“Even though it be to give you up, you whom I love better than my

life—for whom I would die so willingly. Oh, Anna!” and he sank on his

knees beside her, and winding his arms around her waist, looked her

imploringly in the face. “I sometimes fear that you have sickened of

me—that you shrink from my caresses. If it is so, in mercy tell me now,

before it is too late; for, Anna, dear as you are to me, I would rather

to-morrow’s sunshine should fall upon your grave and mine, than take you

to my bosom an unloving wife! I have worked for you, early and late,

thinking only how you might be pleased. There is not a niche or corner

in my home that is not hallowed by thoughts of you whom I have loved

since you were a little child and I carried you in the arms which now

would be your resting place forever. I know I am not your equal, I feel

it painfully, but I can learn with you as my teacher, and, my precious

Anna, whatever I may lack in polish, I _will_, I _will_ make up in

kindness!”

He was pleading now for her love, forgetting that she was his promised

wife—forgetting everything, save that to his words of passionate appeal

there came no answering response in the expression of her face. Only the

same fixed, stony look, which almost maddened him; it was so unlike what

he deserved and had reason to expect.

“I shall be lonely without you, Anna—more lonely than you can guess, for

there is no mother here now to bless and cheer me as she would have

cheered me in my great sorrow. She loved you, Anna, and blessed you with

her dying breath, saying she was glad, for your sake, that the chair

where you sit would be empty when you came, and asking God to deal by

you even as you dealt by me.”

“Oh, Adam, Adam!” Anna gasped, for what had been meant for a blessing

rang in her ears like that blind woman’s curse. “May God deal better by

me than I meant to deal by you!” she tried to say, but the words died on

her lips, and she could only lay her cold hands on the shoulder of him

who still knelt before her, with his arms around her waist.

Softly, gladly came the good angel back, and ’mid a rain of tears which

dropped on Adam’s hair, Anna wept her hardness all away, while the only

sound heard in the room was the beating of two hearts and the occasional

roll of thunder muttering in the distance. In reality it was only a few

moments, but to Anna it seemed a long, long time that they sat thus

together, her face bent down upon his head, while she thought of all the

past since she could remember Adam Floyd and the blind old woman, his

mother. He had been a dutiful son, Anna knew, for she had heard how

tenderly he would bear his mother in his strong arms or guide her

uncertain steps, and how at the last he sat by her night after night,

never wearying of the tiresome vigil until it was ended, and the

sightless eyes, which in death turned lovingly to him, were opened to

the light of Heaven. To such as Adam Floyd the commandment of promise

was rife with meaning. God would prolong his days and punish those who

wronged him. He who had been so faithful to his mother, would be true to

his wife—aye, truer far than young Dunallen, with all his polish and

wealth.

“Adam,” Anna began at last, so low that he scarcely could hear her.

“Adam forgive me all that is past. I have been cold and indifferent,

have treated you as I ought not, but I am young and foolish, I—I—oh!

Adam, I mean to do better. I—”

She could not say, “will banish Dunallen from my mind”—it was not

necessary to mention him, she thought; but some explanation must be

made, and so, steadying her voice, she told him how dearly she had loved

him once, thinking there was not in all the world his equal, but that

during the year at a city school she had acquired some foolish notions

and had sometimes wished her lover different.

“Not better at heart. You could not be that,” she said, looking him now

fully in the face, for she was conscious of meaning what she said,

“but—but—”

“You need not finish it, darling; I know what you mean,” Adam said, the

cloud lifting in a measure from his brow. “I am not refined one bit, but

my Blossom is, and she shall teach me. I will try hard to learn. I will

not often make her ashamed. I will even imitate _Dunallen_, if that will

gratify my darling.”

Why would he keep bringing in that name, when the sound of it was so

like a dagger to Anna’s heart, and when she wished she might never hear

it again? He was waiting for her now in the beech woods she knew, for

she was to join him there ere long, not to say what she would have said

an hour ago, but to say that she could not, would not wrong the noble

man who held her to his bosom so lovingly as he promised to copy

_Dunallen_. And as Anna suffered him to caress her, she felt her olden

love coming back. She should be happy with him—happier far than if she

were the mistress of Castlewild, and knew that to attain that honor she

had broken Adam’s heart.

“As a proof that you trust me fully,” she said, as the twilight shadows

deepened around them, “you must let me go home alone, I wish it for a

special reason. You must not tell me no,” and the pretty lips touched

his bearded cheek.

Adam wanted to walk with her down the pleasant road, where they had

walked so often, but he saw she was in earnest, and so he suffered her

to depart alone, watching her until the flutter of her light dress was

lost to view. Then kneeling by the chair where she had sat so recently,

he asked that the cup of joy, placed again in his eager hand, might not

be wrested from him, that he might prove worthy of Anna’s love, and that

no cloud should ever again come between them.

CHAPTER IV.

IN THE BEECH WOODS.

Herbert Dunallen had waited there a long time, as he thought, and he

began to grow impatient. What business had Anna to stay with that old

fellow, if she did not mean to have him, and of course she did not. It

would be a most preposterous piece of business for a girl like Anna to

throw herself away upon such as Adam Floyd, carpenter by trade, and

general repairer of things at Castlewild. Whew-ew! and Herbert whistled

contemptuously, adding in a low voice, “and yet my lady mother would

raise a beautiful rumpus if she knew I was about to make this little

village rustic her daughter-in-law. For I am; if there’s one redeeming

trait in my character, it’s being honorable in my intentions toward

Anna. Most men in my position would only trifle with her, particularly

when there was in the background a Mildred Atherton, dreadfully in love

with them. I wonder what makes all the girls admire me so?” and the vain

young man stroked his mustache complacently, just as a rapid footstep

sounded near.

It was Anna’s, and the next moment he held her in his arms. But she

would not suffer him to keep her there, and with a quiet dignity which

for an instant startled him beyond the power to speak or act, she put

his arm away, and standing apart from him, told him of her resolution,

and reproached him with his duplicity, asking him how he could tell Adam

that he was about to be married.

“Because I am,” he replied. “I am not to blame for his believing silly

little Milly to be the bride elect. Won’t it be famous, though, for you

to order round your former lover? I’ve engaged him for a long job, and

you ought to have seen how glad he was of the work, thinking, of course,

how much he should earn for you. I came near laughing in his face when

he hoped I should be as happy with Miss Mildred as he expected to be

with you.”

“You shan’t speak so of Adam Floyd!” and Anna’s little foot beat the

ground impatiently, while indignant tears glittered in her blue eyes as

she again reiterated that Adam Floyd should be her husband.

“Not while I live!” Herbert responded almost fiercely, for he saw in her

manner a determination he had never witnessed before.

As well as he was capable of doing he loved Anna Burroughs, and the fact

that she was pledged to another added fuel to the flame.

“What new freak has taken my fickle goddess?” he asked, looking down

upon her with a mocking sneer about his mouth as she told him why she

could not go with him.

He knew she was in earnest at last, and, dropping his jesting tone, he

made her sit down beside him, while he used every possible argument to

dissuade her from her purpose, working first upon her pride, flattering

her vanity, portraying the happiness of a tour through Europe, a winter

in Paris, and lastly touching upon the advantages of being lady supreme

at Castlewild, with a house in the city, for winter. And as changeable,

ambitious, Anna listened, she felt her resolution giving way, felt the

ground which she had taken slipping from beneath her feet without one

effort to save herself.

“It seems terrible to wrong Adam,” she said, and, by the tone of her

voice, Herbert knew the victory was two thirds won.

“Adam will do well enough,” he replied. “People like him never die of

broken hearts! He’s a good fellow, but not the one for you; besides, you

know he’s what they call pious, just like Milly; and, I presume, he’ll

say it was not so wicked for you to cheat him as to perjure yourself, as

you surely would, by promising to love and honor and all that when you

didn’t feel a bit of it!”

“What was that you said of Miss Atherton?” Anna asked eagerly, for she

had caught the word pious, and it made her heart throb with pain, for

she knew that Herbert Dunallen could not say as much of her!

Once, indeed, it had been otherwise, but that was before she had met him

in the woods,—before she ceased to pray. Oh, that happy time when she

had dared to pray! How she wished it would come back to her again; but

it had drifted far away, and left a void as black as the night closing

around her or the heavy thunder clouds rolling above her head.

Tightly her hands clenched each other as Herbert answered jestingly.

“She’s one of the religious ones, Milly is; writes me such good letters.

I’ve one of them in my pocket now. She’s coming to see me; is actually

on the way, so to-morrow night, or never, my bride you must be.”

“Miss Atherton coming here! What do you mean?” Anna asked, and Herbert

replied,

“I mean, Mildred has always been in a fever to see Castlewild, and as

she is intimate with Mrs. Judge Harcourt’s family, she is coming there

on a visit. Will arrive to-morrow, her note said; and will expect to see

me immediately after her arrival.”

Herbert’s influence over Anna was too great for her to attempt to stop

him, so she offered no remonstrance, when he continued!

“I suppose Milly will cry a little, for I do believe she likes me, and

always has; but I can’t help it. The match was agreed upon by our

families when she was twelve and I fifteen. Of course I’m awfully sick

of it, and have been ever since I knew you,” and Herbert’s lips touched

the white brow where only half an hour before Adam Floyd’s had been.

Thicker, and blacker, grew the darkness around them, while the thunder

was louder and nearer, and still they sat together, Anna hesitating,

while Herbert urged upon her the necessity of going with him the

following night, if ever.

Mildred in the neighborhood would be as formidable an obstacle to him as

Adam was to Anna, while he feared the result of another interview

between the affianced pair. With all his love for Anna he was not blind

to the fact that the last one with whom she talked had the better chance

of eventually winning. He could not lose her now, and he redoubled his

powers of persuasion, until, forgetting everything, save the handsome

youth beside her, the wealthy heir of Castlewild, Anna said to him,

“I will meet you at our gate when the village clock strikes one!” and as

she said the words the woods were lighted up by a flash of lightning so

fearfully bright and blinding that with a scream of terror she hid her

face in her lap and stopped her ears to shut out the deafening roll of

the thunder. The storm had burst in all its fury, and hurrying from the

woods, Herbert half carried, half led the frightened Anna across the

fields in the direction of her father’s door. Depositing her at the

gate, he paused for an instant to whisper his parting words and then

hastened rapidly on.

On the kitchen hearth a cheerful wood fire had been kindled, and making

some faint excuse for having been out in the storm, Anna repaired

thither, and standing before the blaze was drying her dripping garments,

when a voice from the adjoining room made her start and tremble, for she

knew that it was Adam’s.

