CHAPTER III.

Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added

by the transcriber.

LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_.

JUNE, 1873.

Vo. XI, No. 27.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A NEW ATLANTIS.

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867 by ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

SLAINS CASTLE by LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.

OUR HOME IN THE TYROL by MARGARET HOWITT.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

SAINT ROMUALDO by EMMA LAZARUS.

A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK

CHAPTER VIII. "O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!"

CHAPTER IX. "FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!"

THE EMERALD by A.C. HAMLIN, M.D.

BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

BOWERY ENGLAND by WIRT SIKES.

DAY-DREAM by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.

OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.

THE GLADSTONE FAMILY.

WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS.

THE RAW AMERICAN by PRENTICE MULFORD.

FAREWELL by LUCY H. HOOPER.

NOTES.

LITERATURE OF THE DAY.

_Books Received._

ILLUSTRATIONS

ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.

UP THE INLET.

LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.

CONGRESS HALL.

MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.

THE SENATE HOUSE.

ON THE SHINING SANDS.

MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.

THE THOROUGHFARE.

THE EXCURSION HOUSE.

A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.

ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.

AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.

THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.

A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.

KABYLE MEN.

KABYLE WOMEN.

DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.

AN ARAB MARKET.

POVERTY AND JEWELS.

GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.

A NEW ATLANTIS.

[Illustration: ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.]

The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day moving is over and settled,

and still a remnant of money is found sticking to the bottom of the

old marmalade pot. Where shall we go?

There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport?

But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity

of its _sangre azul_. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us

off to inspect the last new villa: we like the beach, and they bid

us enjoy the gardens, brought every spring in lace-paper out of the

florist's shop. We like to stroll on the shore, barefooted if we

choose, and Newport is become an affair of toilette and gold-mounted

harness, a bathing-place where people do everything but bathe.

[Illustration: UP THE INLET.]

Well, Nahant, then, or Long Branch?

Too slow and too fast. Besides, we have seen them.

Suppose we try the Isles of Shoals? Appledore and Duck Island and

White Island, now? Or Nantucket, or Marblehead?

Too stony, and nothing in particular to eat. You ask for fish, and

they give you a rock.

In truth, under that moral and physical dyspepsia to which we bring

ourselves regularly every summer, the fine crags of the north become

just the least bit of a bore. They necessitate an amount of heroic

climbing under the command of a sort of romantic and do-nothing Girls

of the Period, who sit about on soft shawls in the lee of the rocks,

and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of

your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate,

and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single

ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse

at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels

dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require

more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and

encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the making of a

steam-engine or the writing of a proposal.

No, no, we would admire nothing, dare nothing, do nothing, but only

suck in rosy health at every pore, pin our souls out on the holly

hedge to sweeten, and forget what we had for breakfast. Uneasy daemons

that we are all winter, toiling gnomes of the mine and the forge--"O

spent ones of a workday age"--can we not for one brief month in our

year be Turks?

[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.]

Our doctors, slowly acquiring a little sense, are changing their

remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But

hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few

improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician

used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his

watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where

he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise

a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For

lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course

of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di

quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart.

But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy

manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult

the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City."

--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet

luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea

with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water,

Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite

horizons.

But where and what _is_ Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the

continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of

a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest

distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into

the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence

of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age will account for

Atlantis. It is beneath shoddy and above mediocrity. It is below

Long Branch and higher up than Cape May. It is different from any

watering-place in the world, yet its strong individuality might have

been planted in any other spot; and a few years ago it was nowhere.

Its success is due to its having nothing importunate about it. It

promises endless sea, sky, liberty and privacy, and, having made you

at home, it leaves you to your devices.

[Illustration: CONGRESS HALL.]

Two of our best marine painters in their works offer us a choice of

coast-landscape. Kensett paints the bare stiff crags, whitened with

salt, standing out of his foregrounds like the clean and hungry

teeth of a wild animal, and looking hard enough to have worn out the

painter's brush with their implacable enamel. From their treeless

waste extends the sea, a bath of deep, pure color. All seems keen,

fresh, beautiful and severe: it would take a pair of stout New England

lungs to breathe enjoyably in such an air. That is the northern coast.

Mr. William Richards gives us the southern--the landscape, in fact,

of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have the infinitude of soft silver

beach, the rolling tumultuousness of a boundless sea, and twisted

cedars mounted like toiling ships on the crests of undulating

sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, the power and the peace of the

Desert.

And here let us be indulged with a few words about a section of our

great continent which has never been sung in rhyme, and which it

is almost a matter of course to treat disparagingly. A cheap and

threadbare popular joke assigns the Delaware River as the eastern

boundary of the United States of America, and defines the out-landers

whose homes lie between that current and the Atlantic Ocean as

foreigners, Iberians, and we know not what. Scarcely more of an exile

was Victor Hugo, sitting on the shores of Old Jersey, than is the

denizen of _New_ Jersey when he brings his half-sailor costume and his

beach-learned manners into contrast with the thrift and hardness of

the neighboring commonwealth. The native of the alluvium is another

being from the native of the great mineral State. But, by the very

reason of this difference, there is a strange soft charm that comes

over our thoughts of the younger Jersey when we have done laughing

at it. That broad, pale peninsula, built of shells and crystal-dust,

which droops toward the south like some vast tropical leaf, and

spreads its two edges toward the fresh and salt waters, enervated with

drought and sunshine--that flat leaf of land has characteristics that

are almost Oriental. To make it the sea heaved up her breast, and

showed the whitened sides against which her tides were beating. To

walk upon it is in a sense to walk upon the bottom of the ocean. Here

are strange marls, the relics of infinite animal life, into which

has sunk the lizard or the dragon of antiquity--the gigantic

_Hadrosaurus_, who cranes his snaky throat at us in the museum,

swelling with the tale of immemorial times when he weltered here in

the sunny ooze. The country is a mighty steppe, but not deprived of

trees: the ilex clothes it with its set, dark foliage, and the endless

woods of pine, sand-planted, strew over that boundless beach a murmur

like the sea. The edibles it bears are of the quaintest and most

individual kinds: the cranberry is its native condiment, full of

individuality, unknown to Europe, beautiful as a carbuncle, wild as

a Tartar belle, and rife with a subacid irony that is like the wit of

Heine.

[Illustration: MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.]

Here is the _patate douce_, with every kind of sweet-fleshed gourd

that loves to gad along the sand--the citron in its carved net,

and the enormous melon, carnation-colored within and dark-green to

blackness outside. The peaches here are golden-pulped, as if trying to

be oranges, and are richly bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid,

fascinating the taste like some enchantress of Venice, the pursuit of

whom is made piquant by a fancy that she may poison you. The farther

you penetrate this huge idle peninsula, the more its idiosyncrasy

is borne in on your mind. Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash of

air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, and heated jungles of dwarf oaks

balancing balmy plantations of pine. Then, toward the sea, the wiry

grasses that dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute possession with

the forests, and finally supplant them: the sand is blown into

coast-hills, whose crests send off into every gale a foam of flying

dust, and which themselves change shape, under pressure of the same

winds, with a slower imitation of the waves. Finally, by the gentlest

of transitions, the deserts and the quicksands become the ocean.

[Illustration: THE SENATE HOUSE.]

The shore melts into the sea by a network of creeks and inlets,

edging the territory (as the flying osprey sees it) with an inimitable

lacework of azure waters; the pattern is one of looping channels

with oval interstices, and the dentellated border of the commonwealth

resembles that sort of lace which was made by arranging on glass

the food of a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate and wove, having

voracity always before him and Fine Art behind him. Much of the

solider part of the State is made of the materials which enter into

glass-manufacture: a mighty enchanter might fuse the greater portion

of it into one gigantic goblet. A slight approximation to this work

of magic is already being carried on. The tourist who has crossed

the lagoons of Venice to see the fitful lights flash up from the

glass-furnaces of Murano, will find more than one locality here where

leaping lights, crowning low banks of sand, are preparing the crystal

for our infant industries in glass, and will remind him of his hours

by the Adriatic. Every year bubbles of greater and greater beauty

are being blown in these secluded places, and soon we hope to enrich

commerce with all the elegances of latticinio and schmelze, the

perfected glass of an American Venice.

But our business is not with the land, but the sea. Here it lies,

basking at our feet, the warm amethystine sea of the South. It does

not boom and thunder, as in the country of the "cold gray stones."

On the contrary, saturating itself with sunny ease, thinning its bulk

over the shoal flat beach with a succession of voluptuous curves, it

spreads thence in distance with strands and belts of varied color,

away and away, until blind with light it faints on a prodigiously far

horizon. Its falling noises are as soft as the sighs of Christabel.

Its colors are the pale and milky colors of the opal. But ah! what an

impression of boundlessness! How the silver ribbon of beach unrolls

for miles and miles! And landward, what a parallel sea of marshes,

bottoms and dunes! The sense of having all the kingdoms of the world

spread out beneath one, together with most of the kingdoms of the

mermen, has never so come to one's consciousness before. And again,

what an artist is Nature, with these faint washes and tenderest varied

hues--varied and tender as the flames from burning gases--while her

highest lights (a painter will understand the difficulty of _that_)

are still diaphanous and profound!

One goes to the seaside not for pomp and peacock's tails, but for

saltness, Nature and a bite of fresh fish. To build a city there that

shall not be an insult to the sentiment of the place is a matter of

difficulty. One's ideal, after all, is a canvas encampment. A range of

solid stone villas like those of Newport, so far as congruity with

a watering-place goes, pains the taste like a false note in music.

Atlantic City pauses halfway between the stone house and the tent, and

erects herself in woodwork. A quantity of bright, rather giddy-looking

structures, with much open-work and carved ruffling about the eaves

and balconies, are poised lightly on the sand, following the course

of the two main avenues which lead parallel with the shore, and the

series of short, straight, direct streets which leap across them and

run eagerly for the sea. They have a low, brooding look, and evidently

belong to a class of sybarites who are not fond of staircases. Among

them, the great rambling hotel, sprawling in its ungainly length here

and there, looks like one of the ordinary tall New York houses that

had concluded to lie over on its side and grow, rather than take

the trouble of piling on its stories standing. In this encampment of

wooden pavilions is lived the peculiar life of the place.

[Illustration: ON THE SHINING SANDS.]

We are sure it is a sincere, natural, sensible kind of life, as

compared with that of other bathing-shores. Although there are brass

bands at the hotels, and hops in the evening, and an unequal struggle

of macassar oil with salt and stubborn locks, yet the artificiality is

kept at a minimum. People really do bathe, really do take walks on the

beach for the love of the ocean, really do pick up shells and throw

them away again, really do go yachting and crab-catching; and if they

try city manners in the evening, they are so tired with their honest

day's work that it is apt to end in misery. On the hotel piazzas you

see beauties that surprise you with exquisite touches of the warm and

languid South. That dark Baltimore girl, her hair a constellation of

jessamines, is beating her lover's shoulders with her fan in a state

of ferocity that you would give worlds to encounter. That pair of

proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured in peach-pulp and

wrapped in gauze, look somehow like twin Muses at the gates of a

temple. Whole rows of unmatched girls stare at the sea, desolate but

implacable, waiting for partners equal to them in social position. In

such a dearth a Philadelphia girl will turn to her old music-teacher

and flirt solemnly with him for a whole evening, sooner than involve

herself with well-looking young chits from Providence or New York,

who may be jewelers' clerks when at home. Yet the unspoiled and fruity

beauty of these Southern belles is very striking to one who comes

fresh from Saratoga and the sort of upholstered goddesses who are

served to him there.

Some years ago the Surf House was the finest place of entertainment,

but it has now many rivals, taller if not finer. Congress Hall, under

the management of Mr. G.W. Hinkle, is a universal favorite, while the

Senate House, standing under the shadow of the lighthouse, has the

advantage of being the nearest to the beach of all the hotels. Both

are ample and hospitable hostelries, where you are led persuasively

through the Eleusinian mystery of the Philadelphia cuisine.

Schaufler's is an especial resort of our German fellow-citizens, who

may there be seen enjoying themselves in the manner depicted by our

artist, while concocting--as we are warned by M. Henri Kowalski--the

ambitious schemes which they conceal under their ordinary _enveloppe

débonnaire_.

[Illustration: MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.]

There is another feature of the place. With its rarely fine

atmosphere, so tonic and bracing, so free from the depressing fog

of the North, it is a great sanitarium. There are seasons when the

Pennsylvania University seems to have bred its wealth of doctors

for the express purpose of marshaling a dying world to the curative

shelter of Atlantic City. The trains are encumbered with the halt and

the infirm, who are got out at the doors like unwieldy luggage in

the arms of nurses and porters. Once arrived, however, they display

considerable mobility in distributing themselves through the three or

four hundred widely-separated cottages which await them for hire. As

you wander through the lanes of these cunning little houses, you catch

strange fragments of conversation. Gentlemen living vis-à-vis, and

standing with one leg in the grave and the other on their own piazzas,

are heard on sunny mornings exciting themselves with the maddest abuse

of each other's doctor. There are large boarding-houses, fifty or more

of them, each of which has its contingent of puling valetudinarians.

The healthy inmates have the privilege of listening to the symptoms,

set forth with that full and conscientious detail not unusual with

invalids describing their own complaints. Or the sufferers turn their

batteries on each other. On the verandah of a select boarding-house we

have seen a fat lady of forty lying on a bench like a dead harlequin,

as she rolled herself in the triangles of a glittering afghan. On a

neighboring seat a gouty subject, and a tropical sun pouring on both.

"Good-morning! You see I am trying my sun-bath. I am convinced it

relieves my spine." The same remark has introduced seven morning

conversations.

"And my gout has shot from the index toe to the ring toe. I feared my

slipper was damp, and I am roasting it here. But, dear ma'am, I pity

you so with your spine! Tried acupuncture?"

[Illustration: THE THOROUGHFARE.]

The patient probably hears the word as Acapulco. For she answers, "No,

but I tried St. Augustine last winter. Not a morsel of good."

Among these you encounter sometimes lovely, frail, transparent girls,

who come down with cheeks of wax, and go home in two months with

cheeks of apple. Or stout gentlemen arriving yellow, and going back in

due time purple.

Once a hardened siren of many watering-places, large and blooming,

arrived at Atlantic City with her latest capture, a stooping invalid

gentleman of good family in Rhode Island. They boated, they had

croquet on the beach, they paced the shining sands. Both of them

people of the world and past their first youth, they found an

amusement in each other's knowing ways and conversation that kept them

mutually faithful in a kind of mock-courtship. The gentleman, however,

was evidently only amusing himself with this travesty of sentiment,

though he was never led away by the charms of younger women. After a

month of it he succeeded in persuading her for the first time to

enter the water, and there he assisted her to take the billows in the

gallant American fashion. Her intention of staying only in the very

edge of the ocean he overruled by main force, playfully drawing her

out where a breaker washed partially over her. As the water touched

her face she screamed, and raised her arm to hide the cheek that had

been wet. She then ran hastily to shore, and her friend, fearing some

accident, made haste to rejoin her. His astonishment was great at

finding one of her cheeks of a ghastly, unhealthy white. Her color had

always been very high. That afternoon she sought him and explained.

