CHAPTER LXXIX.

It was impossible for me to intrude upon Roland's thoughts, whatever

their nature, with a detail of those circumstances which had roused in

me a keen and anxious interest in things apart from his sorrow.

Yet, as "restless I roll'd around my weary bed," and revolved the

renewal of Vivian's connexion with a man of character so equivocal as

Peacock, the establishment of an able and unscrupulous tool of his

own in the service of Trevanion, the care with which he had concealed

from me his change of name, and his intimacy at the very house to

which I had frankly offered to present him; the familiarity which his

creature had contrived to effect with Miss Trevanion's maid, the words

that had passed between them--plausibly accounted for, it is true, yet

still suspicious--and, above all, my painful recollections of Vivian's

reckless ambition, and unprincipled sentiments--nay, the effect that

a few random words upon Fanny's fortune, and the luck of winning an

heiress, had sufficed to produce upon his heated fancy and audacious

temper: when all these thoughts came upon me, strong and vivid, in the

darkness of night, I longed for some confidant, more experienced in the

world than myself, to advise me as to the course I ought to pursue.

Should I warn Lady Ellinor? But of what?--the character of a servant,

or the designs of the fictitious Gower? Against the first I could say,

if nothing very positive, still enough to make it prudent to dismiss

him. But of Gower or Vivian, what could I say without, not indeed

betraying his confidence--for that he had never given me--but without

belying the professions of friendship that I myself had lavishly

made to him? Perhaps, after all, he might have disclosed whatever

were his real secrets to Trevanion; and, if not, I might indeed ruin

his prospects by revealing the aliases he assumed. But wherefore

reveal, and wherefore warn? Because of suspicions that I could not

myself analyse--suspicions founded on circumstances most of which had

already been seemingly explained away? Still, when morning came, I

was irresolute what to do; and after watching Roland's countenance,

and seeing on his brow so great a weight of care, that I had no

option but to postpone the confidence I pined to place in his strong

understanding and unerring sense of honour, I wandered out, hoping that

in the fresh air I might re-collect my thoughts, and solve the problem

that perplexed me. I had enough to do in sundry small orders for my

voyage, and commissions for Bolding, to occupy me some hours. And,

this business done, I found myself moving westward; mechanically, as

it were, I had come to a kind of half-and-half resolution to call upon

Lady Ellinor, and question her, carelessly and incidentally, both about

Gower and the new servant admitted to the household.

Thus I found myself in Regent Street, when a carriage, borne by

post-horses, whirled rapidly over the pavement--scattering to the

right and left all humbler equipages--and hurried, as if on an errand

of life and death, up the broad thoroughfare leading into Portland

Place. But, rapidly as the wheels dashed by, I had seen distinctly the

face of Fanny Trevanion in the carriage, and that face wore a strange

expression, which seemed to me to speak of anxiety and grief; and, by

her side--was not that the woman I had seen with Peacock? I did not

see the face of the woman, but I thought I recognised the cloak, the

bonnet, and peculiar turn of the head. If I could be mistaken there, I

was not mistaken at least as to the servant on the seat behind. Looking

back at a butcher's boy, who had just escaped being run over, and was

revenging himself by all the imprecations the Diræ of London slang

could suggest, the face of Mr Peacock was exposed in full to my gaze.

My first impulse, on recovering my surprise, was to spring after

the carriage; in the haste of that impulse, I cried "Stop!" But the

carriage was out of sight in a moment, and my word was lost in air.

After pausing for a moment, full of presentiments of some evil--I

knew not what--I then altered my course, and stopped not till I found

myself, panting and out of breath, in St James's Square--at the door of

Trevanion's house--in the hall. The porter had a newspaper in his hand

as he admitted me.

"Where is Lady Ellinor? I must see her instantly."

"No worse news of master, I hope, sir?"

"Worse news of what?--of whom?--of Mr Trevanion?"

"Did you not know he was suddenly taken ill, sir; that a servant came

express to say so last night. Lady Ellinor went off at ten o'clock to

join him."

"At ten o'clock last night?"

"Yes, sir; the servant's account alarmed her ladyship so much."

"The new servant, who had been recommended by Mr Gower?"

"Yes, sir--Henry," answered the porter staring at me. "Please, sir,

here is an account of master's attack in the paper. I suppose Henry

took it to the office before he came here, which was very wrong in him;

but I am afraid he's a very foolish fellow."

"Never mind that, Miss Trevanion--I saw her just now--_she_ did not go

with her mother; Where was she going, then?"

"Why, sir--but pray step into the parlour."

"No, no--speak."

"Why, sir, before Lady Ellinor set out, she was afraid that there

_might_ be something in the papers to alarm Miss Trevanion, and so she

sent Henry down to Lady Castleton's, to beg her ladyship to make as

light of it as she could; but it seems that Henry blabbed the worst to

Mrs Mole,--"

"Who is Mrs Mole?"

"Miss Trevanion's maid, sir--a new maid; and Mrs Mole blabbed to my

young lady, and so she took fright, and insisted on coming to town.

And Lady Castleton, who is ill herself in bed, could not keep her,

I suppose--especially as Henry said, though he ought to have known

better, 'that she would be in time to arrive before my lady set off.'

Poor Miss Trevanion was so disappointed when she found her mamma gone.

And then she would order fresh horses, and would go on, though Mrs

Bates (the housekeeper, you know, sir) was very angry with Mrs Mole,

who encouraged Miss; and--"

"Good heavens! Why did not Mrs Bates go with her?"

"Why, sir, you know how old Mrs Bates is, and my young lady is always

so kind that she would not hear of it, as she is going to travel night

and day; and Mrs Mole said she had gone all over the world with her

last lady, and that--"

"I see it all. Where is Mr Gower?"

"Mr Gower, sir!"

"Yes! Can't you answer?"

"Why, with Mr Trevanion, I believe, sir."

"In the north--what is the address?"

"Lord N----, C---- Hall, near W----"

I heard no more.

The conviction of some villanous snare struck me as with the swiftness

and force of lightning. Why, if Trevanion were really ill, had the

false servant concealed it from me? Why suffered me to waste his

time, instead of hastening to Lady Ellinor? How, if Mr Trevanion's

_sudden_ illness had brought the man to London--how had he known so

long beforehand (as he himself told me, and his appointment with the

waiting woman proved) the day he should arrive? Why now, if there were

no design of which Miss Trevanion was the object--why so frustrate the

provident foresight of her mother, and take advantage of the natural

yearning of affection, the quick impulse of youth, to hurry off a

girl whose very station forbade her to take such a journey without

suitable protection--against what must be the wish, and what clearly

were the instructions, of Lady Ellinor? Alone,--worse than alone!

Fanny Trevanion was then in the hands of two servants, who were the

instruments and confidants of an adventurer like Vivian; and that

conference between those servants--those broken references to the

morrow, coupled with the name Vivian had assumed--needed the unerring

instincts of love more cause for terror--terror the darker, because the

exact shape it should assume was obscure and indistinct?

I sprang from the house.

I hastened into the Haymarket, summoned a cabriolet, drove home as fast

as I could (for I had no money about me for the journey I meditated;)

sent the servant of the lodging to engage a chaise-and-four,

rushed into the room, where Roland fortunately still was, and

exclaimed--"Uncle, come with me!--take money, plenty of money!--Some

villany I know, though I cannot explain it, has been practised on the

Trevanions. We may defeat it yet. I will tell you all by the way--come,

come!"

"Certainly. But villany!--and to people of such a

station--pooh--collect yourself. Who is the villain?"

"Oh, the man I have loved as a friend--the man whom I myself helped to

make known to Trevanion.--Vivian--Vivian!"

"Vivian!--ah, the youth I have heard you speak of. But how?--villany to

whom--to Trevanion?"

"You torture me with your questions. Listen--this Vivian (I know

him)--he has introduced into the house, as a servant, an agent capable

of any trick and fraud; that servant has aided him to win over her

maid--Fanny's--Miss Trevanion's. Miss Trevanion is an heiress, Vivian

an adventurer. My head swims round, I cannot explain now. Ha! I will

write a line to Lord Castleton--tell him my fears and suspicions--he

will follow us, I know, or do what is best."

I drew ink and paper towards me, and wrote hastily. My uncle came round

and looked over my shoulder.

Suddenly he exclaimed, seizing my arm, "Gower, Gower. What name is

this? You said 'Vivian.'"

"Vivian or Gower--the same person."

My uncle hurried out of the room. It was natural that he should leave

me to make our joint and brief preparations for departure.

I finished my letter, sealed it, and when, five minutes afterwards,

the chaise came to the door, I gave it to the ostler who accompanied

the horses, with injunctions to deliver it forthwith to Lord Castleton

himself.

My uncle now descended, and walked from the threshold with a firm

stride. "Comfort yourself," he said, as he entered the chaise, into

which I had already thrown myself. "We may be mistaken yet."

"Mistaken! You do not know this young man. He has every quality that

could entangle a girl like Fanny, and not, I fear, one sentiment of

honour that would stand in the way of his ambition. I judge him now as

by a revelation--too late--oh Heavens, if it be too late!"

A groan broke from Roland's lips. I heard in it a proof of his sympathy

with my emotion, and grasped his hand; it was as cold as the hand of

the dead.

THE ROMANCE OF RUSSIAN HISTORY.[4]

[4] _Histoire des Conspirations et des Executions Politiques,

comprenant l'Histoire des Sociétés Secrètes depuis les temps les plus

reculés jusqu'à nos jours._ Par A. BLANC. 4 Vols. Volume the Third:

RUSSIA.

Professor Shaw, in the preface to his translation of Lajetchnikoff's

striking and interesting romance, _The Heretic_, notices the shyness

of English novelists in approaching Russian ground. "How happens it,"

he says, "that Russia, with her reminiscences of two centuries and a

half of Tartar dominion--of her long and bloody struggles with the

Ottoman and the Pole, whose territories stretch almost from the arctic

ice to the equator, and whose semi-oriental diadem bears inscribed upon

it such names as Peter and Catherine--should have been passed over

as incapable of supplying rich materials for fiction and romance?"

The question is hard to answer, and appears doubly so after reading

the third volume of Monsieur A. Blanc's recent work on political

conspiracies and executions,--a volume sufficient of itself to set

those romance-writing who never wrote romance before. It is a trite

remark, that romances, having history for their groundwork, derive

their attraction and interest far more from the skill and genius of

their authors than from the importance of the period selected, and

from the historical prominence of the characters introduced. It is

unnecessary to name writers in whose hands a Bayard or a du Guesclin, a

Cromwell or a Charles of Sweden, would appear tame and commonplace. Our

readers need not to be reminded of others of a different stamp,--and

of one, great amongst all, the rays of whose genius have formed a halo

of grandeur, glory, or fascination around persons to whom history

accords scarcely a word. But such genius is not of every-day growth;

and to historical romance-writers of the calibre of most of those with

whom the British public is now fain to cry content, the mere devising

of a plot, uniting tolerable historical fidelity with some claim to

originality, is an undertaking in which they are by no means uniformly

successful. To such we recommend, as useful auxiliaries, M. Blanc's

octavos, and especially the one that suggests the present article.

English and Scottish histories, if not used up, have at least been very

handsomely worked, and have fairly earned a little tranquillity upon

their shelves: the wars of the Stuarts, in particular, have contributed

more than their quota to the literary fund. The same may be said of the

history of France, so fertile in striking events, and so largely made

use of by purveyors to the circulating libraries. Italy and Spain, and

even Poland, have not escaped; whilst the East has been disported over

in every direction by the accomplished Morier, and a swarm of imitators

and inferiors. But what Englishman has tried his hand at a Russian

historical romance? We strive in vain to call to mind an original novel

in our language founded on incidents of Russian history--although the

history of scarcely any nation in the world includes, in the same space

of time, a greater number of strange and extraordinary events.

M. Blanc's book, notwithstanding a certain air of pretension in the

style of its getting up, in the very mediocre illustrations, and in

the tone of the introductory pages, is substantially an unassuming

performance. It is a compilation, and contains little that is not to

be found printed elsewhere. At the same time, perhaps in no other

work are the same events and details thrown together in so compact

and entertaining a form. The author troubles us with few comments of

his own, and his reserve in this respect enhances the merit of his

book, for when he departs from it his views are somewhat strained

and ultra-French. But his narrative is spiritedly put together; and

although it will be found, upon comparison, that he has, for the most

part, faithfully adhered to high historical authorities, to the

exclusion of mere traditionary matter and of imaginative embellishment,

yet the dramatic interest of the subject is itself so vivid, that the

book reads like a romance.

The Russian history, even to our own day, is a sanguinary and cruel

chronicle. Its brevity is its best excuse. The youth of the country

extenuates the crimes of its children. For if the strides of Russia

have been vast and rapid in the paths of civilisation, we must bear

in mind that it is but very recently the progress began. "At the

commencement of the eighteenth century," says M. Blanc, "it had

certainly been very difficult to foresee that fifty years later a

magnificent and polite court would be established on the Gulf of

Finland; that soldiers raised on the banks of the Volga and the Don

would rank with the best disciplined troops; and that an empire, of

itself larger than all the rest of Europe, would have passed from a

state of barbarism to one of civilisation as advanced as that of the

most favoured European states." This is overshooting the mark, and

is an exaggeration even a hundred years after the date assigned. If

the civilisation of St Petersburg has for some time vied with that of

London or Paris, Russia, as a country, has even now much to do before

she can be placed on a footing with England or France in refinement and

intellectual cultivation. It is difficult to institute a comparison

in a case where the nature of the countries, the characters of the

nations, and the circumstances of their rise, are, and have been,

so dissimilar. The investigation might easily entail a disquisition

of a length that would leave very little room for an examination of

the book in hand. And all that we seek in the present instance to

establish will be readily conceded--namely, that in the throes of a

country accomplishing with unprecedented rapidity the passage, usually

so gradual, from barbarism to civilisation, some palliation is to be

found for the faults and vices of her nobles and rulers, and for the

blood-stains disfiguring her annals.