He seemed to be excited and was asking for her. An accident had occurred

just before his door. Frightened by the lightning which Anna remembered

so well, a pair of spirited horses had upset a traveling carriage, in

which was a young lady and her maid. The latter had sustained no injury,

but the lady’s ankle was sprained, and she was otherwise so lamed and

bruised that it was impossible for her to proceed any farther that

night. So he had carried her into his cottage and dispatching the driver

for the physician had come himself for Anna as the suitable person to

play the hostess in his home.

“Oh, I can’t go,—mother, you!” Anna exclaimed, shrinking in terror from

again crossing the threshold of the home she was about to make so

desolate.

But Adam preferred Anna. The lady was young, he said, and it seemed to

him more appropriate that Anna should attend her. Mrs. Burroughs thought

so, too, and, with a sinking heart, Anna prepared herself for a second

visit to the cottage. In her excitement she forgot entirely to ask the

name of the stranger, and as she was not disposed to talk, nothing was

said of the lady until the cottage was reached and she was ushered into

the dining-room, where old Martha and a smart looking servant were busy

with the bandages and hot water preparing for the invalid who had been

carried to the pleasant bed-room opening from the parlor.

CHAPTER V.

MILDRED ATHERTON.

“How is Miss Atherton?” Adam asked of Martha, while he kindly attempted

to assist Anna in removing the heavy shawl her mother had wrapped around

her.

“Who? What did you call her?” Anna asked, her hands dropping helplessly

at her side.

“Why, I thought I told you. I surely did your mother. I beg pardon for

my carelessness. It’s Mildred Atherton,” and Adam’s voice sank to a

whisper. “She was on her way to visit Mrs. Harcourt. I suppose it would

be well to send for Dunallen, but I thought it hardly proper for me to

suggest it. I’ll let you get at it somehow, and see if she wants him.

You girls have a way of understanding each other.”

Knowing how, in similar circumstances, he should yearn for Anna’s

presence, Adam had deemed it natural that Mildred’s first wish would be

for Herbert, and one reason for his insisting that Anna should come back

with him was the feeling that the beautiful girl, whose face had

interested him at once, would be more free to communicate her wishes to

one of her own age.

“Mildred Atherton,” Anna kept repeating to herself, every vestige of

color fading from her cheeks and lips, as she wondered how she could

meet her, or what the result of the meeting would be.

“Sarah, where are you? Has everybody left me?” came from the bed, where

the outline of a girlish form was plainly discernible to Anna, who

started at the tones of what seemed to her the sweetest voice she had

ever heard.

“Go to her,” Adam whispered, and Anna mechanically obeyed.

Gliding to the bedside, she stood a moment gazing upon the beautiful

face nestled among the snowy pillows. The eyes were closed, and the

long, silken lashes shaded the fair, round cheek, not one half so white

as Anna’s, notwithstanding that a spasm of pain occasionally distorted

the regular features, and wrung a faint cry from the pretty lips. Masses

of soft black curls were pushed back from the forehead, and one hand lay

outside the counterpane, a little soft, fat hand, on whose fourth finger

shone the engagement ring, the seal of her betrothal to the heir of

Castlewild! Oh, how debased and wicked Anna felt standing by that

innocent girl, and how she marveled that having known Mildred Atherton,

Herbert Dunallen could ever have turned to her. Involuntarily a sigh

escaped her lips, and at the sound the soft black eyes unclosed, and

looked at her wonderingly. Then a smile broke over the fair face, and

extending her hand to Anna, Mildred said,

“Where am I? My head feels so confused. I remember the horses reared

when that flash of lightning came, the carriage was overturned, and some

young man, who seemed a second Apollo in strength and beauty, brought me

in somewhere so gently and carefully, that I could have hugged him for

it, he was so good. Are you his sister!”

“No, I am Anna Burroughs. He came for me,” Anna replied, and looking her

full in the face, Mildred continued,

“Yes, I remember now, his nurse or housekeeper told me he had gone for

the girl who was to be his wife; and you are she. It’s pleasant to be

engaged, isn’t it?” and Mildred’s hand gave Anna’s a little confidential

squeeze, which, quite as much as the words she had uttered, showed how

affectionate and confiding was her disposition.

The entrance of the physician put an end to the conversation, and

withdrawing to a little distance where in the shadow she could not be

well observed Anna stood while the doctor examined the swollen ankle,

and his volatile patient explained to him in detail how it all happened,

making herself out quite a heroine for courage and presence of mind,

asking if he knew Mrs. Harcourt, and if next morning he would not be

kind enough to let her know that Mildred Atherton was at the cottage.

The doctor promised whatever she asked, and was about to leave the room,

when Adam stepped forward and said,

“Is there any one else whom Miss Atherton would like to see—any friend

in the neighborhood who ought to be informed?”

Eagerly Anna waited for the answer, watching half jealously the crimson

flush stealing over Mildred’s face, as she replied,

“Not to-night; it would do no good; to-morrow is soon enough. I never

like to make unnecessary trouble.”

The head which had been raised while Mildred spoke to Adam lay back upon

the pillow, but not until with a second thought the sweet voice had said

to him,

“I thank you, sir, you are so kind.”

As a creature of impulse, Anna felt a passing thrill of something like

pride in Adam as Mildred Atherton spoke thus to him, and when as he

passed her he involuntarily laid his hand a moment on her shoulder she

did not shake it off, though her heart throbbed painfully with thoughts

of her intended treachery. They were alone now, Mildred and Anna, and

beckoning the latter to her side, Mildred said to her.

“He meant Herbert Dunallen. How did he know that I am to be Herbert’s

wife?”

There was no tremor in her voice. She spoke of Herbert as a matter of

course, while Anna could hardly find courage to reply.

“Mr. Floyd works at Castlewild sometimes, and probably has heard Mr.

Dunallen speak of you.”

“Mr. Floyd—Adam Floyd, is that the young man’s name?” was Mildred’s next

question, and when Anna answered in the affirmative, she continued, “I

have heard of him. Herbert wrote how invaluable he was and how superior

to most mechanics—his prime minister in fact. I am glad the accident

happened here, and Herbert too will be glad.”

For a moment Mildred seemed to be thinking, then starting up, she said,

abruptly,

“And it was Anna—Anna Burroughs, yes, I’m sure that’s the name. Would

you mind putting that lamp nearer to me, and coming yourself where I can

see just how you look?”

Anna shrank from the gaze of those clear, truthful eyes, but something

in Mildred’s manner impelled her to do as she was requested, and moving

the lamp she came so near that Mildred placed a hand on either side of

her burning face and gazed at it curiously; then, pushing back the

golden hair, and twining one of the curls a moment about her finger, she

laid it by her own long, black shining tresses, saying sadly, “I wish my

curls were light and fair like yours. It would suit Herbert better. He

fancies a blonde more than a brunette, at least he told me as much that

time he wrote to me of you.”

“Of me?” Anna asked anxiously, the color receding from her cheek and

lip. “Why did he write of me, and when?”

The dark eyes were shut now and Anna could see the closed lids quiver,

just as did the sweet voice which replied, “It’s strange to talk so

openly to you as if we were dear friends, as we will be when I come to

Castlewild to live. It is my nature to say right out what I think, and

people sometimes call me silly. Herbert does, but I don’t care. When I

like a person I show it, and I like you. Besides, there’s something

tells me there is a bond of sympathy between us greater than between

ordinary strangers. I guess it is because we are both engaged, both so

young, and both rather pretty, too. You certainly are, and I know I am

not bad looking, if Aunt Theo. did use to try and make me think I was.

Her story and the mirror’s did not agree.”

Anna looked up amazed at this frank avowal, which few would ever have

made, even though in their hearts they were far vainer of their beauty

than was Mildred Atherton of hers. Was she really silly, or was she

wholly artless and childlike in her manner of expression? Anna could not

decide, and with a growing interest in the stranger, she listened while

Mildred went on: “In one of his letters last May Herbert said so much of

Anna Burroughs, with her eyes of blue and golden hair, calling her a

‘Lily of the Valley,’ and asking, all in play, you know, if I should

feel very badly if he should elope some day with his Lily. It shocks

you, don’t it!” she said, as Anna started with a sudden exclamation,

“But he did not mean it. He only tried to tease me, and for a time it

did make in my heart a little round spot of pain which burned like fire,

for though Herbert has some bad habits and naughty ways, I love him very

dearly. He is always better with me. He says I do him good, though he

calls me a puritan, and that time when the burning spot was in my heart,

I used to go away and pray, that if Herbert did not like me as he ought,

God would incline him to do so. Once I prayed for you, whom I had never

seen,” and the little soft hand stole up to Anna’s bowed head smoothing

the golden locks caressingly, “You’ll think me foolish, but thoughts of

you really troubled me then, when I was weak and nervous, for I was just

recovering from sickness, and so I prayed that the Lily of the Valley

might not care for Herbert, might not come between us, and I know God

heard me just as well as if it had been my own father of whom I asked a

favor. Perhaps it is not having any father or mother which makes me take

every little trouble to God. Do you do so, Anna? Do you tell all your

cares to him?”

Alas for conscience-stricken Anna, who had not prayed for so very, very

long! What could she say? Nothing, except to dash the bitter tears from

her eyes and answer, sobbingly,

“I used to do so once, but now—oh, Miss Atherton! now I am so hard, so

wicked, I dare not pray!”

In great perplexity Mildred looked at her a moment, and then said,

sorrowfully.

“Just because I was hard and wicked, I should want to pray—to ask that

if I had done anything bad I might be forgiven, or if I had intended to

do wrong, I might be kept from doing it.”

Mildred little guessed how keen a pang her words “or _intended_ to do

wrong” inflicted upon the repenting Anna, who involuntarily stretched

her hands toward the young girl as towards something which, if she did

but grasp it, would save her from herself. Mildred took the hands

between her own, and pressing them gently, said:

“I don’t know why you feel so badly, neither can I understand how

anything save sin can make you unhappy when that good man is almost your

husband. You must love him very much, do you not?”

“Yes,” came faintly from Anna’s lips, and laying her face on the pillow

beside Mildred’s, she murmured, inaudibly: “God help me, and forgive

that falsehood, I will love him, if I do not now.”

Anna did not know she prayed, but He who understands our faintest desire

knew it, and from that moment dated her return to duty. She should not

wrong that gentle, trusting girl. She could not break Milly’s heart with

Adam’s as break it she surely should if her wicked course were persisted

in. And then there flashed upon her the conviction that Herbert had

deceived her in more ways than one. He had represented Mildred as tiring

of the engagement as well as himself—had said that though her pride

might be a little wounded, she would on the whole be glad to be rid of

him so easily, and all the while he knew that what he said was false.

Would he deal less deceitfully by her when the novelty of calling her

his wife had worn away? Would he not weary of her and sigh for the

victim sacrificed so cruelly? Anna’s head and heart both seemed bursting

with pain, and when Mildred, alarmed at the pallor of her face, asked if

she were ill, there was no falsehood in the reply, “Yes, I’m dizzy and

faint—I cannot stay here longer,” and scarcely conscious of what she was

doing, Anna quitted the room, leaning for support against the banisters

in the hall and almost falling against old Martha who was carrying hot

tea to Mildred Atherton.

