THE LITTLE CHILD GONE.
You have not failed to notice the one item of news in Miss Carr's
diary--the death of a little heir--or to recognize it for the young
heir of Alnwick.
Since quitting Belport, Mrs. Carleton St. John had pursued the same
course of restless motion until within two or three weeks of the final
close. Whether she would have arrested her wandering steps then of her
own accord, must be a question, but the sick-nurse, Mrs. Brayford,
interfered. "You are taking away every chance for his life, madam,"
she said, one day. "If you persist in dragging the child about, I must
leave you, for I cannot stay to see it. It will surely prove fatal to
him before his time."
A sharp cry escaped from Mrs. St. John as she listened. The words
seemed to tear the flimsy make-believe veil from her eyes: the end was
very near: and who knows how long she had felt the conviction? They
had halted this time at Ypres, a city of Belgium, or West Flanders,
famous for its manufactures of cloths and serges. Handsome apartments
were hastily procured, and George was moved into them. Not very ill
yet did the child appear; only so terribly worn and weak. Mrs. St.
John's anguish, who shall tell of it? She loved this child, as you
have seen, with a fierce, jealous love. He was the only being in the
world who had filled every crevice of her proud and impassioned heart.
It was for his sake she had hated Benja; it was by Benja's death--and
she alone knew whether she had in any shape contributed to that
death, or whether she was wholly innocent--that he had benefited.
That some dread was upon her, apart from the child's state, was
evident--clinging to her like a nightmare.
The disease took a suddenly decisive form the second day after their
settling down at Ypres, telling of danger, speaking palpably of the
end. He could not have been moved from Ypres now, had it been ever so
much wished for. Mrs. St. John called in, one after another, the chief
doctors of the town; she summoned over at a great expense two
physicians from London; she sent an imperative mandate to Mr. Pym; and
not one of them saw the slightest chance of saving the boy's life. She
watched his fair face grow paler; his feverish limbs waste and become
weaker. She never shed a tear. For days together she would be almost
unnaturally calm; but once or twice a burst of anguish had broken from
her, fearful in itself, painful to witness. One of these paroxysms was
yielded to in the presence of the child. Yielded to? Poor thing!
perhaps she could not help it! George was frightened almost to death.
She flung herself about the large old foreign room as one insane,
tearing her hair, and calling upon the child to live--to live.
"Mamma, don't, don't!" panted the little lad, in his terror. "Don't be
so sorry for me! I am going to heaven, to be with Benja."
At his first cry she had stopped and fallen on her knees beside him.
Up again now; up again at the words, and darting about as if possessed
by a demon, her hands to her temples.
"Oh, mamma, don't frighten me," shrieked the child. "I shall be glad
to go to Benja."
Cease, Georgy, cease! for every innocent word that you utter seems but
renewed torture to your poor mother. Look at her, as she sinks down
there on the floor, and groans aloud in her sharp agony.
It was on the day of this outbreak, an hour or two after it, that Mr.
Pym arrived. The good man, utterly innocent of French, and not
accustomed to foreign travel--or indeed to much travelling of any
sort, for he was quite a fixture at Alnwick--had contrived to reach
Ypres some two days later than he should have done; having been taken
off, perplexity alone knew whither. In the first place, he had called
the town "Wypers"--which was not the surest way of getting to Ypres.
However, here he was at last, a little ruffled certainly, and confused
in mind, but on the whole thankful that he was found, and not lost for
good.
George was lying on some pillows when the surgeon entered; a very wan,
white, feeble George indeed--a skeleton of a George. But he held out
his little transparent hand, with a glad smile of welcome at the
home-face.
"I've not forgotten you!" he panted, his poor breath very short and
laboured now. "Mamma said you were coming; she thought you'd come
yesterday."
"Ay, so did I. But I--lost my way, Georgy."
