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Title: Complete Short Works of George Meredith

Author: George Meredith

Release date: November 5, 2004 [eBook #4499]
Most recently updated: January 27, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4499

Credits: Produced by David Widger

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COMPLETE
SHORT WORKS OF GEORGE MEREDITH ***

THE SHORT WORKS OF
GEORGE MEREDITH

CONTENTS

FARINA
THE WHITE ROSE CLUB
THE TAPESTRY WORD
THE WAGER
THE SILVER ARROW
THE LILIES OF THE VALLEY
THE MISSIVES
THE MONK
THE RIDE AND THE RACE
THE COMBAT ON DRACHENFELS
THE GOSHAWK LEADS
WERNER’S ECK
THE WATER-LADY
THE RESCUE
THE PASSAGE OF THE RHINE
THE BACK-BLOWS OF SATHANAS

THE ENTRY INTO COLOGNE
CONCLUSION

THE CASE OF GENERAL OPLE AND LADY
CAMPER
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII

THE TALE OF CHLOE AN EPISODE IN THE
HISTORY OF BEAU BEAMISH
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X

THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII

THE GENTLEMAN OF FIFTY AND THE
DAMSEL OF NINETEEN
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

THE SENTIMENTALISTS

MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
INTRODUCTION TO W. M. THACKERAY’S “THE
FOUR GEORGES”
A PAUSE IN THE STRIFE—1886
CONCESSION TO THE CELT—1886
LESLIE STEPHEN—1904
CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE SEAT OF WAR
IN ITALY
HEADQUARTERS OF THE FIRST ARMY CORPS,
ON THE IDEA OF COMEDY AND OF THE USES
OF THE COMIC SPIRIT {1}

Footnotes

FARINA
By George Meredith

THE WHITE ROSE CLUB
In those lusty ages when the Kaisers lifted high the golden goblet of
Aachen, and drank, elbow upward, the green-eyed wine of old romance,
there lived, a bow-shot from the bones of the Eleven Thousand Virgins and
the Three Holy Kings, a prosperous Rhinelander, by name Gottlieb
Groschen, or, as it was sometimes ennobled, Gottlieb von Groschen; than
whom no wealthier merchant bartered for the glory of his ancient mother-
city, nor more honoured burgess swallowed impartially red juice and white
under the shadow of his own fig-tree.
Vine-hills, among the hottest sun-bibbers of the Rheingau, glistened in
the roll of Gottlieb’s possessions; corn-acres below Cologne; basalt-quarries
about Linz; mineral-springs in Nassau, a legacy of the Romans to the genius
and enterprise of the first of German traders. He could have bought up
every hawking crag, owner and all, from Hatto’s Tower to Rheineck. Lore-
ley, combing her yellow locks against the night-cloud, beheld old Gottlieb’s
rafts endlessly stealing on the moonlight through the iron pass she peoples
above St. Goar. A wailful host were the wives of his raftsmen widowed
there by her watery music!
This worthy citizen of Cologne held vasty manuscript letters of the
Kaiser addressed to him:
‘Dear Well-born son and Subject of mine, Gottlieb!’ and he was easy
with the proudest princes of the Holy German Realm. For Gottlieb was a
money-lender and an honest man in one body. He laid out for the plenteous
harvests of usury, not pressing the seasons with too much rigour. ‘I sow my
seed in winter,’ said he, ‘and hope to reap good profit in autumn; but if the
crop be scanty, better let it lie and fatten the soil.’
‘Old earth’s the wisest creditor,’ he would add; ‘she never squeezes the
sun, but just takes what he can give her year by year, and so makes sure of
good annual interest.’
Therefore when people asked Gottlieb how he had risen to such a
pinnacle of fortune, the old merchant screwed his eye into its wisest corner,
and answered slyly, ‘Because I ‘ve always been a student of the heavenly

bodies’; a communication which failed not to make the orbs and systems
objects of ardent popular worship in Cologne, where the science was long
since considered alchymic, and still may be.
Seldom could the Kaiser go to war on Welschland without first taking
earnest counsel of his Well-born son and Subject Gottlieb, and lightening
his chests. Indeed the imperial pastime must have ceased, and the Kaiser
had languished but for him. Cologne counted its illustrious citizen
something more than man. The burghers doffed when he passed; and
scampish leather-draggled urchins gazed after him with praeternatural
respect on their hanging chins, as if a gold-mine of great girth had walked
through the awe-struck game.
But, for the young men of Cologne he had a higher claim to reverence as
father of the fair Margarita, the White Rose of Germany; a noble maiden,
peerless, and a jewel for princes.
The devotion of these youths should give them a name in chivalry. In her
honour, daily and nightly, they earned among themselves black bruises and
paraded discoloured countenances, with the humble hope to find it pleasing
in her sight. The tender fanatics went in bands up and down Rhineland,
challenging wayfarers and the peasantry with staff and beaker to
acknowledge the supremacy of their mistress. Whoso of them journeyed
into foreign parts, wrote home boasting how many times his head had been
broken on behalf of the fair Margarita; and if this happened very often, a
spirit of envy was created, which compelled him, when he returned, to
verify his prowess on no less than a score of his rivals. Not to possess a
beauty-scar, as the wounds received in these endless combats were called,
became the sign of inferiority, so that much voluntary maiming was
conjectured to be going on; and to obviate this piece of treachery, minutes
of fights were taken and attested, setting forth that a certain glorious cut or
crack was honourably won in fair field; on what occasion; and from whom;
every member of the White Rose Club keeping his particular scroll, and, on
days of festival and holiday, wearing it haughtily in his helm. Strangers
entering Cologne were astonished at the hideous appearance of the
striplings, and thought they never had observed so ugly a race; but they
were forced to admit the fine influence of beauty on commerce, seeing that
the consumption of beer increased almost hourly. All Bavaria could not
equal Cologne for quantity made away with.

The chief members of the White Rose Club were Berthold Schmidt, the
rich goldsmith’s son; Dietrich Schill, son of the imperial saddler; Heinrich
Abt, Franz Endermann, and Ernst Geller, sons of chief burghers, each of
whom carried a yard-long scroll in his cap, and was too disfigured in person
for men to require an inspection of the document. They were dangerous
youths to meet, for the oaths, ceremonies, and recantations they demanded
from every wayfarer, under the rank of baron, were what few might
satisfactorily perform, if lovers of woman other than the fair Margarita, or
loyal husbands; and what none save trained heads and stomachs could
withstand, however naturally manful. The captain of the Club was he who
could drink most beer without intermediate sighing, and whose face
reckoned the proudest number of slices and mixture of colours. The
captaincy was most in dispute between Dietrich Schill and Berthold
Schmidt, who, in the heat and constancy of contention, were gradually
losing likeness to man. ‘Good coin,’ they gloried to reflect, ‘needs no
stamp.’
One youth in Cologne held out against the standing tyranny, and chose to
do beauty homage in his own fashion, and at his leisure. It was Farina, and
oaths were registered against him over empty beer-barrels. An axiom of the
White Rose Club laid it down that everybody must be enamoured of
Margarita, and the conscience of the Club made them trebly suspicious of
those who were not members. They had the consolation of knowing that
Farina was poor, but then he was affirmed a student of Black Arts, and from
such a one the worst might reasonably be feared. He might bewitch
Margarita!
Dietrich Schill was deputed by the Club to sound the White Rose herself
on the subject of Farina, and one afternoon in the vintage season, when she
sat under the hot vine-poles among maiden friends, eating ripe grapes, up
sauntered Dietrich, smirking, cap in hand, with his scroll trailed behind him.
‘Wilt thou?’ said Margarita, offering him a bunch.
‘Unhappy villain that I am!’ replied Dietrich, gesticulating fox-like
refusal; ‘if I but accept a favour, I break faith with the Club.’
‘Break it to pleasure me,’ said Margarita, smiling wickedly.
Dietrich gasped. He stood on tiptoe to see if any of the Club were by, and
half-stretched out his hand. A mocking laugh caused him to draw it back as

if stung. The grapes fell. Farina was at Margarita’s feet offering them in
return.
‘Wilt thou?’ said Margarita, with softer stress, and slight excess of bloom
in her cheeks.
Farina put the purple cluster to his breast, and clutched them hard on his
heart, still kneeling.
Margarita’s brow and bosom seemed to be reflections of the streaming
crimson there. She shook her face to the sky, and affected laughter at the
symbol. Her companions clapped hands. Farina’s eyes yearned to her once,
and then he rose and joined in the pleasantry.
Fury helped Dietrich to forget his awkwardness. He touched Farina on
the shoulder with two fingers, and muttered huskily: ‘The Club never allow
that.’
Farina bowed, as to thank him deeply for the rules of the Club. ‘I am not
a member, you know,’ said he, and strolled to a seat close by Margarita.
Dietrich glared after him. As head of a Club he understood the use of
symbols. He had lost a splendid opportunity, and Farina had seized it.
Farina had robbed him.
‘May I speak with Mistress Margarita?’ inquired the White Rose chief, in
a ragged voice.
‘Surely, Dietrich! do speak,’ said Margarita.
‘Alone?’ he continued.
‘Is that allowed by the Club?’ said one of the young girls, with a saucy
glance.
Dietrich deigned no reply, but awaited Margarita’s decision. She
hesitated a second; then stood up her full height before him; faced him
steadily, and beckoned him some steps up the vine-path. Dietrich bowed,
and passing Farina, informed him that the Club would wring satisfaction
out of him for the insult.
Farina laughed, but answered, ‘Look, you of the Club! beer-swilling has
improved your manners as much as fighting has beautified your faces. Go
on; drink and fight! but remember that the Kaiser’s coming, and fellows
with him who will not be bullied.’
‘What mean you?’ cried Dietrich, lurching round on his enemy.

‘Not so loud, friend,’ returned Farina. ‘Or do you wish to frighten the
maidens? I mean this, that the Club had better give as little offence as
possible, and keep their eyes as wide as they can, if they want to be of
service to Mistress Margarita.’
Dietrich turned off with a grunt.
‘Now!’ said Margarita.
She was tapping her foot. Dietrich grew unfaithful to the Club, and
looked at her longer than his mission warranted. She was bright as the
sunset gardens of the Golden Apples. The braids of her yellow hair were
bound in wreaths, and on one side of her head a saffron crocus was stuck
with the bell downward. Sweetness, song, and wit hung like dews of
morning on her grape-stained lips. She wore a scarlet corset with bands of
black velvet across her shoulders. The girlish gown was thin blue stuff, and
fell short over her firm-set feet, neatly cased in white leather with buckles.
There was witness in her limbs and the way she carried her neck of an
amiable, but capable, dragon, ready, when aroused, to bristle up and guard
the Golden Apples against all save the rightful claimant. Yet her nether lip
and little white chin-ball had a dreamy droop; her frank blue eyes went
straight into the speaker: the dragon slept. It was a dangerous charm. ‘For,’
says the minnesinger, ‘what ornament more enchants us on a young beauty
than the soft slumber of a strength never yet called forth, and that herself
knows not of! It sings double things to the heart of knighthood; lures, and
warns us; woos, and threatens. ‘Tis as nature, shining peace, yet the mother
of storm.’
‘There is no man,’ rapturously exclaims Heinrich von der Jungferweide,
‘can resist the desire to win a sweet treasure before which lies a dragon
sleeping. The very danger prattles promise.’
But the dragon must really sleep, as with Margarita.
‘A sham dragon, shamming sleep, has destroyed more virgins than all the
heathen emperors,’ says old Hans Aepfelmann of Duesseldorf.
Margarita’s foot was tapping quicker.
‘Speak, Dietrich!’ she said.
Dietrich declared to the Club that at this point he muttered, ‘We love
you.’ Margarita was glad to believe he had not spoken of himself. He then

informed her of the fears entertained by the Club, sworn to watch over and
protect her, regarding Farina’s arts.
‘And what fear you?’ said Margarita.
‘We fear, sweet mistress, he may be in league with Sathanas,’ replied
Dietrich.
‘Truly, then,’ said Margarita, ‘of all the youths in Cologne he is the least
like his confederate.’
Dietrich gulped and winked, like a patient recovering wry-faced from an
abhorred potion.
‘We have warned you, Fraulein Groschen!’ he exclaimed. ‘It now
becomes our duty to see that you are not snared.’
Margarita reddened, and returned: ‘You are kind. But I am a Christian
maiden and not a Pagan soldan, and I do not require a body of tawny guards
at my heels.’
Thereat she flung back to her companions, and began staining her pretty
mouth with grapes anew.

THE TAPESTRY WORD
Fair maids will have their hero in history. Siegfried was Margarita’s
chosen. She sang of Siegfried all over the house. ‘O the old days of
Germany, when such a hero walked!’ she sang.
‘And who wins Margarita,’ mused Farina, ‘happier than Siegfried, has in
his arms Brunhild and Chrimhild together!’
Crowning the young girl’s breast was a cameo, and the skill of some
cunning artist out of Welschland had wrought on it the story of the
Drachenfels. Her bosom heaved the battle up and down.
This cameo was a north star to German manhood, but caused many
chaste expressions of abhorrence from Aunt Lisbeth, Gottlieb’s unmarried
sister, who seemed instinctively to take part with the Dragon. She was a
frail-fashioned little lady, with a face betokening the perpetual smack of
lemon, and who reigned in her brother’s household when the good wife was
gone. Margarita’s robustness was beginning to alarm and shock Aunt
Lisbeth’s sealed stock of virtue.
‘She must be watched, such a madl as that,’ said Aunt Lisbeth. ‘Ursula!
what limbs she has!’
Margarita was watched; but the spy being neither foe nor friend, nothing
was discovered against her. This did not satisfy Aunt Lisbeth, whose own
suspicion was her best witness. She allowed that Margarita dissembled well.
‘But,’ said she to her niece, ‘though it is good in a girl not to flaunt these
naughtinesses in effrontery, I care for you too much not to say—Be what
you seem, my little one!’
‘And that am I!’ exclaimed Margarita, starting up and towering.
‘Right good, my niece,’ Lisbeth squealed; ‘but now Frau Groschen lies in
God’s acre, you owe your duty to me, mind! Did you confess last week?’
‘From beginning to end,’ replied Margarita.
Aunt Lisbeth fixed pious reproach on Margarita’s cameo.
‘And still you wear that thing?’
‘Why not?’ said Margarita.

‘Girl! who would bid you set it in such a place save Satan? Oh, thou poor
lost child! that the eyes of the idle youths may be drawn there! and thou
become his snare to others, Margarita! What was that Welsh wandering
juggler but the foul fiend himself, mayhap, thou maiden of sin! They say he
has been seen in Cologne lately. He was swarthy as Satan and limped of one
leg. Good Master in heaven, protect us! it was Satan himself I could swear!’
Aunt Lisbeth crossed brow and breast.
Margarita had commenced fingering the cameo, as if to tear it away; but
Aunt Lisbeth’s finish made her laugh outright.
‘Where I see no harm, aunty, I shall think the good God is,’ she
answered; ‘and where I see there’s harm, I shall think Satan lurks.’
A simper of sour despair passed over Aunt Lisbeth. She sighed, and was
silent, being one of those very weak reeds who are easily vanquished and
never overcome.
‘Let us go on with the Tapestry, child,’ said she.
Now, Margarita was ambitious of completing a certain Tapestry for
presentation to Kaiser Heinrich on his entry into Cologne after his last
campaign on the turbaned Danube. The subject was again her beloved
Siegfried slaying the Dragon on Drachenfels. Whenever Aunt Lisbeth
indulged in any bitter virginity, and was overmatched by Margarita’s frank
maidenhood, she hung out this tapestry as a flag of truce. They were
working it in bits, not having contrivances to do it in a piece. Margarita took
Siegfried and Aunt Lisbeth the Dragon. They shared the crag between them.
A roguish gleam of the Rhine toward Nonnenwerth could be already made
out, Roland’s Corner hanging like a sentinel across the chanting island, as
one top-heavy with long watch.
Aunt Lisbeth was a great proficient in the art, and had taught Margarita.
The little lady learnt it, with many other gruesome matters, in the Palatine
of Bohemia’s family. She usually talked of the spectres of Hollenbogenblitz
Castle in the passing of the threads. Those were dismal spectres in
Bohemia, smelling of murder and the charnel-breath of midnight. They
uttered noises that wintered the blood, and revealed sights that stiffened hair
three feet long; ay, and kept it stiff!
Margarita placed herself on a settle by the low-arched window, and Aunt
Lisbeth sat facing her. An evening sun blazoned the buttresses of the

Cathedral, and shadowed the workframes of the peaceful couple to a
temperate light. Margarita unrolled a sampler sheathed with twists of divers
coloured threads, and was soon busy silver-threading Siegfried’s helm and
horns.
‘I told you of the steward, poor Kraut, did I not, child?’ inquired Aunt
Lisbeth, quietly clearing her throat.
‘Many times!’ said Margarita, and went on humming over her knee

‘Her love was a Baron,
A Baron so bold;
She loved him for love,
He loved her for gold.’

‘He must see for himself, and be satisfied,’ continued Aunt Lisbeth; ‘and
Holy Thomas to warn him for an example! Poor Kraut!’
‘Poor Kraut!’ echoed Margarita.

‘The King loved wine, and the Knight loved wine,
And they loved the summer weather:
They might have loved each other well,
But for one they loved together.’

‘You may say, poor Kraut, child!’ said Aunt Lisbeth. ‘Well! his face was
before that as red as this dragon’s jaw, and ever after he went about as white
as a pullet’s egg. That was something wonderful!’ ‘That was it!’ chimed
Margarita.

‘O the King he loved his lawful wife,
The Knight a lawless lady:
And ten on one-made ringing strife,
Beneath the forest shady.’

‘Fifty to one, child!’ said Aunt Lisbeth: ‘You forget the story. They made
Kraut sit with them at the jabbering feast, the only mortal there. The walls
were full of eye-sockets without eyes, but phosphorus instead, burning blue
and damp.’
‘Not to-night, aunty dear! It frightens me so,’ pleaded Margarita, for she
saw the dolor coming.
‘Night! when it’s broad mid-day, thou timid one! Good heaven take pity
on such as thou! The dish was seven feet in length by four broad. Kraut
measured it with his eye, and never forgot it. Not he! When the dish-cover
was lifted, there he saw himself lying, boiled!

“‘I did not feel uncomfortable then,” Kraut told us. “It seemed natural.”
‘His face, as it lay there, he says, was quite calm, only a little wrinkled,
and piggish-looking-like. There was the mole on his chin, and the pucker
under his left eyelid. Well! the Baron carved. All the guests were greedy for
a piece of him. Some cried out for breast; some for toes. It was shuddering
cold to sit and hear that! The Baroness said, “Cheek!”’
‘Ah!’ shrieked Margarita, ‘that can I not bear! I will not hear it, aunt; I
will not!’
‘Cheek!’ Aunt Lisbeth reiterated, nodding to the floor.
Margarita put her fingers to her ears.
‘Still, Kraut says, even then he felt nothing odd. Of course he was
horrified to be sitting with spectres as you and I should be; but the first
tremble of it was over. He had plunged into the bath of horrors, and there he
was. I ‘ve heard that you must pronounce the names of the Virgin and
Trinity, sprinkling water round you all the while for three minutes; and if
you do this without interruption, everything shall disappear. So they say.
“Oh! dear heaven of mercy!” says Kraut, “what I felt when the Baron laid
his long hunting-knife across my left cheek!”’
Here Aunt Lisbeth lifted her eyes to dote upon Margarita’s fright. She
was very displeased to find her niece, with elbows on the window-sill and
hands round her head, quietly gazing into the street.
She said severely, ‘Where did you learn that song you were last singing,
Margarita? Speak, thou girl!’
Margarita laughed.

‘The thrush, and the lark, and the blackbird,
They taught me how to sing:
And O that the hawk would lend his eye,
And the eagle lend his wing.’

‘I will not hear these shameless songs,’ exclaimed Aunt Lisbeth.

‘For I would view the lands they view,
And be where they have been:
It is not enough to be singing
For ever in dells unseen!’

A voice was heard applauding her. ‘Good! right good! Carol again,
Gretelchen! my birdie!’

Margarita turned, and beheld her father in the doorway. She tripped
toward him, and heartily gave him their kiss of meeting. Gottlieb glanced at
the helm of Siegfried.
‘Guessed the work was going well; you sing so lightsomely to-day,
Grete! Very pretty! And that’s Drachenfels? Bones of the Virgins! what a
bold fellow was Siegfried, and a lucky, to have the neatest lass in
Deutschland in love with him. Well, we must marry her to Siegfried after
all, I believe! Aha? or somebody as good as Siegfried. So chirrup on, my
darling!’
‘Aunt Lisbeth does not approve of my songs,’ replied Margarita,
untwisting some silver threads.
‘Do thy father’s command, girl!’ said Aunt Lisbeth.

‘And doing his command,
Should I do a thing of ill,
I’d rather die to his lovely face,
Than wanton at his will.’

‘There—there,’ said Aunt Lisbeth, straining out her fingers; ‘you see,
Gottlieb, what over-indulgence brings her to. Not another girl in blessed
Rhineland, and Bohemia to boot, dared say such words!—than—I can’t
repeat them!—don’t ask me!—She’s becoming a Frankish girl!’
‘What ballad’s that?’ said Gottlieb, smiling.
‘The Ballad of Holy Ottilia; and her lover was sold to darkness. And she
loved him—loved him——’
‘As you love Siegfried, you little one?’
‘More, my father; for she saw Winkried, and I never saw Siegfried. Ah! if
I had seen Siegfried! Never mind. She loved him; but she loved Virtue
more. And Virtue is the child of God, and the good God forgave her for
loving Winkried, the Devil’s son, because she loved Virtue more, and He
rescued her as she was being dragged down—down—down, and was half
fainting with the smell of brimstone—rescued her and had her carried into
His Glory, head and feet, on the wings of angels, before all men, as a hope
to little maidens.

‘And when I thought that I was lost
I found that I was saved,
And I was borne through blessed clouds,
Where the banners of bliss were waved.’

‘And so you think you, too, may fall in, love with Devils’ sons, girl?’ was
Aunt Lisbeth’s comment.
‘Do look at Lisbeth’s Dragon, little Heart! it’s so like!’ said Margarita to
her father.
Old Gottlieb twitted his hose, and chuckled.
‘She’s my girl! that may be seen,’ said he, patting her, and wheezed up
from his chair to waddle across to the Dragon. But Aunt Lisbeth tartly
turned the Dragon to the wall.
‘It is not yet finished, Gottlieb, and must not be looked at,’ she
interposed. ‘I will call for wood, and see to a fire: these evenings of Spring
wax cold’: and away whimpered Aunt Lisbeth.
Margarita sang:

‘I with my playmates,
In riot and disorder,
Were gathering herb and blossom
Along the forest border.’

‘Thy mother’s song, child of my heart!’ said Gottlieb; ‘but vex not good
Lisbeth: she loves thee!’

‘And do you think she loves me?
And will you say ‘tis true?
O, and will she have me,
When I come up to woo?’

‘Thou leaping doe! thou chattering pie!’ said Gottlieb.

‘She shall have ribbons and trinkets,
And shine like a morn of May,
When we are off to the little hill-church,
Our flowery bridal way.’

‘That she shall; and something more!’ cried Gottlieb. ‘But, hark thee,
Gretelchen; the Kaiser will be here in three days. Thou dear one! had I not
stored and hoarded all for thee, I should now have my feet on a hearthstone
where even he might warm his boot. So get thy best dresses and jewels in
order, and look thyself; proud as any in the land. A simple burgher’s
daughter now, Grete; but so shalt thou not end, my butterfly, or there’s
neither worth nor wit in Gottlieb Groschen!’
‘Three days!’ Margarita exclaimed; ‘and the helm not finished, and the
tapestry-pieces not sewed and joined, and the water not shaded off.—Oh! I

must work night and day.’
‘Child! I’ll have no working at night! Your rosy cheeks will soon be
sucked out by oil-light, and you look no better than poor tallow Court
beauties—to say nothing of the danger. This old house saw Charles the
Great embracing the chief magistrate of his liege city yonder. Some swear
he slept in it. He did not sneeze at smaller chambers than our Kaisers abide.
No gold ceilings with cornice carvings, but plain wooden beams.’

‘Know that the men of great renown,
Were men of simple needs:
Bare to the Lord they laid them down,
And slept on mighty deeds.’

‘God wot, there’s no emptying thy store of ballads, Grete: so much shall
be said of thee. Yes; times are changeing: We’re growing degenerate. Look
at the men of Linz now to what they were! Would they have let the lads of
Andernach float down cabbage-stalks to them without a shy back? And
why? All because they funk that brigand-beast Werner, who gets
redemption from Laach, hard by his hold, whenever he commits a crime
worth paying for. As for me, my timber and stuffs must come down stream,
and are too good for the nixen under Rhine, or think you I would
acknowledge him with a toll, the hell-dog? Thunder and lightning! if old
scores could be rubbed out on his hide!’
Gottlieb whirled a thong-lashing arm in air, and groaned of law and
justice. What were they coming to!
Margarita softened the theme with a verse:

‘And tho’ to sting his enemy,
Is sweetness to the angry bee,
The angry bee must busy be,
Ere sweet of sweetness hiveth he.

The arch thrill of his daughter’s voice tickled Gottlieb. ‘That’s it, birdie!
You and the proverb are right. I don’t know which is best,

‘Better hive
And keep alive
Than vengeance wake
With that you take.’

A clatter in the cathedral square brought Gottlieb on his legs to the
window. It was a company of horsemen sparkling in harness. One trumpeter

rode at the side of the troop, and in front a standard-bearer, matted down the
chest with ochre beard, displayed aloft to the good citizens of Cologne,
three brown hawks, with birds in their beaks, on an azure stardotted field.
‘Holy Cross!’ exclaimed Gottlieb, low in his throat; ‘the arms of Werner!
Where got he money to mount his men? Why, this is daring all Cologne in
our very teeth! ‘Fend that he visit me now! Ruin smokes in that ruffian’s
track. I ‘ve felt hot and cold by turns all day.’
The horsemen came jingling carelessly along the street in scattered twos
and threes, laughing together, and singling out the maidens at the gable-
shadowed windows with hawking eyes. The good citizens of Cologne did
not look on them favourably. Some showed their backs and gruffly banged
their doors: others scowled and pocketed their fists: not a few slunk into the
side alleys like well-licked curs, and scurried off with forebent knees. They
were in truth ferocious-looking fellows these trusty servants of the robber
Baron Werner, of Werner’s Eck, behind Andernach. Leather, steel, and dust,
clad them from head to foot; big and black as bears; wolf-eyed, fox-nosed.
They glistened bravely in the falling beams of the sun, and Margarita thrust
her fair braided yellow head a little forward over her father’s shoulder to
catch the whole length of the grim cavalcade. One of the troop was not long
in discerning the young beauty. He pointed her boldly out to a comrade,
who approved his appetite, and referred her to a third. The rest followed
lead, and Margarita was as one spell-struck when she became aware that all
those hungry eyes were preying on hers. Old Gottlieb was too full of his
own fears to think for her, and when he drew in his head rather suddenly, it
was with a dismal foreboding that Werner’s destination in Cologne was
direct to the house of Gottlieb Groschen, for purposes only too well to be
divined.
‘Devil’s breeches!’ muttered Gottlieb; ‘look again, Grete, and see if that
hell-troop stop the way outside.’
Margarita’s cheeks were overflowing with the offended rose.
‘I will not look at them again, father.’
Gottlieb stared, and then patted her.
‘I would I were a man, father!’
Gottlieb smiled, and stroked his beard.
‘Oh! how I burn!’

And the girl shivered visibly.
‘Grete! mind to be as much of a woman as you can, and soon such raff as
this you may sweep away, like cobwebs, and no harm done.’
He was startled by a violent thumping at the streetdoor, and as brazen a
blast as if the dead were being summoned. Aunt Lisbeth entered, and flitted
duskily round the room, crying:
‘We are lost: they are upon us! better death with a bodkin! Never shall it
be said of me; never! the monsters!’
Then admonishing them to lock, bar, bolt, and block up every room in the
house, Aunt Lisbeth perched herself on the edge of a chair, and reversed the
habits of the screech-owl, by being silent when stationary.
‘There’s nothing to fear for you, Lisbeth,’ said Gottlieb, with
discourteous emphasis.
‘Gottlieb! do you remember what happened at the siege of Mainz? and
poor Marthe Herbstblum, who had hoped to die as she was; and Dame
Altknopfchen, and Frau Kaltblut, and the old baker, Hans Topf’s sister, all
of them as holy as abbesses, and that did not save them! and nothing will
from such godless devourers.’
Gottlieb was gone, having often before heard mention of the calamity
experienced by these fated women.
‘Comfort thee, good heart, on my breast,’ said Margarita, taking Lisbeth
to that sweet nest of peace and fortitude.
‘Margarita! ‘tis your doing! have I not said—lure them not, for they
swarm too early upon us! And here they are! and, perhaps, in five minutes
all will be over!
Herr Je!—What, you are laughing! Heavens of goodness, the girl is
delighted!’
Here a mocking ha-ha! accompanied by a thundering snack at the door,
shook the whole house, and again the trumpet burst the ears with fury.
This summons, which seemed to Aunt Lisbeth final, wrought a strange
composure in her countenance. She was very pale, but spread her dress
decently, as if fear had departed, and clasped her hands on her knees.
‘The will of the Lord above must be done,’ said she; ‘it is impious to
complain when we are given into the hand of the Philistines. Others have

been martyred, and were yet acceptable.’
To this heroic speech she added, with cold energy: ‘Let them come!’
‘Aunt,’ cried Margarita, ‘I hear my father’s voice with those men. Aunty!
I will not let him be alone. I must go down to him. You will be safe here. I
shall come to you if there’s cause for alarm.’
And in spite of Aunt Lisbeth’s astonished shriek of remonstrance, she
hurried off to rejoin Gottlieb.

THE WAGER
Ere Margarita had reached the landing of the stairs, she repented her
haste and shrank back. Wrapt in a thunder of oaths, she distinguished: ‘‘Tis
the little maiden we want; let’s salute her and begone! or cap your skull
with something thicker than you’ve on it now, if you want a whole one,
happy father!’
‘Gottlieb von Groschen I am,’ answered her father, ‘and the Kaiser——’
‘‘S as fond of a pretty girl as we are! Down with her, and no more
drivelling! It’s only for a moment, old Measure and Scales!’
‘I tell you, rascals, I know your master, and if you’re not punished for
this, may I die a beggar!’ exclaimed Gottlieb, jumping with rage.
‘May you die as rich as an abbot! And so you will, if you don’t bring her
down, for I’ve sworn to see her; there ‘s the end of it, man!’
‘I’ll see, too, if the laws allow this villany!’ cried Gottlieb. ‘Insulting a
peaceful citizen! in his own house! a friend of your emperor! Gottlieb von
Groschen!’
‘Groschen? We’re cousins, then! You wouldn’t shut out your nearest kin?
Devil’s lightning! Don’t you know me? Pfennig? Von Pfennig! This here’s
Heller: that’s Zwanziger: all of us Vons, every soul! You’re not decided?
This’ll sharpen you, my jolly King Paunch!’
And Margarita heard the ruffian step as if to get swing for a blow. She
hurried into the passage, and slipping in front of her father, said to his
assailant:
‘You have asked for me! I am here!’
Her face was colourless, and her voice seemed to issue from between a
tightened cord. She stood with her left foot a little in advance, and her
whole body heaving and quivering: her arms folded and pressed hard below
her bosom: her eyes dilated to a strong blue: her mouth ashy white. A
strange lustre, as of suppressed internal fire, flickered over her.
‘My name ‘s Schwartz Thier, and so ‘s my nature!’ said the fellow with a
grin; ‘but may I never smack lips with a pretty girl again, if I harm such a

young beauty as this! Friendly dealing’s my plan o’ life.’
‘Clear out of my house, then, fellow, and here’s money for you,’ said
Gottlieb, displaying a wrathfully-trembling handful of coin.
‘Pish! money! forty times that wouldn’t cover my bet! And if it did?
Shouldn’t I be disgraced? jeered at for a sheep-heart? No, I’m no ninny, and
not to be diddled. I’ll talk to the young lady! Silence, out there! all’s going
proper’: this to his comrades through the door. ‘So, my beautiful maiden!
thus it stands: We saw you at the window, looking like a fresh rose with a
gold crown on. Here are we poor fellows come to welcome the Kaiser. I
began to glorify you. “Schwartz Thier!” says Henker Rothhals to me, “I’ll
wager you odds you don’t have a kiss of that fine girl within twenty
minutes, counting from the hand-smack!” Done! was my word, and we
clapped our fists together. Now, you see, that’s straightforward! All I want
is, not to lose my money and be made a fool of—leaving alone that sugary
mouth which makes mine water’; and he drew the back of his hand along
his stubbled jaws: ‘So, come! don’t hesitate! no harm to you, my beauty, but
a compliment, and Schwartz Thier’s your friend and anything else you like
for ever after. Come, time’s up, pretty well.’
Margarita leaned to her father a moment as if mortal sickness had seized
her. Then cramping her hands and feet, she said in his ear, ‘Leave me to my
own care; go, get the men to protect thee’; and ordered Schwartz Thier to
open the door wide.
Seeing Gottlieb would not leave her, she joined her hands, and begged
him. ‘The good God will protect me! I will overmatch these men. Look, my
father! they dare not strike me in the street: you they would fell without
pity. Go! what they dare in a house, they dare not in the street.’
Schwartz Thier had opened the door. At sight of Margarita, the troop
gave a shout.
‘Now! on the doorstep, full in view, my beauteous one! that they may see
what a lucky devil I am—and have no doubts about the handing over.’
Margarita looked behind. Gottlieb was still there, every member of him
quaking like a bog under a heavy heel. She ran to him. ‘My father! I have a
device wilt thou spoil it, and give me to this beast? You can do nothing,
nothing! protect yourself and save me!’

‘Cologne! broad day!’ muttered Gottlieb, as if the enormity had
prostrated his belief in facts; and moved slowly back.
Margarita strode to the door-step. Schwartz Thier was awaiting her, his
arm circled out, and his leering face ducked to a level with his victim’s.
This rough show of gallantry proved costly to him. As he was gently
closing his iron hold about her, enjoying before hand with grim
mouthridges the flatteries of triumph, Margarita shot past him through the
door, and was already twenty paces beyond the troop before either of them
thought of pursuing her. At the first sound of a hoof, Henker Rothhals
seized the rider’s bridle-rein, and roared: ‘Fair play for a fair bet! leave all
to the Thier!’ The Thier, when he had recovered from his amazement,
sought for old Gottlieb to give him a back-hit, as Margarita foresaw that he
would. Not finding him at hand, out lumbered the fellow as swiftly as his
harness would allow, and caught a glimpse of Margarita rapidly fleeting up
the cathedral square.
‘Only five minutes, Schwartz Thier!’ some of the troop sung out.
‘The devil can do his business in one,’ was the retort, and Schwartz Thier
swung himself on his broad-backed charger, and gored the fine beast till she
rattled out a blast of sparkles from the flint.
In a minute he drew up in front of Margarita.
‘So! you prefer settling this business in the square.
Good! my choice sweetheart!’ and he sprang to her side.
The act of flight had touched the young girl’s heart with the spirit of
flight. She crouched like a winded hare under the nose of the hound, and
covered her face with her two hands. Margarita was no wisp in weight, but
Schwartz Thier had her aloft in his arm as easily as if he had tossed up a
kerchief.
‘Look all, and witness!’ he shouted, lifting the other arm.
Henker Rothhals and the rest of the troop looked, as they came trotting to
the scene, with the coolness of umpires: but they witnessed something other
than what Schwartz Thier proposed. This was the sight of a formidable
staff, whirling an unfriendly halo over the head of the Thier, and descending
on it with such honest intent to confound and overthrow him, that the Thier
succumbed to its force without argument, and the square echoed blow and
fall simultaneously. At the same time the wielder of this sound piece of

logic seized Margarita, and raised a shout in the square for all true men to
stand by him in rescuing a maiden from the clutch of brigands and
ravishers. A crowd was collecting, but seemed to consider the circle now
formed by the horsemen as in a manner charmed, for only one, a fair
slender youth, came forward and ranged himself beside the stranger.
‘Take thou the maiden: I’ll keep to the staff,’ said this latter, stumbling
over his speech as if he was in a foreign land among old roots and wolfpits
which had already shaken out a few of his teeth, and made him cautious
about the remainder.
‘Can it be Margarita!’ exclaimed the youth, bending to her, and calling to
her: ‘Margarita! Fraulein Groschen!’
She opened her eyes, shuddered, and said: ‘I was not afraid! Am I safe?’
‘Safe while I have life, and this good friend.’
‘Where is my father?’
‘I have not seen him.’
‘And you—who are you? Do I owe this to you?’
‘Oh! no! no! Me you owe nothing.’
Margarita gazed hurriedly round, and at her feet there lay the Thier with
his steel-cap shining in dints, and three rivulets of blood coursing down his
mottled forehead. She looked again at the youth, and a blush of recognition
gave life to her cheeks.
‘I did not know you. Pardon me. Farina! what thanks can reward such
courage! Tell me! shall we go?’
‘The youth eyed her an instant, but recovering himself, took a rapid
survey, and called to the stranger to follow and help give the young maiden
safe conduct home.
‘Just then Henker Rothhals bellowed, ‘Time’s up!’ He was answered by a
chorus of agreement from the troop. They had hitherto patiently acted their
parts as spectators, immovable on their horses. The assault on the Thier was
all in the play, and a visible interference of fortune in favour of Henker
Rothhals. Now general commotion shuttled them, and the stranger’s keen
hazel eyes read their intentions rightly when he lifted his redoubtable staff
in preparation for another mighty swoop, this time defensive. Rothhals, and
half a dozen others, with a war-cry of curses, spurred their steeds at once to

ride him down. They had not reckoned the length and good-will of their
antagonist’s weapon. Scarce were they in motion, when round it whizzed,
grazing the nostrils of their horses with a precision that argued practice in
the feat, and unhorsing two, Rothhals among the number. He dropped
heavily on his head, and showed signs of being as incapable of combat as
the Thier. A cheer burst from the crowd, but fell short.
The foremost of their number was struck flat to the earth by a fellow of
the troop.
Calling on St. George, his patron saint, the stranger began systematically
to make a clear ring in his path forward. Several of the horsemen essayed a
cut at his arm with their long double-handed swords, but the horses could
not be brought a second time to the edge of the magic circle; and the blood
of these warriors being thoroughly up, they now came at him on foot. In
their rage they would have made short work with the three, in spite of the
magistracy of Cologne, had they not been arrested by cries of ‘Werner!
Werner!’
At the South-west end of the square, looking Rhinewards, rode the
marauder Baron, in full armour, helm and hauberk, with a single retainer in
his rear. He had apparently caught sight of the brawl, and, either because he
distinguished his own men, or was seeking his natural element, hastened up
for his share in it, which was usually that of the king of beasts. His first call
was for Schwartz Thier. The men made way, and he beheld his man in no
condition to make military responses. He shouted for Henker Rothhals, and
again the men opened their ranks mutely, exhibiting the two stretched out in
diverse directions, with their feet slanting to a common point. The Baron
glared; then caught off his mailed glove, and thrust it between his teeth. A
rasping gurgle of oaths was all they heard, and presently surged up,
‘Who was it?’
Margarita’s eyes were shut. She opened them fascinated with horror.
There was an unearthly awful and comic mixture of sounds in Werner’s
querulous fury, that was like the noise of a complaining bear, rolling up
from hollow-chested menace to yawning lament. Never in her life had
Margarita such a shock of fear. The half gasp of a laugh broke on her
trembling lips. She stared at Werner, and was falling; but Farina’s arm clung
instantly round her waist. The stranger caught up her laugh, loud and hearty.

‘As for who did it, Sir Baron,’ he cried, is a cheery tone, ‘I am the man!
As you may like to know why—and that’s due to you and me both of us—
all I can say is, the Black Muzzle yonder lying got his settler for merry-
making with this peaceful maiden here, without her consent—an offence in
my green island they reckon a crack o’ the sconce light basting for, I
warrant all company present,’ and he nodded sharply about. ‘As for the
other there, who looks as if a rope had been round his neck once and
shirked its duty, he counts his wages for helping the devil in his business, as
will any other lad here who likes to come on and try.’
Werner himself, probably, would have given him the work he wanted; but
his eye had sidled a moment over Margarita, and the hardly-suppressed
applause of the crowd at the stranger’s speech failed to bring his ire into
action this solitary time.
‘Who is the maiden?’ he asked aloud.
‘Fraulein von Groschen,’ replied Farina.
‘Von Groschen! Von Groschen! the daughter of Gottlieb Groschen?—
Rascals!’ roared the Baron, turning on his men, and out poured a mud-
spring of filthy oaths and threats, which caused Henker Rothhals, who had
opened his eyes, to close them again, as if he had already gone to the place
of heat.
‘Only lend me thy staff, friend,’ cried Werner.
‘Not I! thwack ‘em with your own wood,’ replied the stranger, and fell
back a leg.
Werner knotted his stringy brows, and seemed torn to pieces with the
different pulling tides of his wrath. He grasped the mane of his horse and
flung abroad handfuls, till the splendid animal reared in agony.
‘You shall none of you live over this night, villains! I ‘ll hang you, every
hag’s son! My last orders were,—Keep quiet in the city, ye devil’s brood.
Take that! and that!’ laying at them with his bare sword. ‘Off with you, and
carry these two pigs out of sight quickly, or I’ll have their heads, and make
sure o’ them.’
The latter injunction sprang from policy, for at the head of the chief street
there was a glitter of the city guard, marching with shouldered spears.
‘Maiden,’ said Werner, with a bull’s bow, ‘let me conduct thee to thy
father.’

Margarita did not reply; but gave her hand to Farina, and took a step
closer to the stranger.
Werner’s brows grew black.
‘Enough to have saved you, fair maid,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘Gratitude
never was a woman’s gift. Say to your father that I shall make excuses to
him for the conduct of my men.’
Whereupon, casting a look of leisurely scorn toward the guard coming up
in the last beams of day, the Baron shrugged his huge shoulders to an
altitude expressing the various contemptuous shades of feudal coxcombry,
stuck one leather-ruffled arm in his side, and jolted off at an easy pace.
‘Amen!’ ejaculated the stranger, leaning on his staff. ‘There are Barons in
my old land; but never a brute beast in harness.’
Margarita stood before him, and took his two hands.
‘You will come with me to my father! He will thank you. I cannot. You
will come?’
Tears and a sob of relief started from her.
The city guard, on seeing Werner’s redoubtable back turned, had adopted
double time, and now came panting up, while the stranger bent smiling
under a fresh overflow of innocent caresses. Margarita was caught to her
father’s breast.
‘You shall have vengeance for this, sweet chuck,’ cried old Gottlieb in
the intervals of his hugs.
‘Fear not, my father; they are punished’: and Margarita related the story
of the stranger’s prowess, elevating him into a second Siegfried. The guard
huzzaed him, but did not pursue the Baron.
Old Gottlieb, without hesitation, saluted the astonished champion with a
kiss on either cheek.
‘My best friend! You have saved my daughter from indignity! Come with
us home, if you can believe that a home where the wolves come daring us,
dragging our dear ones from our very doorsteps. Come, that we may thank
you under a roof at least. My little daughter! Is she not a brave lass?’
‘She’s nothing less than the white rose of Germany,’ said the stranger,
with a good bend of the shoulders to Margarita.
‘So she’s called,’ exclaimed Gottlieb; ‘she ‘s worthy to be a man!’

‘Men would be the losers, then, more than they could afford,’ replied the
stranger, with a ringing laugh.
‘Come, good friend,’ said Gottlieb; ‘you must need refreshment. Prove
you are a true hero by your appetite. As Charles the Great said to
Archbishop Turpin, “I conquered the world because Nature gave me a
gizzard; for everywhere the badge of subjection is a poor stomach.” Come,
all! A day well ended, notwithstanding!’

THE SILVER ARROW
At the threshold of Gottlieb’s house a number of the chief burgesses of
Cologne had corporated spontaneously to condole with him. As he came
near, they raised a hubbub of gratulation. Strong were the expressions of
abhorrence and disgust of Werner’s troop in which these excellent citizens
clothed their outraged feelings; for the insult to Gottlieb was the insult of
all. The Rhinestream taxes were provoking enough to endure; but that the
licence of these free-booting bands should extend to the homes of free and
peaceful men, loyal subjects of the Emperor, was a sign that the evil had
reached from pricks to pokes, as the saying went, and must now be met as
became burgesses of ancient Cologne, and by joint action destroyed.
‘In! in, all of you!’ said Gottlieb, broadening his smile to suit the many.
‘We ‘ll talk about that in-doors. Meantime, I’ve got a hero to introduce to
you: flesh and blood! no old woman’s coin and young girl’s dream-o’day:
the honest thing, and a rarity, my masters. All that over some good Rhine-
juice from above Bacharach. In, and welcome, friends!’
Gottlieb drew the stranger along with him under the carved old oak-wood
portals, and the rest paired, and reverentially entered in his wake. Margarita,
to make up for this want of courtesy, formed herself the last of the
procession. She may have had another motive, for she took occasion there
to whisper something to Farina, bringing sun and cloud over his
countenance in rapid flushes. He seemed to remonstrate in dumb show; but
she, with an attitude of silence, signified her wish to seal the conversation,
and he drooped again. On the door step she paused a moment, and hung her
head pensively, as if moved by a reminiscence. The youth had hurried away
some strides. Margarita looked after him. His arms were straightened to his
flanks, his hands clenched, and straining out from the wrist. He had the
aspect of one tugging against the restraint of a chain that suddenly let out
link by link to his whole force.
‘Farina!’ she called; and wound him back with a run. ‘Farina! You do not
think me ungrateful? I could not tell my father in the crowd what you did
for me. He shall know. He will thank you. He does not understand you now,
Farina. He will. Look not so sorrowful. So much I would say to you.’

So much was rushing on her mind, that her maidenly heart became
unruly, and warned her to beware.
The youth stood as if listening to a nightingale of the old woods, after the
first sweet stress of her voice was in his ear. When she ceased, he gazed into
her eyes. They were no longer deep and calm like forest lakes; the tender-
glowing blue quivered, as with a spark of the young girl’s soul, in the
beams of the moon then rising.
‘Oh, Margarita!’ said the youth, in tones that sank to sighs: ‘what am I to
win your thanks, though it were my life for such a boon!’
He took her hand, and she did not withdraw it. Twice his lips dwelt upon
those pure fingers.
‘Margarita: you forgive me: I have been so long without hope. I have
kissed your hand, dearest of God’s angels!’
She gently restrained the full white hand in his pressure.
‘Margarita! I have thought never before death to have had this sacred
bliss. I am guerdoned in advance for every grief coming before death.’
She dropped on him one look of a confiding softness that was to the
youth like the opened gate of the innocent garden of her heart.
‘You pardon me, Margarita? I may call you my beloved? strive, wait,
pray, hope, for you, my star of life?’
Her face was so sweet a charity!
‘Dear love! one word!—or say nothing, but remain, and move not. So
beautiful you are! Oh, might I kneel to you here; dote on you; worship this
white hand for ever.’
The colour had passed out of her cheeks like a blissful western red
leaving rich paleness in the sky; and with her clear brows levelled at him,
her bosom lifting more and more rapidly, she struggled against the charm
that was on her, and at last released her hand.
‘I must go. I cannot stay. Pardon you? Who might not be proud of your
love!—Farewell!’
She turned to move away, but lingered a step from him, hastily touching
her bosom and either hand, as if to feel for a brooch or a ring. Then she
blushed, drew the silver arrow from the gathered gold-shot braids above her
neck, held it out to him, and was gone.

Farina clutched the treasure, and reeled into the street. Half a dozen
neighbours were grouped by the door.
‘What ‘s the matter in Master Groschen’s house now?’ one asked, as he
plunged into the midst of them.
‘Matter?’ quoth the joy-drunken youth, catching at the word, and mused
off into raptures; ‘There never was such happiness! ‘Tis paradise within,
exile without. But what exile! A star ever in the heavens to lighten the road
and cheer the path of the banished one’; and he loosened his vest and
hugged the cold shaft on his breast.
‘What are you talking and capering at, fellow?’ exclaimed another: ‘Can’t
you answer about those shrieks, like a Christian, you that have just come
out of the house? Why, there’s shrieking now! It ‘s a woman. Thousand
thunders! it sounds like the Frau Lisbeth’s voice. What can be happening to
her?’
‘Perhaps she’s on fire,’ was coolly suggested between two or three.
‘Pity to see the old house burnt,’ remarked one.
‘House! The woman, man! the woman!’
‘Ah!’ replied the other, an ancient inhabitant of Cologne, shaking his
head, ‘the house is oldest!’
Farina, now recovering his senses, heard shrieks that he recognized as
possible in the case of Aunt Lisbeth dreading the wickedness of an
opposing sex, and alarmed by the inrush of old Gottlieb’s numerous guests.
To confirm him, she soon appeared, and hung herself halfway out of one of
the upper windows, calling desperately to St. Ursula for aid. He thanked the
old lady in his heart for giving him a pretext to enter Paradise again; but
before even love could speed him, Frau Lisbeth was seized and dragged
remorselessly out of sight, and he and the rosy room darkened together.
Farina twice strode off to the Rhine-stream; as many times he returned. It
was hard to be away from her. It was harder to be near and not close. His
heart flamed into jealousy of the stranger. Everything threatened to overturn
his slight but lofty structure of bliss so suddenly shot into the heavens. He
had but to remember that his hand was on the silver arrow, and a radiance
broke upon his countenance, and a calm fell upon his breast. ‘It was a plight
of her troth to me,’ mused the youth. ‘She loves me! She would not trust her
frank heart to speak. Oh, generous young girl! what am I to dare hope for

such a prize? for I never can be worthy. And she is one who, giving her
heart, gives it all. Do I not know her? How lovely she looked thanking the
stranger! The blue of her eyes, the warm-lighted blue, seemed to grow full
on the closing lids, like heaven’s gratitude. Her beauty is wonderful. What
wonder, then, if he loves her? I should think him a squire in his degree.
There are squires of high birth and low.’
So mused Farina with his arms folded and his legs crossed in the shadow
of Margarita’s chamber. Gradually he fell into a kind of hazy doze. The
houses became branded with silver arrows. All up the Cathedral stone was a
glitter, and dance, and quiver of them. In the sky mazed confusion of
arrowy flights and falls. Farina beheld himself in the service of the Emperor
watching these signs, and expecting on the morrow to win glory and a name
for Margarita. Glory and the name now won, old Gottlieb was just on the
point of paternally blessing them, when a rude pat aroused him from the
delicious moon-dream.
‘Hero by day! house-guard by night! That tells a tale,’ said a cheerful
voice.
The moon was shining down the Cathedral square and street, and Farina
saw the stranger standing solid and ruddy before him. He was at first
prompted to resent such familiar handling, but the stranger’s face was of
that bland honest nature which, like the sun, wins everywhere back a
reflection of its own kindliness.
‘You are right,’ replied Farina; ‘so it is!’
‘Pretty wines inside there, and a rare young maiden. She has a throat like
a nightingale, and more ballads at command than a piper’s wallet. Now, if I
hadn’t a wife at home.’
‘You’re married?’ cried Farina, seizing the stranger’s hand.
‘Surely; and my lass can say something for herself on the score of brave
looks, as well as the best of your German maids here, trust me.’
Farina repressed an inclination to perform a few of those antics which
violent joy excites, and after rushing away and back, determined to give his
secret to the stranger.
‘Look,’ said he in a whisper, that opens the private doors of a confidence.
But the stranger repeated the same word still more earnestly, and brought
Farina’s eyes on a couple of dark figures moving under the Cathedral.

