CHAPTER XXXII.

Under the plea that, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Jonathan

might still possibly put in an appearance, Adam lingered in his aunt's

cheerful-looking kitchen until after the clock had struck eleven: then

he very reluctantly got up, and, bidding Mrs. Tucker and Sammy

good-night, betook himself to the mill-house, in which, with regard to

his greater safety, a bed had been made up for him.

Adam felt that, court it as he might, sleep was very far from his eyes,

and that, compared to his own society and the torment of thought which

harassed and racked him each time he found himself alone, even Sammy

Tucker's company was a boon to be grateful for. There were times during

these hours of dreary loneliness when Adam's whole nature seemed

submerged by the billows of love--cruel waves, which would toss him

hither and thither, making sport of his hapless condition, to strand him

at length on the quicksands of fear, where a thousand terrible alarms

would seize him and fill him with dread as to how these disasters might

end. What would become of him? how would it fare with Eve and himself?

where could they go? what could they do?--questions ever swallowed up by

the constantly-recurring, all-important bewilderment as to what could

possibly have brought about this dire disaster.

On this night Adam's thoughts were more than usually engrossed by Eve:

her form seemed constantly before him, distracting him with images as

tempting and unsatisfying as is the desert spring with which desire

mocks the thirst of the fainting traveller. At length that relaxation of

strength which in sterner natures takes the place of tears subdued Adam,

a softened feeling crept over him, and, shifting his position so that

he might rest his arms against the corn-bin near, a deep-drawn sigh

escaped him.

"Hist!"

Adam started at the sound, and without moving turned his head and looked

rapidly about him. Nothing was to be seen: with the exception of the

small radius round the lantern all was darkness and gloom.

"Hist!" was repeated, and this time there was no more doubt but that the

sound came from some one close by.

A clammy sweat stood on Adam's forehead, his tongue felt dry and so

powerless that it needed an effort to force it to move. "Who's there?"

he said.

"'Tis me--Jonathan."

Adam caught up the lantern, and, turning it in the direction whence the

voice came, found to his relief that the rays fell upon Jonathan's face.

"Odds rot it, lad!" he exclaimed, "but you've gived me a turn! How the

deuce did you get in here? and why didn't ye come inside to the house

over there?"

"I've a bin scrooged down 'tween these 'ere sacks for ever so long,"

said Jonathan, trying to stretch out his cramped limbs: "I reckon I've

had a bit o' a nap too, for the time ha'n't a took long in goin', and

when I fust come 'twasn't altogether dark."

"'Tis close on the stroke o' twelve now," said Adam. "But come, what

news, eh? Have ye got hold o' anything yet? Are they devils off for

good? Is that what you've come to tell me?"

"Iss, they's off this time, I fancy," said Jonathan; "but 'twasn't that

broffed me, though I should ha' comed to tell 'ee o' that too."

"No? What is it then?" demanded Adam impatiently, turning the light so

that he could get a better command of Jonathan's face.

"'Twas 'cos o' this," said Jonathan, his voice dropping to a whisper, so

that, though the words were trembling on his lips, his agitation and

excitement almost prevented their utterance: "I've found it out--all of

it--who blowed the gaff 'pon us."

Adam started forward: his face all but touched Jonathan's, and an

expression of terrible eagerness came into his eyes.

"'Twas she!" hissed Jonathan--"she--her from London--Eve;" but before

the name was well uttered Adam had thrown himself upon him and was

grasping at his throat as if to throttle him, while a volley of

imprecations poured from his mouth, denouncing the base lie which

Jonathan had dared to utter. A moment more, and this fit of impotent

rage over, he flung him violently off, and stood for a moment trying to

bring back his senses; but the succession of circumstances had been too

much for him: his head swam round, his knees shook under him, and he had

to grasp hold of a beam near to steady himself.

"What for do 'ee sarve me like that, then?" muttered Jonathan. "I ain't

a-tellin' 'ee no more than I've a-heerd, and what's the truth. Her

name's all over the place," he went on, forgetful of the recent outburst

and warming with his narration. "Her's a reg'lar bad wan; her's

a-carr'ed on with a sodger-chap so well as with Jerrem; her's a--"

"By the living Lord, if you speak another word I'll be your death!"

exclaimed Adam.

"Wa-al, and so you may," exclaimed Jonathan doggedly, "if so be you'll

lave me bide 'til I'se seed the end o' she. Why, what do 'ee mane,

then?" he cried, a sudden suspicion throwing a light on Adam's storm of

indignation. "Her bain't nawthin' to you--her's Jerrem's maid: her

bain't your maid? Why," he added, finding that Adam didn't speak, "'twas

through the letter I carr'ed from he that her'd got it to blab about. I

wishes my hand had bin struck off"--and he dashed it violently against

the wooden bin--"afore I'd touched his letter or his money."

"What letter?" gasped Adam.

"Wa-al, I knaws you said I warn't to take neither wan; but Jerrem he

coaxes and persuades, and says you ain't to knaw nawthin' about it, and

'tain't nawthin' in it, only 'cos he'd a got a letter fra' she to

Guernsey, and this was t' answer; and then I knawed, 'cos I seed em,

that they was sweetheartin' and that, and--"

"Did you give her that letter?" said Adam; and the sound of his voice

was so strange that Jonathan shrank back and cowered close to the wall.

"Iss, I did," he faltered: "leastwise, I gived un to Joan, but t'other

wan had the radin' in it."

There was a pause, during which Adam stood stunned, feeling that

everything was crumbling and giving way beneath him--that he had no

longer anything to live for, anything to hope, anything to fear. As, one

after another, each former bare suggestion of artifice now passed before

him clothed in the raiment of certain deceit, he made a desperate clutch

at the most improbable, in the wild hope that one falsehood at least

might afford him some ray of light, however feeble, to dispel the

horrors of this terrible darkness.

"And after she'd got the letter," he said, "what--what about the rest?"

"Why 'twas this way," cried Jonathan, his eyes rekindling in his

eagerness to tell the story: "somebody dropped a bit of paper into the

rendevoos winder, with writin' 'pon it to say when and where they'd find

the Lottery to. Who 'twas did it none knaws for sartain, but the talk's

got abroad 'twas a sergeant there, 'cos he'd a bin braggin' aforehand

that he'd got a watch-sale and that o' her'n'."

"Her'n?" echoed Adam.

"Iss, o' Eve's. And he's allays a-showin' of it off, he is; and when

they axes un questions he doan't answer, but he dangles the sale afront

of 'em and says, 'What d'ee think?' he says; and now he makes his brag

that he shall hab the maid yet, while her man's a-dancin' gallus-high a

top o' Tyburn tree."

The blood rushed up into Adam's face, so that each vein stood a separate

cord of swollen, bursting rage.

"They wasn't a-manin' you, ye knaw," said Jonathan: "'twar Jerrem. Her's

played un false, I reckon. Awh!" and he gave a fiendish chuckle, "but

us'll pay her out for't, woan't us, eh? Awnly you give to me the

ticklin' o' her ozel-pipe;" and he made a movement of his bony fingers

that conveyed such a hideous embodiment of his meaning that Adam,

overcome by horror, threw up his arms with a terrible cry to heaven,

and falling prone he let the bitterness of death pass over the love that

had so late lain warm at his heart; while Jonathan crouched down,

trembling and awestricken by the sight of emotion which, though he could

not comprehend nor account for, stirred in him the sympathetic

uneasiness of a dumb animal. Afraid to move or speak, he remained

watching Adam's bent figure until his shallow brain, incapable of any

sustained concentration of thought, wandered off to other interests,

from which he was recalled by a noise, and looking up he saw that Adam

had raised himself and was wiping his face with his handkerchief. Did he

feel so hot, then? No, it must be that he felt cold, for he shivered and

his teeth seemed to chatter as he told Jonathan to stoop down by the

side there and hand him up a jar and a glass that he would find; and

this got, Adam poured out some of its contents, and after tossing it off

told Jonathan to take the jar and help himself, for, as nothing could be

done until daylight, they might as well lie down and try and get some

sleep. Jonathan's relish for spirit once excited, he made himself

tolerably free of the permission, and before long had helped himself to

such purpose that, stretched in a heavy sleep, unless some one roused

him he was not likely to awake for some hours to come.

Then Adam got up and with cautious movements stole down the ladder,

undid the small hatch-door which opened out on the mill-stream, fastened

it after him, and leaping across stood for a few moments asking himself

what he had come out to do. He didn't know, for as yet, in the tumult of

jealousy and revenge, there was no outlet, no gap, by which he might

drain off any portion of that passionate fire which was rapidly

destroying and consuming all his softer feelings. The story which

Jonathan had brought of the betrayal to the sergeant, the fellow's

boastings and his possession of the seal Adam treated as an idle tale,

its possibility vanquished by his conviction that Eve could have had no

share in it. It was the letter from Jerrem which was the damnatory proof

in Adam's eyes--the proof by which he judged and condemned her; for had

not he himself seen and wondered at Jerrem's anxiety to go to Guernsey,

his elation at finding a letter waiting him, his display of wishing to

be seen secretly reading it, and now his ultimate betrayal of them by

sending an answer to it?

As for Jerrem--oh he would deal with him as with a dog, and quickly send

him to that fate he so richly deserved. It was not against Jerrem that

the depths of his bitterness welled over: as the strength of his love,

so ran his hate; and this all turned to one direction, and that

direction pointed toward Eve.

He must see her, stand face to face with her, smite her with reproaches,

heap upon her curses, show her how he could trample on her love and

fling her back her perjured vows. And then? This done, what was there

left? From Jerrem he could free himself. A word, a blow, and all would

be over: but how with her? True, he could kill the visible Eve with his

own hands, but the Eve who lived in his love, would she not live there

still? Ay; and though he flung that body which could court the gaze of

other eyes than his full fathoms deep, the fair image which dwelt before

him would remain present to his vision. So that, do what he would, Eve

would live, must live. Live! Crushing down on that thought came the

terrible consequences which might come of Jonathan's tale being told--a

tale so colored with all their bitterest prejudices that it was certain

to be greedily listened to; and in the storm of angry passion it would

rouse everything else would be swallowed up by resentment against Eve's

baseness; and the fire once kindled, what would come of it?

The picture which Adam's heated imagination conjured up turned him hot

and cold; an agony of fear crept over him; his heart sickened and grew

faint within him, and the hands which but a few minutes before had

longed to be steeped in her blood now trembled and shook with nervous

dread lest a finger of harm should be laid upon her.

These and a hundred visions more or less wild coursed through Adam's

brain as his feet took their swift way toward Polperro--not keeping

along the open road, but taking a path which, only known to the

inhabitants, would bring him down almost in front of his own house.

The night was dark, the sky lowering and cloudy. Not a sound was to be

heard, not a soul had he seen, and already Adam was discussing with

himself how best, without making an alarm, he should awaken Joan and

obtain admittance. Usually bars and bolts were unknown, doors were left

unfastened, windows often open; but now all would be securely shut, and

he would have to rely on the possibility of his signal being heard by

some one who might chance to be on the watch.

