"Captain Monk had all this done when he put the chimes up," remarked he. "I sweep the dust off these stairs, once in three months or so, but otherwise the door's not opened. And that one," nodding to the door above, "never."

"But why?" asked the clergyman. "If the chimes are there, and are, as you say, melodious, why do they not play?"

"Well, sir, I b'lieve there's a bit of superstition at the bottom of it," returned the clerk, not caring to explain too fully lest he should have to tell about Mr. West's death, which might not be the thing to frighten a new Vicar with. "A feeling has somehow got abroad in the parish (leastways with a many of its folk) that the putting-up of its bells brought ill-luck, and that whenever the chimes ring out some dreadful evil falls on the Monk family."

"I never heard of such a thing," exclaimed the Vicar, hardly knowing whether to laugh or lecture. "The parish cannot be so ignorant as that! How can the putting-up of chimes bring ill-luck?"

"Well, your reverence, I don't know; the thing's beyond me. They were heard but three times, ringing in the new year at midnight, three years, one on top of t'other—and each time some ill fell."

"My good man—and I am sure you are good—you should know better," remonstrated Mr. Grame. "Captain Monk cannot, surely, give credence to this?"

"No, sir; but his sister up at the Hall does—Mrs. Carradyne. It's said the Captain used to ridicule her finely for it; he'd fly into a passion whenever 'twas alluded to. Captain Monk, as a brave seaman, is too bold to tolerate anything of the sort. But he has never let the chimes play since his daughter died. He was coming out from the death-scene at midnight, when the chimes broke forth the third year, and it's said he can't abear the sound of 'em since."

"That may well be," assented Mr. Grame.

"And finding, sir, year after year, year after year, as one year gives place to another, that they are never heard, we have got to call 'em amid ourselves, the Silent Chimes," spoke the clerk, as they turned to leave the church. "The Silent Chimes, sir."

Clinking his keys, the clerk walked away to his home, an ivy-covered cottage not a stone's-throw off; the clergyman lingered in the churchyard, reading the memorials on the tombstones. He was smiling at the quaintness of some of them, when the sound of hasty footsteps caused him to turn. A little girl was climbing over the churchyard-railings (as being nearer to her than the entrance-gate), and came dashing towards him across the gravestones.

"Are you grandpapa's new parson?" asked the young lady; a pretty child of ten, with a dark skin, and dusky-violet eyes staring at him freely out of a saucy face.

"Yes, I am," said he. "What is your name?"

"What is yours?" boldly questioned she. "They've talked about you at home, but I forgot it."

"Mine is Robert Grame. Won't you tell me yours?"

"Oh, it's Kate.—Here's that wicked Lucy coming! She's going to groan at me for jumping here. She says it's not reverent."

A charming young lady of some twenty years was coming up the path. She wore a scarlet cloak, its hood lined with white silk; a straw hat shaded her fair face, blushing very much just now; in her dark-grey eyes might be read vexation, as she addressed Mr. Grame.

"I hope Kate has not been rude? I hope you will excuse her heedlessness in this place. She is but a little girl."

"It's only the new parson, Lucy," broke in Kate without ceremony. "He says his name's Robert Grame."

"Oh, Kate, don't! How shall we ever teach you manners?" reprimanded the young lady in much distress. "She has been greatly indulged, sir," turning to the clergyman.

"I can well understand that," he said, with a bright smile. "I presume that I have the honour of speaking to the daughter of my patron—Captain Monk?"

"No; Captain Monk is my uncle: I am Lucy Carradyne."

As the young clergyman stood, hat in hand, a feeling came over him that he had never seen so sweet a face as the one he was looking at. Miss Lucy Carradyne was saying to herself, "What a nice countenance he has! What kindly, earnest eyes!"

"This little lady tells me her name is Kate."

"Kate Dancox," said Lucy, as the child danced away. "Her mamma was Captain Monk's eldest daughter; she died when Kate was born. My uncle is very fond of Kate; he will hardly have her controlled at all."

"I have been in to see my church! John Cale has been doing its honours for me," smiled Mr. Grame. "It is a pretty little edifice."

"Yes, and I hope you will like it; I hope you will like the parish," frankly returned Lucy.

"I shall be sure to do that, I think. As soon, at least, as I can feel convinced that it is to be really mine," he added, with a quaint expression. "When I heard, a week ago, that Captain Monk had presented me—an entire stranger to him—with the living of Church Leet, I could not believe it. It is not often that a nameless curate, without influence, is spontaneously remembered."

"It is not much of a living," said Lucy, meeting the words half jestingly. "Worth, I believe, but about a hundred and sixty pounds a-year."

"But that is a great rise for me—and I have a house to myself large and beautiful—and am a Vicar and no longer a curate," he returned, laughingly. "I cannot imagine, though, how Captain Monk came to give it me. Have you any idea how it was, Miss Carradyne?"

Lucy's face flushed. She could not tell this gentleman the truth: that another clergyman had been fixed upon, one who would have been especially welcome to the parishioners; that Captain Monk had all but nominated him to the living. But it chanced to reach the Captain's ears that this clergyman had expressed his intention of holding the Communion Service monthly, instead of quarterly as heretofore, so he put the question to him. Finding it to be true, he withdrew his promise; he would not have old customs broken in upon by modern innovation, he said; and forthwith he appointed the Reverend Robert Grame.

"I do not even know how Captain Monk heard of me," continued Mr. Grame, marking Lucy's hesitation.

"I believe you were recommended to him by one of the clergy attached to Worcester Cathedral," said Lucy.—"And I think I must wish you good-morning now."

But there came an interruption. A tall, stately, haughty young woman, with an angry look upon her dark and handsome face, had entered the churchyard, and was calling out as she advanced:

"That monkey broken loose again, I suppose, and at her pranks here! What are you good for, Lucy, if you cannot keep her in better order? You know I told you to go straight on to Mrs. Speck, and—"

The words died away. Mr. Grame, who had been hidden by a large upright tombstone, emerged into view. Lucy, with another blush, spoke to cover the awkwardness.

"This is Miss Monk," she said to him. "Eliza, it is the new clergyman, Mr. Grame."

Miss Monk recovered her equanimity. A winning smile supplanted the anger on her face; she held out her hand, grandly gracious. For she liked the stranger's look: he was beyond doubt a gentleman—and an attractive man.

"Allow me to welcome you to Church Leet, Mr. Grame. My father chances to be absent to-day; he is gone to Evesham."

"So the clerk told me, or I should have called this morning to pay my respects to him, and to thank him for his generous and most unexpected patronage of me. I got here last night," concluded Mr. Grame, standing uncovered as when he had saluted Lucy. Eliza Monk liked his pleasant voice, his taking manners: her fancy went out to him there and then.

"But though papa is absent, you will walk up with me now to the Hall to make acquaintance with my aunt, Mrs. Carradyne," said Eliza, in those tones that, gracious though they were, sounded in the light of a command—just as poor Katherine's had always sounded. And Mr. Grame went with her.

But now—handsome though she was, gracious though she meant to be—there was something about Eliza Monk that seemed to repulse Robert Grame, rather than attract him. Lucy had fascinated him; she repelled. Other people had experienced the same kind of repulsion, but knew not where it lay.

Hubert, the heir, about twenty-five now, came forward to greet the stranger as they entered the Hall. No repulsion about him. Robert Grame's hand met his with a warm clasp. A young man of gentle manners and a face of rare beauty—but oh, so suspiciously delicate! Perhaps it was the extreme slenderness of the frame, the wan look in the refined features and their bright hectic that drew forth the clergyman's sympathy. An impression came over him that this young man was not long for earth.

"Is Mr. Monk strong?" he presently asked of Mrs. Carradyne, when Hubert had temporarily quitted the room.

"Indeed, no. He had rheumatic fever some years ago," she added, "and has never been strong since."

"Has he heart disease?" questioned the clergyman. He thought the young man had just that look.

"We fear his heart is weak," replied Mrs. Carradyne.

"But that may be only your fancy, you know, Aunt Emma," spoke Miss Monk reproachfully. She and her father were both passionately attached to Hubert; they resented any doubt cast upon his health.

"Oh, of course," assented Mrs. Carradyne, who never resented anything.

"We shall be good friends, I trust," said Eliza, with a beaming smile, as her hand lay in Mr. Grame's when he was leaving.

"Indeed I hope so," he answered. "Why not?"

III.

Summer lay upon the land. The landscape stretched out before Leet Hall was fair to look upon. A fine expanse of wood and dale, of trees in their luxuriant beauty; of emerald-green plains, of meandering streams, of patches of growing corn already putting on its yellow hue, and of the golden sunlight, soon to set and gladden other worlds, that shone from the deep-blue sky. Birds sang in their leafy shelters, bees were drowsily humming as they gathered the last of the day's honey, and butterflies flitted from flower to flower with a good-night kiss.

At one of the windows stood, in her haughty beauty, Eliza Monk. Not, surely, of the lovely scene before her was she thinking, or her face might have worn a more pleasing expression. Rather did she seem to gaze, and with displeasure, at two or three people who were walking in the distance: Lucy Carradyne side by side with the clergyman, and Miss Kate Dancox pulling at his coat-tails.

"Shameful flirt!"

The acidity of the tone was so pronounced that Mrs. Carradyne, seated near and busy at her netting, lifted her head in surprise. "Why, Eliza, what's the matter? Who is a flirt?"

"Lucy," curtly replied Eliza, pointing with her finger.

"Nonsense," said Mrs. Carradyne, after glancing outwards.

