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TWO OFFENDERS
OPINIONS OF THE PRESS
on
TWO OFFENDERS.
'The two little tragedies which compose this volume wruld not have been
unworthy of Guy de Maupassant, to whom it is dedicated. They are striking in
conception and simple in execution apd accessories. It must be acknowledged
that Ouida has never written more artistic stories than these.'—Times,
Two Offenders " is written in one of the author's most charming styles. The
book is divided into two stories, " An Ingrate" and " An Assassin "—the former a
pathetic sketch, which must win the sympathy of all readers. . . . The second story
can only be appreciated by being read.'—Vanity Pair.
'The action passes among Italian agricultural people, and runs through a
diversified and highly coloured course of strong and simple passions. The stories
are both admirably written as efforts to play upon the feelings, and the book is sure
to find many readers.'—Scotsman.
•This volume contains two stories which come under the same class of literature
as Loti's " Book of Pity and of Death." ... A modern reader, who knows Ouida
only by reputation as the schoolgirl's type of forbidden literature, might reasonably
be surprised at the perusal of these rather affecting stories.'—Glasgow Herald.
'We are among those who think that nothing that Ouida ever wrote is comparable
to her best peasant stories, and here, as usual, we are conscious of a knowledge,
sympathy, and grasp of the point of view which is in the best sense imaginative.
It would not be easv to find a figure more moving than that of Abbondino in this
story (" The Assassin Westminster Gazette.
' Ouida is at her best in the two stories in " Two Offenders." . . . The stories are
swiftly and vigorously told, and both of them will possess their readers' sympathy.'—
Bookman.
'Stories filled with the old glamour, beauty of style, and passionate protest
against injustice. . . . Ouida has seldom done better work.'—Idler.
! 'The second story," An Assassin," is one of the most powerful things Ouida has
' ever done, and worthy almost of tbe ma°ter (Maupas=ant) to whom she dedicates
I it. ... A story which has held us spell-bound to the end.'—Black and White.
' Ouida has at her service an ardent imagination, wide sympathies, and consum-
mate art. each and all of which contribute to the charm of the present tales.'—
Morning Post.
' Ouida's " Two Offenders " will rank as not the least of her achievements. Its
literary merits are beyond dispute.'—Son.
* In the matter of literary craftsmanship, these tales will compare favourably
with anything that Ouida has ever done. . . . For sheer good work, we do not think
she has ever excelled this volume.'—Daily Chronicle.
' The stories are vivid and characteristic, and make a very direct appeal to the
sympathies. . . . Ouida is as successful as she is in most of her stories in interesting
her readers in the tale she has to tell.'—Speaker.
' Both stories are filled with the charm that Ouida gives to all her pathos, and
they are both equally intense in dramatic feeling. . . . Ouida has still the old
charm, the old failings, but "Two Offenders" possesses more of her charm than of
her failings.'—Stab.
• The first story is pathetic and almost beautiful, as good in its particular line as
anything she has done, for it is in stories of this sort—witness her " Two Little
Wooden Shoes"—that Ouida excels.'—Standard.
Two Offenders
By ouida
' L'age a toujours tort : s'il n'est pas deja an
absent, il le sera demain '
a new edition
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1896
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
EN M KM DIRE
DE
GUY DE MAUPASSANT
AS I RE TROP VM'E DISPAKU
CONTENTS
PAGS
AN INGRATE I
AN ASSASSIN . , . T?g
AN INGRATE
B
Hn ^novate
T was a large, square, solemn edifice, built
in the modern manner, pierced with regu-
lar rows of windows, the walls stuccoed,
the roofs of zinc, the balconies green and gilded, the
great hall door shining with glass and brass and
polished woods. It stood in a vast, naked, gravelled
space; around it were several acres of grounds,
which were intended to be gardens, but which were
as yet mere stony expanses, with dwarf trees and
sickly shrubs dotted here and there, amidst them at
intervals a plaster bust upon a plinth: the whole was
surrounded by a high wall and enormous gates,
always locked and lined with iron, so that they
B 2
4
AN INGRATE
afforded no glimpse whatever of the outer world. It
was a building which might have been a prison, a
madhouse, a school, or an academy; it could never
have been mistaken for a home.
Above its imposing hall door was a statue of
Charity, the eternal Charity with her hungry children,
and above this group there was lettered in gold the
name which the building bore : it was called Maison
Mont Parnasse, for it was an abode of the Muses,
at least of broken-down and unfortunate Muses, and
had been but recently erected by some estimable
persons kind enough to think that improvidence was
not a capital sin. Nevertheless, though not perhaps
a capital, it is a deadly, sin, and therefore the
Maison Mont Parnasse had been kept unsmilingly
and severely unattractive, though majestic. Charity
always puts a little wormwood on the nipples of
her breasts. She deems it only wise and just to do
so. Milk given in alms ought not to taste sweet.
The motives which had led to the foundation
and erection of Mont Parnasse had been honourable
if, like most human motives, mixed. Two ragged
boys had tramped upon foot from Alsace to Paris
AN 1NGRATE
5
in the reign of Charles Dix, and, beginning as little
ragpickers, had crept on by thrift, and self-denial,
and mutual devotion, from one step to another until
they had become vast and rich traders, and had
amassed a great many millions of francs, with which
they knew not what to do, for they had no relations
and had never married. They had not cared about
titles or show, or any of the toys which most self-
made men are crazy to play with, but they had felt
a harmless ambition to associate their names before
death with some great work or endowment which
should make all Paris talk. So they set aside half
their enormous capital to the execution of their
scheme, and dedicated it to the establishment of a
home for impecunious authors and artists; and the
result was the great white house, which they called
Mont Parnasse. The site was well chosen ; a once
royal park had been recently sold by the nation,
and reduced to that state of nakedness, squalor and
hideousness which is dear to the modern and public-
spirited mind, and a large portion of this so-called
forest was, after all the trees were felled and the
undergrowth rooted up, acquired as the most suitable
6
AN INGRATE
location for the house of charity. A great architect
was called in to build it, a great savant directed its
drainage and sanitary arrangements. No expense
was spared either with its erection or its decoration.
' When we do things at all we do them well,' said
the brothers. The Maison Mont Parnasse was
opened, inaugurated with a fine banquet, many
compliments, and flowers of speech, and a throng
of notabilities, little and big, including many shining
lights of the press. One of these last brought in his
pocket a hare's foot and a pot of rouge powder, and
with a grave face tendered them to the brothers..
The brothers looked a mute and astonished interro-
gation. The journalist pointed to the nine Muses
whose statues adorned the vestibule.
' Faut les faire rougir un peu, les pauvrettes,
hein ?' he said, with serious countenance but twink-
ling eyes.
The brothers never knew till the days of their
deaths where the point of the joke lay.
Their institution was a great, a noble, and a
national benefit in their eyes; and, happily for
themselves, they died too soon to discover their
AN INGRATE
7
error : they died whilst the walls were still damp,
the paint was still moist, the gardens were still
only existent on the parchment plans of landscape
gardeners, and whilst Paris still took seriously
and admiringly their beati projet. The gardens are
still not laid out, except so far as a few groups of
sickly young coniferce may be considered to con-
tribute to that end ; but Paris, volatile Paris, has
long forgotten that there exists an asylum for those
servants of the Muses who have not bankers'
balances. Yet it is well endowed, and so should
command the respect due to wealth; it is also
exceedingly well managed by a committee of influen-
tial gentlemen, financiers, merchants, publishers,
editors, and the like, who distribute its favours and
award its patronage with sincere and assiduous care."
But they have never thought it worth while to lay
out the gardens.
They are extremely mortified and astonished to'
find that their appointments are not always received'
with gratitude.
Every Mont Parnassian enjoys a private room,
well furnished; three good meals a day, taken in the
8
AN 1NGRATE
common dining hall ; a handsome allowance of fuel
and light; the use of a good library, music room,
and salle des jeux (all gambling, even for sous, for-
bidden); and for the rest has the whole range of
the large grounds, which were once a royal wood-
land. The rules and restrictions are not onerous,
or the committee do not think them so : any
member may go out in the daytime, provided he
leaves his name and key with the porter, but he
cannot stay out after six o'clock without special per-
mission from the resident manager; he must on no
account keep any animal, bird, or pet of any kind,
not even a white mouse (some one once had the im-
pudence to bring a white mouse); he must not bring
in any wines, spirits, or liqueurs ; he must not have
a light in his room after eleven at night; and he
must receive no friends at any time except in the
public sitting room, and that only from three to five
of the clock. These regulations, and some few
others similar, do not seem burdensome to the
directorial mind. The present age is an age of
regulations ; it loves to tie people up with string,
as the ingenious Mr. Maskelyne is tied up in the
AN 1NGRATE
9
cabinet, only it does not allow them, like him, to
undo themselves. All these laws and bylaws
are beautifully printed on embossed and illu-
minated cards, and hung up on the wall of each
member's chamber; so that no Mont Parnassian
can for a moment plead his ignorance of them.
The directors do their duty, and sit in their
velvet chairs round a long table, and hear the
reports and audit the accounts of the great charity
of Mont Parnasse; but when they have done that
they have done enough ; it is not incumbent upon
them to know or to care whether the Mont Par-
nassians, once being in the institution, enjoy
being there or dislike it; and it has never occurred
to them to try and make the place look homelike.
What would you ? Sensible, prosperous men, who
have never followed the Nole buissonniere in their
prudent youth, cannot help a compassionate contempt
for the poor scholars of that school, who have, like
so many stray sheep, left all their fleeces on its
wayside hedges.
They see that everything provided for the
house is of the best. No small economies, no
10
AN INGRATE
ignoble little trickeries are permitted ; the best
meats, groceries, and cereals are sent there, and
the best wine, in reason, that iss the best petits
rins; grands vins, of course, it would be immoral
to give under the circumstances. For all their
trouble in seeing to these supplies, the directors
could not be grudged the power of putting their
favourites, their natural sons, hangers-on, or poor
relations, in the various household situations which
a large institution offers to be filled, from the secre-
taryship to the gatekeeper's place. This gratifi-
cation, of course, they by right enjoy; but they
do not vastly abuse even this privilege, and in
their appointments to the memberships of the
charity they are strictly impartial.
The Maison Mont Parnasse has been built
and intended to receive half a hundred inmates, and
funds have been provided for the due maintenance
of that number. But the figure has never been
reached, and many empty chambers and shuttered
windows have testified to the sad fact that the best
intentions are not always nor, it may be said, often
appreciated by humanity.
AN INGRATE
* Yet the conditions are not at all onerous, not at
all,' said one of the directors, a celebrated financier,
when some one complained of these reasonable
rules. 4 They are really hardly more than hotel
keepers nowadays put up in their visitors' rooms.'
•' Only in an hotel one can blow ,up the manager,
and walk out,' said a fellow-director, who was a
famous newspaper proprietor.
4 Every Mont Parnassian can walk out,' replied the
financier severely ; 4 there is nothing to prevent him.'
4 Except that he has nowhere to walk to, poor
devil!' said the newspaper owner, who was fabu-
lously rich now, but had known, in his early years,
what it was to be poor : so poor that he had been
obliged to pawn his solitary shirt.
4 If a man when he comes to middle age have not
provided himself with the safe shelter of a good
home, he cannot complain *)f fortune—he has only
his own improvidence to thank,' said the banker,
who had inherited from his fathers a dozen mil-
lions of francs. 4 By the way,' he added, 4 I have
been asked by M. D'Aumale and others to press the
claims at our next meeting of Pierre Roscoff.
12
AN INGRATE
What say you? If absolute worthlessness be a
qualification '
' Oh, oh !' said the newspaper man deprecatingly.
' A fine talent—a very fine talent—in its day.'
' Talent without character !'
' Ah, well,' said the other with some impatience,
' we hear that said so often ! As if all the dullards
of necessity were angels ! But do you really mean
to say that Pierre Roscoff is living still ? I
thought he had been dead long ago. How
horrible! To be alive in your body and dead in
your genius !'
' Genius is too big a word,' said the banker.
' Ah, no! pardon me, it is not too big a word for
what he was in his prime,' said the journalist
warmly. ' Sapristi! when one thinks of his " Jeunes
Filles dansant au Pre" and his " Lune Rousse a
Marly." What force ! what feeling! what maestria !
And you say he is alive and wants to get into the
Parnasse ? And for whom should its doors open
if not for a man capable of that wondrous " L'Aube
du Jour au Vesinet " ? Why, I go to the Luxem-
bourg to see it once every winter.'
AN INGRATE
13
4 Should a man who has had work bought for
the Luxembourg need the Parnasse ?' asked the
financier dryly, opening a little gold fusee box.
4 In what scope was the institution created?'
asked the other. 4 Surely mediocrity and dull nullity
are neither comprised nor contemplated in its pro-
visions ?'
4 Then you will give him your vote ?'
4 Assuredly.'
4 Go further, and propose him. The office will
suit you better than me.'
4 A dubious compliment from your point of
view; but I accept it. Are you sure he is
living ?'
4 Quite sure. I breakfasted at Chantilly yester-
day, and the Due gave me his address ; it is a
miserable garret in the Temple.'
4 Dieu de dieux/' said the other once more : the
grim comedy of having your picture purchased for
the Luxembourg, and your body left to rot in an
attic unremembered, stirred even the sated humour
of the owner of the sharpest and wittiest journal of
Paris. 4 Br-r-r-r!' he said with a shudder, half real,
r4
ANJNGRATE
half affected ; ' I will propose him with the greatest
pleasure. He certainly fulfils the conditions of our
admirable Institute if he be as miserable as he used
to be famous. That has been our difficulty. It has
been so easy to find misery, but not so easy to find
fame in the ditch. Genius has a knack in our days of
dining and dressing well. It is generally " swagger,"
as the dear English say.'
In truth it was very easy, as he had said, to
find misery, but not so easy to find misery allied
to fame, or even to conspicuous talent. It had
therefore been found necessary to enlarge a little
the original conditions of the endowment, and
to extend its benevolence to persons who did not
strictly come within its original provisions, and some
journalists, some professors, and some musicians,
who were not composers, enjoyed what had been
designed only for genuine artists. So that when
the rich journalist, Maurice Valbranche, proposed
to elect to membership such a man as Pierre
Roscoff, the whole committee, when it managed to
recall who he was, and had recovered its astonish-
ment at learning that he was alive, accepted his
AN INGRATE
iS
nomination with unanimity, and even with enthu-
siasm. Here was the true material for which the
house of the Parnassians had been designed. A
great artist, an undeniably great artist, yet so fallen
into obscurity that everybody had thought he was
dead, in miserable circumstances, too, very miser-
able, repeated the prosperous men around the board
table with that relish of whose savours Lucretius
has spoken. He was elected without a dissentient
voice, and the directors made haste to go to their
cosy broughams on a rainy morning with a pleasant
sense as of some virtuous act performed.
' He will end his days at least in peace,' said
Valbranche to himself; 'that is to say, if he will
go; perhaps he won't go, que diable !'
For, in their Iiaste to please a royal Academician,
it had never occurred to them to consult Pierre
Roscoff himself. They had even broken a bylaw of
the board, which prescribed that when suitable sub-
jects for the enjoyment of the charity were selected,
they should personally and by letter be themselves
informed of the fact of their selection before their
names were put to the vote, and should be directed
i6
AN INGRATE
to solicit their own. appointment by letter on stamped
paper. Valbranche, in his gratification at having
secured a real son of the Muses, had hurried on
the matter, and had gone through the formula of
the aged artist's election without having previously
consulted him as to his presentation.
' Que diable !' he said again ; ' of course he will
be enchanted. A roof over your head, and a good
bellyful secured to you till your grave, is no small
boon when you are seventy years old and already
dead to the world.'
Valbranche was a good-natured man, with the
shallow patronising good nature born of prosperity',
and that sense of superiority, not only of fortune,
but of wisdom, which prosperity begets.
He drove down in his admirably appointed coupd%
with its high-stepping horse, into the miserable
little street in the quarter of the Temple in which
it was said that Pierre Roscoff lived, and, with
some qualms and misgiving, slowly clambered a
steep, dark, dirty stair, on which it was not wholly
prudent for an arch-millionaire, in broadcloth and
with valuable rings and chains about him, to
AN IN GRATE
*7
adventure his person. He was stout, for he lived
very well, and the ascent was long and steep,
and made him draw his breath painfully. He
wished that he had sent up one of the young men
of his office : the many talented and enterprising
young men who clustered round him like wasps
around a hogshead of molasses.
Charity was soothing to the soul, but it was best
done vicariously..
Gasping, puffing, and muttering many a droll
slang oath, he came at last to the end of the stairs,
under a skylight hung with cobwebs. On a wall,
once whitewashed, now grey and black with grime,
there was a piece of wood, and on it was written
in charcoal: ' Pierre Roscoff: deuxieme a droite.'
'At last!' said Valbranche, with a groan and a
sigh of resignation. He found the door indicated,
the low, miserable, unpainted door of a garret, and
knocked.
' Come in,' said the voice of an old man, a voice
with the quaver of age in it, but still rich and
melodious; it was half drowned in the impetuous
barkings of a dog.
c
xS
AN INGRATE
Valbranche opened the door, and as hastily
retreated ; for a little rough terrier flew at his heels,
and, like many good men whose flowery paths of
success have not been always straight ones, he was
afraid of dogs.
' Quiet!' said the owner of the dog. ' Come in,
monsieur. He will not hurt you. He took you for
a hnssier. Pardon his mistake.'
4 A pretty compliment!' said Valbranche below
his breath ; but he took off his hat, and, with an
unaffected respect, said, ' M. Roscoff, I think ?
I am honoured in making the acquaintance of a
great artist whose works I have revered all my
days.'
A slight colour rose to the hollow pale cheeks of
the old man.
' Tiens, tiens, tiens /' he murmured with a
slight smile, whimsical and humorous. 'It is
a very long time indeed since I heard any lan-
guage like that. Am I dead, and in my tomb
a-dreaming ?'
' No, mon maitre, and I know not why you have
ceased to hear it,' said Valbranche, ' except that you
AN INGRATE 19
have ceased to let men hear of you. That is always
fatal. Humanity has a short memory, and no
gratitude.'
4 Eh ! I died in effect twenty years ago.'
Roscoff was a tall, bony, muscular man, who in
his fleshlessness still gave the impression of great
strength; he had harsh features and no beauty
except in his eyes, which were large and brown,
and in the expression of his countenance, which
was humorous and benignant. He looked extremely
poor, and the naked chamber in which he lived was
without comfort of any kind, though it was clean
and was orderly.
4 How did you come to this pass?' asked Val-
branche, astonished and embarrassed.
'Monsieur comes to interview me?' asked
Roscoff in return. ' Ah, no, that is not possible;
no one interviews the disparus.'
4 But why did you disappear ?'
4 Ah, decidedly, then, it is an interview,' said
Roscoff with good humour, but with a certain accent
of dignity which made his visitor feel awkward.
4 This is very droll; I had no idea that I was so
c 2
20
AN INGRATE
much alive. And what a suffocating weight of
honour—M. Valbranche in his own person !'
' You know me ?' said the other, surprised.
'Ah ! as the ragpicker and the crossing-sweeper
knows the great generals and deputies who drive by
and splash him with their carriage wheels. But
pray be seated, monsieur. Since you have climbed
so high, I will not dismiss you in a hurry.'
He pushed forward the only chair which the
garret possessed, a large wooden one with arms, and
seated himself on the deal table in the centre of
the room.
Then Valbranche saw that his right hand was
missing ; it had been cut off above the wrist. ' That
is why he has painted no more,' he thought, and
said gently:
' An accident, cher maitre ?'
' A bit of shell during the siege,' replied the
artist curtly.
' Ah, heavens ! what a loss to the world!'
Pooh ! there are many painters.'
' There is but one Roscoff.'
'In his sorrows I hope there is not his equal,'
AN INGRATE
21
said the old man, with a shrug of his shoulders.
4 Might I inquire your errand, monsieur ? It cannot
be to ask me how I lost my hand, since you were
unaware that I had lost it.'
' My errand ? I hope you will acquit it of idle
curiosity, and credit it at least with good intentions
when you hear what it is,' answered Valbranche,
and he told it, a little embarrassed by the indepen-
dence and indifference of this lonely old man, who
half sat, half leaned, upon the rickety deal table, and
in all his poverty looked neither like a suppliant nor
a receiver of alms. The little rough terrier sat
beside him bolt upright with pricked ears and in-
quiring gaze.
In a few eloquent phrases and less condescen-
sionof tone than was usual with him, Valbranche in-
formed the recipient of the Mont Parnasse charity.
4 Through my influence and in view of your
great celebrity in past years, the Committee has
dispensed with the usual formal preliminaries
and personal application, and has elected you motu
proprio to be an inmate of this great and noble
institution,' he said in conclusion, falling into the
22
AN INGE ATE
official diction common to all board-rooms. 1 On
the advantages accruing therefrom I need not dilate.
They are self-evident. The beneficent and magni-
ficent character of the charity is no doubt well
known to you by hearsay; and, no doubt, you will as
fully appreciate its assistance as we, who represent
it, appreciate our good fortune in associating with it
the name and fame of so great an artist as yourself.'
Thereon he paused and took breath, feeling
that no one could have discharged the mission, or
expressed its views, with greater delicacy and elo-
quence. He looked at Roscoff, in anticipation of
some profound emotion, some burst of gratitude,
some gush of tears ; but the old man had not
moved or spoken, or given any sign of any feeling.
A red spot had come on each of his hollow cheeks ;
that was all.
1 Have I asked anyone for anything?' he said
hoarsely at length.
' No, no, certainly not; at least, not that I know
of,' said Valbranche with some confusion.
' Then who has any right to put my name for-
ward for charity ?'
AN INGRATE
23
' But it would seem ' began his visitant, and
paused as- he glanced around the miserable room.
The glance completed the sentence.
' I am in complete misery, if you mean that,' said
Roscoff curtly. ' But from misery to asking for aid
there is a step, and a long one. I have not taken
that step. It is only when I shall ask that you
will have the right to offer.'
He rose from his half-sitting attitude and stood
erect, as though to signify that the interview was
ended. There was no more to say.
Valbranche did not rise; he looked up through
his eyeglasses in surprise, amusement, and doubt:
the doubt of a man who is accustomed to have
comedies of all kinds played off on him. Yet
through his scepticism, his cynicism, and his in-
credulity, some admiration, some belief stirred in
him. He saw that this old recluse—starving and
ragged, and friendless and cheerless as he might
be—yet meant what he said. He had never asked
anyone for anything; he had let the world forget
him as it chose, and had never said, ' I am here.'
At that moment there entered the attic, im-
24
AN INGRATE
petuously as a little gust of March wind, a child,
a pretty, fair, curly-headed boy of six years old,
who, darting towards the dog and the old man,
stopped short suddenly in alarm at the sight of a
stranger.
' Come, my Max,' said Roscolf gently, whilst the
terrier jumped about the child with affectionate
welcome.
' Salute this gentleman, Max.'
Max pulled his little ragged straw hat off his
curls.
'A charming child,' said Valbranche. 'Is he
yours ?'
' My son's child, yes. My son was killed with
Henri Riviere by the Pavillons-Noirs.'
' You have indeed claims on the country.'
' No, we have no claims. My son was only a
volunteer, as I was before him. He had not been
successful in life, and he loved adventure.'
' And this little one depends wholly on you ?'
' Yes.'
Roscoff's face grew dark and harsh. He did
not like interrogation, and he thought that he had
AN 1NGRA2E
25
said so plainly enough to have been understood.
The little boy Max, who was thin and pale though
happy-looking, leaned against his grandfather and
murmured a little timidly :
' They would not give the bread without the
four sous.'
' Be silent,' said Roscoff angrily; but already
Valbranche had overheard.
He pulled some loose silver out of his pocket
and held it to the child.
' Run away, Max, and buy some cakes ; your
grandfather and I are talking of grave matters,
which would not amuse little men like you.'
The child's pretty eyes smiled and lightened ;
he stretched out his small hand for the money, but
Roscoff caught his fingers in a grip unconsciously
hard.
4 Monsieur means well, my child, and you mean
no ill, but I cannot allow that. Here is one *sou.
Run down and buy a roll, and ask them to let you
eat it in the shop. Go.'
The little boy hesitated, tears rising to his eyes.
' But, grandfather,' he said shyly, ' you have
26
AN INGRATE
eaten nothing since yesterday at noon: all there
was for supper you gave to Pepin and me. And
there is only this one sou, you know, because you
said so when I went to the shop.'
4 Hold your prating baby tongue and go,' said
Roscoff in tones of thunder.
The child slunk away terrified, the sou in his
little thin hand. Pepin knew better than to be
afraid ; he only edged nearer to his master.
4 Cher maitre,' said Valbranche, 4 all this is very
honourable, but it is very sad. For the sake of the
child you must sacrifice your pride. Come to the
Parnasse, and little Max shall go to some good
school ; I will see to it myself. You have every
right to starve yourself if it please you, but you
have no right to injure your son's child.'
4 And you have no right to dictate my duties
to me. Go out!' said the old man with stern
fury.
41 will go,' said Valbranche with good-humoured
patience. 41 will go, for I have many engage-
ments ; but I shall return.'
On his way down the staircase he stumbled
AN INGRATE
27
over the little boy Max, who was sitting sobbing
on one of the lower stairs.
4 Are you often hungry, little one ?' he asked.
The child answered unwillingly: 'Not I ; but
he is. He gives all there is to Pepin and me.'
' And there is not much for him ?'
f No,' said the child timidly, through his tears.
' But he would be angry if he knew you spoke to
me. I will not listen to you ; I will not answer!'
he said with resolution and fear combined, and he
gathered himself up where he was crouched against
the wall, and ran down the rest of the stairs as fast
as his little legs could take him. He was afraid
that the gentleman would offer him silver pieces
again, and that he would be weak and wicked
enough to take them; for though he had had all
there was, he had shared that all fairly with Pepin,
and he was very hungry, though his loyalty to his
grandfather had made him deny it to a stranger.
' Poor little animal!' said Valbranche to himself;
' he will be the lever by which we shall get old
Obstinacy into the Parnasse.'
For opposition had produced its usual effect
28
AN JNGRATE
upon human nature, and Valbranche, to whom the
matter really had no actual or practical importance
whatever, was now so irritated by his own failure
that he was resolved to drag Pierre Roscoff to the
institution whether he would or no.
Roscoff remained standing beside the table, the
dog looking uneasily up in his face, knowing that he
was disturbed and troubled. In truth, he had been
so long alone, so long accustomed to be unnoticed,
forgotten, that the visit of such a man as Valbranche
and the offer made by him could not leave him
unmoved. It had startled, offended, disgusted,
agitated him, but it had made him feel that the
living world and he were not altogether alien as they
had been so many years. Some one, and some one
who was no fool, no dunce, had once more called
him cher niaitre, the old flattering, caressing, ad-
miring title which so long had been unheard! Was
he still a master of his art in the eyes of anybody—
he, a poor, old, broken, starving man, who for a
score of years had never been able to touch a brush ?
He had been the son of seafaring people of the
coast of Morbihan; owners of fishing barques and
AN INGRATE
29
trading smacks, used to wind, wet weather, and rude
fare; well-to-do in their rough manner, and come,
it was said, of a once knightly and saintly race.
In his boyhood he had drawn ships and boats and
sailors on every bit of wood or paper he could find,
and when he was eighteen years old he had come
up from the sea coast to Paris, driven by the spur
of the strong half-unconscious genius in him to go
where he could hear, and learn, and see, the meaning
of art.
' What a fool I was !' he thought sometimes, re-
calling that passionate pilgrimage. ' What did I
want with masters ? Had I not the face of the sky
and the voice of the sea above me and beside me ?'
In his prosperous years he had gone back thither
often, and steeped himself in the salt strong scent of
the seaweed, and the wet sands, and the golden glory
of the inland gorse. But since the war he had never
been able to see Morbihan. Even if he could have
scraped together enough for the journey, he would
not have cared to go before his kindred a poor,
crippled, beggared man. Those who were still alive
were but distant kin to him ; they, like the world of
30
AN INGRATE
Paris, were content to suppose that he was no longer
amongst the living. So many disappeared during
the great siege and during the Commune, of whom
there is no record. Their death is taken for granted.
So was his in the Breton village of his birth as in
the streets of Paris.
Had he been well off he would have sought
out the remnant of his people; but he was very
poor, always after the loss of his hand, and when his
son fell dead beside Henri Riviere he no longer
even cared to ask if others less near to him of his
blood still lived. Now and then the thought
crossed him remorsefully that for the sake of little
Max he should not have let himself sink into such
utter oblivion and isolation. But little Max was
only a natural child, a child born of a brief hot flame
of Bohemian love, and had no claim on anyone, not
even on his grandfather unless his grandfather chose.
Little Max and Pepin—who would care for
either if he died ? One would go on the parish and
the other to the foumere. How often had he lain
awake in the long cold nights of winter, racked with
terrible thoughts of their utter loneliness should he
AN INGRATE
3*
die suddenly or by accident, as he might do at any
hour! No one cared for them. No one would
give either of them a home. Without him, both
were lost. How often he had pondered on this, and
tortured himself about it, and longed to live, though
life was painful, for their sakes ! And now that some
one came who offered to provide for him—which
would, no doubt, directly or indirectly, be also pn>
viding for them—he was merely offended, violent,
sensible only of his own pride and scorn. Was
that right ? Was that wrong ? He could not tell.
He was no analyst, no logician. He was an
artist, and his feelings were all intense, but little
reasoned on or studied. Was it his duty, when
it would raise up friends for the friendless child,
to enter into this house of bondage which was so
hateful to him ?
He could not think so.
He came of a free, proud stock; he had been a
man of genius, and he had been a soldier, though
an informal and unrecognised one ; he had fought for
France, for Paris. Should he go and end his days
in the shameful ease of an asylum with a fine name ?
32
AN INGRATE
Once they had sent to him in his prime to attend
at the Tuileries, and he had not gone there because
he was a republican ; and his refusal had lost him the
Cross; but the Emperor, always generous—always
generous, poor betrayed Badinguet!—had bought
one of his finest pictures for St. Cloud, and had
caused ' L'Aube du Jour au Vesinet,' which was
deemed his masterpiece, to be purchased for the
Luxembourg.
Ah, that poor picture which went to St. Cloud!
It was gone in the fire, and smoke, and ruin of
the beautiful palace, gone with the frescoes of
Mignard and so many other fair and gracious things.
And he had not even a sketch left to him of the
thousands of sketches in charcoal, in sepia, in
water colour, in oil, which he had made during his
life as an artist—not a single sketch on which he
could feast his eyes, and by which he could realise
what he once had been. He had not even a
pencil line of his own left to remind him of those
beautiful early days when he had been truly a
great painter, and people had pointed him out to
each other at the 'Vernissage' and the 'Chat
AN INGRATE
33
Noir,' and on the boulevards, in the bright gay
years before the war, when it seemed as though
everyone were young, and Paris laughed all day
and danced all night. They had all been sold,
most often for a pittance, to meet the wants of
others. The only thing left of that glorious time
was an old worn palette, with the splashes of dried,
dusty, cracked colours still adhering to it, which
sometimes he would pass on to the thumb of his
left hand and lean against his arm, and with it
would stand thinking, thinking, thinking—dreaming
that an easel was before him, and a wide white
canvas, and on that imagined canvas seeing lovely
or terrible, or fantastic or solemn visions. When
one has been born artist or poet one dreams till one
dies.
