CHAPTER IV.

SCARSDALE WEIR.

I was up betimes next morning, long before Sister Agnes could possibly

be ready to take me to the forest. So I took my sewing into the garden,

and found a pleasant sunny nook, where I sat and worked till breakfast

time. The meal was scarcely over when Sister Agnes sent for me. It made

my heart leap with pleasure to see how her beautiful, melancholy face

lighted up at my approach. Why should she feel such an interest in one

whom she had never seen till a few hours ago? The question was one I

could not answer; I could only recognise the fact and be thankful.

The morning was delicious: sunny, without being oppressive; while in the

shade there was a faint touch of austerity like the first breath of

coming winter. A walk of two miles brought us to the skirts of the

forest, and in five minutes after quitting the high road we might have

been a hundred miles away from any habitation, so utterly lost and

buried from the outer world did we seem to be. Already the forest paths

were half hidden by fallen leaves, which rustled pleasantly under our

feet. By-and-by we came to a pretty opening in the wood, where some

charitable soul had erected a rude rustic seat that was more than half

covered with the initials of idle wayfarers. Here Sister Agnes sat down

to rest. She had brought a volume of poems with her, and while she read

I wandered about, never going very far away, feasting on the purple

blackberries, finding here and there a late-ripened cluster of nuts,

trying to find out a nest or two among the thinned foliage, and enjoying

myself in a quiet way much to my heart's content.

I don't think Sister Agnes read much that morning. Her gaze was oftener

away from her book than on it. After a time she came and joined me in

gathering nuts and blackberries. She seemed brighter and happier than I

had hitherto seen her, entering into all my little projects with as much

eagerness as though she were herself a child. How soon I had learned to

love her! Why had I lived all those dreary years at Park Hill without

knowing her? But I could never again feel quite so lonely--never quite

such an outcast from that common household love which all the girls I

had known seemed to accept as a matter of course. Even if I should

unhappily be separated from Sister Agnes, I could not cease to love her;

and although I had seen her for the first time barely forty-eight hours

ago, my child's instinct told me that she possessed that steadfastness,

sweet and strong, which allows no name that has once been written on its

heart to be erased therefrom for ever.

My thoughts were running in some such groove, but they were all as

tangled and confused as the luxuriant undergrowth around me. It must

have been out of this confusion that the impulse arose which caused me

to address a question to Sister Agnes that startled her as much as if a

shell had exploded at her feet.

"Dear Sister Agnes," I said, "you seem to know my history, and all about

me. Did you know my papa and mamma?"

She dropped the leaf that held her fruit, and turned on me a haggard,

frightened face that made my own grow pale.

"What makes you think that I know your history?" she stammered out.

"You who are so intimate with Lady Chillington must know why I was

brought to Deepley Walls: you must know something about me. If you know

anything about my father and mother, oh! do please tell me; please do!"

"I am tired, Janet. Let us sit down," she said, wearily. So, hand in

hand, we went back to the rustic seat and sat down.

She sat for a minute or two without speaking, gazing straight before her

into some far-away forest vista, but seeing only with that inner eye

which searches through the dusty chambers of heart and brain whenever

some record of the past has to be brought forth to answer the questions

of to-day.

"I do know your history, dear child," she said at length, "and both your

parents were friends of mine."

"Were! Then neither of them is alive?"

"Alas! no. They have been dead many years. Your father was drowned in

one of the Italian lakes. Your mother died a year afterwards."

All the sweet vague hopes that I had cherished in secret, ever since I

could remember anything, of some day finding at least one of my parents

alive, died out utterly as Sister Agnes said these words. My heart

seemed to faint within me. I flung myself into her arms, and burst into

tears.

Very tenderly and lovingly, with sweet caresses and words of comfort,

did Sister Agnes strive to win me back to cheerfulness. Her efforts were

not unsuccessful, and after a time I grew calmer and recovered my

self-possession; and as soon as so much was accomplished we set out on

our return to Deepley Walls.

As we rose to go, I said, "Since you have told me so much, Sister Agnes,

will you not also tell me why I have been brought to Deepley Walls, and

why Lady Chillington has anything to do with me?"

"That is a question, dear Janet, which I cannot answer," she said. "I am

bound to Lady Chillington by a solemn promise not to reveal to you the

nature of the secret bond which has brought you under her roof. That she

has your welfare at heart you may well believe, and that it is to your

interest to please her in every possible way is equally certain. More

than this I dare not say, except there are certain pages of your

history, some of them of a very painful character, which it would not be

advisable that you should read till you shall be many years older than

you are now. Meanwhile rest assured that in Lady Chillington, however

eccentric she may seem to be, you have a firm and powerful friend; while

in me, who have neither influence nor power, you have one who simply

loves you, and prays night and day for your welfare."

"And you will never cease to love me, will you?" I said, just as we

stepped out of the forest into the high road.

She took both my hands in hers and looked me straight in the face.

"Never, while I live, Janet Hope, can I cease to love you," she said.

Then we kissed and went on our way towards Deepley Walls.

"You are to dine with her ladyship to-day, Miss Janet," said Dance the

same afternoon. "We must look out your best bib and tucker."

Dance seemed to think that a mighty honour was about to be conferred

upon me, but for my own part I would have given much to forego the

distinction. However, there was no help for it, so I submitted quietly

to having my hair dressed and to being inducted into my best frock. I

was dreadfully abashed when the footman threw open the dining-room door

and announced in a loud voice, "Miss Janet Hope."

Dinner had just been served, and her ladyship was waiting. I advanced up

the room and made my curtsey. Lady Chillington looked at me grimly,

without relaxing a muscle, and then extended a lean forefinger, which I

pressed respectfully. The butler indicated a chair, and I sat down. Next

moment Sister Agnes glided in through a side door, and took her place

at the table, but considerably apart from Lady Chillington and me. I

felt infinitely relieved by her presence.

Her ladyship looked as elaborately youthful, with her pink cheeks, her

black wig, and her large white teeth, as on the evening of my arrival at

Deepley Walls. But her hands shook a little, making the diamonds on her

fingers scintillate in the candlelight as she carried her food to her

mouth, and this was a sign of age which not all the art in the world

could obviate. The table was laid out with a quantity of old-fashioned

plate; indeed, the plate was out of all proportion to the dinner, which

consisted of nothing more elaborate than some mutton broth, a roast

pullet and a custard. But there was a good deal of show, and we were

waited on assiduously by a respectable but fatuous-looking butler. There

was no wine brought out, but some old ale was poured into her ladyship's

glass from a silver flagon. Sister Agnes had a small cover laid apart

from ours. Her dinner consisted of herbs, fruit, bread and water. It

pained me to see that the look of intense melancholy which had lightened

so wonderfully during our forest walk had again overshadowed her face

like a veil. She gave me one long, earnest look as she took her seat at

the table, but after that she seemed scarcely to be aware of my

presence.

We had sat in grim silence for full five minutes, when Lady Chillington

spoke.

"Can you speak French, child?" she said, turning abruptly to me.

"I can read it a little, but I cannot speak it," I replied.

"Nor understand what is said when it is spoken in your presence?"

"No, ma'am."

"So much the better," she answered with a grating laugh. "Children have

long ears, and there is no freedom of conversation when they are

present." With that she addressed some remarks in French to Sister

Agnes, who replied to her in the same language. I knew nothing about my

ears being long, but her ladyship's words had made them tingle as if

they had been boxed. For one thing I was thankful--that no further

remarks were addressed to me during dinner. The conversation in French

became animated, and I had leisure to think of other things.

Dinner was quickly over, and at a signal from her ladyship, the folding

doors were thrown open, and we defiled into the Green Saloon, I bringing

up the rear meekly. On the table were fruit and flowers, and one small

bottle of some light wine. The butler filled her ladyship's glass, and

then withdrew.

"You can take a pear, little girl," said Lady Chillington. Accordingly I

took a pear, but when I had got it I was too timid to eat it, and could

do nothing but hold it between my hot palms. Had I been at Park Hill

Seminary, I should soon have made my teeth meet in the fruit; but I was

not certain as to the proper mode of eating pears in society.

Lady Chillington placed her glass in her eye and examined me critically.

"Haie! haie!" she said. "That good Chinfeather has not quite eradicated

our gaucherie, it seems. We are deficient in ease and aplomb. What is

the name of that Frenchwoman, Agnes, who 'finished' Lady Kinbuck's

girls?"

"You mean Madame Delclos."

"The same. Look out her address to-morrow, and remind me that you write

to her. If mademoiselle here remain in England, she will grow up weedy,

and will never learn to carry her shoulders properly. Besides, the child

has scarcely two words to say for herself. A little Parisian training

may prove beneficial. At her age a French girl of family would be a

little duchess in bearing and manners, even though she had never been

outside the walls of her pension. How is such an anomaly to be accounted

for? It is possible that the atmosphere may have something to do with

it."

Here was fresh food for wonder, and for such serious thought as my age

admitted of. I was to be sent to a school in France! I could not make up

my mind whether to be sorry or glad. In truth, I was neither wholly the

one nor the other; the tangled web of my feelings was something

altogether beyond my skill to unravel.

Lady Chillington sipped her wine absently awhile; Sister Agnes was busy

with some fine needlework; and I was striving to elaborate a giant and

his attendant dwarf out of the glowing embers and cavernous recesses of

the wood fire, while there was yet an underlying vein of thought at work

in my mind which busied itself desultorily with trying to piece together

all that I had ever heard or read of life in a French school.

"You can run away now, little girl. You are de trop," said her ladyship,

turning on me in her abrupt fashion. "And you, Agnes, may as well read

to me a couple of chapters out of the 'Girondins.' What a wonderful man

was that Robespierre! What a giant! Had he but lived, how different the

history of Europe would have been from what we know it to-day."

I could almost have kissed her ladyship of my own accord, so pleased was

I to get away. I made my curtsey to her, and also to Sister Agnes, whose

only reply was a sweet, sad smile, and managed to preserve my dignity

till I was out of the room. But when the door was safely closed behind

me, I ran, I flew along the passages till I reached the housekeeper's

room. Dance was not there, neither had candles yet been lighted. The

bright moonlight pouring in through the window gave me a new idea.

I had not yet been down to look at the river! What time could be better

than the present one for such a purpose? I had heard some of the elder

girls at Park Hill talk of the delights of boating by moonlight. Boating

in the present case was out of the question, but there was the river

itself to be seen. Taking my hat and scarf, I let myself out by a side

door, and then sped away across the park like a hunted fawn, not

forgetting to take an occasional bite at her ladyship's pear. To-night,

for a wonder, my mind seemed purged of all those strange fears and

stranger fancies engendered in it, some people would say, by

superstition, while others would hold that they were merely the effects

of a delicate nervous organisation and over-excitable brain re-acting

one upon the other. Be that as it may, for this night they had left me,

and I skipped on my way as fearlessly as though I were walking at

mid-day, and with a glorious sense of freedom working within me, such,

only in a more intense degree, as I had often felt on our rare holidays

at school.

There was a right of public footpath across one corner of the park.

Tracking this narrow white ribbon through the greensward, I came at

length to a stile which admitted me into the high road. Exactly opposite

was a second stile, opening on a second footpath, which I felt sure

could lead to nowhere but the river. Nor was I mistaken. In another five

minutes I was on the banks of the Adair.

To my child's eye, the scene was one of exquisite beauty. To-day, I

should probably call it flat and wanting in variety. The equable

full-flowing river was lighted up by a full and unclouded moon. The

undergrowth that fringed its banks was silver-foliaged; silver-white

rose the mists in the meadows. Silence everywhere, save for the low

liquid murmur of the river itself, which seemed burdened with some love

secret, centuries old, which it was vainly striving to tell in

articulate words.

The burden of the beauty lay upon me and saddened me. I wandered slowly

along the bank, watching the play of moonlight on the river. Suddenly I

saw a tiny boat that was moored to an overhanging willow, and floated

out the length of its chain towards the middle of the stream. I looked

around. Not a creature of any kind was visible. Then I thought to

myself: "How pleasant it would be to sit out there in the boat for a

little while. And surely no one could be angry with me for taking such a

liberty--not even the owner of the boat, if he were to find me there."

No sooner said than done. I went down to the edge of the river and drew

the boat inshore by the chain that held it. Then I stepped gingerly in,

half-frightened at my own temerity, and sat down. The boat glided slowly

out again to the length of its chain and then became motionless. But it

was motionless only for a moment or two. A splash in the water drew my

attention to the chain. It had been insecurely fastened to a branch of

the willow; my weight in the boat had caused it to become detached and

fall into the water, and with horrified eyes I saw that I had now no

means of getting back to the shore. Next moment the strength of the

current carried the boat out into mid-stream, and I began to float

slowly down the river.

