CHAPTER III.

A VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY.

A golden sunbeam was shining through a crevice in the blinds; the birds were twittering in the ivy outside; oxen were lowing to each other across the park. Morning, with all her music, was abroad.

I started up in bed and rubbed my eyes. Within the house everything was as mute as the grave. That horrible tramping overhead had ceased—had ceased, doubtless, with the return of daylight, which would otherwise have shifted it from the region of the weird to that of the commonplace. I smiled to myself as I thought of my terrors of the past night, and felt brave enough just then to have faced a thousand ghosts. In another minute I was out of bed, and had drawn up my blind, and flung open my window, and was drinking in the sweet peaceful scene that stretched away before me in long level lines to the edge of a far-off horizon.

My window was high up and looked out at the front of the hall. Immediately below me was a semicircular lawn, shut in from the park by an invisible fence, close shaven, and clumped with baskets of flowers glowing just now with all the brilliance of late autumn. The main entrance—a flight of shallow steps, and an Ionic portico, as I afterwards found—was at one end of the building, and was reached by a long straight carriage drive, the route of which could be traced across the park by the thicker growth of trees with which it was fringed. This park stretched to right and left for a mile either way. In front, it was bounded, a short half-mile away, by the high road, beyond which were level wide-stretching meadows, through which the river Adair washed slow and clear.

But chief of all this morning I wanted to be down among the flowers. I made haste to wash and dress, taking an occasional peep through the window as I did so, and trying to entice the birds from their hiding-places in the ivy. Then I opened my bed-room door, and then, in view of the great landing outside, I paused. Several doors, all except mine now closed, gave admittance from this landing to different rooms. Both landing and stairs were made of oak, black and polished with age. One broad flight of stairs, with heavy carved banisters, pointed the way below; a second and narrower flight led to the regions above. As a matter of course I chose the former, but not till after a minute's hesitation as to whether I should venture to leave my room at all before I should be called. But my desire to see the baskets of flowers prevailed over everything else. I closed my door gently and hurried down.

I found myself in the entrance-hall of Deepley Walls, into which I had been ushered on my arrival. There were the two curtained doorways through which Lady Chillington had come and gone. For the rest, it was a gloomy place enough, with its flagged floor, and its diamond-paned windows high up in the semicircular roof. A few rusty full-lengths graced the walls; the stairs were guarded by two effigies in armour; a marble bust of one of the Caesars stood on a high pedestal in the middle of the floor; and that was all.

I was glad to get away from this dismal spot and to find myself in the passage which led to the housekeeper's room. I opened the door and looked in, but the room was vacant. Farther along the same passage I found the kitchen and other domestic offices. The kitchen clock was just on the point of six as I went in. One servant alone had come down. From her I inquired my way into the garden, and next minute I was on the lawn. The close-cropped grass was wet with the heavy dew; but my boots were thick and I heeded it not, for the flowers were there within my very grasp.

Oh, those flowers! can I ever forget them? I have seen none so beautiful since. There can be none so beautiful out of Paradise.

One spray of scarlet geranium was all that I ventured to pluck. But the odours and the colours were there for all comers, and were as much mine for the time being as if the flowers themselves had belonged to me. Suddenly I turned and glanced up at the many-windowed house with a sort of guilty consciousness that I might possibly be doing wrong. But the house was still asleep—closed shutters or down-drawn blind at every window. I saw before me a substantial-looking red-brick mansion, with a high slanting roof, of not undignified appearance now that it was mellowed by age, but with no pretensions to architectural beauty. The sole attempt at outside ornamentation consisted of a few flutings of white stone, reaching from the ground to the second floor, and terminating in oval shields of the same material, on which had originally been carved the initials of the builder and the date of erection; but the summer's sun and the winter's rain of many a long year had rubbed both letters and figures carefully out. Long afterwards I knew that Deepley Walls had been built in the reign of the Third William by a certain Squire Chillington of that date, "out of my own head," as he himself put it in a quaint document still preserved among the family archives; and rather a muddled head it must have been in matters architectural.

After this, I ventured round by the main entrance, with its gravelled carriage sweep, to the other side of the house, where I found a long flagged terrace bordered with large evergreens in tubs placed at frequent intervals. On to this terrace several French windows opened—the windows, as I found later in the day, of Lady Chillington's private rooms. To the left of this terrace stood a plantation of young trees, through which a winding path that opened by a wicket into the private grounds invited me to penetrate. Through the green gloom I advanced bravely, my heart beating with all the pleasure of one who was exploring some unknown land. I saw no living thing by the way, save two grey rabbits that scuttered across my path and vanished in the undergrowth on the other side. Pretty frisky creatures! how I should like to have caught them, and fed them, and made pets of them as long as they lived!

Two or three hundred yards farther on the path ended with another wicket, now locked, which opened into the high road. About a mile away I could discern the roofs and chimneys of a little town. When I got back to the hall I found dear old Dance getting rather anxious at my long absence, but she brightened into smiles when I kissed her and told her where I had been.

"You must have slept well, or you would hardly look so rosy this morning," she said as we sat down to breakfast.

"I should have slept very well if I had not been troubled by the ghosts."

"Ghosts! my dear Miss Janet? You do not mean to say—" and the old lady's cheek paled suddenly, and her cup rattled in her saucer as she held it.

"I mean to say that Deepley Walls is haunted by two ghosts, one of which came and kissed me last night when I was asleep; while the other one was walking nearly all night in the room over mine."

Dance's face brightened, but still wore a puzzled expression. "You must have dreamed that someone kissed you, dear," she said. "If you were asleep you could not know anything about it."

"But I was awakened by it, and I am positive that it was no dream." Then I told her what few particulars there were to tell.

"For the future we must lock your bed-room door," she said.

"Then I should be more frightened than ever. Besides, a real ghost would not be kept out by locking the door."

"Well, dear, tell me if you are disturbed in the same way again. But as for the tramping you heard in the room overhead, that is easily explained. It was no ghost that you heard walking, but Lady Chillington." Then, seeing my look of astonishment, she went on to explain. "You see, my dear Miss Janet, her ladyship is a very peculiar person, and does many things that to commonplace people like you and me may seem rather strange. One of these little peculiarities is her fondness for walking about the room over yours at night. Now, if she likes to do this, I know of no reason why she should not do it. It is a little whim that does no harm to anybody; and as the house and everything in it are her own, she may surely please herself in such a trifle."

"But what is there in the room that she should prefer it to any other in the house for walking in by night?"

"What—is—there—in the room?" said the old lady, staring at me across the table with a strange, frightened look in her eyes. "What a curious question! The room is a common room, of course, with nothing in it out of the ordinary way; only, as I said before, it happens to be Lady Chillington's whim to walk there. So, if you hear the noise again, you will know how to account for it, and will have too much good sense to feel in the least afraid."

I had a half consciousness that Dance was prevaricating with me in this matter, or hiding something from me; but I was obliged to accept her version as the correct one, especially as I saw that any further questioning would be of no avail.

I did not see Lady Chillington that day. She was reported to be unwell, and kept her own rooms.

About noon a message came from Sister Agnes that she would like to see me in her room. When I entered she was standing by a square oak table, resting one hand on it while the other was pressed to her heart. Her face was very pale, but her dark eyes beamed on me with a veiled tenderness that I could not misinterpret.

"Good-morrow, Miss Hope," she said, offering her white slender hand for my acceptance. "I fear that you will find Deepley Walls even duller than Park Hill Seminary."

Her tone was cold and constrained. I looked up earnestly into her face. Her lips began to quiver painfully. "Child! child! you must not look at me in that way," she cried.

Instinct whispered something in my ear. "You are the lady who came and kissed me when I was asleep!" I exclaimed.

Her brow contracted for a moment as if she were in pain. A hectic spot came out suddenly on either cheek, and vanished almost as swiftly. "Yes, it was I who came to your room last night," she said. "You are not vexed with me for doing so?"

"On the contrary, I love you for it."

Her smile, the sweetest I ever saw, beamed out at this. Gently she stroked my hair. "You looked so forlorn and weary last night," she said, "that after I got to bed I could not help thinking about you. I was afraid you would not be able to sleep in a strange place, so I could not rest till I had visited you: but I never intended to awake you."

"I do not mind how often I am awakened in the same way," I said. "No one has ever seemed to love me but you, and I cannot help loving you back."

"My poor child!" was all she said. We had sat down by this time close to the window, and Sister Agnes was holding one of my hands in hers and caressing it gently as she gazed dreamily across the park. My eyes, child-like, wandered from her to the room and then back again. The picture still lives in my memory as fresh as though it had been limned but yesterday.

A square whitewashed room, fitted up with furniture of unpolished oak. On the walls a few proof engravings of subjects taken from Sacred History. A small bookcase in one corner, and a prie-dieu in another. The floor uncarpeted, but polished after the French fashion. A writing-table; a large workbox; a heap of clothing for the poor; and lastly, a stand for flowers.

