hand. And then he turned to me. "You may think," said he, "that I was too
timid, that I was too ready to run away from danger; but it is hard for
any one but myself readily to appreciate my horror of a sentence to
imprisonment or convict labor for life."
"Oh, horrible!" said his wife, with tears in her eyes. "Then thee would
have despaired indeed."
"No," said he; "I should not even have had that consolation. Despair is a
welcome to death. A man who cannot die cannot truly despair. But do not
let us talk upon such a melancholy subject."
"No, no," cried Mrs. Crowder; "I am glad thee left those wretched jewels
behind thee. And thee got away safely?"
"Oh, yes; I had some money left. I traveled by night and concealed myself
by day, and so got out of Spain. Soon after I crossed the Pyrenees I found
myself penniless, and was obliged to work my way."
"Poverty again!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder. "It is dreadful to hear so much
of it. If thee could only have carried away with thee one of thy diamonds,
thee might have cracked it up into little pieces, and thee might have sold
these, one at a time, without suspicion."
"I never thought of being a vender of broken diamonds, and there is
nothing suspicious about honest labor. The object of my present endeavors
was to reach England, and I journeyed northward. It was nearly a month
after I had entered France that I was at a little village on the Garonne,
repairing a stone wall which divided a field from the road, and I assure
you I was very glad to get this job.
"It was here that I heard of the near approach of Napoleon's army on its
march into Spain; that the news was true was quickly proved, for very soon
after I had begun my work on the wall the country to the north seemed to
be filled with cavalry, infantry, artillery, baggage-wagons, and
everything that pertained to an army. About noon there was a general halt,
and in the field the wall of which I was repairing a body of officers made
a temporary encampment.
"I paid as little apparent attention as possible to what was going on
around me, but proceeded steadily with my work, although I assure you
I had my eyes wide open all the time. I was thinking of stopping work in
order to eat my dinner, which I had with me, when a party of officers
approached me on their way to a little hill in the field. One of them
stopped and spoke to me, and as he did so the others halted and stood
together a little way off. The moment I looked at the person who
addressed me I knew him. It was Napoleon Bonaparte."
"Then thee has seen the great Napoleon," almost whispered Mrs. Crowder.
"And very much disappointed I was when I beheld him," remarked her
husband. "I had seen portraits of him, I had read and heard of his great
achievements, and I had pictured to myself a hero. Perhaps my experience
should have taught me that heroes seldom look like heroes, but for all
that I had had my ideal, and in appearance this man fell below it. His
face was of an olive color which was unequally distributed over his
features; he was inclined to be pudgy, and his clothes did not appear to
fit him; but for all that he had the air of a man who with piercing eyes
saw his way before him and did not flinch from taking it, rough as it
might be. 'You seem an old man for such work,' said he, 'but if you are
strong enough to lift those stones why are you not in the army?' As he
spoke I noticed that he had not the intonation of a true Frenchman. He
had the accent of the foreigner that he was.
[Illustration: "'WHY ARE YOU NOT IN THE ARMY?'"]
"'Sire,' said I, 'I am too old for the army, but in spite of my age I must
earn my bread.' I may state here that my hair and beard had been growing
since I left Madrid. For a moment the emperor regarded me in silence. 'Are
you a Frenchman?' said he. 'You speak too well for a stone-mason, and,
moreover, your speech is that of a foreigner who has studied French.' It
was odd that each of us should have remarked the accent of the other, but
I was not amused at this; I was becoming very nervous. 'Sire,' said
I, 'I come from Italy.' 'Were you born there?' asked he. My nervousness
increased. This man was too keen a questioner. 'Sire,' I replied, 'I was
born in the country southeast of Rome.' This was true enough, but it was a
long way southeast. 'Do you speak Spanish?' he abruptly asked.
"At this question my blood ran cold. I had had enough of speaking Spanish.
