.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 48163
   :PG.Title: The Pennycomequicks (Volume 3 of 3)
   :PG.Released: 2015-02-04
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: \S. Baring-Gould
   :DC.Title: The Pennycomequicks (Volume 3 of 3)
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1889
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS (VOLUME 3 OF 3)
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      THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS

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      A Novel

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      BY

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      \S. BARING GOULD

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      AUTHOR OF
      'MEHALAH,' 'COURT ROYAL,' 'JOHN HERRING,' 'THE GAVEROCKS,' ETC.

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      IN THREE VOLUMES

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      VOL. III.

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      LONDON
      SPENCER BLACKETT & HALLAM
      MILTON HOUSE, 35, ST. BRIDE STREET, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C.
      1889

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      [*All rights reserved*]

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   CONTENTS OF VOL. III.

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   CHAPTER

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XXXIV.  `A DESOLATE HOUSE`_
XXXV.  `OFF`_
XXXVI.  `DEPOSED`_
XXXVII.  `ON THE LAKE`_
XXXVIII.  `IN HÔTEL IMPÉRIAL`_
XXXIX.  `TWO WOMEN`_
XL.  `TWO MEN`_
XLI.  `ONE POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF`_
XLII.  `THE GAUNTLET DANGLED`_
XLIII.  `THE GAUNTLET CAST`_
XLIV.  `AND PICKED UP`_
XLV.  `OBER-ALP`_
XLVI.  `ARTEMISIA`_
XLVII.  `EDELWEISS`_
XLVIII.  `TRAPPED`_
XLIX.  `TÊTE-À-TÊTE`_
L.  `IN THE HOSPICE`_
LI.  `AGAIN HYMEN`_
LII.  `THE DEVIL'S KNELL`_

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.. _`A DESOLATE HOUSE`:

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   THE PENNYCOMEQUICKS.

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CHAPTER XXXIV.

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A DESOLATE HOUSE.

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Philip was restless all that day, after Salome had
departed.  He had remained at home in the morning
to see her off, and he did not return to his work at
the factory till after lunch.

At the office, he found it impossible to fix his
thoughts on the books and letters before him.  He
was not an imaginative man, but day-dreams forced
themselves before him now; between his eyes and his
ledger he saw the pale, tearful face of Salome through
her veil.  He found his thoughts travelling along the
line with her.  He saw her in a corner of the railway
carriage, with her hands on her lap, looking out of
the window, not to see anything, but to hide her wet
cheeks from her fellow-passengers.  He caught
himself wondering whether she had taken sandwiches
with her and a little bottle of sherry.  When he
travelled—and he was called from home occasionally——there
was always a neat little package in white
paper and a tiny flat flask, pressed on him.  Had
any of the servants thought of these things for Salome?
That she had thought of them for herself was unlikely.
When she reached town, what would she do?  Would
the porters be attentive?  Would they take her wraps
and little odds and ends and see her into a cab?
And would the flyman be civil, or would he seek to
take advantage of a lone lady, especially one who
looked ill and unhappy?  Would not such an one
become a prey to his rapacity, and be subject to
rudeness?

What sort of weather would Salome have for crossing
the Channel?  She was going by Dover and
Ostend, Brussels and the Grand Luxembourg, to
Strasburg; thence by Basle to Lucerne, and so on
by boat and diligence to Andermatt.

How would she manage about change of money?
Where effect an exchange?  She had never travelled
abroad before; how would she contrive about her
luggage?  What sort of French scholar was she?
Who would be her companions on the long night
journey from Brussels to Strasburg?  What if she
had to endure association with vulgar, insolent,
objectionable travelling comrades?

Philip became hot, then cold.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said the clerk, coming to
his desk.  'Are you aware that you have subscribed
that letter twice over, Yours truly, P. Pennycomequick?'

'So I have; I will write it again.'

'And, sir—I beg pardon—you have directed this
letter to Messrs. Brook & Co., Cotton Spinners,
Andermatt.  Is that right?'

'I have made a mistake.  I will write the address
again.'

At dinner, that evening, Philip was alone.  The
parlour-maid waited.  She stood a little way off,
behind his chair, whilst he ate.  He was conscious
that she watched him at his soup, that she was counting
how many spoonfuls went into his mouth, that he
was not unobserved when he added salt and pepper.
She was down on his plate like a vulture on a dead
camel, the moment he had taken his last spoonful.
Probably she was finding it as embarrassing standing
watching him eat as he found it eating with her
watching.

'Mary,' said Philip, 'did Mrs. Pennycomequick
have any refreshments with her when she left—sandwiches
and sherry?'

'I beg your pardon, sir; I don't know.  I will go
and ask cook.'

She did know.  Philip was sure she did, but made
this an excuse to get out of the dining-room and its
oppressive restraint to the free air of the kitchen.

Presently she returned.

'Well?' asked Philip.

'Please, sir, no.  Cook says she tried to press them
on missis, but missis, sir, wouldn't have 'em.  She
said she'd have no appetite.'

'What is it?' asked Philip, as a dish was offered.

'Curried rabbit, sir.'

'Curried rabbit?  No, thank you.'

Philip looked across the table, to the place hitherto
occupied by his wife.  He had not been gracious, only
coldly civil to her of late, but then—now he would
have been glad to have had someone opposite him to
whom he could have been coldly civil; someone to
whom he might have remarked that the weather had
been bad, that the barometer was rising, that the
political situation was so and so.

Bother that woman!—he meant the parlour-maid.
Then aloud, 'What is it?  Oh, veal.'  He would have
some veal.  'Stuffing?'  Oh! the stuffing formed
that brown wart at the side, did it?

He tried to eat his veal, but felt that the eye of
Mary was on the back of his head, that she was
looking at the nape of his neck, and the hair there, and
the collar-button, and a little dust that lay on the
collar of his coat.  Philip had a mole on the nape of
his neck, and he was convinced that this mole formed
an object of the liveliest interest to Mary.  She was
watching the mole; when he opened his jaw, the mole
took a header and went under his collar; when he
shut his mouth it rose above the collar; whilst he
was chewing, the mole danced on the horizon of his
collar, to Mary's infinite amusement.

Philip turned round.  His imagination made him
fancy that Mary was tittering, overcome by the antics
played by his mole.

Philip took wine, and as he felt the glow of the
sherry pass down his throat, he wondered whether Mary
felt a glow of sympathy down her throat, occasioned
by seeing him drink the sherry.

Her presence was unbearable, and yet—if he
dismissed her—how was he to be served?

'I'll ask someone to dine with me to-morrow night,'
he said to himself.  Then he turned to Mary as she
removed his plate, and said, 'How is baby this
afternoon?  Does he fret much at his mother's being
away?'

'I beg your pardon, sir; I don't know.  I'll run and
ask nurse.'

Of course she knew, but she made this an excuse
for getting out of the dining-room into the freer air of
the nursery.

Never, in all his life, had Philip found himself more
impatient of the silence imposed on him, more desirous
to hear his own voice.  In his lodgings he had eaten his
meals alone—a chop and some potatoes—and he had
had a book or a paper at his side whilst eating; the
landlady or the slavey had not stood in the room
watching him, observing the parting in his hair behind
his head, making fun of his mole, impatient to dust
his collar.  In his lodgings he had drunk beer or
London cooper—now he drank claret, sherry, port;
but he would have drunk even water, if he might have
been alone.

'No, thank you; no dessert!'  He jumped up—he
was eager to leave the room.

'Please, sir, any cheese?'

'No, thank you, no cheese.'

He ran away from his half-finished dinner to his
own study, where he could be alone, away from the
insufferable Mary.  Then he rang the bell.

'You may bring me up the claret and port here—and
the preserved ginger,' he ordered.  Then thought
he had acted absurdly, and would have countermanded
the order had he not been ashamed to confess how
unhinged he was.

He sat in his own room, with his claret glass in his
hand, dreaming, looking into the fire.

'Where was Salome now?  Was she thinking of
home—of her baby—of—of—him?'

Then he wondered whether she were cold, and
hungry, and tired.  She had not slept the previous
night.  She had been busy packing, or going in and
out of baby's room, to kiss the little sleeping face, or
to pray by the crib, or let the dew of her tears fall
over it.

Philip stood up.  He left his glass unfinished, and
went upstairs to the nursery.  He found the door ajar,
and the room empty.  The nurse had gone down for a
talk in the kitchen—no doubt about Master, and Mary
was telling her about his mole, and the spots of dust
on his collar.

He entered the nursery and stood by the crib, and
looked at the sleeping child.

Little Philip was now quite well again, and was very
sound asleep.  He was undoubtedly a Pennycomequick.
He had dark hair, and long dark eyelashes.  But
surely—surely there was some trace of his mother in
the tiny face.  It could not be that he did not bear in
him something of her.  Philip looked intently at the
child, and tried to find out in him some feature of his
wife.

There, on this side of the crib, had Salome's hands
rested that night when little Philip was ill.  Philip,
the father, knew the exact spot where her hands had
rested, and where her forehead had leaned, with the
red-gold hair falling down over the side upon the
bedding.  Where the white left hand had clutched,
with the gold ring sparkling on it, there now Philip
placed his hand, and there streamed up to him from
the crib of his child a magnetic influence that put him
*en rapport* with his absent wife, brought to him a
soothing sense of oneness with her who was far away,
and filled his heart with regret and yearning.

The child began to cry.

Then Philip rang the bell, and when the nurse
arrived, red and blowing——

'How is it that you are not at your post?' he
asked.

'Please, sir, I only just ran down to warm up
Dr. Ridge's Food for the baby,' was the answer.

Philip descended to the study, and resumed his
claret glass.  At the same time he began to consider
his own conduct towards Salome, and, now only, saw
that it did not bear the same complexion as he had
hitherto attributed to it.  In vain did he call up before
his mind the dishonour of relationship with such a man
as Beaple Yeo, a rogue after whom the police had been
in quest more than once.  In vain did he poke the fires
of his wrath at the trickery of his marriage, he could
not convince himself that Salome had been privy to it;
and if not privy to it, what right had he to treat her
with the severity he had exercised?  But not even
then did it occur to him that the main element of his
wrath was supplied by his own wounded pride.

The discovery of her parentage must have been to
Salome a crushing humiliation.  What justification
was there for his adding to her burden by his
reproaches and coldness?  She could not undo the past,
unmake her relationship.  His anger, his resentment,
could not improve the situation, could not shake the
truth of the hateful fact that he was allied to so great
a scoundrel.  Though she had been married under a
wrong name, that would not invalidate the marriage
even if he wished it—even if he wished it!  Did he
wish it?

He thought about Uncle Jeremiah's will, and how
that by it Salome had been left almost sole legatee;
how that the mill and everything had been given to
her, and how that in a mysterious manner that will
had been cancelled.  The old haunting suspicion that
his aunt had meddled with and defaced the will
returned.  He thought of her behaviour when he allowed
her to see that he entertained a suspicion; of her
evasion of her promise; of her laxity of principle;
and he could not shake off the thought that it was
quite possible that through her Salome had been
defrauded of her rights.

If so, had he any right to complain if he had been
deceived?  How did Mrs. Sidebottom show beside
Salome?  And he—he, Philip—had he shown in
generous colours either?

It was said of that distinguished epicure the
Marquis de Cussy, 'L'estomac de M. n'a jamais bronché,'
and the same may be said of most consciences—but
not of all.  As we have seen even Mrs. Sidebottom's
conscience once felt a twinge at the time when
consciences generally do feel twinges, when too late to
redress wrong actions.  So now did Philip, as he sat
over the fire with his claret glass in his hand, become
aware that he had acted with undue severity, and he
spilt the claret on the floor.

Next day, Philip went to the old bedroom which he
and his wife had occupied till he changed his quarters.
He found the housemaid there, who seemed startled at
seeing him enter.

'Please, sir, I'm drawing down the blinds, because
of the sun.'

'I will trouble you to leave the blinds up,' said
Philip.  'I do not choose to have the house—the
room—look as though someone in it were dead.  Here—by
the way, my room downstairs will need a thorough
turn out.  I will return to this room; at all events for
a time.'

'Very well, sir.'

She left the chamber.  He stood in it and looked
about him.  Salome had left everything tidy.  Some
of her drawers were open, not many were locked.
Most of her little private treasures had been removed.

Where was the photograph on a stand of Uncle
Jeremiah?  It had no doubt been taken away by her.
Where the three little owls sitting on a pen-wiper?
It was gone—and the Christmas cards that had stood
on the chimney-piece, and the ugly glazed yellow
flower vase, given her, on her birthday, by the cook.

The clock on the chimney-piece was stopped.
Salome had wound that up regularly; her hand was
no longer there, and it had been allowed to run down.
The room was dead without the tick of the clock.
Philip wound it up and set the pendulum swinging.
It ticked again, but in a formal, weary manner, unlike
the brisk and cheerful tick of old.

The room had a cold unfurnished look without
Salome's knickknacks—trifles in themselves, but
giving an air of refinement and cheeriness to the
apartment.  He went over to the dressing-table.
No combs and brushes, no hairpins, bottles of hair oil
and wash there—simply a table with a looking-glass
on it.  One little glass was there, but no flowers in it;
and hitherto it had never failed to contain some—even
in winter.  With what ingenuity had Salome
kept that little glass on the dressing-table bright—in
winter at times with holly only, or ivy leaves—or
moss and a scarlet Jew's ear!

It was the same downstairs.  There the flowers were
ragged and faded in the vases.  Salome was away,
who had rearranged them every second day.

The room smelt musty, and Philip threw up the
window.  He stood at it, and looked out dreamily.
Where was Salome now?  Was she in Switzerland?
Had she any heart to look at the mountains?  Would
the wonderful scenery be any joy to her—alone?

'I can never dine as I did yesterday,' said Philip.
'I will ask Tomkins in.'

That day he did invite Tomkins, his head traveller.
But he was irritated with Tomkins and angry with
the maid, because Tomkins' seat had been put at the
end of the table, in Salome's place; and Tomkins was
a different object for his eyes to rest on from Salome.
The dinner passed wearily.  Philip was not, indeed,
concerned about the parlour-maid examining the mole
on his neck, but he had to make conversation for
Tomkins, and to listen to Tomkins' commercial room
tales, and to be civil to Tomkins.

After dinner Tomkins was in no hurry to go—he
enjoyed the Pennycomequick port, and on the port
grew confidential, and Philip became tired, every
minute more tired, of Tomkins, and was vexed with
himself for having asked Tomkins in, and vowed he
would dine by himself next evening.  Then Tomkins,
finding it difficult to rouse Philip's interest and excite
a laugh, began to tell rather broad stories, and was
undeterred by Philip's stony stare, till Philip suddenly
stood up, rang for coffee, and said it was time to
adjourn to another room, and so cut Tomkins short.

But even after Tomkins had been got into the
drawing-room, and had been chilled there by its size
and coldness, and the inattention of his host, he
showed little inclination to depart, and threw out
hints that he could strum an accompaniment to
himself on the 'pi-anny,' and sing a song, sentimental
or humorous, if Mr. Pennycomequick would like to
hear him.  But Philip pleaded headache, and became
at length so freezing as to force Tomkins to take his
leave.

Philip did not feel it necessary to accompany his
head commercial into the hall; but Mary was there
to assist him into his great-coat, and find him his hat,
and give him a light for his cigar.

'Well, Mary,' said Tomkins pleasantly.  'Thank
you, Mary; to take a light from you warms the heart,
Mary.  I'm as blind as a beetle in the dark, and 'pon
my word, dear, I don't know my right hand from my
left in the dark.  You wouldn't object, would
you—there's a dear—just to set me on my way home, with
my nose in the right direction, and then my cigar-light
will carry me on?  Can't go wrong if I follow
that.  But it is the first step, Mary—the first step is
the thing.  *Le premier paw*, say the French.'

Then he hooked his arm into hers, and the demure
Mary had no objection to take just half a dozen steps
along the road with the affable Mr. Tomkins—who
was a widower—and to leave the hall door ajar as
she escorted him part of his way home.

Philip sat in the drawing-room in bad humour.  It
was dull dining by himself: it was insufferable dining
with Tomkins.  He could not invite brother
manufacturers to dine with him every evening.  What
must he do?  He would return to plain food and a
book at his solitary meal, and dismiss the critical
parlour-maid till he required his plate to be changed.

Philip rang the bell.  The teacups were left on the
table.  His bell remained unanswered.  He rang
again.  It was still unnoticed.  Then he angrily went
down into the hall, and found the door ajar.  He
called to the servants in the kitchen for Mary.  The
housemaid appeared.  'Please, sir, she's gone out a
moment to post a letter.'

'What! at this time of night?'

'It was most particular; her mother be dreadful
porely, sir, and Mary do take on about her orful!'

'Go to bed—lock up,' ordered Philip; and he stood
in the hall whilst the frightened domestics filed
past.

Then he turned down the gas and returned to the
drawing-room.  He would hear Mary when she came
in by the hall door, and would at once give her her
dismissal.

He sat waiting.  Here was fresh trouble come on
him through his wife's absence.  He would have to
see that his servants were kept in proper order; that
they kept proper hours.

He had hardly resumed his seat before he heard
steps in the hall, and then on the stairs.  Certainly
not the tread of Mary; not light, and not stealthy,
but firm and ponderous.

What step could it be?  Tomkins returning to tell
one of his good stories, or to ask for soda-water?  He
listened, and hesitated whether to rise or not.  It
must be the step of Tomkins; no one else would
venture to come in at this time.  The step was
arrested at the drawing-room door; then Philip stood
up, and as he did so the door was thrown open, and
Uncle Jeremiah stood on the threshold, looking at
him.  He knew the old man at once, though he was
changed, and his hair white.

'Philip,' said Jeremiah, 'where is your wife?  Where
is Salome?'

Philip was too much astonished to answer.

Then said Jeremiah sternly: 'Give an account of
thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer
steward.'





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.. _`OFF`:

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   CHAPTER XXXV.


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   OFF.

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When I was a boy I possessed a pet owl.  It was a
source of amusement to me to feed that owl with
mice.  When the trap had caught one of these night
disturbers, I took it to the solemn owl, who sat
blinking in the daylight, half awake and half asleep.
The owl at once gulped down the mouse, and then
went fast asleep with the mouse in her inside, but
with the end of the tail protruding from her beak.
About an hour later I went to the owl, took hold of
the end of the mouse's tail and pulled it, whereupon
up the throat of the owl came the mouse, backwards,
and the bird of wisdom was roused to wild wonder
and profound puzzlement to account for the sudden
disgorging of her meal.  Mrs. Sidebottom had bolted
Uncle Jeremiah, and was doing her best to digest him
and his fortune, when, unexpectedly, her meal came
to life again, and she sat gulping, blinking, bemused
in her sitting-room, waiting for the return of Lambert
from the billiard-table, to communicate to him the
news that had reached her.  Anyone who had seen
my owl would perceive at once that the case of
Mrs. Sidebottom was analogous.

The consternation could hardly have been greater
on Quilp reappearing when a posse of wives was
sitting discussing him, esteemed dead; and yet
Jeremiah was no Quilp.  But it is not Quilps alone
who would produce dismay were they to return to
life.  Imagine the emotions produced in a hospital
which has received a bequest of ten thousand pounds,
and has spent fifteen guineas on the portrait of the
benefactor, should the benefactor descend from the
frame, declare himself alive, and require the return of
his thousands.  Think of the junior partner, who has
been waiting till a senior shuffled off his mortal coil to
make room for him; how would he feel were the dead
to return to life?  Think of the curate waiting for the
living, the next presentation to which is for him,
should the old rector, after having laid himself down
in his grave, change his mind and get out and resume
his benefice for another fifteen years!

Mrs. Sidebottom had but just received news of the
reappearance of Uncle Jeremiah, and, like an energetic
woman, she wasted as little time as might be in
exclamations of dismay.  She was not the woman to hover
in uncertainty, and ask advice how to get out of a
difficulty.  Like one who has trodden in mire, she
pulled her foot out instantaneously to set it on dry
and firm ground.

'I don't know how the law stands, and whether the
sentence of the Court of Probate can be reversed,' she
said; 'but of one thing I am very sure—that he who
has can hold, and tire out those who try to open his
hands, if he has any wit.'

Then in came Lambert.

'Oh, Lamb!' exclaimed his mother, 'here is a
pretty predicament we are in!  My brother Jeremiah
has come to life again!'

The captain burst out laughing.

'This is no laughing matter,' said his mother testily.
'How can you be such a hyæna?  Jeremiah has
reappeared at Mergatroyd, and there is—well, I can't
mince matters—the devil to pay.  I presume he will
want to reclaim what we have distributed between us.
The mill, of course, with the business, he will take
back under his control, and cut off the supply thence.
That is a serious matter—and then there is the money
he left——'

'Which I suppose he will require you to return?'

'Which I can't and won't return.  Bless me, Lamb,
what a state of things!  Our income reduced from
half the profits of the business to one-sixth, which he
cannot touch, as that comes to me under my marriage
settlement.  We must leave England—we must leave
at once.  I shall know nothing about Jeremiah's
return.  I shall keep away till I see in what humour
he is, what he intends to do, and in what light he
regards me.  There are trifles connected with the
administration I don't care to meet him about.  As
for his savings, his securities, and so on, I will return
nothing'—she stamped her foot—'no, Lamb; for, in
fact, I can't!'

'How do you know that he is back, and that this is
not a false alarm?'

'Look here——'  She tossed a letter to him.  'It
is laconic.  He wrote it with a sneer—I know he did.
Jeremiah never liked me.  He has disappeared, and
has come to life again, out of spite.'

Captain Pennycomequick—to be correct,
Penycombe-Quick—took the letter and read it with a
smile.

It was short.

.. vspace:: 2

'DEAR LOUISA,

'I am back, hearty again.  I have been to
Algiers for my health.  I had rheumatic fever, and
when I came round I found you had already
pronounced me dead, and had divided the
spoils—concerning which, a word later.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   'Your affectionate brother,
       'JEREMIAH P.'

.. vspace:: 2

'Is it his handwriting?' asked Lambert.

'Of course it is.  Here is a pretty mess for me to
be in.  I shall have everyone laughing at me, because
I swore that the man in the shirt and great-coat was
Jeremiah.  "Concerning which—the spoils—a word
later."  What does he mean by that, but that he
proposes calling me to account for every penny?  I will
not remain in England.  I cannot.  I will not receive
this letter.'

'But you have received it.'

'I shall make my landlady return it, with a note to
say that she took the liberty to open it, so as to be
able to write to the sender, and say that I have gone
abroad for my health.  Where shall I say I have
gone to?—To Algiers, whence Jeremiah has just
returned.'

'You cannot do that.'

'But I will.  Self-preservation is the first law.  As
for the money—I lost some by that Beaple Yeo; not
much, but some.  I was so prompt, and had such
presence of mind, that I caught the man and made
him refund before he had got rid of most of it.  I
have money in securities—railway debentures and
foreign loans.  I have all the papers by me—I trust
no one but myself, since my faith has been shaken by
Smithies.  Lamb, we must be off directly.  It would
be too much a shock to my nerves to see my brother
that was dead and is alive again.  What are you
laughing at, Lamb?  You really are silly.'

'There is some prospect now of my coming to that
hundred and fifty, I hope,' said the captain.  'Uncle
Jeremiah may now write another will.'

'How selfish you are!  You think only of yourself,
not how I am afflicted.  But, Lamb, I have had you
sponging on me all these years, and keeping me in an
exhausted financial condition that is intolerable.'

'We shall revert to our former condition, I suppose,
now,' said Lambert unconcernedly.

'That is precisely what I cannot do.  Return to
poverty and middle-class society, the very crown and
climax of which is a Lord and Lady Mayoress—when
we are on the eve of making the acquaintance
of county people!  What have you done for yourself?
You have been too inert to seize the chances I have
put in your way.  You must marry money.  Jane
Mulberry was worth five hundred per annum, and you
let her slip through your fingers.'

'She had a moustache.'

'She had money.  Five hundred pounds would gild
it.  Then there was Miss Smithson.'

'She was insipid.'

'What of that?  The insipid women make the best
wives, they are so non-resistant.  In marriage, men
should be teetotalers and take weak and washy
women.  They are far the best to get on with.'

'Don't think I've much fancy for such,' said the
captain languidly.

'I tremble to think,' said his mother angrily, 'what
the offspring of a weak woman and such an
unenergetic man would be!'

'Then why recommend such a marriage?'

'Because we must consider ourselves, not the unborn
possibilities.  However, to return to the subject
that now most occupies me.  My condition is desperate.
You must marry.  I can support you no longer.'

'And so you deport me to Algiers?'

'My dear boy, we are not going to Algiers.'

'Then where to?'

'To Andermatt.'

'Andermatt!—Where is that?'

'On the St. Gothard.'

'And pray why to Andermatt on the St. Gothard?'

'Because Mrs. Baynes is there.'

'Oh, by all means.'

'What makes you say "by all means"?' asked his
mother sharply.

'She's a jolly girl, good-looking, and no nonsense
about her.'

'Do you think that I would take you to her if that
were all?  You know she is a widow.  She has her
hundred and fifty from what was sunk by Jeremiah
when she married, but that is not all: she has been
left well provided for by her husband, Mr. Albert
Baynes.  I know all about it.  I got everything out
of Salome.  I told her how anxious I was about her
sister, how pained I was concerning her bereavement,
and how I hoped that she was not left in bad
circumstances.  Salome very openly told me that she was
very comfortably provided for, and no stipulation
made about marrying again.  I know what Salome
meant when she let me draw that out of her—she
meant that you should know; but I then had my eye
on Miss Smithson.  However, now that we must go
abroad we may as well kill two birds with one stone.
Besides, as Jeremiah took such a lively interest in
Janet, he may be gratified at your marrying her, and
not press me with demands which I could not comply
with—which I will not, no, I will not comply with.'

'But she is in bad health.'

'Oh, nothing but sentiment at her husband's death;
besides, if she is delicate, all the better.'

'I don't see that,' said the captain, feebly disgusted
at his mother's heartlessness.

'Fiddle-faddle,' said Mrs. Sidebottom; 'it is all
part of the business—it goes with widows' caps.
When I lost Sidebottom I was worn to a shadow and
got a cough; but I began to recover flesh when I
went into half mourning, and lost my cough with my
weeds.  When you appear on the scene it will be
codliver oil to her.'

'It will be very dull at this place you speak of.'

'Of course it will be dull and hateful, but what will
you have?  I sacrifice myself for you.  You must get
off my hands and shift for yourself; I have had you
as a charge too long.  I want to see you well provided
for, and as the Smithson and Jane Mulberry failed, you
must take the Baynes.  I can't tell you exactly what
she is worth, but I will ascertain from Salome, who is
there, before you commit yourself.  Remember, Lamb,
we must go.  I cannot stay here and face Jeremiah.'

'Why not?  It would be the most honourable thing
to do, and might answer the best in the end.'

'I cannot do it.  Why—how would you feel—how
could you feel towards a person who had pronounced
you dead, and proceeded to administer?  Much as a
man might towards the surgeon who proceeded to
dissect him before he was dead.  No, Lamb, I will
not remain.  I can always write to Jeremiah, and
express my profound astonishment to hear of his
return, and assume an air of injury that I should have
been left in the dark so long.  Indeed, I think that
will be the card to play—throw the blame on him,
and if the case comes into court, I can lay stress on
this.  Wilfully he allowed me to remain in ignorance
of his existence.  Something had to be done.  The
factory would not go on of itself.  The factory could
not be carried on without money.  The business
would go to pieces unless energetically prosecuted.
Jeremiah may feel grateful, and ought to feel grateful
to me, that I acted with such readiness in the matter
and saved the firm of Pennycomequick from ruin.  I
can bring in a heavy bill against him for my services.
However, I had rather do this from a distance, and by
letter.  I will take the injured tone, and make him
dance to that tune.'

Mrs. Sidebottom was a woman of resource.  She
never suffered herself to be discouraged by adversity;
and adversity now faced her wearing the mask of her
brother returned to life.  She had much energy of
character and fertility of invention, which, if she had
been a woman of principle, instead of unscrupulous
self-seeking, might have made her a valuable person
in society.  She was at present frightened—she had
invested some of the money she had drawn to herself
from Jeremiah's savings in a manner that promised
well; some she had lost.  She neither desired to be
called to account for what she had squandered, nor to
be forced to reimburse those happy speculations which
were likely to place her in easy circumstances.  Until
she had had good professional advice, and until she
knew what her brother intended, she considered that
safety lay in absence.

She went about in York, leaving her card; and
when she saw a friend, she told her that she was off to
the Continent for a bit of a change.  She had not
been very well, and the doctors had insisted on
variation of scene and air, and she felt herself that
life was too short to spend it in one place.  The
world was large and must be seen, and those dear
snowy mountains—they possessed for her a fascination
she had struggled against, but had been unable
further to resist.

'My dear Mrs. Jacques, you know what anxiety
and care I had last year about my poor brother's
affairs—winding up, you know.  I held up through it
all, animated by a sense of duty, but it told on me in
the end, and now I am going to relax.  I shall spend
the summer in the Alps, and unless I am much better
I shall go to Algiers for the winter.  Have you any
friends who will be there next Christmas?  Oh, my
dear! to think of Christmas in Algiers; a hot sun
and no plum-pudding!'

Mrs. Sidebottom had not the faintest desire to
spend a winter in Algiers; she thought Mentone, or
Florence, or Pau would suit her better, according to
where she could get into the best society, and she
resolved to leave the determination to the future; if
she found during the summer people whom it was
worth her while hanging on to, and who were
wintering anywhere abroad, she would attach herself to
them.  But with that curious crookedness which
prevails in some natures, she went about asking
questions about hotels and *pensions* at Algiers,
keeping her ears open at the same time to hear of persons
of position who were likely to winter elsewhere.  It
was possible that, if she made it well known that she
would winter in Algiers, acquaintances would tell her
of friends of theirs who were wintering elsewhere.
Nor was she wrong.

'Oh, I am so sorry you are not going to Mentone;
Sir William Pickering is going there because of the
health of dear Lady Pickering.  Such charming
people—you would have liked to know them—but as you
are going to Algiers, of course I cannot get you
acquainted with each other.'  Mrs. Sidebottom knew
well enough that if she had said she was going to
Mentone this piece of information would not have
been vouchsafed her.  'Oh!  Mrs. Sidebottom—you
are visiting Algiers.  There is a nice young lady, a
niece, going there.  She is in a decline.  I shall be
eternally obliged to you if you would show her
kindness; she is badly off, and it would be goodness
itself if you would just look in now and then and
ascertain that she is comfortable and not imposed on.'

'My dear Mrs. Tomson, you could not have asked
me to do anything that would have pleased me
more—but unfortunately it is not certain I am going to
Algiers.  If I make up my mind to go I will write to
you for the address of your niece, and you may rely
on me, I will do my utmost for her.'  This was
accompanied by an internal mem.: Have nothing
further to do with Mrs. Tomson.  I'm not going
abroad to be anybody's nurse.  Heaven forbid!

'Oh, Mrs. Sidebottom!  So you are off to Switzerland
and Algiers.  Now there could be nothing more
opportune.  We are going to have a bazaar to raise
money for the relief of the peasants in France, who
have suffered from the war.  Would you mind
sending as your contribution a box of charming Swiss
carvings and delightful Algerian and Moorish pottery—the
latter will sell rapidly and at high prices—you
are so good and charitable, I know you will.'

'I will certainly do so.  Rely on me.  I intended
to have had a stall; I will send two cases instead'—with
a mental mem.: Forget all about the bazaar till
it is over, and then write a proper apology.

'Oh, Mrs. Sidebottom!  I've lost my maid again.
As you are going to Switzerland, will you do me the
favour of looking out for a really serviceable girl—you
know my requirements—and arrange all about trains
and so on, so that she may reach me safely?  Perhaps
you would not mind advancing her journey-money,
and I will repay it—if she suits, of which I have no
doubt.  I am determined to have no more English
servants.'

Mrs. Sidebottom found that her acquaintances were
eager to make use of her, but then she had sufficient
knowledge of the world to expect that.

'Have you secured through tickets, Lamb?'

'Yes, mother.'

'Then we are off to-morrow.'





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.. _`DEPOSED`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVI.


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   DEPOSED.