The features of Sister Agnes were as delicate and clearly cut as those of some antique statue, but their habitual expression was one of intense melancholy. Her voice was low and gracious: the voice of a refined and educated gentlewoman. Her hair was black, with here and there a faint silver streak; but the peculiar head-dress of white linen which she wore left very little of it visible. Disfiguring as this head-dress might have been to many people, in her case it served merely to enhance the marble whiteness and transparent purity of her complexion. Her eyebrows were black and well-defined; but as for the eyes themselves, I can only repeat what I said before—that their dark depths were full of tenderness and a sort of veiled enthusiasm difficult to describe in words. Her dress was black, soft and coarse, relieved by deep cuffs of white linen. Her solitary ornament, if ornament it could be called, was a rosary of black beads. Not without reason have I been thus particular in describing Sister Agnes and her surroundings, as they who read will discover for themselves by-and-by.

Sister Agnes woke up from her reverie with a sigh, and began talking to me about my schooldays and my mode of life at Park Hill Seminary. It was a pleasure to me to talk, because I felt it was a pleasure to her to listen to me. And she let me talk on and on for I can't tell how long, only putting in a question now and again, till she knew almost as much about Miss Chinfeather and Park Hill as I knew myself. But she never seemed to grow weary. We were sitting close together, and after a time I felt her arm steal gently round my waist, pressing me closer still; and so, with my head nestling against her shoulder, I talked on, heedless of the time. O happy afternoon!

It was broken by a summons for Sister Agnes from Lady Chillington. "To-morrow, if the weather hold fine, we will go to Charke Forest and gather blackberries," said Sister Agnes as she gave me a parting kiss.

That night I went early to bed, and never woke till daybreak.



CHAPTER IV.

SCARSDALE WEIR.

I was up betimes next morning, long before Sister Agnes could possibly be ready to take me to the forest. So I took my sewing into the garden, and found a pleasant sunny nook, where I sat and worked till breakfast time. The meal was scarcely over when Sister Agnes sent for me. It made my heart leap with pleasure to see how her beautiful, melancholy face lighted up at my approach. Why should she feel such an interest in one whom she had never seen till a few hours ago? The question was one I could not answer; I could only recognise the fact and be thankful.

The morning was delicious: sunny, without being oppressive; while in the shade there was a faint touch of austerity like the first breath of coming winter. A walk of two miles brought us to the skirts of the forest, and in five minutes after quitting the high road we might have been a hundred miles away from any habitation, so utterly lost and buried from the outer world did we seem to be. Already the forest paths were half hidden by fallen leaves, which rustled pleasantly under our feet. By-and-by we came to a pretty opening in the wood, where some charitable soul had erected a rude rustic seat that was more than half covered with the initials of idle wayfarers. Here Sister Agnes sat down to rest. She had brought a volume of poems with her, and while she read I wandered about, never going very far away, feasting on the purple blackberries, finding here and there a late-ripened cluster of nuts, trying to find out a nest or two among the thinned foliage, and enjoying myself in a quiet way much to my heart's content.

I don't think Sister Agnes read much that morning. Her gaze was oftener away from her book than on it. After a time she came and joined me in gathering nuts and blackberries. She seemed brighter and happier than I had hitherto seen her, entering into all my little projects with as much eagerness as though she were herself a child. How soon I had learned to love her! Why had I lived all those dreary years at Park Hill without knowing her? But I could never again feel quite so lonely—never quite such an outcast from that common household love which all the girls I had known seemed to accept as a matter of course. Even if I should unhappily be separated from Sister Agnes, I could not cease to love her; and although I had seen her for the first time barely forty-eight hours ago, my child's instinct told me that she possessed that steadfastness, sweet and strong, which allows no name that has once been written on its heart to be erased therefrom for ever.

My thoughts were running in some such groove, but they were all as tangled and confused as the luxuriant undergrowth around me. It must have been out of this confusion that the impulse arose which caused me to address a question to Sister Agnes that startled her as much as if a shell had exploded at her feet.

"Dear Sister Agnes," I said, "you seem to know my history, and all about me. Did you know my papa and mamma?"

She dropped the leaf that held her fruit, and turned on me a haggard, frightened face that made my own grow pale.

"What makes you think that I know your history?" she stammered out.

"You who are so intimate with Lady Chillington must know why I was brought to Deepley Walls: you must know something about me. If you know anything about my father and mother, oh! do please tell me; please do!"

"I am tired, Janet. Let us sit down," she said, wearily. So, hand in hand, we went back to the rustic seat and sat down.

She sat for a minute or two without speaking, gazing straight before her into some far-away forest vista, but seeing only with that inner eye which searches through the dusty chambers of heart and brain whenever some record of the past has to be brought forth to answer the questions of to-day.

"I do know your history, dear child," she said at length, "and both your parents were friends of mine."

"Were! Then neither of them is alive?"

"Alas! no. They have been dead many years. Your father was drowned in one of the Italian lakes. Your mother died a year afterwards."

All the sweet vague hopes that I had cherished in secret, ever since I could remember anything, of some day finding at least one of my parents alive, died out utterly as Sister Agnes said these words. My heart seemed to faint within me. I flung myself into her arms, and burst into tears.

Very tenderly and lovingly, with sweet caresses and words of comfort, did Sister Agnes strive to win me back to cheerfulness. Her efforts were not unsuccessful, and after a time I grew calmer and recovered my self-possession; and as soon as so much was accomplished we set out on our return to Deepley Walls.

As we rose to go, I said, "Since you have told me so much, Sister Agnes, will you not also tell me why I have been brought to Deepley Walls, and why Lady Chillington has anything to do with me?"

"That is a question, dear Janet, which I cannot answer," she said. "I am bound to Lady Chillington by a solemn promise not to reveal to you the nature of the secret bond which has brought you under her roof. That she has your welfare at heart you may well believe, and that it is to your interest to please her in every possible way is equally certain. More than this I dare not say, except there are certain pages of your history, some of them of a very painful character, which it would not be advisable that you should read till you shall be many years older than you are now. Meanwhile rest assured that in Lady Chillington, however eccentric she may seem to be, you have a firm and powerful friend; while in me, who have neither influence nor power, you have one who simply loves you, and prays night and day for your welfare."

"And you will never cease to love me, will you?" I said, just as we stepped out of the forest into the high road.

She took both my hands in hers and looked me straight in the face. "Never, while I live, Janet Hope, can I cease to love you," she said. Then we kissed and went on our way towards Deepley Walls.

"You are to dine with her ladyship to-day, Miss Janet," said Dance the same afternoon. "We must look out your best bib and tucker."

Dance seemed to think that a mighty honour was about to be conferred upon me, but for my own part I would have given much to forego the distinction. However, there was no help for it, so I submitted quietly to having my hair dressed and to being inducted into my best frock. I was dreadfully abashed when the footman threw open the dining-room door and announced in a loud voice, "Miss Janet Hope."

Dinner had just been served, and her ladyship was waiting. I advanced up the room and made my curtsey. Lady Chillington looked at me grimly, without relaxing a muscle, and then extended a lean forefinger, which I pressed respectfully. The butler indicated a chair, and I sat down. Next moment Sister Agnes glided in through a side door, and took her place at the table, but considerably apart from Lady Chillington and me. I felt infinitely relieved by her presence.

Her ladyship looked as elaborately youthful, with her pink cheeks, her black wig, and her large white teeth, as on the evening of my arrival at Deepley Walls. But her hands shook a little, making the diamonds on her fingers scintillate in the candlelight as she carried her food to her mouth, and this was a sign of age which not all the art in the world could obviate. The table was laid out with a quantity of old-fashioned plate; indeed, the plate was out of all proportion to the dinner, which consisted of nothing more elaborate than some mutton broth, a roast pullet and a custard. But there was a good deal of show, and we were waited on assiduously by a respectable but fatuous-looking butler. There was no wine brought out, but some old ale was poured into her ladyship's glass from a silver flagon. Sister Agnes had a small cover laid apart from ours. Her dinner consisted of herbs, fruit, bread and water. It pained me to see that the look of intense melancholy which had lightened so wonderfully during our forest walk had again overshadowed her face like a veil. She gave me one long, earnest look as she took her seat at the table, but after that she seemed scarcely to be aware of my presence.

We had sat in grim silence for full five minutes, when Lady Chillington spoke.

"Can you speak French, child?" she said, turning abruptly to me.

"I can read it a little, but I cannot speak it," I replied.

"Nor understand what is said when it is spoken in your presence?"

"No, ma'am."

"So much the better," she answered with a grating laugh. "Children have long ears, and there is no freedom of conversation when they are present." With that she addressed some remarks in French to Sister Agnes, who replied to her in the same language. I knew nothing about my ears being long, but her ladyship's words had made them tingle as if they had been boxed. For one thing I was thankful—that no further remarks were addressed to me during dinner. The conversation in French became animated, and I had leisure to think of other things.

Dinner was quickly over, and at a signal from her ladyship, the folding doors were thrown open, and we defiled into the Green Saloon, I bringing up the rear meekly. On the table were fruit and flowers, and one small bottle of some light wine. The butler filled her ladyship's glass, and then withdrew.

