that well; but you are not the Master."
Once I suggested the possibility of her marrying some one else. There
was a cheerful _quincaillier_ at the corner of the street who, to my
knowledge, paid her assiduous attentions. He was evidently a man of
substance and refinement, for a zinc bath was prominently displayed
among his hardware. But Blanquette's love laughed at tinsmiths. She who
had lived on equal terms with the Master and myself (I bowed my
acknowledgment of the tribute) to marry a person without education? _Ah!
mais non! Au grand nom! Merci!_ She was as scornful as you please, and
without rhyme or reason plucked a bunch of Christmas roses from a jug on
the table and threw them into the stove. Poor _quincaillier_! There was
nothing for it but to _se fich' à l'eau_--to chuck herself into the
river. That was the end of most of our conversations on the disastrous
subject.
* * * * *
It was the end of a talk on one November evening, about three weeks
after I had returned to Paris. I had dined at home with Blanquette, and
was in the midst of a drawing which I blush to say I was doing for _Le
Fou Rire_, an unprincipled comic paper fortunately long since
defunct--(fortunately? Tartuffe that I am. Many a welcome louis did I
get from it in those necessitous days)--when she looked up from her
sewing and asked when the Master was coming back. The question led to an
answer, the answer to an observation, and the observation to the
discussion of the Subject.
"There is no way out of it, _mon pauvre Asticot, je vais me fich' à
l'eau, comme je l'ai dit_."
"In the meanwhile, my dear," said I, throwing down the crow-quill pen
and pushing my drawing away, "if you remain in this pestilential
condition of morbidness, you will die without the necessity of drowning
yourself. Instead of making ourselves miserable, let us go and dance at
the Bal Jasmin. _Veux-tu?_"
"This evening?" she asked, startled. She had never grown accustomed to
the suddenness of the artistic temperament.
"Of course this evening. You don't suppose I would ask you to dance next
month so as to cure you of indigestion to-night."
"But nothing is wrong with my stomach, _mon cher_," said the literal
Blanquette.
"It is indigestion of the heart," said I, after the manner of Paragot,
"and dancing with me at the Bal Jasmin will be the best thing in the
world for you."
"It would give you pleasure?"
This was charmingly said. It implied that she would sacrifice her
feelings for my sake. But her eyes brightened and her cheeks flushed a
little. Women are rank hypocrites on occasion.
Ten minutes later Blanquette, wearing her black Sunday gown set off by a
blue silk scarf embroidered at the edges with a curious kind of pink
forget-me-not, her hair tidily coiled on top and fixed with my
tortoise-shell comb, announced that she was ready. We started. In those
days I did not drive to balls in luxurious hired vehicles. I walked,
pipe in mouth, correctly giving my arm to Blanquette. No doubt everybody
thought us lovers. It is odd how wrong everybody can be sometimes.
The Bal Jasmin was situated in the Rue Mouffetard. It has long since
disappeared with many a haunt of my youth's revelry. The tide of frolic
has set northward, and Montmartre, which to us was but a geographical
term, now dazzles the world with its venal splendour. But the Moulin de
la Galette and the Bal Tabarin of the present day lack the gaiety of the
Bal Jasmin. It was not well frequented; it gathered round its band-stand
people with shocking reputations; the sight of a man in a dress coat
would have transfixed the assembly like some blood-curdling ghost. The
ladies would have huddled together in a circle round the wearer and
gazed at him open-mouthed. He would subsequently have had to pay for the
ball's liquid refreshment. The Bal Jasmin did not employ meretricious
ornament to attract custom. A low gallery containing tables ran around
the bare hall, the balustrade being of convenient elbow height from the
floor, so that the dancers during intervals of rest could lounge and
talk with the drinkers. In the middle was a circular bandstand where
greasy musicians fiddled with perspiring zeal. At the doors a sergent de
ville stood good-humouredly and nodded to the ladies and gentlemen with
whom he had a professional acquaintance.
Everybody came to dance. If good fortune, such as a watch or a freshly
subventioned student, fell into their mouths, they swallowed it like
honest, sensible souls; but they did not make reprehensible adventure
the main object of their evening. They danced the quadrilles, not for
payment and the delectation of foreigners as at the Jardin de Paris, but
for their own pleasure. A girl kicked off your hat out of sheer kindness
of heart and animal spirits; and if you waltzed with her, she danced
with her strange little soul throbbing in her feet. There were, I say,
the most dreadfully shocking people at the Bal Jasmin; but they could
teach the irreproachable a lesson in the art of enjoyment.
As I came with Blanquette, and danced only with Blanquette, and sat with
Blanquette over bock or syrup in the gallery, the unwritten etiquette of
the place caused us to be undisturbed. Like the rest of the assembly we
enjoyed ourselves. Dancing was Blanquette's one supreme accomplishment.
Old Père Paragot had taught her to play the zither indifferently well,
but he had made her dance divinely: and Blanquette, I may here mention
incidentally, had been my instructress in the art. Seeing her thick-set,
coarse figure, and holding your arm around her solid waist as you waited
for the bar, you would not have dreamed of the fairy lightness it
assumed the moment feet moved in time with the music. If life had been a
continuous waltz no partner of hers less awkward than a rhinoceros
could have avoided falling in love with her. But waltzes ended all too
soon and the thistle-down sylph of a woman became my plain homely
Blanquette, uninspiring of romance save in the hardware bosom of the
_quincaillier_ at the corner of the Rue des Saladiers.
The _bal_ was crowded. Gaunt ill-shaven men, each a parody of one of the
Seven Deadly Sins, capered grotesquely with daughters of Rahab in cheap
hats and feathers. Shop assistants and neat, bare-headed work-girls,
students picturesquely long-haired and floppily trousered and cravated,
and poorly clad models, a whole army of nondescripts, heaven knows with
what means of livelihood, all dancing, drinking, eating, laughing,
jesting, smoking, primitively love-making, moving, shouting, a
phantasmagoria of souls making merry beyond the pale of reputable life;
such were the frequenters of the Bal Jasmin. Gas flared in two
concentric circles of flame around the hall and around the central
bandstand. There was no ventilation. The _bal_ sweltered in
perspiration. Hollow-voiced abjects hawked penny paper fans between the
dances, and the whole room was a-flutter.
Blanquette, who had forgotten tragedy for the time, sat with me at a
table by the balustrade and alternately sipped her syrup and water and
looked, full of interest, at the scene below, now and then clutching my
arm to direct my attention to startling personalities. The light in her
eyes and the colour in her coarse cheeks made her almost pretty. You
have never seen ugliness in a happy face. And Blanquette was happy.
"Don't you want to go and dance with any other _petite femme_?" she
asked generously. "I will wait for you here."
I declined with equal magnanimity to leave her alone.
"Suppose some rapscallion came up and asked you to dance?"
"I can take care of myself, _mon petit_ Asticot," she laughed, bracing
her strong arms. "And suppose I wanted to go off with him? They are
amusing sometimes, people like that. There is one. _Regarde-moi ce
type-là._"
The "_type_" in question was a fox-faced young man, unwashed and
collarless, wearing the peaked cap of Paris villainy. He crossed the
hall accompanied by two of the brazenest hussies that ever emerged from
the shadow of the fortifications. As they passed the sergent de ville
they all cocked themselves up with an air of braggadocio.
"He makes me shiver," said I. Blanquette shrugged her shoulders.
"One must have all sorts of people in the world, as there are so many
things to make people different. It is only a chance that I have not
become like those girls. It's no one's fault."
"'There, but by the grace of God, goes John Bunyan,'" I quoted
reflectively. "You are developing philosophy, Blanquette _chérie_, and
your gentle toleration of the infamous does you credit. But only the
master would get what wasn't infamous out of them."
The band struck up a waltz. Blanquette drank her syrup quickly and rose.
"Come and dance."
We descended and soon were swept along in the whirl of ragamuffin,
ill-conditioned couples dancing every step in the tradition of Paris.
Steering was no easy matter. After a while, we were hemmed in near the
side of the hall, and were just on the point of emerging from the crush
when the sound of a voice brought us to a dead stop which caused us to
be knocked about like a pair of footballs.
"My good Monsieur Bubu le Vainqueur, you do me infinite honour, but
until I have devoured the proceeds of my last crime I lead a life of
elegant leisure."
We escaped from danger and reaching the side stood and looked at each
other in stupefaction. Blanquette was the first to see him. She seized
my arm and pointed.
"It is he! _Sainte Vierge_, it is he!"
It was he. He was sitting at a table a few yards off, and his companions
were the fox-faced youth and the two girls over whom Blanquette had
philosophised. He wore his silk hat. Brandy was in front of him. He
seemed to be on familiar terms with his friends. For a long time we
watched him, fascinated, not daring to accost him and yet unwilling to
edge away out of his sight and make our escape from the ball. I saw that
he was incredibly dirty. His beard of some days growth gave him a
peculiarly grim appearance. His hat had rolled in the mud and was
everything a silk hat ought not to be. His linen was black. Never had
the garb of respectability been so battered into the vesture of
disrepute.
Suddenly he caught sight of us. He hesitated for a moment; then waved us
a bland, unashamed salutation. We went up the nearest steps to the
gallery and waited. After a polite leave-taking he bowed to his
companions, and reeled towards us. I knew by the familiar gait that he
had had many cognacs and absinthes during the day.
But what in the name of sanity was he doing here?
"_Mon dieu, mon dieu, qu'est-ce qu'il fait ici?_" asked Blanquette.
I shook my head. It was stupefying.