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Gone as a dream!—that brief period of hope and
happiness and comfort.  Philip had a disquieting
prospect opening before him, as disquieting as that
which drove Mrs. Sidebottom from England, but
different in kind.  Philip was ready enough to
account for every penny, and return all the money
undiminished which had come to his share.  What
troubled him was the fearful look-out of a return to
furnished lodgings.  He saw himself about to be cast
forth from the elegancies, the conveniences of life, and
cast down to its vulgarities and discomforts.  He saw
himself about to be transferred from the cushioned
carriage on the smooth road, to a buggy on a corderoy
way, all jolts and kicks and plunges and breakdowns.
He was about to descend from succulent joints and
savoury *entremets* to mutton-chops alternating into
beef-steaks, from claret to bitter beer, from a place of
authority to one of submission, from progress to
stagnation, from a house of his own over which to
range at pleasure to confinement within two rooms,
one opening out of the other.  He must go back to
streaky forks, and spoons that at dinner recall the egg
of breakfast, to knives with adhesive handles and
tumblers frosted with finger-marks, to mirror frames
encased in fly-proof snipped green paper and beaded
flower-mats, a horsehair sofa, a cruet-stand with old
crusted mustard and venerable Worcester sauce in it,
to wax fruit under a glass shade, as covered with dust
as a Peruvian island with guano, to folding-doors into
the adjacent bedroom, and to curtains tied back with
discarded bonnet-ribbons.  But it would have been
bad enough for Philip, now accustomed to better
things, to have had the prospect before him of
descending alone; but he was no longer alone, he
had a wife, who, however, was absent, and about
whose return he was uncertain.  And he had with
him the encumbrance of a baby; and the encumbrance
of a baby drew with it a train of dissatisfied
and departing nurses, one after another, like the
procession of kings revealed to Macbeth in Hecate's
cave.

A babe in a lodging-house is as out of place as was
the ancestral Stanley found in an eagle's nest on the
top of a pine, of which the family crest preserves a
reminiscence.

Uncle Jeremiah was restored to strength, moral as
well as physical.  He no longer thought of his heart,
he allowed it to manage its pulsations unconsidered.
He was heartily glad that he had been saved
committing an act of egregious folly, and he was prepared
now to meet Salome without a twinge.  Common-sense
had resumed the place of upper hand; and the
temporary disturbance was over for ever.  To every
man comes at some period after he has begun to
decline a great horror of old age, an agonizing clutch
at the pleasures and follies of youth, a time of
intoxication when he is not responsible for his acts, an
intoxication produced by fear lest life with its roses
should have passed and left only thorns behind and
decay.  Men whose lives have been spent in business,
subjected to routine, who have not thought of love
and amusement, of laughter and idleness, are suddenly
roused to find themselves old and standing out of the
rush of merriment and the sunshine of happiness.
Then they make a frantic effort to seize what hitherto
they have despised, to hug to their hearts what they
have formerly cast away.  It is the St. Luke's summer,
a faint reflex of the departed glory and warmth, a last
smile before the arrival of the winter gales.  No
moment in life is so fraught with danger as this—at
none is there more risk of shipwreck to reputation.

Now that Jeremiah had passed through this period,
he could survey its risks with a smile and a sense of
self-pity and a little self-contempt.  He who had
always esteemed himself strong had discovered that
he could be weak, and, perhaps, this lesson had made
him more lenient with the infirmities of others.

He returned to his friend John Dale, looking older
by some years, but also more hale.  He had touched
the earth but had risen from it stronger than when
he fell.

On reaching Bridlington, he learned from Dale the
state of matters at Mergatroyd.  Whilst there, a
hasty note arrived for Mr. Dale from Salome to say
that she was leaving, with her husband's consent, to
be with her sister in Switzerland, and both thought
they could read between the lines that there had been
a fresh difference with Philip.

Thereupon Jeremiah went to Mergatroyd, and came
in unexpectedly and unannounced on Philip.

Jeremiah Pennycomequick had not decided what
course to pursue with regard to his sister and nephew.
He was conscious that he had played them a trick,
that he had put them to a test which he was not
justified in applying to them.

He was angry with both—with his half-sister for
the precipitation with which she had accepted and
certified his death, and with Philip for his treatment
of Salome.  He did not disguise from himself that his
interference in such a delicate matter as a quarrel, or
an estrangement, between husband and wife, might
make the breach worse.

When he arrived at Mergatroyd, he had not resolved
what course to take.  He sat up half the night with
Philip.

'You will find,' said the latter with some pride,
'that I have maintained the business in a healthy
condition; it is not in the condition it was during the
Continental war which affected linen as well as other
things, but that was of its nature ephemeral.  It rests
on a sound basis.  Go through the books and satisfy
yourself.  My aunt,' there was a tone of bitterness
when he added this—'my aunt watched the conduct
of the factory with a jealous eye, and did not trust
my accounts without a scrutiny.  As for what was in
the bank, I can give an account of every penny, and
the securities, such as came to me, are untouched.'

'I will look into these matters at my leisure,' said
Jeremiah, 'and if I find that matters are as you say, I
will let you down lightly; only, I forewarn you, let
down you will be.  And now a word about Salome.'

'My wife,' said Philip shortly.

'Your wife—exactly—but——'

'With regard to my wife, I brook no interference,'
said Philip haughtily.  'The mill is your affair, my
domestic relations are my own.'

'You cry out before you are hurt,' retorted
Jeremiah; 'I am not about to interfere.  I know that you
are greatly disconcerted at the discovery as to the
parentage of your wife.'

Philip held up his head stiffly and closed his lips
tightly.  He said nothing.

'I am not intermeddling,' continued Jeremiah, 'but
I wish you to understand this: that I have some
claim to speak a word for Salome, whom I have
always—that is to say—whom I have looked upon
with fatherly regard.  The two little girls grew up in
my house, not a day passed but I saw them; I rode
them as infants at my knee, I bought them toys.
They ran to meet me—cupboard love, of course—when
I came from the mill, because I had oranges or
sweet things in my pocket.  I took pride in them as
they became blooming girls, I saw that they were
well taught.  After dinner they soothed me with their
music, and when I was dull enlivened me with their
prattle.  Have I, then, no right to speak a word for
one or the other?  I have been to them more than a
father.  Their father deserted them as soon as they
were born, but I have nurtured and clothed them, and
seen to the development of their minds and the
disciplining of their characters.  It is absurd of you to
deny me the right to speak.  To interfere is not my
purpose.'

'Very well, I will listen.'

'Then let me tell you this—I know who their father
was.  When Mrs. Cusworth came into this house she
very honestly told me the truth about them, and by
my advice she kept her counsel.  It could do them
only harm—cloud their joys—to know that they had
a disreputable father.  We knew nothing of the man's
subsequent history.  He had disappeared, and might
be—as we hoped—dead.  But, even if alive, we did
not suppose he would care to come in quest of his
twin daughters, and we trusted, should he do this,
that he would not find them.  We hoped that he
might not conjecture that the children had been
adopted by their aunt, and that she had moved
into Yorkshire to Mergatroyd.  Neither Salome
nor Janet knew who their father was, or rather
both supposed him to be that worthy man who
perished so lamentably in my service.  By what
means he made the discovery and got on their
track I do not know, and I hardly care to know.
If I could take into my house the children of such
a man, it hardly becomes you——'

Philip interrupted his uncle.

'That fellow Schofield never injured you as he did
my father.  He not only ruined him, but he also was
the cause of his estrangement from you, or rather,
yours from him.'

'Bear the man what grudge you will,' said Jeremiah
hastily, 'but do not visit his offences on the head of
his unoffending child.'

Philip stood up.  He was angry, but not to be
moved from his stiffness of manner.

'I think,' said he, 'you will be tired.  I am, and
probably bed is the best place for both.  As this
is now your house, and I am an intruder in it,
I must ask permission to occupy my room for to-night.'

Jeremiah laughed.  'And you—a lawyer!  Why,
you are in legal possession, and till there is a reversal
of the sentence of the Probate Court, I have no more
rights than a ghost.  No—I am your guest.'

Philip retired to his room.  The words of Jeremiah,
charging him with visiting the offences of the father
on the unoffending child, were but the repetition of
his own self-reproach, but for that very reason less
endurable.  It is the truth of a charge which gives it
its sting.  A man will endure to say to himself what
he will not tolerate to be said to him by another.

He went to his room, but not to bed.  He sat at
the window, where Salome had sat, in the same chair,
thinking with dark brow and set lips.  In one thing,
his self-esteem was encouraged.  His uncle would see
and be forced to acknowledge how thoroughly he had
mastered the technicalities of the business, and with
what order and prudence he had carried it on.  He
need not shrink from the closest examination into his
conduct of the factory.  Everything was in order, the
books well kept, several contracts in hand.  His uncle
might dismiss him, but he could not say a word against
his integrity and business habits.  He had taken to
himself nothing but what Mrs. Sidebottom, as
administratrix, had passed over to him.  And as to his
uncle's disappearance, he had done nothing as to the
identification of the wrong body; he had held himself
neutral, as incapable of forming an opinion from
inadequate acquaintance with his uncle.  If blame was
to be cast, it must fall heavily on Mrs. Sidebottom,
but none would rest on him.

But—how about the future?  Philip now recalled
the discomfiture, the monotonies, the irritations of
lodging-house life.  Could he go back to that?  If
his uncle offered to retain him in his house, could he
consent?  His pride counselled him to go, his love of
comfort to remain.

Uncle Jeremiah had not invited him to remain, but
Philip thought it likely that he might.  His pride was
galled in many ways.  It would be most painful to
him to continue at the factory, in which he had been
a master, henceforth in a subordinate position.  Should
he return to the solicitor's firm at Nottingham, in
which he had been before?  That his services there
were valued he was well aware, that his resignation
of a clerkship therein had caused annoyance he was
well aware; he knew, however, that his place was
filled, and that if he returned to the office, he would
be obliged to take a lower desk.  He might, and
probably would be, advanced, but that would require
patience, and he must wait till a vacancy occurred.
Besides, it would be a humiliation to have to solicit
readmission, after he had left the office on stilts, as
one who had come into a fortune.

Then—what was to be done about his wife?  He
could not maintain her and her child on a junior
clerk's wage.  Moreover, he had sent her away when
he occupied a lofty moral platform, because connection
with her sullied the fair name of Pennycomequick,
and might injure the firm; and now that he no
longer belonged to the firm, but was a poor clerk of
no consequence in the world, was he to write to her a
letter of humble apology, and ask her to return and
share the beggary of a clerk's life in furnished lodgings
with him, to unite with him in the long doleful battle
against landladies?  He had little doubt that Uncle
Jeremiah would propose to make Salome an allowance,
and that on this allowance together with his
salary they might be able to rub along.  But to
accept such relief from Uncle Jeremiah, granted
through his wife—his wife whom he had snubbed and
thrust away—was not pleasant to contemplate.

Whatever way Philip considered the meal set before
him, he saw only humble-pie, and humble-pie is the
least appetizing of dishes.  Philip approached it as a
sulky child does a morsel which his nurse requires
him to eat, without consuming which he must expect
no pudding.  He walked round it; he looked at it
from near, then he drew back and considered it at
long range, then he touched it, then smelt it, then
turned his back on it, then—with a grumble—began
to pick a few crumbs off it and put them between his
lips.

He went to bed at last, unresolved, angry with
himself, angry with Salome, angry with his uncle,
and angry with the baby who was sobbing in the
nursery.

Philip's experiences had all been made in spiral
form; they were ever turning about himself, and
though each revolution attained a higher level, it was
still made about the same centre.  There is a family
likeness in minds as well as in noses and eyes and
hair; and in this Philip resembled his aunt, but with
the difference that he was governed by a strong
sense of rectitude, and that nothing would induce
him to deviate from what he believed to be just,
whereas his aunt's principles were flexible, and
governed only by her own interests.

In these days in which we live, socialism is in the
air, that is to say, it is talked of and professed, but
whether by any is practised I am inclined to
question.  For socialism I take to mean everyone for
everyone else, and no one for himself, and this is a
condition contrary to the nature of man, for men are
all more or less waterspouts, vortices, attracting to
themselves whatever comes within their reach, and to
be actuated by a centrifugal, not a centripetal force
is the negative of individuality.

We stalk our way over the ocean, drawing up
through our skirts every drop of water, every
seaweed, and crab and fish and mollusc that we can
touch, and whirl them round and round ourselves,
and only cast them away and distribute them to
others when they are of no more use to ourselves.

Every climatic zone through which Philip had
passed had served to feed and build up the column
of his self-esteem; the rugged weather in furnished
lodgings, and the still seas into which he had entered
by his uncle's death, and by his marriage.  Nothing
had broken it down, dissolved its continuity,
dissipated its force.

At sea, when a vessel encounters a waterspout, it
discharges ordnance, and the vibration of the
atmosphere caused by the explosion snaps the column and
it goes to pieces.  But would the shock caused by
the return of Uncle Jeremiah, and the loss of position
and wealth that this entailed, suffice to break the
pillar of self-esteem that constituted Philip
Pennycomequick?  Hardly; for though touched in many
ways, he could hold up his head conscious of his
rectitude; he had managed the mill admirably, kept
the accounts accurately, adapted himself to the new
requirements perfectly.  He could, when called upon,
give up his place, but he would march forth with all
the honours of war.





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.. _`ON THE LAKE`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVII.


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   ON THE LAKE.

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Mrs. Sidebottom had reached Lucerne very rumpled
and dirty and out of temper, having travelled all night
from Brussels, and having had to turn out and have
her boxes examined at Thionville and Basle.  She had
scrambled through a wretched breakfast off cold coffee
and a roll at Strasburg, at four o'clock in the morning,
and then had been condemned to crawl along by a
slow train from Strasburg to Basle, and by another,
still slower, from Basle to Lucerne.  A night in a
comfortable hotel had restored her wonderfully; and
when she took her place under the awning in the lake
steamer, with a ticket in her glove for Fluelen, which
she insisted on calling Flew-ellen, she was in a
contented mood, and inclined to patronize the scenery.

The day was lovely, the water blue, Pilatus without
his cap, and the distant Oberland peaks seen above
the Brunig Pass were silver against a turquoise sky.

'This,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, dipping into 'Murray's
Handbook' to ascertain what it was proper to say—'this
is distinguished above every lake in Switzerland,
and perhaps in Europe, by the beauty and sublime
grandeur of its scenery.'

Then past her drifted a party of English tourists,
also with 'Murray' in their hands and on their lips.
'Oh, mamma!' exclaimed a young lady, 'this lake is
of very irregular shape, assuming near its west
extremity the form of a cross.  Do you see?  There is
one arm, we are approaching another, and there is the
leg.'

'My dear,' said her mother, 'don't say leg; it is
improper; say stem.'

'And, mamma, how true "Murray" is!—is it not
wonderful?  He says that at this part the shores of
the lake are undulating hills clothed with verdure, and
dotted with houses and villas.  He really must have
seen the place to describe it so accurately.'

'Good gracious!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom; and
then, after a pause, 'Gracious goodness!'

Lambert Pennycomequick took no notice of his
mother's exclamations, till a third 'gracious goodness,'
escaping her like the discharge of a minute-gun at sea,
called his attention to her, and he asked, 'Well, what
is it?'  As he received no answer, he said, 'I don't
believe in that honey served up at breakfast.  It is
not honey at all, but syrup in which stewed pears
have soaked.'

'Upon my word!' gasped Mrs. Sidebottom.

'What is the matter, mother?  Oh yes, lovely
scenery.  By George, so it is.  I believe it is all a hoax
about chamois.  I have been told that they knock
goats on the head, and so the flesh is black, or rather
dark-coloured, and it is served as chamois, and charged
accordingly.'

'This is extraordinary!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom.

'Yes—first rate,' said Lambert.  'Our Yorkshire
wolds don't quite come up to the Alps, do they?'

But Mrs. Sidebottom was not lost in wonder at the
beauty of the landscape, she was watching intently a
gentleman in a light suit, of a military cast, wearing a
white hat and a puggaree, with moustache and
carefully curled whiskers, who was marching the deck
alongside of another gentleman, stout, ordinary-looking,
and comfortable in appearance, like a plump
bullfinch.

'Look at my watch!' said the gentleman in the
light suit, and as there were vacant places beside
Mrs. Sidebottom, the two gentlemen left pacing the deck
and seated themselves on the bench near her.

'Look at my watch!—Turned black, positively
black, as if I had kept it against a vulcanized
india-rubber stomach-belt.  If you want evidence—there it
is.  I haven't cleaned it.  No, I keep it as a memorial
to me to be thankful to the beneficent Heaven which
carried me through—which carried me through.'

Mrs. Sidebottom saw a silver watch-case extended
to be exhibited, the dingy colour that silver acquires
when exposed to gas.

'I wish, sir—I beg your pardon, my lord—you will
excuse me, but by accident—by the merest accident—I
caught sight of your address and name on your
luggage—I wish, my lord, I were going with you to
Andermatt, and I would take you a promenade round
the backs of the hotels, and let you smell—smell, my
lord—as rich a bouquet of accumulated deleterious
odours as could be gathered into one—odours, my lord,
diphtheritical, typhoidiacal.  You see my face—I have
become mottled through blood-poisoning.  I was
gangrened at Andermatt by the deadly vapours there.
I thank a merciful Heaven, with my strong
constitution and by the warning afforded by my watch, I
escaped death.  I always carry about with me a silver
timepiece, not one of gold, for sanitary reasons—the
silver warns me of the presence in the atmosphere of
sulphuretted hydrogen—of sewage gas—it blackens,
as the arm of Lady Thingabob—I forget her name,
perhaps she was of your lordship's family—as the arm,
the wrist of her ladyship, was blackened by the grip
of a spectre.  I see you are bound for the Hôtel du
Grand Prince.  I went there, and there I inhaled the
vapours of death, or rather of disease.  I moved to
the Hôtel Impérial, and was saved.  There, and there
only, the drainage is after English models, and there,
and there only are you safe from the fumes of typhoid,
the seeds of typhus, the corpuscles of diphtheria,
and the—the—the what-d'ye-call-ems of cholera.
You will excuse my speaking to you, perhaps,
forcing myself—unworthy—on your distinguished self.'

'Oh, certainly, certainly.'

'But when I saw your name, my lord, and considered
what you are, and what the country would lose
were you to run the risk unforewarned, that I ran, I
ventured to thrust myself upon you.'

'I am really most obliged to you.'

'Well—who is it said "We are all one flesh, and so
feel sympathy one with another"?  Having suffered,
my lord, suffered so recently, and seeing you, my lord,
you, you—about—but there—not another word, *Homo
sum, nil humamim*—but I forget the rest, it is long
since I was at school, and I have not kept up my
classics.'

'I really am most indebted to you—and you think
that the Hôtel Impérial——'

'I am sure of it.  I had my blood tested, I had my
breath analyzed.  There were diatoms in one, and
bacilli in the other, and—I am alive, alive to say it;
thanks to the salubrious air and the careful nursing of
the Hôtel Impérial.'

The nobleman looked nearly as mottled in
countenance as the other; this was caused by the alarm
produced by the revelations of his interlocutor.

'Don't you think,' he said, 'that I had better avoid
Andermatt?'

'On no account, my lord.  You are safe at the
Imperial.  I cannot say that you will be safe
elsewhere.  I have been to Berne to the University
Professors to have the atmosphere of the several hotels
analyzed for my own private satisfaction.  It was
costly—but what of that?—it satisfied me.  These are
the results: Hôtel du Cerf—three decimal two of
sulphuretted hydrogen, two decimal eight of malarious
matter, one, no decimal, of typhoidal germ.  Hôtel de
la Couronne d'Or—three decimal one of sulphuretted
hydrogen, five decimal three of compound fermenting
putrifio-bacteritic stuff.  Hôtel du Grand Prince—eight
decimal one of diphtheritic effluvium, occasional
traces of scarlet-fever germs, and a trace—a trace of
trichinus spiralis.'

'Good heavens!'—his lordship turned livid—'allow
me, sir, to shake your hand; you have conferred on
me a lasting favour.  I shall not forget it.  I was
bound for the Hôtel du Grand Prince.  What about
the Impérial?'

'Nothing—all salubrious, mountain air charged with
ozone, and not a particle of deleterious matter in it.'

'I shall certainly go there—most certainly.  I had
telegraphed to the Grand Prince; but, never mind, I
had rather pay a forfeit and put up at the Imperial.'

'Would you mind, my lord, giving my card to the
proprietor?  It will ensure you receiving every
attention.  I was there when ill, and am pleased to
recommend the attentive manager.  My name is
Yeo—Colonel Yeo—Colonel Beaple Yeo, East India
Company Service, late of the Bombay Heavy Dragoons.
Heavies we were called—Heavies, my lord.'

'Will you excuse me?' said the stout little
nobleman; 'I must run and speak to my lady.  'Pon my
word, this is most serious.  I must tell her all you
have been so good as to communicate to me.  What
were the statistics relative to the Grand Prince?'

'Eight decimal one—call it eight of diphtheritic
effluvium, traces of scarlet-fever germs, and of trichinus
spiralis.  You know, my lord, how frightful, how
deadly, are the ravages of that pest.'

'Bless me!' exclaimed his lordship, 'these
foreigners—really they should not attempt to draw
English—Englishmen and their families to their health resorts
without making proper provisions in a sanitary way.
Of course, for themselves, it doesn't matter; they are
foreigners, and are impervious to these influences; or,
if not, and carried off by them—well, they are
foreigners!  But to English—it is outrageous!  I'll
talk to my lady.'

'Lambert,' said Mrs. Sidebottom in a low tone to
her son, 'for goodness' sake don't forget; we must
go to the Hôtel Impérial.'

But low as she had spoken, her neighbour in the
light suit heard her, turned round and saw her.  Not
the least abashed, he raised his hat, and with a flush
of pleasure exclaimed, 'Ah! how do you do, my dear
madam—my dear, dear madam?  This is a treat—a
treat indeed; the unexpected is always doubly
grateful.'  He looked round to see that his lordship
was out of hearing, and then said in a lower tone,
'You misconstrued me—you misinterpreted me.  I
had guaranteed you fifteen per cent., and fifteen per
cent. you should have had.  If you have lost it, it is
through want of confidence in me—in me—in Colonel
Beaple Yeo, of the Bombay Heavies.  Had you
trusted me—but ah! let bygones be bygones.
However, an explanation is due.  I writhe under the
imputation of not being above-board and
straight—straight as an arrow.  But what can you do with a
man like Mr. Philip Pennycomequick?  The land-owners
at Bridlington got wind of the plan.  They
scented Iodinopolis.  Their greed was insatiable, they
demanded impossible prices.  There was nothing for
it but for me to beat a retreat, make a strategic move
to the rear, feign to abandon the whole thing, throw
it up and turn my attention elsewhere.  Then, when
they were in a state of panic, my design was to
reappear and buy the land on my own terms, not any
more on theirs.  Why, my dear madam, I would have
saved the shareholders thousands on thousands of
pounds, and raised the interest from perhaps a modest
seven to twenty-five per cent., and a decimal or so
more.  But I was not trusted, the money confined to
me was withdrawn, and others will make fortunes
instead of us.  I schemed, others will carry out my
scheme.  *Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes*, and you
know the rest, *aratis boves*, and so on.'

Then Beaple Yeo stood up and handed his card to
Mrs. Sidebottom, saying, 'You will at least do me this
favour; give my card to the proprietor of the Hôtel
Impérial, and he will care for you as for a princess of
the blood royal.'  Then he stalked away.

Mrs. Sidebottom turned dejectedly to her son.
'Lamb, I believe I was premature.  After all, there
was management in that affair.  Of course his was
the right way to bring those landowners to their knees.
Let us take a turn.'

Beaple Yeo had now attached himself to another
party of strangers—tourists, whose acquaintance he
had probably made at an hotel in Lucerne; and he
walked the deck with them.  When they were fore,
then Mrs. Sidebottom and her son were in the rear,
but when they turned on their heels, then she turned
also and walked aft, and heard their conversation
during that portion of the walk.  The subject was
St. Bernard dogs, and apparently Beaple Yeo had some
scheme connected with them, which he was propounding.

'My dear sirs—when the St. Gothard tunnel is
complete—answer me—what will become of the hospice?
To what use can it be put?  It will be sold for a song,
as not a traveller will cross the mountain when he can
pass under it.  For a song—literally for a "song of
sixpence."  Now, can you conceive of a place more
calculated by nature as a nursery of Mount St. Bernard
dogs—and the necessary buildings given away—given
for nothing, to save them from crumbling into ruin?
There is a demand, a growing demand for Mount
St. Bernard dogs, that only wants a little coaxing to
become a perfect *furore*.  We will send one as a present
to her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales.  We
will get in France an idea that the St. Bernard dog is
a badge of the Republic, and that all true Republicans
are bound to have Mount St. Bernard dogs.  We will
get some smart writers in America to dash off some
sparkling articles in the illustrated magazines, and the
demand becomes furious.  Say the population of
France is thirty-seven millions; actually it is more,
and of these, two thirds—say twenty-five millions—are
Republicans, and of these, one half are in a
position to buy Mount St. Bernard dogs, and we fan
the partisan fever to a height, by means of the press,
which is easily done by dropping a few pounds into
the hands of writers and proprietors.  Say that
one-third only of those in a position to buy the dogs,
actually ask for them—that makes five millions of
Mount St. Bernard dogs to be supplied to France
alone.  Then consider England, if it becomes the
fashion there, and it will become the fashion, if the
Princess of Wales accepts a dog from us, and walks
about with one.  Every lady of distinction, and then,
in the next year, every servant-girl, will want a
St. Bernard dog.  And further—I have calculated that
we can feed a dog at less than three farthings a day;
say the total cost is a guinea.  I have made inquiries
and I find I shall be able to buy up the broken meat
at a very low figure from the great hotels of
Switzerland during the season.  This will be conveyed to the
hospice and there frozen.  So it will keep and be
doled out to the dogs daily, as required.  Let us say
that the interest on the outlay in purchasing the
hospice and in maintaining the staff of dog-keepers
be one guinea per dog; that makes the total outlay
two guineas on each pup, and a pup a year old we
shall not sell under ten pounds.  Now calculate the
profit for yourself—eight pounds a dog, and four
millions supplied to France alone to enthusiasts for
the Republic, and quite two millions to England to those
who imitate her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales,
and seven millions to the United States for Americans
who copy French or English fashions, and you have a
total of thirteen millions of dogs at eight pounds each,
a clear profit of one hundred and twenty-five millions.
If we put the matter in decimals——'

The party turned and were before Mrs. Sidebottom.
She could not hear what followed.

'My dear Lamb,' whispered she, 'did you hear
that?  What a chance!  What a head the colonel has!'

At the next revolution Mrs. Sidebottom heard
something more about the dog scheme.

'You see, gentlemen, the splendid thing is that the
dogs suffer from pulmonary complaints when in the
plains, and will not breed away from the eternal
snows—two great advantages to us.  Shares—preference
shares at ten pounds—are to be subscribed in full,
others as called in at intervals of six months.  I
myself guarantee fifteen per cent., but as you see for
yourselves, gentlemen, the scheme cannot fail to
succeed and the profits will be overwhelming.'

'Are you going on to Andermatt?' asked one of
the gentlemen walking with Beaple Yeo.

'No, sir, I have had a bad attack; you can see the
traces in my face.  I will also show you my watch,
how it was blackened.  I have been ordered by my
medical advisers to cruise up and down the lake of the
Five Cantons, and inhale the air off the water till I
am thoroughly restored.  By the way, if you are going
to the Hôtel Impérial at Andermatt would you take
my card to the proprietor?  He is interested about
the dogs.'

Beaple Yeo now crossed the deck to a party that
was clustered together at the bulwarks with an opera
glass that was passed from hand to hand.  It
consisted of a tall man with a broad-brimmed hat, bushy
black whiskers, a white tie and clerical coat, his wife,
his sister, and five daughters.  A comfortable
religiosity surrounded the group as a halo.

Beaple Yeo raised his hat.  'Beg pardon, sir, a
clergyman?'

'Yes, I am.'

'And a dean, doubtless.  You will excuse my
interrupting you, but I have ventured here thinking you
might like to know about a very remarkable movement
after the Truth in Italy, in the heart and centre
of ignorance and superstition.  Count Caprili is the
leading spirit.  It is no use, sir, as no doubt you are
aware, pulling at the leaves and nipping the
extremities of the Upas, you must strike at the root,
and that is what my dear friend Count Caprili is
doing.  He is quite an evangelist, inspired with the
utmost enthusiasm.  I have here a letter from him
descriptive of the progress the Truth is making in
Rome—in Rome itself.  It is in Italian; do you
read Italian, sir?'

'N—no, but, mother, can you?' to his wife.

'No, but Minny has learned it'—of a daughter, who
reddened to the roots of her fair hair and allowed that
if it were in print she might make it out.

'Never mind,' said Beaple Yeo, or Colonel Yeo as
he now called himself, 'I can give you the contents in
a few words.  A year ago his little congregation
numbered twenty, it now counts one hundred and
eighty-five, and at times even a couple of decimals more.
At this rate he reckons that the whole of the Eternal
City will have embraced the Truth in twenty-five
years and two months, unless the eagerness to embrace
it grows in geometrical instead of arithmetical
progression.  In Florence and Turin the increase is even
more rapid.  Indeed, it may fairly be said that
Superstition is undermined, and that the whole fabric will
collapse.  Between ourselves I know as a fact that the
Pope when he heard of the success of Count Caprili
attempted to commit suicide, and has to be watched
day and night, he is such a prey to despair.  You
have perhaps seen my letters to the Archbishop of
Canterbury on the subject; they appeared in some of
the papers.  Only one thing is needed to crown the
whole movement with success, and that is money.
The Count has urged me to act as his intermediary—secretary
and treasurer—as regards England and
America, and I shall be most happy to forward to him
any contributions I may receive.'

'Dear me,' said the dean, 'this is most interesting.
Have any of our bishops taken up the matter?'

'In letters that I have they express the deepest
interest in it.'

'I shall be most happy to subscribe a sovereign,'
said the dean, fumbling in his purse.

'And I also,' said his wife.

'And I as well,' put in his sister.

'I will note all in my book of contributions,' said
Yeo, receiving the money, and finding to his disgust
that he had been given twenty-franc, instead of
twenty-shilling pieces.  'Would you mind, sir, if you go
to—as I take it for granted you will—if you go to the
Hôtel Impérial——'

'Ah! we were going to the Cerf.'

'That is a very third-rate inn, hardly suitable for a
dignitary of the Church.  But if you will take my
card, Beaple Yeo, of the Bombay Heavies, to the
proprietor of the Hôtel Impérial, he will treat you
well, and be reasonable in his charges.  He is most
interested in the movement of Signor Caprili,
and is a convert, but secretly; ask him about the
movement, and he will open to you; show him
my card, and he will confide his religious views
to you.'

'I am most obliged.  We will certainly go to the
Imperial.  Ah, mamma! here we are at the landing-place.'

As Mrs. Sidebottom left the boat at the station
which she called Flue-ellen, she held out her hand to
Colonel Yeo.

'I hope bygones will be bygones,' she said.  'I
will take some shares in the St. Bernard
dogs—preference shares, please.'





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.. _`IN HÔTEL IMPÉRIAL`:

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   CHAPTER XXXVIII.


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   IN HÔTEL IMPÉRIAL.

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Salome had found her sister at the Imperial Hotel
at Andermatt.  Janet was one of those persons whose
bodily condition varies with their spirits.  When
depressed, she looked and indeed felt ill; when happy,
she looked and felt as if nothing were the matter with
her.  Janet had been greatly tried by the double
shocks of her husband's death and the discovery of
her parentage.  She had been taken into the secret
because it could not be kept from her, when the man
Schofield, *alias* Beaple Yeo, suddenly arrived at
Mergatroyd, just after the flood and the disappearance of
Jeremiah Pennycomequick, at the time when she was
sharing her mother's room instead of Salome.

Mrs. Cusworth at that time was in great distress of
mind at the loss of her master and friend; and when
her brother-in-law, the father of the two girls whom
she had brought up as her own, unexpectedly appeared
and asked for money and clothing, she confided her
difficulty to Janet, and between them they managed
to bribe him to depart and leave them in peace.
Mrs. Cusworth had sacrificed a large slice out of her savings
to secure his departure, and trusted thereby to get
rid of him for ever.

When Janet returned to France, she found everything
in confusion; the factory at Elboeuf was stopped, the
men who had been employed in it had assumed arms
against the Germans, and were either shot, taken
captive, or dispersed.  Her sister-in-law was almost off
her head with excitement and alarm for her children,
three girls just out of school.  Prussian officers had
been quartered in her house, and had carried off some
of her valuables, and ransacked the cellar for the best
wines.