Mr. Pym drew a chair close to the boy, and sat looking at him. Perhaps
he was thinking that in all his practice he had rarely seen a child's
frame so completely worn. But a few days of life were left in it;
perhaps not that. The blue eyes, large and lustrous, were cast up at
the surgeon's face; the hot fragile hand lay passively in the strong
firm palm.
"Did you see Benja's pony?"
"Benja's pony!" mechanically repeated the doctor, whose thoughts were
far away from ponies. "I think it is still in the stable at Alnwick."
"I was to ride it when I went home. Prance said so. Grandmamma said
so. I wanted to go home to ride it; and to see Brave; but I'm not
going now."
"Not just yet," said the surgeon. "You are not strong enough, are you,
Georgy? How is mamma?"
"I'll tell Mrs. St. John that you are here, sir!" interposed a
respectable-looking woman, rising from a chair at the other end of the
large room.
It startled Mr. Pym. He had not observed that any one was present. She
went out and closed the door.
"Who was that, George?"
"It's Mrs. Brayford!"
"Oh, ay; Nurse Brayford. I heard of her from Mrs. Darling."
"Mamma won't let her be called nurse. She said I did not want a nurse.
We call her Brayford. Have you seen Benja?" continued the lad,
speaking better, now that the excitement arising from the doctor's
entrance had subsided; but with the last words his voice insensibly
dropped to a low tone.
"Seen Benja!" echoed Mr. Pym, in his surprise. "Do you mean Benja's
tomb? It is a very nice one: on rather too large a scale, though, for
my taste, considering his age."
"No," said George; "I mean Benja."
"Why, child, how could I see Benja? He is gone away from our eyes; he
is safe in heaven."
"Mamma sees him."
"Oh no, she does not," said Mr. Pym, after a slight pause.
"But she does," persisted Georgy. "She sees him in the night, and she
lays hold of me and hides her face. She sees the lighted church; it
blazes up sometimes."
There was a curious look of speculation in Mr. Pym's eyes as he gazed
at the unconscious speaker. "Mamma dreams," he said; "as we all do. Do
you remember my old horse Bob, Georgy? Well, he died this summer, poor
fellow, of old age. I dream of him some nights, Georgy; I think he's
carrying me along the road at a sharp trot."
Georgy's imaginative young mind, quickened by bodily weakness, took
hold of the words with interest. "Do you see his saddle and bridle,
Mr. Pym?"
"His saddle, and bridle, and stirrups, and all; and his old mane and
tail. They had grown so grey, Georgy. He was a faithful, hard-working
servant to me: I shall never have his like again."
"Have you got another horse? Is his name Bob?"
"I have another, and his name's Jack. He's not a second Bob, Georgy.
When he has to stand before people's doors in my gig, he gets
impatient and begins to dance. One day when I was on him, he tried to
throw me, and we had a fight for the mastery: another day, when I
wanted him to turn down Bell-yard, he wished to walk into the
brush-shop, and we had another fight."
Georgy laughed, with all the little strength left in him. "I wouldn't
keep him. Benja's pony never did all that."
"Well, you see, Georgy, I am trying to train him into better ways;
that's why I keep him. But he's a naughty Jack."
"Why shouldn't you have Benja's pony? I'm sure mamma would give it
you: she says she doesn't care what becomes of anything left at
Alnwick. It was for me; but I'm not going back now; I'm going to
heaven."
"Ah, my little generous lad, Benja's pony would not carry me; I'm
heavier than you and Benja. And what about the French tongue, Georgy?
Are you picking it up?"
"It's not French they talk here," said Georgy; "it's Flemish. We have
two Flemish servants, and you should hear them jabbering."
Mr. Pym stroked back the child's flaxen hair: to his touch it felt
damp and dead. In mind, in speech, he seemed to have advanced quite
three years, though it was not yet a twelvemonth since he quitted
Alnwick.
The door opened, and Mrs. St. John came into the room. Not the
anguished excited woman who had gone into that insane paroxysm an hour
or two before; but a cold high-bred gentlewoman, whose calm exterior
and apparently impassive feelings were entirely under self-control.
