TALES FOR CHRISTMAS EVE.
TALES
FOR
CHRISTMAS EVE.
BY
RHODA BROUGHTON,
AUTHOR OF
“COMETH UP AS A FLOWER,”
ETC., ETC.
[Illustration]
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON.
1873.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH 1
THE MAN WITH THE NOSE 33
BEHOLD IT WAS A DREAM! 83
POOR PRETTY BOBBY 131
UNDER THE CLOAK 191
THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH, AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.
THE TRUTH, THE WHOLE TRUTH,
AND
NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH.
MRS. DE WYNT TO MRS. MONTRESOR.
“18, ECCLESTON SQUARE,
“_May 5th._
“MY DEAREST CECILIA,
“Talk of the friendships of Orestes and Pylades, of Julie and Claire,
what are they to ours? Did Pylades ever go _ventre à terre_, half over
London on a day more broiling than any but an _âme damnée_ could even
imagine, in order that Orestes might be comfortably housed for the
season? Did Claire ever hold sweet converse with from fifty to one
hundred house agents, in order that Julie might have three windows to
her drawing-room and a pretty _portière_? You see I am determined not
to be done out of my full meed of gratitude.
“Well, my friend, I had no idea till yesterday how closely we were
packed in this great smoky bee-hive, as tightly as herrings in a
barrel. Don’t be frightened, however. By dint of squeezing and
crowding, we have managed to make room for two more herrings in our
barrel, and those two are yourself and your other self, _i.e._ your
husband. Let me begin at the beginning. After having looked over, I
verily believe, every undesirable residence in West London; after
having seen nothing intermediate between what was suited to the means
of a duke, and what was suited to the needs of a chimney-sweep; after
having felt bed-ticking, and explored kitchen-ranges till my brain
reeled under my accumulated experience, I arrived at about half-past
five yesterday afternoon at 32, ---- Street, May Fair.
“‘Failure No. 253, I don’t doubt,’ I said to myself, as I toiled up
the steps with my soul athirst for afternoon tea, and feeling as
ill-tempered as you please. So much for my spirit of prophecy. Fate, I
have noticed, is often fond of contradicting us flat, and giving the
lie to our little predictions. Once inside, I thought I had got into a
small compartment of Heaven by mistake. Fresh as a daisy, clean as a
cherry, bright as a seraph’s face, it is all these, and a hundred more,
only that my limited stock of similes is exhausted. Two drawing-rooms
as pretty as ever woman crammed with people she did not care two
straws about; white curtains with rose-coloured ones underneath,
festooned in the sweetest way; marvellously, _immorally_ becoming, my
dear, as I ascertained entirely for your benefit, in the mirrors, of
which there are about a dozen and a half; Persian mats, easy-chairs,
and lounges suited to every possible physical conformation, from the
Apollo Belvedere to Miss Biffin; and a thousand of the important little
trivialities that make up the sum of a woman’s life: ormolu garden
gates, handleless cups, naked boys and décolleté shepherdesses; not
to speak of a family of china pugs, with blue ribbons round their
necks, which ought of themselves to have added fifty pounds a year
to the rent. Apropos, I asked, in fear and trembling, what the rent
might be--‘three hundred pounds a year.’ A feather would have knocked
me down. I could hardly believe my ears, and made the woman repeat it
several times, that there might be no mistake. To this hour it is a
mystery to me.
“With that suspiciousness which is so characteristic of you, you
will immediately begin to hint that there must be some terrible
unaccountable smell, or some odious inexplicable noise haunting
the reception rooms. Nothing of the kind, the woman assured me,
and she did not look as if she were telling stories. You will next
suggest--remembering the rose-coloured curtains--that its last occupant
was a member of the demi-monde. Wrong again. Its last occupant was an
elderly and unexceptionable Indian officer, without a liver, and with a
most lawful wife. They did not stay long, it is true, but then, as the
housekeeper told me, he was a deplorable old hypochondriac, who never
could bear to stay a fortnight in any one place. So lay aside that
scepticism, which is your besetting sin, and give unfeigned thanks to
St. Brigitta, or St. Gengulpha, or St. Catherine of Sienna, or whoever
is your tutelar saint, for having provided you with a palace at the
cost of a hovel, and for having sent you such an invaluable friend as
“Your attached
“ELIZABETH DE WYNT.”
“P.S.--I am so sorry I shall not be in town to witness your first
raptures, but dear Artie looks so pale and thin and tall after the
hooping-cough, that I am sending him off at once to the sea, and as
I cannot bear the child out of my sight, I am going into banishment
likewise.”
MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.
“32, ---- STREET, MAY FAIR,
“_May 14th_.
“DEAREST BESSY,
“Why did not dear little Artie defer his hooping-cough convalescence,
&c., till August? It is very odd, to me, the perverse way in which
children always fix upon the most inconvenient times and seasons
for their diseases. Here we are installed in our Paradise, and have
searched high and low, in every hole and corner, for the serpent,
without succeeding in catching a glimpse of his spotted tail. Most
things in this world are disappointing, but 32, ---- Street, May Fair,
is not. The mystery of the rent is still a mystery. I have been for my
first ride in the row this morning: my horse was a little fidgety; I
am half afraid that my nerve is not what it was. I saw heaps of people
I knew. Do you recollect Florence Watson? What a wealth of red hair
she had last year! Well, that same wealth is black as the raven’s wing
this year! I wonder how people can make such walking impositions of
themselves, don’t you? Adela comes to us next week; I am so glad. It is
dull driving by oneself of an afternoon; and I always think that one
young woman alone in a brougham, or with only a dog beside her, does
not look _good_. We sent round our cards a fortnight before we came up,
and have been already deluged with callers. Considering that we have
been two years exiled from civilized life, and that London memories are
not generally of the longest, we shall do pretty well, I think. Ralph
Gordon came to see me on Sunday; he is in the ----th Hussars now. He
has grown up such a _dear_ fellow, and so good-looking! Just my style,
large and fair and whiskerless! Most men nowadays make themselves as
like monkeys, or Scotch terriers, as they possibly can. I intend to
be quite a _mother_ to him. Dresses are gored to as _indecent_ an
extent as ever; short skirts are rampant. I am so sorry; I hate them.
They make tall women look _lank_, and short ones insignificant. A
knock! Peace is a word that might as well be expunged from ones London
dictionary.
“Yours affectionately,
“CECILIA MONTRESOR.”
MRS. DE WYNT TO MRS. MONTRESOR.
“THE LORD WARDEN, DOVER,
“_May 18th_.
“DEAREST CECILIA,
“You will perceive that I am about to devote only one small sheet
of note-paper to you. This is from no dearth of time, Heaven knows!
time is a drug in the market here, but from a total dearth of ideas.
Any ideas that I ever have, come to me from without, from external
objects; I am not clever enough to generate any within myself. My life
here is not an eminently suggestive one. It is spent in digging with a
wooden spade, and eating prawns. Those are my employments, at least;
my relaxation is going down to the Pier, to see the Calais boat come
in. When one is miserable oneself, it is decidedly consolatory to see
some one more miserable still; and wretched and bored, and reluctant
vegetable as I am, I am not _sea-sick_. I always feel my spirits rise
after having seen that peevish, draggled procession of blue, green and
yellow fellow-Christians file past me. There is a wind here _always_,
in comparison of which the wind that behaved so violently to the
corners of Job’s house was a mere zephyr. There are heights to climb
which require more daring perseverance than ever Wolfe displayed, with
his paltry heights of Abraham. There are glaring white houses, glaring
white roads, glaring white cliffs. If any one knew how unpatriotically
I detest the chalk-cliffs of Albion! Having grumbled through my two
little pages--I have actually been reduced to writing very large in
order to fill even them--I will send off my dreary little billet. How I
wish I could get into the envelope myself too, and whirl up with it to
dear, beautiful, filthy London. Not more heavily could Madame de Staël
have sighed for Paris from among the shades of Coppet.
“Your disconsolate
“BESSY.”
MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.
“32, ---- STREET, MAY FAIR,
“_May 27th_.
“Oh, my dearest Bessy, how I wish we were out of this dreadful,
dreadful house! Please don’t think me very ungrateful for saying this,
after your taking such pains to provide us with a Heaven upon earth, as
you thought.
