vilffafefr 
 
 Stories for 
 
 ■ 
 
•BfiKEtCY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
^£ 
 
B I M B I 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 

 B I M B I 
 
 BY 
 
 ~De 
 
 OUIDA 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 
 3tonbott 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
 1882 
 
PlL- 
 
 
 A 
 
 S. A. R. 
 VITTORIO EMANUELE 
 
 PRINCIPE DI NAPOLI 
 
 SPERANZA DELL' ITALIA 
 
 QUESTE NOVELLE 
 
 DETTATE PER LUI 
 
 CONSACRA RIVERENTE 
 
 QUID A 
 
 134 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 y 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Nurnberg Stove . . . ; l 
 
 The Ambitious Rose-tree 77 
 
 Moufflou 97 
 
 Lampblack J 3 2 
 
 The Child of Urbino J 4 2 
 
 In the Apple Country '74 
 
 FlNDELKIND 2I 7 
 
 Meleagris Gallopavo ... 258 
 
 The Little Earl 2 73 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 UGUST lived in a little town called Hall. 
 Hall is a favourite name for several towns 
 in Austria and in Germany ; but this one 
 especial little Hall, in the Upper Innthal, is one of 
 the most charming old-world places that I know, and 
 August for his part did not know any other. It has 
 the green meadows and the great mountains all about 
 it, and the grey-green glacier-fed water rushes by it. 
 It has paved streets and enchanting little shops that 
 have all latticed panes and iron gratings to them ; it 
 has a very grand old Gothic church, that has the 
 noblest blendings of light and shadow, and marble 
 tombs of dead knights, and a look of infinite strength 
 and repose as a church should have. Then there is 
 the Muntze Tower, black and white, rising out of 
 greenery and looking down on a long wooden bridge 
 and the broad rapid river ; and there is an old schloss 
 which has been made into a guard-house, with battle- 
 
 B 
 
2 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 ments and frescoes and heraldic devices in gold and 
 colours, and a man-at-arms carved in stone standing 
 life-size in his niche and bearing his date 1530. A 
 little farther on, but close at hand, is a cloister with 
 beautiful marble columns and tombs, and a colossal 
 wood-carved Calvary, and beside that a small and 
 very rich chapel ; indeed, so full is the little town of 
 the undisturbed past, that to walk in it is like open- 
 ing a missal of the middle ages, all emblazoned and 
 illuminated with saints and warriors, and it is so 
 clean, and so still, and so noble, by reason of its 
 monuments and its historic colour, that I marvel 
 much no one has ever 'cared to sing its praises. 
 The old pious heroic life of an age at once more 
 restful and more brave than ours still leaves its 
 spirit there, and then there is the girdle of the 
 mountains all around, and that alone means strength, 
 peace, majesty. 
 
 In this little town a few years ago August Strehla 
 lived with his people in the stone-paved irregular 
 square where the grand church stands. 
 
 He was a small boy of nine years old at that time ; 
 a chubby-faced little man with rosy cheeks, big hazel 
 eyes, and clusters of curls the brown of ripe nuts. 
 His mother was dead, his father was poor, and 
 there were many mouths at home to feed. In this 
 country the winters are long and very cold, the 
 whole land lies wrapped in snow for many months, 
 and this night that he was trotting home, with a jug 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 3 
 
 of beer in his numb red hands, was terribly cold 
 and dreary. The good burghers of Hall had shut 
 their double shutters, and the few lamps there were 
 flickered dully behind their quaint, old-fashioned 
 iron casings. The mountains indeed were beautiful, 
 all snow white under the stars that are so bio- in 
 frost. Hardly any one was astir ; a few good souls 
 were wending home from vespers, a tired postboy 
 blew a shrill blast from his tasselled horn as he 
 pulled up his sledge before a hostelry, and little 
 August hugging his jug of beer to his ragged 
 sheepskin coat, were all who were abroad, for the 
 snow fell heavily and the orood folks of Hall £0 
 early to their beds. He could not run or he would 
 have spilled the beer; he was half frozen and a 
 little frightened, but he kept up his courage by 
 saying over and over again to himself, ' I shall 
 soon be at home w r ith dear Hirschvosfel.' 
 
 He went on through the streets, past the stone 
 man-at-arms of the guard-house, and so into the place 
 where the great church was, and where near it stood 
 his father Karl Strehla's house, with a sculptured 
 Bethlehem over the doorway, and the Pilgrimage of 
 the Three Kings painted on its wall. He had been 
 sent on a long errand outside the gates in the after- 
 noon, over the frozen fields and the broad white 
 snow, and had been belated, and had thought he had 
 heard the wolves behind him at every step, and had 
 reached the town in a great state of terror, thankful 
 
4 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 with all his little panting heart to see the oil-lamp 
 burning under the first house-shrine. But he had not 
 forgotten to call for the beer, and he carried it care- 
 fully now, though his hands were so numb that he was 
 afraid they would let the jug down every moment. 
 
 The snow outlined with white every gable and 
 cornice of the beautiful old wooden houses; the 
 moonlight shone on the gilded signs, the lambs, 
 the grapes, the eagles, and all the quaint devices 
 that hung before the doors ; covered lamps burned 
 before the Nativities and Crucifixions painted on the 
 walls or let into the woodwork ; here and there, 
 where a shutter had not been closed, a ruddy fire- 
 light lit up a homely interior, with the noisy band of 
 children clustering round the house-mother and a 
 big brown loaf, or some gossips spinning and listen- 
 ing to the cobbler or the barber's story of a neigh- 
 bour, while the oil-wicks glimmered, and the hearth- 
 logs blazed, and the chestnuts sputtered in their iron 
 roasting-pot. Little August saw all these things 
 as he saw everything with his two big bright eyes 
 that had such curious lights and shadows in them ; 
 but he went needfully on his way for sake of the 
 beer which a single slip of the foot would make him 
 spill. At his knock and call the solid oak door, four 
 centuries old if one, flew open, and the boy darted in 
 with his beer, and shouted with all the force of mirth- 
 ful lungs, ' Oh, dear Hirschvogel, but for the thought 
 of you I should have died !' 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 5 
 
 It was a large barren room into which he rushed 
 with so much pleasure, and the bricks were bare and 
 uneven. It had a walnut-wood press, handsome and 
 very old, a broad deal table, and several wooden 
 stools for all its furniture ; but at the top of the 
 chamber, sending out warmth and colour together as 
 the lamp shed its rays upon it, was a tower of por- 
 celain, burnished with all the hues of a king's pea- 
 cock and a queen's jewels, and surmounted with armed 
 figures, and shields, and flowers of heraldry, and a 
 great golden crown upon the highest summit of all. 
 
 It was a stove of 1532, and on it were the letters 
 H. R. H., for it was in every portion the hand- 
 work of the great potter of Niirnberg, Augustin 
 Hirschvogel, who put his mark thus, as all the 
 world knows. 
 
 The stove no doubt had stood in palaces and 
 been made for princes, had warmed the crimson 
 stockings of cardinals and the gold-broidered shoes 
 of archduchesses, had glowed in presence-chambers, 
 and lent its carbon to help kindle sharp brains in 
 anxious councils of state ; no one knew what it had 
 seen or done or been fashioned for ; but it was a 
 right royal thing. Yet perhaps it had never been 
 more useful than it was now in this poor desolate 
 room, sending down heat and comfort into the troop 
 of children tumbled together on a wolf-skin at its 
 feet, who received frozen August amongst them 
 with loud shouts of joy. 
 
6 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 ' Oh, dear Hirschvogel, I am so cold, so cold!' 
 said August, kissing its gilded lion's claws. ' Is father 
 not in, Dorothea ?' 
 
 ' No, dear. He is late.' 
 
 Dorothea was a girl of seventeen ; dark haired 
 and serious, and with a sweet sad face ; for she 
 had had many cares laid on her shoulders, even 
 whilst still a mere baby. She was the eldest of the 
 Strehla family ; and there were ten of them in all. 
 Next to her there came Jan and Karl and Otho, big 
 lads, gaining a little for their own living ; and then 
 came August, who went up in the summer to the 
 high Alps with the farmers' cattle, but in winter 
 could do nothing to fill his own little platter and 
 pot ; and then all the little ones, who could only open 
 their mouths to be fed like youngbirds — Albrecht and 
 Hilda, and Waldo and Christof, and last of all little 
 three-year-old Ermengilda, with eyes like forget-me- 
 nots, whose birth had cost them the life of their 
 mother. 
 
 They were of that mixed race, half Austrian, 
 half Italian, so common in the Tyrol ; some of the 
 children were white and golden as lilies, others were 
 brown and brilliant as fresh fallen chestnuts ; the 
 father was a good man, but weak and weary with 
 so many to find food for, and so little to do it with. 
 He worked at the salt- furnaces, and by that gained a 
 few florins ; people said he would have worked better 
 and kept his family more easily if he had not loved 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 7 
 
 his pipe and a draft of ale too well ; but this had only 
 been said of him after his wife's death, when trouble 
 and perplexity had begun to dull a brain never too 
 vigorous, and enfeeble farther a character already too 
 yielding. As it was, the wolf often bayed at the 
 door of the Strehla household, without a wolf from 
 the mountains coming down. Dorothea was one of 
 those maidens who almost work miracles so far can 
 their industry and care and intelligence make a home 
 sweet and wholesome, and a single loaf seem to 
 swell into twenty. The children were always clean 
 and happy, and the table was seldom without its big 
 pot of soup once a day. Still very poor they were, 
 and Dorothea's heart ached with shame, for she 
 knew that their father's debts were many for flour, 
 and meat, and clothing. Of fuel to feed the big 
 stove they had always enough without cost, for their 
 mother's father was alive, and sold wood and fir 
 cones and coke, and never grudged them to his 
 grandchildren, though he grumbled at Strehla's im- 
 providence and hapless, dreamy ways. 
 
 ' Father says we are never to wait for him ; we 
 will have supper now you have come home, dear,' 
 said Dorothea, who, however she might fret her soul 
 in secret as she knitted their hose and mended 
 their shirts, never let her anxieties cast a gloom on 
 the children ; only to August she did speak a little 
 sometimes, because he was so thoughtful and so 
 tender of her always, and knew as well as she did 
 
8 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 that there were troubles about money ; though these 
 troubles were vague to them both, and the debtors 
 were patient and kindly, being neighbours all in the 
 old twisting streets between the guard-house and 
 the river. 
 
 Supper was a huge bowl of soup, with big slices 
 of brown bread swimming in it and some onions 
 bobbing up and down ; the bowl was soon emptied 
 by ten wooden spoons, and then the three eldest 
 boys slipped off to bed, being tired with their rough 
 bodily labour in the snow all day, and Dorothea 
 drew her spinning-wheel by the stove and set it 
 whirring ; and the little ones got August down upon 
 the old worn wolf-skin and clamoured to him for a 
 picture or a story. For August was the artist of 
 the family. 
 
 He had a piece of planed deal that his father had 
 given him, and some sticks of charcoal, and he would 
 draw a hundred things he had seen in the day ; 
 sweeping each out with his elbow when the children 
 had seen enough of it and sketching another in its 
 stead : faces and dogs' heads, and men in sledges, and 
 old women in their furs, and pine trees, and cocks 
 and hens, and all sorts of animals, and now and then 
 — very reverently — a Madonna and Child. It was all 
 very rough, for there was no one to teach him any- 
 thing. But it was all life-like, and kept the whole 
 troop of children shrieking with laughter, or watch- 
 ing breathless, with wide open, wondering, awed eyes. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 9 
 
 They were all so happy : what did they care for 
 the snow outside ? Their little bodies were warm, and 
 their hearts merry ; even Dorothea, troubled about 
 the bread for the morrow, laughed as she spun ; and 
 August, with all his soul in his work, and little rosy 
 Ermengilda's cheek on his shoulder, glowing after 
 his frozen afternoon, cried out loud smiling, as he 
 looked up at the stove that was shedding its heat 
 down on them all : 
 
 1 Oh, dear Hirschvogel ! you are almost as great 
 and good as the sun ! No ; you are greater and 
 better I think, because he goes away nobody knows 
 where all these long, dark, cold hours, and does not 
 care how people die for want of him ; but you — you 
 are always ready, just a little bit of wood to feed you 
 and you will make a summer for us all the winter 
 through ! ' 
 
 The grand old stove seemed to smile through all 
 its iridescent surface at the praises of the child. No 
 doubt the stove, though it had known three centuries 
 and more, had known but very little gratitude. 
 
 It was one of those magnificent stoves in 
 enamelled faience which so excited the jealousy of 
 the other potters of Niirnberg that in a body they 
 demanded of the magistracy that Augustin Hirsch- 
 vogel should be forbidden to make any more of 
 them ; the magistracy, happily, proving of a broader 
 mind, and having no sympathy with the wish of 
 the artisans to cripple their greater fellow. 
 
io THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 It was of great height and breadth, with all the 
 majolica lustre which Hirschvogel learned to give to 
 his enamels when he was making love to the young 
 Venetian girl whom he afterwards married. There 
 was the statue of a king at each corner, modelled 
 with as much force and splendour as his friend 
 Albrecht Diirer could have given unto them on 
 copper-plate or canvas. The body of the stove 
 itself was divided into panels, which had the Ages 
 of Man painted on them in polychrome, the borders 
 of the panels had roses and holly and laurel and 
 other foliage, and German mottoes in black letter of 
 odd old-world moralising, such as the old Teutons, 
 and the Dutch after them, loved to have on their 
 chimney-places and their drinking-cups, their dishes 
 and flagons. The whole was burnished with gilding 
 in many parts, and was radiant everywhere with 
 that brilliant colouring of which the whole Hirsch- 
 vogel family, painters on glass and great in chemistry 
 as they were, were all masters. 
 
 The stove was a very grand thing as I say ; 
 possibly Hirschvogel had made it for some mighty 
 lord of the Tyrol at that time when he was an 
 imperial guest at Innspruck, and fashioned so many 
 things for the Schloss Amras and beautiful Philippine 
 Welser, the burgher's daughter, who gained an arch- 
 duke's heart by her beauty and the right to wear his 
 honours by her wit Nothing was known of the 
 stove at this latter day in Hall. The grandfather 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. n 
 
 Strehla, who had been a master mason, had dug 
 it up out of some ruins where he was building, 
 and, finding it without a flaw, had taken it home, 
 and only thought it worth finding because it was 
 such a good one to burn. That was now sixty 
 years past, and ever since then the stove had stood 
 in the big desolate empty room warming three 
 generations of the Strehla family, and having seen 
 nothing prettier perhaps in all its many years than 
 the children tumbled now in a cluster like gathered 
 flowers at its feet. For the Strehla children, born 
 to nothing else, were all born with beauty ; white 
 or brown, they were equally lovely to look upon, 
 and when they went into the church to mass with 
 their curling locks and their clasped hands, they 
 stood under the grim statues like cherubs flown 
 down off some fresco. 
 
 ' Tell us a story, August/ they cried in chorus, 
 when they had seen charcoal pictures till they were 
 tired ; and August did as he did every night pretty 
 nearly, looked up at the stove and told them what 
 he imagined of the many adventures and joys and 
 sorrows of the human being who figured on the 
 panels from his cradle to his grave. 
 
 To the children the stove was a household god. 
 In summer they laid a mat of fresh moss all round it, 
 and dressed it up with green boughs and the number- 
 less beautiful wild flowers of the Tyrol country. In 
 winter all their joys centred in it, and scampering 
 
12 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 home from school over the ice and snow they were 
 happy, knowing that they would soon be cracking 
 nuts or roasting chestnuts in the broad ardent glow 
 of its noble tower which rose eight feet high 
 above them with all its spires and pinnacles and 
 crowns. 
 
 Once a travelling pedlar had told them that the 
 letters on it meant Augustin Hirschvogel, and that 
 Hirschvogel had been a great German potter and 
 painter, like his father before him, in the art-sanctified 
 city of Ntirnberg, and had made many such stoves 
 that were all miracles of beauty and of workman- 
 ship, putting all his heart and his soul and his faith 
 into his labours, as the men of those earlier ages did, 
 and thinking but little of gold or praise. 
 
 An old trader, too, who sold curiosities not far 
 from the church, had told him a little more about 
 the brave family of Hirschvogel, whose houses 
 can be seen in Ntirnberg to this day ; of old Viet, 
 the first of them, who painted the Gothic windows 
 of S. Sebald with the marriage of the Margravine ; 
 of his sons and of his grandsons, potters, painters, 
 engravers all, and chief of them great Augustin, the 
 Luca della Robbia of the North. And August's 
 imagination, always quick, had made a living per- 
 sonage out of these few records, and saw Hirsch- 
 vogel as though he were in the flesh walking up 
 and down the Maximilian Strass in his visit to 
 Innspriick, and maturing beautiful things in his 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 13 
 
 brain as he stood on the bridge and gazed on the 
 emerald green flood of the Inn. 
 
 So the stove had got to be called Hirschvogel in 
 the family as if it were a living creature, and little 
 August was very proud because he had been named 
 after that famous old dead German who had had the 
 genius to make so glorious a thing. All the children 
 loved the stove, but with August the love of it was a 
 passion ; and in his secret heart he used to say to him- 
 self, ' When I am a man I will make just such things 
 too, and then I will set Hirschvogel in a beautiful 
 room in a house that I will build myself in Innspriick 
 just outside the gates where the chestnuts are by the 
 river — that is what I will do when I am a man.' 
 
 For August, a salt-baker's son and a little cow- 
 keeper when he was anything, was a dreamer of 
 dreams ; and when he was upon the high alps with 
 his cattle, with the stillness and the sky around him, 
 was quite certain that he would live for greater things 
 than driving the herds up when the springtide came 
 amongst the blue sea of gentians, or toiling down in 
 the town with wood and with timber as his father 
 and grandfather did every day of their lives. He 
 was a strong and healthy little fellow, fed on the free 
 mountain air, and he was very happy, and loved his 
 family devotedly, and was as active as a squirrel and 
 as playful as a hare ; but he kept his thoughts to him- 
 self, and some of them went a very long way for a 
 little boy who was only one amongst many, and to 
 
i 4 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 whom nobody had ever paid any attention except 
 to teach him his letters and tell him to fear God. 
 August in winter was only a little, hungry schoolboy, 
 trotting to be catechised by the priest, or to bring 
 the loaves from the bakehouse, or to carry his father's 
 boots to the cobbler ; and in summer he was only 
 one of hundreds of cow-boys, who drove the poor, 
 half-blind, blinking, stumbling cattle, ringing their 
 throat bells, out into the sweet intoxication of the 
 sudden sunlight, and lived up with them in the 
 heights amongst the Alpine roses, with only the 
 clouds and the snow summits near. But he was 
 always thinking, thinking, thinking for all that ; and 
 under his little sheepskin winter coat and his rough 
 hempen summer shirt his heart had as much courage 
 in it as Hofer's ever had — great Hofer, who is a 
 household word in all the Innthal, and whom August 
 always reverently remembered when he went to the 
 city of Innsprtick and ran out by the foaming water- 
 mill and under the wooded height of Berg Isel. 
 
 August lay now in the warmth of the stove and 
 told the children stories, his own little brown face 
 growing red with excitement as his imagination 
 glowed to fever heat. That human being on the 
 panels, who was drawn there as a baby in a cradle, 
 as a boy playing amongst flowers, as a lover sighing 
 under a casement, as a soldier in the midst of strife, 
 as a father with children round him, as a weary, old, 
 blind man on crutches, and, lastly, as a ransomed 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 15 
 
 soul raised up by angels, had always had the most 
 intense interest for August, and he had made, not 
 one history for him, but a thousand ; he seldom told 
 them the same tale twice. He had never seen a 
 story-book in his life ; his primer and his mass-book 
 were all the volumes he had. But nature had given 
 him Fancy, and she is a good fairy that makes up for 
 the want of very many things ; only, alas ! her wings 
 are so very soon broken, poor thing, and then she is 
 of no use at all. 
 
 1 It is time for you all to go to bed, children,' 
 said Dorothea, looking up from her spinning. 
 ' Father is very late to-night, you must not sit up for 
 him.' 
 
 ' Oh, five minutes more, dear Dorothea ! ' they 
 pleaded ; and little rosy and golden Ermengilda 
 climbed up into her lap. ' Hirschvogel is so warm, 
 the beds are never so warm as he ; cannot you tell 
 us another tale, August ? ' 
 
 1 No,' cried August, whose face had lost its light 
 now that his story had come to an end, and who sat 
 serious, with his hands clasped on his knees, gazing 
 on to the luminous arabesques of the stove. 
 
 ' It is only a week to Christmas,' he said sud- 
 denly. 
 
 ' Grandmother's big cakes ! ' chuckled little 
 Christof, who was five years old, and thought Christ- 
 mas meant a big: cake and nothing else. 
 
 'What will Santa Claus find for 'Gilda if she be 
 
1 6 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 good ? ' murmured Dorothea over the child's sunny 
 head ; for however hard poverty might pinch, it 
 could never pinch so tightly that Dorothea would 
 not find some wooden toy and some rosy apples to 
 put in her little sister's socks. 
 
 ' Father Max has promised me a big goose, be- 
 cause I saved the calf's life in June,' said August ; 
 it was the twentieth time he had told them so that 
 month, he was so proud of it. 
 
 ' And Aunt Ma'ila will be sure to send us wine 
 and honey and a barrel of flour, she always does,' 
 said Albrecht ; their Aunt Maila had a chalet and a 
 little farm over on the green slopes towards Dorp 
 Ampas. 
 
 ' I shall go up into the woods and get Hirsch- 
 vogel's crown/ said August ; they always crowned 
 Hirschvogel for Christmas with pine boughs and 
 ivy and mountain berries. The heat soon withered 
 the crown ; but it was part of the religion of the day 
 to them, as much so as it was to cross themselves 
 in church, and raise their voices in the ' O Salutaris 
 Hostia.' 
 
 And they fell chatting of all they would do on 
 the Christnight, and one little voice piped loud 
 against another's, and they were as happy as though 
 their stockings would be full of golden purses and 
 jewelled toys, and the big goose in the soup-pot 
 seemed to them such a meal as kings would envy. 
 
 In the midst of their chatter and laughter a blast 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 17 
 
 of frozen air and a spray of driven snow struck 
 like ice through the room, and reached them even 
 in the warmth of the old wolf-skins and the orreat 
 stove. It was the door which had opened and let 
 in the cold; it was their father who had come 
 home. 
 
 The younger children ran joyous to meet him. 
 Dorothea pushed the one wooden arm-chair of the 
 room to the stove, and August flew to set the jug of 
 beer on a little round table, and fill a long clay pipe ; 
 for their father was good to them all, and seldom 
 raised his voice in anger, and they had been trained 
 by the mother they had loved to dutifulness and 
 obedience and a watchful affection. 
 
 To-night Karl Strehla responded very wearily to 
 the young ones' welcome, and came to the wooden 
 chair with a tired step and sat down heavily, not 
 noticing either pipe or beer. 
 
 ' Are you not well, dear father ? ' his daughter 
 asked him. 
 
 ' I am well enough,' he answered dully ; and sat 
 there with his head bent, letting the lighted pipe 
 grow cold. 
 
 He was a fair, tall man, grey before his time, and 
 bowed with labour. 
 
 ' Take the children to bed,' he said suddenly at 
 last, and Dorothea obeyed. August stayed behind, 
 curled before the stove ; at nine years old, and 
 when one earns money in the summer from the 
 
 c 
 
1 8 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 farmers, one is not altogether a child any more, at 
 least in one's own estimation. 
 
 August did not heed his father's silence ; he was 
 used to it. Karl Strehla was a man of few words, 
 and being of weakly health was usually too tired at 
 the end of the day to do more than drink his beer 
 and sleep. August lay on the wolf-skin, dreamy 
 and comfortable, looking up through his dropping 
 eyelids at the golden coronets on the crest of the 
 great stove, and wondering for the millionth time 
 whom it had been made for, and what grand places 
 and scenes it had known. 
 
 Dorothea came down from putting the little ones 
 in their beds ; the cuckoo-clock in the corner struck 
 eight ; she looked at her father and the untouched 
 pipe, then sat down to her spinning saying nothing. 
 She thought he had been drinking in some tavern ; 
 it had been often so with him of late. 
 
 There was a long silence ; the cuckoo called the 
 quarter twice ; August dropped asleep, his curls 
 falling over his face ; Dorothea's wheel hummed like 
 a cat. 
 
 Suddenly Karl Strehla struck his hand on the 
 table, sending the pipe on the ground. 
 
 'I have sold Hirschvogel,' he said; and his 
 voice was husky and ashamed in his throat. The 
 spinning-wheel stopped. August sprang erect out 
 of his sleep. 
 
 1 Sold Hirschvogel ! ' — if their father had dashed 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 19 
 
 the holy crucifix on the floor at their feet and spat 
 on it they could not have shuddered under the 
 horror of a greater blasphemy. 
 
 ' I have sold Hirschvogel ! ' said Karl Strehla, in 
 the same husky, dogged voice. ' I have sold it to 
 a travelling trader in such things for two hundred 
 florins. What would you ? — I owe double that. He 
 saw it this morning when you were all out. He 
 will pack it and take it to Munich to-morrow.' 
 
 Dorothea gave a low shrill cry : 
 
 1 Oh, father — the children — in mid-winter!' 
 
 She turned white as the snow without ; her words 
 died away in her throat. 
 
 August stood, half blind with sleep, staring with 
 dazed eyes as his cattle stared at the sun when they 
 came out from their winter's prison. 
 
 ' It is not true ! It is not true ! ' he muttered. 
 ' You are jesting, father ? ' 
 
 Strehla broke into a dreary laugh. 
 
 1 It is true. Would you like to know what is 
 true too ? — that the bread you eat, and the meat you 
 put in this pot, and the roof you have over your 
 heads are none of them paid for, have been none of 
 them paid for for months and months ; if it had not 
 been for your grandfather I should have been in prison 
 all summer and autumn, and he is out of patience 
 and will do no more now. There is no work to be 
 had, the masters go to younger men ; they say I 
 work ill ; it may be so. Who can keep his head 
 
2 o THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 above water with ten hungry children dragging him 
 down ? When your mother lived it was different. 
 Boy, you stare at me as if I were a mad dog ! You 
 have made a god of yon china thing. Well — it 
 goes : goes to-morrow. Two hundred florins, that 
 is something. It will keep me out of prison for a 
 little, and with the spring things may turn ' 
 
 August stood like a creature paralysed. His eyes 
 were wide open, fastened on his father's with terror 
 and incredulous horror ; his face had grown as white 
 as his sister's ; his chest heaved with tearless sobs. 
 
 ' It is not true ! It is not true ! ' he echoed 
 stupidly. It seemed to him that the very skies 
 must fall, and the earth perish, if they could take 
 away Hirschvogel. They might as soon talk of 
 tearing down God's sun out of the heavens. 
 
 • You will find it true,' said his father doggedly, 
 and angered because he was in his own soul bitterly 
 ashamed to have bartered away the heirloom and 
 treasure of his race and the comfort and health- 
 giver of his young children. ' You will find it true. 
 The dealer has paid me half the money to-night, 
 and will pay me the other half to-morrow when he 
 packs it up and takes it away to Munich. No doubt 
 it is worth a great deal more — at least I suppose so, 
 as he gives that — but beggars cannot be choosers. 
 The little black stove in the kitchen will warm you 
 all just as well. Who would keep a gilded, painted 
 thing in a poor house like this, when one can make 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 21 
 
 two hundred florins by it ? Dorothea, you never 
 sobbed more when your mother died. What is it, 
 when all is said — a bit of hardware much too grand- 
 looking for such a room as this. If all the Strehlas 
 had not been born fools it would have been sold a 
 century ago, when it was dug up out of the ground. 
 " It is a stove for a museum " the trader said when 
 he saw it. To a museum let it eo.' 
 
 & 
 
 August gave a shrill shriek like a hare's when it 
 is caught for its death, and threw himself on his 
 knees at his father's feet. 
 
 ' Oh, father, father ! ' he cried convulsively, his 
 hands closing on Strehla's knees, and his uplifted 
 face blanched and distorted with terror. ' Oh, father, 
 dear father, you cannot mean what you say ? Send 
 it away ? our life, our sun, our joy, our comfort ? 
 We shall all die in the dark and the cold. Sell me 
 rather. Sell me to any trade or any pain you like ; 
 I will not mind. But Hirschvoeel ! — it is like sell- 
 ing the very cross off the altar! You must be in 
 jest. You could not do such a thing — you could 
 not ! — you who have always been gentle and good, 
 and who have sat in the warmth here year after year 
 with our mother. It is not a piece of hardware as 
 you say ; it is a living thing, for a great man's 
 thoughts and fancies have put life into it, and it 
 loves us though we are only poor little children, and 
 we love it with all our hearts and souls, and up in 
 heaven I am sure the dead Hirschvogel knows! 
 
22 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 Oh, listen, I will go and try and get work to-morrow ! 
 I will ask them to let me cut ice or make the paths 
 through the snow. There must be something I 
 could do, and I will beg the people we owe money 
 to to wait ; they are all neighbours, they will be 
 patient — but sell Hirschvogel ! — oh, never ! never ! 
 never ! Give the florins back to the vile man. 
 Tell him it would be like selling the shroud out of 
 mother's coffin, or the golden curls off Ermengilda's 
 head ! Oh, father ! dear father ! do hear me, for 
 pity's sake ! ' 
 
 Strehla was moved by the boy's anguish. He 
 loved his children, though he was often weary of 
 them, and their pain was pain to him. But besides 
 emotion, and stronger than emotion, was the anger 
 that August roused in him ; he hated and despised 
 himself for the barter of the heirloom of his race, 
 and every word of the child stung him with a sting- 
 inQf sense of shame. 
 
 And he spoke in his wrath rather than in his 
 sorrow. 
 
 ' You are a little fool,' he said harshly, as they 
 had never heard him speak. 'You rave like a 
 play-actor. Get up and go to bed. The stove 
 is sold. There is no more to be said. Children 
 like you have nothing to do with such matters. 
 The stove is sold and goes to Munich to-morrow. 
 What is it to you ? Be thankful I can get bread 
 for you. Get on your legs I say, and go to bed.' 
 
THE NVRNBERG STOVE. 23 
 
 Strehla took up the jug of ale as he paused, and 
 drained it slowly as a man who had no cares. 
 
 August sprung to his feet and threw his hair 
 back off his face ; the blood rushed into his cheeks, 
 making them scarlet ; his great soft eyes flamed 
 alight with furious passion. 
 
 ' You dare not ! ' he cried aloud, ' you dare not 
 sell it, I say ! It is not yours alone, it is ours ' 
 
 Strehla flung the emptied jug on the bricks with 
 a force that shivered it to atoms, and rising to his 
 feet struck his son a blow that felled him to the floor. 
 It was the first time in all his life that he had ever 
 raised his hand against any one of his children. 
 
 Then he took the oil-lamp that stood at his 
 elbow and stumbled off to his own chamber with a 
 cloud before his eyes. 
 
 I What has happened ? ' said August a little while 
 later as he opened his eyes and saw Dorothea 
 weeping above him on the wolf-skin before the 
 stove. He had been struck backwards, and his head 
 had fallen on the hard bricks where the wolf-skin 
 did not reach. He sat up a moment with his face 
 bent upon his hands. 
 
 I I remember now,' he said very low under his 
 breath. 
 
 Dorothea showered kisses on him, while her 
 tears fell like rain. 
 
 ' But, oh ! dear, how could you speak so to 
 father! ' she murmured. ' It was very wrong.' 
 
24 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 1 No, I was right,' said August, and his little mouth, 
 that hitherto had only curled in laughter, curved 
 downward with a fixed and bitter seriousness. ' How 
 dare he ? How dare he ? ' he muttered with his head 
 sunk in his hands. ' It is not his alone. It belongs 
 to us all. It is as much yours and mine as it is his.' 
 
 Dorothea could only sob in answer. She was 
 too frightened to speak. The authority of their 
 parents in the house had never in her remembrance 
 been questioned. 
 
 ' Are you hurt by the fall, dear August ? ' she 
 murmured at length, for he looked to her so pale and 
 
 strange. 
 
 ' Yes — no. I do not know. What does it matter ? ' 
 
 He sat up upon the wolf-skin with passionate 
 pain upon his face ; all his soul was in rebellion, 
 and he was only a child and was powerless. 
 
 1 It is a sin — it is a theft — it is an infamy,' he 
 said slowly, his eyes fastened on the gilded feet of 
 Hirschvogel. 
 
 ' Oh, August, do not say such things of father ! ' 
 sobbed his sister. ' Whatever he does, we ought to 
 think it rio-nt.' 
 
 August laughed aloud. 
 
 1 Is it right that he should spend his money in 
 drink ? — that he should let orders lie unexecuted ? — 
 that he should do his work so ill, that no one cares 
 to employ him ? — that he should live on grand- 
 father's charity, and then dare sell a thing that is 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 25 
 
 ours every whit as much as it is his ? To sell 
 Hirschvogel ! Oh, dear God ! I would sooner sell 
 my soul ! ' 
 
 'August!' cried Dorothea with piteous entreaty. 
 He terrified her ; she could not recognise her little 
 gay, gentle brother in those fierce and blasphemous 
 words. 
 
 August laughed aloud again ; then all at once 
 his laughter broke down into bitterest weeping. He 
 threw himself forward on the stove, covering it with 
 kisses, and sobbing as though his heart would burst 
 from his bosom. 
 
 What could he do ? Nothing, nothing, nothing ! 
 
 ' August, dear August,' whispered Dorothea 
 piteously, and trembling all over, for she was a very 
 gentle girl and fierce feeling terrified her. ' August, 
 do not lie there — come to bed — it is quite late. In 
 the morning you will be calmer. It is horrible 
 indeed, and we shall die of cold, at least the little 
 ones ; but if it be father's will ' 
 
 ' Let me alone,' said August through his teeth, 
 striving to still the storm of sobs that shook him 
 from head to foot. ' Let me alone. In the morn- 
 ing ! — how can you speak of the morning ? ' 
 
 ' Come to bed, dear,' sighed his sister. ' Oh, 
 August, do not lie and look like that — you frighten 
 me. Do come to bed.' 
 
 ' I shall stay here.' 
 
 'Here! all nisrht!' 
 
26 THE JVURiVBERG STOVE. 
 
 ' They might take it in the night. Besides, to 
 leave it now ! ' 
 
 * But it is cold ! the fire is out.' 
 
 1 It will never be warm any more, nor shall we.' 
 
 All his childhood had gone out of him, all his 
 gleeful, careless, sunny temper had gone with it ; he 
 spoke sullenly and wearily, choking down the great 
 sobs in his chest. To him it was as if the end of 
 the world had come. 
 
 His sister lingered by him while striving to 
 persuade him to go to his place in the little crowded 
 bedchamber with Albrecht and Waldo and Christof. 
 But it was in vain. ' I shall stay here,' was all he 
 answered her. And he stayed — all the night long. 
 
 The lamps went out ; the rats came and ran 
 across the floor ; as the hours crept on through mid- 
 night and past the cold intensified and the air of 
 the room grew like ice. August did not move ; he 
 lay with his face downward on the golden and rain- 
 bow-hued pedestal of the household treasure, which 
 henceforth was to be cold for evermore — an exiled 
 thing in a foreign city in a far-off land. 
 
 Whilst yet it was dark his three elder brothers 
 came down the stairs and let themselves out, each 
 bearing his lantern and going to his work in stone- 
 yard and timber-yard and at the salt-works. They 
 did not notice him ; they did not know what had 
 happened. 
 
 A little later his sister came down with a 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 27 
 
 light in her hand to make ready the house ere 
 morninor should break. 
 
 She stole up to him and laid her hand on his 
 shoulder timidly. 
 
 ' Dear August, you must be frozen. August, do 
 look up — do speak ! ' 
 
 August raised his eyes with a wild, feverish, 
 sullen look in them that she had never seen there. 
 His face was ashen white : his lips were like fire. 
 He had not slept all night; but his passionate sobs 
 had given way to delirious waking dreams and 
 numb senseless trances, which had alternated one 
 on another all through the freezing, lonely, horrible 
 hours. 
 
 ' It will never be warm again,' he muttered, 
 ' never again ! ' 
 
 Dorothea clasped him with trembling hands. 
 
 1 August ! do you not know me ? ' she cried in 
 an agony. ' I am Dorothea. Wake up, dear — wake 
 up ! It is morning, only so dark ! ' 
 
 August shuddered all over. 
 
 ' The morning ! ' he echoed. 
 
 He slowly rose up on to his feet. 
 
 ' I will go to grandfather,' he said very low. 
 ' He is always good ; perhaps he could save it' 
 
 Loud blows with the heavy iron knocker of the 
 house-door drowned his words. A strange voice 
 called aloud through the keyhole : 
 
 1 Let me in ! Quick — there is no time to lose 
 
28 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 More snow like this, and the roads will all be blocked. 
 Let me in ! Do you hear ? I am come to take the 
 great stove.' 
 
 August sprang erect, his fists doubled, his eyes 
 blazing. 
 
 1 You shall never touch it ! ' he screamed ; ' you 
 shall never touch it ! ' 
 
 ' Who shall prevent us ? ' laughed a big man, 
 who was a Bavarian, amused at the fierce little figure 
 fronting him. 
 
 1 1 ! ' said August. ' You shall never have it — 
 you shall kill me first!' 
 
 ' Strehla,' said the big man as August's father 
 entered the room, ' you have got a little mad dog 
 here ; muzzle him.' 
 
 One way and another they did muzzle him. He 
 fought like a little demon and hit out right and left, 
 and one of his blows gave the Bavarian a black eye. 
 But he was soon mastered by four grown men, and 
 his father fluno- him with no li^ht hand out from the 
 door of the back entrance, and the buyers of the 
 stately and beautiful stove set to work to pack it 
 needfully and carry it away. 
 
 When Dorothea stole out to look for August, he 
 was nowhere in sight. She went back to little 'Gilda, 
 who was ailing, and sobbed over the child, whilst 
 the others stood looking on, dimly understanding 
 that with Hirschvogel was going all the warmth of 
 their bodies, all the light of their hearth. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 29 
 
 Even their father now was sorry and ashamed ; 
 but two hundred florins seemed a big sum to him, 
 and, after all, he thought the children could warm 
 themselves quite as well at the black iron stove in 
 the kitchen. Besides, whether he regretted it now 
 or no, the work of the Ntirnberg potter was sold 
 irrevocably, and he had to stand still and see the 
 men from Munich wrap it in manifold wrappings 
 and bear it out into the snowy air to where an 
 ox-cart stood in waiting for it. . 
 
 In another moment Hirschvogel was gone — gone 
 for ever and aye. 
 
 August had stood still for a time, leaning, sick 
 and faint from the violence that had been used to 
 him, against the back wall of the house. The wall 
 looked on a court where a well was, and the backs 
 of other houses, and beyond them the spire of the 
 Muntze Tower and the peaks of the mountains. 
 
 Into the court an old neighbour hobbled for 
 water, and seeing the boy said to him : 
 
 ' Child, is it true your father is selling the big 
 painted stove ? ' 
 
 August nodded his head, then burst into a 
 passion of tears. 
 
 1 Well, for sure he is a fool,' said the neighbour. 
 * Heaven forgive me for calling him so before his 
 own child ! but the stove was worth a mint of money. 
 I do remember in my young days, in old Anton's 
 time (that was your great-grandfather, my lad), a 
 
30 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 stranger from Vienna saw it, and said that it was 
 worth its weight in gold.' 
 
 August's sobs went on their broken, impetuous 
 course. 
 
 ' I loved it ! I loved it ! ' he moaned. ' I do not 
 care what its value was. I loved it ! / loved it! y 
 
 ' You little simpleton ! ' said the old man kindly. 
 * But you are wiser than your father, when all's said. 
 If sell it he must, he should have taken it to good 
 Herr Steiner over at Spriiz, who would have given 
 him honest value. But no doubt they took him 
 over his beer — aye, aye ! but if I were you I would 
 do better than cry. I would go after it.' 
 
 August raised his head, the tears raining down 
 his cheeks. 
 
 ' Go after it when you are bigger,' said the 
 neighbour, with a good-natured wish to cheer him 
 up a little. ' The world is a small thing after all ; 
 I was a travelling clockmaker once upon a time, 
 and I know that your stove will be safe enough 
 whoever gets it ; anything that can be sold for a 
 round sum is always wrapped up in cotton wool by 
 everybody — aye, aye, don't cry so much, you will 
 see your stove again some day.' 
 
 Then the old man hobbled away to draw his 
 brazen pail full of water at the well. 
 
 August remained leaning against the wall ; his 
 head was buzzing and his heart fluttering with the new 
 idea which had presented itself to his mind. ' Go 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 31 
 
 after it,' had said the old man. He thought, ' Why 
 not go with it ?' He loved it better than any one, 
 even better than Dorothea ; and he shrunk from the 
 thought of meeting his father again, his father who 
 had sold Hirschvogel. 
 
 He was by this time in that state of exaltation in 
 which the impossible looks quite natural and common- 
 place. H is tears were still wet on his pale cheeks, but 
 they had ceased to fall. He ran out of the courtyard 
 by a little gate, and across to the huge Gothic porch 
 of the church. From there he could watch unseen 
 his father's house-door, at which were always hanging 
 some blue and grey pitchers, such as are common 
 and so picturesque in Austria, for part of the house 
 was let to a man who dealt in pottery. 
 
 He hid himself in the grand portico, which he had 
 so often passed through to go to mass or complin with- 
 in, and presently his heart gave a great leap, for he saw 
 the straw-enwrapped stove brought out and laid with 
 infinite care on the bullock-dray. Two of the Bava- 
 rian men mounted beside it, and the sleio-h-waeeon 
 slowly crept over the snow of the place ; snow crisp 
 and hard as stone. The noble old minster looked 
 its grandest and most solemn, with its dark grey 
 stone and its vast archways, and its porch that was 
 itself as big as many a church, and its strange gar- 
 goyles and lamp-irons black against the snow on its 
 roof and on the pavement ; but for once August had 
 no eyes for it, he only watched for his old friend. 
 
32 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 Then he, a little unnoticeable figure enough, like a 
 score of other boys in Hall, crept, unseen by any of 
 his brothers or sisters, out of the porch and over the 
 shelving uneven square, and followed in the wake of 
 the dray. 
 
 Its course lay towards the station of the rail- 
 way, which is close to the salt-works, whose smoke 
 at times sullies this part of clean little Hall, though 
 it does not do very much damage. From Hall the 
 iron road runs northward through glorious country 
 to Salzburg, Vienna, Prague, Buda, and southward 
 over the Brenner into Italy. Was Hirschvogel going 
 north or south ? This at least he would soon know. 
 
 August had often hung about the little station, 
 watching the trains come and go, and dive into 
 the heart of the hills and vanish. No one said 
 anything to him for idling about ; people are kind- 
 hearted and easy of temper in this pleasant land, 
 and children and dogs are both happy there. He 
 heard the Bavarians arguing and vociferating a 
 great deal, and learned that they meant to go too and 
 wanted to go with the great stove itself. But this 
 they could not do, for neither could the stove go by 
 a passenger train or they themselves go in a goods 
 train. So at length they insured their precious 
 burden for a large sum, and consented to send it by 
 a luggage train which was to pass through Hall in 
 half an hour. The swift trains seldom deign to 
 notice the existence of Hall at all. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 33 
 
 August heard, and a desperate resolve made it- 
 self up in his little mind. Where Hirschvogel went 
 would he go. He gave one terrible thought to 
 Dorothea — poor, gentle Dorothea! — sitting in the 
 cold at home, then set to work to execute his project. 
 How he managed it he never knew very clearly 
 himself, but certain it is that when the goods train 
 from the north, that had come all the way from 
 Linz on the Danube, moved out of Hall, August 
 was hidden behind the stove in the great covered 
 truck, and wedged, unseen and undreamt of by any 
 human creature, amidst the cases of wood-carving, 
 of clocks and clockwork, of Vienna toys, of Turkish 
 carpets, of Russian skins, of Hungarian wines, which 
 shared the same abode as did his swathed and bound 
 Hirschvogel. No doubt he was very naughty, but 
 it never occurred to him that he was so ; his whole 
 mind and soul were absorbed in the one entrancine 
 idea : to follow his beloved friend and fire-kingf. 
 
 It was very dark in the closed truck, which had 
 only a little window above the door; and it was 
 crowded, and had a strong smell in it from the Rus- 
 sian hides and the hams that were in it. But August 
 was not frightened ; he was close to Hirschvogel, 
 and presently he meant to be closer still ; for he 
 meant to do nothing less than get inside Hirsch- 
 vogel itself. Being a shrewd little boy, and having 
 had by great luck two silver groschen in his breeches 
 pocket, which he had earned the day before by 
 
 D 
 
34 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 chopping wood, he had bought some bread and 
 sausage at the station of a woman there who knew 
 
 o 
 
 him, and thought he was going out to his uncle 
 Joachim's chalet above Jenbach. This he had with 
 him, and this he ate in the darkness and the lumber- 
 ing, pounding, thundering noise which made him 
 giddy, as never had he been in a train of any kind 
 before. Still he ate, having had no breakfast, and 
 being a child, and half a German, and not knowing 
 at all how or when he ever would eat again. 
 
 When he had eaten, not as much as he wanted, 
 but as much as he thought was prudent (for who can 
 say when he would be able to buy anything more ?), 
 he set to work like a little mouse to make a hole in the 
 withes of straw and hay which enveloped the stove. 
 If it had been put in a packing-case he would have 
 been defeated at the onset. As it was, he gnawed, 
 and nibbled, and pulled, and pushed just as a mouse 
 would have done, making his hole where he guessed 
 that the opening of the stove was ; the opening 
 through which he had so often thrust the big oak 
 logs to feed it. No one disturbed him ; the heavy 
 train went lumbering on and on, and he saw nothing 
 at all of the beautiful mountains, and shining waters, 
 and great forests through which he was being carried. 
 He was hard at work getting through the straw and 
 hay and twisted ropes ; and get through them at last 
 he did, and found the door of the stove, which he 
 knew so well, and which was quite large enough 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 35 
 
 for a child of his age to slip through, and it was this 
 which he had counted upon doing. Slip through he 
 did, as he had often done at home for fun, and curled 
 himself up there to see if he could anyhow remain 
 during many hours. He found that he could ; air 
 came in through the brass fretwork of the stove ; 
 and with admirable caution in such a little fellow he 
 leaned out, drew the hay and straw together and re- 
 arranged the ropes, so that no one could ever have 
 dreamed a little mouse had been at them. Then 
 he curled himself up again, this time more like a 
 dormouse than anything; and being safe inside 
 his dear Hirschvogel and intensely cold, he went 
 fast asleep as if he were in his own bed at home, 
 with Albrecht and Christof on either side of him. 
 The train lumbered on, stopping often and long as 
 the habit of goods trains is, sweeping the snow away 
 with its cow-switcher, and rumbling through the 
 deep heart of the mountains, with its lamps aglow 
 like the eyes of a dog in a night of frost. 
 
 The train rolled on in its heavy, slow fashion, 
 and the child slept soundly for a long while. When 
 he did awake it was quite dark outside in the land ; 
 he could not see, and of course he was in absolute 
 darkness ; and for a while he was sorely frightened, 
 and trembled terribly, and sobbed in a quiet heart- 
 broken fashion, thinking of them all at home. Poor 
 Dorothea! how anxious she would be! How she 
 would run over the town and walk up to grand- 
 
3 6 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 father's at Dorf Ampas, and perhaps even send over 
 to Jenbach, thinking he had taken, refuge with uncle 
 Joachim ! His conscience smote him for the sorrow 
 he must be even then causing to his gentle sister; but 
 it never occurred to him to try and go back. If he 
 once were to lose sight of Hirschvogel how could he 
 ever hope to find it again ? how could he ever know 
 whither it had gone ; north, south, east, or west ? The 
 old neighbour had said that the world was small ; 
 but August knew at least that it must have a great 
 many places in it : that he had seen himself on the 
 maps on his schoolhouse walls. Almost any other 
 little boy would, I think, have been frightened out 
 of his wits at the position in which he found himself; 
 but August was brave, and he had a firm belief that 
 God and Hirschvogel would take care of him. The 
 master potter of Nurnberg was always present to his 
 mind ; a kindly, benign, and gracious spirit, dwelling 
 manifestly in that porcelain tower whereof he had 
 been the maker. 
 
 A droll fancy you say ? But every child with a 
 soul in him has quite as quaint fancies as this one 
 was of August's. 
 
 So he got over his terror and his sobbing both, 
 though he was so utterly in the dark. He did not feel 
 cramped at all, because the stove was so large, and 
 air he had in plenty, as it came through the fretwork 
 running round the top. He was hungry again, and 
 again nibbled with prudence at his loaf and his sausage. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 37 
 
 He could not at all tell the hour. Every time the 
 train stopped and he heard the banging, stamping, 
 shouting, and jangling of chains that went on, his 
 heart seemed to jump up into his mouth. If they 
 should find him out ! Sometimes porters came and 
 took away this case and the other, a sack here, a 
 bale there, now a big bag, now a dead chamois. 
 Every time the men trampled near him, and swore 
 at each other, and banged this and that to and fro, 
 he was so frightened that his very breath seemed to 
 stop. When they came to lift the stove out, would 
 they find him ? and if they did find him, would they 
 kill him ? That was what he kept thinking of all the 
 way, all through the dark hours, which seemed with- 
 out end. The goods trains are usually very slow, 
 and are many days doing what a quick train does 
 in a few hours. This one was quicker than most, be- 
 cause it was bearing goods to the King of Bavaria ; 
 still it took all the short winter's day and the long 
 winter's night and half another day to go over ground 
 that the mail trains cover in a forenoon. It passed 
 great armoured Kuffstein standing across the beau- 
 tiful and solemn gorge, denying the right of way to 
 all the foes of Austria. It passed twelve hours later, 
 after lying by in out-of-the-way stations, pretty 
 Rosenheim, that marks the border of Bavaria. And 
 here the Nlirnberg stove, with August inside it, was 
 lifted out needfully, and set under a covered way. 
 When it was lifted out the boy had hard work to keep 
 
38 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 in his screams ; he was tossed to and fro as the men 
 lifted the huge thing, and the earthenware walls of 
 his beloved fire-kine were not cushions of down. 
 However, though they swore and grumbled at the 
 weight of it, they never suspected that a living child 
 was inside it, and they carried it out on to the plat- 
 form and set it down under the roof of the goods shed. 
 There it passed the rest of the night and all the next 
 morning, and August was all the while within it. 
 
 The winds of early winter sweep bitterly over 
 Rosenheim, and all the vast Bavarian plain was one 
 white sheet of snow. If there had not been whole 
 armies of men at work always clearing the iron rails 
 of the snow, no trains could ever have run at all. 
 Happily for August, the thick wrappings in which the 
 stove was enveloped and the stoutness of its own 
 make screened him from the cold, of which, else, 
 he must have died — frozen. He had still some of 
 his loaf, and a little — a very little — of his sausage. 
 What he did begin to suffer from was thirst, and 
 this frightened him almost more than anything, for 
 Dorothea had read aloud to them one night a story of 
 the tortures some wrecked men had endured because 
 they could not find any water but the salt sea. It 
 was many hours since he had last taken a drink from 
 the wooden spout of their old pump, which brought 
 them the sparkling, ice-cold water of the hills. 
 
 But fortunately for him, the stove having been 
 marked and registered as ' fragile and valuable,' was 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 39 
 
 not treated quite like a mere bale of goods, and the 
 Rosenheim station-master, who knew its consignees, 
 resolved to send it on by a passenger train that would 
 leave there at daybreak. And when this train went 
 out, in it, amongst piles of luggage belonging to other 
 travellers, to Vienna, Prague, Buda-Pest, Salzburg, 
 was August, still undiscovered, still doubled up 
 like a mole in the winter under the grass. Those 
 words, 'fragile and valuable,' had made the men lift 
 Hirschvogel gently and with care. He had begun to 
 get used to his prison, and a little used to the in- 
 cessant pounding, and jumbling, and rattling, and 
 shaking with which modern travel is always accom- 
 panied, though modern invention does deem itself so 
 mightily clever. All in the dark he was, and he was 
 terribly thirsty ; but he kept feeling the earthenware 
 sides of the Niirnberg giant and saying softly, 'Take 
 care of me ; oh, take care of me, dear Hirschvogel ! ' 
 He did not say ' Take me back ;' for now that 
 he was fairly out in the world, he wished to see a 
 little of it. He began to think that they must have 
 been all over the world in all this time that the 
 rolling, and roaring, and hissing, and jangling had 
 been about his ears ; shut up in the dark he began 
 to remember all the tales that had been told in Yule 
 round the fire at his grandfather's good house at 
 Dorf, of gnomes and elves and subterranean terrors, 
 and the Erl Kino- riding; on the black horse of 
 night, and — and — arid he began to sob and to 
 
4o THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 tremble again, and this time did scream outright. 
 But the steam was screaming itself so loudly that 
 no one, had there been any one nigh, would have 
 heard him ; and in another minute or so the train 
 stopped with a jar and a jerk, and he in his cage 
 could hear men crying aloud ' Munchen ! Munchen !' 
 
 Then he knew enough of geography to know 
 that he was in the heart of Bavaria. He had had 
 an uncle killed in the Bayerischenwald by the 
 Bavarian forest guards, when in the excitement of 
 hunting a black bear he had overpassed the limits 
 of the Tirol frontier. 
 
 That fate of his kinsman, a gallant young chamois- 
 hunter who had taught him to handle a trigger and 
 load a muzzle, made the very name of Bavaria a 
 terror to August. 
 
 'It is Bavaria! It is Bavaria!' he sobbed to 
 the stove, but the stove said nothing to him ; it had 
 no fire in it ; a stove can no more speak without fire 
 than a man can see without light. Give it fire and 
 it will sing to you, tell tales to you, offer you in return 
 all the sympathy you ask. 
 
 ' It is Bavaria ! ' sobbed August ; for it is always 
 a name of dread augury to the Tirol eans by reason 
 of those bitter struggles and midnight shots and un- 
 timely deaths which come from those meetings of 
 jager and hunter in the Bayerischenwald. But the 
 train stopped ; Munich was reached, and August, 
 hot and cold by turns, and shaking like a little 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 41 
 
 aspen leaf, felt himself once more carried out on the 
 shoulders of men, rolled along on a truck, and finally 
 set down, where he knew not, only he knew he was 
 thirsty — so thirsty ! If only he could have reached 
 his hand out and scooped up a little snow ! 
 
 He thought he had been moved on this truck 
 many miles, but in truth the stove had been only 
 taken from the railway station to a shop in the 
 Marionplatz. Fortunately the stove was always set 
 upright on its four gilded feet, an injunction to that 
 effect having been affixed to its written label, and 
 on its gilded feet it stood now in the small dark 
 curiosity shop of one Hans Rhilfer. 
 
 1 1 shall not unpack it till Anton comes,' he heard 
 a man's voice say ; and then he heard a key grate 
 in a lock, and by the unbroken stillness that ensued 
 he concluded he was alone, and ventured to peep 
 through the straw and hav What he saw was a 
 small square room filled with pots and pans, pictures, 
 carvings, old blue jugs, old steel armour, shields, 
 daggers, Chinese idols, Vienna china, Turkish rugs, 
 and all the art lumber and fabricated rubbish of a 
 bric-a-brac dealer's. It seemed a wonderful place to 
 him ; but, oh ! was there one drop of water in it all ? 
 That was his single thought, for his tongue was 
 parching, and his throat felt on fire, and his chest 
 began to be dry and choked as with dust. There 
 was not a drop of water, but there was a lattice 
 window grated, and beyond the window was a wide 
 
42 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 stone ledge covered with snow. August cast one 
 look at the locked door, darted out of his hiding- 
 place, ran and opened the window, crammed the 
 snow into his mouth again and again, and then flew, 
 back into the stove, and drew the hay and straw 
 over the place he entered by, tied the cords, and 
 shut the brass door down on himself. He had 
 brought some big icicles in with him, and by them 
 his thirst was finally, if only temporarily, quenched. 
 Then he sat still in the bottom of the stove, listening 
 intently, wide awake, and once more recovering his 
 natural boldness. 
 
