“I didn’t quite catch what you said!” were the next words that reached my ear, but certainlynotin the voice either of Sylvie or of Bruno, whom I could just see, through the crowd of guests, standing by the piano, and listening to the Count’s song. Mein Herr was the speaker. “I didn’t quite catch what you said!” he repeated. “But I’ve no doubt you takemyview of it. Thank youverymuch for your kind attention. There is only butoneverse left to be sung!” These last words were not in the gentle voice of Mein Herr, but inthe deep bass of the French Count. And, in the silence that followed, the final stanza of ‘Tottles’ rang through the room.
‘NEVER!’ YELLED TOTTLES‘NEVER!’ YELLED TOTTLES
‘NEVER!’ YELLED TOTTLES
See now this couple settled downIn quiet lodgings, out of town:Submissively the tearful wifeAccepts a plain and humble life:Yet begs one boon on bended knee:‘My ducky-darling, don’t resent it!Mamma might come for two or three——’‘NEVER!’ yelled Tottles. And he meant it.
See now this couple settled down
In quiet lodgings, out of town:
Submissively the tearful wife
Accepts a plain and humble life:
Yet begs one boon on bended knee:
‘My ducky-darling, don’t resent it!
Mamma might come for two or three——’
‘NEVER!’ yelled Tottles. And he meant it.
The conclusion of the song was followed by quite a chorus of thanks and compliments from all parts of the room, which the gratified singer responded to by bowing low in all directions. “It is to me a great privilege,” he said to Lady Muriel, “to have met with this so marvellous a song. The accompaniment to him is so strange, so mysterious: it is as if a new music were to be invented! I will play him once again so as that to show you what I mean.” He returned to the piano, but the song had vanished.
The bewildered singer searched through the heap of music lying on an adjoining table, but it was not there, either. Lady Muriel helped in the search: others soon joined: the excitement grew. “Whatcanhave become of it?” exclaimed Lady Muriel. Nobody knew: one thing only was certain, that no one had been near the piano since the Count had sung the last verse of the song.
“Nevare mind him!” he said, most good-naturedly. “I shall give it you with memory alone!” He sat down, and began vaguely fingering the notes; but nothing resembling the tune came out. Then he, too, grew excited.“But what oddness! How much of singularity! That I might lose, not the words alone, but the tune also—that is quite curious, I suppose?”
We all supposed it, heartily.
“It was that sweet little boy, who found it for me,” the Count suggested. “Quite perhapsheis the thief?”
“Of course he is!” cried Lady Muriel. “Bruno! Where are you, my darling?”
But no Bruno replied: it seemed that the two children had vanished as suddenly, and as mysteriously, as the song.
“They are playing us a trick!” Lady Muriel gaily exclaimed. “This is only anex temporegame of Hide-and-Seek! That little Bruno is an embodied Mischief!”
The suggestion was a welcome one to most of us, for some of the guests were beginning to look decidedly uneasy. A general search was set on foot with much enthusiasm: curtains were thrown back and shaken, cupboards opened, and ottomans turned over; but the number of possible hiding-places proved to be strictly limited; and the search came to an end almost as soon as it had begun.
“They must have run out, while we were wrapped up in the song,” Lady Muriel said, addressing herself to the Count, who seemed more agitated than the others; “and no doubt they’ve found their way back to the housekeeper’s room.”
“Not bythisdoor!” was the earnest protest of a knot of two or three gentlemen, who had been grouped round the door (one of them actually leaning against it) for the last half-hour, as they declared. “Thisdoor has not been opened since the song began!”
An uncomfortable silence followed this announcement. Lady Muriel ventured no further conjectures, but quietly examined the fastenings of the windows, which opened as doors. They all proved to be well fastened,inside.
Not yet at the end of her resources, Lady Muriel rang the bell. “Ask the housekeeper to step here,” she said, “and to bring the children’s walking-things with her.”
“I’ve brought them, my Lady,” said the obsequious housekeeper, entering after another minute of silence. “I thought the young lady would have come to my room to put onher boots. Here’s your boots, my love!” she added cheerfully, looking in all directions for the children. There was no answer, and she turned to Lady Muriel with a puzzled smile. “Have the little darlings hid themselves?”
“I don’t see them, just now,” Lady Muriel replied, rather evasively. “You can leave their things here, Wilson.I’lldress them, when they’re ready to go.”