Her dark hair, luxuriant as ever, was elaborately dressed, and her
black silk gown was of rich material and the most fashionable make.
"I have been expecting you these two days," she said as she advanced.
"I thought this morning you must have given up all intention of
coming, and I looked for a letter instead."
"Ah," said Mr. Pym, holding out his hand to her, "I got lost, as I
have been telling Georgy. Never was abroad before in my life: never
got puzzled by any language but once, and that was in Wales."
She heard nothing in the sentence except the one word, "Georgy."
"How do you think he is looking, Mr. Pym?"
"Well--there might be more flesh upon his bones," was all the surgeon
answered, his tone bordering upon jocularity rather than dismay.
Doubtless he knew what he was about.
"I thought, if any one could do him good, it was you," said Mrs. St.
John. "The doctors here say they cannot; the physicians I had over
from London said they could not, and went back again: and then I sent
for you."
"Ah, yes," answered Mr. Pym, in an unmeaning tone. "I'm glad to see my
little friend again. Georgy and I always got on well together, except
on the score of physic. Do you remember those powders, Georgy, that
you and I used to have a battle over?"
"Don't I!" answered Georgy. "But you won--you made me take them."
The surgeon laughed.
"Can you give him some powders now?" asked Mrs. St. John; and there
was nothing of eagerness in her voice and manner, only in her
glittering eyes.
"I'm not sure that it is exactly powders he requires now," was the
answer, spoken in evasion. "We'll see."
Mrs. St. John walked to the distant window and stood there. For a
moment her face was pressed against its cold glass, as one whose brow
is in pain; the next, she stood up--tall, haughty, commanding; not a
symptom of care upon her handsome face, not a shade of sorrow in her
resolute eye. It is very probable that this enforced self-control,
persisted in as long as Mr. Pym was at Ypres, cost her more than even
he dreamt of.
Turning her head, she beckoned to the surgeon. Mr. Pym, waiting only
to cover George with the silken coverlet, for the boy had settled down
on his pillow exhausted, and seemed inclined to sleep, approached her.
The house on this side faced the green fields; there was no noise, no
bustle; all that was on the other side. A quaint old Flemish tower and
clock, from which the hands were gone, stared them in the face at a
field's distance: the Flemish cook had tried to make Prance understand
that it was about to be taken down, when that fastidious lady's-maid
protested against its ugliness.
"I have sent for you for two purposes, Mr. Pym," began Mrs. St. John,
taking a seat, and motioning the surgeon to another, both of them
beyond the reach of George's ears. "The medical men I have called in
to him, say, or intimate, that he cannot live; they left one by one,
all saying it. The two who attend him regularly were here this
morning. I saw them go out whispering, and I know _they_ were saying
it. I have sent for you to confirm or dispute this: you know what is
the constitution of the St. Johns, and are acquainted with his. Must
George die?"
Not a sign of emotion was there about her. _Could_ this be the same
woman whose excitement for months had been a world's wonder, whose
anguish, when uncontrolled, had been a terror to her servants? She sat
with an impassive face, her tones measured, her voice cold and calm.
One very small sign of restlessness there was, and it lay in her
fingers. A thin cambric handkerchief was between them, and she was
stealthily pulling at one of its corners: when the interview was over,
the fine texture of threads had given way, leaving a broad hole there.
Mr. Pym knew that the child must die: it had required but one moment's
glance to see that the angel of death was already on the wing, but to
say this to Mrs. St. John might be neither kind nor expedient. He was
beginning some evasive reply, when she stopped him peremptorily.
"I sent for you to know the truth, and you must tell it me. Must
George die?"
That she was in no mood to be trifled with, the surgeon saw. To
attempt it might not be wise. Besides, the signs on George's face were
such this day, that she must see what the truth was as clearly as he
saw it.
"I think him very ill, Mrs. St. John. He is in danger."
