At one time some of the leading inhabitants of the place sought to deprive Hester of her child; and at the governor's mansion, whither Hester had repaired, with some gloves which she had embroidered at his order, the matter was discussed in the mother's presence by the governor and his guests—Mr. John Wilson, Mr. Arthur Dimmesdale, and old Roger Chillingworth, now established as a physician of great skill in the town.

"God gave me the child!" cried Hester. "He gave her in requital of all things else which ye have taken from me. Ye shall not take her! I will die first! Speak thou for me," she cried turning to the young clergyman, Mr. Dimmesdale. "Thou wast my pastor. Thou knowest what is in my heart, and what are a mother's rights, and how much the stronger they are when that mother has but her child and the scarlet letter! I will not lose the child! Look to it!"

"There is truth in what she says," began the minister. "God gave her the child, and there is a quality of awful sacredness between this mother and this child. It is good for this poor, sinful woman that she hath an infant confided to her care—to be trained up by her to righteousness, to remind her and to teach her that, if she bring the child to heaven, the child also will bring its parent thither. Let us then leave them as Providence hath seen fit to place them!"

"You speak, my friend, with a strange earnestness," said old Roger Chillingworth, smiling at him.

"He hath adduced such arguments that we will even leave the matter as it now stands," said the governor. "So long, at least, as there shall be no further scandal in the woman."

The affair being so satisfactorily concluded, Hester Prynne, with Pearl, departed.

III.—The Leach and his Patient

It was at the solemn request of the deacons and elders of the church in Boston that the Rev. Mr. Dimmesdale went to Roger Chillingworth for professional advice. The young minister's health was failing, his cheek was paler and thinner, and his voice more tremulous with every successive Sabbath.

Roger Chillingworth scrutinised his patient carefully, and, accepted as the medical adviser, determined to know the man before attempting to do him good. He strove to go deep into his patient's bosom, delving among his principles, and prying into his recollections.

After a time, at a hint from old Roger Chillingworth, the friends of Mr. Dimmesdale effected an arrangement by which the two men were lodged in the same house; so that every ebb and flow of the minister's life-tide might pass under the watchful eye of his anxious physician.

Old Roger Chillingworth, throughout life, had been calm in temperament, of kindly affections, and ever in the world a pure and upright man. He had begun an investigation, as he imagined, with the severe integrity of a judge, desirous only of truth. But, as he proceeded, a terrible fascination seized the old man within its grip, and never set him free again until he had done all its bidding. He now dug into the poor clergyman's heart, like a miner searching for gold. "This man," the physician would say to himself at times, "pure as they deem him, hath inherited a strong animal nature from his father or his mother. Let us dig a little farther in the direction of this vein."

Henceforth Roger Chillingworth became not a spectator only, but a chief actor in the poor minister's inner world. And Mr. Dimmesdale grew to look with unaccountable horror and hatred at the old physician.

And still the minister's fame and reputation for holiness increased, even while he was tortured by bodily disease and the black trouble of his soul.

More than once Mr. Dimmesdale had gone into the pulpit, with a purpose never to come down until he should have spoken the truth of his life. And ever he put a cheat upon himself by confessing in general terms his exceeding vileness and sinfulness. One night in early May, driven by remorse, and still indulging in the mockery of repentance, the minister sought the scaffold, where Hester Prynne had stood. The town was all asleep. There was no peril of discovery. And yet his vigil was surprised by Hester and her daughter, returning from a death-bed in the town, and presently by Roger Chillingworth himself.

"Who is that man?" gasped Mr. Dimmesdale, in terror. "I shiver at him, Hester. Canst thou do nothing for me? I have a nameless horror of the man!"

Hester remembered her promise and was silent.

"Worthy sir," said the physician, when he had advanced to the foot of the platform, "pious Master Dimmesdale! Can this be you? Come, good sir, I pray you, let me lead you home! You should study less, or these night-whimseys will grow upon you."

"I will go home with you," said Mr. Dimmesdale.

And now Hester Prynne resolved to do what might be in her power for the victim whom she saw in her former husband's grip. An opportunity soon occurred when she met the old physician stooping in quest of roots to concoct his medicines.

"When we last spake together," said Hester, "you bound me to secrecy touching our former relations. But now I must reveal the secret. He must discern thee in thy true character. What may be the result I know not. So far as concerns the overthrow or preservation of his fair fame and his earthly state, and perchance his life, he is in thy hands. Nor do I—whom the scarlet letter has disciplined to truth—nor do I perceive such advantage in his living any longer a life of ghastly emptiness, that I shall stoop to implore thy mercy. Do with him as thou wilt! There is no good for him, no good for me, no good for thee! There is no good for little Pearl!"

"Woman, I could well-nigh pity thee!" said Roger Chillingworth. "Peradventure, hadst thou met earlier with a better love than mine, this evil had not been. I pity thee, for the good that has been wasted in thy nature!"

"And I thee," answered Hester Prynne, "for the hatred that has transformed a wise and just man to a fiend! Forgive, if not for his sake, then doubly for thine own!"

"Peace, Hester, peace!" replied the old man with gloom. "It is not granted me to pardon. It is our fate. Now go thy ways, and deal as thou wilt with yonder man."

IV.—Revelation

A week later Hester Prynne waited in the forest for the minister as he returned from a visit to his Indian converts. He walked slowly, and, as he walked, kept his hand over his heart.

"Arthur Dimmesdale! Arthur Dimmesdale!" she cried out.

"Who speaks?" answered the minister. "Hester! Hester Prynne! Is it thou?" He fixed his eyes upon her and added, "Hester, hast thou found peace?"

"Hast thou?" she asked.

"None! Nothing but despair! What else could I look for, being what I am, and leading such a life as mine?"

"You wrong yourself in this," said Hester gently. "Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past. But Arthur, an enemy dwellest with thee, under the same roof. That old man—the physician, whom they call Roger Chillingworth—he was my husband! Forgive me. Let God punish!"

"I do forgive you, Hester," replied the minister. "May God forgive us both!"

They sat down, hand clasped in hand, on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree.

It was Hester who bade him hope, and spoke of seeking a new life beyond the seas, in some rural village in Europe.

"Oh, Hester," cried Arthur Dimmesdale, "I lack the strength and courage to venture out into the wide, strange world alone."

"Thou shalt not go alone!" she whispered. Before Mr. Dimmesdale reached home he was conscious of a change of thought and feeling; Roger Chillingworth observed the change, and knew that now in the minister's regard he was no longer a trusted friend, but his bitterest enemy.

A New England holiday was at hand, the public celebration of the election of a new governor, and the Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale was to preach the election sermon.

Hester had taken berths in a vessel that was about to sail; and then, on the very day of holiday, the shipmaster told her that Roger Chillingworth had also taken a berth in the same vessel.

Hester said nothing, but turned away, and waited in the crowded market-place beside the pillory with Pearl, while the procession re-formed after public worship. The street and the market-place absolutely bubbled with applause of the minister, whose sermon had surpassed all previous utterances.

At that moment Arthur Dimmesdale stood on the proudest eminence to which a New England clergyman could be exalted. The minister, surrounded by the leading men of the town, halted at the scaffold, and, turning towards it, cried, "Hester, come hither! Come, my little Pearl!"

Leaning on Hester's shoulder, the minister, with the child's hand in his, slowly ascended the scaffold steps.

"Is not this better," he murmured, "than what we dreamed of in the forest? For, Hester, I am a dying man. So let me make haste to take my shame upon me."

"I know not. I know not."

"Better? Yea; so we may both die, and little Pearl die with us."

He turned to the market-place and spoke with a voice that all could hear.

"People of New England! At last, at last I stand where seven years since I should have stood. Lo, the scarlet letter which Hester wears! Ye have all shuddered at it! But there stood one in the midst of you, at whose hand of sin and infamy ye have not shuddered! Stand any here that question God's judgement on a sinner? Behold a dreadful witness of it!"

With a convulsive motion he tore away the ministerial gown from before his breast. It was revealed! For an instant the multitude gazed with horror on the ghastly miracle, while the minister stood with a flush of triumph in his face. Then, down he sank upon the scaffold. Hester partly raised him, and supported his head against her bosom. Old Roger Chillingworth knelt beside him.

"Thou hast escaped me!" he repeated more than once.

"May God forgive thee!" said the minister. "Thou, too, hast deeply sinned!"

He fixed his dying eyes on the woman and the child.

"My little Pearl," he said feebly, "thou wilt kiss me. Hester, farewell. God knows, and He is merciful! His will be done! Farewell."

That final word came forth with the minister's expiring breath. The multitude, silent till then, broke out in a strange, deep voice of awe and wonder.

* * * * *

After many days there was more than one account of what had been witnessed on the scaffold. Most of the spectators testified to having seen, on the breast of the unhappy minister, a scarlet letter imprinted in the flesh. Others denied that there was any mark whatever on his breast, more than on a new-born infant's. According to these highly respectable witnesses the minister's confession implied no part of the guilt of Hester Prynne, but was to teach us that we were all sinners alike. Old Roger Chillingworth died and bequeathed his property to little Pearl.

For years the mother and child lived in England, and then Pearl married, and Hester returned alone to the little cottage by the forest.

