CHAPTER XII.

THE BARONET IS RELIEVED.--A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY.

The night was wild and stormy. The wind had risen to a hurricane, and

drove the rain in Raymond’s face as he walked home through the park.

It was driving the grass in cold ripples over the fields, and tossing

the trees about as if it would break them. Columns of black clouds were

trooping over the sky, and the moon broke through them as if she were

pursued by the wind and flying for her life. Raymond was a long time

getting to the cottage. Great gusts swept up from the valley, staggering

him, so that he had to stand every now and then and cling to a tree until

it passed. Then the rain beat against his face so that he could hardly

profit by the fitful gleams of the moon as she dipped in and out of the

clouds. He was dripping wet when he got to his own door and let himself

in with his latch-key. He took off his coat, hanging it in the hall, and

lighted his candle. Franceline had left it close to his hand with a match.

Mechanically he walked up to his room and began to divest himself of his

drenched clothing. He hardly noticed that they were soaking and that he

was wet through; he was flushed and heated as if he had come straight

from a hot room. How the blast roared and shrieked, beating against the

cottage till it rocked like a ship at sea, and trying the windows till

they cracked and groaned! It whistled through the chinks so that the

flimsy red curtain fluttered as if the window had been open. Raymond

pushed it aside and opened the shutters, and looked out. The night was

inky black, above and below, except when a star flickered in and out like

a gas-jet swept by the wind, and showed the river like a bit of steel,

as it flashed and quivered under the pelting rain and hurried away into

blacker distance. All this angry roar was better than music to Raymond.

The fury of the elements seemed to comfort him. Nature was in sympathy

with him. It was kind of her to be angry and disturbed when he was so

distraught. Nature had more heart than his fellow-men. These were talking

over his despair quietly enough now--mocking him, very likely; but the

world around was shaken, and tossed, and driven in sympathy with him. A

great gust came swelling up from the river, growing louder and heavier

as it drew near, till, gathering itself up like a mountainous wave,

it burst with a crash against the cottage. M. de la Bourbonias leaped

back, and, with a sudden impulse of terror, flew out into the landing,

and knocked at Angélique’s door; but the sonorous breathing of the old

servant reassured him that all was right there and in the room beyond.

It was pitch dark, but the reflection from his own open door showed

Franceline’s standing wide open. He listened, but everything was silent

there. He stole noiselessly back to his room and closed the door, without

disturbing either of the sleepers.

The storm had reached its crisis, and gradually subsided after this,

until the wind was spent and died away in long, low wails behind the

woods, and the moon drifted above the tattered clouds that were sweeping

toward the east, leaving a portion of the sky stainless, with stars

flashing out brightly. Raymond put out his candle and went to bed.

Under ordinary circumstances he would probably have paid for the night’s

adventure by an attack of bronchitis or rheumatic fever; but the mental

fever that had been devouring him warded off every other, and when he

came down next morning he was neither ill nor ailing.

Franceline, like her _bonne_, had slept through the storm, and they were

quite astonished to hear what an awful night it had been, and to see the

fields strewn with great branches in every direction, gates torn up, and

other evidences of the night’s work. But they saw no traces of another

tempest that was raging still in a human soul close by them. Nothing

betrayed its existence, and they guessed nothing--so securely does this

living wall of flesh screen the secrets of the spirit from every outside

gaze! Passions rise up in hearts whose pulses we fondly imagine close

and familiar to us as our own, and the winds blow and the waves run high

and make wild havoc there, turning life into darkness and despair, or,

at the whisper of the Master’s voice, illuminating it as suddenly with a

flood of sunshine; and we are blind and deaf to these things, and remain

as “a stranger to our brother.” And mercifully so. Many a battle is won

that would have been lost if it had not been fought alone. We hinder each

other by our pity, perhaps, as often as we help.

* * * * *

Sir Simon had very little appetite for his breakfast when he came down

next morning, sick at heart after a sleepless night, and found the

pleasant meal thoughtfully spread in his favorite room, the library, with

the table wheeled close to his arm-chair on the right side of the hearth.

It all looked the very picture of comfort and refinement and elegance.

But the cup was doubly poisoned to him now; last night’s adventure had

added the last drop of bitterness to it. He could not think of Raymond

without a poignant pang. He suspected--and he was right--that Raymond

was thinking of him, wondering whether it was really all over with him

this time, and whether he was bankrupt and his estate in the fangs of

the creditors; and whether he was driving away from the Court never to

see it again; or whether once more, for the hundred and ninety-ninth

time, he had weathered the storm and was still afloat--even though on a

raft. Raymond would have scarcely believed it if any one had informed him

that he had been the instrument of destroying Sir Simon’s one chance of

escape; that he had snatched the last plank from him in his shipwreck.

It may have been an imaginary one, and Sir Simon, after the fashion of

drowning men, may have been catching at a straw; but now that it was

snatched from him, he was more than ever convinced that it had been a

solid plank which would have borne him securely to shore. He did not

ask himself whether Mr. Plover would have entered into his plans, and

whether, supposing he found it his interest to do so, his fortune would

have been equal to the demand; he only considered what might have been,

and what was not; and thinking of this, his indulgent pity for M. de la

Bourbonais shrank in the bitter reflection that he had ruined not only

himself but his friend irretrievably. They were pretty much in the same

boat now.

Sir Simon’s self-made delusions had cleared away wonderfully within

the last forty-eight hours. He drew no comparison to his own advantage

between Raymond’s actual position and his own. If M. de la Bourbonais

was a thief in the technical sense of the word, he, Sir Simon, was a

bankrupt; and a bankrupt, under certain conditions, may mean a swindler.

He had been a swindler for years; his life had been a sham these twenty

years, and he had not the excuse of circumstances to fall back on; he

had been dishonest from extravagance and sheer want of principle. “Take

it first and afford it afterwards” had been his theory, and he had lived

up to it, and now the day of reckoning had arrived. Many a time he had

said, half in jest, that Raymond was the richer man of the two. Raymond

used to laugh mildly at the notion, but it was true. An ambitious,

extravagant man and a contented poor one are pretty much on a level: the

one possesses everything he does not want; the other wants everything

he does not possess. The unprincipled spend-thrift and the high-minded,

struggling man were then on an equality of fortune, or rather the latter

was virtually the wealthier of the two. But now the distinction was

washed out. The proud consciousness of unstained honor and innermost

self-respect which had hitherto sustained M. de la Bourbonais and

sweetened the cup of poverty to him was gone. He was a blighted man, who

could never hold up his head again amongst his fellow-men.

“Good God! what delirium possessed him? How could he be so infatuated, so

stupid!” broke out Sir Simon, giving vent to what was passing through his

mind. “But,” he added presently, “he was not accountable. I believe grief

and anxiety drove him mad.” Then he recalled that answer of Raymond’s,

that had sounded so untrue at the time: “Yes, I can fancy myself giving

way, if the temptation took a certain form, and if I were left to my own

strength.” The words sounded now like a prophecy.

Of course we all know that, according to the canons of poetical justice,

the brave, suffering man should have been in some unexpected way succored

in his extremity; that some angel in visible or invisible form should

have been sent to hold him up from slipping into the pit that despair had

dug for him; and that, on the other hand, the wicked spendthrift should

have been left to eat the bread of righteous retribution, and suffer the

just penalty of his evil behavior. But poetical justice and the facts of

real life do not always agree.

Sir Simon, after walking up and down the library, chewing the cud of

bitter thoughts until he was sick of it, bethought himself that as

breakfast was there he might as well try and eat it before it got cold.

So he sat down and poured out his coffee, and then, by mere force of

habit, and without the faintest glimmer of interest, began to turn over

the bundle of letters piled up beside the _Times_ on the table. One

after another was tossed away contemptuously. The duns might cry till

they were hoarse now; he need not trouble about them; he would be at

least that much the gainer by his disgrace. Suddenly his eye lighted on

an envelope that was not addressed in the well-known hand of the race

of duns, but in Clide de Winton’s, and it bore the London postmark. The

thought of Clide generally produced on Sir Simon the effect of a needle

run through the left side; but he took up this letter with a strange

thrill of expectation. He opened it, and a change came over his face;

it was not joy--it was too uncertain, too tremulous yet for that. He

must read it again before he trusted to the first impression; he must

make sure that he was not dreaming, and the words that danced like a

will-o’-the-wisp before his eyes were real, written with real ink, on

real paper. At last he dropped the letter, and a heartier prayer than he

had uttered since his childhood came from him: “My God, I thank thee! I

have not deserved this mercy, but I will try to deserve it.”

He buried his face in his hands, and remained mute and motionless for

some minutes. Then, starting up as if suddenly remembering something, he

pulled out his watch. It wanted five minutes of ten. The law officer and

the Jew creditor were to start by the train that left Charing Cross at a

quarter past eleven. Sir Simon rang the bell sharply.

“Saddle a horse, and ride as fast as you can with this to the telegraph,”

he said to his valet, who answered the summons; “and the moment you come

back, get ready to be off with me to London by the mid-day train.”

The telegram prepared Mr. Simpson to see his client appear at his office

at two o’clock that afternoon, and, in obedience to its directions, the

Jew was there to meet him. Clide de Winton had seen Simpson the day

before, and given him full authority to settle the Dullerton debts so

as to set Sir Simon Harness free. He had only arrived in London that

very morning, and it was the merest accident that led him to call on

the family lawyer, who was also the family’s best friend, on his way

from the station to his hotel. Simpson was discretion itself, and one of

the attributes of that virtue is to know when to be indiscreet. Clide’s

first inquiry was for Sir Simon, with a view--which the astute lawyer

did not see through--of leading up to inquiries about other friends at

Dullerton; whereupon Mr. Simpson bolted out the whole truth, told him of

the baronet’s position, the long arrears of debt that had come against

him, and which were to culminate in bankruptcy within twenty-four hours.

It was as if the sky had fallen on Clide, or the ground opened under his

feet.

“Thank goodness I am come in time!” he exclaimed; and there and then sat

down and wrote to Sir Simon, telling him that proceedings were stopped,

and that he, Clide, took them in his own hands.

“And this is what you call being a friend!” said the young man, as he

and the baronet left Simpson’s office together, the one with a lightened

purse, the other with a heart considerably more so. “To think of your

letting things go to such lengths, and that if I had been a day later it

would have been all over!”

“My dear boy! what can I say to you? How can I ever repay you?”

“By forgiving me. I’ve lived long enough to find out a secret or two.

One is that it requires a very noble soul to forgive a man a money

obligation, and that there is a deal more generosity in accepting than

in conferring it. So if you don’t pick a quarrel with me after this, and

turn your back on me, we are quits. Is it a bargain?”

He held out his hand, laughing; Sir Simon wrung it till the pressure made

Clide wince. This was his only answer, and the only sentimental passage

the occasion gave rise to between them.

* * * * *

It was more than a month since Clide had left St. Petersburg, although

the season was still at its height there, and Isabel’s engagement was to

have lasted until the end of it. This had, however, been brought to an

abrupt and tragic close. She had acted for six weeks with unprecedented

success; every night was a fresh triumph, and nothing was talked of in

the _salons_ and clubs but the wonders of her voice, the intense reality

of her acting, and her rare beauty. Ophelia was considered her grandest

part. She was playing it one evening to a crowded house, in the presence

of the imperial family and the whole court, and seemed wrought up to a

pitch of power and pathos that surpassed her finest preceding efforts.