Suddenly a noise fell upon his ear. Surely he heard the sound of

footsteps and the hum of voices. It could never be that the surprise

they deemed a possibility had turned out a certainty. Adam crouched

down, and under the shadow of the wall glided silently along until he

came opposite the corner where the house stood. It was as he feared.

There was no further doubt. The shutters were flung back, the door was

half open, and round it, easing their tired limbs as best they might,

stood crowded together a dozen men, the portion of a party who had

evidently spread themselves about the place.

Fortunately for Adam, the steps which led up to the wooden orrel or

balcony--at that time a common adornment to the Polperro

houses--afforded him a tolerably safe retreat, and, screened here, he

remained a silent watcher, hearing only a confused murmur and seeing

nothing save an occasional movement as one and the other changed posts

and passed in and out of the opposite door. At length a general parley

seemed to take place: the men fell into rank and at a slow pace moved

off down the street in the direction of the quay. Adam looked cautiously

out. The door was now closed. Dare he open it? Might he not find that a

sentinel had been left behind? How about the other door? The chances

against it were as bad. The only possible way of ingress was by a

shutter in the wall which overlooked the brook and communicated with the

hiding-place in which his father lay secreted. This shutter had been

little used since the days of press-gangs. It was painted in so exact an

imitation of the slated house-wall as to defy detection, and to mark the

spot to the initiated eye a root of house-leek projected out below and

served to further screen the opening from view. The contrivance of this

shutter-entrance was well known to Adam, and the mode of reaching it

familiar to him: therefore if he could but elude observation he was

certain of success.

The plan once decided on, he began putting it into execution, and

although it seemed half a lifetime to him, but very few minutes had

elapsed before he had crossed the road, ran waist-high into the brook,

scaled the wall and scrambled down almost on top of old Zebedee, who,

stupefied by continual drink, sleep and this constant confinement, took

the surprise in a wonderfully calm manner.

"Hist, father! 'tis only me--Adam."

"A' right! a' right!" stammered Zebedee, too dazed to take in the whole

matter at once. "What is it, lad, eh? They darned galoots ha'n't a

tracked 'ee, have 'em? By the hooky! but they'm givin' 't us hot and

strong this time, Adam: they was trampin' 'bout inside here a minit

agone, tryin' to keep our sperrits up by a-rattlin' the bilboes in our

ears. Why, however did 'ee dodge 'em, eh? What's the manin' o' it all?"

"I thought they was gone," said Adam, "so I came down to see how you

were all getting on here."

"Iss, iss, sure. Wa-al, all right, I s'pose, but I ha'n't a bin let

outside much: Joan won't have it, ye knaw. Poor Joan!" he sighed, "her's

terrible moody-hearted 'bout 't all; and so's Eve too. I never see'd

maids take on as they'm doin'; but there! I reckon 'twill soon be put a

end to now."

"How so?" said Adam.

"Wa-al, you mustn't knaw, down below, more than you'm tawld," said the

old man with a significant wink and a jerk of his head, "but Jerrem he

let me into it this ebenin' when he rinned up to see me for a bit.

Seems one o' they sodger-chaps is carr'in' on with Eve, and Jerrem's

settin' her on to rig un up so that her'll get un not to see what

'tain't maned for un to look at."

"Well?" said Adam.

"Iss," said Zebedee, "but will it be well? That's what I keeps axin' of

un. He's cock sure, sartain, that they can manage it all. He's sick, he

says, o' all this skulkin', and he's blamed if he'll go on standin' it,

neither."

"Oh!" hissed Adam, "he's sick of it, is he?" and in the effort he made

to subdue his voice the veins in his face rose up to be purple cords.

"He'd nothing to do with bringing it on us all? it's no fault of his

that the place is turned into a hell and we hunted down like a pack o'

dogs?"

"Awh, well, I dawn't knaw nuffin 'bout that," said old Zebedee, huffily.

"How so be if 'tis so, when he's got clane off 'twill be all right

agen."

"All right?" thundered Adam--"how all right? Right that he should get

off and we be left here?--that he shouldn't swing, but we must stay to

suffer?"

"Awh, come, come, come!" said the old man with the testy impatience of

one ready to argue, but incapable of reasoning. "'Tain't no talk o'

swingin', now: that was a bit o' brag on the boy's part: he's so eager

to save his neck as you or me either. Awnly Jonathan's bin here and

tawld up summat that makes un want to be off to wance, for he says, what

us all knaws, without he's minded to it you can't slip a knot round

Jonathan's clapper; and 'tain't that Jerrem's afeared o' his tongue,

awnly for the keepin' up o' pace and quietness he fancies 'twould be

better for un to make hisself scarce for a bit."

Adam's whole body quivered as a spasm of rage ran through him; and

Zebedee, noting the trembling movement of his hands, conveyed his

impression of the cause by bestowing a glance, accompanied with a

pantomimic bend of his elbow, in the direction of a certain stone bottle

which stood in the corner.

"Did Jonathan tell you what word 'twas he'd brought?" Adam managed to

say.

"Noa: I never cast eyes on un. He warn't here 'bove a foo minits 'fore

he slipped away, none of 'em knaws where or how. He was warned not to go

anighst you," he added after a moment's pause; "so I reckon you knaws no

more of un than us does."

"And Eve and Joan? were they let into the secret?" asked Adam; and the

sound of his harsh voice grated even on Zebedee's dulled ears.

"Iss, I reckon," he said, half turning, "'cos Eve's got to do the trick:

her's to bamfoozle the sodger.--Odds rot it, lad!" he cried, startled at

the expression which leaped into Adam's haggard face, "what's come to

'ee that you must turn round 'pon us like that? Is it the maid you's got

a spite agen? Lors! but 'tis a poor stomach you's got to'rds her if

you'm angered by such a bit o' philanderin' as I've tawld 'ee of. What

d'ee mane, then?" he added, his temper rising at such unwarrantable

inconsistency. "I've knawed as honest women as ever her is that's a done

that, and more too, for to get their men safe off and out o' way--iss,

and wasn't thought none the wus of, neither. You'm growed mighty

fancikul all to wance 'bout what us is to do and what us dussn't think

o'. I'm sick o' such talk. 'Taint nawthin' else fra' mornin' to night

but Adam this and Adam that. I'm darned if 'tis to be wondered at if the

maid plays 'ee false: by gosh! I'd do the trick, if I was she, 'fore I'd

put up with such fantads from you or either man like 'ee. So there!"

Adam did not answer, and old Zebedee, interpreting the silence into an

admission of the force of his arguments, forbore to press the advantage

and generously started a fresh topic. "They's a tawld 'ee, I reckon,

'bout the bill they's a posted up, right afore the winder, by the Three

Pilchards," he said. "Iss," he added, not waiting for an answer, "the

king's pardon and wan hunderd pound to be who'll discover to 'em the man

who 'twas fired the fatal shot. Wan hunderd pound!" he sneered. "That's

a fat lot, surely; and as for t' king's pardon, why 'twudn't lave un

braithin'-time to spend it in--not if he war left here, 'twudn't. No

fear! Us ain't so bad off yet that either wan in Polperro 'ud stink

their fingers wi' blid-money. Lord save un! sich a man 'ud fetch up the

divil hisself to see un pitched head foremost down to bottom o' say,

which 'ud be the end I'd vote for un, and see it was carr'd out

too--iss, tho' his bones bore my own flesh and blid 'pon 'em, I wud;"

and in his anger the old man's rugged face grew distorted with emotion.

But Adam neither spoke nor made comment on his words. His eyes were

fixed on mid-air, his nostrils worked, his mouth quivered. Within him a

legion of devils seemed to have broken loose, and, sensible of the

mastery they were gaining over him, he leaped up and with the wild

despair of one who catches at a straw to save him from destruction, it

came upon him to rush down and look once more into the face of her whom

he had found so fair and proved so false.

"What is it you'm goin' to do, then?" said Zebedee, seeing that Adam had

stooped down and was raising the panel by which exit was effected.

"Goin' to see if the coast's clear," said Adam.

"Better bide where you be," urged Zebedee. "Joan or they's sure to rin

up so soon as 'tis all safe."

But Adam paid no heed: muttering something about knowing what he was

about, he slipped up the partition and crept under, cautiously

ascertained that the outer room was empty, and then, crossing the

passage, stole down the stairs.

The door which led into the room was shut, but through a convenient

chink Adam could take a survey of those within. Already his better self

had begun to struggle in his ear, already the whisper which desire was

prompting asked what if Eve stood there alone and--But no, his glance

had taken in the whole: quick as the lightning's flash the details of

that scene were given to Adam's gaze--Eve, bent forward, standing beside

the door, over whose hatch a stranger's face was thrust, while Joan,

close to the spot where Jerrem still lay hid, clasped her two hands as

if to stay the breath which longed to cry, "He's free!"... The blow

dealt, the firebrand flung, each evil passion quickened into life,

filled with jealousy and mad revenge, Adam turned swiftly round and

backward sped his way.

"They'm marched off, ain't 'em?" said old Zebedee as, Adam having given

the signal, he drew the panel of the door aside. "I've a bin listenin'

to their trampin' past.--Why, what's the time, lad, eh?--must be close

on break o' day, ain't it?"

"Just about," said Adam, pushing back the shutter so that he might look

out and see that no one stood near enough to overlook his descent.

"Why, you bain't goin' agen, be 'ee?" said Zebedee in amazement. "Why,

what for be 'ee hikin' off like this, then--eh, lad?--Lord save us, he's

gone!" he exclaimed as Adam, swinging himself by a dexterous twist on to

the first ledge, let the shutter close behind him. "Wa-al, I'm blamed if

this ain't a rum start! Summat gone wrong with un now. I'll wager he's a

bin tiched up in the bunt somehows, for a guinea; and if so be, 'tis

with wan o' they. They'm all sixes and sebens down below; so I'll lave

'em bide a bit, and hab a tot o' liquor and lie down for a spell. Lord

send 'em to knaw the vally o' pace and quietness! But 'tis wan and all

the same--

Friends and faws,

To battle they gaws;

And what they all fights about

Nawbody knaws."

It was broad daylight when Joan, having once before failed to make her

uncle hear, gave such a vigorous rap that, starting up, the old man

cried, "Ay, ay, mate!" and with all speed unfastened the door.

Joan crept in and some conversation ensued, in the midst of which, as

the recollection of the events just past occurred to his mind, Zebedee

asked, "What was up with Adam?"

"With Adam?" echoed Joan.

"Iss: what made un start off like he did?"

Joan looked for a minute, then she lifted the stone bottle and shook its

contents. "Why, whatever be 'ee tellin' up?" she said.

"Tellin' up? Why, you seed un down below, didn't 'ee? Iss you did now."

Completely puzzled what to think, Joan shook her head.

"Lor' ha' massy! don't never tell me he didn't shaw hisself. Why, the

sodgers was barely out o' doors 'fore he comes tumblin' in to shutter

there, and after a bit he says, 'I'll just step down below,' he says,

and out he goes; and in a quarter less no time back he comes tappin'

agen, and when I drawed open for un by he pushes, and 'fore I could say

'Knife' he was out and clane off."