"You can take a pear, little girl," said Lady Chillington. Accordingly I took a pear, but when I had got it I was too timid to eat it, and could do nothing but hold it between my hot palms. Had I been at Park Hill Seminary, I should soon have made my teeth meet in the fruit; but I was not certain as to the proper mode of eating pears in society.

Lady Chillington placed her glass in her eye and examined me critically.

"Haie! haie!" she said. "That good Chinfeather has not quite eradicated our gaucherie, it seems. We are deficient in ease and aplomb. What is the name of that Frenchwoman, Agnes, who 'finished' Lady Kinbuck's girls?"

"You mean Madame Delclos."

"The same. Look out her address to-morrow, and remind me that you write to her. If mademoiselle here remain in England, she will grow up weedy, and will never learn to carry her shoulders properly. Besides, the child has scarcely two words to say for herself. A little Parisian training may prove beneficial. At her age a French girl of family would be a little duchess in bearing and manners, even though she had never been outside the walls of her pension. How is such an anomaly to be accounted for? It is possible that the atmosphere may have something to do with it."

Here was fresh food for wonder, and for such serious thought as my age admitted of. I was to be sent to a school in France! I could not make up my mind whether to be sorry or glad. In truth, I was neither wholly the one nor the other; the tangled web of my feelings was something altogether beyond my skill to unravel.

Lady Chillington sipped her wine absently awhile; Sister Agnes was busy with some fine needlework; and I was striving to elaborate a giant and his attendant dwarf out of the glowing embers and cavernous recesses of the wood fire, while there was yet an underlying vein of thought at work in my mind which busied itself desultorily with trying to piece together all that I had ever heard or read of life in a French school.

"You can run away now, little girl. You are de trop," said her ladyship, turning on me in her abrupt fashion. "And you, Agnes, may as well read to me a couple of chapters out of the 'Girondins.' What a wonderful man was that Robespierre! What a giant! Had he but lived, how different the history of Europe would have been from what we know it to-day."

I could almost have kissed her ladyship of my own accord, so pleased was I to get away. I made my curtsey to her, and also to Sister Agnes, whose only reply was a sweet, sad smile, and managed to preserve my dignity till I was out of the room. But when the door was safely closed behind me, I ran, I flew along the passages till I reached the housekeeper's room. Dance was not there, neither had candles yet been lighted. The bright moonlight pouring in through the window gave me a new idea.

I had not yet been down to look at the river! What time could be better than the present one for such a purpose? I had heard some of the elder girls at Park Hill talk of the delights of boating by moonlight. Boating in the present case was out of the question, but there was the river itself to be seen. Taking my hat and scarf, I let myself out by a side door, and then sped away across the park like a hunted fawn, not forgetting to take an occasional bite at her ladyship's pear. To-night, for a wonder, my mind seemed purged of all those strange fears and stranger fancies engendered in it, some people would say, by superstition, while others would hold that they were merely the effects of a delicate nervous organisation and over-excitable brain re-acting one upon the other. Be that as it may, for this night they had left me, and I skipped on my way as fearlessly as though I were walking at mid-day, and with a glorious sense of freedom working within me, such, only in a more intense degree, as I had often felt on our rare holidays at school.

There was a right of public footpath across one corner of the park. Tracking this narrow white ribbon through the greensward, I came at length to a stile which admitted me into the high road. Exactly opposite was a second stile, opening on a second footpath, which I felt sure could lead to nowhere but the river. Nor was I mistaken. In another five minutes I was on the banks of the Adair.

To my child's eye, the scene was one of exquisite beauty. To-day, I should probably call it flat and wanting in variety. The equable full-flowing river was lighted up by a full and unclouded moon. The undergrowth that fringed its banks was silver-foliaged; silver-white rose the mists in the meadows. Silence everywhere, save for the low liquid murmur of the river itself, which seemed burdened with some love secret, centuries old, which it was vainly striving to tell in articulate words.

The burden of the beauty lay upon me and saddened me. I wandered slowly along the bank, watching the play of moonlight on the river. Suddenly I saw a tiny boat that was moored to an overhanging willow, and floated out the length of its chain towards the middle of the stream. I looked around. Not a creature of any kind was visible. Then I thought to myself: "How pleasant it would be to sit out there in the boat for a little while. And surely no one could be angry with me for taking such a liberty—not even the owner of the boat, if he were to find me there."

No sooner said than done. I went down to the edge of the river and drew the boat inshore by the chain that held it. Then I stepped gingerly in, half-frightened at my own temerity, and sat down. The boat glided slowly out again to the length of its chain and then became motionless. But it was motionless only for a moment or two. A splash in the water drew my attention to the chain. It had been insecurely fastened to a branch of the willow; my weight in the boat had caused it to become detached and fall into the water, and with horrified eyes I saw that I had now no means of getting back to the shore. Next moment the strength of the current carried the boat out into mid-stream, and I began to float slowly down the river.

I sat like one paralysed, unable either to stir or speak. The willows seemed to bow their heads in mocking farewell as I glided past them. I heard the faint baying of a dog on some distant farm, and it sounded like a death-note in my frightened ears. Suddenly the spell that had held me was loosened, and I started to my feet. The boat heeled over, and but for a sudden instinctive movement backward I should have gone headlong into the river, and have ended my troubles there and then. The boat righted itself, veered half-round and then went steadily on its way down the stream. I sank on my knees and buried my face in my hands, and began to cry. When I had cried a little while it came into my mind that I would say my prayers. So I said them, with clasped hands and wet eyes; and the words seemed to come from me and affect me in a way that I had never experienced before. As I write these lines I have a vivid recollection of noticing how blurred and large the moon looked through my tears.

My heart was now quieted a little; I was no longer so utterly overmastered by my fears. I was recalled to a more vivid sense of earth and its realities by the low, melancholy striking of some village clock. I gazed eagerly along both banks of the river; but although the moon shone so brightly, neither house nor church nor any sign of human habitation was visible. When the clock had told its last syllable, the silence seemed even more profound than before. I might have been floating on a river that wound through a country never trodden by the foot of man, so entirely alone, so utterly removed from all human aid, did I feel myself to be.

I drew the skirt of my frock over my shoulders, for the night air was beginning to chill me, and contrived to regain the seat I had taken on first entering the boat. Whither would the river carry me, was the question I now put to myself. To the sea, doubtless. Had I not been taught at school that sooner or later all rivers emptied themselves into the ocean? The immensity of the thought appalled me. It seemed to chill the beating of my heart; I grew cold from head to foot. Still the boat held its course steadily, swept onward by the resistless current; still the willows nodded their fantastic farewells. Along the level meadows far and wide the white mist lay like a vast winding-sheet; now and then through the stillness I heard, or seemed to hear, a moan—a mournful wail, as of some spirit just released from earthly bonds, and forced to leave its dear ones behind. The moonlight looked cruel, and the water very, very cold. Someone had told me that death by drowning was swift and painless. Those stars up there were millions of miles away; how long would it take my soul, I wondered, to travel that distance—to reach those glowing orbs—to leave them behind? How glorious such a journey, beyond all power of thought, to track one's way among the worlds that flash through space! In the world I should leave there would be one person only who would mourn for me—Sister Agnes, who would—But what noise was that?

A noise, low and faint at first, just taking the edge of silence with a musical murmur that seemed to die out for an instant now and again, then coming again stronger than before, and so growing by fine degrees louder and more confirmed, and resolving itself at last into a sound which could not be mistaken for that of anything but falling water. The sound was clearly in front of me; I was being swept resistlessly towards it. A curve of the river and a swelling of the banks hid everything from me. The sound was momently growing louder, and had distinctly resolved itself into the roar and rush of some great body of water. I shuddered and grasped the sides of the boat with both hands.

Suddenly the curve was rounded, and there, almost in front of me, was a mass of buildings, and there, too, spanning the river, was what looked to me like a trellis-work bridge, and on the bridge was a human figure. The roar and noise of the cataract were deafening, but louder than all was my piercing cry for help. He who stood on the bridge heard it. I saw him fling up his hands as if in sudden horror, and that was the last thing I did see. I sank down with closed eyes in the bottom of the boat, and my heart went up in a silent cry to Heaven. Next moment I was swept into Scarsdale Weir. The boat seemed to glide from under me; my head struck something hard; the water overwhelmed me, seized on me, dashed me here and there in its merciless arms; a noise as of a thousand cataracts filled my ears for a moment; and then I recollect nothing more.

(To be continued.)



SONNET.

Wouldst thou be happy, friend, forget, forget. A curse—no blessing—Memory, thou art; The very torment of a human heart. Ah! yes, I thought, I still am young; and let My heart but beat, I can be happy yet. Upon a friendly face clear shone the light; Without, low moaned the mountain's winds, and night Closed our warm home—sad words of fond regret. A voice which in my ear no more shall ring; A look estranged in hate like lightning came, My very soul within me died as flame By strong wind spent. It was not grief, for dead Was grief; nor love, for love in wrath had fled; It was of both the last undying sting!

