"What were the contents of the letter?"

"I stated what had occurred, mentioning what I was able to do in the way of settlements, and also that both Isabel and myself wished the ceremony to take place as soon as might be."

"And pray where did you address the letter?"

"Lady Mount Severn could not give me the address. She said if I would intrust the letter to her, she would forward it with the rest she wrote, for she expected daily to hear from you. I did give her the letter, and I heard no more of the matter, except that her ladyship sent me a message when Isabel was writing to me, that as you had returned no reply, you of course approved."

"Is this the fact?" cried the earl.

"My lord," coldly replied Mr. Carlyle, "whatever may be my defects in your eyes, I am at least a man of truth. Until this moment, the suspicion that you were in ignorance of the contemplated marriage never occurred to me."

"So far, then, I beg your pardon, Mr. Carlyle. But how came the marriage about at all--how came it to be hurried over in this unseemly fashion? You made the offer at Easter, Isabel tells me, and you married her three weeks after it."

"And I would have married her and brought her away with me the day I did make it, had it been practicable," returned Mr. Carlyle. "I have acted throughout for her comfort and happiness."

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed the earl, returning to his disagreeable tone. "Perhaps you will put me in possession of the facts, and of your motives."

"I warn you that the facts to you will not bear a pleasant sound, Lord Mount Severn."

"Allow me to be the judge of that," said the earl.

"Business took me to Castle Marling on Good Friday. On the following day I called at your house; after your own and Isabel's invitation, it was natural I should; in fact, it would have been a breach of good feeling not to do so, I found Isabel ill-treated and miserable; far from enjoying a happy home in your house--"

"What, sir?" interrupted the earl. "Ill-treated and miserable?"

"Ill-treated even to blows, my lord."

The earl stood as one petrified, staring at Mr. Carlyle.

"I learnt it, I must premise, through the chattering revelations of your little son; Isabel, of course, would not have mentioned it to me; but when the child had spoken, she did not deny it. In short she was too broken-hearted, too completely bowed in spirit to deny it. It aroused all my feelings of indignation--it excited in me an irresistible desire to emancipate her from this cruel life, and take her where she would find affection, and I hope happiness. There was only one way which I could do this, and I risked it. I asked her to become my wife, and to return to her home at East Lynne."

The earl was slowly recovering from his petrifaction. "Then, am I to understand, that when you called that day at my house, you carried no intention with you of proposing to Isabel?"

"Not any. It was an impromptu step, the circumstances under which I found her calling it forth."

The earl paced the room, perplexed still, and evidently disturbed. "May I inquire if you love her?" he abruptly said.

Mr. Carlyle paused ere he spoke, and a red flush dyed his face. "Those sort of feelings man rarely acknowledges to man, Lord Mount Severn, but I will answer you. I do love her, passionately and sincerely; I learnt to love her at East Lynne; but I could have carried my love silently within me to the end of my life and never betrayed it; and probably should have done so, but for the unexpected visit to Castle Marling. If the idea of making her my wife had never previously occurred to me as practicable, it was that I deemed her rank incompatible with my own."

"As it was," said the earl.

"Country solicitors have married peers' daughters before now," remarked Mr. Carlyle. "I only add another to the list."

"But you cannot keep her as a peer's daughter, I presume?"

"East Lynne will be her home. Our establishment will be small and quiet, as compared with her father's. I explained to Isabel how quiet at the first, and she might have retracted had she wished. I explained also in full to Lady Mount Severn. East Lynne will descend to our eldest son, should we have children. My profession is most lucrative, my income good; were I to die to-morrow, Isabel would enjoy East Lynne and about three thousand pounds per annum. I gave these details in the letter, which appears to have miscarried."

The earl made no immediate reply; he was absorbed in thought.

"Your lordship perceives, I hope, that there has been nothing 'clandestine' in my conduct to Lady Isabel."

Lord Mount Severn held out his hand. "I refused my hand when you came in, Mr. Carlyle, as you may have observed, perhaps you will refuse yours now, though I should be proud to shake it. When I find myself in the wrong, I am not above acknowledging the fact; and I must state my opinion that you have behaved most kindly and honorably."

Mr. Carlyle smiled and put his hand into the earl's. The latter retained it, while he spoke in a whisper.

"Of course I cannot be ignorant that, in speaking of Isabel's ill- treatment, you alluded to my wife. Has it transpired beyond yourselves?"

"You may be sure that neither Isabel nor myself would mention it; we shall dismiss it from among our reminiscences. Let it be as though you had never heard it; it is past and done with."

"Isabel," said the earl, as he was departing that evening, for he remained to spend the day with them, "I came here this morning almost prepared to strike your husband, and I go away honoring him. Be a good and faithful wife to him, for he deserves it."

"Of course I shall," she answered, in surprise.

Lord Mount Severn steamed on to Castle Marling, and there he had a stormy interview with his wife--so stormy that the sounds penetrated to the ears of the domestics. He left again the same day, in anger, and proceeded to Mount Severn.

"He will have time to cool down, before we meet in London," was the comment of my lady.

CHAPTER XV.

COMING HOME.

Miss Carlyle, having resolved upon her course, quitted her own house, and removed to East Lynne with Peter and her handmaidens. In spite of Mr. Dill's grieved remonstrances, she discharged the servants whom Mr. Carlyle had engaged, all save one man.

On a Friday night, about a month after the wedding, Mr. Carlyle and his wife came home. They were expected, and Miss Carlyle went through the hall to receive them, and stood on the upper steps, between the pillars of the portico. An elegant chariot with four post-horses was drawing up. Miss Carlyle compressed her lips as she scanned it. She was attired in a handsome dark silk dress and a new cap; her anger had had time to cool down in the last month, and her strong common sense told her that the wiser plan would be to make the best of it. Mr. Carlyle came up the steps with Isabel.

"You here, Cornelia! That was kind. How are you? Isabel, this is my sister."

Lady Isabel put forth her hand, and Miss Carlyle condescended to touch the tips of her fingers. "I hope you are well, ma'am," she jerked out.

Mr. Carlyle left them together, and went back to search for some trifles which had been left in the carriage. Miss Carlyle led the way to a sitting-room, where the supper-tray was laid. "You would like to go upstairs and take your things off before upper, ma'am?" she said, in the same jerking tone to Lady Isabel.

"Thank you. I will go to my rooms, but I do not require supper. We have dined."

"Then what would you like to take?" asked Miss Corny.

"Some tea, if you please, I am very thirsty."

"Tea!" ejaculated Miss Corny. "So late as this! I don't know that they have boiling water. You'd never sleep a wink all night, ma'am, if you took tea at eleven o'clock."

"Oh, then, never mind," replied Lady Isabel. "It is of no consequence. Do not let me give trouble."

Miss Carlyle whisked out of the room; upon what errand was best known to herself; and in the hall she and Marvel came to an encounter. No words passed, but each eyed the other grimly. Marvel was very stylish, with five flounces to her dress, a veil, and a parasol. Meanwhile, Lady Isabel sat down and burst into bitter tears and sobs. A chill had come over her; it did not seem like coming to East Lynne. Mr. Carlyle entered and witnessed the grief.

"Isabel!" he uttered in amazement, as he hastened up to her. "My darling, what ails you?"

"I am tired, I think," she gently answered; "and coming into the house again made me think of papa. I should like to go to my rooms, Archibald, but I don't know which they are."

Neither did Mr. Carlyle know, but Miss Carlyle came whisking in again, and said: "The best rooms; those next the library. Should she go up with my lady?"

Mr. Carlyle preferred to go himself, and he held out his arm to Isabel. She drew her veil over her face as she passed Miss Carlyle.

The branches were not lighted, and the room looked cold and comfortless. "Things seem all sixes and sevens in the house," remarked Mr. Carlyle. "I fancy the servants must have misunderstood my letter, and not have expected us until to-morrow night."

On returning to the sitting-room Mr. Carlyle inquired the cause of the servants' negligence.

"I sent them away because they were superfluous encumbrances," hastily replied Miss Carlyle. "We have four in the house, and my lady has brought a fine maid, I see, making five. I have come up here to live."

Mr. Carlyle felt checkmated. He had always bowed to the will of Miss Corny, but he had an idea that he and his wife should be better without her. "And your house?" he exclaimed.

"I have let it furnished; the people enter to-day. So you cannot turn me out of East Lynne into the road, or to furnished lodgings, Archibald. There'll be enough expense without our keeping on two houses; and most people in your place would jump at the prospect of my living here. Your wife will be mistress. I do not intend to take her honors from her; but I will save her a world of trouble in management--be as useful to her as a housekeeper. She will be glad of that, inexperienced as she is. I dare say she never gave a domestic order in her life."

This was a view of the case, to Mr. Carlyle, so plausibly put, that he began to think it might be all for the best. He had great reverence for his sister's judgment; force of habit is strong upon all of us. Still he did not know.

"Did you buy that fine piano which has arrived?" angrily asked Miss Carlyle.

"It was my present to Isabel."

Miss Corny groaned. "What did it cost?"

"The cost is of no consequence. The old piano here was a bad one, and I bought a better."

"What did it cost?" repeated Miss Carlyle.

"A hundred and twenty guineas," he answered. Obedience to her will was yet powerful within him.

Miss Corny threw up her hands and eyes. But at that moment Peter entered with some hot water which his master had rung for. Mr. Carlyle rose and looked on the side-board.

"Where is the wine, Peter?"

The servant put it out, port and sherry. Mr. Carlyle drank a glass, and then proceeded to mix some wine and water. "Shall I mix some for you, Cornelia?" he asked.

"I'll mix for myself if I want any. Who's that for?"

"Isabel."

He quitted the room, carrying the wine and water, and entered his wife's. She was sitting half buried, it seemed, in the arm-chair, her face muffled up. As she raised it, he saw that it was flushed and agitated; that her eyes were bright, and her frame was trembling.

"What is the matter?" he hastily asked.

A family of the name of Carew had been about taking East Lynne; they wished to rent it, furnished, for three years. Upon some of the minor arrangements they and Mr. Carlyle were opposed, but the latter declined to give way. During his absence at Castle Marling, news had arrived from them--they had acceded to all his terms, and would enter upon East Lynne as soon as it was convenient. Miss Carlyle was full of congratulations; it was off their hands, she said; but the fist letter Mr. Carlyle wrote was--to decline them. He did not tell this to Miss Carlyle. The final touches to the house were given, preparatory to the reception of its inhabitants, and three maids and two men servants hired and sent there, upon board wages, until the family should arrive.

One evening three weeks subsequent to Mr. Carlyle's visit to Castle Marling, Barbara Hare called at Miss Carlyle's, and found them going to tea much earlier than usual.

"We dined earlier," said Miss Corny, "and I ordered tea as soon as the dinner went away. Otherwise, Archibald would have taken none."

"I am as well without tea. And I have a mass of business to get through yet."

"You are not as well without it," cried Miss Corny, "and I don't choose you should go without it. Take off your bonnet, Barbara. He does things like nobody else; he is off to Castle Marling to-morrow, and never could open his lips till just now that he was going."

"Is that invalid--Brewster, or whatever his name is--laid up at Castle Marling, still?" exclaimed Barbara.

"He is still there," said Mr. Carlyle.

Barbara sprang up the moment tea was over.

"Dill is waiting for me in the office, and I have some hours' work before me. However, I suppose you won't care to put up with Peter's attendance, so make haste with your bonnet, Barbara."

She took his arm, and they walked on, Mr. Carlyle striking the hedge and the grass with her parasol. Another minute, and the handle was in two.

"I thought you would do it," said Barbara, while he was regarding the parasol with ludicrous dismay. "Never mind, it is an old one."

"I will bring you another to replace it. What is the color? Brown. I won't forget. Hold the relics a minute, Barbara."

He put the pieces in her hand, and taking out a note case, made a note in pencil.

"What's that for?" she inquired.