"Why does she persistently lay herself out to attract that man?" was the passionate rejoinder.

"Be silent, Eliza. How can you conjure up so unjust a charge? Lucy is not capable of laying herself out to attract anyone. It lies but in your imagination."

"Day after day, when she is out with Kate, you may see him join her—allured to her side."

"The 'allurer' is Kate, then. I am surprised at you, Eliza: you might be talking of a servant-maid. Kate has taken a liking for Mr. Grame, and she runs after him at all times and seasons."

"She ought to be stopped, then."

"Stopped! Will you undertake to do it? Could her mother be stopped in anything she pleased to do? And the child has the same rebellious will."

"I say that Robert Grame's attraction is Lucy."

"It may be so," acknowledged Mrs. Carradyne. "But the attraction must lie in Lucy herself; not in anything she does. Some suspicion of the sort has, at times, crossed me."

She looked at them again as she spoke. They were sauntering onwards slowly; Mr. Grame bending towards Lucy, and talking earnestly. Kate, dancing about, pulling at his arm or his coat, appeared to get but little attention. Mrs. Carradyne quietly went on with her work.

And that composed manner, combined with her last sentence, brought gall and wormwood to Eliza Monk.

Throwing a summer scarf upon her shoulders, Eliza passed out at the French window, crossed the terrace, and set out to confront the conspirators. But she was not in time. Seeing her coming, or not seeing her—who knew?—Mr. Grame turned off with a fleet foot towards his home. So nobody remained for Miss Monk to waste her angry breath upon but Lucy. The breath was keenly sharp, and Lucy fell to weeping.

* * * * *

"I am here, Grame. Don't go in."

The words fell on the clergyman's ears as he closed the Vicarage gate behind him, and was passing up the path to his door. Turning his head, he saw Hubert Monk seated on the bench under the May tree, pink and lovely yet. "How long have you been here?" he asked, sitting down beside him.

"Ever so long; waiting for you," replied Hubert.

"I was but strolling about."

"I saw you: with Lucy and the child."

They had become fast and firm friends, these two young men; and the minister was insensibly exercising a wonderful influence over Hubert for good. Believing—as he did believe—that Hubert's days were numbered, that any sharp extra exertion might entail fatal consequences, he gently strove, as opportunity offered, to lead his thoughts to the Better Land.

"What an evening it is!" rapturously exclaimed Hubert.

"Ay: so calm and peaceful."

The rays of the setting sun touched Hubert's face, lighting up its extreme delicacy; the scent of the closing flowers filled the still air with its sweetness; the birds were chanting their evening song of praise. Hubert, his elbow on the arm of the bench, his hand supporting his chin, looked out with dreamy eyes.

"What book have you there?" asked Mr. Grame, noticing one in his other hand.

"Herbert," answered the young man, showing it. "I filched it from your table through the open window, Grame."

The clergyman took it. It chanced to open at a passage he was very fond of. Or perhaps he knew the place, and opened it purposely.

"Do you know these verses, Hubert? They are appropriate enough just now, while those birds are carolling."

"I can't tell. What verses? Read them."

"Hark, how the birds do sing, And woods do ring! All creatures have their joy, and man hath his, Yet, if we rightly measure, Man's joy and pleasure Rather hereafter than in present is.

Not that we may not here Taste of the cheer; But as birds drink and straight lift up the head, So must he sip and think Of better drink He may attain to after he is dead."

"Ay," said Hubert, breaking the silence after a time, "it's very true, I suppose. But this world—oh, it's worth living for. Will anything in the next, Grame, be more beautiful than that?"

He was pointing to the sunset. It was marvellously and unusually beautiful. Lovely pink and crimson clouds flecked the west; in their midst shone a golden light of dazzling refulgence, too glorious to look upon.

"One might fancy it the portals of heaven," said the clergyman; "the golden gate of entrance, leading to the pearly gates within, and to the glittering walls of precious stones."

"And—why! it seems to take the form of an entrance-gate!" exclaimed Hubert in excitement. For it really did. "Look at it! Oh, Grame, surely, surely the very gate of Heaven cannot be more dazzlingly beautiful than that!"

"And if the gate of entrance is so unspeakably beautiful, what will the City itself be?" murmured Mr. Grame. "The Heavenly City! the New Jerusalem!"

"It is beginning to fade," said Hubert presently, as they sat watching; "the brightness is going. What a pity!"

"All that's bright must fade in this world, you know; and fade very quickly. Hubert! it will not in the next."

* * * * *

Church Leet, watching its neighbours' doings sharply, began to whisper that the new clergyman, Mr. Grame, was likely to cause unpleasantness to the Monk family, just as some of his predecessors had caused it. For no man having eyes in his head (still less any woman) could fail to see that the Captain's imperious daughter had fallen desperately in love with him. Would there be a second elopement, as in the days of Tom Dancox? Would Eliza Monk set her father at defiance, as Katherine did?

One of the last to see signs and tokens, though they took place under her open eyes, was Mrs. Carradyne. But she saw at last. The clergyman could not walk across a new-mown field, or down a shady lane, or be hastening along the dusty turnpike road, but by some inexplicable coincidence he would be met by Miss Monk; and when he came to the Hall to pass an hour with Hubert, she generally made a third at the interview. It had pleased her latterly to take to practising on the old church organ; and if Mr. Grame was not wiled into the church with her and her attendant, the ancient clerk, who blew the bellows, she was sure to alight upon him in going or returning.

One fine evening, dinner over, when the last beams of the sun were slanting into the drawing-room, Eliza Monk was sitting back on a sofa, reading; Kate romped about the room, and Mrs. Carradyne had just rung the bell for tea. Lucy had been spending the afternoon with Mrs. Speck, and Hubert had now gone to fetch her home.

"Good gracious, Kate, can't you be quiet!" exclaimed Miss Monk, as the child in her gambols sprung upon the sofa, upsetting the book and its reader's temper. "Go away: you are treading on my flounces. Aunt Emma, why do you persist in having this tiresome little reptile with us after dinner?"

"Because your father will not let her be sent to the nursery," said Mrs. Carradyne.

"Did you ever know a child like her?"

"She is but as her mother was; as you were, Eliza—always rebellious. Kate, sit down to the piano and play one of your pretty tunes."

"I won't," responded Kate. "Play yourself, Aunt Emma."

Dashing through the open glass doors, Kate began tossing a ball on the broad gravel walk below the terrace. Mrs. Carradyne cautioned her not to break the windows, and turned to the tea-table.

"Don't make the tea yet, Aunt Emma," interrupted Miss Monk, in a tone that was quite like a command. "Mr. Grame is coming, and he won't care for cold tea."

Mrs. Carradyne returned to her seat. She thought the opportunity had come to say something to her niece which she had been wanting to say.

"You invited Mr. Grame, Eliza?"

"I did," said Eliza, looking defiance.

"My dear," resumed Mrs. Carradyne with some hesitation, "forgive me if I offer you a word of advice. You have no mother; I pray you to listen to me in her stead. You must change your line of behaviour to Mr. Grame."

Eliza's dark face turned red and haughty. "I do not understand you, Aunt Emma."

"Nay, I think you do understand me, my dear. You have incautiously allowed yourself to fall into—into an undesirable liking for Mr. Grame. An unseemly liking, Eliza."

"Unseemly!"

"Yes; because it has not been sought. Cannot you see, Eliza, how he instinctively recedes from it? how he would repel it were he less the gentleman than he is? Child, I shrink from saying these things to you, but it is needful. You have good sense, Eliza, keen discernment, and you might see for yourself that it is not to you Mr. Grame's love is given—or ever will be."

For once in her life Eliza Monk allowed herself to betray agitation. She opened her trembling lips to speak, but closed them again.

"A moment yet, Eliza. Let us suppose, for argument's sake, that Mr. Grame loved you; that he wished to marry you; you know, my dear, how utterly useless it would be. Your father would not suffer it."

"Mr. Grame is of gentle descent; my father is attached to him," disputed Eliza.

"But Mr. Grame has nothing but his living—a hundred and sixty pounds a-year; you must make a match in accordance with your own position. It would be Katherine's trouble, Katherine's rebellion over again. But this was mentioned for argument's sake only; Mr. Grame will never sue for anything of the kind; and I must beg of you, my dear, to put all idea of it away, and to change your manner towards him."

"Perhaps you fancy he may wish to sue for Lucy!" cried Eliza, in fierce resentment.

"That is a great deal more likely than the other. And the difficulties in her case would not be so great."

"And pray why, Aunt Emma?"

"Because, my dear, I should not resent it as your father would. I am not so ambitious for her as he is for you."

"A fine settlement for her—Robert Grame and his hundred—"

"Who is taking my name in vain?" cried out a pleasant voice from the open window; and Robert Grame entered.

"I was," said Eliza readily; her tone changing like magic to sweet suavity, her face putting on its best charm—"About to remark that the Reverend Robert Grame has a hundred faults. Aunt Emma agrees with me."

He laughed lightly, regarding it as pleasantry, and inquired for Hubert.

Eliza stepped out on the terrace when tea was over, talking to Mr. Grame; they began to pace it slowly together. Kate and her ball sported on the gravel walk beneath. It was a warm, serene evening, the silver moon shining, the evening star just appearing in the clear blue sky.

"Lucy being away, you cannot enjoy your usual flirtation with her," remarked Miss Monk, in a light tone.

But he did not take it lightly. Rarely had his voice been more serious than when he answered: "I beg your pardon. I do not flirt—I have never flirted with Miss Carradyne."