‘Some lamb’s at stake when the wolves are prowling,’ he added: ‘‘Tis
now two hours to the midnight. I doubt if our day’s work be over till we
hear the chime, friend.’
‘What interest do you take in the people of this house that you watch
over them thus?’ asked Farina.
The stranger muffled a laugh in his beard.
‘An odd question, good sooth. Why, in the first place, we like well
whatso we have done good work for. That goes for something. In the
second, I’ve broken bread in this house. Put down that in the reckoning. In
the third; well! in the third, add up all together, and the sum total’s at your
service, young sir.’
Farina marked him closely. There was not a spot on his face for guile to
lurk in, or suspicion to fasten on. He caught the stranger’s hand.
‘You called me friend just now. Make me your friend. Look, I was going
to say: I love this maiden! I would die for her. I have loved her long. This
night she has given me a witness that my love is not vain. I am poor. She is
rich. I am poor, I said, and feel richer than the Kaiser with this she has given
me! Look, it is what our German girls slide in their back-hair, this silver
arrow!’
‘A very pretty piece of heathenish wear!’ exclaimed the stranger.
‘Then, I was going to say—tell me, friend, of a way to win honour and
wealth quickly; I care not at how rare a risk. Only to wealth, or high
baronry, will her father give her!’
The stranger buzzed on his moustache in a pause of cool pity, such as
elders assume when young men talk of conquering the world for their
mistresses: and in truth it is a calm of mind well won!
‘Things look so brisk at home here in the matter of the maiden, that I
should say, wait a while and watch your chance. But you’re a boy of pluck:
I serve in the Kaiser’s army, under my lord: the Kaiser will be here in three
days. If you ‘re of that mind then, I doubt little you may get posted well:
but, look again! there’s a ripe brew yonder. Marry, you may win your spurs
this night even; who knows?—‘S life! there’s a tall fellow joining those two
lurkers.’
‘Can you see into the murk shadow, Sir Squire?’

‘Ay! thanks to your Styrian dungeons, where I passed a year’s
apprenticeship:

“I learnt to watch the rats and mice
At play, with never a candle-end.
They play’d so well; they sang so nice;
They dubb’d me comrade; called me friend!”

So says the ballad of our red-beard king’s captivity. All evil has a good:

“When our toes and chins are up,
Poison plants make sweetest cup”

as the old wives mumble to us when we’re sick. Heigho! would I were in
the little island well home again, though that were just their song of
welcome to me, as I am a Christian.’
‘Tell me your name, friend,’ said Farina.
‘Guy’s my name, young man: Goshawk’s my title. Guy the Goshawk! so
they called me in my merry land. The cap sticks when it no longer fits.
Then I drove the arrow, and was down on my enemy ere he could ruffle a
feather. Now, what would be my nickname?

“A change so sad, and a change so bad,
Might set both Christian and heathen a sighing:
Change is a curse, for it’s all for the worse:
Age creeps up, and youth is flying!”

and so on, with the old song. But here am I, and yonder’s a game that
wants harrying; so we’ll just begin to nose about them a bit.’
He crossed to the other side of the street, and Farina followed out of the
moonlight. The two figures and the taller one were evidently observing
them; for they also changed their position and passed behind an angle of the
Cathedral.
‘Tell me how the streets cross all round the Cathedral you know the city,’
said the stranger, holding out his hand.
Farina traced with his finger a rough map of the streets on the stranger’s
hand.
‘Good! that’s how my lord always marks the battlefield, and makes me
show him the enemy’s posts. Forward, this way!’

He turned from the Cathedral, and both slid along close under the eaves
and front hangings of the houses. Neither spoke. Farina felt that he was in
the hands of a skilful captain, and only regretted the want of a weapon to
make harvest of the intended surprise; for he judged clearly that those were
fellows of Werner’s band on the look-out. They wound down numberless
intersections of narrow streets with irregular-built houses standing or
leaning wry-faced in row, here a quaint-beamed cottage, there almost a
mansion with gilt arms, brackets, and devices. Oil-lamps unlit hung at
intervals by the corners, near a pale Christ on crucifix. Across the passages
they hung alight. The passages and alleys were too dusky and close for the
moon in her brightest ardour to penetrate; down the streets a slender lane of
white beams could steal: ‘In all conscience,’ as the good citizens of Cologne
declared, ‘enough for those heathen hounds and sons of the sinful who are
abroad when God’s own blessed lamp is out.’ So, when there was a moon,
the expense of oil was saved to the Cologne treasury, thereby satisfying the
virtuous.
After incessant doubling here and there, listening to footfalls, and
themselves eluding a chase which their suspicious movements aroused, they
came upon the Rhine. A full flood of moonlight burnished the knightly river
in glittering scales, and plates, and rings, as headlong it rolled seaward on
from under crag and banner of old chivalry and rapine. Both greeted the
scene with a burst of pleasure. The grey mist of flats on the south side
glimmered delightful to their sight, coming from that drowsy crowd and
press of habitations; but the solemn glory of the river, delaying not,
heedless, impassioned-pouring on in some sublime conference between it
and heaven to the great marriage of waters, deeply shook Farina’s
enamoured heart. The youth could not restrain his tears, as if a magic wand
had touched him. He trembled with love; and that delicate bliss which
maiden hope first showers upon us like a silver rain when she has taken the
shape of some young beauty and plighted us her fair fleeting hand, tenderly
embraced him.
As they were emerging into the spaces of the moon, a cheer from the
stranger arrested Farina.
‘Seest thou? on the wharf there! that is the very one, the tallest of the
three. Lakin! but we shall have him.’

Wrapt in a long cloak, with low pointed cap and feather, stood the person
indicated. He appeared to be meditating on the flow of the water, unaware
of hostile presences, or quite regardless of them. There was a majesty in his
height and air, which made the advance of the two upon him more wary and
respectful than their first impulse had counselled. They could not read his
features, which were mantled behind voluminous folds: all save a pair of
very strange eyes, that, even as they gazed directly downward, seemed
charged with restless fiery liquid.
The two were close behind him: Guy the Goshawk prepared for one of
those fatal pounces on the foe that had won him his title. He consulted
Farina mutely, who Nodded readiness; but the instant after, a cry of anguish
escaped from the youth:
‘Lost! gone! lost! Where is it? where! the arrow! The Silver Arrow! My
Margarita!’
Ere the echoes of his voice had ceased lamenting into the distance, they
found themselves alone on the wharf.

THE LILIES OF THE VALLEY
‘He opened like a bat!’ said the stranger.

‘His shadow was red!’ said Farina.
‘He was off like an arrow!’ said the stranger.
‘Oh! pledge of my young love, how could I lose thee!’ exclaimed the
youth, and his eyes were misted with tears.
Guy the Goshawk shook his brown locks gravely.
‘Bring me a man, and I ‘ll stand up against him, whoever he be, like a
man; but this fellow has an ill scent and foreign ways about him, that he
has! His eye boils all down my backbone and tingles at my finger-tips. Jesu,
save us!’
‘Save us!’ repeated Farina, with the echo of a deadened soul.
They made the sign of the Cross, and purified the place with holy
ejaculations.
‘I ‘ve seen him at last; grant it be for the last time! That’s my prayer, in
the name of the Virgin and Trinity,’ said Guy. ‘And now let’s retrace our
steps: perchance we shall hunt up that bauble of yours, but I’m not fit for
mortal work this night longer.’
Burdened by their black encounter, the two passed again behind the
Cathedral. Farina’s hungry glances devoured each footmark of their track.
Where the moon held no lantern for him, he went on his knees, and groped
for his lost treasure with a miser’s eager patience of agony, drawing his
hand slowly over the stony kerb and between the interstices of the thick-
sown flints, like an acute-feeling worm. Despair grew heavy in his breast.
At every turning he invoked some good new saint to aid him, and ran over
all the propitiations his fancy could suggest and his religious lore inspire.
By-and-by they reached the head of the street where Margarita dwelt. The
moon was dipping down, and paler, as if touched with a warning of dawn.
Chill sighs from the open land passed through the spaces of the city. On
certain coloured gables and wood-crossed fronts, the white light lingered;

but mostly the houses were veiled in dusk, and Gottlieb’s house was
confused in the twilight with those of his neighbours, notwithstanding its
greater stateliness and the old grandeur of its timbered bulk. They
determined to take up their position there again, and paced on, Farina with
his head below his shoulders, and Guy nostril in air, as if uneasy in his
sense of smell.
On the window-ledge of a fair-fitted domicile stood a flower-pot, a rude
earthen construction in the form of a river-barge, wherein grew some valley
lilies that drooped their white bells over the sides.
The Goshawk eyed them wistfully.
‘I must smell those blessed flowers if I wish to be saved!’ and he stamped
resolve with his staff.
Moved by this exclamation, Farina gazed up at them.
‘How like a company of maidens they look floating in the vessel of life!’
he said.
Guy curiously inspected Farina and the flower-pot, shrugged, and with
his comrade’s aid, mounted to a level with it, seized the prize and
redescended.
‘There,’ he cried, between long luxurious sniffs, ‘that chases him out of
the nostril sooner than aught else, the breath of a fresh lass-like flower! I
was tormented till now by the reek of the damned rising from under me.
This is heaven’s own incense, I think!’
And Guy inhaled the flowers and spake prettily to them.
‘They have a melancholy sweetness, friend,’ said Farina. ‘I think of
whispering Fays, and Elf, and Erl, when their odour steals through me. Do
not you?’
‘Nay, nor hope to till my wits are clean gone,’ was the Goshawk’s reply.
‘To my mind, ‘tis an honest flower, and could I do good service by the
young maiden who there set it, I should be rendering back good service
done; for if that flower has not battled the devil in my nose this night, and
beaten him, my head’s a medlar!’
‘I scarce know whether as a devout Christian I should listen to that,
friend,’ Farina mildly remonstrated. ‘Lilies are indeed emblems of the
saints; but then they are not poor flowers of earth, being transfigured,
lustrous unfadingly. Oh, Cross and Passion! with what silver serenity thy

glory enwraps me, gazing on these fair bells! I look on the white sea of the
saints. I am enamoured of fleshly anguish and martyrdom. All beauty is that
worn by wan-smiling faces wherein Hope sits as a crown on Sorrow, and
the pale ebb of mortal life is the twilight of joy everlasting. Colourless
peace! Oh, my beloved! So walkest thou for my soul on the white sea ever
at night, clad in the straight fall of thy spotless virgin linen; bearing in thy
hand the lily, and leaning thy cheek to it, where the human rose is softened
to a milky bloom of red, the espousals of heaven with earth; over thee,
moving with thee, a wreath of sapphire stars, and the solitude of purity
around!’
‘Ah!’ sighed the Goshawk, dandling his flower-pot; ‘the moon gives
strokes as well’s the sun. I’ faith, moon-struck and maid-struck in one! He’ll
be asking for his head soon. This dash of the monk and the minstrel is a
sure sign. That ‘s their way of loving in this land: they all go mad, straight
off. I never heard such talk.’
Guy accompanied these remarks with a pitiful glance at his companion.
‘Come, Sir Lover! lend me a help to give back what we’ve borrowed to
its rightful owner. ‘S blood! but I feel an appetite. This night-air takes me in
the wind like a battering ram. I thought I had laid in a stout four-and-twenty
hours’ stock of Westphalian Wurst at Master Groschen’s supper-table. Good
stuff, washed down with superior Rhine wine; say your Liebfrauenmilch for
my taste; though, when I first tried it, I grimaced like a Merry-Andrew, and
remembered roast beef and Glo’ster ale in my prayers.’
The Goshawk was in the act of replacing the pot of lilies, when a blow
from a short truncheon, skilfully flung, struck him on the neck and brought
him to the ground. With him fell the lilies. He glared to the right and left,
and grasped the broken flower-pot for a return missile; but no enemy was in
view to test his accuracy of aim.
The deep-arched doorways showed their empty recesses the windows
slept.
‘Has that youth played me false?’ thought the discomfited squire, as he
leaned quietly on his arm. Farina was nowhere near.
Guy was quickly reassured.
‘By my fay, now! that’s a fine thing! and a fine fellow! and a fleet foot!
That lad ‘ll rise! He’ll be a squire some day. Look at him. Bowels of

a’Becket! ‘tis a sight! I’d rather see that, now, than old Groschen ‘s supper-
table groaning with Wurst again, and running a river of Rudesheimer!
Tussle on! I’ll lend a hand if there’s occasion; but you shall have the
honour, boy, an you can win it.’
This crying on of the hound was called forth by a chase up the street, in
which the Goshawk beheld Farina pursue and capture a stalwart runaway,
who refused with all his might to be brought back, striving every two and
three of his tiptoe steps to turn against the impulse Farina had got on his
neck and nether garments.
‘Who ‘d have thought the lad was so wiry and mettlesome, with his soft
face, blue eyes, and lank locks? but a green mead has more in it than many
a black mountain. Hail, and well done! if I could dub you knight, I would:
trust me!’ and he shook Farina by the hand.
Farina modestly stood aside, and allowed the Goshawk to confront his
prisoner.
‘So, Sir Shy-i’the-dark! gallant Stick-i’the-back! Squire Truncheon, and
Knight of the noble order of Quicksilver Legs! just take your stand at the
distance you were off me when you discharged this instrument at my head.
By ‘r lady! I smart a scratch to pay you in coin, and it’s lucky for you the
coin is small, or you might reckon on it the same, trust me. Now, back!’
The Goshawk lunged out with the truncheon, but the prisoner displayed
no hesitation in complying, and fell back about a space of fifteen yards.
‘I suppose he guesses I’ve never done the stupid trick before,’ mused
Guy, ‘or he would not be so sharp.’ Observing that Farina had also fallen
back in a line as guard, Guy motioned him to edge off to the right more,
bawling, ‘Never mind why!’
‘Now,’ thought Guy, ‘if I were sure of notching him, I’d do the speech
part first; but as I’m not—throwing truncheons being no honourable
profession anywhere—I’ll reserve that. The rascal don’t quail. We’ll see
how long he stands firm.’
The Goshawk cleared his wrist, fixed his eye, and swung the truncheon
meditatively to and fro by one end. He then launched off the shoulder a
mighty down-fling, calmly, watching it strike the prisoner to earth, like an
ox under the hammer.
‘A hit!’ said he, and smoothed his wrist.

Farina knelt by the body, and lifted the head on his breast. ‘Berthold!
Berthold!’ he cried; ‘no further harm shall hap to you, man! Speak!’
‘You ken the scapegrace?’ said Guy, sauntering up.
‘‘Tis Berthold Schmidt, son of old Schmidt, the great goldsmith of
Cologne.’
‘St. Dunstan was not at his elbow this time!’
‘A rival of mine,’ whispered Farina.
‘Oho!’ and the Goshawk wound a low hiss at his tongue’s tip. ‘Well! as I
should have spoken if his ears had been open: Justice struck the blow; and a
gentle one. This comes of taking a flying shot, and not standing up fair. And
that seems all that can be said. Where lives he?’
Farina pointed to the house of the Lilies.
‘Beshrew me! the dog has some right on his side. Whew! yonder he
lives? He took us for some night-prowlers. Why not come up fairly, and ask
my business?
Smelling a flower is not worth a broken neck, nor defending your
premises quite deserving a hole in the pate. Now, my lad, you see what
comes of dealing with cut and run blows; and let this be a warning to you.’
They took the body by head and feet, and laid him at the door of his
father’s house. Here the colour came to his cheek, and they wiped off the
streaks of blood that stained him. Guy proved he could be tender with a
fallen foe, and Farina with an ill-fated rival. It was who could suggest the
soundest remedies, or easiest postures. One lent a kerchief and nursed him;
another ran to the city fountain and fetched him water. Meantime the moon
had dropped, and morning, grey and beamless, looked on the house-peaks
and along the streets with steadier eye. They now both discerned a body of
men, far down, fronting Gottlieb’s house, and drawn up in some degree of
order. All their charity forsook them at once.
‘Possess thyself of the truncheon,’ said Guy: ‘You see it can damage.
More work before breakfast, and a fine account I must give of myself to my
hostess of the Three Holy Kings!’
Farina recovered the destructive little instrument.
‘I am ready,’ said he. ‘But hark! there’s little work for us there, I fancy.
Those be lads of Cologne, no grunters of the wild. ‘Tis the White Rose

Club. Always too late for service.’
Voices singing a hunting glee, popular in that age, swelled up the clear
morning air; and gradually the words became distinct.

The Kaiser went a-hunting,
A-hunting, tra-ra:
With his bugle-horn at springing morn,
The Kaiser trampled bud and thorn:
Tra-ra!

And the dew shakes green as the horsemen rear,
And a thousand feathers they flutter with fear;
And a pang drives quick to the heart of the deer;
For the Kaiser’s out a-hunting,
Tra-ra!
Ta, ta, ta, ta,
Tra-ra, tra-ra,
Ta-ta, tra-ra, tra-ra!

the owner of the truncheon awoke to these reviving tones, and uttered a
faint responsive ‘Tra-ra!’
‘Hark again!’ said Farina, in reply to the commendation of the Goshawk,
whose face was dimpled over with the harmony.

The wild boar lay a-grunting,
A-grunting, tra-ra!
And, boom! comes the Kaiser to hunt up me?
Or, queak! the small birdie that hops on the tree?
Tra-ra!
O birdie, and boar, and deer, lie tame!
For a maiden in bloom, or a full-blown dame,
Are the daintiest prey, and the windingest game,
When Kaisers go a-hunting,
Tra-ra!
Ha, ha, ha, ha,
Tra-ra, tra-ra,
Ha-ha, tra-ra, tra-ra!

The voices held long on the last note, and let it die in a forest cadence.
‘‘Fore Gad! well done. Hurrah! Tra-ra, ha-ha, tra-ra! That’s a trick we’re
not half alive to at home,’ said Guy. ‘I feel friendly with these German
lads.’
The Goshawk’s disposition toward German lads was that moment harshly
tested by a smart rap on the shoulder from an end of German oak, and a
proclamation that he was prisoner of the hand that gave the greeting, in the
name of the White Rose Club. Following that, his staff was wrested from
him by a dozen stout young fellows, who gave him no time to get his

famous distance for defence against numbers; and he and Farina were
marched forthwith to the chorusing body in front of Gottlieb Groschen’s
house.

THE MISSIVES
Of all the inmates, Gottlieb had slept most with the day on his eyelids,
for Werner hung like a nightmare over him. Margarita lay and dreamed in
rose-colour, and if she thrilled on her pillowed silken couch like a tense-
strung harp, and fretted drowsily in little leaps and starts, it was that a bird
lay in her bosom, panting and singing through the night, and that he was not
to be stilled, but would musically utter the sweetest secret thoughts of a
love-bewitched maiden. Farina’s devotion she knew his tenderness she
divined: his courage she had that day witnessed. The young girl no sooner
felt that she could love worthily, than she loved with her whole strength.
Muffed and remote came the hunting-song under her pillow, and awoke
dreamy delicate curves in her fair face, as it thinned but did not banish her
dream. Aunt Lisbeth also heard the song, and burst out of her bed to see that
the door and window were secured against the wanton Kaiser. Despite her
trials, she had taken her spell of sleep; but being possessed of some mystic
maiden belief that in cases of apprehended peril from man, bed was a rock
of refuge and fortified defence, she crept back there, and allowed the sun to
rise without her. Gottlieb’s voice could not awaken her to the household
duties she loved to perform with such a doleful visage. She heard him open
his window, and parley in angry tones with the musicians below.
‘Decoys!’ muttered Aunt Lisbeth; ‘be thou alive to them, Gottlieb!’
He went downstairs and opened the street door, whereupon the scolding
and railing commenced anew.
‘Thou hast given them vantage, Gottlieb, brother mine,’ she complained;
‘and the good heavens only can say what may result from such
indiscreetness.’
A silence, combustible with shuffling of feet in the passage and on the
stairs, dinned horrors into Aunt Lisbeth’s head.
‘It was just that sound in the left wing of Hollenbogenblitz,’ she said:
‘only then it was night and not morning. Ursula preserve me!’
‘Why, Lisbeth! Lisbeth!’ cried Gottlieb from below. ‘Come down! ‘tis
full five o’ the morning. Here’s company; and what are we to do without the

woman?’
‘Ah, Gottlieb! that is like men! They do not consider how different it is
for us!’ which mysterious sentence being uttered to herself alone, enjoyed a
meaning it would elsewhere have been denied.
Aunt Lisbeth dressed, and met Margarita descending. They exchanged
the good-morning of young maiden and old.
‘Go thou first,’ said Aunt Lisbeth.
Margarita gaily tripped ahead.
‘Girl!’ cried Aunt Lisbeth, ‘what’s that thing in thy back hair?’
‘I have borrowed Lieschen’s arrow, aunt. Mine has had an accident.’
‘Lieschen’s arrow! An accident! Now I will see to that after breakfast,
Margarita.’
‘Tra-ra, ta-ta, tra-ra, tra-ra,’ sang Margarita.

‘The wild boar lay a-grunting,
A-grunting, tra-ra.’

‘A maiden’s true and proper ornament! Look at mine, child! I have worn
it fifty years. May I deserve to wear it till I am called! O Margarita! trifle
not with that symbol.’

‘“O birdie, and boar, and deer, lie tame!”

I am so happy, aunty.’
‘Nice times to be happy in, Margarita.’

“Be happy in Spring, sweet maidens all,
For Autumn’s chill will early fall.”

So sings the Minnesinger, aunty; and

‘“A maiden in the wintry leaf
Will spread her own disease of grief.”

I love the Minnesingers! Dear, sweet-mannered men they are! Such
lovers! And men of deeds as well as song: sword on one side and harp on
the other. They fight till set of sun, and then slacken their armour to waft a

ballad to their beloved by moonlight, covered with stains of battle as they
are, and weary!’
‘What a girl! Minnesingers! Yes; I know stories of those Minnesingers.
They came to the castle—Margarita, a bead of thy cross is broken. I will
attend to it. Wear the pearl one till I mend this. May’st thou never fall in the
way of Minnesingers. They are not like Werner’s troop. They do not batter
at doors: they slide into the house like snakes.’
‘Lisbeth! Lisbeth!’ they heard Gottlieb calling impatiently.
‘We come, Gottlieb!’ and in a low murmur Margarita heard her say: ‘May
this day pass without trouble and shame to the pious and the chaste.’
Margarita knew the voice of the stranger before she had opened the door,
and on presenting herself, the hero gave her a guardian-like salute.
‘One may see,’ he said, ‘that it requires better men than those of Werner
to drive away the rose from that cheek.’
Gottlieb pressed the rosy cheek to his shoulder and patted her.
‘What do you think, Grete? You have now forty of the best lads in
Cologne enrolled to protect you, and keep guard over the house night and
day. There! What more could a Pfalzgrafin ask, now? And voluntary
service; all to be paid with a smile, which I daresay my lady won’t refuse
them. Lisbeth, you know our friend. Fear him not, good Lisbeth, and give
us breakfast. Well, sweet chuck, you’re to have royal honours paid you. I
warrant they’ve begun good work already in locking up that idle moony
vagabond, Farina—’
‘Him? What for, my father? How dared they! What has he done?’
‘O, start not, my fairy maid! A small matter of breakage, pet! He tried to
enter Cunigonde Schmidt’s chamber, and knocked down her pot of lilies:
for which Berthold Schmidt knocked him down, and our friend here, out of
good fellowship, knocked down Berthold. However, the chief offender is
marched off to prison by your trusty guard, and there let him cool himself.
Berthold shall tell you the tale himself: he’ll be here to breakfast, and
receive your orders, mistress commander-in-chief.’
The Goshawk had his eye on Margarita. Her teeth were tight down on her
nether lip, and her whole figure had a strange look of awkwardness, she was
so divided with anger.

‘As witness of the affair, I think I shall make a clearer statement, fair
maiden,’ he interposed. ‘In the first place, I am the offender. We passed
under the window of the Fraulein Schmidt, and ‘twas I mounted to greet the
lilies. One shoot of them is in my helm, and here let me present them to a
worthier holder.’
He offered the flowers with a smile, and Margarita took them, radiant
with gratitude.
‘Our friend Berthold,’ he continued, ‘thought proper to aim a blow at me
behind my back, and then ran for his comrades. He was caught, and by my
gallant young hero, Farina; concerning whose character I regret that your
respected father and I differ: for, on the faith of a soldier and true man, he’s
the finest among the fine fellows I’ve yet met in Germany, trust me. So, to
cut the story short, execution was done upon Berthold by my hand, for an
act of treachery. He appears to be a sort of captain of one of the troops, and
not affectionately disposed to Farina; for the version of the affair you have
heard from your father is a little invention of Master Berthold’s own. To do
him justice, he seemed equally willing to get me under the cold stone; but a
word from your good father changed the current; and as I thought I could
serve our friend better free than behind bars, I accepted liberty. Pshaw! I
should have accepted it any way, to tell the truth, for your German
dungeons are mortal shivering ratty places. So rank me no hero, fair
Mistress Margarita, though the temptation to seem one in such sweet eyes
was beginning to lead me astray. And now, as to our business in the streets
at this hour, believe the best of us.’
‘I will! I do!’ said Margarita.
‘Lisbeth! Lisbeth!’ called Gottlieb. ‘Breakfast, little sister! our champion
is starving. He asks for wurst, milk-loaves, wine, and all thy rarest
conserves. Haste, then, for the honour of Cologne is at stake.’
Aunt Lisbeth jingled her keys in and out, and soon that harmony drew a
number of domestics with platters of swine flesh, rolls of white wheaten
bread, the perpetual worst, milk, wine, barley-bread, and household stores
of dainties in profusion, all sparkling on silver, relieved by spotless white
cloth. Gottlieb beheld such a sunny twinkle across the Goshawk’s face at
this hospitable array, that he gave the word of onset without waiting for
Berthold, and his guest immediately fell to, and did not relax in his
exertions for a full half-hour by the Cathedral clock, eschewing the beer

with a wry look made up of scorn and ruefulness, and drinking a well-
brimmed health in Rhine wine all round. Margarita was pensive: Aunt
Lisbeth on her guard. Gottlieb remembered Charles the Great’s counsel to
Archbishop Turpin, and did his best to remain on earth one of its lords
dominant.
‘Poor Berthold!’ said he. ‘‘Tis a good lad, and deserves his seat at my
table oftener. I suppose the flower-pot business has detained him. We’ll
drink to him: eh, Grete?’
‘Drink to him, dear father!—but here he is to thank you in person.’
Margarita felt a twinge of pity as Berthold entered. The livid stains of his
bruise deepened about his eyes, and gave them a wicked light whenever
they were fixed intently; but they looked earnest; and spoke of a combat in
which he could say that he proved no coward and was used with some
cruelty. She turned on the Goshawk a mute reproach; yet smiled and loved
him well when she beheld him stretch a hand of welcome and proffer a
brotherly glass to Berthold. The rich goldsmith’s son was occupied in
studying the horoscope of his fortunes in Margarita’s eyes; but when
Margarita directed his attention to Guy, he turned to him with a glance of
astonishment that yielded to cordial greeting.
‘Well done, Berthold, my brave boy! All are friends who sit at table,’ said
Gottlieb. ‘In any case, at my table:

“‘Tis a worthy foe
Forgives the blow
Was dealt him full and fairly,”

says the song; and the proverb takes it up with, “A generous enemy is a
friend on the wrong side”; and no one’s to blame for that, save old Dame
Fortune. So now a bumper to this jovial make-up between you. Lisbeth!
you must drink it.’
The little woman bowed melancholy obedience.
‘Why did you fling and run?’ whispered Guy to Berthold.
‘Because you were two against one.’
‘Two against one, man! Why, have you no such thing as fair play in this
land of yours? Did you think I should have taken advantage of that?’

‘How could I tell who you were, or what you would do?’ muttered
Berthold, somewhat sullenly.
‘Truly no, friend! So you ran to make yourself twenty to two? But don’t
be down on the subject. I was going to say, that though I treated you in a
manner upright, ‘twas perhaps a trifle severe, considering your youth: but
an example’s everything; and I must let you know in confidence, that no
rascal truncheon had I flung in my life before; so, you see, I gave you all
the chances.’
Berthold moved his lips in reply; but thinking of the figure of defeat he
was exhibiting before Margarita, caused him to estimate unfavourably what
chances had stood in his favour.
The health was drunk. Aunt Lisbeth touched the smoky yellow glass with
a mincing lip, and beckoned Margarita to withdraw.
‘The tapestry, child!’ she said. ‘Dangerous things are uttered after the
third glass, I know, Margarita.’
‘Do you call my champion handsome, aunt?’
‘I was going to speak to you about him, Margarita. If I remember, he has
rough, good looks, as far as they go. Yes: but thou, maiden, art thou
thinking of him? I have thrice watched him wink; and that, as we know, is a
habit of them that have sold themselves. And what is frail womankind to
expect from such a brawny animal?’

‘And oh! to lace his armour up,
And speed him to the field;
To pledge him in a kissing-cup,
The knight that will not yield!

I am sure he is tender, aunt. Notice how gentle he looks now and then.’
‘Thou girl! Yes, I believe she is madly in love with him. Tender, and
gentle! So is the bear when you’re outside his den; but enter it, maiden, and
try! Thou good Ursula, preserve me from such a fate.’
‘Fear not, dear aunt! Have not a fear of it! Besides, it is not always the
men that are bad. You must not forget Dalilah, and Lot’s wife, and
Pfalzgrafin Jutta, and the Baroness who asked for a piece of poor Kraut.
But, let us work, let us work!’
Margarita sat down before Siegfried, and contemplated the hero. For the
first time, she marked a resemblance in his features to Farina: the same long

yellow hair scattered over his shoulders as that flowing from under
Siegfried’s helm; the blue eyes, square brows, and regular outlines. ‘This is
a marvel,’ thought Margarita. ‘And Farina! it was to watch over me that he
roamed the street last night, my best one! Is he not beautiful?’ and she
looked closer at Siegfried.
Aunt Lisbeth had begun upon the dragon with her usual method, and was
soon wandering through skeleton halls of the old palatial castle in Bohemia.
The woolly tongue of the monster suggested fresh horrors to her, and if
Margarita had listened, she might have had fair excuses to forget her lover’s
condition; but her voice only did service like a piece of clock-work, and her
mind was in the prison with Farina. She was long debating how to win his
release; and meditated so deeply, and exclaimed in so many bursts of
impatience, that Aunt Lisbeth found her heart melting to the maiden. ‘Now,’
said she, ‘that is a well-known story about the Electress Dowager of
Bavaria, when she came on a visit to the castle; and, my dear child, be it a
warning. Terrible, too!’ and the little woman shivered pleasantly. ‘She had
—I may tell you this, Margarita—yes, she had been false to her wedded
husband.—You understand, maiden; or, no! you do not understand: I
understand it only partly, mind. False, I say——’
‘False—not true: go on, dear aunty,’ said Margarita, catching the word.
‘I believe she knows as much as I do!’ ejaculated Aunt Lisbeth; ‘such are
girls nowadays. When I was young-oh! for a maiden to know anything then
—oh! it was general reprobation. No one thought of confessing it. We
blushed and held down our eyes at the very idea. Well, the Electress! she
was—you must guess. So she called for her caudle at eleven o’clock at
night. What do you think that was? Well, there was spirit in it: not to say
nutmeg, and lemon, and peach kernels. She wanted me to sit with her, but I
begged my mistress to keep me from the naughty woman: and no friend of
Hilda of Bayern was Bertha of Bohmen, you may be sure. Oh! the things
she talked while she was drinking her caudle.
Isentrude sat with her, and said it was fearful!—beyond blasphemy! and
that she looked like a Bible witch, sitting up drinking and swearing and
glaring in her nightclothes and nightcap. She was on a journey into
Hungary, and claimed the hospitality of the castle on her way there. Both
were widows. Well, it was a quarter to twelve. The Electress dropped back
on her pillow, as she always did when she had finished the candle. Isentrude

covered her over, heaped up logs on the fire, wrapped her dressing-gown
about her, and prepared to sleep. It was Winter, and the wind howled at the
doors, and rattled the windows, and shook the arras—Lord help us! Outside
was all snow, and nothing but forest; as you saw when you came to me
there, Gretelchen. Twelve struck. Isentrude was dozing; but she says that
after the last stroke she woke with cold. A foggy chill hung in the room. She
looked at the Electress, who had not moved. The fire burned feebly, and
seemed weighed upon: Herr Je!—she thought she heard a noise. No. Quite
quiet! As heaven preserve her, says slip, the smell in that room grew like an
open grave, clammily putrid. Holy Virgin! This time she was certain she
heard a noise; but it seemed on both sides of her. There was the great door
leading to the first landing and state-room; and opposite exactly there was
the panel of the secret passage. The noises seemed to advance as if step by
step, and grew louder in each ear as she stood horrified on the marble of the
hearth. She looked at the Electress again, and her eyes were wide open; but
for all Isentrude’s calling, she would not wake. Only think! Now the noise
increased, and was a regular tramp-grate, tramp-screw sound-coming nearer
and nearer: Saints of mercy! The apartment was choking with vapours.
Isentrude made a dart, and robed herself behind a curtain of the bed just as
the two doors opened. She could see through a slit in the woven work, and
winked her eyes which she had shut close on hearing the scream of the
door-hinges—winked her eyes to catch a sight for moment—we are such
sinful, curious creatures!—What she saw then, she says she shall never
forget; nor I! As she was a living woman, there she saw the two dead
princes, the Prince Palatine of Bohemia and the Elector of Bavaria, standing
front to front at the foot of the bed, all in white armour, with drawn swords,
and attendants holding pine-torches. Neither of them spoke. Their vizors
were down; but she knew them by their arms and bearing: both tall, stately
presences, good knights in their day, and had fought against the Infidel! So
one of them pointed to the bed, and then a torch was lowered, and the fight
commenced. Isentrude saw the sparks fly, and the steel struck till it was
shattered; but they fought on, not caring for wounds, and snorting with fury
as they grew hotter. They fought a whole hour. The poor girl was so eaten
up with looking on, that she let go the curtain and stood quite exposed
among them. So, to steady herself, she rested her hand on the bed-side; and
—think what she felt—a hand as cold as ice locked hers, and get from it she
could not! That instant one of the princes fell. It was Bohmen. Bayern

sheathed his sword, and waved his hand, and the attendants took up the
slaughtered ghost, feet and shoulders, and bore him to the door of the secret
passage, while Bayern strode after—’
‘Shameful!’ exclaimed Margarita. ‘I will speak to Berthold as he
descends. I hear him coming. He shall do what I wish.’
‘Call it dreadful, Grete! Dreadful it was. If Berthold would like to sit and
hear—Ah! she is gone. A good girl! and of a levity only on the surface.’
Aunt Lisbeth heard Margarita’s voice rapidly addressing Berthold. His
reply was low and brief. ‘Refuses to listen to anything of the sort,’ Aunt
Lisbeth interpreted it. Then he seemed to be pleading, and Margarita
uttering short answers. ‘I trust ‘tis nothing a maiden should not hear,’ the
little lady exclaimed with a sigh.
The door opened, and Lieschen stood at the entrance.
‘For Fraulein Margarita,’ she said, holding a letter halfway out.
‘Give it,’ Aunt Lisbeth commanded.
The woman hesitated—‘‘Tis for the Fraulein.’
‘Give it, I tell thee!’ and Aunt Lisbeth eagerly seized the missive, and
subjected it to the ordeal of touch. It was heavy, and contained something
hard. Long pensive pressures revealed its shape on the paper. It was an
arrow. ‘Go!’ said she to the woman, and, once alone, began, bee-like, to
buzz all over it, and finally entered. It contained Margarita’s Silver Arrow.
‘The art of that girl!’ And the writing said:

‘SWEETEST MAIDEN!

‘By this arrow of our betrothal, I conjure thee to meet me in all
haste without the western gate, where, burning to reveal to thee
most urgent tidings that may not be confided to paper, now waits,
petitioning the saints, thy

‘FARINA.’

Aunt Lisbeth placed letter and arrow in a drawer; locked it; and ‘always
thought so.’ She ascended the stairs to consult with Gottlieb. Roars of
laughter greeted her just as she lifted the latch, and she retreated abashed.
There was no time to lose. Farina must be caught in the act of waiting for
Margarita, and by Gottlieb, or herself. Gottlieb was revelling. ‘May this be
a warning to thee, Gottlieb,’ murmured Lisbeth, as she hooded her little

body in Margarita’s fur-cloak, and determined that she would be the one to
confound Farina.
Five minutes later Margarita returned. Aunt Lisbeth was gone. The
dragon still lacked a tip to his forked tongue, and a stream of fiery threads
dangled from the jaws of the monster. Another letter was brought into the
room by Lieschen.
‘For Aunt Lisbeth,’ said Margarita, reading the address. ‘Who can it be
from?’
‘She does not stand pressing about your letters,’ said the woman; and
informed Margarita of the foregoing missive.
‘You say she drew an arrow from it?’ said Margarita, with burning face.
‘Who brought this? tell me!’ and just waiting to hear it was Farina’s mother,
she tore the letter open, and read:

‘DEAREST LISBETH!

‘Thy old friend writes to thee; she that has scarce left eyes to see
the words she writes. Thou knowest we are a fallen house, through
the displeasure of the Emperor on my dead husband. My son, Farina,
is my only stay, and well returns to me the blessings I bestow upon
him. Some call him idle: some think him too wise. I swear to thee,
Lisbeth, he is only good. His hours are devoted to the extraction
of essences—to no black magic. Now he is in trouble-in prison.
The shadow that destroyed his dead father threatens him. Now, by
our old friendship, beloved Lisbeth! intercede with Gottlieb, that
he may plead for my son before the Emperor when he comes—’

Margarita read no more. She went to the window, and saw her guard
marshalled outside. She threw a kerchief over her head, and left the house
by the garden gate.

THE MONK
By this time the sun stood high over Cologne. The market-places were
crowded with buyers and sellers, mixed with a loitering swarm of soldiery,
for whose thirsty natures winestalls had been tumbled up. Barons and
knights of the empire, bravely mounted and thickly followed, poured hourly
into Cologne from South Germany and North. Here, staring Suabians, and
round-featured warriors of the East Kingdom, swaggered up and down,
patting what horses came across them, for lack of occupation for their
hands. Yonder, huge Pomeranians, with bosks of beard stiffened out square
from the chin, hurtled mountainous among the peaceable inhabitants.
Troopers dismounted went straddling, in tight hose and loose, prepared to
drink good-will to whomsoever would furnish the best quality liquor for
that solemn pledge, and equally ready to pick a quarrel with them that
would not. It was a scene of flaring feathers, wide-flapped bonnets,
flaunting hose, blue and battered steel plates, slashed woollen haunch-bags,
leather-leggings, ensigns, and imperious boots and shoulders. Margarita
was too hurried in her mind to be conscious of an imprudence; but her
limbs trembled, and she instinctively quickened her steps. When she stood
under the sign of the Three Holy Kings, where dwelt Farina’s mother, she
put up a fervent prayer of thanks, and breathed freely.
‘I had expected a message from Lisbeth,’ said Frau Farina; ‘but thou,
good heart! thou wilt help us?’
‘All that may be done by me I will do,’ replied Margarita; ‘but his mother
yearns to see him, and I have come to bear her company.’
The old lady clasped her hands and wept.
‘Has he found so good a friend, my poor boy! And trust me, dear maiden,
he is not unworthy, for better son never lived, and good son, good all!
Surely we will go to him, but not as thou art. I will dress thee. Such throngs
are in the streets: I heard them clattering in early this morning. Rest, dear
heart, till I return.’
Margarita had time to inspect the single sitting-room in which her lover
lived. It was planted with bottles, and vases, and pipes, and cylinders, piling

on floor, chair, and table. She could not suppress a slight surprise of fear,
for this display showed a dealing with hidden things, and a summoning of
scattered spirits. It was this that made his brow so pale, and the round of his
eye darker than youth should let it be! She dismissed the feeling, and
assumed her own bright face as Dame Farina reappeared, bearing on her
arm a convent garb, and other apparel. Margarita suffered herself to be
invested in the white and black robes of the denial of life.
‘There!’ said the Frau Farina, ‘and to seal assurance, I have engaged a
guard to accompany us. He was sorely bruised in a street combat yesterday,
and was billeted below, where I nursed and tended him, and he is grateful,
as man should be-though I did little, doing my utmost—and with him near
us we have nought to fear.’
‘Good,’ said Margarita, and they kissed and departed. The guard was
awaiting them outside.
‘Come, my little lady, and with thee the holy sister! ‘Tis no step from
here, and I gage to bring ye safe, as sure as my name’s Schwartz Thier!—
Hey? The good sister’s dropping. Look, now! I’ll carry her.’
Margarita recovered her self-command before he could make good this
offer.
‘Only let us hasten there,’ she gasped.
The Thier strode on, and gave them safe-conduct to the prison where
Farina was confined, being near one of the outer forts of the city.
‘Thank and dismiss him,’ whispered Margarita.
‘Nay! he will wait-wilt thou not, friend! We shall not be long, though it is
my son I visit here,’ said Frau Farina.
‘Till to-morrow morning, my little lady! The lion thanked him that
plucked the thorn from his foot, and the Thier may be black, but he’s not
ungrateful, nor a worse beast than the lion.’
They entered the walls and left him.
For the first five minutes Schwartz Thier found employment for his
faculties by staring at the shaky, small-paned windows of the
neighbourhood. He persevered in this, after all novelty had been exhausted,
from an intuitive dread of weariness. There was nothing to see. An old
woman once bobbed out of an attic, and doused the flints with water.
Harassed by increasing dread of the foul nightmare of nothing-to-do, the

Thier endeavoured to establish amorous intelligence with her. She
responded with an indignant projection of the underjaw, evanishing rapidly.
There was no resource left him but to curse her with extreme heartiness.
The Thier stamped his right leg, and then his left, and remembered the old
woman as a grievance five minutes longer. When she was clean forgotten,
he yawned. Another spouse of the moment was wanted, to be wooed,
objurgated, and regretted. The prison-gate was in a secluded street. Few
passengers went by, and those who did edged away from the ponderous,
wanton-eyed figure of lazy mischief lounging there, as neatly as they well
could. The Thier hailed two or three. One took to his legs, another bowed,
smirked, gave him a kindly good-day, and affected to hear no more, having
urgent business in prospect. The Thier was a faithful dog, but the temptation
to betray his trust and pursue them was mighty. He began to experience an
equal disposition to cry and roar. He hummed a ballad—

‘I swore of her I’d have my will,
And with him I’d have my way:
I learn’d my cross-bow over the hill:
Now what does my lady say?

Give me the good old cross-bow, after all, and none of these lumbering
puff-and-bangs that knock you down oftener than your man!

‘A cross stands in the forest still,
And a cross in the churchyard grey:
My curse on him who had his will,
And on him who had his way!

Good beginning, bad ending! ‘Tisn’t so always. “Many a cross has the
cross-bow built,” they say. I wish I had mine, now, to peg off that old
woman, or somebody. I’d swear she’s peeping at me over the gable, or
behind some cranny. They’re curious, the old women, curse ‘em! And the
young, for that matter. Devil a young one here.

‘When I’m in for the sack of a town,
What, think ye, I poke after, up and down?
Silver and gold I pocket in plenty,
But the sweet tit-bit is my lass under twenty.

I should like to be in for the sack of this Cologne. I’d nose out that pretty
girl I was cheated of yesterday. Take the gold and silver, and give me the
maiden! Her neck’s silver, and her hair gold. Ah! and her cheeks roses, and
her mouth-say no more! I’m half thinking Werner, the hungry animal, has

cast wolf’s eyes on her. They say he spoke of her last night. Don’t let him
thwart me. Thunderblast him! I owe him a grudge. He’s beginning to forget
my plan o’ life.’
A flight of pigeons across the blue top of the street abstracted the Thier
from these reflections. He gaped after them in despair, and fell to stretching
and shaking himself, rattling his lungs with loud reports. As he threw his
eyes round again, they encountered those of a monk opposite fastened on
him in penetrating silence. The Thier hated monks as a wild beast shuns
fire; but now even a monk was welcome.
‘Halloo!’ he sung out.
The monk crossed over to him.
‘Friend!’ said he, ‘weariness is teaching thee wantonness. Wilt thou take
service for a night’s work, where the danger is little, the reward lasting?’
‘As for that,’ replied the Thier, ‘danger comes to me like greenwood to
the deer, and good pay never yet was given in promises. But I’m bound for
the next hour to womankind within there. They’re my masters; as they’ve
been of tough fellows before me.’
‘I will seek them, and win their consent,’ said the monk, and so left him.
‘Quick dealing!’ thought the Thier, and grew brisker. ‘The Baron won’t
want me to-night: and what if he does? Let him hang himself—though, if he
should, ‘twill be a pity I’m not by to help him.’
He paced under the wall to its farthest course. Turning back, he perceived
the monk at the gateway.
‘A sharp hand!’ thought the Thier.
‘Intrude no question on me,’ the monk began; ‘but hold thy peace and
follow: the women release thee, and gladly.’
‘That’s not my plan o’ life, now! Money down, and then command me’:
and Schwartz Thier stood with one foot forward, and hand stretched out.
A curl of scorn darkened the cold features of the monk.
He slid one hand into a side of his frock above the girdle, and tossed a
bag of coin.
‘Take it, if ‘tis in thee to forfeit the greater blessing,’ he cried
contemptuously.
The Thier peeped into the bag, and appeared satisfied.

‘I follow,’ said he; ‘lead on, good father, and I’ll be in the track of
holiness for the first time since my mother was quit of me.’
The monk hurried up the street and into the marketplace, oblivious of the
postures and reverences of the people, who stopped to stare at him and his
gaunt attendant. As they crossed the square, Schwartz Thier spied Henker
Rothhals starting from a wine-stall on horseback, and could not forbear
hailing him. Before the monk had time to utter a reproach, they were deep
together in a double-shot of query and reply.
‘Whirr!’ cried the Thier, breaking on some communication. ‘Got her,
have they? and swung her across stream? I’m one with ye for my share, or
call me sheep!’
He waved his hand to the monk, and taking hold of the horse’s rein, ran
off beside his mounted confederate, heavily shod as he was.
The monk frowned after him, and swelled with a hard sigh.
‘Gone!’ he exclaimed, ‘and the accursed gold with him! Well did a voice
warn me that such service was never to be bought!’
He did not pause to bewail or repent, but returned toward the prison with
rapid footsteps, muttering: ‘I with the prison-pass for two; why was I
beguiled by that bandit? Saw I not the very youth given into my hands
there, he that was with the damsel and the aged woman?’

THE RIDE AND THE RACE
Late in the noon a horseman, in the livery of the Kaiser’s body-guard,
rode dry and dusty into Cologne, with tidings that the Kaiser was at
Hammerstein Castle, and commanding all convocated knights, barons,
counts, and princes, to assemble and prepare for his coming, on a certain
bare space of ground within two leagues of Cologne, thence to swell the
train of his triumphal entry into the ancient city of his empire.
Guy the Goshawk, broad-set on a Flemish mare, and a pack-horse beside
him, shortly afterward left the hotel of the Three Holy Kings, and trotted up
to Gottlieb’s door.
‘Tent-pitching is now my trade,’ said he, as Gottlieb came down to him.
‘My lord is with the Kaiser. I must say farewell for the nonce. Is the young
lady visible?’
‘Nor young, nor old, good friend,’ replied Gottlieb, with a countenance
somewhat ruffled. ‘I dined alone for lack of your company. Secret missives
came, I hear, to each of them, and both are gadding. Now what think you of
this, after the scene of yesterday?—Lisbeth too!’
‘Preaches from the old text, Master Groschen; “Never reckon on
womankind for a wise act.” But farewell! and tell Mistress Margarita that I
take it ill of her not giving me her maiden hand to salute before parting. My
gravest respects to Frau Lisbeth. I shall soon be sitting with you over that
prime vintage of yours, or fortune’s dead against me.’
So, with a wring of the hand, Guy put the spur to his round-flanked beast,
and was quickly out of Cologne on the rough roadway.
He was neither the first nor the last of the men-at-arms hastening to obey
the Kaiser’s mandate. A string of horse and foot in serpentine knots
stretched along the flat land, flashing colours livelier than the spring-
meadows bordering their line of passage. Guy, with a nod for all, and a
greeting for the best-disposed, pushed on toward the van, till the gathering
block compelled him to adopt the snail’s pace of the advance party, and
gave him work enough to keep his two horses from being jammed with the
mass. Now and then he cast a weather-eye on the heavens, and was soon

confirmed in an opinion he had repeatedly ejaculated, that ‘the first night’s
camping would be a drencher.’ In the West a black bank of cloud was
blotting out the sun before his time. Northeast shone bare fields of blue
lightly touched with loosefloating strips and flakes of crimson vapour. The
furrows were growing purple-dark, and gradually a low moaning obscurity
enwrapped the whole line, and mufed the noise of hoof, oath, and waggon-
wheel in one sullen murmur.
Guy felt very much like a chopped worm, as he wriggled his way onward
in the dusk, impelled from the rear, and reduced to grope after the main
body. Frequent and deep counsel he took with a trusty flask suspended at
his belt. It was no pleasant reflection that the rain would be down before he
could build up anything like shelter for horse and man. Still sadder the
necessity of selecting his post on strange ground, and in darkness. He kept
an anxious look-out for the moon, and was presently rejoiced to behold a
broad fire that twinkled branchy beams through an east-hill orchard.
‘My lord calls her Goddess,’ said Guy, wistfully. ‘The title’s outlandish,
and more the style of these foreigners but she may have it to-night, an she
‘ll just keep the storm from shrouding her bright eye a matter of two hours.’
She rose with a boding lustre. Drifts of thin pale upper-cloud leaned
down ladders, pure as virgin silver, for her to climb to her highest seat on
the unrebellious half-circle of heaven.
‘My mind’s made up!’ quoth Guy to the listening part of himself. ‘Out of
this I’ll get.’
By the clearer ray he had discerned a narrow track running a white
parallel with the general route. At the expense of dislocating a mile of the
cavalcade, he struck into it. A dyke had to be taken, some heavy fallows
crossed, and the way was straight before him. He began to sneer at the slow
jog-trot and absence of enterprise which made the fellows he had left shine
so poorly in comparison with the Goshawk, but a sight of two cavaliers in
advance checked his vanity, and now to overtake them he tasked his fat
Flemish mare with unwonted pricks of the heel, that made her fling out and
show more mettle than speed.
The objects of this fiery chase did not at first awake to a sense of being
pursued. Both rode with mantled visages, and appeared profoundly
inattentive to the world outside their meditations. But the Goshawk was not
to be denied, and by dint of alternately roaring at them and upbraiding his

two stumping beasts, he at last roused the younger of the cavaliers, who
called to his companion loudly: without effect it seemed, for he had to
repeat the warning. Guy was close up with them, when the youth
exclaimed:
‘Father! holy father! ‘Tis Sathanas in person!’
The other rose and pointed trembling to a dark point in the distance as he
vociferated:
‘Not here! not here; but yonder!’
Guy recognized the voice of the first speaker, and cried:
‘Stay! halt a second! Have you forgotten the Goshawk?’
‘Never!’ came the reply, ‘and forget not Farina!’
Spur and fleeter steeds carried them out of hearing ere Guy could throw
in another syllable. Farina gazed back on him remorsefully, but the Monk
now rated his assistant with indignation.
‘Thou weak one! nothing less than fool! to betray thy name on such an
adventure as this to soul save the saints!’
Farina tossed back his locks, and held his forehead to the moon. All the
Monk’s ghostly wrath was foiled by the one little last sweet word of his
beloved, which made music in his ears whenever annoyance sounded.
‘And herein,’ say the old writers, ‘are lovers, who love truly, truly
recompensed for their toils and pains; in that love, for which they suffer, is
ever present to ward away suffering not sprung of love: but the disloyal,
who serve not love faithfully, are a race given over to whatso this base
world can wreak upon them, without consolation or comfort of their
mistress, Love; whom sacrificing not all to, they know not to delight in.’
The soul of a lover lives through every member of him in the joy of a
moonlight ride. Sorrow and grief are slow distempers that crouch from the
breeze, and nourish their natures far from swift-moving things. A true lover
is not one of those melancholy flies that shoot and maze over muddy
stagnant pools. He must be up in the great air. He must strike all the strings
of life. Swiftness is his rapture. In his wide arms he embraces the whole
form of beauty. Eagle-like are his instincts; dove-like his desires. Then the
fair moon is the very presence of his betrothed in heaven. So for hours rode
Farina in a silver-fleeting glory; while the Monk as a shadow, galloped stern

and silent beside him. So, crowning them in the sky, one half was all love
and light; one, blackness and fell purpose.