He held it close to her eyes, that she might discern what he had written: "Brown parasol. B. H."

"A reminder for me, Barbara, in case I forget."

Barbara's eyes detected another item or two already entered in the note case: "piano," "plate."

"I jot down the things as they occur to me, that I must get in London," he explained. "Otherwise I should forget half."

"In London? I thought you were going in an opposite direction--to Castle Marling?"

It was a slip of the tongue, but Mr. Carlyle repaired it.

"I may probably have to visit London as well as Castle Marling. How bright the moon looks rising there, Barbara!"

"So bright--that or the sky--that I saw your secret," answered she. "Piano! Plate! What can you want with either, Archibald?"

"They are for East Lynne," he quietly replied.

"Oh, for the Carews." And Barbara's interest in the item was gone.

They turned into the road just below the grove, and reached it. Mr. Carlyle held the gate open for Barbara.

"You will come in and say good-night to mamma. She was saying to-day what a stranger you have made of yourself lately."

"I have been busy; and I really have not the time to-night. You must remember me to her instead." And cordially shaking her by the hand, he closed the gate.

It was two or three mornings after the departure of Mr. Carlyle that Mr. Dill appeared before Miss Carlyle, bearing a letter. She was busy regarding the effect of some new muslin curtains, just put up, and did not pay attention to him.

"Will you please take the letter, Miss Cornelia? The postman left it in the office with ours. It is from Mr. Archibald."

"Why, what has he got to write to me about?" retorted Miss Corny. "Does he say when he is coming home?"

"You had better see, Miss Cornelia. Mine does not."

"CASTLE MARLING, May 1st.

"MY DEAR CORNELIA--I was married this morning to Lady Isabel Vane, and hasten briefly to acquaint you with the fact. I will write you more fully to-morrow or the next day, and explain all things.

"Your ever affectionate brother, "ARCHIBALD CARLYLE."

"It is a hoax," was the first gutteral sound that escaped from Miss Carlyle's throat when speech came to her.

Mr. Dill only stood like a stone image.

"It is a hoax, I say," raved Miss Carlyle. "What are you standing there for, like a gander on one leg?" she reiterated, venting her anger upon the unoffending man. "/Is/ it a hoax or not?"

"I am overdone with amazement, Miss Corny. It is not a hoax; I have had a letter, too."

"It can't be true--it /can't/ be true. He had no more thought of being married when he left here, three days ago, than I have."

"How can we tell that, Miss Corny? How are we to know he did not go to be married? I fancy he did."

"Go to be married!" shrieked Miss Corny, in a passion. "He would not be such a fool. And to that fine lady-child! No--no."

"He has sent this to be put in the county journals," said Mr. Dill, holding forth a scrap of paper. "They are married, safe enough."

Miss Carlyle took it and held it before her: her hand was cold as ice, and shook as if with palsy.

"MARRIED.--On the 1st inst., at Castle Marling, by the chaplain to the Earl of Mount Severn, Archibald Carlyle, Esquire, of East Lynne, to the Lady Isabel Mary Vane, only child of William, late Earl of Mount Severn."

Miss Carlyle tore the paper to atoms and scattered it. Mr. Dill afterward made copies from memory, and sent them to the journal offices. But let that pass.

"I will never forgive him," she deliberately uttered, "and I will never forgive or tolerate her."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE EARL'S ASTONISHMENT.

The announcement of the marriage in the newspapers was the first intimation of it Lord Mount Severn received. He was little less thunderstruck than Miss Corny, and came steaming to England the same day, thereby missing his wife's letter, which gave /her/ version of the affair. He met Mr. Carlyle and Lady Isabel in London, where they were staying at one of the west-end hotels--only for a day or two, however, for they were going further. Isabel was alone when the earl was announced.

"What is the meaning of this, Isabel?" began he, without the circumlocution of greeting. "You are married?"

"Yes," she answered, with her pretty, innocent blush. "Some time ago."

"And to Carlyle, the lawyer! How did it come about?"

Isabel began to think how it did come about, sufficiently to give a clear answer. "He asked me," she said, "and I accepted him. He came to Castle Marling at Easter, and asked me then. I was very much surprised."

The earl looked at her attentively. "Why was I kept in ignorance of this, Isabel?"

"I did not know you were kept in ignorance of it. Mr. Carlyle wrote to you, as did Lady Mount Severn."

Lord Mount Severn was a man in the dark, and looked like it. "I suppose this comes," soliloquized he, aloud, "of your father's having allowed the gentleman to dance daily attendance at East Lynne. And so you fell in love with him."

"Indeed, no!" answered she, in an amused tone. "I never thought of such a thing as falling in love with Mr. Carlyle."

"Then don't you love him?" abruptly asked the earl.

'No!" she whispered, timidly; "but I like him much--oh, very much! And he is so good to me!"

The earl stroked his chin and mused. Isabel had destroyed the only reasonable conclusion he had been able to come to as to the motives for the hasty marriage. "If you do not love Mr. Carlyle, how comes it that you are so wise in the distinction between 'liking' and 'love?' It cannot be that you love anybody else?"

The question turned home, and Isabel turned crimson. "I shall love my husband in time," was all she answered, as she bent her head, and played nervously with her watch chain.

"My poor child!" involuntarily exclaimed the earl. But he was one who liked to fathom the depth of everything. "Who has been staying at Castle Marling since I left?" he asked sharply.

"Mrs. Levison came down."

"I alluded to gentlemen--young men."

"Only Francis Levison," she replied.

"Francis Levison! You have never been so foolish as to fall in love with /him/?"

The question was so pointed, so abrupt, and Isabel's self- consciousness, moreover, so great, that she betrayed lamentable confusion, and the earl had no further need to ask. Pity stole into his hard eyes as they fixed themselves on her downcast, glowing face.

"Isabel," he gravely began, "Captain Levison is not a good man; if ever you were inclined to think him one, dispossess your mind of the idea, and hold him at arm's distance. Drop his acquaintance--encourage no intimacy with him."

"I have already dropped it," said Isabel, "and I shall not take it up again. But Lady Mount Severn must think well of him, or she would not have him there."

"She thinks none too well of him; none can of Francis Levison," returned the earl significantly.

Before Isabel could reply, Mr. Carlyle entered. He held out his hand to the earl; the earl did not appear to see it.

"Isabel," said he, "I am sorry to turn you out, but I suppose you have but this one sitting-room. I wish to say a few words to Mr. Carlyle."

She quitted them, and the earl wheeled round and faced Mr. Carlyle, speaking in a stern, haughty tone.

"How came this marriage about, sir? Do you possess so little honor, that, taking advantage of my absence, you must intrude yourself into my family, and clandestinely espouse Lady Isabel Vane?"

Mr. Carlyle stood confounded, and confused. He drew himself up to his full height, looking every whit as fearless and far more noble than the peer. "My lord, I do not understand you."

"Yet I speak plainly. What is it but a clandestine procedure to take advantage of a guardian's absence and beguile a young girl into a marriage beneath her?"

"There has been nothing clandestine in my conduct toward Lady Isabel Vane; there shall be nothing but honor in my conduct toward Lady Isabel Carlyle. Your lordship has been misinformed."

"I have not been informed at all," retorted the earl. "I was allowed to learn this from the public papers--I, the only relative of Lady Isabel."

"When I proposed for Lady Isabel--"

"But a month ago," sarcastically interrupted the earl.

The earl had halted in his walk and drawn near to Mr. Carlyle, his mouth open, his face a marvel of consternation. "By George!" was all Mr. Warburton uttered, and snatched off his glasses.

"Mr. Carlyle, do I understand you aright--that the body of the late earl has been seized for a debt?" demanded the peer, solemnly. "Seize a dead body! Am I awake or dreaming?"

"It is what they have done. They got into the room by stratagem."

"Is it possible that transactions so infamous are permitted by our law?" ejaculated the earl. "Arrest a dead man! I never heard of such a thing. I am shocked beyond expression. Isabel said something about two men, I remember; but she was so full of grief and agitation altogether, that I but half comprehended what she did say upon the subject. Why, what will be done? Can't we bury him?"

"I fancy not. The housekeeper told me, this morning, she feared they would not even suffer the coffin to be closed down. And that ought to be done with all convenient speed."

"It is perfectly horrible!" uttered the earl.

"Who has done it--do you know?" inquired Mr. Warburton.

"Somebody of the name of Anstey," replied Mr. Carlyle. "In the absence of any member of the family, I took upon myself to pay the chamber a visit and examine into the men's authority. The claim is about three thousand pounds."

"If it's Anstey who has done it it is a personal debt of the earl's, really owing, every pound of it," observed Mr. Warburton. "A sharp man, though, that Anstey, to hit upon such a scheme."

"And a shameless and a scandalous man," added Lord Mount Severn. "Well, this is a pretty thing. What's to be done?"

While they consult, let us look for a moment at Lady Isabel. She sat alone, in great perplexity, indulging the deepest grief. Lord Mount Severn had intimated to her, kindly and affectionately, that henceforth she must find her home with him and his wife. Isabel returned a faint "Thank you" and as soon as he left her, burst into a paroxysm of rebellious tears. "Have her home with Mrs. Vane!" she uttered to her own heart; "No, never; rather would she die--rather would she eat a crust and drink water!" and so on, and so on. Young demoiselles are somewhat prone to indulge in these flights of fancy; but they are in most cases impracticable and foolish--exceedingly so in that of Lady Isabel Vane. Work for their living? It may appear very feasible in theory; but theory and practice are as opposite as light and dark. The plain fact was, that Isabel had no alternative whatever, save that of accepting a home with Lady Mount Severn; and the conviction that it must be so stole over her spirit, even while her hasty lips were protesting that she would not.

Two mourners only attended the funeral--the earl and Mr. Carlyle. The latter was no relative of the deceased, and but a very recent friend; but the earl had invited him, probably not liking the parading, solus, his trappings of woe. Some of the county aristocracy were pallbearers, and many private carriages followed.

All was bustle on the following morning. The earl was to depart, and Isabel was to depart, but not together. In the course of the day the domestics would disperse. The earl was speeding to London, and the chaise to convey him to the railway station at West Lynne was already at the door when Mr. Carlyle arrived.

"I was getting fidgety fearing you would not be here, for I have barely five minutes to spare," observed the earl, as he shook hands. "You are sure you fully understood about the tombstone?"

"Perfectly," replied Mr. Carlyle. "How is Lady Isabel?"

"Very down-hearted, I fear, poor child, for she did not breakfast with me," replied the earl. "Mason privately told me that she was in a convulsion of grief. A bad man, a /bad/ man, was Mount Severn," he emphatically added, as he rose and rang the bell.

"Let Lady Isabel be informed that I am ready to depart, and that I wait to see her," he said the servant who answered it. "And while she is coming, Mr. Carlyle," he added, "allow me to express my obligations to you. How I should have got along in this worrying business without you, I cannot divine. You have promised, mind, to pay me a visit, and I shall expect it speedily."

"Promised conditionally--that I find myself in your neighborhood," smiled Mr. Carlyle. "Should--"

Isabel entered, dressed also, and ready, for she was to depart immediately after the earl. Her crape veil was over her face, but she threw it back.

"My time is up, Isabel, and I must go. Is there anything you wish to say to me?"

She opened her lips to speak, but glanced at Mr. Carlyle and hesitated. He was standing at the window, his back towards them.

"I suppose not," said the earl, answering himself, for he was in a fever of hurry to be off, like many others are when starting on a journey. "You will have no trouble whatever, my dear; only mind you get some refreshments in the middle of the day, for you won't be at Castle Marling before dinner-time. Tell Mrs. Va--tell Lady Mount Severn that I had no time to write, but will do so from town."

But Isabel stood before him in an attitude of uncertainty--of expectancy, it may be said, her color varying.

"What is it, you wish to say something?"

She certainly did wish to say something, but she did not know how. It was a moment of embarrassment to her, intensely painful, and the presence of Mr. Carlyle did not tend to lessen it. The latter had no idea his absence was wished for.