The spectre which was so familiar in his quarter,
poverty, was his daily guest. Since his loss of
his hand, he had taught drawing, as well as a man
can teach it, orally, without using a pencil; but his
pupils were now very few, all poor, scattered in
divers and far-separated directions, and of late years
he had found none, and had been reduced to doing
D
34
AN 1NGRATE
such work as he could find. There was a shop
for which he went errands, and these took him long,
long tramps into the various arrondissements, which
wore up much shoe leather and brought him in
little emolument. Everything he had possessed of
any value had gone long before, even before the
birth of Max, for his son had been unfortunate and
unhappy.
And they asked him to go to Mont Parnasse to
be well housed, well clothed, well fed, to sleep on a
soft bed, to sit in an easy chair, to know neither
heat nor cold, neither fatigue nor hunger ; to be safe,
and at ease, and in comfort, all the rest of his remain-
ing years, however many they might be; ' and I
come of a strong, hard seaborn race,' he thought, ' I
shall live long.'
After all he was only sixty-six, though suffering
and privation had made him look many years older.
There might be a long life still before him : a life
as long as a whole generation ; and the cruel, un-
pitied, dull, colourless tragedy of old age, in its
innumerable needs and its innumerable losses, is
only made supportable if it be left in peace and
soothed by plenty.
AN INGRATE
35
He knew that; yet the thought of the benevo-
lent institution was odious to him, more intolerable
than either want or pain. The benefactors might
gild the chains as they would, but they none the less
would be chains; they might sweeten the pill as
they might, but all the same it would be bitter as
gall with the wormwood of alms.
'Never! never!' he said in his grey beard
where he stood beside the table. He had been
aways free. He had never asked favour or loan or
gift. In the worst struggles and sorrows of his life
he had always ' shut his soul in silence,' and borne
his calamity as best he might, alone. ' A pauper ?—
a pensioner ?—never !' he said between his clenched
teeth ; he was too old a dog to be put in a wadded
kennel.
The little white face of Max under its tumbled
fair curls looked in at the door fearfully, then with
hesitation the little boy crept across the brick floor
to his grandfather's side.
' Grandfather,' he said in a whisper, ' you are
not angry now ? I didn't mean to do wrong—I
didn't know.'
D 2
36
AN INGRATE
' Of course not, my poor baby,' said the old man
as he took him in his arms. ' I was vexed and
pained, and I spoke too harshly, my little one; I
meant no blame.'
' Pepin was not afraid,' said Max, envious of the
terrier's superior wisdom.
' No, dear; dogs do not mind our words, they
read our hearts.'
' Why can't children too ?'
' Alas, my Max! children are only men and
women in little.'
Max kissed him, and then kissed Pepin. None
of the three had any supper that night, but they
slept close to each other, and did not sleep ill.
It had been March when Valbranche had paid
him his first visit. Through the following spring
and summer he did not ill ; his carrying work
seemed light in fine weather ; often both the dog and
the little boy trotted by his side. On Sundays they
would all get out to the woods, or to the banks of
the river; that familiar Seine which he had so
loved to paint in the days of his good fortune. The
sky was often blue, the workgirls were good to Max
AN INGRATE
37
for sake of his pretty eyes and curls, the students
tossed chicken-bones to Pepin. They were very
poor, very miserable, but they managed to enjoy
something. The dog frisked and the boy frolicked,
and he forced himself to smile on both.
All the spring Valbranche came or sent to him
and repeated his offer, and got the same answer.
4 Headstrong old brute!' said the rich man
with natural impatience.
The board of the great institution could not
understand the refusal of its benevolence; Valbranche
softened down the ingratitude, explained it away,
pleaded for time, obtained it. It did not matter
to him in the least, but he had determined to have
his own way ; he had never failed; he did not
intend to fail in this affair. It became a question of
personal pique to him to see Pierre Roscoff a
member of the Maison Mont Parnasse.
4 You cannot cage old hawks, sir,' said one of
his young men who liked to tease him.
4 Yes, you can,' said Valbranche savagely, 4 when
you pick them up half frozen off the snow in the
leafless woods.'
3»
AN INGRATE
' But they do not live,' said the irreverent
disciple.
' Hawks may not,' replied his patron. ' I know
little of the habits of wild birds or of tame ones ; but
men and women, my dear boy, live and are glad to
live wherever they eat and drink well.'
Everyone had his price he knew, as Walpole
and most men of the world knew it; if you did not
effect the purchase it was because you failed to hit
on the kind of coin to offer.
' All men, however, are not selfish,' he said
to his young companion, 'but almost all of us are
such damnable egotists that we forget that. There
are persons whom you must not tempt through
themselves, but through others.'
He set about the persuasion of Roscoff through
little Max.
The child was naturally healthy, but he was not
strong; he was of a constitution which wanted pure
air, warmth, care, good food, and mirth ; the blue
veins showed dangerously on his fair temples and on
his tiny thin hands, and his chest was very narrow
and his limbs were very small and thin. In the
AN INGRATE
39
summer he did tolerably well, though six days out
of the week he only breathed the close, sickly, thick
air of crowded streets, breathed through thousands
of other lungs, and full of noxious germs. But in
the cold weather he shrank and suffered visibly,
like a little plant which wants the vanished sun-
shine and is left to wither and shrivel in a cellar.
Valbranche said so once with a rude sincerity to
his grandfather.
'I know it; I see it,' said Roscoff sharply.
4 What can I do ?'
• 4 You know what you could do,' answered Val-
branche.
Roscoff turned his back on him.
One day Valbranche saw the old man alone,
carrying a number of light parcels. With Val-
branche was a famous physician ; they were going
together to the Salpetriere to see some hypnotic
experiments. Valbranche asked his friend to "turn
aside and see the child, whom they found with the
dog in the little close room where the old woman,
who was porteress, bed-maker, and rdveilleuse to
the whole household, lived both by night and day.
40
AN INGRATE
She had once been a country woman in a forest
district of the Jura, and was honest and kind in a
rough way, and did the child no harm.
The physician examined Max, said nothing, and
drove away.
' Well ? ' said Valbranche.
' It is the old story : poor food, poor blood, bad
air, want of oxygen, of ozone. There is no organic
disease, only want of tone and stamina; they are
all alike, these children. This one will die in a year
or so.'
And the great man sneered in scorn at the
monotony and folly of humankind.
' No organic disease ? ' said Valbranche. 4 Then
if he were well nourished and taken care of in
better circumstances, he would get strong and well
in all probability ? '
' No doubt,' said the physician indifferently.
'All these cases are mere matters of ozone and
feeding.'
' Would you mind writing that down ? ■
'Why?'
' Because the child has an obstinate grandfather,
AN INGRATE
4i
whom your name might convince of the clanger to
the boy of keeping him there.'
His friend looked at him sharply.
4 If the child belong to you, you are late in
looking after him, my good friend. He does not
do you credit.'
' I have nothing to do with him in the way you
fancy. But I wish to save him. Will you mind
writing it down ?'
The physician tore a leaf out of his pocket-book
and wrote. Everyone, even famous doctors, liked to
oblige Valbranche. Then they went to the hypnotised
woman at the Salpetriere, who was a very interesting
case, as in her hypnotised state she had been made
to believe that she was being burned at the stake
for a witch and suffered all the agonies of that fear-
some death, to the infinite amusement of scientific
professors and their students: to be able to torture
by automatic suggestion is a great improvement on
the clumsier efforts of the Inquisition ; it needs no
instruments and no accomplices, and its range of
action is practically unlimited.
The next day Valbranche inclosed the declara-
42
AN INGRATE
tion of the doctor with a brief line added by him-
self, ' The child must die inevitably if you continue
to persist in refusing to allow us to save him.'
He posted the document to the child's grand-
father.
It mattered nothing to him, of course, whether
the child died or not, but he was determined to
vanquish obstinacy. His own obstinacy was a
virtue, but that of others was a fault and an affront.
He is not alone in this impression.
The next day, to the elegant and luxuriously
furnished rooms which he used himself in the offices
of his journal on the Boulevard Poissonniere, came
an old man, lean, gaunt, haggard, in threadbare
clothes, and with so miserable an aspect that the
porter at the doors hesitated to admit him, and
thought of dynamite and anarchists.
' I am not one of those people,' said Roscoff,
divining the unspoken apprehension of the liveried
Cerberus. * I well might be, but I am not. Send
in my name to M. Valbranche. You will see he
will receive me.'
After much grumbling and suspicion the porter
AN INGRATE
43
consented to send the name up the tube which
communicated with the rooms of the proprietor.
4 Let him come to me immediately,' was the
reply down the tube, and to the scandal of the con-
cierge the muddy, cracked, infamous boots of the
gaunt old man trod in their ascent the blue velvet
pile of the broad carpeted stairs.
'Take my word for it, there is nitro-glycerine
in his pocket with his pipe and his pence,' said the
guardian of the portals to his wife. ' Mind the door
a moment, Palmire ; I will just slip round to the
commissary of police.'
Prudence was the better part of valour, he
thought, and in his absence if his better half were
blown into the air in atoms he would not weep more
than decency would necessitate.
Meanwhile Roscoff mounted the staircase, with
its gilded bronze stands for the electric light, and
the marble statues of Memory and Silence, which
were considered by the proprietor to be symbolical
of the Press and suited to its halls.
' Ah, my friend!' said Valbranche cheerfully
where he was seated in a large writing chair, with a
44
AN INGRATE
cigarette in his mouth and a liqueur stand and a siphon
of mineral water before him. ' Come in, sit down,
take deux doigts de Kurmiel. It is good ; it was
made in Petersburg. No? You are wrong. A
cigar at least ? No ? More wrong than ever.
Well!'
Roscoff refused the seat indicated to him, and
the liqueur and the cigar ; he remained standing, the
white seams and frayed edges of his poor coarse
clothes staring in the mellow sunlight which poured
in from a large window shaded by gold-coloured silk
blinds. He was an incongruous, unseemly figure in
that rich temple of the modern Mercury, and he felt
this, and it embarrassed and for the moment un-
nerved him.
'Well!' said Valbranche, with a little less
cheeriness, a little more asperity, for his time was
precious ; ' you have received my letter ?'
'Yes,' said the old man slowly, with a heavy
sigh. ' Yes—yes ; if you are interested in my poor
little boy, take him, he is all; but I will give him up
to you to save him.'
Tears rose into the brown eyes of Roscoff, which
AN INGRATE
45
had still, despite age and want, a certain beauty in
them, the beauty which comes from the soul of the
artist.
' I will give him up to you,' he repeated, his
voice low and tremulous.
'Too good!' said Valbranche, with a little cruel
sarcasm. With suspicion in his tone he looked
sharply at Roscoff, and added, ' The condition!
You understand the condition ? You accept ? You
go?'
* Why—oh, why any condition at all ?' said the
old man with nervous force, the floodgates of emo-
tion and speech opening in him. ' You see a dying
child ; your man of science says that he must die
without air and food and medicines and comforts.
What wants he more to give him favour in your
sight ? Save him for his own sake! Save him for
the mere all-sufficient joy of doing a good action!
I will give him up to you entirely, and will go away
somewhere, never mind where, to live out the few
years which may still drag upon me. What do you
want more ? Save the child! I will promise that
neither you nor he shall ever be troubled by or see
46
AN INGRATE
me ever again. Save the child! Has he not title
enough to your compassion ? He is six years old,
and is dying of bad air and poor food.'
He spoke with all the eloquence and fervour
of intense feeling. Valbranche put his eyeglasses
to his eyes and watched him curiously. How
odd it was that an old man should agitate himself
thus!
' My poor friend,' he replied in that dry, mocking,
incisive manner which his editors and staff dreaded
so intensely. ' There are several hundred thousand
children in Paris who require pure air and good
food; you might as well say that I should charge
myself with them all. Despite my unbounded and
sincere respect for the Faculty, it cannot be said
that they have successfully conquered anaemia, or
marasma, or any of the many forms of ne-
vrose. It is not in my duties or in my capacities to
remedy their failures. I will give your grandson
everything he requires, and keep my share of the
compact loyally. But I will only do so if you on
your part consent to go to the Institute of Mont
Parnasse.'
AN INGRATE
47
1 What can it matter to you where I go ?' asked
Roscoffpassionately. ' If an old dog whom everyone
has forgotten crawls into a corner to die, what
concern is it of anyone's where he stretches out his
wretched limbs in their last tremor ? If I am a fool
who prefers to starve in liberty and independence
rather than to feast and fatten on charity, what can
my choice matter to you ? It is I who shall suffer
by it. Save the child because he is a child, because
he suffers for no fault of his own ; for he was born
healthy and without blemish. Save the child, and
let me go where I will. Only leave me my free-
dom. It is all I ask.'
Valbranche made a little impatient, irritated
gesture, and pushed away the crystal flask of
Kurmiel and drew to him his blotting-pad and
writing-paper.
' You rave, my respected friend,' he said curtly;
'and I never have ten minutes to waste. Go to
the Maison Mont Parnasse, and the boy shall be
cared for like a prince ; if not, take him away ; keep
him with you for the few months he will live, and
do not come to me to pay for his burial.'
48 AN INGRATE
Then he touched the button of his electric bell.
A servant appeared in the doorway.
' That is your last word ?' asked the old man
piteously, the nerves of his face working con-
vulsively.
Valbranche did not appear to hear him.
'Show monsieur downstairs,' he said to the servant,
and he began writing with that rapidity and pre-
cision which characterised all that he did.
' Wait!' said Roscoff breathlessly ; the veins on
his forehead stood out like steel-grey cords.
' Come, sir!' whispered the servant impatiently,
seeing in him some threadbare supplicant of whom
the great journalist was wearied.
' Wait!' said Roscoff, putting up his hand to
his throat, as though his loose, ragged collar choked
him. ' If—if—there be no other way to save him, I
will go.'
' Bravo!' said Valbranche, resuming all his
cheery and cordial good humour; and he leaned
over his writing table, half rising, and, to his foot-
man's amazement, stretched out his hand to the tall,
lean, ragged, miserable man out of the streets.
AN INGRATE 49
To his servant's still greater amazement, the
miserable man out of the streets did not take
it, but turned abruptly and went towards the
door.
' Write that to me,' cried Valbranche. ' Put it
in black and white.'
Roscoff nodded, and in perfect silence, waving
aside the servant, he opened the door and went.
Valbranche looked after his retreating figure with
some stupefaction.
'Queldrole !' he muttered to himself, and lighted
a fresh cigarette and resumed his correspondence.
Two days later Max was driven away in a
carriage behind two ponies by a lady, who was
the widow of a physician, and who took the charge
of delicate little boys under the age of ten. She
had made objections to having such a waif and
stray on account of his illegitimate birth and defec-
tive education ; but the person entrusted with the
negotiations had whispered that the child was a
petite fatUe of a high personage, for which it was
desired to make as much reparation as possible ;
and the lady had yielded, touched a little—for she
E
50
AN INGRATE
was a woman of heart—by the small pale pathetic
face and pretty fair curls of her new pupil.
'You will be very happy with.me, dear,' she
said to him. ' You will have a beautiful garden to
play in, with kind playfellows, and nice clothes, and
everything which is nicest to eat, and a pony to ride
on, and doves and rabbits to feed '
'But I want grandfather and Pepin!' sobbed
Max, hiding himself, in an agony of timidity and
grief, in a corner of the carriage. ' I want grand-
father and Pepin! Take me back! Take me
back!'
' Yes ; I know, my love. Of course, of course,'
said the strange lady, in a soft voice, stroking his
tumbled hair. But in herself she said, for she
knew children and their natures: 4 And in a day
you will laugh and romp, and in a week you will
have forgotten them both. Poor grandfather, poor
Pepin—whoever they are! It will be they who
will not forget.'
But for the moment Max was not to be quieted
or consoled.
In the garret which he had quitted for ever his
AN INGRATE 51
grandfather and the dog were left; the latter was
looking on and whining interrogatively, whilst the
former put together the few cheap toys and the two-
sous picture books which had been all the pleasures
Max had ever had. Roscoff dusted each tenderly,
and wrapped each up separately in paper, then
made them altogether into one parcel.
4 He is dead, Pepin, dead to us !' he said in
answer to the dog's pained, perplexed, entreating
gaze. Pepin shivered, and his tail drooped sadly.
Then his master turned and took up some new
clothes, good clothes, which were lying on the
rough deal table, with linen, with boots, with a
felt hat, and a watch and chain.
Valbranche had sent them.
4 When I do a thing at all I do it well and un-
grudgingly,' said Valbranche to his secretary, with
the self-admiration of the self-made man. He was
by nature generous, and to give largely pleased his
sense of greatness and of power.
4 The clothes of the prison house, Pepin,' mur-
mured Roscoff.
Slowly he undressed and put on the new gar-
£ 2
AN IN GRATE
mcnts. He had resolved that he would drain the
cup of humiliation to the dregs. Freedom, self-
respect, pride, were things which were no more his.
He had given them away as the price of his grand-
son's safety. He looked at himself in the little bit
of cracked mirror which hung upon one of the
walls ; it was many years since he had been de-
cently dressed like this. He had already trimmed
his beard and hair. His open razor was lying on
the rickety chair beneath the glass ; as he saw it a
great longing darted into his eyes ; he seized and
shut it, and flung it into a corner violently, as if it
were a living creature with speech who tempted
him. His eyes closed a moment, like those of a
man who has been seized with vertigo on the edge
o o
of a cliff and has drawn back in time.
He was of Breton blood, and in his youth he
had been taught that a self-sought death slays both
the body and the soul. In that moment the memory
of his mother rose before him out of the mist of
years : a pious, tender, good woman, walking twenty
miles across the landes to a Pardon, gathering her
children round her in prayer for those at sea when
AN INGRATE
53
the winds shook the timbers of their cabin on the
shore, and the rush of the incoming waves broke
over their garden wall.
' Poor mother!' he said, with a choking sigh.
She had been dead fifty years.
He roused himself and said to Pepin : ' Come.'
Pepin, at all other times so joyous at any sound
or signal which hinted of a walk, crept slowly after
him, as though knowing that he left for ever a home
which for him, at least, had been a happy one.
On the threshold his master paused once and
looked back. It had been a poor place indeed,
bare, cold, cheerless in winter ; in summer scorched
by the heat from the zinc roof above its rafters.
He had known in it hunger, want, torturing anxiety ;
all the lurking cares of the poor man, never sure
when he rises of his bread for the day. But here
he had been free ; here he had owed nothing to any
man ; here he had been master of his fate ; here he
had come and gone as he chose, subject to no com-
mand, working for every crust he ate, for every
thread he wore. And here the child had been with
him, absolutely his own.
54
AN INGRATE
He retraced his steps across the narrow floor,
and knelt for a moment by the little trestle bed on
which Max had slept; he pressed his lips on the
rude pillow where the fair head of the boy had
rested so many nights. Then, with a last effort,
he wrenched himself from the place. He would
never again have a home.
At the foot of the staircase he met the old
porteress of the house, who was crying.
4 It is a fine change of fortune for you,' she said,
seeing the alteration in his clothes. 4 But for me, I
shall miss that white-faced gentle child all the days
of my life to come.'
4 You were good to him,' said Roscoff, pointing
to the packet he carried. 4 I have taken only his
few toys and little books. Everything else I had
is left. It is worth very little ; they are only rags
and sticks, but whatever there be is yours. You
were good to Max.'
He left her and hastened into the street, the dog
pressing close to his feet.
Good fortune? Yes, such good fortune as has
the prisoner who is assured of food and lodging and
AN INGRATE
55
raiment for all the years of his life, but who will
never be free any more !
He left his old quarter by the Rue de Varennes,
entered the Rue de Rivoli, and descended the
Champs-Elysees and the Avenue de la Grande-
Armee. Pepin followed closely, but without enjoy-
ment or animation. With that sensitiveness which
dogs possess as to the moral state of those to whom
they belong, a sensitiveness as intense and as un-
accountable as that of the photographic plate, the
little terrier knew that his master was unhappy and
that his playmate Max was lost. But even the
acuteness of feeling of Pepin was not acute enough
to let him foresee all his own impending woes.
Arrived at the end of the Avenue de Neuilly,
he crossed the bridge and struck away a little from
the high roads, the boulevards, the modern villas and
the building grounds laid waste, and went some-
what farther to the south-west, where a portion of
the old royal wood still existed, and a farm or two
still gave it the aspect of that true country which
it had all been when the Due d'Orleans met his
cruel end. To one of these farms Roscoff took his
56
AN INGRATE
way, Pepin beside him unquiet, vaguely alarmed,
curious with that agitated sense of a dog conscious
that some change is about to take place of which
he has been told nothing.' Leaving him outside the
gate, his master went within and conversed with the
mistress of the homestead, whom he had known in
earlier days. After a while, he came out and called
the dog,
It was a small farm, but green, pleasant, pros-
perous, a few of the old forest giants of Neuilly
standing in its meadows and by its byres.
Roscoff fastened a piece of string to the collar of
his little friend, and gave the string into the farm-
wife's hand.
' Be kind to him,' he said hoarsely. 4 He is as
good as gold, and he has been with me nine
years.'
' Poor dog, poor dog!' said the housewife; 4 why
will they not let you keep him where you go ?'
' Because prisoners may have no pets, and a
dog is the abhorrence of the bourgeois soul,' said
Roscoff bitterly. 4 Be good to him, for pity's sake,
and I will come as often as I can.'
AN INGRATE S7
Then he hurried out of the house and through
the little garden, hearing the struggles and the
screams of Pepin, whose every note of anguish
struck him to the soul with a stab of shame and of
remorse.
Poor little faithful dog, cast among strangers!
He lifted his arms in the air and shook his closed
lists at the glistening steep roofs of the Institute of
Mont Parnasse, which rose in the distance above the
blue haze of the suburb where henceforth his life
was to be spent.
The howling and wailing of his abandoned
friend died at last off his ears as he strode rapidly
onward with a sick heart and a stung conscience.
'Oh, heartless, brutal tyrants!' he thought. 'To
make me forsake and pain, a good little creature like
that!'
He had begged, entreated, implored to be
allowed to have the dog with him ; had promised
that it should be no trouble, no expense; had
pleaded that it was an old friend and would be
wretched without him; a council of wise men, re-
presented by their secretary and manager, js not
AN INGRATE
likely to be moved by such childish arguments, and
all his supplications had been rejected with a nonpos-
sumus short and irrevocable as that of the Vatican,
When a committee has framed a table of rules,
these rules have in its eyes received a divine
imprimatur, and are as sacred as seemed the tables
of the Law to Moses.
Roscoff went on his solitary way until the high
bronze gates of the Institute were before him,
frowning down upon the dusty road and the metal
lines of the tramway which passed along it. He
rang and was admitted.
' You have no dog ?' said the porter suspi-
ciously. He had received orders from his superiors.
' No,' said Roslin. 4 In the prisons they allow a
poor devil a rat or a mouse if he tame one, but
here I suppose, as we have all done no wrong, we
must not be pampered by even so much indulgence
as that.'
The porter, who was deaf, caught indistinctly
the words ' rat' and ' mouse,' and answered indig-
nantly:
' There are no vermin here—a modern house
AN INGRATE
59
with all modern improvements!—for what do you
take us, monsieur ? Wait, wait, wait! I must
announce you to the manager.'
But Roscoff, who had the habit of walking
quickly, having carried so many parcels so many
years, was already within the glass doors of the
Institute when the manager of Mont Parnasse came
forward and met him.
4 You have no dog ?' he said suspiciously. 4 Ah,
I am glad that you were reasonable. Have you
sent your little beast to the Fourriere ?'
1 Content yourself that he is not here,' replied
Roscoff, with hauteur. 4 That is all which concerns
you.'
4 What an insufferable person!' thought the
manager, and said aloud, 4 Allow me to show you
your chamber. I am sure you will be happy here
if you will only cultivate the proper spirit.'
4 What may that be ?' said Roscoff.
The manager, who was not accustomed to
define, hesitated, coughed, looked a little angrily
through the glass doors at the unfinished gardens.
4 Contentment—compliance—self-restraint—ap-
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preciation of the efforts made ' he murmured, a
little ill at ease.
4 The courtier's spirit, eh ? The supple knee,
the pliant back, the sugary tongue ? The cringing,
carneying, fawning, deceiving spirit, eh ? Ah, my
good sir, I am an old man—too old to learn—and
my knees and my back are all stiff, and my tongue
has never lied. What a loss for me! What can I
do ? I cannot go to school.'
The manager coloured with wrath. 4 -Be so
good as to come to your room,' he said blandly,
whilst he thought: 4Why in heaven's name could
Valbranche send us this mangy, scowling, growling
bear ? Valbranche is a man of the world if any-
one is.'
4 I am a bear, yes,' said the old man, divining
the unspoken thought as usual. 4 But I have never
been able to dance, alas !'
The official discreetly appeared not to hear, and
showed the way up the grand staircase, down a
wide corridor, and opened one in a number of doors,
all exactly alike and. lettered with gilt numerals.
1 This is your bedroom,' he said, pushing open
AN INGRATE
6t
the door. ' The meals are all taken in the large
rooms downstairs. I hope this will suit your taste
in every way.'
It was a good chamber: the paper a cold grey,
the bed of pale-blue enamelled iron, the furniture of
maple wood ; the draperies grey, like the walls ; the
floor of encaustic tiles, with a small grey-and-blue
carpet in the centre. On a brass nail hung a copy
of the rules of the establishment; underneath them
was the white china knob of an electric bell. It
was like a room in a modern hotel; in a temperance
hotel. The solitary window looked on a blank
wall.
The manager glanced upward to see if the new-
comer was impressed by the orderliness, neatness,
and cleanliness of the whole; but he could tell
nothing from Roscoff's countenance.
'Your luggage has not yet come, I believe?
There is a closet on purpose for boxes,' he said
tentatively as he pointed to a curtained alcove.
' I have no luggage at all,' said Roscoff, putting
down on the table the parcel of Max's toys. ' I have
nothing but the clothes which you see, which were
f>2
AN 1NGRATE
given me by Monsieur Valbranche. The room
does well enough. For the last ten years I have
lived in a garret, and slept on sacking.'
' Dear, dear me!' murmured the official, much
shocked. ' Such things as these may be—are,
no doubt—but decent people do not speak of
them.'
1 Eh, my good sir ?' cried Roscoff, resisting a
passionate inclination to take the prim Philistine
by the throat and shake him. ' Do you suppose
that men who can sleep on down, under a satin
coverlet, and drink Mouton-Rothschild with their
roast pheasant, come here ?'
The manager, too shocked to remain, left the
chamber hurriedly. ' That old wretch has mistaken
the road,' he thought. 'It is to the Bicetre that
he should go, if not to the Mazas !'
A noble institute, created on the finest scale,
and inspired by the finest motives, to be spoken of
as if it were some loathed refuge of the lowest
classes! The manager, to whom it paid a salary
of twelve thousand francs a year, with Togement,
cuisine, eclairage, chauffage, et service' gratis,
AN INGRATE
63
went down the stairs oppressed by the immensity
of the ingratitude of man.
'When a man is an ingrate one has said every-
thing!' he declared a week later to Valbranche,
who replied with his usual cheerful cynical
philosophy :
' All men are ingrates, especially when they have
nothing more to expect! But this one was, in his
time, a man of genius; such people are privi-
leged.'
' The genius was very long ago,' the manager
said, with a sneer.
' Michelangelo was very long ago, and Apelles
still longer, and yet ' replied Valbranche, with
a laugh ; and the official understood that the last
pensioner of the Mont Parnasse was to be re-
spected. And Valbranche was one of the most
powerful and capable of the directors on the
council; he made fine weather and foul at his
pleasure even for managers.
Left alone on that first day of his arrival, the
first act of Roscoff was to throw off his coat and
strip off his waistcoat; then he sank down in a
64
AN IN GRATE
chair, dropped his head on his hands, and sobbed
like a child. He felt as completely a prisoner as
though he had been actually carried to that Mazas
which the manager thought should have received
him.
And Max ? And Pepin ?
Were they not as unhappy as he ? Was not
his self-sacrifice all in vain ? Valbranche had in-
sisted that he should not see the child for a fortnight,
so as not to disturb him in his new home too early,
but he felt sure that the tender-hearted little lad
was wretched: as wretched as the terrier straining
at the chain in the farmhouse kitchen.
4 My little Max! My little Max!' he said a
score of times, whilst the big tears rolled through
the bony fingers of his clasped hands.
Time went by, whether minutes, or hours, or
days, he could not have told, when a sharp rapping
at his bolted door aroused him. -
' What do you want ?' he asked without moving.
4 Did you not hear the bell, sir ? The manager
sent me to say that you must go to dinner,' replied
a voice through the keyhole.
AN INGRATE
65
11 want no dinner. Begone !'
' But you must dine, sir. Everyone dines to-
gether, sir.'
' I have no appetite, I tell you, get you gone!'
The attendant continued to implore, but in vain.
Roscoff would not move. They went to dinner
without him, and he to bed without having broken
his fast in this house, where four men-cooks with
their scullions were at work in the modern model
kitchen to prepare nourishment for the pensioners
of Mont Parnasse, and for those greater people,
the officials and the servants."
In the morning it was intimated to him that it
was hoped he would not again sulk like this;
absence from meals was not liked, indeed not
permitted, except in the case of genuine illness,
certified as such by the physician of the establish-
ment.
'Even the animals in the Jardin des Plantes
are allowed the option of eating their rations or
leaving them,' replied the ingrate. ' But, I under-
stand, we are less than they; they are all more or
less rare, men who are poor are so common.
F
65
AN JNGRATE
The secretary, who had been deputed to make
him understand that a charitable institute expected
him to consume what it was good enough to provide,
was as shocked as the manager would have been,
and withdrew, reflecting that maisons de sante
had advantages which charitable institutes did not
possess ; in the former they could when expedient
employ strait waistcoats, iced douches, and other
methods of persuasion.
( I will go and visit Pepin,' thought Roscoff
when he was left alone.
He could only see the dead wall in front of his
window, but he could tell the sun was shining. He
had not eaten since noon the day before, but he was
used to fasting, and he had drunk some water out
of the glass jug on the centre table.
He took his hat and went down into the hall.
He had his pipe lighted in his mouth; a^head
servant stopped him respectfully.
1 I beg your pardon, sir, but did you not read
the rules ? No smoking is allowed outside the
fumoir.'
Roscoff swore a bad oath, and strode across the
AN INGRATE
67
hall, without even a glance at the clerk seated within
the office.
' Your pipe was smelt last night, sir, and I was
begged to draw your attention to the '
' I am going out,' said Roscoff.
' Even in that case it is not allowed to light the
pipe or cigar within doors. And I suppose, sir, you
have announced your intention of going out at the
bureau ?'
' What bureau ? Why should I ?'
' It is one of the rules, sir. A copy of the rules
is framed and hung up in every chamber. When-
ever one of the inmates goes out for a walk he inti-
mates his desire to do so at the office yonder, and if
he also wishes to be out after five o'clock he must
have leave to be so.'
{Am I to stop him ?' whispered the house porter
to the head servant who had spoken with this hoary
rebel, and who hesitated, uncertain how to proceed.