“Let me go home, I am sick,” Anna whispered to Adam, who, summoned by

Martha, bent anxiously over her, asking what was the matter.

It was too late to go home, he said. She must stay there till morning;

and very tenderly he helped her up to the chamber she was to occupy, the

one next to his own, and from which, at a late hour, she heard him, as,

thinking her asleep, he thanked his Heavenly Father for giving her to

him, and asked that he might be more worthy of her than he was.

“No, Adam, oh, no—pray that I may be more worthy of you,” trembled on

Anna’s lips, and then lest her resolution might fail, she arose and

striking a light, tore a blank leaf from a book lying on a table, and

wrote to Herbert Dunallen that she could never meet him again, except as

a friend and the future husband of Mildred Atherton.

Folding it once over, she wrote his name upon it, then, faint with

excitement, and shivering with cold, threw herself upon the outside of

the bed, and sobbed herself into a heavy sleep, more exhausting in its

effects than wakefulness would have been.

CHAPTER VI.

THE RESULT.

There was another patient for the village doctor, besides Mildred, at

the cottage next morning. Indeed, _her_ case sank into insignificance

when compared with that of the moaning, tossing, delirious Anna, who

shrank away from Adam, begging him not to touch her, for she was not

worthy.

They had found her just after sunrise, and sent for her mother, whose

first thought was to take her home; but Anna resisted at once; she must

stay there she said, and expiate her sin, in Adam’s house. Then,

looking, into her mother’s face, she added with a smile,

“You know it was to have been mine in a week!”

Adam did not see the smile. He only heard the words, and his heart beat

quickly as he thought it natural that Anna should wish to stay in what

was to be her home.

The hot August sun came pouring into the small, low room she occupied,

making it so uncomfortable, that Adam said she must be moved, and taking

her in his arms he carried her down the stairs, and laid her upon the

bridal bed, whose snowy drapery was scarcely whiter than was her face,

save where the fever burned upon her fair skin. On the carpet where it

had fallen he found the crumpled note. He knew it was her writing, and

he looked curiously at the name upon it, while there stole over him a

shadowy suspicion, as to the cause of Anna’s recent coldness.

“Herbert Dunallen!” He read the name with a shudder, and then thrust the

note into his pocket until the young man came.

Oh, how he longed to read the note and know what his affianced bride had

written to Dunallen; but not for the world would he have opened it, and

Anna’s secret was safe, unless she betrayed it in her delirium, as she

seemed likely to do.

A messenger had been dispatched to Castlewild, informing its young heir

of Mildred Atherton’s mishap. In the room he called his library, Herbert

sat, arranging his papers, and writing some directions for his head man

of business.

“Something from Adam Floyd,” he exclaimed, as he tore open the envelope,

“Oh, bother,” was all the comment he made, as he read the hastily

written lines, which gave no hint of Anna’s sudden illness.

He was not in the least prepared for that, and the sudden paling of his

cheek when, on his arrival at the cottage, he heard of it, did not

escape the watchful Adam, who quietly handed him the note, explaining

where he had found it, and then went back to Anna, in whose great blue

eyes there was a look of fear whenever they met his—a look which added

to the dull, heavy pain gnawing at his heart. He did not see Herbert

when he read Anna’s note—did not hear his muttered curse at woman’s

fickleness, but he saw the tiny fragments into which it was torn,

flutter past the window where he sat by Anna’s side. One, a longer strip

than the others, fell upon the window sill, and Adam picked it up,

reading involuntarily the words “Your unhappy Anna.”

Down in the depths of Adam’s heart there was a sob, a moan of anguish as

his fears were thus corroborated, but his face gave no token of the

fierce pain within. It was just as calm as ever, when it turned again to

Anna who was talking in her sleep, first of Herbert and then of Adam,

begging him to forget that he ever knew the little girl called Anna

Burroughs, or carried her over the rifts of snow to the school-house

under the hill. It seemed strange that she should grow sick so fast when

yesterday she had been comparatively well, but the sudden cold she had

taken the previous night, added to the strong excitement under which she

had been laboring, combined to spend the energies of a constitution

never strong, and the fever increased so rapidly that before the close

of the second day more than one heart throbbed with fear as to what the

end would be.

In spite of her lame ankle Mildred had managed to get into the

sick-room, urging Herbert to accompany her, and feeling greatly shocked

at his reply that “camphor and medicine were not to his taste.”

Herbert had not greeted his bride elect very lovingly, for to her

untimely appearance he attributed Anna’s illness and decision. He could

change the latter he knew, only give him the chance, but the former

troubled him greatly. Anna might die, and then—Herbert Dunallen did not

know what then, but bad as he was he would rather she should not die

with all that sin against Adam unconfessed, and out in the beech woods

where the night before he had planned with her their flight, and where

after leaving Mildred he repaired, he laid his boyish head upon the

summer grass and _cried_, partly as a child would cry for the bauble

denied, partly as an honest man might mourn for the loved one whose life

he had helped to shorten.

Regularly each morning the black pony from Castlewild was tied at the

cottage gate, while its owner made inquiry for Anna. He had discernment

enough to see that from the first his visits were unwelcome to Adam

Floyd, who he believed knew the contents of the note written him by

Anna. But in this last he was mistaken. All Adam knew certainly was

gathered from Anna’s delirious ravings, which came at last to be

understood by Mildred, who in spite of Mrs. Judge Harcourt’s entreaties

or those of her tall, handsome son, George Harcourt, just home from

Harvard, persisted in staying at the cottage and ministering to Anna.

For a time the soft black eyes of sweet Mildred Atherton were heavy with

unshed tears, while the sorrow of a wounded, deceived heart was visible

upon her face; but at length her true womanly sense of right rose above

it all, and waking as if from a dream she saw how utterly unworthy even

of her childish love was the _boy man_, whose society she shunned,

until, irritated by her manner, he one day demanded an explanation of

her coolness.

“You know, Herbert,” and Milly’s clear, innocent eyes looked steadily

into his. “You know far better than I, all that has passed between you

and Anna Burroughs. To me and her lover, noble Adam Floyd, it is known

only in part, but you understand the whole, and I am glad of this

opportunity to tell you that you are free from an engagement which never

should have been made, and of which you are weary. I did love you so

much Herbert, even though I knew that you were wayward. I loved you, and

prayed for you, too, every morning and every night. I shall do that yet,

wherever you are, but henceforth we are friends, and nothing more. Seek

forgiveness, first of God, and then of Adam Floyd, whom you thought to

wrong by wresting from him the little ewe-lamb, which was his all.”

Herbert looked up quickly. Wholly unversed in Scripture, the _ewe-lamb_

was Greek to him, but Mildred was too much in earnest for him to jest.

She had never seemed so desirable as now, that he had lost her, and

grasping her hand from which she was taking the engagement ring, he

begged of her to wait, to consider, before she cast him off.

“I was mean with Anna, I know, and I meant to run away with her, but

that is over now. Speak to me, Milly; I do not know you in this new

character.”

Milly hardly knew herself, but with regard to Herbert she was firm,

giving him no hope of ever recovering the love he had wantonly thrown

away.

After that interview, the black pony stayed quietly in its stable at

Castlewild, while Herbert shut himself up in his room, sometimes crying

when he thought of Anna, sometimes swearing when he thought of Mildred,

and ending every reverie with his pet words, “oh botheration.”

Each morning, however, a servant was sent to the cottage where, for

weeks, Anna hovered between life and death, carefully tended by her

mother and Mildred Atherton, and tenderly watched by Adam, who deported

himself toward her as a fond parent would toward its erring but

suffering child. There was no bitterness in Adam’s heart, nothing save

love and pity for the white-faced girl, whom he held firmly in his arms,

soothing her gently, while Mildred cut away the long, golden tresses, at

which, in her wild moods, she clutched so angrily.

“Poor shorn lamb,” he whispered, while his tears, large and warm,

dropped upon the wasted face he had not kissed since the night he and

Mildred watched with her and heard so much of the sad story.

But for the help which cometh only from on high, Adam’s heart would have

broken, those long bright September days, when everything seemed to mock

his woe. It was so different from what he had hoped when he built

castles of the Autumn time, when Anna would be with him. She was there,

it is true; there in the room he had called _ours_, but was as surely

lost to him, he said, as if the bright-hued flowers were blossoming

above her grave. She did not love him, else she had never purposed to

deceive him, and he looked drearily forward to the time when he must

again take up his solitary life, uncheered by one hope in the future.

She awoke to consciousness at last. It was in the grey dawn of the

morning, when Adam was sitting by her, while her mother and Mildred

rested in the adjoining room. Eagerly she seemed to be searching for

something, and when Adam asked for what, she answered: “The note; I had

it in my hand when I went to sleep.”

Bending over her, Adam said: “I found it; I gave it to him.”

There was a perceptible start, a flushing of Anna’s cheek and a

frightened, half pleading look in her eyes; but she asked no questions,

and thinking she would rather not have him there, Adam went quietly out

to her mother with the good news of Anna’s consciousness.

Days went by after that, days of slow convalescence; but now that he was

no longer needed in the sick-room, Adam stayed away. Tokens of his

thoughtful care, however, were visible everywhere, in the tasteful

bouquets arranged each morning, just as he knew Anna liked them—in the

luscious fruit and tempting delicacies procured by him for the weak

invalid who at last asked Mildred to call him and leave them alone

together.

At first there was much constraint on either side, but at last Anna

burst out impetuously, “Oh, Adam, I do not know what I said in my

delirium, or how much you know, and so I must tell you everything.”

Then, as rapidly as possible and without excusing herself in the least,

she told her story and what she had intended to do.

For a moment Adam did not speak, and when he did it was to ask if

Mildred had told her about Herbert. But his name had not been mentioned

between the two girls and thus it devolved upon Adam to explain. Herbert

had left the neighborhood and gone abroad immediately after Anna’s

convalescence was a settled thing.

“Perhaps he will soon come back,” Adam said, and Anna cried, “Oh, Adam,

I never wish him to return, I know now that I never loved him as—I—oh, I

wish I had died.”

“You were not prepared, and God spared you to us. We are very glad to

have you back,” Adam said.

These were the first words he had spoken which had in them anything like

his former manner, and Anna involuntarily stretched her hand toward him.

He took it, and letting it rest on his broad, warm palm, smoothed it a

little as he would have smoothed a little child’s, but what Anna longed

to hear was not spoken, and in a tremor of pain she sobbed out,

“In mercy, speak to me once as you used to. Say that you forgive me,

even though we never can be to each other again what we have been!”

