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 OF FLANDERS 
 

 
 
 
 Works of. 
 Louisa de la Ramé 
 
 ( “ Ouida ” ) 
 c 
 Findelkind 
 Muriella 
 
 A Dog of Flanders 
 
 The Nurnberg Stove 
 
 A Provence Rose 
 
 Two Little Wooden Shoes 
 
 * 
 L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 
 
 (Incorporated) 
 
 200 Summer St., Boston, Mass. 
 
 
 

 
 i 
 
a 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS 
 
 A Christmas Story 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISA DE LA RAME 
 
 (“«OUIDA”’) 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BOSTON 
 L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 1741 
 

 

 
 PAGE 
 The Descent from the Cross. [After Rubens.].. Frontispiece 
 preormiece to Listrot: linstrations..< 0. 6.0 see eck cee eens Vv 
 manmmere to tist of lustrations ... 22.666. ee ene sees vii 
 neers ae he ene oa. or! a dks weakly t hogle wee a cbs oe es I 
 
 “A Flemish village . . . with long lines of poplars and of 
 alders on the edge of the great canal which ran through 
 
 Se ek ci ie ek RRS a eae 2 
 ‘In the centre of the village stood a windmill”........... 3 
 “The cathedral spire of Antwerp rising beyond the great 
 
 Be tt E BS 8 cle ha oss ola Wie Sy we ges sels a eee 4 
 ‘Jehan Daas, who in his time had been a soldier” ........ 5 
 “A dog of Flanders— large of head and limb, with wolf- 
 
 Perea ACOA eer mmeTOC Uy ily ce nls ose swiss oe eee waite g 6 
 So suen, sl-uving, orutal Brabantois”...........60.00%s 8 
 “The Brabantois had paused to drink beer himself at every 
 
 See eRe Meee eyed eo cls 0. <\ 2s o! sia oO he woe oe ey wale ointe 9 
 “Cursed him fiercely in farewell . . . and pushed the cart 
 
 EN aa OE FE I) | a II 
 “‘Kneeled in the grass of the ditch and surveyed the dog 
 
 IURSRER CRE VOR OL PNY so. soso othe wie etree nae e0e we 14 
 ‘‘He had a corner of the hut, with a heap of dry grass for 
 
 DR ee lcs co ena 16 
 “ But it was becoming hard work for the old man”.......+ 18 
 
vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGK 
 “ ree to play with his fellow-dogs” 72). =) eee 20 
 “So paralyzed with rheumatism that it was impossible for 
 him tO ZO OUG? oes yn S's 60.0 we 6 0 eee 21 
 “Some figure coming athwart the fields made picturesque 
 by a gleaner’s bundle or a woodman’s fagot ”.......... 24, 
 “The cumbrous vessels drifting by”... yan see adem Be eee 25 
 “‘And then sometimes in the streets of Antwerp, some house- 
 wife would bring them a handful of bread” ........... 27 
 Rubens o 2c.) gees ees ncly sels s'0e we al ee ee 29 
 “Old piles of stones, dark and ancient and majestic, stand- 
 ing in crooked courts’. 0.0. 2 as = am tee 29 
 “The small tumbledown gray church opposite the red wind- 
 Mi a eon der dee eee se8. og on eres ieee 32 
 “ Nello would sit silent and dreaming, not caring to play”... 33 
 “ Going on his ways through the old city”......... paneer 36 
 AlOI1S oo ous ee ale’s ou wee wwe, 6 ere a ot gael ere ee 40 
 Baas Cogez, “a good man, but somewhat stern”.......... 41 
 ‘Sitting amidst the hay, with the great tawny head of Pa- 
 trasche on her lap.” . 6. sesas oes eels oe een 42 
 The. Miller’s Wife’... 2... os 0s ase « am 0 Oe 44 
 “¢ She ran to him and held him close” .2o.08 0) = ee 49 
 ‘Went home by themselves to the little dark hut and the 
 meal of black bread” <0... 5 vats « @teveenen tes ene 52 
 “All the spring and summer and autumn Nello had been at 
 work upon the treasure”... .. .. 0 su epee ieee 58 
 “My poor Patrasche, we shall soon lie quiet together, you 
 and 1” 2. kee lean sc see esis 0 en tte ae 63 
 “They mourned him passionately”... o5.5 52s 4052S eeeee 70 
 ‘““The boy and the dog went on again wearily” ........... 75 
 “The boy mechanically turned the case to the light” ...... 78 
 “Nello had gone to face starvation and misery alone”’..... 82 
 
 “The housewife sat with calm contented face at the spinning- 
 wheel? .... ce veces wie b's os 0s ore a ee pe pate ee 83 - 
 “Vie scons was lost and again recovered a ee nes times 
 OF MOLE? oe hk sv ha tee wale owe alt me SO 85 
 
Rist OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Vil 
 
 PAGE 
 «Some group went homeward with lanterns, chanting drink- 
 eC eR AEE big nics caw ls id sede wales ev fos waa be 86 
 “ He is gone to the things that he loved”......... ry Pelee” 87 
 “Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance 
 ee Et aia bis le oa on nies Wsl'si4 6 ore a 'ele eke tens go 
 RMON RSET Wiis MG nce cceiais vs cco seceec ees nesenes 94 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 pa 
 
 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS: 
 
 A STORY OF NOEL. 
 
 
 
 WELLO and Patrasche were left 
 all alone in the world. 
 hey wete friends. in +a 
 friendship closer than brother- 
 hood. Nello was a little Ar- 
 dennois; Patrasche was a big 
 Fleming. They were both of 
 the same age by length of 
 years, yet one was still young, 
 <2 <a =.7; and the other was already old. 
 S Se ae They had dwelt together al- 
 “ most all their days: both were 
 orphaned and destitute, and owed their 
 lives to the same hand. It had been 
 the beginning of the tie between them, 
 their first bond of sympathy; and it had 
 strengthened day by day, and had grown 
 with their growth, firm and indissoluble, 
 until they loved one another very greatly. 
 
 I 
 
4 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 Their home was a little hut on the 
 edge of a little village —a Flemish village 
 a league from Antwerp, set amidst flat 
 breadths of pasture and corn-lands, with 
 long lines of poplars and of alders bend- 
 ing in the breeze on the edge of the great 
 
 
 
 canal which ran through it. It had about 
 a score of houses and homesteads, with 
 shutters of bright green or sky-blue, and 
 roofs rose-red or black and white, and 
 walls whitewashed until they shone in the 
 sun like snow. In the centre of the vil- 
 lage stood a windmill, placed on a little 
 moss-grown slope: it was a landmark to 
 all the level country round. It had once 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 3 
 
 been painted scarlet, sails and all, but that 
 had been in its infancy, half a century or 
 more earlier, when it 
 had ground wheat for 
 the soldiers of Napo- 
 leon; and it was now 
 a ruddy brown, tanned 
 by wind and weather. 
 It went queerly by fits 
 and starts, as though 
 rheumatic and stiff in 
 the joints from age, 
 but it served the whole 
 neighborhood, which 
 would have thought it almost as impious 
 to carry grain elsewhere as to attend any 
 other religious service than the mass that 
 was performed at the altar of the little 
 old gray church, with its conical steeple, 
 which stood opposite to it, and whose 
 single bell rang morning, noon and night 
 with that strange, subdued, hollow sad- 
 ness which every bell that hangs in the 
 Low Countries seems to gain as an inte- 
 gral part of its melody. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4. A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 Within sound of the little melancholy 
 clock, almost from their birth upward, they 
 had dwelt together, Nello and Patrasche, 
 in the little hut on the edge of the village, 
 with the cathedral spire of Antwerp rising 
 in the northeast, beyond the great green 
 plain of seeding grass and spreading corn 
 
 
 
 - LA "Ld a Ware = =) 
 I) "al l rs 5 = 
 Be er See ee asara 
 = aed ; YA ook es 
 
 Pe acc i a omptree Y 
 that stretched away from them like a tide- 
 less, changeless sea. It was the hut of a 
 very old man, of a very poor man — of old 
 Jehan Daas, who in his time had been a 
 soldier, and who remembered the wars 
 that had trampled the country as oxen 
 tread down the furrows, and who had 
 brought from his service nothing except 
 a wound, which had made him a cripple. 
 When old Jehan Daas had reached his 
 
 full eighty, his daughter had died in the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 5 
 
 Ardennes, hard by Stavelot, and had left 
 him in legacy her two-year old son. The 
 old man could ill contrive to support him- 
 self, but he took up the add1- 
 tional burden uncomplainingly, 
 and it soon became welcome 
 and precious to him. Little 
 Nello—which was but a pet 
 diminutive for Nicolas — throve 
 with him, and the old man 
 and the little child lived in the poor little 
 hut contentedly. 
 
 It was a very humble httle mud-hut 
 indeed, but it was clean and white as a 
 seashell, and stood in a small plot of 
 garden-ground that yielded beans and 
 herbs and pumpkins. They were very 
 poor, terribly poor—many a day they 
 had nothing at all to eat. They never 
 by any chance had enough: to have had 
 enough to eat would have been to have 
 reached paradise at once. But the old 
 man was very gentle and good to the boy, 
 and the boy was a beautiful, innocent, 
 truthful, tender-natured creature; and they 
 
 
 
6 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 were happy on a crust and a few leaves 
 of cabbage, and asked no more of earth 
 or Heaven; save indeed that Patrasche 
 should be always with them, since without 
 Patrasche, where would they have been? 
 For Patrasche was their alpha and 
 omega; their treasury and granary; their 
 store of gold and wand of wealth; their 
 bread-winner and minister; their only 
 friend and comforter. Patrasche dead or 
 gone from them, they must have laid 
 themselves down and died likewise. Pa- 
 trasche was body, brains, hands, head and 
 feet to both of them: Patrasche was their 
 very life, their very soul. For 
 Jehan Daas was old and a crip- 
 ple, and Nello was but a child; 
 and Patrasche was their dog. 
 A dog of Flanders — yellow 
 / of hide, large of head and limb, 
 ' with wolflike ears that stood 
 erect, and legs bowed and feet 
 widened in the muscular development 
 wrought in his breed by many genera: 
 tions of hard service. Patrasche came of! 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 7 
 
 a race which had toiled hard and cruelly 
 from sire to son in Flanders many a cen- 
 tury — slaves of slaves, dogs of the people, 
 beasts of the shafts and the harness, crea- 
 tures that lived straining their sinews in 
 the gall of the cart, and died breaking 
 their hearts on the flints of the streets. 
 
 Patrasche had been born of parents who 
 had labored hard all their days over the 
 sharp-set stones of the various cities and 
 the long, shadowless, weary roads of the 
 two Flanders and of Brabant. He had 
 been born to no other heritage than those 
 of pain and of toil. He had been fed on 
 curses and baptized with blows. Why 
 not? It was a Christian country, and 
 Patrasche was but adog. Before he was 
 fully grown he had known the bitter gall 
 of the cart and the collar. Before he had 
 entered his thirteenth month he had be- 
 come the property of a hardware dealer, 
 who was accustomed to wander over the 
 land north and south, from the blue sea to 
 the green mountains. They sold him for 
 a small price because he was so young. 
 
683 ‘4 DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 This man was a drunkard and a brute. 
 The life of Patrasche was a life of hell. 
 To deal the tortures of hell on the animal 
 creation 1s a way which the Christians 
 have of showing their belief in it. His 
 purchaser was a sullen, ill-living, brutal 
 Brabantois, who heaped his 
 cart full with pots and pans 
 and flagons and_ buckets, 
 and other wares of crock- 
 ery and brass and tin, and 
 ~~. \eft Patrasche to draw the 
 load as best he might, whilst 
 he himself lounged idly by 
 the side in fat and sluggish ease, smoking 
 his black pipe and stopping at every wine- 
 shop or café on the road. 
 