"You haven't a bin dreamin' of it, have 'ee?" said Joan, her face

growing pale with apprehension.

"Naw, 'tis gospel truth, every ward. I've a had a toothful of liquor

since, and a bit o' caulk, but not a drap more."

"Jerrem's comin' up into t'other room," said Joan, not wishing to betray

all the alarm she felt: "will 'ee go into un there the whiles I rins

down and says a word to Eve?"

"Iss," said the old man, "and I'll freshen mysen up a bit with a dash o'

cold watter: happen I may bring some more o' it to my mind then."

But, his ablutions over and the whole family assembled, Zebedee could

throw no more light on the subject, the recital of which caused so much

anxiety that Joan, yielding to Eve's entreaties, decided to set off with

all speed for Crumplehorne.

"Mother, Adam's all right? ain't he here still, and safe?" cried Joan,

bursting into the kitchen where Mrs. Tucker, only just risen, was

occupied with her house-duties.

"Iss, plaise the Lord, and, so far as I knaws of, he is," replied Mrs.

Tucker, greatly startled by Joan's unexpected appearance. "Why, what do

'ee mane, child, eh? But there!" she added starting up, "us'll make sure

to wance and knaw whether 'tis lies or truth we'm tellin'.--Here, Sammy,

off ever so quick as legs can carry 'ee, and climber up and fetch Adam

back with 'ee."

Sammy started off, and Joan proceeded to communicate the cause of her

uneasiness.

"Awh, my dear, is that all?" exclaimed Mrs. Tucker, at once pronouncing

sentence on poor old Zebedee's known failing: "then my mind's made easy

agen. There's too much elbow-crookin' 'bout that story for me to set any

hold by it."

"Do 'ee think so?" said Joan, ready to catch at any straw of hope.

"Why, iss; and for this reason too. I--"

But at this moment Sammy appeared, and, without waiting for him to

speak, the two women uttered a cry as they saw in his face a

confirmation of their fears. "Iss, 'tis every ward true; he's a gone

shure 'nuf," exclaimed Sammy; "but by his own accord, I reckon, 'cos

there ain't no signs o' nothin' bein' open 'ceptin 'tis the hatch over

by t' mill-wheel."

"Awh, mother," cried Joan, "whatever can be the manin' of it? My poor

heart's a sinkin' down lower than iver. Oh Lord! if they should ha'

cotched un, anyways!"

"Now, doan't 'ee take on like that, Joan," said Mrs. Tucker. "'Tis like

temptin' o' Providence to do such like. I'll be bound for't he's safe

home alongst afore now: he ain't like wan to act wild and go steppin'

into danger wi' both his eyes wide open."

The possibility suggested, and Joan was off again, back on her way to

Polperro, too impatient to wait while her mother put on her bonnet to

accompany her.

At the door stood Eve, breathless expectation betraying itself in her

every look and gesture. Joan shook her head, while Eve's finger, quick

laid upon her lip, warned her to be cautious.

"They're back," she muttered as Joan came up close: "they've just

marched past and gone down to the quay."

"What for?" cried Joan.

"I don't know. Run and see, Joan: everybody's flocking that way."

Joan ran down the street, and took her place among a mob of people

watching with eager interest the movements of a soldier who, with much

unnecessary parade and delay, was taking down the bill of reward posted

outside the Three Pilchards. A visible anticipation of the effect about

to be produced stirred the small red-coated company, and they wheeled

round so as to take note of any sudden emotion produced by the surprise

they felt sure awaited the assembly.

"Whatever is it, eh?" asked Joan, trying to catch a better sight of what

was going on.

"They'm stickin' up a noo reward, 't seems," said an old man close by.

"'Tain't no--"

But the swaying back of the crowd carried Joan with it. A surge forward,

and then on her ear fell a shrill cry, and as the name of Jerrem

Christmas started from each mouth a hundred eyes seemed turned upon her.

For a moment the girl stood dazed, staring around like some wild animal

at bay: then, flinging out her arms, she forced those near her aside,

and rushing forward to the front made a desperate clutch at the soldier.

"Speak! tell me! what's writ there?" she cried.

"Writ there?" said the man, startled by the scared face that was turned

up to him. "Why, the warrant to seize for murder Jerrem Christmas,

living or dead, on the king's evidence of Adam Pascal."

And the air was rent by a cry of unutterable woe, caught up by each

voice around, and coming back in echoes from far and near long after

Joan lay a senseless heap on the stones upon which she had fallen.

_The Author of "Dorothy Fox."_

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

SEVEN WEEKS A MISSIONARY.

The sights of Honolulu had not lost their novelty--the tropical foliage

of palm, banana, bread-fruit, monkey-pod and algaroba trees; the

dark-skinned, brightly-clad natives with flowers on their heads, who

walked with bare feet and stately tread along the shady sidewalks or

tore through the streets on horseback; the fine stone or wooden

residences with wide cool verandas, or humbler native huts surrounded by

walls of coral-rock instead of fences; the deep indigo-blue ocean on one

hand and the rich green mountains on the other, dripping with moisture

and alternately dark and bright with the gloom of clouds and the glory

of rainbows, still wore for me their original freshness and

interest--when I received an urgent request to come to Waialua, a little

village on the other side of the island. My host, to whom the note was

addressed, explained to me that there was a mission-school at that

place, a seminary for native girls. It was conducted by Miss G----, the

daughter of one of the missionaries who first came to the Hawaiian

Islands fifty years before. She had been sent to this country to be

educated, like most of the children of the early missionaries, and had

returned to devote herself to the mental, moral and physical welfare of

the native girls--a task which she was now accomplishing with all the

fervor, devotion and self-sacrifice of a Mary Lyon.

At this juncture she had forty-five girls, from six to eighteen, under

her care, and but one assistant. The English teacher who had assisted

her for several years had lately married, and the place was still

vacant. She wrote to my host, saying that she had heard there was a

teacher from California at his house, and begging me, through him, to

come and help her a few weeks. I signified my willingness to go, and in

a few days Miss G----, accompanied by a native girl, came on horseback

to meet me and conduct me to Waialua. A gentleman of Honolulu, his

sister and a native woman called Maria, who were going to Waialua and

beyond, joined us, so that our party consisted of six. We were variously

mounted, on horses of different appearance and disposition, and carried

our luggage and lunch in saddle-bags strapped on behind. Maria's outfit

especially interested me. It was the usual costume for native women, and

consisted of a long flowing black garment called a _holoku_, gathered

into a yoke at the shoulders and falling unconfined to her bare feet.

Around her neck she wore a bright red silk handkerchief, and on her head

a straw hat ornamented with a _lei_, or wreath of fresh, fragrant

flowers, orange or jasmine. Men, women and children wear these wreaths,

either on their heads or around their necks. Sometimes they consist

of the bright yellow _ilimu_-flowers or brilliant scarlet

pomegranate-blossoms strung on a fibre of the banana-stalk--sometimes

they are woven of ferns or of a fragrant wild vine called _maile_. Maria

was seated astride on a wiry little black horse, and instead of slipping

her bare feet into the stirrups she clasped the irons with her toes.

Besides her long, flowing black dress she wore a width of bright

red-flowered damask tied around her waist, caught into the stirrup on

either side and flowing a yard or two behind.

Waialua, our destination, was about a third of the way around the

island, but the road, instead of following the sea-coast all the way,

took a short cut across an inland plateau, so that the distance was but

twenty-seven miles. We started about one o'clock in the afternoon, the

hour when the streets are least frequented, and rode past the shops and

stores shaded with awnings, past the bazaars where sea-shells and white

and pink coral are offered for sale, through the fish-market where

shellfish and hideous-looking squid and bright fish, colored like

rainbows or the gayest tropical parrots, lay on little tables or floated

in tanks of sea-water. Men with bundles of green grass or hay for sale

made way for us as we passed, and the fat, short-legged dogs scattered

right and left.

Although it was December, the air was warm and balmy, tree and fruit and

flower were in the glory of endless summer, and the ladies seated on

verandas or swinging in hammocks wore white dresses. For one who dreads

harsh, cold winters the climate of Honolulu is perfection. At the end of

King street we crossed a long bridge over the river, which at that point

widens out into a marsh bordered by reeds and rushes. Here we saw a

number of native canoes resting on poles above the water. They were

about twenty feet long and quite narrow, being hollowed out of

tree-trunks. An outrigger attached to one side serves to balance them in

the water. A fine smooth road built on an embankment of stone and earth

leads across this marsh to a strip of higher land near the sea where the

prison buildings stand. They are of gray stone, with miniature towers,

surrounded by a wall capped with stone, the whole surmounted by a tower

from which waves the Hawaiian flag. In front is a smooth lawn where grow

century-plants and ornamental shrubs, including the India-rubber tree.

It is much finer than the so-called palace of the king, a many-roomed,

one-story wooden cottage in the centre of the city, surrounded by a

large grassy yard enclosed by a high wall.

The land beyond the marshes is planted in _taro_ and irrigated by a

network of streams. Taro is the principal article of food used by the

natives: the root, which looks somewhat like a gray sweet potato, is

made into a paste called _poi_, and the tops are eaten as greens. The

plant grows about two feet high, and has an arrow-shaped leaf larger

than one's hand. Like rice, it grows in shallow pools of water, and a

patch of it looks like an inundated garden. As we passed along we saw

half-clad natives standing knee-deep in mud and water pulling the

full-grown plants or putting in young ones. Reaching higher ground, we

cantered along a hard, smooth road bordered with short green grass. On

either side were dwellings of wood surrounded by broad-leafed banana

trees, with here and there a little shop for the sale of fruit. This is

a suburb of Honolulu and is called Kupalama. We met a number of natives

on horseback going into town, the men dressed in shirts and trousers of

blue or white cotton cloth, the women wearing the long loose gowns I

have described.

At last we reached the open country, and started fairly on our long

ride. On our left was the ocean with "league-long rollers thundering on

the reef:" on our right, a few miles away, was a line of mountains,

divided into numerous spurs and peaks by deep valleys richly clothed in

tropical verdure. The country about us was uncultivated and generally

open, but here and there were straggling lines of low stone walls

overgrown with a wild vine resembling our morning-glory, the masses of

green leaves starred with large pink flowers. The algaroba, a graceful

tree resembling the elm, grew along the roadside, generally about

fifteen feet high. In Honolulu, where they are watered and cared for,

these trees attain a height of thirty or forty feet, sending forth long

swaying branches in every direction and forming beautiful shade trees.

Now and then we crossed water-courses, where the banks were carpeted

with short green grass and bordered with acacia-bushes covered with

feathery leaves and a profusion of yellow ball-shaped flowers that

perfumed the air with their fragrance. The view up and down these

winding flower-bordered streams was lovely. We rode for miles over this

monotonous country, gradually rising to higher ground. Suddenly, almost

at our very feet, a little bowl-shaped valley about half a mile in

circumference opened to view. The upper rim all around was covered with

smooth green grass, and the sides were hidden by the foliage of

dark-green mango trees, light-green _kukui_, bread-fruit and banana.

