[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]
Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.
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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1897. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
VOL. XVIII.--NO. 908. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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[Illustration]
OLD PORTSMOUTH.
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
BY SIR WALTER BESANT.
Portsmouth, as I remember the place in the days of my early youth--say,
somewhere about the years 1844 to 1850--was surely the liveliest place,
the most full of action, movement, and life, of any in her Majesty's
dominions, which were then half as wide as they are at present. Not as a
place of industry; there was never, if you please, any industry at all
carried on in that town outside the Dock-yard, except of course the
industry of fleecing the sailor. This was a merry and an exhilarating
sport, because the sailor himself enjoyed being fleeced, entered
thoroughly into the spirit of the game, and neither resented nor
regretted what he knew would be the end of it--viz., the loss of all his
money. Nor, again, could the town be considered picturesque. Somehow,
Portsmouth always escaped any beauty of buildings and streets. There
was, it is true, a late eighteenth-century look about most of the
streets; there was one old church within the Walls; there was a square
low tower at the end of High Street which looked well; there were Gates
in the Walls; and there was the _Domus Dei_, the ancient garrison
chapel, then not yet "discovered" or restored. There must have been, I
suppose, a time when the High Street and St. Thomas's Street and St.
Mary's Street were built with gabled houses and with timbered fronts,
but they had all disappeared long before my time.
The real centre of the town was, of course, the Common Hard--which is
one of the streets of the world like the Cannebière of Marseilles, the
King's Road of Brighton, or the High Street of Oxford. Portsmouth cannot
be conceived as existing without the Common Hard. It is a broad street
facing the harbor; at one end are the gates of the Dock-yard; at the
other, a police station, in front of which at one time stood a pair of
stocks. The magistrates, in their wisdom, revived this time-honored
punishment for a while, but I believe it did not answer. Certainly I
myself once saw a man in the stocks. I must have been a child of six or
eight at the time, but I remember him well, because I was immensely
impressed with the shamefulness of it, and I expected to see the
prisoner hanging his head and weeping. Not a bit, if you please. The
hardened villain sat up, faced the foot-lights, and grinned merrily all
the time.
The street contained shops of all sorts--shops of curios brought home by
the sailors and sold to their merchants; jewellers' shops; shops
offering telescopes, sextants, and all kinds of naval things; taverns
and hotels--then called inns. These shops, however, were not designed
for able-bodied Jack, I believe, but for his officer.
It was a fine lookout from the Hard upon the harbor, which was crammed
full of ships--ships fitting, ships just come home, harbor-ships, hulks,
store-ships, tugs, tenders, and small steamers. As yet the man-o'-war
was a wooden ship. She carried 120 guns and a thousand men; mostly she
sailed, and in the art of sailing she had no equal. As a boy I thought,
and still think, that there is no work of man's craft and ingenuity more
wonderful, more beautiful, than a great three-decker in full sail.
Those who wished to cross the harbor or to visit a ship, started from
the "Beach" or from the "Logs." The Beach was a narrow spit of sand and
shingle running out into the water; it was the "stairs" for the
watermen, who all day long kept up a perpetual bawling. "Going over? One
more. Just going over. Only one more!" When they had a boat-load, say
six or eight passengers at a penny apiece, they put off, and rowed
across the harbor to Gosport, on the other side.
Saw one ever a more animated sight than the harbor on a fine summer
morning in the forties? Boats manned by Royal Navy men working their way
here and there, yachts letting out their sails for a cruise in the
Solent, wherries plying backwards and forwards, ships in the grip of the
tide. We pass on our way the _Victory_, Nelson's last ship; she is
moored off the Beach, and swings round with every tide. If you went on
board you would see the place where Nelson fell, and the place where
Nelson died--a dark and noisome hole on the orlop-deck down below.
Yonder black hulk without masts is a ship whose exploits would fill a
volume. Her name is the _Billy Ruffian_--mealy mouths call her the
_Bellerephon_. Beside her, another dismasted hulk, now a coal-ship, is
the _Asia_, from which was fired the shot which blew up the Turkish
Admiral at Navarino. Beside her is the _Arethusa_, another historic
ship. Beyond, in line, the old worn-out ships are laid up one after the
other up the harbor; they are all historic ships; to hear their names is
to be reminded of Copenhagen, the Nile, Trafalgar; they are store-ships,
coal-ships, training-ships now, and those painted yellow are the
convict-hulks. How much misery, how much brutality, how much despair had
their permanent home on those terrible yellow ships called
convict-hulks? The men were taken ashore every day to work--their work,
the heaviest and the most disagreeable, lay chiefly in the Dock-yard;
they worked under warders armed with guns, shotted and bayonetted. Many
a time have I gone into the yard, a penny quid or screw of tobacco
secreted in my pocket. One would get as near as one dared to one of the
gang without raising suspicions. There one waited, pretending idle
curiosity, till the warder's eyes were turned in the opposite direction,
then out with the quid, and down with it at the nearest convict's foot.
He made no sign; he never moved or looked up; he just covered the packet
with his foot, and went on with his work. The donor retired a space, yet
kept an eye upon him. Presently the man straightened himself out; he
looked at his tool; he picked up a stone as if to knock off something;
he hammered it, and looked at it again critically; the warder, who had
watched his movement, turned his head, as satisfied that it was
harmless; the convict put down the stone; then, if you had good eyes,
you would see the quid transferred in a moment to the man's mouth. Oh!
the rapture of that quid! He could not express his gratitude in words,
but with a glance of his eye he could, and did. What would have been
done to the boy had he been discovered is too terrible to be considered.