"No! It has looked like it."

Mr. Grame remained silent. "I hope not," he said at last. "I did not intend—I did not think. However, I must mend my manners," he added more gaily. "To flirt at all would ill become my sacred calling. And Lucy Carradyne is superior to any such trifling."

Her pulses were coursing on to fever heat. With her whole heart she loved Robert Grame: and the secret preference he had unconsciously betrayed for Lucy had served to turn her later days to bitterness.

"Possibly you mean something more serious," said Eliza, compressing her lips.

"If I mean anything, I should certainly mean it seriously," replied the young clergyman, his face blushing as he made the avowal. "But I may not. I have been reflecting much latterly, and I see I may not. If my income were good it might be a different matter. But it is not; and marriage for me must be out of the question."

"With a portionless girl, yes. Robert Grame," she went on rapidly with impassioned earnestness, "when you marry, it must be with someone who can help you; whose income will compensate for the deficiency of yours. Look around you well: there may be some young ladies rich in the world's wealth, even in Church Leet, who will forget your want of fortune for your own sake."

Did he misunderstand her? It was hardly possible. She had a large fortune; Lucy none. But he answered as though he comprehended not. It may be that he deemed it best to set her ill-regulated hopes at rest for ever.

"One can hardly suppose a temptation of that kind would fall in the way of an obscure individual like myself. If it did, I could but reject it. I should not marry for money. I shall never marry where I do not love."

They had halted near one of the terrace seats. On it lay a toy of Kate's, a little wooden "box of bells." Mechanically, her mind far away, Eliza took it up and began, still mechanically, turning the wire which set the bells to play with a soft but not unpleasant jingle.

"You love Lucy Carradyne!" she whispered.

"I fear I do," he answered. "Though I have struggled against the conviction."

A sudden crash startled them; shivers of glass fell before their feet; fit accompaniment to the shattered hopes of one who stood there. Kate Dancox, aiming at Mr. Grame's hat, had sent her ball through the window. He leaped away to catch the culprit, and Eliza Monk sat down on the bench, all gladness gone out of her. Her love-dream had turned out to be a snare and a delusion.

"Who did that?"

Captain Monk, frightened from his after-dinner nap by the crash, came forth in anger. Kate got a box on the ear, and was sent to bed howling.

"You should send her to school, papa."

"And I will," declared the Captain. "She startled me out of my sleep. Out of a dream, too. And it is not often I dream. I thought I was hearing the chimes."

"Chimes which I have not yet been fortunate enough to hear," said Mr. Grame with a smile. Eliza recalled the sound of the bells she had set in motion, and thought it must have penetrated to her father in his sleep.

"By George, no! You shall, though, Grame. They shall ring the new year in when it comes."

"Aunt Emma won't like that," laughingly commented Eliza. She was trying to be gay and careless before Robert Grame.

"Aunt Emma may dislike it!" retorted the Captain. "She has picked up some ridiculously absurd notion, Grame, that the bells bring ill-luck when they are heard. Women are so foolishly superstitious."

"That must be a very far-fetched superstition," said the parson.

"One might as well believe in witches," mocked the Captain. "I have given in to her fancies for some years, not to cross her, and let the bells be silent: she's a good woman on the whole; but be hanged if I will any longer. On the last day of this year, Grame, you shall hear the chimes."

* * * * *

How it came about nobody exactly knew, unless it was through Hubert, but matters were smoothed for the parson and Lucy.

Mrs. Carradyne knew his worth, and she saw that they were as much in love with one another as ever could be Hodge and Joan. She liked the idea of Lucy being settled near her—and the vicarage, large and handsome, could have its unused rooms opened and furnished. Mr. Grame honestly avowed that he should have asked for Lucy before, but for his poverty; he supposed that Lucy was poor also.

"That is so; Lucy has nothing of her own," said Mrs. Carradyne to this. "But I am not in that condition."

"Of course not. But—pardon me—I thought your property went to your son."

Mrs. Carradyne laughed. "A small estate of his father's, close by here, became my son's at his father's death," she said. "My own money is at my disposal; the half of it will eventually be Lucy's. When she marries, I shall allow her two hundred a-year: and upon that, and your stipend, you will have to get along together."

"It will be like riches to me," said the young parson all in a glow.

"Ah! Wait until you realise the outlets for money that a wife entails," nodded Mrs. Carradyne in her superior wisdom. "Not but that I'm sure it's good for young people, setting-up together, to be straitened at the beginning. It teaches them economy and the value of money."

Altogether it seemed a wonderful prospect to Robert Grame. Miss Lucy thought it would be Paradise. But a stern wave of opposition set in from Captain Monk.

Hubert broke the news to him as they were sitting together after dinner. To begin with, the Captain, as a matter of course, flew into a passion.

"Another of those beggarly parsons! What possessed them, that they should fix upon his family to play off their machinations upon! Lucy Carradyne was his niece: she should never be grabbed up by one of them while he was alive to stop it."

"Wait a minute, father," whispered Hubert. "You like Robert Grame; I know that: you would rather see him carry off Lucy than Eliza."

"What the dickens do you mean by that?"

Hubert said a few cautious words—hinting that, but for Lucy's being in the way, poor Katherine's escapade might have been enacted over again. Captain Monk relieved his mind by some strong language, sailor fashion; and for once in his life saw he must give in to necessity.

So the wedding was fixed for the month of February, just one year after they had met: that sweet time of early spring, when spring comes in genially, when the birds would be singing, and the green buds peeping and the sunlight dancing.

But the present year was not over yet. Lucy was sewing at her wedding things. Eliza Monk, smarting at their sight as with an adder's sting, ran away from it to visit a family who lived near Oddingly, an insignificant little place, lying, as everybody knows, on the other side of Worcester, famous only for its dulness and for the strange murders committed there in 1806—which have since passed into history. But she returned home for Christmas.

Once more it was old-fashioned Christmas weather; Jack Frost freezing the snow and sporting his icicles. The hearty tenants, wending their way to the annual feast in the winter twilight, said how unusually sharp the air was, enough to bite off their ears and noses.

The Reverend Robert Grame made one at the table for the first time, and said grace at the Captain's elbow. He had heard about the freedom obtaining at these dinners; but he knew he was utterly powerless to suppress it, and he hoped his presence might prove some little restraint, just as poor George West had hoped in the days gone by: not that it was as bad now as it used to be. A rumour had gone abroad that the chimes were to play again, but it died away unconfirmed, for Captain Monk kept his own counsel.

The first to quit the table was Hubert. Captain Monk looked up angrily. He was proud of his son, of his tall and graceful form, of his handsome features, proud even of his bright complexion; ay, and of his estimable qualities. While inwardly fearing Hubert's signs of fading strength, he defiantly refused to recognise it or to admit it openly.

"What now?" he said in a loud whisper. "Are you turning renegade?"

The young man bent over his father's shoulder. "I don't feel well; better let me go quietly, father; I have felt oppressed here all day"—touching his left side. And he escaped.

There was present at table an elderly gentleman named Peveril. He had recently come with his wife into the neighbourhood and taken on lease a small estate, called by the odd name of Peacock's Range, which belonged to Hubert and lay between Church Dykely and Church Leet. Mr. Peveril put an inopportune question.

"What is the story, Captain, about some chimes which were put up in the church here and are never allowed to ring because they caused the death of the Vicar? I was told of it to-day."

Captain Monk looked at Mr. Peveril, but did not speak.

"One George West, I think. Was he parson here?"

"Yes, he was parson here," said Farmer Winter, finding nobody else answered Mr. Peveril, next to whom he sat. He was a very old man now, but hale and hearty still, and a steadfast ally of his landlord. "Given that parson his way and we should never have had the chimes put up. Sweet sounding bells they are."

"But how could the chimes kill him?" went on Mr. Peveril. "Did they kill him?"

"George West was a quarrelsome, mischief-making meddler, good for nothing but to set the parish together by the ears; and I must beg of you to drop his name when at my table, Peveril. As to the chimes, you will hear them to-night."

Captain Monk spoke in his sternest tones, and Mr. Peveril bowed. Robert Grame had listened in surprise. He wondered what it all meant—for nobody had ever told him of this phase of the past. The table clapped its unsteady hands and gave a cheer for the chimes, now to be heard again.

"Yes, gentlemen," said the Captain, not a whit more steady than his guests. "They shall ring for us to-night, though it brought the parson out of his grave."

A few minutes before twelve the butler, who had his orders, came into the dining-room and set the windows open. His master gave him another order and the man withdrew. Entering the drawing-room, he proceeded to open those windows also. Mr. Peveril, and one or two more guests, sat with the family; Hubert lay back in an easy-chair.

"What are you about, Rimmer?" hastily cried out Mrs. Carradyne in surprise. "Opening the windows!"

"It is by the master's orders, ma'am," replied the butler; "he bade me open them, that you and the ladies might get a better hearing of the chimes."

Mrs. Carradyne, superstitious ever, grew white as death. "The chimes!" she breathed in a dread whisper. "Surely, surely, Rimmer, you must be mistaken. The chimes cannot be going to ring again!"

"They are to ring the New Year in," said the man. "I have known it this day or two, but was not allowed to tell, as Madam may guess"—glancing at his mistress. "John Cale has got his orders, and he'll set 'em going when the clock has struck twelve."

"Oh, is there no one who will run to stop it?" bewailed Mrs. Carradyne, wringing her hands in all the terror of a nameless fear. "There may yet be time. Rimmer! can you go?"