She was really an invalid, she said calmly, and had recently undergone

a shocking operation for tumor. But she saw no reason for letting that

interfere with her usual summer life, particularly as she felt youth

and opportunity making away from her with terrible strides. Having

a chance to enjoy his society which might never be repeated, fearing

lest his rapid disease should carry him away from before her eyes, she

had concluded to make the most of time, dissemble her suffering, and

endeavor to conceal by art the cold bloodlessness of her face. This

whimsical, worldly heroism happened to strike the gentleman strangely.

He was affected to the point of proposing marriage. At the same time

he perceived with some amazement that his disease had left him: the,

curative spell of the region had wrought its enchantment upon his

system. They were wedded, with roles reversed--he as the protector and

she as the invalid--and were truly happy during the eighteen months

that the lady lived as his wife.

[Illustration: THE EXCURSION HOUSE.]

There are prettier and more innocent stories. Every freckle-nosed girl

from the Alleghany valleys who sweeps with her polka-muslin the

floors of these generous hotels has an idyl of her own, which she is

rehearsing with young Jefferson Jones or little Madison Addison. In

the golden afternoons they ride together--not in the fine turn-outs

supplied by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, but in guiltless

country wagons guided by Jersey Jehus, where close propinquity is a

delightful necessity. Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before

them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary

Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a

day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride

seems like eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the

landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf,

the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with foliage sliced off sharp and

flat by the keen east wind--their stems twisted like a dishclout or

like the olives around Florence.

[Illustration: A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.]

Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in

a boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the railroad bridge, you lean over

the side and see the dark glassy forms moving on the bottom. It is

shallow, and a short bit of string will reach them. The bait is a

morsel of raw beefsteak from the butcher's, and no hook is necessary.

They make for the titbit with strange monkey-like motions, and nip it

with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths;

and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but

tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under

water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on

their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a

freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious

girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill

in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr.

Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading

Plutarch, did a sly thing indeed. The boat having been drawn unnoted

into deeper water, a cunning negro boy who was aboard contrived

to slide down one side without remark, and the next trophy of the

feminine chase was a red _boiled_ crab, artificially attached to a

chocolate caramel, and landed with mingled feelings by the pretty

fisherwoman. Then what a tumult of laughter, feigned anger and

becoming blushes! It is said that that crimson shell, carved into

a heart-shape of incorrect proportions, is worn over Mr. Jones's

diaphragm to this day.

At the Inlet, which penetrates the beach alongside the lighthouse,

is draught for light vessels, and the various kinds of society which

focus at Atlantic City may be seen concentrated there on the wharf any

of these bright warm days. A gay party of beauties and aristocrats,

with a champagne-basket and hamper of lunch, are starting thence for

a sail over to Brigantine Beach. Two gentlemen in flannel, with guns,

are urging a little row-boat up toward the interior country. They will

return at night laden with rail or reed-birds, with the additional

burden perhaps of a great loon, shot as a curiosity. Others, provided

with fishing-tackle, are going out for flounder. Laughing farewells,

waving handkerchiefs and the other telegraphic signs of departure, are

all very gay, but the tune may be changed when the great sailing-party

comes back, wet and wretched, and with three of the principal beauties

limp as bolsters on the gentlemen's hands with sea-sickness.

Another spirited scene takes place at five in the morning--an hour

when the city beauties are abed with all that tenacity of somnolence

which characterizes Kathleen Mavourneen in the song. The husbands and

brothers, who are due in the city before business hours, are out for

a good, royal, irresponsible tumble in the surf. There is the great

yeasty bath-tub, full of merry dashing figures, dipping the sleek

shoulder to the combing wave. On the shore, active humanities hastily

undressing. Then the heavens are filled with a new glory, and the

dazzling sun leaves his bath at the same time with all these merry

roisterers who have shared it with him. He takes up his line of

business for the day, and so do the good husbands and brothers, first

going through a little ceremony of toilet from which he is exempt.

Thus does the New Atlantis provide for her republic, holding health to

her children with one hand, and shaking from the other an infinity of

toys and diversions; while for those of more thoughtful bent the

sea turns without ceasing its ancient pages, written all over with

inexhaustible romance.

The great architect of the city was the Power who graded those

streets of immaculate sand, and who laid out that park of mellow,

foam-flowered ocean. Its human founders have done what seemed suitable

in providing shelter for a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting

to put up six neat and modest churches, where suitable praise and

adoration may be chanted against the chanting of the sea. In several

respects the place grows somewhat curiously. For instance, a lawn of

turf is made by the simple expedient of fencing off the cattle: the

grass then grows, but if the cows get in they pull up the sod by the

roots, and the wind in a single season excavates a mighty hollow where

the grassy slope was before. So much for building our hopes on

sand. An avenue of trees is prepared by the easy plan of thrusting

willow-stems into the ground: they sprout directly, and alternate

with the fine native cedars and hollies in clothing the streets with

shadow. Several citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and Mr. Thomas C.

Hand, whose handsome cottages are tasteful specimens of our seaside

architecture, have been tempted by this facility of vegetable life

at Atlantic City to lay out elaborate gardens, which with suitable

culture are successful. Fine avenues of the best construction lead off

to Shell Beach or to the single hill boasted by the locality. Finally,

remembering the claims of the great democracy to a wash-basin, the

aediles invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set up the Excursion or

Sea-View House, with its broad piazzas, its numberless facilities

for amusement, and its enormous dining-hall, which can be changed on

occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with flowers and fountains.

To a great city all the renovating and exhilarating qualities of

sea-breezes and sea-bathing are but as the waters of Tantalus, unless

the place which offers these advantages be easy of access. In this

respect Atlantic City has for Philadelphia a superiority over all

its rivals. The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, to whose secretary and

treasurer, Mr. D.M. Zimmermann, we are indebted for much information,

has simply drawn a straight line to the coast, which may be reached in

an hour and three-quarters from Vine street wharf. The villages on

the route, like the seaside terminus, owe their existence to the road,

which is now reaping the reward of a far-sighted enterprise.

THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.

CONCLUDING PAPER.

[Illustration: ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.]

A noble life, whose course belongs to the subject of these pages, is,

while they are preparing, apparently drawing to a close. The

severe illness now reported of Abd-el-Kader, coming upon old age,

disappointment, war and the lassitude of a great purpose foiled, can

have but one result. Dimmed to-day, as our hurrying century so rapidly

dims her brightest renowns, Abd-el-Kader's existence has only to cease

and his memory will assume the sacred splendor of the tomb.

Hapless Washington of a betrayed revolution! In these latter days of

enforced quiet in Palestine how his early scenes of African experience

must have flooded his mind!--his birth, sixty-six years ago, in a

family group of Moslem saints; the teachings of his beautiful mother

Leila and of his marabout father; his pilgrimage when eight years old

to Mecca, and his education in Italy; his visions among the tombs, and

the crown of magic light which was seen on his brows when he began to

taste the enchanted apple; then, with adolescence, the burning sense

of infidel tyranny that made his home at Mascara seem only a cage,

barred upon him by the unclean Franks; and soon, while still a youth,

his amazing election as emir of Mascara and sultan of Oran, at a

moment when the prophet-chief had just four _oukias_ (half-dimes) tied

into the corner of his bornouse!

"God will send me others," said young Abd-el-Kader.

[Illustration: AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.]

The tourist remembers the trinity-portrait of him, by Maxime David, in

the Luxembourg Gallery at Paris, where his face, framed in its white

hood, is seen in full, in profile and in three-quarters view. The

visage is aquiline, olive-tinted, refined; but we can describe it

more authentically in the terms of one of his enemies, Lieutenant

de France, who became his prisoner in 1836, and who followed his

movements for five months, taking down his daily talk and habits like

a Boswell, but leaving nothing in his narrative that is not to the

sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at twenty-eight the lieutenant says:

"His face is long and deadly pale, his large black eyes are soft

and languishing, his mouth small and delicate, and his nose rather

aquiline: his beard is thin, but jet-black, and he wears a small

moustache, which gives a martial character to his soft, delicate face,

and becomes him vastly. His hands are small and exquisitely formed,

and his feet equally beautiful." Every interlocutor leaves a similar

portrait, impressing upon the mind the image of some warrior-saint of

the Middle Ages, born too late, and beating out his noble fanaticism

against our century of machines and chicanery.

[Illustration: THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.]

Himself, according to some accounts, a Berber, the young marabout

early saw the importance of inducing the Kabyles to join with him

and his Arabs in expelling the French. He affiliated himself with the

religious order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman, a saint whose tomb is one of the

sacred places of Kabylia; and it is certain that the college of this

order furnished him succor in men and money. He visited the Kabyles in

their rock-built villages, casting aside his military pomp and coming

among them as a simple pilgrim. If the Kabyles had received him

better, he could have shown a stouter front to the enemy. But the

mountain Berbers, utterly unused to co-operation and subordination,

met him with surprise and distrust.

[Illustration: A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.]

At least, such is the account of General Daumas: in this interesting

relation we are forced to depend on the French. Daumas, amply provided

with documents, letters and evidence, has arranged in his work on _La

Grande Kabylie_ the principal evidence we possess of this epoch of

Abd-el-Kader's life.

The chief appeared in 1836 at Bordj-Boghni and at Si-Ali-ou-Moussa

among the mountains. The Kabyle tribes visited him in multitudes. He

addressed them at the door of his tent, and these rude mountaineers

found themselves face to face with that saintly sallow visage,

those long gazelle eyes and the prophetic countenance framed in its

apostolic beard. Raising his arms in the attitude of Raphael's Paul at

Lystra, he said simply, "I am the thorn which Allah has placed in the

eye of the Franks. And if you will help me I will send them weeping

into the sea."

But when it came to a demand for supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas,

utterly refused.

"You have come as a pilgrim," said their amins, "and we have fed you

with kouskoussu. If you were to come as a chief, wishing to lay his

authority on us, instead of white kouskoussu we should treat you to

black kouskoussu" (gunpowder).

Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity of the marabout, argued with

the Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining their reverence and adhesion;

but when he mounted his horse to go the amins significantly told him

to come among them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding hospitality

and white kouskoussu.

[Illustration: KABYLE MEN.]

At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of Ameraouas, who promised to submit

to his authority as soon as the fractions surrounding that centre

should do so. The Sons of Aicha received him with honor and games of

horsemanship. At the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of several tribes

came to render homage to the noble marabout, descendant of Berber

ancestry and of the Prophet. From thence he sought tribes still more

wild, discarding his horse and appearing among the villagers as a

simple foot-pilgrim. The natives approached him in throngs, each

family bearing a great dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying the platters

before his tent and planting their clubs in them, all vociferated,

"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the chieftain was constrained to taste

of each. Finally, near Bougie he happened to receive a courier sent by

the French commandant. The Kabyles immediately believed him to be in

treasonable communication with the enemy, and he was forced to retire.

The young chief was in fact at that time in peaceful communication

with the French, having made himself respected by them in the west,

while they were attending to the subjugation of Constantina and

founding of Philippeville in the east. Protected by the treaty

of Taafna in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to attempt the

consolidation of his little empire and the fusion of the jealous

tribes which composed it. The low moral condition of his Arabs, who

were for the most part thieves and cowards, and the rude individuality

of his Kabyles, who would respect his religious but scoff at his

political claims, made the task of the leader a difficult one. To the

Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing

their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber

and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his

power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the

blazon of increasing prosperity. In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the

zenith of his influence, swept the plains beneath the Atlas with his

nomad court, defended by two hundred and fifty horsemen. Passing his

days in reviewing his troops and in actions of splendid gallantry, he

resumed the humility of the saint at evening prayers: his palace of a

night received him, watched by thirty negro tent-guards; and here he

sheltered his lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually bowed by

the habitual weight of his cowl. The French soon became jealous, and

encroached upon their treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are told, had

Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and

with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties toward the sultan's

dominions, protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. Open

conflict followed, and a succession of French razzias. In 1845,

Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under Marshal Bugeaud, conducted

that expedition of eternal infamy during which seven hundred of

Abd-el-Kader's Arabs were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of the Dahra.

This sickening measure was put in force at a _cul-de-sac_, where a few

hours' blockade would have commanded a peaceful surrender.

[Illustration: KABYLE WOMEN.]

"The fire was kept up throughout the night, and when the day had fully

dawned the then expiring embers were kicked aside, and as soon as

a sufficient time had elapsed to render the air of the silent cave

breathable, some soldiers were directed to ascertain how matters were

within. They were gone but a few minutes, and then came back, we

are told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly daring, it seemed, to

confront the light of day. No wonder they trembled and looked

pale! They had found all the Arabs dead--men, women, children,

all dead!--had beheld them lying just as death had found and left

them--the old man grasping his gray beard; the dead mother clasping

her dead child with the steel gripe of the last struggle, when all

gave way but her strong love."

Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 was due less to the prowess of

Lamoricière and Bugeaud than to the cunning of his traitorous ally,

the sultan of Morocco, who, after having induced many of the princely

saint's adherents to desert, finally drove him by force of numbers

over the French frontier. Confronting the duke of Aumale on the

Morocco borders, he made a gallant fight, but lost half his best men

in warding off an attack of the Mencer Kabyles. Fatigued now with a

long effort against overwhelming pressure, and world-weary, he met

the duke at Nemours, on the sea-coast close to the Morocco

line. Depositing his sandals, Arab-fashion, outside the French

head-quarters, he awaited the duke's signal to sit down.

"I should have wished to do this sooner," said the broken chief, "but

I have awaited the hour decreed by Allah. I ask the aman (pardon) of

the king of the French for my family and for myself."

Louis Philippe could not come in contact with this pure spirit without

an exhibition of Frankish treachery, like tinder illuminating

its foulness at the striking of steel. The sultan's surrender was

conditioned on the freedom to retire to Egypt. The French government

no sooner secured him than it treacherously sent him to prison, first

to the castle of Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, where he was

kept from 1848 to 1852, when the late emperor made an early use of

his imperial power to set him at liberty. Since his freedom, at

Constantinople, Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan has continued to

practice the rigors and holiness of the Oriental saint, proving his

catholic spirit by protecting the Christians from Turkish injustice,

and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a martyr the moment destined to

unite his soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris and L'Ouverture.

This noble life, which impinges a moment on our course through

Kabylia, is surely the most epical of our century, which can never

be reproached for the lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's name is

remembered.

[Illustration: DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.]

The descent from the rock-perched city of Kalaa having been made in

safety, and the animals being remounted at the first plateau, our

Roumi traveler and his guides arrive in a few hours at the modern,

fortified, but altogether Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a letter

from a French personage of importance gives us the acquaintance of a

Kabyle family of the highest rank.

