown to meet me, Grettir, and little wonder will it be though you get no great good fortune from me; but this I may tell you, that you have now received only half of the strength and vigour that was destined for you if you had not met with me. I cannot now take from you the strength you have already gained, but this I can see to, that you will never be stronger than you are now, and yet you are strong enough, as many a man shall feel. Hitherto you have been famous for your deeds, but henceforth you shall be a manslayer and an outlaw, and most of your deeds will turn to your own hurt and misfortune. Outlawed you shall be, and ever have a solitary life for your lot; and this, too, I lay upon you, ever to see these eyes of mine before your own, and then you will think it hard to be alone, and that will bring you to your death.' "When Glam had said this the faintness passed off Grettir, and he then drew his dagger, cut off Glam's head, and laid it beside his thigh. Thorhall then came out, having put on his clothes while Glam was talking, but never venturing to come near until he had fallen. He praised God, and thanked Grettir for overcoming the unclean spirit. Then they set to work, and burned Glam to ashes, which they placed in a sack, and buried where cattle were least likely to pasture or men to tread. When this was done they went home again, and it was now near daybreak. "Thorhall sent to the next farm for the men there, and told them what had taken place. All thought highly of the exploit that heard of it, and it was the common talk that in all Iceland there was no man like Grettir Asnundarson for strength and courage and all kinds of bodily feats. Thorhall gave him a good horse when he went away, as well as a fine suit of clothes, for the ones he had been wearing were all torn to pieces. The two then parted with the utmost friendship. "Thence Grettir rode to the Ridge in Water-dale, where his kinsman Thorvald received him heartily, and asked closely concerning his encounter with Glam. Grettir told him how he had fared, and said that his strength was never put to harder proof, so long did the struggle between them last. Thorvald bade him be quiet and gentle in his conduct, and things would go well with him, otherwise his troubles would be many. Grettir answered that his temper was not improved; he was more easily roused than ever, and less able to bear opposition. In this, too, he felt a great change, that he had become so much afraid of the dark that he dared not go anywhere alone after night began to fall, for then he saw phantoms and monsters of every kind. So it has become a saying ever since then, when folk see things very different from what they are, that Glam lends them his eyes, or gives them glam-sight. "This fear of solitude brought Grettir, at last, to his end." Ghosts being seldom dangerous to human life, we follow up the homicidal Glam with a Scottish traditional story of malevolent and murderous sprites. 'THE FOUL FORDS' OR THE LONGFORMACUS FARRIER "About 1820 there lived a Farrier of the name of Keane in the village of Longformacus in Lammermoor. He was a rough, passionate man, much addicted to swearing. For many years he was farrier to the Eagle or Spottiswood troop of Yeomanry. One day he went to Greenlaw to attend the funeral of his sister, intending to be home early in the afternoon. His wife and family were surprised when he did not appear as they expected and they sat up watching for him. About two o'clock in the morning a heavy weight was heard to fall against the door of the house, and on opening it to see what was the matter, old Keane was discovered lying in a fainting fit on the threshold. He was put to bed and means used for his recovery, but when he came out of the fit he was raving mad and talked of such frightful things that his family were quite terrified. He continued till next day in the same state, but at length his senses returned and he desired to see the minister alone. "After a long conversation with him he called all his family round his bed, and required from each of his children and his wife a solemn promise that they would none of them ever pass over a particular spot in the moor between Longformacus and Greenlaw, known by the name of 'The Foul Fords' (it is the ford over a little water-course just east of Castle Shields). He assigned no reason to them for this demand, but the promise was given and he spoke no more, and died that evening. "About ten years after his death, his eldest son Henry Keane had to go to Greenlaw on business, and in the afternoon he prepared to return home. The last person who saw him as he was leaving the town was the blacksmith of Spottiswood, John Michie. He tried to persuade Michie to accompany him home, which he refused to do as it would take him several miles out of his way. Keane begged him most earnestly to go with him as he said he _must_ pass the Foul Fords that night, and he would rather go through hell-fire than do so. Michie asked him why he said he _must_ pass the Foul Fords, as by going a few yards on either side of them he might avoid them entirely. He persisted that he _must_ pass them and Michie at last left him, a good deal surprised that he should talk of going over the Foul Fords when every one knew that he and his whole family were bound, by a promise to their dead father, never to go by the place. "Next morning a labouring man from Castle Shields, by name Adam Redpath, was going to his work (digging sheep-drains on the moor), when on the Foul Fords he met Henry Keane lying stone dead and with no mark of violence on his body. His hat, coat, waistcoat, shoes and stockings were lying at about 100 yards distance from him on the Greenlaw side of the Fords, and while his flannel drawers were off and lying with the rest of his clothes, his trousers were on. Mr. Ord, the minister of Longformacus, told one or two persons what John Keane (the father) had said to him on his deathbed, and by degrees the story got abroad. It was this. Keane said that he was returning home slowly after his sister's funeral, looking on the ground, when he was suddenly roused by hearing the tramping of horses, and on looking up he saw a large troop of riders coming towards him two and two. What was his horror when he saw that one of the two foremost was the sister whom he had that day seen buried at Greenlaw! On looking further he saw many relations and friends long before dead; but when the two last horses came up to him he saw that one was mounted by a dark man whose face he had never seen before. He led the other horse, which, though saddled and bridled, was riderless, and on this horse the whole company wanted to compel Keane to get. He struggled violently, he said, for some time, and at last got off by promising that one of his family should go instead of him. "There still lives at Longformacus his remaining son Robert; he has the same horror of the Foul Fords that his brother had, and will not speak, nor allow any one to speak to him on the subject. "Three or four years ago a herd of the name of Burton was found dead within a short distance of the spot, without any apparent cause for his death." {272} CHAPTER XIII The Marvels at Froda The following tale has all the direct simplicity and truth to human nature which mark the ancient literature of Iceland. Defoe might have envied the profusion of detail; "The large chest with a lock, and the small box," and so on. Some of the minor portents, such as the disturbances among inanimate objects, and the appearance of a glow of mysterious light, "the Fate Moon," recur in modern tales of haunted houses. The combination of Christian exorcism, then a novelty in Iceland, with legal proceedings against the ghosts, is especially characteristic. THE MARVELS AT FRODA {273} During that summer in which Christianity was adopted by law in Iceland (1000 A.D.), it happened that a ship came to land at Snowfell Ness. It was a Dublin vessel, manned by Irish and Hebrideans, with few Norsemen on board. They lay there for a long time during the summer, waiting for a favourable wind to sail into the firth, and many people from the Ness went down to trade with them. There was on board a Hebridean woman named Thorgunna, of whom her shipmates said that she owned some costly things, the like of which would be difficult to find in Iceland. When Thurid, the housewife at Froda, heard of this she was very curious to see the articles, for she was a woman that was fond of show and finery. She went to the ship and asked Thorgunna whether she had any woman's apparel that was finer than the common. Thorgunna said that she had nothing of the kind to sell, but had some good things of her own, that she might not be affronted at feasts or other gatherings. Thurid begged a sight of these, and Thorgunna showed her treasures. Thurid was much pleased with them, and thought them very becoming, though not of high value. She offered to buy them, but Thorgunna would not sell. Thurid then invited her to come and stay with her, because she knew that Thorgunna was well provided, and thought that she would get the things from her in course of time. Thorgunna answered, "I am well pleased to go to stay with you, but you must know that I have little mind to pay for myself, because I am well able to work, and have no dislike to it, though I will not do any dirty work. I must be allowed to settle what I shall pay for myself out of such property as I have." Although Thorgunna spoke in this fashion, yet Thurid would have her to go with her, and her things were taken out of the ship; these were in a large chest with a lock and a small box, and both were taken home to Froda. When Thorgunna arrived there she asked for her bed to be shown her, and was given one in the inner part of the hall. Then she opened up the chest, and took bed-clothes out of it: they were all very beautiful, and over the bed she spread English coverlets and a silken quilt. Out of the chest she also brought a bed-curtain and all the hangings that belonged to it, and the whole outfit was so fine that folk thought they had never seen the like of it. Then said Thurid the housewife: "Name the price of all your bed- clothes and hangings". Thorgunna answered, "I will not lie among straw for you, although you are so stately, and bear yourself so proudly". Thurid was ill pleased at this, and offered no more to buy the things. Thorgunna worked at cloth-making every day when there was no hay- making, but when the weather was dry she worked among the dry hay in the home field, and had a rake made for herself which she alone was to use. Thorgunna was a big woman, both broad and tall, and very stout; she had dark eyebrows, and her eyes were close set; her hair brown and in great abundance. She was well-mannered in her daily life, and went to church every day before beginning her work, but she was not of a light disposition nor of many words. Most people thought that Thorgunna must be in the sixties, yet she was a very active woman. At this time one Thorir "wooden-leg" and his wife Thorgrima "charm- cheek" were being maintained at Froda, and there was little love between them and Thorgunna. The person that she had most ado with was Kjartan, the son of the house; him she loved much, but he was rather cold towards her, and this often vexed her. Kjartan was then fifteen years old, and was both big of body and manly in appearance. The summer that year was very wet, but in the autumn there came dry days. By this time the hay-work at Froda was so far advanced that all the home field was mown, and nearly the half of it was quite dry. There came then a fine dry day, clear and bright, with not a cloud to be seen in all the sky. Thorodd, the yeoman, rose early in the morning and arranged the work of each one; some began to cart off the hay, and some to put it into stalks, while the women were set to toss and dry it. Thorgunna also had her share assigned to her, and the work went on well during the day. When it drew near to three in the afternoon, a mass of dark clouds was seen rising in the north which came rapidly across the sky and took its course right above the farm. They thought it certain that there was rain in the cloud and Thorodd bade his people rake the hay together; but Thorgunna continued to scatter hers, in spite of the orders that were given. The clouds came on quickly, and when they were above the homestead at Froda there came such darkness with them that the people could see nothing beyond the home field; indeed, they could scarcely distinguish their own hands. Out of the cloud came so much rain that all the hay which was lying flat was quite soaked. When the cloud had passed over and the sky cleared again, it was seen that blood had fallen amid the rain. In the evening there was a good draught, and the blood soon dried off all the hay except that which Thorgunna had been working at; it did not dry, nor did the rake that she had been using. Thurid asked Thorgunna what she supposed this marvel might portend. She said that she did not know, "but it seems to me most likely that it is an evil omen for some person who is present here". In the evening Thorgunna went home and took off her clothes, which had been stained with the blood; then she lay down in her bed and breathed heavily, and it was found that she was taken with sickness. The shower had not fallen anywhere else than at Froda. All that evening Thorgunna would taste no food. In the morning Thorodd came to her and asked about her sickness, and what end she thought it would have. She answered that she did not expect to have any more illnesses. Then she said: "I consider you the wisest person in the homestead here, and so I shall tell you what arrangements I wish to make about the property that I leave behind me, and about myself, for things will go as I tell you, though you think there is nothing very remarkable about me. It will do you little good to depart from my instructions, for this affair has so begun that it will not pass smoothly off, unless strong measures are taken in dealing with it." Thorodd answered: "There seems to me great likelihood that your forebodings will come true; and therefore," said he, "I shall promise to you not to depart from your instructions". "These are my arrangements," said Thorgunna, "that I will have myself taken to Skalholt if I die of this sickness, for my mind forbodes me that that place will some time or other be the most glorious spot in this land. I know also that by now there are priests there to sing the funeral service over me. So I ask you to have me carried thither, and for that you shall take so much of my property that you suffer no loss in the matter. Of my other effects, Thurid shall have the scarlet cloak that I own, and I give it her so that she may readily consent to my disposing of all the rest as I please. I have a gold ring, and it shall go to the church with me; but as for my bed and bed-hangings, I will have them burned with fire, because they will be of service to no one. I do not say this because I grudge that any one should possess these treasures, if I knew that they would be of use to them; rather am I so earnest in the matter, because I should be sorry for folk to fall into such trouble for me, as I know will be the case if my words are not heeded." Thorodd promised to do as she asked him, and after this Thorgunna's sickness increased, so that she lay but few days before she died. The body was first taken to the church, and Thorodd had a coffin made for it. On the following day Thorodd had all the bed-clothes carried out into the open air, and made a pile of wood beside them. Then Thurid the housewife came up, and asked what he was going to do with the bed- clothes. He answered that he was to burn them with fire, as Thorgunna had directed him. "I will not have such treasures burned," said Thurid. Thorodd answered: "She declared strongly that it would not do to depart from what she said". "That was mere jealousy," said Thurid; "she grudged any other person the use of them, and that was why she gave these orders; but nothing terrible will happen though her words are set aside." "I doubt," said he, "whether it will be well to do otherwise than as she charged me." Then Thurid laid her arms round his neck, and besought him not to burn the furnishings of the bed, and so much did she press him in this that his heart gave way to her, and she managed it so that Thorodd burned the mattresses and pillows, while she took for herself the quilt and coverlets and all the hangings. Yet neither of them was well pleased. After this the funeral was made ready; trustworthy men were sent with the body, and good horses which Thorodd owned. The body was wrapped in linen, but not sewed up in it, and then laid in the coffin. After this they held south over the heath as the paths go, and went on until they came to a farm called Lower Ness, which lies in the Tongues of Staf-holt. There they asked leave to stay over night, but the farmer would give them no hospitality. However, as it was close on nightfall, they did not see how they could go on, for they thought it would be dangerous to deal with the White River by night. They therefore unloaded their horses, and carried the body into an out- house, after which they went into the sitting-room and took off their outer clothes, intending to stay there over night without food. The people of the house were going to bed by daylight, and after they were in bed a great noise was heard in the kitchen. Some went to see whether thieves had not broken in, and when they reached the kitchen they saw there a tall woman. She was quite naked, with no clothes whatever upon her, and was busy preparing food. Those who saw her were so terrified that they dared not go near her at all. When the funeral party heard of this they went thither, and saw what the matter was--Thorgunna had come there, and it seemed advisable to them all not to meddle with her. When she had done all that she wanted, she brought the food into the room, set the tables and laid the food upon them. Then the funeral party said to the farmer: "It may happen in the end, before we part, that you will think it dearly bought that you would show us no hospitality". Both the farmer and the housewife answered: "We will willingly give you food, and do you all other services that you require". As soon as the farmer had offered them this, Thorgunna passed out of the room into the kitchen, and then went outside, nor did she show herself again. Then a light was kindled in the room, and the wet clothes of the guests were taken off, and dry ones given them in their place. After this they sat down at table, and blessed their food, while the farmer had holy water sprinkled over all the house. The guests ate their food, and it harmed no man, although Thorgunna had prepared it. They slept there that night, and were treated with great hospitality. In the morning they continued their journey, and things went very smoothly with them; wherever this affair was heard of, most people thought it best to do them all the service that they required, and of their journey no more is to be told. When they came to Skalholt, they handed over the precious things which Thorgunna had sent thither: the ring and other articles, all of which the priests gladly received. Thorgunna was buried there, while the funeral party returned home, which they all reached in safety. At Froda there was a large hall with a fireplace in the midde, and a bed-closet at the inner end of it, as was then the custom. At the outer end were two store-closets, one on each side; dried fish were piled in one of these, and there was meal in the other. In this hall fires were kindled every evening, as was the custom, and folk sat round these fires for a long while before they went to supper. On that evening on which the funeral party came home, while the folk at Froda were sitting round the fires, they saw a half-moon appear on the panelling of the hall, and it was visible to all those who were present. It went round the room backwards and against the sun's course, nor did it disappear so long as they sat by the fires. Thorodd asked Thorir Wooden-leg what this might portend. "It is the Moon of Fate," said Thorir, "and deaths will come after it." This went on all that week that the Fate-Moon came in every evening. The next tidings that happened at Froda were that the shepherd came in and was very silent; he spoke little, and that in a frenzied manner. Folk were most inclined to believe that he had been bewitched, because he went about by himself, and talked to himself. This went on for some time, but one evening, when two weeks of winter had passed, the shepherd came home, went to his bed, and lay down there. When they went to him in the morning he was dead, and was buried at the church. Soon after this there began great hauntings. One night Thorir Wooden- leg went outside and was at some distance from the door. When he was about to go in again, he saw that the shepherd had come between him and the door. Thorir tried to get in, but the shepherd would not allow him. Then Thorir tried to get away from him, but the shepherd followed him, caught hold of him, and threw him down at the door. He received great hurt from this, but was able to reach his bed; there he turned black as coal, took sickness and died. He was also buried at the church there, and after this both the shepherd and Thorir were seen in company, at which all the folk became full of fear, as was to be expected. This also followed upon the burial of Thorir, that one of Thorodd's men grew ill, and lay three nights before he died; then one died after another, until six of them were gone. By this time the Christmas fast had come, although the fast was not then kept in Iceland. The store- closet, in which the dried fish were kept, was packed so full that the door could not be opened; the pile reached nigh up to the rafters, and a ladder was required to get the fish off the top of it. One evening while the folk were sitting round the fires, the fish were torn, but when search was made no living thing could be found there. During the winter, a little before Christmas, Thorodd went out to Ness for the fish he had there; there were six men in all in a ten-oared boat, and they stayed out there all night. The same evening that Thorodd went from home, it happened at Froda, when folk went to sit by the fires that had been made, that they saw a seal's head rise up out of the fireplace. A maid-servant was the first who came forward and saw this marvel; she took a washing-bat which lay beside the door, and struck the seal's head with this, but it rose up at the blow and gazed at Thorgunna's bed-hangings. Then one of the men went up and beat the seal, but it rose higher at every blow until it had come up above the fins; then the man fell into a swoon, and all those who were present were filled with fear. Then the lad Kjartan sprang forward, took up a large iron sledge-hammer and struck at the seal's head; it was a heavy blow, but it only shook its head, and looked round. Then Kjartan gave it stroke after stroke, and the seal went down as though he were driving in a stake. Kjartan hammered away till the seal went down so far that he beat the floor close again above its head, and during the rest of the winter all the portents were most afraid of Kjartan. Next morning, while Thorodd and the others were coming in from Ness with the fish, they were all lost out from Enni; the boat and the fish drove on shore there, but the bodies were never found. When the news of this reached Froda, Kjartan and Thurid invited their neighbours to the funeral banquet, and the ale prepared for Christmas was used for this purpose. The first evening of the feast, however, after the folk had taken their seats, there came into the hall Thorodd and his companions, all dripping wet. The folk greeted Thorodd well, thinking this a good omen, for at that time it was firmly believed that drowned men, who came to their own funeral feast, were well received by Ran, the sea-goddess; and the old beliefs had as yet suffered little, though folk were baptised and called Christians. Thorodd and his fellows went right along the hall where the folk sat, and passed into the one where the fires were, answering no man's greeting. Those of the household who were in the hall ran out, and Thorodd and his men sat down beside the fires, where they remained till they had fallen into ashes; then they went away again. This befel every evening while the banquet lasted, and there was much talk about it among those who were present. Some thought that it would stop when the feast was ended. When the banquet was over the guests went home, leaving the place very dull and dismal. On the evening after they had gone, the fires were kindled as usual, and after they had burned up, there came in Thorodd with his company, all of them wet. They sat down by the fire and began to wring their clothes; and after they had sat down there came in Thorir Wooden-leg and his five companions, all covered with earth. They shook their clothes and scattered the earth on Thorodd and his fellows. The folk of the household rushed out of the hall, as might be expected, and all that evening they had no light nor any warmth from the fire. Next evening the fires were made in the other hall, as the dead men would be less likely to come there; but this was not so, for everything happened just as it had done on the previous evening, and both parties came to sit by the fires. On the third evening Kjartan advised that a large fire should be made in the hall, and a little fire in another and smaller room. This was done, and things then went on in this fashion, that Thorodd and the others sat beside the big fire, while the household contented themselves with the little one, and this lasted right through Christmas-tide. By this time there was more and more noise in the pile of fish, and the sound of them being torn was heard both by night and day. Some time after this it was necessary to take down some of the fish, and the man who went up on the pile saw this strange thing, that up out of the pile there came a tail, in appearance like a singed ox-tail. It was black and covered with hair like a seal. The man laid hold of it and pulled, and called on the others to come and help him. Others then got up on the heap, both men and women, and pulled at the tail, but all to no purpose. It seemed to them that the tail was dead, but while they tugged at it, it flew out of their hands taking the skin off the palms of those who had been holding it hardest, and no more was ever seen of the tail. The fish were then taken up and every one was found to be torn out of the skin, yet no living thing was to be found in the pile. Following upon this, Thorgrima Charm-cheek, the wife of Thorir Wooden- leg, fell ill, and lay only a little while before she died, and the same evening that she was buried she was seen in company with her husband Thorir. The sickness then began a second time after the tail had been seen, and now the women died more than the men. Another six persons died in this attack, and some fled away on account of the ghosts and the hauntings. In the autumn there had been thirty in the household, of whom eighteen were dead, and five had run away, leaving only seven behind in the spring. When these marvels had reached this pitch, it happened one day that Kjartan went to Helga-fell to see his uncle Snorri, and asked his advice as to what should be done. There had then come to Helga-fell a priest whom Gizurr the white had sent to Snorri, and this priest Snorri sent to Froda along with Kjartan, his son Thord, and six other men. He also gave them this advice, that they should burn all Thorgunna's bed-hangings and hold a law court at the door, and there prosecute all those men who were walking after death. He also bade the priest hold service there, consecrate water, and confess the people. They summoned men from the nearest farms to accompany them, and arrived at Froda on the evening before Candlemas, just at the time when the fires were being kindled. Thurid the housewife had then taken the sickness after the same fashion as those who had died. Kjartan went in at once, and saw that Thorodd and the others were sitting by the fire as usual. He took down Thorgunna's bed-hangings, went into the hall, and carried out a live coal from the fire: then all the bed-gear that Thorgunna had owned was burned. After this Kjartan summoned Thorir Wooden-leg, and Thord summoned Thorodd, on the charge of going about the homestead without leave, and depriving men of both health and life; all those who sat beside the fire were summoned in the same way. Then a court was held at the door, in which the charges were declared, and everything done as in a regular law court; opinions were given, the case summed up, and judgment passed. After sentence had been pronounced on Thorir Wooden- leg, he rose up and said: "Now we have sat as long as we can bear". After this he went out by the other door from that at which the court was held. Then sentence was passed on the shepherd, and when he heard it he stood up and said: "Now I shall go, and I think it would have been better before". When Thorgrima heard sentence pronounced on her, she rose up and said: "Now we have stayed while it could be borne". Then one after another was summoned, and each stood up as judgment was given upon him; all of them said something as they went out, and showed that they were loath to part. Finally sentence was passed on Thorodd himself, and when he heard it, he rose and said: "Little peace I find here, and let us all flee now," and went out after that. Then Kjartan and the others entered and the priest carried holy water and sacred relics over all the house. Later on in the day he held solemn service, and after this all the hauntings and ghost-walkings at Froda ceased, while Thurid recovered from her sickness and became well again. CHAPTER XIV Spiritualistic Floating Hands. Hands in Haunted Houses. Jerome Cardan's Tale. "The Cold Hand." The Beach-comber's Tale. "The Black Dogs and the Thumbless Hand." The Pakeha Maori and "The Leprous Hand". "The Hand of the Ghost that Bit." HANDS ALL ROUND Nothing was more common, in the seances of Home, the "Medium," than the appearance of "Spirit hands". If these were made of white kid gloves, stuffed, the idea, at least, was borrowed from ghost stories, in which ghostly hands, with no visible bodies, are not unusual. We see them in the Shchapoff case, at Rerrick, and in other haunted houses. Here are some tales of Hands, old or new. THE COLD HAND [Jerome Cardan, the famous physician, tells the following anecdote in his De Rerum Varietate, lib. x., 93. Jerome only once heard a rapping himself, at the time of the death of a friend at a distance. He was in a terrible fright, and dared not leave his room all day.] A story which my father used often to tell: "I was brought up," he said, "in the house of Joannes Resta, and therein taught Latin to his three sons; when I left them I supported myself on my own means. It chanced that one of these lads, while I was studying medicine, fell deadly sick, he being now a young man grown, and I was called in to be with the youth, partly for my knowledge of medicine, partly for old friendship's sake. The master of the house happened to be absent; the patient slept in an upper chamber, one of his brothers and I in a lower room, the third brother, Isidore, was not at home. Each of the rooms was next to a turret; turrets being common in that city. When we went to bed on the first night of my visit, I heard a constant knocking on the wall of the room. "'What is that?' I said. "'Don't be afraid, it is only a familiar spirit,' said my companion. 'They call them follets; it is harmless enough, and seldom so troublesome as it is now: I don't know what can be the matter with it.' "The young fellow went to sleep, but I was kept awake for a while, wondering and observing. After half an hour of stillness I felt a thumb press on my head, and a sense of cold. I kept watching; the forefinger, the middle finger, and the rest of the hand were next laid on, the little finger nearly reaching my forehead. The hand was like that of a boy of ten, to guess by the size, and so cold that it was extremely unpleasant. Meantime I was chuckling over my luck in such an opportunity of witnessing a wonder, and I listened eagerly. "The hand stole with the ring finger foremost over my face and down my nose, it was slipping into my mouth, and two finger-tips had entered, when I threw it off with my right hand, thinking it was uncanny, and not relishing it inside my body. Silence followed and I lay awake, distrusting the spectre more or less. In about half an hour it returned and repeated its former conduct, touching me very lightly, yet very chilly. When it reached my mouth I again drove it away. Though my lips were tightly closed, I felt an extreme icy cold in my teeth. I now got out of bed, thinking this might be a friendly visit from the ghost of the sick lad upstairs, who must have died. "As I went to the door, the thing passed before me, rapping on the walls. When I was got to the door it knocked outside; when I opened the door, it began to knock on the turret. The moon was shining; I went on to see what would happen, but it beat on the other sides of the tower, and, as it always evaded me, I went up to see how my patient was. He was alive, but very weak. "As I was speaking to those who stood about his bed, we heard a noise as if the house was falling. In rushed my bedfellow, the brother of the sick lad, half dead with terror. "'When you got up,' he said, 'I felt a cold hand on my back. I thought it was you who wanted to waken me and take me to see my brother, so I pretended to be asleep and lay quiet, supposing that you would go alone when you found me so sound asleep. But when I did not feel you get up, and the cold hand grew to be more than I could bear, I hit out to push your hand away, and felt your place empty--but warm. Then I remembered the follet, and ran upstairs as hard as I could put my feet to the ground: never was I in such a fright!' "The sick lad died on the following night." Here Carden the elder stopped, and Jerome, his son, philosophised on the subject. Miss Dendy, on the authority of Mr. Elijah Cope, an itinerant preacher, gives this anecdote of similar familiarity with a follet in Staffordshire. * * * * * "Fairies! I went into a farmhouse to stay a night, and in the evening there came a knocking in the room as if some one had struck the table. I jumped up. My hostess got up and 'Good-night,' says she, 'I'm off'. 'But what was it?' says I. 'Just a poor old fairy,' says she; 'Old Nancy. She's a poor old thing; been here ever so long; lost her husband and her children; it's bad to be left like that, all alone. I leave a bit o' cake on the table for her, and sometimes she fetches it, and sometimes she don't." THE BLACK DOG AND THE THUMBLESS HAND [Some years ago I published in a volume of tales called The Wrong Paradise, a paper styled "My Friend the Beach-comber". This contained genuine adventures of a kinsman, my oldest and most intimate friend, who has passed much of his life in the Pacific, mainly in a foreign colony, and in the wild New Hebrides. My friend is a man of education, an artist, and a student of anthropology and ethnology. Engaged on a work of scientific research, he has not committed any of his innumerable adventures, warlike or wandering, to print. The following "yarn" he sent to me lately, in a letter on some points of native customs. Of course the description of the Beach-comber, in the book referred to, is purely fictitious. The yarn of "The Thumbless Hand" is here cast in a dialogue, but the whole of the strange experience described is given in the words of the narrator. It should be added that, though my friend was present at some amateur seances, in a remote isle of the sea, he is not a spiritualist, never was one, and has no theory to account for what occurred, and no belief in "spooks" of any description. His faith is plighted to the theories of Mr. Darwin, and that is his only superstition. The name of the principal character in the yarn is, of course, fictitious. The real name is an old but not a noble one in England.] "Have the natives the custom of walking through fire?" said my friend the Beach-comber, in answer to a question of mine. "Not that I know of. In fact the soles of their feet are so thick-skinned that they would think nothing of it." "Then have they any spiritualistic games, like the Burmans and Maories? I have a lot of yarns about them." "They are too jolly well frightened of bush spirits to invite them to tea," said the Beach-comber. "I knew a fellow who got a bit of land merely by whistling up and down in it at nightfall. {292} They think spirits whistle. No, I don't fancy they go in for seances. But we once had some, we white men, in one of the islands. Not the Oui-ouis" (native name for the French), "real white men. And that led to Bolter's row with me." "What about?" "Oh, about his young woman. I told her the story; it was thoughtless, and yet I don't know that I was wrong. After all, Bolter could not have been a comfortable fellow to marry." In this opinion readers of the Beach-comber's narrative will probably agree, I fancy. "Bad moral character?" "Not that I know of. Queer fish; kept queer company. Even if she was ever so fond of dogs, I don't think a girl would have cared for Bolter's kennel. Not in her bedroom anyway." "But she could surely have got him to keep them outside, however doggy he was?" "He was not doggy a bit. I don't know that Bolter ever saw the black dogs himself. He certainly never told me so. It is that beastly Thumbless Hand, no woman could have stood it, not to mention the chance of catching cold when it pulled the blankets off." "What on earth are you talking about? I can understand a man attended by black dogs that nobody sees but himself. The Catholics tell it of John Knox, and of another Reformer, a fellow called Smeaton. Moreover, it is common in delirium tremens. But you say Bolter didn't see the dogs?" "No, not so far as he told me, but I did, and other fellows, when with Bolter. Bolter was asleep; he didn't see anything. Also the Hand, which was a good deal worse. I don't know if he ever saw it. But he was jolly nervous, and he had heard of it." The habits of the Beach-comber are absolutely temperate, otherwise my astonishment would have been less, and I should have regarded all these phenomena as subjective. "Tell me about it all, old cock," I said. "I'm sure I told you last time I was at home." "Never; my memory for yarns is only too good. I hate a chestnut." "Well, here goes! Mind you I don't profess to explain the thing; only I don't think I did wrong in telling the young woman, for, however you account for it, it was not nice." "A good many years ago there came to the island, as a clerk, un nomme Bolter, English or Jew." "His name is not Jewish." "No, and I really don't know about his breed. The most curious thing about his appearance was his eyes: they were large, black, and had a peculiar dull dead lustre." "Did they shine in the dark? I knew a fellow at Oxford whose eyes did. Chairs ran after him." "I never noticed; I don't remember. 'Psychically,' as you superstitious muffs call it, Bolter was still more queer. At that time we were all gone on spirit-rapping. Bolter turned out a great acquisition, 'medium,' or what not. Mind you, I'm not saying Bolter was straight. In the dark he'd tell you what you had in your hand, exact time of your watch, and so on. I didn't take stock in this, and one night brought some photographs with me, and asked for a description of them. This he gave correctly, winding up by saying, 'The one nearest your body is that of ---'" Here my friend named a person well known to both of us, whose name I prefer not to introduce here. This person, I may add, had never been in or near the island, and was totally unknown to Bolter. "Of course," my friend went on, "the photographs were all the time inside my pocket. Now, really, Bolter had some mystic power of seeing in the dark." "Hyperaesthesia!" said I. "Hypercriticism!" said the Beach-comber. "What happened next _might_ be hyperaesthesia--I suppose you mean abnormal intensity of the senses--but how could hyperaesthesia see through a tweed coat and lining?" "Well, what happened next?" "Bolter's firm used to get sheep by every mail from ---, and send them regularly to their station, six miles off. One time they landed late in the afternoon, and yet were foolishly sent off, Bolter in charge. I said at the time he would lose half the lot, as it would be dark long before he could reach the station. He didn't lose them! "Next day I met one of the niggers who was sent to lend him a hand, and asked results. "'Master,' said the nigger, 'Bolter is a devil! He sees at night. When the sheep ran away to right or left in the dark, he told us where to follow.'" "He _heard_ them, I suppose," said I. "Maybe, but you must be sharp to have sharper senses than these niggers. Anyhow, that was not Bolter's account of it. When I saw him and spoke to him he said simply, 'Yes, that when excited or interested to seek or find anything in obscurity the object became covered with a dim glow of light, which rendered it visible'. 'But things in a pocket.' 'That also,' said he. 'Curious isn't it? Probably the Rontgen rays are implicated therein, eh?'" "Did you ever read Dr. Gregory's Letters on Animal Magnetism?" "The cove that invented Gregory's Mixture?" "Yes." "Beast he must have been. No, I never read him." "He says that Major Buckley's hypnotised subjects saw hidden objects in a blue light--mottoes inside a nut, for example." "Rontgen rays, for a fiver! But Bolter said nothing about seeing _blue_ light. Well, after three or four seances Bolter used to be very nervous and unwilling to sleep alone, so I once went with him to his one-roomed hut. We turned into the same bed. I was awakened later by a noise and movement in the room. Found the door open; the full moon streaming in, making light like day, and the place full of great big black dogs--well, anyhow there were four or five! They were romping about, seemingly playing. One jumped on the bed, another rubbed his muzzle on mine! (the bed was low, and I slept outside). Now I never had anything but love for dogs of any kind, and as--n'est- ce pas?--love casts out fear, I simply got up, turned them all out, shut the door, and turned in again myself. Of course my idea was that they were flesh and blood, and I allude to physical fear. "I slept, but was anew awakened by a ghastly feeling that the blanket was being dragged and creeping off the bed. I pulled it up again, but anew began the slow movement of descent. "Rather surprised, I pulled it up afresh and held it, and must have dozed off, as I suppose. Awoke, to feel it being pulled again; it was slipping, slipping, and then with a sudden, violent jerk it was thrown on the floor. Il faut dire that during all this I had glanced several times at Bolter, who seemed profoundly asleep. But now alarmed I tried to wake him. In vain, he slept like the dead; his face, always a pasty white, now like marble in the moonlight. After some hesitation I put the blanket back on the bed and held it fast. The pulling at once began and increased in strength, and I, by this time thoroughly alarmed, put all my strength against it, and hung on like grim death. "To get a better hold I had taken a turn over my head (or perhaps simply to hide), when suddenly I felt a pressure outside on my body, and a movement like fingers--they gradually approached my head. Mad with fear I chucked off the blanket, grasped a Hand, gazed on it for one moment in silent horror, and threw it away! No wonder, it was attached to no arm or body, it was hairy and dark coloured, the fingers were short, blunt, with long, claw-like nails, and it was minus a thumb! Too frightened to get up I had to stop in bed, and, I suppose, fell to sleep again, after fresh vain attempts to awaken Bolter. Next morning I told him about it. He said several men who had thus passed the night with him had seen this hand. 'But,' added he, 'it's lucky you didn't have the big black dogs also.' Tableau! "I was to have slept again with him next night to look further into the matter, but a friend of his came from --- that day, so I could not renew the experiment, as I had fully determined to do. By-the-bye, I was troubled for months after by the same feeling that the clothes were being pulled off the bed. "And that's the yarn of the Black Dogs and the Thumbless Hand." "I think," said I, "that you did no harm in telling Bolter's young woman." "I never thought of it when I told her, or of her interest in the kennel; but, by George, she soon broke off her engagement." "Did you know Manning, the Pakeha Maori, the fellow who wrote Old New Zealand?" "No, what about him?" "He did not put it in his book, but he told the same yarn, without the dogs, as having happened to himself. He saw the whole arm, and _the hand was leprous_." "Ugh!" said the Beach-comber. "Next morning he was obliged to view the body of an old Maori, who had been murdered in his garden the night before. That old man's hand was the hand he saw. I know a room in an old house in England where plucking off the bed-clothes goes on, every now and then, and has gone on as long as the present occupants have been there. But I only heard lately, and _they_ only heard from me, that the same thing used to occur, in the same room and no other, in the last generation, when another family lived there." "Anybody see anything?" "No, only footsteps are heard creeping up, before the twitches come off." "And what do the people do?" "Nothing! We set a camera once to photograph the spook. He did not sit." "It's rum!" said the Beach-comber. "But mind you, as to spooks, I don't believe a word of it." {299} THE GHOST THAT BIT The idiot Scotch laird in the story would not let the dentist put his fingers into his mouth, "for I'm feared ye'll bite me". The following anecdote proves that a ghost may entertain a better founded alarm on this score. A correspondent of Notes and Queries (3rd Sept., 1864) is responsible for the narrative, given "almost verbatim from the lips of the lady herself," a person of tried veracity. "Emma S---, one of seven children, was sleeping alone, with her face towards the west, at a large house near C---, in the Staffordshire moorlands. As she had given orders to her maid to call her at an early hour, she was not surprised at being awakened between three and four on a fine August morning in 1840 by a sharp tapping at her door, when in spite of a "thank you, I hear," to the first and second raps, with the third came a rush of wind, which caused the curtains to be drawn up in the centre of the bed. She became annoyed, and sitting up called out, "Marie, what are you about?" Instead, however, of her servant, she was astonished to see the face of an aunt by marriage peering above and between the curtains, and at the same moment--whether unconsciously she threw forward her arms, or whether they were drawn forward, as it were, in a vortex of air, she cannot be sure--one of her thumbs was sensibly pressed between the teeth of the apparition, though no mark afterwards remained on it. All this notwithstanding, she remained collected and unalarmed; but instantly arose, dressed, and went downstairs, where she found not a creature stirring. Her father, on coming down shortly afterwards, naturally asked what had made her rise so early; rallied her on the cause, and soon afterwards went on to his sister-in-law's house, where he found that she had just unexpectedly died. Coming back again, and not noticing his daughter's presence in the room, in consequence of her being behind a screen near the fire, he suddenly announced the event to his wife, as being of so remarkable a character that he could in no way account for it. As may be anticipated, Emma, overhearing this unlooked-for denouement of her dream, at once fell to the ground in a fainting condition. _On one of the thumbs of the corpse was found a mark as if it had been bitten in the death agony_. {300} We have now followed the "ghostly" from its germs in dreams, and momentary hallucinations of eye or ear, up to the most prodigious narratives which popular invention has built on bases probably very slight. Where facts and experience, whether real or hallucinatory experience, end, where the mythopoeic fancy comes in, readers may decide for themselves. Footnotes: {0a} Principles of Psychology, vol. ii., p. 115. By Professor William James, Harvard College, Macmillan's, London, 1890. The physical processes believed to be involved, are described on pp. 123, 124 of the same work. {0b} Op. cit., ii., 130. {4} Story received from Miss ---; confirmed on inquiry by Drumquaigh. {5a} Phantasms of the Living, ii., 382. {5b} To "send" a dream the old Egyptians wrote it out and made a cat swallow it! {8} See "Queen Mary's Jewels" in chapter ii. {10} Narrated by Mrs. Herbert. {11a} Story confirmed by Mr. A. {11b} This child had a more curious experience. Her nurse was very ill, and of course did not sleep in the nursery. One morning the little girl said, "Macpherson is better, I saw her come in last night with a candle in her hand. She just stooped over me and then went to Tom" (a younger brother) "and kissed him in his sleep." Macpherson had died in the night, and her attendants, of course, protested ignorance of her having left her deathbed. {11c} Story received from Lady X. See another good case in Proceedings of the Psychical Society, vol. xi., 1895, p. 397. In this case, however, the finder was not nearer than forty rods to the person who lost a watch in long grass. He assisted in the search, however, and may have seen the watch unconsciously, in a moment of absence of mind. Many other cases in Proceedings of S.P.R. {13} Story received in a letter from the dreamer. {16} Augustine. In Library of the Fathers, XVII. Short Treatises, pp. 530-531. {18} St. Augustine, De Cura pro Mortuis. {20} The professor is not sure whether he spoke English or German. {24} From Some Account of the Conversion of the late William Hone, supplied by some friend of W. H. to compiler. Name not given. {28} What is now called "mental telegraphy" or "telepathy" is quite an old idea. Bacon calls it "sympathy" between two distant minds, sympathy so strong that one communicates with the other without using the recognised channels of the senses. Izaak Walton explains in the same way Dr. Donne's vision, in Paris, of his wife and dead child. "If two lutes are strung to an exact harmony, and one is struck, the other sounds," argues Walton. Two minds may be as harmoniously attuned and communicate each with each. Of course, in the case of the lutes there are actual vibrations, physical facts. But we know nothing of vibrations in the brain which can traverse space to another brain. Many experiments have been made in consciously transferring thoughts or emotions from one mind to another. These are very liable to be vitiated by bad observation, collusion and other causes. Meanwhile, intercommunication between mind and mind without the aid of the recognised senses--a supposed process of "telepathy"--is a current explanation of the dreams in which knowledge is obtained that exists in the mind of another person, and of the delusion by virtue of which one person sees another who is perhaps dying, or in some other crisis, at a distance. The idea is popular. A poor Highland woman wrote to her son in Glasgow: "Don't be thinking too much of us, or I shall be seeing you some evening in the byre". This is a simple expression of the hypothesis of "telepathy" or "mental telegraphy". {31} Perhaps among such papers as the Casket Letters, exhibited to the Commission at Westminster, and "tabled" before the Scotch Privy Council. {35a} To Joseph himself she bequeathed the ruby tortoise given to her by his brother. Probably the diamonds were not Rizzio's gift. {35b} Boismont was a distinguished physician and "Mad Doctor," or "Alienist". He was also a Christian, and opposed a tendency, not uncommon in his time, as in ours, to regard all "hallucinations" as a proof of mental disease in the "hallucinated". {39a} S.P.R., v., 324. {39b} Ibid., 324. {42} Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. v., pp. 324, 325. {43} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xi., p. 495. {45a} Signed by Mr. Cooper and the Duchess of Hamilton. {45b} See Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 91. {48} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xi., p. 522. {50} The case was reported in the Herald (Dubuque) for 12th February, 1891. It was confirmed by Mr. Hoffman, by Mr. George Brown and by Miss Conley, examined by the Rev. Mr. Crum, of Dubuque.--Proceedings, S.P.R., viii., 200-205. Pat Conley, too, corroborated, and had no theory of explanation. That the girl knew beforehand of the dollars is conceivable, but she did not know of the change of clothes. {56a} Told by the nobleman in question to the author. {56b} The author knows some eight cases among his friends of a solitary meaningless hallucination like this. {58} As to the fact of such visions, I have so often seen crystal gazing, and heard the pictures described by persons whose word I could not doubt, men and women of unblemished character, free from superstition, that I am obliged to believe in the fact as a real though hallucinatory experience. Mr. Clodd attributes it to disorder of the liver. If no more were needed I could "scry" famously! {60a} Facts attested and signed by Mr. Baillie and Miss Preston. {60b} Story told to me by both my friends and the secretary. {62} Memoires, v., 120. Paris, 1829. {66} Readers curious in crystal-gazing will find an interesting sketch of the history of the practice, with many modern instances, in Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. v., p. 486, by "Miss X.". There are also experiments by Lord Stanhope and Dr. Gregory in Gregory's Letters on Animal Magnetism, p. 370 (1851). It is said that, as sights may be seen in a glass ball, so articulate voices, by a similar illusion, can be heard in a sea shell, when "It remembers its august abodes, And murmurs as the ocean murmurs there". {68} A set of scientific men, as Lelut and Lombroso, seem to think that a hallucination stamps a man as _mad_. Napoleon, Socrates, Pascal, Jeanne d'Arc, Luther were all lunatics. They had lucid intervals of considerable duration, and the belief in their lunacy is peculiar to a small school of writers. {69a} A crowd of phantom coaches will be found in Messrs. Myers and Gurney's Phantasms of the Living. {69b} See The Slaying of Sergeant Davies of Guise's. {70} Principles of Psychology, by Prof. James of Harvard, vol. ii., p. 612. Charcot is one of sixteen witnesses cited for the fact. {74} Story written by General Barter, 28th April, 1888. (S.P.R.) Corroborated by Mrs. Barter and Mr. Stewart, to whom General Barter told his adventure at the time. {75} Statement by Mr. F. G., confirmed by his father and brother, who were present when he told his tale first, in St. Louis. S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. vi., p. 17. {76} S.P.R., viii., p. 178. {77} Mrs. M. sent the memorandum to the S.P.R. "March 13, 1886. Have just seen visions on lawn--a soldier in general's uniform, a young lady kneeling to him, 11.40 p.m." {78} S.P.R., viii., p. 178. The real names are intentionally reserved. {80a} Corroborated by Mr. Elliot. Mrs. Elliot nearly fainted. S.P.R., viii., 344-345. {80b} Oddly enough, maniacs have many more hallucinations of hearing than of sight. In sane people the reverse is the case. {82} Anecdote by the lady. Boston Budget, 31st August, 1890. S.P.R., viii., 345. {85a} Tom Sawyer, Detective. {85b} Phantasms of the Living, by Gurney and Myers. {85c} The story is given by Mr. Mountford, one of the seers. {86} Journal of Medical Science, April, 1880, p. 151. {88} Catholic theology recognises, under the name of "Bilocation," the appearance of a person in one place when he is really in another. {91a} Phantasms, ii., pp. 671-677. {91b} Phantasms of the Living. {91c} Mr. E. B. Tylor gives a Maori case in Primitive Culture. Another is in Phantasms, ii., 557. See also Polack's New Zealand for the prevalence of the belief. {92} Gurney, Phantasms, ii., 6. {93} The late Surgeon-Major Armand Leslie, who was killed at the battle of El Teb, communicated the following story to the Daily Telegraph in the autumn of 1881, attesting it with his signature. {95a} This is a remarkably difficult story to believe. "The morning bright and calm" is lit by the rays of the moon. The woman (a Mrs. Gamp) must have rushed past Dr. Leslie. A man who died in Greece or Russia "that morning" would hardly be arrayed in evening dress for burial before 4 a.m. The custom of using goloshes as "hell-shoes" (fastened on the Icelandic dead in the Sagas) needs confirmation. Men are seldom buried in eye-glasses--never in tall white hats.--Phantasms of the Living, ii., 252. {95b} From a memorandum, made by General Birch Reynardson, of an oral communication made to him by Sir John Sherbrooke, one of the two seers. {101} This is an old, but good story. The Rev. Thomas Tilson, minister (non-conforming) of Aylesford, in Kent, sent it on 6th July, 1691, to Baxter for his Certainty of the World of Spirits. The woman Mary Goffe died on 4th June, 1691. Mr. Tilson's informants were her father, speaking on the day after her burial; the nurse, with two corroborative neighbours, on 2nd July; the mother of Mary Goffe; the minister who attended her, and one woman who sat up with her--all "sober intelligent persons". Not many stories have such good evidence in their favour. {103} Phantasms, ii., 528. {111} "That which was published in May, 1683, concerning the Daemon, or Daemons of Spraiton was the extract of a letter from T. C., Esquire, a near neighbour to the place; and though it needed little confirmation further than the credit that the learning and quality of that gentleman had stampt upon it, yet was much of it likewise known to and related by the Reverend Minister of Barnstaple, of the vicinity to Spraiton. Having likewise since had fresh testimonials of the veracity of that relation, and it being at first designed to fill this place, I have thought it not amiss (for the strangeness of it) to print it here a second time, exactly as I had transcribed it then."-- BOVET. {118} Shchapoff case of "The Dancing Devil" and "The Great Amherst Mystery". {121} Additional MSS., British Museum, 27,402, f. 132. {122} Really 1628, unless, indeed, the long-continued appearances began in the year before Buckingham's death; old style. {127} It may fairly be argued, granting the ghost, his advice and his knowledge of a secret known to the countess, that he was a hallucination unconsciously wired on to old Towse by the mind of the anxious countess herself! {129a} Hamilton's Memoirs. {129b} Mrs. Thrale's Diary, 28th November, 1779. {129c} Diary of Lady Mary Coke, 30th November, 1779. {130a} See Phantasms, ii., 586. {130b} The difficulty of knowing whether one is awake or asleep, just about the moment of entering or leaving sleep is notorious. The author, on awaking in a perfectly dark room, has occasionally seen it in a dim light, and has even been aware, or seemed to be aware, of the pattern of the wall paper. In a few moments this effect of light disappears, and all is darkness. This is the confused mental state technically styled "Borderland," a haunt of ghosts, who are really flitting dreams. {131} Life of Lockhart. {132} The author has given authorities in Blackwood's Magazine March, 1895. A Mr. Coulton (not Croker as erroneously stated) published in the Quarterly Review, No. 179, an article to prove that Lyttelton committed suicide, and was Junius. See also the author's Life of Lockhart. {140} A prominent name among the witnesses at the trial. {141} The report of the trial in the Scots Magazine of June, 1754 (magazines appeared at the end of the month), adds nothing of interest. The trial lasted from 7 a.m. of June 11 till 6 a.m. of June 14. The jury deliberated for two hours before arriving at a verdict. {142} Sydney, no date. {144} Phantasms, ii., 586, quoting (apparently) the Buckingham Gazette of the period. {145a} Oddly enough a Mr. William Soutar, of Blairgowrie, tells a ghost story of his own to the S.P.R.! {145b} I put them for convenience at the foot.--W. L. L. {146a} The dogs in all these towns (farms) of Mause are very well accustomed with hunting the fox. {146b} Blair (Blairgowrie) is the kirk-town of that parish, where there is also a weekly market: it lies about a mile below Middle Mause on the same side of the river. {146c} Knockhead is within less than half a mile of Middle Mause, and the Hilltown lies betwixt the two. We see both of them from our window of Craighall House. {148a} This George Soutar died about two or three years ago, and was very well known to William. {148b} The Isle is a spot of ground in the wood of Rychalzie, about a mile above Middle Mause, on the same side of the river. {149a} Glasclune is a gentleman of the name of Blair, whose house lies about three-quarters of a mile south-west from Middle Mause. {149b} He said the voice answered him as if it had been some distance without the door. {150} Besides the length of time since the murder was committed, there is another reason why all the bones were not found, viz., that there is a little burn or brook which had run for the space of twenty years, at least, across upon the place when the bones were found, and would have carried them all away had it not been that the bush, at the side of which they were buried, had turned the force of the stream a little from off that place where they lay, for they were not more than a foot, or at most a foot and a half, under ground, and it is only within these three years that a water-spate has altered the course of the burn. {151} The course of the river (the Ericht) is from north to south. Middle Mause lies on the west side of it, and Craighall on the east. {155a} With reference to the last statement in Mr. Newton's notes see the Journal of Sir Walter Scott (edit., 1891, p. 210) under date 13th June, 1826. {155b} L'Homme Posthume. {155c} Denny's Folklore of China. {156} Story received in a letter from Lieutenant --- of H.M.S gunboat ---. {157} He fought at Culloden, of course for King George, and was appealed to for protection by old Glengarry. {158a} Fox's hole. {158b} How did Inverawe get leave to wear the Highland dress? {160} In every version of the story that I have heard or read Ticonderoga is called St. Louis, and Inverawe was ignorant of its other name. Yet in all the histories of the war that I have seen, the only name given to the place is Ticonderoga. There is no mention of its having a French name. Even if Inverawe knew the fort they were to storm was called Ticonderoga, he cannot have known it when the ghost appeared to him in Scotland. At that time there was not even a fort at Ticonderoga, as the French only erected it in 1756. Inverawe had told his story to friends in Scotland before the war broke out in America, so even if in 1758 he did know the real name of the fort that the expedition was directed against, I don't see that it lessens the interest of the story.--E. A. C. The French really called the place Fort Carillon, which disguised the native name Ticonderoga. See Memoirs of the Chevalier Johnstone.--A. L. {162} Abercromby's force consisted of the 27th, 42nd, 44th, 46th, 55th, and battalions of the 60th Royal Americans, with about 9000 Provincials and a train of artillery. The assault, however, took place before the guns could come up, matters having been hastened by the information that M. de Levy was approaching with 3000 French troops to relieve Ticonderoga garrison. {177a} I know one inveterate ghost produced in an ancient Scottish house by these appliances.--A. L. {177b} Such events are common enough in old tales of haunted houses. {177c} This lady was well known to my friends and to Dr. Ferrier. I also have had the honour to make her acquaintance. {179} Apparently on Thursday morning really. {182} She gave, not for publication, the other real names, here altered to pseudonyms. {186} Phantasms, ii., 202. {188a} Maspero, Etudes Egyptiennes, i., fascic. 2. {188b} Examples cited in Classical Review, December, 1896, pp. 411, 413. {188c} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xii., p. 45-116. {189} See "Lord St. Vincent's Story". {190} Anecdote received from the lady. {191} Story at second-hand. {192} See The Standard for summer, 1896. {196} I have once seen this happen, and it is a curious thing to see, when on the other side of the door there is nobody. {198a} S.P.R., iii., 115, and from oral narrative of Mr. and Mrs. Rokeby. In 1885, when the account was published, Mr. Rokeby had not yet seen the lady in grey. Nothing of interest is known about the previous tenants of the house. {198b} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. viii., p. 311. {199} Letter of 31st January, 1884. {200} Six separate signed accounts by other witnesses are given. They add nothing more remarkable than what Miss Morton relates. No account was published till the haunting ceased, for fear of lowering the letting value of Bognor House. {201} Mr. A. H. Millar's Book of Glamis, Scottish History Society. {202} This account is abridged from Mr. Walter Leaf's translation of Aksakoff's Predvestniki Spiritizma, St. Petersburg, 1895. Mr. Aksakoff publishes contemporary letters, certificates from witnesses, and Mr. Akutin's hostile report. It is based on the possibility of imitating the raps, the difficulty of locating them, and the fact that the flying objects were never seen to start. If Mrs. Shchapoff threw them, they might, perhaps, have occasionally been seen to start. S.P.R., vol. xii., p. 298. Precisely similar events occurred in Russian military quarters in 1853. As a quantity of Government property was burned, official inquiries were held. The reports are published by Mr. Aksakoff. The repeated verdict was that no suspicion attached to any subject of the Czar. {205} The same freedom was taken, as has been said, with a lady of the most irreproachable character, a friend of the author, in a haunted house, of the usual sort, in Hammersmith, about 1876. {206} Proceedings, S.P.R., vol. xii., p. 49. {212} John Wesley, however, places Hetty as next in seniority to Mary or Molly. We do not certainly know whether Hetty was a child, or a grown-up girl, but, as she always sat up till her father went to bed, the latter is the more probable opinion. As Hetty has been accused of causing the disturbances, her age is a matter of interest. Girls of twelve or thirteen are usually implicated in these affairs. Hetty was probably several years older. {220} 30th January, 1717. {221} Glanvil's Sadducismus Triumphatus, 1726. Preface to part ii., Mompesson's letters. {222} Gentleman's Magazine, November, December, 1872. {223} This happened, to a less degree, in the Wesley case, and is not uncommon in modern instances. The inference seems to be that the noises, like the sights occasionally seen, are hallucinatory, not real. Gentleman's Magazine, Dec., 1872, p. 666. {229} S.P.R. Proceedings, vol. xii., p. 7. {232} Demon Possession in China, p. 399. By the Rev. John L. Nevius, D.D. Forty years a missionary in China. Revel, New York, 1894. {233a} Translated from report of Hsu Chung-ki, Nevius, p. 61. {233b} Nevius, pp. 403-406. {234} Op. cit., p. 415. There are other cases in Mr. Denny's Folklore of China. {239a} The Great Amherst Mystery, by Walter Hubbell. Brentano, New York, 1882. I obtained some additional evidence at first hand published in Longman's Magazine. {239b} The sources for this tale are two Gaelic accounts, one of which is printed in the Gael, vol. vi., p. 142, and the other in the Glenbard Collection of Gaelic Poetry, by the Rev. A. Maclean Sinclair, p. 297 ff. The former was communicated by Mr. D. C. Macpherson from local tradition; the latter was obtained from a tailor, a native of Lochaber, who emigrated to Canada when about thirty years of age. When the story was taken down from his lips in 1885, he was over eighty years old, and died only a few months later. {246} John Arnason, in his Icelandic Folklore and Fairy Tales (vol. i., p. 309), gives the account of this as written by the Sheriff Hans Wium in a letter to Bishop Haldorr Brynjolfsson in the autumn of 1750. {249} Huld, part 3, p. 25, Keykjavik, 1893. {259} As at Amherst! {272} Written out from tradition on 24th May, 1852. The name of the afflicted family is here represented by a pseudonym. {273} From Eyrbyggja Saga, chaps, l.-lv. Froda is the name of a farm on the north side of Snaefell Ness, the great headland which divides the west coast of Iceland. {292} Fact. {299} Cornhill Magazine, 1896. {300} This story should come under the head of "Common Deathbed Wraiths," but, it is such an uncommon one! 
