And each had shown how light we fared along,
When thus he warned me: 'Bend thine eyesight down:
For thou, to ease the way, shalt find it good
To ruminate the bed beneath thy feet.'
As, in memorial of the buried, drawn
Upon earth-level tombs, the sculptured form
Of what was once, appears, (at sight whereof
Tears often stream forth, by remembrance waked,
Whose sacred stings the piteous often feel,)
So saw I there, but with more curious skill
Of portraiture o'erwrought, whate'er of space
From forth the mountain stretches. On one part
Him I beheld, above all creatures erst
Created noblest, lightening fall from heaven:
On the other side, with bolt celestial pierced,
Briareus; cumbering earth he lay, through dint
Of mortal ice-stroke. The Thymbræan god,
With Mars, I saw, and Pallas, round their sire,
Armed still, and gazing on the giants' limbs
Strewn o'er the ethereal field. Nimrod I saw:
At foot of the stupendous work he stood,
As if bewildered, looking on the crowd
Leagued in his proud attempt on Sennaar's plain.
O Niobe! in what a trance of woe
Thee I beheld, upon that highway drawn,
Seven sons on either side thee slain. O Saul!
How ghastly didst thou look, on thine own sword
Expiring, in Gilboa, from that hour
Ne'er visited with rain from heaven, or dew.
O fond Arachne! thee I also saw,
Half spider now, in anguish, crawling up
The unfinished web thou weavedst to thy bane.
O Rehoboam! here thy shape doth seem
Lowering no more defiance; but fear-smote,
With none to chase him, in his chariot whirled.
Was shown beside upon the solid floor,
How dear Alcmæon forced his mother rate
That ornament, in evil hour received:
How, in the temple, on Sennacherib fell
His sons, and how a corpse they left him there.
Was shown the scath, and cruel mangling made
By Tomyris on Cyrus, when she cried,
'Blood thou didst thirst for: take thy fill of blood.'
Was shown how routed in the battle fled
The Assyrians, Holofernes slain, and e'en
The relics of the carnage. Troy I marked,
In ashes and in caverns. Oh! how fallen,
How abject, Ilion, was thy semblance there!
What master of the pencil or the style
Had traced the shades and lines, that might have made
The subtlest workman wonder? Dead, the dead;
The living seemed alive: with clearer view
His eye beheld not who beheld the truth,
Than mine what I did tread on, while I went
Low bending."--_Cary._
The following is distinguished from all that we have cited thus far by
softness and delicacy of touch.
"Vago già di cercar dentro e d'intorno
La divina foresta spessa e viva
Ch'agli occhi temperava il nuovo giorno,
Senza più aspettar lasciai la riva
Prendendo la campagna lento lento
Su per lo suol che d'ogni parte oliva.
Un'aura dolce senza mutamento
Avere in se, mi feria per la fronte,
Non di più colpo che soave vento:
Per cui le fronde tremolando pronte
Tutte quante piegavano alla parte
U'la prim' ombra gitta il santo monte;
Non però dal loro esser dritto sparte
Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime
Lasciasser d'operare ogni lor arte;
Ma con piena letizia l'ore prime
Cantando ricevieno intra le foglie
Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime,
Tal qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie
Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi,
Quand'Eolo scirocco fuor discioglie.
Gia m'avean trasportato i lenti passi
Dentro all'antica selva tanto, ch'io
Non potea rivedere ond'io m'entrassi;
Ed ecco il più andar mi tolse un rio
Che'nver sinistra con sue picciol'onde
Piegava l'erba che'n sua ripa uscio.
Tutte l'acque che son di qua più monde
Parrieno avere in se mistura alcuna
Verso di quella che nulla nasconde,
Avvegna che si muova bruna bruna
Sotto l'ombra perpetua, che mai
Raggiar non lascia sole ivi nè luna.
Co' piè ristetti e con gli occhi passai
Di là dal fiumicel per ammirare
La gran variazion de'freschi mai;
E là m'apparve, si com'egli appare
Subitamente cosa che disvia
Per maraviglia tutt'altro pensare,
Una donna soletta che si gia
Cantando ed iscegliendo fior da fiore
Ond' era pinta tutta la sua via."
_Purgatorio_, XXVIII. 1-42.
"Eager already to search in and round
The heavenly forest, dense and living-green,
Which tempered to the eyes the new-born day,
Withouten more delay I left the bank,
Taking the level country slowly, slowly
Over the soil that everywhere breathes fragrance.
A softly-breathing air, that no mutation
Had in itself, upon the forehead smote me
No heavier blow than of a gentle wind,
Whereat the branches, lightly tremulous,
Did all of them bow downward toward that side
Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain;
Yet not from their upright direction swayed,
So that the little birds upon their tops
Should leave the practice of each art of theirs;
But with full ravishment the hours of prime,
Singing, received they in the midst of leaves,
That ever bore a burden to their rhymes,
Such as from branch to branch goes gathering on
Through the pine forest on the shore of Chiassi,
When Eolus unlooses the Sirocco.
Already my slow steps had carried me
Into the ancient wood so far, that I
Could not perceive where I had entered it.
And lo! my further course a stream cut off,
Which tow'rd the left hand with its little waves
Bent down the grass that on its margin sprang.
All waters that on earth most limpid are
Would seem to have within themselves some mixture
Compared with that which nothing doth conceal,
Although it moves on with a brown, brown current
Under the shade perpetual, that never
Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon.
With feet I stayed, and with mine eyes I passed
Beyond the rivulet, to look upon
The great variety of the fresh may.
And there appeared to me (even as appears
Suddenly something that doth turn aside
Through very wonder every other thought)
A lady all alone, who went along
Singing and culling floweret after floweret,
With which her pathway was all painted over."
_Longfellow._
"Through that celestial forest, whose thick shade
With lively greenness the new-springing day
Attempered, eager now to roam, and search
Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank;
Along the champaign leisurely my way
Pursuing, o'er the ground, that on all sides
Delicious odor breathed. A pleasant air,
That intermitted never, never veered,
Smote on my temples, gently, as a wind
Of softest influence: at which the sprays,
Obedient all, leaned trembling to that part
Where first the holy mountain casts his shade;
Yet were not so disordered, but that still
Upon their top the feathered quiristers
Applied their wonted art, and with full joy
Welcomed those hours of prime, and warbled shrill
Amid the leaves, that to their jocund lays
Kept tenor; even as from branch to branch,
Along the piny forests on the shore
Of Chiassi, rolls the gathering melody.
When Eolus hath from his cavern loosed
The dripping south. Already had my steps,
Though slow, so far into that ancient wood
Transported me, I could not ken the place
Where I had entered; when, behold! my path
Was bounded by a rill, which, to the left,
With little rippling waters bent the grass
That issued from its brink. On earth no wave
How clean soe'er, that would not seem to have
Some mixture in itself, compared with this,
Transpicuous clear; yet darkly on it rolled
Darkly beneath perpetual gloom, which ne'er
Admits or sun or moonlight there to shine.
My feet advanced not; but my wondering eyes
Passed onward, o'er the streamlet, to survey
The tender May-bloom, flushed through many a hue,
In prodigal variety: and there,
As object, rising suddenly to view,
That from our bosom every thought beside
With the rare marvel chases, I beheld
A lady all alone, who, singing, went,
And culling flower from flower, wherewith her way
Was all o'er painted."--_Cary._
We give a characteristic passage from the Paradiso.
"Fiorenza dentro dalla cerchia antica,
Ond'ella toglie ancora e terza e nona,
Si stava in pace sobria e pudica.
Non avea catenella, non corona,
Non donne contigiate, non cintura
Che fosse a veder più che la persona.
Non faceva nascendo ancor paura
La figlia al padre, che il tempo e la dote
Non fuggian quinci e quindi la misura.
Non avea case di famiglia vote;
Non v'era giunto ancor Sardanapalo
A mostrar ciò ch'in camera si puote.
Non era vinto ancora Montemalo
Dal vostro Uccellatoio, che com'è vinto
Nel montar su, così sarà nel calo.
Bellincion Berti vid'io andar cinto
Di cuojo e d'osso, e venir dallo specchio
La donna sua senza'l viso dipinto:
E vidi quel di Nerli e quel del Vecchio
Esser contenti alla pelle scoverta,
E le sue donne al fuso ed al pennecchio:
Oh fortunate! e ciascuna era certa
Della sua sepoltura, ed ancor nulla
Era per Francia nel letto deserta.
L'una vegghiava a studio della culla,
E consolando usava l'idioma
Che pria li padri e le madri trastulla:
L'altra traendo alla rocca la chioma
Favoleggiava con la sua famiglia
De'Trojani e di Fiesole e di Roma.
Saria tenuta allor tal maraviglia
Una Cianghella, un Lapo Salterello,
Qual or saria Cincinnato e Corniglia.
A così riposato, a così bello
Viver di cittadini, a così fida
Cittadinanza, a così dolce ostello,
Maria mi diè, chiamata in alte grida;
E nell'antico vostro Batisteo
Insieme fui Cristiano e Cacciaguida."
_Paradiso_, XV. 97-135.
"Florence, within the ancient boundary
From which she taketh still her tierce and nones,
Abode in quiet, temperate and chaste.
No golden chain she had, nor coronal,
Nor ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle
That caught the eye more than the person did.
Not yet the daughter at her birth struck fear
Into the father, for the time and dower
Did not o'errun this side or that the measure.
No houses had she void of families,
Not yet had thither come Sardanapalus
To show what in a chamber can be done;
Not yet surpassed had Montemalo been
By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed
Shall in its downfall be as in its rise.
Bellincion Berti saw I go begirt
With leather and with bone, and from the mirror
His dame depart without a painted face;
And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio,
Contented with their simple suits of buff,
And with the spindle and the flax their dames.
O fortunate women! and each one was certain
Of her own burial-place, and none as yet
For sake of France was in her bed deserted.
One o'er the cradle kept her studious watch,
And in her lullaby the language used
That first delights the fathers and the mothers;
Another, drawing tresses from her distaff,
Told o'er among her family the tales
Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome.
As great a marvel then would have been held
A Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella,
As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
To such a quiet, such a beautiful
Life of the citizen, to such a safe
Community, and to so sweet an inn,
Did Mary give me, with loud cries invoked,
And in your ancient Baptistery at once
Christian and Cacciaguida I became."
_Longfellow_
"Florence, within her ancient limit-mark,
Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon,
Was chaste and sober, and abode in peace,
She had no armlets and no head-tires then;
No purfled dames; no zone, that caught the eye
More than the person did. Time was not yet,
When at his daughter's birth the sire grew pale,
For fear the age and dowry should exceed,
On each side, just proportion. House was none
Void of its family: nor yet had come
Sardanapalus, to exhibit feats
Of chamber prowess. Montemalo yet
O'er our suburban turret rose; as much
To be surpassed in fall, as in its rising.
I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad
In leathern girdle, and a clasp of bone;
And, with no artful coloring on her cheeks,
His lady leave the glass. The sons I saw
Of Nerli, and of Vecchio, well content
With unrobed jerkin; and their good dames handling
The spindle and the flax: O happy they!
Each sure of burial in her native land,
And none left desolate abed for France.
One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it
With sounds that lulled the parent's infancy:
Another, with her maidens, drawing off
The tresses from the distaff, lectured them
Old tales of Troy, and Fesole, and Rome.