JULIA KAVANAGH.



THE BRETONS AT HOME.

BY CHARLES W. WOOD, F.R.G.S., AUTHOR OF "THROUGH HOLLAND," "LETTERS FROM MAJORCA," ETC. ETC.

The long grey walls, the fortifications, the church towers and steeples, the clustering roofs of St. Malo came into view.

It is a charming sight after the long and often unpleasant night journey which separates St. Malo from Southampton. The boats leave much to be desired, and the sea very often, like Shakespeare's heroine, needs taming, but, unlike that heroine, will not be tamed, charm we never so wisely. As a rule, however, one is not in a mood to charm.



The Company are not accommodating. There are private cabins on board holding four, badly placed, uncomfortable, possessing the single advantage of privacy; but these managers would have them empty rather than allow two passengers to occupy one of them under the full fare of four. This is unamiable and exacting. In crowded times it may be all very right, but on ordinary occasions they would do well to follow the example of the more generous Norwegians, who place their state cabins holding four at the disposal of anyone paying the fare of three passengers.

After the long night-passage it is delightful to steam into the harbour of St. Malo. If the sea has been rough and unkindly, you at once pass from Purgatory to Paradise, with a relief those will understand who have experienced it. The scene is very charming. The coast, broken and undulating, is rich and fertile; very often hazy and dreamy; the landscape is veiled by a purple mist which reminds one very much of the Irish lakes and mountains.

Across the water lies Dinard, with its lovely views, its hilly thoroughfares, its English colony and its French patois. But the boat, turning the point, steams up the harbour and Dinard falls away. St. Malo lies ahead on the left, enclosed in its ancient grey walls, which encircle it like a belt; and on the right, farther away, rise the towers and steeples of St. Servan, also of ancient celebrity.

On the particular morning of which I write, as we steamed up the harbour towards our moorings, the quays looked gay and lively, the town very picturesque. It is so in truth, though some of its picturesqueness is the result of antiquity, dirt and dilapidation. But the fresh green trees lining the quay looked bright and youthful; a contrast with the ancient grey walls that formed their background. Vessels were loading and unloading, people hurried to and fro; many had evidently come down to see the boat in, and not a few were unmistakably English.

Here and there in the grey walls were the grand imposing gateways of the town. Above the walls rose the quaint houses, roof above roof, gable beside gable, tier beyond tier.

At the end of the quay the old Castle brought the scene to a fine conclusion. It was built by Anne of Brittany, and dates from the sixteenth century. One of its towers bears the singular motto or inscription: Qui qu'en grogne, ainsi sera, c'est mon plaisir: which seems to suggest that the illustrious lady owned a determined will and purpose. It is now turned into barracks; a lordly residence for the simple paysans who swelled the ranks of the Breton regiment occupying it at the time of which I write. They are said to be the best fighting soldiers in France, these Bretons. Of a low order of development, physically and mentally, they yet have a stubborn will which carries them through impossible hardships. They may be conquered, but they never yield.

The walk round the town upon the walls is extremely interesting. Gradually making way, the scene changes like the shifting slides of a panorama. Now the harbour lies before you, with its busy quays, its docks, its small crowd of shipping; very crowded we have never seen it. The old Castle rises majestically, looking all its three centuries of age and royal dignity; its four towers unspoilt by restoration.

Onward still and the walls rise sheer out of the rocks and the water. At certain tides, the sea dashes against them and breaks back upon itself in froth and foam and angry boom. Sight and sound are a wonderful nerve tonic. Countless rocks rise like small islands in every direction, stretching far out to sea. On a calm day it is all lovely beyond the power of words. The sky is blue and brilliant with sunshine. The sea receives the dazzling rays and returns them in a myriad flashes. The water seems to have as many tints as the rainbow, and they are as changing and beautiful and intangible. A distant vessel, passing slowly with all her sails set, almost becalmed, suggests a dreamy and delicious existence that has not its rival. The coast of Normandy stretches far out of sight. In the distance are the Channel Islands, visible possibly on a clear day and with a strong glass. I know not how that may be.

Turn your gaze, and you have St. Malo lying within its grey walls. The sea on the right is all freedom and broad expanse; the town on the left is cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd. Extremes meet here, as they often do elsewhere.

It is a succession of slanting roofs, roof above roof, street beyond street. Many of the houses are very old and form wonderful groups, full of quaint gables and dormer windows, whilst the high roofs slant upwards and fall away in picturesque outlines. An artist might work here for years and still find fresh material to his hand. The streets are narrow, steep and tortuous; the houses, crowding one upon another, are many stories high; not a few seem ready to fall with age and decay. Only have patience, and all yields to time.

On one of the islets is the tomb of Chateaubriand, who was born in St. Malo and lived here many years. It was one of his last wishes to be buried where the sea, for ever playing and plashing around him, would chant him an everlasting requiem. Many will sympathise with the feeling. No scene could be more in accordance with the solemnity of death, the long waiting for the "eternal term;" more in unison with the pure spirit that could write such a prose-poem as Atala.

Nothing could have been lovelier than the day of our arrival at St. Malo; the special day of which I write; for St. Malo has seen our coming and going many times and in all weathers.

The crossing had been calm as a lake. Even H.C., who would sooner brave the tortures of a Spanish Inquisition than the ocean in its angry moods, and who has occasionally landed after a rough passage in an expiring condition: even H.C. was impatient to land and break his fast at the liberal table of the Hotel de France—very liberal in comparison with the Hotel Franklin. We had once dined at the table d'hote of the Franklin, and found it a veritable Barmecide's feast, from which we got up far more hungry than we had sat down; a display so mean that we soon ceased to wonder that only two others graced the board with ourselves, and they, though Frenchmen, strangers to the place. The Hotel de France was very different from this; if it left something to be desired in the way of refinement, it erred on the side of abundance.

Therefore, on landing this morning, we gave our lighter baggage in charge of the porter of the hotel, who knew us well, and according to his wont, gave us a friendly greeting. "Monsieur visite encore St. Malo," said he, "et nous apporte le beau temps. Soyez le bienvenu!" This was not in the least familiar—from a Frenchman.



We went on to the custom-house, and as we had nothing to declare the inspection was soon over. H.C. had left all his tea and cigars behind him at the Waterloo Station, in a small hand-bag which he had put down for a moment to record a sudden fine phrenzy of poetical inspiration. Besides tea and cigars, the bag contained a copy of his beloved "Love Lyrics," without which he never travels, and a bunch of lilies of the valley, given him at the moment of leaving home by Lady Maria; an amiable but aesthetical aunt, who lives on crystallised violets, and spends her time in endeavouring to convert all the young men of her acquaintance who go in for muscular Christianity to her aesthetical way of thinking.

Leaving the custom-house, we crossed the quay, the old castle in front of us, and passing through the great gateway, immediately found ourselves at the Place Chateaubriand and the Hotel de France. For the hotel forms part of the building in which Chateaubriand lived.

We had a very short time to devote to St. Malo. A long journey still lay before us, for we wished to reach Morlaix that night. There was the choice of taking the train direct, or of crossing by boat to Dinard, and so joining the train from St. Malo, which reached Dinan after a long round. The latter seemed preferable, since it promised more variety, though shortening our stay at the old town. But, as Madame wisely remarked, it would give us sufficient time for luncheon, and an extra hour or so in St. Malo could not be very profitably spent.

So before long we were once more going down the quay, in company with the porter—whose lamentations at our abrupt departure were no doubt sincere as well as politic—and a truck carrying our goods and chattels. As yet, they were modest in number and respectable in appearance. H.C. had not commenced his raid upon the old curiosity shops; had not yet encumbered himself with endless packages, from deal boxes containing old silver, to worm-eaten, fourteenth century carved-wood monks and madonnas, carefully wrapped in brown paper, and bound head, hand and foot (where these essentials were not missing) with cord. All this came in due time, but to-day we were still dignified.

We passed without the walls and went down the quay. All our surroundings were gay and brilliant. Everything was life and movement, the life and movement of a Continental town. The "gentle gales" wooed the trees, and the trees made music in the air. The sun shone as it can only shine out of England. The sky, wearing its purest blue, was flecked with white clouds pure as angels' wings. The boat we had recently left was discharging cargo, and her steam was quietly dying down.

Four old women—each must have been eighty, at least—were seated on a bench, knitting and smiling and looking as placid and contented as if the world and the sunshine had been made for them alone, and it was their duty to enjoy it to the utmost. It was impossible to sketch them: Time and Tide wait for no man, and even now the whistle of the Dinard boat might be heard shrieking its impatient warning round the corner: but we took the old women with an instantaneous camera, and with wonderful result. It was all over before they had time to pose and put on expressions; and when they found they had been photographed, they thought it the great event of their lives. The mere fact is sufficient with these good folk; possession of the likeness is a very secondary consideration. We left them crooning and laughing and casting admiring glances after H.C.—even at eighty years of age: possibly with a sigh to their lost youth.

