THE DESIRE OF THE EYES
T
HE DESIRE
OF THE EYES
JIna other $toil($
BY
GRANT AI,I,EN
AUTHOR OP "A BRIDE FROM THB DBSBRT,"
"I'HB WOMAN WHO DID" ETC., BTC
NEW YORK
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
112 FIFTH AVENUE
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Copyright. i89i.»9>'9*-'»
GRANT AXASN
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CONTENTS.
The Desire of the Eyes
Cris-Cross Love
The Governor's Story .
Dick Prothero's Luck
The Reverend John Greedy
Mr. Ghung
The Gurate of Ghurnside
An Episode in High Life
My New Year's Eve Among the Mummies
The Foundering of the " Fortuna "
The Mysterious Occurrence in Piccadilly
Garvalho ......
Pausodyne : A Great Ghemical Discovery
[5]
Page
• 7
. 25
. 61
• 74
. ^9
. 112
• 135
• 175
. 205
. 225
. 248
. 266
• 297
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES.
I.
Two IN a boat, on Windermere.
The time was late autumn ; the hour was twiM^ht.
Faint ghosts of purple mountains floated dim on the
water, backed up by the mellow glow of a reflected
sunset. Distant sounds of laughter and of singing
voices scarcely broke the tingling stillness. It was a
moment for love-making. Their souls thrilled within
them.
He dropped the oars, and leaned forward towards
the seat in the stern where Thora was sitting. ** Say
yes," he cried, eagerly. " It must be yes, Thora."
He had never called her Thora to her face till that
evening. Her name sounded sweeter to her on Lionel
Etheredge's lips than she had ever before thought it.
But still she held back Her heart struggled within
her.
" No no, Mr. Etheredge," she answered, fighting
hard against her own overpowering impulse. " Never
ask me again. I mustn't, I mustn't."
"Why * Mr. Etheredge'?" the young man cried,
gazing deep into her eyes. " I said * Thora.' Why
not, ' No, Lionel ?'" • • - •: ' ■■- : ....•>...
8 STRANGE STORIES.
The girl's lips fragied the words, faintly. " No,
Lionel," she repeated after him, flushing. It was
sweet to say " Lionel" aloud to him that night, as she
had said it a hundred times before to herself — even
though she said it now with an unwilling " No" tacked
on to it.
But Lionel Etheredge laughed a low, melodious
laugh to himself. "I have caught you, Thora!" he
exclaimed, seizing her hand in his own. " My queen,
I have caught you ! When once a woman says *No,
Lionel,* in a voice like that, it doesn't mean what it
says. It means, ' Yes, Lionel.' It means * Yes,
Lionel,' and a great deal more. It means, *I want
you ; I long for you ; I must be yours ; but I won't
let my heart say what it is bursting to tell you, I
love you, I love you.' Isn't that so, Thora ?"
Thora's face flushed a daintier crimson still in the
sunset glow. She clasped her hands hard. He had
read her ; he had read her I " Oh, Lionel," she cried,
raising her eyelids and glancing at him with the timid
confidence of a girl's first love, " how you see through
and through me !" Then she shrank away terrified.
Had she said too much ! How could she ever draw
back now, after so frank a confession ?
But the man, like a man, knew what followed as of
course. He seized her in his arms, regardless cf the
dangers of lake navigation, and kissed her a dozen
times, fervid lover-like kisses.
Thora took them without demur. She was too
queenly to resist them. It was that indeed that so
greatly charmed him in her — her instinctive dignity.
People at Windermere hardly took the Braydales for
gentlefolk; they were but "statesmen," or yeomen
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 9
farmers of a few generations standing ; and Thora
was companion to a somewhat richer aunt, who had
married a Manchester merchant of the second order.
But Lionel Etheredge saw in her a queen of women,
whom any man might be proud to have won on his
merits. "
After a moment she disengaged him gently, with
that unobtrusive imperiousness there is no disobeying.
He drew back and gazed at her. She was flushed but
beautiful. Her statuesque features were pure Greek
in outline ; but that delicate pink glow — no art could
equal it. Yet it was not for her stately beauty alone
that he loved her, he said to himself as he looked at
her. A face like that must harbor a soul beneath it.
The light that was in her lighted her eyes as she gazed
at him.
** It is for the last time, Lionel," she murmured, with
a regretful tone, as she drew back and let her lids
drop suddenly.
" No, no, Thora ; the first — the first of ten thousand,"
the young man answered, eagerly. "When once you
have said my name to me like that, you have told me
everything; you are mine for ever." *
Thora gazed at him earnestly. " I wish it were so,"
she answered frankly, with a lingering cadence. " But
it can never be, dear Lionel. I mustn't allow it. For
your sake I must be strong and say no once for all to
you. Your uncle would never consent to it — and you
owe everything to your uncle."
The young man gave a gesture of impatience. " My
uncle," he cried, half-contemptuously. " Oh, bother
my uncle I No, Thora, I know he's been kindness it-
self to me,"^for there was reproach in her eye at the
lO STRANGE STORIES.
Strong word he had checked ; " but there are matters
where a man must take no account of uncles. Here,
dearest, I shall row you out a little further again, and
we'll talk this over a bit more together. Your aunt ?
Oh, aunts are in the same box as uncles. She must
wait half-an-hour. I won't let you go till you've said
yes outright to me."
We all know the end of a colloquy that begins in
that way. When a woman is fighting against her own
heart she has a powerful antagonist ; and when that
antagonist is aided and abetted by the man she loves,
why the issue of the conflict is a foregone conclusion.
Before the boat came to land again Thora Braydale
had yielded. She would be Lionel Etheredge's wife
as soon as he had obtained his uncle's consent to the
marriage.
" But don't ask Mr. Ashby," she said tremulously,
" till Aunt Lizzie and I have got away to Antibes. I
shall be afraid to hear what he says to you when you
break the news to him. I know he won't like it. And
if he gives his consent — which he won't I'm sure — you
must come out there to marry me.'
II
IL
Mr. Ashby wore a fur-lined coat, with sable cuffs
and collar. Now you know the man. Fur trimmings
to a masculine overcoat stamp a type. And the type
is Mr. Ashby's.
He was walking with the Earl on the terrace in
Itont of his house in Hertfoi-dshire, The Virginia
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. II
creeper on the battlements was one blaze of crimson.
Mr. Ashby would not have foregone those crenellated
battlements for ten thousand pounds. They looked so
baronial ! And being a lately-enriched merchant in
the Russia trade, Mr. Ashby naturally loved to be
baronial. He adored the creeper. It redeemed the
rawness of the brand new coat of arms, carved in
brand new Bath stone, that stared him in the face
above the principal doorway.
Lionel was Mr. Ashby 's favorite nephew. For
Lionel's mother, Mr. Ashby's sister, had married a
clergyman ; and a clergyman, as everybody knows, is
a most respectable family adjunct. Mr. Ashby had
brought Lionel up, his father being dead, and had sent
him to Harrow, and in due time to Oxford, and had
made a barrister of him, not with any idea of his prac-
ticing at the bar for filthy lucre (of which Mr. Ashby
had enough for both), but because a wig and gown are
such gentlemanly properties ! It was Mr. Ashby's
dream in life, indeed, that Lionel should go into Par-
liament, and marry a lady of title — a courtesy lady.
He wanted to be able to say, " My nephew, Lionel,
and his wife. Lady Ethel," or " Lady Ermyntrude," as
the case might be, " are stopping with me at Fritting-
ton." It would be lifting himself a step nearer to
those social heavens where peers dwell apart in solemn
grandeur, lonely and self-contained, like the gods of
Epicurus.
And now, Mr. Ashby stood actually within reach of
that earthly apotheosis.
Lord Ballyshannon was only an Irish peer, to be
sure, with no rent-roll left him by the land courts to
speak of ; and Lady Norah O'Sullivan was not a name
12 < STRANGE STORIES. ' '
to conjure with as it stood, it is true ; but what of that?
An earl's daughter is an earl's daughter, " be the same
more or less," as the lawyers would put it ; and if
Lionel married her, why, she would be Lady Norah
Etheredge, which is clearly quite another matter. He
would have preferred an Ermyntrude or a Gladys to a
Norah, it is true ; but when it comes to peerages —
well — Russia merchants musn't be choosers. They
must take their title wherever they can get it. Lady
Norah was pretty ; Lady Norah was young ; Lady
Norah had the indefinable grace and charm of Irish
manners ; and Lionel had paid her very marked atten-
tion at the dance at the Walton De Trafford's last
season. If he hinted to Lionel that Lady Norah's
papa was open to an arrangement, Lionel would, of
course, be delighted to carry out his suggestion.
** And your nephew is at the Lakes ?" Lord Bally-
shannon mused, pensively, in an unconcerned fashion.
" Lucky young dog ! he has nothing on earth to do
but run about and enjoy himself ! While my poor,
dear boys, Mr. Ashby, have all had to go into Govern-
ment offices, and are working for their livings six hours
a day, as no O'Sullivan ever did before since the days
of the deluge."
Mr. Ashby did not reply, " It's high time they
began then." He contented himself by drawing him-
self up in his fur-lined coat, and remarking casually,
" Yes, I am fortunate enough to be able to make my
nephew a very handsome allowance."
"He doesn't marry?" the Earl suggested. They
both meant business ; but it is etiquette to approach
business of the delicate character by dexterous flank
movements.
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. * 1$
" No, he doesn't marry," the Russian merchant
answered with a preoccupied air, weighing his words
very carefully. *' He doesn't marry. The fact of it is,
Lord Ballyshannon, I'm a trifle particular about the
choice of a wife for him. I stand to him, you see, ' in
loco parentis.' " Mr. Ashby was proud of that phrase,
so he lingered on it lovingly. " * In loco parentis,* "
he repeated, hugging it ; " and I don't wish him to
marry unless " Mr. Ashby paused and deliber-
ated — '* unless I saw he had formed an attachment for
a lady whose — well, social position was in every way
suitable for him. If he did happen to form an attach-
ment for such a lady, I should of course be ready to
make her an ample settlement — a very ample settle-
ment." He gazed abstractedly at the Earl. "Five
thousand a year," he murmured, thoughtfully, " I
should call a handsome settlement."
** Very handsome," the Earl answered. And they
lapsed into silence.
" You think so ?" Mr. Ashby asked again, after a
moment's rumination.
" Decidedly," answered the Earl ; " if it was tied up
upon the lady."
Mr. Ashby gazed once more at him. " Oh, of
course, tied up upon her," he admitted with readiness.
" Strictly tied up upon her." And he mused again
a second. That business was arranged. He saw it in
the contented gleam in Lord Ballyshannon's eyes, in
the carefully-restrained curl of repressed satisfaction
at the corner of Lord Ballyshannon's Milesian mouth.
" Have a cigar ?" he said, carelessly, drawing his case
from his pocket. '* Let's go and look at the stables !"
But he telegraphed that evening to Lionel Ether-
14 • STRANGE STORIES.
edge at Ambleside — " Come back at once. Bally-
shannon will accept you. It's all plain sailing. The
girl will consent. I have arranged for settlements."
III.
That was a week later. Thort, Braydale had just
started with her aunt for Antibes. Lionel was glad of
that, for he couldn't quite have concealed from her the
pangs of agitation this telegram cost him ; and yet, it
would have been impossible for him to tell her the whole
truth. She would have begged him to go back and
marry the Earl's daughter.
However, he did at once what his uncle ordered
him — took the first train up to town next morning, en
route for Frittington to see Mr. Ashby on this fresh
development.
Lionel Etheredge had been brought up in the midst
of the wickedest society on earth — the " respectable,"
wealthy, commercial society in London. He had been
sent to a public school and to a fashionable college, in
order to " form desirable acquaintances," and to pick
up the point of view of the " best people." He had
been sedulously taught from his childhood upwards
that his clear duty was to trample under foot all the
holiest and purest instincts of our natu''e ; to sell his
manhood for title or position in the best market ; to
barter the prospect of his uncle's money against a
peer's daughter ; and to hold everything else, either
human or divine, subservient to the base desire for
" social advancement." He had learnt to think all
these things as part of an almost religious code of
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 1$
action. He had been assured that an early marriage,
an imprudent marriage, a marriage " beneath him,"
was the culminating point of wickedness and folly ; he
had been given to believe that right and wrong were
as dust in the scales in comparison with the claims of
the best society.
So he had always thought — till he met Thora Bray-
dale. And then, with a rush, the whole false philos-
ophy, so sedulously piled up by Mr. Ashby's hands,
had tumbled piecemeal. He saw things as they really
were. He understood that it is better, nobler, finer to
marry a woman you love and respect, a woman who
can bring out whatever there is of higher and holier
within you, than to marry the daughter of a dozen
marquises. It came to him with a flash ; and once it
had come, the vile faith in which he had been brought
up disappeared as if by magic. He stood face to face
at last with the moral realities of the universe.
It was a stormy meeting that day between uncle
and nephew. Mr. Ashby, bland at first, and smirk-
ingly self-congratulatory, grew gradually astonished,
then angry, then indignant, when he found that the
nephew whom he had brought up so well, " for the
credit of the family," was going to wreck all in sight of
port by refusing to marry Lady Norah O'Sullivan.
For some time, he could really hardly understand
that Lionel meant it. But when he did understand,
his anger was unbounded.
"You've met some girl in the north," he said, ey-
ing him sternly. " Tell me. Who was she ?"
Lionel did not attempt to deny the accusation. He
answered briefly with a restrained yet glowing descrip*
tion of Thora.
l6 STRANGE STORIES.
Mr. Ashby gazed at him in unaffected disgust. " A
companion !" he exclaimed. " An old woman's com-
panion. A girl of no family, no position, no prospects.
And you propose for her sake to chuck over Lady
Norah, who, as I understand from Lord Ballyshannon
himself, is quite willing to accept you. This is more
than foolish; this is more than boyish; this is the
conduct of a madman."
" Madman or not," Lionel answered, calmly, " I
mean to stick to it."
Then Mr. Ashby tried pathos. He had consider-
able claims on Lionel ; and Lionel did not attempt
to deny or to mitigate them. He only maintained
that in a matter like this every man must follow
the dictates of his own heart and his own conscience.
He would not marry a woman he did not care for ;
he would not abstain from marrying a woman he loved
and honored.
At last Mr. Ashby saw argument was useless
against this headstrong young idiot. The boy was
impracticable. He lost his temper. " Well, this is
the long and short of it," he burst out at last. " If
you marry the companion girl, you must shift for
yourself ; for not another penny of mine shall you
ever handle."
That was unjust, of course, for no man has a right
to shape another's life on definite expectations, and
then arbitrarily disappoint them ; but Lionel did not
say so. He rose with dignity. " Uncle," he began,
slowly, *• I have much to thank you for ; and I have
never been ungrateful. I thank you for it still ; but
what you ask of me to-day, my conscience revolts.
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. ' 17
against. I cannot obey you. I shall marry Thora —
and take the consequences."
"Then you can take your luggage too," his uncle
said, coarsely, the innate vulgarity of the man's nature
coming clearly out in that ugly quip from beneath its
shallow veneer of " nouveau riche " refinement. " You
can take your luggage, for you need never again
expect to return to Frittington."
1-ionel bowed, and backed out of the library. Half
an hour later he had left the Hertfordshire Hall for
ever, and was speeding up to town to his solitary
chambers.
IV.
It was not without pride that he telegraphed that
evening a long account of the episode to Thora. His
feeling was natural. He had suffered for her sake,
and he had his own livelihood now to make by his
own exertions. He was not afraid. He had abilities,
he knew ; and, what was far more important, many
friends among solicitors. For abilities, alas, are a
drug m the market. So little did Lionel understand
his altered position, indeed, that he spent fifteen shil-
lings on that unnecessary telegram. When you've
been accustomed to an allowance of a thousand a
year all your life, you can't realize just at once that
fifteen shillings is fifteen shillings. '
On one thing he was determined. He would run
out to Antibes and see Thora just once before he
settled down to work in London to earn himself an -
income on which to marry her,
" Running out to Antibes," seemed nothing to the
1 8 STRANGE STORIES.
young man. He had sixty or seventy pounds to his
credit at the bank. That would suffice for the pres-
ent. As soon as he got back he must set to work
hard at the bar, and meanwhile try to pick up " a little
easy journalism." It seems so simple to earn your
living by journalism — when you have never tried it.
Just a pen, ink, and paper, and there you are. But,
oh, heaven, the reality !
Next day he set out for Charing Cross by the morn-
ing train for the Riviera. He would at least see
Thora, to let her know how much he was giving up for
her sake, and how cheerfully he did it.
Calais, Paris, Lyons, he passed them all gayly enough,
flushed with youth and hope and buoyed by the con-
sciousness of having performed a meritorious — nay,
almost a heroic action. For Thora's sake he could do
or give up anything. How queenly she had looked
that evening at Windermere! How beautiful, how
noble ! He would prove himself worthy of her.
Lady Norah, indeed ! A mere Irish soubrette, prett/
and piquant, of course — but not like his Thora !
All night long the train sped through the darkness
down the interminable length of the Rhone valley, and
Lionel had time and to spare for thoughts of the future.
He was young, he was strong, and the loss of a fortune
appalled him but little. His cousin Charlie might take
it all and welcome. For himself, he would be proud to
build one up for Thora.
Marseilles came with morning ; hot coffee took off
the fatigue of the night ; and then all the next day the
train still wound on round those gracious bays and
bends of the lapis lazuli Mediterranean. The porphyry
crags of the Esterel gleamed crimson in the full flood
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 19
of the Southern sunshine; but Lionel hardly heedc'
them, all glorious as they were, so absorbed was Ik-
soul in his expected meeting with Thora. At Antibes
station he alighted from the train, and took a fiacre to
the hotel on the long white promontory. As soon as
he arrived there, forgetful of his long journey, he
hastily gulped down a second cup of cofTee, and then
went out in search of Thora. A small Provencal boy
with a very marked accent volunteered to guide him
to her aunt's tiny villa. He reached it in ten minutes
— a dainty wee chalet, surrounded by stone-pines, and
overlooking a spacious view of the deep blue Golfe
Jouan.
Lionel rang the bell hastily. A neat French maid
in a pretty cap of the country, all crimped and crinkled,
opened the door for him gingerly.
" Could he see Mademoiselle Braydale ?"
No, justement, it was impossible. Mademoiselle
was indisposed. She was receiving no one.
" Indispos d '^" Lionel echoed, drawing back aghast,
for the girl's face was serious, "Why, what is the
matter with her ?"
The maid dropped her voice.
" Actually," she answered low, " the case is isolated.
Mademoiselle has smallpox."
V.
The blow was terrible. It cut Lionel like a knife.
" But I can see her," he cried, wringing his hands at
this sad end to his little romance. " Give her my card
at once, and ask if I cannot see her."
20 STRANGE STORIES.
The girl shook her head.
" No, monsieur," she answered. "Those are the
doctor's orders. I tell you the case is strictly isolated.
She may not receive anyone."
For three weeks Lionel stopped on, chafing at the
comfortable Hotel du Cap. With Thora ill, how
could he ever go back and begin that new life in bus-
tling London ? Day after day he eat away his soul in
the long suspense of v/atching and waiting. Inquiries
every hour were all he cculd do. The law was strict ;
Thora was isolated with all the cruel and unnecessary
rigor of French sanitary legislation. It is their way
to shut the stable door after the steed is stolen.
At last she got better, and was released from dur-
ance. The very first day she was permitted by the
powers that be to see her friends, Lionel went round
early to the chalet, all eagerness. To his great sup
prise, he was given a message that Thora could not
receive him. In vain he remonstrated. The little
maid was adamant. " Mademoiselle said no — not on
any account, Monsieur Etheredge !"
What on earth could this mean ? He fumed and
fretted. An hour later, a note in Thora's handwrit-
ing arrived at the hotel. He tore it open, breathless.
" Dearest Lionel," it said, " you most not come near
me. You must never see me again. My own pride
and vanity will not permit it. Think of me as I was ;
forget what I have become. Go home and marry Lady
Norah, I implore you. My darling, my darling, I love
you too much to let you see me now.
_ . . " Your heartbroken,
: ' "Thora."
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. 21
What could Lionel do but sit down at once and
write her a passionate letter of unalterable affection,
declaring that no matter what the disease might have
done, he was still, as ever, her devoted Lionel? And
he ..: ' ;nt it, every word. He loved her to distraction ;
loved her for herself, and also for all he had proposed
to give up for her. If you want to love anybody,
take my word for it, there is no way so sure as ' 3
make for their sake some tremendous sacrifice.
Even so, for three days, Thora refused to see him.
At last, overcome by his entreaties, and her own long-
ing to see him, she yielded and received him.
Lionel entered the little salon full of hope and cer-
tainty. The blinds were half drawn ; the light was
uncertain. But even so, the truth was evident. Thora
rose to greet him, and held out both her hands with a
wild, despairing gesture. She knew the worst already.
All she could say was, ** Lionel ! Lionel !"
He gazed at her in silence. He could not utter a
word. The shock was too horrible. Yet the voice
was Thora's !
She paused a second, and looked hard at his face.
She read his whole emotion there. He was mute with
horror, with anguish, with revulsion !
At last, in turn, he spoke just one word, " Thora !"
Thora burst into tears. Lionel seated himself beside
her. He took her hand. He put his arm round her
tenderly, and mingled his tears with hers. They could
say no other word. Their grief was speechless.
At last, a change came. Thora held him off bravely.
She broke into words. She could never marry him
now. He must go home at once and make his peace
with Lady Norah O'SullivaHv
22 STRANGE STORIKS.
Lionel loved her still. He could not help but love
her. He leant forward passionately, and declared
from his heart that, come what might, he still must
marry her. Yet even as he spoke, Thora saw in his
face a terrible shadow of shrinking. She held him off
once more. " Never, never!" she cried. " For your
sake, Lionel, I can't wreck your whole life so !"
VL
Three days more passed ; and after that first inter-
view, Thora refused again to see her lover. Many
times daily Lionel called at the chalet with eager little
notes ; Thora refused to receive him. He had not
been able to hide on his face the shock of that first
sight of what she had now become ; and her woman's
pride would not allow her any longer to meet the lover
who had looked with such eyes on her. It was inevit-
able, she knew ; her own glass told her that ; yet, still,
she could not bear it. She shut herself up in her room,
and brooded silently.
At last, one calm evening, she yielded to his entreat-
ies, and resolved, in memory of that golden evening
at Windermere, to go out on the water with him.
She waited till dusk ; he could see her less so, and she
could see less the emotion on his features. The even-
ing came. She stole forth, closely veiled, and met
him by the water. In the dusk, Lionel could make
out only the beautiful queenly figure, beautiful and
queenly still ; he could hear only the soft voice, mur-
muring lower than ever. They stepped into the boat,
THE DESIRE OF THE EYES. ' 23
and pushed out into the bay. The evening lights
painted the Esterel purple; a deep glow of sunset
gilded the gray crags on the Ee Ste. Marguerite.
Once clear round the point, Lionel had forgotten
everything. It was Thora's figure at the stern, Thora's
voice that resounded so musically on the water. He
loved her as dearly as ever he had loved her. Indeed,
he had never once ceased to love her ; for the first
shock was but the inevitable recognition of so great a
change. He leant forward to her tenderly. He
poured out words of love. He was himself, as at
Windermere. Thora listened, and allowed herself to
forget for a moment. They thought of Lucy Hutchin-
son's words, how God had repaid her lover's devotion
in a similiar case by restoring her to him, as the aged
lady wrote afterwards with simple unself-consciousness.
"as beautiful as ever." The evening wore on. They
drifted out unconsciously. The sea was so calm, the
night so lovely, they never took thought of time or
space ; they just talked and floated. Bit by bit Thora
gave way. Lionel's arm was around her. His voice
was at her ear. His words were tender. At last,
yielding suddenly to a womanly impulse, she clasped
him in her arms and kissed him ecstatically. " Why
need it matter, darling ?" she cried. " What is it to
you and me ? You love me ; I love you. Let it be
as you will. After all, I have tried you twice, and
found you constant. Lionel, my Lionel, I will trust
you. I will marry you !"
After that they sat still, hand locked in hand, for
twenty minutes of unalloyed happiness.
24 STRANGE STORIES.
VII.
Then the truth came upon them. They had drifted
away out of sight of land. Even the peaks of the
Esterel were no longer visible. That treacherous cur-
rent had carried them seaward unawares. The wind
was rising. With the deadly suddenness of a moun-
tain squall, the Mistral was upon them. The sea rose
— rose — rose — and ever rose more furious. Lionel
plied the oars with all his might in vain ; he could see
only too clearly he was making no progress. An hour
passed slowly in such a wild struggle. Then he laid
them down, helpless, and took his seat beside Thora.
He clasped her in his arms. She nestled into them
naturally.
" Darling," he said, "this is the end. We can never
live through it."
She looked at him through the gloom. Her voice
hardly trembled. *' I know it dearest," she said, with
a brave pressure of the hand. " It is better so. We
have had one happy hour. We could never have had
it again so pure and so happy. I have proved your
love, and found it true as steel. I want no more now,
but to die in your arms. To live till to-morrow would
spoil the perfect dream of it."
And so they two went down in their moinent of
happiness.
•i
CRIS-CROSS LOVE.
I.
They were simply heart-broken. Yes, I repeat it,
heart-broken. No diamond cement that ever was
made sufficed to repair the injured organs. For when
Philip Oilman left London to go out to India, he cried
his eyes red over his sad farewells to Aggie Oswald.
They two were in love with one another — madly in
love — as boys and girls will be, with that unalterable
affection which endures for eternity — or, to be more
precisely mathematical, for six months at least, on an
average computation. Philip had been placed third in
the India Civil competition ; and the boundless pros-
pective wealth which that position promises (in depre-
ciated rupees) he proceeded forthwith to lay at the feet
of pretty little Aggie. And no wonder he did so ; for
she was an airy, fairy little butterfly as ever flitted
through a ballroom among admiring lads of one-and-
twenty. Everybody who saw her fell a victim at once
to that fluffy brown hair and that arch little smile of
hers. No Oxford undergraduate was ever known to
resist that tripping tongue ; no subaltern at Aldershot
was ever known to withstand the winning grace of
those pinky-white cheeks and those cherry-red lips of
Aggie Oswald's,
[25]
^6 STRANGE STORIES.
But Philip Gilman was the hero who bore off the
prize. What wonder, when he could make love to her
in Tamil and Telugu, almost as fluently as in English
itself ? Not that Aggie understood one word of either
of those learned tongues — a little bad French bounded
the tale of her linguistic accomplishments — but the
glamour of them shone through to her from his thought-
ful brown eyes, which spoke a language universally
understanded. He was a clever fellow, Philip, and an
earnest one into the bargain ; and if he thought him-
self desperately in love with the pretty fluffy hair and
the laughing mouth, why, many a good man has made
the same sort of mistake at one-and-twenty. We were
one-and-twenty ourselves once, you and I — though it's
a long time since ; and were the girls we then thought
we could never be happy without the same as those
with whom we finally decided upon passing a mundane
existence together ? I trow not, if I recollect it aright ;
our hearts got broken — and very decently mended
again — some half dozen times before we were thirty.
Well, the night before Philip left London he spent
at the Oswald's, as in duty bound ; and even that stern-
est of chaperons, little Aggie's mamma, under those
special circumstances, left them alone in the drawing-
room for a couple of hours of agonized leave-taking.
Philip was particularly certain as to their plans for the
future.
"I shall save up every anna, Aggie," he said — he
spoke of annas familiarly, instead of speaking of far-
things, in order to give a touch of local color, and to
prove his minute acquaintance with that India he had
never yet seen — ** I shall save up every anna, Aggie,
till I'm able to send home for you to come out and
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. , 2/
marry me ; and when I've got enough to do it, you'll
fly across the sea to me like a swallow flying home —
won't you, my darling?"
Aggie laid the fluffy head very trustingly on the
future Viceroy's shoulder ; she knew he would never
stop till he was at least a Viceroy.
" Of course I'll come to you, dearest," she answered.
" I shall count every minute of the time till you send
for me. But will it be very, very long, do you think ?
How soon do you suppose you'll be in a position to
marry, Phil ?"
Phil stroked his struggling mustache (you could see
it distinctly with a powerful pocket-lens) and assumed
an air of adult and manly wisdom.
" Oh, not so very long, Aggie," he replied, quite
airily, " five or six years at the outside, I expect. I
mean to get on, and to save every anna."
Not for worlds would he have consented to state
the fact on such a night as that in mere commonplace
pennies.
Aggie's cherry-red mouth pursed itself up into some-
thing very like a pretty little pout, — only much more
alluring.
" Five or six years !" she cried, alarmed. " That's
an awfully long time, Phil ! I wish it wasn't so long.
I can't bear to do without you."
** But you can wait for me, darling," Phil cried, with
a loving look into those liquid hazel eyes, " You can
wait for me, can't you ? Only five or six years ! And
I would wait an eternity for you."
I may observe in passing, he was very much in love
with her.
" Oh, yes, I can wait for you," Aggie answered,
aS STRANGE STORIES.
drying her eyes the twentieth time. " A hundred
years, if necessary. I never can love anybody else in
the world but you. It isn't that so much. It's the
time while I'm waiting. You don't know how dread-
ful it is for me to have to do one day without you !"
And so, with many genuine tears, and many loving
protestations — all true as steel at the time — that even-
ing wore away, and Phil took his departure. Next
morning, he left by the overland mail, via Brindisi.
Aggie saw him off, dissolved in tears, at Charing Cross
Station, and was left behind sobbing. For many
nights after she cried herself to sleep. You may laugh
at her, if you like — you who hold the young palpita-
ting human heart a fit object for your gentle middle-
aged sarcasm — as for me, I can not. At eighteen
which was then exactly Aggie Oswald's age, the loss
of a lover, gone to India for six years, is a serious
matter. There are of us in the forties who feel these
things still. Let a girl in her teens have our sincerest
sympathy.
II.
Five years rolled on, and Phil Oilman prospered.
He wasn't quite a Viceroy, to be sure, but he was a
Deputy Collector. Not a man in the Deccan got on
better than he did. His Excellency was pleased more
than once in that short time to promote Mr. Philip
Oilman to successive posts in successively dreary up-
country districts. Phil saved and scraped, and all for
Aggie. At the end of five years, with his own little
income, and his rising pay, he began to feel himself in
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 29
a position to think about marrying. He would send
home for Aggie, now, and ask her to come out to him.
He could redeem that long-standing pledge, and make
himself, and her, happy.
Five years had rolled on ; but they had rolled on
(as observant souls may often note to be the case) by
one day at a time, through twelve months of each
year, with long, slow regularity. Now, all those
months, Phil Oilman had written by every mail to
Aggie ; and by every mail he had heard in return
from Aggie again. At first he had sat down to write
each time with ardent affection ; he had torn open
Aggie's letters, when they f'ame, with eager expect-
ancy. But as months passed by, and he never saw
Aggie, this first flush of young love began to die
away imperceptibly, until at last, almost without
knowing it himself, he sat do\/n so many times a week
to write his budget as a pure matter of duty. Some-
times it rather worried him to have to find something
fresh to say to Aggie ; he wrote, not so much because
he wanted to write, as because he knew Aggie would
be disappointed not to get a letter. And so she would
have been, indeed ; she would have cried very bitterly
that Phil should have neglected her. Phil was always
so punctual ; what could be the meaning of this de-
lay ? Was it possible that Phil, her dear Phil, was
forgetting her.
There's a vast deal of difference, however, between
twenty-one and twenty-six. For those five long years
Phil had saved every penny (he said penny quite
naturally now, annas having grown only too common
and unclean to him) ; and at the end of that time,
when he began to think to himself he might now send
30 STRANGE STORIES.
home for his beloved Aggie — why, a strange sort of
discovery broke suddenly over him. Great heavens !
what was this ? Was he overjoyed at the prospect ?
Did he hail with effusion the advent of that long-wished
for, that much-desired, day ? Was he half mad with
delight, half wild with expectancy ? If the truth must
be told — oh, dear me, not a bit of it ! It occurred to him
all at once that for the last two years, or thereabouts,
he had been saving and writing — not for pure, pure
love, but by mere force of habit. The original flame
had died down ; the original impulse had worn itself
out ; and now, in their place, strange critical doubts
and fears obtruded all unawares their unwelcome
faces.
Did he really love Aggie quite as well as he used to
do ? Did Aggie really love him quite as well as she
once said she did ? Had they two changed much in
those five years of absence ? Would Aggie's fluffy
hair be quite as entrancing and as errant as ever?
Would Aggie's simplicity be as engaging as of old ?
Or, again, let him see ; she was eighteen then ; would
there be any simplicity left at all at twenty-three, he
wondered ? Looking at the matter philosophically
(and Indian Civil servants are ex-officio philosophers
— it's part of the examination), he saw for himself they
were both five years older, and five years might have
made a deal of difference to both of them. Each
might have developed, and each might now take a
fresh view of the situation and of the other. Objec-
tively, Aggie might be somebody else ; subjectively,
he himself might think quite diversely of her. Now,
when a man begins to talk of object and subject in
these matters at all, you may be perfectly sure the
CKIS-CROSS LOVE. 3 1
fine flush of love's young dream is pretty well over
with him. We certainly don't philosophize in the first
full rapture. Phil Oilman realized all at once that
love's young dream was well over with himself ; he
was aware that the idea of Aggie's arrival in India
awakened within him, not transports, nor even calm
joy, but a certain languid curiosity as to what she
would look like, and how he would feel to her.
Nevertheless, mind you, Phil Oilman was a man of
honor. He stuck to his guns. He hadn't the slight-
est idea of going back upon his word, or even of let-
ting poor Aggie herself doubt the depth of his affec-
tion for her. Perhaps this was wrong — who knows?
Perhaps the wisest thing after all, for a man to do in
such a case, is just to make a clean breast of it, rather
than involve himself and the girl he once loved, in a
marriage that may prove unhappy for both of them.
But at any rate, Phil Oilman didn't think so, and
somehow, do you know, I feel as if any man of honor,
in Phil Oilman's place, would have acted just as he did.
There's something so horribly cold-blooded in telling
a girl who has waited five years for you, you really
don't know whether you love her any longer or not,
that only a very brutal man, I fancy, could ever con-
sent to do it. It may be wise to act like that, no
doubt ; but there are qualities, after all, more to be
prized than wisdom. I wouldn't give twopence my-
self, dear friends, for a young man so wise as all that
comes to.
So, after a brief mental struggle, Phil wrote to
Aggie, as impassioned a letter as he could easily pump
out — best epistolary fashion — to say that now at last
the desire of their hearts for so many years was to be
32 STRANGE STORIES.
fully gratified, and they two were to meet once more
and be happy forever. To be sure, when the letter
was finished, Phil read it over once or twice, leaning
back in his bungalow lounge, with a critically dissatis-
fied air ; its ardor seemed rather wanting in spontane-
ity, he fancied ; it had no longer the genuine impas-
sioned ring of four or five years ago. But what would
you have? If one can't quite rise to the height of
such an occasion, of one's own mere motion, one must
try to gush gently, for the lady's sake alone, with liter-
ary aptitude. A man would be hardly a whole man,
Phil supposed, if he consented to let a woman see he
had begun to forget her.
However, what the letter lacked in lover-like ardor,
it fully made up in business-like definiteness. The
Oswalds were poor ; they could hardly have afforded
to send Aggie out to him. So Phil had arranged for
all that — arranged for it generously. He inclosed a
check for a most substantial amount. He hoped it
would suffice to pay Aggie's passage, and begged to
be permitted to set her up in a proper Indian outfit.
She was to meet him in Bombay, where she could stop
at the house of a common friend (I daren't say "mu-
tual," a much more sensible word, between you and
me, because some silly, superfine people raise micros-
copic etymological objections) ; and there she was to
be married a day or two after landing. Phil flattered
himself that his check was a tolerably expansive one.
If he didn't love Aggie quite as devotedly as he used
to do, at least she should never discover the change by
pecuniary symptoms.
Now, strange to say, when Aggie Oswald received
that letter, though she broke it open all of a flutter
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 33
to see whether Phil wanted her to come out to him at
last, she felt hardly so much delighted with the news
it contained as she knew she ought to be. On the
contrary, she took it down to her mother, half-crying.
** What is it, darling ?" her mother asked.
And Aggie, trembling violently, handed it to her to
read. When her mother had read it, Aggie laid that
fluffy head on her shoulder and sobbed aloud.
" Now it comes to the pinch, mother," she said,
quivering, ** it seems so hard to go ; so hard to leave
you and sail alone so far across the sea. Five years
ago it didn't. You see, it's so long since I saw dear
Phil — he seems almost like a stranger. I can't bear to
think I've got to leave you all, and go away five thou-
sand miles to a stranger — even though I love him. He
may be so awfully changed, you know. His photo-
graph's quite altered. And he may think me so dif-
ferent now from his own ideal of me."
Her mother gazed at her in speechless surprise.
Five years are not nearly so long at sixty as at three-
and-twenty.
** But surely, Aggie," she said, " you wouldn't be so
ungrateful to our dear Phil as to throw him over now,
and refuse to go out to him, — he who's been true to
you so long and behaved so generously ! It would
break his heart, poor fellow ! It would just break his
heart for him ! Think of him there ! toiling and moil-
ing, and saving and scraping, out in India so long, and
dreaming of you all the while, and writing every mail
to you ! Why, Aggie, what can you mean ? You
could never refuse him."
" Refuse him ! Oh, dear no, mother," Aggie fal-
tered out, quite shocked, herself, at the bare suggestion.
34 STRANGE storip:s.
" I didn't mean that. I meant — I only meant I didn't
feel quite so glad, now it's actually come, as — I always
used to think I should. I begin to wonder now what
Phil will be like, after five years* absence. I've pic-
tured him to myself just as he was when we saw him
last. I'm trying to picture him now as five years will
have made him."
Mrs. Oswald gave a sigh of distinct relief. It would
really have been terrible if Aggie had lost five years of
her life — and the best years, too — on this clever young
fellow in the Indian Civil, and then thrown him over-
board. At twenty-three, after such a long engage-
ment, her chances of placing herself would be seriously
impaired. And though she had other opportunities,
and was made much of everywhere, yet Philip was
really a very eligible young man — and a Deputy Col-
lector ! Mrs. Oswald set herself forthwith to check,
by every means she knew, these vague misgivings.
Aggie must not be encouraged in her doubts about
Phil. She must be made to feel she was in honor
bound to go out and marry him.
III.
While he waited for his answer at his up-country
station, Phil Gilman himself half hoped Aggie might
by this time see things in the same light as he did ;
she might perhaps be willing to release him from an
engagement which had ceased to be a reality to either
of them. No doubt she too had changed a great deal,
meanwhile; and there Phil was quite right ; Aggie
had deepened and broadened from a girl into a wo-
ft
CRISCROSS LOVE. 35
man. She was no longer the mere light-hearted, fluf-
fy-headed coquette, leading a butterfly existence in
Bayswater ballrooms. Pretty and rosy-cheeked and
cherry-lipped as of yore, she had developed mean-
while three additional features — a mind, and a will, and
a decided conscience.
These very acquisitions, however, further strength-
ened as they were by her mother's exhortations, led
Aggie to sacrifice herself, a modern Iphigenia, on the
altar of duty, and to write Phil Gilman a letter in re-
turn, all replete with ardent expressions of delight and
constancy. It was a letter to thrill a lover's heart
with joy. Phil Gilman read it with very modified rap-
ture. Not that he was quite sure he wasn't in love
with Aggie even now. Till he saw her, how could he
say? He might be, and he mightn't. He had been
in love with the Aggie he had left behind ; he would
perhaps be in love with the Aggie who was coming
out to him. But after five long years — and at twenty-
three, too — you must confess it's a lottery. So he
waited in no small-tremor of doubt and misgiving.
What a terrible thing if he had to tie himself for life, out
of pure chivalry, and to prevent disappointing her, to
a tangled mass of fluffy brown hair, with nothing else
in particular on earth to recommend it!
When a man thinks like that, you may be tolerably
sure his affections have somehow declined a trifle from
their youthful ardor.
However, Phil put the best face upon it, like a gen-
tleman, and waited with outer calm at his up-country
station. He waited a week ; then, reflecting that he
must meet his bride at Bombay, he applied for a
month's leave, in the time-honored way, " on urgent
;36 STRANGE STORIES.
private business." His Excellency was pleased to
grant the request ; and Phil Gilman went down to
Bombay accordingly, much trembling in soul, to meet
his Aggie.
Of course he couldn't go to the house of the friend
with whom Aggie was to stop in the short interval
between her arrival and her marriage ; so he put up
with another acquaintance of official distinction — a man
who had been his superior officer at his first country
station. His host was Sir Edward Moulton now, and
a K.C.S.I., and a member of Council ; you must have
been in India yourself in order fully to appreciate the
exalted dignity of a member of Council. He lived in
a very fine house on Malabar Hill, with a very fine
view of the sea and the city ; and was supposed to
keep the very best horses, to drink the very best wine,
and to give the very best dinners in the whole Presi-
dency.
When Phil Gilman arrived at Sir Edward's door,
half an inch deep in generous dust from the lavish
hospitality of the Great Indian Peninsular Railway (a
line which endows every traveller free of charge with a
small landed estate to carry away home with him), he
was met on the threshold by a dream of beauty in a
loose white dress which fairly took his breath away.
The dream of beauty was tall and dark, a lovely
woman of that riper and truer loveliness that only
declares itself as character develops. Her features
were clear-cut and delicate and regular ; her eyes large
and lustrous; her lips not too thin, but rich and tempt-
ing ; her brow was high, and surmounted by a luscious
wealth of glossy black hair, which Phil never remem-
bered to have seen equaled before for its silkiness of
>
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 37
texture and its strange blue sheen, like steel, or the
grass of the prairies. A queenly grace distinguished
her mien. Her motion was equable. As once the
sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were
fair, and straightway coveted them, even so Philip Gil-
man looked at that dignified stranger, and saw at the
first glance she was a woman to be loved, a soul high-
throned, very calm and beautiful. *
There was much excuse for him. He had been liv-
ing for three years in an up-country station, where he
had never once seen a real live white woman ; and
under such circumstances the mere sight of one's
fellow-countrywomen (believe one who has tried), is a
delight and a joy to one. And then, she was so beau-
tiful, with such a high type of intellectual beauty ; no
mere fluffy-haired schoolgirl with red cheeks and lips,
but a genuine woman, with soul in her face, and a per-
vading sense of grace and dignity in all her movements.
When she stepped forward and smiled and held out
her hand to him, Phil's heart sank instantly. To think
that in a world which incloses such infinite possibilities
as these, he should have tied himself down blindfold —
for it was really blindfold — to fifty-five years of pretty
Aggie Oswald !
The vision of beauty stepped forward, and held out
one frank hand.
*' Mr. Gilman ?" she said, inquiringly. "Ah, yes, I
thought so. My uncle's so sorry, but he had to go
out, and he asked me to receive you. You've heard
my name, I dare say; I'm his niece — Miss Trevel-
yan."
Phil accepted the proffered hand with some slight
misgivings — he was so very dusty; and I blush to
38 STRANGE STORIES.
write it, but something much like a little thrill of
delight ran through him at touch of her slender
fingers. If poor Aggie (at Port Said) could have
seen her lover just that moment, she would have
turned back that very day and returned by the
homeward-bound mail to London. Though, to be
sure, poor Aggie herself was that moment engaged
in a very desperate and heartfelt flirtation with —
but I will not anticipate.
Phil looked down at his coat, and stammered out
feebly some 'narticulate apology.
" I'm really not fit for lady's society," he mur-
mured, with a glance at the landed estate; "from
Poonah here is so terribly dusty !"
Freda Trevelyan smiled. " Oh, we've all done it
ourselves," she answered ; " I came from Poonah last
week, so I know how to sympathize with you. One
feels as if the Indian Ocean didn't hold enough
water ever to wash one quite clean again. I won't
ask you into the drawing-room now and keep you
sitting there in discomfort. You'd better go up to
your own room at once ; and as soon as you've got
rid of the first few layers, a cup of tea'll be ready
down here for you."
She said it with a friendly smile that was the
warmest of welcomes. Phil tumbled upstairs as best
he could, and opened his portmanteau. He was a
good-looking fellow, with a most manly mustache ;
and I am bound to admit he took more pains over
his dressing that evening than was strictly necessary,
or indeed desirable in Aggie's interest. He endued
himself with care in his best afternoon coat, and his
newest irnported European tie, and he surveyed
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 39
himself approvingly in the glass before he descended
with slow steps to the drawing-room. I'm sure I
don't know V/hat an engaged young man could mean
by taking so much pains over his personal appearance ;
he could certainly have taken no more if it was Aggie
herself, not a strange young lady, who awaited him in
the drawing-room.
When he went down, he found Freda Trevelyan
already seated before a most hospitable teapot. You
must have lived in a hot climate at least once in your
life in order thoroughly to appreciate tne art of tea-
drinking. One would say beforehand that nobody
would care for hot drinks with the thermometer at
ninety. Experience proves the exact contrary. The
hotter the weather gets, the more hot tea does human-
ity absorb, and the better does it love it. Phil threw
himself into an easy-chair, and looked, if not engaged,
at least engaging. He was considered the handsomest
man on the Boolanuggur hills ; and he certainly looked
it that afternoon. There's nothing to make a man
look and talk his best like a pretty woman. It was
what is euphemistically described as " the cool season "
at Bombay, and the windows of the veranda were
flung wide open. The view over the sea was beautiful
and refreshing. Phil could even hear the gentle plash
of the waves on Malabar Point ; and though that
deceptive surf is by no means so cool as it looks and
sounds, yet it was delightful to his ear after three long
years spent away far inland He enjoyed that after-
noon more than he had ever enjoyed anything for
months and months. Poor Aggie's chances of a whole
lover's heart seemed to fade and pale at each succes-
sive half hour.
40 STRANGE STORIES.
For Miss Trevelyan, it seemed, was simply charm-
ing. She talked so admirably. And besides she was
so frank. She had heard beforehand, of course, that
Phil had come down to Bombay to meet his future
bride ; and when a woman knows a man's already
monopolized, she treats him as if he were married ;
that is to say, she talks to him like a rational creature,
and not like an animal specially created for the sole
purpose of flirtation. The consequence was that
before half an hour was over, Freda Trevelyan and
Phil Oilman were laughing and chatting together as if
they'd known one another for half their lives instead
of for just about thirty minutes.
"And your bride's coming out on the Indus?"
Freda said, after one short pause. " How soon do
you expect her?"
" She was telegraphed from Port Said this morn-
ing," Phil answered, with a consciousness of profound
hypocrisy, for he felt the subject was really far more
interesting to Miss Trevelyan than he himself could
pretend to find it.
" How anxious you must be for the steamer to
come in!" Freda exclaimed, with fervor. "I'm so
glad you came here. It's so nice to feel you must both
be so happy."
" Oh, very nice indeed," Phil answered, hesitating.
" Have you her photograph ?" Freda put in. " I
should so much like to see her."
" Yes, I've got it upstairs — in my portmanteau, some-
where," Phil answered, unconcernedly. " I'll bring it
down when I go up. It's so awfully kind of you to
want to see her."
" Upstairs in your portmanteau !'* Freda cried, smii-
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 41
ing astonishment. ** Not in your breast pocket ! And
to be married in a fortnight. Oh, Mr. Oilman, that
would never do for me! Tm afraid you're a terribly
lukewarm lover !"
" Oh, not lukewarm, I hope," Phil interposed, with
an answering smile. "Only you see it's like this —
we've been engaged five years, and a little bit more,
and by the end of that time one begins to get — well,
calmer and more philosophic."
Freda shook her beautiful head.
** That won't do," she answered again. " I hope my
lover, if I ever get one, won't talk like that. I never
could stand it. I shall require him to be desperately,
wildly in love with me ! If he tries to be philosophic,
why, he'll have to go elsewhere !"
Phil was just on the point of answering, " Ah, but if
a man was in love with you, that would be altogether
different ;" but politeness, to say the truth, rather than
loyalty to Aggie, prevented him from voicing the
thought that was in him.
** Besides," Freda went on, " if you were very much
in love — at least as I count it — you wouldn't have
said you'd bring her photograph down when you next
went up. You'd have rushed up for it at once, that
very moment, and exhibited it with pride and joy and
confidence. And you wouldn't have said it was kind
of me to want to see her. You'd have taken it for
granted every human being was dying to behold her
beautiful face, and you'd have considered it a great
favor to me to show me her portrait."
Phil laughed in spite of himself.
"You're quite right," he said, frankly. "That's just
how I felt — some four or five years ago. But one can't
42 STRANGE STORIES.
keep it up to that white heat, you know — at least
not "
" At least not, when ?" Freda put it, as he hesitated.
" Well, at least not when you don't see the girl you
love for iive years or thereabouts," Phil answered,
with rare candor.
"Oh, Mr. Oilman!" Freda cried. "I'm afraid
you're very fickle !"
" No ; not fickle," Phil answered, growing hot and
red. He couldn't bear to be called perfidious by such
beautiful lips. He couldn't bear such lovely eyes to
look so reproachfully across at him. Then he leant for-
ward gravely. " Miss Trevelyan," he said, with some
earnestness, " you miistn't think of me like that. I
really couldn't bear that you should imagine me want-
ing in due — consideration for Aggie. But remember,
we were young, we were both very young, when I went
away from England. Aggie was eighteen, and I was
one-and-twenty. Naturally, I hardly know what sort
of girl she may have grown into by this time. Nat-
urally, she can hardly know what sort of man she's
going to marry." He paused a second ; then he spoke
still more seriously. " At the time we both loved one
another dearly. It was heart-rending to part. If we'd
married then and there, we should no doubt have gone
on loving one another just as dearly to this very day.
But then, we should have seen a great deal meanwhile
of each other. As it is, conceal it as we may from our-
selves, we must meet as strangers. My first anxiety
will be to see what kind of girl has come out to marry
me ; Aggie's first anxiety will be to see what kind of
man she has come out to marry. May I speak to you
frankly — only in self-defense, you know, and to repel
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 43
»
your charge of fickleness ? Well^ till the moment ar-
rived when I could send home for Aggie, my one feel-
ing was a longing to be able to marry her. I looked
at her photograph day and night with a distinct rap-
ture. I looked at it often. It gave me a thrill to look
at it. It was only on the very day that I wrote home
to ask her to come out to me that another side to the
question first occurred to me. Then I thought to my-
self, all at once, It's not the Aggie of to-day I'm
looking forward to see at all, but the Aggie of five
years ago. What reason have I to think she will be to
me now at all the same person ? I loved the girl of
eighteen when I left England ; and if that girl could
come out to me now, I would love her just equally.
But how do I know I shall love the girl of twenty-three
who now bears the same name? And if I find her
altered out of all recognition, what a terrible thing for
her! What a terrible thing for me ! What a blow for
both of us ! How appalling to feel you're marrying a
woman you don't really love. How appalling for her
to be marrying a man who can't really love her. We're
taking one another now in the dark, put the best face
you can upon it."
" You're too frightened, Mr. Oilman," Freda an-
swered with that charming smile of hers. " The
moment you see her, the moment she sees you, all your
old love will return again with a rush. I'm sure it
will, because I can see you're in earnest. You think
of her as well as of yourself; and with you men, when-
ever a man thinks of the woman as well as of himself,
you may be perfectly sure he's a really good fellow."
44 STRANGE STORIED.
IV.
At Port Said meanwhile, Aggie was sitting on deck
with that delightful young man who came on board at
Brindisi. He was tall and slight and had a straw-
colored mustache. Aggie had always had a sneaking
fancy for straw color. And besides he was a soldier,
and aide-de-camp to the Lieutenant-Governor of
Somewhere-Up-Country. (Aggie's Indian geography
was as deliciously vague as an Indian secretary's ; and
" somewhere-up-country " was about as definite to her
as any particular name of any particular district. She
regarded all India, indeed, as naturally divided into
two main parts: the part where Phil was stationed,
and the part where he wasn't. Further than that she
never tried to go. When people on board talked to
her glibly of the Punjaub or the Central Provinces,
Saharanpur or Moozuffernugger, she nodded and
smiled benign acquiescence, glossing over her ignor-
ance with the charm of her manner.)
Aggie and the handsome young man got on together
admirably. He was a certain Captain Angus Stuart
— conjectured from his name to be of Scotch extrac-
tion ; and he had fallen a victim to Aggie's fluffy hair
the very first moment he ever set eyes on her. Indeed,
he had talked to her for half an hour on deck in Brin-
disi harbor, and been desolated to learn by that time
that she was not only engaged but actually going out
to India to get married. Nay, he even reflected with
a certain bland pleasure, at that early stage of their
brief acquaintance, that there's many a slip 'twixt the
/, '. '.•
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. ' v 4$
cup and the lip, and that people who go out to India
to get married don't always persevere in their prime
intention when they see their beloved in his Indian
avatar. Had it not been for that slight hope, Captain
Stuart would have avoided talking to Aggie altogether;
for being a Scotchman, he was of course both prudent
and superstitious; and he felt the very instant he be-
gan to talk to her that here at last was his undoubted
Affinity.
If you have ever lain at anchor in Brindisi harbor,
or ever made a trip from thence by P. and O. to Port
Said, you will be well aware that there's nothing for a
sensible man to do with his time as he skirts the shadowy
coast of Crete, but to make love to some fit and proper
person. Now Angus Stuart was a most sensible man;
and though he had too great a respect for vested in-
terests exactly to make love to another fellow's affi-
anced bride on her way out to Bombay to join her
future husband, yet it must be candidly admitted by
an impartial historian that he sailed very close to the
wind indeed in that respect, and made himself remark-
ably agreeable to Aggie. She had a chaperon, of
course ; no well-conducted young woman could trust
herself to the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean
without the services of a chaperon ; but what's the use
of that indispensable article in every young lady's
wardrobe, I venture to ask, if it persists in being sea-
sick and sticking to its berth the whole way out from
London to Aden ? The consequence was that Aggie
and Captain Stuart were thrown a great deal together
during the course of their voyage. When Aggie sang
to the Peninsular and Oriental piano in the big saloon,
it was Angus Stuart who turned over the leaves of her
46 STRANGE STORIES.
music book ; when Aggie sat on deck and declined
lunch with thanks, for pressing reasons, it was Angus
Stuart who brought her up the unsugared lemonade
and one dry biscuit which alone appealed to her mari-
time appetite. Old ladies on board remarked with
malicious glee what a pity it was poor dear Mrs.
