Prosperity of fortune is like the golden hue of the evening cloud that delighteth the spirit and passeth away. In the month of February 1796, my second wife was gathered to the Lord. Her death was to me a great sorrow, for she was a most excellent wife, industrious to a degree. With her I had grown richer than any other minister in the presbytery.

I laid her by the side of my first love, Betty Lanshaw, and I inscribed her name upon the same headstone. Time had drained my poetical vein, and I have not yet been able to indite an epithet on her merits and virtues, for she had an eminent share of both. Above all, she was the mother of my children. She was not long deposited in her place of rest until things fell into amazing confusion, and I saw it would be necessary, as soon as decency would allow, for me to take another wife, both for a helpmate, and to tend me in my approaching infirmities.

I saw it would not do for me to look out for an overly young woman, nor yet would it do for one of my way to take an elderly maiden, ladies of that sort being liable to possess strong-set particularities. I therefore resolved that my choice should lie among widows of a discreet age, and I fixed my purpose on Mrs. Nugent, the relict of a professor in the University of Glasgow, both because she was a well-bred woman without any children, and because she was held in great estimation as a lady of Christian principle. And so we were married as soon as a twelve-month and a day had passed from the death of the second Mrs. Balwhidder; and neither of us have had occasion to rue the bargain.

VI.—The Last Sermon

Two things made 1799 a memorable year; the marriage of my daughter Janet with the Rev. Dr. Kittleword of Swappington, a match in every way commendable; and the death of Mrs. Malcolm. If ever there was a saint on earth she was surely one. She bore adversity with an honest pride; she toiled in the day of penury and affliction with thankfulness for her little earnings.

The year 1803 saw tempestuous times. Bonaparte gathered his host fornent the English coast, and the government at London were in terror of their lives for an invasion. All in the country saw that there was danger, and I was not backward in sounding the trumpet to battle. I delivered on Lord's Day a religious and political exhortation on the present posture of public affairs before a vast congregation of all ranks. The week following there were meetings of weavers and others, and volunteers were enrolled in defence of king and country.

In the course of the next four or five years many changes took place in the parish. The weavers and cotton-mill folk and seceders from my own kirk built a meeting-house in Cayenneville, where there had been for a while great suffering on account of the failure of the cotton-mill company. In the year 1809 the elders came in a body to the manse, and said that, seeing that I was now growing old, they thought they could not testify their respect for me in a better manner than by agreeing to get me a helper; and the next year several young ministers spared me from the necessity of preaching.

When it was known that I was to preach my last sermon on the last sabbath of 1810, everyone, including the seceders to the meeting-house, made it a point to be in the parish kirk, or to stand in the crowd that made a lane of reverence for me to pass from the kirk door to the back-yett of the manse. It was a moving discourse, and there were few dry eyes in the kirk that day; for my bidding them farewell was as when of old among the heathen an idol was taken away by the hand of the enemy. Shortly after, a deputation of the seceders, with their minister at their head, came to me and presented a server of silver in token of their esteem of my blameless life, and the charity I had practised towards the poor.

I am thankful that I have been spared with a sound mind to write this book to the end, having really no more to say, saving only to wish a blessing on all people from on high, where I soon hope to be, and to meet there all the old and long-departed sheep of my flock, especially the first and second Mrs. Balwhidders.

* * * * *



ELIZABETH CLEGHORN GASKELL

Cranford

Mrs. Gaskell, whose maiden name was Elizabeth C. Stevenson, was born in Chelsea, London, Sept. 29, 1810. She married a Unitarian clergyman in Manchester. Her first literary work was published anonymously, and met with a storm of mingled approval and disapproval. Charles Dickens invited her to contribute to his "Household Words," and it was in the pages of that famous periodical, at intervals between December 13, 1851, and May 21, 1853, that her charming sketches of social life in a little country town first appeared. In June, 1853, they were grouped together under the title of "Cranford," meeting with wide approval, and have long taken rank as one of the accepted English classics. The town which figures here as Cranford is understood to have been Knutsford, in Cheshire, which still retains something of that old-world feeling and restfulness which Mrs. Gaskell embodied in the pages of her most engaging book. "Cranford" is probably the direct progenitor of many latter-day books of the class to which the word "idyll" has been somewhat loosely applied. Its charm and freshness are unfading; it remains unique and unrivalled as a sympathetic and kindly humorous description of English provincial life. Mrs. Gaskell died in November, 1865.

I.—Our Society

On the first visit I paid to Cranford, after I had left it as a residence, I was astonished to find a man had settled there—a Captain Brown. In my time Cranford was in possession of the Amazons. If a married couple came to settle there, somehow the man always disappeared. Either he was fairly frightened to death by being the only man at the evening parties, or he was accounted for by being with his regiment, his ship, or closely connected in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on the railroad.

I was naturally interested to learn what opinions Captain Brown had managed to win for himself in Cranford. So, with all the delicacy which the subject demanded, I made inquiries of my hostess, Miss Jenkyns. I was surprised to learn that Captain Brown not only was respected, but had even gained an extraordinary place of authority among the Cranford ladies. Of course, he had been forced to overcome great difficulties.

In the first place, the ladies of Cranford had moaned over the invasion of their territories by a man and a gentleman. Then Captain Brown had started badly, very badly, by openly referring to his poverty. If he had whispered it to an intimate friend, the doors and windows being previously closed, his vulgarity—a tremendous word in Cranford—might have been forgiven. But he had published his poverty in the public street, in a loud military voice, alleging it as a reason for not taking a particular house.

In Cranford, too, where it was tacitly agreed to ignore that anyone with whom we associated on terms of equality could ever be prevented by poverty from doing anything they wished. Where, if we walked to and from a party, it was because the night was so fine or the air so refreshing, not because sedan-chairs were so expensive.

So the poor captain had been sent to Coventry. The ladies of Cranford had frozen him out, until the day when the cow, an Alderney cow, had broken the ice.

It happened like this. Miss Betsy Barker had an Alderney cow, which she looked upon as a daughter. You could not pay the regulation short quarter of an hour's call—to stay longer was a breach of manners—without being told of the wonderful milk or wonderful intelligence of this animal. The whole town knew and kindly regarded Miss Betsy Barker's Alderney.

One day the cow fell into a lime-pit, and Cranford grieved over the spectacle of the poor beast being drawn out, having lost most of her hair, and looking naked, cold and miserable, in a bare skin. Miss Betsy Barker absolutely cried with sorrow and dismay, and was about to prepare a bath of oil for the sufferer, when Captain Brown called out: "Get her a flannel waistcoat and flannel drawers, ma'am, if you wish to keep her alive. But my advice is, 'kill the poor creature at once.'" Miss Betsy Barker dried her eyes, and in a few hours the whole town turned out to see the Alderney meekly going to her pasture, clad in dark-gray flannel. Do you ever see cows dressed in gray flannel in London?

On that day was born the respect of the Cranford ladies for Captain Brown.

Soon after my arrival in Cranford, Miss Jenkyns gave a party in my honour, and recalling the old days when we had almost persuaded ourselves that to be a man was to be "vulgar," I was curious to see what the ladies would do with Captain Brown.

The preparations were much as usual. Card-tables, with green baize tops, were set out by daylight, and towards four, when the evening closed in, we all stood dressed in our best, each with a candle-lighter in our hand, ready to dart at the candles as soon as the first knock came. The china was delicate egg-shell; the old-fashioned silver glittered with polishing; but the eatables were of the slightest description. While the trays were yet on the table, Captain Brown arrived with his two daughters, Miss Brown and Miss Jessie, the former with a sickly, pained, and careworn expression; the latter with a pretty, round, dimpled face, and the look of a child which will remain with her should she live to be a hundred.

I could see that the captain was a favourite with all the ladies present. Ruffled brows were smoothed and sharp voices hushed at his approach. He immediately and quietly assumed the man's place in the room; attended to everyone's wants, lessened the pretty maidservant's labour by waiting on empty cups and bread-and-butterless ladies; and yet did it all in so easy and dignified a manner, and so much as if it were a matter of course for the strong to attend to the weak, that he was a true man throughout.

The party passed off very well in spite of one or two little hitches. One was Miss Jessie Brown's unguarded admission—a propos of Shetland wool—that she had an uncle, her mother's brother, who was a shopkeeper in Edinburgh. Miss Jenkyns tried to drown this confession by a terrible cough, for the honourable Mrs. Jamieson was sitting at the card-table nearest Miss Jessie, and what would she say or think if she found out she was in the same room with a shopkeeper's niece!

Then there was a slight breeze between Miss Jenkyns and Captain Brown over the relative merits of Dr. Johnson and the author of "Pickwick Papers"—then being published in parts—as writers of light and agreeable fiction. Captain Brown read an account of the "Swarry" which Sam Weller gave at Bath. Some of us laughed very heartily. I did not dare, because I was staying in the house. At the conclusion Miss Jenkyns said to me, with mild dignity, "Fetch me 'Rasselas,' my dear, out of the book-room."

After delivering one of the conversations between Rasselas and Imlac in a majestic, high-pitched voice, Miss Jenkyns said, "I imagine I am now justified in my preference for Dr. Johnson over your Mr. Boz as a writer of fiction."

The captain said nothing, merely screwed his lips up and drummed on the table; but when Miss Jenkyns returned later to the charge and recommended the doctor's style to Captain Brown's favourite, the captain replied, "I should be very sorry for him to exchange his style for any such pompous writing."

Miss Jenkyns felt this as a personal affront in a way of which the captain had not dreamed. How could he know that she and her friends looked upon epistolary writing as their forte, and that when in a letter they "seized the half-hour just previous to post-time to assure" their friends of this and that, they were using the doctor as a model?

As it was Miss Jenkyns refused to be mollified by Captain Brown's efforts later to beguile her into conversation on some more pleasing subject. She was inexorable.

Captain Brown endeavoured to make peace after this memorable dispute by a present to Miss Jenkyns of a wooden fire-shovel (his own making), having heard her say how much the grating of an iron one annoyed her. She received the present with cool gratitude and thanked him formally. When he was gone she bade me put it in the lumber-room, feeling probably that no present from a man who preferred Mr. Boz to Dr. Johnson could be less jarring than an iron fire-shovel.

