II B R.AR.Y OF THL UN IVLRSITY OF ILLINOIS 8Z5 H552ur v. I THE WATERS OF MARAH. BY JOHN HILL. Farewell and adieu ! Each year that we live shall we sing it anew ; "With a water uniravelled before us for sailing, And a water behind us that wrecks may bestrew. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1883. [All rights reserved.'] CHABI-ES DICKENS AND EVANS, CBYSTAL PALACE PEESS. 22.3 HSSZ-ur v. / CONTENTS. $axt the Jirsi.— Wxt ffl&xnUt's %%h. CHAPTER I. PAGE CHARLIE DEANE MAKES A CHANGE OF HABITAT . . 3 5 CHAPTER II. I IN GURGITE VASTO 19 i ) f CHAPTER III. ) 5 " THE SPOTTED DOG * 35 r CHAPTER IV. ? OVER THE SHERRIS-SACK 58 vi CONTENTS. CHAPTER V. PAGE THE MAN WITH THE MORBID TEMPERAMENT ... 81 CHAPTER VI. GOSSIP IN THE GARDEN 102 CHAPTER VII. CASPAR ON CHRISTMAS . 121 Part the il Two years. I'm dressing for old Jemmy now. I say, come out and lunch somewhere I" IN GUUGITE VASTO. 29 "All right." " Let's see — where shall we go ? Have you any particular preference ? Do you know town well ? " " Not very." As a matter of fact, the only knowledge Charlie possessed of London was derived from the works of Sir Richard Steele, Mr. Addison, Dr. Johnson, and William Thackeray, mainly interesting from an antiquarian point of view. "Well, let's go to Fleet Street. Never mind your quotation about green fields ; that's played out. We'll go to 'The Cheese.' " And they went to "The Cheese." "Well," said Jerry Carpenter, during lunch at that pleasant old hostelry, "what have you been doing since you left Whippingham ? " " Improving my mind at a tutor's near home." 30 THE WATERS OF MARAH. " Delightful. And you have the world before you in all its novelty. Hope you'll like it. I've been two years at Cambridge, where I should have read for the Bar if I had been able to surmount the initial difficulties, little-go, etc. ; but they kicked me out after about four ineffectual attempts on my part to grapple with that infernal steelyard, and the cistern filled by A and B and emptied by C. Don't know why anybody should be required to make calculations on such ridiculous contingencies. That was not the only reason they ejected me, though. I played pitch-and-toss with the discipline rather. I asked the proctor, who was also my junior dean, to make a composition for fines at the beginning of term ; came in at what hour of the night I pleased, dressed as I pleased, dined and kept chapels as I pleased, and in general behaved like a grown-up human being of IN GTTRGITE VASTO. 31 independent habits and tastes. So they expelled me. In vain I pointed out all the strong temptations I had not yielded to, such as the spreading of glue on the masters seat in chapel on his preaching days, the massacre of the cook, the com- mittal of arson on Browning College, or the prosecution of all tutors for obtaining money under false pretences. In spite of this impassioned protest, the decree went forth, and I went forth. And jolly glad I was to come here instead. For, let me tell you, my young friend, though verses and the use of the steelyard and logarithms be beyond me, the use of the speculum, the forceps, and the Symes knife are distinctly in my line. Besides, I'm in love with London. She is black, but comely. I have lots of friends — very jolly fellows some of them ; all in Bohemia, of course. You have read your ' Pendennis ' ? " 32 THE WATERS OF MABAH. " Bather." " And your Dickens ? " "Of course!" " Well, now, you must study the town as it is, and compare it with what it has been — see the old face under new lights." " I shall be glad to see any face at all that isn't that of a 'bus-conductor or a waiter. They are about the only human beings, except your dean, I have spoken to." " Poor devil ! Alone, friendless, and in London. So pathetic, ' stony-hearted step- mother,' and all that. Well, I don't mind betting you like London better than the country before many weeks have passed. Come with me to-night to ' The Boar's Head ' in Eastcheap, or rather to ' The Spotted Dog,' and you shall see." Charlie was cheered by a friend's voice, and began to feel revive in him the interest and mysterious reverence one feels for London IN GUBGITE VASTO. 33 and its literary and romantic remembrances, after the reading of the pages of the great departed, who walked this very street and sat in this very tavern so many years ago. It may seem ridiculous to you, who are familiar with the town from Kensington to Mile-end, but to Charlie Deane, the inex- perienced, young, and enthusiastic stranger, London meant not only the desolate fourth- floor in Bloomsbury and the great hospital, but also the alehouses of Falstaff and his prince ; 'Fore God, her only jig-maker f FARRINGDOUWS REPRESENTATIVE. 181 And her father and aunt encouraged it, and bowed down and worshipped George Malcolm Farringdon for the sake of the shekels of gold and of silver, the estates, and the goodly apparel he was expected to inherit, and the name of which the association with that of Menteith would be once more freshened in the minds of men. And old Kimburls, as Richard Menteith, Esq., was invariably styled in Scotland, went blandly about Glasgow city, talking of "my son-in-law that is to be, Farringdon of the Keckleshope family, you know." And tall, shapeless, sandy-haired merchants, advocates and Writers to the Signet, and even a few Lords of Session, friends of the late Lord Corpeddie (father of Miss Johnstoune of Corpeddie, Kimburls' wife), went about the streets, grinning at the wind and dust and fog as only a Scotchman can grin, saying to one another : " Miss Dick, Kimburls* 182 TEE WATERS OF MAEAH. daughter, will be marryin' that Farringclon, they tell me." " Hell be an Englishman ? " " Farringdon of Keckleshope, they say. That is, Kimburls says. It's likely it'll not be true ? " Old Lord Cowbiggins, a gentleman of the oldest possible school, said conclusively : " Keckleshope ! Dick Menteith is too good to marry any Keckleshope Farringdon that ever was hatched. Kimburls is" a d — d money-hunting old gomeril, and young Far- ringdon is a conceited sumph. Set them up ! I'll give that gairrul a bit of my mind when this d — d court rises." Worthy old Mr. Toumharns, the Free minister, said to poor Dick : " My dear, he may be the most aixcellent young man in the wurrld. A'll not say he is, but he may be. But surely he'll be an Erastian?" Which of course made Dick violently defend " him " and like him all the more. FARRINGDOUN'S REPRESENTATIVE. 183 George knew little, and carecl less, about ballads, and did not understand the language or the spirit in which they were composed ; but he gently patronised them, and talked about their possessing a certain barbaric beauty. . Dick, whilst holding his superior critical powers in due reverence, felt inward convictions of a partially emotional, partially instinctive nature, which George's expres- sions scarcely conveyed. She did not quite comprehend the purpose and utility of the potent critical talisman nil admirari. And w T hen she played the old melodies she knew on the old piano — a flat rectangular piano, fitting into a dark niche — with the light of the pale wax candles on her fair small head, Kimburls would nod his head and wave his hands strictly out of time, while Miss Jane Men- teith, in her chair, would gradually and un- consciously unbend, forget the account of the General Free Assembly which she was 184 THE WATERS OF MABAH. reading, and begin to remember temporarily that she was a woman with a live Scotch heart. There was not much of it, but it definitely existed somewhere in the rigid and attenuated thoracic cavity of the paternal aunt. And Dick's music proved that occa- sionally. As for George Farringdon, all the sentiment that could respond to stimulation in him was evoked. It principally resembled the feeling of a street-boy between whom and a bun a plate-glass window is fixed. And it must be said for George that he succeeded in breaking the window. And they expected to get married in about half a year, when the summer was over, and with it their trip to Europe, and when George's University had endowed him with her testamur. $art the ^hirfc. CASPAK'S MIDSUMMER MADNESS. CHAPTER I. Ich weiss nicht was da noch werden soil 1 ? Schon dammert's im feuchten Grande, Die Fledermaus maclit ahnungsvoll Um den alten Stadtwall die Runde. And the long-projected expedition of Charlie and Caspar to foreign