“What has happened could, of course, have been neither foretold, nor
guarded against, by any human being. About ten days ago, Benson (my
maid) came to me with a very long face, and said, ‘If you please, ’m,
did you know that this house was _haunted_?’ I was _so_ startled: you
know what a coward I am. I said, ‘Good Heavens! No! is it?’ ‘Well,
’m, I’m pretty nigh sure it is,’ she said, and the expression of her
countenance was about as lively as an undertaker’s; and then she told
me that cook had been that morning to order in groceries from a shop
in the neighbourhood, and on her giving the man the direction where to
send the things to, he had said, with a very peculiar smile, ‘No. 32,
---- Street, eh? h’m? I wonder how long _you_’ll stand it; last lot
held out just a fortnight.’ He looked so odd that she asked him what he
meant, but he only said, ‘Oh! nothing; only that parties never _did_
stay long at 32. He had known parties go in one day, and out the next,
and during the last four years he had never known any remain over the
month.’ Feeling a good deal alarmed by this information, she naturally
inquired the reason; but he declined to give it, saying that if she
had not found it out for herself, she had much better leave it alone,
as it would only frighten her out of her wits; and on her insisting
and urging him, she could only extract from him, that the house had
such a villanously bad name, that the owners were glad to let it for a
mere song. You know how firmly I believe in apparitions, and what an
unutterable fear I have of them; anything material, tangible, that I
can lay hold of--anything of the same fibre, blood, and bone as myself,
I could, I think, confront bravely enough; but the mere thought of
being brought face to face with the ‘bodiless dead,’ makes my brain
unsteady. The moment Henry came in, I ran to him, and told him; but
he pooh-poohed the whole story, laughed at me, and asked whether we
should turn out of the prettiest house in London, at the very height of
the season, because a grocer said it had a bad name. Most good things
that had ever been in the world had had a bad name in their day; and,
moreover, the man had probably a motive for taking away the house’s
character, some friend for whom he coveted the charming situation and
the low rent. He derided my ‘babyish fears,’ as he called them, to such
an extent that I felt half ashamed, and yet not quite comfortable,
either; and then came the usual rush of London engagements, during
which one has no time to think of anything but how to speak, and act,
and look for the moment then present. Adela was to arrive yesterday,
and in the morning our weekly hamper of flowers, fruit, and vegetables
arrived from home. I always dress the flower-vases myself, servants
are so tasteless; and as I was arranging them, it occurred to me--you
know Adela’s passion for flowers--to carry up one particular cornucopia
of roses and mignonette and set it on her toilet-table, as a pleasant
surprise for her. As I came downstairs, I had seen the housemaid--a
fresh, round-faced country girl--go into the room, which was being
prepared for Adela, with a pair of sheets that she had been airing
over her arm. I went upstairs very slowly, as my cornucopia was full
of water, and I was afraid of spilling some. I turned the handle of
the bedroom-door and entered, keeping my eyes fixed on my flowers, to
see how they bore the transit, and whether any of them had fallen out.
Suddenly a sort of shiver passed over me; and feeling frightened--I did
not know why--I looked up quickly. The girl was standing by the bed,
leaning forward a little with her hands clenched in each other, rigid,
every nerve tense; her eyes, wide open, starting out of her head, and
a look of unutterable stony horror in them; her cheeks and mouth not
pale, but livid as those of one that died awhile ago in mortal pain. As
I looked at her, her lips moved a little, and an awful hoarse voice,
not like hers in the least, said, ‘Oh! my God, I have seen it!’ and
then she fell down suddenly, like a log, with a heavy noise. Hearing
the noise, loudly audible all through the thin walls and floors of a
London house, Benson came running in, and between us we managed to
lift her on to the bed, and tried to bring her to herself by rubbing
her feet and hands, and holding strong salts to her nostrils. And all
the while we kept glancing over our shoulders, in a vague cold terror
of seeing some awful, shapeless apparition. Two long hours she lay in
a state of utter unconsciousness. Meanwhile Harry, who had been down
to his club, returned. At the end of the two hours we succeeded in
bringing her back to sensation and life, but only to make the awful
discovery that she was raving mad. She became so violent that it
required all the combined strength of Harry and Phillips (our butler)
to hold her down in the bed. Of course, we sent off instantly for a
doctor, who, on her growing a little calmer towards evening, removed
her in a cab to his own house. He has just been here to tell me that
she is now pretty quiet, not from any return to sanity, but from sheer
exhaustion. We are, of course, utterly in the dark as to _what_ she
saw, and her ravings are far too disconnected and unintelligible to
afford us the slightest clue. I feel so completely shattered and upset
by this awful occurrence, that you will excuse me, dear, I’m sure, if
I write incoherently. One thing, I need hardly tell you, and that is,
that no earthly consideration would induce me to allow Adela to occupy
that terrible room. I shudder and run by quickly as I pass the door.
“Yours, in great agitation,
“CECILIA.”
MRS. DE WYNT TO MRS. MONTRESOR.
“THE LORD WARDEN, DOVER,
“_May 28th_.