"That is not a decisive answer yet. _Can't_ you give me one?--you have
come far enough to do it. Will he die?"
"I fear he will."
"He has gone too far to recover? He will shortly----"
A momentary pause, but she recovered instantly. "A few hours will see
the end?"
"I do not say that. A few days will no doubt see it."
Mrs. St. John looked across at the handless clock, as if asking why it
did not go on. The surgeon glanced at her face, and was thankful for
its composure. She resumed:
"Then the other motive with which I sent for you need scarcely be
entered upon. It was, that you, who have watched him from his birth,
might perhaps suggest some cure that the others could not."
"Some mode of treatment, I dare say you mean, Mrs. St. John. No, I
fear nothing would have been effectual. I could not save his father;
there is no probability that I could have saved him."
"Why is it that the St. Johns of Alnwick die in this way?" she
returned, her voice taking a passionate tone.
"Nay," returned Mr. Pym, soothingly, "none may question the will of
God. It is not given to us always to discern causes: we see here
through a glass darkly. Of one thing we may ever rest assured, Mrs.
St. John--that at the Great Final clearance we shall see how merciful
God has been, how all happened for the best."
"Is he dying of the same wasting disease that his father died of?" she
resumed after a pause. "Or of--of--of what he took the evening of the
birthday dinner?"
"What did he take the evening of the birthday dinner?" returned Mr.
Pym, asking the question in surprise. "He took nothing then, that I
know of."
"He took a fright--if nothing else. _I_ have never understood what it
was that ailed him."
"Pooh! A momentary childish fright, and a fit of indigestion," said
the surgeon, lightly. "They are not things to injure a boy
permanently."
"He has never been well since," she said, in low tones. "Never for an
hour."
"The disease must have been stealing upon him then, I suppose, and the
little derangement to the system that night brought out its first
symptoms," observed Mr. Pym. "Who knows but he might have caught it
from his father during the latter's illness?"
"You think, then, that nothing could have saved him?"
"I think it could not. Where there is a strong tendency to hereditary
disease, it is sure to show itself."
"And--I have not taken him about too much? It has not injured him?"
"I hope not," cheerfully replied Mr. Pym. Where was the use of his
saying it had, whatever his opinion might be?
She had her finger right up through the hole in the handkerchief now,
and was looking at it--at the finger, not the hole. Mr. Pym watched
every turn of her features, seeming to keep his eyes quite the other
way.
"What right had George St. John to marry?" she suddenly cried. "If
people know themselves liable to any disease that cuts off life, they
should keep single; and so let the curse die out."
"Ay, if people would! Some have married who had a less right to do so
than George St. John."
The remark seemed to have escaped him unwittingly. Mrs. St. John
turned her eyes upon him, and he hastened to resume:
"No blame could attach to your husband for marrying, Mrs. St. John.
When he did so, he was, to all appearance, a hale, healthy man."
"He might have suspected that the waste would come upon him. It had
killed the St. Johns of Alnwick who had gone before him."
"It had killed one or two of them. But how was George St. John to know
that it would attack him? He might have inherited his mother's
constitution: hers was a sound one."
"And why--and why--could not Georgy inherit mine?"
The pauses were evidently made to recall calmness, to subdue the
rebellious breath, which was shortening. A very peculiar expression
momentarily crossed the surgeon's face.
"All is for the best, Mrs. St. John. _Rely upon it_."
A little feeble voice was calling out for mamma, and Mr. Pym hastily
quitted his seat at the sound. Any one might have said he was glad of
the interruption. The child's sweet blue eyes were raised as the
surgeon bent over him, and his wan lips parted with a smile.
"Best as it is; oh, thank God, best as it is!" he murmured to himself,
as he gently drew the once pretty curls from the white and wasted
brow, and suffered his hand to rest there. "A short time, and
then--one of God's angels. _Here_, had he lived--better not think of
it. All's for the best."