lands actually took place in the Long Vacation succeeding the summer session. It would be a cheap and humble tour, Charlie represented to his rela- tions, paid for out of his own money earned, in the form of a scholarship, by his own labour. His grandmother admitted that travel was a great thing for a young man, and " opened his mind ; " and let him go, after giving him advice and caution of a somewhat obsolete 188 THE WATERS OF MAEAB. nature, derived from her own experiences of a bridal tour. Aunt Lucy insisted that he was to keep a journal ; and Lily Carew ex- pressed a desire to accompany him, in the favourite Shakespearean disguise of a boy. But he and Caspar (the "personal con- ductor" of the journey) started alone, and their quarters are now in the heart of moun- tain and forest land, where the sky is blue, the river brown, and the buildings red. It matters not in which of the two dozen and odd kingdoms, hereditary principalities, and grand duchies. It is sufficient to state that the town is in a grand duchy, that it con- tains a Residenz — something between a bar- rack and an hotel in appearance, provided with helmeted sentries promenading before vividly striated sentry-boxes. Said town is called Schlangenberg, and is situate in the valley of the Schlange, a brown and speckly tributary of the Rhine, which well deserves ON THEIR TRAVELS. 189 its ophidian name. The brown comes from plentiful and frequently-stirred mud, com- bined with Schlangenberg sewage. The broad gray dabs and speckles of dry colour are flat stones. Yet the river is beautiful, and one can love it, smell and all. Charlie and Caspar are sitting in the garden of a tavern or Garten- Wirthschaft on the oue side of the Schlange, watching it reflect the town and sky on the other. The town is ancient and beautiful. Its tall houses are high-roofed, and covered with tiles which in daylight are red-brown if old, and mottled-yellow if new, but are now of a uniform dusky colour. The tower of the old Stift-Kirche stands up in the centre of the encampment of human dwellings, with a red stone shaft and bell-shaped bulbous steeple of blue slate. Behind and ' above the town is the Schloss — an ivied, mossy Burg-Ruine, with empty roofless towers and ]90 TEE WATERS OF MARAH. skeleton gables, through whose window-fretted wall the moon will shine later on, giving such stainless beauty and still dignity to this great silent sepulchre of the dead Middle Age, and its mighty and ferocious Eitters and Grafs (who were to the present grand- ducal dignity as great a contrast as the tenantless Schloss is to the ceremony and sentry-ridden Eesidenz), as will make the most prosaic tourist leave his bed and his Baedeker for a while, to think confusedly of higher things. It was built from the red quarries in the wooded hill on whose side it stands, as the town was — and continues to be. Behind the delicately-etched outline of fir-tree tops that crown the crest of the hill is the faint golden glow of a moon unrisen. There is also a hill behind on this side of the river, where our Garten- Wirthschaft and its two English occupants are, called the ON THEIR TRAVELS. 191 Traubenberg, from the many shelving vine- yards that cover it, tier above tier, whereof in the proper season the natives make a pallid golden beverage, a very "poor creature," which they call Schlangen-wein. The trian- gular notch formed by the river-valley seen in section between these two hills is filled by the distant western sky and a wide level plain, now shadowy, limitless, and sombre with twilight, specked here and there by the spark of a train rushing as fast as a German train is permitted to rush. The firmament is faint from the fervency of a summer day just departed. The long, thin, frayed, vaporous streaks of cloud that slope across it are now dull brown, that were a quarter of an hour ago dazzling flame and salmon-colour. The atmosphere that looked green, and azure, and opal, is now gray — a pale, colourless, transparent gray — cut sharply across by the three arches of 192 THE WATERS OF MARAH. the high -backed, black -looking, old stone bridge. And everything except the bat above is very still. And the scent of the flowers and shrubs comes out now as it never does in the day. And the two sunburnt travellers, sallow in this demi-jour, have ordered two fresh glasses of beer. " What a splendid old town it is ! " at last observes young Deane, after a prolonged silence. "It is. Strange that it should be when it holds such mean crawling things as it does. Go across the bridge, and into the streets. What is the soul of this beautiful body ? Swaggering soldiers, sodden students, cringing Jews, dirty lanes, an atmosphere of Mainzer cheese, fried fish, garlic, German tobacco, and other worse and nameless things. In the Wirthshauser, what ? The Schlangen- ON TEE IB TRAVELS. 193 berger Anzeiger and beer. In the cafes ? Billiards, the Schlangenberger Anzeiger, and beer. In the houses of the Philisterei ? Dulness, the Schlangenberger Anzeiger, and beer. In the Eesidenz ? A Grand Duke, some soldiers, more dulness, more Anzeiger, and much more beer. In the Schloss ? Silence and nothing, and trees and twilight. And that is the best place of all." " Can no good thing come out of Schlan- genberg % " "We have just come out of it. I look towards you. Prosit ! " "Prosit!" " One of the best things," adds Charlie, "that comes out of it is this refreshing amber fluid." " The best thing they produce in Germany except music and poetry. All we have to complain of is that they make them in too large quantities." VOL. I. O 194 THE WATERS OF MABAB. " Don't you like German poetry and music, then ? " "And beer? Of course I do. I like everything that is good when it is good. I even like Germans sometimes." " You are very condescending. Aren't you of German descent yourself ? Thy name bewrayeth thee." " My name betrays a race that had art and letters when the Germans were in an even more barbaric state than at present." " That's hardly consistent with your last speech, is it ? " " If there is one thing I think it a stern kindness to check in a rising young man, whose aim is to make himself generally plea- sant, it is the habit of attacking people for inconsistency. Inconsistency is one of the few luxuries, except beer, which Fate spares to a poor man, and one of the dearest human vices, as you will find, when you have learned ON THEIR TRAVELS. 195 to know anything about women. I didn't say I thoroughly admired Germans, or that I thoroughly admired anybody. The best butter has hairs in it, as a proverb of this dear and truly delicate old country hath it. Here I will give you some facts, hitherto neglected in natural history books, that will explain my appreciation of Germans. There are, I would have you know, two sorts of rats, the hungry and the fat, as the poet says. There are also two sorts of human beings — the clever and the stupid. In England that fact can be realised as well as the fact that the latter class is in an incomparable majority. But though a really clever and good Englishman is far better and cleverer than a really ditto ditto German, a stupid German is less offensively aggressive than a stupid Englishman — he keeps and recognises his place more. You don't find my friend the clever fool so much here. I think he is a genuine British product. o 2 196 THE WATERS OF MABAH. There is a forwardness about the British fool which is not so noticeable in the German one." " Why are you always so beastly discon- tented with everything ? " " I am not aware that I said I was dis- contented with anything. I said that the streets of Schlangenberg smelt, and intimated that the majority of their inhabitants were rather stupid, in which respect they resemble the population of any other place. I did not express dissatisfaction or surprise at that fact. I have no reason to be otherwise than placidly comfortable. I have a fine evening, a beau- tiful outlook, good beer, and a highly enter- taining friend, who has not spoken three sentences as yet, I fancy. I am not in love with anybody. Was willst du noch mehr ? " " What do you propose that we should do now we are here ? " " Enjoy the beauty of the place. Climb the hills when we feel so disposed ; bathe in ON THEIR TRAVELS. 