The early history of Russia, from the foundation of the empire by Rurik

to the reign of Ivan IV.--that is to say from the middle of the ninth

to the middle of the sixteenth century--is a chaos of traditions and

uncertainties, which M. Blanc has deemed unfavourable to the project

of his book, and which he accordingly passes over in an introductory

chapter. His business, as may be gathered from his title-page, is

with the internal convulsions of the country; and these are difficult

to trace, until Ivan Vassilivitch threw off the Tartar yoke, and his

grandson Ivan IV., surnamed the Tyrant, or the Terrible, began, with an

iron hand, it is true, to labour at the regeneration of his country. A

bloodthirsty despot, Russia yet owes him much. The people, demoralised

by Tartar rule, needed rigid laws and severe treatment. Ivan

promulgated a code far superior to any previously in use. He invited

to Russia foreign mechanics, artists, and men of science; established

the first printing-press seen in the country; and laid the foundation

of Russian trade, by a treaty of commerce with our own Elizabeth. By

the conquest of Kazan, of the kingdom of Astracan, and of districts

adjacent to the Caucasus, he extended the limits of the Russian

empire. But his wise enactments and warlike successes were sullied by

atrocious acts of cruelty. In Novogorod, which had offended him by its

desires for increased liberty, he raged for six weeks like an incensed

tiger. Sixty thousand human beings, according to some historians, fell

victims on that occasion. Similar scenes of butchery were enacted in

Tver, Moscow, and other cities. His cruel disposition was evident at

a very early age. He was but thirteen years old when he assembled his

boyarins to inform them that he needed not their guidance, and would

no longer submit to their encroachments on his royal prerogative. "I

ought to punish you all," he said, "for all of you have been guilty of

offences against my person; but I will be indulgent, and the weight of

my anger shall fall only on Andrew Schusky, who is the worst amongst

you." Schusky, the head of a family which had seized the reins of

government during the Czar's minority, endeavoured to justify himself.

Ivan would not hear him. "Seize and bind him," cried the boy-despot,

"and throw him to my dogs. They have a right to the repast." A pack of

ferocious hounds, which Ivan took pleasure in rearing, were brought

under the window, and irritated by every possible means. When they

were sufficiently exasperated, Andrew Schusky was thrown amongst them.

His cries increased their fury, and his body was torn to shreds and

devoured.

Ivan dead, his son Feodor, who should have been surnamed the Feeble,

as his father was the Terrible, ascended the Russian throne. He was

the last of Rurik's descendants who occupied it. Even during his reign

he recognised as regent of the empire his brother-in-law, the insolent

and ambitious Boris Godunof. Possessed of the real power, this man

coveted the external pomp of royalty. The crown was his aim, and to its

possession after the death of Feodor, who, as weak of body as of mind,

was not likely to be long-lived, only one obstacle existed. This was

a younger son of Ivan IV., a child of a few years old, named Dmitri

or Demetrius. The existence of this infant was a slight bar to one so

unscrupulous as Godunof, a bar which a poniard soon removed. Feodor

died, and his brother-in-law accepted, with much show of reluctance,

the throne he had so long desired to fill. For the first time for many

years he breathed freely; his end was attained; he thought not of the

many crimes that had led to it, of the spilt blood of his child-victim,

or of that of two hundred of the inhabitants of Ouglitch, judicially

murdered by his orders in revenge of the death of Demetrius' assassins,

whom the people had risen upon and slain; the tears of Ivan's widow,

now childless and confined in a convent, and of her whole family,

condemned to a horrible captivity, troubled not his repose or his

dreams of future prosperity. But whilst he exulted in security and

splendour, his joy was suddenly troubled by a strange retribution.

Demetrius was dead; of that there could be no doubt; his emissary's

dagger had done the work too surely--but the name of the rightful heir

survived to make the usurper tremble. It is curious to observe in how

many details Godunof's own crimes contributed to his punishment. His

manoeuvres to suppress the facts of Demetrius' death, by stopping

couriers and falsifying despatches, so as to make it appear that the

young prince had killed himself with a knife in a fit of epilepsy, had

thrown a sort of mystery and ambiguity over the whole transaction,

favourable to the designs and pretensions of impostors. One of the many

dark deeds by which he had paved his way to the supreme power was the

removal of the metropolitan of the Russian church, who was deposed and

shut up in a convent, where it was pretty generally believed he met a

violent death. In lieu of this dignitary, previously the sole chief of

the Russian church, Godunof created a patriarchate, and Jeremiah of

Constantinople went to Moscow to install the first patriarch, whose

name was Job. This prelate, whilst visiting the convent of Tchudof, was

struck by the intelligence of a young monk named Gregory Otrepief or

Atrepief, who could read, then a rare accomplishment, and who showed

great readiness of wit. The patriarch took this youth into his service

as secretary, and often carried him with him when he went to visit

the Czar. Dazzled by the brilliancy of the court, and perceiving the

ignorance and incapacity of many high personages, Otrepief conceived

the audacious design of elevating himself above those to whom he felt

himself already far superior in ability. He was acquainted with the

details of the death of young Demetrius; and from some old servants of

the Czarina Mary he obtained particulars of the character, qualities,

and tastes of the deceased prince, all of which he carefully noted

down, as well as the names and titles of the officers and attendants

who had been attached to his person. Having prepared and studied his

part, he asked leave to return to his convent. This was granted.

His fellow-monks wondered to see him thus abandon the advantageous

prospects held out to him by the favour of the patriarch.

"What should I become by remaining at court?" replied Otrepief, with a

laugh: "a bishop at most, and I mean to be Czar of Moscow."

At first this passed as a joke; but Otrepief, either through bravado,

or because it formed part of his scheme, repeated it so often, that it

at last came to the ears of the Czar himself, who said the monk must

be mad. At the same time, as he knew by experience that the usurpation

of the throne was not an impossible thing, he ordered, as an excessive

precaution, that the boaster should be sent to a remote convent.

Otrepief set out, but on the road he seduced his escort, consisting of

two monks. By large promises he prevailed with them to accompany him to

Lithuania, where many enemies of Godunof had taken refuge. According to

the custom of the times, the travellers passed the nights in roadside

monasteries, and in every cell that he occupied Otrepief wrote upon

the walls--"I am Demetrius, son of Ivan IV. Although believed to be

dead, I escaped from my assassins. When I am upon my father's throne

I will recompense the generous men who now show me hospitality." Soon

the report spread far and wide that the Czarowitz Demetrius lived,

and had arrived in Lithuania. Otrepief assumed a layman's dress, left

his monkish adherents--one of whom agreed to bear the name his leader

now renounced--and presented himself as the son of Ivan IV. to the

Zaporian Cossacks, amongst whom he soon acquired the military habits

and knowledge which he deemed essential to the success of his daring

schemes. After a campaign or two, which, judging from the character

of his new associates, were probably mere brigand-like expeditions in

quest of pillage, Otrepief resumed the cowl, and entered the service of

a powerful noble named Vichnevetski, whom he knew to have been greatly

attached to Ivan IV. Pretending to be dangerously ill, he asked for a

confessor. After receiving absolution: "I am about to die," he said to

the priest; "and I entreat you, holy father, to have me buried with

the honours due to the son of the Czar." The priest, a Jesuit, (the

Jesuits were then all-powerful in Poland) asked the meaning of these

strange words, which Otrepief declined telling, but said they would

be explained after his death by a letter beneath his pillow. This

letter the astonished Jesuit took an opportunity to purloin, and at the

same time he perceived on the sick man's breast a gold cross studded

with diamonds--a present received by Otrepief when secretary to the

patriarch. In all haste the Jesuit went to Vichnevetski; they opened

the letter, and gathered from its contents that he who had presented

himself to them as a poor monk was no other than Demetrius, son of

Ivan IV. Vichnevetski had in his service two Russians who had been

soldiers of Ivan. Led to the sick man's bedside, these declared that

they perfectly recognised in him the Czarowitz Demetrius; first, by

his features--although they had not seen him since his childhood--and

afterwards by two warts upon his face, and by an inequality in the

length of his arms.

The Jesuits, never negligent of opportunities to increase their

power, saw in the pretender to the czardom a fit instrument for the

propagation of Romanism in Russia. They enlisted Sigismund king of

Poland in the cause of the false Demetrius, who was treated as a

prince, and lodged in a palace. Thence he negotiated with the pope's

nuncio, who gave him assurance of the support of all Catholic Europe in

exchange for his promise to unite Russia to the Latin church. An army

of Poles and Russian refugees was raised, and the southern provinces of

Russia were inundated with florid proclamations, in which the joys of

an earthly paradise were offered to all who espoused the cause of their

legitimate sovereign, Demetrius. The Don Cossacks, whose robberies had

been recently checked by Godunof, flocked to the pretender's banner,

and so formidable was the army thus collected, that the Czar began

heartily to regret having paid such small attention to the words of the

monk Otrepief. The Ukraine declared for the self-styled son of Ivan

IV.; the voevóda of Sandomir, whose daughter he had promised to marry,

acknowledged him as his prince; towns submitted, and fortresses opened

their gates to the impostor, now in full march upon Moscow. Blinded

by success, Otrepief fancied himself invincible; and, with scarcely

fifteen thousand soldiers, he hurried to meet the Muscovite army, fifty

thousand strong, and provided with a formidable artillery. Beaten,

his undisciplined forces dispersed, and he himself escaped death by

a miracle; but his courage was still undaunted. After a few days,

during which he slept upon the snow, and subsisted upon a few grains of

barley, he succeeded in rallying his scattered bands. These became the

nucleus of a new army; and at the very moment that Godunof, rejoicing

at his victory, prepared to chastise the nobles compromised in the

rebellion, he heard that his enemy was again afoot, more formidable

than ever. Furious at the news, the Czar addressed reproaches and

menaces to his generals, whom he thus completely alienated; and

thenceforth he was surrounded by enemies. A sudden illness soon

afterwards carried him off, giving him scarcely time to proclaim his

son Feodor his successor. Court and clergy, people and army, paid

homage to the young Czar. Amongst others, the general-in-chief of the

army took the oath of fidelity; but no sooner was he again at the head

of his troops, than he negotiated with Otrepief, and went over to him

with all his forces. A few days afterwards the pretender was in Moscow.

He strangled Feodor, and proclaimed himself Czar. Never had an impostor

played his part with greater skill and such complete success. He had

the art even to obtain his recognition from Ivan's widow. He recalled

her relations, exiled since Godunof's usurpation, restored them their

property and loaded them with honours, and then sent word to Mary that

he would be to her a good son or a severe master, as she chose. The

Czarina acknowledged him as her son, and was present at his coronation.

Notwithstanding the strength of this evidence, a noble, named Basil

Shusky or Zulski,--of the family whose chief Ivan IV. had thrown to his

hounds,--still contended against the usurper. He had himself seen the

corpse of Ivan's son Demetrius, and he declared as much to his friends

and partisans, whom he offered to head and lead against the impostor.

Before his plans were ripe, however, he was arrested and brought to

trial. Otrepief offered to pardon him if he would name his accomplices,

and publicly admit that he had lied in stating that he had seen the

dead body of the son of Ivan IV.

"I will retract nothing," was Shusky's firm reply; "for I have spoken

the truth: the man who now wears the crown of the Czar is a vile

impostor. I know the fate reserved for me; but those you uselessly urge

me to betray will revenge my death, and the usurper shall fall."

As he persisted in his courageous assertions, the judges ordered him to

be put to the torture. The executioner tied his hands behind him and

placed upon his head an iron crown, bristling internally with sharp

points; then, with the palm of his hand, he struck the top of the

crown, and blood streamed over the victim's face.

"Confess your guilt!" said the judge.

The intrepid Shusky repeated his asseveration of Otrepief's imposture.

The judge signed to the executioner, who again clapped a heavy hand

upon the iron diadem. But suffering only augmented the energy of the

heroic Muscovite, who continued, as long as consciousness remained in

his tortured head, to denounce the false Czar. At last, when the whole

of the forehead and the greater part of the skull were bared to the

bone, he fainted and was removed. The terrible crown had been pressed

down to his eyes. He was condemned to decapitation; but Otrepief

pardoned him upon the scaffold, and, sometime afterwards, was imprudent

enough to take him into favour and make him his privy counsellor.

Shusky had vowed revenge, and waited only for an opportunity. This

was accelerated by Otrepief's fancied security. One morning the false

Demetrius was roused by alarm-bells, and, on looking from a window,

he beheld the palace surrounded by a host of armed conspirators. The

doors were speedily forced; pursued from room to room by overwhelming

numbers, his clothes and the doors through which he fled riddled with

balls, the Czar at last leaped from a window, and, notwithstanding

serious injuries received in falling, he reached a guardhouse occupied

by the Strelitz. The post was soon surrounded by an armed and menacing

crowd; but the officer commanding declared he would defend his

sovereign with his life.

"He whom you call your sovereign is a monk who has usurped the crown,"

said Shusky to the officer.

"He is the son of the Czarina Mary," was the reply.

"The Czarina herself declares him an impostor."

"Show me her written declaration to that effect, and I will give him

up; but only on that condition."

Shusky ran to the convent where Mary lived in a kind of semi-captivity,

told her what was passing,--that the capital was in his power, and that

she could not now refuse to proclaim the imposture of the wretch who

had compelled her to recognise him as her son. Mary yielded the more

easily that her timorous conscience reproached her with the falsehood

by which she had confirmed an adventurer in the imperial dignity; she

signed and sealed the declaration demanded, and Shusky hastened with

it to the officer of Strelitz. Otrepief was given up. Shusky assembled

some boyarins and formed a tribunal, of which he himself was president,

and before which the Czar, thus rapidly cast down from the throne to

which his address and courage had elevated him, was forthwith arraigned.

"The hour of expiation is come," said Shusky. "The head you so

barbarously mutilated has never ceased to ponder vengeance. Monk

Otrepief, confess yourself an impostor, that God, before whom you are

about to appear, may have pity on your soul."

"I am the Czar Demetrius," replied Otrepief, with much assurance: "it

is not the first time that rebellious subjects, led astray by traitors,

have dared lay hands on the sacred person of their sovereign; but such

crimes never remain unpunished."

"You would gain time," replied Shusky; "but you will not succeed; the

Czarina Mary's declaration is sufficient for us to decide upon your

fate, and, so doing, we doom you to die."

Thereupon four men seized the culprit and pushed him against a wall;

two others, armed with muskets, went close up to him and shot him. He

struggled an instant, and then expired. His corpse, dragged by the mob

to the place of common execution, was there abandoned with outrage

and mutilation. His death was the signal for the massacre of the

Poles, whom Otrepief had always favoured, affecting their manners, and

selecting them for his body-guard. Moscow just then contained a great

number of those foreigners; for Marina, daughter of the voevóda of

Sandomir, had arrived a few days before for her nuptials with the Czar,

and had been closely followed by the King of Poland's ambassadors,

with an armed and numerous suite. After an orgie at the palace, the

Poles had committed various excesses, beating peaceable citizens and

outraging women, which had greatly exasperated the people. Besides

this, their religion rendered them odious; and scarcely had the false

Demetrius fallen when the Russian priests and monks raised the cry

of massacre. With shouts of "Down with the Pope!" and "Death to the

heretics!" they spread through the city, pointing out to the people

the dwellings of the Poles, whose doors were already marked by the

conspirators. It was a St Bartholomew on a small scale. Blood flowed

for six hours in the streets of Moscow: more than a thousand Poles were

slaughtered; and, when the work was done, the murderers repaired to the

churches to thank God for the success of their enterprise. Shusky was

proclaimed Czar by the will of the people, which, at that moment, it

would not have been safe to thwart.