5651	----	Digital Transcription--M.R.J. Dreams and Dream Stories By Anna (Bonus) Kingsford Contents Preface Part I Dreams I. The Doomed Train II. The Wonderful Spectacles III. The Counsel of Perfection IV. The City of Blood V. The Bird and the Cat VI. The Treasure in the Lighted House VII. The Forest Cathedral VIII. The Enchanted Woman IX. The Banquet of the Gods X. The Difficult Path XI. A Lion in the Way XII. A Dream of Disembodiment XIII. The Perfect Way with Animals XIV. The Laboratory Underground XV. The Old Young Man XVI. The Metempsychosis XVII. The Three Kings XVIII. The Armed Goddess XIX. The Game of Cards XX. The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse XXI. The Haunted Inn XXII. An Eastern Apologue XXIII. A Haunted House Indeed! XXIV. The Square in the Hand Dream Verses I. "Through the Ages" II. A Fragment III. A Fragment IV. Signs of the Times V. With the Gods Part II Dream Stories I. A Village of Seers II. Steepside; A Ghost Story III. Beyond the Sunset IV. A Turn of Luck V. Noemi VI. The Little Old Man's Story VII. The Nightshade VIII. St. George the Chevalier Preface* The chronicles which I am about to present to the reader are not the result of any conscious effort of the imagination. They are, as the title-page indicates, records of dreams, occurring at intervals during the last ten years, and transcribed, pretty nearly in the order of their occurrence, from my Diary. Written down as soon as possible after awaking from the slumber during which they presented themselves, these narratives, necessarily unstudied in style and wanting in elegance of diction, have at least the merit of fresh and vivid color, for they were committed to paper at a moment when the effect and impress of each successive vision were strong and forceful in the mind, and before the illusion of reality conveyed by the scenes witnessed and the sounds heard in sleep had had time to pass away. I do not know whether these experiences of mine are unique. So far, I have not yet met with any one in whom the dreaming faculty appears to be either so strongly or so strangely developed as in myself. Most dreams, even when of unusual vividness and lucidity, betray a want of coherence in their action, and an incongruity of detail and dramatis personae, that stamp --------------- * Written in 1886. Some of the experiences in this volume were subsequent to that date. This publication is made in accordance with the author's last wishes. (Ed.) -------------- them as the product of incomplete and disjointed cerebral function. But the most remarkable features of the experiences I am about to record are the methodical consecutiveness of their sequences, and the intelligent purpose disclosed alike in the events witnessed and in the words heard or read. Some of these last, indeed, resemble, for point and profundity, the apologues of Eastern scriptures; and, on more than one occasion, the scenery of the dream has accurately portrayed characteristics of remote regions, city, forest and mountain, which in this existence at least I have never beheld, nor, so far as I can remember, even heard described, and yet, every feature of these unfamiliar climes has revealed itself to my sleeping vision with a splendour of coloring and distinctness of outline which made the waking life seem duller and less real by contrast. I know of no parallel to this phenomenon unless in the pages of Bulwer Lytton's romance entitled--"The Pilgrims of the Rhine," in which is related the story of a German student endowed with so marvellous a faculty of dreaming, that for him the normal conditions of sleeping and waking became reversed, his true life was that which he lived in his slumbers, and his hours of wakefulness appeared to him as so many uneventful and inactive intervals of arrest occurring in an existence of intense and vivid interest which was wholly passed in the hypnotic state. Not that to me there is any such inversion of natural conditions. On the contrary, the priceless insights and illuminations I have acquired by means of my dreams have gone far to elucidate for me many difficulties and enigmas of life, and even of religion, which might otherwise have remained dark to me, and to throw upon the events and vicissitudes of a career filled with bewildering situations, a light which, like sunshine, has penetrated to the very causes and springs of circumstance, and has given meaning and fitness to much in my life that would else have appeared to me incoherent or inconsistent. I have no theory to offer the reader in explanation of my faculty, --at least in so far as its physiological aspect is concerned. Of course, having received a medical education, I have speculated about the modus operandi of the phenomenon, but my speculations are not of such a character as to entitle them to presentation in the form even of an hypothesis. I am tolerably well acquainted with most of the propositions regarding unconscious cerebration, which have been put forward by men of science, but none of these propositions can, by any process of reasonable expansion or modification, be made to fit my case. Hysteria, to the multiform and manifold categories of which, medical experts are wont to refer the majority of the abnormal experiences encountered by them, is plainly inadequate to explain or account for mine. The singular coherence and sustained dramatic unity observable in these dreams, as well as the poetic beauty and tender subtlety of the instructions and suggestions conveyed in them do not comport with the conditions characteristic of nervous disease. Moreover, during the whole period covered by these dreams, I have been busily and almost continuously engrossed with scientific and literary pursuits demanding accurate judgment and complete self-possession and rectitude of mind. At the time when many of the most vivid and remarkable visions occurred, I was following my course as a student at the Paris Faculty of Medicine, preparing for examinations, daily visiting hospital wards as dresser, and attending lectures. Later, when I had taken my degree, I was engaged in the duties of my profession and in writing for the press on scientific subjects. Neither have I ever taken opium, hashish or other dream-producing agent. A cup of tea or coffee represents the extent of my indulgences in this direction. I mention these details in order to guard against inferences which otherwise might be drawn as to the genesis of my faculty. With regard to the interpretation and application of particular dreams, I think it best to say nothing. The majority are obviously allegorical, and although obscure in parts, they are invariably harmonious, and tolerably clear in meaning to persons acquainted with the method of Greek and Oriental myth. I shall not, therefore, venture on any explanation of my own, but shall simply record the dreams as they passed before me, and the impressions left upon my mind when I awoke. Unfortunately, in some instances, which are not, therefore, here transcribed, my waking memory failed to recall accurately, or completely, certain discourses heard or written words seen in the course of the vision, which in these cases left but a fragmentary impression on the brain and baffled all waking endeavor to recall their missing passages. These imperfect experiences have not, however, been numerous; on the contrary, it is a perpetual marvel to me to find with what ease and certainty I can, as a rule, on recovering ordinary consciousness, recall the picture witnessed in my sleep, and reproduce the words I have heard spoken or seen written. Sometimes several interims of months occur during which none of these exceptional visions visit me, but only ordinary dreams, incongruous and insignificant after their kind. Observation, based on an experience of considerable length, justifies me, I think, in saying that climate, altitude, and electrical conditions are not without their influence in the production of the cerebral state necessary to the exercise of the faculty I have described. Dry air, high levels, and a crisp, calm, exhilarating atmosphere favor its activity; while, on the other hand, moisture, proximity to rivers, cloudy skies, and a depressing, heavy climate, will, for an indefinite period, suffice to repress it altogether. It is not, therefore, surprising that the greater number of these dreams, and, especially, the most vivid, detailed and idyllic, have occurred to me while on the continent. At my own residence on the banks of the Severn, in a humid, low-lying tract of country, I very seldom experience such manifestations, and sometimes, after a prolonged sojourn at home, am tempted to fancy that the dreaming gift has left me never to return. But the results of a visit to Paris or to Switzerland always speedily reassure me; the necessary magnetic or psychic tension never fails to reassert itself; and before many weeks have elapsed my Diary is once more rich with the record of my nightly visions. Some of these phantasmagoria have furnished me with the framework, and even details, of stories which from time to time I have contributed to various magazines. A ghost story,* published some years ago in a London magazine, and much commented on because of its peculiarly weird and startling character, had this origin; so had a fairy tale,** which appeared in a Christmas Annual last year, and which has recently been re-issued in German by the editor of a foreign periodical. Many of my more --------------- * "Steepside" ** "Beyond the Sunset" ---------------- serious contributions to literature have been similarly initiated; and, more than once, fragments of poems, both in English and other languages, have been heard or read by me in dreams. I regret much that I have not yet been able to recover any one entire poem. My memory always failed before I could finish writing out the lines, no matter how luminous and recent the impressions made by them on my mind.* However, even as regards verses, my experience has been far richer and more successful than that of Coleridge, the only product of whose faculty in this direction was the poetical fragment Kubla Khan, and there was no scenic dreaming on the occasion, only the verses were thus obtained; and I am not without hope that at some future time, under more favorable conditions than those I now enjoy, the broken threads may be resumed and these chapters of dream verse perfected and made complete. It may, perhaps, be worthy of remark that by far the larger number of the dreams set down in this volume, occurred towards dawn; sometimes even, after sunrise, during a "second sleep." A condition of fasting, united possibly, with some subtle magnetic or other atmospheric state, seems therefore to be that most open to impressions of the kind. And, in this connection, I think it right to add that for the past fifteen years I have been an abstainer from flesh-meats; not a "Vegetarian," because during the whole of that period I have used such ----------- * The poem entitled "A Discourse on the Communion of Souls; or, the Uses of Love between Creature and Creature, Being a part of the Golden Book of Venus," which forms one of the appendices to "The Perfect Way," would be an exception to this rule but that it was necessary for the dream to be repeated before the whole poem could be recalled. (Ed.) -------------- animal produce as butter, cheese, eggs, and milk. That the influence of fasting and of sober fare upon the perspicacity of the sleeping brain was known to the ancients in times when dreams were far more highly esteemed than they now are, appears evident from various passages in the records of theurgy and mysticism. Philostratus, in his "Life of Apollonius Tyaneus," represents the latter as informing King Phraotes that "the Oneiropolists, or Interpreters of Visions, are wont never to interpret any vision till they have first inquired the time at which it befell; for, if it were early, and of the morning sleep, they then thought that they might make a good interpretation thereof (that is, that it might be worth the interpreting), in that the soul was then fitted for divination, and disencumbered. But if in the first sleep, or near midnight, while the soul was as yet clouded and drowned in libations, they, being wise, refused to give any interpretation. Moreover, the gods themselves are of this opinion, and send their oracles only into abstinent minds. For the priests, taking him who doth so consult, keep him one day from meat and three days from wine, that he may in a clear soul receive the oracles." And again, Iamblichus, writing to Agathocles, says:--"There is nothing unworthy of belief in what you have been told concerning the sacred sleep, and seeing by means of dreams. I explain it thus:--The soul has a twofold life, a lower and a higher. In sleep the soul is liberated from the constraint of the body, and enters, as an emancipated being, on its divine life of intelligence. Then, as the noble faculty which beholds objects that truly are--the objects in the world of intelligence-- stirs within, and awakens to its power, who can be astonished that the mind which contains in itself the principles of all events, should, in this its state of liberation, discern the future in those antecedent principles which will constitute that future? The nobler part of the mind is thus united by abstraction to higher natures, and becomes a participant in the wisdom and foreknowledge of the gods . . . . The night-time of the body is the day-time of the soul." But I have no desire to multiply citations, nor to vex the reader with hypotheses inappropriate to the design of this little work. Having, therefore, briefly recounted the facts and circumstances of my experience so far as they are known to myself, I proceed, without further commentary, to unroll my chart of dream-pictures, and leave them to tell their own tale. --A.B.K. I. The Doomed Train* I was visited last night by a dream of so strange and vivid a kind that I feel impelled to communicate it to you, not only to relieve my own mind of the impression which the recollection of it causes me, but also to give you an opportunity of finding the meaning, which I am sill far too much shaken and terrified to seek for myself. It seemed to me that you and I were two of a vast company of men and women, upon all of whom, with the exception of myself--for I was there voluntarily--sentence of death had been passed. I was sensible of the knowledge--how obtained I know not--that this terrible doom had been pronounced by the official agents of some new reign of terror. Certain I was that none of the party had really been guilty of any crime deserving of death; but that the penalty had been incurred through ------------------ * This narrative was addressed to the friend particularly referred to in it. The dream occurred near the close of 1876, and on the eve, therefore, of the Russo-Turkish war, and was regarded by us both as having relation to a national crisis, of a moral and spiritual character, our interest in which was so profound as to be destined to dominate all our subsequent lives and work. (Author's Note.) --------------- their connection with some regime, political, social or religious, which was doomed to utter destruction. It became known among us that the sentence was about to be carried out on a colossal scale; but we remained in absolute ignorance as to the place and method of the intended execution. Thus far my dream gave me no intimation of the horrible scene which next burst on me,--a scene which strained to their utmost tension every sense of sight, hearing and touch, in a manner unprecedented in any dream I have previously had. It was night, dark and starless, and I found myself, together with the whole company of doomed men and women who knew that they were soon to die, but not how or where, in a railway train hurrying through the darkness to some unknown destination. I sat in a carriage quite at the rear end of the train, in a corner seat, and was leaning out of the open window, peering into the darkness, when, suddenly, a voice, which seemed to speak out of the air, said to me in a low, distinct, in-tense tone, the mere recollection of which makes me shudder,--"The sentence is being carried out even now. You are all of you lost. Ahead of the train is a frightful precipice of monstrous height, and at its base beats a fathomless sea. The railway ends only with the abyss, Over that will the train hurl itself into annihilation, There Is No One On The Engine!" At this I sprang from my seat in horror, and looked round at the faces of the persons in the carriage with me. No one of them had spoken, or had heard those awful words. The lamplight from the dome of the carriage flickered on the forms, about me. I looked from one to the other, but saw no sign of alarm given by any of them. Then again the voice out of the air spoke to me,--"There is but one way to be saved. You must leap out of the train!" In frantic haste I pushed open the carriage door and stepped out on the footboard. The train was going at a terrific pace, swaying to and fro as with the passion of its speed; and the mighty wind of its passage beat my hair about my face and tore at my garments. Until this moment I had not thought of you, or even seemed conscious of your presence in the train. Holding tightly on to the rail by the carriage door, I began to creep along the footboard towards the engine, hoping to find a chance of dropping safely down on the line. Hand over hand I passed along in this way from one carriage to another; and as I did so I saw by the light within each carriage that the passengers had no idea of the fate upon which they were being hurried. At length, in one of the compartments, I saw you. "Come out!" I cried; "come out! Save yourself! In another minute we shall be dashed to pieces!" You rose instantly, wrenched open the door, and stood beside me outside on the footboard. The rapidity at which we were going was now more fearful than ever. The train rocked as it fled onwards. The wind shrieked as we were carried through it. "Leap down," I cried to you; "save yourself! It is certain death to stay here. Before us is an abyss; and there is no one on the engine!" At this you turned your face full upon me with a look of intense earnestness, and said, "No, we will not leap down. We will stop the train." With these words you left me, and crept along the foot-board towards the front of the train. Full of half angry anxiety at what seemed to me a Quixotic act, I followed. In one of the carriages we passed I saw my mother and eldest brother, unconscious as the rest. Presently we reached the last carriage, and saw by the lurid light of the furnace that the voice had spoken truly, and that there was no one on the engine. You continued to move onwards. "Impossible! Impossible!" I cried; "It cannot be done. O, pray, come away." Then you knelt upon the footboard, and said,--"You are right. It cannot be done in that way; but we can save the train. Help me to get these irons asunder." The engine was connected with the train by two great iron hooks and staples. By a tremendous effort, in making which I almost lost my balance, we unhooked the irons and detached the train; when, with a mighty leap as of some mad supernatural monster, the engine sped on its way alone, shooting back as it went a great flaming trail of sparks, and was lost in the darkness. We stood together on the footboard, watching in silence the gradual slackening of the speed. When at length the train had come to a standstill, we cried to the passengers, "Saved! Saved!" and then amid the confusion of opening the doors and descending and eager talking, my dream ended, leaving me shattered and palpitating with the horror of it. --London, Nov. 1876. II. The Wonderful Spectacles* I was walking alone on the seashore. The day was singularly clear and sunny. Inland lay the most beautiful landscape ever seen; and far off were ranges of tall hills, the highest peaks of which were white with glittering snows. Along the sands by the sea came towards me a man accoutred as a postman. He gave me a letter. It was from you. It ran thus:-- "I have got hold of the earliest and most precious book extant. It was written before the world began. The text is easy enough to read; but the notes, which are very copious and numerous, are in such minute and obscure characters that I cannot make them out. I want you to get for me the spectacles which Swedenborg used to wear; not the smaller pair--those he gave to Hans Christian Andersen--but the large pair, and these seem to have got mislaid. I think they are Spinoza's make. You know he was an optical-glass maker by profession, and the best we have ever had. See if you can get them for me." When I looked up after reading this letter, I saw the postman hastening away across the sands, and I cried out to him, "Stop! how am I to send the answer? Will you not wait for it?" He looked round, stopped, and came back to me. "I have the answer here," he said, tapping his letter-bag, "and I shall deliver it immediately." ------------- * From another letter to the friend mentioned in the note appended to the "Doomed Train."--(Author's Note.) ------------- "How can you have the answer before I have written it?" I asked. "You are making a mistake." "No," he said." In the city from which I come, the replies are all written at the office, and sent out with the letters themselves. Your reply is in my bag." "Let me see it," I said. He took another letter from his wallet and gave it to me. I opened it, and read, in my own handwriting, this answer, addressed to you:-- "The spectacles you want can be bought in London. But you will not be able to use them at once, for they have not been worn for many years, and they sadly want cleaning. This you will not be able to do yourself in London, because it is too dark there to see well, and because your fingers are not small enough to clean them properly. Bring them here to me, and I will do it for you." I gave this letter back to the postman. He smiled and nodded at me; and I then perceived to my astonishment that he wore a camel's-hair tunic round his waist. I had been on the point of addressing him-- I know not why--as Hermes. But I now saw that he must be John the Baptist; and in my fright at having spoken with so great a saint, I awoke! --London, Jan. 31, 1877 ------------------------ * The dreamer knew nothing of Spinoza at this time, and was quite unaware that he was an optician. Subsequent experience made it clear that the spectacles in question were intended to represent her own remarkable faculty of intuitional and interpretative perception. (Ed.) ------------------- III. The Counsel of Perfection I dreamed that I was in a large room, and there were in it seven persons, all men, sitting at one long table; and each of them had before him a scroll, some having books also; and all were greyheaded and bent with age save one, and this was a youth of about twenty without hair on his face. One of the aged men, who had his finger on a place in a book open before him, said: "This spirit, who is of our order, writes in this book,--'Be ye perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect.' How shall we understand this word `perfection'?" And another, of the old men, looking up, answered, "It must mean wisdom, for wisdom is the sum of perfection." And another old man said, "That cannot be; for no creature can be wise as God is wise. Where is he among us who could attain to such a state? That which is part only, cannot comprehend the whole. To bid a creature to be wise as God is wise would be mockery." Then a fourth old man said:--"It must be Truth that is intended. For truth only is perfection." But he who sat next the last speaker answered, "Truth also is partial; for where is he among us who shall be able to see as God sees?" And the sixth said, "It must surely be justice; for this is the whole of righteousness." And the old man who had spoken first, answered him: "Not so; for justice comprehends vengeance, and it is written that vengeance is the Lord's alone." Then the young man stood up with an open book in his hand and said: --"I have here another record of one who likewise heard these words. Let us see whether his rendering of them can help us to the knowledge we seek." And he found a place in the book and read aloud:-- "Be ye merciful, even as your Father is merciful." And all of them closed their books and fixed their eyes upon me. --London, April 9, 1877 IV. The City of Blood I dreamed that I was wandering along a narrow street of vast length, upon either hand of which was an unbroken line of high straight houses, their walls and doors resembling those of a prison. The atmosphere was dense and obscure, and the time seemed that of twilight; in the narrow line of sky visible far overhead between the two rows of house-roofs, I could not discern sun, moon, or stars, or color of any kind. All was grey, impenetrable, and dim. Underfoot, between the paving-stones of the street, grass was springing. Nowhere was the least sign of life: the place seemed utterly deserted. I stood alone in the midst of profound silence and desolation. Silence? No! As I listened, there came to my ears from all sides, dully at first and almost imperceptibly, a low creeping sound like subdued moaning; a sound that never ceased, and that was so native to the place, I had at first been unaware of it. But now I clearly gathered in the sound and recognised it as expressive of the intensest physical suffering. Looking steadfastly towards one of the houses from which the most distinct of these sounds issued, I perceived a stream of blood slowly oozing out from beneath the door and trickling down into the street, staining the tufts of grass red here and there, as it wound its way towards me. I glanced up and saw that the glass in the closed and barred windows of the house was flecked and splashed with the same horrible dye. "Some one has been murdered in this place!" I cried, and flew towards the door. Then, for the first time, I perceived that the door had neither lock nor handle on the outside, but could be opened only from within. It had, indeed, the form and appearance of a door, but in every other respect it was solid and impassable as the walls themselves. In vain I searched for bell or knocker, or for some means of making entry into the house. I found only a scroll fastened with nails upon a crossbeam over the door, and upon it I read the words:--"This is the Laboratory of a Vivisector." As I read, the wailing sound redoubled in intensity, and a noise as of struggling made itself audible within, as though some new victim had been added to the first. I beat madly against the door with my hands and shrieked for help; but in vain. My dress was reddened with the blood upon the door step. In horror I looked down upon it, then turned and fled. As I passed along the street, the sounds around me grew and gathered volume, formulating themselves into distinct cries and bursts of frenzied sobbing. Upon the door of every house some scroll was attached, similar to that I had already seen. Upon one was inscribed:--"Here is a husband murdering his wife:" upon another:--"Here is a mother beating her child to death:" upon a third: "This is a slaughter-house." Every door was impassable; every window was barred. The idea of interference from without was futile. Vainly I lifted my voice and cried for aid. The street was desolate as a graveyard; the only thing that moved about me was the stealthy blood that came creeping out from beneath the doors of these awful dwellings. Wild with horror I fled along the street, seeking some outlet, the cries and moans pursuing me as I ran. At length the street abruptly ended in a high dead wall, the top of which was not discernible; it seemed, indeed, to be limitless in height. Upon this wall was written in great black letters-- "There is no way out." Overwhelmed with despair and anguish, I fell upon the stones of the street, repeating aloud "There is no way out." - Hinton, Jan. 1877 V. The Bird and the Cat * I dreamt that I had a beautiful bird in a cage, and that the cage was placed on a table in a room where there was a cat. I took the bird out of the cage and put him on the table. Instantly the cat sprang upon ----------------- * This dream and the next occurred at a moment when it had almost been decided to relax the rule of privacy until then observed in regard to our psychological experiences, among other ways, by submitting them to some of the savants of the Paris Faculty,--a project of which these dreams at once caused the abandonment. This was not the only occasion on which a dream bore a twofold aspect, being a warning or a prediction, according to the heed given to it. (Ed.) ------------------ him and seized him in her mouth. I threw myself upon her and strove to wrest away her prey, loading her with reproaches and bewailing the fate of my beautiful bird. Then suddenly some one said to me, "You have only yourself to blame for this misfortune. While the bird remained in his cage he was safe. Why should you have taken him out before the eyes of the cat?" VI. The Treasure in the Lighted House A second time I dreamt, and saw a house built in the midst of a forest. It was night, and all the rooms of the house were brilliantly illuminated by lamps. But the strange thing was that the windows were without shutters, and reached to the ground. In one of the rooms sat an old man counting money and jewels on a table before him. I stood in the spirit beside him, and presently heard outside the windows a sound of footsteps and of men's voices talking together in hushed tones. Then a face peered in at the lighted room, and I became aware that there were many persons assembled without in the darkness, watching the old man and his treasure. He also heard them, and rose from his seat in alarm, clutching his gold and gems and endeavoring to hide them. "Who are they?" I asked him. He answered, his face white with terror; "They are robbers and assassins. This forest is their haunt. They will murder me, and seize my treasure." "If this be so," said I, "why did you build your house in the midst of this forest, and why are there no shutters to the windows? Are you mad, or a fool, that you do not know every one can see from without into your lighted rooms?" He looked at me with stupid despair. "I never thought of the shutters," said he. As we stood talking, the robbers outside congregated in great numbers, and the old man fled from the room with his treasure bags into another apartment. But this also was brilliantly illuminated within, and the windows were shutterless. The robbers followed his movements easily, and so pursued him from room to room all round the house. Nowhere had he any shelter. Then came the sound of gouge and mallet and saw, and I knew the assassins were breaking into the house, and that before long, the owner would have met the death his folly had invited, and his treasure would pass into the hands of the robbers. --Paris, Aug. 3, 1877 VII. The Forest Cathedral I found myself--accompanied by a guide, a young man of Oriental aspect and habit--passing through long vistas of trees which, as we advanced, continually changed in character. Thus we threaded avenues of English oaks and elms, the foliage of which gave way as we proceeded to that of warmer and moister climes, and we saw overhead the hanging masses of broad-leaved palms, and enormous trees whose names I do not know, spreading their fingered leaves over us like great green hands in a manner that frightened me. Here also I saw huge grasses which rose over my shoulders, and through which I had at times to beat my way as through a sea; and ferns of colossal proportions; with every possible variety and mode of tree-life and every conceivable shade of green, from the faintest and clearest yellow to the densest blue-green. One wood in particular I stopped to admire. It seemed as though every leaf of its trees were of gold, so intensely yellow was the tint of the foliage. In these forests and thickets were numerous shrines of gods such as the Hindus worship. Every now and then we came upon them in open spaces. They were uncouth and rudely painted; but they all were profusely adorned with gems, chiefly turquoises, and they all had many arms and hands, in which they held lotus flowers, sprays of palms, and colored berries. Passing by these strange figures, we came to a darker part of our course, where the character of the trees changed and the air felt colder. I perceived that a shadow had fallen on the way; and looking upwards I found we were passing beneath a massive roof of dark indigo-colored pines, which here and there were positively black in their intensity and depth. Intermingled with them were firs, whose great, straight stems were covered with lichen and mosses of beautiful variety, and some looking strangely like green ice-crystals. Presently we came to a little broken-down rude kind of chapel in the midst of the wood. It was built of stone; and masses of stone, shapeless and moss-grown, were lying scattered about on the ground around it. At a little rough-hewn altar within it stood a Christian priest, blessing the elements. Overhead, the great dark sprays of the larches and cone-laden firs swept its roof. I sat down to rest on one of the stones, and looked upwards a while at the foliage. Then turning my gaze again towards the earth, I saw a vast circle of stones, moss-grown like that on which I sat, and ranged in a circle such as that of Stonehenge. It occupied an open space in the midst of the forest; and the grasses and climbing plants of the place had fastened on the crevices of the stones. One stone, larger and taller than the rest, stood at the junction of the circle, in a place of honor, as though it had stood for a symbol of divinity. I looked at my guide, and said, " Here, at least, is an idol whose semblance belongs to another type than that of the Hindus." He smiled, and turning from me to the Christian priest at the altar, said aloud, "Priest, why do your people receive from sacerdotal hands the bread only, while you yourselves receive both bread and wine?" And the priest answered, "We receive no more than they. Yes, though under another form, the people are partakers with us of the sacred wine with its particle. The blood is the life of the flesh, and of it the flesh is formed, and without it the flesh could not consist. The communion is the same." Then the young man my guide turned again to me and waved his hand towards the stone before me. And as I looked the stone opened from its summit to its base; and I saw that the strata within had the form of a tree, and that every minute crystal of which it was formed, --particles so fine that grains of sand would have been coarse in comparison with, them,--and every atom composing its mass, were stamped with this same tree-image, and bore the shape of the ice-crystals, of the ferns and of the colossal palm-leaves I had seen. And my guide said, "Before these stones were, the Tree of Life stood in the midst of the Universe." And again we passed on, leaving behind us the chapel and the circle of stones, the pines and the firs: and as we went the foliage around us grew more and more stunted and like that at home. We traveled quickly; but now and then, through breaks and openings in the woods, I saw solitary oaks standing in the midst of green spaces, and beneath them kings giving judgment to their peoples, and magistrates administering laws. At last we came to a forest of trees so enormous that they made me tremble to look at them. The hugeness of their stems gave them an unearthly appearance; for they rose hundreds of feet from the ground before they burst out far, far above us, into colossal masses of vast-leaved foliage. I cannot sufficiently convey the impressions of awe with which the sight of these monster trees inspired me. There seemed to me something pitiless and phantom-like in the severity of their enormous bare trunks, stretching on without break or branch into the distance--overhead, and there at length giving birth to a sea of dark waving plumes, the rustle of which reached my ears as the sound of tossing waves. Passing beneath these vast trees we came to others of smaller growth, but still of the same type,--straight-stemmed, with branching foliage at their summit. Here we stood to rest, and as we paused I became aware that the trees around me were losing their color, and turning by imperceptible degrees into stone. In nothing was their form or position altered; only a cold, grey hue overspread them, and the intervening spaces between their stems became filled up, as though by a cloud which gradually grew substantial. Presently I raised my eyes, and lo! overhead were the arches of a vast cathedral, spanning the sky and hiding it from my sight. The tree stems had become tall columns of grey stone; and their plumed tops, the carven architraves and branching spines of Gothic sculpture. The incense rolled in great dense clouds to their outstretching arms, and, breaking against them, hung in floating, fragrant wreaths about their carven sprays. Looking downwards to the altar, I found it covered with flowers and plants and garlands, in the midst of which stood a great golden crucifix, and I turned to my guide wishing to question him, but he had disappeared, and I could not find him. Then a vast crowd of worshipers surrounded me, a priest before the altar raised the pyx and the patten in his hands. The people fell on their knees, and bent their heads, as a great field of corn over which a strong wind passes. I knelt with the rest, and adored with them in silence. --Paris, July 1877 VIII. The Enchanted Woman* The first consciousness which broke my sleep last night was one of floating, of being carried swiftly by some invisible force through a vast space; then, of being gently lowered; then of light, until, gradually, I found myself on --------------- * On the night previous to this dream, Mrs Kingsford was awoke by a bright light, and beheld a hand holding out towards her a glass of foaming ale, the action being accompanied by the words, spoken with strong emphasis,--" You must not drink this." It was not her usual beverage, but she occasionally yielded to pressure and took it when at home. In consequence of the above prohibition she abstained for that day, and on the following night received this vision, in order to fit her for which the prohibition had apparently been imposed. It was originally entitled a Vision of the World's Fall, on the supposition that it represented the loss of the Intuition, mystically called the "Fall of the Woman," through the sorceries of priestcraft. (Ed.) ------------------ my feet in a broad noon-day brightness, and before me an open country. Hills, hills, as far as the eye could reach,--hills with snow on their tops, and mists around their gorges. This was the first thing I saw distinctly. Then, casting my eyes towards the ground, I perceived that all about me lay huge masses of grey material which, at first, I took for blocks of stone, having the form of lions; but as I looked at them more intently, my sight grew clearer, and I saw, to my horror, that they were really alive. A panic seized me, and I tried to run away; but on turning, I became suddenly aware that the whole country was filled with these awful shapes; and the faces of those nearest to me were most dreadful, for their eyes, and something in the expression, though not in the form, of their faces, were human. I was absolutely alone in a terrible world peopled with lions, too, of a monstrous kind. Recovering myself with an effort, I resumed my flight, but, as I passed through the midst of this concourse of monsters, it suddenly struck me that they were perfectly unconscious of my presence. I even laid my hands, in passing, on the heads and manes of several, but they gave no sign of seeing me or of knowing that I touched them. At last I gained the threshold of a great pavilion, not, apparently, built by hands, but formed by Nature. The walls were solid, yet they were composed of huge trees standing close together, like columns; and the roof of the pavilion was formed by their massive foliage, through which not a ray of outer light penetrated. Such light as there was seemed nebulous, and appeared to rise out of the ground. In the centre of this pavilion I stood alone, happy to have got clear away from those terrible beasts and the gaze of their steadfast eyes. As I stood there, I became conscious of the fact that the nebulous light of the place was concentrating itself into a focus on the columned wall opposite to me. It grew there, became intenser, and then spread, revealing, as it spread, a series of moving pictures that appeared to be scenes actually enacted before me. For the figures in the pictures were living, and they moved before my eyes, though I heard neither word nor sound. And this is what I saw. First there came a writing on the wall of the pavilion:--" This is the History of our World." These words, as I looked at them, appeared to sink into the wall as they had risen out of it, and to yield place to the pictures which then began to come out in succession, dimly at first, then strong and clear as actual scenes. First I beheld a beautiful woman, with the sweetest face and most perfect form conceivable. She was dwelling in a cave among the hills with her husband, and he, too, was beautiful, more like an angel than a man. They seemed perfectly happy together; and their dwelling was like Paradise. On every side was beauty, sunlight, and repose. This picture sank into the wall as the writing had done. And then came out another; the same man and woman driving together in a sleigh drawn by reindeer over fields of ice; with all about them glaciers and snow, and great mountains veiled in wreaths of slowly moving mist. The sleigh went at a rapid pace, and its occupants talked gaily to each other, so far as I could judge by their smiles and the movement of their lips. But, what caused me much surprise was that they carried between them, and actually in their hands, a glowing flame, the fervor of which I felt reflected from the picture upon my own cheeks. The ice around shone with its brightness. The mists upon the snow mountains caught its gleam. Yet, strong as were its light and heat, neither the man nor the woman seemed to be burned or dazzled by it. This picture, too, the beauty and brilliancy of which greatly impressed me, sank and disappeared as the former. Next, I saw a terrible looking man clad in an enchanter's robe, standing alone upon an ice-crag. In the air above him, poised like a dragonfly, was an evil spirit, having a head and face like that of a human being. The rest of it resembled the tail of a comet, and seemed made of a green fire, which flickered in and out as though swayed by a wind. And as I looked, suddenly, through an opening among the hills, I saw the sleigh pass, carrying the beautiful woman and her husband; and in the same instant the enchanter also saw it, and his face contracted, and the evil spirit lowered itself and came between me and him. Then this picture sank and vanished. I next beheld the same cave in the mountains which I had before seen; and the beautiful couple together in it. Then a shadow darkened the door of the cave; and the enchanter was there, asking admittance; cheerfully they bade him enter, and, as he came forward with his snake-like eyes fixed on the fair woman, I understood that he wished to have her for his own, and was even then devising how to bear her away. And the spirit in the air beside him seemed busy suggesting schemes to this end. Then this picture melted and became confused, giving place for but a brief moment to another, in which I saw the enchanter carrying the woman away in his arms, she struggling and lamenting, her long bright hair streaming behind her. This scene passed from the wall as though a wind had swept over it, and there rose up in its place a picture, which impressed me with a more vivid sense of reality than all the rest. It represented a market place, in the midst of which was a pile of faggots and a stake, such as were used formerly for the burning of heretics and witches. The market place, round which were rows of seats as though for a concourse of spectators, yet appeared quite deserted. I saw only three living beings present,--the beautiful woman, the enchanter, and the evil spirit. Nevertheless, I thought that the seats were really occupied by invisible tenants, for every now and then there seemed to be a stir in the atmosphere as of a great multitude; and I had, moreover, a strange sense of facing many witnesses. The enchanter led the woman to the stake, fastened her there with iron chains, lit the faggots about her feet and withdrew to a short distance, where he stood with his arms folded, looking on as the flames rose about her. I understood that she had refused his love, and that in his fury he had denounced her as a sorceress. Then in the fire, above the pile, I saw the evil spirit poising itself like a fly, and rising and sinking and fluttering in the thick smoke. While I wondered what this meant, the flames which had concealed the beautiful woman, parted in their midst, and disclosed a sight so horrible and unexpected as to thrill me from head to foot, and curdle my blood. Chained to the stake there stood, not the fair woman I had seen there a moment before, but a hideous monster,--a woman still, but a woman with three heads, and three bodies linked in one. Each of her long arms ended, not in a hand, but in a claw like that of a bird of rapine. Her hair resembled the locks of the classic Medusa, and her faces were inexpressibly loathsome. She seemed, with all her dreadful heads and limbs, to writhe in the flames and yet not to be consumed by them. She gathered them in to herself; her claws caught them and drew them down; her triple body appeared to suck the fire into itself, as though a blast drove it. The sight appalled me. I covered my face and dared look no more. When at length I again turned my eyes upon the wall, the picture that had so terrified me was gone, and instead of it, I saw the enchanter flying through the world, pursued by the evil spirit and that dreadful woman. Through all the world they seemed to go. The scenes changed with marvellous rapidity. Now the picture glowed with the wealth and gorgeousness of the torrid zone; now the ice-fields of the North rose into view; anon a pine-forest; then a wild seashore; but always the same three flying figures; always the horrible three-formed harpy pursuing the enchanter, and beside her the evil spirit with the dragonfly wings. At last this succession of images ceased, and I beheld a desolate region, in the midst of which sat the woman with the enchanter beside her, his head reposing in her lap. Either the sight of her must have become familiar to him and, so, less horrible, or she had subjugated him by some spell. At all events, they were mated at last, and their offspring lay around them on the stony ground, or moved to and fro. These were lions,--monsters with human faces, such as I had seen in the beginning of my dream. Their jaws dripped blood; they paced backwards and forwards, lashing their tails. Then too, this picture faded and sank into the wall as the others had done. And through its melting outlines came out again the words I had first seen: "This is the History of our World," only they seemed to me in some way changed, but how; I cannot tell. The horror of the whole thing was too strong upon me to let me dare look longer at the wall. And I awoke, repeating to myself the question, "How could one woman become three?" --Hinton, Feb. 1877 IX. The Banquet of the Gods I saw in my sleep a great table spread upon a beautiful mountain, the distant peaks of which were covered with snow, and brilliant with a bright light. Around the table reclined, twelve persons, six male, six female, some of whom I recognised at once, the others afterwards. Those whom I recognised at once were Zeus, Hera, Pallas Athena, Phoebus Apollo, and Artemis. I knew them by the symbols they wore. The table was covered with all kinds of fruit, of great size, including nuts, almonds, and olives, with flat cakes of bread, and cups of gold into which, before drinking, each divinity poured two sorts of liquid, one of which was wine, the other water. As I was looking on, standing on a step a little below the top of the flight which led to the table, I was startled by seeing Hera suddenly fix her eyes on me and say, "What seest thou at the lower end of the table?" And I looked and answered, "I see two vacant seats." Then she spoke again and said, "When you are able to eat of our food and to drink of our cup, you also shall sit and feast with us." Scarcely had she uttered these words, when Athena, who sat facing me, added, "When you are able to eat of our food and to drink of our cup, then you shall know as you are known." And immediately Artemis, whom I knew by the moon upon her head; continued, "When you are able to eat of our food and to drink of our cup, all things shall become pure to you, and ye shall be made virgins." Then I said, "O Immortals, what is your food and your drink, and how does your banquet differ from ours, seeing that we also eat no flesh, and blood has no place in our repasts?" Then one of the Gods, whom at the time I did not know, but have since recognised as Hermes, rose from the table, and coming to me put into my hands a branch of a fig tree bearing upon it ripe fruit, and said, "If you would be perfect, and able to know and to do all things, quit the heresy of Prometheus. Let fire warm and comfort you externally: it is heaven's gift. But do not wrest it from its rightful purpose, as did that betrayer of your race, to fill the veins of humanity with its contagion, and to consume your interior being with its breath. All of you are men of clay, as was the image which Prometheus made. Ye are nourished with stolen fire, and it consumes you. Of all the evil uses of heaven's good gifts, none is so evil as the internal use of fire. For your hot foods and drinks have consumed and dried up the magnetic power of your nerves, sealed your senses, and cut short your lives. Now, you neither see nor hear; for the fire in your organs consumes your senses. Ye are all blind and deaf, creatures of clay. We have sent you a book to read. Practise its precepts, and your senses shall be opened." Then, not yet recognising him, I said, "Tell me your name, Lord." At this he laughed and answered, "I have been about you from the beginning. I am the white cloud on the noonday sky." "Do you, then," I asked, "desire the whole world to abandon the use of fire in preparing food and drink?" Instead of answering my question, he said, "We show you the excellent way. Two places only are vacant at our table. We have told you all that can be shown you on the level on which you stand. But our perfect gifts, the fruits of the Tree of Life, are beyond your reach now. We cannot give them to you until you are purified and have come up higher. The conditions are God's; the will is with you." These last words seemed to be repeated from the sky overhead, and again from beneath my feet. And at the instant I fell, as if shot down like a meteor from a vast height; and with the swiftness and shock of the fall I awoke. --Hinton, Sept. 1877 ----------------- * The book referred to was a volume entitled Fruit and Bread, which had been sent anonymously on the previous morning. The fig-tree, which both with the Hebrews and the Greeks was the type of intuitional perception, was an especial symbol of Hermes, called by the Hebrews Raphael. The plural used by the seer included myself as the partner of her literary and other studies. The term virgin in its mystical sense signifies a soul pure from admixture of matter.--(Ed.) ----------------------- X. The Difficult Path Having fallen asleep last night while in a state of great perplexity about the care and education of my daughter, I dreamt as follows. I was walking with the child along the border of a high cliff, at the foot of which was the sea. The path was exceedingly narrow, and on the inner side was flanked by a line of rocks and stones. The outer side was so close to the edge of the cliff that she was compelled to walk either before or behind me, or else on the stones. And, as it was unsafe to let go her hand, it was on the stones that she had to walk, much to her distress. I was in male attire, and carried a staff in my hand. She wore skirts and had no staff; and every moment she stumbled or her dress caught and was torn by some jutting crag or bramble. In this way our progress was being continually interrupted and rendered almost impossible, when suddenly we came upon a sharp declivity leading to a steep path which wound down the side of the precipice to the beach below. Looking down, I saw on the shore beneath the cliff a collection of fishermen's huts, and groups of men and women on the shingle, mending nets, hauling up boats, and sorting fish of various kinds. In the midst of the little village stood a great crucifix of lead, so cast in a mould as to allow me from the elevated position I occupied behind it, to see that though in front it looked solid, it was in reality hollow. As I was noting this, a voice of some one close at hand suddenly addressed me; and on turning my head I found standing before me a man in the garb of a fisherman, who evidently had just scaled the steep path leading from the beach. He stretched out his hand to take the child, saying he bad come to fetch her, for that in the path I was following there was room only for one. "Let her come to us," he added; "she will do very well as a fisherman's daughter." Being reluctant to part with her, and not perceiving then the significance of his garb and vocation, I objected that the calling was a dirty and unsavoury one, and would soil her hands and dress. Whereupon the man became severe, and seemed to insist with a kind of authority upon my acceptance of his proposition. The child, too, was taken with him, and was moreover anxious to leave the rough and dangerous path; and she accordingly went to him of her own will and, placing her hand in his, left me without any sign of regret, and I went on my way alone. Then lifting my eyes to see whither my path led, I beheld it winding along the edge of the cliff to an apparently endless distance, until, as I gazed steadily on the extreme limit of my view, I saw the grey mist from the sea here and there break and roll up into great masses of slow-drifting cloud, in the intervals of which I caught the white gleam of sunlit snow. And these intervals continually closed up to open again in fresh places higher up, disclosing peak upon peak of a range of mountains of enormous altitude.* By a curious coincidence, the very morning after this dream, a friend, who knew of my perplexity, called to ---------- * Always the symbol of high mystical insight and spiritual attainment-- Biblically called "the Hill of the Lord" and "Mount of God. " (Ed.) ---------- recommend a school in a certain convent as one suitable for my child. There were, however, insuperable objections to the scheme. --Paris, Nov. 3, 1877 XI. A Lion In the Way Owing to the many and great difficulties thrown in my way, I had been seriously considering the advisability of withdrawing, if only for a time, from my course of medical study, when I received the following dream, which determined me to persevere:-- I found myself on the same narrow, rugged, and precipitous path described in my last dream, and confronted by a lion. Afraid to pass him I turned and fled. On this the beast gave chase, when, finding escape by flight hopeless, I turned and boldly faced him. Whereupon the lion at once stopped and slunk to the side of the path, and suffered me to pass unmolested, though I was so close to him that I could not avoid touching him with my garments in passing. --Paris, Nov. 15, 1877 ------------ * The prognostic was fully justified by the event.