"Bless me, Isabel! I declare I forgot all about it," cried the earl, in a tone of vexation. "Not being accustomed to--this aspect of affairs is so new--" He broke off his disjointed sentences, unbuttoned his coat, drew out his purse, and paused over its contents.

"Isabel, I have run myself very short, and have but little beyond what will take me to town. You must make three pounds do for now, my dear. Once at Castle Marling--Pound has the funds for the journey--Lady Mount Severn will supply you; but you must tell her, or she will not know."

He shot some gold out of his purse as he spoke, and left two sovereigns and two half sovereigns on the table. "Farewell, my dear; make yourself happy at Castle Marling. I shall be home soon."

Passing from the room with Mr. Carlyle, he stood talking with that gentleman a minute, his foot on the step of the chaise, and the next was being whisked away. Mr. Carlyle returned to the breakfast-room, where Isabel, an ashy whiteness having replaced the crimson on her cheeks, was picking up the gold.

"Will you do me a favor, Mr. Carlyle?"

"I will do anything I can for you."

She pushed a sovereign and a half toward him. "It is for Mr. Kane. I told Marvel to send in and pay him, but it seems she forgot it, or put it off, and he is not paid. The tickets were a sovereign; the rest is for tuning the piano. Will you kindly give it him? If I trust one of the servants it may be forgotten again in the hurry of their departure."

"Kane's charge for tuning a piano is five shillings," remarked Mr. Carlyle.

"But he was a long time occupied with it, and did something with the leathers. It is not too much; besides I never ordered him anything to eat. He wants money even worse than I do," she added, with a poor attempt at a smile. "But for thinking of him I should not have mustered the courage to beg of Lord Mount Severn, as you have just heard me do. In that case do you know what I should have done?"

"What should you have done?" he smiled.

"I should have asked you to pay him for me, and I would have repaid you as soon as I had any money. I had a great mind to ask you, do you know; it would have been less painful than being obliged to beg of Lord Mount Severn."

"I hope it would," he answered, in a low, earnest tone. "What else can I do for you?"

She was about to answer "Nothing--that he had done enough," but at that moment their attention was attracted by a bustle outside, and they moved to the window.

It was the carriage coming round for Lady Isabel--the late earl's chariot, which was to convey her to the railway station six or seven miles off. It had four post-horses to it, the number having been designated by Lord Mount Severn, who appeared to wish Isabel to leave the neighborhood in as much state as she had entered it. The carriage was packed, and Marvel was perched outside.

"All is ready," she said, "and the time is come for me to go. Mr. Carlyle I am going to leave you a legacy--those pretty gold and silver fish that I bought a few weeks back."

"But why do you not take them?"

"Take them to Lady Mount Severn! No, I would rather leave them with you. Throw a few crumbs into the globe now and then."

Her face was wet with tears, and he knew that she was talking hurriedly to cover her emotion.

"Sit down a few minutes," he said.

"No--no. I had better go at once."

He took her hand to conduct her to the carriage. The servants were gathered in the hall, waiting for her. Some had grown gray in her father's service. She put out her hand, she strove to say a word of thanks and of farewell, and she thought she would choke at the effort of keeping down the sobs. At length it was over; a kind look around, a yearning wave of the hand, and she passed on with Mr. Carlyle.

Pound had ascended to his place by Marvel, and the postboys were awaiting the signal to start, but Mr. Carlyle had the carriage door open again, and was bending in holding her hand.

"I have not said a word of thanks to you for all your kindness, Mr. Carlyle," she cried, her breath very labored. "I am sure you have seen that I could not."

"I wish I could have done more; I wish I could have shielded you from the annoyances you have been obliged to endure!" he answered. "Should we never meet again--"

"Oh, but we shall meet again," she interrupted. "You promised Lord Mount Severn."

"True; we may so meet casually--once in a way; but our ordinary paths in life lie far and wide apart. God forever bless you, dear Lady Isabel!"

The postboys touched their horses, and the carriage sped on. She drew down the blinds and leaned back in an agony of tears--tears for the house she was leaving, for the father she had lost. Her last thoughts had been of gratitude to Mr. Carlyle: but she had more cause to be grateful to him than she yet knew of. Emotion soon spent itself, and, as her eyes cleared, she saw a bit of crumpled paper lying on her lap, which appeared to have fallen from her hand. Mechanically she took it up and opened it; it was a bank-note for one hundred pounds.

Ah, reader! You will say that this is a romance of fiction, and a far- fetched one, but it is verily and indeed true. Mr. Carlyle had taken it with him to East Lynne, that morning, with its destined purpose.

Lady Isabel strained her eyes, and gazed at the note--gazed and gazed again. Where could it have come from? What had brought it there? Suddenly the undoubted truth flashed upon her; Mr. Carlyle had left it in her hand.

Her cheeks burned, her fingers trembled, her angry spirit rose up in arms. In that first moment of discovery, she was ready to resent it as an insult; but when she came to remember the sober facts of the last few days, her anger subsided into admiration of his wondrous kindness. Did he not know that she was without a home to call her own, without money--absolutely without money, save what would be given her in charity?

When Lord Mount Severn reached London, and the hotel which the Vanes were in the habit of using, the first object his eyes lighted on was his own wife, whom he had believed to be safe at Castle Marling. He inquired the cause.

Lady Mount Severn gave herself little trouble to explain. She had been up a day or two--could order her mourning so much better in person-- and William did not seem well, so she bought him up for a change.

"I am sorry you came to town, Emma," remarked the earl, after listening. "Isabel is gone to-day to Castle Marling."

Lady Mount Severn quickly lifted her head, "What's she gone there for?"

"It is the most disgraceful piece of business altogether," returned the earl, without replying to the immediate question. "Mount Severn has died, worse than a beggar, and there's not a shilling for Isabel."

"It never was expected there would be much."

"But there's nothing--not a penny; nothing for her own personal expenses. I gave her a pound or two to-day, for she was completely destitute!"

The countess opened her eyes. "Where will she live? What will become of her?"

"She must live with us. She--"

"With us!" interrupted Lady Mount Severn, her voice almost reaching a scream. "That she never shall."

"She must, Emma. There is nowhere else for her to live. I have been obliged to decide it so; and she is gone, as I tell you, to Castle Marling to-day."

Lady Mount Severn grew pale with anger. She rose from her seat and confronted her husband, the table being between them. "Listen, Raymond; I /will not/ have Isabel Vane under my roof. I hate her. How could you be cajoled into sanctioning such a thing?"

"I was not cajoled, and my sanction was not asked," he mildly replied. "I proposed it. Where else is she to be?"

"I don't care where," was the obstinate retort. "Never with us."

"She is at Castle Marling now--gone to it as her home," resumed the earl; "and even you, when you return, will scarcely venture to turn her out again into the road, or to the workhouse. She will not trouble you long," carelessly continued the earl. "One so lovely as Isabel will be sure to marry early; and she appears as gentle and sweet- tempered a girl as I ever saw; so whence can arise your dislike to her, I don't pretend to guess. Many a man will be ready to forget her want of fortune for the sake of her face."

"She shall marry the first who asks her," snapped the angry lady; "I'll take care of that."

CHAPTER XII.

LIFE AT CASTLE MARLING.

Isabel had been in her new home about ten days, when Lord and Lady Mount Severn arrived at Castle Marling, which was not a castle, you may as well be told, but only the name of a town, nearly contiguous to which was their residence, a small estate. Lord Mount Severn welcomed Isabel; Lady Mount Severn also, after a fashion; but her manner was so repellant, so insolently patronizing, that it brought the indignant crimson to the cheeks of Lady Isabel. And if this was the case at the first meeting, what do you suppose it must have been as time went on? Galling slights, petty vexations, chilling annoyances were put upon her, trying her powers of endurance to the very length of their tether; she would wring her hands when alone, and passionately wish that she could find another refuge.

The earl and countess had two children, both boys, and in February the younger one, always a delicate child, died. This somewhat altered their plans. Instead of proceeding to London after Easter, as had been decided upon, they would not go till May. The earl had passed part of the winter at Mount Severn, looking after the repairs and renovations that were being made there. In March he went to Paris, full of grief for the loss of his boy--far greater grief than was experienced by Lady Mount Severn.

April approached and with it Easter. To the unconcealed dismay of Lady Mount Severn, her grandmother, Mrs. Levison, wrote her word that she required change, and should pass Easter with her at Castle Marling. Lady Mount Severn would have given her diamonds to have got out of it, but there was no escape--diamonds that were once Isabel's--at least, that Isabel had worn. On the Monday in Passion Week the old lady arrived, and with her Francis Levison. They had no other guests. Things went on pretty smoothly till Good Friday.

On Good Friday afternoon, Isabel strolled out with little William Vane; Captain Levison joined them, and they never came in till nearly dinner-time, when the three entered together, Lady Mount Severn doing penance all the time, and nursing her rage against Isabel, for Mrs. Levison kept her indoors. There was barely time to dress for dinner, and Isabel went straight to her room. Her dress was off, her dressing- gown on. Marvel was busy with her hair, and William chattering at her knee, when the door was flung open, and my lady entered.

"Where have you been?" demanded she, shaking with passion. Isabel knew the signs.

"Strolling about in the shrubberies and grounds," answered Isabel.

"How dare you so disgrace yourself!"

"I do not understand you," said Isabel, her heart beginning to beat unpleasantly. "Marvel, you are pulling my hair."

When women liable to intemperate fits of passion give the reins to them, they neither know nor care what they say. Lady Mount Severn broke into a torrent of reproach and abuses, most degrading and unjustifiable.

"Is it not sufficient that you are allowed an asylum in my house, but you must also disgrace it! Three hours have you been hiding yourself with Francis Levison! You have done nothing but flirt with him from the moment he came; you did nothing else at Christmas."

The attack was longer and broader, but that was the substance of it, and Isabel was goaded to resistance, to anger little less great than that of the countess. This!--and before her attendant! She, an earl's daughter, so much better born than Emma Mount Severn, to be thus insultingly accused in the other's mad jealousy. Isabel tossed her hair from the hands of Marvel, rose up and confronted the countess, constraining her voice to calmness.

"I do not flirt!" she said; "I have never flirted. I leave that"--and she could not wholly suppress in tone the scorn she felt--"to married women; though it seems to me that it is a fault less venial in them than in single ones. There is but one inmate of this house who flirts, so far as I have seen since I have lived in it; is it you or I, Lady Mount Severn?"

The home truth told on her ladyship. She turned white with rage, forgot her manners, and, raising her right hand, struck Isabel a stinging blow upon the left cheek. Confused and terrified, Isabel stood in pain, and before she could speak or act, my lady's left hand was raised to the other cheek, and a blow left on that. Lady Isabel shivered as with a sudden chill, and cried out--a sharp, quick cry-- covered her outraged face, and sank down upon the dressing chair. Marvel threw up her hands in dismay, and William Vane could not have burst into a louder roar had he been beaten himself. The boy--he was of a sensitive nature--was frightened.

My good reader, are you one of the inexperienced ones who borrow notions of "fashionable life" from the novels got in a library, taking their high-flown contents for gospel, and religiously believing that lords and ladies live upon stilts, speak, eat, move, breathe, by the rules of good-breeding only? Are you under the delusion--too many are --that the days of dukes and duchesses are spent discussing "pictures, tastes, Shakespeare, and the musical glasses?"--that they are strung on polite wires of silver, and can't get off the hinges, never giving vent to angry tempers, to words unorthodox, as commonplace mortals do? That will come to pass when the Great Creator shall see fit to send men into the world free from baneful tempers, evil passions, from the sins bequeathed from the fall of Adam.

Lady Mount Severn finished up the scene by boxing William for his noise, jerked him out of the room, and told him he was a monkey.