However, that boy escaped. The sight of convicts working in a gang has
always fascinated and terrified me. The submission and obedience, the
awful silence, the evident determination to do as little as possible,
the profound misery of the life, the cruel crushing down of
manhood--these things I felt as a boy of twelve as much as I feel them
now. And always with it that feeling of John Bunyan, "But for Grace,
John, thou too hadst been here."
A little up the harbor there rose a few inches out of the water an islet
called Rat Island. This was the burying-ground of those poor wretches
who died on the hulks. I have rowed round this island in the twilight of
a summer evening, wondering whether the ghosts of the convicts still
haunted this dreary spot and exchanged stories of crime and the
cat-o'-nine-tails and irons with each other. I now understand that the
ghost which could choose to remain on so desolate a spot must have been
indeed a fool.
The Logs were a narrow and rude pier constructed of square trunks laid
side by side, with upright posts here and there to keep them in place.
They were chiefly used by the Royal Navy boats which were coming and
going all day long. I recall the picture of one. At sight of the boat
and the officer in command the boy on the Logs runs a little farther out
where the Logs are covered with water--he would not willingly stand in
the way of that officer, whom he envies with a yearning inconceivable to
be in his place. Nobody remembers how boys yearn and long for the
impossible. The boat is manned by eight stout, well-set-up fellows; they
wear spotless white ducks, jerseys, and straw hats. The officer stands
up in the stern, strings in hand. He commands these splendid
fellows--He!!!--and he is no older than the envious boy who looks on. He
wears a jacket, white ducks, and a cap with the enviable crown and
anchor on it. His voice is clear and loud. Timid? Afraid? Not a bit of
it. This midshipmite is already Captain and First Lieutenant and all. He
jumps on the Logs and marches off, head erect, conscious that all other
boys regard him with envy unspeakable. Do the sailors put tongue in
cheek and mock him when he is gone? Not a bit of it. The child is their
officer; he represents authority. It is not the boy who commands men--it
is the Captain. The faces of the men, if you look at them, are not quite
like the faces of their grandsons who at present man the navy. Our man
of '96 is sober, quiet, thoughtful, as becomes one whose long training
has almost made him belong to a learned profession. He is a total
abstainer too. When he goes ashore it is to the Sailors' Home and not to
the old quarters. The men of '48 are sturdy and bluff and resolute; but
they have a certain look that means rum when they can get it, and other
indulgences such as can be afforded.
At the back of the Hard was Jack's own pleasure-ground--half a dozen
streets belonging to him, to the watermen, and to those who made it
their business to look after Jack. These streets were full of strange
things. There were shops where they sold old clos', with many queer
things that came home on board. There were birds--parrots, parraquits,
avvadavats, love-birds, monkeys, lemurs, flying-fish dried, rotting
bananas, Venus's fingers from the Philippines, _cocos de mer_ from the
Seychelles, carved wooden boxes from China, queer little nameless
things from Japan, curved swords from Malay, groups of figures from
India--all these things are common now; they were not common then. I
would gaze at them displayed behind the small windows illuminated at
night by a single candle, with a sick yearning because I could not buy
them all. Meantime--oh, heavenly sound!--the fiddle at the public-house
next door strikes up. It is an ancient tavern; the floor was lower than
the street; the windows were decorated with transparencies showing the
valor of the British tar when engaged with the Chinese. Heavens! How
those Chinamen ran! And with what a rapturous sense of duty did Jack
seize a pigtail with the left hand, and with the right decapitate poor
John Chinaman! It was after the war of 1842, or thereabouts--a war now
wellnigh forgotten. Within--I would look in and even step in
unregarded--the fiddler sat on a stool at the end of the long low room.
He was a Pole. He had but one leg, and he fiddled marvellously, so as to
make even a man with a gouty toe stand up and shake that limb. Jack
danced hornpipes chiefly; he liked best to dance by himself because the
_cavalier seul_ enjoyed more scope for figure-dancing and for
flourishes; also because the undivided applause and attention of the
house were bestowed upon him. In the reel, in which the fair sex took a
share, beauty more than skill--looks, rather than merit--provoked
admiration. Poor Jack! Poor fair sex! Was it possible for any human
creatures to look more deliriously happy?
I have said that the watermen also lived in those back streets; I
believe, however, that the watermen lived apart from the sailors; the
most of them had been sailors--they were all full of yarns--they were
all heroes of the old war; their sons were sailors; but they themselves
were married men with families. It was not considered the thing for a
sturdy old waterman to frequent the same tavern as Jack ashore; his time
for the hornpipe and the fiddle was over.
I have said that Jack's face and appearance have not been transmitted to
his grandsons. There was one peculiarity about Jack of '48 that has been
somewhat forgotten. He of 1800 wore a pigtail--that pigtail was cut off.
I do not know, exactly, in what year. It was succeeded, however, by
ringlets. The Jack of '48 wore ringlets very carefully curled, glossy,
and artistic. If you passed Jack to leeward you perceived--what?
Rowland's Macassar? Tallow? My friends, let us never inquire into the
machinery by which those ringlets were made to curl so gracefully, and
to assume an appearance so beautifully, so wonderfully glossy.
