his uncle, to drop slowly down the great Yang-se-kiang. Many a civil
word he said to Fing Fang and his sons, for civil words cost nothing.
Chang Wang sat in the boat, twisting the ends of his long mustaches,
and thinking how much money each row of plants in his tea-fields might
bring him. Presently, having finished his calculations, the miser
turned to watch his relations, who were pursuing their fishing
occupation in the way peculiar to China. Instead of rods, lines, or
nets, the Fing Fang family was provided with trained cormorants, which
are a kind of bird with a long neck, large appetite, and a particular
fancy for fish.
It was curious to watch a bird diving down in the sunny water, and
then suddenly come up again with a struggling fish in his bill. The
fish was, however, always taken away from the cormorant, and thrown by
one of the Fing Fangs into a well at the bottom of the boat.
"Cousin Ko," said the miser, leaning forward to speak, "how is it that
your clever cormorants never devour the fish they catch?"
"Cousin Chang Wang," replied the young man, "dost thou not see that
each bird has an iron ring round his neck, so that he cannot swallow?
He only fishes for others."
"Methinks the cormorant has a hard life of it," observed the miser,
smiling. "He must wish his iron ring at the bottom of the
Yang-se-kiang."
Fing Fang, who had just let loose two young cormorants from the boat,
turned round, and from his narrow slits of Chinese eyes looked keenly
upon his nephew.
"Didst thou ever hear of a creature," said he, "that puts an iron ring
around his own neck?"
"There is no such creature in all the land that the Great Wall
borders," replied Chang Wang.
Fing Fang solemnly shook the pigtail which hung down his back. Like
many of the Chinese, he had read a great deal, and was a kind of
philosopher in his way.
"Nephew Chang Wang," he observed, "_I_ know of a creature (and he is
not far off at this moment) who is always fishing for gain--constantly
catching, but never enjoying. Avarice--the love of hoarding--is the
iron ring round his neck; and so long as it stays there, he is much
like one of our trained cormorants--he may be clever, active,
successful, but he is only fishing for others."
I leave my readers to guess whether the sharp dealer understood his
uncle's meaning, or whether Chang Wang resolved in future not only to
catch, but to enjoy. Fing Fang's moral might be good enough for a
heathen, but it does not go nearly far enough for a Christian. If a
miser is like a cormorant with an iron ring round his neck, the man or
the child who lives for his own pleasure only, what is he but a greedy
cormorant with the iron ring? Who would wish to resemble a cormorant
at all? The bird knows the enjoyment of _getting_; let us prize the
richer enjoyment of _giving_. Let me close with an English proverb,
which I prefer to the Chinaman's parable--"Charity is the truest
epicure, for she eats with many mouths."
A. L. O. E.
SUMMER.
I'm coming along with a bounding pace
To finish the work that Spring begun;
I've left them all with a brighter face,
The flowers in the vales through which I've run.
I have hung festoons from laburnum trees,
And clothed the lilac, the birch and broom;
I've wakened the sound of humming-bees,
And decked all nature in brighter bloom.
I've roused the laugh of the playful child,
And tired it out in the sunny noon;
All nature at my approach hath smiled,
And I've made fond lovers seek the moon.
For this is my life, my glorious reign,
And I'll queen it well in my leafy bower;
All shall be bright in my rich domain;
I'm queen of the leaf, the bud and the flower.
And I'll reign in triumph till autumn-time
Shall conquer my green and verdant pride;
Then I'll hie me to another clime
Till I'm called again as a sunny bride.
CHARLIE'S CHRISTMAS.
Oh how cold and miserable everything is! Hardly a thought to be
uppermost on Christmas eve in the mind of a little school-boy; and yet
it was that which filled the mind of Charlie Earle on the Christmas
eve of which I am going to tell you. Only a few hours before, he had
been as happy as any boy could be. Everybody was going home, and
everybody was in the highest spirits and full of the most delightful
hopes of what the holidays would bring them; and now everybody except
Charlie has gone home, and he is left alone in the dreary school-room,
knowing that at any rate Christmas day, and maybe many other days, are
to be spent away from home, and from all the pleasant doings which he
had pictured to himself and others only the very day before.