She was singing the mad scene with melting tenderness; the house was

breathless, hanging enraptured on every note, when suddenly the voice

ceased, the prima donna cast a wild look on every side of her, and then,

with a shriek too terribly real to be within the compass of art, she

flung her arms over her head, and, clasping her hands, fell insensible to

the ground. Never did any opera-house witness so dramatic a scene. The

spectators rose in a body from the pit to the gallery, shouting to know

what had happened, and calling for help. Help was near enough. A man in

plain clothes sprang from behind the scenes, and lifted the prostrate

Ophelia before any of the actors could interfere. There were several

medical men among the audience, and they rushed in a body to offer

their services. It was feared for a moment that she was dead; but the

doctors soon pronounced it to be only a swoon, though it was impossible

to say what might follow on the awakening. The emperor sent one of his

chamberlains to hear and see what was going on in the green-room, and

inquire if the piece was to be continued; whereupon the luckless manager

flew out before the footlights, and falling on his knees under the

imperial box, as if he saw the knout suspended over his shoulders, called

heaven to witness that he was a loyal subject and an innocent man, and

flung himself on the imperial clemency. The prima donna had been seized

with illness, and the opera could not be finished that night. The czar

waved his clemency to the terrified man, who withdrew, invoking all

manner of benedictions on the mercy of the Father of all the Russians,

and flew to hear what the doctors were now saying of Ophelia. They were

saying that she was acting out her part as it had never yet been acted,

with the perfection of nature--she was raving mad.

This was not proclaimed at once. The affair was hushed up for a few days,

and kept out of the newspapers, so that Clide only heard it accidentally

at the club, where he happened to lounge in a week after the occurrence.

He sent Stanton off at once to make inquiries at the house where Isabel

lodged. But they could tell nothing of her there; she had been taken away

the day after her seizure at the opera, and had left no address. Clide

went straight to the lawyer, and asked if there was no way of getting

access to her through the police; of learning at least whether she was

in an asylum; for his first idea on hearing that she had been taken away

was that they had placed her in some such confinement. The lawyer agreed

with him that this was most probable, but did not promise much help in

verifying the supposition. He seemed honestly willing to do what he could

in the matter, but repeated the old warning that little could be done

where imperial favor stood in the way. It was highly probable that the

czar would still show his benevolence toward the beautiful artist by

screening her hiding-place and the fact of her being mad, in hope of her

being able to return and complete her engagement after rest and medical

treatment.

His position now seemed worse to Clide than it had ever been. The thought

of Isabel’s being in a mad-house, a prey to the most awful visitation

that humanity is subject to, rudely, perhaps cruelly, treated by coarse,

pitiless menials, was so horrible that at first it haunted him till he

almost fancied he was going mad himself. The image of the bright young

creature who had first stirred the pulses of his foolish heart was for

ever before his eyes as she appeared to him that day--how long ago it

seemed!--in the midst of the splendors of Niagara, and that he took her

for a sprite--some lovely creature of the water and the sunlight. He

remembered, with a new sense of its meaning, the strange air she wore,

walking on as if half unconscious he had wondered if she were not walking

in her sleep. Was it a phase of the cruel malady that was then showing

itself? And if so, was she not, perhaps, blameless from the beginning?

This blight that had fallen on her in her brilliant maturity might have

been germinating then, making strange havoc in her mind, and impelling

her character, her destiny, to fearful and fantastic issues. Some weeks

passed while Clide was a prey to these harrowing thoughts, when he

received a letter from the lawyer, saying he had something to communicate

to him of interest.

“It is not good news,” he said, as the Englishman entered his office;

“but it is better than complete suspense. The signora is not in St.

Petersburg. All our researches were useless from the first, as she was

carried off almost immediately to a lunatic asylum in Saxony.”

“And she is there still?”

“Yes; and she has been admirably treated with the utmost skill and care,

so much so that it is expected she will be quite restored after a short

period of convalescence.”

“How did you ascertain all this?” inquired Clide.

“Through a client of mine who has been for some time a patient of the

establishment. He left it very recently, and came to see me on his

return, and in talking over the place and its inmates he described one

in a way that excited my suspicions. I wrote to the director, and put a

few questions cautiously, and the answer leaves me no doubt but that the

patient whom my client saw there a few days before his departure was the

lady who interests you.”

“Did you hear who accompanied her to Saxony?”

“My client saw a person walking in the grounds with her once, and

from the description it must be the same who travelled with her from

England--her uncle, in fact: a middle-sized man with coal-black hair and

very white teeth; ‘decidedly an unpleasant-looking person’ my client

called him.”

“Strange!” murmured Clide. “That description does not tally with my

recollection of the man who called himself her uncle, except that he had

a forbidding countenance and was of medium height. He had a quantity of

gray, almost white, hair, and not a sound tooth in his head.”

“Humph! White hair may turn black, and new teeth may be made to replace

lost ones,” observed the lawyer. “I would not be put off the scent by

changes of that sort, if the main points coincided.”

“Very true. I must start at once, then, for Saxony, and try and see

for myself. I shall have difficulty in gaining the confidence of the

directors of the place, I dare say. Can you help me by a letter of

introduction to any of them?”

“Yes; I am well known to the principal medical man by name, and I will

give you a line to him with pleasure.”

He wrote it, and shook hands with his client and wished him good-speed.

Clide travelled without halting till he drove up to the door of the

asylum. His letter procured him admittance at once to the private room

of the medical man, and, what was of greater importance, it inclined

the latter to credit his otherwise almost incredible story. When Clide

had told all he deemed necessary, the doctor informed him that the

patient whom he believed to be his wife had already left the house and

the country altogether; she had spent three full weeks under his care,

and was then well enough to be removed, and had, by his advice, been

taken home for the benefit of native air. It was just three days since

she had left Saxony. The doctor could give no idea as to where she had

gone, beyond that she had returned to England; he knew nothing of the

whereabouts of her native place there, and her uncle had left no clue to

his future residence.

Clide was once more baffled by fate, and found himself again in a

dead-lock. In answer to his inquiries concerning the nature of Isabel’s

disease, the medical man said that it was hereditary, and therefore

beyond the likelihood--not to say possibility--of radical cure. This, it

seemed, was the third attack from which she had suffered. The first was

in early girlhood, before the patient was eighteen; the second, somewhat

later and of much longer duration--it had lasted six years, her uncle

said; then came the third crisis, which, owing, perhaps, to the improved

general health of the patient, but more probably to the more judicious

and enlightened treatment she had met with, had passed off very rapidly.

It was, however, far from being a cure. It was at best but a recovery,

and the disease might at any moment show itself again in a more obstinate

and dangerous form. Perfect quiet, freedom from excitement, whether

mental or physical, were indispensable conditions for preserving her

against another crisis. It was needless to add after this that the career

of an actress was the most fatal one the unfortunate young woman could

have adopted. But in that, no doubt, she was more passive than active.

* * * * *

With this new light on his path, Clide hastened his return to England,

farther than ever, it seemed, from his journey’s end, and laden with a

heavier burden than when he set out. March! march! was still the command

that sounded in his ears, driving him on and on like the Wandering Jew,

and never letting him get nearer the goal.

He had not the faintest idea of Isabel’s native place. She had told him

she was Scotch, and her name said so too, though she was perfectly free

from the native accent which marked her uncle’s speech so strongly. But

what did that prove either way? Was Cameron her name, or Prendergast his?

He had taken a new name in his travels, and so had she. Still, feeble as

the thread was, it was the only one he had to guide him; so he started

for Scotland as soon as he landed in England, having previously taken the

precaution to acquaint the police in London with his present purpose,

and what had led him to it. If Isabel were sufficiently recovered to

appear again in public, it was probable that the brutal man--who was in

reality no more than her task-master--would have made some engagement for

her with a manager, and she might at this moment be singing her brain

away for his benefit in some provincial theatre. It was clear he shunned

the publicity of the London stage. Clide thought of these things as he

tramped over the purple heather of the Highlands, following now one

mirage, now another; and his heart swelled within him and smote him for

his angry and vindictive feelings toward Isabel; and tears, that were

no disgrace to his manhood, forced themselves from his eyes. Poor child!

She was not to blame, then, for wrecking his life, and coming again like

an evil genius to thrust him back into the abyss just as he had climbed

to safety, beckoned onwards and upwards by another angel form. She was a

victim herself, and had perhaps never meant to deceive or betray him, but

had loved him with her mad, untutored heart as well as she knew how.

The winter days dragged on drearily, as he went from place to place in

Scotland, and found no trace of the missing one, heard nothing that gave

him any hopes of finding her. The police were equally unsuccessful in

London. Stanton had gone back there, very much against his inclination;

but Clide insisted that he would be of more use in the busy streets,

keeping his keen eyes open, than following his master in his wanderings

up and down Scotland.

One dark afternoon the valet was walking along Regent Street, when he

stopped to look at some prints in a music-shop. The gas was lighted, and

streamed in a brilliant blaze over the gaudily-attired tenors and _prime

donne_ that were piling the agony on the backs of various operatic songs.

Stanton was considering them, and mentally commenting on the manner of

ladies and gentlemen who found it good to spend their lives making faces

and throwing themselves into contortions that appeared to him equally

painful and ridiculous, when he noticed a lady inside the shop engaged

in choosing some music. She was dressed in black, and he only caught

a glimpse of her side face through her veil; but the glimpse made him

start. He watched her take the roll of music from the shopman, secure it

in a little leathern case, and then turn to leave the shop. She walked

out leisurely, but the moment she opened the door she quickened her pace

almost to a run; and before Stanton knew where he was, she had rushed

into the middle of the street. He hastened after her, but a string of

carriages and cabs intervened and blocked the street for some moments.

As soon as it was clear, he saw the slight figure in black stepping into

an omnibus. He hailed it, gesticulating and hallooing frantically; but

the conductor, with the spirit of contradiction peculiar to conductors,

kept his head persistently turned the other way. Stanton tore after him,

waving his umbrella and whistling, all to no purpose, until at last he

stopped for want of breath. At the same moment the omnibus pulled up to

let some travellers alight; he overtook it this time, and got in. The

great machine went thundering on its way, and there opposite to him sat

the lady in black, his master’s wife, he was ready to swear, if she was

in the land of the living. He saw the features very indistinctly, but

well enough to be certain of their identity; the height and contour were

the same, and so was the mass of jet black hair that escaped in thick

plaits from under the small black bonnet. Then there was the conclusive

fact of his having seen her in a music-shop. This clinched the matter for

Stanton. The omnibus stopped, the lady got out, ran to the corner of the

street, and waited for another to come up, and jumped into it; Stanton

meanwhile following her like her shadow. She saw it, and he saw that she

saw it, and that she was frightened and trying to get away from him. Why

should she do so if she were not afraid of being recognized? He was

not a gentleman, and could see no reason for an unprotected young woman

being frightened at a man looking fixedly at her and pursuing her, unless

she had a guilty conscience. He sat as near as he could to her in the

omnibus, and when it pulled up to let her down he got down. She hurried

up a small, quiet street off Tottenham Court Road, and on reaching a

semi-detached small house, flew up the steps and pulled violently at the

bell. Stanton was beside her in an instant.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but I know you. I don’t mean to do you any ’arm, only

to tell you that I’m Stanton, Mr. Clide’s valet; you are my master’s

wife!”

He was excited, but respectful in his manner.

“You are mistaken,” replied the lady, shrinking into the doorway. “I know

nothing about you. I never heard of Mr. Clide, and I’m not married!”

Stanton was of course prepared for the denial, and showed no sign of

surprise or incredulity; but, in spite of himself, her tone of assurance

staggered him a little. He could not say whether the sound of the voice

resembled that of Mrs. de Winton. Its echoes had lingered very faintly in

his memory, and so many other voices and sounds had swept over it during

the intervening years that he could not the least affirm whether the

voice he had just heard was hers or not. Before he had found any answer

to this question, footsteps were audible pattering on the tarpauling of

the narrow entry, and a slip-shod servant-girl opened the door. The lady

passed quickly in; Stanton followed her.

“You must leave me!” she said, turning on him. “This is my papa’s house,

and if you give any more annoyance he will have you taken into custody.”

She spoke in a loud voice, and as she ceased the parlor door was opened,

and a gentleman in a velveteen coat and slippers came forward with a

newspaper in his hand.