The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely descended from Mohammed

through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian race, and one of them,

settled in Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a prosperous college of

the Oriental style. Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and residing at

Akbou, receives the tourist with a natural icy dignity which only a

czar among the sovereigns of Europe could hope to equal: those who

have but seen Arabs of inferior class can form no notion of the

distinction and lofty gravity of the chiefs of a grand house (or of a

grand tent, as they are called): the Kabyle noble is quite as superb

as the Arab.

Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered with viands half French and

half Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, resembling a girl with his

blue head-drapery and slim white hands, places himself at table,

and attracts the conversation of the guest. The young man answers

in monosyllables and with his large eyes downcast, and the agha

significantly observes, "You will excuse him if he does not answer: he

is not used to talk before his father."

The host, disposing of the time of his guests, has arranged a series

of diversions. The valley of the river Sahel is full of boars, and

panthers and monkeys abound in the neighboring spurs of the Zouaouas.

While the Roumi are examining his orchards of oranges and pomegranates

the agha's courtyard fills with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary

horses, armed with inlaid guns. These are all entertained for the

night, together with the usual throng of parasites, who choke his

doors like the clients of the rich Roman in Horace.

At sunrise the party is mounted. The mare of the agha, a graceful

creature whose veins form an embroidery over her coat of black satin,

is caparisoned with a slender crimson bridle, and a saddle smaller

than the Arab saddles and furnished with lighter stirrups. The

Christian guests are furnished with veritable arquebuses of the Middle

Ages; that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the stock of which, flattened

and surmounted with a hammer of flints, is ignited by a wheel-shaped

lock, easier to be managed by a Burgundian under Charles the Bold than

by an unpretending modern Roumi.

The usual features of an Algerian hunt succeed. A phantom-like silence

pervades the column of galloping horsemen up to the moment when the

boar is beaten up. Then, with a formidable clamor of "_Haou! haou!_"

from his pursuers, the tusked monster bursts through the tamarinds and

dwarf palms: after a long chase he suddenly stops, and then his form

instantly disappears under the gigantic African hounds who leap upon

him and hang at his ears. A huntsman dismounts and stabs his shoulder

with the yataghan. After a rest the chase is resumed, but this time

under the form of a hawking-party.

Only the djouads and marabouts--that is to say, the religious or

secular nobles--have the privilege of hunting with the falcon.

The patrician bird, taken by the agha from the shoulder of his

hawk-bearer, is about as large as a pigeon, the head small, beak short

and strong, the claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. The bird

rides upon his master's leather glove until a hare is started: then,

unhooded and released, his first proceeding is to dart into the zenith

as if commissioned to make a hole in the sky. No fear, however, that

the poor panting quarry is lost for an instant from the vision of that

infallible eye, which follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and

fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an aërolite, and, as the deed is

explained to us, doubles up his yellow hand into a fist, and deals the

animal a sharp blow on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen approach,

he is found with his obtuse head bent over his prey, digging out its

eyes by the spoonful.

By noontide the troop is naturally famished. A luncheon, has, however,

been prepared by the thoughtfulness of the agha. Riding up to a tent

which appears as by magic in the wilderness, the provisions for a

sumptuous repast are discovered. Two fires are burning in the open

air, and are surrounded by a host of servants or followers. The Roumi

and their host adjourn from the neighborhood of the preparations, and

are served under a plane tree beautiful as that whose limbs were hung

by Xerxes with bracelets. A soup, absolutely set on fire with red

pepper, introduces the repast: pancakes follow, and various meats

smothered with eggs or onions. Then two half-naked cooks stagger

up bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep

roasted entire and still impaled with the spit. The chief cook takes

hold of the skewer and draws it violently toward himself, applying

a smart stroke with his naked heel to the tail of the creature--a

contact which would seem almost as trying as the ancient ordeal of

the ploughshares, or as the red-hot horseshoes which the fire-eating

marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste

the succulent viand, taste again, eat till ashamed, and are ready to

declare that never was mutton properly dressed before. If possible,

they vow to introduce the undissected roast, the bonfire, the spit

and the cook with imperturbable heel into the cuisine of less-favored

lands more distant from the sun.

[Illustration: AN ARAB MARKET.]

Champagne, which the cunning Mussulmans do not consider as wine,

washes the meal, and coffee and pale perfumed tobacco supplement it.

But when the appetite has retired and permitted some sharpness to the

ordinary senses, the travelers are amazed at the gradual and silent

increase which has taken place in their numbers. Every group of guests

is augmented by a circle of prone and creeping forms that, springing

apparently from the earth, are busily breaking the fragments of the

feast under the care of the servitors, who appear, rather to encourage

than repel them. Ben-Ali-Cherif, being interrogated, replies calmly,

"They are Tofailians."

The Tofailian is a parasite on system, an idler who elevates his belly

into a divinity, or at least a principle. His prophet or exemplar is a

certain Tofail, whose doctrine is expressed in a few practical rules,

respectfully observed and numerously followed. "Let him who attends

a wedding-feast," says one of his apophthegms, "having no invitation,

avoid glancing here and there dubiously. Choose the best place. If the

guests are numerous, pass through boldly without saluting any one, to

make the guests of the bride think you a friend of the bridegroom, and

those of the groom a friend of the bride."

An Arab poet said of Tofail: "If he saw two buttered pancakes in a

cloud, he would take his flight without hesitation."

A Tofailian of marked genius once learned that a festival was going

on at a grand mansion. He ran thither, but the door was closed and

entrance impossible. Inquiring here and there, he learned that a son

of the house was absent on the Mecca pilgrimage. Instantly he procured

a sheet of parchment, folded it, and sealed it as usual with clay: he

rolled his garments in the dust and bent his spine painfully over a

long staff. Thus perfect in what an actor would call his reading, he

sent word to the host that a messenger had arrived from his son. "You

have seen him?" said the delighted Amphitryon, "and how did he bear

his fatigues?" "He was in excellent health," answered the Tofailian

very feebly. "Speak, speak!" cried the eager father, "and tell me

every detail: how far had he got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger,"

said the simple fellow. Directly he was seated at the highest place of

the feast, and every guest admired that splendid appetite--an appetite

quite professional, and cultivated as poulterers cultivate the

assimilative powers of livers. "Did my son send no letter?" asked the

poor father in a favorable interval caused by strangulation. "Surely,"

replied the good friend, and, comprehending that the critical moment

had arrived, he drew to himself a chine of kid with one hand while he

unwound the letter from his turban with the other. The seal was still

moist, and the pilgrim had not found time to write anything on the

parchment. "Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host with the illumination

of a sudden idea. "Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger,

struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, then, and may Sheytan trouble

thy digestion!" The parasite was shown the door, but he had dined.

Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, turn the Tofailian into a

proverb, and thus laugh at a plague they cannot cure.

[Illustration: POVERTY AND JEWELS.]

The Algerine coast has enriched our language with at least two words,

respectively warlike and peaceful--_razzia_ and _fantasia_. The latter

is applied to a game of horsemanship, used to express joy or to honor

a distinguished friend. A spirited fantasia is organized by the guests

of the agha on returning to Akbou. Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen

having gone on before, and being completely lost to sight in the

whirlwind of dust created by their departure, all of a sudden

reappear. Menacing their host and his companions like an army, they

gallop up, their bornouses flying and their weapons flashing, until

at a few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the

horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading

as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge,

shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine

horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up

to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque

expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere

be seen. Their horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter into the game

with spirit, and the riders, secure in their castellated saddles, sit

with ease as they turn, leap or dance on two feet. Used, too, from

infancy to the society of their mares, they move with them in a degree

of unity, vigor and boldness which the English horseman never attains.

The Arab's love for his horse is not only the pride of the cavalier:

it is an article of faith, and the Prophet comprehended the close

unity between his nation and their beasts when he said, "The blessings

of this world, up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended to the

locks which our horses wear between their eyes."

[Illustration: GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.]

Truly the Oriental idea of hospitality has its advantages--on the side

of the obliged party. This haughty ruler, on the simple stress of

a letter from a French commandant, has made himself our servant and

teased his brain for devices to amuse us. His chief cook precedes us

to his birthplace at Chellata, to arrange a sumptuous Arab supper.

After a ride made enervating by the simoom, we descend at the arcaded

and galleried Moorish house where Ben-Ali-Cherif was born, and are

visited by the sheikh of the college which the agha maintains. It is

a strange, peaceful, cloistered scene, consecrated to study and

hospitality. Chellata, white and silent, sleeps in the gigantic shadow

of the rock Tisibert, and in its graveyard, among the tombs of sacred

marabouts, walk the small bald-headed students reciting passages

of law or of the Koran. Algeria is dotted over with institutions

(_zaouias_) similar to this, which, like monasteries of old,

combine the functions of seminaries and gratuitous inns. That of

Ben-Ali-Cherif, to which he contributes from his own purse a sum equal

to sixteen thousand dollars a year, is enshrined in buildings strewn

around the resting-place of his holy ancestors. The sacred koubba (or

dome) marking the bones of the marabout is swept by shadows of oak

and tamarind trees: professors stray in the shadow, and the pupils con

their tasks on the adjoining tombstones.

Every impression of Chellata is silvered over, as with a moonlight of

beneficence, by the attentions of Ben-Ali's house-steward, who rains

upon our appetites a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, soothes us

with Moorish coffee, and finishes by the politeness of lighting and

taking the first whiff of our cigarette--a bit of courtesy that might

be spared, but common here as in parts of Spain.

With daybreak we find the town of Chellata preparing to play its

rôle as a mart or place of industry. The labor seems at first sight,

however, to be confined to the children and the women: the former lead

the flocks out at sunrise to pasture in the mountain, the women make

the town ring with their busy work, whether of grinding at the mill,

weaving stuff or making graceful vases in pottery. The men are at work

in the fields, from which they return at nightfall, sullen, hardy and

silent, in their tattered haiks. These are never changed among the

poor working-people, for the scars of a bornouse are as dignified as

those of the body, and are confided with the garment by a father to

his son. The women, as we have remarked before, are in a state of

far greater liberty than are the female Arabs, but it is more than

anything else the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers the wife

is a chattel from whom it is permissible to extract all the usefulness

possible, and whom it is allowable to sell when a bargain can be

struck. The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is her errand to the

fountain. This is sometimes situated in the valley, far from the

nodding pillar or precipice on which the town is built. There the

traveler finds the good wives talking and laughing together, bending

their lively--sometimes blonde and blue-eyed--faces together over

their jars, and gossiping as in Naples or as in the streets around

Notre Dame in Paris. The Kabyles--differing therein from the

Arabs--provide a fountain for either sex; and a visit by a man to the

women's fountain is charged, in their singular code of penal fines,

"inspired by Allah," a sum equal to five dollars, or half as much as

the theft of an ox.

By the white light of day-dawn we quit Chellata, with the naked crests

of the Djurjura printing themselves on the starry vault behind us and

the valley below bathed in clouds. As we descend we seem to waken the

white, red-roofed villages with our steps. The plateaus are gradually

enlivened with spreading herds and men going forth to labor. We skirt

the precipice of Azrou-n'hour, crowned with its marabout's tomb. The

plains at our feet are green and glorious, pearled with white, distant

villages. Opposite the precipice the granite rocks open to let us pass

by a narrow portal where formerly the Kabyles used to stand and levy

a toll on all travelers. This straitened gorge, where snow abounds in

winter, and which has various narrow fissures, is named the Defile

of Thifilkoult: it connects the highways of several tribes, but is

impassable from December to April from the snow and the storms which

rage among the cliffs. We are still four thousand feet above the

plain, whose depth the swimming eye tries in vain to fathom, yet the

snowy peaks above us are inaccessible. Descending chains of rocks

mingled with flint and lime, we attain a more clement landscape.

Kabyle girls crowd around a well called the Mosquitoes' Fountain, a

naked boy plays melancholy tunes on a reed, and the signs of a lower

level are abundant in the fields of corn and orchards of olive. But

the rugged mountains, in whose grasp we have found so many wonders,

are not left without regret. The most picturesque part of our

course is now behind us, and as day dies upon our crossing through

Iferaouenen, we turn back to behold the fine line of the mountains,

half sad and regretful,

While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

Fourteen expeditions were found necessary by the French between 1838

and 1857 to subdue the Kabyles, who under leaders such as Ben-Salem,

Ben-Kassim, the Man-with-the-Mule, the Man-with-the-She-Ass, and other

chiefs less celebrated, defended their territory step by step. In the

great chastisement of 1857, Marshal Randon, after subduing this part

of the Djurjura ridge in detail, determined to preserve the fruits of

victory by two new constructions--a fort and a military road. France

was to reside among her unwilling colonists, and she was to possess

an avenue of escape. The building of these two conveniences, as we

may call them, over the smoking ruins of victory, was a conspicuous

example of the excellent engineering genius of the nation. An English

officer, Lieutenant-colonel Walmsley, witnessed, and has left a

spirited account of, the great conquest, and the immediate improvement

of it. The strongholds of the Djurjura (it being May, 1857) were

taken: the most difficult, Icheriden, was soon to fall, yielding

only to the assault of the Foreign Legion--that troop of Arabs and of

Kabyles from the Zouaoua plain wherefrom we derive the word _zouave_.

Marshal Randon selected for his fort the key of the whole district: it

was a place known as the Souk-el-Arba ("Market of Wednesday"). It was

in the heart of the Beni Raten land, and in a spot where three great

mountain-ridges ran down into the plain of the Sebaou. These ridges,

subdued and friendly, would be held in respect by the garrison of the

fort, and the other ridge of Agacha, still rebellious, would likewise

terminate at the fort. The works were immediately laid out and quickly

built. As the road sprang into its level flight like magic, the

peeping Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they were conquered, laughed

in derision. "It is to help the cowards to run away," they said. In

due time rose the pale walls of the citadel, with mountains above and

hills below. The Kabyles call it the White Phantom. Their songs, the

"traditions" of illiterate tribes, recite the building of the terrible

stronghold: "The Roumi has arrived at the Market: he is building

there. Weep, O my eyes! tears of blood. The children of Raten are

valiant men: they are known as masters of the warlike art. They fell

upon the enemy at Icheriden. The Franks fell like lopped branches.

Glory to those brave men! But the Roumi has peeled us like seeds. The

powder talks no more. The warlike men are fainting. Cover thyself with

mourning, O my head!"

As the tourist turns the summit of Aboudid suddenly appears, like an

ornamental detail in a panorama, this vast fortress, originally

named Fort Napoléon, and since the collapse of the empire called Fort

National. During the French troubles of 1871, in the month of August,

General Cérès was obliged to inspire terror by burning the village of

Thizzi-Ouzzou beneath, and then went on to relieve the fort. When the

next opportunity will occur for the Beni Raten to assert their rights

it is impossible to tell. We descend from the fort, and all becomes

commonplace. The charred ruins of Thizzi-Ouzzou in its valley-bed are

being replaced by new buildings. All wears a look of every-day thrift.