The two little hats, and Sylvie’s walking-jacket, were handed round among the ladies, with many exclamations of delight. There certainly was a sort of witchery of beauty about them. Even the little boots did not miss their share of favorable criticism. “Such natty little things!” the musical young lady exclaimed, almost fondling them as she spoke. “And what tiny tiny feet they must have!”
Finally, the things were piled together on the centre-ottoman, and the guests, despairing of seeing the children again, began to wish good-night and leave the house.
There were only some eight or nine left—to whom the Count was explaining, for the twentieth time, how he had had his eye on thechildren during the last verse of the song; how he had then glanced round the room, to see what effect “de great chest-note” had had upon his audience; and how, when he looked back again, they had both disappeared—when exclamations of dismay began to be heard on all sides, the Count hastily bringing his story to an end to join in the outcry.
The walking-things had all disappeared!
After the utter failure of the search for thechildren, there was a very half-hearted search made for theirapparel. The remaining guests seemed only too glad to get away, leaving only the Count and our four selves.
The Count sank into an easy-chair, and panted a little.
“Who thenarethese dear children, I pray you?” he said. “Why come they, why go they, in this so little ordinary a fashion? That the music should make itself to vanish—that the hats, the boots, should make themselves to vanish—how is it, I pray you?”
“I’ve no idea where they are!” was all I could say, on finding myself appealed to, by general consent, for an explanation.
The Count seemed about to ask further questions, but checked himself.
“The hour makes himself to become late,” he said. “I wish to you a very good night, my Lady. I betake myself to my bed—to dream—if that indeed I be not dreaming now!” And he hastily left the room.
“Stay awhile, stay awhile!” said the Earl, as I was about to follow the Count. “Youare not a guest, you know! Arthur’s friend is athomehere!”
“Thanks!” I said, as, with true English instincts, we drew our chairs together round the fire-place, though no fire was burning—Lady Muriel having taken the heap of music on her knee, to have one more search for the strangely-vanished song.
“Don’t you sometimes feel a wild longing,” she said, addressing herself to me, “to have something more to do with your hands, while you talk, than just holding a cigar, and now and then knocking off the ash? Oh, I know all that you’re going to say!” (This was to Arthur, who appeared about to interrupt her.) “The Majesty of Thought supersedes thework of the fingers. A Man’s severe thinking,plusthe shaking-off a cigar-ash, comes to the same total as a Woman’s trivial fancies,plusthe most elaborate embroidery.That’syour sentiment, isn’t it, only better expressed?”
Arthur looked into the radiant, mischievous face, with a grave and very tender smile. “Yes,” he said resignedly: “that is my sentiment, exactly.”
“Rest of body, and activity of mind,” I put in. “Some writer tells usthatis the acme of human happiness.”
“Plenty ofbodilyrest, at any rate!” Lady Muriel replied, glancing at the three recumbent figures around her. “But what you call activity ofmind——”
“—is the privilege of young Physiciansonly,” said the Earl. “We old men have no claim to be active!What can an old man do but die?”
“A good many other things, I shouldhope,” Arthur said earnestly.
“Well, maybe. Still you have the advantage of me in many ways, dear boy! Not only thatyourday is dawning whilemineissetting, but yourinterestin Life—somehow I ca’n’t help envying youthat. It will be many a year before you lose your hold ofthat.”
“Yet surely many human interestssurvivehuman Life?” I said.
“Many do, no doubt. Andsomeforms of Science; but onlysome, I think. Mathematics, for instance:thatseems to possess an endless interest: one ca’n’t imagineanyform of Life, oranyrace of intelligent beings, where Mathematical truth would lose its meaning. But I fearMedicinestands on a different footing. Suppose you discover a remedy for some disease hitherto supposed to be incurable. Well, it is delightful for the moment, no doubt—full of interest—perhaps it brings you fame and fortune. But what then? Look on, a few years, into a life where disease has no existence. What is your discovery worth,then? Milton makes Jove promise too much. ‘Of so much fame in heaven expect thy meed.’ Poor comfort, when one’s ‘fame’ concerns matters that will have ceased to have a meaning!”
“At any rate, one wouldn’t care to make anyfreshmedical discoveries,” said Arthur.“I see no help forthat—though I shall be sorry to give up my favorite studies. Still, medicine, disease, pain, sorrow, sin—I fear they’re all linked together. Banish sin, and you banish them all!”
“Militaryscience is a yet stronger instance,” said the Earl. “Without sin,warwould surely be impossible. Still any mind, that has had in this life any keen interest, not initselfsinful, will surely find itselfsomecongenial line of work hereafter. Wellington may have no morebattlesto fight—and yet—
‘We doubt not that, for one so true,There must be other, nobler work to do,Than when he fought at Waterloo,And Victor he must ever be!’”