A Salterello and Cianghella we
Had held as strange a marvel, as ye would
A Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
In such composed and seemly fellowship,
Such faithful and such fair equality,
In so sweet household, Mary at my birth
Bestowed me, called on with loud cries; and there,
In your old baptistery, I was made
Christian at once and Cacciaguida."--_Cary._
It would be easy to extend our quotations; but we have given enough of
Mr. Longfellow's translation to show with what conceptions of duty to
the original he came to his task, and how perfectly that duty has been
performed. According to his theory, then, as we gather it from these
volumes, translation is not paraphrase, is not interpretation, is not
imitation, but is the rigorous rendering of word for word, so far as the
original difference of idioms permits. Its basis is truth to the form as
well as to the thought, to the letter as well as to the spirit, of the
text. The translator is like the messengers of the Bible and Homer, who
repeat word for word the message that has been confided to them. He,
too, if he would be true to his office, must give the message as it has
been given to him, repeat the story in the words in which it was told
him. Every deviation from the letter of the original is a deviation from
the truth. Every epithet that is either added or taken away is a
falsification of the text. The addition or the omission may sometimes be
an improvement, but it is an improvement which you have no authority to
make. It is not to learn what you think Homer or Dante might have said
that the reader comes to your translation, but to see what they really
said. When Cesarotti undertook to show how Homer would have written in
the eighteenth century, he recast the Iliad and called it "The Death of
Hector," and in this he dealt more honestly with his readers than Pope;
for, although he failed to make a good poem, he did not attempt to pass
it for Homer.
The greatest difficulty of the translator arises from his personality.
He cannot forget himself, cannot guard, as he ought, against those
subtle insinuations of self-esteem which are constantly leading him to
improve upon his author. His own habits of thought would have suggested
a different turn to the verse, a different coloring to the image. He
finds it as hard to forget his own style, as to forget his identity. It
demands a vigorous imagination, combined with deep poetic sympathies, to
go out of yourself and enter for a time wholly into the heart and mind,
the thoughts and feelings, of another; and it is not to all that such an
imagination and such sympathies are given. There is scarcely a great
failure in poetical translation, which may not be traced to the want of
this power.
It may seem like the grave enunciation of a truism to say that another
indispensable qualification of the translator is perfect familiarity
with the language from which he translates, and a full command of his
own. It is not by mere reading that such a familiarity can be acquired.
You must have learnt to think in a language, and made it the spontaneous
expression of your wants and feelings, if you would find in it the true
interpretation of the wants and feelings of others. Its words and idioms
must awaken in you the same sensations which the words and idioms of
your own language awaken; giving pleasure as music, or a picture, or a
statue, or a fine building gives pleasure, not by an act of reflection
under the control of the will, but by an intuitive perception under the
inspiration of a sense of the beautiful. The enjoyment of a thought is
partly an intellectual enjoyment; you may even reason yourself into it;
but the enjoyment of style and language is purely an æsthetic enjoyment,
susceptible, indeed, of culture, but springing from an inborn sense of
harmony. To extend this enjoyment to a foreign language, you must bring
that language close to you, and form with it those intimate relations
between thought and word which you have formed in your own. The word
must not only suggest the thought, but become a part of it, as the
painting becomes a part of the canvas. It must strike your ear with a
familiar sound, awakening pleasant memories of actual life and real
scenes. Idioms are often interpreters of national life, giving you
sudden glimpses, and even deep revelations, of manners and customs, and
the circumstances whence they sprang. They are often, too, brief
formulas, condensing thought into its briefest expression, with a force
and energy which the full expression could not give. To mistake them, is
to mistake the whole passage. Not to feel them, is not to feel the most
characteristic form of thought.
The preposition _da_ is one of the most versatile words in Italian. Its
literal meaning is _from_; it is daily used to express _to_. _Da me_ may
mean _from me_: it may also mean _to me_. _Fit_ or _deserving to be
done_ is a common meaning of it; and it is in this sense that Dante uses
it in the following passage from the fourth canto of Paradiso,
fifty-fifth line:--
"Con intenzion _da_ non esser derisa,"--
With intention not (_deserving to be_) to be derided.
Cary, though a good Italian scholar, translates it _to shun derision_;
and, giving it this sense, quotes Stillingfleet to illustrate the
thought which, for want of practical familiarity with the language, he
attributes to Dante.
We believe, then, that the qualifications of a translator may be briefly
summed up under the following heads:--
He must be conscientiously truthful, studiously following his text, word
by word and line by line.
He must possess a thorough mastery over both languages, feeling as well
as understanding the words and idioms of his original.
He must possess the power of forgetting himself in his author.
And, lastly, he must be not merely a skilful artificer of verses, or a
man of poetic sensibility, but a poet in the highest and truest sense of
the word.
We would gladly enlarge upon this interesting subject, which not only
explains the shortcomings of the past, but opens enticing vistas into
the future. We cannot doubt that Mr. Longfellow's example will be
followed, and that from time to time other great poets will arise, who;
not content with enriching literature with original productions, will
acknowledge it as a part of what they owe the world, to do for Homer and
Virgil and Æschylus and Sophocles what he has done for Dante. It is
pleasant to think that our children will sit at the feet of these great
masters, and, listening to them in English worthy of the tongues in
which they first spake, be led to enter more fully into the spirit of
the abundant Greek and the majestic Latin. It is cheering to the lovers
of sound study to feel that every faithful version of a great poet
extends the influence of his works, and awakens a stronger desire for
the original. We never yet looked upon an engraving of Morghen without a
new longing for the painting which it translated.
We have not left ourselves room for what we had intended to say about
the notes, which form half of each of these three volumes. Those who
know what conscientious zeal Mr. Longfellow brings to all his duties
need not be told that they bear abundant testimony to his learning,
industry, and good taste. They not only leave nothing to be asked for in
the explanation of real difficulties, but, as answers to a wide range of
philosophical, biographical, and historical questions, form in
themselves a delightful miscellany. Dante has been overladen by
commentators. In Mr. Longfellow he has found an interpreter.
It is not to Mr. Longfellow's reputation only that these volumes will
add, but to that of American literature. It is no little thing to be
able to say, that, in a field in which some of England's great poets
have signally failed, an American poet has signally succeeded; that what
the scholars of the Old World asserted to be impossible, a scholar of
the New World has accomplished; and that the first to tread in this new
path has impressed his footprints so deeply therein, that, however
numerous his followers may be, they will all unite in hailing him, with
Dante's own words,--
"Tu Duca, tu Signore e tu Maestro,"--
Thou Leader and thou Lord and Master thou.
THE OLD STORY.
The waiting-women wait at her feet,
And the day is fading down to the night,
And close at her pillow, and round and sweet,
The red rose burns like a lamp a-light.
Under and over, the gray mist lops,
And down and down from the mossy eaves,
And down from the sycamore's long wild leaves,
The slow rain drops and drops and drops.
Ah! never had sleeper a sleep so fair;
And the waiting-women that weep around
Have taken the combs from her golden hair,
And it slideth over her face to the ground.
They have hidden the light from her lovely eyes;
And down from the eaves where the mosses grow
The rain is dripping, so slow, so slow,
And the night-wind cries and cries and cries.
From her hand they have taken the shining ring,
They have brought the linen her shroud to make;
O, the lark she was never so loath to sing,
And the morn she was never so loath to awake!
And at their sewing they hear the rain,--
Drip-drop, drip-drop, over the eaves,
And drip-drop over the sycamore-leaves,
As if there would never be sunshine again.
The mourning train to the grave have gone,
And the waiting-women are here and are there,
With birds at the windows and gleams of the sun
Making the chamber of death to be fair.
And under and over the mist unlaps,
And ruby and amethyst burn through the gray,
And driest bushes grow green with spray,
And the dimpled water its glad hands claps.
The leaves of the sycamore dance and wave,
And the mourners put off the mourning shows,
And over the pathway down to the grave
The long grass blows and blows and blows.
And every drip-drop rounds to a flower,
And love in the heart of the young man springs,
And the hands of the maidens shine with rings,
As if all life were a festival hour.
A WEEK'S RIDING.
"My dear grandfather, why did Mr. Erle start so this evening when he saw
my picture?" I said.
He laughed softly as he answered: "He will tell you himself to-morrow,
if you care to ask him. It is no secret, but you will like the story
best as he tells it. A very pretty story,--a very pretty story," he went
on, as he kissed me good-night, "and one my little girl will relish as
much as a novel."
My grandfather was such a fine, white-haired old gentleman, and looked
so handsome in his handsome house! It was one of the old, square houses
which are fading from the land in country as well as in town, ample and
generous in every way, with broad, carved stairways, and great, wide
hearths for andirons,--a house to make the heart glad, and incline it to
all sweet hospitalities. The warm, low rooms were full of furniture,
softened and made comfortable by unsparing use; the walls were hung with
good paintings and engravings, some of them real masterpieces. But the
glory of the house was its bronzes, gathered by three generations of
rarely cultured men, from my great-great-grandfather, whose rougher
purchases were put in more hidden corners every year, to the grandson
now in possession, whose pure taste chose the latest gems of French art,
and placed them where our eyes might best enjoy their beauty. The
library was crimson, and the dining-room beyond two exquisite shades of
brown and gold, a curtained doorway between. In these two rooms I spent
most of my time when I was with my grandfather, reading with him, and
singing to him, and listening to his cynical, witty talk. At dusk we
gathered round the fire, he and I and the two tawny setters, three of us
on the rug, and he in his long, low chair, and talked of the old family,
whose sons were all dead, and of the gay years when we had been in our
glory. I thought we were very well off in worldly possessions as it
was, but my dear old hero put such content to speedy flight with his
tales of the days that were gone, when, to put implicit trust in him, a
regal hospitality had filled the house with great and distinguished
guests, glad to be with the family which always had a son leading the
right in state and in church, in army and in navy.
I listened with glowing heart, and looked proudly at our men as I walked
by their portraits in the halls on my way to bed. Perhaps my faith in
their great deeds is not so childlike now; but it was pure and unlimited
then, and those library stories can never fade from my memory.
I had been with my grandfather a week when the conversation with which
my tale opens occurred, and I was to return to my parents in three days,
under the protection of the very gentleman who was the subject of it.
The two old friends were very intimate, and Mr. Erle spent every evening
at the house; so I knew him well, and had no fear in asking him any
question I chose, and I looked forward to the next evening as to a grand
festival.
When we came in from dinner, I drew the window-shade, and saw that it
was snowing fiercely.
"Perhaps he will not come," I said, turning to my grandfather
disconsolately.
"Never fear that," he answered. "Mr. Erle is a man who is not kept at
home by the weather, or anything else."
I came to the hearth. The last words had been added in the dry tone
which always meant something, coming from his lips.
"Has Mr. Erle children?" I asked.
"Yes; the youngest boy is only sixteen."
"And he never spends an evening at home?"
"I've not known him to do so for twenty years. Sing the 'Health to King
Charles,' dear."
I sat down at the piano, and sang as I was bid.
We were stanch loyalists from tradition, and my list of Stuart songs was
so long that I had sung scarcely half of it when the clock struck nine,
and rapid wheels came over the pavements. Opposite our door the horse
slipped, and we heard the instantaneous lash singing in the night air
and descending unmercifully on the poor animal. An immense stamping and
rearing ensued. "That is Erle, sure enough," my grandfather said, going
to the window. I followed him, and lifted the shade in time to see Mr.
Erle standing in the trampled snow at the horse's head, patting him as
gently as a woman could have done. In a moment he nodded to his servant,
and watched him drive round the corner before turning to our door.
He came in quickly, exquisitely dressed, and courteous, with the
beautiful old manner they cannot teach us now. After the first words, my
grandfather said, with a superb affectation of seriousness, "The
merciful man is merciful to his beast."
Mr. Erle looked up, with a bright laugh. "So you heard our little
dispute? The old fellow bears me no malice, you may be sure; he knows
that I never sulk."
"Perhaps he would like it a little better if you did," I said.
"Not at all. He respects me for my quick ways with him."
I shook my head doubtingly, and then, as if in defence of his theory, he
said: "Did I ever tell you of Lillie Burton? Her animals did not mind a
little discipline."
My grandfather laughed. "Oddly enough, we had laid a plot to make you
tell that charming history this very evening," he said.
"Don't laugh about it," Mr. Erle answered. "I cannot tell you how
vividly the sight of Miss Thesta's picture brought back the old time to
me."
"I beg your pardon," the other said, bowing.
At that moment a servant came in with wine, placing the Japanese waiter
with the old gilded bottle and glasses at my grandfather's elbow on the
table. He poured out three glasses, and said, very simply: "We will have
our own old way to-night, Erle, while you tell your old story, and drink
as our fathers did, not vile alcohols, but the good fruit of the vine.