THE COMBAT ON DRACHENFELS
Not to earth was vouchsafed the honour of commencing the great battle
of that night. By an expiring blue-shot beam of moonlight, Farina beheld a
vast realm of gloom filling the hollow of the West, and the moon was soon
extinguished behind sluggish scraps of iron scud detached from the
swinging bulk of ruin, as heavily it ground on the atmosphere in the first
thunder-launch of motion.
The heart of the youth was strong, but he could not view without quicker
fawning throbs this manifestation of immeasurable power, which seemed as
if with a stroke it was capable of destroying creation and the works of man.
The bare aspect of the tempest lent terrors to the adventure he was engaged
in, and of which he knew not the aim, nor might forecast the issue. Now
there was nothing to illumine their path but such forked flashes as lightning
threw them at intervals, touching here a hill with clustered cottages, striking
into day there a May-blossom, a patch of weed, a single tree by the
wayside. Suddenly a more vivid and continuous quiver of violet fire met its
reflection on the landscape, and Farina saw the Rhine-stream beneath him.
‘On such a night,’ thought he, ‘Siegfried fought and slew the dragon!’
A blast of light, as from the jaws of the defeated dragon in his throes,
made known to him the country he traversed. Crimsoned above the water
glimmered the monster-haunted rock itself, and mid-channel beyond, flat
and black to the stream, stretched the Nuns’ Isle in cloistral peace.
‘Halt!’ cried the Monk, and signalled with a peculiar whistle, to which he
seemed breathlessly awaiting an answer. They were immediately
surrounded by longrobed veiled figures.
‘Not too late?’ the Monk hoarsely asked of them.
‘Yet an hour!’ was the reply, in soft clear tones of a woman’s voice.
‘Great strength and valour more than human be mine,’ exclaimed the
Monk, dismounting.
He passed apart from them; and they drew in a circle, while he prayed,
kneeling.

Presently he returned, and led Farina to a bank, drawing from some
hiding-place a book and a bell, which he gave into the hands of the youth.
‘For thy soul, no word!’ said the Monk, speaking down his throat as he
took in breath. ‘Nay! not in answer to me! Be faithful, and more than
earthly fortune is thine; for I say unto thee, I shall not fail, having grace to
sustain this combat.’
Thereupon he commenced the ascent of Drachenfels.
Farina followed. He had no hint of the Monk’s mission, nor of the part
himself was to play in it. Such a load of silence gathered on his questioning
spirit, that the outcry of the rageing elements alone prevented him from
arresting the Monk and demanding the end of his service there. That outcry
was enough to freeze speech on the very lips of a mortal. For scarce had
they got footing on the winding path of the crags, when the whole
vengeance of the storm was hurled against the mountain. Huge boulders
were loosened and came bowling from above: trees torn by their roots from
the fissures whizzed on the eddies of the wind: torrents of rain foamed
down the iron flanks of rock, and flew off in hoar feathers against the short
pauses of darkness: the mountain heaved, and quaked, and yawned a
succession of hideous chasms.
‘There’s a devil in this,’ thought Farina. He looked back and marked the
river imaging lurid abysses of cloud above the mountain-summit—yea! and
on the summit a flaming shape was mirrored.
Two nervous hands stayed the cry on his mouth.
‘Have I not warned thee?’ said the husky voice of the Monk. ‘I may well
watch, and think for thee as for a dog. Be thou as faithful!’
He handed a flask to the youth, and bade him drink. Farina drank and felt
richly invigorated. The Monk then took bell and book.
‘But half an hour,’ he muttered, ‘for this combat that is to ring through
centuries.’
Crossing himself, he strode wildly upward. Farina saw him beckon back
once, and the next instant he was lost round an incline of the highest peak.
The wind that had just screamed a thousand death-screams, was now
awfully dumb, albeit Farina could feel it lifting hood and hair. In the
unnatural stillness his ear received tones of a hymn chanted below; now
sinking, now swelling; as though the voices faltered between prayer and

inspiration. Farina caught on a projection of crag, and fixed his eyes on
what was passing on the height.
There was the Monk in his brown hood and wrapper, confronting—if he
might trust his balls of sight—the red-hot figure of the Prince of Darkness.
As yet no mortal tussle had taken place between them. They were
arguing: angrily, it was true: yet with the first mutual deference of practised
logicians. Latin and German was alternately employed by both. It thrilled
Farina’s fervid love of fatherland to hear the German Satan spoke: but his
Latin was good, and his command over that tongue remarkable; for, getting
the worst of the argument, as usual, he revenged himself by parodying one
of the Church canticles with a point that discomposed his adversary, and
caused him to retreat a step, claiming support against such shrewd assault.
‘The use of an unexpected weapon in warfare is in itself half a victory.
Induce your antagonist to employ it as a match for you, and reckon on
completely routing him...’ says the old military chronicle.
‘Come!’ said the Demon with easy raillery. ‘You know your game—I
mine! I really want the good people to be happy; dancing, kissing,
propagating, what you will. We quite agree. You can have no objection to
me, but a foolish old prejudice—not personal, but class; an antipathy of the
cowl, for which I pardon you! What I should find in you to complain of—I
have only to mention it, I am sure—is, that perhaps you do speak a little too
much through your nose.’
The Monk did not fall into the jocular trap by retorting in the same strain.
‘Laugh with the Devil, and you won’t laugh longest,’ says the proverb.
Keeping to his own arms, the holy man frowned.
‘Avaunt, Fiend!’ he cried. ‘To thy kingdom below! Thou halt raged over
earth a month, causing blights, hurricanes, and epidemics of the deadly sins.
Parley no more! Begone!’
The Demon smiled: the corners of his mouth ran up to his ears, and his
eyes slid down almost into one.
‘Still through the nose!’ said he reproachfully.
‘I give thee Five Minutes!’ cried the Monk.
‘I had hoped for a longer colloquy,’ sighed the Demon, jogging his left
leg and trifling with his tail.

‘One Minute!’ exclaimed the Monk.
‘Truly so!’ said the Demon. ‘I know old Time and his habits better than
you really can. We meet every Saturday night, and communicate our best
jokes. I keep a book of them Down There!’
And as if he had reason to remember the pavement of his Halls, he stood
tiptoe and whipped up his legs.
‘Two Minutes!’
The Demon waved perfect acquiescence, and continued:
‘We understand each other, he and I. All Old Ones do. As long as he lasts,
I shall. The thing that surprises me is, that you and I cannot agree, similar as
we are in temperament, and playing for the long odds, both of us. My
failure is, perhaps, too great a passion for sport, aha! Well, ‘tis a pity you
won’t try and live on the benevolent principle. I am indeed kind to them
who commiserate my condition. I give them all they want, aha! Hem! Try
and not believe in me now, aha! Ho!... Can’t you? What are eyes? Persuade
yourself you’re dreaming. You can do anything with a mind like yours,
Father Gregory! And consider the luxury of getting me out of the way so
easily, as many do. It is my finest suggestion, aha! Generally I myself
nudge their ribs with the capital idea—You’re above bribes? I was going to
observe—’
‘Three!’
‘Observe, that if you care for worldly honours, I can smother you with
that kind of thing. Several of your first-rate people made a bargain with me
when they were in the fog, and owe me a trifle. Patronage they call it. I
hook the high and the low. Too-little and too-much serve me better than
Beelzebub. A weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full
one. Consequently my kingdom is becoming too respectable. They’ve all
got titles, and object to being asked to poke the fire without—Honourable-
and-with-Exceeding-Brightness-Beaming Baroness This! Admirably-
Benignant-Down-looking Highness That! Interrupts business, especially
when you have to ask them to fry themselves, according to the rules...
Would you like Mainz and the Rheingau?... You don’t care for Beauty—
Puella, Puellae? I have plenty of them, too, below. The Historical Beauties
warmed up at a moment’s notice. Modern ones made famous between
morning and night—Fame is the sauce of Beauty. Or, no—eh?’

‘Four!’
‘Not quite so fast, if you please. You want me gone. Now, where’s your
charity? Do you ask me to be always raking up those poor devils
underneath? While I’m here, they’ve a respite. They cannot think you kind,
Father Gregory! As for the harm, you see, I’m not the more agreeable by
being face to face with you—though some fair dames do take to my person
monstrously. The secret is, the quantity of small talk I can command: that
makes them forget my smell, which is, I confess, abominable, displeasing to
myself, and my worst curse. Your sort, Father Gregory, are somewhat
unpleasant in that particular—if I may judge by their Legate here. Well, try
small talk. They would fall desperately in love with polecats and skunks if
endowed with small talk. Why, they have become enamoured of monks
before now! If skunks, why not monks? And again—’
‘Five!’
Having solemnly bellowed this tremendous number, the holy man lifted
his arms to begin the combat.
Farina felt his nerves prick with admiration of the ghostly warrior daring
the Second Power of Creation on that lonely mountain-top. He expected,
and shuddered at thought of the most awful fight ever yet chronicled of
those that have taken place between heroes and the hounds of evil: but his
astonishment was great to hear the Demon, while Bell was in air and Book
aloft, retreat, shouting, ‘Hold!’
‘I surrender,’ said he sullenly. ‘What terms?’
‘Instantaneous riddance of thee from face of earth.’
‘Good!—Now,’ said the Demon, ‘did you suppose I was to be trapped
into a fight? No doubt you wish to become a saint, and have everybody
talking of my last defeat.... Pictures, poems, processions, with the Devil
downmost! No. You’re more than a match for me.’
‘Silence, Darkness!’ thundered the Monk, ‘and think not to vanquish thy
victor by flatteries. Begone!’
And again he towered in his wrath.
The Demon drew his tail between his legs, and threw the forked, fleshy,
quivering end over his shoulder. He then nodded cheerfully, pointed his
feet, and finicked a few steps away, saying: ‘I hope we shall meet again.’

Upon that he shot out his wings, that were like the fins of the wyver-fish,
sharpened in venomous points.
‘Commands for your people below?’ he inquired, leering with chin awry.
‘Desperate ruffians some of those cowls. You are right not to acknowledge
them.’
Farina beheld the holy man in no mood to let the Enemy tamper with him
longer.
The Demon was influenced by a like reflection; for, saying, ‘Cologne is
the city your Holiness inhabits, I think?’ he shot up rocket-like over
Rhineland, striking the entire length of the stream, and its rough-bearded
castle-crests, slate-ledges, bramble-clefts, vine-slopes, and haunted valleys,
with one brimstone flash. Frankfort and the far Main saw him and
reddened. Ancient Trier and Mosel; Heidelberg and Neckar; Limberg and
Lahn, ran guilty of him. And the swift artery of these shining veins, Rhine,
from his snow cradle to his salt decease, glimmered Stygian horrors as the
Infernal Comet, sprung over Bonn, sparkled a fiery minute along the face of
the stream, and vanished, leaving a seam of ragged flame trailed on the
midnight heavens.
Farina breathed hard through his teeth.
‘The last of him was awful,’ said he, coming forward to where the Monk
knelt and grasped his breviary, ‘but he was vanquished easily.’
‘Easily?’ exclaimed the holy man, gasping satisfaction: ‘thou weakling!
is it for thee to measure difficulties, or estimate powers? Easily? thou
worldling! and so are great deeds judged when the danger’s past! And what
am I but the humble instrument that brought about this wondrous conquest!
the poor tool of this astounding triumph! Shall the sword say, This is the
battle I won! Yonder the enemy I overthrow! Bow to me, ye lords of earth,
and worshippers of mighty acts? Not so! Nay, but the sword is honoured in
the hero’s grasp, and if it break not, it is accounted trusty. This, then, this
little I may claim, that I was trusty! Trusty in a heroic encounter! Trusty in a
battle with earth’s terror! Oh! but this must not be said. This is to think too
much! This is to be more than aught yet achieved by man!’
The holy warrior crossed his arms, and gently bowed his head.
‘Take me to the Sisters,’ he said. ‘The spirit has gone out of me! I am
faint, and as a child!’

Farina asked, and had, his blessing.
‘And with it my thanks!’ said the Monk. ‘Thou hast witnessed how he
can be overcome! Thou hast looked upon a scene that will be the glory of
Christendom! Thou hast beheld the discomfiture of Darkness before the
voice of Light! Yet think not much of me: account me little in this matter! I
am but an instrument! but an instrument!—and again, but an instrument!’
Farina drew the arms of the holy combatant across his shoulders and
descended Drachenfels.
The tempest was as a forgotten anguish. Bright with maiden splendour
shone the moon; and the old rocks, cherished in her beams, put up their
horns to blue heaven once more. All the leafage of the land shook as to
shake off a wicked dream, and shuddered from time to time, whispering of
old fears quieted, and present peace. The heart of the river fondled with the
image of the moon in its depths.
‘This is much to have won for earth,’ murmured the Monk. ‘And what is
life, or who would not risk all, to snatch such loveliness from the talons of
the Fiend, the Arch-foe? Yet, not I! not I! say not, ‘twas I did this!’
Soft praises of melody ascended to them on the moist fragrance of air. It
was the hymn of the Sisters.
‘How sweet!’ murmured the Monk. ‘Put it from me! away with it!’
Rising on Farina’s back, and stirruping his feet on the thighs of the youth,
he cried aloud: ‘I charge ye, whoso ye be, sing not this deed before the
emperor! By the breath of your nostrils; pause! ere ye whisper aught of the
combat of Saint Gregory with Satan, and his victory, and the marvel of it,
while he liveth; for he would die the humble monk he is.’
He resumed his seat, and Farina brought him into the circle of the Sisters.
Those pure women took him, and smoothed him, lamenting, and filling the
night with triumphing tones.
Farina stood apart.
‘The breeze tells of dawn,’ said the Monk; ‘we must be in Cologne before
broad day.’
They mounted horse, and the Sisters grouped and reverenced under the
blessings of the Monk.

‘No word of it!’ said the Monk warningly. ‘We are silent, Father!’ they
answered. ‘Cologne-ward!’ was then his cry, and away he and Farina, flew.

THE GOSHAWK LEADS
Morning was among the grey eastern clouds as they rode upon the camp
hastily formed to meet the Kaiser. All there was in a wallow of confusion.
Fierce struggles for precedence still went on in the neighbourhood of the
imperial tent ground, where, under the standard of Germany, lounged some
veterans of the Kaiser’s guard, calmly watching the scramble. Up to the
edge of the cultivated land nothing was to be seen but brawling clumps of
warriors asserting the superior claims of their respective lords. Variously
and hotly disputed were these claims, as many red coxcombs testified.
Across that point where the green field flourished, not a foot was set, for the
Kaiser’s care of the farmer, and affection for good harvests, made itself
respected even in the heat of those jealous rivalries. It was said of him, that
he would have camped in a bog, or taken quarters in a cathedral, rather than
trample down a green blade of wheat, or turn over one vine-pole in the
empire. Hence the presence of Kaiser Heinrich was never hailed as Egypt’s
plague by the peasantry, but welcome as the May month wherever he went.
Father Gregory and Farina found themselves in the centre of a group ere
they drew rein, and a cry rose, ‘The good father shall decide, and all’s fair,’
followed by, ‘Agreed! Hail and tempest! he’s dropped down o’ purpose.’
‘Father,’ said one, ‘here it is! I say I saw the Devil himself fly off
Drachenfels, and flop into Cologne. Fritz here, and Frankenbauch, saw him
too. They’ll swear to him: so ‘ll I. Hell’s thunder! will we. Yonder fellows
will have it ‘twas a flash o’ lightning, as if I didn’t see him, horns, tail, and
claws, and a mighty sight ‘twas, as I’m a sinner.’
A clash of voices, for the Devil and against him, burst on this accurate
description of the Evil spirit. The Monk sank his neck into his chest.
‘Gladly would I hold silence on this, my sons,’ said he, in a supplicating
voice.
‘Speak, Father,’ cried the first spokesman, gathering courage from the
looks of the Monk.
Father Gregory appeared to commune with himself deeply. At last, lifting
his head, and murmuring, ‘It must be,’ he said aloud:

‘‘Twas verily Satan, O my sons! Him this night in mortal combat I
encountered and overcame on the summit of Drachenfels, before the eyes of
this youth; and from Satan I this night deliver ye! an instrument herein as in
all other.’
Shouts, and a far-spreading buzz resounded in the camp. Hundreds had
now seen Satan flying off the Drachenstein. Father Gregory could no longer
hope to escape from the importunate crowds that beset him for particulars.
The much-contested point now was, as to the exact position of Satan’s tail
during his airy circuit, before descending into Cologne. It lashed like a
lion’s. ‘Twas cocked, for certain! He sneaked it between his legs like a
lurcher! He made it stumpy as a brown bear’s! He carried it upright as a
pike!
‘O my sons! have I sown dissension? Have I not given ye peace?’
exclaimed the Monk.
But they continued to discuss it with increasing frenzy.
Farina cast a glance over the tumult, and beheld his friend Guy
beckoning earnestly. He had no difficulty in getting away to him, as the
fetters of all eyes were on the Monk alone.
The Goshawk was stamping with excitement.
‘Not a moment to be lost, my lad,’ said Guy, catching his arm. ‘Here, I’ve
had half-a-dozen fights already for this bit of ground. Do you know that
fellow squatting there?’
Farina beheld the Thier at the entrance of a tumbledown tent. He was
ruefully rubbing a broken head.
‘Now,’ continued Guy, ‘to mount him is the thing; and then after the
wolves of Werner as fast as horse-flesh can carry us. No questions! Bound,
are you? And what am I? But this is life and death, lad! Hark!’
The Goshawk whispered something that sucked the blood out of Farina’s
cheek.
‘Look you—what’s your lockjaw name? Keep good faith with me, and
you shall have your revenge, and the shiners I promise, besides my lord’s
interest for a better master: but, sharp! we won’t mount till we’re out of
sight o’ the hell-scum you horde with.’
The Thier stood up and staggered after them through the camp. There
was no difficulty in mounting him horses were loose, and scampering about

the country, not yet delivered from their terrors of the last night’s tempest.
‘Here be we, three good men!’ exclaimed Guy, when they were started,
and Farina had hurriedly given him the heads of his adventure with the
Monk. ‘Three good men! One has helped to kick the devil: one has served
an apprenticeship to his limb: and one is ready to meet him foot to foot any
day, which last should be myself. Not a man more do we want, though it
were to fish up that treasure you talk of being under the Rhine there, and
guarded by I don’t know how many tricksy little villains. Horses can be
ferried across at Linz, you say?’
‘Ay, thereabout,’ grunted the Thier.
‘We ‘re on the right road, then!’ said Guy. ‘Thanks to you both, I’ve had
no sleep for two nights—not a wink, and must snatch it going—not the first
time.’
The Goshawk bent his body, and spoke no more. Farina could not get a
word further from him. By the mastery he still had over his rein, the
Goshawk alone proved that he was of the world of the living. Schwartz
Thier, rendered either sullen or stunned by the latest cracked crown he had
received, held his jaws close as if they had been nailed.
At Linz the horses were well breathed. The Goshawk, who had been
snoring an instant before, examined them keenly, and shook his calculating
head.
‘Punch that beast of yours in the ribs,’ said he to Farina. ‘Ah! not a yard
of wind in him. And there’s the coming back, when we shall have more to
carry. Well: this is my lord’s money; but i’ faith, it’s going in a good cause,
and Master Groschen will make it all right, no doubt; not a doubt of it.’
The Goshawk had seen some excellent beasts in the stables of the
Kaiser’s Krone; but the landlord would make no exchange without an
advance of silver. This done, the arrangement was prompt.
‘Schwartz Thier!—I’ve got your name now,’ said Guy, as they were
ferrying across, ‘you’re stiff certain they left Cologne with the maiden
yesternoon, now?’
‘Ah, did they! and she’s at the Eck safe enow by this time.’
‘And away from the Eck this night she shall come, trust me!’
‘Or there will I die with her!’ cried Farina.

‘Fifteen men at most, he has, you said,’ continued Guy.
‘Two not sound, five true as steel, and the rest shillyshally. ‘Slife, one
lock loose serves us; but two saves us: five we’re a match for, throwing in
bluff Baron; the remainder go with victory.’
‘Can we trust this fellow?’ whispered Farina.
‘Trust him!’ roared Guy. ‘Why, I’ve thumped him, lad; pegged and
pardoned him. Trust him? trust me! If Werner catches a sight of that snout
of his within half-a-mile of his hold, he’ll roast him alive.’
He lowered his voice: ‘Trust him? We can do nothing without him. I
knocked the devil out of him early this morning. No chance for his
Highness anywhere now. This Eck of Werner’s would stand a siege from
the Kaiser in person, I hear. We must into it like weasels; and out as we
can.’
Dismissing the ferry-barge with stern injunctions to be in waiting from
noon to noon, the three leapt on their fresh nags.
‘Stop at the first village,’ said Guy; ‘we must lay in provision. As Master
Groschen says, “Nothing’s to be done, Turpin, without provender.”’
‘Goshawk!’ cried Farina; ‘you have time; tell me how this business was
done.’
The only reply was a soft but decided snore, that spoke, like a voluptuous
trumpet, of dreamland and its visions.
At Sinzig, the Thier laid his hand on Guy’s bridle, with the words, ‘Feed
here,’ a brief, but effective, form of signal, which aroused the Goshawk
completely. The sign of the Trauben received them. Here, wurst reeking
with garlic, eggs, black bread, and sour wine, was all they could procure.
Farina refused to eat, and maintained his resolution, in spite of Guy’s
sarcastic chiding.
‘Rub down the beasts, then, and water them,’ said the latter. ‘Made a
vow, I suppose,’ muttered Guy.
‘That’s the way of those fellows. No upright manly take-the-thing-as-it-
comes; but fly-sky-high whenever there’s a dash on their heaven. What has
his belly done to offend him? It will be crying out just when we want all
quiet. I wouldn’t pay Werner such a compliment as go without a breakfast
for him. Not I! Would you, Schwartz Thier?’

‘Henker! not I!’ growled the Thier. ‘He’ll lose one sooner.’
‘First snatch his prey, or he’ll be making, God save us! a meal for a
Kaiser, the brute.’
Guy called in the landlady, clapped down the score, and abused the wine.
‘Sir,’ said the landlady, ‘ours is but a poor inn, and we do our best.’
‘So you do,’ replied the Goshawk, softened; ‘and I say that a civil tongue
and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine.’
The landlady, a summer widow, blushed, and as he was stepping from the
room, called him aside.
‘I thought you were one of that dreadful Werner’s band, and I hate him.’
Guy undeceived her.
‘He took my sister,’ she went on, ‘and his cruelty killed her. He
persecuted me even in the lifetime of my good man. Last night he came
here in the middle of the storm with a young creature bright as an angel,
and sorrowful—’
‘He’s gone, you’re sure?’ broke in Guy.
‘Gone! Oh, yes! Soon as the storm abated he dragged her on. Oh! the
way that young thing looked at me, and I able to do nothing for her.’
‘Now, the Lord bless you for a rosy Christian!’ cried Guy, and, in his
admiration, he flung his arm round her and sealed a ringing kiss on each
cheek.
‘No good man defrauded by that! and let me see the fellow that thinks
evil of it. If I ever told a woman a secret, I ‘d tell you one now, trust me.
But I never do, so farewell! Not another?’
Hasty times keep the feelings in a ferment, and the landlady was
extremely angry with Guy and heartily forgave him, all within a minute.
‘No more,’ said she, laughing: ‘but wait; I have something for you.’
The Goshawk lingered on a fretting heel. She was quickly under his
elbow again with two flasks leaning from her bosom to her arms.
‘There! I seldom meet a man like you; and, when I do, I like to be
remembered. This is a true good wine, real Liebfrauenmilch, which I only
give to choice customers.’
‘Welcome it is!’ sang Guy to her arch looks; ‘but I must pay for it.’

‘Not a pfennig!’ said the landlady.
‘Not one?’
‘Not one!’ she repeated, with a stamp of the foot.
‘In other coin, then,’ quoth Guy; and folding her waist, which did not this
time back away, the favoured Goshawk registered rosy payment on a very
fresh red mouth, receiving in return such lively discount, that he felt himself
bound in conscience to make up the full sum a second time.
‘What a man!’ sighed the landlady, as she watched the Goshawk lead off
along the banks; ‘courtly as a knight, open as a squire, and gentle as a
page!’

WERNER’S ECK
A league behind Andernach, and more in the wintry circle of the sun than
Laach, its convenient monastic neighbour, stood the castle of Werner, the
Robber Baron. Far into the South, hazy with afternoon light, a yellow
succession of sandhills stretched away, spouting fire against the blue sky of
an elder world, but now dead and barren of herbage. Around is a dusty
plain, where the green blades of spring no sooner peep than they become
grimed with sand and take an aged look, in accordance with the ungenerous
harvests they promise. The aridity of the prospect is relieved on one side by
the lofty woods of Laach, through which the sun setting burns golden-red,
and on the other by the silver sparkle of a narrow winding stream, bordered
with poplars, and seen but a glistening mile of its length by all the thirsty
hills. The Eck, or Corner, itself, is thick-set with wood, but of a stunted
growth, and lying like a dark patch on the landscape. It served, however,
entirely to conceal the castle, and mask every movement of the wary and
terrible master. A trained eye advancing on the copse would hardly mark the
glimmer of the turrets over the topmost leaves, but to every loophole of the
walls lies bare the circuit of the land. Werner could rule with a glance the
Rhine’s course down from the broad rock over Coblentz to the white tower
of Andernach. He claimed that march as his right; but the Mosel was no
hard ride’s distance, and he gratified his thirst for rapine chiefly on that
river, delighting in it, consequently, as much as his robber nature boiled
over the bound of his feudal privileges.
Often had the Baron held his own against sieges and restrictions, bans
and impositions of all kinds. He boasted that there was never a knight
within twenty miles of him that he had not beaten, nor monk of the same
limit not in his pay. This braggadocio received some warrant from his
yearly increase of licence; and his craft and his castle combined, made him
a notable pest of the region, a scandal to the abbey whose countenance he
had, and a frightful infliction on the poorer farmers and peasantry.
The sun was beginning to slope over Laach, and threw the shadows of
the abbey towers half-way across the blue lake-waters, as two men in the
garb of husbandmen emerged from the wood. Their feet plunged heavily

and their heads hung down, as they strode beside a wain mounted with
straw, whistling an air of stupid unconcern; but a close listener might have
heard that the lumbering vehicle carried a human voice giving them
directions as to the road they were to take, and what sort of behaviour to
observe under certain events. The land was solitary. A boor passing asked
whether toll or tribute they were conveying to Werner. Tribute, they were
advised to reply, which caused him to shrug and curse as he jogged on.
Hearing him, the voice in the wain chuckled grimly. Their next speech was
with a trooper, who overtook them, and wanted to know what they had in
the wain for Werner. Tribute, they replied, and won the title of ‘brave pigs’
for their trouble.
‘But what’s the dish made of?’ said the trooper, stirring the straw with his
sword-point.
‘Tribute,’ came the answer.
‘Ha! You’ve not been to Werner’s school,’ and the trooper swung a
sword-stroke at the taller of the two, sending a tremendous shudder
throughout his frame; but he held his head to the ground, and only seemed
to betray animal consciousness in leaning his ear closer to the wain.
‘Blood and storm! Will ye speak?’ cried the trooper.
‘Never talk much; but an ye say nothing to the Baron,’—thrusting his
hand into the straw—‘here’s what’s better than speaking.’
‘Well said!—Eh? Liebfrauenmilch? Ho, ho! a rare bleed!’
Striking the neck of the flask on a wheel, the trooper applied it to his
mouth, and ceased not deeply ingurgitating till his face was broad to the sky
and the bottle reversed. He then dashed it down, sighed, and shook himself.
‘Rare news! the Kaiser’s come: he’ll be in Cologne by night; but first he
must see the Baron, and I’m post with the order. That’s to show you how
high he stands in the Kaiser’s grace. Don’t be thinking of upsetting Werner
yet, any of you; mind, now!’
‘That’s Blass-Gesell,’ said the voice in the wain, as the trooper trotted on:
adding, ‘‘gainst us.’
‘Makes six,’ responded the driver.
Within sight of the Eck, they descried another trooper coming toward
them. This time the driver was first to speak.

‘Tribute! Provender! Bread and wine for the high Baron Werner from his
vassals over Tonnistein.’
‘And I’m out of it! fasting like a winter wolf,’ howled the fellow.
He was in the act of addressing himself to an inspection of the wain’s
contents, when a second flask lifted in air, gave a sop to his curiosity. This
flask suffered the fate of the former.
‘A Swabian blockhead, aren’t you?’
‘Ay, that country,’ said the driver. ‘May be, Henker Rothhals happens to
be with the Baron?’
‘To hell with him! I wish he had my job, and I his, of watching the
yellow-bird in her new cage, till she’s taken out to-night, and then a jolly
bumper to the Baron all round.’
The driver wished him a fortunate journey, strongly recommending him
to skirt the abbey westward, and go by the Ahr valley, as there was
something stirring that way, and mumbling, ‘Makes five again,’ as he put
the wheels in motion.
‘Goshawk!’ said his visible companion; ‘what do you say now?’
‘I say, bless that widow!’
‘Oh! bring me face to face with this accursed Werner quickly, my God!’
gasped the youth.
‘Tusk! ‘tis not Werner we want—there’s the Thier speaking. No, no,
Schwartz Thier! I trust you, no doubt; but the badger smells at a hole,
before he goes inside it. We’re strangers, and are allowed to miss our way.’
Leaving the wain in Farina’s charge, he pushed through a dense growth
of shrub and underwood, and came crouching on a precipitous edge of
shrouded crag, which commanded a view of the stronghold, extending
round it, as if scooped clean by some natural action, about a stone’sthrow
distant, and nearly level with the look-out tower. Sheer from a deep circular
basin clothed with wood, and bottomed with grass and bubbling water, rose
a naked moss-stained rock, on whose peak the castle firmly perched, like a
spying hawk. The only means of access was by a narrow natural bridge of
rock flung from this insulated pinnacle across to the mainland. One man,
well disposed, might have held it against forty.

‘Our way’s the best,’ thought Guy, as he meditated every mode of gaining
admission. ‘A hundred men an hour might be lost cutting steps up that steep
slate; and once at the top we should only have to be shoved down again.’
While thus engaged, he heard a summons sounded from the castle, and
scrambled back to Farina.
‘The Thier leads now,’ said he, ‘and who leads is captain. It seems easier
to get out of that than in. There’s a square tower, and a round. I guess the
maiden to be in the round. Now, lad, no crying out—You don’t come in
with us; but back you go for the horses, and have them ready and fresh in
yon watered meadow under the castle. The path down winds easy.’
‘Man!’ cried Farina, ‘what do you take me for?—go you for the horses.’
‘Not for a fool,’ Guy rejoined, tightening his lip; ‘but now is your time to
prove yourself one.’
‘With you, or without you, I enter that castle!’
‘Oh! if you want to be served up hot for the Baron’s supper-mess, by all
means.’
‘Thunder!’ growled Schwartz Thier, ‘aren’t ye moving?’
The Goshawk beckoned Farina aside.
‘Act as I tell you, or I’m for Cologne.’
‘Traitor!’ muttered the youth.
‘Swearing this, that if we fail, the Baron shall need a leech sooner than a
bride.’
‘That stroke must be mine!’
The Goshawk griped the muscle of Farina’s arm till the youth was
compelled to slacken it with pain.
‘Could you drive a knife through a six-inch wood-wall? I doubt this wild
boar wants a harder hit than many a best man could give. ‘Sblood! obey,
sirrah. How shall we keep yon fellow true, if he sees we’re at points?’
‘I yield,’ exclaimed Farina with a fall of the chest; ‘but hear I nothing of
you by midnight—Oh! then think not I shall leave another minute to
chance. Farewell! haste! Heaven prosper you! You will see her, and die
under her eyes. That may be denied to me. What have I done to be refused
that last boon?’
‘Gone without breakfast and dinner,’ said Guy in abhorrent tones.

A whistle from the wain, following a noise of the castlegates being flung
open, called the Goshawk away, and he slouched his shoulders and strode to
do his part, without another word. Farina gazed after him, and dropped into
the covert.

THE WATER-LADY
‘Bird of lovers! Voice of the passion of love! Sweet, deep, disaster-toning
nightingale!’ sings the old minnesinger; ‘who that has not loved, hearing
thee is touched with the wand of love’s mysteries, and yearneth to he
knoweth not whom, humbled by overfulness of heart; but who, listening,
already loveth, heareth the language he would speak, yet faileth in; feeleth
the great tongueless sea of his infinite desires stirred beyond his narrow
bosom; is as one stript of wings whom the angels beckon to their silver
homes: and he leaneth forward to ascend to them, and is mocked by his
effort: then is he of the fallen, and of the fallen would he remain, but that
tears lighten him, and through the tears stream jewelled shafts dropt down
to him from the sky, precious ladders inlaid with amethyst, sapphire,
blended jasper, beryl, rose-ruby, ether of heaven flushed with softened
bloom of the insufferable Presences: and lo, the ladders dance, and quiver,
and waylay his eyelids, and a second time he is mocked, aspiring: and after
the third swoon standeth Hope before him with folded arms, and eyes dry of
the delusions of tears, saying, Thou hast seen! thou hast felt! thy strength
hath reached in thee so far! now shall I never die in thee!’
‘For surely,’ says the minstrel, ‘Hope is not born of earth, or it were
perishable. Rather know her the offspring of that embrace strong love
straineth the heavens with. This owe we to thy music, bridal nightingale!
And the difference of this celestial spirit from the smirking phantasy of
whom all stand soon or late forsaken, is the difference between painted day
with its poor ambitious snares, and night lifting its myriad tapers round the
throne of the eternal, the prophet stars of everlasting time! And the one
dieth, and the other liveth; and the one is unregretted, and the other walketh
in thought-spun raiment of divine melancholy; her ears crowded with the
pale surges that wrap this shifting shore; in her eyes a shape of beauty
floating dimly, that she will not attain this side the water, but broodeth on
evermore.
‘Therefore, hold on thy cherished four long notes, which are as the very
edge where exultation and anguish melt, meet, and are sharpened to one
ecstasy, death-dividing bird! Fill the woods with passionate chuckle and

sob, sweet chaplain of the marriage service of a soul with heaven! Pour out
thy holy wine of song upon the soft-footed darkness, till, like a priest of the
inmost temple, ‘tis drunken with fair intelligences!’
Thus the old minstrels and minnesingers.
Strong and full sang the nightingales that night Farina held watch by the
guilty castle that entombed his living beloved. The castle looked itself a
denser shade among the moonthrown shadows of rock and tree. The
meadow spread like a green courtyard at the castle’s foot. It was of lush
deep emerald grass, softly mixed with grey in the moon’s light, and
showing like jasper. Where the shadows fell thickest, there was yet a mist of
colour. All about ran a brook, and babbled to itself. The spring crocus lifted
its head in moist midgrasses of the meadow, rejoiced with freshness. The
rugged heights seemed to clasp this one innocent spot as their only garden-
treasure; and a bank of hazels hid it from the castle with a lover’s arm.
‘The moon will tell me,’ mused Farina; ‘the moon will signal me the
hour! When the moon hangs over the round tower, I shall know ‘tis time to
strike.’
The song of the nightingales was a full unceasing throb.
It went like the outcry of one heart from branch to branch. The four long
notes, and the short fifth which leads off to that hurried gush of music,
gurgling rich with passion, came thick and constant from under the
tremulous leaves.
At first Farina had been deaf to them. His heart was in the dungeon with
Margarita, or with the Goshawk in his dangers, forming a thousand
desperate plans, among the red-hot ploughshares of desperate action.
Finally, without a sense of being wooed, it was won. The tenderness of his
love then mastered him.
‘God will not suffer that fair head to come to harm!’ he thought, and with
the thought a load fell off his breast.
He paced the meadows, and patted the three pasturing steeds.
Involuntarily his sight grew on the moon. She went so slowly. She seemed
not to move at all. A little wing of vapour flew toward her; it whitened,
passed, and the moon was slower than before. Oh! were the heavens
delaying their march to look on this iniquity? Again and again he cried,
‘Patience, it is not time!’ He flung himself on the grass. The next moment

he climbed the heights, and was peering at the mass of gloom that fronted
the sky. It reared such a mailed head of menace, that his heart was seized
with a quivering, as though it had been struck. Behind lay scattered some
small faint-winkling stars on sapphire fields, and a stain of yellow light was
in a breach of one wall.
He descended. What was the Goshawk doing? Was he betrayed? It was
surely now time? No; the moon had not yet smitten the face of the castle.
He made his way through the hazel-bank among flitting nightmoths, and
glanced up to measure the moon’s distance. As he did so, a first touch of
silver fell on the hoary flint.
‘Oh, young bird of heaven in that Devil’s clutch!’
Sounds like the baying of boar-hounds alarmed him. They whined into
silence.
He fell back. The meadow breathed peace, and more and more the
nightingales volumed their notes. As in a charmed circle of palpitating song,
he succumbed to languor. The brook rolled beside him fresh as an infant,
toying with the moonlight. He leaned over it, and thrice waywardly dipped
his hand in the clear translucence.
Was it his own face imaged there?
Farina bent close above an eddy of the water. It whirled with a strange
tumult, breaking into lines and lights a face not his own, nor the moon’s;
nor was it a reflection. The agitation increased. Now a wreath of bubbles
crowned the pool, and a pure water-lily, but larger, ascended wavering.
He started aside; and under him a bright head, garlanded with gemmed
roses, appeared. No fairer figure of woman had Farina seen. Her visage had
the lustrous white of moonlight, and all her shape undulated in a dress of
flashing silver-white, wonderful to see. The Lady of the Water smiled on
him, and ran over with ripples and dimples of limpid beauty. Then, as he
retreated on the meadow grass, she swam toward him, and taking his hand,
pressed it to her. After her touch the youth no longer feared. She curved her
finger, and beckoned him on. All that she did was done flowingly. The
youth was a shadow in her silver track as she passed like a harmless wave
over the closed crocuses; but the crocuses shivered and swelled their throats
of streaked purple and argent as at delicious rare sips of a wine. Breath of
violet, and ladysmock, and valley-lily, mingled and fluttered about her.
Farina was as a man working the day’s intent in a dream. He could see the

heart in her translucent, hanging like a cold dingy ruby. By the purity of his
nature he felt that such a presence must have come but to help. It might be
Margarita’s guardian fairy!
They passed the hazel-bank, and rounded the castlecrag, washed by the
brook and, beneath the advancing moon, standing in a ring of brawling
silver. The youth with his fervid eyes marked the old weather-stains and
scars of long defiance coming into colour. That mystery of wickedness
which the towers had worn in the dusk, was dissolved, and he endured no
more the almost abashed sensation of competing littleness that made him
think there was nought to do, save die, combating single-handed such
massive power. The moon shone calmly superior, like the prowess of
maiden knights; and now the harsh frown of the walls struck resolution to
his spirit, and nerved him with hate and the contempt true courage feels
when matched against fraud and villany.
On a fallen block of slate, cushioned with rich brown moss and rusted
weather-stains, the Water-Lady sat, and pointed to Farina the path of the
moon toward the round tower. She did not speak, and if his lips parted, put
her cold finger across them. Then she began to hum a soft sweet monotony
of song, vague and careless, very witching to hear. Farina caught no words,
nor whether the song was of days in dust or in flower, but his mind bloomed
with legends and sad splendours of story, while she sang on the slate-block
under sprinkled shadows by the water.
He had listened long in trance, when the Water-Lady hushed, and
stretched forth a slender forefinger to the moon. It stood like a dot over the
round tower. Farina rose in haste. She did not leave him to ask her aid, but
took his hand and led him up the steep ascent. Halfway to the castle, she
rested. There, concealed by bramble-tufts, she disclosed the low portal of a
secret passage, and pushed it open without effort. She paused at the
entrance, and he could see her trembling, seeming to wax taller, till she was
like a fountain glittering in the cold light. Then she dropped, as drops a
dying bet, and cowered into the passage.
Darkness, thick with earth-dews, oppressed his senses. He felt the
clammy walls scraping close on him. Not the dimmest lamp, or guiding
sound, was near; but the lady went on as one who knew her way. Passing a
low-vaulted dungeon-room, they wound up stairs hewn in the rock, and
came to a door, obedient to her touch, which displayed a chamber faintly

misted by a solitary bar of moonlight. Farina perceived they were above the
foundation of the castle. The walls gleamed pale with knightly harness,
habergeons gaping for heads, breastplates of blue steel, halbert, and hand-
axe, greaves, glaives, boar-spears, and polished spur-fixed heel-pieces. He
seized a falchion hanging apart, but the lady stayed his arm, and led to
another flight of stone ending in a kind of corridor. Noises of laughter and
high feasting beset him at this point. The Lady of the Water sidled her head,
as to note a familiar voice; and then drew him to a looped aperture.
Farina beheld a scene that first dazzled, but, as it grew into shape, sank
him with dismay. Below, and level with the chamber he had left, a rude
banqueting-hall glowed, under the light of a dozen flambeaux, with
smoking boar’s flesh, deer’s flesh, stone-flagons, and horn-beakers. At the
head of this board sat Werner, scarlet with furious feasting, and on his right
hand, Margarita, bloodless as a beautiful martyr bound to the fire. Retainers
of Werner occupied the length of the hall, chorusing the Baron’s speeches,
and drinking their own healths when there was no call for another. Farina
saw his beloved alone. She was dressed as when he parted with her last. The
dear cameo lay on her bosom, but not heaving proudly as of old. Her
shoulders were drooped forward, and contracted her bosom in its heaving.
She would have had a humbled look, but for the marble sternness of her
eyes. They were fixed as eyes that see the way of death through all earthly
objects.
‘Now, dogs!’ cried the Baron, ‘the health of the night! and swell your
lungs, for I’ll have no cat’s cry when Werner’s bride is the toast. Monk or
no monk’s leave, she’s mine. Ay, my pretty one! it shall be made right in the
morning, if I lead all the Laach rats here by the nose. Thunder! no
disrespect to Werner’s bride from Pope or abbot. Now, sing out!—or wait!
these fellows shall drink it first.’
He stretched and threw a beaker of wine right and left behind him, and
Farina’s despair stiffened his limbs as he recognized the Goshawk and
Schwartz Thier strapped to the floor. Their beards were already moist with
previous libations similarly bestowed, and they received this in sullen
stillness; but Farina thought he observed a rapid glance of encouragement
dart from beneath the Goshawk’s bent brows, as Margarita momentarily
turned her head half-way on him.

‘Lick your chaps, ye beasts, and don’t say Werner stints vermin good
cheer his nuptial-night. Now,’ continued the Baron, growing huskier as he
talked louder: ‘Short and ringing, my devil’s pups:—Werner and his Bride!
and may she soon give you a young baron to keep you in better order than I
can, as, if she does her duty, she will.’
The Baron stood up, and lifted his huge arm to lead the toast.
‘Werner and his Bride!’
Not a voice followed him. There was a sudden intimation of the call
being echoed; but it snapped, and ended in shuffling tones, as if the hall-
door had closed on the response.
‘What ‘s this?’ roared the Baron, in that caged wild beast voice Margarita
remembered she had heard in the Cathedral Square.
No one replied.
‘Speak! or I’ll rot you a fathom in the rock, curs!’
‘Herr Baron!’ said Henker Rothhals impressively; ‘the matter is, that
there’s something unholy among us.’
The Baron’s goblet flew at his head before the words were uttered.
‘I’ll make an unholy thing of him that says it,’ and Werner lowered at
them one by one.
‘Then I say it, Herr Baron!’ pursued Henker Rothhals, wiping his
frontispiece: ‘The Devil has turned against you at last. Look up there—Ah,
it’s gone now; but where’s the man sitting this side saw it not?’
The Baron made one spring, and stood on the board.
‘Now! will any rascal here please to say so?’
Something in the cruel hang of his threatening hatchet jaw silenced many
in the act of confirming the assertion.
‘Stand out, Henker Rotthals!’
Rotthals slid a hunting-knife up his wrist, and stepped back from the
board.
‘Beast!’ roared the Baron, ‘I said I wouldn’t shed blood to-night. I spared
a traitor, and an enemy——’
‘Look again!’ said Rothhals; ‘will any fellow say he saw nothing there.’

While all heads, including Werner’s, were directed to the aperture which
surveyed them, Rothhals tossed his knife to the Goshawk unperceived.
This time answers came to his challenge, but not in confirmation. The
Baron spoke with a gasping gentleness.
‘So you trifle with me? I’m dangerous for that game. Mind you of Blass-
Gesell? I made a better beast of him by sending him three-quarters of the
road to hell for trial.’ Bellowing, ‘Take that!’ he discharged a broad blade,
hitherto concealed in his right hand, straight at Rothhals. It fixed in his
cheek and jaw, wringing an awful breath of pain from him as he fell against
the wall.
‘There’s a lesson for you not to cross me, children!’ said Werner, striding
his stumpy legs up and down the crashing board, and puffing his monstrous
girth of chest and midriff. ‘Let him stop there awhile, to show what comes
of thwarting Werner!—Fire-devils! before the baroness, too!—Something
unholy is there? Something unholy in his jaw, I think!—Leave it sticking!
He’s against meat last, is he? I’ll teach you who he’s for!—Who speaks?’
All hung silent. These men were animals dominated by a mightier brute.
He clasped his throat, and shook the board with a jump, as he squeaked,
rather than called, a second time ‘Who spoke?’
He had not again to ask. In this pause, as the Baron glared for his victim,
a song, so softly sung that it sounded remote, but of which every syllable
was clearly rounded, swelled into his ears, and froze him in his angry
posture.

‘The blood of the barons shall turn to ice,
And their castle fall to wreck,
When a true lover dips in the water thrice,
That runs round Werner’s Eck.

‘Round Werner’s Eck the water runs;
The hazels shiver and shake:
The walls that have blotted such happy suns,
Are seized with the ruin-quake.

‘And quake with the ruin, and quake with rue,
Thou last of Werner’s race!
The hearts of the barons were cold that knew
The Water-Dame’s embrace.

‘For a sin was done, and a shame was wrought,
That water went to hide:
And those who thought to make it nought,
They did but spread it wide.

‘Hold ready, hold ready to pay the price,
And keep thy bridal cheer:
A hand has dipped in the water thrice,
And the Water-Dame is here.’