 The thought of Dorothea kept nipping his heart 
 and his conscience with a hard squeeze now and 
 then ; but he thought to himself, ' If I can take her 
 back Hirschvogel, then how pleased she will be, and 
 how little 'Gilda will clap her hands !' He was not 
 at all selfish in his love for Hirschvogel ; he wanted 
 it for them all at home quite as much as for himself. 
 There was at the bottom of his mind a kind of ache 
 of shame that his father — his own father — should 
 have stripped their hearth and sold their honour thus. 
 
 A robin had been perched upon a stone griffin 
 sculptured on a house-eave near. August had felt for 
 the crumbs of his loaf in his pocket, and had thrown 
 them to the little bird sitting so easily on the frozen 
 snow. 
 
 In the darkness where he was he now heard a little 
 song, made faint by the stove-wall and the window- 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 43 
 
 glass that was between him and it, but still distinct 
 and exquisitely sweet. It was the robin, singing 
 after feeding on the crumbs. August, as he heard, 
 burst into tears. He thought of Dorothea, who every 
 morning threw out some grain or some bread on the 
 snow before the church. ' What use is it going 
 there,' she said, ' if we forget the sweetest creatures 
 God has made ? ' Poor Dorothea ! Poor, good, 
 tender, much-burdened little soul ! He thought of 
 her till his tears ran like rain. 
 
 Yet it never once occurred to him to dream of 
 going home. Hirschvogel was here. 
 
 Presently the key turned in the lock of the door ; 
 he heard heavy footsteps and the voice of the man 
 who had said to his father, ' You have a little mad 
 dog ; muzzle him ! ' The voice said, ' Aye, aye ; you 
 have called me a fool many times. Now you shall 
 see what I have gotten for two hundred dirty florins. 
 Potzhausen! never did you do such a stroke of 
 work.' 
 
 Then the other voice grumbled and swore, and 
 the steps of the two men approached more closely, 
 and the heart of the child went pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat as 
 a mouse's does when it is on the top of a cheese and 
 hears a housemaid's broom sweeping near. They 
 began to strip the stove of its wrappings ; that he 
 could tell by the noise they made with the hay and 
 the straw. Soon they had stripped it wholly ; that, 
 too, he knew by the oaths and exclamations of 
 
44 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 wonder and surprise and rapture which broke from 
 the man who had not seen it before. 
 
 ' A right royal thing ! A wonderful and never- 
 to-be-rivalled thinor l Grander than the orreat stove 
 of Hohen-Salzburo; ! Sublime — magnificent — match- 
 less ! ' 
 
 So the epithets ran on in thick guttural voices, 
 diffusing a smell of lager-beer so strong as they 
 spoke that it reached August crouching in his strong- 
 hold. If they should open the door of the stove ! 
 That was his frantic fear. If they should open it, all 
 would be all over with him. They would drag him 
 out ; most likely they would kill him, he thought, 
 as his mother's young brother had been killed in 
 the Wald. 
 
 The perspiration rolled off his forehead in his 
 agony ; but he had control enough over himself to 
 keep quiet, and after standing by the Ntirnberg 
 master's work for nigh an hour, praising, marvelling, 
 expatiating in the lengthy German tongue, the men 
 moved to a little distance and began talking of sums 
 of money and divided profits, of which discourse 
 he could make out no meaning. All he could make 
 out was that the name of the king — the king — the 
 king came over very often in their arguments. He 
 fancied at times they quarrelled, for they swore 
 lustily and their voices rose hoarse and high ; but after 
 awhile they seemed to pacify each other and agree 
 to something, and were in great glee, and so in these 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 45 
 
 merry spirits came and slapped the luminous sides 
 of stately Hirschvogel and shouted to it : 
 
 ' Old Mumchance, you have brought us rare 
 good luck ! To think you were smoking in a silly 
 fool of a salt-baker's kitchen all these years ! ' 
 
 Then inside the stove August jumped up, with 
 flaming cheeks and clenching hands, and was almost 
 on the point of shouting out to them that they 
 were the thieves and should say no evil of his 
 father, when he remembered, just in time, that to 
 breathe a word or make a sound was to bring ruin 
 on himself and sever him for ever from Hirschvogel. 
 So he kept quite still, and the men barred the 
 shutters of the little lattice and went out by the 
 door, double-locking it after them. He had made 
 out from their talk that they were going to show 
 Hirschvogel to some great person ; therefore he 
 kept quite still and dared not move. 
 
 Muffled sounds came to him through the shutters 
 from the streets below ; the rolling of wheels, the clang- 
 ing of church bells, and bursts of that military music 
 which is so seldom silent in the streets of Munich. An 
 hour perhaps passed by ; sounds of steps on the stairs 
 kept him in perpetual apprehension. In the intensity 
 of his anxiety he forgot that he was hungry and 
 many miles away from cheerful, old-world little Hall, 
 lying by the clear grey river water, with the ramparts 
 of the mountains all around. 
 
 Presently the door opened again sharply. He 
 
46 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 could hear the two dealers' voices murmuring unctuous 
 words, in which ' honour,' ' gratitude,' and many fine 
 long noble titles played the chief parts. The voice of 
 another person, more clear and refined than theirs, 
 answered them curtly, and then, close by the Niirnberg 
 stove and the boy's ear, ejaculated a single ' Wonder- 
 schonT August almost lost his terror for himself in his 
 thrill of pride at his beloved Hirschvogel being thus 
 admired in the great city. He thought the master 
 potter must be glad too. 
 
 ' Wonder schon !' ejaculated the stranger a second 
 time, and then examined the stove in all its parts, read 
 all its mottoes, gazed long on all its devices. 
 
 ' It must have been made for the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian,' he said at last ; and the poor little boy, mean- 
 while, within, was ' hugged up into nothing,' as you 
 children say, dreading that every moment he would 
 open the stove. And open it truly he did, and ex- 
 amined the brass-work of the door ; but inside it was so 
 dark that crouching August passed unnoticed, screwed 
 up into a ball like a hedgehog as he was. The gentle- 
 man shut to the door at length, without having seen 
 anything strange inside it ; and then he talked long and 
 low with the tradesmen, and as his accent was different 
 to that which August was used to, the child could 
 distinguish little that he said, except the name of the 
 king and the word ' gulden ' again and again. After 
 awhile he went away, one of the dealers accompany- 
 ing him, one of them lingering behind to bar up the 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 47 
 
 shutters. Then this one also withdrew again, 
 double-locking the door. 
 
 The poor little hedgehog uncurled itself and dared 
 to breathe aloud. 
 
 What time was it ? 
 
 Late in the day he thought, for to accompany the 
 stranger they had lighted a lamp ; he had heard the 
 scratch of the match, and through the brass fret- 
 work seen the lines of light. 
 
 He would have to pass the night here, that was 
 certain. He and Hirschvogel were locked in, but at 
 least they were together. If only he could have had 
 something to eat! He thought with a pang of how 
 at this hour at home they ate the sweet soup, some- 
 times with apples in it from Aunt Maila's farm 
 orchard, and sang together and listened to Dorothea's 
 reading of little tales, and basked in the glow and 
 delight that had beamed on them from the great 
 Niirnberg fire-king. 
 
 ' Oh poor, poor little 'Gilda ! What is she doing 
 without the dear Hirschvogel !' he thought. Poor 
 little 'Gilda ! she had only now the black iron stove 
 of the ugly little kitchen. Oh, how cruel of father ! 
 
 August could not bear to hear the dealers blame or 
 laugh at his father, but he did feel that it had been 
 so, so, cruel to sell Hirschvogel. The mere memory 
 of all those long winter evenings, when they had all 
 closed round it, and roasted chestnuts or crab-apples 
 in it, and listened to the howling of the wind and 
 
43 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 the deep sound of die church bells, and tried very 
 much to make each other believe that the wolves 
 still came down from the mountains into the streets 
 of Hall, and were that very minute growling at the 
 house door — all this memory coming on him with 
 the sound of the city bells, and the knowledge that 
 night drew near upon him so completely, being added 
 to his hunger and his fear, it all so overcame him that 
 he burst out crying for the fiftieth time since he had 
 been inside the stove, and felt that he would starve to 
 death ; and wondered dreamily if Hirschvogel would 
 care. Yes, he was sure Hirschvogel would care. Had 
 he not decked it all summer long with alpine roses and 
 edelweiss and heaths, and made it sweet with thyme 
 and honeysuckle and great garden lilies ? Had he 
 ever forgotten when Santa Claus came to make it 
 its crown of holly and ivy, and wreathe it all around ? 
 
 ' Oh, shelter me ; save me ; take care of me ! ' he 
 prayed to the old fire-king, and forgot, poor little 
 man, that he had come on this wildgoose chase north- 
 ward to save and take care of Hirschvogel ! 
 
 After a time he dropped asleep, as children can 
 do when they weep, and little robust hill-born boys 
 most surely do, be they where they may. It was 
 not very cold in this lumber-room ; it was tightly 
 shut up and very full of things, and at the back of it 
 were the hot pipes of an adjacent house, where a great 
 deal of fuel was burnt. Moreover, August's clothes 
 were warm ones, and his blood was young. So he 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 49 
 
 was not cold, though Munich is terribly cold in the 
 nights of December ; and he slept on and on, which 
 was a comfort to him, for he forgot his woes, and his 
 perils, and his hunger for a time. 
 
 Midnight was once more chiming from all the 
 brazen tongues of the city when he awoke ; and, all 
 being still around him, ventured to put his head out 
 of the brass door of the stove to see why such a 
 strange bright light was round him. 
 
 It was a very strange and brilliant light indeed ; and 
 yet, what is perhaps still stranger, it did not frighten 
 or amaze him, nor did what he saw alarm him either, 
 and yet I think it would have done you or me. 
 For what he saw was nothing less than all the bric- 
 a-brac in motion. 
 
 A big jug, an Apostel-Kriig, of Kruessen, was 
 solemnly dancing a minuet with a plump Faenza jar ; 
 a tall Dutch clock was going through a gavotte with 
 a spindle-legged ancient chair ; a very droll porcelain 
 figure of Littenhausen was bowing to a very stiff 
 soldier in terre cuite of Ulm ; an old violin of Cre- 
 mona was playing itself, and a queer little shrill 
 plaintive music that thought itself merry came from 
 a painted spinnet covered with faded roses ; some 
 gilt Spanish leather had got up on the wall and 
 laughed ; a Dresden mirror was tripping about, 
 crowned with flowers, and a Japanese bonze was 
 riding along on a griffin ; a slim Venetian rapier had 
 come to blows with a stout Ferrara sabre, all about 
 
 E 
 
5 o THE NURNBERG STOVE, 
 
 a little pale-faced chit of a damsel in white Nymphen- 
 burg china ; and a portly Franconian pitcher in gres 
 gris was calling aloud, ' Oh, these Italians! always at 
 feud ! ' But nobody listened to him at all. A great 
 number of little Dresden cups and saucers were all 
 skipping and waltzing ; the teapots, with their broad 
 round faces, were spinning their own lids like teeto- 
 tums ; the highbacked gilded chairs were having a 
 game of cards together; and a little Saxe poodle, 
 with a blue ribbon at its throat, was running from 
 one to another, whilst a yellow cat of Cornelis 
 Lachtleven's rode about on a Delft horse in blue 
 pottery of 1489. Meanwhile the brilliant light shed 
 on the scene came from three silver candelabra, 
 though they had no candles set up in them ; and, 
 what is the greatest miracle of all, August looked 
 on at these mad freaks and felt no sensation of 
 wonder ! He only, as he heard the violin and the 
 spinnet playing, felt an irresistible desire to dance too. 
 No doubt his face said what he wished ; for a 
 lovely little lady, all in pink and gold and white, 
 with powdered hair, and high-heeled shoes, and all 
 made of the very finest and fairest Meissen china, 
 tripped up to him, and smiled, and gave him her 
 hand, and led him out to a minuet. And he danced 
 it perfectly — poor little August in his thick, clumsy 
 shoes, and his thick, clumsy sheepskin jacket, and 
 his rough homespun linen, and his broad Tirolean 
 hat! He must have danced it perfectly, this dance 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 51 
 
 of kings and queens in days when crowns were duly 
 honoured, for the lovely lady always smiled benignly 
 and never scolded him at all, and danced so divinely 
 herself to the stately measures the spinnet was play- 
 ing that August could not take his eyes off her, till, 
 their minuet ended, she sat down on her own white- 
 and-gold bracket. 
 
 ' I am the Princess of Saxe-Royale,' she said tc 
 him, with a benignant smile ; ' and you have got 
 through that minuet very fairly.' 
 
 Then he ventured to say to her : 
 
 1 Madam, my princess, could you tell me kindly 
 why some of the figures and furniture dance and 
 speak, and some lie up in a corner like lumber ? It 
 does make me curious. Is it rude to ask ? ' 
 
 For it greatly puzzled him why, when some of 
 the bric-a-brac was all full of life and motion, some 
 was quite still, and had not a single thrill in it. 
 
 ' My dear child ! ' said the powdered lady, ' is it 
 possible that you do not know the reason ? Why, 
 those silent, dull things are imitation ! ' 
 
 This she said with so much decision, that she 
 evidently considered it a condensed but complete 
 answer. 
 
 ' Imitation ? ' repeated August timidly, not under- 
 standing. 
 
 1 Of course ! Lies, falsehoods, fabrications ! ' said 
 the princess in pink shoes very vivaciously. ' They 
 only pretend to be what we are ! They never wake 
 
52 THE NURNBERG STOVE 
 
 up ; how can they ? No imitation ever had any soul 
 in it yet.' 
 
 ' Oh ! ' said August humbly, not even sure that he 
 understood entirely yet. He looked at Hirschvogel ; 
 surely it had a royal soul within it, would it not wake 
 up and speak ? Oh dear ! how he longed to hear 
 the voice of his fire-king ! And he began to forget 
 that he stood by a lady who sat upon a pedestal of 
 gold-and- white china, with the year 1746 cut on it 
 and the Meissen mark. 
 
 ' What will you be when you are a man ? ' said 
 the little lady sharply, for her black eyes were quick 
 though her red lips were smiling. ' Will you work 
 for the Kcenigliche Porcellan-Manufactur, like my 
 great dead Kandler ? ' 
 
 ' I have never thought,' said August stammering ; 
 'at least — that is — I do wish — I do hope to be a 
 painter, as was Master Augustin Hirschvogel at 
 Niirnberg.' 
 
 1 Bravo ! ' said all the real bric-a-brac in one 
 breath ; and the two Italian rapiers left off fighting 
 to cry ' Benone ! ' For there is not a bit of true 
 bric-a-brac in all Europe that does not know the 
 names of the mighty masters. 
 
 August felt quite pleased to have won so much 
 applause, and grew as red as the lady's shoes with 
 bashful contentment. 
 
 ' I knew all the Hirschvogel from old Viet down- 
 wards,' said a fat gres de Flandres beer-jug ; ' I 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 53 
 
 myself was made at Niirnberg ; ' and he bowed to 
 the great stove very politely, taking off his own silver 
 hat — I mean lid — with a courtly sweep that he could 
 scarcely have learned from burgomasters. The stove, 
 however, was silent, and a sickening suspicion (for 
 what is such heartbreak as a suspicion of what we 
 love ?) came through the mind of August : Was 
 Hirschv'dgel only imitation ? 
 
 1 No, no, no, no ! ' he said to himself stoutly ; though 
 Hirschvogel never stirred, never spoke, yet would 
 he keep all faith in it ! After all their happy years 
 together, after all the nights of warmth and joy he 
 owed it, should he doubt his own friend and hero, 
 whose gilt lion's feet he had kissed in his babyhood ? 
 ' No, no, no, no ! ' he said again, with so much emphasis, 
 that the Lady of Meissen looked sharply again at him. 
 
 ' No,' she said with pretty disdain ; ' no, believe 
 me, they may " pretend " for ever. They can never 
 look like us ! They imitate even our marks, but 
 never can they look like the real thing, never can 
 they chassent de race.' 
 
 1 How should they ? ' said a bronze statuette ot 
 Vischer's. ' They daub themselves green with verdi- 
 gris, or sit out in the rain to get rusted ; but green 
 and rust are not patina ; only the ages can give that ! ' 
 
 ' And my imitations are all in primary colours, 
 staring colours, hot as the colours of a hostelry's 
 signboard ! ' said the Lady of Meissen with a shiver. 
 
 1 Well, there is a gres de Flandres over there, 
 
54 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 who pretends to be a Hans-Kraut, as I am,' said 
 the jug with the silver hat, pointing with his handle 
 to a jug that lay prone on its side in a corner. 
 ' He has copied me as exactly as it is given to 
 moderns to copy us. Almost he might be mistaken 
 for me. But yet what a difference there is ! How 
 crude are his blues ! how evidently done over the 
 glaze are his black letters ! He has tried to give 
 himself my very twist ; but what a lamentable exag- 
 geration of that playful deviation in my lines which 
 in his becomes actual deformity ! ' 
 
 1 And look at that,' said the gilt Cordovan leather, 
 with a contemptuous glance at a broad piece of 
 gilded leather spread out on a table. ' They will 
 sell him cheek by jowl with me and give him my 
 name, but look ! / am overlaid with pure gold 
 beaten thin as a film, and laid on me in absolute 
 honesty by worthy Diego di las Gorgias, worker in 
 leather of lovely Cordova in the blessed reign of 
 Ferdinand the Most Christian. His oildinof is one 
 part gold to eleven other parts of brass and rubbish, 
 and it has been laid on him with a brush — a brtish ! — 
 pah ! of course he will be as black as a crock in a 
 few years time, whilst I am as bright as when I first 
 was made, and, unless I am burnt as my Cordova 
 burnt its heretics, I shall shine on for ever.' 
 
 ' They carve pearwood because it is so soft, and 
 dye it brown, and call it me ! ' said an old oak 
 cabinet with a chuckle. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 55 
 
 ' That is not so painful, it does not vulgarise you 
 so much as the cups they paint to-day and christen 
 after me ! ' said a Carl Theodor cup subdued in hue, 
 yet gorgeous as a jewel. 
 
 1 Nothing can be so annoying as to see common 
 gimcracks aping me ! ' interposed the princess in the . 
 pink shoes. 
 
 ' They even steal my motto, though it is Scrip- 
 ture,' said a Trailerkriig of Regensburg in black and 
 white. 
 
 ' And my own dots they put on plain English 
 china creatures!' sighed the little white maid of 
 Nymphenburg. 
 
 1 And they sell hundreds and thousands of com- 
 mon china plates calling them after me, and baking 
 my saints and my legends in a muffle of to-day ; it 
 is blasphemy ! ' said a stout plate of Gubbio, which in 
 its year of birth had seen the face of Maestro Giorgio. 
 
 ' That is what is so terrible in these bric-a-brac 
 places,' said the Princess of Meissen. ' It brings 
 one in contact with such low, imitative creatures ; one 
 really is safe nowhere nowadays unless under glass 
 at the Louvre or South Kensington. 
 
 ' And they get even there,' sighed the gres de 
 Flandres. ' A terrible thing happened to a dear 
 friend of mine, a terre cuite of Blasius (you know the 
 terres ctrites of Blasius date from 1560). Well, he 
 was put under glass in a museum that shall be name- 
 less, and he found himself set next to his own 
 
56 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 imitation born and baked yesterday at Frankfort, 
 and what think you the miserable creature said to 
 him with a grin ? " Old Pipeclay " — that is what 
 he called my friend — " the fellow that bought me 
 got just as much commission on me as the fellow 
 • that bought you, and that was all that he thought 
 about. You know it is only the public money that 
 goes ! " And the horrid creature grinned again till 
 he actually cracked himself. There is a Providence 
 above all things, even museums.' 
 
 ' Providence might have interfered before, and 
 saved the public money,' said the little Meissen lady 
 with the pink shoes. 
 
 ' After all, does it matter ? ' said a Dutch jar 
 of Haarlem. 'All the shamming in the world will 
 not make them us ! ' 
 
 ' One does not like to be vulgarised,' said the 
 Lady of Meissen angrily. 
 
 ' My maker, the Krabbetje, 1 did not trouble his 
 head about that,' said the Haarlem jar proudly. 
 'The Krabbetje made me for the kitchen, the 
 bright, clean, snow-white Dutch kitchen, well nigh 
 three centuries ago, and now I am thought worthy 
 the palace ; yet I wish I were at home ; yes, I wish 
 I could see the good Dutch vrow, and the shining 
 canals, and the great green meadows dotted with 
 the kine.' 
 
 1 Jan Asselyn, called Krabbetje, the Little Crab, born 1610, master 
 potter of Delft and Haarlem. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 57 
 
 1 Ah ! if we could all go back to our makers ! ' 
 sighed the Gubbio plate, thinking of Giorgio 
 Andreoli and the glad and gracious days of the 
 Renaissance : and somehow the words touched the 
 frolicsome souls of the dancing jars, the spinning 
 teapots, the chairs that were playing cards ; and the 
 violin stopped its merry music with a sob, and the 
 spinnet sighed — thinking of dead hands. 
 
 Even the little Saxe poodle howled for a 
 master for ever lost ; and only the swords went on 
 quarrelling, and made such a clattering noise, that 
 the Japanese bonze rode at them on his monster 
 and knocked them both right over, and they lay 
 straight and still, looking foolish, and the little 
 Nymphenburg maid, though she was crying, smiled 
 and almost laughed. 
 
 Then from where the great stove stood there 
 came a solemn voice. 
 
 All eyes turned upon Hirschvogel, and the 
 heart of its little human comrade gave a great jump 
 of joy. 
 
 ' My friends,' said that clear voice from the turret 
 of Niirnberg faience, ' I have listened to all you 
 have said. There is too much talking amongst the 
 Mortalities whom one of themselves has called the 
 Windbags. Let not us be like them. I hear 
 amongst men so much vain speech, so much precious 
 breath and precious time wasted in empty boasts, 
 foolish anger, useless reiteration, blatant argument, 
 
58 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 ignoble mouthings, that I have learned to deem 
 speech a curse, laid on man to weaken and envenom 
 all his undertakings. For over two hundred years 
 I have never spoken myself ; you, I hear, are not so 
 reticent. I only speak now because one of you said 
 a beautiful thing that touched me. If we all might 
 but go back to our makers ! Ah, yes ; if we might ! 
 We were made in days when even men were true 
 creatures, and so we, the work of their hands, were 
 true too. We, the begotten of ancient days, derive 
 all the value in us from the fact that our makers 
 wrought at us with zeal, with piety, with integrity, 
 with faith ; not to win fortunes or to glut a market, 
 but to do nobly an honest thing and create for the 
 honour of the Arts and God. I see amidst you a 
 little human thing who loves me, and in his own 
 ignorant childish way loves Art. Now I want him 
 for ever to remember this night and these words ; to 
 remember that we are what we are, and precious in 
 the eyes of the world, because centuries ago those 
 who were of single mind and of pure hand so created 
 us, scorning sham and haste and counterfeit. Well 
 do I recollect my master, Augustin Hirschvogel. 
 He led a wise and blameless life, and wrought in 
 loyalty and love, and made his time beautiful thereby, 
 like one of his own rich, many-coloured church case 
 ments, that told holy tales as the sun streamed 
 through them. Ah, yes, my friends, to go back to 
 our masters ! — that would be the best that could 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 59 
 
 befall us. But they are gone, and even the perish- 
 able labours of their lives outlive them. For many, 
 many years I, once honoured of Emperors, dwelt in 
 a humble house and warmed in successive winters 
 three generations of little, cold, hungry children. 
 When I warmed them they forgot that they were 
 hungry ; they laughed and told tales, and slept at 
 last about my feet. Then I knew that humble as 
 had become my lot it was one that my master would 
 have wished for me, and I was content. Sometimes 
 a tired woman would creep up to me, and smile 
 because she was near me, and point out my golden 
 crown or my ruddy fruit to a baby in her arms. 
 That was better than to stand in a great hall of a 
 great city, cold and empty, even though wise men 
 came to gaze and throngs of fools gaped, passing 
 with flattering words. Where I go now I know 
 not ; but since I go from that humble house where 
 they loved me, I shall be sad and alone. They pass 
 so soon — those fleeting mortal lives ! Only we 
 endure : we, the things that the human brain 
 creates. We can but bless them a little as they 
 glide by ; if we have done that, we have done what 
 our masters wished. So in us our masters, being 
 dead, yet may speak and live.' 
 
 Then the voice sank away in silence, and a 
 strange golden light that had shone on the great 
 stove faded away ; so also the light died down in 
 the silver candelabra. A soft, pathetic melody stole 
 
60 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 gently through the room. It came from the old, old 
 spinnet that was covered with the faded roses. 
 
 Then that sad, sighing music of a bygone day 
 died too ; the clocks of the city struck six of the 
 morning ; day was rising over the Bayerischenwald. 
 August awoke with a great start, and found himself 
 lying on the bare bricks of the floor of the chamber, 
 and all the bric-a-brac was lying quite still all around. 
 The pretty Lady of Meissen was motionless on her 
 porcelain bracket, and the little Saxe poodle was 
 quiet at her side. 
 
 He rose slowly to his feet. He was very cold, 
 but he was not sensible of it or of the hunger that 
 was gnawing his little empty entrails. He was ab- 
 sorbed in the wondrous sight, in the wondrous 
 sounds, that he had seen and heard. 
 
 All was dark around him. Was it still midnight, 
 or had morning come ? Morning, surely, for against 
 the barred shutters he heard the tiny song of the 
 robin. 
 
 Tramp, tramp, too, came a heavy step up the 
 stair. He had but a moment in which to scramble 
 back into the interior of the great stove, when the 
 door opened and the two dealers entered, bringing 
 burning candles with them to see their way. 
 
 August was scarcely conscious of danger more 
 than he was of cold or hunger. A marvellous sense 
 of courage, of security, of happiness, was about him, 
 like strong and gentle arms enfolding him and lifting 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 61 
 
 him upwards — upwards — upwards ! Hirschvogel 
 would defend him. 
 
 The dealers undid the shutters, scaring the red- 
 breast away, and then tramped about in their heavy 
 boots and chattered in contented voices, and began 
 to wrap up the stove once more in all its straw and 
 hay and cordage. 
 
 It never once occurred to them to glance inside. 
 Why should they look inside a stove that they had 
 bought and were about to sell again for all its 
 glorious beauty of exterior ? 
 
 The child still did not feel afraid. A great ex- 
 altation had come to him ; he was like one lifted up 
 by his angels. 
 
 Presently the two traders called up their 
 porters, and the stove, heedfully swathed and 
 wrapped and tended as though it were some sick 
 prince going on a journey, was borne on the shoul- 
 ders of six stout Bavarians down the stairs and out 
 of the door into Marionplatz. Even behind all those 
 wrappings August felt the icy bite of the intense cold 
 of the outer air at dawn of a winter's day in Munich. 
 The men moved the stove with exceeding orentle- 
 ness and care, so that he had often been far more 
 roughly shaken in his big brother's arms than he 
 was in his journey now ; and though both hunger 
 and thirst made themselves felt, being foes that will 
 take no denial, he was still in that state of nervous 
 exaltation which deadens all physical suffering and 
 
62 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 is at once a cordial and an opiate. He had heard 
 Hirschvogel speak ; that was enough. 
 
 The stout carriers tramped through the city, six 
 of them, with the Niirnberg fire-castle on their 
 brawny shoulders, and went right across Munich to 
 the railway station, and August in the dark recog- 
 nised all the ugly, jangling, pounding, roaring, hissing 
 railway noises, and thought, despite his courage and 
 excitement, 'Will it be a very long journey?' For 
 his stomach had at times an odd sinking sensation, 
 and his head sadly often felt light and swimming. If 
 it was a very, very long journey he felt half afraid that 
 he would be dead or something bad before the end, 
 and Hirschvogel would be so lonely : that was what 
 he thought most about ; not much about himself, 
 and not much about Dorothea and the house at 
 home. He was 'high strung to high emprise/ and 
 could not look behind him. 
 
 Whether for a long or short journey, whether for 
 weal or woe, the stove with August still within it was 
 once more hoisted up into a great van ; but this time it 
 was not all alone, and the two dealers as well as the 
 six porters were all with it. 
 
 He in his darkness knew that; for he heard 
 their voices. The train glided away over the 
 Bavarian plain southward ; and he heard the men 
 say something of Berg and the Wtirm See, but 
 their German was strange to him, and he could not 
 make out what these names meant. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 63 
 
 The train rolled on with all its fume and fuss, 
 and roar of steam, and stench of oil and burning 
 coal. It had to go quietly and slowly on account of 
 the snow which was falling, and had fallen all night. 
 
 1 He might have waited till he came to the city,' 
 grumbled one man to another. ' What weather to 
 stay on at Berg ! ' 
 
 But who he was that stayed on at Berg, August 
 could not make out at all. 
 
 Though the men grumbled about the state of the 
 roads and the season, they were hilarious and well 
 content, for they laughed often ; and when they 
 swore, did so good humouredly, and promised their 
 porters fine presents at New Year ; and August, 
 like a shrewd little boy as he was, who even in the 
 secluded Innthal had learned that money is the 
 chief mover of men's mirth, thought to himself with 
 a terrible pang : 
 
 1 They have sold Hirschvogel for some great 
 sum ! They have sold him already ! ' 
 
 Then his heart grew faint and sick within him, for 
 he knew very well that he must soon die, shut up with- 
 out food and water thus ; and what new owner of 
 the great fire-palace would ever permit him to dwell 
 in it? 
 
 ' Never mind, I will die,' thought he ; • and 
 Hirschvogel will know it.' 
 
 Perhaps you think him a very foolish little fellow, 
 but I do not. 
 
64 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 It is always good to be loyal, and ready to endure 
 to the end. 
 
 It is but an hour and a quarter that the train 
 usually takes to pass from Munich to the Wiirm See 
 or Lake of Starnberg ; but this morning the journey 
 was much slower, because the way was encumbered 
 by snow. When it did reach Possenhofen and stop, 
 and the Nurnberg stove was lifted out once more, 
 August could see through the fretwork of the brass 
 door, as the stove stood upright facing the lake, that 
 this Wtirm See was a calm and noble piece of water, 
 of great width, with low wooded banks and distant 
 mountains, a peaceful, serene place, full of rest. 
 
 It was now near ten o'clock. The sun had come 
 forth ; there was a clear grey sky hereabouts ; the 
 snow was not falling, though it lay white and smooth 
 everywhere, down to the edge of the water, which 
 before long would itself be ice. 
 
 Before he had time to get more than a glimpse 
 of the green gliding surface, the stove was again 
 lifted up and placed on a large boat that was in 
 waiting ; one of those very long and huge boats 
 which the women in these parts use as laundries, and 
 the men as timber-rafts. The stove, with much 
 labour and much expenditure of time and care, was 
 hoisted into this, and August would have grown 
 sick and giddy with the heaving and falling if his big 
 brothers had not long used him to such tossing 
 about, so that he was as much at ease head, as feet. 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 65 
 
 downward. The stove once in it safely with its 
 guardians, the big boat moved across the lake to 
 Leoni. How a little hamlet on a Bavarian lake grot 
 that Tuscan-sounding name I cannot tell ; but Leoni 
 it is. The big boat was a long time crossing : the 
 lake here is about three miles broad, and these heavy 
 barges are unwieldy and heavy to move, even though 
 they are towed and tugged at from the shore. 
 
 'If we should be too late!' the two dealers 
 muttered to each other in agitation and alarm. ' He 
 said eleven o'clock.' 
 
 Who was he? thought August; the buyer, ot 
 course, of Hirschvogel. The slow passage across 
 the Wiirm See was accomplished at length : the lake 
 was placid ; there was a sweet calm in the air and on 
 the water ; there was a great deal of snow in the sky, 
 though the sun was shining and gave a solemn hush 
 to the atmosphere. Boats and one little steamer 
 were going up and down ; in the clear frosty light 
 the distant mountains of Zillerthal and the Algau 
 Alps were visible ; market people, cloaked and 
 furred, went by on the water or on the banks ; the 
 deep woods of the shores were black and grey and 
 brown. Poor August could see nothing of a scene 
 that would have delighted him ; as the stove was 
 now set he could only see the old worm-eaten wood 
 of the huge barge. 
 
 Presently they touched the pier at Leoni. 
 
 1 Now, men, for a stout mile and half! You shall 
 
 F 
 
66 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 drink your reward at Christmas time,' said one of 
 the dealers to his porters, who, stout, strong men as 
 they were, showed a disposition to grumble at their 
 task. Encouraged by large promises, they shouldered 
 sullenly the Niirnberg stove, grumbling again at its 
 preposterous weight, but little dreaming that they 
 carried within it a small panting, trembling boy ; for 
 August began to tremble now that he was about to 
 see the future owner of Hirschvo^el. 
 
 'If he look a good, kind man,' he thought, ' I 
 will be©- him to let me stav with it' 
 
 The porters began their toilsome journey, and 
 moved off from the village pier. He could see 
 nothing, for the brass door was over his head, and 
 all that gleamed through it was the clear grey sky. 
 He had been tilted on to his back, and if he had not 
 been a little mountaineer, used to hanging head- 
 downwards over crevasses, and, moreover, seasoned 
 to rough treatment by the hunters and guides of the 
 hills and the salt-workers in the town, he would 
 have been made ill and sick by the bruising and 
 shaking and many changes of position to which he 
 had been subjected. 
 
 The way the men took was a mile and a half in 
 length, but the road was heavy with snow, and the 
 burden they bore was heavier still. The dealers 
 cheered them on, swore at them and praised them 
 in one breath ; besought them and reiterated their 
 splendid promises, for a clock was striking eleven, 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 67 
 
 and they had been ordered to reach their destination 
 at that hour, and though the air was so cold the 
 heat-drops rolled off their foreheads as they walked, 
 they were so frightened at being late. But the 
 porters would not budge a foot quicker than they 
 chose, and as they were not poor four-footed carriers 
 their employers dared not thrash them, though most 
 willingly would they have done so. 
 
 The road seemed terribly long to the anxious 
 tradesmen, to the plodding porters, to the poor little 
 man inside the stove, as he kept sinking and rising, 
 sinking and rising, with each of their steps. 
 
 Where they were going he had no idea, only 
 after a very long time he lost the sense of the fresh 
 icy wind blowing on his face through the brass- 
 work above, and felt by their movements beneath 
 him that they were mounting steps or stairs. Then 
 he heard a great many different voices, but he could 
 not understand what was being said. He felt that 
 his bearers paused some time, then moved on and on 
 again. Their feet went so softly he thought they 
 must be moving on carpet, and as he felt a warm air 
 come to him he concluded that he was in some 
 heated chambers, for he was a clever little fellow, and 
 could put two and two together, though he was so 
 hungry and so thirsty and his empty stomach felt 
 so strangely. They must have gone, he thought, 
 through some very great number of rooms, for they 
 walked so long on and on, on and on. At last the 
 
68 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 stove was set down again, and, happily for him, set 
 so that his feet were downward. 
 
 What he fancied was that he was in some 
 museum, like that which he had seen in the city of 
 Innspruck. 
 
 The voices he heard were very hushed, and the 
 steps seemed to go away, far away, leaving him alone 
 with Hirschvogel. He dared not look out, but he 
 peeped through the brass-work, and all he could see 
 was a big carved lion's head in ivory, with a gold 
 crown atop. It belonged to a velvet fauteuil, but he 
 could not see the chair, only the ivory lion. 
 
 There was a delicious fragrance in the air ; a frag- 
 rance as of flowers. ' Only how can it be flowers ? ' 
 thought August. ' It is November!' 
 
 From afar off, as it seemed, there came a dreamy, 
 exquisite music, as sweet as the spinnet's had been, 
 but so much fuller, so much richer, seeming as though 
 a chorus of angels were singing all together. August 
 ceased to think of the museum ; he thought of 
 heaven. 'Are we gone to the Master?' he thought, 
 remembering the words of Hirschvogel. 
 
 All was so still around him ; there was no sound 
 anywhere except the sound of the far-off choral 
 music. 
 
 He did not know it, but he was in the royal castle 
 of Berg, and the music he heard was the music of 
 Wao-ner, who was playing in a distant room some of 
 the motives of ParsivaL 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 69 
 
 Presently he heard a fresh step near him, and he 
 heard a low voice say, close beside him, ' So ! ' An 
 exclamation no doubt, he thought, of admiration and 
 wonder at the beauty of Hirschvogel. 
 
 Then the same voice said, after a long pause, 
 during which no doubt, as August thought, this new- 
 comer was examining all the details of the wondrous 
 fire-tower : ' It was well bought ; it is exceedingly 
 beautiful! It is most undoubtedly the work of 
 Augfustin Hirschvogel.' 
 
 Then the hand of the speaker turned the round 
 handle of the brass door, and the fainting soul of the 
 poor little prisoner within grew sick with fear. 
 
 The handle turned, the door was slowly drawn 
 open, someone bent down and looked in, and the same 
 voice that he had heard in praise of its beauty called 
 aloud in surprise, ' What is this in it ? A live 
 child ! ' 
 
 Then August, terrified beyond all self control, and 
 dominated by one master-passion, sprang out of the 
 body of the stove and fell at the feet of the speaker. 
 
 ' Oh, let me stay ! Pray, meinherr, let me stay!' 
 he sobbed. ' I have come all the way with Hirsch- 
 vogel ! ' 
 
 Some gentlemen's hands seized him, not gently 
 by any means, and their lips angrily muttered in 
 his ear, ' Little knave, peace, be quiet, hold your 
 tongue ! It is the king ! ' 
 
 They were about to drag him out of the august 
 
70 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 atmosphere as if he had been some venomous, 
 dangerous beast come there to slay, but the voice 
 he had heard speak of the stove said in kind accents, 
 ' Poor little child ! he is very young. Let him go ; 
 let him speak to me.' 
 
 The word of a king is law to his courtiers ; so, 
 sorely against their wish, the angry and astonished 
 chamberlains let August slide out of their grasp, and 
 he stood there in his little rough sheepskin coat and 
 his thick, mud-covered boots, with his curling- hair 
 all in a tangle, in the midst of the most beautiful 
 chamber he had ever dreamed of, and in the presence 
 of a young man with a beautiful dark face, and eyes 
 full of dreams and fire : and the young man said to 
 him : 
 
 ' My child, how came you here, hidden in this 
 stove ? Be not afraid ; tell me the truth. I am 
 the king.' 
 
 August in an instinct of homage cast his great 
 battered black hat with the tarnished gold tassels 
 down on the floor of the room, and folded his little 
 brown hands in supplication. He was too intensely 
 in earnest to be in any way abashed ; he was too 
 lifted out of himself by his love for Hirschvogel to 
 be conscious of any awe before any earthly majesty. 
 He was only so glad — so glad it was the king. 
 Kings were always kind; so the Tirolese think, who 
 love their lords. 
 
 ' Oh, dear king ! ' he said with trembling en- 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 71 
 
 treaty in his faint little voice, ' Hirschvogel was 
 ours, and we have loved it all our lives ; and father 
 sold it. And when I saw that it did really go from 
 us, then I said to myself I would go with it ; and I 
 have come all the way inside it. And last night it 
 spoke and said beautiful things. And I do pray you 
 to let me live with it, and I will go out every morn- 
 ing and cut wood for it and you, if only you will let 
 me stay beside it. No one ever has fed it with fuel 
 but me since I grew big enough, and it loves me — it 
 does indeed ; it said so last night ; and it said that it 
 had been happier with us than if it were in any 
 palace ' 
 
 And then his breath failed him, and as he lifted 
 his little eager, pale face to the young king's great 
 tears were falling down his cheeks. 
 
 Now the king likes all poetic and uncommon 
 things, and there was that in the child's face which 
 pleased and touched him. He motioned to his 
 gentlemen to leave the little boy alone. 
 
 ' What is your name ? ' he asked him. 
 
 ' I am August Strehla. My father is Hans Strehla. 
 We live in Hall, in the Innthal ; and Hirschvogel 
 has been ours so long — so long ! ' 
 
 His lips quivered with a broken sob. 
 
 ' And have you truly travelled inside this stove 
 all the way from Tirol ? ' 
 
 ' Yes,' said August ; ' no one thought to look in 
 side till you did.' 
 
72 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 The king laughed ; then another view of the 
 matter occurred to him. 
 
 1 Who bought the stove of your father ? ' he in- 
 quired. 
 
 ' Traders of Munich,' said August, who did not 
 know that he ought not to have spoken to the king 
 as to a simple citizen, and whose little brain was 
 whirling and spinning dizzily round its one central 
 idea. 
 
 ' What sum did they pay your father, do you 
 know ? . ' asked the sovereign. 
 
 ' Two hundred florins,' said August with a great 
 sigh of shame. ' It was so much money, and he is so 
 poor, and there are so many of us.' 
 
 The king turned to his gentlemen-in-waiting. 
 ' Did these dealers of Munich come with the stove?' 
 
 He was answered in the affirmative. He desired 
 them to be sought for and brought before him. As 
 one of his chamberlains hastened on the errand the 
 monarch looked at August with compassion. 
 
 ' You are very pale, little fellow ; when did you 
 eat last ? ' 
 
 ' I had some bread and sausage with me ; yester- 
 day afternoon I finished it.' 
 
 1 You would like to eat now ? ' 
 
 ' If I might have a little water I would be glad ; 
 my throat is very dry.' 
 
 The king had water and wine brought for him, 
 and cake also ; but August, though he drank eagerly, 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 73 
 
 could not swallow anything. His mind was in too 
 great a tumult. 
 
 4 May I stay with Hirschvogel — may I stay ?' he 
 said with feverish agitation. 
 
 ' Wait a little,' said the king, and asked abruptly, 
 * What do you wish to be when you are a man ? ' 
 
 ' A painter. I wish to be what Hirschvogel 
 was — I mean the master that made my Hirsch- 
 vogel.' 
 
 ' I understand,' said the king. 
 
 Then the two dealers were brought into their 
 sovereign's presence. They were so terribly 
 alarmed, not being either so innocent or so ignorant 
 as August was, that they were trembling as though 
 they were being led to the slaughter, and they were 
 so utterly astonished too at a child having come all 
 the way from Tirol in the stove, as a gentleman of 
 the court had just told them this child had done, that 
 they could not tell what to say or where to look, and 
 presented a very foolish aspect indeed. 
 
 ' Did you buy this Ntirnberg stove of this little 
 boy's father for two hundred florins ? ' the king 
 asked them ; and his voice was no longer soft and 
 kind as it had been when addressing the child, but 
 very stern. 
 
 1 Yes, your Majesty,' murmured the trembling 
 traders. 
 
 ' And how much did the gentleman who pur- 
 chased it for me give to you ? ' 
 
74 THE NURXBERG STOVE. 
 
 ' Two thousand ducats, your Majesty,' muttered 
 the dealers, frightened out of their wits, and telling - 
 the truth in their fright. 
 
 The gentleman was not present ; he was a trusted 
 counsellor in art matters of the king's, and often made 
 purchases for him, 
 
 The king smiled a little, and said nothing. The 
 gentleman had made out the price to him as eleven 
 thousand ducats. 
 
 ' You will give at once to this boy's father the two 
 thousand gold ducats that you received, less the two 
 hundred Austrian florins that you paid him,' said the 
 king to his humiliated and abject subjects. ' You 
 are great rogues. Be thankful you are not more 
 greatly punished.' 
 
 He dismissed them by a sign to his courtiers, 
 and to one of these gave the mission of making 
 the dealers of the Marionplatz disgorge their ill- 
 gotten gains. 
 
 August heard, and felt dazzled yet miserable. 
 Two thousand gold Bavarian ducats for his father ! 
 Why his father would never need to go any more to 
 the salt-baking ! And yet whether for ducats or for 
 florins Hirschvogel was sold just the same, and would 
 the king let him stay with it — would he ? 
 
 ' Oh, do ! oh, please do ! ' he murmured, joining 
 his little brown weather-stained hands, and kneeling 
 down before the young monarch, who himself stood 
 absorbed in painful thought, for the deception so 
 
THE NURNBERG STOVE. 75 
 
 basely practised for the greedy sake of gain on him 
 by a trusted counsellor was bitter to him. 
 
 He looked down on the child, and as he did so 
 smiled once more. 
 
 ' Rise up, my little man,' he said in a kind voice ; 
 ' kneel only to your God. Will I let you stay with 
 your Hirschvogel ? Yes, I will ; you shall stay at my 
 court, and you shall be taught to be a painter — in oils 
 or on porcelain as you will — and you must grow up 
 worthily, and win all the laurels at our Schools of Art, 
 and if when you are twenty-one years old you have 
 done well and bravely, then I will give you your 
 Nurnberg stove, or if I am no more living, then 
 those who reign after me shall do so. And now go 
 away with this gentleman, and be not afraid, and 
 you shall light a fire every morning in Hirschvogel, 
 but you will not need to go out and cut the wood.' 
 
 Then he smiled and stretched out his hand ; the 
 courtiers tried to make August understand that he 
 ought to bow and touch it with his lips, but August 
 could not understand that anyhow, he was too happy. 
 He threw his two arms about the king's knees, and 
 kissed his feet passionately ; then he lost all sense of 
 where he was, and fainted away from hunger, and tire, 
 and emotion, and wondrous joy. 
 
 As the darkness of his swoon closed in on him, 
 he heard in his fancy the voice from Hirschvogel 
 saying : 
 
 ' Let us be worthy our maker ! ' 
 
76 THE NURNBERG STOVE. 
 
 He is only a scholar yet, but he is a happy 
 scholar, and promises to be a great man. Some- 
 times he goes back for a few days to Hall, where 
 the gold ducats have made his father prosperous. In 
 the old house-room there is a large white porcelain 
 stove of Munich, the king's gift to Dorothea and 
 'Gilda. 
 
 And August never goes home without going into 
 the great church and saying his thanks to God, who 
 blessed his strange winter's journey in the Niirnberg 
 stove. As for his dream in the dealers' room that 
 night, he will never admit that he did dream it ; he 
 still declares that he saw it all, and heard the voice of 
 Hirschvogel. And who shall say that he did not ? 
 for what is the gift of the poet and the artist except 
 to see the sights which others cannot see and to hear 
 the sounds that others cannot hear ? 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 HE was a Ouatre Saison Rose-tree. 
 
 She lived in a beautiful old garden with 
 some charming magnolias for neighbours ; 
 they rather over-shadowed her certainly, because 
 they were so very great and grand ; but then, such 
 shadow as that is preferable, as everyone knows, 
 to a mere vulgar enjoyment of common daylight, 
 and then the beetles went most to the magnolia 
 blossoms, for being so great and grand of course 
 they got very much preyed upon, and this was a 
 vast gain for the rose that was near them. She 
 herself leaned against the wall of an orange-house, in 
 company with a Banksia, a buoyant, active, simple- 
 minded thing, for whom Rosa Damascena, who 
 thought herself much better born than these climbers, 
 had a natural contempt. Banksise will flourish and 
 be content anywhere, they are such easily-pleased 
 
78 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 creatures ; and when you cut them they thrive on it, 
 which shows a very plebeian and pachydermatous 
 temper ; and they laugh all over in the face of an 
 April day, shaking their little golden clusters of 
 blossom in such a merry way that the Rose-tree, who 
 was herself very reserved and thorny, had really 
 scruples about speaking to them. 
 
 For she was by nature extremely proud — much 
 prouder than her lineage warranted — and a hard fate 
 had fixed her to the wall of an orangery, where 
 hardly anybody ever came, except the gardener and 
 his men to carry the oranges in in winter and out in 
 spring, or water and tend them whilst they were 
 housed there. 
 
 She was a handsome rose, and she knew it. But 
 the garden was so crowded — like the world — that 
 she could not get herself noticed in it. In vain was 
 she radiant and red, close on to Christmas time as in 
 the fullest heats of midsummer. Nobody thought 
 about her or praised her. She pined and was very 
 unhappy. 
 
 The Banksiae, who are little, frank, honest-hearted 
 creatures, and say out what they think, as such 
 plebeian people will, used to tell her roundly she 
 was thankless for the supreme excellence of her 
 lot. 
 
 1 You have everything the soul of a rose can wish 
 for : a splendid old wall with no nasty chinks in it ; 
 a careful gardener, who nips all the larvae in the 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 79 
 
 bud before they can do you any damage ; sun, water, 
 care, above all nobody ever cuts a single blossom 
 off you ! What more can you wish for ? This 
 orangery is paradise ! ' 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 What wounded her pride so deeply was just this 
 fact : that they never did cut off any of her blossoms. 
 When day after day, year after year, she crowned 
 herself with her rich crimson glory and no one ever 
 came nigh to behold or to gather it, she could have 
 died with vexation and humiliation. 
 
 Would nobody see she was worth anything ? 
 
 The truth was that in this garden there was such 
 an abundance of very rare roses, that a common 
 though beautiful one like Rosa Damascena remained 
 unthought of ; she was lovely, but then there were so 
 many lovelier still, or, at least, much more a la mode. 
 
 In the secluded garden corner she suffered all 
 the agonies of a pretty woman in the great world, 
 who is only a pretty woman and no more. It needs 
 so very much more to be ' somebody.' To be some- 
 body was what Rosa Damascena sighed for, from rosy 
 dawn to rosier sunset. 
 
 From her wall she could see across the green 
 lawns, the great parterre which spread before the 
 house terrace, and all the great roses that bloomed 
 there — Her Majesty of Gloire de Dijon, who was 
 a reigning sovereign born; the royally-born Ni- 
 phetos, the Princesse Adelaide, the Comtesse 
 
80 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 Ouvaroff, the Vicomtesse de Cazes all in gold, 
 Madame de Sombreuil in snowy white, the beau- 
 tiful Louise de Savoie, the exquisite Duchess of 
 Devoniensis, all the roses that were great ladies 
 in their own right, and as far off her as were the 
 stars that hung in heaven. Rosa Damascena. would 
 have given all her brilliant carnation hues to be pale 
 and yellow like the Princesse Adelaide, or delicately 
 colourless like her Grace of Devoniensis. 
 
 She tried all she could to lose her own warm 
 blushes, and prayed that bees might sting her and 
 so change her hues ; but the bees were of low taste 
 and kept their pearl-powder and rouge and other pig- 
 ments for the use of common flowers, like the evening 
 primrose or the buttercup and borage, and never came 
 near to do her any good in arts of toilette. 
 
 One day the gardener approached and stood and 
 looked at her : then all at once she felt a sharp stab 
 in her from his knife, and a vivid pain ran downward 
 through her stem. 
 
 She did not know it, but gardeners and gods 
 ' this way grant prayer.' 
 
 1 Has not something happened to me?' she asked 
 of the little Banksise ; for she felt very odd all over 
 her ; and when you are unwell you cannot be very 
 haughty. 
 
 The saucy Banksiae laughed, running over their 
 wires that they cling to like little children. 
 
 4 You have got your wish,' they said. ' You are 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. Si 
 
 going to be a great lady ; they have made you into a 
 Rosa-indica ! ' 
 
 A tea-rose ! Was it possible ? 
 
 Was she going to belong at last to that grand 
 and graceful order, which she had envied so long 
 and vainly from afar ? 
 
 Was she, indeed, no more mere simple Rosa 
 Damascena ? She felt so happy she could hardly 
 breathe. She thought it was her happiness that 
 stifled her ; in real matter of fact it was the tight 
 bands in which the gardener had bound her. 
 
 ' Oh, what joy ! ' she thought, though she still 
 felt very uncomfortable, but not for the world would 
 she ever have admitted it to the Banksis. 
 
 The gardener had tied a tin tube on to her, and 
 it was heavy and cumbersome ; but no doubt she 
 said to herself the thing was fashionable, so she bore 
 the burden of it very cheerfully. 
 
 The Banksise asked her how she felt ; but she 
 would not deign even to reply ; and when a friendly 
 blackbird, who had often picked grubs off her leaves, 
 came and sang to her, she kept silent — a Rosa- 
 indica was far above a blackbird. 
 
 ' Next time you want a caterpillar taken away, 
 he may eat you for me ! ' said the blackbird, and flew 
 off in a huff. 
 
 She was very ungrateful to hate the blackbird so, 
 for he had been most useful to her in doing to death 
 all the larvse of worms and beetles and caterpillars 
 
 G 
 
S2 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 and other destroyers which were laid treacherously 
 within her leaves. The good blackbird, with many 
 another feathered friend, was for ever at work in 
 some good deed of the kind, arid all the good, grate- 
 ful flowers loved him and his race. But to this 
 terribly proud and discontented Rosa Damascena he 
 had been a bore, a common creature, a nuisance, a 
 monster; any one of these things by turns, and some- 
 times all of them altogether. She used to long for 
 the cat to get him. 
 
 ' You ought to be such a happy rose ! ' the merle 
 had said to her one day. ' There is no rose so 
 strong and healthy as you are, except the briars.' 
 
 And from that day she had hated him. The idea 
 of naming those hedgerow briar roses in the same 
 breath with her ! 
 
 You would have seen in that moment of her ra°:e 
 a very funny sight had you been there ; nothing less 
 funny than a rose-tree trying to box a blackbird's 
 ears ! 
 
 But to be sure you would only have thought the 
 wind was blowing about the rose, so you would have 
 seen nothing really of the drollery of it all, which 
 was not droll at all to Rosa Damascena, for a wound 
 in one's vanity is as long healing as a wound from a 
 conical bullet in one's body. The blackbird had not 
 gone near her after that, nor any of his relations and 
 friends, and she had had a great many shooting and 
 flying pains for months together, in consequence of 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. S3 
 
 aphidse eggs having been laid inside her stem ; eggs of 
 which the birds would have eased her long before if 
 they had not been driven away by her haughty rage. 
 
 However, she had been almost glad to have some 
 ailment. She had called it aneurism, and believed it 
 made her look refined and interesting. If it would 
 only have made her pale ! But it had not done that ; 
 she had remained of the richest rose colour. 
 
 When the winter had passed and the summer had 
 come round again, the grafting had done its work : 
 she was really a Rosa-indica, and timidly put forth 
 the first blossom in her new estate. It was a small, 
 rather puny yellowish thing, not to be compared to her 
 own natural red clusters, but she thought it far finer. 
 
 Scarcely had it been put forth by her than the 
 gardener whipped it off with his knife, and bore it 
 away in proof of his success in such transmogri- 
 fications. 
 
 She had never felt the knife before, when she had 
 been only Rosa Damascena : it hurt her very much, 
 and her heart bled. 
 
 ' II faut souffrir pour etre belle,' said the Bank- 
 sias in a good-natured effort at consolation. She was 
 not going to answer them, and she made believe 
 that her tears were only dew, though it was high 
 noon and all the dewdrops had been drunk by the 
 sun, who by noon time gets tired of climbing and 
 grows thirsty. 
 
 Her next essay was much finer, and the knife 
 
8 4 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 whipped that off also. That summer she bore more 
 and more blossoms, and always the knife cut them 
 away, for she had been made one of the great race 
 of Rosa-indica. 
 
 Now a rose-tree, when a blossom is chopped or 
 broken off, suffers precisely as we human mortals do 
 if we lose a finger ; but the rose-tree, being a much 
 more perfect and delicate handiwork of nature than 
 any human being, has a faculty we have not : it lives 
 and has a sentient soul in every one of its roses, and 
 whatever one of these endures the tree entire endures 
 also by sympathy. You think this very wonderful ? 
 Not at all. It is no whit more wonderful than that a 
 lizard's tail chopped off runs about by itself, or that a 
 doe can scent a foe or a thief whilst the foe or the thief 
 is yet miles away. All these things are most wonder- 
 ful, or not at all so — just as you like. 
 
 In a little while she bore another child — this 
 time it was a fine fair creature, quite perfect in its 
 hues and shapes. ' I never saw a prettier ! ' said an 
 emperor butterfly, pausing near for a moment ; at 
 that moment the knife of the gardener severed the 
 rosebud's stalk. 
 
 ' The lady wants one for her bouquet de corsage ; 
 she goes to the Opera to-night,' the man said to 
 another man, as he took the young tea-rose. 
 
 ' What is the Opera ? ' asked the mother-rose 
 wearily of the butterfly. He did not know ; but his 
 cousin the death's-head moth, asleep under a 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 85 
 
 magnolia leaf, looked down with a grim smile on his 
 quaint face. 
 
 'It is where everything dies in ten seconds,' 
 he answered. 'It is a circle of fire ; many friends 
 of mine have flown in, none ever returned ; your 
 daughter will shrivel up and perish miserably. One 
 pays for glory.' 
 
 The rose-tree shivered through all her stalks ; 
 but she was still proud, and tried to think that all 
 this was said only out of envy. What should an old 
 death's-head moth know, whose eyes were so weak 
 that a farthing rushlight blinded them ? 
 