Remember, Thesta, I leave you all my wine, on condition that you drink
it, and never let a drop of whiskey come into your house."
"I promise," I said, and sat down at his feet.
"Perhaps you have heard of Lillie Burton?" Mr. Erle began.
I had a confused idea that the name of his wife was Lillie; but it was
so confused that I answered, frankly, "No, I never heard of her at all."
"She is not Lillie Burton now," he went on with a sigh; "but I must
begin at the beginning. It is a real horse story, which will tell in its
favor with you, I am sure."
"Yes, indeed," I answered, with enthusiasm, and then he began anew.
"I was a gay, happy man of twenty-four, living in London with my dear
friend, now dead, Richard Satterlee. We imagined ourselves very tired of
town gayeties, and were languidly looking round for some country-place
where we could be alone and quiet for a week or so, when the little
incident occurred which led to my acquaintance with Lillie Burton. I
must tell you that Satterlee and I were used up in more ways than
one,--we had been unfortunate at the races that year, and so were well
out of pocket, and I had not escaped heart-free from the season's balls,
as Dick had, who, bless his honest soul, was as unmoved as a rock among
the fairest women of the land. Not that they were indifferent to him,
though. His broad shoulders and downcast eyes made sad havoc among them,
Miss Thesta,--so beware of those attractions among the men you meet:
there are none more deadly. Well, they loved Dick, and I loved Miss
Ferrers. She was not very handsome, but more fascinating to me than any
other woman, and as thorough a flirt as ever made a man miserable. Never
mind the how and why, but, believe me, I was very hard hit indeed, and
sincerely thought myself the most wretched man in all London when I
heard that she had gone to Spain with her brother-in-law, Lord West, and
his wife. She had treated me shamefully; but I loved her all the more
for it, and was quite desperate, in short. You may not think it of me,
but I could neither sleep nor eat. In this state of mind I was walking
home one afternoon, determined to tell Satterlee that I should leave
him, and go back to my people in America, when I saw a small crowd
ahead, and heard them cheer before they broke up and walked away. I
should have passed by without a second glance, had I not been struck by
the appearance of one of the three men who remained on the spot,--a
strong-limbed fellow of thirty, evidently of purest Saxon blood. His
whole face was handsome, but his hair was simply superb, and this it was
that attracted me. Imagine long yellow locks of brightest gold, not
exactly curling, but waving in short, determined waves back from a low
forehead. Ah, I cannot describe to you that wonderful hair, how it shone
on me through the gloaming, and drew me irresistibly to the man himself!
I stopped, and asked one of the others what the row had been about.
"'O, he pitched into a feller that was kicking a dog, and came near
getting kicked hisself,' was the only answer I got, as he walked off
with his companion. I turned to my hero, and, as our eyes met, a
pleasant smile lighted up his face. 'Can you tell me the nearest place
where I can buy a hat?' he said; 'there's not much use in picking up
that thing,' pointing to a mashed heap in the gutter.
"'I should think not,' I said. 'There is no shop near, but if you will
come round the corner to my rooms, I can provide you with a covering of
some kind.'
"'Thank you,' he answered, and we walked away together. There was not
time for much talk, and he had said nothing of himself when we opened
the door. Satterlee was standing with his back to the fire, and no
sooner did he see my companion than he sprang forward, in eager welcome.
'Burton of Darrow, by all the gods!' he cried. 'Where's your hat, good
friend?'
"He of the golden locks burst into a merry laugh,--what white teeth he
had! 'It is gone forever. Do let me know your friend, who has been so
kind to me about it.'
"We were introduced to each other in due form, and Burton sat down at
our hearth like an old friend, chatting merrily, and warming his great
fists at the blaze. 'I ought not to have stayed so long,' he said
presently, 'my father will have waited for me. Can the hats be
marshalled, Mr. Erle?'
"I brought out all my store, and Satterlee's too, and, amid much
laughter, Burton managed to hide some of his mane under a soft felt, and
bade us good night. 'I must have you both at Darrow,' he said, his hand
on the latch; 'remember that, and expect a note in the morning to tell
you when to come.'
"As the door closed I laid my hands on Dick's shoulders. '_Who_ is he?'
was all I said.
"'Why, Gerald, you're waking up,' he answered. 'If the male Burton can
do this, what will not Lillie do?'
"'But who is he?' I repeated.
"'He's the oldest son of John Burton of Darrow, in ----shire. They are
farmers, and they might be gentlemen, but they are queer, and won't. For
generations untold they have cultivated their own land, and are mighty
men at the plough and in the saddle. So are the women of the family, for
that matter. But you will see when we go down. They are one of the few
great yeoman families left in the land. We shall have a jolly time.'
"'And who is Lillie?' I asked.
"'This man's sister. If you want to see a woman ride, see her,--it's
absolute perfection,--hereditary too: they all ride till they marry.'
"'And not afterwards?' I said, very much amused.
"'Never for mere pleasure, I believe. They have family traditions about
all sorts of things, this among others. It is some notion about taking
care of their homes and children, if I remember rightly. Miss Lillie
will tell you all about it. How lucky that you met Jack this afternoon.'
"This was all I could get out of Satterlee; but, dull as you may think
it, I was really interested, and waited impatiently for the coming
invitation.
"The next morning arrived a note from Mr. Burton, asking us, in his
father's name, to spend the next week at Darrow, and saying that the
farmers' races were to take place then, and would be our only amusement.
Before the day for starting came, I had lost half the enthusiasm which
the sight of valiant Jack Burton's hair had kindled, and tried hard to
get off from going; but Satterlee was bent on a week's riding, as he
always called our visit, and we started early one Wednesday morning, and
at dusk on Friday found ourselves entering the broad valley which formed
the Darrow estate. Satterlee was familiar with the ground, and
discoursed eloquently of its beauty and fertility as we drove along; but
he failed to interest me, for, to tell the truth, I was sunk in
melancholy, and thought only of Miss Ferrers and of that which had
passed between us. Why had I come all these miles to see people who were
total strangers to me, and would almost certainly prove dull, or even
vulgar? Dick was an enthusiast, and not to be believed,--we might turn
back even then.
"Such were my thoughts as we entered the lane at the end of which shone
the lights of Darrow House. As we drew near, I could see that it was a
mere farm-house,--very large indeed, but otherwise in no way
remarkable. We drove up to a side-door, and had hardly stopped when the
ringing voice of Jack Burton greeted our ears, and he came striding out,
his glorious hair all afloat, as I had seen him in London streets a week
before. All my love for the man--and I can use no lesser term--came back
on the instant, and I grasped his hand almost as warmly as he did mine,
I was so glad to be there.
"'Come in and see my father,' he said. 'He was afraid we should not see
you to-night.'
"We went into the hall, and then, immediately through an open door at
the farther end, into the most homelike room I ever saw,--a large room,
exquisitely toned by great brown rafters, and lit by two fires, one at
each end. Near one stood an immense wooden table covered with tools of
every kind, and with what seemed to me a confused heap of saddles and
bridles. Over it bent two men and a woman. I only saw that all three had
the same wonderful light hair which so fascinated me; for Burton led us
directly to the other fire, and introduced us to his father. He was a
man of seventy, very roughly dressed, but self-possessed and courteous.
'You are welcome to Darrow,' he said, in low, gentle tones. 'I hope I
shall be able to give you good sport while you are here.'
"This seemed to be all we were expected to say with him, for he bowed
slightly, and Burton said, 'Come now to the workshop, as I call it,' and
led us to the other end of the room. Satterlee went forward and shook
hands warmly with the two young men and their sister, whose face I did
not see, as it was turned away from me; and then Burton said, 'Lillie,
this is Mr. Erle, whose hat you found so comfortable.'
"As he began to speak, she looked round, and held out her hand with a
frank smile, saying, 'I, too, must thank you for that famous hat, Mr.
Erle, for I wore it in a hard rain, day before yesterday, when I had to
go out to train my colt for the coming races.'
"She said this very simply, in a sweet, almost singing tone, not unlike
her father's, looking me full in the face meanwhile. I will try to tell
you what she was like,--for I can remember her, after all these years,
just as she stood, a saddler's awl in her hand, by the great table at
Darrow. She was tall and broad and perfectly symmetrical in figure. I
have never seen a woman who at the first glance gave the idea of elastic
strength as she did, and yet she was by no means what you would call a
large woman. Her face was like her brother's, really handsome, and full
of sweetness,--the eyes so blue and living that no one could disbelieve
their story of a great soul beneath. And, like her brother, she was
crowned with a golden glory of hair. It was half brushed from her face,
and clung thickly to her head, then wound in shining braids at the
back,--waving and rippling just like Jack's. I never saw such wonderful
heads as these four Burtons had. I can give you no idea of them. Her
mouth was what I should call abrupt,--that is, shapely, deep-cut at the
corners,--the lips smiling without opening widely, or showing more than
a white flash of teeth. She so smiled as she spoke to me that first
evening, and impressed me even then as no other woman ever had.
"'I am glad my hat has been so honored, Miss Burton,' I answered. 'I
hope the colt for whom you take such trouble may win his race.'
"'Help me, then, by taking an interest in this saddle,' she said. 'I
have an idea about the girths which these dear brothers of mine will not
understand.'
"We all gathered round the table while Lillie explained her theory. The
saddle was an old one, and smelt strongly of the stable; but they all
handled it as if it were a nice, interesting toy; and when the girth
question was finally decided by my strong approval, Lillie and the
brother George went to work with awl and needle like experienced
saddlers, and soon had the necessary alterations made.
"She looked up at me as she sewed, and said: 'You may think these are
strange ways, but we do all such things for ourselves, especially this
week, when we live for our horses. We are thorough yeomen, you know.'
"We talked on until supper was announced. Old Burton opened a small door
at his end of the room, and waited with his hand on the latch while we
went through, when, to my surprise, I found we were in the kitchen,
surrounded by a large number of servants. We sat down at a long table by
the fire, and then the servants took their places at the lower end,
leaving two to serve us all. Burton stood at the head of the table until
all were seated, then bowed, and said in the same gentle tone he had
used in greeting us, 'You are welcome,' and sat down himself. No grace
was said, but each person silently crossed himself.
"I was placed at the host's right hand, and we talked during supper of
the races, and of horses generally, while Satterlee and Lillie Burton,
on the other side of the table, did the same. It was the one subject
which interested the Darrow household just then, and the servants even
listened, eagerly and silently, to all that was said. Lillie's colt, it
seemed, was entered for one of the races, and she had been training him
herself with intense assiduity; but there was great difficulty in
finding a rider, now he was trained.
"'I know he would win,' she cried, shaking her head disconsolately, 'but
you are all so heavy.'
"'Ride him yourself, Miss Burton,' Dick suggested.
"'They won't let me.'
"'Who won't let you?'
"'O, the Earl. He gives the races, you know, and is a perfect dragon
about them.'
"'I can't offer my own services,' Satterlee went on, 'for you know you
wouldn't have me.'
"The Burtons all smiled at this, and Dick explained to me: 'I was on a
horse of Miss Burton's a year or two ago, and didn't want to put him
over a horrid rough gully; but she, on the farther side, cried out,
"Let him break his knees if he is so clumsy," and so he did.'
"'It was your fault, though,' the frank young lady answered.
"I remember that at the end of the meat the servants rose and bowed to
their master, he acknowledging the courtesy sitting. Then we did the
same, and all went to the other room. After half an hour's talk round
old Mr. Burton's chair, a peal of bells sounded in some distant part of
the house, to my intense surprise, and we thereupon marched off down a
long, long corridor to I could not imagine what. Satterlee whispered,
'Philip Burton is in orders,--this is Even-Song,' just as we entered a
little chapel. There were kneeling-chairs for all, and the beautiful
Burton heads sank devoutly upon them. It was a choral service, Lillie
playing a small organ, and Philip chanting with the family and servants.