107 the river ; go walks ; talk ; smoke ; write ; read." " Nothing could be better as a holiday programme. And is that all you came here for ? " " 1 might have proposed our going to a dozen different beautiful places. Fate drifted me here. It is a good place. We are free, we are alone, we live cheaply and pleasantly, and are not likely to fall into scrapes. When I go back to England it will be when the Knights of the Pen are regathered at the Round Table of < The Spotted Hound.' " The garden the pair were sitting in over- hung the riverside road, which was protected from the landslips which might have inter- rupted the traffic by a red stone wall some nine feet high. The summit of this wall was at their feet. A low wooden trellis ran along the broad flat edge, covered with clustering clematis and Virginian vine, long stray sprays 198 THE WATERS OF MAE AH. of which hung down over the wall below. They could see a considerable distance along the road in both directions — one way towards the bridge, the other up the winding, dark- ening river- valley, where village lights began to gleam redly. Far away the white dusty road's curves swerved round cliff and bush and rock, until it lost itself in a final winding. At this part of it a black spot appeared, not unlike an insect in motion. The gleaming lividity of the road made it visible where it would otherwise have been indistinguishable in the shades that were rising. (The shades of night do not fall — pace Longfellow. The highest parts are the last to be obscured in the gloaming.) This black spot, on nearer exami- nation, proved to be a two-horse droschke taking someone out for the favourite evening drive along the river. It passed under Charlie and Caspar's eyes as they sat looking over the trellis. Charlie and Caspar were sitting on ON THEIR TRAVELS. 199 opposite sides of the table. The former faced the east and the valley of the Schlange ; the latter faced the west and the bridge, open plain, and sky. The town joined their sepa- rate views into a semicircle, of which the bridge leading to the town was, roughly speaking, a radius, regarding the table in the riverside beer-garden as a centre. The result of this was that Caspar saw whoever might be sitting with their backs to the horses in this carriage as it turned to cross the bridge ; and on this seat of the droschke sat a girl apparently quite young, dressed in white, with a large straw and cream satin Vandyck hat with a white feather. She carried a white fan. And Caspar saw her face, and saw nothing else. He could not have described her then, except to say that she was fair, and that he knew she had the most peaceful and beautiful face he had ever seen. It came on him like a shock, this vision that went away 200 THE WATERS OF MABAH. into the dusk as quickly as it came from it. But she saw his face and dark hair leaning on his hand in the sallow gray glow of the evening. Charlie had not seen her. " Homeward-bound tourists, I suppose ? '* said he. "Who was sitting on the seat facing you ? " " Old gentleman and lady — gray felt squash hat ; white sunshade lined with green ; Baedeker ; mild cigar." Then they strolled out, paid the "lawin," and went across the bridge, and back to the tall old house in the Boss-Platz where they lodged. There was music, and " Italienische Nacht" in some garden not far off; and Charlie leaned out of the window listening to it, and letting hot tobacco-ashes fall on the policeman as he passed and repassed. There are few more beautiful, peaceful, ON THEIR TRAVELS. 201 and one may say pathetic things than distant music on a summer night, especially if that music be "An den schonen blauen Donau," as it then was. I know that the waltz is hackneyed, and I know that the Donau is not blue,, but that is nothing. The rooms were very high — high enough to satisfy Professor Teufelsdrockh, late of the Wahngasse of Weissnichtwo— being two out of a row of several garrets. Very comfortable garrets, however, these two travellers found them, being men of a nature to find comfort wherever were health, fun, and friendship. Ubi bene, ibi patria, as the students used to shout through the open windows of their kneipe-locals. And when the Schloss arose, like a red dream -picture from the "Nibelungen Lied," out of a base of morning mist, through which the July sunrise gleamed with the solitary and mysterious glory of early morn- ing, the sight was worth the effort of 202 TEE WATERS OF MAEAE. climbing four flights of polished wooden stairs to see. " By-the-way," said Charlie, bringing his head back into the room, " who was sitting in the part of the carriage I didn't see ? " "In mine eyes, the sweetest lady that ever I looked upon." "Oh! And these things being thus, what do you mean to do ? " " I shall go most festinately to bed ; and you had better do the same. It's past ten, and one can't sleep long in these summer mornings." "You can. But I mean, what course are you going to adopt with regard to the fair unknown — by me unseen ? Are you going to write verses ? Are you going to recant all the scorn you emptied from the buckets of your bitterness on young lovers ? Are you going to serenade ? Where do you think you'll break out first ? " ON THE IB TRAVEL 8. 203 M I think I shall incontinently break your head first, if you indulge in much more of the shorter catechism of insanity. Because I simply remark that I saw a pretty girl with an attractive expression, and borrowed from Shakespeare for the better utterance of that opinion, why should I be made a target for blunt arrows ? Your mind jumps at romantic conclusions with such telegraphic haste that one can see clearly what is upper- most in it. But you needn't invest your friends with the mantle that cloaks your own mind." " You are too emphatic, old boy, in your defence to be genuine. It's not good enough." " Lord ! and how long have you professed apprehension ? " " Since I fell into the same hole myself. I have not been the same man since." " Haven't you ? Well, you haven't long been a man of any sort at all. You will 204 THE WATERS OF MARAH. be able to be a great many different ones in ten years or so, if you go on in this way.' 7 " Caspar Eosenfeld, you are babbling non- sense, as an excuse for changing the subject. You are suffering from love at first sight, and are ashamed of it for unknown reasons." " Go to bed," grunted Caspar. " I say, how about the ' callous cicatrix/ eh?" To this sally there was no reply, and Charlie undressed in a leisurely way, walking about the room whistling. ' ' Caspar ! " Silence. < ' Caspar ! " " Well ? " " Eemember it is written, ' Eros, the oldest and the youngest of the gods."' "Though it be not written, remember that you are an ass." " You quote wrong. It's the other way." ' 'What is it, then?" " Eemember that I am an ass." " Quite so. Good-night." CHAPTER IT. SHOWING HOW A SUMMER MORNING MAY BE WASTED. When Caspar came down the next morning he found Charlie just; returned from the enclosed mud-puddle, locally called a bathing- place, and walking up and down the garden while the maid Anna brought breakfast. This meal was spread under an acacia-tree in the back-garden, and the consumers sat on springy iron chairs, whose legs sank deeply when sat on into the turf — no, not the turf, but the earth, studded with alternate small stones and weeds, which is thought to be 206 THE WATERS OF MABAE. turf in Germany. Charlie remarked, flourish- ing the local news sheet : " I have been pretending to read this beastly thing, to impose on Anna, while she brought the coffee. Perhaps you can tell me if there is anything besides advertisements." " Let's see. A series of solide mddchen want places. There will be a great double military concert on Sunday evening in the Blumen-Garten, by the united efforts of the Grand Ducal and Imperial 107th Infantry Eegiment and the Grand Ducal and Imperial 18th Cuirassier ditto, under the leading of Herr Ober-Capellmeister Grunbaum, with Bengal illumination. That will please you, especially the Bengal illumination. The only news which is not copied from the English paper of the day before yesterday is the recent arrivals at the hotels." " Talking of recent arrivals, when I went for my morning dip, while you were snoring A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 207 (don't deny that you snore), I met a fellow there I know at home — rather a decent sort, who has a place in our neighbourhood. I have been slightly acquainted with him for years, and, though he was a little too aristo- cratic to fraternise with a humble beggar like me at home, here of course it's different (you know the funny way one finds intimate friends abroad in people whom one barely nods to in England), and he happens to be here. He is staying at the same hotel with some people called Menteith." " All this is truly interesting ; especially the fact that he is staying at an hotel which contains some people called Menteith. Is that the end of the story — all the early worm you have picked up ? " " Don't scoff till I've done. His name is Farringdon. He was in church that Christmas Day, you know." " More and more exciting this story grows. 