“I do forgive you, Anna; and as for the rest I did not suppose you

wished it.”

Raising herself up, Anna threw her arms impetuously around his neck,

exclaiming,

“I do wish it, Adam. Don’t cast me off. Try me, and see if I am not

worthy. I have sinned, but I have repented too. Never were you so dear

to me! Oh, Adam, take me back!”

She was getting too much excited, and putting her arms from his neck,

Adam laid her upon the pillow, and said to her gently,

“Anna, my faith in you has been shaken, but my love has never changed.

You must not talk longer now. I’ll come again by and by, and meantime

I’ll send Miss Atherton. She knows it all, both from Herbert and

yourself. She is a noble girl. You can trust her.”

At Adam’s request Mildred went to Anna, and sitting down beside her,

listened while Anna confessed the past, even to the particulars of her

interview with Adam, and then added tearfully,

“Forgive me, and tell me what to do.”

“I should be an unworthy disciple of Him who said forgive, until seventy

times seven, if I refused your request,” was Mildred’s reply, as she

wound her arm around Anna’s neck, and imprinted upon Anna’s lips the

kiss of pardon.

Then, as Anna could bear it, she unfolded her plan, which was that the

invalid should return with her to her pleasant home at Rose Hill,

staying there until she had fully tested the strength of her love for

Adam, who, if she stood the test should come for her himself. As a

change of air and scene seemed desirable, Anna’s mother raised no

serious objection to this arrangement, and so one October morning Adam

Floyd held for a moment a little wasted hand in his while he said

good-bye to its owner, who so long as he was in sight leaned from the

carriage window to look at him standing there so lone and solitary, yet

knowing it was better to part with her awhile, if he would have their

future as bright as he had once fancied it would be.

* * * * *

Eight years have passed away, and on the broad piazza of Castlewild a

sweet-faced woman stands, waiting impatiently the arrival of the

carriage winding slowly up the hill, and which stops at last, while

Mildred Atherton alights from it and ascends the steps to where Anna

stands waiting for her. And Mildred, who for years has been abroad, and

has but recently returned to America, has come to be for a few weeks her

guest, and to see how Anna deports herself as the wife of Adam Floyd,

and mistress of beautiful Castlewild.

There is a sad story connected with Anna’s being there at Castlewild, a

story which only Mildred can tell, and in the dusky twilight of that

first evening when Adam was away and the baby Milly asleep in its crib,

she takes Anna’s hand in hers and tells her what Anna indeed knew

before, but which seems far more real as it comes from Mildred’s lips,

making the tears fall fast as she listens to it. Tells her how

Providence directed her to the room in a Paris hotel, where a fellow

countryman lay dying, alone and unattended save by a hired nurse. The

sick room was on the same hall with her own, and in passing the door

which was ajar, she was startled to hear a voice once familiar to her

and which seemed to call her name. Five minutes later and she was

sitting by Herbert Dunallen’s bedside and holding his burning hands in

hers, while he told her how long he had lain there with the fever

contracted in the south of France, and how at the moment she passed his

door he was crying out in his anguish and desolation for the friends so

far away, and had spoken her name, not knowing she was so near.

After that Milly was his constant attendant, and once when she sat by

him he talked to her of the past and of Anna, who had been three years

the wife of Adam Floyd.

“I am glad of it,” he said. “She is happier with him than she could have

been with me. I am sorry that I ever came between them, it was more my

fault than hers, and I have told Adam so. I wrote him from Algiers and

asked his forgiveness, and he answered my letter like the noble man he

is. There is peace between us now, and I am glad. I have heard from him,

or rather of him since, in a roundabout away. He lost his right arm in

the war, and that will incapacitate him from his work. He can never use

the hammer again. I do not suppose he has so very much money. Anna liked

Castlewild. In fact I believe she cared more for that than for me, and I

have given it to her;—have made my will to that effect. It is with my

other papers, and Milly, when I am dead, you will see that Anna has her

own. I did not think it would come quite so soon, for I am young to die.

Not thirty yet, but it is better so, perhaps. You told me that you

prayed for me every day, and the memory of that has stuck to me like a

burr, till I have prayed for myself, more than once, when I was well,

and often since shut up in this room which I shall never leave alive.

Stay by me, Milly, to the last; it will not be long, and pray that if I

am not right, God will make me so. Show me the way, Milly, I want to be

good, I am sorry, oh, so sorry for it all.”

For a few days longer he lingered, and then one lovely autumnal morning,

when Paris was looking her brightest, he died, with Milly’s hand in his,

and Milly’s tears upon his brow.

And so Castlewild came to Anna, who had been three years its mistress

when Milly came to visit her, and on whose married life no shadow

however small had fallen, except, indeed, the shadows which are common

to the lives of all. When her husband came home from the war a cripple,

as he told her with quivering lips, her tears fell like rain for him,

because he was sorry, but for herself she did not care; he was left to

her, and kissing him lovingly she promised to be his right arm and to

work for him if necessary, even to building houses, if he would teach

her how. But poverty never came to Adam Floyd and Anna, and probably

never would have come, even if there had been no will which left them

Castlewild. That was a great surprise, and at first Adam hesitated about

going there. But Anna persuaded him at last, and there we leave them,

perfectly happy in each other’s love, and both the better, perhaps, for

the grief and pain which came to them in their youth.

THE END

OF

ADAM FLOYD.

JOHN LOGAN’S THOUGHTS ABOUT REPAIRING OLD HOUSES.

My wife was Priscilla Lord, daughter of the Hon. Erastus Lord, but I

always call her Cilly for short, and she rather likes that pet name,

inasmuch as it is not spelled with an S. We had been married and kept

house ten years, and it had never occurred to me that we were not as

comfortable, and cozy, and happy as our neighbors, until one Saturday

night in the month of May, when I was superintending the packing of my

shirts, and socks, and neckties, preparatory to a business trip which I

was to make for the firm which employed me, and which was to last four

weeks positively, if not longer. Then, after sewing on the last button,

and darning the last sock, and wondering why men always wore out their

heels and toes so fast, Cilly suddenly informed me that we were neither

cozy nor comfortable, nor respectable, in the present condition of

things.

I was taking off my boots, and sat staring at her with one uplifted in

the air, while she went on to say that the view from our bed-room was

just horrid, looking out upon nothing but a lane, and a board fence, and

Mrs. Patterson’s kitchen—that we had no china closet proper at all,

which was a shame for people of our means—that we had to pass through

the dining-room to go down cellar, which was a great inconvenience—that

we had no conservatory, and the bay window was always crowded with

plants in the winter, giving a littered appearance to the room—that the

west piazza was altogether too short a walk for her mother, who had

lived with us for the past year, and who needed a longer promenade,

especially in bad weather. And she continued to inform me further that

there was space for such a nice room in the attic, which we really

needed in the summer when the house was full, and Lizzie was there with

all her children and the nurse.

I liked Lizzie, and liked the children, and liked to have them with us,

especially as there were no little Logans of my own playing in the yard;

but I thought three spare rooms ought to be enough for them, until I

reflected that my mother-in-law, Mrs. Erastus Lord, now occupied one of

the spare rooms, leaving a surplus of only two, so I still kept silent

until Cilly, thinking she had succeeded in convincing me that of all

tucked-up, inconvenient, disreputable houses in town, ours was the

worst, went on to say that she thought and her mother thought, and her

grandma thought, (grandma was the old Mrs. Lord of all, Mrs. Erastus,

senior,) that we ought to “go through a set of repairs;” I think that’s

the way she worded it, and as brother John had left her two thousand

dollars “_to do just exactly what she pleased with_” she had made up her

mind to repair, and was going to do it while I was away, so as to save

me all the trouble of the muss, and—and—Cilly got a little confused here

and stammered a good deal, and finally went on rapidly: “You see, I have

quite decided, and mother has seen the men, and they are coming Monday

morning, and it will all be done beautifully before you get back, and

you’ll never know the old hut at all.”

I felt a little hurt to hear her stigmatize, as the old hut, what we had

thought so pretty and nice when we took possession of it ten years ago,

but had no time to protest before she added:

“I didn’t mean to tell you, as I wished to see how surprised you would

be when you returned; but I was afraid something might happen, the

carpenters get sick, or you come home sooner than you intended, and so I

had to tell you. See, here is the plan. I had an architect come and make

it the day you were in New York. Isn’t it lovely, and such an

improvement?”

I looked at the paper which she held toward me, and saw on it a drawing

which reminded me of one of the boats of the White Star Line, it was so

long and narrow, with chimneys and smoke-stacks and gables jutting out

everywhere.

“Don’t you like it John?” Cilly asked, with a most rueful face, and I

replied:

“Why, yes, I dare say it is nice, but you see I haven’t the least bit of

building genius, and less imagination, so I’ve no idea what it’s to be.”

“Why, John, what a stupid; that’s the new piazza, and maybe the front

door will have to be moved, and that’s the new gable, and that’s the

conservatory, and here is our room right over the kitchen.”

“Over the kitchen!” and I involuntarily sniffed as I thought of onions,

and codfish, and boiled cabbage, each one of which was a favorite dish

of mine, though I did not like the smell in my sleeping room.

Cilly understood my meaning and hastened to say:

“Oh, we have fixed all that; there’s to be deafening, a double floor and

a whole lot of mortar, and we shall never hear a sound nor smell a

smell, Jane is so quiet; and it will be so pleasant with a broad balcony

and a door to go out. I wish you would try to have a little interest in

it, John.”

So I tried to be interested, but could not forbear asking her if she had

the slightest conception of all it involved, this raising the roof and

Cain generally; and then she cried, and the Lord part of her got the

ascendant, and she said I was _mean_, and an _old fogy_, and a

_conservative_, and a—well, she called me several names, and then we

made it up, and I told her to fix away, and knock things endways if she

wanted to, and that’s about the way matters stood Monday morning, when I

said good-bye to her at half-past six and hurried to the train. She was

up to see me off, the carpenters were coming at seven, and she must be

ready to receive them.

“You won’t know the house when you get home,” she said, “it will be so

changed and improved; and if you are at all puzzled to find it, look for

the very biggest and handsomest place on the street. Good-by.”

She was so elated with her repairing that I do not think she was a bit

sorry to have me go, and this did not console me much, or make me take

any more kindly to the repairs. I did not hear from her for three or

four days, and then she was in high spirits. Such nice men as the

carpenters were, and such fun to superintend them: she began to think

nature had intended her for a builder, or at least a designer of houses.

I groaned a little for fear my hitherto quiet, satisfied Cilly should

develop a propensity for building, and ruin me entirely. It was in her

family on both sides, for old Mrs. Erastus Lord had ruined her husband

that way, while Mrs. Erastus, junior, had sunk over twenty thousand

dollars on a place which originally cost five thousand, and which when

completed looked as if it had been taken up and shaken by a high wind

and thrown down promiscuously. But I hoped better things of my little

Cilly, and resuming her letter, read that the piazza was going up so

fast, and they had not yet done a single bit of damage, except to knock

a hole through one of the front door lights, and kill the ivy, which was

just growing so beautifully, and which had come all the way from

Kenilworth.

