It was Saturday evening, and the slender hands of the clock in the village schoolhouse were just crossing each other in their eager haste to tell the Berryville Literary Society that it was nearly ten o'clock, and time to put out the lights.
The girls had taken the hint when the clock struck the quarter-hour, and they were chattering like a group of magpies in the darkest corner of the room as they helped each other with their cloaks and wraps.
The boys had already drawn their overcoat collars up to their ears. They stood, solemnly and silently, near the door, each one ready to frame the momentous question, "May I have the pleasure of seeing you home?" when the girl of his choice should pass. Some of them looked nervous; others had assumed an air of indifference, which deceived no one.
John Hampden stroked his cap, wishing that girls weren't so slow about getting ready. But he forgot the girls in a moment, and began to repeat, under his breath, a few lines of the poem they had been reading that evening:
"Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast,The little tyrant of his fields withstood."
He wondered who Hampden was, and what he had done to make him famous enough to be mentioned in such a poem as Gray's Elegy. Probably a great general, John decided, who had led vast armies to victory.
John smiled to himself. There surely could not have been two persons with the same name more utterly unlike, he thought, than the John Hampden of the poem and John Hampden, the druggist's clerk—"a youth to Fortune and to Fame unknown."
Just then two girls stopped before him, and John woke from his dreams to find that the schoolhouse was almost deserted, and that the janitor's yawning little son had begun to put out the lights.
The girls, no doubt, thought he had smiled at them, and John had presence of mind enough left to accept the situation. He had meant to walk home with Matilda Haines, but Matilda had disappeared.
John felt that he hardly knew Margaret Shirley, she had been away in Boston so long, and he hadn't even been introduced to the young girl beside her.
"Allow me to present Mr. Hampden, Celia—Mr. John Hampden," said Margaret, as if in answer to his thought. "My cousin, Miss Kirke, from Boston, Mr. Hampden."
John felt a trifle afraid of Miss Kirke, she took the introduction so smilingly and easily. John himself blushed and stammered, and felt more uncomfortable than ever, when she said, laughingly:
"How delightful to have one of Gray's heroes escort one home, right after reading his poem! Ofcourse, you are a direct descendant of this famous John Hampden?"
"I don't know," said John, awkwardly; "I'm afraid not. I don't even know what he did. Mr. Carr didn't explain that passage very fully."
"Oh,nobodypretends to know all about the allusions in poetry. He lived somewhere in England, in the dark ages, didn't he—and refused to pay taxes, or something? I forget exactly what."
John smiled. He had recovered a little from his embarrassment.
"Why, old Mr. Hunt refuses to pay his taxes every year; but they make him do it, just the same."
The girls laughed.
"Oh, but John Hampden protested against a great act of tyranny," said Margaret. "He must have been very brave to do it, or Gray wouldn't have put him in his poem."
"Such a lovely poem!" sighed Miss Kirke. "I've heard that the author was seven years writing it."
"Seven years!" John echoed. "Well!"
"He kept pruning it, and re-writing some of the verses," Margaret explained. "He wanted to make it a perfect poem."
"It's very fine," said John. Then he added, blushingly, "If I had any fields to keep tyrants away from, I'd like to be a village Hampden myself, even if I couldn't become famous like the other one."
"Oh, I don't think one need take that line of the poem literally," said Margaret. "I like to have poetry suggest things to me that are not found in the mere words. That is why I'm so fond of Shakespeare—he admits of so many interpretations. Perhaps," she went on, softly and timidly, "if we keep the little tyrants of selfishness and wickedness away from our hearts, we can all become village Hampdens. Such things are often harder to drive away than human tyrants—don't you think so?"
"Yes," replied John, gravely, "I'm sure it is true—though I've had no contests with human tyrants."
"I know whatmygreatest tyrant is," said Celia Kirke, who had grown serious with the others; "and whenever I see him trying to get into my fields," she added, more lightly, "I shall 'off with his head' with scant ceremony."
As John walked home alone in the frosty night, he vowed half aloud to the silent, listening stars that hewouldbe a "village Hampden," that the tyrant within him should be laid low for all time.
John had no need to mention the tyrant by name—he knew very well that it was Carelessness with a capital C. How often had this little tyrant brought him into trouble, and how often had his employer warned him to break his bad habit before it was too late.
What a pleasant, sensible girl Margaret Shirley was—not a bit spoiled by her studies in Boston!
Matilda Haines would have laughed more and talked more, but she would never have given a second thought to the poem they had just read. John was rather glad she had walked home with some one else that evening—even though his old tyrant of Carelessness had brought about this result.