The surgeon remained twenty-four hours at Ypres, and then took his
departure. Not once, during all that time, was Mrs. St. John off her
guard, or did she lose her self-possession.
The hour came for the child to die, and he was laid in his little
grave in Belgium. For a day or two, Mrs. St. John was almost
unnaturally calm, but the second night, at midnight, her cries of
despair aroused the house, and a violent scene came on. Prance shut
herself up in the room with her, and silence at length supervened. So
far as Mrs. Brayford could make out--but that was not very much,
through Prance's jealous care--the unhappy lady laboured under some
perpetual terror--fancying she saw a vision of Benja coming towards
her with a lighted church. These paroxysms occurred almost nightly:
and Mrs. St. John grew into a terribly nervous state from the very
dread of them. She sometimes drank a quantity of brandy, to the dismay
of Prance: not, poor thing, from love of it, but as an opiate.
What would be her career now? It would seem that the old restlessness,
the hurrying about from place to place, would form a feature in it. No
sooner were the child's remains removed from her sight, than the
eagerness for change came on. It had been thought by all around her
that George would have been taken to Alnwick, to be interred with his
forefathers, but it had not pleased Mrs. St. John to give orders to
that effect. Indeed, she gave no orders at all; and but for Prance,
the tidings had not been conveyed even to Mrs. Darling. The blow
fallen, all else in the world seemed a blank to the bereaved mother.
Apart from the child's personal loss, his death took from her state
and station; and she was not one to disregard those benefits. That the
boy had been more precious to her than heaven, was unhappily too true;
and all else had died with him. If she had indeed any sin upon her
conscience connected with that fatal night, what terrible retribution
must now have been hers. Were Benja living she would still be in the
enjoyment of wealth, pride, power; would still be reigning at the once
much-coveted Hall of Alnwick, its sole mistress. With the death of the
children, all had gone from her. No human care or skill could have
saved the life of her own son; but Benja?--Heaven did not call _him_.
It seemed that the ill-fated boy's image was rarely absent from her.
Not the burning figure, flying about and screaming (as there could be
no reasonable doubt he did fly about and scream), but the happy child,
marching to and fro in the room, all pleased with his pretty toy, the
lighted church. After George's death, when grief was telling upon her
system and calling forth all of nervousness inherent in it, she hardly
dared to be alone in the dark, lest the sight should appear to her;
she dreaded the waking up at night, and Prance's bed was removed into
her room. A little time to renew her strength of body, and these
nervous fancies would subside; but meanwhile there was one great
comprehensive dread upon her--the anniversary of the fatal day, the
10th of November,--St. Martin's Eve. It was close at hand,--the
intervening hours were slipping past with giant strides; and she asked
herself how she should support its remembrances. "Oh, that he had
lived! that he were at my side now! that I could give to him the love
I did not give him in life!" she murmured, alluding to poor Benja.
From Ypres she hastened away to Lille, and there spent a day or two;
but she thought she would go back to England. That renowned saint's
vigil was dawning now, for this was the ninth. Should she spend the
tenth in travelling?--or remain where she was, at rest, until the
eleventh? _At rest!_--while this state of mind was upon her? It were
mockery to call it so. Rather let her whirl over the earth night and
day, as the fierce raven whirled over the waters on being set loose
from the Ark; but not again let her hope for rest!
The tenth day came in, and she was to all appearance calm. But a fit
of restlessness came upon her in the course of the morning, and she
gave orders to depart at once for a certain town on the coast--a town
belonging to France now, but whose population still cling to their
Flemish tongue. A steamer was about to leave the port of this town for
London that night, and the sudden idea had taken her that she would go
by it--to the intense indignation of Prance, who had never in all her
life heard of civilized beings crossing the Channel except by the
short passage.
They quitted Lille, and arrived at the town about four in the
afternoon, putting up at the large hotel. Mrs. Brayford was still in
her train: her services had been useful during the recent excited
state of Mrs. St. John; but she was not to attend her to England, and
here they would part company.