"As we went out, old Mr. Burton wished each good night; then some one
showed me where my room was, and I found myself alone. I was really
confused. Where was I, and what had I been doing? Did all the people in
this part of the country have such strange ways? I looked at my watch,
and found it was but just nine o'clock, and yet I seemed to have lived
years since the morning. The evening service, so beautifully sung, had
quite upset me. It was months since I had been in a church, and this had
come so unexpectedly,--the dim light, the low, peculiar voices, the
simple fervor. I began to think Darrow was a dream from beginning to
end, when Satterlee put his head in at the door with a grin, and said,
'Well, how is my Gerry?'
"'A little dazed,' I answered; 'but come in, man, and prepare me for the
morning.'
"'No,' he whispered, 'not allowable. Bedtime is bedtime here. Good
night.'
"I went to bed in self-defence, and half dreamed, half thought, of
horses, and choral services, and golden heads, until sound sleep came
to my relief. It could not have been more than seven o'clock when I
awoke, and yet on going to the window it was evident that the
inhabitants of Darrow had been long up and about, for the farm-yard was
in order for the day, the carts gone a-field, and the cattle-sheds
empty. George and Philip Burton were busily engaged near the barn door,
the one in turning a grindstone, the other in sharpening an axe; and
from the barn itself came the melodious voices of Lillie and her brother
Jack. Presently they came out, she leading a long-legged horse which I
immediately recognized as answering to the description of the colt. He
was of a dull gray color, and at the first glance I set him down as
about the ugliest horse I had ever seen, his only good points being a
very decent chest, and striding hind-legs of extraordinary length and
muscle; otherwise he was utterly commonplace. But evidently there was
some great fascination in the beast, for the four Burtons gathered round
him and looked him over with that anxious scrutiny we always display
when examining our horses, then patted him admiringly, and, as I judged
from the expression of their faces, were well pleased with his morning
looks.
"As I turned from my window, I glanced beyond the farm-yard to see what
kind of a country I was in, and my eyes were greeted with as fair a
prospect as rural England can afford. Imagine a green, rolling valley,
some five miles broad, shut in on three sides by low hills, and sloping
gently to the sea on the fourth. The water was perhaps three miles from
Darrow House, but I could see that two little friths ran up far into the
meadow-land. One other large farm-house was in sight, and some twenty or
thirty cottages, all looking so bright and cosey in the clear October
sunlight, that my heart was filled with joy at the sight, and I began my
toilet actually singing a merry old song. I was soon down stairs, and
out in the fragrant barnyard.
"Lillie sat upon a pile of logs, one hand half hidden in her hair, as
she leaned lazily back on her elbow, looking at her brothers, who were
making the air resound with mighty strokes as they hewed away at a tree
which stood near the house door. 'Well done, Philip; you're none the
worse woodman for being parson too,' she cried; then, seeing me, she
rose with a bright color in her cheeks, and held out her hand in hearty
morning greeting. 'We did not know when you would be rested from your
journey,' she said, 'and so did not have you called. Will you come in to
breakfast now?'
"The three brothers stopped their work as we went in, and bade me a
cheerful good-morrow. I have never since seen such men,--so big, so
handsome, so modest, with such bright, healthy faces. None of them
talked a great deal, not even my favorite Jack; but I felt then as I
should feel now if I met one of them anywhere, that their friendship
meant trust and loyalty and service more than most men's.
"Jack went with us to a little room at the side of the house where
breakfast was laid for two; but when Satterlee joined us, Jack said with
a laugh, 'I will leave you to tell all about everything, Lillie, and go
back to my chopping,' and so went out.
"'If I must tell about everything,' Lillie began, 'I must tell about the
races first, for they are more important than anything else just now.
Thursday is the great day, and all the farmers in the neighborhood will
have horses there. It is the grand gathering of the year for us, and the
gentry come down and walk about among the horses, and are as kind and
gracious as can be. They always buy some of the best; and happy is the
man who can sell a beast to the Earl, or to Sir Francis Gilmor, for they
are great judges, and have the best stables in the county. There are
five races during the day, the first being for ponies, the second for
colts, and so on; and in the evening we have a ball at the Earl's, and
the five riders who win are given presents by the Countess herself. O,
it is a great day!' she went on, more and more enthusiastically; 'there
is no other time so pleasant in all the year. George has in his bay
mare, and I have entered my colt. Have you seen my colt?'
"'Yes,' I answered, 'I saw him from the window this morning.'
"Lillie looked me straight in the face a moment, and then said, with a
little plaintive shake of the head: 'Ah, I see! You will laugh at him
like all the rest. But you must see him go,--he is almost handsome
then.'
"'I should think he might be,' I answered, trying to console her for my
lack of admiration.
"'They are so mean about him,' she went on, smiling. 'When he was two
years old they were going to give him away because he was so ugly and
stupid; but I begged hard that he might stay at Darrow, and my father
gave him to me for my own. I have had him now four years. You don't know
how much I have suffered for that horse. But I have never despaired, and
have trained him so well that he has great speed already, though they
may laugh at his rough looks. O, if I can only win this race! It will be
such a feather in my cap!'
"Satterlee laughed merrily at this. 'As zealous a racer as ever, I see,
Miss Lillie. How I wish you would let me ride for you!'
"'Perhaps I may,' she answered. 'There is no knowing to what straits I
may be driven.'
"Already something in this woman attracted me, dead as I supposed my
heart to be. There was an indescribable freshness and vigor about
everything she said and did, so different from the manner of the ladies
I had lately seen,--a merry, defiant way which invited battle, and made
one feel bright and springy. How can I tell what it was? I loved the
woman from that very morning, and I love the memory of her now,--she
stood so unembarrassed, so full of life, as we two ate our breakfast in
the little, sunny room,--she was so lithe, so symmetrical. When we rose
she said, 'My father thought you would like to fish with him, Mr.
Satterlee, and Mr. Erle is to ride with me, if he so pleases.' I
murmured a few words of compliment, and she went on: 'Come out to the
barn and choose a horse, and Mr. Satterlee may have a look at the colt.'
We followed her out of doors, just as we were,--hatless, like herself.
"'It is no fine stable we have at Darrow, but the horses are well off,
and I pass so much time with them that I love the old, dingy place,' she
said, as we crossed the yard.
"It was a great country barn, in truth, low and warm, with places for
cows and sheep as well as horses. A broad floor ran from one great door
to the other, covered with loose wisps of hay and straw, and above our
heads was the winter's store of both. A red rush-bottomed chair and a
table stood at one end,--two little pieces of furniture around which
cluster the pleasantest memories of my life,--Lillie's chair and
Lillie's table, where she sat to sew and sing among her animals. What
happy mornings I spent there by her side.
"As we went in she began to talk to her colt, as a woman generally talks
to babies. 'Why, my sweet one, my own lamb, my coltikins, was he glad to
hear his granny coming to see him?'--and so on.
"The colt, who was in a box at the end of the barn, acknowledged all
this tenderness by putting his heavy head over the rail and half
pricking up one ear; but Lillie seemed to think this slight sign of
intellect all that could be desired, and went up to him with a thousand
caresses.
"'How like a woman to love that horse, now,' said Satterlee.
"Lillie turned towards him with a brilliant smile. 'I sha'n't take up
arms about it, for why should I be ashamed that I have a woman's heart,
and love my own things more because they are unfortunate, and other
people make fun of them?'
"From that moment I resolved the colt should win, if it was in mortal
riding to make him.
"'Miss Burton,' I said boldly, '_I_ see great qualities in your horse.
May I ride him for you on Thursday?'
"She seemed a little startled by the suddenness of the proposal, but
answered quickly, 'I shall be so much obliged! Will you think it rude if
I ask you to ride him two or three times first?'
"'Of course not. Do you ride him yourself this morning?'
"'Yes, and which horse will you take? There are three or four there for
you to choose from.'
"I walked down the row of stalls, and decided on an old hunter who
turned the whites of his eyes round at me as if he longed for a gallop.
Lillie called a man in from the yard, and said, 'Saddle the roan and
Nathan, and bring them to the east door.'
"'Eh, Miss Lillie,' cried Satterlee, 'what name was that I heard?
Nathan?'
"'Well, why not?' she answered. 'Father named him so in fun, and I keep
it to show I don't care how much they laugh at him.'
"Satterlee seemed intensely amused. 'Nathan, Nathan!' he repeated.
'Winner of the Earl's race! Nathan, Nathan!'
"I went into the house for my hat and spurs, and on coming out found
that Dick had gone off with old Mr. Burton, leaving his best wishes for
the colt's success. Presently Lillie came out, clad in a dark habit,
with a knot of blue ribbon at the throat, holding in her hand a whip so
formidable that I was involuntarily reminded of the knouts of Russia. I
suppose the thought was visible in my face, for she said quickly, 'I
don't always carry this; but when Nathan is to do his best, I have to
urge him to it, for if I depended on his own ambition we should soon be
left behind.'
"'Indeed,' I answered. 'Then you must let me practise well before
Thursday.'
"As I said these words the horses were brought to the door, and, before
I could offer any assistance, Lillie had swung herself from the stump of
the felled tree into her saddle. I remembered Satterlee's words about
her perfect horsemanship, and glanced at her as I mounted. Even in that
moment, as she sat perfectly still on the awkward colt's back, I saw how
truly he had spoken. She was merely sitting there, without any of the
fascination which motion gives, and yet I had never seen such a rider
among women. You will think I exaggerate, but, as I am a man of honor, I
assure you that an exact copy in marble of Lillie Burton, as she waited
for my mounting on that autumn morning, would be a more beautiful
equestrian statue than the world has ever seen. Such ease and strength
and grace--Ah well! I shall not let you smile at my enthusiasm by any
attempt at describing her. We started, unattended, our faces towards the
sea.
"'Do you want to look at the race-course?' Lillie said.
"'Yes.'
"'Then follow me,'--and with the word she called cheerily to her horse,
and swung her whip with such effect that what was a canter became a
gallop, and then a run, so long, so fierce, so reckless, that I held my
breath as I looked at her. We went right across country, over fences and
ditches by the dozen, and never drew rein until we reached the shore.
"Then she turned in her saddle as I came up, and nodded triumphantly,
her face a thousand times brighter and more bewitching than I had seen
it yet.
"'Well, what do you think of Nathan now?' she asked.
"'He is wonderful,' I answered.
"'But that is by no means his best. You wait here, and I will put him
round the course once as well as I can. We are to go down the beach to
that white post, then up through the big field, over a bad hedge, which
we must leap at a particular spot, then across the lane and through
these four last fields home, and then over it all again. You shall try
the ground this afternoon if you will.'
"She said all this rapidly, as if the business of the day had begun, and
cantered down the sloping field. Arrived near the starting-point, I
heard her give what seemed almost a yell, and lethargic Nathan, well
awake, burst into the same tremendous pace, going faster and faster
every moment, until he attained a speed which seemed positively
terrific, a woman being in the saddle, and then Lillie ceased urging
him, and rode unflaggingly, as she only could, over all obstacles, until
she reached my side.
"'How can there be any doubt of your winning?" I asked.
"'I sometimes think there is none when Nathan has been going so well;
but'--and a cloud came over her face--'there is one colt I am really
afraid of,--a little black mare of Harry Dunn's. O, how that creature
flies over the ground!'
"'I am not afraid,' I answered. 'You shall win, Miss Burton, if I die
for it.'
"She laughed at my eager way of saying this, and we rode towards home,
she talking all the way of Darrow and of the neighbors, of farming and
of sailing,--for she was as much at home in a boat as on horseback. Ah,
what a contrast to the dark-eyed, proud Miss Ferrers! I wondered how I
could have been in love with any other than Lillie Burton, whose ways
were so unaffected, whose whole nature was so healthy. What cared I for
the languid accomplishments of city belles? Here was a real woman, kind
and strong, and unhurt by the world's ways. Even in the excitement of
the hardest gallop I saw no trace of vulgarity, no sign of unwomanly
jockeyship, only a true, unconcealed interest in her horse and his
performances,--an interest worthy of her English heart. We rode home in
high spirits, feeling sure that the race would be ours, even Nathan
entering into the gayety of the moment, and actually shying at a boy who
lay asleep by the roadside. Lillie yielded so lithely to the sudden
jump, that I could not help saying, 'How did you learn to ride so well?'
and she answered, laughing: 'O, it is born in us; and then I rode
recklessly for years before I got a good seat. I mean that I folded my
arms, and galloped anywhere with tied reins, and half the time no
stirrup. That is the best thing to do. Your old roan there has carried
me at his own will for many a mile. He was as fast as Nathan at his age,
and twice as spirited.'