* * * * *



The House of the Seven Gables

"The House of the Seven Gables," published in 1851, was written by Nathaniel Hawthorne directly after "The Scarlet Letter," and though not equal to that remarkable book, was full worthy of its author's reputation, and brought no disappointment to those who looked for great things from his pen. It seemed to James Russell Lowell "the highest art" to typify, "in the revived likeness of Judge Pyncheon to his ancestor the colonel, that intimate relationship between the present and the past in the way of ancestry and descent, which historians so carefully overlook." Here, as in "The Scarlet Letter," Hawthorne is unsparing in his analysis of the meaning of early American Puritanism—its intolerance and its strength.

I.—The Old Pyncheon Family

Half-way down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely-peaked gables, and a huge clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm tree before the door is known as the Pyncheon elm.

Pyncheon Street formerly bore the humbler appellation of Maule's Lane, from the name of the original occupant of the soil, before whose cottage door it was a cow-path. In the growth of the town, however, after some thirty or forty years, the site covered by the rude hovel of Matthew Maule (originally remote from the centre of the earlier village) had become exceedingly desirable in the eyes of a prominent personage, who asserted claims to the land on the strength of a grant from the Legislature. Colonel Pyncheon, the claimant, was a man of iron energy of purpose. Matthew Maule, though an obscure man, was stubborn in the defense of what he considered his right. The dispute remained for years undecided, and came to a close only with the death of old Matthew Maule, who was executed for the crime of witchcraft.

It was remembered afterwards how loudly Colonel Pyncheon had joined in the general cry to purge the land from witchcraft, and had sought zealously the condemnation of Matthew Maule. At the moment of execution—with the halter about his neck, and while Colonel Pyncheon sat on horseback grimly gazing at the scene—Maule had addressed him from the scaffold, and uttered a prophecy. "God," said the dying man, pointing his finger at the countenance of his enemy, "God will give him blood to drink!"

When it was understood that Colonel Pyncheon intended to erect a spacious family mansion on the spot first covered by the log-built hut of Matthew Maule the village gossips shook their heads, and hinted that he was about to build his house over an unquiet grave.

But the Puritan soldier and magistrate was not a man to be turned aside from his scheme by dread of the reputed wizzard's ghost. He dug his cellar, and laid deep the foundations of his mansion; and the head-carpenter of the House of the Seven Gables was no other than Thomas Maule, the son of the dead man from whom the right to the soil had been wrested.

On the day the house was finished Colonel Pyncheon bade all the town to be his guests, and Maude's Lane—or Pyncheon Street, as it was now called—was thronged at the appointed hour as with a congregation on its way to church.

But the founder of the stately mansion did not stand in his own hall to welcome the eminent persons who presented themselves in honour of the solemn festival, and the principal domestic had to explain that his master still remained in his study, which he had entered an hour before.

The lieutenant-governor took the matter into his hands, and knocked boldly at the door of the colonel's private apartment, and, getting no answer, he tried the door, which yielded to his hand, and was flung wide open by a sudden gust of wind.

The company thronged to the now open door, pressing the lieutenant-governor into the room before them.

A large map and a portrait of Colonel Pyncheon were conspicuous on the walls, and beneath the portrait sat the colonel himself in an elbow chair, with a pen in his hand.

A little boy, the colonel's grandchild, now made his way among the guests, and ran towards the seated figure; then, pausing halfway, he began to shriek with terror. The company drew nearer, and perceived that there was blood on the colonel's cuff and on his beard, and an unnatural distortion in his fixed stare. It was too late to render assistance. The iron-hearted Puritan, the relentless persecutor, the grasping and strong-willed man, was dead! Dead in his new house!

Colonel Pyncheon's sudden and mysterious end made a vast deal of noise in its day. There were many rumours, and a great dispute of doctors over the dead body. But the coroner's jury sat upon the corpse, and, like sensible men, returned an unassailable verdict of "Sudden Death."

The son and heir came into immediate enjoyment of a considerable estate, but a claim to a large tract of country in Waldo County, Maine, which the colonel, had he lived, would undoubtedly have made good, was lost by his decease. Some connecting link had slipped out of the evidence, and could not be found. Still, from generation to generation, the Pyncheons cherished an absurd delusion of family importance on the strength of this impalpable claim; and from father to son they clung with tenacity to the ancestral house for the better part of two centuries.

The most noted event in the Pyncheon annals in the last fifty years had been the violent death of the chief member of the family—an old and wealthy bachelor. One of his nephews, Clifford, was found guilty of the murder, and was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. This had happened thirty years ago, and there were now rumours that the long-buried criminal was about to be released. Another nephew had become the heir, and was now a judge in an inferior court. The only members of the family known to be extant, besides the judge and the thirty years' prisoner, were a sister of the latter, wretchedly poor, who lived in the House of the Seven Gables by the will of the old bachelor, and the judge's single surviving son, now travelling in Europe. The last and youngest Pyncheon was a little country girl of seventeen, whose father—another of the judge's cousins—was dead, and whose mother had taken another husband.

II.—The House without Sunshine

Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon was reduced to the business of setting up a pretty shop, and that in the Pyncheon house where she had spent all her days. After sixty years of idleness and seclusion, she must earn her bread or starve, and to keep shop was the only resource open to her.

The first customer to cross the threshold was a young man to whom old Hepzibah let certain remote rooms in the House of the Seven Gables. He explained that he had looked in to offer his best wishes, and to see if he could give any assistance.

Poor Hepzibah, when she heard the kindly tone of his voice, began to sob.

"Ah, Mr. Holgrave," she cried, "I never can go through with it! Never, never, never! I wish I were dead in the old family tomb with all my forefathers—yes, and with my brother, who had far better find me there than here! I am too old, too feeble, and too hopeless! If old Maule's ghost, or a descendant of his, could see me behind the counter to-day, he would call it the fulfilment of his worst wishes. But I thank you for your kindness, Mr. Holgrave, and will do my utmost to be a good shopkeeper."

On Holgrave asking for half a dozen biscuits, Hepzibah put them into his hand, but rejected the compensation.

"Let me be a lady a moment longer," she said, with a manner of antique stateliness. "A Pyncheon must not—at all events, under her forefathers' roof—receive money for a morsel of bread from her only friend."

As the day went on the poor lady blundered hopelessly with her customers, and committed the most unheard-of errors, so that the whole proceeds of her painful traffic amounted, at the close, to half a dozen coppers.

That night the little country cousin, Phoebe Pyncheon, arrived at the gloomy old house. Hepzibah knew that circumstances made it desirable for the girl to establish herself in another home, but she was reluctant to bid her stay.

"Phoebe," she said, on the following morning, "this house of mine is but a melancholy place for a young person to be in. It lets in the wind and rain, and the snow, too, in the winter time; but it never lets in the sunshine! And as for myself, you see what I am—a dismal and lonesome old woman, whose temper is none of the best, and whose spirits are as bad as can be. I cannot make your life pleasant, Cousin Phoebe; neither can I so much as give you bread to eat."

"You will find me a cheerful little body," answered Phoebe, smiling, "and I mean to earn my bread. You know I have not been brought up a Pyncheon. A girl learns many things in a New England village."

"Ah, Phoebe," said Hepzibah, sighing, "it is a wretched thought that you should fling away your young days in a place like this. And, after all, it is not even for me to say who shall be a guest or inhabitant of the old Pyncheon house. Its master is coming."

"Do you mean Judge Pyncheon?" asked Phoebe, in surprise.

"Judge Pyncheon!" answered her cousin angrily. "He will hardly cross the threshold while I live. You shall see the face of him I speak of."

She went in quest of a miniature, and returned and placed it in Phoebe's hand.

"How do you like the face?" asked Hepzibah.

"It is handsome; it is very beautiful!" said Phoebe admiringly. "It is as sweet a face as a man's can be or ought to be. Who is it, Cousin Hepzibah?"

"Did you never hear of Clifford Pyncheon?"

"Never. I thought there were no Pyncheons left, except yourself and our Cousin Jaffrey, the judge. And yet I seem to have heard the name of Clifford Pyncheon. Yes, from my father, or my mother. But hasn't he been dead a long while?"

"Well, well, child, perhaps he has," said Hepzibah, with a sad, hollow laugh; "but in old houses like this, you know, dead people are very apt to come back again. And, Cousin Phoebe, if your courage does not fail you, we will not part soon. You are welcome to such a home as I can offer you."

III.—Miss Hepzibah's Guests

The day after Phoebe's arrival there was a constant tremor in Hepzibah's frame. With all her affection for a young cousin there was a recurring irritability.

"Bear with me, my dear child!" she cried; "bear with me, for I love you, Phoebe; and truly my heart is full to the brim! By-and-by I shall be kind, and only kind."

"What has happened?" asked Phoebe. "What is it that moves you so?"

"Hush! He is coming!" whispered Hepzibah. "Let him see you first, Phoebe; for you are young and rosy, and cannot help letting a smile break out. He always liked bright faces. And mine is old now, and the tears are hardly dry on it. Draw the curtain a little, but let there be a good deal of sunshine, too. He has had but little sunshine in his life, poor Clifford; and, oh, what a black shadow! Poor—poor Clifford!"