The brilliant success of one impostor, temporary though it had proved,

soon raised up others. Shusky was no sooner on the throne than the

report spread that Czar Demetrius had not been shot--that a faithful

adherent had suffered death in his stead. And a runaway serf, Ivan

Bolotnikof by name, undertook to personate the defunct impostor.

But although he collected a sort of army of Strelitz, Cossacks,

and peasants, glad of any pretext for pillage, and although he was

recognised by two powerful princes, one of whom, strange to say, was

his former owner, Prince Téliatevski, his abilities and his success

were alike far inferior to those of Otrepief. Astracan and several

other towns revolted in his favour; but Shusky marched against him,

won a battle, in which Téliatevski was killed, and besieged Toula, in

which Bolotnikof and the other chiefs of the revolt had shut themselves

up. "The besieged," says M. Blanc, "defended themselves vigorously";

but Shusky, by the advice of a child, who was assuredly born with

the genius of destruction, stopped the course of the Oupa, by means

of a dike made below the town, through which the river flowed. The

topographical position of the town was such that in a few hours it was

completely under water. Many of the inhabitants were drowned; defence

became impossible; and Bolotnikof, seized by his mutinous followers,

was given up to Shusky. This second false Demetrius was forthwith

shot; but his fate did not discourage a third impostor, who, like his

predecessor, commanded armies, but never reached the throne. From

first to last, no less than seven candidates appeared for the name and

birthright of Ivan's murdered son. Three of them were promptly crushed;

the seventh audaciously asserted that he united in his person not only

the true Demetrius, whom Godunof had assassinated, but also the one

whom Shusky had dragged from the throne, and two of the subsequent

impostors. This was rather a strong dose even for Cossacks to swallow;

but these gentlemen rejoiced at the prospect of booty, affected to

credit the tale, and bore the pretender's banner to within a short

distance of Moscow. There his career terminated. A Cossack chief, who

had often seen Otrepief, finding himself in the presence of the seventh

Demetrius, declared aloud that he was not the Czar he had served,

arrested the impostor with his own hand, and hung him on a neighbouring

tree.

The annals of this period of Russian history are painful from the

atrocities they record; and M. Blanc is prodigal of horrors. The

interval of a quarter of a century between the extinction of the line

of Rurik and the accession of the Romanoff dynasty, still paramount

in Russia, was occupied by constant struggles between usurpers and

pretenders, none of whom dreamed of a milder fate than death for the

foe who fell into their hands. And happy was the vanquished chief who

escaped with a prompt and merciful death by axe or bullet. The most

hideous tortures were put in practice, either for the extortion of

confessions, or for the gratification of malice. Even Shusky, whom we

have shown enduring with noble fortitude the agonising pressure of

the iron crown, learned not mercy from suffering. His treatment of an

enthusiastic boyarin, sent by the third false Demetrius to summon him

to vacate the throne, was such as Red Indians or Spanish inquisitors

might have shuddered to witness. It is recorded, in all its horrible

details, at page 52 of the _Histoire des Conspirations_, &c. The

torture of individuals, which was of frequent occurrence, was varied

from time to time by the massacre of multitudes. We have mentioned

that of the Poles. In 1611, after Shusky's dethronement, it was the

turn of the Muscovites. The Poles having seized Moscow, insisted that

Vladislaus, son of the King of Poland, should be elected Czar. The

nobles consented, but the patriarch steadily refused his consent;

and, by the law of the land, his opposition nullified the election.

Thereupon the Poles ran riot in the city, plundering, murdering, and

ravishing; and at last, unsheathing the sword for a general slaughter,

twenty thousand men, women, and children fell in one day beneath the

murderous steel. A Muscovite army then closely blockaded the place:

and the Poles were reduced to the greatest extremity of famine.

They at last surrendered on condition of their lives being spared,

notwithstanding which compact many were massacred by the Cossacks.

"And yet," says M. Blanc, "the aspect of the town was well calculated

to excite compassion rather than hatred. In the streets the cadaverous

and emaciated inhabitants looked like spectres; in the houses were the

remains of unclean animals, fragments of repasts horrible to imagine;

and what is still more frightful, perhaps unprecedented, salting tubs

were found, _filled with human flesh_."

It was under the reign of Alexis, the second Romanoff and father of

Peter the Great, that there appeared in Russia the most extraordinary

robber the world ever saw. He claimed not to be a Czar or the son of

a Czar; the Demetrius mask was out of date, and one real and another

pretended son of Otrepief and Marina had been executed by order of

Alexis. The new adventurer was a common Cossack from the Don, who went

by his own name of Stenka Razin, and to whom M. Blanc attributes,

perhaps with a little exaggeration, the ambition, courage, and ferocity

of a Tamerlane. In those days the Russian territory was by no means

free from robbers, who pillaged caravans of merchandise, but generally

respected the property of the Czar and the principal nobles, lest they

should make themselves powerful enemies. Razin's first act was to

throw down the glove to his sovereign. He seized a convoy belonging to

the court, and hung some gentlemen who endeavoured to defend it. The

fame of his intrepidity and success brought him many followers, and

soon he was at the head of an army. "He embarked on the Caspian Sea,

and cruised along its shores, frequently landing and seizing immense

booty. At the mouth of the Yaik he was met by an officer of the Czar's,

sent by the voevóda of Astracan to offer him and his companions a free

pardon on condition of their discontinuing their robberies. Razin

replied that he was no robber, but a conqueror; that he made war, and

suffered none to fail in respect towards him. And to prove his words,

he hung the officer, and drowned the men of his escort. A numerous

body of Strelitz was then sent against him. Razin beat the Strelitz,

seized the town of Yatskoi, massacred the garrison and the inhabitants,

and passed the winter there unmolested. In the spring he marched into

Persia." There he accumulated immense booty, but was at last expelled

by a general rising of the population. On his return to Russia he was

soon surrounded by troops; but even then, such was the terror of his

name, the Russian general granted him a capitulation, by which he and

his men were permitted to retire to their native provinces, taking

their plunder with them; and their security was guaranteed so long as

they abstained from aggression. This scandalous convention was ratified

by Alexis, but was not long adhered to by the bandit with whom the Czar

thus meanly condescended to treat as an equal. Stenka's next campaign

was even more successful than the previous one. Bodies of troops

deserted to him, and several towns fell into his power; amongst others,

that of Astracan, where frightful scenes of violence and murder were

enacted--Razin himself parading the streets, intoxicated with brandy,

and stabbing all he met. He was marching upon Moscow, with the avowed

intention of dethroning the Czar, when he sustained a reverse, and,

after fighting like a lion, was made prisoner, and sent in fetters to

the city he had expected to enter in triumph. Taken before Alexis, he

replied boldly and haughtily to the Czar's reproaches and threats.

The only anxiety he showed was to know what manner of death he was to

suffer. He had heard that, in the previous year, an obscure robber and

assassin, who pillaged convents and churches, had been cut into pieces

of half a finger's breadth, beginning at the toes. This barbarous

punishment, of which several instances are cited in M. Blanc's book,

was known as the "torture of the ten thousand pieces." "But," exclaimed

Stenka Razin, with a sort of terror, so horrible did this death appear

to him, "I am no robber of monks! I have commanded armies. I have made

peace with the Czar, therefore I had a right to make war upon him.

Is there not a man amongst you brave enough to split my head with a

hatchet?" The Strelitz guards, to whom these words were addressed,

refused the friendly office, and Razin heard himself condemned to be

quartered alive. He seemed resigned, as if he considered this death an

endurable medium between the decapitation he had implored of his judges

and the barbarous mincing he had been led to expect. But his energy

forsook him on the scaffold, and the man who had so often confronted

and inflicted death, received it in a swooning state.

The characters of few sovereigns admit of being judged more variously

than that of Peter I. of Russia, surnamed the Great. According to the

point of view whence we contemplate him, we behold the hero or the

savage; the wise legislator or the lawless tyrant; the patient pursuer

of science or the dissolute and heartless debauchee. In the long

chapter given to his romantic and eventful reign, M. Blanc shows him

little favour. In a work treating of conspiracies and executions, the

characters of the sovereigns introduced are naturally not exhibited

under their most amiable aspect, especially when those sovereigns are

Russian czars and czarinas, to whom lenity has generally been less

familiar than severity, and pardon than punishment. The pen of Voltaire

has done much for the reputation of Peter the Great, who to us has

always appeared an overrated personage. Historians have vaunted his

exploits and good deeds, till his crimes and barbarities have been lost

sight of in the glitter of panegyric. The monarch who could debase

himself to the level of an executioner, beheading his rebel subjects

with his own hand, and feasting his eyes with the spectacle of death

when he himself was weary of slaying; who could condemn his wife,

repudiated without cause, to the frightful torture of the knout, and

sign the order, which it is more than suspected he himself executed,

for the death of his own son--may have been great as a warrior and a

legislator, but must ever be execrated as a man. Peter was certainly

an extraordinary compound of vices and virtues. His domestic life will

not bear even the most superficial investigation, and M. Blanc has

ripped it up unmercifully. The great reformer--we might almost say

the founder--of the mighty empire of Russia, the conqueror of Charles

of Sweden, was a drunkard and gross sensualist, a bad father, a cruel

and unfaithful husband. Indeed some of his acts seem inexplicable

otherwise than by that ferocious insanity manifest in more than one

of his descendants. Even his rare impulses of mercy were apt to come

too late to save the victim. As illustrating one of them, an incident,

nearly the last event of Peter's life, is given by M. Blanc, in more

minute detail than we ever before met with it. Peter's whole life was

a romance; but this is assuredly one of its most romantic episodes.

A short time before his death, according to M. Blanc, although other

writers fix the date some years earlier, Peter was violently smitten by

the charms of a young girl named Ivanowa. Although tenderly attached,

and about to be married to an officer of the regiment of Schouvaloff,

she dared not oppose the Czar's wishes, but became his mistress. Peter,

who took her repugnance for timidity, fancied himself beloved, and

passed much of his time in her society, in a charming cottage in which

he had installed her at one of the extremities of St Petersburg. He had

enriched her family, who were ignorant, however, of her retreat. Her

betrothed, whose name was Demetrius Daniloff, was in despair at her

disappearance, and made unceasing efforts to discover her, but all in

vain, until Ivanowa, having made a confidant of a Livonian slave, had

him conducted to her presence. The lovers' meetings were then frequent,

so much so, that Peter received intelligence of them. "His anger was

terrible; he roared like a tiger.

'Betrayed! betrayed everywhere and always!' cried he, striding wildly

about the room, and striking his brow with his clenched fist. 'Oh!

revenge! revenge!'

Before the close of day he left the palace, alone, wrapped in a coarse

cloak, his feet in nailed shoes whose patches attested their long

services, his head covered with a fox-skin cap which came down over

his eyebrows and half concealed his eyes. He soon reached Ivanowa's

house, where the lovers deemed themselves perfectly secure, for the

Czar had spread a report of his departure for Moscow. Moreover, the

faithful Livonian slave kept watch in the antechamber, to give an alarm

at the least noise. Peter knew all this, and had taken his measures

accordingly. Opening an outer door with a key of his own, he bounded

into the anteroom, upset the slave, and, with a kick of his powerful

foot, burst the door that separated him from the lovers. All this

occurred with the speed of lightning. Daniloff and Ivanowa had scarce

time to rise from their seats, before the Czar stood over them with his

drawn sword in his hand. Ivanowa uttered a cry of terror, fell on her

knees, and fainted. Prompt as the Czar, Daniloff bared his sabre and

threw himself between his mistress and Peter. The latter lowered his

weapon.

'No,' he said, 'the revenge were too brief.'

He opened a window and cried _hourra_! At the signal, a hundred

soldiers crowded into the house. Mastering his fury, the Czar ordered

the young officer to be taken to prison, there to receive one hundred

blows of the _battogues_ or sticks. Ivanowa was also confined until the

senate should decide on her fate. The next day Daniloff received his

terrible punishment. Before half of it had been inflicted, his back,

from, the loins to the shoulders, was one hideous wound," &c. &c. We

omit the revolting details. "Nevertheless the executioners continued to

strike, and the hundred blows were counted, without a complaint from

the sufferer. The unfortunate Daniloff had not even fainted; he got up

alone,[5] when untied, and asked to have his wounds carefully dressed.

[5] The victim is placed upon his belly (and tied down so that he

cannot change his position) to receive this terrible punishment, in

severity inferior only to the knout.

'I have need to live a short time longer,' he added."

Meanwhile Ivanowa was brought before the senate, and accused of high

treason and of trying to discover state secrets--a charge of Peter's

invention. The supple senate, created by the Czar, condemned her to

receive twenty-two blows of the knout in the presence of her accomplice

Daniloff, already punished by the emperor's order. On the day appointed

for the execution, Peter stood upon the balcony of his winter palace.

Several battalions of infantry marched past, escorting the unfortunate

Demetrius, who, in spite of the frightful sufferings he still endured,

walked with a steady step, and with a firm and even joyful countenance.

Surrounded by another escort, was seen the young and lovely Ivanowa,

half dead with terror, supported on one side by a priest and on the

other by a soldier, and letting her beautiful head fall from one

shoulder to the other, according to the impulse given it by her painful

progress. Even Peter's heart melted at the sight. Re-entering his

apartment, he put on the ribbon of the order of St Andrew, threw a

cloak over his shoulders, left the palace, sprang into a boat, and

reached the opposite side of the river at the same time as the mournful

procession which had crossed the bridge. Making his way through the

crowd, he dropped his cloak, took Ivanowa in his arms, and imprinted

a kiss upon her brow. A murmur arose amongst the people, and suddenly

cries of "pardon" were heard.

"The knights of St Andrew then enjoyed the singular privilege that a

kiss given by them to a condemned person, deprived the executioner of

his victim. This privilege has endured even to our day, but not without

some modification.