Janet had caught cold that night in the train when
it was delayed by the flood, on the way to Mergatroyd,
and it had settled on her chest, and left a
cough that she could not shake off.  Anxiety and
worry had told on her joyous disposition, and deprived
it of its elasticity.  She gave way to discouragement.
Her husband's affairs were unsettled, and could not
be put to rights till the war and the results of the war
were over, and the current of ordinary business
commenced its sober, even flow.

She had been ordered to Mentone for the winter,
and then to spend the summer high up in the Alps,
where the air was pure and bracing.  She had come,
accordingly, to Andermatt, and her sister-in-law had
sent her three school-girl daughters to be with her; to
look after her, Madame Labarte had said; to be looked
after by her, Janet found was expected.  They were
nice enough girls, with simple minds, but it was a
responsibility imposed on Janet at a time when she
required complete relaxation from care.

At Andermatt the fresh air was rapidly restoring
Janet to her normal condition of cheerfulness, and was
giving her back the health she lacked, when her father
arrived, impecunious, of course, and let her understand
that he had come there to be supported by her, and to
get out of her what he could.  It would have been
bad enough to have this dreadful man there posing as
her father had she been alone.  It was far worse with
the three girls, her nieces, under her charge, and in her
dismay she had a relapse, and wrote off to Salome an
agonizing entreaty to come to her aid.

Janet had been left comfortably off, but till her
husband's affairs were settled it was not possible for
her to tell what her income would really amount to.
The factory was again working, a competent overlooker
had been found, and a suitable working partner taken
into the firm to carry it on.  In all probability Madame
Baynes would be very well off, but at present she had
not much ready money at her disposal.

Mr. Schofield, or Colonel Yeo, as he pleased to call
himself now, was a different-looking man at this time
to the wretched object who had presented himself at
Mergatroyd, asking for clothing and cash, rather more
than a year ago—indeed, eighteen months ago.  He
was well dressed, trim, held himself erect, and
assumed a military air and some pomposity, as though
the world were going well with him.  He had carried
away a little, but only a very little, of the plunder
from Bridlington, and he knew very well that what
he had would not last him long.  It was satisfactory
to have a well-to-do daughter to fall back on, whose
purse he could dip his fingers into when they itched.
But Beaple Yeo could not be idle.  He had an active
mind and a ready invention, and he began operations
on his own account, partly as tout on the lake
steamers for the Hôtel Impérial at Andermatt, receiving
a fee for every tourist he sent to it, and partly
by his speculations in dogs and missionaries.  Janet
would have run away from Andermatt, but for the
three encumbrances, whom it would not have been
easy to move to a secret and precipitate flight
without explanations to them or their mother—explanations
which would have been awkward; moreover,
she feared that it would be unavailing, as her father
could easily discover the way she had gone and follow
her.  There were only three passes in addition to the
road up from Amsteg by which she could leave, and
it would not be possible for her to depart by any of
these routes unknown to Colonel Yeo.  Her first
alarm and uneasiness abated when he took himself
off to tout on the lake; and she resolved on remaining
where she was till Salome came and gave her advice
what course to pursue.

Salome decided that it was the best policy to
remain where they were, and not attempt flight.
She saw that her sister was suffering, and she
determined to remain with her, to protect and comfort her,
and await what the future had in store for herself.
She naturally felt a great longing to be at home with
her baby, but at the same time she recognised that
the situation at home was not tolerable, that some
change must take place before she could return to
Mergatroyd.

One day, Colonel Yeo was in the *salle-à-manger* at
the Hôtel Impérial preparing for *table d'hôte*, when a
lady entered, well dressed, dark haired, with fine eyes,
and swept up the room towards an alcove where were
small tables, at which either a party sat that desired
to be alone, or tourists not intending to dine at *table
d'hôte* but *à la carte*.  She walked slowly, with a
certain dignity, and attracted all eyes.  Every head
was turned to observe her, and her eyes, in return,
passed over as mustering and apprising those who
occupied their seats at the table.  She accepted the
homage of interest she excited, as though it were her
own.

What was her age?  She had arrived at that
period of life at which for some time a woman stands
still—she was no girl, and no one could say that she
was *passée*.

'Waiter!' called Colonel Yeo.

'Yes, sir—in a minute, sir.'

'Who is that lady in the gray dress with red trimmings?'

'Gray dress, sir?  The stout lady with the little
husband?'

'Nonsense, that distinguished lady—young—there
at the table in the alcove.'

'Yes, sir—don't know, sir.  Will inquire.'

Off skipped the waiter to carry round the soup, and
forgot to inquire.

'Waiter!' called Colonel Yeo to another, the head
*garçon*.  'Who is that prepossessing young lady,
yonder?'

'Lady, sir?  Don't know her name—I have seen
her often everywhere, at Homburg, Baden-Baden, Milan.'

'What is she?'

'Do you mean of what nation, sir?—I believe
American.  Said to be very rich—worth millions.'

'Worth millions!' echoed Colonel Yeo.  'Can I
change my seat and get near her?'

During dinner Colonel Yeo could not keep his eyes
off her.

'Worth millions, and so good-looking!'  Which
would interest her most—his dogs or his
missionaries?—or could she be interested in himself?

He called for champagne.  He put one arm over
the back of his chair, held his champagne-glass in the
other hand, and half turned, looked hard at the lady.
She observed his notice of her, and their eyes met.
Her eyes said as distinctly as eyes can speak, 'Look
at me as much as you will, I expect to be admired, I
do not object to be admired, I freely afford to all who
take pleasure in beautiful objects the gratification of
contemplating me.  But who are you?'

'Waiter,' said Beaple Yeo, calling the head garçon,
'if—by chance that lady wants to know who I am—just
say that I am Colonel Yeo, of the Bengal Heavies—a
claimant for the Earldom of Schofield.'

At a table near that occupied by the lady sat
Salome, Janet, and the three young girls Labarte.
An arrangement had been come to with Yeo that
he was not to associate with them, to hold aloof, and
to receive money for doing this.  He had got what
he could, or could for the time being, out of his
daughter Janet, and was therefore inclined to devote
his energies to new arrivals.

'*Garçon*,' called the lady in gray and red.

'*De suite, m'selle*.'

'Who is that gentleman yonder, drinking champagne?'

'M'selle, the colonel! *c'est un milord*.'

'English?'

'But certainly.'

'Rich?'

'Rich! the colonel! rich!  *Mon Dieu*!  *C'est un
milord Anglais*!'

'Is he staying here long?'

'Ah, m'selle!  Where else could he stay?  All the season.'

'What is his title?'

'*Mon Dieu*!  I can't say—*Scoville*?  *Scoville*?  But
yes, an earl—Comte de Scoville, I believe, m'selle.'

'Waiter—should he or anyone else inquire who I am,
say an American—a millionaire, as I told you before.'

'He has already asked,' said the waiter, with a
knowing look.

In the alcove where the lady sat at a table by
herself was also a larger table, as already said, occupied
by Janet and her party, and the lady in gray and red
attracted the attention of the girls.  These three girls
were much alike; they ranged in age from sixteen to
nineteen, had dark eyes and fresh cheeks, looked a
mixture of English and French blood, and though
they spoke English with their aunt and Salome, they
spoke it with a foreign accent, and when they talked
to each other naturally fell into French.

They were not beautiful, were undeveloped girls
without much character apparently.  The strange
lady evidently exercised their minds, and they looked
a good deal at her, and passed low remarks to each
other concerning her.  Their curiosity was roused,
and when she was not at her place they searched the
visitors' book for her name, and for some information
about her.

'*Ma tante*,' pleaded the eldest, 'which do you
think she is of all these on this page?'

'*Mais*, Claudine, how can I tell?'

'Oh!  *Ma tante*, do ask the waiter.'

'But why, Claudine?  She does not interest me.'

'Oh, we are so puzzled about her; she looks so
aristocratic and dresses so well, and has so many
changes.  She must employ a Parisian milliner.  Oh,
we do wish we knew where she got that charming
walking-dress of gray and gold.'

'*Garçon!*'  Janet Baynes called a waiter.  'Who is
the lady who sits at this little table here?'

'Madame—a rich American, a millionaire, of New York.'

'A millionaire!'

The heads of the young ladies went together, and
as the lady entered all their eyes watched her with
eagerness—so beautiful, so distinguished-looking, so
wealthy.

'What is her name, waiter?'

'Mademoiselle Du Rhame.'

'A French name?'

'Ah, madame, it stands there in the visitor's book,'
and he pointed to Artemisia Durham, Chicago, U.S.A.

It was not possible for the American lady to fail to
observe the interest she excited in the young girls.
She saw their heads go together, then fly apart when
she appeared; at table she caught their dark eyes
watching her, and when they saw that they were
noticed, away flew their eyes like scared birds.  Miss
Durham condescended to look at the girls with a half
smile; she did not object to their admiration, and
she did not court it.

What was more remarkable than the interest
awakened in those children was that which she
certainly aroused in Salome.  There was a something, a
mystery, a fascination in the woman that held Salome
and drew her towards the stranger.  She felt that this
woman was her reverse in every particular, a woman
with experience and knowledge of the world, with a
power of making herself agreeable when she chose,
and to whomsoever she chose.  Salome had spent her
life in a very narrow sphere, had made few acquaintances,
had not had wide interests, and though she
was well educated, had no extended range of ideas.
Her position had ever been uncertain; she had been
neither a member of the lower artisan class, nor
accepted as an equal by those belonging to the upper
class—that is, the employing class in Mergatroyd.
Her mother had been housekeeper to Mr. Pennycomequick,
and consequently she had not been
received as a lady by such as regarded themselves as
the ladies of Mergatroyd—the manufacturers' wives
and daughters, and those of the doctor, and the
solicitor, and the parson.  This ambiguity of position
had in one manner made her strong and independent
in character, but in another, timid and reserved.
Where she knew she had duties to perform, there she
acted without hesitation; but in social matters, in
everything connected with life in the cultured world,
with its fashions and etiquettes, she was doubtful
and uncomfortable.  She was now in the presence of
a woman who moved with self-consciousness and
assurance in that very sphere in which Salome was
bewildered; consequently she watched Miss Durham
with wonder, interest, and a desire to know her, and
wrest her secret from her.  That she was a good
woman and worth knowing, deserving of confidence
and regard, Salome never doubted.  Guileless herself,
she believed everyone else to be without guile.

When Janet Baynes thought that the girls had
been too forward, almost discourteous in staring at
the stranger, she looked apologetically at Miss
Durham, who met the look with a smile that said,
plainly as words, 'Allow them to stare at me—it
amuses them and does not hurt me—they may profit
by a study of me.  Queens of beauty, of fashion, or
of wealth expect to be looked at.'  Then Mrs. Baynes
smiled in reply, and her smile said, 'Indeed, I cannot
wonder at these girls admiring you, for you are
deserving of admiration.'

Whether this conversation of glances would have
gone any further may be doubted, had it not been
that the French-speaking waiter who had attended
on the ladies, disappeared.  Whether he was taken
ill, or whether, caught doing wrong, he had been
dismissed, or whether he had been enticed elsewhere by
a higher wage, nobody knew and nobody cared to
ask.  Waiters are no more thought about by guests
than are the mules and horses employed on
expeditions.  He was succeeded by a German, or
German-Swiss who could not speak French, and only an
unintelligible English; and the demoiselles Labarte
and Madame Baynes on principle would not have
asked for a bit of bread in German had they known
how to do so.  Salome knew little or no German,
and the ladies were in difficulties.  Claudine was out
of sorts—somewhat feverish, but nothing serious—and
her aunt advised that she should drink *orgeat*
instead of wine.  The waiter was puzzled.  '*Ach! eine
Drekorgel.  Freilich, freilich, bestelle gleich,*' and
he rushed off to find an organ-grinder with a
marmot.

Then Miss Durham good-naturedly interfered,
allayed the wrath of the ladies at the inherent
Teutonic stupidity which never can do right, and ordered
what was really required.

The *orgeat* broke the ice, conversation began, and
next day the American lady was seated at the same
table as the Labartes, with Salome and Janet.  It
would be impossible for the latter to get on with the
stupid, stubborn German waiter, unassisted by
someone who was able to speak and understand the
language of barbarians.  At first there was but the
exchange of ordinary courtesies, but now that the
three girls were able to speak to the stranger, they
hardly contained their attentions within ordinary
bounds; they rivalled each other who should gain
pre-eminent favour with the lady who wore such
charming toilettes.

The girls were triumphant; they had formed the
acquaintance; that was the one advantage that grew
out of a German waiter.  Salome was pleased she could
now learn of this brilliant accomplished woman; and
Janet was satisfied because she was feeling dull herself,
and wanted a lively companion to relieve the tedium.

Miss Durham had plenty to say for herself.  She
was clever, amusing, interesting.  She had seen much
of the world—knew most watering-places, baths, and
health-resorts in Europe.  The meals, which had
passed somewhat heavily before, now became gatherings
full of liveliness.  Janet brisked up, felt better
in health and looked quite well, proposed excursions
and schemed picnics.  The whole party now found so
much to talk about that they were reluctant to leave
the table.  Suddenly a pallor and tremor came over
Mrs. Baynes.  She looked up.  Beaple Yeo was
standing, white hat in hand, with the puggaree trailing
on the floor, near the table.

'I take the liberty,' he said; 'introduce me.'

Janet looked at Salome, and Salome at Janet.

'I see,' said Yeo; 'my relatives are in doubt how
to introduce me whilst my claim is being presented
in the Upper House.  Call me Colonel Yeo, of the
Bengal Heavy Dragoons.  Hang my title!  I shall
find the coronet heavy enough when it is fitted to my
brow; the eight pearls—eight pearls; and as many
strawberry-leaves—strawberry-leaves.  I will not
assume my title till it is adjudged to me by the
House of Lords.  You know your history of
England.  The attainder was for rebellion, and I now
reassert my claim to the Earldom of Schofield.'

'And I,' said the American lady, 'am Artemisia
Durham, of Chicago.'





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   CHAPTER XXXIX.


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   TWO WOMEN.

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'You will excuse me, I know you will,' said Yeo,
looking from one to another, but especially at the
American, 'but I have just been informed that there
are chamois visible on a mountain shoulder, high,
high, high up—and as there is an excellent
telescope—a telescope—outside, I thought I would make so
bold as to interrupt an animated conversation to bring
to your notice this interesting fact.'

'Thank you—I do not wish to see chamois,' said
Salome slowly and coldly.

'Nor I—I do not care to expose myself to the sun,'
said Janet.

'Oh, aunt! oh, aunt!  But they are so shy, so
rare!' from the three Labarte girls.

'Really, for my part,' said Miss Durham, 'I am
curious to see them.  Though I have been before in
the Alps I have never had the good fortune——'

'Then allow me to conduct you!' exclaimed Colonel
Yeo gallantly.

'Thank you, sir, I can find the telescope myself,'
answered the American lady.  Then, to her
companions: 'You will excuse my running off.  I really
am desirous of seeing chamois.'

She sailed through the *salle-à-manger*, with Beaple
Yeo prancing after her, hat in hand, and puggaree
waving.  The Labartes looked at their aunt pleadingly.

'Very well, girls; if you wish, go after Miss
Durham,' and away scampered the three.

'Oh, Salome!' sighed Janet, 'I cannot bear him!
He promised not to interfere with us.'

Salome sighed also.  'We must bear with him a
little longer.  He will find this place dull and take
himself off.'

'But, Salome, what does he mean about being Earl
of Schofield?  About the pearls and strawberry-leaves?'

'Money—of course—always money.'

'I wish I had not let the girls go after him—to the
telescope.'

'It is a pity—but Miss Durham is there.'

'Yes, and with her they are safe.  You like her?'

'I admire her.  I think I like her.  If I were a man
I should fall madly in love with her, but——'

'But what, Salome?'

'My dear, I don't know.'

In the meantime Beaple Yeo was adjusting the
telescope, peering through it, and pressing on Miss
Durham to look just at one point.  'Ah! quick—before
they move.'  Then asking if the sight were
right, peering again, wiping the lens with his silk
handkerchief, and finally when either the chamois
had disappeared, or the focus could not be got right,
abandoning the telescope altogether to the three
girls.

'One, two, three churches here,' said Mr. Yeo.
'And one a pilgrimage chapel.  You have perhaps
seen some friars in snuff-coloured habits prowling
about.  Shocking, is it not?  Signor Caprili—you
have heard of the extraordinary efforts he is making
to spread the Truth, the naked Truth—I mean, I beg
pardon, the unvarnished Truth.  Are you interested
in missionary enterprise?'

'Not in the least.  Superstition is charmingly
picturesque.  How gracefully those towers and spires
stand out against the mountains!  And that chapel
perched on a rock.  I would not have it abolished for
the world.  We have not such things in America—we
come to the Old World to see them.'

'Then, perhaps dogs,' said Yeo.  'You are interested
in Mount St. Bernard dogs, and would, no doubt, like
to introduce one across the ocean to your
fellow-countrywomen.  Magnificent creatures, and so noble
in character!  How their heroism, their self-sacrifice,
their generosity, stand out in contrast with our petty
human vices!  Verily I think we might with
advantage study the dog.  I do not mind confiding to you,
madam, that a colossal scheme is on foot for the
establishment of an emporium of these noble creatures,
and that money only is needed to float it.'

'I assure you,' said Miss Durham, 'I am not in the
least interested in dogs.'

'Not as a speculation?'

'Not even as a speculation.

Beaple Yeo was silenced.

'Excuse me,' said Miss Durham, 'you were saying
something about strawberry-leaves—the wild Alpine
strawberry is delicious.'

'Oh! you misunderstand me,' said Yeo, elevating
himself to his full height, removing his hat, shaking
the puggaree, and putting on his hat again; 'I was
alluding to the coronet of an earl to which I lay
claim.'

'Then you are not an earl yet?'

'I am not one, and yet I am one.  The earldom of
Schofield was attaindered—attaindered at the Jacobite
rebellion.  My great-grandfather took the wrong side
and suffered accordingly—suffered ac—cor—ding—ly.
The attainder was but for a while.  Preston Pans was
1745; Culloden, 1746, April the sixteenth, and my
great-grandfather's attainder next year, attainder for
one hundred and twenty-five years—which lapses this
year, one eight seven two.  The earldom is secure—I
have but to take it up—to take it up; in other words
resume it, and Beaple Yeo is Earl Schofield.'

Salome and Janet appeared to call the three girls
to them, and were a little surprised to find the colonel
and the American young lady already on intimate
terms.  They were seated on a bench, side by side,
and Colonel Yeo was gesticulating with his hand, and
whisking his puggaree in explanation of the Schofield
peerage claim; was following the genealogical tree on
the palm of one hand with the finger of the other; was
waving away objections with his hat, and clenching
arguments by clapping both hands on his knees.  He
was a man so richly endowed by nature with
imagination that he could not speak the truth.  There are
such men and women in the world—to whom romance
and rhodomontade is a necessity, even when no object
is to be gained by saying what is not true.  Some
people embroider on a substratum of fact, but Beaple
Yeo; and others of the like kidney, spin the threads
and then weave their own canvas out of their own
fancies, and finally embroider thereon as imagination
prompts.

Darkness set in, that night as on every other, and
most of the tourists had retired to bed, wearied with
their walks and climbs, and those tarrying at
Andermatt had also gone into the uncomfortable
Swiss-German beds, tired with having nothing to do.  Only
two were awake, in separate wings of the hotel.  One
was Salome, the other the American stranger.

Salome had two candles lighted on the table, and
had been writing to Philip.  She sat now, looking
through the open window at the starry sky, with pen
in hand, uncertain how to continue her letter.  She
wrote to her husband every few days, and expected
from him, what she received without fail, letters
informing her of the health and progress of the baby.
His letters were formal and brief.  When about to
write he visited the nursery, inquired whether there
were particulars to be sent to Mrs. Pennycomequick,
and wrote verbatim the report of the nurse.  Salome
had, indeed, only received two letters, and the last had
surprised and overwhelmed her.  It contained news of
the reappearance of Mr. Jeremiah.  Her delight had
been exceeding; its excess was now passed, and she
sat wondering what would be the result of this return
on the fortunes of Philip, and on their relations to
each other.  Philip's letter had been silent on both
these points.  He merely stated that his uncle had
returned, was in robust health, and added a brief
account of the circumstances of his escape and
recovery.  Not a word in his letter about his desire to
see her again, not a hint that he was ready to forgive
the wrong unintentionally done him.  Both letters
were stiff and colourless as if they had been business
epistles, and many tears had they called from Salome's
eyes.

Very different were her letters to him.  Without
giving utterance to her love, every line showed that
her heart yearned for her husband, her baby, and for
home.  She wrote long letters, hoping to interest him
in what she and her sister were about; she described
the scenery, the novel sights, the flowers—she even
enclosed two forget-me-nots with a wish that he would
lay one on her baby's lips.  She made no allusion to
the past, and she did not tell him of her present
trouble with Beaple Yeo, her father.  She shrank
from informing him that the man he hated was at
Andermatt, the terror and distress of her sister and
herself.  She had written a letter to Uncle Jeremiah,
to enclose in that to her husband, and in that was not
an expression which could lead him to imagine that
her husband was estranged from her.  She left this
note open, that Philip might look at it if he pleased,
before delivering it.  She had broken off in the midst
of her letter to Philip to write this, and now she
resumed the writing to her husband.  She was
describing the hotel guests, and had come to an account
of the Chicago heiress.  She had written about her
beauty, her eyes, her carriage, her reputed wealth,
only her dresses she did not describe, she knew they
would not interest a man.  Then she proceeded to
give some account of her qualities of mind and heart,
and thereat her pen was stayed.  She knew nothing
of either.  She had imagined a good deal—but
positively had no acquaintance with the lady on which to
form an opinion.

What was there in the lady that so fascinated her?
She was attracted to her, she felt the profoundest
admiration for her—and yet she was unable to explain
the reason of the attraction.  It was the consciousness
that in this stranger were faculties, experiences,
knowledge she had not—it was an admiration bred
of wonder.  She had no ambition to be like her, and
she was not envious of her—but she almost worshipped
her, because she was strong in everything that she,
Salome, was weak.  That she was, or might be weak
in everything wherein Salome was strong never
occurred to her humble mind.  Then, still holding
her pen, and still looking dreamily into the night sky,
Salome passed in thought to her own situation,
rendered doubly difficult by her father having
attached himself to her sister.  She could not desert
Janet under the circumstances.  She must be at her
side to protect her from his rapacity and insolence.
And yet she yearned with all the hunger of a mother's
heart for her baby, that she might clasp it to her and
cover its innocent face and hands and feet with kisses.
And Philip——.  She loved him also, with the calm
unimpassioned love that springs out of duty.  She
had liked him since first she saw him, and the liking
had developed into love—a quiet, homely love, without
hot fire in it, and yet a true, steady, honest love.
She could not believe that her husband mistrusted
her assurance that she had not knowingly deceived
him.  She did not know which was the most potent
force acting on his mind—hatred of the man who was
her father and anger at being unwittingly brought
into relationship with him, or dread of the scandal
that might come of the knowledge of the relationship.
She had no confidence that her father would not
become again involved in some disgraceful fraud
which would bring his name before the public; and
this dread, of course, must weigh on Philip as well.
Beaple Yeo had already attempted to express money
out of her.  She was the wife of a rich Yorkshire
manufacturer, and Janet was the widow of a rich
Normandy manufacturer.  He looked upon both as
squeezable persons, only at first his efforts to squeeze
had been directed upon Janet, who had not a husband
to oppose him.  Salome, however, saw that he would
not be at rest till he had extorted money from Philip
through her, and the dread of this kept her in
constant unrest.  How—she now asked herself, or the
stars at which she was looking—how would the
return of Jeremiah affect Philip's position and relieve
her of this fear?  If Jeremiah resumed the factory,
then Philip would be no longer wealthy, and a prey
for her father to fall upon.

As she sat thus, thinking and looking at the stars,
so in the furthest wing of the same house was
Artemisia Durham, also thinking and looking at the
stars.  She had extinguished her lights, and stood at
the window.  She was partly undressed, her dark hair
flowed about her shoulders, and her arms were bare.
She had her elbow resting on the window-sill, and her
chin was nestled into her palm, her fingers clenched
on her lips.  Her brows were contracted into a scowl.
The face was no longer set, haughty in its beauty,
and yet with a condescending smile; it was now even
haggard, and over it contending emotions played in
the starlight, altering its expression, unresisted,
undisguised.

She thought of the admiration she had excited in
the schoolgirls, and in their elders, the two ladies in
deep mourning.  A flicker of contempt passed over
her countenance.

What was the admiration of three half-grown girls
to her?  Salome had attracted her notice more than
Janet.  She had observed Salome, whilst unseen by
her, and thought she had made out her character—ordinary,
duty-loving, conscientious, narrow.  A
character of all others most distasteful to Artemisia.
She put her hands to her brow and pressed them about
it.  'So, so,' she muttered.  'To have always an iron
crown screwed tight round the brain.  Insufferable!'

Then she shivered.  The night air was cold in the
Alps at that elevation.  She fetched a light shawl of
Barège wool and wrapped it round her, over her bare
arms, and leaned both elbows of the folded arms on
the window.  Her thoughts again recurred to Salome,
and she tried to scheme out the sort of life that would
commend itself to such as she—a snug English home,
with a few quiet, respectable servants, and a quiet,
respectable gardener; a respectable and quiet husband,
and a pony-trap, in the shafts of which trotted a
quiet and respectable cob; improving magazines and
sober books read in the house; occasional dull parties
given, at which the clergy would predominate, and
sing feeble songs and talk about their parishes; and
then one or two quiet, respectable children would
arrive who would learn their lessons exactly, and
strum on the piano at their scales.  Artemisia's lips
curled with disgust.

Her hands clenched under the shawl, and she
uttered an exclamation of anger and loathing.

And what, she considered, had she herself to look
to?  She gazed dreamily at the stars, and tears rose
in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks.  Then,
ashamed of her weakness, she left the window and
paced her room—up and down, up and down—and it
was as though through the open window, out of the
night, streamed in dark forms, ugly recollections,
uncomfortable thoughts, that crowded the room, filled
every corner, occupied every nook—came in thicker,
and darker, and more horrible, and she went to the
window with a gasp of fear and shut out the night
wind and the gleam of the stars, hoping at the same
time to stop the entry of those haunting memories
and hideous shapes.

The street window would not shut them out; the
room was full of them, and their presence oppressed
her.  She could endure them no more.  She struck a
light and kindled the candles in the room.

What was that on her dressing-table?  Only a
little glass full of wild strawberry-leaves and fruit one
of the admiring Labarte girls had picked and given
to her and insisted on her taking to her room.

Artemisia laughed.  She took the strawberries out
of the water.  She unclasped a necklet that was about
her throat on which were Roman pearls.  She put it
around her head, and thrust the strawberry-leaves in
between the pearls, then looked at herself in the glass
and laughed, and as she laughed all the shadow-figures
and ghostly recollections went tumbling one
over the other out of the room by the keyhole, leaving
her alone laughing, part ironically, part triumphantly,
before the glass, looking at herself in her
extemporized coronet.





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   CHAPTER XL.


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   TWO MEN.

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If Jeremiah Pennycomequick supposed that he could
slip back into the old routine of work without
attracting much attention, and without impediment, he was
quickly undeceived.  His reappearance in Mergatroyd
created a profound sensation.  Everyone wanted to
see him, and everyone had a hearty word of welcome.
He was surprised at the amount of feeling that was
manifested.  He had lived to himself, seen little
society, nevertheless he suddenly discovered that he
had been popular.  Everyone with whom he had been
connected in however small a way respected him, and
showed real pleasure at his return.  The men at the
mill—factory hands—would shake hands again and
yet again, their honest and somewhat dirty faces
shining with good will; the factory girls came about
him with dancing eyes and 'Eh! but ah'm reet fain to
see thee back agin!'  The little tradespeople in
Mergatroyd—the chemist, the baker, the grocer, ran
out of their shops when he passed, to give a word of
congratulation.  The brother manufacturers—those
who had been rivals even—called to see him and
express their pleasure.  The wives also dropped
in—they could not await the chance of seeing him, they
must come to his house and both see the man returned
from the dead, and learn from his own lips why he
had made them all believe he had perished.  To all
he gave the same account—he had been ill, and when
he recovered found that he was already adjudged
dead, and he resolved not to undeceive his relatives
till he had seen how his nephew 'framed'—that is the
word he used—an expressive Yorkshire word that
means the fitting and shaping of a man for a place
new to him.

Near Mergatroyd was a spring of water called
'California.'  It had its origin thus.  The owner of a
field fancied there was coal beneath the surface, and
he hired borers who perforated the several strata that
underlay his turf till they were stopped by the uprush
of water, that played like a fountain for many months
and remained as a permanent spring.  The owner
had made great boast of the fortune he was going to
make out of his coal mine, and when he came on
nothing but water the people nick-named this spring
California.  But it was no ordinary spring; the water
was so charged with gas that when a little match was
held to it, flames flashed, and flickered about it.  The
water was so soft as to be in great request for
tea-making.  'Eh,' said an old woman, 'Californey water
be seah (so) good, tha wants nowt but an owd kettle
and t'water to mak' th' best o' tea.'

It seemed to Jeremiah as if he had tapped a California,
a fountain of sweet, flashing, abounding
affection.  He was moved, flattered by it, and greatly
surprised, for it was wholly unanticipated.  He was
ignorant what he had done to occasion it.

But, indeed, a great deal of genuine regard and
attachment grows imperceptibly about a man who has
lived for a long time in a place without making any
demands on his neighbours; has been just, reliable,
and blameless in life.  All this latent regard now
manifested itself.

Philip was still in the house of his uncle a week
after the reappearance of the latter.  Jeremiah had
not been able to go through the accounts and examine
the condition of the business as thoroughly as he had
intended.  He had been distracted by visitors, and his
mind unsettled by absence and by astonishment and
gratification at the manifestation of good-will provoked
by his return.  He had said nothing more to Philip
about leaving; Philip, however, had been in the little
town inquiring for lodgings, but could find nothing
that would suit.  In that small place it was not usual
for furnished lodgings to be let.  There was indeed a
set of rooms over the baker's, but they were overrun
by cockroaches; at the chemist's were two vacant
rooms, but no accommodation for the nurse and baby.
Then he had to face another difficulty: the nurse was
young and good-looking, and there was no saying
what scandal might be aroused by his migrating to
lodgings with this nurse, if his wife did not return to
him.  At the draper's there were rooms, but they had
a north aspect, and looked cold and damp.  There
was a cottage, unfurnished, he might take, but that
adjoined a shoddy mill, and the atmosphere was
clouded with 'devil's dust,' injurious to the lungs.
Moreover, how could he purchase furniture when he
had no money?  His condition was uncertain, his
prospects undefined, and he shrank from speaking to
his uncle about them till Jeremiah had made his
thorough investigation of the state of the business and
had matured his opinion on Philip's management of
it.  Perhaps, also, Jeremiah had not as yet decided on
what was to be done with regard to his nephew, and
it would be injudicious to press him to a decision.  In
the meantime the uncertainty was distressing to
Philip.

He read his wife's letters with mingled feelings.  He
could decide nothing with respect to her till his own
future was made clear to him.  He still harboured his
resentment against the imposition, and, though he
now no longer thought that Salome had been privy to
it, he could not surmount the repugnance evoked by
the fact of being related to that unprincipled rogue,
Schofield.  He was alive to the danger of such an
alliance.  Schofield was not the man to neglect the
advantages to be gained by having a son-in-law—a
man of character, position and substance.  If Philip
sank to being a mere clerk the fellow would be an
annoyance no more, but as he prospered, and in
proportion as he made his way, gained the respect of
his fellow-men, and enlarged his means, so would his
difficulties with Schofield increase.  The fellow would
be a nuisance to him continually.  If Schofield made
himself amenable to the law, then his own connection
with the daughter of a man in prison or a convict,
would be a reproach and a scandal.  If the scoundrel
were at large, he would be an annoyance from which
he never could hope to shake himself free.

The letters from his wife did not please him.
Clearly Janet was not so ill as had been represented
to him; not so ill as to require her sister there,
especially as she had three nieces with her.  He was
uncomfortable without his wife—he was uncomfortable
because his future was vague, and he associated
the annoyance this caused him with her absence, and
put it, unconsciously, to her account.  He did not
consider what his own conduct had been, and how he
had almost driven her from the house and from her
child, and he found fault with her for deserting him
and the babe so readily on a frivolous excuse.