 Happily for Patrasche—or unhappily 
 —he was very strong: he came of an 
 iron race, long born and bred to such 
 cruel travail; so that he did not die, but 
 managed to drag on a wretched existence 
 under the brutal burdens, the scarifying 
 lashes, the hunger, the thirst, the blows, 
 the curses and the exhaustion which are 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 9 
 
 the only wages with which the Flemings 
 repay the most patient and laborious of all 
 their four-footed victims. One day, after 
 two years of this long and deadly agony, 
 Patrasche was going 
 on as usual along one 
 of the straight, dusty, 
 unlovely roads that 
 lead to the city of 
 Rubens. It was full 
 midsummer, and very 
 warm. His cart was 
 very heavy, piled high 
 with goods in metal 
 and in earthenware. 
 His owner sauntered 
 on without noticing 
 him otherwise than 
 by the crack of the 
 whip as it curled round his quivering reins 
 The Brabantois had paused to drink beer 
 himself at every wayside house, but he had 
 forbidden Patrasche to stop a moment for 
 a draught from the canal. Going along 
 thus, in the full sun, on a scorching high- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Io A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 way, having eaten nothing for twenty-four 
 hours, and, which was far worse to him, 
 not having tasted water for nearly twelve, 
 being blind with dust, sore with blows and 
 stupefied with the merciless weight which 
 dragged upon his loins, Patrasche, for once, 
 staggered and foamed a little at the mouth, 
 and fell. 
 
 He fell in the middle of the white, 
 dusty road, in the full glare of the sun: 
 he was sick unto death, and motionless. 
 His master gaye him the only medicine 
 in his pharmacy —kicks and oaths and 
 blows with a cudgel of oak, which had 
 been often the only food and drink, the 
 only wage and reward, ever offered to 
 him. But Patrasche was beyond the 
 reach of any torture or of any curses. 
 Patrasche lay, dead to all appearances, 
 down in the white powder of the summer 
 dust. After a while, finding it useless to 
 assail his ribs with punishment and his 
 ears with maledictions, the Brabantois — 
 deeming life gone in him, or going so 
 nearly that his carcass was forever use- 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. I! 
 
 less, unless indeed some one should strip 
 it of the skin for gloves—cursed him 
 
 
 
 fiercely in farewell, struck off the leathern 
 bands of the harness, kicked his body 
 heavily aside into the grass, and, groaning 
 
12 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 and muttering in savage wrath, pushed 
 the cart lazily along the road up hill, and 
 left the dying dog there for the ants to 
 sting and for the crows to pick. 
 
 It was the last day before Kermesse, 
 away at Louvain, and the Brabantois was 
 in haste to reach the fair and get a good 
 place for his truck of brass wares. He 
 was in fierce wrath, because Patrasche 
 had been a strong and much-enduring 
 animal, and because he himself had now 
 the hard task of pushing his charette 
 all the way to Louvain. But to stay to 
 look after Patrasche never entered his 
 thoughts: the beast was dying and _ use- 
 less, and he would steal, to replace him, 
 the first large dog that he found wan- 
 dering alone out of sight of its master. 
 Patrasche had cost him nothing, or next to 
 nothing, and for two long, cruel years he 
 had made him toil ceaselessly in his ser- 
 vice from sunrise to sunset, through sum- 
 mer and winter, in fair weather and foul. 
 
 He had got a fair use and a good profit 
 out of Patrasche: being human, he was 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 13 
 
 wise, and left the dog to draw his last 
 breath alone in the ditch, and have his 
 bloodshot eyes plucked out as they might 
 be by the birds, whilst he himself went on 
 his way to beg and to steal, to eat and 
 to drink, to dance and to sing, in the 
 mirth at Louvain. A dying dog, a dog 
 of the cart—why should he waste hours 
 over its agonies at peril of losing a hand- 
 ful of copper coins, at peril of a shout of 
 laughter? 
 
 Patrasche lay there, flung in the grass- 
 green ditch. It was a busy road that day, 
 and hundreds of people, on foot and on 
 mules, 1n wagons or in carts, went by, 
 tramping quickly and joyously on to Lou- 
 vain. Some saw him, most did not even 
 look: all passed on. A dead dog more 
 or less —it was nothing in Brabant: it 
 would be nothing anywhere in the world. 
 
 After a time, amongst the holiday- 
 makers, there came a little old man who 
 was bent and lame, and very feeble. 
 He was in no guise for feasting: he was 
 
 very poorly and miserably clad, and he 
 
14 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 dragged his silent way slowly through the 
 dust amongst the pleasure-seekers. He 
 looked at Patrasche, paused, wondered, 
 turned aside, then kneeled down in the 
 rank grass and weeds of the ditch, and 
 surveyed the dog with kindly eyes of pity. 
 
 
 
 There was with him a little rosy, fair- 
 haired, dark-eyed child of a few years old, 
 who pattered in amidst the bushes, that 
 were for him breast-high, and stood gazing 
 with a pretty seriousness upon the poor 
 great, quiet beast. 
 
 Thus it was that these two first met — 
 the little Nello and the big Patrasche. 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 15 
 
 The upshot of that day was, that old 
 Jehan Daas, with much laborious effort, 
 drew the sufferer homeward to his own 
 little hut, which was a stone’s throw off 
 amidst the fields, and there tended him 
 with so much care that the sickness, which 
 had been a brain-seizure, brought on by 
 heat and thirst and exhaustion, with time 
 and shade and rest passed away, and 
 health . and strength returned, and Pa- 
 trasche staggered up again upon his four 
 stout, tawny legs. 
 
 Now for many weeks he had been use- 
 less, powerless, sore, near to death; but 
 all this time he had heard no rough word, 
 had felt no harsh touch, but only the pity- 
 ing murmurs of the little child’s voice and 
 the soothing caress of the old man’s hand. ~ 
 
 In his sickness they too had grown to 
 care for him, this lonely old man and the 
 little happy child. He had a corner of 
 the hut, with a heap of dry grass for his 
 bed; and they had learned to listen 
 eagerly for his breathing in the dark 
 night, to tell them that he lived; and 
 
16 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 when he first was well enough to essay 
 a loud, hollow, broken bay, they laughed 
 aloud, and almost wept together for joy 
 at such a sign of his sure restoration; 
 and little Nello, in delighted glee, hung 
 
 
 
 
 
 round his rugged neck with chains of 
 marguerites, and kissed him with fresh 
 and ruddy lips. 
 
 So then, when Patrasche arose, himself 
 again, strong, big, gaunt, powerful, his 
 great wistful eyes had a gentle astonish- 
 ment in them that there were no curses 
 to rouse him and no blows to drive him; 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. iy 
 
 and his heart awakened to a mighty love, 
 which never wavered once in its fidelity 
 whilst life abode with him. 
 
 But Patrasche, being a dog, was grate- 
 ful. Patrasche lay pondering long with 
 grave, tender, musing brown eyes, watch- 
 ing the movements of his friends. 
 
 Now, the old soldier, Jehan Daas, could 
 do nothing for his living but limp about 
 a little with a small cart, with which he 
 carried daily the milk-cans of those hap- 
 pier neighbors who owned cattle away into 
 the town of Antwerp. ‘The villagers gave 
 him the employment a little out of charity 
 —more because it suited them well to 
 send their milk into the town by so hon- 
 est a carrier, and bide at home themselves 
 to look after their gardens, their cows, 
 their poultry or their little fields. But it 
 was becoming hard work for the old man. 
 He was eighty-three, and Antwerp was a 
 good league off, or more. 
 
 Patrasche watched the milk-cans come 
 and go that one day when he had got 
 well and was lying in the sun with the 
 
18 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 wreath of marguerites round his tawny 
 neck. : 
 
 The next morning, Patrasche, before the 
 old man had touched the cart, arose and 
 walked to it and placed himself betwixt 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 See any : 2 
 ei ae 
 ap 7 Ah. i} Ha | \) eee 
 all fh Wy hes i 
 / ibe Ag 
 
 its handles, and testified as plainly as 
 dumb show could do his desire and his 
 ability to work in return for the bread 
 of charity that he had eaten. Jehan Daas 
 resisted long, for the old man was one 
 of those who thought it a foul shame to 
 bind dogs to labor for which Nature never 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 19 
 
 formed them. But Patrasche would not 
 be gainsaid: finding they did not harness 
 him, he tried to draw the cart onward with 
 his teeth. 
 
 At length Jehan Daas gave way, van- 
 quished by the persistence and the grati- 
 tude of this creature whom he had suc- 
 cored. He fashioned his cart so that 
 Patrasche could run in it, and this he 
 did every morning of his life thencefor- 
 ward. 
 
 When the winter came, Jehan Daas 
 thanked the blessed fortune that had 
 brought him to the dying dog in the 
 ditch that fair-day of Louvain; for he 
 was very old, and he grew feebler with 
 each year, and he would ill have known 
 how to pull his load of milk-cans over the 
 snows and through the deep ruts in the 
 mud if it had not been for the strength 
 and the industry of the animal he had 
 befriended. As for Patrasche, it seemed 
 heaven to him. After the frightful bur- 
 dens that his old master had compelled 
 him to strain under, at the call of the 
 
20 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 whip at every step, it seemed nothing to 
 him but amusement to step out with this 
 little light green cart, with its bright brass 
 cans, by the side of the gentle old man 
 who always paid him with a tender caress 
 and with a kindly word. Besides, his work 
 
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 nwt ‘atic 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Whi ) 
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 Es ; ay aM bi vi Mer f an i nL 
 z rx nae ee ce ee ie 
 coe UN My KA Ye N, Ny vat iheretN ty tn 7 Sign 
 
 was over by three or four in the day, and 
 after that time he was free to do as he 
 would — to stretch himself, to sleep in 
 the sun, to wander in the fields, to romp 
 with the young child or to play with his 
 fellow-dogs. Patrasche was very happy. 
 Fortunately for his peace, his former 
 owner was killed in a drunken brawl at 
 
meOG OF FLANDERS. a1 
 
 the kermesse of Mechlin, and so sought 
 not after him nor disturbed him in his 
 new and well-loved home. 
 
 A few years later, old Jehan Daas, who 
 had always been a cripple, became so par- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 alyzed with rheumatism that it was impos- 
 sible for him to go out with the cart any 
 more. Then little Nello, being now grown 
 to his sixth year of age, and knowing the 
 town well from having accompanied his 
 grandfather so many times, took his place 
 
22 A DOG OF FLANDERS, 
 
 beside the cart, and sold the milk and re- 
 ceived the coins in exchange, and brought 
 them back to their respective owners with 
 a pretty grace and seriousness which 
 charmed all who beheld him. 
 
 The little Ardennois was a_ beautiful 
 child, with dark, grave, tender eyes, and 
 a lovely bloom upon his face, and fair 
 locks that clustered to his throat; and 
 many an artist sketched the group as it 
 went by him —the green cart with the 
 brass flagons of Teniers and Mieris and 
 Van Tal, and the great, tawny-colored, 
 massive dog, with his belled harness that 
 chimed cheerily as he went, and the small 
 figure that ran beside him, which had little 
 white feet in great wooden shoes, and a 
 soft, grave, innocent, happy face like the 
 little fair children of Rubens. 
 
 Nello and Patrasche did the work so 
 well and so joyfully together that Jehan 
 Daas himself, when the summer came and 
 he was better again, had no need to stir 
 out, but could sit in the doorway in the 
 sun and see them go forth through the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 23 
 
 garden wicket, and then doze and dream 
 and pray a little, and then awake again as 
 the clock tolled three, and watch for their 
 return. And on their return Patrasche 
 would shake himself free of his harness 
 with a bay of glee, and Nello would re- 
 count with pride the doings of the day; | 
 and they would all go in together to their 
 meal of rye bread and milk or soup, and 
 would see the shadows lengthen over the 
 great plain, and see the twilight veil the 
 fair cathedral spire; and then le down 
 together to sleep peacefully while the old 
 man said a prayer. 
 