There was a step in the passage-way, above stairs. It seemed to Phoebe the same that she had heard in the night, as in a dream. Very slowly the steps came downstairs, and paused for a long time at the door.

Hepzibah, unable to endure the suspense, rushed forward, threw open the door, and led in the stranger by the hand. At the first glance Phoebe saw an elderly man, in an old-fashioned dressing gown, with grey hair, almost white, of an unusual length. The expression of his countenance seemed to waver, glimmer, and nearly to die away, and feebly to recover itself again.

"Dear Clifford," said Hepzibah, "this is our Cousin Phoebe, Arthur's only child, you know. She has come from the country to stay with us a while, for our old house has grown to be very lonely now."

"Phoebe? Arthur's child?" repeated the guest. "Ah, I forget! No matter. She is very welcome." He seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked strangely around. His eyes met Hepzibah's, and he seemed bewildered and disgusted. "Is this you, Hepzibah?" he murmured sadly. "How changed! how changed!"

"There is nothing but love here, Clifford," Hepzibah said softly—"nothing but love. You are at home."

The guest responded to her tone by a smile, which but half lit up his face. It was followed by a coarser expression, and he ate his food with fierce voracity and asked for "more—more!"

That day Phoebe attended to the shop, and the second person to enter it was a gentleman of portly figure and high respectability.

"I was not aware that Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon had commenced business under such favourable auspices," he said, in a deep voice, "You are her assistant, I suppose?"

"I certainly am," answered Phoebe. "I am a cousin of Miss Hepzibah, on a visit to her."

"Her cousin, and from the country?" said the gentleman, bowing and smiling. "In that case we must be better acquainted, for you are my own little kinswoman likewise. Let me see, you must be Phoebe, the only child of my dear Cousin Arthur. I am your kinsman, my dear. Surely you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon?"

Phoebe curtsied, and the judge bent forward to bestow a kiss on his young relative. But Phoebe drew back; there was something repulsive to her in the judge's demonstration, and on raising her eyes she was startled by the change in Judge Pyncheon's face. It had become cold, hard, and immitigable.

"Dear me! What is to be done now?" thought the country girl to herself. "He looks as if there were nothing softer in him than a rock, nor milder than the east wind."

Then all at once it struck Phoebe that this very Judge Pyncheon was the original of a miniature which Mr. Holgrave—who took portraits, and whose acquaintance she had made within a few hours of her arrival—had shown her yesterday. There was the same hard, stern, relentless look on the face. In reality, the miniature was copied from an old portrait of Colonel Pyncheon which hung within the house. Was it that the expression had been transmitted down as a precious heirloom, from that Puritan ancestor, in whose picture both the expression, and, to a singular degree, the features, of the modern judge were shown as by a kind of prophecy?

But as it happened, scarcely had Phoebe's eyes rested again on the judge's countenance than all its ugly sternness vanished, and she found herself almost overpowered by the warm benevolence of his look. But the fantasy would not quit her that the original Puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditions, had now stepped into the shop.

"You seem to be a little nervous this morning," said the judge. "Has anything happened to disturb you—anything remarkable in Cousin Hepzibah's family—an arrival, eh? I thought so! To be an inmate with such a guest may well startle an innocent young girl!"

"You quite puzzle me, sir!" replied Phoebe. "There is no frightful guest in the house, but only a poor, gentle, child-like man, whom I believe to be Cousin Hepzibah's brother. I am afraid that he is not quite in his sound senses; but so mild he seems to be that a mother might trust her baby with him. He startle me? Oh, no, indeed!"

"I rejoice to hear so favourable and so ingenious an account of my Cousin Clifford," said the benevolent judge. "It is possible that you have never heard of Clifford Pyncheon, and know nothing of his history. But is Clifford in the parlour? I will just step in and see him. There is no need to announce me. I know the house, and know my Cousin Hepzibah, and her brother Clifford likewise. Ah, there is Hepzibah herself!"

Such was the case. The vibrations of the judge's voice had reached the old gentlewoman in the parlour, where Clifford sat slumbering in his chair.

"He cannot see you," said Hepzibah, with quivering voice. "He cannot see visitors."

"A visitor—do you call me so?" cried the judge. "Then let me be Clifford's host, and your own likewise. Come at once to my house. I have often invited you before. Come, and we will labour together to make Clifford happy."

"Clifford has a home here," she answered.

"Woman," broke out the judge, "what is the meaning of all this? Have you other resources? Take care, Hepzibah, take care! Clifford is on the brink of as black a ruin as ever befel him yet!"

From within the parlour sounded a tremulous, wailing voice, indicating helpless alarm.

"Hepzibah!" cried the voice. "Entreat him not to come in. Go down on your knees to him. Oh, let him have mercy on me! Mercy!"

The judge withdrew, and Hepzibah, deathly white, staggered towards Phoebe.

"That man has been the horror of my life," she murmured. "Shall I never have courage enough to tell him what he is?"

IV.—The Spell is Broken

The shop thrived under Phoebe's management, and the acquaintance with Mr. Holgrave ripened into friendship.

Then, after some weeks, Phoebe went away on a temporary visit to her mother, and the old house, which had been brightened by her presence, was once more dark and gloomy.

It was during this absence of Phoebe's that Judge Pyncheon once more called and demanded to see Clifford.

"You cannot see him," answered Hepzibah. "Clifford has kept his bed since yesterday."

"What! Clifford ill!" said the judge, starting. "Then I must, and will see him!"

The judge explained the reason for his urgency. He believed that Clifford could give the clue to the dead uncle's wealth, of which not more than a half had been mentioned in his will. If Clifford refused to reveal where the missing documents were placed, the judge declared he would have him confined in a public asylum as a lunatic, for there were many witnesses of Clifford's simple childlike ways.

"You are stronger than I," said Hepzibah, "and you have no pity in your strength. Clifford is not now insane; but the interview which you insist upon may go far to make him so. Nevertheless, I will call Clifford!"

Hepzibah went in search of her brother, and Judge Pyncheon flung himself down in an old chair in the parlour. He took his watch from his pocket and held it in his hand. But Clifford was not in his room, nor could Hepzibah find him. She returned to the parlour, calling out to the judge as she came, to rise and help find Clifford.

But the judge never moved, and Clifford appeared at the door, pointing his finger at the judge, and laughing with strange excitement.

"Hepzibah," he said, "we can dance now! We can sing, laugh, play, do what we will! The weight is gone, Hepzibah—gone off this weary old world, and we may be as lighthearted as little Phoebe herself! What an absurd figure the old fellow cuts now, just when he fancied he had me completely under his thumb!"

Then the brother and sister departed hastily from the house, and left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old house of his forefathers.

Phoebe and Holgrave were in the house together when the brother and sister returned, and Holgrave had told her of the judge's sudden death. Then, in that hour so full of doubt and awe, the one miracle was wrought, without which every human existence is a blank, and the bliss which makes all things true, beautiful, and holy shone around this youth and maiden. They were conscious of nothing sad or old.

Presently the voices of Clifford and Hepzibah were heard at the door, and when they entered Clifford appeared the stronger of the two.

"It is our own little Phoebe! Ah! And Holgrave with her!" he exclaimed. "I thought of you both as we came down the street. And so the flower of Eden has bloomed even in this old, darksome house to-day."

A week after the judge's death news came of the death of his son, and so Hepzibah became rich, and so did Clifford, and so did Phoebe, and, through her, Holgrave.

It was far too late for the formal vindication of Clifford's character to be worth the trouble and anguish involved. For the truth was that the uncle had died by a sudden stroke, and the judge, knowing this, had let suspicion and condemnation fall on Clifford, only because he had himself been busy among the dead man's papers, destroying a later will made out in Clifford's favour, and because it was found the papers had been disturbed, to avert suspicion from the real offender he had let the blame fall on his cousin.

Clifford was content with the love of his sister and Phoebe and Holgrave. The good opinion of society was not worth publicly reclaiming.

It was Holgrave who discovered the missing document the judge had set his heart on obtaining.

"And now, my dearest Phoebe," said Holgrave, "how will it please you to assume the name of Maule? In this long drama of wrong and retribution I represent the old wizzard, and am probably as much of a wizzard as ever my ancestor was."

Then, with Hepzibah and Clifford, Phoebe and Holgrave left the old house for ever.

* * * * *



ROBERT HICHENS

The Garden of Allah

The son of a clergyman, Mr. Robert Smythe Hichens, born at Speldhurst, Kent, England, on November 14, 1864, was originally intended to follow a musical career, but after some years abandoned music for journalism. His first long novel was written and published at the age of seventeen. It attracted little or no attention, and has long been out of print. A trip to Egypt in 1893 resulted in a burning desire to become a novelist, and his brilliant satire, "The Green Carnation," followed. The book was written in a month, and at once established its author's name and fame. "The Garden of Allah," of all Mr. Hichens' works the most typical of his genius, appeared in 1905. "The intellectual grip of the story," says one critic, "cannot be denied, for it completely conquers the critical sense, and the ideas of the author insinuate themselves, as it were, among one's inmost thoughts." Yet Mr. Hichens' stories are popular, not only with literary connoisseurs, but also with the general public, inasmuch as they owe their fascination not so much to an extreme refinement of art as to their freshness of imagination and dramatic intensity. This epitome of the "Garden of Allah" has been prepared by Mr. Hichens himself.