208 TEE WATERS OF MABAE. His name is Farringdon. He was at church on Christmas Day. Pray go on." " I found them in the paper. Here they are : ' Hotel zum Kron-Prinz. — Menteith, Scotland ; Miss Menteith, Miss K. Menteith ; Farringdon, England/" "Well?" " Well, it appears that the old male Menteith is a kind of uncle or third Scotch cousin, or something, to Farringdon." "Do you take sugar?" "Yes, lots. Then another curious thing happened. While we were standing about on the shore, after coming out of the Bad Place, as it's called (and it was hot enough this morning), the man Farringdon said he was waiting for his aunt, or third Scotch cousin, to come out of the female Bad Place. She came. Farringdon introduced me as an intimate friend of his. Aunt (or cousin) Menteith bowed stiffly, and seemed conscious A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 209 that she looked as if she had been bathing. I don't mean clean, you know, but dishevelled. So I left them." "Your coffee is filming over. You will be able to skate on it when this exhilarating romance about people I don't know is done." " The aunt is the lady who was in the back seat of that carriage last night ; but I am boring you. What shall we do after breakfast ? " " Go on, you malicious young ape ! You have left off at the instant an element of interest got into your story." " Oh, it doesn't signify. There isn't much more to tell." "Was the aunt Menteith alone?" " Certainly. Why ? You seem to find my story less stupid than I thought you did." " It was as stupid a story as only you could tell. Is that all of it ? " VOL. I. P 210 THE WATERS OF MABAH. "Well, they suggested I should dine at their table d'hote" " And you accepted ? " "Not exactly. I said I had a friend with me — an eccentric sort of cuss, who wore his hair long, and wrote in the papers." " Blaspheming idiot ! She'll think I'm a reporter." " Who's < she ' ? " " Aunt Menteith, naturally. What effect did your telling description — quite uncalled for, by-the-way — have ? " "What does it matter what people like that think of a contemner of public opinion like yourself ? " "Answer my questions, or I'll brain you with the coffee-pot." " They said, c Oh, bring him too ! ' I accepted for both." "Like your cheek." "And explained that you were generally A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 211 harmless, though your relations paid me handsomely to look after you in a medical way, permanently." "You have indeed distinguished yourself this morning. You deserve your breakfast now." " The coffee is an importation from the glacial period, and has pillow-cases floating on it, and noisome beasts walking on them. It's all your fault for making me talk so long on matters you swear don't interest you the least." And Charlie ate. Caspar communed with himself, pushing his cup away from him, and lighting a thing called a cigar in Germany and costing ten pfennigs, invented all sorts of schemes and long stories of what might happen if he once got acquainted with that quiet fair- haired fairy in the two-horse droschke. Charlie had not seen her (presumably " Miss E. Menteith "). Caspar, you see, had, and that made a great difference between them. 212 THE WATERS OF MABAB. Caspar's self-communion, so far as it can be articulately portrayed, was of this kind : " Question is, what is to happen ? Shall I let her remain for ever to me the passing vision of a summer evening, like the clouds with golden wings that give the still sky its beauty, and are gone before we have well seen them ? Or shall I be introduced in the ordinary way, and perhaps find that she is- fond of lawn-tennis, crewel-work, and Miss Braddon's novels ? But supposing I find nothing of the sort, but that she is what she looks — beautiful and pure and gracious, full of all fair thought and strange imaginings ? I was too far off to see her eyes' colour. I think they must be gray and deep, like the sea, like those eyes Baudelaire tells of, or those other eyes, perhaps, That wax and "wane with love for hours ; Green as green flame — blue-gray, like skies, And soft, like sighs. A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 213 And sometimes there should be a wondering far-away look in them, like the recollection of some old Edda story or Nibelung romance, which she figured in in a previous state of existence, or one of those tragic and mys- terious .anonymous poems so plentiful in her native land. There is a fairy tale in her eyes to him who can read it. And perhaps I might read it. And I have not even seen the book yet. Let time shape, and there an end." And he stared up through the smoke into the blue air. "Well, what's the matter with you?" said Charlie, wiping his mouth. " What shall we do this morning ? " "As it is my duty to write letters, and yours to read ' Otto's German Grammar ' and ' Materia Medica,' we will taste of the keen pleasure of neglecting our duties. We will ascend to the woods near the Schloss, we will take pipes, and some instructive 214 TEE WATERS OF MAEAE. book to lay open before us to impose on public opinion. Then we will lie about and watch the clouds crossing the fir-tree tops, and the sunshine coming in long dewy- diagonal downstrokes between the stems, and you shall tell me all your hospital funny stories over again ; and I will laugh, and then " " Well, after this invigorating morning ? " "After that we will dine at one o'clock, in accordance with the custom of this savage and benighted country, at your table d'hdte at the " Kron-Prinz." "All right. By-the-way, didn't you say there was a girl in that carriage ? " " In which carriage ? " " Don't be a hypocrite ! Seriously, wasn't there ? " " In sadness, cousin, I do think there was. And she was fair." Charlie softly whistled the refrain of a A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 215 popular comic song, which might be con- sidered as an irreverent comment on the "situation," as he would call it. Charlie was fond of theatrical slang, and thought the use of it showed a deep acquaintance with the modes of the town. I regret to add that he knew all the popular music-hall songs, and too frequently and too appositely- quoted them. His whistle just now was peculiarly irritating, suggesting a hideously vulgar jargon (or jobelin, as Villon might call it) about " real jam," which drew from Caspar the remark : "If I am to take you out with me you will assume the virtue you have not, and behave like a civilised member of society, and not spread the idea that I associate with that cross between a satyr and the Aquarium orang-outang called a medical student, who lives in a music-hall and sleeps in a police-cell." "Now I call that unkind, as it is only 216 THE WATERS OF MARAH. through me that you have the slightest chance of speaking to that young lady, for whom I have the profoundest respect. Come on ! " And Charlie clattered down the red free- stone steps, which led from the garden into the street behind the house, whistling, " There's another good man gone wrong ! " Caspar put a copy of " Faust " in his pocket and followed, looking round for some object of trifling value and considerable weight to hurl at his volatile and flippant friend in the foreground. Nothing can be pleasanter as a morning's occupation than a climb up the moist shady sand-paths that lead through fir and beech woods, up to and beyond the old Schloss of Schlangenberg. There it is cool, though the Eoss-Platz and the Anlage be frying at 33° Celsius (by the Grand-Ducal and Imperial public thermometer and Witterangs-Bericht.) A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 217 And there is a pool there, where white water- lilies float, and yellow ones hold up round heads on slender