"_Eh bien, mes enfants_, you have come to amuse yourselves, eh? I too,
in the company of my excellent friend Bubu le Vainqueur, whose
acquaintance together with that of his fair companions I would not
advise you to cultivate."
"But Master," I gasped, "what has happened?"
"I'll veil it, my son," said he, laying his hand on my shoulder, "in the
decent obscurity of a learned language, '_Canis reversus ad suum vomitum
et sus lota in volutabro luti_.'"
"_Oh, mon Dieu_," sighed Blanquette again, as if it were something too
appalling.
"But why, Master?" I entreated.
"Why wallow? Why not? And now, my little Blanquette, we will all go home
and you shall make me some good coffee. Or do you want to stay longer
and dance with Asticot?"
"Oh, let us go away, Master," said Blanquette, casting a scared glance
at Bubu le Vainqueur, who was watching us with an interested air.
"_Allons_," said Paragot, blandly.
The dance stopped, and the thirsty crowd surged to the gallery. We
threaded our way towards the door, and I thought with burning cheeks
that the eyes of the whole assembly were turned to my master's mud-caked
silk hat. It was a relief to escape from the noise and gas-light of the
_bal_, which had suddenly lost its glamour, into the cool and quiet
street. After we had walked a few yards in silence, he hooked his arms
in Blanquette's and mine, and broke into a loud laugh.
"But it is astonishing, the age of you children! You might be fifty,
each of you, and I your little boy whom you had discovered in an act of
naughtiness and were bringing home! Really are you as displeased with me
_à ce point-là? C'est épatant_! But laugh, my little Blanquette, are you
not glad to see me?"
"But yes, Master," said Blanquette. "It is like a dream."
"And you, Asticot of my heart?"
"I find it a dream too. I can't understand. When did you leave Melford?"
"About five days ago. I would tell you the day of the week, if I had the
habit of exactness."
"And Madame de Verneuil?"
"Is very well, thank you."
After this rebuff I asked no more questions. I remarked that the weather
was still cold. Paragot laughed again.
"He has turned into a nice little bourgeois, hasn't he, Blanquette? He
knows how to make polite conversation. He is tidy in his habits in the
Rue des Saladiers, eh? He does not spit on the floor or spill absinthe
over the counterpane. _Ah! je suis un vieux salaud, hein?_ Don't say no.
And Narcisse?"
"It is he who will be contented to see you," cried Blanquette. "And so
are we all. _Ah oui, en effet, je suis contente!_" She heaved a great
sigh as though she had awakened from the night-mare of seeing herself a
dripping corpse in the Morgue. "It is no longer the same thing when you
are not in the house. Truly I am happy, Master. You can't understand."
There was a little throb in her voice which Paragot seemed to notice,
for as he bent down to her, his grip of my arm relaxed, and, I suppose,
his grip of hers tightened.
"It gives you such pleasure that I come back, my little Blanquette?" he
said tenderly.
I craned my head forward and saw her raise her faithful eyes to his and
smile, as she pronounced her eternal "_Oui, Maître_."
"It is only Asticot who does not welcome the prodigal father."
I protested. He laughed away my protestations. Then suddenly he stopped
and drew a long breath, and gazed at the tall houses whose lines cut the
frosty sky into a straight strip.
"Ah! how good it smells. How good it is to be in Paris again!"
The door of a _marchand de vin_ swung open just by our noses to give
exit to a reveller, and the hot poisoned air streamed forth.
"And how good it is, the smell of alcohols. I could kiss the honest sot
who has just reeled out and is skating across the road. _A bas les
bourgeois!_"
He did not carry out his unpleasing desire, but when we reached the
salon in the Rue des Saladiers, and we had lit the lamp, he kissed
Blanquette on both cheeks, still crying out how good it was to be back.
Narcisse, mad with delight, capered about him and barked his rapture. He
did not in the least mind a master lapsed from grace.
Paragot threw himself on a chair, his hat still on his head. Oh, how
dirty, dilapidated and unshaven he was! I felt too miserable with
apprehension to emulate Narcisse's enthusiasm. It was cold. I opened the
door of the stove to let the glowing heat come out into the room.
Blanquette went to the kitchen to prepare the coffee.
Suddenly Paragot leaped to his feet, cast his silk hat on the floor and
stamped it into a pancake. Then he thrust it into the stove and shut the
door.
"_Voilà!_" he cried.
Before I could interfere he had taken off his frock-coat and holding one
skirt in his hands and securing the other with his foot had ripped it
from waist to neck. He was going to burn this also, when I stopped him.
"_Laisse-moi!_" said he impatiently.
"It will make such a horrid smell, Master," said I.
He threw the garment across the room with a laugh.
"It is true." He stretched himself and waved his arms. "Ah, now I am
better. Now I am Paragot. Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot, again. Now I am
free from the forms and symbols. Yes, my son. That hat has been to me
Luke's iron crown. That coat has been the _peine forte et dure_ crushing
my infinite soul into my liver." He tore off his black tie and hurled it
away from him. "This has been strangling every noble inspiration. I have
been swathed in mummy bands of convention. I have been dead. I have come
to life. My lungs are full. My soul regains its limitless horizons. My
swollen tongue is cool, and _nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu_, I can talk
again!"
He walked up and down the little salon vociferating his freedom, and
kicking the remains of the frock-coat before him. With one of his sudden
impulses he picked it up and threw it out of a quickly opened window.
"The sight of it offended me," he explained.
"Master," said I, "where are your other things?"
"What other things?"
"Your luggage--your great coat--your umbrella."
"Why, at Melford," said he with an air of surprise. "Where else should
they be?"
I had thought that no action of Paragot could astonish me. I was wrong.
I stared at him as stupefied as ever.
"Usually people travel with their luggage," said I, foolishly.
"They are usual people, my son. I am not one of them. It came to a point
when I must either expire or go. I decided not to expire. These things
are done all in a flash. I was walking in the garden. It was last Sunday
afternoon--I remember now: a sodden November day. Imagine a sodden
November Sunday afternoon English country-town garden. Joanna was at a
children's service. Ah, _mon Dieu_! The desolation of that Sunday
afternoon! The _death_, my son, that was in the air! Ah! I choked, I
struggled. The garden-wall, the leaden sky closed in upon me. I walked
out. I came back to Paris."
"Just like that?" I murmured.
"Just like that," said he. "You may have noticed, my son, that I am a
man of swift decisions and prompt action. I walked to the Railway
Station. A providential London train was expected in five minutes. I
took it. _Voilà._"
"Did you stay long in London?" I asked by way of saying something; for
he began to pace up and down the room.
"Did I see anything worth seeing at the theatres? And did I have a good
crossing? My little Asticot, I perceive you have become an adept at
conventional conversation. If you can't say something original I shall
go back to Bubu le Vainqueur, whose society for the last three days has
afforded me infinite delectation. Although his views of life may be what
Melford would call depraved, at any rate they are first-hand. He does
not waste his time in futile politeness." Suddenly he paused, and seized
me by the shoulder and shook me, as he had often done before. "Creep out
of that shell of gentility, you little hermit-crab," he cried, "and tell
me how you would like to live in Melford for the rest of your natural
life."
"I shouldn't like it at all," said I.
"Then, how do you expect me to have liked it?"
Blanquette entered with the great white coffee jug and some thick cups
and set the tray on the oilskin-covered table. Seeing Paragot in his
grubby shirt-sleeves, she looked around, with her housewifely instinct
of tidiness, for the discarded garments.
"Where are--"
"Gone," he shouted, waving his arms. "Cast into the flames, and rent in
twain, and scattered to the winds of Heaven."
He laughed, seeing that she did not understand, and poured out a jorum
of coffee.
"The farcical comedy is over, Blanquette," said he gently, "I'm a
_Monsieur_ no longer, do you see? We are going to live just as we did
before you went away in the summer, and I am not going to be married. I
am going to live with my little Blanquette for ever and ever _in sæculo
sæculorum, amen_."
She turned as white as the coffee jug. I thought she was about to faint
and caught her in my arms. She did not faint, but burying her head
against my shoulder burst into a passion of tears.
"What the devil's the matter?" asked Paragot. "Are you sorry I'm not
going to be married?"
"_Mais non, mais non!_" Blanquette sobbed out vehemently.
"I think she's rather glad, Master," said I.
He put down his coffee-cup, and laid his hands on her as if to draw her
comfortingly away from me.
"My dear child--" he began.
But she shrank back. "_Ah non, laissez-moi_," she cried, and bolted from
the room.
Paragot looked at me inquiringly, and shrugged his shoulders.
"The eternal feminine, I suppose. Blanquette like the rest of them."
"It's odd you haven't noticed it before, Master."
"Noticed what?"
I lit a cigarette.
"The eternal feminine in Blanquette," I answered.
"What the deuce do you mean?"
"She was jealous even of my friendship with Madame de Verneuil," said I
diplomatically, realising that I was on the point of betraying
Blanquette's confidences.
"It never struck me that she was jealous," he remarked simply.
He took his coffee-cup to the rickety sofa and sat down with the sigh of
a tired man. I took mine to the chair by the stove, and we drank
silently. I have never felt so hopelessly miserable in my life as I did
that night. I was old enough, or perhaps rather I had gathered
experience enough, to feel a shock of disgust at Paragot's return _in
volutabro luti_. In what sordid den had he found shelter these last days
of reaction? I shuddered, and loving him I hated myself for shuddering.