No doubt Salome was enjoying herself; she was so
full of admiration over the scenery, the flowers, so
struck with the variety of life she met with.  What
did she think of his situation without certain
prospects?  A nice party they formed at Andermatt—the
five ladies—and Janet was well enough to enjoy
excursions.  The efforts Salome made to interest
him annoyed him.  He did not want to be interested;
he resented her taking interest in what she saw.

And then, what about this stranger, this American
lady, travelling by herself, with her pretty becoming
dresses, who had attached herself to the party?  Who
was she?  What were her belongings?  What her
character?  Salome had no right to form a friendship,
hardly an acquaintance, without first consulting
him.  It was very doubtful whether a lady, young
and beautiful, who travelled alone, was a desirable
person to know; it was by no means unlikely that
Salome would find out, when too late, that she had
associated herself, and drawn the three Labarte girls
into acquaintanceship with a woman who ought to be
kept at a distance.  Ladies travelling alone should
invariably be regarded with suspicion.  Ladies never
ought to be alone—unmarried ones, he added hastily,
remembering that he had allowed his own wife to
make the journey to Andermatt unprotected.
Unmarried ladies belong to families, and travel with
their mothers or aunts, or some female relation; if
quite young they go about in flocks with their
governess.  Single ladies!  He shook his head.  Salome
really was inconsiderate.  She acted on impulse,
without thought.  If she had been forced into
conversation with this person she should have maintained
her distance, and next day have contented herself
with a bow, and the day after have been short-sighted,
and not observed her at all.  That was how he had
behaved towards male acquaintances whom he did
not think worth cultivating as friends.  Acquaintances
can always be dropped.  The hand can be rigid when
grasped for a shake, or can be twisting an umbrella,
or be behind the back, or in a pocket.

Salome should have considered in making friends
that there were others to be thought of besides
herself, and that he radically disapproved of
association with persons unattached.

In the last of the three letters he had received from
his wife a whole side had been taken up with description
of the single lady; it was obvious that this
person, whoever she was, had set herself to gain
influence over Salome, whilst Salome, inexperienced,
was unable to resist, and the purpose of the stranger
she did not divine.  He became irritated at the
expressions used by his wife concerning this fascinating
stranger.  He entertained a growing aversion for her.
He was quite sure that she was not a proper person
for Salome to associate with.

He took up the letter, and putting his hands
behind his back, paced the room.  He was thoroughly
out of humour with himself and with his wife, and
as it never occurred to him that he should vent
his dissatisfaction on himself, he poured it out on
Salome.

A tap at the door, and following the tap in came
Jeremiah.

'Look here!' exclaimed the old man as he entered.
'Here is a pretty kettle of fish.  When is Salome
returning?'

'I do not know,' answered Philip stiffly.

'Have you heard from her?'

'I have.'

'And she says nothing about returning?'

'Not a word.  She seems to be enjoying the Alpine
air and scenery—and making friends.'  There was a
tone of bitterness in these last words.

'But—she must return,' said Jeremiah.  'There is
an upset of the whole bag of tricks.  What do you
suppose has happened?'

'I have not the least idea.'

'The cook had fits yesterday; that was why the
dinner was spoiled.  She has fits again to-day, and
there will be no dinner at all.  She has turned the
servants out of the kitchen; they are sitting on the
kitchen stairs, and she is storming within—and—I am
convinced that the fits are occasioned by brandy.  I
sent her some yesterday when I was told she was in
convulsions, and that was adding fuel to fire.  It is a
case of D.T., I fear.  There is a black cat in the
kitchen—or she thinks so, and is hunting it, throwing
kettles and pots and pans at it—has smashed the
windows, and most of the crockery.  The maids are
frightened.  I have sent for the police; come with
me.  We must break open the kitchen door, and
seize and bind the mad creature.'

'It will put us in a somewhat ridiculous position,'
said Philip.  'Had we not better wait till the
constable arrives, and hand her over formally to him?'

'And in the meantime allow her to smash everything
the kitchen contains.  Come on.'

The old man led the way, and Philip, first plucking
at his shirt-collars to make sure they were right,
followed.  They found, as Jeremiah had said, the
servants on the steps that descended to the kitchen.
The nurse was also there.

'How came you here?' asked Philip—'and baby,
too!—is this a place for him?  Go back to the
nursery.'

There was indeed an uproar in the kitchen.  The
cook was as one mad, howling, cursing, dashing about
and destroying everything she could lay hand
on—like the German Polter-geist.

Jeremiah burst the door open, and the two men
entered.

Fortunately for Philip's dignity, the constable
arrived at the same time, and the crazy woman was
without difficulty and disarrangement of Philip's
collars, controlled and conveyed to her bedroom.

As the party of men with their redfaced captive
ascended the steps from the kitchen, Philip caught
sight of the nurse and baby again.  The former had
disobeyed his orders; it was perhaps too much to
expect of her to retire beyond sight of the drama
enacted in the kitchen.  Philip gave her notice to
leave.

'This would never have happened had Salome been
here,' said Jeremiah.  'And this is not all; that
woman has found means of getting to my cellar, and
she has drunk herself into this condition on my best
whisky and brandy.  I have only just discovered the
ravages she has made.'

'I gave you the cellar key.'

'Yes; but she had another that fitted the lock.  I
have had Mrs. Haigh here; she has opened my eyes
to a thing or two.  Are you aware that the parlour-maid
and my traveller Tomkins have been carrying
on pretty fast?  She asked leave to go to a funeral on
Sunday, and went instead with Tomkins to Hollingworth
Lake.  They were seen there together in a boat.'

'There is something wrong,' said Philip, 'something
I do not understand, about the washing.  I do
not know whether any account is kept of what goes
to the wash, but I am quite sure that the wash
consumes as much as it restores.  I am reduced this
week to one pocket-handkerchief.  I cannot
understand it.  If I had had an influenza cold during the
last fortnight I could see some reason for my being
short this week, but conceive the awkwardness of
having only one.  And then my socks.  They come
back full of holes.  I used not to wear them into
great chasms—at least not since I have been here;
now they return as of old when I was in furnished
lodgings—only fit to be employed as floor-cloths.'

'I'll tell you what, Philip.  Salome must return.
I have been told by Mrs. Haigh that she saw your
nursemaid take the baby only yesterday to Browne's
Buildings, and there is scarlet-fever in several of the
cottages there.'

'I have dismissed her.'

'Who?  Salome?'

'No, the nurse.'

'But the mischief is done.  She was there
yesterday.  I do not know how many days it takes for
scarlet-fever to incubate, but that the child will have
it I have very little doubt.  Why, she went into
Rhode's cottage where they have had five down with it,
and two of them died.  The rest are just in that
condition of healing when infection is most to be feared.
I heard this from Mrs. Haigh.'

'Good heavens!'  Philip was frightened.

'Then,' continued Jeremiah, 'I do not suppose you
are aware that Essie, the nursemaid, has been wearing
your wife's jewellery.  She had the audacity to appear
in church on Sunday with a pretty Florentine mosaic
brooch that I gave Salome many years ago.  Mrs. Haigh
saw it and recognised it.'

Philip fidgeted in his chair.  'I see,' said he, 'I
was wrong in not speaking or coughing the other
night, or I might have sneezed, but I lacked the
moral courage.  I felt unwell and had a sick
headache, and without saying anything to anyone I went
to bed immediately after dinner.  I may have been
in bed half an hour and had dozed off when I was
roused by seeing a light.  I opened my eyes and
observed Essie at the dressing-table.  She had come
into the room, not dreaming I was there, and she was
trying on Salome's bonnets, I suppose the best, putting
her head on this side, then on that, and studying the
effect at the glass.  I did not cough or sneeze, as I
ought.  I allowed her to leave the room in ignorance
that she had been seen.  I cannot remember now
whether she went off with the bonnet on her head,
or whether she replaced it.  I did not announce my
presence, because I was in bed, and I thought that
my situation was even less dignified than hers.  But
I see, now, I ought to have coughed or sneezed.'

'Philip, we shall get into an awful muddle unless
Salome returns.'

Philip said nothing.

'Now look here,' continued Jeremiah.  'I have
heard that you have been looking out for lodgings.
If you are going to live by yourself, that is tolerable;
but if you choose to have your wife with you, you can
live here and manage the factory and the house for
me.  I am tired of the drudgery of business, and I
cannot, and will not, be worried to death by servants.
I must have someone who will look after the factory
for me, and someone who will attend to the house.'

'It would be best for Salome to return, but I am
not sure that she is willing.  She seems to be
enjoying herself vastly.'

'Go after her; surprise her.  Take the baby.
Spend a month there and then return.  Bring Janet
back as well, if she cares to come.'

'Perhaps that will be best,' mused Philip.  'Things
have become very uncomfortable without her—only
one pocket-handkerchief, and my socks only get to
be taken as floor-cloths.'

'Of course it is best.  As soon as possible go, and
don't return without her.'





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.. _`ONE POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF`:

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   CHAPTER XLI.


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   ONE POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF.

.. vspace:: 2

Philip Pennycomequick was on his way to Andermatt.
He had come to an understanding with Uncle
Jeremiah.  His comfort, his well-being for the future
depended on Salome.  The old man had taken a fancy
to spend his winters abroad, and he had no wish to
remain tied to his business in smoky Mergatroyd.  He
was quite ready to make it over to Philip, but then
Philip must first be reconciled to his wife, and bring
her home to hold rule over the house.  A Swiss
nurse had been found ready to take the child and
accompany Philip to Andermatt.

Philip did not travel in the same carriage as the
nurse and child, but he saw to their lacking nothing.
He occupied a compartment of a first-class carriage by
himself, and thought a good deal about himself and
his wife.  And—first—it was particularly annoying to
have only one pocket-handkerchief.  The strictest
inquiries had been made, but not more than the one in
use could be discovered.  The washerwoman insisted
that she had received none, and the housemaid
protested that she had given a dozen.  Between the two
they had disappeared, and Philip was obliged to
purchase a half-dozen fresh silk ones; he would not buy
more because he was resolved to get, with his wife's
aid, at the bottom of the mystery, and recover the lost
pocket-handkerchiefs, wherever they were.
Unfortunately he was not aware how many he had had
originally; but Salome knew—she had taken count of
all his clothing, knew the number of his socks and
also of his pocket-handkerchiefs.  There was some
excuse for the havoc wrought among the former, for
the friction of boot heels and soles does destroy the
texture of worsted socks, but no rubbing of noses
injures the grain of silk pocket-handkerchiefs.

'I know,' said Philip, as the train drew up at
Thionville, 'I know that when one has a cold, the
secretion is acrid, but it is not sulphuric acid to burn
holes in pocket-handkerchiefs.  What?  Turn out
here, and have one's boxes examined?  I will come
to the bottom of that disappearance of pocket-handkerchiefs.
I am put to intolerable discomfort.  I hate
wiping my nose with silk till it has been washed three
or four times and become flexible, and has lost its
harshness—it irritates the mucous membrane.  I am
going through, *voyez mon billet*!  What nonsense
examining one's baggage here!  Salome will know
how many handkerchiefs I had.  I am glad I am
going to Andermatt; it will set my mind at rest, and
I can have these hateful new handkerchiefs washed
there.'

But other matters occupied Philip's mind.  He had
his wife's letters—the last two—in his pocket, and he
re-read them; the jolting of the train, the flicker of the
light in the lamp overhead, made the reading difficult,
and predisposed him to take umbrage at her expressions.
What especially annoyed him was her praise
of her new friend, the American lady, and it gave him
satisfaction to conjure up before his imagination the
scene of introduction of himself to her, and to picture
himself, with frigid courtesy looking at her, raising his
hat, stiffly bowing, and with cold words giving her to
understand that her friendship with his wife was
against his wishes, and must be discontinued.  The
places at *table d'hôte*, he supposed, were arranged
according to priority.  He would inform the waiter that
as he came last, all his belongings, his wife, his
sister-in-law, and her nieces must relinquish their seats and
come down to the end of the table by him—that
would separate his party from the ambiguous stranger.
If, after dinner, she came to speak to his wife, he would
offer Salome his arm and ask her to come a stroll alone
with him.

There were many ways in which this person might
be given to understand that she was no longer desired
as an associate.  A feeble sense of pity for her in her
confusion at being shaken off stirred in his heart, and
then died away.

He had not written to announce his intention of
coming with the baby to Andermatt.  He intended to
surprise Salome.  There would be something flattering
to himself in the change of colour, the delight that
would spring up in her eyes, the cry of recognition—then
the humble hesitation, awaiting his permission to
spring into his arms.

Throughout the journey Philip maintained his
connection with the baby, though keeping it at a distance,
as the sun holds the earth and swings it round it, but
never allows the earth to approach it too closely.  And
as the moon revolves about the earth, so did the Swiss
nurse dance attendance on Philip the Little, rotating
also, of course, about Philip the Great.

On board the steamer, on the lake, Philip saw a
gentleman in light suit, with helmet cap, surrounded
by a puggaree, who attached himself to several groups
of tourists, and showed them his blackened watch, or
discoursed on the great evangelist of Italy, Signor
Count Caprili; or on his scheme for rearing Mount
St. Bernard dogs.  He at once recognised the man, and
he caught the fellow's eye on him; but Beaple Yeo
made no attempt to renew acquaintance till Philip was
in a carriage to make the ascent from Amsteg by the
Devil's Bridge to Andermatt, when he jumped into
the same vehicle, and held out his hand with a
boisterous jollity.

'How d'ye do—do, Pennycomequick?  Delighted to
see you.  Will find my daughter right and flourishing
at the Hôtel Impérial.  Of course, you go there.  I
was nearly killed at all of the others.  Look at my
silver watch-case—turned black with sulphuretted
hydrogen.  But, of course, you go where Sal is.  Good
girl! excellent girl!  You made a first-rate choice
when you took her, and you have my blessing.
Mercy on me, that is my grandchild, I presume.  To
think of it—I a grandfather!  If you will do me a
favour, my boy, you will say nothing about our
relationship.  I don't want to be looked upon as a
grandpa.  Bless me! at my time of life a grandpa!
I'll share the carriage with you—pay a third—no a
quarter, as you are three, self, nurse, and baby.'

Philip became stiff and cold.  He would not take
the hand offered him, nor say a word to the man
who had so unceremoniously entered his carriage.
Beaple Yeo, alias Schofield, was by no means
disconcerted.

'You will take my card,' he said.  Then, when he
saw that Philip would not do so: 'But no, I will
introduce you myself, dear son-in-law, to the proprietor.
Now do look at this zig-zag road.  I remember seeing
a marionette theatre when I was a child, and this
scene was represented.  A number of little carriages
came running down the zig-zag one after another—and
here it is—the same exactly.  It is worth your
looking.  One, two, three—upon my word there are
five carriages; and see how the horses tear along and
swing round the corners.  It is worth looking at.'

There are certain insects which, when handled,
become rigid and take all the appearance of sticks.  It
was the same with Philip; the presence, the address
of this odious man reduced or transmuted him into a
bit of stick.  He sat motionless with his umbrella
between his knees, his hands resting on the handle, his
neck stiff, and his eyes staring at a couple of buttons
of unequal nature at the back of the driver's jacket.
He did not look at Beaple Yeo, nor at the zig-zags, nor
at the descending train of five carriages, nor at the
wondrous scenery.  He was greatly incensed.  It was
intolerable that he should meet this man again, and
that he should be near, if not with Salome.  But this
was one of the annoyances he must look on as inevitable,
one that would continually recur.  Really it was
too bad of Salome not to have mentioned in one of
her letters that her father was at Andermatt.  If she
had done that not 'all the king's horses, nor all the
king's men,' would have got Philip to make that
expedition to Andermatt.  Finding that his son-in-law was
indisposed to converse, the cheerful and loquacious
colonel addressed the baby, screwed up his mouth,
made noises, offered his eyeglass to the infant, but
withdrew it when the child attempted to suck it.
From the baby, Yeo glided into remarks addressed to
the nurse, asked her how long she had been on the
road, whether she was French or Swiss, what was the
name of her home, how she liked England, etc.,
regardless of the frowns of Philip, who at length, to draw
off his father-in-law from this unsuitable conversation,
said sternly:

'Pray how long have you been at Andermatt?'

'Oh! several weeks.  I was there before my Sal
arrived.  I have no doubt Janet wrote and told her I
was there, and filial duty—filial duty—one of the most
beautiful and blessed of the qualities locked in the
human breast—in the human breast—drew her to
Andermatt to make a fuller, freer acquaintance with
the author of her being than was possible in
England—in England.'

When the carriage had passed the Devil's Bridge
and the little chapel at the mouth of the ravine, where
the broad basin of fertile pasture opens out, in which
stands the village of Andermatt, a party of ladies and
one gentleman was visible on the road, two in deep
mourning, two in colours, and three girls in half-mourning.

'Ha!' exclaimed the colonel, 'my family.'

Philip looked intently at the party.  He at once
recognised Salome, and was satisfied that the other in
black was Janet.  To his great surprise he saw
Mrs. Sidebottom and the captain.  Who that slender lady
was in a light dress he could only conjecture.  If he
had not been in the carriage with Beaple Yeo, he
would have told the driver to stop, and allow him to
descend and greet his wife; but the presence at his side
of that man determined him to postpone the meeting.
He did not wish Salome to see him riding beside her
father, as though he had made up his quarrel with him.

He drew back in his place, and looked another way
whilst driving past, and Salome, who had caught sight
of the well-known waving puggaree, lowered her eyes.
Beaple Yeo had his hat off, and was wafting a
salutation to the American lady.

Then, when passed, he turned to Philip and said,
'You will do me the favour, I know, not to announce
your relationship; 'pon my word, I don't want to be
looked upon as a grandfather, because I don't feel it.
Young blood tingles in my veins.'

The strange lady had stepped aside for the carriage
to pass, upon the bank near that side on which Philip
sat, and he looked at her as he drove by, looked at
her with a feeling of aversion.  It was too annoying of
Salome to walk out with this questionable individual
and meet him as he arrived, thrusting her almost into
his face.

On reaching the Hôtel Impérial he had to undergo
the annoyance of being taken in hand, patronized and
presented by Beaple Yeo.  Philip was a bad French
scholar, spoke no German, and the English of the
proprietor was not understandable till one got used
to it.

Philip asked for his room, and said to himself,
'There will be time for me to wash my hands and
change my shirt; the collars are limp—not enough
stiffening put in them, they will not stand up.
*Ici! voyez!*' to the maid.  'Is there a *boulanger*—no, I
mean a *blanchisseuse* in this place?  Wait till my
portmanteau is open.  I want to have five
pocket-handkerchiefs sent at once to the wash.  *Ici! voyez!*
soft water, *et point de soda et* washing-powder.'

When he had delivered over the pocket-handkerchiefs
and had assumed a clean shirt, and brushed his
hair, and washed his face and hands, he descended to
the *salle*, and asked if the ladies had returned from
their walk.

'Note yet, saire,' answered the porter.

'How long before they do come back?'

'I sure I can note tell.  Bote too shupper sure.'

'Very well,' said Philip, 'go and send for the nurse
and the child.  They must be ready.  It will be,' said
he to himself, 'a pleasure to me after the first rapture
is over, to show Salome that I have brought her the
child.'

When the nurse came in Philip ordered her to sit
with the baby in the veranda before the hotel; the
air was fresh, but dry and delicious, and the child could
take no harm.  Then he ordered for himself some
claret and iced soda-water.

It was inconsiderate of Salome keeping him
waiting.  He was anxious to see her, notwithstanding the
provocation given him.  Why should she not have
been there instead of going out for a walk?  No doubt
she and her party had strolled to the Devil's Bridge.

'Waiter,' called Philip.  'Which is the table at
which the ladies sit?'

When told, he said, 'I suppose there are seven
covers?'

'Eight, saire; de American leddy sits dere.'

'Eight; very well, waiter.  I sit with them in future,
and the American lady goes to another table.  Do
you understand?  There is no place for her at the
table where I sit.'

Presently Philip heard the clear, pleasant voices of
the girls and the ladies outside, and their feet on the
gravel.  He started up and hastened down the hall;
but before he could reach the door he heard Salome's
voice, partly raised in cry as of pain, partly in
extremity of joy.

'It is!  It is!  It can be no other!  It is my baby!'

How did she know it?  To the male eye there is
scarcely any distinction between babies; as one lamb
is like another lamb, and one buttercup like another
buttercup, so are all babies alike.  Some have dark
hair, others are blondes; but so among lambs.  And
there are varieties of species in buttercups; in the
Alpine pastures some are silver.  Unwarned,
unprepared, Salome knew her baby; knew it at once, with
a leap of her heart and a rush of blood that roared in
her ears and for a moment dazzled her eyes.  She
asked no questions how it came there, she entertained
no doubt whether it was her own, her very own—in a
moment she had the little creature in her arms,
laughing, crying, covering its face and hands with kisses;
and the child also knew its mother, had no wonder
how she came to be there, no doubt whether it were
really she; it thrust forth its little pats, and held
Salome by the copper-gold hair, and put its rosy
mouth to her cheek.

'Salome!' exclaimed Janet, 'how can you be so
ridiculous?  This must be some other child; who
could have brought yours here?'

Then Philip appeared in the doorway—but Salome's
eyes were blind with tears of joy, and she did not see
him; she could see nothing but her child.  He
spoke—she did not hear him; she could hear nothing but
the cooing of her babe.

Philip stood beside her and touched her on the
shoulder.

'Do you not know me?' he asked.  'Are you not
glad to see me?'

Salome stood still and released her child.  She was
confused; she hardly knew whether she were awake or
in the most beautiful, blissful of dreams.

'Well—this is hardly the—the—Salome.  Do you
not know me?'

'Oh, Philip!' she gasped, 'is it really you?  And
you have brought me my baby!  Oh! how good, how
kind!' and she fell to kissing and hugging her baby
again.

Then Philip, finding himself put completely in the
background, condemned to a subsidiary part to that
played by Philip the Little, was offended, and said
with a slight tone of acerbity: 'My dear Salome, be
decorous.  Give up Phil now to the nurse, a Swiss
young person, and come, take my arm.'

'Philip,' said Salome, 'Oh, Philip, how good! how
very dear of you!'

He felt her heart beating wildly against his arm, as
she clung to him, at his side.  Then she began to
sob.  'It is too great happiness.  My darling!  My
darling pet! and looking so well too.'

'You mean the baby?'

'Yes, of course, Philip.'

She put her hand in her pocket, drew out her
'kerchief and wiped her eyes.

'By the way,' said Philip, 'how many had I?'

'How many what, Philip?  Only this one, darling,'

'I mean pocket-handkerchiefs.  All, all have
disappeared, and I have been condemned to one.  I
have come here to Andermatt expressly to know what
my stock consisted of.  Conceive, only one
pocket-handkerchief left!'





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.. _`THE GAUNTLET DANGLED`:

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   CHAPTER XLII.


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   THE GAUNTLET DANGLED.

.. vspace:: 2

Philip had to shake hands with Janet, with his aunt,
with the three Labartes, to whom he was introduced,
and with a little heartiness to clasp the hand of the
captain.  He was introduced, moreover, to the
American lady, and was thus given the well-considered
opportunity of saluting her with calculated indifference.
He somewhat exaggerated the cordiality of his
greeting of the Labarte girls so as to emphasize the
chilliness of his behaviour towards the young lady from
Chicago.

When the first excitement of meeting was past,
Philip was overwhelmed with questions.  'How was
dear Uncle Jeremiah?—was he much altered?'  'What
was going to be done about the mill?' and 'What a
puzzle it would be about the administration?'  'Could
he re-establish himself legally as alive after he had
been decreed dead?'  'What had happened at
Mergatroyd besides the return of Uncle Jeremiah?'  'How
had the people received him?'  'Had they erected a
triumphal arch?'  'Did he write beforehand to say he
was coming?'  'What sort of weather had they had
in England?'  'What kind of crossing had Philip?'  'Had
baby suffered at all from the sea?'  'What did
he think of the railway?'

There was no end to the questions asked, which
Philip answered as well as he could.  And as he
received and replied to the questions he kept his eye on
the strange lady, and considered how she must feel—shut
out from all the interests which engrossed those
connected with him; and how much in the way she
ought to regard herself.

This she did observe, and drew aside, out of
hearing, and as Beaple Yeo came forward, fell into
conversation with him.  His presence had an
immediate numbing effect on Philip and Salome
and Janet.  They withdrew to another end of the
*salon*.

Philip had used his opportunity to observe the
strange lady, and he admitted to himself that she was
good-looking.

Of course there are differences in types of beauty,
and she was not of the type that commended itself to
Philip—so he thought.  She had dark hair and a
transparent olive complexion.  Possibly a touch of
dark blood in her, mused Philip, and he said to himself:

'I will take the first opportunity to look at her nails.'

Her features were finely modelled, with a firmness
of cutting that showed she was no longer in her teens,
undeveloped.  The flexible transparent nostrils, the
slightly-curled curves of the lips, the wavy hair over
the brow—whether natural, the result of a trace of
black blood, or artificially produced—the splendid dark
eyes that looked at Philip, looked down into him and
flashed through his whole being like a lamp shining
into a cellar—the delicate ears, the beautiful neck,
not too long, set on well-formed shoulders—all were
observed by Philip.

'Yes,' said Philip, 'she is handsome, but she
belongs to that period of life which may be
twenty-four or thirty-four.  She has got out of
thirteenhood, that is clear.'

He looked at Salome.  If Salome was his ideal,
nothing could be more different than her type from
the type of Miss Durham.  There was a childlike
simplicity in Salome, an ignorance of the world which
would make of her a child to gray hairs; and this
strange lady had clearly none of this simplicity and
ignorance; she knew a great deal about the ways and
varieties of life.  One like Miss Durham would never
go into gushing ecstasy over a baby, and forget that
the first homage was due to her husband.

It afforded emphatic pleasure to Philip to be able to
demonstrate before this single lady, with such a circle
of relatives about him—six ladies and one gentleman—we
are eight and you are one.  It was Joseph's
sheaf with all the sheaves bowing down before it; it
was like a man with a pedigree describing the family
tree to a self-made man.  It was like a hen with a
brood of chickens clucking and strutting before a fowl
that has never reared a solitary chick, hardly laid an
egg; it was like a millionaire showing his pictures,
his plate, his equipages, his yacht, to an acquaintance
who had two hundred a year.

It has just been stated that the American girl's
eyes had flashed down into Philip's, and irradiated his
interior as a lantern does a cellar—a wine-cellar, of
course—and the light revealed magnificent cobwebs,
thick dust, and some spiders.  There was, unquestionably,
in Philip much rare good wine, excellent qualities
of heart and soul, but they were none of them on tap,
all were bottled, and all overlaid with whitewash, and
dust, and matted with the fibres and folds of prejudice.
These masses of cobweb, these layers of dust, these fat
spiders were objects of pride to Philip.  Every year
the cobwebs gathered density, and the dust accumulated,
and the spiders became more gross, hideous, and
venomous; the wine remained corked, it was merely
an excuse for the cultivation of cobwebs and spiders.
We are all eager to show our friends through these
rich wine-vaults of our hearts.  We light candles and
conduct them down with infinite pride, and what we
expose is only our curtains of prejudice of ancient
standing and long formation, our meannesses, and our
spites.  If we offer them to taste of our best wine, it
is but through straws.

On the other hand, there was Colonel Yeo, a
walking Bodega of generous sentiment, with every rich
passion and ripe opinion always on tap—ask what
you would, and you had a tumblerful.  But we libel
Bodega, the gush with which he regaled his acquaintance
was not true vintage; it was squeezed raisins
and logwood, gooseberry and elder—no cobwebs of
prejudice there, not a trace even of a scruple, not a
token of maturity.

Supper was hurried on, because Philip was hungry,
half an hour before the usual time at which the
little party sat down to their special table in the
alcove.

'Oh!' said Salome, 'there is a cover short.  Waiter,
we shall be nine to-night and in future, not eight.
My husband is here.'

'Pardon,' answered the waiter, 'monsieur expressly
said eight.'

'Oh, he forgot.  He did not understand.  We are
now nine.'

Then Philip interfered.

'I said eight, but if you particularly desire Miss
Durham's society, I can sit at the long table with the
common guests.'

'Oh, Philip! surely, surely not!' exclaimed Salome.
'It will hurt her feelings.'

'She will understand that we are a family party,
and that from such a party strangers are best excluded.'

Salome heaved a sigh.  She could not endure the
thought of giving pain to anyone.

'Who is she?' asked Philip.

'She is a lady, and very agreeable.  Indeed, a
most superior person.  You will be certain to like
her, when you come to know her.  Oh, Philip! she
knows a thousand things about which I am ignorant.'

'I have no doubt about that,' answered Philip
ironically; 'and things I would be sorry you should know
about.  I make no question she has seen the shady
side of life.'

'But she is tremendously rich.'

'Who says so?'

'The waiter—of course, he knows.  And Colonel
Yeo pays her great attention accordingly.  Oh, Philip!
I wish so much you would extend your protection to
her against him.  He may draw her into one of his
schemes for the advancement of missionaries or the
propagation of dogs—and get a lot of money out of
her.  Do—do, Philip, protect her against him.
I—I—I don't like to speak about him.  You can understand
that, Philip.'

'Very well,' said he; 'I will do what I can.'  He
was flattered at the idea of acting as protector to this
young American lady.  'But I put down my foot and
say she is not to sit at our table.'

The party gathered in the alcove, and fortunately
Miss Durham was the last to arrive, so there was no
difficulty about requesting her to take a place
elsewhere.  When she entered the *salle-à-manger* at the
usual hour, every seat was occupied at the table to
which for some little while she had been admitted.
She saw at a glance that her place was taken, and
she went without demur, or a look of disappointment,
to the long table.  She had sufficient tact to perceive
that Philip disliked her, and she had no intention of
pressing her society on those who did not desire it.
So far from seeming vexed, a slight contemptuous
smile, like the flicker of summer lightning, played
about her lips.  She caught Salome's eye, full of
appeal and apology, and returned it with a
good-natured nod.  'A trifle such as this,' said the nod,
'will not give me offence.'

Mrs. Sidebottom sat beside Philip, and plied him
with questions relative to the intentions of Uncle
Jeremiah—questions which he was unable to answer;
but she attributed his evasive replies to unwillingness
to speak, and pressed him the more urgently.  The
captain was attentive to Janet, who had recovered
her spirits, laughed and twinkled, and without
intentionally coquetting, did coquet with him.  Janet
became dull in female society, but that of men acted
as a tonic upon her; it was like Parrish's Chemical
Food to a bloodless girl; it brisked her up, gave
colour to her cheek, and set her tongue wagging.
The captain was good-natured, and he threw a word
or two to the Labarte girls, but devoted his chief
attention to Janet.

Salome was left to herself, Mrs. Sidebottom
engrossed her nephew, whether he would or not, and when
he said something to Salome, he was interrupted by
Mrs. Sidebottom, who exclaimed:

'Now, fiddle-de-dee, you will have plenty of time to
talk in private to your wife, whereas I shall see you
only occasionally, and I am particularly interested in
all you can tell me of Jeremiah.  Give me your
candid opinion; what will he do?  Is he angry with me?'

'I can give no opinion without grounds on which
to base it, and Uncle Jeremiah has not taken me into
his confidence.'

'I see you have the reserve of a lawyer.  I had
enough of that when Sidebottom was alive.  I hate
reserve.  Give me frankness.  Now—if you will not
tell me what you know of my brother's intentions——'

'I know nothing, and can therefore divulge nothing.'

'You won't tell, that is the truth.  Don't tell me
you have been a fortnight and more under the same
roof with him and have not found out his intentions!
Well—to change the subject—what do you think of
the scheme for buying up the hospice on the
St. Gothard and turning it into an establishment for
Mount St. Bernard dogs?'





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.. _`THE GAUNTLET CAST`:

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   CHAPTER XLIII.


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   THE GAUNTLET CAST.

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When supper was ended, the whole party adjourned
to the promenade outside the hotel, where a fountain
plashed in a basin, and in an aviary on a perch stood
a scowling, draggled eagle, and beside the aviary were
cages with marmots, smelling abominably, and fettered
on a patch of grass was a miserable chamois that
seemed to have the mange.