Coffee had formerly been cultivated here, and a few bushes still grew

wild, bearing fragrant white flowers or bright red berries. Through the

bottom of the valley ran a little stream, and on its banks were three or

four grass huts beneath tufts of tall cocoanut palms. Several

scantily-clad children rolled about on the ground, and in the shade of a

tamarind tree an old gray-headed man was pounding taro-root. The gray

mass lay before him on a flat stone, and he pounded it with a stone

pestle, then dipped his hands into a calabash of water and kneaded it. A

woman was bathing in the stream, and another stood at the door of one of

the huts holding her child on her hip.

We passed through three other deep valleys like this, and in every case

they opened suddenly to view--hidden nests of tropical foliage and

color. The natives were seated in circles under the trees eating poi, or

wading in the stream looking for fish, or lounging on the grass near

their huts as though life were one long holiday.

Now we entered a vast sunburnt plain overgrown with huge thorny cactus

twelve or fifteen feet high. Without shade or water or verdure it

stretched before us to distant table-lands, upholding mountains whose

peaks were veiled in cloud. The solitude of the plain was rendered more

impressive by the absence of wild creatures of any kind: there were no

birds nor insects nor ground-squirrels nor snakes. The cactus generally

grew in clumps, but sometimes it formed a green prickly wall on either

side of the road, between which we had to pass as between the bayonets

of sentinels. Wherever the road widened out we clattered along, six

abreast, at full speed. Maria, the native woman, presented a picturesque

appearance with her black dress and long flowing streamers of bright

red. She was an elderly woman--perhaps fifty years old--but as active as

a young girl, and a good rider. She had an unfailing fund of good-humor,

and talked and laughed a great deal. My other companions, with the

exception of the native girl, were children of early missionaries, and

enlivened the journey by many interesting incidents of island life. At

last we crossed the cactus desert, ascended an eminence, and then sank

into a valley grand and deep, shut in by walls carved in fantastic shape

by the action of water. Our road was a narrow pathway, paved with

stone, that wound down the face of the cliff. The natives call this

place Ki-pa-pa, which signifies "paved way."

As we were making the descent on one side we saw a party of natives on

horseback winding down on the opposite. First rode three men, single

file, with children perched in front of them, then three or four women

in black or gay-colored holokus, then a boy who led two pack-mules laden

with large baskets. All wore wreaths of ferns or flowers. When we met

they greeted us with a hearty "_Aloha!_" ("Love to you!"), and in reply

to a question in Hawaiian said that they were going to Honolulu with

fresh fish, bananas and oranges.

We climbed the rocky pathway rising out of the valley, and found

ourselves on the high table-land toward which we had shaped our course.

It was smooth as a floor and covered with short rich grass. Instead of a

broad road there were about twenty parallel paths stretching on before

us as far as we could see, furrowed by the feet of horses and

pack-mules. Miles away on either side was a line of lofty mountains

whose serrated outlines were sharply defined against the evening sky.

Darkness overtook us on this plateau, and the rest of the journey is a

confused memory of steep ravines down whose sides we cautiously made our

way, torrents of foaming water which we forded, expanses of dark plain,

and at last the murmur of the ocean on the reef. After reaching

sea-level again we passed between acres and acres of taro-patches where

the water mirrored the large bright stars and the arrow-shaped leaves

cast sharp-pointed shadows. We rode through the quiet little village of

Waialua, sleeping beneath the shade of giant pride-of-India and kukui

trees, without meeting any one, and forded the Waialua River just where

it flows over silver sands into the sea. As we paused to let our horses

drink I looked up at the cluster of cocoanut palms that grew upon the

bank, and noticed how distinctly each feathery frond was pencilled

against the sky, then down upon the placid river and out upon the gently

murmuring sea, and thought that I had never gazed upon a more peaceful

scene. Little did I think that it would soon be associated with danger

and dismay. Beyond the river were two or three native huts thatched with

grass, and a little white cottage, the summer home of Princess Lydia,

the king's sister. Passing these, we rode over a smooth green lawn

glittering with large bright dewdrops, and dismounted in front of the

seminary-gate. The large whitewashed brick house, two stories and a half

high, with wide verandas around three sides, looks toward the sea. In

front of it is a garden filled with flowers and vines and shrubbery, the

pride and care of the school-girls. There are oleander trees with

rose-colored blossoms, pomegranate trees whose flowers glow amid the

dark-green foliage like coals of fire, and orange and lime trees covered

with fragrant white flowers, which the girls string and wear around

their necks. Besides roses, heliotrope, geraniums, sweet-pea, nasturtium

and other familiar flowers, there are fragrant Japanese lilies, and also

plants and shrubs from the Micronesian Islands. On one side is a grove

of tamarind and kukui-nut trees, mingled with tall cocoanut palms, which

stretches to the deep, still river, a few rods away: on the other is the

school-house, a two-story frame, painted white, shaded by tall

pride-of-India trees and backed by a field of corn. My room opened on a

veranda shaded with kukui trees, and as the "coo-coo-ee coo-coo-ee" of

the doves in the branches came to my ears I thought that the trees had

received their name from the notes of the doves, but afterward learnt

that _kukui_ in the Hawaiian language meant "light," and that the nuts,

being full of oil, were strung on bamboo poles by the natives and used

as torches.

The morning after my arrival I saw the girls at breakfast, and found

them of all shades of complexion from deep chocolate-brown to white.

Their glossy black hair, redolent of cocoanut oil, was ornamented with

fresh flowers, and their bright black eyes danced with fun or languished

with sullen scorn. The younger ones were bright and happy in their

expression, but the older ones seemed already to realize the curse that

rests upon their decaying race, and to move with melancholy languor, as

if brooding over it in stifled rebellion or resigned apathy. Some would

be called beautiful anywhere: they were graceful in form, had fine

regular features and lovely, expressive eyes; others were attractive

only on account of their animation; while one comical little negro girl,

who had somehow got mixed with the Malay race, was as ugly as a

Hottentot, and a veritable imp of darkness, as I afterward learned, so

far as mischief was concerned. The girls were dressed in calico, and

wore no shoes or stockings. When they had eaten their beef and poi, and

we had finished our breakfast, each girl got her Hawaiian Testament and

read a verse: then Miss G----, the principal, offered prayer in the same

language. When this was over the routine work of the day began. Some of

the older girls remained in the dining-room to put away the food, wash

the dishes and sweep the floor; one went to the kitchen to wash the pots

and pans; and the younger ones dispersed to various tasks--to sweep and

dust the parlor, the sitting-room or the school-room, to gather up the

litter of leaves and branches from the yard and garden-paths, or to put

the teachers' rooms in order. The second floor and attic, both filled

with single beds covered with mosquito-netting, were the girls'

dormitories. Each girl was expected to make her own bed and hang up her

clothes or put them away in her trunk. A _luna_, or overseer, in each

dormitory superintended this work, and reported any negligence on the

part of a girl to one of the teachers.

Miss G---- was the life and soul of the institution--principal and

housekeeper and accountant, all in one. She had a faithful and devoted

assistant in Miss P----, a young woman of twenty-two, the daughter of a

missionary then living in Honolulu. My duties were to teach classes in

English in the forenoon and to oversee the sewing and some departments

of housekeeping in the afternoon. Miss P---- had the smaller children,

Miss G---- taught the larger ones in Hawaiian and gave music-lessons.

The routine of the school-room from nine to twelve in the forenoon and

from one till four in the afternoon was that of any ordinary school,

except that the girls who prepared the meals were excused earlier than

the others. One day in the week was devoted to washing and ironing down

on the river-bank and in the shade of the tamarind trees.

The girls had to be taught many things besides the lessons in their

books. At home they slept on mats on the floor, ate poi out of

calabashes with their fingers and wore only the holoku. Here they were

required to eat at table with knife and fork and spoon, to sleep in beds

and to adopt the manners and customs of civilization. Now and then, as a

special privilege, they asked to be allowed to eat "native fashion," and

great was their rejoicing and merrymaking as they sat, crowned with

flowers, on the veranda-floor and ate poi and raw fish with their

fingers, and talked Hawaiian. They were required to talk English usually

until the four-o'clock bell sounded in the afternoon. From that until

supper-time they were allowed to talk native, and their tongues ran

fast.

On Wednesday afternoons the girls went to bathe in the river, and on

Saturday afternoons to bathe in the sea. It usually fell to my lot to

accompany them. The river, back of the house a few rods, had steep banks

ten or fifteen feet high and a deep, still current. The girls would

start to run as soon as they left the house, race with each other all

the way and leap from the bank into the river below. Presently their

heads would appear above water, and, laughing and blowing and shaking

the drops from their brown faces, they would swim across the river. The

older girls could dive and swim under water for some distance. They had

learned to swim as soon as they had learned to walk. They sometimes

brought up fish in their hands, and one girl told me that her father

could dive and bring up a fish in each hand and one in his mouth. The

little silver-fish caught in their dress-skirts they ate raw. The girls

were always glad when the time came to go swimming in the sea, for they

were very fond of a green moss which grew on the reef, and the whole

crowd would sit on rocks picking and eating it while the spray dashed

over them.

_Waialua_ means "the meeting of the waters," or, literally, "two

waters," and the place is named from the perpetual flow and counterflow

of the river and the ocean tide. The river pours into the sea, the sea

at high tide surges up the river, beating back its waters, and the foam

and spray of the contending floods are dashed high into the air,

bedewing the cluster of cocoanut palms that stand on the bank above

watching this perpetual conflict. In calm weather and at low tide there

is a truce between the waters, and the river flows calmly into the sea;

but immediately after a storm, when the river is flooded with rains from

the mountains and the sea hurls itself upon the reef with a shock and a

roar, then the antagonism between the meeting waters is at its height

and the clash and uproar of their fury are great.

Sometimes we went on picnic excursions to places in the neighborhood--to

the beach of Waiamea, a mile or two distant, where thousands of pretty

shells lay strewn upon the sand and branches of white coral could be had

for the picking up, or to the orange-groves and indigo-thickets on the

mountain-sides, where large sweet oranges ripened, coming back wreathed

with ferns and the fragrant vine maile.

But we had plenty of oranges without going after them. For half a dollar

we could buy a hundred large fine oranges from the natives, who brought

them to the door, and we usually kept a tin washing-tub full of the

delicious fruit on hand. A _real_ (twelve and a half cents) would buy a

bunch of bananas so heavy that it took two of us to lift it to the hook

in the veranda-ceiling, and limes and small Chinese oranges grew

plentifully in the front yard. Of cocoanuts and tamarinds we made no

account, they were so common. Guavas grew wild on bushes in the

neighborhood, and made delicious pies. For vegetables we had taro, sweet

potatoes and something that tasted just like summer squash, but which

grew in thick, pulpy clusters on a tree. The taro was brought to us

just as it was pulled, roots and nodding green tops, and of the donkey

who was laden with it little showed but his legs and his ears as his

master led him up to the gate. Another old man furnished boiled and

pounded taro, which the girls mixed with water and made into poi. He

brought it in large bundles wrapped in broad green banana-leaves and

tied with fibres of the stalk. He had two daughters in the school, and

always inquired about their progress in their studies. One day,

happening to look out of the front door, I saw him coming up the

garden-walk. He had nothing on but a shirt and a _malo_ (a strip of

cloth) about his loins: the malo was all that the natives formerly wore.