“What’s the matter? What is all this about?” he demanded blandly, coming

forward to reconnoitre Stanton, who did not look at all bland, but grim

and resolute, like a man who had conquered his footing on the premises,

and meant to hold it.

“Sir, I am Stanton, Mr. Clide’s valet; this lady knows me well, if you

don’t.”

“Papa! I never saw him in my life! I don’t know who Mr. Clide is!”

protested the young lady in a tremor. “This man has annoyed me all the

way home. Send him away!”

“I must speak to you, sir,” said Stanton stoutly. “I cannot leave the

house without.”

“Pray walk in!” said the gentleman, waving his newspaper towards the open

parlor; “and you, my dear, go and take off your bonnet.”

“Now, sir, be good enough to state your business,” he began when the door

was closed.

“My business isn’t with you, sir, but with your daughter, if she is your

daughter,” said Stanton. “One thing is certain--she’s my master’s wife;

there an’t no use in her denying it, and the best thing she can do is

to speak out to her ’usband penitent-like, and he’ll forgive her, poor

thing, and do the best he can for her, which will be better than what

that uncle of hers ’as been doin’ for her, draggin’ her about everywhere

and driving the poor creature crazy. That’s what I’ve got to say, sir,

and I ’ope you’ll see as it’s sense and reason.”

The occupant of the velveteen slippers listened to this speech with eyes

that grew rounder and rounder as it proceeded; then he threw back his

head and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.

“My good man, there’s some mistake! You’ve mistaken my daughter for

somebody else; she never was married in her life, and she has no uncle

that ever I heard of. Ha! ha! ha! It’s the best joke I ever heard in my

life!”

“Excuse me; it an’t no joke at all!” protested Stanton, nettled, and

resolved not to be shaken by the ring of honesty there was in the man’s

laugh. “You mayn’t know the person that calls himself her uncle, but

I do, sir. Mayhap you are duped by the rascal yourself; but it’ll all

come out now. I have it all in the palm of my hand.” And he opened that

capacious member and closed it again significantly. “Your daughter must

either come away with me quietly, or I’ll call the police and have her

taken off whether she will or no!”

“I tell you, man, you are under some preposterous mistake,” said the

gentleman, his blandness all gone, and his choler rising. “My name is

Honey. I am a clerk in H---- Bank, and my daughter, Eliza Jane Honey, has

never left me since she was born. She is an artist, a singer, and gives

lessons in singing in some of the first houses in London!”

“Singer! Singing lessons! Ha! Just so! I know it all,” said Stanton, his

mouth compressing itself in a saturnine smile. “I know it all, and I tell

you I don’t leave this ’ouse without her.”

“Confound your insolence! What do you mean? You’d better be gone this

instant, or I’ll call the police and give _you_ into custody!

“No, sir, don’t try it; it won’t answer,” said Stanton, imperturbable.

“It ’ud only make more trouble; the poor thing has enough on her already,

and I’m not the one to make more for her. If you call in the police I’ve

something ’ere,” slapping his waistcoat pocket, “as ’ud settle at once

which of us was to be took up.”

Before Mr. Honey could say anything in answer to this, a voice came

carrolling down the stairs, singing some air from an opera, rich with

trills and _fioriture_.

“There it is! The very voice! The very tune I’ve ’eard her sing in the

drawing-room at Lanwold!” exclaimed Stanton.

The singer dashed into the room, but broke off in her trills on seeing

him.

“What! you are not gone? Papa, who is he?”

“My dear, he is either a madman or--or worse,” said her father. “It’s the

most extraordinary thing I ever heard in my life!”

“Speak out, ma’am, and don’t you fear I’ll do you any ’arm; my master

wouldn’t ’ave it, not for all the money he’s worth. Nobody knows the sum

he’s spent on them detectives already to try and catch you; and it speaks

badly for the lot to say they’ve not caught you long ago. But don’t you

be afraid of me, ma’am!” urged Stanton, making his voice as mild as he

could.

Eliza Jane’s answer was a peal of laughter.

“Why should I be afraid of you? I never laid my eyes on you before, or

you on me; you mistake me for somebody else, I tell you. I never heard

of Mr. Clide, and I am certain he never heard of me. The idea of your

insisting that I’m his wife!” And she laughed again; but there was a

nervous twitch about her mouth, and Stanton saw it.

“As like as two peas in a pod!” was his emphatic remark, as he

deliberately scanned her face.

There was no denying the resemblance, indeed. The face was fuller, the

features more developed, but the interval of years would explain that.

“Look at my hand! You see I have no wedding-ring? Ask me a few questions;

you will find out the blunder at once, if you only try,” she said.

Stanton paused for a moment, as if trying to recall something that might

serve as a test.

“I ’ave it!” he said, looking up with a look of triumph. “Open your

mouth, ma’am, and let me look into it!”

He advanced towards her, expecting instant compliance. But Miss Honey

rushed behind her father with a cry of terror and disgust. The movement

was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but Stanton saw it in the

light of his own suspicions.

“Ha! I guessed as much,” he said, drawing away, and speaking in a quiet

tone of regret. “I was sure of it. Well, you give me no choice. I know my

dooty to a lady, but I know my dooty to my master too.” He went toward

the window, intending to throw it up and call for a policeman.

“Stop!” cried Mr. Honey. “What do you expect to find in my daughter’s

mouth?”

“That, sir, is known to her and to me,” was the oracular reply. “If she

has nothing in it as can convict her, she needn’t be afraid to let me

look into it.”

Mr. Honey turned aside, touched his forehead with his forefinger, and

pointed with the thumb toward Stanton. After this rapid and significant

little pantomime, he said aloud to his daughter:

“My dear, perhaps it is as well to let the man have his way. He will see

that there is nothing to see. Come and gratify his singular curiosity.”

The girl was now too frightened to see the ludicrous side of the

performance; she advanced gravely to the table, on which a gas-burner

threw a strong, clear light, and opened her mouth. Stanton came and

peered into it. “Please to lift the left side as wide open as you can,

ma’am; it was the third tooth from the back of her left jaw.”

She did as he desired, but, after looking closely all round, he could

see nothing but two fine, pearly rows of teeth, all ivory, without the

smallest glimmer of gold or silver to attest the presence of even an

unsound one.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am! I beg a thousand pardons, sir! I find I’ve

made a great mistake! I’ve behaved shameful rude to you and the young

lady; but I hope you’ll forgive me. I was only doing my dooty to my

master. I’m sorrier than I can say for my mistake!” Both father and

daughter were too thankful to be rid of him to withhold their free and

unconditional pardon. They even went the length of regretting that he had

had so much trouble and such an unpleasant adventure all to no purpose,

and cordially wished him better success next time, as he withdrew,

profusely apologizing.

“Papa, he must be an escaped lunatic!” cried the young lady, as the

hall-door closed on Stanton.

“I dare say they took me for a maniac, and indeed no wonder!” was

Stanton’s reflection, as he heard a peal of laughter through the window.

The adventure left, nevertheless, an uneasy feeling on his mind, and

the next day he called on Mr. Peckitt, the dentist, and related it. Mr.

Peckitt had not seen the wearer of the silver tooth since the time he had

attended her before her departure for Berlin; but he had seen her uncle,

and made an entire set of false teeth for him. He took the liberty on

first seeing him of inquiring for the young lady; but her uncle answered

curtly that she was in no need of dental services at present, and turned

off the subject by some irrelevant remark. Mr. Peckitt, of course, took

the hint, and never reverted to it. This was all he had to tell Stanton;

but he did not confirm the valet’s certainty as to the non-identity of

Miss Honey on the grounds of the absence of the silver tooth. It was, he

thought, improbable that his patient should have parted with that odd

appendage, and that, if so, she should have gone to a strange dentist to

have it replaced by an ordinary tooth; but either of these alternatives

was possible.

This was all the information that Stanton had for his master when the

latter returned from his bootless search in Scotland.

On the following day Sir Simon Harness came to London and heard of the

strange adventure. He was inclined to attach more importance to it than

Clide apparently did.

“Suppose this so-called Eliza Jane Honey should not have been Isabel,”

he said, “but some one like her--the same whom you saw at Dieppe?” Clide

shook his head.

“Impossible! _I_ could not be deceived, though Stanton might. This Miss

Honey, too, was fuller in the face, and altogether a more robust person,

than Isabel, as Stanton remembers her. Now, after the terrible attack

that she has suffered lately, it is much more likely that she is worn and

thin, poor child!”

“That is true. Still, there remains the coincidence of the splendid voice

and of her being an artist. If I were you, I would not rest till I saw

her myself.”

“It would only make assurance doubly sure. Stanton has startled me

over and over again for nothing. Every pair of black eyes and bright

complexion that he sees gives him a turn, as he says, and sets him off

on the chase. No; the woman I saw at Dieppe was my wife--I am as sure

of that as of my own identity. I did not get near enough to her to say,

‘Are you my wife?’ but I am as certain of it as if I had.” He promised,

however, to satisfy Sir Simon, that he would go to Tottenham Court and

see Miss Honey.

While Clide’s tongue was engaged on this absorbing topic, he was mentally

reverting to another subject which was scarcely less absorbing, and which

was closer to his heart. His love for Franceline had not abated one atom

of its ardor since absence and a far more impassable gulf had parted him

from her; her image reigned supreme in his heart still, and accompanied

him in his waking and sleeping thoughts. He felt no compunction for this.

His conscience tendered full and unflinching allegiance to the letter of

the moral law, but it was in bondage to none of those finer spiritual

tenets that ruled and influenced Franceline. He would have cut off his

right hand rather than outrage her memory by so much as an unworthy

thought; but he gave his heart full freedom to retain and foster its

love for her. He had not her clear spiritual insight to discern the

sinfulness of this, any more than he had her deep inward strength to

enable him to crush the sin out of his heart, even if he had tried, which

he did not. It was his misfortune, not his fault, that his love for her

was unlawful. Nothing could make it guilty; that was in his own power,

and the purity of its object was its best protection. She was an angel,

and could only be worshipped with the reverent love that one of her own

pure kindred spirits might accept without offence or contamination. Such

was Clide’s code, and, if he wanted any internal proof of his own loyalty

to sanction it, he had it in the shape of many deep-drawn sighs--prayers,

he called them, and perhaps they were--that Franceline might not suffer

on his account, but might forget him, and be happy after a time with some

worthier husband. He had been quite honest when he sighed these sighs--at

least he thought he was; yet when Sir Simon, meaning to console him and

make things smooth and comfortable, assured him emphatically that they

had been both happily mistaken in the nature of Franceline’s feelings,

and then basely and cruelly insinuated that Ponsonby Anwyll was in a

fair way to make her a good husband by and by, Clide felt a pang more

acute than any he had yet experienced. This is often the case with us. We

never know how much insincerity there is in the best of our prayers--the

anti-self ones--until we are threatened with the grant of them.

Sir Simon said nothing about the stolen ring. His friendship for Raymond

partook of that strong personal feeling which made any dishonor in its

object touch him like a personal stain. He could not bear even to admit

it to himself that his ideal was destroyed. M. de la Bourbonais had been

his ideal of truth, of manly independence, of everything that was noble,

simple, and good. There are many intervals in the scale that separates

the ordinary honest man from the ideal man of honor. Sir Simon could

count several of the former class; but he knew but one of the higher

type. He had never known any one whom he would have placed on the same

pinnacle of unsullied, impregnable honor with Raymond. Now that he had

fallen, it seemed as if the very stronghold of Sir Simon’s own faith had

surrendered; he could disbelieve everything, he could doubt everybody.

Where was truth to be found, who was to be trusted, since Raymond de la

Bourbonais had failed? But meantime he would screen him as long as he

could. He would not be the first to speak of his disgrace to any one. He

told Clide how Raymond had lost, for him, a considerable sum of money

recently, through the dishonesty of a bank, and how he had borne the loss

with the most incredible philosophy, because just then it so happened he

did not want the money; but since then Franceline’s health had become

very delicate, and she was ordered to a warm climate, and these few

hundreds would have enabled him to take her there, and her father was now

bitterly lamenting the loss.