‘We doubt not that, for one so true,
There must be other, nobler work to do,
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be!’”
He lingered over the beautiful words, as if he loved them: and his voice, like distant music, died away into silence.
After a minute or two he began again. “If I’m not wearying you, I would like to tell you an idea of the future Life which has haunted me for years, like a sort of waking nightmare—I ca’n’t reason myself out of it.”
“Pray do,” Arthur and I replied, almost in a breath. Lady Muriel put aside the heap of music, and folded her hands together.
“The one idea,” the Earl resumed, “that has seemed to me to overshadow all the rest, is that ofEternity—involving, as it seems to do, the necessaryexhaustionof all subjects of human interest. Take Pure Mathematics, for instance—a Science independent of our present surroundings. I have studied it, myself, a little. Take the subject of circles and ellipses—what we call ‘curves of the second degree.’ In a future Life, it would only be a question of so many years (orhundredsof years, if you like), for a man to work outalltheir properties. Then hemightgo to curves of the third degree. Saythattook ten times as long (you see we haveunlimitedtime to deal with). I can hardly imagine hisinterestin the subject holding out even for those; and, though there is no limit to thedegreeof the curves he might study, yet surely the time, needed to exhaustallthe novelty and interest of the subject, would be absolutelyfinite? And so of all other branches of Science. And,when I transport myself, in thought, through some thousands or millions of years, and fancy myself possessed of as much Science as one created reason can carry, I ask myself ‘What then? With nothing more to learn, can one rest content onknowledge, for the eternity yet to be lived through?’ It has been a very wearying thought to me. I have sometimes fancied onemight, in that event, say ‘It is betternotto be,’ and pray for personalannihilation—the Nirvana of the Buddhists.”
“But that is only half the picture,” I said. “Besides working foroneself, may there not be the helping ofothers?”
“Surely, surely!” Lady Muriel exclaimed in a tone of relief, looking at her father with sparkling eyes.
“Yes,” said the Earl, “so long as therewereany others needing help. But, given ages and ages more, surely all created reasons would at length reach the same dead level ofsatiety. Andthenwhat is there to look forward to?”
“I know that weary feeling,” said the young Doctor. “I have gone through it all, more than once. Now let me tell you how I haveput it to myself. I have imagined a little child, playing with toys on his nursery-floor, and yet able toreason, and to look on, thirty years ahead. Might he not say to himself ‘By that time I shall have had enough of bricks and ninepins. How weary Life will be!’ Yet, if we look forward through those thirty years, we find him a great statesman, full of interests and joys far more intense than his baby-life could give—joys wholly inconceivable to his baby-mind—joys such as no baby-language could in the faintest degree describe. Now, may not our life, a million years hence, have the same relation, to our life now, that the man’s life has to the child’s? And, just as one might try, all in vain, to express to that child, in the language of bricks and ninepins, the meaning of ‘politics,’ so perhaps all those descriptions of Heaven, with its music, and its feasts, and its streets of gold, may be only attempts to describe, inourwords, things for which wereallyhave no words at all. Don’t you think that, inyourpicture of another life, you are in fact transplanting that child into political life, without making any allowance for his growing up?”
“I think I understand you,” said the Earl. “The music of Heavenmaybe something beyond our powers of thought. Yet the music of Earth is sweet! Muriel, my child, sing us something before we go to bed!”
“Do,” said Arthur, as he rose and lit the candles on the cottage-piano, lately banished from the drawing-room to make room for a ‘semi-grand.’ “There is a song here, that I have never heard you sing.
‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!Bird thou never wert,That from Heaven, or near it,Pourest thy full heart!’”
‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart!’”
he read from the page he had spread open before her.
“And our little life here,” the Earl went on, “is, to that grand time, like a child’s summer-day! One gets tired as night draws on,” he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice, “and one gets to long for bed! For those welcome words ‘Come, child, ’tis bed-time!’”
“Itisn’tbed-time!” said a sleepy little voice. “The owls hasn’t gone to bed, and I s’a’n’t go to seep wizout oo sings to me!”
“Oh, Bruno!” cried Sylvie. “Don’t you know the owls have only just got up? But thefrogshave gone to bed, ages ago.”
“Well,Iaren’t a frog,” said Bruno.
“What shall I sing?” said Sylvie, skilfully avoiding the argument.