It was delightful to walk in the crisp pure air of
evening without cap or bonnet, and watch the evening
glow on the snow-fields, and listen to the tinkle of the
bells as the cows were driven home from the Alpine
pastures and diverged to their several stables from
the main street.  Beaple Yeo came out after the party
of Philip's table, not hatless, and his puggaree in the
dusk fluttered like a gigantic white moth.  The
chaplain for the summer from England was also walking
in the grounds with his newly-married wife: a feeble
youth with a high-pitched voice and a cackling laugh,
who had cultivated a military moustache, to point out
his imbecility, as the ass in the fable assumed a lion's
skin, but was revealed as an ass on opening his mouth.
A party of Germans was feeding and talking vociferously.
A couple of Alpine Clubmen in knickerbockers,
carrying their alpenstocks proudly, trudged
in with a guide, the latter laden with their knapsacks.

Salome had been walking, nestled against Philip's
side, not saying much, but feeling happy, when her
attention was attracted by the wailing of a babe from
one of the hotel windows.

'Philip, dear!' she said, 'there is my pet, my darling
crying.  I must tear myself away from you and go to
him.  I know he wants me.  He is so clever.  He is
quite aware that I am here, and resents being rocked
to sleep by the Swiss nurse; he is protesting that
nothing will make him close his peepers but mamma's
voice, and a kiss.  And—oh, dear, dear Philip!  I
don't like to think it possible you can be unkind to
anyone—there is Miss Durham behind us, all by
herself; do—do say a word to her and be civil.  It was
rather—well, not quite rude, but strange of us paying
no attention to her at supper, and turning her out of
her place.  Philip, I could not eat my supper, I was
so uncomfortable.  I would not hurt anyone's feelings
willingly, and I am sure Miss Durham has not been
treated with consideration; would you—because I ask
you—for my sake, speak to her when I am gone to
baby?'

She looked up entreatingly in his eyes, loosed her
hand from his arm, and was gone.

Philip slackened his pace, then halted, to allow the
American lady to catch him up.  He would speak to
her, and give her to understand, of course politely,
that intimacy with his wife must cease.  When she
came level with him he raised his hat, and said, 'A
beautiful evening; a charming evening.'

'So I have already perceived, Mr. Pennycomequick.'

'What a surprise this green basin of valley is to
one emerging from the ravine of the Reuss!' said
Philip.

'Yes,' with indifference; then, with animation,
'By the way, you were in the carriage with Colonel Yeo.'

'I beg pardon, he was in the carriage with me.'

'I suppose you are old friends?' said the lady.

Philip stiffened his back.  'Miss Durham, we belong
to distinct classes of society.  With his I have nothing
in common.'

'But you knew each other?'

'I knew of him.  I cannot say I knew him.'

'Have you no ambition to rise to his social grade?'

'To—rise—to—his—social grade!'  It took Philip
some time to digest this question.  He replied ironically,
'None in the least, I do assure you.  I am thankful
to say I belong to that middle class which works
for its living honourably, diligently, and finds its
pleasure and its pride in industry.'

'And Colonel Yeo?'

'Oh!  I assure you he does not soil his fingers with
honest trade or business.'

'You do not want to know him?'

'I have not the smallest ambition.'

After a pause, during which neither spoke, Philip
resumed.  'There are subjects that are distasteful to
me; this is one.'

'I see,' said Miss Durham, 'you are a Radical.'

'We will let the subject drop,' said Philip.  'This
air is delightful to me after the smoke of a Yorkshire
manufacturing district.'

'It is really surprising how fresh, notwithstanding,
your wife is,' answered the Chicago lady.

Philip turned sharply round and looked at her.
'Fresh!' he repeated.  He did not understand what
her meaning was—fresh in complexion, or that her
character was green and raw.

'Her freshness is quite delightful,' added the lady.

Then Philip's anger broke loose.  He was offended
at any remark being made on Salome by a person of
whom he knew nothing.

'Indeed—perhaps so.  And it is precisely this
freshness, this generosity of mind, this ignorance of
the world, which leads her to extend the hand of
fellowship to—to anyone—to those who may not
be as fresh as herself—who may be quite the reverse.'

Miss Durham stood still, her face gleamed with anger.

'I know, sir, very well what you mean.  You know
that I am alone, without a man—a father, brother or
husband by to protect me from insult, and you take
this advantage to address me thus.'

She revolved on her heel and walked hastily back
to the hotel.  Philip stood rooted to the spot.

What had he done?  What shadow of a right had
he to address an inoffensive girl with such
impertinence?  A girl who had done him no harm, and of
whom he knew nothing, and who, for aught he knew
to the contrary, might be as respectable, high-minded,
and well-connected as the best lady in America.  She
had been alone in this foreign corner, shut out from
social intercourse with her fellow-countrymen, and
she had formed an acquaintance with his wife, his
wife's sister, and the Labarte girls.  What right had
he to step in and thrust her out of association with
them?

He had done what he determined, but done it in so
clumsy a manner as to put himself in the wrong, make
himself who stood on punctilio appear an unlicked
bear.  He had behaved to an unprotected, young, and
beautiful girl in a manner that would have disgraced
the rudest artisan, in a manner that he knew not one
of his honest Yorkshire workmen in his factory would
have dared to behave.





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.. _`AND PICKED UP`:

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   CHAPTER XLIV.


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   AND PICKED UP.

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Matters that look serious at night shrink to trifling
significance in the morning.  Philip rose refreshed by
sleep, with a buoyancy of heart he had not experienced
for many months, and a resolution to enjoy his
holiday now that he was taking one.  How often had he
longed for the chance of making an excursion on the
Continent, of seeing the snowy ranges of the Alps and
studying fresh aspects of human life!  Now the
opportunity had come, and he must make the most of it.
His prospects at home were not such as to discourage
him; he was no longer the ruling manager of the
Pennycomequick firm, but he was not going to be
kicked out of the concern as he had at first feared.
Uncle Jeremiah purposed to take him into partnership,
make him working partner, and in all probability
he would be better off than with Mrs. Sidebottom,
consuming more than half the profits and contributing
nothing.

He had been tired with his journey yesterday,
irritated at finding Beaple Yeo in his proximity, and
he had given way to his irritation and spoken
uncourteously to an American lady.  What of that?
Who was she to take offence at what he said?  If she
were angered she must swallow her wrath.  She had
vexed him by pushing herself into the acquaintance of
his wife.  If people will climb over hedges they must
expect scratches.  If requisite he could apologize, and
the thing was over.  Miss Durham had made a remark
which he considered a slight passed on his wife, and
he was right to resent it.  If she had made a thrust
with an unguarded foil, it was not likely that he would
retaliate with the end of his, blunted by a button.

He came downstairs, feeling cheerful and on the
best of terms with the world.  He would go for a walk
that day with Salome—to the Ober-Alp, and pick
gentians and Alpen-rose; and in preparation for the
walk, he went to the collection of carved work,
photographs, and Alpine paraphernalia exhibited in the
*salle-à-manger* by the head waiter for sale, and bought
himself a stout walking-stick with an artificial
chamois-horn as handle.  Then he strolled out into the
village-street, and looked in at the shop-windows.  There
was only one shop that interested him; it contained
crystals smoked and clear, and specimens of the rocks
on the St. Gothard Pass, collections of dried flowers
and photographs.

When he returned to the inn he found that his
party was in the *salle* awaiting him.  The usual
massive white coffee-cups, heap of rolls, all crust
outside and bubbles within, wafers of butter, and artificial
honey were on table.

A German lady was prowling about the room with
her head so tumbled that it was hard to believe she
had dressed her hair since leaving her bed, and the
curate was there also, ambling round his bride and
squeaking forth entreaties that she would allow him
to order her eggs for breakfast.  Philip was heartily
glad that he sat along with his party at one table, in
the alcove.  Miss Durham was not there.

On inquiry Salome learned that she had ordered
breakfast to be taken to her room.

'So much the better,' said Philip.

'My dear, surely you made friends yesterday
evening after I left you.'

'Come—to table,' said Philip; and then—'on the
contrary, I don't know quite how it came about, but
something I said gave her umbrage, and she flew
away in a rage.  I suppose I offended her.  It does
not matter.  Pass me the butter.'

'It does not matter!  Oh, Philip!'

'Given Miss Durham offence!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom.
'But—she is worth thousands.  How could
you be so indiscreet?'

'She is so charming,' said Janet.

'So amiable,' murmured Claudine Labarte.

'*Mais, quelle gaucherie!*' whispered the penultimate
Labarte to the youngest sister.

Then ensued a silence.  Philip looked from one to
another.  Already a cloud had come into his clear sky.

Philip said sternly, 'Pass me the butter.'

Those who seemed least concerned were the
captain and Janet, who sat together and were
engrossed in little jokes that passed between them,
and were not heard or regarded by the rest of the
company.

'This is very unfortunate,' said Mrs. Sidebottom,
'for we had made a plan to go to the hospice
together, and she would have paid her share of the
carriage.'

Salome looked into her plate; her colour came and
went.  She slid her hand into that of her husband,
and whispered, 'I did not mean to reproach you.  I
am sure you were right.'

'I was right,' answered Philip; 'something she said
appeared to me a reflection on you and I fired up.  I
am your husband, and am bound to do so.'

'I am quite sure, then, you misunderstood her,'
said Salome; 'dear Miss Durham could not—no, I
do not mean that—would not say a word against me.
Of course I know I have plenty of faults, and she
cannot have failed to observe them; but she would
not dream of alluding to them, least of all to you.'

'That is possible,' answered Philip.  'And I will
say or do something to pass it off.  But, I hope you
see that I did the correct thing in taking your part,
even if no slight was intended.'

'Of course, Philip.'

Then Salome stood up and said, 'I will go to her.
I will tell her there was a misunderstanding.  It will
come best from me, as I was the occasion.'

Philip nodded.  It was certainly best that Salome
should do this, and save him the annoyance and—well,
yes, the humiliation of an apology.

When Salome was gone, Philip spoke to the eldest
Labarte girl, but found her uninteresting; and the
younger sisters looked at him with ill-concealed
dissatisfaction.  He had come to Andermatt and spoiled
their party.  They had been cheerful and united
before.  Miss Durham had been infinitely amusing,
and now Philip had introduced discord, was wooden
and weariful.  They wished he had remained at home
in smoky, foggy England; if he came—he should
have left the fog and chill behind him, instead of
diffusing it over a contented and merry party.
Mrs. Sidebottom had left the table to haggle with the
head waiter over a paper-cutter with a chamois leg as
handle, that she wanted to buy and send as a present
to Jeremiah, but was indisposed to pay for it the
price asked by the waiter.

'But, madam,' said the waiter, 'if you do not take
him at de price, Mademoiselle Durham vill; she have
admired and wanted to buy him, and she goes away
to-day.'

'Miss Durham going!' exclaimed Mrs. Sidebottom,
and rushed back to the table to announce the news.
'Why—who will go halves with us in vehicles!  This
is your doing, Philip.  You have offended her, and
are driving her away.'

The announcement produced silence; and all eyes
were turned on Philip, those of the Labarte girls with
undisguised indignation.  Even the captain and Janet
ceased their conversation.  An angel may have passed
through the room, but he must have been a crippled
one, so long did he take in traversing it; nor can he
have been a good one, so little light and cheerfulness
did he diffuse.

'Well!' said Philip, 'what if she be going?  That
is no concern of ours.'

Then he stood up and left the room.  He was in
an unamiable mood.  This party did not show him
the consideration that was due to him; and found
fault with him about trifles.  He left the hotel, and
wandered to the aviary, where he remained contemplating
the scowling eagle.  The bird perhaps recognised
a similarity of mood in his visitor, for he turned
his head, ruffled his feathers, and looked at Philip.

'Well,' said Philip, 'that is the king of the birds,
is it?  To my mind a bumptious, ill-conditioned,
dissatisfied, and uninteresting fowl.'

Then he moved in front of the marmot cage.
'And these are marmots, that spend more than half
their life in sleep.  Very like Lambert Sidebottom or
Pennycomequick, as he is pleased to call himself now.'

He looked at the eagle again.  'Pshaw!  Pluck
him of his self-consciousness as Aquila—and what is
he?  What is he?'

Then he wandered away among the flower-beds
and bushes of syringa without a purpose, grumbling
to himself at the manners of those Labartes, and the
figures that Lambert and Janet made, laughing over
inane jokes, and regretting that he had allowed
Salome to go in search of the Chicago lady.

Salome in the meantime had hastened to her
friend's room, the number of which she knew, and
found her packing her portmanteau and dress-boxes.
The room was strewn with dresses.

'But,' exclaimed Salome on entering, 'what is the
meaning of this?  Miss Durham!  You are surely
not going to leave?'

'Certainly I am,' answered the American lady.  'I
have been insulted here, and shall leave the place for
one where there are better manners.'

'Oh, don't go.  My husband did not mean to offend
you.  I do not know what he said, but I am quite
sure he would do nothing ungentlemanly, unkind.
He has had a long journey, and this and other
matters had just put him in a condition of nervous
excitement.  If you wish it he will explain, but
surely you will take my word that no impertinence
was intended.'

Miss Durham looked at Salome steadily.

'The word has been said.'

'But,' pleaded Salome, 'my husband will unsay it.
I entreat you forget and forgive.'

'I cannot.  It is not in my nature.'

'Not forgive?  Oh, Miss Durham, half the sweetness
and happiness of life is made up of forgiveness.'

'Tastes differ,' said the American, and stooped to
her work again.

Salome went to her and arrested her hands.  'I
will not, I cannot allow you to go.  I should ever
feel an ache in my heart to think that you had gone
away without reconciliation.'  Half laughing, half
crying, she added: 'I thought that if it could
possibly be that you and my husband should meet, you
would become close friends—but I never supposed he
would come out here to me—I mean I did not think
he could leave his business.  And now that he is
here, instead of making friends with you, a quarrel is
picked and you are almost enemies.'

'Quite,' said Miss Durham coolly.

'Not so with him.  If he knew how to obtain your
forgiveness he would do that thing.  Is there no way
in which you can be satisfied?'

'Oh yes, by obtaining satisfaction.'

Salome looked at her.  The handsome face was
much altered, there was a bitterness and scorn in it
she had never seen before.  The dark eyebrows were
drawn together, forming a sombre, threatening bar
across her face above her splendid eyes.

'When a man has offended another, he that is
injured calls out the offender, and there is an
exchange of pistol-shots.  Had I here anyone who
belonged to me, anyone to stand by me and defend
my character, I would send him with a challenge to
your husband, and they would fight the matter out
on the green sward by the chapel, or better,' she
laughed, 'on the Devil's Bridge.  But as I have
neither father, nor brother, nor husband, I must fight
for my own honour, or——'

'Or what, Miss Durham?'

'Or run away.'

Both were silent; presently Salome laughed a little
nervously, and said:

'But you never fight? no woman fights.'

'Does she not?'

'Not with pistols.

'Perhaps not.'

'Nor with swords.'

'Oh no.'

'Then—with what?'

'With her proper weapons.'

'You may be quite sure my husband would throw
down his arms and yield at discretion.'

'I have little doubt.'

Salome closed the box on which Miss Durham had
been engaged, and seated herself upon it.  Then she
looked up with childlike entreaty into her friend's
face, and said:

'I will not allow you to go.  We had schemed to
have such pleasant excursions together.  We have
been so happy since we have known each other,
and——I have not yet had the delight of showing you
my baby—my best treasure.'

'You will not let me run away?'

'No, no!  You will forget this little affair; it was
nothing.  Come and be with us again.  My husband
is a great reader, and knows a great deal about things
of which I am ignorant, and you have travelled and
seen so much that your society will interest him
immensely.  Oh, do stay, do not go away.'

The American girl went to the window, leaned
both her arms folded on it, and looked out.  She
could see into the garden, and she observed Philip
there, standing before the eagle's cage.  He had a
little twig in his hand, and he was thrusting it between
the bars at the bird.  She turned and said to Salome:

'No—I will go.  There are several reasons which
urge me to go.  The insult which I received from
your husband for one—and already he had allowed
me to see that he disliked and despised me——'

'No, indeed,' interrupted Salome.  'I had written
to him in all my letters about you, and—perhaps he
was a little jealous of you.'

'Jealous of *me*?'

'It is a fancy of mine.'

Salome lowered her eyes.

'Oh, you fresh, you green dear!' laughed Miss
Durham.  'Do you know what jealousy is?'

'By experience?  No.'

'Come,' said the American girl, seating herself
beside her on the same box, still with folded arms,
resting now on her lap.  'Come!  Supposing that I,
instead of being hated and despised by your husband,
were admired and loved by him.  Would you not be
madly jealous then?'

Salome looked round at her without flinching.

'Admire you he might, but love you——'

'More than he loved *you*!'

'He could not do it.'

The girl burst into a mocking laugh.

'What, you also hold me cheap, think there is
nothing in me beside you—beside you—to love?'

'On the contrary,' answered Salome, crimsoning to
the roots of her hair, 'I am nothing, nothing at all;
ignorant, foolish, fresh, and green, as you say—and
you are so beautiful, so clever, so experienced.  I am
nothing whatever in comparison with you, but then
Philip, I mean my husband, you know *could* not love
you more than me, because I am his wife.'

'Oh!'  There was a depth of mockery in the tone.

Then up stood Miss Durham again, and as Salome
also rose, the stranger seized her by the shoulders, and
held her at arm's length from her, and said:

'Shall I go, or shall I stay?  Shall I run away,
or——'

'You shall not run away.  I will clasp you in my
arms and stay you,' exclaimed Salome, and suited the
action to the word.

Miss Durham loosed herself from her almost roughly.

'It were better for both that I should go.'

Again she went to the window to gasp for air.  She
saw Philip still before the eagle's cage—straight, stiff,
and every inch a mercantile man.  Her lip curled.

'I will go,' she said.  Then she saw Beaple Yeo
stalk across the terrace.  'No'—she corrected herself
hastily—'I will stay.'





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.. _`OBER-ALP`:

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   CHAPTER XLV.


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   OBER-ALP.

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After Philip had looked sufficiently long at the
caged eagle, he went in search of the captain, and
found him smoking in the veranda of the hotel.

'Lambert,' said he, 'there's a deal of fuss being
made about this American lady, but who is she?'

'Comes from Chicago,' answered the captain.

'I know that, but I want to know something more
concerning her.'

The captain shrugged his shoulders.  'She's
good-looking, deucedly so.'

'That, also, I can see for myself.  Have you made
no inquiries about her?'

'I?  why should I?'

Philip called the head waiter to him.

'Here.  Who is this American lady?'

'Oh, from Chicago.'

'Exactly; the visitors'-book says as much.  I don't
see how she can be rich; she has no lady's-maid.'

'Oh, saire!  De American leddies aire ver' ind'pendent.'

There was nothing to be learnt from anyone about
Miss Durham.  He applied to the squeaky-voiced
chaplain with the military moustache.

'She may belong to the Episcopal Church of
America,' said the chaplain; 'but I don't know.'

Some of the waiters had seen her elsewhere, at
other summer resorts, always well dressed.  Philip,
after he had spent half an hour in inquiries, discovered
that no one knew more about her than himself.  He
had heard nothing to her disadvantage, but also
nothing to her advantage.  He might just as well
have spared himself the trouble of asking.

At *table d'hôte*, Miss Durham sat at the long table.
Salome was disappointed.  She thought that she had
succeeded in completely patching up the difference.
Philip was indifferent.  Just as well that she should
be elsewhere.  She was an occasion of dissension, a
comet that threw all the planetary world in his system
out of their perihelion.  He made no bones about
saying as much.  Salome looked sadly at him, when
Colonel Yeo took his seat beside Miss Durham, and
entered into ready converse with her.  She could not
take her attention off her friend; she was uneasy for
her, afraid what advantage the crafty colonel might
take of her inexperience.  But it was not long before
Philip heartily wished that Miss Durham had been in
her place in their circle, for conversation flagged
without her, or ceased to be general and disintegrated
into whisperings between the girls Labarte, and
confidences between Janet and Lambert.  Salome was
silent, and Mrs. Sidebottom engrossed in what she
was eating.  Philip spoke about politics, and found
no listeners; he asked about the excursions to be
made from Andermatt, and was referred to the
guide-book; he tried a joke, but it fell dead.  Finally he
became silent as his wife and aunt, with a glum
expression on his inflexible face, and found himself,
as well as Salome, looking down the long table at
Miss Durham.  The young lady was evidently enjoying
an animated and entertaining conversation with
Colonel Yeo, whose face became blotched as he went
into fits of laughter.  She was telling some droll
anecdote, making some satirical remark.  Philip
caught the eye of Yeo turned on him, and then the
colonel put his napkin to his mouth and exploded.
Philip's back became stiff.  It offended him to the
marrow of his spine, through every articulation of
that spinal column, to suppose himself a topic for
jest, a butt of satire.  He reddened to his temples,
and finding that he had seated himself on the skirts
of his coat, stood up, divided them, and sat down
again, pulled up his collars, and asked how many
more courses they were required to eat.

'Oh! we have come to the chicken and salad, and
that is always the last,' said Salome.

'I am glad to hear it.  I never less enjoyed a meal
before—not even——'  He remembered the dinner
alone at Mergatroyd, with the parlourmaid behind
his back observing his mole.  He did not finish his
sentence; he did not consider it judicious to let his
wife know how much he had missed her.

It was not pleasant to be at enmity with a person
who by gibe and joke could make him seem ridiculous,
even in such eyes as those of Beaple Yeo.  It would
be advisable to come to an agreement, a truce, if not
a permanent peace, with this woman.

Presently Philip rose and walked down the *salle*.
Several of those who had dined were gone, some
remained shelling almonds, picking out the least
uninteresting of the sugar-topped biscuits and
make-believe macaroons, that constituted dessert.  He
stepped up to Miss Durham, and said, with an effort
to be amiable and courteous: 'We are meditating a
ramble this afternoon, Miss Durham, to some lake
not very distant; and I am exponent of the
unanimous sentiment of our table, when I say that the
excursion will lose its main charm unless you will
afford us the pleasure of your society.'

He had been followed by the Labarte girls, and
they now put in their voices, and then Mrs. Sidebottom
joined; she came to back up the request.  It
was not possible for the American girl to refuse.  The
captain and Janet had not united in the request, but
they had attention for none but each other, and
Salome had not risen and united in the fugue, for a
reason unaccountable to herself—a sudden doubt
whether she had acted wisely in pressing the lady
to stay after she had resolved to go; and yet—she
could give to herself no grounds for this doubt.

A couple of hours later the party left the hotel.
It was thought advisable that Janet should be taken
to the summit of the pass in a small low carriage;
she could walk home easily, down-hill.  Into the
carriage was harnessed an ungroomed chestnut cob,
that had a white or straw-coloured tail, and like
coloured patches of hair about the hocks.  It had
the general appearance of having been frost-bitten in
early youth, or fed on stimulants which had
interfered with its growth, and deprived it of all
after-energy.  The creature crawled up the long zigzag
that leads from Andermatt to the Ober-Alp, and the
driver walked by its head, ill-disposed to encourage it
to exertion.  The captain paced by the side of the
carriage, equally undesirous that the step should be
quickened, for he had no wish to overheat himself—time
was made for man, not man for time—and he
had an agreeable companion with whom he conversed.

Mrs. Sidebottom engaged the Labarte girls,
who—inconsiderate creatures—wanted to walk beside their
aunt Janet, and take part in the conversation with the
captain.  Mrs. Sidebottom particularly wished that
her son should be left undisturbed.  As an Oriental
potentate is attended by a slave waving a fan of
feathers to drive away from his august presence the
tormenting flies, so did the mother act on this occasion
for her son—she fanned away the obtrusive Labarte
girls.  When she found that they were within earshot
of the carriage, 'Now,' said she, 'I am sure this is a
short cut across the sward.  You are young, and I am
no longer quite a girl.  Let us see whether you, by
taking the steep cross-cut, or I, by walking at a good
pace along the road, will reach that crucifix first.'  By
this ruse she got the three girls well ahead of the
conveyance; but Claudine found a patch of blue
gentianella, and wanted to dig the bunch up.  'No,
no,' advised Mrs. Sidebottom, 'not in going out—on
your return homewards; then you will not have the
roots to carry so far, and the flowers will be less
faded.'  There was reason in this advice, and Claudine
followed it.

Presently Amélie, the second, exclaimed, 'But we
are just in advance of Aunt Janet.  Let us stay for her.'

'Yes, we will,' agreed Félicité, the third; 'Claudine
can go on with madame.'

'We will all stay,' said Mrs. Sidebottom.  'Now
Amélie, I have seen your sketches, and you have your
book with you.  Is not that a superb view up the
gorge, to the right?  I do not know the name of the
mountain at the head.  What a picture it would
make!  And finished off with the spirit you throw
into a drawing!  See, there is a *châlet*, and some
goats for foreground!'

'*C'est vrai*!  I will draw it.'  So Amélie sat on a
rock, and got out her materials; and the sisters sat
by her, talking and advising what was to be left in
and what left out of the sketch.  Meanwhile the
conveyance containing Janet crawled by.  The picture
was still incomplete, and the little party was thrown
a long way in the rear by this detention.

To anyone observing the zigzag road up the
Ober-Alp Pass from a distance, the party would not have
been supposed to possess homogeneity.  At starting
it was led by three—Philip, Salome, and the American
lady; but after the first stage of the ascent Salome
fell back, then, little by little, the other two quickened
their pace till they had completely distanced the rest.
At a lower stage of the inclined road, ascending at an
even pace, was Salome, alone.  At about an equal
distance below, on another stage of the zigzag, was
the carriage with Janet and the captain, and the
driver, of whom no account was taken; and
sometimes ahead of the carriage, sometimes behind,
making rushes, then halts, like a covey of doves
followed by a hawk, was the little cluster of girls with
Mrs. Sidebottom.  From a distance at one moment
the three girls seemed to be flying before the elder
lady armed with a parasol, which she swung about
her head, then they seemed to cower on the ground
into the herbage as birds beneath a swooping falcon.

The reason why Salome was alone must be given.
Before starting on the excursion, Philip said to his
wife, 'Let me have a minute alone with that person.
I'll make some sort of apology, and set all to rights.'

Accordingly Salome had dropped back where the
road made its first twist.  But this does not explain
why she remained alone for more than the minute.
That this may be understood, it will be necessary to
follow the conversation that passed between Philip
and 'that person.'

'My wife has found a pink,' said Philip; 'she is
fond of flowers.'  Then, as Miss Durham said
nothing, he added, 'I afforded you some amusement
at dinner.'

'Amusement?'

'Apparently.  It is not pleasant to be an object of
criticism.  If you desired to punish me for my
indiscretion, you must be satisfied.  You made me very
uncomfortable.'

'Amusement!  Oh! do you mean when Colonel
Yeo laughed and look at you?  I saw you turn red.'

'Enough to make a man turn red, when aimed at
by the bow and arrow of female lips and tongue.'

'You are quite mistaken,' said Miss Durham, laughing.
'I was not shooting any poisoned arrow.  Do
you desire to know what I said?'

'Interest me it must, as I was the object of the
arrow, even if tipped with honey.'

'Very well, you shall know.  I had seen you looking
at the eagle in his cage.  And I said to Colonel
Yeo that the eagle reminded me of you.'

Philip winced.  He remembered his own estimate
of that wretched bird.

'And pray,' said he, 'why am I like the eagle?'

'Because both are in situations for which neither
was designed by nature.  Do you suppose the eagle
looks the draggled, disconsolate bird he does now,
when on wing soaring over the glaciers?  Were his
wings made that they might droop and drop their
crushed feathers?  That stern eye, that it should
stare at iron bars, at inquisitive faces peering between
them?  Now, come, be open; make me your confessor.
Have you never had yearnings for something
nobler, freer, than to be behind the bars of a
counting-house, and condemned to the perpetual routine of
business, like the mill of a squirrel's cage?'

Philip considered.  Yes, he had wished for a less
monotonous life.  He had often desired to be able to
hunt and shoot, and move in cultivated society, tour
in Europe, and have leisure to extend his thoughts to
other matters than the details of a lawyer's office, or
a manufacturer's set of books.

'Your time is all barred,' continued Miss Durham,
'and the music of your life must be in common time.
No elasticity, no initiative, all is barred and measured.
Tell me something about yourself.'

'I!'  This was a daring question to address to one
so reserved as Philip.  'I have had nothing occur in
my life that could interest you.'

'Because it has been spent in a cage.  I know it
has.  I can see the gaol-look in your face, in your
back, in the way you wear your hair, in your coat, in
your every action, and look, and tone of voice.'

'This is not complimentary.'

'It is true.  But you were not made to be a
gaol-bird.  No one is; only some get caught early and
are put behind bars, and see the world, and know it,
only through bars; the wind blows in on them only
between bars, and the sun is cut and chopped up to
them by bars and cross-bars, and all they know of the
herbs and flowers are the scraps of chickweed and
plantain, drooping and dying, that are suspended to
their cage bars for them to peck at.  I know exactly
what they come to look like who have been encaged
all their lives; they get bald on the poll and stiff in
their movements, and set in their back, and dull of
eye, and narrow of mind.'

'You—have you not been a cage-bird?' asked
Philip with some animation.

'Oh no, not I.  I have kept outside the bars.  I
have been too fond of my liberty to venture behind them.'

'What do you mean by bars?' asked Philip, with
some gravity in his tone.

'Bars?  There are bars of all sorts—social, religious,
conventional—but there!  I shock you; you have
lived so long behind them, that you think the bars
form the circumference of the world, and that
existence is impossible, or improper outside of them.'

'Beyond some none are at liberty to step.  They
are essential.'

'I am not talking of the natural, but of the artificial
restraints which cramp life.  Have you any Bohemian
blood in you?'

'Bohemian!'

'Wild blood.  I have.  I confess it.  A drop, a
little drop, of fiery African blood.  You in England
have your class distinctions, but they are nothing
beside our American separations between white and
black.  With you a blot on the escutcheon by a
*mésalliance* is nothing; with us it is ineradicable.
There is a bar sinister cast over my shield and shutting
me out from the esteem of and association with those
whose blood is pure.  Pure!  It may be muddied
with the mixture of villainous blood enough—of
swindlers and renegades from justice, but that counts
nothing.  One little drop, an eighth part of a drop,
damns me.  I do not care.  I thank that spot of
taint.  It has liberated me from conventional bonds,
and I can live as I like, and see the sun eye to eye
without intervening bars.'

Philip had winced when she spoke about the
co-existence of pure blood with that of swindlers and
renegades.  He stopped and looked back.

They had been walking fast, though up-hill.  When
talkers are excited and interested in what they say
they naturally quicken their pace.  They had far
outstripped Salome; as Philip looked back he could
not see her, for the ground fell away steeply and
concealed the several folds of the road.

'What?' asked Miss Durham mockingly, 'looking
for one of your bars?'

Philip turned and walked on with her.  They had
reached the summit, and the ground before them was
level.  On this track of level mossy moor lay the lake
of deep crystal water, in which floated masses of
snow or ice, that had slidden from the mountain on
the opposite side.  Hardly a tree grew here, on this
neck, exposed to furious currents of wind.

'May I take your arm?' asked Miss Durham.  'I
am heated and tired with this long climb.'

Philip offered her the support she demanded.

'I suppose,' she said, 'that you have not associated
much with any but those who are cage-birds?'

He shook his head and coloured slightly.

'Do you know what I am?' she asked abruptly,
and turned and looked at him, loosing her hand from
his arm.

'I have heard that you are a lady with a large independent fortune.'

'It is not true.  I earn my living.  I am a singer.'

She saw the surprise in his face, which he struggled
to conceal.

'It is so; and I am here in this clear air that my
voice may regain its tone.  I sing—on the stage.'

She put her hand through his arm again.

'Yes, chained, imprisoned eagle, I am a free
singing-bird.  What do you say to that?'

What could he say?  He was astonished, excited,
bewildered.  He felt the intoxication which falls on
an evangelical preacher when he mounts the platform
to preach in a music-hall.  He was frightened and
pleased; his decorum shaken to its foundation, and
cracking on all sides.

'What do you say to that?' she asked, and looked
full in his eyes, and her splendid orbs shot light and
fire into his heart and sent the flames leaping through
his veins.  He heaved a long breath.

'Yes,' she said, 'you suffocate behind bars.'

Then she burst into a merry peal of laughter, and
Philip involuntarily laughed also, but not heartily.





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.. _`ARTEMISIA`:

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   CHAPTER XLVI.


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   ARTEMISIA.

.. vspace:: 2

'There is the restaurant,' said Miss Durham, 'and
being painted within and without, impossible for us to
enter.  What say you to walking on to the head of
the lake?  I want to look over the *col*, and see the
mountains of the Rhine valley above Dissentis.'

Philip hesitated, and again looked back.