Such was the state of affairs at the time when I left Cranford and went to Drumble. I had, however, several correspondents who kept me au fait as to the proceedings of the inhabitants of the dear little town.

II.—The Captain

My next visit to Cranford was in the summer. There had been neither births, deaths, nor marriages since I was there last. Everybody lived in the same house, and wore pretty near the same well-preserved, old-fashioned clothes. The greatest event was that the Misses Jenkyns had purchased a new carpet for the drawing-room. Oh, the busy work Miss Matty and I had in chasing the sunbeams as they fell in an afternoon right down on this carpet through the blindless windows! We spread our newspapers over the places and sat down to our book or our work; and, lo! in a quarter of an hour the sun had moved and was blazing away in a fresh spot; and down again we went on our knees to alter the position of the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and stitching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon in London?

The literary dispute between Captain Brown and Miss Jenkyns continued. She had formed a habit of talking at him. And he retaliated by drumming his fingers, which action Miss Jenkyns felt and resented as disparaging to Dr. Johnson.

The poor captain! I noticed on this visit that he looked older and more worn, and his clothes were very threadbare. But he seemed as bright and cheerful as ever, unless he was asked about his daughter's health.

One afternoon we perceived little groups in the street, all listening with faces aghast to some tale or other. It was some time before Miss Jenkyns took the undignified step of sending Jenny out to inquire.

Jenny came back with a white face of terror.

"Oh, ma'am! Oh, Miss Jenkyns, ma'am! Captain Brown is killed by them nasty cruel railroads." And she burst into tears.

"How, where—where? Good God! Jenny, don't waste time in crying, but tell us something."

Miss Matty rushed out into the street, and presently an affrighted carter appeared in the drawing-room and told the story.

"'Tis true, mum, I seed it myself. The captain was a-readin' some book, waitin' for the down train, when a lass as gave its sister the slip came toddling across the line. He looked up sudden, see'd the child, darted on the line, cotched it up, and his foot slipped and the train came over him in no time. The child's safe. Poor captain would be glad of that, mum, wouldn't he? God bless him!"

The great rough carter turned away to hide his tears. I turned to Miss Jenkyns. She looked very ill, as though she were going to faint, and signed to me to open a window.

"Matilda, bring me my bonnet. I must go to those girls. God pardon me if ever I have spoken contemptuously to the captain."

Miss Brown did not long survive her father. Her last words were a prayer for forgiveness for her selfishness in allowing her sister Jessie to sacrifice herself for her all her life.

But Miss Jessie was not long left alone. Miss Jenkyns insisted she should come and stay with her, and would not hear of her going out into the world to earn her living as a saleswoman. "Some people have no idea of their rank as a captain's daughter," she related indignantly, and stumped out of the room. Presently she came back with a strange look on her face.

"I have been much startled—no, I've not been startled—don't mind me, my dear Miss Jessie, only surprised—in fact, I've had a caller whom you once knew, my dear Miss Jessie."

Miss Jessie went very white, then flushed scarlet.

"Is it?—it is not——" stammered out Miss Jessie, and got no farther.

"This is his card," said Miss Jenkyns, and went through a series of winks and odd faces at me, and formed a long sentence with her lips, of which I could not understand a word.

Major Gordon was shown upstairs.

While downstairs Miss Jenkyns told me what the major had told her. How he had served in the same regiment as Captain Brown and had fallen in love with Miss Jessie, then a sweet-looking, blooming girl of eighteen; how she had refused him, though obviously not indifferent to him; how he had discovered the obstacle to be the fell disease which had stricken her sister, whom there was no one to nurse and comfort but herself; how he had believed her cold and had left in anger; and finally how he had read of the death of Captain Brown in a foreign newspaper.

Just then Miss Matty burst into the room.

"Oh, Deborah," she said, "there's a gentleman sitting in the drawing- room with his arm round Miss Jessie's waist!"

"The most proper place for his arm to be in. Go, Matilda, and mind your own business."

Poor Miss Matty! This was a shock, coming from her decorous sister.

Thus happiness, and with it some of her early bloom, returned to Miss Jessie, and as Mrs. Gordon her dimples were not out of place.

III.—Poor Peter

My visits to Cranford continued for many years, and did not cease even after the death of Miss Jenkyns.

Miss Matty became my new hostess. At first I rather dreaded the changed aspect of things. Miss Matty, too, began to cry as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from having anticipated my visit. I comforted her as well as I could, and I found the best consolation I could give was the honest praise that came from my heart as I spoke of the deceased.

Miss Matty made me her confidante in many matters, and one evening she sent Martha to go for eggs at a farm at the other end of the town and told me the story of her brother.

"Poor Peter! The sole honour he brought from Shrewsbury was the reputation of being captain of the school in the art of practical joking. He even thought that the people of Cranford might be hoaxed. 'Hoaxing' is not a pretty word, my dear, and I hope you won't tell your father I used it, for I should not like him to think I was not choice in my language, after living with such a woman as Deborah. I don't know how it slipped out of my mouth, except it was that I was thinking of poor Peter, and it was always his expression.

"One day my father had gone to see some sick people in the village. Deborah, too, was away from home for a fortnight or so. I don't know what possessed poor Peter, but he went to her room and dressed himself in her old gown and shawl and bonnet. And he made the pillow into a little—you are sure you locked the door, my dear?—into—into a little baby with white long clothes. And he went and walked up and down in the Filbert Walk—just half hidden by the rails and half seen; and he cuddled the pillow just like a baby and talked to it all the nonsense people do. Oh, dear, and my father came stepping stately up the street, as he always did, and pushing past the crowd saw—I don't know what he saw—but old Clare said his face went grey-white with anger. He seized hold of poor Peter, tore the clothes off his back—bonnet, shawl, gown, and all—threw them among the crowd, and before all the people lifted up his cane and flogged Peter.

"My dear, that boy's trick on that sunny day, when all promised so well, broke my mother's heart and changed my father for life. Old Clare said Peter looked as white as my father and stood still as a statue to be flogged.

"'Have you done enough, sir?' he asked hoarsely, when my father stopped. Then Peter bowed grandly to the people outside the railing and walked slowly home. He went straight to his mother, looking as haughty as any man, and not like a boy.

"'Mother,' he said, 'I am come to say "God bless you for ever."'

"He would say no more, and by the time my mother had found out what had happened from my father, and had gone to her boy's room to comfort him, he had gone, and did not come back. That spring day was the last time he ever saw his mother's face. He wrote a passionate entreaty to her to come and see him before his ship left the Mersey for the war, but the letter was delayed, and when she arrived it was too late. It killed my mother. And think, my dear, the day after her death—for she did not live a twelve-month after Peter left—came a parcel from India from her poor boy. It was a large, soft white India shawl. Just what my mother would have liked.

"We took it to my father in the hopes it would rouse him, for he had sat with her hand in his all night long. At first he took no notice of it. Then suddenly he got up and spoke. 'She shall be buried in it,' he said. 'Peter shall have that comfort; and she would have liked it.'"

"Did Mr. Peter ever come home?"

"Yes, once. He came home a lieutenant. And he and my father were such friends. My father was so proud to show him to all the neighbours. He never walked out without Peter's arm to lean on. And then Peter went to sea again, and by-and-by my father died, blessing us both and thanking Deborah for all she had been to him. And our circumstances were changed, and from a big rectory with three servants we had come down to a small house with a servant-of-all-work. But, as Deborah used to say, we have always lived genteelly, even if circumstances have compelled us to simplicity. Poor Deborah!"

"And Mr. Peter?" I asked.

"Oh, there was some great war in India, and we have never heard of Peter since then. I believe he is dead myself. Sometimes when I sit by myself and the house is quiet, I think I hear his step coming up the street, and my heart begins to flutter and beat; but the sound goes, and Peter never comes back."

IV.—Friends in Need

The years rolled on. I spent my time between Drumble and Cranford. I was thankful that I happened to be staying with Miss Matty when the Town and County Bank failed, which had such a disastrous effect on her little fortune.

It was an example to me, and I fancy it might be to many others, to see how immediately Miss Matty set about the retrenchment she knew to be right under her altered circumstances. I did the little I could. Some months back a conjuror had given a performance in the Cranford Assembly Rooms. By a strange set of circumstances the identity of Signor Brunoni was revealed. He was plain Samuel Brown, who had fallen out of his cart and had to be attended by our doctor. I went to visit the patient and his wife, and learned that she had been India. She told me a long story about being befriended, after a perilous journey, by a kind Englishman who lived right in the midst of the natives. It was his name which astonished me. Agra Jenkyns.

Could Agra Jenkyns be the long lost Peter? I resolved to say nothing to Miss Matty, but got the address from the signor (as we still called him from habit), spelt by sound, and very queer it looked, and posted a letter to him.

All sorts of plans were discussed for Miss Matty's future. I thought of all the things by which a woman, past middle age, and with the education common to ladies fifty years ago, could earn or add to a living without materially losing caste; but at length I put even this last clause on one side, and wondered what in the world Miss Matty could do. Even teaching was out of the question, for, reckoning over her accomplishments, I had to come down to reading, writing, and arithmetic—and in reading the chapter every morning she always coughed before coming to long words.

I was still in a quandary the next morning, when I received a letter from Miss Pole, so mysteriously wrapped up and with so many seals on it to secure secrecy that I had to tear the paper before I could unfold it.

It summoned me to go to Miss Pole at 11 a.m., the a.m. twice dashed under as if I were likely to come at eleven at night, when all Cranford was usually abed and asleep by ten. I went and found Miss Pole dressed in solemn array, though there were only Mrs. Forrester, crying quietly and sadly, and Mrs. FitzAdam present. Miss Pole was armed with a card, on which I imagine she had written some notes.