Hubert came out of his chair laughing. Rimmer was round and fat now, and could not run if he tried. "I'll go, aunt," he said. "Why, walking slowly, I should get there before Rimmer."

The words, "walking slowly," may have misled Mrs. Carradyne; or, in the moment's tribulation, perhaps she forgot that Hubert ought not to be the one to use much exertion; but she made no objection. No one else made way, and Hubert hastened out, putting on his overcoat as he went towards the church.

It was the loveliest night; the air was still and clear, the landscape white and glistening, the moon bright as gold. Hubert, striding along at a quick walk, had traversed half the short distance, when the church clock struck out the first note of midnight. And he knew he should not be in time—unless—

He set off to run: it was such a very little way! Flying along without heed to self, he reached the churchyard gate. And there he was forced—forced—to stop to gather up his laboured breath.

Ring, ring, ring! broke forth the chimes melodiously upon Hubert's ear. "Stop!" he shouted, panting; "stop! stop!"—just as if John Cale could hear the warning: and he began leaping over all the gravestones in his path, after the irreverent fashion of Miss Kate Dancox.

"Stop!" he faintly cried in his exhaustion, dashing through the vestry, as the strains of "The Bay of Biscay" pursued their harmonious course overhead, sounding louder here than in the open air. "Sto—"

He could not finish the word. Pulling the little door open, he put his foot on the first step of the narrow ladder of a staircase: and then fell prone upon it. John Cale and young Mr. Threpp, the churchwarden's son, who had been the clerk's companion, were descending the stairs, after the chimes had chimed themselves out, and they had locked them up again to (perhaps) another year, when they found some impediment below.

"What is it?" exclaimed young Mr. Threpp. The clerk turned on his lantern.

It was Hubert, Captain Monk's son and heir. He lay there with a face of deadly whiteness, a blue shade encircling his lips.

JOHNNY LUDLOW.



WINTER IN ABSENCE.

The earth is clothed with fog and mist, The shrivelled ferns are white with rime, The trees are fairy-frosted round The portion of enchanted ground Where, in the woods, we lovers kissed Last summer, in the happy time.

They say that summer comes again; In winter who believes it true? Can I have faith through days like this— Days with no rose, no sun, no kiss, Faith in the long gold summer when There will be sunshine, flowers and you?

Keep faith and me alive, I pray; Feed me with loving letters, dear; Speak of the summer and the sun; Lest, when the winter-time be done, Your summer shall have fled away With me—who had no heart to stay The slow, sick turning of the year.



THE BRETONS AT HOME.

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

Morlaix awoke to a new day. The sunshine was pouring upon it from a cloudless sky—a somewhat rare vision in Brittany, where the skies are more often grey, rain frequently falls, and the land is overshadowed by mist.



So far the climate of Brittany resembles very much that of England: and many other points of comparison exist between Greater Britain and Lesser Brittany besides its similarity of name. For even its name it derives from us; from the fact that in the fifth and sixth centuries the Saxons, as they choose to call them, went over in great numbers and settled there. No wonder, then, that the Bretons possess many of our characteristics, even in exaggeration, for they are direct descendants of the ancient Britons.

They have, for instance, all the gravity of the English temperament, to which is added a gloom or sombreness of disposition that is born of repression and poverty and a long struggle with the ways and means of existence; to which may yet farther be added the influence of climate. Hope and ambition, the two great levers of the world, with them are not largely developed; there has been no opportunity for their growth. Ambitions cannot exist without an aim, nor hope without an object. Just as in certain dark caves of the world, where daylight never penetrates, the fish found there have no eyes, because, from long disuse of the organ, it has gradually lessened and died out; so hope and ambition amongst the moral faculties must equally disappear without an object in life.

It is therefore tolerably certain that where, according to phrenologists, the organ of Hope is situated, there the Breton head will be found undeveloped.

Now without hope no one can be constitutionally happy, and the Bretons would be amongst the unhappiest on earth, just as they are amongst the most slow-moving, if it were not for a counterbalancing quality which they own in large excess. This virtue is veneration; and it is this which saves them.

They are the most earnest and devoted, almost superstitiously religious of people. They observe their Sabbaths, their fasts and feasts with a severity and punctuality beyond all praise. With few exceptions, their churches are very inferior to those of Normandy, but each returning Sunday finds the Breton churches full of an earnest crowd, evidently assembled for the purpose of worshipping with their whole heart and soul. The rapt expression of many of the faces makes them for the moment simply beautiful, and if an artist could only transfer their fervency to canvas, he would produce a picture worthy of the masters of the Middle Ages, and read a lesson to the world far greater than that of an Angelus or a Magdalene.

It is a sight worth going very far to see, these earnest worshippers, with whom the head is never turned and the eye never wanders. The further you pass into the interior of Brittany—into the remote districts of the Morbihan, for instance—where the outer world, with its advancement and civilization, scarcely seems to have penetrated, there fervency and devotion are still full of the element of superstition; there you will find that faith becomes almost synonymous with a strict observance of prayers, penances and the commands of the Church. When the Angelus rings out in the evening, you will see the labourer, wending his way homeward, suddenly arrest his steps in the ploughed field, and with bent head, pass in silent prayer the dying moments of crepuscule.

There will scarcely be an exception to the rule, either in men or women. The reverence has grown with their growth, having first been born with them of inheritance: the heritage and the growth of centuries. All over the country you will find Calvaries erected: huge stone crosses and images of the Crucifixion, many of them crumbling and beautiful with the lapse of ages, the stone steps at their base worn with the devotion of pilgrims: crosses that stand out so solemnly and picturesquely in the gloaming against the background of the grey, cold Breton skies, and give a religious tone to the whole country.

The Bretons have ever remained a race apart, possessing their own language, their own habits, manners and customs; not becoming absorbed with other nations, nor absorbing in themselves any foreign element. Separated from Normandy by no visible boundary line, divided by no broad Channel, the Bretons are as different from the Normans as the Normans are distinct from the English. They have a high standard of integrity, of right and wrong, there is the distinct feeling of Noblesse oblige amongst them; their noblesse consisting in the fact that, being Breton, il faut agir loyalement. If they pass you their word, you may be sure they will not go from it: it is as good as their bond. They are a hundred years behind the rest of mankind, but there is a great charm and a great compensation in their simplicity.

Normandy may be called the country of beautiful churches, Brittany of beautiful towns.

This is eminently true of Morlaix, for, in spite of the removal of many an ancient landmark, it is still wonderfully interesting. In situation it is singularly favoured and romantic, placed as it is on the sides of three deep ravines. Hills rise on all sides, shutting in the houses; hills fertile and well-wooded; in many places cultivated and laid out in gardens, where flowers grow and flourish all the year round, and orchards that in spring-time are one blaze, one wealth of blossoming fruit trees.

We looked out upon all this that first morning. Not a wealth of blossoming trees, for the blossoms were over. But before us stretched the high hills, and surrounding us were all the houses of Morlaix, old and new. The sun we have said shone upon all, and we needed all this brightness to make up for the discomforts of the past night. H.C. declared that his dreams had been of tread-mills, monastic penances, and the rack; but he had survived the affliction, and this morning was eager for action.

It was market-day, and the market-place lay just to the right of us. The stalls were in full force; the butter and poultry women in strong evidence, and all the other stalls indigenous to the ceremony. There was already a fair gathering of people, many of them paysans, armed with umbrellas as stout and clumsy as themselves. For the Bretons know and mistrust their own climate, and are too well aware that the day of a brilliant morning too often ends in weeping skies. Many wore costumes which, though quaint, were not by any means beautiful. They were heavy and ungraceful, like the people themselves: broad-brimmed hats and loose trunk hose that hung about them like sacks, something after the fashion of Turkish pantaloons; and the men wore their hair in huge manes, hanging down their backs, ugly and untidy; habits, costumes and people all indicative of la Bretagne Bretonnante—la Basse Bretagne.

It was a lively scene, in which we longed to take a part; listen to the strange language, watch the ways and manners of this distinctive race, who certainly are too aboriginal to win upon you at first sight.

The hotel was wide awake this morning, full of life and movement. All who had had to do with us last night gave us a special greeting. They seemed to look upon us almost as enfants de la maison; had taken us in and done for us under special circumstances, and so had special claims upon us. Moreover, we were English, and the English are much considered in Morlaix.

We looked upon last night's adventures as the events of a dream, though at the time they had been very painful realities. The first object in the hotel to meet our gaze was Andre, his face still tied up like a mummy, still looking the Image of Misery, as if he and repose had known nothing of each other since we had parted from him. He was, however, very anxious for our welfare, and hoped we had slept well on our impromptu couches.

Next, on descending, we caught sight of Madame, taking the air and contemplating the world at large at the door of her bureau. The moment we appeared the air became too strong for her, and she rapidly passed through her bureau to a sanctum sanctorum beyond, into which, of course, we could not penetrate. We looked upon this as a tacit confession of a guilty conscience, and agreed magnanimously to make no further allusion to her lapsed memory. So when we at length met face to face, she, like Andre, was full of amiable inquiries for our health and welfare.

We sallied forth, and whatever we thought of Morlaix last night, we thought no less of it to-day.