“DEAREST CECILIA,
“Yours just come; how very dreadful! But I am still unconvinced as to
the house being in fault. You know I feel a sort of godmother to it,
and responsible for its good behaviour. Don’t you think that what the
girl had might have been a fit? Why not? I myself have a cousin who is
subject to seizures of the kind, and immediately on being attacked his
whole body becomes rigid, his eyes glassy and staring, his complexion
livid, exactly as in the case you describe. Or, if not a fit, are you
sure that she has not been subject to fits of madness? _Please_ be
sure and ascertain whether there is not insanity in her family. It
is so common nowadays, and so much on the increase, that nothing is
more likely. You know my utter disbelief in ghosts. I am convinced
that most of them, if run to earth, would turn out about as genuine as
the famed Cock Lane one. But even allowing the possibility, nay, the
actual unquestioned existence of ghosts in the abstract, is it likely
that there should be anything to be seen so horribly fear-inspiring,
as to send a perfectly sane person _in one instant_ raving mad, which
you, after three weeks’ residence in the house, have never caught a
glimpse of? According to your hypothesis, your whole household ought,
by this time, to be stark, staring mad. Let me implore you not to give
way to a panic which may, possibly, probably prove utterly groundless.
Oh, how I wish I were with you, to make you listen to reason! Artie
ought to be the best prop ever woman’s old age was furnished with, to
indemnify me for all he and his hooping-cough have made me suffer.
Write immediately, please, and tell me how the poor patient progresses.
Oh, had I the wings of a dove! I shall be on wires till I hear again.
“Yours,
“BESSY.”
MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.
“NO. 5, BOLTON STREET, PICCADILLY,
“_June 12th_.
“DEAREST BESSY,
“You will see that we have left that terrible, hateful, fatal house.
How I wish we had escaped from it sooner! Oh, my dear Bessy, I shall
never be the same woman again if I live to be a hundred. Let me try
to be coherent, and to tell you connectedly what has happened. And
first, as to the housemaid, she has been removed to a lunatic asylum,
where she remains in much the same state. She has had several lucid
intervals, and during them has been closely, pressingly questioned as
to what it was she saw; but she has maintained an absolute, hopeless
silence, and only shudders, moans, and hides her face in her hands when
the subject is broached. Three days ago I went to see her, and on my
return was sitting resting in the drawing-room, before going to dress
for dinner, talking to Adela about my visit, when Ralph Gordon walked
in. He has always been walking in the last ten days, and Adela has
always flushed up and looked happy, poor little cat, whenever he made
his appearance. He looked very handsome, dear fellow, just come in from
the park in a coat that fitted like a second skin, lavender gloves, and
a gardenia. He seemed in tremendous spirits, and was as sceptical as
even you could be, as to the ghostly origin of Sarah’s seizure. ‘Let me
come here to-night and sleep in that room; _do_, Mrs. Montresor,’ he
said, looking very eager and excited, ‘with the gas lit and a poker,
I’ll engage to exorcise every demon that shows his ugly nose; even if
I should find--
“‘Seven white ghostisses
Sitting on seven white postisses.’
“‘You don’t mean really?’ I asked, incredulously. ‘Don’t I? that’s
all,’ he answered emphatically. ‘I should like nothing better. Well,
is it a bargain?’ Adela turned quite pale. ‘Oh, don’t,’ she said,
hurriedly, ‘_please_, don’t; why should you run such a risk? How do you
know that you might not be sent mad too?’ He laughed very heartily,
and coloured a little with pleasure at seeing the interest she took in
his safety. ‘Never fear,’ he said, ‘it would take more than a whole
squadron of departed ones, with the old gentleman at their head,
to send me crazy.’ He was so eager, so persistent, so thoroughly
in earnest, that I yielded at last, though with a certain strong
reluctance, to his entreaties. Adela’s blue eyes filled with tears,
and she walked away hastily to the conservatory, and stood picking bits
of heliotrope to hide them. Nevertheless, Ralph got his own way; it was
so difficult to refuse him anything. We gave up all our engagements
for the evening, and he did the same with his. At about ten o’clock he
arrived, accompanied by a friend and brother officer, Captain Burton,
who was anxious to see the result of the experiment. ‘Let me go up at
once,’ he said, looking very happy and animated. ‘I don’t know when I
have felt in such good tune; a new sensation is a luxury not to be had
every day of one’s life; turn the gas up as high as it will go; provide
a good stout poker, and leave the issue to Providence and me.’ We did
as he bid. ‘It’s all ready now,’ Henry said, coming downstairs after
having obeyed his orders; ‘the room is nearly as light as day. Well,
good luck to you, old fellow!’ ‘Good-bye, Miss Bruce,’ Ralph said,
going over to Adela, and taking her hand with a look, half laughing,
half sentimental--
“‘Fare thee well, and if for ever,
Then for ever, fare thee well,’
that is my last dying speech and confession. Now mind,’ he went on,
standing by the table, and addressing us all; ‘if I ring once, _don’t_
come. I may be flurried, and lay hold of the bell without thinking;
if I ring twice, _come_.’ Then he went, jumping up the stairs three
steps at a time, and humming a tune. As for us, we sat in different
attitudes of expectation and listening about the drawing-room. At first
we tried to talk a little, but it would not do; our whole souls seemed
to have passed into our ears. The clock’s ticking sounded as loud as a
great church bell close to one’s ear. Addy lay on the sofa, with her
dear little white face hidden in the cushions. So we sat for exactly
an hour; but it seemed like two years, and just as the clock began to
strike eleven, a sharp ting, ting, ting, rang clear and shrill through
the house. ‘Let us go,’ said Addy, starting up and running to the door.