Neither the girls who were weeding their garden, nor the other teachers

who were at work in the parlor, seemed to think that there was anything

remarkable in his appearance. He talked with Miss G---- as usual about

the supply of taro for the school, and inquired how his girls were

doing. When he was going away she said, "Uncle, why do you not wear your

clothes when you come to see us? I thought you had laid aside the

heathen fashion." He replied that he had but one suit of clothes, and

that he must save them to wear to church, adding that he was anxious to

give his daughters an education, and must economize in some way in order

to pay for their schooling.

The fuel needed for cooking was brought down from the mountains by the

native boy who milked the cows for us and took Calico, Miss G----'s

riding horse, to water and to pasture. One day, when one of the girls

had started a fire in the stove, a fragrance like incense diffused

itself through the house. Hastening to the kitchen, I pulled out a

half-burned piece of sandal-wood and put it away in my collection of

shells and island curiosities. A few days afterward an old native man

named Ka-hu-kai (Sea-shore), who lived in one of the grass huts near the

front gate, came to sell me a piece of fragrant wood of another kind. He

had learned that I attached a value to such things, and expected to get

a good price. He inquired for the _wahine haole_ (foreign woman), and

presented his bit of wood, saying that he would sell it for a dollar. I

declined to purchase. He walked down through the garden and across the

lawn, but paused at the big gate for several minutes, then retraced his

steps. Holding out the wood again, he said, "This is my thought: you may

have it for a real." I gave him a real, and he went away satisfied.

Every Sunday we crossed the bridge that spanned Waialua River near the

ford, and made our way to the huge old-fashioned mission-church, which

stood in an open field surrounded by prickly pears six or eight feet

high. The thorny prickly pears were stiff and ungraceful, but a delicate

wild vine grew all over them and hung in festoons from the top. While

Pai-ku-li, the native minister, preached a sermon in Hawaiian, I, not

understanding a word, looked at the side pews where the old folks sat,

and tried to picture the life they had known in their youth, when the

great Kamehameha reigned. In the pew next to the side door sat Mr.

Sea-shore, straight and solemn as a deacon, and his wife, a fat old

woman with a face that looked as if it had been carved out of knotty

mahogany, but which was irradiated with an expression of kindness and

good-nature. She wore a long black holoku, and on her head was perched a

little sailor hat with a blue ribbon round it, which would have been

suitable for a girl six or eight years old, but which looked decidedly

comical and out of place on Mrs. Sea-shore. She was barefooted, as I

presently saw. Two or three times during the sermon a red-eyed,

dissipated-looking dog with a baked taro-root in his mouth had come to

the door, and seemed about to enter, but Mrs. Sea-shore, without

disturbing the devotions, had kept him back by threatening gestures. But

when the minister began to pray and nearly every head was bowed, the dog

came sneaking in. Mrs. Sea-shore happened to raise her head, and saw

him. Drawing back her holoku, she extended her bare foot and planted a

vigorous kick in his ribs, exclaiming at the same time in an explosive

whisper, "Hala palah!" ("Get out!" or "Begone!") The dog went forth

howling, and did not return.

A few days later Miss G----'s shoulder was sprained by a fall from her

horse, and she sent for Mrs. Sea-shore. The old woman came and

_lomi-lomi_-ed the shoulder--kneaded it with her hands--until the pain

and stiffness were gone, then extracted the oil from some kukui-nuts by

chewing them and applied it to the sprain. All the time she kept up a

chatter in Hawaiian, talking, asking questions and showing her white

teeth in hearty, good-humored laughs. In answer to the questions I put

to her through Miss G----, she told us much about her early life, the

superstitions and _taboos_ that forbade men and women to eat together

and imposed many meaningless and foolish restrictions, and about her

children, who had died and gone to Po, the great shadowy land, where, as

she once believed, their spirits had been eaten by the gods. We formed

quite a friendship for each other, and she came often to see me, but

would not come into the house any farther than the veranda or front

hall, and there, refusing our offer of a chair, she would sit on the

floor. I spoke of going to see her in return, but she said that her

house was not good enough to receive me, and begged me not to come. Just

before I left Waialua she brought a mat she had woven out of the long

leaves of the pandanus or screw pine, a square of _tappa_, or native

cloth, as large as a sheet, made from the bark of a tree, and the

tappa-pounder she had made it with (a square mallet with different

patterns cut on each of the four faces), and gave them to me. I offered

her money in return, but she refused it, saying she had given the things

out of _aloha_, or love for me. On my return to Honolulu I got the most

gorgeous red silk Chinese handkerchief that could be found in Ah Fong

and Ah Chuck's establishment and sent it to her, and Miss G---- wrote me

that she wore it round her neck at church every Sunday.

One of my duties was to go through the dormitories the last thing at

night, and see that the doors were fastened and that the girls had their

mosquito-netting properly arranged, and were not sleeping with their

heads under the bedclothes. A heathen superstition, of which they were

half ashamed, still exercised an influence over them, and they were

afraid that the spirits of their dead relatives would come back from Po

and haunt them in the night. They would not confess to this fear, but

many of them, ruled by it, covered their heads with the bedclothes every

night. In my rounds, besides clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitos, I

frequently saw centipedes crawling along the floor or wall or up the

netting, and sometimes a large tarantula would dart forth from his

hiding-place in some nook or corner. The centipedes were often six or

seven inches long. They were especially numerous during or immediately

after rainy weather. Little gray and green lizards (_mo-o_) glided about

the verandas, but they were harmless. Scorpions are common in the

islands, but we were not troubled with them. They frequent hot, dry

places like sandbanks, and are often found in piles of lumber.

We had fine views of the scenery as we passed to and fro between the

main building and the school-house--the sea, fringed with cocoanut

palms; the fertile level plain, dotted with trees, on which the village

stood; and the green mountains, whose tops were generally dark with

rainclouds or brightened with bits of rainbows. It seemed to be always

raining in that mysterious mountainous centre of the islands which human

foot has never crossed, but it was usually clear and bright at

sea-level. After an unusually hard rain we could see long, flashing

white waterfalls hanging, like ribbons of silver, down the sides of the

green cliffs. From the attic-windows the best view of the bay could be

obtained, and it was my delight to lean out of them like "a blessed

damosel" half an hour at a time, gazing seaward and drinking in the

beauty of the scene. Waialua Bay was shaped like a half moon, the tips

of which were distant headlands, and the curve was the yellow,

palm-fringed beach. Into this crescent-shaped reach of water rolled

great waves from the outside ocean, following each other in regular

stately order with a front of milk-white foam and a veil of mist flying

backward several yards from the summit. The Hawaiian name for this place

is E-hu-kai (Sea-mist), and it is appropriately named, for the floating

veils of the billows keep the surface of the entire bay dim with mist.

Gazing long upon the scene, my eyes would be dazzled with color--the

intense blue of the sky and the water, the bright yellow of the sand,

the dark rich green of the trees, and, looking into the garden below,

the flame-scarlet blossoms of the pomegranates, the rose-pink flowers of

the oleanders and the cream-white clusters of the limes and oranges.

It seemed a land for poetry, for romance, for day-dreaming, and the

transition from the attic-window to the prosaic realities of house and

school-room work was like a sudden awakening. I was destined before

leaving the place to have a still more violent awakening to the reality

that underlies appearances. Nature in these beautiful islands is fair

and lovely, but deceitful. During long months of sunny weather the waves

gently kiss the shore, the green slopes smile, the mountains decorate

themselves with cloud-wreaths and rainbows; but there comes a dreadful

day when the green and flowery earth yawns in horrid chasms, when Mauna

Loa trembles and belches forth torrents of blood-red lava, when the

ocean, receding from the shore, returns in a tidal wave that sweeps to

the top of the palms on the beach and engulfs the people and their

homes.

And the human nature here is somewhat similar. The Hawaiians are

pleasing in form and feature, graceful, polite, fond of music and

dancing and wreathing themselves with flowers, and possess withal a deep

fund of poetry, which finds expression in their own names, the names

they have bestowed upon waterfalls and valleys and green peaks and

sea-cliffs, and in the _meles_ or native songs which commemorate events

of personal interest or national importance. But they too have their

volcanic outbursts, their seasons of fury and destruction. The last

public display of this side of their character was on the occasion of

the election of the present king. The supporters of Queen Emma, the

defeated candidate, burst into the court-house, broke the heads of the

electors or threw them bodily out of the windows, and raised a riot in

the streets of Honolulu which was quelled only by the assistance of the

crews of the men-of-war then in the harbor--the English ship Tenedos and

the United States vessels Portsmouth and Tuscarora.

I come now to the rebellion which broke forth in Waialua school when I

had been there three weeks. A month or two before one of the

school-girls had died after a brief illness. The old heathen

superstition about praying to Death had been revived by the lower class

of natives in the place, who were not friendly to the school, and had

been transmitted by them to the older girls. While yet ignorant of this

I had noticed the scowls and dark looks, the reluctant obedience and

manifest distrust, of ten or twelve girls from fifteen to eighteen, the

leaders in the school. The younger girls were affectionate and obedient:

they brought flowers from their gardens and wove wreaths for us; they

lomi-lomi-ed our hands and feet when we were sitting at rest; if they

neglected their tasks or broke any of the taboos of the school, it was

through the carelessness of childhood. But it seemed impossible to gain

the confidence of the older girls.

One day Miss P----, the assistant teacher, received word that her father

was quite sick, and immediately set out for Honolulu on horseback. Miss

G----and I carried on the work of the school as well as we could. A day

or two after Miss P---- left a tropical storm burst upon us. It seemed

as if the very heavens were opened. The rain fell in torrents and the

air was filled with the flying branches of trees. This continued a day

and a night. The next day, Sunday, the rain and wind ceased, but sullen

clouds still hung overhead, and there was an oppressive stillness and

languor in the air. Within, there was something of the same atmosphere:

the tropical nature of the girls seemed to be in sympathy with the

stormy elements. They were silent and sullen and brooding. The bridge

over Waialua had been washed away, and we could not go to church. The

oppressive day passed and was succeeded by a similar one. The older

girls cast dark looks upon us as they reluctantly went through the round

of school- and house-work. At night the explosion occurred. All the

girls were at the usual study-hour in the basement dining-room. It was

Miss G----'s turn to sit with them: I was in the sitting-room directly

above. Suddenly I heard a loud yell, a sound as of scuffling and Miss

G----'s quick tones of command. The next moment I was down stairs. There

stood Miss G---- in the middle of the room holding Elizabeth Aukai, one

of the largest and worst girls, by the wrist. The girl's head was bent

and her teeth were buried in Miss G----'s hand. The heathen had burst

forth, the volcanic eruption and earthquake had come. I tried to pull

her off, but she was as strong as an ox. Loosening her hold directly and

hurling us off, she poured forth a flood of abuse in Hawaiian. She

reviled the teachers and all the cursed foreigners who were praying her

people to death. The Hawaiian language has no "swear words," but it is

particularly rich in abusive and reviling epithets, and these were

freely heaped upon us. She ended her tirade by saying, "You shall not

pray us to death, you wicked, black-hearted foreigners!" and her

companions answered with a yell. Then, snatching up a lamp, they ran up

stairs to their sleeping-rooms, screaming and laughing and singing

native songs that had been forbidden in the school, and, taking their

shawls and Sunday dresses from their trunks, they arrayed themselves in

all their finery and began dancing an old heathen dance which is taboo

among the better class of natives and only practised in secret by the

more degraded class of natives and half-whites.