I was trying to get away from Spain and everything that belonged to that
country; but I thought it safest to speak the truth, and I answered that
I understood the language. The emperor now beckoned to one of his
officers, and ordered him to talk with me in Spanish. I had been in Spain
in the early part of the preceding century, and I had there learned to
speak the pure Castilian tongue, so that when the officer talked with me
I could see that he was surprised, and presently he told the emperor that
he had never heard any one who spoke such excellent Spanish. The emperor
fixed his eyes upon me. 'You must have traveled a great deal,' he said.
'You should not be wasting your time with stones and mortar.' Then,
turning to the officer who had spoken to me, he said, 'He understands
Spanish so well that we may make him useful.' He was about to address me
again, but was interrupted by the arrival of an orderly with a despatch.
This he read hastily, and walked toward the officers who were waiting for
him; but before he left me he ordered me to report myself at his tent,
which was not far off in the field. He then walked away, evidently
discussing the despatch, which he still held open in his hand.
"Now I was again plunged into the deepest apprehension and fear. I did not
want to go back to Spain, not knowing what might happen to me there. Every
evil thing was possible. I might be recognized, and the emperor might not
care to shield any one claimed by the law as an escaped thief. In an
instant I saw all sorts of dreadful possibilities. I determined to take
no chances. The moment the emperor's back was turned upon me I got over
the broken part of the wall and, interfered with by no one, passed quietly
along the road to the house of the man who had employed me to do his
mason-work, and seeing no one there,--for every window and door was
tightly closed,--I walked into the yard and went to the well, which was
concealed from the road by some shrubbery. I looked quickly about, and
perceiving that I was not in sight of any one, I got into the well and
went down to the bottom, assisting my descent by the well-rope. The water
was about five feet deep, and when I first entered it, it chilled me; but
nothing could chill me so much as the thought that I might be taken back
into Spain, no matter by whom or for what. I must admit that I was doing
then, and often had done, that which seemed very much like cowardice; but
people who can die cannot understand the fear which may come upon a person
who has not that refuge from misfortune.
"For the rest of the day I remained in the well, and when people came to
draw water--and this happened many times in the course of the afternoon
--I crouched down as much as I could; but at such times I would have been
concealed by the descending bucket, even if any one had chosen to look
down the well. This bucket was a heavy one with iron hoops, and I had a
great deal of trouble sometimes to shield my head from it."
"I should think thee would have taken thy death of cold," said Mrs.
Crowder, "staying in that cold well the whole afternoon."
"No," said her husband, with a smile; "I was not afraid of that. If
I should have taken cold I knew it would not be fatal, and although the
water chilled me at first, I became used to it. An hour or two after
nightfall I clambered up the well-rope,--and it was not an easy thing, for
although not stout, I am a heavy man,--and I got away over the fields with
all the rapidity possible. I did not look back to see if the army were
still on the road, nor did I ever know whether I had been searched for or
had been forgotten.
"I shall not describe the rest of my journey. There is nothing remarkable
about it except that it was beset with many hardships. I made my way into
Switzerland and so on down the Rhine, and it was nearly seven months after
I left Madrid before I reached England.
"I remained many years in Great Britain, living here and there, and was
greatly interested in the changes and improvements I saw around me. You
can easily understand this when I tell you it was in 1512, twenty years
after the discovery of America, that I had last been in England. I do not
believe that in any other part of the world the changes in three hundred
years could have been more marked and impressive.
"I had never visited Ireland, and as I had a great desire to see that
country, I made my way there as soon as possible, and after visiting the
most noted spots of the island I settled down to work as a gardener."
"Always poor," ejaculated Mrs. Crowder, with a sigh.
"No, not always," answered her husband. "But wandering sight-seers cannot
be expected to make much money. At this time I was very glad indeed to
cease from roving and enjoy the comforts of a home, even though it were a
humble one. The family with whom I took service was that of Maria
Edgeworth, who lived with her father in Edgeworthstown."
"What!" cried Mrs. Crowder, "'Lazy Lawrence,' 'Simple Susan,' and all the
rest of them? Was it that Miss Edgeworth?"