It is a strange mixture of ancient and modern, as we were prepared to find it. On all sides rose the steep hills, within the shelter of which the town reposes. The situation is exceedingly striking. Stretching across one end of the town with most imposing effect is the enormous viaduct, over which the train rolls towards the station. It possesses also a footway for pedestrians, from which point the whole town lies mapped at your feet, and you may trace the faraway windings of the river. The viaduct is nearly two hundred feet high, and nearly four hundred yards long, and from its position it looks even more gigantic than it is. It divides the town into two portions, as it were, the outer portion consisting of the port and harbour: and from this footway far down you may see the picturesque shipping at repose: a very modest amount to-day moored to the river side, consisting of a few barges, a vessel or two laden with coal or wood, and a steamer in which you might take passage for Havre, or perhaps some nearer port on the Brittany Coast.

It is a charming picture, especially if the skies overhead are blue and the sun is shining. Then the town is lying in alternate light and shade; the pavements are chequered with gabled outlines, long drawn out or foreshortened according to their position. The canal bordering the old market-place is lined with a long row of women, alternately beating linen upon boards and rinsing it in the water. We know that they are laughing and chattering, though we cannot hear them; for a group of even sober Breton women could not be together and keep silence. They take life very seriously and earnestly; with them it is not all froth and evaporation; but this is their individual view of existence; collectively there comes the reaction, forming the lights and shadows of life, just as we have the lights and shadows in nature. That reaction must come is the inevitable law; and possibly explains why there are so many apparent contradictions in people.

Morlaix has had an eventful history in the annals of Brittany. It takes its name from Mons Relaxus, the hill that was crowned by the ancient castle; a castle which existed at the time of the Roman occupation, if the large number of medals and pieces of Roman money discovered in its foundations may be taken as indicating its epoch. Many of these remains may be seen in the small museum of the town. They date from the third century.

The progress of Morlaix was slow. Very little is recorded of its earlier history. Though the Romans occupied it, we know not what they did there. Nearly all traces of Roman architecture have disappeared. The town has been frequently sacked and pillaged and burnt, sacrilege in which the English have had many a hand; and even Roman bricks and mortar will yield in time to destructive agencies.

Even in the eleventh century it was still nothing more than a small fishing town, a few houses nestling in the ravine, and sheltered by a huge rampart on the south-west. Upon the Mons Relaxus, the hill giving its name to the town, stood the lordly castle, the two rivers flowing, one on either side, which further down unite and form one stream. To-day all traces of the castle have disappeared and the site is planted with trees, and quiet citizens walk to and fro beneath their shade, where centuries ago there echoed the clash of arms and the shouts of warriors going forth conquering and to conquer. For in those days the Romans were the masters of the world, and seemed born only for victory.

In the twelfth century, Morlaix began a long series of vicissitudes. In 1187 Henry II. of England laid siege to it, and it gave in after a resistance of nine weeks. It was then in possession of the Dukes of Brittany, who built the ancient walls of the town, traces of which yet exist, and are amongst the town's most interesting remains.

The occupation of the English being distasteful to the Bretons, they continually rebelled against it; though, as far as can be known, the English were no hard task-masters, forcing them, as the Egyptians did the Israelites, to make bricks without straw.

In 1372 the English were turned out of their occupation, and the Dukes of Brittany once more reigned. It was an unhappy change for the discontented people, as they soon found. John IV., Duke of Brittany, was guilty of every species of tyranny and cruelty, and many of the inhabitants were sacrificed.

Time went on and Morlaix had no periods of great repose. Every now and then the English attacked it, and in the reign of Francis I. they pillaged and burnt it, destroying antiquities that perhaps to-day would have been worth many a king's ransom. This was in the year 1532.



In 1548, Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, a child of five years only, disembarked at the wonderfully quaint little town of Roscoff to marry the Dauphin of France, who afterwards reigned as Francis II. She made a triumphal entry into Morlaix, was lodged at the Jacobin convent, and took part in the Te Deum that was celebrated in her honour in Notre Dame du Mur. This gives an additional interest to Morlaix, for every place visited by the beautiful and unfortunate Queen of Scots, every record preserved of her, possesses a romantic charm that time has been unable to weaken.

As she was returning to the convent after the celebration of the Te Deum, and they were passing what was called the Gate of the Prison, the drawbridge gave way and fell into the river. It was fortunately low water, and no lives were lost. But the Scots Guards, separated from the young Queen by the accident, took alarm, thought the whole thing had been planned, and called out: "Treason! Treason!" Upon which the Chevalier de Rohan, who rode near the Queen, quickly turned his horse and shouted: "Never was Breton guilty of treason!"

And this exclamation may be considered a key-note to their character. The Bretons, amongst their virtues, may count that of loyalty. All is fair in love and war, it is said; but the Bretons would betray neither friend nor foe under any circumstance whatever.

For two hundred years Morlaix has known peace and repose, as far as the outer world is concerned. She has given herself up to religious institutions, and has grown and prospered. So it comes to pass that she is a strange mixture of new and old, and that side by side with a quaint and wonderful structure of the Middle Ages, we find a house of the present day flourishing like a green bay tree—a testimony to prosperity, and an eyesore to the lover of antiquity. But these wonders of the Middle Ages must gradually disappear. As time rolls on, and those past centuries become more and more remote, the old must give place to the new; ancient buildings must fall away in obedience to the inevitable laws of time, progress and destruction.

This is especially true of Morlaix. Much that was old-world and lovely has gone for ever, and day by day something more is disappearing.

We sallied forth, but unaccompanied by Misery, who was hard at work in the hotel, preparing us rooms wherein, as he expressed it, we should that night lodge as Christians. Whether, last night, he had put us down as Mahometans, Fire Worshippers, or heathens of some other denomination, he did not say.

The town had lost the sense of weirdness and mystery thrown over it by the darkness. The solemn midnight silence had given place to the activity of work and daylight; all shops were open, all houses unclosed; people were hurrying to and fro. Our strange little procession of three was no more, and Andre carrying a flaring candle would have been anything but a picturesque object in the sunshine.

But what was lost of weirdness and mystery was more than made up by the general effect of the town, by the minute details everywhere visible, by the sense of life and movement. Usually the little town is quiet and somewhat sleepy; to-day the inhabitants were roused out of their Breton lethargy by the presence of so many strangers amongst them, and by the fact of its being market day.

More than even last night, we were impressed by the wonderful outlines of the Grand' Rue, where the lattice had been lighted up and the mysterious vision had received a revelation in gazing upon H.C. To-day behind the lattice there was comparative darkness, and the vision had descended to a lower region, and the unromantic occupation of opening a roll of calico and displaying its advantages to a market woman who was evidently bent upon driving a bargain. The vision caught sight of H.C., and for the moment calico and everything else was forgotten; the market woman no doubt had her calico at her own price.

The street itself is one of the most wonderful in France. As you stand at the end and look down towards Les Halles, you have a picturesque group, an assemblage of outlines scarcely to be equalled in the world. The street is narrow, and the houses, more and more overhanging as they ascend floor by floor, approach each other very closely towards the summit. The roofs are, some of them, gabled; others, slanting backwards, give room for picturesque dormer windows. Wide lattices stretch across some of the houses from end to end; in others the windows are smaller and open outwards like ordinary French windows, but always latticed, always picturesque.

Below, on the ground floor, many of the houses are given up to shops, but, fortunately, they have not been modernised.

The whole length of the front is unglazed, and you gaze into an interior full of mysterious gloom, in which you can scarcely see the wares offered for sale. The rooms go far back. They are black with age: a dark panelling that you would give much to be able to transport to other scenes. The ceilings are low, and great beams run across them. The doors admitting you to these wonderful old-world places match well their surroundings. They are wide and substantial, with beams that would effectually guard a prison, and wonderful old locks and keys and pieces of ironwork that set you wild with longings to turn housebreaker and carry away these ancient and artistic relics.

You feel that nothing in the lives of the people who live in these wonderful tenements can be commonplace. However unconscious they may be of the refining influence, it is there, and it must leave its mark upon them.

At least, you think so. You know what the effect would be upon yourself. You know that if you could transport this street bodily to some quiet nook in England and surround it by velvety lawns and ancient trees that have grown and spread with the lapse of ages, your existence would become a long and romantic daydream, and you would be in danger of living the life of a recluse and never separating yourself from these influences. Custom would never stale their infinite variety; familiarity would never breed contempt. Who tires of wandering through a gallery of the old masters? who can endure the modern in comparison? It is not the mere antiquity of all these things that charm; it is that they are beautiful in themselves, and belong to an age when the Spirit of Beauty was poured out upon the world from full vials held in the hands of unseen angels, and what men touched and created they perfected.

But the vials have long been exhausted and the angels have fled back to heaven.

The houses all bear a strong family resemblance to each other, which adds to their charm and harmony. Most of them possess two doors, one giving access to the shop we have just described, the other admitting to a hall or vestibule, panelled, and often richly sculptured. Above the rez-de-chaussee, two or three stories rise, supported by enormous beams richly moulded and sculptured, again supported in their turn by other beams equally massive, whose massiveness is disguised by rich sculpture and ornamentation: a profusion of boughs, of foliage, so beautifully wrought that you may trace the veins in the leaves of niches, pinnacles and statues: corner posts ornamented with figures of kings, priests, saints, monsters, and bagpipers. The windows seem to multiply themselves as they ascend, with their small panes crossed and criss-crossed by leaden lines: the fronts of many are slated with slates cut into lozenge shapes; and many possess the "slate apron" found in fifteenth century houses, with the slates curved outwardly to protect the beam.