THE RESCUE
The Goshawk was on his feet. ‘Now, lass,’ said he to Margarita, ‘now is
the time!’ He took her hand, and led her to the door. Schwartz Thier closed
up behind her. Not a man in the hall interposed. Werner’s head moved
round after them, like a dog on the watch; but he was dumb. The door
opened, and Farina entered. He bore a sheaf of weapons under his arm. The
familiar sight relieved Werner’s senses from the charm. He shouted to bar
the prisoners’ passage. His men were ranged like statues in the hall. There
was a start among them, as if that terrible noise communicated an instinct of
obedience, but no more. They glanced at each other, and remained quiet.
The Goshawk had his eye on Werner. ‘Stand back, lass!’ he said to
Margarita. She took a sword from Farina, and answered, with white lips and
flashing eyes, ‘I can fight, Goshawk!’
‘And shall, if need be; but leave it to me now, returned Guy.
His eye never left the Baron. Suddenly a shriek of steel rang. All fell
aside, and the combatants stood opposed on clear ground. Farina, took
Margarita’s left hand, and placed her against the wall between the Thier and
himself. Werner’s men were well content to let their master fight it out. The
words spoken by Henker Rothhals, that the Devil had forsaken him, seemed
in their minds confirmed by the weird song which every one present could
swear he heard with his ears. ‘Let him take his chance, and try his own
luck,’ they said, and shrugged. The battle was between Guy, as Margarita’s
champion, and Werner.
In Schwartz Thier’s judgement, the two were well matched, and he
estimated their diverse qualities from sharp experience. ‘For short work the
Baron, and my new mate for tough standing to ‘t!’ Farina’s summary in
favour of the Goshawk was, ‘A stouter heart, harder sinews, and a good
cause. The combat was generally regarded with a professional eye, and few
prayers. Margarita solely there asked aid from above, and knelt to the
Virgin; but her, too, the clash of arms and dire earnest of mortal fight
aroused to eager eyes. She had not dallied with heroes in her dreams. She

was as ready to second Siegfried on the crimson field as tend him in the
silken chamber.
It was well that a woman’s heart was there to mark the grace and glory of
manhood in upright foot-to-foot encounter. For the others, it was a mere
calculation of lucky hits. Even Farina, in his anxiety for her, saw but the
brightening and darkening of the prospect of escape in every attitude and
hard-ringing blow. Margarita was possessed with a painful exaltation. In her
eyes the bestial Baron now took a nobler form and countenance; but the
Goshawk assumed the sovereign aspect of old heroes, who, whether
persecuted or favoured of heaven, still maintained their stand, remembering
of what stuff they were, and who made them.
‘Never,’ say the old writers, with a fervour honourable to their knowledge
of the elements that compose our being, ‘never may this bright privilege of
fair fight depart from us, nor advantage of it fail to be taken! Man against
man, or beast, singly keeping his ground, is as fine rapture to the breast as
Beauty in her softest hour affordeth. For if woman taketh loveliness to her
when she languisheth, so surely doth man in these fierce moods, when steel
and iron sparkle opposed, and their breath is fire, and their lips white with
the lock of resolution; all their faculties knotted to a point, and their
energies alive as the daylight to prove themselves superior, according to the
laws and under the blessing of chivalry.’
‘For all,’ they go on to improve the comparison, ‘may admire and delight
in fair blossoming dales under the blue dome of peace; but ‘tis the rare lofty
heart alone comprehendeth, and is heightened by, terrific splendours of
tempest, when cloud meets cloud in skies black as the sepulchre, and Glory
sits like a flame on the helm of Ruin’
For a while the combatants aired their dexterity, contenting themselves
with cunning cuts and flicks of the sword-edge, in which Werner first drew
blood by a keen sweep along the forehead of the Goshawk. Guy had
allowed him to keep his position on the board, and still fought at his face
and neck. He now jerked back his body from the hip, and swung a round
stroke at Werner’s knee, sending him in retreat with a snort of pain. Before
the Baron could make good his ground, Guy was level with him on the
board.
Werner turned an upbraiding howl at his men. They were not disposed to
second him yet. They one and all approved his personal battle with Fate,

and never more admired him and felt his power; but the affair was exciting,
and they were not the pillars to prop a falling house.
Werner clenched his two hands to his ponderous glaive, and fell upon
Guy with heavier fury. He was becoming not unworth the little womanly
appreciation Margarita was brought to bestow on him. The voice of the
Water-Lady whispered at her heart that the Baron warred on his destiny, and
that ennobles all living souls.
Bare-headed the combatants engaged, and the headpiece was the chief
point of attack. No swerving from blows was possible for either: ward, or
take; a false step would have ensured defeat. This also induced caution.
Many a double stamp of the foot was heard, as each had to retire in turn.
‘Not at his head so much, he’ll bear battering there all night long,’ said
Henker Rothhals in a breathing interval. Knocks had been pretty equally
exchanged, but the Baron’s head certainly looked the least vulnerable,
whereas Guy exhibited several dints that streamed freely. Yet he looked, eye
and bearing, as fresh as when they began, and the calm, regular heave of his
chest contrasted with Werner’s quick gasps. His smile, too, renewed each
time the Baron paused for breath, gave Margarita heart. It was not a
taunting smile, but one of entire confidence, and told all the more on his
adversary. As Werner led off again, and the choice was always left him,
every expression of the Goshawk’s face passed to full light in his broad
eyes.
The Baron’s play was a reckless fury. There was nothing to study in it.
Guy became the chief object of speculation. He was evidently trying to
wind his man.
He struck wildly, some thought. Others judged that he was a random
hitter, and had no mortal point in aim. Schwartz Thier’s opinion was
frequently vented. ‘Too round a stroke—down on him! Chop-not slice!’
Guy persevered in his own fashion. According to Schwartz Thier, he
brought down by his wilfulness the blow that took him on the left shoulder,
and nigh broke him. It was a weighty blow, followed by a thump of sound.
The sword-edge swerved on his shoulder-blade, or he must have been
disabled. But Werner’s crow was short, and he had no time to push success.
One of the Goshawk’s swooping under-hits half severed his right wrist, and
the blood spirted across the board. He gasped and seemed to succumb, but
held to it still, though with slackened force. Guy now attacked. Holding to

his round strokes, he accustomed Werner to guard the body, and stood to it
so briskly right and left, that Werner grew bewildered, lost his caution, and
gave ground. Suddenly the Goshawk’s glaive flashed in air, and chopped
sheer down on Werner’s head. So shrewd a blow it was against a half-
formed defence, that the Baron dropped without a word right on the edge of
the board, and there hung, feebly grasping with his fingers.
‘Who bars the way now?’ sang out Guy.
No one accepted the challenge. Success clothed him with terrors, and
gave him giant size.
‘Then fare you well, my merry men all,’ said Guy. ‘Bear me no ill-will
for this. A little doctoring will right the bold Baron.’
He strode jauntily to the verge of the board, and held his finger for
Margarita to follow. She stepped forward. The men put their beards
together, muttering. She could not advance. Farina doubled his elbow, and
presented sword-point. Three of the ruffians now disputed the way with
bare steel. Margarita looked at the Goshawk. He was smiling calmly
curious as he leaned over his sword, and gave her an encouraging nod. She
made another step in defiance. One fellow stretched his hand to arrest her.
All her maidenly pride stood up at once. ‘What a glorious girl!’ murmured
the Goshawk, as he saw her face suddenly flash, and she retreated a pace
and swung a sharp cut across the knuckles of her assailant, daring him, or
one of them, with hard, bright eyes, beautifully vindictive, to lay hand on a
pure maiden.
‘You have it, Barenleib!’ cried the others, and then to Margarita: ‘Look,
young mistress! we are poor fellows, and ask a trifle of ransom, and then
part friends.’
‘Not an ace!’ the Goshawk pronounced from his post.
‘Two to one, remember.’
‘The odds are ours,’ replied the Goshawk confidently.
They ranged themselves in front of the hall-door. Instead of accepting
this challenge, Guy stepped to Werner, and laid his moaning foe length-wise
in an easier posture. He then lifted Margarita on the board, and summoned
them with cry of ‘Free passage!’ They answered by a sullen shrug and taunt.
‘Schwartz Thier! Rothhals! Farina! buckle up, and make ready then,’
sang Guy.

He measured the length, of his sword, and raised it. The Goshawk had
not underrated his enemies. He was tempted to despise them when he
marked their gradually lengthening chaps and eyeballs.
Not one of them moved. All gazed at him as if their marrows were
freezing with horror.
‘What’s this?’ cried Guy.
They knew as little as he, but a force was behind them irresistible against
their efforts. The groaning oak slipped open, pushing them forward, and an
apparition glided past, soft as the pallid silver of the moon. She slid to the
Baron, and put her arms about him, and sang to him. Had the Water-Lady
laid an iron hand on all those ruffians, she could not have held them faster
bound than did the fear of her presence. The Goshawk drew his fair charge
through them, followed by Farina, the Thier, and Rothhals. A last glimpse
of the hall showed them still as old cathedral sculpture staring at white light
on a fluted pillar of the wall.

THE PASSAGE OF THE RHINE
Low among the swarthy sandhills behind the Abbey of Laach dropped
the round red moon. Soft lengths of misty yellow stole through the glens of
Rhineland. The nightingales still sang. Closer and closer the moon came
into the hushed valleys.
There is a dell behind Hammerstein Castle, a ring of basking sward,
girdled by a silver slate-brook, and guarded by four high-peaked hills that
slope down four long wooded corners to the grassy base. Here, it is said, the
elves and earthmen play, dancing in circles with laughing feet that fatten the
mushroom. They would have been fulfilling the tradition now, but that the
place was occupied by a sturdy group of mortals, armed with staves. The
intruders were sleepy, and lay about on the inclines. Now and then two got
up, and there rang hard echoes of oak. Again all were calm as cud-chewing
cattle, and the white water ran pleased with quiet.
It may be that the elves brewed mischief among them; for the oaken
blows were becoming more frequent. One complained of a kick: another
demanded satisfaction for a pinch. ‘Go to,’ drawled the accused drowsily in
both cases, ‘too much beer last night!’ Within three minutes, the company
counted a pair of broken heads. The East was winning on the West in
heaven, and the dusk was thinning. They began to mark, each, whom he had
cudgelled. A noise of something swiftly in motion made them alert. A
roebuck rushed down one of the hills, and scampered across the sward. The
fine beast went stretching so rapidly away as to be hardly distinct.
‘Sathanas once more!’ they murmured, and drew together.
The name passed through them like a watchword.
‘Not he this time,’ cried the two new-comers, emerging from the foliage.
‘He’s safe under Cologne—the worse for all good men who live there! But
come! follow to the Rhine! there ‘s work for us on the yonder side, and
sharp work.’
‘Why,’ answered several, ‘we ‘ve our challenge with the lads of
Leutesdorf and Wied to-day.’

‘D’ ye see this?’ said the foremost of the others, pointing to a carved
ivory white rose in his cap.
‘Brothers!’ he swelled his voice, ‘follow with a will, for the White Rose
is in danger!’
Immediately they ranked, and followed zealously through the buds of
young bushes, and over heaps of damp dead leaves, a half-hour’s scramble,
when they defiled under Hammerstein, and stood before the Rhine. Their
leader led up the river, and after a hasty walk, stopped, loosened his hood,
and stripped.
‘Now,’ said he, strapping the bundle to his back, ‘let me know the hound
that refuses to follow his leader when the White Rose is in danger.’
‘Long live Dietrich!’ they shouted. He dropped from the bank, and waded
in. He was soon supported by the remainder of the striplings, and all struck
out boldly into mid-stream.
Never heard history of a nobler Passage of the Rhine than this made
between Andernach and Hammerstein by members of the White Rose Club,
bundle on back, to relieve the White Rose of Germany from thrall and
shame!
They were taken far down by the rapid current, and arrived panting to
land. The dressing done, they marched up the pass of Tonnistein, and took a
deep draught at the spring of pleasant waters there open to wayfarers.
Arrived at the skirts of Laach, they beheld two farmer peasants lashed back
to back against a hazel. They released them, but could gain no word of
information, as the fellows, after a yawn and a wink, started off, all heels, to
make sure of liberty. On the shores of the lake the brotherhood descried a
body of youths, whom they hailed, and were welcomed to companionship.
‘Where’s Berthold?’ asked Dietrich.
He was not present.
‘The more glory for us, then,’ Dietrich said.
It was here seriously put to the captain, whether they should not halt at
the abbey, and reflect, seeing that great work was in prospect.
‘Truly,’ quoth Dietrich, ‘dying on an empty stomach is heathenish, and
cold blood makes a green wound gape. Kaiser Conrad should be hospitable,
and the monks honour numbers. Here be we, thirty and nine; let us go!’

The West was dark blue with fallen light. The lakewaters were growing
grey with twilight. The abbey stood muffled in shadows. Already the youths
had commenced battering at the convent doors, when they were summoned
by the voice of the Goshawk on horseback. To their confusion they beheld
the White Rose herself on his right hand. Chapfallen Dietrich bowed to his
sweet mistress.
‘We were coming to the rescue,’ he stammered.
A laugh broke from the Goshawk. ‘You thought the lady was locked up
in the ghostly larder; eh!’
Dietrich seized his sword, and tightened his belt.
‘The Club allows no jesting with the White Rose, Sir Stranger.’
Margarita made peace. ‘I thank you all, good friends. But quarrel not, I
pray you, with them that save me at the risk of their lives.’
‘Our service is equal,’ said the Goshawk, flourishing, ‘Only we happen to
be beforehand with the Club, for which Farina and myself heartily beg
pardon of the entire brotherhood.’
‘Farina!’ exclaimed Dietrich. ‘Then we make a prisoner instead of
uncaging a captive.’
‘What ‘s this?’ said Guy.
‘So much,’ responded Dietrich. ‘Yonder’s a runaway from two masters:
the law of Cologne, and the conqueror of Satan; and all good citizens are
empowered to bring him back, dead or alive.’
‘Dietrich! Dietrich! dare you talk thus of the man who saved me?’ cried
Margarita.
Dietrich sullenly persisted.
‘Then, look!’ said the White Rose, reddening under the pale dawn; ‘he
shall not, he shall not go with you.’
One of the Club was here on the point of speaking to the White Rose,—a
breach of the captain’s privilege. Dietrich felled him unresisting to earth,
and resumed:
‘It must be done, Beauty of Cologne! the monk, Father Gregory, is now
enduring shame and scorn for lack of this truant witness.’
‘Enough! I go!’ said Farina.

‘You leave me?’ Margarita looked tender reproach. Weariness and fierce
excitement had given a liquid flame to her eyes and an endearing darkness
round their circles that matched strangely with her plump youth. Her
features had a soft white flush. She was less radiant, but never looked so
bewitching. An aspect of sweet human languor caught at the heart of love,
and raised tumults.
‘It is a duty,’ said Farina.
‘Then go,’ she beckoned, and held her hand for him to kiss. He raised it
to his lips. This was seen of all the Club.
As they were departing with Farina, and Guy prepared to demand
admittance into the convent, Dietrich chanced to ask how fared Dame
Lisbeth. Schwartz Thier was by, and answered, with a laugh, that he had
quite forgotten the little lady.
‘We took her in mistake for you, mistress! She was a one to scream! The
moment she was kissed—mum as a cloister. We kissed her, all of us, for the
fun of it. No harm—no harm! We should have dropped her when we found
we had the old bird ‘stead of the young one, but reckoned ransom, ye see.
She’s at the Eck, rattling, I’s wager, like last year’s nut in the shell!’
‘Lisbeth! Lisbeth! poor Lisbeth; we will return to her. Instantly,’ cried
Margarita.
‘Not you,’ said Guy.
‘Yes! I!’
‘No!’ said Guy.
‘Gallant Goshawk! best of birds, let me go!’
‘Without me or Farina, never! I see I shall have no chance with my lord
now. Come, then, come, fair Irresistible! come, lads. Farina can journey
back alone. You shall have the renown of rescuing Dame Lisbeth.’
‘Farina! forget not to comfort my father,’ said Margarita.
Between Margarita’s society and Farina’s, there was little dispute in the
captain’s mind which choice to make. Farina was allowed to travel single to
Cologne; and Dietrich, petted by Margarita, and gently jeered by Guy,
headed the Club from Laach waters to the castle of the Robber Baron.

THE BACK-BLOWS OF SATHANAS
Monk Gregory was pacing the high road between the Imperial camp and
suffering Cologne. The sun had risen through interminable distances of
cloud that held him remote in a succession of receding mounds and thinner
veils, realm beyond realm, till he showed fireless, like a phantom king in a
phantom land. The lark was in the breast of morning. The field-mouse ran
along the furrows. Dews hung red and grey on the weedy banks and
wayside trees. At times the nostril of the good father was lifted, and he beat
his breast, relapsing into sorrowful contemplation. Passed-any citizen of
Cologne, the ghostly head sunk into its cowl. ‘There’s a black raven!’ said
many. Monk Gregory heard them, and murmured, ‘Thou hast me, Evil one!
thou hast me!’
It was noon when Farina came clattering down from the camp.
‘Father,’ said he, ‘I have sought thee.’
‘My son!’ exclaimed Monk Gregory with silencing hand, ‘thou didst not
well to leave me contending against the tongues of doubt. Answer me not.
The maiden! and what weighed she in such a scale?—No more! I am
punished. Well speaks the ancient proverb:

“Beware the back-blows of Sathanas!”

I, that thought to have vanquished him! Vanity has wrecked me, in this
world and the next. I am the victim of self-incense. I hear the demons
shouting their chorus—“Here comes Monk Gregory, who called himself
Conqueror of Darkness!” In the camp I am discredited and a scoff; in the
city I am spat upon, abhorred. Satan, my son, fights not with his fore-claws.
‘Tis with his tail he fights, O Farina!—Listen, my son! he entered to his
kingdom below through Cologne, even under the stones of the Cathedral
Square, and the stench of him abominably remaineth, challenging the
nostrils of holy and unholy alike. The Kaiser cannot approach for him; the
citizens are outraged. Oh! had I held my peace in humbleness, I had truly
conquered him. But he gave me easy victory, to inflate me. I shall not last.

Now this only is left, my son; that thou bear living testimony to the truth of
my statement, as I bear it to the folly!’
Farina promised, in the face of all, he would proclaim and witness to his
victory on Drachenfels.
‘That I may not be ranked an impostor!’ continued the Monk. ‘And how
great must be the virtue of them that encounter that dark spirit! Valour
availeth nought. But if virtue be not in’ ye, soon will ye be puffed to
bursting with that devil’s poison, self-incense. Surely, my son, thou art
faithful; and for this service I can reward thee. Follow me yet again.’
On the road they met Gottlieb Groschen, hastening to the camp. Dismay
rumpled the old merchant’s honest jowl. Farina drew rein before him.
‘Your daughter is safe, worthy Master Groschen,’ said he.
‘Safe?’ cried Gottlieb; ‘where is she, my Grete?’
Farina briefly explained. Gottlieb spread out his arms, and was going to
thank the youth. He saw Father Gregory, and his whole frame narrowed
with disgust.
‘Are you in company with that pestilent animal, that curse of Cologne!’
‘The good Monk—,’ said Farina.
‘You are leagued with him, then, sirrah! Expect no thanks from me.
Cologne, I say, is cursed! Meddling wretches! could ye not leave Satan
alone? He hurt us not. We were free of him. Cologne, I say, is cursed! The
enemy of mankind is brought by you to be the deadly foe of Cologne.’
So saying, Gottlieb departed.
‘Seest thou, my son,’ quoth the Monk, ‘they reason not!’
Farina was dejected. Willingly would he, for his part, have left the soul of
Evil a loose rover for the sake of some brighter horizon to his hope.
No twinge of remorse accompanied Gottlieb. The Kaiser had allotted him
an encampment and a guard of honour for his household while the foulness
raged, and there Gottlieb welcomed back Margarita and Aunt Lisbeth on the
noon after his meeting with Farina. The White Rose had rested at Laach,
and was blooming again. She and the Goshawk came trotting in advance of
the Club through the woods of Laach, startling the deer with laughter, and
sending the hare with her ears laid back all across country. In vain Dietrich
menaced Guy with the terrors of the Club: Aunt Lisbeth begged of

Margarita not to leave her with the footmen in vain. The joyous couple
galloped over the country, and sprang the ditches, and leapt the dykes, up
and down the banks, glad as morning hawks, entering Andernach at a round
pace; where they rested at a hostel as capable of producing good Rhine and
Mosel wine then as now. Here they had mid-day’s meal laid out in the
garden for the angry Club, and somewhat appeased them on their arrival
with bumpers of the best Scharzhofberger. After a refreshing halt, three
boats were hired. On their passage to the river, they encountered a
procession of monks headed by the Archbishop of Andernach, bearing a
small figure of Christ carved in blackthorn and varnished: said to work
miracles, and a present to the good town from two Hungarian pilgrims.
‘Are ye for Cologne?’ the monks inquired of them.
‘Direct down stream!’ they answered.
‘Send, then, hither to us Gregory, the conqueror of Darkness, that he may
know there is gratitude on earth and gratulation for great deeds,’ said the
monks.
So with genuflexions the travellers proceeded, and entered the boats by
the Archbishop’s White Tower. Hammerstein Castle and Rheineck they
floated under; Salzig and the Ahr confluence; Rolandseck and
Nonnenwerth; Drachenfels and Bonn; hills green with young vines; dells
waving fresh foliage. Margarita sang as they floated. Ancient ballads she
sang that made the Goshawk sigh for home, and affected the Club with
delirious love for the grand old water that was speeding them onward. Aunt
Lisbeth was not to be moved. She alone held down her head. She looked
not Gottlieb in the face as he embraced her. Nor to any questioning would
she vouchsafe reply. From that time forth, she was charity to woman; and
the exuberant cheerfulness and familiarity of the men toward her soon grew
kindly and respectful. The dragon in Aunt Lisbeth was destroyed. She
objected no more to Margarita’s cameo.
The Goshawk quickly made peace with his lord, and enjoyed the
commendation of the Kaiser. Dietrich Schill thought of challenging him;
but the Club had graver business: and this was to pass sentence on Berthold
Schmidt for the crime of betraying the White Rose into the hands of
Werner. They had found Berthold at the Eck, and there consented to let him
remain until ransom was paid for his traitorous body. Berthold in his mad
passion was tricked by Werner, and on his release, by payment of the

ransom, submitted to the judgement of the Club, which condemned him to
fight them all in turn, and then endure banishment from Rhineland; the
Goshawk, for his sister’s sake, interceding before a harsher tribunal.

THE ENTRY INTO COLOGNE
Seven days Kaiser Heinrich remained camped outside Cologne. Six times
in six successive days the Kaiser attempted to enter the city, and was foiled.
‘Beard of Barbarossa!’ said the Kaiser, ‘this is the first stronghold that
ever resisted me.’
The warrior bishops, electors, pfalzgrafs, and knights of the Empire, all
swore it was no shame not to be a match for the Demon.
‘If,’ said the reflective Kaiser, ‘we are to suffer below what poor Cologne
is doomed to undergo now, let us, by all that is savoury, reform and do
penance.’
The wind just then setting on them dead from Cologne made the courtiers
serious. Many thought of their souls for the first time.
This is recorded to the honour of Monk Gregory.
On the seventh morning, the Kaiser announced his determination to make
a last trial.
It was dawn, and a youth stood before the Kaiser’s tent, praying an
audience.
Conducted into the presence of the Kaiser, the youth, they say, succeeded
in arousing him from his depression, for, brave as he was, Kaiser Heinrich
dreaded the issue. Forthwith order was given for the cavalcade to set out
according to the rescript, Kaiser Heinrich retaining the youth at his right
hand. But the youth had found occasion to visit Gottlieb and Margarita,
each of whom he furnished with a flash, [flask?] curiously shaped, and
charged with a distillation.
As the head of the procession reached the gates of Cologne, symptoms of
wavering were manifest.
Kaiser Heinrich commanded an advance, at all cost.
Pfalzgraf Nase, as the old chronicles call him in their humour, but
assuredly a great noble, led the van, and pushed across the draw-bridge.
Hesitation and signs of horror were manifest in the assemblage round the
Kaiser’s person. The Kaiser and the youth at his right hand were cheery.

Not a whit drooped they! Several of the heroic knights begged the Kaiser’s
permission to fall back.
‘Follow Pfalzgraf Nase!’ the Kaiser is reported to have said.
Great was the wonderment of the people of Cologne to behold Kaiser
Heinrich riding in perfect stateliness up the main street toward the
Cathedral, while right and left of him bishops and electors were dropping
incapable.
The Kaiser advanced till by his side the youth rode sole.
‘Thy name?’ said the Kaiser.
He answered: ‘A poor youth, unconquerable Kaiser! Farina I am called.’
‘Thy recompense?’ said the Kaiser.
He answered: ‘The hand of a maiden of Cologne, most gracious Kaiser
and master!’
‘She is thine!’ said the Kaiser.
Kaiser Heinrich looked behind him, and among a host grasping the
pommels of their saddles, and reeling vanquished, were but two erect, a
maiden and an old man.
‘That is she, unconquerable Kaiser!’ Farina continued, bowing low.
‘It shall be arranged on the spot,’ said the Kaiser.
A word from Kaiser Heinrich sealed Gottlieb’s compliance.
Said he: ‘Gracious Kaiser and master! though such a youth could of
himself never have aspired to the possession of a Groschen, yet when the
Kaiser pleads for him, objection is as the rock of Moses, and streams
consent. Truly he has done Cologne good service, and if Margarita, my
daughter, can be persuaded—’
The Kaiser addressed her with his blazing brows.
Margarita blushed a ready autumn of rosy-ripe acquiescence.
‘A marriage registered yonder!’ said the Kaiser, pointing upward.
‘I am thine, murmured Margarita, as Farina drew near her.
‘Seal it! seal it!’ quoth the Kaiser, in hearty good humour; ‘take no
consent from man or maid without a seal.’
Farina tossed the contents of a flask in air, and saluted his beloved on the
lips.

This scene took place near the charred round of earth where the Foulest
descended to his kingdom below.
Men now pervaded Cologne with flasks, purifying the atmosphere. It
became possible to breathe freely.
‘We Germans,’ said Kaiser Heinrich, when he was again surrounded by
his courtiers, ‘may go wrong if we always follow Pfalzgraf Nase; but this
time we have been well led.’ Whereat there was obsequious laughter.
The Pfalzgraf pleaded a susceptible nostril.
‘Thou art, I fear, but a timid mortal,’ said the Kaiser.
‘Never have I been found so on the German Field, Imperial Majesty!’
returned the Pfalzgraf. ‘I take glory to myself that this Nether reek
overcomes me.’
‘Even that we must combat, you see!’ exclaimed Kaiser Heinrich; ‘but
come all to a marriage this night, and take brides as soon as you will, all of
you. Increase, and give us loyal subjects in plenty. I count prosperity by the
number of marriages in my empire!’
The White Rose Club were invited by Gottlieb to the wedding, and took
it in vast wrath until they saw the Kaiser, and such excellent stout German
fare present, when immediately a battle raged as to who should do the event
most honour, and was in dispute till dawn: Dietrich Schill being the man, he
having consumed wurst the length of his arm, and wine sufficient to have
floated a St. Goar salmon; which was long proudly chronicled in his family,
and is now unearthed from among the ancient honourable records of
Cologne.
The Goshawk was Farina’s bridesman, and a very spiriting bridesman
was he! Aunt Lisbeth sat in a corner, faintly smiling.
‘Child!’ said the little lady to Margarita when they kissed at parting,
‘your courage amazes me. Do you think? Do you know? Poor, sweet bird,
delivered over hand and foot!’
‘I love him! I love him, aunty! that’s all I know,’ said Margarita: ‘love,
love, love him!’
‘Heaven help you!’ ejaculated Aunt Lisbeth.
‘Pray with me,’ said Margarita.

The two knelt at the foot of the bride-bed, and prayed very different
prayers, but to the same end. That done, Aunt Lisbeth helped undress the
White Rose, and trembled, and told a sad nuptial anecdote of the Castle,
and put her little shrivelled hand on Margarita’s heart, and shrieked.
‘Child! it gallops!’ she cried.
‘‘Tis happiness,’ said Margarita, standing in her hair.
‘May it last only!’ exclaimed Aunt Lisbeth.
‘It will, aunty! I am humble: I am true’; and the fair girl gathered the frill
of her nightgown.
‘Look not in the glass,’ said Lisbeth; ‘not to-night! Look, if you can, to-
morrow.’
She smoothed the White Rose in her bed, tucked her up, and kissed her,
leaving her as a bud that waits for sunshine.

CONCLUSION
The shadow of Monk Gregory was seen no more in Cologne. He entered
the Calendar, and ranks next St. Anthony. For three successive centuries the
towns of Rhineland boasted his visits in the flesh, and the conqueror of
Darkness caused dire Rhenish feuds.
The Tailed Infernal repeated his famous Back-blow on Farina. The youth
awoke one morning and beheld warehouses the exact pattern of his own,
displaying flasks shaped even as his own, and a Farina to right and left of
him. In a week, they were doubled. A month quadrupled them. They
increased.
‘Fame and Fortune,’ mused Farina, ‘come from man and the world: Love
is from heaven. We may be worthy, and lose the first. We lose not love
unless unworthy. Would ye know the true Farina? Look for him who walks
under the seal of bliss; whose darling is for ever his young sweet bride,
leading him from snares, priming his soul with celestial freshness. There is
no hypocrisy can ape that aspect. Least of all, the creatures of the Damned!
By this I may be known.’
Seven years after, when the Goshawk came into Cologne to see old
friends, and drink some of Gottlieb’s oldest Rudesheimer, he was waylaid
by false Farinas; and only discovered the true one at last, by chance, in the
music-gardens near the Rhine, where Farina sat, having on one hand
Margarita, and at his feet three boys and one girl, over whom both bent
lovingly, like the parent vine fondling its grape bunches in summer light.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

A generous enemy is a friend on the wrong side
All are friends who sit at table
Be what you seem, my little one
Bed was a rock of refuge and fortified defence
Civil tongue and rosy smiles sweeten even sour wine
Dangerous things are uttered after the third glass
Everywhere the badge of subjection is a poor stomach
Face betokening the perpetual smack of lemon
Gratitude never was a woman’s gift
It was harder to be near and not close
Loving in this land: they all go mad, straight off
Never reckon on womankind for a wise act

Self-incense
Sign that the evil had reached from pricks to pokes
So are great deeds judged when the danger’s past (as easy)
Soft slumber of a strength never yet called forth
Suspicion was her best witness
Sweet treasure before which lies a dragon sleeping
We like well whatso we have done good work for
Weak reeds who are easily vanquished and never overcome
Weak stomach is certainly more carnally virtuous than a full one
Wins everywhere back a reflection of its own kindliness

THE CASE OF GENERAL OPLE AND LADY
CAMPER
By George Meredith

CHAPTER I
An excursion beyond the immediate suburbs of London, projected long
before his pony-carriage was hired to conduct him, in fact ever since his
retirement from active service, led General Ople across a famous common,
with which he fell in love at once, to a lofty highway along the borders of a
park, for which he promptly exchanged his heart, and so gradually within a
stone’s-throw or so of the river-side, where he determined not solely to
bestow his affections but to settle for life. It may be seen that he was of an
adventurous temperament, though he had thought fit to loosen his sword-
belt. The pony-carriage, however, had been hired for the very special
purpose of helping him to pass in review the lines of what he called country
houses, cottages, or even sites for building, not too remote from sweet
London: and as when Coelebs goes forth intending to pursue and obtain,
there is no doubt of his bringing home a wife, the circumstance that there
stood a house to let, in an airy situation, at a certain distance in hail of the
metropolis he worshipped, was enough to kindle the General’s enthusiasm.
He would have taken the first he saw, had it not been for his daughter, who
accompanied him, and at the age of eighteen was about to undertake the
management of his house. Fortune, under Elizabeth Ople’s guiding
restraint, directed him to an epitome of the comforts. The place he fell upon
is only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers, and for the first week
after taking it he modestly followed them by terming it bijou. In time, when
his own imagination, instigated by a state of something more than mere
contentment, had been at work on it, he chose the happy phrase, ‘a
gentlemanly residence.’ For it was, he declared, a small estate. There was a
lodge to it, resembling two sentry-boxes forced into union, where in one
half an old couple sat bent, in the other half lay compressed; there was a
backdrive to discoverable stables; there was a bit of grass that would have
appeared a meadow if magnified; and there was a wall round the kitchen-
garden and a strip of wood round the flower-garden. The prying of the
outside world was impossible. Comfort, fortification; and gentlemanliness
made the place, as the General said, an ideal English home.

The compass of the estate was half an acre, and perhaps a perch or two,
just the size for the hugging love General Ople was happiest in giving. He
wisely decided to retain the old couple at the lodge, whose members were
used to restriction, and also not to purchase a cow, that would have wanted
pasture. With the old man, while the old woman attended to the bell at the
handsome front entrance with its gilt-spiked gates, he undertook to do the
gardening; a business he delighted in, so long as he could perform it in a
gentlemanly manner, that is to say, so long as he was not overlooked. He
was perfectly concealed from the road. Only one house, and curiously
indeed, only one window of the house, and further to show the protection
extended to Douro Lodge, that window an attic, overlooked him. And the
house was empty.
The house (for who can hope, and who should desire a commodious
house, with conservatories, aviaries, pond and boat-shed, and other joys of
wealth, to remain unoccupied) was taken two seasons later by a lady, of
whom Fame, rolling like a dust-cloud from the place she had left, reported
that she was eccentric. The word is uninstructive: it does not frighten. In a
lady of a certain age, it is rather a characteristic of aristocracy in retirement.
And at least it implies wealth.
General Ople was very anxious to see her. He had the sentiment of
humble respectfulness toward aristocracy, and there was that in riches
which aroused his admiration. London, for instance, he was not afraid to
say he thought the wonder of the world. He remarked, in addition, that the
sacking of London would suffice to make every common soldier of the
foreign army of occupation an independent gentleman for the term of his
natural days. But this is a nightmare! said he, startling himself with an
abhorrent dream of envy of those enriched invading officers: for Booty is
the one lovely thing which the military mind can contemplate in the
abstract. His habit was to go off in an explosion of heavy sighs when he had
delivered himself so far, like a man at war with himself.
The lady arrived in time: she received the cards of the neighbourhood,
and signalized her eccentricity by paying no attention to them, excepting
the card of a Mrs. Baerens, who had audience of her at once. By express
arrangement, the card of General Wilson Ople, as her nearest neighbour,
followed the card of the rector, the social head of the district; and the rector
was granted an interview, but Lady Camper was not at home to General

Ople. She is of superior station to me, and may not wish to associate with
me, the General modestly said. Nevertheless he was wounded: for in spite
of himself, and without the slightest wish to obtrude his own person, as he
explained the meaning that he had in him, his rank in the British army
forced him to be the representative of it, in the absence of any one of a
superior rank. So that he was professionally hurt, and his heart being in his
profession, it may be honestly stated that he was wounded in his feelings,
though he said no, and insisted on the distinction. Once a day his walk for
constitutional exercise compelled him to pass before Lady Camper’s
windows, which were not bashfully withdrawn, as he said humorously of
Douro Lodge, in the seclusion of half-pay, but bowed out imperiously,
militarily, like a generalissimo on horseback, and had full command of the
road and levels up to the swelling park-foliage. He went by at a smart
stride, with a delicate depression of his upright bearing, as though hastening
to greet a friend in view, whose hand was getting ready for the shake. This
much would have been observed by a housemaid; and considering his fine
figure and the peculiar shining silveriness of his hair, the acceleration of his
gait was noticeable. When he drove by, the pony’s right ear was flicked, to
the extreme indignation of a mettlesome little animal. It ensued in
consequence that the General was borne flying under the eyes of Lady
Camper, and such pace displeasing him, he reduced it invariably at a step or
two beyond the corner of her grounds.
But neither he nor his daughter Elizabeth attached importance to so
trivial a circumstance. The General punctiliously avoided glancing at the
windows during the passage past them, whether in his wild career or on
foot. Elizabeth took a side-shot, as one looks at a wayside tree. Their speech
concerning Lady Camper was an exchange of commonplaces over her
loneliness: and this condition of hers was the more perplexing to General
Ople on his hearing from his daughter that the lady was very fine-looking,
and not so very old, as he had fancied eccentric ladies must be. The rector’s
account of her, too, excited the mind. She had informed him bluntly, that
she now and then went to church to save appearances, but was not a church-
goer, finding it impossible to support the length of the service; might,
however, be reckoned in subscriptions for all the charities, and left her pew
open to poor people, and none but the poor. She had travelled over Europe,
and knew the East. Sketches in watercolours of the scenes she had visited
adorned her walls, and a pair of pistols, that she had found useful, she

affirmed, lay on the writing-desk in her drawing-room. General Ople
gathered from the rector that she had a great contempt for men: yet it was
curiously varied with lamentations over the weakness of women. ‘Really
she cannot possibly be an example of that,’ said the General, thinking of the
pistols.
Now, we learn from those who have studied women on the chess-board,
and know what ebony or ivory will do along particular lines, or hopping,
that men much talked about will take possession of their thoughts; and
certainly the fact may be accepted for one of their moves. But the whole
fabric of our knowledge of them, which we are taught to build on this
originally acute perception, is shattered when we hear, that it is exactly the
same, in the same degree, in proportion to the amount of work they have to
do, exactly the same with men and their thoughts in the case of women
much talked about. So it was with General Ople, and nothing is left for me
to say except, that there is broader ground than the chessboard. I am earnest
in protesting the similarity of the singular couples on common earth,
because otherwise the General is in peril of the accusation that he is a
feminine character; and not simply was he a gallant officer, and a veteran in
gunpowder strife, he was also (and it is an extraordinary thing that a
genuine humility did not prevent it, and did survive it) a lord and conqueror
of the sex. He had done his pretty bit of mischief, all in the way of honour,
of course, but hearts had knocked. And now, with his bright white hair, his
close-brushed white whiskers on a face burnt brown, his clear-cut features,
and a winning droop of his eyelids, there was powder in him still, if not
shot.
There was a lamentable susceptibility to ladies’ charms. On the other
hand, for the protection of the sex, a remainder of shyness kept him from
active enterprise and in the state of suffering, so long as indications of
encouragement were wanting. He had killed the soft ones, who came to
him, attracted by the softness in him, to be killed: but clever women
alarmed and paralyzed him. Their aptness to question and require
immediate sparkling answers; their demand for fresh wit, of a kind that is
not furnished by publications which strike it into heads with a hammer, and
supply it wholesale; their various reading; their power of ridicule too; made
them awful in his contemplation.

Supposing (for the inflammable officer was now thinking, and deeply
thinking, of a clever woman), supposing that Lady Camper’s pistols were
needed in her defence one night: at the first report proclaiming her
extremity, valour might gain an introduction to her upon easy terms, and
would not be expected to be witty. She would, perhaps, after the
excitement, admit his masculine superiority, in the beautiful old fashion, by
fainting in his arms. Such was the reverie he passingly indulged, and only
so could he venture to hope for an acquaintance with the formidable lady
who was his next neighbour. But the proud society of the burglarious denied
him opportunity.
Meanwhile, he learnt that Lady Camper had a nephew, and the young
gentleman was in a cavalry regiment. General Ople met him outside his
gates, received and returned a polite salute, liked his appearance and
manners and talked of him to Elizabeth, asking her if by chance she had
seen him. She replied that she believed she had, and praised his
horsemanship. The General discovered that he was an excellent sculler. His
daughter was rowing him up the river when the young gentleman shot by,
with a splendid stroke, in an outrigger, backed, and floating alongside
presumed to enter into conversation, during which he managed to express
regrets at his aunt’s turn for solitariness. As they belonged to sister branches
of the same Service, the General and Mr. Reginald Roller had a theme in
common, and a passion. Elizabeth told her father that nothing afforded her
so much pleasure as to hear him talk with Mr. Roller on military matters.
General Ople assured her that it pleased him likewise. He began to spy
about for Mr. Roller, and it sometimes occurred that they conversed across
the wall; it could hardly be avoided. A hint or two, an undefinable flying
allusion, gave the General to understand that Lady Camper had not been
happy in her marriage. He was pained to think of her misfortune; but as she
was not over forty, the disaster was, perhaps, not irremediable; that is to say,
if she could be taught to extend her forgiveness to men, and abandon her
solitude. ‘If,’ he said to his daughter, ‘Lady Camper should by any chance
be induced to contract a second alliance, she would, one might expect, be
humanized, and we should have highly agreeable neighbours.’ Elizabeth
artlessly hoped for such an event to take place.
She rarely differed with her father, up to whom, taking example from the
world around him, she looked as the pattern of a man of wise conduct.

And he was one; and though modest, he was in good humour with
himself, approved himself, and could say, that without boasting of success,
he was a satisfied man, until he met his touchstone in Lady Camper.

CHAPTER II
This is the pathetic matter of my story, and it requires pointing out,
because he never could explain what it was that seemed to him so cruel in
it, for he was no brilliant son of fortune, he was no great pretender, none of
those who are logically displaced from the heights they have been raised to,
manifestly created to show the moral in Providence. He was modest,
retiring, humbly contented; a gentlemanly residence appeased his ambition.
Popular, he could own that he was, but not meteorically; rather by reason of
his willingness to receive light than his desire to shed it. Why, then, was the
terrible test brought to bear upon him, of all men? He was one of us; no
worse, and not strikingly or perilously better; and he could not but feel, in
the bitterness of his reflections upon an inexplicable destiny, that the
punishment befalling him, unmerited as it was, looked like absence of
Design in the scheme of things, Above. It looked as if the blow had been
dealt him by reckless chance. And to believe that, was for the mind of
General Ople the having to return to his alphabet and recommence the
ascent of the laborious mountain of understanding.
To proceed, the General’s introduction to Lady Camper was owing to a
message she sent him by her gardener, with a request that he would cut
down a branch of a wychelm, obscuring her view across his grounds toward
the river. The General consulted with his daughter, and came to the
conclusion, that as he could hardly despatch a written reply to a verbal
message, yet greatly wished to subscribe to the wishes of Lady Camper, the
best thing for him to do was to apply for an interview. He sent word that he
would wait on Lady Camper immediately, and betook himself forthwith to
his toilette. She was the niece of an earl.
Elizabeth commended his appearance, ‘passed him,’ as he would have
said; and well she might, for his hat, surtout, trousers and boots, were
worthy of an introduction to Royalty. A touch of scarlet silk round the neck
gave him bloom, and better than that, the blooming consciousness of it.
‘You are not to be nervous, papa,’ Elizabeth said.

‘Not at all,’ replied the General. ‘I say, not at all, my dear,’ he repeated,
and so betrayed that he had fallen into the nervous mood. ‘I was saying, I
have known worse mornings than this.’ He turned to her and smiled
brightly, nodded, and set his face to meet the future.
He was absent an hour and a half.
He came back with his radiance a little subdued, by no means eclipsed;
as, when experience has afforded us matter for thought, we cease to shine
dazzlingly, yet are not clouded; the rays have merely grown serener. The
sum of his impressions was conveyed in the reflective utterance—‘It only
shows, my dear, how different the reality is from our anticipation of it!’
Lady Camper had been charming; full of condescension, neighbourly,
friendly, willing to be satisfied with the sacrifice of the smallest branch of
the wych-elm, and only requiring that much for complimentary reasons.
Elizabeth wished to hear what they were, and she thought the request
rather singular; but the General begged her to bear in mind, that they were
dealing with a very extraordinary woman; ‘highly accomplished, really
exceedingly handsome,’ he said to himself, aloud.
The reasons were, her liking for air and view, and desire to see into her
neighbour’s grounds without having to mount to the attic.
Elizabeth gave a slight exclamation, and blushed.
‘So, my dear, we are objects of interest to her ladyship,’ said the General.
He assured her that Lady Camper’s manners were delightful. Strange to
tell, she knew a great deal of his antecedent history, things he had not
supposed were known; ‘little matters,’ he remarked, by which his daughter
faintly conceived a reference to the conquests of his dashing days. Lady
Camper had deigned to impart some of her own, incidentally; that she was
of Welsh blood, and born among the mountains. ‘She has a romantic look,’
was the General’s comment; and that her husband had been an insatiable
traveller before he became an invalid, and had never cared for Art. ‘Quite
an extraordinary circumstance, with such a wife!’ the General said.
He fell upon the wych-elm with his own hands, under cover of the
leafage, and the next day he paid his respects to Lady Camper, to inquire if
her ladyship saw any further obstruction to the view.
‘None,’ she replied. ‘And now we shall see what the two birds will do.’

Apparently, then, she entertained an animosity to a pair of birds in the
tree.
‘Yes, yes; I say they chirp early in the morning,’ said General Ople.
‘At all hours.’
‘The song of birds...?’ he pleaded softly for nature.
‘If the nest is provided for them; but I don’t like vagabond chirping.’
The General perfectly acquiesced. This, in an engagement with a clever
woman, is what you should do, or else you are likely to find yourself
planted unawares in a high wind, your hat blown off, and your coat-tails
anywhere; in other words, you will stand ridiculous in your bewilderment;
and General Ople ever footed with the utmost caution to avoid that
quagmire of the ridiculous. The extremer quags he had hitherto escaped; the
smaller, into which he fell in his agile evasions of the big, he had hitherto
been blest in finding none to notice.
He requested her ladyship’s permission to present his daughter. Lady
Camper sent in her card.
Elizabeth Ople beheld a tall, handsomely-mannered lady, with good
features and penetrating dark eyes, an easy carriage of her person and an
agreeable voice, but (the vision of her age flashed out under the compelling
eyes of youth) fifty if a day. The rich colouring confessed to it. But she was
very pleasing, and Elizabeth’s perception dwelt on it only because her
father’s manly chivalry had defended the lady against one year more than
forty.
The richness of the colouring, Elizabeth feared, was artificial, and it
caused her ingenuous young blood a shudder. For we are so devoted to
nature when the dame is flattering us with her gifts, that we loathe the
substitute omitting to think how much less it is an imposition than a form of
practical adoration of the genuine.
Our young detective, however, concealed her emotion of childish horror.
Lady Camper remarked of her, ‘She seems honest, and that is the most
we can hope of girls.’
‘She is a jewel for an honest man,’ the General sighed, ‘some day!’
‘Let us hope it will be a distant day.’
‘Yet,’ said the General, ‘girls expect to marry.’

Lady Camper fixed her black eyes on him, but did not speak.
He told Elizabeth that her ladyship’s eyes were exceedingly searching:
‘Only,’ said he, ‘as I have nothing to hide, I am able to submit to
inspection’; and he laughed slightly up to an arresting cough, and made the
mantelpiece ornaments pass muster.
General Ople was the hero to champion a lady whose airs of haughtiness
caused her to be somewhat backbitten. He assured everybody, that Lady
Camper was much misunderstood; she was a most remarkable woman; she
was a most affable and highly intelligent lady. Building up her attributes on
a splendid climax, he declared she was pious, charitable, witty, and really
an extraordinary artist. He laid particular stress on her artistic qualities,
describing her power with the brush, her water-colour sketches, and also
some immensely clever caricatures. As he talked of no one else, his friends
heard enough of Lady Camper, who was anything but a favourite. The
Pollingtons, the Wilders, the Wardens, the Baerens, the Goslings, and others
of his acquaintance, talked of Lady Camper and General Ople rather
maliciously. They were all City people, and they admired the General, but
mourned that he should so abjectly have fallen at the feet of a lady as red
with rouge as a railway bill. His not seeing it showed the state he was in.
The sister of Mrs. Pollington, an amiable widow, relict of a large City
warehouse, named Barcop, was chilled by a falling off in his attentions. His
apology for not appearing at garden parties was, that he was engaged to
wait on Lady Camper.
And at one time, her not condescending to exchange visits with the
obsequious General was a topic fertile in irony. But she did condescend.
Lady Camper came to his gate unexpectedly, rang the bell, and was let in
like an ordinary visitor. It happened that the General was gardening—not
the pretty occupation of pruning—he was digging—and of necessity his
coat was off, and he was hot, dusty, unpresentable. From adoring earth as
the mother of roses, you may pass into a lady’s presence without
purification; you cannot (or so the General thought) when you are caught in
the act of adoring the mother of cabbages. And though he himself loved the
cabbage equally with the rose, in his heart respected the vegetable yet more
than he esteemed the flower, for he gloried in his kitchen garden, this was
not a secret for the world to know, and he almost heeled over on his beam
ends when word was brought of the extreme honour Lady Camper had done

him. He worked his arms hurriedly into his fatigue jacket, trusting to get
away to the house and spend a couple of minutes on his adornment; and
with any other visitor it might have been accomplished, but Lady Camper
disliked sitting alone in a room. She was on the square of lawn as the
General stole along the walk. Had she kept her back to him, he might have
rounded her like the shadow of a dial, undetected. She was frightfully acute
of hearing. She turned while he was in the agony of hesitation, in a queer
attitude, one leg on the march, projected by a frenzied tip-toe of the hinder
leg, the very fatallest moment she could possibly have selected for
unveiling him.
Of course there was no choice but to surrender on the spot.
He began to squander his dizzy wits in profuse apologies. Lady Camper
simply spoke of the nice little nest of a garden, smelt the flowers, accepted
a Niel rose and a Rohan, a Cline, a Falcot, and La France.
‘A beautiful rose indeed,’ she said of the latter, ‘only it smells of
macassar oil.’
‘Really, it never struck me, I say it never struck me before,’ rejoined the
General, smelling it as at a pinch of snuff. ‘I was saying, I always ....’ And
he tacitly, with the absurdest of smiles, begged permission to leave
unterminated a sentence not in itself particularly difficult
‘I have a nose,’ observed Lady Camper.
Like the nobly-bred person she was, according to General Ople’s version
of the interview on his estate, when he stood before her in his gardening
costume, she put him at his ease, or she exerted herself to do so; and if he
underwent considerable anguish, it was the fault of his excessive
scrupulousness regarding dress, propriety, appearance.
He conducted her at her request to the kitchen garden and the handful of
paddock, the stables and coach-house, then back to the lawn.
‘It is the home for a young couple,’ she said.
‘I am no longer young,’ the General bowed, with the sigh peculiar to this
confession. ‘I say, I am no longer young, but I call the place a gentlemanly
residence. I was saying, I...’
‘Yes, yes!’ Lady Camper tossed her head, half closing her eyes, with a
contraction of the brows, as if in pain.
He perceived a similar expression whenever he spoke of his residence.

Perhaps it recalled happier days to enter such a nest. Perhaps it had been
such a home for a young couple that she had entered on her marriage with
Sir Scrope Camper, before he inherited his title and estates.
The General was at a loss to conceive what it was.
It recurred at another mention of his idea of the nature of the residence. It
was almost a paroxysm. He determined not to vex her reminiscences again;
and as this resolution directed his mind to his residence, thinking it pre-
eminently gentlemanly, his tongue committed the error of repeating it, with
‘gentleman-like’ for a variation.
Elizabeth was out—he knew not where. The housemaid informed him,
that Miss Elizabeth was out rowing on the water.
‘Is she alone?’ Lady Camper inquired of him.
‘I fancy so,’ the General replied.
‘The poor child has no mother.’
‘It has been a sad loss to us both, Lady Camper.’
‘No doubt. She is too pretty to go out alone.’
‘I can trust her.’
‘Girls!’
‘She has the spirit of a man.’
‘That is well. She has a spirit; it will be tried.’
The General modestly furnished an instance or two of her spiritedness.
Lady Camper seemed to like this theme; she looked graciously interested.
‘Still, you should not suffer her to go out alone,’ she said.
‘I place implicit confidence in her,’ said the General; and Lady Camper
gave it up.
She proposed to walk down the lanes to the river-side, to meet Elizabeth
returning.
The General manifested alacrity checked by reluctance. Lady Camper
had told him she objected to sit in a strange room by herself; after that, he
could hardly leave her to dash upstairs to change his clothes; yet how,
attired as he was, in a fatigue jacket, that warned him not to imagine his
back view, and held him constantly a little to the rear of Lady Camper, lest
she should be troubled by it;—and he knew the habit of the second rank to

criticise the front—how consent to face the outer world in such style side by
side with the lady he admired?
‘Come,’ said she; and he shot forward a step, looking as if he had missed
fire.
‘Are you not coming, General?’
He advanced mechanically.
Not a soul met them down the lanes, except a little one, to whom Lady
Camper gave a small silver-piece, because she was a picture.
The act of charity sank into the General’s heart, as any pretty
performance will do upon a warm waxen bed.
Lady Camper surprised him by answering his thoughts. ‘No; it’s for my
own pleasure.’
Presently she said, ‘Here they are.’
General Ople beheld his daughter by the river-side at the end of the lane,
under escort of Mr. Reginald Rolles.
It was another picture, and a pleasing one. The young lady and the young
gentleman wore boating hats, and were both dressed in white, and standing
by or just turning from the outrigger and light skiff they were about to leave
in charge of a waterman. Elizabeth stretched a finger at arm’s-length,
issuing directions, which Mr. Rolles took up and worded further to the man,
for the sake of emphasis; and he, rather than Elizabeth, was guilty of the
half-start at sight of the persons who were approaching.
‘My nephew, you should know, is intended for a working soldier,’ said
Lady Camper; ‘I like that sort of soldier best.’
General Ople drooped his shoulders at the personal compliment.
She resumed. ‘His pay is a matter of importance to him. You are aware of
the smallness of a subaltern’s pay.
‘I,’ said the General, ‘I say I feel my poor half-pay, having always been a
working soldier myself, very important, I was saying, very important to
me!’
‘Why did you retire?’
Her interest in him seemed promising. He replied conscientiously,
‘Beyond the duties of General of Brigade, I could not, I say I could not,

dare to aspire; I can accept and execute orders; I shrink from
responsibility!’
‘It is a pity,’ said she, ‘that you were not, like my nephew Reginald,
entirely dependent on your profession.’
She laid such stress on her remark, that the General, who had just
expressed a very modest estimate of his abilities, was unable to reject the
flattery of her assuming him to be a man of some fortune. He coughed, and
said, ‘Very little.’ The thought came to him that he might have to make a
statement to her in time, and he emphasized, ‘Very little indeed. Sufficient,’
he assured her, ‘for a gentlemanly appearance.’
‘I have given you your warning,’ was her inscrutable rejoinder, uttered
within earshot of the young people, to whom, especially to Elizabeth, she
was gracious. The damsel’s boating uniform was praised, and her sunny
flush of exercise and exposure.
Lady Camper regretted that she could not abandon her parasol: ‘I freckle
so easily.’
The General, puzzling over her strange words about a warning, gazed at
the red rose of art on her cheek with an air of profound abstraction.
‘I freckle so easily,’ she repeated, dropping her parasol to defend her face
from the calculating scrutiny.
‘I burn brown,’ said Elizabeth.
Lady Camper laid the bud of a Falcot rose against the young girl’s cheek,
but fetched streams of colour, that overwhelmed the momentary comparison
of the sunswarthed skin with the rich dusky yellow of the rose in its
deepening inward to soft brown.
Reginald stretched his hand for the privileged flower, and she let him
take it; then she looked at the General; but the General was looking, with
his usual air of satisfaction, nowhere.