John Hampden saw a good deal of Margaret Shirley and her cousin that winter at the meetings of the literary society, at choir practice, and in Margaret's own home, where they often discussed the poems and essays they were reading.
Youth has a frank and sometimes harsh way of passing judgment upon people. John had decided the first evening he met her that Celia Kirke was a frivolous girl, but when he got to know her better, he found that she could be as sensible as Margaret herself when occasion required it.
They had confessed to one another what each one's particular tyrant was, and had agreed to help each other to suppress him. Of course they had a good deal of fun about it, but under it all there was a general feeling that it was a serious matter they had undertaken.
John really began to feel that he was getting to be master of his own fields at last. He attended to his duties at the drug store with such punctilious care that his employer, Mr. Wyatt, nodded approval more than once.
After all, John might become a safe druggist yet, if he didn't suffer himself to lapse into his old ways. He did not stop to dream, as formerly, when compounding pills, and he washed all his dingy bottles so thoroughly that they began to shine like cut glass.
"He would be a credit to the business," said old Mr. Wyatt, who always spoke of his business as if it were spelled with a capital B, and thought it the very finest business in the world for a man to be in.
One afternoon in March Doctor Pratt came hurriedly into the store and said to Mr. Wyatt:
"Put up half a dozen of these powders, will you, Wyatt? Here's the full prescription. Squire Shirley has got one of his acute attacks of neuralgia again, and my medicine-chest was empty. I'll call for them in fifteen minutes."
Then the overworked little doctor jumped into his gig, and was off like a flash.
"You'd better do it, John," said Mr. Wyatt. "I can't see in this poor light."
"Very well, sir," said John.
And, as he began to neatly fold the white slips of paper, he wondered if the squire were really as ill as Doctor Pratt pretended he was.
The good doctor was fond of making a fuss about trifles, to add to his own importance.
Margaret and Celia had been out driving that afternoon, for John had seen them from the drug-store windows.
If they had come home, they were probably rushing distracted about the house, trying all the possible and impossible remedies they had ever heard of to relieve him. John hoped they were not feeling too unhappy about it—the squire would doubtless be all right in a few hours.
John lived with his aunt, not far from Squire Shirley's, and, as he passed the large brick mansion, he noticed that there were many lights there that night.
Usually there was a light only in the library so late as this. None of the curtains had been drawn, which was certainly an unusual state of affairs.
A broad flood of light streamed from one of the front windows toward the gate. A girlish, uncovered head was leaning dejectedly against the cold, icy gate-post, and the light turned the fluffy blonde hair into a shining aureole.
"Miss Kirke!" John exclaimed, in amazement. "What is the matter? Is—is Squire Shirley worse?"
"Noth—nothing is the matter," faltered Celia, making a few ineffectual dabs at her tear-swollen eyes with her handkerchief. "That is—everything is the matter. They have given my uncle an over-dose of opium. There was too much in the powders, the doctor says—a great deal more than the prescription calls for. Doctor Pratt is with him now, and they are trying to keep him awake. If he is allowed to go to sleep, he will die. They are walking him back and forth, though he implores them to let him sleep. I couldn't bear to see it any longer, it was too, too dreadful! Oh, howcanpeople be so criminally careless?"
John turned pale and leaned against the gate for support. Celia's face became a mere blur before his eyes. What had he done—whathadhe done? For, at that moment, the conviction came with terrible force upon him that he, and he alone, would be responsible for Squire Shirley's death.
He might blame the poor light—Doctor Pratt's miserable scrawl; but these were but cowardly subterfuges. Johnknewthat he had been able to decipher Doctor Pratt's handwriting well enough, but that he had been thinking of something else while putting up the powders, and so had put too much opium into them.
Celia looked at his agitated face in wonder. Then she uttered a little cry.
"You—youdid it! It is your fault," she said. "And he was your friend, and always spoke so well of you."
Then she turned and walked swiftly toward the house.
It was true he and Squire Shirley had become excellent friends that winter, and the squire had only a few days before asked him if he thought he should like law better than the drug business.
He expected a vacancy in his office soon; in the meantime he had offered to read a little law with John in the evenings. John had been more than pleased, for circumstances had placed him in the drug store, not his own inclinations.
And now he had blotted out all his hopes for the future, and perhaps killed his friend and benefactor at the same time, all because he had lacked manliness enough to cure himself of his small and odious besetting sin.
John wandered like one distraught through the freezing slush and mud of the country roads that night, feeling no fatigue and no discomfort. His brain was on fire with horror and self-condemnation.
It never occurred to him to ask himself how the law would look upon his carelessness; he only knew that he was ruined and disgraced, and that he had brought a crushing sorrow upon those who had trusted him and treated him as a good and welcome friend.