By the second door you pass down a long passage into what originally was probably a small yard, but has now been turned into a living-room or kitchen covered over at the very top of the house by a skylight. This is an arrangement now peculiar to Brittany. The staircase occupies one side of the space, and you may trace the windings to the very summit, curiously arranged at the angles. These singularly-constructed rooms have given to the houses the name of lanternes. Every room has an enormous fireplace, in which you might almost roast an ox, built partly of wood and stone, richly carved and ornamented. But let the eye rest where it will, it is charmed by rich carvings and mouldings, beams wonderfully sculptured, statues, ancient niches and grotesques.

In one of these houses is to be found a wonderful staircase of carved oak and great antiquity, that in itself would make Morlaix worth visiting. It is in the Flamboyant style, and was probably erected about the year 1500. For Brittany is behind the age in its carvings as much as in everything else, and this staircase in any other country might safely be put down to the year 1450. It is of wonderful beauty, and almost matchless in the world: a marvel of skill and refinement. It possesses also a lavoir, the only known example in existence, with doors to close when it is not in use; the whole thing a dream of beautiful sculpture.



One other house in Morlaix has also a very wonderful staircase; still more wonderful, perhaps, than that in the Grand' Rue; but it is not in such good preservation. The house is in the Rue des Nobles, facing the covered market-place. It is called the house of the Duchesse Anne, and here in her day and generation she must have lived or lodged.

The house is amongst the most curious and interesting and ancient in Morlaix, but it is doomed. The whole interior is going to rack and ruin, and it was at the peril of our lives that we scrambled up the staircase and over the broken floors, where a false step might have brought us much too rapidly back to terra firma. Morlaix is not enterprising enough to restore and save this relic of antiquity.

The staircase, built on the same lines as the wonderful staircase in the Grand' Rue, is, if possible, more refined and beautiful; but it has been allowed to fall into decay, and much of it is in a hopelessly worm-eaten condition. H.C. was in ecstasies, and almost went down on his knees before the image of an angel that had lost a leg and an arm, part of a wing, and the whole of its nose; but very lovely were the outlines that remained.

"Like the Venus of Milo in the Louvre," said H.C., "what remains of it is all the more precious for what is not."

It was not so very long since we had visited the Louvre together, and he had remained rapt before the famous Venus for a whole hour, contemplating her from every point of view, and declaring that now he should never marry: he had seen perfection once, and should never see it again. This I knew to be nothing but the enthusiasm of the moment. The very next pretty face and form he encountered, animated with the breath of life, would banish from his mind all allegiance to the cold though faultless marble image.

The exterior of the house of the Duchesse Anne was as remarkable as the interior for its wonderful antiquity, its carvings, its statues and grotesques, its carved pilasters between the windows, each of different design and all beautiful, its gabled roofs and its latticed panes that had long fallen out of the perpendicular. Both this and the next house were closed; and it was heartbreaking to think that perhaps on our next visit to Morlaix empty space would here meet our gaze, or, still worse, a barbarous modern aggression.

Few towns now, comparatively speaking, possess fifteenth century remains, and those few towns should preserve them as amongst their most cherished treasures.

Morlaix is still amongst the most favoured towns in this respect. Go which way you will, and amongst much that is modern, you will see ancient houses and nooks and corners that delight you and take you back to the Middle Ages. Now it will be an old house in the market-place that has escaped destruction; now a whole court up some narrow turning, too out-of-the-way to have been worthy of demolition; and now it will be a whole street, like the Grand' Rue, which has been preserved, no doubt of deliberate intent, as being one of the most typical fifteenth century streets in the whole of France, an ornament and an attraction to the town, raising Morlaix out of the commonplace, and causing antiquarians and many others to visit it.

For if all the houses of the Grand' Rue are not actually fifteenth century—and they are not—they all look of an age; they all belong to the same school of architecture, and the harmony of the whole street is perfect. Looking upwards, the eye is delighted at the outlines of the gabled roofs that stand out so clearly and sharply against the background of the sky; and you return to it over and over again during your sojourn in Morlaix, and each time you gaze longer and think it more beautiful than before.

These old-world towns and streets are very refreshing to the spirit. We grow weary of our modern towns, with their endless monotony and their utter absence of all taste and beauty. Just as when sojourning in a country devoid of monuments and ruins, the mind at length absolutely hungers for some grand, ecclesiastical building, some glorious vestige of early ages; so when we have once grown familiar with mediaeval towns and outlines, it becomes an absolute necessity occasionally to run away from our prosy nineteenth century habitations, and refresh our spirit, and absorb into our inmost nature all these refining old-world charms. It is an influence more easily felt than described; also, it does not appeal to all natures. We can only understand Shakespeare by the Shakespeare that is within us—an oft quoted saying but a very true one; and Pan might pipe for ever to one who has no music in his soul; and the rainbow might arch itself in vain to one who is colour-blind.

Morlaix also, as we have said, owes much to its situation.

Lying between three ravines, it is most romantically placed. Its people are sheltered from many of the cruel winds of winter, and even the sturdy Bretons cannot be quite indifferent to the stern blast that comes from the East laden with ice and snow.

Not that the people of Morlaix look particularly robust, though we found them very civil and often very interesting. We must pay for our privileges, and if a town is built in a hollow, and is sheltered from the east wind, the chances are that its climate will be enervating. This, of course, has its drawbacks, and sets the seal of consumption on many a victim that might have escaped in higher latitudes.

One charming type we found in Morlaix, consisting of a family that ought to have lived in the middle ages, and been painted by Raphael, or have served as models for Fra Angelico's angels. Three generations.

We were climbing the Jacob's ladder leading to the station one day, when we chanced upon an old man who sold antiquities. We were first taken with his countenance. It had honesty and integrity written upon it. Had he been a German, living in Ober-Ammergau, he would certainly have been chosen for the chief character in the play—a play, by the way, that has always seemed questionable, since the greatest and most momentous Drama creation ever witnessed appears too sacred a theme to be theatrically represented, even in a spirit of devotion.

Our antiquarian was growing old. His face was pale, beautiful and refined, with a very spiritual expression. The eyes were of a pure blue, in which dwelt almost the innocence of childhood. He was slightly deformed in the back. There was a pathetic tone in the voice, a resigned expression in the face, which told of a long life of struggle, and possibly much hardship and trouble—the latter undoubtedly.

We soon found that he had in him the true artistic temperament. His own work was beautiful, his carvings were full of poetical feeling. If not a genius himself, he was one whose offspring should possess the "sacred fire," which must be born with its possessor, can never after be kindled. In one or two instances we pointed to something superlatively good. "Ah, that is my son's work," he said; "it is not mine." And there was an inflection in the voice which told of pride and affection, and perhaps was the one bright spot in the old man's pilgrimage, perhaps his one sorrow and trouble—who could tell? We had not seen the son; we felt we must do so.

The old man's most treasured possession was a crucifix, to which he pointed with a reverential devotion.

"I have had it nearly thirty years," he said, "and I never would sell it. It is so beautiful that it must be by a great master—one of the old masters. People have come to see it from far and near. Many have tempted me with a good offer, but I would never part with it. Now I want the money and I wish to sell it. Will you not buy it?"

It was certainly exquisitely beautiful; carved in ivory deeply browned with age. We had never seen anything to equal the position of the Figure upon the Cross; the wonderful beauty of the head; the sorrow and sacredness of the expression; the perfect anatomy of the body. But in our strictly Protestant prejudices we hesitated. As an object of religion of course we could have nothing to do with it; the Roman Catholic creed, with its outward signs and symbols, was not ours; who even in our own Church mourned the almost lost beauty and simplicity of our ancient ritual; that substitution of the ceremonial for the spiritual, the creature for the Creator, which seems to threaten the downfall of the Establishment. Would it be right to purchase and possess this beautiful thing merely as an object of refined and wonderful art? I looked at H.C. In his face at least there was no hesitation. Such a prize was not to be lost if it could be obtained within reasonable limits. It must take a place amongst his old china, his headless Saints and Madonnas!



The first time we came across the old man—it was quite by accident that we found him out—we felt that we had discovered a prize in human nature: one of those rare exceptions that exist still in out-of-the-way nooks and corners, but are seldom found. It is so difficult to go through the world and remain unspoiled by it; especially for those who, having to work for their daily bread by the sweat of their brow, have to come into daily contact with that harder, coarser element in human nature, that, for ever over-reaching its neighbour, tries to believe that the race is to the swift and the battle to the strong.

The son was away from the town on the occasion of our first visit. The father seemed proud of him in a quiet, gentle sort of way, and gentleness was evidently the key-note to his character. He said his son had carried off all the prizes in a Paris School of Art, and one prize that was especially difficult to obtain. Would we come again and see him, and see his work?

We went again. At the door-sill a little child greeted us; the most beautiful little face we had ever seen. Nothing in any picture of an old master ever equalled it. At the first moment we almost thought it the face of an angel, as it looked up into our faces with all the confidence and innocence of infancy. The child might have been eighteen months old, just at the age when the eyes begin to take that inquiring look upon everything, as if they had just awakened to the fact that they had arrived upon a scene where all was new and strange. The eyes of this child were large and of a celestial blue; fair curls fell over his shoulders; his cheeks were round like a cherub's, and had the hue of the damask rose. The strangest part about the face was its refinement, as if the little fellow, instead of being born of the people, had come of a long line of noble ancestors.

We went into the workshop, and there found the father of the child at work, the son of the old man.

We no longer wondered at the child's beauty; it was a counterpart of the father's, but to the latter was added all the grace and maturity of manhood. Unlike the old man, the face was round and flushed with the hue of health. Large dark blue eyes looked out earnestly at you from under long dark lashes. The head was running over with dark crisp curls. The face was also singularly refined, had an exceedingly pure and modest expression. No Apollo, real or imagined, was ever more perfect in form and feature. To look upon that face was to love its owner.