Of the Dock-yard I must say little, though the part it plays in
Portsmouth is like the part played in Winchester by the cathedral, or in
Cambridge by the university. There were the huge skeletons of the wooden
ships, one after the other, in various stages; there were the dry docks,
with the workmen hurrying round the sides on narrow boards, calking and
painting; there was the pond, where they laid up the timber to "season";
there was the Rope-house, a quarter of a mile long, where the men "who
made their living backwards" so walked all day long twisting the yarn;
there was the place where they steamed the beams so that they could be
bent; there was the carver of figure-heads; there were the manufacturing
of blocks and the making of spars. And every day and all day long the
sound of multitudinous hammers, the creaking of cranes, the grinding of
saws, went on without stopping. A lovely workshop, and now, I believe,
more wonderful still!
[Illustration]
The town, I said, had little beauty in its streets. There was a George
the Second church, which had a spaciousness and a dignity of its own.
There was another which had neither dignity nor space. There were no
public buildings to speak of. But there were the Walls. The Walls! Oh,
the Walls! These are all levelled and pulled down now. Nobody knows why
they were levelled, but they were; and with them disappeared the beauty
and the glory of the town. They were not ancient stone Walls, but
earthworks in the style approved about the year 1780. I append a section
of the Wall as I remember it. An open space, A B, separated it from the
building of the town. A slope, B C, brought one to a broad road, C D,
for the carriage and passage of cannon, ammunition, etc. At D, another
low slope, about three feet high, to a narrow standing-place, D E, in
front of which ran E F, a breast-work. The defenders were to fire, thus
protected, across F F. F G was the slope to a level lower than that of
A B on the other side. At H H was a narrow moat, but the intention of
the builders of the Wall was to let in the water so as to cover up the
whole of the valley G H; at H the ground sloped up; at many places the
ground beyond H was also protected by an earth-work. The Wall ran in
lengths protected by bastions; these bastions were mounted with cannon.
At intervals there were stone gates with stone lookout-places, most
mysterious. The town was divided into two parts, a Wall ran round each.
No one would believe what a lovely place for a boy was the Wall--either
Wall--to walk upon, or sit upon, or linger, and look, and listen, and
dream upon. If you wanted a quiet place for reading you could sit
protected from cold wind on a cannon-wheel; if you wanted to dream you
could lean over a certain angle on the Queen's Bastion--was it the
Queen's?--and there below stretched out the whole extent of the harbor,
a broad lagoon at high tide, four miles from north to south and six from
west to east; at the head of the harbor, Porchester Castle stood out,
gray and frowning over the clear water that lapped her water-gate. This
was a Roman fort; the outer Walls--the Roman work--still stand, and will
continue to stand for many centuries; within there are the ruins of a
Norman castle, the lofty design still uninjured; in another corner is a
long and narrow Saxon church--a fine thing, this, for a boy to gaze
upon. But that was not all. The space in front of the Wall was laid out
in grass; in spring these meadows were full of buttercups; in the summer
the grass all over the Walls, the parapet, the slopes, the sloping up of
the Wall, the spaces on the bastions between the cannons, were filled
with clover, daisies, buttercups, wild convolvulus, colored
grasses--everything. There were also trees--"to catch the shells," we
used to say; they were planted all along the Walls, and made a sweet and
delightful walk in summer-time. And it was so quiet all day long upon
the Walls; nobody but a few children ever came there; we had our own
favorite bastion, our own view across the harbor; we carried home
handfuls of the wild flowers.
If one of the two Walls looked out over the harbor, the other looked out
over the Solent and Spithead. The second Wall was not so beautiful in my
eyes as the first. It began at a place which even a boy would not but
recognize as squalid and horrible. Very near there stood a church of
great interest, though of repellent appearance--I know not why it was
repellent to look at, but it was. Between the church and the Wall lay a
broad piece of consecrated ground. More than once have I been reminded
what this ground was used for. More than once have I stood upon the Wall
and looked down upon a funeral; the coffin, borne by six soldiers, was
covered with the union-jack for a pall--could one have a better? behind,
marched, with guns reversed, a small company of soldiers; in front went
the muffled drums and the fifes. 'Twas the burial-place, you see, of the
private soldier. When the service was over, the soldiers stood over the
grave and fired their last farewell to their poor dead comrade; then the
drummers took off their muffling and they fell in, and the fifes struck
up a merry tune and so away back to barracks. Poor lad! Who was he? No
one knew; no one cared. In those days no one, I believe, ever sent a
message to his people that he was dead.
On the outside, where the moat and slopes afforded a fine place for
practice, the young drummers and the young buglers were practising all
day long. I never hear a bugle-call, to this day, without being reminded
of morning upon Portsmouth Walls. At the other end of this Wall were two
or three very fine bastions, armed with larger cannon and with bombs
which looked out on Spithead, where the fleets assembled before they put
to sea. From Spithead sailed those great fleets, the Baltic and the
Black Sea fleets, at the beginning of the Crimean war. A very splendid
sight it was. The Queen led the way in her yacht. Then followed the
Admiral, old Charley Napier; then came the gallant line-of-battle ships,
each in place. To look at a ship of the modern type and to think of that
magnificent fleet reminds one of the Israelites when they wept at the
opening of the second Temple, to think of the perished glories of the
first!