Then we turned where the walls bend round and came in sight of the boat, steaming alongside the small stone landing-place and preparing for departure.

The passengers were not numerous. A few men and women; the latter with white caps and large baskets, who had evidently been over to St. Malo for household purposes, and were returning with the resigned air—it is very pathetic—that country women are so fond of wearing when they have been spending money and lessening the weight of the stocking which contains their treasured hoard.

We mounted the bridge, which, being first-class and an extra two or three sous, was deserted. These thrifty people would as soon think of burning down their cottages, as of wasting two sous in a useless luxury—all honour to them for the principle. But we, surveying human nature from an elevation, felt privileged to philosophise.

And if this human nature was interesting, what about the natural world around us? The boat loosed its moorings when time was up, and the grey walls of St. Malo receded; the innumerable roofs, towers and steeples grew dreamy and indistinct, dissolved and disappeared. The water was still blue and calm and flashing with sunlight. To the right lay the sleeping ocean; ahead of us, Dinard. Land rose on all sides; bays and creeks ran upwards, out of sight; headlands, rich in verdure, magnificently wooded; houses standing out, here lonely and solitary, there clustering almost into towns and villages; the mouth of the Rance, leading up to Dol and Dinan, which some have called the Rhine of France, and everyone must think a stream lovely and romantic.

Most beautiful of all seemed Dinard, which we rapidly approached. In twenty minutes we had passed into the little harbour beyond the pier. It was quite a bustling quay, with carriages for hire, and men with barrows touting noisily for custom, treading upon each other's heels in the race for existence; cafes and small hotels in the background.

Having plenty of time, we preferred to walk to the station, and consigned our baggage to the care of a deaf and dumb man, who disappeared with everything like magic, left us high and dry upon the quay to follow more leisurely, and to hope that we were not the victims of misplaced confidence. It looked very much like it.

A steep climb brought us to the heights of Dinard. Nothing could be more romantic. Here were no traces of antiquity; everything was aggressively modern; all beauty lay in scenery and situation. Humble cottages embowered in roses and wisteria; stately chateaux standing in large luxuriant gardens flaming with flowers, proudly secluded behind great iron gates. At every opening the sea, far down, lay stretched before us. Precipitous cliffs, rugged rocks where flowers and verdure grew in wild profusion, led sheer to the water's edge. Land everywhere rose in a dreamy atmosphere; St. Malo and St. Servan across the bay in the distance. It was a wealth of vegetation; trees in full foliage, masses of gorgeous flowers, that you had only to stretch out your hand and gather; the blue sky over all. A scene we sometimes realise in our dreams, rarely in our waking hours—as we saw it that day. On the far-off water below small white-winged boats looked as shadowy and dreamy as the far-off fleecy clouds above.

But we could not linger. We passed away from the town and the sea and found ourselves in the country—the station seemed to escape us like a will-o'-the-wisp. Presently we came to where two roads met—which of them led to the station? No sign-post, no cottage. We should probably have taken the wrong one—who does not on these occasions?—when happily a priest came in sight, with stately step and slow reading his breviary. Of him we asked the way, and he very politely set us right, in French that was refreshing after the patois around us—he was evidently a cultivated man; and offered to escort us.

As this was unnecessary, we thanked him and departed; and, arriving soon after at the station, found our deaf and dumb porter had not played us false. He was cunning enough to ask us three times his proper fare, and when we gave him half his demand seemed surprised at so much liberality. Conversation had to be carried on with paper and pencil, and by signs and tokens.

The train started after a great flourish of trumpets. We had a journey of many hours before us through North Brittany; for Brittany is a hundred years behind the rest of France, and however slow the trains may be in Fair Normandy they are still slower in the Breton Provinces. In due time we reached Dinan, when we joined the train that had come round from St. Malo.

Nothing in Brittany is more lovely and striking than the situation of Dinan. It overlooks the Rance, and from the train we looked down into an immense valley.

Everywhere the eye rested upon a profusion of wild uncultivated verdure. The granite cliffs were steep and wooded. Far in the depths "the sacred river ran." A few boats and barges sailing up and down, passed under the lovely viaduct; Brittany peasant girls were putting off from the shallow bank with small cargoes of provisions, evidently coming from some market. Under the rugged cliffs ran a long row of small, unpretending houses, level with the river; a paradise sheltered, one would think, from all the winds of heaven: yet even here, no doubt, the east wind finds a passage for its sharp tooth to warp the waters.



Further on one caught sight of an old church, evidently in the hands of the Philistines, under process of restoration, and an ancient monastery. The town crowned the cliffs, but very little could be seen beyond churches and steeples. We left it to a future time.

The train went through beautiful and undulating country until it reached Lamballe, picturesquely placed on the slope of a hill watered by a small stream, and crowned by the ancient and romantic ruins of the Castle which belonged to the Counts of Penthievre, and was dismantled by Cardinal Richelieu. A fine Gothic building, of which we easily traced the outlines. The present church of Notre Dame was formerly the chapel of the Castle.

Here we longed to explore, but it did not enter into our plans. So, also, the interesting town of Guingamp had to be passed over for the present.

For we were impatient to see Morlaix. Having heard much of its picturesqueness and antiquity, we hoped for great things. Yet our experiences began in an adventurous and not very agreeable manner.

Darkness had fallen when we reached the old town, after a long and tedious journey. Nothing is so tiring as a slow train, which crawls upon the road and lingers at every station. Of Morlaix we could see nothing. We felt ourselves rumbling over a viaduct which seemed to reach the clouds, and far down we saw the lights of the town shining like stars; so that, with the stars above, we seemed to be placed between two firmaments; but that was all. Everything was wrapped in gloom and mystery. The train steamed into the station and its few lights only rendered darkness yet more visible. The passengers stumbled across the line in a small flock to the point of exit.

We had been strongly recommended to the Hotel d'Europe, as strongly cautioned against any other; but we found that the omnibus was not at the station; nor any flys; nothing but the omnibus of a small hotel we had never heard of, in charge of a conductor, rough, uncivil, and less than half sober.

This conductor—who was also the driver—declined to take us to any other hotel than his own; would listen to no argument or reason. Had he been civil, we might have accepted the situation, but it seemed evident that an inn employing such a man was to be avoided. Unwilling to be beaten, we sought the station-master and his advice.

"Why is the omnibus of the Hotel d'Europe not here?" we asked.

"No doubt the hotel is full. It is the moment of the great fair, you know."

But we did not know. We knew of Leipzig Fair by sad experience, of Bartholomew Fair by tradition, of the Fair of Novgorod by hearsay; but of Morlaix Fair we had never heard.

"What is the fair?" we asked, with a sinking heart.

"The great Horse Fair," replied the station-master. "Surely you have heard of it? No one ever visits Morlaix at the time of the fair unless he comes to buy or sell horses."

Having come neither to buy nor sell horses, we felt crushed, and hoped for the deluge. I proposed to re-enter the train and let it take us whither it would—it mattered not. H.C. calmly suggested suicide.

"What is to be done?" he groaned. "The man refuses to take us to the Hotel d'Europe. He is not sober; it is useless to argue with him."

"The fair again," laughed the official. "It is responsible for everything just now, and Bretons are not the most sober people at the best of times. Still, if you wish to go to the Hotel d'Europe, the man must take you. There is no other conveyance and he is bound to do so. But I warn you that it will be full, or the omnibus would have been here."

Turning to the man, he threatened to report him, gave him his orders, and said he should inquire on the morrow how they had been carried out. We struggled into the omnibus, which was already fairly packed with men who looked very much like horsedealers, the surly driver slammed the door, and the station-master politely bowed us away.

The curtain dropped upon Act I.; Comedy or Tragedy as the event might prove.

It soon threatened to be Tragedy. The omnibus tore down a steep hill as if the horses as well as the driver had been indulging, swayed from side to side and seemed every moment about to overturn. Now the passengers were all thrown to the right of the vehicle, now to the left, and now they all collided in the centre. The enraged driver was having his revenge upon us, and we repented our boldness in trusting our lives in his hands. But the sturdy Bretons accepted the situation so calmly that we felt there must still be a chance of escape.

So it proved. In due time it drew up at the Hotel d'Europe with the noise of an artillery waggon, and out came M. Hellard, the landlord. His appearance, with his white hair and benevolent face, was sufficient to recommend him, to begin with. We felt we had done wisely, and made known our wants.

"I am very sorry," he replied, "but, gentlemen, I am quite full. There is not a vacant room in the hotel from roof to basement."

"Put us anywhere," we persisted, for it would never do to be beaten at last: "the coal-cellar; a couple of cupboards; anything; but don't send us away."

The landlord looked puzzled. He had a tall, fine presence and a handsome face; not in the least like a Frenchman. "I assure you that I have neither hole nor corner nor cupboard at your disposal," he declared. "I have sent away a dozen people in the last hour who arrived by the last train. Why did you not send me word you were coming?"

"We are only two, not a dozen," we urged. "And we knew nothing of this terrible Fair, or we should not have come at all. But as we are here, here we must remain."