Mackinnon wasn't well enough to come up and look
after her charge ; old gentlemen observed with a know-
ing smile that Miss Oswald was going out to be married
at Bombay — but they rather imagined she'd mistaken
the bridegroom.
Aggie and Angus Stuart, however, went on happily
unconscious of the unkind remarks whispered about
them in confidence in the saloon at night when they
two were engaged in admiring on deck the phosphor-
escence on the waves, or the very singular brilliancy
of the tropical moonlight.
On one such evening, in the Red Sea, they stood
together by the taffrail with one accord, and looked
over in unison into the deep white water. There was
silence for a while ; then Stuart spoke abruptly.
" You haven't seen him for five years," he said, medi-
tatively, without anything special to indicate the per-
sonality of the him in question. *" That's a very long
time you know. Miss Oswald. At your age and his, in
five years people often alter wonderfully." (Being
himself, just thirty, and square built at that, Angus
Stuart affected always to speak to Aggie in the char-
acter of a grandfather.)
" Oh, I hope not !" Aggie cried, fervently, with a
little shudder of alarm, for to say the truth, her new
friend had just voiced the very terror that was perpet-
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 47
ually consuming her. " It's only five years, you know,
and we were awfully fond of each other!"
" * Were,' " Angus Stuart answered with a quiet
smile. " You say ' were ' yourself. That doesn't
quite look as if you were desperately in love with him
just at present, does it ?" And he smiled at her
wisely.
A prudent maiden would have diverted conversation.
But Aggie hesitated and temporized.
"Well, five years is a very long time," she admitted
with a slight sigh ; " and of course one naturally won-
ders whether a person will really strike one now ex-
actly as he struck one five whole long years ago."
" Precisely !" Angus answered, and dropped the
subject. He went on to remark on the beauty of the
phosphoresence that sparkled and danced upon the
surface of the water. They leaned over to look at it
once more together. Lovely objects, phosphoresence
on the surface of the water — especially when you look
over at it, two persons together ! In point of fact,
they stopped up looking at it, in that balmy southern
air, till almost midnight, and only retired to their re-
spective berths just in time for saving the last end
of the lights before they were ruthlessly put out for
the evening. The old ladies on board shook their
heads next day, and observed to one another with
scandalized faces that the sooner Miss Oswald got
safe to Bombay the better for her lover.
48 STRANGE STORIES.
At Bombay, meanwhile, Phil Oilman was — eating
out his heart with suspense ? Oh, dear, no. He was
having an exceedingly pleasant time with Freda
Trevelyan. The one drawback to his pleasure — oh,
faithlessness of man ! — was the thought that his Aggie
would so soon come out and spoil it all for him.
Freda and he got on admirably together. To say
the truth, she was far better fitted for him by nature
than Aggie Oswald. He saw it clearly himself now ;
there was no good denying it. Aggie and he had
been thrown together before they knew their own
minds, and what was more important still, before
their characters had fully developed. They were not
fitted by real tastes and instincts for one another.
Aggie was a dear little girl, of course, very pretty and
dainty, and with lovely fluffy hair ; but was she quite
the sort of woman with whom a man of his type
would care to pass a whole long lifetime? Wasn't
she better adapted, after all, by tastes and habits, for
a cavalry officer ? Whereas Freda Trevelyan, now,
had a mind and a soul ; she was clever, well-read,
sympathetic, quickly perceptive ; her mind went out
to his at once by instinct ; she seemed to jump half-
way to meet every idea he advanced to her, He
could almost have fallen in love with that beautiful
woman — if it were not for Aggie ! But Phil Gilman
was an honest man, and had plighted his troth to
Aggie Oswald. He wouldn't turn aside now, no, not
for a hundred Fredas
And yet
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 49
And yet, isn't it better, he asked himself in his
calmer moments, to change your mind before marriage
than after it ? Isn't it better to cry off, even at some
present cost of pain and humiliation to the girl, than
to tie her for life to a man who can give only part of
his heart to her? Isn't it better to be miserable once
for all in one's life than to be miserable always ?
These questions sometimes obtruded themselves pain-
fully upon Phil's mind; but being an honest man,
why, he waved them aside as transparent sophisms.
Having once asked Aggie to come out and marry him,
it would be cruel and wicked and selfish and unworthy,
to send her home again unwed. Come what might, as
things now stood, he must do his best to avoid falling
in love with Freda.
But the human heart is a wayward organ. It re-
fuses to be disciplined by the brain or the conscience.
There was some excuse, you know, after all, for the
apparent fickleness of these two young people. Their
minds were in both cases filled full beforehand with
the idea of marriage. They had nourished their soul
for five long years with what the Scotch philosopher
called " love in the abstract "; and now, when love in
the concrete seemed so near, so very near, neither had
at hand the proper person upon whom to expend his
or her affection. Besides, it may be unromantic and
unconventional to confess the truth ; but I believe it
is a fact of human nature that when the feelings are
very much roused and the proper person isn't by to
make love to, there's a considerable temptation to
transfer the love to the first eligible recipient one hap-
pens to fall in with. I've found it so myself, and I
throw myself upon the mercy of a jury of matrons.
50 STRANGE STORIES.
And in both these cases, as it happened, the first
eligible person Phil or Aggie met was also one more
fitted by nature for the vacant post than the old love
could ever possibly have been. Phil felt uncomfort-
ably aware that though nothing on earth would induce
him to make love to Freda Trevelyan, still, if he did
yield to thai: dreadful temptation, he could have loved
her a thousand times better by far than ever he could
have loved poor, fluffy-haired Aggie. And Aggie, in
turn, felt that though it would be treason to think of
Angus Stuart when she was actually on her way out to
India to marry Phil Oilman, still, if things had gone
otherwise, she could have loved that handsome soldier
a thousand times better than ever she could love poor
philosopher Phil with his cut-and-dried Deputy-Col-
lectorship away somewhere up country.
They had both one consolation ; perhaps when
Aggie turned up, after five years' development, she
would no longer be the pretty little fluffy-haired fairy
he once admired, but a real live woman — something,
don't you know, like Freda Trevelyan ! Or, perhaps
when Phil turned up he would no longer be quite so
sober and grave as of old ; five years of Indian life
might have brightened and sharpened him up into
something resembling Angus Stuart.
Not a very cheering frame of mind, I'm afraid, in
which to approach the most solemn gi all human
engagements !
The Indus was telegraphed on in the ordinary
course from Port Said, from Suez, from Aden. The
night before she was due to arrive at Bombay, Phil
Oilman and Freda Trevelyan sat long talking together.
Freda's face was downcast. She was not glad to think
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 51
that night must be the last night, or almost the last
night, they would spend together. Of course no well-
conducted girl would ever dream of falling in love
with another woman's affianced bridegroom ; but hu-
man nature is weak ; and though we mayn't quite fall
in love under such special circumstances, we sometimes
can't exactly help producing a very good imitation of
the genuine article. And Freda Trevelyan certainly
liked Phil Oilman exceedingly. He was so bright and
so ciever and so different from the other men she met
at her uncle's. It was a lovely evening. I've observed
lovely evenings are peculiarly dangerous. They rat
long and talked together on the veranda alone. Sir
Edward Moulton, most correct of men chaperons,
thought there could be no possible harm in Freda's
sitting out with that pleasant young Oilman the very
night before the girl he was going to marry arrived
from England. So they sat there and talked — and
grew more and more confidential ; till at last a faint
tremor showed itself in Freda's voice, and even Phil
was conscious of a feeling in his throat, and a regretful
moisture in his eye, as he said " good-night " to her.
He paused and held her hand. " I could have
wished " he began.
Freda started back, half alarmed. " No, no, Mr. Oil-
man," she said, anticipating his words. " You may feel
it, if you will, but you must not say it."
"Then you knew what I meant !" Phil cried, leaning
forward eagerly.
Freda's bosom heaved and fell. " How could I help
it?" she asked. " You must have felt I knew it."
Phil looked at her earnestly. " What ought I to do?"
he asked. " You see how things stand. I loved her
$t STRANGE STORIES.
dearly once. Now — yes, I will speak the trutn — I love
someone else better. No, don't start away ; I want
you to advise, to help me, to counsel me. Is it right
of me, then, knowing and feeling all this, to marry
her ? Can I meet her to-morrow and pretend I love
her as I loved her five years ago ? Ought I not rather
to make a clean breast of it from beginning to end,
and explain to her that my heart is no longer hers —
that as things stand, I ought not to marry her ? Is it
right to bind her to me for life when I no longer know
whether or not I can make her happy? Oh, Miss
Trevelyan — Freda — do counsel me, advise me !"
The beautiful girl held one hand up deprecatingly.
" You mustn't call me so," she said in a very low
voice. " It is unjust to her — and to me, Mr. Gilman.
Though, perhaps, if only " she broke off suddenly.
" But, indeed," she went on, after a deep pause, " I
think it would be cruel to her to bring her to Bombay
and then not marry her. You must do it now, at all
hazards. Either way is bad — to marry a woman you
no longer love, or to break the heart of a woman that
loves you. But the last is infinitely worse than the
first. You must go on with it now, whatever it costs
you. It's too late to go back. You may ruin your
life, but you save your honor."
" Well, but, Freda " Phil cried, with a very
pleading voice, " wouldn't it just be possible "
"You mustn't call me Freda," the beautiful woman
said, with gentle firmness. '* You should never have
called me so. You must forget all about me. Take
me back to my uncle. It is wrong of us to have
stopped here so long together."
Phil stood off a little and looked at her.
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. $3
"But we can always be friends," he said, very
slowly.
The woman in Freda rose up irresistibly for a
second.
"Yes, we can always be friends," she answered,
with a lingering cadence. Then after a short pause,
" Though after all, Mr. Oilman, that's a poor consola-
tion."
And the moment she'd said it womanly shame over-
came her, and she rushed back, all blushes, into her
uncle's drawing-room.
But Phil Oilman lay half that livelong night — the
night before Aggie was to arrive in India — thinking
over to himself the evil turns of fate below, and the
curious tricks that fortune sometimes plays us. He
knew now that Freda would have married him had he
been free to marry her ; she had as good as told him
so in those few last words; but come what might,
he must marry Aggie. And so those two good young
people, one in Bombay and one on the Indian Ocean,
were rightly prepared to make four lives unhappy
that might all have gone straight, out of pure devotion
to the cause of duty.
It had come down to duty now. They both frankly
recognized it. Phil felt he could never do anything
but marry Aggie, after bringing her out all the way
from England to meet him. Aggie felt she could
never do anything but marry Phil, after he had actu-
ally paid her passage-money and arranged for her out-
fit. And both were prepared to go to their martyr-
dom with the best grace they could summon up, for
the sake of the other, and the purely historical love
they had once felt for another.
54 STRANGE STORIES.
VI.
Next day was stormy ; and when it's stormy at
Bombay, I can tell you it really is stormy. The Indus
arrived in due course in the open bay ; surf running
very high ; no surf in the world like the surf that
beats upon Malabar Point in heavy weather. The
passengers were transferred to the little lighter-boats
which take people ashore from the ocean steamers.
To Aggie, who had never been away from England
before, the whole scene of the landing was peculiarly
terrifying. The sight of the black boatmen, naked to
the waist, all clamoring and jabbering in their un-
known tongue ; the high surf on which the little boats
danced up and down like corks ; the novelty of the
situation ; the painful feeling of parting from her
fellow-voyagers, with whom she had struck up a good
many friendships on the way ; and the horrid sense of
being abandoned to the tender mercies of strangers in
a strange land ; — all these things conspired to produce
on her mind a terrible sinking of awe and terror. She
looked around her helplessly. Mrs. Mackinnon, her
chaperon, was to land in the same boat ; but that fact,
I will frankly confess, gave Aggie far less comfort
than the other consideration that Angus Stuart was
also to accompany them. Women are timorous crea-
tures. They need the consolation of the opposite sex.
Aggie didn't think she could ever have stepped into
that dreadful boat, all dancing on the surf, and with
those strange black creatures shouting and gesticulat-
ing, without a man to take care of her, and if a man,
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 55
then Angus Stuart by preference. She wasn't afraid
«f him, she said to herself ; and she knew he would
protect her against sea and savages ; for as so many-
savages Aggie simply envisaged those good, unsophis-
ticated Bombay boatmen.
She hardly knew how she ever tumbled into that
boat ; but she tumbled in somehow, with Angus
Stuart's aid ; and sat cowering in the stern, while the
spray dashed up against the sides in a surprising man-
ner. In a very few minutes the boat was full, and the
boatmen began to get under weigh for the quay with
strange cries and loud ejaculations. Aggie had never
seen anything so terrific in her life ; and though Angus
assured her there wasn't the slightest danger — I'm
afraid I must admit she sometimes thought of him as
Angus in her own heart, though she was on her way
out to marry Phil Oilman — she couldn't quite believe
him. At each very big wave, she crouched nearer and
nearer him.
" Oh, Captain Stuart," she cried at last, " do please
hold my hand. I don't know what I shall ever do.
We can't stop and get out. Oh, I ' am ' so fright-
ened !"
The young man tried his best to assure her there
was no danger ; but Aggie was inconsolable. And
indeed, the surf was running very high and dangerous.
Even the native boatmen looked ahead with evident
apprehension. The waves broke over them once or
twice and drenched them. It was dreadful to have
crossed the Mediterranean and the Red Sea in perfect
safety, and then to be tossed and bullied like this, well
within sight of Bombay harbor. The nearer they got
to shore, the more appalling, of course, did the surf
56 STRANGE STORIES.
become. It's famous, that surf ; it makes Malabar
Point itself almost uninhabitable at certain seasons.
At last, Aggie could suffer her alarm no longer. She
shrank back with all a woman's appealing terror.
" Oh, do, put your arm round me, Captain Stuart, "
she cried in pure feminine fear. ** What ever shall I
do? I 'am' so frightened!"
Just at that moment, one of the boatmen missed
his hold on* the treacherous water, and of a sudden
the lighter slued round, broadside to the waves ; and
all was up with them ! Aggie clapped her hands to
her ears. There was a sound of rushing water, a hor-
rible sense of wetness and helplessness and terror ; and
next instant she was aware of a great salt flood rush-
ing in at mouth and eyes and ears and nostrils. She
was sinking to the bottom ! They had capsized the
boat ! She was drowning !
Down, down, down, in that deep warm water ! Even
in the midst of her terror, Aggie was dimly conscious
of the fact that it was warm, not chilly. If you've
got to be drowned, she thought to herself vaguely, as
she gasped and choked, it's better to be drowned in
warm than cold water. Down, down, down, to the very
lowest depths — and then, slowly, up again ! She reached
the surface, spluttering. Oh, great heavens, what
waves ! what surf ! what large mountains of water !
Aggie couldn't swim ; but even if she could, no swim-
mer, she felt sure, could ever live through those irresis-
tible billows. One of the black boatmen, more ac-
customed to such mishaps, made a desperate grab at
her. Aggie, horrified at his dusky hands, wriggled
aside and eluded him. She was going down a second
time now. Even with the water in her ears and eyes
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 57
and mouth, she remembered to have read that if you
go down three time^j, all is up with you. (A foolish
superstition, which must only too often have worked
out its^own fulfillment). She gasped and struggled. All
at once, she thought to herself. " Oh, if only Captain
Stuart could catch me !*' And straightway, upon the
thought, she felt two strong arms around her, and was
aware that Angus Stuart had come to her rescue.
What followed she hardly knew. To say the truth,
the art of surf swimming is much simpler than it looks.
If you try to breast the waves, or even to go broad-
side on to them, all is up with you at once. You are
tossed a helpless corpse on the beach in front of you.
But if you merely rise on the crest, and let the wave
carry you with it landward, you find yourself de-
posited gently ashore in an incredibly short space of
time. All you have to do then is to run deftly out of
reach, before the force of the undertow begins to suck
you back again. Angus Stuart, as it happened, was
an adept in the art ; and almost before Aggie quite
realized what was actually happening, he was standing
with her on the hard sand, well out of reach of the
waves, and holding her tight in her dripping clothes
to prevent her from fainting.
As for Aggie in that first flush of joy and relief
at her delivery from such appalling and impending
danger — she forgot everything on earth except her
sense of gratitude to her brave deliverer, and clung to
him passionately, and covered him with kisses.
58 STRANGE STORIES.
VII.
Phil was standing on the shore, and witnessed with
some Httle surprise and restraint this unrehearsed
effect in a living drama. His own greeting of Aggie
was perhaps a trifle less warm than might have been
expected after five years' separation. But then, you
see, it might be pleaded in extenuation that Aggie was
wet, most painfully wet, and that Angus Stuart was
quite obviously in possession. It was an awkward
moment. However, after a short pause, Phil took
Aggie over, so to speak, and proceeded to accompany
her up to the house of their mutual friend, whence she
expected to be married. Angus Stuart came round
there too, after a very brief interval for changing his
clothes. Naturally enough, he was anxious to learn
how the lady he had rescued had survived her wetting.
The young soldier had a word or two alone with the
little bride in the room behind, while Phil talked to
their hostess in the big front drawing-room. By this
time, Aggie had got the fluffy hair tolerably dry, and
had endued herself afresh in her pretty little morning
dress with the pique waistcoat. She looked really
charming. Angus Stuart thought he had never seen
her quite so sweet before. She looked up at him
appealingly.
" Well, shall I speak to him?" Angus asked.
And Aggie drawing back, made answer very low,
** Oh, no ; not for worlds ! You mustn't ! How could
But the soldier was fortunately of bolder mould.
With a resolute face he went up to Philip.
CRIS-CROSS LOVE. 59
" Might I have a few words with you alone, Mr.
Gilman ?" he asked, quietly.
Phil, half expecting what was coming, bowed his
head in acquiescence ; and the two men went out
together on the broad veranda.
Angus Stuart cleared his throat. It was an awkward
subject to tackle, but there was no avoiding it.
" It's some years since you saw Miss Oswald, I
believe ?" he began, tentatively.
Phil met him half way. "Yes, some years," he
answered; "and I imagine Miss Oswald has had
almost time to change her mind meanwhile." He
said it a little anxiously.
" Well, no ; perhaps not quite that," Angus answer-
ed with a faint smile of pleasure ; " but you see, I've
had it in my power to render her to-day a slight
service ; and — but I've no right to speak on her
behalf ; and I'm sure she desires to act honorably in
the matter."
'* Precisely my desire," Phil murmured, meaningly.
Angus Stuart caught by instinct at the faint under-
current of intonation m his significant words.
" To act honorably ?" he repeated, with a tone of
abstract inquiry. " You put in on those grounds,
then ?"
" I do, perhaps," Phil answered, catching a
sympathetic glance in his neighbor's eye.
Angus ventured to be still bolder. " Then you
wouldn't feel it a slight," he said, quickly, " an irrepar-
able slight, if, as a consequence of recent events. Miss
Oswald "
** On the contrary," Phil answered, frankly, helping
r
60 STRANGE STORIES.
him out in turn, "recent events on my side, too "
And he broke off shortly.
They looked at each other and smiled. They had
no need to say much more. But Angus drew back a
little.
"I think I understand," he said. "Another lady."
" Quite so," Phil answered. " And in Miss Oswald's
case, I suppose, another gentleman."
*' In point of fact — myself," Angus replied, growing
hot.
" Then as a matter of honor, neither side is bound,"
Phil put in, somewhat timidly.
" I think not," the soldier replied. "And as to the
business arrangements, I fancy you and I can settle
those between us."
When Aggie came to hear of it all afterward, only
one serious dif^culty in the way occurred to her. She
hesitated to mention it. But Angus Stuart gave her
an easy lead.
" Well, your trousseau '11 do, Aggie," he said, laugh-
ing, a little later that very evening. (It was Aggie and
Angus by that time between them.)
" Ye-es," Aggie answered, with a blush, holding her
head very low ; " but — the worst of it is, my things,
don't you know, are all marked A. Gilman."
Bombay had never two gayer weddings. And no-
body on earth was ever more astonished than poor old
Mrs. Oswald, when she received the news that Aggie
was married, not to Phil Gilman, but to an officer she
had met on board the Indus.
THE GOVERNOR S STORY.
We were seated at dinner at Government House.
It was a balmy West Indian evening, and the cool sea-
breeze stole pleasantly in through the open arches of
the veranda. Down in the valley below, great palm
trees waved their graceful arms in the twilight before
each passing gust, and plantains whispered music to
the low hum of the insects. Within, all was lamp-
light, and flowers, and perfume. A more delicious
tropical night I can hardly remember — a night of soft
breaths, faint sounds, sweet odors.
And the talk, too — the talk was most brilliant and
interesting ! Our host, the Governor, Sir Everard
Spence, is well known throughout Europe as the man
of science par excellence in English colonial service.
His bronzed and sunburnt face, deep scarred with the
lines of many early privations and self-sought hard-
ships, always rouses a ready cheer of welcome at the
British Association, and a generous greeting at the
Royal SGOAtXy soirie. His knowledge of tropical beasts
and birds, in particular, is probably unequaled among
living Englishmen. He has spent his days in collect-
ing, observing, arranging, classifying ; and has been
rewarded accordingly by a grateful country with the
ill-paid governorship of a fourth-rate colony. Yet a
more dignified specimen of Nature's own gentlemen
[6il
62 STRANGE STORIES.
you won't find in the world than the snowy-haired
author of " Life and its Origins."
As we loitered over our wine, carried away by the
charm of the Governor's conversation, a black servant
came in with a scrap of paper for Sir Everard. Our
host took it in his spare hands and glanced at it care-
lessly.
" Who is the man, Thomas ?" he asked in his kindly
way.
And Thomas made answer, with a profound bow,
" Him say him an unfortunate Englishman, sah ; don't
got no work ; wish to speak with your Excellency."
The private secretary smiled a somewhat cynical
smile.
"In my experience of the West Indies," he said,
with a careless twirl of his waxed mustache, " I've
always found that an unfortunate Englishman means
in very plain words a drunken reprobate."
But Sir Everard rose at once, and went out anxiously
to the door. " An unfortunate Englishman in the
tropics," he answered, in a very slow voice as he went,
" always enlists my profoundest sympathies. He may
be drunken, of course ; he may be idle and disrepu-
table — most often he is ; but the question remains,
even then — who or what has made him so."
*' The Governor's always too generous to tramps,"
the private secretary went on, as Sir Everard disap-
peared. " He's Quixotic in his way, don't you know?
Takes a Utopian view of things."
" Better that than be a cynic," I answered, quietly,
as I drained the last drops of my strong black coffee ;
for Sir Everard's personality always chained and
enthralled me.
THE governor's STORY. 63
At the end of a few minutes the Governor returned
with a very sad face. " Wade," he said to his sec-
retary, "take this man round to your rooms at once,
please ; give him what food he wants, and a shelter for
the night; but, mind you, no liquor. Captain Mor-
timer," to the aide-de-camp, " you can go with him if
you like. Pearson," to me, " I want half-an-hour's
talk with you."
" Certainly, sir," I answered (you sir a colonial
Governor every now and again, exactly as if he were a
disobedient man-servant), and I lighted my cigarette
and composed myself to listen.
The Governor paused and looked steadily at me for
half a minute. " Pearson," he began at last, " did I
ever tell you how I came to have ideas of my own
about tramps in the tropics ?"
"Why no ; I think' not," I said, gazing hard at the
slim figure in the evening suit and irreproachable tie,
the very picture of a distinguished old colonial satrap.
*' Well, the wonder of it all is," he went on reflec-
tively, *' that I didn't take to drink myself, and go to
the bad utterly. There was a time, I believe, when
only twenty-four hours stood between me and that
poor, penniless creature there."
" Indeed," I cried, gazing still harder at the grand
old head, and respecting him all the more for that
candid avowal.
*' Yes, it's true," the Governor went on musingly.
" True, every word of it. And this is the way it all
came about, if you don't think it egotistical in an old
man to talk about it."
" By no means," with a quiet smile, I answered ;
"your reminiscences are always interesting."
64 • STRANGE STORIES.
He £:jl.inccd at mc curiously.
"Well, it's fifty years ago now," he began, "since
my brother Fred and I started on our expedition to
the lower slopes of the Andes. Fred's Governor of
North Australia at present, as you know ; and I — well,
Fm here, at Port of France, as you see me ; but in
those days we were a pair of young city clerks, without
a friend or penny, in a London office. However, even
then, we had our heads stuffed as full of ideas as an
egg is full of meat ; and we were determined to work
out our great theories of life in our own pet way, if we
gave the last drop of our blood to do it. Those were
the days, you know, when new notions were in the air ;
and Fred and I had grand views of our own, which we
sprang on the world at last in * Life and its Origins.'
We were as poor as church mice, to be sure, but we
didn't mind for that ; between us we had laid up a
hundred pounds out of our joint salaries, by saving
here and scraping there, till we could wait no longer,
and with the hundred pounds we set off by ourselves
to solve the problems of the universe in the tropical
forests.
" It was a bold attempt, but, as Mill said to me later,
the result justified it.
" Our central idea, as you know, was that equatorial
conditions had prevailed over the world till a very late
date in geological ages ; and therefore, we said to our-
selves, whoever would investigate the origins of life,
must investigate them where the conditions are the
same — in the equatorial region. So, off we set by
ourselves, as blithe as two young bears, to look forth
upon our theory from the slopes of the Andes. We
thought; a hundred pounds a lot of money in those
THE governor's STORY. 65
days ; we expected it to last us an indefinite period.
Still, for cheapness' sake, we took passage in a worn-
out and ramshackled old slaver, the Don Pedro by-
name, from Bristol to Bahia ; and in due time as you
know, landed in South America.
** Without one day's delay, as soon as ever we
landed, we made our way up country, by boat and on
foot, to the wild forests of the Andes. There we
made friends with the Indians of the place. Our idea
was to spend what remained of our hundred pounds
as slowly as possible, to live to a great extent on the
game we shot, and to rely for the future on the sale of
our collections, which we knew would bring in a good
round sum in England.
"Once settled in our hut, a poor wattled shelter, we
set to work at once and collected with a will, and at
the end of twelve months we'd done so finely that
Fred went down to Bahia to ship our goods to Lon-
don, which we confidently valued at three hundred
pounds sterling. We'd worked pretty hard I can tell
you to do so much in our time, and we'd lived pretty
sparingly on yam and plantain ; but our poor little
capital was fairly well eaten up by then, and we'd
hardly anything left to live meanwhile upon.
*' However, the negroes on the few estates about
were tolerably friendly, and the Indians trusted us, so
by promising to repay them well * when our ship came
in,' as we always said, I managed to pull through till
Fred's return from Bahia.
" It took a long time, in those days, to get up and
down country by the flat-bottomed boats; and a long
time, too, for a ship to sail from Brazil to London ; so
it was nearly six months before I heard again from
^ STRANGE STORIES.
Fred ; and all that time I was living on what I could
get from the negroes on credit — the credit of my
promises, discounting our expected remittance from
England.
"At last, one evening," (he drew his hand across his
brow, as if the recollection was too much for him) " I
can remember it as though it were yesterday, I was
sitting at the door of my hut, skinning a new kind of
monkey to add to my collection, when suddenly I
heard a noise of slow footsteps through the wood, as
of somebody coming up along the trail, very tired and
wretched. I looked round. It was Fred. He stood
before me and gasped. He was footsore and worn,
and pale as a ghost with horror.
" * Why, Fred,' I cried, ' how's this ? You don't
mean to say you're alone! Where's the provisions?
the goods? the ammunition? everything?'
" He flung himself down on the ground, ready to
drop where he stood with fatigue and despair. * All
gone — all lost,' he gasped out, * every box, every can
of them !'
" * Not Indians !' I cried in horror. * Not Indians,
Fred, surely !'
" * No, not Indians,' he answered, shaking his head
very hard. * Worse than that. Far worse. The sea !
the sea ! Gone to the bottom, my dear fellow — every
man Jack of them.*
" I gazed at him horror-struck.
" It was some time before I could get him composed
enough to tell me the whole terrible truth a little
more calmly. For cheapness' sake he had shipped our
entire collection — our priceless beasts and birds, the
labor of twelve months — in the crazy hull of that ram-
THE governor's STORV. 6/
shackled Don Pedro ; and the Don Pedro had gone
down in an Atlantic cyclone, with our precious orchids
and butterflies and skins in her hold — the finest tropi-
cal museum ever gathered together. It was pitiable
to think of all those wasted months, all that reckless
«
destruction of almost unique specimens.
" * Thank God, Fred,' I cried, fervently, as he fin-
ished his story, ' our manuscripts are safe ! The knowl-
edge and experience we've gained, at least is left us.
No one can take that away from us ! We've got it in
our hearts ! It's our own for ever !' For already the
materials for ' Life and its Origins * were in embryo in
the forest.
" Well, after this crushing blow we had to think of
how we could begin work again, and pile up a second
collection as good as the first one. Starvation fairly
stared us in the face just then; it was a question of
food, not merely of science. Fred had struggled
in on foot, more dead than alive, and half faint with
hunger. Our ammunition was gone ; our credit bro-
ken. What could we do for our living ? That was
now the question.
"We went to a neighboring planter, in the nearest
settlement — for we were camping out in the wilds, fifty
miles from a house — and put the thing plainly to him.
He was a kind-hearted man, in his way, as slavehold-
ers go, and he pitied our plight ; though,, like most
Portuguese-Americans, he hadn't the slightest idea
what on earth we could want to go hunting beetles
and weeds for. He didn't even understand what sci-
ence meant. He regarded us as a couple of amiable
but peculiar lunatics. Still, we were white men, and
he pitied our plight. ' I'll tell you what I'll do for
68 STRANGE STORIES.
you/ he said to us in Portuguese, * I'll take you upon
my estates to work at the cocoa plantations.'
" We deHberated together. It was a hard offer —
negro's work, wholly unfit for Europeans in that
deadly climate. But it was all we could get, and we
managed it this way. Every second day Fred took
his place on the estate, with the gang of slaves, and
did his day's labor, for a slave's rations and a few
pence as wages ; while I went out in the forest, as
usual, collecting. Then, on the alternate days, I took
my place in the gang, while Fred went off with his
gun, after birds and monkeys. In this way we counted
together as one man, and we lived between us, on one
slave's food, eked out with what little we could buy
with our daily wage, after keeping ourselves in am-
munition and so forth. Talk about the happy negro
on the good massa's plantation ! I know what slavery
means, Pearson, for to all intents and purposes I've
been a slave myself ; and I tell you it's damnable —
nothing short of damnable. On Sundays and festas,
however, we had a holiday together; and then we col-
lected with all our might and main, as it was the only
time we could get out into the woods both at once,
and in hunting two men abreast can do more in a day
than one alone can effect in a fortnight. In the twi-
light, too, we made some capital finds, I can tell you,
and often we almost did ourselves out of our night's
rest in order to make haste with our precious collec-
tion.
It took us eighteen months, all the same, under these
altered circumstances, and with ill-made powder, to
gather together what we had managed before in twelve.
But at last with hard work our collection was ready,
THE governor's STORY. 69
almost as good as the first, and in some respects
richer.
*' Then the question arose, how were we to get it to
the sea and ship it to England ? Fred was the stronger
of the two, and there were lots of boxes. So, in spite
of his previous misfortune, we decided that he must
take charge of it, with a friendly Indian to help him,
and must see it off from Bahia in the usual fashion. I
was to stop behind, and work on the plantation every
day alike, in his absence, saving my wages as far as I
could, and then, when he returned, I was to go on to
Bahia, with my cash in my hands and await the arrival
of our expected remittance, while he in turn worked on
upon the estate for a livelihood.
" I can tell you it was a dreary long time while Fred
was away, and I had to toil and moil, all alone by my-
self, in that sultry climate, surrounded by negro slaves
who talked bad Portuguese, and without a friend or an
equal of any sort near me. Sometimes I almost des-
paired in the hot tropical noonday, working away
under the fierce sun, with the rest of the gang by my
side, and not a Christian soul to say God-speed to me
anywhere. The very negroes despised me for a * mean
white '■ — a ^/r/rt-^j/ gentleman. Night after night I lay
awake by myself, and half cried in my misery, and
prayed for Fred to return, and thought of one face I
had left in England. That's Lady Spence's portrait
as she looked in those days — not Lady Spence then, of
course — but it doesn't do her justice. I wondered
whether I'd done right to come away from her like
that, on a wild-goose chase for science's sake, when I
ought to have stopped at home and cast up accounts
in the City.
70 STRANGE STORIES.
" At last, however, those terrible three months passed
away, and Fred returned from the coast very weary
and ill, but ready to take my place, and relieve me
from duty. It was with a sinking heart I set off in my
turn, though I was worn and ill, for I couldn't bear to
leave him behind in such lonely slavery as I myself had
endured those three months without him.
" I got to Bahia in due course, with a few pounds in
pocket, which soon melted away, as you can easily
imagine, with the expenses of life in a civilized city. I
was waiting for the mail to arrive from England, bring-
ing me in news, and I hoped, too, a remittance, from
our London agents. Fred had reported well of our
chances of success, for a German professor, who hap-
pened to be at Bahia when he was sending them off,
inspected the things before they went, and was en-
chanted at the variety and value of our collection.
We trusted our troubles would soon be over, and we
might begin in real earnest collecting on our own ac-
count, and making the needful observations to com-
plete our theory.
" Day after day passed, and the mail didn't arrive.
Mails to South America, in those days, were very
moveable feasts. A week or two more or less hardly
astonished anybody. But my money market was
getting remarkably tight, and every twenty-four hours
to me was a life and death matter.
" At last the mail came in, and with it a letter. I
stood on the steps of the post office in my tattered
up-country clothes, and tore it open eagerly. It was
from our London agents. They had the honor to
acknowledge the receipt of our valuable collection, in
very good order, and trusted to have an opportunity
THE GOVERNOR S STORY. 7I
of submitting it before long, in whole or in part, to
the authorities at the British Musuem, who would
doubtless be willing to pay a reasonable price for it.
** That was all. No remittance, no installment, no
sale even. Nothing at all had been done. Only a
vague hope or conditional promise. Heaven knew
how long yet I might have to wait for my money.
" And I was penniless, meanwhile, and starving at
Bahia."
The dignified old man wiped his brow once more.
Great drops stood on it visibly. It was clear the re-
membrance was painfully real to him.
*' How I ever got through the next three weeks,"
he went on, after a long deep pause, moistening his
lips with coffee, " I don't know to this day. I can't
bear to look upon it. I took a room in a negro hut,
by pawning my last change of clothes, and there I
lived on, watching and waiting for another mail from
England. Through the day I skulked ; in the evening
I lounged about the streets ; and men whose acquaint-
ance I'd picked up while I was in Bahia offered me
drinks in the saloons — but never any food — and I was
starving — starving. Drink, drink, drink — but not a
meal, or a mouthful. I hung around the market in
the early morning, and picked up morsels of jam, or
little bits of bread-fruit, or stale mangoes, that even
the negroes rejected, or half bad oranges, flung away
into the gutter. That was all I had to eat, and as to
work or money, none could be had anywhere. To
the Brazilians I was useless, because I spoke very
little Portuguese, and that little picked up from the
slaves up country, and when I called upon the English
merchants of the place, they surveyed me through
/2 STRANGE STORIES.
their spectacles with very critical eyes — * An unfor-
tunate Englishman ! Drink, drink, no doubt. Why,
he smells of rum this minute, Jones. Sorry to say,
my friend, we can do nothing for you.*
"So I hung around the saloons, with part of the,
manuscript of * Life and its Origins* actually in my
pocket — I with my scientific tastes and my philosophic
yearnings — and took the rum strangers offered me, for
very want of food, and because I was a great deal too
hungry and weak to refuse anything on earth with a
lump of sugar in it. Sometimes I got a biscuit into
the bargain as well, but that was rarely ; most often it
was rum — rum, rum, alone — till I wonder at myself
that I didn't sink offhand into a miserable drunkard.
It was an awful time. It makes my head reel to
recall it.
" At last, one day, when three weeks were over, and
no English mail to my knowledge had yet arrived, I
stood in my ragged clothes and with my hungry face
in a saloon in the town, when suddenly a man whom I
knew came in, and looked at me steadily.
" ' Hullo, Spence,' he said, with a start of surprise,
* you look down in the mouth this morning. Cheer
up, old fellow. The English mail's in, and there's
money for you at the Bank in the Rua do Commercio.*
" I stared at him in suspense. He was a practical
joker. I knew his tricks well. I was afraid to be-
lieve him. Perhaps he didn't realize what a matter of
life and death that mail was to me. Perhaps he was
only trying, as he himself would have said, to take a
good rise out of me.
"^You really mean it?' I gasped out. 'You*re in
earnest, not hoaxing me ?'
THE governor's STORY. 73
" * Honor bright !' he answered, laughing. * Take
my davy on it any day. The cashier's a chum of mine ;
and he told me just now, if I met Spence lounging
about anywhere in the bars, to tell him there was
money waiting for him straight out from England.'
" My fingers trembled. My knees shook. I went
round in a fever to the Rua do Commercio. When I
reached the bank steps, I didn't dare to go in. My
head swam with hunger, and rum, and despair. How
dare I ask for money in such rags as these? How
dare I present myself, even, in a respectable counting-
house ? I was ashamed to enter.
** For ten minutes or more I stood there, in doubt,
leaning up against the lintel, afraid to move ; then at
last I plucked up courage to push open the door, and
stagger to the counter. The cashier was an English-
man. * Any money to my credit ?* I faltered out,
with tremulous lips. * My name is Spence. I'm ex-
pecting a remittance.'
"'Certainly, sir,* he answered. 'Mr. Everard
Spence : bill of exchange came in to-day for four
hundred and fifty pounds thirteen shillings. To your
order at sight. How will you take it ?'
" I trembled like an aspen leaf. It was nothing to
him, but to me it was light, life, deliverance. I sat
down and buried my face in my hands. I was saved.
Fred was saved. Four hundred and fifty pounds
seemed wealth untold. It was more than in our wild-
est dreams we'd ever dared to hope for.
" But ever since that day, I assure you, Pearson, I've
always had a very sympathetic feeling for unfortunate
Englishmen who take to drink in the tropics."
DICK PROTHERO S LUCK.
I.
That farm in Manitoba was always an unlucky one.
From the very first day when Dick Prothero left the
West Cornwall Rangers, and took him a wife, deter-
mined to settle down to agricultural retirement in the
Far West, a fatal ill-fortune seemed to dog and pursue
him with merciless persistence. At least, so Dick
said ; though people who knew Manitoba better,
doubted within themselves whether the discipline of
the messroom in a crack regiment, where Dick had
stood junior captain on the list, was quite the sort of
thing to prepare a man beforehand for becoming a
vigorous and successful farmer in a raw community.
At any rate, things somehow didn't seem to prosper
with Dick Prothero. The horses were always getting
glanders at unhappy moments ; the cows were always
poisoning themselves with uncanny prairie weeds ; the
rain was always rough on the standing hay ; the fall
wheat was always getting nipped by the first sharp
frosts of a Canadian springtide. Dick worked as hard,
to be sure, as a man could work ; but he didn't work
the right way on, so experts said — all his energy and
good will were quite thrown away through his want of
knowledge of practical farming.
[74]
DICK PROTIIERO'S LUCK. 75
The worst of it was, too, Manitoba didn't agree with
Bertha, and that was Dick's greatest cross of all. For
himself, he didn't much mind the small frame house,
the long cold winter when the grouse was on the wing,
or the changeable spring with its teal and wild duck.
A strong and hearty young man, with a sound consti-
tution and a natural love of outdoor sport, can put up
with roughing it for himself very well, in those wild
west countries. But to see his pretty young English
wife, delicately bred and nurtured in a Devonshire
Rectory, shrinking from the privations of the frozen
prairie — that was the sort of thing that makes a man
regret he hadn't invested his money instead at two and
three-quarters per cent, in the munificent hands of the
Right Honorable the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
If Dick could have done it, he'd have sold his farm ;
but it's always easier to buy land anywhere in the
world than sell it ; so Dick had to hang on as best he
might, hoping for better times and a turn in the real
estate market.
Still, if it hadn't been for little Daisy and his brother
Archie, Dick, who was a sentimental, rather melo-
dramatically-minded young man (in spite of his Sand-
hurst training), would sometimes have sat down
despondent in the frame house, with a fixed determin-
ation to blow his unlucky brains out. But little Daisy,
thank heaven, was as strong as a toy Shetland pony ;
and Archie, good fellow, was always helpful and always
cheery, even when the rain came and spoiled the har-
vest. Archie was the best brother any man in this
world ever had ; nobody could help being cheered and
helped on by that dear, good Archie.
The frame house where they all lived together —
76 STRANGE STORIES.
Dick and his wife, and little Daisy, and Archie — was
situated a good many miles from anywhere, and at a
great distance from Winnipeg, the centre of mushroom
civilization in the Canadian Northwest at the present
moment. It was altogether about as dreary a place as
any fellow could well ask a young English wife to
settle in. It stood alone upon the wide open prairie,
a square, bare box, just perched upon the soil, with
doors and windows like those of a German toy house,
and with not a tree or shrub standing anywhere in
sight of it. In front you looked out upon the waving
plain of grass and cornfield — monotonous, arid, as far
as the eye could reach, with only a few more equally
square and bare little wooden shanties dotted about
here and there to relieve its utter blank of sameness
and dreariness. Sometimes in dry weather the whole
unvaried plain caught fire at once, from some careless
pipe or match, and then the smoke of it went up to
heaven in a great dusky column, and the flames
marched abreast like an army over the land, and the
farmers defended their own houses and yards as best
they might by cutting down and wetting the grass all
round ; and next morning nothing remained of the
year's labors but a vast black desert, smoking dismal
and gray to the lurid sky, where yesterday had been
whole acres of corn and meadow land. Those are the
chances of war in the great Northwest — the chances of
that terrible pioneer warfare which man wages single-
handed with valorous heart against the fierce, blind
powers of unconscious nature.
And in this bare, bleak house, with its unlovely sur-
roundings, gentle and delicately nurtured English
Bertha had to live by herself, for the most part servant-
DICK PROTIIERO'S LUCK. ^f
less. Now and then, to be sure, some raw Irish lass,
fresh out from the Ould Counthry, with a bright red
face, and a fine, rich brogue, would accept for a week
or two a situation as general help, to assist in the
cooking and take care of Daisy. But at the end of a
fortnight the help usually came in and informed
Bertha, with tears in her eyes, that she found it
" lonesome," and that if Bertha would " suit herself "
when the month was up, she'd like to go back to a
place in Winnipeg. Bertha, as a rule, did not succeed
at all in suiting herself ; so she had to do all the cook-
ing, and washing, and nursing, and mending, more than
half her time for those two strong men and for little
Daisy.
Dick, being a tender-hearted, sentimental fellow,
could have cried his eyes out (only that he was
ashamed), when he thought of the sort of life he had
brought that sweet, pretty little English wife to.
There are plenty more of his sort in the West. Young
man, stop East. Don't you go and be fooled by de-
lusive promises into following his example.
II.
That summer was very hot and dry, and things
went even worse with the Protheros than usual. In
the hay season Bertha fell ill with fever, and as she
was then in her chronic servantless condition, for
weeks Dick had hard work to nurse and tend her. At
last, however, she began to come round again ; and
one sunny morning in the August drought, she rose
78 STRANGE STORIES.
and lay on the sofa in the little living-room, by the
open window, looking out upon all the view there was
— the great blank prairie and the desolate cornfields.
Dick brought little Daisy and placed her by her side ;
and Bertha, though still too weak to walk, seemed so
cheerful and happy at the mere sight of the fields, that
Dick almost felt as if that long-expected turn in his
luck were coming at last, and things were going to
mend in Manitoba. He made everything snug in the
bare small parlor for poor pale Bertha, and then he
saddled his horse and rode off, better pleased, to see
how business looked after so many days absence in the
dip by the river.
When he got there the corn [was certainly most
promising, and all was going well with the ripening
crops for the agricultural interest. By a rare chance,
too, he met a neighbor by the stream, and they stopped
long chatting about the Boom at Regina and the Chi-
cago futures, and the probability of an advance in
spring wheat next Winnipeg market. The neighbor
was hopeful, like Dick himself. Land was on the rise,
he said, in their own section, and a great development,
a great development, sir, was, as sure as fate, in store
for Manitoba. A magnificent country, and it was
going to be developed.
Dick hoped so in his heart, and that land would rise
till he could get his own price back again for his own
farm, take Bertha home to her native shores, show
little Daisy what was meant by a decent road, and
leave the development of that magnificent country to
the more capable hands and arms of others.
At last he wheeled round his horse once more, and
DICK PROTHERO*S LUCK. 79
after riding about for a couple of hours, surveying
the soil, he made towards home across the open
prairie.
As he did so, a sickening horror seized upon his
soul. He looked in front of him and shaded his eyes,
incredulous. Great heavens, what he saw was all too
true. No farmhouse visible.
Other houses were there, to be sure, each standing
in its place over the vast plain, at wide intervals, and
each marked by a long blue line of smoke, where the
" smudges" or fly-dispersers were burning in front of
them to keep off the mosquitoes. A smudge, in North-
w^estern parlance, is a fire of turf kept alight in a sort
of standing iron cage or basket, which smoulders away
for hours at a time, and is peculiarly offensive to the
senses of insects. But though the smudge still
smoked in front of the place where his own house had
once stood, not a sign of the house itself remained
anywhere visible. Dick shaded his eyes and looked in
vain. It had melted from the scene as if by magic.
At the sight the strong man's heart sank down with
horror and awe within him. He knew what it meant ;
he was too old a hand, indeed, in the ways of Manitoba
not to realize at a glance what a terrible, unspeakable
thing had happened. The house had been burnt
down to the ground in his absence.
And Bertha? And Daisy? He grew pale w'th
terror. Unless Archie had saved them, heaven only
knew what nameless misfortune might have fallen
upon them. And Archie was away in the Swale with
the wagon.
With a wild cry of despair, the unhappy man urged
his horse forward, and never paused for breath till he
80 STRANGE STORIES.
drew rein at last by the smouldering remains of the
charred and desolate farmhouse.
There, the whole truth came upon him in all its aw-
ful vividness.
In front of the yard, the smudge lay on the ground,
overturned, and still feebly burning. From the
smudge to the spot where the house once stood, a
path of fire lay traced on the dry grass, widening from
windward. Even in the first burst of his horror and
grief, the poor trembling husband and father felt in
stinctively just what had occurred. RoUo, the pointef ,
had upset the smudge, and the fire had run from it
before the wind through the parched grass, and set in
a blaze the frail timber tenement.
The rest was obvious. Those frame houses of the
West, when once alight, burn to the ground with aw-
ful rapidity in a few brief minutes. Constructed as
they are of light pitch pine, all wooden throughout,
and slight into the bargain, they leave at the end of a
quarter of an hour nothing to mark the spot where
they once stood, save a pile of gray and smouldering
ashes.
That was all that remained of Dick Prothero's home.
And Bertha, and Daisy, must have been burnt or
smothered before they could move from the sofa by
the window.
Unmanned with horror, Dick leaped from his horse,
and strode over to the smouldering, smoking ruins.
For a minute or two he was stupefied by the awful
suddenness of that crushing blow. He sat down on
the ground, with his head in his hands, and rocked
himself idly to and fro in the first full bitterness of his
speechless agony.
DICK PROTHERO'S LUCK. 8 1
And the very last words little Daisy had said to him
as he rode away were, " Turn back soon, Papa. Daisy
wants to play with 'oo."
III.
Ten minutes after Dick had left the house Archie
had driven up in front of the door, and seeing Bertha
lying on the sofa at the open window, had cried out to
her cheerily, in his good-humored fashion, " Come
along, Bertha ; you're convalescent now. A bit of
fresh air'U do you all the good in the world, I bet you.
I'm going to drive in to the post office at Swalebor-
ough. You may as well come with me."
" Oh, Archie, I couldn't," Bertha cried, all aghast.
" I'm only just up out of bed to-day, and the wagon's
so dreadfully, dreadfully jolty."
" Nonsense," Archie answered, jumping down and
coming over to her. " I'll fetch down the mattress out
of the servants' room — it don't get much slept upon ;
lay it in the wagon with a couple of pillows; carry you
out and set you in comfortably ; and there you are at
once fixed up, as the Yankees say, as well as you'd be
in an English victoria."
** Oh, do!" Daisy cried, clapping her little hands.
" Oh, do, mamma, for it amuses Daisy."
So in three minutes more, with Archie's strong arms
to help, the thing was done. Bertha, wrapped round
in a big buffalo skin, was laid in the wagon ; Daisy
was installed on a pillow by her side, and the three
drove off, laughing and talking, with fresh hope in
their hearts, as merry as crickets.
82 STRANGE STORIES.
"Where's Rollo, uncle Archie?" Daisy asked, as
they jolted along over the rough plain, though Archie
drove as carefully as he could to save Bertha any un-
necessary shaking.
" Oh, he's all right," Archie answered, smiling.
" He'll come along soon. Here, Rollo, Rollo !"
At the word, Rollo leaped up from the mat where
he was dozing in the sun, and followed the wagon with
a bound of delight. They didn't notice, however, that
as he came he had upset the smudge, and that the
turves were smoking on the dry grass in front of the
window.
Bertha had never enjoyed a drive so much. In
spite of the wagon and the jolting road, it was so de-
lightful to be out in the fresh air once more, and to
feel the motion and the free breeze of heaven. Little
Daisy enjoyed it all so thoroughly, too, and made her
mother's heart more glad by sympathy. And when at
last, after their long drive, they got to the post, there
were letters from home, such cheerful letters, with
talk of Bertha's shares in that unfortunate concern at
the Cape (which her uncle had left her), going up at
last, so that perhaps they might in time be able to
return to dear old England. Bertha turned to go back,
feeling ever so much better, and longing to tell the
good news to dear Dick, who had been so terribly
down on his luck just lately.
DICK PROTIIERO'S LUCK. 83
IV.
But Dick, among the smouldering ruins of his lost
house, was sitting still, in an agony of despair, rocking
himself to and fro with his head in his hands, and
overwhelmed with this awful fate of Bertha and
Daisy.
For a long time he sat there, incapable of thought
or act, or motion ; sat there like one dazed by his ter-
rible loss, holding his face between his palms in his
misery, and incapable even of realizing his own deso-
late position. But at last he rose, determined to
know the worst, and began with a pick that was lying
near to turn ever the hot ashes, in the vain attempt to
find some charred and mangled remains of his wife
and child, if anything was left of them. He turned
the ashes over carefully, but the fire had indeed done
its work well. Not a stick or plank, not a beam or
rafter, not a leg of chair, or sofa or table, remained
distinguishable among all that heap of gray and cal-
cined relics. Only the frames of the iron bedsteads
and a few castors and other metal objects were to be
found in any recognizable shape. The rest was mere
cinder or white powdery ashes.
In the depths of his despair Dick looked around for
Archie. But Archie, too, was nowhere to be seen, and
Dick remembered he had talked in the morning about
going into Swaleborough. The first apathy of grief
had worn off now, and Dick had reached that second
active stage of wild despondency when a man feels he
must go at once and maim or kill himself. As he
84 STRANGE STORIES.
fumbled among the ashes, digging deeper and deeper,
a weird idea seemed to frame itself within him. Since
all that remained of Bertha and Daisy lay there in
those ashes, he would dig a grave on the very spot
where they had died — those two that were dearest to
him — throw the ashes into it, and then shoot himself
there above the relics of his loved ones. When Archie
came back with the wagon from Swaleborough, he
would find no house, but an open grave, and his
brother's dead body, stark and bleeding within it.
It was one of those awful melo-dramatic ideas vhich
sometimes occur with irresistible force to such minds
as Dick Prothero's at a great crisis in their lives ; and
its very weirdness commended it to his inflamed fancy.
He proceeded at once, with the energy of despair, to
carry the mad notion into actual practice. He took
up the spade which lay in the back yard, untouched
by the fire, and began to dig and dig, to drown his
misery for awhile in the mere act of digging. If
Archie had been there, he might have groaned and
cried ; but in his utter solitude, alone with the prairie
and his vanished wife and child, he dug and dug, with
feverish energy, for very need of some vicient occupa-
tion. He dug as he never knew he could dig before,
with the wild maniac strength of a terrible sorrow.
As he dug, the ashes and the smoke blinded his eyes,
and the fumes from the fire rose up and choked him.
But still he dug on, going deeper and deeper, and
flinging out the earth with fierce and frantic eagerness.
He must get it all done before Archie came back ; and
at the very first sound of Archie's wheels in the dis-
tance, he must pull out his revolver, finished or not
DICK PROTHERO*S LUCK. 8$
finished, and shoot himself dead before Archie's eyes
in the grave he had dug himself.
He had got down now into a deep subsoil, thick and
clayey, and hard to cut through ; but he went on
nevertheless, digging it square and even, and taking
care to throw the clay w^ell out of the way, where it
wouldn't interfere with those sacred ashes. His eyes
were blinded with tears and smoke and the dust from
the pile ; but still he continued. He came across
little stones in the clay now and again. His spade
struck against them from time to time, or even cut
into them, for they were mere soft nodules. But he
shovelled them out with the rest of the dirt, and went
blindly on at his ghastly occupation.
Presently, as he worked, the sound of distant wheels
fell on his ear. It was Archie coming back ! It he
meant to carry his scheme into execution he must
make haste now. There was no time to be lost. If
Archie arrived he would disarm him and prevent him.
Frantic with grief he pulled out his revolver and held
it close to his left temple. For one awful second he
paused and prayed. He knew he was mad — what
man would not go mad in face of such a blow? — but,
all the same, he prayed wildly for forgiveness. Then
he snapped the trigger right against his brow, and
waited to know he was really dying.
A terrible moment of suspense followed. What had
gone wrong ? The revolver had clearly hung fire
somehow ! He had never known that trusty weapon
serve him such a trick in his life before. He took it
down and looked at it carefully. As he did so the
cartridge went off in his hands, and the bullet buried
itself in the deep clay bottom. What luck, to be sure !
86 STRANGE STORIES.
The very powers of inanimate nature seemed to fight
against him ! Why, he couldn't even succeed in kill-
ing himself comfortably when he tried to do so. He
raised the pistol angrily to his head once more. This
time, at least, he'd take care it didn't miss and disap-
point him.
But before he could fire again a terrible thrill ran
through his brain ; a thrill that made him drop the
revolver in his amazement. For he heard, from the
direction where the wagon was advancing, a cry of sur-
prise — a child's cry of simple wonder and astonishment.
The cry went through him like a flash of pain. But it
was joy that unnerved him ! Then, Daisy, at least,
was safe ! Daisy had gone with Archie in the wagon !