--(Ed.) ------------- XII. A Dream of Disembodiment I dreamt that I was dead, and wanted to take form and appear to C. in order to converse with him. And it was suggested by those about me-- spirits like myself I suppose--that I might materialise myself through the medium of some man whom they indicated to me. Coming to the place where he was, I was directed to throw myself out forward towards him by an intense concentration of will; which I accordingly tried to do, but without success, though the effort I made was enormous. I can only compare it to the attempt made by a person unable to swim, to fling himself off a platform into deep water. Do all I would, I could not gather myself up for it; and although encouraged and stimulated, and assured I had only to let myself go, my attempts were ineffectual. Even when I had sufficiently collected and prepared myself in one part of my system, the other part failed me. At length it was suggested to me that I should find it easier if I first took on me the form of the medium. This I at length succeeded in doing, and, to my annoyance, so completely that I materialised myself into the shape not only of his features, but of his clothing also. The effort requisite for this exhausted me to the utmost, so that I was unable to keep up the apparition for more than a few minutes, when I had no choice but to yield to the strain and let myself go again, only in the opposite way. So I went out, and mounted like a sudden flame, and saw myself for a moment like a thin streak of white mist rising in the air; while the comfort and relief I experienced by regaining my light spirit-condition, were indescribable. It was because I had, for want of skill, dematerialised myself without sufficient deliberation, that I had thus rapidly mounted in the air. After an interval I dreamt that, wishing to see what A. would do in case I appeared to him after my death, I went to him as a spirit and called him by his name. Upon hearing my voice he rose and went to the window and looked out uneasily. On my going close to him and speaking in his ear, he was much disturbed, and ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his head in a puzzled and by no means pleased manner. At the third attempt to attract his attention he rushed to the door, and, calling for a glass, poured out some wine, which he drank. On seeing this, and finding him inaccessible, I desisted, thinking it must often happen to the departed to be distressed by the inability or unwillingness of those they love to receive and recognise them. --Paris, Jan. 1878 XIII. The Perfect Way with Animals I saw in my sleep a cart-horse who, coming to me, conversed with me in what seemed a perfectly simple and natural manner, for it caused me no surprise that he should speak. And this is what he said:-- "Kindness to animals of the gentler orders is the very foundation of civilisation. For it is the cruelty and harshness of men towards the animals under their protection which is the cause of the present low standard of humanity itself. Brutal usage creates brutes; and the ranks of mankind are constantly recruited from spirits already hardened and depraved by a long course of ill-treatment. Nothing developes the spirit so much as sympathy. Nothing cultivates, refines, and aids it in its progress towards perfection so much as kind and gentle treatment. On the contrary, the brutal usage and want of sympathy with which we meet at the hands of men, stunt our development and reverse all the currents of a our nature. We grow coarse with coarseness, vile with reviling, and brutal with the brutality of those who surround us. And when we pass out of this stage we enter on the next depraved and hardened, and with the bent of our dispositions such that we are ready by our nature to do in our turn that which has been done to us. The greater number of us, indeed, know no other or better way. For the spirit learns by experience and imitation, and inclines necessarily to do those things which it has been in the habit of seeing done. Humanity will never become perfected until this doctrine is understood and received and made the rule of conduct." --Paris, Oct. 28, 1879 XIV. The Laboratory Underground I dreamed that I found myself underground in a vault artificially lighted. Tables were ranged along the walls of the vault, and upon these tables were bound down the living bodies of half-dissected and mutilated animals. Scientific experts were busy at work on their victims with scalpel, hot iron and forceps. But, as I looked at the creatures lying bound before them, they no longer appeared to be mere rabbits, or hounds, for in each I saw a human shape, the shape of a man, with limbs and lineaments resembling those of their torturers, hidden within the outward form. And when they led into the place an old worn-out horse, crippled with age and long toil in the service of man, and bound him down, and lacerated his flesh with their knives, I saw the human form within him stir and writhe as though it were an unborn babe moving in its mother's womb. And I cried aloud--"Wretches! you are tormenting an unborn man!" But they heard not, nor could they see what I saw. Then they brought in a white rabbit, and thrust its eyes through with heated irons. And as I gazed, the rabbit seemed to me like a tiny infant, with human face, and hands which stretched themselves towards me in appeal, and lips which sought to cry for help in human accents. And I could bear no more, but broke forth into a bitter rain of tears, exclaiming--"O blind! blind! not to see that you torture a child, the youngest of your own flesh and blood!" And with that I woke, sobbing vehemently. --Paris, Feb. 2, 1880 XV. The Old Young Man I dreamed that I was in Rome with C., and a friend of his called on us there, and asked leave to introduce to us a young man, a student of art, whose history and condition were singular. They came together in the evening. In the room where we sat was a kind of telephonic tube, through which, at intervals, a voice spoke to me. When the young man entered, these words were spoken in my ear through the tube:-- "You have made a good many diagnoses lately of cases of physical disease; here is a curious and interesting type of spiritual pathology, the like of which is rarely met with. Question this young man." Accordingly I did so, and drew from him that about a year ago he had been seriously ill of Roman fever; but as he hesitated, and seemed unwilling to speak on the subject, I questioned the friend. From him I learnt that the young man had formerly been a very proficient pupil in one of the best-known studios in Rome, but that a year ago he had suffered from a most terrible attack of malaria, in consequence of his remaining in Rome to work after others had found it necessary to go into the country, and that the malady had so affected the nervous system that since his recovery he had been wholly unlike his former self. His great aptitude for artistic work, from which so much had been expected, seemed to have entirely left him; he was no longer master of his pencil; his former faculty and promise of excellence had vanished. The physician who had attended him during his illness affirmed that all this was readily accounted for by the assumption that the malaria had affected the cerebral centres, and in particular, the nerve-cells of the memory; that such consequences of severe continuous fever were by no means uncommon, and might last for an indefinite period. Meanwhile the young man was now, by slow and painful application, doing his utmost to recover his lost power and skill. Naturally, the subject was distasteful to him, and he shrank from discussing it. Here the voice again spoke to me through the tube, telling me to observe the young man, and especially his face. On this I scanned his countenance with attention, and remarked that it wore a singularly odd look,--the look of a man advanced in years and experience. But that I surmised to be a not unusual effect of severe fever. "How old do you suppose the patient to be?" asked the interrogative voice. "About twenty years old, I suppose," said I. "He is a year old," rejoined the voice. "A year! How can that be?" "If you will not allow that he is only a year old, then you must admit that he is sixty-five, for he is certainly either one or the other." This enigma so perplexed me, that I begged my invisible informant for a solution of the difficulty, which was at once vouchsafed in the following terms:-- "Here is the history of your patient. The youth who was the proficient and gifted student, who astonished his masters, and gave such brilliant indications of future greatness, is dead. The malaria killed him. But he had a father, who, while alive, had loved his son as the apple of his eye, and whose whole being and desire centred in the boy. This father died some six years ago, about the age of sixty. After his death his devotion to the youth continued, and as a "spirit," he followed him everywhere, never quitting his side. So entirely was he absorbed in the lad and in his career, that he made no advance in his own spiritual life, nor, indeed, was he fully aware of the fact that he had himself quitted the earthly plane. For there are souls which, having been obtuse and dull in their apprehension of spiritual things during their existence in the flesh, and having neither hopes nor aims beyond the body, are very slow to realise the fact of their dissolution, and remain, therefore, chained to the earth by earthly affections and interests, haunting the places or persons they have most affected. But the young artist was not of this order. Idealist and genius, he was already highly spiritualised and vitalised even upon earth, and when death rent the bond between him and his body, he passed at once from the atmosphere of carnal things into a loftier sphere. But at the moment of his death, the phantom father was watching beside the son's sick-bed, and filled with agony at beholding the wreck of all the brilliant hopes he had cherished for the boy, thought only of preserving the physical life of that dear body, since the death of the outward form was still for him the death of all he had loved. He would cling to it, preserve it, re-animate it at any cost. The spirit had quitted it; it lay before him a corpse. What, then, did the father do? With a supreme effort of desire, ineffectual indeed to recall the departed ghost, but potent in its reaction upon himself, he projected his own vitality into his son's dead body, re-animated it with his own soul, and thus effected the resuscitation for which he had so ardently longed. So the body you now behold is, indeed, the son's body, but the soul which animates it is that of the father. And it is a year since this event occurred. Such is the real solution of the problem, whose natural effects the physician attributes to the result of disease. The spirit which now tenants this young man's form had no knowledge of art when he was so strangely reborn into the world, beyond the mere rudiments of drawing which he had learned while watching his son at work during the previous six years. What, therefore, seems to the physician to be a painful recovery of previous aptitude, is, in fact, the imperfect endeavour of a novice entering a new and unsuitable career. "For the father the experience is by no means an unprofitable one. He would certainly, sooner or later, have resumed existence upon earth in the flesh, and it is as well that his return should be under the actual circumstances. The study of art upon which he has thus entered is likely to prove to him an excellent means of spiritual education. By means of it his soul may ascend as it has never yet done; while the habits of the body he now possesses, trained as it is to refined and gentle modes of life, may do much to accomplish the purgation and redemption of its new tenant. It is far better for the father that this strange event should have occurred, than that he should have remained an earth-bound phantom, unable to realise his own position, or to rise above the affection which chained him to merely worldly things." --Paris, Feb. 21, 1880 XVI. The Metempsychosis I was visited last night in my sleep by one whom I presently recognised as the famous Adept and Mystic of the first century of our era, Apollonius of Tyana, called the " Pagan Christ." He was clad in a grey linen robe with a hood, like that of a monk, and had a smooth, beardless face, and seemed to be between forty and fifty years of age. He made himself known to me by asking if I had heard of his lion.* He commenced by speaking of Metempsychosis, concerning which he informed --------- * This was a tame captive lion, in whom Apollonius is said to have recognised the soul of the Egyptian King Amasis, who had lived 500 years previously. The lion burst into tears at the recognition, and showed much misery. (Author's Note.) ---------- me as follows:--"There are two streams or currents, an upward and a downward one, by which souls are continually passing and repassing as on a ladder. The carnivorous animals are souls undergoing penance by being imprisoned for a time in such forms on account of their misdeeds. Have you not heard the story of my lion?" I said yes, but that I did not understand it, because I thought it impossible for a human soul to suffer the degradation of returning into the body of a lower creature after once attaining humanity. At this he laughed out, and said that the real degradation was not in the penance but in the sin. "It is not by the penance, but by incurring the need of the penance, that the soul is degraded. The man who sullies his humanity by cruelty or lust, is already degraded thereby below humanity; and the form which his soul afterwards assumes is the mere natural consequence of that degradation. He may again recover humanity, but only by means of passing through another form than that of the carnivora. When you were told * that certain creatures were redeemable or not redeemable, the meaning was this: They who are redeemable may, on leaving their present form, return directly into humanity. Their penance is accomplished in that form, and in it, therefore, they are redeemed. But they who are not redeemable, are they whose sin has been too deep or too ingrained to suffer them to return until they have passed through other lower forms. They are not redeemable therein, but will be on ascending again. Others, altogether vile and past redemption, sink continually lower and lower down the stream, until at length they burn out. They shall neither be redeemed in the form they now occupy, nor in any other." --Paris, May 11, 1880 ---------- * The reference is to an instruction received by her four years previously, but not in sleep, and not from Apollonius, though from a source no less transcendental. (Ed.) *** Remembering, on being told this dream, that "Eliphas Levi," in his Haute Magic, had described an interview with the phantom of Apollonius, which he had evoked, I referred to the book, and found that he also saw him with a smooth-shaven face, but wearing a shroud (linceul). (Ed.) XVII. The Three Kings The time was drawing towards dawn in a wild and desolate region. And I stood with my genius at the foot of a mountain the summit of which was hidden in mist. At a few paces from me stood three persons, clad in splendid robes and wearing crowns on their heads. Each personage carried a casket and a key: the three caskets differed from one another, but the keys were all alike. And my genius said to me, "These are the three kings of the East, and they journey hither over the river that is dried up, to go up into the mountain of Sion and rebuild the Temple of the Lord God." Then I looked more closely at the three royalties, and I saw that the one who stood nearest to me on the left hand was a man, and the color of his skin was dark like that of an Indian. And the second was in form like a woman, and her complexion was fair: and the third had the wings of an Angel, and carried a staff of gold. And I heard them say one to another, "Brother, what hast thou in thy casket?" And the first answered, " I am the Stonelayer, and I carry the implements of my craft; also a bundle of myrrh for thee and for me." And the king who bore the aspect of a woman, answered, "I am the Carpenter, and I bear the instruments of my craft; also a box of frankincense for thee and for me." And the Angel-king answered, "I am the Measurer, and I carry the secrets of the living God, and the rod of gold to measure your work withal." Then the first said, "Therefore let us go up into the hill of the Lord and build the walls of Jerusalem. And they turned to ascend the mountain. But they had not taken the first step when the king, whose name was Stonelayer, said to him who was called the Carpenter, "Give me first the implements of thy craft, and the plan of thy building, that I may know after what sort thou buildest, and may fashion thereto my masonry." And the other asked him, "What buildest thou, brother?" And he answered, "I build the Outer Court." Then the Carpenter unlocked his casket and gave him a scroll written over in silver, and a crystal rule, and a carpenter's plane and a saw. And the other took them and put them into his casket. Then the Carpenter said to the Stonelayer, "Brother, give me also the plan of thy building, and the tools of thy craft. For I build the Inner Place, and must needs fit my designing to thy foundation." But the other answered, "Nay, my brother, for I have promised the laborers. Build thou alone. It is enough that I know thy secrets; ask not mine of me." And the Carpenter answered, "How then shall the Temple of the Lord be builded? Are we not of three Ages, and is the temple yet perfected?" Then the Angel spoke, and said to the Stonelayer, "Fear not, brother: freely hast thou received; freely give. For except thine elder brother had been first a Stonelayer, he could not now be a Carpenter. Art thou not of Solomon, and he of Christ? Therefore he hath already handled thy tools, and is of thy craft. And I also, the Measurer, I know the work of both. But now is that time when the end cometh, and that which hath been spoken in the ear in closets, the same shall be proclaimed on the housetops." Then the first king unlocked his casket, and gave to the Carpenter a scroll written in red, and a compass and a trowel. But the Carpenter answered him: "It is enough. I have seen, and I remember. For this is the writing King Solomon gave into my hands when I also was a Stonelayer, and when thou wert of the company of them that labor. For I also am thy Brother, and that thou knowest I know also." Then the third king, the Angel, spoke again and said, "Now is the knowledge perfected and the bond fulfilled. For neither can the Stonelayer build alone, nor the Carpenter construct apart. Therefore, until this day, is the Temple of the Lord unbuilt. But now is the time come, and Salem shall have her habitation on the Hill of the Lord." And there came down a mist from the mountain, and out of the mist a star. And my Genius said, "Thou shalt yet see more on this wise." But I saw then only the mist, which filled the valley, and moistened my hair and my dress; and so I awoke. --London, April 30, 1882 ---------- ** For the full comprehension of the above dream, it is necessary to be profoundly versed at once in the esoteric signification of the Scriptures and in the mysteries of Freemasonry. It was the dreamer's great regret that she neither knew, nor could know, the latter, women being excluded from initiation. (Ed.) XVIII. The Armed Goddess I dreamed that I sat reading in my study, with books lying about all round me. Suddenly a voice, marvellously clear and silvery, called me by name. Starting up and turning, I saw behind me a long vista of white marble columns, Greek in architecture, flanking on either side a gallery of white marble. At the end of this gallery stood a shape of exceeding brilliancy, the shape of a woman above mortal height, clad from head to foot in shining mail armour. In her right hand was a spear, on her left arm a shield. Her brow was hidden by a helmet, and the aspect of her face was stern,-- severe even, I thought. I approached her, and as I went, my body was lifted up from the earth, and I was aware of that strange sensation of floating above the surface of the ground, which is so common with me in sleep that at times I can scarce persuade myself after waking that it has not been a real experience. When I alighted at the end of the long gallery before the armed woman, she said to me: "Take off the night-dress thou wearest." I looked at my attire and was about to answer-- "This is not a night-dress," when she added, as though perceiving my thought:-- "The woman's garb is a night-dress; it is a garment made to sleep in. The man's garb is the dress for the day. Look eastward!" I raised my eyes and, behind the mail-clad shape, I saw the dawn breaking, blood-red, and with great clouds like pillars of smoke rolling up on either side of the place where the sun was about to rise. But as yet the sun was not visible. And as I looked, she cried aloud, and her voice rang through the air like the clash of steel:-- "Listen!" And she struck her spear on the marble pavement. At the same moment there came from afar off, a confused sound of battle. Cries, and human voices in conflict, and the stir as of a vast multitude, the distant clang of arms and a noise of the galloping of many horses rushing furiously over the ground. And then, sudden silence. Again she smote the pavement, and again the sounds arose, nearer now, and more tumultuous. Once more they ceased, and a third time she struck the marble with her spear. Then the noises arose all about and around the very spot where we stood, and the clang of the arms was so close that it shook and thrilled the very columns beside me. And the neighing and snorting of horses, and the thud of their ponderous hoofs flying over the earth made, as it were, a wind in my ears, so that it seemed as though a furious battle were raging all around us. But I could see nothing. Only the sounds increased, and became so violent that they awoke me, and even after waking I still seemed to catch the commotion of them in the air. * --Paris, February 15, 1883. ---------- * This dream was shortly followed by Mrs Kingsford's antivivisection expedition to Switzerland, the fierce conflict of which amply fulfilled any predictive significance it may have had. ----------- XIX. The Game of Cards: A Parable I dreamed I was playing at cards with three persons, the two opposed to me being a man and a woman with hoods pulled over their heads, and cloaks covering their persons. I did not particularly observe them. My partner was an old man without hood or cloak, and there was about him this peculiarity, that he did not from one minute to another appear to remain the same. Sometimes he looked like a very young man, the features not appearing to change in order to produce this effect, but an aspect of youth and even of mirth coming into the face as though the features were lighted up from within. Behind me stood a personage whom I could not see, for his hand and arm only appeared, handing me a pack of cards. So far as I discerned, it was a man's figure, habited in black. Shortly after the dream began, my partner addressed me, saying, "Do you play by luck or by skill?" I answered: "I play by luck chiefly; I don't know how to play by skill. But I have generally been lucky." In fact, I had already, lying by me, several "tricks" I had taken. He answered me:-- "To play by luck is to trust to without; to play by skill is to trust to within. In this game, Within goes further than Without." "What are trumps?" I asked. "Diamonds are trumps," he answered. I looked at the cards in my hand and said to him:--"I have more clubs than anything else." At this he laughed, and seemed all at once quite a youth. "Clubs are strong cards, after all," he said. "Don't despise the black suits. I have known some of the best games ever played won by players holding more clubs than you have." I examined the cards and found something very odd about them. There were the four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs, and spades. But the picture cards in my hand seemed different altogether from any I had ever seen before. One was queen of Clubs, and her face altered as I looked at it. First it was dark,--almost dusky,--with the imperial crown on the head; then it seemed quite fair, the crown changing to a smaller one of English aspect, and the dress also transforming itself. There was a queen of Hearts, too, in an antique peasant's gown, with brown hair, and presently this melted into a suit of armor which shone as if reflecting firelight in its burnished scales. The other cards seemed alive likewise, even the ordinary ones, just like the court-cards. There seemed to be pictures moving inside the emblems on their faces. The clubs in my hand ran into higher figures than the spades; these came next in number, and diamonds next. I had no picture-cards of diamonds, but I had the Ace. And this was so bright I could not look at it. Except the two queens of Clubs and Hearts I think I had no picture-cards in my hand, and very few red cards of any kind. There were high figures in the spades. It was the personage behind my chair who dealt the cards always. I said to my partner:--"It is difficult to play at all, whether by luck or by skill, for I get such a bad hand dealt me each time." "That is your fault," he said. "Play your best with what you have, and next time you will get better cards." "How can that be?" I asked. "Because after each game, the `tricks' you take are added to the bottom of the pack which the dealer holds, and you get the `honors' you have taken up from the table. Play well and take all you can. But you must put more head into it. You trust too much to fortune. Don't blame the dealer; he can't see." "I shall lose this game," I said presently, for the two persons playing against us seemed to be taking up all the cards quickly, and the "lead" never came to my turn. "It is because you don't count your points before putting down a card," my partner said. "If they play high numbers, you must play higher." "But they have all the trumps," I said. "No," he answered, "you have the highest trump of all in your own hand. It is the first and the last. You may take every card they have with that, for it is the chief of the whole series. But you have spades too, and high ones." (He seemed to know what I had.) "Diamonds are better than spades," I answered. "And nearly all my cards are black ones. Besides, I can't count, it wants so much thinking. Can't you come over here and play for me?" He shook his head, and I thought that again he laughed." No," he replied, "that is against the law of the game. You must play for yourself. Think it out." He uttered these words very emphatically and with so strange an intonation that they dissipated the rest of the dream, and I remember no more of it. But I did "think it out;" and I found it was a parable; of Karma. --Atcham, Dec. 7, 1883 XX. The Panic-Struck Pack-Horse Out of a veil of palpitating mist there arose before me in my sleep the image of a colossal and precipitous cliff; standing sheer up against a sky of cloud and sea-mist, the tops of the granite peaks being merged and hidden in the vapor. At the foot of the precipice beat a wild sea, tossing and flecked with foam; and out of the flying spray rose sharp splinters of granite, standing like spearheads about the base of the solid rock. As I looked, something stirred far off in the distance, like a fly crawling over the smooth crag. Fixing my gaze upon it I became aware that there was at a great height above the sea, midway between sky and water, a narrow unprotected footpath winding up and down irregularly along the side of the mighty cliff;--a slender, sloping path, horrible to look at, like a rope or a thread stretched mid-air, hanging between heaven and the hungry foam. One by one, came towards me along this awful path a procession of horses, drawing tall narrow carts filled with bales of merchandise. The horses moved along the edge of the crag as though they clung to it, their bodies aslant towards the wall of granite on their right, their legs moving with the precision of creatures feeling and grasping every step. Like deer they moved,-- not like horses, and as they advanced, the carts they drew swayed behind them, and I thought every jolt would hurl them over the precipice. Fascinated I watched,--I could not choose but watch. At length came a grey horse, not drawing a cart, but carrying something on his back,--on a pack-saddle apparently. Like the rest he came on stealthily, sniffing every inch of the terrible way, until, just at the worst and giddiest point he paused, hesitated, and seemed about to turn.---I saw him back himself in a crouching attitude against the wall of rock behind him, lowering his haunches, and rearing his head in a strange manner. The idea flashed on me that he would certainly turn, and then--what could happen? More horses were advancing, and two beasts could not possibly pass each other on that narrow ledge! But I was totally unprepared for the ghastly thing that actually did happen. The miserable horse had been seized with the awful mountain-madness that sometimes overtakes men on stupendous heights,--the madness of suicide. With a frightful scream, that sounded partly like a cry of supreme desperation, partly like one of furious and frenzied joy, the horse reared himself to his full height on the horrible ledge, shook his head wildly, and-- leaped with a frantic spring into the air, sheer over the precipice, and into the foam beneath. His eyes glared as he shot into the void, a great dark living mass against the white mist. Was he speared on those terrible shafts of rock below, or was his life dashed out in horrible crimson splashes against the cliffside? Or did he sink into the reeling swirl of the foaming waters, and die more mercifully in their steel-dark depths? I could not see. I saw only the flying form dart through the mist like an arrow from a bow. I heard only the appalling cry, like nothing earthly ever heard before; and I woke in a panic, with hands tightly clasped, and my body damp with moisture. It was but a dream--this awful picture; it was gone as an image from a mirror, and I was awake, and gazing only upon blank darkness. --Atcham, Sept. 15, 1884 XXI. The Haunted Inn I seemed in my vision to be on a long and wearisome journey, and to have arrived at an Inn, in which I was offered shelter and rest. The apartment given me consisted of a bedroom and parlour, communicating, and furnished in an antique manner, everything in the rooms appearing to be worm-eaten, dusty and out of date. The walls were bare and dingy; there was not a picture or an ornament in the apartment. An extremely dim light prevailed in the scene; indeed, I do not clearly remember, whether, with the exception of the fire and a nightlamp, the rooms were illumined at all. I seated myself in a chair, by the hearth; it was late, and I thought only of rest. But, presently, I became aware of strange things going on about me. On a table in a corner lay some papers and a pencil. With a feeling of indescribable horror I saw this pencil assume an erect position and begin of itself to write on the paper, precisely as though an invisible hand held and guided it. At the same time, small detonations sounded in different parts of the room; tiny bright sparks appeared, burst, and immediately expired in smoke. The pencil having ceased to write, laid itself gently down, and taking the paper in my hand I found on it a quantity of writing which at first appeared to me to be in cipher, but I presently perceived that the words composing it were written backwards, from right to left, exactly as one sees writing reflected on a looking glass. What was written made a considerable impression on me at the time, but I cannot now recall it. I know, however, that the dominant feeling I experienced was one of horror. I called the owners of the inn and related to them what had taken place. They received my statement with perfect equanimity, and told me that in their house this was the normal state of things, of which, in fact, they were extremely proud; and they ended by congratulating me as a visitor much favored by the invisible agencies of the place. "We call them our Lights," they said. "It is true," I observed, "that I saw lights in the air about the room, but they went out instantaneously, and left only smoke behind them. And why do they write backwards? Who are They?" As I asked this last question, the pencil on the table rose again, and wrote thus on the paper:-- ".ksatonoD" Again horror seized on me, and the air becoming full of smoke I found it impossible to breathe. "Let me out!" I cried, "I am stifled here,--the air is full of smoke!" "Outside," the people of the house answered, "you will lose your way; it is quite dark, and we have no other rooms to let. And, besides, it is the same in all the other apartments of the inn." "But the place is haunted!" I cried; and I pushed past them, and burst out of the house. Before the doorway stood a tall veiled figure, like translucent silver. A sense of reverence overcame me. The night was balmy, and bright almost as day with resplendent starlight. The stars seemed to lean out of heaven; they looked down on me like living eyes, full of a strange immeasurable sympathy. I crossed the threshold, and stood in the open plain, breathing with rapture and relief the pure warm air of that delicious night. How restful, calm, and glorious was the dark landscape, outlined in purple against the luminous sky! And what a consciousness of vastness and immensity above and around me! "Where am I?" I cried. The silver figure stood beside me, and lifted its veil. It was Pallas Athena. "Under the Stars of the East," she answered me, "the true eternal Lights of the World." After I was awake, a text in the Gospels was vividly brought to my mind:--"There was no room for then in the Inn." What is this Inn, I wondered, all the rooms of which are haunted, and in which the Christ cannot be born? And this open country under the eastern night,--is it not the same in which they were "abiding," to whom that Birth was first angelically announced? --Atcham, Nov. 5, 1885 ---------- ** The solution of the enigma was afterwards recognised in an instruction, also imparted in sleep, in which it was said, "If Occultism were all, and held the key of heaven, there would be no need of Christ." (Ed.) XXII. An Eastern Apologue The following was read by me during sleep, in an old book printed in archaic type. As with many other things similarly read by me, I do not know whether it is to be found in any book:-- "After Buddha had been ten years in retirement, certain sages sent their disciples to him, asking him,--'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama?' "Buddha answered them, 'I claim to be nothing.' "Ten years afterwards they sent again to him, asking the same question, and again Buddha answered:--'I claim to be nothing.' "Then after yet another ten years had passed, they sent a third time, asking, 'What dost thou claim to be, Gotama?' "And Buddha replied, 'I claim to be the utterance of the most high God.' "Then they said to him: 'How is this, that hitherto thou hast proclaimed thyself to be nothing, and now thou declarest thyself to be the very utterance of God?' "Buddha answered: `Either I am nothing, or I am the very utterance of God, for between these two all is silence."' --Atcham, March 5, 1885 XXIII. A Haunted House Indeed! I dreamt that during a tour on the Continent with my friend C. we stayed in a town wherein there was an ancient house of horrible reputation, concerning which we received the following account. At the top of the house was a suite of rooms, from which no one who entered at night ever again emerged. No corpse was ever found; but it was said by some that the victims were absorbed bodily by the walls; by others that there were in the rooms a number of pictures in frames, one frame, however, containing a blank canvas, which had the dreadful power, first, of fascinating the beholder, and next of drawing him towards it, so that he was compelled to approach and gaze at it. Then, by the same hideous enchantment, he was forced to touch it, and the touch was fatal. For the canvas seized him as a devil-fish seizes its prey, and sucked him in, so that he perished without leaving a trace of himself, or of the manner of his death. The legend said further that if any person could succeed in passing a night in these rooms and in resisting their deadly influence, the spell would for ever be broken, and no one would thenceforth be sacrificed. Hearing all this, and being somewhat of the knight-errant order, C. and I determined to face the danger, and, if possible, deliver the town from the enchantment. We were assured that the attempt would be vain, for that it had already been many times made, and the Devils of the place were always triumphant. They had the power, we were told, of hallucinating the senses of their victims; we should be subjected to some illusion, and be fatally deceived. Nevertheless, we were resolved to try what we could do, and in order to acquaint ourselves with the scene of the ordeal, we visited the place in the daytime. It was a gloomy-looking building, consisting of several vast rooms, filled with lumber of old furniture, worm-eaten and decaying; scaffoldings, which seemed to have been erected for the sake of making repairs and then left; the windows were curtainless, the floors bare, and rats ran hither and thither among the rubbish accumulated in the corners. Nothing could possibly look more desolate and gruesome. We saw no pictures; but as we did not explore every part of the rooms, they may have been there without our seeing them. We were further informed by the people of the town that in order to visit the rooms at night it was necessary to wear a special costume, and that without it we should have no chance whatever of issuing from them alive. This costume was of black and white, and each of us was to carry a black stave. So we put on this attire,--which somewhat resembled the garb of an ecclesiastical order,--and when the appointed time came, repaired to the haunted house, where, after toiling up the great staircase in the darkness, we reached the door of the haunted apartments to find it closed. But light was plainly visible beneath it, and within was the sound of voices. This greatly surprised us; but after a short conference we knocked. The door was presently opened by a servant, dressed as a modern indoor footman usually is, who civilly asked us to walk in. On entering we found the place altogether different from what we expected to find, and had found on our daylight visit. It was brightly lighted, had decorated walls, pretty ornaments, carpets, and every kind of modern garnishment, and, in short, bore all the appearance of an ordinary well-appointed private "flat." While we stood in the corridor, astonished, a gentleman in evening dress advanced towards us from one of the reception rooms. As he looked interrogatively at us, we thought it best to explain the intrusion, adding that we presumed we had either entered the wrong house, or stopped at the wrong apartment. He laughed pleasantly at our tale, and said, "I don't know anything about haunted rooms, and, in fact, don't believe in anything of the kind. As for these rooms, they have for a long time been let for two or three nights every week to our Society for the purpose of social reunion. We are members of a musical and literary association, and are in the habit of holding conversaziones in these rooms on certain evenings, during which we entertain ourselves with dancing, singing, charades, and literary gossip. The rooms are spacious and lofty, and exactly adapted to our requirements. As you are here, I may say, in the name of the rest of the members, that we shall be happy if you will join us." At this I glanced at our dresses in some confusion, which being observed by the gentleman, he hastened to say: "You need be under no anxiety about your appearance, for this is a costume night, and the greater number of our guests are in travesty." As he spoke he threw open the door of a large drawing-room and invited us in. On entering we found a company of men and women, well-dressed, some in ordinary evening attire and some costumed. The room was brilliantly lighted and beautifully furnished and decorated. At one end was a grand piano, round which several persons were grouped; others were seated on ottomans taking tea or coffee; and others strolled about, talking. Our host, who appeared to be master of the ceremonies, introduced us to several persons, and we soon became deeply interested in a conversation on literary subjects. So the evening wore on pleasantly, but I never ceased to wonder how we could have mistaken the house or the staircase after the precaution we had taken of visiting it in the daytime in order to avoid the possibility of error. Presently, being tired of conversation, I wandered away from the group with which C. was still engaged, to look at the beautiful decorations of the great salon, the walls of which were covered with artistic designs in fresco. Between each couple of panels, the whole length of the salon, was a beautiful painting, representing a landscape or a sea-piece. I passed from one to the other, admiring each, till I had reached the extreme end, and was far away from the rest of the company, where the lights were not so many or so bright as in the centre. The last fresco in the series then caught my attention. At first it appeared to me to be unfinished; and then I observed that there was upon its background no picture at all, but only a background of merging tints which seemed to change, and to be now sky, now sea, now green grass. This empty picture had, moreover, an odd metallic coloring which fascinated me; and saying to myself "Is there really any painting on it?" I mechanically put out my hand and touched it. On this I was instantly seized by a frightful sensation, a shock that ran from the tips of my fingers to my brain, and steeped my whole being. Simultaneously I was aware of an overwhelming sense of sucking and dragging, which, from my hand and arm, and, as it were, through them, seemed to possess and envelop my whole person. Face, hair, eyes, bosom, limbs, every portion of my body was locked in an awful embrace which, like the vortex of a whirlpool, drew me irresistibly towards the picture. I felt the hideous impulse clinging over me and sucking me forwards into the wall. I strove in vain to resist it. My efforts were more futile than the flutter of gossamer wings. And then there rushed upon my mind the consciousness that all we had been told about the haunted rooms was true; that a strong delusion had been cast over us; that all this brilliant throng of modern ladies and gentlemen were fiends masquerading, prepared beforehand for our coming; that all the beauty and splendor of our surroundings were mere glamor; and that in reality the rooms were those we had seen in the daytime, filled with lumber and rot and vermin. As I realised all this, and was thrilled with the certainty of it, a sudden access of strength came to me, and I was impelled, as a last desperate effort, to turn my back on the awful fresco, and at least to save my face from coming into contact with it and being glued to its surface. With a shriek of anguish I wrenched myself round and fell prostrate on the ground, face downwards, with my back to the wall, feeling as though the flesh had been torn from my hand and arm. Whether I was saved or not I knew not. My whole being was over-powered by the realisation of the deception to which I had succumbed. I had looked for something so different,--darkness, vacant, deserted rooms, and perhaps a tall, white, empty canvas in a frame, against which I should have been on my guard. Who could have anticipated or suspected this cheerful welcome, these entertaining literati, these innocent-looking frescoes? Who could have foreseen so deadly a horror in such a guise? Was I doomed? Should I, too, be sucked in and absorbed, and perhaps C. after me, knowing nothing of my fate? I had no voice; I could not warn him; all my force seemed to have been spent on the single shriek I had uttered as I turned my back on the wall. I lay prone upon the floor, and knew that I had swooned. And thus, on seeking me, C. would doubtless have found me, lying insensible among the rubbish, with the rooms restored to the condition in which we had seen them by day, my success in withdrawing myself having dissolved the spell and destroyed the enchantment. But as it was, I awoke from my swoon only to find that I had been dreaming. XXIV. The Square in the Hand The foregoing dream was almost immediately succeeded by another, in which I dreamt that I was concerned in a very prominent way in a political struggle in France for liberty and the people's rights. My part in this struggle was, indeed, the leading one, but my friend C. had been drawn into it at my instance, and was implicated in a secondary manner only. The government sought our arrest, and, for a time, we evaded all attempts to take us, but at last we were surprised and driven under escort in a private carriage to a military station, where we were to be detained for examination. With us was arrested a man popularly known as "Fou," a poor weakling whom I much pitied. When we arrived at the station which was our destination, "Fou" gave some trouble to the officials. I think he fainted, but at all events his conveyance from the carriage to the caserne needed the conjoined efforts of our escort, and some commotion was caused by his appearance among the crowd assembled to see us. Clearly the crowd was sympathetic with us and hostile to the military. I particularly noticed one woman who pressed forward as "Fou" was being carried into the station, and who loudly called on all present to note his feeble condition and the barbarity of arresting a witless creature such as he. At that moment C. laid his hand on my arm and whispered: "Now is our time; the guards are all occupied with 'Fou;' we are left alone for a minute; let us jump out of the carriage and run!" As he said this he opened the carriage door on the side opposite to the caserne and alighted in the street. I instantly followed, and the people favoring us, we pressed through them and fled at the top of our speed down the road. As we ran I espied a pathway winding up a hillside away from the town, and cried, "Let us go up there; let us get away from the street!" C. answered, "No, no; they would see us there immediately at that height, the path is too conspicuous. Our best safety is to lose ourselves in the town. We may throw them off our track by winding in and out of the streets." Just then a little child, playing in the road, got in our way, and nearly threw us down as we ran. We had to pause a moment to recover ourselves. "That child may have cost us our lives," whispered C., breathlessly. A second afterwards we reached the bottom of the street which branched off right and left. I hesitated a moment; then we both turned to the right. As we did so-- in the twinkling of an eye--we found ourselves in the midst of a group of soldiers coming round the corner. I ran straight into the arms of one of them, who the same instant knew me and seized me by throat and waist with a grip of iron. This was a horrible moment! The iron grasp was sudden and solid as the grip of a vice; the man's arm held my waist like a bar of steel. "I arrest you!" he cried, and the soldiers immediately closed round us. At once I realised the hopelessness of the situation,--the utter futility of resistance. "Vous n'avez pas besoin de me tenir ainsi," I said to the officer; "j irai tranquillement" He loosened his hold and we were then marched off to another military station, in a different part of the town from that whence we had escaped. The man who had arrested me was a sergeant or some officer in petty command. He took me alone with him into the guardroom, and placed before me on a wooden table some papers which he told me to fill in and sign. Then he sat down opposite to me and I looked through the papers. They were forms, with blanks left for descriptions specifying the name, occupation, age, address and so forth of arrested persons. I signed these, and pushing them across the table to the man, asked him what was to be done with us. "You will be shot," he replied, quickly and decisively. "Both of us?" I asked. "Both," he replied. "But," said I, "my companion has done nothing to deserve death. He was drawn into this struggle entirely by me. Consider, too, his advanced age. His hair is white; he stoops, and, had it not been for the difficulty with which he moves his limbs, both of us would probably be at this moment in a place of safety. What can you gain by shooting an old man such as he?" The officer was silent. He neither favored nor discouraged me by his manner. While I sat awaiting his reply, I glanced at the hand with which I had just signed the papers, and a sudden idea flashed into my mind. "At least," I said, "grant me one request. If my companion must die, let me die first." Now I made this request for the following reason. In my right hand, the line of life broke abruptly halfway in its length, indicating a sudden and violent death. But the point at which it broke was terminated by a perfectly marked square, extraordinarily clear-cut and distinct. Such a square, occurring at the end of a broken line means rescue, salvation. I had long been aware of this strange figuration in my hand, and had often wondered what it presaged. But now, as once more I looked at it, it came upon me with sudden conviction that in some way I was destined to be delivered from death at the last moment, and I thought that if this be so it would be horrible should C. have been killed first. If I were to be saved I should certainly save him also, for my pardon would involve the pardon of both, or my rescue the rescue of both. Therefore it was important to provide for his safety until after my fate was decided. The officer seemed to take this last request into more serious consideration than the first. He said shortly: "I may be able to manage that for you," and then at once rose and took up the papers I had signed. "When are we to be shot?" I asked him. "Tomorrow morning," he replied, as promptly as before. Then he went out, turning the key of the guardroom upon me. The dawn of the next day broke darkly. It was a terribly stormy day; great black lurid thunderclouds lay piled along the horizon, and came up slowly and awfully against the wind. I looked upon them with terror; they seemed so near the earth, and so like living, watching things. They hung out of the sky, extending long ghostly arms downwards, and their gloom and density seemed supernatural. The soldiers took us out, our hands bound behind us, into a quadrangle at the back of their barracks. The scene is sharply impressed on my mind. A palisade of two sides of a square, made of wooden planks, ran round the quadrangle. Behind this palisade, and pressed up close against it, was a mob of men and women--the people of the town--come to see the execution. But their faces were sympathetic; an unmistakable look of mingled grief and rage, not unmixed with desperation--for they were a down-trodden folk--shone in the hundreds of eyes turned towards us. I was the only woman among the condemned. C. was there, and poor "Fou," looking bewildered, and one or two other prisoners. On the third and fourth sides of the quadrangle was a high wall, and in a certain place was a niche partly enclosing the trunk of a tree, cut off at the top. An iron ring was driven into the trunk midway, evidently for the purpose of securing condemned persons for execution. I guessed it would be used for that now. In the centre of the square piece of ground stood a file of soldiers, armed with carbines, and an officer with a drawn sabre. The palisade was guarded by a row of soldiers somewhat sparsely distributed, ertainly not more than a dozen in all. A Catholic priest in a black cassock walked beside me, and as we were conducted into the enclosure, he turned to me and offered religious consolation. I declined his ministrations, but asked him anxiously if he knew which of us was to die first. "You," he replied; "the officer in charge of you said you wished it, and he has been able to accede to your request." Even then I felt a singular joy at hearing this, though I had no longer any expectation of release. Death was, I thought, far too near at hand for that. Just then a soldier approached us, and led me, bare-headed, to the tree trunk, where he placed me with my back against it, and made fast my hands behind me with a rope to the iron ring. No bandage was put over my eyes. I stood thus, facing the file of soldiers in the middle of the quadrangle, and noticed that the officer with the drawn sabre placed himself at the extremity of the line, composed of six men. In that supreme moment I also noticed that their uniform was bright with steel accoutrements. Their helmets were of steel, and their carbines, as they raised them and pointed them at me, ready cocked, glittered in a fitful gleam of sunlight with the same burnished metal. There was an instant's stillness and hush while the men took aim; then I saw the officer raise his bared sabre as the signal to fire. It flashed in the air; then, with a suddenness impossible to convey, the whole quadrangle blazed with an awful light,--a light so vivid, so intense, so blinding, so indescribable that everything was blotted out and devoured by it. It crossed my brain with instantaneous conviction that this amazing glare was the physical effect of being shot, and that the bullets had pierced my brain or heart, and caused this frightful sense of all-pervading flame. Vaguely I remembered having read or having been told that such was the result produced on the nervous system of a victim to death from firearms. "It is over," I said, "that was the bullets." But presently there forced itself on my dazed senses a sound--a confusion of sounds--darkness succeeding the white flash--then steadying itself into gloomy daylight; a tumult; a heap of stricken, tumbled men lying stone-still before me; a fearful horror upon every living face; and then . . . it all burst on me with distinct conviction. The storm which had been gathering all the morning had culminated in its blackest and most electric point immediately overhead. The file of soldiers appointed to shoot us stood exactly under it. Sparkling with bright steel on head and breast and carbines, they stood shoulder to shoulder, a complete lightning conductor, and at the end of the chain they formed, their officer, at the critical moment, raised his shining, naked blade towards the sky. Instantaneously heaven opened, and the lightning fell, attracted by the burnished steel. From blade to carbine, from helmet to breastplate it ran, smiting every man dead as he stood. They fell like a row of ninepins, blackened in face and hand in an instant,--in the twinkling of an eye. Dead. The electric flame licked the life out of seven men in that second; not one moved a muscle or a finger again. Then followed a wild scene. The crowd, stupefied for a minute by the thunderbolt and the horror of the devastation it had wrought, presently recovered sense, and with a mighty shout hurled itself against the palisade, burst it, leapt over it and swarmed into the quadrangle, easily overpowering the unnerved guards. I was surrounded; eager hands unbound mine; arms were thrown about me; the people roared, and wept, and triumphed, and fell about me on their knees praising Heaven. I think rain fell, my face was wet with drops, and my hair,--but I knew no more, for I swooned and lay unconscious in the arms of the crowd. My rescue had indeed come, and from the very Heavens! --Rome, April 12, 1887 Dream-Verses "Through the Ages" Wake, thou that sleepest! Soul, awake! Thy light is come, arise and shine! For darkness melts, and dawn divine Doth from the holy Orient break; Swift-darting down the shadowy ways And misty deeps of unborn Time, God's Light, God's Day, whose perfect prime Is as the light of seven days. Wake, prophet-soul, the time draws near, "The God who knows" within thee stirs And speaks, for His thou art, and Hers Who bears the mystic shield and spear. The hidden secrets of their shrine Where thou, initiate, didst adore, Their quickening finger shall restore And make its glories newly thine. A touch divine shall thrill thy brain, Thy soul shall leap to life, and lo! What she has known, again shall know; What she has seen, shall see again; The ancient Past through which she came,-- A cloud across a sunset sky,-- A cactus flower of scarlet dye,-- A bird with throat and wings of flame;-- A red wild roe, whose mountain bed Nor ever hound or hunter knew, Whose flying footprint dashed the dew In nameless forests, long since dead. And ever thus in ceaseless roll The wheels of Destiny and Time Through changing form and age and clime Bear onward the undying Soul: Till now a Sense, confused and dim, Dawns in a shape of nobler mould, Less beast, scarce human; uncontrolled, With free fierce life in every limb; A savage youth, in painted gear, Foot fleeter than the summer wind; Scant speech for scanty needs designed, Content with sweetheart, spoil and spear And, passing thence, with burning breath, A fiery Soul that knows no fear, The armed hosts of Odin hear Her voice amid the ranks of death; There, where the sounds of war are shrill, And clarion shrieks, and battle roars, Once more set free, she leaps and soars A Soul of flame, aspiring still! Till last, in fairer shape she stands Where lotus-scented waters glide, A Theban Priestess, dusky-eyed, Barefooted on the golden sands; Or, prostrate, in the Temple-halls, When Spirits wake, and mortals sleep, She hears what mighty Voices sweep Like winds along the columned walls. A Princess then beneath the palms Which wave o'er Afric's burning plains, The blood of Afric in thy veins, A golden circlet on thine arms. By sacred Ganges' sultry tide, With dreamy gaze and clasped hands Thou walkst a Seeress in the lands Where holy Buddha lived and died. Anon, a sea-bleached mountain cave Makes shelter for thee, grave and wan, Thou solemn, solitary Man, Who, nightly, by the star-lit wave Invokest with illumined eyes The steadfast Lords who rule and wait Beyond the heavens and Time and fate, Until the perfect Dawn shall rise, And oracles, through ages dumb, Shall wake, and holy forms shall shine On mountain peaks in light divine, When mortals bid God's kingdom come So turns the wheel of thy [keen] soul; From birth to birth her ruling stars, Swift Mercury and fiery Mars, In ever changing orbits roll! --Paris, May, 1880 Fragment A jarring note, a chord amiss-- The music's sweeter after, Like wrangling ended with a kiss, Or tears, with silver laughter. The high gods have no joys like these, So sweet in human story; No tempest rends their tranquil seas Beyond the sunset glory. The whirling wheels of Time and Fate Fragment* I thank Thee, Lord, who hast through devious ways Led me to know Thy Praise, And to this Wildernesse Hast brought me out, Thine Israel to blesse. If I should faint with Thirst, or weary, sink, To these my Soule is Drink, To these the Majick Rod Is Life, and mine is hid with Christ in God. ---------- * These are not properly dream-verses, having been suddenly presented to the waking vision one day in Paris while gazing at the bright sky. (Ed.) Signs of the Times Eyes of the dawning in heaven? Sparks from the opening of hell? Gleams from the altar-lamps seven? Can you tell? Is it the glare of a fire? Is it the breaking of day? Birth lights, or funeral pyre? Who shall say? --April 19, 1886. With the Gods Sweet lengths of shore with sea between, Sweet gleams of tender blue and green, Sweet wind caressive and unseen, Soft breathing from the deep; What joy have I in all sweet things; How clear and bright my spirit sings; Rising aloft on mystic wings; While sense and body sleep. In some such dream of grace and light, My soul shall pass into the sight Of the dear Gods who in the height Of inward being dwell; And joyful at Her perfect feet Whom most of all I long to greet, My soul shall lie in meadow sweet All white with asphodel. --August 31, 1887. Part II. Dream-Stories I. A Village of Seers-- A Christmas Story A day or two before Christmas, a few years since, I found myself compelled by business to leave England for the Continent. I am an American, junior partner in a London mercantile house having a large Swiss connection; and a transaction--needless to specify her--required immediate and personal supervision abroad, at a season of the year when I would gladly have kept festival in London with my friends. But my journey was destined to bring me an adventure of a very remarkable character, which made me full amends for the loss of Christmas cheer at home. I crossed the Channel at night from Dover to Calais. The passage was bleak and snowy, and the passengers were very few. On board the steamboat I remarked one traveler whose appearance and manner struck me as altogether unusual and interesting, and I deemed it by no means a disagreeable circumstance that, on arriving at Calais, this man entered the compartment of the railway carriage in which I had already seated myself. So far as the dim light permitted me a glimpse of the stranger's face, I judged him to be about fifty years of age. The features were delicate and refined in type, the eyes dark and deep-sunken, but full of intelligence and thought, and the whole aspect of the man denoted good birth, a nature given to study and meditation, and a life of much sorrowful experience. Two other travelers occupied our carriage until Amiens was reached. They then left us, and the interesting stranger and I remained alone together. "A bitter night," I said to him, as I drew up the window, "and the worst of it is yet to come! The early hours of dawn are always the coldest." "I suppose so," he answered in a grave voice. The voice impressed me as strongly as the face; it was subdued and restrained, the voice of a man undergoing great mental suffering. "You will find Paris bleak at this season of the year," I continued, longing to make him talk. "It was colder there last winter than in London." "I do not stay in Paris," he replied, "save to breakfast." "Indeed; that is my case. I am going on to Bale." "And I also," he said, "and further yet." Then he turned his face to the window, and would say no more. My speculations regarding him multiplied with his taciturnity. I felt convinced that he was a man with a romance, and a desire to know its nature became strong in me. We breakfasted apart at Paris, but I watched him into his compartment for Bale, and sprang in after him. During the first part of our journey we slept; but, as we neared the Swiss frontier, a spirit of wakefulness took hold of us, and fitful sentences were exchanged. My companion, it appeared, intended to rest but a single day at Bale. He was bound for far-away Alpine regions, ordinarily visited by tourists during the summer months only, and, one would think, impassable at this season of the year. "And you go alone?" I asked him. "You will have no companions to join you?" "I shall have guides," he answered, and relapsed into meditative silence. Presently I ventured another question: "You go on business, perhaps-- not on pleasure?" He turned his melancholy eyes on mine. "Do I look as if I were traveling for pleasure's sake?" he asked gently. I felt rebuked, and hastened to apologise. "Pardon me; I ought not to have said that. But you interest me greatly, and I wish, if possible, to be of service to you. If you are going into Alpine districts on business and alone, at this time of the year--" There I hesitated and paused. How could I tell him that he interested me so much as to make me long to know the romance which, I felt convinced, attached to his expedition? Perhaps he perceived what was in my mind, for he questioned me in his turn. "And you--have you business in Bale?" "Yes, and in other places. My accent may have told you my nationality. I travel in the interests of the American firm, Fletcher Bros., Roy, & Co., whose London house, no doubt, you know. But I need remain only twenty-four hours in Bale. Afterwards I go to Berne, then to Geneva. I must, however, wait for letters from England after doing my business at Bale, and I shall have some days free." "How many?" "From the 21st to the 26th." He was silent for a minute, meditating. Then he took from his traveling-bag a porte-feuille, and from the porte-feuille a visiting- card, which he handed to me. "That is my name," he said briefly. I took the hint, and returned the compliment in kind. On his card I read: MR CHARLES DENIS ST AUBYN, Grosvenor Square, London. St Aubyn's Court, Shrewsbury. And mine bore the legend: MR FRANK ROY, Merchants' Club, W. C. "Now that we are no longer unknown to each other," said I, "may I ask, without committing an indiscretion, if I can use the free time at my disposal in your interests?" "You are very good, Mr Roy. It is the characteristic of your nation to be kind-hearted and readily interested in strangers." Was this sarcastic? I wondered. Perhaps; but he said it quite courteously. "I am a solitary and unfortunate man. Before I accept your kindness, will you permit me to tell you the nature of the journey I am making? It is a strange one." He spoke huskily, and with evident effort. I assented eagerly. The following, recounted in broken sentences, and with many abrupt pauses, is the story to which I listened: Mr St Aubyn was a widower. His only child, a boy twelve years of age, had been for a year past afflicted with loss of speech and hearing, the result of a severe typhoid fever, from which he barely escaped with life. Last summer, his father, following medical advice, brought him to Switzerland, in the hope that Alpine air, change of scene, exercise, and the pleasure of the trip, would restore him to his normal condition. One day father and son, led by a guide, were ascending a mountain pathway, not ordinarily regarded as dangerous, when the boy, stepping aside to view the snowy ranges above and around, slipped on a treacherous fragment of half-detached rock, and went sliding into the ravine beneath. The height of the fall was by no means great, and the level ground on which the boy would necessarily alight was overgrown with soft herbage and long grass, so that neither the father nor the guide at first conceived any serious apprehensions for the safety of the boy's life or limbs. He might be bruised, perhaps even a few cuts or a sprained wrist might disable him for a few days, but they feared nothing worse than these. As quickly as the slippery ground would permit, they descended the winding path leading to the meadow, but when they reached it, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Hours passed in vain and anxious quest; no track, no