The next letter was not quite so hilarious and assured, though Cilly was

still hopeful and plucky, notwithstanding that four windows had been

broken, and the arm of my Apollo Belvidere, which I had bought in

Florence, and a whole lot of plaster, had fallen from the ceiling of the

room where she was sitting, and a man’s leg came right through, lathing

and all. I think the leg disturbed her more than all the other mishaps,

though her mother told her it was nothing at all to what she must

expect, but she didn’t think it was nice, and it was such a muss to have

four carpenters, three masons, two tinners, three painters, besides a

boy to lath, and a man to clean up, and the two thousand dollars would

not begin to pay for it all, and I must make some arrangements, whereby

she could get some more money, and if I could she’d like me to stay away

as long as possible, not that she did not miss me awfully, and the days

seemed a month each, but she did want the house done before I returned,

and it went on so slowly, though mother said they were the best workmen

she ever saw.

This was the substance of Cilly’s letter, and I did not hear from her

again except a few hurried lines saying she was well, and the house

progressing, and both drains stopped up, and a chimney blown down, and

the hard finish in one of the rooms spoiled by the rain which beat in

just as they got the eaves-trough off. This was about as I had expected

it would be, but I was sorry for Cilly, and sorry that my business kept

me away from her six weeks instead of four, as I had at first proposed.

But the day came at last for me to go home, and I almost counted the

minutes, until there came a whiz and a crash, and we were off the track,

with baggage car smashed but nobody hurt. This made it very late,

midnight in fact, when we reached Morrisville, and, valise in hand, I

stepped out upon the platform. It was the darkest night I think, I ever

knew, and the rain was falling in torrents. Fortunately, however, there

was a solitary cab in waiting, and I took it and bade the negro drive me

to No.— Guelph street. But he was a stranger in the place, and stared at

me stupidly until I explained where Guelph street was, and then

remembering what Cilly had said about looking for the handsomest and

largest house, bade him drive to the best and most stylish house in the

street, if he knew which that was.

“Yes, sar, I done knows now,” and with a grin he banged the door,

mounted his box and drove me _somewhere_, and I alighted, paid my fare,

and _heard_ him depart, for I could not see him, or the house either,

except with the eye of faith, but of course it was mine, and I groped my

way through the gate and up to the front door, to which I tried to fit

my night-key, in vain, and after fumbling awhile at the key hole, and

trying a shutter to see if it was unfastened, I was hunting for the bell

knob, when suddenly a window from above was opened; there was a clicking

sound, and then the sharp ring of a pistol broke the midnight stillness.

I was not hit, but a good deal scared, and yelled out:

“For Heaven’s sake, Cilly, what do you mean by firing away at a chap

like this?”

“John Logan, is that you? We thought it was a burglar. What are you here

for?” some one called from the window, while at the same moment the gas

flashed up in the hall and showed me where I was.

Not at my house at all, but at the large boarding house at the upper end

of the street, kept by a dashing grass widow. Hastily explaining my

mistake, I said good night to Bob Sawyer, one of the boarders, whose

loud laugh discomfited me somewhat as I felt my way into the street and

started toward home.

This time I was sure I was right by the trees near the gate, but the

front door was gone—moved, and not wishing to venture into unknown

regions, I concluded to try the bath-room door, for our rooms were

adjoining it, and I could easily speak to Cilly without alarming her. So

I tried it, and after floundering over piles of rubbish, and tearing my

trousers on broads full of nails, and plunging up to my knees in what

seemed to be a muddy ditch, and which smelled awfully, I suddenly found

myself plump in the cistern, with the water up to my chin; at the same

time I heard a succession of feminine shrieks, conspicuous among which

was Cilly’s voice, crying out:

“Oh, we shall all be murdered. It is a burglar. Throw something at him.”

And they _did_ throw—first a soap dish, then the poker, then the broom,

and lastly a pair of my old boots.

“Cilly, Cilly!” I screamed; “are you mad? It’s I, John, drowning in the

cistern.”

Then such a Babel as ensued; such a scrambling down stairs, and opening

of doors, and thrusting out of tallow candles into the darkness. But I

was out of the cistern by this time, and, wet as a drowned rat,

confronted Cilly in her night-gown and crimping-pins, and asked her

“What the deuse was up?”

“Oh, John!” she sobbed; “everything is up; the drain,” (that explained

the smell), “the floor, and the pump, and the walk, and I’ve had such a

dreadful time, and mother’s down with the rheumatism, and Jane has

sprained her ankle, and Mary has gone, and I have got such a cold, and

the town is full of burglars, and I thought you were one, and I wish we

hadn’t repaired, it’s all so nasty and awful.”

The next day, which was Sunday, I had ample time to survey the premises.

There was a double piazza on three sides, which was an improvement; but

the hall door was changed, which wasn’t. Then the little conservatory,

hitched on to the double bay window, which looked like its father, was

doubtful. But all this was nothing to the confusion which reigned at the

back of the house; I only marveled that I had not broken my neck. The

walk was up, the drain was up, the pump was up, the pipes were up, the

cistern floor was up, and the kitchen roof was up, as well, looming into

the sky, but the room was far from being finished.

Nothing had worked as she hoped it would, Cilly said, and everything

went wrong, especially the eaves-troughs, and conductors, and pipes, and

it always rained just at the wrong time, and the cellar filled with

water, and everything floated like a boat, and the plastering came down

on the stove when Jane was getting dinner, and the soot came down from

the chimney on Mary’s clean clothes, and just as she got them all washed

again and hung out, they came with a lot of lumber and she had to take

them down, and things got so bad that she left in disgust, and Jane had

fallen into the drain and sprained her ankle, and mother was sick in

bed, and the carpets all up, and, worse than all, the Dunnings were

coming next week from New York, and it was more than Cilly could bear.

Of course, I told her I’d help her bear it, and I put my shoulder to the

wheel and wrote to the Dunnings to defer their visit, and began to

investigate matters, which I found had become a little loose, to say the

least of it. The men were good enough and faithful enough, and the

troubles Cilly had encountered were only the troubles incident upon

repairing any old house, a job which is quite as trying to one’s

patience, and as exasperating as putting up a stove pipe when no one

joint fits another, particularly the elbows, and the result is that new

pipe is almost always bought to take the place of the old. So with our

house; nothing was right, nothing would do again. No matter how good or

how long the piece of conductor, or lead pipe, or bit of siding or

floor, it would not fit, and it went to swell the pile of rubbish which,

in our back yard was almost mountain high, and reminded me of the

excavations in Rome, when I first looked out upon the debris that dreary

Sunday morning. But Monday showed a better state of things. I saw that

the open drain and cistern hurt Cilly the most, and so I had them closed

up first and then plunged into the midst of the repairing, myself, and

was astonished to find how rapidly I began to develop a talent for the

business. I believe, after all, there is something exhilarating in the

smell of fresh plaster, and something exciting in walking over piles of

old lath, and bits of broken siding, and base boards, and moldings, and

matched stuff, and so on through the whole list of terms in a

carpenter’s vocabulary. I came to know them all, from _mitering_ to

_nosing_, though I never rightly made out the orthography of that last

word or its derivation either, but I knew just what it was, and was

great on a squint to see if things were square or _plumb_, as Billy

called it, and I think I made them change one window three times, and a

certain door twice. What a propensity they did have for getting things

wrong, that is, according to my ideas, and poor Cilly had been driven

nearly crazy with windows just where she did not want them, and doors

opening against her furniture. Then, too, she informed me, she began to

suspect that the men thought she was strong-minded, and wanted to vote,

because she superintended them, and was always in the thickest of it,

and exactly in their way. Whether they liked masculine rule better, I

never heard. I only know that they all worked well and faithfully, and

they certainly did get on faster when they were not obliged to pull down

one day what they had done the day before. This had been Cilly’s method

of procedure, aided and abetted by her mother, whom the men stigmatized

as “the old one,” and who spied upon them from every keyhole, and came

unexpectedly upon them from every corner. She was disabled now, and

could only issue daily bulletins to which I paid no heed, and so the

repairs went on, and just three months after the first nail was driven

the last man departed, and we went to work setting to rights, which

would have been delightful business, if only we could have found our

things, but everything was lost or mislaid. Curtain fixtures were gone;

door keys were gone; stair rods were missing; screw drivers and

tack-hammers could not be found; wood-saw broken; both trowels lost;

water pails full of plaster, and all the brooms in the house spoiled, to

say nothing of the dusters and dust pans broken, and dippers lost.

But then, we had a double piazza, and a place for flowers, and a china

closet so big that I had to spend a hundred dollars to fill it, and our

bed-room has two arches over the south windows, and a raised platform

behind them, and we have each of us a bureau in a dressing-room which

looks like a long hall, and I have four drawers all to myself for my

shirts and neckties, and a quarter of a closet, and there are east

windows and south windows, which make it so bright in the morning that

the flies bite me awfully, and we had to buy a mosquito net to keep them

off, and instead of being disturbed by Mrs. Patterson’s pump, and

looking into nothing but her back yard and kitchen, we now look into

Mrs. Alling’s barn-yard, with a most unsightly corn-crib in the center

of it, and Mrs. Alling’s roosters have a bad habit of crowing every

hour, while at about three or four o’clock in the morning, the noise is

so terrible, that I believe her hens crow too.

But Cilly likes that—it sounds rural and like the country; and our room

is lovely, with the two broad balconies where we sometimes have tea,

when the west wind is not too strong, the sun too hot, or the mosquitoes

too thick. Then it is such a nice place to smoke, but Cilly never lets

me do that any more; she only smiles so sweetly on her gentlemen

friends, and tells them it’s a nice place, that I am tempted to try it

sometimes surreptitiously, when she and her mother are down town at some

of the temperance meetings, but her mother would smell me a mile off,

and so I forbear.

Honestly, though, I do enjoy the balconies, and I rather like the arches

over the windows, which I call the _twins_, and which are very pretty.

They ought to be, for they cost enough. I’ve never told Cilly just how

much I paid, besides her brother’s windfall, but when the greedy

assessors tucked an extra four thousand on our house because of the

_improvements_, I wondered how they guessed so accurately.

We have five spare rooms now, but the new one in the attic, which was

built for Lizzie’s children and the nurse, has never been occupied. The

nurse is afraid to sleep there, you have to pass through such a

menagerie of trunks, and broken chairs, and rag bags, and old hoop

skirts, and cast off pants, and last year’s bonnets, to get to it, that

it gives her the horrors, and as the children will not sleep without

her, that room was made for nothing except to show.