The Arab, moving his household goods, drives before him his poor

dingy wife, loaded down with worthless valuables and also with copper

jewels, in which she clanks like a fettered slave. A negro musician

from the Desert, a true African minstrel, capers before us and beats

the tom-tom, until, distracted with his noise, we pay him and bombard

him off the face of the road with projectiles.

From Thizzi-Ouzzou to Algiers it is but four hours' journey, and

the four hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, our circumstances are

subdued to the conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our spahi guides,

like figures from _Lalla Rookh!_ Adieu, our dream of an African

Switzerland! The Roumi, outside of Kabylia, quickly fades into the

light of common day, and becomes plain Tom or Harry.

A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867.

"And you traveled alone?"

"There were two of us--Annie Foster and I."

"You found no difficulty?"

"Not a bit," she replied laughing.

"But you had adventures: I see it in your face."

"Who would travel without adventures?" and she made an expressive

gesture.

"Romantic?"

"Hm!--_tant soit peu_."

"I am all attention: begin."

"You promise not to tell?"

"Not for the world: torture could not induce me to divulge a single

word."

"Well, the way it came about was this: Annie and I had been sent from

England to a small French town on the coast, for the benefit of the

warm sea-water baths. It was a quaint little port; all the houses

reminded you of ships in their fitting up; the beds were set into the

wall like berths; closets were stowed away in all sorts of impossible

places; the floors were uncarpeted and white as a main deck; and

articles from distant countries hung about the walls or stood in the

corners--East Indian sugar-cane, cotton from America, Chinese

crockery and piles of sea-shells. The great sea by which we lodged was

represented everywhere. Our food was fish, shrimps and water-fowl--our

acquaintance, fishermen, shrimpers and sailors. The leading event of

the day was the coming in and going out of the tide, and ducks and

geese were the chief domestic animals. On one side was a prospect of

wind-tossed waves and the sails of ships, on the other wind-beaten

fields and the sails of mills: the few cabins that had rashly ventured

beyond the protection of the village shortly lost courage, and, with

their thatched roofs not a yard from the earth, seemed crouching low

to avoid the continuous blasts. The church alone on the high sea-wall

raised itself fearlessly against the tyrant, and though his baffled

voice still howled without, within the pious prayed securely before a

faith-inspiring altarpiece of Christ stilling the tempest.

"In a few weeks, after we had exhausted every amusement that the dull

town afforded, become intimate with all the old gossips, tired of

listening to the yarns of the pilot-tars off duty, driven the donkeys

over the country until they instinctively avoided us whenever

we appeared, sailed in the bay and suffered periodic attacks of

sea-sickness therefrom, finished the circulating library, and half

learned some barbarous sentences of Norman patois, we sat down

disconsolate one afternoon to devise some means of employing the

remainder of our time. It was then that the bright idea struck Annie,

and she exclaimed, 'Let us go to the Paris Exposition!'

"'Just the thing!' I answered with enthusiasm. 'I wonder when the next

train starts?'

"'I'll go and inquire: you begin and pack the trunks. If we can get

off to-day, by to-morrow morning we can begin seeing it;' and she left

the room in great excitement.

"The result was, that by seven o'clock that evening we had made our

hasty preparations, and were ready to set out. It was raining terribly

when the only hack of the village (which, by the by, was an omnibus)

called for us at the door. The dripping fluid oozed and sparkled over

the blinking lamps, the ribbed sides of the antiquated machine were

varnished with moisture, and the horses looked as if each hair was a

water-spout to drain the sky. Noah's patriarchal mansion might

have presented a similar appearance during the first days of that

celebrated wet season.

"The motherly woman with whom we had been boarding turned dismally

from the weather to her invalids and tried to dissuade us from leaving

that night, little understanding that we considered it 'fun.' As

a parting advice she told us to call each other _madame_: it would

procure us more consideration. 'For you know, young ladies,' she

remonstrated mildly, 'it is not quite proper for you to travel alone.'

After this prudent counsel and many warm adieus we sallied forth.

"The omnibus was crowded, and I had perforce to sit on Annie's knees.

This, with the jolting, the queer effect of the half-light in the

rickety interior, together with the expression of the good people, who

evidently could see no fun in rain, excited my risibility so strongly

that I indulged in a smothered laugh, tempered to fit the publicity of

the occasion.

"'You must not laugh in France,' whispered Nan, pulling my dress.

"'I thought the French admired gayety,' I answered in the same tone.

"'Be quiet: it isn't proper.'

"The rest of the way was accomplished in silence. We soon arrived

at the station and bought our tickets. Of course we had half a dozen

bundles: in gathering them up a most gentlemanly person accosted us

and asked, 'Avez vous perdu quelque chose, mademoiselle?'

"Annie replied in the negative with great dignity, and so cut off any

chance of adventure in that quarter.

"On came the train. In France there is fortunately a provision made

for women traveling without an escort. In your country they have, I

believe, smoking-cars especially for the gentlemen: in that blessed

land there is a compartment for 'ladies alone,' or _Dames Seules,_

as it is called. A good American once read this inscription with much

commiseration, _D---- souls_, and returning told his friends that the

'wicked' French allowed His Satanic Majesty the right of running a

special car on their roads for his greater accommodation.

"As we were hastening to this most desired refuge I noticed two very

student-looking young men walking near us, and caught a bit of their

conversation.

"'They will.'

"'They won't: a bottle of wine on it we go up in the same car with

them.'

"'I told you so!'

"As we found our car and entered the students passed on, not daring to

ignore the magic words on the door; so Adventure No. 2 was nipped in

the bud.

"Nan and I were the only lady-passengers, and we sank back into the

soft cushions with the pleasant sense that no further effort would

be needed during the journey. We had been told that the train would

arrive in Paris about midnight, but the lateness of the hour caused

us no uneasiness, as we had been there before and remembered the city

pretty well; and, besides, we thoroughly believed in our ability to

take care of ourselves.

"In an interval of wakefulness we discussed our plans, and concluded

to spend the night at some hotel near the station, the next morning

looking up our friends (several of whom we knew to be in town) and

consulting them about our future proceedings, feeling that a midnight

visit from us would scarcely be welcome to any one. Annie recalled a

fine-looking hotel just opposite the terminus, and, having made our

selection in its favor, we dozed off again very comfortably.

"I think we had been on the way some four hours when the welcome

lights began to appear--first in the sky above the city, as if the

earth in this favored spot threw out rays like the sun; next through

the darkness over the country below; and then we plunged tunnel-wise

into the earth under the busy streets and fortifications, to emerge at

the end of our route.

"We gathered up our bundles in haste, thanking the stars that we had

accomplished our ride so safely, and were walking off to the hotel

when we suddenly thought of the trunks. Another consultation was held,

and we decided to leave them in the baggage-room until morning.

"'But we must go and see that they are safe,' suggested Annie.

"'Where is the baggage-room?' I asked of a porter.

"'This way, mademoiselle.'

"'Madame!' I ventured to correct in a weak voice.

"'Vos clefs, s'il vous plait,' said a polite official as we entered

the door, and another laid hands on the satchels we carried, to

examine them.

"We had entirely forgotten the octroi officers. 'Oh my! this affair

may keep us another half hour,' thought I, 'and I am so sleepy!' I

have often found (I confide this to you as an inviolable secret) that

to be unreasonable is a woman's strongest weakness: it is a shield

against which man's sharpest logic is invariably turned aside. The

next thing to there not being a necessity, is not seeing a necessity,

and this I prepared in the most innocent manner to do.

"'Gracious me!' I exclaimed--or its French equivalent, which I suppose

is 'Mon Dieu'--'you don't mean to detain us here opening those bags,

and we so tired, and they packed so full that we could scarcely shut

them; and if you _do_ open them, we cannot get all the things into

them again, and shall have no end of trouble!' Then I looked as

injured as if they had been thieves or highway-men.

"Had a man made this speech they would have mistrusted him, but as

women have a reputation for shallowness, such talk is never thought

suspicious in them.

"'What do they contain?' asked the officer, hesitating.

"'I don't know what all: we have been at the sea-side, and they are

full of trash. There are some shells and an old hat in mine, and--and

things.'

"He tried to conceal a smile, and looked toward the other, who nodded,

and we saw the welcome 'O' put on in chalk, upon which the bags were

given back to us.

"'Now the trunks,' said the first who had spoken, holding out his hand

for the keys.

"'Oh, we are going to leave them here till to-morrow: they are all

right--you can mark them too;' and without further ceremony we moved

toward the door. One of the men stepped after us. I thought it was to

make us return, but it was only to ask if he should get us a carriage.

"We thanked him and replied that we were going to the hotel opposite,

and did not need one: he then turned to a person who seemed to be the

porter of the establishment, and told him to carry our satchels for

us. Now we felt our journey was well at an end, for the windows of our

welcome asylum were blazing not more than a hundred feet off.

"We crossed the street, rang at the ladies' entrance and asked for

rooms. After a few moments the servant returned, and, much to our

chagrin, said that there were none to be had, every corner was full.

"'Do let us see the clerk. We _must_ have a room: you can surely find

us one somewhere.'

"The man shook his head.

"'Please go and try,' we insisted: 'we shall be satisfied with

anything for the night. Won't you go and ask again?'

"'It is of no use,' he answered obstinately, à cause de l'Exposition;'

and he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to every other effort at

persuasion that we made.

"Just then a chambermaid passed. 'Do come here,' I called. 'Can't you

find us a room? I will pay you;' and I put my hand significantly in my

pocket.

"'Very sorry, ladies, but it is impossible,'

"This was a contingency we had not provided for: we looked at each

other blankly, and, though loath to do so, we both came to the

conclusion that they were telling the truth.

"'What shall we do?' asked Annie, speaking to me in English.

"'I suppose we shall have to take a carriage and go down town, after

all,'

"'They may be full there too,' she said in a rueful tone.

"Just then the porter with our satchels spoke: 'There is another hotel

near, ladies, and if you will come I will show you to it,'

"I consulted Annie with a look, and she assented. Any prospect was

better than a midnight drive of several miles, with no certainty as to

our lot at the end of it. So we turned from the inhospitable door and

followed our guide.

"The latter walked quickly for perhaps a square, stopped before a

neat-looking house and rang. Our courage rose as the door opened and

revealed a clean-looking court surrounded by orange trees in boxes,

with small coffee-tables under them for the convenience of the guests.

"'Rooms for two ladies!' demanded our attendant with the voice of a

herald.

"The trim but sleepy servant looked at us a moment, as if not

comprehending the situation, then slowly pronounced our sentence in

two words, 'No rooms!' and as if to emphasize them threw up the palms

of his hands, shook his head and added 'Full!' after which he closed

the door with a hasty click and returned to his nap.

"Our night-errant was visibly disappointed with this reception--not

more so than we were--but without allowing us time to speak he said

in his most reassuring voice, 'Never mind, ladies: there are plenty

of hotels about here, and we shall soon find lodgings for you.' Having

undertaken the task, he seemed to think it his duty to comfort and

provide for us.

"Alas! this was not soon accomplished. Two other hotels were

successively tried in vain, and still our indefatigable guide went

on. It appeared as if we had walked a considerable distance, but the

streets cut each other at odd angles, and we had been turning so often

that I confess I had but little idea where we were, or how far we had

come, when we entered a quarter where the ways became narrower, passed

into a dingy alley, thence plunged through a still darker court, from

that to another alley, and the next moment our porter was ringing at

the door of a tall, sombre house. I truly hoped that we should not

find rooms here, and was turning to Annie to advise a cab and an

attempt in a more civilized-looking locality, when the bell was

answered and the old question repeated.

"To my surprise and dismay the servant said they could accommodate us.

Should we stay? I knew that in the older parts of Paris the best of

houses are sometimes found in the poorer streets, and that in no city

is a person less able to judge of the interior comfort of a building

by its external aspect. We were very tired, and should we turn away

from this open door where should we find another open for us? The

porter, however good-natured, could not continue to run about with us

all night, and our faith in ourselves was considerably diluted since

we left the cars: even a cab might be difficult to get at this hour

of the night. Annie did not object: indeed, she looked too worn out to

have an opinion in the matter, and as I could think of nothing better

to do, I began to make the usual inquiries: 'Have you two adjoining

rooms?'

"'Yes, mademoiselle.'

"I remembered the advice that had been given us on starting: here

surely was a place to use it, so I said to the servant in a marked

tone, 'Take _madame's_ bag and show us to our chambers.'

"'This way, mesdemoiselles,' he answered with the most provoking

coolness.

"I dismissed our faithful porter with regret, and followed the

other up stairs. While ascending I racked my brain to determine

what peculiarity of manner we could adopt that would give us a more

matronly air while traveling, but I could think of nothing. I may as

well tell you now that we never for an instant deceived any one on

this subject during our stay, and we soon ceased trying to do so.

"Our rooms were much better than I had expected to find them, but even

this caused in me a feeling of doubt. They had a hypocritical air, a

grasping after appearances that I believe always accompanies deceit

and imposition--a sleek shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct

that if I examined I should find the carpets worn out under the mats,

and the chairs faded beneath their smart chintz covers. There was not

a candid-looking piece of furniture in the apartment: the table was an

impostor with one short leg; the drawers of the bureau would not open;

the glasses were all askew, and twisted your face to such a degree

that it frightened you to catch a glimpse of yourself in passing. But

this was not the worst: from the moment I entered the rooms I felt

that they _had been waiting for us_.

"I did not venture to mention my suspicions to Annie, and tried to

keep up a cheery sort of conversation while we undressed, but I could

see that she too began to be uneasy. We carefully inspected our doors,

and found the locks were good, then looked to see that there was no

one lurking under the beds. It would be difficult to tell you exactly

what I feared, but somehow everything impressed me as mysterious--the

quiet of the streets through which we had come, and the quiet of the

house. It was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: our feet echoed

on the stairways as if human feet seldom ascended them; the shadows

appeared especially dark; our candles' small light made little

impression on the gloom; the very air seemed harder to breathe than

ordinary; and on recalling the face of the impertinent servant I

thought that it had a sinister look.

"I tried to recall whether we were in a good or bad faubourg, but

could not; and then I remembered that Paris was now divided into

arrondissements, which had a much less ill-omened sound. I went to the

window to reconnoitre the locality, but, though the rain had ceased,

darkness covered all so thickly that I could see nothing. As I stood

there the clock on the station struck, first the quarters, and then

_one_, in a doleful, muffled tone. It told me one thing I was glad

to know--namely, that we could not have wandered very far during our

walk; but there was little comfort in that, after all, since the walk

had terminated here.

"Stories that I had read of strange adventures and accidents to

midnight guests now trooped into my head. I thought of one in

particular, in which the tester of the bed slowly descended to smother

the sleeping inmate for purposes of robbery; whereupon I minutely

examined mine, and found to my satisfaction that it was scarcely able

to discharge the single duty of holding up the curtains, and looked

most innocent of further intentions. Finding myself again peering into

corners I had already searched, and feeling this general unrest to

be growing upon me, I began to think I must be nervous from

over-exertion, and determined to get rid of my silly fancies in sleep.