I.—The Home of Peace

On an autumn evening, Domini Enfilden leaned on the parapet of a verandah of the Hotel du Desert at Beni-Mora, in Southern Algeria, gazing towards the great Sahara, which was lit up by the glory of sunset. The bell of the Catholic Church chimed. She heard the throbbing of native drums in the village near by. Tired with her long journey from England, she watched and listened while the twilight crept among the palms, and the sandy alleys grew dark.

Thirty-two, an orphan, unmarried, strong, fearless, ardent, but a deeply religious woman and a Catholic, Domini had passed through much mental agony. Her mother, Lady Rens, a member of one of England's oldest Catholic families, but half Hungarian on the mother's side, had run away when Domini was nineteen with a Hungarian musician, leaving her only child with her despairing and abandoned husband. Lord Rens had become a Catholic out of love for his wife. When he was deserted by her, he furiously renounced his faith, and eventually died blaspheming. In vain through many years he had tried to detach his daughter from the religion of her guilty mother, now long since dead. Domini had known how to resist; but the cruel contest had shaken her body and soul.

Now free, alone, she had left England to begin a new life far away from the scene of her misery. Vaguely she had thought of the great desert, called by the Arabs "The Garden of Allah," as the home of peace. She had travelled there to find peace. That day, at the gate of the desert, she had met a traveller, Doris Androvsky, a man of about thirty-six, powerfully built, tanned by the sun. When she was about to get into the train at the station of El Akbara this man had rudely sprung in before her. The train had begun to move, and Domini had sprung into it almost at the risk of her life. Androvsky had not offered to help her, had not said a word of apology. His gaucherie had almost revolted Domini. Nevertheless, something powerful, mournful, passionate, and sincere in his personality had affected her, roused her interest.

Silently they had come into the desert together, strangers, almost at enmity the one with the other. They were now staying in the same hotel in this oasis in the desert of Sahara.

In coming to the hotel, Domini had seen a curious incident. Androvsky, with a guide who carried his bag, was walking before her down the long public garden, when in the distance there appeared the black figure of the priest of Beni-Mora advancing slowly towards them. When Androvsky saw the priest he had stopped short, hesitated, then, despite the protests of his guide, had abruptly turned down a side path and hurried away. He had fled from the man of prayer.

Now, as the twilight fell, Domini thought of this incident, and when she heard Androvsky's heavy tread upon the stairs of the verandah, the sharp closing of the French window of his room, she was filled with a vague uneasiness.

Next day she visited a wonderful garden on the edge of the desert belonging to a Count Anteoni, a recluse who loved the Arabs and spent much of his time among them. There, standing with the count by the garden wall at the hour of the Mohammedan's prayer, she had seen Androvsky again. He was in the desert with a Nomad. The cry of the muezzin went up to the brazen sky. The Nomad fell on his knees and prayed. Androvsky started, gazed, shrank back, then turned and strode away like one horrified by some grievous vision. Domini said to the count, "I have just seen a man flee from prayer; it was horrible."

He answered her, very gravely, "The man who is afraid of prayer is unwise to set foot beyond the palm-trees, for the desert is the garden of Allah."

That evening Domini and Androvsky spoke to each other for the first time, on the top of a tower where they had come to see the sunset. Domini spoke first, moved by a strange look of loneliness, of desolation, in Androvsky's eyes. He replied in a low voice, and asked her pardon for his rude conduct at the station. Then, abruptly, he descended the tower and disappeared.

At night she visited a dancing house to see the strange dances of the desert. She found Androvsky there, watching the painted women as if half fascinated, half horrified by them. Irena, a girl who had been banished from Beni-Mora for threatening to murder an Arab of whom she was jealous, but had been permitted to return, discovering him among the audience, stabbed him. There was a violent scene, during which Androvsky, forcing his way through the desert men, protected Domini from the crush. The crowd rushed out, leaving them alone together. Androvsky insisted on escorting Domini back to the hotel.

II.—Defying Allah in Allah's Garden

The acquaintance thus unconventionally began between them continued, and ripened into a strange friendship. Domini was a magnificent horsewoman. Finding that Androvsky did not know how to ride, she gave him lessons. Together they galloped over the desert sands; together they visited the Saharan villages, hidden in the groves of date palms behind the brown earthen walls of the oasis; together watched the burning sunsets of Africa; at meal-times they met in the hotel; in the evenings they sat upon the verandah, and heard the Zouaves singing in chorus, the distant murmur of the tom-toms.

Domini became profoundly interested in Androvsky, but her interest was complicated by wonder at his peculiarities, at his uncouth manners, his strange silences, his ignorance of life and of social matters, his distrust of others, his desire to keep aloof from all human beings, except herself. The good priest, now her intimate friend, Count Anteoni, also her friend and respectful admirer, were ill at ease with him. He had tried to avoid them, but Domini, anxious to bring some pleasure into his life, had introduced him to them at a luncheon given by the count in his garden, despite Androvsky's dogged assertion that he disliked priests, and did not care for social intercourse.

At this lunch Androvsky had been brusque, on the defensive, almost actively disagreeable. And when, after the priest's departure, he left Domini alone with Count Anteoni, she felt almost relieved. Count Anteoni summoned a sand-diviner to read Domini's fate in the sand. This man—a thin, fanatical Eastern, with piercing and cruel eyes—spread out his sand brought from the tomb of a Mohammedan saint, and prophesied. He declared that he saw a great sand-storm, and in it a train of camels waiting by a church. From the church came the sound of music, nearly drowned by the roar of the wind. In the church the real life of Domini was beginning. The music ceased; darkness fell. Then the diviner saw Domini, with a companion, mounted on one of the camels, and disappearing into the storm towards the south. The face of her companion was hidden. Finally he saw Domini far out in the desert among great dunes of white sand. In her heart there was joy. It was as if all the date palms bore their fruit together, and in all the desert places water-springs burst forth. But presently a figure came towards her, walking heavily; and all the dates shrivelled upon the palms, and all the springs dried up. Sorrow and terror were there beside her.

At this point in the diviner's prophecy Domini stopped him. Afterwards she explained to Anteoni that she felt as if another's fate was being read in it as well as her own, as if to listen any more might be to intrude upon another's secret.

Upon the following day Anteoni left Beni-Mora to make a long desert journey to a sacred city called Amara. Domini went to his garden at dawn to see him off. Before departing he warned Domini to beware of Androvsky. She asked him why. He answered that Androvsky seemed to him a man who was at odds with life, with himself, with his Creator, a man who was defying Allah in Allah's garden. When Anteoni had gone, Domini, in some perplexity of spirit, and moved by a longing for sympathy and help, visited the priest in his house near the church. The priest, indirectly, also warned her against Androvsky, and a little later frankly, told her that he felt an invincible dislike to him.

"I have no reason to give," said the priest. "My instinct is my reason. I feel it my duty to say that I advise you most earnestly to break off your acquaintance with Monsieur Androvsky."

Domini said, "It is strange; ever since I have been here I have felt as if everything that has happened had been arranged beforehand, as if it had to happen, and I feel that, too, about the future."

"Count Anteoni's fatalism!" exclaimed the priest. "It is the guiding spirit of this land. And you, too, are going to be led by it. Take care! You have come to a land of fire, and I think you are made of fire."

The warnings of Anteoni and the priest made an impression on Domini. She was conscious of how the outside world would be likely to regard her acquaintance with Androvsky. Suddenly she saw Androvsky as some strange and ghastly figure of legend; as the wandering Jew met by a traveller at cross roads, and distinguished for an instant by an oblique flash of lightning; as the shrouded Arab of the Eastern tale, who announces coming disaster to the wanderers in the desert by beating a death-roll on a drum amid the sands.

And she felt upon her the heavy hand of some strange, perhaps terrible, fate.

III.—The Eternal Song of Love

That same night, accompanied by Batouch, Domini rode out into the desert to see the rising of the moon, and there met Androvsky. He had followed them on horseback. Domini dismissed Batouch at Androvsky's reiterated request. When they were alone in the sands, Androvsky told Domini that he had needed to be with her as he had something to tell her. On the morrow he was going away from Beni-Mora.

His face, while he said this, was turned from Domini, and his voice sounded as if it spoke to some one at a distance, some one who can hear as man cannot hear.

Domini said little. But at the sound of his words it seemed to her as if all outside things she had ever known had foundered; as if with them had foundered, too, all the bodily powers that were of the essence of her life. And the desert, which she had so loved, was no longer to her the desert, sand with a soul in it, blue distances full of a music of summons, but only a barren waste of dried-up matter, featureless, desolate, ghastly with the bones of things that had died.

She rode back with Androvsky to Beni-Mora in a silence like that of death.

But this parting, decreed by the man, was not to be. In the desert these two human beings had grown to love each other, with a love that had become a burning passion. And next day when, in the garden of Count Anteoni, Androvsky came to say farewell to Domini, his love broke all barriers. He sank on the sand, letting his hands slip down till they clasped Domini's knees.

"I love you!" he said. "I love you. But don't listen to me. You mustn't hear it. You mustn't. But I must say it. I can't go till I say it. I love you! I love you!"