CHAPTER III
‘Lady Camper is no common enigma,’ General Ople observed to his
daughter.
Elizabeth inclined to be pleased with her, for at her suggestion the
General had bought a couple of horses, that she might ride in the park,
accompanied by her father or the little groom. Still, the great lady was hard
to read. She tested the resources of his income by all sorts of instigation to
expenditure, which his gallantry could not withstand; she encouraged him
to talk of his deeds in arms; she was friendly, almost affectionate, and most
bountiful in the presents of fruit, peaches, nectarines, grapes, and hot-house
wonders, that she showered on his table; but she was an enigma in her
evident dissatisfaction with him for something he seemed to have left
unsaid. And what could that be?
At their last interview she had asked him, ‘Are you sure, General, you
have nothing more to tell me?’
And as he remarked, when relating it to Elizabeth, ‘One might really be
tempted to misapprehend her ladyship’s... I say one might commit oneself
beyond recovery. Now, my dear, what do you think she intended?’
Elizabeth was ‘burning brown,’ or darkly blushing, as her manner was.
She answered, ‘I am certain you know of nothing that would interest her;
nothing, unless...’
‘Well?’ the General urged her.
‘How can I speak it, papa?’
‘You really can’t mean...’
‘Papa, what could I mean?’
‘If I were fool enough!’ he murmured. ‘No, no, I am an old man. I was
saying, I am past the age of folly.’
One day Elizabeth came home from her ride in a thoughtful mood. She
had not, further than has been mentioned, incited her father to think of the
age of folly; but voluntarily or not, Lady Camper had, by an excess of
graciousness amounting to downright invitation; as thus, ‘Will you persist

in withholding your confidence from me, General?’ She added, ‘I am not so
difficult a person.’ These prompting speeches occurred on the morning of
the day when Elizabeth sat at his table, after a long ride into the country,
profoundly meditative.
A note was handed to General Ople, with the request that he would step
in to speak with Lady Camper in the course of the evening, or next
morning. Elizabeth waited till his hat was on, then said, ‘Papa, on my ride
to-day, I met Mr. Rolles.’
‘I am glad you had an agreeable escort, my dear.’
‘I could not refuse his company.’
‘Certainly not. And where did you ride?’
‘To a beautiful valley; and there we met.... ‘
‘Her ladyship?’
‘Yes.’
‘She always admires you on horseback.’
‘So you know it, papa, if she should speak of it.’
‘And I am bound to tell you, my child,’ said the General, ‘that this
morning Lady Camper’s manner to me was... if I were a fool... I say, this
morning I beat a retreat, but apparently she... I see no way out of it,
supposing she...’
‘I am sure she esteems you, dear papa,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You take to her,
my dear?’ the General inquired anxiously; ‘a little?—a little afraid of her?’
‘A little,’ Elizabeth replied, ‘only a little.’
‘Don’t be agitated about me.’
‘No, papa; you are sure to do right.’
‘But you are trembling.’
‘Oh! no. I wish you success.’
General Ople was overjoyed to be reinforced by his daughter’s good
wishes. He kissed her to thank her. He turned back to her to kiss her again.
She had greatly lightened the difficulty at least of a delicate position.
It was just like the imperious nature of Lady Camper to summon him in
the evening to terminate the conversation of the morning, from the visible
pitfall of which he had beaten a rather precipitate retreat. But if his daughter

cordially wished him success, and Lady Camper offered him the crown of
it, why then he had only to pluck up spirit, like a good commander who has
to pass a fordable river in the enemy’s presence; a dash, a splash, a rattling
volley or two, and you are over, established on the opposite bank. But you
must be positive of victory, otherwise, with the river behind you, your new
position is likely to be ticklish. So the General entered Lady Camper’s
drawing-room warily, watching the fair enemy. He knew he was
captivating, his old conquests whispered in his ears, and her reception of
him all but pointed to a footstool at her feet. He might have fallen there at
once, had he not remembered a hint that Mr. Reginald Rolles had dropped
concerning Lady Camper’s amazing variability.
Lady Camper began.
‘General, you ran away from me this morning. Let me speak. And, by the
way, I must reproach you; you should not have left it to me. Things have
now gone so far that I cannot pretend to be blind. I know your feelings as a
father. Your daughter’s happiness...’
‘My lady,’ the General interposed, ‘I have her distinct assurance that it is,
I say it is wrapt up in mine.’
‘Let me speak. Young people will say anything. Well, they have a certain
excuse for selfishness; we have not. I am in some degree bound to my
nephew; he is my sister’s son.’
‘Assuredly, my lady. I would not stand in his light, be quite assured. If I
am, I was saying if I am not mistaken, I... and he is, or has the making of an
excellent soldier in him, and is likely to be a distinguished cavalry officer.’
‘He has to carve his own way in the world, General.’
‘All good soldiers have, my lady. And if my position is not, after a
considerable term of service, I say if...’
‘To continue,’ said Lady Camper: ‘I never have liked early marriages. I
was married in my teens before I knew men. Now I do know them, and
now....’
The General plunged forward: ‘The honour you do us now:—a mature
experience is worth:—my dear Lady Camper, I have admired you:—and
your objection to early marriages cannot apply to... indeed, madam, vigour,
they say... though youth, of course... yet young people, as you observe... and
I have, though perhaps my reputation is against it, I was saying I have a

natural timidity with your sex, and I am grey-headed, white-headed, but
happily without a single malady.’
Lady Camper’s brows showed a trifling bewilderment. ‘I am speaking of
these young people, General Ople.’
‘I consent to everything beforehand, my dear lady. He should be, I say
Mr. Rolles should be provided for.’
‘So should she, General, so should Elizabeth.’
‘She shall be, she will, dear madam. What I have, with your permission,
if—good heaven! Lady Camper, I scarcely know where I am. She would ....
I shall not like to lose her: you would not wish it. In time she will.... she has
every quality of a good wife.’
‘There, stay there, and be intelligible,’ said Lady Camper. ‘She has every
quality. Money should be one of them. Has she money?’
‘Oh! my lady,’ the General exclaimed, ‘we shall not come upon your
purse when her time comes.’
‘Has she ten thousand pounds?’
‘Elizabeth? She will have, at her father’s death... but as for my income, it
is moderate, and only sufficient to maintain a gentlemanly appearance in
proper self-respect. I make no show. I say I make no show. A wealthy
marriage is the last thing on earth I should have aimed at. I prefer quiet and
retirement. Personally, I mean. That is my personal taste. But if the lady... I
say if it should happen that the lady ... and indeed I am not one to press a
suit: but if she who distinguishes and honours me should chance to be
wealthy, all I can do is to leave her wealth at her disposal, and that I do: I do
that unreservedly. I feel I am very confused, alarmingly confused. Your
ladyship merits a superior... I trust I have not... I am entirely at your
ladyship’s mercy.’
‘Are you prepared, if your daughter is asked in marriage, to settle ten
thousand pounds on her, General Ople?’
The General collected himself. In his heart he thoroughly appreciated the
moral beauty of Lady Camper’s extreme solicitude on behalf of his
daughter’s provision; but he would have desired a postponement of that and
other material questions belonging to a distant future until his own fate was
decided.

So he said: ‘Your ladyship’s generosity is very marked. I say it is very
marked.’
‘How, my good General Ople! how is it marked in any degree?’ cried
Lady Camper. ‘I am not generous. I don’t pretend to be; and certainly I
don’t want the young people to think me so. I want to be just. I have
assumed that you intend to be the same. Then will you do me the favour to
reply to me?’
The General smiled winningly and intently, to show her that he prized
her, and would not let her escape his eulogies.
‘Marked, in this way, dear madam, that you think of my daughter’s future
more than I. I say, more than her father himself does. I know I ought to
speak more warmly, I feel warmly. I was never an eloquent man, and if you
take me as a soldier, I am, as, I have ever been in the service, I was saying I
am Wilson Ople, of the grade of General, to be relied on for executing
orders; and, madam, you are Lady Camper, and you command me. I cannot
be more precise. In fact, it is the feeling of the necessity for keeping close to
the business that destroys what I would say. I am in fact lamentably
incompetent to conduct my own case.’
Lady Camper left her chair.
‘Dear me, this is very strange, unless I am singularly in error,’ she said.
The General now faintly guessed that he might be in error, for his part.
But he had burned his ships, blown up his bridges; retreat could not be
thought of.
He stood, his head bent and appealing to her sideface, like one pleadingly
in pursuit, and very deferentially, with a courteous vehemence, he entreated
first her ladyship’s pardon for his presumption, and then the gift of her
ladyship’s hand.
As for his language, it was the tongue of General Ople. But his bearing
was fine. If his clipped white silken hair spoke of age, his figure breathed
manliness. He was a picture, and she loved pictures.
For his own sake, she begged him to cease. She dreaded to hear of
something ‘gentlemanly.’
‘This is a new idea to me, my dear General,’ she said. ‘You must give me
time. People at our age have to think of fitness. Of course, in a sense, we
are both free to do as we like. Perhaps I may be of some aid to you. My

preference is for absolute independence. And I wished to talk of a different
affair. Come to me tomorrow. Do not be hurt if I decide that we had better
remain as we are.’
The General bowed. His efforts, and the wavering of the fair enemy’s
flag, had inspired him with a positive re-awakening of masculine passion to
gain this fortress. He said well: ‘I have, then, the happiness, madam, of
being allowed to hope until to-morrrow?’
She replied, ‘I would not deprive you of a moment of happiness. Bring
good sense with you when you do come.’
The General asked eagerly, ‘I have your ladyship’s permission to come
early?’
‘Consult your happiness,’ she answered; and if to his mind she seemed
returning to the state of enigma, it was on the whole deliciously. She
restored him his youth. He told Elizabeth that night; he really must begin to
think of marrying her to some worthy young fellow. ‘Though,’ said he, with
an air of frank intoxication, ‘my opinion is, the young ones are not so lively
as the old in these days, or I should have been besieged before now.’
The exact substance of the interview he forbore to relate to his inquisitive
daughter, with a very honourable discretion.

CHAPTER IV
Elizabeth came riding home to breakfast from a gallop round the park,
and passing Lady Camper’s gates, received the salutation of her parasol.
Lady Camper talked with her through the bars. There was not a sign to tell
of a change or twist in her neighbourly affability. She remarked simply
enough, that it was her nephew’s habit to take early gallops, and possibly
Elizabeth might have seen him, for his quarters were proximate; but she did
not demand an answer. She had passed a rather restless night, she said.
‘How is the General?’
‘Papa must have slept soundly, for he usually calls to me through his
door when he hears I am up,’ said Elizabeth.
Lady Camper nodded kindly and walked on.
Early in the morning General Ople was ready for battle. His forces were,
the anticipation of victory, a carefully arranged toilet, and an unaccustomed
spirit of enterprise in the realms of speech; for he was no longer in such awe
of Lady Camper.
‘You have slept well?’ she inquired.
‘Excellently, my lady:
‘Yes, your daughter tells me she heard you, as she went by your door in
the morning for a ride to meet my nephew. You are, I shall assume,
prepared for business.’
‘Elizabeth?... to meet...?’ General Ople’s impression of anything
extraneous to his emotion was feeble and passed instantly. ‘Prepared! Oh,
certainly’; and he struck in a compliment on her ladyship’s fresh morning
bloom.
‘It can hardly be visible,’ she responded; ‘I have not painted yet.’
‘Does your ladyship proceed to your painting in the very early morning?’
‘Rouge. I rouge.’
‘Dear me! I should not have supposed it.’
‘You have speculated on it very openly, General. I remember your trying
to see a freckle through the rouge; but the truth is, I am of a supernatural

paleness if I do not rouge, so I do. You understand, therefore, I have a false
complexion. Now to business.’
‘If your ladyship insists on calling it business. I have little to offer—
myself!’
‘You have a gentlemanly residence.’
‘It is, my lady, it is. It is a bijou.’
‘Ah!’ Lady Camper sighed dejectedly.
‘It is a perfect bijou!’
‘Oblige me, General, by not pronouncing the French word as if you were
swearing by something in English, like a trooper.’
General Ople started, admitted that the word was French, and apologized
for his pronunciation. Her variability was now visible over a corner of the
battlefield like a thunder-cloud.
‘The business we have to discuss concerns the young people, General.’
‘Yes,’ brightened by this, he assented: ‘Yes, dear Lady Camper; it is a
part of the business; it is a secondary part; it has to be discussed; I say I
subscribe beforehand. I may say, that honouring, esteeming you as I do, and
hoping ardently for your consent....
‘They must have a home and an income, General.’
‘I presume, dearest lady, that Elizabeth will be welcome in your home. I
certainly shall never chase Reginald out of mine.’
Lady Camper threw back her head. ‘Then you are not yet awake, or you
practice the art of sleeping with open eyes! Now listen to me. I rouge, I
have told you. I like colour, and I do not like to see wrinkles or have them
seen. Therefore I rouge. I do not expect to deceive the world so flagrantly as
to my age, and you I would not deceive for a moment. I am seventy.’
The effect of this noble frankness on the General, was to raise him from
his chair in a sitting posture as if he had been blown up.
Her countenance was inexorably imperturbable under his alternate
blinking and gazing that drew her close and shot her distant, like a
mysterious toy.
‘But,’ said she, ‘I am an artist; I dislike the look of extreme age, so I
conceal it as well as I can. You are very kind to fall in with the deception:
an innocent and, I think, a proper one, before the world, though not to the

gentleman who does me the honour to propose to me for my hand. You
desire to settle our business first. You esteem me; I suppose you mean as
much as young people mean when they say they love. Do you? Let us come
to an understanding.’
‘I can,’ the melancholy General gasped, ‘I say I can—I cannot—I cannot
credit your ladyship’s...’
‘You are at liberty to call me Angela.’
‘Ange...’ he tried it, and in shame relapsed. ‘Madam, yes. Thanks.’
‘Ah,’ cried Lady Camper, ‘do not use these vulgar contractions of decent
speech in my presence. I abhor the word “thanks.” It is fit for fribbles.’
‘Dear me, I have used it all my life,’ groaned the General.
‘Then, for the remainder, be it understood that you renounce it. To
continue, my age is...’
‘Oh, impossible, impossible,’ the General almost wailed; there was really
a crack in his voice.
‘Advancing to seventy. But, like you, I am happy to say I have not a
malady. I bring no invalid frame to a union that necessitates the leaving of
the front door open day and night to the doctor. My belief is, I could follow
my husband still on a campaign, if he were a warrior instead of a
pensioner.’
General Ople winced.
He was about to say humbly, ‘As General of Brigade...’
‘Yes, yes, you want a commanding officer, and that I have seen, and that
has caused me to meditate on your proposal,’ she interrupted him; while he,
studying her countenance hard, with the painful aspect of a youth who
lashes a donkey memory in an examination by word of mouth, attempted to
marshal her signs of younger years against her awful confession of the
extremely ancient, the witheringly ancient. But for the manifest rouge,
manifest in spite of her declaration that she had not yet that morning
proceeded to her paintbrush, he would have thrown down his glove to
challenge her on the subject of her age. She had actually charms. Her mouth
had a charm; her eyes were lively; her figure, mature if you like, was at
least full and good; she stood upright, she had a queenly seat. His mental
ejaculation was, ‘What a wonderful constitution!’

By a lapse of politeness, he repeated it to himself half aloud; he was
shockingly nervous.
‘Yes, I have finer health than many a younger woman,’ she said. ‘An
ordinary calculation would give me twenty good years to come. I am a
widow, as you know. And, by the way, you have a leaning for widows.
Have you not? I thought I had heard of a widow Barcop in this parish. Do
not protest. I assure you I am a stranger to jealousy. My income...’
The General raised his hands.
‘Well, then,’ said the cool and self-contained lady, ‘before I go farther, I
may ask you, knowing what you have forced me to confess, are you still of
the same mind as to marriage? And one moment, General. I promise you
most sincerely that your withdrawing a step shall not, as far as it touches
me, affect my neighbourly and friendly sentiments; not in any degree. Shall
we be as we were?’
Lady Camper extended her delicate hand to him.
He took it respectfully, inspected the aristocratic and unshrunken fingers,
and kissing them, said, ‘I never withdraw from a position, unless I am
beaten back. Lady Camper, I...’
‘My name is Angela.’
The General tried again: he could not utter the name.
To call a lady of seventy Angela is difficult in itself. It is, it seems, thrice
difficult in the way of courtship.
‘Angela!’ said she.
‘Yes. I say, there is not a more beautiful female name, dear Lady
Camper.’
‘Spare me that word “female” as long as you live. Address me by that
name, if you please.’
The General smiled. The smile was meant for propitiation and sweetness.
It became a brazen smile.
‘Unless you wish to step back,’ said she.
‘Indeed, no. I am happy, Lady Camper. My life is yours. I say, my life is
devoted to you, dear madam.’
‘Angela!’
General Ople was blushingly delivered of the name.

‘That will do,’ said she. ‘And as I think it possible one may be admired
too much as an artist, I must request you to keep my number of years a
secret.’
‘To the death, madam,’ said the General.
‘And now we will take a turn in the garden, Wilson Ople. And beware of
one thing, for a commencement, for you are full of weeds, and I mean to
pluck out a few: never call any place a gentlemanly residence in my
hearing, nor let it come to my ears that you have been using the phrase
elsewhere. Don’t express astonishment. At present it is enough that I dislike
it. But this only,’ Lady Camper added, ‘this only if it is not your intention to
withdraw from your position.’
‘Madam, my lady, I was saying—hem!—Angela, I could not wish to
withdraw.’
Lady Camper leaned with some pressure on his arm, observing, ‘You
have a curious attachment to antiquities.’
‘My dear lady, it is your mind; I say, it is your mind: I was saying, I am
in love with your mind,’ the General endeavoured to assure her, and himself
too.
‘Or is it my powers as an artist?’
‘Your mind, your extraordinary powers of mind.’
‘Well,’ said Lady Camper, ‘a veteran General of Brigade is as good a
crutch as a childless old grannam can have.’
And as a crutch, General Ople, parading her grounds with the aged
woman, found himself used and treated.
The accuracy of his perceptions might be questioned. He was like a man
stunned by some great tropical fruit, which responds to the longing of his
eyes by falling on his head; but it appeared to him, that she increased in
bitterness at every step they took, as if determined to make him realize her
wrinkles.
He was even so inconsequent, or so little recognized his position, as to
object in his heart to hear himself called Wilson.
It is true that she uttered Wilsonople as if the names formed one word.
And on a second occasion (when he inclined to feel hurt) she remarked, ‘I
fear me, Wilsonople, if we are to speak plainly, thou art but a fool.’ He,

perhaps, naturally objected to that. He was, however, giddy, and barely
knew.
Yet once more the magical woman changed. All semblance of harshness,
and harridan-like spike-tonguedness vanished when she said adieu.
The astronomer, looking at the crusty jag and scoria of the magnified
moon through his telescope, and again with naked eyes at the soft-beaming
moon, when the crater-ridges are faint as eyebrow-pencillings, has a similar
sharp alternation of prospect to that which mystified General Ople.
But between watching an orb that is only variable at our caprice, and
contemplating a woman who shifts and quivers ever with her own, how vast
the difference!
And consider that this woman is about to be one’s wife! He could have
believed (if he had not known full surely that such things are not) he was in
the hands of a witch.
Lady Camper’s ‘adieu’ was perfectly beautiful—a kind, cordial, intimate,
above all, to satisfy his present craving, it was a lady-like adieu—the adieu
of a delicate and elegant woman, who had hardly left her anchorage by
forty to sail into the fifties.
Alas! he had her word for it, that she was not less than seventy. And,
worse, she had betrayed most melancholy signs of sourness and agedness as
soon as he had sworn himself to her fast and fixed.
‘The road is open to you to retreat,’ were her last words.
‘My road,’ he answered gallantly, ‘is forward.’
He was drawing backward as he said it, and something provoked her to
smile.

CHAPTER V
It is a noble thing to say that your road is forward, and it befits a man of
battles. General Ople was too loyal a gentleman to think of any other road.
Still, albeit not gifted with imagination, he could not avoid the feeling that
he had set his face to Winter. He found himself suddenly walking straight
into the heart of Winter, and a nipping Winter. For her ladyship had proved
acutely nipping. His little customary phrases, to which Lady Camper
objected, he could see no harm in whatever. Conversing with her in the
privacy of domestic life would never be the flowing business that it is for
other men. It would demand perpetual vigilance, hop, skip, jump,
flounderings, and apologies.
This was not a pleasing prospect.
On the other hand, she was the niece of an earl. She was wealthy. She
might be an excellent friend to Elizabeth; and she could be, when she liked,
both commandingly and bewitchingly ladylike.
Good! But he was a General Officer of not more than fifty-five, in his
full vigour, and she a woman of seventy!
The prospect was bleak. It resembled an outlook on the steppes. In point
of the discipline he was to expect, he might be compared to a raw recruit,
and in his own home!
However, she was a woman of mind. One would be proud of her.
But did he know the worst of her? A dreadful presentiment, that he did
not know the worst of her, rolled an ocean of gloom upon General Ople,
striking out one solitary thought in the obscurity, namely, that he was about
to receive punishment for retiring from active service to a life of ease at a
comparatively early age, when still in marching trim. And the shadow of the
thought was, that he deserved the punishment!
He was in his garden with the dawn. Hard exercise is the best of opiates
for dismal reflections. The General discomposed his daughter by offering to
accompany her on her morning ride before breakfast. She considered that it
would fatigue him. ‘I am not a man of eighty!’ he cried. He could have
wished he had been.

He led the way to the park, where they soon had sight of young Rolles,
who checked his horse and spied them like a vedette, but, perceiving that he
had been seen, came cantering, and hailing the General with hearty
wonderment.
‘And what’s this the world says, General?’ said he. ‘But we all applaud
your taste. My aunt Angela was the handsomest woman of her time.’
The General murmured in confusion, ‘Dear me!’ and looked at the young
man, thinking that he could not have known the time.
‘Is all arranged, my dear General?’
‘Nothing is arranged, and I beg—I say I beg... I came out for fresh air
and pace.’..
The General rode frantically.
In spite of the fresh air, he was unable to eat at breakfast. He was bound,
of course, to present himself to Lady Camper, in common civility,
immediately after it.
And first, what were the phrases he had to avoid uttering in her presence?
He could remember only the ‘gentlemanly residence.’ And it was a
gentlemanly residence, he thought as he took leave of it. It was one, neatly
named to fit the place. Lady Camper is indeed a most eccentric person! he
decided from his experience of her.
He was rather astonished that young Rolles should have spoken so coolly
of his aunt’s leaning to matrimony; but perhaps her exact age was unknown
to the younger members of her family.
This idea refreshed him by suggesting the extremely honourable nature
of Lady Camper’s uncomfortable confession.
He himself had an uncomfortable confession to make. He would have to
speak of his income. He was living up to the edges of it.
She is an upright woman, and I must be the same! he said, fortunately not
in her hearing.
The subject was disagreeable to a man sensitive on the topic of money,
and feeling that his prudence had recently been misled to keep up
appearances.
Lady Camper was in her garden, reclining under her parasol. A chair was
beside her, to which, acknowledging the salutation of her suitor, she waved

him.
‘You have met my nephew Reginald this morning, General?’
‘Curiously, in the park, this morning, before breakfast, I did, yes. Hem! I,
I say I did meet him. Has your ladyship seen him?’
‘No. The park is very pretty in the early morning.’
‘Sweetly pretty.’
Lady Camper raised her head, and with the mildness of assured
dictatorship, pronounced: ‘Never say that before me.’
‘I submit, my lady,’ said the poor scourged man.
‘Why, naturally you do. Vulgar phrases have to be endured, except when
our intimates are guilty, and then we are not merely offended, we are
compromised by them. You are still of the mind in which you left me
yesterday? You are one day older. But I warn you, so am I.’
‘Yes, my lady, we cannot, I say we cannot check time. Decidedly of the
same mind. Quite so.’
‘Oblige me by never saying “Quite so.” My lawyer says it. It reeks of the
City of London. And do not look so miserable.’
‘I, madam? my dear lady!’ the General flashed out in a radiance that
dulled instantly.
‘Well,’ said she cheerfully, ‘and you’re for the old woman?’
‘For Lady Camper.’
‘You are seductive in your flatteries, General. Well, then, we have to
speak of business.’
‘My affairs——’ General Ople was beginning, with perturbed forehead;
but Lady Camper held up her finger.
‘We will touch on your affairs incidentally. Now listen to me, and do not
exclaim until I have finished. You know that these two young ones have
been whispering over the wall for some months. They have been meeting
on the river and in the park habitually, apparently with your consent.’
‘My lady!’
‘I did not say with your connivance.’
‘You mean my daughter Elizabeth?’

‘And my nephew Reginald. We have named them, if that advances us.
Now, the end of such meetings is marriage, and the sooner the better, if they
are to continue. I would rather they should not; I do not hold it good for
young soldiers to marry. But if they do, it is very certain that their pay will
not support a family; and in a marriage of two healthy young people, we
have to assume the existence of the family. You have allowed matters to go
so far that the boy is hot in love; I suppose the girl is, too. She is a nice girl.
I do not object to her personally. But I insist that a settlement be made on
her before I give my nephew one penny. Hear me out, for I am not fond of
business, and shall be glad to have done with these explanations. Reginald
has nothing of his own. He is my sister’s son, and I loved her, and rather
like the boy. He has at present four hundred a year from me. I will double it,
on the condition that you at once make over ten thousand—not less; and let
it be yes or no!—to be settled on your daughter and go to her children,
independent of the husband—cela va sans dire. Now you may speak,
General.’
The General spoke, with breath fetched from the deeps:
‘Ten thousand pounds! Hem! Ten! Hem, frankly—ten, my lady! One’s
income—I am quite taken by surprise. I say Elizabeth’s conduct—though,
poor child! it is natural to her to seek a mate, I mean, to accept a mate and
an establishment, and Reginald is a very hopeful fellow—I was saying, they
jump on me out of an ambush, and I wish them every happiness. And she is
an ardent soldier, and a soldier she must marry. But ten thousand!’
‘It is to secure the happiness of your daughter, General.’
‘Pounds! my lady. It would rather cripple me.’
‘You would have my house, General; you would have the moiety, as the
lawyers say, of my purse; you would have horses, carriages, servants; I do
not divine what more you would wish to have.’
‘But, madam—a pensioner on the Government! I can look back on past
services, I say old services, and I accept my position. But, madam, a
pensioner on my wife, bringing next to nothing to the common estate! I fear
my self-respect would, I say would...’
‘Well, and what would it do, General Ople?’
‘I was saying, my self-respect as my wife’s pensioner, my lady. I could
not come to her empty-handed.’

‘Do you expect that I should be the person to settle money on your
daughter, to save her from mischances? A rakish husband, for example; for
Reginald is young, and no one can guess what will be made of him.’
‘Undoubtedly your ladyship is correct. We might try absence for the poor
girl. I have no female relation, but I could send her to the sea-side to a lady-
friend.’
‘General Ople, I forbid you, as you value my esteem, ever—and I repeat,
I forbid you ever—to afflict my ears with that phrase, “lady-friend!”’
The General blinked in a state of insurgent humility.
These incessant whippings could not but sting the humblest of men; and
‘lady-friend,’ he was sure, was a very common term, used, he was sure, in
the very best society. He had never heard Her Majesty speak at levees of a
lady-friend, but he was quite sure that she had one; and if so, what could be
the objection to her subjects mentioning it as a term to suit their own
circumstances?
He was harassed and perplexed by old Lady Camper’s treatment of him,
and he resolved not to call her Angela even upon supplication—not that
day, at least.
She said, ‘You will not need to bring property of any kind to the common
estate; I neither look for it nor desire it. The generous thing for you to do
would be to give your daughter all you have, and come to me.’
‘But, Lady Camper, if I denude myself or curtail my income—a man at
his wife’s discretion, I was saying a man at his wife’s mercy...!’
General Ople was really forced, by his manly dignity, to make this
protest on its behalf. He did not see how he could have escaped doing so; he
was more an agent than a principal. ‘My wife’s mercy,’ he said again, but
simply as a herald proclaiming superior orders.
Lady Camper’s brows were wrathful. A deep blood-crimson overcame
the rouge, and gave her a terrible stormy look.
‘The congress now ceases to sit, and the treaty is not concluded,’ was all
she said.
She rose, bowed to him, ‘Good morning, General,’ and turned her back.
He sighed. He was a free man. But this could not be denied—whatever
the lady’s age, she was a grand woman in her carriage, and when looking

angry, she had a queenlike aspect that raised her out of the reckoning of
time.
So now he knew there was a worse behind what he had previously
known. He was precipitate in calling it the worst. ‘Now,’ said he to himself,
‘I know the worst!’
No man should ever say it. Least of all, one who has entered into
relations with an eccentric lady.

CHAPTER VI
Politeness required that General Ople should not appear to rejoice in his
dismissal as a suitor, and should at least make some show of holding
himself at the beck of a reconsidering mind. He was guilty of running up to
London early next day, and remaining absent until nightfall; and he did the
same on the two following days. When he presented himself at Lady
Camper’s lodge-gates, the astonishing intelligence, that her ladyship had
departed for the Continent and Egypt gave him qualms of remorse, which
assumed a more definite shape in something like awe of her triumphant
constitution. He forbore to mention her age, for he was the most honourable
of men, but a habit of tea-table talkativeness impelled him to say and repeat
an idea that had visited him, to the effect, that Lady Camper was one of
those wonderful women who are comparable to brilliant generals, and
defend themselves from the siege of Time by various aggressive
movements. Fearful of not being understood, owing to the rarity of the
occasions when the squat plain squad of honest Saxon regulars at his
command were called upon to explain an idea, he re-cast the sentence. But,
as it happened that the regulars of his vocabulary were not numerous, and
not accustomed to work upon thoughts and images, his repetitions rather
succeeded in exposing the piece of knowledge he had recently acquired
than in making his meaning plainer. So we need not marvel that his
acquaintances should suppose him to be secretly aware of an extreme
degree in which Lady Camper was a veteran.
General Ople entered into the gaieties of the neighbourhood once more,
and passed through the Winter cheerfully. In justice to him, however, it
should be said that to the intent dwelling of his mind upon Lady Camper,
and not to the festive life he led, was due his entire ignorance of his
daughter’s unhappiness. She lived with him, and yet it was in other houses
he learnt that she was unhappy. After his last interview with Lady Camper,
he had informed Elizabeth of the ruinous and preposterous amount of
money demanded of him for a settlement upon her and Elizabeth, like the
girl of good sense that she was, had replied immediately, ‘It could not be
thought of, papa.’

He had spoken to Reginald likewise. The young man fell into a dramatic
tearing-of-hair and long-stride fury, not ill becoming an enamoured
dragoon. But he maintained that his aunt, though an eccentric, was a
cordially kind woman. He seemed to feel, if he did not partly hint, that the
General might have accepted Lady Camper’s terms. The young officer
could no longer be welcome at Douro Lodge, so the General paid him a
morning call at his quarters, and was distressed to find him breakfasting
very late, tapping eggs that he forgot to open—one of the surest signs of a
young man downright and deep in love, as the General knew from
experience—and surrounded by uncut sporting journals of past weeks,
which dated from the day when his blow had struck him, as accurately as
the watch of the drowned man marks his minute. Lady Camper had gone to
Italy, and was in communication with her nephew: Reginald was not further
explicit. His legs were very prominent in his despair, and his fingers
frequently performed the part of blunt combs; consequently the General
was impressed by his passion for Elizabeth. The girl who, if she was often
meditative, always met his eyes with a smile, and quietly said ‘Yes, papa,’
and ‘No, papa,’ gave him little concern as to the state of her feelings. Yet
everybody said now that she was unhappy. Mrs. Barcop, the widow, raised
her voice above the rest. So attentive was she to Elizabeth that the General
had it kindly suggested to him, that some one was courting him through his
daughter. He gazed at the widow. Now she was not much past thirty; and it
was really singular—he could have laughed—thinking of Mrs. Barcop set
him persistently thinking of Lady Camper. That is to say, his mad fancy
reverted from the lady of perhaps thirty-five to the lady of seventy.
Such, thought he, is genius in a woman! Of his neighbours generally,
Mrs. Baerens, the wife of a German merchant, an exquisite player on the
pianoforte, was the most inclined to lead him to speak of Lady Camper. She
was a kind prattling woman, and was known to have been a governess
before her charms withdrew the gastronomic Gottfried Baerens from his
devotion to the well-served City club, where, as he exclaimed (ever turning
fondly to his wife as he vocalized the compliment), he had found every
necessity, every luxury, in life, ‘as you cannot have dem out of London—all
save de female!’ Mrs. Baerens, a lady of Teutonic extraction, was
distinguishable as of that sex; at least, she was not masculine. She spoke
with great respect of Lady Camper and her family, and seemed to agree in

the General’s eulogies of Lady Camper’s constitution. Still he thought she
eyed him strangely.
One April morning the General received a letter with the Italian
postmark. Opening it with his usual calm and happy curiosity, he perceived
that it was composed of pen-and-ink drawings. And suddenly his heart sank
like a scuttled ship. He saw himself the victim of a caricature.
The first sketch had merely seemed picturesque, and he supposed it a
clever play of fancy by some travelling friend, or perhaps an actual scene
slightly exaggerated. Even on reading, ‘A distant view of the city of
Wilsonople,’ he was only slightly enlightened. His heart beat still with
befitting regularity. But the second and the third sketches betrayed the
terrible hand. The distant view of the city of Wilsonople was fair with
glittering domes, which, in the succeeding near view, proved to have been
soap-bubbles, for a place of extreme flatness, begirt with crazy old-
fashioned fortifications, was shown; and in the third view, representing the
interior, stood for sole place of habitation, a sentry-box.
Most minutely drawn, and, alas! with fearful accuracy, a military
gentleman in undress occupied the box. Not a doubt could exist as to the
person it was meant to be.
The General tried hard to remain incredulous. He remembered too well
who had called him Wilsonople.
But here was the extraordinary thing that sent him over the
neighbourhood canvassing for exclamations: on the fourth page was the
outline of a lovely feminine hand, holding a pen, as in the act of shading,
and under it these words: ‘What I say is, I say I think it exceedingly
unladylike.’
Now consider the General’s feelings when, turning to this fourth page,
having these very words in his mouth, as the accurate expression of his
thoughts, he discovered them written!
An enemy who anticipates the actions of our mind, has a quality of the
malignant divine that may well inspire terror. The senses of General Ople
were struck by the aspect of a lurid Goddess, who penetrated him, read him
through, and had both power and will to expose and make him ridiculous
for ever.

The loveliness of the hand, too, in a perplexing manner contested his
denunciation of her conduct. It was ladylike eminently, and it involved him
in a confused mixture of the moral and material, as great as young people
are known to feel when they make the attempt to separate them, in one of
their frenzies.
With a petty bitter laugh he folded the letter, put it in his breast-pocket,
and sallied forth for a walk, chiefly to talk to himself about it. But as it
absorbed him entirely, he showed it to the rector, whom he met, and what
the rector said is of no consequence, for General Ople listened to no
remarks, calling in succession on the Pollingtons, the Goslings, the Baerens,
and others, early though it was, and the lords of those houses absent
amassing hoards; and to the ladies everywhere he displayed the sketches he
had received, observing, that Wilsonople meant himself; and there he was,
he said, pointing at the capped fellow in the sentry-box, done unmistakably.
The likeness indeed was remarkable. ‘She is a woman of genius,’ he
ejaculated, with utter melancholy. Mrs. Baerens, by the aid of a magnifying
glass, assisted him to read a line under the sentry-box, that he had taken for
a mere trembling dash; it ran, A gentlemanly residence.
‘What eyes she has!’ the General exclaimed; ‘I say it is miraculous what
eyes she has at her time of... I was saying, I should never have known it was
writing.’
He sighed heavily. His shuddering sensitiveness to caricature was
increased by a certain evident dread of the hand which struck; the knowing
that he was absolutely bare to this woman, defenceless, open to exposure in
his little whims, foibles, tricks, incompetencies, in what lay in his heart, and
the words that would come to his tongue. He felt like a man haunted.
So deeply did he feel the blow, that people asked how it was that he
could be so foolish as to dance about assisting Lady Camper in her efforts
to make him ridiculous; he acted the parts of publisher and agent for the
fearful caricaturist. In truth, there was a strangely double reason for his
conduct; he danced about for sympathy, he had the intensest craving for
sympathy, but more than this, or quite as much, he desired to have the
powers of his enemy widely appreciated; in the first place, that he might be
excused to himself for wincing under them, and secondly, because an awful
admiration of her, that should be deepened by a corresponding sentiment
around him, helped him to enjoy luxurious recollections of an hour when he

was near making her his own—his own, in the holy abstract contemplation
of marriage, without realizing their probable relative conditions after the
ceremony.
‘I say, that is the very image of her ladyship’s hand,’ he was especially
fond of remarking, ‘I say it is a beautiful hand.’
He carried the letter in his pocket-book; and beginning to fancy that she
had done her worst, for he could not imagine an inventive malignity capable
of pursuing the theme, he spoke of her treatment of him with compassionate
regret, not badly assumed from being partly sincere.
Two letters dated in France, the one Dijon, the other Fontainebleau,
arrived together; and as the General knew Lady Camper to be returning to
England, he expected that she was anxious to excuse herself to him. His
fingers were not so confident, for he tore one of the letters to open it.
The City of Wilsonople was recognizable immediately. So likewise was
the sole inhabitant.
General Ople’s petty bitter laugh recurred, like a weak-chested patient’s
cough in the shifting of our winds eastward.
A faceless woman’s shadow kneels on the ground near the sentry-box,
weeping. A faceless shadow of a young man on horseback is beheld
galloping toward a gulf. The sole inhabitant contemplates his largely
substantial full fleshed face and figure in a glass.
Next, we see the standard of Great Britain furled; next, unfurled and
borne by a troop of shadows to the sentry-box. The officer within says, ‘I
say I should be very happy to carry it, but I cannot quit this gentlemanly
residence.’
Next, the standard is shown assailed by popguns. Several of the shadows
are prostrate. ‘I was saying, I assure you that nothing but this gentlemanly
residence prevents me from heading you,’ says the gallant officer.
General Ople trembled with protestant indignation when he saw himself
reclining in a magnified sentry-box, while detachments of shadows hurry to
him to show him the standard of his country trailing in the dust; and he is
maliciously made to say, ‘I dislike responsibility. I say I am a fervent
patriot, and very fond of my comforts, but I shun responsibility.’
The second letter contained scenes between Wilsonople and the Moon.

He addresses her as his neighbour, and tells her of his triumphs over the
sex.
He requests her to inform him whether she is a ‘female,’ that she may be
triumphed over.
He hastens past her window on foot, with his head bent, just as the
General had been in the habit of walking.
He drives a mouse-pony furiously by.
He cuts down a tree, that she may peep through.
Then, from the Moon’s point of view, Wilsonople, a Silenus, is discerned
in an arm-chair winking at a couple too plainly pouting their lips for a doubt
of their intentions to be entertained.
A fourth letter arrived, bearing date of Paris. This one illustrated
Wilsonople’s courtship of the Moon, and ended with his ‘saying,’ in his
peculiar manner, ‘In spite of her paint I could not have conceived her age to
be so enormous.’
How break off his engagement with the Lady Moon? Consent to none of
her terms!
Little used as he was to read behind a veil, acuteness of suffering
sharpened the General’s intelligence to a degree that sustained him in
animated dialogue with each succeeding sketch, or poisoned arrow whirring
at him from the moment his eyes rested on it; and here are a few samples:
‘Wilsonople informs the Moon that she is “sweetly pretty.”
‘He thanks her with “thanks” for a handsome piece of lunar green cheese.
‘He points to her, apparently telling some one, “my lady-friend.”
‘He sneezes “Bijou! bijou! bijou!”’
They were trifles, but they attacked his habits of speech; and he began to
grow more and more alarmingly absurd in each fresh caricature of his
person.
He looked at himself as the malicious woman’s hand had shaped him. It
was unjust; it was no resemblance—and yet it was! There was a corner of
likeness left that leavened the lump; henceforth he must walk abroad with
this distressing image of himself before his eyes, instead of the satisfactory
reflex of the man who had, and was happy in thinking that he had, done
mischief in his time. Such an end for a conquering man was too pathetic.

The General surprised himself talking to himself in something louder
than a hum at neighbours’ dinner-tables. He looked about and noticed that
people were silently watching him.

CHAPTER VII
Lady Camper’s return was the subject of speculation in the
neighbourhood, for most people thought she would cease to persecute the
General with her preposterous and unwarrantable pen-and-ink sketches
when living so closely proximate; and how he would behave was the
question. Those who made a hero of him were sure he would treat her with
disdain. Others were uncertain. He had been so severely hit that it seemed
possible he would not show much spirit.
He, for his part, had come to entertain such dread of the post, that Lady
Camper’s return relieved him of his morning apprehensions; and he would
have forgiven her, though he feared to see her, if only she had promised to
leave him in peace for the future. He feared to see her, because of the too
probable furnishing of fresh matter for her ladyship’s hand. Of course he
could not avoid being seen by her, and that was a particular misery. A
gentlemanly humility, or demureness of aspect, when seen, would, he
hoped, disarm his enemy. It should, he thought. He had borne unheard-of
things. No one of his friends and acquaintances knew, they could not know,
what he had endured. It has caused him fits of stammering. It had destroyed
the composure of his gait. Elizabeth had informed him that he talked to
himself incessantly, and aloud. She, poor child, looked pale too. She was
evidently anxious about him.
Young Rolles, whom he had met now and then, persisted in praising his
aunt’s good heart. So, perhaps, having satiated her revenge, she might now
be inclined for peace, on the terms of distant civility.
‘Yes! poor Elizabeth!’ sighed the General, in pity of the poor girl’s
disappointment; ‘poor Elizabeth! she little guesses what her father has gone
through. Poor child! I say, she hasn’t an idea of my sufferings.’
General Ople delivered his card at Lady Camper’s lodgegates and
escaped to his residence in a state of prickly heat that required the brushing
of his hair with hard brushes for several minutes to comfort and re-establish
him.

He had fallen to working in his garden, when Lady Camper’s card was
brought to him an hour after the delivery of his own; a pleasing
promptitude, showing signs of repentance, and suggesting to the General
instantly some sharp sarcasms upon women, which he had come upon in
quotations in the papers and the pulpit, his two main sources of information.
Instead of handing back the card to the maid, he stuck it in his hat and
went on digging.
The first of a series of letters containing shameless realistic caricatures
was handed to him the afternoon following. They came fast and thick. Not a
day’s interval of grace was allowed. Niobe under the shafts of Diana was
hardly less violently and mortally assailed. The deadliness of the attack lay
in the ridicule of the daily habits of one of the most sensitive of men, as to
his personal appearance, and the opinion of the world. He might have
concealed the sketches, but he could not have concealed the bruises, and
people were perpetually asking the unhappy General what he was saying,
for he spoke to himself as if he were repeating something to them for the
tenth time.
‘I say,’ said he, ‘I say that for a lady, really an educated lady, to sit, as she
must—I was saying, she must have sat in an attic to have the right view of
me. And there you see—this is what she has done. This is the last, this is the
afternoon’s delivery. Her ladyship has me correctly as to costume, but I
could not exhibit such a sketch to ladies.’
A back view of the General was displayed in his act of digging.
‘I say I could not allow ladies to see it,’ he informed the gentlemen, who
were suffered to inspect it freely.
‘But you see, I have no means of escape; I am at her mercy from morning
to night,’ the General said, with a quivering tongue, ‘unless I stay at home
inside the house; and that is death to me, or unless I abandon the place, and
my lease; and I shall—I say, I shall find nowhere in England for anything
like the money or conveniences such a gent—a residence you would call fit
for a gentleman. I call it a bi... it is, in short, a gem. But I shall have to go.’
Young Rolles offered to expostulate with his aunt Angela.
The General said, ‘Tha... I thank you very much. I would not have her
ladyship suppose I am so susceptible. I hardly know,’ he confessed pitiably,
‘what it is right to say, and what not—what not. I-I-I never know when I am

not looking a fool. I hurry from tree to tree to shun the light. I am seriously
affected in my appetite. I say, I shall have to go.’
Reginald gave him to understand that if he flew, the shafts would follow
him, for Lady Camper would never forgive his running away, and was quite
equal to publishing a book of the adventures of Wilsonople.
Sunday afternoon, walking in the park with his daughter on his arm,
General Ople met Mr. Rolles. He saw that the young man and Elizabeth
were mortally pale, and as the very idea of wretchedness directed his
attention to himself, he addressed them conjointly on the subject of his
persecution, giving neither of them a chance of speaking until they were
constrained to part.
A sketch was the consequence, in which a withered Cupid and a fading
Psyche were seen divided by Wilsonople, who keeps them forcibly asunder
with policeman’s fists, while courteously and elegantly entreating them to
hear him. ‘Meet,’ he tells them, ‘as often as you like, in my company, so
long as you listen to me’; and the pathos of his aspect makes hungry
demand for a sympathetic audience.
Now, this, and not the series representing the martyrdom of the old
couple at Douro Lodge Gates, whose rigid frames bore witness to the close
packing of a gentlemanly residence, this was the sketch General Ople, in his
madness from the pursuing bite of the gadfly, handed about at Mrs.
Pollington’s lawn-party. Some have said, that he should not have betrayed
his daughter; but it is reasonable to suppose he had no idea of his daughter’s
being the Psyche. Or if he had, it was indistinct, owing to the violence of
his personal emotion. Assuming this to have been the very sketch; he
handed it to two or three ladies in turn, and was heard to deliver himself at
intervals in the following snatches: ‘As you like, my lady, as you like;
strike, I say strike; I bear it; I say I bear it. ... If her ladyship is unforgiving,
I say I am enduring.... I may go, I was saying I may go mad, but while I
have my reason I walk upright, I walk upright.’
Mr. Pollington and certain City gentlemen hearing the poor General’s
renewed soliloquies, were seized with disgust of Lady Camper’s conduct,
and stoutly advised an application to the Law Courts.
He gave ear to them abstractedly, but after pulling out the whole chapter
of the caricatures (which it seemed that he kept in a case of morocco leather
in his breast-pocket), showing them, with comments on them, and

observing, ‘There will be more, there must be more, I say I am sure there
are things I do that her ladyship will discover and expose,’ he declined to
seek redress or simple protection; and the miserable spectacle was exhibited
soon after of this courtly man listening to Mrs. Barcop on the weather, and
replying in acquiescence: ‘It is hot.—If your ladyship will only abstain
from colours. Very hot as you say, madam,—I do not complain of pen and
ink, but I would rather escape colours. And I dare say you find it hot too?’
Mrs. Barcop shut her eyes and sighed over the wreck of a handsome
military officer.
She asked him: ‘What is your objection to colours?’
His hand was at his breast-pocket immediately, as he said: ‘Have you not
seen?’—though but a few minutes back he had shown her the contents of
the packet, including a hurried glance of the famous digging scene.
By this time the entire district was in fervid sympathy with General Ople.
The ladies did not, as their lords did, proclaim astonishment that a man
should suffer a woman to goad him to a state of semi-lunacy; but one or two
confessed to their husbands, that it required a great admiration of General
Ople not to despise him, both for his susceptibility and his patience. As for
the men, they knew him to have faced the balls in bellowing battle-strife;
they knew him to have endured privation, not only cold but downright want
of food and drink—an almost unimaginable horror to these brave daily
feasters; so they could not quite look on him in contempt; but his want of
sense was offensive, and still more so his submission to a scourging by a
woman. Not one of them would have deigned to feel it. Would they have
allowed her to see that she could sting them? They would have laughed at
her. Or they would have dragged her before a magistrate.
It was a Sunday in early Summer when General Ople walked to morning
service, unaccompanied by Elizabeth, who was unwell. The church was of
the considerate old-fashioned order, with deaf square pews, permitting the
mind to abstract itself from the sermon, or wrestle at leisure with the
difficulties presented by the preacher, as General Ople often did, feeling not
a little in love with his sincere attentiveness for grappling with the knotty
point and partially allowing the struggle to be seen.
The Church was, besides, a sanctuary for him. Hither his enemy did not
come. He had this one place of refuge, and he almost looked a happy man
again.

He had passed into his hat and out of it, which he habitually did standing,
when who should walk up to within a couple of yards of him but Lady
Camper. Her pew was full of poor people, who made signs of retiring. She
signified to them that they were to sit, then quietly took her seat among
them, fronting the General across the aisle.
During the sermon a low voice, sharp in contradistinction to the
monotone of the preacher’s, was heard to repeat these words: ‘I say I am
not sure I shall survive it.’ Considerable muttering in the same quarter was
heard besides.
After the customary ceremonious game, when all were free to move, of
nobody liking to move first, Lady Camper and a charity boy were the
persons who took the lead. But Lady Camper could not quit her pew, owing
to the sticking of the door. She smiled as with her pretty hand she twice or
thrice essayed to shake it open. General Ople strode to her aid. He pulled
the door, gave the shadow of a respectful bow, and no doubt he would have
withdrawn, had not Lady Camper, while acknowledging the civility, placed
her prayer-book in his hands to carry at her heels. There was no choice for
him. He made a sort of slipping dance back for his hat, and followed her
ladyship. All present being eager to witness the spectacle, the passage of
Lady Camper dragging the victim General behind her was observed without
a stir of the well-dressed members of the congregation, until a desire
overcame them to see how Lady Camper would behave to her fish when she
had him outside the sacred edifice.
None could have imagined such a scene. Lady Camper was in her
carriage; General Ople was holding her prayer-book, hat in hand, at the
carriage step, and he looked as if he were toasting before the bars of a
furnace; for while he stood there, Lady Camper was rapidly pencilling
outlines in a small pocket sketchbook. There are dogs whose shyness is put
to it to endure human observation and a direct address to them, even on the
part of their masters; and these dear simple dogs wag tail and turn their
heads aside waveringly, as though to entreat you not to eye them and talk to
them so. General Ople, in the presence of the sketchbook, was much like
the nervous animal. He would fain have run away. He glanced at it, and
round about, and again at it, and at the heavens. Her ladyship’s cruelty, and
his inexplicable submission to it, were witnessed of the multitude.

The General’s friends walked very slowly. Lady Camper’s carriage
whirled by, and the General came up with them, accosting them and himself
alternately. They asked him where Elizabeth was, and he replied, ‘Poor
child, yes! I am told she is pale, but I cannot, believe I am so perfectly, I say
so perfectly ridiculous, when I join the responses.’ He drew forth half a
dozen sheets, and showed them sketches that Lady Camper had taken in
church, caricaturing him in the sitting down and the standing up. She had
torn them out of the book, and presented them to him when driving off. ‘I
was saying, worship in the ordinary sense will be interdicted to me if her
ladyship...,’ said the General, woefully shuffling the sketch-paper sheets in
which he figured.
He made the following odd confession to Mr. and Mrs. Gosling on the
road:—that he had gone to his chest, and taken out his sword-belt to
measure his girth, and found himself thinner than when he left the service,
which had not been the case before his attendance at the last levee of the
foregoing season. So the deduction was obvious, that Lady Camper had
reduced him. She had reduced him as effectually as a harassing siege.
‘But why do you pay attention to her? Why...!’ exclaimed Mr. Gosling, a
gentleman of the City, whose roundness would have turned a rifle-shot.
‘To allow her to wound you so seriously!’ exclaimed Mrs. Gosling.
‘Madam, if she were my wife,’ the General explained, ‘I should feel it. I
say it is the fact of it; I feel it, if I appear so extremely ridiculous to a human
eye, to any one eye.’
‘To Lady Camper’s eye.’
He admitted it might be that. He had not thought of ascribing the
acuteness of his pain to the miserable image he presented in this particular
lady’s eye. No; it really was true, curiously true: another lady’s eye might
have transformed him to a pumpkin shape, exaggerated all his foibles fifty-
fold, and he, though not liking it, of course not, would yet have preserved a
certain manly equanimity. How was it Lady Camper had such power over
him?—a lady concealing seventy years with a rouge-box or paint-pot! It
was witchcraft in its worst character. He had for six months at her bidding
been actually living the life of a beast, degraded in his own esteem;
scorched by every laugh he heard; running, pursued, overtaken, and as it
were scored or branded, and then let go for the process to be repeated.