sound, no clue assisted the seekers, and the shouts of the guide, if they reached, as doubtless they did, the spot where the lost boy lay, fell on ears as dull and deadened as those of a corpse. Nor could the boy, if crippled by his fall, and unable to show himself, give evidence of his whereabouts by so much as a single cry. Both tongue and ears were sealed by infirmity, and any low sound such as that he might have been able to utter would have been rendered inaudible by the torrent rushing through the ravine hard by. At nightfall the search was suspended, to be renewed before daybreak with fresh assistance from the nearest village. Some of the new-comers spoke of a cave on the slope of the meadow, into which the boy might have crept. This was easily reached. It was apparently of but small extent; a few goats reposed in it, but no trace of the child was discoverable. After some days spent in futile endeavour, all hope was abandoned. The father returned to England to mourn his lost boy, and another disaster was added to the annual list of casualties in the Alps. So far the story was sad enough, but hardly romantic. I clasped the hand of the narrator, and assured him warmly of my sympathy, adding, with as little appearance of curiosity as I could command:-- "And your object in coming back is only, then, to--to--be near the scene of your great trouble?" "No, Mr Roy; that is not the motive of my journey. I do not believe either that my boy's corpse lies concealed among the grasses of the plateau, or that it was swept away, as has been suggested, by the mountain cataract. Neither hypothesis seems to me tenable. The bed of the stream was followed and searched for miles; and though, when he fell, he was carrying over his shoulder a flask and a thick fur-lined cloak,--for we expected cold on the heights, and went provided against it,---not a fragment of anything belonging to him was found. Had he fallen into the torrent, it is impossible his clothing should not have become detached from the body and caught by the innumerable rocks in the shallow parts of the stream. But that is not all. I have another reason for the belief I cherish." He leaned forward, and added in firmer and slower tones: "I am convinced that my boy still lives, for--I have seen him." "You have seen him!" I cried. "Yes; again and again--in dreams. And always in the same way, and with the same look. He stands before me, beckoning to me, and making signs that I should come and help him. Not once or twice only, but many times, night after night I have seen the same thing!" Poor father! Poor desolate man! Not the first driven distraught by grief; not the first deluded by the shadows of love and longing! "You think I am deceived by hallucinations," he said, watching my face." It is you who are misled by the scientific idiots of the day, the wiseacres who teach us to believe, whenever soul speaks to soul, that the highest and holiest communion attainable by man is the product of physical disease! Forgive me the energy of my words; but had you loved and lost your beloved---wife and child--as I have done, you would comprehend the contempt and anger with which I regard those modern teachers whose cold and ghastly doctrines give the lie, not only to all human hopes and aspirations towards the higher life, but also to the possibility of that very progress from lower to nobler forms which is the basis of their own philosophy, and to the conception of which the idea of the soul and of love are essential! Evolution presupposes possible perfecting, and the conscious adaptation of means to ends in order to attain it. And both the ideal itself and the endeavour to reach it are incomprehensible without desire, which is love, and whose seat is in the interior self, the living soul--the maker of the outward form!" He was roused from his melancholy now, and spoke connectedly and with enthusiasm. I was about to reassure him in regard to my own philosophical convictions, the soundness of which he seemed to question, when his voice sank again, and he added earnestly:-- "I tell you I have seen my boy, and that I know he lives,--not in any far-off sphere beyond the grave, but here on earth, among living men! Twice since his loss I have returned from England to seek him, in obedience to the vision, but in vain, and I have gone back home to dream the same dream. But--only last week--I heard a wonderful story. It was told me by a friend who is a great traveler, and who has but just returned from a lengthened tour in the south. I met him at my club, `by accident,' as unthinking persons say. He told me that there exists, buried away out of common sight and knowledge, in the bosom of the Swiss Alps, a little village whose inhabitants possess, in varying degrees, a marvellous and priceless faculty. Almost all the dwellers in this village are mutually related, either bearing the same ancestral name, or being branches from one original stock. The founder of this community was a blind man, who, by some unexplained good fortune, acquired or became endowed with the psychic faculty called 'second sight,' or clairvoyance. This faculty, it appears, is now the hereditary property of the whole village, more developed in the blind man's immediate heirs than in his remoter relatives; but, strange to say, it is a faculty which, for a reason connected with the history of its acquirement, they enjoy only once a year, and that is on Christmas Eve. I know well," continued Mr. St. Aubyn, "all you have it in your mind to say. Doubtless, you would hint to me that the narrator of the tale was amusing himself with my credulity; or that these Alpine villagers, if they exist, are not clairvoyants, but charlatans trading on the folly of the curious, or even that the whole story is a chimera of my own dreaming brain. I am willing that, if it please you, you should accept any of these hypotheses. As for me, in my sorrow and despair, I am resolved to leave no means untried to recover my boy; and it happens that the village in question is not far from the scene of the disaster which deprived me of him. A strange hope--a confidence even--grows in my heart as I approach the end of my journey. I believe I am about to verify the truth of my friend's story, and that, through the wonderful faculty possessed by these Alpine peasants, the promise of my visions will be realised." His voice broke again, he ceased speaking, and turned his face away from me. I was greatly moved, and anxious to impress him with a belief in the sincerity of my sympathy, and in my readiness to accept the truth of the tale he had repeated. "Do not think," I said with some warmth, "that I am disposed to make light of what you tell me, strange though it sounds. Out in the West, where I come from, I heard, when a boy, many a story at least as curious as yours. In our wild country, odd things chance at times, and queer circumstances, they say, happen in out of the way tracks in forest and prairie; aye, and there are strange creatures that haunt the bush, some tell, in places where no human foot is wont to tread. So that nothing of this sort comes upon me with an air of newness, at least! I mayn't quite trust it, as you do, but I am no scoffer. Look, now, Mr. St. Aubyn, I have a proposal to make. You are alone, and purpose undertaking a bitter and, it may be, a perilous journey in mountain ground at this season. What say you to taking me along with you? May be, I shall prove of some use; and at any rate, your adventure and your story interest me greatly!" I was quite tremulous with apprehension lest he should refuse my request, but he did not. He looked earnestly and even fixedly at me for a minute, then silently held out his hand and grasped mine with energy. It was a sealed compact. After that we considered ourselves comrades, and continued our journey together. Our day's rest at Bale being over, and the business which concerned me there transacted, we followed the route indicated by Mr. St. Aubyn, and on the evening of the 22nd of December arrived at a little hill station, where we found a guide who promised to conduct us the next morning to the village we sought. Sunrise found us on our way, and a tramp of several weary hours, with occasional breaks for rest and refreshment, brought us at last to the desired spot. It was a quaint, picturesque little hamlet, embosomed in a mountain recess, a sheltered oasis in the midst of a wind-swept, snow-covered region. The usual Swiss trade of wood-carving appeared to be the principal occupation of the community. The single narrow street was thronged with goats, whose jingling many-toned bells made an incessant and agreeable symphony. Under the projecting roofs of the log-built chalets bundles of dried herbs swung in the frosty air; stacks of fir-wood, handy for use, were piled about the doorways, and here and there we noticed a huge dog of the St Bernard breed, with solemn face, and massive paws that left tracks like a lion's in the fresh-fallen snow. A rosy afternoon-radiance glorified the surrounding mountains and warmed the aspect of the little village as we entered it. It was not more than three o'clock, yet already the sun drew near the hilltops, and in a short space he would sink behind them and leave the valleys immersed in twilight. Inn or hostelry proper there was none in this out of the world recess, but the peasants were right willing to entertain us, and the owner of the largest chalet in the place speedily made ready the necessary board and lodging. Supper--of goat's milk cheese, coarse bread, honey, and drink purporting to be coffee--being concluded, the villagers began to drop in by twos and threes to have a look at us; and presently, at the invitation of our host, we all drew our stools around the pinewood fire, and partook of a strange beverage served hot with sugar and toast, tasting not unlike elderberry wine. Meanwhile my English friend, more conversant than myself with the curiously mingled French and German patois of the district, plunged into the narration of his trouble, and ended with a frank and pathetic appeal to those present, that if there were any truth in the tale he had heard regarding the annual clairvoyance of the villagers, they would consent to use their powers in his service. Probably they had never been so appealed to before. When my friend had finished speaking, silence, broken only by a few half-audible whispers, fell on the group. I began to fear that, after all, he had been either misinformed or misunderstood, and was preparing to help him out with an explanation to the best of my ability, when a man sitting in the chimney-corner rose and said that, if we pleased, he would fetch the grandsons of the original seer, who would give us the fullest information possible on the subject of our inquiry. This announcement was encouraging, and we assented with joy. He left the chalet, and shortly afterwards returned with two stalwart and intelligent-looking men of about thirty and thirty-five respectively, accompanied by a couple of St Bernards, the most magnificent dogs I had ever seen. I was reassured instantly, for the faces of these two peasants were certainly not those of rogues or fools. They advanced to the centre of the assembly, now numbering some twenty persons, men and women, and were duly introduced to us by our host as Theodor and Augustin Raoul. A wooden bench by the hearth was accorded them, the great dogs couched at their feet, pipes were lit here and there among the circle; and the scene, embellished by the ruddy glow of the flaming pine-logs, the unfamiliar costume of the peasantry, the quaint furniture of the chalet-kitchen in which we sat, and enhanced by the strange circumstances of our journey and the yet stranger story now recounted by the two Raouls, became to my mind every moment more romantic and unworld-like. But the intent and strained expression of St. Aubyn's features as he bent eagerly forward, hanging as if for life or death on the words which the brothers poured forth, reminded me that, in one respect at least, the spectacle before me presented a painful reality, and that for this desolate and lonely man every word of the Christmas tale told that evening was pregnant with import of the deepest and most serious kind. Here, in English guise, is the legend of the Alpine seer, recounted with much gesticulation and rugged dramatic force by his grandsons, the younger occasionally interpolating details which the elder forgot, confirming the data, and echoing with a sonorous interjection the exclamations of the listeners. Augustin Franz Raoul, the grandfather of the men who addressed us, originally differed in no respect, save that of blindness, from ordinary people. One Christmas Eve, as the day drew towards twilight, and a driving storm of frozen snow raged over the mountains, he, his dog Hans, and his mule were fighting their way home up the pass in the teeth of the tempest. At a turn of the road they came on a priest carrying the Viaticum to a dying man who inhabited a solitary but in the valley below. The priest was on foot, almost spent with fatigue, and bewildered by the blinding snow which obscured the pathway and grew every moment more impenetrable and harder to face. The whirling flakes circled and danced before his sight, the winding path was well-nigh obliterated, his brain grew dizzy and his feet unsteady, and he felt that without assistance he should never reach his destination in safety. Blind Raoul, though himself tired, and longing for shelter, listened with sympathy to the priest's complaint, and answered, "Father, you know well I am hardly a pious son of the Church; but if the penitent dying down yonder needs spiritual consolation from her, Heaven forbid that I should not do my utmost to help you to him! Sightless though I am, I know my way over these crags as no other man knows it, and the snowstorm which bewilders your eyes so much cannot daze mine. Come, mount my mule, Hans will go with us, and we three will take you to your journey's end safe and sound." "Son," answered the priest, "God will reward you for this act of charity. The penitent to whom I go bears an evil reputation as a sorcerer, and we all know his name well enough in these parts. He may have some crime on his conscience which he desires to confess before death. But for your timely help I should not be able to fight my way through this tempest to his door, and he would certainly perish unshriven." The fury of the storm increased as darkness came on. Dense clouds of snow obscured the whole landscape, and rendered sky and mountain alike indistinguishable. Terror seized the priest; but for the blind man, to whose sight day and night were indifferent, these horrors had no great danger. He and his dumb friends plodded quietly and slowly on in the accustomed path, and at length, close upon midnight, the valley was safely reached, and the priest ushered into the presence of his penitent. What the dying sorcerer's confession was the blind man never knew; but after it was over, and the Sacred Host had passed his lips, Raoul was summoned to his bedside, where a strange and solemn voice greeted him by name and thanked him for the service he had rendered. "Friend," said the dying man, "you will never know how great a debt I owe you. But before I pass out of the world, I would fain do somewhat towards repayment. Sorcerer though I am by repute, I cannot give you that which, were it possible, I would give with all my heart,--the blessing of physical sight. But may God hear the last earthly prayer of a dying penitent, and grant you a better gift and a rarer one than even that of the sight of your outward eyes, by opening those of your spirit! And may the faculty of that interior vision be continued to you and yours so long as ye use it in deeds of mercy and human kindness such as this!" The speaker laid his hand a, moment on the blind man's forehead, and his lips moved silently awhile, though Raoul saw it not. The priest and he remained to the last with the penitent; and when the grey Christmas morning broke over the whitened plain they left the little but in which the corpse lay, to apprise the dwellers in the valley hamlet of the death of the wizard, and to arrange for his burial. And ever, since that Christmas Eve, said the two Raouls, their grandfather found himself when the sacred time came round again, year after year, possessed of a new and extraordinary power, that of seeing with the inward senses of the spirit whatever he desired to see, and this as plainly and distinctly, miles distant, as at his own threshold. The power of interior vision came upon him in sleep or in trance, precisely as with the prophets and sybils of old, and in this condition, sometimes momentary only, whole scenes were flashed before him, the faces of friends leagues away became visible, and he seemed to touch their hands. At these times nothing was hidden from him; it was necessary only that he should desire fervently to see any particular person or place, and that the intent of the wish should be innocent, and he became straightway clairvoyant. To the blind man, deprived in early childhood of physical sight, this miraculous power was an inestimable consolation, and Christmas Eve became to him a festival of illumination whose annual reminiscences and anticipations brightened the whole round of the year. And when at length he died, the faculty remained a family heritage, of which all his descendants partook in some degree, his two grandsons, as his nearest kin, possessing the gift in its completest development. And--most strange of all--the two hounds which lay couched before us by the hearth, appeared to enjoy a share of the sorcerer's benison! These dogs, Fritz and Bruno, directly descended from Hans, had often displayed strong evidence of lucidity, and under its influence they had been known to act with acumen and sagacity wholly beyond the reach of ordinary dogs. Their immediate sire, Gluck, was the property of a community of monks living fourteen miles distant in the Arblen valley; and though the Raouls were not aware that he had yet distinguished himself by any remarkable exploit of a clairvoyant character, he was commonly credited with a goodly share of the family gift. "And the mule?" I asked thoughtlessly. "The mule, monsieur," replied the younger Raoul, with a smile, " has been dead many long years. Naturally he left no posterity." Thus ended the tale, and for a brief space all remained silent, while many glances stole furtively towards St. Aubyn. He sat motionless, with bowed head and folded arms, absorbed in thought. One by one the members of the group around us rose, knocked the ashes from their pipes, and with a few brief words quitted the chalet. In a few minutes there remained only our host, the two Raouls, with their dogs, my friend, and myself. Then St. Aubyn found his voice. He too rose, and in slow tremulous tones, addressing Theodor, asked,-- "You will have everything prepared for an expedition tomorrow, in case--you should have anything to tell us?" "All shall be in readiness, monsieur. Pierre (the host) will wake you by sunrise, for with the dawn of Christmas Eve our lucid faculty returns to us, and if we should have good news to give, the start ought to be made early. We may have far to go, and the days are short." He whistled to the great hounds, wished us goodnight, and the two brothers left the house together, followed by Fritz and Bruno. Pierre lighted a lantern, and mounting a ladder in the corner of the room, invited us to accompany him. We clambered up this primitive staircase with some difficulty, and presently found ourselves in a bed-chamber not less quaint and picturesque than the kitchen below. Our beds were both prepared in this room, round the walls of which were piled goat's-milk cheeses, dried herbs, sacks of meal, and other winter provender. Outside it was a starlit night, clear, calm, and frosty, with brilliant promise for the coming day. Long after I was in the land of dreams, I fancy St. Aubyn lay awake, following with restless eyes the stars in their courses, and wondering whether from some far-off, unknown spot his lost boy might not be watching them also. Dawn, grey and misty, enwrapped the little village when I was startled from my sleep by a noisy chorus of voices and a busy hurrying of footsteps. A moment later some one, heavily booted, ascended the ladder leading to our bedroom, and a ponderous knock resounded on our door. St. Aubyn sprang from his bed, lifted the latch, and admitted the younger Raoul, whose beaming eyes and excited manner betrayed, before he spoke, the good tidings in store. "We have seen him!" he cried, throwing up his hands triumphantly above his head. "Both of us have seen your son, monsieur! Not half an hour ago, just as the dawn broke, we saw him in a vision, alive and well in a mountain cave, separated from the valley by a broad torrent. An Angel of the good Lord has ministered to him: it is a miracle! Courage, he will be restored to you. Dress quickly, and come down to breakfast. Everything is ready for the expedition, and there is no time to lose!" These broken ejaculations were interrupted by the voice of the elder brother, calling from the foot of the ladder: "Make haste, messieurs, if you please. The valley we have seen in our dream is fully twelve miles away, and to reach it we shall have to cut our way through the snow. It is bad at this time of the year, and the passes may be blocked! Come, Augustin!" Everything was now hurry and commotion. All the village was astir; the excitement became intense. From the window we saw men running eagerly towards our chalet with pickaxes, ropes, hatchets, and other necessary adjuncts of Alpine adventure. The two great hounds, with others of their breed, were bounding joyfully about in the snow, and showing, I thought, by their intelligent glances and impatient behavior, that they already understood the nature of the intended day's work. At sunrise we sat down to a hearty meal, and amid the clamor of voices and rattling of platters, the elder Raoul unfolded to us his plans for reaching the valley, which both he and his brother had recognized as the higher level of the Arblen, several thousand feet above our present altitude, and in mid-winter a perilous place to visit. "The spot is completely shut off from the valley by the cataract," said he, "and last year a landslip blocked up the only route to it from the mountains. How the child got there is a mystery!" "We must cut our way over the Thurgau Pass," cried Augustin. "That is just my idea. Quick now, if you have finished eating, call Georges and Albert, and take the ropes with you!" Our little party was speedily equipped, and amid the lusty cheers of the men and the sympathetic murmurs of the women, we passed swiftly through the little snow-carpeted street and struck into the mountain path. We were six in number, St. Aubyn and myself, the two Raouls, and a couple of villagers carrying the requisite implements of mountaineering, while the two dogs, Fritz and Bruno, trotted on before us. At the outset there was some rough ground to traverse, and considerable work to be done with ropes and tools, for the slippery edges of the highland path afforded scarce any foothold, and in some parts the difficulties appeared well-nigh insurmountable. But every fresh obstacle overcome added a new zest to our resolution, and, cheered by the reiterated cry of the two seers, "Courage, messieurs! Avanfons! The worst will soon be passed!" We pushed forward with right good will, and at length found ourselves on a broad rocky plateau. All this time the two hounds had taken the lead, pioneering us with amazing skill round precipitous corners, and springing from crag to crag over the icy ravines with a daring and precision which curdled my blood to witness. It was a relief to see them finally descend the narrow pass in safety, and halt beside us panting and exultant. All around lay glittering reaches of untrodden snow, blinding to look at, scintillant as diamond dust. We sat down to rest on some scattered boulders, and gazed with wonder at the magnificent vistas of glowing peaks towering above us, and the luminous expanse of purple gorge and valley, with the white, roaring torrents below, over which wreaths of foam-like filmy mist hovered and floated continually. As I sat, lost in admiration, St. Aubyn touched my arm, and silently pointed to Theodor Raoul. He had risen, and now stood at the edge of the plateau over-hanging the lowland landscape, his head raised, his eyes wide-opened, his whole appearance indicative of magnetic trance. While we looked he turned slowly towards us, moved his hands to and fro with a gesture of uncertainty, as though feeling his way in the dark; and spoke with a slow dreamy utterance: "I see the lad sitting in the entrance of the cavern, looking out across the valley, as though expecting some one. He is pallid and thin, and wears a dark-colored mantle--a large mantle--lined with sable fur." St. Aubyn sprang from his seat. "True!" he exclaimed. "It is the mantle he was carrying on his arm when he slipped over the pass! O, thank God for that; it may have saved his life!" "The place in which I see your boy," continued the mountaineer, "is fully three miles distant from the plateau on which we now stand. But I do not know how to reach it. I cannot discern the track. I am at fault!" He moved his hands impatiently to and fro, and cried in tones which manifested the disappointment he felt: "I can see no more! the vision passes from me. I can discover nothing but confused shapes merged in ever-increasing darkness!" We gathered round him in some dismay, and St. Aubyn urged the younger Raoul to attempt an elucidation of the difficulty. But he too failed. The scene in the cave appeared to him with perfect distinctness; but when he strove to trace the path which should conduct us to it, profound darkness obliterated the vision. "It must be underground," he said, using the groping action we had already observed on Theodor's part. "It is impossible to distinguish anything, save a few vague outlines of rock. Now there is not a glimmer of light; all is profound gloom!" Suddenly, as we stood discussing the situation, one advising this, another that, a sharp bark from one of the hounds startled us all, and immediately arrested our consultation. It was Fritz who had thus interrupted the debate. He was running excitedly to and fro, sniffing about the edge of the plateau, and every now and then turning himself with an abrupt jerk, as if seeking something which eluded him. Presently Bruno joined in this mysterious quest, and the next moment, to our admiration and amazement, both dogs simultaneously lifted their heads, their eyes illumined with intelligence and delight, and uttered a prolonged and joyous cry that reverberated chorus-like from the mountain wall behind us. "They know! They see! They have the clue!" cried the peasants, as the two hounds leapt from the plateau down the steep declivity leading to the valley, scattering the snowdrifts of the crevices pell-mell in their headlong career. In frantic haste we resumed our loads, and hurried after our flying guides with what speed we could. When the dogs had reached the next level, they paused and waited, standing with uplifted heads and dripping tongues while we clambered down the gorge to join them. Again they took the lead; but this time the way was more intricate, and their progress slower. Single-file we followed them along a narrow winding track of broken ground, over which every moment a tiny torrent foamed and tumbled; and as we descended the air became less keen, the snow rarer, and a few patches of gentian and hardy plants appeared on the craggy sides of the mountain. Suddenly a great agitation seized St. Aubyn. "Look look!" he cried, clutching me by the arm; "here, where we stand, is the very spot from which my boy fell! And below yonder is the valley!" Even as he uttered the words, the dogs halted and came towards us, looking wistfully into St. Aubyn's face, as though they fain would speak to him. We stood still, and looked down into the green valley, green even in mid-winter, where a score of goats were browsing in the sunshine. Here my friend would have descended, but the Raouls bade him trust the leadership of the dogs. "Follow them, monsieur," said Theodor, impressively; "they can see, and you cannot. It is the good God that conducts them. Doubtless they have brought us to this spot to show you they know it, and to inspire you with confidence in their skill and guidance. See! they are advancing! On! do not let us remain behind!" Thus urged, we hastened after our canine guides, who, impelled by the mysterious influence of their strange faculty, were again pressing forward. This time the track ascended. Soon we lost sight of the valley, and an hour's upward scrambling over loose rocks and sharp crags brought us to a chasm, the two edges of which were separated by a precipitous gulf some twenty feet across. This chasm was probably about eight or nine hundred feet deep, and its sides were straight and sheer as those of a well. Our ladders were in requisition now, and with the aid of these and the ropes, all the members of our party, human and canine, were safely landed on the opposite brink of the abyss. We had covered about two miles of difficult ground beyond the chasm, when once more, on the brow of a projecting eminence, the hounds halted for the last time, and drew near St. Aubyn, gazing up at him with eloquent exulting eyes, as though they would have said, "He whom you seek is here!" It was a wild and desolate spot, strewn with tempest-torn branches, a spot hidden from the sun by dense masses of pine foliage, and backed by sharp peaks of granite. St. Aubyn looked around him, trembling with emotion. "Shout," cried one of the peasants; "shout, the boy may hear you!" "Alas," answered the father, " he cannot hear; you forget that my child is deaf and dumb!" At that instant, Theodor, who for a brief while had stood apart, abstracted and silent, approached St. Aubyn and grasped his hand. "Shout!" repeated he, with the earnestness of a command; "call your boy by his name!" St Aubyn looked at him with astonishment; then in a clear piercing voice obeyed. "Charlie!" he cried; "Charlie, my boy! where are you?" We stood around him in dread silence and expectancy, a group for a picture. St. Aubyn in the midst, with white quivering face and clasped hands, the two Raouls on either side, listening intently, the dogs motionless and eager, their ears erect, their hair bristling round their stretched throats. You might have heard a pin drop on the rock at our feet, as we stood and waited after that cry. A minute passed thus, and then there was heard from below, at a great depth, a faint uncertain sound. One word only--uttered in the voice of a child,--tremulous, and intensely earnest: "Father!" St Aubyn fell on his knees. "My God! my God!" he cried, sobbing; "it is my boy! He is alive, and can hear and speak!" With feverish haste we descended the crag, and speedily found ourselves on a green sward, sheltered on three sides by high walls of cliff, and bounded on the fourth, southward, by a rushing stream some thirty feet from shore to shore. Beyond the stream was a wide expanse of pasture stretching down into the Arblen valley. Again St. Aubyn shouted, and again the childlike cry replied, guiding us to a narrow gorge or fissure in the cliff almost hidden under exuberant foliage. This passage brought us to a turfy knoll, upon which opened a deep recess in the mountain rock; a picturesque cavern, carpeted with moss, and showing, from some ancient, half obliterated carvings which here and there adorned its walls, that it had once served as a crypt or chapel, possibly in some time of ecclesiastical persecution. At the mouth of this cave, with startled eyes and pallid parted lips, stood a fair-haired lad, wrapped in the mantle described by the elder Raoul. One instant only he stood there; the next he darted forward, and fell with weeping and inarticulate cries into his father's embrace. We paused, and waited aloof in silence, respecting the supreme joy and emotion of a greeting so sacred as this. The dogs only, bursting into the cave, leapt and gambolled about, venting their satisfaction in sonorous barks and turbulent demonstrations of delight. But for them, as they seemed well to know, this marvellous discovery would have never been achieved, and the drama which now ended with so great happiness, might have terminated in a lifelong tragedy. Therefore we were not surprised to see St. Aubyn, after the first transport of the meeting, turn to the dogs, and clasping each huge rough head in turn, kiss it fervently and with grateful tears. It was their only guerdon for that day's priceless service: the dumb beasts that love us do not work for gold! And now came the history of the three long months which had elapsed since the occurrence of the disaster which separated my friend from his little son. Seated on the soft moss of the cavern floor, St. Aubyn in the midst and the boy beside him, we listened to the sequel of the strange tale recounted the preceding evening by Theodor and Augustin Raoul. And first we learnt that until the moment when his father's shout broke upon his ear that day, Charlie St. Aubyn had remained as insensible to sound and as mute of voice as he was when his accident befell him. Even now that the powers of hearing and of speech were restored, he articulated uncertainly and with great difficulty, leaving many words unfinished, and helping out his phrases with gesticulations and signs, his father suggesting and assisting as the narrative proceeded. Was it the strong love in St. Aubyn's cry that broke through the spell of disease and thrilled his child's dulled nerves into life? Was it the shock of an emotion coming unexpected and intense after all those dreary weeks of futile watchfulness? or was the miracle an effect of the same Divine grace which, by means of a mysterious gift, had enabled us to track and to find this obscure and unknown spot? It matters little; the spirit of man is master of all things, and the miracles of love are myriad-fold. For, where love abounds and is pure, the spirit of man is as the Spirit of God. Little St. Aubyn had been saved from death, and sustained during the past three months by a creature dumb like himself,--a large dog exactly resembling Fritz and Bruno. This dog, he gave us to understand, came from "over the torrent," indicating with a gesture the Arblen Valley; and, from the beginning of his troubles, had been to him like a human friend. The fall from the hillside had not seriously injured, but only bruised and temporarily lamed the lad, and after lying for a minute or two a little stunned and giddy, he rose and with some difficulty made his way across the meadow slope on which he found himself, expecting to meet his father descending the path. But he miscalculated its direction, and speedily discovered he had lost his way. After waiting a long time in great suspense, and seeing no one but a few goatherds at a distance, whose attention he failed to attract, the pain of a twisted ankle, increased by continual movement, compelled him to seek a night's shelter in the cave subsequently visited by his father at the suggestion of the peasants who assisted in the search. These peasants were not aware that the cave was but the mouth of a vast and wandering labyrinth tunneled, partly by nature and partly by art, through the rocky heart of the mountain. A little before sunrise, on the morning after his accident, the boy, examining with minute curiosity the picturesque grotto in which he had passed the night, discovered in its darkest corner a moss-covered stone behind which had accumulated a great quantity of weeds, ivy, and loose rubbish. Boylike, he fell to clearing away these impedimenta and excavating the stone, until, after some industrious labour thus expended, he dismantled behind and a little above it a narrow passage, into which he crept, partly to satisfy his love of "exploring," partly in the hope that it might afford him an egress in the direction of the village. The aperture thus exposed had not, in fact, escaped the eye of St. Aubyn, when about an hour afterwards the search for the lost boy was renewed. But one of his guides, after a brief inspection, declared the recess into which it opened empty, and the party, satisfied with his report, left the spot, little thinking that all their labor had been lost by a too hasty examination. For, in fact, this narrow and apparently limited passage gradually widened in its darkest part, and, as little St Aubyn found, became by degrees a tolerably roomy corridor, in which he could just manage to walk upright, and into which light from the outer world penetrated dimly through artificial fissures hollowed out at intervals in the rocky wall. Delighted at this discovery, but chilled by the vaultlike coldness of the place, the lad hastened back to fetch the fur mantle he had left in the cave, threw it over his shoulders, and returned to continue his exploration. The cavern gallery beguiled him with ever-new wonders at every step. Here rose a subterranean spring, there a rudely carved gargoyle grinned from the granite roof; curious and intricate windings enticed his eager steps, while all the time the deathlike and horrible silence which might have deterred an ordinary child from further advance, failed of its effect upon ears unable to distinguish between the living sounds of the outer world and the stillness of a sepulchre. Thus he groped and wandered, until he became aware that the gloom of the corridor had gradually deepened, and that the tiny opening in the rock were now far less frequent than at the outset. Even to his eyes, by this time accustomed to obscurity, the darkness grew portentous, and at every step he stumbled against some unseen projection, or bruised his hands in vain efforts to discover a returning path. Too late he began to apprehend that he was nearly lost in the heart of the mountain. Either the windings of the labyrinth were hopelessly confusing, or some debris, dislodged by the unaccustomed concussion of footsteps, had fallen from the roof and choked the passage behind him. The account which the boy gave of his adventure, and of his vain and long-continued efforts to retrace his way, made the latter hypothesis appear to us the more acceptable, the noise occasioned by such a fall having of course passed unheeded by him. In the end, thoroughly baffled and exhausted, the lad determined to work on through the Cimmerian darkness in the hope of discovering a second terminus on the further side of the mountain. This at length he did. A faint starlike outlet finally presented itself to his delighted eyes; he groped painfully towards it; gradually it widened and brightened, till at length he emerged from the subterranean gulf which had so long imprisoned him into the mountain cave wherein he bad ever since remained. How long it had taken him to accomplish this passage he could not guess, but from the sun's position it seemed to be about noon when he again beheld day. He sat down, dazzled and fatigued, on the mossy floor of the grotto, and watched the mountain torrent eddying and sweeping furiously past in the gorge beneath his retreat. After a while he slept, and awoke towards evening faint with hunger and bitterly regretting the affliction which prevented him from attracting help. Suddenly, to his great amaze, a huge tawny head appeared above the rocky edge of the plateau, and in another moment a St. Bernard hound clambered up the steep bank and ran towards the cave. He was dripping wet, and carried, strapped across his broad back, a double pannier, the contents of which proved on inspection to consist of three flasks of goat's milk, and some half dozen rye loaves packed in a tin box. The friendly expression and intelligent demeanour of his visitor invited little St. Aubyn's confidence and reanimated his sinking heart. Delighted at such evidence of human proximity, and eager for food, he drank of the goat's milk and ate part of the bread, afterwards emptying his pockets of the few sous he possessed and enclosing them with the remaining loaves in the tin case, hoping that the sight of the coins would inform the dog's owners of the incident. The creature went as he came, plunging into the deepest and least boisterous part of the torrent, which he crossed by swimming, regained the opposite shore, and soon disappeared from view. But next day, at about the same hour, the dog reappeared alone, again bringing milk and bread, of which again the lad partook, this time, however, having no sous to deposit in the basket. And when, as on the previous day, his new friend rose to depart, Charlie St. Aubyn left the cave with him, clambered down the bank with difficulty, and essayed to cross the torrent ford. But the depth and rapidity of the current dismayed him, and with sinking heart the child returned to his abode. Every day the same thing happened, and at length the strange life became familiar to him, the trees, the birds, and the flowers became his friends, and the great hound a mysterious protector whom he regarded with reverent affection and trusted with entire confidence. At night he dreamed of home, and constantly visited his father in visions, saying always the same words, "Father, I am alive and well." "And now," whispered the child, nestling closer in St. Aubyn's embrace, "the wonderful thing is that today, for the first and only time since I have been in this cave, my dog has not come to me! It looks, does it not, as if in some strange and fairylike way he really knew what was happening, and had known it all along from the very beginning! O father! can he be--do you think--can he be an Angel in disguise? And, to be sure, I patted him, and thought he was only a dog!" As the boy, an awed expression in his lifted blue eyes, gave utterance to this naive idea, I glanced at St. Aubyn's face, and saw that, though his lips smiled, his eyes were grave and full of grateful wonder. He turned towards the peasants grouped around us, and in their own language recited to them the child's story. They listened intently, from time to time exchanging among themselves intelligent glances and muttering interjections expressive of astonishment. When the last word of the tale was spoken, the elder Raoul, who stood at the entrance of the cave, gazing out over the sunlit valley of the Arblen, removed his hat with a reverent gesture and crossed himself. "God forgive us miserable sinners," he said humbly, "and pardon us our human pride! The Angel of the Lord whom Augustin and I beheld in our vision, ministering to the lad, is no other than the dog Gluck who lives at the monastery out yonder! And while we men are lucid only once a year, he has the seeing gift all the year round, and the good God showed him the lad in this cave, when we, forsooth, should have looked for him in vain. I know that every day Gluck is sent from the monastery laden with food and drink to a poor widow living up yonder over the ravine. She is infirm and bedridden, and her little grand-daughter takes care of her. Doubtless the poor soul took the sous in the basket to be the gift of the brothers, and, as her portion is not always the same from day to day, but depends on what they can spare from the store set apart for almsgiving, she would not notice the diminished cakes and milk, save perhaps to grumble a little at the increase of the beggars who trespassed thus on her pension." There was silence among us for a moment, then St Aubyn's boy spoke. "Father," he asked, tremulously, "shall I not see that good Gluck again and tell the monks how he saved me, and how Fritz and Bruno brought you here?" "Yes, my child," answered St Aubyn, rising, and drawing the boy's hand into his own, "we will go and find Gluck, who knows, no doubt, all that has passed today, and is waiting for us at the monastery." "We must ford the torrent," said Augustin; "the bridge was carried off by last year's avalanche, but with six of us and the dogs it will be easy work." Twilight was falling; and already the stars of Christmas Eve climbed the frosty heavens and appeared above the snowy far-off peaks. Filled with gratitude and wonder at all the strange events of the day we betook ourselves to the ford, and by the help of ropes and stocks our whole party landed safely on the valley side. Another half-hour brought us into the warm glow of the monk's refectory fire, where, while supper was prepared, the worthy brothers listened to a tale at least as marvellous as any legend in their ecclesiastical repertory. I fancy they must have felt a pang of regret that holy Mother Church would find it impossible to bestow upon Gluck and his two noble sons the dignity of canonisation. II. Steepside A Ghost Story The strange things I am going to tell you, dear reader, did not occur, as such things generally do, to my great-uncle, or to my second cousin, or even to my grandfather, but to myself. It happened that a few years ago I received an invitation from an old schoolfellow to spend Christmas week with him in his country house on the borders of North Wales, and, as I was then a happy bachelor, and had not seen my friend for a considerable time, I accepted the invitation, and turned my back upon London on the appointed day with a light heart and anticipations of the pleasantest description. Leaving my City haunts by a morning train, I was landed early in the afternoon at the nearest station to my friend's house, although in this case "nearest" was indeed, as it proved, by no means near. When I reached the inn where I had fondly expected to find "flys, omnibuses, and other vehicles obtainable on the shortest notice," I was met by the landlady of the establishment, who, with an apologetic curtsey and a deprecating smile, informed me that she was extremely sorry to say her last conveyance had just started with a party, and would not return until late at night. I looked at my watch; it was nearing four. Seven miles, and I had a large traveling-bag to carry. "Is it a good road from here to--?" I asked the landlady. "Oh yes, sir; very fair." "Well," I said, "I think I'll walk it. The railway journey has rather numbed my feet, and a sharp walk will certainly improve their temperature." So I courageously lifted my bag and set out on the journey to my friend's house. Ah, how little I guessed what was destined to befall me before I reached that desired haven! I had gone, I suppose, about two miles when I descried behind me a vast mass of dark, surging cloud driving up rapidly with the wind. I was in open country, and there was evidently going to be a very heavy snowstorm. Presently it began. At first I made up my mind not to heed it; but in about twenty minutes after the commencement of the fall the snow became so thick and so blinding, that it was absolutely impossible for me to find my way along a road which was utterly new to me. Moreover, with the cloud came the twilight, and a most disagreeably keen wind. The traveling-bag became unbearably heavy. I shifted it from one hand to the other; I hung it over my shoulder; I put it under my arm; I carried it in all sorts of ways, but none afforded me any permanent relief. To add to my misfortune, I strongly suspected that I had mistaken my way, for by this time the snow was so deep that the footpath was altogether obliterated. In this predicament I looked out wistfully across the whitened landscape for signs of an inn or habitation of some description where I might "put up" for the night, and by good fortune (or was it bad?) I at last espied through the gathering gloom a solitary and not very distant light twinkling from a lodge at the entrance of a private road. I fought my way through the snow as quickly as possible, and, presenting myself at the gate of the little cottage, rang the bell complacently, and flattered myself that I had at length discovered a resting-place. An old man with grey hair answered my summons. Him I acquainted with my misfortune, and to him I preferred my request that I might be allowed a night's shelter in the lodge, or at least the temporary privilege of drying myself and my habiliments at his fireside. The old fellow admitted me cheerfully enough; but he seemed more than doubtful as to the possibility of my passing the night beneath his roof. "Ye see, sir," he said, "we've only one small room--me and the missis; and I don't well see how we're to manage about you. All the same, sir, I wouldn't advise ye to go on tonight, for if ye're bound for Mr ---'s, ye've come a deal out of your way, and the storm's getting worse and worse every minute. We shall have a nasty night of it, sir, and it'll be a deal too stiff for travelling on foot." Here the wife, a hospitable-looking old woman, interposed. "Willum, don't ye think as the gentleman might be put to sleep in the room up at the House, where George slept last time he was here to see us? His bed's there still, ye know. It's a very good room, sir," she argued, addressing me; "and I can give ye a pair of blankets in no time." "But," said I, "the master of the house doesn't know me. I am a stranger here altogether." "Lor' bless ye, sir!" answered my host, "there ain't nobody in the place. The house has been to let these ten years at least to my knowledge; for I've been here eight, and the house and the lodge had both been empty no one knows how long when I come. I rents this cottage of Mr Houghton, out yonder." "Oh well," I rejoined, "if that is the case, and there is nobody's leave save yours to ask, I'm willing enough to sleep at the house, and thank you too for your kindness." So it was arranged that I should pass the coming night within the walls of the empty mansion; and, until it was time to retire thither, I amused and edified myself by a friendly chat with the old man and his spouse, both of whom were vastly communicative. At ten o'clock I and my host adjourned to the house, which stood at a very short distance from the lodge. I carried my bag, and my companion bore the blankets already referred to, a candle, and some firewood and matches. The chamber to which he conducted me was comfortable enough, but by no means profusely furnished. It contained a small truckle bedstead, two chairs, and a washstand, but no attempt at pictures or ornaments of any description. Evidently it was an impromptu bedroom. My entertainer in a few minutes kindled a cheerful fire upon the old-fashioned stone hearth. Then, after arranging my bed and placing my candle on the mantelpiece, he wished me a respectful goodnight and withdrew. When he was gone I dragged one of the chairs towards the fireplace, and sat down to enjoy the pleasant flicker of the blaze. I ruminated upon the occurrences of the day, and the possible history of the old house, whose sole occupant I had thus strangely become. Now, I am of an inquisitive turn of mind, and perhaps less apt than most men to be troubled with that uncomfortable sensation which those people who are its victims describe as nervousness, and those who are not, as cowardice. Another in my place might have shrunk from doing what I presently resolved to do, and that was to explore, before going to rest, at least some part of this empty old house. Accordingly, I took up my candle and walked out into the passage, leaving the door of my room widely open, so that the firelight streamed full into the entrance of the dark gallery, and served to guide me on my way along it. When I had thus progressed for some twenty yards, I was brought to a standstill by encountering a large red baize door, which evidently shut off the wing in which my room was situated from the rest of the mansion, and completely closed all egress from the corridor where I then stood. I paused a moment or two in uncertainty, for the door was locked; but presently my glance fell on an old rusty key hanging from a nail, likewise rusty, in a niche of the wall. I abstracted this key from its resting-place, destroying as I did so the residences of a dozen spiders, which, to judge from appearances, seemed to have thrived excellently in the atmosphere of desolation which surrounded them. It was some time before I could get the clumsy old lock to act properly, or summon sufficient strength to turn the key; but at length perseverance met with its proverbial reward, and the door moved slowly and noisily on its hinges. Still bearing my candle, I went on my way into a second corridor, which was literally carpeted with dust, the accumulation probably of the ten years to which my host had referred. All round was gloomy and silent as a sepulchre, save that every now and then the loosened boards creaked beneath my tread, or some little misanthropical animal, startled from his hermitage by the unwonted sound of my steps, hurried across the passage, making as he went a tiny trail in the thick furry dust. Several galleries branched off from the mainway like tributary streams, but I preferred to steer my course down the central corridor, which finally conducted me to a large antique-looking apartment with carved wainscot and curious old paintings on the panelled walls. I put the candle upon a table which stood in the centre of the room, and standing beside it, took a general survey. There was an old mouldy-looking bookcase in one corner of the chamber, with some old mouldy books packed closely together on a few of its shelves. This piece of furniture was hollowed out, crescent-wise, at the base, and partially concealed a carved oaken door, which had evidently in former times been the means of communication with an adjoining apartment. Prompted by curiosity, I took down and opened a few of the nearest books on the shelves before me. They proved to be some of the very earliest volumes of the "Spectator,"--books of considerable interest to me,-- and in ten minutes I was quite absorbed in an article by one of our most noted masters of literature. I drew one of the queer high-backed chairs scattered about the room, towards the table, and sat down to enjoy a "feast of reason and a flow of soul." As I turned the mildewed page, something suddenly fell with a dull "flop" upon the paper. It was a drop of blood! I stared at it with a strange sensation of mingled horror and astonishment. Could it have been upon the page before I turned it? No; it was wet and bright, and presented the uneven, broken disc which drops of liquid always possess when they fall from a considerable height. Besides I had heard and seen it fall. I put the book down on the table and looked upward at the ceiling. There was nothing visible there save the grey dirt of years. I looked closely at the hideous blotch, and saw it rapidly soaking and widening its way into the paper, already softened with age. As, of course, after this incident I was not inclined to continue my studies of Addison and Steele, I shut the volume and replaced it on the shelves. Turning back towards the table to take up my candle, my eyes rested upon a full- length portrait immediately facing the bookcase. It was that of a young and handsome woman with glossy black hair coiled round her head, but, I thought, with something repulsive in the proud, stony face and shadowed eyes. I raised the light above my head to get a better view of the painting. As I did this, it seemed to me that the countenance of the figure changed, or rather that a Thing came between me and it. It was a momentary distortion, as though a gust of wind had passed across the portrait and disturbed the outline of the features; the how and the why I know not, but the face changed; nor shall I ever forget the sudden horror of the look it assumed. It was like that face of phantom ghastliness that we see sometimes in the delirium of fever,--the face that meets us and turns upon us in the mazes of nightmare, with a look that wakes us in the darkness, and drives the cold sweat out upon our forehead while we lie still and hold our breath for fear. Man as I was, I shuddered convulsively from head to foot, and fixed my eyes earnestly on the terrible portrait. In a minute it was a mere picture again--an inanimate colored canvas--wearing no expression upon its painted features save that which the artist had given to it nearly a century ago. I thought then that the strange appearance I had witnessed was probably the effect of the fitful candlelight, or an illusion of my own vision; but now I believe otherwise. Seeing nothing further unusual in the picture, I turned my back upon it, and made a few steps towards the door, intending to quit this mysterious chamber of horrors, when a third and more hideous phenomenon riveted me to the spot where I stood; for, as I looked towards the oaken door in the corner, I became aware of something slowly filtering from beneath it, and creeping towards me. O heaven! I had not long to look to know what that something was:--it was blood-red, thick, stealthy! On it came, winding its way in a frightful stream into the room, soddening the rich carpet, and lying presently in a black pool at my feet. It had trickled in from the adjoining chamber, that chamber the entrance to which was closed by the bookcase. There were some great volumes on the ground before the door,--volumes which I had noticed when I entered the room, on account of the thick dust with which they were surrounded. They were lying now in a pool of stagnant blood. It would be utterly impossible for me to attempt to describe my sensations at that minute. I was not capable of feeling any distinct emotion. My brain seemed oppressed, I could scarcely breathe--scarcely move. I watched the dreadful stream oozing drowsily through the crevices of the mouldy, rotting woodwork--bulging out in great beads like raindrops on the sides of the door--trickling noiselessly down the knots of the carved oak. Still I stood and watched it, and it crept on slowly, slowly, like a living thing, and growing as it came, to my very feet. I cannot say how long I might have stood there, fascinated by it, had not something suddenly occurred to startle me into my senses again; for full upon the back of my right hand fell, with a sullen, heavy sound, a second drop of blood. It stung and burnt my flesh like molten lead, and the sharp, sudden pain it gave me shot up my arm and shoulder, and seemed in an instant to mount into my brain and pervade my whole being. I turned and fled from the terrible place with a shrill cry that rang through the empty corridors and ghostly rooms like nothing human. I did not recognise it for my own voice, so strange it was,--so totally unlike its accustomed sound; and now, when I recall it, I am disposed to think it was surely not the cry of living mortal, but of that unknown Thing that passed before the portrait, and that stood beside me even then in the lonely room. Certain I am that the echoes of that cry had in them something inexpressibly fiendish, and through the deathly gloom of the mansion they came back, reverberated and repeated from a hundred invisible corners and galleries. Now, I had to pass, on my return, a long, broad window that lighted the principal staircase. This window had neither shutters nor blind, and was composed of those small square panes that were in vogue a century ago. As I went by it, I threw a hasty, appalled glance behind me, and distinctly saw, even through the blurred and dirty glass, the figures of two women, one pursuing the other over the thick white snow outside. In the rapid view I had of them, I observed only that the first carried something in her hand that looked like a pistol, and her long black hair streamed behind her, showing darkly against the dead whiteness of the landscape. The arms of her pursuer were outstretched, as though she were calling to her companion to stop; but perfect as was the silence of the night, and close as the figures seemed to be, I heard no sound of a voice. Next I came to a second and smaller window which had been once boarded up, but with lapse of time the plank had loosened and partly fallen, and here I paused a moment to look out. It still snowed slightly, but there was a clear moon, sufficient to throw a ghastly light upon the outside objects nearest to me. With the sleeve of my coat I rubbed away the dust and cobwebs which overhung the glass, and peered out. The two women were still hurrying onward, but the distance between them was considerably lessened. And now for the first time a peculiarity about them struck me. It was this, that the figures were not substantial; they flickered and waved precisely like flames, as they ran. As I gazed at them the foremost turned her head to look at the woman behind her, and as she did so, stumbled, fell, and disappeared. She seemed to have suddenly dropped down a precipice, so quickly and so completely she vanished. The other figure stopped, wrung its hands wildly, and presently turned and fled in the direction of the park-gates, and was soon lost in the obscurity of the distance. The sights I had just witnessed in the panelled chamber had not been of a nature to inspire courage in any one, and I must candidly confess that my knees actually shook and my teeth rattled as I left the window and darted up the solitary passage to the baize door at the top of it. Would I had never unlocked that door! Would that the key had been lost, or that I had never set foot in this abominable house! Hastily I refastened the door, hung up the rusty key in its niche, and rushed into my own room, where I dropped into a chair with a deadly faintness creeping over me. I looked at my hand, where the clot of blood had fallen. It seemed to have burnt its way into my flesh, for it no longer appeared on the surface, but, where it had been was a round, purple mark, with an outer ring, like the scar of a burn. That scar is on my hand now, and I suppose will be there all my life. I looked at my watch, which I had left behind on the mantelpiece. It was five minutes past twelve. Should I go to bed? I stirred the sinking fire into a blaze, and looked anxiously at my candle. Neither fire nor candles, I perceived, would last much longer. Before long both would be expended, and I should be in darkness. In darkness, and alone in that house. The bare idea of a night passed in such solitude was terrible to me. I tried to laugh at my fears. And reproached myself with weakness and cowardice. I reverted to the stereotyped method of consolation under circumstances of this description, and strove to persuade myself that, being guiltless, I had no cause to fear the powers of evil. But in vain. Trembling from head to foot, I raked together the smouldering embers in the stove for the last time, wrapped my railway rug around me-- for I dared not undress--and threw myself on the bed, where I lay sleepless until the dawn. But oh, what I endured all those weary hours no human creature can imagine. I watched the last sparks of the fire die out, one by one, and heard the ashes slide and drop slowly upon the hearth. I watched the flame of the candle flare up and sink again a dozen times, and then at last expire, leaving me in utter darkness and silence. I fancied, ever and anon, that I could distinguish the sound of phantom feet coming down the corridor towards my room, and that the mysterious Presence I had encountered in the panelled chamber stood at my bedside looking at me, or that a stealthy hand touched mine. I felt the sweat upon my forehead, but I dared not move to wipe it away. I thought of people whose hair had turned white through terror in a few brief hours, and wondered what color mine would be in the morning. And when at last--at last--the first grey glimmer of that morning peered through the window-blind, I hailed its appearance with much the same emotions as, no doubt, a traveler fainting with thirst in a desert would experience upon descrying a watery oasis in the midst of the burning sands. Long before the sun arose, I leapt from my couch, and having made a hasty toilette, I sallied out into the bleak, frosty air. It revived me at once, and brought new courage into my heart. Looking