The coming of the post-bag had been scarcely noticed in the
school-room that morning. So when old Bunce, the butler, looked in at
the door and said, "Master Earle is wanted in the doctor's room," the
boys all wondered, and Charlie's neighbor whispered to him, "Whatever
can he want you for, Earle?" The doctor's tale was soon told, and it
was one which sent Charlie back to the school-room with a very
different face to the one with which he had left it. A letter had come
to Doctor West from Charlie's father, and in it a note from his mother
to Charlie himself, written the night before, and saying that a
summons had come that very morning calling them to Charlie's
grandmother, who was very ill, and that they were starting for
Scotland that night and would be almost at their journey's end when
Charlie got the news. The note said that Laura, Charlie's sister,
would go with them, but that they could not wait for Charlie himself,
so they had written to Mrs. Lamb, Charlie's old nurse, who lived about
ten miles from Dr. West's, and had asked her to take charge of him for
a day or two, till more was known of his grandmother's state and some
better plan could be made for him. It was sad enough for Charlie to
hear of the illness of his kind old grandmother--sad enough to see the
merry start of the other boys, while he had to stay behind; but to
have to think of Christmas day spent away from father and mother, away
from Laura and home, was excuse enough for a few bitter tears. But
unpleasant things come to an end as well as pleasant ones, and
Charlie's lonely waiting in the school-room came to its end, and he
found himself that afternoon snugly packed into the Blackridge coach,
and forgetting his own troubles in listening to the cheery chatter of
the other passengers, and in looking at what was to be seen as the
coach rolled briskly along the snow-covered road. It was quite dark
when they reached Blackridge, and Charlie looked out at the people
gathered round the door of the "Packhorse Inn," and a sudden fear
filled his mind lest there should be no one there to meet him; but he
soon saw by the light at the inn door Nurse Lamb herself, with her
kind face looking so beaming that it seemed a little bit like _really_
going home.
"Here, father," said Nurse Lamb to her jolly-looking husband; "here's
Master Charlie, safe and sound! You bring the luggage in the barrow
while I take him home quick, for I am sure he must be cold."
And so nurse bustled Charlie off down a lane and across a meadow, till
they came to a wicket-gate, beyond which stood the back of a low,
deep-thatched cottage half buried in snow. On getting round to the
front the door was opened by a little girl, and nurse called out,
"Here, Molly, here we are;" adding, "Molly is my step-daughter, Master
Charlie--the one I used to tell you about before I was married, when
we were down at Hastings."
[Illustration: WINTER.]
When they got into the house, there was the kitchen with its rows of
bright pewter plates, its wide hearth and roaring fire, its hams
hanging to the beams, all just as they had been described in the days
when nurse's new home at Blackridge Farm was a subject of never-ending
interest to the two children in Mrs. Earle's nursery.
After he had had a capital tea, Charlie was allowed to go round with
the farmer to see that the horses were all right for the night,
Charlie carrying the lantern and feeling himself quite a man as he
followed the farmer into the stable. There was much coming and going
at the farm that evening, for was it not Christmas eve? and nurse was
busy sending off gifts to neighbors who were not so thriving as
herself, and busy, too, in making preparations for the morrow. Charlie
meanwhile sat in the settle and made friends with Molly, who was about
his own age and knew much more, though she was only a girl, about dogs
and rabbits and tadpoles than London-bred Charlie. By and by they
helped to stir the great plum-pudding, and dressed the kitchen and
parlor with evergreens, till nurse called them to come and hear the
chimes.
And Charlie thought it very beautiful as he stood at the door and
listened to the bells. And as they stood there the wind wafted to them
also the voices of the choir as they went on their round through the
village, singing their carols; and then Charlie went to bed with
"Hark, the herald angels sing!" ringing in his ears.
Next morning Charlie, as he ran down stairs, could hardly believe this
was really Christmas day, all was so unlike any Christmas he had known
before; but in the kitchen he found one thing like the Christmas
mornings at home, for he found quite a little pile of parcels beside
his plate, containing the pretty gifts prepared by father and mother
and Laura, and sent by them to nurse, so that at any rate the little
lad should not be robbed of this part of his Christmas pleasures.