"Daniloff had recognised Peter. He approached the Czar, whose every

movement he had anxiously watched, stripped off his coat, and rent the

bloody shirt that covered his shoulders.

"'The man who could suffer thus,' he said, 'knows how to die. Czar,

thy repentance comes too late! Ivanowa, I go to wait for thee!' And

drawing a concealed poniard, he stabbed himself twice. His death was

instantaneous. Peter hurried back to his palace, and the stupified,

crowd slowly dispersed. Ivanowa died shortly afterwards in the convent

to which she had been permitted to retire."

If we are frequently shocked, in the course of M. Blanc's third volume,

by the tyrannical and brutal cruelty of the Russian sovereigns, we are

also repeatedly disgusted by the servility and patient meanness of

those who suffered from it. We behold Muscovite nobles of high rank

and descent, cringing under the wanton torments inflicted on them by

their oppressor, and submitting to degradations to which death, one

would imagine, were, to any free-spirited man, fifty times preferable.

As an example, we will cite the conduct of a Prince Galitzin, who,

after long exile in Germany, where he had become a convert to the

Romish church, solicited and obtained permission to return to his

country. This was in 1740, under the reign of the dissolute and cruel

Czarina Anne. The paramours and flatterers who composed the court of

that licentious princess, urged her to inflict on the new-made papist

the same punishment that had been suffered by a noble named Vonitzin,

who had turned Jew, and had been burned alive, or rather roasted at a

slow fire. Anne refused, but promised the courtiers they should not be

deprived of their sport.

"The same day, Galitzin, although upwards of forty years old, was

ordered to take his place amongst the pages: a few days later he

received a notification that the empress, contented with his services,

had been pleased to raise him to the dignity of her third buffoon.

'The custom of buffoons,' says an historian, 'was then in full force

in Russia; the empress had six, _three of whom were of very high

birth_, and when they did not lend themselves with a good grace to the

tomfooleries required of them by her or her favourites, she had them

punished with the _battogues_.' The empress appeared well satisfied

with the manner in which the prince fulfilled his new duties; and,

as he was a widower, she declared she would find him a wife, that so

valuable a subject might not die without posterity. They selected,

for the poor wretch's bride, the most hideous and disgusting creature

that could be found in the lowest ranks of the populace. Anne herself

arranged the ceremonial of the wedding. It was in the depth of one

of the severest winters of the century; and, at great expense, the

empress had a palace built of ice. Not only was the building entirely

constructed of that material, but all the furniture, including the

nuptial bed, was also of ice. In front of the palace were ice cannons,

mounted on ice carriages.

Anne and all her court conducted the newly-married pair to this

palace, their destined habitation. The guests were in sledges drawn

by dogs and reindeer; the husband and wife, enclosed in a cage, were

carried on an elephant. When the procession arrived near the palace,

the ice cannons were fired, and not one of them burst, so intense was

the cold. Several of them were even loaded with bullets, which pierced

thick planks at a considerable distance. When everybody had entered the

singular edifice, the ball began. It probably did not last long. On its

conclusion, Anne insisted on the bride and bridegroom being put to bed

in her presence: they were undressed, with the exception of their under

garments, and were compelled to lie down upon the bed of ice, without

covering of any kind. Then the company went away, and sentinels were

placed at the door of the nuptial chamber, to prevent the couple from

leaving it before the next day! But when the next day came, they had

to be carried out; the poor creatures were in a deplorable state, and

survived their torture but a few days."

This patient submission to a long series of indignities on the part of

a man of Galitzin's rank and blood is incomprehensible, and pity for

his cruel death is mingled with contempt for the elderly prince who

could tamely play the page, and caper in the garb of a court jester.

But the Russian noble of that day--and even of a later period--united

the soul of a slave with the heart of a tyrant. To the feeble a

relentless tiger, before the despot or the despot's favourite he

grovelled like a spiritless cur. The memoirs of the eighteenth century

abound in examples of his base servility. We cite one, out of many

which we find recorded in an interesting _Life of Catherine II. of

Russia_, published at Paris in 1797. Plato Zouboff, one of Catherine's

favourite lovers, had a little monkey, a restless, troublesome

beast, which everybody detested, but which everybody caressed, by

way of paying court to its master. Amongst the host of ministers,

military men, and ambassadors, who sedulously attended the levees of

the powerful favourite, was a general officer, remarkable for the

perfection and care with which his hair was dressed. One day the monkey

climbed upon his head, and, after completely destroying the symmetry of

his hyacinthine locks, deliberately defiled them. The officer dared not

show the slightest discontent. There are not wanting, however, in the

history of the eighteenth century, instances of heroism and courage to

contrast with the far more numerous ones of vileness afforded by the

aristocracy of Russia. The dignity and fortitude of Menzikoff--that

pastrycook's boy who became a great minister--during his terrible

exile in Siberia, are an oft-told tale. Prince Dolgorouki, the same

to whom Anne owed her crown, and whom she requited by a barbarous

death, beheld his son, brother, and nephew broken on the wheel. When

his turn came, and the executioners were arranging him suitably upon

the instrument of torture: "Do as you please with me," he said, "and

without fear of loading your consciences, for it is not in human power

to increase my sufferings." And he died without uttering a complaint.

But perhaps the most extraordinary instance of coolness and self

command, at the moment of a violent and cruel death, to be found in

the annals of executions, is that of Pugatscheff, who, however, was no

nobleman, but a Cossack of humble birth, who deserted from the Russian

army after the siege and capture of Bender by General Panim, and fled

to Poland, where he was concealed for a time by hermits of the Greek

church. "Conversing one day with his protectors," says a French writer

already referred to, "he told them, that once, during his service in

General Panim's army, a Russian officer said to him, after staring him

very hard in the face, 'If the emperor Peter III., my master, were not

dead, I should think I now stood before him.' The hermits paid little

attention to this tale; but some time afterwards one of their number,

who had not yet met Pugatscheff, exclaimed, on beholding him, 'Is not

that the emperor, Peter III.?' The monks then induced him to attempt

an imposture they had planned." M. Blanc's account differs from this,

inasmuch as it asserts the resemblance to the defunct Czar to have been

very slight. Whatever the degree of likeness, Pugatscheff declared

himself the husband of Catherine II. (murdered some time previously,

by Prince Bariatinski and by Alexis Orloff, the brother of Catherine's

lover), and thousands credited his pretensions. The Cossacks of the

river Yaik (afterwards changed to the Ural by Catherine, who desired

to obliterate the memory of this revolt) were just then in exceedingly

bad humour. After patiently submitting to a great deal of oppression

and ill usage, they had received orders to cut off their beards. This

they would not do. They had relinquished, grumbling but passive, many

a fair acre of pasturage; they had furnished men for a new regiment of

hussars; but they rebelled outright when ordered to use a razor. The

Livonian general, Traubenberg, repaired to Yaitsk with a strong staff

of barbers, and began shaving the refractory Cossacks on the public

market-place. The patients rose in arms, massacred general, barbers,

and aide-de-camps; recognised Pugatscheff as Peter III., and swore to

replace him on his throne, and to die in his defence. The adventurer

was near being as successful as the monk Otrepief. Catherine herself

was very uneasy, although she published contemptuous proclamations,

and jested, in her letters to Voltaire, on the Marquis of Pugatscheff,

as she called him. It was rather a serious subject to joke about. The

impostor defeated Russian armies, and slew their generals; took towns,

whose governors he impaled; burned upwards of two hundred and fifty

villages; destroyed the commerce of Siberia; stopped the working of the

Orenberg mines; and poured out the blood of thirty thousand Russian

subjects. At last he was taken. On his trial he showed great firmness;

and, although unable to read or write, he answered the questions of

the tribunal with wonderful ability and intelligence. He was condemned

to death. According to the sentence, his hands were to be cut off

first, then his feet, then his head, and finally the trunk was to be

quartered. When brought upon the scaffold, and whilst the imperial

ukase enumerating his crimes was read, he undressed quickly and in

silence; but when they began to read the sentence, he dexterously

prevented the executioner from attending to it, by asking him all

manner of questions--whether his axe was in good order, whether the

block was not of a less size than prescribed by law, and whether he,

the executioner, had not, by chance, drank more brandy than usual,

which might make his hand unsteady.

"The sentence read, the magistrate and his assistant left the scaffold.

'Now, then,' said Pugatscheff to the executioner, 'let us have no

mistakes; the prescribed order must be strictly observed. So you will

first cut off my head----'

'The head first!' cried the executioner.

'So runs the sentence. Have a care! I have friends who would make you

dearly expiate an error to my prejudice.'

It was too late to call back the magistrate; and the executioner, who

doubted, at last said to himself that the important affair, after all,

was the death of the criminal, and that there was little difference

whether it took place rather sooner or rather later. He grasped his

axe; Pugatscheff laid his head on the block, and the next moment it

rebounded upon the scaffold. The feet and hands were cut off after

death; the culprit escaping torture by his great presence of mind."

It has been asserted that an order from the empress thus humanised

the cruel sentence; but this is exceedingly improbable, for she was

bitter against Pugatscheff, who, ignorant Cossack as he was, had made

the modern Semiramis tremble on her throne; besides, it is matter of

history that, after his execution, the headsman had his tongue cut

out, and was sent to Siberia. Catherine, who had affected to laugh at

Pugatscheff during his life, was so ungenerous as to calumniate him

after death. "This brigand," she said, in one of her letters quoted by

M. Blanc, "showed himself so pusillanimous in his prison, that it was

necessary to prepare him with caution to hear his sentence read, lest

he should die of fear." It is quite certain, M. Blanc observes, that to

his dying hour Pugatscheff inspired more fear than he felt.

The misfortunes of the unhappy young Princess Tarrakanoff supply M.

Blanc with materials for the most interesting chapter in this volume

of his work. The Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great, and

predecessor of Peter III.--whose marriage with the Princess of Anhalt

Zerbest, afterwards Catherine the Great, was brought about by her--had

had three children by her secret marriage with Alexis Razumoffski.

The youngest of these was a daughter, who was brought up in Russia

under the name of the Princess Tarrakanoff. When Catherine trampled

the rights of Poland under foot, the Polish prince, Charles Radzivil,

carried off the young princess, and took her to Italy, thinking to

set her up at some future day as a pretender to the Russian throne.

Informed of this, Catherine confiscated his estates; and in order to

live, he was compelled to sell the diamonds and other valuables he

had taken with him to Italy. These resources exhausted, Radzivil set

out for Poland to seek others, leaving the young princess, then in

her sixteenth year, at Rome, under the care of a sort of governess or

duenna. On reaching his native country he was offered the restoration

of his property if he would bring back his ward to Russia. He refused;

but he was so base as to promise that he would take no further trouble

about her, and leave her to her fate. Catherine pardoned him, and

forthwith put Alexis Orloff on the scent. He was a keen bloodhound,

she well knew, capable of any villany that might serve his ambition.

Gold unlimited was placed at his disposal, and promise of high reward

if he discovered the retreat of the princess, and lured her within

Catherine's reach. Orloff set out for Italy; and on arriving there

he took into his employ a Neapolitan named Ribas, a sort of spy,

styling himself a naval officer, who pledged himself to find out the

princess, but stipulated for rank in the Russian navy as his reward.

M. Blanc asserts that he demanded to be made admiral at once; and

that Orloff, afraid, notwithstanding the extensive powers given him,

to bestow so high a grade, or compelled by the suspicions of Ribas to

produce the commission itself, wrote to Catherine, who at once sent

the required document. Whether this be exact or not, more than one

historian mentions that Ribas subsequently commanded in the Black Sea

as a Russian vice-admiral. When certain of his reward, Ribas, who

then had spent two months in researches, revealed the retreat of the

unfortunate princess. With some abridgment we will follow M. Blanc,

whose narrative agrees, in all the main points, with the most authentic

versions of this touching and romantic history.

The princess was at Rome. Abandoned by Radzivil, she was reduced to the

greatest penury, existing only by the aid of a woman who had been her

servant, and who now served other masters. Alexis Orloff visited her in

her miserable abode, and spoke at first in the tone of a devoted slave

addressing his sovereign; he told her she was the legitimate empress

of Russia; that the entire population of that great empire anxiously

longed for her accession; that if Catherine still occupied the throne,

it was only because nobody knew where she (the princess) was hidden;

and that her appearance amongst her faithful subjects, would be a

signal for the instant downfall of the usurper. Notwithstanding her

youth, the princess mistrusted these dazzling assurances; she was even

alarmed by them, and held herself upon her guard. Then Orloff, one of

the handsomest men of his time, joined the seductions of love to those

of ambition; he feigned a violent passion for the young girl, and swore

that his life depended on his obtaining her heart and hand. The poor

isolated girl fell unresistingly into the infamous snare spread for her

inexperience: she believed and loved him. The infamous Orloff persuaded

her that their marriage must be strictly private, lest Catherine should

hear of it and take precautions. In the night he brought to her house a

party of mercenaries, some wearing the costumes of priests of the Greek

church, others magnificently attired to act as witnesses. The mockery

of a marriage enacted, the princess willingly accompanied Alexis

Orloff, whom she believed her husband, to Leghorn, where entertainments

of all sorts were given to her. The Russian squadron, at anchor off the

port, was commanded by the English Admiral Greig. This officer, either

the dupe or the accomplice of Orloff, invited the princess to visit

the vessels that were soon to be commanded in her name. She accepted,

and embarked after a banquet, amidst the acclamations of an immense

crowd: the cannon thundered, the sky was bright, every circumstance

conspired to give her visit the appearance of a brilliant festival.

From her flag-bedecked galley she was hoisted in a splendid arm-chair

on board the admiral's vessel, where she was received with the honours

due to a crowned head. Until then Orloff had never left her side for an

instant. Suddenly the scene changed. Orloff disappeared: in place of

the gay and smiling officers who an instant previously had obsequiously

bowed before her, the unfortunate victim saw herself surrounded by

men of sinister aspect, one of whom announced to her that she was

prisoner by order of the Empress Catherine, and that soon she would

be brought to trial for the treason she had attempted. The princess

thought herself in a dream. With loud cries she summoned her husband

to her aid; her guardians laughed in her face, and told her she had

had a lover, but no husband, and that her marriage was a farce. Her

despair at these terrible revelations amounted to frenzy; she burst

into sobs and reproaches, and at last swooned away. They took advantage

of her insensibility to put fetters on her feet and hands, and lower

her into the hold. A few hours later the squadron sailed for Russia.

Notwithstanding her helplessness and entreaties, the poor girl was kept

in irons until her arrival at St Petersburg, when she was taken before

the empress, who wished to see and question her.