 So she lifted herself a little higher, and would 
 not even see that the Banksiae were nodding to her ; 
 and as for her old friend the blackbird, how vulgar 
 he looked, bobbing up and down hunting worms 
 and woodlice ; could anything be more outrageously 
 vulgar than that staring yellow beak of his ? She 
 twisted herself round not to see him, and felt quite 
 annoyed that he went on and sang just the same, 
 unconscious of, or indifferent to, her coldness. 
 
 With each successive summer Rosa Damascena 
 became more integrally and absolutely a Rosa- 
 indica, and suffered in proportion to her fashion and 
 fame. 
 
 True, people came continually to look at her, and 
 especially in May time would cry aloud, 'What a 
 beautiful Niphetos!' But then she was bereaved 
 of all her offspring, for being of the race of Ni- 
 
36 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 phetos they were precious, and one would go to 
 die in an hour in a hot ball-room, and another to 
 perish in a Sevres vase, where the china indeed was 
 exquisite but the water was foul, and others went 
 to be suffocated in the vicious gases of what the 
 mortals called an opera-box, and others were pressed 
 to death behind hard diamonds in a woman's 
 bosom ; in one way or another they each and all 
 perished miserably. She herself also lost many of 
 her once luxuriant leaves, and had a little scanty 
 foliage, red-brown in summer, instead of the thick, 
 dark-green clothing that she had worn when a rustic 
 maiden. Not a day passed but the knife stabbed 
 her ; when the knife had nothing to take she was 
 barren and chilly, for she had lost the happy power 
 of looking beautiful all the year round which once 
 she had possessed. 
 
 One day came when she was taken up out of the 
 ground and borne into a glass house, placed in a 
 large pot and lifted up on to a pedestal, and left 
 in a delicious atmosphere, with patrician plants all 
 around her with long Latin names, and strange, rare 
 beauties of their own. She bore bud after bud in 
 this crystal temple, and became a very crown of 
 blossom ; and her spirit grew so elated, and her 
 vanity so supreme, that she ceased to remember 
 she had ever been a simple Rosa Damascena, except 
 that she was always saying to herself, ' How great 
 I am ! how great I am ! ' which she might have 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 87 
 
 noticed that those born ladies, the Devoniensis and 
 the Louise de Savoies, never did. But she noticed 
 nothing except her own beauty, which she could see 
 in a mirror that was let into the opposite wall of the 
 greenhouse. Her blossoms were many and all 
 quite perfect, and no knife touched them ; and 
 though to be sure she was still very scantily clothed 
 so far as foliage went, yet she was all the more 
 fashionable for that, so what did it matter ? 
 
 One day, when her beauty was at its fullest 
 perfection, she heard all the flowers about her 
 bending and whispering with rustling and murmur- 
 ing, saying, ' Who will be chosen ? who will be 
 chosen ? ' 
 
 Chosen for what ? 
 
 They did not talk much to her, because she was 
 but a new comer and a parvenue, but she gathered 
 from them in a little time that there was to be a 
 ball for a marriage festivity at the house to which 
 the greenhouse was attached. Each flower won- 
 dered if it would be chosen to go to it. The azaleas 
 knew they would go because they were in their 
 pink or rose ball-dresses all ready, but no one else 
 was sure. The rose-tree grew quite sick and faint 
 with hope and fear. Unless she went, she felt that 
 life was not worth the living. She had no idea 
 what a ball might be, but she knew that it was 
 another form of greatness, when she was all ready, 
 too, and so beautiful ! 
 
88 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 The gardener came and sauntered down the 
 glass house, glancing from one to another. The 
 hearts of all beat high. The azaleas only never 
 changed colour, they were quite sure of themselves. 
 Who could do without them in February ? 
 
 ' Oh, take me ! take me ! take me ! ' prayed the 
 rose-tree, in her foolish, lonmnof, arrogant heart. 
 
 Her wish was given her. The lord of their fates 
 smiled when he came to where she stood. 
 
 ' This shall be for the place of honour,' he mur- 
 mured, and he lifted her out of the large vase she 
 lived in on to a trestle and summoned his boys to 
 bear her away. The very azaleas themselves grew 
 pale with envy ! 
 
 As for the rose-tree herself she would not look 
 at anyone ; she was carried through the old garden 
 straight past the Banksiae, but she would make 
 them no sign, and as for the blackbird — she hoped 
 a cat had eaten him ! Had he not known her as 
 Rosa Damascena ? 
 
 She was borne bodily, roots and all, carefully 
 wrapped up in soft matting, and taken into the 
 great house. 
 
 It was a very great house, a very grand house, 
 and there was to be a marvellous feast in it, and a 
 prince and princess from over the seas were that night 
 to honour the mistress of it by their presence. All 
 this Rosa-indica had gathered from the chatter of 
 the flowers, and when she came into the big palace 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 89 
 
 she saw many signs of excitement and confusion : 
 servants out of livery were running up against one 
 another in their hurry-scurry ; miles and miles, it 
 seemed, of crimson carpeting were being unrolled 
 all along the terrace and down the terrace steps, 
 since by some peculiar but general impression royal 
 personages are supposed not to like to walk upon 
 anything else, though myself I think they must get 
 quite sick of red carpet, seeing so very much of it 
 spread for them wherever they go. To Rosa-indica, 
 however, the bright scarlet carpeting looked very 
 handsome, and seemed, indeed, a foretaste of heaven. 
 Soon she was carried quite inside the house into an 
 immense room with a beautiful dome-shaped ceiling, 
 painted in fresco three centuries before, and fresh as 
 though it had been painted yesterday. At the end 
 of the room was a great chair, gilded and painted, 
 too, three centuries before, and covered with velvet, 
 gold-fringed and powdered with golden grasshoppers. 
 ' That common insect here ! ' thought Rosa in sur- 
 prise, for she did not know that the chief of the 
 house, long, long, long ago, when sleeping in the 
 heat of noon in Palestine in the first crusade, had 
 been awakened by a grasshopper lighting on his 
 eyelids, and so had been aroused in time to put on 
 his armour and do battle with a troop attacking 
 Saracen cavalry, and beat them ; wherefore, in grati- 
 tude, he had taken the humble field creature as his 
 badge for evermore. 
 
9 o THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 They set the roots of Rosa-indica now into a vase 
 — such a vase ! the royal blue of Sevres, if you please, 
 and with border and scroll work and all kinds of 
 wonders and glories painted on it and gilded on it, 
 and standing four feet hisrh if it stood one inch ! I 
 could never tell you the feelings of Rosa if I wrote 
 a thousand pages. Her heart thrilled so with ecstasy 
 that she almost dropped all her petals, only her 
 vanity came to her aid, and helped her to control in 
 a measure her emotions. The gardeners broke off a 
 good deal of mould about her roots, and they mut- 
 tered one to another something about her dying of 
 it. But Rosa thought no more of that than a pretty 
 lady does when her physician tells her she will die 
 of tight lacing ; not she ! She was going to be put 
 into that Sevres vase. 
 
 This was enough for her, as it is enough for the 
 lady that she is going to be put into a hundred- 
 guinea ball-gown. 
 
 In she went. It was certainly a tight fit, as the 
 gown often is, and Rosa felt nipped, strained, bruised, 
 suffocated. But an old proverb has settled long ago 
 that pride feels no pain, and perhaps the more foolish 
 the pride the less is the pain that is felt — for the 
 moment. 
 
 They set her well into the vase, putting green 
 moss over her roots, and then they stretched her 
 branches out over a gilded trellis-work at the back 
 of the vase. And very beautiful she looked ; and 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 91 
 
 she was at the head of the room, and a huge mirror 
 down at the farther end opposite to her showed her 
 own reflection. She was in paradise ! 
 
 ' At last,' she thought to herself, ' at last they 
 have done me justice ! ' 
 
 The azaleas were all crowded round underneath 
 her like so many kneeling courtiers, but they were 
 not taken out of their pots ; they were only shrouded 
 in moss. They had no Sevres vases. And they 
 had always thought so much of themselves and given 
 themselves such airs, for there is nothing so vain 
 as an azalea — except, indeed, a camellia — which is 
 the most conceited flower in the world, though, to 
 do it justice, it is also the most industrious, for it is 
 busy getting ready its next winter buds whilst the 
 summer is still hot and broad on the land, which 
 is very wise and prudent in it and much to be com- 
 mended. 
 
 Well, there was Rosa-indica at the head of the 
 room in the Sevres vase, and very proud and 
 triumphant she felt throned there, and the azaleas, 
 of course, were whispering enviously underneath her, 
 ' Well, after all she was only Rosa Damascena not 
 so very long ago.' 
 
 Yes, they knew ! What a pity it was ! They 
 knew she had once been Rosa Damascena and never 
 would wash it out of their minds — the tiresome, 
 spiteful, malignant creatures ! 
 
 Even aloft in the vase, in all her glory, the rose 
 
92 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 could have shed tears of mortification, and was ready 
 to cry, like Themistocles, ' Can nobody give us 
 oblivion ? ' 
 
 Nobody could give that, for the azaleas, who were 
 so irritated at being below her, were not at all likely 
 to hold their tongues. But she had great consola- 
 tions and triumphs, and began to believe that, let 
 them say what they chose, she had never been a 
 common garden-wall rose. The ladies of the house 
 came in and praised her to the skies ; the children 
 ran up to her and clapped their hands and shouted 
 for joy at her beauty ; a wonderful big green bird 
 came in and hopped before her, cocked his head 
 on one side, and said to her, ' Pretty Poll ! oh such 
 a pretty Poll ! ' 
 
 ' Even the birds adore me here ! ' she thought, 
 not dreaming he was only talking of himself; for 
 when you are as vain as was this poor dear Rosa 
 creation is pervaded with your own perfections, and 
 even when other people say only ' Poll ! ' you feel 
 sure they are saying ' You ! ' or they ought to be if 
 they are not. 
 
 So there she stood in her grand Sevres pot, and 
 she was ready to cry with the poet, ' the world 
 may end to-night ! ' Alas ! it was not the world 
 which was to end. Let me hasten to close this true 
 heartrending history. 
 
 There was a great dinner as the sun began to 
 set, and the mistress of the house came in on the 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 93 
 
 arm of the great foreign prince ; and what did the 
 foreign prince do but look up at Rosa, straight up 
 at her, and over the heads of the azaleas, and say to 
 his hostess, ' What a beautiful rose you have there ! 
 A Niphetos is it not ? ' 
 
 And her mistress, who had known her long as 
 simple Rosa Damascena, answered, ' Yes, sir ; it is a 
 Niphetos.' 
 
 Oh to have lived for that hour ! The silly thing 
 thought it worth all her suffering from the gardener's 
 knife, all the loss of her robust health and delightful 
 power of flowering in all four seasons. She was a 
 Niphetos — really and truly a Niphetos ! and not one 
 syllable hinted as to her origin ! She began to 
 believe she had been born a tea-rose ! 
 
 The dinner was long and gorgeous ; the guests 
 were dazzling in jewels and in decorations ; the 
 table was loaded with old plate and rare china, the 
 prince made a speech and used her as a simile of love 
 and joy and purity and peace. The rose felt giddy 
 with triumph and with the fumes of the wines around 
 her. Her vase was of purple and gold, and all the 
 voices round her said, ' Oh, the beautiful rose ! ' 
 No one noticed the azaleas. How she wished that 
 the blackbird could see for a minute, if the cat 
 would gobble him up the next ! 
 
 The day sped on ; the chatelaine and her guests 
 went away ; the table was re-arranged ; the rose-tree 
 was left in its place of honour ; the lights were lit ; 
 
94 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 there was the sound of music near at hand ; they 
 were dancing in other chambers. 
 
 Above her hung a chandelier ; a circle of in- 
 numerable little flames and drops that looked like 
 dew or diamonds. She thought it was the sun come 
 very close. After it had been there a little while it 
 grew very hot, and its rays hurt her. 
 
 ' Can you not go a little farther away, oh Sun ? ' 
 she said to it. It was flattered at being:' taken for 
 the sun, but answered her, ' I am fixed in my place. 
 Do you not understand astronomy ? ' 
 
 She did not know what astronomy was, so was 
 silent, and the heat hurt her. Still she was in the 
 place of honour, so she was happy. 
 
 People came and went ; but nobody noticed her. 
 They ate and drank ; they laughed and made love, and 
 then went away to dance again, and the music went 
 on all night long, and all night long the heat of the 
 chandelier poured down on her. 
 
 ' I am in the place of honour,' she said to her 
 self a thousand times in each hour. 
 
 But the heat scorched her, and the fumes of 
 the wines made her faint. She thought of the sweet 
 fresh air of the old garden where the Banksiae were. 
 The garden was quite near, but the windows were 
 closed, and there were the walls now between her 
 and it. She was in the place of honour. But she 
 grew sick and waxed faint as the burning rays of the 
 artificial light shining above her seemed to pierce 
 
THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 95 
 
 through and through her like lances of steel. The 
 night seemed very long. She was tired. 
 
 She was erect there on her Sevres throne, with 
 the light thrilling and throbbing upon her in every 
 point. But she thought of the sweet, dark, fresh 
 niehts in the old home where the blackbird had 
 slept, and she longed for them. 
 
 The dancers came and went, the music thrummed 
 and screamed, the laughter was both near and far ; 
 the rose-tree was amidst it all. Yet she felt alone — 
 all alone ! as travellers may feel in a desert. Hour 
 succeeded hour ; the night wore on apace ; the 
 dancers ceased to come ; the music ceased, too ; the 
 light still burned down upon her, and the scorching 
 fever of it consumed her like fire. 
 
 Then there came silence — entire silence. Servants 
 came round and put out all the lights — hundreds and 
 hundreds of lights — quickly one by one. Other ser- 
 vants went to the windows and threw them wide open 
 to let out the fumes of wine. Without, the night was 
 changing into the grey that tells of earliest dawn. 
 But it was a bitter frost ; the grass was white with 
 it ; the air was ice. In the great darkness that had 
 now fallen on all the scene this deadly cold came 
 around the rose-tree and wrapped her in it as in a 
 shroud. 
 
 She shivered from head to foot. 
 The cruel glacial coldness crept into the hot 
 banquetting chamber, and moved round it in white, 
 
96 THE AMBITIOUS ROSE-TREE. 
 
 misty circles, like steam, like ghosts of the gay- 
 guests that had gone. All was dark and chill ; dark 
 and chill as any grave ! 
 
 What worth was the place of honour now ? 
 
 Was this the place of honour ? 
 
 The rose-tree swooned and drooped ! A servant's 
 rough hand shook down its worn beauty into a heap 
 of fallen leaves. When they carried her out dead in 
 the morning the little Banksia-buds, safe hidden from 
 the frost within their stems, waiting to come forth 
 when the summer should come, murmured to one 
 another : 
 
 ' She had her wish ; she was great. This way 
 the gods grant foolish prayers, and punish dis- 
 content ! ' 
 

 1 
 
 
 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 OUFFLOU'S masters were some boys and 
 girls. They were very poor, but they 
 were very merry. They lived in an 
 old dark, tumble-down place, and their father had 
 been dead five years ; their mother's care was all 
 they knew ; and Tasso was the eldest of them 
 all, a lad of nearly twenty, and he was so kind, so 
 good, so laborious, so cheerful, and so gentle, that 
 the children all younger than he adored him. Tasso 
 was a gardener. Tasso, however, though the eldest 
 and mainly the bread-winner, was not so much 
 Moufflou's master as was little Romolo, who was 
 only ten, and a cripple. Romolo, called generally 
 Lolo, had taught Moufflou all he knew ; and that all 
 was a very great deal, for nothing cleverer than was 
 Moufflou had ever walked upon four legs. 
 Why Moufflou ? 
 
 H 
 
9 8 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 Well, when the poodle had been given to them 
 by a soldier who was going back to his home in 
 Piedmont, he had been a white woolly creature of 
 a year old, and the children's mother, who was a 
 Corsican by birth, had said that he was just like 
 a Moufflon, as they call sheep in Corsica. White 
 and woolly this dog remained, and he became the 
 handsomest and biggest poodle in all the city, and 
 the corruption of Moufflou from Moufflon remained 
 the name by which he was known ; it was silly 
 perhaps, but it suited him and the children, and 
 Moufflou he was. 
 
 They lived in an old quarter of Florence, in that 
 picturesque zigzag which goes round the grand 
 church of Or San Michele, and which is almost 
 more Venetian than Tuscan in its mingling of colour, 
 charm, stateliness, popular confusion, and architec- 
 tural majesty. The tall old houses are weather- 
 beaten into the most delicious hues ; the pavement 
 is enchantingly encumbered with pedlars and stalls 
 and all kinds of trades going on in the open air, in 
 that bright, merry, beautiful Italian custom which, 
 alas, alas ! is being driven away by new-fangled 
 laws which deem it better for the people to be 
 stuffed up in close, stewing rooms without air, and 
 would fain do away with all the good-tempered 
 politics and the sensible philosophies and the whole- 
 some chatter which the open-street trades and street 
 gossipry encourage, for it is good for the populace 
 
MOUFFLOU. 99 
 
 to sfogare, and in no other way can it do so one half 
 so innocently. Drive it back into musty shops, and 
 it is driven at once to mutter sedition. . . . But 
 you want to hear about Moufflou. 
 
 Well, Moufflou lived here in that hieh house 
 with the sign of the lamb in wrought iron, which 
 shows it was once a warehouse of the old guild of 
 the Arte della Lana. They are all old houses here, 
 drawn round about that grand church which I called 
 once, and will call again, like a mighty casket of 
 oxydised silver. A mighty casket indeed, holding 
 the Holy Spirit within it ; and with the vermilion 
 and the blue and the orange glowing in its niches 
 and its lunettes like enamels, and its statues of the 
 Apostles strong and noble, like the times in which 
 they were created — St. Peter with his keys and 
 St. Mark with his open book, and St. George 
 leaning on his sword, and others also, solemn and 
 austere as they, austere though benign, for do 
 they not guard the White Tabernacle of Orcagna 
 within ? 
 
 The church stands firm as a rock, square as a 
 fortress of stone, and the winds and the waters of 
 the skies may beat about it as they will, they have 
 no power to disturb its sublime repose. Sometimes 
 I think of all the noble things in all our Italy Or 
 San Michele is the noblest, standing there in its 
 stern magnificence, amidst the people's hurrying feet 
 and noisy laughter, a memory of God. 
 
ioo M0UFFL0U. 
 
 The little masters of Moufflou lived right in its 
 shadow, where the bridge of stone spans the space 
 between the houses and the church high in mid-air ; 
 and little Lolo loved the church with a great love. 
 He loved it in the morning time, when the sunbeams 
 turned it into dusky gold and jasper ; he loved it in 
 the evening time, when the lights of its altars glim- 
 mered in the dark, and the scent of its incense came 
 out into the street ; he loved it in the great feasts, 
 when the huge clusters of lilies were borne inside it ; 
 he loved it in the solemn nights of winter ; the 
 flickering gleam of the dull lamps shone on the 
 robes of an apostle, or the sculpture of a shield, 
 or the glow of a casement moulding in majolica. 
 He loved it always and without knowing why he 
 called it la mia chiesa. 
 
 Lolo, being lame and of delicate health, was not 
 enabled to go to school or to work, though he wove 
 the straw covering of wine-flasks and plaited the 
 cane matting with busy fingers. But for the most 
 part he did as he liked, and spent most of his time 
 sitting on the parapet of Or San Michele, watching 
 the vendors of earthenware at their trucks, or 
 trotting with his crutch (and he could trot a good 
 many miles when he chose) out with Mourn 1 ou down 
 a bit of the Stockingmakers' Street, along under 
 the arcades of the Uffizi, and so over the Jewellers' 
 Bridge and out by byeways that he knew into the 
 fields on the hillside upon the other bank of Arno. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 101 
 
 Moufflou and he would spend half the day — all the 
 day — out there in daffodil time ; and Lolo would 
 come home with great bundles and sheaves of golden 
 flowers, and he and Moufflou were happy. 
 
 His mother never liked to say a harsh word to 
 Lolo, for he was lame through her fault : she had 
 let him fall in his babyhood, and the mischief had 
 been done to his hip never again to be undone. So 
 she never raised her voice to him, though she did 
 often to the others ; to curly-pated Cecco, and pretty 
 black-eyed Dina, and saucy Bice, and sturdy Beppo, 
 and even to the good, manly, hardworking Tasso. 
 Tasso was the mainstay of the whole, though he was 
 but a gardener's lad, working in the green Cascine 
 at small wages. But all he earned he brought home 
 to his mother ; and he alone kept in order the lazy, 
 high-tempered Sandro, and he alone kept in check 
 Bice's love of finery, and he alone could with shrewd- 
 ness and care make both ends meet and put minestra 
 always in the pot and bread always in the cupboard. 
 
 When his mother thought, as she thought indeed 
 almost ceaselessly, that with a few months he would 
 be of the age to draw his number, and might draw a 
 high one and be taken from her for three years, the 
 poor soul believed her very heart would burst and 
 break ; and many a day at twilight she would start 
 out unperceived and creep into the great church and 
 pour her soul forth in supplication before the White 
 Tabernacle. 
 
102 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 Yet pray as she would, no miracle could happen 
 to make Tasso free of military service ; if he drew 
 a fatal number go he must, even though he take all 
 the lives of them to their ruin with him. 
 
 One morning Lolo sat as usual on the parapet 
 of the church, Moufflou beside him. It was a 
 brilliant morning in September; the men at the 
 handbarrows and at the stalls were selling the 
 crockery, the silk handkerchiefs, and the straw hats 
 which form the staple of the commerce that goes 
 on round about Or San Michele ; very blithe, 
 good-natured, gay commerce, for the most part 
 not got through, however, of course, without bawl- 
 ing and screaming, and shouting and gesticulating, 
 as if the sale of a penny pipkin or a twopenny pie- 
 pan were the occasion for the exchange of many 
 thousands of pounds sterling, and cause for the 
 whole world's commotion. It was about eleven 
 o'clock ; the poor petitioners were going in for 
 alms to the house of the fraternity of S. Giovanni 
 Baptista ; the barber at the corner was shaving 
 a big man with a cloth tucked about his chin, 
 and his chair set well out on the pavement ; the 
 sellers of the pipkins and piepans were screaming 
 till they were hoarse ' Un soldo Vuno, due soldi tre ! ' 
 big bronze bells were booming till they seemed to 
 clang right up to the deep blue sky ; some brethren 
 of the Misericordia went by bearing a black bier ; 
 a large sheaf of glowing flowers — dahlias, zinnias, 
 
MOUFFLOU. 103 
 
 asters, and daturas — were borne through the huge 
 arched door of the church near St. Mark and his 
 open book. Lolo looked on at it all, and so did 
 Moufflou, and a stranger looked at them as he left 
 the church. 
 
 ' You have a handsome poodle there, my little 
 man,' he said to Lolo, in a foreigner's too distinct 
 and careful Italian. 
 
 ' Moufflou is beautiful,' said Lolo, with pride ; 'you 
 should see him when he is just washed, but we can 
 only wash him on Sundays, because then Tasso is 
 at home.' 
 
 ' How old is your dog ? ' 
 
 ' Three years old.' 
 
 ' Does he do any tricks ? ' 
 
 ' Does he ! ' said Lolo, with a very derisive laugh ; 
 'why, Moufflou can do anything! He can walk on 
 two legs ever so long ; make ready, present, and fire ; 
 die ; waltz ; beg, of course ; shut a door ; make a 
 wheelbarrow of himself ; there is nothing he will not 
 do. Would you like to see him do something ? ' 
 
 ' Very much,' said the foreigner. 
 
 To Moufflou and to Lolo the street was the 
 same thing as home ; this cheery piazzetta by the 
 church, so utterly empty sometimes, and sometimes 
 so noisy and crowded, was but the wider threshold of 
 their home to both the poodle and the child. 
 
 So there, under the lofty and stately walls of the 
 old church, Lolo put Moufflou through his exercises. 
 
104 M0UFFL0U. 
 
 They were second nature to Moufflou, as to most 
 poodles. He had inherited his address at them from 
 clever parents, and as he had never been frightened 
 or coerced, all his lessons and acquirements were but 
 play to him. He acquitted himself admirably, and 
 the crockery vendors came and looked on, and a 
 sacristan came out of the church and smiled, and the 
 barber left his customer's chin all in a lather while 
 he laughed, for the good folk of the quarter were all 
 proud of Moufflou and never tired of him, and the 
 pleasant, easy-going, good-humoured disposition of 
 the Tuscan populace is so far removed from the 
 stupid buckram and whalebone in which the new- 
 fangled democracy wants to imprison it. 
 
 The stranger also was much diverted by Mouf- 
 flou's talents, and said, half aloud, ' How this clever 
 dog would amuse poor Victor! Would you bring 
 your poodle to please a sick child I have at home ? ' 
 he said quite aloud to Lolo, who smiled and 
 answered that he would. Where was the sick child ? 
 
 ' At the Gran Bretagna ; not far off/ said the 
 gentleman. ' Come this afternoon, and ask for me 
 by this name.' 
 
 He dropped his card and a couple of francs into 
 Lolo's hand, and went his way. Lolo, with Mouf- 
 flou scampering after him, dashed into his own house, 
 and stumped up the stairs, his crutch making a 
 terrible noise on the stone. 
 
 1 Mother, mother ! see what I have got because 
 
MOUFFLOU. 105 
 
 Moufflou did his tricks,' he shouted. ' And now you 
 can buy those shoes you want so much, and the 
 coffee that you miss so of a morning, and the new 
 linen for Tasso, and the shirts for Sandro,' 
 
 For to the mind of Lolo two francs was as two 
 millions ; source unfathomable of riches inexhaustible ! 
 
 With the afternoon he and Moufflou trotted 
 down the arcades of the Uffizi and down the Lung 
 Arno to the hotel of the stranger, and showing the 
 stranger's card, which Lolo could not read, was 
 shown at once into a great chamber, all gilding 
 and fresco and velvet furniture. 
 
 But Lolo, being a little Florentine, was never 
 troubled by externals, or daunted by mere sofas 
 and chairs : he stood and looked around him with 
 perfect composure, and Moufflou, whose attitude, 
 when he was not romping, was always one of magis- 
 terial gravity, sat on his haunches and did the same. 
 
 Soon the foreigner he had seen in the forenoon 
 entered and spoke to him, and led him into another 
 chamber, where stretched on a couch was a little 
 wan-faced boy of about seven years old ; a pretty 
 boy, but so pallid, so wasted, so helpless. This 
 poor little boy was heir to a great name and a great 
 fortune, but all the science in the world could not 
 make him strong enough to run about amongst the 
 daisies, or able to draw a single breath without pain. 
 A feeble smile lit up his face as he saw Moufflou 
 and Lolo ; then a shadow chased it away. 
 
106 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 ' Little boy is lame like me,' he said in a tongue 
 Lolo did not understand. 
 
 1 Yes, but he is a strong little boy, and can move 
 about, as perhaps the suns of his country will make 
 you do,' said the gentleman, who was the poor 
 little boy's father. ' He has brought you his poodle 
 to amuse you. What a handsome dog! is it not ?' 
 
 * Oh bufflinsl ' said the poor little fellow, stretch- 
 ing out his wasted hands to Moufflou, who submitted 
 his leonine crest to the caress. 
 
 Then Lolo went through the performance, and 
 Moufflou acquitted himself ably as ever ; and the 
 little invalid laughed and shouted with his tiny thin 
 voice, and enjoyed it all immensely, and rained 
 cakes and biscuits on both the poodle and its master. 
 Lolo crumped the pastries with willing white teeth, 
 and Moufflou did no less. Then they got up to go, 
 and the sick child on the couch burst into fretful 
 lamentations and outcries. 
 
 ' I want the dog ! I will have the dog ! ' was 
 all he kept repeating. 
 
 But Lolo did not know what he said, and was 
 only sorry to see him so unhappy. 
 
 ' You shall have the dog to-morrow,' said the 
 gentleman, to pacify his little son ; and he hurried 
 Lolo and Moufflou out of the room, and consigned 
 them to a servant, having given Lolo five francs 
 this time. 
 
 'Why, Moufflou,' said Lolo, with a chuckle of 
 
MOUFFLOU. 107 
 
 delight ' if we could find a foreigner every day, we 
 could eat meat at supper, Moufflou, and go to the 
 theatre every evening ! ' 
 
 And he and his crutch clattered home with 
 great eagerness and excitement, and Moufflou trotted 
 on his four frilled feet, the blue bow with which 
 Bice had tied up his curls on the top of his head, 
 fluttering: in the wind. But, alas! even his five 
 francs could bring no comfort at home. He 
 found his whole family wailing and mourning in 
 utterly inconsolable distress. 
 
 Tasso had drawn his number that morning, and 
 the number was seven, and he must go and be a 
 conscript for three years. 
 
 The poor young man stood in the midst of his 
 weeping brothers and sisters, with his mother lean- 
 ing against his shoulder, and down his own brown 
 cheeks the tears were falling. He must go, and lose 
 his place in the public gardens, and leave his people 
 to starve as they might, and be put in a tomfool's 
 jacket, and drafted off amongst cursing and swear- 
 ing and strange faces, friendless, homeless, miserable ! 
 And the mother, what would become of the mother ? 
 
 Tasso was the best of lads and the mildest. 
 He was quite happy sweeping up the leaves in the 
 long alleys of the Cascine, or mowing the green 
 lawns under the ilex avenues, and coming home 
 at supper-time amongst the merry little people and 
 the good woman that he loved. He was quite con- 
 
io8 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 tented ; he wanted nothing, only to be let alone, and 
 they would not let him alone. They would haul him 
 away to put a heavy musket in his hand and a heavy 
 knapsack on his back, and drill him, and curse him, 
 and make him into a human target, a live popinjay. 
 
 No one had any heed for Lolo and his five 
 francs, and Moufflou, understanding that some 
 great sorrow had fallen on his friends, sat down and 
 lifted up his voice and howled. 
 
 Tasso must go away ! — that was all they under- 
 stood. For three long years they must go without 
 the sight of his face, the aid of his strength, the 
 pleasure of his smile : Tasso must go ! When Lolo 
 understood the calamity that had befallen them, he 
 gathered Moufflou up against his breast, and sat 
 down too on the floor beside him and cried as if he 
 would never stop crying. 
 
 There was no help for it : it was one of those 
 misfortunes which are, as we say in Italian, like a 
 tile tumbled on the head. The tile drops from a 
 height, and the poor head bows under the unseen 
 blow. That is all. 
 
 1 What is the use of that ?' said the mother pas- 
 sionately when Lolo showed her his five francs. ' It 
 will not buy Tasso's discharge.' 
 
 Lolo felt that his mother was cruel and unjust, 
 and crept to bed with Moufflou. Moufflou always 
 slept on Lolo's feet. 
 
 The next morning Lolo got up before sunrise, 
 
MOUFFLOU. 109 
 
 and he and Moufflou accompanied Tasso to his work 
 in the Cascine. 
 
 Lolo loved his brother, and clung to every 
 moment whilst they could still be together. 
 
 ' Can nothing keep you, Tasso V he said despair- 
 ingly as they went down the leafy aisles, whilst the 
 Arno water was growing golden as the sun rose. 
 
 Tasso sighed. 
 
 ' Nothing, dear. Unless Gesu would send me a 
 thousand francs to buy a substitute.' 
 
 And he knew he might as well have said, ' If 
 one could coin gold ducats out of the sunbeams on 
 Arno water.' 
 
 Lolo was very sorrowful as he lay on the grass 
 in the meadow where Tasso was at work, and the 
 poodle lay stretched beside him. 
 
 When Lolo went home to dinner (Tasso took his 
 wrapped in a handkerchief) he found his mother very 
 agitated and excited. She was laughing one moment, 
 crying the next. She was passionate and peevish, 
 tender and jocose by turns ; there was something 
 forced and feverish about her which the children 
 felt but did not comprehend. She was a woman of 
 not very much intelligence, and she had a secret, 
 and she carried it ill, and knew not what to do with 
 it ; but they could not tell that. They only felt 
 a vague sense of disturbance and timidity at her 
 unwonted manner. 
 
 The meal over (it was only bean-soup, and that 
 
no MOUFFLOU. 
 
 is soon eaten), the mother said sharply to Lolo, 
 ' Your Aunt Anita wants you this afternoon. She 
 has to go out, and you are needed to stay with the 
 children ; be off with you.' 
 
 Lolo was an obedient child ; he took his hat and 
 jumped up as quickly as his halting hip would let 
 him. He called Moufflou, who was asleep. 
 
 1 Leave the dog,' said his mother sharply. ''Nita 
 will not have him messing and carrying mud about her 
 nice clean rooms. She told me so. Leave him, I say.' 
 
 ' Leave Moufflou !' echoed Lolo, for never in all 
 Moufflou's life had Lolo parted from him. Leave 
 Moufflou ! He stared open-eyed and open-mouthed 
 at his mother. What could have come to her ? 
 
 ' Leave him, I say,' she repeated more sharply 
 than ever. ' Must I speak twice to my own children ? 
 Be off with you and leave the dog, I say.' 
 
 And she clutched Moufflou by his long silky 
 mane and dragged him backwards, whilst with the 
 other hand she thrust out of the door Lolo and Bice. 
 
 Lolo began to hammer with his crutch at the 
 door thus closed on him ; but Bice coaxed and 
 entreated him. 
 
 1 Poor mother has been so worried about Tasso,' 
 she pleaded. ' And what harm can come to Mouf- 
 flou ? And I do think he was tired, Lolo ; the 
 Cascine is a long way ; and it is quite true that 
 Aunt 'Nita never liked him.' 
 
 So by one means and another she coaxed her 
 
MOUFFLOU. in 
 
 brother away ; and they went almost in silence to 
 where their Aunt Anita dwelt, which was across 
 the river, near the dark-red bell-shaped dome of 
 Santa Spirito. 
 
 It was true that her aunt had wanted them to 
 mind her room and her babies whilst she was away 
 carrying home some lace to a villa outside the 
 Roman gate, for she was a lace-washer and clear- 
 starcher by trade. There they had to stay in the 
 little dark room with the two babies, with nothing to 
 amuse the time except the clang of the bells of the 
 church of the Holy Spirit, and the voices Of the 
 lemonade-sellers shouting in the street below. Aunt 
 Anita did not get back till it was more than dusk, 
 and the two children trotted homeward hand-in- 
 hand, Lolo's leg dragging itself painfully along, for 
 without Moufflou's white figure dancing on before 
 him he felt very tired indeed. It was pitch dark 
 when they got to Or San Michele, and the lamps 
 burned dully. 
 
 Lolo stumped up the stairs wearily, with a vague, 
 dull fear at his small heart. 
 
 * Moufflou, Moufflou ! ' he called. Where was 
 Moufflou ? Always at the first sound of his crutch 
 the poodle came flying towards him. ' Moufflou, 
 Moufflou !' he called all the way up the long, dark, 
 twisting stone stair. He pushed open the door, and 
 he called again, ' Moufflou, Moufflou ! ' 
 
 But no dog answered to his call. 
 
ii2 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 1 Mother, where is Moufflou ? ' he asked, staring 
 with blinking, dazzled eyes into the oil-lit room where 
 his mother sat knitting. Tasso was not then home 
 from work. His mother went on with her knitting; 
 there was an uneasy look on her face. 
 
 ' Mother, what have you done with Moufflou, my 
 Moufflou ? ' said Lolo, with a look that was almost 
 stern on his ten-year-old face. 
 
 Then his mother, without looking up and moving 
 her knitting-needles, very rapidly said : 
 
 ' Moufflou is sold ! ' 
 
 And little Dina, who was a quick, pert child, 
 cried with a shrill voice : 
 
 1 Mother has sold him for a thousand francs to 
 the foreign gentleman.' 
 
 < Sold him ! ' 
 
 Lolo grew white and grew cold as ice ; he stam- 
 mered, threw up his hands over his head, gasped 
 a little for breath, then fell down in a dead swoon, 
 his poor useless limb doubled under him. 
 
 When Tasso came home that sad night and 
 found his little brother shivering, moaning, and half- 
 delirious, and when he heard what had been done, 
 he was sorely grieved. 
 
 ' Oh, mother, how could you do it ? ' he cried. 
 ' Poor, poor Moufflou ! and Lolo loves him so ! ' 
 
 ' I have got the money,' said his mother feverishly, 
 ' and you will not need to go for a soldier, we can 
 buy your substitute. What is a poodle that you 
 
MOUFFLOU. 113 
 
 mourn about it ? We can get another poodle for 
 Lola' 
 
 ' Another will not be Moufflou,' said Tasso, and 
 yet was seized with such a frantic happiness him- 
 self at the knowledge that he would not need go 
 to the army, that he too felt as if he were drunk 
 on new wine, and had not the heart to rebuke his 
 mother. 
 
 ' A thousand francs ! ' he muttered, ' a thousand 
 francs ! Dio mio ! Who could ever have fancied 
 anybody would have given such a price for a com- 
 mon white poodle ? One would think the gentleman 
 had boueht the church and the tabernacle ! ' 
 
 1 Fools and their money are soon parted,' said 
 his mother with cross contempt. 
 
 It was true ; she had sold Moufflou. 
 
 The English gentleman had called on her while 
 Lolo and the dog had been in the Cascine, and had 
 said that he was desirous of buying the poodle, 
 which had so diverted his sick child that the little 
 invalid would not be comforted unless he possessed 
 it. Now, at any other time the good woman would 
 have sturdily refused any idea of selling Moufflou ; 
 but that morning the thousand francs which would 
 buy Tasso's substitute were for ever in her mind and 
 before her eyes. When she heard the foreigner her 
 heart gave a great leap and her head swam giddily, 
 and she thought, in a spasm of longing — if she could 
 get those thousand francs ! But though she was so 
 
 I 
 
ii 4 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 dizzy and so upset she retained her grip on her 
 native Florentine shrewdness. She said nothing of 
 her need of the money ; not a syllable of her sore 
 distress. On the contrary, she was coy and wary, 
 affected great reluctance to part with her pet, invented 
 a great offer made for him by a director of a circus, 
 and finally let fall a hint that less than a thousand 
 francs she could never take for poor Moufflou. 
 
 The gentleman assented with so much willingness 
 to the price that she instantly regretted not having 
 asked double. He told her that if she would take 
 the poodle that afternoon to his hotel the money 
 should be paid to her ; so she dispatched her children 
 after their noon-day meal in various directions, and 
 herself took Moufflou to his doom. She could not 
 believe her senses when ten hundred-franc notes 
 were put into her hand. She scrawled her signature, 
 Rosina Calabucci, to a formal receipt and went away, 
 leaving Moufflou in his new owner's rooms, and 
 hearing his howls and moans pursue her all the way 
 down the staircase and out into the air. 
 
 She was not easy at what she had done. 
 
 ' It seemed,' she said to herself, 'like selling a 
 Christian.' 
 
 But then to keep her eldest son at home — what 
 a joy that was ! On the whole, she cried so and 
 lauofhed so as she went down the Luna-' Arno that 
 once or twice people looked at her, thinking her out 
 of her senses, and a guard spoke to her angrily. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 115 
 
 Meanwhile, Lolo was sick and delirious with 
 grief. Twenty times he got out of his bed and 
 screamed to be allowed to go with Moufflou, and 
 twenty times his mother and his brothers put him 
 back aeain and held him down and tried in vain to 
 quiet him. 
 
 The child was beside himself with misery. 
 1 Moufflou, Moufflou !' he sobbed at every moment ; 
 and by night he was in a raging fever, and when 
 his mother, frightened, ran in and called in the 
 doctor of the quarter, that worthy shook his head 
 and said something as to a shock of the nervous 
 system and muttered a long word, ' meningitis.' 
 
 Lolo took a hatred to the sight of Tasso, and 
 thrust him away, and his mother too. 
 
 ' It is for you Moufflou is sold,' he said, with 
 his little teeth and hands tight clenched. 
 
 After a day or two Tasso felt as if he could 
 not bear his life, and went down to the hotel to see 
 if the foreign gentleman would allow him to have 
 Moufflou back for half an hour to quiet his little 
 brother by a sight of him. But at the hotel he was 
 told that the Milord Inglese who had bought the 
 dog of Rosina Calabucci had gone that same night 
 of the purchase to Rome, to Naples, to Palermo, chi 
 saf 
 
 ' And Moufflou with him ? ' asked Tasso. 
 
 1 The barbone he had bought went with him,' 
 said the porter of the hotel. ' Such a beast ! Howl- 
 
1x6 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 ing, shrieking, raging all the day, and all the paint 
 scratched off the salon door.' 
 
 Poor Moufflou ! Tasso's heart was heavy as he 
 heard of that sad helpless misery of their bartered 
 favourite and friend. 
 
 ' What matter ? ' said his mother fiercely, when 
 he told her. ' A dog is a dog. They will feed him 
 better than we could. In a week he will have for- 
 gotten — die ! ' 
 
 But Tasso feared that Moufflou would not forget. 
 Lolo certainly would not. The doctor came to the 
 bedside twice a day, and ice and water were kept on 
 the aching hot little head that had got the malady 
 with the long name, and for the chief part of the 
 time Lolo lay quiet, dull, and stupid, breathing 
 heavily, and then at intervals cried and sobbed and 
 shrieked hysterically for Moufflou. 
 
 ' Can you not get what he calls for to quiet him 
 with a sight of it ? ' said the doctor. But that was 
 not possible, and poor Rosina covered her head with 
 her apron and felt a guilty creature. 
 
 'Still you will not go to the army/ she said to 
 Tasso, clinging to that immense joy for her consola- 
 tion. ' Only think ! we can pay Guido Squarcione to 
 go for you. He always said he would go if anybody 
 would pay him. Oh, my Tasso, surely to keep you 
 is worth a dog's life ! ' 
 
 ' And Lolo's ? ' said Tasso gloomily. ' Nay, 
 mother, it works ill to meddle too much with fate. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 117 
 
 I drew my number ; I was bound to go. Heaven 
 would have made it up to you somehow.' 
 
 1 Heaven sent me the foreigner ; the Madonna's 
 own self sent him to ease a mother's pain,' said 
 Rosina rapidly and angrily. ' There are the thou- 
 sand francs safe to hand in the cassone, and what, 
 pray, is it we miss ? Only a dog like a sheep, that 
 brought gallons of mud in with him every time it 
 rained, and ate as much as any one of you.' 
 
 ' But Lolo ? ' said Tasso under his breath. 
 
 His mother was so irritated and so tormented by 
 her own conscience that she upset all the cabbage 
 broth into the burning charcoal. 
 
 ' Lolo was always a little fool, thinking of nothing 
 but the church and the dog and nasty field-flowers,' 
 she said angrily. ' I humoured him ever too much 
 because of the hurt to his hip, and so — and so ' 
 
 Then the poor soul made matters worse by drop- 
 ping her tears into the saucepan, and fanning the 
 charcoal so furiously that the flame caught her fan 
 of cane-leaves, and would have burned her arm had 
 not Tasso been there. 
 
 1 You are my prop and safety always. Who 
 would not have done what I did ? Not St. Felicita 
 herself,' she said with a great sob. 
 
 But all this did not cure poor Lolo. 
 
 The days and the weeks of the golden autumn 
 weather passed away, and he was always in danger, 
 and the small close room where he slept with 
 
n8 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 Sandro and Beppo and Tasso was not one to cure 
 such an illness as had now beset him. Tasso went 
 to his work with a sick heart in the Cascine, where 
 the colchicum was all lilac amongst the meadow 
 grass, and the ashes and elms were taking their first 
 flush of the coming autumnal change. He did not 
 think Lolo would ever get well, and the good lad 
 felt as if he had been the murderer of his little 
 brother. 
 
 True, he had had no hand or voice in the sale 
 of Moufflou, but Moufflou had been sold for his sake. 
 It made him feel half guilty, very unhappy, quite 
 unworthy all the sacrifice that had been made for 
 him. ' Nobody should meddle with fate,' thought 
 Tasso, who knew his grandfather had died in S. 
 Bonifazio because he had driven himself mad over 
 the dreambook trying to get lucky numbers for the 
 lottery, and become a rich man at a stroke. 
 
 It was rapture, indeed, to know that he was 
 free of the army for a time at least, that he might 
 go on undisturbed at his healthful labour, and get 
 a rise in wages as time went on, and dwell in peace 
 with his family, and perhaps — perhaps in time earn 
 enough to marry pretty flaxen-haired Biondina, the 
 daughter of the barber in the piazzetta. It was 
 rapture indeed ; but then poor Moufflou ! — and poor, 
 poor Lolo ! Tasso felt as if he had bought his own 
 exemption by seeing his little brother and the good 
 dog torn in pieces and buried alive for his service. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 119 
 
 And where was poor Moufflou ? 
 
 Gone far away somewhere south in the hurrying, 
 screeching, vomiting, braying train that it made 
 Tasso giddy only to look at as it rushed by the green 
 meadows beyond the Cascine on its way to the sea. 
 
 ' If he could see the dog he cries so for, it might 
 save him,' said the doctor, who stood with a grave 
 face watchino- Lolo. 
 
 But that was beyond anyone's power. No one 
 could tell where Moufflou was. He might be 
 carried away to England, to France, to Russia, 
 to America, who could say ? They did not know 
 where his purchaser had gone. Moufflou even 
 might be dead. 
 
 The poor mother, when the doctor said that, 
 went and looked at the ten hundred-franc notes that 
 were once like angel's faces to her, and said to them. 
 
 ' Oh, you children of Satan, why did you tempt 
 me ? I sold the poor, innocent, trustful beast to 
 get you, and now my child is dying ! ' 
 
 Her eldest son would stay at home, indeed ; but 
 if this little lame one died ! Rosina Calabucci would 
 have given up the notes and consented never to own 
 five francs in her life if only she could have gone 
 back over the time and kept Moufflou, and seen his 
 little master running out with him into the sunshine. 
 
 More than a month went by and Lolo lay in the 
 same state ; his yellow hair shorn, his eyes dilated 
 and yet stupid, life kept in him by a spoonful of 
 
120 M0UFFL0U. 
 
 milk, a lump of ice, a drink of lemon-water ; always 
 muttering, when he spoke at all, ' Moufflou, Moufflou, 
 dov e Moufflou ?' and lying for days together in 
 somnolence and unconsciousness, with the fire eating 
 at his brain and the weight lying on it like a stone. 
 
 The neighbours were kind, and brought fruit and 
 the like, and sat up with him, and chattered so all at 
 once in one continuous brawl, that they were enough 
 in themselves to kill him, for such is ever the Italian 
 fashion of sympathy in all illness. 
 
 But Lolo did not get well, did not even seem to 
 see the light at all, or distinguish any sounds around 
 him ; and the doctor in plain words told Rosina 
 Calabucci that her little boy must die. Die, and 
 the • church so near ? She could not believe it. 
 Could St. Mark, and St. George, and the rest that 
 he had loved so do nothing for him ? No, said the 
 doctor, they could do nothing ; the dog might do 
 something, since the brain had so fastened on that 
 one idea ; but then they had sold the dog. 
 
 ' Yes ; I sold him !' said the poor mother breaking 
 into floods of remorseful tears. 
 
 So at last the end drew so nigh that one twilight 
 time the priest came out of the great arched door 
 that is next St. Mark, with the Host uplifted, and a 
 little acolyte ringing the bell before it, and passed 
 across the piazzetta, and went up the dark staircase of 
 Rosina's dwelling, and passed through the weeping, 
 terrified children, and went to the bedside of Lolo. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 121 
 
 Lolo was unconscious, but the holy man touched 
 his little body and limbs with the sacred oil, and 
 prayed over him, and then stood sorrowful with 
 bowed head. 
 
 Lolo had had his first communion in the summer, 
 and in his preparation for it had shown an intelli- 
 gence and devoutness that had won the priest's 
 gentle heart. 
 
 Standing there, the holy man commended the 
 innocent soul to God. It was the last service to be 
 rendered to him save that very last of all when the 
 funeral office should be read above his little grave 
 amongst the millions of nameless dead at the sepul- 
 chres of the poor at Trebbiano. 
 
 All was still as the priest's voice ceased ; only 
 the sobs of the mother and of the children broke 
 the stillness as they kneeled ; the hand of Biondina 
 had stolen into Tasso's. 
 
 Suddenly, there was a loud scuffling noise ; hurry- 
 ing feet came patter, patter, patter up the stairs, a 
 ball of mud and dust flew over the heads of the 
 kneeline figures, fleet as the wind Moufflou dashed 
 through the room and leaped upon the bed. 
 
 Lolo opened his heavy eyes, and a sudden light 
 of consciousness gleamed in them like a sunbeam. 
 1 Moufflou ! ' he murmured in his little thin faint voice. 
 The dog pressed close to his breast and kissed his 
 wasted face. 
 
 Moufflou was come home ! 
 
122 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 And Lolo came home too, for death let eo its 
 hold upon him. Little by little, very faintly and 
 flickeringly and very uncertainly at the first, life 
 returned to the poor little body, and reason to the 
 tormented, heated little brain. Moufflou was his 
 physician ; Moufflou, who, himself a skeleton under 
 his matted curls, would not stir from his side and 
 looked at him all day long with two beaming brown 
 eyes full of unutterable love. 
 
 Lolo was happy ; he asked no questions ; was too 
 weak, indeed, even to wonder. He had Moufflou ; 
 that was enough. 
 
 Alas ! though they dared not say so in his 
 hearing, it was not enough for his elders. His mother 
 and Tasso knew that the poodle had been sold and 
 paid for ; that they could lay no claim to keep him ; 
 and that almost certainly his purchaser would seek 
 him out, and assert his indisputable right to him. 
 And then how would Lolo ever bear that second 
 parting ? — Lolo, so weak that he weighed no more 
 than if he had been a little bird. 
 
 Moufflou had, no doubt, travelled a long distance 
 and suffered much. He was but skin and bone ; 
 he bore the marks of blows and kicks ; his once 
 silken hair was all discoloured and matted ; he had, 
 no doubt, travelled far. But then his purchaser 
 would be sure to ask for him, soon or late, at his old 
 home ; and then ? Well, then if they did not give 
 him up themselves, the law would make them. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 123 
 
 Rosina Calabucci and Tasso, though they dared 
 say nothing before any of the children, felt their 
 hearts in their mouths at every step on the stair, 
 and the first interrogation of Tasso every evening 
 when he came from his work was, ' Has anyone 
 come for Moufflou ? ' For ten days no one came, 
 and their first terrors lulled a little. 
 
 On the eleventh morning, a feast day, on which 
 Tasso was not going to his labours in the Cascine, 
 there came a person, with a foreign look, who said 
 the words they so much dreaded to hear, ' Has the 
 poodle that you sold to an English gentleman come 
 back to you ? ' 
 
 Yes : his English master claimed him ! 
 The servant said that they had missed the dog in 
 Rome a few days after buying him and taking him 
 there ; that he had been searched for in vain, and 
 that his master had thought it possible the animal 
 might have found his way back to his old home : 
 there had been stories of such wonderful sagacity in 
 doo-s : anyhow he had sent for him on the chance ; 
 he was himself back on the Lung Arno. The 
 servant pulled from his pocket a chain, and said his 
 orders were to take the poodle away at once : the 
 little sick gentleman had fretted very much about 
 his loss. 
 
 Tasso heard in a very agony of despair. To 
 take Moufflou away now would be to kill Lolo — Lolo 
 so feeble still, so unable to understand, so passion- 
 
i2 4 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 ately alive to every sight and sound of Moufflou, 
 lying for hours together motionless with his hand 
 buried in the poodle's curls, saying nothing, only 
 smiling now and then, and murmuring a word or 
 two in Moufflon's ear. 
 
 ' The dog did come home,' said Tasso at length, 
 in a low voice ; ' angels must have shown him the 
 road, poor beast ! From Rome ! Only to think of 
 it, from Rome ! And he a dumb thing ! I tell you 
 he is here, honestly, so will you not trust me just so 
 far as this ? Will you let me go with you and speak 
 to the English lord before you take the dog away ? 
 I have a little brother sorely ill ' 
 
 He could not speak more for tears that choked 
 his voice. 
 
 At last the messenger agreed so far as this. 
 Tasso might go first and see the master, but he 
 would stay here and have a care they did not spirit 
 the dog away — ' for a thousand francs were paid for 
 him,' added the man, ' and a dog that can come all 
 the way from Rome by itself must be an uncanny 
 creature.' 
 
 Tasso thanked him ; went upstairs ; was thank- 
 ful that his mother was at mass and could not 
 dispute with him ; took the ten hundred-franc notes 
 from the old oak cassone, and with them in his breast- 
 pocket walked out into the air. He was but a poor 
 working lad, but he had made up his mind to do an 
 heroic deed, for self-sacrifice is always heroic. He 
 
MOUFFLOU. 125 
 
 went straightway to the hotel where the English 
 milord was, and when he had got there remembered 
 that still he did not know the name of Moufflou's 
 owner ; but the people of the hotel knew him as 
 Rosina Calabucci's son, and guessed what he 
 wanted, and said the gentleman who had lost the 
 poodle was within upstairs and they would tell him. 
 
 Tasso waited some half-hour with his heart beat- 
 ing sorely against the packet of hundred-franc notes. 
 At last he was beckoned upstairs, and there he saw 
 a foreigner with a mild fair face, and a very lovely 
 lady, and a delicate child who was lying on a couch. 
 'Moufflou! Where is Moufflou ? ' cried the little 
 child impatiently, as he saw the youth enter. 
 
 Tasso took his hat off, and stood in the doorway, 
 an embrowned, healthy, not ungraceful figure, in his 
 working clothes of rough blue stuff. 
 
 ' If you please, most illustrious,' he stammered, 
 ' poor Moufflou has come home.' 
 
 The child gave a cry of delight ; the gentleman 
 and lady one of wonder. Come home ! All the 
 way from Rome ! 
 
 1 Yes, he has, most Illustrious,' said Tasso, gaining 
 courage and eloquence, ' and now I want to beg 
 something of you. We are poor, and I drew a bad 
 number, and it was for that my mother sold 
 Moufflou. For myself, I did not know anything of 
 it ; but she thought she would buy my substitute, 
 and of course she could ; but Moufflou is come 
 
126 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 home, and my little brother Lolo, the little boy your 
 most illustrious first saw playing with the poodle, fell 
 ill of the grief of losing Moufflou, and for a month 
 has lain saying nothing sensible, but only calling for 
 the dog, and my old grandfather died of worrying 
 himself mad over the lottery numbers, and Lolo was 
 so near dying that the Blessed Host had been 
 brought, and the holy oil had been put on him, 
 when all at once there rushes in Moufflou, skin and 
 bone, and covered with mud, and at the sight of 
 him Lolo comes back to his senses, and that is now 
 ten days ago, and though Lolo is still as weak as a 
 new-born thing, he is always sensible, and takes what 
 we give him to eat, and lies always looking at 
 Moufflou, and smiling and saying " Moufflou ! 
 Moufflou ! " and, most illustrious, I know well you 
 have bought the dog, and the law is with you, and 
 by the law you claim it ; but I thought perhaps, as 
 Lolo loves him so, you would let us keep the dog 
 and would take back the thousand francs, and 
 myself I will go and be a soldier, and heaven will 
 take care of them all somehow.' 
 
 Then Tasso, having said all this in one breath- 
 less, monotonous recitative, took the thousand francs 
 out of his breast-pocket and held them out timidly 
 towards the foreign gentleman, who motioned them 
 aside and stood silent. 
 
 ' Did you understand, Victor ? ' he said, at last, 
 to his little son. 
 
MOUFFLOU. 127 
 
 The child hid his face in his cushions. 
 
 1 Yes, I did understand something ; let Lolo 
 keep him ; Moufflou was not happy with me.' 
 
 But he burst out crying as he said it. 
 
 Moufflou had run away from him. 
 
 Moufflou had never loved him, for all his sweet 
 cakes and fond caresses, and platesful of delicate 
 savoury meats. Moufflou had run away and found his 
 own road over two hundred miles and more to go back 
 to some little hungry children, who never had enough 
 to eat themselves, and so, certainly, could never give 
 enough to eat to the dog. Poor little boy ! He 
 was so rich and so pampered and so powerful, and 
 yet he could never make Moufflou love him ! 
 
 Tasso, who understood nothing that was said, 
 laid the ten hundred-franc notes down on a table 
 near him. 
 