CHAPTER VIII
Our young barbarians have it all their own way with us when they fall
into love-liking; they lead us whither they please, and interest us in their
wishings, their weepings, and that fine performance, their kissings. But
when we see our veterans tottering to their fall, we scarcely consent to their
having a wish; as for a kiss, we halloo at them if we discover them on a
byway to the sacred grove where such things are supposed to be done by
the venerable. And this piece of rank injustice, not to say impoliteness, is
entirely because of an unsound opinion that Nature is not in it, as though it
were our esteem for Nature which caused us to disrespect them. They, in
truth, show her to us discreet, civilized, in a decent moral aspect: vistas of
real life, views of the mind’s eye, are opened by their touching little
emotions; whereas those bully youngsters who come bellowing at us and
catch us by the senses plainly prove either that we are no better than they, or
that we give our attention to Nature only when she makes us afraid of her. If
we cared for her, we should be up and after her reverentially in her sedater
steps, deeply studying her in her slower paces. She teaches them nothing
when they are whirling. Our closest instructors, the true philosophers—the
story-tellers, in short-will learn in time that Nature is not of necessity
always roaring, and as soon as they do, the world may be said to be
enlightened. Meantime, in the contemplation of a pair of white whiskers
fluttering round a pair of manifestly painted cheeks, be assured that Nature
is in it: not that hectoring wanton—but let the young have their fun. Let the
superior interest of the passions of the aged be conceded, and not a word
shall be said against the young.
If, then, Nature is in it, how has she been made active? The reason of her
launch upon this last adventure is, that she has perceived the person who
can supply the virtue known to her by experience to be wanting. Thus, in
the broader instance, many who have journeyed far down the road, turn
back to the worship of youth, which they have lost. Some are for the
graceful worldliness of wit, of which they have just share enough to admire
it. Some are captivated by hands that can wield the rod, which in earlier
days they escaped to their cost. In the case of General Ople, it was partly

her whippings of him, partly her penetration; her ability, that sat so finely
on a wealthy woman, her indifference to conventional manners, that so well
beseemed a nobly-born one, and more than all, her correction of his little
weaknesses and incompetencies, in spite of his dislike of it, won him. He
began to feel a sort of nibbling pleasure in her grotesque sketches of his
person; a tendency to recur to the old ones while dreading the arrival of
new. You hear old gentlemen speak fondly of the swish; and they are not
attached to pain, but the instrument revives their feeling of youth; and
General Ople half enjoyed, while shrinking, Lady Camper’s foregone
outlines of him. For in the distance, the whip’s-end may look like a clinging
caress instead of a stinging flick. But this craven melting in his heart was
rebuked by a very worthy pride, that flew for support to the injury she had
done to his devotions, and the offence to the sacred edifice. After thinking
over it, he decided that he must quit his residence; and as it appeared to him
in the light of duty, he, with an unspoken anguish, commissioned the house-
agent of his town to sell his lease or let the house furnished, without further
parley.
From the house-agent’s shop he turned into the chemist’s, for a tonic—a
foolish proceeding, for he had received bracing enough in the blow he had
just dealt himself, but he had been cogitating on tonics recently, imagining
certain valiant effects of them, with visions of a former careless happiness
that they were likely to restore. So he requested to have the tonic strong,
and he took one glass of it over the counter.
Fifteen minutes after the draught, he came in sight of his house, and
beholding it, he could have called it a gentlemanly residence aloud under
Lady Camper’s windows, his insurgency was of such violence. He talked of
it incessantly, but forbore to tell Elizabeth, as she was looking pale, the
reason why its modest merits touched him so. He longed for the hour of his
next dose, and for a caricature to follow, that he might drink and defy it. A
caricature was really due to him, he thought; otherwise why had he
abandoned his bijou dwelling? Lady Camper, however, sent none. He had to
wait a fortnight before one came, and that was rather a likeness, and a
handsome likeness, except as regarded a certain disorderliness in his dress,
which he knew to be very unlike him. Still it despatched him to the looking-
glass, to bring that verifier of facts in evidence against the sketch. While
sitting there he heard the housemaid’s knock at the door, and the strange
intelligence that his daughter was with Lady Camper, and had left word that

she hoped he would not forget his engagement to go to Mrs. Baerens’ lawn-
party.
The General jumped away from the glass, shouting at the absent
Elizabeth in a fit of wrath so foreign to him, that he returned hurriedly to
have another look at himself, and exclaimed at the pitch of his voice, ‘I say
I attribute it to an indigestion of that tonic. Do you hear?’ The housemaid
faintly answered outside the door that she did, alarming him, for there
seemed to be confusion somewhere. His hope was that no one would
mention Lady Camper’s name, for the mere thought of her caused a rush to
his head. ‘I believe I am in for a touch of apoplexy,’ he said to the rector,
who greeted him, in advance of the ladies, on Mr. Baerens’ lawn. He said it
smilingly, but wanting some show of sympathy, instead of the whisper and
meaningless hand at his clerical band, with which the rector responded, he
cried, ‘Apoplexy,’ and his friend seemed then to understand, and
disappeared among the ladies.
Several of them surrounded the General, and one inquired whether the
series was being continued. He drew forth his pocket-book, handed her the
latest, and remarked on the gross injustice of it; for, as he requested them to
take note, her ladyship now sketched him as a person inattentive to his
dress, and he begged them to observe that she had drawn him with his
necktie hanging loose. ‘And that, I say that has never been known of me
since I first entered society.’
The ladies exchanged looks of profound concern; for the fact was, the
General had come without any necktie and any collar, and he appeared to be
unaware of the circumstance. The rector had told them, that in answer to a
hint he had dropped on the subject of neckties, General Ople expressed a
slight apprehension of apoplexy; but his careless or merely partial
observance of the laws of buttonment could have nothing to do with such
fears. They signified rather a disorder of the intelligence. Elizabeth was
condemned for leaving him to go about alone. The situation was really most
painful, for a word to so sensitive a man would drive him away in shame
and for good; and still, to let him parade the ground in the state, compared
with his natural self, of scarecrow, and with the dreadful habit of talking to
himself quite rageing, was a horrible alternative. Mrs. Baerens at last
directed her husband upon the General, trembling as though she watched
for the operations of a fish torpedo; and other ladies shared her excessive

anxiousness, for Mr. Baerens had the manner and the look of artillery, and
on this occasion carried a surcharge of powder.
The General bent his ear to Mr. Baerens, whose German-English and
repeated remark, ‘I am to do it wid delicassy,’ did not assist his
comprehension; and when he might have been enlightened, he was petrified
by seeing Lady Camper walk on the lawn with Elizabeth. The great lady
stood a moment beside Mrs. Baerens; she came straight over to him,
contemplating him in silence.
Then she said, ‘Your arm, General Ople,’ and she made one circuit of the
lawn with him, barely speaking.
At her request, he conducted her to her carriage. He took a seat beside
her, obediently. He felt that he was being sketched, and comported himself
like a child’s flat man, that jumps at the pulling of a string.
‘Where have you left your girl, General?’
Before he could rally his wits to answer the question, he was asked:
‘And what have you done with your necktie and collar?’
He touched his throat.
‘I am rather nervous to-day, I forgot Elizabeth,’ he said, sending his
fingers in a dotting run of wonderment round his neck.
Lady Camper smiled with a triumphing humour on her close-drawn lips.
The verified absence of necktie and collar seemed to be choking him.
‘Never mind, you have been abroad without them,’ said Lady Camper,
‘and that is a victory for me. And you thought of Elizabeth first when I
drew your attention to it, and that is a victory for you. It is a very great
victory. Pray, do not be dismayed, General. You have a handsome
campaigning air. And no apologies, if you please; I like you well enough as
you are. There is my hand.’
General Ople understood her last remark. He pressed the lady’s hand in
silence, very nervously.
‘But do not shrug your head into your shoulders as if there were any
possibility of concealing the thunderingly evident,’ said Lady Camper,
electrifying him, what with her cordial squeeze, her kind eyes, and her
singular language. ‘You have omitted the collar. Well? The collar is the fatal
finishing touch in men’s dress; it would make Apollo look bourgeois.’

Her hand was in his: and watching the play of her features, a spark
entered General Ople’s brain, causing him, in forgetfulness of collar and
caricatures, to ejaculate, ‘Seventy? Did your ladyship say seventy? Utterly
impossible! You trifle with me.’
‘We will talk when we are free of this accompaniment of carriage-
wheels, General,’ said Lady Camper.
‘I will beg permission to go and fetch Elizabeth, madam.’
‘Rightly thought of. Fetch her in my carriage. And, by the way, Mrs.
Baerens was my old music-mistress, and is, I think, one year older than I.
She can tell you on which side of seventy I am.’
‘I shall not require to ask, my lady,’ he said, sighing.
‘Then we will send the carriage for Elizabeth, and have it out together at
once. I am impatient; yes, General, impatient: for what?—forgiveness.’
‘Of me, my lady?’ The General breathed profoundly.
‘Of whom else? Do you know what it is?-I don’t think you do. You
English have the smallest experience of humanity. I mean this: to strike so
hard that, in the end, you soften your heart to the victim. Well, that is my
weakness. And we of our blood put no restraint on the blows we strike
when we think them wanted, so we are always overdoing it.’
General Ople assisted Lady Camper to alight from the carriage, which
was forthwith despatched for Elizabeth.
He prepared to listen to her with a disconnected smile of acute
attentiveness.
She had changed. She spoke of money. Ten thousand pounds must be
settled on his daughter. ‘And now,’ said she, ‘you will remember that you
are wanting a collar.’
He acquiesced. He craved permission to retire for ten minutes.
‘Simplest of men! what will cover you?’ she exclaimed, and peremptorily
bidding him sit down in the drawing-room, she took one of the famous pair
of pistols in her hand, and said, ‘If I put myself in a similar position, and
make myself decodletee too, will that satisfy you? You see these murderous
weapons. Well, I am a coward. I dread fire-arms. They are laid there to
impose on the world, and I believe they do. They have imposed on you.
Now, you would never think of pretending to a moral quality you do not

possess. But, silly, simple man that you are! You can give yourself the airs
of wealth, buy horses to conceal your nakedness, and when you are taken
upon the standard of your apparent income, you would rather seem to be
beating a miserly retreat than behave frankly and honestly. I have a little
overstated it, but I am near the mark.’
‘Your ladyship wanting courage!’ cried the General.
‘Refresh yourself by meditating on it,’ said she. ‘And to prove it to you, I
was glad to take this house when I knew I was to have a gallant gentleman
for a neighbour. No visitors will be admitted, General Ople, so you are
bare-throated only to me: sit quietly. One day you speculated on the paint in
my cheeks for the space of a minute and a half:—I had said that I freckled
easily. Your look signified that you really could not detect a single freckle
for the paint. I forgave you, or I did not. But when I found you, on closer
acquaintance, as indifferent to your daughter’s happiness as you had been to
her reputation...’
‘My daughter! her reputation! her happiness!’
General Ople raised his eyes under a wave, half uttering the outcries.
‘So indifferent to her reputation, that you allowed a young man to talk
with her over the wall, and meet her by appointment: so reckless of the
girl’s happiness, that when I tried to bring you to a treaty, on her behalf, you
could not be dragged from thinking of yourself and your own affair. When I
found that, perhaps I was predisposed to give you some of what my sisters
used to call my spice. You would not honestly state the proportions of your
income, and you affected to be faithful to the woman of seventy. Most
preposterous! Could any caricature of mine exceed in grotesqueness your
sketch of yourself? You are a brave and a generous man all the same: and I
suspect it is more hoodwinking than egotism—or extreme egotism—that
blinds you. A certain amount you must have to be a man. You did not like
my paint, still less did you like my sincerity; you were annoyed by my
corrections of your habits of speech; you were horrified by the age of
seventy, and you were credulous—General Ople, listen to me, and
remember that you have no collar on—you were credulous of my statement
of my great age, or you chose to be so, or chose to seem so, because I had
brushed your cat’s coat against the fur. And then, full of yourself, not
thinking of Elizabeth, but to withdraw in the chivalrous attitude of the man
true to his word to the old woman, only stickling to bring a certain

independence to the common stock, because—I quote you! and you have no
collar on, mind—“you could not be at your wife’s mercy,” you broke from
your proposal on the money question. Where was your consideration for
Elizabeth then?
‘Well, General, you were fond of thinking of yourself, and I thought I
would assist you. I gave you plenty of subject matter. I will not say I meant
to work a homoeopathic cure. But if I drive you to forget your collar, is it or
is it not a triumph?
‘No,’ added Lady Camper, ‘it is no triumph for me, but it is one for you,
if you like to make the most of it. Your fault has been to quit active service,
General, and love your ease too well. It is the fault of your countrymen. You
must get a militia regiment, or inspectorship of militia. You are ten times
the man in exercise. Why, do you mean to tell me that you would have
cared for those drawings of mine when marching?’
‘I think so, I say I think so,’ remarked the General seriously.
‘I doubt it,’ said she. ‘But to the point; here comes Elizabeth. If you have
not much money to spare for her, according to your prudent calculation,
reflect how this money has enfeebled you and reduced you to the level of
the people round about us here—who are, what? Inhabitants of gentlemanly
residences, yes! But what kind of creature? They have no mental standard,
no moral aim, no native chivalry. You were rapidly becoming one of them,
only, fortunately for you, you were sensitive to ridicule.’
‘Elizabeth shall have half my money settled on her,’ said the General;
‘though I fear it is not much. And if I can find occupation, my lady...’
‘Something worthier than that,’ said Lady Camper, pencilling outlines
rapidly on the margin of a book, and he saw himself lashing a pony; ‘or
that,’ and he was plucking at a cabbage; ‘or that,’ and he was bowing to
three petticoated posts.
‘The likeness is exact,’ General Ople groaned.
‘So you may suppose I have studied you,’ said she. ‘But there is no real
likeness. Slight exaggerations do more harm to truth than reckless
violations of it.
You would not have cared one bit for a caricature, if you had not nursed
the absurd idea of being one of our conquerors. It is the very tragedy of
modesty for a man like you to have such notions, my poor dear good friend.

The modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity. And
reflect whether you have not been intoxicated, for these young people have
been wretched, and you have not observed it, though one of them was living
with you, and is the child you love. There, I have done. Pray show a good
face to Elizabeth.’
The General obeyed as well as he could. He felt very like a sheep that has
come from a shearing, and when released he wished to run away. But hardly
had he escaped before he had a desire for the renewal of the operation. ‘She
sees me through, she sees me through,’ he was heard saying to himself, and
in the end he taught himself, to say it with a secret exultation, for as it was
on her part an extraordinary piece of insight to see him through, it struck
him that in acknowledging the truth of it, he made a discovery of new
powers in human nature.
General Ople studied Lady Camper diligently for fresh proofs of her
penetration of the mysteries in his bosom; by which means, as it happened
that she was diligently observing the two betrothed young ones, he began to
watch them likewise, and took a pleasure in the sight. Their meetings, their
partings, their rides out and home furnished him themes of converse. He
soon had enough to talk of, and previously, as he remembered, he had never
sustained a conversation of any length with composure and the beneficent
sense of fulness. Five thousand pounds, to which sum Lady Camper
reduced her stipulation for Elizabeth’s dowry, he signed over to his dear girl
gladly, and came out with the confession to her ladyship that a well-
invested twelve thousand comprised his fortune. She shrugged she had left
off pulling him this way and that, so his chains were enjoyable, and he said
to himself: ‘If ever she should in the dead of night want a man to defend
her!’ He mentioned it to Reginald, who had been the repository of
Elizabeth’s lamentations about her father being left alone, forsaken, and the
young man conceived a scheme for causing his aunt’s great bell to be rung
at midnight, which would certainly have led to a dramatic issue and the
happy re-establishment of our masculine ascendancy at the close of this
history. But he forgot it in his bridegroom’s delight, until he was making his
miserable official speech at the wedding-breakfast, and set Elizabeth
winking over a tear. As she stood in the hall ready to depart, a great van was
observed in the road at the gates of Douro Lodge; and this, the men in
custody declared to contain the goods and knick-knacks of the people who

had taken the house furnished for a year, and were coming in that very
afternoon.
‘I remember, I say now I remember, I had a notice,’ the General said
cheerily to his troubled daughter.
‘But where are you to go, papa?’ the poor girl cried, close on sobbing.
‘I shall get employment of some sort,’ said he. ‘I was saying I want it, I
need it, I require it.’
‘You are saying three times what once would have sufficed for,’ said
Lady Camper, and she asked him a few questions, frowned with a smile,
and offered him a lodgement in his neighbour’s house.
‘Really, dearest Aunt Angela?’ said Elizabeth.
‘What else can I do, child? I have, it seems, driven him out of a
gentlemanly residence, and I must give him a ladylike one. True, I would
rather have had him at call, but as I have always wished for a policeman in
the house, I may as well be satisfied with a soldier.’
‘But if you lose your character, my lady?’ said Reginald.
‘Then I must look to the General to restore it.’
General Ople immediately bowed his head over Lady Camper’s fingers.
‘An odd thing to happen to a woman of forty-one!’ she said to her great
people, and they submitted with the best grace in the world, while the
General’s ears tingled till he felt younger than Reginald. This, his
reflections ran, or it would be more correct to say waltzed, this is the result
of painting!—that you can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks
are tinted!
As for Lady Camper, she had been floated accidentally over the ridicule
of the bruit of a marriage at a time of life as terrible to her as her fiction of
seventy had been to General Ople; she resigned herself to let things go with
the tide. She had not been blissful in her first marriage, she had abandoned
the chase of an ideal man, and she had found one who was tunable so as not
to offend her ears, likely ever to be a fund of amusement for her humour,
good, impressible, and above all, very picturesque. There is the secret of
her, and of how it came to pass that a simple man and a complex woman
fell to union after the strangest division.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Can believe a woman to be any age when her cheeks are tinted
Modest are the most easily intoxicated when they sip at vanity
Nature is not of necessity always roaring
Only to be described in the tongue of auctioneers
Respected the vegetable yet more than he esteemed the flower
She seems honest, and that is the most we can hope of girls
Spare me that word “female” as long as you live
The mildness of assured dictatorship
When we see our veterans tottering to their fall

THE TALE OF CHLOE AN EPISODE IN THE
HISTORY OF BEAU BEAMISH
By George Meredith

‘Fair Chloe, we toasted of old,
As the Queen of our festival meeting;
Now Chloe is lifeless and cold;
You must go to the grave for her greeting.
Her beauty and talents were framed
To enkindle the proudest to win her;
Then let not the mem’ry be blamed
Of the purest that e’er was a sinner!’

Captain Chanter’s Collection.

CHAPTER I
A proper tenderness for the Peerage will continue to pass current the
illustrious gentleman who was inflamed by Cupid’s darts to espouse the
milkmaid, or dairymaid, under his ballad title of Duke of Dewlap: nor was
it the smallest of the services rendered him by Beau Beamish, that he
clapped the name upon her rustic Grace, the young duchess, the very first
day of her arrival at the Wells. This happy inspiration of a wit never failing
at a pinch has rescued one of our princeliest houses from the assaults of the
vulgar, who are ever too rejoiced to bespatter and disfigure a brilliant coat-
of-arms; insomuch that the ballad, to which we are indebted for the
narrative of the meeting and marriage of the ducal pair, speaks of Dewlap in
good faith—

O the ninth Duke of Dewlap I am, Susie dear!

without a hint of a domino title. So likewise the pictorial historian is
merry over ‘Dewlap alliances’ in his description of the society of that
period. He has read the ballad, but disregarded the memoirs of the beau.
Writers of pretension would seem to have an animus against individuals of
the character of Mr. Beamish. They will treat of the habits and manners of
highwaymen, and quote obscure broadsheets and songs of the people to
colour their story, yet decline to bestow more than a passing remark upon
our domestic kings: because they are not hereditary, we may suppose. The
ballad of ‘The Duke and the Dairymaid,’ ascribed with questionable
authority to the pen of Mr. Beamish himself in a freak of his gaiety, was
once popular enough to provoke the moralist to animadversions upon an
order of composition that ‘tempted every bouncing country lass to sidle an
eye in a blowsy cheek’ in expectation of a coronet for her pains—and a wet
ditch as the result! We may doubt it to have been such an occasion of
mischief. But that mischief may have been done by it to a nobility-loving
people, even to the love of our nobility among the people, must be granted;
and for the particular reason, that the hero of the ballad behaved so
handsomely. We perceive a susceptibility to adulteration in their worship at
the sight of one of their number, a young maid, suddenly snatched up to the

gaping heights of Luxury and Fashion through sheer good looks.
Remembering that they are accustomed to a totally reverse effect from that
possession, it is very perceptible how a breach in their reverence may come
of the change.
Otherwise the ballad is innocent; certainly it is innocent in design. A
fresher national song of a beautiful incident of our country life has never
been written. The sentiments are natural, the imagery is apt and redolent of
the soil, the music of the verse appeals to the dullest ear. It has no smell of
the lamp, nothing foreign and far-fetched about it, but is just what it
pretends to be, the carol of the native bird. A sample will show, for the
ballad is much too long to be given entire:

Sweet Susie she tripped on a shiny May morn,
As blithe as the lark from the green-springing corn,
When, hard by a stile, ‘twas her luck to behold
A wonderful gentleman covered with gold!

There was gold on his breeches and gold on his coat,
His shirt-frill was grand as a fifty-pound note;
The diamonds glittered all up him so bright,
She thought him the Milky Way clothing a Sprite!

‘Fear not, pretty maiden,’ he said with a smile;
‘And, pray, let me help you in crossing the stile.
She bobbed him a curtsey so lovely and smart,
It shot like an arrow and fixed in his heart.

As light as a robin she hopped to the stone,
But fast was her hand in the gentleman’s own;
And guess how she stared, nor her senses could trust,
When this creamy gentleman knelt in the dust!

With a rhapsody upon her beauty, he informs her of his rank, for a
flourish to the proposal of honourable and immediate marriage. He cannot
wait. This is the fatal condition of his love: apparently a characteristic of
amorous dukes. We read them in the signs extended to us. The minds of
these august and solitary men have not yet been sounded; they are too
distant. Standing upon their lofty pinnacles, they are as legible to the rabble
below as a line of cuneiform writing in a page of old copybook roundhand.
By their deeds we know them, as heathendom knows of its gods; and it is
repeatedly on record that the moment they have taken fire they must wed,
though the lady’s finger be circled with nothing closer fitting than a ring of
the bed-curtain. Vainly, as becomes a candid country lass, blue-eyed Susan
tells him that she is but a poor dairymaid. He has been a student of women
at Courts, in which furnace the sex becomes a transparency, so he recounts

to her the catalogue of material advantages he has to offer. Finally, after his
assurances that she is to be married by the parson, really by the parson, and
a real parson—

Sweet Susie is off for her parents’ consent,
And long must the old folk debate what it meant.
She left them the eve of that happy May morn,
To shine like the blossom that hangs from the thorn!

Apart from its historical value, the ballad is an example to poets of our
day, who fly to mythological Greece, or a fanciful and morbid
mediaevalism, or—save the mark!—abstract ideas, for themes of song, of
what may be done to make our English life poetically interesting, if they
would but pluck the treasures presented them by the wayside; and Nature
being now as then the passport to popularity, they have themselves to thank
for their little hold on the heart of the people. A living native duke is worth
fifty Phoebus Apollos to Englishmen, and a buxom young lass of the fields
mounting from a pair of pails to the estate of duchess, a more romantic
object than troops of your visionary Yseults and Guineveres.

CHAPTER II
A certain time after the marriage, his Grace alighted at the Wells, and did
himself the honour to call on Mr. Beamish. Addressing that gentleman, to
whom he was no stranger, he communicated the purport of his visit.
‘Sir, and my very good friend,’ he said, ‘first let me beg you to abate the
severity of your countenance, for if I am here in breach of your prohibition,
I shall presently depart in compliance with it. I could indeed deplore the
loss of the passion for play of which you effectually cured me. I was then
armed against a crueller, that allows of no interval for a man to make his
vow to recover!’
‘The disease which is all crisis, I apprehend,’ Mr. Beamish remarked.
‘Which, sir, when it takes hold of dry wood, burns to the last splinter. It is
now’—the duke fetched a tender groan—‘three years ago that I had a
caprice to marry a grandchild!’
‘Of Adam’s,’ Mr. Beamish said cheerfully. ‘There was no legitimate bar
to the union.’
‘Unhappily none. Yet you are not to suppose I regret it. A most admirable
creature, Mr. Beamish, a real divinity! And the better known, the more
adored. There is the misfortune. At my season of life, when the greater and
the minor organs are in a conspiracy to tell me I am mortal, the passion of
love must be welcomed as a calamity, though one would not be free of it for
the renewal of youth. You are to understand, that with a little awakening
taste for dissipation, she is the most innocent of angels. Hitherto we have
lived... To her it has been a new world. But she is beginning to find it a
narrow one. No, no, she is not tired of my society. Very far from that. But in
her present station an inclination for such gatherings as you have here, for
example, is like a desire to take the air: and the healthy habits of my
duchess have not accustomed her to be immured. And in fine, devote
ourselves as we will, a term approaches when the enthusiasm for serving as
your wife’s playfellow all day, running round tables and flying along
corridors before a knotted handkerchief, is mightily relaxed. Yet the dread
of a separation from her has kept me at these pastimes for a considerable

period beyond my relish of them. Not that I acknowledge fatigue. I have, it
seems, a taste for reflection; I am now much disposed to read and meditate,
which cannot be done without repose. I settle myself, and I receive a
worsted ball in my face, and I am expected to return it. I comply; and then
you would say a nursery in arms. It would else be the deplorable spectacle
of a beautiful young woman yawning.’
‘Earthquake and saltpetre threaten us less terribly,’ said Mr. Beamish.
‘In fine, she has extracted a promise that ‘this summer she shall visit the
Wells for a month, and I fear I cannot break my pledge of my word; I fear I
cannot.’
‘Very certainly I would not,’ said Mr. Beamish.
The duke heaved a sigh. ‘There are reasons, family reasons, why my
company and protection must be denied to her here. I have no wish... indeed
my name, for the present, until such time as she shall have found her feet...
and there is ever a penalty to pay for that. Ah, Mr. Beamish, pictures are
ours, when we have bought them and hung them up; but who insures us
possession of a beautiful work of Nature? I have latterly betaken me to
reflect much and seriously. I am tempted to side with the Divines in the
sermons I have read; the flesh is the habitation of a rebellious devil.’
‘To whom we object in proportion as we ourselves become quit of him,’
Mr. Beamish acquiesced.
‘But this mania of young people for pleasure, eternal pleasure, is one of
the wonders. It does not pall on them; they are insatiate.’
‘There is the cataract, and there is the cliff. Potentate to potentate, duke—
so long as you are on my territory, be it understood. Upon my way to a
place of worship once, I passed a Puritan, who was complaining of a
butterfly that fluttered prettily abroad in desecration of the Day of Rest.
“Friend,” said I to him, “conclusively you prove to me that you are not a
butterfly.” Surly did no more than favour me with the anathema of his
countenance.’
‘Cousin Beamish, my complaint of these young people is, that they miss
their pleasure in pursuing it. I have lectured my duchess—’
‘Ha!’
‘Foolish, I own,’ said the duke. ‘But suppose, now, you had caught your
butterfly, and you could neither let it go nor consent to follow its vagaries.

That poses you.’
‘Young people,’ said Mr. Beamish, ‘come under my observation in this
poor realm of mine—young and old. I find them prodigiously alike in their
love of pleasure, differing mainly in their capacity to satisfy it. That is no
uncommon observation. The young, have an edge which they are desirous
of blunting; the old contrariwise. The cry of the young for pleasure is
actually—I have studied their language—a cry for burdens. Curious! And
the old ones cry for having too many on their shoulders: which is not
astonishing. Between them they make an agreeable concert both to charm
the ears and guide the steps of the philosopher, whose wisdom it is to avoid
their tracks.’
‘Good. But I have asked you for practical advice, and you give me an
essay.’
‘For the reason, duke, that you propose a case that suggests hanging. You
mention two things impossible to be done. The alternative is, a garter and
the bedpost. When we have come upon crossways, and we can decide
neither to take the right hand nor the left, neither forward nor back, the
index of the board which would direct us points to itself, and emphatically
says, Gallows.’
‘Beamish, I am distracted. If I refuse her the visit, I foresee dissensions,
tears, games at ball, romps, not one day of rest remaining to me. I could be
of a mind with your Puritan, positively. If I allow it, so innocent a creature
in the atmosphere of a place like this must suffer some corruption. You
should know that the station I took her from was ... it was modest. She was
absolutely a buttercup of the fields. She has had various masters. She
dances... she dances prettily, I could say bewitchingly. And so she is now
for airing her accomplishments: such are women!’
‘Have you heard of Chloe?’ said Mr. Beamish. ‘There you have an
example of a young lady uncorrupted by this place—of which I would only
remark that it is best unvisited, but better tasted than longed for.’
‘Chloe? A lady who squandered her fortune to redeem some ill-requiting
rascal: I remember to have heard of her. She is here still? And ruined, of
course?’
‘In purse.’
‘That cannot be without the loss of reputation.’

‘Chloe’s champion will grant that she is exposed to the evils of
improvidence. The more brightly shine her native purity, her goodness of
heart, her trustfulness. She is a lady whose exaltation glows in her
abasement.’
‘She has, I see, preserved her comeliness,’ observed the duke, with a
smile.
‘Despite the flying of the roses, which had not her heart’s patience. ‘Tis
now the lily that reigns. So, then, Chloe shall be attached to the duchess
during her stay, and unless the devil himself should interfere, I guarantee
her Grace against any worse harm than experience; and that,’ Mr. Beamish
added, as the duke raised his arms at the fearful word, ‘that shall be mild.
Play she will; she is sure to play. Put it down at a thousand. We map her out
a course of permissible follies, and she plays to lose the thousand by
degrees, with as telling an effect upon a connubial conscience as we can
produce.’
‘A thousand,’ said the duke, ‘will be cheap indeed. I think now I have had
a description of this fair Chloe, and from an enthusiast; a brune? elegantly
mannered and of a good landed family; though she has thought proper to
conceal her name. And that will be our difficulty, cousin Beamish.’
‘She was, under my dominion, Miss Martinsward,’ Mr. Beamish pursued.
‘She came here very young, and at once her suitors were legion. In the way
of women, she chose the worst among them; and for the fellow Caseldy she
sacrificed the fortune she had inherited of a maternal uncle. To release him
from prison, she paid all his debts; a mountain of bills, with the lawyers
piled above—Pelion upon Ossa, to quote our poets. In fact, obeying the
dictates of a soul steeped in generosity, she committed the indiscretion to
strip herself, scandalizing propriety. This was immediately on her coming of
age; and it was the death-blow to her relations with her family. Since then,
honoured even by rakes, she has lived impoverished at the Wells. I dubbed
her Chloe, and man or woman disrespectful to Chloe packs. From being the
victim of her generous disposition, I could not save her; I can protect her
from the shafts of malice.’
‘She has no passion for play?’ inquired the duke.
‘She nourishes a passion for the man for whom she bled, to the exclusion
of the other passions. She lives, and I believe I may say that it is the motive
of her rising and dressing daily, in expectation of his advent.’

‘He may be dead.’
‘The dog is alive. And he has not ceased to be Handsome Caseldy, they
say. Between ourselves, duke, there is matter to break her heart. He has
been the Count Caseldy of Continental gaming tables, and he is recently Sir
Martin Caseldy, settled on the estate she made him free to take up intact on
his father’s decease.’
‘Pah! a villain!’
‘With a blacker brand upon him every morning that he looks forth across
his property, and leaves her to languish! She still—I say it to the redemption
of our sex—has offers. Her incomparable attractions of mind and person
exercise the natural empire of beauty. But she will none of them. I call her
the Fair Suicide. She has died for love; and she is a ghost, a good ghost, and
a pleasing ghost, but an apparition, a taper.
The duke fidgeted, and expressed a hope to hear that she was not of
melancholy conversation; and again, that the subject of her discourse was
not confined to love and lovers, happy or unhappy. He wished his duchess,
he said, to be entertained upon gayer topics: love being a theme he desired
to reserve to himself. ‘This month!’ he said, prognostically shaking and
moaning. ‘I would this month were over, and that we were well purged of
it.’
Mr. Beamish reassured him. The wit and sprightliness of Chloe were so
famous as to be considered medical, he affirmed; she was besieged for her
company; she composed and sang impromptu verses, she played harp and
harpsichord divinely, and touched the guitar, and danced, danced like the
silvery moon on the waters of the mill pool. He concluded by saying that
she was both humane and wise, humble-minded and amusing, virtuous yet
not a Tartar; the best of companions for her Grace the young duchess.
Moreover, he boldly engaged to carry the duchess through the term of her
visit under a name that should be as good as a masquerade for concealing
his Grace’s, while giving her all the honours due to her rank.
‘You strictly interpret my wishes,’ said the duke; ‘all honours, the
foremost place, and my wrath upon man or woman gainsaying them!’
‘Mine! if you please, duke,’ said Mr. Beamish.
‘A thousand pardons! I leave it to you, cousin. I could not be in safer
hands. I am heartily bounders to you. Chloe, then. By the way, she has a

decent respect for age?’
‘She is reverentially inclined.’
‘Not that. She is, I would ask, no wanton prattler of the charms and
advantages of youth?’
‘She has a young adorer that I have dubbed Alonzo, whom she scarce
notices.’
‘Nothing could be better. Alonzo: h’m! A faithful swain?’
‘Life is his tree, upon which unceasingly he carves his mistress’s initials.’
‘She should not be too cruel. I recollect myself formerly: I was... Young
men will, when long slighted, transfer their affections, and be warmer to the
second flame than to the first. I put you on your guard. He follows her
much? These lovers’ paintings and puffings in the neighbourhood of the
most innocent of women are contagious.’
‘Her Grace will be running home all the sooner.’
‘Or off!—may she forgive me! I am like a King John’s Jew, forced to
lend his treasure without security. What a world is ours! Nothing, Beamish,
nothing desirable will you have which is not coveted! Catch a prize, and
you will find you are at war with your species. You have to be on the
defensive from that moment. There is no such thing as peaceable procession
on earth. Let it be a beautiful young woman!—Ah!’
Mr. Beamish replied bracingly, ‘The champion wrestler challenges all
comers while he wears the belt.’
The duke dejectedly assented. ‘True; or he is challenged, say. Is there any
tale we could tell her of this Alonzo? You could deport him for the month,
my dear Beamish.’
‘I commit no injustice unless with sufficient reason. It is an estimable
youth, as shown by his devotion to a peerless woman. To endow her with
his name and fortune is his only thought.’
‘I perceive; an excellent young fellow! I have an incipient liking for this
young Alonzo. You must not permit my duchess to laugh at him. Encourage
her rather to advance his suit. The silliness of a young man will be no bad
spectacle. Chloe, then. You have set my mind at rest, Beamish, and it is but
another obligation added to the heap; so, if I do not speak of payment, the
reason is that I know you would not have me bankrupt.’

The remainder of the colloquy of the duke and Mr. Beamish referred to
the date of her Grace’s coming to the Wells, the lodgement she was to
receive, and other minor arrangements bearing upon her state and comfort;
the duke perpetually observing, ‘But I leave it all to you, Beamish,’ when he
had laid down precise instructions in these respects, even to the
specification of the shopkeepers, the confectioner and the apothecary, who
were to balance or cancel one another in the opposite nature of their
supplies, and the haberdasher and the jeweller, with whom she was to make
her purchases. For the duke had a recollection of giddy shops, and of giddy
shopmen too; and it was by serving as one for a day that a certain great
nobleman came to victory with a jealously guarded dame beautiful as
Venus. ‘I would have challenged the goddess!’ he cried, and subsided from
his enthusiasm plaintively, like a weak wind instrument. ‘So there you see
the prudence of a choice of shops. But I leave it to you, Beamish.’ Similarly
the great military commander, having done whatsoever a careful prevision
may suggest to insure him victory, casts himself upon Providence, with the
hope of propitiating the unanticipated and darkly possible.

CHAPTER III
The splendid equipage of a coach and six, with footmen in scarlet and
green, carried Beau Beamish five miles along the road on a sunny day to
meet the young duchess at the boundary of his territory, and conduct her in
state to the Wells. Chloe sat beside him, receiving counsel with regard to
her prospective duties. He was this day the consummate beau, suave, but
monarchical, and his manner of speech partook of his external grandeur.
‘Spy me the horizon, and apprise me if somewhere you distinguish a
chariot,’ he said, as they drew up on the rise of a hill of long descent, where
the dusty roadway sank between its brown hedges, and crawled mounting
from dry rush-spotted hollows to corn fields on a companion height directly
facing them, at a remove of about three-quarters of a mile. Chloe looked
forth, while the beau passingly raised his hat for coolness, and murmured,
with a glance down the sultry track: ‘It sweats the eye to see!’
Presently Chloe said, ‘Now a dust blows. Something approaches. Now I
discern horses, now a vehicle; and it is a chariot!’
Orders were issued to the outriders for horns to be sounded.
Both Chloe and Beau Beamish wrinkled their foreheads at the disorderly
notes of triple horns, whose pealing made an acid in the air instead of
sweetness.
‘You would say, kennel dogs that bay the moon!’ said the wincing beau.
‘Yet, as you know, these fellows have been exercised. I have had them out
in a meadow for hours, baked and drenched, to get them rid of their native
cacophony. But they love it, as they love bacon and beans. The musical
taste of our people is in the stage of the primitive appetite for noise, and for
that they are gluttons.’
‘It will be pleasant to hear in the distance,’ Chloe replied.
‘Ay, the extremer the distance, the pleasanter to hear. Are they
advancing?’
‘They stop. There is a cavalier at the window. Now he doffs his hat.’
‘Sweepingly?’

Chloe described a semicircle in the grand manner.
The beau’s eyebrows rose. ‘Powers divine!’ he muttered. ‘She is let loose
from hand to hand, and midway comes a cavalier. We did not count on the
hawks. So I have to deal with a cavalier! It signifies, my dear Chloe, that I
must incontinently affect the passion if I am to be his match: nothing less.’
‘He has flown,’ said Chloe.
‘Whom she encounters after meeting me, I care not,’ quoth the beau,
snapping a finger. ‘But there has been an interval for damage with a lady
innocent as Eve. Is she advancing?’
‘The chariot is trotting down the hill. He has ridden back. She has no
attendant horseman.’
‘They were dismissed at my injunction ten miles off particularly to the
benefit of the cavaliering horde, it would appear. In the case of a woman,
Chloe, one blink of the eyelids is an omission of watchfulness.’
‘That is an axiom fit for the harem of the Grand Signior.’
‘The Grand Signior might give us profitable lessons for dealing with the
sex.’
‘Distrust us, and it is a declaration of war!’
‘Trust you, and the stopper is out of the smelling-bottle.’
‘Mr. Beamish, we are women, but we have souls.’
‘The pip in the apple whose ruddy cheek allures little Tommy to rob the
orchard is as good a preservative.’
‘You admit that men are our enemies?’
‘I maintain that they carry the banner of virtue.’
‘Oh, Mr. Beamish, I shall expire.’
‘I forbid it in my lifetime, Chloe, for I wish to die believing in one
woman.’
‘No flattery for me at the expense of my sisters!’
‘Then fly to a hermitage; for all flattery is at somebody’s expense, child.
‘Tis an essence-extract of humanity! To live on it, in the fashion of some
people, is bad—it is downright cannibal. But we may sprinkle our
handkerchiefs with it, and we should, if we would caress our noses with an
air. Society, my Chloe, is a recommencement upon an upper level of the

savage system; we must have our sacrifices. As, for instance, what say you
of myself beside our booted bumpkin squires?’
‘Hundreds of them, Mr. Beamish!’
‘That is a holocaust of squires reduced to make an incense for me, though
you have not performed Druid rites and packed them in gigantic osier ribs.
Be philosophical, but accept your personal dues. Grant us ours too. I have a
serious intention to preserve this young duchess, and I expect my task to be
severe. I carry the banner aforesaid; verily and penitentially I do. It is an
error of the vulgar to suppose that all is dragon in the dragon’s jaws.’
‘Men are his fangs and claws.’
‘Ay, but the passion for his fiery breath is in woman. She will take her
leap and have her jump, will and will! And at the point where she will and
she won’t, the dragon gulps and down she goes! However, the business is to
keep our buttercup duchess from that same point. Is she near?’
‘I can see her,’ said Chloe.
Beau Beamish requested a sketch of her, and Chloe began: ‘She is
ravishing.’
Upon which he commented, ‘Every woman is ravishing at forty paces,
and still more so in imagination.’
‘Beautiful auburn hair, and a dazzling red and white complexion, set in a
blue coif.’
‘Her eyes?’
‘Melting blue.’
‘‘Tis an English witch!’ exclaimed the beau, and he compassionately
invoked her absent lord.
Chloe’s optics were no longer tasked to discern the fair lady’s lineaments,
for the chariot windows came flush with those of the beau on the broad
plateau of the hill. His coach door was opened. He sat upright, levelling his
privileged stare at Duchess Susan until she blushed.
‘Ay, madam,’ quoth he, ‘I am not the first.’
‘La, sir!’ said she; ‘who are you?’
The beau deliberately raised his hat and bowed. ‘He, madam, of whose
approach the gentleman who took his leave of you on yonder elevation
informed you.’

She looked artlessly over her shoulder, and at the beau alighting from his
carriage. ‘A gentleman?’
‘On horseback.’
The duchess popped her head through the window on an impulse to
measure the distance between the two hills.
‘Never!’ she cried.
‘Why, madam, did he deliver no message to announce me?’ said the
beau, ruffling.
‘Goodness gracious! You must be Mr. Beamish,’ she replied.
He laid his hat on his bosom, and invited her to quit her carriage for a
seat beside him. She stipulated, ‘If you are really Mr. Beamish?’ He
frowned, and raised his head to convince her; but she would not be
impressed, and he applied to Chloe to establish his identity. Hearing Chloe’s
name, the duchess called out, ‘Oh! there, now, that’s enough, for Chloe’s
my maid here, and I know she’s a lady born, and we’re going to be friends.
Hand me to Chloe. And you are Chloe?’ she said, after a frank stride from
step to step of the carriages. ‘And don’t mind being my maid? You do look
a nice, kind creature. And I see you’re a lady born; I know in a minute.
You’re dark, I’m fair; we shall suit. And tell me—hush!—what dreadful
long eyes he has! I shall ask you presently what you think of me. I was
never at the Wells before. Dear me! the coach has turned. How far off shall
we hear the bells to say I’m coming? I know I’m to have bells. Mr.
Beamish, Mr. Beamish! I must have a chatter with a woman, and I’m in awe
of you, sir, that I am, but men and men I see to talk to for a lift of my finger,
by the dozen, in my duke’s palace—though they’re old ones, that’s true—
but a woman who’s a lady, and kind enough to be my maid, I haven’t met
yet since I had the right to wear a coronet. There, I’ll hold Chloe’s hand,
and that’ll do. You would tell me at once, Chloe, if I was not dressed to
your taste; now, wouldn’t you? As for talkative, that’s a sign with me of my
liking people. I really don’t know what to say to my duke sometimes. I sit
and think it so funny to be having a duke instead of a husband. You’re off!’
The duchess laughed at Chloe’s laughter. Chloe excused herself, but was
informed by her mistress that it was what she liked.
‘For the first two years,’ she resumed, ‘I could hardly speak a syllable. I
stammered, I reddened, I longed to be up in my room brushing and curling

my hair, and was ready to curtsey to everybody. Now I’m quite at home, for
I’ve plenty of courage—except about death, and I’m worse about death than
I was when I was a simple body with a gawk’s “lawks!” in her round eyes
and mouth for an egg. I wonder why that is? But isn’t death horrible? And
skeletons!’ The duchess shuddered.
‘It depends upon the skeleton,’ said Beau Beamish, who had joined the
conversation. ‘Yours, madam, I would rather not meet, because she would
precipitate me into transports of regret for the loss of the flesh. I have,
however, met mine own and had reason for satisfaction with the interview.’
‘Your own skeleton, sir!’ said the duchess wonderingly and appalled.
‘Unmistakably mine. I will call you to witness by an account of him.’
Duchess Susan gaped, and, ‘Oh, don’t!’ she cried out; but added, ‘It ‘s
broad day, and I’ve got some one to sleep anigh me after dark’; with which
she smiled on Chloe, who promised her there was no matter for alarm.
‘I encountered my gentleman as I was proceeding to my room at night,’
said the beau, ‘along a narrow corridor, where it was imperative that one of
us should yield the ‘pas;’ and, I must confess it, we are all so amazingly
alike in our bones, that I stood prepared to demand place of him. For
indubitably the fellow was an obstruction, and at the first glance repulsive. I
took him for anybody’s skeleton, Death’s ensign, with his cachinnatory
skull, and the numbered ribs, and the extraordinary splay feet—in fact, the
whole ungainly and shaky hobbledehoy which man is built on, and by
whose image in his weaker moments he is haunted. I had, to be frank, been
dancing on a supper with certain of our choicest Wits and Beauties. It is a
recipe for conjuring apparitions. Now, then, thinks I, my fine fellow, I will
bounce you; and without a salutation I pressed forward. Madam, I give you
my word, he behaved to the full pitch as I myself should have done under
similar circumstances. Retiring upon an inclination of his structure, he
draws up and fetches me a bow of the exact middle nick between dignity
and service. I advance, he withdraws, and again the bow, devoid of
obsequiousness, majestically condescending. These, thinks I, be royal
manners. I could have taken him for the Sable King in person, stripped of
his mantle. On my soul, he put me to the blush.’
‘And is that all?’ asked the duchess, relieving herself with a sigh.
‘Why, madam,’ quoth the beau, ‘do you not see that he could have been
none other than mine own, who could comport himself with that grand air

and gracefulness when wounded by his closest relative? Upon his opening
my door for me, and accepting the ‘pas,’ which I now right heartily
accorded him, I recognized at once both him and the reproof he had
designedly dealt me—or the wine supper I had danced on, perhaps I should
say’ and I protest that by such a display of supreme good breeding he
managed to convey the highest compliment ever received by man, namely
the assurance, that after the withering away of this mortal garb, I shall still
be noted for urbanity and elegancy. Nay, and more, immortally, without the
slip I was guilty of when I carried the bag of wine.’
Duchess Susan fanned herself to assist her digestion of the anecdote.
‘Well, it’s not so frightful a story, and I know you are the great Mr.
Beamish;’ she said.
He questioned her whether the gentleman had signalled him to her on the
hill.
‘What can he mean about a gentleman?’ she turned to Chloe. ‘My duke
told me you would meet me, sir. And you are to protect me. And if anything
happens, it is to be your fault.’
‘Entirely,’ said the beau. ‘I shall therefore maintain a vigilant guard.’
‘Except leaving me free. Oof! I’ve been boxed up so long. I declare,
Chloe, I feel like a best dress out for a holiday, and a bit afraid of spoiling.
I’m a real child, more than I was when my duke married me. I seemed to go
in and grow up again, after I was raised to fortune. And nobody to tell of it!
Fancy that! For you can’t talk to old gentlemen about what’s going on in
your heart.’
‘How of young gentlemen?’ she was asked by the beau.
And she replied, ‘They find it out.’
‘Not if you do not assist them,’ said he.
Duchess Susan let her eyelids and her underlie half drop, as she looked at
him with the simple shyness of one of nature’s thoughts in her head at peep
on the pastures of the world. The melting blue eyes and the cherry lip made
an exceedingly quickening picture. ‘Now, I wonder if that is true?’ she
transferred her slyness to speech.
‘Beware the middle-aged!’ he exclaimed.
She appealed to Chloe. ‘And I’m sure they’re the nicest.’

Chloe agreed that they were.
The duchess measured Chloe and the beau together, with a mind swift in
apprehending all that it hungered for.
She would have pursued the pleasing theme had she not been directed to
gaze below upon the towers and roofs of the Wells, shining sleepily in a
siesta of afternoon Summer sunlight.
With a spread of her silken robe, she touched the edifice of her hair,
murmuring to Chloe, ‘I can’t abide that powder. You shall see me walk in a
hoop. I can. I’ve done it to slow music till my duke clapped hands. I’m
nothing sitting to what I am on my feet. That’s because I haven’t got fine
language yet. I shall. It seems to come last. So, there ‘s the place. And
whereabouts do all the great people meet and prommy—?’
‘They promenade where you see the trees, madam,’ said Chloe.
‘And where is it where the ladies sit and eat jam tarts with whipped
cream on ‘em, while the gentlemen stand and pay compliments?’
Chloe said it was at a shop near the pump room.
Duchess Susan looked out over the house-tops, beyond the dusty hedges.
‘Oh, and that powder!’ she cried. ‘I hate to be out of the fashion and a
spectacle. But I do love my own hair, and I have such a lot, and I like the
colour, and so does my duke. Only, don’t let me be fingered at. If once I
begin to blush before people, my courage is gone; my singing inside me is
choked; and I’ve a real lark going on in me all day long, rain or sunshine—
hush, all about love and amusement.’
Chloe smiled, and Duchess Susan said, ‘Just like a bird, for I don’t know
what it is.’
She looked for Chloe to say that she did.
At the moment a pair of mounted squires rode up, and the coach stopped,
while Beau Beamish gave orders for the church bells to be set ringing, and
the band to meet and precede his equipage at the head of the bath avenue:
‘in honour of the arrival of her Grace the Duchess of Dewlap.’
He delivered these words loudly to his men, and turned an effulgent gaze
upon the duchess, so that for a minute she was fascinated and did not
consult her hearing; but presently she fell into an uneasiness; the signs

increased, she bit her lip, and after breathing short once or twice, ‘Was it
meaning me, Mr. Beamish?’ she said.
‘You, madam, are the person whom we ‘delight to honour,’ he replied.
‘Duchess of what?’ she screwed uneasy features to hear.
‘Duchess of Dewlap,’ said he.
‘It’s not my title, sir.’
‘It is your title on my territory, madam.’
She made her pretty nose and upper lip ugly with a sneer of ‘Dew—!
And enter that town before all those people as Duchess of... Oh, no, I won’t;
I just won’t! Call back those men now, please; now, if you please. Pray, Mr.
Beamish! You’ll offend me, sir. I’m not going to be a mock. You’ll offend
my duke, sir. He’d die rather than have my feelings hurt. Here’s all my
pleasure spoilt. I won’t and I sha’n’t enter the town as duchess of that stupid
name, so call ‘em back, call ‘em back this instant. I know who I am and
what I am, and I know what’s due to me, I do.’
Beau Beamish rejoined, ‘I too. Chloe will tell you I am lord here.’
‘Then I’ll go home, I will. I won’t be laughed at for a great lady ninny.
I’m a real lady of high rank, and such I’ll appear. What ‘s a Duchess of
Dewlap? One might as well be Duchess of Cowstail, Duchess of Mopsend.
And those people! But I won’t be that. I won’t be played with. I see them
staring! No, I can make up my mind, and I beg you to call back your men,
or I’ll go back home.’ She muttered, ‘Be made fun of—made a fool of!’
‘Your Grace’s chariot is behind,’ said the beau.
His despotic coolness provoked her to an outcry and weeping: she
repeated, ‘Dewlap! Dewlap!’ in sobs; she shook her shoulders and hid her
face.
‘You are proud of your title, are you, madam?’ said he.
‘I am.’ She came out of her hands to answer him proudly. ‘That I am!’
she meant for a stronger affirmation.
‘Then mark me,’ he said impressively; ‘I am your duke’s friend, and you
are under my charge here. I am your guardian and you are my ward, and
you can enter the town only on the condition of obedience to me. Now,
mark me, madam; no one can rob you of your real name and title saving

yourself. But you are entering a place where you will encounter a thousand
temptations to tarnish, and haply forfeit it. Be warned do nothing that will.’
‘Then I’m to have my own title?’ said she, clearing up.
‘For the month of your visit you are Duchess of Dewlap.’
‘I say I sha’n’t!’
‘You shall.’
‘Never, sir!’
‘I command it.’
She flung herself forward, with a wail, upon Chloe’s bosom. ‘Can’t you
do something for me?’ she whimpered.
‘It is impossible to move Mr. Beamish,’ Chloe said.
Out of a pause, composed of sobs and sighs, the duchess let loose in a
broken voice: ‘Then I ‘m sure I think—I think I’d rather have met—have
met his skeleton!’
Her sincerity was equal to wit.
Beau Beamish shouted. He cordially applauded her, and in the genuine
kindness of an admiration that surprised him, he permitted himself the
liberty of taking and saluting her fingers. She fancied there was another
chance for her, but he frowned at the mention of it.
Upon these proceedings the exhilarating sound of the band was heard;
simultaneously a festival peal of bells burst forth; and an admonishment of
the necessity for concealing her chagrin and exhibiting both station and a
countenance to the people, combined with the excitement of the new scenes
and the marching music to banish the acuter sense of disappointment from
Duchess Susan’s mind; so she very soon held herself erect, and wore a face
open to every wonder, impressionable as the blue lake-surface, crisped here
and there by fitful breezes against a level sun.