 So the days and the years went on, 
 and the lives of Nello and Patrasche 
 were happy, innocent and healthful. | 
 
 In the spring and summer especially 
 were they glad. Flanders is not a lovely 
 land, and around the burgh of Rubens it_ 
 is perhaps least lovely of all. Corn and 
 colza, pasture and plough, succeed each 
 other on the characterless plain in weary- 
 ing repetition, and, save by some gaunt 
 gray tower, with its peal of pathetic bells, 
 

 
 Mal oy 
 
 fen 
 as 
 
 ox shen 
 
 TL, 
 tif), 
 f 
 Me \ SAWee ally t 
 Y 
 
 
 
 
 
 24 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 or some figure coming athwart the fields, 
 made picturesque by a gleaner’s bundle or 
 a woodman’s fagot, there is no change, no 
 variety, no beauty any- 
 where; and he who has 
 dwelt upon the moun- 
 tains or amidst the for: 
 ests feels oppressed as 
 by imprisonment with 
 the tedium and the 
 endlessness of that 
 vast and dreary levei. 
 But it is green and 
 
 eC Se very fertile, and it has 
 
 wide horizons that have 
 a certain charm of their own even in their 
 dulness and monotony; and amongst the 
 rushes by the water-side the flowers grow, 
 and the trees rise tall and fresh where the 
 barges glide with their great hulks black 
 against the sun, and their little green bar- 
 rels and vari-colored flags gay against the 
 leaves. Anyway, there is greenery and 
 breadth of space enough to be as good 
 as beauty to a child and a dog; and these 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 25 
 
 two asked no better, when their work was 
 done, than to lie buried in the lush grasses 
 on the side of the canal, and watch the 
 cumbrous vessels drift- 
 ing by and bringing 
 the crisp salt smell 
 of the sea amongst 
 the blossoming scents 
 of the country sum- 
 met. 
 
 irae, in the winter 
 fewas harder, and 
 they had to rise in the darkness and the 
 bitter cold, and they had seldom as much 
 as they could have eaten any day, and 
 the hut was scarce better than a shed 
 when the nights were cold, although it 
 looked so pretty in warm weather, buried 
 in a great kindly-clambering vine, that 
 never bore fruit, indeed, but which cov- 
 ered it with luxuriant green tracery all 
 through the months of blossom and har- 
 vest. In winter the winds found many 
 holes in the walls of the poor little hut, 
 and the vine was black and leafless, and 
 
 
 
26 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 the bare lands looked very bleak and 
 drear without, and sometimes within the 
 floor was flooded and then frozen. In 
 winter it was hard, and the snow numbed 
 the little white limbs of Nello, and the 
 icicles cut the brave, untiring feet of 
 Patrasche. 
 
 But even then they were never heard 
 to lament, either of them. The child’s 
 wooden shoes and the dog’s four legs 
 would trot manfully .together over the 
 frozen fields to the chime of the bells on 
 the harness; and then sometimes, in the 
 streets of Antwerp, some housewife would 
 bring them a bowl of soup and a hand- 
 ful of bread, or some kindly trader would 
 throw some billets of fuel into the little 
 cart as it went homeward, or some woman 
 in their own village would bid them keep 
 some share of the milk they carried for 
 their own food; and then they would run 
 over the white lands, through the early 
 darkness, bright and happy, and burst with 
 a shout of joy into their home. 
 
 So, on the whole, it was well with them, 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 27. 
 
 very well; and Patrasche, meeting on the 
 highway or in the public streets the many 
 dogs who toiled from daybreak into night- 
 fall, paid only with blows and curses, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 loosened from the shafts with a kick to 
 starve and freeze as best they might, — 
 Patrasche in his heart was very grateful to 
 his fate, and thought it the fairest and the 
 ‘indhiest the world could hold. Though 
 
26 A DOG Of FLANDERS 
 
 he was often very hungry indeed when he 
 lay down at night; though he had to work 
 in the heats of summer noons and the 
 rasping chills of winter dawns; though 
 his feet were often tender with wounds 
 from the sharp edges of the Jagged pave: 
 ment; though he had to perform tasks be: 
 yond his strength and against his nature, 
 —yet he was grateful and content: he did 
 his duty with each day, and the eyes that 
 he loved smiled down on him. It was 
 sufficient for Patrasche. 
 
 There was only one thing which caused 
 Patrasche any uneasiness in his life, and 
 it was this. Antwerp, as all the world 
 knows, is full at every turn of old piles 
 of stones, dark and ancient and majestic, 
 standing in crooked courts, jammed against 
 gateways and taverns, rising by the water’s 
 edge, with bells ringing above them in the 
 air, and ever and again out of their arched 
 doors a swell of music pealing. There 
 they remain, the grand old sanctuaries of 
 the past, shut in amidst the squalor, the 
 hurry, the crowds, the unloveliness and the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 29 
 
 commerce of the modern world, and all 
 day long the clouds drift and the birds 
 circle and the winds sigh 
 around them, and _ be- 
 
 neath the earth at their a 
 feet there sleeps— Rv- Neh 
 BENS, pre 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 | | Hy i a a 
 And the greatness of — rl Ne ETN eM hel 
 the mighty Master still a (i ma li | 
 il WANs 
 pm) WUT A: 
 a 8 
 Naa 4 pu es 
 
 te waye 
 
 rests upon Antwerp, and 3 li 
 wherever we turn in its ’ 
 narrow streets his glory 
 lies therein, so that all | 
 mean things are thereby 
 transfigured; and as we pace slowly through 
 the winding ways, and by the edge of the 
 stagnant water, and through the noisome 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i . 
 
30 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 courts, his spirit abides with us, and the 
 heroic beauty of his visions is about us, 
 and the stones that once felt his footsteps 
 and bore his shadow seem to arise and 
 speak of him with living voices. For the 
 city which 1s the tomb of Rubens still lives 
 to us through him, and him alone. 
 
 It is so quiet there by that great white 
 sepulchre — so quiet, save only when the 
 organ peals and the choir cries aloud the 
 Salve Regina or the Kyrie Eleison. Sure 
 no artist ever had a greater gravestone 
 than that pure marble sanctuary gives to 
 him in the heart of his birthplace in the 
 chancel of St. Jacques. 
 
 Without Rubens, what were Antwerp? 
 A dirty, dusky, bustling mart which no 
 man would ever care to look upon save 
 the traders who do business on its wharves. 
 With Rubens, to the whole world of men 
 it is a sacred name, a sacred soil, a Bethle- 
 hem where a god of Art saw light, a Gol- 
 gotha where a god of Art lies dead. 
 
 O nations! closely should you treasure 
 your great men, for by them alone will 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 31 
 
 the future know of you. Flanders in her 
 generations has been wise. In his life she 
 glorified this greatest of her sons, and in 
 his death she magnifies his name. But 
 her wisdom is very rare. 
 
 Now, the trouble of Patrasche was this. 
 Into these great, sad piles of stones, that 
 reared their melancholy majesty above the 
 crowded roofs, the child Nello would many 
 and many a time enter, and disappear 
 through their dark, arched portals, whilst 
 Patrasche, left without upon the pavement, 
 would wearily and vainly ponder on what 
 could be the charm which thus allured from 
 him his inseparable and beloved companion. 
 Once or twice he did essay to see for him- 
 self, clattering up the steps with his milk- 
 cart behind him; but thereon he had been 
 always sent back again summarily bya tall 
 custodian in black clothes and silver chains 
 of office; and fearful of bringing his little 
 master into trouble, he desisted, and re- 
 mained couched patiently before the 
 churches until such time as the boy re- 
 appeared. It was not the fact of his going 
 

 
 
 32 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 into them which disturbed Patrasche: he 
 knew that people went to church: all the 
 village went to the small, tumbledown, gray 
 pile opposite the red windmill. What 
 troubled him was that little Nello always 
 looked strangely when he came out, 
 ~ always very flushed or very pale; and 
 whenever he returned home after such 
 visitations would sit silent and dream- 
 ing, not caring to play, but 
 S.% gazing out at the evening 
 - skies beyond the line of the 
 canal, very subdued and 
 almost sad. 
 
 What was it? wondered Patrasche. He 
 thought it could not be good or natural 
 for the little lad to be so grave, and in his 
 dumb fashion he tried all he could to keep 
 Nello by him in the sunny fields or in the 
 busy market-place. But to the churches 
 Nello would go: most often of all would 
 he go to the great cathedral; and Patrasche, 
 left without on the stones by the iron frag- 
 ments of Quentin Matsys’ gate, would 
 stretch himself and yawn and sigh, and 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. a3 
 
 even howl now and then, all in vain, until 
 the doors closed, and the child perforce 
 came forth again, and winding his arms 
 about the dog’s neck would kiss him on his 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 {tu 
 
 Rota, o ’ u . 
 
 ry \ \ 
 = “Wig 2 
 5 ve 
 VN ses us Wy. 4, 
 
 ‘lo ag ia in 
 : Mey 4 Ul wo 
 
 Ve it 
 
 
 
 , ey 2 th 
 AH Pan 
 a 
 
 broad, tawny-colored forehead, and murmur 
 always the same words: “If I could only 
 see them, Patrasche!—if I could only see 
 
 12 
 
 them! 
 What were they? pondered Patrasche, 
 
34 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 looking up with large, wistful, sympathetic 
 eyes. 
 
 One day, when the custodian was out of 
 the way and the doors left ajar, he got in 
 for a moment after his little friend and saw. 
 “They” were two great covered pictures 
 on either side of the choir. 
 
 Nello was kneeling, rapt as in an ecstasy, 
 before the altar-picture of the Assumption, 
 and when he noticed Patrasche, and rose 
 and drew the dog gently out into the air, 
 his face was wet with tears, and he looked 
 up at the veiled places as he passed them, 
 and murmured to his companion, “ It is so 
 terrible not to see them, Patrasche, just 
 because one is poor and cannot pay! He 
 never meant that the poor should not see 
 them when he painted them, I am sure. 
 He would have had us see them any day, 
 every day: that lamsure. And they keep 
 them shrouded there—shrouded in the 
 dark, the beautiful things!—and_ they 
 never feel the light, and no eyes look on 
 them, unless rich people come and pay. If 
 I could only see them, I would be content 
 to. die” 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 35 
 
 But he could not see them, and Patrasche 
 could not help him, for to gain the silver 
 piece that the church exacts as the price 
 for looking on the glories of the Elevation 
 of the Cross and the Descent of the Cross 
 was a thing as utterly beyond the powers 
 of either of them as it would have been to 
 scale the heights of the cathedral spire. 
 They had never so much as a sou to 
 spare: if they cleared enough to get a 
 little wood for the stove, a little broth for 
 the pot, it was the utmost they could do. 
 And yet the heart of the child was set in 
 sore and endless longing upon beholding 
 the greatness of the two veiled Rubens. 
 
 The whole soul of the little Ardennois 
 thrilled and stirred with an absorbing pas- 
 sion for Art. Going on his ways through 
 the old city in the early days before the 
 sun or the people had risen, Nello, who 
 looked only a little peasant-boy, with a 
 great dog drawing milk to sell from door 
 to door, was in a heaven of dreams whereof 
 Rubens was the god. Nello, cold and hun- 
 gry, with stockingless feet in wooden shoes, 
 
36 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 
 
 and the winter winds blowing amongst his 
 curls and lifting his poor thin garments, 
 was in a rapture of meditation, wherein 
 all that he saw was the beautiful fair face 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. ey) 
 
 of the Mary of the Assumption, with the 
 waves of her golden hair lying upon her 
 shoulders, and the light of an eternal 
 sun shining down upon her brow. Nello, 
 reared in poverty, and buffeted by fortune, 
 and untaught in letters, and unheeded by 
 men, had the compensation or the curse 
 which is called Genius. 
 
 No one knew it. He as little as any. 
 No one knew it. Only indeed Patrasche, 
 who, being with him always, saw him 
 draw with chalk upon the stones any and 
 every thing that grew or breathed, heard 
 him on his little bed of hay murmur all 
 manner of timid, pathetic prayers to the 
 spirit of the great Master; watched his 
 gaze darken and his face radiate at the 
 evening glow of sunset or the rosy rising 
 of the dawn; and felt many and many a 
 time the tears of a strange, nameless pain 
 and joy, mingled together, fall hotly from 
 the bright young eyes upon his own 
 wrinkled, yellow forehead. 
 
 “J should go to my grave quite con- 
 tent if I thought, Nello, that when thou 
 
38 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 growest a man thou couldst own this hu 
 and the little plot of ground, and labor 
 for thyself, and be called Baas by thy 
 neighbors,” said the old man Jehan many 
 an hour from his bed. For to own a bit - 
 of soil, and to be called Baas — master — 
 by the hamlet round, is to have achieved 
 the highest ideal of a Flemish peasant; 
 and the old soldier, who had wandered 
 over all the earth in his youth, and had 
 brought nothing back, deemed in his old 
 age that to live and die on one spot in 
 contented humility was the fairest fate he 
 could desire for his darling. But Nello 
 said nothing. 
 