strong necks, an inch or so above the water. And grass grows down to the edge, and trees cast their shadows on the . water, and make stripes of shade and sunlight on the body of the mutilated, moss-eaten, gray and red stone Triton, who is meant to spout up water in the middle — and doesn't. He did it last, probably, when the Schloss had a roof on it. " Better than the Strand this, and the 1 Benk-City-Benk ! ' 'buses, and the special editions, and boxes of lights, isn't it ? " said Charlie. "Ay, or St. Philip's Hospital, redolent of antiseptics and anaesthetics, and resonant with wailing children. This is the place in which to read German poetry." "Or to sing English," replied Charlie, gazing into the reedy, weedy pond, and softly 218 TEE WATERS OF MABAE. chanting his diabolical chorus of " Eeal Jam." " You annoy me very much," said Caspar ; " I think I should pitch you into the pool, if it were not certain that you would raise mud for a fortnight." "I might find Ophelia somewhere at the bottom." "No, sir ! Ophelia floats eternally on an English stream, which is always carrying her to the German Ocean and never gets there. We will never give Shakespeare up to the Deutschers. They may have the mud-and- sand bank they call ' Helgoland/ if they like ; but not — not our Shakespeare. I know there is a prevailing impression in the University here that he was a German author, but that is simply their cursed conceit." " You know, Kosenfeld, theoretically, if there is anything in heredity, you ought to be enthusiastic about the Fatherland, and A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 219 deride and despise English customs and intellect, and English commentators of the bard." "My dear young friend, if there were half as much in heredity as Zola makes out, I ought to be buying old clothes and eating fried fish this minute. Do you read the naturalism school at all ? " " Not more than I can help. It is rather a trial, too, to my French." " If they are a fair representation of all grades of French society, I'm sorry for France." " There isn't a single person you can really like in them." "I never could quite reconcile the na- turalism of Medan with the naturalism of Nature. I like one, and I don't like the other. It doesn't matter. There are still great men in France whose words are good to read, and don't take away the appetite. 220 THE WATERS OF MAE AH. What I object to even more than the high priest of Cloacina at Medan are the posse of young disciples who blow his trumpet. "A has Medan! Vive Meudun!" But the discriminating and occasionally impatient reader cannot, in all conscience, be dragged through the irresponsible chatter of two lazy young men, indulging in midsummer day's dreams in a German forest. If there had been a different arrangement made by the Fates, there might have been an oppor- tunity for listening through the tree-stems to the "music of man with maid," which would be more attractive than the spasmodic and intermittent profundity and badinage of two sun-tanned, tobacco-exhaling males. They talked about many things, from Ben Jonson to bacteria and from bacteria to foreign politics, and Caspar quite forgot that he had a book in his pocket, till he felt it bumping against him when they both got A SUMMER MORNING WASTED. 221 up to descend the hill. The Schloss was then full of tourists, adorned with puggarees, and in abject bondage to their patron saint Baedeker, and feeling obliged to insist on identifying all the things described by that authority, instead of beingj content with the fact that the whole was beautiful, whatever the name and century of the baron or elector who built some wall or pinnacle. When the two reached the promenade lined with chestnut-trees, the shady Anlage where all Schlangenberg exhibits itself of an evening, it lay in a state of calm hot desertion. The hour of one in Schlangenberg is as sacred as the hour of muezzin in the laud of Islam, and not a human being is abroad. The same tranquil and solemn solitude exists in every town, street, and lane of the Father- land at that hour, for then takes place the most important event in the daily history of the German nation. At one Germany dines. CHAPTER III. In deinen Augen hab' ich einst gelesen Es blitzte drinn' von Lieb' und Gliick ein Schein. The Hotel zum Kron-Prinz is the oldest, most respectable, and most expensive — or least cheap — in Schlangenberg, and conse- quently the one best known and frequented by the numerous foreign visitors. It is the centre of all events of social importance. If you want to be married or buried, you will do it " from " this hotel. If a committee sits to organise a boating or tennis club, it dates its decrees from it. The American ball takes place in its white and gold fest-saal on the 4th of July. It is in the same square as the University and the Grand-Ducal and DICK MENTIi/tH. 223 Imperial town-pump, and is an imposing building advantageously situated. For fur- ther details (in German-English) see the proprietor's advertisement in " Bradshaw." As Caspar stood in its dining-room, dividing, his attention between a life-size print of the hereditary Grand Duke and a hanging time-table of the Schlangenberg- Traubenberg-Donnerwetzingen - Staats - Eisen- bahn-Gesellschaft, he had the pleasure of hearing a male voice saying : " I say, Deane, who's the blue and sallow-faced man ? Looks like an actor on leave, doesn't he ? " The blue and sallow-faced man continued imper- turbably his study of the Personen-Tarif. " Shut up. He'll hear you. It's my friend Eosenfeld. Told you about him, you know. Awfully clever chap : writes and all that, you know." Then Charlie said in a louder voice, "Let me introduce you men: Farringdon — Eosenfeld. " 224 THE WATERS OF MAE AH. Caspar turned round, and found a fair and rather good-looking young man, in the act of saying " How are you ? " and thrusting forth a small and rather pretty hand, with a big seal-ring on it. They shook hands. George Farringdon was faultlessly dressed, as Oxford men generally are. Caspar was in his usual ancient but becoming suit of dark-blue serge. Then Miss Menteith the elder appeared, a tall and gaunt lady (rather like a man dressed up, as Charlie remarked afterwards, with characteristic irreverence), who gave Caspar what she would describe as a "boo," and made remarks anent the heat of the day. English and American travellers of various ages and sexes were trooping in by this time, and pale perspiring waiters in low-necked shirts were rushing along in the style peculiar to waiters, bearing impossibly high piles of soup-plates. Among them arrived the large form of Menteith of DICK MENTEITH. 225 Kimburl3 — a red-faced gentleman with small gray eyes, a turned-up nose, and shining white hair — who shook hands with Caspar and Charlie, remarking, "Ye'll be George's friends I'm thinking ! " very cordially. Kim- burls was always cordial. It suited his style to display a kind of bluff hilarity, coupled with half-humorous, half-cunning observa- tions, which were made more amusing, or more expressive, by the deep Glasgow grunt in which they were delivered. There are three kinds of Glasgow voice. There is the plaintive high whine (not to be confused with the Highland scream), the guttural grunt, and the mixture of the two. Menteith of Kimburls had the middle tone of the above. Miss Menteith, " Ma suster," as he reintroduced her, had the first variety. And behind Kimburls came a small figure, in a pale, creamy-white dress of washing print, dashed here and there with VOL. I. Q 226 THE WATERS OF MABAE. pale pink ribbon, with fair brown hair drawn up from the back of the neck into a flat round coil near the top of the head, and developing into a curly and still fairer halo round the upper part of a face, of which the large gray eyes had in them a still absorbed and dreamy look until they met Caspar's, Then they suddenly became aware that they looked on human beings as well as the deep blue heaven beyond the open windows of the " Kron-Prinz " dining-saloon. The profile was delicate and distinct, with a straightness verging on the retrousse. There are straight- lined noses and chins which verge on the aquiline, and others which verge on the opposite type. Such persons as possess them probably have relatives in whom the characteristic concavity or convexity is more marked. Kimburls, for example, had a de- cidedly concave outline to his nose. This girl's complexion had the purity, and, one DICK AIENTEITE. 