“Ask Mister Sir,” Bruno lazily replied, clasping his hands behind his curly head, and lying back on his fern-leaf, till it almost bent overwith his weight. “This aren’t a comfable leaf, Sylvie. Find me a comfabler—please!” he added, as an after-thought, in obedience to a warning finger held up by Sylvie. “I doosn’t like being feet-upwards!”
It was a pretty sight to see—the motherly way in which the fairy-child gathered up her little brother in her arms, and laid him on a stronger leaf. She gave it just a touch to set it rocking, and it went on vigorously by itself, as if it contained some hidden machinery. It certainly wasn’t the wind, for the evening-breeze had quite died away again, and not a leaf was stirring over our heads.
“Why does that one leaf rock so, without the others?” I asked Sylvie. She only smiled sweetly and shook her head. “I don’t knowwhy,” she said. “It always does, if it’s got a fairy-child on it. Ithasto, you know.”
“And can people see the leaf rock, who ca’n’t see the Fairy on it?”
“Why, of course!” cried Sylvie. “A leaf’s a leaf, and everybody can see it; but Bruno’s Bruno, and they ca’n’t seehim, unless they’re eerie, like you.”
Then I understood how it was that one sometimes sees—going through the woods in a still evening—one fern-leaf rocking steadily on, all by itself. Haven’t you ever seen that? Try if you can see the fairy-sleeper on it, next time; but don’tpickthe leaf, whatever you do; let the little one sleep on!
But all this time Bruno was getting sleepier and sleepier. “Sing, sing!” he murmured fretfully. Sylvie looked to me for instructions. “What shall it be?” she said.
“Could you sing him the nursery-song you once told me of?” I suggested. “The one that had been put through the mind-mangle, you know. ‘The little man that had a little gun,’ I think it was.”
“Why, that are one of theProfessor’ssongs!” cried Bruno. “I likes the little man; and I likes the way they spinned him——like a teetle-totle-tum.” And he turned a loving look on the gentle old man who was sitting at the other side of his leaf-bed, and who instantly began to sing, accompanying himself on his Outlandish guitar, while the snail, on which he sat, waved its horns in time to the music.
BRUNO’S BED-TIMEBRUNO’S BED-TIME
BRUNO’S BED-TIME
In stature the Manlet was dwarfish——No burly big Blunderbore he:And he wearily gazed on the crawfishHis Wifelet had dressed for his tea.“Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,And hurl the old shoelet for luck:Let me hie to the bank of the runlet,And shoot thee a Duck!”
In stature the Manlet was dwarfish——
No burly big Blunderbore he:
And he wearily gazed on the crawfish
His Wifelet had dressed for his tea.
“Now reach me, sweet Atom, my gunlet,
And hurl the old shoelet for luck:
Let me hie to the bank of the runlet,
And shoot thee a Duck!”
She has reached him his minikin gunlet:She has hurled the old shoelet for luck:She is busily baking a bunlet,To welcome him home with his Duck.On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,Though thoughtlets cling, closely as wax,To the spot where the beautiful birdletSo quietly quacks.
She has reached him his minikin gunlet:
She has hurled the old shoelet for luck:
She is busily baking a bunlet,
To welcome him home with his Duck.
On he speeds, never wasting a wordlet,
Though thoughtlets cling, closely as wax,
To the spot where the beautiful birdlet
So quietly quacks.
‘LONG CEREMONIOUS CALLS’‘LONG CEREMONIOUS CALLS’
‘LONG CEREMONIOUS CALLS’
Where the Lobsterlet lurks, and the CrabletSo slowly and sleepily crawls:Where the Dolphin’s at home, and the DabletPays long ceremonious calls:Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet——So runs the world’s luck!
Where the Lobsterlet lurks, and the Crablet
So slowly and sleepily crawls:
Where the Dolphin’s at home, and the Dablet
Pays long ceremonious calls:
Where the Grublet is sought by the Froglet:
Where the Frog is pursued by the Duck:
Where the Ducklet is chased by the Doglet——
So runs the world’s luck!
THE VOICESTHE VOICES
THE VOICES
He has loaded with bullet and powder:His footfall is noiseless as air:But the Voices grow louder and louder,And bellow, and bluster, and blare.They bristle before him and after,They flutter above and below,Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,Weird wailings of woe!
He has loaded with bullet and powder:
His footfall is noiseless as air:
But the Voices grow louder and louder,
And bellow, and bluster, and blare.