"Miss Smith," she began, when I entered (I was familiarly known to all Cranford as Mary, but this was a state occasion), "I have conversed in private with these ladies on the misfortune which has happened to our friend, and one and all have agreed that while we have a superfluity, it is not only a duty but a pleasure—a true pleasure, Mary!"—her voice was rather choked just here, and she had to wipe her spectacles before she could go on—"to give what we can to assist her—Miss Matilda Jenkyns. Only in consideration of the feelings of delicate independence existing in the mind of every refined female"—I was sure she had got back to the card—"we wish to contribute our mites in a secret and concealed manner, so as not to hurt the feelings I have referred to."

Well, the upshot of this solemn meeting was that each of those dear old ladies wrote down the sum she could afford annually, signed the paper and sealed it mysteriously, and I was commissioned to get my father to administer the fund in such a manner that Miss Jenkyns should imagine the money came from her own improved investments.

As I was going, Mrs. Forrester took me aside, and in the manner of one confessing a great crime the poor old lady told me how very, very little she had to live on—a confession she was brought to make from a dread lest we should think that the small contribution named in her paper bore any proportion to her love and regard for Miss Mary. And yet that sum which she so eagerly relinquished was, in truth, more than a twentieth part of what she had to live on. And when the whole income does not nearly amount to a hundred pounds, to give up a twentieth of it will necessitate many careful economies and many pieces of self-denial—small and insignificant in the world's account, but bearing a different value in another account book that I have heard of.

The upshot of it all was that dear Miss Matty was comfortably installed in her own house, and added to her slender income by selling tea! This last was my idea, and it was a proud moment for me when it realized. The small dining-room was converted into a shop, without any of its degrading characteristics, a table formed the counter, one window was retained unaltered and the other changed into a glass door, and there she was. Tea was certainly a happy commodity, as it was neither greasy nor sticky, grease and stickiness being two of the qualities which Miss Matty could not endure. Moreover, as Miss Matty said, one good thing about it was that men did not buy it, and it was of men particularly she was afraid. They had such sharp, loud ways with them, and did up accounts and counted their change so quickly.

Very little remains to be told. The approval of the Honourable Mrs. Jamieson set the seal upon the successful career of Miss Matty as a purveyor of tea. Thus did she escape even the shadow of "vulgarity."

One afternoon I was sitting in the shop parlour with Miss Matty, when we saw a gentleman go slowly past the window and then stand opposite to the door, as if looking out for the name which we had so carefully hidden. His clothes had an out-of-the-way foreign cut, and it flashed across me it was the Agra himself! He entered.

Miss Matty looked at him, and something of tender relaxation in his face struck home to her heart. She said: "It is—oh, sir, can you be Peter?" and trembled from head to foot. In a moment he had her in his arms, sobbing the tearless cries of old age.

* * * * *



Mary Barton

"Mary Barton," although not Mrs. Gaskell's first attempt at authorship, was her first literary success; and although her later writings revealed a gain in skill, subtlety and humour, none of them equalled "Mary Barton" in dramatic intensity and fervent sincerity. This passionate tale of the sorrows of the Manchester poor, given to the world anonymously in the year 1848, was greeted with a storm of mingled approval and disapproval. It was praised by Carlyle and Landor, but some critics attacked it fiercely as a slander on the Manchester manufacturers, and there were admirers who complained that it was too heartrending. The controversy has long since died down, but the book holds a permanent place in literature as a vivid revelation of a dark and painful phase of English life in the middle of the last century.

I.—Rich and Poor

"Mary," said John Barton to his daughter, "what's come o'er thee and Jem Wilson? You were great friends at one time."

"Oh, folk say he is going to be married to Molly Gibson," answered Mary, as indifferently as she could.

"Thou'st played thy cards badly, then," replied her father in a surly tone. "At one time he were much fonder o' thee than thou deservedst."

"That's as people think," said Mary pertly, for she remembered that the very morning before, when on her way to her dressmaking work, she had met Mr. Harry Carson, who had sighed, and sworn and protested all manner of tender vows. Mr. Harry Carson was the son and the idol of old Mr. Carson, the wealthy mill-owner. Jem Wilson, her old playmate, and the son of her father's, closest friend, although he had earned a position of trust at the foundry where he worked, was but a mechanic after all! Mary was ambitious; she knew that she had beauty; she believed that when young Mr. Carson declared he meant to marry her he spoke the truth.

It so happened that Jem, after much anxious thought, had determined that day to "put his fortune to the touch." Just after John Barton had gone out, Jem appeared at the door, looking more awkward and abashed than he had ever done before.

He thought he had better begin at once.

"Mary, it's no new story I'm going to speak about. Since we were boy and girl I ha' loved you above father and mother and all. And now, Mary, I'm foreman at the works, and I've a home to offer you, and a heart as true as ever man had to love you and cherish you. Darling, say that you'll be mine."

Mary could not speak at once.

"Mary, they say, silence gives consent," he whispered.

"No, not with me! I can never be your wife."

"Oh, Mary, think awhile!" he urged.

"Jem, it cannot be," she said calmly, although she trembled from head to foot. "Once for all, I will never marry you."

"And this is the end!" he cried passionately. "Mary, you'll hear, maybe, of me as a drunkard, and maybe as a thief, and maybe as a murderer. Remember! it's your cruelty that will have made me what I feel I shall become."

He rushed out of the house.

When he had gone, Mary lay half across the dresser, her head hidden in her hands, and her body shaken with violent sobs. For these few minutes had unveiled her heart to her; it had convinced her that she loved Jem above all persons or things. What were the wealth and prosperity that Mr. Harry Carson might bring to her now that she had suddenly discovered the passionate secret of her soul?

Her first duty, she saw, was to reject the advances of her rich lover. She avoided him as far as possible, and slighted him when he forced his presence upon her. And how was she to redress the wrong she had done to Jem in denying him her heart? She took counsel with her friend, Margaret Legh. When Mary had first known Margaret and her grandfather, Job Legh—an old man who belonged to the class of Manchester workmen who are warm and devoted followers of science, a man whose home was like a wizard's dwelling, filled with impaled insects and books and instruments—Margaret had a secret fear of blindness. The fear had since been realised, but she remained the quiet, sensible, tender-hearted girl she had been before her great deprivation. She opposed Mary's notion of writing a letter to Jem.

"You must just wait and be patient," she advised; "being patient is the hardest work we have to do through life, I take it. Waiting is far more difficult than doing; but it's one of God's lessons we must learn, one way or another."

So Mary waited. But Jem took his disappointment as final, and her hopes of seeing him were always baffled.

John Barton, on the night of Jem's proposal, had gone to his union. The members of the union were all desperate men, ready for anything; made ready by want. Barton himself was out of work. He had seen much of the bitterness of poverty in Manchester; now he was feeling the pinch of it himself.

Ever since the death of his wife, whose end had been hastened by the sudden and complete disappearance of her darling sister Esther, the wan colourlessness of his face had been intensified; his stern enthusiasm, once latent, had become visible; his heart, tenderer than ever towards the victims of the misery around him, grew harder towards the employers, whom he believed to be the cause of that misery. Trade grew worse, but there was no sign that the masters were suffering; they still had their carriages and their comforts; the woe in these terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841 seemed to fall wholly upon the poor. It is impossible even faintly to picture the state of distress which prevailed in Manchester at that time. Whole families went through a gradual starvation; John Barton saw them starve, saw fathers and mothers and children die of low, putrid fever in foetid cellars, and cursed the rich men who never extended a helping hand to the sufferers.

"Working folk won't be ground to the dust much longer," he declared. "We'n ha' had as much to bear as human nature can bear."

Fiercer grew he, and more sullen. Darker and darker were the schemes he brooded over in his desolate home, or discussed with others at the meetings of the union. Even Mary did not escape his ill-temper. Once he struck her. And yet Mary was the one being on earth he devotedly loved. What would he have thought had he known that his daughter had listened to the voice of an employer's son? But he did not know.

II.—The Rivals

One night, as Jem was leaving the foundry, a woman laid her hand upon his arm. A momentary glance at the faded finery she wore told him the class to which she belonged, and he made an effort to pass on. But she grasped him firmly.

"You must listen to me, Jem Wilson," she said, "for Mary Barton's sake."

"And who can you be to know Mary Barton?" he exclaimed.

"Do you remember Esther, Mary's aunt?"

'"Yes, I mind her well." He looked into her face. "Why, Esther! Where have ye been this many a year?"

She answered with fierce earnestness, "Where have I been? What have I been doing? Can you not guess? See after Mary, and take care she does not become like me. As she is loving now, so did I love once—one above me, far."

Jem cut her short with his hoarse, stern inquiry, "Who is this spark that Mary loves?"

"It's old Carson's son." Then, after a pause, she continued, "Oh, Jem, I charge you with the care of her! Her father won't listen to me." She cried a little at the recollection of John Barton's harsh words when she had timidly tried to approach him. "It would be better for her to die than to live to lead such a life as I do!"

"It would be better," said Jem, as if thinking aloud. Then he went on. "Esther, you may trust to my doing all I can for Mary. And now, listen. Come home with me. Come to my mother."

"God bless you, Jem!" she replied. "But it is too late now—too late!"

She rapidly turned away. Jem felt that the great thing was to reach home and solitude. His heart was filled with jealous anguish. Mary loved another! She was lost to him for evermore. A frenzied longing for blood entered his mind as he brooded that night over his loss. But at last the thought of duty brought peace to his soul. If Carson loved Mary, Carson must marry her. It was Jem's part to speak straightforwardly to Carson, to be unto Mary as a brother.

Four days later his opportunity came. He met Carson in an unfrequented lane.

"May I speak a word wi' you, sir?" said Jem respectfully.

"Certainly, my good man," replied Harry Carson.

"I think, sir, you're keeping company wi' Mary Barton?"

"Mary Barton! Ay, that is her name. An arrant flirt the little hussy is, but very pretty."

"I will tell you in plain words," said Jem, angered, "what I have got to say to you. I'm an old friend of Mary's and her father's, and I want to know if you mean fair by Mary or not."

"You will have the kindness to leave us to ourselves," answered Carson contemptuously. "No one shall interfere between my little girl and me. Get out of my way! Won't you? Then I'll make you!"