Catherine was old; the Princess Tarrakanoff was but sixteen, and of

surpassing beauty; the disparity destroyed her last chance of mercy.

But as there was in reality no charge against her, and as her trial

might have made too much noise, Catherine, after a long and secret

interview with her unfortunate prisoner, gave orders she should be kept

in the most rigorous captivity. She was confined in one of the dungeons

of a prison near the Neva.

Five years elapsed. The victim of the heartless Catherine, and of the

villain Orloff, awaited death as the only relief she could expect; but

youth, and a good constitution, struggled energetically against torture

and privations. One night, reclining on the straw that served her as

a bed, she prayed to God to terminate her sufferings by taking her

to himself, when her attention was attracted by a low rumbling noise

like the roll of distant thunder. She listened. The noise redoubled:

it became an incessant roar, which each moment augmented in power. The

poor captive desired death, and yet she felt terror; she called aloud,

and implored not to be left alone. A jailer came at her cries; she

asked the cause of the noise she heard.

"'Tis nothing," replied the stupid slave; "the Neva overflowing."

"But cannot the water reach us here?"

"It is here already."

At that moment the flood, making its way under the door, poured into

the dungeon, and in an instant captive and jailer were over the ankles

in water.

"For heaven's sake, let us leave this!" cried the young princess.

"Not without orders; and I have received none."

"But we shall be drowned!"

"That is pretty certain. But without special orders I am not to let you

leave this dungeon, under pain of death. In case of unforeseen danger I

am to remain with you, and to kill you should rescue be attempted."

"Good God! the water rises. I cannot sustain myself."

The Neva, overflowing its banks, floated enormous blocks of ice,

upsetting everything in its passage, and inundating the adjacent

country. The water now plashed furiously against the prison doors: the

sentinels had been carried away by the torrent, and the other soldiers

on guard had taken refuge on the upper floors. Lifted off her feet by

the icy flood which still rose higher, the unfortunate captive fell

and disappeared; the jailer, who had water to his breast, hung his

lamp against the wall, and tried to succour his prisoner; but when he

succeeded in raising her up, she was dead! The possibility anticipated

by his employers was realised; there had been stress of circumstances,

and the princess being dead, he was at liberty to leave the dungeon.

Bearing the corpse in his arms, he succeeded in reaching the upper part

of the prison.

If we may offer a hint to authors, it is our opinion that this tragical

anecdote will be a godsend to some romance-writer of costive invention,

and on the outlook for a plot. Very little ingenuity will suffice

to spread over the prescribed quantity of foolscap the incidents

we have packed into a page. They will dilute very handsomely into

three volumes. As to characters, the novelist's work is done to his

hand. Here we have the Empress Catherine, vindictive and dissolute,

persecuting that "fair girl" the Princess Tarrakanoff, with the

assistance of Orloff, the smooth villain, and of the sullen ruffian

Ribas. The latter will work up into a sort of Italian Varney, and may

be dispersed to the elements by an intentional accident, on board the

ship blown up by Orloff's order, for the enlightenment of the painter

Hackert. With the exception of the dungeon-scene, we have given but a

meagre outline of M. Blanc's narrative; and there are a number of minor

characters that may be advantageously brought in and expanded. "This

event," says M. Blanc, referring to the kidnapping of the Princess,

"caused a strong sensation at Leghorn. Prince Leopold, Grand-duke of

Tuscany, complained bitterly of it, and would have had Alexis Orloff

arrested; but this vile assassin of Peter III. maintained that he

had only executed the orders of his sovereign, who would well know

how to justify him. He was supported, in this circumstance, by the

English consul, who was his accomplice; and the Grand-duke, seeing

he was not likely to be the strongest, suffered the matter to drop."

"Some Englishmen," another French writer asserts, "had been so base

as to participate in Alexis Orloff's plot; but others were far from

approving it. They even blushed to serve under him, and sent in their

resignations. Admiral Elphinstone was one of these. Greig was promoted

in his place." An Italian prince, indignant, but timid; a foreign

consul, sold to Russian interests; a British sailor, spurning the

service of a tyrant. We need say no more; for we are quite sure that

before they get thus far, the corps of historical novelists will be

handling their goose-quills.

LETTERS TO THE REV. CHARLES FUSTIAN,

AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC.

LETTER FIRST.

You object to being called a Puseyite, or a Tractarian; and as I

believe you never read any of the Tracts, nor were lucky enough to

comprehend any of Dr Pusey's writings, you are right to decline the

names. But it is easy to perceive, even from your outward man, that

some great change has taken place upon you. It is not for nothing that

you wear so very tight a neckcloth, and so very low-collared a coat;

your buttons also are peculiarly placed, and there is a solemnity in

your manner of refusing an invitation to pot-luck on a Friday which

it is edifying to behold. But all this surely must have a name. You

were intended by your father to be a clergyman of the Church of

England--that worthy gentleman toasted church and king, till a female

reign and premonitory symptoms of apoplexy reduced him to silence and

water-gruel; but he is as true a defender of the faith, in his easy

gown and slippers, as ever, and looks with still increasing surprise

at the appearance of his eldest son, as often as occasional help in

your curacy enables you to run home. But don't fancy, for a moment,

that I attribute these frequent visits to your regard for the fifth

commandment alone: no, dear Charles; for though I grant you are an

excellent son and praiseworthy brother, I consider you shine with

still greater lustre in the character of a neighbour, especially to

the family at Hellebore Park. Gradually I have seen a change almost

equal to your own in the seven fair daughters of that house; and it

is very evident that, with this change, in some way or other, you are

very intimately connected. The five daughters of our neighbour in

the Lodge are also very different from what they were; and only Miss

Lathpins--who is fifty years old, and believes good works to be such

filthy rags that she would be quite ashamed if she were seen putting

half-a-crown into the plate, or sending coal and flannel to the poor,

and therefore never does it--continues the even tenor of her way,

and sighs for a gospel ministry to tell her how few will achieve the

kingdom of heaven. Every other house in the parish feels the effects of

your visits. We must have a new almanac if you come among us much more;

for the very days of the week are no longer to be recognised. Tuesday,

instead of being the lineal descendant of Monday, is now known as the

heir presumptive of Wednesday, and does duty as the eve of something

else. The wife of our physician invited us to dinner on the Feast of

St Ollapod, which, after great inquiry, we found meant Monday the 22d.

The months will not long escape--the weeks are already doomed--and, in

a few years, our parish registers will be as difficult reading as the

inscriptions of Nemroud. Have you taken this result of your crusade

against the High and Dry into your consideration? Is it right to leave

a worthy man like our rector--who conducted his little ecclesiastical

boat with great comfort to himself and others, keeping a careful middle

channel between the shoals of Dissent and the mudbanks of contented

Orthodoxy--to struggle in his old age against rocks which you and your

female allies have rolled into the water; with fast-days rearing their

sharp points where there used to be such safe navigation, and saint's

days and festivals so blocking up the passage that he can't set his

skiff near enough the shore, to enable him to visit his parishioners

when they are sick or hungry? You would pin the poor old fellow for

ever into his pulpit or reading-desk, and he never would have time to

go to the extremity of his parish, which, you remember, is five miles

from the church; and, at the Doctor's rate of riding, occupies him a

good part of the day.

But perhaps you don't know what occurs as soon as your stay is

over, and we see the skirts of your departing surtout disappear over

Hitherstone Hill. Immediately the whole coterie (which, in this

instance, is an undiluted petticoatery) assembles for consultation.

Pretty young girls, who would have been engaged ten years ago in the

arrangements of a pic-nic, now lay their graceful and busy heads

together, to effect an alteration in the height of the pews. My dear

Charles, young ladies are by nature carpenters; they know all about

hinges, and pannellings, and glue, by a sort of intuition: and it is

clear to me that, before you return to us again, the backs of the

seats will be lowered at least a foot, and I shall have the pleasure

of seeing the whole extent of Tom Holiday's back, and the undulations

of the three Miss Holiday's figures during the whole of the lessons.

The rector can't hold out long--as indeed who could, against such

petitioners? And, after all, it is only so much wood; an his wife,

who has retained her shape with very little aid from padding, has no

objection to stand up during the psalms, nor any inclination to put

her light under a bushel at any time; and some of the younger people,

who have not attained the stature of the Venus de Medici, complain

that the present elevation of the backs, if it doesn't make dints in

their bonnets, at all events cuts them off in the very middle; and my

opposition, I am sorry to say, ever since I fell asleep at your sermon

on the holiness of celibacy, is attributed to interested motives, and

therefore you may fairly expect to find our pews reduced to the height

and appearance of a row of rabbit-hutches, when you come back. This

point they seem to consider already gained, and now they have advanced

their parallels against the Doctor on another side of his defences.

The Doctor, even in his youth, can never have run much risk of being

mistaken for Apollo--his nose was probably never of a Grecian pattern,

as that ingenious people would certainly have rounded the point with

a little more skill, and have placed the nostrils more out of sight.

I have heard his front teeth were far from symmetrical, and reminded

old Major M'Turk of the charge of Mahratta irregular horse, by which

that heroic gentleman lost his eye; but as he has got quit of those

spirited, though straggling defenders, and supplied their place with a

straight-dressed militia of enamel or bone, which do duty remarkably

well, in spite of the bright yellow uniform they have lately assumed, I

conclude that he has been a gainer by the exchange. And, on the whole,

I have no doubt, if there are some handsomer fellows in the Guards, and

at the universities, there are several much uglier people to be seen in

this very parish. It can't, therefore, be for the express purpose of

escaping the sight of his face that they have begun their operations to

force him to turn his back on them during the prayers. But this they

are thoroughly resolved on achieving. They have already once placed

the Bible surreptitiously on the side of the reading desk, towards the

people, leaving the Prayer-Book on the side towards the south; and as

the Doctor, in the surprise of the moment, began with his face in that

direction, his elocution was wasted on the blank wall of the chancel

and the empty pulpit; and we had the pleasure of an uninterrupted view

of his profile, and a side-hearing also of his words, which gave us as

complete a silhouette of the prayers as of the rector. When we come to

the enjoyment of his full-face reversed, and can leisurely contemplate

his occiput, and the nape of his neck--in which, I am sorry to see,

number one so powerfully developed--we shall have the farther advantage

of not having our own meditations interrupted by hearing a syllable he

says. He resists, indeed, at present; and even told a deputation of

ladies that he would consult common sense on the occasion, and read

so that the poor folks under the west gallery could join in every

petition. Miss Araminta--your Araminta, Charles--lifted her beautiful

eyes to the Doctor in surprise, and asked "if he really prayed _to_

John Simpkins and Peter Bolt, for surely he could pray _for_ them, and

_with_ them better, with his face to the altar;" and the Doctor said

something about "girls minding their own business, and leaving him to

his," which would have led to very unpleasant consequences, if the

rest of the ambassadors had not interfered, and smoothed the raven

down of the Doctor's temper by some judicious declarations of respect

for his office, and contempt for some unfortunate evangelical brethren

in the neighbourhood; till at last the old man took Araminta by the

hand, and told her, with great truth, that she was one of the nicest

girls in the world, and that he would ride fifty miles at a moment's

warning, to save her an instant's discomfort. So they retired for that

time, hinting that they were rather surprised that _their_ rector

should have used the same argument which had been employed by the Rev.

Ebenezer Snuffle, the low church vicar of the adjoining village. A

telling blow this, Charles, as you are well aware; for I verily believe

the Doctor would soften towards the Koran, if his neighbour made an

attack on Mahommed; so I wait the issue without much uncertainty as to

what it will be. For all this, I can't help holding you, in a great

measure, responsible; for there is no shutting one's eyes to the fact,

that a decided step in advance is taken after every one of your runs

into our parish. Your father, and Major M'Turk, and I, sink lower and

lower in the estimation of your followers every day. Instead of the

nice little parties we used to have, where the girls, most of whom we

remember as infants, used to sing "Lizzie Lindsay" for the amusement

of the old ones, or play magic music, or games at forfeits, to please

themselves, they now huddle up in a corner--if, perchance, no eve or

fast prevents them from coming out to tea--and hold deep consultations

on the state and prospects of the Church. And yet there is something

so innocent and pretty in the way they manage their plots, and such a

charming feeling of triumph fills their hearts, when they have achieved

a victory over the habits and customs of the village, that I hardly

wonder they never pause in their career, or give ear to the warnings of

stupid old people like the trio I have named. In the mean time, they

certainly have it all their own way,--in the injunctions they have

laid on the poor people, to turn round at some parts of the service,

stand up at others, and join in the most wonderful responses, in a

set key, which they call entoning; and they have tormented the band

so much with practising anthems, that half the population have turned

dissenters in self-defence; and while the front seats are filled with

satin bonnets and India shawls, and the rustle of silks is like the

flight of a thousand doves when the altitude needs to be changed, there

isn't a poor person to be seen in the church except John Simpkins and

Peter Bolt, and they, I am sorry to say, are far from being the same

quiet humble paupers they used to be; for our feminine apostles have

been telling them of the honour and dignity of the poor, till there

is no bearing their pride and self-conceit. Sometimes, out of respect

to the Doctor, and a reverence for the old church, the grocer, the

carpenter, and a few of the shopkeepers, still make their appearance

in the afternoon, but they are like children the first time they go

to Astley's, and stare with wonder at all the changes they see; and

even our rector himself has become so confused, that he doesn't feel

altogether sure that he hasn't turned a dissenter, for the mode, if not

of conducting, at least of joining in the service, is something quite

different from what he has been used to.

Now dissent, as you know, has been the bugbear of the Doctor through

life. The very name carries with it something inexpressibly dreadful,

and among the most terrifying to him of all the forms of dissent was

that of Rome. But lately, a vast number of bright eyes have been

lifted to the ceiling, and a great many beautiful lips opened, and a

great many sweet voices raised in opposition to any hostile allusion

to the objects of his abhorrence. "The church of Fenelon," says one

in a reverential tone, "can surely not be altogether apostate." "The

church of the two Gregories, the church of A'Beckett and Dunstan, of

St Senanus, St Januarius, and the Seven Champions of Christendom,

can never have fallen away from the faith," exclaims Miss Tinderella

Swainlove in a very contemptuous tone, when the Doctor contrasts the

great and ambitious names of Rome with the humility required in a

Christian pastor. "In short, Dr Smiler, we wish to know," she said

not a week ago, when she had gone up to the parsonage to practise a

Gregorian chant on Christina Smiler's concertina--"we wish to know,

Doctor Smiler, whether religion consists in bare plaster walls and a

cassock?" "Certainly not, my dear Tinderella, but you will observe"--

"Oh, we only want an answer to that question," said the young lady,

interrupting; "for, allow me to tell you, we feel our devotion greatly

excited by the noble solemnity of a service decently conducted with

albe and chasuble, in a building fitted for its high destination by the

richest combination of architecture and the arts."