"So we chatted as we rode home through the low lanes. The midday sun
shone down on us as we came to Darrow House; and as I left Lillie at the
door, to go up and dress for the farm dinner, I felt a new man, warmed
with the bright day, and with the new hope which rose so sweetly in my
tired heart.
"I will not weary you with the details of my days at the Burtons'. The
old father ruled over his household like a king, and all yielded him
loving obedience. Jack and his two stalwart brothers came and went, busy
with all sorts of farming operations, and Lillie and I devoted ourselves
to Nathan's further education. On Sunday the farmers and peasants came
to church at the chapel in the house, and Philip Burton did for them all
a true priest should. On every other day in the week, too, he held
school for the children, instructing them just so far and no farther,
'Let them know how to read and write and do simple sums,' he said, 'but
don't let's stuff their heads with learning beyond their station. It
only makes them discontented, and would upset society in the end.' And
so he let them come until he thought they knew enough, were the time
longer or shorter, and after that the door was shut.
"In the mornings, Lillie and I, and often Satterlee, sat in the barn for
hours, she sewing and talking with us, stopping sometimes to give
directions to a workman, or to listen to some poor neighbor's tale of
woe. For she seemed to attract every one, and, as surely as a child was
sick or a cow lost, the whole story must be told to 'Darrow Lillie,' as
they called her. She listened with ready sympathy, and always gave some
quick, personal aid. I never saw a more charming picture than that which
greeted me one morning as I came in at the barn door;--Lillie seated at
her little table, close by the colt's stall, two dogs at her feet, and a
soft black kitten in her hands, held lovingly against her cheek; beside
her stood a peasant woman in a red cloak, wringing her hands, and
telling how her husband had deserted her; a big-eyed calf looked in at
the door behind, doubtful if he might come in as usual; and, over all,
the October sunlight, mellow with barn-dust. I remember Lillie asked the
woman where her husband was, and, learning he was at Plashy, Sir Francis
Gilmor's seat, said she would see him that very day. And I am sure she
did, for after dinner she went off alone on the roan hunter, and the
next day I saw the same woman, with far happier mien, trudging along the
lane by the side of her sheep-faced husband.
"So the days passed by, and Wednesday evening was come. We sat before
the fire, and counted the chances for and against my winning the race,
for it was a settled thing now that I should be Nathan's rider. I was as
interested as any Burton of them all, and more so perhaps, for I felt
that on my success the next day depended my success in what my whole
heart was now determined on,--the winning of Lillie Burton's hand. I was
quick at my conclusions at twenty-four, you see. Satterlee was still
incredulous, and really annoyed me by his way of speaking,--offering to
pick the yellow hairs out of Nathan's coat so as to make it shine a
little, and otherwise employing his wit at our expense. Lillie laughed
good-naturedly, and said they only made her love the horse the more by
their unkind remarks.
"'Do you really love him,' Jack asked.
"'Certainly I do,' she answered. 'I have a deep affection for him.'
"'And I hope you will bestow some kind regard on his rider also,' I
whispered, bending over her chair.
"She looked up in her own quick way, and, as our eyes met, I thought
hers were bright with love, as well as mine. As you would say,
now-a-days, our souls met; and from that moment a strange, triumphant
happiness filled my heart. The short Darrow evening wore to its close,
and I neither spoke to Lillie again nor looked at her, but sat silent,
rejoicing, until at even-song I poured out my thankfulness to God, and
praised him for this great gift,--Lillie Burton, my peerless, truthful
Lillie, mine until death should part us, mine in all joy and sorrow,
always my own! With what certainty of peace I went to my rest that
night,--with what instinct of some great joy I woke in the morning,--the
bright autumn morning which held my fate!
"The races were to begin at noon, and by eleven o'clock we all set forth
from Darrow House, well mounted and gallantly arrayed. There was no
unnecessary coddling of the horses. I rode Nathan, and George rode the
horse he had entered for the third race; and the only unusual thing was,
that we eschewed fences, and slowly wended our way through the lanes, to
the little knoll by the beach, where the rude judge's stand was erected.
"Already a crowd of farmers had assembled, some coming in carts with
their wives and daughters, some riding rough plough-horses, and some on
foot. Not a few children had come too,--red-cheeked boys and girls,
mounted on the wiry ponies of the country, riding about and making the
air resound with their merry laughter. Every one seemed to know every
one else, to judge by the hearty greetings exchanged On all sides, and
every one was in the best possible humor. After all these years, the
impression I received at this rustic gathering is undimmed. There were
only these people. There was no set race-course, no eager betting, but
never before or since have I seen a race assemblage so full of honest,
interested faces, or showing so thorough an enjoyment of the day.
"As we came up, the little crowd separated, that we might ride to the
top of the knoll, for Burton of Darrow was held in high respect, and way
was made for him everywhere. We were now the centre of attention, and I
was beginning to feel my city assurance giving way under the glance of
honest interest directed towards me and my colt, when a murmur arose,
'Here come the gentry,' and, looking up the lane, I saw an open carriage
full of ladies, and half a dozen gentlemen on horseback, approaching us.
'It is the party from Plashy,' Lillie said, 'and there is the Earl in
the North Lane,' pointing out two or three more carriages. All was
bustle now, for the horses which were to run must be ridden to a certain
part of the field, and ranged side by side for the Earl's inspection. I
found myself between a little fellow on a bay horse, and a handsome,
curly-headed young farmer who sat a beautiful black mare like another
Prince Hal.
"He bowed politely, and said, 'You ride the Darrow colt, then, sir.'
"'Yes,' I answered, 'and you are Harry Dunn, are you not?'
"'At your service, sir. It will be a hard race between us two.'
"Just then the Earl came up to look at the horses, as his custom was. We
had met in London, and he recognized me with some surprise in my novel,
situation as jockey; but a few words explained the case, and he turned
to young Dunn, saying, with a smile, 'She's very handsome, my man; but
it's an awful temper, if I know a horse's eye,'--and indeed the words
were hardly out of his Lordship's mouth when the Witch, as she was
called, kicked out savagely at a passing boy, and then reared so high
and so long that I feared she would fall back on her rider; but Harry
Dunn was no novice, and in a few minutes she was standing quietly
enough, with dilated nostril and glowing eyes.
"'He'll ride her in before you, if he kills her,' the Earl whispered,
turning to me. 'Darrow Lillie is looking on.'
"'He loves her, then?' I asked, as calmly as I could.
"'I should rather think he did,' the old gentleman answered, shrugging
his shoulders, and walking off to some other horses.
"I looked round to see where Lillie was, and felt reassured when I saw
she had not even turned in her saddle while her lover's life was in
danger, but was still talking with Sir Francis Gilmor. I heard him say,
'I doubt whether I shall make an offer for that gray colt of yours'; and
she answered, laughing, 'You shall have the first chance after the race,
Sir Francis. It will break my heart if he does not win.'
"The pony race was soon called, and I dismounted to stand by Lillie's
side and watch it. As I stood, my hand upon the roan's shoulder, ready
to seize the reins if he became excited, for Lillie had flung them, as
usual, upon his neck, and sat carelessly in the saddle, her hands
crossed on her knee,--as I stood there, I say, I heard suddenly, above
the loud talk of the farmers, a voice the sound of which made my heart
leap up into my throat,--a woman's voice, cold and clear,--the words
merely, 'Yes, a perfect day,' but they were full of horrible meaning to
me. I felt that my week's dream of happiness was at an end, and that my
old life personified had come to take me away. My presence of mind
enabled me not to turn round at the moment; but as I mounted for the
race, half an hour afterwards, I glanced towards the Earl's carriage,
and there, at the Countess's side, sat Selina Ferrers. At the same
instant I was aware of a stifled scream, and the sound of my name; but I
paid no heed, and rode slowly down the field to where Harry Dunn and the
other waited my coming at the starting-post. Imagine my feelings as I
listened for the signal. Win! Why I would have won if I had died at
Lillie's feet the moment afterwards.
"We were well away, we three men, but Harry and I soon got ahead, and
flew with the speed of Browning's couriers over the flashing sand. I
obeyed Lillie's last orders, and spared neither whip nor spur; but the
black mare, almost uncontrolled, gained inch by inch, and leaped the
last ditch fully three lengths ahead. We were to go round once again,
and I lifted my whip for a desperate blow, just as we reached the bottom
of the knoll, knowing that unless I got the colt into his best pace then
all was lost; but he, stupid brute, thought the run was over, and
swerved with a heavy plunge almost to his mistress's side. Before I
could recover my control, I heard Lillie cry, her voice trembling with
vexation, 'O, what riding!' and I saw tears in her eyes, as she pulled
the frightened roan up on his haunches to make way for me.
"It was enough. Even Nathan felt there was to be no more trifling, and
as I tore his side with my heel he broke at last into his great, fearful
stride, and before we reached the lane Harry Dunn's black mare was
straining every nerve lengths and lengths behind, and in three minutes
more I stood humbly by Lillie's side, winner of the Earl's race. I
scarcely heard the shouts of the crowd, or even the questions addressed
to myself. Once again I was secure. No danger now from Harry Dunn on the
one side, or Selina Ferrers on the other. The certain peace of the
morning was mine again. It all seems so foolish, as I look back upon it
now; but as I stood for those few brief moments by Flury Beach,
surrounded by the golden-headed Burtons, the blue sea before me, and the
fair green pastures behind, I was a happy man,--happier than I have ever
been since.
"As the crowd separated, while the horses were got ready for the next
race, I heard again the voice of Selina Ferrers; but it did not move me,
for just then Lillie bent her beautiful head close by mine, and in her
own low, singing tones, so much truer and more touching than the London
belle's, said, 'Mr. Erle, what can I do to thank you?'
"I looked up frankly and gladly. 'May I tell you when we are at home
to-night?'
"'Not till then?'
"'No, not till then,' I answered. And from my very heart I believe she
had no idea what I meant, for she turned to Sir Francis Gilmor with an
ease she could not have affected, and began to talk with him of Nathan.
"I stood looking at the racers, with real interest, for George Burton
was riding, and I could see his hair shining in the wind far down the
beach, and I was thinking of Lillie and Lillie's happiness, when a
servant in livery came up, and said the Countess wished to speak with
me. Had he presented a pistol at my head, the shock would not have been
greater. As I approached the carriage I looked Selina Ferrers full in
the face, and what did I read there? Great God! I cannot think of it
with calmness even now.
"I bowed as coldly as politeness would allow, but the Countess put our
her hand in cordial greeting, and begged me to take a seat with them for
the rest of the morning. I murmured something about owing my time to the
Burtons, and, after a few indifferent remarks (explaining how Miss
Ferrers had decided not to go to Spain), was on the point of
withdrawing, when the Countess said, 'At least, Mr. Erle, we shall see
you at the castle'; and not until I had promised to come to her the next
day would she let me go. As I turned, a light hand was laid upon my arm
for an instant, and I heard an eager whisper, 'Gerald! what does this
mean? I am here for your sake;--but I kept on my way as if I had not
heard, and breathed freely again at Lillie's bridle-rein.
"Why should I describe the rest of the day to you? You see already how
it had to end. I was with Lillie all day long, as happy as a king,
though a little shocked when I heard at dinner that Nathan was sold to
Sir Francis. But the day had been full of joy; and when all its
festivities were over, and we drove home from the ball, it seemed as if
no cloud hung over me.
"The Burtons went to the barn to care for the horses, and I was alone
with Lillie by the great table. I asked her very simply if she would be
my wife, and she told me that I asked in vain.