There was a note, too, from mother, saying that she and father and
Laura were safe in Edinburgh, and that grandmother was better, and
that she hoped to tell him in her next letter when they and he should
meet at home in London. Such a bright beginning was enough to make all
the rest of the day bright; and bright it was. Charlie found plenty to
do till church-time, as Molly showed him all the nooks and corners
about the farm.
The old church, with its high pews and country congregation made
Charlie feel that he must be dreaming. Surely it could not be
Christmas, but must be the autumn? and he and Laura and everybody had
come away from London for the holidays?
No; it was no dream. It was really Christmas; for there, round the
pillars, were the holly-wreaths with their red berries, and there,
behind the chancel-screen, were the same Christmas texts as in their
church in London. When service was over, Charlie and Molly hurried
home to help Martha, the farm-girl, to have all in readiness for the
Christmas dinner. But after dinner there was not much sitting
still--at any rate for Charlie; for who could think of sitting still
indoors, when outside there were a pond covered with ice and a
farmyard full of horses and dogs?
Nor was the evening after tea without its pleasure. When the snow
began to fall, and the doors and windows were tightly closed, then a
huge log was piled on the fire; and while Farmer and Mrs. Lamb sat and
talked before it in the parlor, Charlie and Molly had a fine game of
romps in the big kitchen with Martha; and when they were tired of
that, they sat on the hearth and roasted chestnuts, while nurse read a
Christmas tale to them.
And here I must leave Charlie finishing his Christmas day, hoping that
any who read this story of it may agree with Charlie in thinking, when
he laid his head on the pillow that night, that, though it had been
spent far from home, it had not been an unhappy day, after all.
[Illustration: {Marcellin and the hunter}]
MARCELLIN.
Marcellin, a young shepherd boy, who tended his father's flock upon
the mountains, having penetrated a deep gorge to search for one of his
sheep which was missing, discovered in the thickest of the forest a
man lying upon the ground overcome with fatigue, and faint from want
of food.
"My poor lad," said the man, "I am dying from hunger and thirst. Two
days ago I came upon this mountain to hunt. I lost my way, and I have
passed two nights in the woods."
Marcellin drew some bread and cheese from his knapsack, and gave to
the stranger.
"Eat," he said, "and then follow me. I will conduct you to an old oak
tree, in the trunk of which we shall find some water."
The food satisfied his hunger; then he followed Marcellin, and drank
of the water, which he found excellent. Afterwards the boy conducted
him down the mountain, and pointed out the way to the city.
Then the hunter said to the shepherd boy, "My good lad, you have saved
my life. If I had remained in the mountain another night, I should
have died. I will show you my gratitude. Come with me to the city. I
am rich; and I will treat you as if you were my own son."
"No, sir," said Marcellin; "I cannot go with you to the city. I have a
father and a mother who are poor, but whom I love with all my heart.
Were you a king, I would not leave my parents."
"But," said the hunter, "you live here in a miserable cabin with an
ugly thatched roof; I live in a palace built of marble, and
surrounded with statues. I will give you drink in glasses like
crystal, and food upon plates of silver."
"Very likely," responded Marcellin; "but our house is not half as
miserable as you suppose. If it is not surrounded with statues, it is
among fruit trees and trellised vines. We drink water which we get
from a neighboring fountain. It is very clear, though we do not drink
from crystal cups. We gain by our labor a modest living, but good
enough. And if we do not have silver ware in our house, we have plenty
of flowers."
"Nonsense, my boy! Come with me," said the hunter; "we have trees and
flowers in the city more beautiful than yours. I have magnificent
grounds, with broad alleys, with a flower garden filled with the most
precious plants. In the middle of it there is a beautiful fountain,
the like of which you never saw. The water is thrown upward in small
streams, and falls back sparkling into the great white marble basin.
You would be quite happy to live there."
"But I am quite happy _here_," replied Marcellin. "The shade of our
forests is at least as delicious as that of your superb alleys. Our
fields are running over with flowers. You can hardly step without
finding them under your feet. There are flowers around our
cottage--roses, violets, lilies, pansies. Do you suppose that our
fountains are less beautiful than your little jets of water? You
should see the merry brooks bounding down over the rocks, and running
away through the flowery meadow."