 The same leaven was working in him 
 that in other times begat Rubens and 
 Jordaens and the Van Eycks, and all 
 their wondrous tribe, and in times more 
 recent begat in the green country of the 
 Ardennes, where the Meuse washes the 
 old walls of Dijon, the great artist of 
 the Patroclus, whose genius is too near 
 us for us aright to measure its divinity. 
 
 Nello dreamed of other things in the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 39 
 
 future than of tilling the little rood of 
 earth, and living under the wattle roof, 
 and being called Baas by neighbors a 
 little poorer or a little less poor than 
 himself. The cathedral spire, where it 
 rose beyond the fields in the ruddy even- 
 ing skies or in the dim, gray, misty morn- 
 ings, said other things to him than this. 
 But these he told only to Patrasche, whis- 
 pering, childlike, his fancies in the dog’s 
 ear when they went together at their 
 work through the fogs of the daybreak, 
 or lay together at their rest amongst the 
 rustling rushes by the water’s side. 
 
 For such dreams are not easily shaped 
 into speech to awake the slow sympathies 
 of human auditors; and they would only 
 have sorely perplexed and troubled the 
 poor old man bedridden in his corner, 
 who, for his part, whenever he: had trod- 
 den the streets of Antwerp, had thought 
 the daub of blue and red that they called 
 a Madonna, on the walls of the wine-shop 
 where he drank his sou’s worth of black 
 beer, quite as good as any of the famous 
 
40 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 altar-pieces for which the stranger folk 
 traveled far and wide into Flanders from 
 every land on which the good sun snone. 
 
 There was only one other beside Pa- 
 trasche to whom Nello could talk at all of 
 his daring fantasies. This 
 other was little Alois, who 
 lived at the old red mill on 
 the grassy mound, and whose 
 father, the miller, was the 
 best-to-do husbandman in ali 
 the village. Little Alois was 
 only a pretty baby with soft 
 round, rosy features, made lovely by those 
 sweet dark eyes that the Spanish rule has 
 left in so many a Flemish face, in testi- 
 mony of the Alvan dominion, as Spanish 
 art has left broadsown throughout the 
 country majestic palaces and stately courts, 
 gilded house-fronts and sculptured lintels 
 —histories in blazonry and poems in 
 stone. 
 
 Little Alois was often with Nello and 
 Patrasche. They played in the fields, they 
 ran in the snow, they gathered the daisies 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 4I 
 
 and bilberries, they went up to the old 
 gray church together, and they often sat 
 together by the broad wood-fire in the mill- 
 house. Little Alois, indeed, was the rich- 
 est child in the hamlet. She had neither 
 brother nor sister; her blue serge dress 
 had never a hole in it; at kermesse she 
 had as many gilded nuts and Agni Dei in 
 sugar as her hands could hold; and when 
 she went up for her first communion her 
 flaxen curls were covered with a cap of 
 richest Mechlin lace, which had been her 
 mother’s and her grandmother’s before it 
 came to her. Men spoke already, though 
 she had but twelve years, of the 
 good wife she would be for their 
 sons to woo and win; but she 
 herself was a little gay, simple 
 child, in nowise conscious of 
 her heritage, and she loved no . 
 playfellows so well as Jehan 
 Daas’ grandson and his dog. 
 One day her father, Baas Cogez, a good 
 man, but somewhat stern, came on a pretty 
 group in the long meadow behind the mill, 
 
 
 
42 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 where the aftermath had that day beer 
 cut. It was his little daughter sitting 
 amidst the hay, with the great tawny head 
 of Patrasche on her lap, and many wreaths 
 
 
 
 of poppies and blue cornflowers round 
 them both: on a clean smooth slab of 
 pine wood the boy Nello drew their like- 
 ness with a stick of charcoal. 
 
 The miller stood and looked at the 
 portrait with tears in his eyes, it was so 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 43 
 
 strangely like, and he loved his only child 
 closely and well. Then he roughly chid 
 the little girl for idling there whilst her 
 mother needed her within, and sent her 
 indoors crying and afraid: then, turning, 
 he snatched the wood from Nello’s hands. 
 “ Dost do much of such folly?” he asked, 
 but there was a tremble in his voice. 
 Nello colored and hung his head. “I 
 draw everything I see,” he murmured. 
 The miller was silent: then he stretched 
 his hand out with a franc in it. ‘It is 
 folly, as I say, and evil waste of time: 
 nevertheless, it is like Alois, and will 
 please the house-mother. Take this sil- 
 ver bit for it and leave it for me.” 
 ‘iescolor died out of the face of the 
 young Ardennois: he lifted his head and 
 put his hands behind his back. “ Keep 
 your money and the portrait both, Baas 
 ‘Cogez,” he said simply. ‘‘ You have been 
 often good to me.” ‘Then he called Pa- 
 trasche to him, and walked away across 
 the fields. 
 “T could have seen them with that 
 
AA A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 franc,’ he murmured to Patrasche, “but 
 I could not sell her picture—not even 
 for them.” 
 
 Baas Cogez went into his mill-house 
 sore troubled in his mind. “That lad 
 must not be so much with Alois,” he said 
 to his wife that night. “ Trouble may 
 come of it hereafter: he is fifteen now, 
 and she is twelve; and the boy is comely 
 of face and form.” 
 
 “And he is a good lad and 
 a loyal,” said the housewife, 
 feasting her eyes on the piece 
 of pine wood where it was 
 _throned above the chimney 
 
 with a cuckoo clock in oak 
 
 and a Calvary in wax. 
 
 “Yea, I do not gainsay that,” said the 
 miller, draining his pewter flagon. 
 
 “ Then, if what you think of were ever 
 . to come to pass,” said the wife, hesitat- 
 ingly, “would it matter so much? She 
 will have enough for both, and one can- 
 not be better than happy.” 
 
 “You are a woman, and therefore a 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 45 
 
 fool,” said the miller harshly, striking his 
 pipe on the table. “The lad is naught 
 but a beggar, and, with these painter's 
 fancies, worse than a beggar. Have a 
 care that they are not together in the 
 future, or I will send the child to the 
 surer keeping of the nuns of the Sacred 
 Peart.” 
 
 The poor mother was terrified, and 
 promised humbly to do his will. Not 
 that she could bring herself altogether to 
 separate the child from her favorite play- 
 mate, nor did the miller even desire that 
 extreme of cruelty to a young lad who 
 was guilty of nothing except poverty. But 
 there were many ways in which little Alois 
 was kept away from her chosen compan- 
 ion; and Nello being a boy proud and 
 quiet and sensitive, was quickly wounded, 
 and ceased to turn his own steps and 
 those of Patrasche, as he had been used 
 to do with every moment of leisure, to 
 the old red mill upon the slope. What 
 his offence was he did not know: he sup- 
 posed he had in some manner angered 
 
46 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 Baas Cogez by taking the portrait of Alois 
 in the meadow; and when the child who 
 loved him would run to him and nestle 
 her hand in his, he would smile at her 
 very sadly and say with a tender concern 
 for her before himself, “ Nay, Alois, do not 
 anger your father. He thinks that I make 
 you idle, dear, and he is not pleased that 
 you should be with me. He is a good 
 man and loves you well: we will not 
 anger him, Alois.” : 
 
 But it was with a sad heart that he said 
 it, and the earth did not look so bright to 
 him as it had used to do when he went 
 out at sunrise under the poplars down the 
 straight roads with Patrasche. The old 
 red mill had been a landmark to him, and 
 he had been used to pause by it, going 
 and coming, for a cheery greeting with its 
 people as her little flaxen head rose above 
 the low mill-wicket, and her little rosy 
 _hands had held out a bone or a crust to 
 Patrasche. Now the dog looked wistfully 
 at a closed door, and the boy went on 
 without pausing, with a pang at his heart, 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 47 
 
 and the child sat within, with tears drop- 
 ping slowly on the knitting to which she 
 was set, on her little stool by the stove; 
 and Baas Cogez, working among his sacks 
 and his mill-gear, would harden his will 
 and say to himself, “It is best so. The 
 lad is all but a beggar, and full of idle, 
 dreaming fooleries. Who knows what 
 mischief might not come of it in the fut- 
 ure?” So he was wise in his generation, 
 and would not have the door unbarred, 
 except upon rare and formal occasions, 
 which seemed to have neither warmth nor 
 mirth in them to the two children, who 
 had been accustomed so long to a daily 
 gleeful, careless, happy interchange of 
 greeting, speech and pastime, with no 
 other watcher of their sports or auditor of 
 their fancies than Patrasche, sagely shak- 
 ing the brazen bells of his collar and 
 responding with all a dog’s swift sym- 
 pathies to their every change of mood. 
 All this while the little panel of pine 
 wood remained over the chimney in the 
 mill-kitchen with the cuckoo clock and 
 
48 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 the waxen Calvary, and sometimes it 
 seemed to Nello a little hard that whilst 
 his gift was accepted he himself should 
 be denied. 
 
 But he did not complain: it was his 
 habit to be quiet: old Jehan Daas had 
 said ever to him, “ We are poor: we must 
 take what God sends—the ill with the 
 good: the poor cannot choose.” 
 
 To which the boy had always listened 
 in silence, being reverent of his old grand- 
 father; but nevertheless a certain vague, 
 sweet hope, such as beguiles the children 
 of genius, had whispered in his heart, 
 “Yet the poor do choose sometimes — 
 choose to be great, so that men cannot 
 say them nay.” And he thought so still 
 in his innocence; and one day, when the 
 little Alois, finding him by chance alone 
 amongst the corn-fields by the canal, ran 
 to him and held him close, and sobbed 
 piteously because the morrow would be 
 her saint’s day, and for the first time in 
 all her life her parents had failed to bid 
 him to the little supper and romp in the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 49 
 
 great barns with which her feast-day was 
 always celebrated, Nello had kissed her 
 and murmured to her in firm faith, “ It 
 
 Bi if 
 
 i 
 y 
 
 
 
 shall be different one day, Alois. One 
 day that little bit. of pine wood that your 
 father has of mine shall be worth its 
 
50 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 weight in silver; and he will not shut 
 the door against me then. Only love me 
 always, dear little Alois, only love me 
 always, and I will be great.” 
 
 “ And if I do not love you?” the pretty 
 child asked, pouting a little through her 
 tears, and moved by the instinctive coquet- 
 ries of her sex. | 
 
 Nello’s eyes left her face and wandered 
 to the distance, where in the red and gold 
 of the Flemish night the cathedral spire 
 rose. There was a smile on his face so 
 sweet and yet so sad that little Alois was 
 awed by it. “I will be great still,” he 
 said under his breath — “great still, or 
 die: Alois,” : 
 
 “Vou do not love me,” said the little 
 spoilt child, pushing him away; but the 
 boy shook his head and smiled, and went 
 on his way through the tall yellow corn, 
 seeing as in a vision some day in a fair 
 future when he should come into that old 
 familiar land and ask Alois of her people, 
 and be not refused or denied, but received 
 in honor, whilst the village folk should ° 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 51 
 
 throng to look upon him and say in one 
 another’s ears, “ Dost see him? Heisa 
 king among men, for he is a great artist 
 and the world speaks his name; and yet 
 he was only our poor little Nello, who 
 was a beggar, as one may Say, and only 
 got his bread by the help of his dog.” 
 And he thought how he would fold his 
 grandsire in furs and purples, and _por- 
 tray him as the old man is portrayed in 
 the Family in the chapel of St. Jacques; 
 and of how he would hang the throat 
 of Patrasche with a collar of gold, and 
 place him on his right hand, and say to 
 the people, “ This was once my only 
 friend;” and of how he would build him- 
 self a great white marble palace, and make 
 to himself luxuriant gardens of pleasure, 
 on the slope looking outward to where 
 the cathedral spire rose, and not dwell in 
 it himself, but summon to it, as to a home, 
 all men young and poor and friendless, 
 but of the will to do mighty things; and 
 of how he would say to them always, if 
 they sought to bless his name, “ Nay, do 
 
C2 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 ~~ 
 
 not thank me—thank Rubens. Without 
 him, what should I have been?” And 
 these dreams, beautiful, impossible, inno- 
 cent, free of all selfishness, full of heroical 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 worship, were so closely about him as he 
 went that he was happy — happy even on 
 this sad anniversary of Alois’ saint’s day, 
 when he and Patrasche went home by 
 themselves to the little dark hut and the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 53 
 
 meal of black bread, whilst in the mill- 
 house all the children of the village sang 
 and laughed, and ate the big round cakes 
 of Dijon and the almond gingerbread of 
 Brabant, and danced in the great barn to 
 the lhght of the stars and the music of 
 flute and fiddle. 
 