It was Daisy's voice ; and for Daisy's sake, at any rate,
he dared not kill himself.
He raised himself to the top of that strange grave on
both his elbows and looked around with dim vision to
see what had happened. His eyes were still blinded
by the smoke and ash, and he could hardly make out
who was in the wagon. Then with another wild burst
of gratitude and joy he heard another voice he had
never expected to hear again. Contrary to all proba-
bility, all possibility almost, Bertha was there as well
as Daisy and Archie.
He flung down the spade in a strange access of
delight and rushed to the wagon. To the rest, it was a
moment of surprise and terror, to see the house burnt
down, and that gaunt, wan man in his grimy shirt
sleeves, all stained with smoke and dirt, darting wildly
out like some madman to greet them. But to Dick, it
was a moment of unspeakable joy. House and land
were forgotten altogether in the sudden revulsion of
DICK PROTHERO'S LUCK. 87
intense delight with which he saw his wife and child
brought back to him from the dead again.
It was some minutes before each party could under-
stand exactly what had happened, for at first Dick
could only look on and laugh and cry like a maniac,
and take Daisy up in his arms over and over again, and
lay Bertha down on the ground, crying, upon her mat-
tress. But after awhile they grew more calm, and in
broken words explained how things had fared on either
side with either of them. As to the grave and the re-
volver. Indeed, Dick remained for the moment dis-
creetly silent ; but the rest, he told as well as he was
able in brief sobbing sentences. Then they kissed one
another once more, that husband and wife, so strangely
restored, and wept with thankfulness, all houseless and
homeless, alone on the prairie.
Presently Archie broke the solemn silence.
" We must take Bertha somewhere for to-night," he
said gazing round ruefully. " Perhaps they could give
us a bed at McDougall's."
They raised the mattress into the wagon again, and
were going to lay Bertha back on her improvised in-
valid's couch, when Bertha cried out, '* Oh, look at
Daisy, Dick ; what's that she's doing over there on that
dirt-heap yonder?"
Dick turned round, and with his bloodshot eyes, saw
dimly that Daisy was trying to suck one of the round-
ish pebbles he had struck his spade against so often in
<^iggirig' It was a pebble as big as a hen's egg, and he
was afraid the child would fairly choke herself with it.
But he would not go near that open grave himself,
from which he had been preserved almost by a miracle.
It fairly daunted him.
88 STRANGE STORIES.
" Go over and fetch her, Archie," he cried in a tone
of command. And Archie went to her.
But Daisy didn't want to be deprived of her pebble.
It's pretty,'* she said, and went on sucking at it.
Archie snatched it from her. " Why, Dick," he ex-
claimed, looking close at the rough lump, and pressing
it with his nail, "what on earth's this ? It's as soft as
lead, and as yellow as a guinea !"
Then he burst into a sudden loud laugh of triumph.
Dick stared at him in amazement, thinking the painful
drama of the last two hours must have fairly made
Archie lose his senses. But Archie waved the pebble
frantically round his head with a strange air of victory.
" Dick, Dick," he cried, in his joy, *' luck's turned at
last; they're nuggets! they're nuggets !"
And that's just how Dick Prothero found the first
rich paying placer of alluvial gold that ever was dis-
covered in Manitoba.
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY.
I.
*• On Sunday next, the 14th inst., the Reverend
John Greedy, B. A., of Magdalen College, Oxford, will
preach in Walton Magna Church, on behalf of the
Gold Coast Mission." Not a very startling announce-
ment that, and yet simple as it looks, it stirred Ethel
Berry's soul to its inmost depths. For Ethel had been
brought up by her Aunt Emily to look upon foreign
missions as the one thing on earth worth living for and
thinking about, and the Reverend John Creedy, B. A.»
had a missionary history of his own, strange enough
even in these strange days of queer juxtapositions be-
tween utter savagery and advanced civilization.
" Only think," she said to her aunt, as they read the
placard on the schoolhouse-board, "he's a real African
negro, the vicar says, taken from a slaver on the Gold
Coast when he was a child, and brought to England to
be educated. He's been to Oxford and got a degree ;
and now he's going out again to Africa to convert his
own people. And he's coming down to the vicar's to
stay on Wednesday."
" It's my belief," said old Uncle James, Aunt Emily's
brother, the superannuated skipper, " that he'd much
better stop in England for ever. I've been a good bit
on the Coast myself in my time, after palm oil and
I89]
90 STRANGE STORIES.
such, and my opinion is that a nigger's a nigger any-
where, but he's a sight less of a nigger in England than
out yonder in Africa. Take him to England, and you
make a gentleman of him ; send him home again, and
the nigger comes out at once in spite of you."
" Oh, James," Aunt Emily put in, *' how can you
talk such unchristianlike talk, setting yourself up
against missions, when we know that all the nations
of the earth are made of one blood ?"
" I've always lived a Christian life myself, Emily,"
answered Uncle James, " though I have cruised a good
bit on the Coast, too, which is against it certainly ;
but I take it a nigger's a nigger whatever you do with
him. The Ethiopian cannot change his skin, the
Scripture says, nor the leopard his spots, and a nig-
ger he'll be to the end of his days ; you mark my
words, Emily."
On Wednesday, in due course, the Reverend John
Creedy arrived at the vicarage, and much curiosity
there was throughout the village of Walton Magna
that week to see this curious new thing, a coal-black
parson. Next day, Thursday, an almost equally un-
usual event occurred to Ethel Berry, for, to her great
surprise, she got a little note in the morning inviting
her up to a tennis party at the vicarage the same after-
noon. Now though the vicar called on Aunt Emily
often enough, and accepted her help readily for school
feasts and other village festivities of the milder sort,
the Berrys were hardly up to that level of society
which is commonly invited to the parson's lawn tennis
parties. And the reason why Ethel was asked on
this particular Thursday must be traced to a certain
' pious conspiracy between the. vicar and the secretary
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 9I
of the Gold Coast Evangelistic Society. When those
two eminent missionary advocates had met a fortnight
before at Exeter Hall, the secretary had represented
to the vicar the desirability of young John Greedy *s
taking to himself an English wife before his departure.
" It will steady him, and keep him right on the Goast,**
he said, "and it will give him importance in the eyes
of the natives as well." Whereto the vicar responded
that he knew exactly the right girl to suit the place in
his own parish, and that by a providential conjunction
she already took a deep interest in foreign missions.
So these two good men conspired in all innocence of
heart to sell poor Ethel into African slavery ; and the
vicar had asked John Greedy down to Walton Magna
on purpose to meet her.
That afternoon Ethel put on her pretty sateen and
her witching little white hat, with two natural dog-
roses pinned on one side, and went pleased and proud
up to the vicarage. The Reverend John Greedy was
there, not in full clerical costume, but arrayed in
tennis flannels, with only a loose white tie beneath his
flap collar to mark his newly acquired spiritual dignity.
He was a comely looking negro enough, full-blooded,
but not too broad-faced nor painfully African in type ;
and when he was playing tennis his athletic quick
limbs and his really handsome build took away
greatly from the general impression of an inferior
race. His voice was of the ordinary Oxford type,
open, pleasant, and refined, with a certain easy-going
air of natural gentility, hardly marred by just the faint-
est tinge of the thick negro blur in the broad vowels.
When he talks to Ethel — and the vicar's wife took
good ca.re that they should talk together a great deal
92 STRANGE STORIES.
— his conversation was of a sort that she seldom heard
at Walton Magna. It was full of London and Oxford ;
of boat-races at Iffley and cricket matches at Lord's ;
of people and books whose very names Ethel had
never heard — one of them was a Mr. Mill, she thought,
and another a Mr. Aristotle — but which she felt
vaguely to be one step higher in the intellectual scale
than her own level. Then his friends, to whom he
alluded casually, not like one who airs his grand ac-
quaintances, were such very distinguished people.
There was a real live lord, apparently, at the same
college with him, and he spoke of a young baronet
whose estate lay close by, as plain " Harrington of
Christchurch," without any " Sir Arthur " — a thing
which even the vicar himself would hardly have ven-
tured to do. She knew that he was learned, too ; as
a matter of fact he had taken a fair second class in
Greats at Oxford ; and he could talk delightfully of
poetry and novels. To say the truth, John Greedy, in
spite of his black face, dazzled poor Ethel, for he was
more of a scholar and a gentleman than anybody with
whom she had ever before had the chance of convers-
ing on equal terms.
When Ethel turned the course of talk to Africa, the
young parson was equally eloquent and fascinating.
He didn't care about leaving England for many
reasons, but he would be glad to do something for his
poor brethren. He was enthusiastic about missions ;
that was a common interest ; and he was so anxious to
raise and improve the condition of his fellow-negroes
that Ethel couldn't help feeling what a noble thing it
was of him thus to sacrifice himself, cultivated gentle-
man as he was, in an African jungle, for his heathen
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 93
countrymen. Altogether, she went home from the
tennis-court that afternoon thoroughly overcome by
John Greedy *s personality. She didn't for a moment
think of falling in love with him — a certain indescrib-
able race-instinct set up an impassable barrier against
that — but she admired him and was interested in him
in a way that she had never yet felt with any other
man.
As for John Greedy, he was naturally charmed with
Ethel. In the first place, he would have been charmed
with any English girl who took so much interest in
himself and his plans, for, like all negroes, he was
frankly egotistical, and delighted to find a white lady
who seemed to treat him as a superior being. But in
the second place, Ethel was really a charming, simple
English village lassie, with sweet little manners and a
delicious blush, who might have impressed a far less
susceptible man than the young negro parson. So,
whatever Ethel felt, John Greedy felt himself truly in
love. And after all, John Greedy was in all essentials
an educated" English gentleman, with the same chival-
rous feelings towards a pretty and attractive girl that
every English gentleman ought to have.
On Sunday morning Aunt Emily and Ethel went to
the parish church, and the Reverend John Greedy
preached the expected sermon. It was almost his
first — sounded like a trial trip, Uncle James mut-
tered — but it was undoubtedly what connoisseurs de-
scribe as an admirable discourse. John Greedy was
free from any tinge of nervousness — negroes never
know what that word means — and he spoke fervently,
eloquently, and with much power of manner about the
necessity for a Gold Coast Mission. Perhapo there
94 STRANGE STORIES.
was really nothing very original or striking in what he
said, but his way of saying it was impressive and vig-
orous. The negro, like many other lower races, has
the faculty of speech largely developed, and John
Greedy had been noted as one of the readiest and
most fluent talkers at the Oxford Union debates.
When he enlarged upon the need for workers, the
need for help, the need for succor and sympathy in the
great task of evangelization. Aunt Emily and Ethel
forgot his black hands, stretched out open-palmed
towards the people, and felt only their hearts stirred
within them by the eloquence and enthusiasm of that
appealing gesture. .
. The end of it all was, that instead of a week John
Greedy stopped for two months at Walton Magna,
and during all that time he saw a great deal of Ethel.
Before the end of the first fortnight he walked out one
afternoon along the river-bank with her, and talked
earnestly of his expected mission.
** Miss Berry," he said, as they sat to rest awhile on
the parapet of the little bridge by the weeping willows,
" I don't mind going to Africa, but I can't bear going
all alone. I am to have a station entirely by myself
up the Ancobra river, where I shall see no other Chris-
tian face from year's end to year's end. I wish I
could have had some one to accompany me."
"You will be very lonely," Ethel answered. "I
wish indeed you could have some companionship."
"Do you really?" John Greedy went on. "It is
not good for man to live alone ; he wants a helpmate.
Oh, Miss Ethel, may I venture to hope that perhaps,
if I can try to deserve you, you will be mine ?"
Ethel started in dismay. Mr. Greedy had been very
THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY. 95
attentive, very kind, and she had liked to hear him
talk and had encouraged his coming, but she was
hardly prepared for this. The nameless something in
our blood recoiled at it. The proposal stunned her,
and she said nothing but "Oh, Mr. Greedy, how can
you say such a thing ?"
John Greedy saw the shadow on her face, the unin-
tentional dilatation of her delicate nostrils, the faint
puckering at the corner of her lips, and knew with a
negro's quick instinct of face-reading what it all meant.
" Oh, Miss Ethel," he said, with a touch of genuine bit-
terness in his tone, ** don't you, too, despise us. I
won't ask you for any answer now ; I don't want an
answer. But I want you to think it over. Do think
it over, and consider whether you can ever love me. I
won't press the matter on you. I won't insult you by
importunity, but I will tell you just this once, and
once for all, what I feel. I love you, and I shall
always love you, whatever you answer me now. I
know it would cost you a wrench to take me, a greater
wrench than to take the least and the unworthiest of
your own people. But if you can only get over that
first wrench, f can promise earnestly and faithfully to
love you as well as ever woman yet was loved. Don't
say anything now," he went on, as he saw she was
going to open her mouth again: "wait and think it
over; pray it over; and if you can't see your way
straight before you when I ask you this day fortnight
'yes or no,' answer me *no,* and I give you my word
of honor as a gentleman I will never speak to you of
the matter again. But I shall carry your picture writ-
ten on my heart to my grave."
96 STRANGE STORIES.
And Ethel knew that he was speaking from his very
soul.
When she went home, she took Aunt Emily up into
her little bedroom, over the porch where the dog-roses
grew, and told her all about it. Aunt Emily cried
and sobbed as if her heart would break, but she saw
only one answer from the first. " It is a gate opened
to you, my darling," she said : " I shall break my heart
over it, Ethel, but it is a gate opened." And though
she felt that all the light would be gone out of her life
if Ethel went, she worked with her might from that
moment forth to induce Ethel to marry John Creedy
and go to Africa. Poor soul, she acted faithfully up
to her lights.
As for Uncle James, he looked at the matter very
differently. '* Her instinct is against it," he said
stoutly, "and our instincts wasn't put in our hearts for
nothing. They're meant to be a guide and a light to
us in these dark questions. No white girl ought to
marry a black man, even if he is a parson. It ain't
natural : our instinct is again it. A white man may
marry a black woman if he likes ; I don't say any-
thing again him, though I don't say I'd do it myself,
not for any money. But a white woman to marry a
black man, why, it makes our blood rise, you know,
'specially if you've happened to have cruised worth
speaking of along the Coast."
But the vicar and the vicar's wife were charmed
with the prospect of success, and spoke seriously to
Ethel about it. It was a call, they thought, and Ethel
oughtn't to disregard it. They had argued themselves
out of those wholesome race instincts that Uncle
James so rightly valued, and they were eager to argue
THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY. 97
Ethel out of them too. What could the poor girl do ?
Her aunt and the vicar on the one hand, and John
Creedy on the other, were too much between them for
her native feelings. At the end of the fortnight John
Creedy asked her his simple question, ** yes or no," and
half against her will she answered "yes." John Creedy
took her hand delicately in his and fervidly kissed the
very tips of her fingers ; something within him told
him he must not kiss her lips. She started at the kiss,
but she said nothing John Creedy noticed the start,
and said within himself, " I shall so love and cherish
her that I will make her love me in spite of my black
skin." For with all the faults of his negro nature,
John Creedy was at heart an earnest and affectionate
man, after his kind.
And Ethel really did, to some extent, love him
already. It was such a strange mixture of feeling.
From one point of view he was a gentleman by posi-
tion, a clergyman, a man of learning and of piety ; and
from this point of view Ethel was not only satisfied,
but even proud of him. For the rest, she took him as
some good Catholics take the veil, from a sense of the
call. And so, before the two months were out, Ethel
Berry had married John Creedy, and both started
together at once for Southampton, on their way to
Axim. Aunt Emily cried, and hoped they might be
blessed in their new work, but Uncle James never lost
his misgivings about the effect of Africa upon a born
African. " Instincts is a great thing," he said, with a
shake of his head, as he saw the West Coast mail
steam slowly down Southampton Water, " and when he
gets among his own people his instincts will surely get
the better of him, as safe as my name is James Berry."
98 STRANGE STORIES.
II.
The little mission bungalow at Butabu6, a wooden
shed neatly thatched with fan palms, had been built
and garnished by the native catechist from Axim and
'his wife before the arrival of the missionaries, so that
Ethel found a habitable dwelling ready for her at the
end of her long boat journey up the rapid stream of
the Ancobra. There the strangely matched pair set-
tled down quietly enough to their work of teaching
and catechizing, for the mission had already been
started by the native evangelist, and many of the peo-
ple were fairly ready to hear and accept the new re-
ligion. For the first ten or twelve months Ethel's
letters home were full of praise and love for dear John.
Now that she had come to know him well, she won-
dered she had ever feared to marry him. No husband
was ever so tender, so gentle, so considerate. He
nursed her in all her little ailments like a woman ; she
leaned on him as a wife leans on the strong arm of her
husband. And then he was so clever, so wise, so
learned. Her only grief was that she feared she was
not and would never be good enough for him. Yet it
was well for her that they were living so entirely away
from all white society at Butabu6, for there she had
nobody with whom to contrast John but the half-clad
savages around them. Judged by the light of that
startling contrast, good John Greedy, with his culti-
vated ways and gentle manners, seemed like an Eng-
lishman indeed. •
John Greedy, for his part, thought no less well of
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. 99
his Ethel. He was tenderly respectful to her; more
distant, perhaps, than is usual between husband and
wife, even in the first months of marriage, but that was
due to his innate delicacy of feeling, which made him
half unconsciously recognize the depth of the gulf that
still divided them. He cherished her like some saintly
thing, too sacred for the common world. Yet Ethel
was his helper in all his work, so cheerful under the
necessary privations of their life, so ready to put up
with bananas and cassava balls, so apt at kneading
plantain paste, so willing to learn from the negro
women all the mysteries of mixing agadey, cankey, and
koko pudding. No tropical heat seemed to put her
out of temper ; even the horrible country fever itself
she bore with such gentle resignation, John Greedy
felt in his heart of hearts that he would willingly give
up his life for her, and that it would be but a small
sacrifice for so sweet a creature.
One day, shortly after their arrival at Butabue, John
Greedy began talking in English to the catechist about
the best way of setting to work to learn the native lan-
guage. He had left the country when he was nine
years old, he said, and had forgotten all about it. The
catechist answered him quickly in a Fantee phrase.
John Greedy looked amazed and started.
*' What does he say ?" asked Ethel.
" He says that I shall soon learn if only I listen ; but
the curious thing is, Ethie, that I understand him."
" It has come back to you, John, that's all. You are
so quick at languages, and now you hear it again you
remember it."
" Perhaps so," said the missionary, slowly, " but I
100 STRANGE STORIES.
have never recalled a word of it for all these years. I
wonder if it will all come back to me."
" Of course it will, dear," said Ethel ; " you know,
things come to you so easily in that way. You almost
learned Portuguese while we were coming out from
hearing those Benguela people."
And so it did come back, sure enough. Before John
Greedy had been six weeks at Butabu^, he could talk
Fantee as fluently as any of the natives around him.
After all, he was nine years old when he was taken to
England, and it was no great wonder that he should
recollect the language he had heard in his childhood
till that age. Still, he himself noticed rather uneasily
that every phrase and word, down to the very heathen
charms and prayers of his infancy, came back to him
now with startling vividness and without an effort.
Four months after their arrival John saw one day a
tall and ugly negro woman, in the scanty native dress,
standing near the rude market-place where the Buta-
hu6 butchers killed and sold their reeking goat-
meat. Ethel saw him start again, and with a terrible
foreboding in her heart, she could not help asking him
why he started. " I can't tell you, Ethie," he said,
piteously ; " for heaven's sake don't press me. I want
to spare you." But Ethel would hear. " Is it your
mother, John ?" she asked hoarsely.
" No, thank heaven, not my mother, Ethie," he
answered her, with something like pallor on his dark
cheek, " not my mother; but I remember the woman."
" A relative ?"
" Oh, Ethie, don't press me. Yes, my mother's
sister. I remember her years ago. Let us say no
THE REVEREND JOHN CREEDY. lOI
more about it." And Ethel, looking at that gaunt and
squalid savage woman, shuddered in her heart and
said no more.
Slowly, as time went on, however, Ethel began to
notice a strange shade of change coming over John's
ideas and remarks about the negroes. At first he had
been shocked and distressed at their heathendom and
savagery, but the more he saw of it the more he
seemed to find it natural enough in their position, and
even in a sort of way to sympathize with it or apol-
ogize for it. One morning, a month or two later, he
spoke to her voluntarily of his father. He had never
done so in England. " I can remember," he said, " he
was a chief, a great chief. He had many wives, and
my mother was one. He was beaten in war by Kola,
and I was taken prisoner. But he had a fine palace at
Kwantah, and many fan-bearers." Ethel observed
with a faint terror that he seemed to speak with pride
and complacency of his father's chieftaincy. She
shuddered again and wondered. Was the West Afri-
can instinct getting the upper hand in him over the
Christian gentleman ?
When the dries were over, and the koko-harvest
gathered, the negroes held a grand feast. John had
preached in the open air to some of the market people
in the morning, and in the evening he was sitting in
the hut with Ethel, waiting till the catechist and his
wife should come in to prayers, for they earned out
their accustomed ceremony decorously, even there,
every night and morning. Suddenly they heard the
din of savage music out of doors, and the noise of a
great crowd laughing and shouting down the street.
John listened, and listened with deepening attention.
lOJ
STUANviK SroUlMH.
"l>*>n't \*>u l\is\r it, I'Uhir?" \\c nifil. " It's \\\r (mn-
toiws. I know what it incans. It's tlu* l»ai vrst l»atllt%
fOi\Ht !"
" How hi»loo\H !'* said I'.thol, shiinKinj; haiK.
'* Oon't l>o .\(i.ii»l, iK'.msl," )nln\ saiil, smilii\^; at \\vr.
"It «uoai\?* i\o lumw. It's oi^ly \\\c pooplo ainii-un^
tluMWsolvos." ,\\\\\ \w W\\,\\\ to Krrp tin\r lo tlw tom-
t\MUs iai>ulU' with th«^ pal»ns of Ins hainls.
Tho iiit\ iht'w inanM. an«l John \\\v\\' more «'vi«hntly
ovoitoil at cvtMv step. " l>»>n't yow hrai, l'*thir ?" he
saii< a|;aii>. "It's th(* Sah>tijja. What inspiiitin^j
mnsiv' ! It's hUo a ilunn an«H"ifo l)anvl ; it's hKf tl»e
l>aj;pipos ; it'slik*^ a inihtaiy inatvh. Wy Jov<\ it t oin-
pols ono to vlanoo !'* A\\k\ ho p;ol np as \w spoke, in
lM>i;hs)\ v'hMical ihoss {^{ov \\c wore iltMiiMl »hess even
at lU>tahvie\. an*! h«'j;an capoiinjj '\\\ a s»>rl ol l\ornpipc
rv>ui\d tho tiny i<>oin.
*' 0\\, J»>hn. *lot>'i," viiovl l\tl\tM, "Suppose the
catovhist were tv> vv>n\e it\ !"
Unt loht\'s l>h>otl was np. **l.*>ok here," he said
exoiteilly, "it r,oes hke this. Here ytni liohl )'onr
n\atvhUHk out ; here yon tue ; here )'*ni eh.u^M* with
v: nt lasses ; here yon haek then\ \Knvn before yynx ; here
yv^n hoK! np yvnir eneiny's ht\ul in yi>nr hamls, and
here yon kick it otY ani<>ni; the woineiu Oh, it's
j:;rand !" There w.is a terrihle lii;ht ii\ his ll)k\ek eyes
as he spoke, and a terrible trembling in his clenched
M.K'k hands.
" John, * cried l\thel. in an ai;ony of horror, " it isn't
Christian, it isn't hnman, it isnH w orthy of yon. 1 can
never, never love yon if yon do such a thinj^ a^ain."
In a moment John's face changed, and his hand fell
as if she had stabbed him. " Ethie," he said in a low
vnlir, (Trrpliijr Ikk U to hrr lil<n n wM|»|ir»l 'iiiatdpf,
" r.thir, my «Iiiilir»|j, my own mohI, my ln-Invrtl ; what
/((irr \ (linw ! ( )li, hravrim, I will never llMlcfi to the
arc'urHcil IIiImj^j aijain. ( )li, i'.lhir, fm lieaveirH Hake,
for merry's sake, ((H|;ive im- I"
I'Uliel l.iid lier liaiul, heiiililliii;, nil \\\k Itea'l. jfilm
.^ank njton Ihm l<nr(") liefnre liri, hiiiI liowed liiinsrlf
ilowti wilh liJM liead ImIwcmii lii^i arms, lil<e one sta^-
j;ered and penilriil. I'.llnl liflrd lijin jmiiI ly, ,itid af
that moment the (ateihjst and his wife (aine in. John
Htood np f'inni)', tnoU down hin Milde ;iiid I'rayer hook,
and read thioii|;h evenin|; prayer at om e in his tiftnal
inipieMsive lone. In oih" moment he had < h,iii{;ed
haek a};ain from tin* I'antee Mavajje to the deiorons
( )xford I lerjjyman.
it was only a week later that I'*thel, hnntinjj ahout
in the little storer(»(Mn, hapjieiied to iioti((; a stout
wooden box earefnily C(»V(;red up. .She opened the lid
wilh some tliClii iilty, for it wan fastened down with a
n.itivc lock, and to her horror she found inside it a siir-
r«'ptitious ke|.j of raw ncj^jro rum. .She took the k(r^
«Mit, put it eonspi(u<Mis!y in the midst of the Htor<'rof)m,
and said nothin|.[. That ni|dit she heard John in the
juimle hehind tlnr yard, and lookin^j out, she saw
dindy th.it he was haikinj^ the ke^ t<i j)ieces vehe-
mently wilh an axe. After that he was even kind(T
and tenderer to lu;r than usual for the next week, hut
I'Uhel va|.;uely remiMnbered that once or twice before
lie had .seemed a little odd in his manner, and that it
wa.s on those tiays that she had seen j^leams of the
savage nature j)eepin^ through. I'erhaps, she thought,
with a shiver, his civilization was only a veneer, and a
glass of raw rum or so was enough to wash it off.
104 • STRANGE STORIES. '
Twelve months after their first arrival, Ethel came
home very feverish one evening from her girls' school,
and found John gone from the hut. Searching about
in the room for the quinine bottle, she came once more
upon a rum-keg, and this time it was empty. A name-
less terror drove her into the little bedroom. There,
on the bed, torn into a hundred shreds, lay John
Creedy's black coat and European clothing. The
room whirled around her, and though she had never
heard of such a thing before, the terrible truth flashed
across her bewildered mind like a hideous dream. She
went out alone, at night, as she had never done before
since she came to Africa, into the broad lane between
the huts which constituted the chief street of Butabu6.
So far away from home, so utterly solitary among all
those black faces, so sick at heart with that burning
and devouring horror ! She reeled and staggered
down the street, not knowing how or where she went,
till at the end, beneath the two tall date-palms, she saw
lights flashing, and heard the noise of shouts and
laughter. A group of natives, men and women to-
gether, were dancing and howling round a dancing and
howling negro. The central figure was dressed in the
native fashion, with arms and legs bare, and he was
shouting a loud song at the top of his voice in the
Fantee language, while he shook a tom-tom. There
was a huskiness as of drink in his throat, and his steps
were unsteady and doubtful. Great heavens ! could
that reeling, shrieking, black savage be John Greedy ?
Yes, instinct had gained the day over civilization ;
the savage in John Greedy had broken out ; he had
torn up his English clothes, and, in West African par-
lance, " had gone Fantee." Ethel gazed at him, white
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. " lOJ
with horror — stood still and gazed, and never cried nor
fainted, nor said a word. The crowd of negroes
divided to right and left, and John Greedy saw his wife
standing there like a marble figure. With one awful
cry he came to himself again, and rushed to her side.
She did not repel him, as he exp.cted ; she did not
speak ; she was mute and cold like a c^ -pse, not like
a living woman. He took her up in his strong arms,
laid her head on his shoulder, and carried her home
through the long line of thatched huts, erect and steady
as when he first walked up the aisle of Walton Magna
church. Then he laid her down gently on the bed, and
called the wife of the catechist. '* She has the fever,"
he said in Fantee. " Sit by her."
The catechist 's wife looked at her, and said, "Yes;
the yellow fever."
And so she had. Even before she saw John, the
fever had been upon her, and that awful revelation
had brought it out suddenly in full force. She lay
unconscious upon the bed, her eyes open, staring
ghastily, but not a trace of color in her cheek nor a
sfgn of life upon her face.
John Greedy wrote a few words on a piece of paper,
which he folded in his hand, gave a few directions in
Fantee to the woman at the bedside, and then hurried
out like one on fire into the darkness outside.
I06 STRANGE STORIES.
III.
It was thirty miles through the jungle, by a native
trackway, to the nearest mission station at Effuenta.
There were two Methodist missionaries stationed there,
John Greedy knew, for he had gone round by boat
more than once to see them. When he first came to
Africa he could no more have found his way across
the neck of the river fork by that tangled jungle track
than he could have flown bodily over the top of the
cocoa palms ; but now, half naked, barefooted, and
inspired with an overpowering emotion, he threaded
his path through the darkness among the creepers and
lianas of the forest in true African fashion. Stooping
here, creeping on all fours there, running in the open
at full "^speed anon, he never once stopped to draw
breath till he had covered the whole thirty miles, and
knocked in the early dawn at the door of the mission
hut at Effuenta.
One of the missionaries opened the barred doors
cautiously. " What do you want ?" he asked in Fan-
tee, of the bare-legged savage, who stood crouching
by the threshold.
"I bring a message from Missionary John Greedy,"
the bare-legged savage answered, also in Fantee.
" He wants European clothes."
, " Has he sent a letter?" asked the missionary.
John Greedy took the folded piece of paper from
his palm. The missionary read it. It told him in a
few words how the Butabu^ people had pillaged John's
hut at night and stolen his clothing, and how he could
THE REVEREND JOHN CREED V. . 10/
not go outside his door till he got some European
dress again.
" This is strange," said the missionary. " Brother
Felton died three days ago of the fever. You can
take his clothes to Brother Greedy, if you will."
The bare-limbed savage nodded acquiescence. The
missionary looked hard at him, and fancied he had
seen his face before, but he never even for a moment
suspected that he was speaking to John Greedy him-
self.
A bundle was soon made of dead Brother Felton's
clothes, and the bare-limbed man took it in his arms
and prepared to run back again the whole way to But-
abu6.
** You have had nothing to eat," said the lonely mis-
sionary. " Won't you take something to help you on
your way?"
" Give me some plantain paste," answered John
Greedy. " I can eat it as I go." And when they gave
it to him he forgot himself for the moment, and an-
swered, "Thank you," in English. The missionary
stared, but thought it was only a single phrase that he
had picked up at Butabu6, and that he was anxious,
negro-fashion, to air his knowledge.
Back through the jungle, with the bundle in his
arms, John Greedy wormed his way once more, like a
snake or a tiger, never pausing or halting on the road
till he found himself again in the open space outside
the village of Butabu6. There he stayed awhile, and
behind a clump of wild ginger, he opened the bundle
and arrayed himself once more from head to foot in
English clerical dress. That done, too proud to slink,
he walked bold and erect down the main alley, and
I08 ,•' * STRANGE STORIES.
quietly entered his own hut. It was high noon, the
baking high noon of Africa, as he did so.
Ethel lay unconscious still upon the bed. The
negro woman crouched, half asleep after her night's
watching, at the foot. John Greedy looked at his
watch, which stood hard by on the little wooden table.
" Sixty miles in fourteen hours," he said aloud. " Bet-
ter time by a great deal than when we walked from
Oxford to the White Horse, eighteen months since."
And then he sat down silently by Ethel's bi!:dside.
"Has she moved her eyes ?" he asked tne negress.
** Never, John Greedy," answered the woman. Till
last night she had always called him " Master."
He watched the lifeless face for an hour or two.
There was no change in it till about four o'clock ;
then Ethel's eyes began to alter their expression. He
saw the dilated pupils contract a little, and knew that
consciousness was gradually returning.
In a moment more she looked round at him and
gave a little cry. "John," she exclaimed, with a sort
of awakening hopefulness in her voice, " where on
earth did you get those clothes?"
" These clothes ?" he answered softly. " Why, you
must be wandering in your mind, Ethie dearest, to ask
such a question now. At Standen's, in the High at
Oxford, my darling." And he passed his black hand
gently across her loose hair.
Ethel gave a great cry of joy. " Then it was a
dream, a horrid dream, John, or a terrible mistake ?
Oh, John, say it was a dream !"
John drew his hand across his forehead slowly.
"Ethie darling," he said, "you are wandering, I'm
THE REVEREND JOHN GREEDY. IO9
afraid. You have a bad fever. I don't know what
you mean."
" Then you didn't tear them up, and wear a Fantee
dress, and dance with a tom-tom down the street ? Oh,
John!"
"Oh, Ethel! No. What a terrible deHrium you
must have had !"
" It is all well," she said. " I don't mind if I die
now." And she sank back exhausted into a sort of
feverish sleep.
"John Greedy," said the black catechist's wife
solemnly, in Fantee, " you will have to answer for that
lie to a dying woman with your soul !"
" My soul !" cried John Greedy passionately, smit-
ing both breasts with his clenched fists. ^'^ My %o\x\\
Do you think, you negro wench, I wouldn't give my
poor, miserable, black soul to eternal torments a
thousand times over, if only I could give her little
white heart one moment's forgetfulness before she
dies ?"
For five days longer Ethel lingered in the burning
fever, sometimes conscious for a minute or two, but
for the most part delirious or drowsy all the time.
She never said another word to John about her terrible
dream, and John never said another word to her. But
he sat by her side and tended her like a woman, do-
ing everything that was possible for her in the bare
little hut, and devouring his full heart with a horrible
gnawing remorse too deep for pen or tongue to probe
and fathom. For civilization with John Greedy was
really at bottom far more than a mere veneer; though
the savage instincts might break out with him now and
again, such outbursts no more affected his adult and
no STRANGE STORIES.
acquired nature than a single bump supper or wine
party at college affects the nature of many a gentle-
minded English lad. The truest John Creedy of all
was the gentle, tender, English clergyman.
As he sat by her bedside sleepless and agonized,
night and day for five days together, one prayer only
rose to his lips time after time : '* Heaven grant she
may die !" He had depth enough in the civilized side
of his soul to feel that that was the only way to save
her from a life-long shame. "If she gets well," he
said to himself, trembling, "I will leave this accursed
Africa at once. I will work my way back to England
as a common sailor, and send her home by the mail
with my remaining money. I will never inflict my
presence upon her again, for she can not be persuaded,
if once she recovers, that she did not see me, as she
did see me, a bare-limbed heathen Fantee brandishing
a devilish tom-tom. But I shall get work in England
— not a parson's; that I can never be again — but
clerk's work, laborer's work, navvy's work, anything !
Look at my arms ; I rowed five in the Magdalen
eight ; I could hold a spade as well as any man. I
will toil and slave, and save, and keep her still like a
lady, if I starve for it myself, but she shall never see
my face again, if once she recovers. Even then it will
be a living death for her, poor angel ! There is only
one hope — Heaven grant she may die !'*
On the fifth day she opened her eyes once. John
saw that his prayer was about to be fulfilled. " John,"
she said feebly — " John, tell me, on your honor, it was
only my delirium."
And John, raising his hand to heaven, splendide
mendaxt answered in a firm voice, " I swear it."
THE KEVEKExNl) JOlliN GREEDY. Ill
Ethel smiled and shut her eyes. It was for the last
time.
Next morning, John Creedy — tearless, but parched
and dry in the mouth, like one stunned and unmanned
— took a pickaxe and hewed out a rude grave in the
loose soil near the river. Then he fashioned a rough
coffin from twisted canes with his own hands, and in
it he reverently placed the sacred body. He allowed
no one to help him or come near him — not even his
fellow-Christians, the catechist and his wife; Ethel
was too holy a thing for their African hands to touch.
Next he put on his white surplice, and for the first and
only time in his life he read, without a quaver in his
voice, the Church of England burial service over the
open grave. And when he had finished he went back
to his desolate hut, and cried with a loud voice of ut-
ter despair, " The one thing that bound me to civiliza-
tion is gone. Henceforth I shall never speak another
word of English. I go to my own people." So say-
ing, he solemnly tore up his European clothes once
more, bound a cotton loin-cloth round his waist, cov-
ered his head with dirt, and sat fasting and wailing
piteously, like a broken-hearted child, in his cabin.
Nowadays, the old half-caste Portuguese rum-dealer
at Butabue can point out to any English pioneer who
comes up the river which one, among a crowd of di-
lapidated negroes who lie basking in the soft dust out-
side his hut, was once the Reverend John Creedy,
B.A., of Magdalen College, Oxford.
MR. CHUNG.
The first time I ever met poor Chung was at one of
Mrs. Bouverie Barton's Thursday evening receptions
in Eaton Place. Of course you know Mrs. Bouverie
Barton, the cleverest literary hostess at this moment
living in London. Herself a well-known novelist, she
collects around her all the people worth knowing, at
her delightful At Homes ; and whenever you go there
you are sure to meet somebody whose acquaintance is
a treasure and an acquisition for your whole after life.
Well, it so happened on one of those enjoyable
Thursday evenings that I was sitting on the circular
ottoman in the little back room with Miss Amelia
Hogg, the famous woman's rights advocate. Now, if
there is a subject on earth which infinitely bores me,
that subject is woman's rights; and if there is a person
on earth who can make it absolutely unendurable, that
person is Miss Amelia Hogg. So I let her speak on
placidly in her own interminable manner about the
fortunes of the Bill — she always talks as though her
own pet Bill were the only Bill now existing on this
sublunary planet — and while I interposed an occasional
** Indeed " or " Quite so " for form's sake, I gave my-
self up in reality to digesting the conversation of two
intelligent people who sat back to back with us on the
other side of the round ottoman.
MR. CHUNG. 113
" Yes," said one of the speakers, in a peculiarly soft
silvery voice which contrasted oddly with Miss Hogg's
querulous treble, " his loss is a very severe one to con-
temporary philosophy. His book on the * Physiology
of Perception ' is one of the most masterly pieces of
analytic work I have ever met with in the whole
course of my psychological reading. It was to me, I
confess, who approached it fresh from the school of
Schelling and Hegel, a perfect revelation of i\ pos-
tcriori thinking. I shall never cease to regret that he
did not live long enough to complete the second
volume."
Just at this point Miss Hogg had come to a pause
in her explanation of the seventy-first clause of the
Bill, and I stole a look round the corner to see who
my philosophic neighbor might happen to be. An
Oxford don, no doubt, I said to myself, or a young
Cambridge professor, freshly crammed to the throat
with all the learning of the Moral Science Tripos.
Imagine my surprise when, on glancing casually at
the silvery-voiced speaker, I discovered him to be a
full-blown Chinaman ! \ 3S, a yellow-skinned, almond-
eyed, Mongolian-featured Chinaman, with a long pig-
tail hanging down his back, and attired in the official
amber silk robe and purple slippers of a mandarin of
the third grade, and the silver button. My curiosity
was so fully aroused by this strange discovery that I
determined to learn something more about so curious
a product of an alien civilization ; and therefore, after
a few minutes, I managed to give Miss Amelia Hogg
the slip by drawing in young Harry Farquhar, the
artist at the hundred-and-twentieth section, and mak-
114 STRANGE STORIES.
ing my way quietly across the room to Mrs. Bouvcrie
Harton.
" The name of that young Chinaman ?** our hostess
said in answer to my question. •' Oh, certainly ; he
is Mr. Chung, of the Chinese Legation. A most intel-
ligent and well-educated young man, with a great deal
of taste for European literature. Introduce you? — of
course, this minute." And she led the way back to
where my Oriental phenomenon was still sitting, deep
as ever in philosophical problems with Professor Wool-
stock, a spectacled old gentleman of German aspect,
who was evidently pumping him thoroughly with a
view to the materials for Volume Forty of his forth-
coming great work on " Ethnical Psychology."
I sat by Mr. Chung for the greater part of what was
left of that evening. From the very first he exercised
a sort of indescribable fascination over me. His Eng-
lish had hardly a trace of foreign accent, and his voice
was one of the sweetest and most exquisitely modu-
lated that I have ever heard. When he looked at you,
his deep, calm eyes bespoke at once the very essence
of transparent sincerity. Before the evening was
over, he had told me the whole history of his educa-
tion and his past life. The son of a well-to-do Pekin
mandarin, of distinctly European tastes, he had early
passed all his examinations in China, and had been
selected by the Celestial Government as one of the
first batch of students sent to Europe to acquire the
tongues and the sciences of the Western barbarians.
Chung's billet was to England ; and here, or in France,
he had lived with a few intervals ever since he first
came to man's estate. He had picked up our lan-
guage quickly ; had taken a degree at London Univer-
MR. CHUNG. • 11$
sity ; and had made himself thoroughly at home in
English literature. In fact, he was practically an
Englishman in everything but face and clothing. His
naturally fine intellect had assimilated European
thought and European feeling with extraordinary
ease, and it v-«: often almost impossible in talking
with him to re..iember that he was not one of our-
selves. If you shut your eyes and listened, you heard
a pleasant, cultivated, intelligent young Englishman ;
when you opened them again, it was always a fresh
surprise to find yourself conversing with a genuine
yellow-faced, pig-tailed Chinaman, in the full costume
of the peacock's feather.
** You could never go back to live in China ?" I said
to him inquiringly after a time. " You could never
endure life among your own people after so long a
residence in civilized Europe ?"
" My dear sir," he answered, wi:h a slight shudder
of horror, "you do not reflect what my position actu-
ally is. My Government may recall me any day. I
am simply at their mercy, and I must do as I am bid-
den."
" But you would not like China," I put in.
" Like it !" he exclaimed, with a gesture which for a
Chinaman I suppose one must call violent. " I should
abhor it. It would be a living death. You who have
never been in China can have no idea of what an awful
misfortune it would be for a man who has acquired
civilized habits and modes of thought to live among
such a set of more than mediaeval barbarians as my
countrymen still rem.ain at the present day. Oh, no ;
God grant I may never have to return there perma-
nently, for it would be more than I could endure. Even
Il6 STRANGE STORIES.
a short visit to Pekin is bad enough ; the place reeks
of cruelty, jobbery and superstition from end to end ;
and I always breathe more freely when I have once
more got back on to the deck of a European steamer
that flies the familiar British flag."
" Then you are not patriotic," I ventured to say.
" Patriotic !" he replied, with a slight curl of the lip ;
•* how can a man be patriotic to such a mass of corrup-
tion and abomination as our Chinese Government ? I
can understand a patriotic Russian, a patriotic Egyp-
tian, nay, even a patriotic Turk ; but a patriotic
Chinaman — why, the very notion is palpably absurd.
Listen, my dear sir ; you ask me if I could live in China.
No, I couldn't ; and for the best of all possible reasons
— they wouldn't let me. You don't know what the
furious prejudice and blind .superstition of that awful
country really is. Before I had been there three months
they would accuse me either of foreign practices or,
what comes to much the same thing, of witchcraft ;
and they would put me to death by one of their most
horrible torturing punishments — atrocities which I
could not even mention in an English drawing-room.
That is the sort of Damocles' sword that is always
hanging over the head of every Europeanized China-
man who returns against his own free will to his native
land."
I was startled and surprised. It seemed so natural
and simple to be talking under Mrs. Bouverie Barton's
big chandelier with this interesting young man, and
yet so impossible for a moment to connect him in
thought with all the terrible things that one had read
in books about the prisons and penal laws of China.
That a graduate of London University, a philosopher
MR. CHUNG. 117
learned in all the political wisdom of Ricardo, Mill and
Herbert Spencer, should really be subject to that bar-
baric code of adominable tortures, was more than one
could positively realize. I hesitated a moment, and
then said, " But of course they will never recall you."
** I trust not," he said quietly ; " I pray not. Very
likely they will let me stop here all my lifetime. I
am an assistant interpreter to the Embassy, in which
capacity I am useful to Pekin ; whereas in any home
appointment I would of course be an utter failure, a
manifest impossibility. But there is really no account-
ing for the wild vagaries and caprices of the Vermilion
Pencil. For aught I know to the contrary, I might
even be recalled to-morrow. If once they suspect a
man of European sympathies, their first idea is to cut
off his head. They regard it as you would regard the
first plague-spot of cholera or smallpox in a great
city.
" Heaven forbid that they should ever recall you,"
I said earnestly ; for already I had taken a strong
fancy to this strange phenomenon of Western educa-
tion grafted on an immemorial Eastern stock ; and I
had read enough of China to know that what he said
about his probable fate if he returned there perma-
nently was nothing more than the literal truth. The
bare idea of such a catastrophe was too horrible to be
realized for a moment in Eaton Place.
As we drove home in our little one-horse brougham
that evening, my wife and Efifie were very anxious to
learn what manner of man my Chinese acquaintance
might really be ; and when I told them what a charm-
ing person I had found him, they were both inclined
rather to laugh at me for my enthusiastic description.
Il8 STRANGE STORIES. "^ '
Effic, in particular, jeered much at the notion of an
intelligent and earnest-minded Chinaman. ** You
know, Uncle darling," she said in her bewitching way,
*' all your geese are always swans. Every woman you
meet is absolutely beautiful, and every man is perfectly
delightful — till Auntie and I have seen them."
** Perfectly true, Effie," I answered ; " it is an
amiable weakness of mine, after all."
However before the week was out Effie and Marian
between them would have it that I must call upon
Chung and ask him to dine with us at Kensington
Park Terrace. Their curiosity was piqued, for one
thing ; and for another thing, they thought it rather
the cheese in these days of expansive cosmopolitanism
to be on speaking terms with a Chinese attache.
*' Japanese are cheap," said Efifie, " horribly cheap of
late years — a perfect drug in the market ; but a China-
man is still, thank Heaven, at a social premium."
Now, though I am an obedient enough husband, as
husbands go, I don't always accede to Marian's wishes
in these matters ; but everybody takes it for granted
that Effie's will is law. Effie, I may mention paren-
thetically, is more than a daughter to us, for she is
poor Tom's only child ; and of course everybody con-
nected with dear Tom is doubly precious to us now,
as you may easily imagine. So when Effie had made
up her mind that Chung was to dine with us, the thing
was settled ; and I called at his rooms and duly in-
vited him, to the general satisfaction of everybody
concerned.
The dinner was a very pleasant one, and, for a won-
der, Effie and Marian both coincided entirely in my
hastily formed opinion of Mr, Chung. His mellow
MR. CHUNG. 119
silvery voice, his frank truthful manner, his perfect free-
dom from self-consciousness, all pleased and impressed
those stern critics, and by the end of the evening
they wei both quite as much taken with his delight-
ful personality as I myself had originally been. One
link leads on to another ; and the end of it all was
that when we went down for our summer villeggiatura
to Abbot's Norbury, nothing would please Marian but
that Mr. Chung must be invited down as one of our
party. He came willingly enough, and for five or six
weeks we had as pleasant a time together as any four
people ever spent. Chung was a perfect encyclopaedia
of information, while his good humor and good
spirits never for a moment failed him under any
circumstances whatsoever.
One day we had made up a little private picnic to
Norbury Edge, and were sitting together after luncheon
under the shade of the big ash tree, when the conver-
sation happened to turn by accident on the small feet
of Chinese ladies. I had often noticed that Chung
was very reticent about China ; he did not like talking
about his native country ; and he was most pleased
and most at home when we treated him most like a
European born. Evidently he hated the provincialism
of the Flowery Land, and loved to lose his identity in
the wider culture of a Western civilization.
" How funny it will be," said Effie, " to see Mrs.
Chung's tiny feet when you bring her to London. I
suppose one of these days, on one of your flying visits
to Pekin, you will take to yourself a wife in your
country?"
"No," Chung answered, with quiet dignity; "I
I20 STRANGE STORIES.
shall never marry — that I have quite decided in my
own mind."
" Oh, don't say that," Marian put in quickly ; " I
hate to hear men say they'll never marry. It is such a
terrible mistake. They become so selfish, and frump-
ish, and oldbachelorish." Dear Marian has a high idea
of the services she has rendered to society in saving
her own fortunate husband from this miserable and
deplorable condition.
" Perhaps so," Chung replied quietly. " No doubt
what you say is true as a rule. But, for my own part,
I could never marry a Chinawoman ; I am too
thoroughly Europeanized for that ; we should have
absolutely no tastes or sympathies in common. You
don't know what my countrywomen are like, Mrs.
Walters."
" Ah, no," said my wife contemplatively ; ** I sup-
pose your people are all heathens. Why, goodness
gracious, Mr. Chung, if it comes to that, I suppose
really you are a heathen yourself !"
Chung parried the question gracefully. " Don't you
know," said he, " what Lord Chesterfield answered to
the lady who asked him what religion he professed ?
' Madam, the religion to which all wise men belong.*
* And what is that ?' said she. * Madam, no wise man
ever says.' "
" Never mind Lord Chesterfield," said Effie, smiling,
"but let us come back to the future Mrs. Chung. I'm
quite disappointed you won't marry a Chinawoman ;
but at any rate I suppose you'll marry somebody ?"
" Well, not a European, of course," Marian put in.
" Oh, of course not," Chung echoed with true
Oriental imperturbability.
MR. CHUNG. 121
" Why of course f * Efifie asked half unconsciously ;
and yet the very unconsciousness with which she asked
the question showed in itself that she instinctively felt
the gulf as much as any of us. If Chung had been a
white man instead of a yellow one, she would hardly
have discussed the question at issue with so much sim-
plicity and obvious innocence.
" Well, I will tell you why," Chung answered. " Be-
cause, even supposing any European lady were to con-
sent to become my wife — which is in the first place
eminently improbable — I could never think of putting
her in the terribly false position that she would have to
occupy under existing circumstances. To begin with,
her place in English society would be a peculiar and a
trying one. But that is not all. You must remember
that I am still a subject of the Chinese Empire, and a
member of the Chinese Civil Service. I may any day
be recalled to China, and of course — I say * of course '
this time advisedly — it would be absolutely impossible
for me to take an English wife to Pekin with me. So
I am placed in this awkward dilemma. I would never
care to marry anybody except a European lady ; and
to marry a European lady would be an act of injustice
to her which I could never dream of committing. But
considering the justifiable contempt which all Euro-
peans rightly feel for us poor John Chinamen, I don't
think it probable in any case that the temptation is at
all likely to arise. And so, if you please, as the news-
papers always put it, * the subject then dropped.' "
We all saw that Chung was in earnest as to his wish
that no more should be said about the matter, and
we respected his feelings accordingly ; but that even-
ing, as we sat smoking in the arbor after the ladies
122 STRANGE STORIES.
had retired, I said to him quietly, '* Tell me, Chung,
if you really dislike China so very much, and are so
anxious not to return there, why don't you throw off
your allegiance altogether, become a British subject,
and settle down among us for good and all ?"
" My dear fellow," he said, smiling, " you don't
think of the difficulties, I may say the impossibilities,
in the way of any such plan as you propose. It is easy
enough for a European to throw off his nationality
whenever he chooses ; it is a very different thing for
an Asiatic to do so. Moreover, I am a member of a
Legation. My Government would never willingly let
me become a naturalized Englishman ; and if I tried
to manage it against their will they would demand my
extradition, and would carry their point, too, as a
matter of international courtesy, for one nation could
never interfere with the accredited representative of
another, or with any of his suite. Even if I were to
abscond and get rid of my personality altogether, what
would be the use of it ? Nobody in England could
find any employment for a Chinaman. I have no
property of my own ; I depend entirely upon my sal-
ary for support ; my position is therefore quite hope-
less. I must simply let things go their own way, and
trust to chance not to be recalled to Pekin."
During all the rest of Chung's visit we let him roam
pretty much as he liked about the place, and Effie and
I generally went with him. Of course we never for a
moment fancied it possible that EfTie could conceivably
take a fancy to a yellow man like him ; the very notion
was too preposterously absurd. And yet, just towards
the end of his stay with us, it began to strike me un-
easily that after all even a Chinaman is human. And
MR. CHUNG. , 123
when a Chinamen happens to have perfect manners,
noble ideas, delicate sensibility, and a chivalrous res-
pect for English ladies, it is perhaps just within the
bounds of conceivability that at some odd moments
an English girl might for a second partially forget
his oblique eyelids and his yellow skin. I was some-
times half afraid that it might be so with Effie ;
and though I don't think she would ever herself have
dreamed of marrying such a man — the physical bar-
rier between the races is far too profound for that —
I fancy she occasionally pitied poor Chung's loneli-
ness with that womanly pity which so easily glides
into a deeper and closer sentiment. Certainly she
felt his isolation greatly, and often hoped he would
never really be obliged to go back fc ever to that
hateful China.
One lovely summer evening, a few days before
Chung's holiday was to end, and his chief at the
Embassy expected him back again, Marian and I had
gone out for a stroll together, and in coming home
happened to walk above the little arbor in the shrub-
bery by the upper path. A seat let into the hedge
bank overhung the summer-house, and here we both
sat down silently to rest after our walking. As we
did so, we heard Chung's voice in the arbor close
below, so near and so clear that every word was quite
distinctly audible.
" For the last time in England," he was saying, with
a softly regretful cadence in his tone, as we came upon
him.
•* The last time, Mr. Chung !" The other voice was
Effie's. " What on earth do you mean by that ?"
124 STRANGE STORIES.
** What I say, Miss Walters. I am recalled to China ;
I got the letters of recall the day before yesterday,"
" The day before yesterday, and you never told us !
Why didn't you let us know before?"
" I did not know you would interest yourselves in
my private affairs."
" Mr. Chung !" There was a deep air of reproach in
Efifie's tone.
" Well, Miss Walters, that is not quite true. I
ought not to have said it to friends so kind as you
have all shown yourselves to be. No ; my real reason
was that I did not wish to grieve you unnecessarily,
and even now I would not have done so, only "
" Only— ?"
At this moment I for my part felt we had heard too
much. I blushed up to my eyes at the thought that
we should have unwittingly played the spy upon these
two innocent young people. I was just going to call
out and rush down the little path to them ; but as 1
made a slight movement forward, Marian held my
wrist with an imploring gesture, and earnestly put her
finger on my lips. I was overborne, and I regret to
say I stopped and listened. Marian did not utter a
word, but speaking rapidly on her fingers, as we all
had learnt to do for poor Tom, she said impressively,
" For God's sake, not a sound. This is serious. We
must and ought to hear it out." Marian is a very
clever woman in these matters ; and when she thinks
anything a point of duty to poor Tom's girl, I always
give way to her implicity. But I confess I didn't
like it.
" Only ?" Effie had said.
" Only I felt compelled to now, I could not leave
MR. CHUNG. 125
without telling you how deeply I had appreciated all
your kindness."