CHAPTER IV
It was an axiom with Mr. Beamish, our first, if not our only philosophical
beau and a gentleman of some thoughtfulness, that the social English
require tyrannical government as much as the political are able to dispense
with it: and this he explained by an exposition of the character of a race
possessed of the eminent virtue of individual self-assertion, which causes
them to insist on good elbowroom wherever they gather together. Society,
however, not being tolerable where the smoothness of intercourse is
disturbed by a perpetual punching of sides, the merits of the free citizen in
them become their demerits when a fraternal circle is established, and they
who have shown an example of civilization too notable in one sphere to call
for eulogy, are often to be seen elbowing on the ragged edge of barbarism in
the other. They must therefore be reduced to accept laws not of their own
making, and of an extreme rigidity.
Here too is a further peril; for the gallant spirits distinguishing them in
the state of independence may (he foresaw the melancholy experience of a
later age) abandon them utterly in subjection, and the glorious
boisterousness befitting the village green forsake them even in their haunts
of liberal association, should they once be thoroughly tamed by authority.
Our ‘merrie England’ will then be long-faced England, an England of fallen
chaps, like a boar’s head, bearing for speech a lemon in the mouth: good to
feast on, mayhap; not with!
Mr. Beamish would actually seem to have foreseen the danger of a
transition that he could watch over only in his time; and, as he said, ‘I go, as
I came, on a flash’; he had neither ancestry nor descendants: he was a
genius, he knew himself a solitary, therefore, in spite of his efforts to create
his like. Within his district he did effect something, enough to give him
fame as one of the princely fathers of our domestic civilization, though we
now appear to have lost by it more than formerly we gained. The chasing of
the natural is ever fraught with dubious hazards. If it gallops back,
according to the proverb, it will do so at the charge: commonly it gallops
off, quite off; and then for any kind of animation our precarious dependence

is upon brains: we have to live on our wits, which are ordinarily less
productive than land, and cannot be remitted in entail.
Rightly or wrongly (there are differences of opinion about it) Mr.
Beamish repressed the chthonic natural with a rod of iron beneath his rule.
The hoyden and the bumpkin had no peace until they had given public
imitations of the lady and the gentleman; nor were the lady and the
gentleman privileged to be what he called ‘free flags.’ He could be
charitable to the passion, but he bellowed the very word itself (hauled up
smoking from the brimstone lake) against them that pretended to be
shamelessly guilty of the peccadilloes of gallantry. His famous accost of a
lady threatening to sink, and already performing like a vessel in that
situation: ‘So, madam, I hear you are preparing to enrol yourself in the very
ancient order?’... (he named it) was a piece of insolence that involved him
in some discord with the lady’s husband and ‘the rascal steward,’ as he
chose to term the third party in these affairs: yet it is reputed to have saved
the lady.
Furthermore, he attacked the vulgarity of persons of quality, and he has
told a fashionable dame who was indulging herself in a marked sneer of
disdain, not improving to her features, ‘that he would be pleased to have her
assurance it was her face she presented to mankind’: a thing—thanks
perhaps to him chiefly—no longer possible of utterance. One of the sex
asking him why he addressed his persecutions particularly to women:
‘Because I fight your battles,’ says he, ‘and I find you in the ranks of the
enemy.’ He treated them as traitors.
He was nevertheless well supported by a sex that compensates for dislike
of its friend before a certain age by a cordial recognition of him when it has
touched the period. A phalanx of great dames gave him the terrors of
Olympus for all except the natively audacious, the truculent and the
insufferably obtuse; and from the midst of them he launched decree and bolt
to good effect: not, of course, without receiving return missiles, and not
without subsequent question whether the work of that man was beneficial to
the country, who indeed tamed the bumpkin squire and his brood, but at the
cost of their animal spirits and their gift of speech; viz. by making
petrifactions of them. In the surgical operation of tracheotomy, a successful
treatment of the patient hangs, we believe, on the promptness and skill of
the introduction of the artificial windpipe; and it may be that our unhappy

countrymen when cut off from the source of their breath were not neatly
handled; or else that there is a physical opposition in them to anything
artificial, and it must be nature or nothing. The dispute shall be left where it
stands.
Now, to venture upon parading a beautiful young Duchess of Dewlap,
with an odour of the shepherdess about her notwithstanding her acquired art
of stepping conformably in a hoop, and to demand full homage of respect
for a lady bearing such a title, who had the intoxicating attractions of the
ruddy orchard apple on the tree next the roadside wall, when the owner is
absent, was bold in Mr. Beamish, passing temerity; nor would even he have
attempted it had he not been assured of the support of his phalanx of great
ladies. They indeed, after being taken into the secret, had stipulated that
first they must have an inspection of the transformed dairymaid; and the
review was not unfavourable. Duchess Susan came out of it more scatheless
than her duke. She was tongue-tied, and her tutored walking and really
admirable stature helped her to appease, the critics of her sex; by whom her
too readily blushful innocence was praised, with a reserve, expressed in the
remark, that she was a monstrous fine toy for a duke’s second childhood,
and should never have been let fly from his nursery. Her milliner was
approved. The duke was a notorious connoisseur of female charms, and
would see, of course, to the decorous adornment of her person by the best
of modistes. Her smiling was pretty, her eyes were soft; she might turn out
good, if well guarded for a time; but these merits of the woman are not
those of the great lady, and her title was too strong a beam on her character
to give it a fair chance with her critics. They one and all recommended
powder for her hair and cheeks. That odour of the shepherdess could be
exorcised by no other means, they declared. Her blushing was indecent.
Truly the critics of the foeman sex behaved in a way to cause the blushes
to swarm rosy as the troops of young Loves round Cytherea in her sea-birth,
when, some soaring, and sinking some, they flutter like her loosened zone,
and breast the air thick as flower petals on the summer’s breath, weaving
her net for the world. Duchess Susan might protest her inability to keep her
blushes down; that the wrong was done by the insolent eyes, and not by her
artless cheeks. Ay, but nature, if we are to tame these men, must be swathed
and concealed, partly stifled, absolutely stifled upon occasion. The natural
woman does not move a foot without striking earth to conjure up the horrid
apparition of the natural man, who is not as she, but a cannibal savage. To

be the light which leads, it is her business to don the misty vesture of an
idea, that she may dwell as an idea in men’s minds, very dim, very
powerful, but abstruse, unseizable. Much wisdom was imparted to her on
the subject, and she understood a little, and echoed hollow to the remainder,
willing to show entire docility as far as her intelligence consented to be
awake. She was in that stage of the dainty, faintly tinged innocence of the
amorousness of themselves when beautiful young women who have not
been caught for schooling in infancy deem it a defilement to be made to
appear other than the blessed nature has made them, which has made them
beautiful, and surely therefore deserves to be worshipped. The lectures of
the great ladies and Chloe’s counsels failed to persuade her to use the
powder puff-ball. Perhaps too, as timidity quitted her, she enjoyed her
distinctiveness in their midst.
But the distinctiveness of a Duchess of Dewlap with the hair and cheeks
of our native fields, was fraught with troubles outrunning Mr. Beamish’s
calculations. He had perceived that she would be attractive; he had not
reckoned on the homogeneousness of her particular English charms. A
beauty in red, white, and blue is our goddess Venus with the apple of Paris
in her hand; and after two visits to the Pump Room, and one promenade in
the walks about the Assembly House, she had as completely divided the
ordinary guests of the Wells into male and female in opinion as her mother
Nature had done in it sex. And the men would not be silenced; they had
gazed on their divinest, and it was for the women to succumb to that
unwholesome state, so full of thunder. Knights and squires, military and
rural, threw up their allegiance right and left to devote themselves to this
robust new vision, and in their peculiar manner, with a general View-halloo,
and Yoicks, Tally-ho, and away we go, pelt ahead! Unexampled as it is in
England for Beauty to kindle the ardours of the scent of the fox, Duchess
Susan did more—she turned all her followers into hounds; they were
madmen: within a very few days of her entrance bets raged about her, and
there were brawls, jolly flings at her character in the form of lusty
encomium, givings of the lie, and upon one occasion a knock-down blow in
public, as though the place had never known the polishing touch of Mr.
Beamish.
He was thrown into great perplexity by that blow. Discountenancing the
duel as much as he could, an affair of the sword was nevertheless more
tolerable than the brutal fist: and of all men to be guilty of it, who would

have anticipated the young Alonzo, Chloe’s quiet, modest lover! He it was.
The case came before Mr. Beamish for his decision; he had to pronounce an
impartial judgement, and for some time, during the examination of
evidence, he suffered, as he assures us in his Memoirs, a royal agony. To
have to strike with the glaive of Justice them whom they most esteem, is the
greatest affliction known to kings. He would have done it: he deserved to
reign. Happily the evidence against the gentleman who was tumbled, Mr.
Ralph Shepster, excused Mr. Augustus Camwell, otherwise Alonzo, for
dealing with him promptly to shut his mouth.
This Shepster, a raw young squire, ‘reeking,’ Beau Beamish writes of
him, ‘one half of the soil, and t’ other half of the town,’ had involved Chloe
in his familiar remarks upon the Duchess of Dewlap; and the personal
respect entertained by Mr. Beamish for Chloe so strongly approved
Alonzo’s championship of her, that in giving judgement he laid stress on
young Alonzo’s passion for Chloe, to prove at once the disinterestedness of
the assailant, and the judicial nature of the sentence: which was, that Mr.
Ralph Shepster should undergo banishment, and had the right to demand
reparation. The latter part of this decree assisted in effecting the execution
of the former. Shepster declined cold steel, calling it murder, and was
effusive of nature’s logic on the subject.
‘Because a man comes and knocks me down, I’m to go up to him and ask
him to run me through!’
His shake of the head signified that he was not such a noodle. Voluble
and prolific of illustration, as is no one so much as a son of nature inspired
to speak her words of wisdom, he defied the mandate, and refused himself
satisfaction, until in the strangest manner possible flights of white feathers
beset him, and he became a mark for persecution too trying for the
friendship of his friends. He fled, repeating his tale, that he had seen
‘Beamish’s Duchess,’ and Chloe attending her, at an assignation in the
South Grove, where a gentleman, unknown to the Wells, presented himself
to the adventurous ladies, and they walked together—a tale ending with
nods.
Shepster’s banishment was one of those victories of justice upon which
mankind might be congratulated if they left no commotion behind. But, as
when a boy has been horsed before his comrades, dread may visit them, yet
is there likewise devilry in the school; and everywhere over earth a

summary punishment that does not sweep the place clear is likely to infect
whom it leaves remaining. The great law-givers, Lycurgus, Draco, Solon,
Beamish, sorrowfully acknowledge that they have had recourse to infernal
agents, after they have thus purified their circle of an offender. Doctors
confess to the same of their physic. The expelling agency has next to be
expelled, and it is a subtle poison, affecting our spirits. Duchess Susan had
now the incense of a victim to heighten her charms; like the treasure-laden
Spanish galleon for whom, on her voyage home from South American
waters, our enterprising light-craft privateers lay in wait, she had the double
attraction of being desirable and an enemy. To watch above her
conscientiously was a harassing business.
Mr. Beamish sent for Chloe, and she came to him at once. Her look was
curious; he studied it while they conversed. So looks one who is watching
the sure flight of an arrow, or the happy combinations of an intrigue.
Saying, ‘I am no inquisitor, child,’ he ventured upon two or three modest
inquisitions with regard to her mistress. The title he had disguised Duchess
Susan in, he confessed to rueing as the principal cause of the agitation of his
principality. ‘She is courted,’ he said, ‘less like a citadel waving a flag than
a hostelry where the demand is for sitting room and a tankard! These be our
manners. Yet, I must own, a Duchess of Dewlap is a provocation, and my
exclusive desire to protect the name of my lord stands corrected by the
perils environing his lady. She is other than I supposed her; she is, we will
hope, an excellent good creature, but too attractive for most and drawbridge
and the customary defences to be neglected.
Chloe met his interrogatory with a ready report of the young duchess’s
innocence and good nature that pacified Mr. Beamish.
‘And you?’ said he.
She smiled for answer.
That smile was not the common smile; it was one of an eager
exultingness, producing as he gazed the twitch of an inquisitive reflection
of it on his lips. Such a smile bids us guess and quickens us to guess, warns
us we burn and speeds our burning, and so, like an angel wafting us to some
heaven-feasting promontory, lifts us out of ourselves to see in the universe
of colour what the mouth has but pallid speech to tell. That is the very
heart’s language; the years are in a look, as mount and vale of the dark land
spring up in lightning.

He checked himself: he scarce dared to say it.
She nodded.
‘You have seen the man, Chloe?’
Her smiling broke up in the hard lines of an ecstasy neighbouring pain.
‘He has come; he is here; he is faithful; he has not forgotten me. I was right.
I knew! I knew!’
‘Caseldy has come?’
‘He has come. Do not ask. To have him! to see him! Mr. Beamish, he is
here.’
‘At last!’
‘Cruel!’
‘Well, Caseldy has come, then! But now, friend Chloe, you should be
made aware that the man—’
She stopped her ears. As she did so, Mr. Beamish observed a thick silken
skein dangling from one hand. Part of it was plaited, and at the upper end
there was a knot. It resembled the commencement of her manufactory of a
whip: she swayed it to and fro, allowing him to catch and lift the threads on
his fingers for the purpose of examining her work. There was no special
compliment to pay, so he dropped it without remark.
Their faces had expressed her wish to hear nothing from him of Caseldy
and his submission to say nothing. Her happiness was too big; she appeared
to beg to lie down with it on her bosom, in the manner of an outworn,
young mother who has now first received her infant in her arms from the
nurse.

CHAPTER V
Humouring Chloe with his usual considerateness, Mr. Beamish forbore to
cast a shadow on her new-born joy, and even within himself to doubt the
security of its foundation. Caseldy’s return to the Wells was at least some
assurance of his constancy, seeing that here they appointed to meet when he
and Chloe last parted. All might be well, though it was unexplained why he
had not presented himself earlier. To the lightest inquiry Chloe’s reply was a
shiver of happiness.
Moreover, Mr. Beamish calculated that Caseldy would be a serviceable
ally in commanding a proper respect for her Grace the Duchess of Dewlap.
So he betook himself cheerfully to Caseldy’s lodgings to deliver a message
of welcome, meeting, on his way thither, Mr. Augustus Camwell, with
whom he had a short conversation, greatly to his admiration of the
enamoured young gentleman’s goodness and self-compression in speaking
of Caseldy and Chloe’s better fortune. Mr. Camwell seemed hurried.
Caseldy was not at home, and Mr. Beamish proceeded to the lodgings of
the duchess. Chloe had found her absent. The two consulted. Mr. Beamish
put on a serious air, until Chloe mentioned the pastrycook’s shop, for
Duchess Susan had a sweet tooth; she loved a visit to the pastrycook’s,
whose jam tarts were dearer to her than his more famous hot mutton pies.
The pastry cook informed Mr. Beamish that her Grace had been in his shop,
earlier than usual, as it happened, and accompanied by a foreign-looking
gentleman wearing moustachois. Her Grace, the pastrycook said, had
partaken of several tarts, in common with the gentleman, who
complimented him upon his excelling the Continental confectioner. Mr.
Beamish glanced at Chloe. He pursued his researches down at the Pump
Room, while she looked round the ladies’ coffee house. Encountering again,
they walked back to the duchess’s lodgings, where a band stood playing in
the road, by order of her Grace; but the duchess was away, and had not been
seen since her morning’s departure.
‘What sort of character would you give mistress Susan of Dewlap, from
your personal acquaintance with it?’ said Mr. Beamish to Chloe, as they
stepped from the door.

Chloe mused and said, ‘I would add “good” to the unkindest comparison
you could find for her.’
‘But accepting the comparison!’ Mr. Beamish nodded, and revolved upon
the circumstance of their being very much in nature’s hands with Duchess
Susan, of whom it might be said that her character was good, yet all the
more alive to the temptations besetting the Spring season. He allied Chloe’s
adjective to a number of epithets equally applicable to nature and to
women, according to current ideas, concluding: ‘Count, they call your
Caseldy at his lodgings. “The Count he is out for an airing.” He is counted
out. Ah! you will make him drop that “Count” when he takes you from
here.’
‘Do not speak of the time beyond the month,’ said Chloe, so urgently on
a rapid breath as to cause Mr. Beamish to cast an inquiring look at her.
She answered it, ‘Is not one month of brightness as much as we can ask
for?’
The beau clapped his elbows complacently to his sides in philosophical
concord with her sentiment.
In the afternoon, on the parade, they were joined by Mr. Camwell, among
groups of fashionable ladies and their escorts, pacing serenely, by medical
prescription, for an appetite. As he did not comment on the absence of the
duchess, Mr. Beamish alluded to it; whereupon he was informed that she
was about the meadows, and had been there for some hours.
‘Not unguarded,’ he replied to Mr. Beamish.
‘Aha!’ quoth the latter; ‘we have an Argus!’ and as the duchess was not
on the heights, and the sun’s rays were mild in cloud, he agreed to his
young friend’s proposal that they should advance to meet her. Chloe walked
with them, but her face was disdainful; at the stiles she gave her hand to Mr.
Beamish; she did not address a word to Mr. Camwell, and he knew the
reason. Nevertheless he maintained his air of soldierly resignation to the
performance of duty, and held his head like a gentleman unable to conceive
the ignominy of having played spy. Chloe shrank from him.
Duchess Susan was distinguished coming across a broad uncut meadow,
tirra-lirraing beneath a lark, Caseldy in attendance on her. She stopped short
and spoke to him; then came forward, crying ingenuously. ‘Oh, Mr.
Beamish, isn’t this just what you wanted me to do?’

‘No, madam,’ said he, ‘you had my injunctions to the contrary.’
‘La!’ she exclaimed, ‘I thought I was to run about in the fields now and
then to preserve my simplicity. I know I was told so, and who told me!’
Mr. Beamish bowed effusively to the introduction of Caseldy, whose
fingers he touched in sign of the renewal of acquaintance, and with a laugh
addressed the duchess:
‘Madam, you remind me of a tale of my infancy. I had a juvenile
comrade of the tenderest age, by name Tommy Plumston, and he enjoyed
the privilege of intimacy with a component urchin yclept Jimmy Clungeon,
with which adventurous roamer, in defiance of his mother’s interdict against
his leaving the house for a minute during her absence from home, he
departed on a tour of the district, resulting, perhaps as a consequence of its
completeness, in this, that at a distance computed at four miles from the
maternal mansion, he perceived his beloved mama with sufficient clearness
to feel sure that she likewise had seen him. Tommy consulted with Jimmy,
and then he sprang forward on a run to his frowning mama, and delivered
himself in these artless words, which I repeat as they were uttered, to give
you the flavour of the innocent babe: he said, “I frink I frought I hear you
call me, ma! and Jimmy Clungeon, he frought he frink so too!” So, you see,
the pair of them were under the impression that they were doing right.
There is a delicate distinction in the tenses of each frinking where the other
frought, enough in itself to stamp sincerity upon the statement.’
Caseldy said, ‘The veracity of a boy possessing a friend named Clungeon
is beyond contest.’
Duchess Susan opened her eyes. ‘Four miles from home! And what did
his mother do to him?’
‘Tommy’s mama,’ said Mr. Beamish, and with the resplendent licence of
the period which continued still upon tolerable terms with nature under the
compromise of decorous ‘Oh-fie!’ flatly declared the thing she did.
‘I fancy, sir, that I caught sight of your figure on the hill yonder about an
hour or so earlier,’ said Caseldy to Mr. Camwell.
‘If it was at the time when you were issuing from that wood, sir, your
surmise is correct,’ said the young gentleman.
‘You are long-sighted, sir!’
‘I am, sir.’

‘And so am I.’
‘And I,’ said Chloe.
‘Our Chloe will distinguish you accurately at a mile, and has done it,’
observed Mr. Beamish.
‘One guesses tiptoe on a suspicion, and if one is wrong it passes, and if
one is right it is a miracle,’ she said, and raised her voice on a song to quit
the subject.
‘Ay, ay, Chloe; so then you had a suspicion, you rogue, the day we had
the pleasure of meeting the duchess, had you?’ Mr. Beamish persisted.
Duchess Susan interposed. ‘Such a pretty song! and you to stop her, sir!’
Caseldy took up the air.
‘Oh, you two together!’ she cried. ‘I do love hearing music in the fields;
it is heavenly. Bands in the town and voices in the green fields, I say!
Couldn’t you join Chloe, Mr.... Count, sir, before we come among the
people, here where it ‘s all so nice and still. Music! and my heart does begin
so to pit-a-pat. Do you sing, Mr. Alonzo?’
‘Poorly,’ the young gentleman replied.
‘But the Count can sing, and Chloe’s a real angel when she sings; and
won’t you, dear?’ she implored Chloe, to whom Caseldy addressed a
prelude with a bow and a flourish of the hand.
Chloe’s voice flew forth. Caseldy’s rich masculine matched it. The song
was gay; he snapped his finger at intervals in foreign style, singing big-
chested, with full notes and a fine abandonment, and the quickest
susceptibility to his fair companion’s cunning modulations, and an eye for
Duchess Susan’s rapture.
Mr. Beamish and Mr. Camwell applauded them.
‘I never can tell what to say when I’m brimming’; the duchess let fall a
sigh. ‘And he can play the flute, Mr. Beamish. He promised me he would
go into the orchestra and play a bit at one of your nice evening delicious
concerts, and that will be nice—Oh!’
‘He promised you, madam, did he so?’ said the beau. ‘Was it on your way
to the Wells that he promised you?’
‘On my way to the Wells!’ she exclaimed softly. ‘Why, how could
anybody promise me a thing before ever he saw me? I call that a strange

thing to ask a person. No, to-day, while we were promenading; and I should
hear him sing, he said. He does admire his Chloe so. Why, no wonder, is it,
now? She can do everything; knit, sew, sing, dance—and talk! She’s never
uneasy for a word. She makes whole scenes of things go round you, like a
picture peep-show, I tell her. And always cheerful. She hasn’t a minute of
grumps; and I’m sometimes a dish of stale milk fit only for pigs.
With your late hours here, I’m sure I want tickling in the morning, and
Chloe carols me one of her songs, and I say, “There’s my bird!”’
Mr. Beamish added, ‘And you will remember she has a heart.’
‘I should think so!’ said the duchess.
‘A heart, madam!’
‘Why, what else?’
Nothing other, the beau, by his aspect, was constrained to admit.
He appeared puzzled by this daughter of nature in a coronet; and more on
her remarking, ‘You know about her heart, Mr. Beamish.’
He acquiesced, for of course he knew of her life-long devotion to
Caseldy; but there was archness in her tone. However, he did not expect a
woman of her education to have the tone perfectly concordant with the
circumstances. Speaking tentatively of Caseldy’s handsome face and figure,
he was pleased to hear the duchess say, ‘So I tell Chloe.’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘we must consider them united; they are one.’
Duchess Susan replied, ‘That’s what I tell him; she will do anything you
wish.’
He repeated these words with an interjection, and decided in his mind
that they were merely silly. She was a real shepherdess by birth and nature,
requiring a strong guard over her attractions on account of her simplicity;
such was his reading of the problem; he had conceived it at the first sight of
her, and always recurred to it under the influence of her artless eyes, though
his theories upon men and women were astute, and that cavalier perceived
by long-sighted Chloe at Duchess Susan’s coach window perturbed him at
whiles. Habitually to be anticipating the simpleton in a particular person is
the sure way of being sometimes the dupe, as he would not have been the
last to warn a neophyte; but abstract wisdom is in need of an unappeased
suspicion of much keenness of edge, if we would have it alive to cope with
artless eyes and our prepossessed fancy of their artlessness.

‘You talk of Chloe to him?’ he said.
She answered. ‘Yes, that I do. And he does love her! I like to hear him.
He is one of the gentlemen who don’t make me feel timid with them.’
She received a short lecture on the virtues of timidity in preserving the
sex from danger; after which, considering that the lady who does not feel
timid with a particular cavalier has had no sentiment awakened, he
relinquished his place to Mr. Camwell, and proceeded to administer the
probe to Caseldy.
That gentleman was communicatively candid. Chloe had left him, and he
related how, summoned home to England and compelled to settle a dispute
threatening a lawsuit, he had regretfully to abstain from visiting the Wells
for a season, not because of any fear of the attractions of play—he had
subdued the frailty of the desire to play—but because he deemed it due to
his Chloe to bring her an untroubled face, and he wished first to be the
better of the serious annoyances besetting him. For some similar reason he
had not written; he wished to feast on her surprise. ‘And I had my reward,’
he said, as if he had been the person principally to suffer through that
abstinence. ‘I found—I may say it to you, Mr. Beamish love in her eyes.
Divine by nature, she is one of the immortals, both in appearance and in
steadfastness.’
They referred to Duchess Susan. Caseldy reluctantly owned that it would
be an unkindness to remove Chloe from attendance on her during the short
remaining term of her stay at the Wells; and so he had not proposed it, he
said, for the duchess was a child, an innocent, not stupid by any means; but,
of course, her transplanting from an inferior to an exalted position put her
under disadvantages.
Mr. Beamish spoke of the difficulties of his post as guardian, and also of
the strange cavalier seen at her carriage window by Chloe.
Caseldy smiled and said, ‘If there was one—and Chloe is rather long—
sighted—we can hardly expect her to confess it.’
‘Why not, sir, if she be this piece of innocence?’ Mr. Beamish was led to
inquire.
‘She fears you, sir,’ Caseldy answered. ‘You have inspired her with an
extraordinary fear of you.’

‘I have?’ said the beau: it had been his endeavour to inspire it, and he
swelled somewhat, rather with relief at the thought of his possessing a
power to control his delicate charge, than with our vanity; yet would it be
audacious to say that there was not a dose of the latter. He was a very
human man; and he had, as we have seen, his ideas of the effect of the
impression of fear upon the hearts of women. Something, in any case,
caused him to forget the cavalier.
They were drawn to the three preceding them, by a lively dissension
between Chloe and Mr. Camwell.
Duchess Susan explained it in her blunt style: ‘She wants him to go away
home, and he says he will, if she’ll give him that double skein of silk she
swings about, and she says she won’t, let him ask as long as he pleases; so
he says he sha’n’t go, and I’m sure I don’t see why he should; and she says
he may stay, but he sha’n’t have her necklace, she calls it. So Mr. Camwell
snatches, and Chloe fires up. Gracious, can’t she frown!—at him. She never
frowns at anybody but him.’
Caseldy attempted persuasion on Mr. Camwell’s behalf. With his mouth
at Chloe’s ear, he said, ‘Give it; let the poor fellow have his memento;
despatch him with it.’
‘I can hear! and that is really kind,’ exclaimed Duchess Susan.
‘Rather a missy-missy schoolgirl sort of necklace,’ Mr. Beamish
observed; ‘but he might have it, without the dismissal, for I cannot consent
to lose Alonzo. No, madam,’ he nodded at the duchess.
Caseldy continued his whisper: ‘You can’t think of wearing a thing like
that about your neck?’
‘Indeed,’ said Chloe, ‘I think of it.’
‘Why, what fashion have you over here?’
‘It is not yet a fashion,’ she said.
‘A silken circlet will not well become any precious pendant that I know
of.’
‘A bag of dust is not a very precious pendant,’ she said.
‘Oh, a memento mori!’ cried he.
And she answered, ‘Yes.’

He rallied her for her superstition, pursuing, ‘Surely, my love, ‘tis a
cheap riddance of a pestilent, intrusive jaloux. Whip it into his hands for a
mittimus.’
‘Does his presence distress you?’ she asked.
‘I will own that to be always having the fellow dogging us, with his
dejected leer, is not agreeable. He watches us now, because my lips are
close by your cheek. He should be absent; he is one too many. Speed him
on his voyage with the souvenir he asks for.’
‘I keep it for a journey of my own, which I may have to take,’ said Chloe.
‘With me?’
‘You will follow; you cannot help following me, Caseldy.’
He speculated on her front. She was tenderly smiling. ‘You are happy,
Chloe?’
‘I have never known such happiness,’ she said. The brilliancy of her eyes
confirmed it.
He glanced over at Duchess Susan, who was like a sunflower in the sun.
His glance lingered a moment. Her abundant and glowing young charms
were the richest fascination an eye like his could dwell on. ‘That is right,’
said he. ‘We will be perfectly happy till the month ends. And after it? But
get us rid of Monsieur le Jeune; toss him that trifle; I spare him that. ‘Twill
be bliss to him, at the cost of a bit of silk thread to us. Besides, if we keep
him to cure him of his passion here, might it not be—these boys veer
suddenly, like the winds of Albion, from one fair object to t’ other—at the
cost of the precious and simple lady you are guarding? I merely hint. These
two affect one another, as though it could be. She speaks of him. It shall be
as you please, but a trifle like that, my Chloe, to be rid of a green eye!’
‘You much wish him gone?’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘The fellow is in our way.’
‘You think him a little perilous for my innocent lady?’
‘Candidly, I do.’
She stretched the half-plaited silken rope in her two hands to try the
strength of it, made a second knot, and consigned it to her pocket.
At once she wore her liveliest playfellow air, in which character no one
was so enchanting as Chloe could be, for she became the comrade of men

without forfeit of her station among sage sweet ladies, and was like a well-
mannered sparkling boy, to whom his admiring seniors have given the lead
in sallies, whims, and fights; but pleasanter than a boy, the soft hues of her
sex toned her frolic spirit; she seemed her sex’s deputy, to tell the coarser
where they could meet, as on a bridge above the torrent separating them,
gaily for interchange of the best of either, unfired and untempted by fire, yet
with all the elements which make fire burn to animate their hearts.
‘Lucky the man who wins for himself that life-long cordial!’ Mr.
Beamish said to Duchess Susan.
She had small comprehension of metaphorical phrases, but she was quick
at reading faces; and comparing the enthusiasm on the face of the beau with
Caseldy’s look of troubled wonderment and regret, she pitied the lover
conscious of not having the larger share of his mistress’s affections. When
presently he looked at her, the tender-hearted woman could have cried for
very compassion, so sensible did he show himself of Chloe’s preference of
the other.

CHAPTER VI
That evening Duchess Susan played at the Pharaoh table and lost eight
hundred pounds, through desperation at the loss of twenty. After
encouraging her to proceed to this extremity, Caseldy checked her. He was
conducting her out of the Play room when a couple of young squires of the
Shepster order, and primed with wine, intercepted her to present their
condolences, which they performed with exaggerated gestures, intended for
broad mimicry of the courtliness imported from the Continent, and a very
dulcet harping on the popular variations of her Christian name, not
forgetting her singular title, ‘my lovely, lovely Dewlap!’
She was excited and stunned by her immediate experience in the transfer
of money, and she said, ‘I ‘m sure I don’t know what you want.’
‘Yes!’ cried they, striking their bosoms as guitars, and attempting the
posture of the thrummer on the instrument; ‘she knows. She does know.
Handsome Susie knows what we want.’ And one ejaculated, mellifluously,
‘Oh!’ and the other ‘Ah!’ in flagrant derision of the foreign ways they
produced in boorish burlesque—a self-consolatory and a common trick of
the boor.
Caseldy was behind. He pushed forward and bowed to them. ‘Sirs, will
you mention to me what you want?’
He said it with a look that meant steel. It cooled them sufficiently to let
him place the duchess under the protectorship of Mr. Beamish, then
entering from another room with Chloe; whereupon the pair of rustic bucks
retired to reinvigorate their valiant blood.
Mr. Beamish had seen that there was cause for gratitude to Caseldy, to
whom he said, ‘She has lost?’ and he seemed satisfied on hearing the
amount of the loss, and commissioned Caseldy to escort the ladies to their
lodgings at once, observing, ‘Adieu, Count!’
‘You will find my foreign title of use to you here, after a bout or two,’
was the reply.
‘No bouts, if possibly to be avoided; though I perceive how the flavour of
your countship may spread a wholesome alarm among our rurals, who will

readily have at you with fists, but relish not the tricky cold weapon.’
Mr. Beamish haughtily bowed the duchess away.
Caseldy seized the opportunity while handing her into her sedan to say,
‘We will try the fortune-teller for a lucky day to have our revenge.’
She answered: ‘Oh, don’t talk to me about playing again ever; I’m nigh
on a clean pocket, and never knew such a sinful place as this. I feel I’ve
tumbled into a ditch. And there’s Mr. Beamish, all top when he bows to me.
You’re keeping Chloe waiting, sir.’
‘Where was she while we were at the table?’
‘Sure she was with Mr. Beamish.’
‘Ah!’ he groaned.
‘The poor soul is in despair over her losses to-night,’ he turned from the
boxed-up duchess to remark to Chloe. ‘Give her a comfortable cry and a
few moral maxims.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘You love me, Caseldy?’
‘Love you? I? Your own? What assurance would you have?’
‘None, dear friend.’
Here was a woman easily deceived.
In the hearts of certain men, owing to an intellectual contempt of easy
dupes, compunction in deceiving is diminished by the lightness of their
task; and that soft confidence which will often, if but passingly, bid
betrayers reconsider the charms of the fair soul they are abandoning,
commends these armoured knights to pursue with redoubled earnest the
fruitful ways of treachery. Their feelings are warm for their prey, moreover;
and choosing to judge their victim by the present warmth of their feelings,
they can at will be hurt, even to being scandalized, by a coldness that does
not waken one suspicion of them. Jealousy would have a chance of
arresting, for it is not impossible to tease them back to avowed allegiance;
but sheer indifference also has a stronger hold on them than a, dull, blind
trustfulness. They hate the burden it imposes; the blind aspect is only
touching enough to remind them of the burden, and they hate if for that, and
for the enormous presumption of the belief that they are everlastingly bound
to such an imbecile. She walks about with her eyes shut, expecting not to

stumble, and when she does, am I to blame? The injured man asks it in the
course of his reasoning.
He recurs to his victim’s merits, but only compassionately, and the
compassion is chilled by the thought that she may in the end start across his
path to thwart him. Thereat he is drawn to think of the prize she may rob
him of; and when one woman is an obstacle, the other shines desirable as
life beyond death; he must have her; he sees her in the hue of his desire for
her, and the obstacle in that of his repulsion. Cruelty is no more than the
man’s effort to win the wished object.
She should not leave it to his imagination to conceive that in the end the
blind may awaken to thwart him. Better for her to cast him hence, or let him
know that she will do battle to keep him. But the pride of a love that has
hardened in the faithfulness of love cannot always be wise on trial.
Caseldy walked considerably in the rear of the couple of chairs. He saw
on his way what was coming. His two young squires were posted at
Duchess Susan’s door when she arrived, and he received a blow from one
of them in clearing a way for her. She plucked at his hand. ‘Have they hurt
you?’ she asked.
‘Think of me to-night thanking them and heaven for this, my darling,’ he
replied, with a pressure that lit the flying moment to kindle the after hours.
Chloe had taken help of one of her bearers to jump out. She stretched a
finger at the unruly intruders, crying sternly, ‘There is blood on you—come
not nigh me!’ The loftiest harangue would not have been so cunning to
touch their wits. They stared at one another in the clear moonlight. Which
of them had blood on him? As they had not been for blood, but for rough
fun, and something to boast of next day, they gesticulated according to the
first instructions of the dancing master, by way of gallantry, and were out of
Caseldy’s path when he placed himself at his liege lady’s service. ‘Take no
notice of them, dear,’ she said.
‘No, no,’ said he; and ‘What is it?’ and his hoarse accent and shaking
clasp of her arm sickened her to the sensation of approaching death.
Upstairs Duchess Susan made a show of embracing her. Both were
trembling. The duchess ascribed her condition to those dreadful men. ‘What
makes them be at me so?’ she said.
And Chloe said, ‘Because you are beautiful.’

‘Am I?’
‘You are.’
‘I am?’
‘Very beautiful; young and beautiful; beautiful in the bud. You will learn
to excuse them, madam.’
‘But, Chloe—’ The duchess shut her mouth. Out of a languid reverie, she
sighed: ‘I suppose I must be! My duke—oh, don’t talk of him. Dear man!
he’s in bed and fast asleep long before this. I wonder how he came to let me
come here.
I did bother him, I know. Am I very, very beautiful, Chloe, so that men
can’t help themselves?’
‘Very, madam.’
‘There, good-night. I want to be in bed, and I can’t kiss you because you
keep calling me madam, and freeze me to icicles; but I do love you, Chloe.’
‘I am sure you do.’
‘I’m quite certain I do. I know I never mean harm. But how are we
women expected to behave, then? Oh, I’m unhappy, I am.’
‘You must abstain from playing.’
‘It’s that! I’ve lost my money—I forgot. And I shall have to confess it to
my duke, though he warned me. Old men hold their fingers up—so! One
finger: and you never forget the sight of it, never. It’s a round finger, like
the handle of a jug, and won’t point at you when they’re lecturing, and the
skin’s like an old coat on gaffer’s shoulders—or, Chloe! just like, when you
look at the nail, a rumpled counterpane up to the face of a corpse. I declare,
it’s just like! I feel as if I didn’t a bit mind talking of corpses tonight. And
my money’s gone, and I don’t much mind. I’m a wild girl again, handsomer
than when that——he is a dear, kind, good old nobleman, with his funny
old finger: “Susan! Susan!” I’m no worse than others. Everybody plays
here; everybody superior. Why, you have played, Chloe.’
‘Never!’
‘I’ve heard you say you played once, and a bigger stake it was, you said,
than anybody ever did play.’
‘Not money.’
‘What then?’

‘My life.’
‘Goodness—yes! I understand. I understand everything to-night-men too.
So you did!—They’re not so shamefully wicked, Chloe. Because I can’t see
the wrong of human nature—if we’re discreet, I mean. Now and then a
country dance and a game, and home to bed and dreams. There’s no harm in
that, I vow. And that’s why you stayed at this place. You like it, Chloe?’
‘I am used to it.’
‘But when you’re married to Count Caseldy you’ll go?’
‘Yes, then.’
She uttered it so joylessly that Duchess Susan added, with intense
affectionateness, ‘You’re not obliged to marry him, dear Chloe.’
‘Nor he me, madam.’
The duchess caught at her impulsively to kiss her, and said she would
undress herself, as she wished to be alone.
From that night she was a creature inflamed.

CHAPTER VII
The total disappearance of the pair of heroes who had been the latest in
the conspiracy to vex his delicate charge, gave Mr. Beamish a high opinion
of Caseldy as an assistant in such an office as he held. They had gone, and
nothing more was heard of them. Caseldy confined his observations on the
subject to the remark that he had employed the best means to be rid of that
kind of worthies; and whether their souls had fled, or only their bodies, was
unknown. But the duchess had quiet promenades with Caseldy to guard her,
while Mr. Beamish counted the remaining days of her visit with the
impatience of a man having cause to cast eye on a clock. For Duchess
Susan was not very manageable now; she had fits of insurgency, and plainly
said that her time was short, and she meant to do as she liked, go where she
liked, play when she liked, and be an independent woman—if she was so
soon to be taken away and boxed in a castle that was only a bigger sedan.
Caseldy protested he was as helpless as the beau. He described the
annoyance of his incessant running about at her heels in all directions
amusingly, and suggested that she must be beating the district to recover her
‘strange cavalier,’ of whom, or of one that had ridden beside her carriage
half a day on her journey to the Wells, he said she had dropped a sort of
hint. He complained of the impossibility of his getting an hour in privacy
with his Chloe.
‘And I, accustomed to consult with her, see too little of her,’ said Mr.
Beamish. ‘I shall presently be seeing nothing, and already I am sensible of
my loss.’
He represented his case to Duchess Susan:—that she was for ever driving
out long distances and taking Chloe from him, when his occupation
precluded his accompanying them; and as Chloe soon was to be lost to him
for good, he deeply felt her absence.
The duchess flung him enigmatical rejoinders: ‘You can change all that,
Mr. Beamish, if you like, and you know you can. Oh, yes, you can. But you
like being a butterfly, and when you’ve made ladies pale you’re happy: and

there they’re to stick and wither for you. Never!—I’ve that pride. I may be
worried, but I’ll never sink to green and melancholy for a man.’
She bridled at herself in a mirror, wherein not a sign of paleness was
reflected.
Mr. Beamish meditated, and he thought it prudent to speak to Caseldy
manfully of her childish suspicions, lest she should perchance in like
manner perturb the lover’s mind.
‘Oh, make your mind easy, my dear sir, as far as I am concerned,’ said
Caseldy. ‘But, to tell you the truth, I think I can interpret her creamy
ladyship’s innuendos a little differently and quite as clearly. For my part, I
prefer the pale to the blowsy, and I stake my right hand on Chloe’s fidelity.
Whatever harm I may have the senseless cruelty—misfortune, I may rather
call it—to do that heavenly-minded woman in our days to come, none shall
say of me that I was ever for an instant guilty of the baseness of doubting
her purity and constancy. And, sir, I will add that I could perfectly rely also
on your honour.’
Mr. Beamish bowed. ‘You do but do me justice. But, say, what
interpretation?’
‘She began by fearing you,’ said Caseldy, creating a stare that was
followed by a frown. ‘She fancies you neglect her. Perhaps she has a
woman’s suspicion that you do it to try her.’
Mr. Beamish frenetically cited his many occupations. ‘How can I be ever
dancing attendance on her?’ Then he said, ‘Pooh,’ and tenderly fingered the
ruffles of his wrist. ‘Tush, tush,’ said he, ‘no, no: though if it came to a
struggle between us, I might in the interests of my old friend, her lord,
whom I have reasons for esteeming, interpose an influence that would make
the exercise of my authority agreeable. Hitherto I have seen no actual need
of it, and I watch keenly. Her eye has been on Colonel Poltermore once or
twice his on her. The woman is a rose in June, sir, and I forgive the whole
world for looking—and for longing too. But I have observed nothing
serious.’
‘He is of our party to the beacon-head to-morrow,’ said Caseldy. ‘She
insisted that she would have him; and at least it will grant me furlough for
an hour.’
‘Do me the service to report to me,’ said Mr. Beamish.

In this fashion he engaged Caseldy to supply him with inventions, and
prepared himself to swallow them. It was Poltermore and Poltermore, the
Colonel here, the Colonel there until the chase grew so hot that Mr.
Beamish could no longer listen to young Mr. Camwell’s fatiguing drone
upon his one theme of the double-dealing of Chloe’s betrothed. He became
of her way of thinking, and treated the young gentleman almost as coldly as
she. In time he was ready to guess of his own acuteness that the ‘strange
cavalier’ could have been no other than Colonel Poltermore. When Caseldy
hinted it, Mr. Beamish said, ‘I have marked him.’ He added, in highly self-
satisfied style, ‘With all your foreign training, my friend, you will learn that
we English are not so far behind you in the art of unravelling an intrigue in
the dark.’ To which Caseldy replied, that the Continental world had little to
teach Mr. Beamish.
Poor Colonel Poltermore, as he came to be called, was clearly a victim of
the sudden affability of Duchess Susan. The transformation of a stiff
military officer into a nimble Puck, a runner of errands and a sprightly
attendant, could not pass without notice. The first effect of her
discriminating condescension on this unfortunate gentleman was to make
him the champion of her claims to breeding. She had it by nature, she was
Nature’s great lady, he would protest to the noble dames of the circle he
moved in; and they admitted that she was different in every way from a
bourgeoise elevated by marriage to lofty rank: she was not vulgar. But they
remained doubtful of the perfect simplicity of a young woman who worked
such changes in men as to render one of the famous conquerors of the day
her agitated humble servant. By rapid degrees the Colonel had fallen to that.
When not by her side, he was ever marching with sharp strides, hurrying
through rooms and down alleys and groves until he had discovered and
attached himself to her skirts. And, curiously, the object of his jealousy was
the devoted Alonzo! Mr. Beamish laughed when he heard of it. The lady’s
excitement and giddy mien, however, accused Poltermore of a stage of
success requiring to be combated immediately. There was mention of
Duchess Susan’s mighty wish to pay a visit to the popular fortune-teller of
the hut on the heath, and Mr. Beamish put his veto on the expedition. She
had obeyed him by abstaining from play of late, so he fully expected, that
his interdict would be obeyed; and besides the fortune-teller was a rogue of
a sham astrologer known to have foretold to certain tender ladies things
they were only too desirous to imagine predestined by an extraordinary

indication of the course of planets through the zodiac, thus causing them to
sin by the example of celestial conjunctions—a piece of wanton impiety.
The beau took high ground in his objections to the adventure. Nevertheless,
Duchess Susan did go. She drove to the heath at an early hour of the
morning, attended by Chloe, Colonel Poltermore, and Caseldy. They
subsequently breakfasted at an inn where gipsy repasts were occasionally
served to the fashion, and they were back at the wells as soon as the world
was abroad. Their surprise then was prodigious when Mr. Beamish,
accosting them full in assembly, inquired whether they were satisfied with
the report of their fortunes, and yet more when he positively proved himself
acquainted with the fortunes which had been recounted to each of them in
privacy.
‘You, Colonel Poltermore, are to be in luck’s way up to the tenth
milestone,—where your chariot will overset and you will be lamed for life.’
‘Not quite so bad,’ said the Colonel cheerfully, he having been informed
of much better.
‘And you, Count Caseldy, are to have it all your own way with good
luck, after committing a deed of slaughter, with the solitary penalty of
undergoing a visit every night from the corpse.’
‘Ghost,’ Caseldy smilingly corrected him.
‘And Chloe would not have her fortune told, because she knew it!’ Mr.
Beamish cast a paternal glance at her. ‘And you, madam,’ he bent his brows
on the duchess, ‘received the communication that “All for Love” will sink
you as it raised you, put you down as it took you up, furnish the feast to the
raven gentleman which belongs of right to the golden eagle?’
‘Nothing of the sort! And I don’t believe in any of their stories,’ cried the
duchess, with a burning face.
‘You deny it, madam?’
‘I do. There was never a word of a raven or an eagle, that I’ll swear,
now.’
‘You deny that there was ever a word of “All for Love”? Speak, madam.’
‘Their conjuror’s rigmarole!’ she murmured, huffing. ‘As if I listened to
their nonsense!’
‘Does the Duchess of Dewlap dare to give me the lie?’ said Mr. Beamish.

‘That’s not my title, and you know it,’ she retorted.
‘What’s this?’ the angry beau sang out. ‘What stuff is this you wear?’ He
towered and laid hand on a border of lace of her morning dress, tore it
furiously and swung a length of it round him: and while the duchess panted
and trembled at an outrage that won for her the sympathy of every lady
present as well as the championship of the gentlemen, he tossed the lace to
the floor and trampled on it, making his big voice intelligible over the
uproar: ‘Hear what she does! ‘Tis a felony! She wears the stuff with Betty
Worcester’s yellow starch on it for mock antique! And let who else wears it
strip it off before the town shall say we are disgraced—when I tell you that
Betty Worcester was hanged at Tyburn yesterday morning for murder!’
There were shrieks.
Hardly had he finished speaking before the assembly began to melt; he
stood in the centre like a pole unwinding streamers, amid a confusion of
hurrying dresses, the sound and whirl and drift whereof was as that of the
autumnal strewn leaves on a wind rising in November. The troops of ladies
were off to bereave themselves of their fashionable imitation old lace
adornment, which denounced them in some sort abettors and associates of
the sanguinary loathed wretch, Mrs. Elizabeth Worcester, their benefactress
of the previous day, now hanged and dangling on the gallows-tree.
Those ladies who wore not imitation lace or any lace in the morning,
were scarcely displeased with the beau for his exposure of them that did.
The gentlemen were confounded by his exhibition of audacious power. The
two gentlemen nighest upon violently resenting his brutality to Duchess
Susan, led her from the room in company with Chloe.
‘The woman shall fear me to good purpose,’ Mr. Beamish said to himself.

CHAPTER VIII
Mr. Camwell was in the ante-room as Chloe passed out behind the two
incensed supporters of Duchess Susan.
‘I shall be by the fir-trees on the Mount at eight this evening,’ she said.
‘I will be there,’ he replied.
‘Drive Mr. Beamish into the country, that these gentlemen may have time
to cool.’
He promised her it should be done.
Close on the hour of her appointment, he stood under the fir-trees,
admiring the sunset along the western line of hills, and when Chloe joined
him he spoke of the beauty of the scene.
‘Though nothing seems more eloquently to say farewell,’ he added, with
a sinking voice.
‘We could say it now, and be friends,’ she answered.
‘Later than now, you think it unlikely that you could forgive me, Chloe.’
‘In truth, sir, you are making it hard for me.’
‘I have stayed here to keep watch; for no pleasure of my own,’ said he.
‘Mr. Beamish is an excellent protector of the duchess.’
‘Excellent; and he is cleverly taught to suppose she fears him greatly; and
when she offends him, he makes a display of his Jupiter’s awfulness, with
the effect on woman of natural spirit which you have seen, and others had
foreseen, that she is exasperated and grows reckless. Tie another knot in
your string, Chloe.’
She looked away, saying, ‘Were you not the cause? You were in collusion
with that charlatan of the heath, who told them their fortunes this morning. I
see far, both in the dark and in the light.’
‘But not through a curtain. I was present.’
‘Hateful, hateful business of the spy! You have worked a great mischief
Mr. Camwell. And how can you reconcile it to, your conscience that you
should play so base a part?’