Mrs. Erastus Lord, senior, is dead, and Cilly was very sorry, when she

died, and I suppose I was sorry, too; and I _know_ I was glad when Mrs.

Erastus, junior, recovered the use of her limbs, and sailed away to

Europe, where she finds the manners and customs more congenial to her

taste than here.

Cilly and I live very quietly together now, and I do not believe she has

any thought of repairing again, though she has told me in confidence

that the next time she does so, she means to stow the furniture in the

barn, and knock the plaster off from all the old walls, which were so

badly cracked when the house was fixed the last time; but when she

actually gets to that point, as true as my name is John Logan, I’ll lock

her up in a lunatic asylum and then commit suicide.

THE PASSION PLAY

AT OBERAMMERGAU, 1880.

We have seen the great Passion Play, and the day is nearly over which we

have anticipated so long, and to which every plan has been made

subservient, since we crossed the ocean. And now, while the streets are

full of people and the twilight shadows are falling over Mt. Kofel,

where the tall cross shows so conspicuously, I sit down to write my

impressions of the wonderful drama, which, during the summer, has

attracted nearly 100,000 visitors to this little, quiet, old-fashioned

town, among the hills of Bavaria. The high and the low, the rich and the

poor, the titled lord and the lowly peasant meet here together, jostling

side by side, sharing the same fatigue and discomfort, and deeming

neither too great a price to pay for the object they have in view.

Before speaking of the play in detail, it may not be out of place to say

something of the way to reach Oberammergau, and of the town itself; and

so, first, the journey there.

Nearly all the Americans and English who visit Oberammergau, make Munich

their starting-point; consequently the city is at this season crowded to

its utmost capacity, and reminds one of Philadelphia during the

Centennial. Naturally a great deal of anxiety is felt by the tourist

with regard to his pilgrimage to the valley of the Ammer, especially as

he hears such exaggerated accounts of the difficulties to be encountered

on the way, and he is at times half tempted to give it up as something

unattainable. When we reached Munich, on Friday, August 20th, and made

inquiries at our hotel as to the probability of our getting tickets for

August 29th, we were looked upon as lunatics for entertaining such a

thought.

It was impossible under any circumstances to procure a place for the

29th, we were told by the clerk. There would be at least 6,000 people

there, with accommodations for 2,000, and our only way was to wait

quietly at the hotel until Sunday, the 29th; then take Gaze’s tickets,

which were to be had in the office for forty-five marks each, and go to

see the play on Monday, as it was sure to be repeated.

Gaze, let me say, is an enterprising English tourist agent, who has

opened a hotel at Oberammergau, and advertizes to board and lodge you

for two days and carry you to and from the railway station at Murnau,

where you leave the cars, for forty-five marks, which are equal to

$11.25 of American money,—a pretty good price, it seemed to us, to pay

for two days’ board and a drive of sixteen miles; but we accepted it as

inevitable, and settled down quietly to wait, until Providence threw in

our way an English clergyman, who changed our plans entirely.

“Don’t believe one word they tell you at the hotels,” he said. “They

wish to keep you here as long as possible. Don’t listen to them. Don’t

touch a Gaze ticket. Don’t touch a Cook ticket. Don’t touch anybody’s

ticket, but just run your own canoe.”

On second considerations I am inclined to think he did not use that last

expression, which I believe is purely American, but that was what he

meant, and he went on to say: “Write to the burgomaster yourself and ask

for the highest priced tickets. You’ll not get them, but you will get

something. Neither will he answer your letter, but your name will be

recorded and remembered when you prefer your claim. Go on Friday by the

early train to Murnau, where you will find hundreds of carriages waiting

to take you to Oberammergau, and once there, get a place for yourself at

half the sum charged by Gaze or his agents.”

We followed the Englishman’s advice and wrote to the burgomaster, and on

Friday took the train for Murnau, distant from Munich sixty miles, and

from Oberammergau sixteen. Here we expected our troubles to commence,

for we doubted a little our English friend’s story of the carriages

waiting for us there; but he was right. There were hundreds of

them,—vehicles of every kind,—some good enough for a princess, and some

which looked as if Eve herself might have driven in them, had driving

been one of her pastimes. I even noticed a cow and a horse harnessed

together, but I hardly think they were there for the purpose of getting

passengers. At all events we did not take that establishment, but

chartering one, which had a pair of strong looking horses, we were soon

started on what proved to be the pleasantest drive we ever experienced,

and one we shall never forget.

There are two routes from Murnau to Oberammergau,—one through the little

village of Oberau and up the famous Mt. Ettal, which is so steep and

long that passengers are obliged to walk up it, or as a writer has

expressed it, “Rich and poor have to struggle with the steepness of Mt.

Ettal for over half an hour, while a pair of the best horses are

struggling hard to draw up an empty carriage.” Marvelous stories are

told of people who have had the apoplexy, and of horses which have died

toiling up this hill, and as none of our party had a fancy to try it, we

chose the other, and to my mind the pleasanter route of the two. It is a

little longer than the one through Ettal, but the road winds alternately

up and over hills neither too long or tiresome, and down through grassy

valleys fresh from a recent shower and sweet with the perfume of new

mown hay, and into which little brooks came tumbling from the mountains

which shelter Oberammergau and which are always in view. Long before we

reached the town I singled out one tall peak which from its peculiar

shape attracted my curiosity and which I found to be the far-famed

Kofel, on which the cross is erected and which bends over the little

hamlet as if in benediction. For this peak the people have a kind of

superstitious reverence, and when asked to repeat their play in America,

they replied, “We would do so gladly, but we must bring our Kofel with

us.”

As we came down into the valley and passed through Unterammergau our way

lay through a long avenue, bordered on either side with trees of

mountain ash, whose clusters of scarlet berries gave a bit of coloring

to the picture, and thus enhanced its beauty. I wish I could convey to

your minds a correct idea of the loveliness of that valley, and make you

see it, as we saw it that summer afternoon, when the sunlight fell so

softly upon the steep hillsides where the grass was green and smooth as

velvet, and little feathery wreaths of mist were floating on the

mountain tops, reminding one of the patches of snow seen in midsummer in

the Alps of Switzerland. Through the valley the Ammer runs swiftly,

making sundry turns and windings, as it goes singing on its way toward

the deep ravines, which lie beyond Unterammergau. At the end of the

ash-bordered avenue we crossed a little bridge and were at last in

Oberammergau.

It is not a pretty town, or a clean one either, notwithstanding that a

writer from whom I have before quoted, says, that “it is the cleanest

town in the Bavarian Alps.” Not having seen all the towns in the

Bavarian Alps, I am not prepared to dispute the assertion, but if

Oberammergau is the cleanest, what must the others be? The streets are

very narrow and crooked, and wind here and there in a crazy kind of

manner very bewildering to the stranger, who constantly loses his way.

But there is never any difficulty in finding it again, as the church,

with its peculiar dome, not unlike a Turkish mosque, is a good landmark,

as is also Gaze’s hotel, which stands very nearly in the center of the

town. This last building looks as if it might have been an old barn

before it was converted to its present use. It is very noisy around it,

and dirty, too, in the extreme. The streets do not look as if they were

ever picked up, and the open sewers are simply a nuisance to the eye and

an offense to the nostrils, as are also the stables, of which there are

quite as many as houses. Every dwelling has its barn, where the cows and

horses are kept, and every barn has its manure heap, piled and boarded

with great care, and standing close to the street, and oftentimes under

the very windows of the houses. The fleas are everywhere, and attack you

at all points, and travel over you until you feel like tearing your hair

in utter desperation. And yet we have been told by some that they have

not seen a flea. Truly their lot was cast in a more fortunate locality

than ours.

The houses of Oberammergau are for the most part small, old-fashioned

and peculiarly shaped, and very few have flowers or trees in front. They

stand mostly in the street, as it were, and are neither homelike nor

inviting in their outward appearance. Of course there are exceptions to

this rule, and we noticed several places where it would be a delight to

stay. But these had probably been engaged for weeks, and when we drove

to one of them which had a pretty yard in front, we were received with a

shake of the head. At last, however, we found rooms in a sort of

_dependence_ to a restaurant near Gaze’s hotel, and though the stables

were here, and more smells than poor, abused Cologne ever boasted, and

though directly under our window there was a beer garden, where I knew

the peasantry would probably spend most of the night, we concluded we

were fortunate to get even such quarters, and tried to feel contented

and cheerful, until in walking about the town we came upon a tiny little

cottage standing in a patch of turnips, with the muck heap behind the

house instead of in front of it. There were some boxes of flowers in the

window, and the face of the old lady who sat on a bench by the door was

so pleasant and attractive that we accosted her, and were told that “we

could have the upper floor if we liked,—would we step in and look?”

There were but four rooms in the whole house, two below, the kitchen and

the living room,—and two above, but these were scrupulously clean, and

so odd-looking and delightful every way, that we decided at once to take

them. Now, men are supposed to be more courageous than women, but the

head of our party proved the contrary in this instance, and did not

hesitate to say that alone and unprotected he dared not face the woman

with the tumbled hair and dirty hands, who had smiled so blandly when we

took the rooms we were about to give up. He must have help, he said, for

though the Oberammergauers have the reputation of being very heavenly in

their dispositions, he suspected our late hostess might be an exception

to the general rule, and with her voluble French and German and English,

all utterly incomprehensible, prove more than a match for him. So we

went in a body, and I, as the one most interested in the change,

undertook to explain to her very meekly that though her rooms were

excellent in their way, and she herself everything to be desired in a

landlady, I was afraid the beer garden under my window might disturb me,

and we had found rooms in a quieter part of the town, where I should be

more likely to sleep. I might have spared myself the sweetness and

apologies, for they were lost upon her. With fierce gestures and

flashing eyes she poured out a torrent of words, which, as nearly as I

could judge, meant, that of all the mean people it had been her fortune

to meet, we were the meanest and the worst; that her beer garden was as

still as the grave, and if I could not sleep over it, the sooner I got

out of her house, the better; then, taking Mr. Holmes’s traveling bag,

she hurled it into the hall in a fashion which made Walter turn pale,

and showed that she meant business. It was in vain that I tried to

appease her; I only made matters worse, as she grew more furious and

looked as if fully capable of taking me up bodily and throwing me from

the window into her beer garden, the cause of the trouble. So we hurried

away with our bags and bundles and were soon in possession of our new

apartments, to which we ascended by means of a step-ladder, shutting the

trap door behind us.

What funny little rooms they were, with scarcely space to turn round or

stand upright! We had but one sheet, and our covering was a feather bed,

while one towel served for the day. There were little bits of windows

which opened like doors, and our looking-glass was about a foot square.