" But, Mr. Chung, tell me one thing,** she asked
earnestly ; " why have they recalled you to Pekin ?"
" I had rather not tell you.'*
" I insist.'*
** Because they are displeased with my foreign tastes
and habits, which have been reported to them by some
of my iGWovf-attackes."
" But, Mr. Chung, Uncle says there is no knowing
what they will do to you. They may kill you on some
absurd charge or other of witchcraft or something
equally meaningless.**
" I am afraid," he answered imperturbably, " that
may be the case. I don't mind at all on my own ac-
count — we Chinese are an apathetic race, you know —
but I should be sorry to be a cause of grief to any of
the dear friends I have made in England."
** Mr. Chung!'* This time the tone was one of un-
speakable horror.
** Don't speak like that," Chung said quickly.
" There is no use in taking trouble at interest. I may
come to no harm ; at any rate, it will not matter much
to any one but myself. Now let us go back to the
house. I ought not to have stopped here with you so
long, and it is nearly dinner time.'*
. ** No,'* said Effie firmly ; " we will not go back. I
must understand more about this. There is plenty of
time before dinner : and if not, dinner must wait."
" But, Miss Walters, I don't think I ought to have
brought you out here, and I am quite sure I ought not
to stay any longer. Do return. Your Aunt will be
annoyed."
126 STRANGE STORIES.
"Bother Aunt! She is the best woman in the
world, but I must hear all about this. Mr. Chung,
why don't you say you won't go, and stay in England
in spite of them ?"
Nobody ever disobeys Effie, and so Chung wavered
visibly. " I will tell you why," he answered slowly ;
"because I cannot. I am a servant of the Chinese
Government, and if they choose to recall me I must
go-
" But they couldn't enforce their demand."
*' Yes, they could. Your Government would give
me up."
" But Mr. Chung, could't you run away and hide for
a while, and then come out again, and live like an
Englishman ?"
** No," he answered quietly ; "it is quite impossible.
A Chinaman couldn't get work in England as a clerk or
anything of that sort, and I have nothing of my own
to live upon."
There was silence of a few minutes. Both were
evidently thinking it out. Effie broke the silence first.
" Oh, Mr. Chung, do you think they will really put
you to death .?"
" I don't think it ; I know it."
"You know it ?"
" Yes."
Again a silence, and this time Chung broke it first.
"Miss Effie," he said, "one Chinaman more or less
in the world does not matter much, and I shall never
forgive myself for having been led to grieve you for a
moment, even though this is the last time I shall be
able to speak to you. But I see you are sorry for me,
and now — Chinaman as I am, I must speak out^ — I
MR. CHUNG. '; 12/
can't leave you without having told all I feel. I am
going to a terrible end, and I know it — so you will
forgive me. We shall never meet again, so what I am
going to say need never cause you any embarrassment
in future. That I am recalled does not much trouble
me ; that I am going to die does not much trouble me ;
but that I can never, could never possibly have called
you my wife, troubles me and cuts me to the very
quick. It is the deepest drop in my cup of humiliation.**
" I knew it," said Effie, with wonderful composure.
*' You knew it ?"
" Yes, I knew it. I saw it from the second week
you were here ; and I like you for it. But of course it
was impossible, so there is nothing more to be said
about it."
** Of course," said Chung. "Ah, that terrible of
course / I feel it ; you feel it ; we all feel it ; and yet
what a horrible thing it is. I am so human in every-
thing else, but there is that one impassable barrier
between us, and I myself cannot fail to recognize it. I
could not even wish you to feel that you could marry
a Chinaman."
At that moment — for a moment only — I almost felt
as if 1 could have said to Effie, "Take him !" but the
thing was too impossible — a something within us rises
against it — and I said nothing.
" So now," Chung continued, " I must go. We
must both go back to the house. I have said more
than I ought to have said and I am ashamed of myself
for having done so. Yet, in spite of the measureless
gulf that parts us, I felt I could not return to China
without having told you. Will you forgive me ?"
128 , STRANGE STORIES.
"I am so glad you did," said Effic; " it will relieve
you."
She stood a minute irresolute, and then she began
again : " Mr. Chung, I am too horrified to know what
I ought to do. I can't grasp it and take it all in so
quickly. If you had money of your own, would you
be able to run away and live somehow?"
" I might possibly," Chung answered, " but not prob-
ably. A Chinaman, even if he wears European cloth-
ing, is too marked a person ever to escape. The only
chance would be by going to Mauritius or California,
where I might get lost in a crowd."
** But, Mr. Chun^, I have money of my own. What
can I do ? Help me, tell me. I can't let a fellow-
creature die for a mere prejudice of race and color. If
I were your wife it would be yours. Isn't it my duty ?"
" No," said Chung. *' It is more sacrifice than any
woman ought to make for any man. You like me, but
that is all."
" If I shut my eyes and only heard you, I think I
could love you."
" Miss Effie," said Chung, suddenly, ** this is wrong,
very wrong of me. I have let my weakness overcome
me. I won't stop any longer. I have done what I
ought not to have done, and I shall go this minute.
Just once, before I go, shut your eyes and let me kiss
the tips of your fingers. Thank you. No, I will not
stop," and, without another word he was gone.
Marian and I stared at one another in blank horror.
What on earth was to be done ? All solution were
equally impossible. Even to meet Chung at dinner
was terrible. We both knew in our heart of hearts
that if Chung had been an Englishman, remaining in
MR. CHUNG. 129
heart and soul the very selfsame man he was, we
would willingly have chosen him for Effie s husband.
But a Chinaman I Reason about the prejudice as you
like, there it is, a thing not to be got over, and at bot-
tom so real that even the very notion of getting over
it is terribly repugnant to our natural instincts. On
the other hand, was poor Chung, with his fine, delicate
feelings, his courteous manners, his cultivated intellect,
his English chivalry, to go back among the savage
semi-barbarians of Pckin, and to be put to death in
Heaven knows what inhuman manner for the atro-
cious crime of having outstripped his race and nation ?
The thing was too awful to contemplate either way.
We walked home together without a word. Chung
had taken the lower path ; we took the upper one and
followed him at a distance. Efifie remained behind
for a while in the summer-house. I don't know how
we managed to dress for dinner, but we did, somehow ;
and when we went down into the little drawing-room
at eight o'clock, we were not surprised to hear that
Miss Effie had a headache, and did not want any din-
ner that evening. I was more surprised, however,
when, shortly before the gong sounded, one of the
servants brought me a little twisted note from Chung,
written hurriedly in pencil, and sent, she said, by a
porter from the railway station. It ran thus :
" Dear Mr. Walters :
" Excuse great haste. Compelled to return to
town immediately. Shall write more fully to-morrow.
Just in time to catch up express.
** Yours ever,
"Chung."
I30 STRANGE STORIES.
Evidently, instead of returning to the house, he had
gone straight to the station. After all, Chung had the
true feelings of a gentleman. He could not meet
Effie again after what had passed, and he cut the Gor-
dian knot in the only Vv^ay possible.
Efifie said nothing to us, and we said nothing to
Effie, except to show her Chung's note next morning
in a casual, offhand fashion. Two days later a note
came for us from the Embassy in Chung's pretty,
incisive handwriting. It contained copious excuses
for his hasty departure, and a few lines to say that he
was ordered back to China by the next mail, which
started two days later. Marian and I talked it all
over, but we could think of nothing that could be of
ar use ; and after all, we said to one another, poor
Chung might be mistaken about the probable fate that
was in store for him.
" I don't think," Effie said, when we showed her the
letter, *' I ever met such a nice man as Mr. Chung. I
believe he is really a hero.'*' We pretended not to un-
derstand what she could mean by it.
The days went by, and we went back again to the
dull round of London society. We heard nothing
more of Chung for many weeks ; till at last one morn-
ing I found a letter on the table bearing the Hong
Kong postmark. I opened it hastily. As I supposed,
it was a note from Chung. It was written in a very
small hand on a tiny square of rice-paper, and it ran as
follows :
** Thien-Shan Prison, Pekin, Dec. 8.
"My Dear Friend,
" Immediately on my return here I was arrested on
MR. CHUNG. 131
a charge of witchcraft, and of complicity with the
Foreign Devils to introduce the Western barbarism
into China. I have now been in a loathsome prison in
Pekin for three weeks, in the midst of sights and
sounds which I dare not describe to you. Already I
have suffered more than I can tell ; and I have very
little doubt that I shall be brought to trial and exe-
cuted within a few weeks. I write now begging you
not to let Miss Effie hear of this, and if my name hap-
pens to be mentioned in the English papers, to keep
my fate a secret from her as far as possible. I trust
to chance for the opportunity of getting this letter
forwarded to Hong Kong, and I have had to write it
secretly, for I am not allowed pen, ink, or paper.
Thank you much for your very great kindness to me.
I am not sorry to die, for it is a mistake for a man to
have lived outside the life of his own people, and
there was no place left for me on earth. Good-bye,
*'^Ever yours gratefully.
" Chung."
The letter almost drove me wild with ineffectual re-
morse and regret. Why had I not tried to persuade
Chung to remain in England ? Why had I not man-
aged to smuggle him out of the way, and to find him
some kind of light employment, such as even a China-
man might easily have performed ? But it was no use
regretting now. The impassable gulf was fixed be-
tween us ; and it was hardly possible even then to re-
alize that this amiable young student, versed in all the
science and philosophy of the nineteenth century, had
been handed over alive to the tender mercies of a
worse than mediaeval barbarism and superstition. My
132 STRANGE STORIES.
heart sank within me, and I did not venture to show
the letter even to Marian.
For some weeks the days passed heavily indeed. I
could not get Chung out of my mind, and I saw that
Effie could not either. We never mentioned his
name ; but I noticed that Effie had got from Mudie's
all the books about China that she could hear of, and
that she was reading up with a sort of awful interest
all the chapters that related to Chinese law and Chi-
nese criminal punishments. Poor child, the subject
evidently enthralled her with a terrible fascination ;
and I feared that the excitement she was in might bring
on a brain fever.
One morning, early in April, we were all seated in
the little breakfast-room about ten o'clock, and Effie
had taken up the outside sheet of the Times, while I
was engaged in looking over the telegrams on the cen-
tral pages. Suddenly she gave a cry of horror, flung
down the paper with a gesture of awful repugnance,
and fell from her chair as stiff and white as a corpse.
I knew instinctively what had happened, and I took
her up in my arms and carried her to her room. After
the doctor had come, and Effie had recovered a little
from the first shock, I took up the paper from the
ground where it lay and read the curt little paragraph
which contained the news that seemed to us so ter-
rible :
" The numerous persons who made the acquaintance
of Chung Fo Tsiou, late assistant interpreter to the
Chinese Embassy in London, will learn with regret
that this unfortunate member of the Civil Service has
been accused of witchcraft and executed at Pekin by
MR. CHUNG. 133
the frightful Chinese method known as the Heavy
Death. Chung Fo Tsiou was well known in London
and Paris, where he spent many years of his official
life, and attracted some attention by his natural incli-
nation to European society and manners."
Poor Chung ! His end was too horrible for an Eng-
lish reader even to hear of it. But Effie knew it all,
and I did not wonder that the news should have af-
fected her so deeply.
Efifie was some weeks ill, and at first we almost
feared her mind would give way under the pre ..sure.
Not that she had more than merely liked poor Chung,
but the sense of horror was too great for her easily to
cast it off. Even I myself did not sleep lightly for
many and many a day after I heard the terrible truth.
But while Effie was still ill, a second letter reached us,
written this time in blood with a piece of stick, appar-
ently, on a scrap of coarse English paper, such as that
which is used for wrapping up tobacco. It was no
more than this :
*' Execution to-day. Keep it from Miss Effie. Can-
not forgive myself for having spoken to her. Will
you forgive me? It was the weakness of a moment ;
but even Chinamen have hearts. I could not die
without telling her. " CHUNG."
I showed Effie the scrap afterwards — it had come
without a line of explanation from Shanghae — and she
has kept it ever since locked up in her little desk as a
sacred memento. I don't doubt that some of these
days Effie will marry ; but as long as she lives she will
^34 STRANGE STORIES.
bear the impress of what she has suffered about
poor Chung. An English girl could not conceivably
marry a Chinaman ; but now that Chung is dead, Effie
cannot help admiring the steadfastness, the bravery,
and the noble qualities of her Chinese lover. It is an
awful state of things which sometimes brings the nine-
teenth century and primitive barbarism into such close
and horrible juxtaposition.
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE.
Walter Dene, deacon, in his faultless Oxford
clerical coat and broad felt hat, strolled along slowlyv
sunning himself as he went, after his wont, down the
pretty central lane of West Churnside. It was just the
idyllic village best suited to the taste of such an idyllic
young curate as Walter Dene. There were cottages
with low-thatched roofs, thickly overgrown with yel-
low stonecrop and pink houseleek ; there were trellis-
work porches up which the scented dog-rose and the
fainter honeysuckle clambered together in sisterly
rivalry ; there were pargeted gable-ends of Elizabethan
farmhouses, quaintly varied with black oak joists and
moulded plaster panels. At the end of all, between
an avenue of ancient elm trees, the heavy square tower
of the old church closed in the little vista — a church
with a round Norman doorway and dog-tooth arches,
melting into Early English lancets in the aisle, and
finishing up with a great Decorated east window by
the broken cross and yew tree. Not a trace of Per-
pendicularity about it anywhere, thank goodness :
for if it were Perpendiculai-," said Walter Dene to him-
self often, "I really think, iii spite of my uncle, I
should have to look out for another curacy."
Yes, it was a charming village, and a charming
[^35]
136 STRANGE STORIES.
country ; 'but, above all, it was rendered habitable and
pleasurable for a man of taste by the informing pres-
ence of Christina Eliot.
*' I don't think I shall propose to Christina this
week after all," thought Walter Dene, as he strolled
along lazily. " The most delightful part of love-
making is certainly its first beginning. The little
temor of hope and expectation ; the half-needless
doubt you feel as to whether she really loves you ;
the pains you take to pierce the thin veil of maidenly
reserve ; the triumph of detecting her at a blush or a
flutter when she sees you coming — all these are deli-
cate little morsels to be rolled daintily on the critical
palate, and not to be swallowed down coarsely at one
vulgar gulp. Poor child, she is on tenter-hooks of
hesitation and expectancy all the time, I know ; for
I'm sure she loves me now, I'm sure she loves me ; but
I must wait a week yet ; she will be grateful to me
for it hereafter. We mustn't kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs ; we mustn't eat up all our capital at
one extravagant feast, and then lament the want of
our interest ever afterward. Let us live another week
in our first fool's paradise before we enter on the safer
but less tremulous pleasures of sure possession. We
can enjoy first love but once in a lifetime ; let us enjoy
it now while we can, and not fling away the chance
prematurely by mere childish haste and girlish pre-
cipitancy."
Thinking which thing, Walter Dene halted a moment
by the churchyard wall, picked a long spray of scented
wild thyme from a mossy cranny, and gazed into the
blue sky above, at the graceful swifts who nested in
the old tower, as they curved and circled through the
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 1 37
yielding air on their evenly poised and powerful
pinions.
Just at that moment old Mary Long came out of
her cottage to speak with the young parson. " If ye
plaze, Maister Dene," she said in her native west-
country dialect, " our Mully would like to zee 'ee.
She's main ill to-day, zur, and she be like to die a'most,
I'm thinking."
** Poor child, poor child," said Walter Dene, ten-
derly. " She's a dear little thing, Mrs. Long, is your
Nellie, and I hope she may yet be spared to you. I'll
come and see her at once, and try if I can do anything
to ease her."
He crossed the road compassionately with the tot-
tering old grandmother, giving her his helping hand
over the curbstone, and following her with bated
breath into the close little sick-room. Then he flung
open the tiny casement with its diamond-leaded panes,
so as to let in the fresh summer air, and picked a few
sprigs of sweet-briar from the porch, which he joined
with the geranium from his own buttonhole to make
a tiny nOsegay for the bare bedside. After that, he
sat and talked awhile gently in an undertone to pale,
pretty little Nellie herself, and went away at last prom-
ising to send her some jelly and some soup immedi-
ately from the vicarage kitchen.
" She's a sweet little child," he said to himself
musingly, "though I'm afraid she's not long for this
world now ; and the poor like these small attentions
dearly. They get them seldom, and value them for
the sake of the thoughtfulness they imply, rather than
for the sake of the mere things themselves. I can
order a bottle of calf's-foot at the grocer's, and Carter
IjS . STRANGE STORIKS.
can sot it it\ a mould without any trouble ; while as
for the so\ip. notnc tinned inocU-turtlc and a little
fresh stock niakes a really capital mixture for this sort
of thinp^. It ct>sts so little to give these poor souls
pleasure, and it is a j^reat luxury to oneself undeni-
ablv. Hut, after all, what a funnv trade it is to set an
educated man to \\k> ! They send us up to Oxford or
Cambrivli;e, j;ive us a distinct taste for yKschylus and
Catullus. Dante and Milton, Mendelssohn and C'hopin,
j:^ood claret and olives farcies, and then brin^ us dt>wn
to a country villaq;e, to K>ok after the bodily and
spiritual ailments of rhevunatic old washerwomen ! If
it were not for poetry, flowers, and Christina, I really
think I should succumb entirely under the intlictioti."
" He's adear, i^^ood man, that he is, is youni; passon,"
murmured old Mary Lon^ as Walter disappeared
between the elm trees ; " and he do love the poor and
the zick, the same as if he was their own brother.
God bless his zoul, the dear, good vulla, vor all his
kindness to our NuUv."
Half-way down the main lane Walter came across
Christina Eliot. As she saw him she smiled and col-
ored a little, and held out her small gloved hanxl pret-
tily. Walter took it with a certain courtlv anil grace-
ful chivalry. "An exquisite day. Miss Eliot," he said ;
** such a depth of sapphire in the sky, such a faint
undertone of green on the clouds by the horizon, such
a lovely humming of bees over the flickering hot
meadows ! On days like this, one feels that Schopen-
hauer is wrong after all, and that life is sometimes
really worth living." • • .
" It seems to me often worth living," Christina
answered ; ** if not for oneself, at least for others. But
TIIK ("UKA'IK (»!• CIHIKNSIhK. 139
I
you prctctui to he more of a prssimlst than you really
arc, I fancy, Mr. Dciic. Anyone who finih so ninth
beauty in the worhl as ynu do can hardly think Hfe
poor or meagre. You seem to catdi the h>vehest
points in everything you h)ok at, and to throw a httle
literary or artistic reflection over them which makes
them even lovelier than they are in themselves."
" Well, no douht one can increase one's possibilities
of enjoyment by carefully cultivating one's own facul-
ties of admiration anil apj)recialion," said the curate,
thoughtfully; "but, after all, life has only a few
chapters that are thorouj^hly interesting and enthral-
ling in all its history. We ou}.ditn't to hurry over them
too li}.(htly, Miss I'Jiot ; we ou}.dit to linj^^er on them
lovingly, and make the most of their potentiaIiti(;s;
we ou^ht to dwell upon them like ' linked sweetness
lonjj^ drawn out.' It is the mistake of the world at
lar^e to hurry too rapidly over the pleasantest epi-
sodes, just as children pick all the plums at once out
of the pudding. I often thiidv that, from the purely
selfish and temporal point of view, the real value of a
life to its subject may be measured by the space of
time over which he has manaj^ed to spread the enjoy-
ment of its greatest pleasures. Look, for example, at
poetry, now.
• A faint shade of disappointment passed across Chris-
tina's face as he turned from what seemed another
j^roovc into that indifferent subject ; but she answered
at once, "Yes, of course one f^'cls that with the higher
pleasures at least ; but there arc others in which the
interest of plot is greater, and then one looks naturally
rather to the end. When you begin a good novel, you
140 STRANGE STORIES.
can't liclp hurryinj^ tlirou^li it tn order to find t)iit
what l)cctMUcs of everybody at last."
" Ah, but the highest artistic interest j;oes 1)eyond
mere plot interest. 1 like rather to read for the pleas-
ure of readinjx, and to loiter over the passaj^es that
please nu\ quite irrespective of what poes before or
what conies after ; just as you, for your part, like to
sketch a beautiful scene for its own worth to you, irre-
spective of what may happen to the leaves in autumn,
or to the cottai^c roof in twenty years ivom this. Hy
the way, have you finished that little water-col<ir of
tlic mill yet ? It's the prettiest thins; of your's I've
ever seen, and I want to look how you've managed the
lii;ht on your forei^round."
"Come in and see it," said Christina, " It's finished
now, and to tell you the truth, I'm ver\' well pleased
with it myself."
" Then I know it nuist be i^ooil," the curate an-
swered, ** for you arc always your own harshest critic."
And he turned in at the little i^ate with her, and en-
tered the village doctor's tiny drawini^-room.
Christina placed the sketch on an easel near the
window-a low window openini; to the ground, with
long, lithe festoons of faint-scented jasmine encroach-
incr on it frc»m outside— and let the light fall on it
aslant in the right direction. It was a pretty and a
clever sketch certainly, with more than a mere ama-
teur's sense of form and color ; and Walter Dene, who
had a true eye for pictures, could conscientiously
praise it for its artistic depth and fullness. Indeed, on
that head, at least, Walter Dene's veracity was unim-
peachable, however lax in other matters. Nothing on
earth would have induced him to praise as good a
TIIK CUKATK OF CIUJUNSinK. I4I
picture or a sculpture in which he saw no real merit. He
sat a little while criticising^ and <liscussin^ it, suj^^est-
in^ an improvement here or an alteration there, and
then he rose hurriedly, remembering all at once liis
forgotten promise to little Nellie. " Dear me," he said,
" your daujditer's j)iclure has almost made mc overlook
my proper duties, Mrs. I'Uiot. I i)ronH'sed to send some
jelly and things at once to poor little Nellie Lonj; at her
^grandmother's. Ijow very wronj^ of mc to let my nat-
ural inclinations keep me loitering here, when I ou^dit
to have been thinkiti}^ of the poor of my parish !" And
he went out with just a gentle pressure on Christina's
hand, and a look from his eyes that her heart knew
how to read aright at the first glance of it.
" Do you know, Christie," said her father, " I some-
times fancy when I hear that new parson fellow talk
about his artistic feelings, and so on, that he's just a
trifle selfish, or at least self-centred. I le always dwells
so much on his own enjoyment of tilings, you know."
" Oh, no, papa," cried Christina, warmly. " lie's
anything but selfish, I'm sure. Look how kind he is
to all the poor in the village, and how much he thinks
about their comfort and welfare. And whenever he's
talking with one, he seems so anxious to make you feel
happy and contented with yourself. He has a sort of
little subtle flattery of manner about him that's all
pure kindliness ; and he's always thinking what he can
say or do to please you, and to help you onward.
What you say about his dwelling on enjoyment so
much is really only his artistic sensibility. He feels
things so keenly, and enjoys beauty so deeply, that he
can't help talking enthusiastically about it even a little
out of season. He has more feelings to display than
142 STRANGE STORIES.
most men, and I'm sure that's the reason why he dis-
plays them so much. A ploughboy could only talk
enthusiastically about roast beef and dumplings ; Mr.
Dene can talk about everything that's beautiful and
sublime on earth or in heaven."
Meanwhile, Walter Dene was walking quickly with
his measured tread — the even, regular tread of a cul-
tivated gentleman — down the lane toward the village
grocer's, saying to himself as he went, " There was
never such a girl in all the world as my Christina.
She may be only a country surgeon's daughter — a
rosebud on a hedgerow bush — but she has the soul
and the eye of a queen among women for all that.
Every lover has deceived himself with the same sweet
dream, to be sure — how over-analytic we have become
nowadays, when I must needs half argue myself out
of the sweets of first love ! — but then they hadn't so
much to go upon as I have. She has a wonderful
touch in music, she has an exquisite eye in painting,
she has an Italian charm in manner and conversation.
I'm something of a connoisseur, after all, and no more
likely to be deceived in a woman than I am in a wine
or a picture. And next week I shall really propose
formally to Christina, though I know by this time it
will be nothing more than the merest formality. Her
eyes are too eloquent not to have told me that long
ago. It will be a delightful pleasure to live for her,
and in order to make her happy. I frankly recognize
that I am naturally a little selfish — not coarsely and
vulgarly selfish ; from that disgusting and piggish vice,
I may conscientiously congratulate myself that I'm
fairly free ; but still selfish in a refined and cultivated
manner. Now, living with Christina and for Christina
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I43
will correct this defect in my nature, will tend to bring
me nearer to a true standard of perfection. When I
am by her side, and then only, I feel that I am think-
ing entirely of her, and not at all of myself. To her I
show my best side ; with her, that best side would be
always uppermost. The companionship of such a
woman makes life something purer, and higher, and
better worth having. The one thing that stands in
our way is this horrid practical question of what to
live upon. I don't suppose Uncle Arthur will be in-
clined to allow me anything, and I can't marry on my
own paltry income and my curacy only. Yet I can't
bear to keep Christina waiting indefinitely till some
thick-headed squire or other chooses to take it into
his opaque brain to give me a decent living."
From the grocer's the curate walked on, carrying
the two tins in his hana, as far as the vicarage. He
went into the library, sat down by his own desk, and
rang the bell. " Will you be kind enough to give
those things to Carter, John ?" he said in his bland
voice ; "and tell her to put the jelly in a mould, and
let it set. The soup must be warmed with a little
fresh stock, and seasoned. Then take them both,
with my compliments, to old Mary Long the washer-
woman, for her grandchild. Is my uncle in ?"
** No, Master Walter," answered the man— he was
always " Master Walter " to the old servants at his
uncle's — "the vicar have gone over by train to Chur-
minster. He told me to tell you he wouldn't be back
till evening, after dinner."
" Did you see him off, John ?"
" Yes, Master Walter. I took his portmantew to
the station." .
,1
144 STRANGE STORIES.
" This will be a good chance, then," thought Walter
Dene to himself. " Very well, John," he went on
aloud : " I shall write my sermon now. Don't let any-
body come to disturb me."
John nodded and withdrew. Walter Dene locked
the door after him carefully, as he often did when
writing sermons, and then lit a cigar, which was also a
not infrequent concomitant of his exegetical labors.
After that he walked once or twice up and down the
room, paused a moment to look at his parchment-
covered Rabelais and Villon on the bookshelf, peered
out of the dulled glass windows with the crest in their
centre, and finally drew a curious bent iron instrument
out of his waistcoat pocket. With it in his hands, he
went up quietly to his uncle's desk, and began fum-
bling at the lock in an experienced manner. As a mat-
ter of fact, it was not his first trial of skill in lock-pick-
ing ; for Walter Dene was a painstaking and method-
ical man, and having made up his mind that he would
get at and read his uncle will, he took good care to
begin by fastening all the drawers in his own bedroom,
and trying his prentice hand at unfastening them again
in the solitude of his chamber.
After half a minute's twisting and turning, the wards
gave way gently to his dexterous pressure, and the lid
of the desk lay open before him. Walter Dene took
out the different papers one by one — there was no
need for hurry, and he was not a nervous person — till
he came to a roll of parchment, which he recognized
at once as the expected will. He unrolled it carefully
and quietly, without any womanish trembling or excite-
ment — " thank Heaven," he said to himself, " I'm
above "uch nonsense as that " — and sat down leisurely
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I45
to read it in the big, low, velvet-covered study chair.
As he did so, he did not forget to lay a notched foot-
rest for his feet, and to put the little Japanese dish on
the tiny table by his side to hold his cigar ash. " And
now," he said, "for the important question whether
Uncle Arthur has left his money to me, or to Arthur,
or to both of us equally. He ought, of course,
to leave at least half to me, seeing I have become a
curate on purpose to please him, instead of following
my natural vocation to the Bar ; but I shouldn't be a
bit surprised if he had left it all to Arthur. He's a
pig-headed and illogical old man, the vicar ; and he
can never forgive me, I believe, because, being the
eldest son, I wasn't called after him by my father and
mother. As if that was my fault ! Some people's
ideas of personal responsibility are so ridiculously
muddled."
He composed himself quietly in the armchair, and
glanced rapidly at the will through the meaningless
preliminaries till he came to the significant clauses.
These he read more carefully. " All my estate in the
county of Dorset, and the messuage or tenement
known as Redlands, in the parish of Lode, in the
county of Devon, to my dear nephew, Arthur Dene,"
he said to himself, slowly : " Oh, this will never do."
" And I give and bequeath to my said nephew, Arthur
Dene, the sum of ten thousand pounds, three per
cent, consolidated annuities, now standing in my name"
— "Oh, this is atrocious, quite atrocious! What's
this ?" "And I give and bequeath to my dear nephew,
Walter Dene, the residue of my personal estate " —
** and so forth. Oh, no. That's quite sufficient. This
must be rectified. The residuary legatee would only
... ;>.-, .J .. ■. Y
146 STRANGE STORIES.
come in for a few hundreds or so. It*s quitv^
preposterous. The vicar was always an ill-tempered,
cantankerous, unaccountable person, but I wonder he
has the face to sit opposite me at dinner after that."
He hummed an air from Schubert, and sat a moment
looking thoughtfully at the will. Then he said to
himself quietly, " The simplest thing to do would be
merely to scrape out or take out with chemicals the
name Arthur, substituting the name Walter, and vice
versd. That's a very small matter ; a man who draws
as well as I do ought to be able easily to imitate a
copying clerk's engrossing hand. But it would be
madness to attempt it now and here ; I want a little
practice first. At the same time, I mustn't keep the
will out a moment longer than is necessary ; my uncle
may return by some accident before I expect him ;
and the true philosophy of life consists in invariably
minimizing the adverse chances. This will was
evidently drawn up bj^ Watson and Blenkiron, of Chan-
cery Lane. I'll write to-morrow and get them to draw
up a will for me, leaving all I possess to Arthur. The
same clerk is pretty sure to engross it, and that'll give
me a model for the two names on which I can do a
little preliminary practice. Besides, I can try the stuff
Wharton told me about, for making ink fade, on the
same parchment. That will be killing two birds with
one stone, certainly. And now if I don't make haste
I shan't have time to write my sermon."
He replaced the will calmly in the desk, fastened
the lock again with a delicate twirl of the pick, and
sat down in his armchair to compose his discourse for
to-morrow's evensong. " It's not a bad bit of
rhetoric," he said to himself as he read it over for cor-
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I47
rection, "but I'm not sure that I haven't plagiarized a
Httle too freely from Montaigne and dear old Burton.
What a pity it must be thrown away upon a Churn-
side congregation ! Not a soul in the whole place will
appreciate a word of it, except Christina. Well, well,
that alone is enough reward for any man." And he
knocked off his ash pensively into the Japanese ash-
pan.
During the course of the next week Walter practised
diligently the art of imitating handwriting. He got
his will drawn up and engrossed at Watson and Blenk-
iron's (without signing it, bien entcndii) ; and he spent
many solitary hours in writing the two names " Wal-
ter " and "Arthur" on the spare end of parchment,
after the manner of the engrossing clerk. He also
tested the stuff for making the ink fade to his own
perfect satisfaction. And on the next occasion when
his uncle was safely off the premises for three hours,
he took the will once more deliberately from the desk,
removed the obnoxious letters with scrupulous care,
and wrote in his own name in place of Arthur's so
that even the engrossing clerk himself would hardly
have known the 'difference. "There," he said to him-
self approvingly, as he took down quiet old George
Herbert from the shelf and sat down to enjoy an hour's
smoke after the business was over, "that's one good
deed well done, anyhow. I have the calm satisfaction
of a clear conscience. The vicar's proposed arrange-
ment was really most unfair; I have substituted for it
what Aristotle would have rightly called true distribu-
tive justice. For though I've left all the property to
myself, by the unfortunate necessity of the case, of
course I won't take it all. I'll be juster than the vicar.
148 STRANGE STORIES.
Arthur shall have his fair share, which is more, I
believe, than he'd have done for me ; but I hate
squalid money-grubbing. If brothers can't be gener-
ous and brotherly to one another, what a wretched,
sordid little life this of ours would really be!"
Next Sunday mgrning the vicar preached, and Wal-
ter sat looking up at him reflectively from his place in
the chancel. A beautiful clear-cut face, the curate's, and
seen to great advantage from the doctor's pew, set off
by the white surplice, and upturned in quiet medita-
tion towards the elder priest in the pulpit. Walter
was revolving many things in his mind, and most of
all one adverse chance which he could not just then
see his way to minimize. Any day his uncle might
take it into his head to read over the will and discover
the — ah, well, the rectification. Walter was a man of
too much delicacy of feeling even to think of it to
himself as a fraud or a forgery. Then, again, the vicar
was not a very old man after all ; he might live for an
indefinite period, and Christina and himself might lose
all the best years of their life waiting for a useless per-
son's natural removal. What a pity that threescore
was not the utmost limit of human life ! For his own
part, like the Psalmist, Walter had no desire to out-
live his own highest tastes and powers of enjoyment.
Ah, well, well, man's prerogative is to better and im-
prove upon nature. If people do not die when they
ought, then it becomes clearly necessary for philo-
sophically minded juniors to help them on their way
artificially.
It was an ugly necessity, certainly ; Walter frankly
recognized that fact from the very beginning, and he
shrank even from contemplating it ; but there was no
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I49
other way out of the difficulty. The old man had al-
ways been a selfish bachelor, with no love for anybody
or anything on earth except his books, his coins, his
garden, and his dinner ; he was growing tired of all ex-
cept the last ; would it not be better for the world at
large, on strict utilitarian principles, that he should go
at once? True, such steps are usually to be depre-
cated ; but the wise man is a law unto himself, and
instead of laying down the wooden, hard-and-fast lines
that make conventional morality so much a rule of
thumb, he judges every individual case on its own
particular merits. Here was Christina's happiness
and his own on the one hand, with many collateral
advantages to other people, set in the scale against the
feeble remnant of a selfish old man's days on the
other. Walter Dene had a constitutional horror of
taking life in any form, and especially of shedding
blood ; but he flattered himself that if anything of the
sort became clearly necessary, he was not the man to
shrink from taking the needful measures to ensure it,
at any sacrifice of personal comfort.
All through the next week Walter turned over the
subject in his own mind ; and the more he thought
about it, the more the plan gained in definiteness and
consistency as detail after detail suggested itself to
him. First he thought of poison. Thatwas the clean-
est and neatest way of managing the thing, he
considered ; and it involved the least unpleasant
consequences. To stick a knife or shoot a bullet
into any sentient creature was a horrid and revolt-
ing act ; to put a little tasteless powder into a cup
of coffee and let a man sleep off his life quietly was
really nothing more than helping him involuntarily to
r ■ • ' ' . ■ , V -,.-•'<
150 STRANGE STORIES.
a delightful euthanasia. " I wish anyone would do as
much for me at his age, without telling me about it,"
Walter said to himself seriously. But then the chances
of detection would be much increased by using poison,
and Walter felt it an imperative duty to do nothing
which would expose Christina to the shock of a dis-
covery. She would not see the matter in the same
practical light as he did ; women never do; their mo-
rality is purely conventional, and a wise man will do
nothing on earth to shake it. You cannot buy poison
without the risk of exciting question. There re-
mained, then, only shooting or stabbing. But shoot-
ing makes an awkward noise, and attracts attention
at the moment ; so the one thing possible was a knife,
unpleasant as that conclusion seemed to all his more
delicate feelings.
Having thus decided, Walter Dene proceeded to lay
his plans with deliberate caution. He had no inten-
tion whatsoever of being detected, though his method
of action was simplicity itself. It was only bunglers
and clumsy fools who got caught ; he knew that a man
of his intelligence and ability would not make such an
idiot of himself as — well, as common rufifians always
do. He took his old American bowie-knife, bought
years ago as a curiosity, out of the drawer where it had
lain so long. It was very rusty, but it would be safer
to sharpen it privately on his own hone and strop than
to go asking for a new knife at a shop for the express
purpose of enabling the shopman afterwards to identify
him. He sharpened it for safety's sake during sermon-
hour in the library, with the door locked as usual. It
took a long time to get off all the rust, and his arm got
quickly tired. Ohq morning as he was polishing away
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I5I
at it, he was stopped for a moment by a butterfly
which flapped and fluttered against the dulled window-
panes. " Poor thing," he said to himself, " it will beat
its feathery wings to pieces in its struggles ;" and he
put a vase of Venetian glass on top of it, lifted the
sash carefully, and let the creature fly away outside in
the broad sunshine. At the same moment the vicar,
who was strolling with his King Charlie on the lawn,
came up and looked in at the window. He could not
have seen in before, because of the dulled and painted
diamonds.
** That's a murderous-looking weapon, Wally," he
said, with a smile, as his glance fell upon the bowie and
hone. " What do you use it for ?"
" Oh, it's an American bowie," Walter answered
carelessly. " I bought it long ago for a curiosity, and
now I'm sharpening it up to help me in carving that
block of walnut wood." And he ran his finger lightly
along the edge of the blade to test its keenness. What
a lucky thing that it was the vicar himself, and not the
gardener ! If he had been caught by anybody else the
fact would have been fatal evidence after all was over.
" M^fiez-vous des papillons," he hummed to himself,
after Beranger, as he shut down the window. " One
more butterfly, and I must give up the game as use-
less."
Meanwhile, as Walter meant to make a clean job of
it — hacking and hewing clumsily was repulsive to all
his finer feelings — he began also to study carefully the
anatomy of the human back. He took down all the
books on the subject in the library, and by their aid
discovered exactly under which ribs the heart lay. A
little observation of the vicar, compared with the plates
152 STRANGE STORIES.
in Quain's " Anatomy," showed him precisely at what
point in his clerical coat the most vulnerable interstice
was situated. " It's a horrid thing to have to do," he
thought over and over again as he planned it, "but it's
the only way to secure Christina's happiness." And
so, by a certain bright Friday evening in August, Wal-
ter Dene had fully completed all his preparations.
That afternoon, as on all bright afternoons in sum-
mer, the vicar went for a walk in the grounds, attended
only by little King Charlie. He was squire and par-
son at once in Churnside, and he loved to make the
round of his own estate. At a certain gate by Selbury
Copse the vicar always halted to rest awhile, leaning
on the bar and looking at the view across the valley.
It was a safe and lonely spot. Walter remained at
home (he was to take the regular Friday evensong) and
went into the study by himself. After a while he took
his hat, not without trembling, strolled across the
garden, and then made the short cut through the
copse, so as to meet the vicar by the gate. On his
way he heard the noise of the Dennings in the farm
opposite, out rabbit-shooting with their guns and fei*-
rets in the warren. His very soul shrank within him
at the sound of that brutal sport. ** Great heavens !"
he said to himself, with a shudder ; " to think how I
loathe and shrink from the necessity of almost pain-
lessly killing this one selfish old man for an obviously
good reason, and those creatures there will go out
massacring innocent animals with the aid of a hideous
beast of prey, not only without remorse, but actually
by way of amusement ! I thank Heaven I am not
even as they are." Near the gate he came upon his
uncle quietly and naturally, though it would be absurd
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. 1 53
to deny that at that supreme moment even Walter
Dene's equable heart throbbed "hard, and his breath
went and came tremulously. "Alone," he thought to
himself, " and nobody near ; this is quite providential,"
using even then, in thought, the familiar phraseology
of his profession.
"A lovely afternoon. Uncle Arthur," he said as
composedly as he could, accurately measuring the
spot on the vicar's coat with his eye meanwhile. " The
valley looks beautiful in this light."
" Yes, a lovely afternoon Wally, my boy, and
an exquisite glimpse down yonder into the church-
yard."
As he spoke, Walter half leaned upon the gate
beside him, and adjusted the knife behind the vicar's
back scientifically. Then, without a word more, in
spite of a natural shrinking, he drove it home up to
the haft, with a terrible effort of will, at the exact
spot on the back that the books had pointed out to
him. It was a painful thing to do, but he did it care-
fully and well. The effect of Walter Dene's scientific
prevision was even more instantaneous than he had
anticipated. Without a single cry, without a sob or a
contortion, the vicar's' lifeless body fell over heavily
by the side of the gate. It rolled down like a log into
the dry ditch beneath. Walter knelt trembling on the
ground close by, felt the pulse for a moment to assure
himself that his uncle was really dead, and having fully
satisfied himself on this all-important point, proceeded
to draw the knife neatly out of the wound. He had
let it fall in the body, in order to extricate it more
easily afterward, and not risk pulling it out carelessly
so as to get himself covered needlessly by tell-tale
1 54 STRANGE STORIES.
drops of blood, like ordinary clumsy assassins. But
he had forgotten to reckon with little King Charlie.
The dog jumped piteously upon the body of his mas-
ter, licked the wound with his tongue, and refused to
allow Walter to withdraw the knife. It would be un-
safe to leave it there, for it might be recognized.
*' Minimize the adverse chances," he muttered still ;
but there was no inducing King Charlie to move. A
struggle might result in getting drops of blood upon
his coat, and then, great heavens, what a terrible
awakening for Christina ! *' Oh, Christina, Christina,
Christina," he said to himself piteously, " it is for you
only that I could ever have ventured to do this hid-
eous thing." The blood was still oozing out of the
narrow slit, and saturating the black coat, and Walter
Dene with his delicate nerves could hardly bear to
look upon it.
At last he summoned up resolution to draw out the
knife from the ugly wound, in spite of King Charlie,
and as he did so, oh, horror ! the little dog jumped at
it, and cut his left fore-leg against the sharp edge deep
to the bone. Here was a pretty accident indeed ! if
Walter Dene had been a common heartless murderer
he would have snatched up the knife immediately, left
the poor lame dog to watch and bleed beside his dead
master, and skulked off hurriedly from the mute wit-
ness to his accomplished crime. But Walter was made
of very different mould from that ; he could not find
it in his heart to leave a poor dumb animal
wounded and bleeding for hours together, alone and
unattended. Just at first, indeed, he tried sophis-
tically to persuade himself his duty to Christina de-
manded that he should go away at once, and never
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. 1 55
mind the sufferings of a mere spaniel ; but his better
nature told him the next moment that such soph-
isms were indefensible, and his humane instincts
overcame even the profound instinct of self-preser-
vation. He sat down quietly beside the warm corpse.
*' Thank goodness," he said with a slight shiver of
disgust, ** I'm not one of those weak-minded people
who are troubled by remorse. They would be so
overcome by terror at what they had done that they
would want to run away from the body immediately,
at any price. But I don't think I could [qqX remorse.
It is an incident of lower natures — natures that arc
capable of doing actions under one set of impulses,
which they regret when another set comes uppermost
in turn. That implies a want of balance, an imperfect
co-ordination of parts and passions. The perfect
character is consistent with itself ; shame and repent-
ance are confessions of weakness. For my part, I
never do anything without having first deliberately de-
cided that it is the best or the only thing to do ; and
having so done it, I do not draw back like a girl from
the necessary consequences of my own act. No
fluttering or running away for me. Still, I must
admit that all that blood does look very ghastly.
Poor old gentleman ! I believe he really died almost
without knowing it, and that is certainly a great
comfort to one under the circumstances."
He took King Charlie tenderly in his hands, without
touching the wounded leg, and drew his pocket hand-
kerchief softly from his pocket. *' Poor beastie," he
said aloud, holding out the cut limb before him, "you
are badly hurt, I'm afraid ; but it wasn't my fault.
We must see what we can do for you." Then he
156 STRANGE STORIES.
wrapped the handkerchief deftly around it, without
letting any blood show through, pressed the dog close
against his breast, and picked up the knife gingerly
by the reeking handle. ** A fool of a fellow would
throw it into the river," he thought, with a curl of his
graceful lip. " They always dredge the river after
these incidents. I shall just stick it down a hole in
the hedge a hundred yards off. The police have no
invention, dull donkeys ; they never dredge the
hedges." And he thrust it well down a disused rabbit
burrow, filling in the top neatly with loose mould.
Walter Dene meant to have gone home quietly and
said evensong, leaving the discovery of the body to be
made at haphazard by others, but this unfortunate
accident to King Charlie compelled him against his
will to give the first alarm. It was absolutely neces-
sary to take the dog to the veterinary at once, or the
poor little fellow might bleed to death incontinently,
" One's best efforts," he thought, "are always liable to
these unfortunate contretemps. I meant merely to re-
move a superfluous person from an uncongenial envi-
ronment ; yet I can't manage it without at the same
time seriously injuring a harmlesss little creature that
I really love." And with one last glance at the life-
less thing behind him, he took his way regretfully
along the ordinary path back towards the peaceful
village of Churnside.
Halfway down the lane, at the entrance of the vil-
lage, he met one of his parishioners. " Tom," he said
boldly, "have you seen anything of the vicar? I'm
afraid he's got hurt somehow. Here's poor little King
Charlie come limping back with his leg cut,"
,.J..
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. I57
" He went down the road, zur, 'arf an hour zince,
and I arn't zeen him afterwards."
" Tell the servants at the vicarage to look around
the grounds, then ; I'm afraid he has fallen and hurt
himself. I must take the dog at once to Perkins's, or
else I shall be late for evensong."
The man went off straight toward the vicarage, and
Walter Dene turned immediately with the dog in his
arms into the village veterinary 's.
II.
The servants from the vicarage were not the first
persons to hit upon the dead body of the vicar. Joe
Harley, the poacher, was out reconnoitring that after-
noon in the vicar's preserves ; and five minutes after
Walter Dene had passed down the far side of the
hedge, Joe Harley skulked noiselessly from the or-
chard up to the cover of the gate by Selbury Copse.
He crept through the open end by the post (for it was
against Joe's principles under any circumstances to
climb over an obstacle of any sort, and so needlessly
expose himself), and he was just going to slink off
along the other hedge, having wires and traps in his
pocket, when his boot struck violently against a soft
object in the ditch underfoot. It struck so violently
that it crushed in the object with the force of the im-
pact ; and when Joe came to look at what the object
might be, he found to his horror that it was the bruised
and livid face of the old parson. Joe had had a brush
with keepers more than once, and had spent several
months of seclusion in Dorchester Gaol ; but, in spite
\
158 STRANC.R STORIES.
of his familiarity with minor forms of lawlessness, he
was moved enough in all conscience by this awful antl
unexpected discovery. He turned the body over clum-
sily with his hands, and saw that it had been stabbed
in the back once only. In doing so he trod in a little
blood, and i^ot a drop or two on his sleeve and trou-
sers ; for the pool was bii^i^er now, and Joe was not so
handy or dainty with his fini^crs as the idyllic curate.
It was an awful dilemma, indeed, for a confirmed and
convicted poacher. Should he i^ive the alarm then
and there, boldly, trusting to his innocence for vindi-
cation, and helping the police to discover the mur-
derer? Why, that would be sheer suicide, no doubt ;
** for who but would believe," he thought, '* t'was me
as done it ?" Or should he slink away quietly and say
nothing, leaving others to find the body as best they
might ? That was dangerous enough in its way if any-
bodv saw him, but not so dangerous as the other
course. In an evil hour for his own chances Joe
Ilarley chose that worse counsel, and slank off in his
familiar crouching fashion towards the opposite corner
of the copse.
On the way he heard John's vofce holloaing for his
master, and kept close to the hedge till he had quite
turned the corner. But John had caught a glimpse of
him too, and John did not forget it when, a few
minutes later, he came upon the horrid sight beside
the gate of Selbury Copse.
Meanwhile Walter had taken King Charlie to the
veterinary's and had his leg bound and bandaged
securely. He had also gone down to the church, got
out his surplice, and begun to put it on in the vestry
for evensong, when a messenger came at hot haste
THE CUUATE OF CIIURNSIDE. 1 59
from the vicarage, with news that Master Walter must
come up at once, for the vicar was murdered.
" Murdered !'* Walter Dene said to himself slowly
half aloud; "murdered! how horrible ! Murdered!"
It was an ugly word, and he turned it over with a
genuine thrill of horror. That w:is what they would
say of him if ever the thing came to be discovered !
What an inappropriate classification !
He threw aside the surplice, and rushed up hurriedly
to the vicarage. Already the servants had brought in
the body, and laid it out in the clothes it wore, on the
vicar's own bed. Walter Dene went in, shuddering,
to look at it. To his utter amazement, the face was
battered in horribly and almost unrecognizably by a
blow or kick ! What could that hideous mutilation
mean ? He could not imagine. It was an awful mys-
tery. Great heavens ! just fancy if any one were to
take it into his head that he, Walter Dene, had done
that — had kicked a defenceless old gentleman brutally
about the face like a common London ruffian ! The
idea was too horrible to be borne for a moment.
It unmanned him utterly, and he hid his face between
his two hands and sobbed aloud like one broken-
hearted. " This day's work has been too much for
my nerves," he thought to himself between the sobs ;
** but perhaps it is just as well I should give way now
completely."
That night was mainly taken up with the formalities
of all such cases ; and when at last Walter Dene went
off, tired and nerve-worn, to bed, about midnight, he
could not sleep much for thinking of the mystery.
The murder itself didn't trouble him greatly ; that was
over and past now, and he felt sure his precautions
, ' • V ;, , V
l6o STRANGE STORIES.
had been amply sufficient to protect him even from
the barest suspicion ; but he couldn't fathom the
mystery of that battered and mutilated face! Some-
body must have seen the corpse between the time of
the murder and the discovery ! Who could that some-
body have been ? and what possible motive could he
have had for such a horrible piece of purposeless
brutality ?
As for the servants, in solemn conclave in the hall,
they had unanimously but one theory to account for
all the facts : some poacher or other, for choice Joe
Harley, had come across the vicar in the copse, w^ith
gun and traps in hand. The wretch had seen he was
discovered, had felled the poor old vicar by a blow in
the face with the butt-end of his rifle, and after he fell
fainting, had stabbed him for greater security in the
back. That was such an obvious solution of the diffi-
culty, that nobody in the servants' hall had a moment's
hesitation in accepting it.
When Walter heard next morning early that Joe
Harley had been arrested overnight, on John's infor-
mation, his horror and surprise at the news were
wholly unaffected. Here was another new difficulty,
indeed. " When I did the thing," he said to himself,
" I never thought of that possibility. I took it for
granted it would be a mystery, a problem for the local
police (who, of course, could no more solve it than
they could solve the pons-asinoruui), but it never
struck me they would arrest an innocent person on the
charge instead of me. This is horrible. It's so easy
to make out a case against a poacher, and hang him
for it, on suspicion. One's whole sense of justice re-
volts against the thing. After all, there's a great deal
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. l6l
to be said in favor of the ordinary commonplace
morality : it prevents complications. A man of deli-
cate sensibilities oughtn't to kill anybody ; he lets
himself in for all kinds of unexpected contingencies
without knowing it."
At the coroner's niquest things looked very black
indeed for Joe Harley. Walter gave his evidence first,
showing how he had found King Charlie wounded in
the lane ; and then the others gave theirs, as to the
search for and finding of the body. John in particular
swore to having seen a man's back and head slinking
away by the hedge while they were looking for the
vicar ; and that back and head he felt sure were Joe
Harley's. To Walter's infinite horror and disgust, the
coroner's jury returned a verdict of willful murder
against the poor poacher. What other verdict could
they possibly have given in accordance with such evi-
dence ?
The trial of Joe Harley for the willful murder of
the Reverend Arthur Dene was fixed for the next
Dorchester Assizes. In the interval, Walter Dene, for
the first time in his placid life, knew what it was
to undergo a mental struggle. Wliatever happened,
he could not let Joe Harley be hanged for this murder.
His whole soul rose up within him in loathing for such
an act of hideous injustice. For though Walter Dene's
code of morality was certainly not tlie conventional
one, as he so often boasted to himself, he was not by
any means without any code of morals of any sort.
He could commit a murder where he thought it neces-
sary, but he could not let an innocent man suffer in
his stead. His ethical judgment on that point was
just as clear and categorical as the judgment which
l62 STRANGE STORIES.
told him he was in duty bound to murder his uncle.
For Walter did not argue with himself on moral ques-
tions : he perceived the right and necessary thing
intuitively ; he was a law to himself, and he obeyed
his own law implicitly, for good or for evil. Such men
are capable of horrible and diabolically deliberate
crimes ; but they are capable of great and genuine
self-sacrifices also.
Walter made no secret in the village of his disin-
clination to believe in Joe Harley's guilt. Joe was a
rough fellow, he said, certainly, and he had no objec-
tion to taking a pheasant or two, and even to having a
free fight with the keepers ; but, after all, our game
laws were an outrageous piece of class legislation, and
he could easily understand how the poor, whose
sense of justice they outraged, should be so set against
them. He could not think Joe Harley was capable of
a detestable crime. Besides, he had seen him himself
within a few minutes before and after the murder.
Everybody thought it such a proof of the young par-
son's generous and kindly disposition ; he had cer-
tainly the charity which thinketh no evil. Even though
his own uncle had been brutally murdered on his own
estate, he checked his natural feelings of resentment,
and refused to believe that one of his own parishion-
ers could have been guilty of the crime. Nay, more,
so anxious was he that substantial justice should be
done the accused, and so confident was he of his inno-
cence, that he promised to provide counsel for him at
his own expense ; and he provided two of the ablest
barristers on the Western circuit.
Before the trial, Walter Dene had come, after a ter-
rible internal struggle, to an awful resolution. He
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 163
would do everything he could for Joe Harley ; but if
the verdict went against him, he was resolved then and
there, in open court, to confess, before judge and jury,
the whole truth. It would be a horrible thing for
Christina ; he knew that ; but he could not love Chris-
tina so much, " loved he not honor more "; and honor,
after his own fashion, he certainly loved dearly.
Though he might be false to all that all the world
thought right, it was ingrained in the very fibre of his
soul to be true to his own inner nature at least. Night
after night he lay awake, tossing on his bed, and pic-
turing to his mind's eye every detail of that terrible
disclosure. The jury would bring in a verdict of
guilty ; then, before the judge put on his black cap,
he, Walter, would stand up and tell them that he could
not let another man hang for his crime ; he would
have the whole truth out before them ; and then he
would die, for he would have taken a little bottle of
poison at the first sound of the verdict. As for Chris-
tina — oh, Christina ! — Walter Dene could not dare to
let himself think upon that. It was horrible ; it was
unendurable ; it was torture a thousand times worse
than dying ; but still, he must and would face it. For
in certain phases, Walter Dene, forger and murderer
as he was, could be positively heroic.