 ' If you would take them, most illustrious, and 
 give me back what my mother wrote when she sold 
 Moufflou,' he said, timidly, ' I would pray for you 
 night and day, and Lolo would too ; and as for the 
 dog, we will get a puppy and train him for your little 
 sigrwrino ; they can all do tricks, more or less, it 
 comes by nature ; and as for me I will go to the 
 army willingly ; it is not right to interfere with fate ; 
 my old grandfather died mad because he would try 
 to be a rich man, by dreaming about it and pulling 
 destiny by the ears, as if she were a kicking mule ; 
 only, I do pray of you, do not take away Moufflou. 
 
r28 MOUFFLOU. 
 
 And to think he trotted all those miles and miles, 
 and you carried him by train too, and he never could 
 have seen the road, and he has no power of speech to 
 ask ' 
 
 Tasso broke down again in his eloquence, anc 
 drew the back of his hand across his wet eyelashes. 
 
 The English gentleman was not altogether 
 unmoved. 
 
 1 Poor faithful dog ! ' he said, with a sigh. ' I 
 am afraid we were very cruel to him, meaning to be 
 kind. No ; we will not claim him, and I do not 
 think you should go for a soldier; you seem so good 
 a lad, and your mother must need you. Keep the 
 money, my boy, and in payment you shall train up 
 the puppy you talk of, and bring him to my little 
 boy. I will come and see your mother and Lolo 
 to-morrow. All the way from Rome ! What won- 
 derful sagacity ; what matchless fidelity ! ' 
 
 You can imagine, without any telling of mine, the 
 joy that reigned in Moufflou's home when Tasso 
 returned thither with the money and the good tidings 
 both. His substitute was bought without a day's 
 delay, and Lolo rapidly recovered. As for Moufflou, 
 he could never tell them his troubles, his wanderings, 
 his difficulties, his perils ; he could never tell them 
 by what miraculous knowledge he had found his way 
 across Italy, from the gates of Rome to the gates 
 of Florence. But he soon grew plump again, and 
 
MOUFFLOU. 129 
 
 merry, and his love for Lolo was yet greater than 
 before. 
 
 By the winter all the family went to live on an 
 estate near Spezia that the English gentleman had 
 purchased, and there Moufflou was happier than 
 ever. The little English boy is gaining strength in 
 the soft air, and he and Lolo are great friends, and 
 play with Moufflou and the poodle puppy half the 
 day upon the sunny terraces and under the green 
 orange boughs. Tasso is one of the gardeners 
 there ; he will have to serve as a soldier probably in 
 some category or another, but he is safe for the time, 
 and is happy. Lolo, whose lameness will always 
 exempt him from military service, when he grows to 
 be a man means to be a florist, and a great one. He 
 has learned to read as the first step on the road of 
 his ambition. 
 
 ' But oh, Moufflou, how did you find your way 
 home ?' he asks the dog a hundred times a week. 
 
 How indeed ! 
 
 No one ever knew how Moufflou had made 
 that long journey on foot, so many weary miles ; but 
 beyond a doubt he had done it alone and unaided, 
 for if anyone had helped him they would have come 
 home with him to claim the reward. 
 
 And that you may not wonder too greatly at 
 Moufflou's miraculous journey on his four bare feet, I 
 will add here two facts known to friends of mine, of 
 whose truthfulness there can be no doubt. 
 
 K 
 
130 M0UFFL0U. 
 
 One concerns a French poodle who was purchased 
 in Paris by the friend of my friend, and brought all 
 the way from Paris to Milan by train. In a few days 
 after his arrival in Milan the poodle was missing ; 
 and nothing more was heard or known of him until 
 many weeks later his quondam owner in Paris on 
 opening his door one morning found the dog stretched 
 dying on the threshold of his old home. 
 
 That is one fact ; not a story, mind you, a fact. 
 
 The other is related to me by an Italian nobleman, 
 who in his youth belonged to the Guardia Nobile 
 of Tuscany. That brilliant corps of elegant gentle- 
 men owned a regimental pet, a poodle also ; a 
 line merry and handsome dog of its kind ; and the 
 officers all loved and made much of him, except, 
 alas ! the commandant of the regiment, who hated 
 him, because when the officers were on parade or 
 riding in escort the poodle was sure to be jumping 
 and frisking about in front of them. It is difficult to 
 see where the harm of this was, but this odious old 
 martinet vowed vengeance against the dog, and 
 being of course all powerful in his own corps, ordered 
 the exile from Florence of the poor fellow. He was 
 sent to a farm at Prato, twenty miles off, along the 
 hills ; but very soon he found his way back to 
 Florence. He was then sent to Livorno, forty miles 
 off, but in a week's time had returned to his old 
 comrades. He was then, by order of his unrelent- 
 ing foe, shipped to the Island of Sardinia. How he 
 
MOUFFLOU. 131 
 
 did it no one ever could tell, for he was carried 
 safely to Sardinia, and placed inland there in kind 
 custody, but in some wonderful way the poor dog 
 must have found out the sea and hidden himself on 
 board a returning vessel, for in a month's time from 
 his exile to the island he was back again amongst his 
 comrades in Florence. Now what I have to tell you 
 almost breaks my heart to say, and will I think quite 
 break yours to hear : alas ! the brute of a com- 
 mandant, untouched by such marvellous cleverness 
 and faithfulness, was his enemy to the bitter end, 
 and, in inexorable hated, had him shot ! Oh ! when 
 you grow to manhood and have power, use it with 
 tenderness ! 
 
LAMPBLACK. 
 
 POOR black paint lay very unhappy in its 
 tube one day alone, having tumbled out of 
 an artist's colour-box and lying quite un- 
 noticed for a year. ' I am only Lampblack,' he said 
 to himself. ' The master never looks at me : he says 
 I am heavy, dull, lustreless, useless. I wish I could 
 cake and dry up and die as poor Flakewhite did, 
 when he thought she turned yellow and deserted her.' 
 But Lampblack could not die ; he could only lie 
 in his tin tube and pine like a silly, sorrowful thing 
 as he was, in company with some broken bits of 
 charcoal and a rusty palette knife. The master 
 never touched him ; month after month passed by, 
 and he was never thought of ; the other paints had 
 all their turn of fair fortune, and went out into the 
 world to great academies and mighty palaces, trans- 
 figured and rejoicing in a thousand beautiful shapes 
 
LAMPBLACK. 133 
 
 and services. But Lampblack was always passed 
 over as dull and coarse, which indeed he was, and 
 knew himself to be so, poor fellow, which made it 
 all the worse. ' You are only a deposit ! ' said the 
 other colours to him ; and he felt that it was dis- 
 graceful to be a deposit, though he was not quite 
 sure what it meant. 
 
 1 If only I were happy like the others ! ' thought 
 poor, sooty Lampblack, sorrowful in his corner. 
 ' There is Bistre now, he is not so very much better 
 looking than I am, and yet they can do nothing 
 without him, whether it is a girl's face or a wimple 
 in a river ! ' 
 
 The others were all so happy in this beautiful, 
 bright studio, whose open casements were hung 
 with myrtle and passion-flower, and whose silence 
 was filled with the singing of nightingales. Cobalt, 
 with a touch or two, became the loveliness of 
 summer skies at morning ; the Lakes and Carmines 
 bloomed in a thousand exquisite flowers and fancies ; 
 the Chromes and Ochres (mere dull earths) were 
 allowed to spread themselves in sheets of gold that 
 took the shine of the sun into the darkest places ; 
 Umber, a sombre and gloomy thing, could lurk yet 
 in a child's curls and laugh in a child's smiles ; whilst 
 all the families of the Vermilions, the Blues, the 
 Greens lived in a perpetual glory of sunset or sun- 
 rise, of ocean waves or autumn woods, of kingly 
 pageant or of martial pomp. 
 
i34 LAMPBLACK. 
 
 It was very hard. Poor Lampblack felt as if his 
 very heart would break, above all when he thought 
 of pretty little Rose Madder, whom he loved dearly, 
 and who never would even look at him because she 
 was so very proud, being herself always placed in 
 nothing less than rosy clouds, or the hearts of roses, 
 or something as fair and spiritual. 
 
 ' I am only a wretched deposit ! ' sighed Lamp- 
 black, and the rusty palette knife grumbled back, 
 ' My own life has been ruined in cleaning dirty 
 brushes, and see what the gratitude of men and 
 brushes is ! ' 
 
 ' But at least you have been of use once, but 
 I never am, never ! ' said Lampblack wearily ; and 
 indeed he had been there so long that the spiders 
 had spun their silver fleeces all about him, and he 
 was growing as grey as an old bottle does in a dark 
 cellar. 
 
 At that moment the door of the studio opened, 
 and there came a flood of light, and the step of a 
 man was heard ; the hearts of all the colours jumped 
 for joy because the step was that of their magician, 
 who out of mere common clays and ground ores 
 could raise them at a touch into splendours of the 
 gods and divinities immortal. 
 
 Only the heart of poor dusty Lampblack could 
 not beat a throb the more, because he was always 
 left alone and never was thought worthy even of a 
 glance. He could not believe his senses when this 
 
LAMPBLACK. 135 
 
 afternoon — Oh miracle and ecstacy ! — the step of 
 the master crossed the floor to the obscured corner 
 where he lay under his spiders' webs, and the hand 
 of the master touched him. Lampblack felt sick and 
 faint with rapture. Had recognition come at last ? 
 
 The master took him up : ' You will do for this 
 work,' he said ; and Lampblack was borne trembling 
 to an easel. The colours, for once in their turn 
 neglected, crowded together to watch, looking in 
 their bright tin tubes like rows of little soldiers in 
 armour. 
 
 ' It is that old dull deposit,' they murmured to 
 one another, and felt contemptuous, yet were curious 
 as scornful people often will be. 
 
 ' But I am going to be glorious and great,' thought 
 Lampblack, and his heart swelled high ; for never 
 more would they be able to hurl the name of de- 
 posit at him, a name which hurt him none the less, 
 but all the more indeed, because it was unintelligible. 
 
 1 You will do for this work,' said the master, and 
 let Lampblack out of his metal prison-house into the 
 lio-ht and touched him with the brush that was the 
 wand of magic. 
 
 ' What am I going to be ? ' wondered Lampblack, 
 as he felt himself taken on to a large piece of deal 
 board, so large that he felt he must be going to 
 make the outline of an athlete or the shadows of a 
 tempest at the least. 
 
 Himself he could not tell what he was becoming : 
 
136 LAMPBLACK. 
 
 he was happy enough and grand enough only to be 
 employed, and, as he was being used, began to 
 dream a thousand things of all the scenes he would 
 be in, and all the hues that he would wear, and all 
 the praise that he would hear when he went out 
 into that wonderful great world of which his master 
 was an idol. From his secret dreams he was harshly 
 roused ; all the colours were laughing and tittering 
 round him till the little tin helmets they wore shook 
 with their merriment. 
 
 ' Old deposit is going to be a signpost,' they 
 cried to one another so merrily that the spiders, who 
 are not companionable creatures, felt themselves 
 compelled to come to the doors of their dens and 
 chuckle too. A signpost ! Lampblack, stretched 
 out in an ecstacy upon the board, roused himself 
 shivering from his dreams, and gazed at his own 
 metamorphosis. He had been made into seven 
 letters : thus 
 
 B. A. N. D. I. T. A. 
 
 This word in the Italian country, where the English 
 painter's studio was, means — do not trespass, do not 
 shoot, do not show yourself here : anything, indeed, 
 that is peremptory and uncivil to all trespassers. In 
 these seven letters, outspread upon the board, was 
 Lampblack crucified ! 
 
 Farewell ambitious hopes and happy dreams ! 
 He had been employed to paint a signboard, a 
 thing stoned by the boys, blown on by the winds, 
 
LAMPBLACK. 137 
 
 gnawed by the rats, and drenched with the winter's 
 rains. Better the dust and the cobwebs of his old 
 corner than such shame as this ! 
 
 But help was there none. His fate was fixed. 
 He was dried with a drench of turpentine, hastily 
 clothed in a coat of copal, and, ere he yet was fully 
 aware of all his misery, was being borne away upon 
 the great board out of doors and handed to the 
 gardener. For the master was a hasty and ardent 
 man, and had been stung into impatience by the 
 slaughter of some favourite blue thrushes in his 
 ilex trees that day, and so in his haste had chosen 
 to do journeyman's work himself. Lampblack was 
 carried out of the studio for the last time, and as the 
 door closed on him he heard all the colours laughing, 
 and the laugh of little Rose Madder was highest of 
 all as she cried to Naples Yellow, who was a dandy 
 and made court to her, ' Poor old ugly deposit ! 
 He will grumble to the owls and the bats now ! ' 
 
 The door shut, shutting him out for ever from 
 all that joyous company and palace of fair visions, 
 and the rough hands of the gardener grasped him 
 and carried him to the edge of the great garden, 
 where the wall overlooked the public road, and 
 there fastened him up on high with a band of iron 
 round the trunk of a tree. 
 
 That night it rained heavily, and the north wind 
 blew and there was thunder also. Lampblack, out in 
 the storm without his tin house to shelter him, felt 
 
138 LAMPBLACK. 
 
 that of all creatures wretched on the face of the earth 
 there was not one so miserable as he. 
 
 A signboard ! Nothing 1 but a signboard ! 
 
 The degradation of a colour, created for art and 
 artists, could not be deeper or more grievous any- 
 where. Oh, how he sighed for his tin tube and the 
 quiet nook with the charcoal and the palette knife ! 
 
 He had been unhappy there indeed, but still had 
 had always some sort of hope to solace him ; some 
 chance still remaining that one day fortune might 
 smile, and he be allowed to be at least the lowest 
 strata of some immortal work. 
 
 But now hope was there none. His doom, his 
 end, were fixed and changeless. Nevermore could 
 he be anything than what he was ; and change there 
 could be none till weather and time should have 
 done their work on him, and he be rotting on the 
 wet earth, a shattered and worm-eaten wreck. 
 
 Day broke : a gloomy, misty morning. 
 
 From where he was crucified upon the tree 
 trunk he could no longer even see his beloved home 
 the studio : he could only see a dusky, intricate tangle 
 of branches all about him, and below the wall of flint 
 with the Banksia that grew on it, and the hard muddy 
 highway, drenched from the storm of the night. 
 
 A man passed in a miller's cart, and stood up and 
 swore at him because the people had liked to come 
 and shoot and trap the birds of the master's wooded 
 gardens, and knew that they must not do it now. 
 
LAMPBLACK. 139 
 
 A slug crawled over him, and a snail also. A 
 woodpecker hammered at him with its strong beak. 
 A boy went by under the wall and threw stones at 
 him, and called him names. The rain poured down 
 again heavily. He thought of the happy painting- 
 room, where it had seemed always summer and 
 always sunshine ; and where now in the forenoon all 
 the colours were marshalling in the pageantry of the 
 Arts, as he had seen them do hundreds of times from 
 his lone corner. All the misery of the past looked 
 happiness now. 
 
 ' If I were only dead like Flakewhite,' he 
 thought ; but the stones only bruised, they did not 
 kill him ; and the iron band only hurt, it did not stifle 
 him. For whatever suffers very much, has always 
 so much strength to continue to exist. And almost 
 his loyal heart blasphemed and cursed the master 
 who had brought him to such a fate as this. 
 
 The day grew apace and noon went by, and with 
 it the rain passed. The sun shone out once more, 
 and Lampblack, even imprisoned and wretched as he 
 was, could not but see how beautiful the wet leaves 
 looked and the gossamers all hung with raindrops, 
 and the blue sky that shone through the boughs ; 
 for he had not lived with a great artist all his days 
 to be blind, even in pain, to the loveliness of nature. 
 The sun came out, and with it some little brown 
 birds tripped out too ; very simple and plain in their 
 costumes and ways, but which Lampback knew were 
 
i4o LAMPBLACK. 
 
 the loves of the poets, for he had heard the master 
 call them so many times in summer nights. The 
 little brown birds came tripping and pecking about 
 on the grass underneath his tree trunk, and then 
 flew on the top of the wall, which was covered with 
 Banksia and many other creepers. The brown birds 
 sang a little song, for though they sing most in the 
 moonlight they do sing by day too, and sometimes 
 all day long. And what they sung was this : 
 
 ' Oh, how happy we are, how happy ! No nets 
 dare now be spread for us, no cruel boys dare climb, 
 and no cruel shooters fire. We are safe, quite safe, 
 and the sweet summer has begun ! ' 
 
 Lampblack listened, and even in his misery was 
 touched and soothed by the tender liquid sounds 
 that these little throats poured out among the light 
 yellow bloom of the Banksia flowers. And when one 
 of the brown birds came and sat on a branch by him, 
 swaying itself and drinking the raindrops off a leaf, 
 he ventured to ask, as well as he could for the iron 
 that strangled him, why they were so safe, and what 
 made them so happy ? 
 
 The bird looked at him in surprise. 
 
 ' Do you not know ? ' he said. ' It is you ! ' 
 
 1 I ! ' echoed Lampblack, and could say no more, 
 for he feared that the bird was mocking him, a poor, 
 silly, rusty black paint, only spread out to rot in fair 
 weather and foul. What good could he do to any 
 creature ? 
 
LAMPBLACK. 141 
 
 1 You,' repeated the nightingale. ' Did you not 
 see that man under the wall ? He had a gun ; we 
 should have been dead but for you. We will come 
 and sing to you all night long since you like it ; and 
 when we go to bed at dawn, I will tell my cousins 
 the thrushes and merles to take our places, so that 
 you shall hear somebody singing near you all the 
 day long.' 
 
 Lampblack was silent. 
 
 His heart was too full to speak. 
 
 Was it possible that he was of use after all ? 
 
 ' Can it be true ? ' he said timidly. 
 
 1 Quite true,' said the nightingale. 
 
 ' Then the master knew best,' thought Lamp- 
 black. 
 
 Never would he adorn a palace or be adored 
 upon an altar. His high hopes were all dead, like 
 last year's leaves. The colours in the studio had all 
 the glories of the world, but he was of use in it after 
 all ; he could save these little lives. He was poor 
 and despised, bruised by stones and drenched by 
 storms ; yet was he content, nailed there upon his 
 tree, for he had not been made quite in vain. 
 
 The sunset poured its red and golden splendours 
 through the darkness of the boughs, and the birds 
 sang all together, shouting for joy and praising God. 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 T was in the year of grace 1490, in the 
 reign of Guidobaldo, Lord of Montefeltro, 
 Duke of Urbino, the year, by the way, of 
 the birth of that most illustrious and gracious lady 
 Yittoria Colonna. 
 
 It was in the spring of the year, in that mountain 
 eyrie beloved of the Muses and coveted of the 
 Borgia, that a little boy stood looking out of a grated 
 casement into the calm sunshiny day. He was a 
 pretty boy, with hazel eyes, and fair hair cut straight 
 above his brows ; he wore a little blue tunic with 
 some embroidery about the throat of it, and had in 
 his hand a little round flat cap of the same colour. He 
 was sad of heart this merry morning, for a dear friend 
 of his, a friend ten years older than himself, had gone 
 the night before on a journey over the mountains to 
 Maestro Francesco at Bologna, there to be bound ap- 
 prentice to that gentle artist. This friend, Timoteo 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 143 
 
 della Vita, had been very dear to the child ; had played 
 with him and jested with him, made him toys and 
 told him stories, and he was very full of pain at 
 Timoteo's loss. Yet he told himself not to mind, 
 for had not Timoteo said to him, ' I go as goldsmith's 
 'prentice to the best of men ; but I mean to become a 
 painter ' ? And the child understood that to be a 
 painter was to be the greatest and wisest the world 
 held ; he quite understood that, for he was Raffaelle, 
 the seven-year-old son of Signor Giovanni Sanzio. 
 
 He was a very happy little boy here in this 
 stately yet homely and kindly Urbino, where his 
 people had come for refuge when the lances of 
 Malatesta had ravaged and ruined their homestead. 
 He had the dearest old grandfather in all the world ; 
 he had a loving mother, and he had a father who 
 was very tender to him, and painted him amongst 
 the angels of heaven, and was always full of pleasant 
 conceits and admirable learning, and such true love 
 of art, that the child breathed it with every breath, 
 as he could breathe the sweetness of a cowslip-bell 
 when he held one in his hands up to his nostrils. 
 
 It was good in those days to live in old Urbino. 
 It was not, indeed, so brilliant a place as it became 
 in a later day, when Ariosto came there, and Bembo 
 and Castiglione and many another witty and learned 
 gentleman, and the Courts of Love were held with 
 ingenious rhyme and pretty sentiment, sad only for 
 wantonness. But if not so brilliant it was homelier, 
 
144 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 simpler, full of virtue, with a wise peace and tran- 
 quillity that joined hands with a stout courage. The 
 burgher was good friends with his prince, and knew 
 that in any trouble or perplexity he could go up to 
 the palace, or stop the duke in the market-place, and 
 be sure of sympathy and good counsel. There were 
 a genuine love of beautiful things, a sense of public 
 duty and of public spirit, a loyal temper and a sage 
 contentment amongst the good people of that time, 
 which made them happy and prosperous. 
 
 All work was solidly and thoroughly done, living 
 was cheap, and food good and plentiful, much 
 better and more plentiful than it is now ; in the fine 
 old houses every stone was sound, every bit of orna- 
 ment well wrought, men made their nests to live in 
 and to pass to their children and children's children 
 after them, and had their own fancies and their own 
 traditions recorded in the ironwork of their case- 
 ments and in the woodwork of their doors. They 
 had their happy day of honest toil from matins bell 
 to evensong, and then walked out or sat about in 
 the calm evening air and looked down on the plains 
 below that were rich with grain and fruit and wood- 
 land, and talked and laughed amongst each other, 
 and were content with their own pleasant, useful 
 lives, not burnt up with envy of desire to be someone 
 else, as in our sickly, hurrying time most people are. 
 
 Yes, life must have been very good in those old 
 days in old Urbino, better than it is anywhere in ours. 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 145 
 
 Can you not picture to yourself good, shrewd, 
 wise Giovanni Sanzio, with his old father by his side, 
 and his little son running before him, in the holy 
 evening time of a feast-day, with the deep church 
 bells swaying abovehead, and the last sun rays 
 smiting the frescoed walls, the stone bastions, the 
 blazoned standard on the castle roof, the steep city 
 rocks shelving down into the greenery of cherry- 
 orchard and of pear-tree ? I can, whenever I shut 
 my eyes, and recall Urbino as it was ; and would it 
 had been mine to live then in that mountain home, 
 and meet that divine child going along his happy 
 smiling way, garnering unconsciously in his infant 
 soul all the beautiful sights and sounds around him, 
 to give them in his manhood to the world. 
 
 1 Let him alone ; he will paint all this some 
 day,' said his wise father, who loved to think that 
 his brushes and his colours would pass in time to 
 Raffaelle, whose hands would be stronger to hold 
 them than his own had been. And whether he would 
 ever paint it or not, the child never tired of thus 
 looking from his eyrie on the rocks and counting 
 all that passed below through the blowing corn 
 under the leafy orchard boughs. 
 
 There were so many things to see in Urbino in 
 that time, looking so over the vast green valley 
 below ; a clump of spears, most likely, as men-at- 
 arms rode through the trees ; a string of market folk 
 bringing in the produce of the orchards or the fields ; 
 
 L 
 
146 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 perchance a red-robed cardinal on a white mule 
 with glittering housings, behind him a sumpter train 
 rich with baggage, furniture, gold and silver plate ; 
 maybe the Duke's hunting party going out or 
 cominof homeward with caracoling steeds, beautiful 
 hounds straining at their leash, hunting-horns sound- 
 ing merrily over the green country ; maybe a band 
 of Free Lances, with plumes tossing, steel glancing, 
 bannerets fluttering against the sky ; or maybe a 
 quiet grey-robed string of monks or pilgrims singing 
 the hymn sung before Jerusalem, treading the long 
 lush grass with sandalled feet, coming towards the 
 city, to crowd slowly and gladly up its rocky height. 
 Do you not wish with me you could stand in the 
 window with Raffaelle to see the earth as it was 
 then ? 
 
 No doubt the good folks of Urbino laughed at 
 him often for a little moonstruck dreamer, so many 
 hours did he stand looking, looking — only looking — 
 as eyes have a right to do that see well and not 
 altogether as others see. 
 
 Happily for him the days of his childhood were 
 times of peace, and he did not behold, as his father 
 had done, the torches light up the street and the 
 flames devour the homesteads. 
 
 At this time Urbino was growing into fame for 
 its pottery work : those big dishes and bowls, those 
 marriage plates and pharmacy jars, which it made 
 were beginning to rival the products of its neigh- 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 147 
 
 bour Gubbio, and when its duke wished to send 
 a bridal gift or a present on other festal occa- 
 sions, he oftenest chose some service or some rare 
 platter of his own Urbino ware. Now pottery had 
 not then taken the high place amongst the arts of 
 Italy that it was destined very soon to do. As you 
 will learn when you are older, after the Greeks and 
 the Christians had exhausted all that was beautiful 
 in shape and substance of clay vases, the art seemed 
 to die out, and the potters and the pottery painters 
 died with it, or at any rate went to sleep for a great 
 many centuries, whilst soldiers and prelates, nobles 
 and mercenaries were trampling to and fro all over 
 the land and disputing it, and carrying fire and torch, 
 steel and desolation with them in their quarrels and 
 covetousness. But now, the reign of the late good 
 duke, great Federigo, having been favourable to the 
 Marches (as we call his province now), the potters 
 and pottery painters, with other gentle craftsmen, 
 had begun to look up again, and the beneficent fires 
 of their humble ovens had begun to burn in Castel 
 Durante, in Pesaro, in Faenza, in Gubbio, and in 
 Urbino itself. The great days had not yet come : 
 Maestro Giorgio was but a youngster, and Orazio 
 Fontane not born, nor the clever baker Prestino 
 either, nor the famous Fra Xanto ; but there was a 
 Don Giorgio even then in Gubbio, of whose work, 
 alas ! one plate now at the Louvre is all we have ; 
 and here in the ducal city on the hill rich and noble 
 
i 4 8 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 things were already being made in the stout and 
 lustrous majolica that was destined to acquire later 
 on so wide a ceramic fame. Jars and bowls and 
 platters, oval dishes and ewers and basins, and big- 
 bodied, metal-welded pharmacy- vases were all made 
 and painted at Urbino whilst Raffaelle Sanzio was 
 running about on rosy infantine feet. There was a 
 master potter of the Montefeltro at that time, one 
 Maestro Benedetto Ronconi, whose name had not 
 become world-renowned as Orazio Fontane's and 
 Maestro Giorgio s did in the following century, yet 
 who in that day enjoyed the honour of all the duchy, 
 and did things very rare and fine in the Urbino ware. 
 He lived within a stone's throw of Giovanni Sanzio, 
 and was a grey-haired, handsome, somewhat stern 
 and pompous man, now more than middle-aged, who 
 had one beauteous daughter, by name Pacifica. He 
 cherished Pacifica well, but not so well as he 
 cherished the things he wrought : the deep round 
 nuptial plates and oval massive dishes that he 
 painted with Scriptural stories and strange devices, 
 and landscapes such as those he saw around, 
 and flowing scrolls with Latin mottoes in black 
 letters, and which, when thus painted, he consigned 
 with an anxiously beating heart to the trial of 
 the ovens, and which sometimes came forth from 
 the trial all cracked and blurred and marred, and 
 sometimes emerged in triumph and came into his 
 trembling hands iridescent and lovely with those 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 149 
 
 lustrous and opaline hues which we admire in them 
 to this day as the especial glory of majolica. 
 
 Maestro Benedetto was an ambitious and vain 
 man, and had had a hard, laborious manhood, 
 working at his potter's wheel and painter's brush 
 before Urbino ware was prized in Italy or even in 
 the duchy. Now indeed he was esteemed at his due 
 worth, and his work was so also, and he was 
 passably rich, and known as a good artist beyond 
 the Marches ; but there was a younger man over 
 at Gubbio, the Don Giorgio, who was precursor of 
 unequalled Maestro Giorgio Andreoli, who surpassed 
 him, and made him sleep o' nights on thorns, as envy 
 makes all those to do who take her as their bed-fellow. 
 
 The house of Maestro Benedetto was a long 
 stone building, with a loggia at the back all over- 
 climbed by hardy rose-trees, and looking on a garden 
 that was more than half an orchard, and in which 
 grew abundantly pear-trees, plum-trees, and wood 
 strawberries. The lancet windows of his workshop 
 looked on all this quiet greenery. There were so 
 many such pleasant workshops then in the land ; 
 calm, godly, homelike places, filled from without 
 with song of birds and scent of herbs and blossoms. 
 Now-a-days men work in crowded, stinking cities, 
 in close factory chambers ; and their work is barren 
 as their lives are. 
 
 The little son of neighbour Sanzio ran in and 
 out this bigger, wider house and garden of Maestro 
 
iSo THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 Benedetto at his pleasure, for the maiden Pacifica 
 was always glad to see him, and even the sombre 
 master potter would unbend to him and show him how 
 to lay the colour on to the tremulous fugitive unbaked 
 biscuit. 
 
 Pacifica was a lovely young woman of some 
 seventeen or eighteen summers ; and perhaps Raf- 
 faelle was but remembering her when he painted in 
 his after years the face of his Madonna di San 
 Sisto. He loved her as he loved everything that 
 was beautiful and everyone who was kind ; and 
 almost better than his own beloved father's studio, 
 almost better than his dear old grandsire's cheerful 
 little shop, did he love this grave, silent, sweet- 
 smelling, sun-pierced, shadowy old house of Maestro 
 Benedetto. 
 
 Maestro Benedetto had four apprentices or pupils 
 in that time learning to become figidi, but the one 
 which Raffaelle liked the most (and Pacifica too) was 
 one Luca Torelli, of a village above in the mountains ; 
 a youth with a noble dark pensive beauty of his own, 
 and a fearless gait, and a supple, tall, slender figure 
 that would have looked well in the light coat of mail 
 and silken doublet of a man-at-arms. In sooth the 
 spirit of Messer Luca was more made for war and its 
 risks and glories than for the wheel and the brush of 
 the bottega ; but he had loved Pacifica ever since he 
 had come down one careless holyday into Urbino, 
 and had bound himself to her father's service in a 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 151 
 
 heedless moment of eagerness to breathe the same 
 air and dwell under the same roof as she did. He 
 had gained little for his pains : to see her at mass 
 and at meal-times, now and then to be allowed to bring 
 water from the well for her or feed her pigeons, to see 
 her grey gown go down between the orchard trees and 
 catch the sun-light, to hear the hum of her spinning- 
 wheel, the thrum of her viol — this was the uttermost 
 he got of joy in two long years ; and how he envied 
 Raffaelle running along- the stone floor o the loggia 
 to leap into her arms, to hang upon her skirts, to pick 
 the summer fruit with her, and sort with her the 
 autumn herbs for drying ! 
 
 ' I love Pacifica !' he would say with a groan to 
 Raffaelle ; and Raffaelle would say with a smile, 
 ' Ah, Luca, so do I ! ' 
 
 ' It is not the same thing, my dear,' sighed Luca; 
 ' I want her for my wife.' 
 
 ' I shall have no wife ; I shall marry myself to 
 painting,' said Raffaelle, with a little grave wise face 
 looking out from under the golden roof of his fair 
 hair. For he was never tired of watching- his father 
 painting the saints with their branch of palm on their 
 ground of blue or of gold, or Maestro Benedetto 
 making the dull clay glow with angels' wings and 
 prophets' robes and holy legends told in colour. 
 
 Now, one day as Raffaelle was standing and 
 looking thus at his favourite window in the potter's 
 house, his friend, the handsome, black-browed Luca, 
 
152 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 who was also standing there, did sigh so deeply and 
 so deplorably that the child was startled from his 
 dreams. 
 
 ' Good Luca, what ails you ?' he murmured, 
 winding his arms about the young man's knees. 
 
 ' Oh, 'Faello !' mourned the apprentice woefully. 
 ' Here is such a chance to win the hand of Pacifica 
 if only I had talent ; such talent as that Giorgio 
 of Gubbio has ! If the good Lord had only gifted 
 me with a master's skill instead of all this bodily 
 strength and sinew, like a wild hog of the woods, 
 which avails me nothing here !' 
 
 ' What chance is it ? ' asked Raffaelle, ' and what 
 is there new about Pacifica ? She told me nothing, 
 and I was with her an hour.' 
 
 ' Dear simple one, she knows nothing of it,' 
 said Luca heaving another tremendous sigh from 
 his heart's deepest depths. ' You must know that 
 a new order has come in this very forenoon from 
 the Duke : he wishes a dish and a jar of the very 
 finest and firmest majolica to be painted with the 
 story of Esther, and made ready in three months from 
 this date, to then go as his gifts to his cousins of 
 Gonzaga. He has ordered that no cost be spared 
 in the work, but the painting thereof be of the best 
 that can be produced, and the prize he will give is 
 to be fifty scudi. Now, Maestro Benedetto having 
 known some time, it seems, of this order, has had made 
 in readiness several large oval dishes and beautiful 
 
THE CHILD OF URB1N0. 153 
 
 big-bellied jars ; he gives one of each to each of his 
 pupils, to myself, to Berengario, to Tito, and to Ze- 
 none. The master is sorely distraught that his eye- 
 sight permits him not himself to execute the Duke's 
 commands ; but it is no secret that should one of 
 us be so fortunate as to win the Duke's approbation, 
 the painter who does so shall become his partner here 
 and shall have the hand of Pacifica. Some say that 
 he has only put forth this promise as a stimulus to get 
 the best work done of which his bottega is capable, 
 but I know Maestro Benedetto too well to deem him 
 guilty of any such evasion. What he has said he 
 will carry out ; if the vase and the dish win the 
 Duke's praise, they will also win Pacifica. Now 
 you see, 'Faello, mine, why I am so bitterly sad of 
 heart, for I am a good craftsman enough at the 
 wheel and the furnace, and I like not ill the hand- 
 ling and the moulding of the clay, but at the painting 
 of the clay I am but a tyro, and Berengario or even 
 the little Zenone will beat me ; of that I am sure.' 
 
 Raffaelle heard all this in silence, leaning his 
 elbows on his friend's knee, and his chin on his 
 palms of his own hands. He knew that the other 
 pupils were better painters by far than his Luca, 
 though not one of them was such a good-hearted or 
 noble looking youth, and for none of them did the 
 maiden Pacifica care. 
 
 ' How long a time is given for the jar and the 
 dish to be ready ? ' he asked at length. 
 
iS4 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 1 Three months, my dear,' said Luca with a sigh 
 sadder than ever. ' But if it were three years, what 
 difference would it make ? You cannot cudgel the 
 divine grace of art into a man with blows as you 
 cudgel speed into a mule, and I shall be a dolt at 
 the end of the time as I am now. What said your 
 good father to me but yesternight, and he is good 
 to me and does not despise me. He said : " Luca, my 
 son, it is of no more avail for you to sigh for 
 Pacifica than for the moon. Were she mine I would 
 give her to you, for you have a heart of gold, but 
 Signor Benedetto will not ; for never, I fear me, will 
 you be able to decorate anything more than an 
 apothecary's mortar or a barber's basin. If I hurt 
 you take it not ill ; I mean kindness, and were I a 
 stalwart youth like you, I would go try my fortunes 
 in the Free Companies in France or Spain, or down 
 in Rome, for you are made for a soldier.'-' That 
 was the best even your father could say for me, 
 'Faello.' 
 
 ' But Pacifica ? ' said the child, ' Pacifica would 
 not wish you to join the Free Companies ? ' 
 
 ' God knows,' said Luca hopelessly. ' Perhaps 
 she would not care.' 
 
 ' I am sure she would,' said Raffaelle, ' for she 
 does love you, Luca, though she cannot say so, being 
 but a girl, and Signor Benedetto against you. But 
 that redcap you tamed for her, how she loves it, 
 how she caresses it, and half is for you, Luca, half 
 for the bird ! ' 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 155 
 
 Luca kissed him. 
 
 But the tears rolled down the poor youth's face, 
 for he was much in earnest and filled with despair. 
 
 ' Even if she did, if she do,' he murmured hope- 
 lessly, ' she never will let me know it, since her 
 father forbids a thought of me ; and now here is this 
 trial of skill at the Duke's order come to make 
 things worse, and if that swaggering Berengario of 
 Fano win her, then truly will I join the Free Lances 
 and pray heaven send me swift shrive and shroud.' 
 
 Raffaelle was very pensive for awhile, then he 
 raised his head and said : 
 
 ' I have thought of something, Luca. But I do 
 not know whether you will let me try it.' 
 
 ' You angel child ! What would your old Luca 
 deny to you ? But as for helping me, my dear, 
 put that thought out of your little mind for ever, for 
 no one can help me, 'Faello, not the saints them- 
 selves, since I was born a dolt ! ' 
 
 Raffaelle kissed him, and said ' Now listen ! ' 
 
 A few days later Signor Benedetto informed his 
 pupils in ceremonious audience of the Duke's com- 
 mand and of his own intentions ; he did not pronounce 
 his daughter's name to the youths, but he spoke in 
 terms that were clear enough to assure them that 
 whoever had the good fortune and high merit to gain 
 the Duke's choice of his pottery, should have the 
 honour of becoming associate in his own famous 
 bottega. Now it had been known in Urbino ever 
 
156 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 since Pacifica had gone to her first communion, that 
 whoever pleased her father well enough to become his 
 partner, would have also to please her as her husband. 
 Not much attention was given to maidens' wishes in 
 those times, and no one thought the master potter 
 either unjust or cruel in thus suiting himself before 
 he suited his daughter. But what made the hearts 
 
 o 
 
 of all the young men quake and sink the lowest was 
 the fact that Signor Benedetto offered the competition 
 not only to his own apprentices but to any native of 
 the Duchy of Urbino. For who could tell what hero 
 might not step forth from obscurity and gain the 
 great prize of this fair hand of Pacifica's ? And 
 with her hand would go many a broad gold ducat, 
 and heritage of the wide old grey stone house, and 
 many an old jewel and old brocade that were kept 
 there in dusky sweet-smelling cabinets, and also 
 more than one good piece of land, smiling with corn 
 and fruit-trees, outside the gates in the lower pastures 
 to the westward. 
 
 Luca, indeed, never thought of these things, but 
 the other three pupils did, and other youths as well. 
 Had it not been for the limitation as to birth within 
 the duchy, many a gallant young painter from the 
 other side of the Apennines, many a lusty vasalino 
 or boccalino from the workshops of fair Florence 
 herself, or from the Lombard cities, might have 
 travelled there in hot haste as fast as horses could 
 carry them, and come to paint the clay for the 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 157 
 
 sake of so precious a recompense. But Urbino men 
 they had to be ; and poor Luca, who was so full of 
 despair that he could almost have thrown himself 
 headlong from the rocks, was thankful to destiny for 
 even so much slender mercy as this — that the number 
 of his rivals was limited. 
 
 ' Had I been you,' Giovanni Sanzio ventured once 
 to say respectfully to Signor Benedetto, ' I think I 
 should have picked out for my son-in-law the best 
 youth that I knew, not the best painter ; for be it 
 said in all reverence, my friend, the greatest artist is 
 not always the truest man, and by the hearthstone 
 humble virtues have sometimes high claim.' 
 
 Then Signor Benedetto had set his stern face 
 like a flint, knowing very well what youth Messer 
 Giovanni would have liked to name to him. 
 
 ' I have need of a good artist in my bottega to 
 keep up its fame,' he had said stiffly. ' My vision is 
 not what it was, and I should be loth to see Urbino 
 ware fall back, whilst Pesaro and Gubbio and Castel 
 Durante gain ground every day. Pacifica must pay 
 the penalty, if penalty there be, for being the 
 daughter of a great artist' 
 
 Mirthful, keen-witted Sanzio smiled to himself, 
 and went his way in silence ; for he who loved 
 Andrea Mantegna did not bow down in homage 
 before the old master-potter's estimation of himself, 
 which was in truth somewhat over-weening in its 
 vanity. 
 
158 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 ' Poor Pacifica ! ' he thought, ' if only my 'Faello 
 were but some decade older ! ' 
 
 He, who could not foresee the future, the splendid, 
 wondrous, unequalled future that awaited his young 
 son, wished nothing better for him than a peaceful 
 painter's life here in old Urbino, under the friendly 
 shadow of the Montefeltro's palace walls. 
 
 Meanwhile where think you was Raffaelle ? 
 Half the day, or all the day, and every day when- 
 ever he could ? Where think you he was ? Well, 
 in the attic of Luca, before a bowl and a dish almost 
 as big as himself. The attic was a breezy, naked 
 place, underneath the arches supporting the roof of 
 Maestro Benedetto's dwelling. Each pupil had one 
 of these garrets to himself; a rare boon, for which 
 Luca came to be very thankful, for without it he 
 could not have sheltered his angel ; and the secret 
 that Raffaelle had whispered to him that day of their 
 first conference had been, ' Let me try and paint it ! ' 
 
 For a long time Luca had been afraid to comply, 
 had only forborne indeed from utter laughter at the 
 idea from his love and reverence for the little speaker. 
 Baby Sanzio, who was only just seven years old as the 
 April tulips reddened the corn, painting a majolica 
 dish and vase to go to the Gonzaga of Mantua ! 
 The good fellow could scarcely restrain his shouts of 
 mirth at the audacious fancy ; and nothing had kept 
 him grave but the sight of that most serious face of 
 Raffaelle, looking up to his with serene, sublime self- 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 159 
 
 confidence, nay, perhaps rather, confidence in heaven 
 and in heaven's gifts. 
 
 ' Let me try ! ' said the child a hundred times. 
 He would tell no one, only Luca would know ; and 
 if he failed — well, there would only be the spoiled 
 pottery to pay for, and had he not two whole ducats 
 that the Duke had given him when the Court had 
 come to behold his father's designs for the altar- 
 frescoes at S. Dominico di Cagli ? 
 
 So utterly in earnest was he, and so intense and 
 blank was Luca's absolute despair, that the young 
 man had in turn given way to his entreaties. 
 ' Never can I do aught,' he thought bitterly, looking 
 at his own clumsy designs. ' And sometimes by the 
 help of cherubs the saints work miracles.' 
 
 ' It will be no miracle,' said Raffaelle, hearing him 
 murmur this ; ■ it will be myself, and that which the 
 dear God has put into me.' 
 
 From that hour Luca let him do what he would, 
 and through all these lovely early summer days the 
 child came and shut himself up in the garret and 
 studied and thought and worked and knitted his 
 pretty fair brows, and smiled in tranquil satisfaction, 
 according to the mood he was in and the progress 
 of his labours. 
 
 Giovanni Sanzio went away at that time to paint 
 an altar-piece over at Citta di Castello, and his 
 little son for once was glad he was absent. Messer 
 Giovanni would surely have remarked the long and 
 
160 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 frequent visits of Raffaelle to the attic, and would, in 
 all likelihood, have obliged him to pore over his 
 Latin or to take exercise in the open fields ; but his 
 mother said nothing, content that he should be 
 amused and safe, and knowing well that Pacifica 
 loved him and would let him come to no harm under 
 her roof. Pacifica herself did wonder that he de- 
 serted her so perpetually for the garret. But one 
 day when she questioned him, the sweet-faced 
 rogue clung to her and murmured, ' Oh, Pacifica, 
 I do want Luca to win you, because he loves you 
 so ; and I do love you both ! ' And she grew pale, 
 and answered him, ' Ah, dear, if he could ! ' and 
 then said never a word more, but went to her distaff; 
 and Raffaelle saw great tears fall off her lashes down 
 amongst the flax. 
 
 She thought he went to the attic to watch how 
 Luca painted, and loved him more than ever for that, 
 but knew, in the hopelessness of her heart — as Luca 
 also knew it in his — that the good and gallant youth 
 would never be able to create anything that would 
 go as the Duke's gifts to the Gonzaga of Mantua. 
 And she did care for Luca ! She had spoken to him 
 but rarely indeed, yet passing in and out of the same 
 doors, and going to the same church offices, and 
 dwelling always beneath the same roof, he had found 
 means of late for a word, a flower, a serenade. And 
 he was so handsome and so brave, and so gentle, 
 too, and so full of deference. Poor Pacifica cared 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 161 
 
 not in the least whether he could paint or not. He 
 could have made her happy. 
 
 In the attic Raffaelle passed the most anxious 
 hours of all his sunny little life. He would not 
 allow Luca even to look at what he did. He barred 
 the door and worked ; when he went away he 
 locked his work up in a wardrobe. The swallows 
 came in and out of the unglazed window, and 
 fluttered all around him ; the morning sunbeams 
 came in, too, and made a nimbus round his golden 
 head, like that which his father gilded above the 
 heads of saints. Raffaelle worked on, not looking 
 off, though clang of trumpet, or fanfare of cymbal, 
 often told him there was much going on worth look- 
 ing at down below. He was only seven years old, 
 but he laboured as earnestly as if he were a man 
 grown, his little rosy fingers gripping that pencil 
 which was to make him in life and death famous as 
 kings are not famous, and let his tender body lie in 
 its last sleep in the Pantheon of Rome. 
 
 He had covered hundreds of sheets with designs 
 before he had succeeded in getting embodied the 
 ideas that haunted him. When he had pleased him- 
 self at last, he set to work to transfer his imaginations 
 to the clay in colour in the subtle luminous metallic 
 enamel that characterises Urbino majolica. 
 
 Ah, how glad he was now that his father had let 
 him draw from the time he was two years old, and 
 that of late Messer Benedetto had shown him some- 
 
 M 
 
162 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 thing of the mysteries of painting- on biscuit and 
 producing the metallic lustre which was the especial 
 glory of the pottery of the duchy ! 
 
 How glad he was, and how his little heart 
 bounded and seemed to sing in this his first enjoy- 
 ment of the joyous liberties and powers of creative 
 work ! 
 
 A well-known writer has said that genius is the 
 power of taking pains ; he should have said rather 
 that genius has this power also, but that first and 
 foremost it possesses the power of spontaneous and 
 exquisite production without effort and with delight. 
 
 Luca looked at him (not at his work, for the child 
 had made him promise not to do so) and began to 
 marvel at his absorption, his intentness, the evident 
 facility with which he worked ; the little figure, leaning 
 over the great dish on the bare board of the table, 
 with the oval opening of the window and the blue 
 sky beyond it, began to grow sacred to him with 
 more than the sanctity of childhood. Raffaelle's 
 face grew very serious, too, and lost its colour, and his 
 large hazel eyes looked very big and grave and dark. 
 
 ' Perhaps Signor Giovanni will be angry with me if 
 ever he know,' thought poor Luca ; but it was too late 
 to alter anything now. The child Sanzio had become 
 his master. 
 
 So Raffaelle, unknown to anyone else, worked 
 on and on there in the attic while the tulips bloomed 
 and withered, and the honeysuckle was in flower 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 163 
 
 in the hedges, and the wheat and barley were being 
 cut in the quiet fields lying far down below in the 
 sunshine. For midsummer was come ; the three 
 months all but a week had passed by. It was known 
 that everyone was ready to compete for the Duke's 
 choice. 
 
 One afternoon Raffaelle took Luca by the hand 
 and said to him, ' Come.' 
 
 He led the young man up to the table, beneath 
 the unglazed window, where he had passed so many 
 of these ninety days of the spring and summer. 
 
 Luca gave a great cry, and stood gazing, gazing, 
 gazing. Then he fell on his knees and embraced 
 the little feet of the child ; it was the first homage 
 that he, whose life became one beautiful song of 
 praise, received from man. 
 
 ' Dear Luca,' he said softly, ' do not do that, If 
 it be indeed good, let us thank God.' 
 
 What his friend saw were the great oval dish 
 and the great jar or vase standing with the sunbeams 
 full upon them, and the brushes and the tools and 
 the colours all strewn around. And they shone 
 with lustrous opaline hues and wondrous flame, 
 like glories, and gleaming iridescence, like melted 
 jewels, and there were all manner of graceful symbols 
 and classic designs wrought upon them ; and their 
 borders were garlanded with cherubs and flowers, 
 bearing the arms of the Montefeltro, and the land- 
 scapes were the tender, homely landscapes round 
 
1 64 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 about Urbino ; and the mountains had the solemn 
 radiance that the Apennines wore at evening-time, 
 and amidst the figures there was one supreme, white- 
 robed, golden-crowned Esther, to whom the child 
 painter had given the face of Pacifica. And this 
 wondrous creation, wrought by a baby's hand, had 
 safely and secretly passed the ordeal of the furnace, 
 and had come forth without spot or flaw. 
 
 Luca ceased not from kneeling at the feet of 
 Raffaelle, as ever since has kneeled the world. 
 
 ' Oh, wondrous boy ! Oh, angel sent unto men ! ' 
 sighed the poor 'prentice, as he gazed ; and his heart 
 was so full that he burst into tears. 
 
 ' Let us thank God,' said little Raffaelle again ; 
 and he joined his small hands that had wrought this 
 miracle, and said his Laus Domini. 
 
 When the precious jar and the great platter were 
 removed to the wardrobe, and shut up in safety 
 behind the steel wards of the locker, Luca said timidly, 
 feeling twenty years in age behind the wisdom of 
 this divine child, ' But, dearest boy, T do not see how 
 your marvellous and most exquisite accomplishment 
 can advantage me. Even if you would allow it to 
 pass as mine, I could not accept such a thing : it 
 would be a fraud, a shame ; not even to win Pacifica 
 could I consent' 
 
 ' Be not so hasty, good friend/ said Raffaelle. 
 * Wait just a little longer yet and see. I have my 
 own idea. Do trust in me.' 
 
THE CHILD OF U RBI NO. 165 
 
 ' Heaven speaks in you, that I believe,' said 
 Luca, humbly. 
 
 Raffaele answered not ; but ran downstairs, and, 
 passing Pacifica, threw his arms about her in more 
 than his usual affectionate caresses. 
 
 ' Pacifica, be of good heart,' he murmured, and 
 would not be questioned, but ran homeward to his 
 mother. 
 
 1 Can it be that Luca has done well ? ' thought 
 Pacifica ; but she feared the child's wishes had outrun 
 his wisdom. He could not be any judge, a child of 
 seven years old, even though he were the son of 
 that good and honest painter and poet, Giovanni 
 Sanzio. 
 
 The next morning was midsummer day. Now 
 the pottery was all to be placed on this forenoon in the 
 bottega of Signor Benedetto ; and the Duke Guido- 
 baldo was then to come and make his choice from 
 amidst them ; and the master potter, a little because 
 he was a courtier, and more because he liked to 
 affect a mighty indifference, and show he had no 
 favouritism, had declared that he would not himself 
 see the competing works of art until the eyes of the 
 Lord of Montefeltro also fell upon them. 
 
 As for Pacifica, she had locked herself in her 
 chamber, alone with her intense agitation ; the 
 young men were swaggering about, and taunting 
 each other and boasting. Luca alone sat apart, 
 thrumming an old lute. Giovanni Sanzio, who had 
 
1 66 THE CHILD OF U RBI NO. 
 
 ridden home at evening from Citta di Castello, 
 came in from his own house and put his hand on 
 the youth's shoulder. 
 
 ' I hear the Pesaro men have brought fine things. 
 Take courage, my lad. Maybe we can entreat the 
 Duke to dissuade Pacifica's father from this tyran- 
 nous disposal of her hand.' 
 
 Luca shook his head wearily. 
 
 There would be one beautiful thing there, 
 indeed, he knew; but what use would that be to 
 him ? 
 
 ' The child — the child ' he stammered, and 
 
 then remembered that he must not disclose 
 Raffaelle's secret. 
 
 ' My child ? ' said Signor Giovanni. ' Oh, he will 
 be here ; he will be sure to be here ; wherever there 
 is a painted thing to be seen there always, be sure, is 
 Raffaelle.' 
 
 Then the good man sauntered within from the 
 loggia, to exchange salutations with Ser Benedetto, 
 who, in a suit of fine crimson with doublet of sad- 
 coloured velvet, was standing ready to advance bare- 
 headed into the street as soon as the hoofs of the 
 Duke's charger should strike on the stones. 
 
 'You must be anxious in your thoughts,' said 
 Signor Giovanni to him. ' They say a youth from 
 Pesaro brings something fine ; if you should find 
 yourself bound to take a stranger into your work- 
 room and your home ' 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 167 
 
 ' If he be a man of genius he will be welcome,' 
 answered Messer Ronconi pompously. ' Be he of 
 Pesaro, or of Fano, or of Castel Durante, I go not 
 back from my word ; I keep my word, to my own 
 hindrance even, ever.' 
 
 ' Let us hope it will bring you only joy and 
 triumph here,' said his neighbour, who knew him to 
 be an honest man, and a true, if over-obstinate and 
 too vain of his own place in Urbino. 
 
 1 Our lord the Duke ! ' shouted the people stand- 
 ing in the street ; and Ser Benedetto walked out 
 with stately tread to receive the honour of his 
 master's visit to his bottega. 
 
 Raffaelle slipped noiselessly up to his father's 
 side, and slid his little hand into Sanzio's. 
 
 ' You are not surely afraid of our good Guido- 
 baldo ! ' said his father, with a laugh and some little 
 surprise, for Raffaelle was very pale, and his lower 
 lip trembled a little. 
 
 1 No,' said the child simply. 
 
 The young Duke and his court came riding down 
 the street, and paused before the old stone house of 
 the master potter ; splendid gentlemen, though only in 
 their morning apparel, with noble Barbary steeds 
 fretting under them, and little pages and liveried 
 varlets about their steps. Usually, unless he went 
 hunting or on a visit to some noble, Guidobaldo, like 
 his father, walked about Urbino like any one of his 
 citizens ; but he knew the pompous and somewhat 
 
1 68 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 vainglorious temper of Messer Benedetto, and 
 good-naturedly was willing to humour its harmless 
 vanities. Bowing to the ground the master potter 
 led the way, walking backward into his bottega ; 
 the courtiers followed their prince ; Giovanni Sanzio 
 with his little son and a few other privileged persons 
 went in also at due distance. At the farther end of 
 the workshop stood the pupils and the artists from 
 Pesaro and other places in the duchy whose works 
 were there in competition. In all there were some 
 ten competitors : poor Luca, who had set his own 
 work on the table with the rest as he was obliged 
 to do, stood hindmost of all, shrinking back to hide 
 his misery into the deepest shadow of the deep- 
 bayed latticed window. 
 
 On the narrow deal benches that served as tables 
 on working days to the pottery painters, were ranged 
 the dishes and the jars with a number attached to 
 each, no name to any, because Signor Benedetto was 
 resolute to prove his own absolute disinterestedness 
 in the matter of choice : he wished for the best 
 artist. Prince Guidobaldo, doffing his plumed cap 
 courteously, walked down the long room and ex- 
 amined each production in its turn. On the whole, 
 the collection made a brave display of majolica, 
 though he was perhaps a little disappointed at the 
 result in each individual case, for he had wanted 
 something out of the common run and absolutely 
 perfect. Still with fair words he complimented 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 169 
 
 Signor Benedetto on the brave show, and only 
 before the work of poor Luca was he entirely silent, 
 since indeed silence was the greatest kindness he 
 could show to it ; the drawing was bold and regular, 
 but the colouring was hopelessly crude, glaring, and 
 ill-disposed. 
 
 At last, before a vase and a dish that stood 
 modestly at the very farthest end of the deal bench, 
 the Duke gave a sudden exclamation of delight, and 
 Signor Benedetto grew crimson with pleasure and 
 surprise, and Giovanni Sanzio pressed a little nearer 
 and tried to see over the shoulders of the gentlemen 
 of the court, feeling sure that something rare and 
 beautiful must have called forth that cry of wonder 
 from the Lord of Montefeltro, and having seen at a 
 glance that for his poor friend Luca there was no 
 sort of hope. 
 
 'This is beyond all comparison,' said Guido- 
 baldo, taking the great oval dish up reverently in 
 his hands. ' Maestro Benedetto, I do felicitate you 
 indeed that you should possess such a pupil. He 
 will be a glory to our beloved Urbino.' 
 
 ' It is indeed most excellent work, my Lord 
 Duke,' said the master potter, who was trembling 
 with surprise and dared not show all the astonish- 
 ment and emotion that he felt at the discovery of so 
 exquisite a creation in his own bottega. ' It must 
 be,' he added, for he was a very honest man, ' the 
 work of one of the lads of Pesaro or Castel Durante. 
 