There were madonnas and saints and crosses on the wall, and presses

which smelled of mint and musk, and boxes and drawers, and curiosities

of various kinds, but the linen was white as snow, and the bare floor

was clean as soap and water could make it, as was every part of the

house, and with a deep feeling of thankfulness for our good luck, we

disposed of our baggage as well as we could, and went out to see the

town.

The next day, Saturday, was the day for the arrivals, and from early

morning until night they poured steadily in, until the town was full as

it could hold. Where all the people staid is a mystery. In our little

cottage the family slept in the woodshed, while on the night preceding

the play, some of their friends slept on the floor of the living room. A

full description of the variety of accommodations would fill a volume.

Some of our friends reported no sheet at all upon their beds; others

slept on pillows of hay, while others again boasted two sheets and a

lounge, with preserves and cake for supper. It was very amusing to watch

the new arrivals and see the fastidious lady hold high her silken skirts

and glance ruefully at her dainty boots, as she was set down before a

door which did not look very inviting; to see, too, the Tyrolese peasant

woman, who had walked into town with her basket of provisions on her

arm, and with no idea where she was to sleep. She had no anxiety with

regard to her wooden shoes, nor did she hold up her cotton gown, for it

was already above her ankles and expanded by a hoop, such as was worn

years ago. Her home was far up among the Tyrol mountains, and she had

come miles to see the play; but she was brisk as a bee, and after

greeting her acquaintances, whose costumes, like her own, were of most

wonderful fashion, she started with them across the meadow and up the

steep declivity, in the direction of Mt. Kofel to say her prayers before

the monument.

This is a marble group, representing a scene from the crucifixion—Christ

upon the cross, with his mother and John standing on either side. It is

the gift of the present king, Ludwig of Bavaria, to the Oberammergauers,

in commemoration of the play of 1870, which he witnessed. It is said to

be the work of Halbig, of Munich, and as a work of art is very

beautiful. As it is very large and stands high, it attracts the

attention at once, and hundreds of the tourists climb the hill to

examine it, while most of the peasantry go there to pray before it,

kneeling, some upon the ground and some upon the wooden benches placed

there for that purpose. The view from the monument is very fine, and of

itself repays one for the fatigue of the ascent. Leading from it to the

village is a higher and dryer, though longer road than the one across

the meadow, and this we took on our return, following it until we

reached the Church of Oberammergau.

It stands very near the swiftly running Ammer, in which some peasants

were washing their clothes when we crossed the bridge and entered the

church yard, where the curious crosses and headstones which marked the

graves of the dead made us linger a while to examine them and read the

names and dates upon them. It would seem that almost a third of the

persons buried there were Langs. Indeed, the Lang family is a very large

one in Oberammergau. The burgomaster is a Lang; St. John is a Lang; Mary

Magdalen is a Lang; Caiaphas is a Lang, and several of the singers are

also Langs.

The church itself is not very large or pretentious outwardly, and we

were surprised to find so much ornamentation inside. There was too much

gilding, it seemed to us, and the effect was rather tawdry than

otherwise. There were a few good pictures, and under a glass case in an

angle near the altar is the skeleton of a woman, elaborately and richly

dressed, but looking ghastly and horrible to those unaccustomed to such

sights. The church is chiefly interesting as being in one sense the

training school for the Passion Play. With its ceremonies, its

processions, its music and its singing, it prepares the actors for the

parts they take, and keeps the scenes of the betrayal and crucifixion

constantly in their minds. Its pastor, the good and aged Daisenberger,

should be mentioned here as being closely identified with the play as it

now appears upon the stage. He was the son of a peasant and is now

eighty-two years of age. His youth was spent in the monastery of Ettal,

with Othmar Weiss, who revised the old Passion Play and adapted it to

more modern ideas. In 1845 Daisenberger became the head of the church in

Oberammergau and made many changes in the play, striking out whatever he

thought objectionable or absurd, and materially elevating its tone. He

has also written several plays of a more secular character, which are

repeated during the long winter months and constitute the only amusement

of the little town. At these dramatic representations he directs and

arranges in person, and when he is gone, his place cannot well be

filled. The selection of the actors for the Passion Play devolves upon a

committee of forty-five householders, with Daisenberger at their head,

and the election takes place the last week of the December previous to

the play. All the members attend divine worship first, as they never do

anything without a prayer for guidance, and this it is which makes the

great drama seem so sacred and holy. To them it is not to be lightly

entered into, and the characters are chosen from the best citizens,

whose lives are known to be perfectly upright and without reproach.

Precisely at seven o’clock on the evening preceding a play, the actors

assemble at the extreme end of the village, opposite the house of Tobias

Flunger, the Christus of 1850, and there form a procession, which,

headed by the band playing a lively tune, marches through the principal

streets to the meadow near the theatre, where they disband and return to

their several homes. It has been said that there is no rest in

Oberammergau on the night before a play, but we did not find it so. It

was very quiet around our cottage, and after ten o’clock scarcely a

sound was heard till morning, when at five o’clock the booming of the

cannon planted at the foot of Mt. Kofel awoke the slumbering people and

told them that the business of the day had commenced. The first gun was

followed by several others in quick succession until everybody was

awake. The actors—and, including the musical characters, there are

nearly five hundred in all—hurried to the church, where mass was

performed, as a preparation for what was to follow, while the visitors

hastened to get their breakfasts, so as to be at the theatre when the

doors opened.

There are but few reserved seats, and as these are taken weeks in

advance, our tickets merely entitled us to seats in a certain _platz_,

or division, without designating any particular spot.

The theatre is plain and unpretending outwardly, being built wholly of

boards, with no attempt at ornament of any kind. Inside it is also very

simple and has evidently never had much money expended upon it. Its

auditorium is 118 feet wide by 168 feet deep, and it occupies an area of

nearly 20,000 square feet, and is capable of seating an audience of from

5,000 to 6,000 people. There are visible to the spectator five distinct

places of action. First is the proscenium for choruses and processions,

and as this part of the stage is not under cover, the singers are always

exposed to the weather, and stand, a part of the time, with the sun

shining directly in their faces. When it rains they have no alternative

but to bear it, and we were told that they sometimes sang with umbrellas

over their heads.

The second place is the central stage for the _tableaux vivants_ and the

usual dramatic scenes; the third and fourth, which are reached by

stairs, are the palace of Annas and the palace of Pilate, while the

fifth represents the streets of Jerusalem.

Thus there is plenty of room, and never any undue crowding, even when

hundreds are on the stage, as in some of the tableaux. In front of, and

facing the theatre proper, is the long area occupied by the spectators

and divided into compartments varying in price from eight marks ($2) to

one mark (25 cents). The eight-mark seats are reserved, and have backs,

but all the others are simply benches, with nothing to lean upon, and

those nearest the stage, in the one-mark places, have no cover of any

kind; consequently, when it rains or the sun is very hot, those

unfortunate enough to be in that locality are neither comfortable nor

happy, especially as umbrellas are not allowed to be raised on account

of those behind, whose view would be obstructed. And yet, in default of

getting any thing better, these places are eagerly sought after, and

some stand through the entire play rather than not see it.

The broad space overhead is left open for the sake of the beautiful

landscape, which adds greatly to the effect. Casting your eye over and

beyond the stage, you see directly in front the quiet valley, with the

Ammer flowing through it; to the right are steep hillsides clothed with

grass, and dotted here and there with trees of fir, while to the left

and farther back Mt. Kofel lifts his cross-crowned head, and looks down

upon the play. A more lovely background could not be devised, and when

the eye was tired with the scenes upon the stage it was such a rest to

let it wander away to the green fields beyond, even if it did detect a

wicked Oberammergauer fishing complacently in the river, unmindful of

the commandment respecting the Sabbath day. Perhaps he thought he was

quite as well occupied as we, and others may think so, too, but these

have never seen the Passion Play, and do not know how forcible is the

lesson it teaches, or how real it makes what before has seemed so misty

and vague to those who cannot easily grasp the man Christ and make him

seem human and life-like.

By half-past seven the theatre was full of eager, curious people,

gathered from all parts of the world, and from every station in life,

from the nobility of aristocratic England down to the lowly peasant of

the Tyrol. Even royalty is sometimes represented, but the “blue box” set

apart for it was vacant to-day, for the Duke of Edinburgh, though

expected, it was rumored, did not come, and only Lord Houghton and Lady

Stanley and Lady George Gordon drew the eyes of the curious in that

direction. At last, the booming of the cannon was heard again, and then

over the waiting thousands there fell a hush of expectancy, while the

orchestra played a sweet and simple overture. Could we then have looked

behind the curtain which shut the stage from us, a novel and touching

sight, such as is not often seen upon the boards of a theatre, would

have met our view. Five hundred people kneeling in silent prayer and

asking God’s blessing upon what they were about to do. Again the booming

of the cannon was heard, followed quickly by the third and last. It was

eight o’clock; the curtain was drawn, the chorus of singers appeared

upon the stage, and the “Passion Play” we had come so far to see, had

commenced.

As most of our readers know, the Passion Play is performed in

fulfillment of a vow made by the people in 1633, when a fearful

pestilence was ravaging the villages in the valley. For a long time

Oberammergau was free from the plague, owing to the strictness of the

sanitary precautions; but it was brought to them at last by a laborer,

who had been working in an infected district, and who succeeded in

entering the town to see his wife and children. In a day or two he was

dead, and so rapidly did the disease spread, that in thirty-three days

eighty-four persons belonging to the village died. Then it was that the

terrified inhabitants met together and made a solemn vow that if God

would remove the dreadful scourge they would perform the Passion Play

every ten years. From that time there were no more deaths in

Oberammergau, and the play was acted the following year, 1634. The

decaded period, however, was not chosen until 1680, and since that time

the play has been performed every ten years, with more or less

interruptions. It must, however, have been known to the peasantry of

Bavaria before 1633, as history speaks of it at a much earlier period.

Since 1634 it has undergone many changes and modifications and been

stripped of much that was absurd and offensive. Once the devil was a

constant actor upon the stage, and used to dance around Judas during the

temptation, and when at last the betrayer hanged himself, a host of

demons rushed upon him, as if to bear him away to endless torment.

Later, too, the spectators were wont to groan and hiss when he appeared,

and even pelt him with dirt and stones, so that it was difficult to find

a man with sufficient nerve to take the part of _Judas_. Now, however,

this is changed, and the good taste of the Geistlicher-Rath

Daisenberger, is perceptible in every part of the play. In 1870 the play

was broken up by the Franco-German war. Forty of the Ammergauers were

called into the Bavarian army, and among them Joseph Maier, the

_Christus_ of that year. When the news of peace reached the valley,

fires were lighted on every mountain top from the Adenwald to the Tyrol,

and the villagers resolved to give a repetition of the play by way of

thanksgiving. It was a great success, and thousands of tourists went to

witness it, all of whom were loud in their praises of Joseph Maier,

whose acting cannot be excelled, and who, after the burgomaster, is

looked up to by the peasantry as a man second only in importance to the

good Daisenberger himself. But of him I shall speak more particularly by

and bye. I wish now to describe the opening scene, which heralded the

beginning of the play.