The day of the trial came, and Walter Dene, pale
and haggard with much vigil, walked in a dream and
faintly from his hotel to the court-house. Everybody
present noticed what a deep effect the shock of his
uncle's death had had upon him. He was thinner and
more bloodless than usual, and his dulled eyes looked
black and sunken in their sockets. Indeed, he seemed
to have suffered far more intensely than the prisoner
164 STRANGE STORIES.
himself, who walked in firmer and more erect, and
took his seat doggedly in the familiar dock. He had
been there more than once before, to say the truth,
though never before on such an errand. Yet mere
habit, when he got there, made him at once, assume
the hangdog look of the consciously guilty..
Walter sat and watched and listened, still in a
dream, but without once betraying in his face the real
depth of his innermost feelings. In the body of the
court he saw Joe's wife weeping profusely and osten-
tatiously, after the fashion, considered to be correct by
her class ; and though he pitied her from the bottom
of his heart, he could only think by contrast of Chris-
tina. What were that good woman's tears and sor-
rows by the side of the grief and shame and unspeak-
able horror he might have to bring upon his Chris-
tina ? Pray Heaven the shock, if it came, might kill
her outright; that would at least be better than that
she should live long years to remember. More than
judge, or jury, or prisoner, Walter Dene saw every-
where, behind the visible shadows that thronged the
court, that one persistent prospective picture of heart-
broken Christina.
The evidence for the prosecution told with damn-
ing force against the prisoner. He was a notorious
poacher ; the vicar was a game-preserver. He had
poaciied more than once on the ground of the vicarage.
He was shown by numerous witnesses to have had an
animus against the vicar. He had been seen, not in
the face, to be sure, but still seen and recognized,
slinking away, immediately after the fact, from the
scene of the murder. And the prosecution had found
stains of blood, believed by scientific experts to be
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 165
human, on the clothing he had worn when he was ar-
rested. Walter Dene listened now with terrible una-
bated earnestness, for he knew that in reality it was
he himself who was upon his trial. He himself, and
Christina's happiness ; for if the poacher were found
guilty, he was firmly resolved, beyond hope of respite,
to tell all, and face the unspeakable.
The defence seemed indeed a weak and feeble theory.
Somebody unknown had committed the murder, and
this somebody, seen from behind, had been mistaken
by John for Joe Harley. The blood-stains need not
be human, as the cross-examination went to show, but
were only known by counter-experts to be mammalian
— perhaps a rabbit's. Every poacher — and it was ad-
mitted that Joe was a poacher — was liable to get his
clothes blood-stained. Grant they were human, Joe,
it appeared, had himself once shot off his little finger.
All these points came out from the examination of
the earlier witnesses. At last, counsel put the curate
himself into the box, and proceeded to examine him
briefly as a witness for the defence.
Walter Dene stepped, pale and haggard still, into
the witness-box. He had made up his mind to make
one final effort " for Christina's happiness." He
fumbled nervously all the time at a small glass phial in
his pocket, but he answere4 all questions without a
moment's hesitation, and he kept down his emotions
with a wonderful composure which excited the admira-
tion of everybody present. There was a general hush
to hear him. Did he see the prisoner, Joseph Harley,
on the day of the murder ? Yes, three times. When
•was the first occasion? From the library window just
before the vicar left the house. What was Joseph
1 66 STRANGE STORIES.
Harley then doing? Walking in the opposite direction
from the copse. Did Joseph Harley recognize him ?
Yes, he touched his hat to him. When was the second
occasion ? About ten minutes later when he, Walter,
was leaving the vicarage for a stroll. Did Joseph Har-
ley then recognize him ? Yes he touched his hat
again, and the curate said, " Good-morning, Joe ; a fine
day for walking." When was the third time ? Ten
minutes later again, when he was returning from the
lane, carrying wounded little King Charlie. Would it
have been physically possible for the prisoner to go
from the vicarage to the spot where the murder was
committed, and back again, in the interval between
the first two occasions? It would not. Would it have
been physically possible for the prisoner to do so in
the interval between the second and third occasions ?
It would not.
*' Then in your opinion, Mr. Dene, it is physically
impossible that Joseph Harley can have committed
this murder ?"
"In my opinion, it is physically impossible."
While Walter Dene solemnly swore amid dead
silence to this treble lie, he did not dare to look Joe
"Harley once in the face.; and while Joe Harley
listened in amazement to' this unexpected assistance
to his case — -for counsel, suspecting a mistaken identity,
had not questioned him too closely on the subject — he
had presence of mind enough not to let his astonish-
ment show upon his stolid features. But when Walter
' had finished his evidence in chief, he stole a glance at
Joe ; and for a moment their eyes met. Then Walter's
fell in utter self-humiliation ; and he said to himself
fiercely, " I would not so have debased and degraded
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. l67
myself before any man to save my own life — what is
my life worth me, after all ? — but to save Christina,
to save Christina, to save Christina ! I have brought
all this upon myself for Christina's sake."
Meanwhile, Joe Harley was asking himself curiously
what could be the meaning of this new move on
parson's part. It was deliberate perjury, Joe felt sure,
for parson could not have mistaken another person for
him three times over ; but what good end for himself
could parson hope to gain by it "^ If it was he who
had murdered the vicar (as Joe strongly suspected),
why did he not try to press the charge home against
the first person who happened to be accused, instead
of committing a distinct perjury on purpose to com-
pass his acquittal ? Joe Harley, with his simple every-
day criminal mind, could not be expected to unravel
the intricacies of so complex a personality as Walter
Dene's. But even there, on trial for his life, he could
not help wondering what on earth young parson could
be driving at in this business.
The judge summed up with the usual luminously
obvious alternate platitudes. If the jury thought that
John had really seen Joe Harley, and that the curate
was mistaken in the person whom he thrice saw, or
was mistaken once only out of the thrice, or had mis-
calculated the time between each occurrence, or the
time necessary to cover the ground to the gate, then
they would find the prisoner guilty of willful murder.
If, on the other hand, they believed John had judged
hastily, and that the curate had really seen the prisoner
three separate times, and that he had rightly calculated
all the intervals, then they would find the prisoner not
guilty. The prisoner's case rested entirely upon the
l68 STRANGE STORIES.
alibi. Supposing they thought there was a doubt in
the matter, they should give the prisoner the benefit
of the doubt. Walter noticed that the judge said in
every other case, " If you believe the witness So-and-
so," but that in his case he made no such discourteous
reservation. As a matter of fact, the one person whose
conduct nobody for a moment dreamt of calling in
question was the real murderer.
The jury retired for more than an hour. During all
that time two men stood there in mortal suspense,
intent and haggard, both upon their trial, but not both
equally. The prisoner in the dock fixed his arms in a
dogged and sullen attitude, the color half gone from
his brown cheek, and his eyes straining with excite-
ment, but showing no outward sign of any emotion
except the craven fear of death. Walter Dene stood
almost fainting in the body of the court, his bloodless
fingers still fumbling nervously at the little phial, and
his face deadly pale with the awful pallor of a devour-
ing horror. His heart scarcely beat at all, but at each
long, slow pulsation he could feel it throb distinctly
within his bosom. He saw or heard nothing before
him, but kept his aching eyes fixed steadily on the door
by which the jury were to enter. Junior counsel
nudged one another to notice his agitation, and
whispered that the poor young curate had evidently
never seen a man tried for his life before.
At last the jury entered. Joe and Walter waited,
each in his own manner, breathless for the verdict.
" Do you find the prisoner at the bar guilty or not
guilty of willful murder?" Walter took the little
phial from his pocket, and held it carefully between
his finger and thumb. The awful moment had come ;
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 1 69
the next word would decide the fate of himself and
Christina. The foreman of the jury looked up
solemnly, and answered with slow distinctness, " Not
guilty." The prisoner leaned back vacantly, and
wiped his forehead ; but there was an awful cry of
relief from one mouth in the body of the court, and
Walter Dene sank back into the arms of the bystan-
ders, exhausted with suspense and overcome by the
reaction. The crowd remarked among themselves that
young Parson Dene was too tender-hearted a man to
come into court at a criminal trial. He would break
his heart to see even a dog hanged, let alone his fel-
low-Christians. As for Joe Harley, it was universally
admitted that he had had a narrow squeak of it, and
that he had got off better than he deserved. The jury
gave him the benefit of the doubt.
As soon as all the persons concerned had returned
to Churnside, Walter sent at once for Joe Harley.
The poacher came to see him in the vicarage library.
He was elated and coarsely exultant with his victory,
as a relief from the strain he had suffered, after the
manner of all vulgar natures.
" Joe," said the clergyman slowly, motioning him
into a chair at the other side of the desk, " I know
that after this trial Churnside will not be a pleasant
place to hold you. All your neighbors believe, in
spite of the verdict, that you killed the vicar. I feel
sure, however, that you did not commit this murder.
Therefore, as some compensation for the suffering of
mind to which you have been put, I think it well to
send you and your wife and family to Australia or
Canada, whichever you like best. I propose also to
T/O STRANGE STORIKS.
made you a present of a hundred pounds, to set you
up in your new home."
" Make it five hundred, passon," Joe said, looking at
him significantly.
Walter smiled quietly, and did not flinch in any
■way. " I said a hundred," he continued calmly, ** and
I will make it only a hundred. I should have had no
objection to making it five, except for the manner in
which you ask it. But you evidently mistake the
motive of my gift. I give it out of pure compassion
for you, and not out of any other feeling whatsoever."
** Very well, passon," said Joe sullenly, "I accept it."
** You mistake again," Walter went on blandly, for
he was himself again now. '* You are not to accept it
as terms ; you are to thank me for it as a pure pres-
ent. I see we two partially understand each other ;
but it is important you should understand me exactly
as I mean it. Joe Harley, listen to me seriously. I
have saved your life. If I had been a man of a coarse
and vulgar nature, if I had been like you in a similar
predicament, I would have pressed the case against
you for obvious personal reasons, and you would have
been hanged for it. But I did not press it, because I
felt convinced of yo'^r innocence, and my sense of
justice rose irresistibly against it. I did the best I
could to save you ; I risked my own reputation to
save you ; and I have no hesitation now in telling you
that to the best of my belief, if the verdict had gone
against you, the person who really killed the vicar,
accidentally or intentionally, meant to have given him-
self up to the police, rather than let an innocent man
suffer."
" Passon," said Joe Harley, looking at him intently,
THE CURATE OF CIIURNSIDE. I/I
** I believe as you're tellin' me the truth. I zeen as
much in that person's face afore the verdict."
There was a solemn pause for a moment ; and then
Walter Dene said slowly:
" Now that you have withdrawn your claim as a
claim, I will stretch a point and make it five hundred.
It is little enough for what you have suffered. But I,
too, have suffered terribly, terribly."
"Thank you, passon," Joe answered. ** I zeen as
you were turble anxious."
There was again a moment's pause. Then Walter
Dene asked quietly :
" How did the vicar's face come to be so bruised
and battered.''"
"I stumbled up agin 'im accidental like, and didn't
know I'd kicked 'un till I'd done it. Must 'a been just
a few minutes after you'd 'a left 'un."
" Joe," said the curate, in his calmest tone, "you had
better go ; the money will be sent to you shortly.
But if you ever see my face again, or speak or write a
word of this to me, you shall not have a penny of it,
but shall be prosecuted for intimidation. A hundred
before you leave, four hundred in Australia. Now
go."
" Very well, passon," Joe answered ; and he went.
" Pah !" said the curate, with a face of disgust, shut-
ting the door after him, and lighting a perfumed pas-
tile in his little Chinese porcelain incense-burner, as if
to fumigate the room from the poacher's offensive
presence. " Pah ! to think that these affairs should com-
pel one to humiliate and abase one's self before a vul-
gar clod like that ! To think that all his life long that
fellow will virtually know — and misinterpret — my se-
172 STRANGE STORIES.
cret. He is incapable of understanding that I did it as
a duty to Christina. Well, he will never dare to tell it,
that's certain, for nobody would believe him if he did ;
and he may congratulate himself heartily that he's got
well out of this difficulty. It will be the luckiest
thing in the end that ever happened to him. And now
I hope this little episode is finally over."
When the Churnside public learned that Walter
Dene meant to carry his belief in Joe Harley's inno-
cence so far as to send him and his family at his own
expense out to Australia, they held that the young
parson's charity and guilelessness was really, as the
doctor said, almost Quixotic. And when, in his anx-
iety to detect and punish the real murderer, he offered
a reward of five hundred pounds from his own pocket
for any information leading to the arrest and convic-
tion of the criminal, the Churnside people laughed
quietly at his extraordinary childlike simplicity of
heart. The real murderer had been caught and tried
at Dorchester Assizes, they said, and had only got off
by the skin of his teeth because Walter himself had
come forward and sworn to a quite improbable and
inconclusive alibi. There was plenty of time for Joe
to have got to the gate by the short cut, and that he
did so everybody at Churnside felt morally certain.
Indeed, a few years later a blood-stained bowie-knife
was found in the hedge not far from the scene of the
murder, and the gamekeeper *' could almost 'a took his
Bible oath he'd zeen just such a knife along o' Joe
Harley."
That was not the end of Walter Dene's Quixotisms,
however. When the will was read, it turned out that
almost everything was left to the young parson ; and
THE CURATE OF CHURNSIDE. 173
who could deserve it better or spend it more chari-
tably? But Walter, though he would not for the world
seem to cast any slight or disrespect upon his dear
uncle's memory, did not approve of customs of primo-
geniture, and felt bound to share the estate equally
with his brother Arthur.
" Strange," said the head of the firm of Watson and
Blenkiron to himself, when he read the little paragraph
about this generous conduct in the paper ; '' I thought
the instructions were to leave it to his nephew Arthur,
not to his nephew Walter ; but there, one forgets and
confuses names of people that one does not know so
easily."
" Gracious goodness!" thought the engrossing clerk;
" surely it was the other way on. I wonder if I can
have gone and copied the wrong names in the wrong
places ?"
But in a big London business, nobody notes these
things as they would have been noted in Churnside ;
the vicar was always a changeable, pernickety, huffy
old fellow, and very likely he had had a reverse will
drawn up afterwards by his country lawyer. All the
world only thought that Walter Dene's generosity
was really almost ridiculous, even in a parson. When
he was married to Christina, six months afterwards,
everybody said so charming a girl was well mated with
so excellent and admirable a husband.
And he really did make a very tender and loving
husband an ) father. Christina believed in him always,
for he did his best to foster and keep alive her faith.
He would have given up active clerical duty if he
could, never having liked it (for he was above hypoc-
risy), but Christina was against the project, and his
1/4 STRANGE STORIES.
bishop would not hear of it. The Church could ill
afford to lose such a man as Mr. Dene, the bishop said,
in these troubled times ; and he begged him as a per-
sonal favor to accept the living of Churnside, which
was in his gift. But Walter did not like the place, and
asked for another living instead, which, being of less
value — " so like Mr. Dene to think nothing of the tem-
poralities," — the bishop even more graciously granted.
He has since published a small volume of dainty-
little poems on uncut paper, considered by some critics
as rather pagan in tone for a clergyman, but uni-
versally allowed to be extremely graceful, the perfec-
tion of poetical form with much delicate mastery of
poetical matter. And everybody knows that the author
is almost certain to be offered the first vacant canonry
in his own cathedral. As for the little episode, he
himself has almost forgotten all about it ; for those
who think a murderer must feel remorse his whole life
long, are trying to read their own emotional nature
into the wholly dispassionate character of Walter
Dene.
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE.
Sir Henry Vardon, K.C.B., electrician to the
Admiralty, whose title, as everybody knows, was
gazetted some six weeks since, is at this moment the
youngest living member of the British knighthood. He
is now only just thirty, and he has obtained his present
high distinction by those remarkable inventions of his
in the matter of electrical signalling and lighthouse
arrangements which have been so much talked about
in Nature this year, and which gained him the gold
medal of the Royal Society in 1881. Lady Vardon is
one of the youngest and prettiest hostesses in London,
and if you would care to hear the history of their
courtship, here it is :
When Harry Vardon left Oxford, only seven years
age, none of his friends could imagine what he meant
by throwing up all his chances of University success.
The son of a poor country parson in Devonshire, who
had strained his little income to the uttermost to send
him to college, Vardon of Magdalen had done credit
to his father and himself in all the schools. He gained
the best demyship of his year ; got a first in classical
mods.; and then, unaccountably, took to reading
science, in which he carried everything before him.
At the end of his four years, he walked into a scien-
[175]
176 STRANGE STORIES.
tific fellowship at Balliol as a matter of course ; and
then, after twelve months* residence, he suddenly sur-
prised the world of Oxford by accepting a tutorship
to the young Earl of Surrey, at that time, as you
doubtless remember, a minor, aged about sixteen.
But Harry Vardon had good reasons of his own for
taking this tutorship. Six months after he became a
fellow of Balliol, the old vicar had died unexpectedly,
leaving his only other child, Edith, alone and unpro-
vided for, as was indeed natural ; for the expenses of
Harry's college life had quite eaten up the meagre
savings of twenty years at Little Hinton. In order to
provide a home for Edith, it was necessary that Harry
should find something or other to do which would
bring in an immediate income. School-mastering, that
refuge of the destitute graduate, was not much to his
mind ; and so when the senior tutor of Boniface wrote
a little note to ask whether he would care to accept
the charge of a cub nobleman, as he disrespectfully
phrased it, Harry jumped at the offer, and took the
proposed salary of ^400 a year with the greatest
alacrity. That would far more than suffice for all
Edith's simple needs, and he himself could live upon
the proceeds of his fellowship, besides finding time to
continue his electrical researches. For I will not dis-
guise the fact that Harry only accepted the cub noble-
man as a stop-gap, and that he meant even then to
make his fortune in the end by those splendid electri-
cal discoveries which will undoubtedly immortalize his
name in future ages.
It was summer term when the appointment was
made ; and the Surrey people (who were poor for
their station) had just gone down to Colyford Abbey,
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 77
the family scat, in the valley of the Axe near Seaton.
You have visited the house, I dare say — open to visi-
tors every Tuesday, when the family is absent — a fine,
somewhat modernized mansion, with some good per-
pendicular work about it still, in spite of the havoc
wrought in it by Inigo Jones, who converted the
chapel and refectory of the old Cistercians into a ban-
quetting-hall and ballroom for the first Lord Surrey
of the present creation. It was lovely weather when
Harry Vardon went down there ; and the Abbey, and
the terrace, and the park, and the beautiful valley be-
yond were looking their very best. Harry fell in love
with the view at once, and almost fell in love with the
inmates too at the first glance.
Lady Surrey, the mother, was sitting on a garden
seat in front of the house as the carriage which met
him at Colyford station drove up to the door. She
was much younger and more beautiful than Harry had
at all expected. He had pictured the dowager to
himself as a stately old lady of sixty, with white hair
and a grand manner; instead of which he found him-
self face to face with a well-preserved beauty of some-
thing less than forty, not above medium height, and
still strikingly pretty in a round-faced, mature, but
very delicate fashion. She had wavy chestnut hair,
regular features, an exquisite set of pearly teeth, full
cheeks whose natural roses were perhaps just a trifle
increased by not wholly ungraceful art, and above all
a lovely complexion quite unspoilt as yet by years.
She was dressed as such a person should be dressed,
with no affectation of girlishness, but in the style that
best shows off ripe beauty and a womanly figure.
Harry was always an impressionable fellow ; and I
178 STRANGE STORIES.
really believe that if Lady Surrey had been alone he
would have fallen over head and ears in love with her
at first sight.
But there was something which kept him from fall-
ing in love at once with Lady Surrey, and that was the
girl who sat half reclining on a tiger-skin at her feet,
with a little sketching tablet on her lap. He could
hardly take full stock of the mother because he was so
busy looking at the daughter as well. I shall not at-
tempt to describe Lady Gladys Durant ; all pretty
girls fall under one of some half-dozen heads, and de-
scription at best can really do no more than classify
them. Lady Gladys belonged to the tall and graceful
aristocratic class, and she was a good specimen of the
type at seventeen. Not that Harry Vardon fell in
love with her at once ; he was really in the pleasing
condition of Captain Macheath, too much engaged in
looking at two pretty women to be capable even men-
tally of making a choice between them. Mother and
daughter were both almost equally beautiful, each in
her own distinct style.
The countess half rose to greet him — it is conde-
scension on the part of a countess to notice the tutor
at all, I believe ; but though I am no lover of lords
myself, I will do the Durants the justice to say that
their treatment of Harry was always the very kindliest
that could possibly be expected from people of their
ideas and traditions.
" Mr. Vardon ?" she said interrogatively, as she held
out her hand to the new tutor. Harry bowed assent.
" I'm glad you have such a lovely day to make your
first acquaintance with Colyford. It's a pretty place,
AN EMSODE IN HIGH LIFE. i;9
isn't it? Gladys, this is Mr. Vardon, who is kindly
going to take charge of Surrey for us."
"I'm afraid you don't know what you're going to
undertake," said Gladys, smiling and holding out her
hand. " He's a dreadful pickle. Do you know this
part of the world before, Mr. Vardon ?"
"Not just hereabouts," Harry answered; "my
father's parish was in North Devon, but 1 know the
greater part of the country very well."
" That's a good thing," said Gladys quickly ; "we're
all Devonshire people here, and we believe in the
county with all our hearts. I wish Surrey took his
title from it. It's so absurd to take your title from a
place you don't care about only because you've got
land there. I love Devonshire people best of any."
" Mr. Vardon would probably like to see his
rooms," said the countess. " Parker, will you show
him up ?"
The rooms were everything that Harry could wish.
There was a prettily furnished sitting-room for him-
self on the front, looking across the terrace, with a
view of the valley and the sea in the distance ; there
was a study next door, for tutor and pupil to work in ;
there was a cheerful little bedroom behind, and down-
stairs at the back there was a large bare room, for
which Harry had specially stipulated, wherein to put
his electrical apparatus, for he meant to experiment
and work busily at his own subject in his spare time.
There was a special servant, too, told off to wait
upon him ; and altogether Harry felt that if only
the social position could be made endurable, he
could live very comfortably for a year or two at
Colyford Abbey.
l8o STRANGE STORIES.
There are some men who could never stand such
a life at all. There are others who can stand it be-
cause they can stand anything. But Harry Vardon
belonged to neither class. He was one of those who
feel at home in most places, and who can get on in all
society alike. In the first place, he was one of the
handsomest fellows you ever saw, with large dark eyes,
and that particular black mustache that no woman can
ever resist. Then again he was tall and had a good
presence, which impressed even those most dangerous
of critics for a private tutor, the footmen. Moreover,
he was clever, chatty, and agreeable ; ancf it never
entered into his head that he was not conferring some
distinction upon the Surrey family by consenting to be
teacher to their young lordling — which, indeed, was
after all the sober fact.
The train was in a little before seven, and there was
a bit of a drive from the station, so that Harry had
only just had time to dress for dinner when the gong
sounded. In the drawing-room he met his future
pupil, a good-looking, high-spirited, but evidently lazy
boy of sixteen. The family was alone, so the earl took
down his mother, while Harry gave his arm to Lady
Gladys. Before dinner was over, the new tutor had
taken the measure of the trio pretty accurately. The
countess was clever, that was certain ; she took an
interest in books and in art, and she could talk lightly
but well upon most current topics in the easy spark-
ling style of a woman of the world. Gladys was clever
too, though not booky ; she was full of sketching and
music, and was delighted to hear that Harry could
paint a little in water-colors, besides being the owner of
a good violin. As to the boy, his fancy clearly ran for
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. l8l
the most part to dogs, guns and cricket ; and indeed,
though he was no doubt a very important person as a
future member of the British legislature, I think for
the purposes of the present story, which is mainly con-
cerned with Harry Vardon's fortunes, we may safely
leave him out of consideration. Harry taught him
as much as he could be induced to learn for an hour
or two every morning, and looked after him as far
as possible when he was anywhere within hearing
throughout the rest of the day ; but as the lad was
alr^i'jst always out around the place somewhere with
a gamekeeper or a stable-boy, he hardly entered
practically into the current of Harry's life at all,
outside the regular hours of study. As a matter of
fact, he never learnt much from anybody or did any-
thing worth speaking of ; but he has since married a
Birmingham heiress with a million or so of her own,
and is now one of the most rising young members of
the House of Lords.
After dinner, the countess showed Harry her excel-
lent collection of Bartolozzis, and Harry, who knew
something about them, showed the countess that she
was wrong as to the authenticity of one or two among
them. Then Gladys played passably well, and he sang
a duet with her in a way that made her feel a little
ashamed of her own singing. And lastly Harry
brought down his violin, at which the countess smiled a
little, for she thought it audacious on the first evening;
but when he played one of his best pieces, she smiled
again, for she had a good ear and a great deal of taste.
After which they all retired to bed, and Gladys
remarked to her maid in the privacy of her own room,
1 82 STRANGE STORIES.
that the new tutor was a very pleasant man, and quite
a relief af^ such a stick as Mr. Wilkinson.
At breakfast next morning the party remained un-
changed, but at lunch the two younger girls appeared
upon the scene, with their governess. Miss Martindale.
Though very different in type from Gladys, Ethel
Martindale was in her way an equally pretty girl. She
was small and mignomiCy with delicate little hands, and
a light, pretty figure, not too slight, but very grace-
fully proportioned. Her cheeks and chin were charm-
ingly dimpled, and her complexion was just of that
faintly-dark tinge that one sees so often combined with
light-brown hair and eyes in the moorland parts of
Lancashire. Altogether she was a perfect foil to
Gladys, and it would have been difficult for almost any
man, as he sat at that table, to say whicli of the three,
mother, daughter, or governess, was really the pret-
tiest. For my own part, I give my vote unreservedly
for the countess, but then I am getting somewhat
grizzled now, and have long been bald ; so my liking
turns naturally towards ripe beauty. I hate your self-
conscious chits of seventeen, who can only chat and
giggle ; I like a woman who has something to say for
nerself. But Harry was just turned twenty-three, and
perhaps his choice might, not unnaturally, have gone
otherwise.
The governess talked little at lunch, and seemed
altogether a rather subdued and timid girl. Harry
noticed with pain that she appeared half afraid of
speaking to anybody, and also that the footmen made
a marked distinction between their manner to him and
their manner to her. He would have liked once or
twice to kick the fellows for their insolence. After
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 183
lunch, Gladys and the little ones went for a stroll down
towards the river, and Harry followed after with Miss
Martindale.
" Do you come from this part of England ?" he
asked.
** No," answered Ethel, **I come from Lancashire.
My father was rector of a small parish on the moors."
Harry's heart smote him. It might have been
Edith. What a little turn of chance had made all the
difference ! " My father was a parson, too," he said,
and then checked himself for the half-disrespectful
word, " but he lived down here in Devonshire. Do
you like Colyford ?"
*' Oh, yes, — the place very much. There are delight-
ful rambles, and Lady Gladys and I go out sketch-
ing a great deal. And it's a delightful country for
flowers."
The place, but not the life, thought Harry. Poor
child, it must be very hard Tor her.
" Mr. Vardon, come on here, I want you," called
out Gladys from the little stone bridge. " You know
everything. Can you tell me what this flower is ?"
and she held out a long spray of waving green stuff.
*' Caper spurge," said Harry, looking at it carelessly.
** Oh, no," Miss Martindale put in quickly, " Port-
land spurge, surely."
" So it is, ' Harry answered, looking closer. " Then
you are a bit of a botanist. Miss Martindale?"
'* Not a botanist, but very fond of the flowers."
*' Miss Martindale's always picking lots of ugly
things and bringing them home," said Gladys laugh-
ingly ; "aren't you, dear?"
Ethel smiled and nodded. So they went on past the
1 84 STRANGE STORIES.
bridge and out upon the opposite side, and back again
by the little white railings into the park.
For the next three months Harry enjoyed himself
in a busy way immensely. Every morning he had his
three hours* teaching, and every afternoon he went a
walk, or fished in the river, or worked at his electrical
machines. To the household at the Abbey such a
man was a perfect godsend. For he was a versatile
fellow, able to turn his hand to anything, and the
Durants lived in a very quiet way, and were glad of
somebody to keep the house lively. The money was
all tied up till the boy came of age, and even then
there wouldn't be much of it. Surrey had been sent
to Eton for a month or two and then removed, by
request, to prevent more violent measures ; after which
he was sent to two or three other schools, always with
the same result. So he was brought home again and
handed over to the domestic persuasion of a private
tutor. The only thing that kept him moderately quiet
was the possibility of running around the place with
the keepers ; and the only person who ever taught him
anything was Harry Vardon, though even he, I must
admit, did not succeed in impressing any very valuable
lessons upon the lad's volatile brain. The countess
saw few visitors, and so a man like Harry was a real
acquisition to the little circle. He was perpetually
being wanted by everybody, everywhere, and at the
end of three months he was simply indispensable.
Lady Surrey was always consulting him as to the
proper place to plant the new wellingtonias, the right
asp^,ct for deodars, the best plan for mounting water-
colors, and the correct date of all the neighboring
churches. It was so delightful to drive about with
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 8$
somebody who really understood the history and
geology and antiquities of the county, she said ; and
she began to develop an extraordinary interest in
prehistoric archaeology, and to listen patiently to Har-
ry's disquisitions on the difference between long bar-
rows and round barrows, or on the true nature of the
earthworks that cap the top of Membury Hill. Harry
for his part was quite ready to discourse volubly on
all these subjects, for it was his hobby to impart
information, whereof he had plenty ; and he liked
knocking about the country, examining castles or
churches, and laying down the law about matters
architectural with much authority to two pretty
women. The countess even took an interest in his
great electrical investigation, and came into his work-
shop to hear all about the uses of his mysterious bat-
teries. As for Lady Gladys, she was for ever wanting
Mr. Vardon's opinion about the exact color for that
shadow by the cottage, Mr. Vardon's aid in practising
that difficult bit of Chopin, Mr. Vardon's counsel about
the decorative treatment of the passion-flower on that
lovely piece of crewel-work. Indeed, contrary to Miss
Martindale's express admonition, and all the dictates
of propriety, she was always running off to Harry's
little sitting-room to ask his advice about five hundred
different things, five hundred times in every twenty-
four hours.
There was only one person in the household who
seemed at all shy of Harry, and that was Miss Martin-
dale. Do what he could, he could never get her to
feel at home with him. She seemed always anxious to
keep out of his way, and never ready to join in any of
his plans. This was annoying, because Harry really
1 86 STRANGE STORIES. •
liked the poor girl and felt sorry for her lonely posi-
tion. But as she would have nothing to say to him,
why, there was nothing else to be done ; so he con-
tented himself with being as polite to her as possible,
while respecting her evident wish to be let alone.
One afternoon, when the four had been out for a
drive together to visit the old ruins near Cowhayne,
and Harry had been sketching with Gladys and lectur-
ing to the countess to his heart's content, he was sit-
ting on the bench by the red cedars, when to his sur-
prise he saw the governess strolling carelessly across
the terrace towards him. " Mr. Vardon," she said,
standing beside the bench, " I want to say something
to you. You mustn't mind my saying it, but I feel it
is part of my duty. Do you think you ought to pay so
much attention to Gladys ? You and I come into a
famil) of this sort on peculiar terms, you know. They
don't think we are quite the same sort of human beings
as themselves. Now, I'm half afraid — I don't like to
say so, but I think it better I should say it than my
lady — I'm half afraid that Gladys is getting her head
too much filled with you. Whatever she does, you are
always helping her. She is for ever running off to see
you about something or other. She is very young ;
she meets very few other men ; and you have been ex-
tremely attentive to her. But when people like these
admit you into their family, they do so on the tacit
understanding that you will not do what they would
call abusing the position. To-day, 1 half fancied that
my lady looked at you once or twice when you were
talking to Gladys, and I thought I would try to be
brave enough to speak to you about it. If /don't, I
think she wiU,"
AN KPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 8/
** Really, Miss Martindale," said Harry, rising and
walking by her side toward the laburnum alley, " I'm
very glad you have unburdened your mind about this
matter. For myself, you know, I don't acknowledge
the obligation. I should marry any girl I liked, if she
would have me, whatever her artificial position might
be ; and I should never let any barriers of that sort
stand in my way. But I don't know that I have the
slightest intention of ever trying to marry Lady Gladys
or anybody else of the sort ; so while I remain unde-
cided on that point, I shall do as you wish me. By
the way, it strikes me now that you have been trying
to keep her away from me as much as possible."
" As part of my duty, I think I ought to do so.
Yes."
" Well, you may rely upon it, I will give you no more
cause for anxiety," said Harry; "so the less we say
about it the better. What a lovely sunset, and what
a glorious color on the cliffs at Axmouth !" And he
walked down the alley with her two or three times,
talking about various indifferent subjects. Somehow
he had never managed to get on so well with her be-
fore. She was a very nice girl, he thought, really a
very nice girl ; what a pity she would never take any
notice of him in any way! However, he enjoyed that
quiet half-hour immensely, and was quite sorry when
Lady Surrey came out a little later and joined them,
exactly as if she wanted to interrupt their conversa-
tion. But what a beautiful woman Lady Surrey was
too, as she came across the lawn just then in her gar-
den hat and the pale blue Umritzur shawl thrown
loosely across her shapely shoulders 1 By Jove, she
1 88 STRANGE STORIES.
was as handsome a woman, after all, as he had ever
seen.
After dinner that evening Lady Surrey sent Gladys
oflF to Miss Martindale's room on some small pretext,
and then put Harry down on the sofa beside her to
help in arranging those interminable ferns of hers.
Evening dress suited the countess best, and she knew
it. She was looking even more beautiful than before,
with her hair prettily dressed, and the little simple
turquoise necklet setting off her white neck ; and she
talked a great deal to Harry, and was really very
charming. No more fascinating widow, he thought, to
be found anywhere within a hundred miles. At last
she stopped, leaning over the ferns, and sat back a
little on the sofa, half fronting him. ** Mr. Vardon,"
she said suddenly, " there is something I wish to speak
to you about, privately."
" Certainly," said Harry, half expecting the topic.
** Do you know, I think you ought not to pay such
marked attention to Lady Gladys. Two or three times
I have fancied I noticed it, and have meant to mention
it to you, but I thought it might be unnecessary. On
many accounts, however, I think it is best not to let it
pass any longer. The difference of station "
" Excuse me," said Harry, " I'm sorry to differ from
you, but I don't acknowledge differences of station."
** Well," said the countess, in a conciliatory tone,
" under certain circumstances that may be perfectly
correct. A young man in your position and with your
talents has. of course, the whole world before him. He
can make himself whatever he pleases. I don't think,
Mr. Vardon, I have ever under-estimated the worth
of brains. I do feel that knowledge and culture are
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 189
much greater things after all than mere position.
Now, in justice to me, don't you think I do ?"
Harry looked at her — she was really a very beautiful
woman — and then said, " Yes, I think you have cer-
tainly better and more rational tastes than most other
people circumstanced as you are."
" I'm so glad you do," the countess answered,
heartily. " I don't care for a life of perfect frivolity
and fashion, such as one gets in London. If it were
not for Gladys's sake I sometimes think I would give
it up entirely. Do you know, I often wish my life had
been cast very differently — cast among another set of
people from the people I have always mixed among.
Whenever I meet clever people — literary people and
scholars — I always feel so sorry I haven't moved all
my life in their world. From one point of view, I
quite recognize what you said just now, that these
artificial distinctions should not exist between people
who are really equals in intellect and culture."
" Naturally not," said Harry, to whom this proposi-
tion sounded like a famiHar truism.
" But in Lady Gladys's case, I feel I ought to guard
her against seeing too much of anybody in particular
just at present. She is only seventeen, and she is of
course impressionable. Now, you know a great many
mothers would not have spoken to you as I do ; but I
like you, Mr. Vardon, and I feel at home with you.
You will promise me not to pay so much attention to
Gladys in future, won't you ?"
As she looked at him full in the face with her beau-
tiful eyes, Harry felt he could just then have promised
her anything, ** Yes," he said, " I will promise."
" Thank you," said the countess, looking at him
190 STRANGE STORIES.
again ; " I am very much obliged to you." And then
for a moment there was an awkward pause, and they
both looked full into one another's eyes without say-
ing a word.
In a minute the countess began again, and said a
good many things about what a dreadful waste of life
people generally made ; and what a privilege it was to
know clever people ; and what a reality and purpose
there was in their lives. A great deal of this sort she
said, and in a low, pleasant voice. And then there was
another awkward pause, and they looked at one an-
other once more.
Harry certainly thought the countess very beautiful,
and he liked her very much. She was really kind-
hearted and friendly ; she was interested in the sub-
jects that pleased him ; and she was after all a pretty
woman, still young as men count youth, and very
agreeable — nay, anxious to please. And then she had
said what she said about the artificiality of class dis-
tinctions so markedly and pointedly, with such a com-
mentary from her eyes, that Harry half fancied — well,
1 don't quite know what he fancied. As he sat there
beside her on the sofa, with the ferns before him,
looking straight into her eyes, and she into his, it
must be clear to all my readers that if he had any
special proposition to make to her on any abstract
subject of human speculation, the time had obviously
arrived to make it. But something or other inscru-
table kept him back.
" Lady Surrey ," he said, and the words s.uck
in his throat.
" Yes," she answered, softly.
** Shall shall we go on with the ferns ?" Lady
AN EPISODE m HIGH LIFE. I9I
Surrey gave a little short breath, brought back her
eyes from dreamland, and turned with a sudden smile
back to the portfolio. For the rest of the evening, the
candid historian must admit that they both felt like a
pair of fools. Conversation lagged, and I don't think
either of them was sorry when the time came for re-
tiring.
It is useless for the clumsy male psychologist to
pretend that he can see into the heart of a woman,
especially when the normal action of said heart is com-
plicated by such queer conventionalities as that of a
countess who feels a distinct liking for her son's tutor;
but if I may venture to attempt that impossible feat
of clairvoyance without rebuke, I should be inclined
to diagnose Lady Surrey's condition as she lay sleep-
less for an hour or so on her pillow that night some-
what as follows. She thought that Harry Vardon
was really a very clever and a very pleasant fellow.
She thought that men in society were generally dread-
fully empty-headed and horribly vain. She thought
that the importance of disparity in age had, as a rule,
been immensely overrated. She thought that rank was
after all much less valuable than she used to think it
when first she married poor dear Surrey, who was really
the kindest of men, and a thorough gentleman, but
certainly not at all brilliant. She thought that a
young man of Harry's talent might, if well connected,
get into parliament and rise, like Beaconsfield, to any
position. She thought he was very frank and open,
and gentlemanly ; and very handsome, too. She
thought he had half hesitated whether he should pro-
pose to her or not, and had then drawn back because
he was not certain of the consequences. She thought
192 STRANGE STORIES.
that if he had proposed to her — well, perhaps — why,
yes, she might even possibly have accepted him. She
thought he would probably propose in earnest, before
long, as soon as he saw that she was not wholly averse
to his attentions. She thought in that case she might
perhaps provisionally accept him, and get him to try
what he could do in the way of obtaining some sort of
position — she didn't exactly know what — where he
could more easily marry her with the least possible
shock to the feelings of society. And she thought that
she really didn't know before, for twenty years, at
least, how great a goose she positively was.
Next morning, after breakfast. Lady Surrey sent
for Gladys to come to her in her boudoir. Then she
put her daughter in a chair by the window, drew her
own close to it, laid her hand kindly on her shoulder —
she was a nice little woman at heart, was the countess
— and said to her gently, " My dear Gladys, there's a
little matter I want to talk to you about. You are
still very young, you know, dear ; and I think you
ought to be very careful about not letting your feel-
ings be played upon in any way, however uncon-
sciously. Now, you walk and talk a great deal too
much, dear, with Mr. Vardon. In many ways, it
would be well that you should. Mr. Vardon is very
clever, and very well informed, and a very instructive
companion. I like you to talk to intelligent people, and
to hear intelligent people talk ; it gives you something
that mere books can never give. But you know,
Gladys, you should always remember the disparity in
your stations. I don't deny that there's a great deal
in all that sort of thing that's very conventional and
absurd, my dear ; but still, girls are girls, and if they're
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. • I93
thrown too much with any one young man " — Lady
Surrey was going to add, " especially when he's hand-
some and agreeable," but she checked herself in time
— " they're very apt to form an affection for him.
Of course, I'm not suggesting that you're likely to do
anything of the sort with Mr. Vardon — I don't for a
moment suppose you would — but a girl can never be
too careful. I hope you know your position too well ;'*
here Lady Surrey was conscious of certain internal
qualms ; ** and indeed whether it was Mr. Vardon or
anybody else, you are much too young to fill your
head with such notions at your age. Of course, if
some really good offer had been made to you even in
your first season — say Lord St. Ives or Sir Montague
—I don't say it might not have been prudent to accept
it ; but under ordinary circumstances, a girl does best
to think as little as possible about such things until
she is twenty at least. However, I hope in future
you'll remember that I don't wish you to be quite so
familiar in your intercourse with Mr. Vardon."
" Very well, mamma," said Gladys quietly, drawing
herself up ; "I have heard what you want to say, and
I shall try to do as you wish. But I should like to
say something in return, if you'll be so kind as to lis-
ten to me."
" Certainly, darling," Lady Surrey answered, with a
vague foreboding of something wrong.
" I don't say I care any more for Mr. Vardon than
for anybody else ; I haven't seen enough of him to
know whether I care for him or not. But if ever I do
care for anybody, it will be for somebody like him,
and not for somebody like Lord St. Ives or Monty
Fitzroy. I don't like the men I meet in town ; they
194 STRANGE STORIES.
all talk to us as if we were dolls or babies. I don't
want to marry a man who says to himself, as Surrey
says already, * Ah, I shall look out for some rich girl
or other and make her a countess, if she's a good girl,
and if she suits me.' I'd rather have a man like Mr.
Vardon than any of the men we ever meet in Lon-
don."
" But, my darling," said Lady Surrey, quite alarmed
at Gladys's too serious tone, *' surely there are gentle-
men quite as clever and quite as intellectual as Mr.
Vardon."
"Mamma!" cried Gladys, rising, "do you mean to
say Mr. Vardon is not a gentleman?"
'• Gladys, Gladys ! sit down, dear. Don't get so ex-
cited. Of course he is. I trust I have as great a
respect as anybody for talent and culture. But what
I meant to say was this — can't you find as much talent
and culture among people of our own station as — as
among people of Mr. Vardon's ?"
" No," said Gladys shortly.
" Really, my dear, you are too hard upon the
peerage."
** Well, mamma, can you mention anyone that we
know who is ?" asked the peremptory girl.
" Not exactly in our own set," said Lady Surrey hesi-
tatingly ; " but surely there must be some.'*
" I don't know them," Gladys replied quietly, " and
till I do know them, I shall remain of my own opinion
still. If you wish me not to see so much of Mr. Var-
don, I shall try to do as you say ; but if I happen to
like any particular person, whether he's a peer or a
ploughboy, I can't help liking him, so there's an end of
it." And Gladys kissed her mother demurely on the
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. I95
forehead, and walked with a stately sweep out of the
room.
" It's perfectly clear," said Lady Surrey to herself,
" that that girl's in love with Mr. Vardon.and what on
earth I'm to do about it is to me a mystery." And
indeed Lady Surrey's position was by no means an
easy one. On the one hand, she felt that whatever she
herself, who was a person of mature years, might hap-
pen to do, it would be positively wicked in her to
allow a young girl like Gladys to throw herself away
on a man in Harry Vardon's position. Without any
shadow of an arritre pensee^ that was her genuine feel-
ing as a mother, and a member of society. But then,
on the other hand, how could she oppose it, if she
really ever thought herself, even conditionally, of mar-
rying Harry Vardon? Could she endure that her
daughter should think she had acted as her rival ?
Could she press the point about Harry's conventional
disadvantEiges, when she herself had some vague idea
that if Harry offered himself as Gladys's stepfather, she
would not be wholly disinclined to consider his pro-
posal ? Could she set it down as a crime in her daugh-
ter to form the very selfsame affection which she her-
self had well-nigh formed ? Moreover, she couldn't
help feeling in her heart that Gladys was right, after
all ; and that the daughter's defiance of convent:*. >nality
was implicitly inherited from the mother. If she had
met Harry Vardon twenty years ago, she would have
thought and spoken much like Gladys; in fact, though
she didn't speak, she thought so, very nearly, even
now. I am sorry that I am obliged to write out these
faint outlines of ideas in all the brutal plainness of the
English language as spoken by men ; I cannot give all
196 STRANGE STORIES.
those fine shades of unspoken reservations and wo-
manly self-deceptive subterfuges by which the poor
little countess half disguised her own meaning even
from herself ; but at least you will not be surprised to
hear that in the end she lay down on the little couch
in the corner, covered her face with chagrin and disap-
pointment, and had a good cry. Then she got up an
hour later, washed her eyes carefully to take off the
redness, put on her pretty, dove-colored morning
gown with the lace trimming — she looked charming in
lace — and went down smiling to lunch, as pleasant and
cheery a little widow of thirty-seven as ever you would
wish to see. Upon my soul, Harry Vardon, I really
almost think you will be a fool if you don't finally
marry the countess !
" Gladys," said little Lord Surrey to his sister that
evening, when she came into his room on her way
upstairs to bed — "Gladys, it's my opinion you're get-
ting too sweet on this fellow Vardon."
" I shall be obliged, Surrey, if you'll mind your own
business, and allow me to mind mine."
" Oh, it's no use coming the high and mighty over
me, I can tell you, so don't you try it on. Besides, I
have something 1 want to speak to you about particu-
larly. It's my opinion also that my lady's doing the
very same thing."
** What nonsense, Surrey !" cried Gladys, coloring
up to her eyebrows in a second ; " how dare you say
such a thing about mamma ?" But a light broke in
upon her suddenly all the same, and a number of little
unnoticed circumstances flashed back at once upon her
memory with a fresh flood of meaning.
" Nonsense or not, it's true, I know ; and what I
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. ' I97
want to say to you is this — If old Vardon's to marry
either of you, it ought to be you, because that would
save mamma at any rate from making a fool of her-
self. As far as I'm concerned, I'd rather neither of
you did ; for I don't see why either of you should want
to marry a beggarly fellow of a tutor " — Gladys's eyes
flashed fire — *' though Vardon's a decent enough chap
in his way, if that was all ; but at any rate, as one or
other of you's cock-sure to do it, I don't want him for
a stepfather. " So you see, as far as that goes, I back
the filly. Now, say no more about it, but go to bed
like a good girl, and mind, whatever you do, you don't
forget to say your prayers. Good-night, old girl."
" I would't marry a fellow like Surrey," said Gladys
to herself, as she went upstairs, " no, not if he was the
premier duke of England !"
For the next three weeks there was such a comedy
of errors and cross-purposes at Colyford Abbey as was
never seen before anywhere outside of one of Mr Gil-
bert's clever extravaganzas. Lady Surrey tried to
keep Gladys in every possible way out of Harry's sight;
while her brother tried in every possible way to throw
them together. Gladys on her part half avoided him,
and yet grew somewhat more confidential than ever
whenever she happened to talk with him. Harry did
not feel quite so much at home as before with Lady
Surrey ; he had an uncomfortable sense that he had
failed to acquit himself as he ought to have done ;
while Lady Surrey had a half suspicion that she had
let him see her unfledged secret a little too early and
too openly. The natural consequence of all this was
that Harry was cast far more than before upon the
society of Ethel Martindale, with whom he often
198 STRANGE STORIES. '
strolled about the shrubbery till very close upon the
dressing gong. Ethel did not come down to dinner —
she dined with the little ones at the family luncheon ;
and that horrid galling distinction cut Harry to the
quick every night when he left her to go in. Every
day, too, it began to dawn upon him more clearly that
the vague reason which had kept him back from pro-
posing to Lady Surrey on that eventful night was just
this — that Ethel Martindale had made herself a certain
vacant niche in his unfurnished heart. She was a dear,
quiet, unassuming little girl, but so very graceful, so
very tender, so very womanly, that she crept into his
affections unawares without possibility of resistance.
The countess was a beautiful and accomplished woman
of the world, with a real heart left in her still, but not
quite the sort of tender, shrinking girlish heart that
Harry wanted. Gladys was a lovely girl with stately
manners and a wonderfully formed character, but too
great and too redolent of society for Harry. He ad-
mired them both, each in her own way, but he couldn't
possibly have lived a lifetime with either. But Ethel,
dear, meek, pretty, gentle little Ethel — well, there, I'm
not going to repeat for you all the raptures that Harry
went into over that perennial and ever rejuvenescent
theme. For, to tell you the truth, about three weeks
after the night when Harry did not propose to the
countess, he actually did propose to Ethel Martindale.
And Ethel, after many timid protests, after much de-
mure self-depreciation and declaration of utter un-
worthiness for such a man — which made Harry wild
with indignation — did finally let him put her little
hand to his lips, and whispered a sort of broken and
blushing " Yes."
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 1 99
What a fool he had been, he thought that evening,
to suppose for half a second that Lady Surrey had
ever meant to regard him in any other light than her
son's tutor. He hated himself for his owi nonsensical
vanity. Who was he that he should tancy all the
women in England were in love with him ?
Next morning's Times contained that curious an-
nouncement about its being the intention of the Gov-
ernment to appoint an electrician to the Admiralty,
and inviting applications from distinguished men of
science. Now Harry, young as he was, had just per-
fected his great system of the double revolving com-
mutator and back-action rheostat (Patent Office, No.
18,237,504), and had sent in a paper on the subject
which had been read with great success at the Royal
Society. The famous Professor Brusegay himself had
described it as a remarkable invention, likely to prove
of immense practical importance to telegraphy and
electrical science generally. So when Harry saw the
announcement that morning, he made up his mind to
apply for the appointment at once ; and he thought
that if he got it, as the salary was a good one, he
might before long marry Ethel, and yet manage to
keep Edith in the Same comfort as before.
Lady Surrey saw the paragraph too, and had her
own ideas about what it might be made to do. It was
the very opening that Harry wanted, and if he got it,
why then, no doubt he might make the proposal which
he evidently felt afraid to make, poor fellow, in his
present position. So she went into her boudoir im-
mediately after breakfast, and wrote two careful and
cautiously worded little notes. One was to Dr. Bruse-
gay, whom she knew well, mentioning to him that her
200 v' STRANGE STORIES.
son's tutor was the author of that remarkable paper on
jommutators, and that she thought he would probably
be admirably fitted for the post, but that on that point
the Professor himself was the best judge ; the other
was to her cousin, Lord Ardenleigli, who was a great
man in the government of the day, suggesting casually
thit he should look into the claims of her friend,
Mr. Vardon, for this new place at the Admiralty.
Two nicer little notes, written with better tact and
judgment, it would be difificult to find.
At that very moment Harry was also sitting down
in his own room, after five minutes' consultation with
Ethel, to make formal application for the new post.
And after lunch the same day he spoke to Lady Surrey
upon the subject.
" There is one special reason," he said, " why I
should like to get this post, and I think I ought to let
you know it now." Poor little Lady Surrey's heart
fluttered like a girl's. " The fact is, I am anxious to
obtain a position which would enable me to marry."
(" How very bluntly he puts it," said the countess to
herself.) " I ought to tell you, I think, that I have
proposed to Miss Martindale, and she has accepted
me."
Miss Martindale! Great heavens, how the room
reeled round the poor little woman, as she stood with
her hand on the table, trying to balance herself, trying
to conceal her shame and mortification, trying to look
as if the announcement did not concern her in any
way. Poor, dear, good little countess ; from my heart
I pity you. Miss Martindale! why, she had never
even thought of her. A mere governess, a nobody ;
and Harry Vardon, with his magnificent intellect and
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 201
splendid prospects, was going to throw himself away
on that girl ! She could hardly control herself to an-
swer him, but with a great effort she gulped down her
feelings, and remarked that Ethel Martindale was a
very good girl, and would doubtless make an admirable
wife. And then she walked quietly out of the room,
stepped up the stairs somewhat faster, rushed into her
boudoir, double-locked the door, and burst into a per-
fect flood of hot, scalding tears. At that moment she
began to realize the fact that she had in truth liked
Harry Vardon much more than a little.
By and by she got up, went over to her desk, took
out the two unposted notes, tore them into fragments,
and then carefully burnt them up piece by piece, in a
perfect holocaust of white paper. What a wicked,
vindictive little countess ! Was she going to spoil
these two young people's lives, to throw every possible
obstacle in the way of their marriage ? Not a bit of
it. As soon as her eyes allowed her, she sat down and
wrote two more notes, a great deal stronger and better
than before ; for this time she need not fear the possi-
bility of after reflections from an unkind world. She
said a great deal in a casual, half-hinting fashion about
Harry's merits, and remarked upon the loss that she
should sustain in the removal of such a tutor from
Lord Surrey ; but she felt that, sooner or later, his
talents must get him a higher recognition, and she
hoped Dr. Brusegay and her cousin would use their
influence to obtain him the appointment. Then she
went downstairs feeling like a Christian martyr, kissed
and congratulated Ethel, talked gayly about Bartolozzi
to Harry, and tried to make b( eve that she took the
engagement as a matter of course. Nothing, in fact,
202 STRANGE STORIES.
as she remarked to Gladys, could possibly be more
suitable. Gladys bit her tongue, and answered shortly
that she didn't herself perceive any special natural
congruity about the match, but perhaps her mother
was better informed on the subject.
Now, we all know that in the matter of public
appointment anything like backstairs influence or
indirect canvassing is positively fatal to the succer s of
a candidate. Accordingly, it may surprise you to
learn that when Professor Brusegay (who held the
appointment virtually in his hands) opened his letters
next morning he said to his wife, " Why, Miiria, that
young fellow Vardon who wrote that astonishingly
clever paper on commutators, you know, is tutor at
Lady Surrey's, and she wants him to get this place at
the Admiralty. We must really see what we can do
about it. Lady Surrey is such a very useful person to
. know, and besides it's so important to keep on good
terms with her, for the Paulsons would be absolutely
intolerable if we hadn't its acquaintance in the peerage
to play off against their Lord Poodlebury." And
when the Professor shortly afterwards mentioned
Harry's name to Lord Ardenleigh, his lordship re-
marked immediately, " Why, bless my soul, that's the
very man Amelia wrote to me about. He shall have
the place by all means." And they both wrote back
nice little notes to Lady Surrey, to say that she might
consider the matter settled, but that she mustn't men-
tion it to Harry until the appointment was regularly
announced. Anything so remarkable in this age of
purity I for my part have seldom heard of.