It was in the harbor, from the Dock-yard, that the troops used to
embark. There is a picture, I forget by whom, representing the
embarkation of a regiment for the Crimea. I can testify that the picture
is faithful, for I saw, I believe, that very embarkation. There are the
girls crying--I saw them; the young fellows full of spirit and
courage--I saw them with envy and admiration; the sailors quietly
carrying out their orders--I saw them too. As one recalls the scene, one
thinks of what these poor fellows were going to endure--the cold of a
Crimean winter; boots made of brown paper; coats of shoddy; green
coffee-berries with which to make their coffee; oh! the blind rage! the
helpless rage! the bitter tears of rage! of the whole country! and
nothing done--no--nothing. Alas for the wickedness of it! Yet nobody
hanged--and these poor brave fellows done to death--not by the enemy,
but by their own people!
Besides the embarkation, I remember seeing the return of one of these
regiments. It had been terribly cut up at Inkermann or at some other
engagement; once, too, a shell burst in the middle of their band. They
marched, what was left of them, up the street, colors flying, band
playing. And all the way along the women wailed aloud and the men
choked. For of all the band there remained but five; of all the gallant
boys who marched out playing the fife and beating the drum there were
but two; of all the men who played the cornet and the clarion and the
serpent and the rest of the wonderful instruments there were but three.
I have gone on too long. One more picture, and I have done. On the Hard,
along the railings which ran in the front, only ceasing with the beach
and the Logs, extended a long bench, on which every morning all the year
round, except in rain and snow, there sat a row of grizzled veterans.
They were mostly one-legged; some were no-legged. The bench presented a
very remarkable spectacle of "timber toes," _i.e._, wooden legs sticking
out in a horizontal row. The owners of the "timber toes" were affable;
they would graciously accept a quid, or the price of one, or the
equivalent of a quartern of rum, and in return they would cheerfully tip
you a yarn--but, for choice, beyond the hearing of the other old boys.
Now the really remarkable thing about these heroes was that every man
among them had been on board the _Victory_ at Trafalgar; every man among
them had been the first man to observe when Nelson fell, the first man
to pick him up, the chief hand in carrying him to the cockpit, the
trusted man kept down by the surgeon to perform the last offices for the
dying Admiral. Nay, so often had every man told this story that he had
at last come to believe it; and the genuine tears would crowd into his
eyes when he arrived at the last scene in the mournful history: "'Kiss
me, 'Ardy,' was the last words of the Dyinero." They had of course other
memories which were, I believe, more authentic. There were memories of
the American war in 1814, of French prisons, of actions long since
forgotten, of admirals whose fame has been eclipsed by that of Nelson. I
remember one man who was in the Mutiny at the Nore, which was in 1796;
and one ancient mariner I remember who said he was a cabin-boy with
Captain Cook in his last voyage--he saw him speared. Well, it was quite
possible; the man looked a mere monument of antiquity; it was quite
possible if he was eighty-eight--he looked ninety-eight. It was quite
possible, on the other hand--but let me believe that I have myself
conversed and shaken hands with one of Captain Cook's crew.
THE SAILING OF JEAN-PAUL.
(_In Two Instalments._)
BY M. L. VAN VORST.
I.
The grandmother of Jean-Paul was proud of the boy. She said he was as
"brave as a lion, as brown as a berry, as straight as a birch." Indeed
she talked so much about him, and repeated this so many times, that her
companions the washer-women grew tired of hearing about Jean-Paul, and
after awhile she found that she talked to deaf ears. "Are there not
other boys in the village besides Jean-Paul?" they said. "There are
Joseph and Victor and Charles. And what has Jean-Paul done, after all?
Nothing." So the old woman held her peace, and ceased to say aloud the
things she thought about her big brown grandson.
Jean-Paul lived with his grandmother, Mère Vatinel, in a tiny house made
of pieces of flint stuck together with white cement. It had a bright red
roof, and looked like a house in a fairy-tale.
It was one of many fisher dwellings standing in rows on either side the
narrow village street that ran straight down to the sea. From the great
expanse of water washing the pebbly beach and curling up about the high
cliff-side all the town gained its living.
Jean-Paul knew little of danger, and cared still less. He only knew that
he was strong and fifteen years old, that his father had gone to sea at
his age; his friends had left the dull little town, and he too longed to
board one of the straight-masted vessels that stood so proudly in the
harbors of Fécamp and Havre, and put far out and away to follow his
fortune and to know the sea.
Jean-Paul sat before the rough pine table in the room that served as
kitchen, bedroom, and all rooms in one; he was eating his supper of
lentil soup and a piece of coarse bread. Opposite him sat his
grandmother, in her white peasant cap and her short blue skirt; she was
knitting, and Jean-Paul watched the candle-light flicker on her needles.
"Grandmother," he said, trying to speak at his ease, "I am fifteen years
old now."
"Yes," nodded the old woman.
"And I am strong too. See?" and he rolled up his blue sleeve and showed
her a stout brown arm of which he might well have been proud. "And
yesterday with Père Guillaume, whom thou knowest is a weak old man, I
dragged in the boat--our boat. In truth, grandmother, it was I, and not
Père Guillaume, who made her slide up on the beach."
"Yes," she said, "thou art strong. Praise God keep thy strength; it is
mine as well; I need thee, my son."
The bright face of Jean-Paul fell; he ate on in silence for a little,
then said, with an effort, "Grandmother, the _Belle Hélène_ sails
to-morrow week."