"I am listening," she said. "I must hear it."

Androvsky rose up, put his hands behind Domini, held her, set his lips on hers, pressing his whole body against hers.

"Hear it!" he said, muttering against her lips. "Hear it! I love you! I love you!"

In the recesses of the garden Larbi, that idle gardener, played upon his little flute his eternal song of love, and from the desert, beyond the white wall, there rose an Arab's voice singing a song of the Sahara, "No one but God and I knows what is in my heart!"

IV.—A Nomad's Honeymoon

As the sand-diviner had foretold, Domini and Androvsky were married in the church of Beni-Mora, and by the priest who had warned Domini to have nothing more to do with Androvsky. A terrible sand-storm was raging, and the desert was blotted out. Nevertheless, when the ceremony was over, the bride and bridegroom mounted upon a camel, and with their attendants, set out for their desert honeymoon. Standing before the door of the church, the good priest watched them go, with fear in his heart, and that night in his humble home, kneeling before his crucifix, he prayed long and earnestly for all wanderers in the desert.

Isolated from all who knew them, free from all social ties, nomads, as are the Bedouins who make their dwelling for ever amid the vast and burning sands, Domini and Androvsky entered upon their married life. And at first one of them was happy as few are ever happy. Domini loved completely, trusted completely, lived with a fulness, a completeness she had never known till now. That Androvsky almost worshipped her, she knew. His conduct to her was perfect. And yet there were times when Domini felt as if a shadow rose between them, as if, even with her, in some secret place of his soul Androvsky was ill at ease, as if sometimes he suffered, and dared not tell his suffering.

One day, in their wanderings, they came to a desolate place called Mogar, and camped on a sandhill looking over a vast stretch of dunes. Towards evening Androvsky descended into the plain to shoot gazelle, leaving Domini alone. While he was away a French officer, with two men of the Zouaves, rode slowly up. They were nearly starving and terribly exhausted, having been lost in a sand-storm for three days and nights.

Pitying their sufferings, Domini insisted on entertaining them. The men must sup with the Arabs, the officer must dine with herself and Androvsky. The officer accepted with gratitude, and went off to make his toilet. When Androvsky returned, Domini told him of the officer's arrival, and when he saw the three places laid for dinner in the tent, he seemed profoundly disturbed. He asked the officer's name. Domini told him Trevignac.

"Trevignac!" he exclaimed.

Then, hearing the soldiers coming, he turned away; abruptly and disappeared into the bedroom tent.

Trevignac came up, and in a few minutes Androvsky reappeared. The two men gazed at each other for an instant. Then Domini introduced them, and they all sat down to dinner. Conversation was uneasy. Androvsky was evidently ill at ease; Trevignac was distrait at moments, strangely watchful of his host at other moments. Dinner over, Domini left the two men together to smoke, and went out on to the sand. She met an Arab carrying coffee and a liqueur to the tent.

"What's that, Ouardi?" she asked, touching the bottle.

He told her it was an African liqueur.

"Take it in," she said.

And she strolled away to the bonfire to listen to the fantasia the Arabs were making in honour of the soldiers.

When she returned to the tent, she found her husband alone in it, standing up, with a quantity of fragments of glass lying at his feet. Near him was the coffee, untasted. Trevignac was gone. She asked for an explanation. He gave her none. The fragments of glass were all that remained of the bottle which had contained the liqueur.

At dawn Domini met Trevignac riding away with his soldiers. He saluted her, bidding his men ride on. As he gazed at her, she seemed to see horror in his eyes. Twice he tried to speak, but apparently could not bring himself to do so. He looked towards the tent where Androvsky was sleeping, then at Domini; then, as if moved by an irresistible impulse, he leaned from his saddle, made over Domini the sign of the cross, and rode away into the desert.

V.—I Have Insulted God

From that day Androvsky's strange misery of the soul, strange horror of the world, increased. Domini felt that he was secretly tormented. She tried to make him happier; she even told him that she believed he often felt far away from God, and that she prayed each day for him.

"Boris," she said, "if it's that, don't be too sad. It may all come right in the desert. For the desert is the garden of Allah."

He made her no answer.

At last in their journeying they came to the sacred city of Amara, and camped in the white sands beyond it.

This was the place described by the sand-diviner, and here Domini knew that her love was to be crowned, that she would become a mother. She hesitated to tell her husband, for in this place his misery and fear of men seemed mounting to a climax. Nevertheless, as if in a frantic attempt to get the better of his mental torture, he had gone off, saying he wanted to see the city.

While he was away, Domini was visited first by Count Anteoni, who told her that he had joined the Mohammedan religion, and was at last happy and at peace; secondly, when night had fallen, by the priest of Amara. This man was talkative and genial, fond of the good things of life. Domini offered him a cigar. He accepted it. An Arab brought coffee, and the same African liqueur which had been taken to the tent on the night when Trevignac had dined with Domini and Androvsky.

When the priest was about to drink some of it, he suddenly paused, and put the glass down. Domini leant forward.

"Louarine," she said, reading the name on the bottle. "Won't you have some?"

"The fact is, madame," began the priest, with hesitation, "this liqueur comes from the Trappist monastery of El Largani."

"Yes?"

"It was made by a monk and priest to whom the secret of its manufacture belonged. At his death he was to confide the secret to another whom he had chosen. But the monks of El Largani will never earn another franc by Louarine when what they have in stock is exhausted."

"The monk died suddenly?"

"Madame, he ran away from the monastery after being there in the eternal silence for twenty years, after taking the final vows."

"How horrible!" said Domini. "That man must be in hell now, in the hell a man can make for himself by his own act."

As she spoke, Androvsky appeared by the tent door. He was looking frightfully ill, and like a desperate man. When the priest had gone, Domini told Androvsky about the liqueur and the disappearance of the Trappist monk. As she spoke, his face grew more ghastly. He stood rigid, as if with horror.

"Poor, poor man!" she said, as she finished her story.

"You—you pity that man then?" murmured Androvsky.

"Yes," she replied. "I was thinking of the agony he must be enduring if he is still alive."

Androvsky seemed painfully moved, and almost as if he were on the verge of some passionate outburst of emotion; and something like a deep voice far down in the loving heart of Domini said to her, "If you really love, be fearless. Attack the sorrow which stands like a figure of death between you and your husband. Drive it away. You have a weapon—faith— use it!"

At last she summoned all her courage, all her faith, and she forced from Androvsky the confession of what it was which held him in perpetual misery, even in freedom, even with her, whom he loved beyond and above all human beings.

"Domini," he said, "you want to know what it is that makes me unhappy even in our love—desperately unhappy. It is this. I believe in God, I love God, I have insulted God. I have tried to forget God, to deny Him, to put human love higher than love for Him. But always I am haunted by the thought of God, and that thought makes me despair. Once, when I was young, I gave myself to God solemnly. I have broken the vows I made! I gave myself to God as a monk."

"You are the Trappist!" she whispered. "You are the monk from the monastery of El Largani who disappeared after twenty years?"

"Yes," he said, "I am he."

Standing there in the sands, while the world was wrapped in sleep, Androvsky told Domini the whole story of his life in the monastery, of his innocent happiness there, and of the events which woke up within him the mad longing to see life and the world, and to know the love of woman. He told her of his secret departure by night from the monastery, of his journey to the desert in search of complete and savage liberty. He told her how he had fought against his growing love for her, how he had tried to leave her; how, at the last moment in the garden by night, his passion for her had conquered him and driven him to her feet. He told her how the officer, Trevignac, had known him long ago in the monastery, and had recognised him when the Arab brought in the liqueur which he had made. He kept nothing from her.

"That last day in the garden," he said finally, "I thought I had conquered myself, and it was in that moment that I fell for ever. When I knew you loved me, I could fight no more. You have seen me, you have lived with me, you have divined my misery. But don't think, Domini, that it ever came from you. It was the consciousness of my lie to you, my lie to God, that—that—I can't tell you—I can't tell you—you know."

He looked into her face, then turned to go away into the desert.

"I'll go! I'll go!" he muttered.

Then Domini spoke.

"Boris!" she said.

He stopped.

"Boris, now at last you can pray."

She went into the tent, and left him alone. He knew that in the tent she was praying for him. He stood, trying to listen to her prayer, then, with an uncertain hand, he felt in his breast. He drew out a wooden cross, given to him by his mother when he entered the monastery. He bent down his head, touched it with his lips, and fell upon his knees in the desert.

From that night, Domini realised that her duty was plain before her. Androvsky was still at heart a monk, and she was a fervently religious woman. She put God above herself, above her poor, desperate, human love, above Androvsky and his passionate love for her. She put the things of eternity before the things of time. She never told Androvsky of the child that was coming.

After he had made his confession to the priest of Beni-Mora who had married them, she led him to the monastery door, and there they parted for ever on earth, to be reunited, as both believed, in heaven.

And now, in the garden of Count Anteoni, which has passed into other hands, a little boy may often be seen playing.

Sometimes, when twilight is falling over the Sahara, his mother calls him to her, to the white wall from which she looks out over the desert.

"Listen, Boris," she whispers.

The little boy leans his face against her breast, and obeys.