Then, as if to take myself by surprise, I suddenly blew out the light,

sprang under the covers and shut my eyes tight, afraid that something

hateful might glare upon me in the dark.

"Just then Annie came to the communicating doorway, and with an effort

to speak in her natural voice she said, 'Jane, I am going to

sleep here.' And as if this endeavor had consumed her last bit of

resistance, she closed and locked the door quickly, ran to my bed and

threw herself shivering beside me.

"'What is the matter?' I whispered, feeling my presentiment of evil

confirmed.

"She put her lips to my ear and answered, 'I found a door in my room

behind the bed-curtains, and it leads I don't know _where_."

"'Did you open it?'

"'No indeed! I would not open it for the world. There might be

something horrible in it;' and she shuddered.

"'You have left your light burning.'

"'I don't care. I won't go back: no indeed, I _could_ not.' There

was silence for a few minutes: neither of us moved, when Nan again

whispered, 'Do you think this room quite safe?'

"'I looked all around before I blew out the light.'

"'Did you look _behind_ your curtains?'

"'No!' I answered with an uncomfortable sensation.

"'You are next the wall: feel along it,' in her most persuasive voice.

"The very idea made me creep. Put my hand behind those curtains and

touch--what? Even the cold wall would be sufficient to terrify me. For

reply I remarked suggestively, 'If we had the light we could see.'

"'Yes, that would be just the thing. Go bring it--do!'

"I felt that something must be done, and soon, or I should be in no

state to accomplish it. If Nan would not go, I must: when we had the

light half our trouble would be over, and, after all, she might have

been mistaken.

"'Did the door move?' I ventured to ask.

"'No, it didn't do anything--at least I don't think it did--but it

_looked_ so awful that it frightened me.'

"'That light in there may set something on fire,' I remarked.

"'Go fetch it: it will only take you a minute. Do go!'

"'You are sure the door didn't open?' I asked, far from liking my

task.

"'I will go with you half-way,' she volunteered, 'and stand there

while you run in quick. Come on, and don't let us talk any more about

it: we shall only get more and more frightened.' You will see that

Annie's gifts lay more in persuasion than in action.

"Thus adjured, I went with her to the communicating door, cautiously

listened, then looked through the keyhole. The silence within was

oppressive, but the flickering bougie warned me that I must make an

effort, and without allowing myself time to think I hastily turned the

key and opened the door.

"At that moment it seemed to me that I heard distant footsteps. I

rushed for the light and turned to go back, when I ran against some

one: the candle was extinguished by being jerked from the holder to

the floor, and a hand which I vainly tried to shake off clasped my

arm. My blood grew thick and still with sudden terror. I tried to

speak, but could not. What increased my dread was that I could not

tell whether the _Thing_ by my side was a reality or a spectre. I had

caught a glimpse of something white as the light disappeared, and I

believe that a pistol at my head would have caused me less alarm than

this horrible idea of the supernatural. I began to feel that I could

endure it no longer, that I should stifle, should die, when Annie's

voice spoke in the darkness quite near, and I found it was she who had

grasped my arm.

"'I could not stay in that room alone,' she whispered. 'Don't you

hear?--_footsteps!_ They are coming.'

"'You have half frightened me to death,' I murmured trembling: 'I

thought you were something.'

"'No, I ain't anything, but something _is_ coming. Don't you hear?'

"It was true enough. Through the quiet of the house came stealthy

footsteps. Nearer, nearer. They were ascending the stairs, at times

delaying an instant, as if groping for the way, then on.

"'Come into your room,' said Annie convulsively: 'come, and we can

lock ourselves in. Oh, where _is_ your door? I cannot find it, and

they are coming. What shall we do? what shall we do?'

"We were in total darkness: not a ray of light came from the window,

and in our confusion we had lost our bearings. Neither of us had the

least idea in what direction the other room lay.

"'Let us creep along the floor, perhaps we may find it. Do try,' said

I.

"'No, no, I cannot move. I wish we had never come. I am dying.' She

was shaking with fright, and would not leave my arm for an instant.

"Just then, from somewhere near us, we could not tell from what

side, came a long low whistle, so mournful and unearthly, with such a

summons in its tone, that I shivered: then a faint movement followed

from the same place.

"'It is a signal for the other,' gasped Annie: 'it is in that door:

they are coming, they are here. Shall I scream murder? shall I?'

giving my arm an emphasizing grip.

"'No, no, wait: it will do no good.'

"She groaned, slipped down on her knees, with one arm still round

me, her face pressed against my side, holding her other hand over the

unprotected ear, so that she should hear no more; and in this position

she began to repeat 'Now I lay me down to sleep' just as fast as she

could gabble it.

"I was no less frightened, and would willingly have crouched down

also, but she held me so tight that I could not without a struggle,

and above all things I did not want to make a noise.

"It was thus we awaited the crisis. The steps were certainly coming to

our room, but whether by the door we had entered or by the one Annie

had seen behind the bed, I could not tell. I was too bewildered to

locate the sound, nor did I know whether the bed was at my right or

left hand. I had a slight hope that the steps might pass on.

"It was for that I waited.

"They came--near, nearer. For a time my heart ceased beating. Annie

slipped lower, until she lay on the floor, and I could no longer hear

her breathe. My whole being was merged in listening to that step. I

could feel that now it was on a level with our room--was there almost

beside us. Lightly though distinctly a hand passed over the door, as

if fumbling for the latch. This was the intense moment. Had the person

paused or hesitated an instant, I think it would have killed us both.

But no, he did not falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by the hand,

went as it had come, and as I stood, not daring to move, I heard it

receding in the distance of the great house. Then all was silence.

"When sensation returned to me I felt as if I had awakened from a

nightmare, and found myself shaking from the nervous reaction and the

cold. I stooped to find poor Nan on the floor, and said through my

chattering teeth, 'It must have been only a late boarder. Don't be

afraid. It is all over: come, get up.'

"'Can't you get a light?' she begged. 'I cannot move until you have a

light. I am still afraid.'

"I now remembered that the bureau must be behind me, for I had merely

turned when I encountered Annie and dropped the candle. There were

probably matches upon it: yes, there they were. I struck one and

easily found the candle: then Annie rose with the meekest air

possible, and, without looking at the obnoxious corner where the bed

stood, we walked into the other room and locked the door.

"It was not until the gray morning light crept into the window that we

felt quite safe. Every crack in the floor or nibbling mouse caused us

to start, and at each quarter the clock of the station would strike

as if to warn us to be on the alert. But the bed was not bad, and the

house remained quiet; and as soon as the dawn made our candle useless,

we began to think we had been very foolish, and the result was a sound

sleep.

"When we awoke it was ten o'clock: the morning was bright and clear,

and the terrors of the night had all departed during our refreshing

rest. The room certainly looked shabby, but if that were a crime, half

the houses in the world would be sent to prison. There was nothing in

the least mysterious about it. Our courage rose with the day, and we

teased and joked each other about our fright. Then, anticipating the

glories of the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves that we had

come.

"'We won't breakfast here,' said Annie as she was dressing: 'we will

go down town to a nice restaurant, and sit at a window and see the

people go by. Afterward we will look up our friends and find a good

hotel or boarding-house; and we _must_ go to the Exposition this very

day. We shall have a famous time. We can make up parties to drive out,

and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, and to the theatre. Ain't

you glad you came?'

"'The first thing we do must be to go back to the station and leave

these bags with our trunks until we find lodgings,' I remarked.

"Nan went into the next room to get some of the clothing she had left

there. When she returned, lowering her voice she said, 'Jane, there

_is_ a door behind my curtains.'

"'Very well, let it alone: I suppose it is a closet.'

"'No such thing: it don't look like a closet; and why would they hide

a closet, I should like to know? Come in and see it.'

"She walked back, and as I followed drew the curtain aside, and there

in fact it was.

"'I am going to open it before I leave the room,' she said in a

determined tone: 'there is something not right about it.'

"'I wouldn't,' I remonstrated: 'some one may be in there.'

"'I am going to see: I must look into it. It is daylight, you know,

and we sha'n't be much frightened. Help me to push away the bed.'

"'I won't do anything so absurd. This is a hotel, Annie, and there

must be plenty of adjoining rooms in it. Suppose that room is now

occupied by a boarder?'

"'If it is occupied they will lock the door on the other side, and I

will try the latch softly to see; but I know it is not. Don't you

see that the only entrance must be from here? There is the entry.

opposite, and here is the court: now, how could any one get into it

but through this room? It must be a small place, too, for here is

the corner of the house, and it has been evidently planned to be kept

_concealed_."

"'No matter: we have no right to any rooms but these we are in. Come

away, and let well enough alone.'

"'It is not "well enough," as you call it. I am going to see into

it, and why they hide it. I declare,' and she examined the door

critically, 'it looks like the entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look

at these queer marks, these dents and stains, as if there had been

a struggle. It is our duty to investigate;' and her voice grew

impressive. 'Perhaps we have been brought here for that very purpose,

and, Jane, if there _is_ a dead body in there, I shall inform the

police.' Annie was very brave in daylight.

"'Fiddle-de-dee!' I replied to this fine speech. 'What you call duty,

I call curiosity. I am ravenously hungry, and I wish you would finish

dressing and let us get to breakfast.'

"'I will just tell you this,' she answered indignantly, and yet with a

quiver in her voice, 'I never in my life felt as I did last night when

I saw that door. It was quite like what people write of a mysterious

influence, or the presence of some one unseen; and that whistle or

voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, came from here; and you must

help me to find out what it really was, for I can't go away without

knowing.'

"I saw it was useless to try longer to dissuade her. The bed moved

easily: she took my hand and led me behind it; then warily tried the

latch. It rose, but she was obliged to lean all her weight against the

door before it would give way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly

that she almost fell forward.

"What did I see? At the first glimpse a faint light from a cobwebbed

window, a narrow room and a floor--red. Was it blood? A sickening

mouldy smell came forth, but as I forced myself to look again I saw

that it was only red tiles that had startled me. There was an upright

brick range in a corner, an old water-tank, some shelves and a

cupboard. A missing pane of glass left a space through which the air

had entered and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue that opened above

the range. This was the ominous 'signal' we had heard in answer to the

footsteps. The dust was thick over everything, and the only signs

of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. We stood still for a few

moments, overwhelmed at this solution of the occult 'influence' that

had so subtly acted on Annie's nerves, and filled me with no less

terror.

"The house had been built for a _hôtel garni_; that is, a house with

furnished rooms or apartments, something like a tenement-house in your

country. This was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged to the two

rooms we had taken. Being unused for its proper object, and too small

for a bed-chamber, it had been closed, and appeared as if it had been

unentered for years. I turned to Annie to see how she would bear this

prosaic explanation of our alarm, but with the air of one who had

expected nothing but this from the beginning, she remarked, 'Now you

see how much better it is to look into such things. This room would

have furnished me with bad dreams for the remainder of my life, and

here I find it is only a commonplace kitchen. Think how ludicrous to

have the horrors over a kitchen! Sha'n't I tell of your fright when

we get home--how you didn't want to open the door, and wanted to 'let

well enough alone'? The place _might_ be haunted by the ghost of

a chicken or a rabbit, but, my dear, you should not allow that to

terrify you.'

"'Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken that you feared last night,

and that caused your presentiments this morning. I hope you will

inform the police of what you have discovered here,' I remarked

quietly.

"'A truce, a truce, good Jane! I will say no more. We were both

boobies. But wouldn't it be 'cute to live here, you and me, and make

our own breakfast? Look at the hole for charcoal, and the little

cupboard, the nails for the pots and pans to hang on: everything is

complete. That room could be for dining, the other a parlor, and--'

"'The only drawback would be that, except at the North Pole, the night

comes once in twenty-four hours.'

"'Don't be mean, Jane! Do come in here a minute: it's a dear little

place.'

"'You will certainly make a housekeeper if a kitchen gives you such

ecstasy. Come out, I am so hungry. Put on your bonnet and leave this

elysium: I have had enough of it.'

"'You come in for a second: it will shake the terror off and you

won't dream of it. That is a cure my old nurse once gave me for laying

ghosts.'

"'It may be a good plan to shake off the terror, but the dust on you

will not be shaken off so easily.'

"'Suppose,' and she stamped her foot--'suppose that the floor should

be hollow, and that this were only a pretended kitchen after all, or

that there was a trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a sliding

panel.' Here she felt over the surface of the wall. 'Why should I feel

so queer last night if this was really nothing but a kitchen?'

"'Because you are a goose,' I answered impatiently, 'and if you don't

come I will leave you. If you like, you can engage boarding here for a

week, and raise the tiles one by one with a knife and fork. As for me,

I am going to breakfast.'

"'But don't you think it really has an uncanny look?' she asked,

giving a last glance over her shoulder as she came out.

"'If you call dirt uncanny, there is plenty of that. Shut the door,

and I will push back the bed.'

"'Jane,' she again remarked as she was trying on her bonnet before the

crooked glass, 'if ever I tell of this night, I think I will say that

there _was_ a trap-door in the kitchen: you know there might be one

and we not see it.'

"'Oh yes,' I answered as patiently as I could, 'I suppose a fib more

or less will make but little difference in your lifetime. While you

are at it, however, you may as well make a few more additions.'

"'Now you are unkind.'

"'A person is not accountable for temper when famishing. Take up your

satchel.'

"We found the house a most every-day-looking house, seen by sunlight;

but there had lain the difficulty. The clerk in the office did not

particularly resemble a cutthroat, or even a cutpurse, and, strange to

say, did not overcharge us: in fact, he behaved very civilly. We found

we were not far from the station, and depositing our bags there, we

walked down the beautiful Rue La Fayette.

"'It is a great deal pleasanter to travel alone in this way,' said

Nan gayly, her spirits rising in the delightful air. 'When I was here

before with all the family, it was not near so jolly; and I think we

manage well, don't you? Oh, there is an omnibus not _complet_: let us

get in. I am too hungry to walk.'

"After we were seated she continued: 'I wonder what will happen to

us to-night. Suppose we find every place full, and have to sleep in a

garden or on the steps of a church, or something? Isn't it delightful

not to know in the least what is going to happen next?--just as in

fairy-land. Don't you hope we may have an adventure every night?'

"'I should not call last night an adventure: it seems to me it was

more like a panic,' I said drily.

"'You will never let anything be agreeable,' in a hurt tone: then

recovering her good temper, she went on: 'Well, call it a panic if

you like. Now, suppose we had one every night, and we stayed here two

weeks, there would be fourteen panics before we go home. Wouldn't that

be glorious?'

"'You did not appear to enjoy it so much last night.'

"'At the time I did not,' she admitted frankly. 'Weren't we

frightened? But then, you know, how nice it will be to talk of it

afterward!'

"We arrived at a restaurant in the Palais Royal, and found a seat by

the window, and a breakfast. We had already finished the latter, and

were playing with our fruit, when a party entered who attracted our

attention by speaking English.

"'One of them is Miss Rodgers,' Annie whispered excitedly. 'I know her

well: hadn't we better run away? What will she think of our being here

alone?'