 “Never mind, Patrasche,” he said, with 
 his arms round the dog’s neck as they 
 both sat in the door of the hut, where 
 the sounds of the mirth at the mill came 
 down to them on the night air— “ never 
 mind. It shall all be changed by and 
 by.” 
 He believed in the future: Patrasche. 
 of more experience and of more philoso- 
 phy, thought that the loss of the mill 
 supper in the present was ill compensated 
 by dreams of milk and honey in some 
 vague hereafter. And Patrasche growled 
 whenever he passed by Baas Cogez. 
 
 “This is Alois’ name-day, is it not?” 
 said the old man Daas that night from 
 the corner where he was stretched upon 
 his bed of sacking. 
 
54 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 The bov gave a gesture of assent: he 
 wished that the old man’s memory had 
 erred a little, instead of keeping such sure 
 account. 
 
 “And why not there?” his grandfather 
 pursued. “Thou hast never missed a 
 year before, Nello.” 
 
 “Thou art too sick to leave,” murmured 
 the lad, bending his handsome young head 
 over the bed. 
 
 “Tut! tut! Mother Nulette would have 
 come and sat with me, as she does scores 
 of times. What is the cause, Nello?” the 
 old man persisted. “Thou surely hast 
 not had ill words with the little one?” 
 
 “Nay, grandfather —never,’ said the boy 
 quickly, with a hot color in his bent face. 
 “Simply and truly, Baas Cogez did not 
 have me asked this year. He has taken 
 some whim against me.” 
 
 “But thou hast done nothing wrong?” 
 
 “That I know—nothing. I took the 
 portrait of Alois on a piece of pine: that 
 is all.” 
 
 “Ah!” The old man was silent: the 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 55 
 
 truth suggested itself to him with the 
 boy’s innocent answer. He was tied to a 
 bed of dried leaves in the corner of a 
 wattle hut, but he had not wholly for- 
 gotten what the ways of the world were 
 like. 
 
 He drew Nello’s fair head fondly to his 
 breast with a tenderer gesture. “Thou 
 art very poor, my child,” he said with a 
 quiver the more in his aged, trembling 
 voice —“so poor! It is very hard for 
 thee.” 
 
 “Nay, I am rich,” murmured Nello; 
 and in his innocence he thought so— 
 rich with the imperishable powers that 
 are mightier than the might of kings. 
 And he went and stood by the door of 
 the hut in the quiet autumn night, and 
 watched the stars troop by and the tall 
 poplars bend and shiver in the wind. All 
 the casements of the mill-house were 
 lighted, and every now and then the notes 
 Spine tite came to him. - The tears fell 
 down his cheeks, for he was but a child, 
 yet he smiled, for he said to himself, “ In 
 
56 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 the future!” He stayed there vatil all 
 was quite still and dark, then he and 
 Patrasche went within and slept together, 
 long and deeply, side by side. 
 
 Now he had a secret which only Pa- 
 trasche knew. There was a little out- 
 house to the hut, which no one entered 
 but himself —a dreary place, but with 
 abundant clear light from the north. 
 Here he had fashioned himself rudely 
 an easel in rough lumber, and here, on 
 a great gray sea of stretched paper, he 
 had given shape to one of the innumer- 
 able fancies which possessed his brain. 
 No one had ever taught him anything; 
 colors he had no means to buy; he had 
 gone without bread many a time to pro- 
 cure even the few rude vehicles that he 
 had here; and it was only in black or 
 white that he could fashion the things 
 he saw. This great figure.which he had 
 drawn here in chalk was only an old man 
 sitting on a fallen tree—only that. He 
 had seen old Michel the woodman sitting 
 so at evening many a time. He had neve: 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 57 
 
 'ad a soul to tell him of outline or per- 
 spective, of anatomy or of shadow, and yet 
 he had given all the weary, worn out age, . 
 all the sad, quiet patience, all the rugged, 
 careworn pathos of his original, and given 
 them so that the old, lonely figure was a 
 poem, sitting there, meditative and alone, 
 on the dead tree, with the darkness of the 
 descending night behind him. 
 
 It was rude, of course, in a way, and 
 had many faults, no doubt; and yet it was 
 real, true in Nature, true in Art, and very 
 mournful, and in a manner beautiful. 
 
 Patrasche had lain quiet countless hours 
 watching its gradual creation after the la- 
 bor of each day was done, and he knew 
 that Nello had a hope — vain and wild, 
 perhaps, but strongly cherished — of send- 
 ing this great drawing to compete for a 
 prize of two hundred francs a year, which 
 it was announced in Antwerp would be 
 open to every lad of talent, scholar or 
 peasant, under eighteen, who would at- 
 tempt to win it with some unaided work 
 
 of chalk or pencil. Three of the fore- 
 
58 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 most artists in the town of Rubens were 
 to be the judges and elect the victor 
 according to his merits. 
 
 All the spring and sum- 
 mer and autumn Nello had 
 been at work upon this 
 treasure, which, if trium- 
 phant, would build him 
 his first step toward in- 
 dependence and the mys- 
 teries of the art which he 
 blindly, ignorantly, and yet 
 passionately adored. 
 
 He said nothing to any one: his grand- 
 father would not have understood, and little 
 Alois was lost to him. Only to Patrasche 
 he told all, and whispered, ‘‘ Rubens would 
 give it me, I think, if he knew.” 
 
 Patrasche thought so too, for he knew 
 that Rubens had loved dogs or he had 
 never painted them with such exquisite 
 fidelity ; and men who loved dogs were, as 
 Patrasche knew, always pitiful. 
 
 The drawings were to go in on the first 
 day of December, and the decision be given 
 
 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 59 
 
 on the twenty-fourth, so that he who should 
 win might rejoice with all his people at the 
 Christmas season. 
 
 In the twilight of a bitter wintry day, 
 and with a beating heart, now quick with 
 hope, now faint with fear, Nello placed the 
 great picture on his little, green milk-cart, 
 and took it, with the help of Patrasche, 
 into the town, and there left it, as enjoined, 
 at the doors of a public building. 
 
 “Perhaps it 1s worth nothing at all. 
 How can [| tell?” he thought, with the 
 heart-sickness of a great timidity. Now 
 that he had left it there, it seemed to him 
 so hazardous, so vain, so foolish, to dream 
 that he, a little lad with bare feet, who 
 barely knew his letters, could do anything 
 at which great painters, real artists, could 
 ever deign to look. Yet he took heart as 
 he went by the cathedral: the lordly form 
 of Rubens seemed to rise from the fog and 
 the darkness, and to loom in its magnifi- 
 cence before him, whilst the lips, with their 
 kindly smile, seemed to him to murmur, 
 “Nay, have courage! It was not by a weak 
 
60 4 DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 heart and by faint fears that I wrote my 
 name for all time upon Antwerp.” 
 
 Nello ran home through the cold night, 
 comforted. He had done his best: the 
 rest must be as God willed, he thought, in 
 that innocent, unquestioning faith which 
 had been taught him in the little gray 
 chapel amongst the willows and the poplar 
 ireCS: 
 
 The winter was very sharp already. 
 That night, after they reached the hut, 
 snow fell; and fell for very many days after 
 that, so that the paths and the divisions in 
 the fields were all obliterated, and all the 
 smaller streams were frozen over, and the 
 cold was intense upon the plains. Then, 
 indeed, it became hard work to go round 
 for the milk while the world was all dark, 
 and carry it through the darkness to the 
 silent town. Hard work, especially for 
 Patrasche, for the passage of the years, 
 that were only bringing Nello a stronger 
 youth, were bringing him old age, and his 
 joints were stiff, and his bones ached often. 
 But he would never give up his share of 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 61 
 
 the labor. Nello would fain have spared 
 him and drawn the cart himself, but Pa- 
 trasche would not allow it. All he would 
 ever permit or accept was the help of a 
 thrust from behind to the truck, as it lum- 
 bered along through the ice-ruts. Patrasche 
 had lived in harness, and he was proud of 
 it. He suffered a great deal sometimes 
 from frost, and the terrible roads, and the 
 rheumatic pains of his limbs, but he only 
 drew his breath hard and bent his stout 
 neck, and trod onward with steady pa- 
 tience. 
 
 “Rest thee at home, Patrasche —it is 
 time thou didst rest — and I can quite well 
 push in the cart by myself,” urged Nello 
 many a morning; but Patrasche, who un- 
 derstood him aright, would no more have 
 consented to stay at home than a veteran 
 soldier to shirk when the charge was sound- 
 ing; and every day he would rise and place 
 himself in his shafts, and plod along over 
 the snow through the fields that his four 
 round feet had left their print upon so 
 many, many years. 
 
62 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 “One must never rest till one dies,” 
 thought Patrasche; andsometimes itseemed 
 to him that that time of rest for him was 
 not very far off. His sight was less clear 
 than it had been, and it gave him pain 
 to rise after the night’s sleep, though he 
 would never lie a moment in his straw 
 when once the bell of the chapel tolling 
 five let him know that the daybreak of 
 labor had begun. 
 
 “My poor Patrasche, we shall soon lie 
 quiet together, you and I,” said old Jehan 
 Daas, stretching out to stroke the head of 
 Patrasche with the old, withered hand which 
 had always shared with him its one poor 
 crust of bread; and the hearts of the old: 
 man and the old dog ached together with 
 one thought: When they were gone, who 
 would care for their darling? | 
 
 One afternoon, as they came back from 
 Antwerp over the snow, which had become 
 hard and smooth as marble over all the 
 Flemish plains, they found dropped in the 
 road a pretty little puppet, a tambourine- 
 player, all scarlet and gold, about six 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 63 
 
 inches high, and, unlike greater person- 
 ages when Fortune lets them drop, quite 
 unspoiled and unhurt by its fall. It was 
 a pretty toy. Nello tried to find its owner, 
 
 
 
 and, failing, thought that it was just the 
 thing to please Alois. 
 
 It was quite night when he passed the 
 mill-house: he knew the little window 
 of her room. It could be no harm, he 
 
64 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 thought, if he gave her his little piece of 
 treasure-trove, they had been play-fellows 
 so long. ‘There was a shed with a sloping 
 roof beneath her casement: he climbed it 
 and tapped softly at the lattice: there was 
 a little light within. The child opened it 
 and looked out, half frightened. 
 
 Nello put the tambourine-player into 
 her hands. ‘‘ Here is a doll I found in 
 the snow, Alois. Take it,’ he whispered 
 — “take it, and God bless thee, dear! ” 
 
 He slid down from the shed-roof before 
 she had time to thank him, and ran off 
 through the darkness. 
 
 That night there was a fire at the mill. 
 Out-buildings and much corn were de- 
 stroyed, although the mill itself and the 
 dwelling-house were unharmed. All the 
 village was out in terror, and engines 
 came tearing through the snow from 
 Antwerp. The miller was insured, and 
 would lose nothing: nevertheless, he was 
 in furious wrath, and declared aloud that 
 the fire was due to no accident, but to 
 some foul intent. 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 65 
 
 Nello, awakened from his sleep, ran to 
 help with the rest: Baas Cogez thrust him 
 angrily aside. “Thou wert loitering here 
 after dark,” he said roughly. “I believe, 
 on my soul, that thou dost know more of 
 the fire than any one.” 
 
 Nello heard him in silence, stupefied, 
 not supposing that any one could say 
 such things except in jest, and not com- 
 prehending how any one could pass a jest 
 at such a time. 
 