It sounded like Bedlam let loose. The little girls, frightened and

crying, and a half-white girl of seventeen, Miss G----'s adopted

daughter, remained with us. We put the younger children to bed in their

sleeping-room, which was on the first floor, and held a council

together. "One of us must cross the river and bring Pai-ku-li" (the

native minister), said Miss G----. "He is Elizabeth Aukai's

guardian--she is his wife's niece--and he can control her if anybody

can, and break the hold of this superstition on the girls' minds.

Nothing that we can say or do will do any good while they are in this

frenzy. Which of us shall go?"

The bridge was washed away; there was no boat; Miss P---- had taken the

only horse to go to Honolulu. Whoever went must ford the river. Like

Lord Ullin's daughter, who would meet the raging of the skies, but not

an angry father, I was less afraid to go than to stay, and volunteered

to bring Pai-ku-li.

"Li-li-noe shall go with you," said Miss G----: "she is a good swimmer,

and can find the best way through the river."

Just then the whole crowd of girls came screaming and laughing down the

stairs, swept through the sitting-room, mocking and insulting Miss

G----, then went back up the other flight of stairs, which led to the

teachers' rooms and was taboo to the school-girls. They were anxious to

break as many rules as possible.

With a lighted lantern hidden between us Li-li-noe and I stole down

through the flower-garden and across the lawn. We were anxious to keep

the girls in ignorance of our absence, lest they should attempt some

violence to Miss G---- while we were gone. Stealing quietly past the

grass huts of the natives, we approached the place where the bridge had

been, and brought forth our lantern to shed light on the water-soaked

path. Just ahead the surf showed through the darkness white and

threatening, and beyond was the ocean, dim heaving in the dusk. The

clash and roar of the meeting waters filled the air, and we were

sprinkled by the flying spray as we stood debating on the river's edge.

Li-li-noe stepped down into the water to find, if possible, a place

shallow enough to ford, but at the first step she disappeared up to her

shoulders. "That will never do," she said, clambering back: "you cannot

cross there."

"Can we cross above the bridge?" I asked.

"No: the water is ten feet deep there; it is shallower toward the sea."

"Then let us try there;" and into the water we went, Li-li-noe first. It

was not quite waist-deep, and in calm weather there would have been no

danger, but now the current of the river and the tide of the inrushing

sea swept back and forth with the force of a whirlpool. We had got to

the middle when a great wave, white with foam, came roaring toward us

from the ocean. Li-li-noe threw herself forward and began to swim. For a

moment there were darkness and the roar of many waters around me, and my

feet were almost swept from under me. Looking upward at the cloudy sky

and the tall cocoanut trees on the bank, I thought of the home and

friends I might never see again. The bitter salt water wet my face,

quenched the light and carried away my shawl, but the wave returned

without carrying me out to sea. Then above the noise of the waters I

heard Li-li-noe's voice calling to me from the other shore, and just as

another wave surged in I reached her side and sank down on the sand.

After resting a few moments we rose and began picking our way toward the

village, half a mile distant. Our route led along a narrow path between

the muddy, watery road on one side and a still more muddy, watery

taro-patch on the other. Without a light to guide our steps, we slipped,

now with one foot into the road, now with the other into the taro-patch,

and by the time we emerged into the level cactus-field around the church

we were covered with mud to our knees.

Pai-ku-li lived nearly a mile beyond the village, but close by the

church lived Mrs. W----, whose place I had taken as English teacher in

the school. We knocked at her door to beg for a light, and when she

found what the matter was she made us come in, muddy and dripping as we

were, and put on some dry clothes, while her husband, pulling on his

boots, went for Pai-ku-li. She begged me to stay all night, saying that

she would not trust her life with the girls at such a time--they might

attempt to poison us or to burn the house down--but I thanked her for

her hospitality and lighted our lantern, and we started back as soon as

Mr. W---- returned saying that Pai-ku-li would come. We listened for

the sound of his horse's feet, for we had planned to ride across the

river, one at a time, behind Pai-ku-li, but he did not overtake us, and

we waited at the river nearly half an hour. One span of the bridge

remained, and as we stood on it waiting, listening to the flapping of

the cocoanut fronds in the night wind and the hoarse murmuring and

occasional roar of the ocean, I thought of that line of Longfellow's--

I stood on the bridge at midnight--

and laughed to myself at the contrast between the poetical and the

actual. Still, Pai-ku-li did not come, and, growing anxious on Miss

G----'s account, we resolved to cross as we had before. Again we went

down into the cold flood, again our light was quenched and our feet

nearly swept from under us, but we reached the opposite side in safety.

As we crossed the lawn we saw every window lighted, and knew by the

sounds of yelling and singing and laughing that the girls were still

raving. Miss G---- sat quietly in the parlor. She had been up stairs to

try to reason with the girls, but they drowned her voice with hooting

and reviling. Pai-ku-li came a little later, but he had no better

success. He remained with us that night and all the next day. The

screaming up stairs continued till two or three o'clock at night, and

began again as soon as the first girl woke. Early next morning a fleet

messenger started to Honolulu, and just at dusk two gentlemen, the

sheriff and Mr. P----, who was Miss G----'s brother-in-law and president

of the board of trustees of Waialua Seminary, rode up on foaming horses.

A court was held in the school-room, many natives--a few of the better

class who disapproved of the rebellion, and more of the lower class who

upheld the rebels--being present as spectators, but no one interrupting

the prompt and stern proceedings of Mr. P----. Elizabeth Aukai was

whipped on her bare feet and legs below the knee until she burst out

crying and begged for mercy and asked Miss G----'s forgiveness for

biting her. Then she and the other rebels were expelled, and the

sheriff took them away that night. Those who lived on other islands were

sent home by the first schooner leaving Honolulu. Thus ended the

rebellion at Waialua school.

The remaining month of my stay passed in peace and quietness. The need

for my assistance was less after the expulsion of so many girls, but I

remained in order that Miss G---- might take a short vacation and the

rest she so much needed. During her absence Miss P---- and I carried on

the school. A few days after the storm a little native boy brought to

the seminary the shawl which had been washed from my shoulders the night

I went through the river. He had found it lying on the beach half a mile

below the ford. It had been washed out to sea and returned again by the

waves. After that we called it "the travelled shawl." Every Monday

morning the toot of the postman's horn was heard in the village, and one

of us immediately went across to get the mail. The bridge being gone, we

had to wade the river at the shallowest place, near the sea. When I

waded across on such occasions I usually found on the opposite shore a

group of half-naked little natives who drew near to watch with silent

interest the process of buttoning my shoes with a button-hook. The whole

school waded across to church on Sundays.

The population of the village, with the exception of two or three

families, was composed of natives and half-whites of the lower class.

Heathen superstition mingled with modern vice. In some instances men and

women lived together without the ceremony of marriage. Beyond the

village the cane-fields began, and beyond them, at the foot of the

mountains, lived a better class of natives, moral and industrious. Here,

too, were the cane-mills and the residences of the planters. I remember

one pretty little cottage with walls of braided grass and wooden roof

and floor, surrounded by cool, vine-shaded verandas. It stood in the

middle of a cane-plantation, and was the home of an Englishman and his

wife, both highly cultivated and genial, companionable people. He was a

typical Englishman in appearance, stout and ruddy, and wore a blue

flannel suit and the white head-covering worn by his countrymen in

India. She was a graceful little creature with appealing dark eyes, and

looked too frail to have ever borne hardship or cruelty, yet she had

known little else all her early life. She had been left an orphan in

England, and had been sent out to Australia to make her living as a

governess. She was thrown among brutal, coarse-mannered people, and

received harsh treatment and suffered many vicissitudes of fortune.

Finally, her husband met and loved and married her, and lifted her out

of that hard life into one which appeared by contrast a heaven of peace

and kindness and affection. She often said frankly, "That was the

happiest event of my life. I can never be thankful enough to him or love

him enough. Sometimes I dream I am back again enduring that dreadful

life in Australia, and when I wake and realize that I am here in our own

little cottage, thousands of miles from Australia, I am freshly happy

and grateful."

Near the foot of the mountains was a Catholic church and a school, round

which a little village had grown up. The self-sacrificing efforts of the

teachers have been productive of good among the natives, but there seems

little hope of any co-operation between the Protestant missionaries and

them.

When the time came for me to return to Honolulu, Miss P---- offered to

accompany me, and suggested that instead of returning by the way I came

we should take the longer way and complete the circuit of the island. As

the road lay directly along the sea-coast the entire distance, there was

no danger of our losing our way. Miss P---- rode Calico, the missionary

steed, and I hired a white horse of Nakaniella (Nathaniel), one of the

patrons of the school, choosing it in preference to a bay brought for my

inspection the night before we started by a sullen-looking native from

the village. When we had gone two or three miles on our way we heard the

sound of furious galloping behind us, and looking back saw this native,

with a face like a thunder-cloud, approaching us on his bay horse.

Reaching us, he insisted on my dismounting and taking his horse, saying

that I had promised to hire it the night before. Miss P----, being able

to speak Hawaiian, answered for me without slackening our pace. She

said, in reply to his demands, that the wahine haole had not promised to

take his horse; that she would not pay him for his time and trouble in

bringing over the horse that morning and riding after us; that he might

ride all the way to Honolulu with us or go to law about the matter, both

of which he threatened. Fuming with wrath, he rode along with us for a

mile or two, breathing out threatenings and slaughter in vigorous

Hawaiian: then, uttering the spiteful wish, "May your horses throw you

and break your necks!" he turned and rode back toward Waialua.

We passed through the ruins of a once-populous village: stone walls

bordered the road for a mile or more, and back of them were the stone

foundations of native houses and _heiaus_ (temples). Pandanus trees,

with roots like stilts or props that lifted them two or three feet from

the ground, grew inside the deserted enclosures: long grass waved from

the chinks and crevices. It was a mournful reminder of the decay of the

Hawaiian race. Just beyond the ruined village a sluggish creek flowed

into the sea. At the mouth of the valley whence it issued stood two or

three native huts. A man wearing a malo was up on the roof of one,

thatching it with grass. Riding near, we hailed him and inquired about a

quicksand which lay just ahead and which we must cross. He told us to

avoid the _makai_ side and keep to the _mouka_ side. We followed his

directions, and crossed in safety. For all practical purposes there are

but two directions in the islands--_mouka_, meaning toward the

mountains, and _makai_, toward the sea.