4 No, let him go for this once,' he said at length.
* I will report to the manager. He will prevent the
recurrence of such an act of insubordination.'
' What filthy tobacco the old fellow smokes!
F 2
68
AN INGRATE
Who was he, do you know? A painter? He
looks more like a lo2ip de mer from Cancale or the
lie d'Oleron.'
And he looked contemptuously after the figure
of Roscoff, which had, indeed, never lost that look of
the sea-dog which had been common to all his ,race
through so many generations. He had lived on the
great and gracious city, but he had never been
of it.
He had never taken kindly to the artificial wants
and wadded trammels of luxurious and polished life,
as had done so many of his contemporaries brought
up like himself on black bread and in smoky
cabins.
4 For women, all those !' he had used to say
with good-humoured scorn when he saw the Oriental
stuffs, the Persian brasses, the Russian skin rugs,
the Indian silverwork, and the ivories, bronzes,
tapestries, satins, silks, and hothouse plants of his
comrades' ateliers in the fashionable quarters, warmed
with their hot air and scented by their burnt per-
fumes. When he had been master of a big breezy
barnlike room with a fine north light, and no one to
AN INGRATE
69
disturb him in his work, he had been owner of all
which he desired. Luxir/ had always worried,
bothered, suffocated him. For the first fifteen years
of his life he had run barefoot in all weathers on
the sand and rocks, and through the boiling surf
and shallow salt sea pools.
Even in the days when he had been cher maitre
to a crowd of admiring students, and rich men
O '
had eagerly disputed the possession of his smallest
canvas, he had always remained in appearance much
what his forefathers had looked before him: rude,
tall, broad-shouldered, bearded men, used to do
battle with wind and wave in snow and storm.
He went now outside the gates of the Institute
with a fiery wrath seething in his soul. It was the
first time in his life that he had ever been ordered
to obey. All his blood was hot within his veins
when age had not even yet taught it to run slug-
gishly and calmly under provocation.
The rules ! the rules !
Rich people, free people, know the fretting irri-
tation of bylaws and regulations in their hotels and
clubs, which they are at liberty to leave whensoever
7o
AN INGRATE
it pleases them. But when these prohibitions are
pins stuck firmly in the smarting flesh, threads
strong as ropes like those which held helpless Gulli-
ver, then none can measure their power to torture,
or exaggerate their capability of driving a sane
man into crime or into insanity.
' Courage, courage! they are only trifles,' he
told himself as he walked down the high road. 4 One
must cultivate the proper spirit, as that menial said
last night.'
He had got but a few yards down the road, not
too far off to have lost sight of the great staring
white house which was his prison, when there came
quickly towards him the running figure of a woman,
in whom he recognised Jeanne Gervais, the farmer's
wife, with whom he had left Pepin.
The dog!' he cried out before she could reach
him.
' Oh, my good Roscoff!' she cried in answer. 'J
came to tell you we put him in an outhouse with a
good bed of straw and some nice supper, for in the
kitchen my man could not bear his howling; it was
all fastened up, was the shed, safe and sound, but
AN INGRATE
7i
this morning when we went to take him some bread,
lo! he was gone; he had gnawed and scratched a
hole in the door; the splinters and slivers were all
lying about, and he must have squeezed himself
through the hole he made and got off. I came to
see ; he is not with you ?'
Roscoff gave an exclamation, half an oath, half
a sigh.
1 He is gone to Paris, no doubt, poor little soul;
gone home; it was his home all his life, that garret
in the Temple.'
' Why did you put him in the shed ?' he added
furiously. ' Could you not be faithful a little while,
a single day? You promised to keep him beside
you.'
'But, my dear good creature,', said the woman,
trembling, * I am not alone in the house, as you
know. My husband and my sons could not stand
his cries; they work hard, they want to sleep in
peace; besides, the shed was fastened up tight.
How could we tell a little beast could saw with his
teeth like any carpenter with his tools ? Come and
see yourself how he did it.'
72
AN IN GRATE
11 must go to the city ; he may have been taken
up by the police ; dogs are hunted like vermin.'
And he left her, and turned to retrace his steps
and cross the Seine on his way back to Paris. She
ran after him, half crying.
' When you find him bring him back to us. We
will take better care '
But he went on his way, not heeding her or not
hearing. His heart was sore for his little lost com-
rade. When he reached his old home Pepin had
not been seen there. Where was the little dog? How
could he be traced ? Where might he not have
wandered ? He got leave to sit awhile in the old
porteress's den and wait to see if he came. His
garret had been let at once to another tenant, a
chimney-sweeper with his family.
' If he come here you will take care of him ?' he
asked of the porteress, after vainly waiting some time.
She promised that she would.
He went to the Fourriere. The dog had not
been taken thither. Tired out and footsore and
heart-sick, Roscoff toiled back to the faubourg of
the Temple. It was his fixed idea that there would
AN INGRATE
73
Pepin go. When he reached the door the eld.
woman called out:
4 Aie! aie ! If you only had stayed! He came
in two hours ago all dusty and frightened, and ran
up to the garret, but the people who are there drove
him out with a broom, and he would not stop for
me, but smelling and smelling all down the stairs
and along the passages—at the scent of your foot-
steps, I suppose—went out again into the street,
and I was not quick enough to stop him. I did all
I could, but you know I am rheumatic and slow.
If I were you I would go back whence I came;
you may be sure he has followed your steps.'
4 Poor little soul!' muttered Roscoff, and tired as
he was and exhausted, for he had only eaten a crust
and a bit of sausage bought for four sous in one of
the streets, he turned back and began the return
journey to Neuilly. The long day had now drawn
to a close. To go on foot across Paris and to and
from its different quarters, takes time even for a
hardy pedestrian.
It was a fine evening.
Roscoff went, as he had so often done, through
74
AN IN GRATE
the press of carriages and carts and omnibuses and
all the hurrying foot passengers of the streets, alone
in the crowd with his burden of sorrow, as we are
each of us alone through life. Strong as he was
and used to toil, he was very tired when he passed
out of the Place de l'Etoile. He knew not where
else to seek for the dog. He had no money with
which to advertise for Pepin or pay a reward for
him if found ; even had he been at the Fourriere he
would have been unable to discharge the fines to
liberate him unless he had obtained them from some
one's charity. For it is a great crime for a poor
man to have a dog; it is, indeed, considered quite
treason-felony in every state, and no occasion is
ever missed of punishing the offence as it deserves.
Roscoff walked slowly; the trains of the tram
cars rushed past him, the wind stirred in the trees;
now and then he was met and looked at sharply by
one of the police. The stars shone overhead; he
knew nothing about them, but he loved them with
an artist's love, more tender, if less intelligent, than,
the astronomer's. He glanced up at the great sun
which is called in human language the star Altair;
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75
he had read in a newspaper that Altair draws nearer
and nearer to the earth with every year, and that in
the end—not so very far off—entering this solar
system will pour down upon our planet an
unbearable effulgence of light, an insupportable
intensity of heat, in which all sentient life will faint
or perish, and draw a burning earth, a dead moon,
and a conquered sun into its own mightier sphere of
flame.
Roscoff looked up at it when it shone, the
brightest jewel in its constellation.
' Well,' he thought, 'if you came now you would
not come too soon. The earth has lived long
enough, and in all its cycles mankind has found
nought to do but to quarrel, persecute, and slay.'
Then his eyes fell again on the dusty ground,
and he trudged on; his head sank on his breast, his
tired feet dragged along like leaden weights.
As he drew near the end of the avenue of the
Grande Armee, he heard a scuffling, panting sound
in his rear, and, breathless from fatigue and mad
with joy, the little yellow terrier leapt up about his
knees.
76
AN INGRAJE
' Why, my little man ! My poor faithful little
man ! Have you found me out at last ?' cried
Roscoff, the tears starting to his eyes as he embraced
the dog. 'Well, I will not go to the Institute
to-night. It would be too base to desert you after
such fidelity. We will go and sleep out together,
Pepin, in the fresh air. It will not be the first time
we have done so.'
Pepin jumped about him still delirious with joy.
Roscoff went away from the highways and
across the fields; he knew all the ground about
Neuilly, and knew where a remnant of the old royal
park was to be found, a leafy solitude as yet un-
purchased for building, although boards were set up
around it announcing in large letters, ' Terrain a
vendre en lots ou en bloc I
Whether because the price demanded was too
high, or because the building mania had spent itself
for a while in the suburbs, no one had bought these
dozen hectares of old park land, and it was undis-
turbed in its woodland stillness except by children
coming into it for nuts or primroses or birds' nests,
and in winter time a poacher with intent to set a gin
AN JNGRATE
77
for a snow-famishecl hare or shoot a jay or a thrash
when their wings were stiff with frost. Roscoff had
come hither twice or thrice with little Max in the
summer time; he knew an old hollow oak with
room for half a dozen men within its hoary bosom,
and went thither with the dog. The night was cool
but cloudless; the fragrance of grass and wild
dowers was in the air; there was no keeper or
gendarme to ask his right there. He sat down by
the old oak and lit his pipe, and broke up for Pepin
the remains of the bread he had bought in the city.
The little dog, who had had no food for twenty-four
hours, ate eagerly, and lapped the water of a small
spring which ran under the mosses.
lAh! la clef des champs /' said his master, half
aloud. 'What key is there which opens to so much
pleasure? No golden key can compare with it.'
The stillness, the dewy quiet, the smell of the
leaves and the grass and the wild thyme, recalled to
him so many peaceful days before the war, when he
had passed entire months in the woods around Paris,
sleeping out of doors with a plaid thrown over his
colour box for a pillow. He smoked on, and the
78
AN INGRATE
night grew darker and the planets and stars larger,
and the innumerable small sounds of insect life grew
clearer. He became drowsy, and stretched himself
full length inside the shelter of the oak trunk, the
little dog creeping up close to his breast and going
sound asleep with a sigh of joy.
' Poor little faithful soul!' murmured Roscoff.
' Does our Max remember like you ?'
Max was at that moment asleep too, in a pretty
white bed, a happy smile on his face, and his hand
holding fast a little clockwork steamboat gaily
painted, which had been given him that afternoon.
Roscoff slept soundly, like the dog, as he had
not been able to sleep in the prim, orderly, grey and
blue chamber at Mont Parnasse. He was like an
old lion who has escaped from a menagerie and enjoys
a brief freedom in the fields before he is recaptured.
The rays of the sun striking on the oak awoke him.
He stared at the morning light, looked at Pepin
nestled close to him, remembered, shivered, sighed,
and arose from his too brief repose.
' Poor Pepin,' he said to the dog ; ' the day is
here. Your misery and mine begin once more.-'
AN INGRATE
79
Pepin, who had thought that they had come to
live for the rest of their lives in the hollow of the
oak tree, amongst the leaves and the birds, glanced
sideways at him apprehensively and began to clean
his dusty broken-haired coat.
'You can make a toilette, my little friend: I
cannot,' said Roscoff, becoming aware that the smart
new clothes given by Valbranche were in a sorry
condition from the dust of the day in Paris, and the
dews and damp of his couch within the hollow
tree.
* So best,' he thought. ' They will be less tire-
some when they are shabby.'
Then he shook himself as Pepin did, and rose to
leave the pleasant shelter of the leaves. What was
Max doing, he wondered—crying, pining, sobbing
out his little prayers ?
Max in that moment was eating his breakfast
of milk and coffee, of jam and bread, with a hearty
appetite, making his little clockwork mouche run up
and down on the tablecloth, which he made believe
was the Seine.
' My poor little dog, we must part and go to
So AN INGRATE
our respective prisons,' said Roscoff. He longed
as the dog longed to spend the rest of the day, and
all the days of the rest of his life, in liberty amongst
these trees, under this blue sky, but he had given
his word. He was forced to return, as a prisoner
on parole is drawn back by the invisible force of
that sentiment which we call honour. Valbranche
had kept his share of the bond ; Roscoff would not
be behind him in observation of his part.
He took Pepin back to the farm, where the
woman welcomed him cordially, but the man and
his sons looked askance at both the terrier and "his
master.
' He will get reconciled in time,' he said apolo-
getically, ' and I will come and take him for a walk
this afternoon, and twice every day without fail.
Pray, pray be good to him.'
And poor Pepin was tied up under a bench, and
looked up in his master's face with humid, heart-
broken, beseeching eyes which plainly said, ' Is this
all my reward for my fidelity ?'
' Alas! mon ami} murmured Roscoff", answer-
ing the reproach, ' men have no rewards for fidelity,
AN INGRATE
81
for it is not a virtue in their own code; it is an
imbecility.'
Then again with the dog's frantic cries in his
ear he went away, and took his road to the Institute.
The porter opened the gates, casting a scan-
dalised and scornful glance on the state of his
clothes, wet with dew and stained with the marks of
moss and mould : the officials within let him go
unchallenged to his room, where he washed and
brushed his hair and beard, and the new garments,
which would never look new any more.
He had scarcely made himself decent when some
one rapped at his door, and without waiting for
permission the manager entered the chamber. He
wore a pained, shocked, half-apologetic and half-
condemnatory expression.
' My dear sir !' he began, and paused.
Roscofif went on brushing his coat and proffered
no syllable to assist the difficulties of the official's
discourse.
' You were out all night,' the manager said with
a cough.
' I was,' said RoscofT; and added with his short
G
82
AN INGRATE
caustic laugh, ' I suppose at my age you have no
fear for my morals ? '
' Oh !' said the official with a little puzzled smile,
' of course we—it is not that—we are not so in-
discreet. But it is absolutely necessary that the
rules of this establishment should be observed by
all: we can make no exceptions.'
' Of course you cannot, but need you make any
rules ?'
The manager stared.
' Regulations are needful in every establishment,
and adherence to them must be requested and en-
forced.'
' Eh,' said Roscoff roughly, * there need be none
here. It is not a madhouse, nor a state gaol, nor a
reformatory, nor a hospital; all your inmates are
sane, they have broken no law, they are even
persons who have deserved well of their generation
if they did not get their deserts; why should you
dictate the ordering of their lives to them ?'
' They are persons who have failed,' thought
the official, with contempt. * Or, if they once sue-
ceeded they failed to utilise success and turn it
AN INGRATE
83
into coupons and Consols. What can be less
worthy of encouragement than such improvidence ?'
Aloud, he recited the stock phrases of the hour-
geois morality : observance of regular hours, punc-
tuality at meals, good example to servants, excellence
of proper habits, due respect of stipulations and
authority. When he paused to take breath after the
litany, Roscoff gave again his short, disconcerting
laugh.
' Eh, we are paupers ? Do not gild the pill.
Thrust it down our throats with a horse drench!'
' It is no fault of mine,' said the manager,
moved out of his bland superiority. 4 The Com-
mittee made the rules. I am only here to see that
they are observed, Now allow me to point out to
you, M. Roscoff, that in the short space of twenty
four hours you have broken them all.'
' Really !' said Roscoff. 41 am afraid I am
capable of breaking them again in a still shorter
space of time. What would you ? I told you
yesterday I was too old to go to school.'
4 But you are not too old to go down to meals,
or to smoke in the room appointed for smoking,
g ?
84
AN INGRATE
or to sleep in your bed,' said the younger man,
with impatience.
' I cannot eat in public,' said Roscoff, grinding
his teeth, still white and strong ; ' and I shall go
out when it pleases me.'
The manager drew an envelope from his pocket.
' I was to give you this if my own arguments
failed.'
Roscoff recognised the handwriting of Valbranche
on the thick cream envelope, and opened it in
silence. The note ran thus :
' My excellent friend,—You are an honourable
man. Is it honourable towards me and the dead
Brothers Firmin-Fuchs to take their benefits, and
in return set an example of insubordination and
ingratitude in their Institute ? I put and leave
the question to your own conscience and good
feeling. The little one is well and happy, and, if
you do not worry him by visits, will in a week be
perfectly reconciled. I have seen him myself, and
took him a toy.
' Always, cher matt-re, yours devotedly,
' Maurice Valbranche.'
AN IN GRATE
*5
Roscoff, under his brown, hale skin, grew deadly
pale as he read the letter. The official watched
him with the demure, catlike contentment with
which the small soul always watches the pangs of the
great soul. Roscoff felt that his countenance showed
his emotion, but he could not for the moment
control or conceal it. He turned away to the
window that the manager might not see his face.
He was silent so long, looking down upon the letter,
that his visitor lost patience.
4 I presume that M. Valbranche will not write
in vain ? His arguments will be more potent than
mine,' he said, with a scarcely veiled insolence.
Roscoff swung round from the embrasure of the
window.^
4 M. Valbranche does not tell me that, in return
for my board and lodging, I am to put up with the
impertinence of salaried underlings!' he said, in a
voice of thunder. 4 My room is not to be invaded
at your pleasure. The rules of the Committee I
will obey if it be necessary that I should do so;
but if you come hither unbidden, I shall appeal
to the Board.'
86
AN IN GRATE
He spoke with that passion, that authority, that
hauteur, which seemed to the other man as intoler-
able, as inexcusable in him, as though he were
a beggar out of the streets ; and for the moment
his enemy was cowed. He did not know what-
might be the contents of the letter from Valbranche*
and, deeming discretion the better part of valour,
he muttered some words which Roscoff scarcely
heard, and left the chamber.
Alone, Roscoff reread the note, so cruel in its
courtesy, so irresistible in the ingenuity of appeal.
Valbranche was a skilled reader of the human
heart, and, though he had no fine chords in his
own, he knew how to touch and awaken response
from them when they existed in the hearts of
others.
' Oh, little Max, little Max !' murmured Roscoff.
1 The dog is a higher creature than you if this note
say aright. And I must obey these gaolers for
your sake!'
When noon struck, and the gong in the central
hall sounded the hour of breakfast, he went down-
stairs and into the dining-room with a strange,
AN INGRATE
novel, miserable sense of timidity and embarrass-
ment upon him. In his richest and brightest
years he had never been a sociable man; he had
always led his own life, apart from the world in
general ; he had been always one of the people,
always a Breton sea-dog at heart and in all his
ways. Except with some unconventional artists
like himself, he had never in his life sat at a meal
with other men, and the extreme poverty of the
last twenty years of his existence had made him
eat, as he lived, in absolute solitude and with the
rude, barbaric ways which solitude and poverty
beget. It was torture to him to go into the midst
of strangers.
The dining-room was a hall with wood panelling
and a grained ceiling ; it was imposing, fine, richly
furnished ; the architect, decorators, and uphoh
sterers of Mont Parnasse had put every grand
thing they could think of into the building, that
their profits might be the larger. It looked like
a church to Roscoff.
The manager advanced with smiling cordiality.
4 Welcome to our table, M. Roscoff,' he said amiably.
88
AN JNGRATE
' I hope you bring a good appetite with you ; it is
the best sauce, as some English poet has said.'
Roscoff advanced—awkward, confused, ill at
ease—and seated himself on the edge of the chair
which was pointed out to him. There were sixteen
persons, including the manager and secretary, at the
large oval table, with its white damask, its silver
and glass, its flowers in bowls of old Rouen china.
The whole sixteen looked curiously and with a
nascent hostility at Roscoff; it was the same look as
dogs give to another dog strange and stray.
He himself was furious to feel his own em-
barrassment; he, whose sturdy independence had
never bent before any man, to be intimidated by the
mere sight of plate and linen and the gaze of strangers!
He had forgotten the usages of polite custom, he had
almost forgotten what a fork or a napkin was used
for; he had so long had only a clasp-knife with
which to eat his poor meal at a corner of his deal
table, and a pewter spoon with which to take his
onion soup when he was fortunate enough to have
any. The stare of all those eyes turned on him
took away the appetite which, after such long
AN INGE ATE
89
fasting, he naturally felt, despite his discomfort.
In vain his right-hand neighbour, an old composer
of music, to whom his name was well known and
who had been a contemporary of his, tried to break
the ice and draw him into conversation. He only
replied by some inaudible, ungracious sound. The
others were all talking, laughing some of them, dis-
cussing the news of the day, applauding the
manager's wit; but Roscoff could neither speak nor
listen, and the food, good though it was, seemed to
choke him as he forced himself to swallow it—it
was the food of charity.
He felt, too, that he was uncouth, uncivilised,
unlike those around him ; they were now poor
people also, but they were people who had remained
within the pale of polished conventional custom ; he
had been long outside of it: so long that he had
forgotten its ways and its accents.
He rose before anyone else ; before the manager
had given the signal to rise; and left the table and
the hall without a word to anyone.
' What a bear !' said one of the inmates who had
been a journalist and had no more title to be in
90
AN IN GRATE
the Institute than if he had been a chimney-
sweeper.
' To see him eat is an absolute illness,' murmured
a gentleman who had in his time written pretty
little pastorals and proverbs for the stage, and had
been a favourite of the Empress at Compiegne.
' Messieurs,' said the composer of music who
had been the contemporary of Roscofif, ' if this
building be a refuge for men of genius, no one comes
hither with higher title to its asylum than Pierre
Roscoff possesses.'
The remark cast a chill over the assembled in-
mates of Mont Parnasse; some of them had been
men of talent, none of them had been men of genius,
and they knew it.
But they soon shook off the unflattering sensation.
' Genius should eat in its own cage as the lions
do,' said, with a polite sneer, the poet of eclogues
and idylls who had been a favourite at Compiegne.
' I am very sorry, messieurs, if you have suf-
fered any inconvenience, but the rules ' said the
manager, dipping his fingers into his crystal bowl of
rose water.
AN INGRATE
9i
The days following fell into a dreary routine.
They resembled each other with an unvarying
monotony.
Twice in every day he was compelled to support
the torment of eating in public. Twice in every day
he went and took little Pepin for a walk, and kept
him out for hours, no matter what the weather, as
the only mitigation of the dog's captivity and his
own which it was in his power to give.
But for these long days passed in the fields
or woods, or on the farms, to solace Pepin, he
would have found existence unbearable. He made
no acquaintances ; throughout dinner and breakfast
he was dumb; his embarrassment never wore off;
he never grew reconciled in any way or degree to
the observation of the other inmates, or to the
surveillance and interference, which were greater in
his excited fancy than they actually were.
But each time that he went out he had to
announce his intention at the office; and each time
that he wanted to smoke his strong tobacco at night
he had to go to the smoking-room, with its leathern
couches and its silver-plated spittoons, and its
92
AN 1NGRATE
electric lights, where it seemed to him that even
his old black short pipe—the friend of so many
years—had no flavour and could give no comfort.
He chafed unceasingly in his splendid gaol, as
his little terrier chafed in the shed at the end of a
chain.
The old composer and one or two others
endeavoured to enter into some kind of intercourse
with him, but he resented and resisted their efforts,
believing there was a concealed ridicule beneath
them. Generally even they let him alone, and he
was known in the community as the Hedgehog.
He tried to his uttermost to conform to the
regulations of the place, and to conquer the
stubborn and stiff-necked impatience and indepen-
dence of his natural temper. But he could not
always succeed, and he frequently gave cause
for offence. He was disliked by everyone, from
the servants whom he could not fee, to the
talented persons sheltered there by the benevo-
lence of the Firmin-Fuchs, for whose past and
whose pretensions he showed an injudicious and
unconcealed contempt. He was deemed morose
AN INGRATE
93
when he was only miserable, and a churl when
he was only full of sorrow and his withers wrung
by loss of liberty.
A harassing and remorseful doubt was also
perpetually at work within him. Was this sacrifice,
so bitter to himself, really for the good of the child
for whom it was made ?
At the end of the first month he had gone, as
agreed, to visit Max at school.
The house where the little boy had been placed
was near the Jardin des Plantes, inclosed in large
grounds, very sunny, bright, and attractive: a
home for the offspring of gentlefolk.
He was shown into a small study, and begged
to wait. ' Monsieur Max,' they said, would be sent
to him very shortly. He had brought with him
Pepin, who, quivering all over with delighted ex-
pectation, seemed to know whom he was about to
see again.
The door opened.
' Monsieur Max,' said a servant.
Max was clad in a blouse and knickerbockers of
pale blue washing silk; he had a white sash round
94
AN INGRATE
his waist; his pretty curls shone in the sun; his
face was already less thin, and had more colour.
Valbranche had said to his tutoress, ' Dress him well,
spare no cost; make him happy and strong.' And
she, fully believing that he was the natural child of
this wealthy and powerful person, obeyed the in-
junction carefully and liberally.
The child stood hesitating on the threshold with
surprise, some pleasure, and more apprehension
succeeding on his mobile features.
' Grandfather and Pepin!' he cried in wonder,
while the little dog whirled round him in ecstasy,
uttering short sharp barks of rapture and recogni-
tion.
Roscoff had never been demonstrative with the
child, but he pressed him to his breast violently, and
kissed him with a silent force of passion which ter-
rifled Max.
' You are happy, my little man ? ' asked Roscoff
wistfully, longing, despite himself, for a denial.
f Yes,' said Max without hesitation. ' It is very
nice here, all play, and so much to eat! Why did
not you live like this, grandfather ?'
AN INGRATE
95
' You will know when you are older,' said Ros-
coff, evasively. 'You do not ever wish to come
back to the garret, eh, Max ?'
' Oh, no !' said the child ; and a little quick chilly
shudder ran through him from head to foot. ' I
wish you were with us here,' he added caressingly.
* You are better without me,' said Roscoff
abruptly, repressing a harsher reply which rose to
his lips.
' But you are not in the garret either, are you ?'
' No, my dear ; I am in a fine house.'
* I am glad of that.'
The child's eyes were looking up at him with the
terrible, merciless, searching scrutiny of childhood,
and in those uplifted eyes, which were not fond, but
meditative and critical, Roscoff read his unspoken
thoughts, which were : ' How old you are ! How
rough you look! -You are not like the papas and
grandpapas of my playfellows, who are all so polished
and nice to look at, and come in carriages, and have
beautiful varnished boots and sweet scents on their
linen ; why are you so different ?'
' You are a little aristocrat already, Max !' said
q6
AN INGRATE
Roscoff bitterly, feeling the sting of that dissatisfied
scrutiny deep down into his innermost being.
'Tell me,' whispered Max softly—'they ask
me so often—who am I ? I don't know what to
say. They all know who they are.'
'You are Maximilian Roscoff,' said the old man.
'Yes, I know,' answered the child. ' But what
else ? Who else ?'
' You mean are you noble ?' said Roscoff with a
harsh laugh. ' Well, tell them my nobility is writ
on canvas in the Luxembourg, and your father died
fighting for France against the Pavillons-Noirs.
That is nobility enough for anybody.'
'Yes,' said Max doubtfully.
The nobility which he was beginning dimly to
understand was one which had coronets on carriage
panels and liveried servants to take you to and
fro.
' You have little of us in you,' thought his grand-
father, gazing at the fragile, nervous grace of the
child. Max was, and would be, like his mother—■
a pale, frail, slender Parisienne, with an excitable
brain, a blood half water, half fire, and a ceaseless
AN 1NGRATE
97
thirst for pleasure which she had no physical force
to support.
Pepin, thinking himself too little noticed, jumped
on his old comrade Max and scratched and whined
for a response.
Max took his rough little head in his hands and
kissed it, but called out in dismay, for Pepin's dusty
little pads had made some ugly marks on the pale
blue blouse.
' Are you a petit maitre already ?' said Roscoff
impatiently. ' Neither Pepin nor I are fine enough
for you now.'
' Oh, I love Pepin,' said Max with remorse,
coaxing his old friend tenderly. ' But he is—he is
—a little dirty and shabby, is he not?' Madame's
poodle here is so beautifully white and pink and
frisd, and he does so many tricks, and he will
answer to four languages, and beg for sugar. Oh>
you should see him !'
' Pepin has no accomplishments, and I have
no nobility, Max,' said Roscoff, amused but
wounded. ' We can only love you, my little man;
and what use is that ?'
H
98
An ingrate
He went away from the child's presence with
a thorn in his breast. Max, he realised, was as much
lost to him as though the boy were dead. The
gulf between them could only widen, could never
close.
' You have done what I never asked or wished.
You have overdone it!' he said, with passionate
reproach, a few days later to Valbranche. ' You
are nurturing a poor penniless child as if he were
heir to millions. That is not the school for Max.
You will ruin him. You will give him tastes,
notions, habits, desires, fancies, which are not of
his class, and which, as he grows older, he will
have no means to supply or to gratify. Oh, God
help me if I did wrong in giving up the child
to you !'
Valbranche laughed, half provoked, half diverted
' Bah, mon vieux! Why so tragic ?' he said,
with impatient good nature. 'I do a thing well
if I do it at all. I will make the boy a journalist
and a millionaire if he prove intelligent. Get out
with you, please. I am busy.'
'He will be a ddclassdV said Roscoff with
AN INGE ATE
99
violence. 'There is no more wretched creature
on our earth.'
' Oh, no! That depends,' said Vaibranche, with
his loud, cheerful laugh. ' I am certainly a ddclassd,
since I was the son of an opera dancer, as all
the world knows, and she herself could not tell
who was my father. But I have done very well,
very well indeed. I would not change places with
any crowned head.'
'You have two supreme qualities for attaining
success,' cried Roscoff, with caustic brevity. ' They
are complete unscrupulousness and immense self-
love. I do not wish Max to have those qualities ;
I would rather see him in his grave.'
Valbranqhe eyed him half with admiration, half
with derision. ' What an unwise, impolitic irre-
concilable you are, my good friend !' he said, without
taking offence. ' And, my friend, if you please, I am
busy; and little Max is not the axis on which
this globe turns, though you think he is. What an
ingrate you are ! Fie for shame !'
Roscoff went out of his presence feeling bitterly
his own inability to do anything or avert anything ;
h 2
100
AN INGRATE
he could only trust to the continuance of the charh
table whim of this man, who was, alas ! he
thought, noted for his caprices and inconstancy.
' What will you be when you are a man ?'
asked Roscoff on one of his visits to his grandson:
visits in which it became with every time more and
more difficult to find any subject in common.
' Oh, a journalist, like M. Valbranche,' replied
the child without hesitation. ' I will have my
own journal, as he has, and have quantities of
money, and send my horses to win great races,
and make all Paris talk of me.'
' The modern ideal!' said Roscoff, with the
permissible scorn of a man who had never ceased
to believe in high ideals, although they had
crumbled to ashes beneath him.
' I have written a story,' continued Max.
' You, baby ! But you cannot even read!'
' No ; but I told the story to Claire—that is,
the bonne who has the little curls under her cap—
and she wrote it down, and read it to the others,
and they said it was good; even Madame said,
too, it was good.'
AN INGRATE
101
'Aha! That is great honour. And what was
it about, Max ?'
' Oh, about a little boy who was shut up in a cave
with an ogre, and had nothing to eat, and nothing
to wear ; and a beautiful fairy came in a chariot
of gold, and brought a green melon, and cut the
melon open, and scooped out the inside ; and then
made the little boy very small—small—small—and
put him inside the two halves of the melon, and
carried him off to an enchanted palace, where he
became a man in a minute, and was crowned a king.'
Roscoff smiled bitterly.
' You versified your own sorrows and joys, like
all poets, my dear.'
' What ?' said Max, who did not understand.
' And you thought of me as the ogre, did you
not ?'