When daylight dawned upon John Hampden's haggard eyes he found himself upon his own doorstep, his clothes smeared with frozen mud, his body shivering and quaking in the grip of a dreadful chill.
He had walked for hours at a breakneck pace, and he was so exhausted that he could hardly lift his hand to fumble at the door-knob.
His aunt opened the door for him. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. She had been kneeling by a chair in the corner of the kitchen.
"John, John!" she cried, opening her arms wide.
"Don't touch me!" said John, in a hoarse voice. "You don't know what I am—what I have done, Aunt Martha."
"I know it all, John," said Aunt Martha, the tears gushing from her pitying eyes. "How you must have suffered, my dear, dear boy! The squire's daughter and niece were here at three o'clock this morning. They thought you might be worried a good deal about it. The squire will be all right in a few days."
Without a word, John laid his tired head on Aunt Martha's motherly bosom and wept like a child. So pillowed, he fell asleep, as he had done so many a time in years gone by.
John Hampden learned a lesson that night which he never forgot. He is twice eighteen years old now, and his life has brought him much honor and prosperity.
If he has one fault, people say, it is that he is almost too inflexibly exact in all his dealings—almost too conscientious and fearful lest he should make a mistake, and so do another an injury, however slight. But, they add, the world would be a happier place if more people were like him in this respect.
—For several years a pair of storks built their nest annually in the park of the Castle Ruheleben, in Berlin. A few years ago one of the servants placed a ring, with the name of the place and date, on the leg of the male bird, in order to be certain that the same bird returned each year. Last spring the stork came back to its customary place, the bearer of two rings. The second one bore the inscription: "India sends greetings to Germany."
Though steam is now the pride of the ocean, there are a few points in which its advantages over sail have not been great enough to crowd out the clippers, and in long voyages the sailing ship is far from obsolete.
A drawing of one of these clippers affords an opportunity for saying something about a ship's rigging, and thereby meeting the wishes of a large number of amateur sailors.
Let it be clearly understood, however, that we are dealing with one particular class of ship, and that all ships are not rigged exactly alike.
There is a general notion that a full-rigged ship is of the same pattern all the world over, and this notion has been supported by the diagrams usually published which have taken a war ship as an example.
Now a man-of-war has an enormous crew compared to a merchant vessel, and her rigging is set up accordingly. The things that are done on a man-of-war in spar-drill make a merchant sailor's hair stand on end.
The rigging of a merchantman is designed for a much smaller crew to get along with, and in many respects differs from that of a full-rigged man-of-war.
Complicated as a ship's rigging may look, it becomes intelligible enough when attacked in detail. There are three masts and the bowsprit, which is simply the old bowmast that has gradually increased its angle until it is now almost horizontal.
These four spars are built into the ship, and all the other spars and the rigging and sails are fixed on to them.
The three masts, known also as the lower masts, are the foremast, mainmast and mizzenmast, and each of these carries two masts by way of continuations. Thus we have foretopmast, maintopmast and mizzentopmast, and over them foretopgallantmast, maintopgallantmast and mizzentopgallantmast.
The part of the topgallantmast above the topgallant-rigging is called the royal-mast or royal-pole, and the continuation above the royal-rigging, if any, is the skysail-pole. Answering to the topmasts on the three masts is the jibboom on the bowsprit, and in continuation of that the flying-jibboom.
The jibboom and flying-jibboom are generally in one spar, as are the topgallantmast, royal-pole and skysail-pole, but sometimes they are fitted into each other on much the same principle as a fishing-rod, and in some of the newer ships, bowsprit, jibboom and flying-jibboom are all one steel spar.
Crossing the masts are the yards. On the mainmast we have, beginning below, main-yard, lower maintopsail-yard, upper maintopsail-yard, lower maintopgallantsail-yard, upper maintopgallantsail-yard, main royal-yard and skysail-yard; on the foremast we have the fore-yard, then the topsail-yards, topgallantsail-yards and royal; and on the mizzenmast we have a similar series of yards, beginning with the mizzen or crossjack.
Up to the close of the last century, in very old ships, there was no sail hung on this lower yard of the mizzenmast, it having been introduced only for setting the mizzen topsail; and instead of the gaff spanker we now have there was a huge lateen sail which extended some distance forward of the mast and worked under this yard.
This lateen was the crossjack. When the gaff came in, the projecting corner of the lateen disappeared so as to make room for the sail hanging from this lower yard, and the yard took the name of the old lateen boom.
As representing, then, the after half of this huge boom, we have the modern gaff, set at the same angle as the boom used to be; and at the foot of the sail hung on this gaff, now called a spencer or spanker, from the original inventor, we have the spanker boom, the same sort of thing as we should call the mainboom were the vessel a fore-and-aft yacht.