Yet I understood. He was a man of extremes. Having fled from the
intolerable virtues of Melford, with the nostalgia of the vagabond life
devouring him like a flame, he could not have been expected to return
tamely to the Rue des Saladiers. He had plunged head foremost into the
depths. But Bubu le Vainqueur! The Latin Quarter was not exactly a
Sunday School; very probably it flirted with Bubu's lady companions; but
between Bubu and itself it raised an impassable barrier.
The idyll too was over. He had left my dear lady Joanna without drum or
trumpet. As my destiny hung with his, I should never behold her adored
face again. All the graciousness seemed suddenly to be swept out of my
life. I pictured her forsaken, heartbroken, for the second time, weeping
bitterly over this repetition of history, and including me in her
indictment of my master. At nineteen we are all presumptuous egotists:
if I mixed pity for myself with sorrow for Joanna and dismay for my
master, I am not too greatly to be blamed. The best emotions of older,
wiser and better men than I are often blends of queer elements.
The romance was dead. There was no more Joanna. I broke down and shed
tears into my coffee-cup.
Paragot snored.
CHAPTER XXII
I SPENT the night on the sofa, as the only bed in the establishment
belonged to Paragot. The next morning I took my scanty belongings to my
old attic, which fortunately happened to be unlet, and left my master in
undisturbed possession of his apartment. In the evening, calling to make
polite inquiries as to his health, I found him still in bed looking
grimier and bristlier than the night before.
"My son," said he, "the bread of liberty is sweet, but when you are
starving you should not over-eat yourself. An old French writer says:
'_Après le plaisir vient la peine,
Après la peine la vertu._'
I've had the pain that follows pleasure, but whether I shall attain the
consequential virtue I don't know. For the present, however, I am
condemned to it against my will."
"How so?" I asked.
"I have a great desire to rise and seek the Nepenthe of the Café
Delphine, but a whimsical fate keeps me coatless and hatless in a
virtuous house. I am also comparatively shirtless, which does not so
much matter."
"I'm afraid my things wouldn't fit you, Master," said I sitting on the
edge of the bed.
"The only coat which the good Blanquette has preserved is the
pearl-buttoned velveteen jacket in which I fiddled away so many happy
hours."
"Why not wear it, until your bag arrives from Melford?"
"In Arcadian villages," he replied, "it commanded respect. In the Café
Delphine I'm afraid it would only excite derision."
Presently a strong odour of onions gave promise of an approaching meal,
and a little while afterwards Blanquette entered with the announcement
that soup was on the table. Paragot rose, donned trousers and slippers
and went forth into the salon to dine.
"Simplicity is one of the canons of high art. Life is an art, as I have
endeavoured to teach you. Therefore in life we should aim at simplicity.
To complicate existence into the intricacy of a steam-engine with white
ties and red socks is an offence against art of which I will never again
be guilty. It is also more comfortable to eat soup with your elbows on
the table. _N'est-ce pas_, Blanquette?"
"_Bien sûr_," she replied, bending over her bowl, "where else could one
put them?"
This pleased Paragot, who continued to talk in high good humour during
the rest of the meal. Afterwards, he filled a new porcelain pipe, which
Blanquette had purchased, and smoked contentedly the rest of the
evening. Blanquette sat dutifully on a straight-backed chair, her hands
in her lap, listening as she had so often done before to our inspiring
conversation, and adding her word whenever it entered the area of her
comprehension. If we had lectured each other alternately on the Integral
Calculus, Blanquette would have given us her rapt and happy attention.
This evening she would not have minded our talking English; the mere
sound of the Master's voice was sweet: sweeter than ever, now that the
other woman had been "planted there" (she thought of it with a fierce
joy), and the master had come back to her for ever and ever, _in sæculo
sæculorum, amen_. Like many peasant women of strong nature, she had the
terrible passion of possession. In her soul she would rather have had
the most degraded of Paragots in her arms, as her own unalienable
property, than have seen him honourable and prosperous in the arms of
another. Had she been of a nervous and emotional temperament there might
have been tragedy in the Rue des Saladiers, and the newspapers of Paris
might have chronicled yet another _crime passionnel_ and the appearance
of Blanquette before a weeping jury. But the days of tragedy were over.
Paragot thundered invectives against insincerity in Art (we were
discussing my famous mythological picture still on the easel at
Menilmontant) and Blanquette beamed approval. She remarked, referring to
my picture, that she didn't like so many unclad ladies. It was not
decent. Besides, if they lay in the grass like that, they would catch
cold.
"And they have no pocket-handkerchiefs to blow their noses," cried
Paragot.
Whereat Blanquette's sense of humour being tickled she screamed with
laughter. Narcisse sprang from sleep and barked, and there reigned great
happiness, in which even I, still reproachful of my master, had my
share.
"What a thing it is to be at home!" observed Paragot.
I had never heard him utter so domestic a sentiment.
"'After pleasure follows pain and after pain comes virtue.' This is
virtue with a vengeance," I reflected cynically.
"_Bien sûr_," was Blanquette's inevitable response.
When she bade us good night, Paragot drew her down and kissed her cheek,
which was an unprecedented mark of domesticity. Blanquette turned
brick-red, and I suppose her foolish heart beat wildly. I have known my
own heart to beat wildly for far less, and I am not a woman; but I have
been in love.
"It is because you belong to me, my little Blanquette, and I am among
mine own people. We understand one another, don't we? _Et tout
comprendre c'est tout pardonner._"
When she had gone he smoked reflectively for a few moments.
"I never realised till now," said he, "the sense of stability and
comfort that Blanquette affords me. She is unchangeable. God has given
her a sense whereby she has pierced to the innermost thing that is I,
and externals don't matter. She has got nearer the true Paragot than
you, my son, although I know you love me."
"What is the true Paragot, Master?" I asked.
"There are only two that know it--Blanquette and the _bon Dieu_. I
don't."
"I only know," said I, "that I owe my life to you and that I love you
more than any one else in the world."
"Even more than Mme. de Verneuil?" he asked with a smile.
I blushed. "She is different," said I.
"Quite different," he assented, after a long pause. "My son," he added,
"it is right that you should know why the end came. One generally keeps
these things to oneself--but I see you are blaming me, and a barrier may
grow up between us which we should both regret. You think I have treated
your dear lady most cruelly?"
"I can't judge you, Master," said I, terribly embarrassed.
"But you do," said he.
Paragot was in one of his rare gentle moods. He spoke softly, without a
trace of reproach or irony. He spoke, too, lying pipe in mouth on the
old rep sofa, instead of walking about the room. He told me his story.
Need I repeat it?
They had escaped a life-long misery, but on the other hand they had lost
a life-long dream. She was still in his eyes all that is beautiful and
exquisite in woman; but she was not the woman that Berzélius Nibbidard
Paragot could love. The twain had been romantic, walking in the Valley
of Illusion, wilfully blinding their eyes to the irony of Things Real.
Love had flown far from them during the silent years and they had
mistaken the afterglow of his wings for the living radiance. They had
begun to realise the desolate truth. They read it in each other's eyes.
She had been too loyal to speak. She would have married him, hoping as a
woman hopes, against hope. Paragot, whose soul revolted from pretence,
preferring real mire to sham down, fled from the piteous tragedy.
He might have retired more conventionally. He might have had a dismal
explanatory interview with Joanna, and ordered a fly to convey himself
and his luggage to the Railway Station the next morning. Perhaps if
Joanna had found him in the November Sunday afternoon garden this might
have occurred. But Joanna did not find him. His temperament found him
instead; and when you have a temperament like Paragot's, it plays the
very deuce with convention. It drew him out of the garden, across the
Channel and into the society of Bubu le Vainqueur. But, all the same, in
the essential act of leaving Melford, Paragot behaved like the man of
fine honour I shall always maintain him to be.
How many men of speckless reputation, though feeling the pinch of
poverty, would not have married Joanna for the great wealth her husband
left behind? Answer me that.
I know that Joanna wept bitterly over her lost romance. But she has
owned to me that the words written on a scrap of paper by Paragot and
posted from London were tragically true:
"My dear. It is only the shadows of our past selves that love. You and I
are strangers to each other. To continue this sweet pretence of love is
a mockery of the Holiest. God bless you. Gaston."
"If you love a Dream Woman," said Paragot, "let her stay the divine
Woman of the Dream. To awaken and clasp flesh and blood, no matter how
delicately tender, and find that love has sped at the dawn is a misery
too deep for tears."
And Paragot, lying unshaven, unwashed, in grimy shirt and trousers,
smoked silently and stared into a future in which the dear sweet Dream
Woman with "the little feet so adored" would never, never again have a
place.
"If I had a coat to my back," said he, after nearly half an hour's
silence, "I verily believe I would go to the Pont Neuf and talk to Henri
Quatre."
* * * * *
_Le Fou Rire_ had given me a commission for a front page in colours; and
I was deep in the disreputable task on the following evening when
Paragot appeared in my attic. He wore a jacket, his bag having arrived
from Melford.
"My soul hungers," said he, "for the Café Delphine, and my throat
thirsts for sociable alcohol. If you can cease the prostitution of your
art to a salacious public for an hour or two, I shall be very glad of
your company."
"I think it's rather good," said I complacently, regarding the drawing
with head bent sideways. "It's an old theme, but it's up to date. At
Janot's they would say it was palpitating with modernity."
"That's what makes it vile," said Paragot.
We were thrown into immediate argument. One of the flying art notions of
the hour was to revive the old subjects which contained the eternal
essentials of life and present them in "palpitatingly modern" form. I
eloquently developed my thesis. We were sick to death, for instance, of
the quasi-scriptural Prodigal Son, sitting half-naked in a desert beside
a swine trough. Was it not more "palpitating" to set the prodigal in
modern Paris?