Lady Surrey never did mention the matter to Harry
from that day to this ; and Sir Henry Vardon, K.C.B.,
AN EPISODE IN HIGH LIFE. 203
does not for a moment imagine even now that he owes
his advancement to anything but his own native
merits. He married Ethel shortly after, and a prettier
or more blushing bride you never saw. Lady Surrey
has been their best friend in society, and still sighs
occasionally when she sees Harry a great magnate in
his way, and thinks of the narrow escape he had that
night at Colyford. As to Gladys, she consistently
refused several promising heirs, at least twenty
younger sons, and a score or so of wealthy young men
whose papas were something in the City, her first five
seasons ; and then, to Lord Surrey's horror, she
married a young Scotchman from Glasgow, who was
merely a writer for some London paper, and had
nothing on earth but a head on his shoulders to bless
himself with. His lordship himself "bagged an
heiress " as he expressively puts it, with several thou-
sands a year of her own, and is now one of the most
respected members of his party, who may be counted
upon always to vote straight, and never to have any
opinions of his own upon any subject except the
improvement of the British racehorse. He often
wishes Gladys had taken his advice and married
Vardon, who is at least in respectable society, instead
of that shock-headed Scotch fellow — but there, the
girl was always full of fancies, and never would behave
like other people.
For myself, I am a horrid radical, and republican,
and all that sort of thing, and have a perfectly rabid
hatred of titles and so forth, don't you know ? — but
still, on the first day when Ethel went to call on the
countess dowager after Harry was knighted, I hap-
pened to be present (purely on business), and heard
204 ' STRANGE STORIES.
her duly announced as " Lady Vardon ": and I give
you my word of honor I could not find it in my heart
to grudge the dear little woman the flush of pride that
rose upon her cheek as she entered the room for the
first time in her new position. It was a pleasure to
me (who know the whole story) to see Lady Surrey
kiss the little ex-governess warmly on her cheek and
say to her, " My dear Lady Vardon, I am so glad, so
very, very glad." And I really believe she meant it.
After all, in spite of her little weakness, there is a
great deal of human nature left in the countess.
MY NEW YEARS EVE AMONG THE
MUMMIES.
I HAVE been a wanderer and a vagabond on the
face of the earth for a good many years now, and I
have certainly had some odd adventures in my time ;
but 1 can assure you, I never spent twenty-four
queerer hours than those which I passed some twelve
months since in the great unopened Pyramid of Abu
Yilla.
The way I got there was itself a very strange one.
I had come to Egypt for a winter tour with the Fitz-
Simkinses, to whose daughter Editha I was at that
precise moment engaged. You will probably remem-
ber that old Fitz-Simkins belonged originally to the
wealthy firm of Simkinson and Stokoe, worshipful
vintners ; but when the senior partner retired from the
business and got his knighthood, th^e College of Her-
alds opportunely discovered that his ancestors had
changed their fine old Norman name for its English
equivalent sometime about the reign of King Richard
I. ; and they immediately authorized the old gentleman
to resume the patronymic and the armorial bearings
of his distinguished forefathers. It's really quite as-
tonishing how often these curious coincidences crop
up at the College of Heralds.
Of course it was a great catch for a landless and
[205]
2o6 STRANGE STORIES.
briefless barrister like myself — dependent on a small
fortune in South American securities, and my precari-
ous earnings as a writer of burlesque — to secure such
a valuable prospective property as Editha Fitz-Simkins.
To be sure, the girl was undeniably plain ; but I have
known plainer girls than she was, whom forty thou-
sand pounds converted into My Ladies; and if Editha
hadn't reallv fallen over head and ears in love with
me, I suppose old Fitz-Simkins would never have con-
sented to such a match. As it was, however, we had
flirted so openly and so desperately during the Scar-
borough season, that it would have been difificult for
Sir Peter to break it off ; and so I had come to Egypt
on a tour of insurance to secure my prize, following in
the wake of my future mother-in-law, whose lungs were
supposed to require a genial climate — though in my
private opinion they were really as creditable a pair
of pulmonary appendages as ever drew breath.
Neverthless, the course of our true love did not run
so smoothly as might have been expected. Editha
found me less ardent than a devoted squire should be ;
and on the very last night of the old year she got up
a regulation lover's quarrel, because I had sneaked
away from the boa^: that afternoon, under the guidance
of our dragoman, to witness the seductive perform-
ances of some fair Ghawdzi, the dancing girls of a
neighboring town. How she found it out heaven only
knows, for I gave that rascal Dimitri five piastres to
hold his tongue ; but she did find it out somehow,
and chose to regard it as an offence of the first magni-
tude ; a mortal sin only to be expiated by three days
of penance and humiliation.
I went to bed that night, in my hammock on deck,
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG TllE MUMMIES. 20/
with feelings far from satisfactory. We were moored
against the bank at Abu Yilla, the most pestiferous
hole between the cataracts and the Delta. The mos-
quitoes werti l|l*rsc than the ordinary mosquitoes of
Egypt, and tfiat is saying a great deal. The heat was
oppressive even at night, and the malaria from the lotus
beds rose l>':e a palpable mist before my eyes. Above
all, I was getting doubtful whether Editha Fitz-Simkins
might not after all slip between my fingers, I felt
wretched and feverish ; and yet I had delightful inter-
lusive recollections, in between, of that lovely little
Ghdziyah, who danced that exquisite, marvellous, en-
trancing, delicious, and awfully oriental dance that I
saw in the afternoon.
By Jove, she zvas a beautiful creature. Eyes like two
full moons; hair like Milton's Penseroso ; movements
like a poem of Swinburn's set to action. If Editha
was only a faint picture of that girl now ! Upon my
word, I was falling in love with a Ghdziyah !
Then the mosquitoes came agdUi. Buzz — buzz —
buzz. I make a lunge at the loudest and biggest, a
sort of prima donna in their infernal opera. I kill
the prima donna, but ten more shrill performers come
in its place. The frogs croak dismally in the reedy
shallows. The night grows hotter and hotter still. At
last, I can stand it no longer. I rise up, dress myself
lightly, and jump ashore to find some way of passing
the time.
Yonder, across the flat, lies the great unopened
Pyramid of Abu Yilla. We are going to-morrow to
climb to the top ; but I will take a turn to reconnoitre
in that direction now. I walk across the moonlit
fields, my soul still divided between Editha and the
2o8 STRANGE STORIKS.
Ghdziyah, and approach the solemn mass of huge, an-
tiquated granite blocks standing out so grimly against
the pale horizon. I feel half awake, half asleep, and
altogether feverish : but I poke about the base in an
aimless sort of way, with a vague idea that I may per-
haps discover by chance the secret of its sealed en-
trance, which has ere now baffled so many pertinacious
explorers and learned Egyptologists.
As I walk along the base, I remember old Herodo-
tus's story, like a page from the " Arabian Nights,"
of how King Rhampsinitus built himself a treasury,
wherein one stone turned on a pivot like a door ; and
how the builder availed himself of this his cunning
device to steal gold from the king's storehouse. Sup-
pose the entrance to the unopened Pyramid should be
by such a door. It would be curious if I should chance
to light upon the very spot.
I stood in the broad moonlight, near the northeast
angle of the great pile, at the twelfth stone from the
corner. A random fancy struck me, that I might turn
this stone by pushing it inward on the left side. I
leant against it with all my weight, and tried to move
it on the imaginary pivot. Did it give way a fraction
of an inch? No, it must have been mere fancy.
Let me try again. Surely it is yielding ! Gracious
Osiris, it has moved an inch or more ! My heart beats
fast, either with fever or excitement, and I try a third
time. The rust of centuries on the pivot wears slowly
off, and the stone turns ponderously round, giving
access to a low dark passage.
It must have been madness which led me to enter
the forgotten corridor, alone, without torch or match,
at that hour of the evening ; but at any rate I entered.
./
MY NEW year's eve AMONG THE MUMMIES. 209
The passage was tall enough for a man to walk erect,
and I could feel, as I groped slowly along, that the
wall was composed of ^^ooth polished granite, while
the floor sloped away dov. .iward with a slight but reg-
ular descent. I walked with trembling heart and fal-
tering feet for some forty or fifty yards down the:
mysterious vestibule : and then I felt myself brought
suddenly to a standstill by a block of stone placed
right across the pathway. I had had nearly enough
for one evening, and I was preparing to return to the
boat, agog with my new discovery, when my attention
was suddenly arrested by an incredible, a perfectly
miraculous fact.
The block of stone which barred the passage was
faintly visible as a square, by means of a struggling
belt of light streaming through the seams. There
must be a lamp or other flame burning within. What
if this were a door like the outer one, leading into a
chamber perhaps inhabited by some dangerous band
of outcasts? The light was a sure evidence of human
occupation : and yet the outer door swung rustily on
its pivot as though it had never been opened for ages.
I paused a moment in fear before I ventured to try
the stone : and then, urged on once more by some in-
sane impulse, I turned the massive block with all my
might to the left. It gave way slowly like its neigh-
bor, and finally opened into the central hall.
Never as long as I live shall I forget the ecstasy of
terror, astonishment, and blank dismay which seized
upon me when I stepped into that seemingly en-
chanted chamber. A blaze of light first burst upon
my eyes, from jets of gas arranged in regular rows
tier above tier, upcm the columns and walls of the vast
210 STRANGE STORIES.
apartment. Huge pillars, richly painted with red,
yellow, blue, and green decorations, stretched in end-
less succession down the dazzling aisles. A floor of
polished syenite reflected the splendor of the lamps,
and afforded a base for red granite sphinxes and dark
purple images in porphyry of the cat-faced goddess
I'asht, whose form I knew so well at the Louvre and
the British Museum. But I had no eyes for any of
these lesser marvels, being wholly absorbed in the
greatest marvel of all : for there, in royal state and
with mitred head, a living Egyptian king, surrounded
by his coiffured court, was banqueting in the flesh
upon a real throne, before a table laden with Mem-
phian delicacies!
I stood transfixed with awe and amazement, my
tongue and my feet alike forgetting their ofiice, and
my brain whirling round and round, as I remember it
used to whirl when my health broke down utterly at
Cambridge after the Classical Tripos. I gazed fixedly
at the strange picture before me, taking in all its de-
tails in a confused way, yet quite incapable of under-
standing or realizing any part of its true import. I
saw the king in the centre of the hall, raised on a
throne of granite inlaid with gold and ivory ; his head
crowned with the peaked cap of Rameses, and his curled
hair flowing down his shoulders in a set and formal
frizz. I saw priests and warriors on either side, dressed
in the costumes which I had often carefully noted in
our great collections ; while bronze-skinned maids, with-
light garments round their waists, and limbs displayed
in graceful picturesqueness, waited upon them, half
nude, as in the wall paintings which we had lately ex-
amined at Karnak and Syene. I saw the ladies, clothed
MY NEW YEAR'S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 211
from head to foot in dyed linen garments, sitting
apart in the background, banqueting by themselves at
a separate table ; while dancing girls, like older repre-
sentatives of my yesternoon friends, the Ghawdzi,
tumbled before them in strange attitudes, to the music
of four-stringed harps and long straight pipes. In
shoit, I beheld as in a dream the whole drama of
everyday Egyptian royal life, playing itself out anew
under my eyes, in its real original properties and per-
sons.
Gradually, as I looked, I became aware that my hosts
were no less surprised at the appearance of their an-
achronistic guest than was the guest himself at the
strange living panorama which met his eyes. In a mo-
ment music and dancing ceased ; the banquet paused
in its course, and the king and his nobles stood up in un-
disguised astonishment to survey the strange intruder.
Some minutes passed before any one moved forward
on either side. At last a young girl of royal appear-
ance, yet strangely resembling the Ghdziyah of Abu
Yilla, and recalling in part the laughing maiden in the
foreground of Mr. Long's great canvas at the previous
Academy, stepped out before the throng.
" May I ask you," she said in Ancient Egyptian,
" who you are, and why you come hither to dis-
turb us?"
I was never aware before that I spoke or understood
the language of the hieroglyphics ; yet I found I had
not the slightest difficulty in comprehending or answer-
ing her question. To say the truth, Ancient Egyptian,
though an extremely tough tongue to decipher in its
written form, becomes as easy as love-making when
spoken by a pair of lips like that Pharaonic princess's.
212 STRANGE STORIES.
It is really very much the same as Enghsh, pronounced
in a rapid and somewhat indefinite whisper, and with all
the vowels left out.
•* I beg ten thousand pardons for my intrusion," I
answered apologetically ; " but I did not know that
this Pyramid was inhabited, or I should not have en-
tered your residence so rudely. As for the points you
wish to know, I am an English tourist, and you will
find my name upon this card ;" saying which I handed
her one from the case which I had fortunately put into
my pocket, with conciliatory politeness. The princess
examined it closely, but evidently did not understand
its import.
** In return," I continued, " may I ask you in what
august presence I now find myself by accident ?"
A court official stood forth from the throng, and an-
swered in a set heraldic tone : *' In the presence of the
illustrious monarch. Brother of the Sun, Thothmes the
Twenty-seventh, king of the Eighteenth Dynasty."
" Salute the Lord of the World," put in another
official in the same regulation drone.
I bowed low to his Majesty, and stepped out into
the hall. Apparently my obeisance did not come up to
Egyptian standards of courtesy, for a suppressed titter
broke audibly from the ranks of bronze-skinned wait-
ing-women. But the king graciously smiled at my at-
tempt, and turning to the nearest nobleman, observed
in a voice of great sweetness and self-contained
majesty : '* This stranger, Ombos, is certainly a very
curious person. His appearance does not at all resem-
ble that of an Ethiopian or other savage, nor does he
look like the pale-faced sailors who come to us from
the Achaian land beyond the sea. His features, to be
MY NEW YEAR S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 21 3
sure, are not very different from theirs ; but his extra-
ordinary and singularly inartistic dress shows him to
belong to some other barbaric race."
I glanced down at my waistcoat, and saw that I was
wearing my tourist's check suit, of gray and mud color,
with which a Bond Street tailor had supplied me just
before leaving town, as the latest thing out in fancy
tweeds. Evidently these Egyptians must have a very
curious standard of taste not to admire our pretty and
graceful style of male attire.
" If the dust beneath your Majesty's feet may ven-
ture upon a suggestion," put in the ofHcer whom the
king had addressed, " I would hint that this young
man is probably a stray visitor from the utterly un-
civilized lands of the North. The headgear which he
carries in his hand obviously betrays an Arctic habi-
tat."
I had instinctively taken off my round felt hat in
the first moment of surprise, when I found myself in
the midst of this strange throng, and I standing now
in a somewhat embarrassed posture, holding it awk-
wardly before me like a shield to protect my chest.
"Let the stranger cover himself," said the king.
" Barbarian intruder, cover yourself," cried the her-
ald. I noticed throughout that the king never di-
rectly addressed anybody save the higher officials
around him.
I put on my hat as desired. " A most uncomfort-
able and silly form of tiara indeed," said the great
Thothmes.
" Very unlike your noble and awe-inspiring mitre,
Lion of Egypt," answered Ombos.
" Ask the stranger his name," the king continued,
214 STKANC.E STORIES.
It was useless to offer another card, so I mentioned
it in a clear voice.
" An uncouth and almost unpronounceable designa-
tion truly," commented his Majesty to the Grand
Chamberlain beside him. "These savages speak
strange languages, widely different from the flowing
tongue of Memnon and Sesostris."
The Chamberlain bowed his assent with three low
genuflexions. I began to feel a little abashed at these
personal remarks, and I almost think (though I shouldn't
like it to be mentioned in the Temple) that a blush
rose to my cheek.
The beautiful princess who had been standing near
me meanwhile in an attitude of statuesque repose,
now appeared anxious to change the current of the
conversation. *' Dear father," she said with a respect-
ful inclination, " surely the stranger, barbarian though
he be, cannot relish such pointed allusions to his per-
son and costume. We must let him feel the grace and
delicacy of Egyptian refinement. Then he may per-
haps carry back with him some faint echo of its cul-
tured beauty to his northern wilds."
"Nonsense, Hatasou," replied Thothmes XXVII.
testily. " Savages have no feelings, and they are as
incapable of appreciating Egyptian sensibility as the
chattering crow is incapable of attaining the dignified
reserve of the sacred crocodile."
"Your Majesty is mistaken," I said, recovering my
self-possession gradually and realizing my position as
a free-born Englishman before the court of a foreign
despot — though I must allow that I felt rather less
confident than usual, owing to the fact that wc were
not represented in the Pyramid by a British Consul—
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG THE MUMMTES. 21$
" I am an English tourist, a visitor from a modern land
"vvhosc civilization far surpasses the rude culture of
early Egypt ; and I am accustomed to respectful treat-
ment from all other nationalities, as becomes a citizen
of the First Naval Power in the World."
My answer created a profound impression. " He
has spoken to the Brother of the Sun," cried Ombos
in evident perturbation. " He must be of the Blood
Royal in his own tribe, or he would never have dared
to do so !"
"Otherwise," added a person whose dress I recog-
nized as that of a priest, '* he must be offered up in
expiation to Amon-Ra immediately."
As a rule I am a decently truthful person, but under
these alarming circumstances I ventured to tell a slight
fib with an air of nonchalant boldness. " I am a
younger brother of our reigning king," I said without
a moment's hesitation ; for there was nobody present
to gainsay me, and I tried to salve my conscience by
reflecting that at any rate I was only claiming con-
sanguinity with an imaginary personage.
" In that case," said King Thothmes, with more
geniality in his tone, "there can be no impropriety in
my addressing you personally. Will you take a place
at our table next to myself, and we can converse to-
gether without interrupting a banquet which must
be brief enough in any circumstances ? Hatasou, my
dear, you may seat yourself next to the barbarian
prince.''
I felt a visible swelling to the proper dimensions of
a Royal Highness as I sat down by the king's right
hand. The nobles resumed their places, the bronze-
skinned waitresses left off standing like soldiers in a
I •
2l6 ' STRANGE STORIES.
row and staring straight at my humble self, the goblets
went round once more, and a comely maid soon
brought me meat, bread, fruits, and date wine.
All this time I was naturally burning with curiosity
to inquire who my strange hosts might be, and how
they had preserved their existence for so many cen-
turies in this undiscovered hall ; but I was obliged to
wait until I had satisfied his Majesty of my own nation-
ality, the means by which I had entered the Pyramid,
the general state of affairs throughout the world at
the present moment, and fifty thousand other matters
of a similar sort. Thothmes utterly refused to believe
my reiterated assertion that our existing civilization
was far superior to the Egyptian ; ** because,'* said he,
" I see from your dress that your nation is utterly de-
void of taste or invention ; " but he listened with great
interest to my account of modern society, the steam-
engine, the Permissive Prohibitory Bill, the telegraph,
the House of Commons, Home Rule, and the other
blessings of our advanced era, as well as to a brief
rc'sunn' oi European history from the rise of the Greek
culture to the Russo-Turkish war. At last his ques-
tions were nearly exhausted, and I got a chance of
making a few counter inquiries on my own account.
*' And now," I said, turning to the charming Hatasou,
whom I thought a more pleasing informant than her
august papa, " I should like to know \w\\o you are."
" What, don't you know ?" she cried with unaffected
surprise. " Why, we're mummies."
She made this astounding statement with just the
same quiet unconsciousness as if she had said, " we're
French," or " we're Americans." I glanced round the
walls, and observed behind the columns, what I had
MY NEW YEAR'S EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES 21/
not noticed till then — a large number of empty
mummy-cases, with their lids placed carelessly by
their sides.
"But what are you doing here?" I asked in a be-
wildered way.
'* Is it possible," said Hatasou, " that you don't
really know the object of embalming ? Though your
manners show you to be an agreeable and well-bred
young man, you must excuse my saying that you are
shockingly ignorant. We arc made into mummies in
order to preserve our immortality. Once in every
thousand years we wake up for twenty-four hours, re-
cover our flesh and blood, and banquet once more
upon the mummied dishes and other good things laid
by for us in the Pyramid. To-day is the first day of a
millennium, and so we have waked up for the sixth
time since we were first embalmed."
" The sixth time ?" I inquired, incredulously. " Then
you must have been dead six thousand years."
" Exactly so."
** But the world has not yet existed so long," I cried,
in a fervor of orthodox horror.
'* Excuse me, barbarian prince. This is the first day
of the three hundred and twenty-seven thousandth
millennium."
My orthodoxy received a severe shock. However,
I had been accustomed to geological calculations, and
was somewhat inclined to accept the antiquity of man ;
so I swallowed the statement without more ado.
Besides, if such a charming girl as Hatasou had asked
me at that moment to turn Mohammedan, or to wor-
ship Osiris, I believe I should incontinently have done
so.
, 2l8 " STRANGE STORTES.
" You wake up only for a single day and night,
then ?" I said.
** Only for a single day and night. After that, we
go to sleep for another millennium."
** Unless you are meanwhile burned as fuel on the
Cairo Railway," I added, mentally. " But how," I
continued aloud, ** do you get these lights?"
" The Pyramid is built above a spring of inflamma-
ble gas. We have a reservoir in one of the side cham-
bers, in which it collects during the thousand years.
As soon as we awake, we turn it on at once from the
tap, and light it with a lucifer match."
" Upon my word," I interposed, " I had no notion
you Ancient Egyptians were acquainted with the use
of matches."
" Very likely not. * There are more things in heaven
and earth, Cephrenes, than are dreamt of in your phil-
osophy, as the bard of Philae puts it."
Further inquiries brought out all the secrets of that
strange tomb-house, and kept me fully interested till
the close of the banquet. Then the chief priest sol-
emnly rose, offered a small fragment of meat to a dei-
fied crocodile, who sat in a meditative manner by the
side of his deserted mummy-case, and declared the
feast concluded for the night. All rose from their
places, wandered away into the long corridors or side-
aisles, and formed little groups of talkers under the
brilliant gas lamps.
For my part, I strolled off with Hatasou down the
least illuminated of the colonnades, and took my seat
beside a marble fountain, where several fish (gods of
great sanctity, Hatasou assured me) were disporting
themselves in a porphyry basin. How long we sat
MY NEW YEAR S KVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 219
there I cannot tell, but I know that we talked a good
deal about fish, and gods, and Egyptian habits, and
Egyptian philosophy, and, above all, Egyptian love-
making. The last-named subject we found very inter-
esting, and when once we got fully started upon it, no
diversion afterwards occurred to break the even tenor
of the conversation. Hatasou was a lovely figure, tall,
queenly, with smooth dark arms and neck of polished
bronze ; her big black eyes full of tenderness, and her
long hair bound up into a bright Egyptian headdress,
that harmonized to a tone with her complexion and
her robe. The more we talked, the more desperately
did I fall in love, and the more utterly oblivious did I
become of my duty to Editha Fitz-Simkins. The
mere ugly daughter of a rich and vulgar brand-new
knight, forsooth, to show off her airs before me, when
here was a Princess of the Blood Royal of Egypt,
obviously sensible to the attentions which I was paying
her, and not unwilling to receive them with a coy and
modest grace.
Well, I went on saying pretty things to Hatasou,
and Hatasou went on deprecating them in a pretty
little way, as who should say, " I don't mean what I
pretend to mean one bit "; until at last I may confess
that we were both evidently as far gone in the disease
of the heart called love as it is possible for two young
people on first acquaintance to become. Therefore,
when Hatasou pulled forth her watch — another piece
of mechanism with which antiquaries used never to
credit the Egyptian people — and declared that she
had only three more hours to live, at least for the next
thousand years, I fairly broke down, took out my
220 STRANGE STORIES.
handkerchief, and began to sob Hke a child of five
years old.
Hatasou was deeply moved. Decorum forbade that
she should console me with too much emprcssemcnt;
but she ventured to remove the handkerchief gently
from my face, and suggested that there was yet one
course open by which we might enjoy a little more of
one another's society. "Suppose," she said quietly,
" you were to become a mummy. You would then
wake up, as we do, every thousand years ; and after
you have tried it once, you will find it just as natural
•to sleep for a millennium as for eight hours. Of
course," she added with a slight blush, " during the
next three or four solar cycles there would be plenty
of time to conclude any other arrangements you might
possibly contemplate, before the occurrence of another
glacial epoch."
This mode of regarding time was certainly novel
and somewhat bewildering to people who ordinarily
reckon its lapse by weeks and months ; and I had a
vague consciousness that my relations with Editha
imposed upon me a moral necessity of returning to the
outer world, instead of becoming a millennial mummy.
Besides, there was the awkward chance of being con-
verted into fuel and dissipated into space before the
arrival of the next waking day. But I took one look
at Hatasou, whose eyes were filling in turn with sym-
pathetic tears, and that look decided me. I flung
Editha, life, and duty to the dogs, and resolved at once
to become a mummy.
There was no time to be lost. Only three hours
remained to us, and the process of embalming, even in
the most hasty manner, would take up fully two. We
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 221
rushed off to the chief priest, who had charge of the
particular department in question. He at once ac-
ceded to my wishes, and briefly explained the mode
in which they usually treated the corpse.
That word suddenly aroused me. " The corpse!" I
cried; "but I am alive. Vou can't embalm me living."
" We can," replied the priest, ** under chloroform."
" Chloroform !" I echoed, growing more and more
astonished : " I had no idea you Egyptians knew any-
thing about it."
" Ignorant barbarian !" he answered with a curl of
the lip; " you imagine yourself much wiser than the
teachers of the world. If you were versed in all the
wisdom of the Egyptians, you would know that chloro-
form is one of our simplest and commonest anaes-
thetics."
I put myself at once under the hands of the priest.
He brought out the chloroform, and placed it beneath
my nostrils, as I lay on a soft couch under the central
court. Hatasou held my hand in hers, and watched
my breathing with an anxious eye. I saw the priest
leaning over me, with a clouded phial in his hand, and
I experienced a vague sensation of smelling myrrh and
spikenard. Next, I lost myself for a few moments,
and when I again recovered my senses in a temporary
break, the priest was holding a small greenstone knife,
dabbled with blood, and I felt that a gash had been
made across my breast. Then they applied the chloro-
form once more; I felt Hatasou give my hand a gentle
squeeze ; the whole panorama faded finally from my
view ; and I went to sleep for a seemingly endless time.
When I awoke again, my first impression led me to
believe that the thousand years were over, and that I
222 STRANGE STORIES.
had come to life once more to feast with Hatasou and
Thothmcs in the Pyramid of Abu Yilla. But second
thoughts, combined with closer observation of the
surroundings, convinced me that I was really lying in
a bedroom of Shepheard's Hotel at Cairo. An hos-
pital nurse leant over me, instead of a chief priest;
and I noticed no tokens of Editha Fitz-Simkins's pres-
ence. But when I endeavoured to make inquiries
upon the subject of my whereabouts, I was peremptor-
ily informed that I mustn't speak, as I was only just
recovering from a severe fever, and might endanger
my life by talking.
Some weeks later I learned the sequel of my night's
adventure. The Fitz-Simkinses, missing me from the
boat in the morning, at first imagined that I might
have gone ashore for an early stroll. But after break-
fast time, lunch time, and dinner time had gone past,
they began to grow alarmed, and sent to look for me
in all directions. One of their scouts, happening to
pass the Pyramid, noticed that one of the stones near
the northeast angle had been displaced, so as to give
access to a dark passage, hitherto unknown. Calling
several of his friends, for he was afraid to venture in
alone, he passed down the corridor, and through a
second gateway into the central hall. There the Fel-
lahin found me, lying on the ground, bleeding pro-
fusely from a wound on the breast, and in an advanced
stage of malarious fever. They brought me back to
the boat, and the Fitz-Simkinses conveyed me at once
to Cairo, for medical attendance and proper nur-
sing.
Editha was at first convinced that I had attempted
tp commit suicide because I could not endure hav-
MY NEW year's EVE AMONG THE MUMMIES. 223
ing caused her pain, and she accordingly resolved to
tend me with the utmost care through my illness.
But she found that my delirious remarks, besides
bearing frequent reference to a princess, with whom
I appeared to have been on unexpectedly intimate
terms, also related very largely to our casus belli itself,
the dancing girls of Abu Yilla. Even this trial she
might have borne, setting down the moral degene-
racy which led me to patronize so degrading an ex-
hibition as a first symptom of my approaching mal-
ady: but certain unfortunate observations, containing
pointed and by no means flattering allusions to her
personal appearance — which I contrasted, much to
her disadvantage, with that of the unknown princess
— these, I say, were things which she could not for-
give ; and she left Cairo abruptly with her parents
for the Riviera, leaving behind a stinging note, in
which she denounced my perfidy and empty-heart-
edness with all the flowers of feminine eloquence.
From that day to this I have never seen her.
When I returned to London and proposed to lay
this account before the Society of Antiquaries, all
my friends dissuaded me on the ground of its ap-
parent incredibility. They declare that I must have
gone to the Pyramid already in a state of delirium, dis-
covered the entrance by accident, and sunk exhausted
when I reached the inner chamber. In answer, I
would point out three facts. In the first place, I un-
doubtedly found my way into the unknown passage —
for which achievement I afterwards received the gold
medal of the Sioci^te Kh^diviale, and of which I retain
a clear recollection, differing in no way from my recol-
lection of the subsequent events. In the second place,
224 STRANGE STORIES.
I had in my pocket, when found, a ring- of Hatasou*s,
which I drew from her finger just before I took the
chloroform, and put into my pocket as a keepsake.
And in the third place, I had on my breast the
wound which I saw the priest inflict with a knife of
greenstone, and the scar may be seen on the spot to
the present day. The absurd hypothesis of my
medical friends, that I was wounded by falling against
a sharp edge of rock, I must at once reject as un-
worthy a moment's consideration.
My own theory is either that the priest had not time
to complete the operation, or else that the arrival of
the Fit2 "iimkins's scouts frightened back the mummies
to their cases an hour or so too soon. At any rate,
there they all were, ranged around the walls undis-
turbed, the moment the Fellahin entered.
Unfortunately, the truth of my account cannot be
tested for another thousand years. But as a copy of
this book will be preserved for the benefit of posterity
in the British Museum, I hereby solemnly call upon
Collective Humanity to try the veracity of this history
by sending a deputation of archaeologists to the Pyra-
mid of Abu Yilla, on the last day of December, Two
thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven. If they
do not then find Thothmes and Hatasou feasting in
the central hall exactly as I have described, I shall
willingly admit that the story of my New Year's Eve
among the mummies is a vain hallucination, unworthy
of credence at the hands of the scientific world.
THE FOUNDERING OF THE
''FORTUNA/'
I.
I AM going to spin you the yarn of the foundering
of the Fortuna exactly as an old lake captain on a
Huron steamer once span it for me by Great Mani-
toulin Island. It is a strange and a weird story ; and
if I can't give you the dialect in which he told it, you
must forgive an English tongue its native accent for
the sake of the curious Yankee tale that underlies it.
Captain Montague Beresford Pierpoint was hardly
the sort of man you would have expected to find
behind the counter of a small shanty bank at Aylmer's
Pike, Colorado. There was an engaging English frank-
ness, an obvious honesty and refinement of manner
about him, which suited very oddly with the rough
habits, and rougher western speech of the mining
population in whose midst he lived. And yet Captain
Pierpoint had succeeded in gaining the confidence and
respect of those strange outcasts of civilization by
some indescribable charm of address and some invis-
ible talisman of quiet good fellowship, which caused
him to be more universally believed in than any other
man whatsoever at Aylmer's Pike. Indeed, to say so
much is rather to underrate the uniqueness of his posi-
tion ; for it might perhaps be truer to say that Captain
[225]
226 STRANGE STORIES.
Pierpoint was the only man in the place in whom any-
one believed at all in any way. He was an honest-
spoken, quiet, unobtrusive sort of man, who walked
about fearlessly without a revolver, and never gambled
either in mining shares or at poker ; so that, to the
simple-minded, unsophisticated rogues and vagabonds
of Aylmer's Pike, he seemed the very incarnation of
incorruptible commercial honor. They would have
trusted all their earnings and winnings without hesita-
tion to Captain Pierpoint's bare word ; and when they
did so, they knew that Captain Pierpoint had always
had the money forthcoming on demand, without a
moment's delay or a single prevarication.
Captain Pierpoint walked very straight and erect, as
becomes a man of conspicuous uprightness ; and there
was a certain tinge of military bearing m his manner
which seemed at first sight sufficiently to justify his
popular title. But he himself made no false pre-
tences upon that head, he freely acknowledged that
he had acquired the position of captain, not in her
Britannic Majesty's Guards, as the gossip of Aylmer's
Pike sometimes asserted, but in the course of his
earlier professional engagements as skipper of a Lake
Superior grain-vessel. Though he hinted at times that
he was by no means distantly connected with the
three distinguished families whose names he bore, he
did not attempt to exalt his rank or birth unduly, ad-
mitting that he was only a Canadian sailor by trade,
thrown by a series of singular circumstances into the
position of a Colorado banker. The one thing he
really understood, he would tell his mining friends,
was the grain-trade on the upper lakes ; for finance he
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 22/
had but a single recommendation, and that was that if
people trusted him he could never deceive them.
If any man had set up a bank in Aylmer's Point
with an iron strong-room, a lot of electric bells, and an
obtrusive display of firearms and weapons, it is toler-
ably certain that that bank would have been promptly
robbed and gutted within its first week of existence
by open violence. Five or six of the boys would have
banded themselves together into a body of housebreak-
ers, and would have shot down the banker and burst
into his strong-room, without thought of the electric
bells or other feeble recourses of civilization to that end
appointed. But when a quiet, unobtrusive, brave man,
like Captain Montague Pierpoint, settled himself in a
shanty in their midst, and won their confidence by his
straightforward honesty, scarcely a miner in the lot
would ever have dreamt of attempting to rob him.
Captain Pierpoint had not come to Aylmer's Pike at
first with any settled idea of making himself the finan-
cier of the rough little community; he intended to dig
on his own account, and the role of banker was only
slowly thrust upon him by the unanimous voice of the
whole diggings. He had begun by lending men
money out of his own pocket — men who were unlucky
in their claims, men who had lost everything at monte,
men who had come penniless to the Pike, and expected
to find silver growing freely and openly on the sur-
face. He had lent to them in a friendly way, without
interest, and had been forced to accept a small pres-
ent, in addition to the sum advanced, when the tide
began to turn, and luck at last led the penniless ones
to a remunerative placer or pocket. Gradually the
diggers got into the habit of regarding this as Captain
', ■'
228 STRANGE STORIES.
Pierpoint's natural function, and Captain Pierpoint,
being himself but an indifferent digger, acquiesced so
readily that at last, yielding to the persuasion of his
clients, he put up a wooden counter, and painted over
his rough door the magnificent notice, " Aylmer's Pike
Bank : Montague Pierpoint, Manager." He got a large
iron safe from Carson City, and in that safe which
stood by his own bedside, all the silver and other
securities of the whole village were duly deposited.
" Any one of the boys could easily shoot me and open
that safe any night," Captain Pierpoint used to say
pleasantly ; " but if he did, by George ! he'd have to
reckon afterwards with every man on the Pike ; and I
should be sorry to stand in his shoes — that I would,
any time." Indeed, the entire Pike looked upon Cap-
tain Pierpoint's safe as " Our Bank :" and, united in a
single front by that simple social contract, they agreed
to respect the safe as a sacred object, protected by the
collective guarantee of three hundred mutually sus-
picious revolver bearing outcasts.
However, even at Aylmer's Pike, there were degrees
and stages of comparative unscrupulousncss. Two
men, newcomers to the Pike, by name Hiram Cofifin and
Pete Morris, at last wickedly and feloniously conspired
together to rob Captain Pierpoint's bank. Their plan
was simplicity itself. They would go at midnight,
very quietly, to the Captain's house, cut his throat as
he slept, rob the precious safe, and ride off straight for
the east, thus getting a clear night's start of any possi
ble pursuer. It was an easy enough thing to do ; and
they were really surprised in their own minds that
nobody else had ever been cute enough to seize upon
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 229
such an obvious and excellent path to wealth and
security.
The day before the night the two burglars had fixed
upon for their enterprise, Captain Pierpoint himself
appeared to be in unusual spirits. Pete Morris called
in at the bank during the course of the morning, to
reconnoitre the premises, under pretence of paying in
a few dollars* worth of silver, and he found the Cap-
tain very lively indeed. When Pete handed him the
silver across the counter, the Captain weighed it with
a smile, gave a receipt for the amount — he always
gave receipts as a matter of form — and actually invited
Pete into the little back room, which was at once
kitchen, bedroom, and parlor, to have a drink. Then,
before Pete's very eyes, he opened the safe, bursting
with papers, and placed the silver in a bag on a shelf
by itself, sticking the key into his waistcoat pocket.
*' He is delivering himself up into our hands," thought
Pete to himself, as the Captain poured out two glasses
of old Bourbon, and handed one to the miner opposite.
" Here's success to all our enterprises !" cried the Cap-
tain gayly. " Here's success, pard !" Pete answered,
with a sinister look, which even the Captain could not
help noting in a sidelong fashion.
That night, about two o'clock, when all Aylmer's
Pike was quietly dreaming its own sordid, drunken
dreams, two sober men rose up from their cabin and
stole out softly to the wooden bank house. Two
horses were ready saddled with Mexican saddle-bags,
and tied to a tree outside the digging, and in half an
hour Pete and Hiram hoped to find themselves in full
possession of all Captain Pierpoint's securities, and
well on their road towards the nearest station of the
230 STRANGE STORIES.
Pacific Railway. They groped along to the door o£
the bank shanty, and began fumbling with their wire
picks at the rough lock. After a moment's explora-
tion of the wards, Pete Morris drew back in surprise.
" Pard/* he murmured in a low whisper, " here's
suthin' rather extraordinary ; this 'ere lock's not
fastened."
They turned the handle gently, and found that the
door opened without an effort. Both men looked at
one another in the dim light incredulously. Was
there ever such a simple, trustful fool as that fellow
Pierpoint ! He actually slept in the bank shanty with
his outer door unfastened !
The two robbers passed through the outer room and
into the little back bedroom-parlor. Hiram held the
dark lantern, and turned it full on to the bed. To
their immense astonishment they found it empty.
Their first impulse was to suppose that the Captain
had somehow anticipated their coming, and had gone
out to rouse the boys. For a moment they almost
contemplated running away, without the money. But
a second glance reassured them ; the bed had not
been slept in. The Captain was a man of very regular
habits. He made his bed in civilized fashion every
morning after breakfast, and he retired every evening
at a little after eleven. Where he could be stopping
so late they couldn't imagine. But they hadn't come
there to make a study of the Captain's personal habits,
and, as he was away, the best thing they could do was
to open the safe immediately, before he came back.
They weren't particular about murder, Pete and
Hiram ; still, if you could do your robbery without
bloodshed, it was certainly all the better to do it so.
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA. 23 1
Hiram held the lantern, carefully shaded by his
hand, towards the door of the safe. Pete looked cau-
tiously at the lock, and began pushing it about with
his wire pick ; he had hoped to get the key out of
Captain Pierpoint's pocket, but as that easy scheme
was so unexpectedly foiled, he trusted to his skill in
picking to force the lock open. Once more a fresh
surprise awaited him. The door opened almost of its
own accord ! Pete looked at Hiram, and Hiram looked
at Pete. There was no mistaking the strange fact that
met their gaze — the safe was empty !
** What on airth do you suppose is the meaning of
this, Pete?" Hiram whispered, hoarsely. But Pete did
not whisper ; the whole truth flashed upon him in a
moment, and he answered aloud, with a string of
oaths :
" The Cap'n has gone and made tracks hisself for
Madison Depot. And he's taken every red cent in the
safe along with him, too ! the mean, low, dirty scoun-
drel ! He's taken even my silver that he give me a
receipt for this very morning !"
Hiram stared at Pete in blank amazement. That
such base treachery could exist on earth almost sur-
passed his powers of comprehension ; he could un-
derstand that a man should rob and murder, simply
and naturally, as he was prepared to do, out of pure,
guileless depravity of heart, but that a man should
plan and plot for a couple of years to impose upon the
simplicity of a dishonest community by a consistent
show of respectability, with the ultimate object of steal-
ing its whole wealth at one fell swoop, was scarcely
within the limits of his narrow intelligence. He stared
232 ■ STRANGE STORIES.
blankly at the empty safe, and whispered once more
to Pete in a.timid undertone :
" Perhaps he's got wind of this, and took off the
plate to somebody else's hut. If the boys was to come
and catch us here, it 'ud be derned awkward for you
an' me, Pete."
But Pete answered grufifly and loudly :
" Never you mind about the plate, pard. The
Cap'n's gone, and the plate's gone with him ; and
what we've got to do now is to rouse the boys and
ride after him like greased lightnin'. The mean
swindler, to go and swindle me out of the silver that
I've been and dug out of that there claim yonder with
my own pick !"
For the sense of personal injustice to one's self rises
perennially in the human breust, however depraved,
and the man who would murder another without a
scruple is always genuinely aghast with just indigna-
tion when he finds the counsel for the prosecution
pressing a point against him with what seems to him
unfair persistency.
Pete flung his lock-pick out among the agave scrub
that faced the bank shanty and ran out wildly into the
midst of the dusty white road that led down the row
of huts which the people of Aylmer's Pike euphemis-
tically described as the Main Street. There he raised
such an unearthly whoop as roused the sleepers in
the nearest huts to turn over in their beds and listen
in wonder, with the vague idea that "the injuns "
were coming down on a scalping-trail upon the dig-
gings. Next, he hurried down the street, beating
heavily with his fist on every frame door, and kicking
hard at the log walls of the successive shanties. In a
\
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 233
few minutes the whole Pike was out and alive. Un-
wholesome-looking men, in unwashed flannel shirts
and loose trousers, mostly barefooted in their haste,
came forth to inquire, with an unnecessary wealth of
expletives, what the something was stirring. Pete,
breathless and wrathful in the midst, livid with rage
and disappointment, could only shriek aloud, " Cap'n
Pierpoint has cleared out of camp, and taken all the
plate with him !"
There was at first an incredulous shouting and cry-
ing ; then a general stampede toward the bank shanty ;
and, finally, as the truth became apparent to every-
body, a deep and angry howl for vengeance on the trai-
tor. In one moment Captain Pierpoint's smooth-faced
villainy dawned as clear as day to all Aylmer's Fike ;
and the whole chorus of gamblers, rascals, and black-
legs stood awe-struck with horror and indignation at
the more plausible rogue who had succeeded in swin-
dling even them. The clean-washed, white-shirted, fair-
spoken villain ! they would have his blood for this, if
the United States Marshal had every mother's son of
them strung up in a row for it after the pesky business
was once fairly over.
Nobody inquired how Pete and Hiram came by the
news. Nobody asked how they had happened to
notice that the shanty was empty and the safe rifled.
All they thought of was how to catch and punish the
public robber. He must have made for the nearest
depot, Madison Clearing, on the Union Pacific Line,
and he would take the first cars east for St. Louis —
that was certain. Every horse in the Pike was
promptly requisitioned by the fastest riders, and a
rough cavalcade, revolvers in hand, made down the
234 STRANGE STORIES.
gulch and across the plain, full tilt to Madison. But
when, in the garish blaze of early morning, they
reached the white wooden depot in the valley and
asked the ticket-clerk whether a man answering to their
description had gone on by the east mail at 4:30, the
ticket-clerk swore, in reply, that not a soul had left the
depot by any train either way that blessed night.
Pete Morris proposed to hold a revolver to his head
and force him to confess. But even that strong meas-
ure failed to induce a satisfactory retractation. By
way of general precaution, two of the boys went on by
the day train to St. Louis, but neither of them could
hear anything of Captain Pierpoint. Indeed, as a mat-
ter of fact, the late manager and present appropriator
of the Aylmer's Pike Bank had simply turned his
horse's head in the opposite direction, toward the
further station at Cheyenne Gap, and had gone west-
ward to San Francisco, intending to make his way
back to New York vid Panama and the Isthmus Rail-
way.
When the boys really understood that they had been
completely duped, they swore vengeance in solemn
fashion, and they picked out two of themselves to
carry out the oath in a regular assembly. Each con-
tributed of his substance what he was able ; and Pete
and Hiram, being more stirred with righteous wrath
than all the rest put together, were unanimously de-
puted to follow the Captain's tracks to San Francisco,
and to have his life wherever and whenever they might
chance to find him. Pete and Hiram accepted the
task thrust upon them, con amore, and went forth zeal-
ously to hunt up the doomed life of Captain Montague
Beresford Pierpoint.
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 235
II.
Society in Sarnia admitted that Captain Pierpoint
was really quite an acquisition. An English gentle-
man by birth, well educated, and of pleasant manners,
he had made a little money out west by mining, it was
understood, and had now retired to the City of Sarnia,
in the Province of Ontario and Dominion of Canada,
to increase it by a quiet bit of speculative grain trad-
ing. He had been in the grain trade already, and peo-
ple on the lake remembered him well ; for Captain
Pierpoint, in his honest, straightforward fashion, dis-
dained the vulgar trickiness of an alias, and bore
throughout the string of names which he had originally
received from his godfathers and godmothers at his
baptism. A thorough good fellow Captain Pierpoint
had been at Aylmer's Pike ; a perfect gentleman he
was at Sarnia. As a matter of fact, indeed, the Cap-
tain was decently well-born, the son of an English
country clergyman, educated at a respectable grammar
school, and capable of being all things to all men in
whatever station of life it might please Providence to
place him. Society at Sarnia had no prejudice against
the grain trade ; if it had, the prejudice would have
been distinctly self-regarding, for everybody in the lit-
tle town did something in grain ; and if Captain Pier-
point chose sometimes to navigate his own vessels,
that was a fad which struck nobody as out of the way
in an easy-going, money-getting, Canadian city.
Somehow or other, everything seemed to go wrong
with Captain Pierpoint's cargoes. He was always los-
236 STRANGE STORIES.
ing a scow laden with best fall wheat from Chicago
for Buffalo ; or running a lumber vessel ashore on the
shoals of Lake Erie ; or getting a four-master jammed
in the ice packs on the St. Clair river and though the
insurance companies continually declared that Captain
Pierpoint had got the better of them, the Captain him-
self was wont to complain that no insurance could
ever possibly cover the losses he sustained by the care-
lessness of his subordinates or the constant perversity
of wind and waters. He was obliged to take his own
ships down, he would have it, because nobody else
could take them safely for him ; and though he met
with quite as many accidents himself as many of his
deputies did, he continued to convey his grain in per-
son, hoping, as he said, that luck would turn some
day, and that a good speculation would finally enable
him honorably to retrieve his shattered fortunes.
However this might be, it happened curiously
enough that in spite of all his losses, Captain Pier-
point seemed to grow richer and richer, visibly to the
naked eye, with each reverse of his trading efforts.
He took a handsome house, set up a carriage and pair,
and made love to the prettiest and sweetest girl in
all Sarnia. The prettiest and sweetest girl was not
proof against Captain Pierpoint's suave tongue and
handsome house ; and she married him in very good
faith, honestly believing in him as a good woman will
in a scoundrel, and clinging to him fervently with all
her heart and soul. No happier and more loving pair
in all Sarnia than Captain and Mrs. Pierpoint.
Some months after the marriage. Captain Pierpoint
arranged to take down a scow or flat-bottomed boat,
laden with grain, from Milwaukee for the Erie Canal.
THE FOUNDERING OF THB " FORTUNA." 237
He took up the scow himself, and before he started
for the voyage, it was a curious fact that he went in
person down into the hold, bored eight laige holes
right through the bottom, and filled each up, as he drew
out the auger, with a caulked plug made exactly to fit
it, and hammered firmly into place with a wooden mal-
let. There was a ring in each plug, by which it could
be pulled out again without much difficulty ; and the
whole eight were all placed along the gangway of the
hold, where no cargo would lie on top of them. The
scow's name was the Fortuna : " sit faustum omen et
felix," murmured Captain Pierpoint to himself ; for
among his other accomplishments he had not wholly
neglected nor entirely forgotten the classical lan-
guages.
It took only two men and the ikipper to navigate
the scow ; for lake craft towed by steam propellers are
always very lightly manned : and when Captain Pier-
point reached Milwaukee, where he was to take in
cargo, he dismissed the two sailors who had come
with him from Sarnia and engaged two fresh hands at
the harbor. Rough, miner-looking men they were,
with very little of the sailor about them ; but Captain
Pierpoint's sharp eye soon told him they were the
right sort of men for his purpose, and he engaged
them on the spot, without a moment's hesitation. Pete
and Hiram had had some difficulty in tracking him,
for they never thought he would return to the lakes,
but they had tracked him at last, and were ready now
to take their revenge.
They had disguised themselves as well as they were
able, and in their clumsy knavery they thought they
had completely deceived the Captain. But almost
238 STRANGE STORIES.
from the moment the Captain saw them, he knew who
they were, and he took his measures accordingly.
" Stupid louts," he said to himself, with the line con-
tempt of an educated scoundrel for the unsophisticated
natural ruffian ; *' here's a fine chance of killing two
birds with one stone !" And when the Captain said
the word " killing," he said it in his own mind with a
delicate, sinister emphasis which meant business.
The scow was duly loaded, and with a heavy cargo
of grain aboard, she proceeded to make her way
slowly, by the aid of a tug, out of Milwaukee Harbor.
As soon as she was once clear of the wharf, and
while the busy shipping of the great port still sur-
rounded them on every side, Captain Pierpoint calmly
drew his revolver, and took his stand beside the
hatches. " Pete and Hiram," he said, quietly, to his
two assistants, " I want to have a little serious talk
with you two before we go any further."
If he had fired upon them outright, instead of m^erely
calling them by their own names, the two common
conspirators could not have started more unfeignedly,
or looked more unspeakably cowed, than they did at
that moment. Their first impulse was to draw their
own revolvers in return ; but they saw in a second
that the Captain was beforehand with them, and that
they had better not try to shoot him before the very
eyes of all Milwaukee.
" Now, boys," the Captain went on steadily, with
his finger on the trigger, and his eye fixed straight on
the men's faces, " we three quite understand one
another. I took your savings for reasons of my own ;
and you h-. ^e shipped here to-day to murder me on the
voyage. Lat I recognized you before I engaged you ;
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 239
and I have left word at Milwaukee that if anything
happens to me on this journey, you two have a grudge
against me, and must be hanged for it. I've taken care
that if this scow comes into any port along the lakes
without me aboard, you two are to be promptly
arrested." (This was false, of course ; but to Captain
Pierpoint a small matter like that was a mere trifle.)
" And I've shipped myself along with you, just to show
you I'm not afraid of you. But if either of you dis-
obeys my orders in anything for one minute, I shoot at
once, and no jury in Canada or the States will touch a
hair of my head for doing it. I'm a respectable ship-
owner and grain merchant ; you're a pair of disreput-
able, skulking miners, pretending to be sailors, and
you've shipped aboard here on purpose to murder and
rob me. If you shoot mc, it's murder ; if / shoot you,
it's justifiable homicide. Now, boys, do you under-
stand that ?"
Pete looked at Hiram, and was beginning to speak,
when the Captain interrupted him in the calm tone of
one having authority. " Look here, Pete," he said,
drawing a chalk line amidships across the deck ; ** you
stand this side of that line, and you stand there, Hiram.
Now, mind, if either of you chooses to step across that
line or to confer with the other, I shoot you, whether
it's here before all the eyes in Milwaukee, or alone in
the middle of Huron. You must each take your own
counsel, and do as you like for yourselves. But I've
got a little plan of my own on, and if you choose will-
ingly to help me in it, your fortune's made. Look at
the thing, squarely, boys ; what's the use of your kill-
ing me? Sooner or later you'll get hung for it, and it's
a very unpleasant thing, I can assure you, hanging."
240 STRANGE STORIES.
As the Captain spoke, he placed his unoccupied hand
loosely on his throat, and pressed it gently backward.
Pete and Hiram shuddered a little as he did so.
" Well, what's the good of ending your lives that way,
eh ? But I'm doing a little speculative business on
these lakes, where I want just such a couple of men as
you two — men that'll do as they're told in a matter of
business and ask no squeamish questions. If you care
to help me in this business, stop and make your
fortunes ; if you don't, you can go back to Milwaukee
with the tug."
" You speak fair enough," said Pete, dubitatively ;
" but you know, Cap'n, you ain't a man to be trusted.
I owe you one already for stealing my silver."
" Very little silver," the Captain answered, with a
wave of the hand and a graceful smile. " Bonds,
United States bonds and greenbacks most of it, con-
verted beforehand for easier conveyance by horseback.
These, however, are business details which needn't
stand in the way between you and me, partner. I
always was straightforward in all my dealings, and I'll
come to the point at once, so that you can know
whether you'll help me or not. This scow's plugged
at bottom. My intention is, first, to part the rope that
ties us to the tug ; next, to transfer the cargo by night
to a small shanty I've got on Manitoulin Island ; and
then to pull the plugs and sink the scow on Manitou-
lin rocks. That way I get insurance for the cargo and
scow, and carry on the grain in the slack season. If
you consent to help me unload and sink the ship, you
shall have half profits between you ; if you don't, you
.:an go back to Milwaukee like a couple of fools, and
I'll put into port again to get a couple of pluckier fel-
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 24I
lows. Answer each for yourselves. Hiram, will you
go with me ?"
" How shall I know you'll keep your promise ?"
asked Hiram.
" For the best of all possible reasons," replied the
Captain, jauntily ; " because, if I don't, you can in-
form upon me to the insurance people."
In Hiram Coffin's sordid soul there was a moment's
turning over of the chances ; and then greed prevailed
over revenge, and he said, grudgingly :
"Well, Cap'n, I'll go with you."
The Captain smiled the smile of calm self-approba-
tion, and turned half round to Pete.
" And you ?" he asked.
" If Hiram goes, I go too," Pete answered, half hop-
ing that some chance might occur for conferring with
his neighbor on the road, and following out their orig-
inal conspiracy. But Captain Pierpoint had been too
much for him ; he had followed the excellent rule
''^ divide et impcra," and he remained clearly master of
the situation.
As soon as they were well outside Milwaukee Har-
bor, the tug dragged the.i* into the open lake, all un-
conscious of the strange scene that had passed on the
deck so close to it ; and the oddly mated crew made
its way, practically alone, down the busy waters of
Lake Michigan.
Captain Pierpoint certainly didn't spend a comforta-
ble time during his voyage down the lake, or through
the Straits of Mackinaw. To say the truth, he could
hardly sleep at all, and he was very fagged and weary
when they arrived at Manitoulin Island. But Pete
and Hiram, though they had many chances of talking
242 STRANGE STORIES.
together, could not see their way to kill him in
safety ; and Hiram, at least, in his own mind, had
come to the conclusion that it was better to make a
little money than to risk one's neck for a foolish re-
venge. So in the dead of night, on the second day
out, when a rough wind had risen from the north, and
a fog had come over them, the Captain quietly began
to cut away at the rope that tied them to the tug.