We rode all the forenoon over a level strip of grassy open country

bordering the sea, with here and there a native hut near a clump of

cocoanuts or a taro-patch. Toward noon we passed fenced pastures in

which many horses were grazing, and came in sight of a picturesque

cottage near the shore. Miss G---- had told us that on the lawn in front

of this cottage were two curious old stone idols which had been

discovered in a fish-pond, and we rode up to the gate intending to ask

permission to enter and look at them. A Chinese servant let us in, and

the owner, an Englishman who lived here during part of the year, came

and showed us the idols, and then invited us inside his pretty cottage

and gave us a lunch of bread and butter and guava jelly and oranges. The

walls and ceilings were of native wood, of the kinds used in delicate

cabinet-work and were polished until they shone. The floor was covered

with fine straw matting, and around the room were ranged easy-chairs and

sofas of willow and rattan. In one corner stood a piano in an ebony

case, and on a koa-wood centre-table were a number of fine photographs

and works of art. Hanging baskets filled with blooming plants hung in

each window and in the veranda. Altogether, it was the prettiest

hermitage imaginable.

Riding along that afternoon through a country much like that we had

passed over in the morning, we heard from a native hut the sound of the

mournful Hawaiian wail, "Auea! auea!" (pronounced like the word "away"

long drawn out). To our inquiry if any one was dead within, a woman

answered, "No, but that some friends had come from a distance on a

visit." I have frequently seen two Hawaiian friends or relations who had

not met for a long time express their emotions at seeing one another

again, not by kissing and laughing and joyful exclamations, but by

sitting down on the ground and wailing. Perhaps it was done in

remembrance of their long separation and of the changes that had taken

place during that time. The native mode of kissing consists in rubbing

noses together.

Not far from this place we passed a Mormon settlement, a little colony

sent out from Utah. The group of bare white buildings was some distance

back from the road, and we did not stop to visit them. Near by was a

_hou_-tree swamp, a spongy, marshy place where cattle were eating grass

that grew under water. They would reach down until their ears were

almost covered, take a mouthful and lift up their heads while they

chewed it. Thus far on our journey there had been a level plain two or

three miles wide between the sea and the mountains, but here the

mountains came close down to the sea, leaving only a little strip of

land along the beach. High, stern cliffs with strange profiles, such as

a lion, a canoe and a gigantic hen on her nest, frowned upon us as we

rode along their base. We passed a cold bubbling spring which had worn a

large basin for itself in the rock. It had formerly been the

bathing-place of a chief, and therefore taboo to the common people. In

one of our gallops along the beach my stirrup-strap broke, and we

stopped in front of a solitary hut to ask for a stout string. A squid

was drying on a pole and scenting the air with its fishy odors. In

answer to our call an old man in a calico shirt came out of the hut,

and, taking some strips of _hou_-bark, twisted them into a strong string

and fastened the stirrup. I gave him a real, and he exclaimed "Aloha!"

with apparently as much surprise and delight as if we had enriched him

for life.

We rode through a little village at the mouth of a beautiful green

valley, forded a river that ran through it, and passing under more high

cliffs came about four in the afternoon to Kahana, our stopping-place

for the night. It was a little cluster of houses at the head of a bay or

inlet of the sea, where the lovely transparent water was green as grass,

and stood in the opening of a valley enclosed by high, steep

mountain-walls, with sharp ridges down their sides clothed with rich

forests. All around us grew delicate, luxuriant ferns, of which there

are one hundred and fifty varieties in the islands. Along the shores of

the bay some women were wading, their dresses held above their knees,

picking shellfish and green sea-moss off the rocks for supper. We rode

up to the cottage of Kekoa, a native minister who had studied under Miss

P----'s father. His half-Chinese, half-native wife was in a grass hut at

the back of the house, and she came immediately to take our horses,

saying that her husband was at the church, but would be at home soon.

Then opening the door, she told us to go inside and rest ourselves. It

was a pretty cottage, with floors and walls of wood and a grass roof.

Braided mats of palm and pandanus-leaves were on the floor, and on the

walls hung portraits of the Hawaiian royal family and Generals Lee and

Grant. It had two rooms--a sitting-room and a bedroom--the first

furnished with a table and chairs, the latter with a huge high-posted

bedstead with a canopy over it. Altogether, it was much above the common

native houses, and was evidently not used every day, but kept for the

reception of guests--travelling ministers and the like.

When Kekoa came he welcomed us warmly on account of the attachment he

had for Miss P----'s father, and told us to consider the house ours as

long as it pleased us to stay. He sent his wife to catch a chicken, and

soon set before us on the table in the sitting-room a supper consisting

of boiled chicken, rice, baked taro, coarse salt from the bay, and

bananas. We overlooked the absence of bread, which the natives know not

of, and shared the use of the one knife and fork between us. Our host

waited on us, his wife bringing the food to the door and handing it to

him. After supper other natives came in, and Miss P---- conversed with

them in Hawaiian. Being tired and stiff from my long ride, I went into

the next room and lay down on the bed. Mrs. Kekoa came in presently and

began to lomi-lomi me. She kneaded me with her hands from head to foot,

just as a cook kneads dough, continuing the process for nearly an hour,

although I begged her several times to stop lest she should be tired. At

the end of that time all sensation of fatigue and stiffness was gone and

I felt fresh and well. Kekoa and his wife slept in a grass hut several

rods farther up the valley, and Miss P---- and I had the house to

ourselves. In the middle of the night we were awakened by the sound of a

man talking in through the open window of our room. We both thought for

a moment that it was our persecutor of the morning who had followed us

as he had threatened, but it proved to be a native from the head of the

valley who wanted to see Kekoa. Miss P---- directed him to the grass hut

where our host slept, and he went away, and we were not disturbed again.

Next morning we had breakfast like the supper, and asked for our horses.

Kekoa and his wife begged us to stay longer, but we could not, and

parted from them with much regret. We afterward sent them some large

photographs of scenes in Honolulu, and received an affectionate message

from them in return. I look back to Kahana as a sort of Happy Valley,

and dream sometimes of going back and seeing again its beautiful

pale-green bay, its glittering blue sea, its grand mountain-walls

clothed in richest verdure, and renewing my acquaintance with its

kind-hearted people. Several natives gathered to say good-bye, and two

of them rode with us out of the valley and saw us fairly on our way.

We rode past cane-plantations fenced with palm-tree trunks or hedged

with huge prickly pear; past thickets of wild indigo and castor bean;

through guava-jungles, where we pulled and ate the ripe fruit, yellow

outside and pink within; past large fish-ponds that had been constructed

for the chiefs in former days; past rice-fields where Chinese were

scaring away the birds; past threshing-floors where Chinese were

threshing rice; past _kamani_ trees (from Tahiti) that looked like

umbrellas slanting upward; past a flock of mina-birds brought from

Australia; past aloe-plants and vast thickets of red and yellow lantana

in blossom, reaching as high as our horses' necks.

We dismounted in front of a little grass hut where we heard the sound of

a tappa-pounder, and went to the door. An old native woman, with her

arms tattooed with India-ink, was sitting on a mat spread on the ground,

with a sheet of moist red tappa lying over a beam placed on the ground

in front of her, and a four-sided mallet in her hand. Beside her sat a

young half-white girl with a large tortoise-shell comb in her hair and a

fat little dog in her arms. We asked if we could come in and see the

tappa. The old woman said "Yes," and displayed it with some pride. She

was making it to give to Queen Emma, hence the pains she was taking with

the coloring and the pattern. The bark of a shrub resembling our pawpaw

tree is steeped in water until it becomes a mass of pulp. Then it is

laid on the heavy beam and beaten with the tappa-pounder, and pulled and

stretched until it becomes a square sheet with firm edges, about as

thick as calico and six or eight feet square. The juice of berries or

dye from the bark of trees furnishes the coloring, and the pattern is

determined by the figures cut in the tappa-pounder. Some fine mats

rolled-up in one corner and some braided baskets on the wall were also

the work of this tappa-maker.

We passed through several villages as we neared our journey's end, and

the scenery grew more interesting. The palm trees on the beach framed

views of little islands bathed in sea-mist which lay half a mile or more

from the shore. Narrow green valleys with high steep walls, down whose

sides flashed bright waterfalls, opened to view one after another on the

mouka or inland side. At the mouth of one we saw a twig of _ohia_, or

native apple tree, placed carefully between two stones. Some

superstitious native had put it there as an offering, that the goddess

of that valley might not roll down rocks on him and kill him. The Pali,

a stupendous perpendicular cliff four thousand feet high, faces the sea

a few miles from Honolulu. We came in sight of it early in the

afternoon, and stopped on a grassy knoll near a clear stream to eat our

lunch and allow our horses to graze. The hardest part of the whole

journey lay immediately before us. A zigzag path has been cut up the

face of the cliff, but it is so steep and narrow that carriages cannot

pass over it, and it is with much exertion and heavy panting that it can

be climbed by man or beast. The face of the cliff is hung with vines and

ferns, and at its base grow palms and the rich vegetation of the

tropics. It is the grandest bit of scenery on Oahu. We rode our horses

to the foot of the Pali: then, out of compassion for them, dismounted

and led them up the long steep path, stopping several times to rest. On

the way some natives passed us on horseback, racing up the Pali! At the

top we stood a while in silence, gazing at the magnificent prospect

spread out below us. We could see miles of the road we had

come--silvery-green cane-plantations, little villages with white

church-spires, rich groves of palm, kukui and koa, and the sea rising

like a dark blue wall all around the horizon. Then we mounted and turned

our faces toward Honolulu. On either side were lofty mountain-walls,

with perpendicular sides clothed with vivid green and hung with silvery

waterfalls. We were entering the city by Nuannu ("Cold Spring") Valley,

the most delightful and fashionable suburb. Here were Queen Emma's

residence, set in the midst of extensive and beautiful grounds, the

Botanical Gardens, the residence of the American minister, the royal

mausoleum and the house and gardens once occupied by Kalumma, a former

queen. Crowds of gayly-dressed natives galloped past us as we neared the

city, wearing wreaths of fern and flowers. One man carried a half-grown

pig in a rope net attached to his stirrup: it looked tired of life. So,

under the arching algaroba and monkey-pod trees that shade Nuannu

Avenue, and past the royal palms that grace the yards, we rode into

beautiful Honolulu.

LOUISE COFFIN JONES.

FINDELKIND OF MARTINSWAND: A CHILD'S STORY.

There was a little boy a year or two since who lived under the shadow of

Martinswand. Most people know, I should suppose, that the Martinswand is

that mountain in the Oberinnthal where, several centuries ago, brave

Kaiser Max lost his footing as he stalked the chamois and fell upon a

ledge of rock, and stayed there, in mortal peril, for thirty hours, till

he was rescued by the strength and agility of a Tyrol hunter--an angel

in the guise of a hunter, as the chronicles of the time prefer to say.