I sat like one paralysed, unable either to stir or speak. The willows

seemed to bow their heads in mocking farewell as I glided past them. I

heard the faint baying of a dog on some distant farm, and it sounded

like a death-note in my frightened ears. Suddenly the spell that had

held me was loosened, and I started to my feet. The boat heeled over,

and but for a sudden instinctive movement backward I should have gone

headlong into the river, and have ended my troubles there and then. The

boat righted itself, veered half-round and then went steadily on its way

down the stream. I sank on my knees and buried my face in my hands, and

began to cry. When I had cried a little while it came into my mind that

I would say my prayers. So I said them, with clasped hands and wet eyes;

and the words seemed to come from me and affect me in a way that I had

never experienced before. As I write these lines I have a vivid

recollection of noticing how blurred and large the moon looked through

my tears.

My heart was now quieted a little; I was no longer so utterly

overmastered by my fears. I was recalled to a more vivid sense of earth

and its realities by the low, melancholy striking of some village clock.

I gazed eagerly along both banks of the river; but although the moon

shone so brightly, neither house nor church nor any sign of human

habitation was visible. When the clock had told its last syllable, the

silence seemed even more profound than before. I might have been

floating on a river that wound through a country never trodden by the

foot of man, so entirely alone, so utterly removed from all human aid,

did I feel myself to be.

I drew the skirt of my frock over my shoulders, for the night air was

beginning to chill me, and contrived to regain the seat I had taken on

first entering the boat. Whither would the river carry me, was the

question I now put to myself. To the sea, doubtless. Had I not been

taught at school that sooner or later all rivers emptied themselves into

the ocean? The immensity of the thought appalled me. It seemed to chill

the beating of my heart; I grew cold from head to foot. Still the boat

held its course steadily, swept onward by the resistless current; still

the willows nodded their fantastic farewells. Along the level meadows

far and wide the white mist lay like a vast winding-sheet; now and then

through the stillness I heard, or seemed to hear, a moan--a mournful

wail, as of some spirit just released from earthly bonds, and forced to

leave its dear ones behind. The moonlight looked cruel, and the water

very, very cold. Someone had told me that death by drowning was swift

and painless. Those stars up there were millions of miles away; how long

would it take my soul, I wondered, to travel that distance--to reach

those glowing orbs--to leave them behind? How glorious such a journey,

beyond all power of thought, to track one's way among the worlds that

flash through space! In the world I should leave there would be one

person only who would mourn for me--Sister Agnes, who would--But what

noise was that?

A noise, low and faint at first, just taking the edge of silence with a

musical murmur that seemed to die out for an instant now and again, then

coming again stronger than before, and so growing by fine degrees louder

and more confirmed, and resolving itself at last into a sound which

could not be mistaken for that of anything but falling water. The sound

was clearly in front of me; I was being swept resistlessly towards it. A

curve of the river and a swelling of the banks hid everything from me.

The sound was momently growing louder, and had distinctly resolved

itself into the roar and rush of some great body of water. I shuddered

and grasped the sides of the boat with both hands.

Suddenly the curve was rounded, and there, almost in front of me, was a

mass of buildings, and there, too, spanning the river, was what looked

to me like a trellis-work bridge, and on the bridge was a human figure.

The roar and noise of the cataract were deafening, but louder than all

was my piercing cry for help. He who stood on the bridge heard it. I saw

him fling up his hands as if in sudden horror, and that was the last

thing I did see. I sank down with closed eyes in the bottom of the boat,

and my heart went up in a silent cry to Heaven. Next moment I was swept

into Scarsdale Weir. The boat seemed to glide from under me; my head

struck something hard; the water overwhelmed me, seized on me, dashed me

here and there in its merciless arms; a noise as of a thousand cataracts

filled my ears for a moment; and then I recollect nothing more.

(_To be continued._)

SONNET.

Wouldst thou be happy, friend, forget, forget.

A curse--no blessing--Memory, thou art;

The very torment of a human heart.

Ah! yes, I thought, I still am young; and let

My heart but beat, I can be happy yet.

Upon a friendly face clear shone the light;

Without, low moaned the mountain's winds, and night

Closed our warm home--sad words of fond regret.

A voice which in my ear no more shall ring;

A look estranged in hate like lightning came,

My very soul within me died as flame

By strong wind spent. It was not grief, for dead

Was grief; nor love, for love in wrath had fled;

It was of both the last undying sting!

JULIA KAVANAGH.

THE BRETONS AT HOME.

BY CHARLES W. WOOD, F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF "THROUGH HOLLAND," "LETTERS

FROM MAJORCA," ETC. ETC.

The long grey walls, the fortifications, the church towers and steeples,

the clustering roofs of St. Malo came into view.

It is a charming sight after the long and often unpleasant night journey

which separates St. Malo from Southampton. The boats leave much to be

desired, and the sea very often, like Shakespeare's heroine, needs

taming, but, unlike that heroine, will not be tamed, charm we never so

wisely. As a rule, however, one is not in a mood to charm.

[Illustration: A BRETON MAIDEN.]

The Company are not accommodating. There are private cabins on board

holding four, badly placed, uncomfortable, possessing the single

advantage of privacy; but these managers would have them empty rather

than allow two passengers to occupy one of them under the full fare of

four. This is unamiable and exacting. In crowded times it may be all

very right, but on ordinary occasions they would do well to follow the

example of the more generous Norwegians, who place their state cabins

holding four at the disposal of anyone paying the fare of three

passengers.

After the long night-passage it is delightful to steam into the harbour

of St. Malo. If the sea has been rough and unkindly, you at once pass

from Purgatory to Paradise, with a relief those will understand who have

experienced it. The scene is very charming. The coast, broken and

undulating, is rich and fertile; very often hazy and dreamy; the

landscape is veiled by a purple mist which reminds one very much of the

Irish lakes and mountains.

Across the water lies Dinard, with its lovely views, its hilly

thoroughfares, its English colony and its French patois. But the boat,

turning the point, steams up the harbour and Dinard falls away. St. Malo

lies ahead on the left, enclosed in its ancient grey walls, which

encircle it like a belt; and on the right, farther away, rise the towers

and steeples of St. Servan, also of ancient celebrity.

On the particular morning of which I write, as we steamed up the harbour

towards our moorings, the quays looked gay and lively, the town very

picturesque. It is so in truth, though some of its picturesqueness is

the result of antiquity, dirt and dilapidation. But the fresh green

trees lining the quay looked bright and youthful; a contrast with the

ancient grey walls that formed their background. Vessels were loading

and unloading, people hurried to and fro; many had evidently come down

to see the boat in, and not a few were unmistakably English.

Here and there in the grey walls were the grand imposing gateways of the

town. Above the walls rose the quaint houses, roof above roof, gable

beside gable, tier beyond tier.

At the end of the quay the old Castle brought the scene to a fine

conclusion. It was built by Anne of Brittany, and dates from the

sixteenth century. One of its towers bears the singular motto or

inscription: _Qui qu'en grogne, ainsi sera, c'est mon plaisir_: which

seems to suggest that the illustrious lady owned a determined will and

purpose. It is now turned into barracks; a lordly residence for the

simple paysans who swelled the ranks of the Breton regiment occupying it

at the time of which I write. They are said to be the best fighting

soldiers in France, these Bretons. Of a low order of development,

physically and mentally, they yet have a stubborn will which carries

them through impossible hardships. They may be conquered, but they never

yield.

The walk round the town upon the walls is extremely interesting.

Gradually making way, the scene changes like the shifting slides of a

panorama. Now the harbour lies before you, with its busy quays, its

docks, its small crowd of shipping; very crowded we have never seen it.

The old Castle rises majestically, looking all its three centuries of

age and royal dignity; its four towers unspoilt by restoration.

Onward still and the walls rise sheer out of the rocks and the water. At

certain tides, the sea dashes against them and breaks back upon itself

in froth and foam and angry boom. Sight and sound are a wonderful nerve

tonic. Countless rocks rise like small islands in every direction,

stretching far out to sea. On a calm day it is all lovely beyond the

power of words. The sky is blue and brilliant with sunshine. The sea

receives the dazzling rays and returns them in a myriad flashes. The

water seems to have as many tints as the rainbow, and they are as

changing and beautiful and intangible. A distant vessel, passing slowly

with all her sails set, almost becalmed, suggests a dreamy and

delicious existence that has not its rival. The coast of Normandy

stretches far out of sight. In the distance are the Channel Islands,

visible possibly on a clear day and with a strong glass. I know not how

that may be.

Turn your gaze, and you have St. Malo lying within its grey walls. The

sea on the right is all freedom and broad expanse; the town on the left

is cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd. Extremes meet here, as they often do

elsewhere.

It is a succession of slanting roofs, roof above roof, street beyond

street. Many of the houses are very old and form wonderful groups, full

of quaint gables and dormer windows, whilst the high roofs slant upwards

and fall away in picturesque outlines. An artist might work here for

years and still find fresh material to his hand. The streets are narrow,

steep and tortuous; the houses, crowding one upon another, are many

stories high; not a few seem ready to fall with age and decay. Only have

patience, and all yields to time.

On one of the islets is the tomb of Chateaubriand, who was born in St.

Malo and lived here many years. It was one of his last wishes to be

buried where the sea, for ever playing and plashing around him, would

chant him an everlasting requiem. Many will sympathise with the feeling.

No scene could be more in accordance with the solemnity of death, the

long waiting for the "eternal term;" more in unison with the pure spirit

that could write such a prose-poem as _Atala_.

Nothing could have been lovelier than the day of our arrival at St.

Malo; the special day of which I write; for St. Malo has seen our coming

and going many times and in all weathers.

The crossing had been calm as a lake. Even H.C., who would sooner brave

the tortures of a Spanish Inquisition than the ocean in its angry moods,

and who has occasionally landed after a rough passage in an expiring

condition: even H.C. was impatient to land and break his fast at the

liberal table of the Hôtel de France--very liberal in comparison with

the Hôtel Franklin. We had once dined at the table d'hôte of the

Franklin, and found it a veritable Barmecide's feast, from which we got

up far more hungry than we had sat down; a display so mean that we soon

ceased to wonder that only two others graced the board with ourselves,

and they, though Frenchmen, strangers to the place. The Hôtel de France

was very different from this; if it left something to be desired in the

way of refinement, it erred on the side of abundance.

Therefore, on landing this morning, we gave our lighter baggage in

charge of the porter of the hotel, who knew us well, and according to

his wont, gave us a friendly greeting. "Monsieur visite encore St.

Malo," said he, "et nous apporte le beau temps. Soyez le bienvenu!" This

was not in the least familiar--from a Frenchman.

[Illustration: ST. MALO.]

We went on to the custom-house, and as we had nothing to declare the

inspection was soon over. H.C. had left all his tea and cigars behind

him at the Waterloo Station, in a small hand-bag which he had put down

for a moment to record a sudden fine phrenzy of poetical inspiration.

Besides tea and cigars, the bag contained a copy of his beloved "Love

Lyrics," without which he never travels, and a bunch of lilies of the

valley, given him at the moment of leaving home by Lady Maria; an

amiable but æsthetical aunt, who lives on crystallised violets, and

spends her time in endeavouring to convert all the young men of her

acquaintance who go in for muscular Christianity to her æsthetical way

of thinking.

Leaving the custom-house, we crossed the quay, the old castle in front

of us, and passing through the great gateway, immediately found

ourselves at the Place Chateaubriand and the Hôtel de France. For the

hotel forms part of the building in which Chateaubriand lived.

We had a very short time to devote to St. Malo. A long journey still lay

before us, for we wished to reach Morlaix that night. There was the

choice of taking the train direct, or of crossing by boat to Dinard, and

so joining the train from St. Malo, which reached Dinan after a long

round. The latter seemed preferable, since it promised more variety,

though shortening our stay at the old town. But, as Madame wisely

remarked, it would give us sufficient time for luncheon, and an extra

hour or so in St. Malo could not be very profitably spent.

So before long we were once more going down the quay, in company with

the porter--whose lamentations at our abrupt departure were no doubt

sincere as well as politic--and a truck carrying our goods and chattels.