"Your moderns can't palpitate with dignity, my son," replied Paragot.
"Take Susannah and the Elders. Classically treated the subject might yet
produce one of the greatest pictures of all time. Translate it into the
grocer's wife and the two churchwardens and you cannot escape from
bestial vulgarity."
Conscious of the wide horizon of extreme youth, I sighed at my master's
narrowness. He was hopelessly behind the times. I dropped the argument
and hunted for my cap.
We found the Café Delphine fairly full. Madame Boin, whom the past few
months had provided with a few more rolls of fat round her neck, gave a
little gasp as she caught sight of Paragot, and held out her hand over
the counter.
"Is it really you, Monsieur Paragot? One sees you no more. How is that?
But it is charming. Ah? You have been _en voyage_? In England? _On dit
que c'est beau là-bas._ And where will you sit? Your place is taken. It
is Monsieur Papillard, the poet, who has sat there for a month. We will
find another table. There is one that is free."
She pointed to a draughty, unconsidered table by the door. Paragot
looked at it, then at Madame Boin and then at his own private and
particular table usurped by Monsieur Papillard and his associates, and
swore a stupefied oath of considerable complication. A weird, pug-nosed,
pig-eyed, creature with a goatee beard scarce masking a receding chin,
sat in the sacred seat against the wall. His hat and cloak were hung on
Paragot's peg. He was reading a poem to half a dozen youths who seemed
all to be drinking _mazagrans_, or coffee in long glasses. They combined
an air of intellectual intensity with one of lyrical enthusiasm, like
little owls pretending to be larks. Not one of the old set was there to
smile a welcome.
We stood by the counter listening to the poem. When Monsieur Papillard
had ended, the youths broke into applause.
"_C'est superbe!_"
"_Un chef d'oeuvre, cher maître._"
They called the pug-nosed creature, _cher maître_!
"It is demented idiocy," murmured my astounded master.
At that moment entered Félicien Garbure, a down-at-heel elderly man, who
had been wont to sit at Paragot's table. He was one of those parasitic
personages not unknown in the _Quartier_, who contrived to attach
themselves to the special circle of a café, and to drink as much as
possible at other people's expense. His education and intelligence would
have disgraced a Paris cabman, but an ironical Providence had invested
him with an air of wisdom which gave to his flattery the value of
profound criticism.
This sycophant greeted us with effusion. Where had we been? Why had the
delightful band been dispersed? Did we know Monsieur Papillard, the
great poet? Before we could reply he approached the chair.
"_Cher maître_, permit me to present to you my friends Monsieur
Berzélius Paragot and Monsieur Asticot."
"_Enchanté, Messieurs_," said the great poet urbanely.
We likewise avowed our enchantment, and Paragot swore beneath his
breath. The waiter--no longer Hercule, who had been dismissed for petty
thievery some time before--but a new waiter who did not know
Paragot--set us chairs at the end of the table far away from the great
man. We ordered drinks. Paragot emptied his glass in an absent-minded
manner, still under the shock of his downfall. But a few short months
ago he had ruled in this place as king. Now he was patronizingly
presented to the snub-nosed, idiot usurper by Félicien Garbure. _His_
friend, Berzélius Paragot! _Nom de Dieu!_ And he was assigned a humble
place below the salt. Verily the world was upside down.
"Give me another _grog_," said Paragot, "a double one."
The poet read another poem. It was something about topazes and serpents
and the twilight and the pink palms of a negress. More I could not
gather. The company hailed it as another masterpiece. Félicien Garbure
called it a supreme effort of genius. A young man beside Paragot vaunted
its witchery of suggestion.
"It is absolute nonsense," cried my master.
"But it is symbolism, Monsieur," replied the young man in a tone of
indulgent pity.
"What does it mean?"
The young man--he was very kind--smiled and shrugged his shoulders
politely.
"What in common speech is the meaning of one of Bach's fugues or Claude
Monet's effects of sunlight? One cannot say. They appeal direct to the
soul. So does a subtle harmony of words, using words as notes of music,
or pigments, what you will, arranged by the magic of a master. These
things are transcendental, Monsieur."
"_Saperlipopette!_" breathed Paragot. "My little Asticot," he whispered
to me, "have I really come to this, to sit at the feet of an acting
pro-sub-vice-deputy infant Gamaliel and be taught the elements of
symbolic poetry?"
"But Master," said I, somewhat captivated by the balderdash, "there is,
after all, colour in words. Don't you remember how delighted you were
with the name of a little town we passed through on our way to
Orléans--Romorantin? You were haunted by it and said it was like the
purple note of an organ."
"Which shews you my son that I was aware of the jargon of symbolism
before these goslings were hatched," he replied.
He drained his tumbler, called the waiter and paid the reckoning.
"Let us go to Père Louviot's in the Halles where we can meet some real
men and women."
We went, and the Café Delphine knew Paragot no more.
* * * * *
After this he took to frequenting indiscriminately the various cafés of
the neighbourhood, wandering from one to the other like a lost soul
seeking a habitation. Now and again he hit upon fragments of the old
band, who had migrated from the Café Delphine when it became the home of
the symbolic poets. He tried in vain to collect the fragments together
in a new hostelry. But the cohesive force had gone. These queer circles
of the Latin Quarter are organisms of spontaneous growth. You cannot
create them artificially or re-create them when once they are
disintegrated. The twos and threes of students received him kindly and
listened to his talk; but his authority was gone. Once or twice when I
accompanied him I fancied that he had lost also the peculiar magic of
his vehement utterances. Cazalet also noticed a change.
"What is the matter with Paragot? He no longer talks. He preaches. _Ça
ennuie à la fin._"
Paragot a bore! It was unimaginable.
Was he paying the penalty of his past respectability? Had Melford
repressed his noble rage and frozen the genial current of his soul? It
is not unlikely. He often found himself condemned to solitary toping
over a stained newspaper, one of the most ungleeful joys known to man.
Sometimes he played dominoes with Félicien Garbure, now icily received
by the symbolists on account of an unpaid score. Whether desperation
drove him occasionally to Bubu le Vainqueur and his friends I do not
know. He was not really proud of his acquaintance with Bubu. Once he
whimsically remarked that as he was half way between Gaston de Nérac and
Berzélius Paragot, and therefore neither fish nor fowl, he could not
find an appropriate hole in Paris. But when his hair and his beard and
his finger nails had attained their old luxuriance of growth, and he
was in every way Paragot again, the desired haven remained still
unfindable. There were taverns without number and drink in oceans, and
the life of Paris surged up and down the Boulevards as stimulating as
ever: but the heart of Paragot cried out for something different. He
took the old violin from its dirty case and spent hours in the Rue des
Saladiers trying to fiddle the divine despair out of his system.
Sometimes he would call upon Blanquette to accompany him on her almost
forgotten zither.
One day he was with me at the Café opposite Janot's, when two or three
of the studio came in and sat at our table. There was the usual eager
talk. The subject, the new impressionism.
"But to understand it, you must be in the movement," cried Fougère, not
dreaming of discourtesy.
But Paragot took the saying to heart.
"I see it now," said he afterwards. "I am no longer in the movement. You
young men have passed me by. I am left stranded. You may ask why I don't
seek the company of my own contemporaries? Who are they that know me,
save worthless rags like Félicien Garbure? Stranded, my son. I have had
my day."
After that he refused to talk at such social gatherings as chance
afforded, and moodily listened, while he consumed profitless alcohol.
Then he began to frequent the low-life cafés of the Halles. When he had
nearly poisoned himself with vile absinthe and sickened himself with the
conversation of fishwives, he sent for me in despair.
I found him half-dressed walking up and down the salon. He looked very
ill.
"I am going to leave Paris to-day," he began, as soon as I entered. "It
is a city of Dead Sea apples. It has no place for me, save the sewer. I
don't like the sewer. I am going away. I shall never come back to Paris
again."
"But where are you going, Master?" I asked in some surprise.
He did not know. He would pack his bundle and flee like Christian from
the accursed city. Like Christian he would go on a Pilgrim's Progress.
He would seek sweet pure things. He would go forth and work in the
fields. The old life had come to an end. The sow had been mistaken. It
could not return to its wallowing in the mire. Wallowing was disgustful.
Was ever man in such a position? The vagabond life had made the
conventions of civilisation impossible. The contact with convention and
clean English ways had killed his zest for the old order of which only
the mud remained. There was nothing for it but to leave Paris.
He poured out his heart to me in a torrent of excited words, here and
there none too coherent. He must work. He had lost the great art by
which he was to cover Europe with palaces. That was no longer.
"My God!" said he stopping short. "The true knowledge of it has only
come to me lately. I was living in a Fool's Paradise. I could never have
designed a building. I should have lived on her bounty. Thank God I was
saved the shame of it."
He went on. Again he repeated his intention of leaving Paris. I must
look after Blanquette for the present. He must go and dree his weird
alone.
"And yet, my little Asticot, it is the dreadful loneliness that
frightens me. Once I had a dream. It sufficed me. But now my soul is
empty. A man needs a woman in his life, even a Dream Woman. But for me,
_ni-ni, c'est fini_. There is not a woman in the wide world who would
look at me now."
"Master," said I, "if you are going to settle down in the country, why
don't you marry Blanquette?"
"Marry Blanquette! Marry----"
He regarded me in simple, undisguised amazement which took his breath
away. He passed his hand through his hair and sat on the nearest seat.