An Arab is passing below on the desert track, singing to himself, as he goes towards his home in the oasis, "No one but God and I knows what is in my heart."

The mother whispers the words to herself. The cool wind of the night blows over the vast spaces of the Sahara and touches her cheek, reminding her of her glorious days of liberty, of the passion that came to her soul like fire in the desert.

But she does not rebel, for always, when night falls, she sees the form of a man praying, one who once fled from prayer in the desert; she sees a wanderer who at last has reached his home.

* * * * *



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Elsie Venner

Oliver Wendell Holmes, essayist, poet, scientist, and one of the most lovable men who have adorned the literature of the English tongue, was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, Aug. 29, 1809, of a New England family with a record in which he took great pride. After studying medicine at Harvard, he went to Europe on a prolonged tour, and, returning, took his M.D., and became a popular professor of anatomy. He had some repute as a graceful poet in his student days. "Elsie Venner," at first called "The Professor's Story," was published in 1861, and was the first sustained work of fiction that came from the pen of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Illumined by admirable pictures of life and character in a typical New England town, the book itself is a remarkable study of heredity—a study only relieved by the author's kindly humour. The unfortunate child, doomed before her birth to suffer from the fatal bite of a rattlesnake—an incident unduly extravagant in some critics' opinions—and only throwing off the evil influence on her death-bed, is one of the most pathetic figures in all American literature. It was not until seven years later that "Elsie Venner" was followed by another novel, "The Guardian Angel," a story which is worked out on the same lines of thought as the former. Holmes died on October 7, 1894.

I.—The Eyes of Elsie Venner

Mr. Bernard Langdon, duly certificated, had accepted the invitation from the Board of Trustees of the Apollinean Female Institute, a school for the education of young ladies, situated in the nourishing town of Rockland.

Rockland is at the foot of a mountain, and a horrible feature of this mountain was the region known as Rattlesnake Ledge, which was still tenanted by those horrible reptiles in spite of many a foray by the townspeople.

That the brood was not extirpated there was a melancholy proof in the year 184—, when a young married woman, detained at home by the state of her health, was bitten in the entry of her own house by a rattlesnake which had found its way down from the mountain. Owing to the almost instant employment of powerful remedies, the bite did not prove immediately fatal, but she died within a few months of the time when she was bitten.

It was on a fine morning that Mr. Langdon made his appearance, as master for the English branches, in the great school-room of the Apollinean Institute. The principal, Mr. Silas Peckham, carried him to the desk of the young lady assistant, Miss Darley by name, and introduced him to her. The young lady assistant had to point out to the new master the whole routine of the classes, and Mr. Langdon had a great many questions to ask relating to his new duties. The truth is, the general effect of the school-room, with its scores of young girls, was enough to confuse a young man like Mr. Langdon, and he may be pardoned for asking Miss Darley questions about his scholars as well as about their lessons.

He asked who one or two girls were, and being answered, went on, "And who and what is that sitting a little apart there—that strange, wild-looking girl?"

The lady teacher's face changed; one would have said she was frightened or troubled. The girl did not look up; she was winding a gold chain about her wrist, and then uncoiling it as if in a kind of reverie. Miss Darley drew close to the master, and placed her hand so as to hide her lips.

"Don't look at her as if we were talking about her," she whispered softly, "that is Elsie Venner."

A girl of about seventeen, tall, slender, was Elsie Venner. Black, piercing eyes, black hair, twisted in heavy braids, a face that one could not help looking at for its beauty, yet that one wanted to look away from, and could not, for those diamond eyes.

Those eyes were fixed on the lady teacher one morning not long after Langdon's arrival. Miss Darley turned her own away, and let them wander over the other scholars. But the diamond eyes were on her still. She turned the leaves of several of her books, and finally, following some ill-defined impulse which she could not resist, left her place, and went to the young girl's desk.

"What do you want of me, Elsie Venner?" It was a strange question to put, for the girl had not signified that she wished the teacher to come to her.

"Nothing," she cried. "I thought I could make you come." The girl spoke in a low tone, a kind of half-whisper.

Bernard Langdon experienced the power of those diamond eyes one particular day that summer.

He had made up his mind to explore the dreaded Rattlesnake Ledge of the mountain, to examine the rocks, and perhaps to pick up an adventure in the zoological line; for he had on a pair of high, stout boots, and he carried a stick in his hand.

High up on one of the precipitous walls of rock he saw some tufts of flowers, and knew them for flowers Elsie Venner had brought into the school-room. Presently on a natural platform where he sat down to rest, he found a hairpin.

He rose up from his seat to look round for other signs of a woman's visits, and walked to the mouth of a cavern and looked into it. His look was met by the glitter of two diamond eyes, shining out of the darkness, but gliding with a smooth, steady motion towards the light, and himself. He stood fixed, struck dumb, staring back into them with dilating pupils and sudden numbness of fear that cannot move. The two sparks of light came forward until they grew to circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise.

Then, for the first time, thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes can hear unmoved—the long, singing whir, as the huge, thick-bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle. He waited as in a trance; and while he looked straight into the flaming eyes, it seemed to him that they were losing their light and terror, that they were growing tame and dull. The charm was dissolving, the numbness passing away, he could move once more. He heard a light breathing close to his ear, and, half turning, saw the face of Elsie Venner, looking motionless into the reptile's eyes, which had shrunk and faded under the stronger enchantment of her own.

From that time Mr. Bernard was brought into new relations with Elsie. He was grateful; she had led him out of danger, and perhaps saved him from death, but he shuddered at the recollection of the whole scene. He made up his mind that, come what might, he would solve the mystery of Elsie Venner, sooner or later.

II.—Cousin Richard Venner

Richard Venner had passed several of his early years with his uncle Dudley Venner at the Dudley mansion, the playmate of Elsie, being her cousin, two or three years older than herself. His mother was a lady of Buenos Ayres, of Spanish descent, and had died while he was in his cradle. A self-willed, capricious boy, he was a rough playmate for Elsie.

But Elsie was the wilder of these two motherless children. Old Sophy— said to be the granddaughter of a cannibal chief—who watched them in their play and their quarrels, always seemed to be more afraid for the boy than the girl.

"Massa Dick, don' you be too rough wi' dat girl! She scratch you las' week, 'n' some day she bite you; 'n' if she bite you, Massa Dick——" Old Sophy nodded her head ominously, as if she could say a great deal more.

Elsie's father, whose fault was to indulge her in everything, found that it would never do to let these children grow up together. A sharper quarrel than usual decided this point. Master Dick forgot old Sophy's caution, and vexed the girl into a paroxysm of wrath, in which she sprang at him, and bit his arm. Old Dr. Kettredge was sent for, and came at once when he heard what had happened.

He had a good deal to say about the danger there was from the teeth of animals or of human beings when enraged, and he emphasised his remarks by the application of a pencil of lunar caustic to each of the marks left by the sharp white teeth.

After this Master Dick went off on his travels, which led him into strange places and stranger company; and so the boy grew up to youth and early manhood.

There came a time when the young gentleman thought he would like to see his cousin again, and wrote inviting himself to the Dudley mansion.

Doctor Kettredge could see no harm in the visit when Dudley Venner consulted him. Her father was never easy about Elsie. He could not tell the old doctor all he knew. In God's good time he believed his only daughter would come to her true nature; her eyes would lose that frightful, cold glitter, and that faint birth-mark which encircled her neck—her mother swooned when she first saw it—would fade wholly out.

"Let her go to the girls' school, by all means," the doctor had said, when that was first talked about. "Anything to interest her. Friendship, love, religion—whatever will set her nature to work."

When Dudley Venner mentioned his nephew's arrival, the doctor only said, "Let him stay a while; it gives her something to think about." He thought there was no danger of any sudden passion springing up between two such young persons.

So Mr. Richard came, and the longer he stayed the more favourably the idea of a permanent residence in the mansion-house seemed to impress him. The estate was large and of great value, and there could not be a doubt that the property had largely increased. It was evident there was an abundant income, and Cousin Elsie was worth trying for. On the other hand, what was the matter with her eyes, that they sucked your life out of you in that strange way? And what did she always wear a necklace for? Besides, her father might last for ever or take it into his head to marry again.

He prolonged his visit until his presence became something like a matter of habit. In the meantime he found that Elsie was getting more constant in her attendance at school, and learned, on inquiry, that there was a new master, a handsome young man. The handsome young man would not have liked the look that came over Dick Venner's face when he heard this fact mentioned.

For Mr. Richard had decided that he must have the property, that this was his one great chance in life. The girl might not suit him as a wife. Possibly. Time enough to find out after he had got her. That Elsie now regarded him with indifference, if not aversion, he could not conceal from himself. The young man at the school was probably at the bottom of it. "Cousin Elsie in love with a Yankee schoolmaster!"

But for a long time Dick Venner could get no positive evidence of any sentiment between Elsie and the schoolmaster. At one time he would be devoured by suspicion, at another he would laugh himself out of them.

His jealousy at last broke out, when he and Elsie were alone, in a questioning reference to Mr. Langdon.

Elsie coloured, and then answered, abruptly and scornfully, "Mr. Langdon is a gentleman, and would not vex me as you do."