As yet, they were modest in number and respectable in appearance. H.C.

had not commenced his raid upon the old curiosity shops; had not yet

encumbered himself with endless packages, from deal boxes containing old

silver, to worm-eaten, fourteenth century carved-wood monks and

madonnas, carefully wrapped in brown paper, and bound head, hand and

foot (where these essentials were not missing) with cord. All this came

in due time, but to-day we were still dignified.

We passed without the walls and went down the quay. All our surroundings

were gay and brilliant. Everything was life and movement, the life and

movement of a Continental town. The "gentle gales" wooed the trees, and

the trees made music in the air. The sun shone as it can only shine out

of England. The sky, wearing its purest blue, was flecked with white

clouds pure as angels' wings. The boat we had recently left was

discharging cargo, and her steam was quietly dying down.

Four old women--each must have been eighty, at least--were seated on a

bench, knitting and smiling and looking as placid and contented as if

the world and the sunshine had been made for them alone, and it was

their duty to enjoy it to the utmost. It was impossible to sketch them:

Time and Tide wait for no man, and even now the whistle of the Dinard

boat might be heard shrieking its impatient warning round the corner:

but we took the old women with an instantaneous camera, and with

wonderful result. It was all over before they had time to pose and put

on expressions; and when they found they had been photographed, they

thought it the great event of their lives. The mere fact is sufficient

with these good folk; possession of the likeness is a very secondary

consideration. We left them crooning and laughing and casting admiring

glances after H.C.--even at eighty years of age: possibly with a sigh to

their lost youth.

Then we turned where the walls bend round and came in sight of the boat,

steaming alongside the small stone landing-place and preparing for

departure.

The passengers were not numerous. A few men and women; the latter with

white caps and large baskets, who had evidently been over to St. Malo

for household purposes, and were returning with the resigned air--it is

very pathetic--that country women are so fond of wearing when they have

been spending money and lessening the weight of the stocking which

contains their treasured hoard.

We mounted the bridge, which, being first-class and an extra two or

three sous, was deserted. These thrifty people would as soon think of

burning down their cottages, as of wasting two sous in a useless

luxury--all honour to them for the principle. But we, surveying human

nature from an elevation, felt privileged to philosophise.

And if this human nature was interesting, what about the natural world

around us? The boat loosed its moorings when time was up, and the grey

walls of St. Malo receded; the innumerable roofs, towers and steeples

grew dreamy and indistinct, dissolved and disappeared. The water was

still blue and calm and flashing with sunlight. To the right lay the

sleeping ocean; ahead of us, Dinard. Land rose on all sides; bays and

creeks ran upwards, out of sight; headlands, rich in verdure,

magnificently wooded; houses standing out, here lonely and solitary,

there clustering almost into towns and villages; the mouth of the Rance,

leading up to Dol and Dinan, which some have called the Rhine of France,

and everyone must think a stream lovely and romantic.

Most beautiful of all seemed Dinard, which we rapidly approached. In

twenty minutes we had passed into the little harbour beyond the pier. It

was quite a bustling quay, with carriages for hire, and men with barrows

touting noisily for custom, treading upon each other's heels in the race

for existence; cafés and small hotels in the background.

Having plenty of time, we preferred to walk to the station, and

consigned our baggage to the care of a deaf and dumb man, who

disappeared with everything like magic, left us high and dry upon the

quay to follow more leisurely, and to hope that we were not the victims

of misplaced confidence. It looked very much like it.

A steep climb brought us to the heights of Dinard. Nothing could be more

romantic. Here were no traces of antiquity; everything was aggressively

modern; all beauty lay in scenery and situation. Humble cottages

embowered in roses and wisteria; stately châteaux standing in large

luxuriant gardens flaming with flowers, proudly secluded behind great

iron gates. At every opening the sea, far down, lay stretched before

us. Precipitous cliffs, rugged rocks where flowers and verdure grew in

wild profusion, led sheer to the water's edge. Land everywhere rose in a

dreamy atmosphere; St. Malo and St. Servan across the bay in the

distance. It was a wealth of vegetation; trees in full foliage, masses

of gorgeous flowers, that you had only to stretch out your hand and

gather; the blue sky over all. A scene we sometimes realise in our

dreams, rarely in our waking hours--as we saw it that day. On the

far-off water below small white-winged boats looked as shadowy and

dreamy as the far-off fleecy clouds above.

But we could not linger. We passed away from the town and the sea and

found ourselves in the country--the station seemed to escape us like a

will-o'-the-wisp. Presently we came to where two roads met--which of

them led to the station? No sign-post, no cottage. We should probably

have taken the wrong one--who does not on these occasions?--when happily

a priest came in sight, with stately step and slow reading his breviary.

Of him we asked the way, and he very politely set us right, in French

that was refreshing after the patois around us--he was evidently a

cultivated man; and offered to escort us.

As this was unnecessary, we thanked him and departed; and, arriving soon

after at the station, found our deaf and dumb porter had not played us

false. He was cunning enough to ask us three times his proper fare, and

when we gave him half his demand seemed surprised at so much liberality.

Conversation had to be carried on with paper and pencil, and by signs

and tokens.

The train started after a great flourish of trumpets. We had a journey

of many hours before us through North Brittany; for Brittany is a

hundred years behind the rest of France, and however slow the trains may

be in Fair Normandy they are still slower in the Breton Provinces. In

due time we reached Dinan, when we joined the train that had come round

from St. Malo.

Nothing in Brittany is more lovely and striking than the situation of

Dinan. It overlooks the Rance, and from the train we looked down into an

immense valley.

Everywhere the eye rested upon a profusion of wild uncultivated verdure.

The granite cliffs were steep and wooded. Far in the depths "the sacred

river ran." A few boats and barges sailing up and down, passed under the

lovely viaduct; Brittany peasant girls were putting off from the shallow

bank with small cargoes of provisions, evidently coming from some

market. Under the rugged cliffs ran a long row of small, unpretending

houses, level with the river; a paradise sheltered, one would think,

from all the winds of heaven: yet even here, no doubt, the east wind

finds a passage for its sharp tooth to warp the waters.

[Illustration: ST. MALO.]

Further on one caught sight of an old church, evidently in the hands of

the Philistines, under process of restoration, and an ancient

monastery. The town crowned the cliffs, but very little could be seen

beyond churches and steeples. We left it to a future time.

The train went through beautiful and undulating country until it reached

Lamballe, picturesquely placed on the slope of a hill watered by a small

stream, and crowned by the ancient and romantic ruins of the Castle

which belonged to the Counts of Penthièvre, and was dismantled by

Cardinal Richelieu. A fine Gothic building, of which we easily traced

the outlines. The present church of Notre Dame was formerly the chapel

of the Castle.

Here we longed to explore, but it did not enter into our plans. So,

also, the interesting town of Guingamp had to be passed over for the

present.

For we were impatient to see Morlaix. Having heard much of its

picturesqueness and antiquity, we hoped for great things. Yet our

experiences began in an adventurous and not very agreeable manner.

Darkness had fallen when we reached the old town, after a long and

tedious journey. Nothing is so tiring as a slow train, which crawls upon

the road and lingers at every station. Of Morlaix we could see nothing.

We felt ourselves rumbling over a viaduct which seemed to reach the

clouds, and far down we saw the lights of the town shining like stars;

so that, with the stars above, we seemed to be placed between two

firmaments; but that was all. Everything was wrapped in gloom and

mystery. The train steamed into the station and its few lights only

rendered darkness yet more visible. The passengers stumbled across the

line in a small flock to the point of exit.

We had been strongly recommended to the Hôtel d'Europe, as strongly

cautioned against any other; but we found that the omnibus was not at

the station; nor any flys; nothing but the omnibus of a small hotel we

had never heard of, in charge of a conductor, rough, uncivil, and less

than half sober.

This conductor--who was also the driver--declined to take us to any

other hotel than his own; would listen to no argument or reason. Had he

been civil, we might have accepted the situation, but it seemed evident

that an inn employing such a man was to be avoided. Unwilling to be

beaten, we sought the station-master and his advice.

"Why is the omnibus of the Hôtel d'Europe not here?" we asked.

"No doubt the hotel is full. It is the moment of the great fair, you

know."

But we did not know. We knew of Leipzig Fair by sad experience, of

Bartholomew Fair by tradition, of the Fair of Novgorod by hearsay; but

of Morlaix Fair we had never heard.

"What is the fair?" we asked, with a sinking heart.

"The great Horse Fair," replied the station-master. "Surely you have

heard of it? No one ever visits Morlaix at the time of the fair unless

he comes to buy or sell horses."

Having come neither to buy nor sell horses, we felt crushed, and hoped

for the deluge. I proposed to re-enter the train and let it take us

whither it would--it mattered not. H.C. calmly suggested suicide.

"What is to be done?" he groaned. "The man refuses to take us to the

Hôtel d'Europe. He is not sober; it is useless to argue with him."

"The fair again," laughed the official. "It is responsible for

everything just now, and Bretons are not the most sober people at the

best of times. Still, if you wish to go to the Hôtel d'Europe, the man

must take you. There is no other conveyance and he is bound to do so.

But I warn you that it will be full, or the omnibus would have been

here."

Turning to the man, he threatened to report him, gave him his orders,

and said he should inquire on the morrow how they had been carried out.

We struggled into the omnibus, which was already fairly packed with men

who looked very much like horsedealers, the surly driver slammed the

door, and the station-master politely bowed us away.

The curtain dropped upon Act I.; Comedy or Tragedy as the event might

prove.

It soon threatened to be Tragedy. The omnibus tore down a steep hill as

if the horses as well as the driver had been indulging, swayed from side

to side and seemed every moment about to overturn. Now the passengers

were all thrown to the right of the vehicle, now to the left, and now

they all collided in the centre. The enraged driver was having his

revenge upon us, and we repented our boldness in trusting our lives in

his hands. But the sturdy Bretons accepted the situation so calmly that

we felt there must still be a chance of escape.

So it proved. In due time it drew up at the Hôtel d'Europe with the

noise of an artillery waggon, and out came M. Hellard, the landlord. His

appearance, with his white hair and benevolent face, was sufficient to

recommend him, to begin with. We felt we had done wisely, and made known

our wants.

"I am very sorry," he replied, "but, gentlemen, I am quite full. There

is not a vacant room in the hotel from roof to basement."

"Put us anywhere," we persisted, for it would never do to be beaten at

last: "the coal-cellar; a couple of cupboards; anything; but don't send

us away."

The landlord looked puzzled. He had a tall, fine presence and a handsome

face; not in the least like a Frenchman. "I assure you that I have

neither hole nor corner nor cupboard at your disposal," he declared. "I

have sent away a dozen people in the last hour who arrived by the last

train. Why did you not send me word you were coming?"

"We are only two, not a dozen," we urged. "And we knew nothing of this

terrible Fair, or we should not have come at all. But as we are here,

here we must remain."

With that we left the omnibus and went into the hall, enjoying the

landlord's perplexed attitude. But when did a case of this sort ever

fail to yield to persuasion? The last resource has very seldom been

reached, however much we may think it; and an emergency begets its own

remedy. The remedy in this instance was the landlady. Out she came at

the moment from her bureau, all gestures and possibilities; we felt

saved.

"Mon cher," she exclaimed--not to H.C., but to her spouse--"don't send

the gentlemen away at this time of night, and consign them to you know

not what fate. Something can be managed. _Tenez_!" with uplifted hands

and an inspiration, "ma bouchère! Mon cher, ma bouchère!" (Voice,

exclamation, gesture, general inspiration, the whole essence would

evaporate if translated.) "Ma bouchère has two charming rooms that she

will be delighted to give me. It is only a cat's jump from here," she

added, turning to us; "you will be perfectly comfortable, and can take

your meals in the hotel. To-morrow I shall have rooms for you."

So the luggage was brought down; the landlord went through a passage at

arms with the driver, who demanded double fare, and finally went off

with nothing but a promise of punishment. We had triumphed, and thought

our troubles were over: they had only begun.

Our remaining earthly desire was for strong tea, followed by repose. We

had had very little sleep the previous night on board the boat, and the

day had been long and tiring.

"The tea immediately; but you will have to wait a little for the rooms,"

said Madame. "My bouchère is at the theatre to-night; we must all have a

little distraction sometimes; it will be over a short quarter of an

hour, and then I will send to her."

Madame was evidently a woman of capacity. The short quarter of an hour

might be profitably spent in consuming the tea: after that--a delicious

prospect of rest, for which we longed as the Peri longed for Paradise.

"Meanwhile, perhaps messieurs will walk into the café of the hotel,

awaiting their rooms," said the landlord.