The Martinswand is a grand mountain, being one of the spurs of the

greater Sonnstein, and rises precipitously, looming, massive and lofty,

like a very fortress for giants, where it stands right across that road

which, if you follow it long enough, takes you on through Zirl to

Landeck--old, picturesque, poetic Landeck, where Frederic of the Empty

Pockets rhymed his sorrows in ballads to his people--and so on, by

Bludenz, into Switzerland itself, by as noble a highway as any traveller

can ever desire to traverse on a summer's day. The Martinswand is within

a mile of the little burg of Zirl, where the people, in the time of

their kaiser's peril, came out with torches and bells, and the Host

lifted up by their priest, and all prayed on their knees underneath the

gaunt pile of limestone, which is the same to-day as it was then, whilst

Kaiser Max is dust. The Martinswand soars up very steep and very

majestic, bare stone at its base and all along its summit crowned with

pine woods; and on the other side of the road that runs onward to Zirl

are a little stone church, quaint and low, and gray with age, and a

stone farm-house and cattle-sheds and timber-sheds of wood that is

darkly brown from time; and beyond these are some of the most beautiful

meadows in the world, full of tall grass and countless flowers, with

pools and little estuaries made by the brimming Inn River that flows by

them, and beyond the river the glaciers of the Sonnstein and the Selrain

and the wild Arlberg region, and the golden glow of sunset in the west,

most often seen from here through a veil of falling rain.

At this farm-house, with Martinswand towering above it and Zirl a mile

beyond, there lived, and lives still, a little boy who bears the old

historical name of Findelkind. His father, Otto Korner, was the last of

a sturdy race of yeomen who had fought with Hofer and Haspinger, and had

been free men always.

Findelkind came in the middle of seven other children, and was a pretty

boy of nine years old, with slenderer limbs and paler cheeks than his

rosy brethren, and tender, dreamy, dark-blue eyes that had the look, his

mother told him, of seeking stars in midday--_de chercher midi a

quatorze heures_, as the French have it. He was a good little lad, and

seldom gave any trouble from disobedience, though he often gave it from

forgetfulness. His father angrily complained that he was always in the

clouds--that is, he was always dreaming--and so very often would spill

the milk out of the pails, chop his own fingers instead of the wood, and

stay watching the swallows when he was sent to draw water. His brothers

and sisters were always making fun of him: they were sturdier, ruddier

and merrier children than he was, loved romping and climbing and

nutting, thrashing the walnut trees and sliding down snow-drifts, and

got into mischief of a more common and childish sort than Findelkind's

freaks of fancy. For indeed he was a very fanciful little boy:

everything around had tongues for him, and he would sit for hours among

the long rushes on the river's edge, trying to imagine what the wild

green-gray water had found in its wanderings, and asking the water-rats

and the ducks to tell him about it; but both rats and ducks were too

busy to attend to an idle little boy, and never spoke, which vexed him.

Findelkind, however, was very fond of his books: he would study day and

night in his little ignorant, primitive fashion. He loved his missal and

his primer, and could spell them both out very fairly, and was learning

to write of a good priest in Zirl, where he trotted three times a week

with his two little brothers. When not at school he was chiefly set to

guard the sheep and the cows, which occupation left him very much to

himself, so that he had many hours in the summer-time to stare up to

the skies and wonder, wonder, wonder about all sorts of things; while in

the winter--the long, white, silent winter, when the post-wagons ceased

to run, and the road into Switzerland was blocked, and the whole world

seemed asleep except for the roaring of the winds--Findelkind, who still

trotted over the snow to school in Zirl, would dream still, sitting on

the wooden settle by the fire when he came home again under Martinswand.

For the worst--or the best--of it all was that he was Findelkind also.

This was what was always haunting him. He was Findelkind, and to bear

this name seemed to him to mark him out from all other children and

dedicate him to Heaven. One day three years before, when he had been

only six years old, the priest in Zirl, who was a very kindly and

cheerful man, and amused the children as much as he taught them, had not

allowed Findelkind to leave the school to go home because the storm of

snow and wind was so violent, but had kept him until the worst should

pass, with one or two other little lads who lived some way off, and had

let the boys roast apples and chestnuts by the stove in his little room,

and while the wind howled and the blinding snow fell without had told

the children the story of another Findelkind, an earlier Findelkind, who

had lived in the flesh as far back as 1381, and had been a little

shepherd-lad--"just like you," said the good man, looking at the little

boys munching their roast crabs--"over there, above Stuben, where Danube

and Rhine meet and part." The pass of Arlberg is even still so bleak and

bitter that few care to climb there: the mountains around are drear and

barren, and snow lies till midsummer, and even longer sometimes. "But in

the early ages," said the priest--and this is quite a true tale, which

the children heard with open eyes, and mouths only not open because they

were full of crabs and chestnuts,--"in the early ages," said the priest

to them, "the Arlberg was far more dreary than it is now. There was only

a mule-track over it, and no refuge for man or beast; so that wanderers

and peddlers, and those whose need for work or desire for battle

brought them over that frightful pass, perished in great numbers and

were eaten by the bears and the wolves. The little shepherd-boy,

Findelkind--who was a little boy five hundred years ago, remember,"

added the priest--"was sorely disturbed and distressed to see those poor

dead souls in the snow winter after winter, and to see the blanched

bones lie on the bare earth unburied when summer melted the snow. It

made him unhappy, very unhappy; and what could he do, he a little boy

keeping sheep? He had as his wage two florins a year--that was all--but

his heart rose high and he had faith in God. Little as he was, he said

to himself he would try and do something, so that year after year those

poor lost travellers and beasts should not perish so. He said nothing to

anybody, but he took the few florins he had saved up, bade his master

farewell and went on his way begging--a little fourteenth-century boy,

with long, straight hair and a girdled tunic, as you see them,"

continued the priest, "in the miniatures in the black-letter missal that

lies upon my desk. No doubt Heaven favored him very strongly, and the

saints watched over him; still, without the boldness of his own courage

and the faith in his own heart they would not have done so. I suppose,

too, that when knights in their armor and soldiers in their camps saw

such a little fellow all alone they helped him, and perhaps struck some

blows for him, and so sped him on his way and protected him from robbers

and from wild beasts. Still, be sure that the real shield and the real

reward that served Findelkind of Arlberg was the pure and noble purpose

that armed him night and day. Now, history does not tell us where

Findelkind went, nor how he fared, nor how long he was about it, but

history _does_ tell us that the little barefooted, long-haired boy,

knocking so boldly at castle-gates and city-walls in the name of Christ

and Christ's poor brethren, did so well succeed in his quest that before

long he had returned to his mountain-home with means to have a church

and a rude dwelling built, where he lived with six other brave and

charitable souls, dedicating themselves to St. Christopher, and going

out night and day, to the sound of the Angelus, seeking the lost and

weary. This is really what Findelkind of Arlberg did five centuries ago,

and did so well that his fraternity of St. Christopher twenty years

after numbered amongst its members archdukes, prelates and knights

without number, and lasted as a great order down to the days of Joseph

II. This is what Findelkind in the fourteenth century did, I tell you.

Bear like faith in your hearts, my children, and, though your generation

is a harder one than his, because it is without faith, yet you shall

move mountains, because Christ and St. Christopher will be with you."

Then the good man, having said that, blessed them and left them alone to

their chestnuts and crabs and went into his own oratory to prayer. The

other boys laughed and chattered, but Findelkind sat very quietly

thinking of his namesake all the day after, and for many days and weeks

and months this story haunted him. A little boy had done all that, and

this little boy had been called Findelkind--Findelkind, just like

himself.

It was a beautiful story, and yet it tortured him. If the good man had

known how the history would root itself in the child's mind perhaps he

would never have told it, for night and day it vexed Findelkind, and yet

seemed beckoning to him and crying, "Go, thou, and do likewise!"

But what could he do?

There was the snow, indeed, and there were the mountains, as in the

fourteenth century, but there were no travellers lost. The diligence did

not go into Switzerland after autumn, and the country-people who went by

on their mules and in their sledges to Innspruck knew their way very

well, and were never likely to be adrift on a winter's night or eaten by

a wolf or a bear.

When spring came Findelkind sat by the edge of the bright pure water

amongst the flowering grasses and felt his head heavy. Findelkind of

Arlberg, who was in heaven now, must look down, he fancied, and think

him so stupid and so selfish sitting there. The first Findelkind a few

centuries before had trotted down on his bare feet from his

mountain-pass, and taken his little crook and gone out boldly over all

the land on his pilgrimage, and knocked at castle-gates and city-walls

in Christ's name and for love of the poor. That was to do something

indeed!

This poor little living Findelkind would look at the miniatures in the

priest's missal, in one of which there was the fourteenth-century boy

with long hanging hair and a wallet and bare feet, and he never doubted

that it was the portrait of the blessed Findelkind who was in heaven;

and he wondered if he looked like a little boy there or if he were

changed to the likeness of an angel.

"He was a boy just like me," thought the poor little fellow; and he felt

so ashamed of himself, so much ashamed; and the priest had told him to

try and do the same. He brooded over it so much, and it made him so

anxious and so vexed, that his brothers ate his porridge and he did not

notice it, his sisters pulled his curls and he did not feel it, his

father brought a stick down on his back and he only started and stared,

and his mother cried because he was losing his mind and would grow daft,

and even his mother's tears he scarcely saw. He was always thinking of

Findelkind in heaven.

When he went for water he spilt one half; when he did his lessons, he

forgot the chief part; when he drove out the cow, he let her munch the

cabbages; and when he was set to watch the oven, he let the loaves burn,

like great Alfred. He was always busied thinking, "Little Findelkind

that is in heaven did so great a thing: why may not I? I ought! I

ought!" What was the use of being named after Findelkind that was in

heaven unless one did something great too?

Next to the church there is a little stone sort of shed with two arched

openings, and from it you look into the tiny church with its crucifixes

and relics, or out to great, bold, sombre Martinswand, as you like best;

and in this spot Findelkind would sit hour after hour while his brothers

and sisters were playing, and look up at the mountains or on to the

altar, and wish and pray and vex his little soul most woefully; and his

ewes and his lambs would crop the grass about the entrance, and bleat to

make him notice them and lead them farther afield, but all in vain. Even

the dear sheep he hardly heeded, and his pet ewes Katte and Greta and

the big ram Zips rubbed their soft noses in his hand unnoticed. So the

summer passed away--the summer that is so short in the mountains, and

yet so green and so radiant, with the torrents tumbling through the

flowers, and the hay tossing in the meadows, and the lads and lasses

climbing to cut the rich sweet grass of the alps. The short summer

passed as fast as a dragon-fly flashes by, all green and gold, in the

sun; and it was near autumn once more, and still Findelkind was always

dreaming and wondering what he could do for the good of St. Christopher;

and the longing to do it all came more and more into his little heart,

and he puzzled his brain till his head ached.

One autumn morning, whilst yet it was dark, Findelkind made up his mind,

and rose before his brothers and stole down stairs and out into the air,

as it was easy to do, because the house-door never was bolted. He had

nothing with him, he was barefooted, and his school-satchel was slung

behind him, as Findelkind of Arlberg's wallet had been five centuries

before. He took a little staff from the piles of wood lying about, and

went out on to the highroad, on his way to do Heaven's will. He was not

very sure--but that was because he was only nine years old and not very

wise--but Findelkind that was in heaven had begged for the poor: so

would he.