"_Nom de Dieu!_" said he, "I never thought of it!"
Then he leaped up and caught me in the old way by the shoulders, and
cried in French, as he did in moments of great excitement:
"But it's colossal, that idea! It is the solution of everything. And I
never thought of it though it has been staring me in the face. Why I
love her, our little Blanquette. I have loved her all the time without
knowing it as the good Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose. _Sacré nom d'un
petit bonhomme!_ Why didn't you tell me before, confounded little animal
that you are?"
He swung me with a laugh, to the other side of the room, and waved his
arms grotesquely, as he continued his dithyrambic eulogy of the colossal
idea. I have never seen two minutes produce a greater change in a human
countenance. Ten years fell from it. He looked even younger than when he
had broken his fiddle over Mr. Pogson's head and received the
inspiration of our vagabondage. His blue eyes cleared, and in them shone
the miraculous light of laughter.
"But it was written, my son Asticot. It was preordained. She is the one
woman in the world to whom I need not pretend to be other than I am. She
is _real, nom de Dieu_! What she says is Blanquette, what she does is
Blanquette, and her sayings and doings would grace the greatest Queen in
Christendom. But, have you thought of it? I have come indeed to the end
of my journey. I started out to find Truth, the Reality of Things. I
have found it. I have found it, my son. It is a woman, strong and
steadfast, who looks into your eyes; who can help a man to accomplish
his destiny. And the destiny of man is to work, and to beget strong
children. And his reward is to have the light in the wife's eyes and the
welcome of a child's voice as he crosses the threshold of his house. And
it cleanses a man. But Blanquette----" he smote his forehead, and burst
into excited laughter. "Why did it not enter into this idiot head
before?"
The laughter ceased all of a sudden, and at least three years returned
to his face.
"It takes two parties to make a marriage," said he in a chastened tone.
"Blanquette is young. I am not. She may be thinking of a future quite
different. It is all very well to say I will marry Blanquette, but will
Blanquette marry me?"
"Master," said I, feeling a person of elderly experience, "it was
entirely on your account that Blanquette refused the _quincaillier_ at
the corner of the street."
I had learned from her the day before that the superior hardware
merchant had recently made her a ceremonious offer of marriage.
"A sense of duty, perhaps," said Paragot.
I laughed at his seriousness.
"But, Master, she has been eating her heart out for you since the
wedding at Chambéry."
"Asticot," said he, planting himself in front of me, "are you jesting or
speaking what you know to be the truth?"
"The absolute truth."
"And you never told me? You knew that a real woman loved me, and you let
me chase a will-o'-the-wisp with gloves and an umbrella? Truly a man's
foes are of his own household."
"But, Master----" I began.
He laughed at the sight of my dejected face.
"No, you were loyal, my son. The man who gives away a woman's
confidence, even when she avows the poisoning of her husband and the
strangulation of her babes, is a transpontine villain."
He took up his porcelain pipe and filled it from the blue packet of
caporal that lay on the table with the oilskin cover. He struck a match
and was about to apply it to the bowl, when one of his sudden ideas
caused him to blow out the match and lay down the pipe. Then with his
old lightning swiftness he strode to the door and flung it open.
"Blanquette! Blanquette!" he cried.
"_Oui, maître_," came from the kitchen, and in a moment Blanquette
entered the room.
He took her by the hand and led her to the centre, while she regarded
him somewhat mystified. With his heels together, he made her a correct
bow.
"Blanquette," said he, "in the presence of Asticot as witness I ask you
to do me the honour to become my wife."
It was magnificent; it was what Paragot would have called _vieille
école_; but it was not tactful. It was half an hour before Blanquette
fully grasped the situation.
CHAPTER XXIII
JOANNA married Major Walters, as soon as the conventionalities would
permit.
She wrote then, for the first time, to Paragot.
"I bear you no malice, my dear Gaston, and I am sure you bear me none.
Your breaking off of our engagement was the only way out of a fantastic
situation. You might have broken it less abruptly; but you were always
sudden. If I may believe Asticot, your own marriage was a lightning
incident. I can laugh now, and so I suppose can your wife; but believe
me this sort of thing does leave a woman rather breathless.
"Wish me happiness, as I wish you. If ever we meet it will be as loyal
friends."
Could woman have spoken more sweetly?
"My dear Joanna," replied Paragot, "I do wish you all the happiness in
the world. You can't fail to have it. You have a real husband as I have
a real wife. Let us thank heaven we have escaped from the moon vapour of
the Ideal, in which we poor humans are apt to lose our way and stray God
knows whither. I am sending you a real marriage gift."
"My dear Asticot," wrote Joanna from an hotel in Florence, "what do you
think your delightful but absurd master has sent me as a wedding
present? It arrived here this morning, to the consternation of the
whole hotel. A crate containing six live ducks. The label stated that
they were real ducks fed by his own hand.
"But what am I to do with six live ducks on a wedding journey, my dear
Asticot? I can't sell them. I hate the idea of eating them--and even if
I didn't, Major Walters and I can't eat six. And I can't put blue
ribbons round their necks, and carry them about with me on my travels as
pets. Can't you see me walking over the Ponte Vecchio followed by them
as by a string of poodles? And they are so voracious. The hotel people
are already charging them full pension terms. Oh, dear! Do tell me what
I am to do with these dreadful fowl!"
"My dearest Lady," I answered. "Offer the ducks like the Dunmow flitch
of bacon to the most happily married couple in Florence."
Whether Joanna acted on my brilliant suggestion I cannot say. A little
while ago I enquired after their ultimate destiny; but Joanna had
forgotten. I believe Major Walters and herself fled from them secretly.
Paragot on his label stated that he had fed the ducks with his own hand.
This was practically true; indeed, in the case of those who declined to
nourish themselves to the requisite degree of fatness, it was literally
true. I have beheld him since perform the astounding operation, a sight
_Dis hominibusque_; but not in the Rue des Saladiers. It was on his own
farm, the farm near Chartres, which he bought, in his bewildering
fashion, as soon as lawyers could prepare the necessary documents. He
took train the day after his proposal of marriage to Blanquette, and
returned, I remember, somewhat crestfallen, because he could not
conclude the purchase then and there.
"My dear sir," said the lawyer whom he consulted, "you can't buy landed
property as you can a pound of sugar over a counter."
"Why not?" asked Paragot.
"Because," said the lawyer, "the law of France mercifully concedes to
men of my profession the right of gaining a livelihood."
"I see that you are a real lawyer," said Paragot, pleased by the irony,
"and it is an amiable Providence that has guided my steps to your
_cabinet_."
But Paragot was married, and the little _appartement_ in the Rue des
Saladiers passed into alien hands, and the newly wedded pair settled
down on the farm, long before all the legal formalities of purchase were
accomplished. It takes my breath away, even now, to think of the hurry
of those days. He decided human destinies in the fraction of a second.
"My son," said he, "when I have paid for this farm, I shall have very
little indeed of the capital, on the interest of which we have been
living. I am now a married man, with the responsibilities of a wife and
a future family. I have put £200 to your credit at the Crédit Lyonnais
and that is all your fortune. If art can't support you, when you have
spent it, you will have to come to La Haye (the farm) and feed pigs.
You'll be richer if you paint them; the piggier they are, and the
heavier the gold watch chains across their bellies, the richer you will
be; but you'll be happier if you feed them. _Crede experturo._"
I went to bed that night swearing a great oath that I would neither
paint pigs nor feed pigs, but that I would prove myself worthy of the
generosity of my master and benefactor. I felt then that his goodness
was great; but how great it was I only realised in after years when I
came to learn his financial position. Bearing in mind the relativity of
things, I know that few fathers have sent their sons out into the world
with so princely a capital.
Fortune smiled on me; why, I don't know; perhaps because I was small and
sandy haired and harmless, and did not worry her. I sold two or three
pictures, I obtained regular employment on an illustrated journal, and
raised my price for contributions to _Le Fou Rire_. Bread and butter
were assured. There was never prouder youth than I, when one August
morning I started from Paris for Chartres, with fifty superfluous pounds
in my pocket which I determined to restore to Paragot.
The old Paragot of the high roads, hairy and bronzed, and wearing a
great straw hat with wide brim turned down, met me at the little local
station. He forgot that he was half British and almost hugged me. At
last I had come--it was my third visit--at last I had torn myself away
from that _sacré_ Paris and its flesh-pots and its paint-pots and its
artificialities.
"Nothing is real in Paris, whether it be the smile on the painted lady's
lips or the dream of the young poet. Here, in the midst of God's fields,
there is no pretending, no shamming, no lying, none of your confounded
idealism. All is solid, _mon gars_. Solid like that," and he thumped his
chest to illustrate the argument.
"Bucéphale, too?" I queried with a laugh, as we fetched up beside the
most ancient horse in the Department, drooping between the shafts of a
springless cart. Needless to say, Bucéphale had been rechristened in his
extreme old age.
"He is a living proof," cried Paragot, "of the solidity _rerum
agrestium_. Look at him! Shew me a horse of his age in Paris. The Paris
horses, like Youth in the poem, grow pale and spectre thin and die of
premature decay. Here, _mon petit_," said he giving a sou to a blue
bloused urchin who was restraining the impetuous Bucéphale from a wild
gallop over the Eure et Loire, "when you have spent that come to La Haye
and I will give you another."
He threw my bag into the cart, and we took our places on the plank that
served as a seat.