"You don't know what you refuse," rejoined the hunter. "If you go into
the city, you will be put to school, where you can study all
departments of art and science. There are theatres, where skilful
musicians will enchant your ears by harmony. There are rich saloons,
to which you will be admitted, to enjoy splendid fetes. And since you
so much love the country, you shall pass your summer vacation with me
in a superb chateau which I possess."
"Well, I am greatly obliged to you," replied the shepherd boy; "but I
think I had better stop with father and mother. I can learn everything
useful in our village school. I am taught to fear God, to honor my
parents, and to imitate their virtues. I don't wish to learn anything
beyond that. Then your musicians, which you tell about, do they sing
any better than the nightingale or the golden robin? Then we have our
concerts and our fetes. We are right down happy when we are all
together on Sunday evening under the trees. My sister sings, while I
accompany her upon my flute. Our chants can be heard a long way off,
and echo repeats them. And in the evening, when we stay in the house,
grandfather is with us. We love him so much because he is so good. No,
I will not leave my parents. I will not renounce their home, if it is
humble. I cannot go to the city with you."
The hunter saw that it was of no use to argue the point; so he said,--
"What shall I give you, then, to express my gratitude for your
services? Take this purse, filled with gold."
"What need have I of it? We are poor, but we want nothing. Besides, if
I accept your money, I should _sell_ the little service I have been
able to render. That would be wrong; my mother would blame me for such
conduct. She tells me that we ought always to assist those who are in
trouble and want without expecting pay for it."
"Generous boy! What shall I give you as a mark of my gratitude? You
must accept something, or I shall be greatly disappointed."
"Is it so?" asked Marcellin, playfully. "Then give me the cup which
is suspended at your side--that one on which is engraved a picture of
some dogs pursuing a stag."
The hunter joyfully gave the cup to the happy shepherd boy, who,
having once more indicated the way which would lead to the city, bade
him good day, and went back to his flock.
And the rich man returned to his splendid dwelling, having learned
that it is the proper use of the means we have, rather than wishing
for greater, which brings happiness and contentment.
AN ADVENTURE IN THE LIFE OF SALVATOR ROSA.
There is in the museum at Florence a celebrated painting, which calls
to mind a thrilling adventure of Salvator Rosa when quite young.
The scene represents a solitude, very rugged and sublime--mountains
upon every side, with their tops covered with snow, while through the
dark clouds in the sky a few straggling sunbeams find their way to the
valley. Upon the border of an immense cliff stands a group of men
whose costume denotes them to be brigands of the Apennines. Upon the
very edge of the precipice, erect and calm, is a young man, surrounded
by the brigands, who are preparing to throw him into the depths below.
The chief is a short distance away, and seemingly about to give the
fatal signal. A few paces in advance stands a female, of strange
beauty, waving her hand menacingly towards the chief as if commanding
that the young man's life be spared. Her manner, resolute and
imperious, the countenance of the chief, the grateful calmness of the
prisoner, all seem to indicate that the woman's order will be obeyed,
and that the victim will be saved from the frightful death with which
he has been menaced.
This picture, as will be readily guessed, is the work of SALVATOR
ROSA. Born at Arenella, near Naples, in 1615, of poor parents, he was
so admirably endowed by nature that, even in his boyhood, he became a
spirited painter, a good musician, and an excellent poet. But his
tastes led him to give his attention to painting.
Unfortunately, some severe satires which he published in Naples made
him many enemies in that city, and he was obliged to fly to Rome,
where he took a position at once as a painter. Leaving that city after
a while, he went to Florence, and there found a generous encouragement
and many friends, and there his talent was appreciated by the world of
art.
The environs of Florence afforded him superior advantages in
developing his genius. The Apennines, with their dark gorges, their
picturesque landscapes, and their snow-clad peaks, pleased his wild
imagination. In their vast recesses he found his best inspirations and
his most original subjects. Often he wandered for days over the abrupt
mountains, infested with bandits, to find work for his ambitious
pencil.
One day he had advanced farther than usual into the profound and
dangerous solitudes. He sat down near a torrent, and began to sketch a
wild landscape before him. All of a sudden he saw, at the summit of a
rock near at hand, a man leaning upon his carbine, and apparently
watching him with great curiosity. A large hat, with stained and torn
brim, covered his sun-burnt visage; a leather belt bound his dark sack
to his body, and gave support to a pistol and hunting-knife,
invariably carried by the brigands of the mountains. His black beard,
thick and untidy, concealed a portion of his face; but there could be
no doubt that his dark glance was fixed upon the stranger who came to
invade his domain.