"Where tea shall be served," concluded Madame, giving directions to a

waiter who stood by, a perfect Image of Misery, his face tied up after

the fashion of the French nation suffering from toothache and a

_fluxion_.

"But the fire is out in the kitchen," objected Misery, in the spirit of

Pierrot's friend.

"Then let it be re-lighted," commanded Madame. "At such times as these,

the fire has not the right to be out."

Monsieur marshalled us into the café, a large long room forming part of

the hotel; by no means the best waiting-place after a long and tiring

day. It was hot, blazing with gas, clouded with smoke--the usual French

smoke, worse than the worst of English tobacco. The room was crowded,

the noise pandemonium. Card playing occupied some tables, dominoes

others. The company was very much what might be expected at a Horse

Fair: loud, familiar, slightly inclined to be quarrelsome; no nerves.

Our host joined a card table, evidently taking up his game where our

arrival had interrupted it. He soon became absorbed and forgot our

existence; our hope was in Madame.

[Illustration: MORLAIX.]

We waited in patience; the short quarter of an hour developed into a

long half-hour, when tea arrived: small cups, small tea pot, usual

strainer, straw-coloured infusion; still, it just saved our reason. H.C.

felt that he should never write another line of poetry; the tobacco

fumes had taken an opium effect upon me, and I began to see visions and

imagined ourselves in Dante's Inferno. We looked with mild reproach at

the waiter. He quite understood; a guilty conscience needed no words;

and explained that the chef had let out the fire. As the chef was at

that moment in the café playing cards, as absorbed and excited as

anyone, no wonder that he had forgotten his ordinary duties.

"And our rooms?" we asked. "Are they ready?"

"The theatre is not yet over," replied the waiter. "Madame is on the

look-out. The play is extra long to-night in honour of the fair."

That miserable fair!

The tea revived us: it always does. "I feel less like expiring,"

murmured H.C., with a tremulous sigh. "But this place is like a furnace

seven times heated, and the noise is pandemonium in revolt. What would

Lady Maria think of this? Why need that frivolous butcher-woman have

gone to the theatre to-night of all nights in the year? And why need all

these people have stayed away from it? Why is everything upside down and

cross and contrary? And why are we here at all?"

H.C. was evidently on the verge of brain fever.

We waited; there was nothing else for it. It was torture; but others

have been tortured before now; and some have survived, and some have

died of it. We felt that we should die of it. Half past eleven had come

and gone; midnight was about to strike. Oh that we had gone on with that

wretched omnibus, no matter what the end. Yes; it had come to that.

At last human nature could bear it no longer: we appealed to the

landlord. He looked up from his game, flushed, startled and repentant.

"What! have they not taken you to the bouchère!" he exclaimed. "Why the

theatre was over long ago, and no doubt everything is arranged. You

shall be conducted at once."

Misery, looking himself more dead than alive (he informed us presently

in an access of confidence that he had had four teeth taken out that day

and felt none the better for it), was told off to act as guide, and

shouldering such baggage as we needed for the night, stepped forth. We

pitied him, he seemed so completely at the end of all things; and

feeling, by comparison, that there was a deeper depth of suffering than

our own, we revived. His name was not Misery, but André.

Monsieur accompanied us to the door and wished us Good-night. Madame had

disappeared and was nowhere to be found; the lights were out in her

bureau. It looked very much as if she, too, had gone to bed and

forgotten us. "Cette chère dame is tired," said the sympathetic

landlord. "We really have no rest day or night at the time of the fair.

But you may depend upon it she has made it all right with her bouchère."

So we departed in faith. It was impossible to be angry with Monsieur,

though we felt neglected. He was so unlike the ordinary run of landlords

that one could only repose confidence in him and overlook small

inattentions. He had a way of throwing himself into your interests, and

making them his own for the time being. But I fear that his memory was

very short.

We departed with thanksgiving, and followed our guide. I cannot say that

we trod in his footsteps, for, too far gone to lift his feet bravely, he

merely shuffled along the pavement. With one hand he supported the

luggage on his shoulder; with the other he carried a candle, ostensibly

to light our pathway, in reality only complicating matters and the

darkness. As we turned round by the hotel, the clocks struck the

witching hour. H.C. shivered and looked about for ghosts. It was really

a very ghostly scene and atmosphere. In spite of the occasion of the

fair, the town was in repose. The theatre was long over; the extra

entertainment on account of the fair had been a mere invention of the

imaginative waiter's; people had very properly gone home to bed, and

lights were out. No noisy groups were abroad, making night hideous with

untimely revelry.

We formed a strange procession. Our little guide slipped and shuffled,

hardly able to put one foot before the other. He wore house-slippers of

list or wool, and made scarcely any noise as he went along. Every now

and then he groaned in the agonies of toothache; and each time H.C.

shivered and looked back for the ghost. It was excusable, for the candle

threw weird shadows around, which flitted about like phantoms playing at

hide-and-seek. The night was so calm that the flame scarcely flickered.

In spite of the darkness, we could see how picturesque was the old town,

and we longed for daylight. Against the dark background of sky the yet

darker outlines of the houses stood out mysteriously. We turned into a

narrow street where opposite neighbours might almost have shaken hands

with each other from the upper windows. Wonderful gabled roofs succeeded

each other in a long procession. There seemed not a vestige of anything

modern in the whole thoroughfare. We were in a scene of the Middle Ages,

back in those far-off days.

Here and there a light shining in a room revealed a large latticed

window, running the whole width of the house. In spite of André's

fatigue and burden, we could only stand and gaze. No human power could

mesmerise us, but the window did so.

What could be more startlingly weird and picturesque than the bright

reflection of these latticed panes, surrounded by this intense darkness,

these mysterious outlines? Almost we expected to see a ghostly vision

advance from the interior, and, opening the lattice with a skeleton

hand, ask our pleasure at thus invading their solitude at the witching

hour--for the vibration of the bells tolling midnight was still upon the

air, travelling into space, perhaps announcing to other worlds that to

us another day was dead, another day was born.

But no ghost appeared. A very human figure, however, did so. It looked

down upon us for a moment, and mistaking our rapt gaze at the

antiquities--of which it did not form a part--for mere vulgar curiosity,

held up a reproving hand. Then, catching sight of H.C., it darted

forward, looked breathlessly into the night, and seemed also mesmerised

as by a revelation.

We quietly went our way, leaving the spell to work itself out. Our

footsteps echoed in the silent night, with the running accompaniment of

a double-shuffle from Misery. No other sound broke the stillness; we

were absolutely alone with the ancient houses, the stars and the sky. It

might have been a Mediæval City of the Dead, unpeopled since the days of

its youth. Our candle burned on in the hand of André; our reflections

danced and played about us: one hears of the Dance of Death--this was

the Dance of Ghosts--a natural sequence; ghostly shadows flitted out of

every doorway, down every turning.

At last we emerged on to an open space, partly filled by a modern

building with a hideous roof, evidently the market place. Here we

ascended to a higher level. Ancient outlines still surrounded us, but

were interrupted by modern ones also. Square roofs and straight lines

broke the continuity of the picturesque gabled roofs and latticed

windows. Ichabod may be written upon the lintels of all that is ancient

and disappearing, all that is modern and hideous. The spirit and beauty

of the past are dead and buried.

"We are almost there," said André, with a sigh that would have been

profound if he had had strength to make it so. "A few more yards and we

arrive."

We too sighed with relief, though the midnight walk amidst these wonders

of a bygone age had proved refreshing and awakening. But we sympathised

with our guide, who was only kept up by necessity.

We passed out of the market place again into a narrow street, dark,

silent and gloomy. At the third or fourth house, André exclaimed "Nous

voilà!" and down went the baggage like a dead-weight in front of a

closed doorway.

The house was in darkness: no sight or sound could be seen or heard;

everyone seemed wrapped in slumber; a strange condition of things if we

were expected. The man rang the bell: a loud, long peal. No response; no

light, no movement; profound silence.

"C'est drôle!" he murmured. "The theatre" (that everlasting theatre!)

"has been long over and Madame must have returned. Where can she be?"

"Probably in bed," replied H.C. "We have little chance of following her

excellent example if this is to go on. There must be some mistake, and

we are not expected."

"Impossible," returned André. "La Patrone never forgets anything and

must have arranged it all." He, too, had unlimited confidence in Madame,

but for once it was misplaced.

[Illustration: GRANDE RUE, MORLAIX.]

Not only the house, but the whole street was in darkness. Not the ghost

of a glimmer appeared from any window or doorway; not a gas-light from

end to end. Oil lamps ought to have been slung across from house to

house to keep up the character of the thoroughfare; but here,

apparently, consistency was less thought of than economy. We looked and

looked, every moment expecting a cloaked watchman to appear, with

lantern casting weird flashes around and a sepulchral voice calling the

hour and the weather. But _Il Sereno_ of Majorca had no counterpart in

Morlaix; the darkness, silence and solitude remained unbroken.

We were the sole group of humanity visible, and must have appeared

singular as the still flaring candle lighted up our faces, pale and

anxious from fatigue, threw out in huge proportions the head of our

guide, bound up as if prepared for the grave for which he was fast

qualifying.

After a time Misery gave another peal at the bell, and, borrowing a

stick, drummed a tattoo upon the door that might have waked the departed

Mediævals. This at length brought forth fruit.

A latticed window was opened, a white figure appeared, a nightcapped

head was put forth without ceremony, a feminine voice, sleepy and

indignant, demanded who thus disturbed the sacred silence of the night.

"The gentlemen are here," said André, mildly. "Come down and open the

door. A pretty reception this, for tired travellers."

"What gentlemen?" asked the voice, which belonged to no less a person

than Madame la bouchère herself.

"Parbleu! why the gentlemen you are expecting. The gentlemen la Patrone

sent to you about and that you agreed to lodge for the night."

"André--I know your voice, though I cannot see your form--you have been

taking too much, and to-morrow I shall complain to Madame Hellard. How

dare you wake quiet people out of their first sleep?"

"First sleep! Has la bouchère not been to the theatre?"

"Theatre, you good-for-nothing! Do I ever join in such frivolities? I

have been in bed and asleep ever since ten o'clock--where you ought to

be at this hour of the night."

"But la Patrone sent to engage rooms for these gentlemen and you

promised to give them. They have come. Open the door. We cannot stay

here till daybreak."

"You will stay there till doomsday if it depends on my opening to you.

La Patrone never sent and I never promised. I have only one small empty

bed in my house, and in the other bed in the same room two of my boys

are sleeping. I am very sorry for the gentlemen. My compliments to la

Patrone, and before sending gentlemen to me at midnight, she ought to

find out if I can accommodate them. Good-night to you, and let us have

no more rioting and bell-ringing."

The nightcapped head was withdrawn, the lattice was sharply closed, and

we were left to make the best of the situation.

It was serious: nearly one in the morning, the whole town slumbering,

and we "homeless, ragged, and tanned."

To remain was useless. Not all the ringing and rowing in the world would

bring forth Madame again, though it might possibly produce her avenging

spouse. André shouldered his baggage and we began to retrace our steps.

"Back to the hotel," commanded H.C.; "they must put us up somewhere."

"Not a hole or corner unoccupied," groaned André. "You can't sleep in

the bread oven. And they will all have gone to bed by the time we get

back again."

Suddenly he halted before a house at the corner of the marketplace. It

looked little better than a common cabaret, and was also closed and

dark. Down went the luggage, as he knocked mysteriously at the shutters.

"What are you doing?" we said. "You don't suppose that we would put up

here even for an hour."

"It is clean and respectable," objected André. "Messieurs cannot walk

the streets till morning."

A door was as mysteriously opened, leading into a room. A couple of

candles were burning at a table, round which some rough-looking men were

seated, drinking and playing cards, but keeping silence. It looked

suspicious and uninviting.

"In fact we might be murdered here," shuddered H.C.: "most certainly we

should be robbed."

André made his request: could they give us lodgment?

"Not so much as a chair or a bench," answered the woman, to our relief;

for though we should never have entered, André might have disappeared

with the baggage and given us some trouble. He evidently had all the

obstinacy of the Breton about him, and was growing desperate. The door

was closed again without ceremony, and once more we were left to make

the best of it.

This time we took the lead and made for the hotel. Again we passed

through the wonderful street with the overhanging eaves and gables.

Again we paused and lingered, lost in admiration. But the light had

departed from the latticed window, and no doubt in dreams the Fair One

was beholding again the vision of H.C.