"A gentleman!" Dick answered, with the most insulting accent. "A gentleman! Come, Elsie; you've got the Dudley blood in your veins, and it doesn't do for you to call this poor sneaking schoolmaster a gentleman!"

He stopped short. Elsie's bosom was heaving, the faint flush of her cheek was becoming a vivid glow. There was no longer any doubt in his mind. Elsie Venner loved Bernard Langdon. The sudden conviction, absolute, overwhelming, rushed upon him.

Elsie made no answer, but glided out of the room and slid away to her own apartment. She bolted the door, and drew her curtains close. Then she threw herself on the floor, and fell into a dull, slow ache of passion, without tears, almost without words.

Dick realised that he had reached a fearful point. He could not give up the great Dudley property. Therefore, the school-master must be got rid of, and by self-destruction.

Mr. Bernard Langdon must be found, suspended to the branch of a tree, somewhat within a mile of the Apollinean Institute.

III.—The Perilous Hour

Old Doctor Kettredge had advised Bernard Langdon to go in for pistol- shooting, and had even presented him with a small, beautifully finished revolver. "I want you to carry this," he said, "and more than that, I want you to practise with it often, so that it may be seen and understood that you are apt to have a pistol about you."

This was at the conclusion of a conversation between the doctor and Mr. Bernard concerning Elsie Venner.

"Elsie interests me," said the young man, "interests me strangely. I would risk my life for her, but I do not love her. If her hand touches mine, it is not a thrill of passion I feel running through me, but a very different emotion."

"Mr. Langdon," said the doctor, "you have come to this country town without suspicion, and you are moving in the midst of perils. Keep your eyes open, and your heart shut. If, through pitying that girl, you ever come to love her, you are lost. If you deal carelessly with her, beware! This is not all. There are other eyes on you beside Elsie Venner's. Go armed in future."

Mr. Bernard thought the advice very odd, but he followed it, and soon became known as an expert at revolver-shooting. On the day when Dick Venner had decided that the schoolmaster must be found hanged, Bernard Langdon went out as usual for the evening walk. He thrust his pistol, which he had put away loaded, into his pocket before starting.

The moon was shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, but presently he detected the sound of hoofs, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. When the horseman was within a hundred and fifty yards of him, the moon shone out suddenly, and revealed each of them to the other. The rider paused for a moment, then suddenly put his horse to the full gallop, and dashed towards him, rising at the same instant in his stirrups and swinging something round his head. It was a strange manoeuvre, so strange and threatening that the young man cocked his pistol, and waited to see what mischief all this meant. He did not wait long. As the rider came rushing towards him he made a rapid motion, and something leaped five-and-twenty feet through the air in Mr. Bernard's direction. In an instant he felt a ring, as of a rope or thong, settle upon his shoulders. There was no time to think, he would be lost in another second. He raised his pistol and fired—not at the rider, but at the horse. His aim was true; the horse gave one bound and fell lifeless, shot through the head. The lasso was fastened to his saddle, and his last bound threw Mr. Bernard violently to the earth, where he lay motionless, as if stunned.

In the meantime, Dick Venner, who had been dashed down with his horse, was trying to extricate himself; one of his legs was held fast under the animal, the long spur on his boot having caught in the saddle-cloth. He found, however, that he could do nothing with his right arm, his shoulder having been in some way injured in his fall. But his Southern blood was up, and, as he saw Mr. Bernard move as if he were coming to his senses, he struggled violently to free himself.

"I'll have the dog yet!" he said; "only let me get at him with the knife!"

He had just succeeded in extricating his imprisoned leg, and was ready to spring to his feet, when he was caught firmly by the throat, and looking up, saw a hayfork within an inch of his breast.

"Hold on there! What'n thunder 'r' y' abaout, y' darned Portagee?" said a sharp, resolute voice.

Dick looked from the weapon to the person who held it, and saw Abel Stebbins, the doctor's man, standing over him.

"Let me up! Let me up!" he cried in a low, hurried voice. "I'll give you a hundred dollars in gold to let me go. The man a'n't hurt—don't you see him stirring? He'll come to himself in two minutes. Let me up! I'll give you a hundred and fifty dollars in gold, now, here on the spot, and the watch out of my pocket; take it yourself, with your own hands!"

"Ketch me lett'n go!" was Abel's emphatic answer.

Mr. Bernard was now getting first his senses, and then some few of his scattered wits together.

"Who's hurt? What's happened?" he asked, staring about him.

Then he felt something about his neck; and putting his hands up, found the loop of the lasso. Abel quickly slipped the noose over Mr. Bernard's head, and put it round the neck of the miserable Dick Venner, who, with his disabled arm, felt resistance was hopeless.

The party now took up the line of march for old Dr. Kettredge's house, Abel carrying Langdon's pistol, and leading Dick Venner, Bernard Langdon holding the hayfork. He was still half-stunned, and felt it was all a dream, when they reached the house.

"My mind is confused," he told the doctor. "I've had a fall."

"Sit down, sit down," the doctor said. "Abel will tell me about it. Slight concussion of the brain. Can't remember very well for an hour or two—will come right by to-morrow!"

Dick Venner's shoulder was out of joint, the doctor found; he replaced it in a very few minutes. That night the doctor drove Dick forty miles at a stretch, out of the limits of the state.

He had implored them to let him go, and Mr. Bernard was quite willing that no further proceedings should be taken.

IV.—The Secret is Whispered

A week after Dick Venner's departure Elsie went off at the accustomed hour to the school. She had none of the hard, wicked light in her eyes that morning, and looked gentle, but dreamy.

At the end of the school hours, when the girls had all gone out, Elsie came up to Mr. Bernard, and said, in a very low voice, "Will you walk towards my home with me to-day?"

So they walked along together on their way towards the Dudley mansion.

"I have no friend," Elsie said all at once. "Nobody loves me but one old woman—old Sophy!"

"I am your friend, Elsie. Tell me what I can do to render your life happier."

"Love me!" said Elsie Venner.

Mr. Bernard turned pale.

"Elsie," he said presently, "I do love you, as a sister with sorrows of her own—as one whom I would save at the risk of my happiness and life. Give me your hand, dear Elsie, and trust me that I will be as true a friend to you as if we were children of the same mother!"

Elsie gave him her hand mechanically, and he pressed it gently. They walked almost in silence the rest of the way.

It was all over with poor Elsie. She went at once to her own room when they reached the mansion-house, and never left it.

They sent for the old doctor, and he ordered some remedies, saying he would call the next day, hoping to find her better. But the next day came, and the next, and still Elsie was on her bed—feverish, restless, and silent.

"Send me Helen Darley," she said at last, on the fourth day.

And Helen came. Dudley Venner followed her into the room.

"She is your patient," he said, "except while the doctor is here."

Helen Darley often tried in those days and nights, when she sat by Elsie's bed, to enter into the sick girl's confidence and affections, but there was always something that seemed inexplicable in the changes of mood. So Helen determined to ask old Sophy some questions.

"How old is Elsie?"

"Eighteen years this las' September."

"How long ago did her mother die?"

"Eighteen year ago this October."

Helen was silent for a moment. Then she whispered,

"What did her mother die of, Sophy?"

The old woman caught Helen by the hand and clung to it, as if in fear.

"Don't never speak in this house 'bout what Elsie's mother died of!" she said. "God has made Ugly Things wi' death in their mouths, Miss Darlin', an' He knows what they're for. But my poor Elsie! To have her blood changed in her before—It was in July mistress got her death, but she liv' till three week after my poor Elsie was born."

She could speak no more; she had said enough. Helen remembered the stories she had heard on coming to the village. Now she knew the secret of the fascination which looked out of the cold, glittering eyes.

A great change came over Elsie in the last few days. It seemed to her father as if the malign influence which had pervaded her being had been driven forth or exorcised.

"It's her mother's look!" said old Sophy. "It's her mother's own face right over again. She never look' so before—the Lord's hand is on her! His will be done!"

But Elsie's heart was beating more feebly every day. One night, with sudden effort, she threw her arms round her father's neck, kissed him, and said, "Good-night, my dear father!"

Then her head fell back upon her pillow, and a long sigh breathed through her lips.

Elsie Venner was dead!

* * * * *

In the following summer Mr. Dudley Venner married Miss Helen Darley. Mr. Bernard Langdon returned to college, resumed his medical studies, took his degree as Doctor of Medicine, and he now also is married.

* * * * *



THOMAS HUGHES

Tom Brown's Schooldays

"Tom Brown's Schooldays" has been called by more than one critic the best story of schoolboy life ever written, and three generations of readers have endorsed the opinion. Its author, Thomas Hughes, born at Uffington, Berkshire, England, Oct. 19, 1822, was himself, like his hero, both a Rugby boy under Dr. Arnold and the son of a Berkshire squire, but he denied that the story was in any real sense autobiographical. Matthew Arnold and Arthur H. Clough, the poet, were Hughes's friends at school, and in later life he became associated with Charles Kingsley and Frederick Denison Maurice on what was called the Christian Socialist movement. A barrister by profession, Thomas Hughes became a county court judge, and lived for many years in that capacity at Chester. Besides "Tom Brown's Schooldays," published in 1857, Hughes also wrote "Tom Brown at Oxford" (1861), biographies of Livingstone, Bishop Fraser, and Daniel Macmillan, and a number of political, religious and social pamphlets. He died on March 22, 1896.