They bristle before him and after,
They flutter above and below,
Shrill shriekings of lubberly laughter,
Weird wailings of woe!
They echo without him, within him:They thrill through his whiskers and beard:Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,With sneers never hitherto sneered.“Avengement,” they cry, “on our Foelet!Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!Let us drench him, from toplet to toelet,With Nursery-Songs!
They echo without him, within him:
They thrill through his whiskers and beard:
Like a teetotum seeming to spin him,
With sneers never hitherto sneered.
“Avengement,” they cry, “on our Foelet!
Let the Manikin weep for our wrongs!
Let us drench him, from toplet to toelet,
With Nursery-Songs!
‘HIS SOUL SHALL BE SAD FOR THE SPIDER’‘HIS SOUL SHALL BE SAD FOR THE SPIDER’
‘HIS SOUL SHALL BE SAD FOR THE SPIDER’
“He shall muse upon ‘Hey! Diddle! Diddle!’On the Cow that surmounted the Moon:He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,When Miss Muffet was sipping her whey,That so tenderly sat down beside her,And scared her away!
“He shall muse upon ‘Hey! Diddle! Diddle!’
On the Cow that surmounted the Moon:
He shall rave of the Cat and the Fiddle,
And the Dish that eloped with the Spoon:
And his soul shall be sad for the Spider,
When Miss Muffet was sipping her whey,
That so tenderly sat down beside her,
And scared her away!
“The music of Midsummer-madnessShall sting him with many a bite,Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,He shall groan with a gloomy delight:He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning,In platitudes luscious and limp,Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,The Song of the Shrimp!
“The music of Midsummer-madness
Shall sting him with many a bite,
Till, in rapture of rollicking sadness,
He shall groan with a gloomy delight:
He shall swathe him, like mists of the morning,
In platitudes luscious and limp,
Such as deck, with a deathless adorning,
The Song of the Shrimp!
“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided,We will trundle him home in a trice:And the banquet, so plainly provided,Shall round into rose-buds and rice:In a blaze of pragmatic inventionHe shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign:But he has not a friend fit to mention,So hit him again!”
“When the Ducklet’s dark doom is decided,
We will trundle him home in a trice:
And the banquet, so plainly provided,
Shall round into rose-buds and rice:
In a blaze of pragmatic invention
He shall wrestle with Fate, and shall reign:
But he has not a friend fit to mention,
So hit him again!”
He has shot it, the delicate darling!And the Voices have ceased from their strife:Not a whisper of sneering or snarling;As he carries it home to his wife:Then, cheerily champing the bunletHis spouse was so skilful to bake,He hies him once more to the runlet,To fetch her the Drake!
He has shot it, the delicate darling!
And the Voices have ceased from their strife:
Not a whisper of sneering or snarling;
As he carries it home to his wife:
Then, cheerily champing the bunlet
His spouse was so skilful to bake,
He hies him once more to the runlet,
To fetch her the Drake!
“He’s sound asleep now,” said Sylvie, carefully tucking in the edge of a violet-leaf, which she had been spreading over him as a sort of blanket: “good night!”
“Good night!” I echoed.
“You may well say ‘good night’!” laughed Lady Muriel, rising and shutting up the piano as she spoke. “When you’ve been nid—nid—nodding all the time I’ve been singing for your benefit! What was it all about, now?” she demanded imperiously.
“Something about a duck?” I hazarded. “Well, a bird of some kind?” I corrected myself, perceiving at once thatthatguess was wrong, at any rate.
“Something about a bird of some kind!” Lady Muriel repeated, with as much withering scorn as her sweet face was capable of conveying. “And that’s the way he speaks of Shelley’s Sky-Lark, is it? When the Poet particularly says ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit!Birdthou never wert!’”
LORDS OF THE CREATIONLORDS OF THE CREATION
LORDS OF THE CREATION
She led the way to the smoking-room, where, ignoring all the usages of Society and all the instincts of Chivalry, the three Lords of the Creation reposed at their ease in low rocking-chairs, and permitted the one lady who was present to glide gracefully about among us, supplying our wants in the form of cooling drinks, cigarettes, and lights. Nay, it was onlyoneof the three who had the chivalry to gobeyond the common-place “thank you,” and to quote the Poet’s exquisite description of how Geraint, when waited on by Enid, was moved
“To stoop and kiss the tender little thumbThat crossed the platter as she laid it down,”
“To stoop and kiss the tender little thumb
That crossed the platter as she laid it down,”
and to suit the action to the word—an audacious liberty for which, I feel bound to report, he wasnotduly reprimanded.