He was hard at work, carving, his wonderfully-drawn plans about him. It was certainly the best modern work we had ever seen; and here, we felt, was a genius. Probably it had been hampered for want of means, as so many other geniuses have been since the foundation of the world. He ought to have been known and celebrated; the master of a great and famous atelier in the chief of gay cities; appreciated by the world—and perhaps spoilt by flattery. Instead of which, he was working for his daily bread in a small town, unknown, unappreciated; toiling in a small, retired workshop, where people seldom penetrated, and a good deal of his work depended upon chance. Yet, if his face bespoke one thing more than another, it was happiness and contentment. Ambition seemed to have no part in his life. That he loved his art was evident from the tenderness with which he handled his drawings and looked upon his carvings. It may be that this love was all-sufficient for him, and that as long as he had health to work, and fancy to create, and daily bread to eat, he cared for nothing more.

The little rift within the lute? Ah, who is without it? What household has not its skeleton? Where shall we find perfect happiness—or anything perfect? In this instance it was soon apparent to us; and again we marvelled at the inconsistency of human nature; the incongruity of things; the way men spoil their lives and make crooked things that ought to be, and might have been, so straight.

We could not help wondering what sort of help-meet this Apollo had chosen for himself; what angelic mother had given to the world this little blue-eyed cherub, whose fitting place seemed not earth but heaven.

Even as we wondered we were answered. A voice called to the child from above, and the child turned its lovely head, but moved not. Then the owner of the voice was heard descending, and the mother appeared. We were dismayed. Never had we seen a woman more abandoned and neglected. Everything about her was slovenly. Her hair fell about her face and shoulders in tangled masses; her clothing was torn and neglected. We had seen such exhibitions in the dens of London, never in a decent household. It made us feel inexpressibly sad and sorrowful. Here was a great mystery; two people terribly ill-matched. We glanced at the husband, expecting to see a flush mantling his brow. But he quietly went on with what he was about, as though he saw not, and mother and child disappeared upstairs.

Here, then, whether he knew it or not, was the little rift within the lute. An ill-assorted marriage, a life-long mistake. Had he looked and chosen above him, his help-meet might have assisted him to rise in the world and to become famous. As it was, he had been caught by a pretty face—for, with due care and attention and a settled expression, the face would have been undoubtedly pretty—and had sealed his fate. With such a wife no man could rise.

We left him to his art and went our way, very sorrowful. It was a lovely morning, and we started back for the hotel, having arranged to take a drive at a certain hour along the river banks to the sea.

We found the conveyance ready for us. Monsieur, by special attentions, was making up for the lapses of that one terrible night.

Above us, as we went, stretched the gigantic viaduct, so singular a contrast with the ancient houses and remains of this old town; forming a comparison that certainly makes Morlaix one of the most remarkable towns in France. Beneath it rose the houses on the rocky slopes, one above another, so that from the back you may almost enter them from the roof, as you do some of the Tyrolese chalets. In Morlaix it has given rise to a proverb: "Du jardin au grenier, comme on dit a Morlaix."



Beneath the viaduct, far down, was the river and the little port, where vessels of considerable tonnage may anchor, and which has added much to the prosperity of the town, that trades largely in corn, vegetables, butter, honey, wax, oil-seeds, and—as we have seen—horses. There is also a large tobacco manufactory here, which gives employment to an immense number of hands.

We passed all this and went our way down the right bank of the river. The scenery is very picturesque; the heights are well wooded, broken and undulating. Some of the richer inhabitants of Morlaix have built themselves houses on the heights; charming chateaux where they spend their summers, and luxuriate in the fresh breezes that blow up from the sea. Across there on the left bank of the river, rises the convent of St. Francois, a large building, where the religieux retire from the world, yet are not too isolated.

And on this side, on the Cours Beaumont, a lovely walk planted with trees, we come to the Fontaine des Anglais, so called because here, in 1522, six hundred English were surprised asleep by the people of Morlaix, and slain. They had, however, courted their own doom. Henry VIII. had picked a quarrel with Francis I. for seizing the ships of English merchants in French ports. The English king had escorted with his fleet the Emperor Charles V., of Spain, under command of the Earl of Surrey, and in returning, it entered the river, surprised Morlaix, burnt and sacked the town, and murdered many of its inhabitants. They left it loaded with spoil; and when the inhabitants surprised these six hundred English they revenged themselves upon them without mercy.

To-day, we had no sooner reached the spot than suddenly the clouds gathered, the sky was overcast, a squall rose shrieking and whistling amidst the trees, and there was every appearance of a downpour. We were not prepared for it, but we rashly continued our way. At last, just before we reached a small road-side cabaret, down it came, as if the whole reservoir of cloudland had been let loose.

We hastily stopped at the auberge, already half-drenched, and H.C. crying out "Any port in a storm," we entered it. It was humble enough, yet might every benighted traveller in every storm find as good a refuge!

The good woman of the house was standing at her poele, preparing the mysteries of the mid-day dinner. Her husband, she said, had gone into Morlaix, with fish to sell—it was one of their chief means of livelihood. He bought the fish from the fishermen who came up the river, and sold it again to the hotels. One of his best customers was the Hotel d'Europe, and M. Hellard was a brave monsieur, who never beat them down in their prices, and had always a pleasant word for them. Madame was very amiable too, for the matter of that.

It was rather a hard life, but what with that and the little profit of the auberge, they managed to make both ends meet.

She had three children. The eldest was a girl, and had her wits about her. She had been to Paris with her father, and had seen the Exhibition, and talked about it like a grown-up person. But her father had taken her one night to the Theatre des Varietes in the Champs Elysees, and the girl had been mad ever since to become a chanteuse and an actress.

The ambitious child—a girl of fourteen—at this moment came down stairs, and a more forbidding young damsel we had seldom seen. Her mother had evidently no control over her; she was mistress of the situation; ordered her mother about, slapped a younger brother, a little fellow who was playing at a table with some leaden soldiers, and finally, to our relief, disappeared into an inner room. We saw her no more.

"It is always like that," sighed the poor mother, who seemed by no means a woman to be lightly sat upon: "always like that ever since she went that malheureux voyage to Paris. It has changed her character; made her dissatisfied with her lot; I fear she will one day leave us and go back to Paris for good—or rather for evil; for she will have no one to look after her; and, I am told, it is a sink of iniquity. I was never there, and know very little about the ways of large towns. Morlaix is quite enough for me. But she is afraid of her father, that is one bonheur."

All this time she had been brewing us coffee, and now she brought it to us in her best china, with some of the spirit of the country which does duty for cognac and robs so many of the Bretons of their health and senses. But it was not a time to be fastidious. To counteract the effects of the elements and drenched clothes, we helped ourselves liberally to a decoction that we thought excellent, but under other conditions should have considered poisonous.

The while our hostess, glad of an appreciative audience, poured into our ears tales and stories of herself, her life and the neighbourhood. How she had originally belonged to the Morbihan, and when a girl dressed in the costume of her country, with the short petticoats and the picturesque kerchief crossed upon the breast. How her father had been a well-to-do bazvalan and made the Sunday clothes for the whole village. And how she had met her fate when her bonhomme came that way on a visit to an old uncle in the village, and in six months they were married, and she had come to Morlaix. She had never regretted her marriage. She had a good husband, who worked hard; and if they were poor, they were far from being in want. She had really only one trouble in the world, and that was that she could do nothing with her eldest girl. She would obey no one but her father; and even he was losing control over her.

"Is her father much away?" we asked, thinking that the young damsel looked as if she were under no very stern discipline.

"Not on long voyages, such as going to Paris or the Morbihan," replied the woman; "but he is often away for half-a-day or so, selling his fish in Morlaix and doing commissions for their little auberge. And then," she added with a condoning smile, "of course he sometimes met with a camarade who enticed him to drink a glass too much, though that was a rare occurrence. Mais que voulez-vous? Human nature was weak; and for her part she really thought that men were weaker than women. Certainly they were more self-indulgent."

"It is because they have more temptations," said H.C., pleading the cause of his own sex. "Women had more to do with home and the pot-au-feu."

At this moment our hostess's pot-au-feu began to boil over, and she darted across the room, took it off the fire and returned, laughing.

"Even the pot-au-feu we cannot always manage, it seems," she remarked; "and so there are faults on all sides. Sometimes on a Sunday her husband went and spent the day at Roscoff, where he had a cousin living. Did messieurs know Roscoff—a deadly-lively little place, with a quaint harbour, where there was a chapel to commemorate the landing of Marie Stuart?"

We said we did not know it, but purposed visiting it on the morrow if the skies ceased their deluge.

"Why does your husband not turn fisherman," we asked, "instead of buying his fish from others, and so selling it second-hand at a smaller profit? You are so close to the sea."

"Dame," replied the woman, "it is not his trade. He was never brought up to the sea; always hated it. And for the rest," she added, with a shudder, "Heaven forbid that he should turn fisherman! She had once dreamed three times running that he was drowned at sea; and she had feared the water ever since. She had almost made her husband take a vow that he would never go upon the sea. He generally took part once a year in the regatta; of course, there could be no danger; but she trembled the whole time until she saw him returning safe and sound. No, no! Chacun a son metier."

Here we interrupted the flow of eloquence, though the woman was really interesting with her straightforward confidences, her rather picturesque patois, and her numerous gestures.