"'Even if I loved you, Mr. Erle,' she went on,--'even if I loved you, I
could not be your wife. You are a gentleman, and I am a farmer's
daughter; and you know even better than I do that we could not be happy
very long. You will be glad some day that I did not lead you into such
sore trial.'
"Some such words as these were the last words I ever heard from Lillie
Burton's mouth, for the men came in, and she left the room; and as she
passed me that night, dressed in a gown of softest white, her exquisite
head bent in sorrow and tenderness, her eyes radiant through their
tears, I saw her for the last time. We have never met, even for an
instant, since."
* * * * *
Mr. Erle ceased speaking, and I gave a great sigh of relief. His last
words had been uttered with so much feeling that neither my grandfather
nor I could interrupt the long silence, as he sat looking dreamily into
the fire. When at length he spoke, it was of an entirely different
subject, and, after half an hour's conversation, he drank a last glass
of the old wine, and bade us good night, wringing my grandfather's hand
with more than usual warmth.
I waited almost impatiently until I heard the house-door close, and
then, "Who is Mrs. Erle?" I asked.
"Who do you suppose?" my grandfather answered.
"No one. How should I?"
"And yet you heard Mr. Erle tell the part about the Countess?"
"Yes."
"And you do not guess what happened?"
"No. I dare say I am very stupid; but do tell me," I begged.
"Well, then, my dear, the morning after the races, Erle went to the
castle, and the Countess was very kind, as great ladies often are, and
he stayed for a week, since she pressed the matter so; and then there
was an excursion into Wales, where most untoward things occurred, and
the grand finale was a wedding at Lord West's in London."
"Then he married Miss Ferrers!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, my dear, even so. You have never seen the lady, I believe?"
"No, never. Is anything the matter with her?"
"Anything the matter with her? Yes, she is insane. Quite harmless, you
know; but having been made with the worst temper in England, this
climate has developed it into positive insanity."
"And she lives at home?" I asked, sadly, for it came over me what a
tragedy Mr. Erle's life must be.
"Yes, Gerald is more than faithful to her. Ah, Thesta, child, we do not
know all the patient endurance of God's men and women in this nineteenth
century."
The bells of St. Mary's rang midnight as I lighted my bedroom candle,
and kissed the smooth brow of my white-haired hero. "You do not ask what
became of Lillie Burton," he said.
"Did you ever hear of her?"
"Yes, Satterlee was there years afterwards, and found her Lillie Dunn,
with three children clinging to her skirts."
"And Nathan?"
"O, Nathan turned out splendidly, and led the Flury hunt for years. They
say his memory is green in ----shire yet."
"Poor Mr. Erle!" I said, summing up the whole story, as I went off to
bed.
THE LITTLE LAND OF APPENZELL.
The traveller who first reaches the Lake of Constance at Lindau, or
crosses that sheet of pale green water to one of the ports on the
opposite Swiss shore, cannot fail to notice the bold heights to the
southward, which thrust themselves between the opening of the Rhine
Valley and the long, undulating ridges of the Canton Thurgau. These
heights, broken by many a dimly hinted valley and ravine, appear to be
the front of an Alpine table-land. Houses and villages, scattered over
the steep ascending plane, present themselves distinctly to the eye; the
various green of forest and pasture land is rarely interrupted by the
gray of rocky walls; and the afternoon sun touches the topmost edge of
each successive elevation with a sharp outline of golden light, through
the rich gloom of the shaded slopes. Behind and over this region rise
the serrated peaks of the Sentis Alp, standing in advance of the farther
ice-fields of Glarus, like an outer fortress, garrisoned in summer by
the merest forlorn hope of snow.
The green fronts nearest the lake, and the lower lands falling away to
the right and left, belong to the Canton of St. Gall; but all aloft,
beyond that frontier marked by the sinking sun, lies the _Appenzeller
Ländli_, as it is called in the endearing diminutive of the Swiss-German
tongue,--the Little Land of Appenzell.
If, leaving the Lake of Constance by the Rhine valley, you ascend to
Ragatz and the Baths of Pfeffers, thence turn westward to the Lake of
Wallenstatt, cross into the valley of the Toggenburg, and so make your
way northward and eastward around the base of the mountains back to the
starting-point, you will have passed only through the territory of St.
Gall. Appenzell is an Alpine island, wholly surrounded by the former
canton. From whatever side you approach, you must climb in order to get
into it. It is a nearly circular tract, failing from the south towards
the north, but lifted, at almost every point, over the adjoining lands.
This altitude and isolation is an historical as well as a physical
peculiarity. When the Abbots of St. Gall, after having reduced the
entire population of what is now two Cantons to serfdom, became more
oppressive as their power increased, it was the mountain shepherds who,
in the year 1403, struck the first blow for liberty. Once free, they
kept their freedom, and established a rude democracy on the heights,
similar in form and spirit to the league which the Forest Cantons had
founded nearly a century before. An echo from the meadow of Grütli
reached the wild valleys around the Sentis, and Appenzell, by the middle
of the fifteenth century, became one of the original states out of which
Switzerland has grown.
I find something very touching and admirable in this fragment of hardly
noticed history. The people isolated themselves by their own act, held
together, organized a simple yet sufficient government, and maintained
their sturdy independence, while their brethren on every side, in the
richer lands below them, were fast bound in the gyves of a priestly
despotism. Individual liberty seems to be a condition inseparable from
mountain life; that once attained, all other influences are conservative
in their character. The Cantons of Unterwalden, Schwytz, Glarus, and
Appenzell retain to-day the simple, primitive forms of democracy which
had their origin in the spirit of the people nearly six hundred years
ago.
Twice had I looked up to the little mountain republic from the lower
lands to the northward, with the desire and the determination to climb
one day the green buttresses which support it on every side; so, when I
left St. Gall on a misty morning, in a little open carriage, bound for
Trogen, it was with the pleasant knowledge that a land almost unknown to
tourists lay before me. The only summer visitors are invalids, mostly
from Eastern Switzerland and Germany, who go up to drink the whey of
goats' milk; and, although the fabrics woven by the people are known to
the world of fashion in all countries, few indeed are the travellers who
turn aside from the near highways. The landlord in St. Gall told me that
his guests were almost wholly commercial travellers, and my subsequent
experience among an unspoiled people convinced me that I was almost a
pioneer in the paths I traversed.
It was the last Saturday in April, and at least a month too soon for the
proper enjoyment of the journey; but on the following day the
_Landsgemeinde_, or Assembly of the People, was to be held at Hundwyl,
in the manner and with the ceremonies which have been annually observed
for the last three or four hundred years. This circumstance determined
the time of my visit. I wished to study the character of an Alpine
democracy, so pure that it has not yet adopted even the representative
principle,--to be with and among a portion of the Swiss people at a time
when they are most truly themselves, rather than look at them through
the medium of conventional guides, on lines of travel which have now
lost everything of Switzerland except the scenery.
There was bad weather behind, and, I feared, bad weather before me. "The
sun will soon drive away these mists," said the postilion, "and when we
get up yonder, you will see what a prospect there will be." In the rich
valley of St. Gall, out of which we mounted, the scattered houses and
cloud-like belts of blossoming cherry-trees almost hid the green; but it
sloped up and down, on either side of the rising road, glittering with
flowers and dew, in the flying gleams of sunshine. Over us hung masses
of gray cloud, which stretched across the valley, hooded the opposite
hills, and sank into a dense mass over the Lake of Constance. As we
passed through this belt, and rejoiced in the growing clearness of the
upper sky, I saw that my only prospect would be in cloud-land. After
many windings, along which the blossoms and buds of the fruit-trees
indicated the altitude as exactly as any barometer, we finally reached
the crest of the topmost height, the frontier of Appenzell and the
battle-field of Vöglisegg, where the herdsman first measured his
strength with the soldier and the monk, and was victorious.
"Whereabouts was the battle fought?" I asked the postilion.
"Up and down, and all around here," said he, stopping the carriage at
the summit.
I stood up and looked to the north. Seen from above, the mist had
gathered into dense, rounded clouds, touched with silver on their upper
edges. They hung over the lake, rolling into every bay and spreading
from shore to shore, so that not a gleam of water was visible; but over
their heaving and tossing silence rose, far away, the mountains of the
four German states beyond the lake. An Alp in Vorarlberg made a shining
island in the sky. The postilion was loud in his regrets, yet I thought
the picture best as it was. On the right lay the land of Appenzell,--not
a table-land, but a region of mountain ridge and summit, of valley and
deep, dark gorge, green as emerald up to the line of snow, and so
thickly studded with dwellings, grouped or isolated, that there seemed
to be one scattered village as far as the eye could reach. To the south,
over forests of fir, the Sentis lifted his huge towers of rock, crowned
with white, wintry pyramids.
"Here, where we are," said the postilion, "was the first battle; but
there was another, two years afterwards, over there, the other side of
Trogen, where the road goes down to the Rhine. Stoss is the place, and
there's a chapel built on the very spot. Duke Frederick of Austria came
to help the Abbot Kuno, and the Appenzellers were only one to ten
against them. It was a great fight, they say, and the women helped,--not
with pikes and guns, but in this way: they put on white shirts, and came
out of the woods, above where the fighting was going on. Now, when the
Austrians and the Abbot's people saw them, they thought there were
spirits helping the Appenzellers, (the women were all white, you see,
and too far off to show plainly,) and so they gave up the fight, after
losing nine hundred knights and troopers. After that, it was ordered
that the women should go first to the sacrament, so that no man might
forget the help they gave in that battle. And the people go every year
to the chapel, on the same day when it took place."
I looked, involuntarily, to find some difference in the population after
passing the frontier. But I had not counted upon the levelling influence
which the same kind of labor exercises, whether upon mountain or in
valley. So long as Appenzell was a land of herdsmen, many peculiarities
of costume, features, and manners must have remained. For a long time,
however, Outer-Rhoden, as this part of the Canton is called, shares with
that part of St. Gall which lies below it the manufacture of fine
muslins and embroideries. There are looms in almost every house, and
this fact explains the density of population and the signs of wealth on
every hand, which would otherwise puzzle the stranger. The houses are
not only so near together that almost every man can call to his
neighbors and be heard, but they are large, stately, and even luxurious,
in contrast to the dwellings of other country people in Europe. The
average population of Outer-Rhoden amounts to four hundred and
seventy-five persons to the square mile, being nearly double that of the
most thickly settled portions of Holland.
If one could only transport a few of these houses to the United States!
Our country architecture is not only hideous, but frequently
unpractical, being at worst shanties, and at best city residences set in
the fields. An Appenzell farmer lives in a house from forty to sixty
feet square, and rarely less than four stories in height. The two upper
stories, however, are narrowed by the high, steep roof, so that the true
front of the house is one of the gables. The roof projects at least four
feet on all sides, giving shelter to balconies of carved wood, which
cross the front under each row of windows. The outer walls are covered
with upright, overlapping shingles, not more than two or three inches
broad, and rounded at the ends, suggesting the scale armor of ancient
times. This covering secures the greatest warmth; and when the shingles
have acquired from age that rich burnt-sienna tint which no paint could
exactly imitate, the effect is exceedingly beautiful. The lowest story
is generally of stone, plastered and whitewashed. The stories are low
(seven to eight feet), but the windows are placed side by side, and each
room is thoroughly lighted. Such a house is very warm, very durable,
and, without any apparent expenditure of ornament, is externally so
picturesque that no ornament could improve it.
Many of the dwellings, I was told, could not be built with the present
means of the population, at the present prices of labor and material.
They date from the palmy days of Appenzell industry, before machinery
had reduced the cost of the finer fabrics. Then, one successful
manufacturer competed with another in the erection of showy houses, and
fifty thousand francs (a large sum for the times) were frequently
expended on a single dwelling. The view of a broad Alpine landscape,
dotted all over with such beautiful homes, from the little shelf of
green hanging on the sides of a rocky gorge and the strips of sunny
pasture between the ascending forests, to the very summits of the lower
heights and the saddles between them, was something quite new in my
experience.