"'Nonsense! You had better ask her where she is staying. Remember, we

are houseless as yet.'

"'I don't like to ask her.'

"'Introduce me: I will ask.' The idea of spending the night in a

garden or on a church-step did not possess the same charms for me as

for Nan. Thus prompted, she walked forward and spoke to her friend,

afterward presenting me. We chatted a few minutes, when Miss Rodgers

asked Annie where she was staying, and how her mamma was.

"'Mamma is not with us,' was Nan's embarrassed reply.

"I went to her rescue, and diverted the questions by asking some

myself: 'Miss Rodgers, where are you staying? We do not like our hotel

and want to change.'

"'There is not a room in our house that is unoccupied, and you won't

find good accommodation anywhere. You had better not change if you

have a place to lay your head. Paris is so crowded that everything

has been taken up long ago. You can ask at a dozen hotels or

boarding-houses and not find a garret to let. You have no idea of the

difficulty.'

"Yes, we had an idea, and believed every word she said: in fact,

we would rather have felt less convinced on the subject. Even Annie

seemed to think that traveling alone might present some disagreeable

features, and looked quite unhappy, notwithstanding her love of

adventure. But before our mental anguish had time to become unbearable

a young girl, a niece of Miss Rodgers, spoke: 'Auntie, if the young

ladies would like, I know of just the place that would suit them.'

Then turning to us, she continued: 'I am at school a few miles out of

the city, and madame told me that if I knew of any one, she had room

for a few parlor-boarders. It is a lovely spot, and no end of trains

coming and going all day; so that it would be just as convenient as

living here, and you would have excellent accommodation. Then, too,

I could speak English to you sometimes. I am so tired of talking for

ever without half knowing what I am saying.'

"I could have embraced the chatterbox on the spot for this opportune

proposal, but controlled my feelings and looked at Nan to see if

she approved. She was consenting with every one of her expressive

features, and did not appear at all anxious to enjoy one of her

fourteen delightful panics this evening if it could be avoided.

Being spokesman, I said, 'I would willingly try the school on your

recommendation, Miss Ada, if you think madame could be ready for us

this evening.'

"'Of course she could: come out with me now and see her. I must go

at one, and can show you the way. Will you meet me at the station? or

shall we call for you at your hotel?'

"'We will meet at the station,' I replied, glad to settle it so

quickly, 'if you are quite sure that your madame will like our

unceremonious arrival.'

"'That will be all right, I know. She has several empty rooms, and

will be happy to have them filled. You can leave your trunks until

to-morrow if you don't like to come bag and baggage.'

"We needed no further pressing. Here was deliverance and safety, and

we bade good-morning to the party with light hearts.

"We found the school all that Miss Ada had promised, and thus ended

the nearest approach to an adventure that we had during the two weeks

that we remained."

"And now tell me about the Exposition."

"Well, we saw it."

"Saw what?"

"Why, everything."

"Describe it to me."

"Certainly. In the first place, it was very big, and everybody was

there, so it was crowded; and you met your friends and you talked;

and--and you got fearfully tired; and it was wonderful; and there were

ever so many restaurants, and a soda-water fountain, and queer things

that you never expected to see there, like the Mexican techcatl and

Russian horses; and everything was _real_--real lace and cashmeres and

diamonds, and nothing but what was very nice. But, after all, I think

you had better get a file of old newspapers and read about it, for I

really have no talent for description--or, better still, go and see

the one in Vienna this summer."

ITA ANIOL PROKOP.

SLAINS CASTLE.

In traveling over the old lands of Europe one is sometimes apt to

think more of historical and genealogical traditions than of the

natural beauties or peculiarities of the country. The old landmarks

of a nation, whether monuments built by the hand of man or archives

carefully preserved by him, tell us of its growth, just as the strata

of the mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; and as every

successive layer has some relation both to its predecessor and its

successor, so the traditions of each generation have a perceptible

influence upon the moral development of the generation following.

Every nation is thus the growing fruit of its own history, and every

visible step of the grand ladder of facts that has led up to the

present result must needs have for a student of human nature an

intrinsic interest.

This comes very clearly before my mind as I think of Slains Castle

(Aberdeen), a massive crown of granite set on the brow of the rocks of

the German Ocean, and the seat of one of those old Scottish families

whose origin is hidden away among the suggestive mists of tradition.

Slains Castle stands alone, a giant watchman upon giant cliffs,

built up only one story high, on account of the tremendous winds that

prevail there in spring and autumn, and cased with the gray Aberdeen

granite of the famous quarries near by. The surrounding country is

as bare and uninviting as one could imagine; the road from Aberdeen

(twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the young trees near the castle are

stunted, and in many cases disfigured by the inroads of hungry cows

among their lower branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs perpetually

over the scene, softening the landscape, but sometimes depressing

the spirits. As the hours pass the place grows on you: a weird beauty

begins to loom up from among the mist-wreaths, the jagged rocks, the

restless waves, and you forget the desolate moor, which in itself

displays attractions you will realize later, in the grandeur of the

desolate sea.

The original building is of the time of James VI. (of Scotland), and

is due to Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more ancient castle, bearing

the same name, was destroyed by the king to punish his vassal for

the part he had taken in a rebellion. In the seventeenth century Earl

Gilbert made great improvements in it, and early in the eighteenth

Earl Charles added the front. In 1836 it was rebuilt by Earl William

George, the father of the present owner, with the exception of the

lower part of the original tower. In this there used to be in olden

times an _oubliette_ in which unhappy prisoners were let down. All at

first appeared dark around them, but when they had thankfully assured

themselves that they at last stood upon solid ground, they would look

about them and presently descry a line of fitful light coming from a

door ajar in their dungeon. The poor victims would then go in haste

to this door, pull it open and, blinded by the sudden light, step out

upon the green slope terminating quickly in a precipice, which went

sheer down to the sea.

The rest of the house is built around a large covered piazza,

intersected by corridors where pictures, armor and all kinds of old

family relics decorate the walls. The drawing-room is on the very edge

of the rock, and on stormy days the flocks of uneasy sea-gulls almost

flap their wings against its window-panes, while the clouds of

spray dash up against them in miniature waterfalls. The rocks in the

immediate neighborhood of the castle are rugged in the extreme, here

and there rent by a gigantic fissure reaching far inland, and up which

the foaming waters gurgle continually as if in impatience of their

narrow bounds, now jutting far into the sea like a Titanic staircase

and thickly matted with coarse sea-weed, and again reared up on high,

a sheer glistening wall, with not a cranny for the steadiest foot, and

with Niagaras of spray for ever veiling its smooth, unchanging face.

In wonderful hollows you will come upon pools of green water with

sea-anemones, delicate sea-weed of pink, yellow or purple hue, and

gem-like shells resting on a bottom of clearest sand; and while the

waves are roaring on every side, and flinging their dampness into your

very face, these fairy pools will lie at your feet without a breath or

ripple on their surface.

The most magnificent of these rocks is one called in Gaelic "Dun-Bug"

("Yellow Rock"), the favorite haunt of the white sea-gulls. It stands

alone, as if torn from the land and hurled into the tossing waves

by some giant hand. Two hundred feet in height and a thousand in

circumference, it forms a natural arch, being pierced from its base

upward by an opening that widens as it ascends. The waves dash through

it with terrific violence, and the very sight of its grim splendor

conjures up a vision of shipwreck and danger. Scott has made

mention of it in _The Antiquary_, and Johnson in his _Journey to the

Hebrides_, recalling the grandeur of the rocky coast of Slains, has

said that though he could not wish for a storm, still as storms,

whether wished for or not, will sometimes happen, he would prefer

to look at them from Slains Castle. These rocks and the caves that

alternate with them were once famous as a smuggling rendezvous, and

as such Scott has again immortalized them in his _Guy Mannering_. The

Crooked Mary, a noted lugger, had many an adventure along this coast

during the last century. The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked for

at certain stated times, the preconcerted signal was given by him,

and the inhabitants bestirred themselves with commendable haste.

All ordinary business was immediately suspended: men might be seen

stealing along from house to house, or a fisher-girl, bareheaded and

barefooted, would hurry to the neighboring village, and deliver a

brief message which to a bystander would sound very like nonsense, but

which nevertheless was well understood by the person to whom it was

given. Soon after a plaid or blanket might be seen spread out, as if

to dry, upon the top of a peat-stack. Other beacons, not calculated

to draw general notice, but sufficiently understood by the initiated,

soon made their appearance, telegraphing the news from place to place.

As soon as the evening began to close in the Crooked Mary would be

observed rapidly approaching the land, and occasionally giving out

signals indicating the creek into which she meant to run. Both on sea

and land hairbreadth escapes were the rule rather than the exception,

and it is related of one of the Crooked Mary's confederates on shore,

poor Philip Kennedy, that one night, while clearing the way for the

cargo just landed from the contraband trader's hold, he was simply

murdered by the excise-officers. The heavy cart laden with the

cargo was yet some distance behind, and Kennedy with some dastardly

companions was slowly going forward to ascertain if all was safe,

when three officers of the customs suddenly made their unwelcome

appearance. Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked two of them, and

actually succeeded for a time in keeping them down in his powerful

grasp, while he called to his party to secure the third. They,

however, thinking prudence the better part of valor, decamped

ignominiously, and the enemy remained master of the brave man's life.

Anderson, the third officer, was observed to hold up his sword to the

moon, as if to ascertain if he were using the edge, and then to bring

it down with accurate aim and tremendous force upon the smuggler's

skull. Strange to say, Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually

succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, nearly a quarter of a mile

away, but expired a few moments after his arrival. His last words

were: "If all had been true as I was, the goods would have been safe,

and I should not have been bleeding to death." The brave fellow was

buried in the churchyard of Slains, where a plain stone marks his

grave, and bears the simple inscription, "To the memory of Philip

Kennedy, _in Ward_, who died the 19th of December, 1798. Aged 38."

My own earliest recollections of the grand, desolate old castle are

derived, not from my first visit to it made in infancy, but from the

descriptions of one whose home it was during a brief but intensely

observant period of childhood. There came one day a storm such as

seldom even on that coast lashes up the gray, livid ocean. The waves,

as far out as sight could reach, were one mass of foam, and the

ghastly lightning flashed upon the torn sails of a ship as near

destruction as it well could be. Cries came up from below in the brief

pauses of the storm, and above lanterns were quickly carried to and

fro, while pale attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed the signals

of a more collected master. The occupants of the castle hardly knew to

what its chambers might be destined--whether to receive the dead or to

afford rest to the saved. Beds, fires and cordials were in readiness,

and strong men bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading from beneath.

The ship broke in pieces on the merciless rocks, and many a drowned

sailor went down to meet the army of his fellow-victims of all times

who no doubt lay sleeping in the submarine caves of Slains. Those who

survived soon disappeared, full of gratitude for the timely relief

offered them at the castle, but one old man remained. He was never

known by any other name than "Monsieur," and was beloved by every

individual member of the household. A French _émigré_ of the old

school, with the dainty, gallant ways of the _ancien régime_, he still

clung to the dress of his earlier days, and wore a veritable _queue_,

silk stockings and buckled shoes. For some time he remained a welcome

guest in the "red chamber," where the host's little children would

sometimes join him and play with his watch and jeweled baubles. But

one day poor little "Monsieur" sickened, and the tiny feet that had

made such haste to run to him, now trod the corridor softly and bore a

baby-nurse to the gentle invalid. It was a high and coveted reward for

the little girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to his bedside, and

everything that kindness and hospitality could suggest was equally

lavished on him; but his feeble life, which had no doubt received a

shock from the shipwreck it had barely escaped, went out peacefully

like the soft flame of a lamp.

Slains Castle had many gentle and pleasant memories about it, as well

as its traditional horrors, and among these were many connected with

the history of the old family that owned it. In one of the corridors

hangs the picture of James, Lord Hay, a fair-haired, sunny-faced boy,

tall and athletic, standing with a cricket-bat in his hand. He would

have been earl of Erroll had he lived, but if we follow him in his

short life from classic Eton to the field of Quatre-Bras, we shall

find him again, on a bright June day in 1815, lying as if asleep, as

fair and noble-looking as before, but silent in death. Simple Flemish

peasants stand in a group around him, awed and admiring, asking each

other if this beautiful youth is an angel fallen from heaven, or

only a mortal man slain for the Honor of his country. His was a noble

death, and worthy of the suggestive memento of his early boyhood

before which we stood just now in the corridor of Slains Castle.

A little farther down this corridor, which to all intents and purposes

is a family picture-gallery, we shall be forced to stop before the

portrait of a dark woman, masculine and resolute, not beautiful nor

like the handsome race of the Hays, of which she was yet the last

direct representative. This is the famous Countess Mary, one of the

central figures of the family traditions. The Hays were hereditary

lords high constable of Scotland, and also one of the few Scottish

families in which titles and offices, as well as lands, are

transmitted through the female line. So this Countess Mary found

herself, at the death of her brother, countess of Erroll in her

own right and _lord_ high constable of Scotland. In one of the two

pictures of her at Slains, if I remember right, she is represented

with the bâton of her office, with which badge she also appeared at

court before her marriage (after this it was borne by her husband

in the character of her deputy). Her husband was a commoner, a Mr.

Falconer of Dalgaty, whose reported history in connection with her is

curious and deserves to be told, though the old tradition is moulded

into so many different forms that it is very difficult to disentangle

the truth from its manifold embellishments. Toward the beginning of

the eighteenth century this intrepid and independent lady fell in love

with Mr. Falconer, who at first did not seem eager to return or notice

her affection. High-strung and chivalric by nature, she did not droop

and pine under her disappointment, but vowed to herself that she would

bring him to her feet. Mr. Falconer coner left the country after some

time, and went to London. The Countess Mary also traveled south the

same year, and no news of her was heard at Slains for some time.

Meanwhile, she and Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the latter,

who about the same time became acquainted with a very dashing young

cavalier, evidently a man of high birth and standing, but resolutely

bent on mystifying his friends as to his origin. The two saw each

other frequently, and were linked by that desultory companionship

of London life which sometimes indeed ripens into friendship, but as

often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such was the end of this acquaintance,

and one day some trifling difference having occurred between the

friends, a cartel reached Mr. Falconer couched in very haughty though

perfectly courteous language. These things were every-day matters in

such times, and very nonchalantly the challenged went in the early

morning to the appointed place to meet the challenger. Here the

versions of the story differ. Some say that Mr. Falconer and his

antagonist fought, but without witnesses; that the former got the

worst of the encounter, and remained at the other's mercy; that then,

_and not before_, the Countess Mary made herself known to him and

gave him his choice--a thrust from her sword or a speedy marriage with

herself. Others say that it was before the duel that she astonished

her lover by this discovery, and that the choice she gave him was

between marriage and ridicule.[A]

The fact of her marriage, and that it proved a happy one, is certain.