A few minutes more and we stood before the hotel. They were just closing

the doors. Monsieur Hellard was crossing the passage at the moment.

Never shall I forget his consternation. He raised his hands, and his

hair stood on end.

"What's the matter?" he cried.

"Matter enough," replied André taking up the parable. "Madame never sent

to the bouchère, and the bouchère has no room. And I think"--despair

giving him courage--"it was too bad to give us a wild goose chase at

this time of night."

"And now you must do your best and put us where you can," I concluded.

"We are too tired to stir another step."

"I haven't where to lodge a cat," returned the perplexed landlord. "I

cannot do impossibilities. What on earth are we to manufacture?"

"You have a salon?"

"Comme de juste!"

"Is it occupied?"

"No; but there are no beds there. It stands to reason."

"Then put down two mattresses on the floor, and we will make the best of

them for to-night. And the sooner you allow us to repose our weary

heads, the more grateful we shall be. It is nearly one o'clock."

Monsieur seemed convinced, and gave the word of command which sent two

or three waiters flying. Poor André was one of them; but we soon

discovered that he was the most willing and obliging man in the world.

Even now everything was mismanaged and had to be done over again; a

wordy war ensued between landlord, waiters and chambermaids, each one

having an original idea for our comfort and wanting their own way. The

small Bedlam that went on would have been diverting at any other time.

It was very nearly two o'clock before we closed the door upon the world,

and felt that something like peace and repose lay before us.

The room was not uncomfortable. It had all the stiff luxuriance of a

French salon, and a gilt clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly and rang

out the hours--too many of which, alas, we heard. On the table were the

remains of a dessert, evidently hastily brought in from the table d'hôte

room, which communicated with this by folding doors: dishes of biscuits,

raisins and luscious grapes.

"At least we can refresh ourselves," sighed H.C., taking up a fine bunch

and offering me another, "Nectar in its primitive state; the drink of

the gods."

"And of Poets," I added.

"Talk not of poetry," he cried. "I feel that my vein has evaporated, and

after to-night will never return."

Very soon, you may be sure, the room was in darkness and repose.

"The inequalities of the earth's surface are nothing to my bed," groaned

H.C. as he laid himself down. "It is all hills and valleys. I think they

must have put the mattress upon all the brooms and brushes of the hotel,

crossed by all the fire-irons. And that wretched clock ticks on my brain

like a sledge-hammer. I shall not be alive by morning."

"Have you made your will?"

"Yes," he replied; "and left you my museum, my shooting-box, all my

unpublished MSS. and the care of my æsthetic aunt, Lady Maria. You will

not find her troublesome; she lives on crystallised violets and barley

water."

"Mixed blessings," I thought, but was too polite to say so. It must have

been my last thought, for I remembered no more until the clock awoke me,

striking four; and woke me again, striking six; after which sleep

finally fled.

Soon the town also awoke; doors slammed and echoed; omnibuses and other

vehicles rattled over the stones; voices seemed to fill the air; the

streets echoed with foot-passengers. The sun was shining gloriously and

we threw open the windows to the new day and the fresh breeze, and took

our first look at Morlaix by daylight. Already we felt braced and

exhilarated as we took in deep draughts of oxygen.

[Illustration: MARKET PLACE, MORLAIX.]

It was a lively scene. The Square close by was surrounded by gabled

houses, and houses not gabled: a mixture of Ancient and Modern. That it

should be all old was too much to expect, excepting from such sleepy old

towns as Vitré or Nuremberg, where you have unbroken outlines, a

mediæval picture unspoilt by modern barbarities; may dream and fancy

yourself far back in the ages, and find it difficult indeed to realise

that you are really not in the fifteenth but in the nineteenth century.

The streets were already beginning to be gay and animated; there was a

look of expectancy and mild excitement on many faces, announcing that

something unusual was going on. It was fair time and fête time; and even

these stolid, sober people were stirred into something like laughter and

enjoyment. Fair Normandy has a good deal of the vivacity of the French;

but Graver Brittany, like England, loves to take its pleasures somewhat

sadly.

It was a lovely morning. Before us, and beyond the square, stretched the

heights of Morlaix, green and fertile, fruit and flower-laden. To our

left towered the great viaduct, over which the train rolls, depositing

its passengers far, far above the tops of the houses, far above the

tallest steeple. It was a very striking picture, and H.C. shouted for

joy and felt the muse rekindling within him. Upon all shone the glorious

sun, above all was the glorious sky, blue, liquid and almost tangible,

as only foreign skies can be. The fatigues of yesterday, the terrible

adventures of the past night, all were forgotten. Nay, that midnight

expedition was remembered with intense pleasure. All that was

uncomfortable about it had evaporated; nothing remained but a vision

wonderfully unusual, weird, picturesque: grand old-world outlines

standing out in the surrounding darkness; a small procession of three; a

flickering candle throwing out ghostly lights and shadows; a willing but

unhappy waiter dying of exhaustion and pain; a curious figure of Misery

in which there certainly was nothing picturesque, but much to arouse

one's pity and sympathy--the better, diviner part of one's nature.

"Hurrah for a new day!" cried H.C., turning from the window and

hastening to beautify and adorn. "New scenes, new people, new

impressions! Oh, this glorious world! the delight of living!"

WHO WAS THE THIRD MAID?

It was on a wild October evening about a year ago that my wife and I

arrived by train at a well-known watering-place in the North of England.

The wind was howling and roaring with delight at its resistless power;

the rain came hissing down in large drops.

On yonder headland doubtless might be heard "The Whistling Woman"--dread

harbinger of death and disaster to the mariner. The gale had been hourly

increasing in violence, till for the last hour before arriving at our

destination we had momentarily expected that the train would be blown

from the track. Our hotel was situated on an eminence overlooking the

town; and as we slowly ascended to it in our cab we thought: "Well, we

must not be surprised to find our intended abode for the night has

vanished."

However, presently we stopped in front of a building which looked

substantial enough to withstand anything; and in answer to our driver's

application to the bell, the door was promptly opened by a

smartly-attired porter. He was closely followed by a person full of

smiles and bows, who posted himself in the doorway ready to receive us.

All at once there was a terrific bang, as though a forty-pounder had

been fired to welcome our arrival; and he of the smiles and bows was

hurled headlong against the muddy wheel of our conveyance by the

slamming-to of the large door. My wife's bonnet blew off and tugged hard

at its moorings; the light in the porch was extinguished; while the wind

seemed to give a shriek of triumph at the jokes he was playing upon us.

Here we were, then, in total darkness and exposed to the drenching rain.

However, half-an-hour afterwards all our discomforts were forgotten as

we sat down to an excellent dinner à la carte.

Next morning I was abroad very early, looking for lodgings. Fortune

seemed to smile upon me on this occasion; for scarcely had I proceeded

fifty yards from my hotel when I came upon a very nice-looking row of

houses, and in the window of the first was "Lodgings to let." Knocking

at the door, it was soon opened by a very neat-looking maid.

I inquired if I could see the proprietor, but was told that Miss G. was

not yet down. I said I would wait; and was shown into a very

comfortably-furnished dining-room. Soon Miss G. appeared, and proved to

be a pretty brunette of about five-and-twenty, whose dark eyes during

our short interview were every now and then fixed on me with an

intentness that seemed to be trying to read what kind of person I was;

whilst her manner, though decidedly pleasing, had a certain restlessness

in it which I could not help observing. Her father and mother being

both dead, she kept the lodging-house herself. I asked her if she had a

good cook, to which she replied that she was responsible for most of

that difficult part of the ménage herself, keeping two maids to assist

in the house and parlour work. She went on to say that her drawing-room

was "dissected:" a term common amongst north country lodging-house

keepers, and meant to express that it was undergoing its autumn

cleaning, but she would have it put straight if I wished. I told her

that we should be quite contented with the dining-room, provided we had

a good bed-room. This she at once showed me, and, soon coming to terms,

I returned to the hotel.

After breakfast, I went to the bureau to ask for my account. Whilst it

was being made out, I observed casually that I had taken lodgings at

Miss G.'s on Cliff Terrace, upon which the accountant looked quickly up

and said: "Oh, Miss G.'s," and then as quickly went on with my bill. I

hardly noticed this at the moment, though I thought of it afterwards.

Eleven o'clock saw us comfortably ensconced in our rooms. After lunch,

we took a delightful expedition, the weather having greatly moderated.

We found that night, at dinner, that Miss G. was a first-rate cook, and

we retired to rest much pleased with our quarters.

We soon made the acquaintance of the two maids, Jane, who waited upon

us, and Mary, the housemaid; and two very pleasant and obliging young

women we found them.

About the third morning of our stay, on going up to my bed-room after

breakfast, I was surprised to find a strange maid in the room. She was

standing by the bed, smoothing down the bed-clothes with both hands and

appeared to take no notice of me, but continued gazing steadily in front

of her, while her hands went mechanically on smoothing the clothes. I

could not help being struck with her pale face, which wore a look of

pain, and the fixed and almost stony expression of her eyes. I left her

in exactly the same position as I found her. On coming down I said to my

wife: "I did not know Miss G. employed three servants. There certainly

is another making the bed in our room." I am short-sighted, and my wife

would have it I had made a mistake; but I felt quite certain I had not.

Later on, whilst Jane was laying the lunch, I said to her: "I thought

that you and Mary were the only two servants in the house."

"Yes, sir, only me and Mary," was Jane's reply, as she left the room.

"There," said my wife, "I told you that you were mistaken." And I did

not pursue the subject further.

Two or three days slipped away in pleasant occupations, such as driving,

boating, etc., and we had forgotten all about the third maid. We saw but

little of Miss G., though her handiwork was pleasantly apparent in the

cuisine.

On the sixth morning of our stay, which was the day before we were to

leave, my wife after breakfast said she would go up and do a little

packing whilst I made out our route for the following day in the

Bradshaw; but was soon interrupted by the return of my wife with a

rather scared look on her face.

"Well," she said, "you were right after all, for there is another maid,

and she is now in our bed-room, and apparently engaged in much the same

occupation as when you saw her there. She took no notice of me, but

stood there with her body slightly bent over the bed, looking straight

in front of her, her hands smoothing the bed-clothes." She described her

as having dark hair, her face very pale, and her mouth very firmly set.

My curiosity was now so much awakened that I determined to question Miss

G. on the subject. But our carriage was now at the door waiting for us

to start on an expedition that would engage us all day.

On my return, late in the afternoon, meeting Miss G. in the passage, I

said to her: "Who is the third servant that Mrs. K. and myself have seen

once or twice in our bed-room?"

Miss G. looked, I thought, rather scared, and, murmuring something that

I could not catch, turned and went hurriedly down the stairs into the

kitchen.

An hour afterwards, as we were sitting waiting for our dinner, Jane

brought a note from Miss G. enclosing her account, and saying that she

had just had a telegram summoning her to the sick-bed of a relation,

that in all probability she would not be back till after our departure,

but that she had left directions with the servants, and hoped they would

make us quite comfortable, and that we would excuse her hurried

departure.

A few minutes after, a cab drove up to the door, into which, from our

window, we saw Miss G. get, and drive rapidly away.

Later on in the evening, whilst Jane was clearing away the dinner

things, I said to her: "By-the-by, Jane, who is the third maid?" She was

just going to leave the room as I spoke; instead of replying she turned

round with such a scared look on her face that I felt quite alarmed,

then, hurriedly catching up her tray, she left the room. Thinking that

further inquiry would be very disagreeable to her, I forbore again

mentioning the subject. Next day, our week being up, we departed for

fresh woods and pastures new.

* * * * *

Our tour led us considerably further north, but a month later saw us

homeward bound. The nearest route by rail led us by X. As we drew up at

the station we noticed on the platform a parson, in whom we recognised

one of the clergy of X., whose church we had been to. Presently the door

of our compartment was opened and he put in a lady, wished her good-bye,

the guard's whistle blew and we were off. After a short time we fell

into conversation with the lady and found her to be the clergyman's

wife. Amongst other things, we asked after Miss G.

"Oh, Miss G.," she replied; "she is very well, but I hear, poor thing,

she has not had a very good season."

"I am sorry to hear that," I replied; "why is it?" She was silent for a

minute and then related to us the following facts.

At the beginning of the season a rather untoward event occurred at Miss

G.'s lodgings. An elderly lady took one of the flats for a month. She

had with her an attendant of about thirty. Before long Miss G. observed

that they were not on very good terms, and one morning the old lady was

found dead in her bed.