At this Mère Vatinel let her knitting fall, and clasped her hands on the
table and faced her grandson. "Jean-Paul," she said, "I am nearly
ninety years old; I have but you; the sea has taken all the rest--my two
big sons and thy mother's husband, and thou knowest well that when the
news came that thy father's ship would never cast anchor again, thy
mother fell as one dead, and thus the sea cursed my last child. I hate
the sea," she said, raising her old hand as if in turn to curse it; "it
is our tomb."
If Jean-Paul heard this it did not make him waver. "One must live,
grandmother," he said, stanchly. "It is our friend too. All sailors are
not lost. There is Joseph, who comes here every year with his pockets
full of louis; and we are poor; I will come home rich, and some day I
may even own my bark, grandmother; and it is so cowardly to stay at home
with only the old men and the children."
"And thy grandmother, Jean-Paul?"
He did not reply. Then she burst into tears, and rocked to and fro.
"Never, never, while I live!" she wept. "All have been taken from me.
Jean-Paul, Jean-Paul, thou wilt break my heart!"
"Listen!" he said. "We will speak of this no more. I will not go unless
thou art quite content."
It was surprising how quickly the old woman dried her tears. "Thou art a
brave gars, a good gars," she said, nodding her head. "Thou shalt
perhaps find service at the château. Who knows?"
Jean-Paul did not reply, but Mère Vatinel took it as a sacred promise,
for did she not know she would never be content?
* * * * *
Jean-Paul bought his rabbit at the Gingerbread Fair. On certain _fête_
days in the little square before the Mayory all the world goes to buy
gingerbread. They are fascinating, those long pieces of brown cake with
colored candies on the top. And the extraordinary men! And the animals
whose like is seen in few zoological gardens! I should say all the world
went _to see_, and those who had a few sous bought, and the others stood
and looked on in admiration and envy. Jean-Paul sauntered along, his
blue cap pushed back on his head, his hands in his pockets; he tinkled
the ten sous of his savings noisily, for he was the proud owner of ten
whole sous. He could buy a good deal of gingerbread with this, but not
too much. He thought, however, that he would spend five sous at throwing
the rings, and with the rest collect a gingerbread menagerie. To throw
the rings is a delightful sport; one can never have too many
jack-knives. The knives are stuck by the blades in rows on an inclined
board. Then you buy five rings for five sous. You take aim, try to
encircle a knife with a ring, and if you succeed the prize is yours.
Jean-Paul was an expert, and had his eyes on three "rippers," as he
called them in his French slang. The little man who kept the booth knew
him, and nodded to him, and held out the rings, when a loud burst of
laughter from a group of boys at his right hand made Jean-Paul look
toward them. They were gathered in a circle, and intensely watching
something in their midst. The lad walked toward them, and looked too. A
little brown rabbit, trembling with fright, its eyes wild and startled,
cowered in the centre of a chalk circle which the boys had drawn around
him.
"Look, Jean-Paul!" said a little boy, plucking his sleeve. "They are
laying wagers as to how far the rabbit will jump when Pierre pokes him
with his stick. It is my rabbit, Jean-Paul, and they are to give me a
sou for the sport."
Jean-Paul said nothing. He looked at Pierre, who was a big brutal fellow
with a coarse face. He was cabin-boy on one of the ships that sail
between Havre and New York, and he had come home for a holiday. Leaning
forward, he gave the rabbit a sharp poke with the pointed stick. The
poor thing leaped clear out of the line, and was greeted with shouts of
applause.
"She's better than a gingerbread bunny," laughed Pierre, "and just the
color. Jump! Jump, ma belle!"
Jean-Paul adored animals, and having a heart in proportion as big as his
strong body, he hated cowardly abuse. His first impulse was to strike
Pierre a ringing blow, seize the rabbit, and rush off with it. He chose
another course. "Is it really yours, the rabbit?" he said, very fast and
in a low tone, to the little boy who stood by his side watching the fun
with big eyes.
"Yes, really mine. I am to have a sou."
"Will you sell him for ten?"
The boy gasped. Ten sous! He had never in his ragged existence owned ten
sous.
"Quick," said Jean-Paul, rattling the money before his eyes.
To be master of ten sous, and to have at the same time a gingerbread
fair at his very side was too great a stroke of fortune for the little
peasant to grasp. "I should think so!" he said.
"There, then." Jean-Paul crowded the pennies into the boy's hand, leaned
forward, and picked up the little rabbit by the ears, and lifted it over
the heads of the group.
"See here!" exclaimed Pierre, angrily, "you are a little too fresh, my
fine fellow!" and he sprang to his feet and confronted Jean-Paul.
"It is my rabbit, Pierre Fouget," replied the other, whose eyes, though
calm, were dangerous. "I have just bought him for ten sous."
"Yes," nodded his former owner, "that is so; and give me my sou for the
sport, Pierre."
Pierre measured the straight figure of Jean-Paul. He looked at his broad
chest, and at the big hand that held the panting beast tenderly.
Jean-Paul stood quite still and looked back at him. Then Pierre laughed
sneeringly, and shrugging his shoulders, "My word, if the monsieur has a
fancy to collect animals, and can pay for them, it is his own affair,"
he said, and turned away.
The little boy of the ten sous, his hands full of cakes, was swinging in
the merry-go-round. He waved his hand to Jean-Paul as he passed. "I
shall ride twice more, Jean-Paul," he said.