For almost any other but our hero, the sudden apparition of that wild
and menacing figure would have been good cause of terror. But Salvator
was a painter, and a painter in love with his art; and he had in that
strange costume, that forbidding look, something so much in harmony
with the aspect of nature about him, that he at once made the man a
subject of study.
"I mustn't lose him," he said; "he's an inhabitant of the country. He
comes just in the nick of time to complete my landscape; and his
position is quite fine."
And, drawing tranquilly his pencil, he began to transfer the outlines
of the brigand to his album, when the stranger, coming a few paces
nearer to him, said, in a rough voice,--
"Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"Well, my good fellow, I come to take your portrait, if you'll hold
still a bit," responded the painter.
"Ah, you jest with me! Have a care," said the other, coming still
nearer.
"No," replied Salvator, seriously; "I am a painter; and I wander over
these mountains with no other purpose but to admire these beautiful
landscapes, and to sketch the most picturesque objects."
"To sketch!" cried the brigand, with evident anger, hardly knowing
what the word meant. "Do you not know that these mountains belong to
us? Why do you come here to spy us out?"
At these words he gave a shrill whistle, and three other men, clothed
like himself, came towards the spot from different directions.
"Seize this man!" he said to his companions; "he comes to observe us."
All resistance was useless. And so, after having tried in vain to
prove his innocence, the young man was surrounded and seized.
"March!" cried the man who had first met him. "You must talk with our
chief."
The leader of these brigands was a man about forty years of age, named
Pietratesta. His great physical strength, his courage, and, more than
all the rest, his energy, had made him a favorite among his
companions, and given him authority over them. Famous among the
mountains for his audacious crimes, condemned many times to an
outlaw's death, pursued in vain by the officers of the law, habituated
for years to a life of adventure, pillage, and murder, he treated his
prisoners without pity or mercy. All who were unable to purchase their
liberty by paying whatever ransom he fixed, were put to death. He
looked upon civilized people not as men, but as prizes.
As he saw the captive approach, he asked the usual question,--
"Who are you?"
"Salvator Rosa, a Neapolitan painter, now resident of Florence."
"O, a painter! A poor prize, generally. But you are famous, I hear;
the prince is your friend. Your pictures sell for very large prices.
You must pay us ten thousand ducats."
[Illustration: {Sivora, the chief's wife, standing on the cliff edge}]
"Ten thousand ducats, indeed! Where do you suppose I can get so much?"
"Well, as for that, if you haven't got the money, your friends must
get it for you."
"But my friends are not rich."
"Ah, excuse me!" said the chief, smiling. "When one has a prince for a
protector, he is always rich."
"It is true that the prince is my patron; but he owes me nothing."
"No matter if he don't. He would not be deprived of such an artist as
you for a paltry ten thousand ducats."
"He pays me for my pictures; but he will not pay my ransom."
"He _must_," said the robber, emphatically; "so no more words. Ask
your friends, if you prefer, or whoever you will; but bring me ten
thousand ducats, and that within a month; otherwise you must die."
As the chief uttered these words, he walked away, leaving Salvator in
the middle of the ground which formed the camp.
During the short conversation two children came from one of the tents,
being attracted by the noise. Their little blond heads, curiously
turned towards the captive, their faces, tanned by the sun, but
animated by the crimson of health and youth, and their picturesque
costume had attracted the attention of the painter. When the chief had
gone away, he approached them, and smiled. The children drew away
abashed; then, reassured by the air of goodness which the young man
wore, they came nearer, and permitted him to embrace them.
"Are you going to live with us?" said the eldest, who was about eight
years of age.
"I don't know, my little friend."
"O, I wish you would! It is so nice to stop in these mountains. There
are plenty of beautiful flowers, and birds' nests, too. I have three
already; I will show them to you, and then we will go and find some
more. But what is that you have got under your arm?"
"It is my sketch-book."
"A sketch-book? What is a sketch-book?"
"It is what I carry my pictures in."
"Pictures? O, do let me see them!"
"Yes, indeed; here they are."