 Nevertheless, the miller said the brutal 
 thing openly to many of his neighbors 
 in the day that followed; and though no 
 serious charge was ever preferred against 
 the lad, it got bruited about that Nello 
 had been seen in the mill-yard after dark 
 on some unspoken errand, and that he 
 bore Baas Cogez a grudge for forbidding 
 his intercourse with little Alois; and so 
 the hamlet, which followed the sayings of 
 its richest landowner servilely, and whose 
 families all hoped to secure the riches of 
 Alois in some future time for their sons, 
 took the hint to give grave looks and cold 
 
66 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 words to old Jehan Daas’ grandson. No 
 one said anything to him openly, but all 
 the village agreed together to humor the 
 miller’s prejudice, and at the cottages and 
 farms where Nello and Patrasche called 
 every morning for the milk for Antwerp, 
 downcast glances and brief phrases re- 
 placed to them the broad smiles and 
 cheerful greetings to which they had been 
 always used. No one really credited the 
 millers absurd suspicion, nor the outra- 
 geous accusations born of them, but the 
 people were all very poor and very igno- 
 rant, and the one rich man of the place 
 had pronounced against him. Nello, in 
 his innocence and his friendlessness, had 
 no strength to stem the popular tide. 
 
 “Thou art very cruel to the ag. ste 
 miller’s wife dared to say, weeping, to her 
 lord. ‘‘Sure he is an innocent lad anda 
 faithful, and would never dream of any 
 such wickedness, however sore his heart 
 might be.” 
 
 But Baas Cogez being an obstinate man, 
 having once said a thing held to it dog- 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 67 
 
 gedly, though in his innermost soul he 
 knew well the injustice that he was com- 
 mitting. 
 
 Meanwhile, Nello endured the injury 
 done against him with a certain proud 
 patience that disdained to complain: he 
 only gave way a little when he was quite 
 alone with old Patrasche. Besides, he 
 thought, “If it should -vin! They will be 
 sorry then, perhaps.” 
 
 Still, to a boy not quite sixteen, and 
 who had dwelt in one little world all 
 his short life, and in his childhood had 
 been caressed and applauded on all sides, 
 it was a hard trial to have the whole of 
 that little world turn against him for 
 naught. Especially hard in that bleak, 
 snow-bound, famine-stricken winter-time, 
 when the only light and warmth there 
 could be found abode beside the village 
 hearths and in the kindly greetings of 
 neighbors. In the winter-time all drew 
 nearer to each other, all to all, except to 
 Nello and Patrasche, with whom none 
 now would have anything to do, and who 
 
68 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 were left to fare as they might with the 
 old paralyzed, bedridden man in the little 
 cabin, whose fire was often low, and whose 
 board was often without bread, for there 
 was a buyer from Antwerp who had taken 
 to drive his mule in of a day for the milk 
 of the various dairies, and there were only 
 three or four of the people who had re- 
 fused his terms of purchase and remained 
 faithful to the little green cart. So that 
 the burden which Patrasche drew had 
 become very light, and the centime-pieces 
 in Nello’s pouch had become, alas! very 
 small likewise. 
 
 The dog would stop, as usual, at all the 
 familiar gates which were now closed to 
 him, and look up at them with wistful, 
 mute appeal; and it cost the neighbors a 
 pang to shut their doors and their hearts, 
 and let Patrasche draw his cart on again, 
 empty. Nevertheless, they did it, for they 
 desired to please Baas Cogez. 
 
 Noél was close at hand. 
 
 The weather was very wild and cold. 
 The snow was six feet deep, and the ice 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 69 
 
 was firm enough to bear oxen and men 
 upon it everywhere. At this season the 
 little village was always gay and cheerful. 
 At the poorest dwelling there were possets 
 and cakes, joking and dancing, sugared 
 saints and gilded Jésus. The merry 
 Flemish bells jingled everywhere on the 
 horses; everywhere within doors some 
 well-filled soup-pot sang and smoked over 
 the stove; and everywhere over the snow 
 without laughing maidens pattered in 
 bright kerchiefs and stout kirtles, going 
 to and from the mass. Only in the little 
 hut it was very dark and very cold. 
 
 Nello and Patrasche were left utterly 
 alone, for one night in the week before 
 the Christmas Day, Death entered there, 
 and took away from life for ever old Jehan 
 Daas, who had never known of life aught 
 save its poverty and its pains. He had 
 long been half dead, incapable of any 
 movement except a feeble gesture, and 
 powerless for anything beyond a gentle 
 word; and yet his loss fell on them both 
 with a great horror in it: they mourned 
 
7O A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 him passionately. He had passed away 
 from them in his sleep, and when in the 
 gray dawn they learned their bereavement, 
 unutterable solitude and desolation seemed 
 
 
 
 
 
 to close around them. He had long been 
 only a poor, feeble, paralyzed old man, 
 who could not raise a hand in their de- 
 fence, but he had loved-them well: his 
 smile had always welcomed their return. 
 They mourned for him unceasingly, refus- 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. Zi 
 
 ing to be comforted, as in the white 
 winter day they followed the deal shell 
 that held his body to the nameless grave 
 by the little gray church. They were his 
 only mourners, these two whom he had 
 left friendless upon earth — the young 
 boy and the old dog. “Surely, he will 
 relent now and let the poor lad come 
 hither?” thought the miller’s wife, glanc- 
 ing at her husband where he smoked by 
 the hearth. 
 
 Baas Cogez knew her thought, but he 
 hardened his heart, and would not un- 
 bar his door as the little, humble funeral 
 went by. “The boy is a beggar,” he 
 said to himself: “he shall not be about 
 Alois.” 
 
 The woman dared not say anything 
 aloud, but when the grave was closed and 
 the mourners had gone, she put a wreath 
 of immortelles into Alois’ hands and bade 
 her go and lay it reverently on the dark, 
 unmarked mound where the snow was 
 displaced. 
 
 Nello and Patrasche went home with 
 
72 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 broken hearts. But even of that poor, 
 melancholy, cheerless home they were 
 denied the consolation. There was a 
 month’s rent over-due for their little 
 home, and when Nello had paid the last 
 sad service to the dead he had not a coin 
 left. He went and begged grace of the 
 owner of the hut, a cobbler who went 
 every Sunday night to drink his pint of 
 wine and smoke with Baas Cogez. The 
 cobbler would grant no mercy. He was 
 a harsh, miserly man, and loved money. 
 He claimed in default of his rent every 
 stick and stone, every pot and pan, in the 
 hut, and bade Nello and Patrasche be out 
 of it on the morrow. 
 
 Now, the cabin was lowly enough, and 
 in some sense miserable enough, and yet 
 their hearts clove to it with a great affec- 
 tion. They had been so happy there, and 
 in the summer, with its clambering vine 
 and its flowering beans, it was so pretty 
 and bright in the midst of the sun-lighted 
 fields! Their life in it had been full of 
 labor and privation, and yet they had been 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 73 
 
 so well content, so gay of heart, running 
 together to meet the old man’s never-failing 
 smile of welcome! 
 
 All night long the boy and the dog sat 
 by the fireless hearth in the darkness, 
 drawn close together for warmth and sor- 
 row. Their bodies were insensible to the 
 cold, but their hearts seemed frozen in 
 them. ; 
 
 When the morning broke over the 
 white, chill earth it was the morning of 
 Christmas Eve. With a shudder, Nello 
 clasped close to him his only friend, while 
 his tears fell hot and fast on the dog’s 
 Menketorenead. “Let us go, Patrasche 
 —dear, dear Patrasche,’ he murmured. 
 “We will not wait to be kicked out: let 
 us go.” | 
 
 Patrasche had no will but his, and they 
 went sadly, side by side, out from the little 
 place which was so dear to them both, and 
 in which every humble, homely thing was 
 to them precious and beloved. Patrasche 
 drooped his head wearily as he passed by 
 his own green cart: it was no longer his 
 
74. A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 —it had to go with the rest to pay the 
 rent, and his brass harness lay idle and 
 glittering on the snow. The dog could 
 have lain down beside it and died for very 
 heart-sickness as he went, but whilst the 
 lad lived and needed him Patrasche would 
 not yield and give way. 
 
 They took the old accustomed road into 
 Antwerp. The day had yet scarce more 
 than dawned, most of the shutters were 
 still closed, but some of the villagers were 
 about. They took no notice whilst the 
 dog and the boy passed by them. At one 
 door Nello paused and looked wistfully 
 within: his grandfather had done many a 
 kindly turn in neighbor’s service to the 
 people who dwelt there. 
 
 “Would you give Patrasche a crust?” 
 he said, timidly. “ He is old, and he has 
 had nothing since last forenoon.” 
 
 The woman shut the door hastily, mur- 
 muring some vague saying about wheat 
 and rye being very dear that season. The 
 boy and the dog went on again wearily: 
 they asked no more, | 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 76 
 
 By slow and painful ways they reached 
 Antwerp as the chimes tolled ten. 
 
 “Tf I had anything about me I could 
 sell to get him bread!” thought Nello, 
 but he had nothing except the wisp of 
 
 
 
 linen and serge that covered him, and his 
 pair of wooden shoes. 
 
 Patrasche understood, and nestled his 
 nose into the lad’s hand, as though to 
 pray him not to be disquieted for any woe 
 or want of his. © 
 
 The winner of the drawing-prize was 
 to be proclaimed at noon, and to the pub- 
 
76 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 lic building where he had left his treasure 
 Nello made his way. On the steps and 
 in the entrance-hall there was a crowd of 
 youths — some of his age, some older, all 
 with parents or relatives or friends. His 
 heart was sick with fear as he went 
 amongst them, holding Patrasche close to 
 him. The great bells of the city clashed 
 out the hour of noon with brazen clamor. 
 The doors of the inner hall were opened ; 
 the eager, panting throng rushed in: it 
 was known that the selected picture would 
 be raised above the rest upon a wooden 
 dais. 
 
 A mist obscured Nello’s sight, his head 
 swam, his limbs almost failed him. When 
 his vision cleared he saw the drawing 
 raised on high: it was not his own! A 
 slow, sonorous voice was proclaiming 
 aloud that victory had been adjudged to 
 Stephan Kiesslinger, born in the burgh 
 of Antwerp, son of a wharfinger in that 
 town. | 
 When Nello recovered his conscious- 
 ness he was lying on the stones- without, 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. vi | 
 
 and Patrasche was trying with every art 
 he knew to call him back to life. In the 
 distance a throng of the youths of Ant- 
 werp were shouting around their suc- 
 cessful comrade, and escorting him with 
 acclamations to his home upon the quay. 
 
 The boy staggered to his feet and 
 drew the dog into his embrace. “It is 
 all over, dear Patrasche,” he murmured — 
 Pallover!” 
 
 He rallied himself as best he could, for 
 he was weak from fasting, and retraced 
 his steps to the village. Patrasche paced 
 by his side with his head drooping and 
 his old limbs feeble from hunger and 
 sorrow. 
 
 The snow was falling fast: a keen hur- 
 ricane blew from the north: it was bitter 
 as death on the plains. It took them 
 long to traverse the familiar path, and the 
 bells were sounding four of the clock as 
 they approached the hamlet. Suddenly 
 Patrasche paused, arrested by a scent in 
 the snow, scratched, whined, and drew 
 out with his teeth a small case of brown 
 
78 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 leather. He held it up to Nello in the 
 darkness. Where they were there stood 
 a little Calvary, and a lamp 
 burned dully under the cross: 
 the boy mechanically turned 
 the case to the light: on it 
 was the name of Baas Cogez, 
 and within it were notes for 
 two thousand francs. 
 The sight roused the lad 
 a little from his stupor. He 
 thrust it in his shirt, and 
 \\ stroked Patrasche and 
 XS. drew him onward. 
 \\ « The-dog looked up 
 
 SS wistfully in his 
 . face: 
 
 Nello made 
 straight for the 
 ’ mill-house, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 went to 
 
 OEE ge - aa, the house- 
 ae ee = on ie 
 
 wZZZe, DB, Se Ban door and 
 
 struck on its panels. The millers wife 
 opened it weeping, with little Alois cling- 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 70 
 
 ing close to her skirts. “Is it thee, thou 
 poor lad?” she said kindly through her 
 tears. ‘‘Get thee gone ere the Baas see 
 thee. We are in sore trouble to-night. 
 He is out seeking for a power of money 
 that he has let fall riding homeward, and 
 in this snow he never will find it; and God 
 knows it will go nigh to ruin us. It is 
 Heaven’s own judgment for the things we 
 have done to thee.” 
 