This is how Jean-Paul bought his rabbit at the Gingerbread Fair.
* * * * *
Monsieur le Maire was a very important person. I shall not tell about
his duties, or all that he did in the little white Mayory over the
post-office. Dear me, that would be dry reading! After one had climbed
the steep cliff straight up from the village, and walked three
kilometres or more, all the fertile farm-lands, and those forests with
the green-trunked trees, and the white château with its high gables
belonged to M. le Maire. His ancestors had been royalists, and fought
for and served many kings and princes. But M. le Maire of Freport was a
good republican, and he used to say he belonged to the people, which, of
course, pleased them very much indeed; and those of the town who loved
the days of the Emperor loved M. le Maire for his ancestry, and the rest
honored him as a good servant of the republic.
Jean-Paul saw him go in and out of the Mairie, and drive home every
afternoon in his red dog-cart. He thought the Maire was a great man, and
admired him, and stood in awe of him a little, perhaps. He would have
told you, that he knew the Mayor very well, but the Mayor did not know
Jean-Paul--less than he knew Philip or Joseph or the other
fisher-lads--for his grandmother had enough to keep them far from want,
and never applied for charity to the government. And then the knitting
that she did--well, that was an important item, for she turned off an
astounding number of thick stockings, and every six weeks Jean-Paul
carried the little package to a village by the cross-roads, where
another old woman bought the stockings, and sold them to a dealer at
Havre.
The brown rabbit had become Jean-Paul's constant companion. She ate
sitting close to the boy's elbow, slept at night huddled in a brown heap
at the foot of his bed. He called her La Belle Hélène; it brought him a
little nearer to the beloved ship he was never to board to say the name
over and over, for although he made no sign, and spoke not at all of his
great desire, still his heart was on the sea, and the thought that he
must spend his youth and strength fishing a little with Père Guillaume,
loitering about the town with a few young fellows, that he was never to
see the great ice-fields or know the wild joy of catching the mighty
fish, that the fisher-seaman's life was forbidden him, it was hard,
bitter hard to bear.
He stood with Père Guillaume on the beach; a fierce October storm was
coming thick and fast from the west, and the fishermen stood talking
together in little groups; and watching the ink-black clouds.
"How ugly it is," said the old fisherman. "From now on we have the black
weather. I shall not venture out to-day, Jean-Paul."
"I should like nothing better," said the boy, eagerly. "It is fine out
there. One can hear the waves crash. That is real sea. I will do all the
work, Père Guillaume," he added. "The fish fairly leap into the boat
to-day."
The old man could not be moved. "It is well enough for you," he said;
"you are a strong swimmer, Jean-Paul, but for me, to capsize is death.
When one is old one hugs the fireside."
"Oh, it must be dreadful to be old," thought the boy; "one fears
everything!" Then he remembered that it was the day for his trip to St.
Julian with the parcel of stockings that his grandmother had knitted for
sale, and he hurried back to the cabin, while the storm gathered faster
and the wind swept along the hard flint roads.
"It is bad weather," said the grandmother, as he stuffed the parcel in
the pocket of his jacket.
But the journeys to St. Julian were never postponed, for the Havre
dealer only passed once in six weeks, and to succeed one must be
punctual. Jean-Paul went in all weathers. In his other pocket he put the
rabbit Belle Hélène, and the old grandmother watched him as he pulled
his cap down hard and bent his head against the wind.
"How strong he is, how straight!" she murmured, and she thought of the
rabbit in his pocket and smiled. "_La Belle Hélène_, _La Belle Hélène_,
his heart is all with the ship. If I were not so old, and the sea has
taken so much! It is not fair," she said, shaking her head. "One may at
least keep one out of four brave gars." And then she went into her
cabin, shut the door against the wind, and commenced a new pair of
stockings.
Meanwhile Jean-Paul went sturdily up, up the hill. The road to St.
Julian lay past the woods of the château. The young fellow loved these
forests when the tree trunks were all green with a bright moss growth,
and where the guests of the Mayor came and hunted during the fall weeks,
and flashed through the trees in their bright scarlet coats.
[Illustration: THE GAMEKEEPER'S HAND FELL UPON JEAN-PAUL.]