With that we left the omnibus and went into the hall, enjoying the landlord's perplexed attitude. But when did a case of this sort ever fail to yield to persuasion? The last resource has very seldom been reached, however much we may think it; and an emergency begets its own remedy. The remedy in this instance was the landlady. Out she came at the moment from her bureau, all gestures and possibilities; we felt saved.

"Mon cher," she exclaimed—not to H.C., but to her spouse—"don't send the gentlemen away at this time of night, and consign them to you know not what fate. Something can be managed. Tenez!" with uplifted hands and an inspiration, "ma bouchere! Mon cher, ma bouchere!" (Voice, exclamation, gesture, general inspiration, the whole essence would evaporate if translated.) "Ma bouchere has two charming rooms that she will be delighted to give me. It is only a cat's jump from here," she added, turning to us; "you will be perfectly comfortable, and can take your meals in the hotel. To-morrow I shall have rooms for you."

So the luggage was brought down; the landlord went through a passage at arms with the driver, who demanded double fare, and finally went off with nothing but a promise of punishment. We had triumphed, and thought our troubles were over: they had only begun.

Our remaining earthly desire was for strong tea, followed by repose. We had had very little sleep the previous night on board the boat, and the day had been long and tiring.

"The tea immediately; but you will have to wait a little for the rooms," said Madame. "My bouchere is at the theatre to-night; we must all have a little distraction sometimes; it will be over a short quarter of an hour, and then I will send to her."

Madame was evidently a woman of capacity. The short quarter of an hour might be profitably spent in consuming the tea: after that—a delicious prospect of rest, for which we longed as the Peri longed for Paradise.

"Meanwhile, perhaps messieurs will walk into the cafe of the hotel, awaiting their rooms," said the landlord.

"Where tea shall be served," concluded Madame, giving directions to a waiter who stood by, a perfect Image of Misery, his face tied up after the fashion of the French nation suffering from toothache and a fluxion.

"But the fire is out in the kitchen," objected Misery, in the spirit of Pierrot's friend.

"Then let it be re-lighted," commanded Madame. "At such times as these, the fire has not the right to be out."

Monsieur marshalled us into the cafe, a large long room forming part of the hotel; by no means the best waiting-place after a long and tiring day. It was hot, blazing with gas, clouded with smoke—the usual French smoke, worse than the worst of English tobacco. The room was crowded, the noise pandemonium. Card playing occupied some tables, dominoes others. The company was very much what might be expected at a Horse Fair: loud, familiar, slightly inclined to be quarrelsome; no nerves. Our host joined a card table, evidently taking up his game where our arrival had interrupted it. He soon became absorbed and forgot our existence; our hope was in Madame.



We waited in patience; the short quarter of an hour developed into a long half-hour, when tea arrived: small cups, small tea pot, usual strainer, straw-coloured infusion; still, it just saved our reason. H.C. felt that he should never write another line of poetry; the tobacco fumes had taken an opium effect upon me, and I began to see visions and imagined ourselves in Dante's Inferno. We looked with mild reproach at the waiter. He quite understood; a guilty conscience needed no words; and explained that the chef had let out the fire. As the chef was at that moment in the cafe playing cards, as absorbed and excited as anyone, no wonder that he had forgotten his ordinary duties.

"And our rooms?" we asked. "Are they ready?"

"The theatre is not yet over," replied the waiter. "Madame is on the look-out. The play is extra long to-night in honour of the fair."

That miserable fair!

The tea revived us: it always does. "I feel less like expiring," murmured H.C., with a tremulous sigh. "But this place is like a furnace seven times heated, and the noise is pandemonium in revolt. What would Lady Maria think of this? Why need that frivolous butcher-woman have gone to the theatre to-night of all nights in the year? And why need all these people have stayed away from it? Why is everything upside down and cross and contrary? And why are we here at all?"

H.C. was evidently on the verge of brain fever.

We waited; there was nothing else for it. It was torture; but others have been tortured before now; and some have survived, and some have died of it. We felt that we should die of it. Half past eleven had come and gone; midnight was about to strike. Oh that we had gone on with that wretched omnibus, no matter what the end. Yes; it had come to that.

At last human nature could bear it no longer: we appealed to the landlord. He looked up from his game, flushed, startled and repentant.

"What! have they not taken you to the bouchere!" he exclaimed. "Why the theatre was over long ago, and no doubt everything is arranged. You shall be conducted at once."

Misery, looking himself more dead than alive (he informed us presently in an access of confidence that he had had four teeth taken out that day and felt none the better for it), was told off to act as guide, and shouldering such baggage as we needed for the night, stepped forth. We pitied him, he seemed so completely at the end of all things; and feeling, by comparison, that there was a deeper depth of suffering than our own, we revived. His name was not Misery, but Andre.

Monsieur accompanied us to the door and wished us Good-night. Madame had disappeared and was nowhere to be found; the lights were out in her bureau. It looked very much as if she, too, had gone to bed and forgotten us. "Cette chere dame is tired," said the sympathetic landlord. "We really have no rest day or night at the time of the fair. But you may depend upon it she has made it all right with her bouchere."

So we departed in faith. It was impossible to be angry with Monsieur, though we felt neglected. He was so unlike the ordinary run of landlords that one could only repose confidence in him and overlook small inattentions. He had a way of throwing himself into your interests, and making them his own for the time being. But I fear that his memory was very short.

We departed with thanksgiving, and followed our guide. I cannot say that we trod in his footsteps, for, too far gone to lift his feet bravely, he merely shuffled along the pavement. With one hand he supported the luggage on his shoulder; with the other he carried a candle, ostensibly to light our pathway, in reality only complicating matters and the darkness. As we turned round by the hotel, the clocks struck the witching hour. H.C. shivered and looked about for ghosts. It was really a very ghostly scene and atmosphere. In spite of the occasion of the fair, the town was in repose. The theatre was long over; the extra entertainment on account of the fair had been a mere invention of the imaginative waiter's; people had very properly gone home to bed, and lights were out. No noisy groups were abroad, making night hideous with untimely revelry.

We formed a strange procession. Our little guide slipped and shuffled, hardly able to put one foot before the other. He wore house-slippers of list or wool, and made scarcely any noise as he went along. Every now and then he groaned in the agonies of toothache; and each time H.C. shivered and looked back for the ghost. It was excusable, for the candle threw weird shadows around, which flitted about like phantoms playing at hide-and-seek. The night was so calm that the flame scarcely flickered.

In spite of the darkness, we could see how picturesque was the old town, and we longed for daylight. Against the dark background of sky the yet darker outlines of the houses stood out mysteriously. We turned into a narrow street where opposite neighbours might almost have shaken hands with each other from the upper windows. Wonderful gabled roofs succeeded each other in a long procession. There seemed not a vestige of anything modern in the whole thoroughfare. We were in a scene of the Middle Ages, back in those far-off days.

Here and there a light shining in a room revealed a large latticed window, running the whole width of the house. In spite of Andre's fatigue and burden, we could only stand and gaze. No human power could mesmerise us, but the window did so.

What could be more startlingly weird and picturesque than the bright reflection of these latticed panes, surrounded by this intense darkness, these mysterious outlines? Almost we expected to see a ghostly vision advance from the interior, and, opening the lattice with a skeleton hand, ask our pleasure at thus invading their solitude at the witching hour—for the vibration of the bells tolling midnight was still upon the air, travelling into space, perhaps announcing to other worlds that to us another day was dead, another day was born.

But no ghost appeared. A very human figure, however, did so. It looked down upon us for a moment, and mistaking our rapt gaze at the antiquities—of which it did not form a part—for mere vulgar curiosity, held up a reproving hand. Then, catching sight of H.C., it darted forward, looked breathlessly into the night, and seemed also mesmerised as by a revelation.

We quietly went our way, leaving the spell to work itself out. Our footsteps echoed in the silent night, with the running accompaniment of a double-shuffle from Misery. No other sound broke the stillness; we were absolutely alone with the ancient houses, the stars and the sky. It might have been a Mediaeval City of the Dead, unpeopled since the days of its youth. Our candle burned on in the hand of Andre; our reflections danced and played about us: one hears of the Dance of Death—this was the Dance of Ghosts—a natural sequence; ghostly shadows flitted out of every doorway, down every turning.

At last we emerged on to an open space, partly filled by a modern building with a hideous roof, evidently the market place. Here we ascended to a higher level. Ancient outlines still surrounded us, but were interrupted by modern ones also. Square roofs and straight lines broke the continuity of the picturesque gabled roofs and latticed windows. Ichabod may be written upon the lintels of all that is ancient and disappearing, all that is modern and hideous. The spirit and beauty of the past are dead and buried.

"We are almost there," said Andre, with a sigh that would have been profound if he had had strength to make it so. "A few more yards and we arrive."

We too sighed with relief, though the midnight walk amidst these wonders of a bygone age had proved refreshing and awakening. But we sympathised with our guide, who was only kept up by necessity.