Max coloured, and was silent. He saw that he
had made a mistake in relating his fairy tale. After
a few moments he added timidly and courteously,
innocently trying to mend matters :
'No, no, indeed! I did not mean that. You
were always very good and kind, when-—-'
102
AN INGRATE
' When I was not otherwise,' said Roscoff, with
his harshest laugh, which had already scared the child
as a shy spaniel is scared by the crack of a whip.
Pepin, thinking there was some dissonance
between these two human beings whom he loved,
sat down on his little, worn, dusty tail, and howled.
Roscoff rose to go.
' The next time you revise the story, Max,' he
said, ' make the little boy take his old faithful dog
away with him in the melon rind to his palace of
delight; as for the ogre, let the cave fall in on him.'.
He had given himself into bondage for sake of
this child, and the child's only gratitude was to turn
him into ridicule in a fairy tale for the play-room !
He was, perhaps, unreasonably angered against
Max for the lightness and ease with which the little
boy turned from the old life and embraced the new.
'He can have Ho drop of our blood,' he said bitterly.
The old seafaring race from which he himself sprang
had been always so tenacious in memory, so clannish
in loyalty. The springs of Roscoff's mind, like the
sinews of his body, had stiffened, and lost with age
the small amount of pliability which they had ever
AN INGRATE
103
possessed. He could find no sympathy for that
which was so unlike himself and his race. He did
not understand the unconsciousness of the child's
egotism, the sheerly instinctive and unreasoned-on
preferences which prompted his acts and his words.
He could not comprehend that a child is, usually
speaking, a little self-centred animal, full only of its
physical needs and desires, and giving what is called
its affections wherever these meet with the most
gratification.
' Ah !' he thought savagely, ' why could not my
son seek his mistress amongst our strong, rude,
valiant, faithful sea folk ; why must he beget his only
offspring on a drolesse of Paris, all nerves, follies,
and disease ?'
For good or for evil, he could not tell which,
the child was gone from him, never more to dwell
with him or to live his life. Would it not be best
to make the sacrifice complete, to efface himself
altogether, to cease to trouble the little selfish heart
and faint conscience of the child by claims upon
them which might invoke duty but could not
awaken affection ?
io4
AN INGRATE
RoscofF had received no education and had given
himself little, except in matters appertaining to his
art. He felt that he was ignorant in much; that
there were many things of which he could no more
judge than if he were a savage of the Corea or
Tierra del Fuego. It might be that the question of
the child's fortune and fate was one of these. Could
he presume to set up his opinion against that of a
consummate man of the world like Valbranche, whose
success in all he undertook proved the accuracy of
his judgment ? What could he have done for the
child himself? Nothing; and at his age he might
have left Max alone without a friend very soon, who
could tell ?
He felt that his strength was beginning to fail
him.
If he had gone on in his old ways of life, with
freedom, and such happiness as the child's presence
and dependence on him had given, he might have
felt no change in his health for many years. But
the confinement of the Mont Parnasse, the constant
irritation of the interference and detention there, the
depression caused by its monotony and routine, the
AN INGRATE
mere difference of the food he now ate, of the hours
he was now forced to keep, and the incessant effort
required from him to subdue his natural temper
and put constraint upon all his inclinations and
discontinue the habits of long years, all united
to cause him physical as well as mental injury,
and slowly to undermine that robust and sea-born
force which had resisted so long all toil, fatigue, and
want.
The weeks became months, and the summer
autumn, and the autumn winter, and winter once
more spring, and time lost its meaning to Roscoff;
it was one long, blurred, stupid, bead roll of colour-
less hours. There was only one point in it which
stood out from the rest—it was the one day in each
month on which he was permitted to see Max.
But that one was as joyless as the rest, and each
visit brought closer home to him the fact of how
entirely, how surely, the child was passing for ever
out of his hold, out of his influence, how certainly
with every succeeding week he became less and less
in the boy's affections and in his memory.
' I knew how it would be,' said Roscoff to him-
io6 AN INGRATE
self a hundred times. But he had not really known ;
he had always, in a corner of his credulous and
tender heart, believed that little Max would not
desert him, would not forget him, would not be
won over away from him by sport and mirth and
toys and fine clothes and soft beds and abundant
food. He had always thought that a time would
come when the little boy would throw his arms
around him and cry, ' Take me away, oh, take me
away! Let us be poor, but let us be free!' For
Roscoff made a very common mistake: he thought
that because his blood was in the veins of this child,
therefore his instincts must be the child's instincts
also. He waited in vain for any such time. Each
month that he saw Max he found the boy stronger,
rosier, healthier, more active, more agile, more
childlike; but he found him also more distant from
himself, more penetrated by new ideas and new
fancies, more centred in his new wants, his new
wishes, his new associates and habits, and moral
atmosphere. He felt that if he ceased his visits
he would soon be forgotten entirely by Max, and
would it not be best that it should be so ?
AN INGRATE
107
Should love ever ask remembrance as a tax-
gatherer claims his dues ?
' I am only an ogre to him,' he thought bitterly.
1 The ogre of want and hunger and cold and priva-
tion; those are all with which I am associated in
his thoughts. It is natural that it should be so.
He knew them so often with me, alas !'
The day that he thought thus was one on which
he was entitled to see Max: a cold, hard winter's
day with a driving wind and a frost-bound earth.
Roscoff had come on foot as usual, the little dog
trotting beside him. It was early in the afternoon,
and carriages and cabs and omnibuses were hurrying
to their destinations ; he had only his pair of legs
to carry him, which were growing stiffer and slower
than they had been even a year before, and his old
rude, knotted stick to lean on, the stick at which
Max had looked askance with deprecating glance.
Roscoff had not of late felt well,. but he had
never missed going out to see Pepin for several
hours every day, wet or fine, no matter even how
bad the weather was ; and he had never missed
one of the days on which it was allowed to him
io8
AN INGRATE
to visit Max. But now as he walked the doubt
came to him, would it not be better, wiser, kinder,
to abstain altogether from recalling himself and the
past to his son's little son ? Max, a child of im-
pressionable temperament and instinctive egotism,
took his tone of thought and feeling from those
about him, was susceptible of externals, and unable
to appreciate sacrifice. He was a mere baby in
some things, and had a precocious intelligence in
others ; physical comfort and ease were very delight-
ful to him, and when he did remember the years
passed with his grandsire it was with a shiver as of
cold and of dread, as a child basking on some warm
hearth by the fire may remember some night on
which he was lost in the snow. Moreover, of this
tall, gaunt, rough old man who came to see him, he
was a little ashamed ; Max knew now what a gentle-
man meant, and his grandfather was not a gentle-
man in the conventional sense of that word, and
was living at some asylum for the poor on charity,
public charity, so one of the little boys, his school-
fellow, older than himself, had found out and told
him with undisguised scorn. All this was plainly
AN MGRATE
said in his wistful, critical gaze at Roscoff whenever
they met, and made the meeting less and less wel-
come to both as each month came round.
The world, that subtle, magnetic, unkind divider
of so many hearts, had glided invisible, but omni-
potent, between the old man and the child.
When he reached the house where the child was
at school, he requested the servant who admitted him
to let him see the mistress of it before telling ' Mon-
sieur Max' of his arrival. The lady came to him.
' Pardon me, madam,' said Roscoff, ' is there any
way in which you could enable me to see my
grandson without his seeing me to-day ?'
4 Why do you wish that ?' she said with a smile.
* Do you doubt that he is happy ?'
' You think he is happy ?'
She smiled again. 4 The happiest child here.
For the others left happy homes, which they some-
times regret, but he—pardon me, M. Roscoff, I am
sure you did all you could.'
' I. did,' replied Roscoff curtly.
4 But if you have any doubt of the fact,' she con-
tinued, 'come with me. I will show him to you
no
AN IN GRATE
without his knowledge : perhaps you think a child's
heart more constant than it is.'
' We all, some time or another, cherish foolish
illusions, madam,' said Roscoff as he followed her
across the house, Pepin at his heels.
She took him into her own apartments; in one
of these, a small study where she passed much of
her time, was an (xil-de-bosuf concealed by a heavy
curtain of tapestry, and led up to (for it was placed
high) by some steps in the wall. She drew aside
the curtain and motioned to Roscoff to ascend the
steps. The concealed window looked down on a
large well-warmed playroom.
It was a large, light room, made entirely of glass,
with evergreen trees and flowering camellias in the
corners of it, and parrots and canaries flying about
it at liberty. Watched by two maids the chil-
dreft. of the house were playing a kind of indoor
football with a huge inflated rose-coloured ball
as the goal; they were laughing, shouting, kick-
ing, struggling, the parrots screaming and the
canaries singing loudly in chorus. Foremost amongst
them was Max. He was clad in a warm sailor suit
AN 1NGRATE
in
of navy blue, with a red silk shirt and red stockings ;
his little face, no longer pinched and wan, was rosy
and radiant in the excitement of the game, his fair
curls were flying, his little red legs were rushing
hither and thither, and the silver buckles on his shoes
shone and sparkled as he vigorously kicked at the
rose-coloured ball.
'You are right,' said his grandfather briefly, as
he turned from the window. 'You are right. He
is quite happy.'
The lady took his hand in hers on an impulse
of genuine sympathy. ' Ah, my poor friend !' she
murmured ; ' it is always so ; they forget; we break
our hearts for them in vain.'
' It is better it should be so,' said Roscoff harshly,
it seemed to her. ' No, I will not disturb the child
to-day ; I wish him to forget.'
And he went away, leaving Max to his play-
fellows and his rose-coloured ball.
For remembrance and fidelity he had to go to a
little humble thing on four legs, which was classed
amongst the lower animals.
That winter was very long and dreary to Ros-
112
AN 1NGRATE
coff. The warmth from the hot-air pipes, diffused
at an unvarying temperature throughout the house,
left him cold. He had liked better the little char-
coal fire in his attic, made under his little earthen
pot of vegetable soup, or the blaze from a faggot
now and then earned by doing errands for a seller
of wood. He was always alone, except at meal
times, when the enforced companionship was as
much suffering to him after many months as it had
been on the first day. Sometimes he smuggled
Pepin in under his long rough greatcoat to keep
him company through the long dull lonely nights,
when he had nothing to do but to count the many
sleepless hours and wonder what was the meaning
of certain pains and discomforts which he felt at
intervals in his body. When the spring came, the
pains were greater and his strength was less. He
had only seen Max once, at New Year, except
through the ceil-de-boeuf, where the mistress of the
house, pitying him profoundly, allowed him to go
and watch the child at play every week.
' The Hedgehog has more bristles than ever/
said the other inmates of the Institute.
AN INGRATE
IT3
Yet he never complained of anything ; they were
always complaining that the Barsac was too dry or
the St. Emilion too new, that the bread was all
crust or all crumb, that the bed linen was too often
changed or not changed often enough, that the
lights were put out too early or put out too late,
that the journals in the reading-room were all too
republican or too reactionary, too communistic or
too clerical—they were complaining in some way or
another from morning to night. Roscoff never
complained. To the great sorrows of the spirit the
shortcomings and worries of daily life seem small.
He did not care what he ate or what he drank. He
only asked to be let alone. Yet he remained an
insubordinate in the eyes of the manager and the
other officials ; he was regarded as an element of
disturbance and disorder. It is easier to gain a bad
character than to lose it.
' Always an ingrate !' said the manager one day,
seeing the coffee and white rolls of the early brelak-
fast come untouched out of Roscoff's room, where
they were sent as a special indulgence.
Roscoff heard the remark, but he said nothing;
I
ii4
AN INGRATE
he could have said that he had not eaten because
of a mortal sickness which was on him when
he rose, but he remained silent, partly because
he did not care to defend himself, partly because
he was afraid that they would send the physician
affiliated to the Institute if he confessed to any
indisposition.
This sensation of sickness often assailed him
now, and more and more often as the days grew
longer and the air softer, and the lilacs and laburnums
came into blossom all through Paris and in her
environs.
' I will go and ask Remys what it indicates,'
he said to himself. ' The faculty can sometimes tell
where the machine is out of order, though they can
seldom mend it.'
He went to a doctor whom he knew: a man
who did not deceive or exaggerate, and had never
become known to fame.
A I am ill, Remys,' said Roscoff. ' I believe I
have cancer. Examine me.'
The doctor did so carefully, and with intelligent
diagnosis.
AN INGRATE
"5
His face was very grave.
' It is what I thought ?' asked Roscoff.
' It is,' replied the other.
4 How long have I to live ?'
The doctor hesitated.
'You are a brave man,' he said at length. ' It
is best to tell you the truth. You have cancer of
the oesophagus. To operate at your age would be
useless. It may kill you in a month, two months,
six months; I cannot say precisely, but before a
year is out you will be dead.'
' That is what I wanted to know,' said Roscoff
calmly; and he thanked the physician and with-
drew.
He went out into the crowded and pleasant
boulevards. Death did not (to him) bring with it
any great agony of regret as it brings to the young,
to the beloved, to the fortunate; yet its near cer-
tainty weighed on him heavily. Life was merely
jarring, monotonous, irksome stuff to him since he
had been imprisoned at Neuilly; yet he would fain
have lived on to hold Valbranche to his promise,
and to see the manhood of Max.
I 2
n6
AN INGRATE
- He walked on, with his head bent down and his
steps slow and feebler than was their wont.
It was quite early in the forenoon when he.
learned his sentence ; he went first to the house of
which the entrance was in the Rue Monge.
11 know,' he said humbly to the mistress of it,
' I know that it is not yet the day due for me to see
Max, but if you would for once allow me to antici-
pate it I should thank you. I will not detain him a
moment.
She looked at him and saw that he was ill; his
hale colour had changed to an ashy yellow, his
cheeks were hollow, his eyes were heartbroken.
She asked him no questions, but said to him :
' Max is at play in the garden; come and look
at him, as you always do, first, and then we will call
him.'
' I thank you,' said Roscoff.
The children were on the lawn, playing with the
same or a similar rose-coloured inflated ball. Max
wore summer clothes of washing silk, and a straw
sailor's hat was on the back of his pretty bright
curls.
AN INGRATE
TI7
Roscoff watched the sport with strained and
yearning gaze; the little dog, who had learned
silence and patience under all trials, watching mutely
too, only the tremor of his whole frame showing his
longing to join the child.
When noon was rung from a clock tower near,
the game ceased ; the children came towards the
house. The mistress of it called Max out alone.
' Come hither, dear,' she said to him; ' your
grandfather has come.'
Max obeyed at once, but without alacrity ;
there was no pleased surprise or happy antici-
pation on his face ; he advanced slowly through the
open glass doors into the room, his little straw hat in
his hand.
Pepin jumped on him in rapture. His grand-
father gazed at him in silence.
' I am going away, Max,' he said at length, in
a voice which thrilled painfully through the child's
soul.
' Going!—where ?'
' On a long voyage.'
• Does Pepin go ?'
n8
AN INGRATE
* You may be sure I shall not leave him behind
me.'
Max was silent; astonished, not troubled. He
rolled the azure ribbon of his hat to and fro ner-
vously round his little fingers. He felt that he
ought to show some sorrow, express some regret,
and being, as yet, a very honest child, could not find
words.
'You are not sorry,' said his grandfather
abruptly. c Do not pretend to be. Never feign.'
Max coloured to the eyes.
' When will you come back ?' he stammered,
stroking Pepin.
' Ouf! at my age who shall say ? '
The child was frightened, the tone was rude.
There was a long silence. Max rolled his ribbon
to and fro, and his downcast gaze was fastened
on it.
His grandfather laid his large lean hand on the
fair head.
' Max, whatever happens, promise me that you
will do your best to be always truthful, kind, and
honest. The Roscoffs were always poor men,
AN INGRATE
119
seamen, and fishers, and the like, but they were
always men of honour. Promise me, my child.'
' I promise,' faltered the child, but there was not
much heart in the sound of his voice; he was
troubled by the words, ' seamen, and fishers, and the
like.'
Suddenly, Roscoff bent down and caught him in
his arms and kissed him many times ; then put him
away with a resolute gesture, called the dog and
went. He knew that he would never see Max
again on earth.
In the antechamber adjoining, the mistress of
the house awaited him.
' Dear sir, you are ill!' she said, taking his hand.
But Roscoff silenced her.
' I am not well. But if you should hear I am
worse, keep it from Max. I have told him I am
going on a voyage, a long voyage. You are a
good woman, madam, I think. If—if you should
not see me again, take care of the child, and as he
grows older and leaves your roof look after him
still and keep him from temptation. He has no
mother.'
120
AN INGRATE
Then he wrung her hand in his, and hurried
from her presence ; he was a proud man, who could
endure no witnesses to his emotion.
She went into the room, where Max was still
playing nervously with the blue ribbon of his hat.
' My dear little boy,' she said with tender serious-
ness, ' you do not value the greatest affection you
will ever have given you in all your life. Pray for
your grandfather, Max, day and night. I fear he
will never return from the voyage he takes.'
Max burst into tears. They were tears of a
real sorrow, a real penitence; but half an hour later
he ate his cutlet, his pudding, and his fruit with
good appetite.
When Roscoff left the child he traversed the
streets which parted the Rue Monge from the Luxem-
bourg. It was noonday; the gardens were full of
playing children, sauntering nursemaids and wet-
nurses, smart soldiers, careless, happy people.
Leaving Pepin with an old friend whom he met
near the Odeon, he entered the Musee and went on
and on through its corridors, galleries, and halls,
until he reached the place where his three finest
AN INGRATE
121
paintings were hung in a place of honour : the soft-
tempered light falling clear upon them. There was
the ' Jeunes Filles dansant au Pre,' the ' Lune
Rousse a Marly,' and that picture which Valbranche
had said that he visited once every spring, the
' Aube du Jour au Vesinet.'
He stood and looked at them long, with an
immense yearning, an unspeakable regret. The
genius which had wrought them was in him still;
he felt its force, its vision, its power, stirring, tremu-
lous, sweet, passionate in him as of old. But he
had lost his right arm, and his sight wras dim. Be-
sides, he carried death in him : a death certain and
near.
His eyes dwelt on his works as a dying lover's
may upon the woman best beloved. How well
he remembered every hour of every clay when he
had called them into being, above all the summer
in which he had created the band of girls dancing
around, and singing, with clasped hands, like wood-
land nymphs on the dewy grass of a meadow in
may time. It had been painted under the beeches
and limes of Neuilly : poor Neuilly, now desecrated,
T 22
AN INGRATE
defaced, discrowned. He would die, but his maidens
would live, dancing ever with flying feet above the
blossomed grass.
Live, yes; how long ? Until the next war, until
the next revolution ? The picture bought by
Napoleon had been shattered and burned with the
shells which had destroyed the palace of St. Cloud.
He turned back once, twice, thrice, to look at
them again.
' Adieu, my children,' he said softly to them.
Then he left them for evermore.
'You are ill, M. Roscoff?' said one of the
officials of the Institute to him that evening.
' I am not very well,' replied Roscoff; ' but it is
a malady which will cure itself.'
The old composer, who was near and heard,
said to himself: 'His malady is being shut up
here. You cannot teach a man like that to be
content merely because his belly is filled and his
body clothed.'
The next morning Roscoff said at the bureau :
' I am going out. I shall not be in until night-
fall.'
AN INGRATE
123
4 You are always out, sir,' said the keeper of
the office, with impatience.
4 To whom does that matter ?' said Roscoff.
4 Perhaps it does not matter,' said the young
clerk. 4 But it seems ungrateful to—to—your
benefactors. The library, the fumoir, the general
salon, all these beautiful rooms, all these appliances,
these luxuries '
4 Wasted on me? To be sure, it is wrong not
to be more grateful,' said Roscoff, in a tone which
the functionary could not at all understand. Then
he put down the key of his bedroom, and once more
went out of doors.
He went, as usual, to the farm where Pepin
was kept.
4 Come, little man,' he said, as he unloosed
the dog. 4 We will have a last day together.'
There was a husky note in his voice as he
spoke, as though the words choked him; but
Pepin, jumping upon him in delight, did not notice
that.
They passed the long sunny hours in that
remnant of the park of Neuilly which was their
124
AN INGRATE
usual haunt. The dog ran about till he was tired.
Roscoff had brought with him some rolls of bread
and some cold meat, which he had purchased in
Paris the previous day; they formed a feast for
Pepin.
It was mid-June ; the sky was cloudless, the air
sweet and clear. In the undergrowth mavises and
chaffinches were singing.
Roscoff sat on a fallen trunk, thinking, thinking,
thinking : seeing always before his eyes the ani-
mated form of the merry child at play with the
rosy-coloured ball. The long bright hours stole
away, the woodland silence unbroken by any sound
of the urban life so near, except when at intervals,
borne on the breeze, came the scream of a railway
whistle, the ringing of a factory bell, the distant
echo of a tramway signal ; all too far away to dis-
turb the sylvan peace.
The sun sank lower and lower until only a
golden haze of its reflected light fell upon the foliage
of the trees and on the air. Pepin had gone into
sound sleep at his master's feet. Roscoff looked
down upon him wistfully and mournfully.
AN INGRATE
125
* Poor little friend !' he thought; ' we must part.
I dare not leave you behind me. There is no one
who would care for you. You are not young, or
handsome, or rare ; you know no poodle's tricks.
They would send you to the Fourriere, and from the
Fourriere like enough to the torture trough of the
Sorbonne or the agonies of the Pasteur Institute.
I can give you one refuge, my little friend, one
only—the sole refuge the world has for fidelity.'
He stooped over the little dog, and stroked
the rough yellow coat. Pepin looked up at him
with loving, honest, hazel eyes ; then, being tired
and content, dropped his head on the grass again,
and again slept.
A shudder ran through the frame of Roscoff.
Still stroking with his left hand softly the body of
the little dog, he drew from his breast a small
revolver, and, leaning over Pepin, shot him through
the head, as Henri Crampel shot his too faithful
little friend in the jungle of Africa. The dog
sighed once, and, sighing, stretched out his limbs,
while his jaw dropped ; he had passed scarce con-
sciously from sleep to annihilation.
126
AN INGRATE
The great tears fell from Roscoffs eyes upon
him where he lay.
'Forgive me! forgive me!' he murmured.
' There was nothing else I could do for you.'
When the stars were out and the moon had risen
he laid Pepin within the hollow of the old oak,
and covered him with mosses and long grass and
sods of earth. Then he himself went back to his
prison house, whither honour took him.
He was late and was met by a reprimand which
he heard not. He climbed painfully to his chamber,
undressed with effort, and went to his bed.
He never rose from it again.
He suffered greatly, and release was long in
coming to him.
He asked repeatedly through many weeks for
Valbranche, but it was not until late in the autumn
that Valbranche returned to Paris. When he did so
he came to the Institute.
' Shall I bring Max ?' he asked, conscience-
stricken and pale with emotion.
Roscoff shook his head.
Why darken and sadden the child's life ?
AN INGE ATE
127
' Would to God I had let you alone !' said the
rich man. ' I meant for the best, believe me.'
' I believe you,' said Roscoff; ' but promise me
now—be true to him and do not make him such a
man as yourself—make him what I would wish.'
' I will,' said Valbranche deeply moved. ' On
my honour, I will.'
The honour of Valbranche was but a rotten
staff which had often failed those who had leaned
on it, but there was a look on his face, a sound in
his voice, which told Roscoff that in the future it
would not fail Max.
The spasms of death seized him ; his eyes closed,
his lips gasped, his throat rattled, and then for a
time he lay so still, so breathless, that he seemed
already a corpse.
The sun shone into the room, and as it touched
his eyelids with its warmth they unclosed and the
eyes looked up, but in them there was no sight.
' Come Max, come Pepin,' he murmured as he
smiled vaguely at the light ; ' let us go and have a
day in the woods: they have set me free. I will
paint and you shall play, my children.'
128
AN INGRATE
He stretched his arms out longingly to the sun
which he could not see; then his head fell back
and a little blood oozed from his mouth; he was
dead.
AN ASSASSIN
K
Hit Hssasstn
4ABBO!' they cried across the fields;
4 Babbo!'
4 Here!' he answered.
The same shout, the same reply, were heard a
score of times in every day. They always wanted
him to go here, to go there, to do something, to
fetch or carry, to mind or make, to act as scapegoat,
or as umpire, between conflicting rights and wishes.
He came up the steep hillside field between the
ranks of the maples and vines, patiently, steadily,
with his back bowed, and his resigned tired look upon
his face, and his little red dog trotting at his heels.
He was a man not more than fifty, not quite so
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much indeed, but men who work in fields at all
hours and in hot and cold weather age very early;
the furrows grow deep in their faces, and the skin
is crossed and recrossed with multitudinous lines
like a spider's web, the spine gets bent from the
long hours of stooping over the earth, and the heat
and the damp and the frost all turn by turn enter
into the bones, and stiffen and cramp them before
old age is due. He was a broad-built man of middle
height, with fine features and grey thick hair, and
a look of strength and fatigue blent together; he
wore a rose-coloured cotton shirt and grey cotton
trousers pulled up to his knee, and a blue apron
twisted up round his loins, and beneath that a
leathern belt; his shirt was open at his throat and
showed his hairy chest; his feet were bare and
green from grass and moss, as stones get green
which lie in water.
It was his wife who had called him ; he was
Babbo (father) to her as to his children. She was
a woman about his own age, with a classic face and
dark large eyes, who in her youth had possessed
considerable charms, but now was like a soiled and
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i33
dust-begrimed picture; her feet, like his, were bare;
she wore a dingy cotton gown which had seen rain
and sun.
She was brown and thin and dirty. Once she
had been the beauty of her hamlet, but that time
was now very long ago.
' Babbo! Are you deaf?' she cried shrilly,
standing beside the tank which held the liquid
manure which was oozing out brown and slimy and
noxious, and trickling amongst the golden celandine
and the burdock leaves.
' Here I am,' he said again, as one who says,
* Do you ever spare me, and do I ever resist ?'
' Celso is going into the town,' she cried, ' and
the mule bites and kicks little Tisto, he can't put it
to, anyhow.'
Her husband said nothing, but mounted some
low grass-grown steps which led up to a grassy
court where the stables stood. The wooden doors
stood open, and in the darkness of the unclean
stinking stall there were dimly seen the forms of a
mule and a boy of twelve struggling together for
the mastery.
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' Come, come; patience, my Moro,' said the man
in a soft tone, half entreaty, half command ; and he
stroked the nose of the angry black mule, whose
curled-up lip showed yellow teeth all ready for a
snarl and bite.
Silently the peasant took the bit and headstall
from his little son Tisto's hands, and began to
harness the mule, which nibbled pleasantly at his
shirt sleeves and showed no more temper or resist-
ance. When the harness was on he backed the
animal into the shafts of a little two-wheeled ram-
shackle cart, and buckled the various straps; then
led the cart out into the sunshine.
' He will stand still if you flick the flies off him,'
he said to the boy ; then he prepared to go back to
his work in the field without offering any complaint
or protest against the interruption.
His wife was standing with eager intent eyes
watching a gate in p. wall near; she did not thank
him or notice him.
The gate opened on rusty hinges, and a young
man came out of the opening in the wall.
* I knew Tisto could manage the beast if he
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135
tried,' he said as he walked forwards, lazily, laugh-
ingly.
' Tisto cannot; I harnessed Moro,' said the elder
man briefly, and went away down the stone stairs
to his work. He did not look at the youth, nor at
his wife, who was the mother of the youth.
He went back to his work amongst the maize,
cutting its stalks down to where the cob grew, and
carrying the cut stalks with their rich green leaves
and their fluttering tassels to the cattle sheds,
leaving the cones to ripen till All Saints' Day.
He had worked hard like this all the days of his
life, and would work thus until death or paralysis
laid hold of him.
The young man at whom he had not looked
drove away in the mule cart, his mother gazing
as proudly after him as though he had been lord
of the world. He had nodded carelessly to her from
his. seat in the cart, and she had blown him kisses
eagerly from her two brown hands and pallid lips.
The youth was twenty-three years of age; he
had a broad stupid face with a red mouth, on
which sat usually a self-satisfied smile, and a straight,
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slim, well-made figure ; he had large and handsome
eyes with an insolent stare in them, and a clear
ruddy skin tinted like an apricot. Rustic maidens
thought him beautiful, as his mother did; but his
most devoted adorer did not admire him more than
he admired himself.
His name was Celso, and he was the eldest of
the family of seven, male and female, which called
Abbondio Castellani, father. They had all been
born here under these old red and brown tiles,
amongst the apple trees and mulberries, and had
thriven on the dunghills and the cesspool and the
dirt and the rotting vegetable refuse, and the close
stifling atmosphere of the sleeping-places, blooming
and laughing children of Hygeia, though they
heeded none of her rules and disobeyed all her
injunctions. Oxygen, the brother of Hygeia, looked
after these rebels and saved them from their dire
punishment. They shut him, indeed, obstinately
out of their chambers ; but he was with them all
day long in the fields, by the streams, under the
hedges, and saved them from themselves in their
own despite.
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137
They were all tall, strong, good-looking youths
and maidens these boys and girls who called him
Babbo, but they were all fair, like him. Celso alone
was dark of eyes and hair ; their lips were thin, and
his were full; their eyebrows were straight, and his
were arched ; their foreheads were broad, and his
was narrow ; he was as unlike them as the cuckoo
is unlike the finch in whose nest he has been
hatched. When he said ' Babbo' to the head of the
house he knew that the elder man, used though he
was to the epithet from him, heard it unwillingly,
and therefore Celso used it very often, and, when
near enough for the other to see him, said it with
a sneer, wrinkling up his nose, and a laugh on his
red lips.
He wras a fool, but he had the cunning of the
fool. He knew what it would have been better that
he should never have known. His laugh, silly,
jeering, cruel, said to the elder man:
' You know you are nothing to me; you know
your wife was big with me when you took her to
church ; you know you, who call yourself such an
honest man, played a churl's part then; you know
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that I am the son of a gentleman ; you know it all
as well as I do!'
And the elder man did know it. Working
amongst the plumes of the maize this day he
thought it all over for the ten thousandth time,
and cursed his own folly of long ago.
The woman who stood now at the door looking
after the mule cart as it rattled down the path be-
tween the peach and cherry and pear trees, had
been a great beauty at eighteen years old, a brown
lithe radiant creature, daughter of a peasant and of
generations of peasants, but of a noble carriage and
a resplendent colouring, like an autumn flower.
Abbondio had wooed her unsuccessfully for two
seasons; he, seven years older than herself, a fair,
stalwart, good-humoured fellow, the eldest son of his
house, and so with right to make an early marriage.
For months she refused his offer, then suddenly
accepted him. When they were firmly bound to-
gether by mayor and vicar, he learned why. Re-
pudiate her he could not; kill her he would not; he
loved her greatly, sincerely, passionately.
When, weeping and trembling for fear of his
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139
vengeance, she confessed to him that she was with
child by the young cavalry officer whose father
owned the lands on which her people lived, he
shrank from letting his family and neighbours know
how he had been fooled. He forgave her; he was
weak, and his passion overcame his manhood. When
the child was born the countryside thought it a son
of his ; and he was weaker still, and lived with her
year after year, and had children by her. Of the
young cuirassier they saw nothing; he had married
in the south, and never came near the scene of his
forgotten idyll. Little by little Chiara had let her
beauty go, and become the soiled, meagre, sunburnt,
fretful woman she now was. Little by little Ab-
bondio had changed from the bright, ruddy, happy
young husbandman which he had been on his mar-
riage-day to the toil-worn, silent, plodding, serious
man which he now was. He might have gone away,
but men of his class never dream of going away; they
are part of the soil which they till. Thinking over
the past now, he did not see what he could have
done other than what he did. If only she had
been grateful he would never have complained nor
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regretted. But he had never had a word or a sign
of gratitude from her.