As no topic of conversation seemed to occur to any one, and as we were, all four, on those delightful terms with one another (the only terms, I think, on which any friendship, that deserves the name ofintimacy, can be maintained) which involve no sort of necessity forspeakingfor mere speaking’s sake, we sat in silence for some minutes.
At length I broke the silence by asking “Is there any fresh news from the harbour about the Fever?”
“None since this morning,” the Earl said, looking very grave. “But that was alarming enough. The Fever is spreading fast: the London doctor has taken fright and left the place, and the only one now available isn’t aregular doctor at all: he is apothecary, and doctor, and dentist, and I don’t know what other trades, all in one. It’s a bad outlook for those poor fishermen—and a worse one for all the women and children.”
“How many are there of them altogether?” Arthur asked.
“There were nearly one hundred, a week ago.” said the Earl: “but there have been twenty or thirty deaths since then.”
“And what religious ministrations are there to be had?”
“There are three brave men down there,” the Earl replied, his voice trembling with emotion, “gallant heroes as ever won the Victoria Cross! I am certain that no one of the three will ever leave the place merely to save his own life. There’s the Curate: his wife is with him: they have no children. Then there’s the Roman Catholic Priest. And there’s the Wesleyan Minister. They go amongst their own flocks, mostly; but I’m told that those who are dying like to haveanyof the three with them. How slight the barriers seem to be that part Christian from Christian, when onehas to deal with the great facts of Life and the reality of Death!”
“So it must be, and so it should be——” Arthur was beginning, when the front-door bell rang, suddenly and violently.
We heard the front-door hastily opened, and voices outside: then a knock at the door of the smoking-room, and the old house-keeper appeared, looking a little scared.
“Two persons, my Lord, to speak with Dr. Forester.”
Arthur stepped outside at once, and we heard his cheery “Well, my men?” but the answer was less audible, the only words I could distinctly catch being “ten since morning, and two more just——”
“But thereisa doctor there?” we heard Arthur say: and a deep voice, that we had not heard before, replied “Dead, Sir. Died three hours ago.”
Lady Muriel shuddered, and hid her face in her hands: but at this moment the front-door was quietly closed, and we heard no more.
For a few minutes we sat quite silent: then the Earl left the room, and soon returned totell us that Arthur had gone away with the two fishermen, leaving word that he would be back in about an hour. And, true enough, at the end of that interval—during which very little was said, none of us seeming to have the heart to talk—the front-door once more creaked on its rusty hinges, and a step was heard in the passage, hardly to be recognised as Arthur’s, so slow and uncertain was it, like a blind man feeling his way.
He came in, and stood before Lady Muriel, resting one hand heavily on the table, and with a strange look in his eyes, as if he were walking in his sleep.
“Muriel—my love——” he paused, and his lips quivered: but after a minute he went on more steadily. “Muriel—my darling—they—wantme—down in the harbour.”
“Mustyou go?” she pleaded, rising and laying her hands on his shoulders, and looking up into his face with her great eyes brimming over with tears. “Mustyougo, Arthur? It may mean—death!”
He met her gaze without flinching. “Itdoesmean death,” he said, in a husky whisper:“but—darling—I amcalled. And even my life itself——” His voice failed him, and he said no more.
For a minute she stood quite silent, looking upwards with a helpless gaze, as if even prayer were now useless, while her features worked and quivered with the great agony she was enduring. Then a sudden inspiration seemed to come upon her and light up her face with a strange sweet smile. “Yourlife?” she repeated. “It is notyoursto give!”
Arthur had recovered himself by this time, and could reply quite firmly, “That is true,” he said. “It is notmineto give. It isyours, now, my—wife that is to be! And you—doyouforbid me to go? Will you not spare me, my own beloved one?”
Still clinging to him, she laid her head softly on his breast. She had never done such a thing in my presence before, and I knew how deeply she must be moved. “Iwillspare you,” she said, calmly and quietly, “to God.”
“And to God’s poor,” he whispered.
“And to God’s poor,” she added. “When must it be, sweet love?”
‘WILL YOU NOT SPARE ME?’‘WILL YOU NOT SPARE ME?’
‘WILL YOU NOT SPARE ME?’
“To-morrow morning,” he replied. “And I have much to do before then.”
And then he told us how he had spent his hour of absence. He had been to the Vicarage, and had arranged for the wedding to take place at eight the next morning (there was no legal obstacle, as he had, some time before this, obtained a Special License) in the little churchwe knew so well. “My old friend here,” indicating me, “will act as ‘Best Man,’ I know: your father will be there to give you away: and—and—you will dispense with bride’s-maids, my darling?”