"Certainly," said he; "there never was but one Maria Edgeworth, and I
don't think there ever will be another. I soon became very well acquainted
with Miss Edgeworth. Her father was a studious man and a magistrate. He
paid very little attention to the house and garden, the latter of which
was almost entirely under the charge of his daughter Maria. She used to
come out among the flower-beds and talk to me, and as my varied experience
enabled me to tell her a great deal about fruits, flowers, and vegetables,
she became more and more interested in what I had to tell her. She was a
plain, sensible woman, anxious for information, and she lived in a very
quiet neighborhood where she did not often have opportunities of meeting
persons of intelligence and information. But when she found out that
I could tell her so many things, not only about plants but about the
countries where I had known them, she would sometimes spend an hour or two
with me, taking notes of what I said.
"During the time that I was her gardener she wrote the story of 'The
Little Merchants,' and as she did not know very much about Italy and
Naples, I gave her most of the points for that highly moral story. She
told me, in fact, that she did not believe she could have written it had
it not been for my assistance. She thought well to begin the story by
giving some explanatory 'Extracts from a Traveler's Journal' relative
to Italian customs, but afterward she depended entirely on me for all
points concerning distinctive national characteristics and the general
Italian atmosphere. As she became aware that I was an educated man and
had traveled in many countries, she was curious about my antecedents, but
of course my remarks in that direction were very guarded.
"One day, as she was standing looking at me as I was pruning a rose-bush,
she made a remark which startled me. I perfectly remember her words. 'It
seems to me,' she said, 'that one who is so constantly engaged in
observing and encouraging the growth and development of plants should
himself grow and develop. Roses of one year are generally better than
those of the year before. Then why is not the gardener better?' To these
words she immediately added, being a woman of kind impulses, 'But in the
case of a good gardener, such as you are, I've no doubt he does grow
better, year by year.'"
"What was there startling in that little speech?" asked Mrs. Crowder.
"I don't think she could have said anything less."
"I will tell you why I was startled," said her husband. "Almost those very
words--mark me, almost those very words--had been said to me when I was
working in the wonderful gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, and he was standing by
me watching me prune a rose-bush. That Maria Edgeworth and the great
Nebuchadnezzar should have said the same thing to me was enough to startle
me."
To this astounding statement Mrs. Crowder and I listened with wide-open
eyes.
"Yes," said Mr. Crowder; "you may think it amazing that a very ordinary
remark should connect 'The Parents' Assistant' with the city of Babylon,
but so it was. In the course of my life I have noticed coincidences quite
as strange.
"I spent many years in the city of Babylon, but the wonderful Hanging
Gardens interested me more than anything else the great city contained. At
the time of which I have just spoken I was one of Nebuchadnezzar's
gardeners, but not in the humble position which I afterward filled in
Ireland. I had under my orders fifteen slaves, and my principal duty was
to direct the labors of these poor men. These charming gardens, resting
upon arches high above the surface of the ground, watered by means of
pipes from the river Euphrates, and filled with the choicest flowers,
shrubs, and plants known to the civilization of the time, were a
ceaseless source of delight to me. Often, when I had finished the daily
work assigned to me and my men, I would wander over other parts of the
garden and enjoy its rare beauties.
"I frequently met Nebuchadnezzar, who for the time enjoyed his gardens
almost as much as I did. When relieved from the cares of state and his
ambitious plans, and while walking in the winding paths among sparkling
fountains and the fragrant flowerbeds, he seemed like a very ordinary man,
quiet and reflective, with very good ideas concerning nature and
architecture. The latter I learned from his frequent remarks to me.
I suppose it was because I appeared to be so much older and more
experienced than most of those who composed his little army of gardeners
that he often addressed me, asking questions and making suggestions; and
it was one afternoon, standing by me as I was at work in a rose-bed, that
he said the words which were spoken to me about twenty-four centuries
afterward by Maria Edgeworth. Now, wasn't that enough to startle a man?"
[Illustration: NEBUCHADNEZZAR AND THE GARDENER.]
"Startle!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, "I should have screamed. I should have
thought that some one had come from the dead to speak to me. But I suppose
there was nothing about Maria Edgeworth which reminded thee of
Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon."