Turning around the point of Vöglisegg, we made for Trogen, one of the
two capitals of Outer-Rhoden, which lay before us, across the head of
the deep and wild St. Martin's Tobel. (_Tobel_ is an Appenzell word,
corresponding precisely to the _gulch_ of California.) My postilion
mounted, and the breathed horse trotted merrily along the winding level.
One stately house after another, with a clump of fruit-trees on the
sheltered side, and a row of blooming hyacinths and wall-flowers on the
balcony, passed by on either side. The people we met were sunburnt and
ugly, but there was a rough air of self-reliance about them, and they
gave me a hearty "God greet you!" one and all. Just before reaching
Trogen, the postilion pointed to an old, black, tottering platform of
masonry, rising out of a green slope of turf on the right. The grass
around it seemed ranker than elsewhere.
This was the place of execution, where capital criminals are still
beheaded with the sword, in the sight of the people. The postilion gave
me an account, with all the horrible details, of the last execution,
only three years ago,--how the murderer would not confess until he was
brought out of prison to hear the bells tolling for his victim's
funeral,--how thereupon he was sentenced, and--but I will not relate
further. I have always considered the death penalty a matter of policy
rather than principle; but the sight of that blood-stained platform, the
blood-fed weeds around it, and the vision of the headsman, in his red
mantle, looking down upon the bared neck stretched upon the block, gave
me more horror of the custom than all the books and speeches which have
been said and written against it.
At Trogen I stopped at the principal inn, two centuries old, the quaint
front painted in fresco, the interior neat and fresh as a new toy,--a
very gem of a house! The floor upon which I entered from the street was
paved with flat stones; a solid wooden staircase, dark with age, led to
the guests' room in the second story. One side of this room was given up
to the windows, and there was a charming hexagonal oriel in the corner.
The low ceiling was of wood, in panels, the stove a massive tower, faced
with porcelain tiles, the floor polished nearly into whiteness, and all
the doors, cupboards, and tables, made of brown nutwood, gave an air of
warmth and elegance to the apartment. All other parts of the house were
equally neat and orderly. The hostess greeted me with, "Be you
welcome!" and set about preparing dinner, as it was now nearly noon. In
the pauses of her work she came into the room to talk, and was very
ready to give information concerning the country and people.
There were already a little table and three plates in the oriel, and
while I was occupied with my own dinner I did not particularly notice
the three persons who sat down to theirs. The coarseness and harshness
of their dialect, however, presently struck my ear. It was pure
Appenzell, a German made up of singular and puzzling elisions, and with
a very strong guttural _k_ and _g_, in addition to the _ch_. Some
knowledge of the Alemannic dialect of the Black Forest enabled me to
understand the subject of conversation, which, to my surprise, was--the
study of the classics! It was like hearing an Irishman talk of Shelley's
"Witch of Atlas" in the broadest Tipperary brogue. I turned and looked
at the persons. They were well-dressed young men, evidently the best
class of Appenzellers,--possibly tutors in the schools of Trogen. Their
speech in no wise differed from that of the common herdsmen, except that
they were now and then obliged to use words which, being unknown to the
people, had escaped mutilation. I entered into conversation, to
ascertain whether true German was not possible to them, since they must
needs read and write the language; but, although they understood me,
they could only partly, and with evident difficulty, lay aside their own
patois. I found this to be the case everywhere throughout the Canton. It
is a circumstance so unusual, that, in spite of myself, associating a
rude dialect with ignorance, I was always astonished when those who
spoke it showed culture and knowledge of the world.
The hostess provided me with a guide and pack-bearer, and I set out on
foot across the country towards Hundwyl. This guide, Jakob by name, made
me imagine that I had come among a singular people. He was so short that
he could easily walk under my arm; his gait was something between a
roll and a limp, although he stoutly disclaimed lameness; he laughed
whenever I spoke to him, and answered in a voice which seemed the
cuneiform character put into sound. First, there was an explosion of
gutturals, and then came a loud trumpet-tone, something like the _Honk!
honk!_ of wild geese. Yet, when he placed his squat figure behind a
tavern table, and looked at me quietly with his mouth shut, he was both
handsome and distinguished in appearance. We walked two miles together
before I guessed how to unravel his speech. It is almost as difficult to
learn a dialect as a new language, and but for the key which the
Alemannic gave me, I should have been utterly at sea. Who, for instance,
could ever guess that _a' Ma' g'si_, pronounced "ama_x_i" (the _x_
representing a desperate guttural), really stands for _einen Mann
gewesen_?
The road was lively with country people, many of whom were travelling in
our own direction. Those we met invariably addressed us with "God greet
you!" or "_Guät-ti!_" which it was easy to translate into "Good day!"
Some of the men were brilliant in scarlet jackets, with double rows of
square silver buttons, and carried swords under their arms; they were
bound for the _Landsgemeinde_, whither the law of the Middle Ages still
obliges them to go armed. When I asked Jakob if he would accompany me as
far as Hundwyl, he answered, "I can't; I daren't go there without a
black dress, and my sword, and a cylinder hat."
The wild _Tobels_, opening downward to the Lake of Constance, which now
shimmered afar through the gaps, were left behind us, and we passed
westward along a broken, irregular valley. The vivid turf was sown with
all the flowers of spring,--primrose, violet, buttercup, anemone, and
veronica,--faint, but sweetest-odored, and the heralds of spring in all
lands. So I gave little heed to the weird lines of cloud, twisting
through and between the severed pyramids of the Sentis, as if weaving
the woof of storms. The scenery was entirely lovely, and so novel in
its population and the labor which, in the long course of time, had
effaced its own hard traces, turning the mountains into lifted lawns and
parks of human delight, that my own slow feet carried me through it too
rapidly. We must have passed a slight water-shed somewhere, though I
observed none; for the road gradually fell towards another region of
deeply cloven _Tobels_, with snowy mountains beyond. The green of the
landscape was so brilliant and uniform, under the cold gray sky, that it
almost destroyed the perspective, which rather depended on the houses
and the scattered woods of fir.
On a ridge, overlooking all this region, was the large village of
Teufen, nearly as grand as Trogen in its architecture. Here Jakob, whose
service went no further, conducted me to the "Pike" inn, and begged the
landlady to furnish me with "_a' Ma'_" in his place. We had refreshments
together, and took leave with many shakings of the hand and mutual
wishes of good luck. The successor was an old fellow of seventy, who had
been a soldier in Holland, and who with proper exertion could make his
speech intelligible. The people nowhere inquired after my business or
nationality. When the guide made the latter known, they almost
invariably said, "But, of course, you were born in Appenzell?" The idea
of a traveller coming among them, at least during this season of the
year, did not enter their heads. In Teufen, the large and handsome
houses, the church and schools, led me, foolishly, to hope for a less
barbarous dialect; but no, it was the same thing everywhere.
The men in black, with swords under their arms, increased in number as
we left the village. They were probably from the farthest parts of the
Canton, and were thus abridging the morrow's journey. The most of them,
however, turned aside from the road, and made their way to one
farm-house or another. I was tempted to follow their example, as I
feared that the little village of Hundwyl would be crowded. But there
was still time to claim private hospitality, even if this should be the
case, so we marched steadily down the valley. The Sitter, a stream fed
by the Sentis, now roared below us, between high, rocky walls, which are
spanned by an iron bridge, two hundred feet above the water. The roads
of Outer-Rhoden, built and kept in order by the people, are most
admirable. This little population of forty-eight thousand souls has
within the last fifteen years expended seven hundred thousand dollars on
means of communication. Since the people govern themselves, and regulate
their expenses, and consequently their taxation, their willingness to
bear such a burden is a lesson to other lands.
After crossing the airy bridge, our road climbed along the opposite side
of the _Tobel_, to a village on a ridge thrust out from the foot of the
Hundwyl Alp, beyond which we lost sight of Teufen and the beautiful
valley of the Sitter. We were now in the valley of the Urnäsch, and a
walk of two miles more brought us to the village of Hundwyl. I was
encouraged, on approaching the little place, by seeing none except the
usual signs of occupation. There was a great new tank before the
fountain, and two or three fellows in scarlet vests were filling their
portable tubs for the evening's supply; a few children came to the doors
to stare at me, but there was no sign that any other stranger had
arrived.
"I'll take you to the Crown," said the guide; "all the Landamänner will
be there in the morning, and the music; and you'll see what our
Appenzell government is." The landlady gave me a welcome, and the
promise of a lodging, whereupon I sat down in peace, received the
greetings of all the members of the family, as they came and went, and
made myself familiar with their habits. There was only one other guest
in the house,--a man of dignified face and intellectual head, who
carried a sword tied up with an umbrella, and must be, I supposed, one
of the chief officials. He had so much the air of a reformer or a
philosopher, that the members of a certain small faction at home might
have taken him for their beloved W. P.; others might have detected in
him a resemblance to that true philanthropist and gentleman, W. L. G.;
and the believers in the divinity of slavery would have accepted him as
Bishop ----. As no introductions are required in Appenzell, I addressed
myself to him, hoping to open a profitable acquaintance; but it was
worse than Coleridge's experience with the lover of dumplings. His
sentiments may have been elevated and refined, for aught I knew, but
what were they? My trumpeter Jakob was more intelligible than he; his
upper teeth were gone, and the mutilated words were mashed out of all
remaining shape against his gums. Then he had the singular habit of
ejaculating the word _Ja!_ (Yes!) in three different ways, after
answering each of my questions. First, a decided, confirmatory _Ja!_
then a pause, followed by a slow, interrogative _Ja?_ as if it were the
echo of some mental doubt; and finally, after a much longer pause, a
profoundly melancholy, desponding, conclusive _Ja-a-a!_ sighed forth
from the very bottom of his lungs. Even when I only said, "Good
morning!" the next day, these ejaculations followed, in the same order
of succession.
One may find a counterpart to this habit in the _Wa'al_ of the Yankee,
except that the latter never is, nor could it well be, so depressing to
hear as the _Ja_ of Appenzell.
In the evening a dozen persons gathered around one of the long tables,
and drank a pale, weak cider, made of apples and pears, and called
"Most." I gave to one, with whom I found I could converse most easily, a
glass of red wine, whereupon he said, "It is very impudent in me to take
it."
Upon asking the same person how it was that I could understand him so
much more readily than the others, he answered, "O, I can talk the
written language when I try, but these others can't."
"Here," said I, pointing to the philosopher, "is one who is quite
incomprehensible."
"So he is to me."
They were all anxious to know whether our American troubles were nearly
over; whether the President had the power to do further harm (he had too
much power, they all thought); and whether our Congress could carry out
its plan of reconstruction. Lincoln, they said, was the best man we ever
had; when the play of "Lincoln's Death" was performed in the theatre at
St. Gall, a great many Appenzellers hired omnibuses and went down from
the mountains to see it.
I was aroused at daybreak by the chiming of bells, and soon afterwards
muskets began to crack, near and far. Then there were noises all over
the house, and presently what seemed to be a procession of horses or
elephants began to thunder up and down the wooden stairs. In vain I
tried to snatch the last and best morning nap; there was no end to the
racket. So I arose, dressed, and went forth to observe. The inn was
already transformed, from top to bottom, into a vast booth for meat and
drink. Bedding and all other furniture had disappeared; every room, and
even the open hall on each story, was filled with tables, benches, and
chairs. My friend of the previous evening, who was going about with a
white apron on and sleeves rolled up, said to me: "I am to be one of the
waiters to-day. We have already made places for six hundred."
There were at least a dozen other amateur waiters on hand and busy. The
landlord wore a leathern apron, and went from room to room, blowing into
the hole of a wooden top which he carried in his hand, as if thereby to
collect his ideas. A barrel of red and a barrel of white wine stood on
trestles in the guests' room, and they were already filling the
schoppins by hundreds and ranging them on shelves,--honestly filling,
not as lager-bier is filled in New York, one third foam, but waiting
until the froth subsided, and then pouring to the very brim. In the
kitchen there were three fires blazing, stacks of _Bratwurst_ on the
tables, great kettles for the sour-krout and potatoes, and eggs,
lettuce, and other finer viands, for the dignitaries, on the shelves.