170 THE CHILD OF URBINO. 
 
 I have no such craftsman in my workshop. It is 
 beautiful exceedingly ! ' 
 
 ' It is worth its weight in gold ! ' said the Prince, 
 sharing his emotion. ' Look, gentlemen — look ! 
 Will not the fame of Urbino be borne beyond the 
 Apennines and Alps ? ' 
 
 Thus summoned, the court and the citizens came 
 to look, and averred that truly never in Urbino had 
 they seen such painting on majolica. 
 
 ' But whose is it ? ' said Guidobaldo impatiently, 
 casting his eyes over the gathered group in the 
 background of apprentices and artists. ' Maestro 
 Benedetto, I pray you the name of the artist — I 
 pray you, quick ! ' 
 
 'It is marked number eleven, my lord,' answered 
 the master potter. * Ho, you who reply to that 
 number, stand out and give your name. My Lord 
 Duke has chosen your work. Ho, there ! do you 
 hear me ? ' 
 
 But not one of the group moved. The young 
 men looked from one to another. Who was this 
 nameless rival ? There were but ten of themselves. 
 
 ' Ho, there ! ' repeated Signor Benedetto getting 
 angry. ' Cannot you find a tongue, I say ? Who 
 has wrought this work ? Silence is but insolence to 
 his Highness and to me ! ' 
 
 Then the child Sanzio loosened his little hand 
 from his father's hold, and went forward, and stood 
 before the master potter. 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 171 
 
 1 I painted it,' he said with a little pleased smile ; 
 < I, Raffaelle.' 
 
 Can you not fancy, without telling, the confusion, 
 the wonder, the rapture, the incredulity, the ques- 
 tions, the wild ecstasy of praise that followed on the 
 discovery of the child artist ? Only the presence of 
 Guidobaldo kept it in anything like decent quietude, 
 and even he, all Duke though he was, felt his eyes 
 wet and felt his heart swell ; for he himself was 
 childless, and for the joy that Giovanni Sanzio felt 
 that day he would have given his patrimony and 
 duchy. 
 
 He took a jewel hung on a gold chain from his 
 own breast and threw it over Raffaelle's shoulders. 
 
 ' There is your first guerdon,' he said ; ' you will 
 have many, oh wondrous child, who shall live when 
 we are dust ! ' 
 
 Raffaelle, who himself was all the while quite 
 tranquil and unmoved, kissed the Duke's hand with 
 sweetest grace, then turned to his own father. 
 
 ' It is true I have won my Lord Duke's prize ? ' 
 
 1 Quite true, my angel ! ' said Giovanni Sanzio 
 with tremulous voice. 
 
 Raffaelle looked up at Maestro Benedetto. 
 
 ' Then I claim the hand of Pacifica ! ' 
 
 There was a smile on all the faces round, even 
 on the darker countenances of the vanquished 
 painters. 
 
 1 Oh would indeed you were of age to be my son 
 
172 THE CHILD OE URBINO. 
 
 by marriage, as you are the son of my heart ! ' mur- 
 mured Signor Benedetto. ' Dear and marvellous 
 child, you are but jesting I know. Tell me what it 
 is indeed that you would have. I could deny you 
 nothing ; and truly it is you who are my master.' 
 
 1 1 am your pupil,' said Raffaelle with that pretty 
 serious smile of his, his little fingers playing with 
 the ducal jewel. ' I could never have painted that 
 majolica yonder had you not taught me the secrets 
 and management of your colours. Now, dear 
 Maestro mine, and you, oh my Lord Duke, do hear 
 me ! I by the terms of the contest have won the hand 
 of Pacifica and the right of association with Messer 
 Ronconi. I take these rights and I give them 
 over to my dear friend Luca of Fano, because he is 
 the honestest man in all the world, and does honour 
 Signor Benedetto and love Pacifica as no other can do 
 so well, and Pacifica loves him ; and my Lord Duke 
 will say that thus all will be well.' 
 
 So with the grave innocent audacity of a child he 
 spoke — this seven-year-old painter who was greater 
 than any there. 
 
 Signor Benedetto stood mute, sombre, agitated. 
 Luca had sprung forward and dropped on one knee ; 
 he was as pale as ashes. Raffaelle looked at him 
 with a smile. 
 
 ' My Lord Duke,' he said, with his little gentle 
 smile, ' you have chosen my work ; defend me in my 
 rights.' 
 
THE CHILD OF URBINO. 173 
 
 I Listen to the voice of an angel, my good Bene- 
 detto ; Heaven speaks by him,' said Guidobaldo, 
 gravely laying his hand on the arm of his master 
 potter. 
 
 Harsh Signor Benedetto burst into tears. 
 
 I I can refuse him nothing,' he said with a sob. 
 1 He will give such glory unto Urbino as never the 
 world hath seen ! ' 
 
 ' And call down this fair Pacifica whom RafTaelle 
 has won,' said the sovereign of the duchy, ' and I 
 will give her myself as her dower as many gold 
 pieces as we can cram into this famous vase. An 
 honest youth who loves her and whom she loves — 
 what better can you do, Benedetto ? Young man, 
 rise up and be happy. An angel has descended on 
 earth this day for you.' 
 
 But Luca heard not, he was still kneeling at the 
 feet of Raffaelle, where the world has knelt ever 
 since. 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 T was in one of the green lanes of South 
 Devonshire that Gemma, being quite tired 
 out, threw herself down on the daisied 
 grass and said to her grandfather : 
 
 ' Nonno, let us rest a little and eat.' Her grand- 
 father said to her : 
 
 ' Carina mia, I would eat gladly, but we have 
 nothing to eat The satchel is empty.' 
 
 Gemma, lying chest downward on the turf, sighed 
 and buried her hands in her abundant curls and 
 cooled her forehead on the damp grass. She was 
 just thirteen years old, and she was so pretty that 
 she made the heart of the old grandfather ache 
 often when he looked at her and thought that she 
 would most likely soon be left alone in the world, 
 for her little brother Bindo could not be said to 
 count for anything, being only ten years old. 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 175 
 
 Gemma was very lovely indeed, being tall and lithe 
 and gay, and full of grace, and having a beautiful 
 changeable face, all light and colour. But she was 
 only thirteen, and all she could do to get her live- 
 lihood was to dance the saltarello and the tarantula. 
 She and her brother danced, which they did very 
 prettily, and the old man whom they called Nonno 
 told fortunes and performed some simple conjuring 
 tricks, and these were all bad trades as times went, 
 for nowadays nobody amuses himself with simple 
 things, and the rural folk have grown as sharp and 
 as serious as the city people, which to my thinking 
 is a very great loss to the world, for merry people 
 are generally kind people, and contented people are 
 easily governed, and have no appetites for politics 
 and philosophies and the like indigestible things. 
 
 Nonno and Gemma and Bindo were merry 
 enough even on empty stomachs. The old man was 
 as simple as a duck, and as gentle as a rabbit, and was 
 rather more of a child than either of the children. 
 Bindo was a little, round, playful, gleeful thing, like a 
 little field-mouse, and Gemma was as gay as a lark, 
 though she had to bear the burden of the only 
 brains that there were in the family. 
 
 They were little Neapolitans ; they had been 
 born in a little cabin on the sunny shore facing 
 Ischia, and in their infancy had tumbled about 
 naked and glad as young dolphins in the bright 
 blue waters. Then their parents had died — their 
 
ij6 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 father at sea, their mother of fever — and left them to 
 the care of Nonno ; Nonno, who was very old, so 
 old that they thought he must have been made 
 almost before the world itself, and who, after having 
 been a showman of puppets to divert the poorest 
 classes all his life, was so very poor himself then 
 that he could hardly scrape enough together to get 
 a little drink of thin wine and an inch or two of 
 polenta. Being so very poor, he was seduced into 
 accepting an engagement for himself and the children 
 with a wicked man whose business it was in life to 
 decoy poor little Italians and make money out of 
 them in foreign lands. Nonno was so good and 
 simple himself that he thought everybody was as 
 harmless as he was, and his grief and amazement 
 were very great when on reaching the English 
 shores with this wicked man he found that the 
 wicked man meant to give him the slip altogether 
 and go off with the two children. By a mere hazard 
 Nonno, whose name was Epifania Santo (a droll 
 name, but he himself had been a foundling), was able 
 to defeat the wicked man so far that he got out of 
 his clutches and took his grandchildren with him. 
 But there they all three were in England, with no 
 money at all, and nothing on earth but a few puppets, 
 and a conjuror's box of playthings, and the stilts on 
 which the wicked man had had the children taught 
 to walk. And in England they had now been four 
 years ; remaining there chiefly because they had 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 177 
 
 no notion how to get home again, and partially 
 because Nonno had such a great terror of the sea. 
 He had suffered so much on the long voyage into 
 which he had been entrapped from Naples, round by 
 the Bay of Biscay up the Bristol Channel, that he 
 would sooner have died there and then than have 
 set foot again on board a sea-going vessel. So in 
 England they had stayed; wandering about and 
 picking up a few pence in villages and towns, and 
 clinging together tenderly, and being very often 
 hungry, cold, tired, roofless, but yet being all the 
 while happy. 
 
 Sometimes, too, they fared well : the children's 
 brilliant uncommon beauty and pretty foreign accent 
 often touched country-people's hearts, and some- 
 times they would get bed and board at homely 
 farmhouses high on lonely hills, or be made wel- 
 come without payment in little wayside inns. They 
 had kept to the south-west part of the kingdom, 
 never beino- able to afford other means of locomo- 
 tion than their own feet, and the farthest distance 
 they had ever compassed had been this far south 
 country-side, where the green woods and pastures 
 roll down to the broad estuaries of Exe and 
 Dart. This green, wet, shadowy country always 
 seemed strange to the children ; for a long while 
 they thought it was always evening in England. 
 They could remember the long sunshiny years at 
 home, and the radiant air, and the blue, clear sky, 
 
 N 
 
178 2N THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 and the sea that seemed always laughing. They 
 could never forget it indeed, and when they were 
 together they never talked of anything else : only 
 the cactus fruit, and the green and black figs, the red 
 tomatoes and the rough pomegranates, and the big 
 balls of gold to be had in the orange woods just 
 for the plucking ; the boats with the pretty striped 
 sails, and the villas with the marbles and the palms, 
 and the islands all aglow in the sunset, and the 
 distance you could see looking away, away, away 
 into the immeasurable azure of the air. Oh yes ! 
 they remembered it all, and at night they would 
 weep for it, the old man's slow salt tears mingling 
 with the passionate rain of the childish eyes. Here 
 it was green and pretty in its own way, but all so 
 dark, so wet, so misty ! 
 
 'When I try to see there is a white wall of 
 shadow — I think it is shadow, perhaps it is fog, but 
 it is always there,' said Gemma. ' At home one 
 looks, and looks, and looks, there is no end to it.' 
 
 Gemma longed sorely to go home ; she had not 
 minded the sea at all. Bindo, like Nonno, had been 
 very ill on the voyage, and cried even now whenever 
 he saw a ship for fear he should be going in it. 
 Bindo was sadly babyish for ten years old ; to 
 make amends, his sister was almost a woman at 
 thirteen. 
 
 They ought now to have been all three serious 
 and alarmed, for Nonno's satchel had not a penny 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 179 
 
 in it nor a crust, and they were all hungry, for it was 
 noonday. But instead of being- miserable they joked, 
 and laughed, and kissed each other, as thousands 
 of their country-folks at home with equally empty 
 stomachs were doing, lying on sunny moles, or 
 marble-strewn beaches, or thymy turf under ilex 
 shadows. But then, in our dear Italy, there is 
 always the sun, the light, the air that kisses and 
 feeds and sends to soft sleep her children, and 
 Gemma and her brother and grandfather were in a 
 wet English lane, with the clouds hurrying up over 
 the distant hills by Dartmoor, and the raindrops still 
 hanging to the great elm-boughs overhead. 
 
 Yet they were merry, and sang snatches of 
 Neapolitan songs, and took no thought for the 
 morrow. They were not far off Dartmouth, and 
 they meant to go into the quaint old town by 
 market-day, and the Dart fisher and boating folk 
 were always kind to them. If they were hungry 
 now they would eat to-morrow. 
 
 Suddenly, however, Nonno grew thoughtful as 
 he looked at Gemma, lying face downward on the 
 wet grass, her sandalled feet in air, a dragonfly flut- 
 terino- above her head. 
 
 1 What would you do if I were to die, my picci- 
 cotta ? ' said the poor old man, all at once remem- 
 bering he was nigh eighty years old. Gemma raised 
 herself, and said nothing. Her eyes, which were 
 very beautiful eyes, grew sad and moist. 
 
180 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 'I would take care of Bindo, Nonno,' she an- 
 swered at last. ' Do not be afraid of that.' 
 ' But how ? It is easy to say. But how ? ' 
 ' I suppose I could dance at theatres/ said 
 Gemma, after reflection. Nonno shook his head. 
 
 1 For the theatres you would need to dance dif- 
 ferently : it is all spinning, craning, drilling there ; 
 you dance, my child, as a flower in the wind. The 
 theatres do not care for that.' 
 
 ' Then I do not know,' said Gemma. ' But some- 
 thing I would do. Bindo should not suffer.' 
 
 1 You are a good child,' said the old man tenderly. 
 She sank down again on the grass. 
 
 ' Do not think of dying, Nonno,' she said. ■ It is 
 all so dark where death is.' 
 
 ' Not when one gets to the saints,' said the simple 
 old man. He always fancied Paradise just like 
 Amain ; his own Amain, where long ago, so long 
 ago, he had run and leaped, a merry naked boy, in 
 the azure waves, and caught the glittering sea-mouse 
 and the pink column of the gemmia in his hands. 
 Paradise would be just like Amain ; the promise of 
 it consoled him as he trotted on tired limbs along 
 the wet gravel of English market roads, or meekly 
 bore the noisy horse-play of English village crowds. 
 The rain had ceased, and the sun was shining a 
 little in a drowsy half-hearted way, as if it were but 
 half awake even at midday. There were big hedges 
 on either side of the lane, and broad strips of turf. 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 181 
 
 These lanes are almost all that is left of the rural and 
 leafy old England of Seventeen Hundred ; and they 
 are beautiful in their own way when midsummer 
 crowds them with flowers, and in spring when their 
 palm willows blossom, and in autumn when their 
 hazel-coppices are brown with nuts, and in winter 
 when their holly and ivy clamber high, and their fine 
 trees make a tracery of bare boughs delicate as the 
 network of lace against the grey skies. 
 
 On the other side of the hedge, to their right, 
 there was a large corn-field ; it was now the time 
 when wheat is ripe in England, and the men and 
 women who were reaping it were sitting, resting, 
 drinking their cider and eating their noonday bread 
 and bacon. Bindo watched them through a hole in 
 the hedge, and began to cry. 
 
 1 It makes me hungrier to see them eat!' he said 
 with a sob. Gemma sprang to her feet. 
 
 ' Do not cry so, my Bindo,' she said with a tender 
 voice ; ' I will ask them to give you some.' 
 
 She thrust her lithe body through the gap, and 
 walked boldly across the field ; a strange figure for 
 an English corn-field, with her short white skirt, and 
 her red bodice, and her striped sash of many colours, 
 and her little coral earrings in her ears ; she was 
 bareheaded, and her dusky gold hair, the hair that 
 the old painters loved, was coiled rope-like all around 
 her small head. 
 
 ' My little brother is hungry, will you be so very 
 
1 82 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 gentle and give us a little bread ? ' she said in her 
 pretty accent, which robbed the English tongue of all 
 its gutturals and clothed it in a sweetness not its own. 
 She was not fond of begging, being proud, and she 
 coloured very much as she said it. 
 
 The reapers stared, then grinned, gaped once 
 or twice, and then stretched big brown hands out to 
 her with goodly portions of food, and one added a 
 mug of cider. 
 
 ' I do thank you so much,' she said, with a smile 
 that was like a sunbeam. ' The drink I take not, for 
 Nonno has no love of it ; but for the bread I pray 
 may San Martino bless you ! ' 
 
 Then she curtseyed to them, as nature and 
 nobody else had taught her to do, and ran away, fleet 
 as a lapwing, with her treasure. 
 
 ''Tis that dancing-girl of the Popish country/ 
 said the men one to another ; and added that if the 
 master caught her in his lane 'twould be the worse 
 for her, for he could 'na abide tramps and vagabon's. 
 But Gemma, who knew nothing of that, was sharing 
 her spoils with glee, and breaking the small bit of 
 bread she allowed to herself with teeth as white as a 
 dog's. 
 
 ' The way to Dartmouth will not now seem so 
 long,' she said, and Bindo nodded his head with a 
 mouth quite full of good brown bread and fat bacon. 
 
 ' How much do they love came secca here ! ' said 
 Nonno with a sigh, thinking of the long coils of 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 183 
 
 macaroni, the lovely little fried fish, the oil, the 
 garlic, the black beans, that he never saw now, alas, 
 alas ! ' The land is fat, but the people they know 
 not how to live,' he added, with a sigh. ' A people 
 without wine — what should they know ? ' 
 
 • They make good bread,' said Gemma, with her 
 ivory teeth in a crust. 
 
 Meantime the person who owned the lane was 
 coming out into the fields to see how his men got on 
 with their work. His house stood near, hidden in 
 trees on a bend of the Exe. He was rich, young, 
 prosperous, and handsome ; he was also generous 
 and charitable, but he was a magistrate, and he hated 
 strollers. By name he was known as Philip Carey ; 
 his people had been squires here for many genera- 
 tions, he called himself a yeoman, and was as proud 
 as if he were a prince. 
 
 As fates would have it, he rode down the 
 lane now on his grey horse, and when he saw the 
 group of Nonno and Gemma and Bindo, with their 
 bao-s and bales and bundles, scattered about on 
 
 o 
 
 the turf of his lane, his grey eyes grew ominously 
 dark. 
 
 ' Who gave you leave to come here ? ' he asked 
 sternly enough as he reined up his horse. 
 
 Nonno looked up smiling, and stood up and 
 bowed with grace and ease. The English tongue 
 he had never been able to master ; he glanced at 
 Gemma to bid her answer. 
 
1 84 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 'We were only resting, Excellenza,' said she, 
 boldly. ' It is a public road.' 
 
 ' It is not a public road,' said the owner of it. 
 1 And if it were you would have no right to cumber 
 it. Are you strollers ? ' 
 
 ' Strollers ? ' repeated Gemma; she did not under- 
 stand the word. 
 
 ' Tramps ? Are you tramps ? ' 
 
 ' We are artists,' said Gemma. 
 
 ' What do you do for your living ? ' asked her 
 judge. 
 
 ' We dance,' she answered, ' and Nonno yonder 
 he does conjuring tricks, and sometimes has a little 
 lotto, but that is only when we have got a little 
 money : we have none now.' 
 
 ' A lottery ! ' exclaimed Mr. Carey, whose face 
 grew very stern. ' You are mere idle vagabonds 
 then, when you are not worse. Do you live by your 
 wits ? ' 
 
 ' We dance,' said Gemma again. 
 
 1 Dance ! Can you read and write ? ' 
 
 ' Oh no.' 
 
 ' How old are you ? ' 
 
 ' I am thirteen, Bindo is ten, Nonno is — is — is, 
 oh as old as the world.' 
 
 ' Is he your grandfather ? ' 
 
 1 That is what you say in English. We say 
 Nonno.' 
 
 1 Cannot he speak English ? ' 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 185 
 
 ' No ; he has lost his teeth, and it is so hard is 
 your English.' 
 
 1 You are an impudent girl.' 
 
 Gemma smiled her beautiful shining smile, as if 
 he had paid her an admirable compliment. 
 
 She knew the rider by sight very well, though he 
 did not know her. His housekeeper had whipped 
 Bindo for getting into her poultry house and putting 
 two eggs in his pocket ; and his gardener one day 
 had turned them both out of his orchards as tres- 
 passers, so that he and his residence of Carey's 
 Honour were already scored with black in the tablets 
 of the children's memories. 
 
 That he was a handsome young man, with a 
 grave and pensive face and a very sweet smile, when 
 he did smile, which was rarely, did not affect Gemma's 
 dislike to him : she was too young to be impressed 
 by good looks. 
 
 Philip Carey was not touched by the beauty of 
 her either : he scarcely saw that she was pretty, he 
 was so angry with her for what seemed to him her 
 saucy answers. 
 
 ' Why are you not dressed like a Christian ? ' he 
 said somewhat irrelevantly. 
 
 ' I am a Christian,' said Gemma, angry in her 
 turn. ' A better Christian than you are ; and what 
 is my dress to you ? You do not buy it.' 
 'It is immodest' 
 1 Oh, oh ! ' cried Gemma, with a flame-like light- 
 
1 86 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 ning in her eyes ; and like lightning she leaped up 
 on to the saddle and gave the astonished gentleman 
 a sounding box on both ears. 
 
 He was so utterly astonished that he had no time 
 to protect himself, and his horse, which was utterly 
 astonished too, began to plunge and rear and kick, 
 and fully occupied him, whilst a guffaw from the field 
 beyond added to his rage by telling him that his 
 reapers had witnessed his discomfiture. 
 
 Gemma had leaped to the ground as swiftly as 
 she had leaped to the saddle, and whilst the horse 
 was rearing and plunging had caught up their bag 
 and baggage, had pushed and pulled her brother and 
 her grandfather before her, and had flown down the 
 lane and out of sight before Philip Carey had reduced 
 his steed to any semblance of reason. His ears 
 tingled and his pride was bitterly incensed, yet he 
 could not help laughing at himself. 
 
 ' The little tigress ! ' he thought as he endeavoured 
 to soothe his fretting and wheeling beast, which was 
 young and only half-broken. 
 
 When he rode in at last by an open gate amongst 
 his reapers the men were all too afraid of him not 
 to wear very grave faces, as though they had seen 
 nothing. Everyone was afraid of Philip Carey ex- 
 cept his dogs, which shows that he had a good heart 
 under a stern manner, for dogs never make mistakes 
 as men do. 
 
 He remained about his fields all the day, and 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 187 
 
 went home to a solitary dinner. He had no living 
 relative. He was rather more of a scholar than a 
 farmer and liked his loneliness. H is old house, which 
 was called Carey's Honour ever since the days of 
 the Tudors, was a rambling comfortable building, set 
 amidst green lawn, huge yew and oak trees, and 
 meadows that stretched downward to the broad 
 Dart water. It was all within and without as it had 
 been in the days of the Armada, and the ivy that 
 covered it was as old as the brass dogs in the big 
 chimney-places. Many men with such a possession 
 would have been restless to reach a higher rank, but 
 Philip Carey was a grave young man, of refined and 
 severe taste and simple habits. He loved his home, 
 and was content with it, and wanted nothing of the 
 world. 
 
 This evening he did not feel so contented as 
 usual; his ears seemed still to tingle from those 
 blows at the hand of a child. He liked old Greek 
 and Latin authors, and when the day was done liked 
 to sit and read of a summer evening under the 
 biggest yew upon his lawn, with the lowing of the 
 cattle, the song of the nightingale, and the cries 
 of the water birds, the only sounds upon the quiet 
 air. But this evening his favourite philosophers said 
 nothing to him ; had Plato or any one of them ever 
 had his ears boxed by a little fury of a strolling 
 dancer ? 
 
 The little fury meanwhile was dancing the salta- 
 
1 88 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 rello with her brother before a crazy old wooden inn 
 in Dartmouth ; dancing it as the girls do under the 
 cork trees in Sardinia, and under the spreading oaks 
 of the Marches, and so pleasing the yokels of the 
 river town with her grace and fire and animation 
 that the pence rolled in by scores into her tam- 
 bourine, and the mistress of the poor little inn said 
 to her, ' Nay, my pretty, as you have gained them 
 here you must spend them here, and it is market- 
 day to-morrow.' 
 
 Gemma was quite happy to have gained so much, 
 and she got a modest little supper for Nonno, and 
 as she shook down all her dark gold hair in the 
 moonlight and looked on the water rippling away past 
 the walls of the old castle she laughed out, though 
 she was all alone, thinking of the grave gentleman 
 on the grey horse, and murmured naughtily to herself, 
 ' I hope I did hurt him. Oh, I hope I hurt him ! ' 
 
 Then she knew she ought not to hope that and 
 kissed the Maddonina that hung at her throat, and 
 asked the Holy Mother's pardon, and then laid her- 
 self down on the little hard bed and went as sound 
 asleep as a flittermouse in winter-time. 
 
 The next day was market-day in the little sleepy 
 old-world town upon the Dart, where the ships and 
 the boats go by on the grey sea and the brown river 
 water. There would be watermen and country- 
 men, both, in numbers, farmers and fisherfolk, millers 
 and cider merchants, pedlars and hucksters, and egg- 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. ig 9 
 
 wives and waggoners, and Nonno was early awakened 
 by the children, who were eager to begin getting 
 more pence with the sunrise : the pence when they 
 were made had such a terrible knack of flying 
 away again. Gemma believed that they grew wings 
 like the butterflies, though she never could see them, 
 and though she and Nonno kept such close watch 
 and ward over them. 
 
 They made themselves as spruce as they could 
 for the day. Gemma had washed her white bodice 
 and Bindo's white shirt, and though the scarlet and 
 the blue and the yellow had got stained and weather- 
 worn, the clothes yet were picturesque, and with their 
 curling hair and their beautiful big black eyes and 
 their cheeks as warm and as soft as peaches, she and 
 Bindo were a pretty sight as they bent and swayed 
 and circled and moved, now so slowly now so 
 furiously, in the changes of the saltarello, whilst their 
 grandfather played for them on a little wooden flute, 
 and Gemma beat her tambourine high above her 
 auburn head, and as the music waxed faster and the 
 dance wilder sprang and whirled and leaped and 
 bounded for all the world, the people said, like the 
 Jack o' Lantern that flashes over the bogs of Dart- 
 moor. 
 
 They danced, with pauses for rest between their 
 dances, all the day long, and when they were so very 
 tired that they could dance no more, Nonno began 
 his simple tricks with his thimble and peas, his 
 
i 9 o IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 wooden cups, and his little tray full of cards. They 
 were innocent tricks, and when he told fortunes by 
 the cards (which Gemma expounded to whosoever 
 would pay a penny to hear the future) he dealt out 
 fate so handsomely that such a destiny was very 
 cheap indeed at four farthings. 
 
 The country-folks were pleased and content to have 
 a ofilt coach and horses and all manner of uood luck 
 promised them over the cards, and the youths liked to 
 look at pretty Gemma, who was so unlike the maidens 
 they picked apples with, or sold pilchards to, in their 
 green Devon ; and so the day wore merrily on apace, 
 and the afternoon sun was slanting towards its setting 
 over the Cornish shores and Cornish seas far away to 
 westward, when all in a moment there was a shout 
 of ' Police ! Police ! ' and the good-humoured crowd 
 hustled together and made way, and two constables 
 with wooden truncheons, saying never a word, 
 marched up to the poor little tray-table, swept off it 
 cards and coins and conjuring toys, and arrested 
 poor old trembling Nonno in the sacred name of the 
 Law! 
 
 Nonno began to scream a million words to a 
 minute, but, alas ! they were all Italian words, nobody 
 understood one of them. Bindo sobbed, and Gemma, 
 standing a moment transfixed with horror, flew upon 
 the constable who had taken her poor old grandfather 
 and bit his arm till the blood spurted. Mad with 
 pain the constable seized her, not gently, and clutched 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 191 
 
 BIndo by the collar with his other hand. There was 
 no possibility of resistance ; Gemma fought, indeed, 
 like a little polecat, but the men were too strong for 
 her ; they soon took her away through the crowd on 
 the same road that Nonno was taking peaceably, and 
 when the crowd muttered d little at its play being 
 thus spoilt, the constables only said gruffly, ' Get you 
 out of the way, or ye'll be clapped in gaol too maybe ; 
 thimble-rigging, card-sharping, posturing, gambling, 
 swindling, — why, this old dodger will have a month 
 of treadmill if he have a day ! ' 
 
 And the crowd said amongst itself that to be sure 
 the old fellow was a foreigner, it would not do to get 
 into trouble about him, and most likely he only made 
 believe to know the future ; so left him to himself, 
 and went to the alehouses and consoled themselves 
 for his misfortunes in draughts of cider. 
 
 The two constables meanwhile consigned the old 
 man and his grandchildren to the lock-up : Nonno 
 kept sighing and sobbing, and asking innumerable 
 questions in his own tongue, and Bindo shrieked at the 
 top of his voice as he was dragged along ; Gemma 
 alone, now that she was vanquished, was mute. Her 
 lips were shut and silent, but her eyes spoke, darting 
 out flames of fire as if Vesuvius itself were burning 
 behind them. For four whole years they had been 
 wandering about the south-west part of England, and 
 had done no less and no more than they had done 
 to-day, and never had they been told that it was wrong. 
 
192 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 How could it be wrong to make a pea jump away 
 from under a wooden cup, and promise a ploughman 
 or a waggoner a coach and horses if it pleased him ? 
 For if Nonno did cheat a little, ever so little, poor 
 old man, the children did not know it, and what- 
 ever Nonno did was always to them alike virtue and 
 wisdom. 
 
 The constables were very angry with them ; 
 Gemma had bitten one of them as if she were a little 
 wild cat, and the old man seemed to them a sorry 
 old rascal, living by his wits and his tricks, and pro- 
 mising the yokels coaches and six to turn a penny. 
 Foreigners are not favoured by the rural police in 
 England ; and whether they have plaster casts, 
 dancing bears, singing children, performing mice or 
 monkeys, or only a few conjuring toys, like poor old 
 Epifania Santo, it is all one to the rural police : 
 down they go as members of the dangerous classes. 
 If the market folks wanted diversion, there were 
 good, honest Punch and Judy generally to be seen 
 on fair days ; and once or twice a year, at the great 
 cider or horse fairs, there came always a show, with 
 dwarfs, and giants, and a calf with two heads : what 
 more could any country population need in the way 
 of entertainment ? 
 
 Into the lock-up, accordingly, they put poor 
 Nonno and his grandchildren, and shut and locked 
 the doors upon them. 
 
 It was now evening-time ; there was clean 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 193 
 
 straw in the place, and a mug of water and 
 some bread. Nonno and Bindo abandoned them- 
 selves to the uttermost hopelessness of despair, 
 and laid themselves face downward on the straw, 
 sobbing their very hearts out. Gemma was dry-eyed, 
 her forehead was crimson, her teeth were set ; she 
 was consumed with rage, that burnt up alike her 
 terror and her pain. Oh, why did not a handful 
 of Neapolitan sailors sail over the water, and land, 
 and kill all these English ? It was four years since 
 she had seen Naples, but she remembered, oh! 
 how she remembered ! And they had come all the 
 way out of their own sunshine only to be locked up 
 in a trap like rats ! Furious thoughts of setting fire 
 to this prison-house beset her ; she had matches in 
 her pocket, but it would be hard to set it on fire 
 without consuming themselves with it, since the doors 
 were fast locked. What could she do ? what could 
 she do ? 
 
 ' Why do they take us ? We have done no 
 harm,' she said through her shut teeth. 
 
 ' Carina mia,' sighed her grandfather, shivering 
 where he lay on the straw ; ' I am afraid before the 
 law we are no better than the owls and the wood- 
 rats are ; we are only vagabonds ; we have no dwell- 
 ing and we have no trade.' 
 
 'We pay' for our lodging, and we pay for our 
 bread ! ' 
 
 ' Perhaps they do not believe that. Always have 
 
 o 
 
1 94 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY, 
 
 I been so afraid this would happen, and now it has 
 come at last' 
 
 The poor old man sank back on the straw again, 
 and began again to sob piteously. Why had he left 
 the merry crowds of the Strada del Male, where 
 there was always a laugh and a song, and a slice of 
 melon or of pasta f 
 
 At last, both he and Bindo sobbed themselves 
 into sleep, but no sleep came to Gemma ; she was 
 wide awake, panting, hot, all alive with fury all the 
 night. 
 
 With morning they were all taken before the 
 magistrates, who were sitting that day. There were 
 a great many gentlemen and officials, but amongst 
 them all Gemma only saw one, the horseman whose 
 ears she had boxed in the lane. For Philip Carey 
 was on the Bench that day, and recognised, with not 
 much pleasure, the little group of Italian strollers. 
 They all three looked miserable, jaded, and very 
 dusty. The night passed in the lock-up had taken 
 all their look of sunshiny merriment away ; the straw 
 had caught on their poor garments ; the faces of 
 Nonno and the little boy were swollen and disfigured 
 with crying ; only Gemma, all dishevelled and dusty 
 and feverish, had a pride and ferocity about her that 
 gave her strength and kept her beaut)-. 
 
 As she was the only one who could talk any 
 English, she was ordered to speak for the others ; 
 but when she said her grandfather's name was 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 195 
 
 Epifania Santo there was a laughter in the court, 
 which incensed her so bitterly that she flung back 
 her curls out of her eyes and said : ' If you do not 
 believe what I say why do you want me to speak ? ' 
 
 Then being once started she went on before any 
 of the magistrates or officials could stop her, ' You 
 have taken us up ; why have you taken us up ? we 
 have done nobody any sort of harm. We only dance, 
 and Nonno tells fortunes, and does the tricks, and 
 you have taken his box away, and do you call that 
 honest to a poor man ? We do not rob, we do not 
 kill, we do not hurt ; when Bindo takes an apple I 
 am angry ' — and then her English, which was apt 
 to go away from her in moments of excitement, 
 failed her utterly, and she poured out a torrent of 
 Neapolitan patois which not a soul there present 
 understood, only from her flashing eyes and her ex- 
 pressive gestures it was easy to guess that it meant 
 vehement invective and reproach. 
 
 Mr. Carey looked at her attentively, but he said 
 nothing ; his brother magistrates, when she had 
 been peremptorily ordered to be still and listen, put 
 a few sharp questions to her and examined the 
 witnesses, who were policemen and country-people, 
 and who all deposed to the face that the old Italian 
 did tricks and told fortunes and got them to put their 
 pence down by fair promises, and had moreover dice 
 and cards whereby he induced them to lose money. 
 The children only danced : they had no habitation ; 
 
196 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 they were always wandering about ; by their papers 
 they were natives of Naples. Then the constable 
 whose arm Gemma had bitten appeared with it in a 
 sling, and stated what she had done to him, and 
 this terrible piece of violence prejudiced the whole 
 court greatly z gainst her. 
 
 Mr. Carey smiled once ; he took no share in the 
 examination. But Gemma was always looking at 
 him, she was always thinking : ' This is all his doing 
 because I struck him : he has had us all put in 
 prison because I offended him.' 
 
 She hated him, oh how she hated him! 
 If she had not been so watched and warded 
 by the constables, she would have leaped across 
 the court and done the same thing again. For 
 she did not mind anything for herself, but if 
 they put Nonno and Bindo back in prison, and 
 parted them from her — she knew people were parted 
 in prison and boys and girls were never together 
 there, nor ever the old left with the young. And 
 she knew too that in England there were prisons 
 called workhouses where they packed away all the 
 people who were poor. Her heart stood still with 
 fright, and all she saw in the dusky court was the 
 grave face of Philip Carey, which seemed to her like 
 the stony face of Fate. 
 
 ' Ah, bimba mia," sobbed her grandfather in a 
 whisper, ' yonder is the gentleman you struck as he 
 rode on his horse. You have been our undoing with 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 197 
 
 your fiery temper ; always was I afraid that you 
 would be ! ' 
 
 Under that reproof Gemma's head drooped and 
 all the colour fled out of her cheeks. She knew 
 that it was a just one. 
 
 Bindo meanwhile was clinging to her skirts and 
 whimpering like a poor little beaten puppy, till she 
 thought her very brain would go mad, whirling 
 round and round in such misery. 
 
 The magistrates spoke together, Mr. Carey 
 alone saying little ; there was a strong feeling 
 against all strollers at that time in the county on 
 account of many robberies that had been committed 
 on outlying farms by tramps and gipsies in the last 
 few years, and many raids that had been made on 
 poultry-houses, apple-lofts, and sheepfolds. Epifania 
 Santo and his grandchildren only seemed to the 
 Bench idle, useless, and not harmless vagrants, no 
 better than the wood rats, as old Nonno had said ; 
 whilst the fierce onslaught on the constable of which 
 Gemma had been guilty gave their misdeeds a darker 
 colour in the eyes of the Devon gentlemen. 
 
 After some consultation and some disagreement 
 amongst the magistrates, the old man, having no 
 visible means of subsistence, was condemned to a 
 month's imprisonment for unlawfully gambling and 
 deceiving the public, whilst Bindo and Gemma were 
 respectively ordered to be consigned to reforma- 
 tories. In consideration of Epifania Santo's age, and 
 
i 9 S IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 of his being a foreigner, he was spared hard labour. 
 When Gemma comprehended the sentence, and the 
 old man had been made to understand it also, such a 
 scene of grief and of despair ensued as no English 
 court had ever beheld. To the slow and stolid folk 
 of the banks of Dart it seemed as if madness had 
 descended straight upon these strangers. Their 
 passionate paroxysms of woe had no limit, and no 
 likeness to anything ever seen in Devon before. 
 
 Gemma had to be turn by main force from her 
 brother and grandfather, and writhing in the hands of 
 the constables as an otter writhes on a spear, she 
 shook her little clenched fists at the Bench, and 
 seeing there only the face of Philip Carey, who to 
 her belief was sole author of all her sorrows and 
 ills, she cried to him, ' I struck you yesterday, I will 
 hurt you more before many days are over. You are 
 a wicked, wicked, wicked man ! ' 
 
 Then the policeman seized her more roughly, 
 and put his hand over her mouth and carried her 
 away by sheer force. 
 
 ' Did that little jade really strike you a blow, 
 Carey ? ' asked one of his fellow-magistrates in 
 surprise. 
 
 Mr. Carey smiled a little. 
 
 1 Oh yes,' he said quietly. ' But I had deserved 
 it.' 
 
 ' I wonder you wanted us to be more lenient 
 then.' 
 
IN THE APFLE COUXTRY. 199 
 
 ' One cannot be revenged on a child,' he 
 answered, ' and they are children of the sun ; they 
 have hotter passions than ours, and quicker oblivion. 
 It would have been better to have given them a 
 little money and shipped them back to Naples. But 
 you outnumbered me. The old man is inoffensive, 
 I think. After all a penny was not much for a yokel 
 to pay to be blessed by the promise of a coach and 
 six.' 
 
 But his fellow- magistrates did not see the matter 
 in this light, and thought the old stroller well out of 
 mischief in the gaol of Dartmouth. Philip Carey 
 two days before would have thought so with them, 
 for he had the reputation of being severe on the 
 Bench ; but the sunny, dusky, ardent face of Gemma 
 had touched him, and the love of the three for each 
 other seemed enviable to him. He had been all 
 alone since his early boyhood, and such affection 
 as theirs seemed to him a beautiful and priceless 
 treasure. It was cruel, he thought, to tear it asun- 
 der, as cruel as to pluck all to pieces a red rose just 
 flowered to the light. 
 
 He rode home that evening in the twilight, 
 somewhat saddened, and doubtful whether the law 
 was as just and unerring a thing as he had always 
 until then believed it. 
 
 The night saw poor old Nonno put in prison as 
 if he were a thief, and saw the children severed and 
 taken respectively to the boys' and the girls' asylum 
 
200 IN THE ATPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 in a reformatory for naughty children, which some 
 good people with the best intentions had built and 
 endowed in the neighbourhood. They had so clung 
 together, and so madly resisted being parted, that 
 they had fairly frightened the men and women in 
 charge of them. They had never been away from 
 each other an hour in their lives ever since little 
 Bindo had been born one summer day in the cabin 
 by the Mediterranean, and laid in the half of a great 
 gourd as a cradle for his sister's wondering eyes to 
 admire. But severed now they were, and whilst 
 poor Bindo in the boys' ward was subjected to such 
 a scrubbing as he had never had in all his days, and 
 his abundant auburn curls were cut short, Gemma — 
 whose paroxysms of passion had given place to a 
 stolid and strange quietude — was also bathed, and 
 clothed in the clothes of the reformatory, whilst her 
 many-coloured sash, her picturesque petticoats, and 
 her coral earrings and necklace were all taken away, 
 fumigated, rolled up in a bundle, and ticketed 
 with a number. She submitted, but her great eyes 
 glared and glowed strangely, and she was perfectly 
 mute. Not a single sound could those set in com- 
 mand over her force from her lips. 
 
 The superiors were used to stubborn children, 
 savage children, timid children, vicious children ; but 
 this silence of hers, following on her delirium of fury 
 and grief, was new and startling to them. 
 
 She looked very odd, clad perforce in some 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 201 
 
 straightly-cut stiff grey clothes, and when she was 
 set down, one of a long row, to have supper 
 off oatmeal porridge, the handsome, pale, des- 
 perate little face of hers, with burning eyes and 
 an arched red mouth, looked amidst the faces of 
 the other little girls like a carnation amongst cab- 
 bage-stalks. Not a morsel would she eat ; not a 
 word would she speak ; at no one would she even 
 look. 
 
 ' Oh, Nonno ! oh, Bindo !' her heart kept crying, 
 till it seemed as if it would burst, but never a sound 
 escaped her. 
 
 Poor little Bindo, meanwhile, was sobbing every 
 minute, but he ate his porridge, though he watered 
 it with floods of tears, where he was set amongst a 
 score of grey clad, crop-headed English boys, who 
 were gaping and grinning at him. 
 
 With the close of evening Bindo was stowed 
 away in the boys' dormitory, and Gemma was led 
 to one of a number of narrow little iron beds with 
 blue counterpanes. She was undressed and bidden 
 to lie down, which she did. Her bed was the last 
 of the row, and next to a wall ; she turned her face 
 to the wall and they thought her resigned. Soon 
 the light was put out, and the little sleepers were in 
 the land of dreams. 
 
 But Gemma never closed her eyes. Her heart 
 seemed to be beating all over her body. She stuffed 
 the sheet into her mouth, and bit it hard to keep 
 
202 IN THE APPLE CO UNI . V. 
 
 in the cries of agony that sprang to her lips. Would 
 she ever see Nonno again ? Bindo she might, 
 perhaps, but Nonno — she was sure he would die in 
 prison. 
 
 There was a window in the wall near the 
 bed ; it was unshuttered. She could see the 
 grey of the evening change to the dark of the 
 night, and then the moon came out, the harvest 
 moon as they called it here. She was only 
 waiting for everyone to be asleep to get up, and 
 look out of that window, and see whether it would 
 let her escape. An under-matron slept in the 
 dormitory, but at the farther end, where everything 
 was quite hushed, and when the slow breathing of 
 the children told that they were all sleeping soundly, 
 Gemma got up in her bed and sat erect. Finding 
 all was still, she put one foot out of bed and then 
 another, and very softly stole to the window. It 
 was a lattice window, and left a little open, for the 
 night was warm. A sweet smell of moist fields, of 
 growing grass, of honeysuckle hedges came up on 
 the night air. Gemma noiselessly opened the window 
 a little farther and looked out : it was far, far down 
 to the ground below, still she thought it was possible 
 for her to escape. She stole back to the bedside, 
 put on the hideous, ungainly, cotton clothes as well 
 as she could in the dark, and knotted the skirt of 
 the frock tight round her limbs so as to leave them 
 •^trammelled. If no one awoke she could get away, 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 203 
 
 she reflected ; for her quick eyes had seen a rain- 
 pipe that passed from the casement to the ground. 
 
 She paused a few moments, making sure, quite 
 sure that everyone in the long dormitory was asleep. 
 As she stood she saw some hundred matches 
 lying by a lamp, of which the light was put out, on 
 a little table near ; a cruel joy danced into her eyes, 
 she stretched out her hand and took the matches 
 and slipped them in the bosom of her frock. Then, 
 with the courage of desperation, she climbed to the 
 window seat, put half her body out of it, and clinging 
 to the iron pipe with both hands let herself slide 
 down, down, down, to where she knew not. All 
 Was dark beneath her. 
 
 But if she slid into the sea that would be better, 
 she said to herself, than to live on imprisoned. 
 
 As it happened the window was twenty feet and 
 more from the earth, but the turf was beneath and 
 the rainpipe was so made that she could easily clasp 
 it with feet and hands and glide down it, only grazing 
 all the skin off her palms, and bruising her knees and 
 her chest. No one heard her, there was no alarm 
 given ; she reached the ground in safety as a village 
 clock tolled ten. 
 
 She dropped all in a heap, and lay still half 
 stunned for some moments ; soon she got her breath 
 and her wits again and rose up on her feet and 
 looked about her. She knew all the country-side 
 well, having been here ever since the apple orchards 
 
204 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 had been in blossom, and, when they had not been 
 performing having scampered hither and thither with 
 Bindo, begging honey or eggs at the cottages, or 
 coaxing- the boatmen to let them drift down the 
 
 river. 
 
 The moon was now very bright, and she 
 saw that she stood near the Dart water, and she 
 could discover here a steeple, there a gable, yonder 
 a windmill, and so forth, by which she could tell 
 where she was. She had been brought in a covered 
 van to the reformatory, and had only known that it 
 was near Dartmouth. 
 
 The grass on which she stood grew under a low 
 wall, and beyond the wall was a towing-path, and 
 beyond that the river. The towing-path she knew 
 well ; she and Bindo had often ridden on the backs 
 of the towing-horses or got a seat in the big barges 
 by just singing their little songs and twanging their 
 tambourines. 
 
 The towing-path served her purpose well. She 
 looked back at the big pile behind her, a white, 
 square, grim-looking place; Bindo was sleeping under 
 its roof; then hardened her heart, vaulted over the 
 river-wall, and began to run down the river-path. 
 
 She did not hesitate, for she had a very wicked 
 resolve in her soul, and her goal was four miles 
 away, she knew, as a watermill on the other bank 
 amonsfst willows was an old friend of hers, and told 
 her her whereabouts. Not a sound came from the 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 205 
 
 house behind her ; not a creature had awakened, or 
 the alarm-bell would have been clanoqnof and lights 
 appearing at every window. She was quite safe 
 thus far, and she began to run along the dewy 
 grassy path where the glowworms were twinkling at 
 every step under the ferns and the dock leaves, 
 
 ' The wicked, wicked man ! ' she kept saying in 
 her teeth. 
 
 She never saw the pretty glowworms she was so 
 fond of at other times or heard the nightino-ales 
 sino-inor in the woods, for when a sin is in the soul it 
 makes the eyes blind and the ears deaf. She only 
 ran on, stumblinof often and feeling for the matches 
 in the bosom of her ugly grey cotton frock. The 
 frock was irksome to her, she longed for her own 
 short skirts and pliable bodice, and she missed 
 the scarf about her loins, and the necklace at her 
 throat. But she ran on and on, having a set pur- 
 pose and a great crime in her mind. 
 
 She knew that if she only followed the towing- 
 path long enough she would come to the place called 
 Carey's Honour. 
 
 She knew it well, she had often looked over 
 its white gates and envied the calves and the 
 lambs in its pastures, and wondered what the rooms 
 were like within beyond the rose-hung windows, 
 and sighed for the nectarines and the cherries that 
 grew in its green old garden ways. It might 
 be farther or nearer than she fancied, that she could 
 
2o6 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 not be sure about ; but she knew that if she went on 
 lone enoueh alono- the Dart water she would come 
 to it. She did not feel at all frightened at being out 
 all alone so late ; after the excitement and despair of 
 the day she seemed to have no feeling left except 
 this one burning, consuming, terrible longing for 
 vengeance which made her fe Q t fly over the towing- 
 path to the peaceful Elizabethan house lying 
 amongst its yews, and limes, and stacks, and hives, 
 and byres in the moonlight. 
 
 She had been running and walking an hour 
 and a half or more when a bend in the water 
 showed her the twisted chimney-stacks and the 
 biack and white woodwork, and the honeysuckle- 
 covered porches of the homestead, with the moon 
 shining above it and the green uplands sloping 
 behind. Then Gemma, whose young soul was now 
 so full of wickedness that there was not a spot of light 
 left in it, climbed over the white wooden gate and 
 crept up over the wide grasslands where the cattle 
 were asleep, and the big ox-eye daisies were shut 
 up at rest. The air was full of the sweet 
 smell of the dogrose, of the honeysuckle, of the 
 sweet briar, and away across the meadows the black 
 and white timbers and the deep gables of the old 
 house were distinct in the moon rays. 
 
 She crossed the pastures and opened a little 
 wicket that was never latched and got into the 
 gardens, where the stocks and picotees, and gilly- 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 207 
 
 flowers and moss roses, and sweet williams, and all 
 other dear old-fashioned blossoms were filling the 
 nieht with their fragrance. But Gemma had no 
 thought for them. She crept on up to the house and 
 saw that in one part the thatched roof came down 
 so low to the ground that, standing on a stone bench 
 which was beneath, she would be able to touch it. 
 She sprang on to the bench, drew her matches out of 
 her bosom, struck light to them, and was about to 
 thrust the blazing bunch into the thatch, when a 
 huge dog bounded out of the shadow, leaped on 
 her and knocked her head downwards off the stone 
 seat on to the grass ; he would have torn her to 
 pieces only he was such a great and good creature 
 that, seeing she was a child, he was merciful in his 
 strength. 
 
 ' Monarch, what is it, my lad ? ' said Philip Carey 
 as he came out from the open door of the porch, 
 alarmed at the noise of the fall. 
 
 The Newfoundland left her and went to his 
 master, and Mr. Carey saw the form of Gemma lying 
 prone upon his gravel and the bundle of blazing 
 matches still clutched in her clenched hand. 
 
 ' Good heavens ! the child came to burn my 
 house down ! ' he cried half aloud, as he stooped over 
 her and lifted her up ; she had fallen on the back of 
 her head and was stunned into insensibility for the 
 moment. He wrenched the burning matches out of 
 her tightly closed fingers and stamped the fire out of 
 
2o8 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 them with his heel. That was soon done, and when 
 the dangerous things were mere harmless splinters 
 of wood he lifted the insensible form of the child up 
 in his arms and carried her into his house. 
 
 'She has escaped from the reformatory/ he 
 thought as he saw the ugly grey cotton gown and 
 the blue apron that was tacked on to it. 
 
 He laid her gently on a couch and called his 
 housekeeper, a white-haired, kindly old woman, with 
 cheeks like the apples that crowded his orchards in 
 October. 
 
 1 Monarch knocked this little girl down and she 
 is senseless with the fall. Will you do your best for 
 her, Mary ? She is one of the Home children,' he 
 said to the old dame, and he did not add a word about 
 the matches. 
 
 The housekeeper's simple remedies soon recalled 
 Gemma back to her senses, and she opened her great, 
 frightened, humid eyes to the light of the lamp-lit room. 
 
 ' / zolfini, I zolfini ! ' she murmured, thinking of 
 her matches and vaguely fancying that she was in the 
 midst of flames. All her English had gone clean 
 away from her. 
 
 ' It is that foreign child, master,' said the house- 
 keeper ; ' the one that has been roaming the country 
 ever since Candlemas ; I caught her little brother at 
 the hen-house at Easter-time and spanked him ; 
 they were both of them sentenced, weren't they, in 
 town this morninor an d the old grandfather too ? ' 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 209 
 
 ' Yes,' said Mr. Carey, curtly, ' she has run away, 
 that is evident. Suppose you go and get some little 
 room ready for her, for she will not be able to go 
 back to-night. She is all right now I fancy, though 
 she is not yet fairly awake.' 
 
 ' One of the attics, master ? Shall she sleep with 
 Hannah ? — not as Hannah will stomach it, a little 
 waif and stray out of prison ' 
 
 ' No, no ; get her a nice little room ready any- 
 where you like, but one that is comfortable. She is a 
 very forlorn little maid; we must be good to her, Mary.' 
 
 ' Her little brother was at the hen-house, and I 
 spanked him ' 
 
 ' She is not her brother,' said Philip Carey, im- 
 patiently. ' Leave me with her a little.' 
 
 Though her master was very gentle the house- 
 keeper knew that he chose to be obeyed, and she 
 trotted off up the broad oak staircase obediently. 
 
 Philip Carey remained beside Gemma ; and the 
 big black dog also sat looking at her with his head 
 held critically on one side, for he had not made up 
 his mind about her. 
 
 ' You came to burn my house down ? ' said Mr. 
 Carey gravely, as he looked full into her face. 
 
 She understood what he said, but she did not 
 answer. Her mind was still confused ; she re- 
 membered what she had come to do, and she began 
 to understand that she had failed to do it and was in 
 the power of this man whom she hated. 
 
 p 
 
210 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 1 I caught you in the act,' he continued, sternly ; 
 ' and if my dog had not thrown you down you would 
 probably have succeeded, for old thatch burns like 
 tinder. Now, will you tell me why you wished to do 
 me so great an injury ? ' 
 
 Gemma was still mute ; her brows were drawn 
 together, her eyes underneath them were flashing 
 and sombre ; she had raised herself on one arm on 
 the cushions of the couch and gazed at him in silence. 
 
 ' Perhaps you do not know,' said Mr. Carey, 
 ' that the crime of arson, the crime you tried to 
 commit, is one punished by only less severity than is 
 shown to murder. Very often it becomes murder 
 too, when people are burned, as they often are, in 
 the house that is fired. For the mere attempt I can 
 have you imprisoned for many years. Now tell me, 
 I order you to tell me instantly, why you desired to 
 injure me so hideously ? ' 
 
 Gemma followed his words and gathered their 
 meaning, and felt forced to obey. But all the passion 
 of hate and of pain in her surged up in broken 
 utterances, for the foreign language was ill able to 
 convey all the vehemence of emotion and of indig- 
 nation raging in her heart. 
 
 ' I came — I came — I came,' she muttered, ' I 
 came to burn your house : yes ; why not ? I told you 
 in the morning I would do something worse to you. 
 I did strike you, but you had deserved it. You had 
 said I was immodest ; and then because you were 
 
IN THE AFFLE COUNTRY. 211 
 
 angry you had us all taken up by the police, and you 
 put dear Nonno in prison as if he were a thief, 
 when he is so honest that he scolds Bindo if Bindo 
 takes an apple, and you have parted me and Bindo, 
 and shut us in a horrible place, and they have cut 
 our hair and washed us, and I saw I could get away 
 to-night and I did, and I dropped through the win- 
 dow ; and the matches were there, and I said to 
 myself I would burn your house down ; I had 
 heard people say that you were fond of your house, 
 and if you say that it was wicked of me, it has been 
 you who have been wicked first. You are a bad, 
 vile, cruel man to shut dear Nonno into your 
 prisons and he nearly ottanf tino years old, and so 
 good and so kind, and so merry ; and never will we 
 see him again, and sooner than go back to that place 
 which you put me in, I will drown myself in your 
 river there, or make your dog tear me to pieces ' 
 
 Then the poor little soul burst into a rain of 
 tears enough to have extinguished a million lighted 
 lucifer matches or the very fires of a burning house 
 had there been one. 
 
 Philip Carey allowed the tempest of grief to ex- 
 haust itself, then he said to her in a grave and very 
 sweet voice, yet a little sternly : 
 
 ' My poor little girl, you were ready to take 
 a great crime on your little white soul to-night, and 
 who knows where its evil might have stopped ? 
 Fire is not a plaything. Now I want you to listen 
 
2i2 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 to what I have to say about myself. I am a magis- 
 trate, and I was on the Bench to-day, it is true. 
 But I did not approve of the sentence passed on 
 you by men of greater age and weight in the county 
 than I am, and I tried my best, vainly, to have it 
 mitigated. I had nothing whatever to do with your 
 grandfather's arrest. What he did, harmless though 
 it seems, was yet against the law ; and the mayor 
 of the town chose to enforce the law against him. 
 More than this, my dear, not only would I not, had 
 I been alone, have sentenced your grandfather in so 
 severe a manner, but I would have aided you all to 
 return to your own country. As it is, I meant to- 
 morrow to use what influence I possess to endeavour 
 to obtain a remission of your grandfather's sentence, 
 and I meant also to go across to Portsmouth and 
 see the Italian Consul, there to ascertain whether or 
 no he could not help you to go back to Naples if I 
 could succeed in getting your punishments remitted, 
 as I hoped to do.' 
 
 He paused, and Gemma gazed at him with 
 dilated eyes and a hot colour on her cheeks. She 
 was silent and ashamed. 
 
 1 Now you have spoiled it all,' continued Mr. 
 Carey ; ' how can I beg for a little incendiary to be 
 let loose on the world ? And my gardener will see 
 those lucifer matches in the morning, and every one 
 will know or guess then what you came to do, and 
 why my dog Monarch sprang on you.' 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 213 
 
 The colour went out of her face and her lips 
 quivered. 
 