at the whitened expanse of lawn where last night I had seen the two women running, I could detect no sign of footmarks in the snow. The whole lawn presented an unbroken surface of sparkling crystals. I walked down the drive to the lodge. The old man, evidently an early bird, was in the act of unbarring his door as I appeared. Halloa, sir, you're up betimes!" he exclaimed. "Will ye just step in now and take somethin'? My ole woman's agoin' to get out the breakfast. Slept well last night, sir?" he continued, as I entered the little parlour; "the bed is rayther hard, I know; but, ye see, it does well enow for my son George when he's up here, which isna often. Ye look tired like, this morning; didna get much rest p'raps? Ah! now then, Bess, gi' us another plate here, ole gal." I ate my breakfast in comparative silence, wondering to myself whether it would be well to say anything to my host of my recent experiences, since he had clearly no suspicions on the subject; and, anon, wishing I had comported myself in that terrible house with as little curiosity as the "son George," who no doubt was content to stay where he was put at night, and was not given to nocturnal excursions in empty mansions. "Have you any idea," said I, at last, "whether there's any story connected with that place where I slept last night? I only ask," added I, with a feeble grin, like the ghost of a smile that had been able-bodied once, "because I'm fond of hearing stories, and because, as you know, there generally is a legend, or something of that sort, related about old family mansions." "Well, sir," answered the old man slowly, "I never heard nothin'; but then, you see, I never asked no questions. We came here eight years agone, and then no one round remembered a tenant at the big house. It's been empty somewhere nigh twenty years, I should say,-- to my own knowledge more than ten,--and what's more, nobody knows exactly who it belongs to: and there's been lawsuits about it and all manner o' things, but nothin' ever came of them." "Did no one ever tell you anything about its history," I asked, "or were you never asked any questions about it until now?" "Not particularly as I remember," replied he musingly. Then, after a moment's pause, he added more briskly, "Ay, ay, though, now I come to think of it, there was a man up here more'n five months back, a Frenchman, who came on purpose to see it and ask me one or two questions, but I on'y jest told him nothin' as I've told you. He was a popish priest, and seemed to take a sight of interest in the place somehow. I think if you want to know about it, sir, you'd better go and see him; he's staying down here in the village, about a mile and a half off, at the Crown Inn." "And a queer old fellow he is," broke in my host's wife, who was clearing away the breakfast; "no one knows where he comes from, 'cept as he's a Frenchman. I see him about often, prowlin' along with his stick and his snuff-box, always alone, and sometimes he nods at me and says `good-morning' as I go by." In consequence of this information I resolved to make my way immediately to the old priest's dwelling, and having acquainted myself with the direction in which the house lay, I took leave of my host, shouldered my bag once more, and set out en route. The air was clear and sharp, and the crisp snow crackled pleasantly under my Hessian boots as I strode along the country lanes. All traces of cloud had totally disappeared from the sky, the sun looked cheerfully down on me, and my morning's walk thoroughly refreshed and invigorated me. In due time I arrived at the inn which had been named to me as the abode of the Rev. M. Pierre,--a pretty homely little nest, with an antique gable and portico. Addressing myself to the elderly woman who answered my summons at the housedoor, I inquired if I could see M. Pierre, and, in reply, received a civil invitation to "step inside and wait." My suspense did not last long, for M. Pierre made his appearance very promptly. He was a tall, thin individual with a fried-looking complexion, keen sunken eyes, and sparse hair streaked with grey. He entered the room with a courteous bow and inquiring look. Rising from the chair in which I had rested myself by the fire, I advanced towards him and addressed him by name in my suavest tones. He inclined his head and looked at me more inquiringly than before." I have taken the liberty to request an interview with you this morning," continued I, "because I have been told that you may probably be able to give me some information of which I am in search, with regard to an old mansion in this part of the county, called `Steepside,' and in which I spent last night." Scarcely had I uttered these last words when the expression of the old priest's face changed from one of courteous indifference to earnest interest: "Do I understand you rightly, monsieur?" he said. "You say you slept last night in Steepside mansion?" "I did not say I slept there," I rejoined, with an emphasis; "I said I passed the night there." "Bien," said he dryly, "I comprehend. And you were not pleased with your night's lodging. That is so, is it not, monsieur,--is it not?" he repeated, eying my face curiously, as though he were seeking to read the expression of my thoughts there. "You may be sure," said I, "that if something very peculiar had not occurred to me in that house, I should not thus have troubled a gentleman to whom I am, unhappily, a stranger." He bowed slightly and then stood silent, contemplating me, and, as I think, considering whether or not he should afford me the information I desired. Presently, his scrutiny having apparently proved satisfactory, he withdrew his eyes from my face, and seated himself beside me. "Monsieur," said he, "before I begin to answer your inquiry, I will ask you to tell me what you saw last night at Steepside." He drew from his pocket a small, old-fashioned snuff-box and refreshed his little yellow nose with a pinch of rappee, after which ceremonial he leaned back at his ease, resting his chin in his hand and regarding me fixedly during the whole of my strange recital. When I had finished speaking he sat silent a few minutes, and then resumed, in his queer broken manner: "What I am going to tell you I would not tell to any man who had not done what you have done, and seen what you saw last night. Mon Dieu! it is strange you should have been at that house last night of all nights in the year,--the 22nd of December!" He seemed to make this reflection rather to himself than to me, and presently continued, taking a small key from a pocket in his vest as he spoke: "Do you understand French well, monsieur?" "Excellently well," returned I with alacrity; "a great part of my business correspondence is conducted in French, and I speak and hear it every day of my life." He smiled pleasantly in reply, rose from his seat, and, unlocking with the key he held a small drawer in a chest that stood beside the chimney-piece, took out of it a roll of manuscript and a cigar. "Monsieur," said he, offering me the latter, "let me recommend this, if you care to smoke so early in the day. I always prefer rappee, but you, doubtless, have younger tastes." Having thus provided for my comfort, the old priest reseated himself, unfolded the manuscript, and, without further apology, read the following story in the French language: Towards the latter part of the last century Steepside became the property of a certain Sir Julian Lorrington. His family consisted only of his wife, Lady Sarah, and their daughter Julia, a girl remarkable alike for her beauty and her expectations. For a long time Sir Julian had retained in his establishment an old French maitre d'hotel and his wife, who both died in the baronet's service, leaving one child, Virginie, whom Lady Sarah, out of regard for the fidelity of her parents, engaged to educate and protect. In due time this orphan, brought up in the household of Sir Julian, became the chosen companion of his heiress; and when the family took up their residence at Steepside, Virginie Giraud, who had been associated in Julia's studies and recreations from early childhood, was installed there as maid and confidant to the hope of the house. Not long after the settlement at Steepside, Sir Julian, in the summary fashion of those days with regard to matrimonial affairs, announced his intention of bestowing his daughter upon a certain Welsh squire of old ancestry and broad acres. Sir Julian was a practical man, thoroughly incapable of regarding wedlock in any other light than as a mere union of wealth and property, the owners of which joined hands and lived together. This was the way in which he had married, and it was the way in which he intended his daughter to marry; love and passion were meaningless, if not vulgar words in his ears, and he conceived it impossible they should be otherwise to his only child. As for Lady Sarah, she was an unsympathetic creature, whose thoughts ran only on the ambition of seeing Julia married to some gentleman of high position, and heading a fine establishment with social success and distinction. So it was not until all things relative to the contract had been duly arranged between these amiable parents and their intended son- in-law, that the bride elect was informed of the fortune in store for her. But all the time that the lawyers had been preparing the marriage settlements, a young penniless gentleman named Philip Brian had been finding out for himself the way to Julia's heart, and these two had pledged their faith to each other only a few days before Sir Julian and Lady Lorrington formally announced their plans to their daughter. In consequence of her engagement with Philip, Julia received their intelligence with indignation, and protested that no power on earth should force her to act falsely to the young man whose promised wife she had become. The expression of this determination was received by both parents with high displeasure. Sir Julian indulged in a few angry oaths, and Lady Sarah in a little select satire; Philip Brian was, of course, forbidden the house, all letters and messages between the lovers were interdicted, and Julia was commanded to comport herself like a dutiful and obedient heiress. Now Virginie Giraud was the friend as well as the attendant of Sir Julian's daughter, and it was Virginie therefore who, after the occurrence of this outbreak, was despatched to Philip with a note of warning from his mistress. Naturally the lover returned an answer by the same means, and from that hour Virginie continued to act as agent between the two, carrying letters to and fro, giving counsel and arranging meetings. Meanwhile the bridal day was fixed by the parent Lorringtons, and elaborate preparations were made for a wedding festival which should be the wonderment and admiration of the county. The breakfast room was decorated with lavish splendour, the richest apparel bespoken for the bride, and all the wealthy and titled relatives of both contracting families were invited to the pageant. Nor were Philip and Julia idle. It was arranged between them that, at eleven o'clock on the night of the day preceding the intended wedding, the young man should present himself beneath Julia's window, Virginie being on the watch and in readiness to accompany the flight of the lovers. All three, under cover of the darkness, should then steal down the avenue of the coach-drive and make their exit by the shrubbery gate, the key of which Virginie already had in keeping. The appointed evening came,--the 22nd of December. Snow lay deep upon the ground, and more threatened to fall before dawn, but Philip had engaged to provide horses equal to any emergency of weather, and the darkness of the night lent favor to the enterprise. Virginie's behavior all that day had somehow seemed unaccountable to her mistress. The maid's face was pallid and wore a strange expression of anxiety and apprehension. She winced and trembled when Julia's glance rested upon her, and her hands quivered violently while she helped the latter to adjust her hood and mantle as the hour of assignation approached. Endeavouring, however, to persuade herself that this strange conduct arose from a feeling of excitement or nervousness natural under the circumstances, Julia used a hundred kind words and tender gestures to reassure and support her companion. But the mote she consoled or admonished, the more agitated Virginie became, and matters stood in this condition when eleven o'clock arrived. Julia waited at her chamber window, which was not above three feet from the ground without, her hood and mantle donned, listening eagerly for the sound of her lover's voice; and the French girl leant behind her against the closed door, nervously tearing to fragments a piece of paper she had taken from her pocket a minute ago. These torn atoms she flung upon the hearth, where a bright fire was blazing, not observing that, meanwhile, Julia had opened the window- casement. A gust of wind darting into the room from outside caught up a fragment of the yet unconsumed paper and whirled it back from the flames to Julia's feet. She glanced at it indifferently, but the sight of some characters on it suddenly attracting her, she stooped and picked it up. It bore her name written over and over several times, first in rather labored imitation of her own handwriting, then more successfully, and, lastly, in so perfect a manner that even Julia herself was almost deceived into believing it her genuine signature. Then followed several L's and J's, as though the copyist had not considered those initials satisfactory counterparts of the original. Julia wondered, but did not doubt; and as she tossed the fragment from her hand, Virginie turned and perceived the action. Instantly a deep flush of crimson overspread the maid's face; she darted suddenly forward, and uttered an exclamation of alarm. Her cry was immediately succeeded by the sharp noise of a pistol report beneath the window, and a heavy, muffled sound, as of the fall of a body upon the snow-covered earth. Julia looked out in fear and surprise. The leaping firelight from within the room streamed through the window, and, in the heart of its vivid brightness, revealed the figure of a man lying motionless upon the whitened ground, his face buried in the scattered snow, and his outstretched hand grasping a pistol. Julia leaped through the open casement with a wild shriek, and flung herself on her knees beside him. "Phil! Phil!" she said, "what have you done? what has happened? Speak to me!" But the only response was a faint, low moan. Philip Brian had shot himself! In an agony of grief and horror Julia lifted his head upon her arm, and pressed her hand to his heart. The movement recalled him to life for a few moments; he opened his eyes, looked at her, and uttered a few broken words. She stooped and listened eagerly. "The letter!" he gasped; "the letter you sent me! O Julia, you have broken my heart! How could you be false to me, and I loving you--trusting you--so wholly! But at least I shall not live to see you wed the man you have chosen; I came here tonight to die, since without you life would be intolerable. See what you have done!" Desperate and silent, she wound her arms around him, and pressed her lips to his. A convulsive shudder seized him; his eyes rolled back, and with a sigh he resigned himself to the death he had courted so madly. Death in the passion of a last kiss! Julia sat still, the corpse of her lover supported on her arm, and her hand clasped in his, tearless and frigid as though she had been turned into stone by some fearful spell. Half hidden in the bosom of his vest was a letter, the broken seal of which bore her own monogram. She plucked it out of its resting place, and read it hastily by the flicker of the firelight. It was in Lady Sarah's handwriting, and ran thus: "My Dear Mr Brian,--Although, when last we parted, it was with the usual understanding that tonight we should meet again; yet subsequent reflection, and the positive injunctions of my parents, have obliged me to decide otherwise. You are to know, therefore, that, in obedience to the wishes of my father and mother, I have promised to become the wife of the gentleman they have chosen for me. All correspondence between us must therefore wholly cease, nor must you longer suffer yourself to entertain a thought of me. It is hardly necessary to add that I shall not expect to see you this evening; your own sense of honor will, I am persuaded, be sufficient to restrain you from keeping an appointment against my wishes. In concluding, I beg you will not attempt to obtain any further explanation of my conduct; but rest assured that it is the unalterable resolve of cool and earnest deliberation. "For the last time I subscribe myself "JULIA LORRINGTON. "Postscript.--In order to save you any doubt of my entire concurrence in my mother's wishes, I sign and address this with my own hand, and Virginie, who undertakes to deliver it, will add her personal testimony to the truth of these statements, since she has witnessed the writing of the letter, and knows how fully my consent has been given to all its expressions." "With my own hand!" Yes, surely; both signature and address were perfect facsimiles of Julia's writing! What wonder that Philip had been deceived into believing her false? Twice she read the letter from beginning to end; then she laid her lover's corpse gently down on the snow, and stood up erect and silent, her face more ghastly and deathlike than the face of the dead beside her. In a moment the whole shameful scheme had flashed upon her mind; Virginie's treachery and clever fraud; its connection with the torn fragment of paper which Julia had seen only a few minutes before; the deliberate falsehood of which Lady Sarah had been guilty; the bribery, by means of which she had probably corrupted Virginie's fidelity; the cruel disappointment and suffering of her lover; all these things pressed themselves upon her reeling brain, and gave birth to the suggestions of madness. Stooping down, she put her lithe hand upon the belt of the dead man. There was, as she expected, a second pistol in it, the fellow of that with which he had shot himself. It was loaded. Julia drew it out, wrapped her mantle round it, and climbed noiselessly into her chamber through the still open window. Crossing the room, she passed out into the corridor beyond, and went like a shadow, swift and silent of foot, to the door of her father's study,--an apartment communicating, by means of an oaken door, with the panelled chamber. Virginie, from a dark recess in the wall of the house, had heard and noted all that passed in the garden. She saw Julia open and read the letter; she caught the expression of her face as she stooped for the pistol, and apprehending something of what might follow, she crept through the window after her mistress and pursued her up the dark passages. Here, crouching again into a recess in the gallery outside the panelled room, she waited in terror for the next scene of the tragedy. Julia flung open the door of the study where her father sat writing at his table, and, standing on the threshold in the full glare of the lamplight which illumined the apartment, raised the pistol, cocked and aimed it. Sir Julian had barely time to leap from his chair with a cry when she fired, and the next instant he fell, struck by the bullet on the left temple, and expired at his daughter's feet. At the report of the pistol and the sound of his fall, Lady Sarah quitted her dressingroom and ran in disordered attire into the study, where she beheld her husband lying dead and bloody upon the floor, and Julia standing at the entrance of the panelled chamber, with the light of madness and murder in her eyes. Not long she stood there, however, for, seeing Lady Sarah enter, the distracted girl threw down the empty weapon, and flinging herself upon her mother, grasped her throat with all the might of her frenzied being. Up and down the room they wrestled together, two desperate women, one bent upon murder, the other battling for her life, and neither uttered cry or groan, so terribly earnest was the struggle. At length Lady Sarah's strength gave way; she fell under her assailant's weight, her face black with suffocation, and her eyes protruding from their swelling sockets. Julia redoubled her grip. She knelt upon Lady Sarah's breast, and held her down with the force and resolution of a fiend, though the blood burst from the ears of her victim and filmed her staring eyes; nor did the pitiless fingers relax until the murderess knew her vengeance was complete. Then, she leapt to her feet, seized Philip's pistol from the floor, and, with a wild, pealing shriek, fled forth along the gallery, down the staircase, and out into the park,--out into the wind, and the driving snow, and the cold, her uncoiled hair streaming in dishevelled masses down her shoulders, and her dress of trailing satin daubed with stains of blood. Behind her ran Virginie, well-nigh maddened herself with horror, vainly endeavouring to catch or to stop the unhappy fugitive. But just as the latter reached the brink of a high precipice at the boundary of the terraced lawn, from which the mansion took its name of "Steepside," she turned to look at her pursuer, missed her footing, and fell headlong over the low stone coping that bordered the slope into the snowdrift at the bottom of the chasm. Virginie ran to the spot and looked over. The "steep" was exceedingly high and sudden; not a trace of Julia could be seen in the darkness below. Doubtless the miserable heiress of the Lorringtons had found a grave in the bed of soft, deep snow which surrounded its base. Then, stricken through heart and brain with the curse of madness which had already sent her mistress red-handed to death, Virginie Giraud fled across the lawn--through the parkgates--out upon the bleak common beyond, and was gone. The old priest laid aside the manuscript and took a fresh pinch of rappee from the silver snuff box. "Monsieur," said he, with a polite inclination of his grey head, "I have had the honor to read you the history you wished to hear." "And I thank you most heartily for your kindness," returned I. "But may I, without danger of seeming too inquisitive, ask you one question more?" Seeing assent in his face, and a smile that anticipated my inquiry wrinkling the corners of his mouth, I continued boldly, "Will you tell me, then, M. Pierre, by what means you became possessed of this manuscript, and who wrote it?" "It is a natural question, monsieur," he answered after a short pause, "and I have no good reason for withholding the reply, since every one who was personally concerned in the tragedy has long been dead. You must know, then, that in my younger days I was cure to a little parish of about two hundred souls in the province of Berry. Many years ago there came to this village a strange old woman of whom nobody in the place had the least knowledge. She took and rented a small hovel on the borders of a wood about two miles from our church, and, except on market days, when she came to the village for her weekly provisions, none of my parishioners ever held any intercourse with her. She was evidently insane, and although she did harm to nobody, yet she often caused considerable alarm and wonderment by her eccentric behavior. It is, as you must know, often the case in intermittent mania that its victims are insane upon some particular subject, some point upon which their frenzy always betrays itself,--even when, with regard to other matters, they conduct themselves like ordinary people. Now this old woman's weakness manifested itself in a wild and continual desire to copy every written document she saw. If, on her market-day visits to the village, any written notice upon the churchdoors chanced to catch her eye as she passed, she would immediately pause, draw out pencil and paper from her pocket, and stand muttering to herself until she had closely transcribed the whole of the placard, when she would quietly return the copy to her pocket and go on her way. "Thinking it my duty, as pastor of the village, to make myself acquainted with this poor creature, who had thus become one of my flock, I went occasionally to visit her, in the hope that I might possibly discover the cause of her strange disorder (which I suspected had its origin in some calamity of her earlier days), and so qualify myself to afford her the advice and comfort she might need. During the first two or three visits I paid her I could elicit nothing. She sat still as a statue, and watched me sullenly while I spoke to her of the mysteries and consolations of our faith, exhorting her vainly to make confession and obtain that peace of heart and mind which the sacrament of penance could alone bestow. Well, it chanced that on the occasion of one of these visits I took with me, besides my prayerbook, a small sheet of paper, on which I had written a few passages of Scripture, such as I conjectured to be most suited to her soul's necessity. I found her, as usual, moody and reserved, until I drew from my missal the sheet of transcribed texts and put it into her hand. In an instant her manner changed. The madness gleamed in her eyes, and she began searching nervously for a pencil. `I can do it!' she cried. `My writing was always like hers, for we learnt together when we were children. He will never know I wrote it; we shall dupe him easily. Already I have practised her signature many times--soon I shall be able to make it exactly like her own hand. And I shall tell her, my lady, that he would have deceived her, that I overheard him love-making to another girl-- that I discovered his falsehood--his baseness--and that he fled in his shame from the county. Yes, yes, we will dupe them both.' "In this fashion she chattered and muttered feverishly for some minutes, till I grew alarmed, and taking her by the shoulders, tried to shake back the senses into her distracted brain. `What ails you, foolish old woman? cried I `I am not "miladi;" I am your parish pastor. Say your Pater Noster, or your Ave, and drive Satan away.' "I am not sure whether my words or the removal of the unlucky manuscript recalled her wandering wits. At any rate, she speedily recovered, and, after doing my best to soothe and calm her by leading her to speak on other topics, I quitted the cottage reassured. "Not long after this episode a neighbor called at my house one morning, and told me that, having missed the old woman from the weekly market, and knowing how regular she had always been in her attendance, he had gone to her dwelling and found her lying sick and desiring to see me. Of course I immediately prepared to comply with her request, providing myself in case I should find her anxious for absolution and the viaticum. Directly I entered her hut, she beckoned me to the bedside, and said in a low, hurried voice:-- "Father, I wish to confess to you at once, for I know I am going to die.' "Perceiving that, for the present at least, she was perfectly sane, I willingly complied with her request, and heard her slowly and painfully unburden her miserable soul. "Monsieur, if the story with which Virginie Giraud intrusted me had been told only in her sacramental confession, I should not have been able to repeat it to you. But, when the final words of peace had been spoken, she took a packet of papers from beneath her pillow and placed it in my hands. `Here, father,' she said, `is the substance of my history. When I am dead, you are free to make what use of it you please. It may warn some, perhaps, from yielding to the great temptation which overcame me.' "'The temptation of a bribe?" said I, inquiringly. She turned her failing sight towards my face and shook her head feebly. "`No bribe, father," she answered. `Do you believe I would have done what I did for mere coin?" "I gave no reply, for her words were enigmatical to me, and I was loath to harass with my curiosity a soul so near its departure as hers. So I leaned back in my chair and sat silent, in the hope that, being wearied with her religious exercises, she might be able to sleep a little. But, no doubt, my last question, working in her disordered mind, awoke again the madness that had only slumbered for a time. Suddenly she raised herself on her pillow, pressed her withered hands to her head, and cried out wildly:-- "`Money!--money to me, who would have sold my own soul for one day of his love! Ah! I could have flung it back in their faces!--foo's that they were to believe I cared for gold! Philip! Philip! you were mad to think of the heiress as a wife; it had been better for you had you cared to look on me--on me who loved you so! Then I should never have ruined you--never betrayed you to Lady Sarah! But I could not forgive the hard words you gave me; I could not forgive your love for Julia! Shall I ever go to paradise--to paradise where the saints are? Will they let me in there?--will they suffer my soul among them? Or shall I never leave purgatory, but burn, and burn, and burn there always uncleansed? For, oh! if all the past should come back to me a thousand years hence, I should do the same thing again, Phil Brian, for love of you!' "She started from the bed in her delirium; there came a rattling sound in her throat--a sudden choking cry--and in a moment her breast and pillow and quilt were deluged with a crimson stream! In her paroxysm she had burst a blood-vessel. I sprang forward to catch her as she fell prone upon the brick floor; raised her in my arms, and gazed at her distorted features. There was no breath from the reddened lips. Virginie Giraud was a corpse. "Thus in her madness was told the secret of her life and her crime; a secret she would not confess even to me in her sane moments. It was no greed of gold, but despised and vindictive love that lay behind all the horrors she had related. From my soul I pitied the poor dead wretch, for I dimly comprehended what a hell her existence on earth had been. "The written account of the Steepside tragedy with which she had intrusted me furnished, in somewhat briefer language, the story I have just read to you, and many of its more important details have subsequently been verified by me on application to other sources, so that in that paper you have the testimony of an eyewitness to the facts, as well as the support of legal evidence. "Some forty years after Virginie's death, monsieur, family reasons obliged me to seek temporary release from duty and come to England; and, finding that circumstances would keep me in the country for some time, I came here and went to see that house. But the tenant at the lodge could only tell me that Steepside was empty then, and had been empty for years past; and I have discovered that, since that horrible 22nd of December, it never had an occupant. Sir Julian, to whom it belonged by purchase, left no immediate heirs, and his relatives squabbled between themselves over the property, till one by one the disputing parties died off, and now there is no one enterprising enough to resuscitate the lawsuit." Rising to take my leave of the genial old man, it occurred to me as extremely probable that he might have been led to form some opinion worth hearing with regard to the nature of the strange appearances at Steepside, and I ventured accordingly to make the inquiry. "If my views on the subject have any value or interest for you," said he, "you are very welcome to know them. As a priest of the Catholic Church, I cannot accept the popular notions about ghostly visitations. Such experiences as yours in that ill-fated mansion are explicable to me only on the following hypothesis. There is a Power greater than the powers of evil; a Will to which even demons must submit. It is not inconsistent with Christian doctrine to suppose that, in cases of such terrible crimes as that we have been discussing, the evil spirits who prompted these crimes may, for a period more or less lengthy, be forced to haunt the scene of their machinations, and re-enact there, in phantom show, the horrors they once caused in reality. Naturally--or perhaps," said he, breaking off with a little smile, "I ought rather to say super-naturally-- these demons, in order to manifest themselves, would be forced to resume some shape that would identify them with the crime they had suggested; and, in such a case, what more likely than that they should adopt the spectral forms of their human victims--murdered and murderer, or otherwise--according to the nature of the wickedness perpetrated? This is but an amateur opinion, monsieur; I offer it as an individual, not as a priest speaking on the part of the Church. But it may serve to account for a real difficulty, and may be held without impiety. Of one thing at least we may rest assured as Christian men; that the souls of the dead, whether of saints or sinners, are in God's safe keeping, and walk the earth no more." Then I shook hands with M. Pierre, and we parted. And after that, reader, I went to my friend's house, and spent my Christmas week right merrily. III. Beyond the Sunset A Fairy Tale for the Times I. Once upon a time there was a Princess. Now, this Princess dwelt in a far-off and beautiful world beyond the sunset, and she had immortal youth and an ancestry of glorious name. Very rich, too, she was, and the palace in which she lived was made all of marble and alabaster and things precious and wonderful. But that which was most wonderful about her was her exceeding beauty,--a beauty not like that one sees in the world this side of the sunset. For the beauty of the Princess was the bright-shining of a lovely spirit; her body was but the veil of her soul that shone through all her perfect form as the radiance of the sun shines through clear water. I cannot tell you how beautiful this Princess was, nor can I describe the color of her hair and her eyes, or the aspect of her face. Many men have seen her and tried to give an account of her; but though I have read several of these accounts, they differ so greatly from one another that I should find it hard indeed to reproduce her picture from the records of it which her lovers have left. For all these men who have written about the Princess loved her; none, indeed, could help it who ever looked on her face. And to some she has seemed fair as the dawn, and to others dark as night; some have found her gay and joyous as Allegro, and others sad and silent and sweet as Penseroso. But to every lover she has seemed the essence and core of all beauty; the purest, noblest, highest, and most regal being that he has found it possible to conceive. I am not going to tell you about all the lovers of the Princess, for that would take many volumes to rehearse, but only about three of them, because these three were typical personages, and had very remarkable histories. Like all the lovers of the Princess, these three men were travelers, coming from a distant country to the land beyond the sunset on purpose to see the beautiful lady of whom their fathers and grandfathers had told them; the lady who never could outlive youth because she belonged to the race of the everlasting Gods who ruled the earth in the old far-off Hellenic times. I do not know how long these three men stayed in the country of the Princess; but they stayed quite long enough to be very, very much in love with her, and when at last they had to come away--for no man who is not "dead" can remain long beyond the sunset--she gave to each of them a beautiful little bird, a tiny living bird with a voice of sweetest music, that had been trained and tuned to song by Phoebus Apollo himself. And I could no more describe to you the sweetness of that song than I could describe the beauty of the Princess. Then she told the travelers to be of brave heart and of valiant hope, because there lay before them an ordeal demanding all their prowess, and after that the prospect of a great reward. "Now," she said, "that you have learned to love me, and to desire to have your dwelling here with me, you must go forth to prove your knighthood. I am not inaccessible, but no man must think to win me for his lady unless he first justify his fealty by noble service. The world to which you now go is a world of mirage and of phantasms, which appear real only to those who have never reached and seen this realm of mine on the heavenward side of the sun. You will have to pass through ways beset by monstrous spectres, over wastes where rage ferocious hydras, chimeras, and strange dragons breathing flame. You must journey past beautiful shadowy islets of the summer sea, in whose fertile bays the cunning sirens sing; you must brave the mountain robber, the goblins of the wilderness, and the ogre whose joy is to devour living men. But fear nothing, for all these are but phantoms; nor do you need any sword or spear to slay them, but only a loyal mind and an unswerving purpose. Let not your vision be deceived, nor your heart beguiled; return to me unscathed through all these many snares, and doubt not the worth and greatness of the guerdon I shall give. Nor think you go unaided. With each of you I send a guide and monitor; heed well his voice and follow where he leads." II. Now, when the three travelers had received their presents, and had looked their last upon the shining face of the donor, they went out of the palace and through the golden gate of the wonderful city in which she dwelt, and so, once again, they came into the land which lies this side of the sun. Then their ordeal began; but, indeed, they saw no sirens or dragons or gorgons, but only people like themselves going and coming along the highways. Some of these people sauntered, some ran, some walked alone and pensively, others congregated in groups together and talked or laughed or shouted noisy songs. Under the pleasant trees on the greensward were pavilions, beautifully adorned; the sound of music issued from many of them, fair women danced there under the new-blossoming trees, tossing flowers into the air, and feasts were spread, wine flowed, and jewels glittered. And the music and the dancing women pleased the ear and eye of one of the three travelers, so that he turned aside from his companions to listen and to look. Then presently a group of youths and girls drew near and spoke to him. "It is our festival," they said; "we are worshippers of Queen Beauty; come and feast with us. The moon of May is rising; we shall dance all night in her beautiful soft beams." But he said, "I have just returned from a country the beauty of which far surpasses that of anything one can see here, and where there is a Princess so lovely and so stately that the greatest Queen of all your world is not fit to be her tiring maid." Then they said, "Where is that country of which you speak, and who is this wonderful Princess?" "It is the land beyond the sunset," he answered, "but the name of the Princess no man knows until she herself tells it him. And she will tell it only to the man whom she loves." At that they laughed and made mirth among themselves. "Your land is the land of dreams," they said; "we have heard all about it. Nothing there is real, and as for your Princess she is a mere shadow, a vision of your own creation, and no substantial being at all. The only real and true beauty is the beauty we see and touch and hear; the beauty which sense reveals to us, and which is present with us today." Then he answered, "I do not blame you at all, for you have never seen my Princess. But I have seen her, and heard her speak, and some day I hope to return to her. And when I came away she warned me that in this country I should be beset by all manner of strange and monstrous spectres, harpies, and sirens, eaters of men, whom I must bravely meet and overcome. I pray you tell me in what part of your land these dangers lie, that I may be on my guard against them." Thereat they laughed the more, and answered him, "Oh, foolish traveler, your head is certainly full of dreams! There are no such things as sirens; all that is an old Greek fable, a fairy tale with no meaning except for old Greeks and modern babies! You will never meet with any sirens or harpies, nor will you ever see again the Princess of whom you talk, unless, indeed, in your dreams. It is this country that is the only real one, there is nothing at all beyond the sunset." Now, all this time the little bird which the Princess had given to him was singing quite loudly under the folds of the traveler's cloak. And he took it out and showed it to the youths who spoke with him, and said, "This bird was given me by the Princess whom you declare to be a myth. How could a myth give me this living bird?" They answered, "You are surely a madman as well as a dreamer. Doubtless the bird flew into your chamber while you slept, and your dreaming fancy took advantage of the incident to frame this tale about the Princess and her gift. It is often so in dreams. The consciousness perceives things as it were through a cloud, and weaves fictions out of realities." Then he began to doubt, but still he held his ground, and said, "Yet hear how sweetly it sings! No wild, untaught bird of earth could sing like that." Whereat they were vastly merry, and one cried, Why, it is quite a common 'tweet-tweet!' It is no more than the chirp of a vulgar, everyday thrush or linnet!" And another, "Were I you, I would wring the bird's neck; it must be a terrible nuisance if it always makes such a noise!" And a third, "Let it fly, we cannot hear ourselves speaking for its screaming!" Then the traveler began to feel ashamed of his bird. "All that I say," he thought, "appears to them foolish, even the Princess's gift is, in their eyes, a common chirping chaffinch. What if indeed I have been dreaming; what if this, after all, should be the real world, and the other a mere fantasy?" The bird sang, "Away! away! or you will never see the Princess more! The real world lies beyond the gates of the sunset!" But when the traveler asked the youths what the bird sang, they answered that they had only heard "Tweet-tweet," and "Chirp-chirp." Then he was really angry, but not with them, as you would perhaps have thought. No, he was angry with the bird, and ashamed of it and of himself. And he threw it from him into the air, and clapped his hands to drive it away; and all the youths and girls that stood around him clapped theirs too. "Sh-shsh," they cried, "be off, you are a good-for-nothing hedge-finch, and may be thankful your neck has not been wrung to punish you for making such a noise!" So the bird flew away, away beyond the sunset, and I think it went back to the Princess and told her all that had happened. And the traveler went, and danced and sang and feasted to his heart's content with the worshippers of Queen Beauty, not knowing that he really had fallen among the sirens after all! III. Meanwhile the two other travelers had gone on their way, for neither of them cared about pleasure; one was a grave-looking man who walked with his eyes on the ground, looking curiously at every rock and shrub he passed by the wayside, and often pausing to examine more closely a strange herb, or to pick to pieces a flower; the other had a calm, sweet face, and he walked erect, his eyes lifted towards the great mountains that lay far away before them. By-and-by there came along the road towards the two travelers a company of men carrying banners, on which were inscribed as mottoes-- "Knowledge is Freedom!" " Science knows no law but the law of Progress!" "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" "Utility is Virtue," and a great many other fine phrases. Most of the persons who marched first in this procession wore spectacles, and some were clad in academical costumes. The greater number had gone past, when the grave-looking traveler--he who had interested himself so much in the stones and foliage by the wayside--courteously stopped one of the company and asked him what the procession meant. "We are worshippers of Science," answered the man whom he addressed; "today we hold solemn rites in honor of our deity. Many orations will be made by her high priests, and a great number of victims slain,--lambs, and horses, and doves, and hinds, and all manner of animals. They will be put to death with unspeakable torments, racked, and maimed, and burned, and hewn asunder, all for the glory and gain of Science. And we shall shout with enthusiasm as the blood flows over her altars, and the smoke ascends in her praise." "But all this is horrible," said the grave man, with a gesture of avoidance; "it sounds to me like a description of the orgies of savages, or of the pastimes of madmen; it is unworthy of intelligent and sane men." "On the contrary," returned his informant, "it is just because we are intelligent and sane that we take delight in it. For it is by means of these sacrifices that our deity vouchsafes her oracles. In the mangled corpses and entrails of these victims our augurs find the knowledges we seek," "And what knowledges are they?" asked the traveler. "The knowledge of Nature's secrets," cried the votary of Science with kindling eye, "the knowledge of life and death; the magic of the art of healing disease; the solution of the riddle of the universe! All this we learn, all this we perceive, in the dying throes of our victims. Does not this suffice?--is not the end great enough to justify the means?" Then, when the second of the travelers heard these words--he whose face had been lifted as he walked--he drew nearer and answered:-- "No; it is greater to be just than to be learned. No man should wish to be healed at the cost of another's torment." At which the stranger frowned, and retorted impatiently, "You forget, methinks, that they whom we seek to heal are men, and they who are tormented merely beasts. By these means we enrich and endow humanity." "Nay, I forget not," he answered gently, "but he who would be so healed is man no longer. By that wish and act he becomes lower than any beast. Nor can humanity be enriched by that which beggars it of all its wealth." "Fine speeches, forsooth!" cried the worshipper of Science; "you are a moralist, I find, and doubtless a very ignorant person! All this old-fashioned talk of yours belongs to a past age. We have cast aside superstition, we have swept away the old faiths. Our only guide is Reason, our only goal is Knowledge!" "Alas!" returned the other, "it is not the higher but the lower Reason which leads you, and the Knowledge you covet is not that of realities, but of mere seemings. You do not know the real world. You are the dupes of a Phantasm which you take for Substance." With that he passed on, and the man of Science was left in the company of the traveler who had first accosted him. "What person is that?" asked the former, looking after the retreating figure of him who had just spoken. "He is a poet," returned the grave-faced traveler; "we have both of us been beyond the sunset to see the lovely Princess who rules that wonderful country, and we left it together on a journey to this world of yours." "Beyond the sunset!" repeated the other, incredulously. "That is the land of shadows; when the world was younger they used to say the old Gods lived there." "Maybe they live there still,' said the traveler, "for the Princess is of their kith and lineage." "A pretty fable, indeed," responded the scientific votary. "But we know now that all that kind of thing is sheer nonsense, and worse, for it is the basis of the effete old-world sentiment which forms the most formidable obstacle to Progress, and which Science even yet finds it hard to overthrow. But what is that strange singing I hear beneath your cloak?" It was the bird which the traveler had received from the Princess. He drew it forth, but did not say whose gift it was nor whence it came, because of the contempt with which his companion had spoken of the mystic country and its Rulers. Already he began to waver in his loyalty towards the Princess, and to desire greatly the knowledges of which the stranger told him. For this traveler, though he cared nothing for pleasure, or for the beauty of sensuous things, was greatly taken by the wish to be wise; only he did not rightly know in what wisdom consists. He thought it lay in the acquirement of facts, whereas really it is the power by which facts are transcended. "That is a foreign bird," observed the scientific man, examining it carefully through his spectacles, "and quite a curiosity. I do not remember having ever seen one like it. The note, too, is peculiar. In some of its tones it reminds me of the nightingale. No doubt it is the descendant of a developed species of a nightingale, carefully selected and artificially bred from one generation to another. Wonderful modifications of species may be obtained in this manner, as experiments with fancy breeds of pigeons has amply proved. Permit me to examine the bill more closely. Yes, yes--a nightingale certainly--and yet--indeed, I ought not to decide in haste. I should greatly like to have the opinion of Professor Effaress on the subject. But what noise is that yonder?" For just then a terrible hubbub arose among a crowd of people congregated under the portico of a large and magnificent building a little way from the place where the scientific man and the intellectual traveler stood conversing. This building, the facade of which was adorned all over with bas-reliefs of Liberty and Progress, and modern elderly gentlemen in doctors' gowns and laurel wreaths, with rolls of paper and microscopes, was, in fact, a great Scientific Institution, and into it the procession of learned personages whom the travelers had met on their way had entered, followed by a great multitude of admirers and enthusiasts. In this edifice the solemn rites which the votary of Science had described were to be held, and a vast congregation filled its halls. All at once, just as the sacrifices were about to begin, a solitary man arose in the midst of the hushed assembly, and protested, as once of old, by the banks of the far-away Ganges, Siddartha Buddha had protested against the bloody offerings of the priests of Indra. And much after the same manner as Buddha had spoken this man spoke, of the high duty of manhood, of the splendour of justice, of the certainty of retribution, and of the true meaning of Progress and Freedom, the noblest reaches of which are spiritual, transcending all the baser and meaner utilities of the physical nature. And when the high priests of Science, not like the priests of Indra in older tines, answered the prophet disdainfully and without shame, that they knew nothing of any spiritual utilities, because they believed in evolution and held man to be only a developed ape, with no more soul than his ancestor, the stranger responded that he too was an Evolutionist, but that he understood the doctrine quite differently from them, and more after the fashion of the old teachers,--Pythagoras, Plato, Hermes, and Buddha. And that the living and incorruptible Spirit of God was in all things, whether ape or man, whether beast or human; ay, and in the very flowers and grass of the field, and in every element of all that is ignorantly thought to be dead and inert matter. So that the soul of man, he said, is one with the soul that is in all Nature, only that when man is truly human, in him alone the soul becomes self-knowing and self-concentrated; the mirror of Heaven, and the focus of the Divine Light. And he declared, moreover, that the spiritual evolution of which he spoke was not so much promoted by intellectual knowledge as by moral goodness; that it was possible to be a very learned ape indeed, but in no wise to deserve the name of man; and that inasmuch as any person was disposed to sacrifice the higher to the lower reason, and to rank intellectual above spiritual attainment, insomuch that person was still an ape and had not developed humanity. Now, the stranger who was brave enough to say all this was no other than the traveler poet, and all the time he was speaking, the bird which the Princess had given him lay hid in his bosom and sang to him, clear and sweet, "Courage! courage! these are the ogres and the dragons; fight the good fight; be of a bold heart!" Nor was he astonished or dismayed when the assembly arose with tumult and hooting, and violently thrust him out of the Scientific Institution into the street. And that was the noise which the other traveler and his companion had heard. But when the greater part of the mob had returned into the building there was left with the poet a little group of men and women whose hearts had been stirred by his protest. And they said to him, "You have spoken well, sir, and have done a noble thing. We are citizens of this place, and we will devote ourselves to giving effect to your words. Doubt not that we shall succeed, though it may be long first, for indeed we will work with a will." Then the poet was glad, because he had not spoken in vain, and he bade them good speed, and went on his way. But the scientific man, who was with the other traveler, heard these last words, and became very angry. "Certainly," he said, "this foolish and ignorant person who has just been turned out of the assembly must have insulted our great leaders! What presumption! what insolence! No one knows what mischief he may not have done by his silly talk! It is deplorable! But see, here comes Professor Effaress, the very man I most wished to see. Professor, let me present this gentleman. He is the owner of a rare and remarkable bird, on which we want your opinion." The Professor was a very great personage, and his coat was covered all over with decorations and bits of colored ribbon, like those on a kite's tail. Perhaps, like a kite's tail, they weighted and steadied him, and kept him from mounting too high into the clouds. The Professor looked at the bird through his spectacles, and nodded his head sagaciously. "I have seen this species before," he said, "though not often. It belongs to a very ancient family indeed, and I scarcely thought that any specimen of it remained in the present day. Quite a museum bird; and in excellent plumage, too. Sir, I congratulate you." "You do not, then, consider, Professor," said the traveler, "that this bird has about it anything transcendental--that it is--in fact-- not altogether--pardon me the expression--a terrestrial bird?" For he was afraid to say the truth, that the bird really came from beyond the sunset. The decorated personage was much amused. He laughed pleasantly, and answered in bland tones, "Oh dear, no; I recognise quite well the species to which it belongs. An ancient species, as I have said, and one indeed that Science has done her utmost to extirpate, purposely in part, because it is proved to be a great devastator of the crops, and thus directly injurious to the interests of mankind, and partly by accident, for it has a most remarkable song-note, and scientific men have destroyed all the specimens they have been able to procure, in the hope of discovering the mechanism by which the vocal tones are produced. But, pardon me, are you a stranger in this city, sir?" "I am," responded the traveler, "and permit me to assure you that I take a lively interest in the scientific and intellectual pursuits with which in this place, I perceive, you are largely occupied." "We have a Brotherhood of Learning here, sir," returned the Professor; "we are all Progressionists. I trust you will remain with us and take part in our assemblies." But, as he said that, the fairy bird suddenly lifted up his song and warned the traveler, crying in the language of the country beyond the sunset, "Beware! beware! This is an ogre, he will kill you, and mix your bones with his bread! Be warned in time, and fly; fly, if you cannot fight!" "Dear me," said the Professor, "what a very remarkable note! I am convinced that the structure and disposition of this bird's vocal organs must be unique. Speaking for my scientific brethren, as well as for myself, I may say that we should hold ourselves singularly indebted to you if you would permit us the opportunity of adding so rare a specimen to our national collection. It would be an acquisition, sir, I assure you, for which we would show ourselves profoundly grateful. Indeed, I am sure that the Society to which I have the honor to belong would readily admit to its Fellowship the donor of a treasure so inestimable." As he spoke, he fixed his eyes on the traveler, and bowed with much ceremony and condescension. And the traveler thought what a fine thing it would be to become a Professor, and to be able to wear a great many bits of colored ribbon, and to be immensely learned, and know all the facts of the universe. And, after all, what was a little singing bird, and a fairy Princess, in whose very existence the scientific gentlemen did not in the least believe, and who was, perhaps, really the shadow of a dream? So he bowed in return, and said he was greatly honored; and Professor Effaress took the bird and twisted its neck gravely, and put the little corpse into his pocket. And so the divine and beautiful song of the fairy minstrel was quenched, and instead of it I suppose the traveler got a great deal of learning and many fine decorations on his coat. But the spirit of the slain bird fled away from that inhospitable city, and went back to the Princess and told her what had befallen. IV. As for the poet, he went on his way alone into the open country, and saw the peasants in the fields, reaping and gleaning and gathering fruit and corn, for it was harvest time. And he passed through many hamlets and villages, and sometimes he rested a night or two at an inn; and on Sundays he heard the parish parson say prayers and preach in some quaint little Norman or Saxon church. And at last he came to a brand-new town, where all the houses were Early English, and all the people dressed like ancient Greeks, and all the manners Renaissance, or, perhaps, Gothic. The poet thought they were Gothic, and probably he was right. In this town the talk was mostly about Art, and many fine things were said in regard to "sweetness and light." Everybody claimed to be an artist of some kind, whether painter, musician, novelist, dramatist, verse-maker, reciter, singer, or what not. But although they seemed so greatly devoted to the Graces and the Muses, it was but the images of the Parnassian Gods that they worshipped. For in the purlieus of this fine town, horrible cruelties and abuses were committed, yet none of the so-called poets lifted a cry of reform. Every morning, early, before daybreak, there came through the streets long and sad processions of meek-eyed oxen and bleating lambs, harried by brutal drovers, with shouts and blows,--terrible processions of innocent creatures going to die under the poleaxe and the knife in order to provide the "pleasures of the table" for dainty votaries of "sweetness and light." Before the fair faint dawn made rosy the eastern sky over the houses, you might have heard on every side the heavy thud of the poleaxe striking down the patient heifer on her knees,--the heifer whose eyes are like the eyes of Here, say the old Greek song-books, that were read and quoted all day in this town of Culture and of Art. And a little later, going down the byways of the town, you might have seen the gutters running with hot fresh blood, and have met carts laden with gory hides, and buckets filled with brains and blood, going to the factories and tanyards. Young lads spent all their days in the slaughter-houses, dealing violent deaths, witnessing tragedies of carnage, hearing incessant plaintive cries, walking about on clogs among pools of clotting or steamy blood, and breathing the fumes of it. And scarce a mile away from the scene of all these loathsome and degrading sights, sounds, and odors, you might have found fastidious and courtly gentlemen, and ladies all belaced and bejewelled, sentimentalising over their "aspic de foie gras," or their "cotelettes a la jardiniere," or some other euphemism for the dead flesh which could not, without pardonable breach of good breeding, be called by its plain true name in their presence. And when the poet reminded them of this truth, and spoke to them of the demoralisation to which, by their habits, they daily subjected many of their fellowmen; when he drew for them graphic pictures of the slaughteryard, and of all the scenes of suffering and tyranny that led up to it and ensued from it, they clapped their hands to their ears, and cried out that he was a shockingly coarse person, and quite too horribly indelicate for refined society. Because, indeed, they cared only about a surface and outside refinement, and not a whit for that which is inward and profound. For beauty of being--they had neither desire nor power of reverence; all their enthusiasm was spent over forms and words and appearances of beauty. In them the senses were quickened, but not the heart, nor the reason. Therefore the spirit of the Reformer was not in them, but the spirit of the Dilettante only. And the poet was grieved and angry with them, because every true poet is a Reformer; and he went forth and spoke aloud in their public places and rebuked the dwellers in that town. But except a few curiosity hunters and some idle folks who wanted higher wages and less work, and thought he might help them to get what they wished for, nobody listened to him. But they went in crowds to see a conjurer, and to hear a man who lectured on blue china, and another who made them a long oration about intricate and obscure texts in a certain old dramatic book. And I think that in those days, if it had not been for the sweet and gracious song of the fairy bird which he carried about always in his bosom, the poet would have become very heartsick and desponding indeed. I do not quite know what it was that the bird sang, but it was something about the certainty of the advent of wisdom, and of the coming of the perfect day; and the burden of the song was hope for all the nations of the earth. Because every beautiful and wise thought that any man conceives is the heritage of the whole race of men, and an earnest and foregleam of what all men will some day inviolably hold for true. And forasmuch as poets are the advanced guard of the marching army of humanity, therefore they are necessarily the first discoverers and proclaimers of the new landscapes and ranges of Duties and Rights that rise out of the horizon, point after point, and vista after vista, along the line of progress. For the sonnet of the poet today is to furnish the keynote of the morrow's speech in Parliament, as that which yesterday was song is today the current prose of the hustings, the pulpit, and the market. Wherefore, O poet, take heart for the world; thou, in whose utterance speaks the inevitable Future; who art thyself God's prophecy and covenant of what the race at large shall one day be! Sing thy songs, utter thine whole intent, recount thy vision; though today no one heed thee, thou hast nevertheless spoken, and the spoken word is not lost. Every true thought lives, because the Spirit of God is in it, and when time is ripe it will incarnate itself in action. Thou, thou art the creator, the man of thought; thou art the pioneer of the ages! Somewhat on this wise sang the fairy bird, and thereby the poet was comforted, and took courage, and lifted up his voice and his apocalypse. And though few people cared to hear, and many jeered, and some rebuked, he minded only that all he should say might be well said, and be as perfect and wise and worthy as he could make it. And when he had finished his testimony, he went forth from the gates of the town, and began once more to traverse the solitudes of moor and forest. But now the winter had set in over the land, and the wastes were bleak, and the trees stood like pallid ghosts, sheeted and shrouded in snow. And the north wind moaned across the open country, and the traveler grew cold and weary. Then he spoke to the bird and said, "Bird, when I and my companions set out on our journey from the land beyond the sunset, the Princess promised us each a guide, who should bring us back in safety if only we would faithfully heed his monitions. Where then is this guide? for hitherto I have walked alone, and have seen no leader. And the bird answered, "O poet, I, whom thou bearest about in thy bosom, am that guide and monitor! I am thy director, thine angel, and thine inward light. And to each of thy companions a like guide was vouchsafed, but the man of appetite drove away his monitor, and the man of intellect did even worse, for he gave over to death his friend and his better self. Gold against dross, the wisdom of the Gods against the knowledges of men! But thou, poet, art the child of the Gods, and thou alone shalt again behold with joy the land beyond the sunset, and the face of Her whose true servitor and knight thou art!" Then the traveler was right glad, and his heart was lifted up, and as he went he sang. But, for all that, the way grew steeper to his feet, and the icy air colder to his face; and on every hand there were no longer meadows and orchards full of laboring folk, but glittering snow-wreaths, and diamond-bright glaciers, shining hard and keen against the deeps of darkening space; and at times the roar of a distant avalanche shook the atmosphere about him, and then died away into the silence out of which the sound had come. Peak above peak of crystal-white mountain ranges rose upon his sight, massive, and still, and awful, terrible affirmations of the verity of the Ideal. For this world of colossal heights and fathomless gulfs, of blinding snows, of primeval silence, of infinite revelation, of splendid lights upon manifold summits of opal, topaz, and sardony, all seemed to him the witness and visible manifestation of his most secret and dreadful thoughts. He had seen these things in his visions, he had shaped them in his hidden reveries, he had dared to believe that such a region as this might be--nay, ought to be-- if the universe were of Divine making. And now it burst upon him, an apocalypse of giant glories, an empire of absolute being, independent and careless of human presence, affirming itself eternally to its own immeasurable solitudes. "I have reached the top and pinnacle of life," cried the poet; "this is the world wherein all things are made!" And now, indeed, save for the fairy bird, he trod his path alone. Now and then great clouds of mist swept down from the heights, or rose from the icy gorges, and wrapped him in their soft gray folds, hiding from his sight the glittering expanse around him, and making him afraid. Or, at times, he beheld his own shadow, a vast and portentous Self, projected on the nebulous air, and looming in his pathway, a solitary monster threatening him with doom. Or yet again, there arose before him, multiplied in bewildering eddies of fog-wreath, a hundred spectral selves, each above and behind the other, like images repeated in reverberating mirrors--his own form, his own mien, his own garb and aspect--appalling in their omnipresence, maddening in their grotesque immensity as the goblins of a fever dream. But when first the traveler beheld this sight, and shrank at it, feeling for his sword, the fairy bird at his breast sang to him, "Fear not, this is the Chimaera of whom the Princess spoke. You have passed unhurt the sirens, the ogres, and the hydra-headed brood of plain and lowland; now meet with courage this phantom of the heights. Even now thou standest on the confines of the land beyond the sunset; these are the dwellers on the border, the spectres who haunt the threshold of the farther world. They are but shadows of thyself, reflections cast upon the mists of the abyss, phantoms painted on the veil of the sanctuary. Out of the void they arise, the offspring of Unreason and of the Hadean Night." Then a strong wind came down from the peaks of the mountains like the breathing of a God; and it rent the clouds asunder, and scattered the fog wreaths, and blew the phantoms hither and thither like smoke; and like smoke they were extinguished and spent against the crags of the pass. And after that the poet cared no more for them, but went on his way with a bold heart, until he had left behind and below him the clouds and mists of the ravines among the hills, and stood on the topmost expanse of dazzling snow, and beheld once more the golden gate of the Land that lies beyond the Sun. But of his meeting with the Princess, and of the gladness and splendour of their espousals, and of all the joy that he had, is not for me to tell, for these things, which belong to the chronicles of that fairy country, no mortal hand in words of human speech is in any wise able to relate. All that I certainly know and can speak of with plainness is this, that he obtained the fulness of his heart's desire, and beyond all hope, or knowledge, or understanding of earth, was blessed for evermore. And now I have finished the story of a man who saw and followed his Ideal, who loved and prized it, and clave to it above and through all lesser mundane things. Of a man whom the senses could not allure, nor the craving for knowledge, nor the lust of power, nor the blast of spiritual vanity, shake from his perfect rectitude and service. Of a man who, seeing the good and the beautiful way, turned not aside from it, nor yielded a step to the enemy; in whose soul the voice of the inward Divinity no rebuke, nor derision, nor neglect could quench; who chose his part and abode by it, seeking no reconciliation with the world, not weakly repining because his faith in the justice of God distanced the sympathies of common men." Every poet has it in him to imagine, to comprehend, and desire such a life as this; he who lives it canonises his genius, and, to the topmost manhood of the Seer, adds the Divinity of Heroism. IV. A Turn of Luck "Messieurs, faites votre jeu! . . . Le jeu est fait! . . . Rien ne va plus! . . . Rouge gagne et la couleur! . . . Rouge gagne, la couleur perd! . . . Rouge perd et la couleur! . . . " Such were the monotonous continually recurring sentences, always spoken in the same impassive tones, to which I listened as I stood by the tables in the gaming-rooms of Monte Carlo. Such are the sentences to which devotees of the fickle goddess, Chance, listen hour after hour as the day wears itself out from early morning to late evening in that beautiful, cruel, enchanting earthly paradise, whose shores are washed by the bluest sea in the world, whose gardens are dotted with globes of golden fruit, and plumed with feathery palms, and where, as you wander in and out among the delicious shadowy foliage, you hear, incessantly, the sound of guns, and may, now and then, catch sight of some doomed creature with delicate white breast and broken wing, dropping, helpless and bleeding, into the still dark waters below the cliff. A wicked place! A cruel place! Heartless, bitter, pitiless, inhuman! And yet, so beautiful! I stood, on this particular afternoon, just opposite a young man seated at one of the rouge et noir tables. As my glance wandered from face to face among the players, it was arrested by his,--a singularly pallid, thin, eager face; remarkably eager, even in such a place and in such company as this. He seemed about twenty- five, but he had the bowed and shrunken look of an invalid, and from time to time he coughed terribly, the ominous cough of a person with lungs half consumed by tubercle. He had not the air of a man who gambles for pleasure; nor, I thought, that of a spendthrift or a "ne'er-do-weel;" disease, not dissipation, had hollowed his cheeks and set his hands trembling, and the unnatural light in his eyes was born of fever rather than of greed. He played anxiously but not excitedly, seldom venturing on a heavy stake, and watching the game with an intentness which no incident diverted. Suddenly I saw a young girl make her way through the throng towards him. She was plainly dressed, and had a sweet, sad face and eyes full of tenderness. She touched him on the shoulder, stooped over him, and kissed him in the frankest, simplest manner possible on the forehead. "Viens," she whispered, "je m'etouffe ici, il fait si frais dehors; sortons." He did not answer; his eyes were on the cards. "Rouge perd, et la couleur," said the hard official voice. With a sigh, he rose, coughed, passed his hand over his eyes, and took his wife's arm.