Each mast is held in its place by stays and backstays. The stays reach from the mastheads to the centre line of the ship forward; and the backstays come down to the sides of the ship, just behind the masts.
The stays and backstays are named from the mast-head from which they descend. Thus the forestay comes from the foremast-head to the bows; the foretopmast-stay from the foretopmast-head to the bowsprit-head; the foretopgallant-stay from the foretopgallant-rigging to the jibboom-head; and the foreroyal-stay from the top of the royal mast to the end of the flying-jibboom.
From the bowsprit-head to the vessel's cutwater runs the bobstay, generally of chain, which takes the pull of the foretopmast-stay; and from the bowsprit-head there hangs the spar known as the dolphin-striker, to give the purchase for continuing the pull of the foretopgallant and foreroyal stays round to the cutwater; so that really all the staying starts from the hull, as does the backstay-staying.
Round the lower mastheads are platforms called tops; and round the topmast-heads are skeleton platforms called crosstrees. These platforms are required not only to take the lower ends of the topmast and topgallant rigging, but also to enable the crew to strike and get up the masts and yards and work the sails. The crosstrees are fitted with outriggers pointing outward aft to enable the topgallant-backstays to give a better support to the topgallantmast than they otherwise would do.
Besides stays and backstays, the masts have "shrouds" to strengthen them. The topgallant shrouds come from the head of the topgallant-rigging to the crosstrees, the topmast shrouds come from the hounds just under the crosstrees to the top, and the main, fore or mizzen shrouds, as the case may be, come from just under the tops to the vessel's side.
To take the pull off the tops, the shrouds are continued round to the mast as "futtock" shrouds, on the same principle as the foretopmast-stay finds its continuation in the bobstay.
The shrouds are "rattled down;" that is to say, thin lines are fastened across them to make a ladder for the men to go aloft. These lines are the "rattle-lines" or "ratlines." The foremost shroud of the lower rigging has only a "catch ratline;" that is, one ratline in about six continued to the shroud that lies furthest forward.
And this is one of the signs by which you can tell a man-of-war from a merchantman, for in war-ships the catch ratline is on the aftermost shroud instead of on the foremost. In a man-of-war, too, the topgallant-rigging is never rattled down, as a Jacob's ladder leads from the topgallantmast-head down to the crosstrees; but this Jacob's ladder arrangement is found in many clippers.
Another detail in which a man-of-war differs from a merchantman is in the rigging of the bowsprit, the man-of-war generally having whiskers, and the merchantman taking the pull of the shroud direct from the forecastle along the catheads, the whiskers being the spars across the bowsprit, which take the purchase of the bowsprit shrouds as the dolphin-striker takes the purchase of the stays.
On each mast the lower yard, lower topsail-yard, and lower topgallantsail-yard do not hoist up and down; the others do. The "lifts" by which the yard is hung and "topped" run from the yardarms—the ends of the yards—to the head of the mast which the yard crosses.
From the yardarms also come the "braces," by means of which the yards are swung so as to set the sails at the proper angle. These braces come down to the ship's sides, or to the heads of the masts fore and aft of those on which the yard is swung; all the mizzen-braces working on the mainmast; the maintopgallant, mainroyal and skysail braces working on the mizzenmast; and the foretopgallant and foreroyal braces working on the mainmast, as is clearly shown in our illustration. The yards and jibboom and flying-jibboom are fitted with foot-ropes for the men to stand on.
The sails on the lower yards are the foresail, mainsail and crossjack, or, as they are often called, fore-course, main-course and mizzen-course—the course being the sail, just as a sheet is a rope and not a piece of canvas. Above the courses come the lower topsails, above them the upper topsails, above them the lower topgallant-sails, then the upper topgallant-sails, then the royals, and, on the mainmast, the skysail, though sometimes there are skysails to all masts, and over the main skysail comes a "scraper" or moon-raker. On the outer edges of the plain-sails come the studding-sails spread on booms.
ship
A FULL-RIGGED SHIP.
In our illustration the vessel has set her fore studding-sail, her fore-topmast studding-sail and her fore-topgallant studding-sail—studding-sail being pronounced stu'nsail, just as topgallant-sail is telescoped into topgantsail.
A man-of-war sets her stu'nsails abaft the sail at their side; a merchantman sets hers "before all"—that is, in front of the adjacent sail, as shown in our illustration.
That part of a square sail which is secured to the yard is the "head," the lower part is the "foot," the outer edge is the "leech," the two lower corners are the "clews," the middle of the sail when furled is the "bunt." The "sheet" pulls the sail out to its full extent down to the yard below, the clewlines and buntlines bring it up under the yard for furling.