'I see,' said Miss Durham; 'you are afraid of
stepping out of your cage.'

'Not at all,' answered Philip, flushing.  'I am
prepared to go to the end of this trough in the mountains
with you, but I greatly doubt seeing much from the
further end.'

'Well—if we see nothing, we can talk.  Have
you looked about you much since we began the
ascent?'

'The time has flown,' said Philip, looking at his
watch.  'It seems to me but a few minutes since.'

The long dreary valley or basin in which lay the
lake was apparently closed at the end by a hill
surmounted by a cross or flagstaff.  The road ran along
the north side of the lake, without a tree to shade it.
The party behind, when they came to the restaurant,
could not fail to see them if they continued along the
road, and might follow, or await them there.

Philip walked on, but no longer gave Artemisia
Durham his arm.  He saw far away in the rear
Mrs. Sidebottom signalling with her parasol; but whether
to him, or to the Labarte girls who were dispersed in
the morass at the end of the lake, picking butterwort,
soldanella, and primula, he could not tell.

His eyes were on the ground.  He was thinking of
his companion, what a strange life hers must be,
incomprehensible to him.  He felt how, if he were
thrown into it, he would not know how to strike out
and hold his chin above water.  At the same time his
heart beat fast with a wild vain desire for a freer life
than that of commerce.

The restraints to which he had been subjected had
compressed and shaped him, as the Chinese lady's
shoe compresses and shapes her foot—but the pressure
had been painful; it had marked him, but the marks
were ever sensitive.  The ancient robe of the
Carmelite fathers was of white wool barred with black,
and they pretended that they derived this habit from
the mantle of Elijah, which he had dropped as he
was being carried up to heaven, and the mantle had
touched as it fell the spokes of the chariot of fire in
which he ascended, and was scorched in stripes.
Philip, and many another successful man of business
who has been exalted to a position of comfort and
warmth, has the inner garment of his soul scarred by
the wheels of the chariot in which he has mounted.
Philip felt his own awkwardness, his want of ease in
other society than that narrow circle in which he had
turned, his inability to move with that freedom and
confidence which characterizes those born and reared
in generous society.  Even with this girl—this
Bohemian—he was as one walking and talking with
chains to his feet and a gag to his tongue.  She was
right; he was born to be at ease everywhere, to be
able everywhere to walk upright, and to look around
him; he had been put in a cramping position, tied
hand and foot, and his head set in such a vice as
photographers employ to give what they consider support
and steadiness, and he was distorted, stiffened,
contracted.  Had his life been happy?  He had never
accounted it so—it had been formal at the solicitor's
desk, and it was formal in the factory.  Was man
made and launched into life to be a piece of
clockwork?  He had thought, acted, lived an automaton
life, and taken his pleasure in measuring glasses, never
in full and free draughts.

'Have you had a happy existence?' he asked
thoughtfully.'

'Oh yes, the birds are happy; all nature is happy
so long as it is free.  It is in the cage that the bird
mopes, and in the pot that the plant sickens.'

Had Philip looked in her face he would have seen a
strange expression of triumph pass over it.  She had
carried her first point and gained his interest.

'Here,' she said, 'is a large rock above the water;
let us sit on it, and I will tell you about myself.  You
had no confidence in me, and would not give me your
story.  I will return good for evil, and show you my
past.  I agree with you, there will be no view of the
mountains above Dissentis from the *col*.  It is not
worth our while going on.  Besides, I am tired.'

She took a seat on a broad boulder that had fallen
from the mountains, and hung fast, wedged on one
side, disengaged on the other, over the crystal water
that, stirred by the light wind, lapped its supports.
Looking into the clear flood beneath, they could see
the char darting about, enjoying the sun that
penetrated the water and made it to them an element of
diffused light.

Artemisia pointed to them, and said:

'Who would not rather be one of these than a
goldfish in a glass bottle?'

Philip at once recalled the pond at Mergatroyd,
with the hot water spurted into it from the engine, in
which the goldfish teemed, and the globes in every
cottage-window supplied with the unfortunate captives
from this pond, swimming round and round all day,
all night, every year, seeing nothing novel, without an
interest, a zest in life.  Such had his career been; he,
a fish—not a gold one, nor even a silver one till
recently, but quite a common brown fish—in a
common glass receiver full of stale water, renewed
periodically, but always flat.

He looked at the darting char with interest.

'We are in the land of freedom,' said Miss
Durham.  'Then don't stand on the rock like a
semaphore.  Sit down beside me, and let your feet
dangle over the water.  Oh! as Polixenes says, "to
be boy eternal!"'

'"With such a day to-morrow as to-day,"' added
Philip, completing the quotation, as he seated himself
on the rock.

How wonderfully brilliant the sun was at that
height!  So utterly unlike the rusty ball that gave
light at Mergatroyd, and there gave it charily.  How
intense the blue of the sky!—dark as the deep-belled
gentian, not the washed-out cobalt of an English
heaven.  And the air was fresh; it made the heart
dance, and the pulses throb faster, with a trip and a
fandango such as the blood never attains in our gray
and sober land.

At a few hundred yards' distance was a road-mender
leisurely performing his task, repairing a track made by
a stone that had leaped from the cliffs above, torn up
the road, and then plunged into the lake.  Far behind
could be seen Mrs. Sidebottom flourishing her parasol
and gathering the rest of the disconnected party
together before the restaurant.

It was clear that she had decided they were not to
go further, but to rest at one of the tables in the open
air beside the lake, till it pleased the two of the
advanced party to return.

Had they been seen? Philip asked himself.  Where
he and Artemisia now sat, they were screened from
observation from the tavern, though not from the
road-mender, who was ahead on the way.

'I am not quite sure,' said Philip, and he fidgeted
with his fingers as he said it, 'I think I ought to be
going back to the party—to my aunt.'

'To your wife, you mean.  Why not say so?  No;
you shall not go.  There are plenty with her, five in
all, and I—I have only you.'

A flutter and then a scalding rush of blood through
Philip's veins.

'This is the land of freedom,' said Artemisia; 'as
you came over the Lake of Lucerne you saw Rütli,
the sacred spot where the three confederates swore to
shake off the chains that bound them and to be free,
and its freedom is the glory of Switzerland now.
Let this be Rütli.  Break those conventional bonds
that have tied you, and as a pledge remain seated
and listen to me.  Remember what I have told
you—I want to give you a peep into my past life, and
have your advice.'

Philip made no more objection, but he plucked
little scraps of sedum that grew on the stone and
threw them into the water.  Presently fish came to
snap at them, and turned away in disgust, leaving
them, when they saw they were not flies nor worms.

'My mother,' said Miss Durham, 'was a German—that
is how I can speak the language with as much
ease as English.  She was married to my father
shortly after her arrival in America, and she never
acquired the English tongue perfectly; she always
spoke it with an accent and intonation that was
foreign.  But, though she did not acquire perfectly
the language of the country of her adoption, she
assimilated its prejudices pretty easily, and held
them with that intensity which characterizes, in my
experience, acquired prejudices, especially when
unreasonable.  My father had in him a couple of drops
of dark blood, and although my mother thought
nothing of that when she took him, she speedily
came to regard it as an indelible stain.  She threw
it in his teeth, she fretted over it, and when I was
born did not regard me with the love a child has a
right to exact from its mother.  The continual
quarrels and growing antipathy between my parents
led at length to their separation.  My father left, and
I believe is dead; I never saw him after they parted.
He may have married again.  I do not know; but I
believe he is dead.  He made no inquiries after me
and my mother, to whom I was a burden and a
reproach; she looked about for, and secured another,
a more suitable partner, a German, working in a
factory.  They had children, fair-haired, moon-faced,
thick-set—and I was alone amidst them, the drudge
or enemy of all.  I had a good voice, and I was made
nurse to the youngest children, and to still them I
was accustomed to sing to them.  The eldest boy
had a clear good voice also, and him I liked best of
all my half-brothers and sisters.  It was a great
amusement to us to follow brass bands, or Italians
with organs and monkeys; and when we saw how
that these obtained money, my brother Thomas and
I agreed together that we would try our luck.  One
day—it was the day of the Declaration of
Independence, when everyone was out and all enjoying
themselves—Tom and I went into the most-frequented
avenue of our town, and began to sing.  Carriages
with ladies and gentlemen passed, and troops of
people in their best clothes, all in good humour,
and all seeking amusement.  We began to sing
"Ich weiss nicht was soll es bedeuten," Tom
taking a second.  Some Germans at once gathered
about us, and threw coppers into Tom's cap.
Presently a man came up with a red beard and a violin.
He stood for a long time listening, and then instead
of giving us money he asked where we lived, and what
our parents were.  I told him, and next day he came
to see my mother.  He was a musician, and he offered
to buy me of her, that he might teach me to sing and
accompany him.'

Philip's face grew gray, and the lines in it became
more marked.  He no longer threw bits of sedum at
the fish.  He clutched the rock with both hands.

'And—what did your mother say?' he asked.

'She sold me—for seventy-five dollars.'

Philip shuddered.  He turned and looked in Artemisia's
face—to see, perhaps, if her story had left its
traces there.

'She wanted a hundred dollars, he offered fifty.
They came to terms for seventy-five.'

Philip said nothing.  He looked down into the
bottle-green depths of the lake, and for some moments
Artemisia was silent also.

Presently—with a strange, forced voice—Philip
asked:

'How old were you when this transaction took place?'

'Still a child.  I travelled about with the
red-bearded man, and he taught me to sing, trained me
well, and at concerts made me sing, and I got great
applause.  I liked that.  I was happier with him than
at my mother's; I had no babies to carry about, and
to hush; none of the house drudging to do.  Besides,
he was kind, and he was an honourable man after his
fashion.  He treated me as if I were his daughter,
and took immense pains to form me to be a public
singer.  But always the burden of his song was, "See
what you cost me, what trouble you give me!
Afterwards, when you are a finished artist, you must be
engaged to me for a set of years and repay me for
my pains."  I had not a word against that.  I was
quite aware that I was indebted to him, and I
intended to show my gratitude by doing as he required.
So I grew up, going about with him, and he never
allowed me to be treated with impertinence by any
man; he always protected me, though not always in
the most heroic manner.  Once, in California, we were
performing, he with his fiddle and I singing, at a
liquor-bar, when a half tipsy gold-digger became
offensively attentive to me.  My master made me
leave the place with him, and he ran away with me
to San Francisco.  I asked him why?  He said that
he must do that, or shoot or be shot by that fellow,
and he had no wish for either.  I remember sulking;
I would have liked to see them fight about me.'

'How long did you remain with this man?'

'Till I was eighteen, and then, just as I was fit for
something better, and to earn more money, my master
spoiled his own game.'

'How so?'

'He wanted to marry me.  I reckon he thought he
could secure me best that way.  If he had not asked
me, and himself pestered me about this, I would have
stayed with him and let him have a share—a lion's
share, of my earnings; but he would not leave me in
peace—he spoiled his own game by that, and set me
free.  I left him.'

'And then?'

'Oh!  I have been independent since then.  I have
sung in America, but I have met with most success in
Germany.  I go about where I will.  I have no
master.  I earn enough to enable me out of the opera
season to go to the mountains or the seaside.  This is
a dull spot, and I would not have made so long a stay
in it had it not been that I was ordered to the elevated
air here, because I had suffered from a relaxed or
overstrained organ.  Now you know my story.  What
do you think of it?'

Philip was watching her face, and feeling as if he
received a shot in his heart every time she turned her
splendid full eyes on him, and his hands trembled as
they held the stone.  'Ever since I left my red-bearded
master I have been alone—alone in the world; I have
had no one to whom to cling, no mind to which to go
for advice in times of doubt and distress.  Alone—do
you know what it is to be alone?'

'Yes,' said Philip; he let sink his head on his breast,
and looked down into the water.  He also had spent
a lonely youth, but in what opposite circumstances!

'You can have no idea,' she continued, 'how I have
longed, with agony of heart, for someone—someone
whose judgment I could trust, whose mind was
superior, whose experience had been made in just
those departments of life to which I am strange.  I
have longed for such an one, whom I could regard as a
very dear friend, and to whom I could go in trouble
and perplexity.  But I have no one!  For all these
years I have been as much alone as the man in the
moon.'

Philip put his hand to his collar.  He tried to
straighten the points which had become limp—his
hand shook so that he could do nothing with them;
he was being burnt up, consumed, by her eyes which
were on him as she spoke of her desire to find a
friend.

'Is it not strange,' she said, 'that I who have been
preaching freedom should feel the need of a bar—not
of many, but just one to hold by.  Do you know what
it is to stand at the verge of a precipice?  To stand
on a spire top where there is sheer abyss on every side?
Can you imagine the giddiness, the despair that comes
over one?  My place is one surrounded by precipices,
dangers, everywhere; I see hands thrust out to give
me the push to send me over, but not one—no, not
one—to hold me.'

'You have mine,' said Philip, and laid his on her
wrist.  She took his hand and pressed it thankfully.

'Now,' she continued, 'you can understand what it
must be to one on a dizzy peak, or apex of a building,
if there be a something—a bar even, to which to hold.
Then the abysses below can be gazed into with
impunity.  Holding to that support, the dangers are no
longer dreadful, there is no more fear of falling out of
sheer desperation.'

She let go Philip's hand, and stood up.

'It is time to return to our party.  Oh, what a
relief it has been to me to pour out my heart to
you!  And now, in return, tell me about Colonel Yeo.'

The sound of that name at once brought Philip to
his senses.  He rose to his feet and stepped into the
road.

'I am sorry to be unable to tell you about him,
because I know little about him.  As I said before,
we belong to different spheres.'

They walked back together, talking of the weather
and the mountains and flowers, and found the rest at
a table.  The restaurant was under repair, and no
refreshments could be obtained there.

'Well?' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'you have kept us
waiting a long time.'

'We have been waiting for you,' said Miss Durham.
'We thought you would come on to the head of the pass.'

Philip caught Salome's eye and avoided it.  She
looked wistfully, wonderingly at him.  What did he
mean by at one minute treating the American lady
with coldness and rudeness, and then reversing his
behaviour towards her absolutely and at once?

She took her husband's arm as they walked back
to Andermatt.  Philip was silent.  He thought about
the story he had heard, of the loneliness of the poor
girl who had confided her history to him.

'What a long way this is, dear!' said Philip.  'It
seems an age since we began the descent.'





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.. _`EDELWEISS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XLVII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   EDELWEISS.

.. vspace:: 2

Philip could not sleep during the night that followed
the expedition to the Ober-Alp.  His mind was
occupied with what he had heard.  He thought of the
poor girl, sold by her mother; of her rude apprenticeship,
of the risks she had undergone; beautiful, young,
attractive.  He tossed in his bed.  What would
become of her?  Could she stand exposed to the
dangers that beset her and not, as she half-threatened,
throw herself over?  What could be done for her?

She had spoken of the freedom of her life as giving
zest to existence, but too great freedom may pall; it
had palled on the girl, and she had put up her hands,
pleading to be fitted with light but strong manacles.
What a contrast was to be found between his life and
hers!  He had been cramped and hedged about with
restrictions: she had enjoyed an excess of liberty.
Virtue, says Aristotle, is to be found in a happy
medium, and not virtue only, but the plenitude and
manifoldness of life can only unfurl itself in a happy
medium between excess of freedom and oppressive
restriction.  Philip was and ever had been conscious
that his abilities had not been allowed due expansion
in the career into which he had been squeezed; and
this American girl, with doubtless splendid capabilities
of mind and heart, had allowed them to run riot and
dissipate their fragrance in untutored independence.
When she fixed her great dark eyes on him, what a
thrill passed through him! and when she took his
hand, fire ran up his veins, and broke into a blaze in
his heart.

What could he do for her?  How was it possible
for him to assist her? to be to her the wise friend she
desired?  If he had made her acquaintance two years
ago it would have been another matter, he would have
thrown himself at her feet—metaphorically, of
course—and asked her to take him as her guide, protector,
and friend, to tie up her future with his, and so each
would have contributed something to the other to
make up what each lacked.  Then what a different
sort of life his would have been!  His present mode
of existence was similar, only better in quality, to that
he had led before; one had been a sordid drudgery,
the present was a gilded drudgery.  The difference
was in the adjective that qualified, not in the
substance of which the stuff of his life was made up.  He
had now to devote the same attention to figures and
technicalities and details as before.  The figures,
technicalities, details, were formerly relative to
conveyancing, they now concerned linen manufacture.
Such acquaintances as he had formed at Nottingham
had not been interested in much beyond their
business, and the acquaintances he had formed at
Mergatroyd had their interests concentrated on their
business.  Art, literature, science, had been to those
he knew at Nottingham, and were to those he knew at
Mergatroyd, names, not ideas.  Was life worth living
in such surroundings, tied to such a routine?  It is said
that man as he gets older fossilizes, the currents of
his blood choke the arteries, veins, vessels of heart
and brain, till like furred waterpipes and crusted
boilers they can no longer act.  But was not the life
to which he was condemned, with its monotony, its
constraint, its isolation from the current of intellectual
life—a mechanizing of man?  Philip knew that he
was losing, had lost, much of his individuality, almost
all the spontaneity that had been lodged in him by
the Creator, and was growing more and more into a
machine, like his spinning-jennies and steam looms.
He thought of Salome.  Had she many ideas outside
the round of ordinary life?  Was she not an ennobled,
sweeter lodging-house keeper?  She had been well
educated, but her mind did not naturally soar into the
ideal world.  It went up, spasmodically, like the
grasshoppers, a little way, and was down on its feet
again directly.  She was interested in her baby,
anxious to have her house neat, the cobwebs all
away, the linen in perfect order, all the towels marked
and numbered, the servants in thorough activity, the
quotients for the cake and pudding measured in
scales, not guessed.  She was devoted to her flowers
also—he recollected the hyacinths, and certainly they
had filled his room with fragrance and anticipations
of spring.  But he had sent her to sleep by reading
aloud Addison's 'Spectator,' and when he tried
Shakespeare he found that she had no insight into
the characters, and accepted the beauties rather than
seized on them.

What, Philip asked with a tremor—what if he had
never met Salome, and had met Artemisia?  Then
indeed he would have been transported on strong
wings out of the world of common-place, and the
sound of common talk, and the murky atmosphere of
vulgar interests, into a region where he would have
shaken off his half-acquired habits of formality, his
shyness, his cumbrousness and angularity, and become
light-hearted, easy, and independent.

In dreams we sometimes imagine ourselves to be
flying; we rise from the ground and labour
indefatigably with our arms as wings; and Philip was
now dreaming, though not asleep, fancying that he
could part with some of his gravity and by an effort
maintain himself in another sphere.  He had missed
his way in life; he was never designed to become a
piece of clockwork, but to enjoy life, seize it with
both hands, and hold it fast, and drink the mingled
cup to the dregs, crowned with roses.  Hitherto
he had not suspected that the blood in his arteries
was an effervescing wine; he had supposed it very
still.

What was to be done for Artemisia?  It would be
inhuman, not to be reconciled with conscience, to turn
away, to cast her off, when she entreated him to be
her friend and help her with counsel.  But how could
he assist her?  A drowning, despairing girl cried out
for help.  Could he suffer her to sink?  Had he not
promised her his assistance?

'I am positively determined,' said Mrs. Sidebottom,
next day, 'that we shall go to-morrow to the hospice.
I want to see it, and the dogs, and the scenery.  So I
have ordered carriages; and what is more, we will stay
there a day or two; then, such as like, can descend
the Val Tremola, and such as like can climb the Pizzo
Centrale.'

'I have no objection.' answered Salome.  'We must
not leave Andermatt until we have been over the pass
and seen the beauties or terrors of the further side.
What do you say, Philip?'

'I shall be glad.'

He stood up from table.

'Where are you going, Philip?'

'To Miss Durham, to invite her to join us.'

'Of course,' said Mrs. Sidebottom.  'Let me see,
we are eight.  Oh! it won't matter, one of the girls
can sit outside.  The drivers always walk going up
hill, so that there will be five in one carriage, and five
in the other.  And Miss Durham will pay her share.
Besides, if there is any climbing and excursioning to
be done, she will pay half of a guide.'

But—strange caprice in Salome, she put her hand
on Philip's arm, and said, in a low tone:

'No!  Philip; no!'

Philip looked at her with surprise.  Why should
she not wish the American lady to join the party?
She was her friend.  She had been so desirous that
he and Miss Durham should conclude peace, and now
that peace was agreed upon, Salome said, 'No!  Philip;
no!' when he proposed to invite the Chicago girl to
join them.  How capricious!  How unreasonable
Salome was!  She forms a wish, he hastens to accord
it, and lo! she hangs back and is dissatisfied.

His aunt's favourite expression, 'Fiddlestick-ends!'
rose to his lips.  He was not the man to be turned
about by the wayward, unreasoned fancies of his wife.

'Why not?' he asked.

But Salome gave him no answer.  She had formed
no motive in her heart for asking him not to invite
Miss Durham; she had not considered a reason.  She
reddened to the roots of her hair, but neither gave a
reason nor repeated her request.

There lingered all that day a little something, a
dissonance of mood between Philip and Salome; neither
could account for it, and neither attempted to account
for it.  He was silent; he wandered about the hotel
and the grounds with a hope to light on Miss Durham
He did not go into the *salle* or on the terrace, into the
reading-room, or about the garden searching for her.
He did not ask the waiters where she was, but he
looked about wherever he went, expecting to see her,
and when he found her not in the reading-room or
*salle*, on the terrace or in the garden, he felt that the
place was uninteresting, and he must perforce go
elsewhere.

Salome was gentle as usual, spending much time
with her baby, showing it to those guests who were so
gracious as to notice it, and smiling with pleasure
when it was admired; but she was not herself, not as
happy as she had been.  Hitherto the only jar to her
content was her husband's prejudice against
Artemisia; now the jar arose—she did not explain to
herself how it arose, but she wished that Philip had
not gone so far in his change of sentiment.  Yet with
her natural modesty and shrinking from casting blame,
she reproached herself for grudging to her friend that
friendship which she had herself invited Philip to
bestow.

The next day was lovely, with a cloudless sky, and
the carriages departed.  Some grumbling ensued and
had to be resisted, on the part of the drivers, because
five persons were crammed into one carriage.
Mrs. Sidebottom pointed out that the driver would walk.
That was true, was the reply, but not till Hospenthal
was reached; moreover the horses could not draw
more than four up the St. Gothard road to the
hospice.  There was still snow over a considerable tract;
however, at length the difference was overcome by the
promise of a small extra payment—two and a half
francs extra—which threw such energy into the horses,
and so increased their power of traction, that they
consented for that price to draw five instead of four
persons up the ascent from Hospenthal to the hospice.
In one carriage, that in front, sat Mrs. Sidebottom,
Janet and the captain, and one of the girls, the
youngest.  In the other carriage were Salome and
Miss Durham, Philip, and the two other Labarte girls.

But Philip did not remain long in it; at the steep
ascent above the little picturesque cluster of houses,
church, and castle that constitute Hospenthal, he got
out and walked.  The banks were overgrown with the
Alpine rhododendron, as flames bursting out of the
low olive-green bushes, and Philip hastened to pick
bunches for the ladies.  By a singular chance the best
flowers and those best arranged went to Miss Durham.

'See dere?' said the driver, taking off his hat.  'Vot
ish dat?  Dat is edelweiss.  You shee?'

He held his dirty brown cap to Philip and showed
him a tuft of white flowers as though made out of wool.
Philip had never seen the like before.

'Are these found here, in these mountains?'

'Jawohl! round here.  Up high!  Shee!'  The
man pointed with his whip to the rocky heights.
'She grow up very high, dat vlower you give to your
loaf!'

'Loaf?'

'Jawohl!'  The man winked, put his hand to his
heart.  'To your loaf—shatz!  You undershtand.'

Philip flushed dark.  He was hot with walking.

'Let me have some of that flower.  You shall have
it back.  No, thank you, not your hat.'

The man pulled the blossoms out from the dirty
ribbon that retained them.  'Dey is dry.  But you
should shee when dey fresh.'

Philip took the little flowers to the side of the
carriage.

'Look at these,' he said.  'The man calls them—no,
I cannot say the name.'

'Edelweiss,' said Salome; 'I have seen it dried in
the shop windows.  It is rare.'

'Edelweiss means the noble white flower,' said
Miss Durham.  'It grows far from human habitation,
and is much sought after.  I have never found it
myself, and never had any fresh picked given to me.'

'Would you like some?' asked Philip.

'Very much indeed,' answered Artemisia.

'If it be possible to get any, you shall have it,' he
said.  Then he walked on.

The fore carriage was stopped, and Mrs. Sidebottom
was descending with Claudine Labarte, whom she had
persuaded to get out with her and pick flowers, thus
leaving the captain and Janet by themselves.

'Before long,' said Mrs. Sidebottom, 'we shall be
beyond the line where flowers grow, so we must make
the best of our opportunity now, Miss Labarte.'

Then Mrs. Sidebottom fell back to where Philip was
and took his arm, and pressed it, looked up at him
humorously and said, 'I have a bit of news to tell you.
He is going to propose.  That is why I have got
Félicité out of the carriage.'

'Who?  Lambert?'

'Lambert, of course.  Not the driver.  And to
Janet.  Have you not seen it coming?'

'But perhaps she will not have him.'

'Fiddlestick-ends!  Of course she will.  Don't you
see that she likes him, and has been drawing him on?
Besides, I have sounded her.  The only difficulty is
about Salome.'

'How can she be a difficulty?'

'Oh, she may think it too soon for them to get
married when Mrs. Cusworth died so recently.'

'Then they can postpone the marriage.'

'Fiddle-faddle!  Of course not.  Always strike
whilst the iron is hot.  That is edelweiss in your hand,
is it?  Oh, could you manage to find or get a man to
find some quite fresh, for Lambert to present to Janet.
It is the correct thing in the Alps.  The graceful
accompaniment of a declaration.'

'I will try to get some,' said Philip.

'Lambert, you see, will be too much engaged with
Janet to go far himself; besides, he is not able to take
great exertion.  Climbing has a deteriorating effect on
the trouser-knees, it makes them baggy.  You will get
him some?'

'I will go searching for edelweiss when we reach
the hospice,' said Philip.  To himself he muttered,
'But not for Lambert and Janet.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`TRAPPED`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XLVIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   TRAPPED.

.. vspace:: 2

For the last hour of the ascent the carriages passed
through snow, not continuous, but between walls cut
in the avalanches and drifts that had formed in the
basins.  The air was cold.  The ground was so wet
through melted snow that Philip and Mrs. Sidebottom
and Mdlle. Labarte were obliged to ride.  The walls
of snow had fallen in here and there, so that the
horses were obliged to flounder through.  The scenery
was bleak and wintry.  The ladies shivered.  At
length the lake was reached in which the Reuss has
its source, and a little beyond it the roofs of the
hospice and the inn were visible.  In ten minutes the
shivering party was assembled in the *salle-à-manger*,
which was heated, and was ordering dinner.

The monks had been banished for many years, and
the hospice let by the Canton of Tessin to an
inn-keeper of Airolo, who with his worthy wife and family
have been in no way inferior in hospitality, in care for
the poor travellers, and in providing for the comforts
of the rich than were the brothers of old.

Signora Lombardi, stout, hale, and smiling, was in
the hospice, exerting all her energies to get food
ready for the large party that had come in.  Wines—the
best of North Italy, were to be had, and veal in
various forms—but always veal, call it what you will.

'Oh! my goodness, gracious me!' cried Mrs. Sidebottom,
'there is a dog—a Mount St. Bernard dog!
Oh! the size! the beauty!  It must become the rage.
Why—I have heard of more than two hundred pounds
being given for a tulip, and what would not be given
for such a dog as this—and with pulmonary complaint
too, that develops on the plains.'

'You do not mean to say, aunt, that you are going
to invest in shares in the Beaple Yeo dog-breeding
establishment?' said Philip satirically.

'Colonel Yeo are you speaking about?' interrupted
Miss Durham eagerly.  'Do tell me—do you think he
will establish his claims to the title of Schofield?'

'He can establish his title to that name whenever
he pleases,' said Philip, 'and—once more, if you have
any regard for our feelings, you will not mention that
person again in our hearing.  Oh! here—in this
glass on the table—are some draggled specimens of
the white fluffy flower you call edelweiss.  Perhaps
our landlady, Signora Lombardi, will tell us if it grew
near this inn.'

'Oh, signor,' answered the stout woman, 'it is to
be found by the searchers, but I have never discovered
it.  I am too fat to climb, and, besides, my day for
edelweiss is over.'  She laughed and shook her sides
as though she had made a good joke.  'I leave the
edelweiss to the young people.'  Her eye rested with
a sly twinkle, first on the captain and Janet, about
whom there could be no doubt, and then on Philip
and—her eye hesitated a moment between Salome
and Artemisia, and then rested on the latter.  Philip
looked uneasily out of the little window at the bleak
outer world.

When dinner was finished the afternoon was advanced.
Philip went out in front of the inn, on the
platform of rock upon which it is built.  Some of the
ladies talked of taking a stroll to the head of the Val
Tremola, but determined not to go far, they would
reserve their strength for the ensuing day.  He did
not volunteer to accompany them.  He had another
scheme in his head.  Outside the inn was a guide
lounging about, smoking and calling to such as passed
in the road.

Philip signed to him that he desired to speak to
him, and the man came to him with alacrity, but shook
his head, and pointed to one of the snowpeaks.  He
could speak only Italian, and Philip only English.
They were obliged to converse in dumb show.  Philip
showed him the flower of edelweiss he had brought
from the glass on the table inside.  The man nodded
his head.  Philip raised his eyebrows in note of query
and pointed to the rocks around.

'Si! si!' answered the man, shaking his head like a
poised China mandarin.

'All about there? anywhere?' asked Philip, speaking
very loud, as though by loudness he could make
the man comprehend.

'Oh! if it is anywhere I can find it easily.'

The man shook his head and again pointed to a
snow-peak over which a film of cloud was forming,
then being blown away, then forming again.

'Do you mean that it is not out there?' asked
Philip.  'I knew that as well as you.  There are
only ice and snow yonder.  Bless my soul, what
idiots these men are!'

Then he went back into the inn to equip himself
with gaiters and strong boots, and to fetch his stick,
with a chamois horn for a handle, that he had bought.
Whilst he was engaged fastening his leggings, he
heard the voices of the young ladies outside the
house.  They were starting for a walk.  Presently he
descended from his room and studied the map of the
district, suspended in the *salle*, till he thought he had
it well impressed on his brain, after which he sallied
forth.  The guide was no longer outside.  The
afternoon was verging to a close, and no one would be
likely to require his services, he supposed;
consequently he had retired to the lower room of the
hospice on a level with the road, where the drivers
and carriers, the guides and peasants were regaled
with sour wine.

Philip was relieved to see that the fellow was no
longer there.  He might have wanted to come with
him and show him the way, and it would have been
irksome to trudge beside a man with whom it was
not possible to converse; besides, edelweiss was to
be found everywhere, Madame Lombardi had said,
if looked for on the rocks.  Those guides made difficulties
about finding it, so as to induce the uninitiated
and easily persuaded to engage them to direct them
to spots where it grew.  Philip resolved to go by
himself.  He would not go far; he could not lose his
way; there were no yawning chasms down which he
might tumble that he could see, and avalanches, he
was told; fell in the early spring.  He must do some
climbing, of course, because the tourists would have
picked all the edelweiss within reach on both sides
of the road, and he must scramble to places they had
not ransacked, but he would not go into any danger;
he would keep his eye on the hospice, or at least, the
road.  Along the road he trudged in his heavy boots
till he came to a great weather-beaten crucifix, that
marked the beginning of the descent on the Italian
side.  The cross was painted dull red, but the paint
had peeled away in patches, blistered by frost or sun.
Philip looked up wonderingly at it.  How out of
place it seemed there, in that wilderness of bare rock
and pure snow!  He seemed to be in the midst of a
primeval world, which had not yet begun to produce
green trees and herbs, the fowl and living beasts—all
around was utter silence, the world around was
lifeless.  The sun was behind the great wall of snowy
glacier mountains, and the vapour that was collected
like smoke on its head, so that the prospect seemed
to be that of a world such as existed when there was
light but the sun was uncreate.  And, in the centre
of this inchoate, unvitalized world, stood the crucifix.
The mountains looked down on it, the glaciers frowned
on it, as a thing of to-day, as though they said, 'We
were before ever you were dreamed of, and we shall
be long after mankind has ceased to believe in
self-devotion, and has come to laugh at every creed save
the idolatry of self.'