Mr. Falconer dropped his own name to assume that of Hay. The

countess was a devoted Jacobite and an earnest churchwoman. When

Presbyterianism had got the upper hand in Scotland, and was repaying

church persecutions with terrible interest, a Mr. Keith was

appointed to the Anglican parish of Deer. This was within the Erroll

jurisdiction, and it was not long before the zealous Countess Mary

came to the rescue of the congregation, who had assembled for some

time in an old farmhouse. In 1719 or '20 she had the upper floor of

a large granary fitted up for their accommodation, and this afforded

them a grateful shelter for more than a quarter of a century. Of

this same parish of Deer a curious story is told in the local annals,

showing how conservative and tenacious of traditions the north of

Scotland still was in 1711. The skirmish to which it relates goes

by the quaint title of the "Rabbling of Deer," and is thus reported:

"Some people of Aberdeen, in conjunction with the presbytry of

Deer, to the number of seventy horse or thereby, assembled on the

twenty-third of March, 1711, to force in a Presbyterian teacher in

opposition to the parish; but the presbytry and their satellites were

soundly beat off by the people, not without blood on both sides."

There was little of the martyr about the Scot of that warlike day, and

most emphatically and literally did he show himself a "_soldier_ of

the Lord."

The aisle of the old church of Slains contains the graves of Countess

Mary and her husband, with an epitaph in Latin, of which the following

is a translation: "Beneath this tombstone there are buried neither

gold nor silver, nor treasures of any kind, but the bodies of the most

chaste wedded pair, Mary, countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay

of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and lovingly in matrimony for

twenty-seven years. They wished to be buried here beside each other,

and pray that this stone may not be moved nor their remains disturbed,

but that these be allowed to rest in the Lord until He shall call

them to the happy resurrection of that life which they expect from the

mercy of God and the merits of the Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ."

The central figure, however, in the history of the Hays of Erroll,

and that which no one who bears the name of Hay can think of without a

thrill of pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, in 1746, a victim

to the last unsuccessful but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts.

I have heard it whispered as an instance of "second sight" that some

years before he had any reason to anticipate such a death he was once

startled by the ghostly opening of a door in the apartment where

he was sitting alone, and by the apparition, horribly distinct and

realistic, of a bloody head rolling slowly toward him across the room;

till it rested at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned to his,

and the bonny locks were clotted with blood: it was as if it had

just rolled from under the axe of the executioner; and the features,

plainly discerned, _were his own!_

His part in the rising of 1745 belongs to history, but his personal

demeanor concerns my narrative more closely. All the contemporary

accounts are loud in praise of his beauty and elegance of person, his

refinement of manner, his variety of accomplishments; and Scott,

in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, relates a curious circumstance

concerning his fine presence at the moment of his execution. A lady of

fashion who had never seen him before, and who was herself, I

believe, the wife of one who had much to do with Lord Kilmarnock's

death-warrant, seeing him pass on his way to the block, formed a most

violent attachment for his person, "which in a less serious affair

would have, been little less than a ludicrous frenzy."

The grace and dignity of his appearance, together with the resignation

and mildness of his address, melted all the spectators to tears as

they gathered round the fatal Tower prison to witness his death: the

chaplain who attended him says his behavior was so humble and resigned

that even the executioner burst into tears, and was obliged to use

strong cordials to support him in his terrible duty. Lord Kilmarnock

himself was deeply impressed by the sight of the block draped in

funereal black, the plain coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust

that was so disposed as speedily to suck up the bloody traces of the

execution, and the sea of faces surrounding the open enclosure kept

for this his last earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from fear that

he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, melancholy nature was thrilled

through every nerve by this dread publicity, and we cannot wonder

that, leaning heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, he should have

whispered, almost with his last breath, the simple words, "Home, this

is dreadful!"

One who was the lineal descendant of this earl of Kilmarnock,

and whose only brother long bore the same blood-stained and

laurel-wreathed title, has often told me of the strange link that

bridged the chasm of four generations from 1746 to 1829, and bound her

recollections to those of a living witness of the scene. She was so

young as not to have any distinct impression of other events that

happened at the same time, but this lived in her mind because of the

importance and solemnity with which her own parents had purposely

invested it in her eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little

great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought

down from the nursery to see an old, more than octogenarian, soldier

who had distinguished himself in recent wars, and reached the rank

of general. This tottering old man, more than fourscore years of age,

took the wee maiden of hardly four upon his knee, and told her in

simple words the story she was never to forget--how he had been a

tiny boy running to school on the day of the execution of the "rebel

lords," and how, seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting toward the

Tower quarter, he was tempted to play truant, and flinging his satchel

of books over his shoulder, had pushed his way as far as the great

state prison. Then of his frantic efforts to secure a point of vantage

whence to see the great death-pageant--of his childish admiration for

the handsome, manly form of Lord Kilmarnock, of his enthusiasm when

Lord Balmerino, the other victim, had cried in a loud voice, "Long

live the king!" and of the fascination he could not resist which led

his eyes from the shining axe and the draped block to the auburn locks

of the prisoner, and soon after to his bleeding head laid low in the

sawdust around the coffin. All this the old veteran told thrillingly,

the shadow of a boy's awed recollection mingling with his Scottish

exultation as a compatriot of the victim, and even with a touch of

humor as he recalled the domestic scolding which marked the truant's

return.

In the charter-room at Slains Castle, where the records, genealogies,

private journals, official deeds, etc. of the family are kept,

one might find ample material for curious investigation of our

forefathers' way of living. Among other papers is a kind of inventory

headed, "My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing within Logg and

Slanis." The list of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly of brass

pots, pewter pans and oil barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg

(another residence of the Errolls), "quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir

followis, quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) to the half," contains

an ample list of curtains of purple velvet, green serge, green-and-red

drugget and other stuffs hardly translatable to the modern

understanding, and shows that in those days women were not more

backward than now in plaguing their liege lords about upholstery and

millinery. But the most amusing and natural touch of all is in the

endorsement, hardly gallant, but _very_ conjugal, made by the fair

petitioner's husband: "To my Ladyes gredie (greedy) and vnressonable

(unreasonable) desyris it is answerit...." Here follows a distinct

admission that the furniture of both houses, put together, is too

little to furnish the half of each of them, and therefore nothing can

be spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains.

The family coat-of-arms commemorates to this day the poetical

genealogy of the Hays. Its supporters are two tall, naked peasants

bearing plough-yokes on their shoulders: the crest is a falcon, while

the motto is also significant--"_Serva jugum._" Scottish tradition

tells us that in 980, when the Danes had shamefully routed the Scots

at Loncarty, a little village near Perth, and were pursuing the

fugitives, an old man and his two stalwart sons, who were ploughing in

a field close by, were seized with indignation, and, shouldering their

plough-yokes, placed themselves resolutely in a narrow defile through

which their countrymen must pass to evade a second slaughter by

the victors. As the Scots came on the three patriots opposed their

passage, crying shame upon them for cowards and no men, and exhorting

them thus: "Why! would ye rather be certainly killed by the

heathen Danes than die in arms for your own land?" Ashamed, and

yet encouraged, the fugitives rallied, and with the three dauntless

peasants at their head fell upon their astonished pursuers, and fought

with such desperation that they turned defeat into victory. Kenneth

III., the Scottish king, instantly sent for the saviors of his army,

gave them a large share of the enemy's spoils, and made them march in

triumph into Perth with their bloody plough-yokes on their shoulders.

More than that, he ennobled them, and gave them a fair tract of land,

to be measured, according to the fashion of that day, by the flight of

a falcon. From the name of this land the Hays came to be called;

lords of Erroll, and it is said that the Hawk Stone at St. Madoes,

Perthshire, which stands upon what is known to have been the ancient

boundary of the possessions of the Hays, is the identical stone from

which the lucky falcon started. It was left standing as a special

memorial of the defeat of the Danes at Loncarty. Another stone famous

in the Hay annals, and conspicuously placed in front of the entrance

to Slains Castle, is said to be the same on which the peasant general

rested after his toilsome leadership in the battle.

Our walks over the bleak moors on one side, with the heather in

bloom and the blackberries in low--lying purple clusters fringing the

granite rocks, were sometimes rendered more interesting, though more

dangerous, by the sudden falling of a thick white mist. Slowly it

would come at first, gathering little filmy clouds together as it

were, and hovering over the gray sea in curling tufts, and then,

growing strong and dense, would swoop down irresistibly, till what was

clear five minutes before was impenetrably walled off, and one seemed

to stand alone in a silent world of ghosts. Or again, our walks would

take us on the other side, over the Sands of Forvie, a desolate tract

where nothing grows save the coarse grass called _bent_ by the Scotch,

and where the wearied eye rests on nothing but mounds of shifting

sand, drearily shaped into the semblance of graves by the keen winds

that blow from over the German Ocean.

This miniature desert, tradition says, was an Eden four hundred years

ago, but a wicked guardian robbed the helpless orphan heiresses of it

by fraud and violence, and the maidens threw a spell or _weird_ upon

it in these terms:

"Yf evyr maydens malysone

Did licht upon drye lande,

Let nocht bee funde in Furvye's glebys

Bot thystl, bente and sande."

I must not forget the "Bullers," a natural curiosity which is the

boast of the neighborhood of Slains, and is moreover connected with

a feat performed by a former guest and friend of one of the lords of

Erroll. We drove there in a large party, and passed through an untidy,

picturesque little fishing-hamlet on our way, where the women talked

to each other in Gaelic as they stood barefooted at the doors of

their cabins, and where the children looked so hardy, fearless and

determined that the wildest dreams of future possible achievement

seemed hardly unlikely of realization in connection with any one of

them.

"The Pot," as it is locally called, is a huge rocky cavern,

irregularly circular and open to the sky, into which the sea rushes

through a natural archway. A narrow pathway is left quite round

the basin, from which one looks down a sheer descent of more than a

hundred feet; but this is so dangerous, the earth and coarse grass

that carpet it so deceptive and loose, and the wind almost always

so high on this spot, that only the most foolhardy or youngest of

visitors would dare in broad daylight to attempt to _walk_ round it.

Yet it is on record that the duke of Richmond, some sixty or seventy

years ago, made a bet at Lord Erroll's dinner-table that he would

_ride round it after dark_. He accomplished the feat in safety. His

picture, life-size, hangs in the dining-room to this day, and as he

is represented standing in all the pride of a vigorous manhood by

the side of his beautiful charger, he does not seem to belie the

reputation which this incident created for him in the old district of

Buchan.

The peasants of this wild and primitive neighborhood, though to some

extent slightly infected by modernization, are yet very fair specimens

of the hardy, trusty clansmen of Scottish history, and the present

owners of Slains certainly give them every reason to keep up the old

bonds of affectionate interest with every one and everything belonging

to "the family." To my own observation of the ancient seat of the Hays

I owe one of the most delightful recollections of my life, that of

a Christian home. Not only the outward observances, but the inner

spiritual vitality of religion, were there, while unselfish devotion

to all within the range of her influence or authority marked the

character of her who was at the head of this little family kingdom.

The present head of the house, a Hay to the backbone, has triumphantly

carried on the martial traditions of his ancestry, and on the roll of

England's victorious sons at the battle of the Alma his name is to be

found. He was there disabled by a wound that shattered his right arm

and cut short his military career. Domestic happiness, however, is

no bad substitute for a brilliant public life, and there are duties,

higher yet than a soldier's, that go far toward making up that

background of rural prosperity which alone ensures the grand effect of

military successes. After having done one's duty in the field, it

is to the full as noble, and perhaps more patriotic, to turn to the

duties of the glebe, thereby finishing as a landlord the work begun as

a soldier.

It is a touching custom, hardly yet obliterated in the district over

which my reminiscences have led me, for one peasant, when coming upon

another employed in his lawful calling, thus to salute him: "Guid

speed the wark!" the rejoinder being, in the same broad Buchan

dialect, "Thank ye: I wish ye weel."

I can end these pages with no more fitting sentiment. As a tribute of

grateful recollection to those who made my days at Slains a happiness

to me, and in the first fresh sorrow of a deep bereavement offered

me distractions the more alluring because the more associated with

Nature's changeless, silent grandeur, I pen these lines, crowning them

with the homely Scottish wish that wherever they are and whatever they

do, "Guid speed the wark!"

LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.

[Footnote A: There is another version of her courtship, and this a

metrical one. This old ballad was not much known beyond the district

round Slains, and the old servants and farmers on the estate were the

chief depositaries of the tradition. I have failed to secure more than

a very small fragment of it, which is itself only written down from

memory by one of these old women. The rhyme and rhythm are both

_original_:

Lady Mary Hay went to a wedding

Near the famous town of Reading:

There a gentleman she saw

That belonged to the law....

Here evidently there occurs a hiatus, during which some account is

probably begun of her unreturned attachment, for a little later we

find in the very primitive manuscript from which we quote these words

of the countess:

I that have so many slighted,

I am at last--(unrequited?)

The story is now carried on in prose (my informant having forgotten

the text of the ballad), and says that "Lady Mary wanted or challenged

him to meet her in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in

disguise), "and that his father told him to go." Neither father

nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's rank, though the

following words point to their being aware of her sex, for the elder

Falconer is represented as saying,

If she is rich she will raise your fame,

And if poor you are the same.

]

OUR HOME IN THE TYROL

CHAPTER III.

We were soon comfortably settled in the old Hof. The spacious

rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant with rare and delicate

blossoms--Alpine roses from the rocks, white lilies from Moidel's

special little garden-plot, grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas,

veronicas, melisot, potentillas and lady's bedstraw, which, according

to Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the roots of others were good

for man or beast, their various qualities being all known to him. But

soon the waving flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was the eve of St.

Peter and St. Paul's Day, a festival when all work must cease, and

the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had given orders that the hay in the

wood-meadow must be carried that evening. Seeing, therefore, that the

more hands there were the better, the two Margarets seized each a rake

and worked as hard as any woman in the field.

On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our

picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus

sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men

and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ

Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to

praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their

honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay

was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should

consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The

newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three

crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and

sometimes but one.

The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gigantic pan of

buckwheat polenta, and when she had set down this dish, intended for

the haymakers' supper, she brought us each, as our pay, a couple of

_krapfen_, which are oblong dough-cakes fried in butter.

Although the haymakers were worn out and weary with a long day's

work of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded in the chapel like the

humming of bees in lime trees. This pious custom duly impressed us,

until on the very next day, as we walked up our village street on the

evening of the festival, our solemn feelings received a great check.

We observed that the prayer-leaders, who knelt at the open windows

of each separate house, followed our every movement with their eyes,

whilst their mouths mechanically repeated sonorous Ave Marias and

Paternosters. Nay, there was our own pious Moidel watching us from the

kitchen window, her Hail Marys mingling with her friendly greetings;

but then Moidel was waiting upon us and our supper whilst her family

were on their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon learnt to perceive

that Rosenkranz was considered quite as efficacious if merely uttered

by the tongue, whilst the mind was far away. This being a festival,

and no one tired with work, the household trooped into the old

pleasaunce after supper. The elders sat together in a row, whilst the

younger members congregated on a second long stone bench and struck up

singing, Moidel and her elder brother beginning with a duet:

Green, green is the clover

On the hills as I go,

And my maiden as fresh is

As spring water's flow.