The courses, having no yards below them, have both "tack" and "sheet," the tack enabling the clew of the sail to be taken forward, and the sheet enabling it to be taken aft. The clewlines for these sails are double, and are called "clew-garnets." A glance at the picture will show the clew-garnets and clewlines coming down to the corners and the buntlines coming straight down the sails.
The sails along the centre line of the ship are the fore-and-aft sails; these are the triangular jibs, staysails and trysails, and the trapezoidal spanker we have already mentioned, which sometimes has a gaff topsail over it and a "ringtail" behind it, as shown in our figure.
"Watersails," by the way, are not carried now; they used to be set below the lower booms, but, as we have seen, there are now no lower booms, the lower stu'nsails being triangular, like the staysails.
These staysails take their names from the stays on which they run. Working from the deck upward, the clipper we show is flying her mizzen staysail, her mizzen topmast staysail, her mizzen topgallantmast staysail and her mizzen royal staysail; and she has a similar series off the main. But on the fore we have the head-sails. The extreme outer one we cannot see; it comes down from the fore-royal and ends half-way down, being a mere "kite;" it is called the "jib topsail." The outer one we can see is the "flying-jib," on the flying-jibboom. Then come the "outer jib" and the "inner jib" and the "foretopmast staysail."
The "trysails" are gaff or jib-headed sails sometimes carried on the fore and main, as the spanker is carried on the mizzen. The gaff is held up by the throat and peak halliards, and kept in position by "vangs," which come down to the rail as shown. The spanker is sheeted home not by a sheet, but by an "outhaul," and kept in position not by a "brace," but by the "sheet," and thereby differs from the square sails.
It will be noticed how neat and clean the ship is. There is nothing outside to catch the wash of the sea or check the speed. The boat's davits and the dead-eyes of the lower rigging are all inside the bulwarks. The cables have been unshackled and stowed in the lockers below, and the hawse-pipes are all plugged; the anchors are all inboard, and everything that could possibly act as a brake on her is removed.
Several large vessels now have four masts, in which case they are called "four-masters." When all the masts are square-rigged, the names are bowmast, foremast, main and mizzen. If the aftermost mast is not square-rigged, the order is foremast, main, mizzen and jigger. In some four-masters the masts are named fore, first-main, second-main and mizzen.
Should the vessel be three-masted, and have yards only on the two front masts, she is a "bark;" and, by-the-way, the spanker of a bark is her "mizzen." Should she have yards only, as the foremast, she is a "barkentine;" should she be a two-master, and have yards on both, she is a "brig;" should she have yards on the foremast only, she is a "brigantine."
With regard to this, however, a few words of explanation are necessary. A century or so ago, a favorite rig was the "snow," pronounced so as to rhyme to "now." The snow was a bark with a lateen mizzen, or rather a brig with the "driver," a lateen one, on a jigger mast, just a little abaft the mainmast.
When this jigger was abolished the sail retained its lateen shape, got on to the mainmast, and became what we may call a main crossjack, thereby rendering a square mainsail impossible.
When the crossjack was replaced by a gaff, the larger vessels started the square mainsail, and became "brigs," while the smaller kept the spanker as their mainsail, and became "brigantines," so that a genuine old brigantine is a brig without a square mainsail.
Soon, however, vessels appeared with no yards at all on their mainmasts, and these were called "hermaphrodite brigs," and were found to be so handy that they crowded the old brigantines off the sea and took their name.
But here a qualification must come in. Perhaps you have seen a two-masted vessel with yards on her foremast and none on her main. She is a "topsail-schooner." In what does she differ from the brigantine? The brigantine has a foremast of three spars from the old snow, and a mainmast of two from the hermaphrodite; the topsail-schooner has both foremast and mainmast of two spars, and the foresail on a gaff instead of on a yard, and in other ways is different, but a glance at the foremast is enough to distinguish her from a brigantine.
A "three-masted schooner" has only lower masts and topmasts, and each mast is rigged for fore-and-aft sails, but more often than not these vessels carry yards at the fore and sometimes at the main.
With the "ketch" begins what has been called the mast-and-a-half division of sailing vessels. The tall mast is the mainmast, the short mast is the mizzen; some ketches carry square sails on the main, some carry a topsail on the mizzen—the distinctive mark of the ketch being that the mizzen is a pole-mast and stepped in front of the stern-post. If the mizzen be stepped abaft the stern-post the vessel becomes a "dandy" or "yawl."
In the cutter the mizzen is dispensed with, and in a sloop of the old rig the difference between the two is that the cutter has two headsails, the jib and foresail, while the sloop has but one, the foresail.