The chorus of Schutzgeister, or Guardian Angels, as they are called, is

a peculiar feature of the Ammergau stage and adds greatly to the

interest. The chorus consists of twenty-six singers, and the leader is

styled the Prologue, or _choragus_. Immediately after the third and last

cannon they appear, thirteen on a side, and march slowly and solemnly

into line. Their dresses are of various colors, and over them a white

tunic or colored mantle is worn, giving them a picturesque and oriental

appearance. Among them are several young women, some of whose faces are

very pretty and sweet, and they seem to feel that it is a religious duty

rather than a pleasure to stand thus before the five thousand pairs of

eyes gazing so fixedly at them. Each act of the play is preceded by one

or two _tableaux vivants_, as symbols or prophecies of scenes in the

life of Christ, and it is the part of the _choragus_, or chief singer,

to describe these tableaux and the lesson they are intended to teach.

This he does in song, his companions taking up the chorus at intervals,

and making the whole very impressive and interesting, especially as some

of the solos are finely rendered, in voices clear and sweet, if not

highly cultivated. The song or recitation ended, the _choragus_ steps

backwards and with half the singers marches to the left of the stage,

while the other half retire to the right, where they stand motionless as

statues, while the curtain is withdrawn from the inner stage, and the

tableau is exposed to view for two or three minutes, while, watch as

closely as you may, you cannot detect the slightest movement in the mass

of humanity so artistically grouped together.

The first tableau represented Adam and Eve being driven from the

Paradise, which lay in the background, while, conspicuous in the center

of the garden, was the tree of life, laden with fruit, and among its

branches, the tempter, in the form of a serpent, was coiled. The second

tableau, which follows immediately after the close of the chorus,

revealed a large cross planted on a rock, with crowds of children

dressed in white kneeling around it in a worshiping attitude. The

prayers the children are supposed to be saying, are sung by the chorus,

who retire from the stage, and the first act of the great drama

commences.

Shouts of rejoicing and notes of glad singing were faintly heard,

seeming at first so far away that one could easily believe they came

from the green hilltops, seen over and beyond the theatre; nearer and

nearer they came, until the long procession appeared in view, and the

shouts and singing grew louder, as the thronging crowds, carrying palms

in their hands, welcomed to Jerusalem their master. Then it is that you

see _Joseph Maier_—the central figure of the play—the one on whom every

eye is fixed whenever he appears, and the sight of whom makes your heart

throb faster as you remember that the scenes you look upon were once a

reality, when Jerusalem opened wide her gates, and her streets resounded

with the loud hosannas of the multitude doing honor to the man riding in

their midst. A better _Christus_ than Joseph Maier could not have been

selected. Tall, finely formed, with a sad, pale face, and long, flowing

hair, he impresses you at once, and your first thought is what a

splendid looking man, and how well fitted for his part—a conviction

which deepens as the play progresses, and you watch him in all the

varied situations he has to fill. Not a trace of self-consciousness is

ever perceptible in his manner, which is always dignified and

self-possessed, like one who feels himself the master. His voice is

clear, and full, and rich, and you find yourself constantly listening

for it, especially toward the last, when the musical tones are full of

anguish or tender expostulation and disappointment, as he says to his

sleeping disciples: “Could ye not watch with me one hour?”

As a general thing, he was well sustained. Judas was inimitable, and

considering the character he had to take, may almost be said to be

better than Joseph Maier himself. With the latter every heart was in

sympathy, while for Judas there naturally could be but one feeling, and

that of indignation, but so powerfully was he tempted by the artful

Pharisees, and so hard and long did he struggle against the temptation,

and so bitter was his repentance when the deed was done, that you have

only a deep sympathy for him as he stands alone by himself and gives

vent to his remorse. I can see him now so plainly as he walked the

stage, wringing his hands in his despair, and catching at his long gray

hair as he lamented his folly, and with bitter cries mourned for the

dear friend he had betrayed. You do not see him hang himself, but you

see him make a rush at the mountain ash, placed there for that purpose,

and which hardly looks as if it would sustain him. But the curtain falls

in time to shut out any inconsistencies, and poor Judas “goes to his own

place,” and is seen no more.

Next to _Judas_ in point of acting comes rash, impetuous and cowardly

_Peter_, who, even if you did not know the story, would impress you as a

loving, true hearted man, sure to weep bitterly over the denial called

forth by fear, and to be among the first to seek the tomb of the risen

Saviour.

_John_, the beloved, was a little too tame and quiet for the part he

took, while _Magdalen_ was an utter failure. One great feature of the

play was the perfect self-forgetfulness of the actors, but this did not

apply to _Magdalen_, whose self-consciousness was so apparent and whose

voice was so unnatural and peculiar that we were sorry when she appeared

and glad when she left the stage. Her personal appearance was quite

contrary to one’s idea of the _Magdalen_, to whom the old masters always

gave long, flowing hair of a reddish or golden hue, for hers was dark

and so short and thin that to wipe one’s feet with it was an utter

absurdity. She might, of course, have called in art to her assistance,

and worn hair of wondrous length and thickness, but such deceptions are

unknown to the Magdalen of Oberammergau, whose locks were all her own,

as were the few attractions she possessed. The Madonna, on the contrary,

was excellent, with a fair, sweet face, which would lead us to question

the propriety of selecting so young a person for the mother of Christ,

if we did not know that the Bavarian peasantry believe in the perpetual

youth and beauty of the Virgin Mary. The parting scene between the

mother and her son before he goes up to Jerusalem is very touching and

sad, for Mary’s heart is wrung with dismal forebodings of some evil

which will befall her child, and her voice is full of pathos and

entreaty, while with infinite love and tenderness he bends over her

trying to reassure and comfort her. This is the third act, and after the

supper in Simon’s house, where Mary anointed the Saviour’s head, and

Judas was filled with horror at the useless expenditure of the three

hundred pence.

The second act, of which I omitted to speak, represented the high

priests in session, and consulting together how to secure the person of

Christ. Conspicuous among these was _Caiaphas_, who was admirably

represented by one of the Langs, and who never for an instant forgot the

part he was acting, or ceased to be other than the proud and despotic

man thirsting for the blood of the lowly Nazarene.

In the fourth act we had the temptation of Judas, and in the fifth the

institution of the Lord’s Supper, when Christ washed his disciples’

feet, and foretold that one of them should betray him. Next we saw the

Garden of Gethsemane, over which the shadows of night hung darkly, and

where the Saviour, in his great agony, prayed for the cup to pass from

him, if possible; while, a little apart, his disciples were sleeping

heavily. In the distance and gradually approaching nearer, the sound of

loud, excited voices and hurried footsteps was heard, as the Roman

soldiers, with the Pharisees and chief priests, approached, led by

Judas, who even then seemed to hesitate before giving the kiss of

betrayal. The text of the history is here followed very closely, and

ends with the captivity of the Saviour, who is borne away by the

soldiers.

By this time it was nearly twelve, and an intermission of an hour was

given, in which the spectators hurried to their lunch and were again in

their places by the time the cannon in the meadows announced that the

drama was about to be resumed.

As in the morning we followed the Saviour from his entry into Jerusalem

up to his betrayal, so in the afternoon we followed him to his

crucifixion and death, and saw him first before Annas, then before

Caiaphas, and then before Pilate, who strove so hard to save him, and

who, hoping to awaken the sympathy of the people for the man whose life

they sought, ordered Barabbas to be brought forth and placed side by

side with the noble captive. Where they picked up Barabbas is a marvel.

With long grey hair, which looked as if it never had been combed, and a

face from which you instinctively recoiled, he was led upon the stage by

a halter or chain,—a marked contrast to the calm, quiet dignity of

Joseph Maier, who, bound and bleeding from his recent scourging and the

crown of thorns, stood beside him before the rabble thirsting for his

blood and crying out, “Give us the Nazarene and let Barabbas go.”

Matters now are hurried on with great rapidity, and as the end comes

nearer and nearer, the hush which all along has pervaded that vast

concourse grows more and more profound, and the tension to which the

peoples’ nerves are strung reaches its climax, when in the fifteenth act

you see the long procession winding its way up to Calvary, with the

white-faced, worn-out Saviour tottering under the weight of his heavy

cross, while the brutal soldiery urge him to greater speed, and the

infuriated mob rend the air with their shouts of hatred and derision.

Then the tears which have so long been kept back overflow, and the heart

throbs with a keen sense of love and pity and sympathy, not for _Joseph

Maier_, but for the man Christ, to whom this, which now is only acting,

was once a terrible reality, and who really trod the weary road to

Calvary, and bore not only the ponderous cross but the sins of the whole

world. Every one was more or less affected, and the silence of the

audience was almost painful in its intensity, though broken occasionally

by a suppressed whisper or low cry, as the crowd increased and the

boisterous shouts grew louder and the mob hurried the Saviour on, until

from sheer exhaustion he fell upon the ground, and the cross was finally

laid upon the shoulders of Simon of Cyrene, who conveniently appeared

with a carpenter’s basket on his arm. This ascent to Calvary is, I

think, more effective and affecting than the crucifixion, which is,

however, a most marvelous piece of acting, and seems terribly real as

you gaze at the central figure upon the cross, and fancy you see the

death struggle from the beginning, until the white, worn face drops

downward, and you are glad with a great gladness that all is over.

Thenceforward there is more stir among the people, and the tired ones,

who have sat so long, unmindful of fatigue, change their positions and

breathe more freely as they wait for the scene of the resurrection.

This, some critics say, might be omitted—that the play is long enough

without it; but I hardly agree with them, for what would the crucifixion

avail without the rising from the dead? And when at last the rock is

rolled away and Jesus is alive again and speaks to the loving Mary, you

experience something of the same thrill you feel on Easter morning, and

your thoughts go back to the dear home church across the sea, where you

have so often heard the Easter bells and joined in the Easter songs.

Loudly and joyfully the singers take up the chorus, “He is risen, He is

risen,” and if your tongue were tuned to their language you would almost

join them in their exultant strains. But a tableau representing the

ascension is to follow, and you sit quietly till that is over; then,

singing the final hallelujah chorus, the Schutzgeister slowly retire

from the stage and the play is over, and we leave the theatre with a

feeling that we have witnessed something which for all time to come,

will, like some earnest, heart-stirring sermon, repeat itself over and

over again in our minds, until we are made better by it.

THE END.

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 48, changed “Adelaide said, ingly” to “Adelaide said, jingly”.

2. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in

spelling.

3. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.

4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.

5. Denoted superscripts by a caret before a single superscript

character.