He raised his cane, and smote the mechanic on his face. An instant afterwards he lay stretched in the muddy road, Jem standing over him, panting with rage. Just then a policeman, who had been watching them unobserved, interfered with expostulations and warnings.

"If you dare to injure her," shouted Jem, as he was dragged away, "I will wait you where no policeman can step in between. And God shall judge between us two!"

* * * * *

The mill-workers had struck against low wages. Five haggard, earnest- looking men had presented the workpeople's demands to the assembled mill-owners, and the demands had been rejected. None had been fiercer in opposing the delegates, none more bitter in mockery of their rags and leanness, than the son of old Mr. Carson.

That evening, starved, irritated, despairing men gathered to hear the delegates tell of their failure.

"It's the masters as has wrought this woe," said John Barton in a low voice. "It's the masters as should pay for it. Set me to serve out the masters, and see if there's aught I'll stick at!"

Deeper and darker grew the import of the speeches as the men stood hoarsely muttering their meaning out with set teeth and livid looks. After a fierce and terrible oath had been sworn, a number of pieces of paper, one of them marked, were shuffled in a hat. The gas was extinguished; each drew a paper. The gas was re-lighted. Each examined his paper, with a countenance as immovable as he could make it. Then they went every one his own way.

He who had drawn the marked paper had drawn the lot of the assassin. And no one, save God and his own conscience, knew who was the appointed murderer.

III.—Murder

Two nights later, Barton was to leave for Glasgow, whither he was to travel as delegate to entreat assistance for the strikers. "What could be the matter with him?" thought Mary. He was so restless; he seemed so fierce, too.

Presently he rose, and in a short, cold manner bade her farewell. She stood at the door, looking after him, her eyes blinded with tears. He was so strange, so cold, so hard. Suddenly he came back, and took her in his arms.

"God in heaven bless thee, Mary!"

She threw her arms round his neck. He kissed her, unlaced her soft, twining arms, and set off on his errand.

When Mary reached the dressmaker's next morning, she noticed that the girls stopped talking. They eyed her! then they began to whisper. At last one of them asked her if she had heard the news.

"No! What news?" she answered.

"Have you not heard that young Mr. Carson was murdered last night?"

Mary could not speak, but no one who looked at her pale and terror-stricken face could have doubted that she had not heard before of the fearful occurrence.

She felt throughout the day as if the haunting horror were a nightmare from which awakening would relieve her. Everybody was full of the one subject.

In the evening she went to Mrs. Wilson's, hoping that at last she might see Jem. But here a new and terrible shock awaited her.

Mrs. Wilson turned fiercely upon her.

"And is it thee that dares set foot in this house, after what has come to pass? Dost thou know where my son is, all through thee?"

"No," quivered out poor Mary.

"He's lying in prison, waiting to take his trial for murdering young Mr. Carson."

So, indeed, it was. At the inquest the policeman who had witnessed the quarrel between the rivals testified to the threats uttered by Jem; and the gun used by the murderer, and thrown away by him in his haste to escape, had been proved to be Jem's property.

Jem an assassin, and because of her! In the agony of that night Mary saw the gallows standing black against the burning light which dazzled her shut eyes, press on them as she would. She thought she was going mad; then Heaven blessed her unawares, and she sank to sleep.

She was awakened by the coming of a visitor. It was her long-lost, unrecognised aunt Esther, who had come to her niece bringing her a little piece of paper compressed into a round shape. It was the paper that had served as wadding for the murderer's gun. Esther had picked it up while wandering in curiosity about the scene of the murder. There was writing on the paper, and she had brought it to Mary, fearing that if it fell into the hands of the police it would provide more evidence against Jem.

The paper told Mary everything. It had belonged to John Barton. Jem was innocent, and her own father was the murderer! Jem must be saved, and she must do it; for was she not the sole repository of the terrible secret? And how could she prove Jem's innocence without admitting her father's guilt?

When she could think calmly, she realised that she must discover where Jem had been on the Thursday night when the murder had been committed. Tremblingly she went to Mrs. Wilson, and learnt what she wanted to know. Jem had walked towards Liverpool with his cousin Will, a sailor who had spent all his money in Manchester, and could not afford railway-fare. Will's ship was to sail on Tuesday, and on Tuesday Jem was to be tried at the Liverpool assizes.

Job Legh engaged a lawyer to defend Jem, and Mary prepared to go to Liverpool to find the one man whose evidence could save her lover. Ere she left, a policeman brought her a bit of parchment. Her heart misgave her as she took it; she guessed its purport. It was a summons to bear witness against Jem Wilson at the assizes.

IV.—"Not Guilty"

Arrived at Liverpool on Monday, after the bewilderment of a railway journey—the first she had ever made—Mary found her way to the little court, not far from the docks, were Jem's sailor cousin lodged.

"Is Will Wilson here?" she asked the landlady.

"No, he is not," replied the woman, curtly.

"Tell me—where he is?" asked Mary, sickening.

"He's gone this very morning, my poor dear," answered the landlady, relenting at the sight of Mary's obvious distress. "He's sailed, my dear—sailed in the John Cropper this very blessed morning!"

Mary staggered into the house, stricken into hopelessness. Yet hope was not dead. The landlady's son told her that the John Cropper would be waiting for high-water to cross the sandbanks at the river's mouth, and that there was a chance that a sailing-boat might overtake the vessel.

Mary hurried down to the docks, spent every penny she had in hiring a boat, and presently was tossing on the water for the first time in her life, alone with two rough men.

The boatmen hailed the John Cropper just as the crew were heaving anchor, and told their errand. The captain refused with a dreadful oath to stop his ship for anyone, whoever swung for it. But Will Wilson, standing at the stern, shouted through his hands, "So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat time enough to save his life!"

As the ship receded in the distance, Mary asked anxiously when the pilot-boat would be back. The boatmen did not know; it might be twelve hours, it might be two days. A chance yet remained, but she could no longer hope. When she reached the landing-place, faint and penniless, one of the boatmen took her to his home, and there she sat sleeplessly awaiting the dawn of the day of trial.

When she entered the witness-box next day, the whole court reeled before her, save two figures only—that of the judge and that of the prisoner. Jem sat silent—he had held his peace ever since his arrest—with his face bowed on his hands.

Mary answered a few questions with a sort of wonder at the reality of the terrible circumstances in which she was placed.

"And pray, may I ask, which was the favoured lover?" went on the barrister.

A look of indignation for an instant contracted Mary's brow. She was aware that Jem had raised his head and was gazing at her. Turning towards the judge, she said steadily, "Perhaps I liked Mr. Harry Carson once; but I loved James Wilson beyond what tongue can tell. When he asked me to marry him, I was very hard in my answer; but he'd not been gone out of my sight above a minute before I knew I loved him—far above my life."

After these words the prisoner's head was no longer bowed. He stood erect and firm, with self-respect in his attitude; yet he seemed lost in thought.

But Will Wilson did not come, and the evidence against Jem grew stronger and stronger. Mary was flushed and anxious, muttering to herself in a wild, restless manner. Job Legh heard her repeat again and again, "I must not go mad; I must not!"

Suddenly she threw up her arms and shrieked aloud: "Oh, Jem! Jem! You're saved! and I am mad!" and was carried out of court stiff and convulsed. And as they bore her off, a sailor forced his way over rails and seats, through turnkeys and policemen. Will Wilson had come in time.

He told his tale clearly and distinctly; the efforts of the prosecution to shake him were useless. "Not guilty" was the verdict that thrilled through the breathless court. One man sank back in his seat in sickening despair. The vengeance that old Mr. Carson had longed to compass for the murder of his beloved boy was thwarted; he had been cheated of the desire that now ruled his life—the desire of blood for blood.

V.—"Forgive Us Our Trespasses"

For many days Mary hovered between life and death, and it was long ere she could make the journey back to Manchester under the tender care of the man who now knew she loved him. Not until she had recovered did he tell her that he had lost his situation at the foundry—the men refused to work under one who had been tried for murder—and that he was looking for work elsewhere.

"Mary," he asked, "art thou much bound to Manchester? Would it grieve thee sore to quit the old smoke-jack?"

"With thee?" was her quiet response.

"I've heard fine things of Canada. Thou knowest where Canada is, Mary?"

"Not rightly—but with thee, Jem"—her voice sank to a whisper—"anywhere." Then, after a pause, she added, "But father!"

John Barton was smitten, helpless, very near to death. His face was sunk and worn—like a skull, with yet a suffering expression that skulls have not! Crime and all had been forgotten by his daughter when she saw him; fondly did she serve him in every way that heart could devise.

Jem had known from the first that Barton was the murderer of Harry Carson. Several days before the murder Barton had borrowed Jem's gun, and Jem had seen the truth at the moment of his arrest. When Mary came to tell him that her father wished to speak to him, Jem could not guess what was before him, and did not try to guess.

When they entered the room, Mary saw all at a glance. Her father stood holding on to a chair as if for support. Behind him sat Job Legh, listening; before him stood the stern figure of Mr. Carson.

"Don't dare to think that I shall be merciful; you shall be hanged—hanged—man!" said Mr. Carson, with slow, emphasis.

"I've had far, far worse misery than hanging!" cried Barton. "Sir, one word! My hairs are grey with suffering."

"And have I had no suffering?" interrupted Mr. Carson. "Is not my boy gone—killed—out of my sight for ever? He was my sunshine, and now it is night! Oh, my God! comfort me, comfort me!" cried the old man aloud.

Barton lay across the table broken-hearted. "God knows I didn't know what I was doing," he whispered. "Oh, sir," he said wildly, "say you forgive me?"

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us," said Job solemnly.

Mr. Carson took his hands from his face.

"Let my trespasses be unforgiven, so that I may have vengeance for my son's murder."

John Barton lay on the ground as one dead.

When Mr. Carson had left the house, he leant against a railing to steady himself, for he was dizzy with agitation. He looked up to the calm, majestic depths of the heavens, and by-and-by the last words he had spoken returned upon him, as if they were being echoed through all that infinite space in tones of unutterable sorrow. He went homewards; not to the police-office. All night long, the archangel combated with the demon in his soul.