Tinderella is nineteen years of age, and as decided in her manner as a

field-marshal. "May I ask, my dear, who the 'we' are in whose name you

speak?" inquired the rector.

"Not Mr Ruggles the grocer, nor Chipper the carpenter, but all who

are qualified by their fortune, and position in life, to judge on the

subject," was Tinderella's spirited rejoinder.

"Really," said the Doctor, "you young ladies are very much changed

from what you were. Two years ago, I used to have great difficulty in

keeping you from balls and archeries, and had frequent occasion to

lecture you for inattention in church. What, in the name of wonder, has

come over you all?"

"Do you find fault with us for having given up frivolities, and turned

reverent and attentive during the service?" inquired his questioner

with a sneer.

"Far from it, my dear,--very far from it; but I should like very much

to know what is the cause of the change. I trust, my dear Tinderella,

it isn't connected with the marriage of Lieutenant Polker, with whom I

remember you danced every night last winter."

"Lieutenant Polker," replied Tinderella, "has married a dissenter, or a

person of low church principles, and that is as bad, and he has nothing

whatever to do with our duty to the Holy Catholic Church I assure you,

sir."

"Then it must be that silly, ignorant coxcomb, Charles Fustian, my

own godson, my favourite from his youth--an excellent fellow, but a

conceited ass--I wish he had never gone into the diocese of Vexer."

This is the tender way in which you are spoken of, my dear Charles;

and I feel sure you will appreciate the compliment paid to you by the

Doctor, losing his temper, but retaining his affection.

There was a blush on Tinderella's cheek as she entered into a defence

of "the Reverend Charles Fustian, a priest of our church;" and she

almost curtsied in reverence for your name and office; and I advise

Araminta to keep watch over her friend's proceedings, for I don't think

Tinderella is so deeply attached to the doctrine of celibacy as she

pretends. And I take this opportunity also, my dear Charles, to tell

you that I shall keep watch over YOU; and if I find you casting your

smiles at Tinderella, and holding her by the hand, and recommending her

to enter into the privileges of confession, in the summer-house in her

father's garden--and holding forth all the time on the blessings of a

conventual life and penance, and hair shirts and a cat-o'-nine-tails--I

shall be greatly inclined to recur to the discipline that used to

improve your manners greatly when you were a little boy, and use the

scourge with more effect than when you apply it to your shoulders with

your own hand.

The Doctor has just been here, and as I know you will be rejoiced to

hear the news he gave me, I will transmit it to you at once.

"Buddle," he said to me, "you have perhaps seen how vainly I have tried

to resist the parish, at least the young ladies of the parish; for I

am sorry to say, that, with the exception of yourself and two or three

others of the seniors, the parish has left me to fight the battle

alone."

"My dear Smiler," I replied, "what can we do? Surely, if we lie quiet

on our oars, the fancy for that sort of thing will go off."

"Not at all; as they get older it will get worse. There is some hope

for them when they are very young, but in a few years there is no

chance of escaping a universal passing over to the Pope; and between

ourselves,"--and here the Doctor looked at the door, as if he wished

to bolt it with a twist of his eye--"I am in great anxiety of mind lest

they carry me with them. Yes, my good Buddle, it would not surprise me

if I awoke some morning and found myself a monk."

"How? Haven't you signed the articles and repeated the creed, and the

oath of abjuration, and all that?"

"That is no defence. Those girls go to work so scientifically, carrying

one object first, and then another; and they are so good, and active,

and amiable, and so useful in the parish, and so clever, and defer so

respectfully to my judgment in all things, that I find there is not an

alteration which has taken place in the parish that I did not at first

oppose, and end in a very short time by ordering on my own authority.

Yes, my dear friend, I feel that, if not supported by some person of

stout uncompromising church principles, I shall probably find myself

eating fish on Fridays, and administering castigation to myself in

my old age, and listening to young ladies' confessions, and flogging

Araminta or Tinderella in atonement for their tasting a mutton-chop on

a fast-day."

"It would do them both a great deal of good."

"No doubt of it, my dear Buddle; and if they were five or six years

younger, such things would soon be put out of their heads." And here he

clenched his hand on his riding switch, and looked like the picture of

Doctor Busby. "But, as it is, I think I have stolen a march on them.

Look at that."

So saying, he pointed to an advertisement in the _Record_ newspaper,

which stated that "a curate was wanted for a country parish; he must be

under thirty, an eloquent preacher and reader; and, finally, that no

Tractarian need apply."

"And he's coming, sir; the Reverend Algernon Sidney Mount Huxtable; a

man of good family, tolerable fortune, and highly orthodox principles,

is coming! I expect him next week, and as he is only eight-and-twenty,

and unmarried, I think he will be an excellent assistant in repelling

these attacks on our admirable Establishment."

So, with this piece of information, my dear Charles, I conclude, as I

am anxious to go through the houses in the village, and see the effect

of the announcement on the charming little army which Major M'Turk

irreverently calls St Ursula's dragoons.

LETTER SECOND.

On Monday last, our new curate came; a most gentlemanly-mannered

good-looking young man, with very dark eyes and very white teeth;

and I was pleased to observe, when I dined with him the first day at

the parsonage, that he did not consider these advantages as merely

ornamental, but made excellent use of both. He did yeoman's service

upon the fish and mutton, and cast glances on Miss Christina Smiler

that made her at once give up the opposition she had made to her

father's proposal of keeping a curate, and proved, to his entire

satisfaction, that it was the best arrangement in the world. A pleasant

good-humoured companion, a man of the world, and an unflinching son and

servant of the Church, gaining the rector's confidence by an attack on

Popery, and winning the ladies' affection by a spirited tirade on the

vulgarity of dissent.

"The fact is," said the Doctor, after the ladies had withdrawn, and we

had filled our glasses with the first bumper of port,--"the fact is, my

dear Mount Huxtable, that our parish is in a very curious condition. We

are all devoted members of the Church, and yet we are very suspicious

of each other. The inhabitants, especially the young lady part of them,

have taken such an interest lately in the affairs of the parish, and

are so unanimous in enforcing their own wishes, both on me and the

churchwardens--not to mention my stanch and kind friends Major M'Turk

and Mr Buddle--that we feel as if the revolutionary spirit had extended

to this village, and the regular authorities had been deposed by a

Committee of Public Safety."

"Do they _enforce_ their wishes?" inquired the new curate, with a

frown, and laying great emphasis on the word enforce.

"Well," replied the Rector, a little puzzled, "that's rather a strong

word. Do you think we can call it enforce, Major M'Turk?"

"They say they'll do it, and it's done," was the reply of the military

commander.

"And you, Buddle?"

"No; you can't call it enforce," said I; "for they are the meekest,

sweetest, and most submissive people I ever met with."

"That's right; I'm glad to hear it," said Mount Huxtable. "And do they

really succeed in all the efforts they make?"

"Not a doubt of it," said the Rector, looking rather confused. "The

church is entirely different from what it was a year ago; even the

service, by some means or other, has got into quite a different

order; I find myself walking about in my surplice, and standing up at

doxologies, and sometimes attempting to sing the Jubilate after the

second lesson, though I never had a voice, and it does not seem to be

set to any particular tune. And, in confidence between ourselves, I

think they could make me of any religion they chose."

"They're the fittest missionaries for the Mahommedan faith," said Major

M'Turk; "such Houris may always count on me for a convert."

The Curate sank into silence.

"You're not afraid of such antagonists, Mount Huxtable?" inquired the

Rector.

"I don't think they are at all to be feared as antagonists," he

replied, with a smile, as if assured of the victory.

And when we looked at his handsome face, and the glow of true orthodox

determination that brightened in his eyes, we were all of the same

opinion.

"But we won't let them see the battery we have prepared against them,"

continued the jubilant Rector, "till we are in a position to take the

field. I have applied to the bishop for a license for you for two

years, so that, whatever complaints they make against your proceedings,

nothing can get you removed from the parish; the whole onus of the

fight will be thrown on your shoulders; and all I can say to them,

when they come to me with their grievances, will be, my dear Araminta,

my dear Sophronia, my charming little Anastasia, Mr Mount Huxtable is

in the entire charge of the parish, and from his decision there is no

appeal."

The happiest man in England that night was the Reverend Doctor Smiler

of Great Yawnham, for he had now the assurance of preserving the

orthodoxy of his parish, without the pain of quarrelling with his

parishioners.

"Good night, good night," he said, as M'Turk and I walked away, while

Mount Huxtable got into his phaeton and whisked his greys very showily

down the avenue, "I think that ewe-necked donkey, Charles Fustian,

won't be quite so popular with the Blazers at Hellebore Park, in spite

of Araminta's admiration of his long back and white neckcloth."

"Mount Huxtable will cut him out in every house in the parish," replied

Major M'Turk; and I said,

"I know Charles very well, and like him immensely; he won't yield

without a struggle, and, in fact, I have no doubt he will proceed to

excommunication."

Pardon us all, my dear Charles, for the free-and-easy way we speak of

you. I don't believe three old fellows in England are fonder of you

than we; and no wonder--for haven't we all known you from your cradle,

and traced you through all your career since you were hopelessly the

booby of the dame's school, till you were twice plucked at Oxford, and

proved how absurdly the dons of that university behaved, by obtaining

your degree from Dublin by a special favour. Would a learned body have

treated a very decided fool with special favour? No; and therefore I

think Dr Smiler and M'Turk are sometimes a great deal too strong in

their language; but you must forgive them, for it proceeds from the

fulness of their hearts.

The license arrived next day, and a mighty tea-drinking was held last

night at the parsonage, to enable the Doctor to present his curate to

the parish. The Blazers came in from Hellebore Park, Araminta looking

beautiful in a plain nun-like white gown, with a cross and rosary of

jet falling tastefully over her breast. The Swainloves came from the

Lodge, the spirited Tinderella labouring under two prodigious folios of

Gregorian chants. Sophronia and her grandmamma came up from the vale;

and, in short, the whole rank and beauty of the village assembled.

The manly dignity of that charming district was represented by myself

and Major M'Turk; your father, who came down in his wheel-chair; Dr

Pulser and his son Arthur, who has lately settled down here, with a

brass plate on the surgery door, announcing that he is attorney-at-law.

Arthur, you remember, has a beautiful voice, and he entones the

responses like a nightingale.

We were all assembled before the guest of the evening arrived. For

the thousandth time we admired the garden and lawn, and heard how the

Doctor had altered the house, and levelled the grounds, and thrown out

bow-windows, and made the whole thing the perfect bijou it is. The

fuschias were in full bloom, the grass nicely mown, and the windows

being open, we could sally forth on to the terrace walk, and admire the

pleasure-grounds as we chose. But nobody moved. Christina Smiler sat

at the piano, but did not play; she kept her eyes constantly fixed on

the door,--as indeed did several of the other young ladies; and when at

last wheels were heard rapidly approaching, and a loud knock resounded

through the house, the amount of blushing was immense; the bloom of so

many cheeks would have recalled to an original-minded poet a bed of

roses, and old M'Turk kicked my shins unobserved, and whispered, "We

shall get quit of the female parliament very soon: this is the Cromwell

of the petticoats."

As he felt that he made his appearance, on this occasion, in his

professional character, Mr Mount Huxtable was arrayed in strictly

clerical costume. Your own tie, my dear Charles, could not have been

more accurately starched, nor your coat more episcopally cut. There was

the apostolic succession clearly defined on the buttons; and, between

ourselves, we were enchanted with the fine taste that showed that a

man might be a good stout high churchman without being altogether

an adherent of the Patristics. His introduction was excellently got

over, and the charming warmth with which he shook hands with the young

people, after doing his salutation to us of the preterite generation,

showed that his attention was not confined to the study of the fathers,

but had a pretty considerable leaning to the daughters also.

"So much the better, my boy," said M'Turk, "he'll have them all back to

the good old ways in a trice; we shall have picnics again on Fridays,

and little dances every day in the week." Tea was soon finished, and

Tinderella Swainlove, without being asked by anybody, as far as I could

see, walked majestically to the piano, and laying open a huge book,

gave voice with the greatest impetuosity to a Latin song, which she

afterwards (turning round on the music-stool, and looking up in Mr

Mount Huxtable's face) explained to be a hymn to the Virgin. But the

gentleman did not observe that the explanation was addressed to him,

and continued his conversation with Christina Smiler. In a few minutes

he accompanied her out of the window into the garden, and the other

young ladies caught occasional glimpses of the pair as they crossed

the open spaces between the shrubs. The Doctor rubbed his hands with

delight, and Mrs Smiler could scarcely conceal her gratification. But

these feelings were not entertained by the Swainloves. Tinderella

looked rather disappointed to her mother; and that lady addressed Major

M'Turk in rather a bitter tone of voice, and said it was a pity the

curate was so awkward, and asked how long he had been lame.

"He is by no means lame," replied the Major; "you'll learn that before

long, by the dance he'll show you."

"Does he dance?" inquired Mrs Swainlove, anxiously. "As you're at the

piano, my dear Tinderella, will you play us that charming polka you

used to play last year?"

A polka!--it was the first that had been demanded for a long time; and,

in the surprise and gratification of the moment, the Major took her

affectionately by the hand. Tinderella played as required; and great

was the effect of her notes: first one fair lady, and then another,

found the room too hot; and before many minutes elapsed, we, who sat

near the window, saw the whole assembly, except the performer on the

piano, grouped round the new curate, who seemed giving them lectures

on botany, for he held some flowers in his hand, and was evidently

very communicative to them all. Mrs Swainlove, seeing her stratagem of

no avail, told Tinderella to stop, and the conversation was entirely

limited to the men who stayed behind. Young Pulser, the attorney,

had joined the party in the garden, and the senior ladies, with the

discomfited musician, soon also retired.

"He'll do," said the Major confidentially--"he's the very man for our

money; and all things considered--not forgetting my friend Christina

among the rest--you never did a wiser thing in your life, my dear

Smiler."

"He seems a sure hand among the girls," said your father, "and I

haven't had a chance of a minute's talk with him. I wanted to speak to

him about my son Charles."

"He'll give you good advice about breaking in that stiff-necked

young gentleman," said the Rector, "and we must contrive to get them

acquainted."