 Nello put the note-case in her hand 
 and called Patrasche within the house. 
 “Patrasche found the money to-night,” 
 he said quickly. “Tell Baas Cogez so: 
 I think he will not deny the dog shelter 
 and food in his old age. Keep him from 
 pursuing me, and I pray of you to be 
 good to him.” 
 
 Ere either woman or dog knew what 
 he meant he had stooped and kissed Pa- 
 trasche: then closed the door hurriedly, 
 and disappeared in the gloom of the fast- 
 falling night. 
 
 The woman and the child stood speech- 
 less with joy and fear: Patrasche vainly 
 
80 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 spent the fury of his anguish against the 
 iron-bound oak of the barred house-door. 
 They did not dare unbar the door ana 
 let him forth: they tried all they could 
 to solace him. They brought him sweet 
 cakes and juicy meats; they tempted him 
 with the best they had; they tried to lure 
 him to abide by the warmth of the hearth; 
 but it was of no avail. Patrasche refused 
 to be comforted or to stir from the barred 
 portal. 
 
 It was six o'clock when from an oppo- 
 site entrance the miller at last came, jaded 
 and broken, into his wife’s presence. “It 
 is lost for ever,’ he said with an ashen 
 cheek and a quiver in his stern voice. 
 “We have looked with lanterns every- 
 where: it 1s gone—the little maiden’s 
 portion and all!” 
 
 His wife put the money into his hand, 
 and told him how it had come to her. 
 The strong man sank trembling into a 
 seat and covered his face, ashamed and 
 almost afraid. “I have been cruel to the 
 lad,” he muttered at lenoth; = idesemvea 
 not to have good at his hands.” 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. Si 
 
 Little Alois, taking courage, crept close 
 to her father and nestled against him her 
 fair curly head. “Nello may come here 
 again, father?” she whispered. “He may 
 come to-morrow as he used to do?” 
 
 The miller pressed her in his arms: 
 his hard, sun-burned face was very pale 
 and his mouth trembled. “Surely, surely,” 
 he answered his child. ‘‘ He shall bide 
 here on Christmas Day, and any other 
 day he will. God helping me, I will 
 make amends to the boy—lI will make 
 amends.” 
 
 Little Alois kissed him in gratitude and 
 joy, then slid from his knees and ran to 
 where the dog kept watch by the door. 
 “And to-night I may feast Patrasche?” 
 she cried in a child’s thoughtless glee. 
 
 Her father bent his head gravely: 
 Seay tet the dog have the best;” for 
 the stern old man was moved and shaken 
 to his heart’s depths. 
 
 It was Christmas Eve, and the mill- 
 house was filled with oak logs and squares 
 of turf, with cream and honey, with meat 
 
82 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 and bread, and the rafters were hung with 
 wreaths of evergreen, and the Calvary and 
 the cuckoo clock looked out from a mass 
 of holly. There were little paper lanterns 
 too for Alois, and toys of various fashions 
 and sweetmeats in bright-pictured papers. 
 There were light and warmth and abun- 
 dance everywhere, and the child would 
 fain have meade the dog a guest honored 
 and feasted. 
 
 But Patrasche would neithe: 
 lie in the warmth nor share in 
 the cheer. Famished he was, 
 and very cold, but without Nello 
 he would partake neither of 
 comfort nor food. Against all 
 temptation he was proof, and 
 close against the door he leaned 
 always, watching only for a 
 SSS. ~=Emeans of escape. 
 
 A ona ORS “He wants the lad,” said 
 
 Baas Cogez. “Good dog! 
 good dog! I will go over to the lad the 
 first thing at day-dawn.” For no one but 
 Patrasche knew that Nello had left the 
 
 
 
AIOUG OF FLANDERS. 83 
 
 hut, and no one but Patrasche divined 
 that Nello had gone to face starvation 
 and misery alone. 
 
 The mill-kitchen was very warm; great 
 
 logs crackled and flamed on the hearth; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 neighbors came in for a glass of wine and 
 a slice of the fat goose baking for supper. 
 Alois, gleeful and sure of her playmate 
 back on the morrow, bounded and sang 
 and tossed back her yellow hair. Baas 
 Cogez, in the fulness of his heart, smiled 
 on her through moistened eyes, and spoke 
 
84 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 of the way in which he would befriend her 
 favorite companion; the house-mother sat 
 with calm, contented face at the spinning- 
 wheel; the cuckoo in the clock chirped 
 mirthful hours. Amidst it all Patrasche 
 was bidden with a thousand words of wel- 
 come to tarry there a cherished guest. 
 But neither peace nor plenty could allure 
 him where Nello was not. 
 
 When the supper smoked on the board, 
 and the voices were loudest and gladdest, 
 and the Christ-child brought choicest gifts 
 to Alois, Patrasche, watching always an 
 occasion, glided out when the door was 
 unlatched by a careless new-comer, and as 
 swiftly as his weak and tired limbs would 
 bear him sped over the snow in the bitter, 
 black night. He had only one thought — 
 to follow Nello. A human friend might 
 have paused for the pleasant meal, the 
 cherry warmth, the cozy slumber; but that 
 was not the friendship of Patrasche. He 
 remembered a bygone time, when an old 
 man and a little child had found him sick 
 unto death in the wayside ditch, 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 85 
 
 Snow had fallen freshly all the evening 
 long; it was now nearly ten; the trail of 
 the boy’s footsteps was almost obliterated. 
 It took Patrasche long to discover any 
 scent. When at last he found it, it was 
 lost again quickly, and 
 lost and recovered, and 
 again lost and again 
 recovered, a hundred 
 times or more. 
 
 The night was very 
 wild. The lamps un- 
 der the wayside crosses 
 were blown out; the 
 roads were sheets of 
 ice; the impenetrable darkness hid every 
 trace of habitations; there was no living 
 thing abroad. All the cattle were housed, 
 and in all the huts and homesteads men 
 and women rejoiced and feasted. There 
 was only Patrasche out in the cruel cold 
 —old and famished and full of pain, but 
 with the strength and the patience of a 
 great love to sustain him in his search. 
 
 The trail of Nello’s steps, faint and ob- 
 
 
 
86 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 scure as it was under the new snow, went 
 straightly along the accustomed tracks into 
 Antwerp. It was past midnight when Pa- 
 trasche traced it over the boundapies of 
 the town and into the narrow, tortuous, 
 gloomy streets. It was all quite dark in 
 the town, save where some light gleamed 
 ruddily through the crevices 
 of house-shutters, or some 
 group went homeward with 
 lanterns chanting drinkine- 
 songs. The streets were all 
 white with: ice: the high 
 walls and roofs loomed black 
 against them. There was 
 scarce a sound save the riot of the winds 
 down the passages as they tossed the 
 creaking signs and shook the tall lamp- 
 irons. : 
 
 So many passers-by had trodden through 
 and through the snow, so many diverse 
 paths had crossed and recrossed each 
 other, that the dog had a hard task to 
 retain any hold on the track he followed. 
 But he kept on his way, though the cold 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 87 
 
 Cd 
 
 pierced him to the bone, and the jagged 
 ice cut his feet, and the hunger in his 
 body gnawed like a rat’s teeth. He kept 
 on his way, a poor, gaunt, shivering thing, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and by long patience traced the steps he 
 loved into the very heart of the burgh and 
 up to the steps of the great cathedral. 
 Sige is gone to the things that he 
 loved,’ thought Patrasche: he could not 
 
88 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 understand, but he was full of sorrow and 
 of pity for the art-passion that to him was 
 so incomprehensible and yet so sacred. 
 
 The portals of the cathedral were un- 
 closed after the midnight mass. Some 
 heedlessness in the custedians, too eager 
 to go home and feast or sleep, or too 
 drowsy to know whether they turned the 
 keys aright, had left one of the doors 
 unlocked. By that accident the footfalls 
 Patrasche sought had passed through into 
 the building, leaving the white marks of 
 snow upon the dark stone floor. By that 
 slender white thread, frozen as it fell, he 
 was guided through the intense silence, 
 through the immensity of the vaulted 
 space — guided straight to the gates of 
 the chancel, and, stretched there upon the 
 stones, he found Nello. He crept up and 
 touched the face of the boy. “ Didst thou 
 dream that I should be faithless and for- 
 sake thee? J,—a dog?” said that mute 
 caress. 
 
 The lad raised himself with a low cry 
 and clasped him close. “Let us lie down 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 89 
 
 and die together,” he murmured. “Men 
 have no need of us, and we are all alone.” 
 
 In answer, Patrasche crept closer yet, 
 and laid his head upon the young boy’s 
 breast. The great tears stood in his 
 brown, sad eyes: not for himself — for 
 himself he was happy. 
 
 They lay close together in the piercing 
 cold. The blasts that blew over the Flem- 
 ish dikes from the northern seas were like 
 waves of ice, which froze every living thing 
 they touched. The interior of the immense 
 vault of stone in which they were was even 
 more bitterly chill than the snow-covered 
 plains without. Now and then a _ bat 
 moved in the shadows— now and then 
 a gleam of light came on the ranks of 
 carven figures. Under the Rubens they 
 lay together quite still, and soothed almost 
 into a dreaming slumber by the numb- 
 ing narcotic of the cold. Together they 
 dreamed of the old glad days when they 
 had chased each other through the flower- 
 ing grasses of the summer meadows, or sat 
 hidden in the tall bulrushes by the water’s 
 
go A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 side, watching the boats go seaward in the 
 sun. 
 Suddenly through the darkness a great 
 white radiance streamed through the vast- 
 ness of the aisles; the moon, that was at 
 her height, had broken 
 through the clouds, the 
 snow had ceased to fall, 
 the light reflected from 
 the snow without was 
 clear as the light of dawn. 
 It fell through the arches 
 full upon the two pictures 
 above, from which the boy 
 on his entrance had flung 
 back the veil: the Eleva- 
 tion and the Descent of the Cross were 
 for one instant visible. 
 
 Nello rose to his feet and stretched his 
 arms to them: the tears of a passionate 
 ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his 
 face. “I have seen them at last!” he cried 
 aloud. “O God, it is enough!” 
 
 His limbs failed under him, and he sank 
 upon his knees, still gazing upward at the 
 
 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. gI 
 
 majesty that he adored. For a few brief. 
 moments the light illumined the divine 
 visions that had been denied to him so 
 long —light clear and sweet and strong 
 as though it streamed from the throne of 
 Heaven. Then suddenly it passed away: 
 once more a great darkness covered the 
 face of Christ. 
 
 The arms of the boy drew close again 
 the body of the dog. “We shall see His 
 face — there,’ he murmured; “and He will 
 not part us, I think.” 
 
 On the morrow, by the chancel of the 
 cathedral, the people of Antwerp found 
 them both. They were both dead: the 
 cold of the night had frozen into stillness 
 alike the young life and the old. When 
 the Christmas morning broke and the 
 priests came to the temple, they saw them 
 lying thus on the stones together. Above, 
 the veils were drawn back from the great 
 visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of 
 the sunrise touched the thorn-crowned 
 head of the Christ. 
 
 As the day grew on there came an old, 
 
92 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 hard-featured man who wept as women 
 weep. “I was. cruel to) the wiacdsa 
 muttered, “and now I would have made 
 amends — yea, to the half of my substance 
 —and he should have been to me as a 
 son.” 
 
 There came also, as the day grew apace, 
 a painter who had fame in the world, and 
 who was liberal of hand and of spirit. “I 
 seek one who should have had the prize 
 yesterday had worth won,” he said to the 
 people —‘“‘a boy of rare promise and gen- 
 ius. An old wood-cutter on a fallen tree 
 at eventide — that was all his theme. But 
 there was greatness for the future in it. 
 I would fain find him, and take him with 
 me and teach him Art.” 
 