We passed out of the market place again into a narrow street, dark, silent and gloomy. At the third or fourth house, Andre exclaimed "Nous voila!" and down went the baggage like a dead-weight in front of a closed doorway.

The house was in darkness: no sight or sound could be seen or heard; everyone seemed wrapped in slumber; a strange condition of things if we were expected. The man rang the bell: a loud, long peal. No response; no light, no movement; profound silence.

"C'est drole!" he murmured. "The theatre" (that everlasting theatre!) "has been long over and Madame must have returned. Where can she be?"

"Probably in bed," replied H.C. "We have little chance of following her excellent example if this is to go on. There must be some mistake, and we are not expected."

"Impossible," returned Andre. "La Patrone never forgets anything and must have arranged it all." He, too, had unlimited confidence in Madame, but for once it was misplaced.



Not only the house, but the whole street was in darkness. Not the ghost of a glimmer appeared from any window or doorway; not a gas-light from end to end. Oil lamps ought to have been slung across from house to house to keep up the character of the thoroughfare; but here, apparently, consistency was less thought of than economy. We looked and looked, every moment expecting a cloaked watchman to appear, with lantern casting weird flashes around and a sepulchral voice calling the hour and the weather. But Il Sereno of Majorca had no counterpart in Morlaix; the darkness, silence and solitude remained unbroken.

We were the sole group of humanity visible, and must have appeared singular as the still flaring candle lighted up our faces, pale and anxious from fatigue, threw out in huge proportions the head of our guide, bound up as if prepared for the grave for which he was fast qualifying.

After a time Misery gave another peal at the bell, and, borrowing a stick, drummed a tattoo upon the door that might have waked the departed Mediaevals. This at length brought forth fruit.

A latticed window was opened, a white figure appeared, a nightcapped head was put forth without ceremony, a feminine voice, sleepy and indignant, demanded who thus disturbed the sacred silence of the night.

"The gentlemen are here," said Andre, mildly. "Come down and open the door. A pretty reception this, for tired travellers."

"What gentlemen?" asked the voice, which belonged to no less a person than Madame la bouchere herself.

"Parbleu! why the gentlemen you are expecting. The gentlemen la Patrone sent to you about and that you agreed to lodge for the night."

"Andre—I know your voice, though I cannot see your form—you have been taking too much, and to-morrow I shall complain to Madame Hellard. How dare you wake quiet people out of their first sleep?"

"First sleep! Has la bouchere not been to the theatre?"

"Theatre, you good-for-nothing! Do I ever join in such frivolities? I have been in bed and asleep ever since ten o'clock—where you ought to be at this hour of the night."

"But la Patrone sent to engage rooms for these gentlemen and you promised to give them. They have come. Open the door. We cannot stay here till daybreak."

"You will stay there till doomsday if it depends on my opening to you. La Patrone never sent and I never promised. I have only one small empty bed in my house, and in the other bed in the same room two of my boys are sleeping. I am very sorry for the gentlemen. My compliments to la Patrone, and before sending gentlemen to me at midnight, she ought to find out if I can accommodate them. Good-night to you, and let us have no more rioting and bell-ringing."

The nightcapped head was withdrawn, the lattice was sharply closed, and we were left to make the best of the situation.

It was serious: nearly one in the morning, the whole town slumbering, and we "homeless, ragged, and tanned."

To remain was useless. Not all the ringing and rowing in the world would bring forth Madame again, though it might possibly produce her avenging spouse. Andre shouldered his baggage and we began to retrace our steps.

"Back to the hotel," commanded H.C.; "they must put us up somewhere."

"Not a hole or corner unoccupied," groaned Andre. "You can't sleep in the bread oven. And they will all have gone to bed by the time we get back again."

Suddenly he halted before a house at the corner of the marketplace. It looked little better than a common cabaret, and was also closed and dark. Down went the luggage, as he knocked mysteriously at the shutters.

"What are you doing?" we said. "You don't suppose that we would put up here even for an hour."

"It is clean and respectable," objected Andre. "Messieurs cannot walk the streets till morning."

A door was as mysteriously opened, leading into a room. A couple of candles were burning at a table, round which some rough-looking men were seated, drinking and playing cards, but keeping silence. It looked suspicious and uninviting.

"In fact we might be murdered here," shuddered H.C.: "most certainly we should be robbed."

Andre made his request: could they give us lodgment?

"Not so much as a chair or a bench," answered the woman, to our relief; for though we should never have entered, Andre might have disappeared with the baggage and given us some trouble. He evidently had all the obstinacy of the Breton about him, and was growing desperate. The door was closed again without ceremony, and once more we were left to make the best of it.

This time we took the lead and made for the hotel. Again we passed through the wonderful street with the overhanging eaves and gables. Again we paused and lingered, lost in admiration. But the light had departed from the latticed window, and no doubt in dreams the Fair One was beholding again the vision of H.C.

A few minutes more and we stood before the hotel. They were just closing the doors. Monsieur Hellard was crossing the passage at the moment. Never shall I forget his consternation. He raised his hands, and his hair stood on end.

"What's the matter?" he cried.

"Matter enough," replied Andre taking up the parable. "Madame never sent to the bouchere, and the bouchere has no room. And I think"—despair giving him courage—"it was too bad to give us a wild goose chase at this time of night."

"And now you must do your best and put us where you can," I concluded. "We are too tired to stir another step."

"I haven't where to lodge a cat," returned the perplexed landlord. "I cannot do impossibilities. What on earth are we to manufacture?"

"You have a salon?"

"Comme de juste!"

"Is it occupied?"

"No; but there are no beds there. It stands to reason."

"Then put down two mattresses on the floor, and we will make the best of them for to-night. And the sooner you allow us to repose our weary heads, the more grateful we shall be. It is nearly one o'clock."

Monsieur seemed convinced, and gave the word of command which sent two or three waiters flying. Poor Andre was one of them; but we soon discovered that he was the most willing and obliging man in the world.

Even now everything was mismanaged and had to be done over again; a wordy war ensued between landlord, waiters and chambermaids, each one having an original idea for our comfort and wanting their own way. The small Bedlam that went on would have been diverting at any other time. It was very nearly two o'clock before we closed the door upon the world, and felt that something like peace and repose lay before us.

The room was not uncomfortable. It had all the stiff luxuriance of a French salon, and a gilt clock on the mantelpiece ticked loudly and rang out the hours—too many of which, alas, we heard. On the table were the remains of a dessert, evidently hastily brought in from the table d'hote room, which communicated with this by folding doors: dishes of biscuits, raisins and luscious grapes.

"At least we can refresh ourselves," sighed H.C., taking up a fine bunch and offering me another, "Nectar in its primitive state; the drink of the gods."

"And of Poets," I added.

"Talk not of poetry," he cried. "I feel that my vein has evaporated, and after to-night will never return."

Very soon, you may be sure, the room was in darkness and repose.

"The inequalities of the earth's surface are nothing to my bed," groaned H.C. as he laid himself down. "It is all hills and valleys. I think they must have put the mattress upon all the brooms and brushes of the hotel, crossed by all the fire-irons. And that wretched clock ticks on my brain like a sledge-hammer. I shall not be alive by morning."

"Have you made your will?"

"Yes," he replied; "and left you my museum, my shooting-box, all my unpublished MSS. and the care of my aesthetic aunt, Lady Maria. You will not find her troublesome; she lives on crystallised violets and barley water."

"Mixed blessings," I thought, but was too polite to say so. It must have been my last thought, for I remembered no more until the clock awoke me, striking four; and woke me again, striking six; after which sleep finally fled.

Soon the town also awoke; doors slammed and echoed; omnibuses and other vehicles rattled over the stones; voices seemed to fill the air; the streets echoed with foot-passengers. The sun was shining gloriously and we threw open the windows to the new day and the fresh breeze, and took our first look at Morlaix by daylight. Already we felt braced and exhilarated as we took in deep draughts of oxygen.



It was a lively scene. The Square close by was surrounded by gabled houses, and houses not gabled: a mixture of Ancient and Modern. That it should be all old was too much to expect, excepting from such sleepy old towns as Vitre or Nuremberg, where you have unbroken outlines, a mediaeval picture unspoilt by modern barbarities; may dream and fancy yourself far back in the ages, and find it difficult indeed to realise that you are really not in the fifteenth but in the nineteenth century.

The streets were already beginning to be gay and animated; there was a look of expectancy and mild excitement on many faces, announcing that something unusual was going on. It was fair time and fete time; and even these stolid, sober people were stirred into something like laughter and enjoyment. Fair Normandy has a good deal of the vivacity of the French; but Graver Brittany, like England, loves to take its pleasures somewhat sadly.