"Good morning," said the landlady, as I looked into this sanctuary, "you
see we are ready for them."
While I was taking my coffee, the landlord called the waiters together,
gave each a bag of small money for change, and then delivered a short,
practical address concerning their duties for the day,--who were to be
trusted and who not, how to keep order and prevent impatience, and,
above all, how to preserve a proper circulation, in order that the
greatest possible number of persons might be entertained. He closed
with: "Once again, take notice and don't forget, every one of
you,--_Most_ 10 rappen (2 cents), bread 10, _Wurst_ 15, tongue 10, wine
25 and 40," etc.
In the village there were signs of preparation, but not a dozen
strangers had arrived. Wooden booths had been built against some of the
houses, and the owners thereof were arranging their stores of
gingerbread and coarse confectionery; on the open, grassy square, in
front of the parsonage, stood a large platform, with a handsome railing
around it, but the green slope of the hill in front was as deserted as
an Alpine pasture. Looking westward over the valley, however, I could
already see dark figures moving along the distant paths. The morning was
overcast, but the Hundwyl Alp, streaked with snow, stood clear, and
there was a prospect of good weather for the important day. As I
loitered about the village, talking with the people, who, busy as they
were, always found time for a friendly word, the movement in the
landscape increased. Out of fir-woods, and over the ridges and out of
the foldings of the hills, came the Appenzellers, growing into groups,
and then into lines, until steady processions began to enter Hundwyl by
every road. Every man was dressed in black, with a rusty stove-pipe hat
on his head, and a sword and umbrella in his hand or under his arm.
From time to time the church bells chimed; a brass band played the old
melodies of the Canton; on each side of the governing Landamman's place
on the platform stood a huge two-handed sword, centuries old, and the
temper of the gathering crowd became earnest and solemn. Six old men,
armed with pikes, walked about with an air of importance: their duty was
to preserve order, but they had nothing to do. Policeman other than
these, or soldier, was not to be seen; each man was a part of the
government, and felt his responsibility. Carriages, light carts, and hay
wagons, the latter filled with patriotic singers, now began to arrive,
and I took my way to the Crown, in order to witness the arrival of the
members of the Council.
In order to make the proceedings of the day more intelligible, I must
first briefly sketch certain features of this little democracy, which it
possesses in common with three other mountain Cantons,--the primitive
forms which the republican principle assumed in Switzerland. In the
first place the government is only representative so far as is required
for its permanent, practical operation. The highest power in the land is
the _Landsgemeinde_, or General Assembly of the People, by whom the
members of the Executive Council are elected, and who alone can change,
adopt, or abolish any law. All citizens above the age of eighteen, and
all other Swiss citizens after a year's residence in the Canton, are not
only allowed, but required, to attend the _Landsgemeinde_. There is a
penalty for non-attendance. Outer-Rhoden contains forty-eight thousand
inhabitants, of whom eleven thousand are under obligations to be present
and vote, from beginning to end of the deliberations.
In Glarus and Unterwalden, where the population is smaller, the right of
discussion is still retained by these assemblies, but in Appenzell it
has been found expedient to abolish it. Any change in the law, however,
is first discussed in public meetings in the several communities, then
put into form by the Council, published, read from all the pulpits for a
month previous to the coming together of the _Landsgemeinde_, and then
voted upon. But if the Council refuses to act upon the suggestion of any
citizen whomsoever, and he honestly considers the matter one of
importance, he is allowed to propose it directly to the people, provided
he do so briefly and in an orderly manner. The Council, which may be
called the executive power, consists of the governing Landamman and six
associates, one of whom has the functions of treasurer, another of
military commander,--in fact, a ministry on a small scale. The service
of the persons elected to the Council is obligatory, and they receive no
salaries. There is, it is true, a secondary Council, composed of the
first, and representatives of the communities, one for every thousand
inhabitants, in order to administer more intelligently the various
departments of education, religion, justice, roads, the militia system,
the poor, etc.; but the Assembly of the People can at any time reject or
reverse its action. All citizens are not only equal before the law, but
are assured liberty of conscience, of speech, and of labor. The right of
support only belongs to those who are born citizens of the Canton. The
old restriction of the _Heimathsrecht_,--the claim to be supported at
the expense of the community in case of need,--narrow and illiberal as
it seems to us, prevails all over Switzerland. In Appenzell a stranger
can only acquire the right, which is really the right of citizenship, by
paying twelve hundred francs into the cantonal treasury.
The governing Landamman is elected for two years, but the other members
of the Council may be re-elected from year to year, as often as the
people see fit. The obligation to serve, therefore, may sometimes
seriously incommode the person chosen; he cannot resign, and his only
chance of escape lies in leaving the Canton temporarily, and publishing
his intention of quitting it altogether in case the people refuse to
release him from office! This year, it happened that two members of the
Council had already taken this step, while three others had appealed to
the people not to re-elect them. The _Landsgemeinde_ at Hundwyl was to
decide upon all these applications, and therefore promised to be of more
than usual interest. The people had had time to consider the matter,
and, it was supposed, had generally made up their minds; yet I found no
one willing to give me a hint of their action in advance.
The two remaining members presently made their appearance, accompanied
by the Chancellor, to whom I was recommended. The latter kindly offered
to accompany me to the parsonage, the windows of which, directly in the
rear of the platform, would enable me to hear, as well as see, the
proceedings. The clergyman, who was preparing for the service which
precedes the opening of the _Landsgemeinde_, showed me the nail upon
which hung the key of the study, and gave me liberty to take possession
at any time. The clock now struck nine, and a solemn peal of bells
announced the time of service. A little procession formed in front of
the inn; first the music, then the clergyman and the few members of the
government, bareheaded, and followed by the two _Weibels_ (apparitors),
who wore long mantles, the right half white and the left half black. The
old pikemen walked on either side. The people uncovered as they took
their way around the church to the chancel door; then as many as could
be accommodated entered at the front.
I entered with them, taking my place on the men's side,--the sexes being
divided, as is usual in Germany. After the hymn, in which boys' voices
were charmingly heard, and the prayer, the clergyman took a text from
Corinthians, and proceeded to preach a good, sound political sermon,
which, nevertheless, did not in the least shock the honest piety of his
hearers. I noticed with surprise that most of the men put on their hats
at the close of the prayer. Only once did they remove them
afterwards,--when the clergyman, after describing the duties before
them, and the evils and difficulties which beset every good work,
suddenly said, "Let us pray to God to help and direct us!" and
interpolated a short prayer in the midst of his sermon. The effect was
all the more impressive, because, though so unexpected, it was entirely
simple and natural. These democrats of Appenzell have not yet made the
American discovery that pulpits are profaned by any utterance of
national sentiment, or any application of Christian doctrine to
politics. They even hold their municipal elections in the churches, and
consider that the act of voting is thereby solemnized, not that the holy
building is desecrated! But then, you will say, this is the democracy of
the Middle Ages.
When the service was over, I could scarcely make my way through the
throng which had meanwhile collected. The sun had come out hot above the
Hundwyl Alp, and turned the sides of the valley into slopes of dazzling
sheen. Already every table in the inns was filled, every window crowded
with heads, the square a dark mass of voters of all ages and classes,
lawyers and clergymen being packed together with grooms and brown Alpine
herdsmen; and, after the government had been solemnly escorted to its
private chamber, four musicians in antique costume announced, with drum
and fife, the speedy opening of the Assembly. But first came the singing
societies of Herisau, and forced their way into the centre of the
throng, where they sang, simply yet grandly, the songs of Appenzell. The
people listened with silent satisfaction; not a man seemed to think of
applauding.
I took my place in the pastor's study, and inspected the crowd. On the
steep slope of the village square and the rising field beyond, more than
ten thousand men were gathered, packed as closely as they could stand.
The law requires them to appear armed and "respectably dressed." The
short swords, very much like our marine cutlasses, which they carried,
were intended for show rather than service. Very few wore them:
sometimes they were tied up with umbrellas, but generally carried loose
in the hand or under the arm. The rich manufacturers of Trogen and
Herisau and Teufen had belts and silver-mounted dress-swords. With
scarce an exception, every man was habited in black, and wore a
stove-pipe hat, but the latter was in most cases brown and battered.
Both circumstances were thus explained to me: as the people vote with
the uplifted hand, the hat must be of a dark color, as a background, to
bring out the hands more distinctly; then, since rain would spoil a good
hat (and it rains much at this season), they generally take an old one.
I could now understand the advertisements of "secondhand cylinder hats
for sale," which I had noticed, the day before, in the newspapers of the
Canton. The slope of the hill was such that the hats of the lower ranks
concealed the faces of those immediately behind, and the assembly was
the darkest and densest I ever beheld. Here and there the top of a
scarlet waistcoat flashed out of the cloud with astonishing brilliancy.
With solemn music, and attended by the apparitors, in their two-colored
mantles, and the ancient pikemen, the few officials ascended the
platform. The chief of the two Landammänner present took his station in
front, between the two-handed swords, and began to address the assembly.
Suddenly a dark cloud seemed to roll away from the faces of the people;
commencing in front of the platform, and spreading rapidly to the edges
of the compact throng, the hats disappeared, and the ten thousand faces,
in the full light of the sun, blended into a ruddy mass. But no; each
head retained its separate character, and the most surprising
circumstance of the scene was the distinctness with which each human
being held fast to his individuality in the multitude. Nature has drawn
no object with so firm a hand, nor painted it with such tenacious
clearness of color, as the face of man. The inverted crescent of sharp
light had a different curve on each individual brow before me; the
little illuminated dot on the end of the nose under it hinted at the
form of the nostrils in shadow. As the hats had before concealed the
faces, so now each face was relieved against the breast of the man
beyond, and in front of me were thousands of heads to be seen, touching
each other like so many ovals drawn on a dark plane.
The address was neither so brief nor so practical as it might have been.
Earnest, well meant, and apparently well received, there was
nevertheless much in it which the plain, semi-educated weavers and
Alpadores in the assembly could not possibly have comprehended; as, for
instance, "May a garland of confidence be twined around your
deliberations!" At the close, the speaker said, "Let us pray!" and for a
few moments there were bowed heads and utter silence. The first business
was the financial report for the year, which had been printed and
distributed among the people weeks before. They were now asked whether
they would appoint a commission to test its accuracy, but they
unanimously declined to do so. The question was put by one of the
apparitors, who first removed his cocked hat, and cried, in a tremendous
voice, "Faithful and beloved fellow-citizens, and brethren of the
Union!"
Now came the question of releasing the tired Landammänner of the
previous year from office. The first application in order was that of
the governing Landamman, Dr. Zürcher. The people voted directly
thereupon; there was a strong division of sentiment, but the majority
allowed him to resign. His place was therefore to be filled at once. The
names of candidates were called out by the crowd. There were six in all;
and as both the members of the Council were among them, the latter
summoned six well-known citizens upon the platform, to decide the
election. The first vote reduced the number of candidates to two, and
the voting was then repeated until one of these received an undoubted
majority. Dr. Roth, of Teufen, was the fortunate man. As soon as the
decision was announced, several swords were held up in the crowd to
indicate where the new governor was to be found. The musicians and
pikemen made a lane to him through the multitude, and he was conducted
to the platform with the sound of fife and drum. He at once took his
place between the swords, and made a brief address, which the people
heard with uncovered heads. He did not yet, however, assume the black
silk mantle which belongs to his office. He was a man of good presence,
prompt, and self-possessed in manner, and conducted the business of the
day very successfully.
The election of the remaining members occupied much more time. All the
five applicants were released from service, and with scarcely a
dissenting hand: wherein, I thought, the people showed very good sense.
The case of one of these officials, Herr Euler, was rather hard. He was
the _Landessäckelmeister_ (Treasurer), and the law makes him personally
responsible for every farthing which passes through his hands. Having,
with the consent of the Council, invested thirty thousand francs in a
banking-house at Rheineck, the failure of the house obliged him to pay
this sum out of his own pocket. He did so, and then made preparations to
leave the Canton in case his resignation was not accepted.