All night long, others watched by the bed of death. As morning dawned, Barton grew worse; his breathing seemed almost stopped. Jem had gone to the druggist's, and Mary cried out for assistance to raise her father.

A step, which was not Jem's, came up the stairs. Mr. Carson stood in the doorway. He raised up the powerless frame, and the departing soul looked out of the eyes with gratitude.

"Pray for us!" cried Mary, sinking on her knees.

"God be merciful to us sinners," was Mr. Carson's prayer. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."

And when the words were said, John Barton lay a corpse in Mr. Carson's arms.

* * * * *

At the door of a long, low wooden house stands Mary, watching the return of her husband from his work.

Her baby boy, in his grandmother's arms, sees him come with a crow of delight.

"English letters!" cries Jem. "Guess the good news!"

"Oh, tell me!" says Mary.

"Margaret has recovered her sight. She and Will are to be married, and he's bringing her out here to Canada; and Job Legh talks of coming, too—not to see you, Mary, but to try and pick up a few specimens of Canadian insects."

"Dear Job Legh!" said Mary, softly.

* * * * *



WILLIAM GODWIN

Caleb Williams

William Godwin, the son of a dissenting parson, was a man of remarkable gifts and the father of the poet Shelley's second wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (see Vol. VII). Born at Wisbeach, England, March 3, 1756, he served for five years, 1778-83, as a Nonconformist minister, and then going to London, joined the leading Whig circle of the day, and turned his attention to political writings. His "Political Justice," though little read to-day, had a great number of readers and considerable influence a hundred years ago. "Things as They Are, or the Adventures of Caleb Williams," published in 1794, has a philosophical significance, suggested by the falseness of the common code of morality, which is apt to be overlooked by many readers in the strong interest of the tale. It is one of the few books of that period which may still be said to live. It is quite the best of his novels. "It raised Godwin's reputation to a pinnacle," according to contemporary criticism, though some of his other novels, notably "Fleetwood," have been preferred for their descriptive writing. He was an exceedingly industrious writer; essays, biography, political philosophy, and history all coming from his pen; but in spite of this and of his many distinguished friendships, Godwin was always in difficulties, which he bore with the becoming grace of a philosopher. He died on April 7, 1836.

I.—Mr. Falkland's Secret

My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity. My fairest prospects have been blasted. My enemy has shown himself inaccessible to entreaties and untired in persecution. I was born of humble parents, in a remote county of England. Their occupations were such as usually fall to the lot of peasants, and they had no portion to give me. I was taught the rudiments of no science, except reading, writing, and arithmetic. But I had an inquisitive mind, and neglected no means of information from conversation or books.

The residence of my parents was within the manor of Ferdinando Falkland, a country squire of considerable opulence. At an early age I attracted the favourable notice of Mr. Collins, this gentleman's steward, who used to call in occasionally at my father's.

In the summer of the year——, Mr. Falkland visited his estate in our county after an absence of several months. This was a period of misfortune to me. I was then eighteen years of age. My father lay dead in our cottage, and I had lost my mother some years before. In this forlorn situation I received a message from the squire, ordering me to repair to the manor house.

My reception was as gracious and encouraging as I could possibly desire. Mr. Falkland questioned me respecting my learning, and my conceptions of men and things, and listened to my answers with condescension and approbation. He then informed me that he was in want of a secretary, and that if I approved of the employment he would take me into his house.

I felt highly flattered by the proposal, and found my employment—which included the duties of librarian as well as those of a secretary—easy and agreeable.

Mr. Falkland's mode of living was in the utmost degree recluse and solitary. His features were scarcely ever relaxed in a smile, and the distemper which afflicted him with incessant gloom had its paroxysms. None of the domestics, except myself and Mr. Collins approached Mr. Falkland but at stated seasons and then only for a very short interval.

Once after I had seen my patron in a strange fit of intolerable anguish, I could not help confiding in Mr. Collins that I feared Mr. Falkland had some secret trouble, and in answer to my communication Mr. Collins told me the story of Tyrrel's murder.

Barnabas Tyrrel had been a neighbouring squire insupportably brutish and arrogant, tyrannical to his inferiors, and insolent to his equals. From the first he hated Falkland, whose dignity and courtesy were a constant rebuke to the other's boorish ill-humours, and rejected with scorn all proposals for civil intercourse.

The crisis came when Tyrrel, who had been expelled from the rural assembly which met every week at the market-town, forced his way in. He was intoxicated, and at once attacked Falkland, knocking him down, and then kicking his prostrate enemy before anyone had time to interfere.

To Mr. Falkland disgrace was worse than death. This complication of ignominy, base, humiliating, and public, stung him to the very soul, and filled his mind with horror and uproar. One other event closed that memorable evening. Mr. Tyrrel was found dead in the street, having been murdered a few yards from the assembly-house.

From that day Falkland was a changed man. His cheerfulness and tranquillity gave way to gloomy and unsociable melancholy, and, filled with the ideas of chivalry, the humiliating and dishonourable situation in which he had been placed could never be forgotten. To add to his misfortunes, it was presently whispered that he was no other than the murderer of his antagonist, and even the magistrates at length decided that the matter must be investigated, and requested Falkland to appear before them.

Mr. Falkland attended, and easily convinced the magistrates of his innocence, pointing out that his one desire was to have called out the man who had insulted him so horribly, and to have fought him to the death. He was not only acquitted, but a public demonstration of sympathy was arranged at once to show the esteem in which he was held.

A few weeks, and the real murderer was discovered. This was a man named Hawkins, who, with his son, had been reduced from an honest livelihood to beggary and ruin by Tyrrel. On circumstantial evidence, Hawkins and his son were condemned and executed.

This was the story Mr. Collins told me in order that I might understand Mr. Falkland's unhappy state. In reality it only added to my embarrassment.

Was it possible, after all, that Mr. Falkland should be the murderer? It was but a passing thought, and yet what was the meaning of Mr. Falkland's agonies of mind? I could not accept Mr. Collins's view that Mr. Falkland was so much the slave and fool of honour that the shame of Tyrrel's savage assault alone had driven him to this melancholy and solitude, and compelled the violent outbursts of passion.

II.—I Learn the Secret

My suspicions would not be set at rest. No spark of malignity was harboured in my soul. I reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland, but I had a mistaken curiosity to find out the truth of Tyrrel's murder. Often it seemed that Mr. Falkland was about to speak to me, but the movement always ended in silence.

At last one day he sent for me to his room, and after making me swear never to disclose his confidence, and warning me that he had observed my suspicions, told me that he was the murderer of Tyrrel and the assassin of the two Hawkins.

"This it is to be a gentleman, a man of honour!" Falkland went on, in extreme distress. "My virtue, my honesty, my everlasting peace of mind, all sacrificed that I may preserve my good name. And I am as much the fool of fame as ever. Though I be the blackest of villains, I will leave behind me a spotless and illustrious name. Why is it that I am compelled to this confidence? From the love of fame. I had no alternative but to make you my confidant or my victim, and perhaps my next murder would not have been so fortunate. I do not want to shed more blood. It is better to trust you with the whole truth, under every seal of secrecy, than to live in perpetual fear of your penetration. But look what you have done with your foolishly inquisitive humour. You shall continue in my service, and I will benefit you in respect of fortune; but I shall always hate you. If ever an unguarded word escape from your lips, you may expect to pay for it with your death, or worse. By everything that is sacred, preserve your faith!"

Such was the secret I had been so desirous to know.

"It is a wretched prospect," I said to myself, "that he holds up to me. But I will never become an informer. I will never injure my patron; and therefore he will not be my enemy."

It was no long time after this that Mr. Forester—Mr. Falkland's half-brother—came to stay in the house while his own residence was being got ready for him, and there being little in common between the two, Mr. Forester being of a peculiarly sociable disposition, our visitor chose to make me his companion. No sooner was this growing intimacy observed than Mr. Falkland warned me that it was not agreeable to him, and that he would not have it.

"Young man, take warning!" he said to me one day when we were alone. "You little suspect the extent of my power. You might as well think of escaping from the power of the omnipresent God as from mine."

My whole soul now revolted against the treatment I endured, and yet I could not utter a word. I resolved to quit Mr. Falkland's service, and when Mr. Forester had retired to his own house, I wrote a letter to Mr. Falkland to that effect.

"You shall never quit it with your life," was his reply. "If you attempt it, you shall never cease to rue your folly as long as you exist. Do not imagine I am afraid of you! I wear an armour against which all your weapons are impotent. Do you not know, miserable wretch, that I have sworn to preserve my reputation, whatever it cost? I have dug a pit for you, and whichever way you move it is ready to swallow you."

This speech was the dictate of frenzy, and it created in me a similar frenzy. It determined me to do the very thing against which I was thus solemnly warned, and fly from my patron's house.

No sooner, however, had I set off, and travelled some miles, than a horseman overtook me, and handed me a letter from Mr. Forester. I opened the letter, and read as follows:

"Williams:—My brother Falkland has sent the bearer in pursuit of you. He expects that, if found, you will return with him. I expect it, too. If you are a villain and a rascal, you will perhaps endeavour to fly; if your conscience tells you you are innocent, you will, out of all doubt, come back. If you come, I pledge myself that if you clear your reputation, you shall not only be free to go wherever you please, but shall receive every assistance in my power to give.

"Valentine Forester."

To a mind like mine, such a letter was enough to draw me from one end of the earth to the other. I could not recall anything out of which the shadow of a criminal accusation could be extorted, and I returned with willingness and impatience. I knew the stern inflexibility of Mr. Falkland's mind, but I also knew his virtuous and magnanimous principles. I could not believe my innocence could be confounded with guilt.

III.—My Persecutions and Sufferings

Mr. Falkland accused me of having stolen money and jewels from him, and when my boxes, which I had left behind, were opened, a watch and certain jewels were found in one of them.

My amazement yielded to indignation and horror. I protested my innocence I declared that Mr. Falkland knew I was innocent, and that while I was wholly unable to account for the articles found in my possession, I firmly believed that their being there was of Mr. Falkland's contrivance.