He recalled that nuptial night when the moon
looked in through the lattice of the little lean-to
attic full of the smell of the fruit garnered in the
garret adjacent. He saw in memory her trembling
shuddering nudity crouched down before him ; her
long, loose hair lying on the bricks, her heaving
breasts pressed against his own bare feet as she
wept and sobbed and quivered and implored his
pardon. Well, he had pardoned her, not only once
then, but every day ever since for four-and-twenty
years; he had never lifted his hand against her, or
his voice ; he had carried his knowledge silently in
him, and had sought no counsel from his priest or
comfort from his mother; he did not know whether
he had done ill or well, but that was what he had
done. And never once in four-and-twenty years
had the woman shown him any kindness, or given
him any affection.
As the years rolled on his parents had gone to
their rest under the cypresses of the village church,
and Abbondio had become head of the house in his
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141
stead on this old place of Filibrana, which had been
the homestead of the Castellani ever since days of
old, which lie far away in obscurity, covered with the
cobwebs of the centuries.
It was part of an estate which occupied a
position of much beauty, lying on a hillside turned
to the south-west, with a range of pine woods be-
hind it, and at its feet a river unknown to fame but
running a varied course through poplar groves, and
beds of flag and iris and stony rocky banks, and
quiet fields with corn and vines. The farmhouse
had once been an old posting place ; it was rambling,
tumble-down, beautiful in colour, russet and grey
and brown, with tiled roofs and deep eaves and high
chimneys, and mulberry and apple trees growing
close to it, and pushing their boughs in at its case-
ments, which as often as not were unglazed. The
poultry ran in and out of the house, and up and down
the stairs. The dungheap was at the door, and self-
sown convolvulus and columbine grew in it. The
ass and mule and cows were kept in the dark in
stables which were never aired or cleaned. The
uneven pavements of the court had never been
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mended for two hundred years, and after rain
the little yellow ducklings could swim in the little
pools between the stones. Over one side of the
house wistaria climbed luxuriantly, and in spring
was a sheet of lilac blossom, but no one ever
attended to it, and it was broken and spoiled in
various places by children and by rats.
In front was a little garden, fenced in with bay,
and with some straggling oleanders and a fragrant
olive in it; in the old time it had been pretty.
On the other side were the sheds, where the poor
milch cows passed their weary lives chained up in
the dark, and knowing nought of the joys of the
pasture and the sunshine. 4 For sure it is not a
life for a living creature,' said Abbondio some-
times, with pity in his heart for them; but every-
body kept their cows in that manner. No one
ever thought air or movement necessary for them,
and even if he had attempted to put them out to
graze his overseer would have been down on him
instantly for such a waste of land.
Indoors there was the vaulted kitchen with the
large black fireplace, which had been there centuries
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143
before in the posting house; the iron chain for the
iron soup pot, and the iron dogs on which to rest
the firewood in the centre of it, and on each side the
charcoal pits and gratings. It was so big that two
men could sit on stools upon each of its hobs close
to the burning logs, and did so sit willingly on
winter nights.
On either side were rooms with rude massive
wooden furniture and bedsteads and coarse crockery.
It was all very dirty and untidy; there were thick
cobwebs on the walls and ceilings, and a strong
choking scent everywhere of garlic, of dung, of
onions, of wine, of fried oil, of foul linen, and of un-
washed flesh. All these interiors are alike. The
red bricks of the floors were grey from the mud and
dust which the many feet passing over them brought
in at all seasons. There was abundance of fresh
spring water bubbling out from a spout in a wall
without, and filling a square stone tank just outside
the door, but the water was never used by anybody
except in washing vegetables and to slake the thirst
of the cattle. The land ran side by side with land
belonging to that young noble who had been
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Chiara's undoing ; the.fields were only divided by a
deep ditch in which a runlet of water rippled, and
by a large black poplar tree, round whose stately
head swallows and bats spent every summer's eve
in a wild and whirling waltz.
The master of the estate was a banker in Rome,
and his steward only visited it at intervals; after
harvest, vintage, or oil pressing. The peasants on
it did pretty much as they chose, and were left to the
old ways and habits which had prevailed there for
hundreds of years. The ugly sulphur pumps, and
the sulphate of copper syphons, and the black
liquid manure from houses and hospitals, did indeed
defile the fields by order of the steward; but most
other things were ordered as they had been in
the previous century, only nothing prospered so
well, or was done so easily, as in those simpler
times. There had been more abundance, more
content, less expenditure, more pleasure in work
for work's sake, in those times.
Abbondio, though he looked old, was not yet
an old man ; but he could remember that things
had been otherwise, and men and women happier,
in the days when he had been in his teens.
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His father had been a mirthful, kindly, and
good-hearted man, brave in a black velvet jacket
on feast days, and a red waistcoat, which lasted
his life ; and his mother had been a comely dame,
with a large store of linen and woollen in her
presses, and a good-humoured authority which
her sons and daughters never resisted till the day
of her death. Those fine stores had dwindled in
Chiara's careless, feeble hands, and the authority too
had vanished with them in a great measure. The
effort to make ends meet was harder, and the boys
and girls were always wanting to dress themselves
up to look something they were not. Nobody
wore homespun any more, except himself, and
a few old women were the only people who span on
the whole country side.
He thought it all over as he worked amongst
the maize: the comely lass that Chiara was in
those days, with her swift brown feet flying along
the grass; his pride in her when their names
were read out at mass in the village church; his
rage and shame when he found that she had only
married him to hide her state from her family;
L
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his stupid bewilderment, his useless wrath, his
abject acceptation—he lived it all over in his
thoughts as he cut the thick juicy stalks.
Yet what else could he have done ? If he had
told of her and left her, poor creature, what would
have become of her ?
She had been the worst of wives to him, thrift-
less, dirty, lazy, ignorant, wasteful; though farm
work had been about her from her infancy she had
never done it well; her hens never laid, her silk-
worms never prospered ; she never served the meals
correctly ; the boys and girls ate where they chose,
carrying out their bowl of soup or platter of fry to
any spot which pleased them ; there was no order or
regularity or thrift where she was, for if the husband,
rule the outdoor labour, the indoor work belongs
wholly to the wife; her cows easily sickened; she
baked heavy bread; she sent half the clothes
out to be made in the nearest village; she"let her
children, when they were small, go in rags and
run riot as. they chose ; she was always ailing, or
pretending that she ailed something; she had a
woman in always to help her with the washing ; and
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*47
she spited and thwarted her husband and his kin-
dred on every occasion she could seize.
Eh ! women were like that, he said to himself.
Be good to them, they scorned you; beat them,
curse them, starve them, drive them, and they
kissed the dust you trod! They were all like
that. She had given him some fine children
indeed: well built, buxom, healthy people, and
not lazier or more hard to teach than most
youngsters were. But they were all ruined for
him by Celso, by that hateful upstart and bastard
who had grown up with them as the hemlock
grows with the seeding grass. Any pleasure he
might have had in them was marred, and jarred,
by Celso. That, too, was the woman's fault.
From the time Celso had been in swaddling
clothes she had waited on his every whim, sacri-
ficed herself and everything else to him, made
him the vain, useless, selfish, hateful thing he
was. Nothing had been good enough for her
bastard; nothing had been denied to him that a
poor, silly, worshipping mother had means to get
for him.
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Chiara was one of those women—they may
be numbered by millions—who cannot keep their
own counsel, who would talk and blab even though
their indiscretion cost them their lives. Through
her, Celso, before he had reached ten years old,
had known that he was the son of a gentleman,
and had conceived abiding scorn for the man
whom he called father and for his half brothers and
sisters—a scorn all the more impudent and un-
bridled because based upon ignorance, foolishness,
and error.
Chiara had always ruined the lad. She had let
him lie his full length through the heat of the day;
smoke and strut and drink when he was a mere
baby; have rich morsels to eat apart, while the
others all munched their dry bread and supped up
noisily their bean or lentil soup. As he had grown
older she had saved up her scanty pence to buy
pomades for his hair, smart ties for his throat, penny
cigars for him to puff, little canes for him to twirl;
and let him go into the town vainglorious and decked
out, whilst the young sons of Abbondio worked hard,
even on feast days, in their cotton or woollen shirts,
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149
with battered straw hats or dented and greasy felt
ones, according to the season, on their tawny crisp
curls.
* As if the others were not hers, too,' thought
their father bitterly ; ' as if because they are mine
they are nothing to the womb which carried them !'
He was a just man, and she was an unjust
woman.
' One osier is straight and another osier stoops
over the stream,' he reflected; ' you cannot alter
that; Nature made them so.'
Of the word philosophy he had certainly never
heard, and he had never had anyone to teach him
anything, but Nature had made him like the straight-
growing osier, and he was of a ruminant meditative
mind.
' A woman is but a thread, as one may say,' his
father observed once, ' but so is the wick of a candle,
and if the wick runs away with the grease, the
tallow can't move the wick.'
That one moment of generosity and divine
pardon in which he had condoned the offence of the
woman who had cheated him cost him more than
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many a cruelty and crime cost other men. It was
the one mistake on the threshold of life which
darkened for ever all the house of life.
Nature had made him cheerful; if he had had a
pleasant home he would have been cheerful in it.
In his youth the old place had been gay with the
guitar and the songs and the recitals of tales and
legends in the long winter evenings, when the
females span or plaited in the intervals of the dances,
and the males never dreamed of going, as the boys
went now, for diversion and drink to the eating
house or wineshop in the village, but sat round their
own hearths or footed the tresco with their betrothed.
What sound, merry laughter that old kitchen had
heard in the years of his youth ! What well-played
airs of mandoline and lute! what well-sung ballads
and joyous choruses ! And then at only a sign from
the mother out the lights had gone, and up like
dutiful children, men and women both, and to
bed.
Now there was laughter sometimes indeed, since
there were boys and girls in the house, but there
was more quarrelling, bickering, screaming; the lads
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stole off when they could to the village, and the old
guitars lay covered with dust on a shelf, for nobody
knew how to play on them. Instead of the old lays
and the old stories there was a halfpenny newspaper
read out by the flare of a petroleum dame, and tell-
ing of murder and rape and strikes and the speeches
of socialists. Dance the youngsters did still, some-
times, but it was no more the old simple rustic
measures; it was the waltz or the polka, with the
wooden heels of the heavy shoes clumsily striking
the brick floor at every awkward round.
And when their mother wanted them to go to
bed she screamed and scolded and pushed and pulled
in vain, and sometimes the young ones fell asleep,
clothed as they were, on chair or settle or pile
of straw with the mud or the dust on their feet
and legs as they had come that day out of the
fields.
He ought to have kept them in order, and he
would have done so despite their mother had it not
been for the evil influence of the one who passed as
his eldest son. Celso had them all in his hands,
and moved them about as if they were pawns.
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They saw with Celso's eyes, they heard with Celso's
ears ; they were more afraid of Celso's sneer than of
any flogging or scolding.
She had told him what he should never and
need never have known. She had made him think
himself of finer clay than his brothers and sisters.
She had pampered him and cockered him up, and
waited on him and poured his praises all day long
into his ears until he did not know whether he was
on his head or his heels.
Of his knowledge he made a whip with which he
lashed and drove his mother, and a wasp swarm
which he let loose, whenever he was in the humour,
about the head of her husband.
' Why do I bear with him ? Why do I not kick
him out and have done with him ?' thought Abbon-
dio twenty times a year; but he was patient and
kind and generous—his wife's heart was set on this
wretched boy—he let him bide and trusted to time
to rid him of the incubus, as gentle and forbearing
people do, forgetting that time, as often as not, does
nothing to loosen a chain, but only rivets it the
closer.
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iS3
Time is sometimes a healer, but it is as often as
not a gaoler.
It was now August, and August is the least
lovely month in this country. The vines are dis-
coloured with sulphur and sulphate. The fields,
already ploughed, lie bare, with straggling half-
grown weeds trying in vain to cover their naked-
ness. The fruit trees are sere and yellow from
the heat. The maize has been cut down to its
cone. There are few flowers, only the little yellow
dragon's mouth, the rosemary, and the hemlock.
The richness, the luxuriance, the gaiety of the
early summer are past, and the rains have not
yet come to renew the beauty of the earth. What
are still beautiful are the nights ; the planets
are displayed in all their glory, and the meteors
are racing in giddy haste from Perseus down the
sky.
Peasants do not look at planet or Perseus. They
are indoors at those hours eating their onions and
fennel and bread, or snoring heavily with their un-
washed hairy limbs tossed over the edges of their
narrow mattresses.
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* Is Celso gone into the town, Babbo ?' asked a
fresh girl's voice wistfully as he cut down the stalks
of the maize.
4 Yes,' he answered ; ' why ?'
' He said he would take me with him/ said the
girl, with a sound like a little sob.
' You are better where you are,' said Abbondio.
The child sighed.
She was his niece, though she called him father
like the rest. She was the daughter of his dead
brother ; a pretty, blooming, hazel-eyed, auburn-
haired little maid, fresh as a growing lettuce, bright
as a chaffinch ; she wore a pink cotton frock kilted
up to her bare knees, a blue apron twisted round her
waist, and had a broad-leafed old straw hat slung at
her back. She too was cutting the maize, and
stooped again over her work: if tears fell on the
leaves, the leaves told no tale.
' I do not care for you to go with Celso any-
where,' said Abbondio in his grave, gentle tones.
' Do you remember that, Bina.'
Her name was Balbina.
She did not answer.
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155
41 will take you into the town, child, some
Friday,' said her uncle. ' Not that there is any
good got going there for man or maid or beast.'
' Celso goes often,' said Bina timidly.
' And does he get much good there, or bring
much good here from it ?' asked her uncle, an un-
wonted hardness in his mellow voice.
He could never help that tone coming into his
voice whenever he spoke of the bastard. Bina
knew nothing of the reason for it; she thought it
was because Celso was idle and disobedient. Every
one knew he was that, and that Babbo, who never
spared himself, could not endure self-indulgence
and insolence in anyone.
She tried to make excuses for her idol, but
Abbondio stopped her.
* Spare your breath, little one ; you cannot make
a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The lad is no good.
The less you talk of him or think of him the better;
you may be sure he is thinking of some hussy in
the town and not of you. We are none of us fine
enough, little one, for Sir Celso.'
Bina coloured till her always rosy little face was
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like a ruddy tomato, and she stooped silently over
her work, gathering up the cut stalks in her round
arms. Her cousin Celso told her a different story
when he caught her alone under the maples and
vines at twilight.
Bina had been in the family all her life. Her
father had been killed by an ox in the second year
after her birth, and Abbondio had always taken his
place towards her, and loved her dearly—more
dearly even than his own children, because the
taint of Chiara's treachery was reflected on all of
them. He had her future husband in view : the
elder son of a neighbour, a peasant like himself;
for Bina had been used to the life of the fields from
babyhood, and could not have thriven away from
the grass paths, and the running brooks, and the
ripening fruits, and the fresh air of the country
side. When she had been too small to walk a step
he had carried her on his shoulder down to where
his own labour lay, and had set her amongst the
green wheat or the ripe, amongst the sprouting
cabbages or the flowering beans, on the wild thyme
in the grass, or under the laden boughs of the
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157
cherry trees, according to the season or the kind of
work which occupied him; and. Bina had played
with her own toes or her own fingers, had laughed
at the butterflies, and cooed to the swallows, and
nibbled fruits, and slept with her head on the dog's
body, and been no trouble at all to him ; and had
grown up to feel, as he felt, that there is no friend
so sure and so sound in life as the green fields and
the blue skies.
Neither she nor he knew that they felt thus,
because the peasant never thinks clearly enough to
be aware of what he thinks ; they would only have
become aware of it if they had been sent away
from the freedom of the fields, and the sight of the
skies, and shut up in a street or a cell, when they
would have alike suffered, as the bull and the heifer
suffer when they are driven away from the green
pastures to the railway cattle truck.
' How old are you, Bina ?' said he this day, as
they worked amongst the maize. Men are seldom
accurate as to the years of the women around
them.
* Eighteen, Babbo, come All Saints' Day,' said
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the girl with that pride in growing old which
characterises the very young and the very aged.
' By Bacchus !' murmured Abbondio ; he had
thought her thirteen or fourteen*. 4it is time you
were wed, little one. Women are like apples and
pears, they must not hang long on the stalk.'
' As you please, Babbo,' said Bina.
She hoisted her great sheaf of maize stalks upon
her back and went uphill with it, the ribbon-like
leaves rattling and rustling as she climbed, and the
brown tassels falling over her eyes.
4 She is shy—the little goose !' said her uncle to
himself. ' I will speak on Sunday to Nattalino's
people.'
Nattalino was the young man whom he had
singled out for her, whose family lived at an old
grey building, once a convent, set amongst walnut
and ilex trees on the hill opposite, a mile or less
than a mile distant.
He would not be able to give her much : linen,
a bed, two gowns, a string of pearls, the usual
necessary obligatory dower: more he could not do
for her in justice to his daughters, but so much he
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would and could do. He had the money ready,
put by in old broad silver pieces, such as are never
seen now unless they come out of some peasant's
rusty iron box or some village priest's carven oak
chest.
Of the future of his own girls he was sometimes
afraid. They had the leaven of their mother in
them, and hankered after cheap jewellery, smart
colours, new ways of doing their hair and of cutting
out their Sunday gowns. But Bina cared for none
of that rubbish, and scarcely ever looked in the
glass.
She was docile and simple and laborious, up
with the lark, and untiring. As nothing tanned her
pretty bright skin, so nothing tired her elastic
muscles. She worked like a boy ; much better than
a boy. What fine children she would bring into the
world, and on what wholesome milk she would
suckle them!
But the subject of marriage was unwelcome to
her.
It perplexed and disturbed him that she had
run away. Maidens are not shy in rustic life. They
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laugh merrily when anyone speaks of their nuptials,
and chatter as willingly as magpies and monkeys
when there is any question of their outfit, their
banns, or their bridal clothes.
For Bina to have run away when such a subject
was mooted was without any precedence in rural
life.
Well, it should all be arranged without her,
thought her uncle. It was generally best done so ;
the happiest unions were those which were the out-
come of judicious parental choice, and careful weigh-
ing and pondering by the elders of two families.
Abbondio remembered ruefully that he had gone
against his mother's counsels in his love suit and his
marriage, and that only with much reluctance and
unwillingness had his father's consent been con-
ceded.
' Passion is a bad guide in a lifelong bargain,' he
said to himself as he slashed again at the tall stalks
of the maize.
If he had hearkened to his own people he would
have shut his eyes and hardened his heart to the
nutbrown beauty of Chiara, and would have taken
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as his helpmate a good docile fair-haired damsel,
daughter of the miller at the little corn mill on the
river, who had possessed a tidy dower, and was
industrious and chaste and blithe. She had married
her father's foreman and still lived at the little mill,
of which she had become the mistress, with the
huge black wheels churning in the water under the
cane brakes ; she had a set of serious, gentle, cleanly
children, he saw them at mass every Sunday and
saint's day, and she was always cheerful and quiet,
and the big black wheels ground means enough for
all to dwell in comfort.
He never took a sack of grain to be ground
there but what he looked at her wistfully, and
thought of the fate which might have been his if he
had not been a fool, a blind, stubborn, accursed fool,
standing in his own light and pouring out his cupful
of blessings in waste upon the sand.
Yes ; love was a trap and a snare, and a man in
love knew no more what he did than the birds do
when they perch on the lines of the telegraph,
and the unseen lightning flies along and slays them
in their temerity and ignorance and trust.
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Abbondio could not get to sleep quickly this night
after his speech with his little niece. Bina's manner
had seemed to him strange. Sometimes Abbondio
thought with vague disquietude that it is only the
sweetest and soundest fruit which most attracts the
Wasps and worms. But Bina was always under his
own eye and his own roof, and, though to part with
her would be hard, he meant to marry her early to
this good industrious youth ; and the welfare of his
brother's child was dear to him.
Had Celso been philandering with her? It
was unlikely, he thought. Celso's vanity would
make him seek city maidens, and trolls with
French bonnets on their heads, or what they
called so. His little cousin, with grass seeds in
her curls and grass stains on her feet, would not
be fine enough for him.
Bina slept in a room next to his with his three
daughters, Petronilla, Felicita, and Savina. Through
the thin wattle partition he could always hear their
voices babbling ; loud, shrill voices, as the voices
of all peasants are. This evening he heard his
own girls chattering and squabbling as usual; but
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163
the voice of Bina he did not hear. He rapped
on the partition wall, and called to them :
1 Is Bina there, children ?'
Petronilla called back to him, ' Lord! yes,
Babbo! Where should she be ?'
And Bina's voice added :
' I am here, Babbo. Do you want me ?'
' Remember to take the fowls to Don Placido
at dawn. He wants them the first thing,' said
Abbondio, by way of excuse for his silly inter-
rogation, and not knowing very well himself what
suspicions had moved him to ask the question.
'Yes, Babbo,' replied the child meekly; and
Petronilla said angrily to her, ' He always sends
you to the vicarage that you may get the house-
keeper's coffee. S'iora Marta always gives you coffee,
fine and hot, with lots of sugar; you cannot say
she does not give you coffee.'
'You always send Bina that she may get the
coffee !' they said, with tears of rage, to their father
in the morning.
* I send Bina because she does not loiter on
the way, and does not chatter with S'iora Marta,
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and does not steal the vicar s sugar out of the
bowl,' said their father ; the girls grew red, and
hung their heads. They knew very well that they
were gossips and dawdlers, and that when they
could pilfer a morsel they did so.
The cup of coffee which the vicar's housekeeper
was wont to give to any early morning visitor
was much coveted in the district, it being black
as jet, and sweet as molasses, and thick as mud
with grounds, which is the ideal of coffee to rural
drinkers. Any one of them would willingly take
any day the mile-long walk up a stony shadeless
hill for sake of a cup of that coffee.
S'iora Marta, like all priests' housekeepers,
was curious, and a chatterbox, and she had
many a time kept these little human sieves
by her with bribes of cake and almonds, to
get out of them all they knew of their parents and
neighbours.
Bina was not to be so tempted; she liked
sweetstufifs as well as her cousins; but when it
was a question of gossiping she shut tight her
rosebud of a mouth.
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1 Babbo says women are the perdition of the
world with their chatter,' she said stubbornly, and
was not to be seduced.
Petronilla and Felicita and Savina—known in
their family and neighbourhood as Nilla and Ciccia
and Vina—were not actually envious of her,
because they were good-natured girls, and knew
that their father was a just man. Moreover Bina
was useful to them, and always willing to be so ;
but they did not love her any better than mediocrity
loves superiority at any time. She was in their
way. They could not very well stay in bed when
she was up at cockcrow. They could not ride
behind the donkey when she walked beside him
and helped the wheels out of the ruts. They
could not lie down in the straw, and suck one
cow's udder and smack their lips, when she was
loyally pressing the milk of another into a pail.
She was an irritation and offence to them, as
excellence of any kind must be to indolence and
incompetence, however unpresuming and uncon-
scious excellence may be. Besides she laughed
at them: laughed at their efforts to look like
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town people on Sundays, at the braids and coils
into which, once a week, they distorted their
abundant hair, at the trouble they took to get some
one to lend them paper patterns of fashions which
they thought new, though they were old. It was
not in human nature for them to love Bina, though,
alas! they could not entirely despise her ever since
Celso, their supreme arbiter and example, had
said once, 4 The little one is prettier than any of
you.'
And they knew they were not ill-favoured.
They were, indeed, idyllic to look at when they ran
hand in hand down the grass paths under the
linked vines ; they had the old classic lines, the old
classic grace. On holy days, on feast days, when
they were oiled and combed, and busked and
stockinged, they were horrible. But that they did
not know, nor would they have believed, though an
angel had descended from the skies to tell them so.
The disease of the close of the century had
reached even their remote hills and valleys, and the
hunger for something they had not, the thirst to be
something they were not, was in them, little igno-
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167
rant, humble peasants though they were. It made
them discontented, restless, saucy, idle, and, at
times, very ill-tempered and unmanageable. They
were a cause of care and alarm to their father, for
he knew that their mother's influence was always
exercised on them against his wishes and his orders,
and she was of necessity so much more often beside
them than he could be. She did not love them, for
all the love of her shallow soul was centred on her
first-born; but she had that affinity of sex with
them which makes women cling together and hold
together when there is any question of opposing or
outwitting the males of the family.
Late in the afternoon, when Abbondio was some
distance away from the house with one of his sons
beside the little watercourse which ran under
willows and osiers and mulberries, dividing his
farm from another, Vina came flying over the
ploughed slopes, her auburn hair in innumerable
little curls catching the slanting sun rays and
glowing red as copper.
' Babbo, Babbo!' she cried to him, ' mother
wants you. She has some news for you.'
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'It can wait till supper time, surely,' said
Abbondio, straightening his aching back.
'No, no; you must go up at once!' said the
child imperiously and pettishly. ' Mother can't
come down here, she is tired.'
' Is it about 'Faello ?'
Raffaello was the son who was serving his time
with the artillery at a great hot stony town in the
south, where the cholera was said to be.
' I dare say it is,' said Vina, standing on tiptoe to
pluck a fig from a branch above her head. ' You'd
better go up and see, Babbo. Mother is all in a
twitter and twinkle, and she has got two red spots
on her cheeks, and she says to me : " Go quick, and
send your father here." And she shied a big bit of
charcoal at me.'
Vina tore open her fig and pressed its ruddy
inside into her own red little mouth.
Abbondio scraped the heavy soil off the soles of
his feet on the top of his spade, and unwillingly
climbed the steep fields lying hot in the late August
sun. He was always afraid when he heard of any
excitability on his wife's part, for at times she fell
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169
into convulsions such as townspeople call hysterics,
and he always feared lest in one of these fits she
should let her daughters know the story of her
youth and Celso's birth.
He saw her from afar off, standing under the
wooden loggia, amongst the drying millet sheaves,
the piled brambles, the dead leaves, the dirty
carts, the hencoops, the turkey poults, the unused
ploughshares, the empty barrels, the bunches of
sage and mint and thyme, the broken milk-flasks,
which were all pell-mell together in happy-go-lucky
confusion. As he drew nearer he saw that she was
in an odd and excited state as Vina had said. He
had never seen her look so proud and gleeful since
the day of Celso's first communion, when the bishop
had singled him out for admiration and had called
him a little Perugino, which had flattered her the
more because she had not a notion what it meant.
As he approached she screamed out to him :
' What think you ? He is come back!'
Abbondio nodded. He knew that Celso had
returned, for lie had seen the mule come over the
brow of the hill to the left of the house.
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Chiara, with a cunning silly triumph on her face,
leaned nearer to him.
' Dost hear me, Babbo ? He is come back.'
•Who?'
1 Count Ausano.'
'What!'
Her husband shouted the single word so loud,
and in a voice so changed, that she was startled and
frightened. But she put her arms akimbo and
braved him : all sorts of foolish pride and vague
ambitious schemes were in her silly head, not for
herself but for her Celso.
'He is come back,' she repeated, 'and they do
say he has taken quite a fancy to the place, and is
going to buy the land all round it, this as well as
other ; and his wife is dead, and sons they never
had, and who knows but what my boy may not get
all in time when he knows, as know he shall, and
sooth to say, if he only looks in Celso's face he
cannot doubt, for it is his own very moral
' Silence!' said Abbondio. Then he added
slowly, being a man of few words and deliberate
thought, never made easily clear to himself:
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171
You say your man of long ago is here ? Your
bastard's father ? Is that so ? '
' Ay, ay, it is so,' repeated Chiara, her arms
still in her sides, nodding and smiling vacantly but
vaingloriously. ' And why should you glower like
that ? Good Lord! It may prove a rare fine thing for
me and mine, and we shall not forget you, be sure,
for you have been a good hardworking mate to me,
though you are but a clod, as one may say, beside
those who have manners and learning, and the ways
of the town.'
Abbondio took no notice of her gibes. He was
so used to them that he noticed them no more than
he did the flies which were always buzzing in his
ears and lighting on his eyelids. But he laid his
two hands on her shoulders and swayed her to and
fro with a heavy even pressure.
' If you had had any decency in you your son
would never have known whence he came.'
'Ho, ho! poor lad! Why should he not take
what pleasure he can in knowing he has gentle blood
in his veins ?'
' You are a shameless woman, wife.'
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' Ho, ho! I am what all women are ; take my
word for it.'
'God forbid!' He still held his hands on her
shoulders, rocking her to and fro.
' List to me, woman,' he said in her ear. ' I have
kept your bastard for four-and-twenty years, and a
curse he has been ; but of that I say nought; 'tis not
his fault, maybe—it comes of them by whom he was
made. But this I do say, and mind it well—neither
you nor he will have aught to do with the man who
begot him, and who for four-and-twenty years has
never thought on him or on you. The fellow has
passed as my son, and has borne my name, and I
let it be so that neighbours might not jeer, nor my
father and brother, God rest their souls! call me
foul names. I have let bygones be bygones, and I
have borne with you and with him ; but now,
hearken and obey. I will not have you tell this
man aught nor see him. He is nought to you. He
never has done aught for you nor for your son. You
are my wife, and I forbid you to speak of the man
or see him. Do you hear ? Do you understand ?'
Chiara was a cowardly woman, and she was
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173
frightened. The pressure of her husband's hands
and the sound of his voice frightened her more than
his words. She had not known him angry for so
many years. She thought he was like a yoked and
muzzled ox whom you may beat and prod at your
will with your goad because he cannot turn.
She passed her tongue over her dry cracked
lips, and rubbed her hands nervously against her
thighs.
' Good Lord, Babbo, how you do take on!' she
muttered, trying to smile. ' One would think you
jealous, you silly old man !'
And she giggled a little, though she was trem-
bling in her soul.
'Jealous, you fool!' echoed Abbondio. 'Go,
look in your glass and see if man alive could be
jealous of such a wreck as you! Go, look at your
wrinkled throat and your sagging breast, and your
yellow skin and your falling hair ! Jealous ! Once
I was jealous—four-and-twenty years ago—and yet
I did not kill you then—mores the pity !'
Chiara shook herself free of his hold, stung
into momentary courage by the outrage of his
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words. True she was all that he said, true the
little rickety mirror in her room told her worse
than he did ; but no woman can endure the state-
ment to her face of her lost looks. It made a fury
of a white-livered timid creature. She shook with
rage from head to foot, and hissed at him till she
foamed at the mouth.
' A woman cannot live with a hind like you,' she
screamed, f and bear him children, and work in sun
and rain and drought and snow, and starve on
beans and bread and watered lees of wine, and yet
keep the good looks which she was born with ; 'tis
not in reason nor in nature. But my boy has youth.
My boy has beauty. My boy has health and
strength and comeliness ; and I tell you that before
he is a week older his father, his real father, shall
see him and know him, and be proud of him. He
and I have suffered enough in your wretched hole.
'Tis time that our lots were changed and our board
was spread!'