Isabel Vane lived through the livelong night, weeping tears of anguish and indignation. She would not remain at Castle Marling--who would, after so great an outrage? Yet where was she to go? Fifty times in the course of the night did she wish that she was laid beside her father, for her feelings obtained the mastery of her reason; in her calm moments she would have shrunk from the idea of death as the young and healthy must do.

She rose on the Saturday morning weak and languid, the effects of the night of grief, and Marvel brought her breakfast up. William Vane stole into her room afterward; he was attached to her in a remarkable degree.

"Mamma's going out," he exclaimed, in the course of the morning. "Look, Isabel."

Isabel went to the window. Lady Mount Severn was in the pony carriage, Francis Levison driving.

"We can go down now, Isabel, nobody will be there."

She assented, and went down with William; but scarcely were they in the drawing-room when a servant entered with a card on a salver.

"A gentleman, my lady, wishes to see you."

"To see me!" returned Isabel, in surprise, "or Lady Mount Severn?"

"He asked for you, my lady."

She took up the card. "Mr. Carlyle." "Oh!" she uttered, in a tone of joyful surprise, "show him in."

It is curious, nay, appalling, to trace the thread in a human life; how the most trivial occurrences lead to the great events of existence, bringing forth happiness or misery, weal or woe. A client of Mr. Carlyle's, travelling from one part of England to the other, was arrested by illness at Castle Marling--grave illness, it appeared to be, inducing fears of death. He had not, as the phrase goes, settled his affairs, and Mr. Carlyle was telegraphed for in haste, to make his will, and for other private matters. A very simple occurrence it appeared to Mr. Carlyle, this journey, and yet it was destined to lead to events that would end only with his own life.

Mr. Carlyle entered, unaffected and gentlemanly as ever, with his noble form, his attractive face, and his drooping eyelids. She advanced to meet him, holding out her hand, her countenance betraying her pleasure.

"This is indeed unexpected," she exclaimed. "How very pleased I am to see you."

"Business brought me yesterday to Castle Marling. I could not leave it again without calling on you. I hear that Lord Mount Severn is absent."

"He is in France," she rejoined. "I said we should be sure to meet again; do you remember, Mr. Carlyle? You----"

Isabel suddenly stopped; for with the word "remember," she also remembered something--the hundred pound note--and what she was saying faltered on her tongue. Confused, indeed, grew she: for, alas! she had changed and partly spent it. /How/ was it possible to ask Lady Mount Severn for money? And the earl was nearly always away. Mr. Carlyle saw her embarrassment, though he may not have detected its cause.

"What a fine boy!" exclaimed he, looking at the child.

"It is Lord Vane," said Isabel.

"A truthful, earnest spire, I am sure," he continued, gazing at his open countenance. "How old are you, my little man?"

"I am six, sir; and my brother was four."

Isabel bent over the child--an excuse to cover her perplexity. "You do not know this gentleman, William. It is Mr. Carlyle, and he has been very kind to me."

The little lord had turned his thoughtful eyes on Mr. Carlyle, apparently studying his countenance. "I shall like you, sir, if you are kind to Isabel. Are you kind to her?"

"Very, very kind," murmured Lady Isabel, leaving William, and turning to Mr. Carlyle, but not looking at him. "I don't know what to say; I ought to thank you. I did not intend to use the--to use it; but I-- I--"

"Hush!" he interrupted, laughing at her confusion. "I do not know what you are talking of. I have a great misfortune to break to you, Lady Isabel."

She lifted her eyes and her glowing cheeks, somewhat aroused from her own thoughts.

"Two of your fish are dead. The gold ones."

"Are they?"

"I believe it was the frost killed them; I don't know what else it could have been. You may remember those bitter days we had in January; they died then."

"You are very good to take care of them all this while. How is East Lynne looking? Dear East Lynne! Is it occupied?"

"Not yet. I have spent some money upon it, and it repays the outlay."

The excitement of his arrival had worn off, and she was looking herself again, pale and sad; he could not help observing that she was changed.

"I cannot expect to look so well at Castle Marling as I did at East Lynne," she answered.

"I trust it is a happy home to you?" said Mr. Carlyle, speaking upon impulse.

She glanced up at him a look that he would never forget; it certainly told of despair. "No," she said, shaking her head, "it is a miserable home, and I cannot remain in it. I have been awake all night, thinking where I can go, but I cannot tell; I have not a friend in the wide world."

Never let people talk secrets before children, for be assured that they comprehend a vast deal more than is expedient; the saying "that little pitchers have great ears" is wonderfully true. Lord Vane held up his hand to Mr. Carlyle,--

"Isabel told me this morning that she should go away from us. Shall I tell you why? Mamma beat her yesterday when she was angry."

"Be quiet, William!" interrupted Lady Isabel, her face in a flame.

"Two great slaps upon her cheeks," continued the young viscount; "and Isabel cried so, and I screamed, and then mamma hit me. But boys are made to be hit; nurse says so. Marvel came into the nursery when we were at tea, and told nurse about it. She says Isabel's too good- looking, and that's why mamma--"

Isabel stopped the child's tongue, rang a peal on the bell, and marched him to the door, dispatching him to the nursery by the servant who answered it.

Mr. Carlyle's eyes were full of indignant sympathy. "Can this be true?" he asked, in a low tone when she returned to him. "You do, indeed, want a friend."

"I must bear my lot," she replied, obeying the impulse which prompted her to confide in Mr. Carlyle; "at least till Lord Mount Severn returns."

"And then?"

"I really do not know," she said, the rebellious tears rising faster than she could choke them down. "He has no other home to offer me; but with Lady Mount Severn I cannot and will not remain. She would break my heart, as she has already well-nigh broken my spirit. I have not deserved it of her, Mr. Carlyle."

"No, I am sure you have not," he warmly answered. "I wish I could help you! What can I do?"

"You can do nothing," she said. "What can any one do?"

"I wish, I wish I could help you!" he repeated. "East Lynne was not, take it for all in all, a pleasant home to you, but it seems you changed for the worse when you left."

"Not a pleasant home?" she echoed, its reminiscences appearing delightful in that moment, for it must be remembered that all things are estimated by comparison. "Indeed it was; I may never have so pleasant a one again. Mr. Carlyle, do not disparage East Lynne to me! Would I could awake and find the last few months but a hideous dream! --that I could find my dear father alive again!--that we were still living peacefully at East Lynne. It would be a very Eden to me now."

What was Mr. Carlyle about to say? What emotion was it that agitated his countenance, impeded his breath, and dyed his face blood-red? His better genius was surely not watching over him, or those words had never been spoken.

"There is but one way," he began, taking her hand and nervously playing with it, probably unconscious that he did so; "only one way in which you could return to East Lynne. And that way--I may not presume, perhaps, to point it out."

She looked at him and waited for an explanation.

"If my words offend you, Lady Isabel, check them, as their presumption deserves, and pardon me. May I--dare I--offer you to return to East Lynne as its mistress?"

She did not comprehend him in the slightest degree: the drift of his meaning never dawned upon her. "Return to East Lynne as its mistress?" she repeated, in bewilderment.

"And as my wife?"

No possibility of misunderstanding him now, and the shock and surprise were great. She had stood there by Mr. Carlyle's side conversing confidentially with him, esteeming him greatly, feeling as if he were her truest friend on earth, clinging to him in her heart as to a powerful haven of refuge, loving him almost as she would a brother, suffering her hand to remain in his. /But to be his wife!/ the idea had never presented itself to her in any shape until this moment, and her mind's first emotion was one of entire opposition, her first movement to express it, as she essayed to withdraw herself and her hand away from him.

But not so; Mr. Carlyle did not suffer it. He not only retained that hand, but took the other also, and spoke, now the ice was broken, eloquent words of love. Not unmeaning phrases of rhapsody, about hearts and darts and dying for her, such as somebody else might have given utterance to, but earnest-hearted words of deep tenderness, calculated to win upon the mind's good sense, as well as upon the ear and heart; and it may be that, had her imagination not been filled up with that "somebody else," she would have said "Yes," there and then.

They were suddenly interrupted. Lady Mount Severn entered, and took in the scene at a glance; Mr. Carlyle's bent attitude of devotion, his imprisonment of the hands, and Isabel's perplexed and blushing countenance. She threw up her head and her little inquisitive nose, and stopped short on the carpet; her freezing looks demanded an explanation, as plainly as looks can do it. Mr. Carlyle turned to her, and by way of sparing Isabel, proceeded to introduce himself. Isabel had just presence of mind left to name her: "Lady Mount Severn."

"I am sorry that Lord Mount Severn should be absent, to whom I have the honor of being known," he said. "I am Mr. Carlyle."

"I have heard of you," replied her ladyship, scanning his good looks, and feeling cross that his homage should be given where she saw it was given, "but I had /not/ heard that you and Lady Isabel Vane were on the extraordinary terms of intimacy that--that----"

"Madam," he interrupted as he handed a chair to her ladyship and took another himself, "we have never yet been on terms of extraordinary intimacy. I was begging the Lady Isabel to grant that we may be; I was asking her to become my wife."

The avowal was as a shower of incense to the countess, and her ill humor melted into sunshine. It was a solution to her great difficulty, a loophole by which she might get rid of her /bete noire/, the hated Isabel. A flush of gratification lighted her face, and she became full of graciousness to Mr. Carlyle.

"How very grateful Isabel must feel to you," quoth she. "I speak openly, Mr. Carlyle, because I know that you were cognizant of the unprotected state in which she was left by the earl's improvidence, putting marriage for her, at any rate, a high marriage, nearly out of the question. East Lynne is a beautiful place, I have heard."

"For its size; it is not large," replied Mr. Carlyle, as he rose for Isabel had also risen and was coming forward.

"And pray what is Lady Isabel's answer?" quickly asked the countess, turning to her.

Not to her did Isabel condescend to give an answer, but she approached Mr. Carlyle, and spoke in a low tone.

"Will you give me a few hours for consideration?"

"I am only too happy that you should accord it consideration, for it speaks to me of hope," was his reply, as he opened the door for her to pass out. "I will be here again this afternoon."

It was a perplexing debate that Lady Isabel held with herself in the solitude of her chamber, whilst Mr. Carlyle touched upon ways and means to Lady Mount Severn. Isabel was little more than a child, and as a child she reasoned, looking neither far nor deep: the shallow palpable aspect of affairs alone presenting itself to her view. That Mr. Carlyle was not of rank equal to her own, she scarcely remembered; East Lynne seemed a very fair settlement in life, and in point of size, beauty and importance, it was far superior to the house she was now in. She forgot that her position in East Lynne as Mr. Carlyle's wife would not be what it had been as Lord Mount Severn's daughter; she forgot that she would be tied to a quiet house, shut out from the great world, the pomps and vanities to which she was born. She liked Mr. Carlyle much; she experienced pleasure in conversing with him; she liked to be with him; in short, but for that other ill-omened fancy which had crept over her, there would have been danger of her falling in love with Mr. Carlyle. And oh! to be removed forever from the bitter dependence on Lady Mount Severn--East Lynne would in truth, after that, seem what she had called it: Eden.

"So far it looks favorable," mentally exclaimed poor Isabel, "but there is the other side of the question. It is not only that I do not love Mr. Carlyle, but I fear I do love, or very nearly love, Francis Levison. I wish /he/ would ask me to be his wife!--or that I had never seen him."

Isabel's soliloquy was interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Levison and the countess. What the latter had said to the old lady to win her to the cause, was best known to herself, but she was eloquent in it. They both used every possible argument to induce her to accept Mr. Carlyle: the old lady declaring that she had never been introduced to any one she was so much taken with, and Mrs. Levison was incapable of asserting what was not true; that he was worth a dozen empty-headed men of the great world.

Isabel listened, now swayed one way, now the other, and when afternoon came, her head was aching with perplexity. The stumbling block that she could not get over was Francis Levison. She saw Mr. Carlyle approach from her window, and went down to the drawing-room, not in the least knowing what her answer was to be; a shadowy idea was presenting itself, that she would ask him for longer time, and write her answer.