"Will Madame dine in her salon, or at the table-d'hôte?" inquired the
head-waiter of the man-servant, in sufficiently plain English.
"At the table-d'hôte, no doubt," was the man's reply, speaking in
accordance with his own opinion. "Madame has lost her two children,
and is in low spirits, not caring to be much alone. Today is the
anniversary of the eldest's death."
"Tiens!" returned the waiter. "Today is the eve of St. Martin. All
the children in the town will be gay tonight."
"Yes, it's the eve of St. Martin," assented the servant, paying no
attention to the other remark, and not in the least understanding it.
The domestic proved correct in his surmises. At five o'clock, when
the bell rang for table-d'hôte, Mrs. Carleton St. John entered the
dining-room. Very few were present; all gentlemen, except herself, and
mostly pensionnaires; the hotels on the coast are empty at that
season. The dinner was excellent, but it did not last long; and the
gentlemen, one by one, folded their large serviettes, and quitted the
room.
She was seated facing the mantelpiece, its clock in front of her. The
hands were approaching six--the very hour when, twelve months before,
while she sat in her dining-room at Alnwick, Benja was on fire with
none near to rescue him. Nervousness tells in various ways upon the
human frame, and it seemed to Mrs. St. John that the striking of the
hour would be her own knell. Every symptom of one of those frightful
paroxysms was stealing over her, and she dreaded it with an awful
dread. As long as the rest of the dinner-guests were present,
endurance was possible, though her brain had throbbed, her hands had
trembled. But they were gone, those gentlemen. They had gazed on her
beauty as she sat before them, and wondered that one so young could be
so wan and careworn. A choking sensation oppressed her; her throat
seemed to swell with it; and that sure minute-hand grew nearer and
nearer. Invalids have strange fancies; and this poor woman was an
invalid both in body and mind.
The agitation increased. She glanced round the large space of the
darkened room--for the waiter, as was his custom, had put out the
side-lamps now that dinner was over--almost believing that she should
see Benja. The hands were all-but pointing to the hour; the silence
was growing horrible, and she suddenly addressed an observation to the
waiter at the sideboard behind her; anything to break it. There was no
answer. Mrs. Carleton St. John turned sharply round, and became aware
that the man had gone out; that she was alone in that dreary room.
Alone! The nervous climax had come; and with a cry of horror, she flew
out at the door, and up the broad lighted staircase.
What is it that comes over us in these moments of superstitious fear?
Surely we have all experienced this sensation: ay, even we who pride
ourselves upon our clear consciences--the dread of looking behind us.
Yet look we must, and do. The unhappy lady had only taken a few steps
up the stairs, when she turned her head in the impulse of desperation,
and there--_there_--at the foot of the stairs, as if he had but
stepped in through the open doors of the courtyard, stood the
indistinct form of a boy, bearing a lighted church; the very facsimile
of the one that other boy had borne on his birthday night, while a
dull, wild, unearthly sound, apparently proceeding from him, smote
upon her ear.
She knew not how she got up the stairs, how she burst into her chamber
in the long corridor. Prance ought to have been there; but Prance was
not: there was only the wood-fire in the grate; the two wax lights on
the mantelpiece.
And at the same moment she became conscious of hearing a strange
noise; the wildest sounds that ever struck on the ear of man. They
seemed to come from the street; the very air resounded with them;
louder and louder they grew; loud enough to make a deaf man hear, to
strike the most equable mind with a vague sense of momentary terror.
The same basilisk impulse that had caused her to glance round on the
staircase, drew her now to the window. She dashed it open and leaned
out--perhaps for company in her desperate loneliness, poor thing!
But--what was it she beheld?