 'But it was only me' she said piteously. 
 ■ Nonno would not have tried to fire your house, nor 
 Bindo. It was only me. Could you not punish me 
 all by myself and let them out ? If you will only 
 let them out I will go back to prison, and I will not 
 run away again : I will bear it all my life if I must, 
 if you will only let out Nonno and Bindo ! ' 
 
 ' My dear,' answered Philip Carey, ' I have no 
 power ; I cannot deal you out life or death as you 
 seem to think. You are a dangerous and fierce little 
 tioress, of that there is no doubt ; but I do not think 
 the reformatory, good as it is, would improve you 
 much. Suppose we make a bargain : if you will 
 promise me to try and be good, I will promise you 
 to try and liberate you all three, and send you all 
 back in a good ship to your own country.' 
 
 With as much rapidity as she had sprung up on 
 his saddle to box his ears, Gemma sprang off the 
 couch, and, to his great amazement, threw her arms 
 about his neck and kissed him. 
 
 ' Oh, you are good ! ' she murmured rapturously. 
 ' I love you, I love you, I love you as much as I 
 hated you yesterday ! ' 
 
 And she was so pretty that Philip Carey could 
 not be angry with her any more. 
 
 She slept soundly that night under the roof she 
 had tried to burn ; and in the morning had the most 
 
2i 4 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 tempting breakfast brought to her on her little bed 
 that she had ever imagined in all her life, and 
 Monarch came and put his big muzzle down on the 
 snowy counterpane, and made friends with her over 
 honey and muffins and cream. 
 
 Mr. Carey kept his promise, and by means of 
 continuous efforts for some ten days, succeeded in 
 getting the release of poor old Epifania Santo and 
 of Bindo, and obtaining also for them a free passage 
 by a sailing ship then loading in Devonport, and 
 bound to go down Channel to the south coast of Italy 
 with a cargo of iron and steel. 
 
 During this time that he was thus returning good 
 for evil, and exerting himself in her cause, Gemma 
 remained under the care of his housekeeper, and 
 saw him very often in each day, and had a 
 simple, pretty, white linen frock made for her, and 
 spent all her time in the gardens and orchards and 
 meadows with Monarch and the other dogs of the 
 house. 
 
 When Philip Carey at last announced to her that 
 all was arranged for their departure by the sailing 
 vessel, and that she would meet her brother and 
 grandfather at the docks, he was surprised to see a 
 cloud sweep over her mobile face, and great tears 
 fill her eyes once more. 
 
 ' Cannot we stay ? cannot we stay ? ' she said 
 with a sob. ' Grandfather is so afraid of the sea, 
 and Bindo will be so sorry to leave before the 
 
IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. . 215 
 
 apples are ripe, and me — I cannot bear to leave 
 you ! ' 
 
 ' Do you like me a little, then ? ' said Mr. Carey, 
 astonished and touched. 
 
 ' Oh, so much ! ' said Gemma, with a great sigh. 
 ' You have been so kind, and I have been so 
 wicked.' 
 
 He hesitated a moment much surprised, then 
 answered : 
 
 'Well, it might perhaps be arranged — Your 
 grandfather is very old for a voyage, and there is a 
 little cottage down beyond my orchards that he might 
 have ; but, Gemma, if I let you stay on my land, you 
 must promise me to be very reasonable and obedient, 
 and to learn all you are told to learn, and never to 
 give way to your furious passions.' 
 
 ' Oh, I will be so good ! ' she cried in ecstasy, as 
 she sprang up in his arms and kissed him again. ' I 
 will be so good ; and when I am with you I forget 
 that we never really see the sun, and Bindo says he 
 is sure that your apples are better than our grapes 
 and figs and oranges at home.' 
 
 ■ It is well you should think so if you are to live 
 all your lives amidst the apples,' said Philip Carey 
 with a smile. 
 
 So they stayed there ; and a few years later, 
 when Gemma had grown a most beautiful young 
 girl, and become wise and gentle as well, though she 
 still kept her April face that was all sunshine and 
 
ex6 
 
 IN THE APPLE COUNTRY. 
 
 storm in the same moment, Philip Carey made her 
 his wife and Monarch's mistress ; and she is still 
 always ready to declare that apples are the best 
 and sweetest fruit that grows. For, you see, Love 
 gathers them for her. 
 
FINDELKIND. 
 
 HERE was a little boy, a year or two ago, 
 who lived under the shadow of Martins- 
 wand. Most people know, I should sup- 
 pose, that the Martins wand is that mountain in the 
 Oberinnthal where, several centuries past, brave 
 Kaiser Max lost his footing as he stalked the 
 chamois, and fell upon a ledge of rock, and stayed 
 there, in mortal peril, for thirty hours, till he was 
 rescued by the strength and agility of a Tirol hunter : 
 an angel in the guise of a hunter, as the chronicles 
 of the time prefer to say. 
 
 The Martinswand is a grand mountain, being 
 one of the spurs of the greater Sonnstein, and rises 
 precipitously, looming, massive and lofty, like a very 
 fortress for giants, where it stands right across that 
 road which, if you follow it long enough, takes you 
 through Zell to Landeck — old, picturesque^ poetic 
 
2 1 8 FINDELKIND. 
 
 Landeck, where Frederick of the Empty Pockets 
 rhymed his sorrows in ballads to his people — and so 
 on, by Bludenz into Switzerland itself, by as noble a 
 highway as any traveller can ever desire to traverse 
 on a summer's day. It is within a mile of the little 
 burg of Zell, where the people, in the time of their 
 emperor's peril, came out with torches and bells, and 
 the Host lifted up by their priest, and all prayed on 
 their knees underneath the steep gaunt pile of lime- 
 stone, that is the same to-day as it was then whilst 
 Kaiser Max is dust ; it soars up on one side of this 
 road, very steep and very majestic, having bare stone 
 at its base, and being all along its summit crowned 
 with pine-woods ; and on the other side of the road 
 are a little stone church, quaint and low, and grey with 
 age, and a stone farmhouse, and cattle-sheds, and 
 timber-sheds, all of wood that is darkly brown from 
 time ; and beyond these are some of the most beautiful 
 meadows in the world, full of tall grass and countless 
 flowers, with pools and little estuaries made by the 
 brimming Inn river that flows by them ; and beyond 
 the river are the glaciers of the Sonnstein and the 
 Selrain and the wild Arlberg region, and the golden 
 glow of sunset in the west, most often seen from here 
 through the veil of falling rain. 
 
 At this farmhouse, with Martinswand towering 
 above it, and Zell a mile beyond, there lived, and 
 lives still, a little boy who bears the old historical 
 name of Findelkind, whose father, Otto Korner, is 
 
FINDELKIND. 219 
 
 the last of a sturdy race of yeomen, who had fought 
 with Hofer and Haspinger, and had been free men 
 always. 
 
 Findelkind came in the middle of seven other 
 children, and was a pretty boy of nine years old, 
 with slenderer limbs and paler cheeks than his rosy 
 brethren, and tender dreamy eyes that had the look, 
 his mother told him, of seeking stars in midday : de 
 chercher midi a quatorze heures, as the French have 
 it. He was a good little lad, and seldom gave any 
 trouble from disobedience, though he often gave it 
 from forgetfulness. His father angrily complained 
 that he was always in the clouds ; that is, he was 
 always dreaming ; and so very often would spill the 
 milk out of the pails, chop his own fingers instead of 
 the wood, and stay watching the swallows when he 
 was sent to draw water. His brothers and sisters 
 were always making fun of him : they were sturdier, 
 ruddier, and merrier children than he was ; loved 
 romping and climbing and nutting, thrashing the 
 walnut trees and sliding down snow-drifts, and got 
 into mischief of a more common and childish sort 
 than Findelkind's freaks of fancy. For indeed he 
 was a very fanciful little boy : everything around had 
 tongues for him ; and he would sit for hours among 
 the long rushes on the river's edge, trying to imagine 
 what the wild green-grey water had found in its 
 wanderings, and asking the water-rats and the ducks 
 to tell him about it ; but both rats and ducks were too 
 
220 FINDELKIND. 
 
 busy to attend to an idle little boy, and never spoke : 
 which vexed him. 
 
 Findelkind, however, was very fond of his books ; 
 he would study day and night in his little ignorant, 
 primitive fashion. He loved his missal and his 
 primer, and could spell them both out very fairly ; 
 and was learning to write of a good priest in Zirl, 
 where he trotted three times a week with his two 
 little brothers. When not at school, he was chiefly 
 set to guard the sheep and the cows, which occupation 
 left him very much to himself ; so that he had many 
 hours in the summer time to stare up to the skies 
 and wonder — wonder — wonder about all sorts of 
 things ; while in the winter — the long, white, silent 
 winter, when the post-waggons ceased to run, and 
 the road into Switzerland was blocked, and the whole 
 world seemed asleep, except for the roaring of the 
 winds — Findelkind, who still trotted over the snow 
 to school in Zirl, would dream still, sitting on the 
 wooden settle by the fire, when he came home again 
 under Martins wand. For the worst — or the best — 
 of it all was that he was Findelkind. 
 
 This was what was always haunting him. He 
 was Findelkind ; and to bear this name seemed to 
 him to mark him out from all other children, and 
 to dedicate him to Heaven. One day three years 
 before, when he had been only six years old, the 
 priest in Zirl, who was a very kindly and cheerful 
 man, and amused the children as much as he taught 
 
FINDELKIND, 221 
 
 them, had not allowed Findelkind to leave school to 
 go home, because the storm of snow and wind was 
 so violent ; but had kept him until the worst should 
 pass, with one or two other little lads who lived 
 some way off, and had let the boys roast a meal 
 of apples and chestnuts by the stove in his little 
 room : and, while the wind howled and the blinding 
 snow fell without, had told the children the story of 
 another Findelkind ; an earlier Findelkind, who had 
 lived in the flesh on Arlberg as far back as 1381, and 
 had been a little shepherd-lad, 'just like you,' said 
 the good man, looking at the little boys munching 
 their roast crabs, and whose country had been over 
 there, above Stuben, where Danube and Rhine meet 
 and part. 
 
 The pass of Arlberg is even still so bleak and 
 bitter that few care to climb there ; the mountains 
 around are drear and barren, and snow lies till mid- 
 summer, and even longer sometimes. ' But in the 
 early ages,' said the priest ; (and this is quite a true 
 tale that the children heard with open eyes, and 
 mouths only not open, because they were full of 
 crabs and chestnuts) ' in the early ages,' said the 
 priest to them, ' the Arlberg was far more dreary 
 than it is now. There was only a mule-track over 
 it, and no refuge for man or beast ; so that wan- 
 derers and pedlars, and those whose need for work 
 or desire for battle brought them over that frightful 
 pass, perished in great numbers, and were eaten by 
 
222 FINDELKIND. 
 
 the bears and the wolves. The little shepherd-boy, 
 Findelkind — who was a little boy five hundred years 
 ago, remember,' the priest repeated — ' was sorely 
 disturbed and distressed to see these poor dead souls 
 in the snow winter after winter, and seeing the 
 blanched bones lie on the bare earth, unburied, when 
 summer melted the snow. It made him unhappy, 
 very unhappy, and what could he do, he, a little boy 
 keeping sheep ? He had as his wages two florins a 
 year ; that was all ; but his heart rose high, and he 
 had faith in God. Little as he was, he said to him- 
 self, he would try and do something ; so that year 
 after year those poor lost travellers and beasts should 
 not perish so. He said nothing to anybody, but he 
 took the few florins he had saved up, bade his master 
 farewell, and went on his way begging — a little four- 
 teenth-century boy, with long, straight hair, and a 
 girdled tunic, as you see them,' continued the priest, 
 ' in the miniatures in the black-letter missal that lies 
 upon my desk. No doubt Heaven favoured him 
 very strongly, and the saints watched over him ; still, 
 without the boldness of his own courage and the 
 faith in his own heart, they would not have done so. 
 I suppose, too, that when knights in their armour, 
 and soldiers in their camps, saw such a little fellow 
 all alone, they helped him, and perhaps struck some 
 blows for him, and so sped him on his way, and pro- 
 tected him from robbers and from wild beasts. Still, 
 be sure that the real shield and the real reward that 
 
FINDELKIND. 223 
 
 served Findelkind of Arlberg was the pure and noble 
 purpose that armed him night and day. Now history 
 does not tell us where Findelkind went, nor how he 
 fared, nor how long he was about it ; but history 
 does tell us that the little barefooted, long-haired 
 boy, knocking so loudly at castle gates and city walls 
 in the name of Christ and Christ's poor brethren, did 
 so well succeed in his quest, that before long he had 
 returned to his mountain home with means to have 
 a church and a rude dwelling built, where he lived 
 with six other brave and charitable souls, dedicating 
 themselves to St. Christopher, and going out night 
 and day to the sound of the Angelus, seeking the 
 lost and weary. This is really what Findelkind of 
 Arlberg did five centuries ago, and did so quickly, 
 that his fraternity of St. Christopher twenty years 
 after numbered amongst its members archdukes, and 
 prelates, and knights without number, and lasted as 
 a great order down to the days of Joseph II. This 
 is what Findelkind in the fourteenth century did, I 
 tell you. Bear like faith in your hearts, my children ; 
 and though your generation is a harder one than 
 this, because it is without faith, yet you shall move 
 mountains, because Christ and St. Christopher will 
 be with you.' 
 
 Then the good man, having said that, blessed 
 them and left them alone to their chestnuts and 
 crabs, and went into his own oratory to prayer. 
 The other boys laughed and chattered ; but Fin- 
 
224 FINDELKIND. 
 
 delkind sat very quietly, thinking of his namesake, 
 all the day after, and for many days and weeks and 
 months this story haunted him. A little boy had 
 done all that — and this little boy had been called 
 Findelkind : Findelkind, just like himself. 
 
 It was beautiful, and yet it tortured him. If the 
 good man had known how the history would root 
 itself in the child's mind, perhaps he would never 
 have told it ; for night and day it vexed Findelkind, 
 and yet seemed beckoning to him and crying, ' Go 
 thou and do likewise ! ' 
 
 But what could he do ? 
 
 There was the snow, indeed, and there were the 
 mountains, as in the fourteenth century, but there 
 were no travellers lost. The diligence did not go 
 into Switzerland after autumn, and the country 
 people who went by on their mules and in their 
 sledges to Innspriick knew their way very well, and 
 were never likely to be adrift on a winter's night, or 
 eaten by a wolf or a bear. 
 
 When spring came, Findelkind sat by the edge 
 of the bright pure water amongst the flowering 
 grasses, and felt his heart heavy. Findelkind of 
 Arlberg who was in heaven now must look down, 
 he fancied, and think him so stupid and so selfish, 
 sitting" there. The first Findelkind, a few centuries 
 before, had trotted down on his bare feet from his 
 mountain pass, and taken his little crook, and gone 
 out boldly over all the land on his pilgrimage, and 
 
FINDELKIND. 225 
 
 knocked at castle gates and city walls in Christ's 
 name and for love of the poor ! That was to do 
 something indeed ! 
 
 This poor little living Findelkind would look at 
 the miniatures in the priest's missal, in one of which 
 there was the little fourteenth-century boy with long 
 hanging hair and a wallet and bare feet, and he 
 never doubted that it was the portrait of the blessed 
 Findelkind who was in heaven ; and he wondered 
 if he looked like a little boy there, or if he were 
 changed to the likeness of an angel. 
 
 ' He was a boy just like me,' thought the poor 
 little fellow, and he felt so ashamed of himself ; so 
 very ashamed ; and the priest had told him to try 
 and do the same. He brooded over it so much, 
 and it made him so anxious and so vexed, that his 
 brothers ate his porridge and he did not notice it, 
 his sisters pulled his curls and he did not feel it, his 
 father brought a stick down on his back and he only 
 started and stared, and his mother cried because he 
 was losing his mind and would grow daft, and even 
 his mother's tears he scarcely saw. He was always 
 thinking of Findelkind in heaven. 
 
 When he went for water, he spilt one half; when 
 he did his lessons, he forgot the chief part ; when he 
 drove out the cow, he let her munch the cabbaees ; 
 and when he was set to watch the oven, he let the 
 loaves burn, like great Alfred. He was always 
 busied thinking, ' Little Findelkind that is in heaven 
 
 Q 
 
226 FINDELKIND. 
 
 did so great a thing : why may not I ? I ought ! 
 I ought ! ' What was the use of being named after 
 Findelkind that was in heaven, unless one did 
 something great too ? 
 
 Next to the church there is a little stone lodge 
 or shed with two arched openings, and from it you 
 look into the tiny church with its crucifixes and 
 relics, or out to great, bold, sombre Martinswand, 
 as you like best ; and in this spot Findelkind would 
 sit hour after hour, while his brothers and sisters 
 were playing, and look up at the mountains or on to 
 the altar, and wish and pray and vex his little soul 
 most woefully ; and his ewes and his lambs would 
 crop the grass about the entrance, and bleat to make 
 him notice them and lead them farther afield, but all 
 in vain. Even his dear sheep he hardly heeded, 
 and his pet ewes, Katte and Greta, and the big ram 
 Zips, rubbed their soft noses in his hand unnoticed. 
 So the summer droned away ; the summer that is 
 so short in the mountains, and yet so green and so 
 radiant, with the torrents tumbling through the 
 flowers, and the hay tossing in the meadows, and 
 the lads and lasses climbing to cut the rich sweet 
 grass of the alps. The short summer passed as fast 
 as a dragon-fly flashes by, all green and gold, in the 
 sun ; and it was near winter once more, and still 
 Findelkind was always dreaming and wondering 
 what he could do for the good of St. Christopher ; 
 and the longing to do it all came more and more 
 
FINDELKIND 227 
 
 into his little heart, and he puzzled his brain till his 
 head ached. One autumn morning, whilst yet it 
 was dark, Findelkind made his mind up, and rose 
 before his brothers and stole down-stairs and out 
 into the air, as it was easy to do, because the house- 
 door never was bolted. He had nothing with him ; 
 he was barefooted, and his school satchel was slung 
 behind him as Findelkind of Arlberg's wallet had 
 been five centuries before. 
 
 He took a little staff from the piles of wood 
 lying about, and went out on to the high road, on 
 his way to do Heaven's will. He was not very sure 
 what that divine will wished, but that was because 
 he was only nine years old, and not very wise ; but 
 Findelkind that was in heaven had begged for the 
 poor ; so would he. 
 
 His parents were very poor, but he did not think 
 of them as in any want at any time, because he 
 always had his bowl full of porridge and as much 
 bread as he wanted to eat. This morning he had 
 had nothing to eat ; he wished to be away before 
 any one could question him. 
 
 It was quite dusk in the fresh autumn morning : 
 the sun had not risen behind the glaciers of the 
 Stubaithal, and the road was scarcely seen ; but he 
 knew it very well, and he set out bravely, saying his 
 prayers to Christ, and to St. Christopher, and to 
 Findelkind that was in heaven. 
 
 He was not in any way clear as to what he 
 
 Q2 
 
228 FINDELKIND. 
 
 would do, but he thought he would find some great 
 thing to do somewhere, lying like a jewel in the 
 dust ; and he went on his way in faith, as Findel- 
 kind of Arlberg had done before him. 
 
 His heart beat high, and his head lost its aching 
 pains, and his feet felt light ; so light, as if there 
 were wings to his ankles. He would not go to Zirl, 
 because Zirl he knew so well, and there could be 
 nothing very wonderful waiting there ; and he ran 
 fast the other way. When he was fairly out from 
 under the shadow of Martinswand, he slackened his 
 pace, and saw the sun come on his path, and the red 
 da)- redden the grey-green water, and the early 
 Stellwao-en from Landeck, that had been lumbering 
 along all the night, overtook him. 
 
 He would have run after it, and called out to the 
 travellers for alms, but he felt ashamed ; his father 
 had never let him beg, and he did not know how to 
 begin. 
 
 The Stellwagen rolled on through the autumn 
 mud, and that was one chance lost. He was sure 
 that the first Findelkind had not felt ashamed when 
 he had knocked at the first castle gates. 
 
 By-and-by, when he could not see Martinswand 
 by turning his head back ever so, he came to an inn 
 that used to be a post-house in the old days when 
 men travelled only by road. A woman was feeding 
 chickens in the bright clear red of the cold day- 
 break. 
 
FINDELKIND. 229 
 
 Findelkind timidly held out his hand. ' For the 
 poor ! ' he murmured, and doffed his cap. 
 
 The old woman looked at him sharply. ' Oh, is 
 it you, little Findelkind ? Have you run off from 
 school ? Be off with you home ! I have mouths 
 enough to feed here.' 
 
 Findelkind went away, and began to learn that 
 it is not easy to be a prophet or a hero in one's own 
 country. 
 
 He trotted a mile farther, and met nothing. At 
 last he came to some cows by the wayside, and a 
 man tending them. 
 
 ' Would you give me something to help make a 
 monastery ? ' he said timidly, and once more took 
 off his cap. The man gave a great laugh. ' A fine 
 monk, you ! And who wants more of these lazy 
 drones ? Not I.' 
 
 Findelkind never answered : he remembered the 
 priest had said that the years he lived in were very 
 hard ones, and men in them had no faith. 
 
 Ere long he came to a big walled house, with 
 turrets and grated casements — very big it looked to 
 him — like one of the first Findelkind's own castles. 
 His heart beat loud against his side, but he plucked 
 up his courage, and knocked as loud as his heart 
 was beating. 
 
 He knocked and knocked, but no answer came. 
 The house was empty. But he did not know that ; 
 he thought it was that the people within were cruel, 
 
230 FINDELKIND. 
 
 and he went sadly onward with the road winding 
 before him, and on his right the beautiful impetuous 
 grey river, and on his left the green Mittelgebirge 
 and the mountains that rose behind it. By this time 
 the day was up ; the sun was glowing on the red of 
 the cranberry shrubs and the blue of the bilberry 
 boughs : he was hungry and thirsty and tired. But 
 he did not give in for that, he held on steadily ; he 
 knew that there was near, somewhere near, a great 
 city that the people called Sprugg, and thither he had 
 resolved to go. By noontide he had walked eight 
 miles, and came to a green place where men were 
 shooting at targets, the tall thick grass all around 
 them ; and a little way farther off was a train of 
 people chanting and bearing crosses and dressed in 
 long flowing robes. 
 
 The place was the Hottinger Au, and the day 
 was Saturday and the village was making ready to 
 perform a miracle play on the morrow. 
 
 Findelkind ran to the robed singing folk, quite 
 sure that he saw the people of God. ' Oh, take me, 
 take me ! ' he cried to them ; ' do take me with you to 
 do Heaven's work.' 
 
 But they pushed him aside for a crazy little boy 
 that spoilt their rehearsing. 
 
 1 It is only for Hotting folk,' said a lad older than 
 himself. ' Get out of the way with you, Liebchen ; ' 
 and the man who carried the cross knocked him with 
 force on the head, by mere accident ; but Findelkind 
 thought he had meant it. 
 
FINDELKIND. 2 3 1 
 
 Were people so much kinder five centuries before, 
 he wondered, and felt sad as the many-coloured robes 
 swept on through the grass, and the crack of the 
 rifles sounded sharply through the music of the 
 chanting voices. He went on, footsore and sorrow- 
 ful, thinking of the castle doors that had opened, and 
 the city gates that had unclosed, at the summons of 
 the little long-haired boy whose figure was painted 
 on the missal. 
 
 He had come now to where the houses were 
 much more numerous, though under the shade of 
 great trees ; lovely old grey houses, some of wood, 
 some of stone, some w r ith frescoes on them and gold 
 and colour and mottoes, some with deep barred 
 casements and carved portals, and sculptured figures ; 
 houses of the poorer people now, but still memorials 
 of a grand and gracious time. For he had wandered 
 into the quarter of St. Nicholas in this fair mountain 
 city, which he, like his countryfolk, called Sprugg, 
 though the government calls it Innsbruck. 
 
 He got out upon a long grey wooden bridge, and 
 looked up and down the reaches of the river, and 
 thought to himself, maybe, this was not Sprugg but 
 Jerusalem : so beautiful it looked with its domes 
 shining golden in the sun, and the snow of the 
 Soldstein and Brandjoch behind them. For little 
 Findelkind had never come so far as this before. 
 As he stood on the bridge so dreaming, a hand 
 clutched him and a voice said : 
 
232 FINDELKIND. 
 
 ' A whole kreutzer, or you do not pass ! ' 
 
 Findelkind started and trembled. 
 
 A kreutzer ! he had never owned such a treasure 
 in all his life. 
 
 ' I have no money ! ' he murmured timidly, ' 1 
 came to see if I could get money for the poor.' 
 
 The keeper of the bridge laughed. 
 
 ' You are a little beggar, you mean ? Oh, very 
 well ! Then over my bridge you do not go/ 
 
 ' But it is the city on the other side ? ' 
 
 ' To be sure it is the city, but over nobody goes 
 without a kreutzer.' 
 
 ' I never have such a thing of my own ! never, 
 never ! ' said Findelkind, ready to cry. 
 
 ' Then, you were a little fool to come away from 
 your home, wherever that may be,' said the man at 
 the bridge-head. ' Well, I will let you go, for you 
 look a baby. But do not beg ; that is bad.' 
 
 « Findelkind did it ! ' 
 
 1 Then Findelkind was a rogue and a vagabond,' 
 said the taker of the tolls. 
 
 ' Oh, no — no — no ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, yes — yes — yes ! little saucebox, and take 
 that,' said the man, giving him a box on the ear, 
 being angry at contradiction. 
 
 Findelkind's head drooped, and he went slowly 
 over the bridge, forgetting that he ought to have 
 thanked the toll-taker for a free passage. The world 
 seemed to him very difficult. How had Findelkind 
 
FINDELKIND. 233 
 
 done when he had come to bridges ? — and oh ! how 
 had Findelkind done when he had been hungry ? 
 
 For this poor little Findelkind was getting very 
 hungry, and his stomach was as empty as was his 
 wallet. 
 
 A few steps brought him to the Goldones Dachl. 
 
 He forgot his hunger and his pain, seeing the 
 sun shine on all that gold, and the curious painted 
 galleries under it. He thought it was real solid gold. 
 Real gold laid out on a house roof — and the people 
 all so poor ! Findelkind began to muse, and wonder 
 why everybody did not climb up there and take a 
 tile off and be rich ? But perhaps it would be 
 wicked ! Perhaps God put the roof there with all 
 that gold to prove people ? Findelkind got be- 
 wildered. 
 
 If God did such a thing — was it kind ? 
 
 His head seemed to swim, and the sunshine went 
 round and round with him. There went by him, 
 just then, a very venerable-looking old man with 
 silver hair ; he was wrapped in a long cloak. Findel- 
 kind pulled at the cloak gently, and the old man 
 looked down. 
 
 ' What is it, my boy ? ' he asked. 
 
 Findelkind answered, ' I came out to get gold : 
 may I take it off that roof ? ' 
 
 1 It is not gold, child, it is gilding.' 
 
 1 What is gilding ? ' 
 
 * It is a thing made to look like gold : that is all,' 
 
234 FINDELKIND. 
 
 'It is a lie, then !' 
 
 The old man smiled. ' Well — nobody thinks so. 
 If you like to put it so, perhaps it is. What do you 
 want gold for, you wee thing ? ' 
 
 ' To build a monastery and house the poor.' 
 
 The old man's face scowled and grew dark, for 
 he was a Lutheran pastor from Bavaria. 
 
 ' Who taught you such trash ? ' he said crossly. 
 
 * It is not trash. It is faith.' 
 
 And Findelkind's face began to burn and his 
 blue eyes to darken and moisten. There was a little 
 crowd beginning to gather, and the crowd was be- 
 ginning to laugh. There were many soldiers and 
 rifle-shooters in the throng, and they jeered and 
 joked, and made fun of the old man in the long 
 cloak, who grew angry then with the child. ' You 
 are a little idolater and a little impudent sinner ! ' he 
 said wrathfully, and shook the boy by the shoulder 
 and went away, and the throng that had gathered 
 round had only poor Findelkind left to tease. 
 
 He was a very poor little boy indeed to look at, 
 with his sheepskin tunic and his bare feet and legs, 
 and his wallet that never was to get filled. 
 
 ' Where do you come from and what do you 
 want ? ' they asked ; and he answered with a sob in 
 his voice : 
 
 ' I want to do like Findelkind of Arlberg.' 
 
 And then the crowd laughed, not knowing at all 
 what he meant, but laughing just because they did 
 
FINDELKIND. 235 
 
 not know : as crowds always will do. And only the 
 big dogs that are so very big in this country, and 
 are all loose, and free, and good-natured citizens, 
 came up to him kindly, and rubbed against him, and 
 made friends ; and at that tears came into his eyes, 
 and his courage rose, and he lifted his head. 
 
 ' You are cruel people to laugh/ he said indig- 
 nantly ; ' the dogs are kinder. People did not laugh 
 at Findelkind. He was a little boy just like me, no 
 better and no bigger, and as poor ; and yet he had 
 so much faith, and the world then was so good, that 
 he left his sheep and got money enough to build a 
 church and a hospice to Christ and St. Christopher. 
 And I want to do the same for the poor. Not for 
 myself, no — for the poor ! I am Findelkind too, 
 and Findelkind of Arlberg that is in heaven speaks 
 to me.' 
 
 Then he stopped, and a sob rose again in his 
 throat. 
 
 4 He is crazy ! ' said the people, laughing, yet a 
 little scared ; for the priest at Zirl had said rightly, 
 this is not an asre of faith. At that moment there 
 sounded, coming from the barracks, that used to 
 be the Schloss in the old days of Kaiser Max and 
 Mary of Burgundy, the sound of drums and trumpets 
 and the tramp of marching feet. It was one of the 
 corps of Jagers of Tirol, going down from the avenue 
 to the Rudolf-platz, with their band before them and 
 
236 FINDELKIND. 
 
 their pennons streaming. It was a familiar sight, 
 but it drew the street thrones to it like mastic : the 
 age is not fond of dreamers, but it is very fond of 
 drums. In almost a moment the old dark arcades 
 and the riverside and the passages near were all 
 empty, except for the women sitting at their stalls 
 of fruit, or cakes, or toys. They are wonderful old 
 arched arcades, like the cloisters of a cathedral more 
 than anything else, and the shops under them are all 
 homely and simple : shops of leather, of furs, of 
 clothes, of wooden playthings, of sweet and whole- 
 some bread. They are very quaint, and kept by 
 poor folks for poor folks ; but to the dazed eyes of 
 Findelkind they looked like a forbidden paradise, 
 for he was so hungry and so heartbroken ; and he 
 had never seen any bigger place than little Zirl. 
 
 He stood and looked wistfully, but no one offered 
 him anything ; close by was a stall of splendid 
 purple grapes, but the old woman that kept it was 
 busy knitting. She only called to him to stand out 
 of her lisrht. 
 
 ' You look a poor brat ; have you a home ? ' said 
 another woman, who sold bridles and whips and 
 horses' bells, and the like. 
 
 1 Oh, yes ; I have a home — by Martinswand,' said 
 Findelkind, with a sigh. 
 
 The woman looked at him sharply. ' Your 
 parents have sent you on an errand here ? ' 
 
 1 No ; I have run away.' 
 
FINDELKIND. 237 
 
 ■ Run away ? Oh you bad boy ; unless indeed 
 • — are they cruel to you ? ' 
 
 ' No ; very good.' 
 
 • Are you a little rogue, then, or a thief?' 
 
 ' You are a bad woman to think such things,' 
 said Findelkind, hotly : knowing himself on how in- 
 nocent and sacred a quest he was. 
 
 ' Bad ? I ? oh ho ! ' said the old dame, cracking 
 one of her new whips in the air, ' I should like to 
 make you jump about with this, you thankless little 
 vagabond. Be off ! ' 
 
 Findelkind sighed again, his momentary anger 
 passing ; for he had been born with a gentle temper, 
 and thought himself to blame much more readily 
 than he thought other people were : as, indeed, 
 every wise child does, only there are so few children 
 — or men — that are wise. 
 
 He turned his head away from the temptation of 
 the bread and fruit stalls, for in truth hunger gnawed 
 him terribly, and wandered a little to the left. From 
 where he stood he could see the long, beautiful street 
 of Teresa, with its oriels and arches, painted windows 
 and gilded signs, and the steep, grey, dark moun- 
 tains closing it in at the distance ; but the street 
 frightened him, it looked so grand, and he knew it 
 would tempt him ; so he went where he saw the 
 green tops of some high elms and beeches. The 
 trees, like the dogs, seemed like friends. It was the 
 human creatures that were cruel. 
 
238 FINDELKIND. 
 
 At that moment there came out of the barrack 
 gates, with great noise of trumpets and trampling of 
 horses, a group of riders in gorgeous uniforms, with 
 sabres and chains glancing and plumes tossing. It 
 looked to Findelkind like a group of knights : those 
 knights who had helped and defended his namesake 
 with their steel and their gold in the old days of the 
 Arlberg quest. His heart gave a great leap, and he 
 jumped on the dust for joy, and he ran forward and 
 fell on his knees and waved his cap like a little mad 
 thing, and cried out : 
 
 ' Oh, dear knights ! oh, great soldiers ! help me ! 
 Fight for me, for the love of the saints ! I have 
 come all the way from Martinswand, and I am Fin- 
 delkind, and I am trying to serve St. Christopher 
 like Findelkind of Arlsberg.' 
 
 But his little swaying body and pleading hands 
 and shouting voice and blowing curls frightened the 
 horses : one of them swerved and very nearly 
 settled the woes of Findelkind for ever and aye by 
 a kick. The soldier who rode the horse reined him 
 in with difficulty ; he was at the head of the little 
 staff, being indeed no less or more than the general 
 commanding the garrison, which in this city is some 
 fifteen thousand strong. An orderly sprang from 
 his saddle and seized the child, and shook him and 
 swore at him. Findelkind was frightened ; but he 
 shut his eyes and set his teeth, and said to himself 
 that the martyrs must have had very much worse than 
 
FINDELKIND. 239 
 
 these things to suffer in their pilgrimage. He had 
 fancied these riders were knights : such knights as 
 the priest had shown him the likeness of in old picture- 
 books, whose mission it had been to ride through the 
 world succouring the weak and weary, and always 
 defending the right. 
 
 'What are your swords for, if you are not 
 knights ? ' he cried, desperately struggling in his 
 captor's grip, and seeing through his half-closed lids 
 the sunshine shining on steel scabbards. 
 
 ' What does he want ? ' asked the officer in com- 
 mand of the garrison, whose staff all this bright and 
 martial array was. He was riding out from the 
 barracks to an inspection on the Rudolf-platz. He 
 was a young man, and had little children himself, and 
 was half amused, half touched, to see the tiny figure 
 of the little dusty boy. 
 
 1 I want to build a monastery, like Findelkind of 
 Arlberg, and to help the poor,' said our Findelkind 
 valorously, though his heart was beating like that of 
 a little mouse caught in a trap ; for the horses were 
 trampling up the dust around him, and the orderly's 
 grip was hard. 
 
 The officers laughed aloud ; and indeed he looked 
 a poor little scrap of a figure, very ill able to help 
 even himself. 
 
 1 Why do you laugh ? ' cried Findelkind, losing 
 his terror in his indignation, and inspired with the 
 courage which a great earnestness always gives. 
 
24° FINDELKIND. 
 
 ■ You should not laugh. If you were true knights, 
 you would not laugh : you would fight for me. I am 
 little, I know — I am very little — but he was no bigger 
 than I ; and see what great things he did. But the 
 soldiers were good in those days ; they did not laugh 
 and use bad words -' 
 
 And Findelkind, on whose shoulder the orderly's 
 hold was still fast, faced the horses, which looked to 
 him as huge as Martinswand, and the swords, which 
 he little doubted were to be sheathed in his heart. 
 
 The officers stared, laughed again, then whis- 
 pered together, and Findelkind heard them say the 
 word ' crazed.' Findelkind, whose quick little ears 
 were both strained like a mountain leveret's, under- 
 stood that the great men were saying amongst them- 
 selves that it was not safe for him to be about alone, 
 and that it would be kinder to him to catch and cage 
 him : the general view with which the world regards 
 enthusiasts. 
 
 He heard, he understood ; he knew that they 
 did not mean to help him, these men with the steel 
 weapons and the huge steeds, but that they meant to 
 shut him up in a prison ; he, little free-born, forest-fed 
 Findelkind. He wrenched himself out of the sol- 
 dier's grip, as the rabbit wrenches itself out of the 
 jaws of the trap, even at the cost of leaving a limb 
 behind, shot between the horses' legs, doubled like 
 a hunted thing, and spied a refuge. Opposite the 
 avenue of gigantic poplars and pleasant stretches of 
 
FINDELKIND. 241 
 
 grass shaded by other bigger trees, there stands a 
 very famous church, famous alike in the annals of 
 history and of art : the church of the Franciscans 
 that holds the tomb of Kaiser Max, though, alas ! 
 it holds not his ashes, as his dying desire was that 
 it should. The church stands here, a noble, sombre 
 place, with the Silver Chapel of Philippina Wessler 
 adjoining it, and in front the fresh cool avenues 
 that lead to the river and the broad water meadows, 
 and the grand Hall road bordered with the painted 
 stations of the Cross. 
 
 There were some peasants coming in from the 
 country driving cows, and some burghers in their 
 carts, with fat, slow horses ; some little children 
 were at play under the poplars and the elms ; great 
 dogs were lying about on the grass ; everything was 
 happy and at peace, except the poor throbbing heart 
 of little Findelkind, who thought the soldiers were 
 coming after him to lock him up as mad, and ran and 
 ran as fast as his trembling legs would carry him, 
 making for sanctuary, as, in the old bygone days 
 that he loved, many a soul less innocent than his had 
 done. The wide doors of the Hofkirche stood open, 
 and on the steps lay a black-and-tan hound, watching 
 no doubt for its master or mistress, who had gone 
 within to pray. Findelkind, in his terror, vaulted 
 over the dog, and into the church tumbled head- 
 long. 
 
 It seemed quite dark, after the brilliant sunshine 
 R 
 
242 FINDELKIND. 
 
 on the river and the grass ; his forehead touched the 
 stone floor as he fell, and as he raised himself and 
 stumbled forward, reverent and bareheaded, looking 
 for the altar to cling to when the soldiers should 
 enter to seize him, his uplifted eyes fell on the great 
 Tomb. 
 
 The tomb seems entirely to fill the church ; as, 
 with its twenty-four guardian figures round it, it 
 towers up in the twilight that reigns here even at 
 midday. There are a stern majesty and grandeur 
 in it which dwarf every other monument and mauso- 
 leum. It is grim, it is rude, it is savage, with the 
 spirit of the rough ages that created it : but it is 
 great with their greatness ; it is heroic with their 
 heroism ; it is simple with their simplicity. 
 
 As the awe-stricken eyes of the terrified child 
 fell on the mass of stone and bronze, the sight smote 
 him breathless. The mailed warriors standing 
 around it, so motionless, so solemn, filled him with a 
 frozen nameless fear. He had never a doubt that 
 they were the dead arisen. The foremost that met 
 his eyes were Theodoric and Arthur ; the next, grim 
 Rodolf, father of a dynasty of emperors. There, 
 leaning on their swords, the three gazed down on 
 him, armoured, armed, majestic, serious, guarding 
 the empty grave, which to the child, who knew 
 nothing of its history, seemed a bier ; and at the 
 feet of Theodoric, who alone of them all looked 
 young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind 
 
FINDELKIND. 243 
 
 fell with a piteous sob, and cried, ' I am not mad ! 
 Indeed, indeed, I am not mad ! ' 
 
 He did not know that these grand figures were 
 but statues of bronze. He was quite sure they were 
 the dead, arisen, and meeting there, around that tomb 
 on which the solitary kneeling knight watched and 
 prayed, encircled, as by a wall of steel, by these his 
 comrades. He was not frightened, he was rather 
 comforted and stilled, as with a sudden sense of 
 some deep calm and certain help. 
 
 Findelkind, without knowing that he was like so 
 many dissatisfied poets and artists much bigger than 
 himself, dimly felt in his little tired mind how 
 beautiful, and how gorgeous, and how grand the 
 world must have been when heroes and knights like 
 these had gone by in its daily sunshine and its 
 twilight storms. No wonder Findelkind of Arlberg 
 had found his pilgrimage so fair, when if he had 
 needed any help he had only had to kneel and clasp 
 these firm, mailed limbs, these strong cross-hiked 
 swords, in the name of Christ and of the poor ! 
 
 Theodoric seemed to look down on him with 
 benignant eyes from under the raised visor ; and our 
 poor Findelkind, weeping, threw his small arms 
 closer and closer round the bronze knees of the 
 heroic figure and sobbed aloud : 'Help me, help me! 
 Oh, turn the hearts of the people to me, and help 
 me to do good ! ' 
 
 But Theodoric answered nothing. 
 
244 FINDELKTND. 
 
 There was no sound in the dark, hushed church ; 
 the gloom grew darker over Findelkind's eyes ; the 
 mighty forms of monarchs and of heroes grew dim 
 before his sight. He lost consciousness, and fell 
 prone upon the stones at Theodoric's feet ; for he 
 had fainted from hunger and emotion. 
 
 When he awoke it was quite evening ; there was 
 a lantern held over his head ; voices were muttering 
 curiously and angrily ; bending over him were two 
 priests, a sacristan of the church, and his own father. 
 His little wallet lay by him on the stones, always 
 
 empty, 
 
 ' Boy of mine ! were you mad ? ' cried his father, 
 half in rage, half in tenderness. ' The chase you 
 have led me ! — and your mother thinking you were 
 drowned ! — and all the working day lost, running 
 after old women's tales of where they had seen you ! 
 Oh, little fool, little fool ! what was amiss with 
 Martinswand, that you must leave it ? ' 
 
 Findelkind slowly and feebly rose, and sat up on 
 the pavement and looked up, not at his father, but 
 at the knight Theodoric. 
 
 ' I thought they would help me to keep the poor,' 
 he muttered feebly, as he glanced at his own wallet. 
 ' And it is empty — empty.' 
 
 ' Are we not poor enough ? ' cried his father with 
 natural impatience, ready to tear his hair with 
 vexation at having such a little idiot for a son. 
 ' Must you rove afield to find poverty to help, when 
 
FINDELKIND. 245 
 
 it sits cold enough, the Lord knows, at our own 
 hearth ? Oh, little ass, little dolt, little maniac, fit 
 only for a madhouse, talking to iron figures and 
 taking them for real men ! What have I done, O 
 Heaven, that I should be afflicted thus ?' 
 
 And the poor man wept, being a good affectionate 
 soul, but not very wise, and believing that his boy 
 was mad. Then, seized with sudden rage once 
 more, at thought of his day all wasted, and its hours 
 harassed and miserable through searching for the 
 lost child, he plucked up the light, slight figure of 
 Findelkind in his own arms, and, with muttered 
 thanks and excuses to the sacristan of the church, 
 bore the boy out with him into the evening air, and 
 lifted him into a cart which stood there with a horse 
 harnessed to one side of the pole, as the country 
 people love to do, to the risk of their own lives and 
 their neighbours'. Findelkind said never a word ; 
 he was as dymb as Theodoric had been to him ; he 
 felt stupid, heavy, half blind ; his father pushed him 
 some bread, and he ate it by sheer instinct as a lost 
 animal will do ; the cart jogged on, the stars shone, 
 the great church vanished in the gloom of night. 
 
 As they went through the city towards the river- 
 side along the homeward way never a word did his 
 father, who was a silent man at all times, address to 
 him. Only once, as they jogged over the bridge, he 
 spoke. 
 
246 FINDELKIND. 
 
 ' Son,' he asked, ' did you run away truly thinking 
 to please God and help the poor ? ' 
 
 ' Truly, I did ! ' answered Findelkind, with a sob 
 in his throat. 
 
 ' Then, thou wert an ass ! ' said his father. 
 1 Didst never think of thy mother's love and of my 
 toil ? Look at home.' 
 
 Findelkind was mute. The drive was very long, 
 backward by the same way, with the river shining in 
 the moonlight and the mountains half-covered with 
 the clouds. 
 
 It was ten by the bells of Zirl when they came 
 once more under the solemn shadow of grave Mar- 
 tinswand. There were lights moving about his 
 house, his brothers and sisters were still up, his 
 mother ran out into the road, weeping and laughing 
 with fear and joy. 
 
 Findelkind himself said nothing. 
 
 He hung his head. 
 
 They were too fond of him to scold him or to 
 jeer at him ; they made him go quickly to his bed, 
 and his mother made him a warm milk posset and 
 kissed him. 
 
 ' We will punish thee to-morrow, naughty and 
 cruel one,' said his parent. ' But thou art punished 
 enough already, for in thy place little Stefan had the 
 sheep, and he has lost Katte's lambs — the beautiful 
 twin lambs ! 1 dare not tell thy father to-night. 
 
F1NDELKIND 247 
 
 Dost hear the poor thing mourn ? Do not go afield 
 for thy duty again.' 
 
 A pang went through the heart of Findelkind, as 
 if a knife had pierced it. He loved Katte better 
 than almost any other living thing, and she was 
 bleating under his window childless and alone. They 
 were such beautiful lambs, too ! — lambs that his 
 father had promised should never be killed, but be 
 reared to swell the flock. 
 
 Findelkind cowered down in his bed, and felt 
 wretched beyond all wretchedness. He had been 
 brought back ; his wallet was empty ; and Katte's 
 lambs were lost. He could not sleep. 
 
 His pulses were beating like so many steam- 
 hammers ; he felt as if his body were all one great 
 throbbing heart. His brothers, who lay in the same 
 chamber with him, were sound asleep ; very soon his 
 father and mother snored also, on the other side of 
 the wall. Findelkind was alone wide awake, watch 
 ing the big white moon sail past his little casement, 
 and hearing Katte bleat. 
 
 Where were her poor twin lambs ? 
 
 The night was bitterly cold, for it was already 
 far on in autumn ; the rivers had swollen and flooded 
 many fields, the snow for the last week had fallen 
 quite low down on the mountain sides. 
 
 Even if still living, the little lambs would die, 
 out on such a night without the mother or food and 
 shelter of any sort. Findelkind, whose vivid brain 
 
248 FINDELKIND. 
 
 always saw everything that he imagined as if it were 
 being acted before his eyes, in fancy saw his two 
 dear lambs floating dead down the swollen tide ; 
 entangled in rushes on the flooded shore ; or fallen 
 with broken limbs upon a crest of rocks. He saw 
 them so plainly, that scarcely could he hold back 
 his breath from screaming aloud in the still night, 
 and answering the mourning wail of the desolate 
 mother. 
 
 •At last he could bear it no longer : his head 
 burned, and his brain seemed whirling round ; at a 
 bound he leaped out of bed quite noiselessly, slid 
 into his sheepskins, and stole out as he had done the 
 night before, hardly knowing what he did. Poor 
 Katte was mourning in the wooden shed with the 
 other sheep, and the wail of her sorrow sounded 
 sadly across the loud roar of the rushing river. 
 
 The moon was still high. 
 
 Above, against the sky, black and awful with 
 clouds floating over its summit, was the great Mar- 
 tinswand. 
 
 Findelkind this time called the big dog Waldmar 
 to him, and with the dog beside him went once more 
 out into the cold and the gloom, whilst his father 
 and mother, his brothers and sisters, were sleeping, 
 and poor childless Katte alone was awake. 
 
 He looked up at the mountain and then across 
 the water-swept meadows to the river. He was in 
 doubt which way to take. Then he thought that in 
 
FINDELKIND. 249 
 
 all likelihood the lambs would have been seen if they 
 had wandered the river way, and even little Stefan 
 would have had too much sense to let them go there. 
 So he crossed the road and began to climb Martins- 
 wand. 
 
 With the instinct of the born mountaineer, he 
 had brought out his crampons with him, and had 
 now fastened them on his feet ; he knew every part 
 and ridge of the mountains, and had more than once 
 climbed over to that very spot where Kaiser Max 
 had hung, in peril of his life. 
 
 On second thoughts he bade Waldmar go back 
 to the house. The dog was a clever mountaineer, 
 too, but Findelkind did not wish to lead him into 
 danger. ' I have done the wrong, and I will bear 
 the brunt,' he said to himself ; for he felt as if he 
 had killed Katte's children, and the weight of the 
 sin was like lead on his heart, and he would not kill 
 good Waldmar too. 
 
 His little lantern did not show much light, and 
 as he went higher upwards he lost sight of the 
 moon. The cold was nothing to him, because the 
 clear still air was that in which he had been reared ; 
 and the darkness he did not mind, because he was 
 used to that also ; but the weight of sorrow upon 
 him he scarcely knew how to bear, and how to find 
 two tiny lambs in this vast waste of silence and 
 shadow would have puzzled and wearied older 
 minds than his. Garibaldi and all his household, 
 
250 FINDELKIND. 
 
 old soldiers — tried and true— sought all night once 
 upon Caprera on such a quest, in vain. 
 
 If he could only have awakened his brother 
 Stefan to ask him which way they had gone! but 
 then, to be sure, he remembered, Stefan must have 
 told that to all those who had been looking for the 
 lambs from sunset to nightfall. All alone he began 
 the ascent. 
 
 Time and again, in the glad springtime and the 
 fresh summer weather, he had driven his flock up- 
 wards to eat the grass that grew in the clefts of the 
 rocks and on the broad green alps. The sheep 
 could not climb to the highest points ; but the goats 
 did, and he with them. Time and again he had 
 lain on his back in these uppermost heights, with 
 the lower clouds behind him and the black wings of 
 the birds and the crows almost touching his fore- 
 head, as he lay gazing up into the blue depth of the 
 sky, and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. 
 
 He would never dream any more now, he 
 thought to himself. His dreams had cost Katte 
 her lambs, and the world of the dead Findelkind 
 was gone for ever : gone were all the heroes and 
 knights ; gone all the faith and the force ; gone 
 every one who cared for the dear Christ and the 
 poor in pain. 
 
 The bells of Zirl were ringing midnight. Fin- 
 delkind heard, and wondered that only two hours 
 had gone by since his mother had kissed him in his 
 
FINDELKIND. 251 
 
 bed. It seemed to him as if long long nights had 
 rolled away, and he had lived a hundred years. 
 
 He did not feel any fear of the dark calm night, 
 lit now and then by silvery gleams of moon and 
 stars. The mountain was his old familiar friend, 
 and the ways of it had no more terror for him than 
 these hills here used to have for the bold heart of 
 Kaiser Max. Indeed, all he thought of was Katte 
 — Katte and the lambs. He knew the way that 
 the sheep-tracks ran ; the sheep could not climb so 
 high as the goats ; and he knew, too, that little 
 Stefan could not climb so high as he. So he began 
 his search low down upon Martinswand. 
 
 After midnight the cold increased ; there were 
 snow-clouds hanging near, and they opened over 
 his head, and the soft snow came flying along. For 
 himself he did not mind it, but alas for the lambs ! 
 — if it covered them, how would he find them ? 
 And if they slept in it they were dead. 
 
 It was bleak and bare on the mountain-side, 
 though there were still patches of grass such as the 
 flocks liked, that had grown since the hay was cut. 
 The frost of the night made the stone slippery, and 
 even the irons griped it with difficulty ; and there 
 was a strong wind rising like a giant's breath, and 
 blowing his small horn lantern to and fro. 
 
 Now and then he quaked a little with fear — not 
 fear of the night or the mountains, but of strange 
 spirits and dwarfs and goblins of ill-repute, said to 
 
252 FINDELKIND. 
 
 haunt Martinswand after nightfall. Old women had 
 told him of such things, though the priest always 
 said that they were only foolish tales, there being 
 nothing on God's earth wicked, save men and 
 women who had not clean hearts and hands. Fin- 
 delkind believed the priest ; still all alone on the 
 side of the mountain, with the snowflakes flying 
 round him, he felt a nervous thrill that made him 
 tremble and almost turn backward. Almost, but 
 not quite ; for he thought of Katte and the poor little 
 lambs lost — and perhaps dead — through his fault. 
 
 The path went zig-zag and was very steep ; the 
 Arolla pines swayed their boughs in his face ; stones 
 that lay in his path unseen in the gloom made him 
 stumble. Now and then a large bird of the night 
 flew by with a rushing sound ; the air grew so cold 
 that all Martinswand might have been turning to 
 •one huge glacier. All at once he heard through 
 the stillness — for there is nothing so still as a 
 mountain-side in snow — a little pitiful bleat. All 
 his terrors vanished ; all his memories of ghost- 
 tales passed away ; his heart gave a leap of joy ; he 
 was sure it was the cry of the lambs. He stopped 
 to listen more surely. He was now many score of 
 feet above the level of his home and of Zirl ; he 
 was, as nearly as he could judge, half-way as high 
 as where the cross in the cavern marks the spot of 
 the Kaiser's peril. The little bleat sounded above 
 him, and it was very feeble and faint. 
 
FINDELKIND. 253 
 
 Findelkind set his lantern down, braced himself 
 up by drawing tighter his old leathern girdle, set his 
 sheepskin cap firm on his forehead, and went towards 
 the sound as far as he could judge that it might be. 
 He was out of the woods now ; there were only a 
 few straggling pines rooted here and there in a mass 
 of loose-lying rock and slate ; so much he could tell 
 by the light of the lantern, and the lambs, by the 
 bleating, seemed still above him. 
 
 It does not, perhaps, seem very hard labour to 
 hunt about by a dusky light upon a desolate moun- 
 tain-side ; but when the snow is falling fast, when 
 the light is only a small circle, wavering, yellowish 
 on the white — when around is a wilderness of loose 
 stones and yawning clefts — when the air is ice and 
 the hour is past midnight — the task is not a light one 
 for a man ; and Findelkind was a child, like that 
 Findelkind that was in heaven. 
 
 Long, very long, was his search ; he grew hot 
 and forgot all fear, except a spasm of terror lest his 
 light should burn low and die out. The bleating 
 had quite ceased now, and there was not even a sigh 
 to o-uide him ; but he knew that near him the lambs 
 must be, and he did not waver nor despair. 
 
 He did not pray; praying in the morning had 
 been no use ; but he trusted in God, and he laboured 
 hard, toiling to and fro, seeking in every nook and 
 behind each stone, and straining every muscle and 
 nerve, till the sweat rolled in a briny dew off his 
 
254 FINDELKIND. 
 
 forehead, and his curls dripped with wet. At last, 
 with a scream of joy, he touched some soft close 
 wool that gleamed white as the white snow. He 
 knelt down on the ground, and peered behind the 
 stone by the full light of his lantern ; there lay 
 the little lambs : two little brothers, twin brothers, 
 huddled close together, asleep. Asleep ? He was 
 sure they were asleep, for they were so silent and 
 still. 
 
 He bowed over them, and kissed them, and 
 laughed, and cried, and kissed them again. Then a 
 sudden horror smote him ; they were so very still. 
 There they lay, cuddled close, one on another, one 
 little white head on each little white body ; drawn 
 closer than ever together to try and get warm. 
 
 He called to them ; he touched them ; then he 
 caught them up in his arms, and kissed them again, 
 and again, and again. Alas ! they were frozen and 
 dead. Never again would they leap in the long 
 green grass, and frisk with one another, and lie 
 happy by Katte's side ; they had died calling for 
 their mother, and in the long, cold, cruel night only 
 Death had answered. 
 
 Findelkind did not weep, nor scream, nor 
 tremble; his heart seemed frozen, like the dead 
 lamb. 
 
 It was he who had killed them. 
 
 He rose up and gathered them in his arms, and 
 cuddled them in the skirts of his sheepskin tunic, 
 
FINDELKIND. 255 
 
 and cast his staff away that he might carry them ; 
 and so, thus burdened with their weight, set his face 
 to the snow and the wind once more, and began his 
 downward way. 
 
 Once a great sob shook him ; that was all. Now 
 he had no fear. 
 
 The night might have been noonday, the snow- 
 storm might have been summer, for aught that he 
 knew or cared. 
 
 Long and weary was the way, and often he 
 stumbled and had to rest ; often the terrible sleep 
 of the snow lay heavy on his eyelids, and he longed 
 to lie down and be at rest, as the little brothers 
 were ; often it seemed to him that he would never 
 reach home again. But he shook the lethargy off 
 him and resisted the longing, and held on his way ; 
 he knew that his mother would mourn for him as 
 Katte mourned for the lambs. At length, through 
 all difficulty and danger, when his light had spent 
 itself and his strength had well-nigh spent itself too, 
 his feet touched the old high-road. There were 
 flickering torches and many people, and loud cries 
 around the church, as there had been four hundred 
 years before, when the last Sacrament had been said 
 in the valley for the hunter king in peril above. 
 