"Bless ye," said your father, "they're very well acquainted already.

He lived in Charles's parish in the diocese of Vexer, and was a great

favourite, I'm told, of the bishop."

"Nonsense, my dear fellow," said the Doctor, taken a little aback, "he

can't possibly be a favourite of such a firebrand--it must be some one

else; and, besides, he never told me he was a friend of your son."

"You can ask him," replied your father, "for I'm quite sure I've often

heard Charles talk of his friend Mount Huxtable."

A dead silence fell upon us all. Strange, we thought, that he should

never have alluded to his acquaintance with you. Can he be ashamed of

the way you have been going on? Is he afraid of being suspected of

the same ludicrous feastings and fastings that have given you such a

reputation here?

"Pray, my dear Mount Huxtable," said Dr Smiler, when the new curate,

accompanied by the young ladies--like the proud-walking, long-necked

leader of a tribe of beautiful snow-white geese--entered the room,

"have you ever met our excellent friend, Charles Fustian?"

"Fustian--Fustian?" replied the Curate, trying to recollect. "There are

so many of that name in the Church, I surely ought to have met with one

of them."

The Doctor nodded his head, quite satisfied, to your father.

"You see, you see," he said, with a chuckle.

"I see nothing of the sort," said your progenitor; "for though Fustian

is common enough in the Church, I'm sure Mount Huxtable isn't."

"That's true," said the Doctor. "Pray, how do you account for Charles

Fustian happening to know YOU?"

"Ah, my dear sir," answered Mount Huxtable, with a smile to the ladies,

"there is an old byword, which says more people know Tom Fool than Tom

Fool knows."

A great laugh rewarded this sally, and the Doctor's triumph over his

neighbours was complete.

"I told you what it would come to," he said; "no true orthodox

churchman can have any acquaintance with such a semi-papist as poor

Charles."

The conversation now went on in the usual channel--that is to say,

we talked a little politics, which was very uninteresting, for we

all agreed; and the young ones attacked the Curate on music and

painting, and church architecture, on all which subjects he managed

to give them great satisfaction, for he was an excellent musician, a

tolerable artist, and might have passed anywhere for a professional

builder. I suppose they were as much astonished as pleased to find

that a man might be an opponent of the Tracts, and yet be as deep in

church matters as themselves. Encouraged by this, they must have pushed

their advances rather far for a first meeting; for, after an animated

conversation in the bow-window, Araminta and two or three other young

ladies came to the Doctor's chair.

"Only think, dear Doctor Smiler," she said, "how unkind Mr Mount

Huxtable is. Next Thursday, our practising day in the church, is the

Feast of holy St Ingulpus of Doncaster, and he won't give us leave to

ornament the altar with flowers."

"And who in the world is St Ingulpus of Doncaster?" said the Doctor.

"A holy man, I don't in the least deny," said Mount Huxtable, kindly

taking the answer on himself. "His acts and writings attest his

virtues and power; but I merely mentioned to the young ladies, as the

easiest way of settling the affair, that St Ingulpus, though most

justly canonised by the holy father in the thirteenth century, was

not elevated to the degree of worship or veneration by the succeeding

councils."

"And you answered them very well, sir," said the Doctor. "And as to St

Ingulpus of Doncaster, I never heard of him, and believe him to have

been an impostor, like the holy father, as you ironically call him, who

pretended to canonise him."

"Oh, papa!" said Christina, addressing her father, but looking all the

time at the Curate, "Mr Mount Huxtable himself confesses he was a holy

man."

"What?--do _you_ join in such follies? Go to bed, or learn to behave

less like a child. Mr Mount Huxtable accommodates his language to the

weakness of his auditors; but in reality he has as great a contempt for

this Ingulpus, or any other popish swindler, as I have."

The Doctor was now so secure of support from his curate, that he felt

bold enough to get into a passion. If he had fired a pistol at his

guests, he could scarcely have created a greater sensation. The effect

on Christina was such that she clung for support to Mount Huxtable, and

rested her head on his shoulder.

"Mr Mount Huxtable," continued the Rector, "has forbidden you to

disfigure my church with flowers. Mr Mount Huxtable has the entire

charge of this parish, and from his decision there is no appeal."

This knock-down blow he had kept for the last; and it had all the

effect he expected. They were silent for a long time. "That has

settled them, I think," he whispered to me; "they know me to be such a

good-natured old fool, and so fond of them all, that in time they might

have turned me round their thumbs; but Mount Huxtable is a different

man. At the same time, I must'nt have the darlings too harshly used. I

daresay I was a little too bitter in the way I spoke: I can't bear to

see any of them unhappy,--something must be done to amuse them."

If the Doctor had done them all some serious injury, he could not have

been more anxious to atone for it. He spoke to each of them, patted

them on the head, told them they were good girls, and that he loved

them all like his own children; and even went so far as to say that,

if the matter was entirely in his hands, he didn't know but that he

might have allowed them to make what wreaths and posies they liked

on Thursday. "And as to your friend Ingulpus," he concluded, "I hope

and trust he was a good man according to his lights, and probably

had no intention to deceive. So, my dear Mount Huxtable, as your

uncompromising Protestantism is the cause of disappointment to my young

flock, I must punish you by insisting on your immediately singing them

a song."

"The young ladies, sir, shall find I am not so uncompromising a

Protestant as they fear, for you see I don't even protest against

the justice of your sentence;" and with this he took his seat at the

piano. "The song I shall attempt is not a very new one," he said, "for

it was written in the year a thousand and forty by a monk of Cluny.

The Benedictines, you will remember, have at all times been devoted

to music." So saying, he threw his hand over the keys, and after a

prelude, sang in a fine manly voice--

"Hora novissima, tempora pessima sunt; vigilemus!--

Ecce! minaciter imminet arbiter ille supremus,--

Imminet! imminet! ut mala terminet, æqua coronet,

Recta remuneret, anxia liberet, æthera donet,

Auferat aspera duraque pondera mentis onustæ;

Sobria muniat, improba puniat, utraque justè."

Astonishment and delight kept the company silent for a while after he

had finished, and then the repressed feelings of the audience burst

out with tenfold force. "Oh, Mr Mount Huxtable!" said they all, "you

_must_ attend our Thursday practising in the church. It will be

so delightful now, for all we required was a fine man's voice. How

beautiful the words are, and how well adapted for singing! And the

music, how splendid!--pray whose is the music?"

"I am afraid I must confess myself the culprit in that respect,"

replied the Curate, very modestly. "I have been an enthusiast in music

all my life, and have a peculiar delight in composing melodies to the

old Catholic hymns."

After this no more was said of flowers on St Ingulpus's day; and it was

very evident that our new ally was carrying the war into the enemy's

country, and, in fact, was turning their artillery against themselves.

"If you are pleased with this simple song, I am sure that you will all

be enchanted next week with two friends who have promised to visit

me--both exquisite musicians, and very clever men."

"Clergymen?" inquired two or three of the ladies.

"Of course. I have very few lay acquaintances. You perhaps have heard

their names,--the Reverend Launton Swallowlies, and the Reverend

Iscariot Rowdy, both of Oxford."

"No we don't know their names, but shall be delighted to see

any friends of yours." And so the party broke up with universal

satisfaction. There was a brilliant moon, and Mount Huxtable sent away

his phaeton and two beautiful gray ponies, and walked to Hellebore gate

with the Blazers. Christina Smiler would rather have had him drive

home, and looked a little sad as they went off: but we heard happy

voices all the way down the avenue; snatches of psalm-music, even, rose

up from the shrubs that line the walk; and it appears that the whole

group had stopt short on the little knoll that rises just within the

parsonage gate, and sung the Sicilian Mariner's Hymn.

So I think, my dear Charles, you may give up any farther attempts on

our good old Church principles; the Doctor is determined not to turn

round to the communion-table even at the creed, and I will beat you £20

that the congregation will all come back again, and we shall once more

be a happy and united parish.

LETTER THIRD.

We look on you now, my dear Charles, as a fallen star; and, between

ourselves, I don't think you are missed by a single astronomer in

Yawnham, from the sky where you were once enthroned. No, sir: our

curate's neckcloth is stiffer than yours, his collar plainer, his tails

longer, his knowledge of saints and legends infinitely deeper--and,

besides, he sings like an angel, and has a phaeton and pair. And he

is so gentlemanly, too. He was at Eton, and is intimate with many

lords, and has a power of sneering at low churchmen and dissenters

that would be myrrh and incense to the Pope. Now you will observe, my

unfortunate young friend, that when gentlemanly manners, good looks

and accomplishments--not to mention an intimacy with the Red Book--and

fourteen hundred a-year are in one scale, and Charles Fustian and a ton

weight of Tractarians are in the other, the young persons who, in our

parish, hold the beam will very soon send you and your make-weights

half-way through the roof. Therefore, if you wish to retrieve your

influence, either with Araminta or the other fair innovators, now or

never is your time; come down and visit us. We shall all be delighted

to see your elongated visage, and are not without hopes--for you are a

good-natured excellent-dispositioned fellow after all--that you will

see the error of your ways, and believe that humility and charity are

Christian graces as well as faith and coloured windows. It so happens

that there is scarcely a house in the place without a visitor. Tom

Blazer has come down to Hellebore Park, and has brought Jones and

Smith, two of his brother officers of the Rifles, with him;--the two

Oxford men are with Mount Huxtable, who has taken Laburnum Place, and

our doings are likely to be uncommonly gay. Swallowlies and Rowdy

are great friends, though they seem to be the very antipodes of each

other. Rowdy won't believe anything, and has doubts about the battle

of Waterloo; and Swallowlies believes everything, and thinks the

American States will soon pay off my bonds. Rowdy says there is no

evidence, satisfactory to him, that there is such a state as Arkansas

in the world, as it is not authoritatively stated by church or council;

and tries to persuade me that I have lent six thousand pounds of real

money to an imaginary republic. In the mean time, the loss of three

hundred a-year is by no means an imaginary evil, and I feel a little

sore at both these Oxford humourists for laughing at my misfortunes.

However, Swallowlies errs on the right side, and is decidedly the

favourite with us all.

You may guess, my dear Charles, how the heart of Major M'Turk jumped

for joy when Mount Huxtable proposed a pic-nic at the Holywell tree at

the other extremity of the parish; and all the young ladies, without

a single exception, determined to be of the party. Fasting, my good

friend, has come to an end: there were pies enough made to feed an

army; baskets by the dozen were packed up, containing plates, and

knives and forks; crates filled with cold fowls and hams, and others

loaded with fruit and wine. The Rector had out his old coach, which

Chipper managed to decapitate for the occasion, and it did duty (like

St Denis) with its head off, as an open barouche. He took some of the

Puginstones, and two of the Pulsers; and, to make room for Mrs M'Turk,

he, or rather Mrs Smiler, asked the Curate to take Christina beside

him on the driving-seat of his phaeton. I got out my old four-wheel,

which was certainly not so fashionable-looking as Mount Huxtable's

drag, but so commodious that it appears made of India-rubber, and

stretches to any extent. Tom Blazer is an ostentatious fool and sports

a tandem--that is to say, he puts his own horse and Jones' (one before

the other) in his father's high gig, and insists on driving Tinderella

Swainlove all about the country. On this occasion she also graced his

side; and Jones himself, who is as active as one of the Voltigeurs at

Astley's, fixed a board on the hind part of the gig and sat with his

back to the horse, smoking cigars and calling it a dog-cart. At last

we all got there; and, when the company was assembled, it certainly

was a goodly sight to see. The little spring that gives its name to

the fine old elm--now, alas! a stump that might pass for Arthur's

Table Round--comes welling out from a glorious old rock, which rises

suddenly, you remember, from the richest pasture field in yeoman

Ruffhead's farm. I never saw the scenery to such advantage: the woods

of Kindstone Hill closed in the landscape on the west; and before us,

to the south, was spread out the long sunny level of Richland meads, at

the farther extremity of which rose the time-honoured ivy-covered ruins

of Leeches Abbey. While the servants, who had gone over in a couple of

carts, were busy in arranging the repast, we fell off into parties,

and, by mere accident, I joined the Blazer girls and Captain Smith, who

gathered round the Holywell, and told what little legends they knew of

it to Swallowlies and Rowdy.

"They thought it was good for epileptic fits," said Araminta, "in the

Roman Catholic time. It was blessed by St Toper of Geneva, who was

overcome by thirst one morning after spending the night with the monks

of Leeches."

"Toper of Geneva?" inquired Captain Smith,--"it's rather a jolly name

for a saint; no wonder the old boy felt his coppers hot after a night

with the monks."

But the remark was so coldly received that the Captain, who enjoys a

great reputation in the Rifles for wit and pleasantry, was for a while

struck dumb.

"Who shall tell what may be the efficacy of a good man's blessing,"

said Mr Swallowlies, dipping his finger reverently in the cow's

drinking trough, and touching his forehead. "Do you know, Miss Blazer,

if it still retains its virtue?"

"I believe epileptic patients are still brought to the spring," replied

Araminta, "and I have heard that the old woman in that little hut on

the hill-side has seen several cures."

"I will make her acquaintance this moment," exclaimed Swallowlies.

"I think it a privilege to look on a matron who has witnessed so

remarkable a manifestation. Will you go with me, Rowdy?"

"No, I have no great faith in the fountain."

"Why not?"

"Because it is a sufficient effort for the human mind to have faith in

one or two points of far greater importance."

"But you needn't make any effort at all. Take it on the assurance of

the Church," said Swallowlies persuasively. "We have, indeed, cut

ourselves off from a declaration of our belief in the power of saints

like the holy Toper; but we can surely entertain the belief, though we

are debarred from making public profession of it. And, in fact, any one

who believes in miracles at all must equally believe that this spring

will cure epileptic fits."

"Exactly as I say," responded Rowdy; "all miracles are equally

credible."

"Then come to the old woman," said Swallowlies, taking his arm.

"No," said Mr Rowdy, "I have lately had great doubts as to my own

identity, and I am going to try some experiments to see whether I am

now the same person I was when I signed the articles, and did duty in

my parish."

Mr Swallowlies, however, and the rest of us, with the exception of

Captain Smith, walked to old Janet Wheedler's cottage, while Rowdy

entered on his course of experimental philosophy. We found her nicely

dressed, as if in expectation of our coming; and as the spring, with

its capabilities for a pic-nic and its ancient associations, was a

source of considerable revenue to her, she evidently was greatly

pleased with the number of guests whom she saw approaching her door.

"_Pax vobiscum!_" said Mr Swallowlies, as we entered the cottage. "You

reside here in highly favoured ground."