Mr. Falkland now expressed his willingness to proceed no further against me, and, since I had been brought to public shame, to let me depart wherever I pleased. I was unworthy of his resentment, he said, and he could afford to smile at my malice.

Mr. Forester, however, said this was impossible, and, as a magistrate, he thereupon committed me to prison to await my trial. Not one of the servants who had been present at my examination expressed any compassion for me. The robbery appeared to them atrocious, and they were indignant at my recrimination on their excellent master.

When I had been about a month in prison the assizes were held, but my case was not brought forward, and I was suffered to stand over six months longer.

I noticed a change in my jailer's behaviour at this time. He offered to make better provision for my comfort, and as I had no doubt he was instigated by Mr. Falkland, I answered that he might tell his employer I would accept no favours from a man that held a halter about my neck. Then the idea of an escape occurred to me, and as I had some proficiency in carpentry, I decided to obtain tools by proposing to make some chairs for the jailer. My offer was accepted, and I gradually accumulated tools of various sorts—gimlets, chisels, etc.

In the middle of the night, my plans being now thoroughly digested, I set about making my escape. I had to get the first door from its hinges, and though this was attended with considerable difficulty, I was successful. The second door being fastened on the inside, all I had to do was to push back the bolts and unscrew the box of the lock.

Thus far I had proceeded with the happiest success; but close on the other side there was a kennel with a large mastiff dog, of which I had not the smallest previous knowledge. However, I managed to soothe the animal, and go to the wall. Before I had gained half the ascent, a voice at the garden door cried out, "Halloa! Who is there?" At this the dog began to bark violently, and a second man came out. Alarmed at my situation, I descended on the other side too quickly, and in my fall nearly dislocated my ankle.

In the meantime, the two warders came through a door in the wall, of which I had not been aware, and were at the place where I had descended, in no time. The pain in my ankle was so intense that I could scarcely stand, and I suffered myself to be retaken.

The condition in which I was now placed was totally different from that which had preceded this attempt. I was chained all day in my dungeon, my manual labors were at an end, my cell was searched every night, and every kind of tool carefully kept from me.

Nevertheless, an active mind, which has once been forced into any particular train, can scarcely give it up as hopeless. One day I chanced to observe a nail trodden into the mud floor at no great distance from me. I seized upon this new treasure, and found that I could unlock with it the padlock that fastened me to the staple in the floor. By this means I had the pitiful consolation of being able to range, without constraint, the miserable coop in which I was confined. It became my constant practice to liberate myself at night; but security breeds negligence. One morning I overslept myself, and the turnkey, to his surprise, found me disengaged.

Again my apartment was changed. I was now put in the strong-room, an underground dungeon, and handcuffs were added to my fetters.

It was at this time that Thomas, Mr. Falkland's footman, and an old acquaintance of mine, visited me. He was of the better order of servants, and my condition shocked him. He returned again in the afternoon.

"Well, Master Williams," he said, "you have been very wicked, to be sure, and I thought it would have done me good to see you hanged. I know I am doing wrong; but if they hang me, too, I cannot help it. For Christ's sake, get out of this place; I cannot bear the thought of it."

With that, he slipped into my hand a chisel, a file, and a saw. I received the implements with great joy, and thrust them into my bosom.

I waited for bright moonlight; it was necessary that I should work in the night, and between nine and seven.

It was ten o'clock when I first took off my handcuffs. I then filed through my fetters, and next performed the same service to the three iron bars that secured my window. All this was the work of more than two hours. But, even with the bars removed, the space was by no means wide enough to admit the passing of my body. Therefore, I had to loosen the brickwork, and this I did partly with the chisel, and partly with one of the iron bars. When the space was sufficient for my purpose, I crept through the opening and stepped upon a shed outside.

The prison wall, which now had to be scaled, was of considerable height, and there was no resource for me but that of making a breach in its lower part. For six hours I worked at this with incredible labour, and at last I had made a passage. But the day was breaking, and in ten minutes' time the keepers would probably enter my apartment and see the devastation I had left.

I decided to avoid the town as much as possible, and depended upon the open country for protection; and so I passed along the lane beyond the wall.

I was free of my prison, but I was destitute, and had not a shilling in the world.

IV.—The Doom of Falkland

Mr. Falkland's implacable animosity pursued me beyond the prison. A hundred guineas was at once offered for my recapture, and though I evaded arrest for some months, a man named Gines, who had at one time been a member of a gang of robbers, undertook to lay hold of me, and tracked me to my place of hiding in London. By this time the hawkers were actually selling papers in the streets containing "The most Wonderful and Surprising History and Miraculous Adventures of Caleb Williams," for a halfpenny, and I had the temerity to purchase one. In this I was informed how I, Caleb Williams, "first robbed, and then brought false accusations against my master"; how I attempted at divers times to break out of prison, and at last succeeded "in the most wonderful and incredible manner"; and how I had travelled the kingdom in disguise, and was now lying concealed in London, with a hundred guineas reward for my discovery.

It seemed then that there was no end to my persecution, and I thought of death as my only release. That very night the landlord of my humble lodgings brought Gines to the house, and gave me up to the authorities.

And now the result of all my labour to get out of prison and evade my pursuers had brought me back to my starting-place! Never was a human creature so hunted by enemies. What hope was there they would ever cease their persecution.

My long-cherished reverence for Mr. Falkland was changed to something like abhorrence. I determined to bring the real criminal to justice.

Accordingly, when I was taken before the magistrates at Bow Street, I declared that Mr. Falkland was a murderer, and that I was entirely innocent.

But the magistrates simply told me they had nothing to do with such statements, and that I seemed a most impudent rascal to trump up such things against my master.

I was conducted back to the very prison from which I had escaped, and my situation seemed more irremediable than ever. How great, therefore, was my astonishment, at the assizes when my case was called, to find neither Mr. Falkland, nor Mr. Forester, nor any individual to appear against me. I, who had come to the bar with the sentence of death already ringing in my ears, to be told I was free to go whithersoever I pleased!

I was not, however, yet free of Mr. Falkland. I was kidnapped by Gines and an accomplice, and carried to an inn, and here Mr. Falkland commanded me to sign a paper declaring that the charge I had alleged against him at Bow Street was false, malicious, and groundless. On my refusal, he told me that he would exercise a power that should grind me to atoms.

The impression of that memorable meeting on my understanding is indelible. The deathlike weakness and decay of Mr. Falkland, his misery and rage, his haggard, emaciated, and fleshless visage, are still before me.

There was to be no peace or happiness for me. Wherever I went, sooner or later, Gines found me, and any new acquaintances turned from me with loathing after they had read the handbills containing my "Wonderful and Surprising History." This man followed me from place to place, blasting my reputation.

I now formed my resolution and carried it into execution. At all costs I would free myself from this overpowering tyranny.

I set out for the chief town of the county in which Mr. Falkland lived, and there laid a formal charge of murder before the principal magistrate.

After an interval of three days, I met Mr. Falkland in the presence of the magistrate. It was now the appearance of a ghost before me. He was brought in in a chair, unable to stand, fatigued and almost destroyed by the journey he had just taken.

Until that moment my breast was steeled to pity; it was now too late to draw back.

I told my story plainly, declared the nobility of Mr. Falkland's character, and admitted that my own proceedings now seemed to me a dreadful mistake.

When I had finished, Mr. Falkland rose from his seat, and, to my infinite astonishment, threw himself into my arms.

"Williams," said he, "you have conquered. All that I most ardently desired is for ever frustrated. I have spent a life of the basest cruelty to cover one act of momentary passion. And now"—turning to the magistrate—"do with me as you please. I am prepared to suffer all the vengeance of the law."

He survived this dreadful scene but three days, and I feel, and always shall feel, that I have been his murderer. I began these memoirs to vindicate my character. I have now no character that I wish to vindicate.

* * * * *



JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The Sorrows of Young Werther

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the greatest of German poets, and one of the most highly gifted men of the eighteenth century, was born in 1749 at Frankfort-on-the-Main. He received his early education from his father, who was an imperial councillor, and in the year 1765 he went to the University of Leipzig. Goethe's first great work was "Goetz von Berlichingen" (see Vol. XVII). which was translated into English by Sir Walter Scott. "The Sorrows of Young Werther" ("Die Leiden des jungen Werthers") was begun in 1772, when Goethe was twenty-three years old, and was published anonymously two years later. It immediately created an immense sensation, made a round of the world, and was everywhere either enthusiastically praised or severely condemned. It became the fashion of young men to dress themselves in blue coats and yellow breeches in imitation of the hero, and many of them were moved to follow Werther's example as the simplest way of settling their love affairs. Nevertheless, "Werther" formed the real basis of Goethe's fame. It was the first revelation to the world of the genius, which, a quarter of a century later, was to give it "Faust" (Vol. XVI). The story is frankly sentimental, but as such it is easily the best of the sentimental novels of the eighteenth century. When, many years later, Goethe was invited to an audience with Napoleon, the emperor volunteered the information that he had read "Werther" through six times. Goethe died in March, 1832, in his eighty-fourth year.

I.—"I Have Found an Angel"

May 4. What a strange thing is the heart of man. To leave my dearest friend, and yet to feel happy! I know you will forgive me, and I in return will promise that I will no longer worry myself over every petty stab of fortune. Poor Leonora! And yet I was not to blame. Was I in fault that, while I was pleasantly entertained by the charms of her sister, her feeble heart conceived a passion for me? And yet I am not wholly blameless. Did I not encourage her emotion? Did I not—but what is man that he dares so to accuse himself? Beyond doubt, the sufferings of mankind would be far less did they but endure the present with equanimity, instead of raking up the past for memories of sorrow.

A wonderful calm has come over me; I am alone, and feel that a spot like this was created for the happiness of souls like mine. You ask if you shall send me books; I pray you spare me. My heart craves for no excitement; I need strains to soothe me, and I find them to perfection in my Homer.