Clide was all excitement in a moment.

“But now you can supply them?” he cried. “Or rather let me do it through

you! I must not, of course, appear; but it will be something to know I am

of use to her--to both of them. You can easily manage it, can you not?

M. de la Bourbonais would make no difficulty in accepting the service

from you.”

“Humph! As ill-luck will have it, there is a coldness between us at

present,” said Sir Simon--“a little tiff that will blow off after a while

but meanwhile Bourbonais is as unapproachable as a porcupine. He’s as

proud as Lucifer at any time, and I fear there is no one but myself from

whom he would accept a service of the kind.”

“Could not Langrove manage it? They seemed on affectionate terms,” said

Clide.

“Oh! no, oh! no. That would never do!” said Sir Simon quickly. “I don’t

see any one at Dullerton but myself who could attempt it.”

“Well, but some one must, since you say you can’t,” argued Clide with

impatience. “When do you return to the Court?”

“I did not mean to return just yet a while. You see, I have a great deal

of business to look to--of a pleasant sort, thanks to you, my dear boy,

but still imperative and admitting of no delay. I can’t possibly leave

town until it has been settled.”

“I should have thought Simpson might have attended to it. I suppose you

mean legal matters?” said the young man with some asperity. He could not

understand Sir Simon’s being hindered by mere business from sparing a day

in a case of such emergency, and for such a friend. It was unlike him to

be selfish, and this was downright heartlessness.

“Simpson? To be sure!” exclaimed the baronet jubilantly, starting up and

seizing his hat. “I will be off and see him this minute. Simpson is sure

to hit on some device; he’s never at a loss for anything.”

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE STORY OF EVANGELINE IN PROSE.

I spare you M. Jourdain’s oft-quoted saying. Too often, I fear, I

successfully imitate the “Bourgeois Gentilhomme” in speaking prose

without knowing it--aye, at the very moment when I think to woo the Muse

most ardently. But great is the courage demanded to announce a purpose

to be prosaic--prosy, it may be--with premeditation. Especially true is

this when, as in the case before me, the subject itself ranks high as

poetry. Mr. Longfellow, in some of his later writings, may seem to aim

at, or does, perhaps, unconsciously catch, that tone, made fashionable

by the younger Victorian songsters, which sets the poet apart as a being

differing from his kind, and makes him, as the English poet-laureate

does, “born in a golden clime”

“With golden stars above.”

But in his “Tale of Acadie” our American Wordsworth touches with

sympathetic finger the chords that vibrate with feeling in common hearts.

This is the lyre he sweeps with a magic sweetness not excelled by any

modern English poet. _Evangeline_ is a poem of the hearth and domestic

love. That is to say, though it is true the heroine and her betrothed

never come together in one happy home, the feelings described are such as

might without shame beat tenderly in any Christian maiden’s breast; such,

too, as any husband might wish his wife to feel. How different is this

from the fierce passion--a surrender to the lower nature--which burns

and writhes and contorts itself in Mr. Swinburne’s heroines! One is

Christian Love, the other the pagan brutishness of Juvenal’s Messalina.

It may be said indeed with truth that, in portraying a Catholic maiden

and a Catholic community, Mr. Longfellow has, with the intuition of

genius, reflected in this poem the purity and fidelity blessed by the

church in the love it sanctions. His admirers, therefore, cannot but

regret that debasing contact with the new school of the XIXth-century

realism which, in such an one of his later poems, for example, as that

entitled “Love,” draws him to the worship of the “languors” and “kisses”

of the Lucretian Venus. The love of Evangeline is that which is affected

by refined women in every society--humble though the poet’s heroine be;

the other strips the veil from woman’s weakness.

The charm of the poem is that it transports us to a scene Arcadian,

idyllic, yet which impresses us with its truthfulness to nature. This

is not Acadia only, but Arcadia. The nymphs, and the shepherds and

shepherdesses, and the god Pan with his oaten reed, put off the stage

costumes worn by them in the pages of Virgil or on the canvas of

Watteau, and, lo! here they are in real life in the village of Grand

Pré--Evangeline milking the kine, Gabriel Lajeunesse, and Michael the

fiddler, and the level Acadian meadows walled in by their dykes from

the turmoil of war that shook the world all around them. The picture is

truthful; but truthful rather by the effect of the bold touches that

befit the artist and poet than in the multitude of details--some more

prosaic, some not so charming--which, massed together, make up the more

faithful portrait of the historian. The description of scenery in the

poem confuses the natural features of two widely-separated and different

sections of the country; the Evangeline of Grand Pré is not in all

respects the Acadian girl of Charlevoix or Murdock; the history of men

and manners on the shores of the Basin of Mines,[231] as depicted by

the poet, is sadly at variance with the angry, tumultuous, suspicious,

blood-stained annals of those settlements. Strange as it may seem, the

poem is truer of the Acadians of to-day, again living in Nova Scotia,

than of their expatriated forefathers. Remoteness of time did not mean,

in their case, a golden age of peace and plenty. Far from it! It meant

ceaseless war on the borders, the threats and intrigues of a deadly

national feud, the ever-present, overhanging doom of exile, military

tyranny, and constant English espionage. Now absolute peace reigns within

the townships still peopled by their descendants, and the Acadian peasant

and village maiden cling in silence and undisturbed to the manners their

fathers brought from Normandy nearly three centuries ago.

The first few lines give the coloring to the whole poem. They are the

setting within which are grouped the characters.

“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,”

stand “like Druids of eld,” or “harpers hoar”;

“While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced neighboring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.”

This is the refrain running through the poem like the _aria_ of the

“Last Rose of Summer” through _Martha_. Yet the picture conveyed to the

reader’s mind is that of the Atlantic coast of Acadia, or Nova Scotia,

not of the Basin of Mines, where Evangeline dwelt with her people. The

natural features of the two sections of country are strikingly diverse.

On the east coast of Nova Scotia rises a line of granitic and other

cliffs, sterile, vast, jagged, opposing their giant shoulders to the

roaring surges of the Atlantic. On the hills behind, the pines and

hemlocks rustle and murmur in answer to the waves. This is the “forest

primeval” and the “loud-voiced neighboring ocean.” But on the west coast

is quite another scene. The Basin of Mines is an inland gulf of an inland

sea--the Bay of Fundy. Here the granite rocks and murmuring pines give

place to red clay-banks and overflowed marshes. And here is Horton, or

Grand Pré. It is separated by the whole breadth of the peninsula of Nova

Scotia from the ocean. The “mists from the mighty Atlantic,” which

“Looked on the happy valley, but ne’er from their station descended,”

are in reality the fogs of the Bay of Fundy shut out by the North

Mountain. Instead of the long swell of the Atlantic breaking on a rocky

coast, we have in the Basin of Mines numerous small rivers running

through an alluvial country, with high clay-banks left bare by the

receding tide. This last feature of the scene is correctly described

by the poet; but it must be borne in mind that it is not united with

the natural features of the east coast. The Acadians never, in fact,

affected the Atlantic sea-board. They sailed shuddering past its frowning

and wintry walls, and, doubling Cape Sable, beat up the Bay of Fundy to

where the sheltered Basins of Port Royal and Mines invited an entrance

from the west. For over one hundred years after the founding of Port

Royal the Atlantic coast of Acadia remained a waste. A fishing-village

at Canseau on the north--a sort of stepping-stone to and from the great

fortress of Louisburg--and a few scattered houses and clearings near

La Tour’s first settlement alone broke the monotonous silence of the

wilderness. The Indian hunter tracking the moose over the frozen surface

of the snow, and some half-solitary Irish and New England fishermen in

Chebucto Bay, divided the rest of the country between them. It was not

until 1749 that Cornwallis landed his colonists at Halifax, and made

the first solid footing on the Atlantic coast. But for generations

previously, in the rich valley of the River of Port Royal, and along

the fertile banks of the streams flowing into the Basin of Mines--the

Gaspereau, the Canard, and the Pereau--the thrifty Acadians spread their

villages, built their churches, and were married and buried by the good

Recollect Fathers.

I was a lad scarce emancipated from college when I first visited those

scenes. I remember well my emotion when I drew my eyes away from the

landscape, and, turning to my companion, Father K----, asked him if

there were any remains of the old village of Grand Pré. To my youthful

imagination Evangeline was as real as the people about me. Father K----

was the priest stationed at Kentville, about ten miles distant from

Grand Pré and the Gaspereau River, which were included in his mission. He

was an old family friend, and I was going to spend the summer vacation

with him. We were driving from Windsor through Horton and Wolfville to

Kentville, passing on our road through all the scenes described in the

poem. I have often visited that part of the country since then, but never

has it made such an impression on me. The stage-coach then rolled between

Windsor and Kentville, and something of the rural simplicity congenial

with the poem was still felt to be around one. Last year I rode by rail

over the same ground, and later on another line of railroad to Truro, and

thence around the Basin of Mines on the north through Cumberland. But my

feelings had changed, or the whistle of the locomotive was a sound alien

to the memories of those green meadows and intersecting dykes. Evangeline

was no longer a being to be loved, but a beautiful figment of the poet’s

brain.

I don’t know to this day whether Father K---- was quizzing me, or was

loath to shatter my boyish romance, when he told me that there were some

old ruins which were said to be the home of Evangeline. It is probable he

was having a quiet joke at my expense, as he was noted for his fund of

humor, which I learned better to appreciate in later years. Poor Father

K----! He was a splendid type of the old Irish missionary priest--an

admirable Latinist; well read in English literature, especially the Queen

Anne poets; hearty, jovial, and could tell a story that would set the

table in a roar. And, withal, no priest worked harder than he did in his

wide and laborious mission, or was a more tender-hearted friend of the

poor and afflicted. He is since dead.

During the month or six weeks I spent with Father K----, that part of the

country became quite familiar to me by means of his numerous drives on

parish duties, when I usually accompanied him. Often, as the shades of

the summer evening descended, have I watched the mists across the Basin

shrouding the bluff front of Cape Blomidon--“Blow-me-down,” as it is more

commonly called by the country-folk. At other times we drove up the North

Mountain, where the

“Sea-fogs pitched their tents,”

and, standing there, I have looked down upon the distant glittering

waters of the Bay of Fundy.

On one occasion we rode over from Kentville to Wolfville, and then up the

Gaspereau, at the mouth of which

“The English ships at their anchors”

swung with the tide on the morning which ushered in the doom of Grand

Pré. We rode some distance up the valley to the house of a Catholic

farmer, and there put up for the day. It was the day on which the

elections took place for the House of Assembly. The contest was fiercely

conducted amid great popular excitement. One of those “No-Popery” cries,

fomented by an artful politician--which sometimes sweep the colonies as

well as the mother country--was raging in the province. Father K----

left Kentville, the county town, on that day to avoid all appearance

of interference in the election, and also to get away from the noise

and confusion that pervaded the long main street of the village. I can

remember the news coming up the Gaspereau in the evening how every one

of the four candidates opposed to Father K---- had been returned.

But at that time I paid little heed to politics, and during the day I

wandered down through the field to the river, and strolled along its

willow-fringed banks. Some of those willows were very aged, and might

have swung their long, slim wands and narrow-pointed leaves over an

Evangeline and a Gabriel a hundred years before. Those willows were not

the natural growth of the forest, but were planted there--by whom? No

remnant of the people that first tilled the valley was left to say!

Riding home next day, a laughable incident, but doubtless somewhat

annoying to Father K----, occurred. Just as we were about to turn a

narrow bend of the road, suddenly we were confronted by a long procession

in carriages and all sorts of country vehicles, with banners flying, men

shouting, and everything to indicate a triumphal parade. It was, in fact,

a procession escorting two of the “No-Popery” members elected the day

before. The position was truly rueful, but Father K---- had to grin and

bear it. There was no escape for us; we had to draw up at the side of the

road, and sit quietly in our single wagon until the procession passed us.