 His mother, being sleepless and anxious, had 
 risen long before it was dawn, and had gone to the 
 children's chamber, and had found the bed of Findel- 
 kind empty once more. 
 
256 FINDELKIND. 
 
 He came into the midst of the people with the 
 two little lambs in his arms, and he heeded neither 
 the outcries of neighbours nor the frenzied joy of his 
 mother ; his eyes looked straight before him, and his 
 face was white like the snow. 
 
 ' I killed them,' he said, and then two great tears 
 rolled down his cheeks and fell on the little cold 
 bodies of the two little dead brothers. 
 
 Findelkind was very ill for many nights and 
 many days after that. 
 
 Whenever he spoke in his fever he always said, 
 ' I killed them ! ' 
 
 Never anything else. 
 
 So the dreary winter months went by, while the 
 deep snow filled up lands and meadows, and covered 
 the great mountains from summit to base, and all 
 around Martinswand was quite still, and now and 
 then the post went by to Zirl, and on the holy days 
 the bells tolled ; that was all. His mother sat 
 between the stove and his bed with a sore heart; 
 and his father, as he went to and fro between the 
 walls of beaten snow, from the wood-shed to the 
 cattle-byre, was sorrowful, thinking to himself the 
 child would die, and join that earlier Findelkind 
 whose home was with the saints. 
 
 But the child did not die. 
 
 He lay weak and wasted and almost motionless 
 a long time ; but slowly, as the springtime drew 
 near, and the snows on the lower hills loosened, and 
 
FINDELKIND. 257 
 
 the abounding waters coursed green and crystal- 
 clear down all the sides of the hills, Findelkind 
 revived as the earth did, and by the time the new 
 grass was springing and the first blue of the gentian 
 gleamed on the alps, he was well. 
 
 But to this day he seldom plays and scarcely 
 ever laughs. His face is sad, and his eyes have a 
 look of trouble. 
 
 Sometimes the priest of Zirl says of him to 
 others : ' He will be a great poet or a great hero 
 some day.' Who knows ? 
 
 Meanwhile, in the heart of the child there 
 remains always a weary pain, that lies on his childish 
 life as a stone may lie on a flower. 
 
 ' I killed them ! ' he says often to himself, think- 
 ing of the two little white brothers frozen to death 
 on Martinswand that cruel night ; and he does the 
 things that are told him, and is obedient, and tries 
 to be content with the humble daily duties that are 
 his lot, and when he says his prayers at bedtime 
 always ends them so : 
 
 1 Dear God, do let the little lambs play with 
 the other Findelkind that is in heaven.' 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
 
 TURKEY stood on a wall and saw a 
 drove of black and grey pigs go by on the 
 high-road underneath. The turkey was a 
 very handsome gobbler, and his plumage was of the 
 most brilliant grey and white, and his wattles were 
 of the red of the carnation or the rose. He was 
 very proud, and as he looked down on the pigs he 
 stuck up his tail peacock-wise and fanned the 
 air with it, and strutted up and down on the stone 
 ledge, and said to himself, ' What poor, dusty, hard- 
 driven drudges those are in the road there ! And 
 not a single feather upon them ! Nothing to cover 
 their bodies except a few dingy-looking hairs ! And 
 they can only make an odd snuffling noise instead of 
 gobbling. What a contemptible grunting and grum- 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 259 
 
 bling ! And then what a tail ! — a wisp of rope would 
 be better ! ' 
 
 Then he spread his own tail higher and higher 
 and broader and broader, just to show the pigs what 
 a tail could be; and he gobbled loudly, that they 
 might know what intelligible and melodious speech 
 was like. 
 
 The poor pigs went snuffling and shuffling along 
 in the mud and stones beneath the wall, and were 
 driven into the strawyard of the turkey's own farm- 
 house. 
 
 Next morning, lo! the turkey was put in a 
 coop and was carried off to market, with a number 
 of ducks and geese and cackling pullets, and who 
 should be next to him but a poor grey pig, with his 
 heels tied together so that he could not stir. 
 
 ' What a wretched creature ! ' said the turkey in 
 its pride, for the coop had not taken down its vanity 
 one peg. ' What a sorry animal, and such a tail ! 
 Of course they are going to cut his throat. As for 
 me, this is a throne ; I suppose I am going to the 
 palace. Perhaps the Queen has never seen a beau- 
 tiful turkey before.' 
 
 Then he began again to spread out his tail-plume 
 and shake his rosy wattles, and began to gobble, 
 gobble, gobble with all his might. But the cart 
 gave a lurch and the coop tilted on one side, and 
 the turkey tilted up with it and lost his balance. 
 
 * Dear me, what a price one pays for being of 
 
2 6o MELEAGRIS GALLOP AVO. 
 
 high rank in this world ! ' he said to himself as he 
 clung to the side of the wicker-work and tried to 
 preserve his dignity. 
 
 The poultry were all in flat baskets and so were 
 the geese and the ducks. 
 
 ' He'll be fine for killing three months hence, 
 ma'am ! ' his driver was saying as he stopped the cart 
 and held up the coop to show our gentleman to a 
 woman who stood on the kerbstone. 
 
 1 For killing ! ' echoed the turkey ; and he swooned 
 away, and fell in a heap of ruffled feathers on the 
 bottom of the wicker-work prison. 
 
 For death had never occurred to him as a possi- 
 ble fate for himself, though he saw other creatures 
 go daily to martyrdom. 
 
 1 You will be sooner or later killed just as I shall 
 be,' said the pig with a grunt as the turkey came to 
 itself. ' What do you suppose they fatten you for ? 
 For love of you ? Ough ! you silly vain thing !' 
 
 ' I thought it was because — because — because 
 I am a turkey ! ' sighed the poor prisoner in the 
 coop. 
 
 ' Because you are a turkey ! ' echoed the pig. 
 1 As if there were not five hundred thousand turkeys 
 in the world ! That is all. You will be before 
 Christmas just as I shall be — a knife will slit your 
 throat.' 
 
 The poor turkey swooned again on hearing this ; 
 and did not recover so rapidly as before; there- 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOP AVO. 261 
 
 fore the cart had jolted on again and was stand- 
 ing in the market-place, with the horses out of the 
 shafts, before he opened his eyes and regained his 
 consciousness. 
 
 The master of the cart was away from it, and it 
 had been unpacked of most of its contents, and the 
 pig and the turkey were left alone. 
 
 Suddenly the pig gave a grunt and the turkey 
 started, for his nerves were on edge and the least 
 thing frightened him. 
 
 ' What a hideous voice you have ! ' he said pet- 
 tishly. ' You should hear me ! ' 
 
 And he began to gobble with all his might. 
 
 • I don't see that your noise is a bit prettier than 
 mine,' said the pig. ' But it is very silly to lose 
 your time squabbling about voices. We could get 
 out if you would help me a little.' 
 
 The turkey was silent. 
 
 To get out would be delightful ; but to go into 
 partnership with piggy hurt his pride so much 
 that he would not even ask in what way escape 
 could be accomplished. But the pig was in too 
 much haste and too much in earnest to stand upon 
 etiquette. 
 
 • I can get my snout to your coop,' he said 
 eagerly ; ' and I will gnaw it asunder — it's nothing 
 but wicker — if you will promise to peck my cords to 
 pieces when you are out. Now — don't you see what 
 I mean ? ' 
 
262 MELEAGRIS GALLOP AVO. 
 
 The turkey was so enraptured that his pride all 
 tumbled down like a broken egg, and his wings 
 began to flap in a tremendous flurry. 
 
 1 Make haste ! make haste !' he cried, and gobbled 
 till he was red in the face. 
 
 ' Don't make such a noise, or they'll hear you,' 
 said the pig, getting his teeth well on to the wicker, 
 ' and then you and I shall go up as the alderman and 
 his chains on to some horrid man's table.' 
 
 ' Alderman ? ' said the turkey. 
 
 ' They call a roast turkey and its sausages so,' 
 explained the pig. 
 
 The turkey thought it very ghastly pleasantry. 
 
 The pig meanwhile was hard at work, and in 
 a very little time he had gnawed, and pulled, and 
 bitten, and twisted the coop on the side near to him 
 in such an effectual manner that the turkey soon got 
 his head through, and then his throat, and then his 
 body. He gave a gobble of glory and joy. 
 
 1 But undo me ! ' squeaked the pig. 
 
 Now the turkey was in a fearful hurry to be 
 gone. His heart beat and his wings flapped so that 
 he almost fell into convulsions ; but he was a bird 
 of honour and good faith. He bent down and pecked 
 with such frantic force at the knots tying the pig's 
 legs, that he filled his beak with frayed cord, and 
 in less time than I take to write it piggy tumbled 
 in his heavy fashion off the cart on to the ground 
 — free. 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOP AVO. 263 
 
 ' Now run/ said the pig ; and nobody knows how 
 fast a pig can run who has not seen him put his mind 
 and his will into it. The turkey could not fly 
 because his wings were cut, and tame turkeys 
 seldom know much about flying ; but, what with a 
 stride and a flutter mixed in one, he managed to cover 
 the ground rapidly, and kept up side by side with 
 the pig, who, for his part, knowing the country, kept 
 steadily on down the road, which fortunately for 
 them was a solitary one, and made straight for a 
 wood which he saw in the distance. The wood was 
 about a mile and a half off, and the two comrades 
 were in sore distress when they came up to it ; but 
 they did reach it unstopped, and sank down on the 
 grass under some larches with a sigh of content. 
 
 * Such a useless tree the larch ! ' murmured the 
 pig ; ' not an acorn on it once in all its days ! ' 
 
 For, of course, the pig viewed all trees only in 
 relation to acorns. 
 
 ' I can't eat acorns,' sighed the turkey as soon as 
 he got his breath. 
 
 ' You ungrateful creature,' said the pig in reproof. 
 1 Be content that you have escaped with your life.' 
 1 Are you sure we have escaped ? ' 
 1 We have escaped for the time,' said the philo- 
 sophic pig ; ' and to be loose in a wood is heaven 
 upon earth. There must be grain, or berries, or 
 something you can pick up, if only you will look 
 about for it.' 
 
264 MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
 
 Now, it was easy for the good pig to be philo- 
 sophic, because near at hand he had smelt out a 
 savoury spot in the mossy ground, and he was right 
 in the very middle of a hearty meal of truffles. 
 
 ' I never thought to have to beg my bread/ sighed 
 the turkey. 
 
 ' Who do you suppose would take the trouble to 
 feed you if it was not to kill you ? ' grunted the pig, 
 with his mouth quite full. ' You need not beg your 
 bread, as you call it ; look for it — as I do.' 
 
 The turkey pressed by hunger did begin to look. 
 A tame turkey, you know, knows nothing about 
 feeding itself ; food is thrown out to it ; and our 
 turkey, at any rate, had always supposed that was an 
 ordination of Providence. 
 
 But little by little, watching the pig devouring 
 the truffles, natural appetites and instincts awoke in 
 him ; no doubt his grandparents a hundred times 
 removed had been wild turkeys by the borders of the 
 Missouri or in the woods of Arkansas, and hereditary 
 instincts revived in him under the all-potent prick 
 of hunger. He did begin to look about, and spied a 
 wild strawberry or two and ate them, and saw a 
 blackberry bush and stripped it, and finding a big 
 grasshopper and a small frog, found an appetite also 
 for them. 
 
 1 1 never knew so much natural nourishment 
 grew about one,' he remarked to the pig, who 
 snorted. 
 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 205 
 
 1 There is food enough ; only men take it all. 
 Your people are all in America, but men can't let 
 them alone even there, so I have heard. Oh, there 
 is a pretty hen-pheasant ! Good morning, Madame 
 Phasiani ? ' 
 
 ' Is that her name ? ' asked the turkey. 
 
 ' It is her family name ; and your own is Mele- 
 agris Gallopavo, and I don't suppose you knew that,' 
 said the pig very snappishly. 
 
 The turkey was silent. Meleagris Gallopavo ! 
 That really was a very fine name ! 
 
 1 Is one well off in this wood, Madame Phasiani ? ' 
 asked the pig of the pheasant, who sighed, and replied 
 that the wood was very nice, and Indian corn was 
 thrown out twice a day ; but then when there was the 
 trail of the beater over it all, who could be happy ? 
 
 ' There is the trail of the butcher over me,' said 
 the pig, ' but I enjoy myself whilst I can. You men- 
 tioned Indian corn, madame ; is the keeper's cottage 
 unfortunately near us then ? ' 
 
 She said it was half a mile off, or perhaps not so 
 much. 
 
 1 This is a preserve then ? ' said the pig. 
 
 She sighed again and said it was, and sauntered 
 pensively away with her head on one side, as 
 pheasants always do. 
 
 ' I hoped it was a bit of wild coppice,' said the 
 pig. ' Ah, here is a kingfisher. How do, Mr. 
 Alced?' 
 
266 MELEAGR1S GALLOP AVO. 
 
 But the kingfisher, who is the shyest creature 
 upon earth, skimmed away in silence. 
 
 ' Why do you call them all those fine names ? ' 
 said the turkey. 
 
 1 It costs nothing, and it pleases them,' said the 
 pig, curtly. ' It is part of men's tomfoolery,' he 
 added, after a pause ; and then, seeing a turtle-dove, 
 he grunted in his most amiable fashion, ' Sir Turtur 
 Auritus, good-day. We are resting in your wood a 
 little while ; it is very cool, and green, and pleasant. 
 May I ask if it be also safe ? ' 
 
 ' Safe ! ' said the turtle-dove, sitting down on a 
 cranberry bough. ' There are guns, guns, guns from 
 morning to ni^ht' 
 
 ' Surely not this time of the year ? No ! ' 
 
 ' There are for us,' said the turtle-dove, sorrow- 
 fully ; ' and when there are not guns there are traps. 
 They have no mercy on us. We only eat the pine- 
 kernels, the woodspurge, grain, the little snails. 
 We do no harm. Yet they hunt us down ; they put 
 poisoned colza for us ; they kill us by thousands ; 
 and I have heard — though it seems too terrible to 
 be true — that they pack us alive in hampers, keep 
 us shut up one atop of another for days, then pull 
 our tail feathers out, and shut us up again in another 
 box ; when that box flies open they shoot at us, so I 
 have heard.' 
 
 1 Oh yes ; my gentlemen call that their "potties" 
 and give each other prizes for doing it,' said the pig 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOP AVO. 267 
 
 with a grim sympathy. ' They think it vulgar when 
 the lads at village fairs grease our tails and hunt 
 us. Dear Sir Turtur Auritus, is there such a 
 gigantic sham, such an unutterable beast anywhere 
 as Man ? ' 
 
 1 1 should think there is not,' said the turtle-dove. 
 ' Myself I live out of the world, on the top of that 
 lime tree you see there, and if I can only alight 
 safely to feed and drink twice a day, I ask no more.' 
 
 A pretty partridge went tripping by at that 
 moment with some finely-grown sons and daughters 
 after her. She was a charming and lovely creature, 
 only she had a sadly nervous manner. 
 
 1 When it grows near the first of September/ she 
 said, in a tone of apology to the pig, who saluted her 
 as Lady Starnacineria, ' every sound, the very slightest, 
 sends my heart up into my mouth, and I take every 
 stone for a dog. What is the use or the joy of 
 bringing these dear children into a world of shot ? 
 Their doom is to be huddled alive into a game-bag, 
 with broken limbs and torn bodies, and my lord will 
 think himself a saint fit for heaven if he send a 
 hamper of them up to a hospital.' 
 
 1 All men's hypocrisy, madam,' said the pig. ' I 
 prefer the frank, blunt snap of the fox, who makes 
 no pretence of Christian charity, but only wants his 
 dinner.' 
 
 1 If it were only the fox,' sighed the partridge, 
 1 that would be very bearable ; and he likes a 
 
268 MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
 
 common hen quite as well as ourselves — and better, 
 because the poor vulgar creature is bigger.' 
 
 With a sigh she devoted herself to laying open 
 an ants' nest, and called to her young to devour the 
 eggs in it. 
 
 ' This seems a very nice home of yours,' said the 
 pig, to provoke conversation. 
 
 The partridge sighed as the pheasant had done. 
 
 ■ It is too charming amongst these turnips,' she 
 said ; ' and there is most excellent fare all over these 
 fields ; but, alas ! for what a fate do I live and hatch 
 these dear children — the gun, the dog, the bag! 
 Ah, dear sir, life to a partridge, where man is, is only 
 a vale of tears, though led in the best of corn- 
 fields!' 
 
 And she said ' Cheep, cheep,' and made a rest- 
 less little flutter of all her feathers, and crept under 
 the rail again back amongst the turnips. 
 
 At that moment a fine black rabbit, with a white 
 tuft for a tail, darted by too quick for the pig to stop 
 him. 
 
 ' Ah, he has a sad life — almost as sad as mine ! ' 
 said the turtle-dove. ' He dwells in quite a humble 
 way underground, but they never let him alone. 
 When they can shoot nothing else, they are for ever 
 banging and blazing at him. And they put a ferret 
 through his hall-door without even knocking to 
 say they are there. Have you ever seen the poor 
 bunnies sitting outside their warrens cleaning their 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 269 
 
 faces like pussy-cats in the cool of the early morn- 
 ing ? Ah, such a pretty sight ! But men only want 
 them for their pelts or to put them in a pie.' 
 
 * What is your opinion of men, dear lady ?' said 
 the pig, as a red-and-white cow came and looked 
 over the fence. 
 
 1 Oh, don't mention them ! ' said the cow with un- 
 feigned horror. ' Don't they massacre all my pretty 
 children, and drive me to market with my udders 
 bursting, and break my heart and brand my skin ; 
 and when I am grown old will they not knock 
 me on the head, or run a knife through my spine, 
 and turn me into a hundred uses, hide, and hoofs, 
 and everything ; it is all written in their children's 
 lesson-books. " The most useful animal in the 
 kingdom of nature is a cow." That is what they 
 say. Ugh ! ' 
 
 ' My dear friend,' said the pig, turning to the 
 turkey, ' you see that every living thing is devoured 
 by man. Why should you suppose you were to be 
 the exception ? ' 
 
 1 No one has such a tail as I have/ said the 
 turkey. 
 
 His fright over, he had come to the conclusion 
 that nobody would ever do anything except adore a 
 being with such a tail as his. 
 
 ' What is your tail compared to the peacock's ?' 
 said the pig with scorn. ' You are only so vain be- 
 cause you are so ignorant.' 
 
270 MELEAGRIS GALL0PAV0. 
 
 ' Do they kill peacocks ?' asked the turkey. 
 
 1 No ; I don't think they do,' replied the pig, 
 truthful, though truth demolished his theories, 
 which is more than can be said for human philo- 
 sophers. 
 
 ' Then, why do they keep them ? ' said the 
 turkey. 
 
 ' Because they have such wonderful tails/ said 
 the pig incautiously. 
 
 * There /' said the turkey triumphantly ; and 
 out he spread his own tail, making it into a very 
 grand wheel, and crying with all his might in that 
 peculiar voice which nature has given to turkeys, 
 1 1 am Meleagris Gallopavo ! I am Meleagris 
 Gallopavo ! ' 
 
 He had never known his new name till five 
 minutes previously ; but that made no difference ; 
 he was just as vain of it as if he had borne it 
 all his life. Ask the Heralds' College if this be 
 uncommon. 
 
 He had stretched his throat out, and his rosy 
 wattles glowed like geraniums, and he turned slowly 
 round and round upon himself so that everyone might 
 admire him, and he stuck his tail up on high as stiff 
 and as straight as if it had been made of paste- 
 board. 
 
 "I am Meleagris Gallopavo!' he cried with a 
 very shrill shriek, and scattered the sandy soil of the 
 wood all about him with his hind claws. 
 
MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 271 
 
 Crack ! A bludgeon rolled him over, a mere ball 
 of ruffled, crumpled feathers, on the ground, and a 
 lurcher dog ran into him and gripped him tight and 
 hard. 
 
 ' We're in luck, mate ! ' said an ill-looking fellow 
 who was prowling along the edge of the field with 
 another as ill favoured. ' Mum's the word, and he'll 
 go in the pot worth twenty rabbits. Who'd ha 
 thought of finding a darned turkey out on the 
 spree ? ' 
 
 Then the cruel man rammed poor Meleagris 
 Gallopavo into a bag that he carried with him. He 
 was a village ne'er-do-weel, seeing if he could trespass 
 with impunity and knock over a bunny or two on 
 the sly, knowing that the keepers were away from 
 that part of the wood that day. The pig lay hidden 
 amongst the woodspurge and the creeping moss, and 
 looked so exactly like a log of greyish-brown timber 
 that the ruffians never noticed him. 
 
 ' I knew his tail would be the undoing of him ! ' 
 he said sorrowfully as his poor friend was borne off 
 dead in the poachers' sack. 
 
 He himself had never looked so complacently 
 on his own grey hairless wisp as he did now. How 
 convenient it was ! Anybody would take it for a 
 bit of dry grass or a twig. 
 
 I may as well add that the mistress of the wood 
 came through it next day, and the pig followed her 
 home, and ate an apple which she gave him so 
 
272 
 
 MELEAGRIS GALLOPAVO. 
 
 cannily that she sent him into her yard, and has kept 
 him like a very prince of pigs ever since. But he is 
 always sorry for his poor friend's fate ; and he has 
 never since told any turkey that its family name 
 is Meleagris Gallopavo. 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 HE little Earl was a very little one indeed, as 
 far as years and stature were, but he was a 
 very big one if you consider his possessions 
 and his importance. He was only a month old when 
 his father died, and only six months old when his 
 mother, too, left him for the cold damp vault, with 
 its marbles and its rows of velvet coffins ; a vault 
 that was very grand, but so chilly and so desolate 
 that when they took the little Earl there on holy 
 days to lay his flowers down upon the dead, he could 
 never sleep for nights afterwards, remembering its 
 darkness and solemnity. 
 
 The little Earl was called Hubert Hugh Lupus 
 Alured Beaudesert, and was the Earl of Avillion and 
 Lantrissaint ; but by his own friends and his grand- 
 mother and his old nurse he was called only 
 Bertie. 
 
 T 
 
274 THE LITTLE EARL, 
 
 He was eight years old in the summer-time, 
 when there befell him the adventure I am going now 
 to relate to you, and he was, for his age, quite a 
 baby ; he was slender and slight, and he had a 
 sweet little face like a flower, with very big eyes, 
 and a quantity of fair hair cut after the fashion 
 of the Reynolds and Gainsborough children. He 
 had always been kept as if he were a china doll that 
 would break at a touch. His grandmother and his 
 uncle had been left the sole charge of him ; and 
 as they were both invalids, and the latter a priest, 
 and both dwelt in great retirement at the castle of 
 Avillion, the little Earl's little life had not been a 
 boy's life. 
 
 He had always been tranquil, for everyone 
 loved him, and he had all things that he wished 
 for ; yet he was treated more as if he were a rare 
 flower or a most fragile piece of porcelain, than a 
 little bright boy of real flesh and blood ; and, with- 
 out knowing it, he was often tired of all his cotton- 
 wool. He was such a tiny fellow, you see, to be 
 the head of his race, and the last of it too ; for there 
 were no others of this great race from which he had 
 sprung, and his uncle as a priest could never marry. 
 Thus so much depended on this small short life that 
 the fuss made over him, and the care taken of him, 
 had ended in making him so incapable of taking any 
 care of himself, that if he had ever got out alone in 
 a street he would have been run over to a certainty, 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 275 
 
 and as he grew older he grew sad and feverish, and 
 chafed because he was never allowed to do the things 
 that all boys by instinct love to do. By nature the 
 little Earl was very brave, but he was made timid by 
 incessant cautions ; and as he was, too, by nature 
 very thoughtful, the seclusion from other children in 
 which he was brought up made him too serious for 
 his age. 
 
 Avillion was deep-bosomed in woods, throned 
 high above a lake and moors and mountains, and 
 setting its vast stone buttresses firmly down into the 
 greenest, smoothest turf in all the green west country 
 of England ; a grand and glorious place, famous in 
 history, full of majesty and magnificence, and sung 
 to, for ever, by the deep music of the Atlantic waves. 
 Once upon a time the Arthurian Court that Mr. 
 Tennyson has told you of so often, had held its 
 solemn jousts and its blameless revels there ; at least, 
 so said the story of Avillion, as told in ballads of the 
 country-side — more trustworthy historians than most 
 people think. 
 
 All those ballads the little Earl knew by heart, 
 and he loved them more than anything, for Deborah, 
 his nurse, had crooned them over his cradle before 
 ever he could understand even the words of them ; 
 so that Arthur and Launcelot, and Sir Gawain and 
 Sir Galahad, and all the knightly lives that were once 
 at Tintagel, were more real to him than the living 
 figures about him, and these fancies served him as 
 
276 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 his playmates — for he had few others, except his 
 dog Ralph and his pony Royal. His relatives were 
 ailing, melancholy, attached to silence and solitude, 
 and though they would have melted gold and pearls 
 for Bertie's drinking if he could have drunk them, 
 never bethought themselves that noise and romps 
 and laughter and fun, and a little spice of peril, are 
 all things without which a child's life is as dead and 
 spiritless as a squirrel's in a cage. And Bertie did 
 not know it either. He studied under his tutor, 
 Father Philip, a noble and learned old man, and he 
 was caressed and cosseted by his nurse Deborah, 
 and he wore beautiful little dresses most usually of 
 velvet, and he had wonderful toys that were sent 
 from Paris ; automatons that danced and fenced and 
 played the guitar, and animals that did just what live 
 animals do, and Punches and puppets that played 
 and mimicked by clockwork, and little yachts that 
 sailed by clockwork, and whole armies of soldiers, 
 and marvellous games costly and splendid ; but he 
 had nobody to play at all these things with, and 
 it was dull work playing with them by himself. 
 Deborah played with them in the best way she 
 knew, but she was not a child, being sixty-six years 
 old, and was of a slow imagination and of rheumatic 
 movements. 
 
 ' Run and play,' Father Philip would often say 
 to him, taking him perforce from his books ; but the 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 277 
 
 little Earl would answer sadly, ' I have nobody to 
 play with ! ' 
 
 That want of his attracted no attention from all 
 those people who loved the ground his little feet trod 
 on ; he was surrounded with every splendour and 
 indulgence, he had half the toys of the Palais Royal 
 in his nursery, and he had a bed to sleep in of ivory 
 inlaid with silver, that had once belonged to the 
 little King of Rome ; millions of money were being 
 stored up for him, and lands wide enough to make 
 a principality called him lord : it never occurred to 
 anybody that the little Earl of Avillion was not the 
 most fortunate child that lived under the sun. 
 
 ' Why do people all call me " my lord " ? ' he asked 
 one day, suddenly becoming observant of this fact. 
 
 ' Because you are my lord,' said Deborah, which 
 did not content him. 
 
 He asked Father Philip. 
 
 ' My dear little boy, it is your title ; think not of 
 it save as an obligation to bear your rank well and 
 without stain.' 
 
 At last the little Earl grew so pale and thin and 
 so delicate in health, that the physician who was 
 always watching over him said to his grandmother 
 that the boy wanted change of air, and advised the 
 southern coast for him, and cessation of almost all 
 study ; which order grieved Father Philip sorely, for 
 Bertie could read his Livy well, and was beginning 
 to spell through his Xenophon, and it cut the learned 
 
278 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 gentleman to the heart that his pupil should give up 
 all this and go back on the royal road to learning. 
 For both he and his uncle were resolved that the 
 little Earl should be very learned, and the boy was 
 eager enough to learn, only he liked still better 
 knowing how the flowers grew, and why the birds 
 could fly while he could not, and how the wood-bee 
 made his neat house in the tree trunk, and the 
 beaver built his dam across the river ; inquiries which 
 everybody about him was inclined to discourage. 
 Natural science was not looked on with favour in 
 the nursery and schoolroom of Avillion. It was 
 considered to lead people astray. 
 
 So the little Earl was moved southward with his 
 grandmother, and his nurse, and his physician, and 
 Ralph and Royal — for he would not go without 
 them — and several servants as well. They were to 
 go to Shanklin in the Isle of Wight, and they made 
 the journey by sea in the beautiful sailing yacht, 
 which was waiting for Bertie's manhood, after having 
 been the idol of his father's. On board, the little 
 Earl was well amused ; but he worried everyone 
 about him by questions as to the fishes. 
 
 1 Lord, child ! they are but nasty clammy things, 
 only nice when they are cooked,' said his nurse, and 
 his grandmamma said to him, ' Dear, they were 
 made to live in the sea ; just as the birds are made 
 to fly in the air.' And this did not satisfy the little 
 man at all ; but he could get no more information 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 279 
 
 for the doctor, who could have told him a good deal, 
 was under the thumb of his stately mistress, and 
 Lady Avillion had said very sternly that the boy 
 was not to be encouraged in his nonsense ; what he 
 must be taught were the duties of his position and 
 all he owed to the country — the poor little Earl ! 
 
 He was a very small, slender, pale-cheeked lord 
 indeed, with his golden hair hanging over his 
 puzzled forehead, that used to ache sometimes with 
 carrying Xenophon and Livy, and underneath the 
 hair two great wondering blue eyes, of a blue so 
 dark that they were like wet violets. His hands 
 were tiny and thin, and his legs, clad in their red 
 silk stockings and black velvet breeches, were like 
 two sticks ; people who saw him go by whispered 
 about him and said all the poor little fellow's rank 
 and riches would not keep him long in the land of 
 the living. Once the little Earl heard that said and 
 understood what it meant, and thought to himself, 
 ' I shouldn't mind dying if I could take Ralph — 
 perhaps there would be somebody to play with there.' 
 
 It was May, and there were not many folks 
 at Shanklin ; still, there were two or three children 
 he might have played with, but his grandmamma 
 thought them vulgar children, not fit playmates for 
 him ; and so the poor little Earl, with the burden of 
 his greatness, had to walk soberly and sadly past 
 them, with his little tired red-stockinged legs, while 
 the little girls said to each other in a whisper, 
 
280 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' There's a little lord ! ' and the boys hallooed out, 
 ' He's the swell that owns the schooner.' Bertie 
 would sigh, as he heard : What was the use of 
 owning the schooner, when you had no one to play 
 with on it, and never could do what you liked ? 
 
 You have never seen Shanklin, for you have 
 never been in England ; and if you do go now, you 
 will never see it as it was when Bertie walked there, 
 when it was the prettiest and most primitive little 
 place in England ; now, they tell me, it has been 
 made into a watering-place, with a pier and an 
 esplanade. 
 
 Shanklin used to be a little green mossy village 
 covered up in honeysuckle and hawthorn ; low long 
 houses, green too with ivy and creepers, hid them- 
 selves away in sweet-smelling old-fashioned gardens ; 
 yellow roads ran between high banks and hedges 
 out to the green down or downward to the ripple of 
 the sea ; and the cool brown sands, glistening and 
 firm, twice a day felt the kiss of the tide. The cliffs 
 were brown too, for the most part ; some were 
 white ; the grey sea stretched in front ; and the 
 glory of the place was its leafy chine and ravine 
 that severed the rocks, and was full of foliage and of 
 the sound of birds. It used to be all so quiet there ; 
 now and then there passed in the offing a brig or a 
 yacht or a man-o'-war ; now and then farmers' carts 
 came in from the downs by Appuldurcombe or the 
 farms beyond the Undercliff; there were some 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 2S1 
 
 fishing cabins by the beach, and one old inn with a 
 long grassy garden, where the coaches used to stop 
 that ran through the quiet country from Ryde to 
 Ventnor. It was so green, so still, so friendly, so 
 fresh ; when I think of it I hear the swish of its 
 lazy waves, and I smell the smell of its eglantine 
 hedges, and I see the big brown eyes of my gallant 
 dog as he came breathless up from the sea. 
 
 Alas ! you will never see it so. The hedges are 
 down, they tell me, and the grand dog is dead, and 
 the hateful engine tears through the fields, and the 
 sands are beaten to make an esplanade, and the 
 beach is noisy and hideous with the bray of bands 
 and the laughter of fools. 
 
 What will the world be like when you are 
 twenty ? Very frightful, I fear. This is progress, 
 they say. 
 
 But what of the little Earl ? you ask. 
 
 Well, the little Earl knew Shanklin as I knew 
 it; when the blackbirds and thrushes sang in the 
 quiet chine, and the sense of an infinite peace dwelt 
 on its simple shores. His grandmamma had taken 
 for the summer the house that stands in its woods 
 at the head of the chine, and looks straight down 
 that rift of greenery to the grey sea. I know not 
 what that house is now ; then it was charming, 
 chalet-like, yet spacious. 
 
 Here the little Earl was set free of his studies, 
 and kept out in the air when it was fine, and when 
 
282 • THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 it rained was sent, not to his books, but to his toys. 
 Yet it did not seem to him any great change ; for 
 when he rode, James was with him ; and when he 
 walked, Deborah was with him ; and when he 
 bathed, William was with him ; and when' he was 
 only in the garden, there was grandmamma. 
 
 He was never alone. Oh, how he longed to be 
 alone sometimes ! And he never had any play- 
 fellows ; how he would watch those two or three 
 vulgar little boys building sand- castles and sailing 
 their boats ! He would have given all his big 
 schooner and its crew to be one of those little boys. 
 
 He had a cruise now and then off the island, and 
 the skipper came up bare-headed and hoped my 
 lord enjoyed the sail ; but he did not enjoy it. 
 William and Deborah were always after him, telling 
 him to mind this, and take care of that, till he 
 wished his pretty snow-white sailor dress with the 
 gold buttons were only rags and tatters ! For the 
 poor little Earl was an adventurous and curious little 
 lad at heart, and had a spirit of his own though he 
 was so meek ; and he was tired of being treated like 
 a baby. 
 
 His eighth birthday came round in June, and 
 wonderful and magnificent were the presents he had 
 sent him ; but he only felt a little more tired than he 
 had done before ; the bonbons he was not allowed to 
 eat, the splendidly-bound books seemed nonsense to a 
 little classic who read Livy ; the toys he did not care 
 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 283 
 
 for, and the gold dressing-case his grandmamma 
 gave him was no pleasure : he had one in silver, 
 and his very hair he was never permitted to brush 
 himself. 
 
 ' As I may not eat the bonbons, might I send 
 them all to the children on the sands ? ' he asked 
 wistfully of his grandmother. 
 
 'Impossible, my love,' she answered. 'We do 
 not know who they are.' 
 
 • May I give them to the poor children, then ? ' 
 said the little lad. 
 
 ' That would hardly be wise, dear. It would give 
 them a taste for luxuries.' 
 
 Bertie sighed : life on this his eighth birthday 
 seemed very empty. 
 
 ' Why are people strangers to each other ? Why 
 does not everybody speak to everyone else ? ' he 
 said at last desperately. ' St. Paul says we are all 
 brothers, and St. Francis ' 
 
 ' My dear child, do not talk nonsense ! ' said 
 Lady Avillion. ' We shall have you a Radical 
 when you are of age ! ' 
 
 ' What is that ? ' said Bertie. 
 
 'The people who slew your dear Charles the 
 First were Radicals,' said his grandmother cleverly. 
 
 He was discouraged and silent. He went sor- 
 rowfully and leaned against one of the windows, 
 and looked down the green vista of the chine. It 
 was raining, and they would not let him go out of 
 
284 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 doors. He thought to himself, 'What use is it 
 calling me " my lord," and telling me I own so 
 much, and bowing down before me, if I may never 
 do once, just once, as I like ? I know I am a little 
 boy ; but then, if I am an Earl, if I am good enough 
 to be that, I ought to be able to do once as I like. 
 Else, if not, what is the use ? And why does the 
 skipper say always to me, " Your lordship is owner 
 here " ? ' 
 
 And then a fancy came into his little head. Was 
 he like the Princes in the Tower ? Was he a 
 prisoner, after all ? His little mind was full of the 
 pageant of history, and he made his mind up now 
 that he was a princely captive watched and warded. 
 
 ' Tell me, dear Deb,' he said, catching his nurse 
 by the sleeve as she turned from his bed that night, 
 ' tell me, is it not true that I am in prison, though 
 you are all so kind to me ; that somebody else wants 
 my throne ? ' 
 
 Nurse Deborah thought he was ' off" his head,' 
 and ran to the physician for a cooling draught, and 
 sat up in fright all the night, not even reassured 
 by his sound tranquil sleep. 
 
 Bertie asked her nothing more. 
 
 He was more sure than ever that a captive he 
 w^as, kept in kindly and honourable durance, like 
 James of Scotland in the Green Tower. 
 
 Whilst he was lying awake, a grand and startling 
 idea dawned on him — What if he were to go out 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 285 
 
 and see the world for himself? This notion has 
 fascinated many a child before him. Did not St. 
 Teresa of Spain, when she was a little thing, toddle 
 out with a tiny brother over the brown sierras ? So 
 absolutely now did this enterprise dazzle and con- 
 quer the little Earl, that before the night was half- 
 way over, he had persuaded himself that a prisoner 
 he was, and that his stolen kingdom he would go 
 and find, just as the knights in his favourite tales 
 sallied forth to seek the Holy Grail. The passion 
 for adventure, for escape, for finding out the truth, 
 grew so strong on him, that at the first flush of day- 
 break he slid out of his bed and resolved that go alone 
 he would. He longed to take Ralph, but he feared 
 it would not be right ; who knew what perils or 
 pains awaited him ? — and to make the dog sharer in 
 them seemed selfish. So he threw a glove of his 
 own for Ralph to guard, bade him be still, and set 
 about his own flight. 
 
 He made a sad bungle of dressing himself, for 
 he had never clothed himself in his life ; but at last 
 he got the things on somehow, and most of them 
 hind-part-before. But he did it all without awaking 
 Deborah, and, taking his sailor-hat, he managed to 
 drop out of the window on to the sward below with- 
 out anyone being aware. 
 
 It was quite early day ; the sky was red, the 
 shadows and the mists were still there, the birds 
 were piping good-morrow to each other. 
 
286 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' How lovely it is ! ' he thought. ' Oh, why 
 doesn't everybody get up at sunrise ? ' 
 
 He knew, however, that if he wanted to see the 
 world by himself, he must not tarry there and think 
 about the dawn. So off he set, as fast as his not 
 very strong legs could carry him, and he got down 
 to the shore. 
 
 The fog was on the sea and screened it from his 
 sight, and there was no one on the beach except a 
 boy getting nets ready in an old boat. To the boy 
 ran Bertie, and held to him two half-crowns. ' Will 
 you row me to Bonchurch for that ? ' he asked. 
 
 The boy grinned. ' For sure, little master ; and 
 I'd like to row a dozen at the price.' 
 
 Into the boat jumped the little Earl, with all 
 the feverish agility given to prisoners, who . are 
 escaping, by their freed instincts. It was a very 
 old, dirty boat, and soiled his pretty white clothes 
 terribly, but he had no eyes for that ; he so enjoyed 
 that delicious sense of being all alone, and doing 
 just as he liked. The boy was a big boy and 
 strong, and rowed with a will ; and the old tub went 
 jumping and bobbing and splashing through the 
 rather heavy swell. The gig of his yacht was a 
 smart, long boat, beautifully clean, and with rowers 
 all dressed in red caps and white jerseys ; but the 
 little Earl had never enjoyed rowing in that half so 
 much. There had been always somebody to look 
 after him, and say, ' Don't lean over the side,' or 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 287 
 
 * Mind the water does not splash you,' or ' Take 
 care ! ' Oh, that tiresome ' Take care ! ' It makes 
 a boy want to jump head-foremost into the sea, or 
 fling himself head-downwards from the nearest 
 apple-tree ! I know you have felt so yourself 
 twenty times a week, though I do not tell you that 
 you were right. 
 
 Nothing is prettier than the Undercliff as you 
 look up at it from the sea ; a tangle of myrtle, and 
 laurel, and beech, and birch coming down to the 
 very shore, all as Nature made it. Bertie, as the 
 boat wabbled along like a fat old duck, looked up at 
 it and was enchanted, and then he looked at the 
 white wall of mist on the waters, and was enchanted 
 too. It was like Wonderland. His dreams were 
 broken by the fisher-lad's voice : 
 
 1 I'll have to put you ashore at the creek, little 
 master, and get back, or daddy '11 give me a hiding.' 
 
 'Who is "daddy"?' 
 
 ' Father,' said the boy. ' He'll lick me, for the 
 old tub's his'n.' 
 
 Bertie was perplexed. He had read of bears 
 being licked into shape by their fathers and mothers, 
 but this boy, though rough and rather shapeless, 
 looked too old for such treatment. 
 
 ' You were a wicked boy to use the boat, then/ 
 he said, with great severity. 
 
 The lad only grinned. 
 
 1 Little master, you tipped me a crown.' 
 
288 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' I did not mean to tempt you to do wrong,' said 
 Bertie very seriously still ; and then he coloured, for 
 was he very sure that he was not doing wrong him- 
 self? 
 
 The old boat was grinding on the shingle then, 
 and the rower of it was putting him ashore at a little 
 creek that was wooded and pretty, and up which the 
 sea ran at hicdi tide ; there was a little cottage at 
 the head of it. I have heard that this wood-glen 
 used to be in the old time a very famous place for 
 smugglers, and it is still solitary and romantic, or at 
 least was so still when the little Earl was set down 
 there. ' Where am I ? ' he asked the boy. But the 
 wicked boy only grinned, and began to wabble back 
 through the water as fast as his long slashing strokes 
 could carry him. The little Earl felt rather foolish 
 and rather helpless. 
 
 He was not far on his way towards seeing the 
 world, and he began to wish for some breakfast. 
 There was smoke going out of a chimney of the cot- 
 tage, and the door of it stood open, but he was afraid 
 the people there might stop him if he asked for any- 
 thing, and, besides, the path up to it through the glen 
 looked rocky and thorny and impassable, so he kept 
 along by the beach, finding it heavy walking, for 
 there were more stones than sands, and the beach 
 was strewn with rocks, large and small, and stiff 
 prickly furze. But he had the sea beside him and 
 the world before him, and he walked on bravely, 
 
THE L/TTLE EARL. 289 
 
 and in a little while he came into Bonchurch. It 
 was very early yet, and Bonchurch was asleep, and 
 most of its snug thatched houses, hidden away in 
 their gardens and fuchsia hedges, were shut ud 
 snugly ; the tall trees of its one street made a deep 
 shadow in it, and the broad placid water of its great 
 pool was green with their reflection ; it was a sweet, 
 quiet place, leafy as any haunt for fairies, yet on the 
 very edge of the sea. 
 
 At a baker's shop, a woman was lifting down the 
 shutters ; the little Earl took his hat off very prettily 
 arid said to her : — 
 
 ' If you please, will you be kind enough to sell 
 me some bread-and milk ? ' 
 
 The woman stared, then laughed. 
 
 1 Lord bless your pretty face ! I only sell bread, 
 but I'll give you some milk in, for sake of your 
 pinched cheeks. Come along inside, little gentle- 
 man.' 
 
 He went inside ; it seemed a very funny place 
 to him, so small and so dark, and so dusty with 
 Hour ; but the smell of baking was sweet, and he 
 was hungry. 
 
 She bustled about a little and set before him a 
 bowl of bread-and- milk, with a wooden spoon to eat 
 it with ; the little Earl put his hand in his pocket to 
 pay for it ; lo ! he had not a farthing ! 
 
 He turned very red, and then very white, and 
 thought to himself that the money must have 
 
 u 
 
2 9 o THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 tumbled into the sea with his watch, which was 
 missing too. 
 
 It did not occur to him that the wicked boy- 
 had taken both ; yet such was the sad fact. 
 
 He rose, very sorrowful and confused and 
 ashamed. 
 
 ' Madam, I beg your pardon,' he said in his little 
 ceremonious way ; ' I thought I had money, but I 
 have lost it. Thank you very much, but I cannot 
 take the food.' 
 
 The woman was good-natured and shrewd. 
 
 ' Lord ! sup it up, my dear little gentleman,' she 
 said to him. ' You are welcome to it — right welcome, 
 you are — and your pa and your ma can pay for it.' 
 
 ' No, no,' murmured Bertie, getting very red ; 
 and, fearing lest his longing for the meal should 
 overcome his honour, he stumbled out of the baking- 
 house door and ran up the tree-shadowed road faster 
 than ever he had run in his life. 
 
 To be sure, he had plenty of money of his own — 
 they all said so ; but he never knew well where it 
 was, or what it meant ; and besides, he intended 
 never to go back to his grandmother, and Deborah, 
 and Ralph, and Royal, any more, till he had found 
 out the truth and seen his kingdom. 
 
 So he ran on through Bonchurch and out of it, 
 leaving its pleasant green shade with a little sigh — 
 half of impatience, half of hunger. He did not go 
 on by the sea, for he knew by hearsay that this way 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 291 
 
 would take him to Ventnor, and he was afraid people 
 in a town would know him and stop him ; so he set 
 forth inland where the deep lanes delve through the 
 grassy downs ; and here, sitting on a stile, the little 
 Earl saw the ploughboy eating something white and 
 round and big that he himself had never seen before. 
 
 ' It must be something very delicious to make 
 him enjoy it so much,' thought the little Earl, and 
 then curiosity entered so into him, and he longed so 
 much to taste this wonderful unknown thing, that he 
 went up to the boy and said to him : 
 
 'Will you be so kind as to let me know what 
 you are eating ? ' 
 
 The ploughboy grinned from ear to ear. 
 
 ' For certain, little zurr,' he said with a burr and 
 a drawl in his speech, and he gave the thing to 
 Bertie, which was neither more nor less than a peeled 
 turnip. 
 
 The little Earl looked at it doubtfully, for he did 
 not much fancy what the other had handled with his 
 big brown hands and bitten with his big yellow teeth. 
 But then, to enjoy anything as much as that other 
 had enjoyed it, and to taste something quite un- 
 known ! — this counterbalanced his disgust and over- 
 ruled his delicacy. One side of the great white thing 
 was unbitten ; he took an eager tremulous little bite 
 out of that. 
 
 ' But oh ! ' he cried in dismay as he tasted, ' it 
 has no taste at all, and what there is is nasty ! ' 
 
292 THE LITTLE EARL 
 
 ' Turnips is main good,' said the boy. 
 
 1 Oh, no ! ' said the little Earl with intense horror, 
 and he threw the turnip down amongst the grass, 
 and went away sorely puzzled. 
 
 ' Little master,' roared Hodge after him, ' I'll bet 
 as you aren't hungry.' 
 
 That was it, of course. 
 
 The little Earl was not really hungry, never had 
 been really hungry in all his life. But this explana- 
 tion of natural philosophy did not occur to him, not 
 even when the boy hallooed it after him. He only 
 said to himself, ' How can that boy eat that filthy 
 thing, and he really did look as if he liked it so ! ' 
 
 Presently, after trotting a mile or so. he passed 
 a little shop set all by itself at the end of a lane ; 
 surely the tiniest, loneliest shop in Great Britain. 
 But a cheery-looking old woman kept it, and he 
 saw it had bread in it as well as many other 
 stuffs, and tin canisters that were to him incompre- 
 hensible. 
 
 1 If you please,' he said rather timidly, offering 
 the gold anchor off the ribbon of his hat, ' I have 
 lost my money, and could you be so kind as to give 
 me any breakfast for this ? ' 
 
 The old woman smelt the anchor, bit it, twinkled 
 her eyes, and then drew a long face. ' It ain't worth 
 tuppence, master,' she said ; ' but ye* re mighty small 
 to be out by yourself, and puny like ; I don't say as 
 how I won't feed yer.' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 293 
 
 ' Thanks,' said Bertie, who did not know at all 
 what his anchor was worth. 
 
 ' Come in out o' dust,' said the old woman 
 smartly, and then she bustled about and set him 
 down in her little den to milk, bread, and some cold 
 bacon. 
 
 That he had no appetite was the despair of his 
 people and physician at home, and cod-liver oil, 
 steel, quinine, and all manner of nastiness had been 
 administered to provoke hunger in him, with no 
 effect ; by this time, however, he had almost as much 
 hunger as the boy who had munched the turnip. 
 
 Nothing had ever tasted to him half so good in 
 his life. 
 
 The old woman eyed him curiously. ' You's a 
 runaway,' she thought, 'but I'll not raise the cry 
 after ye, or they'll come spying about this bit o' 
 gold.' 
 
 She said to herself that the child would come to 
 no harm, and when a while had gone by she would 
 step over to Ryde or Newport and get a guinea on 
 the brooch. 
 
 Her little general shop was not a very prosperous 
 business, though useful to the field folk ; and sanding 
 her sugar, and putting clay in her mustard, and 
 adding melted fat to her butter, had not strengthened 
 her moral principles. 
 
 As Bertie was eating, there came a very thin, 
 scantily clad, miserable-looking woman, who held 
 
294 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 out a halfpenny ; ' a sup o' milk for Susy, missus,' 
 she said in a very pitiful faint voice. 
 
 ' How be Sue ?' asked the mistress of the shop. 
 The woman shook her head with tears running 
 down her hollow cheeks. 
 
 ' My boy he's gone in spinney,' she murmured, 
 4 to try and catch summat, if he can ; will you 
 change it, missus, if he git a good bird ? ' 
 
 The old woman winked, frowned, and glanced 
 at Bertie. 
 
 ' Birds aren't good eatin' on fust of July,' she 
 observed, as she handed the milk ; the woman paid 
 the halfpenny and hurried away with the milk. 
 
 ' I think that woman is very poor/ said Bertie 
 questioningly and solemnly. 
 
 The old dame chuckled. 
 
 ' No doubts o' that, master/ 
 
 ' Then you are cruel to take her money : you 
 should have given her the milk.' 
 
 ' Ho, ho, little sir ! be you a parson in a gownd ? 
 I'm mappen poor as she, and she hiv desarved all 
 she gits, for her man he were a poacher, and he died 
 in gaol last Jannivery.' 
 
 ' A poacher ! ' said Bertie, with the natural in- 
 stinctive horrcr of a landed gentleman. ' And her 
 son was going to snare a bird ! ' he cried, with 
 light breaking in on him ; s and you would give 
 them things in exchange for the bird ! Oh, what a 
 very cruel, what a very wicked woman you are ! ' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 295 
 
 For an answer she shied at him a round wooden 
 trencher, which missed its aim and struck a basket 
 of eggs and smashed them, and one of the panes of 
 her shop window as well. 
 
 Bertie got up and walked slowly out of the door, 
 keeping his eyes upon her. 
 
 ' When I see a magistrate, I shall tell him about 
 you,' he said solemnly ; ' you tempt poor people : 
 that is very dreadful.' 
 
 The enraged woman, in her outraged feelings, 
 threw a pail of dirty water after him, some of which 
 splashed him and completed the disfigurement of his 
 white suit. He looked up and down to see for the 
 poor woman with the milk, that he might console 
 her poverty and open her eyes to her sins, — but she 
 was not within sight ; and Bertie reflected that if he 
 stopped to correct other people's errors, he should 
 never see the world and find his kingdom. 
 
 He had eaten a hearty meal, and his spirits rose 
 and his heart was full of hope and valour ; and if 
 he had only had Ralph with him, he would have 
 been quite happy. 
 
 So he went away valorously across a broad 
 rolling down, and about half a mile farther on he 
 came to a little shed. In the shed was a fire, and a 
 man, and a pig ; in the fire was an iron, and the pig 
 was tied by a rope to a ring ; Bertie saw the man 
 take the red-hot iron and go up to the pig ; Bertie's 
 face grew blanched with horror. 
 
296 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' Stop, stop ! what are you doing- to the pig ? ' 
 he screamed as he ran in to the man, who looked 
 up and stared. 
 
 'I be branding the pig; get out, or I'll brand 
 you ! ' he cried. Bertie held his ground ; his eyes 
 were flashing. 
 
 ' You wicked, wicked man ! Do you not know 
 that poor pig was made by God ? ' 
 
 ' Dunno,' said the wretch with a grin. ' She'll be 
 eat by men, come Candlemas ! I be marking of her, 
 cos I'll turn her out on the downs with t'other. Git 
 out, youngster ; you've no call here.' 
 
 Bertie planted himself firmly on his feet, and 
 doubled his little fists. 
 
 ' I will not see you do such a cruelty to a poor 
 dumb thing,' he said, while he grew white as death, 
 1 / will not! 
 
 The man scowled and yet grinned. 
 
 1 Will you beat me, little Hop-o'-my-thumb ?' 
 
 Bertie put himself before the poor black pig, who 
 was squealing from mere fright and the scorch of the 
 fire. 
 
 1 You shall not get the pig without killing me 
 first. You are a cruel man.' 
 
 The man grew angry. 
 
 ' Tell you what, youngster ; I've a mind to try 
 the jumping-irons on you for your impudence. You 
 look like a drowned white kitten. Clear off, if you 
 don't want to taste something right red-hot.' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 297 
 
 Bertie's whole body grew sick, but he did not 
 move and he did not quail. 
 
 ' I would rather you did it to me than to this poor 
 thinof,' he answered. 
 
 ' I'm blowed!' said the man relaxing his wrath 
 from sheer amazement. ' Well, you're a good 
 plucked one, you are.' 
 
 ' I do not know what you mean,' said Bertie, a 
 little haughtily ; ' but you shall not hurt the pig.' 
 
 ' Darn me ! ' yelled the man ; 'I'll burn you, sure 
 as you live, if you don't kneel on your bare bones 
 and beg my pardon.' 
 
 ' I will not do that.' 
 
 1 You won't beg my pardon for cheeking me ? ' 
 
 ' No ; you are a wicked man.' 
 
 Bertie's eyes closed ; he grew faint ; he fully 
 believed that in another instant he would feel the 
 hissing fire of the brand. But he did not yield. 
 
 The man's hand dropped to his side. 
 
 ' You are a plucked one,' he said once more. 
 * Lord ! child, it was a joke. You're such a rare 
 game un, to humour you, there, I'll let the crittur go 
 without marking her. But you're a rare little fool, 
 if you're not an angel down from on high.' 
 
 Bertie's eyes filled with tears. He held his hand 
 out royally to be kissed, as. he was used to do at 
 Avillion. 
 
 The big, black-looking man crushed it in his own 
 brown paw. 
 
298 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' My ! you're a game un ! ' he muttered with 
 wonder and awe. 
 
 ' And you will never, never, never, burn pigs any 
 more?' said Bertie, searching his face with his own 
 serious large eyes. 
 
 ' I'll ne'er brand this un,' said the man, with a 
 shamefaced laugh. ' Lord ! little sir, you're the first 
 as ever got as much as that out of me.' 
 
 ' But you never must do it,' said Bertie solemnly. 
 ' It is wicked of you, and God is angry ; and it is 
 very mean for you, such a big man and so strong, 
 to hurt a defenceless dumb thing. You must never 
 do it.' 
 
 ' What is your name, little master ? ' said the big 
 man humbly. 
 
 ' They call me Avillion.' 
 
 'William? Then I'll say William all the days 
 of my life at my prayers o' Sundays,' said the man 
 with some emotion, and murmured to himself, ' Such 
 a game un I never seed.' 
 
 1 Thanks very much,' said Bertie gently, and then 
 he lifted his hat politely, and went out of the shed 
 before the man could recover his astonishment. 
 When the little Earl looked back, he saw the giant 
 pouring water on the fire, and the pig was loose. 
 
 1 I was afraid,' thought Bertie. ' But he should 
 have burnt me all up every bit ; I never would have 
 given in.' 
 
 And something seemed to say in his ear : ' The 
 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 299 
 
 loveliest thing in all the world is courage that goes 
 hand in hand with mercy ; and these two together 
 can work miracles, like magicians.' 
 
 By this time Bertie, except for a certain 
 inalienable grace and refinement that were in his 
 little face and figure, had few marks of a young 
 gentleman. His snowy serge was smirched and 
 stained with blackberries ; his red stockings, from the 
 sea-water and the field mud, had none of their 
 original colour ; his hat had been bent and crumpled 
 by his fall, and his hair was rough. Nobody pass- 
 ing him could have dreamt that this sorry wanderer 
 was a little Earl. Nevertheless, when he had been 
 dressed in his little court suit and had been taken to 
 see the Queen once at Balmoral, he had never been 
 a quarter so proud, nor a tenth part so happy. He 
 longed to meet Cromwell, and Richard the Third, 
 and Gessler, and Nero. He began to feel like all the 
 knights he had ever read of, and those were many. 
 