--(I felt sure she was his wife.) They passed slowly through the rooms together, and I lost sight of them. But not of his face--nor of hers. Sitting by the fountain outside the gaming saloons half an hour afterwards, I fell to musing about this strange couple. So young,--she scarcely more than a child, and he so ill and wasted! He had played with the manner of an old habitue, and she seemed used to finding him at the tables and leading him away. I made up my mind that I had stumbled on a romance, and resolved to hunt it down. At the table d'hote dinner in my hotel that evening I met a friend from Nice to whom I confided my curiosity. "I know," said he, "the young people of whom you speak; they are patients of Dr S. of Monaco, one of my most intimate acquaintances. He told me their story." "They," I interpolated,--" is the wife, then, also ill?" My friend smiled a little. "Not ill exactly, perhaps," he answered. "But you must have seen,--she will very shortly be a mother. And she is very young and delicate." "Tell me their story," I said, "since you know it. It is romantic, I am certain." "It is sad," he said, "and sadness suffices, I suppose, to constitute romance. The young man's name is Georges Saint-Cyr, and his family were `poor relations' of an aristocratic house. I say `were,' because they are all dead,-- his father, mother, and three sisters. The father died of tubercle, so did his daughters; the son, you see, inherits the same disease and will also die of it at no very distant time. Georges Saint-Cyr never found anybody to take him up in life. He was quite a lad when he lost his widowed mother, and his health was, even then, so bad and fitful that be could never work. He tried his best; but what chef can afford to employ a youth who is always sending in doctor's certificates to excuse his absence from his desk, and breaking down with headache or swooning on the floor in office-hours? He was totally unfit to earn his living, and the little money he had would not suffice to keep him decently. Moreover, in his delicate condition he positively needed comforts which to other lads would have been superfluous. Still he managed to struggle on for some five years, getting copying-work and what-not to do in his own rooms, till he had contrived, by the time he was twenty-two, to save a little money. His idea was to enter the medical profession and earn a livelihood by writing for scientific journals, for he had wits and was not without literary talent. He was lodging then in a cheap quarter of Paris not far from the Ecole de Medecine. Well, the poor boy passed his baccalaureat and entered on his first year. He got through that pretty well, but then came the hospital work; and then, once more he broke down. The rising at six o'clock on bitter cold winter mornings, the going out into the bleak early air sometimes thick with snow or sleet, the long attendance day after day in unwholesome wards and foetid post-mortem rooms; the afternoons spent over dissecting,--all these things contributed to bring about a catastrophe. He fell sick and took to his bed, and as he was quite alone in the world, his tutor, who was a kind- hearted man, undertook to see him through his illness, both as physician and as friend. And when, after a few weeks, Georges was able to get about again, the professor, seeing how lonely the young man was, asked him to spend his Sundays and spare evenings with himself and his family in their little apartment au ca'nquieme of the rue Cluny. For the professor was, of course, poor, working for five francs a lesson to private pupils; and a much more modest sum for class lectures such as those which Georges attended. But all this mattered nothing to Georges. He went gladly the very next Sunday to Dr. Le Noir's, and there he met the professor's daughter--whom you have seen. She was only just seventeen, and prettier then than she is now I doubt not, for her face is anxious and sorrowful now, and anxiety and sorrow are not becoming. You don't wonder that the young student fell in love with her. The father, engrossed in his work, did not see what was going on, and so Pauline's heart was won before the mischief could be stopped. The young people themselves went to him hand in hand one evening and told him all about it. Madame Le Noir had long been dead, and the professor had two sons studying medicine. His daughter was, perhaps, rather in his way; he loved her much, but she was growing fast into womanhood, and he did not quite know what to do with her. Saint-Cyr was well-born and he was clever. If only his health were to take a turn for the better, all might go well. But then, if not? He looked at the young man's pale face and remembered what his stethoscope had revealed. Still, in such an early stage these physical warnings often came to nothing. Rest, and fresh air, and happiness, might set him up and make a healthy man of him yet. So he gave a preliminary assent to the engagement, but forbade the young people to consider the affair settled--for the present. He wanted to see how Georges got on. It was early spring then. Hope and love and the April sunshine agreed with the young man. He was much stronger by June, and did well at the hospital and at his work. He had reached the end of his fin d'aunee examinations; a year's respite was before him now before beginning to pass for his doctorate. Le Noir thought that if he could pass the next winter in the south of France he would be quite set up, and lost no time in imparting this idea to Georges. But Georges was not just then in funds; his time had been lately wholly taken up with his studies, and he had been unable to do any literary hacking. When he told the professor that he could not afford to spend a winter on the Riviera, Le Noir looked at him fixedly a minute or two and then said:-- 'Pauline's dot will be 10,000 francs. It comes to her from her mother. With care that ought to keep you both till you have taken your doctorate and can earn money for yourself. Will you marry Pauline this autumn and take her with you to the south?' Well, you can fancy whether this proposal pleased Georges or not. At first he refused, of course; he would not take Pauline's money; it was her's; he would wait till he could earn money of his own. But the professor was persuasive, and when he told his daughter of the discussion, she went privately into her father's study where Georges sat, pretending to read chemistry, and settled the matter. So the upshot of it was that late in October, Pauline became Madame Saint-Cyr, and started with her husband for the Riviera. "The winter turned out a bitter one. Bitter and wild and treacherous over the whole of Europe. Snow where snow had not been seen time out of mind; biting murderous winds that nothing could escape. My friend Dr S. says the Riviera is not always kind to consumptives, even when at its best; and this particular season saw it at its worst. Georges Saint-Cyr caught a violent chill one evening at St Raphael, whither he and his wife had gone for the sake of the cheapness rather than to any of the larger towns on the littoral; and in a very short time his old malady was on him again,--the fever, the cough, the weakness,--in short, a fresh poussee, as the doctors say. Pauline nursed him carefully till March set in; then he recovered a little, but he was fair from convalescent. She wrote hopefully to her father; so did Georges; indeed both the young man and his wife, ignorant of the hold which the disease had really got upon him, thought things to be a great deal better than they actually were. But as days went on and the cough continued, they made up their minds that St Raphael did not suit Georges, and resolved to go on to Nice. March was already far advanced; Nice would not be expensive now. So they went, but still Georges got no better. He even began to get weaker; the cough `tore' him, he said, and he leaned wearily on his wife's arm when they walked out together. Clearly he would not be able to return to Paris and to work that spring. Pauline, too, was not well, the long nursing had told on her, and she had, besides, her own ailments, for already the prospect of motherhood had defined itself. She wrote to her father that Georges was still poorly and that they should not return home till May. But before the first ten days of April had passed, something of the true state of the case began to dawn on Saint-Cyr. `I shall never again be strong enough to work hard,' he said to himself, `and I must work hard if I am to pass my doctorate examinations. Meantime, all Pauline's dot will be spent. I may have to wait months before I can do any consecutive work; perhaps, even, I shall be unable to make a living by writing. I am unfit for any study. How can I get money--and get it quickly--for her sake and for the child's?' "Then the thought of the tables at Monte Carlo flashed into his mind. Eight thousand francs of Pauline's dot remained; too small a sum in itself to be of any permanent use, but enough to serve as capital for speculation in rouge et noir. With good luck such a sum might produce a fortune. The idea caught him and fascinated his thoughts sleeping and waking. In his dreams he beheld piles of gold shining beside him on the green cloth, and by day as he wandered feebly along the Promenade des Anglais with Pauline he grew silent, feeding his sick heart with this new fancy. One day he said to his wife:-- 'Let us run over to Monte Carlo and see the playing; it will amuse us; and the gardens are lovely. You will be delighted with the place. Everybody says it is the most beautiful spot on the Riviera.' So they went, and were charmed, but Georges did not play that day. He stood by the tables and watched, while Pauline, too timid to venture into the saloons, and a little afraid of 'le jeu,' sat by the great fountain in the garden outside the casino. Georges declared that evening as they sat over their tea at Nice that he had taken a fancy for beautiful Monaco, and that he would rather finish the month of April there than at Nice. Pauline assented at once, and the next day they removed to the most modest lodgings they could find within easy access of the gardens. Then; very warily and gently, Saint-Cyr unfolded to Pauline his new-born hopes. She was terribly alarmed at first and sobbed piteously. 'It is so wicked to gamble, Georges,' she said;--' no blessing can follow such a plan as yours. And I dare not tell papa about it.' 'It would be wicked, no doubt,' said Georges, 'to play against one's friend or one's neighbor, as they do in clubs and private circles, because in such cases if one is lucky, someone else is beggared, and the money one puts in one's pocket leaves the other players so much the poorer. But here it is quite another thing. We play against a great firm, an administration, whom our individual successes do not affect, and which makes a trade of the whole concern. Scruples are out of place under such circumstances. Playing at Monte Carlo hurts nobody but oneself, and is not nearly so reprehensible as the legitimate "business" that goes on daily at the Bourse.' 'Still,' faltered Pauline, `such horrid persons do play, --such men,--such women! It is not respectable.' `It is not respectable for most people certainly,' he said, `because other ways of earning are open to them. The idle come here, the dissolute, the good-for-nothings. I know all that. But we are quite differently placed; and have no other means of getting money to live with. At those tables, Pauline, I shall be working for you as sincerely and honestly as though I were buying up shares or investing in foreign railroads. It is the name and tradition of the thing that frightens you. Look it in the face and you will own that it is simply . . . speculation.' `Georges,' said Pauline, you know best. Do as you like, dear; I understand nothing, and you were always clever.' "So Saint-Cyr had his way, and went to work accordingly, without loss of time, a little shyly at first, not daring to venture on any considerable stake. So he remained for a week at the roulette tables; because at the rouge et noir one can only play with gold. The week came to an end and found him neither richer nor poorer. Then he grew bolder and ventured into the deeper water. He played on rouge et noir, with luck the first day or two, but after that fortune turned dead against him. He said nothing of it to Pauline, who came every day into the rooms at intervals to seek him and say a few words, sometimes leading him out for air when he looked weary, or beguiling him away on pretence of her own need for companionship or for a walk. No doubt the poor girl suffered much; anxiety, loneliness, and a lingering shame which she could not suppress, paled her cheeks, and made her thin and careworn. She dared not ask how things were going, but her husband's silence and the increased sickliness of his aspect set her heart beating heavily with dread. Alone in her room she must have wept much during all this sad time, for my friend Dr S. says that when she made her first call upon his services he noted the signs of tears upon her face, and taxed her with the fact, getting from her the reply that she 'often cried.' "Little by little, being a kind and sympathetic man, he drew from her the story I have told you. Georges became his patient also, but was always reticent in regard to `le jeu.' Dr S. tried to dissuade him from visiting the tables, on the ground that the atmosphere in the saloons would prove poisonous to him and perhaps even fatal. But although, in deference to this counsel, the young man shortened somewhat the duration of his `sittings,' and spent more time under the trees with Pauline, he did not by any means abandon, his `speculation,' hoping always, no doubt, as all losers hope, to see the luck turn and to take revenge on Fortune." "And the luck has not turned yet in Saint-Cyr's case, I suppose?" said I. "No," answered my friend. "I fear things are going very ill with him and poor Pauline's dot." As he spoke he rose from the dinner-table, and we strolled out together upon the moonlight terrace of the hotel. "In ten minutes," said I, "my train starts. I am going back to Nice tonight. Despite all its loveliness, Monte Carlo is hateful to me, and I do not care to sleep under its shadow. But before I go, I have a favour to ask of you. Let me know the sequel of the story you have told me tonight. I want to know how it ends--in triumph or in tragedy. Dr S. will always be able to keep you informed whether you remain here or not. Write to me as soon as there is anything to tell, and you will do me a signal kindness. You see you are such an admirable raconteur that you have interested me irresistibly in your subject and must pay the penalty of talent!" He laughed, broke off the laugh in a sigh, then shook hands with me, and we parted. About two months later, after my return to England, I had from my friend the following letter:-- "You have, I do not doubt, retained your interest in the fortunes of the two young people who so much attracted you at the tables last April. Well, I have just seen my friend Dr S. in Lyons, and he has related to me the saddest tale you can imagine concerning Georges and Pauline. Here it is, just as he gave it, and while it is fresh in my memory. It seems that all through the month of April and well into May, Saint-Cyr's ill luck stuck to him. He lost daily, and at last only a very slender remnant of his wife's money was left to play with. Week by week, too, he grew more wasted and feeble, fading with his fading fortune. As for Pauline, although she did not complain about herself, Dr S. saw reason to feel much anxiety on her account. Grief and sickened hope and the wear of the terrible life she and Georges were leading combined to break down her strength. Phthisis, too, although not a contagious malady in the common sense of the term, is apt to exercise on debilitated persons constantly exposed to the companionship of its victims an extremely baleful effect, and to this danger Pauline was daily and nightly subjected. She became feverish, a sensation of unwonted languor took possession of her, and sleep, nevertheless, became almost impossible. Georges, engrossed in his play, observed but little the deterioration of his wife's health; or, perhaps, attributed it to her condition and to nervousness in regard to her approaching trial. Things were in this state, when, one day towards the close of May Georges took his customary seat at the rouge et noir table. The weather had suddenly become extremely hot, and the crowd in the `salles de jeu' had considerably diminished. Only serious and veteran habitues were left, staking their gold, for the most part, with the coolness and resolution of long experience. Pauline remained in her room, she felt too ill to rise, and attributed her indisposition to the heat. Very sick at heart, George entered the gaming-rooms alone, and laid out on the green cloth the last of his capital. Then occurred one of those strange and compete reversions of luck that come to very few men. Georges won continuously, without a break, throughout the entire day. After an hour or two of steady success, he grew elated, and began to stake large sums,-- with a recklessness that might have appalled others than the old stagers who sat beside him. But his temerity brought golden returns, every stake reaped a fruitful harvest, and louis d'or accumulated in tall piles at his elbow. Before the rooms closed he had become a rich man, and had won back Pauline's dowry forty times over. Men turned to look at him as he left the tables, his face white with fatigue, his eyes burning like live coals, and his gait unsteady as a drunkard's. Outside in the open air, everything appeared to him like a dream. He could not collect his thoughts; his brain whirled; he had eaten nothing all day, fearing to quit his place lest he should change his luck or lose some good coup, and now extreme faintness overcame him. Stooping over the great basin of the fountain in front of the Casino he bathed his face with his hands, and eagerly drew in the cool evening breeze of the Mediterranean, just sweeping up sweet and full of refreshment over the parched rock of Monte Carlo. Then he made his way home, climbed with toil the high narrow staircase, and entered the little apartment he shared with Pauline. In the sitting room he paused a minute, poured out a glass of wine and drank it at a draught, to give himself courage to tell her his good news like a man. His hand turned the key of his bedroom; his heart beat so wildly that its throbbing deafened him; he could not hear his own voice as he cried: `Pauline--darling! --we are rich! my luck has turned!' . . . But then he stopped, stricken by a blow worse than the stroke of death. Before him stood Dr S., and a woman whom he did not recognise, bending over the bed upon which Pauline lay, pallid and still, with hands folded upon her breast. Georges flung his porte-monnaie, stuffed with notes, upon the foot of the bed, and sank down on his knees beside it, his eyes fixed upon his young wife's face. Dr S. touched him upon the shoulder. Du courage, Saint-Cyr,' he whispered. `She has gone . . . first.' The kindly words meant that the separation would not be for long. The woman in charge by the couch of the dead girl wept aloud, but there were no tears yet in the eyes of Georges. `And the child?' he asked at length, vaguely comprehending what had happened. They lifted the sheet gently, and showed him a little white corpse lying beside its mother. 'I am glad the child is dead, too,' said Georges Saint-Cyr. "He would not have her buried by the Mediterranean;--no--nor would he let the corpse be taken home for burial. The desire for flight was upon him, and he said he must carry his dead with him till be himself should die. That night he left Monte Carlo for Rome, bearing with him those dear remains of wife and child; and the good doctor seeing his desperation and full of pity for so vast a woe, went with him. 'Perhaps,' he told me, `had I not gone, Georges would not himself have reached Rome alive.' They traveled night and day, for the young man would not rest an instant. His design was to have the body of his wife burned in the crematorium of the Eternal City, and Dr S. was, fortunately, able to obtain for him the fulfilment of his desire. Then Saint-Cyr enclosed the ashes of his beloved in a little silver box, slung it about his neck and bade his friend farewell. I asked the doctor where he went. `Northward,' he answered, `but I did not ask his plans. He gave me no address; he had money in plenty, and it matters little where he went, for death was in his face as he wrung my hand at parting, and he cannot live to see the summer out." That was the end of the letter. And for my part, with the sole exception of Georges Saint-Cyr, I never heard of any man who became rich over the tables of Monte Carlo. V. Noemi; or, the Silver Ribbon I. I have often heard practising physicians and students of pathology assert that no one ever died of "a broken heart,"--that is, of course, in the popular sense of the phrase. Rupture of the heart, such as that which killed the passionate tyrant John of Muscovy, is a rare accident, and has no connection with the mental trouble and strain implied in the common expression "heart-breaking." I have, however, my own theory upon this question,--a theory founded on some tolerably strong evidence which might serve more scientifically- minded persons than myself as a text for a medical thesis; but, as for me, I am no writer of theses, and had much ado to get honestly through the only production of the sort which ever issued from my pen, my These de Doctorat. For I studied the divine art of AEsculapius at the Ecole de Medicine of Paris, and it was there, just before taking my degree, that I became involved in a singular little history, the circumstances of which first led me to adopt my present views on the subject alluded to in the opening words of this story. It is now many years since I inhabited the "students' quarter" in the gay city, and rented a couple of little rooms in an hotel meuble not far from the gardens of the Luxembourg. Medical students are never rich, and I was no exception to the rule, though, compared with many of my associates, my pecuniary position was one of enviable affluence. I had a library of my own, I drank wine at a franc the litre, and occasionally smoked cigars. My little apartment overlooked a wide street busy with incessant traffic, and on warm evenings, after returning from dinner at the restaurant round the corner, it was my habit to throw open my window-casement and lean out to inhale the fresh cool air of the coming night, and to watch the crowds of foot-passengers and vehicles going and coming like swarms of ants along the paved street below. On a certain lovely July evening towards the close of my student career, I took up my favourite position as usual, luxuriating in the fumes of my cigarette and in that sweetest of mental enjoyments, absolute idleness, carried at the cost of hard and long-continued toil. The sun had but just gone down, the sky was brilliant with pink lights and mellow tints of golden green blending with the blue of the deep vault overhead, scores of swift-darting birds were wheeling about in the still air, uttering sharp clear cries, as though calling one another to rest below, women stood at their house-doors gossiping with their neighbours; peals of laughter and the incessant chatter of feminine voices mingled with the din of horses' hoofs on the hard road and with the never-ending jingle of the harness-bells. Gazing lazily down into the street, my attention was suddenly arrested by the singular appearance and behavior of an odd-looking brown dog, which seemed to be seeking someone among the hurrying crowds and rattling carts. Half-a-dozen times he ran up the street and disappeared from view, only to retrace his steps, each time with increasing agitation and eagerness of manner. I saw him cross the street again and again, scan the faces of the passersby, dash up the various turnings and come panting back, his tongue, his tail drooping; one could even fancy there were tears in his eyes. At length, exhausted or despairing, he crossed the street for the last time and sat down on the doorstep of the house I inhabited, the picture of grief and dismay. He was lost! Now I had not served my five years' apprenticeship to medical science in Paris without becoming intimate with the horrible secrets of physiological laboratories. I knew that a lost dog in Paris, if not handsome, and valuable to sell as a pet, runs a terrible chance of falling directly or indirectly into the hands of vivisecting professors, and dying a death of torture. He may be picked up by an employee engaged in the search for fitting victims, and so handed over to immediate martyrdom, or he may be hurried off to languish for weeks in that horrible fourriere for lost dogs whose managers hang their wretched captives by fifties every Tuesday, and liberally supply the demands of all the physiologists who take the trouble to send to them for "subjects." Knowing these things, and perceiving that my concierge was absorbed in discussing scandal on the opposite side of the street, I took advantage of her absence from her post to slip down to the rez-de-chaussee, pounce on the unfortunate dog, whom I found seated hopelessly at the entrance, and smuggle him upstairs into my rooms. There I deposited him on the floor, patted him encouragingly, and gave him water and a couple of sweet biscuits. But he was abjectly miserable, and though he drank a little, would eat nothing. After taking two or three turns round the apartment and sniffing suspiciously at the legs of the chairs and wainscot of the walls, he returned to me where I stood with my back to the window watching him, looked up in my face, wagged his tail feebly, and whined. I stooped again to caress him, and, so doing, observed that he had, tied round his neck, and half-hidden in his rough brown hair, a ribbon of silver tinsel, uncommon both in material and design. I felt assured that the dog's owner must be a woman, and hastily removed the ribbon, expecting to find embroidered upon it some such name as "Amelie" or "Leontine." But my examination proved futile, the silver ribbon afforded me no clue to the antecedents of my canine waif. And indeed, as I stood contemplating him in some perplexity, the conviction forced itself on my mind that he was not exactly the kind of animal that Amelie or Leontine would be likely to select for a pet. He was a poodle certainly, but of an ill-bred and uncouth description, and instead of being shaved to his centre, and wearing frills round his paws, his coat had been suffered to grow in its natural manner,-- an indication either of neglect or of want of taste impossible in a feminine proprietor. But his fact was the most puzzling and at the same time the most fascinating thing about him. It bore a more human expression than I had ever before seen upon a dog's countenance, an expression of singular appeal and childishness, so comic withal in its contrast with the rough hair, round eyes, and long nose of the creature, that as I watched him an involuntary laugh escaped me. "Certainly," I said to him, "you are a droll dog. One might do a good deal with you in a traveling caravan!" As the evening wore on he became more tranquil. Perhaps he began to have confidence in me and to believe that I should restore him to his owner. At any rate, before we retired to rest he prevailed on himself to eat some supper which I prepared for him, pausing every now and then in his meal to lift his infantile face to mine and wag his tail in a half-hearted manner, as though he said, "You see I am doing my best to trust you, though you are a medical student!" Poor innocent beast! Well indeed for him that he had not chanced to stop at the door of my neighbor and camarade, Paul Bouchard, who had a passion for practical physiology, and with whom no amount of animal suffering was of the smallest importance when weighed against the remote chance of an insignificant discovery, which would be challenged and contradicted as soon as announced by scores of his fellow- experimentalists. If torture were indeed the true method of science, then would the vaunted tree of knowledge be no other than the upas tree of oriental legend, beneath whose fatal shadow lie hecatombs of miserable victims slain by its poisonous exhalations, the odour of which is fraught with agony and death! My poodle remained with me many days. No one appeared to claim him, and no inquiries elicited the least information regarding him. A douceur of five francs had soothed the natural indignation and resentment displayed by my concierge at the first sight of my canine protege; the restlessness and suspicion he had evinced on making my acquaintance had subsided; and we were getting on in a very comfortable and friendly manner together, when accident threw in my way the clue I had laboriously but vainly sought. Returning one day from a lecture, and being unusually pressed for time, I took a shorter cut homeward than was my wont, and at the corner of a narrow and ill-smelling street I came upon a little heterogeneous shop, in the windows of which were set out a variety of faded and bizarre articles of millinery. Hanging from a front shelf in a conspicuous position among the collection was a strip of the identical silver ribbon which had encircled Pepin's throat--I called the dog Pepin--on the night I rescued him from the streets. Without hesitation I entered the shop and questioned a slatternly woman who sat behind the counter munching gruyere cheese and garlic. "Will you tell me, madame," said I with my most agreeable air, "whether you recollect having sold any of that tinsel ribbon lately, and to whom?" She was not likely to have much custom, I thought, and her clients would be easily remembered. "What's that to you?" was her retort, as she paused in her meal and stared at me; "do you want to buy the rest of it?" I took the hint immediately, and produced my purse. "With all the pleasure in life," I said, "if you will do me the favour I ask." She darted a keen look at me, laughed, pushed her cheese aside, and took the ribbon from its place in the shop window. "I sold half a metre of it about three weeks ago," said she slowly, "to Noemi Bergeron; you know her, perhaps? She's not been this way lately. There's a metre of it left; it's one franc twenty, monsieur." "And where does Noemi Bergeron live?" I asked, as she dropped the money into her till. "Well, she used to lodge at number ten in this street, with Maman Paquet. Maybe she's gone. I've not seen either her or her dog this fortnight." "A poodle dog," cried I eagerly, "with his coat unclipped,--a rough brown dog?" "Yes, exactly. Ah, you know Noemi,--bien sur!" And she leered at me, and laughed again unpleasantly. "I never saw her in my life," said I hotly; "but her dog has come astray to my lodgings, and he had a piece of this ribbon of yours round his throat; nothing more than that." "Ah? Well, she lives at number ten. Tenez,--there's Maman Paquet the other side of the street; you'd better go and speak to her." She pointed to a hideous old harridan standing on the opposite pavement, her bare arms resting on her hips, and a greasy yellow kerchief twisted turban-wise round her head. My heart sank. Noemi must be very poor, or very unfortunate, to live under the same roof with such an old sorciere! Nevertheless, I crossed the street, and accosted the hag with a smile. "Good-day, Maman Paquet. Can you tell me anything of your lodger, Noemi Bergeron?" "Hein?" She was deaf and surly. I repeated my question in a louder key. "I know nothing of her," she answered, in a voice that sounded like the croak of a frog. "She couldn't pay me her rent, and I told her to be off. Maybe she's drowned by this." "You turned her out?" I cried. "Yes, turned her out," repeated the hag, with a savage oath. "It was her own fault; she might have sold her beast of a poodle to pay me, and she wouldn't. Why not, I should like to know,--she sold everything else she had!" "And you can tell me nothing about her now,--you know no more than that?" "Nothing. Go and find her!" She muttered a curse, glared at me viciously, and hobbled off. I had turned to depart in another direction, when a skinny hand suddenly clutched my arm, and looking round, I found that Maman Paquet had followed and overtaken me. "You know the girl," she squeaked, eyeing me greedily,--"will you pay her rent? She owed me a month's lodging, seven francs." She looked so loathsome and horrible with her withered evil face so close to mine that I gave a gesture of disgust and shook her off as though she had been a toad. "No," said I, quickening my steps; "she is a stranger to me, and my pockets are empty." Maman Paquet flung a curse after me, more foul and emphatic than the last, and went her way blaspheming. I returned home to Pepin saddened and disquieted. "So, after all," I said to him, "your owner belongs to the fair sex! But, heaven! in what misery she and you must have lived! And yet you cried for her, Pepin!" Not long after these incidents--three or four days at the latest-- a party of my fellow-students came to smoke with me, and as the shell always sounds of the sea, our conversation naturally savoured of our professional pursuits. We discussed our hospital chefs, their crotchets, their inventions, their medical successes, their politics; we criticised new methods of operation, related anecdotes of the theatre and consulting-room, and speculated on the chances of men about to go up for examination. Then we touched on the subject of obscure diseases, unusual mental conditions, prolonged delirium, and kindred topics. It was at this point that one of us, Eugene Grellois, a house-surgeon at a neighbouring hospital, remarked,-- "By the way, we have a curious case now in the women's ward of my service, a pretty little Alsatian girl of eighteen or twenty. She was knocked down by a cart about three weeks ago and was brought in with a fracture of the neck of the left humerus, and two ribs broken. Well, there was perforation of the pleura, traumatic pleurisy and fever, and her temperature went up as high as 41-8. She was delirious for three days, and talked incessantly; we had to put her in a separate cabinet, so that the other patients might not be disturbed. I sat by her bed for hours and listened. You never heard such odd things as she said. She let me into the whole of her history that way. I don't think I should have cared for it though, if she were not so wonderfully pretty!" "Was it a love story, Eugene?" asked Auguste Villemin, laughing. "Not a bit of it; it was all about a dog who seemed to be her pet. Such an extraordinary dog! From what she said I gathered that he was a brown poodle, that he could stand on his head, and walk on his hind paws, that he followed her about wherever she went, that he carved in wood for illustrated books and journals, that he wore a silver collar, that she was engaged to be married to him when he had earned enough to keep house, and that his name was Antoine!" All his hearers laughed except myself. As for me, my heart bounded, my face flushed, I was sensible of a keen sensation of pleasure in hearing Eugene describe his patient as "wonderfully pretty." I leapt from my chair, pointed to Pepin, who lay dozing in a corner of the room, and exclaimed,-- "I will wager anything that the name of your Alsatian is Noemi Bergeron, and that my dog there is Antoine himself!" And before any questions could be put I proceeded to recount the circumstances with which my reader is already acquainted. Of course Pepin was immediately summoned into the midst of the circle we had formed round the open window to have his reputed accomplishments tested as a criterion of his identity with Antoine. Amid bursts of laughter and a clamour of encouragement and approbation, it was discovered that my canine protege possessed at least the first two of the qualifications imputed to him, and could walk on his hind legs or stand on his head for periods apparently unlimited. In fact, so obedient and willing we found him, that when for the third time he had inverted himself, no persuasion short of picking him up by his tail, a proceeding which I deemed necessary to avert asphyxia, could induce him to resume his normal position. But that which rendered the entertainment specially fascinating and ludicrous was the inimitable and unbroken gravity of Pepin's expression. No matter what his attitude, his eyes retained always the solemnity one observes in the eyes of an infant to whom everything in the world is serious and nothing grotesque. "But now for the engraving on wood!" cried Jules Leuret, when we had exhausted ourselves with laughing. "What a pity you have no implements of the art here, Gervais!" "That's Eugene's chaff!" I cried. "Noemi never said anything of the sort, I warrant!" "On my honour she did," said he, emphatically. "Come and see her tomorrow; she's quite sane now, no fever left at all. She'll be delighted to hear that you have her dog, and will tell you all about him, no doubt." "After the chefs visit, then, and we'll breakfast together at noon." "Agreed. Laughing makes one dry, mon ami; let me have some more of your wine. We can't afford good wine like that, nous autres!" II. When the following morning arrived, I rose sooner than my wont: Eugene's service was an early one, and by half-past ten o'clock he and I were alone in the wards of his hospital. He led me to a bed in one of the little spaces partitioned off from the common salle for the reception of special cases or refractory patients. There, propped up on her pillows, her arm bandaged and supported by a cushion, lay a young girl with fair braided hair and the sweetest face I had ever seen out of a picture. Something in the childish and wistful look of her deep eyes and serious mouth reminded me strangely of Pepin; it was Pepin's plaintive expression refined and intensified by spiritual influence, a look such as one might imagine on the face of some young novice, brought up in a convent and innocent of all evil,--an ingenue untainted by the world and ignorant of its ways. Could such a creature as this come out of the foul and sin-reeking quartier I had visited four days ago, with its filthy houses, its fetid alleys, its coarse blaspheming women and drunken men? My mind misgave me: surely, after all, this could not be Noemi Bergeron! I put the question to her fearfully, for I dreaded to hear her deny it. She was so beautiful; if she should say "no" I should be in despair. A voice as sweet as the face answered me, with jus' a faint inflexion of surprise in it, and as she spoke a slight blush suffused her cheeks and showed the delicate transparency of her skin. "Yes, that is my name. Does monsieur know me, then?" In my turn I blushed, but with delight. No wonder Pepin had repined at separation from so lovely a mistress! "I went to your house to inquire for you the other day, mademoiselle," stammered I, " for I think I have a dog which belongs to you. Have you not lost a brown poodle with a ribbon like this round his throat?" As I spoke I produced the tinsel ornament from my pocket, but before I finished my last sentence she started forward with a joyous cry, and but for the timely intervention of Eugene, who stood beside the bed, the injured arm might have suffered seriously from the effects of her excitement. "Ah!" she cried, weeping with joy; "my Bambin, my dear Bambin! He is found then,--he is safe, and I shall see him again!" "Bambin!" repeated I, dubiously. "Monsieur Grellois thought that his name was Antoine!" The rosy color deepened under her delicate cheeks and crept to the roots of her braided hair. "No," she replied in a lower tone, "monsieur is mistaken. My dog's name is Bambin; we called him so because he is so like a baby. Don't you think him like a baby, monsieur?" She looked wondrously like a baby herself, and I longed to tell her so; I could not restrain my curiosity, her blushes were so enticing. "And Antoine?" persisted I. "He is a friend of mine, monsieur; an engraver on wood, an artist." Eugene and I exchanged glances. "And you and he are engaged to be married, is it not so?" Unconsciously I questioned her as I might have questioned a child. She hardly seemed old enough to have the right over her own secrets. "Yes, monsieur. But I do not know where he is; and I have looked for him so long, ah, so long!" What, have you lost him too, then, as well as Bambin?" She shook her head, and looked troubled "Tell me," said I, coaxing her, "perhaps I may be able to find him also." "We are Alsatians," said Noemi, with her eyelids drooping, doubtless to hide the tears gathering behind them; "and we lived in the same village and were betrothed. Antoine was very clever, and could cut pictures in wood beautifully,--oh so beautifully,--and they sent him to Paris to be apprenticed to a great house of business, and to learn engraving thoroughly. And I stayed at home with my father, and Antoine used to write to me very often, and say how well he was getting on, and how he had invented a new method of wood-carving, and how rich he should be some day, and that we were to be married very soon. And then my father died, quite suddenly, and I was all alone in the house. And Antoine did not write; week after week there was no letter, though I never ceased writing to him. So I grew miserable and frightened, and I took Bambin--Antoine gave me Bambin, and taught him all his tricks--and I came to Paris to try and find him. I had a little money then, and besides, I can make lace, and I thought it would not be long before Antoine and I got married. But he had left the house of business for which he had worked, and they knew nothing of him at his lodgings, and there were ever so many of my letters on the table in the conciergerie unopened.--So I could learn nothing, for no one knew where he had gone, and little by little the money I had brought with me went in food for me and Bambin. Then somebody told me that Maman Paquet had a room to let that was cheap, and I went there and tried to live on my lace-making, always hoping that Antoine would come to find me. But the air of the pace was so horrible--oh, so horrible after our village!--and I got the fever, and fell sick, and could do no work at all. And by degrees I sold all the things I had--my lace-pillow and all--and when they were gone the old woman wanted me to sell Bambin, because he was clever, and she was sure I could get a good price for him. But I would rather have sold the heart out of my body, and so I told her. Then she was angry, and turned us both out, Bambin and me, and we went wandering about all day till at last I got very faint and tired, for I had been ill a long time, monsieur, and we had nothing to eat, so that I lost my senses and fell in the road all at once, and a cart went over me. Then the people picked me up, and carried me here, but none of them knew Bambin, and I had fainted and could tell them nothing. So they must have driven him away, thinking he was a strange dog, and had no right to follow me. And when my senses came back I was in the hospital, and Bambin was gone, and I thought I never should see him again." She sank down on her pillow and drew a great sigh of relief. It had evidently comforted her to tell her story to sympathetic listeners. Poor child! Scant sympathy could she have found in Maman Paquet's unwomanly breast and evil associations. We were silent when she had finished, and in the silence we heard through the open window the joyous song of the birds, and the hum of the bees wandering blithely from flower to flower, laden with their sweets,--sounds that never cease through all the long summer days. Alas! how strange and sad a contrast it is,--the eternal and exuberant gladness of Nature's soulless children,--the universal inevitable misery of human lives! Presently the religieuse who had the charge of the adjoining ward opened the door softly and called Eugene. "Monsieur, will you come to No. 7 for a moment? Her wound is bleeding again badly." He looked up, nodded, and rose from his seat. "I must go for the present, Gervais," said he. "If you stay with our little friend, don't let her disarrange her arm. The ribs are all right now, but the humerus is a longer affair. Au revoir!" But I found Noemi too much excited and fatigued for further conversation; so, promising to take every possible care of Bambin and to come again and see her very soon, I withdrew to the adjoining ward and joined Eugene. No need to say that both these promises were faith-fully observed. Throughout the whole of July and of the ensuing month Noemi remained an inmate of the hospital, and it was not until the first two weeks of September were spent that the fractured arm was consolidated and the mandate for dismissal issued. Two days before that fixed for her departure I went to pay her the last of my customary visits, and found her sitting at the open window busily engaged in weaving lace upon a new pillow, which she exhibited to me with childish glee. "See, monsieur, what a beautiful present I have had!" she cried, holding up the cushion for me to examine. "It is much better than the old one I sold; only look how prettily the bobbins on it are painted!" I had never before beheld a lace pillow, and the curiosity which I displayed fairly delighted Noemi. "And who is your generous benefactor?" I asked, replacing the cushion in her lap. "Don't you know?" she asked in turn, opening her eyes wide with surprise. "I thought he would have been sure to tell you. Why, it was that good Monsieur Grellois, to be sure! He gave some money to the sister to buy it for me." Kind Eugene! He had very little money to live upon, and must, I know, have economised considerably in order to purchase this gift for his little patient. Still I was not jealous of his bounty, since for many days past I had been greatly occupied with Noemi's future welfare, and had busied myself in secret with certain schemes and arrangements the issue of which it remained only to announce. "So," said I, taking a chair beside her, "you are going to earn your living again by making lace?" "To try," she answered with a sad emphasis. "Lace-making does not pay well, then?" "Oh no, monsieur! It cannot be done quickly, you see,--only a little piece like this every day, working one's best,--and so much lace is made by machines now!" "But it cannot cost you much to live, Noemi?" "The eating and drinking is not much, monsieur; it is the rent; and all the cheap lodgings are so dirty! It is that which is the most terrible. I can't bear to have ugly things about me and hideous faces,--like Maman Paquet's!" She had the poet's instincts, this little Alsatian peasant. Most girls in her case would have cared little for the unlovely surroundings, so long as food and drink were plentiful. "But supposing you had a nice room of your own, clean and comfortable, with an iron bedstead like this one here, and chairs and a table, and two windows looking out over the Luxembourg gardens,--and nothing to pay." "Ah, monsieur!" She dropped her pillow, and fixed her great brown eyes earnestly on my face. "It is impossible," pursued I, reddening under her gaze, "for you to return to the horrible quartier in which Maman Paquet lives. It is not fit for a young girl; you would grow wicked and base like the people who live there,--or else you would die,--and I think you would die, Noemi." "But I have no money, monsieur." If you have no money, you have friends; a friend has given you your new pillow, you know, and another friend, perhaps, may give you a room to live in." Her eyelids drooped, her color came and went quickly, I detected beneath her bodice the convulsive movement of her heart. The agitation she betrayed communicated itself to me; I rose from my chair and leaned against the window-sill, so that my face might be no longer on a level with her eyes. "I understand you, monsieur!" she cried, and immediately burst into tears. "Yes, Noemi," I said, "I see you understand me. There is really a room for you such as I have described. In two days you will leave the hospital, but you are not without a home. The woman of the house in which you will live is kind and good, she knows all about you and Bambin, and has promised me to take care of you. Your furniture is bought, your rent is paid,--you have nothing to do but to go and take possession of the room. I hope you and Bambin will be happy there." She made me no reply in words, but bending forward over her pillow she took my hand and timidly kissed it. It would be hard to say which of us was the happier on the day which saw Noemi installed in her new abode,---she, or I, or Bambin. Bambin's delight was certainly the most demonstrative; he careered round and round the room uttering joyous barks, returning at intervals in a panting and exhausted condition to his pretty mistress to give and receive caresses which I own I felt greatly disposed to envy him. I left my four-footed friend with some regret, for he and I had been good companions during Noemi's sojourn at the hospital, and I knew that my rooms would at first seem lonely without him. His fair owner, as she bade me goodbye at the door of her new domicile, begged me to return often and see them both, but hard as I found it to refuse the tempting request, I summoned up resolution to tell her that it would be best for us to meet very seldom indeed, perhaps only once or twice more, but that her landlady had my name and address and would be able to give me tidings of her pretty often. Her childlike nature and instincts were never more apparent than on this occasion. "What have I done, monsieur?" she asked with a bewildered expression, her brown eyes lifted pleadingly, and the corners of her mouth depressed. "I thought you would like to come and see us. Bambin is so fond of you, too,--we shall both be so sorry if you don't come." As gently and as tenderly as I could, I tried to explain to her our mutual position and the evil construction which others would be sure to place on any friendship between us. But she only shook her head in a troubled way and sighed. "I don't understand," she said, "but of course you know best. I used to hear something like that at Maman Paquet's, about other girls, but I never understood it. Only say that you are not angry with me, and let me hear about you as often as you can." I promised, smiling, and left her standing at the open door with Bambin tucked under her arm, looking after me down the street and nodding her pretty golden head. Many days went by. I concentrated my mind upon my books, and devoted the whole of my time and of my thoughts to preparation for my last two doctorate examinations, contenting myself with only a few passing inquiries of Noemi's landlady concerning the welfare of her lodger, and with the assurance that both she and her dog were well and happy. But one evening late in September, as I sat immersed in study, my ear caught the sound of light girlish footsteps on the staircase leading to my rooms; then came a momentary pause, a tap on the door, and the next minute Noemi herself, closely followed by the faithful Bambin, burst upon my solitude. "I have found him, monsieur!" she cried breathlessly. "I came at once to tell you,--I knew you would be so glad!" "What,--Antoine?" I asked, rising and laying my book aside. "Yes; Antoine! I met him in the street. He was dressed like a gentleman; no one would have known him except me! He had no idea I was in Paris; he turned quite white with the surprise of seeing me. And I told him what a search I had made for him, and how miserable I had been, and how good you were to me, and where I was living. And he is coming to see me this very evening! Oh, I am so happy!" "You should have sent me word of this, Noemi," said I gravely. "You ought not to have come here. It is very foolish--" She interrupted me with an imploring gesture. "Oh, yes, I know; I am so sorry! But just at the moment I forgot. I longed to tell you about Antoine, and everything else went out of my head. Don't be cross with me!" Could any one be angry with her? She was thoroughly innocent, and natural, as innocence always is. "My child, it is only of yourself I am thinking. Antoine will teach you to be wiser by-and-by. Tell him to come and see me. I suppose you will be married soon now, won't you?" "Oh, yes, monsieur, very soon! Antoine only wanted money, and he has plenty now; he has a business of his own, and is a patron himself!" "Well, Noemi, I am very glad. You must let me come to your wedding. I shall call at your house tomorrow, and ask all about it; for no doubt Antoine will want you to settle the arrangements at once. And now run home, for your own sake, my child." "Goodbye! monsieur." She paused at the door and added shyly, "You will really come tomorrow morning?" "Yes, yes; before breakfast. Goodbye, Noemi." III. At about ten on the ensuing day I repaired to Noemi's lodging, and found Madame Jeannel, the landlady, on the look-out for me. "Noemi told me you were coming," she said; "I will go and fetch her. Her fiance was here last night, and she has a great deal to tell you." In two minutes she returned with my pretty friend, radiant as the sunlight with happiness and renewed hope. Antoine loved her more than ever, she said, and he had brought her a beautiful present, a silver cross, which she meant to wear on her wedding-day, tied round her throat upon the bit of tinsel ribbon I had given her, and which matched it exactly. And was the wedding-day fixed? I asked. No, not the precise day; Antoine had said nothing about it; but he had spoken much of his love; and of the happiness in store for them both, and of the lovely things he should give her. The day was nothing; that could be settled in a minute at any time. Then she fetched me some lace she had made, and told me that Antoine knew of a rich lady who would buy it,--a marquise, who doated on lace of the sort, and who gave enormous sums for a few yards; and the money would do for her dot, it would buy her wedding-dress, perhaps. So she prattled on, blithe and ingenuous, the frank simplicity of her guileless soul reflected in the clear depths of her eyes, as the light of heaven is mirrored in pure waters. Days went by, and weeks, but Antoine never came to see me, and whenever I called at Madame Jeannel's and asked for Noemi--which I ventured to do several times, now that the good woman knew she was engaged to be married, and understood so well our relations with each other--I always heard the same story; and always received, on Antoine's behalf, the same vague excuses for the postponement of the visit I had invited him to pay me. At one time, he bade Noemi tell me his work was too pressing, and he could find no time to come; at another, that he feared to disturb me, knowing I was very busy; and again, that he had been just about to start when an important letter or an inopportune customer had arrived and detained him. As for the wedding-day, he would never come to the point about it, and Noemi, naturally shy of the subject, never pressed him. She was quite happy and confident; Antoine loved her with all his heart, and told her so every day. What more could she want? He brought her lovely bunches of red and white roses, little trinkets, sweetmeats, ribbons; indeed, he seemed never to come empty-handed. She used to take walks with him when his day's work was over, in the Luxembourg gardens, and once or twice they went out as far as the Champs-Elysees. Oh, yes, Antoine loved her dearly, and she was very happy; they should certainly be married before long. We were already in November, the days were getting bleak and chill, I had to light my lamp early