Sometimes the sloop has a standing bowsprit, while the cutter has a running one; but this distinction is not essential. Indeed, the words cutter and sloop have begun to be used indiscriminately, except, perhaps, that a cutter is for pleasure and a sloop for trade.
In a spritsail rig the gaff is at the head of the sail, and works on the mast in cheeks; the sprit runs diagonally across the sail, and is hung on to the mast in what is practically a loop and lashing.
This has also what looks like a mizzen, but it is fixed on to the rudder and is known as a "jigger." Sometimes the jigger is triangular, like the yawl's mizzen, but the shape makes no difference in the name.
The lug is the old sail of the Norsemen. There are two kinds of lugs, "dipping" and "standing."
The dipping lug has a great part of the sail beyond the mast, so that when a tack has to be made the sail has to be lowered, dipped round the mast and rehoisted.
The standing lug projects very little beyond this mast and does not require to be lowered when tacking.
Fishing boats are nearly all rigged with a dipping lug for the mainsail and a standing lug for the mizzen, and they have also a jib, while some of them carry topsails over the lugs.
Luggers may carry any number of masts, but as a rule they have two; some have a gaff mizzen. When the foot of the lug is lashed to a boom it is said to be "balanced."
When Mary Anne Smith returned for her second year at Mrs. Hosmer's Seminary, both teachers and pupils were astonished at the change in her appearance and manners which a summer at the seashore had produced.
The previous year she had been plain Mary Anne Smith, an energetic, impulsive girl, whose most serious fault was a tendency to soiled collars and buttonless shoes, but who was, on the whole, very good-hearted and sincere.
She had returned to school as Marie Antoinette Smythe, a fashionable young lady. She discontinued her old, romping, laughing ways and became as sedate as the gravest Senior.
Even her old love for midnight "spreads" seemed to have departed. She became fastidious about her personal appearance and exclusive in her friendships.
At first Mrs. Hosmer considered it a good thing that Marie was "toning down," but before long she felt that it was really not a change for the better.
The schoolgirls were not slow in commenting about it. At the October meeting of the Browning Circle—an association of a dozen girls, originally instituted for purposes of literary improvement, but which had lately degenerated into a "fancy-work society"—Marie was discussed until her ears must have burned, if there is any truth in the old saying.
"Do you know, girls, that Marie Smithscarcelydeigns to speak to me any more," said Stella Gard.
"Oh, that's nothing, Stella. I was her room-mate last year, and she has conversed with me on just two occasions since she came back," supplemented Anna Fergus.
"What is the matter with her?" asked a "new girl."
"Is it possible, my dear young friend," rejoined Anna, with mock gravity, "that you don't know we have been sacrificed to the North Avenue Archingtons?"
The new girl looked bewildered, and Anna went on to explain:
"It seems that last summer certain blue-blooded Archingtons, with malice aforethought, left their patrician heights on North Avenue, on which they had hitherto dwelt in solitary grandeur, and went to Cape May. There they boarded at the same hotel with the Smith family, and deigned to bestow a few smiles upon them. This so lifted up the heart of Marie Smythe, formerly Mary Smith, that she no longer regards her humble class-mates as fit associates for her.Hinc illae lacrymae, which means, all you who don't know Latin, 'that's why I'm using my handkerchief.'"
"She told me," said little Zoe Binnex, interrupting Anna's nonsense, "that Mrs. Archington had invited her mother to visit her."
"I wish some of you were doomed to sit at the same table with her, as I am," Anna went on, "and then you would wish the Archingtons at the bottom of the sea. The way poor, patient Miss Sedgwick has to suffer! Marie sits next her, you know, and while Miss Sedgwick ladles out the soup, Marie ladles out the Archingtons. We have Papa North Avenue, with his four millions, at breakfast; Mamma Archington, with her diamonds, at dinner, and all the young Archingtons for supper."
The ringing of the study-bell dispersed the members of the Browning Circle. As Anna and Zoe passed Marie's door, they overheard a servant requesting that young lady to go down to Mrs. Hosmer's study.
"Perhaps Mrs. Hosmer thinks it is time to choke off some of those Archingtons," whispered Anna.
But Mrs. Hosmer had sent for Marie for a different purpose.
A new pupil was coming, and, as Marie had no room-mate, was to be put with her.
"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer," protested Marie, "I'd much rather room alone."
"I should be glad to gratify you," said her preceptress, "but it is impossible. Yours is the only vacancy on the second floor, and, as she is a delicate girl, I do not want to send her to the third."
"Who is she?" Marie asked, seeing that she must yield to the inevitable.