She nodded: no words came.
“And then I can go with a willing heart—to do God’s work—knowing that we areone—and that we are together inspirit, though not in bodily presence—and are most of all together when we pray! Ourprayerswill go up together——”
“Yes, yes!” sobbed Lady Muriel. “But you must not stay longer now, my darling! Go home and take some rest. You will need all your strength to-morrow——”
“Well, I will go,” said Arthur. “We will be here in good time to-morrow. Good night, my own own darling!”
I followed his example, and we two left the house together. As we walked back to our lodgings, Arthur sighed deeply once or twice, and seemed about to speak—but no words came, till we had entered the house, and had lit our candles, and were at our bedroom-doors.Then Arthur said “Good night, old fellow! God bless you!”
“God bless you!” I echoed, from the very depths of my heart.
We were back again at the Hall by eight in the morning, and found Lady Muriel and the Earl, and the old Vicar, waiting for us. It was a strangely sad and silent party that walked up to the little church and back; and I could not help feeling that it was much more like a funeral than a wedding: to Lady Muriel itwasin fact, a funeral rather than a wedding, so heavily did the presentiment weigh upon her (as she told us afterwards) that her newly-won husband was going forth to his death.
Then we had breakfast; and, all too soon, the vehicle was at the door, which was to convey Arthur, first to his lodgings, to pick up the things he was taking with him, and then as far towards the death-stricken hamlet as it was considered safe to go. One or two of the fishermen were to meet him on the road, to carry his things the rest of the way.
“And are you quite sure you are taking all that you will need?” Lady Muriel asked.
“All that I shall need as adoctor, certainly. And my own personal needs are few: I shall not even take any of my own wardrobe—there is a fisherman’s suit, ready-made, that is waiting for me at my lodgings. I shall only take my watch, and a few books, and—stay—thereisone book I should like to add, a pocket-Testament—to use at the bedsides of the sick and dying——”
“Take mine!” said Lady Muriel: and she ran upstairs to fetch it. “It has nothing written in it but ‘Muriel,’” she said as she returned with it: “shall I inscribe——”
“No, my own one,” said Arthur, taking it from her. “Whatcouldyou inscribe better than that? Could any human name mark it more clearly as my own individual property? Areyounot mine? Are you not,” (with all the old playfulness of manner) “as Bruno would say, ‘myvery mine’?”
He bade a long and loving adieu to the Earl and to me, and left the room, accompanied only by his wife, who was bearing up bravely, and was—outwardly, at least—less overcome than her old father. We waited in the room aminute or two, till the sound of wheels had told us that Arthur had driven away; and even then we waited still, for the step of Lady Muriel, going upstairs to her room, to die away in the distance. Her step, usually so light and joyous, now sounded slow and weary, like one who plods on under a load of hopeless misery; and I felt almost as hopeless, and almost as wretched, as she. “Are we four destinedeverto meet again, on this side the grave?” I asked myself, as I walked to my home. And the tolling of a distant bell seemed to answer me, “No! No! No!”
EXTRACT FROM THE “FAYFIELD CHRONICLE.”
Our readers will have followed with painful interest, the accounts we have from time to time published of the terrible epidemic which has, during the last two months, carried off most of the inhabitants of the little fishing-harbour adjoining the village of Elveston. The last survivors, numbering twenty-three only, out of a population which, three short months ago, exceeded one hundred and twenty, were removed on Wednesday last, under the authority of theLocal Board, and safely lodged in the County Hospital: and the place is now veritably ‘a city of the dead,’ without a single human voice to break its silence.
The rescuing party consisted of six sturdy fellows—fishermen from the neighbourhood—directed by the resident Physician of the Hospital, who came over for that purpose, heading a train of hospital-ambulances. The six men had been selected—from a much larger number who had volunteered for this peaceful ‘forlorn hope’—for their strength and robust health, as the expedition was considered to be, even now, when the malady has expended its chief force, not unattended with danger.
Every precaution that science could suggest, against the risk of infection, was adopted: and the sufferers were tenderly carried on litters, one by one, up the steep hill, and placed in the ambulances which, each provided with a hospital nurse, were waiting on the level road. The fifteen miles, to the Hospital, were done at a walking-pace, as some of the patients were in too prostrate a condition to bear jolting, and the journey occupied the whole afternoon.