A doctor was at once called in, who, on viewing the body, found there

were very suspicious marks round the neck and throat, as if a person's

fingers had been tightly pressed upon them. The maid on hearing this at

once became very restless, and going to her bed-room, which was at the

top of the house, packed a small bag and, having put on her things, was

about to descend the stairs when, from hurry or agitation, she missed

her footing and, falling to the bottom, broke her neck.

But not the least extraordinary part of the business was that not the

slightest clue could be obtained as to who the lady was, the linen of

herself and her maid having only initials marked on it. The police did

their best by advertising and inquiry, but all they could find out was

that they had come straight to X. from Liverpool, where they had arrived

from America. There they were traced to Fifth Avenue Hotel, in New York,

where they had been only known by the number of their room, and to which

they had come from no one knew whither. Enough money was found in the

lady's box to pay the expenses of their funerals. An open verdict was

returned at the inquests which were held. The police took possession of

their belongings and had them, no doubt, at the present moment.

At this point the train stopped, the lady wished us "Good-morning" and

left the carriage; and we, as we steamed south, were left to meditate on

this strange but perfectly true story and to solve as we best could the

still unanswered question of "Who was the third maid?"

A MODERN WITCH.

I.

Never shall I forget my first meeting with Irene Latouche. After

travelling all day, I had arrived at my friend Maitland's house to find

that dinner had been over for at least an hour. Having taken the

precaution of dining during the journey this did not affect me very

materially; but my kindly host, who met me in the hall, took it very

much to heart.

"We quite gave you up, my dear fellow, we did indeed," he reiterated,

grasping my hand with additional fervour each time he made the

assertion. "My wife will be so vexed at your missing dinner. You are

sure you won't have a bit now? Such a haunch of venison, hung to a turn!

One of old Ward's. You know he has taken Glen Bogie this season, and is

having rare sport, I am told. Ah, well, if you really won't take

anything, we had better join the ladies in the drawing-room."

"But the luggage hasn't come from the station yet," I interposed, "and

my dress clothes are in my portmanteau--"

"Nonsense about dress clothes! It will be bed-time soon. You don't

suppose anybody cares what you have on, do you?"

With this comforting assurance, Maitland pushed open the drawing-room

door, and a flood of light streamed out into the hall. Dazzled by the

sudden glare I stepped back, but not before I had caught sight of a most

striking figure at the further end of the long room.

"Who on earth is that girl?" I whispered.

"Which? Oh, the one playing the harp, you mean? I might have known that!

A rare beauty, isn't she? I thought you would find her out pretty soon!"

Now I am a middle-aged bachelor of quiet tastes, and nothing annoys me

more than when my friends poke ponderous fun at me in this fashion. So,

ignoring Maitland's facetious suggestion, I calmly walked forward and

shook hands with my hostess. She greeted me with her customary

cordiality, and in about two minutes I was feeling perfectly at home in

spite of my dusty clothes. I now had an opportunity of examining the

other guests, who were dispersed in groups about the room. Most of them

were people I had frequently met before under the Maitlands' hospitable

roof, but the face which had first arrested my attention was that of an

absolute stranger.

"I see you are admiring Miss Latouche, like the rest of us," said Mrs.

Maitland in a low voice. "Such a talented girl! She can play positively

any kind of instrument, and has persuaded me to have the old harp taken

out of the lumber-room and put in order for her. She looks so well

playing it, doesn't she? Quite like Cleopatra or the Queen of Sheba!"

"She is undoubtedly handsome in a certain style," I replied cautiously.

"I don't know whether I admire such a gipsy type myself--"

"Ah, you agree with me then," interrupted my hostess eagerly. "I call it

an uncomfortable sort of beauty for a drawing-room. She always looks as

if she might produce a dagger at a moment's notice, as the people do in

operas. Give me a nice simple girl with a pretty English face, like my

niece Lily Wallace over there! But I am bound to say Miss Latouche makes

a great sensation wherever she goes. Of course she has wonderful

powers."

I was about to inquire in what these powers consisted, when Mrs.

Maitland was called away. Left to myself, I could not repress a smile at

the comparison she had instituted between her own niece and the

beautiful stranger. Lily was well enough, a good-tempered pink and white

girl, who in twenty years' time would develop into just such another

florid matron as her aunt. And then I looked again at Miss Latouche.

She was seated a little apart from the rest, one white arm hanging

listlessly over the harp upon which she had just been playing. Her large

dark eyes had a far-away look of utter abstraction from all sub-lunary

matters that I have never seen in anyone besides. Masses of wavy black

hair were loosely coiled over her head, round a high Spanish comb, and

half concealed her brow in a dusky cloud. At first sight the black

velvet dress, which swept around her in heavy folds, seemed rather an

unsuitable costume for so young a girl. But its sombreness was relieved

by a gorgeous Indian scarf, thrown carelessly over the shoulders. I do

not know who was responsible for Miss Latouche's get-up, or if she

really required an extra wrap. At any rate, the combination of colours

was very effective.

Whilst I was speculating vaguely on the probable character of this

striking young lady, she slowly rose from her low seat and crossed the

room. Her eyes were wide open, but apparently fixed on space, and she

moved with the slow, mechanical motion of a sleepwalker. To my intense

surprise she came straight towards me, and stood in an expectant

attitude about a yard from where I was sitting. Not knowing exactly how

to receive this advance, I jumped up and offered her my chair. She waved

it aside with a gesture of imperial scorn. Her dark eyes positively

flashed fire, and a rich glow flushed her pale olive cheek. I could see

that I had deeply offended her.

"I must apologise," I began nervously, "but I thought you might be

tired."

Before the words were fairly spoken, I realised the full imbecility of

this remark. My only excuse for making such a fatuous observation was

that the near vicinity of this weird beauty had paralysed my reasoning

faculties, so that I hardly knew what I was saying. And then she spoke

in a low, rich voice which thrilled me through every nerve. I could not

understand the meaning of her words, or even recognise the language in

which they were spoken. But the tone of her voice was unutterably sad,

like an inarticulate wail of despair. All the time her glorious eyes

were resting on me as if she would read my inmost thoughts, whilst I

responded with an idiotic smile of embarrassment. Even now, after the

lapse of years, it makes me hot all over to think of that moment.

I don't know how long I had been standing looking like a fool, when Miss

Latouche turned away as abruptly as she had approached and walked

straight to the door. With a sigh of relief I sank down on the despised

chair. After a few moments I gained sufficient courage to glance round

and assure myself that no spectators had witnessed my discomfiture. It

was a great relief to find that the entire party had migrated to the

further end of the room, where a funny little man was singing comic

songs with a banjo accompaniment. I slipped in next my host, who was

thoroughly enjoying the performance.

"Encore! Capital! Give us some more of it, Tommy," he roared when the

song came to an end. "That's my sort of music, isn't it yours, Carew?"

he added, turning to me.

"A very clever performance," I answered stiffly, divided between my

natural abhorrence of comic songs and the difficulty of making a candid

reply in the immediate vicinity of the funny man.

"Just so. That's what I call really clever," said Maitland, not

perceiving my lack of enthusiasm. "Worth a dozen of those melancholy

tunes on the harp, in my opinion. By-the-bye, what's become of Miss

Latouche? Couldn't stand this sort of thing, I suppose. Too merry for

her. What a pity such a handsome girl should mope so."

"Miss Latouche appears to be rather eccentric," I interposed. "Something

of a genius, I imagine?"

"So they all say. Well, she is a clever girl, certainly--only--but you

will soon find out what she is like. Here's Tommy going to give us that

capital song about the bad cigar. Ever heard it? No? Ha! ha! It will

make you laugh then."

That is just what I hate about a comic performance. One laughs under

compulsion. If one is sufficiently independent to resist, one incurs the

suspicion of being wanting in humour and some well-meaning friend feels

bound to explain the joke until one forces a little hollow mirth.

Directly the song was in full swing, and the audience convulsed with

merriment, I seized my opportunity and fled from the drawing-room. In

the library I knew by experience that I should find a good fire and a

comfortable arm-chair, both of which would be acceptable after my long

journey. It was separated from the rest of the house by a heavy baize

door and a long passage, so that I was not likely to be disturbed by

any stray revellers. Several years' experience of the comforts of a

bachelor establishment has given me a great taste for my own society,

and it was with unfeigned delight that I looked forward to a quiet

half-hour in this haven of refuge.

"Bother Maitland! Why doesn't he have the house better warmed and

lighted," I muttered, as the baize door swung behind me, and the sudden

draught extinguished my candle. I would not go back to relight it for

fear of encountering some officious friend in the hall, who would insist

upon accompanying me into my retreat. I preferred groping my way down

the long corridor, which was in darkness except for a bright streak of

moonlight that streamed in through a window at the further end. I had

just decided that it was my plain duty to give Maitland the address of a

good shop where he could not only procure cheap lamps but also very

serviceable stoves for warming passages, at a moderate price, when I

discovered that the said window was open.

"Too bad of the servants," I thought; "I should discharge them all if

they were mine. It quite accounts for the howling draught through the

house. Just the thing to give one rheumatism at this time of year."

Advancing with the intention of excluding the chilly blast, I was

suddenly arrested by the sight of a motionless figure kneeling in front

of the window. It was Irene Latouche. I had not noticed her in the

confusing patch of moonlight until my foot was almost on the heavy

velvet dress which fell over the floor like a great dark pall. Her arms

were resting on the window-sill, her beautiful pale face gazing upwards

with an expression of agonised despair. Evidently she was quite

unconscious of my presence.

Whilst I was turning over in my mind the possibility of beating a silent

retreat, she gave a low groan, so full of unquenchable pain that my

blood fairly ran cold. Then rising to her feet, she leaned far out into

the chill night air, stretching her white arms up towards the stars with

a passionate action of entreaty.

"Oh, my Beloved! Shall I ever pray in vain? Is there no mercy?" she

cried, and the sound of her voice was like the wind moaning through

rocky caverns. "My heart is breaking! My strength is almost at an end!

How much longer must I suffer this unspeakable misery?"

Clearly this sort of thing was not intended for strangers. I stopped my

ears and shrank as closely as I could into the shadow of the wall. But I

could not take my eyes off the girl for a moment. Such an exhibition of

wild passion I have never witnessed before or since. As a dramatic

effort it was superb; but all the time I was distinctly conscious of the

absurd figure I should cut if any third person came on the scene. Also

certain warning twinges in my left shoulder reminded me that I was not

in the habit of standing by open windows on bleak autumn nights. Why

Miss Latouche did not catch her death of cold I cannot imagine; for I

could see the wind disordering her dark masses of hair and blowing back

the Indian scarf from her bare shoulders. But she appeared to be as

indifferent to personal discomfort as she was to all external sounds.

Just as I had settled that my health would never survive such a wanton

infringement of all sanitary laws, Irene again sank on her knees and

buried her face in her hands. Now was my time. I crept noiselessly back

up the corridor until my hand was actually on the baize door. Then

excitement got the better of prudence; and, tearing it open, I rushed

wildly across the hall and up the staircase, never pausing until I was

safe in my own room, with the door locked behind me and the unlighted

bed-room candle still clutched firmly in my hand.

II.

Now, having already mentioned that I am a person of regular and strictly

conventional habits, it will be readily believed that I viewed these

extraordinary proceedings with unmitigated disgust. It was not to

encounter horrid experiences like this that I had left my comfortable

town house, where draughts and midnight adventures were alike unknown.

Before I came down to breakfast on the following morning, I had

fabricated a long story about pressing business which necessitated my

immediate return to town. Though ordinarily of a truthful disposition, I

was prepared to solemnly aver that the success of an important lawsuit

depended on my presence in London within the next twelve hours. I did

not even shrink from the prospect of having to produce circumstantial

evidence to convince Maitland of the truth of my assertion. Anything

rather than undergo any further shocks to my nervous system.

Happily I was spared the necessity of perjuring myself to this extent.

When the breakfast bell rang, I descended and found that as usual very

few of the guests, had obeyed the summons. Mrs. Maitland was pouring out

tea quite undisturbed by this irregularity, for Longacres is a house

where attendance at the meals is never compulsory.

"And how have you slept?" she said, extending me a plump hand glittering

with rings. "We were afraid that perhaps you were a little overtired

last night, as you went off to bed in the middle of the singing.

Capital, wasn't it? Mr. Tucker is so very funny, and never in the least

vulgar with his jokes! Now some comic singers really forget that there

are girls in the room.--(Lily, my love, just go and see if your uncle is

coming down).--I assure you, Mr. Carew, I was staying in a country house

last year--mind, I give no names--where the songs were only fit for a

music-hall! It's perfectly true; even George said it made him feel quite

red to hear such things in a drawing-room. But, as I was saying, Mr.