He had often watched the chase, and seen the brown hares jump in the
underbrush and the deer fly by. But his thoughts on this day were
elsewhere, and do as he would, it was nothing but _La Belle Hélène_, _La
Belle Hélène_ that kept constantly sailing into his thoughts and casting
anchor in his brain. It was easy enough to slip off at night, follow the
cliff path, and before you know it you are at Fécamp; and the harbor is
bristling with barks at this season, and when one knows the mate of _La
Belle Hélène_, and he has said, "Come, Jean-Paul, you will join us next
year surely, mon vieux." (That makes one feel so grand to be called old
chap by a man of position.) "Next year I will give you a good berth and
recommend you to the Captain, and you will do the rest." And this was
next year, and he was as far away as ever! Here Jean-Paul drew a big
breath that meant a pain was at the other end of it, and went on
thinking. When he reached the little knoll just at the end of the
forest château, the hard struggle was at an end, but he felt about as
beside himself as a healthy boy of fifteen can. The result was that he
was more tired than though he had already gone the whole of the long way
to St. Julian. Suddenly he remembered what his grandmother had given him
just before he left the house--his luncheon; and he sat down on a big
stone, and he drew out of his pocket a chunk of coarse bread and a stick
of chocolate. He commenced slowly and meditatively to munch this repast
and stare way down the long white road into the fast-deepening twilight,
while the wind, which was against him, blew so hard that he could with
difficulty keep his seat. Far away behind him lay a glimpse of the sea,
which showed black and sullen. Jean-Paul felt La Belle Hélène move
restlessly in the right pocket of his coat. "Poor little thing, she is
hungry too! I will not eat alone," he said, and drew the rabbit out of
his pocket, and put her on his knee, gently stroking her while she
nibbled a few crumbs of bread. Just then who can say what strange spirit
awoke in La Belle Hélène, or what familiar wood call may have reached
her ear, for she gave a violent start, and sprang from the knee of
Jean-Paul, made one swift bound, pushed her lithe body through the thick
hedge, and was off into the dark woods of the château; but almost as
quick in his movements was Jean-Paul, for he sprang to his feet, tore
his way through the hedge, and started in hot pursuit. She kept ever
just in front of him, maddeningly near, yet maddeningly far. He pushed
his way through the bushes, and the two soon found themselves in the
beautiful woods of the château. Jean-Paul thought of nothing save that
La Belle Hélène had escaped and he must get her once more. He called in
vain; freedom was sweet, and the leaves must have felt delightfully
familiar; and ever pursuing the rabbit who had allured her away, the
brown beast kept just beyond her master's reach. Perhaps, however, she
lost for a moment the call of her kind, or the imploring tones of her
little master touched her, for she stopped. At that moment Jean-Paul
threw himself forward and caught La Belle Hélène. As his hand fell upon
her, another hand, not half so gentle, fell upon the shoulder of
Jean-Paul, and with the rabbit clasped in his hand, the startled lad
turned and confronted the gamekeeper, who stood with his gun in his
hand, rudely peering in the young fellow's face. "Ha! ha! my pretty
fellow, caught in the act, in the very act," chuckled the gamekeeper,
maliciously, and he put his hand over the little brown rabbit.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
A CHARLES LAMB PARTY.
BY EMMA J. GRAY.
"Who started the thing, I don't remember. Oh yes, I do--it was Edith
Worster; you know she's a member of the Cozy Club; and I tell you it was
just splendid, a capital idea, and so pretty in all its arrangements
that I am willing to risk anything that you would like me to tell you
all about it."
At these words the dear old lady laughed aloud, for how could she "keep
still any longer," she roguishly asked, "eaten up with curiosity, as I
always am about young folks and their doings." And then Maud's long
chestnut-brown hair, tied with a ribbon to match, fell over her
grandmother's face in the endeavor to kiss her. For grandma sat in a
large arm-chair, which her portly figure filled from arm to arm, while
Maud stood at her back looking taller than ever this morning, on account
of the long red stripes in her dark brown cashmere morning gown.
Grandma had a square of a silk crazy-quilt in her hand, on which she was
about to embroider her initials on a field of lustrous yellow silk, and
Maud having now drawn up a rocker, seated herself for work also,
directly in front, and as close to her grandmother as room could allow.
"Heigh ho! I suppose I must sew on these tiresome napkins, or they'll
never be done." And then spreading one smoothly over her lap, she
continued: "Isn't it a torment, to have to stitch these things all
around to keep the fringe from fraying? Don't you think fringed napkins
a nuisance anyway?"
"Yes," was the slowly given monosyllable; and then grandma, who had been
energetic all her life, added, "but, child, think how pretty they are."
At these words Maud made a dive into her apple-green silk work-bag, as
if on business bent, and rapidly drew out needle, thread, scissors, and
thimble. While she was threading her needle, grandma said, "Really, I
can't wait any longer, child; let me hear all about it."
"That's a dear. I thought you'd be dying to know. You'll admit I
understand something about your inquisitiveness," and then Maud's
laughing baby-blue eyes were lifted lovingly towards her grandmother's
face.
"Well, while you were away off West visiting Aunt Maria, I gave Charles
Lamb's party."
"Charles Lamb! Well, I'll believe you're the crazy one now, for he's
been dead many a year."
"Oh, grandma," and Maud laughingly shook her head, "you are funny!
Didn't I tell you that Edith Worster is a member of the Cozy Club? And
they are all owlish sort of people--the owl is the bird of wisdom, you
know. Well, while you were gone she came to call on me, and I'm sixteen
and she's twenty-three."
"What of that?"
"Oh, she's seven years older than I am, and awfully wise, and I didn't
know what to say to her exactly; and so, as I've been told to entertain
people by asking them questions about themselves, I asked Edith what the
Club was reading now. 'Charles Lamb,' and then you should have seen her
face change; it was so eager, and looked so full of joy as I thought it
had before looked full of misery. I'm sure her call on me was a duty
one, one of the good-child kind, and then she asked me if I--_I_
remember"--and Maud stretched her left arm out at full length, and,
raising the index-finger, pointed to herself--"had lately read the essay
of Elia, entitled, 'Rejoicings Upon the New Year's Coming of Age!'
"I shrunk into almost nothingness before her, no doubt, when I
impulsively answered, 'Oh my, no! I don't even know who Elia is--any
relation to Elias?' and then I laughed.