It was a very orderly and good-humored crowd, but there were a good many

broad grins, as they rode by, at having caught the portly and generally

popular priest in such a trap. Nothing would persuade them, of course,

but that he had been working might and main for the other side during

the election. Finally, as the tail of the procession passed us, some one

in the rear, more in humor than in malice, sang out: “To h--ll with the

Pope.” There was a roar of laughter at this, during which Father K----

gathered up his reins, and, saying something under his breath which I

will not vouch for as strictly a blessing, applied the whip to old Dobbin

with an energy that that respectable quadruped must have thought demanded

explanation.

Changed indeed was such a scene from those daily witnessed when Father

Felician,

“Priest and pedagogue both in the village,”

ruled over his peaceful congregation at the mouth of the Gaspereau.

It has been said in the beginning of this article that Evangeline, the

heroine and central figure of the poem, is not altogether true to history

as typical of the Acadian girl of that period, as seen in the annals of

Port Royal; and doubtless this assertion can be borne out by the records.

But, on second thoughts, it does appear, as it were, a profanation to

subject such a bright creation of the poet’s mind to the analysis of

history. As profitably might we set about converting the diamond into

its original carbon. The magical chemistry of genius, as of nature, has

in either case fused the dull and common atoms into the sparkling and

priceless jewel.

The stoutest champion of her sex will not, upon consideration, contend

that so absolutely perfect a creature as Evangeline is likely to be found

in any possible phase of society. Is not a spice of coquetry inseparable

from all women? Evangeline has none of it. She is, too, too unconscious

that her lover

“Watches for the gleam of her lamp and her shadow”

under the trees in the orchard. She is the heroine of an idyl--not,

indeed, of unreal Arthurian romance, but of that exalted and passionless

love which the virgin heart seeks, but afterwards consoles itself for not

finding. That ideal star does not shine upon this world; but its divine

rays fall softly upon many an unknown heart in the cloister.

But it is incontestable that the Acadian maidens of Port Royal and Mines

shared in some of the agreeable frivolities which still, it is said,

sometimes distinguish their sisters in the world. They had an eye for a

military uniform and clanking spurs even in those “primeval” days. It

is a frequent complaint of the French governors to the home authorities

at Paris that their young officers were being continually led into

marriage with girls of the country “without birth,” and, worse still,

often “without money.” In the old parish register of Annapolis can be

seen more than one entry of the union of a gallant ensign or captain to

a village belle from the inland settlements whose visit to the Acadian

metropolis had subjugated the Gallic son of Mars. Nor was the goddess of

fashion altogether without a shrine in close contiguity to the “murmuring

pines and the hemlocks.” Some of the naval and military officers sent for

their wives from Paris or Quebec, and these fine ladies brought their

maids with them. This is not a supposition, but a fact which can be

verified by reference to the letters of M. des Goutins and others in the

correspondence of the time. Imagine a Parisian soubrette of the XVIIIth

century in the village of Grand Pré! It is a shock to those who derive

their knowledge of Acadie from Mr. Longfellow’s poem; but those who

are familiar with the voluminous records of the day, preserved in the

provincial archives, are aware of a good many stranger things than that

related in them. Since _Evangeline_ was published the Canadian and Nova

Scotian governments have done much to collect and edit their records, and

they are now accessible to the student. Rightly understood, there is no

reason why the flood of light thus thrown upon the lives of the Acadians

should detract anything from our admiration for that simple and kindly

race. They were not faultless; but the very fact that they shared in the

common interests, and even foibles, of the rest of the world gives that

tone of reality to their history which makes us sympathize with them more

justly in the cruel fate that overtook them. Yet, in depicting the young

Acadian girl of that period as he has done, the poet has but idealized

the truth. The march of the history of her people aids him in making the

portrait a faithful one. Had he placed the time a little earlier--that is

to say, under the French-Acadian _régime_--and his heroine at Annapolis,

his poem could not have borne the criticism of later research. But in

selecting the most dramatic incident of Acadian history as the central

point of interest, he has necessarily shifted the scene to one of the

Neutral French settlements. Here, too, he is aided in maintaining the

truthfulness of his portraiture by the fact that the English conquest,

in depriving the Acadians of the right of political action, and cutting

them off as much as possible from intercourse with Canada and France,

had thrown them back upon rural occupations alone, and developed their

simple virtues. Mines and Chignecto had been noted for their rustic

independence and their manners uncorrupted by contact with the world,

even under the old _régime_. One of the military governors of Port Royal

complains of them as “semi-republicans” in a letter to the Minister of

Marine and Colonies at Paris. After the conquest of 1710, intercourse

with Annapolis and its English Government House and foreign garrison

became even more restricted. No oath of allegiance being taken to the

new government, the _curé_ was recognized both by the inhabitants and

the Annapolis government as their virtual ruler. Under the mild sway

of Fathers Felix, Godalie, and Miniac--in turn _curés_ of Mines--the

Acadians sought to forget in the cultivation of their fields the stern

military surveillance of Annapolis, and, later, Fort Edwards and Fort

Lawrence. Father Miniac comes latest in time, and shared the misfortunes

of his flock in their expulsion. But in Father Godalie, the accomplished

scholar and long-loved friend of the people of Grand Pré, we seem best

to recognize the “Father Felician” of Mr. Longfellow’s poem. He was a

guide well fitted to form the lovely character of Evangeline; nor do the

authentic records of the time bear less ample testimony to the virtue of

his people than the glowing imagination of the poet.

It is less in the delineation of individual character than in its

description of the undisturbed peace reigning at Grand Pré that the poem

departs most from the truth of history. The expulsion of 1755 was not a

thunderbolt in a clear sky descending upon a garden of Eden. It was a

doom known to be hanging over them for forty years. Its shadow, more

or less threatening for two generations, was present in every Acadian

household, disabling industry and driving the young men into service or

correspondence with their French compatriots. Space would not permit, in

so short a paper, to enter into the history of that desperate struggle

for supremacy on this continent ending on the heights of Abraham,

isolated chapters of which have been narrated with a graphic pen by Mr.

Francis Parkman. Acadie was one of its chosen battlegrounds. So far

from the Acadians living in rural peace and content, it may be said

broadly yet accurately that from the date of their first settlement to

their final expulsion from the country, during a period extending over

one hundred and fifty years, five years had never passed consecutively

without hostilities, open or threatened. The province changed masters,

or was wholly or partially conquered, seven times in a little over one

hundred years, and the final English conquest, so far from establishing

peace, left the Acadians in a worse position than before. They refused

to take the oath of allegiance to the English government; the French

government was not able to protect them, though it used them to harass

the English.

They acquired, therefore, by a sort of tacit understanding, the title

and position of the “Neutral French,” the English government simply

waiting from year to year until it felt itself strong enough to remove

them _en masse_ from the province, and the Acadians yearly expecting

succor from Quebec or Louisburg. Each party regarded the other as aliens

and enemies. Hence it is that no French-Acadian would ever have used the

words “his majesty’s mandate”--applied to George II.--as spoken by Basil

the blacksmith in the poem. That single expression conveys a radically

false impression of the feelings of the people at the time. The church at

Mines, or Grand Pré, from the belfry of which

“Softly the Angelus sounded,”

had been burned down twice by the English and its altar vessels stolen by

Col. Church in the old wars. Nor had permanent conquest, as we have said,

brought any change for the better. The _curés_ were frequently imprisoned

on pretext of exciting attacks on the English garrisons, and sometimes,

as in the case of Father Felix and Father Charlemagne, were exiled from

the province. In 1714 the intention was first announced of transporting

all the Acadians from their homes. It was proposed to remove them to Cape

Breton, still held by the French. The pathetic remonstrance of Father

Felix Palm, the _curé_ of Grand Pré, in a letter and petition to the

governor, averted this great calamity from his people at that time. But

the project was again revived by the English Board of Trade, 1720-30. In

pursuance of its orders, Gov. Philipps issued a proclamation commanding

the people of Mines to come in and take the oath of allegiance by a

certain day, or to depart forthwith out of the province, permitting, at

the same time--a stretch of generosity which will hardly be appreciated

at this day--each family to carry away with it “two sheep,” but all the

rest of their property to be confiscated. This storm also blew over. But

the result of this continual harassment and threatening was to drive the

Acadians into closer correspondence with the French at Louisburg, and

to cause their young men to enlist in the French-Canadian forces on the

frontier. In view of this aid and comfort given to the enemy, and their

persistent refusal to take the oath of allegiance, later English writers

have not hesitated to declare the removal of the Acadians from the

province a political and military necessity. But the otherwise unanimous

voice of humanity has unequivocally denounced their wholesale deportation

as one of the most cruel and tyrannical acts in the colonial history of

England. We are not to suppose, however, that the Acadians folded their

hands while utter ruin was thus threatening them. In 1747 they joined

in the attack on Col. Noble’s force at Mines, in which one hundred

of the English were killed and wounded, and the rest of his command

made prisoners. They were accused, not without some show of reason, of

supporting the Indians in their attack on the new settlement at Halifax.

It is admitted that three hundred of them, including many of the young

men from Grand Pré, were among the prisoners taken at Fort Beau Sejour

on the border a few months before their expulsion. It is not our purpose

to enter into any defence or condemnation of those hostilities. But it

is plain that Mr. Longfellow’s beautiful lines describing the columns of

pale blue smoke, like clouds of incense, ascending

“From a hundred hearths, the homes of peace and contentment,”

“free from fear, that reigns with the tyrant, or envy, the vice of

republics,” were not applicable to the condition of affairs at Grand Pré

in 1755, nor at any time.

The poem follows with fidelity the outlines of the scenes of the

expulsion. Heart-rending indeed is the scene, as described even by those

who were agents in its execution. The poet gives almost _verbatim_ the

address of Col. John Winslow in the chapel. Nevertheless one important

clause is omitted. Barbarous as were the orders of Gov. Lawrence, he

was not absolutely devoid of humanity. Some attempt was made to lessen

the pangs of separation from their country by the issuing of orders

to the military commanders that “whole families should go together on

the same transport.” These orders were communicated with the others to

the inhabitants by Col. Winslow, and it appears, they were faithfully

executed as far as the haste of embarkation would permit. But as the

young men marched separately to the ships, and some of them escaped for

a time into the woods, there was nothing to prevent such an incident

occurring as the separation of Evangeline and Gabriel.

About seven thousand (7,000) Acadians, according to Gov. Lawrence’s

letter to Col. Winslow, were transported from their homes. The total

number of these unfortunate people in the province at that time has

been estimated at eighteen thousand. The destruction was more complete

at Grand Pré than elsewhere, that being the oldest settlement, with the

exception of Annapolis, and the most prosperous and thickly settled. A

few years later another attempt was made to transfer the remainder of the

Acadian population to New England; but the transports were not permitted

to land them at Boston, as they were completely destitute, and the New

England commonwealths petitioned against being made responsible for their

support. The Acadian exiles were scattered over Pennsylvania, Virginia,

and Georgia. About four hundred and fifty were landed at Philadelphia.

“In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware’s waters,

Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn, the apostle,

Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.

…

There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile,

Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country.”

A few months ago I visited the Quaker City. There, where Evangeline ended

her long pilgrimage, I took up the thread of that story the early scenes

of which had been so familiar to me. How different those around me! Gone

were the balsamic odors of the pines and the salt spray of the ocean.

One can conceive how the hearts of the poor Acadian exiles must have

trembled. I sought out the old “Swedish church at Wicaco,” whence the

“sounds of psalms

“Across the meadows were wafted”

on the Sabbath morning when Evangeline went on her way to the hospital,

and there found her lover dying unknown. The quaint little church--not

larger than a country school-house--built of red and black bricks brought

from Sweden, is now almost lost in a corner near the river’s edge, in

the midst of huge warehouses and intersecting railroad tracks. In the

wall near the minister’s desk is a tablet in memory of the first pastor

and his wife buried beneath. Fastened to the gallery of the choir--not

much higher than one’s head--is the old Swedish Bible first used in

the church, and over it two gilded wooden cherubs--also brought from

Sweden--that make one smile at their comical features. In the churchyard,

under the blue and faded gray tombstones, repose the men and women of

the congregation of 1755 and years before. But no vestiges of the Acadian

wanderers remain in the Catholic burying-ground.