The twenty-three patients consist of nine men, six women, and eight children. It has not been found possible to identify them all, as some of the children—left with no surviving relatives—are infants; and two men and one woman are not yet able to make rational replies, the brain-powers being entirely in abeyance. Among a more well-to-do-race, there would no doubt have been names marked on the clothes; but here no such evidence is forthcoming.
Besides the poor fishermen and their families, there were but five persons to be accounted for: and it was ascertained, beyond a doubt, that all five are numbered with the dead. It is a melancholy pleasure to place on record the names of these genuine martyrs—than whom none, surely, are more worthy to be entered on the glory-roll of England’s heroes! They are as follows:—
The Rev. James Burgess, M.A., and Emma his wife. He was the Curate at the Harbour, not thirty years old, and had been married only two years. A written record was found in their house, of the dates of their deaths.
Next to theirs we will place the honoured name of Dr. Arthur Forester, who, on the deathof the local physician, nobly faced the imminent peril of death, rather than leave these poor folk uncared for in their last extremity. No record of his name, or of the date of his death, was found: but the corpse was easily identified, although dressed in the ordinary fisherman’s suit (which he was known to have adopted when he went down there), by a copy of the New Testament, the gift of his wife, which was found, placed next his heart, with his hands crossed over it. It was not thought prudent to remove the body, for burial elsewhere: and accordingly it was at once committed to the ground, along with four others found in different houses, with all due reverence. His wife, whose maiden name was Lady Muriel Orme, had been married to him on the very morning on which he undertook his self-sacrificing mission.
Next we record the Rev. Walter Saunders, Wesleyan Minister. His death is believed to have taken place two or three weeks ago, as the words ‘Died October 5’ were found written on the wall of the room which he is known to have occupied—the house being shut up, and apparently not having been entered for some time.
Last—though not a whit behind the other four in glorious self-denial and devotion to duty—let us record the name of Father Francis, a young Jesuit Priest who had been only a few months in the place. He had not been dead many hours when the exploring party came upon the body, which was identified, beyond the possibility of doubt, by the dress, and by the crucifix which was, like the young Doctor’s Testament, clasped closely to his heart.
Since reaching the hospital, two of the men and one of the children have died. Hope is entertained for all the others: though there are two or three cases where the vital powers seem to be so entirely exhausted that it is but ‘hoping against hope’ to regard ultimate recovery as even possible.
The year—what an eventful year it had been for me!—was drawing to a close, and the brief wintry day hardly gave light enough to recognise the old familiar objects, bound up with so many happy memories, as the train glided round the last bend into the station, and the hoarse cry of “Elveston! Elveston!” resounded along the platform.
It was sad to return to the place, and to feel that I should never again see the glad smile of welcome, that had awaited me here so few months ago. “And yet, if I were tofind him here,” I muttered, as in solitary state I followed the porter, who was wheeling my luggage on a barrow, “and if hewereto ‘strike a sudden hand in mine, And ask a thousand things of home,’ I should not—no, ‘I should not feel it to be strange’!”
Having given directions to have my luggage taken to my old lodgings, I strolled off alone, to pay a visit, before settling down in my own quarters, to my dear old friends—for such I indeed felt them to be, though it was barely half a year since first we met—the Earl and his widowed daughter.
The shortest way, as I well remembered, was to cross through the churchyard. I pushed open the little wicket-gate and slowly took my way among the solemn memorials of the quiet dead, thinking of the many who had, during the past year, disappeared from the place, and had gone to ‘join the majority.’ A very few steps brought me in sight of the object of my search. Lady Muriel, dressed in the deepest mourning, her face hidden by a long crape veil, was kneeling before a little marble cross, round which she was fastening a wreath of flowers.
The cross stood on a piece of level turf, unbroken by any mound, and I knew that it was simply a memorial-cross, for one whose dust reposed elsewhere, even before reading the simple inscription:—
In loving Memory ofARTHUR FORESTER, M.D.whose mortal remains lie buried by the sea:whose spirit has returned to God who gave it.
“Greater love hath no man than this, thata man lay down his life for his friends.”
She threw back her veil on seeing me approach, and came forwards to meet me, with a quiet smile, and far more self-possessed than I could have expected.
“It is quite like old times, seeingyouhere again!” she said, in tones of genuine pleasure. “Have you been to see my father?”
“No,” I said: “I was on my way there, and came through here as the shortest way. I hope he is well, and you also?”
“Thanks, we are both quite well. And you? Are you any better yet?”