"_En route_, Bucéphale!" cried Paragot, gathering up the reins. "Observe
the kindly manners of the country. If I had addressed him like your
Paris cabman with a '_Hue Cocotte!_' it would have wounded his
susceptibilities."
Bucéphale started off jog-trot down the straight white road edged with
poplars, while Paragot talked, and the sun blazed down upon us from a
cobalt sky. All around the fertile plain laughed in the sunshine--a
giant, contented laugh, like that of its broad-faced, broad-hipped
daughters who greeted Paragot as we raced by at the rate of five miles
an hour. Did I ever meet a Paris horse that went this speed? asked
Paragot, and I answered him truthfully, "Never."
We stopped in a white-walled, red-roofed village, beside a tiny shop
gloriously adorned with a gilt bull's head. The butcher's wife came out.
"_Bonjour_, Monsieur Paragot."
"_Bonjour_, Madame Jolivet, have you a nice fatted calf for this young
Prodigal from Paris? If you haven't, we can do with four kilos of good
beef."
And the result of ten minutes talk was a great lump of raw meat, badly
wrapped in newspaper, which Paragot, careless of my Paris clothes,
thrust on my knees, while he continued to drive Bucéphale. I dropped the
beef into the back of the cart. Paragot shook his head.
"To-morrow, my son, you shall be clothed in humility and shall clean out
the cow pen."
"I should prefer to accept your original invitation, Master," said I,
"and help with the corn."
For Paragot, besides Bucéphale and cows and ducks and pigs and fowls and
a meadow or two, possessed a patch of cornfield of which he was
passionately proud. He had sown it himself that spring and now was
harvest. He pointed to it with his whip as soon as we came in sight of
the farm.
"_My_ corn, my little Asticot. It is marvellous, eh? Who says that
Berzélius Nibbidard Paragot can't make things grow? I was born to it.
_Nom de Dieu_ I could make anything grow. I could plant your palette and
it would come up a landscape. And _sacré mille cochons_, I have done the
most miraculous thing of all. I am the father of a human being, a real
live human being, my son. He is small as yet," he added apologetically,
"but still he is alive. He has teeth, Asticot. It is the most remarkable
thing in this astonishing universe."
The dim form of a woman standing with a child in her arms in front of a
group of farm buildings across the fields to the right, gradually grew
into the familiar figure of my dear Blanquette. She came down the road
to meet us, her broad homely face beaming with gladness and in her eyes
a new light of welcome. Narcisse trotted at her heels. The rheumatism of
advancing years gave him a distinguished gait.
We sprang from the cart. Bucéphale left to himself regarded the family
meeting with a grandfatherly air, until an earth-coloured nondescript
emerged from the ground and led him off towards the house. After our
embraces, we followed, Paragot dancing the delighted infant, Blanquette
with her great motherly arm around my shoulders, and Narcisse soberly
sniffing for adventure, after the manner of elderly dogs.
"Do you remember, Asticot?" said Blanquette. "Four of us started for
Chambéry. Now five of us come to La Haye. _C'est drôle, hein?_"
"_Tu es contente?_" I asked.
Her arm tightened, and her eyes grew moist.
"_Mais oui_," she said in a low voice. Then she looked at Paragot and
the child, a yard or two in front of us.
"He is the image of his father," she said almost reverentially.
I burst out laughing. Where the likeness lay between the chubby,
snub-nosed, eighteen months old baby, and the hairy, battered Paragot,
no human eye but Blanquette's could discover. I vowed he resembled a
little Japanese idol.
"_Pauvre chéri_," said Blanquette, motherwise.
The house of Paragot was not a palace. It stood, low and whitewashed,
amid a medley of little tumble-down erections, and was guarded on one
side by cowsheds and on the other by the haystack. You stepped across
the threshold into the kitchen. A door on the right gave access to the
bedroom. A ladder connected with a hole in the roof enabled you to reach
the cockloft, the guest room of the establishment. That was all. What
on earth could man want more? asked Paragot. The old rep suite, the
table with the American cloth, the coloured prints in gilt frames
including the portrait of Garibaldi, the cheap deal bookcases holding
Paragot's tattered classics, gave the place an air of familiar
homeliness. A mattock, a gun and a cradle warred against old
associations.
When we entered, the child began to whimper. Perhaps it did not approve
of the gun. Like myself he may, in trembling fancy, have heard its owner
cry: "I have an inspiration! Let us go out and shoot cows." Paragot
found another reason.
"That infant's life is a perpetual rebellion against his name. I chose
Triptolème. A beautiful name. If you look at him you see it written all
over him. Blanquette was crazy for Thomas. In indignation I swore he
should be christened Triptolème Onésime. Blanquette wept. I yielded. 'At
least let him be called Didyme,' I pleaded. Didyme! There is something
caressing about Didyme. Repeat it. 'Didyme.' But no. Blanquette wept
louder. She wept so loud that all the ducks ran in to see whether I was
murdering her----"
"It is not true!" protested Blanquette. "How can you say those things?
You know they are not true."
"Her state was so terrible," continued my master, "that I sacrificed my
son's destiny. Behold Thomas. I too would howl if I had such a name."
"He is hungry," said Blanquette, "and it is a very pretty name. He likes
to hear it, _n'est-ce pas, mon petit Tho-Thom chéri_? There! He smiles."
"She is really convinced that he has heard her call him Thomas. Oh,
woman!" said Paragot.
That evening, after we had feasted on cabbage-soup and the piece of beef
which I had been too stuck-up to dandle on my knees, and clear brown
cider, the three of us sat outside the house, in the warm August
moonlight. Sinking into an infinitely far horizon stretched the fruitful
plain of France, cornland and pasture, and near us the stacked sheaves
of Paragot's corn stood quiet and pregnant symbols of the good earth's
plenty. Here and there dark patches of orchard dreamed in a haze.
Through one distant patch a farmhouse struck a muffled note of grey. On
the left the ribbon of road glistened white between the sentinel poplars
silhouetted against the sky. The hot smell of the earth filled the air
like spice. A thousand elfin sounds, the vibration of leaves, the tiny
crackling of cornstalks, the fairy whirr of ground insects, melted into
a companionable stillness.
Blanquette half dozed, her head against Paragot's shoulder, as she had
done that far-off evening of our return from Chambéry. The smoke from
his porcelain pipe curled upwards through the still air. I was near
enough to him on the other side, for him to lay his hand on my arm.
"My son," he whispered in English, "I was right when I said I had come
to the end of my journey. Eventually I am right in everything. I
prophesied that I would make little Augustus Smith a scholar and a
gentleman. _Te voilà._ I knew that my long pilgrimage would ultimately
lead me to the Inner Shrine. Isn't all this," he waved his pipe in a
circular gesture, "the Holy of Holies of the Real? Is there any illusion
in the unutterable poetry of the night? Is there anything false in this
promise of the fruitful earth? My God! Asticot, I am happy! When the
soul laughs tears come into the eyes. I have all that the heart of man
can desire--the love of this dear wife of mine--the child asleep within
doors--the printed wisdom of the world in a dozen tongues of men, caught
up hap-hazard in what I once, in a failing hour, thought was my
wildgoose chase after Truth--the pride in you, my little Asticot, the
son of my adoption--and the most overpowering sleepiness that ever sat
upon mortal eyelid."
He yawned. I protested. It was barely nine o'clock.
"It is bedtime," said Paragot. "We have to get up at five."
"Good Heavens, Master," said I, "why these unearthly hours?"
He laughed and quoted Candide.
"_Il faut cultiver notre jardin._"
"No," said the drowsy Blanquette at last understanding the conversation,
"we have to cut the rest of the corn."
"It's all the same, my dear," said Paragot tenderly. "We were talking
philosophy. Philosophy merely means the love of wisdom. And all that the
wisdom of all the ages can tell us, is summed up in the last words of
one of the wisest books that ever was written: 'We must cultivate our
garden.'"
But how my dear erratic master has managed for years and years to
cultivate the farm of La Haye and to bring up my godson in the fear of
the Lord and the practice of land surveying is a proof that the late Mr.
Matthew Arnold was hopelessly wrong in his categorical declaration that
miracles do not happen.
THE END
Popular Copyright Books
AT MODERATE PRICES
Any of the following titles can be bought of your bookseller at the
price you paid for this volume
=Circle, The.= By Katherine Cecil Thurston (author of "The
Masquerader," "The Gambler").
=Colonial Free Lance, A.= By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
=Conquest of Canaan, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
=Courier of Fortune, A.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Darrow Enigma, The.= By Melvin Severy.
=Deliverance, The.= By Ellen Glasgow.
=Divine Fire, The.= By May Sinclair.
=Empire Builders.= By Francis Lynde.
=Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Fighting Chance, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=For a Maiden Brave.= By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
=For Love or Crown.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Fugitive Blacksmith, The.= By Chas. D. Stewart
=God's Good Man.= By Marie Corelli.
=Heart's Highway, The.= By Mary E. Wilkins.
=Holladay Case, The.= By Burton Egbert Stevenson.
=Hurricane Island.= By H. B. Marriott Watson.
=In Defiance of the King.= By Chauncey C. Hotchkiss.
=Indifference of Juliet, The.= By Grace S. Richmond.
=Infelice.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
=In the Name of a Woman.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Lady Betty Across the Water.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
=Lady of the Mount, The.= By Frederic S. Isham.
=Lane That Had No Turning, The.= By Gilbert Parker.
=Langford of the Three Bars.= By Kate and Virgil D. Boyles.
=Last Trail, The.= By Zane Grey.
=Leavenworth Case, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
=Lilac Sunbonnet, The.= By S. R. Crockett.