May 17. I have formed many acquaintances, but as yet have found no friends. If you inquire what sort of people are here, I answer "the same as everywhere." The human race is a monotonous affair. The majority labours nearly all its time for mere subsistence, and is then so distressed to have a small portion of freedom still unemployed that it exerts even greater efforts to get rid of it.

I have just become acquainted with a very worthy person, the district judge. They tell me how charming it is to see him in the midst of his family of nine. His eldest daughter is much spoken of. He has invited me to go and see him.

June 16. Why do I not write to you? You should have guessed that I was pre-occupied; that, in a word, that I have made a friend who has won my heart. I have found—I know not what. An angel? Nonsense! Everyone so describes his mistress. And yet I cannot tell you how perfect she is, or why so perfect. Between ourselves, I have been three times on the point of throwing down my pen, ordering my horse, and riding out. And yet this morning I determined not to ride to-day; and I keep running to the window to see how high the sun is.

I could not restrain myself; go to her I must. I have just returned, Wilhelm, and while I eat my supper I will write to you. I had already made the acquaintance of her aunt, the judge's sister, and with her I was going to accompany Charlotte to a ball given by some young people in the neighbourhood. While we were on our way to fetch her, my companion was loud in her praises of her niece's beauty and charm. "Take care, however," she added, "that you do not lose your heart." "Why?" I asked. "Because she is already betrothed to a most excellent man."

As the door opened, I saw before me the most charming sight that I have ever beheld. Six children, of various ages, were running about the hall and surrounding a lady of medium height, with a lovely figure, dressed in a robe of simple white, trimmed with pink ribbons. She held a loaf of brown bread, and was cutting slices for the little ones all round. She apologised for not being quite ready, explaining that household duties had made her forget the children's supper, which they always preferred to take from her. I uttered some unmeaning compliment, but my whole soul was absorbed by her air, her voice, her manner. You who know me can imagine how I gazed upon her rich, dark eyes; how my soul gloated over her warm lips and fresh glowing cheeks.

Never did I dance more lightly; I felt myself more than mortal, holding this loveliest of creatures in my arms, flying with her as rapidly as the wind, till I lost sight of every other object. And, oh, Wilhelm, I vowed at that moment that no maiden whom I loved should ever waltz with another than myself, if I went to perdition for it.

Returning from the ball, there was a most magnificent sunrise. Our companions were asleep. Charlotte asked me if I did not wish to sleep too, and begged me not to stand on ceremony. Looking deep into her eyes, I answered, "As long as those eyes remain open, there is no fear for mine." We continued awake until we reached her door. I left her, asking her permission to call in the course of the day. She consented, and I went Since then, sun, moon, and stars may pursue their course; I know not whether it is day or night; the whole world is nothing to me.

June 21. My days are as happy as those reserved by God for His elect, and whatever be my fate hereafter, I can never say that I have not tasted joy—the purest joy of life. Little did I think when I selected this spot for my home that all heaven lay within half a league of it.

How childish is man. To be disturbed about a mere look. We had been to Walheim, but during our walk I thought I saw in Charlotte's eyes—I am a fool, but forgive me. You should see her eyes. However, to be brief, as the ladies were preparing to drive away I watched her eyes; they wandered from one to another, but they did not alight on me—on me who saw nothing but her. She noticed me not. The carriage drove off, and my eyes filled with tears. Suddenly I saw Charlotte's bonnet leaning out of the window, and she turned to look back—was it at me? I know not, and in uncertainty is my consolation. Perhaps she turned to look at me. Perhaps. Good-night. What a child I am!

July 10. Someone asked me the other day how I like her. How I like her! What sort of creature must he be who merely likes Charlotte? Whose entire being were not absolutely filled with her? Like her! One might as well ask if I like Ossian.

July 13. No, I am not deceived. In her dark eyes I read a real interest in me. Yes, I feel it, and I believe my own heart which tells me—dare I say it?—that she loves me. How the idea exalts me in my own eyes. And as you can understand my feelings, I may say to you, how I honour myself because she loves me.

I do not know a man able to take my place in her heart; yet when she speaks of Albert with so much warmth and affection, I feel like a soldier who has been stripped of all his honours. Sometimes when we are talking, in the eagerness of conversation she comes closer to me, and her balmy breath reaches my lips, I feel that I could sink into the earth for very joy. And yet, Wilhelm, if I know myself, and should ever dare—you understand me—No, no; my heart is not so corrupt; it is weak, but is not that a degree of corruption?

She is to me a sacred being; how her simplest song enchants me. Sometimes, when I am ready to commit suicide, she sings some favourite air, and instantly the gloom and madness are dispersed.

July 24. Yes, dear Charlotte. I will arrange everything. Only give me more commissions; the more the better. One thing, however, I must request you—use no more writing-sand with the letters you send me! Today, I raised your letter to my lips, and it set my teeth on edge.

II.—Bereft of Comfort

July 30. Albert is arrived, and I must take my departure. Were he the best of men, and I absolutely beneath him, I could not endure to see him in possession of my perfect being. Enough! her betrothed is here. A fine fellow, whom I cannot help liking. And he is so considerate; he has not given Charlotte one kiss in my presence. Heaven reward him for it. He is free from ill-humour, which you know is the fault I detest most. I do not ask whether he may not now and then tease her with some little jealousies, as I know that in his place I should not be entirely free from such feelings.

August 8. I am amazed to see from my diary, which I have somewhat neglected of late, how deliberately I have entangled myself, step by step. But even though I see the result plainly, I have no thought of acting with any greater prudence. And yet I feel that if only I knew where to go, I would abandon everything and fly from this place.

And yet I feel that, if I were not a fool, I could enjoy life here most delightfully. Admitted into this charming family, loved by the father as a son, by his children as a second father, and by Charlotte! Furthermore, Albert welcomes me with the heartiest affection, and loves me, next to Charlotte, more than all the world.

August 21. In vain do I stretch out my arms towards her when I wake in the morning. In vain do I seek for her when some innocent dream has happily deceived me, and placed me near her in the fields when I have seized her hand and covered it with kisses. Tears flow from my oppressed heart; and, bereft of all comfort, I weep over my future woes.

August 28. This is my birthday, and early in the morning I received a packet from Albert. I found within one of the pink ribbons which Charlotte wore in her dress the first time I saw her, and which I had often asked her to give me. With it were two volumes of Wetstein's Homer, a book I had often wished for. How well they understood those little attentions of friendship, so superior to costly presents, unhappy being that I am. Why do I thus deceive myself? What is to be the outcome of all this wild, aimless, endless passion? I cannot pray except to her. Oh, Wilhelm, the hermit's cell, his sackcloth and girdle of thorns, would be luxury and indulgence compared with what I have to suffer.

October 20. I have taken the plunge, and following your repeated advice, I have taken a post with the ambassador. We arrived here yesterday. If he were less peevish and morose all would be well. As it is, he occasions me continual annoyance; he is the most punctilious blockhead in the world. He does everything step by step, with the paltry fussiness of an old woman; and he is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.

January 20. I have but one being here to interest me, my dear Charlotte—a Miss B——. She resembles you, if indeed anyone can possibly resemble you. "Ah," you will say, "he has learnt to pay fine compliments." And this is partly true; I have been very agreeable lately, as it was not in my power to be otherwise. But I must tell you of Miss B——. She has abundance of soul, which flashes from her deep blue eyes. Her rank is a torment to her, and satisfies no single desire of her heart. She knows you, my dear Charlotte, as I have told her all about you, and renders homage to your merits; but her homage is not exacted, but voluntary—she loves you, and delights to hear you made the subject of conversation. Adieu! Is Albert with you, and what is he to you? Forgive the question.

February 20. I thank you, Albert, for having deceived me. I waited for the news that your wedding-day was fixed, and I meant on that day to remove Charlotte's picture from the wall, and bury it with some old papers that I wish destroyed. You are now united, and the picture remains. Well, let it remain. Why should it not?

III.—"I Can Remain No Longer"

June 11. Say what you will, I can remain here no longer. Why should I remain? The prince is as gracious to me as anyone could be, and yet I am not at my ease. There is, indeed, nothing in common between us; he is a man of understanding, but quite of the ordinary kind. His conversation gives me no more amusement than I should derive from an ordinary well-written book. Whither am I going? I think it would be better for me to visit the mines in——. But I am only deluding myself thus. You know that I only want to be near my dear Charlotte once more. I smile at the suggestion of my heart, but I obey its dictates.

July 29. Dear Wilhelm, my whole frame feels convulsed when I see Albert put his arms round that slender waist. Oh, the very thought of folding that dearest of heaven's creatures in one's arms.

And—shall I avow it? Why should I not?—she would have been happier with me than with him. Albert is not the man to satisfy the wishes of such a heart. He wants a certain sensibility; he wants—in short, their hearts do not beat in unison. But, Wilhelm, he loves her with his whole heart, and what does not such a love deserve?

September 5. Charlotte had written a letter to her husband in the country, where he was detained on business. It began: "My dearest love, return as soon as possible. I await you with a thousand raptures!"

A friend who arrived brought word that he could not return immediately. Her letter fell into my hands. I read it, and smiled. She asked the reason. "What a heavenly treasure is imagination," I exclaimed. "I fancied for a moment that this was written to me." She paused, and seemed displeased. I was silent.

October 10. Only to gaze into her dark eyes is to me a source of happiness. And what grieves me is that Albert does not seem so happy as he—as I—as he hoped to be—as I should have been—if—. I am no friend to these pauses, but here I cannot express myself otherwise; and probably I am explicit enough.

October 19. Alas the void—the fearful void which I feel in my bosom! Sometimes I think, if I could only once press her to my heart, this dreadful void would be filled.

October 30. A hundred times I have been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! what a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to touch it. And to touch is the most natural of human instincts. Do not children touch everything that they see?

November 8. Charlotte reproves me for my excesses with so much tenderness and goodness. I have lately drunk more wine than usual. "Don't do it," she said; "think of Charlotte." "Think of you," I answered; "can such advice be necessary? Do I not ever think of you?" She immediately changed the subject to prevent me pursuing it further. My dear friend, my energies are all prostrated; she can do with me what she pleases. Yesterday, when I took leave, she seized me by the hand, and said, "Adieu, dear Werther!" It was the first time she had ever called me "dear." I have repeated it a hundred times.