Tucker is so different; such genuine humour, you know!"

It is impossible to conjecture how long my amiable hostess might have

rippled on in this strain if our conversation had not been interrupted

by the entry of Miss Latouche.

"You have been introduced?" whispered Mrs. Maitland; and, without

waiting for an answer, she called out merrily: "My dear Irene, you must

positively come and entertain Mr. Carew. He will give up early rising if

he finds that it is always to mean a tête-à-tête with an old woman!"

To my intense astonishment, Miss Latouche replied in the same jesting

tone, and taking the vacant seat next mine began at once to talk in the

most friendly way imaginable. Not a trace of eccentricity was

perceptible in her manner. She was merely a handsome girl, with a strong

vein of originality. I began to doubt the evidence of my senses. Surely

I must have been labouring under some hallucination the previous night.

It was almost easier to believe that I had been the dupe of a portentous

nightmare than that this charming girl should have enacted such a

strange part.

Before the end of breakfast I was certain that I had taken a very

exaggerated view of the situation. It would be a pity to cut short a

pleasant visit and risk offending some of my oldest friends on such

purely fanciful grounds. Besides, I just remembered that I had given my

cook a holiday and that if I went home I should be dependent on the

culinary skill of a charwoman. This last consideration determined me. I

settled to stay.

Nothing in Miss Latouche's behaviour led me to regret my decision. On

the contrary, at the end of a few days we were firm friends. The better

I knew her the greater became my admiration of her beauty and talents;

and, without vanity, I think I may say that she distinctly preferred me

to the other guests, who were mostly very ordinary types of modern young

men. The extraordinary impressions of the first evening had entirely

faded from my mind, when they were suddenly revived in all their

intensity by the following incident.

It was a wet morning and we were all lolling about the billiard-room in

various stages of boredom. Some of the more energetic members of the

party had been out at dawn, cub hunting, and had returned wet through

just as we finished breakfast, in time to add their little quota of

grumbling to the general bulk of discontent. Mrs. Maitland, after making

a fruitless attempt to rally the spirits of the party, gave up the

effort in despair and retired to write letters in her room. Conversation

was carried on in fits and starts, whilst from time to time people

knocked about the billiard balls in a desultory fashion without

exhibiting even a show of interest in the result of the game.

At last someone introduced the subject of fortune-telling. Instantly

there was a revival of interest. Everybody had some scrap of experience

to contribute, or some marvellous story to relate. Only Miss Latouche

remained silent.

"What a pity none of us can tell fortunes!" cried Lily Wallace, eagerly.

"Won't anybody try? It's such fun, almost as amusing as turning tables,

and it often comes true in the most wonderful way!"

"Ah, it does indeed!" sighed Mr. Tucker, with a countenance of

preternatural gravity. "A poor fellow I know was told that he would

marry and then die. Well, it's all coming true!"

"Indeed! Really! How very shocking!"

"Yes, indeed! Poor chap! He married last year and now he has nothing but

death before him!"

"How awfully sad!" exclaimed Lily, sympathetically. "Why, you are

smiling! Oh, you bad man. I do believe you were only laughing at me

after all! Now, Irene, will you please tell Mr. Tucker's fortune, and

show him that it is no joking matter? I am sure you know the way,

because I have seen a mysterious book about palmistry in your room. Now

do, there's a dear girl."

After a little more pressing, Miss Latouche acceded to the general

request that she would show her skill. Several people pressed forward at

once to have their fortunes told, the men being quite as eager as the

girls, although they affected to laugh at the whole affair. I watched

the exhibition with some interest. Surely here would be a fair field for

the exercise of that wonderful dramatic power which I knew Miss Latouche

held in reserve. Well, I was disappointed. She examined the hands

submitted to her notice, and interpreted the lines with an amount of

conscientious commonplaceness for which I should never have given her

credit. The majority of the fortunes were composed of the conventional

mixture of illnesses and love affairs which is the stock-in-trade of

drawing-room magicians. I glanced at her face. Not a trace of enthusiasm

was visible. She was telling fortunes as mechanically as a cottager

knits stockings.

"Now we have all been done except Mr. Carew! It's his turn!" cried Lily,

who was enjoying the whole thing immensely. "He must have his fortune

told! You will do him next, won't you, Irene?"

"Never!"

"Oh, why not? Are you tired? What a pity!"

Miss Latouche took not the slightest notice of the chorus of

protestations. She merely turned away with such an air of inflexible

determination that even the ardent Lily refrained from pressing her any

further.

My curiosity was considerably excited by finding myself an exception to

the general rule. Was the inference to be drawn from Miss Latouche's

behaviour flattering, or the reverse? I had no chance of finding out

until late in the afternoon, when the rain ceased and we all gladly

seized the opportunity of getting some exercise before dinner.

The different members of the party quickly dispersed in opposite

directions. A few exceptionally active young people tried to make up for

lost time by starting a game of tennis on the cinder courts. Some

diverged towards the stables, others took a brisk constitutional up and

down the gravel path. Under the pretence of lighting a cigar, I

contrived to wait about near the door until I saw Miss Latouche crossing

the hall. I remember thinking how wonderfully handsome she looked as she

came forward with a crimson shawl thrown over her head--for it was one

of her peculiarities never to wear a conventional hat or bonnet unless

absolutely obliged.

"What do you say to going up the hill on the chance of seeing a fine

sunset?" I said, as she joined me. She nodded assent, and turning away

from the others, we began to climb a winding path, from the top of which

there was supposed to be a wonderful view. When we had gone about a

quarter of a mile, we stopped and looked round. Far out in front

stretched a beautiful valley lighted by gleams of fitful sunshine. The

house and garden lay at our feet, but so far below that we only

occasionally heard a faint echo from the tennis courts. The moment

seemed propitious.

"Miss Latouche," I said abruptly, "I want to ask you something."

No sooner were the words spoken than it struck me they were liable to be

misunderstood. She might imagine that I intended to make her an offer,

and accept me on the spot. Infinitely as I admired her in an abstract

fashion, I had never contemplated matrimony for a moment. Visions of

enraged male relatives armed with horse-whips, followed by a formidable

breach of promise case, flitted through my mind. There was no time to be

lost.

"It's only about the fortune-telling," I stammered out; "nothing else, I

assure you--nothing at all!"

"I knew it," replied Miss Latouche calmly and without a trace of

embarrassment.

Sensible girl! I breathed freely once more and proceeded with my

investigations.

"Why wouldn't you tell my fortune this morning? Why am I alone

excluded?"

"Do you really wish to know?" she said very quietly.

"Of course, or I shouldn't ask!"

"Well then, the reason that I declined to tamper with _your_ destiny is

that I should be irresistibly compelled to tell _you_ the truth!"

"Are you serious, or only--?"

"Am I serious?" she cried, with a wild laugh; "_you_ ask this? The time

has at last come for an explanation. I would willingly have spared you,

but it is in vain that we seek to avoid our fate! Rest here!" and

seizing my wrist, she dragged me down on the fallen trunk of a tree that

lay half hidden by the tall grass at the side of the path. Immediately

behind us was a gloomy wood, choked with rank autumnal growths. A more

dank, unwholesome situation for a seat on a wet day it would be

impossible to conceive. But I preferred running the risk of rheumatic

fever to contradicting Miss Latouche in her present mood. Only I hoped

the explanation would be exceedingly brief.

"You pretend that you never saw me before the other evening?" she began,

feverishly.

"Certainly!" I answered, with great astonishment. "It was undoubtedly

our first meeting. I am sure--"

"Can you swear it?" she interrupted, eagerly.

"Oh, no! I never swear! But I don't mind affirming," I said playfully,

hoping to give a less serious turn to the conversation.

To my horror Miss Latouche wrung her hands with the same expression of

hopeless suffering that I had seen once before.

"It is too cruel," she moaned, "after all this dreary waiting and

watching, to be met like this! Oh, my Beloved! I cannot bear it any

longer! Shall I never find you? Never! never!"

Her voice died away with a sob of despair, which effectually quenched my

capacity for making jokes.

"I hardly understand what you are alluding to," I said as nicely as I

could; "but if you will trust me, I promise to do anything that lies in

my power to help you."

"You promise!" she exclaimed, eagerly. "Mind, you are bound now! Bound

to my service!"

This was taking my polite offer of assistance rather more seriously than

I intended. Muttering some commonplace compliment, I begged to be

further enlightened.

"You will not repeat to any living soul the mysteries I am about to

disclose?" she began. "No, I need not ask! There is already sufficient

sympathy between us for me to be sure of your discretion. But remember,

if you ever feel tempted to disclose a single word of these hidden

matters, there are Unseen Powers who will amply avenge the profanation.

Know, then, that since my Beloved was snatched from me by what dull men

call death, all my faculties have been concentrated on the effort to

discover some link of communication with the Invisible World. I will not

dwell on my toils and sufferings, the terrible sights I have braved and

the sleepless nights that I have sacrificed to study. I do not grudge my

youth, passed as it were under the shadow of the tomb, for at last the

truth has been revealed to me. _You_ are to be the medium!"

"Oh, nonsense!" I shouted. "I won't undertake it! Nothing shall persuade

me! Besides, I am perfectly ignorant of the subject."

"You underrate your powers," observed Miss Latouche with calm

conviction. "Nature has endowed you with a most unusual organisation.

Your powers are quite involuntary. Nothing you say or do can make the

slightest difference. You are merely a passive agent for the

transmission of electric force."

"Do you mean a sort of telegraph wire?" I gasped, feebly.

"If you offer no resistance, all will be well with us," continued Miss

Latouche, ignoring the interruption; "but the Unseen Powers will bear no

trifling, and I can summon those to my aid who will make you bitterly

repent any levity!"

I hate those sort of vague prophecies. They frighten one quite out of

proportion to their real gravity.

"By the bye, I don't yet understand the reason you wouldn't tell my

fortune, as you seem to know such a lot about those things," I said at

last.

"What! You do not understand yet that there is a bond between us which

makes any concealment impossible? I could not blind _you_ with the

paltry fictions that satisfy those poor fools!" and she waved her hand

contemptuously towards the distant figures of the tennis players,

amongst whom Mr. Tucker, in a wonderful costume, was distinctly visible.

The expression struck me as unjustifiably strong, even when applied to a

man who sang comic songs with a banjo accompaniment.

"I don't think he is a bad little chap," I said, apologetically.

"They are all alike," she replied, with an air of ineffable scorn. "You

can only content them with idle promises of love and wealth, like the

ignorant village girl who crosses a gipsy's hand with silver and in

return is promised a rich husband. And all the while I see the dark

cloud hanging over them and can do nothing to avert it. Ah! it is

terrible to know the evil to come and be powerless to warn others! To be

obliged to smile whilst one's heart is wrung with anguish and one's

brain tortured with nameless apprehensions; that is indeed misery!"

"Dear me!" I said, nervously; "I hope you don't foresee any catastrophe

about to overwhelm _me_?"

She gazed straight into my eyes, and her passionate face gradually

softened into a lovely smile.

"No, my only friend!" she exclaimed, taking my hand gently in hers; "so

far, no cloud darkens the perfect happiness of our intercourse!"

I felt that there were moments of compensation even in the pursuit of

the Black Arts!

III.

It was a curious sensation, mixing again with the commonplace

pleasure-seekers at Longacres, conscious that I was the repository of

such extraordinary revelations. For, before we left our damp retreat,

Irene had confided in me the secret history of her life. Not that I

understood it very clearly, owing to her voice being continually choked

by stifled emotion. But I gathered that a person, presumably of the male

sex, who was vaguely designated as the Beloved, had perished in some

frightful manner before her eyes, and ever since that time she had

devoted herself to the study of the occult sciences in the firm

conviction that it was possible to discover a medium of communication

with the Unseen World. She now persisted that I had been designated by

unerring proofs as that medium. She assured me that, months previously,

she had foreseen my arrival at Longacres in the precise fashion in which

it really took place.