"Her name is Esther Jones. She is a very quiet little girl, inclined to be nervous. I hope you will do all you can to make her happy and to keep her from being homesick. She will come to-night."
Marie was much vexed at the intrusion, as she chose to consider it. It was so much nicer to room alone.
How provoking that just as she was "getting into" a better circle, and had succeeded in dropping her commonplace room-mate of last year, she should have this nervous little Esther Jones forced upon her.
The new girl was as plain as her name. She wore a woolen dress, heavy shoes and an ordinary sailor hat.
"Very countrified," was Marie's mental verdict, as she watched her unpacking her trunk.
She did not offer to assist the little stranger, who seemed much in awe of her.
A new girl who enters a boarding-school a month after the term has begun is always to be pitied.
The other girls all have their homesickness over by that time, and are not apt to be so sympathetic with the newcomer as they would have been earlier. They have formed their little coteries, and the new girl feels herself "outside."
With Esther this was especially true. Marie neglected her utterly, and she had not confidence in herself to try to make other friends. She went about with a dejected, homesick look that moved Mrs. Hosmer's heart.
"I must make some other arrangement after Christmas," she thought. "Esther doesn't seem happy where she is."
If she had known how much of Esther's unhappiness was due to Marie's unkindness, her indignation would have made itself felt. Marie meantime poured forth her heart on cream note-paper to her friend Marguerite Archington, bewailing the cruel fate which separated them, and doomed her to the companionship of Esther Jones.
Esther's natural timidity was increased by Marie's treatment. At first she made feeble efforts to converse, but finding herself continually repressed, gradually ceased from her endeavors to make friends with Marie.
Not only her timidity, but her nervousness, as well, grew on her. She began to be startled at every sudden sound.
Now Marie was a girl without "nerves," in the ordinary sense of the word, and could not understand or sympathize with those who are constituted differently. She really believed poor Esther's nervousness to be affectation, and had no patience with it.
"She's been coddled all her life, evidently," she reflected, "until now she expects every one to pet her on account of her foolish nervous tricks. She needs a process of hardening."
If Marie had not really believed this, I do not think she would have put into execution a plan which suggested itself to her the week before Thanksgiving.
It was a cruel scheme, and even though she assured herself that it was really for Esther's good and that it would cure the nervousness, I think she was at heart a little ashamed of herself all the time.
At the western end of the third floor there was a stairway leading up to a room at the top of the building, which was occasionally used as an observatory.
A telescope was mounted there, but, as it was not very powerful, the astronomy classes generally used one at the private residence of their professor instead.
The room, being so seldom used, had become a receptacle for old lumber of all sorts. Girls are so fond of exercising their imagination that it is not strange that they gradually invested the garret-like room at the top of the house with the reputation of being "haunted."
The ghost, who was said to walk up and down the old stairway and over the creaking floor of the observatory, was thought to be that of a certain Madame Leverrier, who had been teacher of French and astronomy many years before, and had died in the school.
It was said that at midnight the tall, white figure of the Frenchwoman might be seen, peering through the telescope at the stars she had loved so well.
To-be-sure, no girl ever said she herself, had seen this sight, but she had "heard about it from a last year's girl."
So the girls got in the habit of walking very rapidly when they had occasion to go past the stairway, which led up from a region occupied by "trunk-rooms," and of avoiding that part of the house altogether after night.
Marie told Esther the story of the ghost, with many embellishments. She did not confine herself to one telling, but continually referred to it, with the desire of keeping the matter ever present in Esther's mind.
She noticed that her quiet little room-mate, although she avowed her non-belief in ghosts, looked frightened whenever the subject was mentioned.
One evening, toward the end of November, the two were seated by their study-table, preparing the next day's lessons, when Marie suddenly exclaimed that she had mislaid her astronomy.
"Won't you go after it for me, Esther?" she said, in a kinder tone than usual.
"Certainly, Marie," replied Esther, glad to be called on for a service. "Where do you think you left it?"
"I know now exactly where it is. It's up in the observatory on the table at the farther end of the room. I left it there last night when Professor Gaskell took us up in study-hour. It was dreadfully stupid in me."
"I'd better take the lamp, hadn't I?" queried Esther, inwardly dismayed at the prospect of ascending alone to those awful regions, and yet unwilling to refuse so small a service.
"Yes, take the lamp. You know there's no light in that end of the hall. You're not afraid, are you?"
"N-no, not really. I can't help thinking of those foolish stories the girls tell, though I know there's nothing in them."
Esther took up the lamp and started. She did not wish to appear cowardly before her room-mate, though she really dreaded the short journey.
As she walked past the dark trunk-rooms and up the uncarpeted stairs, her heart beat fast at the "swish" of her own skirts on the boards.