'You are mad, woman 1' said Abbondio, as he
stared at her in stupor and disgust. And she was
for the moment mad, being drunk with the idea of her
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i75
old lover's return as on some fermenting liquor, and
refusing to remember or admit for an instant the
change in herself which she could not in reason
deny.
'You are mad,' said Abbondio slowly again,
contempt and pity alike moving him, as he looked on
her wild, fevered, convulsed face, and her snapping
eyelids from under which she darted fire at him.
'All I say to you is this, and you shall abide by
it. You are my wife, and your eldest born passes
as my son. I forbid either of you to have aught to
say or to do with this man who you tell me is
returned. You must know little of men, poor soul,
to think that your news would be welcome to him,
or your bastard either. But whether they would be
or not, mind this, Chiara, mind this, no one out
of my house goes to your undoer.'
' My undoer!' shrieked the woman, the foam cf
rage upon her lips. ' It was you who were my
undoer, marrying me to a clod, setting me down to
a mill ass's life, making me a beast of burden, to
bear your children, and hoe your turnips, and bake
your bread! I was the handsomest lass in the
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country side. If I had been let alone I could have
made my way to the cities or foreign countries and
had a fortune in my face, and worn lace and lawn
shifts, and lived on sweetmeats and cheese and
stewed hares! It is you who have been my undoer,
taking me before the mayor and the altar, to make
a slave of me from sunrise to moonrise!'
Her husband looked at her, one long look, then
turned away with a faint bitter smile upon his face.
The stupendous ingratitude was too familiar to him,
too common in her, to amaze him; its well-known
odious shamelessness served rather as a calming
drug to his own anger. It was so constant and so
hateful that it sobered him. Was it worth while to
spend breath and wrath on such a miserable thing
as she ? He shrugged his shoulders and went away
to his work.
She thought that she had vanquished him. She
had had the last word : the one sign of conquest so
dear to women. She stood gasping for breath, her
past terror and her present exultation seeming to
clutch at her throat and stifle her.
Abbondio, as usual, returned to his work; he
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had no leisure to spend on emotion. He was angry
\yith himself for the heat with which he had spoken.
He was an even-tempered man and of great patience,
scarcely ever stirred out of his passive and silent
acceptance of all things. He had long known that
his wife was a poor, feckless, ungrateful, ill-con-
ditioned creature, but he had made the best of a
bad bargain ; there had been nothing else left for
him to do. He told himself now that he had been
wrong to excite himself over this man's home-corn-
ing; what could it matter one way or another ?
What difference would it make ? This poor vain
fool supposed that a gentleman would believe her,
and accept her son, and rejoice in his own paternity.
But that was not the way of gentry ; they were not
apt to be so kind or so ready to remember their
own levities. Poor silly jade! She only prepared
chagrin and disappointment for herself. Of that he
was sure, and yet the idea that this man was near
.was an irritation to him and an offence. Men of
Abbondio's class are not sensitive; their feelings
are stunted as their minds are by continuous and
fatiguing labours. The elementary and instinctive
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affections are all which stir in them, and they are
more apt to be deeply moved by a cow's death, a
bad crop, or a lost bargain, than by any sentiment
or sorrow. Therefore, what he felt about this
old lover of Chiara's coming nigh him was not
what a man of culture and of leisure would have
felt, but was a dull angry sense of offence and
of an unbecoming liberty taken with him and
his.
He had maintained the woman and the bastard
all these many years in good seasons and in bad
ones, and at the first hint that this man who had
never done aught for them drew nigh the new-
comer became their only thought.
' It is human nature, maybe,' said he to the soil
as he turned it; ' but it is vile human nature.'
He had forbidden his wife to see the man, but
how could he enforce his order ? She was crafty
and secretive ; she"had been so in a thousand little
things, she would be so in a larger one. He could
not spend his time in watching her, he was tied to
the fields. Besides, she would have outwitted him
if he had any amount of time. She and her son to-
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79
gether backed each other up ai\d screened one an-
other, and helped and lied, and plotted and planned
in mutual and never-failing amity. Had they not
done so ever since the boy was small, and stole eggs
and walnuts from the neighbours whilst his mother
filched from her husband's trouser pockets to get
means to stop those neighbours' angry mouths with
gifts of tobacco or salt or coffee?
Had he not seen through it all, and been sick
at heart for it, and powerless to help it, all these
years, and would it not be the same thing over
and over again so long as their lives should last ?
He was helpless ; the reins had slipped from his
hands somehow or other long, long ago, and he
had never recovered them.
He was not a weak man either, only too placid
and kind and yielding; and from the moment that
he had condoned the woman's first and infamous
offence against him he had been in a position in
which it was as difficult to be firm as it is hard
to walk straightly or quickly in a bog. A masterful
man, an ungenerous man, or a cruel man would
have made the woman pay, and pay heavily, every
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i So AN ASSASSIN
hour of her life ; but he was no one of these three
things, and she had found that out very^ quickly,
and the one sinned against was treated as the
sinner.
A hard-working man can rule in his house-
hold if he rule by the fist; but if he be too for-
bearing to do that, he will have little authority,
for he is too occupied and too fatigued to have
time or wit for moral suasion or sharp argument.
I n the lives of the poor the roughest rule: the kind
go to the wall, and fill their pipes with ashes.
The ashes in his had been cold four-and-twenty
years, and yet had power to blister his lips.
What should he do ? he pondered as he worked
this day : his work was nasty, repellent work ; it was
that of pouring the liquid manure over the roots of
the freshly sprouted broccoli and cauliflowers. There
is a law which forbids this work to be done between
sunrise and sunset; but no peasant in the land
ever heeds the lav/. The human faeces are carted
over the fields in barrels, rudely and ineffectively
closed with wisps of straw, and the stench steams
up from the soil in the heat of the sun when the
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181
contents of the barrels are poured out on the earth,
The sickly odour entered his nostrils and his throat,
and stung them as if it were a swarm of bees ;
it clung to his hands and infected his clothes ;
he would never get rid of it for hours to come.
This filth had not been used in his young days ;
the dung of the stables had been enough for the
soil then. The ground had grown greedy and
beastly like men ; nay, it was not the ground which
was greedy, it was only men. The ground was
willing enough to bring forth the vegetables in its
own due time, without bribe or nostrum ; but men
wanted the green things earlier than their time,
quicker than it was their nature to be, and so
drenched the soil with ordure to compass that end.
He did it because others did it, because the overseer
ordered it to be done; but he did not like it any
more than he liked the copper poison for the vines,
or any other of the stinking novelties with which
the fields were worried and tortured from one
Corpus Domini to another.
His eldest son Rufo was working with him,
and spoke to him several times without getting
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any reply. At last the young man said impatiently,
' Are you deaf, Babbo ?'
Abbondio looked up like a man awakened out
of sleep.
4 What did you say, lad ? '
Rufo answered impatiently, 4 I asked you three
times if it be true, Babbo, that this land is going
to change owners.'
4 I have heard nought,' answered his father.
4 What have you heard ? '
4 Babbo, you live like a hedgehog under a
heap of dead leaves,' said the lad roughly. 4'Tis
well known, I believe, that Ausano, of Affiorelli,
is going to buy it because it marches with his,
and he buys Rossi's and Filippini's too.'
Rossi and Filippini were the peasants to right
and left of them.
4 Who told you ?' asked Abbondio.
4 Celso told me ; but I spoke of it to the Rossi's
Gian, and he said it was true.'
4 Well, well, it will not matter much to us.
What matters it to the horse which drags the cart
what man sits atop ?'
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183
' Aie, aie, Babbo !' said Rufo, shaking his head ;
' the man atop holds the whip.'
Rufo was a good lad by nature, but he had
imbibed Celso's view of his father as of one who
was never to be agreed with or listened to, and who
was good only for work, as the oxen were.
' The man atop holds the whip.'
' Yes, that was true enough,' thought Abbondio.
He went on with his work, feeling the smart
and stench of the filth in his throat, and a tight
ligature of apprehension tied, as it were, round his
heart.
Rufo knew nothing more of Ausano than that
he was a rich man owning the large adjacent estates
called collectively Affiorelli, an absentee who had
never been seen in the province for a score of
years or more. Celso and his mother kept their
own counsel and did not part with their secrets. A
secret shared is a treasure squandered.
'You don't say anything, Babbo?' cried Rufo
impatiently. ' You are always as mum as a felled
tree.'
1 What will be will be,' said Abbondio, lifting a
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barrel of filth on his shoulders. ''Twill make
no manner of difference to us. Castellani have
been on the soil four hundred years and more,
and will be here when you and I are dead and
gone.'
' Lord, Babbo! you are an old. owl!' said
Rufo with a grin. ' Why, were not there the Lanza
folk on that Brancaleone place and their people had
been on the ground seven hundred years, if one,
for the old ledgers up at the lord's villa proved it;
and yet when the candle-maker came and bought
the estate were they not kicked out in a year's time,
the whole lot of them, without either by your leave
or for your leave, and don't you see old Pippo Lanza
begging his bread along the roads ? I saw old
Pippo myself eight days ago, and he had not a
shirt to his back.'
' Lanza is Lanza : Castellani is Castellani,' said
Abbondio doggedly. ' I don't wish to say ill of
anyone, and 'tis for no man to judge another, but
the Lanza were thriftless folk and let the land go
hungry and poor.'
' Maybe,' said the lad as obstinately ; 4 but all
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185
the same, it shows that length of tenure counts for
nought when a new owner has a mind to turn out
a family. You had better see to it by times, Babbo,
and try and get speech with this gentleman ; and
speak him fair when you do see him.'
The youngster had no knowledge how his words
stung and wounded the hearer in their boyish
conceit of counsel, and he was frightened when
his father turned a pale stern face towards him
across the pile of manure barrels.
' When I want your advice, my dear, I will ask
for it. One prater and counsellor is enough in a
family. Celso need not set you to preach for him.
He has gab enough of his own. Unload those
barrels quick, and take the donkey uphill, and cart
the faggots I showed you home.'
Rufo, grumbling and offended, nevertheless
obeyed, and hauled the little casks down one by
one ; then, with loud noise and cracking of his
whip as though he were driving a team of waggon
horses, he dragged the little donkey up the steep
ruts in the grass path under the maples.
Left alone, Abbondio took off his hat for a
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moment, and passed his hand in a bewildered way
over his thick grey hair.
It had never entered his head in all the years of
his life that Castellani could ever go off the soil of
Filibrana. In old days land seldom changed hands
unless by the fortunes of war ; but nowadays land
is chaffered and bid for at auctions as if it were a
brass pot or an earthen pipkin. That he knew.
With a great gasp as he realised the veracity of
his son's officiously proffered information, he put
his hat on his head once more, and stooped and
heaved a cask on to his shoulder. The sweat of
his body and limbs turned to cold water as the
mere possibility of eviction dawned on him. Of
course Rufo had been right. When the land changes
owners it may change the dwellers on it too. Cus-
torn, indeed, does make the soil almost copyhold to
the peasants on it, but there is no obligation on the
purchaser to abide by that custom. Though he
had said hard things of the Lanza folk he knew
that his own farm was often hungry and poor, and
was not tilled as it had been in his father's time.
He himself worked early and late, worked like an
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187
ox, and was a sage and capable husbandman ; but
he had little assistance. His boys were made in-
dolent and idle by the example and the jeering
injunctions of Celso. The girls were vain, and
shirked work when they could. There was only
Bina who was industrious. He could not afford to
take on hired men at busy seasons, so that often what
was done had to be done a month too late ; and that
means much mischief and much loss in the fields.
His own eldest son (passing as the second son)
was serving his time in the army; his eldest
daughter he had given in marriage to a farrier on
the opposite hills; the rest were all under twenty,
the girls the youngest. The land fed them, which
it could afford to do, but it had also to clothe them,
and that was a heavy cost. Certainly, they worked
in a measure in return for their cost, but they did
not work as he and his brothers and sisters had
worked when in their teens. Their heart was not
in their labour, and they shirked it when they could.
On a farm, unless everyone works, from the five-
year-old child who minds the poultry and carries
the cut grass, things go ill upon it.
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Unless learned young, the labour of the fields
is never well done, the sinews do not grow to
it. It is only habit from earliest years which can
inure the labourer to bear the burning rays of a July
sun all the day long on scorched unshaded plains,
or, unharmed, carry wet feet through dawn to dusk
in the clay and mud of the furrows in late
December.
Men of his class are generally burdened with
debt. Their women for the most part run them into
it; the women buy on credit from the pedlars on
the roads and the shop people in any near village.
The marriage outfits are costly and usually got upon
credit, and money is borrowed in advance on the
crops, on the vintage, on the cattle.
Abbondio had never been in debt for a penny in
all his life, but ofttimes his wife and her daughters
were, and it crippled him to pay, as he always did
pay, when their liabilities came to his knowledge.
With thrifty women he would have been a well-to-do
man, but with spendthrift ones he was always kept
poor.
He knew that a rigorous judge of agriculture
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would find much to complain of at Filibrana as
it was now ordered and cultivated, though he
toiled and moiled and sweated and aged him-
self, in the effort to make two hands do the work
of six.
Would he ever be like old Pippo Lanza, begging
his bread in a ragged shirt along the highways and
byways ?
As he worked in the great heavy heat which
succeeds the setting of the sun, a sudden light
flashed in on him, the lurid light of suspicion.
Chiara or Celso had set this lad on to sound
and to frighten him, so that, made malleable through
apprehension, he might condone their intended ap-
peals to the new-comer. Yes: he saw it plainly
enough now.
It would never have come into Rufo's stupid
head to talk so glibly and to speak of the Lanza
whose eviction had taken place when he had
been a little curly-headed trot of three or four
years old, unless his mother and his brother had
primed him with his lesson and egged him on to his
recital of it. It was clear enough.
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The thing they had done in little a thousand
times they were now doing, and would do, in a
greater matter. Chiara and Celso never did aught
openly, or by straightforward methods : it was not
their way. Their brains were small and narrow
and undeveloped, but they worked in spiral convo-
lutions like some projectiles, and always hit their
mark.
On the following Sunday he put aside his own
anxieties and sorrows and paid his promised visit to
the father of Bina's suitor, a good pleasant soul living
on the edge of the pine woods in air as fine as any
which blew in Christendom. The two men talked
long and amicably, and agreed after repeated discus-
sion upon every point that the union would suit
everyone concerned. The marriage was as good
as concluded. They settled everything in full and
minute detail, and parted cordially as the sunset
burned behind the serried ridges of the tall stone-
pines.
Nattalino was to be apprised of his good fortune
on his return from a cattle fair, to which he had
gone, and was to be free to make his first courting
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visits upon that day week. It cost Abbondio a
wrench to settle this, for he knew that he should
miss the little bright bird of a Bina long and pain-
fully from his household. But it was time the child
should have a home of her own, and she would be
well placed here where the men were kind, the
women few, and the freedom of the upper hills just
the life which she would choose.
The bells were sounding for vespers from the
grey towers and white belfries of the village churches
along each side of the river as he descended
the hill-road after this momentous interview. He
felt that he had done rightly, done wisely;
and that knowledge brought peacefulness with it.
Although to send Bina from under his roof was like
stopping up the one entry by which sunshine could
come into his house, he knew that he had no
business to sacrifice the child to his own want of
her.
Generous people have always a glow at their
hearts when they have acted generously, and he was
content with himself as he went down the steep
slopes between the bilberries and the furze, with
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here and there a hare scudding through the maiden-
hair fern at his feet, and a peregrine falcon sailing
round his head. He knew every line of the land-
scape, below, above, and around him. In those
twenty square miles which his eyes could scan lay
all his little world. He had never been farther
afield since his birth. Filibrana fronted him, on
the other bank of the river, lying low on a
cultured hillside; where he was now the hills were
wild.
As he looked down on its distant roofs, red, grey,
and brown, amidst the green of its walnuts and
mulberries, a sudden fear shot through him like a
spasm of pain. Would his lengthened absence
on this Sunday afternoon have given his wife
the occasion which, no doubt, she watched for,
to do that which he had forbidden her to do ?
4 Like enough! like enough!' he said to him-
self.
He had never thought of that when he had
taken his stick, and his best hat, and whistled to his
little red dog, and gone up through the bracken to
the woods, where so many a day in his boyhood
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*93
he had gone mushroom-hunting and blrds'-nesting
in the chestnut scrub and under the great tall
chequered trunks of the stone-pines.
' Like enough, like enough, she had betaken
herself there!'
As he went down the hill he was overtaken by
his neighbour Rossi, jingling and rolling along in
his rickety two-wheeled pony cart. Rossi offered
him a lift, for their farms ran together.
As they drove along down the steep road, with
the river and the fields lying within their sight below,
Rossi said to him :
' Well, what think you of this change of masters ?
Shall we have to pack ? Some say so, but I doubt
it. 'Tis the custom to keep on old families—'tis
almost the law.'
* Is it true, then ?' asked Abbondio, startled and
aghast. 4 Is it true the whole estate is sold ?'
' Lord's sake ! are you deaf that you ask it ? Up
and down the river for five miles folks talk of
nothing else. You see we run cheek by jowl, as
one may say, with Affiorelli; 'tis but natural he
should buy if he can.'
0
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' Is he a man well esteemed ?' asked Abbondio,
in a changed voice.
4 Eh, nobody knows; he has never been nigh
the place four-and-twenty years. It won't make a
straw's worth of difference to us, I should think, for
II Brutto takes service under him, so we shall be
neither better nor worse.'
II Brutto (the ugly one) was the nickname, not
given in love, by which the overseer of the Fili-
brana property was known behind his back to all
those who had any acquaintance with him.
1 But is the sale signed ?' asked Abbondio
anxiously.
''Twas signed yesterday down in the town.'
* Then is this Ausano here already ? '
1 Ay, he is at his villa.'
Abbondio's heart sank. What a simpleton he
had been to go so far away all the Sunday afternoon ;
beyond a doubt his wife had profited by his absence.
' What a mumchance he is!' thought old Rossi,
who liked a cheery gossip, regretting his own good
nature in having offered the lift to so dull a com-
panion.
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*95
It was dark when he reached home. There was
no one there; the family had left the house to take
care of itself. It is a careless, confident way which
they have in those parts, and the result is often stolen
straw, filched vegetables, and robbed henroosts.
First of all there strayed in Nilla, and Ciccia, a?.d
Vina, with their suitors, the sons of neighbours.
The girls were busked and braided, stiffened and
smartened in festal attire, and only tossed their
heads when their father reproved them for leaving
the house.
' Where is your mother ?' he asked them.
' Mother is out,' said Petronilla indifferently.
1 She went out at three,' said Vina. ' She didn't
say where she was going, but she borrowed the
jacket Aunt Agnes gave me, and she put on the
coral earrings.'
Abbondio did not need to ask any more; he
knew as well as if he had followed her, step by step,
whither his wife had gone.
The girls sat about on the benches in front of
the house with the youths, cracking fresh walnuts,
for it was St. Lorenzo's day. Abbondio looked at
o 2
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them and let them be ; he stripped off his coat,
turned his trousers up to the knee, and tied on a
blue apron, then lighted a lanthorn, and went to the
stables to milk the cows, and feed the mule and the
ass. The milking was work which properly belonged
to the girls, but on Sundays or feast days they were
too fine to do it, and could not bend their tight-laced
bodies. The milk taken in the evening was set aside
in a cool cellar and sent into the town as fresh milk
with that of the following morning. Few people in
the town knew enough about milk to find out the
difference. He had filled a zinc pail from the first
patient creature, and was moving his stool to the
second, when he saw a figure hasten past the open
doorway as though endeavouring to avoid observa-
tion. It was the figure of his wife wearing Vina's
little smart blue jacket and having a black lace veil
on her head. Her big eyes flashed furtively upon
him as she hurried past. He did not try to stop her.
He knew what her errand had been, and it was no
use to make her tell more of those innumerable lies
which such women as she manufacture as quickly as
they plait their split straws.
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197
He went on with his milking, his sad and
troubled thoughts at work in him like fermenting
yeast. When he had milked the fourth and last
cow there came over the uneven stones outside a
rush of two quick feet, and the voice of Bina,
eloquent of self-reproach, cried to him :
' Oh, Babbo dear, forgive me! I am so sorry
I am so late. Pray—pray forgive me !'
' I always forgive you, little one,' said Abbondio
with his slow kind smile. ' But I never knew you
truant before ; and the house left empty too. You
know how I dislike that. Where have you been ?'
Bina busied herself with the headstall of the
cow, so that her face was hidden from him.
' I was at the crossroads waiting for Celso,' she
said honestly and timidly. ' He promised to come
back and take me to San Gristoforo to eat walnuts.
I have waited under the cypresses ever since four,
and it is now avemmaria.'
' If you trust to Celso's promises you will wait
longer for their fulfilment than for many an avem-
maria,' said her uncle. ' What did I tell you the
other day ? Have nought to do with Celso.'
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' But he said he would' be back at four,' mur-
mured Bina, with tears in her voice.
' But he has found something which amuses him
better than eating walnuts at San Gristoforo, and
so he lets you fret your little heart out by the cross-
roads! Surely you, who have been brought up with
him, should know his selfishness.'
Abbondio shouldered the great copper vessel in
which he had poured the milk, and with his *lanthorn
in one hand walked across the court and down the
steep stone stairs of the cellar. Bina followed him
with a similar vessel on her shoulder ; in her vexation
at her spoilt tryst she forgot that she had her Sunday
frock on and would damage it.
The cellar was a great cool place smelling of
wine, because the wine vats stood in it, and lighted
by a grated window, through which a wild pumpkin
had pushed itself with its yellow flowers.
When they had set the milk on the ground,
Abbondio laid his hand on her arm to detain her.
'You know I love you, Bina ?'
'Yes, Babbo, I do.'
'Then believe that I speak for your good. You
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199
are dear to me, too dear my daughters say, but that
is nonsense ; I never wrong them for you. When
your father lay dying he gave you to me—a little
fat curlyheaded dumb thing—and I have always
tried to do well by you.'
4 Indeed you have, Babbo.'
She was trembling for fear of what was coming,
and from the consciousness of what she hid from
him.
4 Now,' continued her uncle, keeping his hold on
the bright blue sleeve of her Sunday frock, 4 it is
not well that you should go to eat walnuts with
Celso, or to do anything else with him. Celso will
never mean any good to you. So put him out of
your head, and face a fair future. I have been up
to Palmarolo this afternoon, and have arranged your
marriage with Nattalino Fe. You will be happy
then, my little girl ; they are all good people, and
the youngster is honest and sober and laborious,
and has good looks too, which counts more with
women than all the virtues.'
Bina was mute.
4 You need not tell the girls yet unless you like/
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added Abbondio. ' Nattalino will come over next
Sunday and begin the courtship. 'Twill be time
enough to tell them then. You are not smiling,
Bina ? Cannot you trust my choice ? My dear,
it is not waiting at the crossroads for a youth who
amuses himself elsewhere that makes a maiden
happy. 'Tis a good man and a good home, and
savings enough to keep the cradle warm when it is
tenanted, and the bread hutch and the soup pot
well filled. You are a wise little woman, Bina.
When you tell your beads to-night thank the Ma-
donna that she has given you a betrothed who is
not a rake or a coxcomb or a brute.'
Then he patted the girl on the shoulder, kissed
her on each cheek, and went up the cellar stairs.
He had many women in his family, but he had
not learned enough of their sex to know that he
had taken the surest way in the world to make
the young man whom he had chosen odious to a
girl already enamoured with another person.
Nor did it occur to him that Bina would fail
to accept his choice. The ways of his class are
still patriarchal in much, and in nothing more so
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201
than in the authority of the head of the house in all
matters matrimonial.
Moreover his mind was occupied with a worse
anxiety. When Chiara came down to supper she
had an odd look; her eyes flashed hither and
thither nervously, and her thin cheeks had a
feverish colour ; she talked loudly and rapidly, she
laughed meaninglessly and often, and she had an
expression defiant and timorous, which did not
reveal to him whether she had been successful in
her errand or whether she was merely obstinate,
and triumphant in having disobeyed him and
deceived him.
On the whole, it seemed to him that she must
have been well received at Affiorelli.
The supper was noisy, for besides the girls'
suitors there were two other young men, and all
the Castellani lads except Celso. They had cabbage
soup and a hare stewed with fennel, and all the
young people and the mother were so mirthful
that none noticed Bina's silence : to their father's
seriousness they were used. Usually they were
all abed by nine; but the suitors did not take their
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leave till half-past ten, and it was eleven when
Abbondio fastened up the doors.
' Celso is out!' screamed his wife; it was the
first word she had spoken to him. ' Celso is out!
Leave the key down.'
Abbondio put the great key in his pocket.
'He can sleep in the hayloft, as he has done
other nights. He sleeps in worse places by his
own choice.'
Without looking at his wife, he climbed the
ladder-like stair which led to the garret under the
roof, occupied for many years by himself and his
two younger sons. Chiara looked after him with
vicious malevolence.
' One day my darling shall lock you out, you
clod!' she muttered under her breath.
It was nothing new ; he had invariably refused
to allow the door to be opened after ten to Celso,
returning from riotous evenings in village or
town.
Nor was it anything uncommon, for every head
of a household throughout the district was equally
strict in this respect. But this evening it seemed
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2C3
to his wife an enormity. The doors should have
stood open all the night, and lighted oil wicks have
flamed in the brass lamp, and a flask of wine have
waited on the table for the entry of her firstborn.
4 Well, well, his turn will come if we have but
patience,' she said to her impatient and ungrateful
soul, as she, too, climbed the stair, to bed, but
not to sleep, for through her silly brain there
flocked in dizzy gyration innumerable visions of
unspeakable prosperity and withering vengeance.
She had always disliked her husband, as the
betrayer dislikes the betrayed, and after what he
had said concerning her appearance, her hatred
of him was without measure. Being a vain woman,
she had brought herself to believe that, if she had
not accepted his suit, she would have made some
good marriage; if her lover had not married her
himself, he would have found her some good mar-
riage to a tradesman, or a steward, or a doctor, to
somebody with whom she could have enjoyed life,
and dressed like a lady. As nothing is easier
than for the ungrateful to forget, she ignored totally
the terror of exposure, which had made the oppor-
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tune suit of an honest man seem like a haven of
refuge, and shut her eyes to the subsequent good-
ness of her husband, and the generosity with which
he had always forborne to twit her with her past.
She had gone up to Affiorelli that day dressed in
her best, and consequently looking her worst. She
did not even tell her Celso where she went, though
she had talked the theme over and over again with
him.
Affiorelli was high up in the oak woods of the
hill on whose side lay Filibrana: a grey, sombre,
castellated house, built in a triangular shape by
knights templars, and having a tower at each corner
of the angle. Its bastions and gates were perfectly
preserved, and round it was an old garden with high
clipped arbutus hedges, and cypresses and cedars
five centuries old if one. She had never been up to
it before, since naturally it had not been there that
her meetings with the young soldier had taken place.
She met no one on the way; she was prepared to
explain if she did meet anyone that she was going
to entreat the new master not to turn her family out
of Filibrana. It was always well to take time by
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205
the forelock, ' and,' she meant also to say, ' my good
man is so mum and so shy, he would never speak a
word to a stranger if he died for want of it.'
However, these carefully studied speeches were
not spoken, for she saw not a soul on the road
except a boy with birdlime and osier cages.
Arrived at the house her heart quaked within her
at sight of its greatness and formidable frowning
architecture, but she went in between the open
doors into a hall lofty and vaulted, with old marble
busts and dark old nameless paintings. She had with
her the propitiatory basket of eggs, without which
no peasant ever pays a visit to a superior; she made
herself very humble and cringing and sweet-voiced
as she asked a servant in shirt sleeves if she could
see the master.
' Sit down and wait, wife,' said the man roughly ;
' he is at dinner.'
She sat down under one of the great black
solemn pictures. Her heart was beating fast and
faintly with fear. If after all she should not be
recognised!
The great hall was grim and gloomy, though the
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gay summer sun poured through it; grey dust was
everywhere on the sculptures and carvings; it had
been uninhabited so long that there was a musty,
mouldy smell, no one had ever opened the high win-
dows for ten years. She waited what seemed to her
an eternity, her basket on her knee, and her hands
clasped upon its handle. Some pointers and setters
came and smelt at her and growled a little, then
went back to the kitchens, whence a strong rich
smell of cooking came down a long vaulted stone
passage.
At last, another servant, also in shirt sleeves,
beckoned to her. 4 He will see you, but you must
be quick.'
Chiara, with a sinking courage and a shaking
nerve, went into the dining room, another large grim
vaulted place. A mist swam before her eyes.
When it cleared away she heard a man's voice
speaking to her, and she saw a stout, bald, florid
person, flushed red after good wine and a rich
repast, and lolling back in a big tapestried chair.
As she looked at him she gave a little gasp and
cried, 'O Lord! O Lord!' Forgetful of the pass-
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207
ing of time and its cruel work, she had expected to
see the slender winsome bright-eyed soldier whom
she had known twenty-five years before with a
cheek like a peach, and limbs slim and straight as
young pine trees. Then, and then only, did she
realise what change there must be in herself.
' What ails you, woman ?' asked Ausano, as-
tonished and displeased. * You are one of the
Filibrana people, they tell me. Say what you have
to say, good wife, and quickly.'
She could only gasp for breath, and the eggs in
her basket rattled with the trembling of her hands.
She could not take her eyes off him, the bald, fat,
red-visaged, big-bellied man.
' Heaven and earth ! don't stare like that, woman,'
he said irritably. ' You come to beg, of course. Say
what you want, and I will consider it.'
Then Chiara, forgetting all her studied orations,
broke down in a burst of genuine tears.
' Oh, don't you remember me ?' she sobbed.
' Why, I am Chiara!'
1 Chiara ?' He repeated the name two or three
times. It said nothing to him whatever.
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' Oh, don't you remember me, sir ?' she cried
again, and now with a certain indignation. ' Time
was when Chiara seemed all in all to you ; and you
would steal down at night, as quiet as a fox, and
climb up the old apple tree, and in at my window in
a jiffy ; and not one of my folks knew or dreamt.
And away you went, as the gentry always do, and left
me with child, and never cared ; and me so miser-
able and affrighted as never was; and a beautiful
babe he came, and a fine man he is, the moral of
what you were in that time, sir ; and proud you
will be of him if only you will see him, sir—Celso,
as I named him, sir, after you.'
Ausano listened, dumb with astonishment and
the confusing effort to remember things totally
obliterated from his memory.
It was not at all what she had meant to say ; but
all her carefully meditated speeches had been scat-
tered to the winds by her amazement at the sight
of this stout and florid man, who had no trace
of any past beauty in his swollen and inflamed
features, and who scarcely even looked a gentleman,
hot and heavy as he was, and clothed in a rough
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209
shooting suit, with breeches and gaiters, as he
had come in from the woods.