"But, grandma, she was awfully nice. She wasn't the least bit proud and
horrid, hadn't any of that drawn-up lofty air some people would have put
on, and she explained all about it, and told me Elia was the name
Charles Lamb sometimes used for himself, and she made me so interested
in him, telling me of his love for his sister Mary and his father, and
that in writing to the poet Coleridge, who was Charles Lamb's greatest
friend, he told him, 'I am wedded to the fortunes of my sister and my
poor old father.' Did you know, grandma, Mary Lamb was out of her mind
at times? Oh, it was such a grief to her brother!
"Well, no sooner was Edith Worster the other side of our hall door than
I rushed to the library and pulled down book after book in my hunt for
these same essays of Elia. I knew they were around somewhere, but
whether the book was big or little, thick or thin, I didn't know. But
after a while I found it, and then I got into that big sleepy hollow
down there and read the essay Edith spoke about. _Read it all through_,
remember; just put that to my credit."
"I will, Maud; but what's that got to do with your party?"
"_Do?_ It _did_ the party, that's all. Only listen, for my party was
splendid. Didn't it have a go, though! It was simply delicious!" and
Maud smacked her lips over the remembrance. "Oh, you ought to have seen
it for yourself, grandma! You'll hear lots of talk about it yet, though,
you'll see if you don't," and Maud wagged her head sagely.
"Well, I'm listening and impatient," and grandma's work was dropped in
her lap, while her eager face glowed with the one word "more"--for
grandma, as she herself expressed it, was very fond of young folks'
doings, and, moreover, Maud was her only grandchild.
"It must have been a good fairy that whispered it to me, for no sooner
had I finished the essay than the thought came, why not try that scheme
for a party? I knew I was promised a party for my sixteenth birthday,
and I had heard mamma say, only that very morning, the invitations must
soon go out; and then poor mamma sighed, while she said: 'I wish we
could think of something new, Maud. Parties are so hackneyed
nowadays--the same old things given over and over.' So when the good
fairy whispered, I tripped away to mamma, book in hand, as fast as my
feet would take me. And then such a scene of excitement as I made! Mamma
begged of me to sit down and talk understandingly if I could. For her
part, she didn't know what I was trying to get at. And I don't wonder,
for she never had heard me mention _The Essays of Elia_ before in all my
life. I think poor mamma thought I had gone quite mad. Oh, grandma, such
fun!" and Maud laughed heartily over the remembrance of it.
"However, after awhile I calmed down, as grandpa advises me sometimes,
and I explained to mamma about Edith Worster's call, and how I happened
to hear of this particular thing; and then, because it was the easiest
way, I read mamma the essay, adding, 'Now that would make me a brand-new
party.' To this idea mamma instantly agreed, and we sent out the
invitations so worded that each one knew perfectly he was to wear a
costume that would represent a day in the year. And in order that I
wouldn't have too many of one kind and too few of the other, each
invitation suggested the kind of a day that was meant. In this way I had
June Days, Rainy Days, Lenten Days, etc., etc."
"But, my dear grandchild, my brain is all befogged. I can see by what
you have said that you had a sort of a masquerade, but your old
grandmother knows no more about that essay than you did. You know, I
never was much of a scholar, had to work too hard in my young days to
find time for an education, and I've been sorry and ashamed over my lack
of knowledge many's the time," and at the remembrance the old lady's
eyes filled with tears.
This was too much for impulsive Maud, who in a trice had both her arms
around her grandmother's neck, sternly saying: "Take those words back or
I'll never kiss you again. No education indeed! You had the education
which comes from hard work and denial. Where would all our comforts have
been to-day--what would papa have known, I'd like to ask, had it not
been for you? What sort of an education would I have had? It's a burning
shame," and the hot blood reddened Maud's cheeks, "that I have not made
better use of my advantages! But 'it's never too late to mend' are the
old words, which I shall apply to myself hereafter; and there, now,
dearest grandma," and Maud kissed her, saying aloud: "One, two, three;
that's our seal to the bargain. And remember, you are not to say another
word against yourself, and I am to study harder than ever before. Who
knows, I may be a second Edith Worster, if I try."
"If you try, you can do all things, Maud," and then grandma felt around
for her handkerchief, and slowly wiped away the moisture which had
dimmed her gold-rimmed spectacles.
"Now I'll run away for a second, and get the book to read you the
opening of the essay. You will understand it better than my wordy
jargon"; and then off Maud flew, napkins, scissors, and all the rest of
her sewing paraphernalia dropping at her feet in a hurry to be gone;
however, she stopped for a second, and gathering them up, threw them
hastily on the table while she rushed on. In a minute she returned, and
though all out of breath, at once found the place and commenced:
"'Rejoicings over the New Year's Coming of Age.'
[Illustration]
"'The _Old Year_ being dead, the _New Year_ coming of age, which he does
by Calendar Law as soon as the breath is out of the old man's body,
nothing would serve the young spark but that he must give a dinner upon
the occasion, to which all the Days in the year were invited. The
_Festivals_, whom he deputed as his stewards, were mightily taken with
the notion. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in
providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below, and it was time they
should have a taste of their own bounty. It was stiffly debated whether
the _Fasts_ should be admitted. Some said the appearance of such starved
guests, with mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting. But
the objection was overruled by _Christmas Day_, who had a design upon
_Ash Wednesday_ (as you shall hear), and a mighty desire to see how the
old domine would behave himself in his cups. Only the _Vigils_ were
requested to come with their lanterns to light the gentlefolks home at
night.