It was a lovely morning. Before us, and beyond the square, stretched the heights of Morlaix, green and fertile, fruit and flower-laden. To our left towered the great viaduct, over which the train rolls, depositing its passengers far, far above the tops of the houses, far above the tallest steeple. It was a very striking picture, and H.C. shouted for joy and felt the muse rekindling within him. Upon all shone the glorious sun, above all was the glorious sky, blue, liquid and almost tangible, as only foreign skies can be. The fatigues of yesterday, the terrible adventures of the past night, all were forgotten. Nay, that midnight expedition was remembered with intense pleasure. All that was uncomfortable about it had evaporated; nothing remained but a vision wonderfully unusual, weird, picturesque: grand old-world outlines standing out in the surrounding darkness; a small procession of three; a flickering candle throwing out ghostly lights and shadows; a willing but unhappy waiter dying of exhaustion and pain; a curious figure of Misery in which there certainly was nothing picturesque, but much to arouse one's pity and sympathy—the better, diviner part of one's nature.

"Hurrah for a new day!" cried H.C., turning from the window and hastening to beautify and adorn. "New scenes, new people, new impressions! Oh, this glorious world! the delight of living!"



WHO WAS THE THIRD MAID?

It was on a wild October evening about a year ago that my wife and I arrived by train at a well-known watering-place in the North of England. The wind was howling and roaring with delight at its resistless power; the rain came hissing down in large drops.

On yonder headland doubtless might be heard "The Whistling Woman"—dread harbinger of death and disaster to the mariner. The gale had been hourly increasing in violence, till for the last hour before arriving at our destination we had momentarily expected that the train would be blown from the track. Our hotel was situated on an eminence overlooking the town; and as we slowly ascended to it in our cab we thought: "Well, we must not be surprised to find our intended abode for the night has vanished."

However, presently we stopped in front of a building which looked substantial enough to withstand anything; and in answer to our driver's application to the bell, the door was promptly opened by a smartly-attired porter. He was closely followed by a person full of smiles and bows, who posted himself in the doorway ready to receive us.

All at once there was a terrific bang, as though a forty-pounder had been fired to welcome our arrival; and he of the smiles and bows was hurled headlong against the muddy wheel of our conveyance by the slamming-to of the large door. My wife's bonnet blew off and tugged hard at its moorings; the light in the porch was extinguished; while the wind seemed to give a shriek of triumph at the jokes he was playing upon us. Here we were, then, in total darkness and exposed to the drenching rain. However, half-an-hour afterwards all our discomforts were forgotten as we sat down to an excellent dinner a la carte.

Next morning I was abroad very early, looking for lodgings. Fortune seemed to smile upon me on this occasion; for scarcely had I proceeded fifty yards from my hotel when I came upon a very nice-looking row of houses, and in the window of the first was "Lodgings to let." Knocking at the door, it was soon opened by a very neat-looking maid.

I inquired if I could see the proprietor, but was told that Miss G. was not yet down. I said I would wait; and was shown into a very comfortably-furnished dining-room. Soon Miss G. appeared, and proved to be a pretty brunette of about five-and-twenty, whose dark eyes during our short interview were every now and then fixed on me with an intentness that seemed to be trying to read what kind of person I was; whilst her manner, though decidedly pleasing, had a certain restlessness in it which I could not help observing. Her father and mother being both dead, she kept the lodging-house herself. I asked her if she had a good cook, to which she replied that she was responsible for most of that difficult part of the menage herself, keeping two maids to assist in the house and parlour work. She went on to say that her drawing-room was "dissected:" a term common amongst north country lodging-house keepers, and meant to express that it was undergoing its autumn cleaning, but she would have it put straight if I wished. I told her that we should be quite contented with the dining-room, provided we had a good bed-room. This she at once showed me, and, soon coming to terms, I returned to the hotel.

After breakfast, I went to the bureau to ask for my account. Whilst it was being made out, I observed casually that I had taken lodgings at Miss G.'s on Cliff Terrace, upon which the accountant looked quickly up and said: "Oh, Miss G.'s," and then as quickly went on with my bill. I hardly noticed this at the moment, though I thought of it afterwards.

Eleven o'clock saw us comfortably ensconced in our rooms. After lunch, we took a delightful expedition, the weather having greatly moderated. We found that night, at dinner, that Miss G. was a first-rate cook, and we retired to rest much pleased with our quarters.

We soon made the acquaintance of the two maids, Jane, who waited upon us, and Mary, the housemaid; and two very pleasant and obliging young women we found them.

About the third morning of our stay, on going up to my bed-room after breakfast, I was surprised to find a strange maid in the room. She was standing by the bed, smoothing down the bed-clothes with both hands and appeared to take no notice of me, but continued gazing steadily in front of her, while her hands went mechanically on smoothing the clothes. I could not help being struck with her pale face, which wore a look of pain, and the fixed and almost stony expression of her eyes. I left her in exactly the same position as I found her. On coming down I said to my wife: "I did not know Miss G. employed three servants. There certainly is another making the bed in our room." I am short-sighted, and my wife would have it I had made a mistake; but I felt quite certain I had not. Later on, whilst Jane was laying the lunch, I said to her: "I thought that you and Mary were the only two servants in the house."

"Yes, sir, only me and Mary," was Jane's reply, as she left the room.

"There," said my wife, "I told you that you were mistaken." And I did not pursue the subject further.

Two or three days slipped away in pleasant occupations, such as driving, boating, etc., and we had forgotten all about the third maid. We saw but little of Miss G., though her handiwork was pleasantly apparent in the cuisine.

On the sixth morning of our stay, which was the day before we were to leave, my wife after breakfast said she would go up and do a little packing whilst I made out our route for the following day in the Bradshaw; but was soon interrupted by the return of my wife with a rather scared look on her face.

"Well," she said, "you were right after all, for there is another maid, and she is now in our bed-room, and apparently engaged in much the same occupation as when you saw her there. She took no notice of me, but stood there with her body slightly bent over the bed, looking straight in front of her, her hands smoothing the bed-clothes." She described her as having dark hair, her face very pale, and her mouth very firmly set. My curiosity was now so much awakened that I determined to question Miss G. on the subject. But our carriage was now at the door waiting for us to start on an expedition that would engage us all day.

On my return, late in the afternoon, meeting Miss G. in the passage, I said to her: "Who is the third servant that Mrs. K. and myself have seen once or twice in our bed-room?"

Miss G. looked, I thought, rather scared, and, murmuring something that I could not catch, turned and went hurriedly down the stairs into the kitchen.

An hour afterwards, as we were sitting waiting for our dinner, Jane brought a note from Miss G. enclosing her account, and saying that she had just had a telegram summoning her to the sick-bed of a relation, that in all probability she would not be back till after our departure, but that she had left directions with the servants, and hoped they would make us quite comfortable, and that we would excuse her hurried departure.

A few minutes after, a cab drove up to the door, into which, from our window, we saw Miss G. get, and drive rapidly away.

Later on in the evening, whilst Jane was clearing away the dinner things, I said to her: "By-the-by, Jane, who is the third maid?" She was just going to leave the room as I spoke; instead of replying she turned round with such a scared look on her face that I felt quite alarmed, then, hurriedly catching up her tray, she left the room. Thinking that further inquiry would be very disagreeable to her, I forbore again mentioning the subject. Next day, our week being up, we departed for fresh woods and pastures new.

* * * * *

Our tour led us considerably further north, but a month later saw us homeward bound. The nearest route by rail led us by X. As we drew up at the station we noticed on the platform a parson, in whom we recognised one of the clergy of X., whose church we had been to. Presently the door of our compartment was opened and he put in a lady, wished her good-bye, the guard's whistle blew and we were off. After a short time we fell into conversation with the lady and found her to be the clergyman's wife. Amongst other things, we asked after Miss G.

"Oh, Miss G.," she replied; "she is very well, but I hear, poor thing, she has not had a very good season."

"I am sorry to hear that," I replied; "why is it?" She was silent for a minute and then related to us the following facts.

At the beginning of the season a rather untoward event occurred at Miss G.'s lodgings. An elderly lady took one of the flats for a month. She had with her an attendant of about thirty. Before long Miss G. observed that they were not on very good terms, and one morning the old lady was found dead in her bed.

A doctor was at once called in, who, on viewing the body, found there were very suspicious marks round the neck and throat, as if a person's fingers had been tightly pressed upon them. The maid on hearing this at once became very restless, and going to her bed-room, which was at the top of the house, packed a small bag and, having put on her things, was about to descend the stairs when, from hurry or agitation, she missed her footing and, falling to the bottom, broke her neck.

But not the least extraordinary part of the business was that not the slightest clue could be obtained as to who the lady was, the linen of herself and her maid having only initials marked on it. The police did their best by advertising and inquiry, but all they could find out was that they had come straight to X. from Liverpool, where they had arrived from America. There they were traced to Fifth Avenue Hotel, in New York, where they had been only known by the number of their room, and to which they had come from no one knew whither. Enough money was found in the lady's box to pay the expenses of their funerals. An open verdict was returned at the inquests which were held. The police took possession of their belongings and had them, no doubt, at the present moment.

At this point the train stopped, the lady wished us "Good-morning" and left the carriage; and we, as we steamed south, were left to meditate on this strange but perfectly true story and to solve as we best could the still unanswered question of "Who was the third maid?"