“Side by side in their nameless graves the lovers are sleeping.

Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,

In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.”

Many of the Acadians succeeded in wandering back to their country. Others

escaped into what is now called New Brunswick, which was then a part of

Acadia, and either returned to Nova Scotia in after-years when the whole

of Canada was finally ceded to the English, or founded settlements,

existing to this day in New Brunswick, and returning their own members

to the Provincial Parliaments. The descendants of the Acadians, still

speaking the French language and retaining the manners of their

forefathers, are more numerous than is generally supposed in Nova Scotia.

They number thirty-two thousand out of a total population of three

hundred and eighty-seven thousand (387,000), according to the census of

1871. The poet says:

“Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic

Linger a few Acadian peasants.…

Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,

And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline’s story.”

This refers, no doubt, to the settlement at Chezzetcook, which, from its

closeness to Halifax, is best known. On Saturday mornings, in the market

at Halifax, the Acadian women can be seen standing with their baskets of

eggs and woollen mitts and socks for sale. They are at once recognized by

their short blue woollen outer petticoats or kirtles, and their little

caps, with their black hair drawn tightly up from the forehead under

them. The young girls are often very pretty. They have delicate features,

an oval face, a clear olive complexion, and eyes dark and shy, like a

fawn’s. They soon fade, and get a weather-beaten and hard expression from

exposure to the climate on their long journeys on foot and from severe

toil.

But in Yarmouth County, and on the other side of the peninsula in

the township of Clare, Digby County, there are much larger and more

prosperous settlements. Clare is almost exclusively French-Acadian.

The people generally send their own member to the provincial House

of Assembly. He speaks French more fluently than English. The priest

preaches in French. Here at this day is to be found the counterpart of

the manners of Grand Pré. Virtue, peace, and happiness reign in more

than “a hundred homes” under the old customs. Maidens as pure and sweet

as Evangeline can be seen as of old walking down the road to the church

on a Sunday morning with their “chaplet of beads and their missal.” But

the modern dressmaker and milliner has made more headway than among the

poor Chezzetcook people. Grand Pré itself, and most of the old Acadian

settlements, are inhabited by a purely British race--descendants of the

North of Ireland and New England settlers who received grants of the

confiscated lands. By a singular turn of fortune’s wheel the descendants

of another expatriated race--the American loyalists--now people a large

part of the province once held by the exiled Acadians.

THE PATIENT CHURCH.

Bide thou thy time!

Watch with meek eyes the race of pride and crime,

Sit in the gate, and be the heathen’s jest,

Smiling and self-possest.

O thou, to whom is pledged a victor’s sway,

Bide thou the victor’s day!

Think on the sin

That reap’d the unripe seed, and toil’d to win

Foul history-marks at Bethel and at Dan--

No blessing, but a ban;

Whilst the wise Shepherd hid his heaven-told fate,

Nor reck’d a tyrant’s hate.

Such loss is gain;

Wait the bright Advent that shall loose thy chain!

E’en now the shadows break, and gleams divine

Edge the dim, distant line.

When thrones are trembling, and earth’s fat ones quail,

True seed! thou shalt prevail.

--NEWMAN.

SIR THOMAS MORE.

_A HISTORICAL ROMANCE._

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE PRINCESSE DE CRAON.

IV.

William du Bellay having remained in France, M. de Vaux had been sent to

replace him in England. The latter, having but recently returned from

Rome, where he was attached to the embassy of M. de Grammont, French

ambassador to that court, was not yet initiated into the state of affairs

as they existed at the court of Henry VIII.

Du Bellay was not satisfied with the change; and the old diplomate,

finding his new assistant inclined to be somewhat dull, undertook to

enlighten him--leading him on step by step into the intricacies of

diplomacy, like a mother, or rather a governess, a little brusque, who is

impatient at the slow progress the child makes in learning to walk.

“Come!” he exclaimed, “I see you understand nothing of this; so I shall

have to be patient and begin it all over again. It is incredible,” he

added, by way of digression, addressing himself to the public (who was

absent), “what absurd reports are circulated outside with regard to what

we say and do in our secret negotiations! It extends even to all these

harebrains of the court; but you who have a foot in diplomacy I cannot

excuse. Come, let us see--we say:

“When my brother left, he went to demand on the part of Henry VIII., of

the universities of France, and above all that of Paris (preponderating

over all the others)--remark well: to demand, I say--that they should

give decisions favorable to the divorce. Now, this point appeared at

first quite insignificant; but it is just here we have shown our ability

(I would say I, but I do not wish to vaunt _myself_ over a young man

just starting out in the world like yourself). Then our king has replied

to the King of England that he would ask nothing better than to use his

influence with the universities to induce them to give satisfaction on

this subject; but that (notice this especially) the Emperor Charles V.

had made precisely the same demand in an opposite direction, in favor of

Queen Catherine, his aunt; that if he refused the emperor, he would be

extremely displeased, and that he was compelled to reflect a second time,

because the princes, his children, were held as hostages in the hands of

the emperor, and in spite of all his efforts he had not yet been able to

pay the price of their ransom stipulated at the treaty of Cambrai.

“It then remained to say that we could do nothing for him--on the

contrary, must oppose him so long as the children were held prisoners,

or while there was even a chance that they would be restored to us

on condition that we should throw our influence on the side of Queen

Catherine. All of which is as clear as day--is it not? Now you are going

to see if I have understood how to take advantage of these considerations

with Henry VIII.”

Saying this, with a slightly derisive smile, Du Bellay took from a drawer

a casket of green sharkskin, which he handed to De Vaux, who opened it

eagerly.

“Oh! how beautiful,” he exclaimed, taking from the case and holding up in

the sunlight a magnificent _fleur de lis_ composed entirely of diamonds.

“Oh! this is most superb.”

“Yes, it is beautiful!” replied Du Bellay with a satisfied air, “and

worth one hundred and fifty thousand crowns. Philip, the emperor’s

father, pledged it to the King of England for that sum. We are obliged

by the treaty to redeem it; but as we have not the money to pay, it has

been made a present to us. And here is what is better still,” he added,

displaying a quittance--“a receipt in full for five hundred thousand

crowns which the emperor owed Henry VIII.; and he now makes a present

of it to Francis I., to enable him to pay immediately the two millions

required for the ransom of the princes.”

“That is admirable!” cried De Vaux. “It must be admitted, my lord, that

we shall be under great obligations to Mlle. Anne.”

“All disorders cost dear, my child,” replied Du Bellay; “and if this

continues, they will ruin England. Think of what will have to be paid yet

to the University of Paris!…”

“And do you suppose they will consent to this demand?” interrupted De

Vaux.

“No, truly, I do not believe it,” replied Du Bellay. “Except Master

Gervais, who is always found ready to do anything asked of him, I know

not how they will decide; but, between ourselves, I tell you I believe

they will be against it. But, observe, we have not promised a favorable

decision--we have only left it to be hoped for; which is quite a

different thing.”

“That is very adroit,” replied De Vaux, “assuredly; but it seems to me

not very honest.”

“How! not honest?” murmured Du Bellay, contracting his little gray

eyebrows, and fixing his greenish eyes on the fair face of the youth.

“Not honest!” he again exclaimed in a stentorian voice. “Where do you

come from, then, young man? Know that among these people honesty is

a thing unheard of. Others less candid than myself may tell you the

contrary, knowing very well that such is not the truth. They arrange

projects with the intention of defeating them; they sign treaties with

the studied purpose of violating them; they swear to keep the peace in

order to prepare for war; and a state sells her authority and puts her

influence in the balance of the world in favor of the highest bidder.

Let the price be earth or metal, it is of no consequence; I make no

distinction. When Henry devastated our territories and took possession

of our provinces, was it just? No! ‘Might makes right’; that is the

veritable law of nations--the only one they are willing to acknowledge or

adopt. In default of strength, there remains stratagem; and I must use

it!”

“Under existing circumstances you are right,” replied De Vaux, replacing

in its case the superb _fleur de lis_, and again waving it in the

sunlight. “It is a pity,” he added, “that they may be obliged to return

this; it would set off wonderfully well the wedding dress of the future

Duchess of Orleans.”

“What! are they speaking already of the marriage of the young Duke of

Orleans?” asked Du Bellay in surprise.

“Ah! that is a great secret,” replied De Vaux confidentially. “You know

our king has not abandoned the idea of subjugating the Milanese, and, to

ensure the pope’s friendship, he offers to marry his second son to his

niece, the young Catherine de’ Medici.”

“No!” cried M. du Bellay. “No, it is impossible! How can they forget that

but a short time since the Medici family was composed of only the simple

merchants of Florence?”

“It has all been arranged, notwithstanding,” replied De Vaux. “In spite

of all our precautions, the emperor has been apprised of it. At first

he refused to credit it, and would not believe the King of France could

really think of allying his noble blood with that of the Medici. In the

meantime he has been so much frightened, lest the hope of this alliance

would not sufficiently dazzle Clement VIII., that he has made a proposal

to break off the marriage of his niece, the Princess of Denmark, with

the Duke of Milan, and substitute the young Catherine in her place. We

have, as you may well suppose, promptly advised M. de Montmorency of

all these things, who returned us, on the spot, full power to sign the

articles. M. de Grammont immediately carried them to the pope; and he was

greatly delighted, as Austria, it seems, had already got ahead of us,

and persuaded him that we had no other intention than to deceive him and

gain time. Now everything is harmoniously arranged. They promise for the

marriage portion of Catherine Reggio, Pisa, Leghorn, Modena, Ribera, the

Duchy of Urbino; and Francis I. cedes to his son his claims to the Duchy

of Milan.”

“Sad compensation for a bad marriage!” replied M. du Bellay angrily:

“new complications which will only result in bringing about interminable

disputes! Princes can never learn to be contented with the territory

already belonging to them. Although they may not possess sufficient

ability to govern even _that_ well, still they are always trying to

extend it. War must waste and ruin a happy and flourishing country, in

order to put them in possession of a few feet of desolated earth, all

sprinkled with gold and watered with blood.”

“Ah! yes,” interrupted De Vaux earnestly, “we have learned this cruelly

and to our cost. And relentless history will record without regret the

account of our reverses, and the captivity of a king so valiant and

dauntless--a king who has sacrificed everything save his honor.”

“Reflect, my dear, on all this. The honor of a king consists not in

sacrificing the happiness of his people. A soldier should be brave--the

head of a nation should be wise and prudent,” replied Du Bellay, as he

turned over a great file of papers in search of something, “Valor without

prudence is worthless. The intrigues of the cabinet are more certain;

they are of more value than the best generals. They, at least, are never

entirely defeated; the disaster of the evening inspires renewed strength

for the morrow. Cold, hunger, and sickness are not able to destroy

them.… They can only waste a few words or lose a sum of money. A dozen

well-chosen spies spread their toils in every direction; we hold them

like bundles of straw in our hands; they glide in the dark, slip through

your fingers--an army that cannot be captured, which exists not and yet

never dies; which drags to the tribunal of those who pay them, without

pity as without discrimination, without violence as without hesitation,

the hearts of all mankind.

“Gold, my child, but never blood! With bread we can move the world; with

blood we destroy it. Your heart, young man, leaps within you at the sound

of the shrill trumpet, when glittering banners wave and the noise of

battle inebriates your soul. But look behind you, child, look behind you:

the squadron has passed. Hear the shrieks and groans of the dying. Behold

those men dragging themselves over the trampled field; their heads gashed

and bleeding, their bones dislocated, their limbs torn; streams of blood

flow from their wounds; they die in an ocean furnished from their own

lacerated veins. Go there to the field of carnage and death; pause beside

that man with pallid face and agonized expression; think of the tender

care and painful anxiety of the mother who reared him from his cradle.