"Yes, indeed, sir," said Janet, "the gentlefolks be very fond of it,

and very often come here from all parts about."

"Only the gentlefolks?" inquired her visitor. "I thought I heard that

others came to avail themselves of the holy spring."

"Some folks don't believe in it now, sir--more's the pity. It was of

great value in the old time."

"Why should it lose its virtue, Mrs Wheedler? If we had still the

faith, it would have still the power."

Janet looked towards Mr Swallowlies, to judge whether he was in jest or

earnest; but, on catching the face of wonderment with which he gazed at

the well, and the unmistakable sincerity with which he spoke, the old

woman, who had been a fortune-teller in her youth, involuntarily winked

her blear eye, and curled up the corners of her mouth.

"It ain't quite falled away yet, sir. This here cat as ever you

sees--here, Tabby dear, get up and show yourself to the gentles--this

here cat, sir, a week ago, was took so ill of the palsy that it shook

all over like a leaf. I thought it was agoing to die; but at last,

thinks I, why shouldn't St Toper cure she, as he cures so many as have

fits? And so, sir, I goes and fetches a little water, and flings it on

Tabby's face, and the moment she felt the water she stops the shaking,

and walks about as well as ever."

"Had she had any breakfast that morning?"

"No, sir, fasting from all but air; I gave her nothing from the night

before, when she supped on a mouse."

Mr Swallowlies stooped down and laid his hand on the cat, which was

purring and rubbing its fur against his leg.

"A strange instance this," he said, "of the efficacy of the ancient

faith."

"Do you believe it, sir?" I inquired.

"Why not, sir? I don't attribute this, of course, to the direct

operation of St Toper; but it certainly was endowed with this virtue

to be evidence of his holy life. A wonderful animal this, Mrs

Wheedler,--you would not probably wish to part with it?"

"I have two or three other cats, sir; but I'm very poor, and a little

money is more useful to me than old Tabby."

"I'll speak to you in a little on the subject. Meanwhile, have you any

other instances of cure?"

"Not to speak of, sir," replied Janet, delighted with the deference

she was treated with. "That there little calf as you sees among the

cabbage was born with five legs, and without ever a tail."

"Five legs! bless me!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies--"how very strange!--it

has only four now."

"Ah, sir! that's all owing to the well. I takes it to the spring, and

sprinkles the fifth leg three times, and immediately it gives a jerk,

and up goes the leg into its body, like the winding up of a jack-chain;

and so I goes to work again, and flings a bucketful on its back, and,

in a minute or two, out comes a tail,--and there it is, and not a

single mark left of where the additional leg had disappeared."

"This is most interesting!" exclaimed Mr Swallowlies. "Have you got the

bucket you used in aspersing the calf?"

"There it be, sir," said Janet, pointing to a tub of some size, that

was placed upright against the wall.

"A blessed instrument, indeed," said the gentleman, bowing most

respectfully, as he sounded with his knuckles on the rim. "I must have

some minutes' conversation with you, Mrs Wheedler, for I make a point

of never taking any stories, which at first sight appear improbable,

without sedulous inquiry and anxious proof."

"I hear the dinner-bell," I said at this moment, for I heard Captain

Smith performing the "Roast beef of Old England" on a key-bugle, which

was the concerted signal for our assembling where the provender had

been spread; and I used a little more vigour than usual in drawing the

young ladies away.

"What a splendid specimen of Anglo-Catholic faith is Mr Swallowlies!"

exclaimed Araminta in a tone of rapture; "and how free from bigotry in

his reverence for a Romish saint like the holy Toper!"

"Hold your silly tongue, this moment!" I exclaimed, getting into a

passion--"a fellow that believes in paralytic cats and five-footed

calves being cured by such trumpery, should leave our church."

"You are so bitter, Mr Buddle, against the Holy Catholic Church, that I

wonder you call yourself a Christian at all."

"Where is the Holy Catholic Church, you little simpleton?" I said,

softening a little, for Araminta is a nice little girl.

"At Rome, Charles Fustian told me; and we are but a distant branch of

it, bearing very little fruit, and owing that little only to the sap

furnished to us by the main old trunk. And Mr Mount Huxtable says the

same,--only that our branch bears no fruit, as the continuity was cut

off at the deplorable Reformation."

"Charles Fustian! Mr Mount Huxtable!" I cried: "they're laughing at

you, my little dear: they are both ministers of our church, and have

made numberless protestations against the wickedness and errors of

Rome. They are laughing at you,--at least I know Mount Huxtable is,

for, to tell you a secret, my dear Araminta, he is placed here for no

other purpose but to defend our Protestant Establishment against the

Tractarian tendencies of the artists and young ladies of the day."

"Charles Fustian, sir, I beg to tell you, knows too well to presume to

laugh at me," said Araminta, tossing her head.

"He ought, my dear," I replied, "for he is a remarkably foolish young

man, and hasn't half the sense in his whole head which you have in your

little finger."

By this time we had reached the spring; and after placing the girls in

the best seats still to be found, I called Dr Smiler aside.

"My dear old friend," I said, "have you made proper inquiry about Mount

Huxtable's church principles, before you installed him in full power in

the parish?"

"No Tractarian need apply, was in the advertisement," replied the

Doctor. "He is a stout opponent of the dissenters; and, besides, my

dear Buddle, as you are the oldest friend I have in the parish, I

may tell you that on the way here he had a long conversation with

Christina, who sat beside him in his phaeton, and among other things he

asked her if she thought she could be content with the humble condition

of a curate's wife? She said yes, of course,--for she has liked him

ever since they met; and he told her he would wait on me to-morrow. I

now consider him my son-in-law. He has great expectations, and has

already fourteen hundred a-year."

"I don't like what I hear of his churchmanship," I said. "And as to

Swallowlies, I think he is a bigoted fool, and a Papist."

"I don't the least see, Mr Buddle, why a man should be either bigoted

or a fool who believes as two-thirds of the Christians throughout the

world believe."

So saying, the Doctor turned off in a very dignified manner, and

presided over the pigeon-pie.

I confess to you, my dear Charles, this acted like a thunderbolt on

me. Rejoiced as I was at Christina's good fortune, in attracting the

affection of so amiable and wealthy an admirer as Mount Huxtable, I did

not feel altogether comfortable at the effect which this discovery had

on the logical powers of my friend the Rector of Yawnham. Because a man

admires my daughter, and makes her an offer of marriage, am I to kiss

the Pope's toe? I made a determination to inquire into matters more

deeply than I had hitherto done, and, with a view to pick up all the

information I could, I watched the conversation in silence.

Betsy Blazer sat next Captain Smith of the Rifles, and, in one of the

pauses which occasionally occur in the noisiest assemblages, her voice

was distinctly heard.

"Do you ever chant when you are all together in barracks, Captain

Smith?--it must be delightful."

"Well, I can't deny that there is occasionally chanting after mess,"

replied the soldier, a little amazed.

"Who is the leader?"

"Why, Jones and I both pretend to some renown."

"Are they Gregorian?"

"I should say Stentorian was a better description, for, between

ourselves, Jones, in the Nottingham Ale, might be mistaken for an angry

bull."

What the denouement of the conversation was I don't know, for Rowdy's

voice rose above the din--

"Faith expires"--he said--"hope grows dim--but ceremony, the last

refuge of religion, remains. We lose the trustingness that makes us lay

the promises of holy writ to our hearts,--the childlike simplicity that

lifts us into a world where truth erects her palace on gorgeous clouds,

which to us take the semblance and solidity of mountains,--we lose

the thrill, the dread, the love,--but we can retain the surplice, the

albe, and the stole. The cloud that seemed a mountain has disappeared;

the confidence that sustained us has gone,--but we can erect churches

according to the strictest rules of architecture, cover the table with

cloth of gold,--have daily service, have some fixed, irrevocable,

eternal rule, and feel ourselves the slaves of hours and postures;--a

slavery befitting those who are left to grope in the darkness of their

own souls for a belief, and find nothing to support, to bless, or cheer

them."

"Do you advocate the externals of devotion, Mr Rowdy, after the reality

of religion has left the heart?" I inquired.

"Certainly, sir," he said. "If you waited for the internal religion

you talk of, you would never enter a church. And pray, sir, what is

internal, and what is external? Your heart is a piece of flesh, your

font is a piece of stone; why shouldn't holiness reside in the one as

well as in the other?"

"It strikes me, Mr Rowdy, to be rather hypocritical to go through the

forms of religion without the spirit," I urged again.

"And what is life but hypocrisy?--your very clothes make you a

hypocrite: without them you would resemble a forked radish, but

you disfigure yourself in surtout and pantaloons. Go through the

ceremonies, sir--the feeling in time will come; dig your trenches deep,

and the rain will pour into them and burn the sacrifice of your altar

with fire; kneel when you have no devotion, bend yourself to decrees

and ordinances when you have no humility and no faith; and, entering on

that course with the scoff of Voltaire, you will emerge from it with

the sanctity of Vincent de Paul."

"On the contrary, sir, I maintain," said I, "that, if you persist in

these miserable bonds of an outward obedience, in the expectation that

they will promote your advance in goodness, you bring on yourself the

condemnation of the Pharisee; you may enter them with the faith of

your friend Mr Swallowlies, but you will leave them ere long with the

sentiments of the infidel and apostate Strauss."

"I call no man an apostate," cried Mr Rowdy, "who traces the operations

of his own mind to their legitimate results; I call no man an infidel

who believes that he was born, and that he shall die."

"How good! how liberal! how humane!" exclaimed a chorus of sweet voices.

"And what do YOU say?" I enquired, addressing our new curate.

"For myself," said Mr Mount Huxtable, "I think it sinful in any one to

decide on such a subject, unless in the exact words of the church."

"Very good," said the Doctor; "judiciously answered."

"Don't you allow private judgment, sir?" said I.

"No more, sir," he replied, "than I should allow private execution.

It is for the church to pass sentence: if any presumptuous individual

interferes with her authority, he is as much out of his sphere as if he

were to displace Baron Alderson on the bench, go through the mockery of

a trial, and condemn an enemy of his own to be hanged."

"Very good, indeed," said the Doctor; "judiciously answered."

"I have often heard your friend, Charles Fustian, say the same," said

Araminta.

"Is he a friend of yours, Mount Huxtable?" inquired Dr Smiler, in a

very bland tone.

"A most intimate friend, my dear sir," replied Mount Huxtable.

"Dear me!--I thought you told me you didn't know him."

"No, my dear sir, I didn't tell you so: I only gave you to understand

that we weren't acquainted."

"That used to be pretty much the same thing," I said, a little chafed

with the putting down I had already experienced, "and I suspect you are

a great deal more intimate than you were inclined to let us know."

"You have exactly hit upon the reason," he replied. "I was not inclined

to let you know; and I have yet to learn that a priest is imperatively

required to confess to a layman, however inquisitive or ill-mannered he

may be."

"Come, my dear Buddle," said the Doctor, "I think you will see that you

ought to apologise."

"For what?" I exclaimed.

"For speaking so irreverently to the pastor of the parish," replied

Dr Smiler. "You should consider, sir, that Mr Mount Huxtable is your

spiritual guide."

"Certainly," said Araminta; and Christina Smiler grew first red and

then pale, and looked at me as if I were a heathen.

I sipped a glass in silence; and the altercation had the unpleasant

effect of producing an awkward pause.

When the silence had endured for upwards of a minute, it was suddenly

broken by Major M'Turk ejaculating, in his most military manner,

"Sharpshooters, to the front!" and mechanically Jones and Smith

sprang up, and, advancing a few paces, anxiously looked upward in the

direction pointed out by the commander's hand. The sight they saw might

have shaken less firm nerves than theirs; for, toiling slowly down

the hill, from Janet Wheedler's cottage, we perceived a nondescript

figure, yet evidently human, more puzzling than the sea-serpent. Some

large round substance enveloped its head, and entirely buried the hat

and face, and covered the whole of the neck down to the middle buttons

of the coat. Tucked under one arm we beheld a cat, secured by a ribbon

tied round its neck; and, with a large kitchen poker in the other hand,

the advancing stranger drove before him a great awkward calf. When he

got a little nearer, we recognised our friend Mr Swallowlies.

"In heaven's name!" exclaimed the Rector, "what have you got there, Mr

Swallowlies?"

"It is in heaven's name, indeed," replied Swallowlies, lifting up the

large washing-tub which we had seen in Janet's cottage. "These, sir,

are holy relies, which I have luckily induced the venerable matron of

the hut to part with--partly by prayers and supplications, and partly

by payments in money."

The Rector looked astonished, for he had not been of our party; and

Swallowlies, allowing the calf to feed on the grass near the spring,

explained his sentiments on the subject of the tub, and related the

miraculous history of the animals his companions.

"And how much did you give for the tub, sir?" said Smiler.

"Five pounds procured the inestimable treasure," answered Swallowlies

in triumph; "eight pounds procured me the sacred tabby, and twelve

guineas the calf. A very few pounds more have obtained for me, if

possible, still more precious articles. Look here, sir," he continued,

pulling from his coat-pocket an old quarter-boot, with the sole nearly

off, and two or three flat-headed nails sticking out from the tattered

heel--"this is one of the sandals in which the illustrious Toper used

to go his annual pilgrimage to the shrine of St Thomas of Canterbury.

This instrument of iron--which, I confess, struck me at first to bear

a great resemblance to a poker--was his staff. And this, sir," he

said, pulling from his bosom a piece of very old corduroy, mended in

several places--"this is the left leg of the pantaloons the saint wore

for upwards of forty years, without ever taking them off; for he is

recorded never to have changed his raiment but twice, and never to have

washed either his face or hands,--such a true Christian soldier was he."

"He was a dirty brute, and no soldier," cried Captain Smith, who was a

great martinet in his regiment, "and I would have had him flogged every

morning till he learned to be more tidy."

"Sacrilege! horror!" exclaimed Swallowlies, crossing himself in the

greatest perturbation, and placing the tub once more on his head, and

resuming his labours in driving the calf onward with his poker.

"Won't you have some pie?" said Dr Smiler.

"No, sir; I am fasting to-day, and am anxious to place my treasures in

security."

"Such faith is highly edifying," said Mount Huxtable, "and

unfortunately too uncommon in the present day. Ah! were all men equally

pure, and as highly gifted as Swallowlies, the Reformation would soon

be blotted out, and our Mother of Rome receive her repentant children."

"How? What did you say, my dear sir?" inquired the Rector. "Are you not

a Protestant?"