 And a little child with curling fair hair, 
 sobbing bitterly as she clung to her father’s 
 arm, cried aloud, ‘Oh, Nello, come! We 
 have all ready for thee. The Christ-child’s 
 hands are full of gifts, and the old piper 
 will play for us; and the mother says thou 
 shalt stay by the hearth and burn nuts 
 with us all the Noél week long —yes, 
 
A DOG OF FLANDERS. 03 
 
 a 
 
 even to the Feast of the Kings! And 
 Patrasche will be so happy! Oh, Nello, 
 wake and come!” 
 
 But the young pale face, turned upward 
 to the light of the great Rubens with a 
 smile upon its mouth, answered them all, 
 “Tt is too late.” 
 
 For the sweet, sonorous bells went ring- 
 ing through the frost, and the sunlight 
 shone upon the plains of snow, and the 
 populace trooped gay and glad through 
 the streets, but Nello and Patrasche no 
 more asked charity at their hands. All 
 they needed now Antwerp gave unbidden. 
 
 Death had been more pitiful to them 
 than longer life would have been. It had 
 taken the one in the loyalty of love, and 
 the other in the innocence of faith, from a 
 world which for love has no recompense 
 and for faith no fulfilment. 
 
 All their lives they had been together, 
 and in their deaths they were not divided ; 
 for when they were found the arms of the 
 boy were folded too closely around the 
 dog to be severed without violence, and 
 
94 A DOG OF FLANDERS. 
 
 the people of their little village, contrite 
 and ashamed, implored a special grace for 
 them, and, making them one grave, laid 
 them to rest there side by side —for ever! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE 
 
 Cosy Corner Series 
 
 A SERIES OF CHARMING ILLUSTRATED 
 JUVENILES BY WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 We shall issue ten new volumes in this well-known 
 series of child classics, and announce four as follows: 
 
 A Little Puritan Pioneer 
 
 By EDITH ROBINSON 
 Author of **A Loyal Little Maid,’’ «* A Little Puri- 
 tan’s First Christmas,’’ etc. 
 
 - Madam Liberality 
 
 By MRS. EWING 
 Author of << Jackanapes,’’ «*A Great Emergency,”’ 
 «Story of a Short Life,’’ etc., etc. 
 
 A Bad Penny 
 
 By JOHN T. WHEELWRIGHT 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The other seven will include new stories by Louise 
 de la Ramée, Miss Mulock, Nellie Hellis, Will Allen 
 
 Dromgoole, etc., etc. 
 
 
 
 Forty-four volumes previously published 
 
 SEND FOR CIRCULARS, ETC. 
 
L. C. Pace & Company’s 
 
 Cosy Corner Series 
 
 OF 
 
 Charming Juveniles 
 
 & 
 Each one volume, J6mo, cloth, Illustrated, 50 cents 
 & 
 
 Ole Mammy’s Torment. By ANNIE FELLOws-JOHNSTON 
 Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc 
 
 The Little Colonel. By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON. 
 Author of “ Big Brother.” 
 
 Big Brother. By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON. 
 Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc. 
 
 The Gate of the Giant Scissors. By ANNIE FELLOWS. 
 JOHNSTON. 
 Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc 
 
 Two Little Knights of Kentucky, who were “The Little 
 Colonel’s” neighbors. By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON. 
 A sequel to “ The Little Colonel.” 
 
 The Story of Dago. By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON. 
 Author of “ The Little Colonel,” etc. 
 
 Farmer Brown and the Birds. By FRANCES MARGARET 
 Fox. A little story which teaches children that the birds 
 are man’s best friends. - 
 
Cosy Corner Series — Continued. 
 
 Stoty of a Short Life. By JuLiana Horatia EwIne. 
 This beautiful and pathetic story is a part of the world’s 
 literature and will never die. ; 
 
 Jackanapes. By JULIANA HoORATIA EWING. 
 A new edition, with new illustrations, of this exquisite and 
 touching story, dear alike to young and old. 
 
 The Little Lame Prince. By Miss MuLock. 
 A delightful story of a little boy who has many adventures 
 by means of the magic gifts of his fairy godmother. 
 
 The Adventures of a Brownie. By Miss MuLock. 
 The story of a household elf who torments the cook and 
 gardener, but is a constant joy and delight to the children. 
 
 His Little Mother. By Miss MuLock. 
 
 Miss Mulock’s short stories for children are a constant 
 source of delight to them, and “ His Little Mother,” in 
 this new and attractive dress, will be welcomed by hosts 
 of readers. 
 
 Little Sunshine’s Holiday. By Miss Mutock. 
 “Tittle Sunshine” is another of those beautiful child- 
 characters for which Miss Mulock is so justly famous. 
 
 Wee Dorothy. By LaurA UPDEGRAFF. 
 A story of two orphan children, the tender devotion of the 
 eldest, a boy, for his sister being its theme. 
 
 Rab and His Friends. By Dr. JoHN Brown. 
 Doctor Brown’s little masterpiece is too well known to 
 need description. 
 
 The Water People. By CHARLES LEE SLEIGHT. 
 Relating the further adventures of “ Harry,” the little hero 
 of “The Prince of the Pin Elves.” 
 
 The Prince of the Pin Elves. By CHAs. LEE SLEIGHT. 
 A fascinating story of the underground adventures of a 
 sturdy, reliant American boy among the elves and 
 gnomes. 
 
 Helena’s Wonderworld. By Frances Hopces WHITE. 
 A delightful tale of the adventures of a little girl in the 
 mysterious regions beneath the sea. 
 
Cosy Corner Series — Continued. 
 
 For His Country. By MARSHALL SAUNDERS. 
 A beautiful story of a patriotic little American lad. 
 
 A Little Puritan’s First Christmas, By EDIrH ROBINSON. 
 
 A Little Daughter of Liberty, By Epiru RoBinson. 
 Author of “A Loyal Little Maid,” “A Little Puritan 
 Rebel,” etc 
 A true story of the Revolution. 
 
 A Little Puritan Rebel, By EDITH ROBINSON. 
 An historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the 
 gallant Sir Harry Vane was governor of Massachusetts. 
 
 A Loyal Little Maid. By EpirH RoBInson. 
 
 A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary days, 
 in which the child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, renders im- 
 portant services to George Washington and Alexander 
 Hamilton. 
 
 A Dog of Flanders, A CHRiIstmas STory. By LOUISE 
 DE LA RAMEE (Ouida). 
 
 The Nurnberg Stove. By LouIsE DE LA RAMEE (Ouida). 
 This beautiful story has never before been published at a 
 popular price. 
 
 The King of the Golden River, A LEGEND oF STIRIA. 
 By JOHN RUSKIN. 
 Written fifty years or more ago, this little fairy tale soon 
 became known and made a place for itself. 
 
 La Belle Nivernaise. THE STory oF AN OLD BOAT AND 
 HER CREW. By ALPHONSE DAUDET. 
 It has been out of print for some time, and is now offered 
 in cheap but dainty form in this new edition. 
 
 The Young King. The Star Child. 
 Two stories chosen from a recent volume by a gifted 
 author, on account of their rare beauty, great power, 
 and deep significance. 
 
 A Great Emergency. By Mrs. EwIne. 
 
 The Trinity Flower. By JuLIANA HorATIA EWING. 
 In this little volume are collected three of Mrs. Ewing’s 
 best short stories for the young people. 
 
Cosy Corner Series — Continued. 
 
 The Adventures of Beatrice and Jessie. By RICHARD 
 MANSFIELD. 
 A bright and amusing story of the strange adventures of 
 two little girls in the “‘ realms of unreality.” 
 
 A Child’s Garden of Verses. By R. L. STEVENSON. 
 This little classic is undoubtedly the best of all volumes of 
 poetry for children. 
 
 Little King Davie. By NELLIE HELLIs. 
 It is sufficient to say of this book that it has sold over 
 110,000 copies in England, and consequently should well 
 be worthy of a place in “ The Cosy Corner Series.” 
 
 Little Peterkin Vandike. By CHARLES STUART PRATT. 
 
 The author’s dedication furnishes a key to this charming 
 story. 
 
 3} oui this book, made for the amusement of the 
 boys who may read it, to the memory of one boy, who 
 would have enjoyed as much as Peterkin the plays of 
 the Poetry Party.” 
 
 The Making of Zimri Bunker, A TALE oF NANTUCKET. 
 By W. J. Lona. 
 
 The story deals with a sturdy American fisher lad during 
 the war of 1812. 
 
 The Fortunes of the Fellow. By WiLt_ ALLEN Drom- 
 GOOLE. A-sequel to “The Farrier’s Dog and His 
 Fellow.” 
 
 The Farrier’s Dog and His Fellow. By WiILt ALLEN 
 DROMGOOLE. 
 This story, written by the gifted young Southern woman, 
 will appeal to all that is best in the natures of her many 
 admirers. 
 
 The Sleeping Beauty. A MopERN VERSION. By MARTHA 
 B. DUNN. 
 A charming story of a little fishermaid of Maine, intellect- 
 ually “asleep,” until she meets the ‘‘ Fairy Prince.” 
 
 The Young Archer. By CHARLEs E. BRIMBLECOM. 
 A strong and wholesome story of a boy who accompanied 
 Columbus on his voyage to the New World. 
 
NEW JUVENILES 
 
 sheen 
 Little Cousin Series 
 
 By MARY F. WADE 
 
 Four volumes, each illustrated, cloth, 12mo, 75 cents 
 VoLuME I. 
 Our Little Japanese Cousin 
 
 VotumME II. 
 Our Little Brown Cousin 
 
 VotumeE III. 
 
 Our Little Indian Cousin 
 
 VoLuME IV. 
 Our Little Russian Cousin 
 os 
 
 These are the most interesting and delightful accounts 
 possible of child-life in other lands, filled with quaint 
 sayings, doings and adventures. ‘The ‘** Little Japanese 
 Cousin,’’ with her toys in her wide sleeve and her tiny 
 bag of paper handkerchiefs ; the ¢* Little Brown Cousin,”’ 
 in whose home the leaves of the breadfruit-tree serve for 
 plates and the halves of the cocoanut shells for cups ; the 
 << Little Indian Cousin,’’ who lives the free life of the 
 forest, and the << Little Russian Cousin,’’ who dwells by 
 the wintry Neva, are truly fascinating characters to the 
 little cousins who will read about them. 
 
 SEND FOR CIRCULARS, ETC 
 
 
 
NEW JUVENILES 
 
 THE 
 
 Rosamond Tales 
 
 By CUYLER REYNOLDS 
 
 With many full-page illustrations from original photo- 
 graphs by the author, together with a frontispiece from a 
 drawing by Maud Humphreys. 
 
 Large 12mo, cloth, $1.50 
 
 &* 
 
 These are just the bedtime stories that children always 
 ask for, but do not always get. Rosamond and Rosalind 
 are the hero and heroine of many happy adventures in 
 
 town and on their grandfather’s farm; and the happy 
 
 listeners to their story will unconsciously absorb a vast 
 
 amount of interesting knowledge of birds, animals, and 
 flowers, just the things about which the curiosity of 
 children from four to twelve years old is most insatiable. 
 The book will be a boon to tired mothers, as a delight to 
 
 wide-awake children. 
 
 SEND FOR CIRCULARS, ETC. 
 
 
 
NEW JUVENILES 
 
 Prince Harold 
 
 A FAIRY STORY 
 
 By L. F. BROWN 
 With ninety full-page illustrations 
 
 Large 12mo, cloth, $1.50 
 
 & 
 
 A delightful fairy tale for children, dealing with the 
 
 life of a charming young Prince, who, aided by the Moon 
 Spirit, discovers, after many adventures, a beautiful girl 
 whom he makes his Princess. He is so enamored that 
 he dwells with his bride in complete seclusion for a 
 while, entrusting the conduct of his kingdom meantime 
 to his monkey servant, Longtail. ‘The latter marries 
 a monkey princess from Amfalulu, and their joint reign is 
 described with the drollest humor. The real rulers 
 finally return and upset the reign of the pretenders. An 
 
 original and fascinating story for young people. 
 
 SEND FOR CIRCULARS, ETC. 
 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
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