He cut the rope all round, leaving a sound core in the
centre ; and when the next gust of wind came, the
rope strained and parted quite naturally, so that the
people on the tug never suspected the genuineness of
the transaction. They looked about in the fog and
storm for the scow, but of course they couldn't find her,
for Captain Pierpoint, who knew his ground well, had
driven her straight ashore before the wind and beached
her on a small shelving cove on Manitoulin Island.
There they found five men waiting for them, who
helped unload the cargo with startling rapidity, for it
was all arranged in sacks, not in bulk, and a high slide
fixed on the gangway enabled them to slip it quickly
down into an underground granary excavated below
the level of the beach. After unloading, they made
their way down before the breeze towards the jagged
rocks of Manitoulin.
It was eleven o'clock on a stormy moonlight night,
when the Fortuna arrived off the jutting point of the
great island. A "black squall," as they call it on the
lakes, was blowing down from the Sault Ste. Marie.
The scow drove about aimlessly, under very little can-
vas, and the boat was ready to be lowered, " in case,"
the Captain said, humorously, " of any accident."
Close to the end of the point the Captain ordered Pete
The foundering of the " fortuna.'* 24^
and Hiram down into the hold. He had shown them
beforehand the way to draw the plugs, and had ex-
plained that the water would rise very slowly, and
they would have plenty of time to get up the com-
panion-ladder long before there was a foot deep of
water in the hold. At the last moment Pete hung
back a little. The Captain took him quietly by the
shoulders, and without an oath (an omission which
told eloquently on Pete) thrust him down the ladder,
and told him in his calmest manner to do his duty.
Hiram held the light in his hand, and both went down
together into the black abyss. There was no time to
be lost; they were well off the point, and in another
moment the wreck v/ould have lost all show of reason-
able probability.
As the two miners went down into the hold, Captain
Pierpoint drew quietly from his pocket a large ham-
mer and a packet of five-inch nails. They were good
stout nails, and would resist a considerable pressure.
He looked carefully down into the hold, and saw the
two men draw the first plug. One after another he
watched them till the fourth was drawn, and then he
turned away, and took one of the nails firmly between
his thumb and forefinger.
Next week everybody at Sarnia was grieved to hear
that another of Captain Pierpoint's vessels had gone
down off Manitoulin Point in that dreadful black squall
on Thursday evening. Both the sailors on board had
been drowned, but the Captain himself had managed
to make good his escape in the jolly boat. He would
be a heavy loser, it was understood, on the value of
the cargo, for insurance never covers the loss of
grain.
244 STRANGE STORIKS.
Still, it was a fortunate thing that such a delightful
man as the Captain had not perished in the foundering
of the Fortuna.
III.
Somehow, after that wreck. Captain Pierpoint
never cared for the water again. His nerves were
shattered, he said, and he couldn't stand danger as he
used to do when he was younger and stronger. So he
went on the lake no more, and confined his attention
more strictly to the " futures " business. He was a
thriving and prosperous person, in spite of his losses ;
and the underwriters had begun to look a little askance
at his insurances even before this late foundering case.
Some whispered ominously in underwriting circles that
they had their doubts about the Fortu?ia.
One summer, a few years later, the water on Lake
Huron sank lower than it had ever been known to
sink before. It was a very dry season in the back
country, and the rivers brought down very diminished
streams into the great basins. Foot by foot, the level
of the lake fell slowly, till many of the wharves were left
high and dry, and the vessels could only come along-
side in very few deep places. Captain Pierpoint had suf-
fered much from sleeplessness, combined with Canadian
ague, for some years past, but this particular summer
his mind was very evidently much troubled. For
some unaccountable reason, he watched the falling of
the river with the intensest anxiety, and after it had
passed a certain point, his interest in the question be-
came painfully keen. Though the fever and the ague
gained upon him from day to day, and his doctor
THE FOUNDERING OF THE "FORTUNA." 245
counseled perfect quiet, he was perpetually consulting
charts and making measurements of the configuration
which the coast had now reached, especially at the
upper end of Lake Huron. At last, his mind seemed
almost to give way, and weak and feverish as he was,
he insisted, the first time for many seasons, that he
must take a trip upon the water. Remonstrance was
quite useless ; he would go on the lake again, he said,
if it killed him. So he hired one of the little steam
pleasure yachts which are always to let in numbers at
Detroit, and started with his wife and her brother,
a young surgeon, for a month's cruise into Lake
Superior.
As the yacht neared Manitoulin-Island, Captain Pier-
point insisted upon being brought up on deck in a
chair — he was too ill to stand — and swept all the coast
with his binocular. Close to the point, a flat-topped
object lay mouldering in the sun, half out of water, on
the shoals by the bank. " What is it, Ernest ?" asked
the Captain, trembling, of his brother-in-law.
** A wreck, I should say," the brother-in-law an-
swered, carelessly. " By Jove, now I look at it with the
glass, I can read the name, * Fortuna, Sarnia.' "
Captain Pierpoint seized the glass with a shaking
hand, and read the name on the stern himself, in a
dazed fashion. "Take me downstairs," he said,
feebly, " and let me die quietly ; and for Heaven's
sake, Ernest, never let her know about it all."
They took him downstairs into the little cabin, and
gave him quinine ; but he called for brandy. They
let him have it, and he drank a glassful. Then he
lay down, and the shivering seized him ; and with his
wife's hand in his, he died that night in raving de-
I
246 STRANGE STORIES.
lirium, about eleven. A black squall was blowing
down from the Sault Ste. Marie : and they lay at
anchor out in the lake, tossing and pitching, oppo-
site the green mouldering hull of the Fortmia.
They took him back and buried him at Sarnia ;
and all the world went to attend his funeral, as of a
man who died justly respected for his wealth and other
socially admired qualities. But the brother-in-law
knew there was a mystery somewhere in the wreck of
the Fortuna ; and as soon as the funeral was over, he
went back with the yacht, and took its skipper with
him to examine the stranded vessel. When they came
to look at the bottom, they found eight holes in it.
Six of them were wide open ; one was still plugged,
and the remaining one had the plug pulled half out,
inward, as if the persons who were pulling it had
abandoned the attempt for the fear of the rising water.
That was bad enough, and they did not wonder that
Captain Pierpoint had shrunk in horror from the re-
vealing of the secret of the Fortuna.
But when they scrambled on the deck, they discov-
ered another fact which gave a more terrible meaning
to the dead man's tragedy. The covering of the
hatchway by the companion-ladder was battened
down, and nailed from the side with five-inch nails. The
skipper loosened the rusty iron with his knife, and after
a while they lifted the lid off, and descended carefully
into the empty hold below. As they suspected, there
was no damaged grain in it ; but at the foot of the com-
panion-ladder, left behind by the retreating water, two
half-cleaned skeletons in sailor clothes lay huddled to-
gether loosely on the floor. That was all that re-
mained of Pete and Hiram. Evidently the Captair^
THE FOUNDERING OF THE " FORTUNA." 247
had nailed the hatch down on top of them, and left
them there terror-stricken to drown as the water
rushed in and rose around them.
For a while the skipper and the brother-in-law kept
the dead man's secret ; but they did not try to destroy
or conceal the proofs of his guilt, and in time others
visited the wreck, till, bit by bit, the horrible story
leaked out in its entirety. Nowadays, as you pass
the Great Manitoulin Island, every sailor on the lake
route is ready to tell you this strange and ghastly
yarn of the foundering of the Foriuna.
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN
PICCADILLY.
I.
I REALLY never felt so profoundly ashamed of my-
self in my whole life as when my father-in-law, Pro-
fessor W. Bryce Murray, of Oriel College, Oxford, sent
me the last number of the Proceedings of the Society
for the Investigation of Supernatural Phenomena. As
I opened the pamphlet, a horrible foreboding seized
me that I should find in it, detailed at full length, with
my name and address in plain printing (not even aster-
isks), that extraordinary story of his about the mys-
terious occurrence in Piccadilly. I turned anxiously
to page 14, which I saw was neatly folded over at the
corner; and there, sure enough, I came upon the Pro-
fessor's remarkable narrative, which I shall simply
extract here, by way of introduction, in his own ad-
mirable and perspicuous language.
*•' I wish to communicate to the Society," says my
respected relation, " a curious case of wraiths or
doubles, which came under my own personal observa-
tion, and for which I can vouch on my own authority,
and that of my son-in-law. Dr. Owen Mansfield, keeper
of Accadian Antiquities at the British Museum. It is
seldom, indeed, that so strange an example of a super-
natural phenomenon can be independently attested by
two trustworthy scientific observers, both still living.
[248]
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN TICCADILLY. 249
"On the 1 2th of May, 1873 — I made a note of the
circumstance at the time, and am therefore able to
feel perfect confidence as to the strict accuracy of my
facts — I was walking down Piccadilly about four
o'clock in the afternoon, when I saw a simulacrum or
image approaching me from the opposite direction,
exactly resembling in outer appearance an under-
graduate of Oriel College, of the name of Owen
Mansfield. It must be carefully borne in mind that
at this time I was not related or connected with Mr.
Mansfield in any way, his marriage with my daughter
having taken place some eleven months later : I only
knew him then as a promising junior member of my
own College. I was just about to approach and
address Mr. Mansfield, when a most singular and
mysterious event took place. The simulacrum
appeared spontaneously to glide up towards me with
a peculiarly rapid and noiseless motion, waved a wand
or staff which it bore in its hands thrice round my
head, and then vanished hastily in the direction of an
hotel which stands at the corner of Albemarle Street.
I followed it quickly to the door, but on inquiry of
the porter, I learned that he himself had observed
nobody enter. The simulacrum seems to have dis-
sipated itself or become invisible suddenly in the very
act of passing through the folding glass portals which
give access to the hotel from Piccadilly.
" That same evening by the last post, I received a
hastily-written note from Mr. Mansfield, bearing the
Oxford postmark, dated Oriel College, 5 p.m., and
relating the facts of an exactly similar apparition
which had manifested itself to him, with absolute
simultaneity of occurrence. On the very day and
250 STRANGE STORIES.
hour when I had seen Mr. M.inficld's wraith in
Piccadilly, Mr. Mansfield himself was walking down
the Corn Market in Oxford, in the direction of
the Taylor Institute. As he approached the cor-
ner, he saw what he took to be a vision or image of
myself, his tutor, moving towards him in my usual
leisurely manner. Suddenly, as he was on the point
of addressing me with regard to my Aristotle lecture
the next morning, the image glided up to him in a
rapid and evasive manner, shook a green silk umbrella
with a rhinoceros-horn handle three times around his
head, and then disappeared incomprehensibly through
the door of the Randolph Hotel. Returning to the
college in a state of breathless alarm and surprise, at
what he took to be an act of incipient insanity or
extreme inebriation on my part, Mr. Mansfield learnt
from the porter, to his intense astonishment, that I
was at that moment actually in London. Unable to
conceal his amazement at this strange event, he wrote
me a full account of the facts while they were still
fresh in his memory: and as I preserve his note to
this day, I append a copy of it to my present communi-
cation, for publication in the Society's Transactions.
" There is one small point in the above narrative to
which I would wish to call special attention, and that
is the accurate description given by Mr. Mansfield of
the umbrella carried by the apparition he observed in
Oxford. This umbrella exactly coincided in every
particular with the one I was then actually carrying in
Piccadilly. But what is truly remarkable, and what
stamps the occurrence as a genuine case of supernat-
ural intervention, is the fact that Mr. Mansfield could
not possibly ever hc^ve seen that umbrella in my hands
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 2$ I
because / had only Just that afternoon purchased it at
a shop in Bond Street. This, to my mind, conclusively
proves that no mere effort of fancy or visual delusion
based upon previous memories, vague or conscious,
could have had anything whatsoever to do with Mr.
Mansfield's observation at least. It was, in short, dis-
tinctly an objective apparition, as distinguished from a
mere subjective reminiscence or hallucination."
As I laid down the Proceedings on the breakfast
table with a sigh, I said to my wife (who had been
looking over my shoulder while I read) : '* Now, Nora,
we're really in for it. What on earth do you suppose
I'd better do ?"
Nora laughed at me with her laughing eyes laugh-
ing harder and brighter than ever. " My dear Owen,"
she said, putting the Proceedings promptly into the
waste-paper basket, " there's really nothing on earth
possible now, except to make a clean breast of it."
I groaned. " I suppose you're right," I answered,
" but it's a precious awkward thing to have to do.
However, here goes." So I sat down at once with
pen, ink, and paper at my desk, to draw up this pres-
ent narrative as to the real facts about the " Mysteri-
ous Occurrence in Piccadilly."
II.
In 1873 I was a fourth-year man, going in for my
Greats at the June examination. But as if Aristotle
and Mill and the affair of Corcyra were not enough to
occupy one voung fellow's head at the age of twenty-
252 STRANGE STORIES.
three, I had foolishly gone and fallen in love, under-
graduate fashion, with the only really pretty girl (I in-
sist upon putting it, though Nora has struck it out
with her pen) in all Oxford. She was the daughter of
my tutor. Professor Bryce Murray, and her name (as
the astute reader will already have inferred) was
Nora.
The Professor had lost his wife some years before,
and he was left to bring up Nora by his own devices,
with the aid of his sister, Miss Lydia Amelia Murray,
the well-known advocate of female education, woman's
rights, anti-vaccination, vegetarianism, the Tichborne
claimant, and psychic force. Nora, however, had no
fancy for any of these multifarious interests of her
aunt's : I have reason to believe she takes rather after
her mother's family: and Miss Lydia Amelia Murray
early decided that she was a girl of no intellectual
tastes of any sort, who had better be kept at school at
South Kensington as much as possible. Especially
did Aunt Lydia hold it to be undesirable that Nora
should ever come in contact with that very objection-
able and wholly antagonistic animal, the Oriel under-
graduate. Undergraduates were well known to laugh
openly at woman's rights, to devour underdone beef-
steaks with savage persistence, and to utter most irrev-
erent and ribald jests about psychic force.
Still, it is quite impossible to keep the orbit of a
Professor's daughter from occasionally crossing that
of a stray meteoric undergraduate. Nora only came
home to Oxford in vacation time : but during the
preceding Long I had stopped up for the sake of pur-
suing my Accadian studies in a quiet spot, and it was
then that I first quite accidentally met Nora. I was
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 253
canoeing on the Cherwell one afternoon, when I came
across the Professor and his daughter in a punt, and
saw the prettiest girl in all Oxford actually holding the
pole in her own pretty little hands, while that lazy old
man lolled back at his ease with a book, on the lux-
urious cushions in the stern. As I passed the punt, I
capped the Professor, of course, and looking back a
minute later I observed that the pretty daughter had
got her pole stuck fast in the mud, and couldn't with
all her force, pull it out again. In another minute she
had lost her hold of it, and the punt began to drift of
itself down the river towards Iffley.
Common politeness naturally made me put back my
canoe, extricate the pole, and hand it as gracefully as
I could to the Professor's daughter. As I did so I
attempted to raise my straw hat cautiously with one
hand, while I gave back the pole with the other: an
attempt which of course compelled me to lay down
my paddle on the front of the canoe, as I happen to
be only provided with two hands, instead of four
like our earlier ancestors. I don't know whether it was
my instantaneous admiration for Nora's pretty blush,
which distracted my attention from the purely practi-
cal question of equilibrium, or whether it was her own
awkwardness and modesty in taking the pole, or finally
whether it was my tutor's freezing look that utterly
disconcerted me, but at any rate, just at that moment,
something unluckily (or rather luckily) caused me to
lose my balance altogether. Now, everybody knows
that a canoe is very easily upset : and in a moment,
before I knew exactly where I was, I found the canoe
floating bottom upward about three yards away from
me, and myself standing, safe and dry, in my tutor's
2^4 STRANGE STORIES.
punt, beside his pretty blushing daughter. I had felt
the canoe turning over as I handed back the pole, and
had instinctively jumped into the safer refuge of the
punt, which saved me at least the ignominy of appear
ing before Miss Nora Murray in the ungraceful atti-
tude of clambering back, wet and dripping, into an
upset canoe.
The inexorable logic of facts had thus convinced
the Professor of the impossibility of keeping all under-
graduates permanently at a safe distance : and there
was nothing open for him now except resignedly to
acquiesce in the situation so created for him. However
much he might object to my presence, he could hardly,
as a Christian and a gentleman, request me to jump in
and swim after my canoe, or even, when we had at
last successfully brought it alongside w^ith the aid of
the pole, to seat myself once more on the soaking
cushions. After all, my mishap had come about in the
endeavor to render him a service : so he was fain
with what grace he could to let me relieve his daugh-
ter of the pole, and punt him back as far as the barges,
with my own moist and uncomfortable bark trailing
casually from the stern.
As for Nora, being thus thrown unexpectedly into
the dangerous society of that grewsome animal, the
Oriel undergraduate, I think I may venture to say (from
my subsequent experience) that she was not wholly dis-
posed to regard the creature as either so objectiona-
ble or so ferocious as she had been previously led to
imagine. We got on together so well that I could see
the Professor growing visibly wrathful about the
corners of the mouth : and by the time we reached the
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 255
barges, he could barely be civil enough to say Good-
morning to me when we parted.
" An introduction, however, no matter how obtained,
is really in these matters absolutely everything. As
long as you don't know a pretty girl, you don't know
her, and you can't take a step in advance without an
introduction. But when once you do know her, heav-
en and earth and aunts and fathers may try their hard-
est to prevent you, and yet whatever they try they can't
keep you out. I was so far struck with Nora, that I
boldly ventured whenever I met her out walking with
her father or her aunt, to join myself to the party ;
and though they never hesitated to show me that my
presence was not rapturously welcomed, they couldn't
well say to me pointblank, '* Have the goodness, Mr.
Mansfield, to go away and not to speak to me again
in future." So the end of it was, that before the
beginning of October term, Nora and I understood
one another perfectly, and had even managed, in a few
minutes' tcte-a-tcte in the parks, to whisper to one an-
other the ingenuous vows of sweet seventeen and two-
and-twenty.
When the Professor discovered that I had actually
written a letter to his daughter, marked " Private and
Confidential," his wrath knew no bounds. He sent
for me to his rooms, and spoke to me severely. " I've
half a mind, Mansfield," he said, *' to bring the matter
before a college meeting. At any rate, this conduct
must not be repeated. If it is, Sir," — he didn't finish
the sentence, preferring to terrify me by the effective
figure of speech which commentators describe as an
aposiopesis: and I left him with a vague sense that if
it was repeated I should probably incur the penalties
: N< • •
256 STRANGE STORIES.
of prcemunire (whatever they may be) or be hanged,
drawn, and quartered, with my head finally stuck as
an adornment on the acute wings of the Griffin, vice
Temple Bar removed.
Next day, Nora met me casually at a confectioner's
in the High, where I will frankly confess that I was
engaged in experimenting upon the relative merits of
raspberry cream and lemon water ices. She gave me
her hand timidly, and whispered to me half under her
breath, " Papa's so dreadfully angry, Owen, and I'm
afraid I shall never be able to meet you any more, for
he's going to send me back this very afternoon to
South Kensington, and keep me away from Oxford
altogether in future." I saw her eyes were red with
crying, and that she really thought our little romance
was entirely at an end.
" My darling Nora," I replied in an undertone,
" even South Kensington is not so unutterably remote
that I shall never be able to see you there. Write to
me whenever you are able, and let me know where I
can write to you. My dear little Nora, if there were
a hundred papas and a thousand Aunt Lydias inter-
posed in a square between us, don't you know we
should manage all the same to love one another and
to overcome all difficulties ?"
Nora smiled and half cried at once, and then dis-
creetly turned to order half a pound of glacd cherries.
And that was the last that I saw of her for the time at
Oxford.
During the next term or two, I'm afraid I must admit
that the relations between my tutor and myself were
distinctly strained, so much so as continually to
threaten the breaking out of open hostilities. It
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 2$/
wasn't merely that Nora was in question, but the Pro-
fessor also suspected me of jeering in private at his
psychical investigations. And if the truth must be
told, I will admit that his suspicions were not wholly
without justification. It began to be whispered
among^ the undergraduates just then that the Professor
and his sister had taken to turning planchctics, inter-
rogating easy-chairs, and obtaining interesting details
about the present abode of Shakespeare or Milton
from intelligent and well-informed five-o'clock tea-
tables. It had long been well known that the Profes-
sor took a deep interest in haunted houses, considered
that the portents recorded by Livy must have some-
thing in them, and declared himself unable to be skep-
tical as to facts which had convinced such great men
as Plato, Seneca, and Samuel Johnson. But the table-
turning was a new fad, and we noisy undergraduates
occasionally amused ourselves by getting up an ama-
teur stance, in imitation of the Professor, and eliciting
psychical truths, often couched in a surprisingly
slangly or even indecorous dialect, from a very lively
though painfully irreverent spirit, who discoursed to
us through the material intervention of a rickety what-
not. However, as the only mediums we employed
were the very unprofessional ones of two plain decan-
ters, respectively containing port and sherry, the Pro-
fessor (who was a teetotaler, and who paid five guineas
a stance for 'he services of that distinguished psychical
specialist, i Grade) considered the interesting results
we obtained as wholly beneath the dignity of scientific
inquiry. He even most unworthily endeavored to
stifle research by gating us all one evening when a
materialized spirit, assuming the outer form of the
258 STRANGE STORIES.
junior exhibitioner, sang a comic song of the period
in a loud voice with the windows open, and accompa-
nied itself noisily with a psychical tattoo on the rickety
what-not. The Professor went so far as to observe
sarcastically that our results appeared to him to be
rather spirituous than spiritual.
"On May 11, 1873 (I will endeavor to rival the Pro-
fessor in accuracy and preciseness), I got a short note
from dear Nora, dated from South Kensington, which
I, too (though not from psychical motives), have care-
fully preserved. I will not publish it, however, either
here or in the Society's Proceedings, for reasons which
will probably be obvious to any of my readers who
happen ever to have been placed in similar circum-
stances themselves. Disengaging the kernel of fact
from the irrelevant matter in which it was imbedded,
I may st:ite that Nora wrote me somewhat to this
effect. She was going next day to the Academy with
the parents of some schoolfellow ; could I manage to
run up to. town for the day, go to the Academy myself,
and meet her " quite accidentally, you know, dear,"
in the Water-color room about half-past eleven?
This was rather awkward ; for next day, as it hap-
pened, was precisely the Professor's morning for the
Herodotus lecture ; but circumstances like mine at
that moment know no law. So I succeeded in excus-
ing myself from attendance somehow or other (I hope
truthfully) and took the nine A. M. express up to town.
Shortly after eleven I was at the Academy, and wait-
ing anxiously for Nora's arrival. That dear little hyp-
ocrite, the moment she saw me approach, assumed
such an inimitable air of infantile surprise and inno-
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN riCCADILLY. ^59
cent pleasure at my unexpected appearance that I pos-
itively blushed for her wicked powers of deception.
** Vou here, Mr. Mansfield !" she cried in a tone of
the most apparently unaffected astonishment, "why I
thought it was full term time ; surely you ought to be
up at Oriel."
" So I am," I answered, " officially ; but in my pri-
vate capacity I've come up for the day to look at the
pictures."
"Oh, how nice!" said that shocking little Nora,
with a smile that was childlike and bland. " Mr. Mans-
field is such a great critic, Mrs. Worplesdon ; he knows
all about art, and artists, and so on. He'll be able to
tell'us which pictures we ought to admire, you know,
and which aren't worth looking at. Mr. Worplesdon,
let me introduce you ; Mrs. Worplesdon — Miss Wor-
plesdon. How very lucky we should have happened
to come across you, Mr. Mansfield !"
The Worplesdons fell immediately, like lambs, into
the trap so ingenuously spread for them. Indeed, I
have always noticed that ninety-nine per cent, of the
British public, when turned into an art gallery, are
only too glad to accept the opinion of anybody what-
soever, who is bold enough to have one, and to express
it openly. Having thus been thrust by Nora into the
arduous position of critic by appointment to the Wor-
plesdon party, I delivered myself ex catJicdrd forthwith
upon the merits and demerits of the entire exhibition ;
and I was so successful in my critical views that I not
only produced an immense impression upon Mr. Wor-
plesdon himself, but also observed many ladies in the
neighborhood nudge one another as they gazed in-
tently backward and forward between wall and cata-
i' . /
25q strange stories.
logue, and heard them whisper audibly among them-
selves, " A gentleman here says the flesh tones on that
shoulder are simply marveHous ;" or " That artist in
the tweed suit behind us thinks the careless painting
of the ferns in the foreground quite unworthy of such
a colorist as Daubiton." So highly was my criticism
appreciated, in fact, that Mr. Worplesdon even invited
me to lunch with Nora and his party at a neighboring
restaurant, where I spent the most deHghtful hour I
had passed for the last half-year, in the company of
that naughty mendacious little schemer.
About four o'clock, however, the Worplesdons de-
parted, taking Nora with them to South Kensington ;
and I prepared to walk back in the direction of Ead-
dington, meaning to catch an evening train, and return
to Oxford. I was strolling in a leisurely fashion along
Piccadilly towards the Park, and looking into all the
photographers* windows, when suddenly an awful ap-
parition loomed upon me — the Professor himself, com-
ing round the corner from Bond Street, folding up a
new rhinoceros-handled umbrella as he walked along.
In a moment I felt that all was lost. I was up in town
without leave ; the Professor would certainly see me
and recognize me ; he would ask me how and why I
had left the University, contrary to rules ; and I must
then either tell him the whole truth, which would get
Nora into a fearful scrape, or else run the risk of being
sent down in disgrace, which might prevent me from
taking a degree, and would at least cause my father
and mother an immense deal of unmerited trouble.
Like a flash of lightning, a wild idea shot instantane-
ously across my brain. Might I pretend to be my
own double? The Professor was profoundly supersti-
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 261
tious on the subject of wraiths, apparitions, ghosts,
brain-waves, and supernatural appearances generally;
if I could only manage to impose upon him for a
moment by doing something outrageously uncommon
or eccentric, I might succeed in stifling further inquiry
by setting him from the beginning on a false track
which he was naturally prone to follow. Before I had
time to reflect upon the consequences of my act, the
wild idea had taken possession of me, body and soul,
and had worked itself out in action with all the rapid-
ity of a mad impulse. I rushed frantically up to the
Professor, with my eyes fixed in a vacant stare on a
point in space somewhere above the tops of the chim-
ney-pots ; I waved my stick three times mysteriously
around h!3 head ; and then, without giving him time
to recover from his surprise or to address a single
word to me, I bolted off in a red Indian dance to the,
nearest corner.
There was an hotel there, which I had often noticed
before, though I had never entered it ; and I rushed
wildly in, meaning to get out as best I could when the
Professor (who is very short-sighted) had passed on
along Piccadilly in search of me. But fortune, as
usual favored the bold. Luckily, it was a corner
house, and, to my surprise, I found when I got inside
it, that the hall opened both ways, with a door on to
the side street. The porter was looking away as I
entered , so I merely ran in of one door and out of the
other, never stopping till I met a hansom, into which
I jumped and ordered the man to drive to Paddington.
I just caught the 4.35 to Oxford, and by a little over
six o'clock I was in my own rooms at Oriel.
It was very wrong of me, indeed ; I acknowledge it
262 STRANGE STORIES.
now ; but the whole thing had flashed across my un-
dergraduate mind so rapidly that I carried it out in a
moment, before I could at all realize what a very fool-
ish act I was really committing. To take a rise out of
the Professor, and to save Nora an angry interview,
were the only ideas that occurred to me at the second ;
when I began to reflect upon it afterwards, I was con-
scious that I had really practiced a very gross and
wicked deception. However, there was no help for it
now ; and as I rolled along in the train to Oxford, I
felt that to save myself and Nora from utter disgrace,
I must carry the plot out to the end without flinching.
It then occurred to me that a double apparition would
be more in accordance with all recognized principles of
psychical manifestation than a single one. At Read-
ing, therefore, I regret to say, I bought a pencil, and a
sheet of paper, and an envelope ; and before I reached
Oxfard station, I had written to the Professor what I
now blush to acknowledge as a tissue of shocking
fables, in which I paralleled every particular of my
own behavior to him by a similar imaginary piece of
behavior on his part to me, only changing the scene
to Oxford. It was awfully wrong, I admit. At the
time, however, being yet but little more than a school-
boy, after all, I regarded it simply in the light of a capi-
tal practical joke. I informed the Professor gravely
how I had seen him at four o'clock in the Corn Market,
and how astonished I was when I found him waving his
green silk umbrella three times wildly around my head.
The moment I arrived at Oxford, I dashed up to
college in a hansom, and got the Professor's address in
London from the porter. He had gone up to town for
the night, it seemed, probably to visit Nora, and would
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENXE IN PICCADILLY. 263
not be back in college till the next morning. Then I
rushed down to the post-office, where I was just in
time (with an extra stamp) to catch the last post for
that night's delivery. The moment the letter was in
the box, I repented, and began to fear I had gone too
far ; and when I got back to my own rooms at last, and
went down late for dinner in hall, I confess I trembled
not a little, as to the possible effect of my quite too
bold and palpable imposition.
Next morning by the second post I got a long letter
from the Professor, which completely relieved me from
all immediate anxiety as to his interpretation of my
conduct. He rose to the fly with a charming simplicity
which showed how delighted he was at this personal
confirmation of all his own most cherished supersti-
tions. " My dear Mansfield," his letter began, " now
hear what, at the very selfsame hour and minute, hap-
pened to me in Piccadilly." In fact, he had swallowed
the whole thing entire, without a single moment's scep-
ticism or hesitation.
From what I heard afterwards, it was indeed a lucky
thing for me that I had played him this shocking trick,
for Nora believes he was then actually on his way to
South Kensington on purpose to forbid her most strin-
gently from holding any further communication with
me in any way. But as soon as this mysterious event
took place, he began to change his mind about me alto-
gether. So remarkable an apparition could not have
happened except for some good and weighty reason,
he argued ; and he suspected that the reason might
have something to do with my intentions toward Nora.
Why, when he was on his way to warn her against me,
should a vision, bearing my outer and bodily shape.
264 STRANGE STORIES.
come straight across his path, and by vehement signs
of displeasure, endeavor to turn him from his purpose,
unless it were clearly well for Nora that my attentions
should not be discouraged?
From that day forth the Professor began to ask me
to his rooms and address me far more cordially than
he used to do before: he even, on the strength of my
singular adventure, invited me to assist at one or two
of his psychical sdanccs. Here, I must confess, I was
not entirely successful : the distinguished medium
complained that I exerted a repellent effect upon the
spirits, who seemed to be hurt by my want of generous
confidence in their good intentions, and by my sus-
picious habit of keeping my eyes too sharply fixed
upon the legs of the tables. He declared that when I
was present, an adverse influence seemed to pervade
the room, due, apparently, to my painful lack of spirit-
ual sympathies. But the professor condoned my fail-
ure in the regular psychical line, in consideration of
my brilliant success as a beholder of wraiths and
visions. After I took my degree that summer, he
used all his influence to procure me the post of keeper
of the Accadian Antiquities at the Museum, for which
my previous studies had excellently fitted me : and by
his friendly ai>l I was enabled to obtain the post,
though I regret to say that, in spite of his credulity in
supernatural matters, he still refuses to believe in
the correctness of my conjectural interpretation of
the celebrated Amalekite cylinders imported by
Mr. Ananias, which I have deciphered in so very
simple and satisfactory a manner. As everybody
knows, my translation may be regarded as perfectly
certain, if only one makes the very modest assumption
THE MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE IN PICCADILLY. 265
that the cylinders were orginally engraved upside
down by an Aztec captive, who had learned broken
Accadian, with a bad accent, from a Chinese exile, and
who occasionally employed Egyptian hieroglyphics in
incorrect senses, to piece out his own very imperfect
idiom and doubtful spelling of the early Babylonian
language. The solitary real doubt in the matter is
whether certain extraordinary marks in the upper left-
hand corner of the cylinder arc to be interpreted as
accidental scratches, or as a picture representing the
triumph of a king over seven bound prisoners, or,
finally, as an Accadian sentence in cuneiforms which
may be translated either as ** To the memory of Om
the Great," or else as " Pithor the High Priest dedi-
cates a fat goose to the family dinner on the 25th of
the month of midwinter." Every candid and unprej-
udiced mind must admit that these small discrepancies
or alternatives in the opinions of experts can cast no
doubt at all upon the general soundness of the method
employed. But persons like the Professor, while
ready to accept any evidence at all where their own
prepossessions are concerned, can never be induced to
believe such plain and unvarnished statements of
simple scientific knowledge.
However, the end of it all was that before I had
been a month at the Museum, I had obtained the Pro-
fessor's consent to my marrage with Nora ; and as I
had had Nora's own consent long before, we were
duly joined together in holy matrimony early in
October at Oxford, and came at once to live in Hamp-
stead. So, as it turned out, I finally owed the sweet-
est and best little wife in all Christendom to the mys-
terious occurrence in Piccadilly.
CARVALHO.
I.
The first time I ever met Ernest Carvalho was just
before the regimental dance at Newcastle. I had rid-
den up the Port Royal mountains that same morning
from our decaying sugar estate in the Liguanea plain,
and I was to stop in cantonments with the Major's
wife, fat little Mrs. Venn, who had promised my
mother that she would undertake to Chaperon me to
this my earliest military party. I won't deny that I
looked forward to it immensely, for I was then a girl
of only eighteen, fresh out from school in England,
where I had been living away from our family ever
since 1 was twelve years old. Dear mamma was a
Jamaican lady of the old school, completely overpow-
ered by the ingrained West Indian indolence ; and if I
had waited to go to a dance till I could get her to ac-
company me, I might have waited till Doomsday, or
probably later. So I was glad enough to accept fat
little Mrs. Venn's proffered protection, and to go up
the hills on my sure-footed mountain pony, while
Isaac, the black stable-boy, ran up behind me carrying
on his thick head the small portmanteau that con-
tained my plain white ball-dress.
[266]
CARVALHO. 267
As I went up the steep mountain-path alone — for
ladies ride only with such an unmounted domestic es-
cort in Jamaica — I happened to overtake a tall gentle-
man with a handsome rather Jewish face and a pair of
extremely lustrous black eyes, who was mounted on a
beautiful chestnut mare just in front of me. The
horse-paths in the Port Royal mountains are very nar-
row, being mere zigzag ledges cut halfway up the pre-
cipitous green slopes of fern and club-moss, so that
there is seldom room for two horses to pass abreast,
and it is necessary to wait at some convenient corner
whenever you see another rider coming in the op-
posite direction. At the first opportunity the tall
Jewish-looking gentleman drew aside in such a corner,
and waited for me to pass. " Pray don't wait," I said,
as soon as I saw what he meant ; "your horse will get
up faster than my pony, and if I go in front I shall
keep you back unnecessarily."
" Not at all," he answered, raising his hat grace-
fully ; ** you are a stranger in the hills, I see. It is the
rule of these mountain-paths always to give a lady the
lead. If I go first and my mare breaks into a canter
on a bit of level, your pony will try to catch her up
on the steep slopes, and that is always dangerous."
Seeing he did not intend to move till I did, I
waived the point at last and took the lead. From that
moment I don't know what on earth came over my lazy
old pony. He refused to go at more than a walk, or
at best a jog-trot, the whole way to Newcastle. Now
the rise from the plain to the cantonments is about
four thousand feet, I think (I am a dreadfully bad
hand at remembering figures), and the distance can't
be much less, I suppose, than seven miles. During
268 STRANGE STORIES.
all that time you never see a soul, except a few negro
pickaninnies playing in the dustheaps, not a human
habitation, except a few huts embowered in mangoes,
hibiscus-bushes, and tree-ferns. At first we kept a
decorous silence, not having been introduced to one
another ; but the stranger's mare followed close at my
pony's heels, pull her in as he would, and it seemed
really too ridiculous to be solemnly pacing after one
another, single file, in this way for a couple of hours,
without speaking a word, out of pure punctiliousness.
So at last we broke the ice, and long before we got to
Newcastle we had struck up quite an acquaintance
with one another. It is wonderful how well two
people can get mutually known in the course of two
hours' tcte-a-tdtc, especially under such peculiar circum-
stances. You are just near enough to one another
for friendly chat, and yet not too near for casual stran-
gers. And then Isaac with the portmanteau behind
was quite sufficient escort to satisfy the convenances.
In England, one's groom would have to be mounted,
which always seems to me, in my simplicity, a distinc-
tion without a difference.
Mr. Carvalho was on his way up to Newcastle on
the same errand as myself, to go to the dance. He
might have been twenty, I suppose ; and, to a girl of
eighteen, boys of twenty seem quite men already. He
was a clerk in a Government Office at Kingston, and
was going to stop with a sub at Newcastle for a week
or two, on leave. I did not know much about men in
those days, but I needed little knowledge of the sub-
ject to tell me that Ernest Carvalho was decidedly
clever. As soon as the first chill wore off our conver-
sation, he kept me amused the whole way by his bright
CARVALHO. 269
sketchy talk about the petty dignitaries of a colonial
capital. There was his Excellency for the time being,
and there was the Right Reverend of that day, and
there was the Honorable Colonial Secretary, and
there was the Honorable Director of Roads, and
tbere were a number of other assorted Honorables,
whose queer little peculiaries he hit off dexterously in
the quaintest manner. Not that there was any
unkindly satire in his brilliant conversation ; on the
contrary, he evidently liked most of the men he talked
about, and seemed only ti read and realize their
characters so thoroughly that they spoke for them-
selves in his dramatic anecdotes. He appeared to me
a more genial copy of Thackeray in a colonial society,
with all the sting gone, and only the skillful delinea-
tion of men and women left. I had never met any-
body before, and I have never met anybody since,
who struck me so instantaneously with the idea of
innate genius as Ernest Carvalho.
" You have been in England, of course," I said, as
we were nearing Newcastle.
** No, never," he answered ; ** I am a Jamaican born
and bred ; I have never been out of the island."
I was surprised, for he seemed so different from any
of the young planters I had met at our house, most of
whom had never opened a book, apparently, in the
course of their lives, while Mr. Carvalho's talk was
full of indefinite literary flavor. " Where were you
educated, then?" I asked.
" I never was educated anywhere," he answered,
laughing. " I went to a small school at Port Antonio
during my father's life, but for the most part I have
picked up whatever I know (and that's not much)
2/0 STRANGE STORIES.
wholly by myself. Of course, French, like reading and
writing, comes by nature, and I got enough Spanish to
dip into Cervantes from the Cuban refugees. Latin
one has to grind up out of books, naturally ; and as
for Greek, I'm sorry to say I know very little, though,
of course, I can spell out Homer a bit, and even
^schylus. But my hobby is natural science, and
there a fellow has to make his own way here, for
hardly anything has been done at the beasts and the
flowers in the West Indies yet. But if I live, I mean
to work them up in time, and I've made a fair begin-
ning already."
This reasonable list of accomplishments, given
modestly, not boastfully, by a young man of twenty,
wholly self-taught, fairly took my breath away. I was
inspired at once with a secret admiration for Mr.
Carvalho. He was so handsome and so clever that I
think I was half inclined to fall in love with him at
first sight. To say the truth, I believe almost all love
is love at first sight ; and for my own part, I wouldn't
give you a thank-you for any other kind.
" Here we must part," he said, as we reached a fork
in the narrow path just outside the steep hog's back
on which Newcastle stands," unless you will allow me
to see you safely as far as Mrs. Venn's. The path to
the right leads to the Major's quarters ; this on the
left takes me to my friend Cameron's hut. Mi^y I see
you to the Major's door ?"
** No, thank you," I answered decidedly ; " Isaac is
escort enough. We shall meet again this evening."
" Perhaps, then," he suggested, ** I may have the
pleasure of a dance with you. Of course it's quite
irregular of me to ask you now, but we shall be for-
CARVALHO. 271
mally introduced, no doubt, to-night, and I'm afraid
if you lunch at the Venns' your card will be filled up
by the 99th men before I can edge myself in anywhere
for a dance. Will you allow me?"
" Certainly," I said ; " what shall it be ? The first
waltz ?"
'• You are very kind," he answered, taking out a
pencil. ** You know my name — Carvalho ; what may
I put down for yours ? I haven't heard it yet."
'* Miss Hazleden," I replied, " of Palmettos."
Mr. Carvalho gave a little start of surprise. " Miss
Hazleden of Palmettos," he said, half to himself, with
a rather pained expression. *' Miss Hazleden ! Then
perhaps, I'd better — well, why not? why not, indeed?
Palmettos — Yes, I will." Turning to me, he said,
louder, " Thank you ; till this evening, then ;" and,
raising his hat, he hurried sharply round the corner of
the hill.
What was there in my name, I wondered, which
made him so evidently hesitate and falter ?
Fat little Mrs. Venn was very kind, and not a very
strict chaperon^ but I judged it best not to mention to
her this romantic episode of the handsome stranger.
However, during the course of lunch, I ventured
casually to ask her husband whether he knew of any
family in Jamaica of the name of Carvalho.
" Carvalho," answered the Major, " bless my soul,
yes. Old settled family in the island; Jews; live
down Savannah-la-Mar way ; been here ever since the
Spanish time ; doocid clever fellows, too, and rich,
most of them."
"Jews," I thought; " ah, yes, Mr. Carvalho had a
very handsome Jewish type of face and dark eyes; but
272 STRANGE STORIES.
why, yes, surely I heard him speak several times of
having been to church, r»nd once of the cathedral at
Spanish Town. This was curious/'
" Are any of them Christians?" I asked again.
"Not a man," answered the Major; "not a man,
my dear. Good old Jewish family; Jews in Jamaica
never turn Christians; nothing to gain by it."
The dance took place in the big messroom, looking
out on the fan-palms and tree-ferns of the regimental
garden. It was a lovely tropical night, moonlight, of
course, for all Jamaican entertainments are given at
full moon, so as to let the people who ride from a dis-
tance get to and fro safely over the breakneck moun-
tain horse-paths. The windows, which open down to
the ground, were flung wide for the sake of ventilation ;
and thus the terrace and garden were made into a sort
of vestibule where partners might promenade and cool
themselves among the tropical flowers after the heat
of dancing. And yet, I don't know how it is, though the
climate is so hot in Jamaica, I never danced anywhere
so much or felt the heat so little oppressive.
Before the first waltz, Mr. Carvalho came up, accom
panied by my old friend. Dr. Wade, and was properly
introduced to me. By that time my card was pretty
full, for of course, I was a belle in those days, and be-
ing just fresh out from England, was rather run after.
But I will confess that I had taken the liberty of filling
in three later waltzes (unasked) with Mr. Carvalho's
name, for I knew by his very look that he could waltz
divinely, and I do love a good partner. He did waltz
divinely, but at the end of the dance I was really afraid
he didn't mean to ask me again. When he did, a
little hesitatingly, I said I had still three vacancies,
CARVALIIO. 273
and found he had not yet asked anybody else. I en-
joyed those four dances more than any others that
evening, the more so, perhaps, as I saw my cousin,
Harry Verner of Agualta, was dying with jealousy
because I danced so much with Mr. Carvalho.
I must just say a word or two about Harry Verner.
He was a planter piir sang, and Agualta was one of
the few really flourishing sugar estates then left on the
island. Harry was, therefore, naturally regarded as
rather a catch ; but, for my part, I could never care
for any man who has only three subjects of conversa-
tion — himself, vacuum-pan sugar, and the wickedness
of the French bounty system, which keeps the poor
planter out of his own. So I danced away with Mr.
Carvalho, partly because I liked him just a little, you
know, but partly, also, I will frankly admit, because I
saw it annoyed Harry Verner.
At the end of our fourth dance, I was strolling with
Mr. Carvalho among the great bushy poinsettias and
plumbagos on the terrace, under the beautiful soft
green light of that tropical moon, when Harry Verner
came from one of the windows directly upon us. " I
suppose you've forgotten, Edith," he said, ** that
you're engaged to me for the next lancers. Mr. Car-
valho, I know you are to dance with Miss Wade ;
hadn't you better go and look for your partner ?"
He spoke pointedly, almost rudely, and Mr. Car-
valho took the hint at once. As soon he was gone,
Harry turned round to me fiercely and said in a low,
angry voice, ** You shall not dance this lancers, you
shall sit it out with me here in the garden ; come over
to the seat in the far corner."
He led me resistlessly to the seat, away from the
274 STRANGE STORIES.
noise of the regimental band and the dancers, and then
sat himself down at the far end from me, like a great
surly bear that he was.
"A pretty fool you've been making of yourself to-
night, Edith," he said in a tone of suppressed anger,
" with that fellow Carvalho. Do you know who he is,
miss ? Do you know who he is ?"
" No," I answered faintly, fearing he was going to
assure me that my clever new acquaintance was a
notorious swindler or a runaway ticket-of-leave man.
"Well, then, I'll tell you," he cried, angrily. "I'll
tell you. He's a colored man, miss ! that's what he
is."
" A colored man ?" I exclaimed in surprise ; "why,
he's as white as you and I are, every bit as white,
Harry."
" So he may be, to look at," answered my cousin ;
** but a brown man's a brown man, all the same, how-
ever much white blood he may have in him ; you can
never breed the nigger out. Confound his impudence,
asking you to dance four times with him in a single
evening ! You, too, of all girls in the island ! Con-
found his impudence ! Why, his mother was a slave
girl once on Palmettos estate !"
"Oh, Harry, you don't mean to say so," I cried, for
I was West Indian enough in my feelings to have a
certain innate horror of colored blood, and I was really
shocked to think I had been so imprudent as to dance
four times with a brown man.
" Yes, I do mean it, miss," he answered ; " an octa-
roon slave girl, and Carvalho's her son by old Jacob
Carvalho, a Jew merchant at the back of the island,
who was fool enough to go and actually marry her.
CARVALHO. 275
So now you see what a pretty mess you've gone and
been made of it. We shall have it all over Kingston
to-morrow, I suppose, that Miss Hazelden, a Hazelden
and a Verner, has been flirting violently with a bit of
colored scum off her own grandfather's estate at Pal-
mettos. A nice thing for the family, indeed !"
" But, Harry," I said, pleading, " he's such a perfect
gentleman in his manners and conversation, so very
much superior to a great many Jamaican young men."
" Hang it all, miss," said Harry — he used a stronger
expression, for he was not particular about swearing
before ladies, but I won't transcribe all his oaths —
** hang it all, that's the way of you girls who have been
to England. If I had fifty daughters I'd never send
one of *em home, not I. You go over there, and you
get enlightened, as you call it, and you learn a lot of
radical fal-lal about equality and a-man-and-a-brother,
and all that humbug ; and then you come back and
despise your own people, who are gentlemen and the
sons of gentlemen for fifty generations, from the good
old slavery days onward. I wish we had them here
again, I do, and I'd tic up that fellow Carvalho to a
horse-post and flog him with a cow-hide within an inch
of his life."
I was too much accustomed to Harry's manners to
make any protest against this vigorous suggestion of
reprisals. I took his arm quietly. " Let us go back
into the ballroom, Harry," I said as persuasively as I
was able, for I loathed the man in my heart, " and for
heaven's sake don't make a scene about it. If there
is anything on earth I detest, it's scenes."
Next morning I felt rather feverish, and dear fat
little Mrs. Venn was quite frightened about mo. ** If
2/6 STRANGE STORIES.
you go down again to Liguanea with this fever on
■you, my dear," 'le said, " you'll get yellow Jack as
soon as you arc home again. Better write and ask
your mamma to let you stop a fortnight with us
here."
I consented, readily enough, for, of course, no girl of
eighteen ever in her heart objects to military society,
and the 99th were really very pleasant and well-inten-
tioned young fellows. But I made up my mind that if I
stayed I would take particular care to see no more of
Mr. Carvalho. He was very clever, very fascinating,
very nice, but then — he was a brown man ! That was
a bar that no West Indian girl could ever be ex-
pected to get over.
As ill-luck would have it, however — I write as I
then felt — about three days after, Mr. Venn said to
me, "I've invited Mr. Cameron, one of our sub-lieu-
tenants, to dine this evening, and I've had to invite his
guest, young Carvalho, as well. By the way, Edie, if
I were you, I wouldn't talk quite so much as you did
the other evening to Mr. Carvalho. You know, dear,
though he doesn't look it, he's a brown man."
" I didn't know it," I answered, " till the end of the
evening, and then Harry Verncr told me. I wouldn't
have danced with him more than once if I'd known
It.
" Wonderful how that young fellow has managed to
edge himself into society," said the major, looking up
from his book ; " devilish odd. Son of old Jacob
Carvalho ; Jacob left him all his coin, not very much ;
picked up his ABC somewhere or other ; got into
Government service ; asked to Governor's dances ;
goes everywhere now. Can't understand it."
CARVALHO. 277
"Well, my dear," says Mrs. Venn, "why do we ask
him ourselves ''"
" Because we can't help it," says the major, testily.
" Cameron goes and picks him up ; ought to be in the
Engineers, Cameron ; too doocid clever for the line
and for this regiment. Always picks up some astron-
omer fellow, or some botanist fellow, or some fellow
who understands fortification or something. Com-
petitive examination's ruin of the service. Get all
sorts of people into the regiment now. Believe Cam-
eron himself lives upon his pay almost, hanged if I
don't."
That evening, Mr. Carvalho came, and I liked him
better than ever. Mr. Cameron, who was a brother
botanist and a nice ingenuous young Highlander, made
him bring his portfolio of Jamaica ferns and flowers,
the loveliest things I ever saw — dried specimens and
water-color sketches to accompany them of the plants
themselves as they grew naturally. He told us all
about them so enthusiastically, and of how he used to
employ almost all his holidays in the mountains hunt-
ing for specimens. " I'm afraid the fellows at the
office think me a dreadful muff for it," he said, "but I
can't help it, it's born in me. My mother is a descend-
ant of Sir Hans Sloane's, who lived here for several
years — the founder of the British Museum, you know
— and all her family have always had a taste for bush,
as the negroes call it. You know, a good many
mulatto people have the blood of able English
families in their veins, and that accounts, I believe, for
their usual high average of general intelligence."
I was surprised to hear him speak so unaffectedly of
bis ancestry on the wrong side of the house, for most
I
278 STRANGE STORIES.
light colored people studiously avoid any reference to
their social disabilities. I liked him all the bettor,
however, for the perfect frankness with which he said
it. If only he hadn't been a brown man, now! But
there, you can't get over those fundamental race preju-
dices.
Next morning, as the Major and I were out riding,
we came again across Mr. Cameron and Mr. Carvalho.
Faie really seemed determined to throw us together.
We were goihg to the Fern Walk to gather gold and
silver ferns, and Mr. Carvalho was bound in the same
direction, to look for some rare hill-top flowers. At
the Walk we dismounted, and, while the two officers
went hunting about among the bush, Mr. Carvalho and
I sat for a while upon a big rock in the shade of a
mountain palm. The conversation happened to come
round to somewhat the same turn as it had taken the
last evening.
" Yes," said Mr. Carvalho, in answer to a question of
mine, " I do think that mulattos and quadroons are
generally cleverer than the average run of white peo-
ple. You see, mixture of race evidently tends to in-
crease the total amount of brain power. There are
peculiar gains of brain on the one side, and other
peculiar gains, however small, on the other ; and the
mixture, I fancy, tends to preserve or increase both.
That is why the descendants of Huguenots in England,
and the descendants of Italians in France, show gen-
erally such great ability."
" Then you yourself ought to be an example," I
said, " for your name seems to be Spanish or Portu-
guese."
" Spanish and Jewish," he answered, laughing,
CARVALHO. 279
" though I didn't mean to give a side-puff to myself.
Yes, I am of very mixed race indeed. On my father's
side I am Jewish, though of course the Jews acknowl-
edge nobody who isn't a pure-blooded descendant of
Abraham in both lines ; and for that reason I have
been brought up a Christian. On my mother's side I
am partly negro, partly English, partly Haitian-French,
and, through the Sloanes, partly Dutch as well. So
you see I am a very fair mixture."
" And that accounts," I said, " for your being so
clever."
He blushed and bowed a little demure bow, but said
nothing.
It's no use fighting against fate, and during all that
fortnight I did nothing but run up against Mr. Car-
valho. Wherever I went, he was sure to be ; wherever
I was invited, he was invited to meet me. The fact is,
I had somehow acquired the reputation of being a
clever girl, arid, as Mr. Cameron was by common con-
sent the clever man of his regiment, it was considered
proper that he (and by inference his guest) should be
always asked to entertain me. The more I saw of Mr.
Carvalho the better I liked him. He was so clever,
and yet so simple and unassuming, that one couldn't
help admiring and sympathizing with him. Indeed, if
he hadn't been a brown man, I almost think I should
have fallen in love with him outright.
At the end of a fortnight I went back to Palmettos.
A few days after, who should come to call but old
General Farquhar, and with him, of all men in the
world, Mr. Carvalho! Mamma was furious. She
managed to be frigidly polite as long as they stopped,
but when they were gone she went off at once into one
280 STRANGE STORIES.
of her worst nervous crisises (that's not the regular
plural, I'm sure, but no matter). " I knew his mother
when she was a slave of your grandfather's," she said ;
" an upstanding proud octaroon girl, who thought her-
self too good for her place because she was nearly a
white woman. She left the estate immediately after
that horrid emancipation, to keep a school of brown
girls in Kingston. And then she had the insolence to go
and get actually married at church to old Jacob Car-
valho ! Just like those brown people. Their grand-
mothers never married." For poor mamma always
made it a subject of reproach against the respectable
colored folk that they tried to live more decently and
properly than their ancestors used to do in slavery
times.
Mr. Carvalho never came to Palmettos again, but
whenever I went to Kingston to dances I met him,
and in spite of mamma I talked to him too. One day
I went over to a ball at Government House, and there
I saw both him and Harry Verner. For the first time
in my life I had two proposals made me, and on the
same night. Harry Verner's came first.
" Edie," he said to me, between the dances, as we
were strolling out in the gardens. West Indian fashion,
" I often think Agualta is rather lonely. It wants a
lady to look after the house, while I'm down looking
after the cane pieces. We made the best return in
sugar of any estate on the island, last year, you know;
but a man can't subsist entirely on sugar. He wants
sympathy and intellectual companionship." (This
was quite an effort for Harry.) " Now, I've not been
in a hurry to get married. I've waited till I could find
some one whom I could thoroughly respect and admire
- CARVALHO. 281
as well as love. I've looked at all the girls in Jamaica
before making my choice, and I've determined not to
be guided by monetary considerations or any other
considerations except those of the affections and of
real underlying goodness and intellect. I feel that
you are the one girl I have met who is far and away
my superior in everything worth living for, Edie ; and
I'm going to ask you whether you will make me proud
and happy for ever by becoming the mistress of Agu-
alta?"