 Presently he saw a little maiden weeping. She 
 was an ugly little maiden, with a shock head of red 
 hair, and a wide mouth, and a brickdust skin ; but 
 she was crying. In his present heroic mood, he 
 could not pass her by unconsoled. 
 
 ' Little girl, why do you cry ? * he said, stopping 
 in the narrow green lane. 
 
 She looked at him out of a sharp little eye, and 
 her face puckered up afresh. 
 
 1 1'se going to schule, little master ! ' 
 
3oo THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' To school, do you mean ? And why does that 
 make you cry ? Can you read ? ' 
 
 ' Naw,' said the maiden, and sobbed loudly. 
 
 1 Then, why are you not glad to go and learn ? ' 
 said Bertie, in his superior wisdom. 
 
 ' There's naebody to do nowt at home,' said the 
 red-haired one, with a howl. ' Mother's a-bed sick, 
 and Tarn's hurt his leg, and who'll mind baby ? 
 He'll tumble the kittle o'er hisself, I know he will, 
 and he'll be scalt to death, '11 baby ! ' 
 
 ' Dear, dear ! ' said Bertie sympathetically. ' But 
 why do you go to school, then ? ' 
 
 ' 'Cos I isn't thirteen,' sobbed the shock-haired 
 nymph ; ' I'se only ten. And daddy was had up 
 last week and pit in prison 'cos he kep me at home. 
 And if I ain't at home, who'll mind baby, and who'll 
 
 bile the taters, and who'll ? Oh, how I wish I 
 
 was thirteen ! ' 
 
 Bertie did not understand. He had never heard 
 of the School Board. 
 
 1 What does your father do ? ' he asked. 
 
 1 Works i' brick-field. All on us work i' brick- 
 field. I can take baby to brick-field ; he sit in the 
 clay beautiful, but they awn't let me take him to 
 schule, and he'll be scalt, I know he'll be scalt. 
 He'll allers get a-nigh the kittle if he can.' 
 
 ' But it is very shocking not to know how to 
 read,' said the little Earl very gravely. ' You should 
 have learned that as soon as you could speak. I 
 did.' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 301 
 
 * Maybe yours aren't brickfield folk,' said the 
 little girl, stung by her agony to sarcasm. ' I've 
 allers had a baby to mind, even since I toddled ; 
 first 'twas Tarn, and then 'twas Dick, and now 'tis 
 this un. I dunno want to read ; awn't make bricks 
 a readin.' 
 
 ' Oh, but you will learn such beautiful things,' 
 said Bertie. ' I do think, you know, that you ought 
 to go to school.' 
 
 1 So the gemman said as pit dad in th' lock-up,' 
 said the recalcitrant one doggedly. ' Butiful things 
 aren't o' much count, sir, when one's belly's empty. 
 I oodn't go to the blackguds now, if 'twern't as poor 
 dad says as how I must, 'cos they lock him up.' 
 
 1 It seems very hard to lock him up,' said Bertie, 
 with increasing sympathy ; ' and I think you ought 
 to obey him and go. I will see if I can find the 
 baby. Where do you live ? ' 
 
 She pointed vaguely over the copses and pastures, 
 ' Go on a mile, and you'll see Jim Bracken's cottage ; 
 but, Lord love you ! yozcW ne'er manage baby.' 
 
 'I will try,'' said Bertie sweetly. His fancy as 
 well as his charity was stirred ; for he had never, 
 that he knew of, seen a baby. ' But indeed, you 
 should go to school.' 
 
 ' I'm a-going, said the groaning and blowsy 
 heroine with a last sob, and then she set off running 
 as quickly as a pair of her father's boots, ten times 
 too large, allowed her; her slate and her books 
 
302 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 making a loud clatter as she struggled on her 
 way. 
 
 He was by this time very tired, for he was not 
 used to such long walks ; but curiosity and compassion 
 put fresh spirit into his heart, and his small legs 
 pegged valorously over the rough ground, the red 
 stockings and the silver buckles becoming by this 
 time much begrimed with mud. 
 
 He knocked at one cottage door, and saw only a 
 very cross old woman, who flourished a broom at 
 him. 
 
 ' No, it bean't Jim Bracken's. Get you gone ! — 
 you look like a runaway.' 
 
 Now, a runaway he was ; and as truth when we 
 are guilty is always even as a two-edged sword, 
 Bertie coloured up to the roots of his hair, and bolted 
 off as fast as he could to the only other cottage 
 visible, beyond a few acres of mangel-wurzel and all 
 the lucern family, which the little Earl fancied were 
 shamrocks. For he was far on in Euclid, could 
 speak German well, and could spell through Tacitus 
 fairly, but about the flowers of the field and the 
 grasses no one had ever thought it worth while to 
 tell him anything at all. Indeed, to tell you the 
 truth, I do not think his tutors knew anything about 
 them themselves. 
 
 This other cottage was so low, so covered up in 
 its broken thatch, which in turn was covered with 
 lichen, and was so tumble-down and sorrowful-looking, 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 303 
 
 that Bertie thought it was a ruined cowshed. How- 
 ever, it stood where the school-girl had pointed ; so 
 he took his courage in both hands, as we say in 
 French, and advanced to it. The rickety door stood 
 open, and he saw a low miserable bed with a 
 miserable woman lying on it ; a shock-headed boy 
 sprawled on the floor, another crouched before a fire 
 of brambles and sods, and between the legs of this 
 last boy was a strange, uncouth, shapeless object, 
 which, but for the fact that it was crying loudly, 
 never would have appeared to his astonished eyes as 
 the baby for whom was prophesied a tragic and early 
 end by the kettle. The boy who had this object 
 between his legs stared with two little round eyes. 
 
 1 Mamsey, there's a young gemman,' he said in 
 an awed voice. 
 
 Bertie took off his hat, and went into the room 
 with his prettiest grace. 
 
 I If you please, are you very ill ? ' he said in his 
 little soft voice, to the woman in bed. ' I met — I 
 met — a little girl who was so anxious about the baby, 
 and I said I would come and see if I could be of any 
 use ' 
 
 The woman raised herself on one elbow, and 
 looked at him with eager, haggard eyes. 
 
 ' Lord ! little sir, there's nought to be done for us 
 — leastways, unless you had a shillin' or two ' 
 
 I I have no money,' murmured Bertie, feeling 
 very unlike a little Earl in that moment. The 
 
3 o 4 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 woman gave a weary angry sigh and sunk back 
 indifferent, 
 
 1 Can I do nothing ? ' said Bertie wistfully. 
 
 ' By golly ! ' said the boy on the floor, ' unless 
 you've got a few coppers, little master ' 
 
 ' Coppers ? ' repeated the little Earl. 
 
 ' Pence,' said the boy shortly ; then the baby 
 began to howl, and the boy shook it. 
 
 ' Do please not make it scream so,' said Bertie 
 very anxiously. ' That is what you call the baby, is 
 it not ? ' 
 
 1 Iss,' said the boy Dick sullenly. ' This here's 
 
 baby, cuss him ! and what bisness be he of 
 
 » i » 
 yourn r 
 
 For interference without coppers to follow was a 
 barren intruder that he was disposed to resent. 
 
 ' I thought I could amuse him,' said Bertie 
 timidly. ' I told your sister I would.' 
 
 Dick roared into loud guffaws. 
 
 1 Baby 'd kick you into middle o' next week, you 
 poor little puny spindle-shanks ! ' said this rude boy, 
 and Bertie felt that he was very rude, though he had 
 no idea what was meant by spindle-shanks. 
 
 The other boy, who was lying on his stomach — 
 a sadly empty little stomach — here reversed his posi- 
 tion and stared up at Bertie. 
 
 ' I think you're a kind little gemman,' he said, 
 ' and Dick's cross 'cos he's broke his legs, and we've 
 had no vittles since yesternoon, and only a sup o' tea 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 305 
 
 Peg" made afore she went, and mother's main bad, 
 that she be.' 
 
 And tears rolled down this gentler little lad's 
 dirty cheeks. 
 
 ' Oh dear, what shall I do ! ' said Bertie with a 
 sigh ; if he had only had the money and the watch 
 that had fallen into the sea ! He looked round him 
 and felt very sick ; it was all so dirty, so dirty ! — and 
 he had never seen dirt before ; and the place smelt 
 very close and sour, and the children's clothes were 
 mere rags, and the woman was all skin and bone, on 
 her wretched straw bed ; and the unhappy baby was 
 screaming loudly enough to be heard right across 
 the sea to the French coast. 
 
 ' Baby, poor baby, don't cry so ! ' said Bertie very 
 softly, and he dangled the ends of his red sash before 
 its tearful eyes, and shook them up and down ; the 
 attention of the baby was arrested, it ceased to howl, 
 and put out its hands, and began to laugh instead ! 
 Bertie was very proud of his success, and even the 
 sullen Dick muttered, ' Well — I niver ! ' 
 
 The little Earl undid his scarf and let the baby 
 pull it towards itself. Dick's eyes twinkled greedily. 
 
 ' Master, that'd sell for summat ! ' 
 
 ' Oh, you must not sell it,' said the little Earl 
 eagerly. • It is to amuse the poor baby. And what 
 pretty big eyes he has— how he laughs ! ' 
 
 ' Your shoes 'ud sell,' muttered Dick. 
 
 1 Dick ! don't, Dick ! that's begging,' muttered 
 x 
 
3 o6 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 Tarn. Bertie stared in surprise. To sell his shoes 
 seemed as odd as to be asked to sell his hair or his 
 hands. The woman opened her fading, glazing 
 eyes. 
 
 1 They're honest boys, little sir ; you'll pardon of 
 'em ; they've eat nothing since yester noon, and then 
 'twas only a carrot or two, and boys is main hungry.' 
 
 ' And have you nothing ? ' said Bertie, aghast at 
 the misery in this unknown world. 
 
 ' How'd we have anything ?' said the sick woman 
 grimly. ' They've locked up my man, and Peg's 
 sent to school while we starve ; and nobody earns 
 nothin', for Dick's broke his leg, and I've nought in 
 my breasts for baby ' 
 
 ' But would not somebody you work for — or the 
 priest — ?' began Bertie. 
 
 ' Passon don't do nowt for us — my man's a 
 Methody ; and at brickfield they don't mind us ; if 
 we be there, well an' good — we work and get paid ; 
 and if we isn't there, well — some un else is. That's 
 all.' Then she sank back, gasping. 
 
 Bertie stood woebegone and perplexed. 
 
 ' Did you say my shoes would sell ? ' he murmured 
 very miserably, his mind going back to the history 
 of St. Martin and the cloak. 
 
 Dick brightened up at once. 
 
 ' Master, I'll get three shillin' on 'em, maybe 
 more, down in village yonder.' 
 
 1 You mus'n't take the little gemman's things,' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL 307 
 
 murmured the mother feebly ; but faintness was 
 stealing on her, and darkness closing over her sight. 
 
 ' Three shillings ! ' said Bertie, who knew very- 
 little of the value of shillings ; ' that seems very 
 little ! I think they cost sovereigns — could you get a 
 loaf of bread with three shillings ? ' 
 
 ' Gu-r-r-r ! ' grinned Dick, and Bertie understood 
 that the guttural sound meant assent and rapture. 
 
 ' But I cannot walk without shoes.' 
 
 1 Walk ! yah ! yell walk better. We niver have 
 no shoes ! ' said Dick. 
 
 1 Don't you really ? ' 
 
 ' Golly ! no ! Ye'll walk ten times finer ; ye won't 
 trip, nor stumble nor nothin', and ye'll run as fast 
 a^ain.' 
 
 ' Oh no, I shall not,' murmured Bertie, and he 
 was going to say that he would be ashamed to be 
 seen without shoes, only he remembered that, as 
 these boys had none, that would not be kind. A 
 desperate misery came over him at the thought of 
 being shoeless, but then he reasoned with himself ; 
 ' To give was no charity if it cost you nothing ; did 
 not the saints strip themselves to the uttermost shred 
 for the poor ? ' 
 
 He stooped and took off his shoes with the 
 silver buckles on them, and placed them hastily on 
 the floor. 
 
 ' Take them, if they will get you bread,' he said 
 with the colour mountine in his face. 
 
3 o8 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 Dick seized them with a yell of joy. ' Tarnation 
 that I can't go mysel'. Here, Tarn, run quick and 
 sell 'em to old Nan ; and get bread, and meat, and 
 potatoes, and milk for baby, and Lord knows what ; 
 p'raps a gill of gin for mammy.' 
 
 1 I don't think we ought to rob little master, 
 Dick,' murmured little Tarn. His brother hurled a 
 crutch at him, and Tarn snatched up the pretty shoes 
 and fled. 
 
 ' My blazes, sir,' said Dick, with rather a shame- 
 faced look, — ' if you'd a beast like a lot of fire 
 gnawing at your belly all night long, yer wouldn't 
 stick at nowt to get bread.' 
 
 Bertie only imperfectly comprehended. The 
 baby, tired of the sash, began to cry again ; and 
 Dick, grown good-natured, danced it up and 
 down. 
 
 ' How old are you ? ' said Bertie. 
 
 ' Nigh on eight,' said Dick. 
 
 ' Dear me ! ' sighed the little Earl ; this rough, 
 masterful, coarse-tongued boy, seemed like a grown 
 man to him. 
 
 ' You won't split on us ? ' said Dick sturdily. 
 
 1 What is that ? ' asked Bertie. 
 
 1 Not tell anybody you give us the shoes ; there'd 
 be a piece of work.' 
 
 ' As if one told when one did any kindness ! ' 
 murmured Bertie, with a disgust he could not quite 
 conceal ; ' I mean when one does one's duty.' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 309 
 
 ' But what'll you gammon 'em with at home ? — 
 they'll want to know what you've done with your 
 shoe.' 
 
 ' I am not going home,' said the little Earl, and 
 there was a something in the way he spoke that 
 silenced Dick's tongue — which he would have called 
 his clapper. 
 
 1 What in the world be the little swell arter ? ' 
 thought Dick. 
 
 Bertie meanwhile, with some awe and anxiety, 
 was watching the livid face of the sick woman : he 
 had never seen illness or death, but it seemed to 
 him that she was very ill indeed. 
 
 ' Are you not anxious about your mother ? ' he 
 asked of the rough boy. 
 
 1 Yes,' said Dick sulkily, with the water coming 
 in his eyes. ' Dad's in the lock-up ; that's wuss 
 still, young sir.' 
 
 ' Not worse than death,' said Bertie solemnly. 
 1 He will come back.' 
 
 ' Oh, she'll come round with a drop of gin and 
 a sup of broth,' said Dick confidently. ''Tis all 
 hunger and frettin', hers is.' 
 
 ' I am glad I gave my shoes,' thought Bertie. 
 Then there was a long silence, broken only by the 
 hissing of the green brambles on the fire and the 
 yelps of the baby. 
 
 ' Maybe, sir,' said Dick after a little, ' you'd put 
 the saucepan on ? I can't move with this here leg. 
 
3io THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 If you'd pit some water out o' kittle in him, he'll 
 be ready for cookin' when the vittles come.' 
 
 ' I will do that,' said Bertie cheerfully, and he set 
 the saucepan on by lifting it with both hands ; it 
 was very black, and its crock came off on his 
 knickerbockers. Then, by Dick's directions, he 
 found a pair of old wooden bellows, and blew on 
 the sticks and sods ; but this he managed so ill, that 
 Dick wriggled himself along the floor closer to the 
 fire and did it himself. 
 
 ' You're a gaby ! ' he said to his benefactor. 
 
 ' What is that ? ' said Bertie. 
 
 But Dick felt that it was more prudent not to 
 explain. 
 
 In half an hour Tarn burst into the room breath- 
 less and joyous, his scruples having disappeared 
 under the basket he bore. 
 
 ' She gived me five shillin' ! ' he shouted ; ' and 
 I's sure they's wuth a deal more, 'cos her eyes 
 twinkled and winked, and she shoved me a pegtop in !' 
 
 ' Gie us o 't ! ' shrieked Dick, in an agony at 
 being bound to the floor with all these good things 
 before his siofht. 
 
 Little Tarn, who was very loyal, laid them all 
 out on the ground before his elder : two quartern 
 loaves, two pounds of beef, onions, potatoes, a bit 
 of bacon, and a jug of milk. 
 
 Dick poured some milk into an old tin mug, and 
 handed it roughly to Bertie. 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 311 
 
 ' Feed the baby, will yer, whiles Tarn and me 
 cooks ? ' 
 
 The little Earl took the can, and advanced to 
 the formidable bundle of rags, who was screaming 
 like a very hoarse raven. 
 
 ' I think you should attend to your mother first,' 
 he said gently, as the baby made a grab at the little 
 tin pot, the look of which it seemed to know, and 
 shook half the milk over itself. 
 
 ' Poor mammy ! ' said Tarn, who was gnawing a 
 bit of bread ; and, with his bread in one hand, he 
 got up and put a little gin and water quite hot 
 between his mother's lips. She swallowed it without 
 opening her eyes or seeming to be conscious, and 
 Tarn climbed down from the bed again with a clear 
 conscience. 
 
 ' We'll gie her some broth,' he said manfully, 
 while he and Dick, munching bread and raw bacon, 
 tumbled the beef in a lump into the saucepan, 
 drowned in water with some whole onions, in the 
 common fashion of cottage-cooking. The baby, 
 meanwhile, was placidly swallowing the milk that 
 the little Earl held for it very carefully, and when 
 that was done, accepted a crust that he offered it 
 to suck. 
 
 The two boys were crouching before the crackling 
 fire, munching voraciously, and watching the boiling 
 of the old black pot. They had quite forgotten 
 their benefactor. 
 
312 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 1 My ! What'll Peg say when she's to home ? ' 
 chuckled Tarn. 
 
 ' She'll say that she'd ha' cooked better,' growled 
 Dick. ' Golly, ain't the fat good ? ' 
 
 Bertie stood aloof, pleased, and yet sorrowful 
 because they did not notice him. 
 
 Even the baby had so completely centred its 
 mind in the crust that it had abandoned all memory 
 of the red scarf. 
 
 Bertie looked on a little while, but no one seemed 
 to remember him. The boys' eyes were glowing on 
 the saucepan, and their cheeks were filled out with 
 food as the cherubs in his chapel at home were 
 puffed out with air as they blew celestial trumpets. 
 
 He went to the door slowly, looked back, and 
 then retreated into the sunshine. 
 
 ' It would be mean to put them in mind of me,' 
 he thought, as he withdrew. 
 
 Suddenly a sharp pain shot through him ; a 
 stone had cut his unshod foot. 
 
 ' Oh dear me ! how ever shall I walk without 
 any shoes or boots ! ' he thought miserably ; and he 
 was very nearly bursting out crying. 
 
 On the edge of these fields was a wood — a low, 
 dark, rolling wood — which looked to the little Earl, 
 who missed his own forests, inviting, and cool, and 
 sweet. By this time it was getting towards noon, 
 and the sun was hot, and he felt thirsty, and very 
 tired. He was sad, too : he was glad to have 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 313 
 
 satisfied those poor hungry children, but their in- 
 difference to him when they were satisfied was chill- 
 ing and melancholy. 
 
 ' But then we ought not to do a kindness that 
 we may be thanked/ he said to himself. ' It is a 
 proper punishment to me, because I wished to be 
 thanked, which was mean.' 
 
 So he settled, as he usually did, that it was all 
 his own fault. 
 
 Happily for him, the ground was soft with sum- 
 mer dust, and so he managed to get along the little 
 path that ran from the cottage through the lucern- 
 fields, and from there the path became grass, which 
 was still less trying to his little red stockings. 
 
 Yet, he was anxious and troubled ; he felt heavily 
 weighted for his battle with the world without any 
 shoes on, and he felt he must look ridiculous. For 
 the first time, St. Martin did not seem to him so 
 very much of a hero, because St. Martin's gift was 
 only a cloak. Besides, without his sash, the band of 
 his knickerbockers could be seen, and he was afraid 
 this was indecent. 
 
 Nevertheless, he went on bravely, if lamely. 
 Believe me, nothing sets the world more straight 
 than thinking that what is awry in it is oneself. 
 
 The wood, which was a well-known spinney 
 famous for pheasants, was reached before very long, 
 though with painful effort. It was chiefly composed 
 of old hawthorn trees and blackthorn, with here and 
 
314 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 there a larch or holly. The undergrowth was thick, 
 and the sunbeams were playing at bo-peep with the 
 shadows. Far away over the fields and thorns was 
 a glimmer of blue water, and close around were all 
 manner of ferns, of foxgloves, of grasses, of boughs. 
 The tired little Earl sank downward under one of 
 the old thorns with feet that bled. A wasp had 
 stung him, too, through his stocking, and the stung 
 place was smarting furiously. ' But how much more 
 Christ and the Saints suffered ! ' thought Bertie, 
 seriously and piously, without the smallest touch of 
 vanity. 
 
 Lying on the moss under all that greenery, he 
 felt refreshed and soothed, although the foot the 
 wasp had stung throbbed a good deal. 
 
 There were all sorts of pretty things to see : the 
 pheasants, who were lords of the manor till October 
 came round, did not mind him in the least, and 
 swept smoothly by with their long tails like court 
 mantles sweeping the grass. Blackbirds, those 
 cheeriest of all birds, pecked at worms and grubs 
 quite near him. Chaffinches were looking for hairs 
 under the brambles to make their second summer 
 nest with. Any hairs serve their purpose, cows', 
 horses', or dogs' ; and if they get a tuft of hare-skin 
 or rabbit-fur, they are furnished for the year. A 
 pair of little white-throats were busy in a low bush, 
 gathering the catchweed that grew thickly there, 
 and a goldfinch was flying away with a lock of 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 315 
 
 sheep's wool in his beak. There were other charm- 
 ing creatures, too ; a mole was hurrying to his 
 underground castle, a nuthatch was at work on a 
 rotten tree-trunk, and a grey, odd-looking bird was 
 impaling a dead field-mouse on one of the thorn- 
 branches. Bertie did not know that this gentleman 
 was but the grey shrike, once used in hawking ; 
 indeed, he did not know the names or habits of any 
 of the birds ; and he lay still hidden in the ferns, 
 and watched them with delight and mute amaze- 
 ment. There were thousands of such pretty crea- 
 tures in his own woods and brakes at home, but 
 then he was never alone ; he was always either 
 walking with Father Philip or riding with William, 
 and in neither case was he allowed to stop and 
 loiter and lie in the grass, and the sonorous voice 
 of the priest scattered these timid dwellers in the 
 greenwood as surely as did the tread of the pony's 
 hoofs and the barking of Ralph. 
 
 ' When I am a man I will pass all my life out of 
 doors, and I will get friends with all these pretty 
 things, and ask them what they are doing,' he 
 thought ; and he was so entranced in this new world 
 hidden away under the low hawthorn boughs of this 
 spinney, that he quite forgot he had lost his shoes, 
 and did not know where he would sleep when night 
 came. He had quite forgotten his own existence, 
 indeed ; and this is just the happiness that comes to 
 us always, when we learn to love the winged and 
 
316 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 four-footed brethren that Nature has placed so near 
 us, and whom, alas ! we so shamefully neglect when 
 we do not do even worse and persecute them. Bertie 
 was quite oblivious that he was a runaway, who had 
 started with a very fine idea of finding out who it 
 was that kept him in prison, and giving him battle 
 wherever he might be ; he was much more interested 
 in longing to know what the great grey shrike was, 
 and why it hung up the mouse on the thorn and 
 flew away. If you do not know any more than he 
 did, I may tell you that the shrikes are like your 
 father, and like their game when it has been many 
 days in the larder. It is one of the few ignoble 
 tastes in which birds resemble mankind. 
 
 The shrike flew away to look for some more 
 mice, or frogs, or little snakes, or cock-roaches, or 
 beetles, for he is a very useful fellow indeed in the 
 woods, though the keepers are usually silly and 
 wicked enough to try and kill him. His home and 
 his young ones were above in the thicket, and he 
 had stuck all round their nest insects of all kinds ; 
 still, he was a provident bird, and was of opinion 
 that everyone should work while it is day. 
 
 When the shrike flew away after a bumble-bee, 
 the little Earl fell asleep ; what with fatigue, and 
 excitement, and the heat of the sun, a sound, dream- 
 less slumber fell upon him there amongst the birds 
 and the sweet smell of the May buds ; and the gold- 
 finch sang to him while he slept such a pretty song 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 317 
 
 that he heard it though he was so fast asleep. The 
 goldfinch, though, did not sing for him one bit in the 
 world ; he sang for his wife who was sitting amongst 
 her callow brood hidden away from sight under the 
 leaves, and with no greater anxiety on her mind than 
 fear of a possible weasel or rat gnawing at her nest 
 from the bottom. 
 
 When the little Earl awoke, the sun was not full 
 and golden all about him as it had been ; there were 
 long shadows slanting through the spinney, and there 
 was a great globe descending behind the downs of 
 the western horizon. It was probably about six in 
 the evening. Bertie could not tell, for, unluckily 
 for him, he had always had a watch to rely upon, and 
 had never been taught to tell the hour from the 
 'shepherd's hour-glass' in the field flowers, or cal- 
 culate the time of day from the length of the shadows. 
 Even now, though night was so nigh, the thought of 
 where he should find a bed did not occur to him, for 
 he was absorbed in a little boy who stood before 
 him — a very miserable little black-haired, brown- 
 cheeked boy, who was staring hard at him. 
 
 ' Now, he, I am sure, is as poor as Dick and 
 Tarn,' thought the little Earl, ' and I have nothing 
 left to sive him.' 
 
 The little boy was endeavouring to hide behind 
 his back a bright bundle of ruffled feathers, and in 
 his other hand he held a complicated arrangement 
 of twine and twigs with a pendant noose. 
 
318 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 That Bertie did know the look of, for he had 
 seen his own keepers destroy such things in his own 
 woods, and had heard them swear when they did so. 
 So his landowner's instincts awoke in him, though 
 the land was not his. 
 
 ' Oh, little boy,' he said, rubbing his eyes and 
 springing to his feet, ' what a wicked, wicked little 
 boy you are ! You have been snaring a pheasant !' 
 
 The small boy, who was about his age, looked 
 frightened and penitent ; he saw his accuser was a 
 little gentleman. 
 
 1 Please, sir, don't tell on me,' he said, with a 
 whimper. ' I'll gie ye the bird if ye won't tell 
 on me.' 
 
 ' I do not want the bird,' said Bertie with magis- 
 terial gravity. ' You are a wicked little boy to offer 
 it to me. It is not your own, and you have killed 
 it. You are a thief T 
 
 ' Please, sir,' whimpered the little poacher, ' dad 
 alius tooked 'em like this.' 
 
 ' Then, he is a thief too,' said Bertie. 
 
 ' He was a good un to me,' said the small boy, 
 and then fairly burst out sobbing. ' He was a good 
 un to me, and he's dead a year come Lady-day, and 
 mother she's main bad, and little Susie's got the 
 croup, and there's nowt to eat to home ; and I hear 
 Susie cryin', cryin', cryin', and so I gae to cupboard 
 where dad's old tackle be kep, and I gits out this 
 here, and says I to myself, maybe I'll git one of 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 319 
 
 them birds i' spinney, 'cos they make rare broth, 
 and we had a many on 'em when dad was alive, and 
 Towser.' 
 
 ' Who was Towser ?' 
 
 1 He was our lurcher ; keeper shot him ; he'd 
 bring of 'em in his mouth like a Chrisen ; and gin 
 ye'll tell on me, they'll clap me in prison like they 
 did dad, and it's birch rods they'd give yer, and 
 mother's nowt but me.' 
 
 ' I do not know who owns this property,' said 
 Bertie in his little sedate way, ' so I could not tell 
 the owner, and I should not wish to do it if I could ; 
 but still, it is a very wicked thing to snare birds at 
 all, and when they are game-birds it is robbery! 
 
 1 I know as how they makes it so,' demurred the 
 poacher's son. ' But dad said as how ' 
 
 ' No one makes it so,' said Bertie with a little 
 righteous anger ; ' it is so : the birds are not yours, 
 and so, if you take them, you are a thief.' 
 
 The boy put his thumb in his mouth and dangled 
 his dead pheasant. 
 
 A discussion on the game laws was beyond his 
 powers, nor was even Bertie conscious of the mighty 
 subject he was opening, though the instincts of the 
 landowner were naturally in him, and it seemed to 
 him so shocking to find a boy with such views as 
 this as to meum and tuum, that he almost fancied 
 the sun would fall from the sky. The sun, however, 
 glowed on, low down in the wood beyond a belt of 
 
320 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 firs, and the green downs, and the grey sea ; and 
 the little sinner stood before him, fascinated by his 
 appearance and frightened at his words. 
 
 ' Do you know who owns this coppice?' asked 
 Bertie, and the boy answered him reluctantly : 
 
 'Yes — Sir Henry.' 
 
 ' Then, what you must do,' said Bertie, ' is to go 
 directly with that bird to Sir Henry, and beg his 
 pardon, and ask him to forgive you. Go at once. 
 That is what you must do.' 
 
 The boy opened eyes and mouth in amaze. 
 
 ' That I won't never do,' he said doggedly ; ' I'd 
 be took up to the lodge afore I'd open my mouth.' 
 
 1 Not if I go with you ? ' said Bertie. 
 
 ' Be you one of the fam'ly, sir ? ' 
 
 1 No,' said Bertie, and then was silent in some 
 confusion, for he bethought him that, without any 
 shoes on, he might also be arrested at the lodge 
 
 gates. 
 
 ' I thought as not, 'cos you're bare-foot,' said the 
 brown-cheeked boy, with a little contempt supply- 
 ing the place of courage. ' Dunno who you be, 
 sir, but seems to I as you've no call to preach to me 
 — you be a-trespassin' too.' 
 
 Bertie coloured. 
 
 ' I am not doing any harm,' he said with dignity; 
 1 you are — you have been stealing. If you are not 
 really a wicked boy, you will take the pheasant 
 straight to that gentleman, and beg him to forgive 
 you, and I dare say he will give you work.' 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 321 
 
 ' There's no work for my dad's son,' said the 
 little poacher, half sadly, half sullenly ; ' the keepers 
 are all agen us ; 'tis as much as mother and me and 
 Susie can do to git a bit o' bread.' 
 
 ' What work can you do ? ' 
 
 1 1 can make the gins,' said the little sinner, 
 touching the trap with pride. ' Most whiles, I 
 never comes out o' daylight ; but all the forenoon 
 Susie was o-oinof off her head, want o' summat t' eat.' 
 
 ' I'm sorry for Susie and you,' said the little Earl 
 with sympathy. ' But indeed, indeed, nothing can 
 excuse a theft, or make God ' 
 
 ' The keepers ! ' yelled the boy with a scream 
 like a hare's, and he dashed head-foremost into the 
 bushes, casting on to Bertie's lap the gin and the 
 dead bird. Bertie was so surprised, that he sat per- 
 fectly mute and still ; the little boy had disappeared 
 as fast as a rabbit bolts at sight of a ferret. Two 
 grim big men with dogs and guns burst through the 
 hawthorn, and one of them seized the little Earl 
 with no gentle hand. 
 
 'You little blackguard! you'll smart for this,' 
 yelled the big man. ' Treadmill and birch-rod, or 
 I'm a Dutchman.' 
 
 Bertie was so surprised still, that he was silent. 
 
 Then, with his little air of innocent majesty, he said 
 
 simply : ' You are mistaken ; I did not kill the bird.' 
 
 Now, if Bertie had had his usual nicety of 
 
 apparel, or if the keeper had not been in a fuming 
 
 Y 
 
322 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 fury, the latter would have easily seen that he had 
 accused and apprehended a little gentleman. But 
 no one in a violent rage ever has much sense or 
 sight left to aid him, and Big George, as this keeper 
 was called, did not notice that his dogs were smell- 
 ing in a friendly way at his prisoner ; but only saw 
 that he had to do with a pale-faced lad without 
 shoes, and very untidy and dusty-looking, who had 
 snares and a snared pheasant at his feet. 
 
 Before Bertie had even seen him take a bit of 
 cord out of his pocket, he had tied the little Earl's 
 hands behind him, picked up the pheasant and the 
 trap, and given some directions to his companion ; 
 the real culprit was already a quarter of a mile off, 
 burrowing safely in the earth of an old fox killed in 
 February : a hiding-place with which he was very 
 familiar. 
 
 Bertie meanwhile was quite silent. He was 
 thinking to himself: 'If I tell them another boy 
 did it, they will go and look for him, and catch him, 
 and put him in prison ; and then his mother and 
 Susie will be so miserable — more miserable than 
 ever. I think I ought to keep quiet. Jesus never 
 said anything when they buffeted Him.' 
 
 1 Ah, you little gallows-bird, you'll get it this 
 time ! ' said the keeper, knotting the string tighter 
 about his wrists, and speaking as if he had had the 
 little Earl very often in such custody. 
 
 ' You are a very rude man,' said Bertie, with the 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 323 
 
 angry colour in his cheeks ; but Big George heeded 
 him not, being engaged in swearing at one of his 
 dogs — a young one, who was trotting after a rabbit. 
 
 ' I know who this youngster is, Bob,' he said to 
 his companion ; ' he's the Radley shaver over from 
 Blackgang.' 
 
 Bertie wondered who the Radley shaver was 
 that resembled him. 
 
 ' He has the looks on him,' said the other 
 prudently. 
 
 ' Sir Henry's dining at Chigwell to-night, and 
 he'll have started afore we get there,' continued Big 
 George. ' Go you on through spinney far as Edge 
 Pool, and I'll take and lo^k this here Radley up till 
 morning. Blast his impudence — a pheasant ! think 
 of the likes of it ! A pheasant! If 't had been a 
 rabbit, 't had been bad enough.' 
 
 Then he shook his little captive vigorously. 
 
 Bertie did not say anything. He was not in 
 trepidation for himself, but he was in an agony of 
 fear lest the boy Dan should be found in the 
 spinney. 
 
 ' March along afore me,' said Big George with 
 much savageness. ' And if you tries to bolt, I'll 
 blow your brains out and nail you to a barn-door 
 alono- o' the owls.' 
 
 The little Earl looked at him with eyes of scorn 
 and horror. 
 
 ' How dare you touch Athene's bird ? ' 
 
324 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ' How dare I what, you little saucy blackguard V 
 thundered Big George, and fetched him a great box 
 on the ears which made Bertie stagger. 
 
 ' You are a very bad man,' he said breathlessly. 
 ' You a very mean man. You are big, and so you 
 are cruel — that is very mean indeed.' 
 
 ' You've the gift of the gab, little devil of a 
 Radley,' said the keeper wrathfully ; ' but you'll 
 pipe another tune when you feel the birch and pick 
 oakum.' 
 
 Bertie set his teeth tight to keep his words in ; 
 he walked on mute. 
 
 ' You've stole some little gemman's togs as well 
 as my pheasant,' said Big George, surveying him. 
 ' Why didn't you steal a pair o' boots when you was 
 about it ? ' 
 
 Bertie was still mute. 
 
 ' I will not say anything to this bad man,' he 
 thought, ' or else he will find out that it was not I.' 
 
 The sun had set by this time, leaving only a 
 silvery light above the sea and the downs ; the pale 
 long twilight of an English day had come upon the 
 earth. 
 
 Bertie was very white, and his heart beat fast, 
 and he was growing very hungry ; but he managed 
 to stumble on, though very painfully, for his courage 
 would not let him repine before this savage man, 
 who was mixed up in his mind with Bluebeard, and 
 Thor, and Croque Mitaine, and Richard III., and 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 325 
 
 Nero, and all the ogres that he had ever met with 
 in his reading, and who seemed to grow larger 
 and larger and larger, as the sky and earth grew 
 darker. 
 
 Happily for his shoeless feet, the way lay all 
 over grass lands and mossy paths ; but he limped 
 so, that the keeper swore at him many times, and 
 the little Earl felt the desperate resignation of the 
 martyr. 
 
 At last they came in sight of the keeper's cottage, 
 standing on the edge of the preserves — a thatched 
 and gabled little building, with a light glimmering 
 in its lattice window. 
 
 At the sound of Big George's heavy tread, a 
 woman and some children ran out. 
 
 'Lord ha' mercy! George!' cried the wife. 
 ' What scarecrow have you been and got ?' 
 
 • A Radley boy,' growled George ; ' one of the 
 cussed Radley boys at last — and a pheasant snared 
 took in his very hand !' 
 
 'You don't mean it!' cried his wife; and the 
 small children yelled and jumped. ' What'll be done 
 with him, dad ? ' cried the eldest of them. 
 
 ' I'll put him in fowlhouse to-night,' said Big 
 George, 'and up he'll go afore Sir Henry fust thing 
 to-morrow. Clear off, young uns, and let me run 
 him in.' 
 
 Bertie looked up in Big George's face. 
 
 ' I had nothing to do with killing the bird,' he 
 
326 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 said in a firm though a faint voice. ' You quite 
 mistake. I am Lord Avillion.' 
 
 'Stop your pipe, or I'll choke yer!' swore Big 
 George, enraged by what he termed the ' darned 
 cheek ' of a Radley boy ; and without more ado he 
 laid hold of the little Earl's collar and lifted him into 
 the fowl-house, the door of which was held open 
 eagerly by his eldest girl. 
 
 There was a great flapping of wings, screeching 
 of hens, and piping of chicks at the interruption, 
 where all the inmates were gone to roost, and one 
 cock set up his usual salutation to the dawn. 
 
 ' That's better nor you'll sleep to-morrow night,' 
 said Big George, as he tumbled Bertie on to a truss 
 of straw that lay there, when he went out himself, 
 slammed the door, and both locked and barred it on 
 the outside. 
 
 Bertie fell back on the straw, sobbing bitterly : 
 his feet were cut and bleeding, his whole body ached 
 like one great bruise, and he was sick and faint with 
 hunger. ■ If the world be as difficult as this to live 
 in,' he thought, ' how ever do some people manage 
 to live almost to a hundred years in it ? ' and to his 
 eight-year-old little soul the prospect of a long life 
 seemed so horrible, that he sobbed again at the very 
 thought of it. It was quite dark in the fowl-house ; 
 the rustling and fluttering of the poultry all around 
 sounded mysterious and unearthly ; the strong, un- 
 pleasant smell made him faint, and the pain in his 
 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 327 
 
 feet grew greater every moment. He did not scream 
 or go into convulsions ; he was a brave little man, 
 and proud ; but he felt as if the long, lonely night 
 there would kill him. 
 
 Half-an-hour, perhaps, had gone by when a 
 woman's voice at the little square window said 
 softly, ' Here is bread and water for you, poor boy ; 
 and I've put some milk and cheese, too, only my 
 man mustn't know it.' 
 
 Bertie with great effort raised himself, and took 
 what was pushed through the tiny window ; a mug 
 of milk being lowered to him last by a large red fat 
 hand, on which the light of a candle held without 
 was glowing. 
 
 ' Thanks very much,' said the little Earl feebly. 
 « But, madam, I did not kill that bird, and indeed I 
 am Lord Avillion.' 
 
 The good woman went within to her lord, and 
 said timidly to him, 'George, are you sartin sure 
 that there's a Radley boy ? He do look and speak 
 like a little gemman, and he do say as how he 
 is one.' 
 
 Big George called her bad names. 
 ' A barefoot gemman ! ' he said with a sneer. 
 ' You thunderin' fool ! it's weazen-faced Vic Radley, 
 as have been in our woods a hundred times if wunce, 
 though never could I slap eyes on him quick enough 
 to pin him.' 
 
 The good housewife took up her stocking-mend- 
 
328 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 ing and said no more. Big George's arguments 
 were sometimes enforced with the fist, and even 
 with the pewter pot or the poker. 
 
 Meanwhile the little Earl in the henhouse was 
 so hungry that he drank the milk and ate the bread- 
 and-cheese. Both were harder and rougher things 
 than any he had ever tasted ; but he had now that 
 hunger which had made the boy on the stile relish 
 the turnip, and, besides, another incident had oc- 
 curred to give him relish for the food. 
 
 At the moment when he had sat down to drink 
 the milk, there had tumbled out from behind the straw 
 a round black-and-white object, unsteady on its legs, 
 and having a very broad nose and a very woolly coat. 
 The moon had risen by this time, and was shining 
 in through the little square window, and by its beams 
 Bertie could see this thing was a puppy ; a Newfound- 
 land puppy of some four months old. He welcomed 
 it with as much rapture as ever Robert Bruce did the 
 spider. It had evidently been awakened from its 
 sleep by the smell of the food. It was a pleasant, 
 companionable, warm and kindly creature ; it knocked 
 the bread out of his hand, and thrust its square mouth 
 into his milk ; but he shared it willingly, and had a 
 hearty cry over it that did him a great deal of 
 good. 
 
 He did not feel all alone now that this blunder- 
 ing, toppling, shapeless, amiable baby-dog had found 
 its way to him. He caressed it in his arms and 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 329 
 
 kissed it a great many times, and it responded much 
 more gratefully than the human baby had done in Jim 
 Bracken's cottage, and finally, despite his bleeding 
 feet, and his tired limbs, he fell asleep with his face 
 against the pup's woolly body. 
 
 When he awoke, he could not remember what 
 had happened. He called for Deborah, but no 
 Deborah was there. The moon, now full, was 
 shining still through the queer little dusky place ; 
 the figures of the fowls, rolled up in balls of feathers, 
 and stuck upon one leg, were all that met his strain- 
 ing eyes. He pulled the puppy closer and closer to 
 him ; for the first time in his life he felt really 
 frightened. 
 
 ' I never touched the pheasant,' he cried as loud 
 as he could. ' I am Lord Avillion ! You have no 
 right to keep me here. Let me out ! let me out ! 
 let me out !' 
 
 The fowls woke up, and then cried and cackled 
 and crowed, and the poor pup whined and yelped 
 dolefully, but he got no other answer. Everybody 
 in Big George's cottage was asleep, except Big 
 George himself, who, with his revolver, his fowling- 
 piece, and a couple of bull-dogs, was gone out again 
 into the woods. 
 
 At home, Bertie in his pretty bed, that had 
 belonged to the little Roi de Rome, had always had 
 a soft light burning in a porcelain shade, and his 
 nurse within easy call, and Ralph on the mat by the 
 
330 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 door. He had never been in the dark before, and 
 he could hear unseen things moving and rustling in 
 the straw, and he felt afraid of the white moonbeams 
 shifting hither and thither, and shining on the shape 
 of the big Brahma cock till the great bird looked 
 like a vulture. Once a rat ran swiftly across, and 
 then the fowls shrieked, and Bertie could not help 
 screaming with them ; but in a minute or two he felt 
 ashamed of himself, for he thought, ' A rat is God's 
 creature as much as I am ; and as I have not done 
 anything wrong, I do not think they will be allowed 
 to hurt me.' 
 
 Nevertheless, the night was very terrible. With- 
 out the presence of the puppy, no doubt, the little 
 Earl would have frightened himself into convulsions 
 and delirium ; but the pup was so comforting to him, 
 so natural, so positively a thing real and in no wise 
 of the outer world, that Bertie kept down, though 
 with many a sob, the panics of unreasoning terror 
 which assailed him as the moon sailed away past 
 the square loop hole, and a great darkness seemed 
 to wrap him up in it as though some giant were 
 stifling him in a magic cloak. 
 
 The pup had not long been taken from its 
 mother, and had been teased all day by the keeper's 
 children, and was frightened and whimpered a good 
 deal, and cuddled itself close to the little Earl, who 
 hugged it and kissed it in paroxysms of loneliness 
 and lon^in^r for comfort. 
 
THE LITTLE EARL 331 
 
 With these long, horrible black hours, all sorts of 
 notions and terrors assailed him ; all he had ever 
 read of dungeons, of enchanted castles, of entrapped 
 princes, of Prince Arthur and the Duke of Rothsay, 
 of the prisoners of Chillon and of the Iron Mask, of 
 every kind of hero, martyr, and wizard-bewitched 
 captive, crowded into his mind with horrifying clear- 
 ness, thronging on him with a host of fearful images 
 and memories. 
 
 But this was only in his weaker moments. When 
 he clasped the puppy and felt its warm wet tongue 
 lick his hair, he gathered up his courage ; after all, 
 he thought, Big George was certainly only a keeper, 
 not an ogre, nor an astrologer, nor a tyrant of Athens 
 or of Rome. 
 
 So he fell off again, after a long nnd dreadful 
 waking-time, into a fitful slumber, in which his feet 
 ached and his nerves jumped, and the frightful 
 visions assailed him just as much as when he was 
 awake ; and how that ghastly night passed by him, 
 he never knew very well. 
 
 When he again opened his eyes there was a 
 dim grey light in the fowl- house, and sharp in his 
 ear was rineingf the Qrood-morrow of the Brahma 
 chanticleer. 
 
 It was daybreak. 
 
 A round red face looked in at the square hole, 
 and the voice of the keeper's wife said : ' Little 
 gemman, Big George will be arter ye come eight 
 
332 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 o'clock, and 't '11 go hard \vi' yer. Say now yer 
 didn't snare the bird ? ' 
 
 ' No,' said Bertie languidly, lying full length on 
 the straw : he felt shivery and chilly, and very stiff 
 and very miserable in all ways. 
 
 ' But yer know who did ! ' persisted the woman. 
 ' Now, jist you tell me, and I'll make it all square 
 with George, and he'll let you out, and we'll gie ye 
 porridge, and we'll take ye home on the donkey.' 
 
 The little Earl was silent. 
 
 ' Now, drat yer for an obstinate ! I can't abide 
 a obstinate,' said the woman angrily. 'Who did 
 snare the bird ? jist say that ; 't is all, and mighty 
 little.' 
 
 4 I will not say that/ said Bertie ; and the woman 
 slammed a wooden door that there was to the loop- 
 hole, and told him he was a mule and a pig, and 
 that she was not going to waste any more words 
 about him ; she should let the birds out by the bars. 
 What she called the bars, which were two movable 
 lengths of wood at the bottom of one of the walls, 
 did in point of fact soon slip aside, and the fowls all 
 cackled and strutted and fluttered after their different 
 manners, and bustled through the opening towards 
 the daylight and the scattered corn ; the Brahma 
 cock having much ado to squeeze his plumage where 
 his wives had passed. 
 
 1 The puppy's hungry,' said Bertie timidly. 
 
 ' Drat the puppy ! ' said the woman outside ; and 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 333 
 
 no more compassion was wrung out of her. The 
 little Earl felt very languid, light-headed, and 
 strange ! he was faint, and a little feverish. 
 
 'Oh dear, pup! what a night!' he murmured 
 with a burst ol sobbing. 
 
 Yet it never occurred to him to purchase his 
 liberty by giving up little guilty Dan. 
 
 Some more hours rolled on — slow, empty, 
 desolate— filled with the whine of the pup for its 
 mother, and the chirping of unseen martins going 
 in and out of the roof above head. 
 
 ' I suppose they mean to starve me to death,' 
 thought Bertie ; his thoughts clinging to the Duke 
 of Rothsay's story. 
 
 He heard the tread of Big George on the ground 
 outside, and his deep voice cursing and swearing, 
 and the children running to and fro, and the hens 
 cackling. Then the little Earl remembered that he 
 was born of brave men, and must not be unworthy 
 of them ; and he rose, though unsteadily, and tried 
 to pull his disordered dress together, and tried, too, 
 not to look afraid. 
 
 He recalled Casabianca on the burning ship ; 
 Casabianca had not been so very much older than 
 he. 
 
 The door was thrust open violently, and that big 
 grim black man looked in. ' Come, varmint ! ' he 
 hallooed out ; ' come out and get your merits : birch 
 and bread-and-water and Scripture-readin' for a good 
 
334 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 month, I'll go bail — and 't ud be a year if I wur the 
 beak.' 
 
 Then Bertie, on his little shaky shivering limbs, 
 walked quite haughtily towards him and the open 
 air, the puppy waddling after him. ' You should 
 not be so very rough and rude,' he said ; ' I will go 
 with you. But the puppy wants some milk.' 
 
 Big George's only answer was to clutch wildly at 
 Bertie's clothes and hurl him anyhow, head first, 
 into a little pony cart that stood ready. ' Such 
 tarnation cheek I niver seed,' he swore ; ' but all 
 them Radley imps are as like one to t' other as so 
 many ribston-pippins — all the gift o' the gab and 
 tallow-faces ! ' 
 
 Bertie, lying very sick and dizzy in the bottom 
 of the cart, managed to find breath to call out to 
 the woman on the doorstep : ' Please do give 
 the puppy something ; it has been so hungry all 
 night/ 
 
 ' That's no Radley boy,' said the keeper's wife 
 to her eldest girl as the cart drove away. ' Only a 
 little gemman 'ud ha' thought of the pup. Strikes 
 me, lass, your daddy's put a rod in pickle for hisself 
 along o' his tantrums and tivies.' 
 
 It was but a mile and a half from the keeper's 
 cottage to the mansion of the Sir Henry who was 
 owner of these lands ; and the pony spun along at a 
 swing trot, and Big George, smoking and rattling 
 along, never deigned to look at his prisoner. 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 335 
 
 'Another poachin' boy, Mr. Mason?' said the 
 woman who opened the lodge gates ; and Big 
 George answered heartily : 
 
 ' Ay, ay, a Radley imp caught at last. Got the 
 bird on him, and the gin too. What d'ye call that ? ' 
 
 « I call it like your vigilance, Mr. Mason,' said 
 the lodge-keeper. ' But, lawks ! he do look a mite ! ' 
 
 Big George spun on up the avenue with the air 
 of a man who knew his own important place in the 
 world, and the little cart was soon pulled up at the 
 steps of a stately Italian-like building. 
 
 'See Sir Henry to wunce : poachin' case,' said 
 Big George to the footman lounging about the door- 
 way. 
 
 'Of course, Mr. Mason. Sir Henry said as you 
 was to go to him directly.' 
 
 ' Step this way,' said one of the men ; and Big 
 George proceeded to haul Bertie out of the cart as 
 unceremoniously as he had thrown him in ; but the 
 little Earl, although his head spun and his shoeless 
 feet ached, managed to get down himself, and stag- 
 gered across the hall. 
 
 ' A Radley boy ! ' said Big George, displaying 
 him with much pride. ' All the spring and all the 
 winter I've been after that weazen-faced varmin, and 
 now We got him.' 
 
 ' Sir Henry waits,' said a functionary ; and Big 
 George marched into a handsome library ; dragging 
 his captive behind him, towards the central writing- 
 
336 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 table, at which a good-looking elderly gentleman was 
 sitting. 
 
 Arrived before his master, the demeanour of Big 
 George underwent a remarkable change ; he cringed, 
 and he pulled his lock of hair, and he scraped about 
 with his leg in the humblest manner possible, and 
 proceeded to lay the dead pheasant and the trap 
 and gear upon the table. 
 
 ' Took him in the ac', Sir Henry,' he said, with 
 triumph piercing through deference. ' I been after 
 him ages ; he's a Radley boy, the little gallows- 
 bird ; he's been snarin' and dodgin' and stealin' all 
 the winter long, and here we've got him.' 
 
 ' He is very small — quite a child,' said Sir 
 Henry doubtingly, trying to see the culprit. 
 
 ' He's stunted in his growth along o' wickedness, 
 sir,' said Big George, very positively ; ' but he's old 
 in wice ; that's what he is, sir — old in wice.' 
 
 At that moment Bertie managed to get in front 
 of him, and lifted his little faint voice. 
 
 ' He has made a mistake,' he said feebly ; ' I 
 never killed your birds at all, and I am Lord 
 Avillion.' 
 
 1 Good heavens ! you thundering idiot ! ' shouted 
 Sir Henry, springing to his feet. ' This is the little 
 Earl they are looking for all over the island, and all 
 over the country ! My dear little fellow, how can I 
 ever ' 
 
 His apologies were cut short by Bertie dropping 
 
THE LITTLE EARL. 337 
 
 down in a dead faint at his feet, so weak was he from 
 cold, and hunger, and exhaustion, and unwonted 
 exposure. 
 
 It was not very long, however, before all the 
 alarmed household, pouring in at the furious ringing 
 of their master's bell, had revived the little Earl, and 
 brought him to his senses none the worse for the 
 momentary eclipse of them. 
 
 ' Please do not be angry with your man/ mur- 
 mured Bertie, as he lay on one of the wide leathern 
 couches. ' He meant to do his duty; and please — 
 will you let me buy the puppy ? ' 
 
 Of course Sir Henry would not allow the little 
 Earl to wander any farther afield, and of course a 
 horseman was sent over in hot haste to apprise his 
 people, misled by the boat-lad, who, frightened at 
 his own share in the little gentleman's escape, had 
 sworn till he was hoarse that he had seen Lord 
 Avillion take a boat for Ryde. 
 
 So Bertie's liberty was nipped in the bud, and 
 very sorrowfully and wistfully he strayed out on to 
 the rose-terrace of Sir Henry's house, awaiting the 
 coming of his friends. The puppy had been fetched, 
 and was tumbling and waddling solemnly beside 
 him ; yet, he was very sad at heart. 
 
 ' What are you thinking of, my child ? ' said Sir 
 Henry, who was a gentle and learned man. 
 
 Bertie's mouth quivered. 
 
 1 1 see,' he said hesitatingly, — ' I see / am nothing. 
 
 z 
 
338 THE LITTLE EARL. 
 
 It is the title they give me and the money I have 
 got that make the people so good to me. When I 
 am only me, you see how it is.' 
 
 And the tears rolled down his face, which he had 
 heard called 'wizen' and ' puny' and likened to tallow. 
 
 ' My dear little fellow,' said his grown-up com- 
 panion tenderly, ' there comes a day when even kings 
 are stripped of all their pomp, and lie naked and 
 stark ; it is then that which they have done, not 
 that which they have been, that will find them grace 
 and let them rise again.' 
 
 ' But I am nothing ! ' said Bertie piteously. ' You 
 see, when the people do not know who I am, they 
 think me nothing at all.' 
 
 1 I don't fancy Peggy and Dan will think so when 
 we tell them everything,' said the host. ' We are all 
 of us nothing in ourselves, my child ; only, here and 
 there we pluck a bit of lavender — that is, we do 
 some good thing or say some kind word — and then 
 we get a sweet savour from it. You will gather a 
 great deal of lavender in your life, or I am mistaken.' 
 
 1 I will try,' said Bertie, who understood. 
 
 So, off the downs that day, and in the pleasant 
 hawthorn woods of the friendly little Isle, he plucked 
 two heads of lavender — humility and sympathy. 
 Believe me, they are worth as much as was the moly 
 of Ulysses. 
 
 Spottisiuoode 6-> Co., Printers, New-street Square, London. 
 

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 Mr. Dorillion. 
 
 BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY. 
 A Life's Atonement. 
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 Whiteladies. 
 
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 Phoebe's Fortunes. 
 
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 Cecil Castle- Ariadne. 
 
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 Tricotrin. Moths. 
 
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 Folle Farine. A Village Com- 
 
 A Dog of Flanders. mune. 
 
 BY JAMES FAYX. 
 
 Lost Sir Massing- Gwendoline's Har- 
 
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 A Perfect Trea Like Father. Like 
 
 sure. Son. 
 
 Bentinck's Tutor. A Marine Resi- 
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 A County Family. Married Beneath 
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 BY CHARLES READE. 
 It is Never Too Late to Mend. 
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 Love Me Little, Love Me Long. 
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 Autobiography of a Thief. 
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 Gaslight and Daylight. 
 
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 Bound to the Wheel. 
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 The Lion in the Path. 
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 A Match in the Dark. 
 
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 The Violin Player. 
 
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 Tales for the Marines. 
 
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 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
 BY ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 The Way We Live Now. 
 The American Senator. 
 
 BY MARK TWAIN. 
 Tom Sawyer. 
 An Idle Excursion. 
 A Pleasure Trip on the Continent 
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 BY SARAH TYTLER. 
 What She Came Through. 
 
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 Land at Last. 
 
 ANONYMOUS. 
 Paul Ferroll. 
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 Jeff Briggs's Love Story. By Bret 
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 The Twins of Table Mountain. By 
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 Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds. By 
 
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 Kathleen Mavourneen. By Author 
 
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 Lindsay's Luck. By the Author of 
 
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 Pretty Polly Pemberton. By the 
 
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 Trooping with Crows. By Mrs. 
 
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 The Professor's Wife. By Leonard 
 
 Graham. 
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 The Garden that Paid the Rent. 
 
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