IV.—"I am Resolved to Die"

November 24. She is sensible of my sufferings. This morning her look pierced my soul. I found her alone; she was silent, and only gazed steadfastly at me. Oh, who can express my emotions? I was quite overcome, and bending down, pronounced this vow to myself, "Beautiful lips, which angels guard, never will I seek to profane your purity with a kiss." And yet, oh, I wish—But, alas, my heart is darkened by doubt and indecision. Could I but taste felicity, and then die to expiate the sin. What sin?

December 21. I am lost. My senses are bewildered, my recollection is confused, my eyes are bathed in tears. I am ill, and yet am well. I wish for nothing; I have no desires; it were better I were gone. I saw Charlotte to-day; she was busy preparing some little gifts for her brothers and sisters, to be given to them on Christmas Day. "You shall have a gift too," she said, "if you behave well." "And what do you call behaving well?" I asked. "What should I do; what can I do?" "Thursday night," she answered, "is Christmas Eve; the children are all to be here, and my father too; there is a present for each of them. Do you come likewise, but do not come before that time!"

I started. She must have seen my emotion, for she continued, hastily "I desire that you will not. It must be so; I ask it of you as a favour, for my own peace and tranquillity. We cannot go on in this manner any longer!" It were idle to attempt to describe my emotions I was as if paralysed; it was as if the sun had suddenly gone out. When I recollected myself, Charlotte was trying to speak on some indifferent topic. "No, Charlotte," I explained, "I understand you perfectly. I will never see you again!"

December 22. It is all over, Charlotte; I am resolved to die. I make this declaration deliberately and coolly, without any romantic passion, on the morning of the day when I am to see you for the last time. At the moment that you read these lines the cold grave will hold the remains of that restless and unhappy being who, in his last moments of existence, knew no pleasure so great as that of conversing with you.

When I tore myself from you yesterday my senses were in tumult and disorder. I could scarcely reach my room. A thousand ideas floated through my mind. At last one fixed, final thought took possession of my heart. It was to die. Oh, beloved Charlotte, this heart, excited by rage and fury, has often conceived the horrid idea of murdering your husband—you—myself.

What do they mean by saying that Albert is your husband? He may be so for this world, and in this world it is a sin to love you—to wish to tear you from his embrace. Yes, it is a crime, and I suffer the punishment—but I have enjoyed the full delight of my sin. I have inhaled a balm that has revived my soul; from this hour you are mine; yes, Charlotte, you are mine. I do not dream, I do not rave. Drawing nearer to the grave my perceptions become clearer. We shall exist; we shall see each other again.

I wish to be buried in the dress I wear at present; it has been made sacred by your touch. How warmly I have loved you, Charlotte. Since the first hour I saw you, how impossible have I found it to leave you. This ribbon must be buried with me; it was a present from you on my birthday. How confused it all appears. Little did I think then that I should journey on this road. But peace, I pray you, peace.

Both my pistols are loaded. The clock strikes twelve. I say Amen. Charlotte! Charlotte! Farewell! Farewell!

* * * * *



Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

Goethe's prestige was enormously increased by the publication in 1796 of "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship" ("Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre"). Representing the fruit of twenty years' labour, it was, like "Faust," written in fragments during the ripest period of his intellectual activity. The story of "Wilhelm Meister" is by no means exciting, but, as a gallery of portraits and repository of wise observation, it is more characteristic of the genius of its author than any other of his prose works. It is more mellow than "Werther," and the action moves slower. Incident follows incident in a leisurely fashion. The keen psychological analysis in the story is assumed to have been derived from Goethe's own experience. "Wilhelm Meister" was dramatised and produced at Leipzig a few years ago, but with no marked success.

I.—On the Road

The moment was now at hand to which poor Mariana had been looking forward as to the last of her life. Wilhelm Meister, the man she loved, was departing on a long journey in connection with his father's business; a disagreeable lover was threatening to come.

"I am miserable," she exclaimed, "miserable for life! I love him, and he loves me; yet I see that we must part, and know not how I shall survive it. Wilhelm is poor, and can do nothing for me—"

Darkness had scarcely come on when Wilhelm glided forth to her house; he carried with him a letter in which he entreated her to marry him forthwith, saying that he would abandon his father's business, and earn his living on the stage, to which he had always been strongly drawn. This he could do with certainty, as he was well acquainted with Serlo, manager of a theatre in a town at some distance.

His plan was to leave the letter with her, and return a little later for her answer. The vehemence of his emotion at first prevented him from noticing that she did not greet him with her wonted heartiness; she complained of a headache, and would not hear of his coming back later that evening. Suspecting nothing wrong, he ceased to urge her, but he felt that this was not the moment for delivering his letter. He retained it, therefore, and, in a tumult of insatiable love, as he tore himself away from her he snatched one of her neckerchiefs, and, after pressing it madly to his lips, crushed it into his pocket.

His whole being was in a ferment of excitement as he walked aimlessly about the streets. Midnight found him again in the neighbourhood of Mariana's house; consciousness of the fact brought him to himself. He went slowly away, set himself for home, and constantly turned round again; at last, with an effort, he constrained himself, and actually departed. At the corner of the street, looking back yet once more, he imagined that he saw Mariana's door open, and a dark figure issue from it. He was too distant to see clearly, and in a moment the appearance was lost in the night.

On his way, he had almost effaced the unexpected delusion from his mind by the most sufficient reasons. To soothe his heart, and put the last seal on his returning belief, ere he disrobed for the night, he took her kerchief from his pocket. The rustle of a letter which fell from it took the kerchief from his lips; he lifted it, and read a passionate letter from another man, railing at her for her coldness on the preceding night, making an appointment for that same night, and breathing a spirit of intimate familiarity.

* * * * *

A violent fever, with its train of consequences, besides the unwearied attentions of his family, were so many fresh occupations for his mind, and formed a kind of painful entertainment. On his recovery, he determined to abandon for ever his former leaning towards the stage, and to apply himself with greater diligence to business, and, to the great contentment of his father, no one was now more diligent in the counting-house. For a long time he continued to show exemplary attention to his duties, and was then thought sufficiently master of his business to be sent on a long expedition on behalf of the firm.

The first part of his business successfully accomplished, Wilhelm found himself at a little mountain town called Hochdorf. A troupe of actors had got stranded there, their exchequer empty, their properties seized as security for debts. Wilhelm recognised among them an old man whom he recollected as having seen on the stage with Mariana. After some hesitation, he hazarded a question concerning her. "Do not speak to me of that baggage!" cried the old man. "I am ashamed that I felt such a friendship for her. Yet, had you known the girl better, you would excuse me. I loved her as my own daughter; indeed, I had formed a resolution to take the creature into my own house, and save her from the hands of that old crone Barbara, her confidante; but my wife died, and so the project came to nothing. At the end of our stay in your native town, I noticed a visible sadness about her. I questioned her, but she evaded me. At last we set out on our journey. She travelled in the same coach with me, and I soon observed what she could not deny, that she was about to become a mother. In a short time the manager made the same discovery; he paid her off at once and left her behind at the village inn."

Wilhelm's old wounds were all torn open afresh by the old man's story; the thought that perhaps Mariana was not wholly unworthy of his love was again brought to life. Nay, even the bitter accusations brought against her could not lower her in his estimation; for he, as well as she, was guilty in all her aberrations. He saw her as a frail, ill-succoured mother, wandering helplessly about the world.

The old longing for the stage came back to him with redoubled force; he determined to give it vent, for a time at least, and to this end he advanced to Melina, the manager of the actors, a sum of money sufficient to redeem their properties, and accompanied the troupe until such time as it should be repaid.

A profitable engagement soon came their way. A wealthy count, who happened to pass through the town, required their services to entertain the prince, whom he was shortly expecting as a guest. For several weeks they stayed at his castle, and when, on the prince's departure, their engagement came to an end, they were all weightier in purse than they had been for many a long day. Melina was now in hopes to get established with his company in a thriving town at some distance. To get there it was necessary to take a considerable journey by unfrequented roads.

Accordingly, conveyances were hired, and a start was made. Towards evening, they began to pitch their camp in the midst of a beech wood; all were busily engaged about the task allotted to each—the women to prepare the evening meal, the men to attend to everything necessary for their comfort for the night. All at once, a shot went off; immediately another; the party flew asunder in terror. Next moment armed men were to be seen pressing forward to the spot where the coaches, packed with luggage, stood.

The men all rushed at the intruders. Wilhelm fired his pistol at one who was already on the top of the coach cutting the cords of the packages. The scoundrel fell, but several of his friends rushed to his aid; our hero fell, stunned by a shot-wound and by a sword-stroke that almost penetrated to his brain.

When he recovered his senses, it was to find himself deserted by all his companions except two of the girls. His head was lying in Phillina's lap, while Mignon, the child whom he had rescued from a brutal circus master who was ill-treating her, was vainly trying to staunch his wounds with her hair. For some time they continued in this position, no one returning to their aid. At last, they heard a troop of horses coming up the road; a young lady emerged on horseback, accompanied by some cavaliers. Wilhelm fixed his eye on the soft, calm, sympathising features of the stranger; he thought he had never seen aught nobler or more lovely. In a few moments one of the party stepped to the side of our hero. He held in his hand some surgeon's instruments and bandages, with which he hastily attended to his wounds. The lady asked several questions, and then, turning to the old gentleman, said, "Dear uncle, may I be generous at your expense?" taking off the coat that she was wearing as she spoke, and laying it softly above him. As he tried to open his mouth to stammer out some words of gratitude to the beautiful Amazon, the impression of her presence worked so strongly on his senses that all at once it seemed to him that her head was encircled with rays, and a glancing light seemed by degrees to spread itself all over her form. At this moment the surgeon gave him a sharper twinge; he lost consciousness; and on returning to himself the horsemen and coaches, the fair one and her attendants, had vanished like a dream.