227 might almost say, the seeming fragility, o white egg-shell china with the dawn shining through it. Her hands and feet were in proportion to the slight and light body, and the whole structure looked frail enough to ride on a silver cloud, or cross the sea by walking over a lunar rainbow. Caspar is responsible for these rather fantastic illus- trations. This was Miss Dick Menteith, who shook hands with Charlie and Caspar when intro- duced, oblivious or unaware that such a pro- ceeding was unconventional ; thereby causing the raising of the eyebrows of one George Malcolm Farringdon for a second, as he glanced critically at the careless travel- worn suit of clothes and unusual face of Caspar, black-browed but gentle, like night, set pale in a background of wavy black mane. The brown, compact, cheerful little man with the eyeglass offended him not. Q 2 228 TEE WATERS OF MARAH. He was a familiar object to Farringdon, and wore the collars and boots prescribed by " good form," and might be tolerated, in spite of a poor origin and a tendency to smoke clay-pipes ; but the friend, the " blue and sallow- faced " man, the " awfully clever chap," annoyed him, George Malcolm Far- ringdon, very much. For at dinner, and during the subsequent service of coffee in the hotel-garden, the blue and sallow-faced man gently but firmly, with an apparent absence of intention or design, " walked through" and "gave away," as the men of the West phrase it, all George's pet notions and theories on things in general in the most natural way in the world, and intro- duced an originality and a knowledge of men and things into the conversation such as were, George felt, something very different from his own superficialities and dilettantisms, with which he had dazzled the girl used only DICK MENTEITH. 229 to a limited section of Glasgow legal and commercial society. Caspar also made himself popular with old Kimburls, and, in a less degree, with Miss Menteith senior; and George felt a vague conviction stealing over him that, if it were ever possible for a person so near ideal perfection as himself to make a mistake, he had, perhaps, made it in being so suddenly cordial to Charlie Deane, simply because he had a familiar face and spoke English. Caspar felt that he was making a common- place exhibition of himself through over- strained efforts to suppress natural eccen- tricities of his style, which to strangers were often startling and the reverse of conciliatory. He talked with Dick Menteith less than with anyone, and summed up his impressions to himself, as he sat balancing his wooden chair on its hind legs, and watching her listen to him, as she twisted a syringa-blossom to 230 TEE WATERS OF MABAH. pieces, or played with a teaspoon, and occa- sionally laughed unrestrainedly in the way of one who has not outgrown the charms of nonsense, or learned that the highest social achievement is the art of concealing sym- pathy save in the form of well-bred dilution. And his summing-up took the form of certain lines from that " dead shepherd " re- membered and partially quoted in like time of need by Phebe : It lies not in our power to love or hate ; For will iu us is overruled by Fate. . . . Where both deliberate the love is slight ; "Who ever loved that loved not at first sight ? But Leander's method of broaching the sub- ject has been rendered obsolete by the incrus- tations of social restriction which have grown up since his time on the sudden passions of men or women. The Hellespont is more easily crossed than these. And not so cold. And one cannot, in ordinary nineteenth- DICK MENTEITH. 231 century society, to which one has been but recently introduced, suddenly emit a poetic and rapturous, as well as very personal, address, in a tone of frenzied conviction. Therefore Caspar Eosenfeld said to Mr. Menteith : " Is this your first visit to Ger- many?" to which he, with the caution of a witness under cross-examination, replied : " Well, we have not been here before." Then waxing eloquent for the benefit of a listener who had not yet heard his opinions on Continental Europe, he added : " We stayed a couple of days in Cologne. My woman- kind, as Oldbuck had it, were tired, as we had had a long sea voyage." " Who is Oldbuck ? " from George Far- ringdon. Dick looked up reproachfully. " Oh, you know, surely," she said ; " have you forgotten Walter Scott so soon ? " "Of course not. But I didn't imme- 232 TEE WATERS OF MABAE. diately take for granted that the laird was quo ting.' ' " Yere knowledge of Scotch leeterature is a bit rusty, ma lad. I'm not a romance-reader maself, but I know Monkbarns." " I thought you said Oldbuck ? " "A didd." " Oh, I see." And George, sullen under the subdued laugh in Caspar's eyes, relapsed into critical silence. "A was sayin' we made the voyage by Eotterdam ; and that's a long hurrl from Leith Pier, ye'll allow." " Certainly," said Caspar, with a glance of pity at Miss Dick Menteith. He threw away all his available pity on her, unaware that she was the best sailor of the family, and had sat upright on deck at night on a camp-stool, looking at the sea and the star- light, when not ministering to the comfort of her much-suffering aunt. DICK MENTEITH. 233 " A'm a good sailor," continued Kimburls, as if the importance of his own sea comfort were paramount; "and it seemed a pity to waste on rellrods the money ye could spend abrod, when a good, cheap, and wholesome sea jurrney would save it." " Ye would," said his sister, with decision and asperity. " At Cologne I think they charged us for two candles we did not burrn ; but as I put fohrr into ma bahg after a'd ped the lawin', as we say in Scotland, it was a small matter. We visited the cathedral." "Did you make them rake out those old three kings ? " asked Charlie. " No," replied Aunt Jane Menteith. " We did not wish to encourage their blind delu- sions." " A racket ye were unwilling to enter the edifice." "Perhaps," said Caspar, "you agree in 234 THE WATERS OF MABAH. calling it the Bastille of the German mind ? " " Cairrtainly. Was it Luther said that ? " "It was a German Jew who said it. It always seems to me a pity that the three kings can't rise up for an hour or two, and compare the rich dim solemnity and stony grandeur of their shrine with a certain inn- stable they once visited. That stable-stall has developed into countless magnificent cathe- drals, with gold and jewellery and cunning work inside, with the lame, and the halt, and the blind, and the poor crouched on the steps of their porches. And the wealth inside does not make the beggar less hungry, as he kneels when the procession passes by him." " Ye're right, young man, ye're right ! " said Kimburls, choosing to discover a strong Protestant bias in Caspar's remarks. "We saw them kneeling in the street," DICK MENTEITH. 235 said Miss Menteith ; "it was pairfeckly scandalous." " I was~so sorry for them/' said Dick. " Sorry ! " retorted her aunt. " Set them up ! " 11 On their feet, Jeanie, surely — surely." Charlie, apprehensive of a religious discus- sion, to which he knew by domestic experience elderly Scotch people were prone, said quickly : " Where did you put up in Cologne ? " "At the Hotel du Dome." Here Mr. Menteith recapitulated the candle incident, and criticised the hotel dietary, and concluded by adding confidentially to Caspar and Charlie that there was a bottle of good whisky which travelled with him. " AVe are very comfort- able here," he added, " and have most pleasant apartments, with a bolcony looking over the square ; we can see the people in the flower and fruit market in the morning. A go out and barrgen with them. AVe lurrnt a good 236 THE WATERS OF MARAH. quantity of German. It's not unlike brod Scots." "And over the tops of the houses," said Dick, " you can see the castle. It is the only thing that induces me to get up early, because I can see it under morning sunlight from our sitting-room balcony." " That is more than I can do. I don't think I ever saw a sunrise in my life," said George Farringdon, " except from the deck of that beastly Channel steamer." "We have certain attics in this square," said Caspar, "which also have the advantage of that eastern view. In town, where there are no particular attractions about the day- light, where jocund day lies yellow on the sooty chimney-pots, I generally sleep till late ; but here, I confess, I simply must get up to see one of the most beautiful sights there are on this earth — the sunrise lighting those red walls and misty woods." DICK MENTEITE. 