‘I have but performed my duty, dear madam.’
‘You pretend that it is your devotion to me! I might be flattered if I saw
not so abject a figure in my service. Now have I but four days of my month
of happiness remaining, and my request to you is, leave me to enjoy them. I
beseech you to go. Very humbly, most earnestly, I beg your departure. Grant
it to me, and do not stay to poison my last days here. Leave us to-morrow. I
will admit your good intentions. I give you my hand in gratitude. Adieu, Mr.
Camwell.’
He took her hand. ‘Adieu. I foresee an early separation, and this dear
hand is mine while I have it in mine. Adieu. It is a word to be repeated at a
parting like ours. We do not blow out our light with one breath: we let it
fade gradually, like yonder sunset.’
‘Speak so,’ said she.
‘Ah, Chloe, to give one’s life! And it is your happiness I have sought
more than your favor.’
‘I believe it; but I have not liked the means. You leave us to-morrow?’
‘It seems to me that to-morrow is the term.’
Her face clouded. ‘That tells me a very uncertain promise.’
‘You looked forth to a month of happiness—meaning a month of
delusion. The delusion expires to-night. You will awaken to see your end of
it in the morning. You have never looked beyond the month since the day of
his arrival.’
‘Let him not be named, I supplicate you.’
‘Then you consent that another shall be sacrificed for you to enjoy your
state of deception an hour longer?’
‘I am not deceived, sir. I wish for peace, and crave it, and that is all I
would have.’
‘And you make her your peace-offering, whom you have engaged to
serve! Too surely your eyes have been open as well as mine. Knot by knot
—I have watched you—where is it?—you have marked the points in that
silken string where the confirmation of a just suspicion was too strong for
you.’
‘I did it, and still I continued merry?’ She subsided from her scornfulness
on an involuntary ‘Ah!’ that was a shudder.

‘You acted Light Heart, madam, and too well to hoodwink me.
Meanwhile you allowed that mischief to proceed, rather than have your
crazy lullaby disturbed.’
‘Indeed, Mr. Camwell, you presume.’
‘The time, and my knowledge of what it is fraught with, demand it and
excuse it. You and I, my dear and one only love on earth, stand outside of
ordinary rules. We are between life and death.’
‘We are so always.’
‘Listen further to the preacher: We have them close on us, with the
question, Which it shall be to-morrow. You are for sleeping on, but I say no;
nor shall that iniquity of double treachery be committed because of your
desire to be rocked in a cradle. Hear me out. The drug you have swallowed
to cheat yourself will not bear the shock awaiting you tomorrow with the
first light. Hear these birds! When next they sing, you will be broad awake,
and of me, and the worship and service I would have dedicated to you, I do
not... it is a spectral sunset of a day that was never to be!—awake, and
looking on what? Back from a monstrous villainy to the forlorn wretch who
winked at it with knots in a string. Count them then, and where will be your
answer to heaven? I begged it of you, to save you from those blows of
remorse; yes, terrible!’
‘Oh, no!’
‘Terrible, I say!’
‘You are mistaken, Mr. Camwell. It is my soother. I tell my beads on it.’
‘See how a persistent residence in this place has made a Pagan of the
purest soul among us! Had you... but that day was not to lighten me! More
adorable in your errors that you are than others by their virtues, you have
sinned through excess of the qualities men prize. Oh, you have a boundless
generosity, unhappily enwound with a pride as great. There is your fault,
that is the cause of your misery. Too generous! too proud! You have trusted,
and you will not cease to trust; you have vowed yourself to love, never to
remonstrate, never to seem to doubt; it is too much your religion, rare
verily. But bethink you of that inexperienced and most silly good creature
who is on the rapids to her destruction. Is she not—you will cry it aloud to-
morrow—your victim? You hear it within you now.’

‘Friend, my dear, true friend,’ Chloe said in her deeper voice of melody,
‘set your mind at ease about to-morrow and her. Her safety is assured. I
stake my life on it. She shall not be a victim. At the worst she will but have
learnt a lesson. So, then, adieu! The West hangs like a garland of unwatered
flowers, neglected by the mistress they adorned. Remember the scene, and
that here we parted, and that Chloe wished you the happiness it was out of
her power to bestow, because she was of another world, with her history
written out to the last red streak before ever you knew her. Adieu; this time
adieu for good!
Mr. Camwell stood in her path. ‘Blind eyes, if you like,’ he said, ‘but you
shall not hear blind language. I forfeit the poor consideration for me that I
have treasured; hate me; better hated by you than shun my duty! Your
duchess is away at the first dawn this next morning; it has come to that. I
speak with full knowledge. Question her.’
Chloe threw a faltering scorn of him into her voice, as much as her
heart’s sharp throbs would allow. ‘I question you, sir, how you came to this
full knowledge you boast of?’
‘I have it; let that suffice. Nay, I will be particular; his coach is ordered
for the time I name to you; her maid is already at a station on the road of the
flight.’
‘You have their servants in your pay?’
‘For the mine—the countermine. We must grub dirt to match deceivers.
You, madam, have chosen to be delicate to excess, and have thrown it upon
me to be gross, and if you please, abominable, in my means of defending
you. It is not too late for you to save the lady, nor too late to bring him to
the sense of honour.’
‘I cannot think Colonel Poltermore so dishonourable.’
‘Poor Colonel Poltermore! The office he is made to fill is an old one. Are
you not ashamed, Chloe?’
‘I have listened too long,’ she replied.
‘Then, if it is your pleasure, depart.’
He made way for her. She passed him. Taking two hurried steps in the
gloom of the twilight, she stopped, held at her heart, and painfully turning
to him, threw her arms out, and let herself be seized and kissed.

On his asking pardon of her, which his long habit of respect forced him
to do in the thick of rapture and repetitions, she said, ‘You rob no one.’
‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘there is a reward, then, for faithful love. But am I the man
I was a minute back? I have you; I embrace you; and I doubt that I am I. Or
is it Chloe’s ghost?’
‘She has died and visits you.’
‘And will again?’
Chloe could not speak for languor.
The intensity of the happiness she gave by resting mutely where she was,
charmed her senses. But so long had the frost been on them that their
awakening to warmth was haunted by speculations on the sweet taste of this
reward of faithfulness to him, and the strange taste of her own
unfaithfulness to her. And reflecting on the cold act of speculation while
strong arm and glowing mouth were pressing her, she thought her senses
might really be dead, and she a ghost visiting the good youth for his
comfort. So feel ghosts, she thought, and what we call happiness in love is a
match between ecstasy and compliance. Another thought flew through her
like a mortal shot: ‘Not so with those two! with them it will be ecstasy
meeting ecstasy; they will take and give happiness in equal portions.’ A
pang of jealousy traversed her frame. She made the shrewdness of it help to
nerve her fervour in a last strain of him to her bosom, and gently releasing
herself, she said, ‘No one is robbed. And now, dear friend, promise me that
you will not disturb Mr. Beamish.’
‘Chloe,’ said he, ‘have you bribed me?’
‘I do not wish him to be troubled.’
‘The duchess, I have told you—’
‘I know. But you have Chloe’s word that she will watch over the duchess
and die to save her. It is an oath. You have heard of some arrangements. I
say they shall lead to nothing: it shall not take place. Indeed, my friend, I
am awake; I see as much as you see. And those... after being where I have
been, can you suppose I have a regret? But she is my dear and peculiar
charge, and if she runs a risk, trust to me that there shall be no catastrophe; I
swear it; so, now, adieu. We sup in company to-night. They will be
expecting some of Chloe’s verses, and she must sing to herself for a few
minutes to stir the bed her songs take wing from; therefore, we will part,

and for her sake avoid her; do not be present at our table, or in the room, or
anywhere there. Yes, you rob no one,’ she said, in a voice that curled
through him deliciously by wavering; but I think I may blush at
recollections, and I would rather have you absent. Adieu! I will not ask for
obedience from you beyond to-night. Your word?’
He gave it in a stupor of felicity, and she fled.

CHAPTER IX
Chloe drew the silken string from her bosom, as she descended the dim
pathway through the furies, and set her fingers travelling along it for the
number of the knots. ‘I have no right to be living,’ she said. Seven was the
number; seven years she had awaited her lover’s return; she counted her age
and completed it in sevens. Fatalism had sustained her during her lover’s
absence; it had fast hold of her now. Thereby had she been enabled to say,
‘He will come’; and saying, ‘He has come,’ her touch rested on the first
knot in the string. She had no power to displace her fingers, and the cause
of the tying of the knot stood across her brain marked in dull red characters,
legible neither to her eye nor to her understanding, but a reviving of the
hour that brought it on her spirit with human distinctness, except of the light
of day: she had a sense of having forfeited light, and seeing perhaps more
clearly. Everything assured her that she saw more clearly than others; she
saw too when it was good to cease to live.
Hers was the unhappy lot of one gifted with poet-imagination to throb
with the woman supplanting her and share the fascination of the man who
deceived. At their first meeting, in her presence, she had seen that they were
not strangers; she pitied them for speaking falsely, and when she vowed to
thwart this course of evil it to save a younger creature of her sex, not in
rivalry. She treated them both with a proud generosity surpassing
gentleness. All that there was of selfishness in her bosom resolved to the
enjoyment of her one month of strongly willed delusion.
The kiss she had sunk to robbed no one, not even her body’s purity, for
when this knot was tied she consigned herself to her end, and had become a
bag of dust. The other knots in the string pointed to verifications; this first
one was a suspicion, and it was the more precious, she felt it to be more a
certainty; it had come from the dark world beyond us, where all is known.
Her belief that it had come thence was nourished by testimony, the space of
blackness wherein she had lived since, exhausting her last vitality in a
simulation of infantile happiness, which was nothing other than the carrying
on of her emotion of the moment of sharp sour sweet—such as it may be,
the doomed below attain for their knowledge of joy—when, at the first

meeting with her lover, the perception of his treachery to the soul confiding
in him, told her she had lived, and opened out the cherishable kingdom of
insensibility to her for her heritage.
She made her tragic humility speak thankfully to the wound that slew her.
‘Had it not been so, I should not have seen him,’ she said:—Her lover
would not have come to her but for his pursuit of another woman.
She pardoned him for being attracted by that beautiful transplant of the
fields: pardoned her likewise. ‘He when I saw him first was as beautiful to
me. For him I might have done as much.’
Far away in a lighted hall of the West, her family raised hands of
reproach. They were minute objects, keenly discerned as diminished figures
cut in steel. Feeling could not be very warm for them, they were so small,
and a sea that had drowned her ran between; and looking that way she had
scarce any warmth of feeling save for a white rhaiadr leaping out of broken
cloud through branched rocks, where she had climbed and dreamed when a
child. The dream was then of the coloured days to come; now she was more
infant in her mind, and she watched the scattered water broaden, and tasted
the spray, sat there drinking the scene, untroubled by hopes as a lamb,
different only from an infant in knowing that she had thrown off life to
travel back to her home and be refreshed. She heard her people talk; they
were unending babblers in the waterfall. Truth was with them, and wisdom.
How, then, could she pretend to any right to live? Already she had no name;
she was less living than a tombstone. For who was Chloe? Her family might
pass the grave of Chloe without weeping, without moralizing. They had
foreseen her ruin, they had foretold it, they noised it in the waters, and on
they sped to the plains, telling the world of their prophecy, and making what
was untold as yet a lighter thing to do.
The lamps in an irregularly dotted line underneath the hill beckoned her
to her task of appearing as the gayest of them that draw their breath for the
day and have pulses for the morrow.

CHAPTER X
At midnight the great supper party to celebrate the reconciliation of Mr.
Beamish and Duchess Susan broke up, and beneath a soft fair sky the
ladies, with their silvery chatter of gratitude for amusement, caught Chloe
in their arms to kiss her, rendering it natural for their cavaliers to exclaim
that Chloe was blest above mortals. The duchess preferred to walk. Her
spirits were excited, and her language smelt of her origin, but the superb
fleshly beauty of the woman was aglow, and crying, ‘I declare I should
burst in one of those boxes—just as if you’d stalled me!’ she fanned a wind
on her face, and sumptuously spread her spherical skirts, attended by the
vanquished and captive Colonel Poltermore, a gentleman manifestly bent
on insinuating sly slips of speech to serve for here a pinch of powder, there
a match. ‘Am I?’ she was heard to say. She blew prodigious deep-chested
sighs of a coquette that has taken to roaring.
Presently her voice tossed out: ‘As if I would!’ These vivid illuminations
of the Colonel’s proceedings were a pasture to the rearward groups,
composed of two very grand ladies, Caseldy, Mr. Beamish, a lord, and
Chloe.
‘You man! Oh!’ sprang from the duchess. ‘What do I hear? I won’t listen;
I can’t, I mustn’t, I oughtn’t.’
So she said, but her head careened, she gave him her coy reluctant ear,
with total abandonment to the seductions of his whispers, and the lord let
fly a peal of laughter. It had been a supper of copious wine, and the songs
which rise from wine. Nature was excused by our midnight naturalists.
The two great dames, admonished by the violence of the nobleman’s
laughter, laid claim on Mr. Beamish to accompany them at their parting
with Chloe and Duchess Susan.
In the momentary shuffling of couples incident to adieux among a
company, the duchess murmured to Caseldy:
‘Have I done it well.’
He praised her for perfection in her acting. ‘I am at your door at three,
remember.’

‘My heart’s in my mouth,’ said she.
Colonel Poltermore still had the privilege of conducting her the few
farther steps to her lodgings.
Caseldy walked beside Chloe, and silently, until he said, ‘If I have not yet
mentioned the subject—’
‘If it is an allusion to money let me not hear it to-night,’ she replied.
‘I can only say that my lawyers have instructions. But my lawyers cannot
pay you in gratitude. Do not think me in your hardest review of my
misconduct ungrateful. I have ever esteemed you above all women; I do,
and I shall; you are too much above me. I am afraid I am a composition of
bad stuff; I did not win a very particularly good name on the Continent; I
begin to know myself, and in comparison with you, dear Catherine——’
‘You speak to Chloe,’ she said. ‘Catherine is a buried person. She died
without pain. She is by this time dust.’
The man heaved his breast. ‘Women have not an idea of our temptations.’
‘You are excused by me for all your errors, Caseldy. Always remember
that.’
He sighed profoundly. ‘Ay, you have a Christian’s heart.’
She answered, ‘I have come to the conclusion that it is a Pagan’s.’
‘As for me,’ he rejoined, ‘I am a fatalist. Through life I have seen my
destiny. What is to be, will be; we can do nothing.’
‘I have heard of one who expired of a surfeit that he anticipated, nay
proclaimed, when indulging in the last desired morsel,’ said Chloe.
‘He was driven to it.’
‘From within.’
Caseldy acquiesced; his wits were clouded, and an illustration even
coarser and more grotesque would have won a serious nod and a sigh from
him. ‘Yes, we are moved by other hands!’
‘It is pleasant to think so: and think it of me tomorrow. Will you!’ said
Chloe.
He promised it heartily, to induce her to think the same of him.
Their separation was in no way remarkable. The pretty formalities were
executed at the door, and the pair of gentlemen departed.

‘It’s quite dark still,’ Duchess Susan said, looking up at the sky, and she
ran upstairs, and sank, complaining of the weakness of her legs, in a chair
of the ante-chamber of her bedroom, where Chloe slept. Then she asked the
time of the night. She could not suppress her hushed ‘Oh!’ of heavy
throbbing from minute to minute. Suddenly she started off at a quick stride
to her own room, saying that it must be sleepiness which affected her so.
Her bedroom had a door to the sitting-room, and thence, as also from
Chloe’s room, the landing on the stairs was reached, for the room ran
parallel with both bed-chambers. She walked in it and threw the window
open, but closed it immediately; opened and shut the door, and returned and
called for Chloe. She wanted to be read to. Chloe named certain composing
books. The duchess chose a book of sermons. ‘But we’re all such dreadful
sinners, it’s better not to bother ourselves late at night.’ She dismissed that
suggestion. Chloe proposed books of poetry. ‘Only I don’t understand them
except about larks, and buttercups, and hayfields, and that’s no comfort to a
woman burning,’ was the answer.
‘Are you feverish, madam?’ said Chloe. And the duchess was sharp on
her: ‘Yes, madam, I am.’
She reproved herself in a change of tone: ‘No, Chloe, not feverish, only
this air of yours here is such an exciting air, as the doctor says; and they
made me drink wine, and I played before supper—Oh! my money; I used to
say I could get more, but now!’ she sighed—‘but there’s better in the world
than money. You know that, don’t you, you dear? Tell me. And I want you
to be happy; that you’ll find. I do wish we could all be!’ She wept, and
spoke of requiring a little music to compose her.
Chloe stretched a hand for her guitar. Duchess Susan listened to some
notes, and cried that it went to her heart and hurt her. ‘Everything we like a
lot has a fence and a board against trespassers, because of such a lot of
people in the world,’ she moaned. ‘Don’t play, put down that thing, please,
dear. You’re the cleverest creature anybody has ever met; they all say so. I
wish I——Lovely women catch men, and clever women keep them: I’ve
heard that said in this wretched place, and it ‘s a nice prospect for me, next
door to a fool! I know I am.’
‘The duke adores you, madam.’
‘Poor duke! Do let him be—sleeping so woebegone with his mouth so,
and that chin of a baby, like as if he dreamed of a penny whistle. He

shouldn’t have let me come here. Talk of Mr. Beamish. How he will miss
you, Chloe!’
‘He will,’ Chloe said sadly.
‘If you go, dear.’
‘I am going.’
‘Why should you leave him, Chloe?’
‘I must.’
‘And there, the thought of it makes you miserable!’
‘It does.’
‘You needn’t, I’m sure.’
Chloe looked at her.
The duchess turned her head. ‘Why can’t you be gay, as you were at the
supper-table, Chloe? You’re out to him like a flower when the sun jumps
over the hill; you’re up like a lark in the dews; as I used to be when I
thought of nothing. Oh, the early morning; and I’m sleepy. What a beast I
feel, with my grandeur, and the time in an hour or two for the birds to sing,
and me ready to drop. I must go and undress.’
She rushed on Chloe, kissed her hastily, declaring that she was quite dead
of fatigue, and dismissed her. ‘I don’t want help, I can undress myself. As if
Susan Barley couldn’t do that for herself! and you may shut your door, I
sha’n’t have any frights to-night, I’m so tired out.’
‘Another kiss,’ Chloe said tenderly.
‘Yes, take it’—the duchess leaned her cheek—‘but I’m so tired I don’t
know what I’m doing.’
‘It will not be on your conscience,’ Chloe answered, kissing her warmly.
Will those words she withdrew, and the duchess closed the door. She ran
a bolt in it immediately.
‘I’m too tired to know anything I’m doing,’ she said to herself, and stood
with shut eyes to hug certain thoughts which set her bosom heaving.
There was the bed, there was the clock. She had the option of lying down
and floating quietly into the day, all peril past. It seemed sweet for a minute.
But it soon seemed an old, a worn, an end-of-autumn life, chill, without
aim, like a something that was hungry and toothless. The bed proposing

innocent sleep repelled her and drove her to the clock. The clock was awful:
the hand at the hour, the finger following the minute, commanded her to stir
actively, and drove her to gentle meditations on the bed. She lay down
dressed, after setting her light beside the clock, that she might see it at will,
and considering it necessary for the bed to appear to have been lain on.
Considering also that she ought to be heard moving about in the process of
undressing, she rose from the bed to make sure of her reading of the guilty
clock. An hour and twenty minutes! she had no more time than that: and it
was not enough for her various preparations, though it was true that her
maid had packed and taken a box of the things chiefly needful; but the
duchess had to change her shoes and her dress, and run at bo-peep with the
changes of her mind, a sedative preface to any fatal step among women of
her complexion, for so they invite indecision to exhaust their scruples, and
they let the blood have its way. Having so short a space of time, she thought
the matter decided, and with some relief she flung despairing on the bed,
and lay down for good with her duke. In a little while her head was at work
reviewing him sternly, estimating him not less accurately than the male
moralist charitable to her sex would do. She quitted the bed, with a spring
to escape her imagined lord; and as if she had felt him to be there, she lay
down no more. A quiet life like that was flatter to her idea than a
handsomely bound big book without any print on the pages, and without a
picture. Her contemplation of it, contrasted with the life waved to her view
by the timepiece, set her whole system rageing; she burned to fly.
Providently, nevertheless, she thumped a pillow, and threw the bedclothes
into proper disorder, to inform the world that her limbs had warmed them,
and that all had been impulse with her. She then proceeded to disrobe,
murmuring to herself that she could stop now, and could stop now, at each
stage of the advance to a fresh dressing of her person, and moralizing on her
singular fate, in the mouth of an observer. ‘She was shot up suddenly over
everybody’s head, and suddenly down she went.’ Susan whispered to
herself: ‘But it was for love!’ Possessed by the rosiness of love, she finished
her business, with an attention to everything needed that was equal to
perfect serenity of mind. After which there was nothing to do, save to sit
humped in a chair, cover her face and count the clock-tickings, that said,
Yes—no; do—don’t; fly—stay; fly—fly! It seemed to her she heard a
moving. Well she might with that dreadful heart of hers!

Chloe was asleep, at peace by this time, she thought; and how she envied
Chloe! She might be as happy, if she pleased. Why not? But what kind of
happiness was it? She likened it to that of the corpse underground, and
shrank distastefully.
Susan stood at her glass to have a look at the creature about whom there
was all this disturbance, and she threw up her arms high for a languid, not
unlovely yawn, that closed in blissful shuddering with the sensation of her
lover’s arms having wormed round her waist and taken her while she was
defenceless. For surely they would. She took a jewelled ring, his gift, from
her purse, and kissed it, and drew it on and off her finger, leaving it on.
Now she might wear it without fear of inquiries and virtuous eyebrows. O
heavenly now—if only it were an hour hence; and going behind galloping
horses!
The clock was at the terrible moment. She hesitated internally and
hastened; once her feet stuck fast, and firmly she said, ‘No’; but the clock
was her lord. The clock was her lover and her lord; and obeying it, she
managed to get into the sitting-room, on the pretext that she merely wished
to see through the front window whether daylight was coming.
How well she knew that half-light of the ebb of the wave of darkness.
Strange enough it was to see it showing houses regaining their solidity of
the foregone day, instead of still fields, black hedges, familiar shapes of
trees. The houses had no wakefulness, they were but seen to stand, and the
light was a revelation of emptiness. Susan’s heart was cunning to reproach
her duke for the difference of the scene she beheld from that of the innocent
open-breasted land. Yes, it was dawn in a wicked place that she never
should have been allowed to visit. But where was he whom she looked for?
There! The cloaked figure of a man was at the corner of the street. It was
he. Her heart froze; but her limbs were strung to throw off the house, and
reach air, breathe, and (as her thoughts ran) swoon, well-protected. To her
senses the house was a house on fire, and crying to her to escape.
Yet she stepped deliberately, to be sure-footed in a dusky room; she
touched along the wall and came to the door, where a foot-stool nearly
tripped her. Here her touch was at fault, for though she knew she must be
close by the door, she was met by an obstruction unlike wood, and the door
seemed neither shut nor open. She could not find the handle; something
hung over it. Thinking coolly, she fancied the thing must be a gown or

dressing-gown; it hung heavily. Her fingers were sensible of the touch of
silk; she distinguished a depending bulk, and she felt at it very carefully and
mechanically, saying within herself, in her anxiety to pass it without noise,
‘If I should awake poor Chloe, of all people!’ Her alarm was that the door
might creak. Before any other alarm had struck her brain, the hand she felt
with was in a palsy, her mouth gaped, her throat thickened, the dust-ball
rose in her throat, and the effort to swallow it down and get breath kept her
from acute speculation while she felt again, pinched, plucked at the thing,
ready to laugh, ready to shriek. Above her head, all on one side, the thing
had a round white top. Could it be a hand that her touch had slid across? An
arm too! this was an arm! She clutched it, imagining that it clung to her. She
pulled it to release herself from it, desperately she pulled, and a lump
descended, and a flash of all the torn nerves of her body told her that a dead
human body was upon her.
At a quarter to four o’clock of a midsummer morning, as Mr. Beamish
relates of his last share in the Tale of Chloe, a woman’s voice, in piercing
notes of anguish, rang out three shrieks consecutively, which were heard by
him at the instant of his quitting his front doorstep, in obedience to the
summons of young Mr. Camwell, delivered ten minutes previously, with
great urgency, by that gentleman’s lacquey. On his reaching the street of the
house inhabited by Duchess Susan, he perceived many night-capped heads
at windows, and one window of the house in question lifted but vacant. His
first impression accused the pair of gentlemen, whom he saw bearing drawn
swords in no friendly attitude of an ugly brawl that had probably affrighted
her Grace, or her personal attendant, a woman capable of screaming, for he
was well assured that it could not have been Chloe, the least likely of her
sex to abandon herself to the use of their weapons either in terror or in
jeopardy. The antagonists were Mr. Camwell and Count Caseldy. On his
approaching them, Mr. Camwell sheathed his sword, saying that his work
was done. Caseldy was convulsed with wrath, to such a degree as to make
the part of an intermediary perilous. There had been passes between them,
and Caseldy cried aloud that he would have his enemy’s blood. The night-
watch was nowhere. Soon, however, certain shopmen and their apprentices
assisted Mr. Beamish to preserve the peace, despite the fury of Caseldy and
the provocations—‘not easy to withstand,’ says the chronicler—offered by
him to young Camwell. The latter said to Mr. Beamish: ‘I knew I should be

no match, so I sent for you,’ causing his friend astonishment, inasmuch as
he was assured of the youth’s natural valour.
Mr. Beamish was about to deliver an allocution of reproof to them in
equal shares, being entirely unsuspicious of any other reason for the alarum
than this palpable outbreak of a rivalry that he would have inclined to
attribute to the charms of Chloe, when the house-door swung wide for them
to enter, and the landlady of the house, holding clasped hands at full stretch,
implored them to run up to the poor lady: ‘Oh, she’s dead; she’s dead,
dead!’
Caseldy rushed past her.
‘How, dead! good woman?’ Mr. Beamish questioned her most
incredulously, half-smiling.
She answered among her moans: ‘Dead by the neck; off the door—Oh!’
Young Camwell pressed his forehead, with a call on his Maker’s name.
As they reached the landing upstairs, Caseldy came out of the sitting-room.
‘Which?’ said Camwell to the speaking of his face.
‘She!’ said the other.
‘The duchess?’ Mr. Beamish exclaimed.
But Camwell walked into the room. He had nothing to ask after that
reply.
The figure stretched along the floor was covered with a sheet. The young
man fell at his length beside it, and his face was downward.
Mr. Beamish relates: ‘To this day, when I write at an interval of fifteen
years, I have the tragic ague of that hour in my blood, and I behold the
shrouded form of the most admirable of women, whose heart was broken by
a faithless man ere she devoted her wreck of life to arrest one weaker than
herself on the descent to perdition. Therein it was beneficently granted her
to be of the service she prayed to be through her death. She died to save. In
a last letter, found upon her pincushion, addressed to me under seal of
secrecy toward the parties principally concerned, she anticipates the whole
confession of the unhappy duchess. Nay, she prophesies: “The duchess will
tell you truly she has had enough of love!” Those actual words were
reiterated to me by the poor lady daily until her lord arrived to head the
funeral procession, and assist in nursing back the shattered health of his
wife to a state that should fit her for travelling. To me, at least, she was

constant in repeating, “No more of love!” By her behaviour to her duke, I
can judge her to have been sincere. She spoke of feeling Chloe’s eyes go
through her with every word of hers that she recollected. Nor was the end of
Chloe less effective upon the traitor. He was in the procession to her grave.
He spoke to none. There is a line of the verse bearing the superscription,
“My Reasons for Dying,” that shows her to have been apprehensive to
secure the safety of Mr. Camwell:

I die because my heart is dead
To warn a soul from sin I die:
I die that blood may not be shed, etc.

She feared he would be somewhere on the road to mar the fugitives, and
she knew him, as indeed he knew himself, no match for one trained in the
foreign tricks of steel, ready though he was to dispute the traitor’s way. She
remembers Mr. Camwell’s petition for the knotted silken string in her
request that it shall be cut from her throat and given to him.’
Mr. Beamish indulges in verses above the grave of Chloe. They are of a
character to cool emotion. But when we find a man, who is commonly of
the quickest susceptibility to ridicule as well as to what is befitting, careless
of exposure, we may reflect on the truthfulness of feeling by which he is
drawn to pass his own guard and come forth in his nakedness; something of
the poet’s tongue may breathe to us through his mortal stammering, even if
we have to acknowledge that a quotation would scatter pathos.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

All flattery is at somebody’s expense
Be philosophical, but accept your personal dues
But I leave it to you
Distrust us, and it is a declaration of war
Happiness in love is a match between ecstasy and compliance
If I do not speak of payment
Intellectual contempt of easy dupes
Invite indecision to exhaust their scruples
Is not one month of brightness as much as we can ask for?
No flattery for me at the expense of my sisters
Nothing desirable will you have which is not coveted
Primitive appetite for noise
She might turn out good, if well guarded for a time
The alternative is, a garter and the bedpost
They miss their pleasure in pursuing it
This mania of young people for pleasure, eternal pleasure
Wits, which are ordinarily less productive than land

THE HOUSE ON THE BEACH
By George Meredith A REALISTIC TALE

CHAPTER I
The experience of great officials who have laid down their dignities
before death, or have had the philosophic mind to review themselves while
still wielding the deputy sceptre, teaches them that in the exercise of
authority over men an eccentric behaviour in trifles has most exposed them
to hostile criticism and gone farthest to jeopardize their popularity. It is their
Achilles’ heel; the place where their mother Nature holds them as she dips
them in our waters. The eccentricity of common persons is the
entertainment of the multitude, and the maternal hand is perceived for a
cherishing and endearing sign upon them; but rarely can this be found
suitable for the august in station; only, indeed, when their sceptre is no more
fearful than a grandmother’s birch; and these must learn from it sooner or
later that they are uncomfortably mortal.
When herrings are at auction on a beach, for example, the man of chief
distinction in the town should not step in among a poor fraternity to take
advantage of an occasion of cheapness, though it be done, as he may
protest, to relieve the fishermen of a burden; nor should such a dignitary as
the bailiff of a Cinque Port carry home the spoil of victorious bargaining on
his arm in a basket. It is not that his conduct is in itself objectionable, so
much as that it causes him to be popularly weighed; and during life, until
the best of all advocates can plead before our fellow Englishmen that we are
out of their way, it is prudent to avoid the process.
Mr. Tinman, however, this high-stepping person in question, happened to
have come of a marketing mother. She had started him from a small shop to
a big one. He, by the practice of her virtues, had been enabled to start
himself as a gentleman. He was a man of this ambition, and prouder behind
it. But having started himself precipitately, he took rank among independent
incomes, as they are called, only to take fright at the perils of starvation
besetting one who has been tempted to abandon the source of fifty per cent.
So, if noble imagery were allowable in our time in prose, might alarms and
partial regrets be assumed to animate the splendid pumpkin cut loose from
the suckers. Deprived of that prodigious nourishment of the shop in the
fashionable seaport of Helmstone, he retired upon his native town, the

Cinque Port of Crikswich, where he rented the cheapest residence he could
discover for his habitation, the House on the Beach, and lived imposingly,
though not in total disaccord with his old mother’s principles. His income,
as he observed to his widowed sister and solitary companion almost daily in
their privacy, was respectable. The descent from an altitude of fifty to five
per cent. cannot but be felt. Nevertheless it was a comforting midnight
bolster reflection for a man, turning over to the other side between a dream
and a wink, that he was making no bad debts, and one must pay to be
addressed as esquire. Once an esquire, you are off the ground in England
and on the ladder. An esquire can offer his hand in marriage to a lady in her
own right; plain esquires have married duchesses; they marry baronets’
daughters every day of the week.
Thoughts of this kind were as the rise and fall of waves in the bosom of
the new esquire. How often in his Helmstone shop had he not heard titled
ladies disdaining to talk a whit more prettily than ordinary women; and he
had been a match for the subtlety of their pride—he understood it. He knew
well that at the hint of a proposal from him they would have spoken out in a
manner very different to that of ordinary women. The lightning, only to be
warded by an esquire, was in them. He quitted business at the age of forty,
that he might pretend to espousals with a born lady; or at least it was one of
the ideas in his mind.
And here, I think, is the moment for the epitaph of anticipation over him,
and the exclamation, alas! I would not be premature, but it is necessary to
create some interest in him, and no one but a foreigner could feel it at
present for the Englishman who is bursting merely to do like the rest of his
countrymen, and rise above them to shake them class by class as the dust
from his heels. Alas! then an—undertaker’s pathos is better than none at all
—he was not a single-minded aspirant to our social honours. The old
marketing mother; to whom he owed his fortunes, was in his blood to
confound his ambition; and so contradictory was the man’s nature, that in
revenge for disappointments, there were times when he turned against the
saving spirit of parsimony. Readers deep in Greek dramatic writings will
see the fatal Sisters behind the chair of a man who gives frequent and
bigger dinners, that he may become important in his neighbourhood, while
decreasing the price he pays for his wine, that he may miserably indemnify
himself for the outlay. A sip of his wine fetched the breath, as when men are
in the presence of the tremendous elements of nature. It sounded the

constitution more darkly-awful, and with a profounder testimony to
stubborn health, than the physician’s instruments. Most of the guests at Mr.
Tinman’s table were so constructed that they admired him for its powerful
quality the more at his announcement of the price of it; the combined
strength and cheapness probably flattering them, as by another mystic
instance of the national energy. It must have been so, since his townsmen
rejoiced to hail him as head of their town. Here and there a solitary esquire,
fished out of the bathing season to dine at the house on the beach, was
guilty of raising one of those clamours concerning subsequent headaches,
which spread an evil reputation as a pall. A resident esquire or two, in
whom a reminiscence of Tinman’s table may be likened to the hook which
some old trout has borne away from the angler as the most vivid of
warnings to him to beware for the future, caught up the black report and
propagated it.
The Lieutenant of the Coastguard, hearing the latest conscious victim, or
hearing of him, would nod his head and say he had never dined at Tinman’s
table without a headache ensuing and a visit to the chemist’s shop; which,
he was assured, was good for trade, and he acquiesced, as it was right to do
in a man devoted to his country. He dined with Tinman again. We try our
best to be social. For eight months in our year he had little choice but to
dine with Tinman or be a hermit attached to a telescope.
“Where are you going, Lieutenant?” His frank reply to the question was,
“I am going to be killed;” and it grew notorious that this meant Tinman’s
table. We get on together as well as we can. Perhaps if we were an acutely
calculating people we should find it preferable both for trade and our
physical prosperity to turn and kill Tinman, in contempt of consequences.
But we are not, and so he does the business gradually for us. A generous
people we must be, for Tinman was not detested. The recollection of “next
morning” caused him to be dimly feared.
Tinman, meanwhile, was awake only to the Circumstance that he made
no progress as an esquire, except on the envelopes of letters, and in his own
esteem. That broad region he began to occupy to the exclusion of other
inhabitants; and the result of such a state of princely isolation was a plunge
of his whole being into deep thoughts. From the hour of his investiture as
the town’s chief man, thoughts which were long shots took possession of
him. He had his wits about him; he was alive to ridicule; he knew he was

not popular below, or on easy terms with people above him, and he
meditated a surpassing stroke as one of the Band of Esq., that had nothing
original about it to perplex and annoy the native mind, yet was dazzling.
Few members of the privileged Band dare even imagine the thing.
It will hardly be believed, but it is historical fact, that in the act of
carrying fresh herrings home on his arm, he entertained the idea of a visit to
the First Person and Head of the realm, and was indulging in pleasing
visions of the charms of a personal acquaintance. Nay, he had already
consulted with brother jurats. For you must know that one of the princesses
had recently suffered betrothal in the newspapers, and supposing her to
deign to ratify the engagement, what so reasonable on the part of a Cinque
Port chieftain as to congratulate his liege mistress, her illustrious mother?
These are thoughts and these are deeds >which give emotional warmth and
colour to the ejecter members of a population wretchedly befogged. They
are our sunlight, and our brighter theme of conversation. They are necessary
to the climate and the Saxon mind; and it would be foolish to put them
away, as it is foolish not to do our utmost to be intimate with terrestrial
splendours while we have them—as it may be said of wardens, mayors, and
bailiffs-at command. Tinman was quite of this opinion. They are there to
relieve our dulness. We have them in the place of heavenly; and he would
have argued that we have a right to bother them too. He had a notion, up in
the clouds, of a Sailors’ Convalescent Hospital at Crikswich to seduce a
prince with, hand him the trowel, make him “lay the stone,” and then poor
prince! refresh him at table. But that was a matter for by and by.
His purchase of herrings completed, Mr. Tinman walked across the
mound of shingle to the house on the beach. He was rather a fresh-faced
man, of the Saxon colouring, and at a distance looking good-humoured.
That he should have been able to make such an appearance while doing
daily battle with his wine, was a proof of great physical vigour. His pace
was leisurely, as it must needs be over pebbles, where half a step is
subtracted from each whole one in passing; and, besides, he was aware of a
general breath at his departure that betokened a censorious assembly. Why
should he not market for himself? He threw dignity into his retreating figure
in response to the internal interrogation. The moment >was one when
conscious rectitude =pliers man should have a tail for its just display.
Philosophers have drawn attention to the power of the human face to
express pure virtue, but no sooner has it passed on than the spirit erect

within would seem helpless. The breadth of our shoulders is apparently
presented for our critics to write on. Poor duty is done by the simple sense
of moral worth, to supplant that absence of feature in the plain flat back. We
are below the animals in this. How charged with language behind him is a
dog! Everybody has noticed it. Let a dog turn away from a hostile circle,
and his crisp and wary tail not merely defends him, it menaces; it is a
weapon. Man has no choice but to surge and boil, or stiffen preposterously.
Knowing the popular sentiment about his marketing—for men can see
behind their backs, though they may have nothing to speak with—Tinman
resembled those persons of principle who decline to pay for a “Bless your
honour!” from a voluble beggar-woman, and obtain the reverse of it after
they have gone by. He was sufficiently sensitive to feel that his back was
chalked as on a slate. The only remark following him was, “There he goes!”
He went to the seaward gate of the house on the beach, made practicable
in a low flint wall, where he was met by his sister Martha, to whom he
handed the basket. Apparently he named the cost of his purchase per dozen.
She touched the fish and pressed the bellies of the topmost, it might be to
question them tenderly concerning their roes. Then the couple passed out of
sight. Herrings were soon after this despatching their odours through the
chimneys of all Crikswich, and there was that much of concord and festive
union among the inhabitants.
The house on the beach had been posted where it stood, one supposes, for
the sake of the sea-view, from which it turned right about to face the town
across a patch of grass and salt scurf, looking like a square and scornful
corporal engaged in the perpetual review of an awkward squad of recruits.
Sea delighted it not, nor land either. Marine Parade fronting it to the left,
shaded sickly eyes, under a worn green verandah, from a sun that rarely
appeared, as the traducers of spinsters pretend those virgins are ever keenly
on their guard against him that cometh not. Belle Vue Terrace stared out of
lank glass panes without reserve, unashamed of its yellow complexion. A
gaping public-house, calling itself newly Hotel, fell backward a step. Villas
with the titles of royalty and bloody battles claimed five feet of garden, and
swelled in bowwindows beside other villas which drew up firmly,
commending to the attention a decent straightness and unintrusive decorum
in preference. On an elevated meadow to the right was the Crouch. The Hall
of Elba nestled among weather-beaten dwarf woods further toward the cliff.
Shavenness, featurelessness, emptiness, clamminess scurfiness, formed the

outward expression of a town to which people were reasonably glad to
come from London in summer-time, for there was nothing in Crikswich to
distract the naked pursuit of health. The sea tossed its renovating brine to
the determinedly sniffing animal, who went to his meals with an appetite
that rendered him cordially eulogistic of the place, in spite of certain frank
whiffs of sewerage coming off an open deposit on the common to mingle
with the brine. Tradition told of a French lady and gentleman entering the
town to take lodgings for a month, and that on the morrow they took a boat
from the shore, saying in their faint English to a sailor veteran of the
coastguard, whom they had consulted about the weather, “It is better zis zan
zat,” as they shrugged between rough sea and corpselike land. And they
were not seen again. Their meaning none knew. Having paid their bill at the
lodging-house, their conduct was ascribed to systematic madness. English
people came to Crikswich for the pure salt sea air, and they did not expect it
to be cooked and dressed and decorated for them. If these things are done to
nature, it is nature no longer that you have, but something Frenchified.
Those French are for trimming Neptune’s beard! Only wait, and you are
sure to find variety in nature, more than you may like. You will find it in
Neptune. What say you to a breach of the sea-wall, and an inundation of the
aromatic grass-flat extending from the house on the beach to the tottering
terraces, villas, cottages: and public-house transformed by its ensign to
Hotel, along the frontage of the town? Such an event had occurred of old,
and had given the house on the beach the serious shaking great Neptune in
his wrath alone can give. But many years had intervened. Groynes had been
run down to intercept him and divert him. He generally did his winter
mischief on a mill and salt marshes lower westward. Mr. Tinman had
always been extremely zealous in promoting the expenditure of what
moneys the town had to spare upon the protection of the shore, as it were
for the propitiation or defiance of the sea-god. There was a kindly joke
against him an that subject among brother jurats. He retorted with the joke,
that the first thing for Englishmen to look to were England’s defences.
But it will not do to be dwelling too fondly on our eras of peace, for
which we make such splendid sacrifices. Peace, saving for the advent of a
German band, which troubled the repose of the town at intervals, had
imparted to the inhabitants of Crikswich, within and without, the likeness to
its most perfect image, together, it must be confessed, with a degree of
nervousness that invested common events with some of the terrors of the

Last Trump, when one night, just upon the passing of the vernal equinox,
something happened.

CHAPTER II
A carriage Stopped short in the ray of candlelight that was fitfully and
feebly capering on the windy blackness outside the open workshop of
Crickledon, the carpenter, fronting the sea-beach. Mr. Tinnnan’s house was
inquired for. Crickledon left off planing; at half-sprawl over the board, he
bawled out, “Turn to the right; right ahead; can’t mistake it.” He nodded to
one of the cronies intent on watching his labours: “Not unless they mean to
be bait for whiting-pout. Who’s that for Tinman, I wonder?” The
speculations of Crickledon’s friends were lost in the scream of the plane.
One cast an eye through the door and observed that the carriage was there
still. “Gentleman’s got out and walked,” said Crickledon. He was informed
that somebody was visible inside. “Gentleman’s wife, mayhap,” he said.
His friends indulged in their privilege of thinking what they liked, and there
was the usual silence of tongues in the shop. He furnished them sound and
motion for their amusement, and now and then a scrap of conversation; and
the sedater spirits dwelling in his immediate neighbourhood were
accustomed to step in and see him work up to supper-time, instead of
resorting to the more turbid and costly excitement of the public-house.
Crickledon looked up from the measurement of a thumb-line. In the
doorway stood a bearded gentleman, who announced himself with the
startling exclamation, “Here’s a pretty pickle!” and bustled to make way for
a man well known to them as Ned Crummins, the upholsterer’s man, on
whose back hung an article of furniture, the condition of which, with a
condensed brevity of humour worthy of literary admiration, he displayed by
mutely turning himself about as he entered.
“Smashed!” was the general outcry.
“I ran slap into him,” said the gentleman. “Who the deuce!—no bones
broken, that’s one thing. The fellow—there, look at him: he’s like a glass
tortoise.”
“It’s a chiwal glass,” Crickledon remarked, and laid finger on the star in
the centre.

“Gentleman ran slap into me,” said Crummins, depositing the frame on
the floor of the shop.
“Never had such a shock in my life,” continued the gentleman. “Upon
my soul, I took him for a door: I did indeed. A kind of light flashed from
one of your houses here, and in the pitch dark I thought I was at the door of
old Mart Tinman’s house, and dash me if I did n’t go in—crash! But what
the deuce do you do, carrying that great big looking-glass at night, man?
And, look here tell me; how was it you happened to be going glass foremost
when you’d got the glass on your back?”
“Well, ‘t ain’t my fault, I knows that,” rejoined Crummins. “I came along
as careful as a man could. I was just going to bawl out to Master Tinman, ‘I
knows the way, never fear me’; for I thinks I hears him call from his house,
‘Do ye see the way?’ and into me this gentleman runs all his might, and
smash goes the glass. I was just ten steps from Master Tinman’s gate, and
that careful, I reckoned every foot I put down, that I was; I knows I did,
though.”
“Why, it was me calling, ‘I’m sure I can’t see the way.’
“You heard me, you donkey!” retorted the bearded gentleman. “What
was the good of your turning that glass against me in the very nick when I
dashed on you?”
“Well, ‘t ain’t my fault, I swear,” said Crummins. “The wind catches
voices so on a pitch dark night, you never can tell whether they be on one
shoulder or the other. And if I’m to go and lose my place through no fault of
mine——”
“Have n’t I told you, sir, I’m going to pay the damage? Here,” said the
gentleman, fumbling at his waistcoat, “here, take this card. Read it.”
For the first time during the scene in the carpenter’s shop, a certain
pomposity swelled the gentleman’s tone. His delivery of the card appeared
to act on him like the flourish of a trumpet before great men.
“Van Diemen Smith,” he proclaimed himself for the assistance of Ned
Crummins in his task; the latter’s look of sad concern on receiving the card
seeming to declare an unscholarly conscience.
An anxious feminine voice was heard close beside Mr. Van Diemen
Smith.
“Oh, papa, has there been an accident? Are you hurt?”

“Not a bit, Netty; not a bit. Walked into a big looking-glass in the dark,
that’s all. A matter of eight or ten pound, and that won’t stump us. But these
are what I call queer doings in Old England, when you can’t take a step in
the dark, on the seashore without plunging bang into a glass. And it looks
like bad luck to my visit to old Mart Tinman.”
“Can you,” he addressed the company, “tell me of a clean, wholesome
lodging-house? I was thinking of flinging myself, body and baggage, on
your mayor, or whatever he is—my old schoolmate; but I don’t so much
like this beginning. A couple of bed-rooms and sitting-room; clean sheets,
well aired; good food, well cooked; payment per week in advance.”
The pebble dropped into deep water speaks of its depth by the tardy
arrival of bubbles on the surface, and, in like manner, the very simple
question put by Mr. Van Diemen Smith pursued its course of penetration in
the assembled mind in the carpenter’s shop for a considerable period, with
no sign to show that it had reached the bottom.
“Surely, papa, we can go to an inn? There must be some hotel,” said his
daughter.
“There’s good accommodation at the Cliff Hotel hard by,” said
Crickledon.
“But,” said one of his friends, “if you don’t want to go so far, sir, there’s
Master Crickledon’s own house next door, and his wife lets lodgings, and
there’s not a better cook along this coast.”
“Then why did n’t the man mention it? Is he afraid of having me?” asked
Mr. Smith, a little thunderingly. “I may n’t be known much yet in England;
but I’ll tell you, you inquire the route to Mr. Van Diemen Smith over there
in Australia.”
“Yes, papa,” interrupted his daughter, “only you must consider that it
may not be convenient to take us in at this hour—so late.”
“It’s not that, miss, begging your pardon,” said Crickledon. “I make a
point of never recommending my own house. That’s where it is. Otherwise
you’re welcome to try us.”
“I was thinking of falling bounce on my old schoolmate, and putting Old
English hospitality to the proof,” Mr. Smith meditated. “But it’s late. Yes,
and that confounded glass! No, we’ll bide with you, Mr. Carpenter. I’ll send

my card across to Mart Tinman to-morrow, and set him agog at his
breakfast.”
Mr. Van Diemen Smith waved his hand for Crickledon to lead the way.
Hereupon Ned Crummins looked up from the card he had been turning
over and over, more and more like one arriving at a condemnatory judgment
of a fish.
“I can’t go and give my master a card instead of his glass,” he remarked.
“Yes, that reminds me; and I should like to know what you meant by
bringing that glass away from Mr. Tinman’s house at night,” said Mr.
Smith. “If I’m to pay for it, I’ve a right to know. What’s the meaning of
moving it at night? Eh, let’s hear. Night’s not the time for moving big
glasses like that. I’m not so sure I haven’t got a case.”
“If you’ll step round to my master along o’ me, sir,” said Crummins,
“perhaps he’ll explain.”
Crummins was requested to state who his master was, and he replied,
“Phippun and Company;” but Mr. Smith positively refused to go with him.
“But here,” said he, “is a crown for you, for you’re a civil fellow. You’ll
know where to find me in the morning; and mind, I shall expect Phippun
and Company to give me a very good account of their reason for moving a
big looking-glass on a night like this. There, be off.”
The crown-piece in his hand effected a genial change in Crummins’
disposition to communicate. Crickledon spoke to him about the glass; two
or three of the others present jogged him. “What did Mr. Tinman want by
having the glass moved so late in the day, Ned? Your master wasn’t nervous
about his property, was he?”
“Not he,” said Crummins, and began to suck down his upper lip and
agitate his eyelids and stand uneasily, glimmering signs of the setting in of
the tide of narration.
He caught the eye of Mr. Smith, then looked abashed at Miss.
Crickledon saw his dilemma. “Say what’s uppermost, Ned; never mind
how you says it. English is English. Mr. Tinman sent for you to take the
glass away, now, did n’t he?”
“He did,” said Crummins.
“And you went to him.”

“Ay, that I did.”
“And he fastened the chiwal glass upon your back”
“He did that.”
“That’s all plain sailing. Had he bought the glass?”
“No, he had n’t bought it. He’d hired it.”
As when upon an enforced visit to the dentist, people have had one tooth
out, the remaining offenders are more willingly submitted to the operation,
insomuch that a poetical licence might hazard the statement that they shed
them like leaves of the tree, so Crummins, who had shrunk from speech,
now volunteered whole sentences in succession, and how important they
were deemed by his fellow-townsman, Mr. Smith, and especially Miss
Annette Smith, could perceive in their ejaculations, before they themselves
were drawn into the strong current of interest.
And this was the matter: Tinman had hired the glass for three days.
Latish, on the very first day of the hiring, close upon dark, he had
despatched imperative orders to Phippun and Company to take the glass out
of his house on the spot. And why? Because, as he maintained, there was a
fault in the glass causing an incongruous and absurd reflection; and he was
at that moment awaiting the arrival of another chiwal-glass.
“Cut along, Ned,” said Crickledon.
“What the deuce does he want with a chiwal-glass at all?” cried Mr.
Smith, endangering the flow of the story by suggesting to the narrator that
he must “hark back,” which to him was equivalent to the jumping of a
chasm hindward. Happily his brain had seized a picture:
“Mr. Tinman, he’s a-standin’ in his best Court suit.”
Mr. Tinmau’s old schoolmate gave a jump; and no wonder.
“Standing?” he cried; and as the act of standing was really not
extraordinary, he fixed upon the suit: “Court?”
“So Mrs. Cavely told me, it was what he was standin’ in, and as I found
‘m I left ‘m,” said Crummins.
“He’s standing in it now?” said Mr. Van Diemen Smith, with a great
gape.
Crummins doggedly repeated the statement. Many would have
ornamented it in the repetition, but he was for bare flat truth.