When she opened the observatory door, she couldn't help noticing how very dark the room was, and how feebly the rays from her lamp illuminated it.
Instinctively she glanced toward the telescope to see that there was no white figure behind it, and breathed a little more freely when she saw that there was not.
She searched a long time for the book, standing with her back to the door. At last she found it under a pile of others.
Glad to have accomplished her task, and inwardly peopling all the shadowy corners of the room with ghostly visitants, she turned round to begin her return journey, when—
What was that by the telescope? A white, tall figure stood by the instrument.
In vain reason told her it was a fanciful delusion. Her nervous organization was no longer under the control of reason. Esther gave a quick scream, and fell to the floor, fainting.
In an instant a white sheet was thrown from the shoulders of the figure by the telescope.
"Esther, Esther! It's only I—Marie!" she cried. "I followed you up stairs just to frighten you for fun. Do speak to me. Tell me I haven't scared you to death!"
After a little Esther regained consciousness, shuddering as she opened her eyes and remembered where she was.
"Take me away—take me away!" she begged, recognizing Marie.
"I will have to bring help."
"No, no; don't leave me alone a minute. I can walk if you will help me. And bring the lamp. I can't go down those stairs in the dark. Don't go away or that dreadful thing may come back."
She shivered as she glanced toward the telescope. Marie was weeping penitently.
"Dear Esther," she said, "don't you see that it was only I. There is the sheet on the floor. I didn't know it would make you faint. Only say you forgive me, and I'll take any punishment Mrs. Hosmer chooses to give me."
"Oh, Marie, I know you didn't mean it, but I can never forget that awful feeling when I felt myself falling. But help me away from this ghostly place."
Marie, frightened at the result of her heartless trick and really deeply touched by Esther's distress, helped her to their room.
Then, notwithstanding Esther's magnanimous offer to keep the whole matter a secret, to Marie's credit be it said that she sent for Mrs. Hosmer and confessed the whole thing.
"Give me the hardest punishment you can, short of expulsion," said she.
"You have done a great wrong," replied Mrs. Hosmer. "You deserve severe punishment, but I shall not decide about that now. For the next few days you may show your penitence by doing all you can to make up to this dear child for your past great unkindness. She must stay in bed for a day or two, and I shall have the doctor in shortly."
Esther was ill for a week, during which time Marie nursed her devotedly. She saw now her past conduct in its true light—her petty vanity, her thoughtlessness and heartlessness.
She fairly hated her old self, when, as the girls came in from time to time, Esther uttered no word of complaint against her, nor alluded to the cause of her illness in any way.
But in some way or other a part of the story leaked out, and Marie was the recipient of many an indignant glance, but she felt it was only what she deserved.
Mrs. Hosmer never said anything further about a punishment; probably she saw that the girl was already sufficiently punished. Nevertheless a most humiliating punishment did come, in a way most unexpected.
The third evening after her fright, Esther was sitting up for the first time since her illness. It was the night before Thanksgiving, and she was feeling a little homesick in spite of Marie's efforts to entertain her.
"What will you give me for a piece of good news, my little girl?" said Mrs. Hosmer, entering the room, and looking at Esther's pale cheeks disapprovingly.
"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer, is it anybody from home?" asked Esther, longingly.
"Here, Marie, read her the name on this card, and see if she says she is at home to visitors," replied Mrs. Hosmer, playfully.
Marie took the card, and a moment after dropped it as though it had been red-hot.
This was what met her eyes:
"Mrs. James Archington,"44 North Avenue."
"Grandma—it's grandma," cried Esther, delightedly.
At the December meeting of the Browning Circle the girls discussed Marie Smythe once more.
"It was the queerest thing," reported Anna Fergus, who knew the whole story. "You see this Mrs. Archington is Esther's grandmother, and Marie never knew it. She said so little to the poor girl that Esther had never chanced to tell her. Talk about retributive justice, this is the most direct piece of retribution I ever heard of. And the queerest part of it is that Esther's grandmother is therealNorth Avenue Archingtons, while Marie's Cape May friends are a newly-rich family, who happen to live on the same street with the others, but are not related to them at all."
"But, girls," said Zoe Binnix, "it's been a splendid thing for Marie, even if it has been humiliating. I never saw a more completely changed girl. She's quite dropped her fine-lady airs and subsided into a sensible being. She's so good now that Esther doesn't want to change her room, though Mrs. Hosmer told her she might."
The girls were right in their opinion of Marie's change of character. She grew up to be a sensible woman, singularly devoid of pretense or affectation.
In after years she used to say that the one thing which had kept her from growing up silly and affected was her experience with the North Avenue Archingtons.