and close my windows against the damp evening air. One afternoon, just as it was beginning to grow dark, Madame Jeannel came to see me, looking very disturbed and anxious. "Monsieur," she said, "a strange thing has happened which makes me so uneasy that I cannot help coming to tell you of it, and to ask your opinion and advice. Antoine came about half-an-hour ago and took Noemi out for a walk. Not ten minutes after they had left the house, a lady whom I do not know came to my door and asked if Mademoiselle Bergeron lived there. I said yes, but that she was out. The strange lady stared hard at me and asked if she had gone out alone. I told her no, she was with her fiance, but that if any message could be left for her I would be careful to give it directly she should return. Immediately the lady seized me by the arm so tightly I almost screamed. She grew white, and then red, then she seemed to find her voice, and asked me if she could wait upstairs in Noemi's room till she came back. At first I said `No,' but she would not take a refusal; she insisted upon waiting; and there she is, I could not get her to leave the place." Madame Jeannel stood opposite to me; I lifted my eyes, and met hers steadily. When I had satisfied myself of her suspicions, I said in a low voice,-- "You have done rightly to fetch me. There is great trouble in store for our poor child. I fear this woman may have a better right to Antoine than Noemi has." "I am sure of it," responded Madame Jeannel. "If you could but have seen how she looked! Thank the good God she has come in time to save our Noemi from any real harm!" "It will blight the whole of her life," said I; "she is so innocent of evil, and she loves him so much." I took up my hat as I spoke, and followed Madame Jeannel downstairs and into the street. When we reached her house, I left her in her own little parlour upon the entresol, and with a resolute step but a heavy heart I went alone to confront the strange woman in Noemi's room. Alas! the worst that could happen had already befallen. Noemi had returned from her walk during the absence of her landlady, and I opened the door upon a terrible scene. My poor child stood before me, with a white scared face, and heaving breast, upon which was pinned a bunch of autumn violets, Antoine's last gift to her. Her slender figure, her fair hair, her pallid complexion looked ghostlike in the uncertain twilight; she seemed like a troubled spirit, beautiful and sorely distressed, but there was no shame in her lovely face, nor any sense of guilt. Seeing me enter, she uttered a cry of relief, and sprang forward as though to seek protection. "Speak to her, monsieur!" she exclaimed in a voice of piercing entreaty; "oh, speak to her and ask her what it all means! She says she is Antoine's wife!" The strange woman whose back had been turned towards the door when I opened it, looked round at the words, and her face met mine. She was a brunette, with sharp black eyes and an inflexible mouth, a face which beside Noemi's seemed like a dark cloud beside clear sunlight. "Yes indeed!" she cried; and her voice was half choked with contending anger and despair, "I am his wife; and what then is she? I tracked him here. He is always away from me now. I found a letter of hers signed with her name; she writes to him as if she loved him! See!" She flung upon the table a crumpled scrap of paper, and suddenly burying her face in her hands, burst into a torrent of passionate tears and sobs. Noemi stood silent and watched her, terrified and wondering. I closed the door softly, and approaching the unfortunate woman, laid my hand upon her shoulder. "It is your husband who is alone to blame," I whispered to her. "Do not revile this innocent girl; she suffers quite as much as you do,--perhaps even more, for she was betrothed to him years ago." My grief for Noemi, and my resentment against Antoine made me imprudent; I spoke unjustly, but the provocation was great. "You take her part!" she cried, repelling me indignantly. "Innocent-- she innocent? Bah! She must have known he was married, for why else did he not marry her? Do you think me a child to be fooled by such a tale?" "No," answered I sternly, looking away from her at Noemi. "You are not a child, madame, but she is one! Had she been a woman like yourself, your husband would never have deceived her. She trusted him wholly." With a gesture that was almost fierce in its pride, Antoine's wife turned her back upon Noemi, and moved towards the door. "I thank my God," she said solemnly, choking down her sobs, and bending her dark brows upon me, "that I was never such an innocent as she is! I am not your dupe, monsieur; I know well enough what you are, and what it is that constitutes your right to defend her. The neighbors know her story; trust them for finding it out and repeating it. This room belongs to you, monsieur; your money paid for everything in it, and your `innocent' there no doubt is included in the bargain. Keep her to yourself for the future; Antoine's foot shall never again be set in this wicked house!" She opened the door with the last words, and vanished into the darkness without. For a moment there was a deep silence, the voice which had just ceased seemed to me to ring and echo around the dim, still room. The sense of a great shame was upon me; I dared not lift my eyes to Noemi's face. Suddenly a faint cry startled me. She stretched her arms towards me and fell on her knees at my feet. "O monsieur! Antoine is lost! My heart is dead!" Then she struck her breast wildly with her clenched hand, and swooned upon the floor. None of us ever saw Antoine again after that terrible evening. Whether he had been most weak or most wicked we could not tell; but, for my part I always believed that he had really loved Noemi, and that his marriage had been one of worldly convenience, contracted, in an evil hour, for the sake of gain. His wife was rich, Noemi was a beggar. As for her, poor child, she never uttered a word of reproach against him; never a gesture of impatience, or an expression of complaint betrayed her suffering. She had spent all her innocent life upon her love, and with the love her life also went from her. Day after day she lay on her bed like a flower crushed and fading slowly. There were no signs of organic disease in her, there was no appreciable malady; her heart was broken, so said Madame Jeannel, and more than that the wisest could not say. Bambin, dimly comprehending that some great sorrow had befallen his dear mistress, lay always at her feet, watching her with eyes full of tender and wistful affection, refusing to leave her by night or by day. It must have comforted her somewhat to see in him, at least, the evidence of one true and faithful love. So white and spirituelle she grew as she lay there, day by day, so delicately lovely, her deep lustrous eyes shining as with some inward light, and her hair of gold surrounding her head like the aureole of a pictured saint, that at times I fancied she was becoming dematerialised before our eyes; her spirit seemed as it were to grow visible, as though in the intensity of its pure fire the mere earthly body which had contained it were being re-absorbed and consumed. Sometimes in the evenings her pulse quickened and her cheeks flushed with the hectic touch of fever; it was the only symptom of physical disorder I ever detected in her;--but even that was slight,--the temperature of her system was hardly affected by it. So she lay, her body fading, day after day and hour after hour. Madame Jeannel was deeply concerned, for she was a good woman, and could sympathise with others in sorrow, but nothing that she could say or do seemed to reach the senses of Noemi. Indeed, at times I fancied the poor child had no longer eyes or ears for the world from which she was passing away so strangely; she looked as though she were already beginning life in some other sphere and on some other plane than ours, and could see and hear only sights and sounds of which our material natures had no cognisance. "C'est le chagrin, monsieur," said Madame Jeannel; "c'est comme ca que le chagrin tue,--toujours." Early in the third week of December I received my summons to pass the final examination for the M.D. degree. The day was bitterly cold, a keen wind swept the empty streets and drove the new-fallen snow into drift-heaps at every corner. Along the boulevards booths and baraques for the sale of New Year's gifts were already in course of erection, the shops were gay with bright colored bonbonnieres. Children, merry with anticipations of good things coming, pressed round the various tempting displays and noisily disputed their respective merits. All the streets were filled with mirth and laughter and preparations for festivity, and close by, in her little lonely room, Noemi lay dying of a broken heart! I underwent my ordeal with success; yet as I quitted the examination- room and descended into the quadrangle of the Ecole, crowded with sauntering groups of garrulous students, my spirit was heavy within me, and the expression of my face could hardly have been that of a young man who has safely passed the Rubicon of scientific apprenticeship, and who sees the laurels and honors of the world within his reach. The world? The very thought of its possible homage repelled me, for I knew that its best successes and its loudest praise are accorded to men whose hearts are of steel and whose lives are corrupt. I knew that still, as of old, it slays the innocent and the ingenuous and stones the pure of spirit. Escaping somewhat impatiently from the congratulations of the friends and colleagues whom I chanced to encounter in the quadrangle, I returned gloomily home and found upon my table a twisted note in which was written this brief message:-- "Pray, come at once, monsieur, she cannot live long now. I dare not leave her, and she begs to see you. --Marie Jeannel" With a shaking hand I thrust the paper into my vest and hastened to obey its summons. Never had the distance between my house and Noemi's been so long to traverse; never had the stairs which led to her room seemed to me so many or so steep. At length I gained the door; it stood ajar; I pushed it open and entered. Madame Jeannel sat at the foot of the little white-draped bed; Bambin lay beside his mistress; the only sound in the room was the crackling of the burning logs on the hearth. As I entered, Madame Jeannel turned her head and looked at me; her eyes were heavy with tears, and she spoke in tones that were hushed and tremulous with the awe which the presence of death inspires. "Monsieur, you come too late. She is dead." I sprang forward with a cry of horror. "Dead?" I repeated, "Noemi dead?" White and still she lay--a broken lily--beautiful and sweet even in death; her eyes were closed lightly, and upon her lovely lips was the first smile I had seen there since the day which had stricken her innocent life into the dust. Her right hand rested on Bambin's head, in her left she held the piece of silver ribbon I had given her,--the ribbon she had hoped to wear at her wedding. "They are for you," said Madame Jeannel softly. "She said you were fond of Bambin, and he of you, and that you must take care of him and keep him with you always. And as for the ribbon,--she wished you to take it for her sake, that it might be a remembrance of her in time to come." I fell on my knees beside the bed and wept aloud. "Hush, hush!" whispered Madame Jeannel, bending over me; "it is best as it is, she is gone to the angels of God." Science has ceased to believe in angels, but in the faith of good women they live still. The chief work of the "wise" among us seems to me to consist in the destruction of all the beautiful hopes and loves and beliefs of the earth; of all that since the beginning of time till now has consoled, or purified, or brought peace to the hearts of men. Some day, perhaps, in the long-distant future, the voice of Nature may speak to us more clearly through the lips of a nobler and purer system of science than any we now know, and we may learn that Matter is not all in all, nor human love and desire given in vain; but that torn hearts may be healed and ruined lives perfected in a higher spiritual existence, where, "beyond these voices, there is peace." Meanwhile Noemi's body rests in its quiet grave, and upon the faithful bosom lies the silver cross which her lover gave her. She was one of those who could endure all things for love's sake, but shame and falsehood broke her steadfast heart. And it was the hand of her beloved which dealt the blow of which she died! VI. The Little Old Man's Story "O love, I have loved you! O my soul, I have lost you!" --Aurora Leigh Chapter I. "It is getting very dark now, and I have been sitting at my open bay window ever since sundown. How fresh and sweet the evening air is, as it comes up from my little flower garden below, laden with the fragrance of June roses and almond blossom! Ah, by the way, I will send over some more of those same roses to my opposite neighbor tomorrow morning,--and there is a beautiful spray of white jasmin nodding in at the casement now, and only waiting to be gathered for him. Poor old man! He must be very lonely and quiet, lying there day after day in his dark little bed-chamber, with no companions save his books and his old housekeeper. But then Dr. Peyton is with him very often, and Dr. Peyton is such a dear kind soul that he makes every one cheerful! I think they have drawn down the blinds earlier than usual tonight at the little old gentleman's. Dr. Peyton says he always likes to sit up in his armchair when the day closes, and watch the twilight gathering over the blue range of the Malvern hills in the distance, and talk dreamy bits of poetry to himself the while, but this evening I noticed the blinds were pulled down almost directly after sunset. And such a lovely sunset as it was tonight! I never beheld anything more glorious! What a wondrous glamour of molten mellow light it threw over all the meadows and cottage gardens! It seemed to me as though the gates of heaven itself were unfolded to receive the returning sun into the golden land of the Hereafter! Dear, dear, I shall get quite poetical in my old age! This is not the first time I have caught myself stumbling unawares on the confines of romance! Miss Lizzie, Miss Lizzie, you must not be fanciful! Do you forget that you are an old maid! Yes, an old maid. Ah, well-a-day, 'tis a very happy, contented, peaceful sound to me now; but twenty years ago,--Here comes dear old Dr. Peyton himself up my garden path! He does not seem to walk so blithely tonight as usual,--surely nothing is the matter; I wish I could see his face, but it is much too dark for that, so I'll go at once and let him in. Now I shall hear news of my opposite neighbor! Ah, I hope he is no worse, poor little old man!" Gentle reader, I shall not trouble you much in the story I am going to tell, with any personal experiences of my own. But you may as well understand before we proceed farther, that I--Miss Elizabeth Fairleigh--am a spinster on the shady side of forty-five, that I and my two serving-maids occupy a tiny, green-latticed, porticoed, one-storeyed cottage just outside a certain little country town, and that Dr. Peyton, tile one "medical man" of the parish, is a white-haired old gentleman of wondrous kindliness and goodness of heart, who was Pythias to my father's Damon at college long, long ago, and who is now my best friend and my most welcome and frequent visitor. And on the particular evening in question, I had a special interest in his visit, for I wanted very much to know what only he could tell me,--how matters fared with my neighbor and his patient, the little old man who lay sick over the way. Now this little old man bore the name of Mr Stephen Gray, and he was a bachelor, so Dr. Peyton said, a bachelor grown, from some cause unknown to my friend, prematurely old, and wizened, and decrepit. It was long since he had first come to reside in the small house opposite mine, and from the very day of his arrival I had observed him with singular interest, and conjectured variously in my idle moments about his probable history and circumstances. For many months after his establishment "over the way," this old gentleman used morning and evening to perambulate the little country road which divided our respective dwellings, supporting his feeble limbs with a venerable-looking staff, silver-headed like himself; and on one occasion, when my flower garden happened to look especially gay and inviting, he paused by the gate and gazed so wistfully at its beauties, that I ventured to invite him in, and presented him, bashfully enough, with a posy of my choicest rarities. After this unconventional introduction, many little courtesies passed between us, other nosegays were culled from my small parterre to adorn the little old gentleman's parlour, and more than once Miss Elizabeth Farleigh received and accepted an invitation to tea with Mr Stephen Gray. But by-and-by these invitations ceased, and my neighbor's pedestrian excursions up and down our road became less and less frequent. Yet when I sent my maid, as I often did, to inquire after his health, the answer returned alternated only between two inflections,--Mr Gray was always either "pretty well," or "a little better today." But presently I noticed that my friend Dr. Peyton began to pay visits at my opposite neighbor's, and of him I inquired concerning the little old man's condition, and learned to my surprise and sorrow that his health and strength were rapidly failing, and his life surely and irrecoverably ebbing away. It might be many long months, Dr. Peyton said, before the end, it might be only a few weeks, but he had seen many such cases, and knew that no human skill or tenderness had power to do more than to prolong the patient's days upon earth by some brief space, and to make the weary hours of feebleness and prostration as pleasant and calm as possible. When Dr Peyton told me this, it was late autumn, and the little old gentleman lived on in his weakness all through the snow-time and the dim bleak winter days. But when the Spring came round once more, he rallied, and I used often to see him sitting up in his armchair at the open window, arrayed in his dressing-gown, and looking so cheerful and placid, that I could not forbear to nod to him and smile hopefully, as I stood by my garden gate in the soft warm sunshine, thinking that after all my opposite neighbor would soon be able to take his daily walks, and have tea with me again in his cosy little parlour. But when I spoke of this to Dr. Peyton, he only shook his head incredulously, and murmured something about the flame burning brighter for a little while before going out altogether. So the old gentleman lingered on until June, and still every time I sent to ask after his health returned the same old reply,--his "kind regards to Miss Fairleigh, and he was a little better today." And thus matters remained on that identical evening of which I first spoke, when I sat at the bay window in my tiny drawing-room, and saw Dr. Peyton coming so soberly up the garden path. "Dr Peyton," said I, as I placed my most comfortable chair for him in the prettiest corner of the bay, "you are the very person I have been longing to see for the last half-hour! I want to know how my neighbor Mr Gray is tonight. I see his blinds are down, and I am afraid he may be worse. Have you been there this evening?" I paused abruptly, for my old friend looked very gravely at me, and I thought as his eyes rested for a moment on my face, that notwithstanding the twilight, I could discern traces of recent tears in them. "Lizzie," said he, very slowly, and his voice certainly trembled a little as he spoke, "I don't think Mr Gray was ever so well in his life as he is tonight. I have been with him for several hours. He is dead." "Dead!" I echoed faintly, for I almost doubted whether my ears heard aright. "My little old gentleman dead? Oh, I am very, very grieved indeed! I fancied he was getting so much stronger!" Dr. Peyton smiled, one of his peculiar, sweet, grave smiles, such as I had often seen on his kindly face at certain times and seasons when other men would not have smiled at all. "Lizzie," he answered, 'there are some deaths so beautiful and so full of peace, that no one ought to grieve about them, for they bring eternal rest after a life that has been only bitter disquiet and heaviness. And such a death--aye, and such a life--were Mr Gray's." He spoke so certainly and so calmly, that I felt comforted for the little old man's sake, and longed to know,--woman-like, I suppose,-- what sad story of his this had been, to which Dr. Peyton's words seemed to point. "Then he had a romance after all!" I cried, "and you knew of it! Poor old gentleman! I often wondered how he came to be so lonely. May you tell me, as we sit here together? I should so like to hear about it." "Yes," said he, with that same peculiar smile, "I may tell you, for it is no secret now. Indeed, I came here partly for that very purpose, because I know well how much you were interested in your opposite neighbor, and how you used to speculate about his antecedents and associations. But I have not known this story long. He only told it me this evening; just an hour or two before he died. Well, we all have our little romances, as you are pleased to call them!" "Yes, yes, all of us. Even I, unpretentious, plain Elizabeth Fairleigh,--but no matter." I mind me, reader, that I promised not to talk of my own experiences. Ah, there are no such phenomena in the world really, as "commonplace" lives, and "commonplace" persons! "Poor little old man!" I sighed again. "Did he tell you his story then of his own accord, or"--And I paused in some embarrassment, for I remembered that Dr. Peyton was a true gentleman, and possessed of far too much delicacy of feeling to question anybody upon personal matters or private concerns. But either he did not actually notice my hesitation, or perhaps understood the cause of it well enough to prevent him from appearing to notice it, for he resumed at once, as though no interruption to his discourse had taken place. "When I went this afternoon to visit your neighbor, Lizzie, I perceived immediately from the change in him that the end was not far off, though I did not think it would come today. But he did. He was in bed when I entered his room, and as soon as he saw me, he looked up and welcomed me with a pleasant smile and said, `Ah, Doctor, I am so glad you are come! I was just going to send round for you! Not that I think you can do me any more good upon earth, for I know that tonight I shall go to my long rest. To my long rest.' He lingered so strangely and so contentedly over these words, that I was singularly touched, and I sat down by his bedside and took his thin white hand in mine. 'Doctor,' said he, presently, `you have been very good and kind to me now for more than ten months, and I have learned in that time to trust and esteem you as though I had known you for many long years. There are no friends of mine near me in the world now, for I am a lonely old man, and before I came here I lived alone, and I have been lonely almost all my life. But I cannot die tonight without telling you the story of my past, and of the days when I used to be young,--very long ago now,--that you may understand why I die here alone, a white-haired old bachelor; and that I may be comforted in my death by the knowledge that I leave at least one friend upon earth to sympathise in my sorrow and to bless me in my solitary grave. 'It is a long story, Doctor,' said the little old man, 'but I feel stronger this afternoon than I have felt for weeks, and I am quite sure I can tell it all from end to end. I have kept it many years in my heart, a secret from every human soul; but now all is over with my sorrow and with me for ever, and I care not who knows of it after I am gone.' Then after a little pause he told me his story, while I sat beside him holding his hand in mine, and I think I did not lose a word of all he said, for he spoke very slowly and distinctly, and I listened with all my heart. Shall I tell it to you, Lizzie? It is not one of those stories that end happily; like the stories we read in children's fairy books, nor is it exciting and sensational like the modern popular novels. There are no dramatic situations in it, and no passionate scenes of tragical love or remorse; 'tis a still, neutral-colored, dreamy bit of pathos; the story of a lost life,-- that it will make you sad perhaps to hear, and maybe, a little graver than usual. Only that." "Please tell it, Dr Peyton," I answered. "You know I have a special liking for such sad histories. 'Tis one of my old-maidish eccentricities I suppose; but somehow I always think sorrow more musical than mirth, and I love the quiet of shadowy places better than the brilliant glow of the open landscape." "You are right, Lizzie," he returned. "That is the feeling of the true poet in all ages, and the most poetical lives are always those in which the melancholy element predominates. Yet it is contrast that makes the beauty of things, and doubtless we should not fully understand the sweetness of your grave harmonies, nor the loveliness of your shadowy valleys, were all music grave and all places shadowy. And inanimate nature is most assuredly the faithful type and mirror of human life. But I must not waste our time any longer in such idle prologues as these! You shall hear the little old man's story at once, while it is still fresh in my memory, though for the matter of that, I am not likely, I think, to forget it very easily." So Dr Peyton told it me as we sat together there in the growing darkness of the warm summer night, and this, reader mine, is the story he told. Chapter II. Some forty years ago, there lived in one of the prettiest houses in Kensington, a rich old wine-merchant, and his two only children. These young men, Stephen and Maurice Grey, were twins, whose mother had died at their birth, and all through their infancy and childhood the old wine-merchant had been to them as father and mother in one, and the brothers had grown up to manhood, loving him and each other as dearly as heart could wish. Already Stephen, the firstborn of the twins, had become partner in his father's flourishing business, and Maurice was preparing at a military college for service in the army, which he was shortly to join, when a certain event occurred at Kensington, trifling enough in itself, but in the sequel pregnant with bitter misfortune to at least two human souls. There came to reside in the house adjoining old Mr Gray's, an elderly widow lady and her orphan niece,--Mrs. Lamertine and Miss Adelais Cameron. They came there principally for the sake of the latter,-- a pale consumptive girl of eighteen, whose delicate health and constitution it was thought might be considerably benefited by the mild soft air of that particular neighborhood. Soon after the arrival of these ladies in their new abode, the old wine-merchant in his courtesy and kindliness of heart saw fit to pay them a visit, and in due time and form the visit was returned, and a friendly come-and-go understanding established between the two houses. In this manner it happened that Stephen, the elder son, by living always in his father's house, from which he was absent only during the office-hours of the day, saw a great deal of Adelais Cameron, and learnt before long to love her with all the depth and yearning that a young man feels in his first rapturous adoration of a beautiful woman. For a beautiful woman Adelais certainly was. Very fair to look upon was the pale, transparent face, and the plentiful braided hair, golden and soft almost as undyed silk, that wreathed about the lovely little head. Clear and sweet too were the eyes whence the soul of Adelais looked forth, clear and brown and sweet; so that people who beheld her fair countenance and heard her musical voice for the first time, were fain to say in their hearts, "Such a face and such a voice as these are not earthly things; Adelais Cameron is already far on her road towards the land of the angels." But at least Mrs Lamertine and her friendly neighbors the Grays could perceive that the pale girl grew none the paler nor sicklier for her residence at Kensington, and as days and weeks flew pleasantly by in the long autumn season, the old lady talked more and more confidently of her niece's complete restoration to health and youthful vigour. Then by-and-by Christmas drew round, and with it Maurice Gray came home to his father's house for his last vacation-time; Maurice, with his frank handsome face and curly hair, always so cheerful, always so good-humoured, always so unconscious of his own attractiveness, that wherever he went, everybody was sure to trust and to idolise him. Ay, and to love him too sometimes, but not as Adelais Cameron did, when her full womanly soul awoke first to the living intensity of passion, and she found in him the one god at whose feet to cast all her new wealth of tenderness and homage. Never before had Maurice Gray been so beloved, never before had his own love been so desired and coveted by human soul. And now that the greatest blessing of earth lay so ready to his grasp, Maurice neither perceived the value of the gift, nor understood that it was offered to him. Such was the position when Christmas Day arrived, and the widower begged that Mrs Lamertine and her niece would do him the pleasure to dine in his house and spend the evening there, that they might sing songs and play forfeits together and keep up the ancient institutions of the time, as well as so tiny and staid a party could manage to do; to which sociable invitation, the old dame, nothing averse to pleasant fellowship at any season, readily consented. But when Adelais Cameron entered Mr Gray's drawing-room that Christmas evening with her soft white dress floating about her like a hazy cloud, and a single bunch of snowdrops in the coils of her golden hair, Stephen's heart leapt in his throat, and he said to himself that never until now had he known how exceeding perfect and sweet was the beautiful woman whom he loved with so absorbing a tenderness. Alas, that life should be at times such a terribly earnest game of cross purposes, such an intensely bitter reality of mistakes and blunders! Alas, that men and women can read so little of each other's heart, and yet can comprehend so well the language of their own! All the evening, throughout the conversation and the forfeits and the merry-making, Stephen Gray spoke and moved and thought only for Adelais, and she for Stephen's twin brother. It was for Maurice that she sang, while Stephen stood beside her at the piano, drinking in the tender passionate notes as though they were sweet wine for which all his soul were athirst; it was at Maurice that she smiled, while Stephen's eyes were on her face, and to Maurice that she prattled and sported and made mirthful jests, while Stephen alone heeded all that she said and did; for the younger brother was reflected in every purpose and thought of hers, even as her own image lay mirrored continually in the heart and thoughts of the elder. But before the hour of parting came that night, Stephen drew Adelais aside from the others as they sat laughing and talking over some long-winded story of the old wine-merchant's experiences, and told her what she, in the blindness of her own wild love, had never guessed nor dreamed of,--all the deep adoration and worship of his soul. And when it was told, she said nothing for a few minutes, but only stood motionless and surprised, without a blush or tremor or sigh, and he, looking earnestly into her fair uplifted face, saw with unutterable pain that there was no response there to the passionate yearning of his own. "Adelais," said he, presently, "you do not love me?" "Yes, yes, Stephen," she answered, softly; "as a brother, as a dear brother." "No more?" he asked again. She put her hand into his, and fixing the clear light of her brown eyes full upon him: "Why," she said, hurriedly, "do you ask me this? I cannot give you more, I cannot love you as a husband. Let no one know what has passed between us tonight; forget it yourself as I shall forget also, and we will always be brother and sister all our lives." Then she turned and glided away across the room into the warm bright glow of the fireside, that lay brightest and warmest in the corner where Maurice sat; but Stephen stood alone in the darkness and hid his face in his hands and groaned. And after this there came a changeover the fortunes of the two households. Day by day Adelais faded and paled and saddened; none knew why. People said it was the winter weather, and that when the springtime came the girl would be herself again, and grow brisker and stronger than ever. But when Maurice was gone back to his college, to fulfil his last term there before leaving for India, the only brother of Adelais came up from his home by the seaside, on a month's visit to his aunt and his sister at Kensington. He was a man of middle age almost, this same Philip Cameron, tall and handsome and fair-spoken, so that the old wine-merchant, who dearly loved good looks and courteous breeding, took to him mightily from the first, and made much of his company on all occasions. But as he stayed on from week to week at Mrs Lamertine's house, Philip saw that the pale lips and cheeks of Adelais grew paler and thinner continually, that the brown eyes greatened in the dark sockets, and that the fragile limbs weakened and sharpened themselves more and more, as though some terrible blight, like the curse of an old enchantment or of an evil eye, hung over the sweet girl, withering and poisoning all the life and the youth in her veins. She lay on a sofa one afternoon, leaning her golden head upon one of her pale wan hands, and gazing dreamily through the open casement into the depths of the broad April sky, over whose clear blue firmament the drifting clouds came and went incessantly like white- sailed ships at sea. And Adelais thought of the sea as she watched them, and longed in her heart to be away and down by the southern coast where her brother had made his home, with the free salt breeze blowing in her face, and the free happy waves beating the shore at her feet, and the sea-fowl dipping their great strong wings in the leaping surge. Ah to be free,--to be away,--perhaps then she might forget, forget and live down her old life, and bury it somewhere out of sight in the sea-sand;--forget and grow blithe and happy and strong once more, like the breeze and the waves and the wild birds, who have no memory nor regret for the past, and no thought for any joy, save the joy of their present being. "Phil," she said, as her brother came softly into the room and sat beside her, "take me back with you to the sea-side. I am weary of living always here in Kensington. It is only London after all." "My dearest," he answered, kindly, "if that is all you wish for, it shall certainly be. But, Adelais, is there nothing more than this that troubles you? There is a shadow in your eyes and on your lips that used not to be there, and all day long you sit by yourself and muse in silence; and you weep too at times, Adelais, when you fancy none is by to see you. Tell me, sister mine, for the sake of the love that is between us, and for the sake of our father and mother who are dead, what cloud is this that overshadows you so?" Long time he pressed and besought her, pleading by turns his power to help, and her need of tenderness; but yet Adelais was afraid to speak, for the love that was breaking her heart was unreturned. So the next day he found her alone again, and prayed her to tell him her sorrow, that even if he could not help nor comfort her, they might at least lament together. Then at last she bowed her head upon his breast, and told him of Maurice, and of his near departure for India, and of her own disregarded love; but not a word she said of Stephen, because she had promised him to hold her peace. And when she had told her brother all, she laid her arms about his neck and cried, weeping, "Now you know everything that is in my heart, Phil; speak to me no more about it, but only promise to take me away with you when you go, that I may the sooner forget this place and all the sorrow and the pain I have suffered here." And Philip Cameron kissed her very tenderly, and answered, "Be at rest, sister, you shall have your will." But when the evening came, he went over to the house of the wine- merchant, and questioned him about Maurice, whether he cared for Adelais or no, and whether he had ever said a word to his father or brother of the matter. "Ay, ay," quoth the old gentleman, musingly, when Philip had ceased, "'Tis like enough if there be anything of the sort that the boys should talk of it between them, for, God be thanked, they were always very fond of each other; yet I never heard it spoken about. But then youth has little in common with age, and when young men make confidences of this kind, it is to young men that they make them, and not to grey-beards like me. But tell me, Cameron, for you know I must needs divine something from all this; your sister loves my boy Maurice?" "If you think so, sir," answered Philip, "you must keep her secret." "Cameron, Cameron," cried the wine-merchant, "Adelais is failing and sickening every day. Every day she grows whiter and sadder and more silent. Don't tell me it's for love of Maurice! It's not possible such a woman as she is can love anybody in vain! She's an angel on earth, your sister Adelais!" Then because the old man was kindly and wise and white-headed, Philip told him all that Adelais had said, and how he had promised to take her home with him, and had come unknown to any one to ask before they went whether or not there was any hope for her of the love on which she had so set her heart. And when Philip was gone the old gentleman called his elder son, Stephen, and asked him--but warily, lest he should betray Adelais-- how Maurice bore himself in Stephen's presence when they were alone together and chanced to speak of her, and if Stephen knew or guessed anything of what was in his mind towards her. Then the young man understood for the first time all the blindness of his eyes and the dulness of his heart; and the pain and the desolation and the hopelessness of his life that was to be, rose up before him, and he knew that from thenceforth the glory and the light of it were put out for ever. "Father," he said, "I know nothing whatever of all this. Is it your wish then that these two should marry?" "It is my wish, Stephen, and the wish also of our friend Philip himself. Maurice could not take with him to India a sweeter or a worthier wife than Adelais Cameron." "And does she wish it too?" he asked again. "Tell me, father, for I have guessed already." He lifted his eyes to the old man's face as he spoke, and perceived at once the sudden confusion arid surprise that his words had caused there, yet he said no more, but waited still for a reply. "My dear boy," said the old gentleman at last, "if you have guessed anything, that is enough; say no more about it, but let it rest with yourself. I have never yet deceived either of my sons. But when Maurice comes home again you can help us very much, for you can question him on the matter more naturally than I could do, and no doubt he will tell you his mind about it, as you say he always does about everything, but with me he might be reserved and bewildered perhaps. Ask him, my boy, but keep your guesses to yourself." "Father," cried Stephen, pressing his hands together in agony as though his heart were between them, and he would fain crush it into dust and destroy it for ever; "tell me, if I am to do this, does Adelais love my brother?" "If I tell you at all, boy," said the wine-merchant, "I shall tell you the truth; can you hold your peace like a man of discretion?" "I have kept other secrets, father," he answered, "I can keep this." Then his father told him. Early in May, Adelais Cameron went to the Devonshire sea-coast with her brother and her aunt, and they stayed there together a long while. But the accounts that came from week to week to Kensington were none of the best, for Adelais had borne the long journey but ill, and her strength did not return. Then came the summer and the vacation-time, and Maurice Gray was home again, full to the brim of schemes for his future life, and busy all day with head and hands over his preparations for leaving England in the autumn. But when Stephen talked to him of Adelais, and told him she was gone to the sea-side, Maurice only laughed and answered lightly, that she was a sweet lovable girl, and that he grieved to hear of her illness; no doubt the southern breezes would bring back the color to her cheeks, and he should hear before he had been long gone that she was quite well and strong again. At least he hoped so. "Then, Maurice, you don't care to see her once more before you sail? You don't want to say goodbye?" "O well, if she's here, of course, but that's another thing; I wouldn't for worlds have her come back to Kensington just to bid me goodbye. And really you know, Steenie, I've too much to do just now to be running about and saying farewells everywhere. The time that's left me now to be at home with you and my father is none too long. What is Adelais Cameron to me, when all my world is here?" "Maurice," said Stephen again, in a voice that sounded strained and hard, like the voice of an old man trying to be young; "you're a dear affectionate fellow, and as things are, perhaps this is all very well. But supposing Adelais loved you, and my father and-- and--everybody else you know, wished her to be your wife, how would you feel towards her then? Supposing, Maurice--only for the sake of supposing, of course." "What a strange fellow you are, Steenie! Why, supposing as you say, such a very wild improbable circumstance were to occur, I should be heartily sorry for poor Adelais! Only imagine me with such a wife as she would make! Why I wouldn't have so transparent, white- skinned a beauty about my house all day for a mine of gold! I should be seized with lunacy before long, through mere contemplation of her very unearthliness, and be goaded into fancying her a picture, and hanging her up framed and glazed over my drawing-room mantelpiece! No, no, I'll leave Miss Cameron for you, you're just her style, I take it; but as for me, I never thought of marrying yet, Steenie, for I never yet had the luck or ill-luck to fall in love, and certainly you'll allow that nobody ought to think of marriage until he's really in love. So I'll wish you all success, old boy, and mind you write and tell me how the wooing gets on!" O Maurice! Maurice! Then, by-and-by, the young officer sailed, and Adelais heard of his going, and her heart died within her for greatness of sorrow and pain, yet still she held her peace, and lived her life in patience. And so for two whole years they kept her by the sea, hoping against hope, and whispering those idle convictions that affection always suggests, about the worst being over now, and the time of convalescence being always tedious and unpromising. But in the third year, when the autumn days grew darker, and the sun set redder in the sea, and people began to talk again of Christmas, Adelais called her brother one evening and said:-- "Philip, I have been here very long, and I know that nothing more on earth can ever make me well again now. You will not refuse me the last request I shall make you, Phil? Take me back to the old house at Kensington, that I may see dear old Mr. Gray, and my friend Stephen, once more; and you, Phil, stay with me and Auntie there until I die, for it won't be very long now, and I want to see you near me to the last." So they brought her back again to the old house, next door to the wine merchant's, and they carried her over the threshold, because she was too weak to walk now, and laid her on the old sofa in the old place by the window, for she would have it, and Philip Cameron did her bidding in everything. And that same evening, Stephen Gray came in to see her, and they met as old friends meet who have been long parted, and sat and talked together until past sunset. But at length Adelais asked him for news of Maurice, what he was doing, and how he was, and when they heard from him last, and what he thought of India and of the new life there, and his companions, and the climate, and the customs of the place; for she never guessed that Stephen knew of her hopeless love. But Stephen turned away his face and answered her briefly, that his brother was well and prosperous, and wrote home constantly. How could he tell her that Maurice had already found himself a rich handsome wife in India? Chapter III. Soon after these things, old Mr Gray fell ill of a violent cold, which attacked him suddenly one afternoon on his return from his office. It was Christmas weather then, and the cold and the frost of the season were unusually keen, so that the physician, whom Stephen called in to see his father, looked very grave and dubious; and before many days of his patient's illness were past, he asked the young man whether there were any brothers or sisters of his, whom the merchant might wish to see. Stephen's heart beat fast when he heard the ominous question, for he understood what tidings the grave tone and the strange inquiry were meant to break to him, and knew well that the physician who spoke was one of the wisest and most skillful in London. But he answered as calmly as he could, and talked of Maurice, and of the boy's fondness for his father, and added, that if there were really imminent danger, he should like his brother to be called home, because he was sure Maurice would wish it; but that otherwise the voyage was tedious and the need unimportant. "Let him be sent for," said the physician. "There is just time." So Stephen wrote to his brother, and bade him leave his wife with her parents in India, and come home quickly, if he would see his father again, for the time was short, and in those days the only way open to Maurice was the long circuitous sea-route. Maurice arrived only three days before the old man's death. He had not left his wife behind him, as Stephen suggested, for she loved her husband too dearly to be parted from him, and Maurice brought her with him to his father's house. From her place on the sofa by the window, Adelais Cameron looked wearily out, watching for the coming of the one she loved most upon earth. And at last the coach drew up at the old gentleman's gate, and she saw Maurice dismount from the box-seat by the driver and open the coach door to hand out a handsome lady, with dark hair and bright glowing eyes. "Who is that?" she asked of the maid, who was arranging the tea-table beside her. "Don't you know, Miss?" said the girl, surprised at the inquiry. "That's Mrs Maurice, the rich young lady he married in India a year ago; I was told all about it by the cook at Mr. Gray's, ever-so- long ago." But as the words were spoken, Stephen entered the room with a message for Philip Cameron, and overheard both the question and the answer. Adelais turned towards him and said, "Stephen, you never told me that Maurice had a wife." The next week they buried the old wine merchant very quietly and simply. Only three mourners attended the funeral,--Stephen and Maurice and Philip Cameron; but Adelais, looking down on them from her casement corner, as the coffin was carried forth from the house, laid her golden head on her aunt's bosom and cried, "Auntie, auntie, I never thought to live so long as this! Why must those always die who are needed most, while such as I live on from year to year? I fancied I had only a few weeks left me upon earth when we came back to Kensington, and yet here I am still!" Then after a little while the brothers parted once more; Maurice and his wife went back to India, and Stephen was left alone, sole successor to his father's business, and master of the old house. But Adelais Cameron still lived on, like the shadow of her former self, fading in the sunset of her womanhood, the beauty sapped out from her white death-like face, and the glitter of youth and the sweetness of hope quenched for ever in the depths of her luminous eyes. Then when the days of mourning were over, Stephen came again to Adelais, to renew the wooing of old times; for he said to himself, "Now that Maurice is married, and my father dead, she may pity me, seeing me so lone and desolate; and I may comfort her for the past, and make her amends with my love, for the pain and the bitterness that are gone by." But when he knelt alone by the couch whereon Adelais lay, and held her white blue-veined hands in his and told his errand, she turned her face from him and wept sore, as women weep over the dead. "Adelais, O Adelais," he cried in his despair, "Why will you refuse me always? Don't you see my heart is breaking for love of you? Come home with me and be my wife at last!" But she made answer very sadly and slowly:-- "Stephen, ought the living and the dead to wed with one another? God forbid that you in your youth and manhood should take to wife such a death-like thing as I! Four years I have lain like this waiting for the messenger to fetch me away, and now that at last he is near at hand, shall I array myself in a bridal veil for a face-cloth, and trailing skirts of silk or satin for a shroud? Dear Stephen, don't talk to me any more about this,--we are brother and sister still,--let nothing on earth break the sweetness of the bond between us." "Not so, Adelais," cried he, passionately; "you cannot, you must not die yet! You do not know what love can do, you do not know that love is stronger than death, and that where there is love like mine death dare not come! There is nothing in all the world that I will not do for your sake, nothing that I will leave undone to save you, nothing that shall be too hard a condition for me to perform, so that I may keep you with me still. Live, live my darling, my beloved, and be my wife! Give me the right to take you with me, my sweet; let us go together to Madeira, to Malta, to Sicily, where the land is full of life, and the skies are warm, and the atmosphere clear and pure. There is health there, Adelais, and youth, and air to breathe such as one cannot find in this dull, misty, heavy northern climate, and there you will grow well again, and we will think no more about death and sickness. O my darling, my darling, for God's sake refuse me no longer!" She laid her thin transparent palm wearily over her left side, and turned her calm eyes on the passionate straining face beside her. "There is that here," she said, pressing her wounded heart more tightly, "that I know already for the touch of the messenger's hand. Already I count the time of my sojourn here, not by weeks nor even by days,--the end has come so very, very near at last. How do I know but that even now that messenger of whom I speak may be standing in our presence,--even now, while you kneel here by my side and talk to me of life and youth and health?" "Adelais," pleaded the poor lover, hoarsely, "you deceive yourself, my darling! Have you not often spoken before of dying, and yet have lived on? O why should you die now and break my heart outright?" "I feel a mist coming over me," she answered, "even as I speak with you now. I hear a sound in my ears that is not of earth, the darkness gathers before my face, the light quivers and fades, the night is closing about me very fast. Stephen, Stephen, don't you see that I am dying?" He bowed his head over the damp colorless brow, and whispered: "If it be so, my beloved, be as my wife yet, and die in my arms." But while he uttered the words there came a change over her,--a shadow into the sweet eyes and a sudden spasm of pain across the white parted lips. Feebly and uncertainly she put out her hands before her face, like one groping in the darkness, her golden head drooped on his shoulder, and her breath came sharp and thick, with the sound of approaching death. Stephen folded his arms about her with a cry of agony, and pressed the poor quivering hands wildly to his bosom, as though he would fain have held them there for ever. "O God!" he groaned in his unutterable despair; "is there no hope, no redemption, no retrieving of the past? Is this the bitter end of all, and must I lose my darling so? O Adelais, Adelais, my beloved!" But even as he spoke, the gathering shadow broke softly over all her face, the sobbing, gasping breath ceased in the stillness of the darkened room, the golden head fell lower,--lower yet upon the desolate heart whose love had been so steadfast and so true; and Stephen covered his face with the hands of the dead, and wept such tears as men can only weep once in a lifetime,--tears that make brown hairs grey and young men old. Philip Cameron and his aunt did not stay long at Kensington. They gave up the house to strangers, and went away to the Continent for awhile, where they traveled about together, until the old lady grew tired of wandering, and settled down with her maid in a little villa near Geneva; and after that, Stephen heard no more of her nor of Philip. But Stephen himself stayed on in the old house until he grew old too, for he loved the place where Adelais had lived, and could not bear to leave it for another. And every evening when he came home from his office, he would sit alone at the window of his study whence he could see across the garden into the little chamber next door, the little chintz-curtained old-fashioned chamber where she used to lie in her weakness years and years ago, where they two had so often talked and read together, and where she had died at last in his arms. But he never wept, thinking of these things now, for he had grown into a little withered dried-up old man, and his tears were dried up also, and instead of his passionate despair and heart-breaking, had come the calm bitterness of eternal regret, and a still voiceless longing for the time that every day drew nearer and nearer, and for the coming of the messenger from the land that is very far off. But when Maurice came home once more to settle in England with his handsome wife and his children, rich and happy and prosperous, he would fain have taken some new house in London to share with his twin brother, that they might live together; but Stephen would not. Then when Maurice had reasoned and talked with him a long time in vain, pleading by turns the love that had been between them long ago, the loneliness of his brother's estate, and his own desire that they should not separate now, he yielded the contest, and said discontentedly,-- "Have your own way, Steenie, since you will make a solitary bachelor of yourself, but at least give up your useless toiling at the wine- office. To what end do you plod there every day,--you who are wifeless and childless, and have no need of money for yourself? Give me up this great house in which you live all alone, like an owl in an oak-tree, and let me find you a cottage somewhere in the neighborhood, where I can often come and see you, and where you may spend your days in happiness and comfort." And the little old man shook his head and answered, "Nay, brother Maurice, but I will go away from here to some country village where I am not known, for I have toiled long and wearily all my life, and I cannot rest in peace beside the mill where I have ground down my life so many years. Do not trouble yourself about me, Maurice, I shall find a home for myself." Then they parted. Maurice and his family came to live in the big house at Kensington, for they liked to be near London, and Stephen sold his father's business to another merchant, and went away, Maurice knew not whither, to bury himself and his lost life in some far-off village, until by-and-by the messenger for whom he had waited and yearned so long should come also for him, and the day break and the shadows flee away." Such, reader mine, is in substance the story that Dr. Peyton told me. The words in which he related it I cannot of course quite remember now, so I have put it into words of my own, and here and there I have added somewhat to the dialogue. But the facts and the pathos of the romance are not mine, nor his; they are true, actual realities, such as no dressing of fiction can make more poetical or complete in their sorrowful interest. "It was a long history," said I, "for a dying man to tell." "Yes," answered he. "And several times it was evident enough from his quick-drawn breath and sudden pauses, that the recital wearied and pained him. But he was so set upon telling, and I, Lizzie, I confess, so much interested in hearing it, that I did not absolutely hinder his fancy, but contented myself with warning him from time to time not to overtask his strength. He always answered me that he was quite strong, and liked to go on, for that it made him happy even to talk once more about Adelais, and to tell me how beautiful and sweet and patient she had been. It was close upon sunset when he ended his story, and he begged me, that as his fashion was, he might be lifted out of bed and carried to his armchair by the window, to look, as he said, for the last time, at the going down of the sun. So I called the housekeeper, and we did what he desired together, and opened the green Venetian blinds of the casement, which had been closed all the afternoon because of the heat. You remember, Lizzie, what a wonderfully bright and beautiful sunset it was this evening? Well, as we threw back the outer shutters, the radiant glory of the sky poured into the room like a flood of transparent gold and almost dazzled us, so that I fancied the sudden brilliancy would be too much for his feeble sight, and I leaned hastily forward with the intention of partly reclosing the blinds. But he signed to me to let them be, so I relinquished my design, and sent the housekeeper downstairs to prepare him his tea, which I thought he might like to take sitting up in his chair by the window. I had no idea--doctor though I am--that his end was so near as it proved to be; for although certainly much exhausted and agitated with the exertion of telling me his story, I did not then perceive any immediate cause for apprehension. Still less did I understand that he was then actually dying; on the contrary, I began to think that my first impressions of his danger when I entered the room that afternoon had been erroneous, and that the change I had observed in him might possibly be an indication of temporary revival. At all events, I fancied the cup of tea which was then being made ready, would be of great use in stimulating and refreshing him after the weariness caused by his long talk, and I promised myself that if I could only persuade him to silence for the rest of the evening, he would be none the worse for the recent gratification of his whim. We sat some time by the open window, watching the sun as it sank lower and lower into the golden-sheeted west, and some unconnected speculations were straying through my mind about `the sea of glass mingled with fire,' when the old man's words aroused me in the midst of my dreaming, and the voice in which he spoke was so unusual and so soft that it startled me. "`Doctor,' he said, `I think I am dying.' "I sprang from my seat and stood at his side in a moment, but before the utterance had well passed from his lips, I perceived that it was no mere invalid's fancy. "'Thirty-five years ago,' he continued, speaking still in that new unusual voice,--`thirty-five years ago this very selfsame day, my Adelais died in my arms as the sun went down. Today, as the sun goes down, I shall die also.' "Surely," cried I, "this is a very singular incident! Does it not seem so to you! This evening, then, was actually the anniversary of poor Miss Cameron's death! How strange!" "It certainly appeared so to me at first," he rejoined. "But when my mind reverted to it afterwards, I thought it exceedingly probable that his own knowledge of the fact had itself hastened his end, for he had no doubt been long brooding over it, and maybe desired that his death should occur that particular day and hour. In his enfeebled condition, such a desire would have great physical effect; I have known several similar cases. But however that may have been, I of course have no certain means of deciding. I have already told you, that immediately on my entering his chamber in the afternoon, he expressed to me his conviction that tonight he should go to his `long rest,' and in the certainty of that conviction, related to me the story you have heard. But though it has been the necessary lot of my calling to be present at so many deathbeds, I never before witnessed a calmer or a more peaceful end than Stephen Gray's. In his changed face, in his watchful eyes, in every placid feature of his countenance, I beheld the quiet anticipation of that `long rest' about which he had spoken so contentedly an hour or two since. "He took no further heed of me whatever,--I doubt if he was even aware of my presence. Wearily he laid his head back upon the white pillows I had placed in the armchair behind him, folded his hands together, and kept his eyes fixed steadfastly, and--I thought--even reverently, upon the setting sun that was now fast sinking like a globe of fire, towards the blue ridge of the Malvern hills, and my heart beat violently as I saw it touch the topmost peak. While I watched, there broke suddenly forth from between the low lines of sunset cloud, a long ray of golden light, that fell full on the uplifted face of the little old man. He did not turn his head, or shrink from its intense brightness, but his lips moved, though the utterance of the words he spoke was so broken and indistinct, that I stooped to hear them. "'Adelais,--O my lost darling,--my Adelais,--let me come to thee and be beloved at last!' " Then I looked again at the western sky, and saw that the sun had gone down." Next morning I gathered my June roses and sweet jasmin, and took them over to the house of the little old man. I went upstairs into the darkened chamber where they had laid him, and bestowed the flowers reverently about the white-draped bed. All the wrinkles were wiped out of his pallid face now, and he looked so wondrously calm and peaceful, lying there with his closed eyelids and crossed hands, in the unbroken silence of the room, that the tears of pity I thought I should have wept at the sight never rose in my eyes; but instead, as I turned away, there came to my memory certain closing lines of a most beautiful poem, written not very long ago by a master-hand that surely held God's commission to write. It is a dead hand now, but the written words remain, and the singer herself has gone to the land of the Hereafter, where the souls of the poets float for ever in the full light of their recovered Godhead, singing such songs as mortal ear hath not yet heard, nor mortal heart conceived of. And the poem of which I spoke, has this ending:-- "`Jasper first,' I said, `And second, sapphire; third, chalcedony. The rest in order,--last, an amethyst."' VII. The Nightshade "But silence is most noble till the end."