In the drawing-room was Francis Levison, and her heart beat wildly; which said beating might have convinced her that she ought not to marry another.

"Where have you been hiding yourself?" cried he. "Did you hear of our mishap with the pony carriage?"

"No," was her answer.

"I was driving Emma into town. The pony took fright, kicked, plunged and went down upon his knees; she took fright in turn, got out, and walked back. So I gave the brute some chastisement and a race, and brought him to the stables, getting home in time to be introduced to Mr. Carlyle. He seems an out-and-out good fellow, Isabel, and I congratulate you."

"What!" she uttered.

"Don't start. We are all in the family, and my lady told; I won't betray it abroad. She says East Lynne is a place to be coveted; I wish you happiness, Isabel."

"Thank you," she returned in a sarcastic tone, though her throat beat and her lips quivered. "You are premature in your congratulations, Captain Levison."

"Am I? Keep my good wishes, then, till the right man comes. I am beyond the pale myself, and dare not think of entering the happy state," he added, in a pointed tone. "I have indulged dreams of it, like others, but I cannot afford to indulge them seriously; a poor man, with uncertain prospects can only play the butterfly, perhaps to his life's end."

He quitted the room as he spoke. It was impossible for Isabel to misunderstand him, but a feeling shot across her mind, for the first time, that he was false and heartless. One of the servants appeared, showing in Mr. Carlyle; nothing false or heartless about /him/. He closed the door, and approached her, but she did not speak, and her lips were white and trembling. Mr. Carlyle waited.

"Well," he said at length, in a gentle tone, "have you decided to grant my prayer?"

"Yes. But--" She could not go on. What with one agitation and another, she had difficulty in conquering her emotion. "But--I was going to tell you----"

"Presently," he whispered, leading her to a sofa, "we can both afford to wait now. Oh, Isabel, you have made me very happy!"

"I ought to tell you, I must tell you," she began again, in the midst of hysterical tears. "Though I have said 'yes' to your proposal, I do not--yet---- It has come upon me by surprise," she stammered. "I like you very much; I esteem and respect you; but I do not love you."

"I should wonder if you did. But you will let me earn your love, Isabel?"

"Oh, yes," she earnestly answered. "I hope so."

He drew her closer to him, bent his face, and took from her lips his first kiss. Isabel was passive; she supposed he had gained the right to do so. "My dearest! It is all I ask."

CHAPTER XIII.

A MOONLIGHT WALK.

Of Mr Patrick Matthew, who buried his treasure in an appendix to a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", Darwin said that "he clearly saw the full force of the principle of natural selection." In 1860 Darwin wrote--very characteristically--about this to Lyell: "Mr Patrick Matthew publishes a long extract from his work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Natural Selection. I have ordered the book, as some passages are rather obscure, but it is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation. Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case some day. Anyhow, one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber." ("Life and Letters" II. page 301.)

De Quatrefages and De Varigny have maintained that the botanist Naudin stated the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1852. He explains very clearly the process of artificial selection, and says that in the garden we are following Nature's method. "We do not think that Nature has made her species in a different fashion from that in which we proceed ourselves in order to make our variations." But, as Darwin said, "he does not show how selection acts under nature." Similarly it must be noted in regard to several pre-Darwinian pictures of the struggle for existence (such as Herder's, who wrote in 1790 "All is in struggle...each one for himself" and so on), that a recognition of this is only the first step in Darwinism.

Profs. E. Perrier and H.F. Osborn have called attention to a remarkable anticipation of the selection-idea which is to be found in the speculations of Etienne Geoffroy St Hilaire (1825-1828) on the evolution of modern Crocodilians from the ancient Teleosaurs. Changing environment induced changes in the respiratory system and far-reaching consequences followed. The atmosphere, acting upon the pulmonary cells, brings about "modifications which are favourable or destructive ('funestes'); these are inherited, and they influence all the rest of the organisation of the animal because if these modifications lead to injurious effects, the animals which exhibit them perish and are replaced by others of a somewhat different form, a form changed so as to be adapted to (a la convenance) the new environment."

Prof. E.B. Poulton ("Science Progress", New Series, Vol. I. 1897. "A Remarkable Anticipation of Modern Views on Evolution". See also Chap. VI. in "Essays on Evolution", Oxford, 1908.) has shown that the anthropologist James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848) must be included, even in spite of himself, among the precursors of Darwin. In some passages of the second edition of his "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind" (1826), he certainly talks evolution and anticipates Prof. Weismann in denying the transmission of acquired characters. He is, however, sadly self- contradictory and his evolutionism weakens in subsequent editions--the only ones that Darwin saw. Prof. Poulton finds in Prichard's work a recognition of the operation of Natural Selection. "After enquiring how it is that 'these varieties are developed and preserved in connection with particular climates and differences of local situation,' he gives the following very significant answer: 'One cause which tends to maintain this relation is obvious. Individuals and families, and even whole colonies, perish and disappear in climates for which they are, by peculiarity of constitution, not adapted. Of this fact proofs have been already mentioned.'" Mr Francis Darwin and Prof. A.C. Seward discuss Prichard's "anticipations" in "More Letters of Charles Darwin", Vol. I. page 43, and come to the conclusion that the evolutionary passages are entirely neutralised by others of an opposite trend. There is the same difficulty with Buffon.

Hints of the idea of Natural Selection have been detected elsewhere. James Watt (See Prof. Patrick Geddes's article "Variation and Selection", "Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition) 1888.), for instance, has been reported as one of the anticipators (1851). But we need not prolong the inquiry further, since Darwin did not know of any anticipations until after he had published the immortal work of 1859, and since none of those who got hold of the idea made any use of it. What Darwin did was to follow the clue which Malthus gave him, to realise, first by genius and afterwards by patience, how the complex and subtle struggle for existence works out a natural selection of those organisms which vary in the direction of fitter adaptation to the conditions of their life. So much success attended his application of the Selection-formula that for a time he regarded Natural Selection as almost the sole factor in evolution, variations being pre- supposed; gradually, however, he came to recognise that there was some validity in the factors which had been emphasized by Lamarck and by Buffon, and in his well-known summing up in the sixth edition of the "Origin" he says of the transformation of species: "This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is, in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously."

To sum up: the idea of organic evolution, older than Aristotle, slowly developed from the stage of suggestion to the stage of verification, and the first convincing verification was Darwin's; from being an a priori anticipation it has become an interpretation of nature, and Darwin is still the chief interpreter; from being a modal interpretation it has advanced to the rank of a causal theory, the most convincing part of which men will never cease to call Darwinism.

III. THE SELECTION THEORY

By August Weismann. Professor of Zoology in the University of Freiburg (Baden).

I. THE IDEA OF SELECTION.

Many and diverse were the discoveries made by Charles Darwin in the course of a long and strenuous life, but none of them has had so far-reaching an influence on the science and thought of his time as the theory of selection. I do not believe that the theory of evolution would have made its way so easily and so quickly after Darwin took up the cudgels in favour of it, if he had not been able to support it by a principle which was capable of solving, in a simple manner, the greatest riddle that living nature presents to us,--I mean the purposiveness of every living form relative to the conditions of its life and its marvellously exact adaptation to these.

Everyone knows that Darwin was not alone in discovering the principle of selection, and that the same idea occurred simultaneously and independently to Alfred Russel Wallace. At the memorable meeting of the Linnean Society on 1st July, 1858, two papers were read (communicated by Lyell and Hooker) both setting forth the same idea of selection. One was written by Charles Darwin in Kent, the other by Alfred Wallace in Ternate, in the Malay Archipelago. It was a splendid proof of the magnanimity of these two investigators, that they thus, in all friendliness and without envy, united in laying their ideas before a scientific tribunal: their names will always shine side by side as two of the brightest stars in the scientific sky.

But it is with Charles Darwin that I am here chiefly concerned, since this paper is intended to aid in the commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

The idea of selection set forth by the two naturalists was at the time absolutely new, but it was also so simple that Huxley could say of it later, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that." As Darwin was led to the general doctrine of descent, not through the labours of his predecessors in the early years of the century, but by his own observations, so it was in regard to the principle of selection. He was struck by the innumerable cases of adaptation, as, for instance, that of the woodpeckers and tree-frogs to climbing, or the hooks and feather-like appendages of seeds, which aid in the distribution of plants, and he said to himself that an explanation of adaptations was the first thing to be sought for in attempting to formulate a theory of evolution.

But since adaptations point to CHANGES which have been undergone by the ancestral forms of existing species, it is necessary, first of all, to inquire how far species in general are VARIABLE. Thus Darwin's attention was directed in the first place to the phenomenon of variability, and the use man has made of this, from very early times, in the breeding of his domesticated animals and cultivated plants. He inquired carefully how breeders set to work, when they wished to modify the structure and appearance of a species to their own ends, and it was soon clear to him that SELECTION FOR BREEDING PURPOSES played the chief part.

But how was it possible that such processes should occur in free nature? Who is here the breeder, making the selection, choosing out one individual to bring forth offspring and rejecting others? That was the problem that for a long time remained a riddle to him.

Darwin himself relates how illumination suddenly came to him. He had been reading, for his own pleasure, Malthus' book on Population, and, as he had long known from numerous observations, that every species gives rise to many more descendants than ever attain to maturity, and that, therefore, the greater number of the descendants of a species perish without reproducing, the idea came to him that the decision as to which member of a species was to perish, and which was to attain to maturity and reproduction might not be a matter of chance, but might be determined by the constitution of the individuals themselves, according as they were more or less fitted for survival. With this idea the foundation of the theory of selection was laid.

In ARTIFICIAL SELECTION the breeder chooses out for pairing only such individuals as possess the character desired by him in a somewhat higher degree than the rest of the race. Some of the descendants inherit this character, often in a still higher degree, and if this method be pursued throughout several generations, the race is transformed in respect of that particular character.

NATURAL SELECTION depends on the same three factors as ARTIFICIAL SELECTION: on VARIABILITY, INHERITANCE, and SELECTION FOR BREEDING, but this last is here carried out not by a breeder but by what Darwin called the "struggle for existence." This last factor is one of the special features of the Darwinian conception of nature. That there are carnivorous animals which take heavy toll in every generation of the progeny of the animals on which they prey, and that there are herbivores which decimate the plants in every generation had long been known, but it is only since Darwin's time that sufficient attention has been paid to the facts that, in addition to this regular destruction, there exists between the members of a species a keen competition for space and food, which limits multiplication, and that numerous individuals of each species perish because of unfavourable climatic conditions. The "struggle for existence," which Darwin regarded as taking the place of the human breeder in free nature, is not a direct struggle between carnivores and their prey, but is the assumed competition for survival between individuals OF THE SAME species, of which, on an average, only those survive to reproduce which have the greatest power of resistance, while the others, less favourably constituted, perish early. This struggle is so keen, that, within a limited area, where the conditions of life have long remained unchanged, of every species, whatever be the degree of fertility, only two, ON AN AVERAGE, of the descendants of each pair survive; the others succumb either to enemies, or to disadvantages of climate, or to accident. A high degree of fertility is thus not an indication of the special success of a species, but of the numerous dangers that have attended its evolution. Of the six young brought forth by a pair of elephants in the course of their lives only two survive in a given area; similarly, of the millions of eggs which two thread-worms leave behind them only two survive. It is thus possible to estimate the dangers which threaten a species by its ratio of elimination, or, since this cannot be done directly, by its fertility.

Although a great number of the descendants of each generation fall victims to accident, among those that remain it is still the greater or lesser fitness of the organism that determines the "selection for breeding purposes," and it would be incomprehensible if, in this competition, it were not ultimately, that is, on an average, the best equipped which survive, in the sense of living long enough to reproduce.