I felt that Harry was really conceding so very much
to me, and honoring me so greatly by offering me a
life partnership in that flourishing sugar estate, that it
really went to my heart to have to refuse him. But I
told him plainly I could not marry him because I did
not love him. Harry seemed quite surprised at my
refusal, but answered politely that perhaps I might
learn to love him hereafter, that he would not be so
foolish as to press me further now, and that he would
do his best to deserve my love in future. And with
that little speech he led me back to the ballroom, and
handed me over to my next partner.
Later on in the evening, Mr. Carvalho too, with an
earnest look in his handsome dark eyes, asked leave to
take me for a few turns in the garden. We sat down
on a bench under the great mango tree, and he began
to talk to me in a graver fashion than usual.
" Your mother was annoyed, I fear. Miss Hazleden,"
he said, " that I should call at Palmettos."
" To tell you the truth," I answered, " I think she
' was."
"I was afraid she would be — I knew she would be,
in fact ; and for that very reason I hesitated to do it,
282 ' STRANGE STORIES.
as I hesitated to dance with you the first time I met
you, as soon as I knew who you really were. But I
felt I ought to face it out. You know by this time,
no doubt, Miss Hazelden, that my mother was once a
slave on your grandfather's estate. Now, it is a theory
of mine — a little Quixotic, perhaps, but still a theory
of mine — that the guilt and the shame of slavery lay
with the slave-owners (forgive me if I must needs
speak against your own class), and not with the slaves
or their descendants. We have nothing on earth to
be ashamed of. Thinking thus, I felt it incumbent
upon me to call at Palmettos, partly in defense of my
general principles, and partly also because I wished
to see whether you shared your mother's ideas on
that subject."
" You were quite right in what you did, Mr. Car-
valho," I answered ; " and I respect you for the bold-
ness with which you cling to what you think your
duty."
" Thank you. Miss Hazleden," he answered, " you
are very kind. Now, I wish to speak to you about
another and more serious question. Forgive my talk-
ing about myself for a moment ; I feel sure you have
kindly interested yourself in me a little. I, too, am
proud of my birth, in my way, for I am the son of an
honest, able man, and of a tender, true woman. I come
on one side from the oldest and greatest among civil-
ized races, the Jews ; and on the other side from many
energetic English, French, and Dutch families, whose
blood I am vain enough to prize as a precious inherit-
ance, even though it came to me through the veins of
an octaroon girl, I have lately arrived at the conclu-
sion that it is not well for me to remain in Jamaica. I
CARVALHO. 283
cannot bear to live in a society which will not receive
my dear mother on the same terms as it receives me,
and will not receive either of us on the same terms as
it receives other people. We are not rich, but we are
well enough off to go to live in England ; and to Eng-
land I mean soon to go."
" I am glad and sorry to hear it," I said. " Glad,
because I am sure it is the best thing for your own
happiness, and the best opening for your great talents ;
sorry, because there are not many people in Jamaica
whose society I shall miss so much."
** What you say encourages me to venture a little
further. When I get to England, I intend to go to
Cambridge and take a degree there, so as to put my-
self on an equality with other educated people. Now,
Miss Hazleden, I am going to ask you something
which is so great a thing to ask that it makes my heart
tremble to ask it. I know no man on earth, least of
all myself, dare think himself fit for you, or dare plead
his own cause before you, without feeling his own
unworthiness and pettiness of soul beside you. Yet
just because I know how infinitely better and nobler
and higher you are than I am, I cannot resist trying,
just once, whether I may not hope that perhaps you
will consider my appeal, and count my earnestness to
me for righteousness. I have watched you, and
listened to you, and admired you, till in spite of my-
self I have not been able to refrain from loving you. I
know it is madness ; I know it is yearning after the
unattainable; but I cannot help it. Oh, don't answer
me too soon and crush me, but consider whether per-
haps in the future you might not somehow at some
time think it possible."
284 STRANGE STORIES.
He leaned forward towards me in a supplicating atti-
tude. At that moment I loved him with all the force
of my nature. Yet I dared not say so. The spectre
of the race prejudice rose instinctively like a dividing
wall between my heart and my lips. ** Mr. Carvalho,"
I said, " take me back to my scat. You must not talk
so, please."
** One minute, Miss Hazlcden," he went on passion-
ately ; " one minute, and then I will be silent forever.
Remember, we might live in England, far away from
all these unmeaning barriers. I do not ask you to
take me now, and as I am ; I will do all I can to make
myself more worthy of you. Only let me hope ; don't
answer me no without considering it. I know how
little I deserve such happiness; but if you will take
me, I will live all my life for no other purpose than to
make you see that I am striving to show myself grate-
ful for your love. Oh, Miss Hazleden, do listen to
me."
I felt that in another moment I should yield ; I could
have seized his outstretched hands then, and told him
that I loved him, but I dared not.
"Mr. Carvalho," I said, ** let us go back now, I will
write to you to-morrow."
He gave me his arm with a deep breath, and we
went back slowly to the music.
** Edith," said my mother sharply, when I got home
that night, " Harry has been here, and I know two
things. He has proposed to you and you have re-
fused him, I'm certain of that ; and the other thing is,
that young Carvalho has been insolent enough to make
you an offer." ' '
I said nothing.
CARVALHO. 285
" What did you answer him ?"
" That I would reply by letter."
" Sit down, tlien, and write as I tell you."
I sat down mechanically. Mamma began dictating.
I cried as I wrote, but I wrote it. I know now how
very shameful and wrong it was of me ; but I was only
eighteen, and I was accustomed to do as mamma told
me in everything. She had a terrible will, you know,
and a terrible temper.
*' * Dear Mr. Carvalho * (you'd better begin so, or
he'll know I dictated it), — ' I was too much surprised at
your strange conduct last night to give you an answer
immediately. On thinking it over, I can only say I
am astonished you should have supposed such a thing
as you suggested lay within the bounds of possibility.
In future, it will be well that we should avoid one an-
other. Our spheres are different. Pray do not repeat
your mistake of last evening. — Yours truly, E. Hazle-
den.' Have you put all that down ?'*
" Mamma," I cried, "it is abominable. It isn't true.
I can't sign it."
'* Sign it," said my mother briefly.
I took the pen and did so.
" You will break my heart, mamma," I said. " You
will break my heart and kill me."
" It shall go first thing to-morrow," said my mother,
taking no notice of my words. " And now, Edith, you
shall marry Harry Verner."
286 STRANGE STORIES.
II.
Seven years are a large slice out of one's life, and
the seven years spent in fighting poor dear mamma
over that fixed project were not happy ones. But on
that point nothing on earth would bend me. I would
not marry Harry Verner. At last, after poor mam-
ma's sudden death, I thought it best to sell the rem-
nant of the estate for what it would fetch, and go back
to England. I was twenty-five then, and had slowly
learnt to have a will of my own meanwhile. But dur-
ing all that time I hardly ever heard again of Ernest
Carvalho. Once or twice, indeed, I was told he had
taken a distinguished place at Cambridge, and had
gone to the bar in the Temple ; but that was all.
A month or two after my return to London my
aunt Emily (who was not one of the West Indian side
of the house) managed to get me an invitation to Mrs.
Bouverie Barton's. Of course you know Mrs. Bou-
verie Barton, the famous novelist, whose books every-
body talks about. Well, Mrs. Barton lives in Eaton
Place, and gives charming Thursday evening recep-
tions, which are the recognized rendezvous of all liter-
ary and artistic London. If there is a celebrity in
town, from Paris or Vienna, Timbuctoo or the South
Sea Islands, you are sure to meet him in the little
back drawing-room at Eaton Place. The music there
is always of the best, and the conversation of the clev-
erest. But what pleased me most on that occasion
was the fact that Mr. Gerard Llewellyn, the author of
that singular book " Peter Martindale," was to be the
CARVALHO. 287
lion of the party on this particular Thursday. I had
just been reading " Peter Martindale " — who had not,
that season ? for it was the rage of the day — and I had
never read any novel before which so impressed me by
its weird power, its philosophical insight, and its trans-
parent depth of moral earnestness. So I was naturally
very much pleased at the prospect of seeing and meet-
ing so famous a man as Mr. Gerard Llewellyn.
When we entered Mrs. Bouverie Barton's handsome
rooms, we saw a great crowd of people whom even the
most unobservant stranger would instantly have recog-
nized as out of the common run. There was the
hostess herself, with her kindly smile and her friendly
good-humored manner, hardly, if at all, concealing
the profound intellectual strength that lay latent in
her calm gray eyes. There were artistic artists and
rugged artists ; satirical novelists and gay novelists ;
heavy professors and deep professors — every possible
representative of " literature, science, and art." At
first, I was put off with introductions to young poet-
asters, and gentlemen with an interest in cuneiform in-
scriptions ; but I had quite made up my mind to get a
talk with Mr. Gerard Llewellyn ; and to Mr. Gerard
Llewellyn our hostess at last promised to introduce
me. She crossed the room in search of him near the
big fireplace.
A tall, handsome young man, with long mustache
and beard, and piercing black eyes, stood somewhat
listlessly leaning against the mantelshelf, and talking
with an even, brilliant flow to a short, stout, Indian-
looking gentleman at his side. I knew in a moment
that the short stout gentleman must be Mr. Llewellyn,
for in all the tall young man, in spite of seven years
288 STRANGE STORIES.
and the long mustaches, I recognized at once Ernest
Carvalho.
But to my surprise Mrs. Bouverie Barton brought
the tall young man, and not his neighbor, across the
room with her. She must have made a mistake, I
thought. " Mr. Carvalho," she said, •* I want you to
come and be introduced to the lady on the ottoman.
Miss Hazleden, Mr. Carvalho!"
" I have met Mr. Carvalho long ago in Jamaica," I
said warmly, ** but I am very glad indeed to meet him
here again. However, I hardly expected to see him
here this evening."
*' Indeed," said Mrs. Barton, with some surprise in
her tone ; ' I thought you asked to be introduced to
the author of * Peter Martindale.' "
" So I did," I answered ; " but I understood his
name was Llewellyn."
"Oh!" said Ernest Carvalho, quickly, "that is only
my nom de plume. But the authorship is an open
secret now, and I suppose Mrs. Barton thought you
knew it."
" It is a happy chance, at any rate, Mr. Carvalho," I
said, " which has thrown us two again together."
He bowed gravely and with dignity. "You are very
kind to say so," he said. " It is always a pleasure to
meet old acquaintances from Jamaica."
My heart beat violently. There was a studied cold-
ness in his tone, I thought, and no wonder ; but if I
had been in love with Ernest Carvalho before, I felt a
thousand more times in love with him now as he stood
there in his evening dress, a perfect English gentleman.
He looked so kinglike with his handsome, slightly
Jewish features, his piercing black eyes, his long mus-
CARVALHO. 289
taches, and his beautiful delicate thin-lipped mouth.
There was such an air of power in his forehead, such a
speaking evidence of high culture in his general ex-
pression. And then, he had written " Peter Martin-
dale !" Why, who else could possibly have written it ?
I wondered at my own stupidity in not having guessed
the authorship at once. But, most terrible of all, I
had probably lost his love for ever. I might once
have called Ernest Carvalho my husband, and I had
utterly alienated him by a single culpable act of fool-
ish weakness.
*' You are living in London, now ?" I asked.
" Yes," he answered, " we have a little home of our
own in Kensington. I am working on the staff of the
Morning Deto?iater.'*
" Mrs. Carvalho is here this evening," said Mrs.
Bouverie Barton. " Do you know her ? I suppose you
do, of course."
Mrs. Carvalho ! As I heard the name, I was con-
scious of a deep but rapid thud, thud, thud in my ear,
and after a moment it struck me that the thud came
from the quick beating of my own heart. Then Ernest
Carvalho was married !
" No," he said in reply, seeing that I did not answer
immediately. " Miss Hazleden has never met her, I
believe ; but I shall be happy to introduce her ;" and
.he turned to a sofa where two or three ladies were
chatting together, a little in the corner.
A very queenly old lady, with snow-white hair, pret-
tily covered in part by a dainty and becoming lace
cap, held out her small white hand to me with a gra-
cious smile. " My mother," Ernest Carvalho said
quietly ; and I took the proffered hand with a warmth
290 STRANGE STORIES.
that must have really surprised the slave-born octa-
roon. The one thought that was uppermost in my
mind was just this, that after all Ernest Carvalho was
7iot married. Once more I heard the thud in my ear,
and nothing else.
As soon as I could notice anybody or anything ex-
cept myself, I began to observe that Mrs. Carvalho
was very handsome. She was rather dark, to be sure,
but less so than many Spanish or Italian ladies I had
seen ; and her look and manner were those of a Louis
Quinze marquise, with a distinct reminiscence of the
stately old Haitian-French politeness. She could never
have had any education except what she had picked up
for herself ; but no one would suspect the deficiency
now, for she was as clever as all half-castes, and had
made the best of her advantages meanwhile, such as
they were. When she talked about the literary Lon-
don in which her son lived and moved, I felt like the
colonial-bred ignoramus I really was; and when she
told me they had just been to visit Mr. Fradelli's new
picture at the studio, I was positively too ashamed to
let her see that I had never in my life heard of that
famous painter before. To think that that queenly
old lady was still a slave girl at Palmettos when my
poor dear mother was a little child ! And to think, too,
that my own family would have kept her a slave all
her life long, if only they had had the power ! I
remembered at once with a blush what Ernest Car-
valho had said to me the last tine I saw him, about
the people with whom the guilt and shame of slavery
really rested.
I sat half in a maze, talking with Mrs. Carvalho all
the rest o. that evening. Ernest lingered near for a
CARVALHO. 291
while, as if to see what impression his mother pro-
duced upon me, but soon went off, proudly I thought,
to another part of the room, where he got into conver-
sation with the German gentleman who wore the big
blue wire-guarded spectacles. Yet I fancied he kept
looking half anxiously in our direction throughout the
evening, and I was sure I saw him catch his mother's
eye furtively now and again. As for Mrs. Carvalho,
she made a conquest of me at once, and she was evi-
dently well pleased with her conquest. When I rose
to leave, she took both my hands in hers, and said to
me warmly, " Miss Hazelden, we shall be so pleased to
see you whenever you like to come, at Merton Gar-
dens." Had Ernest ever told her of his proposal ? I
wondered.
Mrs. Bouverie Barton was very kind to me. She
kept on asking me to her Thursday evenings, and there
time after time I met Ernest Carvalho. At first, he
seldom spoke to me much, but at last, partly because
I always talked so much to his mother perhaps, he
began to thaw a little, and often came up to me in
quite a friendly way. ** We have left Jamaica and all
that behind. Miss Hazleden," he said once, " and here
in free England we may at least be friends." Oh, how
I longed to explain the whole truth to him, and how
impossible an explanation was. Besides, he had seen
so many other girls since, and very likely his boyish
fancy for me had long since passed away altogether.
You can't count much on the love-making of eighteen
and twenty.
Mrs. Carvalho asked me often to their pretty little
house in Merton Gardens, and I went ; but still Ernest
never in any way alluded to what had passed. Months
292 STRANGE STORIES.
went by, and I began to feel that I must crush that
little dream entirely out of my heart— if I could. One
afternoon I went in to Mrs. Carvalho's for a cuf of
five-o'clock tea, and had an uninterrupted tHe-h-tite
with her for half an hour. We had been exchanging
small confidences with one another for a while, and
after a pause the old lady laid her gentle hand upon
my head and stroked back my hair in such a motherly
fashion. " My dear child," she said, half-sighing, " I
do wish my Ernest would only take a fancy to a sweet
young girl like you."
** Mr. Carvalho does not seem quite a marrying
man," I answered, forcing a laugh ; " I notice he seldom
talks to ladies, but always to men, and those of the
solemnest."
" Ah, my dear, he has had a great disappointment,
a terrible disappointment," said the mother, unburden-
ing herself. " I can tell you all about it, for you are a
Jamaican born, and though you are one of the * proud
Palmettos' people you are not full of prejudices like
the rest of them, and so you will understand it. Before
we left Jamaica he was in love with a young lady
there ; he never told me her name, and that is the one
secret he has ever kept from me. Well, he talked to
her often, and he thought she was above the wicked
prejudices of race and color ; she seemed to encourage
him and to be fond of his society. At last he proposed
to her. Then she wrote him a cruel, cruel letter, a
letter that he never showed me, but he told me what
was in it ; and it drove him away from the island im-
mediately. It was a letter full of wicked reproaches
about our octaroon blood, and it broke his heart with
CARVALHO. 293
the shock of its heartlessness. He has never cared for
any woman since."
" Then does he love her still ?** I asked, breathless.
" How can he ? No ! but he says he loves the mem-
ory of what he once thought her. He has seen her
since, somewhere in London, and spoken to her ; but
he can never love her again. Yet, do you know, I feel
sure he cannot help loving her in spite of himself ; and
he often goes out at night, I am sure, to watch her
door, to see her come in and out, for the sake of the
love he once bore her. My Ernest is not the sort of
man who can love twice in a lifetime."
" Perhaps," I said, coloring, " if he were to ask her
again she might accept him. Things are so different
here in England, and he is a famous man now."
Mrs. Carvalho shook her head slowly. " Oh, no !"
she answered ; " he would never importune or trouble
her. Though she has rejected him, he is too loyal to
the love he once bore her, too careful of wounding her
feelings or even her very prejudices, ever to obtrude his
love again upon her notice. If she cannot love him of
herself and for himself, spontaneously, he would not
weary her out with oft asking. He will never marry
now; of that I am certain."
My eyes filled with tears. As they did so, I tried
to brush them away unseen behind my fan, but Mrs.
Carvalho caught my glance, and looked sharply through
me with a sudden gleam of discovery. " Why," she
said very slowly and distinctly, with a pause and a
stress upon each word, '* I believe it must have been you
yourself. Miss Hazleden." And as she spoke she held
her open hand, palm outward, stretched against me
294 , STRANGE STORIES.
with a gesture of horror, as one might shrink in alarm
from a coiled rattlesnake.
" Dear Mrs. Carvalno," I cried, clasping my hands
before her, " do hear me, I entreat you ; do let me
explain to you how it all happened."
" There is no explanation possible," she answered
sternly. "Go. You have wrecked a life that might
otherwise have been happy and famous, and then you
come to a mother with an explanation !"
" That letter was not mine," I said boldly ; for I saw
that to put the truth shortly in that truest and
briefest form was the only way of getting her to
listen to me now.
She sank back in a chair and folded her hands
faintly one above the other. " Tell me it all," she
said in a weak voice. ** I will hear you."
So I told her all. I did not try to extenuate my
own weakness in writing from my mother's dictation ;
but I let her see what I had suffered then and what I
had suffered since. When I had finished, she drew me
towards her gently, and printed one kiss upon my
forehead. " It is hard to forget," she said softly, " but
you were very young and helpless, and your mother
was a terrible woman. The iron has entered into your
own soul too. Go home, dear, and I will see about
this matter."
We fell upon one another's necks, the Palmettos
slave-girl and I, and cried together glad tears for ten
minutes. Then I wiped my red eyes dry, covered
them with a double fold of my veil, and ran home
hurriedly in the dusk to auntie's. It was such a
terrible relief to have got it all over.
That evening about eleven o'clock, auntie had gone
CARVALHO. 295
to bed, and I was sitting up by myself, musing late
over tl:e red cinders in the little back drawing-room
grate. I felt as though I couldn't sleep, and so I was
waiting up till I got sleepy. Suddenly there came a
loud knock and a ring at the bell, after which Amelia
ran in to say that a gentleman wanted to see me in
the dining-room on urgent business, and would I
please come down to speak with him immediately. I
knew at once it was Ernest.
The moment I entered the room, he never said a
word, but he took my two hands eagerly in his, and
then he kissed me fervently on the lips half a dozen
times over. " And now, Edith," he said, " we need
say no more about the past, for my mother has
explained it all to me ; we will only think about the
future."
I have no distinct recollection what o'clock it was
before Ernest left that evening ; but I know auntie
sent down word twice to say it was high time I went
to bed, and poor Amelia looked awfully tired and
very sleepy. However, it was settled then and there
that Ernest and I should be married early in October.
A few days later, after the engagement had been
announced to all our friends, dear Mrs. Bouverie
Barton paid me a congratulatory call. " You are a
very lucky girl, my dear," she said tome kindly. "We
are half envious of you ; I wish we could find another
such husband as Mr. Carvalho for my Christina. But
you have carried off the prize of the season, and you
are well worthy of him. It is a very great honor for
any girl to win and deserve the love of such a man as
Ernest Carvalho."
Will you believe it, so strangely do one's first
296
STRANGE STORIES.
impressions and early ideas about people cling to one,
that though I had often felt before how completely
the tables had been turned since we two came to
England, it had not struck me till that moment that
in the eyes of the world at large it was Ernest who
was doing an honor to me and not I who was doing an
honor to Ernest. I felt ashamed to think that Mrs.
Bouverie Barton should see instinctively the true state
of the case, while I, who loved and admired him so
greatly, should have let the shadow of that old preju-
dice stand even now between me and the lover I was
so proud to own. But when I took dear old Mrs.
Carvalho's hand in mine the day of our wedding, and
kissed her, and called her mother for the first time, I
felt that I had left the guilt and shame of slavery for
ever behind me, and that I should strive ever after to
live worthily of Ernest Carvalho's love.
( .
PAUSODYNE;
A GREAT CHEMICAL DISCOVERY.
Walking along the Strand one evening last year
towards Pall Mall, I was accosted near Charing Cross
Station by a strange-looking, middle-aged man in a
poor suit of clothes, who surprised and startled me by
asking if I could tell him from what inn the coach
usually started for York.
" Dear me !" I said, a little puzzled. " I didn't
know there was a coach to York. Indeed, I'm almost
certpin there isn't one."
The man looked puzzled and surprised in turn.
" No coach to York ?" he muttered to himself, half
inarticulately. " No coach to York ? How things
have changed ! I wonder whether nobody every goes
to York nowadays !"
" Pardon me," I said, anxious to discover what could
be his meaning ; " many people go to York every day,
but of course they go by rail."
" Ah, yes," he answered softly, " I see. Yes, of
course, they go by rail. They go by rail, no doubt.
How very stupid of me !" And he turned on his heel
as if to get away from me as quickly as possible.
I can't exactly say why, but I felt instinctively that
this curious stranger was trying to conceal from me
r297]
298 STRANGE STORIES.
his ignorance of what a railway really was. I was
quite certain from the way in which he spoke that he
had not the slightest conception what I meant, and
that he was doing his best to hide his confusion by
pretending to understand me. Here was indeed a
strange mystery. In the latter end of this nineteenth
century, in the metropolis of industrial England,
within a stone's-throw of Charing Cross terminus, I
had met an adult Englishman who apparently did not
know of the existence of railways. My curiosity was
too much piqued to let the matter rest there. I must
find out what he meant by it. I walked after him
hastily, as he tried to disappear among the crowd, and
laid my hand upon his shoulder, to his evident
chagrin.
" Excuse me," I said, drawing him aside down the
corner of Craven Street; "you did not understand
what I meant when I said people went to York by
rail?"
He looked in my face steadily, and then, instead of
replying to my remark, he said slowly. *' Your name
is Spottiswood, I believe ?"
Again I gave a start of surprise. " It is," I an-
swered ; " but I never remember to have seen you
before."
** No," he replied, dreamily : " no, we have never
met till now, no doubt ; but I knew your father, I'm
sure ; or perhaps it may have been your grand-
father."
" Not my grandfather, certainly," said I, " for he was
killed at Waterloo."
" At Waterloo ! Indeed ! How long since, pray ?"
I could not refrain from laughing outright. " Why,
PAUSODYNE. 299
of course," I answered, "in 181 5. There has been
nothing particular to kill off any large number of Eng-
lishmen at Waterloo since the year of the battle, I
suppose."
" True," he muttered, " quite true ; so I should
have fancied." But I saw again from the cloud of
doubt and bewilderment which came over his intelli-
gent face that the name of Waterloo conveyed no idea
whatsoever to his mind.
Never in my life had I felt so utterly confused and
astonished. In spite of his poor dress, I could easily
see from the clear-cut face and the refined accent of
my strange acquaintance that he was an educated gen-
tleman — a man accustomed to mix in cultivated soci-
ety. Yet he clearly knew nothing whatsoever about
railways, and was ignorant of the most salient facts in
English history. Had I suddenly come across some
Caspar Hauser, immured for years in a private prison,
and just let loose upon the world by his gaolers ? Or
was my mysterious stranger one of the Seven Sleepers
of- Ephesus, turned out unexpectedly in modern cos-
tume on thestreetsof London ? I don't suppose there
exists on earth a man more utterly free than I am
from any tinge of superstition, any lingering touch of
a love for the miraculous ; but I confess for a moment
I felt half inclined to suppose that the man before me
must have drunk the elixir of life, or must have dropped
suddenly upon earth from some distant planet.
The impulse to fathom this mystery was irresistible.
I drew my arm through his. " If you knew my
father," I said, " you will not object to come into my
chambers and take a glass of wine with me."
" Thank you," he answered, half suspiciously ;
300 STRANGE STORIES.
" thank you very much. I think you look like a man
who can be trusted, and I will go with you."
We walked along the Embankment to Adelphi Ter-
race, where I took him up to my rooms, and seated
him in my easy-chair near the window. As he sat
down, one of the trains on the Metropolitan line
whirred past the Terrace, snorting steam and whistling
shrilly, after the fashion of Metropolitan engines gen-
erally. My mysterious stranger jumped back in alarm,
and seemed to be afraid of some immediate catas-
trophe. There was absolutely no possibility of doubt-
ing it. The man had obviously never seen a locomotive
before.
" Evidently," I said, "you do not know London. I
suppose you are a colonist from some remote district,
perhaps an Australian from the interior somewhere,
just landed at the Tower?"
" No, not an Austrian " — I noted his misapprehen-
sion — " but a Londoner born and bred."
" How is it, then, that you seem never to have seen
an engine before ?"
"Can I trust you ?" he asked in a piteously plaintive,
half-terrified tone. " If I tell you all about it, will you
at least not aid in persecuting and imprisoning me ?"
I was touched by his evident grief and terror. " No,"
I answered, "you may trust me implicitly. I feel
sure there is something in your history which entitles
you to sympathy and protection."
" Well," he replied, grasping my hand warmly, " I
will tell you all my story ; but you must be prepared
for something almost too startling to be credible."
" My name is Jonathan Spottiswood," he began
calmly. v, .
■v
PAUSODYNE. ^ 301
Again I experienced a marvellouis start ; Jonathan
Spottiswood was the name of my great-great-uncle,
whose unaccountable disappearance from London just
a century since had involved our family in so much pro-
tracted litigation as to the succession to his property.
In fact, it was Jonathan Spottiswood's money which
at that moment formed the 'ou\k of my little fortune.
But I would not interrupt him, so great was my anxiety
to hear the story of his life.
"I was born in London," he went on, "in 1750. If
you can hear me say that and yet believe that possibly
I am not a madman, I will tell you the rest of my tale ;
if not, I shall go at once and for ever."
" I suspend judgment for the present," I answered.
" What you say is extraordinary, but not more ex-
traordinary perhaps than the clear anachronism of
your ignorance about locomotives in the midst of the
present century."
"So be it, the/. Well, I will tell you the facts
briefly in as few words as I can. I was always much
given to experimental philosophy, and I spent most of
my time in the little laboratory which I had built for
myself behind my father's house in the Strand. I had
a small independent fortune of my own, left me by an
uncle who had made successful ventures in the China
trade ; and as I was indisposed to follow my father's
profession of solicitor, I gave myself up almost entirely
to the pursuit of natural philosophy, following the re-
searches of the great Mr. Cavendish, our chief English
thinker in this kind, as well as of Monsieur Lavoisier,
the ingenious French chemist, and of my friend Dr.
Priestley, the Birmingham philosopher, whose new
theory of phlogiston I have been much concerned to
302 STRANGE STORIES.
consider and to promulgate. But the especial subject
to which I devoted myself was the elucidation of the
nature of fixed air. I do not know how far you your-
self may happen to have heard respecting these late
discoveries in chemical science, but I dare venture to
say that you are at least acquainted with the nature
of the body to which I refer."
** Perfectly," I answered with a smile, "though your
terminology is now a little out of date. Fixed air was,
I believe, the old-fashioned name for carbonic acid
gas."
"Ah," he cried vehemently, "that accursed word
again ! Carbonic acid has undone me, clearly. Yes,
if you will have it so, that seems to be what they call
it in this extraordinary century ; but fixed air was the
name we used to give it in our time, and fixed air is
what I must call it, of course in telling you my story.
Well, I was deeply interested in this curious question,
and also in some of the results which I obtained from
working with fixed air in combination with a substance
I had produced from the essential oil of a weed
known to us in England as lady's mantle, but which
the learned Mr. Carl Linna:us describes in his system
as Alchemilla vulgaris. .From that weed I obtained
an oil which I combined with a certain decoction of
fixed air into a remarkable compound ; and to this
compound, from its singular properties, I proposed to
give the name of Pausodyne. For some years I was
almost wholly engaged in investigating the conduct of
this remarkable agent ; and lest I should weary you
by entering into too much detail, I may as well say at
once that it possessed the singular power of entirely
suspending animation in men or animals for several
PAUSODYNE. 303
hours together. It is a highly volatile oil, like
ammonia in smell, but much thicker in gravity ; and
when held to the nose of an animal, it causes immedi-
ate stoppage of the heart's action, makii.^ ♦^ac body
seem quite dead for long periods at a time. But the
moment a mixture of the pausodyne with oil of vitriol
and gum resin is presented to the nostrils, the animal
instantaneously revives exactly as before, showing no
sign of evil effects whatsoever from its temporary
simulation of death. To the reviving mixture I have
given the appropriate name of Anegeiric.
** Of course you will instantly see the valuable medi-
cal applications which may be made of such an agent.
I used it at first for experimenting upon the amputa-
tion of limbs and other surgical operations. It suc-
ceeded admirably. I found that a dog under the in-
fluence of pausodyne suffered his leg, which had been
broken in a street accident, to be set and spliced with-
out the slightest symptom of feeling or discomfort. A
cat shot with a pistol by a cruel boy, had the bullet
extracted without moving a muscle. My assistant,
having allowed his little finger to mortify from neglect
of a burn, permitted me to try the effect of my discov-
ery upon himself ; and I removed the injured joints
while he remained in a state of complete insensibility,
so that he could hardly believe afterwards in the
actual truth of their removal. I felt certain that I
had invented a medical process of the very highest
and greatest utility.
"All this took place in or before the year 1781.
How long ago that may be according to your modern
reckoning I cannot say ; but to me it seems hardly
more than a few months since, Perhaps you would
„ /
304 STRANGE STORIES.
not mind telling me the date of the current year. I
have never been able to ascertain it."
** This is 1 88 1," I said, growing every moment more
interested in his tale.
** Thank you. I gathered that we must now be
somewhere near the close of the nineteenth century,
though I could not learn the exact date with certainty.
Well, I should tell you, my dear sir, that I had con-
tracted an engagement about the year 1779 with a
young lady of most remarkable beauty and attractive
mental gifts, a Miss Amelia Spragg, daughter of the
well-known General Sir Thomas Spragg, with whose
achievements you are doubtless familiar. Pardon
me, my friend of another age, pardon me, I beg of
you, if I cannot allude to this subject without emotion
after a lapse of time which to you doubtless seems like
a century, but is to me a matter of some few months
only at the utmost. I feel towards her as towards one
whom I have but recently lost, though I now find that
she has been dead for more than eighty years." As
he spoke, the tears came into his eyes profusely ; and
I could see that under the external calmness and
quaintness of his eighteenth century language and de-
meanor his whole nature was profoundly stirred at the
thought of his lost love.
*' Look here," he continued, taking from his breast
a large, old-fashioned gold locket containing a minia-
ture ; " that is her portrait, by Mr. Walker, and a very
truthful likeness indeed. They left me that when they
took away my clothes at the Asylum, for I would not
consent to part with it, and the pb^-sician in attend-
ance observed that to deprive me of it might only in-
crease the frequency and violence of my paroxysms.
PAUSODYNE. 305
For I will not conceal from you the fact that I have
just escaped from a pauper lunatic establishment."
I took the miniature which he handed me, and looked
at it closely. It was the picture of a young and beau-
tiful girl, with the features and costume of a Sir Joshua.
I recognized the face at once as that of a lady whose
portrait by Gainsborough hangs on the walls of my
uncle's dining-room at Whittingham Abbey. It was
strange indeed to hear a living man speak of himself as
the former lover of this, to me, historic personage.
"Sir Thomas, however," he went on, "was much op-
posed to our union, on the ground of some real or
fancied social disparity in our positions ; but I at last
obtained his conditional consent, if only I could suc-
ceed in obtaining the Fellowship of the Royal Society,
which might, he thought, be accepted as a passport
into that fashionable circle of which he was a member.
Spurred on by this ambition, and by the encourage-
ment of my Amelia, I worked day and night at the
perfectioning of my great discovery, which I was
assured would bring not only honor and dignity to
myself, but also the alleviation and assuagement of
pain to countless thousands of my fellow-creatures. I
concealed the nature of my experiments, however, lest
any rival investigator should enter the field with me
prematurely, and share the credit to which I alone was
really entitled. For some months I was successful in
my efforts at concealment ; but in March of this year —
I mistake; of the year 1781, I should say — an unfor-
tunate circumstance caused me to take special and
exceptional precautions against intrusion.
" I was then conducting my experiments upon living
animals, and especially upon the extirpation of certain
(■■
3o6 STRANGE STORIES.
painful internal diseases to which they are subject. I
had a number of suffering cats in my laboratory, which
I had treated with pausodyne, and stretched out on
boards for the purpose of removing the tumors with
which they were afflicted. I had no doubt that in this
manner, while directly benefiting the animal creation,
I should indirectly obtain the necessary skill to operate
successfully upon human beings in similar circum-
stances. Already I had completely cured several cats
without any pain whatsoever, and I was anxious to pro-
ceed to the human subject. Walking one morning in
the Strand, I found a beggar woman outside a gin-
shop, quite drunk, with a small, ill-clad child by her
side, suffering the most excruciating torments from a
perfectly remediable cause. I induced the mother to
accompany me to my laboratory, and there I treated
the poor little creature with pausodyne, and began to
operate upon her with perfect confidence of success.
** Unhappily, my laboratory had excited the suspicion
of many ill-disposed persons among the low mob of the
neighborhood. It was whispered abroad that I was
what they called a vivisectionist ; and these people,
who would willingly have attended a bull-baiting or a
prize fight, found themselves of a sudden wondrous
humane when scientific procedure was under consider-
ation. Besides, I had made myself unpopular by re-
ceiving visits from my friend Dr. Priestley, whose
religious opinions were not satisfactory to the strict
orthodoxy of St. Giles's. I was rumored to be a phil-
osopher, a torturer of live animals, and an atheist.
Whether the former accusation were true or not, let
others decide ; the two latter, heaven be my witness,
were wholly unfounded. However, when the neigh-
'' %■
PAUSODYNE. 307
boring raoble saw a drunken worn. i with a little girl
entering my door, a report got abroad at once that I
was going to vivisect a Christian child. The mob soon
collected in force, and broke into the laboratory. At
that moment I was engaged, with my assistant, in
operating upon the girl, while several cats, all com-
pletely anaestheticized, were bound down on the boards
around, awaiting the healing of their wounds after the
removal of tumors. At the sight of such apparent tor-
tures the people grew wild with rage, and happening
in their transports to fling down a large bottle of the
anegeiric, or reviving mixture, the child and the ani-
mals all at once recovered consciousness, and began of
course to writhe and scream with acute pain. I need
not describe to you the scene that ensued. My labor-
atory was wrecked, my assistant severely injured, and
I myself barely escaped with my life.
" After this contretemps I determined to be more
cautious. I took the lease of a new house at Hamp-
stead, and in the garden I determined to build myself
a subterranean laboratory where I might be absolute-
ly free from intrusion. I hired some laborers from
Bath for this purpose, and I explained to them the
nature of my wishes, and the absolute necessity of
secrecy. A high wall surrounded the garden, and
here the workmen worked securely and unseen. I
concealed my design even from my dear brother —
whose great-grandson I suppose you must be — and
when the building was finished, I sent my men back
to Bath, with strict injunctions never to mention the
matter to any one. A trapdoor in the cellar, artfully
concealed, gave access to the passage ; a large oak
portal, bound with iron, shut me securely in ; and my
308 STRANGE STORIES.
air supply was obtained by means of pipes communi-
cating through blank spaces in the brick wall of the
garden with the outer atmosphere. Every arrange-
ment for concealment was perfect ; and I resolved in
future, till my results were perfectly established, that
I would dispense with the aid of an assistant.
" I was in high spirits when I went to visit my
Amelia that evening, and I told her confidently that
before the end of the year I expected to gain the gold
medal of the Royal Society. The dear girl was pleased
at my glowing prospects, and gave me every assur-
ance of the delight with which she hailed the proba-
bility of our approaching union.
" Next day I began my experiments afresh in my
new quarters. I bolted myself into the laboratory,
and set to work with renewed vigor. I was experi-
menting upon an injured dog, and I placed a large
bottle of pausodyne beside me as I administered the
drug to his nostrils. The rising fumes seemed to af-
fect my head more than usual in that confined space,
and I tottered a little as I worked. My arm grew
weaker, and at last fell powerless to my side. As it
fell it knocked down the large bottle of pausodyne,
and I saw the liquid spreading over the floor. That
was almost the last thing that I knew. I staggered
toward the door, but did not reach it ; and then I re^.
member nothing more for a considerable period."
He wiped his forehead with his sleeve — he had no
handkerchief — and then proceeded.
" When I woke up again the effects of the pausodyne
had worn themselves out, and I felt that I must have
remained unconscious for at least a week or a fort-
night. My candle had gone out, and I could not find
PAUSODYNE. 309
my tinderbox. I rose up slowly and with difficulty,
for the air of the room was close and filled with fumes,
and made my way in the dark towards the door. To
my surprise, the bolt was so stiff with rust that it would
hardly move. I opened it after a struggle, and found
myself in the passage. Groping my way towards the
trapdoor of the cellar, I felt it was obstructed by
some heavy body. With an immense effort, for my
strength seemed but feeble, I pushed it up, and dis-
covered that a heap of sea-coals lay on top of it. I
extricated myself into the cellar, and there a fresh sur-
prise awaited me. A new entrance had been made in-
to the front, so that I walked out at once upon the
open road, instead of up the stairs into the kitchen.
Looking up at the exterior of my house, my brain
reeled with bewilderment when I saw that it had dis-
appeared almost entirely, and that a different porch
and wholly unfamiliar windows occupied its fagade.
I must have slept far longer than I at first imagined —
perhaps a whole year or more. A vague terror pre-
vented me from walking up the steps of my own home.
Possibly my brother, thinking me dead, might have
sold the lease ; possibly some stranger might resent
my intrusion into the house that was now his own.
At any rate, I thought it safer to walk into the road.
I would go towards London, to my brother's house in
St. Mary le Bone. I turned into the Hampstead
Road, and directed my steps thitherward.
" Again, another surprise began to affect me with a
horrible and ill-defined sense of awe. Not a single
object that I saw was really familiar to me. I rec-
ognized that I was in the Hampstead Road, but it was
not the Hampstead Road which I used to know before
310 STRANGE STORIES.
my fatal experiments. The houses were far more
numerous, the trees were bigger and older. A year,
nay, even a few years would not have sufficed for such
a change. I began to fear that I had slept away a
whole decade.
" It was early morning, and few people were yet
abroad. But the costume of those whom I met
seemed strange and fantastic to me. Moreover, I
noticed that they all turned and looked after me with
evident surprise, as though my dress caused them
quite as much astonishment as theirs caused me. I
was quietly attired in my snuff-colored suit of small-
clothes, with silk stockings and simple buckle shoes,
and I had of course no hat ; but I gathered that my
appearance caused universal amazement and concern,
far more than could be justified by the mere accidental
absence of headgear. A dread began to oppress me
that I might actually have slept out my whole age
and generation. Was my Amelia alive? and if so,
would she be still the same Amelia I had known a
week or two before ? Should I find her an aged
woman, still cherishing a reminiscence of her former
love ; or might she herself perhaps be dead and for-
gotten, while I remained, alone and solitary, in a world
which knew me not ?
" I walked along unmolested, but with reeling brain,
through streets more and more unfamiliar, till I came
near the St. Mary Ic Bone Road. There, as I hesitated
a little and staggered at the crossing, a man in a curi-
ous suit of dark blue clothes, with a grotesque felt
helmet on his head, whom I afterwards found to be a
constable, came up and touched me on the shoulder.
" * Look here,' he said to me in a rough voice,
PAUSODYNE. 31 1
* what are you a-doin' in this 'ere fancy-dress at this
hour in the mornin' ? YouVe lost your way home, I
take it.*
"'I was going,* I answered, 'to the St. Mary le
Bone Road.*
*' * Why, you image,* says he rudely, ' if you mean
Marribon, why don't you say Marribon ? What house
are you a-lookin' for, eh ?*
" ' My brother lives,' I replied, * at the Lamb, near
St. Mary*s Church, and I was going to his residence.'
" * The Lamb !' says he, with a rude laugh ; * there
ain't no public of that name in the road. It*s my
belief,' he goes on after a moment, * that you're drunk,
or mad, or else you've stole them clothes. Any way,
you've got to go along with me to the station, so walk
it, will you ?*
" 'Pardon me,* I said, ' I suppose you are an officer
of the law, and I would not attempt to resist your
authority' — ' You'd better not,' says he, half to him-
self — ' but I should like to go to my brother's house,
where I could show you that I am a respectable
person.'
** * Well,' says my fellow insolently, * I'll go along of
you if you like, and if it's all right, I suppose you
won't mind standing a bob ?'
*• * A what ?' said L
" * A bob,' says he, laughing ; ' a shillin*, you know.'
" To get rid of his insolence for a while, I pulled
out my purse and handed him a shilling. It was a
George II. with milled edges, not like the things I see
you use now. He held it up and looked at it, and
then he said again, * Look here, you know, this isn't
good. You'd better conrie along with me straight tq
312 STRANGE STORIES.
the station, and not make a fuss about it. There's
three charges against you, that's all. One is, that .
you're drunk. The second is, that you're mad. And
the third is, that you've been trying to utter false coin.
Any one of 'em's quite enough to justify me in takin*
you into custody.'
"I saw it was no use to resist, and I went along with
him.
" I won't trouble you with the whole of the details,
but the upshot of it all was, they took me before a
magistrate. By this time I had begun to realize the
full terror of the situation, and I saw clearly that the
real danger lay in the inevitable suspicion of madness
under which I must labor. When I got into the court
I told the magistrate my story very shortly and simply,
just as I have told it to you now. He listened to me
without a word, and at the end he turned round to his
clerk, and said, * This is clearly a case for Dr. Fitz-
Jenkins, I think.'
" * Sir,' I said, ' before you send me to a madhouse,
which I suppose is what you mean by those words, I
trust you will at least examine the evidences of my
story. Look at my clothing, look at these coins, look
at everything about me.' And I handed him my purse
to see for himself.
" He looked at it for a minute, and then he turned
towards me very sternly. * Mr. Spottiswood,' he said,
'or whatever else your real name may be, if this is a
joke, it is a very foolish and unbecoming one. Your
dress is no doubt very well designed ; your small col-
lection of coins is interesting and well-selected ; and
you have got up your character remarkably well. If
you are really sane^ which I suspect to be the case, ; ;
PAUSODYNE. 313
then your studied attempt to waste the time of this
court and to make a laughing-stock of its magistrate,
will meet with the punishment it deserves. I shall
remit your case for consideration to our medical
officer. If you consent to give him your real name
and address, you will be liberated after his examina-
tion. Otherwise, it will be necessary to satisfy our-
selves as to your identity. Not a word more, sir,' he
continued, as I tried to speak on behalf of my story.
* Inspector, remove the prisoner.'
" They took me away, and the surgeon examined
me. To cut things short, I was pronounced mad, and
three days later the commissioners passed me for a
pauper asylum. When I came to be examined, they
said I showed no recollection of most subjects of ordi-
nary education.
" * I am a chemist,' said I ; ' try me with some chem-
ical questions. You will see that I can answer sanely
enough.*
" ' How do you mix a gray powder ?' said the com-
missioner.
" * Excuse me,* I said, * I mean a chemical philoso-
pher, not an apothecary.'
" ' Oh^ very well, then ; what is carbonic acid ?'
" * I never heard of it,' I answered in despair. * It
must be something which has come into use since —
since I left off learning chemistry.* For I had discov-
ered that my only chance now was to avoid all refer-
ence to my past life and the extraordinary calamity
which had thus unexpectedly overtaken me. ' Please
try me with something else.*
" ' Oh, certainly. What is the atomic weight of
chlorine ?*
314 STRANGE STORIES. * '
** I could only answer that I did not know.
" * This is a very clear case,' said the commissioner.
* Evidently he is a gentleman by birth and education,
but he can give no very satisfactory account of his
friends, and till they come forward to claim him we
can only send him for a time to North Street.*
" * For heaven's sake, gentlemen,' I cried, * before you
consign me to an asylum, give me one more chance. I
am perfectly sane ; I remember all I ever knew ; but
you are asking me questions about subjects on which
1 never had any information. Ask me anything his-
torical, and see whether I have forgotten or confused
any of my facts.'
*' I will do the commissioner the justice to say that
he seemed anxious not to decide upon the case without
full consideration. 'Tell me what you can recollect,'
he said, ' as to the reign of George IV.'
" * I know nothing at all about it,* I answered, terror-
stricken, * but oh, do pray ask me anything up to the
time of George III.'
*' ' Then please say what you think of the French
Revolution.'
" I was thunderstruck. I could make no reply, and
the commissioners shortly signed the papers to send
me to North Street pauper asylum. They hurried me
into the street, and I walked beside my captors towards
the prison to which they had consigned me. Yet I
did not give up all hope even so of ultimately regain-
ing my freedom. I thought the rationality of my
demeanor and the obvious soundness of all my reason-
ing powers would sufifice in time to satisfy the medical
attendant as to my perfect sanity. I felt sure that
. PAUSODYNE. 315
people could never long mistake a man so clear-headed
and collected as mvself for a madman.
" On our way, however, we happened to pass a
churchyard where some workmen were engaged in re-
moving a number of old tombstones from the crowded
area. Even in my existing agitated condition, I could
not help catching the name and date on one moulder-
ing slab which a laborer had just placed upon the edge
of the pavement. It ran something like this : Sacred
to the memory of Amelia, second daughter of the late
Sir Thomas Spragg, knight, and beloved wife of Henry
McAlister, Esq., by whom this stone is erected. Died
May 20, 1799, aged 44 years.' Though I had gathered
already that my dear girl must probably have long
been dead, yet the reality of the fact had not yet had
time to fix itself upon my mind. You must remember,
my dear sir, that I had but awaked a few days earlier
from my long slumber, and that during those days I
had been harassed and agitated by such a flood of
incomprehensible complications, that I could not really
grasp in all its fullness the complete isolation of my
present position. When I saw the tombstone of one
whom, as it seemed to me, I had loved passionately
but a week or two before, I could not refrain from
rushing to embrace it, and covering the insensible
stone with my boiling tears. * Oh, my Amelia, my
Amelia,' I cried, *I shall never again behold thee, then !
I shall never again press thee to my heart, or hear thy
dear lips pronounce my name !'
" But the unfeeling wretches who had charge of me
were far from being moved to sympathy by my bitter
grief. 'Died in 1799,* said one of them with a sneer.
' Why, this madman's blubbering over the grave of
3l6 STRANGE STORIES.
I
an old lady who has been buried for about a hundred
years !* And the workmen joined in their laughter as
my gaolers tore me away to the prison where I was to
spend the remainder of my days.
" When we arrived at the asylum, the surgeon in
attendance was informed of this circumstance, and the
opinion that I was hopelessly mad thus became
ingrained in his whole conceptions of my case. I re-
mained five months or more in the asylum, but I never
saw any chance of creating a more favorable impression
on the minds of the authorities. Mixing as I did only
with other patients, I could gain no clear ideas of what
had happened since I had taken my fatal sleep ; and
whenever I endeavored to question the keepers, they
amused themselves by giving me evidently false and
inconsistent answers, in order to enjoy my chagrin and
confusion. I could not even learn the actual date of
the present year, for one keeper would laugh and say
it was 200I, while another would confidentially advise
me to date my petition to the Commissioners, ** Jan.
I, A. D. one million." The surgeon, who never played
me any such pranks, yet refused to aid me in any way,
lest as he said, he should strengthen me in my sad
delusion. He was convinced that I must be an histor-
ical student, whose reason had broken down through
too close study of the eighteenth century ; and he felt
certain that sooner or later my friends would come to
claim me. He is a gentle and humane man, against
whom I have no personal complaint to make ; but his
initial misconception prevented him and everybody
else from ever paying the least attention to my story.
I could not even induce them to make inquiries at my
house at Hampstead, where the discovery of the sub-
PAUSODYNE. 317
terranean laboratory would have partially proved the
truth of my account.
Many visitors came to the asylum from time to time,
and they were always told that I possessed a minute
and remarkable acquaintance with the history of the
eighteenth century. They questioned me about facts
which are as vivid in my memory as those of the present
month, and were much surprised at the accuracy of
my replies. But they only thought it strange that so
clever a man should be so very mad, and that my in-
formation should be so full as to past events, while
my notions about the modern world were so utterly
chaotic. The surgeon, however, always believed that
my reticence about all events posterior to 1781 was a
part of my insanity. I had studied the early part
of the eighteenth century so fully, he said, that I
fancied I had lived in it ; and I had persuaded myself
that I knew nothing at all about the subsequent state
of the world."
The poor fellow stopped a while, and again drew
his sleeve across his forehead. It was impossible to
look at him and believe for a moment that he was a
madman.
" And how did you make your escape from the asy-
lum ?" I asked.
" Now, this very evening," he answered ; " I simply
broke away from the door and ran down toward the
Strand, till I came to a place that looked a little like
St. Martin's Fields, with a great column and some
fountains, and near there I met you. It seemed to
me that the best thing to do was to catch the York
coach and get away from the town as soon as possible.
You met me, and your look and name inspired me
3l8 STRANGE STORIES.
with confidence. I believe you must be a descendant
of my dear brother."
"I have not the slightest doubt," I answered sol-
emnly, " that every word of your story is true, and
that you are really my great-great-unclc. My own
knowledge of our family history exactly tallies with
what you tell me. I shall spare no endeavor to clear up
this extraordinary matter, and to put you once more
in your true position."
" And you will protect me ?" he cried, fervently, clasp-
ing my hand in both his own with intense eageri^ess.
" You will not give me u[ Dnce more to the asylum
people ?"
" I will do everything on earth that is possible for
you," I replied.
He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it several
times, while I felt hot tears falling upon it as he bent
over me. It was a strange position, look at it how you
will. Grant that I was but the dupe of a madman, yet
even to believe for a moment that I, a man of well-
nigh fifty, stood there in face of my own great-grand-
father's brother, to all appearance some twenty years
my junior, was in itself an extraordinary and marvellous
thing. Both of us were too overcome to speak. It
was a few minutes before we said anything, and then a
loud knock at the door made my hunted stranger rise
up hastily in terror from his chair.
" Gracious heavens !" he cried, " they have tracked
me hither. They are coming to fetch me. Oh, hide
me, hide me, anywhere from these wretches !"
As he spoke, the door opened, and two keepers with
a policeman, entered my room.
" Ah, here he is !" said one of them, advancing to-
TAUSODYNE. ' 319
wards the fugitive, who shrank away towards the win-
dow as he approached.
" Do not touch him," I exclaimed, throwing myself
in the way. " Every word of what he says is true, and
he is no more insane than I am."
The keeper laughed a low laugh of vulgar incredu-
lity. " Why, there's a pair of you, I do believe," he
said. " You're just as mad yourself as t'other one."
And he pushed me aside roughly to get at his charge.
But the poor fellow, seeing him come towards him,
seemed suddenly to grow instinct with a terrible vigor,
and hurled off the keeper with one hand, as a strong
man might do with a little terrier. Then, before we
could see what he was meditating, he jumped upon
the ledge of the open window, shouted out loudly,
" Farewell, farewell !" and leapt with a spring on to
the Embankment beneath.
All four of us rushed hastily down the three flights
of steps to the bottom, and came below upon a
crushed and mangled mass on the si)attered pavement.
He was quite dead. Even the policeman was shocked
and horrified at the dreadful way in which the body
had been crushed and mutilated in its fall, and at the
suddenness and unexpectedness of the tragedy. We
took him up and laid him out in my room ; and from
that room he was interred after the incpiest, with all
the respect which I should have paid to an undoubted
relative. On his grave in Kensal Green Cemetery 1 have
placed a stone bearing the simple inscription, " Jona-
than Spottiswood. Died 1 88 1." The hint 1 had re-
ceived from the keeper prevented me from saying any-
thing as to my belief in his story, but I asked for leave
to undertake the duty of his interment on the ground
that he bore my own surname, and that no other per-
320 STRANGE STORIES. '
son was forthcoming to assume the task. The paro-
chial authorities were glad enough to rid the ratepay-
ers of the expense.
At the inquest I gave my evidence simply and
briefly, dwelling mainly upon the accidental nature of
our meeting, and the facts as to his fatal leap. I said
nothing about the known disappearance of Jonathan
Spottiswood in 1781, nor the other points which gave
credibility to his strange tale. But from this day for-
ward I give myself up to proving the truth of his
story, and realizing the splendid chemical discovery
which promises so much benefit to mankind. Forthefirst
purpose, I have offered a large reward for the discovery
of a trapdoor in a coal-cellar at Hampstead, leading
into a subterranean passage and laboratory ; since,
unfortunately, my unhappy visitor did not happen to
mention the position of his house. For the second
purpose, I have begun a series af experiments upon
the properties of the essential oil of alchemilla, and
the possibility of successfully treating it with car-
bonic anhydride ; since, unfortunately, he was equally
vague as to the nature of his process and the pro-
portions of either constituent. Many people will con-
clude at once, no doubt, that I myself have become
infected with the monomania of my miserable name-
sake, but I am determined at any rate, not to allow
so extraordinary an anaesthic to go unacknowledged,
if there be even a remote chance of actually proving
its useful nature. Meanwhile, I say nothing even to
my dearest friends with regard to the researches upon
which I am engaged.
•, THE END.