Then Philip diverged from the road, and began to
climb.  There was a valley opening here from the
highest peaks, down which a little rill fell; and on
the flank of the mountain which faced the south there
was comparatively little snow, and Philip saw tracts
of moss and herbage.  That would be the garden of
the edelweiss; there he must search, and he would
find the desired flower without serious trouble.

He was surprised to find the distances greater than
they appeared.  In that highly-rarefied and clear air
things far off appeared close, and dimensions as well
as distances were deceptive.  He found green carpets
of dwarf campion, studded with pink flower, dense as
moss; and in the bogs soldanella shaking their
delicately fringed purple bells—but no edelweiss.
Disappointed in his search on the slope which had
promised, he crossed the brook and crept along the
flank of the opposite mountain; he would turn its
shoulder and get to the side well exposed to the sun;
that which he had just explored was, he now
perceived, shut off from all but vertical rays by the
mountain-ridge south of it.  He groped and scrambled,
turned back, went higher, had long lost sight of the
hospice, had not, indeed, remembered to look for it,
when suddenly he was enveloped in dense white fog.
He could, however, see the sun through it like a
copper ball, but only for a minute, and then it sank
behind a ridge, at least so he supposed, for it was
extinguished gradually.  He must now retrace his
steps.  He dare not advance; he thought he could
find his way back.  He remembered several
landmarks—a rock, on the top of which was some dwarf
shrub, like a wig worn by an old fellow he knew at
Nottingham, and a furrow which, if he followed it,
must lead him to the brook.  But he soon found that
he had lost all sense of direction; the disappearance
of the sun had taken from him the only clue as to
the points of the compass.

He was hot.  He sat down for a moment and wiped
his face; the water was streaming off it.  He was
not as yet alarmed, only vexed—vexed especially at
his having made this expedition in vain.  He would
have to return without the edelweiss.

'That is old Jarvis's head with the wig thrust
back!' he said, as a nodule of rolled rock appeared
through the mist.  But when he took a second look
at it he doubted.

'I wish I had brought a whisky-flask with me,' he
muttered; 'I am beginning to feel an ache in my
muscles.'

He stumbled on, and now, to his alarm, saw that
the darkness was closing in rapidly.  He had not
considered, when he started, that in the South of
Europe there is no twilight, and that night comes
after day without hours of grace.

Now it flashed upon him that what the guide had
meant when indicating the mountain-top wreathed in
vapour was—not that edelweiss grew there, but that
the weather was going to change, or the fog to descend.
He hurried on, but did not know in which direction
he was going.  He was on a steep slope of snow that
stretched before him apparently interminably, lost
itself in vapour and curled over and enveloped him
as in an apple-pie bed, a cold sheet of white below,
before, above, behind.  And, at that moment, he saw
on the rock above him, almost within reach, the
white, starry, nodding head of an edelweiss; the
woolly flower was burdened with the moisture that
had condensed on it from the fog, and was hanging
over the stone to shake itself free.

With an exclamation of satisfaction Philip sprang
up the slope, caught the rock with the hook of his
stick, and tore the edelweiss away.

Had the crook of his stick been what it professed
to be—a chamois' horn, he would have been safe, it
would have sustained his weight; but as it was only
bone, and the curve came across the grain, it snapped,
and Philip shot down the snowy declivity.  He still
grasped the tuft of edelweiss; he thrust his stick
into the snow to arrest his descent; he tore up the
snow, twisted the stick in his hand, and shot further
down—shot instantaneously out of the fog into dusk,
in which everything was distinct, and below he saw a
great sweep of snow like a sheet.  He looked into it
as Sancho Panza into that in which he was being
tossed.  He drove his heels into the snow, his elbows,
his stick, to retard his descent, and suddenly dropped.
Then found himself on rubble, still sliding, and brought
up with a jerk by a rock.  For a few minutes Philip
was unconscious.  He was aware of a shock, a slide,
darkness and noise, that was all.  But—where was
he?  He had vanished from the face of the earth,
gone through the surface of snow into a depth
beneath.  A field of snow had filled the bottom of a
valley, and the river ran beneath in a ravine.  Nothing
could be seen of the cleft, nothing of the river, the
smooth sheet of snow hid both; but the force of
Philip's descent had broken through that portion of
the covering where it was thinnest, near the rock and
rubble; he had gone through, and was buried alive.
Beneath him, about him, was darkness—pitch
darkness; only above could he see the hole through
which he had fallen, looking like a silver-gray disc.
The air about him was filled with thunder, the
pulsating thunder such as he had heard at the fall of
the Reuss at the Devil's Bridge, such as he had heard
that very day where the river plunged over a wall of
rock in the gorge above Hospenthal.  The air moreover
was as full of water here beneath as it had been
above in the fog, but the particles here were much
larger.  This was the spray cast up by the raging,
leaping, headlong water in the abyss.

How far down was it to that torrent?  Eye could
not penetrate, ear could not tell.  The vault of snow
overhead reverberated with the boom of the water,
and cast it back into the gulf as it cast back the
up-thrown spray.  He could see no water, he could see
nothing save the gap overhead.

What was he to do?  His arms were heavy and
numbed with cold.  He cautiously lifted one and
found that the snow had been driven, even rammed,
hard up the sleeve by his descent.  He was safe
where he lodged, on rock, and he shook out the snow
from one sleeve and then the other.  In doing this he
found the bunch of edelweiss.  He did not see it;
he felt it up his sleeve; it had been carried there by
the snow.  He did not throw it away; he left it
where it was.  What was he to do?  His situation
was precarious.  He might turn giddy and fall over.
That terrible fascination there is in an abyss might
lay hold of him and draw him down.  Artemisia had
spoken of that fascination, the fascination of despair.
Now he felt it.

He tried to scramble up, but the shale slipped away
beneath his feet, and he was fain, in an agony of
terror to recover his former place on firm rock.  It
was not practicable to ascend.  He leaned back
against the stones, that dripped and ran with water,
the melting of the snow overhead, the condensation
of the foam from the river beneath.  The
water condensed also on his forehead and ran off
his brows—water cold as ice.  Where his fingers
worked hollows in the loose soil, the water settled,
and soaked his fingers and turned them dead with
cold.

Was it that there was rhythm in the fall of the
water, or was it that his pulses beat in his ear and
gave rhythm to the continuous thunder?  He could
not tell.  He heard the throb of sound, or it seemed
to him to be the rattle of the machinery of his mill at
Mergatroyd multiplied to infinity.

His feet had glowed with the exercise, but now
they began gradually to lose heat, and turn
stone-cold.  In time, they would cease to have feeling in
them, then in numbness and weariness his knees
would buckle under him, and he would shoot head-long,
like a diver into the black void.  How far down
was it to the water—to death—he wondered.  Would
he feel—be conscious of the shock over the edge
before he went into the water, or crash with his head
against a rock?  He had heard a fellow clerk say
that as he was drowning the whole of his past life
rushed before his eyes and spread itself out as a
panorama, a succession of scenes, in a moment of
time, twenty years unfolded leisurely in one second,
displaying every incident, not crowded but in sequence,
and all articulate.  Would it be so as he went over
the edge, in the span of time between the rocks on
which he stood and the clash and extinction below?
His heart grew faint; and he felt in him the qualm
that a bad sailor knows as the vessel plunges into a
deep sea-trough.

But—surely he would be sought by the people at
the inn.  Certainly he would be sought, but in what
direction would they look for him?  How trace him
in the mist?  How suppose he was below the surface
of the smooth quilt of snow in the Val Tremola, sunk
out of sight, hanging over a boiling torrent?  And
now down past Philip ran a thread of silver; it
startled him, and he looked up the line to see a
glimpse of the moon appear above the hole through
which he had fallen.  The fog must have cleared
away, or be clinging partially to certain mountain-tops.
If the moon were clear, then the search for
him could be prosecuted with some chance of success.
But Philip was not over-confident.  His powers of
endurance were ebbing.  He raised his feet and
stamped on the rock; he could feel the shock in his
joints, but not in his feet—they were dead.  His hands
were stiff.  He put his fingers into his mouth, but this
only momentarily restored vitality.  After the feeling
had gone the muscular power would become paralyzed.
He was not hungry, but squeamish.  He looked again
at the moon, and continued watching it eagerly; it
slid forward and shone full through the window of his
dungeon.  The light fell on rocky point and rill of
leaping water, but could not illumine the abyss below,
out of which rose the voices and thunderings—the
voices of death, the thunderings preceding judgment.

And now the white ray of the moon smote down
into the gulf below his feet and disclosed a shoot of
the purest, most sparkling silver, the leaping torrent
as it danced over a ledge into utter darkness, into
which no moon-ray could dive.

Suddenly from above a mass of snow detached
itself and fell past him, a mass so big that had it
smitten him it would have carried him down with it.

The side of the hole in the snow-dome grazed the
moon and ate more and still more out of it.  Philip
looked with fear—he felt that when the whole of the
moon had passed beyond that opening, and not
another ray fell into it, when again the darkness of
that vault would become utter, hope would die away
from his heart, and he must fall.

But as he stood looking up, watching the slipping
away of the moon, he saw sharp cut against it a black
something, and heard, above the roar of the water, the
discordant sounds of a bark.  He was found—found
by one of the hospice dogs.

The first giddiness of renewed hope almost overcame
him.  He trembled as in a fit, and his knees
bent so that only by a supreme effort of the will could
he brace them again.  He believed he heard shouts,
but was uncertain.

What followed remained ever after confused in his
memory.  He heard some Italian words in his ear,
saw or felt someone by him, was grasped, a rope
fastened round him, he heard himself encouraged to
make an effort, tried to scramble, helped by the rope,
broke through the snow, was in the upper world
again, was surrounded, had brandy poured down his
throat.

Then he was seized by the hand and shaken.

'Old fellow!  Phil!  'Pon my word, you have given
us a turn.  We have been hunting you everywhere.'

'Lambert!'

'Yes, Phil, and who'd have thought to find you
trapped under the snow?'

The men of the party urged immediate movement
to restore circulation.  Philip's hand, when dropped
by Lambert, was seized again and held tightly, but he
had lost feeling in it.  Nor could he see clearly; he
was dazzled by the light—the brilliance of the moon
and the glare of the snow—after the darkness below.

'Who is that laughing?' he asked suddenly.

'Oh—Miss Durham,' answered Lambert.

'And—who is that crying?'

A whisper in his ear—'It is I—Salome.'





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.. _`TÊTE-À-TÊTE`:

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   CHAPTER XLIX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   TÊTE-À-TÊTE.

.. vspace:: 2

Philip passed a night of pain and fever.  He was
bruised and shaken.  His hands had been scarified
in the slide down the rubble, and when circulation
returned in them they bled.  The exposure to cold
had affected him, and he ached in every joint; his
skin was as though red-hot plates had been passed
over it.  He could not sleep, for if he dropped out of
consciousness it was into mental fear that he was
falling down a precipice into the vortex of an unseen
torrent, and he woke with a start that sent a thrill of
torture through his strained nerves.  He could not
get the roar of the water out of his ears; he had
carried it away with him in his head.  Salome, at his
request, to dispel it played the jingling piano in the
*salle* underneath his room, but that was powerless to
dissipate it.  Then he sent his request to Miss
Durham to sing.  Perhaps her splendid voice might
drive away the delusion.  Her answer was that she
had no voice.  No voice!  He knew that she had;
she had boasted to him of it.  He sent another
message.  Then came back the reply that she could
not, and would not, sing to such a detestable little
instrument as that in the *salle*.

Next day Philip was obliged to keep his bed.  He
was in discomfort and pain, and not the best of
tempers.

'Salome,' said he, when his wife came to him with
her fresh bright face full of sympathy and cheering?
'thank you for going on playing on the piano
yesterday evening.  Whilst you played I could forget the
roar, but it returned directly that your fingers left the
keys.  I take it most unkind of Miss Durham that
she would not sing.'

'Oh, Philip! don't you know that she has come to
the high mountains to husband her voice, and it is
possible that to sing at this great altitude—we are
nearly seven thousand feet above the sea—might do
it serious injury.'

'Why did she laugh when I was drawn out of the
chasm?'

'Philip, dear, I cannot tell; but neither she nor I
had any idea of the danger you had been in.  The
ravine was completely blocked up and sheeted over
with snow, and we did not know anything of the
horrible chasm down which the river plunged and
through which it struggled.  We only knew that you
had gone through a crust of snow, and that you had
to be drawn out.'

'But did you not hear the thunder of the torrent?'

'We did not particularly notice it—the roof of snow
muffled it.  You who were beneath heard it, but
we—we may have heard something, but had no more idea
of what there was beneath than you can have had
when you slipped through.'

'It was very unfeeling of her to laugh.'

'Look here, Philip,' said Salome.  'In turning the
sleeves of your coat inside out I have found these
flowers—edelweiss, and fresh.'

'Yes, I found them.'

He considered for a moment, and then said: 'They
are for you.  Wear them, and let our party know that
I did not encounter the risks I passed through
without bringing back with me a prize.'

'Thank you, dear Philip;' she stooped over him
and kissed his lips.  'Dear, dear Philip, I shall never
part with them.  It was most kind of you, and brave,
too, to go in search of them for me.'

'Salome,' said he, 'don't let Lambert, and above
all Mrs. Sidebottom, come and worry me to-day.  I
am in horrible pain, I cannot move, and I cannot
bear to be bothered.  You go down and take a little
stroll; do not mind about me.  I will try to doze.  I
had no sleep last night.  I am turning all the colours
of the rainbow, I was so bruised.  I shall be right in
a day or two.  No bones are broken, but I cannot
stir, and cannot endure to be worried; let me be
quiet and a good deal to myself.  I will sleep when I
can.'

'May I sit by you a little?' she asked timidly.  'I
will not speak—only hold your hand.'

She look his silence for consent.  And he found
comfort in her presence; a soothing feeling crept up
his arm from her hands that clasped his, and spread
over his heart.

He was somewhat ashamed of himself.  He had
not made his expedition among the rocks, and met
with his fall in searching for edelweiss for her, but
for Artemisia.  Salome had accepted the flower, and
cherished it as if he had sought it for her, and he
allowed her to remain in this delusion.  Was this
honourable?  Was it in accordance with that strict
rectitude on which he plumed himself?  Yet he could
not tell her the truth; it would wound her too deeply,
and—humble himself too considerably.

Two days ago Artemisia Durham had taken his
hand on the Ober-Alp, beside the lake, when he
extended it to her in pledge that he would do great
things for her; and now, in redemption of his pledge,
he had tried to get her a bit of edelweiss, and had
tumbled through the snow in his efforts.  And what
could he do for her?  She had not asked for legal
advice or for figured table-linen, the two things he
could furnish her with without offence.  It was as
well that his hand was hurt—it served him right; he
had no right to offer what he was unable to perform.
How differently he had felt as Artemisia held his
hand!  Then an intoxicating current had set boiling
through his veins, turning his head, maddening him.
Now the cool hand of Salome conveyed balm to his
aching joints, and what was a better medicine, though
a bitter one, self-reproach to his conscience.

Now, also, for the first time since his walk with Miss
Durham, some of his old suspicion oozed up through
the joints of his thoughts.  What was the reason of
her laughter?  Thrice it had occurred; first she had
said something laughingly about him to Beaple Yeo
at table, and provoked that odious creature to an
explosion of laughter.  Then, on the Ober-Alp Pass
she had laughed for no particular reason that Philip
could see, and had made Philip laugh with her.
And, lastly, she had laughed mockingly, alone, when
he was rescued from the very verge of a dreadful
death.

He shut his eyes and lay still.  Salome sat by him
for an hour, and then, thinking he was asleep, released
his hand, kissed him quietly, and stole from the room.
Mrs. Sidebottom wanted to take a short walk; it was
tedious in the inn, with only a few old and odd volumes
of Tauchnitz novels about; and cold or inactivity
was rendering the Labarte girls torpid, and they were
clinging about Aunt Janet, or dropping upon her, at
embarrassing times.  Mrs. Sidebottom did not feel
equal to managing all three unaided, and as Miss
Durham declined to accompany her, she insisted on
Salome lending her aid.  Salome consented.  Her
husband had wished that she should go out, and he
was asleep and could be left without anxiety.  The
girls had been shown at Andermatt beads and seals
made of a sparkling stone, which was said to be
found on the St. Gothard road, half-way down the
Val Tremola, and when Mrs. Sidebottom proposed a
walk they entreated to be allowed to search for this
precious stone, of which they resolved to compose
necklaces for themselves, or at least bracelets.  It
would create quite a sensation at Elboeuf; not one of
the girls there had seen this beautiful stone—not one
probably had heard the name of Tremoline, by which
it was called.

There was another reason why Mrs. Sidebottom,
on this occasion, particularly desired the companionship
of Salome.  She was commissioned to break to
her the news that Janet and Lambert were engaged,
and to use her endeavours to overcome any prejudice
Salome might entertain against the marriage being
solemnized shortly, at Berne, at the Embassy.  And
Mrs. Sidebottom was about to attack her on this
point by representing that she, Salome, was not the
person to make objections when she herself had
married Philip within a very short time of the
supposed death of Uncle Jeremiah, who, though he was
not her father, had stood to her much in the light of
a parent.

Salome had observed that Janet and the captain
took much delight in each other's society, but she
had not given their association a serious thought;
she knew that her sister liked lively society, and
the captain had exhibited, whilst at Andermatt, an
amount of vivacity and humour which she had not
given him the credit of possessing.  They were both
interested in things of which she knew nothing, and
naturally, therefore, sought each other's society.  They
were also connections in a roundabout fashion.
Through Philip, Lambert became her cousin, and as
Janet was her sister, he must be some sort of cousin
to Janet.  Quite near enough relation to remove
starchness of intercourse, and place them on easy
terms of cousinly association, that excused a good
deal which would be inadmissible were they
unrelated.

Philip heard the voices of the party outside the
house, the crisp laughter of the girls, and the sawing
tones of Mrs. Sidebottom, and then the sounds became
distant, and ceased.  His meditations were interrupted
about a quarter of an hour later by three raps against
the wall by his head.  The several rooms in the inn
were small, and divided from each other and from the
passage by wood—not very thick deal boarding,
papered over, but which in places had warped and
split the paper.  Signora Lombardi, every spring, with
a pot of paste and some strips of paper, went about
the rooms pasting over the rifts, disguising them, and
preventing the partitions from being as diaphanous as
they were diaphonous.  German, Swiss and Italian
beds are wooden boxes, narrow and short; and in
such a bed against such a wall lay Philip, unable to
move without torture.

Again three loud raps.

'Who is that?' he called.

'You are awake, Mr. Pennycomequick?' asked the
voice of Miss Durham, almost in his ear.  'We are in
adjoining stalls.  I want a word with you, because I
leave this insufferable place to-morrow, I can endure
the cold and tedium no longer; and before you return
to the nether world, I may be away unless you
descend in a *glissade*, and shoot through the roof of
the Hôtel Impérial upon us into the midst of the
table at dinner.'

Philip felt the partition between them shake.  She
was laughing.  She had her chair against it, and
leaned against it—to speak to him and to laugh at
him.

'I must ask your pardon,' she said presently with a
twitter in her tones from suppressed merriment; 'I
did not realize your danger, or rather the danger you
had escaped, when pulled out of the snow.  But my
laughter was excusable; you can have no conception
how infinitely comic an object you presented; and the
whole affair was so ridiculous.  You—going aloft
after edelweiss without the smallest acquaintance
with its habitat, and with no experience to teach
you how to keep your footing in Alpine altitudes,
and shooting down, pop! through a hole into the
nether world.  And then—to see the men about
the hole extracting you—it was like Esquimaux
fishing.'

Philip was not only vastly offended, but he was
also greatly shocked, at the conduct of the young
Chicago lady, holding a conversation with him through
the wall when he was in bed.  To show his sense of
the indelicacy of her course, he said nothing in
return.

She tapped again.

'Well, Mr. Pennycomequick! have I scandalized
you?  We are in the land of freedom; and I am a
daughter of the Stars and Stripes, and we American
girls are not so particular about trifles as are your
English misses.  Are you very much bruised and
crumpled?'

'Very,' groaned Philip.

'Do you good; take some of the starch out of you.
You had the temerity to browbeat and insult me,
when first you came to Andermatt.  Now I have
served you out, and I may tell you this to your
consolation, that it is a lucky thing for you that you had
your fall and contusions.  But for that I would have
turned you inside out, and twisted your silly head off
your shoulders.  I intended to do it, for no man
offends me and escapes stings.  I am content to leave
you as you are, black and blue, and disjointed, like a
wretch on the rack.'

She was stretching his mind on the rack and disjointing
that as well, sitting, leaning against the wall,
and working the mechanism.

'Mr. Pennycomequick, I heard about you from
your wife before you arrived; how different you
proved to the idea I had formed, you have too much
conceit to imagine.  I found a wooden man, with his
limbs affixed to his trunk by pegs, with a wooden
face, wooden ideas, wooden manners—and when this
wooden figure-head had the audacity to insult
me——'

Philip exclaimed, 'What I said was true.  You
yourself admitted its truth, when you told me your
story.'

'My dear dolt!' said Miss Durham, 'I admit it.
But who likes to have the truth skewered on a
bayonet, and rammed down his throat?  And now—what
I say would splutter about like Japanese
fireworks and do no one any harm, were it not that it is
true, true in every word, and this it is that turns each
word into duck-shot, with which I pepper you—through
the wall.'

It was a wonder that next day Signora Lombardi
did not find the sheets of No. 18 singed, so hot did
Philip become between them with offended modesty,
with anger, anguish, and shame.

'The game is up, so I do not mind showing you my
hand,' cried Artemisia.  She had folded her arms
over her breast, and leaned back, with her head
against the wall, and talked hastily, passionately.
'That little wife of yours, who is a thousand times
too good for you, and whom I pity, yoked to such a
fellow as yourself, she told me that it was not possible
for you to come to love me, because she was your wife.
Not, she hastened to explain, that she esteemed herself
irresistible, and very superior, but because she had
such a towering opinion of your rectitude, equal to
your own of yourself.  That was as much as daring
me to attempt the conquest; and your own absurd
self-esteem was another provocation.  When you
threw down the glove I accepted the challenge, and
you know how in an hour or two I had spun you
round like a teetotum.'

She stayed talking to laugh.  As she laughed
she shook the wall, and the wall rattled Philip's
bed, and the rattling bed rattled his aching joints;
but he felt these pains no more in the intensity of
the agony of shame that he endured in his racked
mind.

'You were quite fetching!' she continued.  'When
you held out your hand and offered to be my stay, I
was obliged to jump up.  With all my powers of
self-control I could hardly keep from boxing your ears
and sending you into the lake for your impudence.
However, I had no wish that the transformation
scene should come off too soon.  I intended to lead
you on through other follies till I had ruined your
reputation and your self-respect.  But the fates have
been against me; I cannot wait longer here.  I
abandon you to yourself and to your good little wife.
I cannot waste time over you.  I have other matters
to attend to; better game to pursue than such a
wooden leaping frog as you.'  She stood up from her
chair, and went to the window; it commanded a
bleak prospect.  She could not see the returning
party on it.  The girls Labarte had perhaps found
the desired minerals and would not desist from
collecting till they had each enough to form a *parure* of
Tremoline.

Artemisia returned to her seat against the wall, and
said, 'As for that romance I told you about myself,
believe of it as much or as little as you please.
When you tell your own story, with your autobiography,
the little episode of Artemisia Durham will
not be found in it.  We only remember and write of
ourselves as we would like others to know us, not as
we are.  Is it not so?'

Then suddenly she broke into a song, a popular
Viennese opera air, which she had turned into rough
English verse to enable her to sing it at concerts
elsewhere than in Germany.  She had a beautiful, a
naturally flexible voice, and every note was like an
articulate crystal drop.

   |      'A little grain of falsehood
   |        Is found in all that's said,
   |      It penetrates as leaven
   |        Whatever's utterèd.
   |      No man is what he seemeth.
   |        No woman what appears.
   |      There's falsehood oft in laughter,
   |        And falsehood e'en in tears.
   |  Both fact and fib together go
   |  In everything we say or do.
   |  To a peck of truth—a pinch of lie,
   |  As the spice in the pudding, to qualify.'





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.. _`IN THE HOSPICE`:

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   CHAPTER L.


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   IN THE HOSPICE.

.. vspace:: 2

There is a toy, the delight of children, that consists
in a manikin with his legs curled under him, weighted
with lead in his globular nether parts.  This manikin,
however, persistently held down, or violently knocked
over, always rights himself.

And there are human beings similarly constituted.
With them self-conceit supplies the place of lead.
There is no disturbing their equilibrium for more than
a moment.  Lay their heads in the dust, and the
instant the finger that depressed them is removed, up
go the heads again, nose in air.  Strike them with
horsewhip or poker, and they shiver in mute anger,
unconscious of humiliation, and they are steady again,
nose in air.  Bore holes in them, and you cannot let
out their ponderosity and disturb their equilibrium;
set them on the fire, and you cannot melt the
self-conceit out of them.  It oozes out of their pores, it
distils from their finger-tips, it streams out of their
eyes, it pours from their lips, and yet never exhausts
itself, any more than the oil in the cruse of the widow
of Sarepta.  Kick them, and they travel upright, nose
in air, along the carpet; pitch them out of the window,
and they go down head uppermost; sink them in the
deepest well, and they sit, slowly disintegrating at the
bottom, head up.

Philip was not one of these.  It was true that in
him was a large amount of self-esteem—or what
religious people would call self-righteousness, but it
was not an organic inbred quality; it had been
developed by his education, by the circumstances of
his early life, and could therefore be expelled from his
system by sharp medicine.  By one of those exquisitely
pitiful provisions of Nature, which compensates
to the nightingale for his plainness by giving him a
tuneful voice, and to the peacock for his harsh notes
by surrounding him with a glory of gold and green,
men of little acquirements, little minds, little presence,
are furnished with the blessed gift of bumptiousness,
which makes them unconscious of their insignificance,
which induces those who can by no probability be
heroes to others to be heroes to themselves.  Just as
the most ignorant men are the most positive, so are
the most empty men the most self-contained.  They
can blow themselves out with the breath of their own
nostrils.

Success in life is not necessary to make a man
conceited, nor beauty to superinduce vanity in a woman.
The extravagances of conceit are found in those men
who have made a botch of life, and of vanity in those
women who have least personal charms.  Every
disappointment, every rebuff, throws them in on
themselves, and they seek in themselves that approval and
appreciation which is denied them without.  Like
Narcissus, but lacking his excuse, they fall in love
with themselves, because no one else will love them.
Is it not possible that appreciation may be an element
as necessary to the psychical as oxygen is necessary to
the physical life, that when it is not freely given or
wrested from the world without, we may set to work
to engender it for ourselves within, just as in Jules
Verne's romance those who voyaged ten thousand
leagues under the sea, being out of the element that
naturally fed the lungs, manufactured it for themselves
under water?

Had Philip been constitutionally conceited, had
bumptiousness been congenital, like scrofula in the
blood, or tubercle in the brain, the overthrow he had
met with at the hands of Miss Durham would not
have seriously affected him, would have had no
educative effect on him.  He would have sighed and
resigned himself to the conviction that Miss Durham
was to be pitied, not he, because an inscrutable
Providence, which denies to some eyes the faculty of seeing
colour, and to some ears the power to distinguish and
enjoy melodies, and to some noses the capacity to
delight in odours, had denied to Miss Durham the
ability to admire and adore him.

In the classic tale, Achilles was plunged by his
mother Thetis in the waters of Styx, which made
him invulnerable, save in the heel by which she held
him.  So our good mother, Nature, takes some of her
children, not the robust of brain and the Achillean in
vigour and beauty, and renders them callous, so that
they can pass through life unhurt by shaft of ridicule,
scourge of rebuke, and flout of fortune.  Every arrow
glances off their skin, every blade used on them has
its edge turned, every cudgel breaks without bruising.
What happiness is theirs!  They are whole and
unhurt, whereas their richer endowed brothers are
hacked, and pierced, and heart-broken.

The author had once to do with a worthy, pious
man, put in a situation under him, who was triple-panoplied
in the hide of self-esteem.  As is usual with
such persons, he was not much short of a fool, and did
very foolish, inconsiderate things.  When called to
task for some egregious act, he bore the reprimand
with meekness, then retired to his closet, where he
prayed for him who had rebuked him, as for a
persecutor.  Never for one particle of a moment did it
occur to him that he himself deserved blame.  And
the author knows full well that the callous-skinned
who read these pages will feel no cut from his words,
but draw up their heels under them, out of the way of
his scythe.

It has been proved by experiment that the tortoise
can live though deprived of its brains, but the tortoise
is the animal with the hardest epidermis known.
Perhaps the converse may be true, that those animals
with the largest proportion of brain may have the
most sensitive skins.

Now Philip was no fool.  He had plenty of sound
sense, but his moral faculties had been warped by the
circumstances of his early career, and he had grown
up with great suspicion of others, but sure confidence
in himself.  Now, suddenly, his eyes had been opened
by a rude shock; his moral nature had been subjected
to a *glissade* and a jolt almost as severe as that which
his body had undergone, and as he was not tough and
horny-hided in mind, he felt the results as acutely.
If he ached with bruises and sprains in flesh and
sinew, so did he ache with bruise and sprain in all the
tissues and fibres of his inner spiritual self.

When Salome returned to Philip's room she found
him disinclined to talk; he was still twitching and
quivering from the lashes he had received, conscious
only of his present pain, covered with humiliation.
He had not been given time to think of his future
conduct, even to consider the retrospect; the present
torture occupied and made to tingle every nerve of
his soul.

With the innate tact which Salome possessed, she
saw at once that he did not wish to be disturbed;
though she could not divine that he had other cause
for suffering than his fall, or that other injuries had
been done him than those which made his body black
and blue.  She knew that he was in pain, and that he
sought to disguise the fact from her, and though full
of solicitude for him, she did not harass him with
attentions.

She drew a little stool beside his bed, and seated
herself on it, with needlework for the baby, and did
not look at him.

He lay on his back, but turned his head, and saw
her beautiful auburn hair, with the evening sun tinging
it with orange fire.  For some time he looked at it
without thought of her, only of himself, his shame,
his jarred self-respect.  That jest of Artemisia about
the Esquimaux watching about a hole in the ice, to
pull out of it a fish, was present to him; he saw the
fish come up flapping its tail and tossing to escape
the barb; and then thought of himself being hauled
out of the hole in the snow through which he had
plunged.  Then he considered how that she—this
malicious woman—had held him with a hook in his
jaws and had played with him, and then how he had
been suddenly plunged out of a world of light and
smoothness into an abyss where all was darkness and
horror.  Where was he?  Into what had he fallen?
Had he not almost shot over the precipice, and gone
down into the uttermost depths of degradation?  What
if this accident had not befallen him?  What if that
woman had gone on playing with him, and had lured
him further, as in the folk-tales the nixies of the
waterfalls lure shepherds to throw themselves over, with
the vain belief that by so doing they will fall into the
arms and be received into the realm of the water
sprites?

His ideas became confused.  At one moment he
was a fish caught by a barb, then he was clinging to a
rock, withdrawing from the enticements of a siren.
The sun had set, or no longer crowned Salome with
fire, she continued her needlework till dusk closed in
rapidly and prevented her seeing her stitches.  But
she sat on, upon her little stool, resting her cheek
against the bedclothes.  Philip, half dreaming, had
caught a lock of her hair and twisted it round his
finger, and held it as if it were something that was
so firm, so sure that if he clung to it, if he would
retain it about his finger as a golden hoop, he could
not continue his slide and fall, and so thinking, or
fancying, in a confused condition of mind, bred of, or
fostered by pain and shame, he had fallen asleep.
Salome sat on, did not venture to move her head lest
she should disturb his sleep by withdrawing her hair
from his fingers.