237 " We have made a few pleasant acquaint- ances in this hotel," observed Kimburls, who was not enthusiastic about the beauty of Nature, " which helps us to pass the time pleasantly. There is an extremely intelligent and diyurrting Dutch gentleman " " Who plays chess," continued Dick. " He sat next to me at dinner, and said, ' Do you speak English ? ' I said ' Yes/ c Ah, I am a Dutchman. I speak English. Do you play chess ? ' ' No/ I said. It was not quite true, but I hate the game. I suppose I deserved to be told, ' Ah zo ! Then I will teach you/ I had some difficulty in escaping afterwards. My father adores him ; and they talk about commerce and play chess every evening." " Ye know nothing about it, Dick. He is a most divurrting and well-informed purrson." "He is not very divertiug when he is 238 TEE WATERS OF MAEAE. discussing things with his wife in the night. Their room is next to mine, and the wall is made of paper, and in the morning, when I want to sleep, she talks a great deal, walk- ing about the room, while he, evidently in bed, with his voice coming from somewhere near the wall, low down, says ' Ach zo ! ' at intervals, trying to go to sleep, and agree- ing with everything she says ; and you know he has always got that carved wooden smile." " Men cannot be fairly judged when they are sleepy in the morning," said Caspar. "The very act of awakening them embitters their disposition, and takes away from them any becoming or amiable character they may have in wakeful, washed, and well-fed mo- ments. They feel as they look, and that is the worst thing, perhaps, I can say." " Do you answer to your own description, Mr. Eosenfeld ? " asked Dick ; " when you wake, I mean." DICK MENTEITE. 239 "Ask Deane ; he generally wakes me. The only enjoyment he finds in it is probably the consciousness that I have yet to suffer what he has already recovered from. In getting up, it is the first step that costs more than in any other situation." "Waking Caspar is a difficult and a thankless task/' said Charlie. George Farringclon looked bored. " I saw you, I think," said Dick to Caspar, "yesterday evening." " Where ? " asked Caspar ; then, observing Charlie's unconscious eyeglass betraying a certain faint derision in the eye behind it, destined to become orally emphatic in the confidence of subsequent privacy, he blushed internally for his duplicity, and added : " Oh yes, you mean in that bier-garten on the other side of the Schlange. You were coming back from a drive." " You saw me too, then ? " 240 TEE WATERS OF MABAE. " I saw you." He did not add that he had seen little else ever since. And so Caspar and Dick chatted on, with frequent conversational intermissions on the part of Kimburls and his sister. When the two young men left to get their hats from inside the hotel, Kimburls said : " A verra pleasant and entertaining young man/' George, taking for granted, for reasons of his own, which young man was so des- cribed, said : "Well, so you all seem to think; I'm shot if I can see it." Then he added : "He seemed to me to talk a lot of rot about a number of disconnected things, and I can't say he amused or instructed much — at least, it was lost on me." "Ye can't well deliver a discoorrse with heads, joodyspree, and a pairraration in DICK MENTEITR. 241 ordinary conversation, on a hot day, with strangers," said Kimburls. He had George safely in tow now as prospective son-in-law, and could afford to patronise and break jests upon him, or what went for such in the Kimburls mind. " It's rather nice to talk nonsense some- times," added Dick. " Dulce est deseepere in locko" concluded her father. Miss Jane Menteith set him down as an apparently respectable and not ill-informed young man. George didn't want to say any- thing against the fellow, but fancied he was a Jew. And the young lady herself? Well, strange to say, though she was amused and interested by the man from an unfamiliar planet, it never occurred to her to compare him in any wa}^ to her " bachelor," her ancient playmate, her quasi-cousin George, VOL. I. K 242 TEE WATERS OF MABAR. whose person and ways and wits were matters of every-day experience to her. She was but a few months over eighteen, had never been to school, and had all her knowledge of men and women from books and songs, heard, found, and studied in an old Scotch country house ; and it had not as yet entered her mind that marriage was anything but the constant association prolonged through the future which had always existed in the past, and she classed the fierce passions and strange adventures of the men and maidens in her mediaeval ballads and plays with the age of miracles. She had, of course, had modest little dreams of the ideal "him" — not in the style and costume of the nineteenth century, but in a steel headpiece and a two-handed sword, riding a black horse in the moonlight across the mosses and marches ; or in a buff coat and large-brimmed beaver, charging with Prince Kupert for his King. DICK MENTUITH. 243 But she had not quite found him in George Farringdon, in spite of his descent. The liking she had for this undeniably good- looking young man was of the kind that it had always been since childhood, and no man had ever taught her that this kind of liking, though satisfactory from some points of view, was not just everything ; and, such being her position, she acquiesced placidly in the engagement, and never dreamed of studying the rest of male humanity with a view to bettering her selection. George, whose feelings were of a much warmer nature, instinctively felt that her condition was some- thing of this kind, and was afflicted by a continual nervous dread of the impressions other men might make on her — a dread which made him morbidly sensitive to any real or apparent inferiority of himself to them, and laborious to make himself shine before her •as the ideal of gentlemanly good form, com- 244 THE WATERS OF MABAE. bined with as much artistic perfection and culture as good form permitted. He was always suspecting her of forming sudden attachments for men whom she had in reality never regarded as other than episodic acquaintances. The idea of giving her time and chance to find a better man than himself had not entered into his head — that was not in the Farringdon temperament. "Haill o' my ain, and nane o' my neighbour's." And he regarded Caspar gloomily, and longed to catch him tripping. Caspar did not regard him at all at present, being occupied in gradually breaking through Dick's boundarj^ of shyness, by not talking to her much, and talking to the others on subjects he thought likely to interest her. And every word he said did interest her, though she did not analyse her sensations in the orthodox way of romance, or recognise that it was the kind of interest no man's words had ever waked DICK MENTEITH. 245 in her before. Whatever the theme of con- versation might be, from Schlangenberg scenery to Shakespeare, Caspar had some- thing to say which, though not necessarily consisting of coins from the mint of genius, was new and attractive to her, both in matter and in manner. Kimburls she respected and loved instinctively and dutifully, of course ; but she was used to the treasures of his wit and wisdom, which he had emptied on her lavishly from infancy up, till the store was nearly empty. George was George, and, as such, very nice of course. Aunt Jane deserved and got immense reverence (except when she had recently bathed or was on the high seas, on which occasion her dignity suffered a temporary lapse) ; but she was not a person to joke with. But Caspar was new, an advantage which the above three possessed not; he was also strangely attractive in appearance, and that 246 TEE WATERS OF MARAE. in an unusual style. He was uncommon, from her point of view, in voice, dress, face, colour, thought, and mode of expressing it, and of different experience and education from any man she knew. And he puzzled her. Charlie never provoked any speculation in her mind, a fact which did not appear to her as in any way remarkable. She set him down as a "nice little fellow," and as such left him uncriticised