In all parts of the street, in every corner of it, distant, near,
nearer, pouring into it from all directions, as if they were making
for the hotel, as if they were making for _her_, flocking into it in
crowds,--from the Place Jean Bart, from the Rue de l'Eglise, from
the Rue Nationale, from the Rue David-d'Angers, from the Place
Napoleon,--came shoals upon shoals of lighted churches, toys, similar
to the one she had just seen below, to the one carried by that
unfortunate child a year ago, at Alnwick. Of all sizes, of all forms,
of various degrees of clearness and light, a few were red and a few
were green, came on these conspicuous things: paper models of
cottages, of houses, of towers, of lanterns, of castles, and many
models of churches; on, on they pressed; accompanied by the horrible
din of these hollow and unearthly sounds. With an awful cry, that was
lost in the depths of the room--what could be heard amidst that
discordant babel?--Mrs. St. John turned to fly, and fell to the floor
in convulsions. She had only _imagined_ that she saw Benja in those
previous nervous dreams of hers: now it seemed that the dream had
passed into reality, and these were a thousand Benjas, in flesh and
blood, come to mock at her.
And where was Prance? Her mistress had said to her on going down to
dinner, "Wait for me in my room;" but Prance for once neglected to
observe the mandate. For one thing, she had not supposed dinner would
be over so soon. Prance was only in the next chamber: perfectly
absorbed, both she and Mrs. Brayford, in this strange sight, which was
all real; not supernatural, as perhaps poor Mrs. St. John had been
thinking. They stood at the window both of them, their necks stretched
out as far as they could stretch, gazing with amazed eyes at all this
light and din. Nothing of the supernatural did it bear for them: they
saw the scene as it was, but wondered at its cause and meaning. It was
a wonderfully novel and pretty sight, though the two women kept
petulantly stopping their ears and laughing at the din. The lighted
toys, lanterns, churches, or whatever you please to call them, were
chiefly composed of paper, the frames of splinters of wood; a few were
of glass. They were borne aloft on long sticks or poles, chiefly by
children; but it seemed as if the whole population had turned out to
escort them; as indeed it had. The Flemish maids, in their white caps,
carried these toys as well as the children, all in a state of broad
delight, except when one of the lanterns took fire and was
extinguished for evermore. It was a calm night: it generally is so,
the inhabitants of that town will tell you, on St. Martin's Eve. The
uproar proceeded from _horns_; cows' horns, clay horns, brass horns, any
horns; one of which every lad under twenty held to his lips, blowing
with all his might. Prance, who rarely exhibited curiosity about any
earthly thing, was curious as to this, and sought for an explanation
amidst the servants of the hotel. The following was the substance of
it--
When the saint, Martin, was on earth in the flesh, sojourning in this
French-Flemish town, his ass was lost one dark night on the
neighbouring downs. The holy man was in despair, and called upon the
inhabitants to aid him in his search. The whole population responded
with a will, and turned out with horns and lanterns, a dense fog
prevailing at the time. Tradition says their efforts were successful,
and the lost beast was restored to its owner. Hence commenced this
annual custom, and most religiously has it been observed ever since.
On St. Martin's Eve and St. Martin's Night, the 10th and 11th of
November, as soon as darkness comes on, the principal streets of the
town are perambulated by crowds carrying their horns and lanterns. It
is looked upon almost as a religious fête, and is sanctioned by the
authorities. Police keep the streets clear; carriages, carts, and
horses are not allowed to pass during the two or three hours that it
prevails; and, in short, every consideration gives way to the horns
and lanterns on St. Martin's Eve and Night.
It was a strange coincidence that had taken thither Mrs. St. John; one
of those inexplicable things that we cannot explain, only wonder at.
The women, their number augmented by two of the Flemish maid-servants,
remained at the window, enduring the din, admiring some particularly
tasty church or castle; laughing at others that took fire, to the
intense irritation of their bearers. In the midst of this, Prance
suddenly bethought herself of her mistress, and hastened into the
adjoining room.
A sharp cry from Prance summoned Nurse Brayford. Their lady was lying
on the floor, to all appearance insensible.