I.—Tom Goes to Rugby

Squire Brown, J.P. for the county of Berks, dealt out justice and mercy, in a thorough way, and begat sons and daughters, and hunted the fox, and grumbled at the badness of the roads and the times. And his wife dealt out stockings and shirts and smock frocks, and comforting drinks to the old folks with the "rheumatiz," and good counsel to all.

Tom was their eldest child, a hearty, strong boy, from the first given to fighting with and escaping from his nurse, and fraternising with all the village boys, with whom he made expeditions all round the neighbourhood.

Squire Brown was a Tory to the backbone; but, nevertheless, held divers social principles not generally supposed to be true blue in colour; the foremost of which was the belief that a man is to be valued wholly and solely for that which he is himself, apart from all externals whatever. Therefore, he held it didn't matter a straw whether his son associated with lords' sons or ploughmen's sons, provided they were brave and honest. So he encouraged Tom in his intimacy with the village boys, and gave them the run of a close for a playground. Great was the grief among them when Tom drove off with the squire one morning, to meet the coach, on his way to Rugby, to school.

It had been resolved that Tom should travel down by the Tally-ho, which passed through Rugby itself; and as it was an early coach, they drove out to the Peacock Inn, at Islington, to be on the road. Towards nine o'clock, the squire, observing that Tom was getting sleepy, sent the little fellow off to bed, with a few parting words, the result of much thought.

"And now, Tom, my boy," said the squire, "remember you are going, at your own earnest request, to be chucked into this great school, like a young bear, with all your troubles before you—earlier than we should have sent you, perhaps. You'll see a great many cruel blackguard things done, and hear a deal of foul, bad talk. But never fear. You tell the truth, and keep a brave, kind heart, and never listen to or say anything you wouldn't have your mother or sister hear, and you'll never feel ashamed to come home, or we to see you."

The mention of his mother made Tom feel rather choky, and he would have liked to hug his father well, if it hadn't been for his recent stipulation that kissing should now cease between them, so he only squeezed his father's hand, and looked up bravely, and said, "I'll try, father!"

At ten minutes to three Tom was in the coffee-room in his stockings, and there was his father nursing a bright fire; and a cup of coffee and a hard biscuit on the table.

Just as he was swallowing the last mouthful, Boots looks in, and says, "Tally-ho, sir!" And they hear the ring and rattle as it dashes up to the Peacock.

"Good-bye, father; my love at home!" A last shake of the hand. Up goes Tom, the guard holding on with one hand, while he claps the horn to his mouth. Toot, toot, toot! Away goes the Tally-ho into the darkness.

Tom stands up, and looks back at his father's figure as long as you can see it; and then comes to an anchor, and finishes his buttonings and other preparations for facing the cold three hours before dawn. The guard muffles Tom's feet up in straw, and puts an oat-sack over his knees, but it is not until after breakfast that his tongue is unloosed, and he rubs up his memory, and launches out into a graphic history of all the performances of the Rugby boys on the roads for the last twenty years.

"And so here's Rugby, sir, at last, and you'll be in plenty of time for dinner at the schoolhouse, as I tell'd you," says the old guard.

Tom's heart beat quick, and he began to feel proud of being a Rugby boy when he passed the school gates, and saw the boys standing there as if the town belonged to them.

One of the young heroes ran out from the rest, and scrambled up behind, where, having righted himself with, "How do, Jem?" to the guard, he turned round short to Tom, and began, "I say, you fellow, is your name Brown?"

"Yes," said Tom, in considerable astonishment.

"Ah, I thought so; my old aunt, Miss East, lives somewhere down your way in Berkshire; she wrote that you were coming to-day and asked me to give you a lift!"

Tom was somewhat inclined to resent the patronising air of his new friend, a boy of just about his own age and height, but gifted with the most transcendent coolness and assurance, which Tom felt to be aggravating and hard to bear, but couldn't help admiring and envying, especially when my young lord begins hectoring two or three long loafing fellows, and arranges with one of them to carry up Tom's luggage.

"You see," said East, as they strolled up to the school gates, "a good deal depends on how a fellow cuts up at first. You see I'm doing the handsome thing by you, because my father knows yours; besides, I want to please the old lady—she gave me half-a-sov. this half, and perhaps'll double it next if I keep in her good books."

Tom was duly placed in the Third Form, and found his work very easy; and as he had no intimate companion to make him idle (East being in the Lower Fourth), soon gained golden opinions from his master, and all went well with him in the school. As a new boy he was, of course, excused fagging, but, in his enthusiasm, this hardly pleased him; and East and others of his young friends kindly allowed him to indulge his fancy, and take their turns at night, fagging and cleaning studies. So he soon gained the character of a good-natured, willing fellow, ready to do a turn for anyone.

II.—The War of Independence

The Lower Fourth was an overgrown Form, too large for any one man to attend to properly, consequently the elysium of the young scamps who formed the staple of it. Tom had come up from the Third with a good character, but he rapidly fell away, and became as unmanageable as the rest. By the time the second monthly examination came round, his character for steadiness was gone, and for years after, he went up the school without it, and regarded the masters, as a matter of course, as his natural enemies. Matters were not so comfortable in the house, either. The new praeposters of the Sixth Form were not strong, and the big Fifth Form boys soon began to usurp power, and to fag and bully the little boys.

One evening Tom and East were sitting in their study, Tom brooding over the wrongs of fags in general and his own in particular.

"I say, Scud," said he at last, "what right have the Fifth Form boys to fag us as they do?"

"No more right than you have to fag them," said East, without looking up from an early number of "Pickwick." Tom relapsed into his brown study, and East went on reading and chuckling.

"Do you know, old fellow, I've been thinking it over, and I've made up my mind I won't fag except for the Sixth."

"Quite right, too, my boy," cried East. "I'm all for a strike myself; it's getting too bad."

"I shouldn't mind if it were only young Brooke now," said Tom; "I'd do anything for him. But that blackguard Flashman——"

"The cowardly brute!" broke in East.

"Fa-a-ag!" sounded along the passage from Flashman's study.

The two boys looked at one another.

"Fa-a-ag!" again. No answer.

"Here, Brown! East! You young skulks!" roared Flashman. "I know you're in! No shirking!"

Tom bolted the door, and East blew out the candle.

"Now, Tom, no surrender!"

Then the assault commenced. One panel of the door gave way to repeated kicks, and the besieged strengthened their defences with the sofa. Flashman & Co. at last retired, vowing vengeance, and when the convivial noises began again steadily, Tom and East rushed out. They were too quick to be caught, but a pickle-jar, sent whizzing after them by Flashman narrowly missed Tom's head. Their story was soon told to a knot of small boys round the fire in the hall, who nearly all bound themselves not to fag for the Fifth, encouraged and advised thereto by Diggs—a queer, very clever fellow, nearly at the top of the Fifth himself. He stood by them all through and seldom have small boys had more need of a friend.

Flashman and his associates united in "bringing the young vagabonds to their senses," and the whole house was filled with chasings, sieges, and lickings of all sorts.

One evening, in forbidden hours, Brown and East were in the hall, chatting by the light of the fire, when the door swung open, and in walked Flashman. He didn't see Diggs, busy in front of the other fire; and as the boys didn't move for him, struck one of them, and ordered them all off to their study.

"I say, you two," said Diggs, rousing up, "you'll never get rid of that fellow till you lick him. Go in at him, both of you! I'll see fair play."

They were about up to Flashman's shoulder, but tough and in perfect training; while he, seventeen years old, and big and strong of his age, was in poor condition from his monstrous habits of stuffing and want of exercise.

They rushed in on him, and he hit out wildly and savagely, and in another minute Tom went spinning backwards over a form; and Flashman turned to demolish East, with a savage grin. But Diggs jumped down from the table on which he had seated himself.

"Stop there!" shouted he. "The round's over! Half minute time allowed! I'm going to see fair. Are you ready, Brown? Time's up!"

The small boys rushed in again; Flashman was wilder and more flurried than ever. In a few moments over all three went on the floor, Flashman striking his head on a form. But his skull was not fractured, as the two youngsters feared it was, and he never laid a finger on them again. But whatever harm a spiteful tongue could do them, he took care should be done. Only throw dirt enough, and some will stick. And so Tom and East, and one or two more, became a sort of young Ishmaelites. They saw the praeposters cowed by or joining with the Fifth and shirking their own duties; and so they didn't respect them, and rendered no willing obedience, and got the character of sulky, unwilling fags. At the end of the term they are told the doctor wants to see them. He is not angry only very grave. He explains that rules are made for the good of the school and must and shall be obeyed! He should be sorry if they had to leave, and wishes them to think very seriously in the holidays over what he has said. Good-night!

III.—The Turn of the Tide

The turning point of our hero's school career had now come, and the manner of it was as follows.

Tom and East and another Schoolhouse boy rushed into the matron's room in high spirits when they got back on the first day of the next half-year. She sent off the others, but kept Tom to tell him Mrs. Arnold wished him to take a new boy to share the study he had hoped to share with East. She had told Mrs. Arnold she thought Tom would be kind to him, and see that he wasn't bullied.