Thus the principle of natural selection is THE SELECTION OF THE BEST FOR REPRODUCTION, whether the "best" refers to the whole constitution, to one or more parts of the organism, or to one or more stages of development. Every organ, every part, every character of an animal, fertility and intelligence included, must be improved in this manner, and be gradually brought up in the course of generations to its highest attainable state of perfection. And not only may improvement of parts be brought about in this way, but new parts and organs may arise, since, through the slow and minute steps of individual or "fluctuating" variations, a part may be added here or dropped out there, and thus something new is produced.

The principle of selection solved the riddle as to how what was purposive could conceivably be brought about without the intervention of a directing power, the riddle which animate nature presents to our intelligence at every turn, and in face of which the mind of a Kant could find no way out, for he regarded a solution of it as not to be hoped for. For, even if we were to assume an evolutionary force that is continually transforming the most primitive and the simplest forms of life into ever higher forms, and the homogeneity of primitive times into the infinite variety of the present, we should still be unable to infer from this alone how each of the numberless forms adapted to particular conditions of life should have appeared PRECISELY AT THE RIGHT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH to which their adaptations were appropriate, and precisely at the proper place in which all the conditions of life to which they were adapted occurred: the humming-birds at the same time as the flowers; the trichina at the same time as the pig; the bark-coloured moth at the same time as the oak, and the wasp-like moth at the same time as the wasp which protects it. Without processes of selection we should be obliged to assume a "pre-established harmony" after the famous Leibnitzian model, by means of which the clock of the evolution of organisms is so regulated as to strike in exact synchronism with that of the history of the earth! All forms of life are strictly adapted to the conditions of their life, and can persist under these conditions alone.

There must therefore be an intrinsic connection between the conditions and the structural adaptations of the organism, and, SINCE THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY THE ANIMAL ITSELF, THE ADAPTATIONS MUST BE CALLED FORTH BY THE CONDITIONS.

The selection theory teaches us how this is conceivable, since it enables us to understand that there is a continual production of what is non- purposive as well as of what is purposive, but the purposive alone survives, while the non-purposive perishes in the very act of arising. This is the old wisdom taught long ago by Empedocles.

II. THE LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE.

Lamarck, as is well known, formulated a definite theory of evolution at the beginning of the nineteenth century, exactly fifty years before the Darwin- Wallace principle of selection was given to the world. This brilliant investigator also endeavoured to support his theory by demonstrating forces which might have brought about the transformations of the organic world in the course of the ages. In addition to other factors, he laid special emphasis on the increased or diminished use of the parts of the body, assuming that the strengthening or weakening which takes place from this cause during the individual life, could be handed on to the offspring, and thus intensified and raised to the rank of a specific character. Darwin also regarded this LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE, as it is now generally called, as a factor in evolution, but he was not fully convinced of the transmissibility of acquired characters.

As I have here to deal only with the theory of selection, I need not discuss the Lamarckian hypothesis, but I must express my opinion that there is room for much doubt as to the cooperation of this principle in evolution. Not only is it difficult to imagine how the transmission of functional modifications could take place, but, up to the present time, notwithstanding the endeavours of many excellent investigators, not a single actual proof of such inheritance has been brought forward. Semon's experiments on plants are, according to the botanist Pfeffer, not to be relied on, and even the recent, beautiful experiments made by Dr Kammerer on salamanders, cannot, as I hope to show elsewhere, be regarded as proof, if only because they do not deal at all with functional modifications, that is, with modifications brought about by use, and it is to these ALONE that the Lamarckian principle refers.

III. OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY OF SELECTION.

(a) Saltatory evolution.

The Darwinian doctrine of evolution depends essentially on THE CUMULATIVE AUGMENTATION of minute variations in the direction of utility. But can such minute variations, which are undoubtedly continually appearing among the individuals of the same species, possess any selection-value; can they determine which individuals are to survive, and which are to succumb; can they be increased by natural selection till they attain to the highest development of a purposive variation?

To many this seems so improbable that they have urged a theory of evolution by leaps from species to species. Kolliker, in 1872, compared the evolution of species with the processes which we can observe in the individual life in cases of alternation of generations. But a polyp only gives rise to a medusa because it has itself arisen from one, and there can be no question of a medusa ever having arisen suddenly and de novo from a polyp-bud, if only because both forms are adapted in their structure as a whole, and in every detail to the conditions of their life. A sudden origin, in a natural way, of numerous adaptations is inconceivable. Even the degeneration of a medusoid from a free-swimming animal to a mere brood- sac (gonophore) is not sudden and saltatory, but occurs by imperceptible modifications throughout hundreds of years, as we can learn from the numerous stages of the process of degeneration persisting at the same time in different species.

If, then, the degeneration to a simple brood-sac takes place only by very slow transitions, each stage of which may last for centuries, how could the much more complex ASCENDING evolution possibly have taken place by sudden leaps? I regard this argument as capable of further extension, for wherever in nature we come upon degeneration, it is taking place by minute steps and with a slowness that makes it not directly perceptible, and I believe that this in itself justifies us in concluding that THE SAME MUST BE TRUE OF ASCENDING evolution. But in the latter case the goal can seldom be distinctly recognised while in cases of degeneration the starting-point of the process can often be inferred, because several nearly related species may represent different stages.

In recent years Bateson in particular has championed the idea of saltatory, or so-called discontinuous evolution, and has collected a number of cases in which more or less marked variations have suddenly appeared. These are taken for the most part from among domesticated animals which have been bred and crossed for a long time, and it is hardly to be wondered at that their much mixed and much influenced germ-plasm should, under certain conditions, give rise to remarkable phenomena, often indeed producing forms which are strongly suggestive of monstrosities, and which would undoubtedly not survive in free nature, unprotected by man. I should regard such cases as due to an intensified germinal selection--though this is to anticipate a little--and from this point of view it cannot be denied that they have a special interest. But they seem to me to have no significance as far as the transformation of species is concerned, if only because of the extreme rarity of their occurrence.

There are, however, many variations which have appeared in a sudden and saltatory manner, and some of these Darwin pointed out and discussed in detail: the copper beech, the weeping trees, the oak with "fern-like leaves," certain garden-flowers, etc. But none of them have persisted in free nature, or evolved into permanent types.

On the other hand, wherever enduring types have arisen, we find traces of a gradual origin by successive stages, even if, at first sight, their origin may appear to have been sudden. This is the case with SEASONAL DIMORPHISM, the first known cases of which exhibited marked differences between the two generations, the winter and the summer brood. Take for instance the much discussed and studied form Vanessa (Araschnia) levana-prorsa. Here the differences between the two forms are so great and so apparently disconnected, that one might almost believe it to be a sudden mutation, were it not that old transition-stages can be called forth by particular temperatures, and we know other butterflies, as for instance our Garden Whites, in which the differences between the two generations are not nearly so marked; indeed, they are so little apparent that they are scarcely likely to be noticed except by experts. Thus here again there are small initial steps, some of which, indeed, must be regarded as adaptations, such as the green-sprinkled or lightly tinted under-surface which gives them a deceptive resemblance to parsley or to Cardamine leaves.

Even if saltatory variations do occur, we cannot assume that these HAVE EVER LED TO FORMS WHICH ARE CAPABLE OF SURVIVAL UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF WILD LIFE. Experience has shown that in plants which have suddenly varied the power of persistence is diminished. Korschinksky attributes to them weaknesses of organisation in general; "they bloom late, ripen few of their seeds, and show great sensitiveness to cold." These are not the characters which make for success in the struggle for existence.

We must briefly refer here to the views--much discussed in the last decade --of H. de Vries, who believes that the roots of transformation must be sought for in SALTATORY VARIATIONS ARISING FROM INTERNAL CAUSES, and distinguishes such MUTATIONS, as he has called them, from ordinary individual variations, in that they breed true, that is, with strict inbreeding they are handed on pure to the next generation. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out the weaknesses of this theory ("Vortrage uber Descendenztheorie", Jena, 1904, II. 269. English Translation London, 1904, II. page 317.), and I am the less inclined to return to it here that it now appears (See Poulton, "Essays on Evolution", Oxford, 1908, pages xix-xxii.) that the far-reaching conclusions drawn by de Vries from his observations on the Evening Primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, rest upon a very insecure foundation. The plant from which de Vries saw numerous "species"--his "mutations"--arise was not, as he assumed, a WILD SPECIES that had been introduced to Europe from America, but was probably a hybrid form which was first discovered in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and which does not appear to exist anywhere in America as a wild species.

This gives a severe shock to the "Mutation theory," for the other ACTUALLY WILD species with which de Vries experimented showed no "mutations" but yielded only negative results.

Thus we come to the conclusion that Darwin ("Origin of Species" (6th edition), pages 176 et seq.) was right in regarding transformations as taking place by minute steps, which, if useful, are augmented in the course of innumerable generations, because their possessors more frequently survive in the struggle for existence.

(b) SELECTION-VALUE OF THE INITIAL STEPS.

Is it possible that the significant deviations which we know as "individual variations" can form the beginning of a process of selection? Can they decide which is to perish and which to survive? To use a phrase of Romanes, can they have SELECTION-VALUE?

Darwin himself answered this question, and brought together many excellent examples to show that differences, apparently insignificant because very small, might be of decisive importance for the life of the possessor. But it is by no means enough to bring forward cases of this kind, for the question is not merely whether finished adaptations have selection-value, but whether the first beginnings of these, and whether the small, I might almost say minimal increments, which have led up from these beginnings to the perfect adaptation, have also had selection-value. To this question even one who, like myself, has been for many years a convinced adherent of the theory of selection, can only reply: WE MUST ASSUME SO, BUT WE CANNOT PROVE IT IN ANY CASE. It is not upon demonstrative evidence that we rely when we champion the doctrine of selection as a scientific truth; we base our argument on quite other grounds. Undoubtedly there are many apparently insignificant features, which can nevertheless be shown to be adaptations-- for instance, the thickness of the basin-shaped shell of the limpets that live among the breakers on the shore. There can be no doubt that the thickness of these shells, combined with their flat form, protects the animals from the force of the waves breaking upon them,--but how have they become so thick? What proportion of thickness was sufficient to decide that of two variants of a limpet one should survive, the other be eliminated? We can say nothing more than that we infer from the present state of the shell, that it must have varied in regard to differences in shell-thickness, and that these differences must have had selection-value, --no proof therefore, but an assumption which we must show to be convincing.

For a long time the marvellously complex RADIATE and LATTICE-WORK skeletons of Radiolarians were regarded as a mere outflow of "Nature's infinite wealth of form," as an instance of a purely morphological character with no biological significance. But recent investigations have shown that these, too, have an adaptive significance (Hacker). The same thing has been shown by Schutt in regard to the lowly unicellular plants, the Peridineae, which abound alike on the surface of the ocean and in its depths. It has been shown that the long skeletal processes which grow out from these organisms have significance not merely as a supporting skeleton, but also as an extension of the superficial area, which increases the contact with the water-particles, and prevents the floating organisms from sinking. It has been established that the processes are considerably shorter in the colder layers of the ocean, and that they may be twelve times as long (Chun, "Reise der Valdivia", Leipzig, 1904.) in the warmer layers, thus corresponding to the greater or smaller amount of friction which takes place in the denser and less dense layers of the water.

The Peridineae of the warmer ocean layers have thus become long-rayed, those of the colder layers short-rayed, not through the direct effect of friction on the protoplasm, but through processes of selection, which favoured the longer rays in warm water, since they kept the organism afloat, while those with short rays sank and were eliminated. If we put the question as to selection-value in this case, and ask how great the variations in the length of processes must be in order to possess selection-value; what can we answer except that these variations must have been minimal, and yet sufficient to prevent too rapid sinking and consequent elimination? Yet this very case would give the ideal opportunity for a mathematical calculation of the minimal selection-value, although of course it is not feasible from lack of data to carry out the actual calculation.

But even in organisms of more than microscopic size there must frequently be minute, even microscopic differences which set going the process of selection, and regulate its progress to the highest possible perfection.