"Yes, there was," replied her husband: "there was the same meditative
expression of the eyes; the same reflective mood as each one began to
speak, as if he and she were merely thinking aloud; the same quick, kind
reference to me, as if the speaker feared that my feelings might have been
hurt by a presumption that I myself had not developed and improved.
"I had good reason to remember those words of Nebuchadnezzar, for they
were the last I ever heard him speak. A few days afterward I was informed
by the chief gardener that the king was about to make a journey across the
mountains into Media, and that he intended to establish there what would
now be called an experimental garden of horticulture, which was to be
devoted to growing and improving certain ornamental trees which did not
flourish in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. His expedition was not to be
undertaken entirely for this purpose, but he was a man who did a great
many things at once, and the establishment of these experimental grounds
was only one of the objects of his journey.
"The chief gardener then went on to say that the king had spoken to him
about me and had said that he would take me with him and perhaps put me in
charge of the new gardens.
"This mark of royal favor did not please me at all. I had hoped that I
might ultimately become the chief of the Babylonian gardens, and this
would have suited me admirably. It was a position of profit and some
honor, and when I thought that I had lived long enough in that part of the
world it would have been easy for me to make a journey into the
surrounding country on some errand connected with the business of the
gardens, and then quietly to disappear? But if I were to be taken into
Media it might not be easy for me to get away. Therefore I did not wait
to see Nebuchadnezzar again and receive embarrassing royal commands, but
I went to my home that night, and returned no more to the wonderful
Hanging Gardens of Babylon."
"I think thee was a great deal better off in the gardens of Maria
Edgeworth," said Mrs. Crowder, "for there thee could come and go as thee
pleased, and it almost makes my flesh creep when I think of thee living
in company with the bloody tyrants of the past. And always in poverty and
suffering, as if thee had been one of the common people, and not the
superior of every man around thee! I don't want to hear anything more
about the wicked Nebuchadnezzar. How long did thee stay with Maria
Edgeworth?"
"About four years," he replied; "and I might have remained much longer,
for in that quiet life the advance of one's years was not likely to be
noticed. I am sure Miss Edgeworth looked no older to me when I left her
than when I first saw her. But she was obliged to go into England to
nurse her sick stepmother, and after her departure the place had no
attractions for me, and I left Ireland."
"I wonder," said Mrs. Crowder, a little maliciously, "that thee did not
marry her."
Her husband laughed.
"Englishwomen of her rank in society do not marry their gardeners, and,
besides, in any case, she would not have suited me for a wife. For one
reason, she was too homely."
"Oh," exclaimed Mrs. Crowder, and she might have said more, but her
husband did not give her a chance.
"I know I have talked a great deal about my days of poverty and misery,
and now I will tell you something different. For a time I was the ruler of
all the Russias."
"Ruler!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder and I, almost in the same breath.
"Yes," said he, "absolute ruler. And this was the way of it:
"I was in Russia in the latter part of the seventeenth century, at a time
when there was great excitement in royal and political circles. The young
czar Feodor had recently died, and he had named as his successor his
half-brother Peter, a boy ten years of age, who afterward became Peter the
Great. The late czar's young brother Ivan should have succeeded him, but
he was almost an idiot. In this complicated state of things, the
half-sister of Peter, the Princess Sophia, a young woman of wonderful
ambition and really great abilities, rose to the occasion. She fomented a
revolution; there was fighting, with all sorts of cruelties and horrors,
and when affairs had quieted down she was princess regent, while the two
boys, Ivan and Peter, were waiting to see what would happen next.
"She was really a woman admirably adapted to her position. She was well
educated, wrote poetry, and knew how to play her part in public affairs.
She presided in the councils, and her authority was without control; but
she was just as bloody-minded and cruel as anybody else in Russia.
"Now, it so happened when the Princess Sophia was at the height of her
power, that I was her secretary. For five or six years I had been a teacher
of languages in Moscow, and at one time I had given lessons to the
princess. In this way she had become well acquainted with me, and having
frequently called upon me for information of one sort or another, she
concluded to make me her secretary. Thus I was established at the court of
Russia. I had charge of all Sophia's public papers, and I often had a good
deal to do with her private correspondence, but she signed and sealed all
papers of importance.