=Lin McLean.= By Owen Wister.
=Long Night, The.= By Stanley J. Weyman.
=Maid at Arms, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Man from Red Keg, The.= By Eugene Thwing.
=Marthon Mystery, The.= By Burton Egbert Stevenson.
=Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Millionaire Baby, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
=Missourian, The.= By Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.
=Mr. Barnes, American.= By A. C. Gunter.
=Mr. Pratt.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
=My Friend the Chauffeur.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
=My Lady of the North.= By Randall Parrish.
=Mystery of June 13th.= By Melvin L. Severy.
=Mystery Tales.= By Edgar Allan Poe.
=Nancy Stair.= By Elinor Macartney Lane.
=Order No. 11.= By Caroline Abbot Stanley.
=Pam.= By Bettina von Hutten.
=Pam Decides.= By Bettina von Hutten.
=Partners of the Tide.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
=Phra the Phoenician.= By Edwin Lester Arnold.
=President, The.= By Alfred Henry Lewis.
=Princess Passes, The.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
=Princess Virginia, The.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
=Prisoners.= By Mary Cholmondeley.
=Private War, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
=Prodigal Son, The.= By Hall Caine.
=Queen's Advocate, The.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Quickening, The.= By Francis Lynde.
=Richard the Brazen.= By Cyrus T. Brady and Edw. Peple.
=Rose of the World.= By Agnes and Egerton Castle.
=Running Water.= By A. E. W. Mason.
=Sarita the Carlist.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Seats of the Mighty, The.= By Gilbert Parker.
=Sir Nigel.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Sir Richard Calmady.= By Lucas Malet.
=Speckled Bird, A.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
=The Shepherd of the Hills.= By Harold Bell Wright.
=Jane Cable.= By George Barr McCutcheon.
=Abner Daniel.= By Will N. Harben.
=The Far Horizon.= By Lucas Malet.
=The Halo.= By Bettina von Hutten.
=Jerry Junior.= By Jean Webster.
=The Powers and Maxine.= By C. N. and A. M. Williamson.
=The Balance of Power.= By Arthur Goodrich.
=Adventures of Captain Kettle.= By Cutcliffe Hyne.
=Adventures of Gerard.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=Arms and the Woman.= By Harold MacGrath.
=Artemus Ward's Works= (extra illustrated).
=At the Mercy of Tiberius.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
=Awakening of Helena Richie.= By Margaret Deland.
=Battle Ground, The.= By Ellen Glasgow.
=Belle of Bowling Green, The.= By Amelia E. Barr.
=Ben Blair.= By Will Lillibridge.
=Best Man, The.= By Harold MacGrath.
=Beth Norvell.= By Randall Parrish.
=Bob Hampton of Placer.= By Randall Parrish.
=Bob, Son of Battle.= By Alfred Ollivant.
=Brass Bowl, The.= By Louis Joseph Vance.
=Brethren, The.= By H. Rider Haggard.
=Broken Lance, The.= By Herbert Quick.
=By Wit of Women.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=Call of the Blood, The.= By Robert Hitchens.
=Cap'n Eri.= By Joseph C. Lincoln.
=Cardigan.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=Car of Destiny, The.= By C. N. and A. N. Williamson.
=Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine.= By Frank R. Stockton.
=Cecilia's Lovers.= By Amelia E. Barr.
=Spirit of the Border, The.= By Zane Grey.
=Spoilers, The.= By Rex Beach.
=Squire Phin.= By Holman F. Day.
=Stooping Lady, The.= By Maurice Hewlett.
=Subjection of Isabel Carnaby.= By Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler.
=Sunset Trail, The.= By Alfred Henry Lewis.
=Sword of the Old Frontier, A.= By Randall Parrish.
=Tales of Sherlock Holmes.= By A. Conan Doyle.
=That Printer of Udell's.= By Harold Bell Wright.
=Throwback, The.= By Alfred Henry Lewis.
=Trail of the Sword, The.= By Gilbert Parker.
=Treasure of Heaven, The.= By Marie Corelli.
=Two Vanrevels, The.= By Booth Tarkington.
=Up From Slavery.= By Booker T. Washington.
=Vashti.= By Augusta Evans Wilson.
=Viper of Milan, The= (original edition). By Marjorie Bowen.
=Voice of the People, The.= By Ellen Glasgow.
=Wheel of Life, The.= By Ellen Glasgow.
=When I Was Czar.= By Arthur W. Marchmont.
=When Wilderness Was King.= By Randall Parrish.
=Where the Trail Divides.= By Will Lillibridge.
=Woman in Grey, A.= By Mrs. C. N. Williamson.
=Woman in the Alcove, The.= By Anna Katharine Green.
=Younger Set, The.= By Robert W. Chambers.
=The Weavers.= By Gilbert Parker.
=The Little Brown Jug at Kildare.= By Meredith Nicholson.
=The Prisoners of Chance.= By Randall Parrish.
=My Lady of Cleve.= By Percy J. Hartley.
=Loaded Dice.= By Ellery H. Clark.
=Get Rich Quick Wallingford.= By George Randolph Chester.
=The Orphan.= By Clarence Mulford.
=A Gentleman of France.= By Stanley J. Weyman.
BURT'S SERIES _of_ STANDARD FICTION.
=THE SPIRIT OF THE BORDER.= A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio
Valley. By Zane Grey. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
A book rather out of the ordinary is this "Spirit
of the Border." The main thread of the story has
to do with the work of the Moravian missionaries
in the Ohio Valley. Incidentally the reader is
given details of the frontier life of those hardy
pioneers who broke the wilderness for the planting
of this great nation. Chief among these, as a
matter of course, is Lewis Wetzel, one of the most
peculiar, and at the same time the most admirable
of all the brave men who spent their lives
battling with the savage foe, that others might
dwell in comparative security.
Details of the establishment and destruction of
the Moravian "Village of Peace" are given at some
length, and with minute description. The efforts
to Christianize the Indians are described as they
never have been before, and the author has
depicted the characters of the leaders of the
several Indian tribes with great care, which of
itself will be of interest to the student.
By no means least among the charms of the story
are the vivid word-pictures of the thrilling
adventures, and the intense paintings of the
beauties of nature, as seen in the almost unbroken
forests.
It is the spirit of the frontier which is
described, and one can by it, perhaps, the better
understand why men, and women, too, willingly
braved every privation and danger that the
westward progress of the star of empire might be
the more certain and rapid. A love story, simple
and tender, runs through the book.
=CAPTAIN BRAND, OF THE SCHOONER CENTIPEDE.= By Lieut. Henry A. Wise, U.
S. N. (Harry Gringo). Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
The re-publication of this story will please those
lovers of sea yarns who delight in so much of the
salty flavor of the ocean as can come through the
medium of a printed page, for never has a story of
the sea and those "who go down in ships" been
written by one more familiar with the scenes
depicted.
The one book of this gifted author which is best
remembered, and which will be read with pleasure
for many years to come, is "Captain Brand," who,
as the author states on his title page, was a
"pirate of eminence in the West Indies." As a sea
story pure and simple, "Captain Brand" has never
been excelled, and as a story of piratical life,
told without the usual embellishments of blood and
thunder, it has no equal.
=NICK OF THE WOODS.= A story of the Early Settlers of Kentucky. By
Robert Montgomery Bird. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J.
Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.
This most popular novel and thrilling story of
early frontier life in Kentucky was originally
published in the year 1837. The novel, long out of
print, had in its day a phenomenal sale, for its
realistic presentation of Indian and frontier life
in the early days of settlement in the South,
narrated in the tale with all the art of a
practiced writer. A very charming love romance
runs through the story. This new and tasteful
edition of "Nick of the Woods" will be certain to
make many new admirers for this enchanting story
from Dr. Bird's clever and versatile pen.
=GUY FAWKES.= A Romance of the Gunpowder Treason. By Wm. Harrison
Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank.
Price, $1.00.
The "Gunpowder Plot" was a modest attempt to blow
up Parliament, the King and his Counsellors. James
of Scotland, then King of England, was weak-minded
and extravagant. He hit upon the efficient scheme
of extorting money from the people by imposing
taxes on the Catholics. In their natural
resentment to this extortion, a handful of bold
spirits concluded to overthrow the government.
Finally the plotters were arrested, and the King
put to torture Guy Fawkes and the other prisoners
with royal vigor. A very intense love story runs
through the entire romance.
=TICONDEROGA:= A Story of Early Frontier Life in the Mohawk Valley. By
G. P. R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
The setting of the story is decidedly more
picturesque than any ever evolved by Cooper: The
frontier of New York State, where dwelt an English
gentleman, driven from his native home by grief
over the loss of his wife, with a son and
daughter. Thither, brought by the exigencies of
war, comes an English officer, who is readily
recognized as that Lord Howe who met his death at
Ticonderoga. As a most natural sequence, even amid
the hostile demonstrations of both French and
Indians, Lord Howe and the young girl find time to
make most deliciously sweet love, and the son of
the recluse has already lost his heart to the
daughter of a great sachem, a dusky maiden whose
warrior-father has surrounded her with all the
comforts of a civilized life.
The character of Captain Brooks, who voluntarily
decides to sacrifice his own life in order to save
the son of the Englishman, is not among the least
of the attractions of this story, which holds the
attention of the reader even to the last page. The
tribal laws and folk lore of the different tribes
of Indians known as the "Five Nations," with which
the story is interspersed, shows that the author
gave no small amount of study to the work in
question, and nowhere else is it shown more
plainly than by the skilful manner in which he has
interwoven with his plot the "blood" law, which
demands a life for a life, whether it be that of
the murderer or one of his race.