further. As he was a good four inches taller than herself, though a small man, this was condescending. There is that, perhaps, in an eyeglass which provokes irreverence in the mind feminine. During the conversation in the garden that pleasant little man seemed to discover a comic side to the situation, to judge from the occasional spasms which shot across his face like cloud- shadows over the wind-swept sea, as he con- versed gravely with Miss Menteith the elder DICK MENTE1TH. 247 on various serious matters. He had in his mind the image graven of her first appear- ance before him that morning as the hastily and " casually " clothed Anadyomene. And it came to pass in the course of the afternoon that an expedition was proposed by Kimburls of the united party to the Schloss, to start when the heat of the afternoon had passed away, which proposition was unani- mously accepted. In the mean time the three young men adjourned to a cafe at the corner of the Universitats Platz, where Charlie and Farringdon played billiards in their shirt- sleeves, and Caspar sat looking on, smoking and drinking Culmbacher beer. It might be noticed that Caspar took off his hat on entering, while Farringdon strode in with his on his head ; and while the latter was com- plaining of the smallness of the table and the largeness of the balls, the former was ran- 248 TEE WATEES OF MAEAE. sacking literature and his memory for com- parisons to Dick Menteith. And he thought, There is none like her, none, Nor shall be till our summers have deceased. Caspar had experience enough to diagnose his own symptoms, which she certainly had not. In the evening of this hot, calm July day, the party wound their way up through the woods to the Schloss. The Laird of Kimburls discoursed to Farringdon on the probable value of the timber, and pitied the natives for neglecting such a ready " soorce " of profit. Farringdon compared notes about the trees on the Sokebridge Manor-house estate, and expressed a wish that it were possible to buy and export castle and all to beautify the said estate. This certainly showed that he felt, to some extent, its extraordinary beauty and fascination. DICK MENTEITH. 249 Caspar said, " Do you think that, Miss Menteith ? " and Dick, to her own and every one else's surprise, found herself saying, " No/' which was an unexpected blow for George Farringdon. This young man was always verging on a true appreciation of what was good in nature and art, and always spoiling his best ideas by some such remark as this. He seemed in- capable, in the midst of a scene of profuse and wild beauty, of completely divesting himself of the bondage of the commonplace, though he might make the most laudable and pitiable struggles to do so. When he became conver- sationally " artistic," as he would probably have called it, the effort was too obvious. He and the Laird of Kimburls walked first, then Miss Menteith, Charlie, Miss Dick Men- teith, and Caspar, in a row. Charlie was wickedly practising on Aunt Jane's credulity and known strong opinions on the subject, by 250 THE WATERS OF MARAH. telling stories of physiological atrocities of a fantastic and fictitious nature. Caspar and Dick talked but little, and occasionally laughed when Aunt Menteith came out with dogmas about the startling longevity and venomous character of toads, which Charlie capped by gravely exhibiting a hideous old heirloom of a ring which he wore, stating that it had been extracted by a warlike ancestor from the head of some primeval and gigantic batrachian. Aunt Menteith indulged in a variety of other interesting superstitions by no means uncommon among partially educated persons ; such as that the sun will put fires out — though it is capriciously harmless to candle flames, which would be much easier to extinguish — that the blackthorn causes cold weather in spring, that the moon rules the weather, and that a party of thirteen had in- definitely awful results, beginning with the DICK MENTEITE. 251 death of the thirteenth, without explaining on what principle the Angel of Destiny selected the thirteenth. Caspar felt that that walk through the woods was one of the things not to be for- gotten, insignificant as they appear at the time. It was not very late, and there was yet quite light enough to make it seem very dark there, except when the pale birch stems gleamed among the dark rough firs, or a clearance had been made which let in the sky. They passed the old pond presided over by the ruinous Triton, where Caspar and Charlie had lain discoursing idly and fitfully in the morning. The road then became narrow, and gave oppor- tunities to Charlie, who was one of those creatures of superfluous energy who slash at surrounding vegetation with their sticks as they pass it. Then it grew narrower still, and steeper, and the ladies' pace slackened, and the party became a procession of two and two 252 THE WATERS OF MABAH. instead of a row, Dick and Caspar forming the rearward portion. Farringdon occasionally looked behind him in a nervous way, and struggled in the shackles of an interminable conversation which his future father-in-law kept up on the inferiority of German com- mercial energy as compared with that of Great Britain, more especially that portion of Great Britain which is situate on the Clyde. "We will be leaving in a week for Dresden/' said Dick. " I am sorry we are going so soon." "Are you? You will find much more to amuse and interest you there than here." " Maybe ; but I am interested and amused here. I like the place wonderfully. I feel that it is a sort of home I have once known or dreamed about. I should Kke to be able to come up here by myself before the dew is dry or the tourists awake, and think that I am on the point of restoring the time when men DICK HENTEITH. 253 rode out from here through the trees and through the morning mist with the sunlight streaking their armour ; that if I spoke the right word everything would come to life again — a sort of Sleeping Beauty's castle, you know." " Then you assume ownership of the castle in these dreams ? " said Caspar, with a smile which partook of the pensive and childlike qualities sung by the poet. " Oh, I didn't just mean that, you know that. I should like to go on for ever seeking the word to say which would make the ruins rise, and the bones join together, the trum- peters blow, the flags flutter, and the spears glitter as they escorted the ladies to — well, whatever ladies went to then." " A garden-party ? " " Just that ; or a tournament, or hawking." "While the howls of the tortured pri- soners dimly resounded from that dungeon 254 TEE WATERS OF MABAE. where the water drips. Do you know that vault that opens like a cave on the path here ? You go down steps into it. Inside there is a spring of cold water which drips on for ever. Into that vault prisoners were inserted in those good and picturesque chivalrous old times. They were not made to work, like our convicts. Their sole occupation was to listen to that water dropping. If they were thirsty, as they generally were sooner or later, they found themselves separated from that cheery little stream by a narrow abyss of vague depth, just wide enough to keep their mouths six inches from the water ; of course it was dark always. Another amusement of the leisurely and peaceful moments of the barons bold was the extraction of wealth from Jews. In " Ivanhoe " they use the actual cautery. Here, I am told, they borrowed the old English dentistry method." " Is that the dungeon ? " DICK MENTEITH. 255 " It is. That modest and retiring struc- ture, like an elderly ice-house, plastered over with advertisements of the town band." Dick stayed a few seconds, and then said : " You can hear the water now." " It was picturesque, certainly, to live in those days, or even in the later days, when Marshals Turenne and Tilly were at large ; but it was not comfortable. Family quarrels took the violent form of burning, hanging, and skull-splitting. I am not sure that libels and actions are an improvement, after all." " Oh, I would reform all that. Everybody would behave nicely, and we wouldn't have any real fighting — at least, nothing more dangerous than what the students here do, that they may walk up and down the Anlage with dirty handkerchiefs to their faces." END OF VOL. I. CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CBYSTAL PALACE I'HESS.