Many tropical trees possess thick, leathery leaves, as a protection against the force of the tropical rain drops. The DIRECT influence of the rain cannot be the cause of this power of resistance, for the leaves, while they were still thin, would simply have been torn to pieces. Their toughness must therefore be referred to selection, which would favour the trees with slightly thicker leaves, though we cannot calculate with any exactness how great the first stages of increase in thickness must have been. Our hypothesis receives further support from the fact that, in many such trees, the leaves are drawn out into a beak-like prolongation (Stahl and Haberlandt) which facilitates the rapid falling off of the rain water, and also from the fact that the leaves, while they are still young, hang limply down in bunches which offer the least possible resistance to the rain. Thus there are here three adaptations which can only be interpreted as due to selection. The initial stages of these adaptations must undoubtedly have had selection-value.

But even in regard to this case we are reasoning in a circle, not giving "proofs," and no one who does not wish to believe in the selection-value of the initial stages can be forced to do so. Among the many pieces of presumptive evidence a particularly weighty one seems to me to be THE SMALLNESS OF THE STEPS OF PROGRESS which we can observe in certain cases, as for instance in leaf-imitation among butterflies, and in mimicry generally. The resemblance to a leaf, for instance of a particular Kallima, seems to us so close as to be deceptive, and yet we find in another individual, or it may be in many others, a spot added which increases the resemblance, and which could not have become fixed unless the increased deceptiveness so produced had frequently led to the overlooking of its much persecuted possessor. But if we take the selection-value of the initial stages for granted, we are confronted with the further question which I myself formulated many years ago: How does it happen THAT THE NECESSARY BEGINNINGS OF A USEFUL VARIATION ARE ALWAYS PRESENT? How could insects which live upon or among green leaves become all green, while those that live on bark become brown? How have the desert animals become yellow and the Arctic animals white? Why were the necessary variations always present? How could the green locust lay brown eggs, or the privet caterpillar develop white and lilac-coloured lines on its green skin?

It is of no use answering to this that the question is wrongly formulated (Plate, "Selektionsprinzip u. Probleme der Artbildung" (3rd edition), Leipzig, 1908.) and that it is the converse that is true; that the process of selection takes place in accordance with the variations that present themselves. This proposition is undeniably true, but so also is another, which apparently negatives it: the variation required has in the majority of cases actually presented itself. Selection cannot solve this contradiction; it does not call forth the useful variation, but simply works upon it. The ultimate reason why one and the same insect should occur in green and in brown, as often happens in caterpillars and locusts, lies in the fact that variations towards brown presented themselves, and so also did variations towards green: THE KERNEL OF THE RIDDLE LIES IN THE VARYING, and for the present we can only say, that small variations in different directions present themselves in every species. Otherwise so many different kinds of variations could not have arisen. I have endeavoured to explain this remarkable fact by means of the intimate processes that must take place within the germ-plasm, and I shall return to the problem when dealing with "germinal selection."

We have, however, to make still greater demands on variation, for it is not enough that the necessary variation should occur in isolated individuals, because in that case there would be small prospect of its being preserved, notwithstanding its utility. Darwin at first believed, that even single variations might lead to transformation of the species, but later he became convinced that this was impossible, at least without the cooperation of other factors, such as isolation and sexual selection.

In the case of the GREEN CATERPILLARS WITH BRIGHT LONGITUDINAL STRIPES, numerous individuals exhibiting this useful variation must have been produced to start with. In all higher, that is, multicellular organisms, the germ-substance is the source of all transmissible variations, and this germ-plasm is not a simple substance but is made up of many primary constituents. The question can therefore be more precisely stated thus: How does it come about that in so many cases the useful variations present themselves in numbers just where they are required, the white oblique lines in the leaf-caterpillar on the under surface of the body, the accompanying coloured stripes just above them? And, further, how has it come about that in grass caterpillars, not oblique but longitudinal stripes, which are more effective for concealment among grass and plants, have been evolved? And finally, how is it that the same Hawk-moth caterpillars, which to-day show oblique stripes, possessed longitudinal stripes in Tertiary times? We can read this fact from the history of their development, and I have before attempted to show the biological significance of this change of colour. ("Studien zur Descendenz-Theorie" II., "Die Enstehung der Zeichnung bei den Schmetterlings-raupen," Leipzig, 1876.)

For the present I need only draw the conclusion that one and the same caterpillar may exhibit the initial stages of both, and that it depends on the manner in which these marking elements are INTENSIFIED and COMBINED by natural selection whether whitish longitudinal or oblique stripes should result. In this case then the "useful variations" were actually "always there," and we see that in the same group of Lepidoptera, e.g. species of Sphingidae, evolution has occurred in both directions according to whether the form lived among grass or on broad leaves with oblique lateral veins, and we can observe even now that the species with oblique stripes have longitudinal stripes when young, that is to say, while the stripes have no biological significance. The white places in the skin which gave rise, probably first as small spots, to this protective marking could be combined in one way or another according to the requirements of the species. They must therefore either have possessed selection-value from the first, or, if this was not the case at their earliest occurrence, there must have been SOME OTHER FACTORS which raised them to the point of selection-value. I shall return to this in discussing germinal selection. But the case may be followed still farther, and leads us to the same alternative on a still more secure basis.

Many years ago I observed in caterpillars of Smerinthus populi (the poplar hawk-moth), which also possess white oblique stripes, that certain individuals showed RED SPOTS above these stripes; these spots occurred only on certain segments, and never flowed together to form continuous stripes. In another species (Smerinthus tiliae) similar blood-red spots unite to form a line-like coloured seam in the last stage of larval life, while in S. ocellata rust-red spots appear in individual caterpillars, but more rarely than in S. Populi, and they show no tendency to flow together.

Thus we have here the origin of a new character, arising from small beginnings, at least in S. tiliae, in which species the coloured stripes are a normal specific character. In the other species, S. populi and S. ocellata, we find the beginnings of the same variation, in one more rarely than in the other, and we can imagine that, in the course of time, in these two species, coloured lines over the oblique stripes will arise. In any case these spots are the elements of variation, out of which coloured lines MAY be evolved, if they are combined in this direction through the agency of natural selection. In S. populi the spots are often small, but sometimes it seems as though several had united to form large spots. Whether a process of selection in this direction will arise in S. populi and S. ocellata, or whether it is now going on cannot be determined, since we cannot tell in advance what biological value the marking might have for these two species. It is conceivable that the spots may have no selection- value as far as these species are concerned, and may therefore disappear again in the course of phylogeny, or, on the other hand, that they may be changed in another direction, for instance towards imitation of the rust- red fungoid patches on poplar and willow leaves. In any case we may regard the smallest spots as the initial stages of variation, the larger as a cumulative summation of these. Therefore either these initial stages must already possess selection-value, or, as I said before: THERE MUST BE SOME OTHER REASON FOR THEIR CUMULATIVE SUMMATION. I should like to give one more example, in which we can infer, though we cannot directly observe, the initial stages.

All the Holothurians or sea-cucumbers have in the skin calcareous bodies of different forms, usually thick and irregular, which make the skin tough and resistant. In a small group of them--the species of Synapta--the calcareous bodies occur in the form of delicate anchors of microscopic size. Up till 1897 these anchors, like many other delicate microscopic structures, were regarded as curiosities, as natural marvels. But a Swedish observer, Oestergren, has recently shown that they have a biological significance: they serve the footless Synapta as auxiliary organs of locomotion, since, when the body swells up in the act of creeping, they press firmly with their tips, which are embedded in the skin, against the substratum on which the animal creeps, and thus prevent slipping backwards. In other Holothurians this slipping is made impossible by the fixing of the tube-feet. The anchors act automatically, sinking their tips towards the ground when the corresponding part of the body thickens, and returning to the original position at an angle of 45 degrees to the upper surface when the part becomes thin again. The arms of the anchor do not lie in the same plane as the shaft, and thus the curve of the arms forms the outermost part of the anchor, and offers no further resistance to the gliding of the animal. Every detail of the anchor, the curved portion, the little teeth at the head, the arms, etc., can be interpreted in the most beautiful way, above all the form of the anchor itself, for the two arms prevent it from swaying round to the side. The position of the anchors, too, is definite and significant; they lie obliquely to the longitudinal axis of the animal, and therefore they act alike whether the animal is creeping backwards or forwards. Moreover, the tips would pierce through the skin if the anchors lay in the longitudinal direction. Synapta burrows in the sand; it first pushes in the thin anterior end, and thickens this again, thus enlarging the hole, then the anterior tentacles displace more sand, the body is worked in a little farther, and the process begins anew. In the first act the anchors are passive, but they begin to take an active share in the forward movement when the body is contracted again. Frequently the animal retains only the posterior end buried in the sand, and then the anchors keep it in position, and make rapid withdrawal possible.

Thus we have in these apparently random forms of the calcareous bodies, complex adaptations in which every little detail as to direction, curve, and pointing is exactly determined. That they have selection-value in their present perfected form is beyond all doubt, since the animals are enabled by means of them to bore rapidly into the ground and so to escape from enemies. We do not know what the initial stages were, but we cannot doubt that the little improvements, which occurred as variations of the originally simple slimy bodies of the Holothurians, were preserved because they already possessed selection-value for the Synaptidae. For such minute microscopic structures whose form is so delicately adapted to the role they have to play in the life of the animal, cannot have arisen suddenly and as a whole, and every new variation of the anchor, that is, in the direction of the development of the two arms, and every curving of the shaft which prevented the tips from projecting at the wrong time, in short, every little adaptation in the modelling of the anchor must have possessed selection-value. And that such minute changes of form fall within the sphere of fluctuating variations, that is to say, THAT THEY OCCUR is beyond all doubt.

In many of the Synaptidae the anchors are replaced by calcareous rods bent in the form of an S, which are said to act in the same way. Others, such as those of the genus Ankyroderma, have anchors which project considerably beyond the skin, and, according to Oestergren, serve "to catch plant- particles and other substances" and so mask the animal. Thus we see that in the Synaptidae the thick and irregular calcareous bodies of the Holothurians have been modified and transformed in various ways in adaptation to the footlessness of these animals, and to the peculiar conditions of their life, and we must conclude that the earlier stages of these changes presented themselves to the processes of selection in the form of microscopic variations. For it is as impossible to think of any origin other than through selection in this case as in the case of the toughness, and the "drip-tips" of tropical leaves. And as these last could not have been produced directly by the beating of the heavy rain-drops upon them, so the calcareous anchors of Synapta cannot have been produced directly by the friction of the sand and mud at the bottom of the sea, and, since they are parts whose function is PASSIVE the Lamarckian factor of use and disuse does not come into question. The conclusion is unavoidable, that the microscopically small variations of the calcareous bodies in the ancestral forms have been intensified and accumulated in a particular direction, till they have led to the formation of the anchor. Whether this has taken place by the action of natural selection alone, or whether the laws of variation and the intimate processes within the germ-plasm have cooperated will become clear in the discussion of germinal selection. This whole process of adaptation has obviously taken place within the time that has elapsed since this group of sea-cucumbers lost their tube-feet, those characteristic organs of locomotion which occur in no group except the Echinoderms, and yet have totally disappeared in the Synaptidae. And after all what would animals that live in sand and mud do with tube-feet?

(c) COADAPTATION.

Darwin pointed out that one of the essential differences between artificial and natural selection lies in the fact that the former can modify only a few characters, usually only one at a time, while Nature preserves in the struggle for existence all the variations of a species, at the same time and in a purely mechanical way, if they possess selection-value.