‘Let us go,’ I cried too, following her. But Captain Burton stood in
the way, and intercepted our progress. ‘No,’ he said, decisively, ‘you
must not go; remember Gordon told us distinctly, if he rang once _not_
to come. I know the sort of fellow he is, and that nothing would annoy
him more than having his directions disregarded.’
“‘Oh, nonsense!’ Addy cried, passionately, ‘he would never have rung
if he had not seen something dreadful; do, _do_ let us go!’ she ended,
clasping her hands. But she was overruled, and we all went back to our
seats. Ten minutes more of suspense, next door to unendurable, I felt
a lump in my throat, a gasping for breath;--ten minutes on the clock,
but a thousand centuries on our hearts. Then again, loud, sudden,
violent the bell rang! We made a simultaneous rush to the door. I
don’t think we were one second flying upstairs. Addy was first. Almost
simultaneously she and I burst into the room. There he was, standing in
the middle of the floor, rigid, petrified, with that same look--that
look that is burnt into my heart in letters of fire--of awful,
unspeakable, stony fear on his brave young face. For one instant he
stood thus; then stretching out his arms stiffly before him, he groaned
in a terrible, husky voice, ‘Oh, my God; I have seen it!’ and fell down
_dead_. Yes, _dead_. Not in a swoon or in a fit, but _dead_. Vainly we
tried to bring back the life to that strong young heart; it will never
come back again till that day when the earth and the sea give up the
dead that are therein. I cannot see the page for the tears that are
blinding me; he was such a dear fellow! I can’t write any more to-day.
“Your broken-hearted
“CECILIA.”
This is a true story.
THE MAN WITH THE NOSE.
THE MAN WITH THE NOSE.
[The details of this little story are of course imaginary, but the main
incidents are, to the best of my belief, facts. They happened twenty,
or more than twenty years ago.]
CHAPTER I.
“Let us get a map and see what places look pleasantest?” says she.
“As for that,” reply I, “on a map most places look equally pleasant.”
“Never mind; get one!”
I obey.
“Do you like the seaside?” asks Elizabeth, lifting her little brown
head and her small happy white face from the English sea-coast along
which, her forefinger is slowly travelling.
“Since you ask me, distinctly _no_,” reply I, for once venturing to
have a decided opinion of my own, which during the last few weeks
of imbecility I can be hardly said to have had. “I broke my last
wooden spade five and twenty years ago. I have but a poor opinion of
cockles--sandy red-nosed things, are not they? and the air always makes
me bilious.”
“Then we certainly will not go there,” says Elizabeth, laughing. “A
bilious bridegroom! alliterative but horrible! None of our friends show
the least eagerness to lend us their country house.”
“Oh that God would put it into the hearts of men to take their wives
straight home, as their fathers did,” say I, with a cross groan.
“It is evident, therefore, that we must go somewhere,” returns she,
not heeding the aspiration contained in my last speech, making her
forefinger resume its employment, and reaching Torquay.
“I suppose so,” say I, with a sort of sigh; “for once in our lives we
must resign ourselves to having the finger of derision pointed at us by
waiters and landlords.”
“You shall leave your new portmanteau at home, and I will leave all my
best clothes, and nobody will guess that we are bride and bridegroom;
they will think that we have been married--oh, ever since the world
began” (opening her eyes very wide).