"Every detail," she said, "was exactly foreshadowed in the vision. Not

only did I recognise you at once by your clothes (which were different

from those of the other men present), but your voice seemed familiar to

me, as if I had known you for years. I saw you gazing at me with what I

fondly believed to be a look of mutual recognition. I remember rising

from my seat in a species of ecstatic trance to which I am liable in

moments of excitement. I have a faint recollection of addressing you

with an impassioned appeal for help, to which you responded with icy

indifference, but the rest of our interview remains a blank. Only there

was a cruel sense of disappointment: instead of meeting as two spirits

whose interests were inseparable, you denied any previous knowledge of

me, and even manifested a sort of terrified aversion at my approach. I

saw you shrink away from my side; then nothing remained for me but to

temporarily dissemble my purpose and try first to win your confidence by

the exercise of my poor woman's wits. In this at least I was

successful!"

Irene only spoke the truth. She had completely subdued my will by her

fascinations, and though I hated and, in private, ridiculed all

supernatural dealings, I was prepared to try the wildest experiments at

her bidding.

The trial of my obedience arrived sooner than I anticipated. Immediately

after luncheon next day Irene made a sign to me to follow her into the

garden.

"All is ready!" she exclaimed, with great excitement. "To-night will see

us successful or for ever lost!"

"What do you mean?" I inquired, dubiously; for it did not sound a very

cheery prospect.

"I mean that all things point to a hasty solution of the great problem.

To-night the planets are propitious, and with your help the chain of

communication will be at last complete. Oh, my Beloved! my toil and

waiting has not been all in vain!"

"Well, what do you want me to do?" I said, rather sulkily. "Mind, it

mustn't be this evening, because Mrs. Maitland has a lot of people

coming to dinner, and we can't possibly leave the drawing-room."

"The crisis will be at midnight in the ruined chapel," observed Irene,

as if she were stating the most ordinary fact; "but you must meet me an

hour before to make all sure."

"Preposterous!" I exclaimed; "it's quite out of the question. Wander

about the garden at midnight indeed! What would people say if they saw

us?"

"Do you imagine that I allow myself to be influenced by the opinion of

poor-spirited fools?" inquired Irene with fine scorn. And then, suddenly

changing her tactics, she sobbed and prayed me to grant her this one

boon--it might be the last thing she would ever ask.

Well, she was very handsome, and I am but human. Before she left me I

had promised to do what she wished.

It may be imagined that I passed a miserable day, distracted by a

thousand gloomy apprehensions which increased as the fatal hour

approached. I have mentioned that there was to be a dinner party that

evening.

"A lot of country neighbours," as Maitland explained. "They like a big

feed from time to time. I put out the old port and my wife wears her

smartest dress and all the diamonds. It is quite a fuss to persuade her

to put them on, she is so nervous about them being lost! She always

insists on my locking them up in the safe again before I go to bed. Of

course I don't contradict her, but half the time I leave them on my

dressing-room table till next morning. Ha! ha! It is always best to

humour ladies, even when they are a trifle unreasonable."

It is one of Maitland's little foibles that he never can resist drawing

attention to the family diamonds (which are remarkably fine) by some

passing allusion of this sort.

Nothing of any interest happened during dinner. When it was at last

terminated we retired to the drawing-room, and listened with great

decorum to several pieces of music. Miss Latouche was pressed to perform

upon the harp, which she did with her usual melancholy grace. To-night

she was in a rich white robe, which enhanced the peculiarly dusky effect

of her olive skin and masses of dark hair. Her face was very pale; and,

to my surprise, shortly after playing she complained of a bad headache

and went off to bed. I hardly knew what to think. Had her courage failed

her at the last, and, when it came to the point, did she shrink from

braving the opinion of the world which she affected so thoroughly to

despise?

"So, after all her boasting, she is no bolder than the rest of us!" I

thought, with intense relief, as I wandered across the hall to join the

other men in the smoking-room. The last guest had departed, and very

soon the whole house would be at rest for the night. "How I shall laugh

at her to-morrow!" I muttered. "Never again will she impose--"

My meditations were interrupted by an icy touch on my wrist. Turning, I

saw Irene by my side, with a dark cloak thrown over her evening dress.

Without speaking a word she drew me towards a side door into the garden,

which was seldom used, and, producing a key from her pocket, opened it

noiselessly.

"We can't go out at this time of night!" I gasped, making a faint effort

to break loose. "I haven't even a hat! It's really past a joke!"

"Remember your promise!" she whispered, in a voice of such awful menace

that, feeling all resistance was useless, I followed her out into the

darkness. At that moment a sudden gust of wind slammed the door.

"_Now_ what shall we do!" I exclaimed. "There is no handle and the key

is inside!"

"Hush!" she whispered. "No more of these trivialities! I tell you the

Spirits are abroad to-night; the air is thick with unseen forms. Obey me

in silence, or you are lost."

Speechless with annoyance, my teeth chattering with cold and general

creepiness, I followed her through the shrubberies until we reached the

site of a ruined chapel, which had originally joined on to the old wing

of the house. Of this building little remained except portions of the

outer walls, overgrown with ivy. The pavement had long since

disappeared, and was replaced by a rank growth of grass and weeds,

amongst which lay scattered such monumental remains as had survived the

general destruction. Only one window of the house happened to look out

in this direction. I could see a light shining through the blind, and,

with a touch, drew Irene's attention to it.

"Do not alarm yourself with vain fears," she whispered; "it is only Mr.

Maitland's dressing-room. All will be quiet soon!" As she spoke, the

light was suddenly extinguished.

Only then did I realise the full horrors of my position. When that

bed-room candle went out, the last link which bound me to civilization

seemed to have snapped. I was at the mercy of an enthusiast who had

broken loose from all those conventional trammels which I hold in such

respect. Although I had the greatest admiration for Irene, nothing would

have surprised me less than if my murdered remains had been found next

morning half hidden in the dank grass of the ruined chapel.

We were standing in the deep shadow of the old wall. The silence was

intense. Indeed, after Irene's injunctions, I hardly dared breathe for

fear of drawing down some misfortune on my devoted head. Not that I

quite believed anything was going to happen, only it was best to be on

the safe side. Suddenly the stillness was broken by the distant sound of

the stable clock striking twelve.

"It has come!" whispered Irene, stooping towards me with an expression

of the utmost anxiety. "Now you must obey me absolutely, or we shall

both incur the wrath of the Unseen Powers. No wavering! We have gone too

far to recede! First, to establish the electric current between us, you

must hold me firmly by the wrist and pass your hand slowly up and down

my arm, repeating these words after me."

I hesitated. The proceeding struck me as extraordinary.

"Will you imperil us both?" muttered Irene, in such a tone of agony that

I seized her arm and began to rub for my life. I remember noticing that

it was as cold and white as the arm of a marble statue. Meanwhile Irene

repeated an invocation, apparently in the same language in which she had

addressed me at our first meeting, and I imitated her to the best of my

ability.

After this had been going on a few minutes, she inquired in a whisper if

I felt anything unusual. I considered that my sensations were quite

sufficiently peculiar to justify my replying in the affirmative. She

appeared satisfied.

"All will be well, my friend," she murmured, sinking down with an air of

exhaustion on the lid of an ancient stone coffin that lay half overgrown

with ivy at our feet. "The danger will be averted if you act with

courage; only keep your hold on my hand and the Unseen Influences have

no power to hurt us! Now drink this." With these words she offered me a

small bottle of a dull blue colour and very curious shape.

I examined the little flask suspiciously. I had a hazy impression that I

had once seen something like it in the British Museum.

"Never can I reveal by what means I procured this invaluable treasure

and the precious fluid that it contains," replied Irene in answer to my

inquisitive glance. "Suffice it to say that for countless ages they lay

concealed in the cerements of a mummy."

That settled me. I instantly resolved that no power on earth should

induce me to taste the nasty mess. A bright thought occurred to me--I

would base my refusal upon grounds which even Irene could scarcely

combat.

"I am dreadfully sorry," I whispered, "but it upsets me to drink

anything except water; in fact I can't do it, the consequences would be

too horrible! I need not particularise, but literally I couldn't keep it

down a minute. So it seems hardly worth while to risk wasting this

valuable fluid."

"And am I to be baffled at this hour by Human Weakness!" cried Irene,

stamping with suppressed rage. "It shall not be! Ha! I have it! The

odour alone may be sufficiently powerful to work our purpose." And

uncorking the bottle, she held it towards me.

The smell was pungent but not disagreeable.

"Now all is completed," she said, when I had inhaled a few whiffs. "You

have only to gaze before you, and wish with all the force of your will

that my Beloved may appear."

We stood perfectly still, hand clasped in hand. Irene had risen from her

grim seat, and was leaning against me for support. Her cloak had fallen

off, and I thought that she looked like a beautiful spirit herself

against the dark background of ivy. In obedience to her orders, I fixed

my eyes on space and tried to wish.

Hardly had I begun, when a figure emerged from behind the opposite wall

and glided slowly across the chapel towards us. I was so amazed that I

could hardly believe the evidence of my senses. As for Irene, she only

smiled with ineffable bliss, as if it were exactly what she had expected

all along.

It was rather a cloudy night, so that I had great difficulty in

following the movements of the mysterious figure. When it gained the

centre of the chapel it paused, and then slowly turned towards the wall

of the house. As far as I could see, it was making some wild motion with

its upraised arms, whether of benediction or menace it was impossible to

discern at that distance; but I could not shake off a horrid impression

that it was cursing the slumbering inmates. And then, wonderful to

relate, whilst my eyes were fixed upon the dark figure, it began slowly

to rise into the air!

At this portentous sight, I don't mind confessing that my hair fairly

bristled with horror. Fortunately for the preservation of my reason, at

that instant the moon, gleaming from behind a cloud, revealed a long

ladder planted against Mr. Maitland's dressing-room window.

In a moment I recovered my self-possession.

"Stay still--I am going to leave you for a short time," I whispered.

Irene clung to me with both hands, and expressed a fear that the

outraged spirits would tear us in pieces if we moved.

"Bother the spirits!" I replied, in a gruff whisper. "I swear it will be

the worse for you if you make a fuss now!"

She sobbed and wrung her hands, but the time was past for that to have

any effect upon me, and, disengaging myself from her grasp, I crept

away, hiding as well as I could behind the scattered ruins.

In this manner I contrived almost to reach the foot of the ladder

without being discovered. I had a strange fancy for capturing the thief

single-handed and monopolising all the glory of saving the famous

diamonds. Waiting patiently until he had just reached the window, I

rushed forward and seized the ladder.

"It's no use resisting," I shouted; "if you don't give up quietly, I'll

shake."

At this point a second figure stepped out from behind a laurel bush and

effectually silenced any further threats by dealing me a heavy blow on

the head.

* * * * *

For days I lay insensible from concussion of the brain. When I was at

last pronounced convalescent, Maitland was admitted to my room, being

bound by solemn promises not to excite me in any way. With heartfelt

gratitude he shook my hand and thanked me for saving the family

diamonds.

"I shall take better care of them in the future," he said. "Catch me

leaving them about in my dressing-room again. No, they shall always go

straight back into the safe. Mrs. Maitland was right about that, though

it wouldn't do to confess it. Precious lucky for me that you heard the

burglars and ran out; though I wouldn't advise you to try and tackle two

muscular ruffians by yourself another time. It was just a chance that

one broke his leg when you pulled down the ladder, otherwise they would

have finished you off before we arrived on the scene."

I may here remark that I never thought it necessary to correct the

version of the story which I found was already generally accepted. To

this day Maitland firmly believes that I was just getting into bed,

when, with supernatural acuteness, I divined the presence of robbers

under his dressing-room window, and creeping quietly out attacked them

in the rear.

"By-the-bye, is Miss Latouche still staying here?" I presently inquired

in as calm a voice as I could command.

"No, she left suddenly the day after your accident. She complained of

feeling upset by the affair, and wished to go home. We did not press her

to stay, as she is liable to nervous attacks which are rather alarming.

Why, that very night, curiously enough, I met her evidently walking in

her sleep down the passage as I rushed out at your shout. She passed

quite close to me without making any sign, and was quite unconscious of

it next day--in fact referred with some surprise to having slept all

through the row."

"Has she always had these peculiar ways?" I asked with interest.

"Well, I always thought her an imaginative, fanciful sort of girl, but

she has certainly been much worse since that poor fellow's death. What,

you never heard the story? It was at a picnic, and she insisted upon his

climbing some rocks to get her a certain flower, just for the sake of

giving trouble, as girls do. The poor lad's foot slipped, and he rolled

right over a precipice and was dashed to pieces. Of course it was a

shocking thing, but it's a pity she became so morbid about it, as no

real blame attached to her. Now I must not talk too much or the doctor

will say I have tired you; so good-bye for the present."

And that was the last I heard of Irene Latouche.