--Atalanta in Calydon. Chapter I. Somebody, the other day, presented me with a bunch of crimson roses and purple nightshade, tied together. Roses and nightshade! I thought the combination worthy of a poem! For the rose, as all the world conceives, is the emblem of love; and the nightshade typifies silence. I put my posy in a little vase filled with water, and when night came, I lay down to rest, with my head full of vague rhymes and unfledged ideas, whose theme was still my eccentric nosegay. Sleep, however, overtook the muse, and the soft divinities of darkness, weaving their tender spells about me, dissolved my contemplated sonnet into a dream. It seemed to my sleeping fancy that I stood in a deep, serene light of shadowy purple, grave and sombre,--a light which suggested to me the sound of low minor chords, the last notes of some organ voluntary, dying beneath a master's touch, and rolling down the hazy aisles of an empty cathedral, out into the gloomy night, and upward to the stars. A spirit floated in the air before me,--a phantom draped in heavy sweeping robes of dense purple, but with eyes of such vivid and fiery brightness, that I could not look upon them; and my heart quailed in my bosom with a strange oppressive sense of fear and wonder. Then I felt that her awful gaze was fixed upon me, and a voice, low and sonorous as the tones of an organ, broke on my ear with an intense pathos, unutterably solemn:-- Daughter of earth, I am the spirit of the purple Nightshade, the Atropa Belladonna of the south,--the scent of whose dusky chalice is the fume of bitterness; the taste of whose dark fruit is death. And because the children and the maidens shun my poisonous berries, when they go out into the woods to make garlands for Mary's shrine, or for wedding gala; and because the leech and herbalist find in me a marvellous balm to soothe the torments of physical anguish; because I give the sick man ease, and the sleepless man oblivion, and the miserable man eternal rest; because I am sombre of hue and unsweet of odour, able to calm, to hush, and to kill, the sons of earth have chosen me to be the emblem of silence. There is a shadow on your brow: my words sound strange and bitter to you; yet hear me: for once on earth I dwelt with one who thought and labored in silence. His name is inscribed upon no calendar of the world's heroes; it is written only in heaven! Not far from a certain large town in Piedmont there was once a miserable little cottage. It had been let when I knew it, to a poor invalid woman and her only child, a boy about nine or ten years old. They were very poor, this mother and son; and the little living they had, came mostly by means of needlework, which the woman did for people in the town, and by the sale of dried herbs and suchlike. As for the cottage itself, it was a crazy, tumble-down tenement, half in ruins, and all the outside walls of it were covered with clinging ivies and weeds and wild climbing plants. I was one of these. I grew just underneath the solitary window of the small chamber wherein the poor woman slept,--the whole but consisted of only two rooms,--and I climbed and sprouted and twisted my head in and out of the network of shrubs about me, and clung to the crumbling stone of the wall, and stretched myself out and up continually, until I grew so tall, that I could look in at the casement and see the inside of the room. It was in the summertime that I first managed to do this, and I remember well what a burning, sultry summer it was! Everything seemed parched and calcined under the pitiless Italian sun, and the whole sky was like a great blazing topaz,--yellow, and hard to look at; and the water disappeared from the runlets, and there was not a breath of wind from one end of the sky to the other. So it was no great marvel to me, when one day, not long after my first appearance at the windowsill, I saw the poor woman come into the room with a very faltering step, and a whiter, sicklier look on her wan face than was usual to it. She threw herself wearily down upon her bed in the corner, and panted for breath. She had been to the town to take thither the last piece of needlework she had done, and she laid on the wooden table by the bedside the money the people had given her for her labor. Hard-earned coins, and few of them! She put her thin, wasted hands to her head as she lay, and I heard her murmur to herself in broken words that seemed interspersed with half suppressed sobs, and I could not understand what she said. But by-and-by, when she had grown a little calmer,-- there was a sharp, swift tap at the door of the room, and the boy entered, with a small book in his hand, and a sparkle of pleasure in his eyes. "Look, mother!" he cried, holding up the volume gleefully; "this is one of the great German Professor's 'Treatises on Chemistry!' Herr Ritter has bought it for me! Isn't it good of him? And he is here, and wants to know if he may come and see you!" She smiled,--such a poor ghost of a smile as it was!--and answered feebly, "Let him come; 'Tista." But I suppose the Herr had heard even that broken message, for at the words the door was pushed open a little further, and an old man appeared, bare-headed, wearing a long white beard, and carrying a staff in his hand. He was bent with age, and his forehead and cheeks were marked about with many lines and crosses,--deep furrows ploughed by the harrow of thought and sorrow. I had often seen him before, for he came frequently to the cottage, but I had never been so close to him as on this occasion, and had never before noticed how poor and worn his garments were. He came into the room with a courteous greeting on his lips, half-Italian, half-German in its phraseology, and signed with a nod of his head to the boy Battista to be gone, who immediately obeyed, hugging his prize, and closed the door softly behind him. "Herr Ritter," said the woman, raising herself on the pillow, and putting both her hands into his; "you are too good to, my 'Tista, and too good to me. Why will you do these things?" He smiled, as though the matter were not worth a word; but she went on,-- "I say you are too good, dear friend. Never a day passes, but you bring me something,--wine or fruit or some piece of dainty fare; and as for 'Tista, there is nothing he does not owe to you! All he knows, you have taught him. We can never repay you." "My dear Frau 'Lora, who thinks of such things twice? Chut! But you look ill and over-tired this evening. You have been to the town again?" "Yes." "I thought so. You must lie here and rest now. It will get cooler by-and-by; and look, I have brought you some bunches of grapes and some peaches. They will do you good." "Oh, Herr Ritter!" "Don't cry 'oh, Herr Ritter!' in that reproachful manner, for this fruit really cost me nothing. It was given to me. Little Andrea Bruno brought it to me today." "The fruit-seller's child? Yes, yes, I daresay; but it was not meant for me! It's no use trying to hide your good deeds, Herr Ritter! 'Tista has told me how kind you were to Andrea's little sister when she sprained her foot last month; and how you bandaged it for her, and used to go and read to her all the morning, when her father and Andrea were out selling fruit, and she would have been left alone but for you; and I know, too, all about poor crippled Antonia and Catterina Pic--. Don't go away, I won't say any more about it! But I couldn't help telling you I knew; you dear, good Herr Ritter!" He had half-risen, but now he reseated himself, and drew his chair nearer her couch. In doing this his eyes met hers, and he looked earnestly into them a moment. "Lora, you have been weeping. What is the matter?" She moved restlessly on her hard pillows, and dropped her gaze from his face, and I noted that a faint blush stole over her sunken cheeks and touched her forehead. With that tender glow, under the faded skin, she looked almost beautiful. She was young, certainly, not more than thirty at the utmost; but she was very poor and desolate, and there is nothing so quick at sapping the blood and withering the beauty of women as poverty and desolation. Nothing. "Herr Ritter," she said, after a little pause, "I will tell you what is the matter. Perhaps you may be able to advise me; I don't quite know what to do. You know how very, very much my 'Tista wants to be a chemist, so I needn't say anything about that. Well, he must be brought up to something, you know; he must learn to be something when the time comes for him to live without me, and I don't think, Herr Ritter, it will be very long-- before--before that time comes, now." I noted again that the old man did not contradict her. He only watched her drooping face, and listened. "I have worked early and late," she went on in low, swift tones, "to try and lay by a little money towards getting him apprenticed to some chemist in the town. He has worked, too, poor child. But it is little--nothing--we could save between us; for we must live meanwhile, you know, dear friend, and there is the rent to pay. Well, now I am coming to my story. When I was a young girl, I had a sister, ten years older than I. We were orphans, and an old aunt took care of us. I married--against my aunt's wish, in the face of my sister's warnings,--a poor improvisatore. We were poor enough, of course, before that, my sister and I, but we were not beggars, and the husband I took was below me. Well, my sister was very angry, dreadfully angry, but I was young and strong, and I was in love, so I didn't care much about it then. My husband traveled from place to place, telling his stories and singing his rhymes, and I went with him, and soon lost sight of my sister. At last we came to Rome. 'Tista was born there, and soon after I got some news of my old home from a wandering pedlar, who had passed through the village where I used to live. My aunt was dead, and my sister had married,-- married a rich inn-keeper; a match as far above our station as mine had been below it. Well, Herr Ritter, my husband was badly hurt in a quarrel one evening in one of the squares. Somebody insulted him before all the people as he was telling one of his stories, and his blood got up and he struck the man, and they fought; and my husband was brought home to me that night, half-murdered. He didn't live long. He had had a heavy fall, I think, in that fight, for the back of his head was cut open, and he took brain-fever from it. I did my best, but our money was scarce, and our child was too young to be left alone with a sick man, and I could get no work to do at home. So one day, at noon, my husband died. Poor Battista! I could not help it! I could not save him! Ah Jesu! what a terrible thing poverty is! what a mournful thing it is to live!" She shrouded her face in her hands, but not to weep, for when, after a little silence, she raised her large dark eyes again to meet the old German's compassionate gaze, I saw that they were calm and tearless. "After that, I used to leave little 'Tista in the care of a woman, next door to me, while I went out as a model. I was handsome then, the painters said, and my hair and my complexion were worth something in the studio; but not for long. My color faded, and my hair grew thin, for I pined and sorrowed day and night after the husband I had lost, and at last no one would give two scudi for me, so I took 'Tista and left Rome to tramp. Sometimes I got hired out in the vine-harvest, and sometimes I sold fruit, or eggs, or fish in the markets, till at last I got a place as a servant in a big town, and 'Tista went to school a bit. But seven months ago my mistress died, and her daughters wouldn't keep me, because I had become weak and couldn't do the work of their house as well as I used to do it. And nobody else would take me, for all the people to whom I went said I looked halfway in my grave, and should be no use to them as a servant. So I gave it up at last, and came on here and got this cottage, almost for nothing, though it's something to me; but then they give me so little for my work, you see, in the town. Well, Herr Ritter, I daresay you think my story a very long one, don't you? I am just near the end of it now. I went into the town today, and while I was standing in the shop with my needlework, a lady came in. The shop-woman, who was talking to me about the price of the things I had done, left me when the lady came in, and went to serve her. So I had to stand and wait, and when the lady put back her veil to look at something she was going to buy, I saw her face. Oh, Herr Ritter! it was my sister, my sister Carlotta! I was certain of it! I was certain of it! Nevertheless; after she had gone, I asked the shop-woman some questions about the lady. She did not tell me much, for I fancy she thought me inquisitive; but she told me, at least, all I had need to know. Her customer, she said, was the wife of a very rich inn-keeper, and her name was Carlotta Nero. She is lodging, the woman told me, at the Casa d'Oro. I didn't go to see her then, of course, because she could not then have reached home; but I want to go tomorrow, if I can manage to walk so far, for I think she would like to see me again, and I am sure I should like to see her. And, shall I tell you what else I am thinking about, Herr Ritter? It is that, perhaps,--perhaps, her husband, being so rich, he might be able to put 'Tista in the way of doing something, or of getting me some work, so that we could save up the money for his apprenticeship by-and-by. What do you think of it now, Herr Ritter? My sister, you know, is the only friend I have in the world, except you, kind, dear Herr! and I don't think she would mind my asking her this, though we did part in anger; do you? For that was ten years ago." She paused again, and Herr Ritter gazed tenderly at the poor sharp face, with its purple eyelids and quivering parted lips, through which the heavy rapid breath came every moment with a sudden painful shudder, like a sob. I think he was wondering, pityingly, what such a feeble, shattered creature as she could have to do with work, at least, on this side of death. "Herr Ritter! Herr Ritter!" cried 'Tista, bursting open the door of the little chamber, in a state of great delight; "look what Cristofero has just given me! These beautiful roses! Will you have them?" "Not I, 'Tista, thank you. Gay colors and sweet odours are not for me. Put them here in this cup by your mother's side. Now, Frau 'Lora, I will not be contradicted!" "Won't you have one of them, Herr Ritter?" asked the boy, wistfully, holding out towards the old man a spendid crimson bud. He answered hurriedly, with a gesture of avoidance. "No, no, 'Tista! I never touch roses! See here, I'll take a cluster of this, 'tis more in my line a great deal." He turned away to the lattice as he spoke; rather, I thought, to conceal a certain emotion that had crossed his face at the sight of the roses than for any other reason, and laid his hand upon me. "Why, that's nightshade!" cried the boy in surprise. "No matter," answered the old German, breaking off my blossom-head, and tucking its stalk into the buttonhole of his rusty coat; "I like it, it suits me. Belladonna is not to be despised, as you ought to know, Master Chemist!" Then, in a softer tone, "I shall come and see you tomorrow morning, Frau 'Lora, before you start. Goodnight." He went out, shutting the door behind him gently, and I went with him. He did not walk very far. About half-a-mile from the town there stood three or four old-fashioned houses, with projecting gables and low green verandahs sloping over their wide balconies, and it was in the first of these houses that Herr Ritter lodged. He had only one room, a little dark, studious-looking apartment, scantily furnished, with a single window, opening on to the balcony, and in one corner a deep recess, within which was his bed. There were some shelves opposite the window, and upon these several ponderous old tomes in faded covers; a human skull, and a few fossils. Nothing else at all, except a tiny picture, hung upon the wall above the head of his couch; but this I did not see at first. Later, when he had taken me out of his coat, and put me in water, in a little glass bowl, I was able to turn my great yellow eyes full upon the painting, and I saw that it was the miniature of a beautiful young girl, dressed in a very old-fashioned costume, and wearing upon her fair bosom a knot of crimson roses. "Ah," I said to myself, "there has been a romance in this old German's life, and now there is--silence." Chapter II. Very early the next morning Battista came to see Herr Ritter. In his hand the boy carried a large clay flowerpot, wherein, carefully planted in damp mould, and supported by long sticks set crosswise against each other, I beheld my own twining branches and pendulous tendrils; all of myself, indeed, that had been left the day before outside the cottage window. Battista bore the pot triumphantly across the room, and deposited it in the balcony under the green verandah. "Ecco! Herr Ritter!" cried he, with vast delight. "You see I don't forget what you say! You told me yesterday you liked the belladonna, so when you were gone I went and dug up its root and planted it in this pot for you, that you may always keep it in your balcony, and always have a bunch to wear in your coat. Though, indeed, I can't think how you can like it; it smells so nasty! But you are a strange old darling, aren't you, Herr Ritter?" Battista had set down his pot now, and was looking into the old German's face with glistening eyes. "Child," answered the Herr, smiling very gravely and tenderly, as one may fancy that perhaps a Socrates or a Plato may have smiled sometimes; "your gift is very welcome, and I am glad to know you thought of me. These are the first flowers I have ever had in my little dark room; and as for the scent of them, you know, 'Tista, that is a matter of taste, isn't it, just like color." "Yes," quoth 'Tista, emphatically, "I like roses!" But Herr Ritter interposed hurriedly. "Tista, how is your mother today?" "That is one of the things I came to talk about. She is ill; too ill to rise this morning, and she wants to see you. Will you come back with me, for I think she has something particular to say to you?" "Yes, 'Tista, I will come." He took down his old velvet cap from its peg behind the door, and stooping over the little glass dish in which he had placed the spray of my blossoms the preceding day, lifted me carefully out of the water, wiped the dripping stem, and fastened me in his coat again. I believe he did this to show the boy a pleasure. But a little while after this, and Herr Ritter sat again in the old wooden chair by the widow's couch. Early that morning she had written to her sister a long letter, which she now put into the old German's hands, begging him to carry it for her to the Casa d'Oro, and bring her in return whatever message or note Carlotta Nero should give him. "For," said the poor woman, with anxious eyes, and pallid lips that quivered under the burden of the words they uttered, "I do not know for how long my sister may be staying here, and perhaps I shall never meet her again. And since I am not able to go myself into the town today, and I fear to miss her, I thought, dear friend, you would not mind taking this for me; and, perhaps, if my sister should ask you anything, saying you know me, and--and--'Tista?" She faltered a little there, and the old man took her hand in his with the tender, pitying gesture we use to little children. "Be at ease, dear 'Lora," he murmured, "I will bring you good news. But the hour is early yet, and if I start so soon, your sister may not be able to receive me. So I'll go back and take my cup of coffee at home before I set out." He was rising, but she laid her hand on his arm gently. "Dear friend, why should you leave us? 'Tista is getting my breakfast ready now, let him get yours also." So Herr Ritter stayed, and the three had their morning meal together. There was a little loaf of coarse black bread, a tin jug filled with coffee, and some milk in a broken mug. Only that, and yet they enjoyed it, for they finished all the loaf, and they drank all the coffee and the milk, and seemed wonderfully better for their frugal symposium when 'Tista rose to clear the table. Only black bread and coffee; and yet that sorry repast was dignified with such discourse as those who sit at the tables of Dives are not often privileged to hear. For Herr Ritter was a scholar and a philosopher. He had studied from his youth the strange and growing discoveries of geology, astronomy, and chemistry; he had wrested from the bosom of Nature her most subtle secrets, and the earth and the heavens were written in a language which he understood and loved to read. I learned that he had been a student in earlier days at a German university, and had there first begun to think. From the time he was twenty, until this very hour in which he sat by the side of 'Lora Delcor, he had been thinking; and now that he had become an ancient man, with a beard of snow, and a face full of the deep furrows of a solitary old age, he was thinking still. He had given up the world in order to think, and yet, he told us, he was as far from the truth as ever, and was content to know nothing, and to be as a little child in the presence of Life and of God. And when 'Lora asked him why he had never cared to enter into the lists of argument and controversy with other learned philosophers and doctors of his time, and to make himself a name that should have been reverenced among men, he answered mildly, that he had no ambition, or if he had once had any, he had always felt the mysteries of existence too profoundly to make them stepping-stones to worldly honor. "It is impossible," he said, "that any man should be able, in this sphere of life, and under these conditions of being, to penetrate into the meaning of things,--or to touch their inmost source with fingers of flesh. All that we can attain to know is this, that we can know nothing; and the fairest answer we can give when we are questioned, is that we do not know. If, then, we know so little about life, much less can we ever hope to discern the meaning of death. And as for the lesser considerations of our daily being, what are they? Long ago I ceased to desire; ambition and love are things of the past to me." I thought the shadows of the hanging vine outside the lattice darkened over the old man's face as he spoke, and there seemed to come into his clear keen eyes a sudden mist as of tears that would not flow. Whether or not the gentle woman beside him also saw these things, I cannot tell, but when he paused she asked him softly, if his life had not been a sorrowful one? She feared he must have suffered deeply. "To all of us," he answered, "life is a sorrowful thing, because to all of us it is a mystery past finding out. Have you found it sweet, Frau 'Lora? no? nor have I. But what I have lost, if indeed I lost anything, I lost not wilfully. Well,--I have realised my destiny; the meanest can do no less, the greatest can do no more." "But you withdrew yourself of your own accord from the world, dear Herr; you buried yourself in your own solitude, and kept yourself apart from the honor you might have earned by your learning in the world? You chose to be silent?" "Yes," he echoed, mournfully, "I chose to be silent. Why should I have wasted my breath in idle disputation, or to what end should I have laboured to get a string of empty letters tacked to my name, like the flypapers of a boy's kite? I do not seek to be dragged back to the ground, I prefer to mount without a string. Everything we attempt to do falls short of its conception in its fulfilment. All glory is disappointment,--all success is failure; how acutely bitter, only the hero himself can know!" "You lave no regrets, then, Herr Ritter?" said 'Lora, with her clear earnest gaze full upon his face. "None," he answered, simply. "And will you always keep silence?" "Always, so far as I can see," said the old German. "There are quarrels enough in the world without my intervention, there are dogmas enough in the world without my enunciations. I do not think I should do any good by speaking to men. Could I make them any wiser, purer, gentler, truer than they are? Could I teach them to be honest in their dealings with each other, compassionate, considerate, liberal? If they have not heard the prophets, nor even the divine teacher of Nazareth, shall I be able to do them any good? Are not their very creeds pretexts for slaughter and persecution and fraud? Do they not support even their holiest truths, their sincerest beliefs, by organised systems of deceit and chicanery? Chut! I tell you that the very vesture which men compel Truth to wear, is lined and stiffened with lies! The mysteries of life are so terrible, and its sadness so profound, that blatant tongues do not become philosophers. Words only serve to rend and vex and divide us. Therefore I think it best to hide my thoughts in my heart, believing that in matters which we cannot fathom, silence is noblest; and knowing that when I say, `I am nothing, but God is all,--I am ignorant, but God is wise,'--all I am able to say is said. By-and-by, in the brighter light of a more perfect day beyond the sun, I shall see the King in His beauty, face to face; I shall know, even as I am known!" "This, then," asked 'Lora, gently, "is why you gave up the world, that you might be alone?" "I gave up the world, dear Frau, because I found in it all manner of oppression done in the names of justice and of Virtue. My heart turned against the Wrong, and I had no power to set it Right. The mystery of life overcame me; I refused the gold and the honours which might have been mine, if I could have been content in being dishonest. But God gave me grace to be strong, and the world cast me out of its gilded nursery. I became a man, and put away childish things." Then he rose slowly from his seat, and as he laid his hand on the door-latch, and lifted it to go out, a welcome little puff of outside air darted into the chamber, and stirred the nightshade blossoms in the breast of the old rusty coat. And I raised my dark purple head, and perceived that the mournful shadow rested again upon the face of Herr Ritter, like a cloud at sunset time, when the day that has passed away has been a day of storm. We went to the Casa d'Oro. Carlotta Nero was in her sitting-room, and would see the Herr there, said the dark-haired smiling contadina, who admitted the old German into the house. She was a native of the place, and evidently remembered him with gratitude and pleasure. So we presently found ourselves in a small well-appointed chamber, on the first floor of the Casa. On a tapestry-covered dormeuse, by the open window, and carefully protected with gauze curtains from the glare of the coming noon, reclined a handsome woman of middle age, so like, and yet so strangely unlike 'Lora Delcor, that my dusky blooms quivered and fretted with emotion, as the contadina closed the door behind us. The same delicate features, the same luxuriance of hair, but--the eyes of 'Lora! ah,--a soul, a divinity looked out of them; but in these one saw only the metallic glitter of the innkeeper's gold! They turned coldly upon Herr Ritter as he stood in the doorway, and a hard ringing utterance--again how unlike 'Lora ! for this was the dry tintinnabulation of coin--inquired his errand. "Herr Ritter, I am told. You wish to speak to me?" I observed that she allowed the old man to stand while she spoke. "Yes; Signora," he answered, mildly, "I bring you this letter; may I beg you will read it now, before I go? for the writer charged me to carry back to her your answer." He drew 'Lora's note from his vest with a gesture of reverent tenderness, as though he loved the very paper his friend had touched, and were something loath to part with it to such indifferent hands and eyes as these. Carlotta Nero took it coldly, and glanced through the close-written pages with the languid air of a supercilious fine lady. Once I fancied I saw her cheek flush and her lip quiver as she read, but when she looked up again and spoke, I thought I must have been mistaken in that fancy, or else her emotion had been due to another cause than that I had imagined. For there was no change in the ungentle glittering eyes; no softening in the dry tinkle of the voice that delivered the Signora's answer. "I am sorry I can do nothing for your friend. You will tell her I have read her letter, and that I leave this place tomorrow morning." She inclined her head as she said this, I suppose by way of indication that the Herr might accept his dismissal; and laid the letter on an ebony console beside her sofa. But the old German kept his ground. "Signora," he said, tremulously, and my blossoms thrilled through all their delicate fibres with the indignant beating of his heart; "do you know that letter comes from your sister? That she is poor, in want, widowed, and almost dying?" Carlotta Nero lifted her pencilled eyebrows. "Indeed?" she said. "I am pained to hear it. Still I cannot do anything for her. You may tell her so." "Signora, I beg you to consider. Will you suffer the--the fault of ten years ago to bear weight upon your sisterly kindness,--your human compassion and sympathy, now?" "Excuse me, Herr Ritter, I think you are talking romance. I have no sisterly kindness, no compassion, no sympathy, for any one of-- of this description." She motioned impatiently towards the letter on the console; and I thought she spoke the truth. Her Ritter was speechless. "Dolores chose her own path," said the innkeeper's wife, seeing that her visitor still waited for something more, "and she has no right to appeal to me now. She disgraced herself deliberately, and she must take the consequences of her own act. I will not move a finger to help her out of a condition into which she wilfully degraded herself, in spite of my most stringent remonstrances. All imprudence brings its own punishment,--and she must bear hers as other foolish people have to do. She is not the only widow in the world, and she might be worse off than she is; a great deal." "I am to tell her this"--asked Herr Ritter, recovering himself with a prodigious effort "from you?" "As you please," returned the great lady, still in the same indifferent tone. "It will be useless for her to call here, I cannot see her; and besides, I leave tomorrow with my husband." Again she bowed her head, and this time Herr Ritter obeyed the signal. I felt his great liberal heart heaving,--thump, thump, under the lapel of the old rusty coat; but I breathed my spirit into his face, and he said no more as he turned away than just a formal "Buon giorno, Signora." "Silence is best," I whispered. Chapter III. He went home to his little dark studio, where the sunlight so rarely entered, and where the big tomes and the skull and the fossils, and the picture of the beautiful girl and her crimson roses, greeted him with unchanged looks. All the room was pervaded with the aroma of the belladonna plant in the balcony, and all the soul of the old philosopher was filled with an atmosphere of silent liberality. He stood before the bookshelves and laid his withered fingers falteringly upon the volumes, one after another. I knew already what was passing in his heart, and my rising perfume assisted the noble sacrifice. Then he lifted the books from their places,--one, two, three,--the volumes he prized the most, ancient classical editions that must have been an El Dorado of themselves to such a student and connoisseur as he. For a moment he lingered over the open pages with a loving, tremulous tenderness of look and touch, as though they had been faces of dear and life-long friends; then he turned and looked at the picture in the dark corner. A name rose to his lips; a soft-sounding German diminutive, but I hardly heard it for the exceeding bitterness of the sigh that caught and drowned the muttered utterance. But I knew that in that moment his liberal heart renounced a double sweetness, for surely he had cherished the gift of a dead love no less than he had treasured the noble work of immortal genius. Then, with his books under his arm, he went silently out of the studio, and back again into the town, along many a dingy winding court, avoiding the open squares and the market-place, until we came to a tall dark-looking house in a narrow street. There Herr Ritter paused and entered, passing through along vestibule into a spacious apartment at the back of the house, where there was a gentleman lounging in an easy attitude over the back of an armchair, from which he seemed to have just risen, and slashing with an ivory paper-knife the leaves of a book he was holding. The room in which we found ourselves had a curiously hybrid appearance, and I could not determine whether it were, indeed, part of a publisher's warehouse, or of a literary museum, or only the rather expansive sanctum of an opulent homme de lettres. Herr Ritter laid down his three big volumes on a table that was absolutely littered from end to end with old manuscripts and curious fossilised-looking tomes in vellum covers. "Ah, 'Giorno, Herr!" said the gentleman, looking up from his book; "what is that?" He came towards us as he spoke, and opening the topmost volume of the pile which the old man had deposited on the table, examined the title-page. "Sancta Maria! " cried he, his whole manner changing in a moment from easy indifference to earnest interest: "what, you will part with this after all? Why, it is the same book I offered you two hundred pistoles for at Rome! You wouldn't sell it then at any price, you said!" "No, Signor, but I will now." Ah, it was a generous martyrdom, but the pangs of it were very grievous; what wonder that the martyr sighed a little! "The same price, then, Herr? Don't let us bargain about it. The Eminenza is liberal in these things, you know; and you're poor, my friend, I know." He nodded at the old German with a sort of familiar patronage, as though he would have said, "Don't be modest, I'll stand by you!" But the Herr seemed to notice neither words nor manner, though I thought the heart beneath the shabby coat recoiled at that instant somewhat unusually. "The same price, if you please, Signor." The Cardinal's agent, for such I guessed this tender-hearted individual before us to be, flashed a keen sudden glance of mingled scrutiny and surprise at the calm dignified face of the philosopher, whistled pleasantly a short aria of two notes, apparently with some design of assisting his mental digestion to victory over a tough morsel; and then turning to an iron-bound cashbox at his elbow, unlocked it, and produced therefrom the stipulated sum, which he counted out with much celerity, and forthwith handed to the old German. With tremulous fingers the Herr gathered up the money, as though it had been the price of a friend's betrayal, and drooped his noble head upon his breast, like a war-horse smitten to the heart in the passionate front of battle. What he had done was registered in Heaven. "Addio, Herr." "Guten-tag, Signor." Herr Ritter did not go back to his lodgings then. He went past the low house with its green verandah, blistering under the fierce noon-sun, and across the pastures to the cottage of 'Lora Delcor. She was sitting at the open door, her thin transparent palms pressed tightly together, as though she were praying, and her great fringed eyelids dark and heavy with their burden of pain. Ah! 'Lora! 'Lora! "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted!" Not in the world that men have made, daughter of earth, ah, not in that; but in the world that God shall make hereafter! "Herr Ritter! you have been? O tell me what she said! 'Tista is not here, he is gone into the woods to gather herbs." "Have you told 'Tista anything?" "About this? Nothing. I thought I would wait until I knew--" She had risen from her seat to greet him, with painful agitation; and now she staggered, and I think would have fallen, but that the old man timely caught and held her in his gentle grasp. "Be comforted, dear 'Lora," he whispered; " bring you good news." She dropped into her wooden chair and covered her face with her bloodless hands, weeping and sobbing for joy, as only women can who have suffered much and long and alone. Herr Ritter stood by, watching her kindly, and stroking his white flowing beard in silence, until she had wept her fill; and her dark blissful eyes, dreamy with the mist of fallen tears, were lifted again to his face, like caverned pools in summer refreshed with a happy rain. "What did she say? she sent me a note? a message?" Herr Ritter poured his pistoles into her lap. "I bring you these," said he, simply. "Jesu-Maria! She sent me all this! how good! how generous! but ought I to take it, Herr?" "It is for 'Tista; to pay his apprenticeship. But there is a condition, dear Frau; 'Tista is not to know who sends him this gift. He is to be told it comes from an unknown friend. When he is older he will know, perhaps." "My kind dear 'Lotta! Ah, she would have 'Tista learn to love her, then, before she tells him of her goodness! For him I cannot refuse the money; can I, Herr? But I may go and thank her myself; I may go and thank her?" "Not just yet, 'Lora. Your sister is obliged to leave this place tomorrow morning; Signor Nero's engagements compel him to proceed; and so for the present time she charged me to bear you with the gift, her greeting, and her farewell." He was looking at her with grave mild eyes, while he leant against the cottage-wall and stroked his silver beard. Daughter of earth, let God be judge; for He alone understands the heart of mortal man. As for me, I am only a flower of the dust of the ground, yet I confess I thought the deceit the old philosopher used, at least more graceful and gentle than the candour of Carlotta Nero. "'Lora: you are happy now?" She looked up and smiled in his eyes. In that smile the philosopher had his reward. Soon afterwards Battista Delcor was apprenticed to a chemist in the town, and the cup of his content was filled to the brim; but as yet, neither his mother nor Herr Ritter told him the name of his unknown friend. Then it grew towards the end of summer, and the ferns and the brake began to tarnish in the woodlands, and Dolores Delcor sickened, and failed, and whitened more and more from day to day, till at last she could do no work at all, but lived only at the hands of 'Tista and Herr Ritter. As for me, I blossomed still in the balcony beneath the green verandah, looking always into the dark studio, and noting how, one by one, the tall musty books upon the old German's shelves were bartered away for gold. But one morning, just at dawn, the woman of that sorrowful name and dolorous life passed away into her rest, while she slept. And when 'Tista, with his heart almost breaking for grief, came at the hour of sunrise to tell Herr Ritter that she was dead, the old man looked out across the hazy blue of the eastern reaches at the sea of golden splendour breaking beyond them, and answered only in his quiet patient way, that he had known it could not be for long. I heard the words and understood them, but to the boy they meant nothing. Then there came a night when the shelves stood empty, save for the skull and the fossils, and Herr Ritter wore a strange luminous aspect upon his placid face, that was not of the shadows nor of the lights of earth. For five days he had broken no bread, and his strength had failed him for want and for age, and no friend had been to visit him. 'Tista, I suppose, had his business now, and of late his presence in the dark studio had become more and more rare; not that he was unkind, but that he was full of youth, and the vigorous love of youth; and the old man's talk was wearisome to ears that delighted in sounds of laughter and frolic. And besides all this, he did not know how much he owed to the old philosopher, for Herr Ritter still kept silence. All the autumn day had been sultry, and the wind seemed to have fallen asleep in some remote corner of the sky, for there had scarce been air enough to stir the feathery tassels of the pasture grasses, and the stillness of drought and heat had been everywhere unbroken. But when I looked towards the west at sundown, I saw that all the long low horizon was shrouded in twirling cumuli, with tops of lurid flame; and great shafts of red tempestuous light, shot upward from the dying sun, launched themselves over the heavens, and hung there like fiery swords above a city of doom. Herr Ritter sat up late that night, reading a packet of old worn- looking letters, which he had taken out of a small wooden box beneath his bed; and as he read them, burning them to tinder one by one in the flame of his lamp. A little torn morsel of a note, yellow with age, and half charred with the smoke of the destruction it had escaped, fluttered down from the table through the open casement, and fell in the balcony by my side. There were words on the paper, written in stiff German characters, orthodox and methodical in every turn and upstroke and formal pothook. They were these:-- "I distinctly refuse to give my daughter in marriage to a man who is so great a fool as to throw away his chances of wealth and fame for the sake of a mere whim. Yesterday you thought fit to decline a Professorship which was offered you, on account of a condition being attached to your acceptance of it. You fancied you could not honestly fulfil that condition, and you lost your promotion. Very well: you have also lost my daughter. I see plainly that you will never be rich, for you will never get on in the world, and no child of mine shall be wife to you. Consider your engagement with her at an end." Alas! In this, then, was the story of the crimson roses! It was far into the night when the last letter dropped to powder upon the table, and the old German, not pausing to undress, laid himself wearily down upon the little bed in the dark corner to take his rest. The oil of the lamp was well-nigh spent then, and its languid flame quivered dimly upon the wan starved hands that were folded above the rusty coat, and on the noble face with its pale closed eyelids and patient lips, stedfast and calm as the face of a marble king. Over his head the beautiful woman and her crimson flowers ever and anon brightened in the fitful leaping light, and shone like a beacon of lost hope upon a life that had been wrecked and cast adrift in a night of storm. He died as he had lived, in silence; and his death was the sacrifice of a martyr, the fall of a warrior at his post. Then the tempest broke over all the Piedmont lands, and the wind arose as a giant refreshed with his rest, and drove the dark thunder- clouds upward before the sounding pinions of his might like demon hounds upon the track of a flying world. Then came the sharp swift hiss of the stinging hail and rain, and the baying of the hurricane, and the awful roll of the storm that shook the whole broad heaven from end to end. Strange! that in the tumult of such a wild and terrible night as this, so gentle and so calm a soul should be destined to pass away! Once again for a single instant I saw him, in the midst of a dazzling flash of lightning that showed me, clear and distinct as in a mirror, the whole of the silent chamber where the lamp had gone out, and the charred tinder of the burnt letters was scattered over the wooden table. He lay motionless upon the white draped bed, a hero slain in the hour of his triumph, with broad chivalrous brows and tranquil lips, whence speech had fled for ever, grand and serene in the repose of a sleep that, like 'Lora's, had borne him away into peace. For him there was no longer storm, nor darkness, nor conflict. He beheld his God face to face in the light of the Perfect Day. Slowly at last, beyond the farthest bounds of the dull landscape, broke the white ghostly lines of dawn; and the shouting of the wind, and the rage of the chattering tempest fled down the watery sky with the flying scuds of cloud, away into the distant horizon of the west. But the belladonna-plant lay dead on the stones of the balcony, torn and beaten by the hail and the wind, its trailing stem and clinging tendrils seared with the lightning, its purple blooms scattered among the shards of the broken flowerpot and the burnt tinder on the floor of the desolate studio. High above the white front of the coming morning, the wind, returning into the bosom of God, bore upon its limitless wings a twofold burden, the spirit of a perished flower, the oblation of a Gentle Life. The grave, sonorous intonation sank and ended as it had begun, like the organ-roll of minor cadences; and the countenance of the phantom grew indistinct and fluctuating, till it seemed to blend with the sombre purple atmosphere that surrounded us. But as I perceived her bright eyes still fastened upon my face, I lifted my hands imploringly towards the floating presence, and would fain have caught her fading impalpable garments. "Spirit!" I cried, "one question more! The boy 'Tista surely came with the morning, and learned at last, even though too late, who had been his unknown friend?" "Daughter of mortality," returned the dying voice of the phantom, "I cannot tell. That night my mission upon earth was ended. But some of my sister-flowers, which bloom about the graves of the dead, have sent me messages from time to time by the breath of God's messenger, the errant breeze of heaven. And they tell me that a certain rich chemist of a large town in Piedmont, a handsome prosperous young man, named Battista Delcor, has caused a great white cross to be set above the resting-place of Herr Ritter. And upon the base of the cross these words are graven in letters of gold: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this; to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world." And again, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me." VIII. St. George the Chevalier* During the last few years a growing interest in the subject of religious metaphysic has shown itself in certain strata of our intellectual world. This interest has taken many forms, and attached itself to many developments, some of which have been chiefly distinguished for ----------- * Although, strictly, neither a "dream" nor a "dream-story," this paper is included by the express wish of its writer, the interpretations contained in it being largely the product of instructions received by her in sleep.--Ed. ---------- eccentricity, and have attracted attention rather by this quality than by their intrinsic value as solid contributions to thought. Phrases, symbols, and expositions of theosophical doctrine gathered from sources unfamiliar to the ordinary Western mind, and requiring for their comprehension the study of a foreign tongue and of a strange and intricate psychology, task too much the intellect of a seeker trained in the Christian faith and seriously bent on the profitable study of its mysteries. Fain would he learn what are these mysteries without recourse to a foreign interpreter. His own Church, his own creed, he thinks, should teach him all that he seeks to know, and he cares not to set aside and reject names and symbols hallowed by the use of ages among his people, in favour of others new to his ear and tongue. If a revival of religious metaphysic is imminent among us, let it then be directed along the old channels worn deep by the prayers and aspirations of our fathers. Let us hear what the tradition of our faith has to unfold to us of arcane secrets, and to what mystic heights of transcendental thought the paths trodden by Christian saints can lead us. For the legends and visions of the saints are full of precious testimonies to the esoteric origin and nature of Catholic dogma; and the older and more venerable the tradition, the more fundamental and spiritual its character. Chiefest for us, and most important among such sacred legends, is that of ST. GEORGE the Champion, not only because he is for English folk pre-eminent among the saintly throng celebrated by our Church as each November-tide comes round, but also because his story is thoroughly typical of the class of esoteric tradition in which Catholic truth and faith crystallised themselves in simpler and purer-hearted times than these. Students of religious mystic thought can scarce do better than turn to such a tale by way of proem to more elaborate research. There, in softened outlines and graceful language, they will find an exposition of the whole argument of spiritual metaphysics, and a complete vindication of the method of theosophy. At the outset of a new line of inquiry the mind is usually more quickened to interest by parable than by dissertation. All great religious teachers have recognised this fact, and have directed their instructions accordingly. Nor can those who care to pursue a systematic study of Christian mysticism afford to despise these poetic embodiments. The highest form of thought is, after all, imaginative. Man ends, as he begins, with images. Truth in itself is unutterable. The loftiest metaphysic is as purely symbolic as the popular legend. The Catholic tale of St. George, our national patron and champion, was once of worldwide renown. But since our youth have taken to reading Mill and Huxley, Spencer and Darwin, in place of the old books wherein their ancestors took delight, the romances of the Paladins and the knights-errant of Christian chivalry lie somewhat rusty in the memories of the present generation. I propose, then, first to recite the legend of the great St. George and his famous conquest, and next to offer an interpretation of the story after the esoteric manner. According to Catholic legend, St. George was born in Cappadocia, and early in the fourth century came to Lybia in quest of chivalrous adventure. For this great saint was the noblest and bravest knight- errant the ranks of chivalry have ever known, and the fame of his prowess in arms vied with, the glory of his virtue, and made his name a terror to all evil-doers the wide world over. In Lybia there was, in those days, a city called Silena, near whose walls lay a great lake, inhabited by a monstrous and fearsome dragon. Many a redoubted knight had fallen in conflict with this terrible beast; none had obtained the least advantage over it; and now for a long time it had laid waste and ravaged all the country round, no man daring to attack or hinder it. Every day for many a long year past the miserable inhabitants of Silena had delivered up to the dragon a certain number of sheep or kine from their herds, so that at least the monster might be appeased without the sacrifice of human life. At last all the flocks and the kine were devoured, and the townspeople found themselves reduced to a terrible strait. The dragon besieged the walls of the city, and infected all the air with his poisonous breath, so that many persons died, as though smitten by a pestilence. Then, in order to save the people, lots were cast among all those who had children, and he to whom the die fell was forced to give a son or daughter to the monster. This terrible state of things had already continued for some time, when one day the fatal lot fell to the king, none being exempted from the tax. Now the king had an only child, a fair and virgin daughter. To save her from so horrible a doom he offered to any man who would redeem the tax, his crown, his kingdom, and all his wealth. But the people would hear of no exchange. They demanded that the king should bear the stroke of fate in common with the meanest citizen. Then the king asked for a reprieve of eight days to lament his child and prepare her for her death. Meanwhile the dragon, infuriated at the unusual delay, hung continually about the city gates, expecting his victim, and poisoned all the sentinels and men-at-arms who guarded the walls. Wherefore the people sent messengers to the king and reproached him with his faint-heartedness. "Why," said they, "do you suffer your subjects to die for your daughter's sake? Why doom us to perish daily by the poisonous breath of the dragon?" Then the king, perceiving that he could put off the evil hour no longer, clad his daughter in royal apparel, embraced her tenderly, and said, "Alas! dear child, I thought to see my race perpetuated in thine heirs; I hoped to have welcomed princes to thy nuptials; but now thou must perish in the flower of thy youth, a sacrifice to this accursed monster! Why did not the Gods decree my death before I brought thee into the world?" When the princess heard these sorrowful words she fell at her father's feet, and, with tears, besought his blessing. Weeping, he gave it, and folded her a last time in his arms. Then, followed by her afflicted women and a great concourse of people, she was led like a lamb to the gates of the city. Here she parted from her companions, the drawbridge was lowered across the deep moat, and alone she passed forth and went towards the lake to meet her destroyer. Now it chanced that just then St. George, in his shining armour, came riding by, and, seeing a fair damsel alone and in tears, he sprang from his horse, and hastened to offer her his knightly service. But she only waved him back, and cried, "Good sir, remount your steed and fly in haste, that you perish not with me!" But to this the Saint responded, "Tell me first why thou art here with such sad mien, and why this crowd of people on the city walls gaze after us so fearfully." And the Princess answered him, "Thou hast, I see, a great and noble heart; but make the more haste to be gone therefore. It is not meet that one so good should die unworthily." "I will not go," returned the knight, "until thou tell me what I seek to know." So she told him, weeping, all the woeful tale; and St George made answer with a brave heart, in a voice that all the townfolk on the walls could hear, "Fear not, fair maid; in the name of Christ I will do battle for thee against this dragon." Then the Princess loved him, and wrung her hands and cried, "Brave knight, seek not to die with me; enough that I should perish. There is no man living that can stand against this dragon. Thou canst neither aid nor deliver me. Thou canst but share my doom." As she spoke the words, the waters of the lake divided, and the monster rose from its depths and espied its prey. At that the virgin trembled, and cried again, "Fly! fly! O knight! stay not to see me perish!" For all answer St George flung himself upon his steed, made the holy sign of the cross, and, commending himself to Christ, lowered his lance and rushed full on the open jaws of the hideous beast. With such force he directed his aim that the dragon was instantly overthrown, and lay, disabled and powerless, at the feet of the saint. Then, with the words of a holy spell, St. George cast a great fear upon the monster, so that it was shorn of all its fury, and durst not lift its body from the dust. Thereupon the blessed knight beckoned to the Princess to approach, and bade her loose her girdle, and, without fear, bind it about the dragon's neck. And when this was done, behold, the beast followed the maid, spellbound, and thus they entered the city. But the people, when they saw the dragon approaching, fled tumultuously on every side, crying out that they would all surely perish. St. George therefore struck off the monster's head with his sword, and bade them take heart and fear nothing, because the Lord had given him grace over all evil things to deliver the earth from plagues. So, when the people saw that the dragon was slain, they thronged about St. George, and kissed his hands and his robe; and the king embraced him joyfully, praising his valour and prowess above the fame of all mortal men. And when the saint had preached to them the faith of Christ, the whole city was straightway baptised; and the king thereafter built a noble church to the honour of our Lady and of the brave St. George. And from the foot of the altar flowed forth a marvellous stream, whose waters healed all manner of sickness; so that for many a long year no man died in that city. Such is the legend of the patron saint of England,--a legend reproduced in Spenser's poem of the "Faery Queen," wherein St. George appears as the Red Cross Knight, and the Princess as Una, the mystical maid, who, after the overthrow of the dragon, becomes the bride of her champion. Need I recall to any student of classic story the resemblance between this sacred romance and that of the Greek hero Perseus, who rescued the fair Andromeda from the fangs of the sea-monster which would have devoured her? Or whose divine favour it was that directed and shielded the Argive champion; whose winged sandals bore him unharmed across sea and land; whose magic sword and helm armed and defended him? With all these symbols the name of HERMES is indissolubly connected. His are the Wings of Courage, the Rod of Science, and the Helmet of Secrecy. And his, too, is the Sword of Power, the strong and steadfast Will, by which the elemental forces are overcome and controlled, and the monsters of the abyss bound in obedience,--those spiritual dragons and chimeras that ravage the hopes of humanity and would fain devour the "King's Daughter." For Hermes--Archangel, Messenger of Heaven, and slayer of Argos the hundred-eyed (type of the stellar powers)--is no other than Thought: Thought which alone exalts man above the beast, and sets him noble tasks to do and precious rewards to win, and lifts him at last to shine evermore with the gods above the starry heights of heaven. All the heroes are sons of Hermes, for he is the Master and Initiator of spiritual chivalry. The heroes are the knights-errant of Greek legend. Like St. George and his six holy peers; like Arthur's knights; like the Teuton Siegfried, the British Artegal, and many another saintly chevalier "sans peur et sans reproche," the heroes of yet older days--Heracles, Bellerophon, Theseus, Jason, Perseus-- roamed the earth under divine guidance, waging ceaseless warfare with tyranny and wrong; rescuing and avenging the oppressed, destroying the agents of hell, and everywhere delivering mankind from the devices of terrorism, thrall, and the power of darkness. The divine Order of Chivalry is the enemy of ascetic isolation and indifferentism. It is the Order of the Christ who goes about doing good. The Christian knight, mounted on a valiant steed (for the horse is the symbol of Intelligence), and equipped with the panoply of Michael, is the type of the spiritual life,--the life of heroic and active charity. All the stories about knights and dragons have one common esoteric meaning. The dragon is always Materialism in some form; the fearsome, irrepressible spirit of Unbelief, which wages war on human peace and blights the hopes of all mankind. In most of these tales, as in the typical legend of St. George, there is a princess to be delivered,--a lady, sweet and lovely, whose sacrifice is imminent at the moment of her champion's arrival on the scene. By this princess is intended the Soul:--the "Woman of Holy Writ," and the central figure of all sacred dramatic art of every date and country. That the allegory is of such wide and ancient repute, proves the identity of the needs and troubles of humanity throughout the ages. Yet one cannot fail to be struck with its special bearing on the present state of thought. It seems, indeed, as though the story of St. George and the Dragon might have been written yesterday, and dedicated to the men and women of our own times. Never, surely, has the dragon ravaged and despoiled the earth as he does now. When at first he came upon us, it was not much that the monster's appetite demanded. It was satisfied with the sacrifice of a few superstitions and antique beliefs, which we could well spare, and the loss of which did not greatly affect us. These were the mere sheep and kine of our outlying pastures. But at length all these were swept away, and the genius of Materialism remained unsatisfied. Then we began, reluctantly, to yield up to it far more precious things,-- our religious convictions, our hold on sacred Scriptures, our trust in prayer, our confidence in heavenly providence,--the very children of our hearts, bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, endeared to us by the hereditary faith which had become even as nature itself. All these we gave and with tears; many of them had made life lovely and desirable to us, and without them our hearth seemed desolate. But complaint and resistance we knew to be in vain; materialistic science devoured them one by one; none were left in all that ancient city, the Human Kingdom, whose ruler and monarch is Mind. This our sovereign-Mind--had hitherto cherished with fond delight one lovely and only child, the Soul. He believed that she would survive and perpetuate him, and that for ever her heirs should sit on the throne of his kingdom. To part with her would be blight and ruin to all his hopes and aspirations. Better that he should never have drawn breath than that he should be forced to see the child he had brought into the world perish before his eyes. Still, with ominous persistence the terrible monster hangs about the gates of the city. All the air is filled with the pestilent effluvium of his nostrils. Relentless, indeed, is this pessimistic science. It demands the sacrifice of the Soul itself, the last lovely and precious thing remaining to despoiled humanity. Into the limbo of those horrid jaws must be swept--with all other and meaner beliefs and hopes--faith in the higher Selfhood and its immortal Life. The Soul must perish! Despair seizes the Mind of man. For some time he resists the cruel demand; he produces argument after argument, appeal after appeal. All are unavailing. Why should the Soul be respected where nothing else is spared? Forced into surrender, the Mind at last yields up his best-beloved. Life is no more worth living now; black death and despair confront him; he cares no longer to be ruler over a miserable kingdom bereft of its fairest treasure, its only hope. For of what value to man is the Mind without the Soul? Poor and puny now indeed the crown, the wealth, the royalty of Mind. Their value lay alone in this, that some day they should devolve on her, that for her they were being garnered and stored and cherished. So the dragon triumphs; and the Soul, cast out of the city, stands face to face with the black abyss, expecting her Destroyer. Then, even at that last and awful hour, the Divine Deliverer appears, the Son of Hermes, Genius of Interpretation, Champion of the Spiritual Life. As Hercules slew the Hydra, the Lion, and many another noxious thing; as Theseus the Minotaur, as Bellerophon the Chimera, as Rama the Ogre Ravan, as David the Giant, as Perseus the Gorgon and Sea-monster, so St. George slays the Dragon and rescues from its insatiable clutch the hope and pride of humanity. This hero of so many names is the Higher Reason; the Reason that knows (gnosis) as distinguished from the Lower Reason of mere opinion (doxa). He is no earthly warrior. He carries celestial arms, and bears the ensigns of the God. Thus the commemoration of St. George, and of the famous legend of which he is the hero, involves the praise of all valiant knights of the Hermetic art throughout the ages. Every divine man who has carried the enchanted sword, or worn the sandals of the winged God, who has fought with monsters and championed the King's daughter--Una, the one peerless maid--is celebrated in the person of our national patron saint. The Order to which he belongs is a Spiritual Order of the Garter, or Girdle of the Virgin; and its ensign is the armed chevalier trampling under his horse's hoofs the foul and furious agent of the nether world. The idea of knighthood implies that of activity. The pattern saint and flower of chivalry is one who gladly fights and would as gladly die in noble causes. The words pronounced of old times on the dubbing of a knight, "Be gentle, valiant, and fortunate," are not words which could realise themselves in the dullard or the churl. To the good knight, the ardent love of beauty, in all its aspects is indispensable. The fair lady of his dreams is the spiritual bright-shining of goodness, which expresses itself to him fitly and sweetly in material and visible things. Hence he is always poet, and fighter in some cause. And he is impelled to fight because the love of beauty burns so hot within him that he cannot abide to see it outraged. His very gentleness of heart is the spur of his valour. Champion and knight as well as thinker and student, the Son of Hermes is of necessity a reformer of men, a redeemer of the world. It is not enough for him to know the doctrine, he must likewise do the will of the gods, and bid the kingdom of the Lord come upon earth without, even as in the heaven within his heart. For the rule of his Order is the Law of Love, and "Love seeketh ssnot her own." The End