"The Prince Galitzin, who had been her father's minister and was now
Sophia's main supporter in all her autocratic designs and actions, found
himself obliged to leave Moscow to attend to his private affairs on his
great estates, and to be absent for more than a month; and after his
departure the princess depended on me more than ever. Like many women in
high positions, it was absolutely necessary for her to have a man on whom
she could lean with one hand while she directed her affairs with the
other."
"I do not think that is always necessary," said Mrs. Crowder, "at least, in
these days."
"Perhaps not," said her husband, with a smile, "but it was then. But I must
get on with my story. One morning soon after Galitzin's departure, the
horses attached to the royal sledge ran away just outside of Moscow. The
princess was thrown out upon the hard ground, and badly dislocated her
right wrist. By the time she had been taken back to the palace her arm and
hand were dreadfully swollen, and it was difficult for her surgeons to do
anything for her.
"I was called into the princess's room just after the three surgeons had
been sent to prison. I found her in great trouble, mental as well as
physical, and her principal anxiety was that she was afraid it would be a
long time before she would be able to use her hand and sign and seal the
royal acts and decrees. She had a certain superstition about this which
greatly agitated her. If she could not sign and seal, she did not believe
she would be able to rule. Any one who understood the nature of the
political factions in Russia well knew that an uprising among the nobles
might occur upon any pretext, and no pretext could be so powerful as the
suspicion of incompetency in the sovereign. The seat of a ruler who did
not rule was extremely uncertain.
"At that moment a paper of no great importance, which had been sent in to
her before she went out in her sledge that morning, was lying on the table
near her couch, and she was greatly worried because she could not sign it.
I assured her she need not trouble herself about it, for I could attend to
it. I had often affixed her initials and seal to unimportant papers.
"The princess did not object to my proposition, but this was not enough
for her. She had a deep mind, and she quickly concocted a scheme by which
her public business should be attended to, while at the same time it
should not be known that she did not attend to it. She caused it to be
given out that it was her ankle which had been injured, and not her wrist.
She sent for another surgeon, and had him locked up in the palace when he
was not attending to her, so that he should tell no tales. Her ladies were
informed that it would be very well for them to keep silent, and they
understood her. Then she arranged with me that all public business should
be brought to her; that I should sign and seal in her place, and should be
her agent of communication with the court.
"When this plan had been settled upon, the princess regained something of
her usual good spirits. 'As I never sign my name with my toes,' she said
to me, 'there is no reason why a sprained ankle should interfere with my
royal functions, and, for the present, you can be my right hand.'
"This was a very fine plan, but it did not work as she expected it would.
Her wrist became more and more painful, and fever set in, and on the
second day, when I called upon her, I found she was in no condition to
attend to business. She was irritable and drowsy. 'Don't annoy me with
that paper,' she said. 'If the wool-dealers ought to have their taxes
increased, increase them. You should not bring these trifles to me; but'
--and now she regained for a moment her old acuteness--'remember this:
don't let my administration stop.'
"I understood her very well, and when I left her I saw my course plain
before me. It was absolutely necessary that the exercise of royal
functions by the Princess Sophia should appear to go on in its usual way;
any stoppage would be a signal for a revolution. In order that this plan
should be carried out, I must act for the princess regent; I must do what
I thought right, and it must be done in her name, exactly as if she had
ordered it. I assumed the responsibilities without hesitation. While it
was supposed I was merely the private secretary of the princess, acting as
her agent and mouthpiece, I was in fact the ruler of all the Russias."
Mrs. Crowder opened her mouth as if she would gasp for breath, but she did
not say anything.
"You can scarcely imagine, my dear," said he, "the delight with which
I assumed the powers so suddenly thrust upon me. I set myself to work
without delay, and, as I knew all about the wool-dealers' business,
I issued a royal decree decreasing their taxes. Poor creatures! they
were suffering enough already."
"Good for thee!" exclaimed Mrs. Crowder.