A more charming story of mingled love and
adventure has never been written than
"Ticonderoga."
=ROB OF THE BOWL:= A Story of the Early Days of Maryland. By John P.
Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four page illustrations by J. Watson Davis.
Price, $1.00.
It was while he was a member of Congress from
Maryland that the noted statesman wrote this story
regarding the early history of his native State,
and while some critics are inclined to consider
"Horse Shoe Robinson" as the best of his works, it
is certain that "Rob of the Bowl" stands at the
head of the list as a literary production and an
authentic exposition of the manners and customs
during Lord Baltimore's rule. The greater portion
of the action takes place in St. Mary's--the
original capital of the State.
As a series of pictures of early colonial life.
In Maryland, "Rob of the Bowl" has no equal, and
the book, having been written by one who had
exceptional facilities for gathering material
concerning the individual members of the
settlements in and about St. Mary's, is a most
valuable addition to the history of the State.
The story is full of splendid action, with a
charming love story, and a plot that never loosens
the grip of its interest to its last page.
=BY BERWEN BANKS.= By Allen Raine.
It is a tender and beautiful romance of the
idyllic. A charming picture of life in a Welsh
seaside village. It is something of a prose-poem,
true, tender and graceful.
=IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.= A romance of the American Revolution. By
Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
The story opens in the month of April, 1775, with
the provincial troops hurrying to the defense of
Lexington and Concord. Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in
burning words a story of Yankee bravery and true
love that thrills from beginning to end with the
spirit of the Revolution. The heart beats quickly,
and we feel ourselves taking a part in the
exciting scenes described. You lay the book aside
with the feeling that you have seen a gloriously
true picture of the Revolution. His whole story is
so absorbing that you will sit up far into the
night to finish it. As a love romance it is
charming.
=DARNLEY.= A Romance of the times of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. By
G. P. R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis.
Price, $1.00.
As a historical romance "Darnley" is a book that
can be taken up pleasurably again and again, for
there is about it that subtle charm which those
who are strangers to the works of G. P. R. James
have claimed was only to be imparted by Dumas.
If there was nothing more about the work to
attract especial attention, the account of the
meeting of the kings on the historic "field of the
cloth of gold" would entitle the story to the most
favorable consideration of every reader.
There is really but little pure romance in this
story, for the author has taken care to imagine
love passages only between those whom history has
credited with having entertained the tender
passion one for another, and he succeeds in making
such lovers as all the world must love.
=WINDSOR CASTLE.= A Historical Romance of the Reign of Henry VIII.,
Catharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth,
12mo. with four illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price $1.00.
"Windsor Castle" is the story of Henry VIII.,
Catharine, and Anne Boleyn. "Bluff King Hal,"
although a well-loved monarch, was none too good a
one in many ways. Of all his selfishness and
unwarrantable acts, none was more discreditable
than his divorce from Catharine, and his marriage
to the beautiful Anne Boleyn. The King's love was
as brief as it was vehement. Jane Seymour, waiting
maid on the Queen, attracted him, and Anne Boleyn
was forced to the block to make room for her
successor. This romance is one of extreme interest
to all readers.
=HORSESHOE ROBINSON.= A tale of the Tory Ascendency in South Carolina in
1780. By John P. Kennedy. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J.
Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.
Among the old favorites in the field of what is
known as historical fiction, there are none which
appeal to a larger number of Americans than
Horseshoe Robinson, and this because it is the
only story which depicts with fidelity to the
facts the heroic efforts of the colonists in South
Carolina to defend their homes against the brutal
oppression of the British under such leaders as
Cornwallis and Tarleton.
The reader is charmed with the story of love which
forms the thread of the tale, and then impressed
with the wealth of detail concerning those times.
The picture of the manifold sufferings of the
people, is never overdrawn, but painted faithfully
and honestly by one who spared neither time nor
labor in his efforts to present in this charming
love story all that price in blood and tears which
the Carolinians paid as their share in the winning
of the republic.
Take it all in all, "Horseshoe Robinson" is a work
which should be found on every book-shelf, not
only because it is a most entertaining story, but
because of the wealth of valuable information
concerning the colonists which it contains. That
it has been brought out once more, well
illustrated, is something which will give pleasure
to thousands who have long desired an opportunity
to read the story again, and to the many who have
tried vainly in these latter days to procure a
copy that they might read it for the first time.
=THE PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND.= A story of the Coast of Maine. By Harriet
Beecher Stowe. Cloth, 12mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.00.
Written prior to 1862, the "Pearl of Orr's Island"
is ever new; a book filled with delicate fancies,
such as seemingly array themselves anew each time
one reads them. One sees the "sea like an unbroken
mirror all around the pine-girt, lonely shores of
Orr's Island," and straightway comes "the heavy,
hollow moan of the surf on the beach, like the
wild angry howl of some savage animal."
Who can read of the beginning of that sweet life,
named Mara, which came into this world under the
very shadow of the Death angel's wings, without
having an intense desire to know how the premature
bud blossomed? Again and again one lingers over
the descriptions of the character of that baby boy
Moses, who came through the tempest, amid the
angry billows, pillowed on his dead mother's
breast.
There is no more faithful portrayal of New England
life than that which Mrs. Stowe gives in "The
Pearl of Orr's Island."
=RICHELIEU.= A tale of France in the reign of King Louis XIII. By G. P.
R. James. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis.
Price, $1.00.
In 1829 Mr. James published his first romance,
"Richelieu," and was recognized at once as one of
the masters of the craft.
In this book he laid the story during those later
days of the great cardinal's life, when his power
was beginning to wane, but while it was yet
sufficiently strong to permit now and then of
volcanic outbursts which overwhelmed foes and
carried friends to the topmost wave of prosperity.
One of the most striking portions of the story is
that of Cinq Mar's conspiracy; the method of
conducting criminal cases, and the political
trickery resorted to by royal favorites, affording
a better insight into the statecraft of that day
than can be had even by an exhaustive study of
history. It is a powerful romance of love and
diplomacy, and in point of thrilling and absorbing
interest has never been excelled.
=A COLONIAL FREE-LANCE.= A story of American Colonial Times. By Chauncey
C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis.
Price, $1.00.
A book that appeals to Americans as a vivid
picture of Revolutionary scenes. The story is a
strong one, a thrilling one. It causes the true
American to flush with excitement, to devour
chapter after chapter, until the eyes smart, and
it fairly smokes with patriotism. The love story
is a singularly charming idyl.
=THE TOWER OF LONDON.= A Historical Romance of the Times of Lady Jane
Grey and Mary Tudor. By Wm. Harrison Ainsworth. Cloth, 12mo. with four
illustrations by George Cruikshank. Price, $1.00.
This romance of the "Tower of London" depicts the
Tower as palace, prison and fortress, with many
historical associations. The era is the middle of
the sixteenth century.
The story is divided into two parts, one dealing
with Lady Jane Grey, and the other with Mary Tudor
as Queen, introducing other notable characters of
the era. Throughout the story holds the interest
of the reader in the midst of intrigue and
conspiracy, extending considerably over a half a
century.
=IN DEFIANCE OF THE KING.= A Romance of the American Revolution. By
Chauncey C. Hotchkiss. Cloth, 12mo. with four illustrations by J. Watson
Davis. Price, $1.00.
Mr. Hotchkiss has etched in burning words a story
of Yankee bravery, and true love that thrills from
beginning to end, with the spirit of the
Revolution. The heart beats quickly, and we feel
ourselves taking a part in the exciting scenes
described. His whole story is so absorbing that
you will sit up far into the night to finish it.
As a love romance it is charming.
=GARTHOWEN.= A story of a Welsh Homestead. By Allen Raine. Cloth, 12mo.
with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.
"This is a little idyl of humble life and enduring
love, laid bare before us, very real and pure,
which in its telling shows us some strong points
of Welsh character--the pride, the hasty temper,
the quick dying out of wrath. . . . We call this
a well-written story, interesting alike through
its romance and its glimpses into another life
than ours. A delightful and clever picture of Welsh
village life. The result is excellent."--Detroit
Free Press.
=MIFANWY.= The story of a Welsh Singer. By Allan Raine. Cloth, 12mo.
with four illustrations by J. Watson Davis. Price, $1.00.
"This is a love story, simple, tender and pretty
as one would care to read. The action throughout
is brisk and pleasing; the characters, it is
apparent at once, are as true to life as though
the author had known them all personally. Simple
in all its situations, the story is worked up in
that touching and quaint strain which never grows
wearisome, no matter how often the lights and
shadows of love are introduced. It rings true, and
does not tax the imagination."--Boston Herald.
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Varied hyphenation was retained
including to-morrow and tomorrow.
Page 84, "mattrass" changed to "mattress" (up on the mattress)
Page 141, "Berzelius" changed to "Berzélius" (His name is Berzélius)
Page 152, "quoedam" changed to "quædam" (falsa quædam esse)
Page 188, "exert" changed to "exerts" (English Parsonage exerts)
Page 205, "Vernueil" changed to "Verneuil" (Verneuil after an interval)
Page 220, "you" changed to "You" (made you. You)
Page 266, "Everbody" changed to "Everybody" (Everybody came to dance)
Page 305, "Afred" changed to "Alfred" (By Alfred Henry Lewis)
Page 308, word "to" inserted into text (be of interest to)
End of Project Gutenberg's The Belovéd Vagabond, by William J. Locke