' Chiara ? Chiara ?he repeated again, and then
the mention of the old apple tree brought some
ray of recollection with it. Little by little, very
far away and returning to him by piecemeal, came
some vague memories of that time. Little by
little she revealed the face and form of that maiden
for whom he had climbed the apple tree on moon-
less nights. Good heavens! Could this lean,
brown, unlovely woman be she ? He stared at
her, moved by the same amazement and incredulity
which he had aroused in her; and as he noted
her braided jacket, her coral earrings, her effort
to seem young and pretty, a cruel laughter over-
came him at the thought that this scarecrow was
trying to warm the ashes of dead passions. He
laughed long and uncontrollably, whilst she, stung
to the quick, bit her lips to keep back the caustic,
imprudent words which panted for utterance on
her tongu^ Recovering himself, and a little
ashamed, he said to her:
' I am sorry if I hurt you. I did not recollect.
p
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It is so long ago. But you are married—my
servant said, the wife of Castellani ? '
'Yes, I married, sir,' answered Chiara, aware
that the fact spoilt her cause. ' When fine gentry
leave poor girls alone with their burden they
have to do what they can to save their names. I
married Abbondio, of Filibrana, a poor, feckless,
stupid soul, for whom I have worked like, a horse,
and who has made me the wreck you see, sir.
Small matter that, were he only grateful; but
there! Men are all alike! If only he did justice
to my poor, beautiful boy—your boy, sir—why,
indeed, one would bear the rest.'
' Does your husband know ?'
' Holy Mary, sir! Am I a woman to wed with
a man and not tell him all beforehand ?'
' I should think you were entirely capable of
that and of very much worse,' thought Ausano as
he said aloud : 'It is natural enough that your
husband should not love your boy. By the bye,
if true what you say, he must be out of boyhood.
It is a score of years since I was here.'
' He is four-and-twenty come All Saints' Day,
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211
sir; and if you will honour him and me by looking
here, sir, you will see he is the very image of
what you were, sir, then, if it be not a liberty of
me to say so.'
And she took from under her eggs a photo-
graph of Celso.
It had been done by an artist who spent the
summer in the neighbourhood, and had often paid
Celso to sit to him as a model. It was, therefore,
well and picturesquely taken, and showed the fine
torso of the young man bare, and his gladiator-like
close-curled head undisfigured by head gear- or
barber.
Ausano took it, and looked at it for some
moments.
He could not but admit to himself that it
was very like what he had been at the same age.
Although the woman inspired him with dis-
trust and dislike, he gave credence to her story.
She was a cringing, cunning hussy, that he could
see, but the probability was that her story was
true.
' Anyhow,' he thought with a smile, ' she is more
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apologetic and less exacting than women of a higher
class in similar positions.'
He sat thinking with the photograph on the palm
of his hand.
He had been a spendthrift in his youth, and now
was inclined to avarice. He was old for his years;
he had led a coarse life, and drunk heavily, though
he always carried a cool head.
He was a man quick to see his own advantage
in anything; he perceived, as he looked at the
photograph, that the original was most probably
a son of his own. Might not such a one prove
of use to him if employed on the land as a spy
and a tool ? Would it not be easy to turn this
concealed relationship into some solid and profit-
able use ?
His wife was a hypochondriac, always wandering
from one foreign bath to another, and his only chil-
dren were two girls being educated in a convent.
He had nobody with him to prevent his doing
whatever he chose. But he was wary and suspi-
cious, and committed himself to no promises. He
gave her back the portrait.
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* A fine lad,' he said indifferently; ' you may
send him to see me next Sunday at this hour if you
like.'
Chiara's eyes flushed with cunning rapture.
' Have you told the young man what you tell
me ?' asked Ausano, looking at her fixedly.
She hesitated, trying to read in his face how she
would best frame her answer so as to most please
him and most benefit herself. She could not, how-
ever, read anything ; and being in doubt lied, a lie
being always more safe than the truth.
41 have never said a syllable about his birth to
him, your excellency,' she said eagerly: so eagerly
that Ausano immediately knew she was lying. ' But
I fear that my husband has girded at him and thrown
it in his teeth, for Abbondio cannot endure him, sir,
which is cruelly unjust to the innocent.'
' That is natural enough under the circumstances,'
said Ausano, with a smile ; ' that is to say,' he added,
correcting himself, ' if what you tell me be true.
You have given me no proof of its truth.'
Chiara fell a-weeping.
' Lord's sake! illustrious gentleman, what proof
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could a poor maiden, as I was when you knew me,
have of her child's parentage ? Poor girls are mere
wayside thistles, as one may say, and the gentry are
the birds as just swoop down and pluck at them
and then fly away on both wings over hill and dale.
Proof have I none, sir, except such as may lie in
your excellency's own recollection and in the blessed
face of my own dearly loved son.'
Sobbing she fell at his feet, and kissed his
gaiters.
' Get up, woman,' said Ausano wi,th genuine
disgust. 'And mind you, I do not say that I
believe your tale ; but if your son please me I will,
maybe, do something for him for sake of old ac-
quaintance. Your husband is on my land since
yesterday, when I purchased Filibrana.'
' Leave your eggs,' he added, ' and here is a
mancia to buy yourself a winter gown.'
He took a hundred-franc note out of his purse,
and held it out to her.
Then rather roughly he pushed her away from
his feet, and motioned towards the door. He thought
her odious, and pitied the husband, but he wished to
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215
judge for himself of Celso. Chiara, with tears of
joy running down her cheeks, went through the
serving men and the dogs into the open air hugging
her red banknote.
She had never possessed so much money in all
her life ; the very little which she could ever call
her own being the few pence she made by her
straw-plaiting and the sale of the scanty eggs which
her thin hens laid. She was all on fire with her
triumph ; the part of her reception which had been
mortifying and wounding to her personally was
more than outbalanced by the practical side of its
success. Sentiment had had nothing whatever to
do with the hopes which she had cherished, and
therefore, though her self-love had been rudely
offended, she yet readily forgave that for sake of
the material good which she had obtained, and the
increased advantages which she foresaw. Who
goes softly goes soundly, she thought, in the words
of the aphorism. If she and her boy were but
prudent and patient, all which they desired, but
scarcely dared to dream of, might be brought about
with time. She was an ignorant woman, silly in
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many things and of narrow, untilled mind, but
she was shrewd wherever her own interests lay,
and she could plot and plan and weave and work
with a consummate skill like a spider's, -and her
untrained instincts discerned character with an un-
erring accuracy. She saw that the new lord of
Filibranawas at once suspicious and credulous, indo-
lent and inquisitive, obstinate and weak ; influence
once obtained over him, he might be led by a thread.
She met her son waiting for her where the
group of cypresses stood together over a little stone
bridge and a shrine to the Madonna.
' Well ?' he asked breathlessly.
She set his anxiety at rest with a highly coloured
narrative of her interview: a glowing picture, full
of high lights and softened shadows.
* And you are to go and see him this day week
at this hour,' she said proudly. ' He is longing to
embrace you ; he has no son of his wife's. Oh, my
precious darling, only be careful and prudent, and
your fortune is already made !'
Celso's face fell; he had expected to be led up
immediately in triumph to the castle.
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* What money did he give you ?' he asked
sullenly. 4 Surely we don't wait for that till this
day se'nnight ?'
' Money, my love !' said his mother reproach-
fully. 4 Do you think, my treasure, there was any
question of money to-day, when he and I met after
all these cruel years ? Willingly and joyfully would
I have have brought you some, but he gave no sign,
and I could not begin to beg first day of seeing
him ; it would have spoiled all. Patience, dearie,
patience, and you will see plenty of money come
out of this afternoon's happy work for you. But
first of all and ever you must not let him think that
you have any eye to gain from him.'
Celso grinned from ear to ear, his full-lipped
mouth like a pomegranate pulled asunder.
4 Don't laugh, dearie,' said his mother, much dis-
tressed. 4 One can't make anybody else believe a
thing unless one acts as though one believed it
oneself. He is a kind gentleman and a fine one,
but he is sharp, and if he thinks we want to gain
from him '
4 He must be a precious fool if he thinks any-
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thing else,' said Celso. 4 And you swear that he
gave you no money at all ?'
He looked at her with his black eyes hard as
flint and penetrating as gimlets, until she felt as if
he must see through her jacket and her bodice the
banknote which lay between her shift and the busk
of her leathern stays.
' No money, love,' she said unflinchingly. ' And,
very first day of meeting, I could not ask.'
' Curse him for a blackguardly skinflint!' swore
Celso. ' Sure any gentleman should give his old
fancy girl a handful of gold pieces. If I thought
you lied to me, you infernal old comedian, I would
twist your scraggy neck as you twist a chicken's!'
The blood turned to ice in her veins with a
mortal fear, but she answered readily, ' And rightly
would you deal with me, boy, if I could keep a stiver
of your own father's money away from you.'
' If you haven't any money, then give me
these, for money I must have for to-night in the
town.'
He plucked roughly with each hand at her
coral earrings. He had long coveted them. She
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219
screamed, for his grasp was rough, and twisted
the lobes of her ears.
' Oh, Celso! Celso !' she sobbed, ' never would
you do me such a shame! If the neighbours see
me without my best earrings on feast days they will
think I have pawned them. Oh! the saints have
mercy on me! Let go! Let go!'
He paid no heed to her cries, but continued to
twist the hooks of the trinkets in her ears.
1 Give me what the man up yonder gave you, or
I will pull these out as sure as you live!'
' Wait, wait, wait!' she cried, trembling with ter-
ror and rage. * I will give them to you, my angel.
Did ever your poor old mother refuse you aught ?
With shaking hands she unhooked the little
baubles, and with tears and sobs and protestations,
which made no impression on him, took the pretty
tinkling bells out of her ears. She would far sooner
have parted with the banknote, but she did not dare
to confess to him that she had lied. A liar never
forgives a lie told to him. Her heart was rent in
twain to part with her coral bells, but she did not
dare, after her earnest declarations that she had
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been sent away empty-handed, let her son know of
that hidden money in her bosom. What would she
not have given now that she had brought the bank-
note straightway to him as a present from Ausano ?
He might even have kissed her in return for it!
He took the trinkets from her rudely and with-
out a word of thanks; his expectations had been
raised to such a pitch of excitement regarding the
issue of her visit, that the mere permission to pre-
sent himself in eight days' time was as wine sadly
tempered by the water barrel.
He ran downhill at full speed, leaving his mother
pitiful as a shorn sheep in the middle of the road.
He did not even look at her. He knew he would get
little on the earrings. It was Sunday, the pawning
establishments were shut, and the jewellers' and
other shops in the town all closed. As he ran to
catch the rickety omnibus which passed the road a
mile farther down on its way to the town gates, he
thought with an unkind laugh of Bina, who was
innocently awaiting him at the trysting place in the
full certainty that he would take her up at sunset to
eat walnuts with her cousins at San Gristoforo.
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221
' It will teach her not to be coy and so hard to
tame,' he thought. ' She will find out that a man
like me does not waste his time on a little prude,
but goes elsewhere.'
And he ran on down the hill as fast as his Sunday
clothes and the boots, to which his feet were un-
accustomed, would allow him to do.
Chiara stood in the middle of the road, wailing
and crying awhile for her lost treasures. Then she
dried her eyes and went homeward. What were a
couple of coral earrings in comparison with the land
flowing with milk and honey which she had sur-
veyed that afternoon ?
She slipped her hand inside her stays and felt
the crisp banknote with ecstasy. It would not be
her fault if many of its fellows did not come to her
and her son.
She hoped to hang the donor to her girdle
as she hung her bundle of plaiting straw. So her
eye shone with triumph as she flashed past her
husband in the cowshed.
Up at the villa she had felt a little mortified
and crestfallen despite her gratification; but, now
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that she was down again at the farm, the humbler
and more modest feeling wore away, and the
triumphant sense of successful achievement and
coming aggrandisement remained alone, lord of
her bosom. Celso did not come home all night,
and Bina cried herself to sleep, despite the good
marriage arranged for her by her uncle.
With dawn she was up and in the cow's byre,
and when the sun was high Celso swaggered up
the garden path, and staggered up the stone stair-
case to his bed.
In the middle of the week a neighbour said
to Abbondio :
' I saw your good wife going up to Affiorelli
last Sunday. I suppose she went to ask the
new owner's favour ; but surely he can want nobody
better than you on his land.'
Abbondio muttered some phrase unintelligibly,
and plodded on his way; he was driving a cow
to the butcher.
His worst fears were confirmed. What could
he do? Nothing. He had commanded; but he
could not enforce his command. He had threat-
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223
ened; but he could not carry out his threat.
Some men might, perhaps, have found a way to
do so, but he could not.
He had submitted too long to his inferiors,
which is the most emasculating and enfeebling of
all kinds of servitude, because it has not even in
it that show of reason, that solace as of the inevi-
table and the excusable, which accompany obedience
to what is superior.
The following Sunday he saw Celso come down
the hill of Affiorelli. He had a proud grin on his
face, he swung a cane in his hand, he swaggered
with his hat on one side of his head, he looked like
a cock who has beaten its fellows and struts alone
before the barn door.
The older man met him purposely by the bridge
under the cypresses.
' A word with you,' he said gravely.
' Eh, Babbo ?' cried the youth with surprise.
' What is up ? Cannot we talk at home ?'
' We talk best where none overhear. Cease to
call me your father ; I am nothing to you.'
Celso grinned and tossed his head as one who
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would say : ' Can the blood horse be born of the
plough ass ?'
* You have known that a long time,' said Abbort-
dio, 1 but you have been glad to live on me, and
profit by my toil and that of my children. You
have been an idler, a rake, a scoundrel, a drone in
the hive, a curse to me and mine. I have borne
with you not to make shame for your mother. But
now there is one thing I will not bear. You have
been to the man who is your father. I will have
no coming and going between my house and his.
If you touch his silver or gold you cease to use my
pewter and horn. If you go under his roof you go
out from under mine. That is what I had to
say.'
Celso stared. It seemed as strange to him as
though he had heard a hare sit up and preach, or
a sheep rebuke its flock.
' Eh, eh, old man !' he answered, with a jeering
laugh. ' You tune your strings mighty high. What
authority have you over me ?'
' That which comes from having fed you, housed
you, worked for you four-and-twenty years, you
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225
thankless braggart; more fool I, as now I see. I
am the head of my house, I am the husband of your
mother, and I tell you now and once for all, choose
between me and the man up yonder. I will not
maintain you a day longer if you traffic and toady
with him.'
' Body of Bacchus !' shouted Celso, ' you dare
take that tone to me, you wretched earthworm, who
are only good for drilling and draining the soil you
sweat on ? I am a noble, a gentleman !'
' You are a bye-blow,' said Abbondio, with calm
scorn. ' Had I done right I should have flung you
in the water tank as soon as you saw light. But I
do not want to bandy words with you. Only this I
say: if you and your mother have commerce with
the man up yonder, out of my doors you go. Nay,
you may rage and fume and curse. I do not fear
your threats. You are a drunkard and a lecherous
low liver—such as you have no terrors for me.'
Then steadily and gravely, as was his usual
manner, he turned away and left the younger man
convulsed with fury, foaming at the mouth, and
striking the air madly with his little cane. He was
o
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a hectoring bully, but he was a coward also, and he
no more dared in that moment to lay his hand on
his mother's husband than he would have dared to
touch the back of a growling mastiff or the lowered
horns of a bull. Moreover, he had other means and
other ways of vengeance.
' If one of us two go out of the house,' he
thought, ' it will not be Celso.'
The old man was stronger than anyone had ever
thought, but cunning goes farther than strength.
That day Celso had said to Count Ausano as that
gentleman sat over his wine :
4 In truth, most illustrious, my mother's husband
is a good man ; and I should be the first to say so,
but he is a poor worker, he is old-fashioned, he is
obstinate, he ruins the soil, sir, though he means
well—oh! he means excellently well. But he
understands nothing of the new ways and the new
dressings; if I had the ground, sir, instead of him, I
should make it yield treble, merely by having my
wits about me, and by whipping up those lazy boys
and girls.'
And Ausano, who was taken with this replica
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of his own early manhood, and pleased with the
obsequious and deferential manner of Chiara's son,
listened, and was biassed, as Celso desired him to
be; and began to turn over in his mind how
he could best provide for this youngster so that the
provision should cost little, and profit himself much.
He foresaw many uses to which he could put
one who could be easily attached to his interests.
The woman was odious, he wished never to see her
again ; but this plausible youngster, with the face of
a fool and the wits of a rogue, pleased him. He
perceived that this fellow, who was said to be his
son, and who probably might be so, for features do
not lie, was a knave ; but Ausano was a vain, self-
satisfied man, and such men always think that the
knaves whom they purchase will never cheat them-
selves, but will only cheat others for them.
Celso was coarse and rude and evil-spoken with
his equals, but, like his mother, he could have a
smooth tongue and a fawning docility when they
were necessary.
He knew as little about agriculture as it is
possible for a person born and bred on a farm to
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do; the last thing he intended to do was to lead the
dull laborious home-bound life of a peasant; but he
wanted first of all to have his putative father and
his putative brothers and sisters in his power, and
if he could manage the lord of Affiorelli in this
matter he could in other matters, for he reasoned
very justly who gets an inch can take an ell. So
he bore himself very discreetly, very cleverly, and
with great self-control in this first momentous inter-
view; never presuming in the least to take advan-
tage of his position ; and hinting, rather than coarsely
declaring, that his mother had brought him up with
one aim, one hope, one thought in life, and that one
to be worthy of his hidden parentage.
Ausano saw through him. He perceived the
craft, the wiliness, the comedy of it all; but these
diverted him, and the flattery of himself more than
half deceived him into belief in it.
The youth left his presence the richer for two
glasses of brandy tossed down his throat, a bundle
of good cigars put in his pocket, a hundred-franc
note in his hand, and a vague promise from his
host that he should be provided for in some agree-
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229
able manner. In his mind's eye he saw himself the
future steward of the whole of this fine property,
which it would have taken a good rider to ride
round in half a day.
And going down the hill with these visions
dancing before him in the golden haze raised by
the brandy, he met this insolent old man, who had
ventured to call him a bye-blow!
That evening the suitor, Nattalino, came down
from the pinewoods to make his first visit of
courtship. He was very shy and sheepish, and
did not look to advantage. These country lads
and lasses are charming in their loose workaday
clothes, with bare arms and legs, and rough locks
flying loose ; but in their Sunday garb they are
ridiculous, ill at ease, and foolish.
Bina said good-day to him, and little else. She
had lost her ruddy colour, was nervous and silent,
and hid herself in the cows' stable the best part of
the afternoon.
Her cousins tried to please the young woodlander
in her stead; he was a coveted dainty, which they
grudged her, as they grudged the vicarage coffee.
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He looked admiringly at Petronilla, who was the
handsomest of the three, and the sauciest.
Abbondio felt, with trouble and sorrow, that
you cannot build up lives, and make them round,
and sound, and comely, as easily as you can build
up a stack of straw. He was heavy of heart,
for he meant to carry out the threat he had made
to the son of Ausano; but he was well aware that
he was no match for either Celso, or Celso's mother,
in cunning and intrigue, and that they might easily
evade such observation of them as he had leisure
to compass. The children, too, would all conspire
to help them; for Chiara had entire influence over
them, male and female, and they preferred their
mother's idle, careless ways, and capricious affection
to his own steadier rule and more conscientious love.
'It is hard to have one's own brood banded
together against one,' he thought bitterly, as he
turned back from accompanying the young Nattalino
as far on his way as the edge of the river, where
the fording place was, which strong youngsters
preferred to going further down for the use of
the bridge.
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231
In the grass as he went along he saw a hedge-
hog walking, also out on a Sunday evening stroll,
with three little spiky black pigs in its wake ; its
offspring.
' Poor Thorny! nay, happy Thorny!' he
thought. ' His young ones do not roll up in
their prickles against him.'
No; they were content to do as he did, to sleep
under rotten leaves, to creep about amongst the
docks and plantain, to eat slugs and snails and
berries, to be content with the earth and the sun
and the dews. Happy, happy Thorny !
He let the little family pursue their harmless
way in peace and did not kill them with his stick, to
eat them afterwards, as anyone of his neighbours
would have done.
The days passed, and the weeks, and he could
not detect either his wife or her son in any com-
munication with the villa of Affiorelli. Yet he was
certain that communication they had. Chiara was
excitable, nervous, elated, full of importance as only
a silly woman can be; she caressed her daughters
frequently, and gave them little presents. Celso
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was doubtless supplied with money, for there were
none of the appeals on his behalf always pre-
viously made by his mother on the eve of saints'
days and Sundays. He had more clothes, more
tobacco, more false jewels in rings and pins, and he
was almost perpetually absent; his sisters often
whispered about him in admiring conceit, but they
kept his secret safely. Bina said nothing ; she was
always busy in the fields, or amongst the cattle,
or down by the brook with the linen, beating and
dipping and wringing.
One fine afternoon there came riding on a bay
horse through the farm a stout dark florid man, who
called to Abbondio, who was hoeing a plot of young
cabbages :
' Are you Castellani, the capoccio, here ?'
Abbondio straightened his back and leaning on
his hoe lifted his hat from instinct; then seeing
or guessing who it was, put his hat on again and
remained silent.
'Your land is very badly kept,'said the rider;
4 look at all those nettles ; and you are backward with
your winter vegetables, and your trees are straggling
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233
and poor, and your grass paths are all cut up with
ruts; everything is bad.'
Abbondio, keeping his hat on his head, an-
swered :
' I know it as well as you do.'
' Your manners are not much better than your
tillage,' said the rider. ' Do you know who I am ?'
' I know that too, very well,' said Abbondio, and
he began again to hoe between his young cabbages.
Ausano rode on ; the hoofs of his fidgety horse
cutting up the turf underneath him. Chiara, who
was at a little distance farther on, picking uprooted
potatoes off the earth and sorting them, dropped him
a humble curtsey as became a peasant to her lord.
H is horse splashed some mud into her face : she
wiped it off and kissed it, thinking Ausano would
see. Abbondio did see, though he was stooping
over his young cabbages, twenty yards away.
A rush of fierce hot blood went from his heart to
his head. Rage, shame, and disgust were furious
within him.
A big stone lay within touch of his hoe ; it cost
him much not to hurl it at the rider whose horse's
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hoofs seemed to cast up at him all the bitterness and
contumely of his life.
He had been a peaceable, gentle, and law-
abiding man all his years, but he understood for the
first time how good men may become criminals.
With strong self-restraint he resumed his work,
weeding and stoning the rows between the young
plants.
Planted late ? Ay, true; they were planted
two months too late. But what could he do with
only the unwilling boys and girls to help him, and
no money to pay hired labour ? He laboured from
break of day to starlight, but two hands cannot do
the work which wants six or eight.
Many men of his class in his place would have
turned the position to profit and have tried to make
some claim on the new owner of Filibrana, but
Abbondio came of an ancient and honourable stock.
He would have died in a ditch sooner than have
touched a bronze halfpenny, or any bit or drop, from
his wife's early lover.
Chiara, when the bay horse was out of sight,
straightened her back, wiped her hands on her skirt,
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235
and leaving the potatoes on the ground, went to-
wards the house.
'She knew he was coming this way,' thought
her husband. ' That is why she came to sort the
potatoes.'
Without ,some ulterior motive she never did field
work, unless forcibly driven to it.
How could he get rid of her and her son? In
some way he was resolved to clear his house of
them. They were a daily and hourly outrage to
him. But to turn them out was very difficult. No
law would help him : they did not transgress the law.
She was his wife till the day of her death, do what she
might, and her son was his in the eyes of all men.
An unlearned and moneyless man is helpless ;
he may strive and struggle as he will, he cannot
escape from a bad woman or a false position. He
might have gone away certainly, but to do so no
more occurred to him than it does to the oyster on
its rocky bed. Besides, an honest and an affectionate
parent does not leave his sons and daughters to
chance. So long as they live they rivet him down
to their place.
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Moreover the mind of Abbondio was entirely
restricted to the boundaries of his birthplace. He
had never in all his days been farther than ten miles
off, north, south, east, and west. The town was
only to him a place where you got rid of good
money in bad fashions. The intelligence of the
peasant is blurred, confused, shackled ; it is as help-
less and awkward, taken out of its daily range, as a
trout taken out of water. It is this which makes
the rustic so dear to the demagogue.
Now and then the inclination moved him to go
and take counsel from the village priest; that Don
Placido whose coffee was so sweet to the taste of
'Nilla and 'Vina and 'Ciccia. But the old belief in
ecclesiastical wisdom and good faith is not so strong
in the peasantry as it was of old, and the vicar did
not bear the best of characters ; his parishioners'
tongues were often clacking at his expense with
regard to S'iora Marta, who was not so aged, nor so
discreet, nor so ill-favoured as it is desired that all
priests' housekeepers should be, for their own good
and that of their flock.
Abbondio felt that he could never bring himself
AN ASSASSIN
237
to tell even in the confessional of his own disgrace
and deception in wedding the light o' love of Count
Ausano and giving his own name to her love-child.
Besides, what could the vicar do ? Priests are in
these days shy of making themselves in any way
partisans of poor men, or in any degree hostile to
persons of influence. Don Placido, he knew, would
say that it was four-and-twenty years too late to
alter anything, and that what cannot be cured must
be endured.
But to put out of his house Chiara and her son
he was resolved, as soon as he could have testimony
indisputable of their intercourse with the master of
Affiorelli. The law would be against him, but he
intended to take the law unto himself. He would
not let his roof shelter either as soon as he had
positive proof that one, or other, or both, touched
the money of Ausano. They might turn him off
his land if they would, if they could ; he would not
hold it through any shameful grace of theirs.
One market-day he went into the town and
enquired of a man he knew—a notary's head
clerk—if it were true that three hundred years'
238
AN ASSASSIN
occupancy and tillage of the land bestowed no title
to it.
' Quite true,' said the clerk.
• And if it be sold the buyer can turn one out
at pleasure ?'
' Certainly, with due notice. From seed-time to
harvest.'
'And one must pack bag and baggage off the
soil where one was born, and twelve generations
before us born and dead ?'
' Certainly. Why not ?'
' Why not ?' Abbondio gasped for breath.
Arguments did not come to him; but it seemed
to him that the reason was as clear as the sun then
shining in the heavens.
' Tis an infamy!' he said, the blood rushing to
his face.
The clerk laughed.
If there were not such infamies in the world there
would be no need for notaries and their clerks, which
would be deplorable from the clerk's point of view.
Abbondio drove black Moro through the sunlit
ancient streets, so stunned and scared that had the
AN ASSASSIN
239
mule not been sagacious and homesick they would
not have left the city without an accident.
It was now October.
The month was full of labour. There was an
abundant vintage. The boys and girls laughed and
romped more than they worked. Abbondio was so
tired every day at this season when he went across
his threshold as the full moon rose that all power to
think was almost dead in him.
In the absorption of his own anxiety and anger,
he had taken less note than usual of Bina. He had
arranged for her well being, and sooner or later she
would see the wisdom and the advantage of what he
had done : so he thought.
Men like him have neither leisure or patience
enough to follow the vagaries of a little maiden.
They provide for her welfare, body and soul, and
they leave the rest to the Madonna or the saints, or
whoever it be that up above looks after the virtue
and happiness of women.
Had he observed her more closely he would
have seen that her colour waned more and more;
that her eyes had a look in them like a stricken
240
AN ASSASSIN
hare's, and that though she was not less industrious,
there was neither blitheness nor briskness in her
work.
A woman would have seen, the women did see
and laughed unkindly amongst each other, but
Abbondio, being a man, did not. Yet he loved
her dearly.
But at the vintage time, when all are merry and
noisy, and young people love to jump about and
shout and laugh, even he, weary and absorbed as he
was, could not but be struck by the silence and dulness
of his little niece, by her heavy eyes, and by her slow,
changed movements. One night, when the others
were all romping by the yellow light of petroleum to
the discordant strains of an accordion, ill-played by
Rufo's rude hands, Abbondio followed her out to
her usual refuge, the cows' stables. It was a bright
moonlit light, and the clear white radiance shone
through the one little window on to the figure of Bina
seated on the ground, leaning her head against the
stone pillar of the stall in which stood her favourite
red and white cow.
' My dear little girl,' said her uncle in his kindest
AN ASSASSIN
241
tones; f why are you sobbing your heart out here ?
Are you vexed because 'Nilla makes eyes at your
suitor? To be sure, she is a little coquette, and
behaves ill to her own poor fellow. But only show
yourself, my pretty one, and 'Nilla will ogle Nattalino
in vain.'
Bina did not raise her head. Her voice was
hoarse with weeping as she answered: ' Let her
marry him, Babbo, if she likes him better than her
Sandrino. Nattalino is naught to me.'
Abbondio shook her a little roughly. 1 Naught
to you, Bina? Nought to you? Why, the saints
protect me! the marriage is all arranged! He
comes here as your suitor! You have never said
" No " before! A better lad than he does not live,
and a better household to go into there is not in the
whole countryside.'
' I am sure of that, Babbo,' said Bina, still turned
away from him and crouched against the stone
column. 'Give him to 'Nilla. Her Sandrino is
too poor for her.'
1 His father would.not take 'Nilla,' said Abbon-
dio angrily. ' His father knows how lazy, how self-
R
242
AN ASSASSIN
willed, how useless she is, always thinking of finery
and hating all work ; 'tis the talk of the countryside
how vain and how fine my girls are. You, every-
body knows well, will bring a dower in your hands
and your feet, and Nattalino and his people '
Bina rose up wearily and lifted to his gaze in
the moonlight her pale, tear-stained, changed little
face.
' Dear Babbo, I will not marry Nattalino,' she
said, her breath caught by stifled sobs. 41 ought to
have told you so before, but I was a coward. I will
not marry anyone. I am not very old that it should
matter so much.'
1 Women marry when they can, not when they
will,' said Abbondio, angered and disturbed and
perplexed. Then, seeing in the moonlight how sad
and altered was this bright baby face, and hearing
the stifled sobs in her throat, he cried with sudden
rage : ''Tis that rogue's doings! 'Tis that liar and
braggart who has filled your ears with boasts and
promises and turned your head! You think of Celso,
you poor little fool! Celso, who calls himself a
noble and
AN ASSASSIN
243
He stopped himself on the brink of saying what
he had kept secret all those years, more years than
Bina had years of life. The girl threw her arms
about his throat.
'I know, Babbo; at least, I guess. I am so
sorry for you ; oh, so sorry!'
* Poor, kind little thing!' said Abbondio, much
troubled and touched ; and he stroked her rippling,
curling locks and kissed her. ' Never mind for me,
dear,' he said tenderly. ' But I fear that brute has
stolen your heart away and put an aching pain in
the place. He has not a gentleman's blood for
nought. Tell me, my child.'
Bina clung to him and trembled. All the youth
in her longed to tell him the whole truth, longed to
secure his pity, his defence, his protection, his ven-
geance; all her weakness longed to appeal to his
strength, all the wrong she had suffered moved her
to entreat his justice. But she was generous, and
she was grateful. If she told him the whole truth,
she dreaded the effect her revelation would take on
Abbondio. He loved her; he loved her for her own
and for his dead brother's sake; were he to know that
r 2
244
AN ASSASSIN
his wife's bastard had taken by force what her inno-
cence and pride and modesty had denied to him, she
was afraid that her uncle would be so convulsed with
rage that he would take some vengeance, not too
great, indeed, for human justice, but such as the
laws of men would punish. He was so good a man,
so just himself, so peaceable, so kind, that in propor-
tion to his long-suffering and his excellence would be
his revenge were he ever roused to it. The sweetest
wine is the most acid when it turns.