And the chorus joined in--

As spring water's flow,

winding up with a jodel.

Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in a clear, flexible voice, which

trembled no little when she perceived that the Herrschaft now formed

part of the audience in the balcony--

A WEEK'S SORROW.

On Sunday I cried, for my heart was so sore,

Like a poor little child outside the church door;

On Monday I felt so afeard and alone,

And thought, Were I a swallow, I'd quickly begone:

Woe's me! were I but a swallow, were I but a swallow!

On Tuesday, and nothing could please me all day,

For him that I love best is far, far away;

On Wednesday whatever I did, I did ill,

For when the heart's heavy the hand has no skill;

On Thursday I was weary and sleepy all day;

On Friday, and one of the cows went astray;

On Saturday down poured my tears like the rain,

As though I should never be happy again.

Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again.

In order to catch the meaning of the words, which were sung in strong

dialect, Margaret and I had descended to the garden. The Hofbauer

looked sad when he saw us approach, and quietly brushed a tear away

with his shirt-sleeve. We consequently asked Moidel when we stood

alone with her whether anything were troubling her father.

"It strikes me not," she said. "I fancy that it is but the music.

Father and uncle may both seem quiet and dull now, yet they have been

celebrated singers; only when my mother died father left off singing,

and so did uncle after Uncle Jakob's death."

"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had also joined us, "they were the three

handsomest, best--grown men in the parish, living happily together

without an ill word, until four years ago Jakob was trampled upon by

a yoke of vicious oxen, and in three days he was dead. Yes, that was a

sorrow almost as cutting as the death of the Hofbauerin, so young when

she died. Only married five years, and leaving four little children,

not one of whom ever knew her! Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is

wearing her linen now, but she can never come up in looks to her

mother. Ah ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob."

"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, astonished voice.

"Why yes, that he has been drawn for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you

knew. It was last autumn that he was drawn. The Hofbauer would have

sold his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer would

have no nay: Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young fellow, and such

were needed in the army. He had to serve two months this spring, and

with his comrades day by day had to run up the face of mountains

some four thousand feet. It quite wore Jakob out, though he is so

good-tempered. He declared that he was used, to be sure, at the Olm

to climb up to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after his goats, often

bringing the kids in his arms down the precipices, but to have his

back broken and his feet blistered in order to know how to shed human

blood was what he hated. Yet he bore it so well, doing his best, that

when the other recruits could return to their homes, Jakob, being so

clever and well-behaved, had to stay a fortnight longer to brush, fold

up and put away all the regimentals. However, the under-officer did

have him to dine with him every day."

"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be an officer," we replied, trying to

reassure her.

"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven more long years must he serve,

and always as a private. I thought like you, until the Hofbauer

explained to me that all the officers were foreigners--Saxons,

Bavarians, Würtembergers, put in by the Austrian ministry, who are

tyrants to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor would only interfere, for

he loves Tyrol! but he leaves everything to the ministry. Austria may

itself be overthrown in these unrighteous days before my Jakobi is

free." Now it was the good soul's turn to wipe her eye with the corner

of her ample blue apron.

We were venturing some fresh attempt at consolation when fortunately

an event occurred which drew her thoughts from the deep shadow which

we had just discovered hung over the peaceful Hof. Jodokus, the

village schoolmaster in the winter, when the children had time

to learn, but during the busy summer months one of the men, had

challenged Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly had the two antagonists

encountered each other on the grass in a stout set-to, when the sound

of the goatherd's whip was heard on the hilly common above, sending

forth a succession of reports like those of a pistol, becoming

stronger and louder when the game and the assembled company were seen.

At last the young "whipper-snapper," as we called him, made one long

final succession of cracks and reports, and springing over the

wall, and casting his instrument of torture on one side, he boldly

challenged Anton.

The young man, whose skill and strength were well known, smiled, half

amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. The younger athlete, a

lad of thirteen, firmly built and agile, mistook the look for a sneer,

and the blood ran fast and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting

the challenge, they immediately began to spar. They first fearlessly

regarded each other, then bowing their heads they rushed forward,

butting like rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm in Anton's chest,

tried to find his adversary's weakest point, and with his arms round

his waist endeavored cunningly to make him slip; but it was soon the

young champion who was tripped up, and who in playful, half-serious

anger dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost managing to bring

Anton sprawling to the ground. The lad, however, suddenly stopped:

he had lost a little tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer piece

from his pocket--too great a loss for a shepherd-boy. The combat

therefore was speedily closed, both antagonists and their partisans

hunting in the unmowed grass until the treasures were again trove.

At the same time an elderly man approached and opened the gate--a

peasant evidently, although, instead of the usual long white apron

and bib, he wore one of new green linen, shining as satin--a man of a

strong although delicate make, the head slightly stooping forward,

and a face that beamed with genuine pleasure as half a dozen voices

simultaneously burst forth with a "God greet you, Alois!"

This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) Alois, in preparation of

whose advent the good aunt had scrubbed a bed-room, and Moidel had

beautified the window with pots of blooming geraniums. The room was a

large chamber, set apart for the different ambulatory work-people who

came to the Hof in the course of the year. The weaver, who arrived in

the spring to weave the flax which the busy womankind had spun through

the winter, had been the last occupant of the room, and had woven no

less than two hundred and ninety-three ells of linen, which now in

long symmetrical lines were carefully pegged down on the turf of the

pleasaunce by Moidel, who walked over them daily with her bare feet,

busily watering until the gray threads were turning snowy white.

Later on in the year the sewing-woman would appear, and then the

tailor, to make the clothing for this large household, the servants,

according to an old custom long since extinct in most countries, being

chiefly paid in kind. Schuster Alois had now come to make the boots

for Jakob and the Senner Franz preparatory to their going with the

cattle to the Alpine pastures.

I greatly doubt whether the tailor or the weaver was so well waited

upon as the shoemaker: I fancy they were left more to the maids.

Passing the open door of the family house-place, aunt and niece might

now be seen sitting hour after hour, the elder lining the soles of

Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong woolen to prevent mending on

the Alp, or attending to other needs of his homely toilet; the younger

at her paste-board or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois sat

between them in the sunny oriel window, and while he steadily plied

his awl appeared to be either telling them tales or reciting poetry.

The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial word), lay at the distance of

about six hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine the state of the

pasturage before his son and the cattle finally started. In two days

he returned. "The going up of the cattle must be postponed at least a

week," he said, "for snow had fallen at the huts the depth of a man;

and the river had swollen to such a height that it had carried two

houses away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; and even

life had been lost."

This delay caused a respite from hard work. The next morning

Alois's arms did not move like unwearying machinery, and, the ten

o'clock-dinner being over, we saw him seated at his ease on the

adjoining hillside. Should we go and speak to him? He appeared

different from the ordinary run of his class (though cobblers are

often clever men enough), and moreover of a decidedly friendly turn of

mind. We determined that we would. We joined Alois on the stony, waste

hillside, crowned by two trees with a crucifix in the centre, which

formed from the house, with its background of mountains, ever a

melancholy, soul-touching little poem.

"You have not quite such hard work to-day, Schuster?"

He smiled and said, "Do your work betimes, and then rest; and where

better than under the shadow of the cross?"

"Yes, and the crucifix which you have chosen is more pleasing than the

generality which are sown broadcast over the fields of the Tyrol. Why

are they made so hideous and revolting?"

We spoke out freely, because the unusually intelligent face before

us evidently belonged to a thinker. Candor of speech pleased him.

Nevertheless, he answered as if musing, "They appear ugly to you: well

they may be. Ja, but the most who look upon them are men and women

acquainted with many sorrows--sudden deaths by falls from precipices,

destruction of house and home by lightning, floods, avalanches,

failure of crops, and many another visitation--and it soothes their

perhaps selfish natures to see these anguished features, these

blood-stained limbs--signs of still greater suffering--whilst they

pray that only such crosses may be laid on them as will keep them in

obedience to His will. Just before you came up the hill I was thinking

of a strange history connected with a crucifix--one that I read only

ten days ago in the house of a Hochmair himself."

It merely needed silence for Schuster Alois to repeat the tale, and he

soon began: "It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler who narrates it. He says

that once in his rambles he came to a little chapel, over which hung a

blasted larch--such a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally asked

the guide he had with him why it was not cut down. Now, the guide

was an old man who knew every, tradition and legend, besides all the

family histories in that part of the Tyrol. 'That tree,' said he, 'is

left there purposely, as the reminder of a great crime, and nobody

would think of touching it. If you look into the chapel, you'll see a

Christ on the cross which has been shot through the breast. That was

once a crucifix under this very tree.' Then the guide made a remark

which had often struck myself--that there are some families in which

everything that is strange and dreadful happens, whilst there are

others that go on for generations and are no more distinguishable than

the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they

were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was

at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations

back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more

for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the

game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put

more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such

a bad character that when he went to confession the priest would

not give him absolution. This put him in a great rage, and it is

remarkable that from that day his luck in hunting forsook him. He

could not take aim--a sort of mist was ever before his eyes, his hand

trembled. People believed that he was perpetually haunted by the ghost

of a young man whom, after he had shot, he had beaten to death with

his gunstock, and then flung down a crevasse. Be that as it may, he

would be absent for weeks in the mountains. He did no good, and the

little he possessed fell into ruin.

"His creditors were about to sell him up, stick and stone, when he

put, as one may say, the finishing stroke to everything himself. It

was Corpus Christi Day: the bells were ringing and the procession

moving through the fields, the holy banners waving, the choir-boys

singing the sanctus, when just as the priest lifted the Host in the

golden monstrance, a shot was fired from the bushes in front of a

crucifix. Lightning flashed from heaven, and the house of the wicked

Hochmair, which was at no great distance, burst into flames. An awful

cry rang from the bushes: the procession rushed forward, the priest

only remaining with the Host and a few attendants. And what did they

see? There was the image of the crucified Saviour pierced by a bullet,

and out in the road stood the wretched Hochmair, with his hands

clasped on the lock of his gun and his eyes rolling in frenzy.

Everybody perceived the crime he had committed, and remained

motionless, whilst he beckoned wildly to the priest, who came up in

gloomy silence. After they had talked together alone for some time,

the priest went into the church, where he remained all night in

prayer. The wretched man, whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared

into the thicket, and all trace was lost of him. In the mean while

the injured image of the Saviour was removed into the church. So years

went on, and then one Sunday after service the priest announced from

the pulpit that the former sinner Hochmair was dead, but that after

years of penitence he had received the forgiveness of the Church and

of God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, 'let all forgive him, and

remember only their own sins, and pray Christ to be merciful to them.'

After that it was known that he had become possessed with the crazy

notion that if he fired into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus

Christi Day, just when the Host was being elevated and the benediction

spoken, it would make his gun unerring. He fired therefore, and at the

same moment the Saviour on the cross raised His head and, fixing on

him His eyes full of tears, gave him a look which pierced him to the

very marrow, and that terrified him far more than the lightning

which, flashing from his forehead, set fire to his house, whilst the

thorn-crowned countenance seemed to float before him, and he knew that

this was his punishment. Such was his confession at the time to the

priest who laid the penance of the Church upon him. So he went out

into the world like another Cain, and God in His own time was merciful

to him. Still, the wounded effigy of the Saviour and the blasted larch

tree remain as witnesses on earth against him.

"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that is only one tale amongst the

hundreds which could be related concerning these crucifixes. Ah,

there is many an old, bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on crag or

highway-side from which the anguished face of the Saviour has both

smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes cut deeper into most

Tyrolese hearts than shrines, some way."

"Strange," we replied, "for these old shrines are not only quaint,

but often beautiful, as, for instance, the one on the roadside turning

into town."

"Ah, I am glad you like it," said Alois, "for there are those who

would wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden cross, as a landmark,

placed there instead. The Capuchins in the adjoining monastery are

opposed to it, however, and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," he

continued, becoming quite aglow, "that although it is greatly injured

and many of the figures lost, still there are others who look at you

so calmly and seriously with their marred, dilapidated countenances

that you feel a peace steal into your heart? And whoever the painter

was, he must have loved his work, for Saint Gregory could never have

been more dignified in real life than he looks in the shrine."

"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost without knowing what we were

saying, for it was hardly probable.

"Oh, I only touch colors now and then, when there's a purpose in it

or I can serve the Church," he returned. He became embarrassed, and

explained that it was time to return to his work.

We afterward learnt from Moidel that Alois bore in the neighborhood

far and wide the reputation of an artist, although he did not consider

himself such, seeing he could not paint saints and angels. It was,

however, a great source of pleasure to him to paint mottoes and

devices and to arrange floral decorations, especially when they could

serve as a surprise for some private name-day or church festival.

One afternoon we were told that the boots were made, that Anton had

brought the flour from the mill, that two hundred loaves of rye bread

were baked, and, the weather being sufficiently fine and all the

preparations being completed, the cattle would now start for the

Olm. First, Anton and the Senner Franz set off at four o'clock in the

afternoon, with the calves in advance, the young things being unable

to keep up with the cattle. Then a _leiterwagen_ which had been drawn

into the lower corridor and filled with sacks of flour, meal, salt and

the two hundred loaves, was driven by the Hofbauer as far as Taufers,

whence the supplies for the Alpine residents would be borne on men's

backs up to the huts.

In the evening Jakob came into the grand old sitting-room to bid us

good-bye. He appeared in his shirt-sleeves and the indispensable white

apron, and with the utmost self-possession and refinement of manner he

presented us with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising to send us

down a larger supply by his brother. We talked with him about the Olm,

and found him enthusiastic on the subject, his one regret being that,

as he must return for several weeks of drilling on August 22d, his

stay there this summer would be greatly curtailed. The Olm was very

extensive, lying on a mountain-platform which was only bare of snow

for about three months in the year. When, however, the snow was off,

the flowers came up by thousands, the grass sprang up by magic,

all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound

of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful

beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper

mountain-sides. Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers

were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time,

so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a

considerable distance apart.

Jakob spoke on until we became wild to go up to the Olm too. "Could we

go thither," we asked, "and pay him a visit?"

"That we could," he replied, "if we did not mind sleeping in the hay.

Only we had better wait for settled weather in August."

There was now no talk of our leaving the Hof at St. Jakobi. The

Hofbauer had declared that the house was at our disposal until

Martinmas--longer if we wanted it. He also fell into the scheme of

our visiting his Olm, where he intimated his desire to be host, saying

that all the dairy produce would be at our service.

In the night, exactly at one o'clock, Jakob and Jodokus started: we

heard them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the "Leben Sie wohl!"

"Behüt Euch Gott!" shouted lovingly after them from the open door and

the lower windows of the silent old mansion. Six and twenty head of

cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep were to follow later. It was a calm

and beautiful night, the three-quarters moon just dropping behind the

mountains, and the stars shining out brightly from the dark cloudless

sky.