How often she has pressed her lips upon the golden curls of her boy, the

hope of her old age, which must now end in despair! Reflect there, upon

the field of carnage and death, on the tender caresses of wives, sisters,

and friends. Imagine the brother’s grief, the deep anguish of the father.

Alas! all these recollections pass in an instant before the half-open

eyes of the dying. Farewell! dream of glory, hateful vision now for ever

vanished. Life is almost extinct, yet with the latest breath he thinks

but of them! ‘They will see me no more! I must die far away, without

being able to bid them a last adieu.’ Such are the bitter thoughts

murmured by his dying lips as the last sigh is breathed forth. Tell me,

young man, have you never reflected when, on the field glittering in the

bright summer sunshine, you have seen the heavy, well-drilled battalions

advance; when the prince rode in the midst of them, and they saluted him

with shouts of enthusiasm and love; when that prince, a weak man like

themselves, elated with pride, said to them: ‘March on to death; it is

for me that you go!’ For you! And who are you? Their executioner, who

throws their ashes to the wind of your ambition, to satisfy the thirst

of your covetousness, the insolent pride of your name, which the century

will see buried in oblivion! Ah! my son,” continued the old diplomate,

deeply affected, with his hands crossed on the packet of papers, that he

had entirely forgotten, “if you knew how much I have seen in my life of

these horrible calamities, of these monstrous follies, which devastate

the world! If you but knew how my heart has groaned within me, concealed

beneath my gloomy visage, my exterior as impassible as my garments, you

would understand how I hate them, these mighty conquerors, these vile

plagues of the earth, and how I count as nothing the sack of gold which

lies at the bottom of the precipice over which they push us, the adroit

fraud that turns them aside from their course! But shall I weep like

an old woman?” he suddenly exclaimed, vexed at being betrayed into the

expression of so much emotion.

Hastily brushing the tear from his cheek, he began examining the package

of papers, and, instantly recovering his usual composure, became M. du

Bellay, the diplomate.

Young De Vaux, greatly surprised at the excess of feeling into which

the ambassador had suddenly been betrayed, so much at variance with his

previous manner, as well as his rule of conduct and the rather brusque

reception he had given him, still remembered it when all thought of the

occurrence had passed from the mind of his superior.

“Here, sir, read that,” he exclaimed, throwing the young man a small

scrap of paper.

“I will read it, my lord.”

“Read aloud, sir.”

“‘Cardinal Wolsey, overcome by grief and alarm, has fallen dangerously

ill. The king has been informed of it; he has ordered three physicians

to Asher, and obliged Lady Anne to send him the golden tablets in token

of his reconciliation. Furthermore, it is certainly true that the king

has said: “I would not lose Wolsey for twenty thousand pounds.” It is

unnecessary to impress upon my lord the importance of this event. My lord

will, I hope, approve of the celerity with which I have despatched this

information.’”

“It is without signature!” said De Vaux.

“I credit it entirely,” murmured Du Bellay.

“By my faith, I am delighted! These golden tablets afford me extreme

pleasure,” said De Vaux. “This will revive the hopes of poor Cardinal

Wolsey.”

“And that is all!… And you, content to know that he is happy, will remain

quietly seated in your chair, I suppose,” said M. du Bellay, fixing his

green eyes, lighted with a brilliant gleam, on young De Vaux. “Monsieur!”

he continued, “it is not in this way a man attends to the business of

his country. Since the day the cardinal was exiled, I have deliberated

whether I should go to see him or not. My heart prompted me to do so, but

it was not my heart I had to consult. I was persuaded the king would not

be able to dispense with him, and sooner or later he would be recalled to

the head of affairs. In that case I felt inclined to give him a proof of

my attachment in his disgrace. But, on the other hand, that intriguing

family who are constantly buzzing around the king induced me constantly

to hesitate. Now I believe we have almost nothing more to fear; we will

arrive there, perhaps, before the physicians, and later we shall know how

to proceed.”

“Most willingly!” cried De Vaux. “I shall be happy indeed to see this

celebrated man, of whom I have heard so many different opinions.”

“Doubtless,” interrupted Du Bellay impatiently, “pronounced by what

is styled ‘public opinion’--a tribunal composed of the ignorant, the

deluded, and short-sighted, who always clamor louder than others, and

who take great care, in order to avoid compromising their stupidity, to

prefix the ominous ‘they say’ to all their statements. As for me, I say

they invariably display more hatred toward the virtues they envy than the

vices they pretend to despise; and they will judge a man more severely

and criticise him more harshly for the good he has tried to do than for

what he may have left undone.… Gossiping, prying crowd, pronouncing

judgment and knowing nothing, who will cast popularity like a vile mantle

over the shoulders of any man who will basely stoop low enough before

them to receive it! He who endeavors to please all pleases none,” added

M. du Bellay, with a singularly scornful expression. “To live for his

king, and above all for his country, despising the blame or hatred of

the vulgar, should be the motto of every public man; and God grant I may

never cease to remember it!”

“You believe, then, the cardinal will be restored to the head of

affairs?” asked De Vaux, running his fingers through his blonde curls,

and rising to depart.

“I am not sure of it yet,” replied Du Bellay; “we are going to find

out. If the crowd surrounds him, as eager to pay him homage to-day as

they were yesterday to overwhelm him with scorn and contempt; if, in a

word, the courtiers sigh and groan around his bed, and pretend to feel

the deepest concern, it will be a most certain indication of his return

to favor. And, to speak frankly, I believe the king already begins to

discover that no one can replace the cardinal near his person as private

secretary; for that poor Gardiner copies a despatch with more difficulty

than his predecessor dictated one.”

M. du Bellay arose and started, followed by De Vaux, to the bank of the

Thames, where they entered a large boat already filled with passengers

awaiting the moment of departure to ascend the river either to Chelsea,

Battersea, or as far as Pultney, where the boat stopped. Bales of

merchandise were piled up in the centre, on which were seated a number

of substantial citizens conversing together with their hands in their

pockets, and wearing the self-sufficient air of men the extent of whose

purse and credit were well understood.

They fixed, at first, a scrutinizing glance on the new arrivals, and

then resumed their conversation.

“Come, come, let us be off now!” exclaimed a young man, balancing himself

on one foot. “Here is half an hour lost, and I declare I must be at

Chelsea to dinner.”

“Indeed, it is already an hour. Look here! This cockswain doesn’t

resemble our parliament at all; _that_ does everything it is told to do!”

he added, as he sauntered into the midst of the crowd.

“Hold your tongue, William,” immediately replied one of them; “you don’t

recollect any more, I suppose, the assembly at Bridewell, where the king,

knowing we condemned his course in the divorce affair, after having

seized all the arms in the city, told us himself there was no head so

high but he would make it fall if it attempted to resist him.”

“What shameful tyranny!” replied another, rolling a bundle under

his foot. “I cannot think of it without my blood boiling. Are these

Englishmen he treats in this manner?”

“And that wicked cardinal,” continued his neighbor in a loud, shrill

voice--“he was standing by the king, and looking at us with his

threatening eyes. He has been the cause of all the troubles we have had

with this affair. But we are rid of him, at last.”

“We are rid of him, did you say?” interrupted a man about fifty or sixty

years of age, who appeared to be naturally phlegmatic and thoughtful.

“You are very well contented, it seems to me; … but it is because you

only think of the present, and give yourself no concern whatever about

the future. Ah! well, in a few days we will see if you are as well

satisfied.”

“And why not then?” they all exclaimed in the same voice.

“Because, I tell you, because …”

“Explain yourself more clearly, Master Wrilliot,” continued young

William. “You always know what’s going to happen better than anybody

else.”

“Ah! yes, I know it only too well, in fact, my young friend,” he replied,

shaking his head ominously; “and we will very soon learn to our sorrow

that if the favor of the cardinal costs us dear, his disgrace will cost

us still more. Parliament is going to remit all the king’s debts.”

“What! all of his debts? But Parliament has no right to do this!” they

all exclaimed.

“No; but it will take the right!” replied Master Wrilliot. “William will

lose half of his wife’s marriage portion, which, if I mistake not, his

father gave him in royal trust; and I shall lose fifteen thousand crowns

for which I was foolish enough to accept the deed of conveyance.”

“Ah! ah! that will be too unjust; it ought not to be,” they all repeated.

“Yes,” continued this far-seeing interlocutor, shaking his head

contemptuously, “the king has no money to pay us. War has drained his

private treasury, but he nevertheless draws from it abundant means to

ransom French princes, who make him believe they will marry him to that

lady Boleyn; and if you do not believe me, go ask these Frenchmen who are

here present,” he added, raising his voice, and casting on MM. du Bellay

and de Vaux a glance of cold, disdainful wrath.

M. du Bellay had lost nothing of the conversation; it was held too near

him, and was too openly hostile for him to feign not to remark it.

Finding himself recognized, and neither being able to reply to a positive

interrogation nor to keep silence, he measured in his turn, very coolly,

and without permitting the least indication of emotion or anger to

appear, the face and form of his adversary.

“Sir;” he exclaimed, regarding him steadily, “who are you, and by what

right do you call me to account? If it is your curiosity that impels you,

it will not be gratified; if, on the contrary, you dare seek to insult

me, you should know I will not suffer it. Answer me!”

“The best you can make of it will be worth nothing,” replied, with

a loud burst of laughter, a Genoese merchant who did not recognize

the ambassador, as he sat by the men who directed the boat. “Forget

your quarrel, gentlemen, and, instead of disputing, come look at this

beautiful vessel we are just going to pass. See, she is getting ready

to sail. A fine ship-load!--a set of adventurers who go to try their

fortunes in the new world discovered by one of my countrymen,” he added

with an air of intense satisfaction.

“Poor Columbus!” replied one of the citizens, “he experienced throughout

his life that glory does not give happiness, and envy and ingratitude

united together to crush his genius. Do you not believe, if he could have

foreseen the cruelties Hernando Cortez and Pizarro exercised toward the

people whom he discovered, he would have preferred leaving the secret of

their existence buried for ever in the bosom of the stormy sea that bore

him to Europe, rather than to have announced there the success of his

voyage?”

“I believe it,” said Wrilliot, “his soul was so beautiful! He loved

humanity.”

“Christopher Columbus!” exclaimed young William, full of youthful

enthusiasm and admiration for a man whose home was the ocean. “I cannot

hear his name pronounced without emotion! I always imagine I see him

in that old convent of Salamanca, before those learned professors and

erudite monks assembled to listen to a project which in their opinion was

as rash as it was foolish.

“‘How do you suppose,’ said they, ‘that your vessel will ever reach the

extremity of the Indies, since you pretend that the earth is round? You

would never be able to return; for what amount of wind do you imagine it

would require to enable your ship to remount the liquid mountain which

it had so easily descended? And do you forget that no creature can live

under the scorching atmosphere of the torrid zone?’

“Columbus refuted their arguments; but these doctors still insisted,

nor hesitated to openly demand of him how he could be so presumptuous

as to believe, if the thing had been as he said, it could have remained

undiscovered by so many illustrious men, born before him, and who had

attained the highest degree of learning, while for him alone should have

been reserved the development of this grand idea.”

“And yet,” said Wrilliot, who had listened in silence, “it was permitted,

some years later, that he should go down to the grave wearing the chains

with which his persecutors had loaded him, in order to keep him away from

the world that he alone had been able to discover!”

“What perseverance! What obstacles he succeeded in overcoming!” replied

one of those who had first spoken. “I shall always, while I live, recall

with pleasure having been of service to his brother Bartholomew when he

came to this country.”

“What! he came here?” repeated William.