Next morning Mrs. Sidebottom, Miss Durham,
Mrs. Baynes, and the Labarte girls, together with the
captain, departed for Andermatt, leaving Salome with
her husband in the hospice.  They did not leave
without an altercation and a controversy between
Mrs. Sidebottom and the hostess relative to the bill,
in which both engaged with unmatched weapons, as
Mrs. Sidebottom could speak no Italian, and Signora
Lombardi no English.  The former could not be
brought to admit that the hostess was justified in
charging somewhat higher for provisions, six thousand
eight hundred feet above the sea, than in the valleys
where wine is produced and calves are reared.
Mrs. Sidebottom effected no greater reduction than a franc
and a half, which she insisted on having expunged,
as a charge for a meal she protested she had not eaten.
She then attempted to shift a couple of bottles of
sparkling Asti from her account to that of Miss
Durham, and to transfer sundry eggs for breakfast to
the bill of Mrs. Baynes, who she was sure had ordered
them, though she admitted having eaten them on the
urgency of Janet.  Eggs six thousand eight hundred
feet above the sea are—well, eggs.  Fowls at that
elevation are sluggish layers, and eggs if brought up
from the valleys run risks of being broken on the road.
Mrs. Sidebottom, who resisted paying a penny a-piece
for them when charged to her, saw that there was
reason for setting that value on them when they were
in Mrs. Baynes's account.  She fought desperately
over the fish.  There were lakes hard-by the hospice
doors, and fish in lakes, easily procurable, therefore
it was unreasonable that they should be charged
fancy prices.

Mrs. Sidebottom achieved a great success in
negotiating a bargain with a driver from Andermatt,
whereby she and the captain were taken back by a
returned carriage that had discharged its load at the
hospice; she succeeded in securing the conveyance
for half the ordinary price.  Though she engaged the
carriage for herself and her son, the captain did not
return in it, but the three demoiselles Labarte.  Janet
and the captain, who had become inseparable, and who
reacted on each other, he reviving her health, and she
evoking life and wit out of his torpid nature, returned
in a smaller trap behind the carriage of Mrs. Sidebottom.
Miss Durham had made her own arrangements,
and went off in a cabriolet by herself.  She
took an almost affectionate farewell of Salome, whom
she really liked, though she despised her.  Miss
Durham was sure she had done Salome a good turn in
the way in which she had brought Philip to his senses,
and she accordingly patronized and petted his simple
wife.  She was pleased with herself for having
contributed to the happiness of the young wife by
making a fool of her husband, and then telling him
what a fool he had been made.

Salome in her guilelessness reproached herself for
having for a little while felt a suspicion of her husband
and her friend, for having given way to a feeling of
jealousy, for having been unhappy because Philip was
so good and obliging as to make an effort to do what
she had herself urged him to—make friends with the
lonely American girl.

And Philip?  In him self-reproach grew.  It could
grow now, for the soil was ready for it.  Hitherto it
was choked with the roots of pride and self-esteem.
These had been torn up, and he was able now to
appreciate himself justly and realize the preciousness of
Salome.

Formerly he had looked upon himself as having
done a grand and gracious act in taking her to him.
An injustice had been committed—how he did not
know—in some mysterious way, and he had stooped
in the integrity of his soul to take up Salome, make
her his wife, so as to indemnify her for her loss.

The suspicion he had entertained against his aunt
relative to the will before the return of his uncle had
been deepened since he had talked the matter over
with Jeremiah.  He had now very little doubt that
Mrs. Sidebottom had succeeded in getting at the
document unguardedly kept by Salome, and tearing
away the signature.  But though he was tolerably
convinced that this fraudulent act had been
committed by her, he had not till now considered that by
this act his family was dishonoured, as was hers by
the existence of Schofield.  In what were the
Pennycomequicks so much more virtuous than the
Schofields?  Earle Schofield, her father, was a swindler,
and Louisa Sidebottom had committed an act that
was felony.

And what was he, himself?  He had wounded,
driven from him with reproach and harshness the
most innocent, single-hearted of women, who was
faithful to him and to her duties in every fibre of
mind, and body, and soul; whereas he, in a few hours,
subjected to a slight temptation, had swerved from
the path of right, had yielded to the fascination of
the temptress, which he had not the moral strength to
resist, and had been carried by her almost to the
verge of committing a serious wrong.

The unworthiness of Schofield could be cancelled
by the unworthiness of Mrs. Sidebottom.  There was
not much choice between them.  But what was
there to set in the account to balance his deviation
in heart from his duty to Salome, the injustice and
cruelty with which he had treated her at Mergatroyd?

Philip saw all this now clearly, and felt keen
mortification and repentance.  Salome was constantly with
him; and he now, from his bed, and when he rose
and walked leaning on her, had his eyes opened to
see her many merits, to love the perfect purity and
integrity of her soul.  She was a child in heart, with
the mind of a woman.  She was not very clever, but
she had common-sense.  She was well but not highly
educated, she had seen very little of the world, and
this had necessarily given a narrow sweep to her
powers; but her faculties were good, and with a
widened range, her mind would rise to take an
interest in all that was presented to her view.  Hitherto
he had liked Salome, appreciated her chiefly because
she was a comfort to himself; now he loved her for
her own sake.

Moreover, that little flare-up of jealousy in Salome's
heart, a flare-up for which she accused herself before
God on her knees—had transformed her regard for
Philip into real love.  The calm, lukewarm affection,
sprung out of a sense of duty, had been changed by
this spasm into ardent, passionate love.

That was a cold and colourless world—aloft on the
summit of the St. Gothard Pass, and yet there the
beautiful flowers of mutual love and trust between
husband and wife came into blossom.

'Philip,' exclaimed Salome, coming into his room
with a letter in her hand, 'is it not kind of dear Janet?
Here is another sweet note from her, telling me how
darling baby is.'

'My dear, I know what a trial it is to you to be
parted from him.'

'Oh, Philip—I am with you.'  Then opening the
letter and showing it him, 'Only fancy!—my father
and Miss Durham have left the Impérial.'

'What—left Andermatt?'

'Yes.'

'Together?'

'I do not know; Janet does not say.  And, Philip,
she says you are to mind and get quickly well, for
positively next week she and Lambert are to be
married at the Embassy at Berne.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AGAIN HYMEN`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER LI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AGAIN HYMEN.

.. vspace:: 2

Is there in all Europe a more delightful old-world
town than Berne?  There are grander minsters, there
are more princely mansions, but there is no lovelier
situation than that occupied by the dear old city
perched on a rock round which the green Aar forms
a loop.  May the great cancer of modern Berne that
lies in the west never creep over and destroy the
beauty of the ancient town, as the same horrible
fungus growth is disfiguring and killing the charm
out of nearly every ancient city on the Continent.
Even our common red-brick houses are better than
the vulgar ash-gray, Jerusalem-artichoke coloured
edifices, all staringly alike, and equally uninteresting,
that are growing up in long line and regular
square in imperial Aix, in patrician Nürnberg, in
episcopal Spires, everywhere treading on and trampling
out beauty.  In a hundred years, probably, all
the great towns of the Middle Ages will have been
transmuted from gold to lead, and be utterly
unattractive.  When we see a ruin of a church, an abbey,
a castle, an old manor-house, even of a straw-thatched
cottage, we are sad, for we think what they were,
beautiful in their several ways, and all having lost
much by becoming ruins.  But of these modern
edifices everything we can say is that we live in
hope that they may become ruins, for then only
can they conceivably touch the picturesque.  In
England, our builders have grasped the truth that
there is beauty in a broken skyline, and in alternation
of light and shadow in a frontage; but on the Continent,
in France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland,
no architect has risen above the idea of drawing
parallel lines, and of making of every street an
elementary study in perspective.

On a brilliant summer day, when the sun was
streaming down out of a perfectly-blue sky into
the long main street of Berne, alive with marketers,
three cabs drew up at the entrance to the Hotel of
the Wild Man, near the Clock-tower, and from them
stepped, in the first place, a young man in light-gray
trousers and lavender gloves, and then a young and
pretty lady wearing a bridal veil, a wedding-dress of
silver gray.  From the second carriage descended
three bridesmaids—no other than the Labarte
girls—and from the third cab Mrs. Sidebottom and Philip
and Salome.

Captain Pennycomequick had been married at the
Embassy to Janet Baynes, and if the day's weather
gave a true presage of the new life entered on, that of
the captain and his bride was likely to be a happy
one.  But there were surer grounds on which to base
a forecast of their hymeneal condition than the state
of the weather.  The captain was an amiable man,
whom nothing would rouse to opposition, and Janet,
as he and his mother had ascertained, was very
comfortably off.  She had or would have about five
hundred a year, and five hundred per annum in
France, where they intended to live, would allow of
their enjoying themselves as much as if they had
double that sum in England, not necessarily because
things were cheaper in France, but because popular
opinion allowed retrenchment in a thousand of those
trifles which in England are the great outlets that let
money leak away.

There was to be no wedding-tour; not because
Janet did not desire to escape with the captain from
the rest of the party, but because the Labarte girls
absolutely refused to be parted with.  They had
suddenly woke to the discovery that Mrs. Sidebottom
had hoodwinked them, had carried them away out of
sight and hearing whilst love-making was in progress;
a veil had been torn from before their eyes, and they
saw through all her dodges and subterfuges, and were
in combined mutiny and angry protest.  Henceforth
nothing would sever them from their aunt.  A great
opportunity had been lost through the craft of that
designing old woman, a passion on a grand scale had
raged, so to speak, under their noses, and they had not
sniffed it.  Their attention had been drawn away, and
they had been unable to make those interesting and
instructive studies in the process of love-making to its
grand climax in proposal, which might have been theirs
and been to them of incalculable interest and advantage,
but for that dreadful Sidebottom.  Thus—if they
could no longer take observations in the conduct of
lovers, they could examine, and store up their
observations on the conduct of newly-married people in the
honeymoon.  They clung to their aunt, with their
arms about her neck, they lavished expressions of
tenderness, they protested that they could not and
would not be separated from her; and Janet foresaw
that a wedding-tour encumbered with the Labarte
girls would be worse than none at all, or one with the
Labarte girls plus Mrs. Sidebottom, and Salome and
Philip to draw them off from her occasionally.  As
the party drove from the Embassy, Mrs. Sidebottom
said to Philip:

'By the way, what do you think?  Wonders will
never cease.  Did you see the entries in the marriage
register previous to those made by Lamb and Janet?'

'I did not look.'

'*I* did; and whilst you were arranging about fees I
made inquiries.  There was a marriage at the Embassy
this morning, before our affair.  An unheard-of thing
in Berne to have two English weddings the same day,
so the chaplain said.'

'I dare say.'

'And guess who they were who entered the holy bonds.'

'I really cannot.  I know none likely.'

'But you do know, and are quite able to guess.'

'I have not the energy, then.'

'Why, Colonel Yeo, that is to say, Earl Schofield
and our friend at Andermatt, Miss Durham.'

'Nonsense!'  Philip was startled.

'It is a fact.  I suppose he really is an earl, for he
was entered in the register as Earl Schofield, and not
as Colonel Beaple Yeo.'

'But,' Philip stammered, 'it is not possible; he
cannot.'

'He has.  I saw the entries.  They were married
half an hour before we arrived.'

'I will inquire about it,' said Philip, 'as soon as
ever the carriage stops.  I will go back to the
Embassy.  Something must be done.  He had no right
to marry.'

'Why not?'

Philip did not answer.  He was excited and uneasy.

'You cannot go till after the breakfast,' said
Mrs. Sidebottom, 'and I suppose it is too late to forbid the
banns.  I presume he is really an earl.  He says that
the attainder is up.  He truly is a distinguished-mannered
man, and I like him.  He looks a nobleman.'

In the evening the entire party visited the Schanzli,
a garden or restaurant on a commanding hill above
Berne, once occupied by a fort from which it takes its
name.  From the terrace is seen the range of the
Oberland mountains, and, in the middle distance below,
is the town viewed in its full length with towers and
spires, and gabled roofs of chocolate-brown tile.
Visitors are attended on by waitresses in the pretty
costume of the canton.

The evening was lovely, a meet conclusion to so
bright a day.  The setting sun illumined the distant
snows of the giants of the Oberland, and quivered in
the windows of the city below.  There are
epoch-making scenes in life, scenes to which the memory
recurs with unalloyed pleasure, scenes which have been
revelations of beauty or majesty to the soul, and such
a scene is that from the Schanzli to the visitor who is
there for the first time.  It is a double revelation to
him—the splendour of the glacier mountain world, and
simultaneously with it a realization of the beauty, the
charm of that old world of the Middle Ages which is
being remorselessly and surely effaced, and on which
in another century the men of that generation will be
unable to look, or will know of it only a few scattered
monuments, set in wastes of hideousness, and judge of
it only as one might judge of the ocean by contemplating
a few shells dug out of a chalk bed.

The party of Pennycomequick-Sidebottom-Labarte
had settled itself to a marble-topped, or, to be
more exact, imitation marble-topped table, and had
ordered the waitress to bring the *carte* of wines and
meats, when Claudine Labarte nudged her aunt, and
whispered:

'See! see!  There they are, M. le Comte de
Schoville and our dear Artemise.  Shall we go to them?'

'On no account,' said Mrs. Penycombe-Quick, that
is to say Janet, hastily.  'Besides,' she looked in the
same direction, 'they do not seem to desire our
interference.'

All looked at the little table, not far distant, where
sat Beaple Yeo, alias Schofield, and his bride.  The
same day that had smiled on Lambert and Janet had
laughed over them, but without sure augury of calm
weather apparently; for already a post-nuptial storm
had broken loose.  Beaple Yeo was leaning back in
his green-painted iron chair, very red and blotched in
face, and opposite him was Artemisia whom he had
just made his wife, flushed and talking rapidly.

It was clear that they were in angry altercation—about
what could not be learned—for their voices
were drowned by the music from the little theatre in
the grounds, in which the overture to Boildieu's 'Jean
de Paris' was being performed.

Beaple Yeo curled his whisker round his forefinger,
and said something in reply to a discharge of angry
words from Artemisia; whatever it was that he said,
it so stung her that, losing all self-control, she sprang
to her feet, leaned across the table, and struck him on
the cheek.  Beaple lost his equilibrium, and went
over with his chair on the gravel of the terrace, to
the great amusement of the Swiss waitress, and of
the scattered visitors at the tables, who had noticed
the altercation.  Artemisia was startled at her own
violence, and ashamed; she looked round, and caught
sight of the friends she had made at Andermatt.
Her colour was so heightened with passion that it
could not become deeper with shame.  Instead of
resuming her seat, without regarding the humiliated
man who was picking himself up from the ground,
she came directly to the table where the party of
Pennycomequick-Sidebottom was seated, and with
heaving bosom and flashing eye, she stood before
Philip, and said in a tone broken with excitement:
'You have helped to deceive me.  It was mean—it
was cruel!  You insulted me first of all, and then
you conspired with this—this man to play me a base
trick.  It was unworthy of a gentleman, of an Englishman.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Philip; 'I do not
understand of what you are speaking.  I am quite unaware
that I ever deceived you.'

'You told me he was a nobleman—an earl—and he
is nothing of the kind.'

'I never said he was.'

'I asked you, and you answered me that he was an earl.'

'I did no such thing.  You misunderstood me.  You
asked me whether he had any right to the title of Earl
of Schofield, and I answered—I recall exactly my
words—that he was perfectly justified in calling
himself Earle Schofield.  That is his name.  Whether he
has any right to call himself Beaple Yeo, and to claim
to be a colonel, is another matter on which I entertain
grave doubts; but I have none whatever that his
surname is Schofield, and that his Christian name is
Earle.'

Artemisia did not speak for a minute, she was very
angry and ashamed.  When she had in some measure
recovered her self-possession, she said bitterly: 'You
might have been more explicit.'

'I refused to say much about the man.  I had my
reasons.  Moreover, I had no idea that the matter
was one of importance to you.'

'I have sold myself to him.  I have married him
this day, and only now have discovered that I have
been basely imposed upon.'

'It is I—I who have been taken in,' shouted Yeo,
coming forward, pushing to the table, regardless of
the shrinking fear that appeared in the faces of
Salome and Janet.  'It is I,' he repeated, 'I that
have been deceived.  I was led to believe you were a
wealthy American, worth hundreds of thousands of
dollars—and—and I want to know where is the
money?  You are an adventuress.'

'And you are an adventurer,' laughed Artemisia.
'Perhaps we have taken each other in, and we are
both fools to have been so easily deceived.  Who told
you I was a rich American heiress?'

'The waiter at the Imperial.'

'And he told me you were a rich milord.'

'I want to know what you really are,' said Yeo,
who was also very angry—angry and disappointed.
'I have a right to know who or what manner of
person I have married.'

'And I,' said Artemisia, 'I also want to know who
and what manner of person I have married.'

'That, perhaps, I can tell you,' said Philip gravely.
'But not in the presence of these ladies.  Mr. Schofield,
or whatever you call yourself, I will trouble you
to return to your table, or reseat yourself where you
were.  I see the waitress is in alarm lest she should lose
payment for what you ordered and have consumed.'

Beaple Yeo sulkily went back to his place.  Philip
with a sign, showed Artemisia that he desired her to
follow.  She obeyed.  When they were beyond earshot
of Mrs. Sidebottom, Salome, and the rest, Philip
said, standing by the little table, 'Mr. Schofield, I also
wish to ask of you a question.'

'I am ready, my dear boy, to be put through my
catechism,' answered Yeo, with recovered assurance.
'If you want the pedigree of Schofield, I have it at
my fingers' ends.'

'It is not the pedigree so much as the alliances of
Earle Schofield that interest me,' said Philip.

'Oh, the Schofields have been allied with the best
blood in the land, better than your twopenny-ha'penny
manufacturers.'

'I must ask you to tell me whether, before you
married Miss Durham at the Embassy to-day, you
had ascertained that an alliance—not a very high
one—was at an end.'

'What do you mean?' asked Yeo, with his face
slightly changing colour.

'You may happen to remember Ann Dewis, the
coal-barge woman, whom you married at Hull some
sixteen years ago?'

Beaple uttered a low oath.

'I have reason to know,' continued Philip, 'that
she is alive—and you know that she is so, as well as I
do.  Miss Durham, this fellow had no right to marry
you.  His legitimate wife is still alive; no countess,
but a vulgar old woman who owns and works a
coal-barge on the Keld-dale Canal.  He has a son by her.
One good turn deserves another, and as you did me a
real kindness at the hospice I repay it by freeing you
from a degrading union just contracted with this
wretched man, who is a mere adventurer and swindler.
And now, one word with you, Schofield.  The
evidence of your bigamy is at hand.  Take care that
you never show your face at Mergatroyd to annoy me
or my wife, or that you trouble Janet—if you do I
shall have you immediately arrested on a charge of
felony, for what you have done to-day.'





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.. _`THE DEVIL'S KNELL`:

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   CHAPTER LII.


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   THE DEVIL'S KNELL.

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In Carisbrooke Castle is a deep well, three hundred
feet in depth, and, in order to draw the water, there is
contrived a great wooden drum or wheel, which, when
turned, draws up the bucket.  Within the wheel
stands a donkey, and it turns it by stepping on as if
walking, although, in fact, the animal never advances
an inch, for, as it moves, the wheel revolves under its
feet.  One ass was known to perform this task for
fifty years, and another for forty years.  There is,
unless we guard against it, a tendency in ourselves to
fall into the same routine—tramping, tramping on,
over the same ground, in the same unambitious
manner, neither advancing in our course, nor varying
our horizon.

The acquaintance with Miss Durham had wrought
much good in Salome as well as in Philip.  She had
opened his eyes to see his ignorance of himself, and
hers to her ignorance of the world.  Salome's previous
existence had been within a narrow sphere.  Shut off
by peculiar circumstances from forming many
acquaintances and having many friends, with her horizon
contracted almost within the walls of the dingy and
ugly red-brick house occupied by the Pennycomequicks,
uncle and nephew, there can be no doubt but
that she would in time have settled into a condition
little superior to that of the Carisbrooke ass.  Her
mind would have trotted round and round in the
same drum, and have accommodated itself without a
murmur or a thought of resistance to it.  In the
course of years she would have become almost as
ordinary, as petty-minded as the deceased Mrs. Cusworth.
But contact with Miss Durham had startled
her out of this intellectual donkeydom.  She saw in
the American girl a vivacity of interest, a breadth of
view, a sparkle of intelligence, a receptivity for novel
ideas, and a knowledge of the world and of the things
in the world—the currents that circulated in it, the
forces that propelled its waves and directed its tides,
to which she had been completely strange.  And this
stimulated in her the desire to know.  An American
gentleman once said to the writer, 'We have no
prejudices, therefore we are always learning.'  That is
the secret of American success in every branch of
activity.  Self-conceit breeds pig-headedness, which
raises mountains of prejudice in our way, preventing
us from seeing, as the Germans have it, that there are
men beyond these mountains.  Salome had noticed
that Miss Durham was able at once, and without
effort, to arrest the interest and enchain the attention
of Philip, and this she attributed to the possession of
qualities in the Chicago girl which were dormant, if
not non-existent, in herself.  She had the shrewdness
to perceive, and the good sense to acknowledge, her
own ignorance and inability to take part in conversation
when it turned on politics, natural history, on
music, art, or social questions of the day.  She could
talk about recipes for tapioca and semolina puddings,
what proportion of water should be put with milk for
a baby, the delinquencies of servants, the sermons she
heard, the hymns she sang in church, the cutting-out
and style of a dress, but not on much beyond.  Being
humble-minded, she was ready to take to heart what
she recognised, and she studied Miss Durham with
attention, to ascertain the points in which she was
accomplished above her own acquirements.

When ale in bottle turns flat, housewives put in a
raisin, and this at once restores the effervescence.  A
prudent spouse should have a reserve of raisins ever
by her to pop into her husband's spirits whenever they
are down.  Some wives, however, act on the reverse
principle, and perforate the corks, or knock off the
necks of all the sparkling liquors in the cellars of their
husbands' hearts.  They cannot endure to see their
good men cheery, sanguine, interested, hopeful; they
reduce them all to the state of lymph and insipidity.
Such wives when they find their husbands strung to
concert pitch play the domestic accompaniment a
semitone lower, so that the daily music of the
household is a discord.  They take the edge off their
husband's wit with a sneer, overshadow his spirits
when they sparkle, lash him to anger when he is
pleased, and goad and spur him to madness when
they find him jaded and desirous of repose.  By a
native perversity they seek to be always at cross
purposes with their husbands, and then grumble because
their victims do not smile and sing on the bed of
nettles they have strewn for them.

But Salome was not one who could degenerate into
such a mar-peace as this.  In her lowly mind she
acknowledged her deficiencies, and as she was endowed
with energy and with excellent abilities, she
determined to remedy these shortcomings in herself, and
had the capacity to accomplish what she resolved.

The forethought of Jeremiah Pennycomequick came
to her aid opportunely.  He also, by his holiday of
two years, had been thrown out of his drum, and had
found that there was another and a brighter world
than that of the tread-mill.  He had discovered, late
in life, that all work and no play makes Jack a dull
boy, and not a dull boy only, but a cantankerous one.

Man is a lantern, and the vivid intellect within is
the light; by nature he is a lantern with many sides,
through all of which the interior light streams,
irradiating and bringing into prominence a thousand
surrounding objects.  But the pressure of modern life
forces him to blacken over one after another of these
sides, and to line each with a reflector, so as to focus
the light, and cast it through a single lens.  The stress
of competition, the strain of the social struggle,
combine to make of each man a bull's-eye lantern.  It is
true that the light so concentrated illumines such
objects as fall within the radius of the beam with
superior brilliancy, but it leaves everything else in
more profound darkness.  What is gained in intensity
is lost in the periphery.  Jeremiah had discovered
this, and more than this.  He had learned by his own
weakness to take a more kindly interest in others, to
be pitiful towards their infirmities, patient with their
mistakes and even follies.

Having himself tottered irresolute on the edge of
the commission of an extreme act of folly, from which
he had been rescued solely by a providential
intervention, he was able to make allowances for lack of
judgment or weakness of resolve in others.

Jeremiah saw that Philip had quarrelled with
Salome, and, without inquiring into the occasion, he
understood sufficient of their several characters to see
that the best possible means he could adopt for
reconciling the difference was to give them a holiday
together abroad—to let them travel on the Continent
for some time, and mutually learn much of which
both were ignorant.  He accordingly wrote to Philip
not to return to Mergatroyd till Christmas.  He
wished, so he said, himself to spend some months at
the mill in recovering the threads of the business
which had fallen from his fingers, and to settle
thoroughly down again into the old groove of life.

This enabled Philip, who was liberally supplied with
money, to visit Paris, Rome, Milan, Venice, and return
to England by the Rhine.  He and Salome made
travelling acquaintances, some agreeable, all instructive;
they saw France staggering after its humiliation,
and Germany ruffling in its pride of victory; they
shared small adventures, and equally small jokes such
as spring up on all travel, and are as poor to preserve
as the flowers gathered.  They saw together picture-galleries,
heard together operas, and together acquired
a fund of experience of life in many aspects
unattainable at Mergatroyd.  The tour was, as Jeremiah
designed, educative to both, and it broadened and
deepened their mutual sympathies.  It did more: it
bound them together as chums in the same school,
where both read out of the same books and summed
on the same slate, and wrote out the same moral
sentences in their copybooks.  As they learned
together, they assisted each other; what escaped the
eye of one was perceived by the other, and each took
delight in drawing the attention of the other to what
he or she observed.

They laid up together a fund of pleasant recollections
to which to revert when holiday was over and
work began; a shifting diorama of scenes and
incidents and personages that would transform and
beautify the interior of the drum when they were
recalled to the obligation of treading it.

But not so only.  When they returned to work, it
would be to hope and scheme for such another excursion
together in the future, though perhaps they could
hardly look for another of the same duration.  The
retrospect would enrich, and the prospect stimulate,
and banish tedium and the sense of drudgery from
their life and work at smoky Mergatroyd.

What veins of interest had, moreover, been opened
to both—flowers, scenery, pictures, music, antiquities,
social customs, political institutions, European history
past and that making under their eyes, such were no
longer dead words but living interests, germs of
thought, studies to be pursued at home in the intervals
of work, in relaxations from task, by the aid of
books and papers, and in common.

As mention has been made of the saying of an
American, the writer ventures to quote another—the
remark made to him by a Belgian.  'I perceive that
when a Flemish shopkeeper has realized a little
money over the necessities of life, he says to himself,
"Now I will buy a picture!"  The German under the
same circumstances says, "Now my son shall learn
another language!"  The American says, "Now I
will see the world!"  The Englishman says, "Now I
will have salmon, though it is four shillings a
pound."  They fill their minds—your man his stomach.'

There have been found toads embedded in stone,
which are supposed to have occupied the same
situation for even six thousand years.  For six thousand
years their minds have never travelled beyond the
cavity in which, enveloped in obscurity, they have
squatted; and men will allow themselves to settle
down into holes exactly fitting them, in which they
will sit out the span of their allotted days in
self-complacency, without an idea beyond it, an ambition
outside it.

Indeed, we live upon a Goodwin Sand, that is ready
to engulf us, to suck us down and embed us in its
heart, unless we bestir ourselves and resist the
downward suction.

Let the reader look around him and see how many
of those he knows are embedded in their holes as
toads, able only to talk about their holes, to be
touched by nothing which does not affect their holes,
are unconcerned about everything save the texture of
the stone that encloses them, and the slime that
drapes the walls of their hole.

We do not say that the only means of escape from
such bondage and mental stultification is Continental
travel; there are a hundred ways of escape from
petrifaction, if only we will use them, and use them
persistently.  In the case under consideration it happened
to be the way, and the most effective way, in which
both Philip and Salome escaped from the holes into
which they were about to sink and become sealed up.

But there is one way in which the overplus of
money will never help to deliver us from petrifaction,
and that is, by putting it into our stomachs in the
shape of salmon at four shillings a pound.

We remember the case of a very short-sighted man,
who had been short-sighted from infancy.  He never
wore glasses till he was aged about five-and-twenty,
and then suddenly found himself launched into a new
world, and able to see and take a lively interest in
things which had been hidden from him hitherto.
We are all, through life, if we do not voluntarily
become like the toad-hole dwellers, being introduced
into new worlds, whether by the acquisition of a
picture like the Fleming, or by learning a new
language, like the German, or by travel, as the Yankee.
Philip and Salome had put on their glasses
simultaneously, and it quickened their affection for each
other to be engaged on the same effort, and to be
together in the acquisition of wisdom and knowledge
and experience.  Besides this intellectual and moral
bond they had another—certainly at the time not
very intellectual, but a very fast and dear one—the
little Philip, who travelled with them wherever they
went, and who wound himself about both their hearts,
and in doing so blended both in one.  It was early in
life for the child to begin his travels, but travelling
did not hurt him.  He throve on it.  Before he said
'Pa,' or 'Ma,' he articulated the syllable 'Go.'  As
Philip the Greater said, an augury of the young man's
future, as one of action.

At length Philip and Salome were home; and once
again Salome flew to the arms of the dear white-haired
old man, whose face had lost all its hardness
and had acquired a new expression of sweetness.
And Jeremiah was able to receive her loving embrace,
and to hold her to his breast without shrinking,
without a tremor.  The storm had passed and the
St. Luke's summer had set in on his end of life, to be
cheered not only by the presence of Salome, but also
by that of Philip the Little, who, it was clear, would
become the pet and idol of old Jeremiah, even more than
he was the pet and idol of his father and mother.

Late at night, in the nursery, at the nursery window
on Christmas Eve, when Philip the Great, and Philip
the Little, and Salome were returned to Mergatroyd,
husband and wife stood, looking out into the
star-besprent wintry sky.  Salome had her arms round
Philip's waist, and he had his thrown over her shoulder,
drawing her to his side, and she rested her golden
head on his breast.  The only light in the room came
from the fire; the only sound for some time was the
breathing of the child in its cradle.

Both were happy, and occupied with their own
thoughts.

At length Philip broke the silence, and said:

'It is very, very good of Uncle Jeremiah; he has
taken me into full partnership, and what is more, he
proposes that he should winter abroad and return in
spring to allow of our then taking a holiday together.'

'And what is he going to do about Mrs. Sidebottom?'

'I cannot say.  He is himself undecided.  He says
that as he laid the trap into which she fell, he must
not be too hard with her.  He will see her himself.
He goes after the new year to France when he will
visit her and make some arrangement.  He says, but
hardly can mean what he says, that it is a law of
nature that persons pinched in circumstances and
pressed for money lose their scruples, as crabs cast
their claws, and lizards drop their tails when nipped or
pursued.  It is a law of nature and must be allowed for.'

Philip felt a shudder of protest against his side, but
Salome said nothing.

All at once she started.  'Oh, Philip!  What is that?'

A sound issued from the cradle.  She ran to it,
stooped and looked at her baby.  The flashes of the
firelight were reflected from the ceiling on the little
face.

'Hark! oh, hark, Philip!  Baby is laughing—laughing
aloud in his sleep.  He has never done that
before.  It is from very joy at being home—at his
own dear home again.'

'What, Salome?—after Paris and Rome, the Alps,
and the Rhine, poor old dirty, dingy Mergatroyd is
dear?'

'To be sure it is, Philip—how can it be otherwise?
And oh, Philip, how kind the people are!  How
pleased they all seem to see us back again.  I
thought—I really thought they would have shaken my hand
off, and that old Fanshawe, the night-watch, would
have kissed me, Philip.  There may be more
light-hearted, more picturesque, more romantic people in
other lands, but there can be nowhere, not throughout
the world, more true, warm-hearted, sterling folk, than
our dear Yorkshire people.  Do you not love them,
Philip?'

'I have given Yorkshire the best proof of my
attachment in taking to me a wife from thence.'

'Oh, Philip!'

Salome nestled to his side again by the window,
and with him again looked forth silently into the
night sky.

After a long pause Philip said, 'Hark!'

Through the still night air could be heard the
church bell.

Three.

Three.

Three.

'Some man is dead,' said Philip.  'How strange!—at
midnight.'

Then he counted the strokes that denote the age.
He counted to one hundred.

'One hundred!' exclaimed Philip.  'How extraordinary!
How can that be?'

'Philip,' said Salome, laughing, 'do you not know?
It is the Devil's Knell.'

'The Devil's Knell?'

'Yes, at midnight on Christmas Eve, the sexton
here and in other Yorkshire towns tolls the knell.
The Devil is dead.  Christ is born.'

After a moment's thought, Philip said gravely,
'Yes—the Devil is dead, that is to say, the old evil
principle in me—my former self-assurance, pride and
mistrust—it is dead.  But, Salome, I ought to tell you
that there was a time, and not so long ago when I——'

She put her hand over his mouth.

'The Devil is dead,' she said; 'I want to hear
nothing of his last sickness.  But, Philip, you ought
to know that I was—at Andermatt—very foolish,
very jeal——'

He stopped her with a kiss.

'Salome, you were never foolish: you were always
an angel.'

'Well,' she said, 'we will not talk of the past: we
will set our faces to the future.  The Devil is dead.'

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   END OF VOL. III.

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   BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

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