We went to the door and surveyed the elements. The skies were cowering; the rain came down like a revengeful cataract; the road was flooded, and the water was beginning to flood the room. In front the river looked cold and threatening; it flowed towards the sea with an angry rush; our vehicle was refreshing itself before the door, and the horse and driver had taken refuge in the stable. The tops of the surrounding hills were hidden in mist; everywhere the rain roared. The scene was dreary and desolate in the extreme.

At this moment the driver appeared. "Was it of any use waiting? He knew the climate pretty well; the rain would never cease till sundown. Had we not better make the best of it and get back to Morlaix?"

We thought so, and gave the signal for departure. Our patience was exhausted—and so was our coffee. Our hostess was distressed. At least we would borrow an umbrella, and her husband's thick coat, and perhaps her shawl for our knees. She was too good; genuinely kind hearted; and in despair when we accepted nothing. We bade her farewell, settled her modest demands, and set out for Morlaix.

Arrived at the hotel like drowned rats, Madame was all anxiety and motherly solicitude, begged us to get between blankets and have tisane administered or some eau sucree with a spoonful of rum in it. She bemoaned the uncertainty of the climate, and hoped we were not going to have bad weather for our visit. And when we declined all her polite attentions, assuring her that a change of clothing was all we needed, and all we should do, she declared that she was amazed at our temerity, but that she had the greatest admiration for the constitution and courage of the people of Greater Britain.



AFTER TWENTY YEARS

BY ADA M. TROTTER.

"May you come in and rest, you ask? Why of course you may. Take this rocking-chair—but there, some men don't like rockers. Well, if so be you prefer it, stay as you be, right in the shadder of the vines. It's a pretty look-out from there, I know, all down the valley over them meadow lands—and that rushing bit of river.

"You ask me if I know'd one Kitty Larkins, the prettiest gal in the county, the prettiest gal anywheres, you say. Yes, sir! I know'd her well. Dead? Yes, sir, Kitty—the bright, gay creature folks knew as Kitty Larkins died this day twenty years ago.

"Do I know how she died and the story of her life? I do well; I do; p'raps better nor most. You want to hear about her; maybe you would find it kind of prosing; but there, the afternoon sun is pretty hot, and the haymakers out there in the meadows have got a hard time of it.

"What's that! Don't I go and lend a hand in the press of the season? Well, I don't. Not for twenty year. There's them as calls it folly, but the smell of the hay brings it all back and turns me sick. You say you can't believe such a fine woman as me would be subject to fancies; you think I look too young, do you, to be talkin' this way of twenty years ago. Wall, there's more than one way of counting age. Some goes by grey hairs, some by happenings. But this that came so long ago is all as clear—clear as God's light upon the meadows there.

"But if you will have the whole story, let's begin at the beginnin', and that brings you to the old school-house where them three, neighbours' children they was, went to school together. There was Kitty of course, and Elihu Grant and Joel Barton, them was the three that my story's about.

"'Lihu was always a big, over-grown lad, with a steadfast, kind heart, not what folks called brilliant; he warn't going to be extraordinary when he grow'd up, didn't want to be, so fur as I know; he aimed to be as good a man's his father, nothing more, nothing less. Good and true was 'Lihu; all knew that, yet his name was never mentioned without a 'but,' not even by the school marm, though she said he was the best boy in her school.

"Kitty looked down some on 'Lihu, made him fetch and carry, and always accustomed herself to the 'but,' as if the good qualities wasn't of much account since they could not command general admiration. Yes, this had something to do with what follered; I can see that plain enough. Still, I know she loved 'Lihu from babyhood deep down in her heart of hearts—

"Anything wrong, sir? you give me a turn moving so sudden like. Let me see, where was I? Oh, talkin' about them boys. Well, let's get on.

"I've given you some idea of what 'Lihu was like, but seems to me harder to tell about that Barton boy, that gay, handsome, charming Joel, that kept the whole country alive with his doings and sayings from the time he could trot about alone.

"Wall! he was bright was Joel, and 'twas no wonder that his parents see it so plain and talk Joel day in and day out whenever they got a soul to listen to 'em. Kitty grew up admiring him; there warn't no 'but' in speaking of Joel. He done everything first class, from farm work to his lessons, so no wonder his folks acted proud of him and sent him to college to prepare for a profession.

"Wall, his success at college added some to his notoriety, and his doings was talked back and forth more'n ever.

"Then every term kind of altered him. He come back with a finer air, better language and a knowledge of the ways of society folks, that put him ahead of anyone else in the valley; while poor 'Lihu was just the same in speech and manner, and more retiring and modest than ever; and, though he was faithfuller, truer and stronger hearted than he'd ever given promise of being, folks never took to him as they did to young Joel.

"But I must go on, for young folks grow up and the signs of mischief come gradual like and was not seen by foolish Kitty, but increasing every time Joel come home for his vacations. Of course Kitty was to blame, but the Lord made her what she was.

"Yes, I can speak freely of her now, because, as I said before, this careless, pretty Kitty died twenty long years ago.

"Not before she married Joel, you ask? Well, of all impatient men! really I can't get on no quicker than I be doin', and if you're tired of it, why take your hat and go. Events don't fly as quick as words and I'm taking you over the course at race-horse speed, skipping where I can, so as to give you just the gist of the story.

"Wall then, Kitty loved life; not but what it meant work early and late to keep things as they oughter be on the old homestead. Her folks warn't as notable as they might ha' been till Kitty took hold; and then I tell you, sir, she made things spin. 'Twarn't only her pretty face that brought men like bees about the place; there was many as would ha' asked for her, if she'd been as homely as a door nail. But she sent 'em all away with the same story—all but her old sweethearts 'Lihu and Joel, and they was as much rivals when they grow'd up as they'd been at the old school-house, when Kitty treated 'Lihu like a yaller dog and showed favour to young Joel.

"But 'Lihu hung on. He come of a race never known to give up what they catched on to. Some way he gained ground too, for, with that shiftless dad at the head of things at the homestead, there was need of a wise counsellor to back up Kitty in the way she took hold.

"'Lihu was wise, and Kitty got to leaning on his word, and by the time that I be talkin' of, I s'pose there warn't no one that could have filled the place in Kitty's life that 'Lihu had made for himself—only he did not guess at that, and the more she realised it, the backwarder that silly young creature would have been to confess to it, even to herself.

"Sir, I ain't used to folks that give such sudden turns. Don't you s'pose you could set down and be comfortable somewheres while I be talkin', instead of twisting and snerling yourself up in my poor vines?

"You'd rather stand where you be; well, then, I'll get on with my story.

"I was coming to Joel. It's more interesting to strangers, that part about Joel, for he was, as I said before, everything 'Lihu lacked—bright and gay, handsome and refined. Ay, and he was a manly looking feller too, and had took lessons in fighting and worked through a gymnasium course, while 'Lihu knew no better exercises than sawing wood and pitching hay and such farm work. 'Lihu was clumsy in moving, but Joel graceful and light; you'd as soon have thought of the old church tower taking to dancing as of 'Lihu trying his hand at it; but Joel, of course, he were the finest dancer anyone had ever see'd in our neighbourhood.

"So it naturally come about that when Kitty wanted to have a gay time—and what young girl does not like fun sometimes?—she took to Joel and left 'Lihu to his fierce jealousy out in the cold.

"Joel had nothing to do but philander after Kitty, come vacations, and there he'd be lounging round the garden, reading poetry to her, when she'd a minute to set down, and telling her about the doings of gay society folks in cities.

"Kitty liked it all, why shouldn't she? and the more 'Lihu looked like a funeral the more she turned her back on him and favoured t'other. You see, sir, I give it you fair. There was faults all round; and if you want my candid opinion, that Joel was more to blame than Kitty, for, being a man of the world, he knew better than she what the end of it all was bound to be; that the day would come when she would have to make her choice between them and that to one of them that day would mean a broken heart, a spoiled life.

"Ah, well! It was hayin' time just twenty years ago, and a spell of weather just like this, perhaps a mite warmer, but much the same.

"Well, it threatened a thunderstorm, and all hands was pressed into the fields. Even Kitty was there, with her rake, for, to tell the truth, she was child enough to love a few hours in the sweet-smelling meadows. Joel, he was there, he'd took off his store clothes, and was handsomer than ever in his flannels, and, with his deftness and muscle, was worth any two hired men in the field.

"He and 'Lihu, who had come over to lend a hand, was nigh to one another that afternoon; and there was things said between 'em, as they worked, as had to lay by for a settlin'. Kitty made things worse—silly girl that she was—by coming round in her gay way with her rake, and smiling at them both, so that it would have beat the Angel Gabriel to know which of them it were she had a leaning to.

"Truth was, Kitty was back into childhood, out there in the hay—merry and sweet as a rosebud she looked in her old faded bonnet. I see her just as plain, this poor child—that did so much mischief without meaning to hurt anybody. How was she to know that fierce fires of jealous, passionate hatred were at work, kindled by her to flame that sunshiny afternoon, as she danced along the meadow with her rake, happy as the June day seemed long?

"No, sir, you need not be impatient, for the story is about done.

"The last load of hay was pitched as the glowing sun went down. The thunderstorm had passed to the hills beyond, and on the horizon clouds lay piled, purple black. The men come in to supper, and then went out again. Kitty was busy with her dishes in the kitchen till dark; then there come a flash of lightning, and a growlin' of thunder. The last dish was put away, and so the girl went sauntering out, down to the bush of cluster roses by the garden gate, where she could look over into the barn-yard and call to the men still at work with the hay.