“Yes, and was in my own house,” continued the citizen. “Christopher,

finding the senate of Genoa and the King of Portugal refused equally

to listen or furnish him with vessels necessary for the enterprise

he had so long meditated, sent his brother to King Henry VII. He was

unfortunately captured, in coming over, by some pirates, who kept him in

slavery. Many years elapsed before he succeeded in escaping and reaching

England, where he found himself reduced to such a state of destitution

that he was obliged to design charts for a living, and to enable him to

present himself in decent apparel at court. The king gave him a favorable

reception, but Christopher, in the meantime, receiving no intelligence

from his brother, solicited so earnestly the court of Spain that he

obtained two small vessels from Isabella of Castile, and very soon after

Europe learned of the existence of another hemisphere. Spain planted her

standard there, and we thus lost the advantages which were destined for

us.”

“I do not regret it,” replied an old man sitting in the midst of the

crowd, who had until that time maintained a profound silence. “Is it

not better for a nation to be less rich and powerful than stained with

so many crimes? It is now but thirty-eight years since Columbus founded

the colony of San Domingo. This island then contained a million of

inhabitants; to-day there scarcely remain forty thousand. But,” pursued

the old man with a bitter smile, “they will not stop there. No; they will

not confine their barbarous exploits to that miserable region. They are

renewing in Peru the carnage they carried on in Mexico. It is necessary

to have a great many places for a man to die--to pass a few moments, and

then go and hide himself in the grave! I have already lived seventy-nine

years, and yet it seems to me now that my left hand still rests on my

cradle. I can scarcely believe that these white locks are scattered upon

my head; for my life has sped like the fleeting dream of a single night

that has passed. Yes, William,” continued the old man, “you look at me

with astonishment, and your eyes, full of youthful fire, are fixed upon

mine, in which the light has long been extinguished. Ah! well, you will

very soon see it extinguished in your own, but not before you will have

witnessed all their cruelties.”

“That is bad,” replied William. “But these Indians are stupid and

indolent beyond all parallel;[232] they will neither work nor pay the

taxes imposed on them.”

“And from whom do the Spaniards claim the right of reducing these people

to a state of servitude,” exclaimed the old man indignantly, “and to

treat them like beasts of burden whom they are privileged to exterminate

with impunity, and carry off the gold their avarice covets, the dagger

in one hand, the scourge in the other? They ensure them, they say, the

happiness of knowing the Christian religion! How dare they presume to

instruct these people in that Gospel of peace which commands us to love

our neighbor as ourselves, to detach our hearts from the things of the

world, and, leaving our offering before the altar, go and be reconciled

with our enemy?”

“From that point of view your argument would seem just,” replied William;

“but the fact is, if the Spaniards did not force these islanders to work

them, the mines would remain unproductive, the fields uncultivated, and

the colonies would perish.”

“You are mistaken,” replied the old man. “In acting as she does Spain

destroys in her own womb the source from whence she would draw an immense

revenue. If she had been satisfied to establish an honest and peaceable

commerce with these countries, her industry, excited to the highest

degree by the rich commodities of exchange, would have conferred an

incalculable benefit on an entire people whom her blind cupidity has

induced her to crush and destroy.

“Do you suppose these isolated negroes they buy at such enormous prices

will ever be able to replace the native inhabitants who live and die in

their own country? This strange and ferocious population will remain

among the colonies, enemies always ready to revolt; a yoke of iron and

blood will alone be sufficient to keep them in subjection. But let these

masters tremble if ever the power falls into the hands of their slaves!”

MM. du Bellay and de Vaux listened to this conversation in silence, and

the diversion was at first agreeable; but they were soon convinced that

they were suddenly becoming again the objects of general attention.

“I tell you,” exclaimed one, “they are going to look for the cardinal and

bring him back to court.”

“Well!” replied another, “I would like to see M. du Bellay in the place

of the legate Campeggio.”

“Ah! and what have they done with him, then?” they all eagerly demanded.

“He was arrested at Dover, where he had gone to embark. He was

dreadfully alarmed, believing they came to assassinate him. His baggage

was searched, in order to find Wolsey’s treasures, with which he was

entrusted, they said, for safe keeping.”

“And did they find them?” asked the Genoese merchant, eagerly leaning

forward at the sound of the word treasure.

“It seems they did not find them,” was the reply.

“Hear what they say!” whispered young De Vaux in the ear of M. du Bellay.

“I presume they were in search of the legal documents, but they were too

late. They have long ago arrived in Italy. Campeggio was careful enough

to send them secretly by his _son_ Rudolph.[233] I often saw this young

man in Rome, and heard him say his father had entrusted him with all his

correspondence and despatches,[234] as he was not certain what fate Henry

had in store for him.”

“You say,” replied young William, elevating his voice in order that M. du

Bellay might hear him, “that the king has sent the Earl of Wiltshire to

Rome to solicit his divorce. He had better make all these strangers leave

who come into our country only to sow discord, and then gather the fruits

of their villany.”

This speech, although spoken indirectly, was evidently intended for

the two Frenchmen; but the Genoese merchant, always inclined to be

suspicious, immediately applied it to himself.

“Master William,” he exclaimed, reddening with anger, “have you forgotten

that for twenty years I have been a commercial friend of your father.

And if he has made his fortune with our velvets and silks, to whom does

he owe it, if not to those who, by their honesty and promptness in

fulfilling their engagements, were the first cause of his success? Now,

because you are able to live without work, you take on this insulting

manner--very insulting indeed. However, I give you to understand that,

if it suited me to do it, I could make as great a display of luxury

and wealth as yourself, and can count on my dresser as many dishes and

flagons of silver as you have; and if it suited me to remain at home,

there is no necessity for me to travel any more on business.”

The merchant continued to boast of his fortune, and William began to

explain that his remarks were by no means intended for him, when the

passengers began to cry out: “Land! land! Here is Chelsea; we land at

Chelsea.”

The rowers halted immediately, and the little boats sent from the shore

came to take off the passengers who wished to land.

Almost all of them went; none remaining on the boat except the

ambassador, the Genoese merchant, and two citizens whose retiring and

prudent character could be read in the quiet, thoughtful expression of

their faces. They gazed for a long time on the surrounding country; at

last one of them hazarded the question:

“Do you know who owns that white house with the terraced garden extending

down to the bank of the Thames?”

“That is the residence of Sir Thomas More, the new chancellor,” replied

his companion methodically.

“Ah! it does not make much show. Do you know this new chancellor?”

“By my faith, no! However, I saw him the other day on the square at

Westminster, as I was passing; the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk were

conducting him with great ceremony to the Star Chamber (at least that

is what they told me). I stopped to look at him. There was an immense

crowd filling all the square. In crossing it the Duke of Norfolk stopped,

and, turning to the crowd before him, said the king had instructed him

to publicly proclaim what great and important services Sir Thomas had

rendered him in every position he had confided to his care, and it was

on that account he esteemed him so highly, and had appointed him now to

the highest position in the kingdom because of his virtues and the rare

talents he possessed. Everybody listened and said nothing (because you

know the last is always the best).” The citizen said this in a very low

tone.

“More replied very well,” he continued. “He said that, while deeply

grateful for his majesty’s goodness and favors, he felt no less deeply

convinced that the king had rewarded him far beyond his merits; in all

he had accomplished he had but done his duty, and he greatly feared now

that he might not possess the ability necessary for acquitting himself of

the duties of so high and important an office. And--a very singular thing

(for they do not usually speak of their predecessors)--he declared that

he could not rejoice in the honor conferred on him, as it recalled the

name of the wise and honorable prelate whom he had superseded. On hearing

that I supposed they would hiss; but not at all. He said everything so

well, with so much sincerity, dignity, and firmness, that they applauded

him with an indescribable enthusiasm. It seemed those who knew him were

never satisfied with praising him. Nobody, they said, rendered justice so

scrupulously as he; none were so wise, so disinterested; in fact, they

never ended the recital of his perfections.”

“Ah!” said the other, in a voice scarcely audible, while he looked round

to discover if any one could hear him, “we will see later if he performs

all these wonderful things, and if any one will be able to get near him

without paying even his doorkeeper, as was the case with the other.”

“Yes, we will see,” replied his companion. “None of these great lords are

worth much--any amount of _promises_; but of _deeds_--nothing!”

“But this is not a great lord,” answered the citizen.

“Ah! well, it is all the same; as soon as they rise, they grow proud,

and despise and scorn the people. You may believe if ever I obtain a

patent of nobility, and become still richer than I am now, I will crush

them beautifully; there will not be one who will dare contradict me. By

my faith! it is a great pity I had not been born a count or a baron;

I should have been so well up to all their impertinences and want of

feeling.”

“It is not very difficult,” replied his companion; “you are, I think,

sufficiently so now for the good of that poor youth who wants to marry

your daughter. He will lose his senses, I am afraid, poor fellow.”

“What did you say, neighbor?” replied the citizen, feeling the blood

mount to his face. “Do you think I will give my daughter to a wretch who

has not a cent in the world--I who have held in my family the right of

citizenship from time immemorial? My grandmother also told me we have had

two aldermen of our name. All that counts, you see, Master Allicot; and

if you wish to remain my friend, I advise you not to meddle yourself with

the tattle of my wife and daughter on the subject of that little wretch

they are putting it into her head to marry; because, in truth, the mother

is as bad as the daughter. Ah! neighbor, these women, these women are the

plagues of our lives! Don’t say any more to me about it. They will run

me distracted; but they will make nothing by it, I swear it, neighbor.

The silly jades! to dare speak to me of such a match! Hush! don’t say any

more to me about it, neighbor; for it will drive me mad!”

The neighbor _did_ reply, however, because he had been commissioned to

use his influence in softening the husband and father in favor of a young

mechanic full of life and health, who had no other fault than that of

belonging to a class less elevated than that of the proud citizen who

rejected his humble supplications with scorn.

But the _dénouement_ of this embassy, and the termination of this

romance of the warehouse, have been for ever lost to history; for M. du

Bellay, seeing they were almost in sight of Asher, made them land him,

and the two honorable citizens doubtless continued their journey and

their conversation.

At Asher M. du Bellay found everything just as he expected. The

physicians surrounded Wolsey’s bed, watching his slightest movement.

The golden tablets of young Anne Boleyn were thrown open upon the

coarse woollen bedspread that covered the sick man. Cromwell walked the

floor with folded arms. He approached the bed from time to time, looked

at Wolsey, whose closed eyes and labored breathing betokened nothing

favorable, then at the golden tablets, then at the physicians around

him. He seemed to say, “Is he going to die, and just when he might be so

useful to me?”

On seeing M. du Bellay enter, his countenance lighted up; he ran on

before him, and endeavored to arouse Wolsey from his stupor.

“My lord, the ambassador of France!” he cried in the ear of the dying man.

But he received no reply.

“It is singular,” said the doctors, “nothing can arouse him.” And they

looked gravely at each other.

“He will not die! I tell you he will not die!” replied Cromwell, evincing

the most impatient anxiety.

He approached the cardinal and shook his head.

“Crom--well,” murmured the sick man.

“Monsieur du Bellay!” shouted Cromwell a second time.

Wolsey’s eyes remained closed.

“Let him alone,” cried the physicians; “he must not be excited.”

“So I think,” said M. du Bellay. “You can tell him I have been here,”

continued the ambassador, turning towards Cromwell, “but did not wish to

disturb him.”

M. du Bellay then took his leave, and returned by the land route to

London. He encountered, not far from Asher, a party of the cardinal’s old

domestics, whom the king had sent to carry him several wagon-loads of

furniture and other effects. At the head of this convoy rode Cavendish,

one of the cardinal’s most faithful servants.

Seeing M. du Bellay, they collected around him, and hastily inquired

about their master.

Du Bellay advised them to quicken their speed, and, taking leave, went

on his way, thinking that the cardinal would not be restored to favor,

and already arranging in his mind another course in which to direct his

diplomatic steps for the future.