Bina did not reason thus, because she was a little
uneducated simple girl, but her intelligence and the
instincts of her heart moved her to the consciousness
of it. Perhaps the time might come when her uncle
would be obliged to know it, but as she clung to him
and hid her face upon his breast, she said to herself
that from her he should never learn what would add
to his burden of shame and sorrow.
' Tell me, Bina,' he urged anxiously, 'tell me the
truth. Has not this accursed son of my wife's wooed
you and made you promises he never will keep ?'
Then Bina, bravely and nobly, lied. 'No, Babbo,
no!' she cried hoarsely. ' It has been my own folly.
AN ASSASSIN
245
Celso has jested and played with me, and I have
been silly enough to think it meant love. But now
I see he does not care, and he is always with that
gentleman up at the castle on the hill.'
' Is that so ?' muttered Abbondio. ' Is he always
up with Ausano ?'
'Yes, Babbo,' said the girl, glad to turn him
away from the subject of her own relations with
Celso. ' Yes, Babbo. I believe he expects great
things from that gentleman. But he never has told
me much, only stray boastful words about his
birth.'
' The miserable strutting turkey-poult that has
robbed others of their meal and roost!' cried Ab-
bondio with many a fierce blaspheming oath such as
had not scorched his honest tongue for many a day.
' And he has caused you pain, my little one, my dear
brother s only daughter ? Oh, Bina, Bina! hearken
to me, Bina. Think of this wretch no more, and
be happy and safe in the marriage I have planned
for you. Do, my dear; I pray you, do. For my
sake and your own.'
* Not with Nattalino, dear Babbo,' murmured the
246
AN ASSASSIN
girl; '1 could not, I could not! Let me wait; you
know I am not old.'
And from that he could not move her, though
he argued with her long and with such eloquence as
affection lends the dullest.
4 And promise me, Babbo,' she murmured as they
left the stables, ' promise me to say nothing to Celso;
it would only lead to bad words, to ill blood, and it
is my own silly vanity which made me think that I
was aught to him.'
' Leave Celso to me,' said Abbondio. 11 have
been a just man, little one. I deal with all other
men according as they deal with me.'
' But he is not to blame, said Bina, her little
childish face strained and aged with the effort of the
generous lie.
' No, dear. In his mother's eyes, never/ said
Abbondio between his teeth; and he added, with
savage fury strange in so gentle a man : ' Why, in
the name of all the fiends of hell, do blackguards
ever get the good word and the hearts of women ?'
He was far from dreaming that the wrong done
to Bina had been more than boy and girl wooing,
AN ASSASSIN
247
fair promises broken, childish fancy misplaced; but
even these were enough to fill to overflowing the
cup of bitterness which he drank from Celso's hands.
Celso had not been at those vintage merry-
makings ; he had gone away a few days before,
ostensibly to visit a brother of his mother's, who
was a small tradesman in a seaport some forty miles
away. But Abbondio did not believe that he had
gone to a poor relative who was in a very humble
way of business ; he believed that some intention or
errand or purpose of Count Ausano's was the real
reason of a departure so unusual, since no one in
these country places ever, by any chance, goes out
of his own commune unless conscription forces
him to do so.
Anyhow, he was absent; and his absence was
as great a relief to Abbondio as though a raging
tooth had ceased to throb and ache. On his wife he
kept a keen watch, but he could not detect her in
any communication with the great house on the hill.
One day she got a letter by post; no doubt from
her son, thought Abbondio, as he saw the blue-
coated post-lad tossing off a drink of wine which
248
AN ASSASSIN
she offered him, and heard her call 'Nilla, who was
her favourite daughter, to come and read the missive
for her in the hen-house.
He asked neither wife nor daughter what the
letter said, or whence it came: of what use was it
to drive them to tell untruths ?
Chiara was radiant-and triumphant all the day
afterwards, her cunning eyes flashing like the facets
of two diamonds, and 'Nilla looked mysterious,
proud, and important, as one who had been trusted
with a fine secret.
' Whatever it be it means no good for my poor
little girl,' thought Abbondio. His heart was sore
for Bina. He had striven so hardly to keep her
happy, and provide a peaceful future for her, so that
when he should meet his brother in the world to
come, as he felt sure that he should do, he could say
to him : ' Here is the little one, Giorgio ; safe and
sound, and fit to face the saints.'
The time stole on and brought the blackness to
the olive berries, and the brownness to the cones of
the maize, and gathering of these made busy the
golden November days with their gorgeous sunsets
AN ASSASSIN
249
and their wild white cumulus clouds driving be-
fore the wind.
Whilst they wrere all out on the hillside stripping
the olive trees and filling skips with the dusky berries,
there came up from the fields below one whom his
sisters, with a joyous scream, recognised as Celso.
He had been three weeks away; and seemed to
them another being, so fine was he, so gorgeous,
so inflated with swaggering splendour. He was
mounted, as they had never seen him, on a stout
white cob. He had a new hat set on his curls,
and a red kerchief at his throat, and a gold chain
across his gaudy waistcoat, and shining jack-boots
cased his legs.
Bina, who was standing amongst the branches of
an olive tree on the top rung of a ladder, trembled
so greatly at the sudden sight of him that she almost
fell from her perch.
The others stood agape, with wide-opened eyes
and mouth; Abbondio looked once, then went on
with his work, where he also stood aloft on the forked
trunk of an aged olive. Celso checked the pony,
which was breathing fast from the steepness of the
250
AN ASSASSIN
ascent, and gazed at them all with triumph and
cruelty in his glittering eyes, his carnation lips, his
swelling chest. His glance swept from Bina up
amongst the grey leaves to her uncle astride on the
two divisions of the trunk.
His hour had come to punish this insolent old
man, who had dared to threaten him, and this
troublesome thankless maiden, who was always
worrying him, and fretting, and telling him of the
wrong he had done to her.
' Ho there, good people!' he called, with a crack
of his whip in the air; 'I have a bit of news for
you. No more idle hours, my youngsters. No
more ill-done work, old fellow. I am set over you
now. I am under-bailiff, my friends, and I shall be
head bailiff in a year over the whole of the Fili-
brana and Affiorelli estates. Ah, ha! what say
you now ? If you don't kiss my boots, out you
pack, the whole lot of you; and if you don't work to
my liking, the sack you will get in a jiffey. Eh,
Babbo! eh, Babbo! Won't you praise the Lord
for such a son as I ?'
Abbondio clutched the branches to save himself
AN ASSASSIN
251
from falling. Bina had hidden her face amongst
the silvery foliage. The boys and girls stood
aghast amongst the half-filled baskets, wondering,
gasping, trembling, yet admiring, for had they not
always been taught by their mother to admire Celso ?
And Celso mounted on a pony and made overseer
was to be more than admired ; he was to be dreaded,
obeyed, adored.
The bright sunlight shone on the green sward,
on the silvery trees, on the broad brown ruddy face
of the young man as with a smile, which showed all
his strong teeth, he sat astride of his white cob,
jeering and sneering and crying:
' Out you all go at a word from me! Out you
all go, and Babbo Abbondio will be a hired hind
and live in a hired room ; oh, ho! oh, ho! And as
for you, you little minx, hiding your face in the
boughs up there, this will teach you what it costs to
be coy and chaste with a man like me. I should
never have married you, certain sure, because I am
going to marry a lady who wears silk gowns and has
a big dower, the innkeeper's daughter in the town
by the sea, Gemma Sandrucci; but if you had been
252
AN ASSASSIN
kind and easy I would have had you well married
to some pretty fellow, instead of telling Nattalino
all the truth about you as I shall tell it now.' .
With a scream as piteous as a little bird's when
an owl seizes it, Bina tottered down the steps of the
ladder and flung herself face forward on the turf
amidst the yellow blossoms of the dragon's-mouth
like a crushed flower herself.
1 Oh, ho ! oh, ho !' shouted Celso with delight,
and behind him a shrill woman's voice echoed his
laughter; * he, he ! ha, ha!' as Chiara, who had
dragged herself up the hillside to see the sport,
peered out from behind the pony's flanks, hot, breath-
less, wet with perspiration, the kerchief pulled off her
hair, and her breast heaving, but radiant with pride
and joy and malignity.
Abbondio stood motionless and mute, looking
down at the prostrate form of his brother's child,
where Bina cowered piteously amongst the grass,
as a shot hare might have tried to hide itself.
' Eh, my old man ?' cried Chiara to him in her
shrill treble, ' which of us will be turned out now ?
Which of us will have the best of the game ? Will
AN ASSASSIN
2S3
you jeer at my age and my looks when you sit and
break stones in the dust of the road, and see me
drive by you with my son the steward ? The Virgin
be praised ! we are even with you at last, old ass-at-
the-plough as you are, old clod, old sod, the very
colour of earth as you are! And you dared to lock
the door o' nights against my darling, and you dared
to try and set him to work when you knew he had
the blood of your betters ; and your little jade of an
orphan had the impudence to fancy he would take
her to church and mayoralty—O Lord ! O Lord!
—when he is going to marry Gemma Sandrucci,
with a dower fit for a duchess and pearls as big as
swallow's eggs.' Her triumphant laughter screamed
through the air, hoarse and harsh as a tree-frog's
croak.
Celso echoed the laugh, his red Bacchus-like
mouth wide open, his mirth echoing loud and long,
like the blare of a trumpet.
* Ay, ay, she thought to marry me, the little fool!
She thought to marry me ! Why, if I take her as
kitchen drudge to my dame she'll have to go on her
knees to thank me. What are you staring at, old
254 AN ASSASSIN
man ? Get back to your work. Get up your ladder
again. Let the girl lie ; she isn't worth the rags
that cover her. Get to your work all of you, quick,
or I will find the means to make you.'
He lifted his arm and made the lasl]i of his
hunting crop circle and whistle and crack in the air.
Abbondio stepped forward towards him, calmly,
gravely, without a word, and rested his left hand on
the pony's neck to keep it still. Then, with the
pruning knife which he held in his right hand, he
struck through flesh and bone and muscle, straight
to the heart of the wretch whom he had sheltered
so many years.
Celso reeled in his saddle, and fell dead.
When justice is ever done, it always comes too
late
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WHAT IS MORE TERRIBLE THAN REVOLUTION?
" As clouds of adversity gathered around, Marie Antoinette displayed a Patience and
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Natures that history records.
(Which will haunt all who have studied that tremendous drama,
"THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.")
" When one reflects that a century which considered itself enlightened, of the most
refined civilization, ends with public acts of such barbarity, one begins to doubt of
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THE UNSPEAKABLE GRANDEUR OF THE HUMAN HEART.
THE DRYING UP OF A SINGLE TEAR HAS MORE HONEST FAME THAN SHEDDING SEAS OF GORE!!!
What is Ten Thousand Times more Horrible than Revolution or War?
MT OUTRAGED NATURE!
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MORAL—Life is a Battle, not a Victory. Disobey ye who will, but
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tions of Men.
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Uncle Jack.
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The Fountain of Youth.
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A Castle in Spam.
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Village Tales 4 Jungle
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The Real Lady Hilda.
28
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Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers.
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The Firm of Girdlestone.
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Corlnthla Marazion.
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Clarence.
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Beatrix Randolph.
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Ivan de Biron.
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The Common Ancestor.
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Madame Sans-G£ne.
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Rhoda Roberts.
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Sowing the Wind.
The Atonement ofLeam
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Under which Lord?
' My Love 1'
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Gideon Fleyce.
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Miss Misanthrope.
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Puck.
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Santa Barbara.
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Gentle and Simple.
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Lost Sir Masslngberd.
Less Black than We're
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A Grape from a Thorn.
In Peril and Privation.
The MyBtery of Mir-
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Walter s Word.
High Spirits.
Under One Roof.
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The Burnt Million.
The Word and the Wilt.
Sunny Stories.
A Trying Patient.
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The Piccadilly (3/6) Novels—continued
By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED.
Outlaw and Lawmaker. | Christina Chard.
By E. C. PRICE.
Valentina. I Mrs. Lancaster's Rival.
The Foreigners. |
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Miss Maxwell's Affections.
By CHARLES READE.
It is Never Too Late to
Mend.
Tho Double Marriage.
Love Me Little, Love
Me Long.
The Cloister and the
Hearth.
The Course of True
Love.
The Autobiography of
a Thief.
Fut Tourself in Els
Place.
A Terrible Temptation.
The Jilt.
By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL.
Weird Stories.
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Barbara Dermg.
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The Hands of Justice.
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A Country Sweetheart. I The Drift of Fate.
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Foul Play.
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A Woman-Hater.
A Simpleton.
A Perilous Secret.
Keadiana.
Is He the Man 7
The Good Ship 'Mo-
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The Convict Ship.
Ocean Tragedy.
My shipmate Louise.
Alone on Wide Wide Sea
The Phantom Death.
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Guy Waterman. I The Two Dreamers.
Bound to the WheeL | The Lion in the Path.
By katharine saunders.
Margaret and Elizabeth I Heart Salvage.
Gideon's Rock. I Sebastian.
The High Mills. |
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Dr. Endieott's Experiment.
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Without Love or Licence.
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A Secret of the Sea. 1 The Grey Monk.
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A Fellow of Trinity. I In Face of the World.
The Junior Dean. Orchard Damerel
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To his Own Master. I
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The Afghan Knife.
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Like Ships upon the I Anne Furness.
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The Scorpion : A Romance of Spain.
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A Soldier's Children.
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My Flirtations.
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The Downfall, I Money. 1 Lourdes,
The Dream. The Fat and the Thin.
Dr. Pascal. Rome.
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Blood Royal.
Ivan Greet's Master-
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Strange Stories.
Babvlon
For Maimie's Sake.
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The Devil's Die.
The Tents of Shem.
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Fhra the Phoenician.
Grantley Grange.
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Lieut. Barnabas.
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My Little Girl.
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The Golden Butterfly.
The Monks of Thelema.
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All Sorts and Condi-
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The Captains' Room.
All in a Garden Fair.
Dorothy Forster.
Uncle Jack.
The World Went Very
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Children of Gibeon.
Herr Paulus.
For Faith and Freedom.
To Call Her Mine.
The Bell of St. Paul's.
The Holy Rose.
Armorel of Lyonesse.
S.Katherine'sbv Tower.
Verbena Camellia Ste-
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The Ivory Gate:
The Rebel Queen.
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In the Midst of Life.
CMATTO & WINDUS, PUBLISHERS, PICCADILLY.
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By FREDERICK BOYLE..
Camp Notes.
Savage Life
BY BRET HARTE.
Flip. I Mamja.
A Phyllis of the Sierras.
A Waif of the Plains.
A Ward of the Golden
Gate.
Callfornlan Stories.
Gabriel Conroy.
The Look of Roaring
Camp.
An Heiress of Red Dog.
By HAROLD BRYDQES.
Uncle Sam at Home.
By ROBERT BUCHANAN
Shadow of the Sword.
A Child of Nature.
God and the Man.
Love Me for Ever.
Foxglove Manor.
The Master of the Mine
; Water. .
Bv
' of a
i of Hagar.
By Commander CAMERON
The Cruise of the ' Slack Prince.'
By Mrs. LOVETT CAMERON.
Deceivers Ever. I Juliet's Guardian.
By HAYDEN CARRUTH.
The Adventures of Jones.
By AUSTIN CLARE.
For the Love of a Lass.
By Mrs. ARCHER CLIVE.
Paul Ferroll.
Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife.
By MACLAREN COBBAN.
The Cure of Souls. | The Red Suitau.
By C. ALLSTON COLLINS.
The Bar Sinister.
By MORT. & FRANCES COLLINS.
The Martyrdom of Mi
deline.
The New Abelard.
Matt.
The Heir of Linn?.
Woman and the Man.
By HALL CAINE.
The Shadow of a Crime, j The Deemster.
Sweet Anne Fage
Transmigration.
From Midnight to Mid-
night.
A Fight with Fortune,
Sweet and Twenty.
The Village Comedy.
You Play me False.
Blacksmith and Scholar
Frances.
By WILKIE COLLINS.
My Miscellanies.
The Woman in White.
The Moonstone.
Man and Wife.
Poor Miss Finch.
The Fallen Leaves.
Jezebel's Daughter.
The Black Robe.
Heart and Science.
' X Say No !'
The Evil Genius.
Little Nove's.
legacy of Cain.
Blind Love.
Armadale. ] AfterDark.
No Name.
Antonina.
BasU.
Hide and Seek.
The Dead Secret.
Queen of Hearts.
Miss or Mrs. 1
Ths New Magdalen.
The Frozen Deep.
The Law and the Lady
The Two Destinies.
The Haunted Hotel
A Rogue's Life.
By M. J. COLQUHOUN.
Every Inch a Soldier.
By DUTTON COOK.
Leo. I Paul Foster's Daughter.
By C. EGBERT CRADDOCK.
The Prophet of the Great Smoh7 Mountains.
By MATT CR'IM.
The Adventures of a Fair Rebel.
By B. M. CROKER.
Pretty Miss Neville. I Proper Pride.
Diana Barrington. | A Family Likeness.
' To Let.' Village Tales and Jungle
A Bird of Passage. | Tragedies.
By W. CYPLES.
Hearts of Gold.
By ALPHONSE DAUDET.
The Evangelist: or, Port Salvation.
By ERASMU
The Fountain of Youth.
By JAMES DE MILLE.
A Castle in Spain.
By J. LEITH DERVVENT.
Our Lady of Tears. | Circe's Lovers.
By CHARLES DICKENS.
Sketches by Boz. | Nicholas Mcaleby.
Oliver Twist. |
By DICK DONOVAN.
In the Grip of the Law.
From Information Re.
csived.
Track ed to Doom.
Link by Link
Suspicion Aroused.
Dark Deeds.
Riddles Bead.
The Man-Hunter,
Tracked and Taken.
Caught at Last I
Wanted 1
Who Poisoned Hetty
Duncan ?
Man from Manchester.
A Detective's Triumphs
By Mrs. ANNIE EDWARDES.
A Point of Hononr. | Archie Lovell.
By M. BETHAM-EDWARDS.
Felicia. | Kitty.
By EDWARD EGGLESTON.
Roxy.
By G. MANVILLE FENN.
The New Mistress. I .The Tiger Lily.
Witness to the Deed. |
By PERCY FITZGERALD.
Bella Donna. I Second Mrs. Tlllotsoji.
Never Forgotten. Seventy - five Brooke
Polly. Street.
Fatal Zero. | The Lady of Brantome.
By P. FITZGERALD and others.
Strange Secrets.
By ALBANY DE FONBLANQUE.
Filthy Lucre.
By R. E. FRANCILLON.
Olympia. | King or Knave 1
One by One. Romances of the Law.
A Real Queen. Ropes of Sand.
Queen Cophetua. I A Dog and bis Shadow.
By HAROLD FREDERIC.
Seth's Brother's Wife. | The Lawton Girl.
Prefaced by Sir BARTLE FRERB.
Pandurang Hari.
By HAIN FRISWELL.
One of Two.
By EDWARD GARRETT.
The Capel Girls
Strange :
By GILBERT GAUL.
) Manuscript.
Robin Gray.
By CHARLES GIBBON.
In Honour Bound.
Flower of the Forest.
The Braes of Yarrow.
The Golden Shaft.
Of High Degroe.
By Mead and Stream.
Loving a Dream.,
A Hard Knot.
Heart's Delight.
Blood-Money.
For Lack of Gold.
What will World Say?
Ia Love and War.
For the King.
In Pastures Green.
Queen of the Meadow.
A Heart's Problem.
The Dead Heart.
By WILLIAM GILBERT.
Dr. Austin's Guests. I The Wizard of
James Duke. Mountain.
By ERNEST GLANVILLE.
The Lost Heiress. I The Fossicker.
A Fair Colonist.
By Rev. S. BARING GOULD.
Red Spider. | Eve.
By SYDNEY GRUNDY.
The Days of his Vanity.
By JOHN HABBERTON.
Brueton's Bayou. | Country Lack.
By ANDREW HALLIDAY.
Every day Papers.
Paul
By Lady DU.FFUS HARDY.
Wyntsr s hacrihce.
ilATTO a. wiiitxjs, ruKMSHERS, PICCADILLY
Two-Shillino Novels—continued.
By THOMAS HARDY.
Under the Greenwood Tree.
By J. BERWICK HARWOOD.
The Tenth Earl.
By JULIAN HAWTHORNE.
Garth
Elllce Quentln.
Fortunes Fool.
Miss Gadopna.
Sebastian Stromo.
Dust.
B
Beatrix Randolph.
Love—or a Name.
David Foindextor's Bis-
appearance.
The Spectre ol the
Camera.
Sir ARTHUR KELPS.
Ivan de Blron.
By G. A. KENTY.
Rujttb the Juggler.
By HENRY HERMAN.
A Leading Lady.
By HEADON HILL.
Zainhra the Detective.
By JOHN HILL.
Treason Felony.
By Mrs. CASHEL HOEY.
The Lover's Creed.
By Mrs. GEORGE HOOPER.
The House cf Raby.
By TIGHE HOPKINS.
Twist Love and Duty.
By Mrs. HUNuERFORD.
A Maiden all Forlorn. I A Modern Circe.
In Durance Vile. I Lady Verner's Flight.
Marvel. | The Red House Mystery
A Mental Struggle. |
By Mrs. ALFRED HUNT.
Thomlerolt's Model. | Self-Condemned.
That Other Person. | The Leaden Casket.
By JEAN INGELOW.
Fated to be Free.
By W'M. JAM&SON.
Ky Bead Self.
By HARRIETT JAY.
Tiie Bark Colleen. | Queen of Conuaught.
By MARK KERSHAW.
Co.onial Facta and Fictions.
By R. ASHE KING.
A Drawn Game. I Passion's Slave.
' The Weaving of the Bell Barry.
Green.' |
By JOHN LEYS.
The Lindsays.
By E. LYNN LINTON.
Patricia Kemball
The World Well Lost.
Under which Lord ?
Faston Carew.
' My Love I'
lone.
By henry
Gideon Fleyce.
by justin McCarthy.
pear Ladr Disdain. Camiola.
The Atonement of Learn
Dundas.
With a Silken Thread.
Rebel of the Family.
Sowing the Wind.
The One Too Many.
W. LUCY.
Waterdale Neighbours,
l.iv Enemy's Daughter.
A F iir Saxon.
Linley Rochford.
'tat! M
Donna Quixote.
Maid of AthenB.
The Comet of a Season.
The Dictator.
Red Diamonds.
maccoll.
lliss Misantkrone.
By HUGH
Mr. Stranger's Sealed Packet.
„ By GEORGE MACDONALD.
Heather and Snow.
By AGNES MACDONELL.
Quaker Cousins.
By KATHARINE S. MACQUOID.
The Bvil Eye. | Lost Rose.
By W. H. MALLOCK.
A Romance of the Nine- I The New Republic,
teeuth Century. i
__3»
By FLORENCE MARRY AT.
Open 1 Sesame I | A Harvest of Wild Oats.
Fighting the Air. | Written In Fire.
By J. MASTERMAN.
Half-a-dozen Daughters.
By BRANDER MATTHEWS.
A Seoret of the Sea.
By L, T. MEADE.
A Soldier of Fortune.
By LEONARD MERRICK.
The Man who was Good.
By JEAN MIDDLEMASS.
Touch and So. | Mr. Dorllllon.
By Mrs. MOLESWORTH.
Hathereourt Kectorv.
By J. E. MUDDOCK.
Stories Weiia and Won- | From the Bosom of thd
dorful. Deep.
The Dead Man's Secret. |
By D. CHRISTIE MURRAY.
A Life's Atonement.
By the Gate of the Sea.
A Bit of Human Nature.
First Person Singular.
Bob Martin's Little Girl
Time's Revenges.
A Wasted Crime.
In Direst Peril.
A Model Father.
Joseph's Coat.
Coals of Fire.
Val Strange.
Old Blazer's Hero.
Hearts.
The Way of the World.
Cynic Fortune.
By MURRAY and HERMAN.
One Traveller Returns. I The BiehopB' Bible.
Paul Jones's Alias. |
By HENRY MURRAY.
A Game of Bluff. | A Song of Sixpence.
By HUME N3S8ET.
'Bail Up I ' | Dr. Barnard 31. Vincent.
By ALICE O'HANLON.
The Unforeseen. | Chance 1 or Fate 1
By GEORGES OKNET.
Dr. Ramsau. I A Weird Gift.
A Last Love. |
By Mrs. OLIPHANT.
Whiteladies. I The Greatest Heiress in
The Primrose Path. | England.
By Mrs. ROBERT O'REILLY.
Phoebe's Fortunes.
By OUIDA.
Two Lit.Wooden Shoes.
Held In Bondage.
Strathmore.
Chandos.
Idalla.
Under Two Flags.
Cecil CaBtlemaine'sGage
Tricotrln.
Funk.
Folle Farine.
A Dog of Flanders.
Pascarel.
Signa.
Princess Napraxlne.
In a Winter City.
Ariadne.
Friendship.
A Jillage Commune.
Wanda.
Otbmar.
Frescoes.
In Maremma.
Guiiderov.
RuiSno.
Syrlin.
Santa Barbara.
Two Oifendors.
Ouida3 Wisdom, Wit,
and Pathos.
By
Gentlei
By C. L. PIRKIS.
Lady Lovelace.
By EDGAR A. POE.
The Mystery of Marie Koget.
By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED.
The Romance of a Station.
The Soul of Countess Adrian.
Outlaw and Lawmaker.
Christina Chard.
By E. C. PRICE.
Valentlna. | Mrs. Lancaster's Rival.
The Foreigners. | Gerald.
By RICHARD PRYCE.
Miss Maxwell's Affections.
3a
CHATTO & WlKliLii, PUt i ism-PS. PiCw'P'i '-Y.
Two-Shilling Novels—continued.
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Bentinck's Tutor.
Murphy 's Master.
A County Family.
At Her Mercy.
Cecil's Tryst.
The Olyffards of Clyffe.
The Foster Brothers.
Found Dead.
(Tiie Best of Husbands.
Walter's Word.
Halves.
Fallen Fortunes.
Humorous Stories.
£200 Reward.
A Marine Residence.
Mirk Abbey.
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Under One Roof.
High Spirits.
Carlyon's Year.
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Kit.
The Canon's Ward.
The Talk of the Town.
Holiday Tasks.
A Perfect Treasure.
What He Cost Her.
A Confidential Agent.
Glow-worm Tales.
The Burnt Million.
Bunny Stories.
Lost Sir Massingberd.
A Woman's Vengeance.
The Family Scapegrace.
Gwendoline's Harvest.
Like Father, Like Son.
Married Beneath Him.
Not Wooed, but Won.
Less Black than We're
Painted.
Some Private Views.
A Grape from a Thorn.
The Mystery of Mir-
bridge.
The Word and the Will.
A Prince of the Blood.
A Trying Patient.
By CHARLES READE.
It is Never Too Late
Mend.
Christie Johnstone.
The Double Marriage.
Put Yourself in His
Place
Love Me Little, Love
Me Long.
The Cloister and the
Hearth.
The Course of True
Love.
The Jilt.
The Autobiography of
a Thief.
By Mrs. J. H. RIDDELL.
Weird Btories. "
Fairy Water.
Her Mother's Darling.
The Prince of Waies's
Garden Party.
By AMELIE RIVES.
Barbara Derlng.
By P. W. ROBINSON.
Women are Strange. | The Hands of Justice.
By JAMES RUNCIMAN.
Bkippers and Shellbacks. | Schools and Scholars.
Grace Balmalgn's Sweetheart.
By W. CLARK RUSSELL.
A TerribleTemptation.
Foul Play.
The Wandering Heir.
Hard-Cash.
Singleheart and Double-
fa«e.
Good Stories of Men and
other Animals.
Peg Wellington,
Griffith Gaunt.
A Perilous Secret.
A Simpleton.
Re&diana.
A Woman-Hater.
The Uninhabited House.
The Mystery in Palace.
Gardens.
The Nun's Curse.
Idle Tales.
The Romance of Jenny
Harlowe.
An Ocean Tragedy.
My Shipmate Louise.
Alone on a Wide Wide
Sea.
Round the Galley Fire.
On the Fo'k'sle Head.
In the Middle Watch.
A Voyage to the Cape.
A Book for the Ham-
mock.
The Mystery of the
'Ocean Star.'
By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA.
Gaslight and Daylight.
By JOHN SAUNDERS.
Guy Waterman. I The Lion in the Path.
The Two Dreamers. |
By KATHARINE SAUNDERS.
Joan Merryweather. | Sebastian.
The High Mills. Margaret and Eliza-
Heart Salvage. | beth.
By GEORGE R. SIMS.
Rogues and Vagabonds.
The Ring o' Bells.
Mary Jane's Memoirs.
Mary Jane Married.
Tales of To-day.
Dramas of Life.
Tlnkletop's Crime.
Zeph.
My Two Wives.
Memoirs of a Landlady.
Scenes from the Show.
The 10 Commandments
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A Match in the Dark.
By HAWLEY SMART.
Without Love or Licence.
By T. W. SPEIGHT.
The Mysteries of Heron , Back to Life.
Dyke. The LoudwaterTragcdy.
The Golden Hoop. Burgo's Romance.
Hoodwinked. Ouittauco in Full.
By Devious Ways. I A Husband from the Sea
By ALAN ST. AUBYN.
A Fellow of Trinity. I To His Own Master.
The Junior Dean. Orchard Damerel.
Master of St,B9nedlct's |
By R. A. STERNDALE.
The Afghan Knife.
By R. LOUIS STEVENSON.
New Arabian Nights. | Prince Otto.
By BERTHA THOMAS.
Cressida. I The Violin-Player.
Proud Maisie. |
By WALTER THORNBURY.
Tales for the Marines. | Old Stories Retold.
By T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE.
Diamond Cut Diamond.
By F. ELEANOR TROLLOPE.
Like Ships upon the I Anne Purness.
Sea. I Mabel s Progress.
By ANTHONY TROLLOPE
The Land-Leaguers.
The American Senator.
Mr. Scarborough's
Family.
GoldenLlon of Granpcre
Ffau Frohmann.
Marion Fay.
Kept in the Dark.
John Caldlgate.
The Way We Live Now.
By J. T. TROWBR1DOE.
FarneU-s Folly.
By IVAN TURGENIEFF, &c.
Stories from Foreign Novelists.
By MARK TWAIN.
A Pleasure Trip on the
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The Gilded Age.
Huckleberry Finn.
MarkTwain's Sketches.
Tom Sawyer.
A Tramp Abroad.
, White Elephant.
Life on the Mississippi.
The Prince and the
Pauper.
A Yankee at the Court
of King Arthur.
The £1,000,000 Bank-
Note.
Stolen 1
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Mistress Judith.
By SARAH TYTLER.
The Huguenot Family.
The Bride's Pass.
Burled Diamonds.
St. Mungo's City.
The Blackhall Ghosts.
What SheCameThrough
Beauty and the Beast.
Oitoyenne Jaqueline.
Noblesse Oblige.
Disappeared.
By ALLEN UPWARD.
The Queen against Owen.
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The Marquis of Oarabas.
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Trust-Money.
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A Child Widow.
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Cavalry Life. I Regimental Legenda.
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The Passenger from Scotland Yard.
The Englishman of the Rue Cain.
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Sabina.
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Rachel Armstrong ; or. Love and Theology-
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The Forlorn Hope. I Castaway.
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