I shake my head. “With an old portmanteau and in rags we shall still
have the mark of the beast upon us.”
“Do you mind much? do you hate being ridiculous?” asks Elizabeth,
meekly, rather depressed by my view of the case; “because if so, let
us go somewhere out of the way, where there will be very few people to
laugh at us.”
“On the contrary,” return I, stoutly, “we will betake ourselves to
some spot where such as we do chiefly congregate--where we shall be
swallowed up and lost in the multitude of our fellow-sinners.” A
pause devoted to reflection. “What do you say to Killarney?” say I,
cheerfully.
“There are a great many fleas there, I believe,” replies Elizabeth,
slowly; “flea-bites make large lumps on me; you would not like me if I
were covered with large lumps.”
At the hideous ideal picture thus presented to me by my little beloved
I relapse into inarticulate idiocy; emerging from which by-and-by, I
suggest “The Lakes?” My arm is round her, and I feel her supple body
shiver though it is mid July, and the bees are booming about in the
still and sleepy noon garden outside.
“Oh--no--no--not _there_!”
“Why such emphasis?” I ask gaily; “more fleas? At this rate, and with
this _sine quâ non_, our choice will grow limited.”
“Something dreadful happened to me there,” she says, with another
shudder. “But indeed I did not think there was any harm in it--I never
thought anything would come of it.”
“What the devil was it?” cry I, in a jealous heat and hurry; “what the
mischief _did_ you do, and why have not you told me about it before?”
“I did not _do_ much,” she answers meekly, seeking for my hand, and
when found kissing it in timid deprecation of my wrath; “but I was
ill--very ill--there; I had a nervous fever. I was in a bed hung with
a chintz with a red and green fern-leaf pattern on it. I have always
hated red and green fern-leaf chintzes ever since.”
“It would be possible to avoid the obnoxious bed, would not it?” say
I, laughing a little. “Where does it lie? Windermere? Ulleswater?
Wastwater? Where?”
“We were at Ulleswater,” she says, speaking rapidly, while a hot colour
grows on her small white cheeks--“Papa, mamma, and I; and there came
a mesmeriser to Penrith, and we went to see him--everybody did--and
he asked leave to mesmerise me--he said I should be such a good
medium--and--and--I did not know what it was like. I thought it would
be quite good fun--and--and--I let him.”
She is trembling exceedingly; even the loving pressure of my arms
cannot abate her shivering.
“Well?”
“And after that I do not remember anything--I believe I did all sorts
of extraordinary things that he told me--sang and danced, and made a
fool of myself--but when I came home I was very ill, very--I lay in
bed for five whole weeks, and--and was off my head, and said odd and
wicked things that you would not have expected me to say--that dreadful
bed! shall I ever forget it?”
“We will _not_ go to the Lakes,” I say, decisively, “and we will not
talk any more about mesmerism.”
“That is right,” she says, with a sigh of relief, “I try to think
about it as little as possible; but sometimes, in the dead black of
the night, when God seems a long way off, and the devil near, it
comes back to me so strongly--I feel, do not you know, as if he were
_there_--somewhere in the room, and I _must_ get up and follow him.”
“Why should not we go abroad?” suggest I, abruptly turning the
conversation.
“Why, indeed?” cries Elizabeth, recovering her gaiety, while her pretty
blue eyes begin to dance. “How stupid of us not to have thought of it
before; only _abroad_ is a big word. _What_ abroad?”
“We must be content with something short of Central Africa,” I say,
gravely, “as I think our one hundred and fifty pounds would hardly take
us that far.”
“Wherever we go, we must buy a dialogue book,” suggests my little bride
elect, “and I will learn some phrases before we start.”
“As for that, the Anglo-Saxon tongue takes one pretty well round the
world,” reply I, with a feeling of complacent British swagger, putting
my hands in my breeches pockets.
“Do you fancy the Rhine?” says Elizabeth, with a rather timid
suggestion; “I know it is the fashion to run it down nowadays, and
call it a cocktail river; but--but--after all it cannot be so _very_
contemptible, or Byron could not have said such noble things about it.”
“The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o’er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,”
say I, spouting. “After all, that proves nothing, for Byron could have
made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“The Rhine will not do then?” says she, resignedly, suppressing a sigh.
“On the contrary, it will do admirably: it _is_ a cocktail river, and I
do not care who says it is not,” reply I, with illiberal positiveness;
“but everybody should be able to say so from their own experience, and
not from hearsay: the Rhine let it be, by all means.”
So the Rhine it is.