Herbert Spencer, though himself an adherent of the theory of selection, declared in the beginning of the nineties that in his opinion the range of this principle was greatly over-estimated, if the great changes which have taken place in so many organisms in the course of ages are to be interpreted as due to this process of selection alone, since no transformation of any importance can be evolved by itself; it is always accompanied by a host of secondary changes. He gives the familiar example of the Giant Stag of the Irish peat, the enormous antlers of which required not only a much stronger skull cap, but also greater strength of the sinews, muscles, nerves and bones of the whole anterior half of the animal, if their mass was not to weigh down the animal altogether. It is inconceivable, he says, that so many processes of selection should take place SIMULTANEOUSLY, and we are therefore forced to fall back on the Lamarckian factor of the use and disuse of functional parts. And how, he asks, could natural selection follow two opposite directions of evolution in different parts of the body at the same time, as for instance in the case of the kangaroo, in which the forelegs must have become shorter, while the hind legs and the tail were becoming longer and stronger?

Spencer's main object was to substantiate the validity of the Lamarckian principle, the cooperation of which with selection had been doubted by many. And it does seem as though this principle, if it operates in nature at all, offers a ready and simple explanation of all such secondary variations. Not only muscles, but nerves, bones, sinews, in short all tissues which function actively, increase in strength in proportion as they are used, and conversely they decrease when the claims on them diminish. All the parts, therefore, which depend on the part that varied first, as for instance the enlarged antlers of the Irish Elk, must have been increased or decreased in strength, in exact proportion to the claims made upon them,--just as is actually the case.

But beautiful as this explanation would be, I regard it as untenable, because it assumes the TRANSMISSIBILITY OF FUNCTIONAL MODIFICATIONS (so- called "acquired" characters), and this is not only undemonstrable, but is scarcely theoretically conceivable, for the secondary variations which accompany or follow the first as correlative variations, occur also in cases in which the animals concerned are sterile and THEREFORE CANNOT TRANSMIT ANYTHING TO THEIR DESCENDANTS. This is true of WORKER BEES, and particularly of ANTS, and I shall here give a brief survey of the present state of the problem as it appears to me.

Much has been written on both sides of this question since the published controversy on the subject in the nineties between Herbert Spencer and myself. I should like to return to the matter in detail, if the space at my disposal permitted, because it seems to me that the arguments I advanced at that time are equally cogent to-day, notwithstanding all the objections that have since been urged against them. Moreover, the matter is by no means one of subordinate interest; it is the very kernel of the whole question of the reality and value of the principle of selection. For if selection alone does not suffice to explain "HARMONIOUS ADAPTATION" as I have called Spencer's COADAPTATION, and if we require to call in the aid of the Lamarckian factor it would be questionable whether selection could explain any adaptations whatever. In this particular case--of worker bees --the Lamarckian factor may be excluded altogether, for it can be demonstrated that here at any rate the effects of use and disuse cannot be transmitted.

But if it be asked why we are unwilling to admit the cooperation of the Darwinian factor of selection and the Lamarckian factor, since this would afford us an easy and satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, I answer: BECAUSE THE LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE IS FALLACIOUS, AND BECAUSE BY ACCEPTING IT WE CLOSE THE WAY TOWARDS DEEPER INSIGHT. It is not a spirit of combativeness or a desire for self-vindication that induces me to take the field once more against the Lamarckian principle, it is the conviction that the progress of our knowledge is being obstructed by the acceptance of this fallacious principle, since the facile explanation it apparently affords prevents our seeking after a truer explanation and a deeper analysis.

The workers in the various species of ants are sterile, that is to say, they take no regular part in the reproduction of the species, although individuals among them may occasionally lay eggs. In addition to this they have lost the wings, and the receptaculum seminis, and their compound eyes have degenerated to a few facets. How could this last change have come about through disuse, since the eyes of workers are exposed to light in the same way as are those of the sexual insects and thus in this particular case are not liable to "disuse" at all? The same is true of the receptaculum seminis, which can only have been disused as far as its glandular portion and its stalk are concerned, and also of the wings, the nerves tracheae and epidermal cells of which could not cease to function until the whole wing had degenerated, for the chitinous skeleton of the wing does not function at all in the active sense.

But, on the other hand, the workers in all species have undergone modifications in a positive direction, as, for instance, the greater development of brain. In many species large workers have evolved,--the so- called SOLDIERS, with enormous jaws and teeth, which defend the colony,-- and in others there are SMALL workers which have taken over other special functions, such as the rearing of the young Aphides. This kind of division of the workers into two castes occurs among several tropical species of ants, but it is also present in the Italian species, Colobopsis truncata. Beautifully as the size of the jaws could be explained as due to the increased use made of them by the "soldiers," or the enlarged brain as due to the mental activities of the workers, the fact of the infertility of these forms is an insurmountable obstacle to accepting such an explanation. Neither jaws nor brain can have been evolved on the Lamarckian principle.

The problem of coadaptation is no easier in the case of the ant than in the case of the Giant Stag. Darwin himself gave a pretty illustration to show how imposing the difference between the two kinds of workers in one species would seem if we translated it into human terms. In regard to the Driver ants (Anomma) we must picture to ourselves a piece of work, "for instance the building of a house, being carried on by two kinds of workers, of which one group was five feet four inches high, the other sixteen feet high." ("Origin of Species" (6th edition), page 232.)

Although the ant is a small animal as compared with man or with the Irish Elk, the "soldier" with its relatively enormous jaws is hardly less heavily burdened than the Elk with its antlers, and in the ant's case, too, a strengthening of the skeleton, of the muscles, the nerves of the head, and of the legs must have taken place parallel with the enlargement of the jaws. HARMONIOUS ADAPTATION (coadaptation) has here been active in a high degree, and yet these "soldiers" are sterile! There thus remains nothing for it but to refer all their adaptations, positive and negative alike, to processes of selection which have taken place in the rudiments of the workers within the egg and sperm-cells of their parents. There is no way out of the difficulty except the one Darwin pointed out. He himself did not find the solution of the riddle at once. At first he believed that the case of the workers among social insects presented "the most serious special difficulty" in the way of his theory of natural selection; and it was only after it had become clear to him, that it was not the sterile insects themselves but their parents that were selected, according as they produced more or less well adapted workers, that he was able to refer to this very case of the conditions among ants "IN ORDER TO SHOW THE POWER OF NATURAL SELECTION" ("Origin of Species", page 233; see also edition 1, page 242.). He explains his view by a simple but interesting illustration. Gardeners have produced, by means of long continued artificial selection, a variety of Stock, which bears entirely double, and therefore infertile flowers (Ibid. page 230.). Nevertheless the variety continues to be reproduced from seed, because in addition to the double and infertile flowers, the seeds always produce a certain number of single, fertile blossoms, and these are used to reproduce the double variety. These single and fertile plants correspond "to the males and females of an ant-colony, the infertile plants, which are regularly produced in large numbers, to the neuter workers of the colony."

This illustration is entirely apt, the only difference between the two cases consisting in the fact that the variation in the flower is not a useful, but a disadvantageous one, which can only be preserved by artificial selection on the part of the gardener, while the transformations that have taken place parallel with the sterility of the ants are useful, since they procure for the colony an advantage in the struggle for existence, and they are therefore preserved by natural selection. Even the sterility itself in this case is not disadvantageous, since the fertility of the true females has at the same time considerably increased. We may therefore regard the sterile forms of ants, which have gradually been adapted in several directions to varying functions, AS A CERTAIN PROOF that selection really takes place in the germ-cells of the fathers and mothers of the workers, and that SPECIAL COMPLEXES OF PRIMORDIA (IDS) are present in the workers and in the males and females, and these complexes contain the primordia of the individual parts (DETERMINANTS). But since all living entities vary, the determinants must also vary, now in a favourable, now in an unfavourable direction. If a female produces eggs, which contain favourably varying determinants in the worker-ids, then these eggs will give rise to workers modified in the favourable direction, and if this happens with many females, the colony concerned will contain a better kind of worker than other colonies.

Of Mr Patrick Matthew, who buried his treasure in an appendix to a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", Darwin said that "he clearly saw the full force of the principle of natural selection." In 1860 Darwin wrote--very characteristically--about this to Lyell: "Mr Patrick Matthew publishes a long extract from his work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture", published in 1831, in which he briefly but completely anticipates the theory of Natural Selection. I have ordered the book, as some passages are rather obscure, but it is certainly, I think, a complete but not developed anticipation. Erasmus always said that surely this would be shown to be the case some day. Anyhow, one may be excused in not having discovered the fact in a work on Naval Timber." ("Life and Letters" II. page 301.)

De Quatrefages and De Varigny have maintained that the botanist Naudin stated the theory of evolution by natural selection in 1852. He explains very clearly the process of artificial selection, and says that in the garden we are following Nature's method. "We do not think that Nature has made her species in a different fashion from that in which we proceed ourselves in order to make our variations." But, as Darwin said, "he does not show how selection acts under nature." Similarly it must be noted in regard to several pre-Darwinian pictures of the struggle for existence (such as Herder's, who wrote in 1790 "All is in struggle...each one for himself" and so on), that a recognition of this is only the first step in Darwinism.

Profs. E. Perrier and H.F. Osborn have called attention to a remarkable anticipation of the selection-idea which is to be found in the speculations of Etienne Geoffroy St Hilaire (1825-1828) on the evolution of modern Crocodilians from the ancient Teleosaurs. Changing environment induced changes in the respiratory system and far-reaching consequences followed. The atmosphere, acting upon the pulmonary cells, brings about "modifications which are favourable or destructive ('funestes'); these are inherited, and they influence all the rest of the organisation of the animal because if these modifications lead to injurious effects, the animals which exhibit them perish and are replaced by others of a somewhat different form, a form changed so as to be adapted to (a la convenance) the new environment."

Prof. E.B. Poulton ("Science Progress", New Series, Vol. I. 1897. "A Remarkable Anticipation of Modern Views on Evolution". See also Chap. VI. in "Essays on Evolution", Oxford, 1908.) has shown that the anthropologist James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848) must be included, even in spite of himself, among the precursors of Darwin. In some passages of the second edition of his "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind" (1826), he certainly talks evolution and anticipates Prof. Weismann in denying the transmission of acquired characters. He is, however, sadly self- contradictory and his evolutionism weakens in subsequent editions--the only ones that Darwin saw. Prof. Poulton finds in Prichard's work a recognition of the operation of Natural Selection. "After enquiring how it is that 'these varieties are developed and preserved in connection with particular climates and differences of local situation,' he gives the following very significant answer: 'One cause which tends to maintain this relation is obvious. Individuals and families, and even whole colonies, perish and disappear in climates for which they are, by peculiarity of constitution, not adapted. Of this fact proofs have been already mentioned.'" Mr Francis Darwin and Prof. A.C. Seward discuss Prichard's "anticipations" in "More Letters of Charles Darwin", Vol. I. page 43, and come to the conclusion that the evolutionary passages are entirely neutralised by others of an opposite trend. There is the same difficulty with Buffon.

Hints of the idea of Natural Selection have been detected elsewhere. James Watt (See Prof. Patrick Geddes's article "Variation and Selection", "Encyclopaedia Britannica (9th edition) 1888.), for instance, has been reported as one of the anticipators (1851). But we need not prolong the inquiry further, since Darwin did not know of any anticipations until after he had published the immortal work of 1859, and since none of those who got hold of the idea made any use of it. What Darwin did was to follow the clue which Malthus gave him, to realise, first by genius and afterwards by patience, how the complex and subtle struggle for existence works out a natural selection of those organisms which vary in the direction of fitter adaptation to the conditions of their life. So much success attended his application of the Selection-formula that for a time he regarded Natural Selection as almost the sole factor in evolution, variations being pre- supposed; gradually, however, he came to recognise that there was some validity in the factors which had been emphasized by Lamarck and by Buffon, and in his well-known summing up in the sixth edition of the "Origin" he says of the transformation of species: "This has been effected chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive, slight, favourable variations; aided in an important manner by the inherited effects of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner, that is, in relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us in our ignorance to arise spontaneously."

To sum up: the idea of organic evolution, older than Aristotle, slowly developed from the stage of suggestion to the stage of verification, and the first convincing verification was Darwin's; from being an a priori anticipation it has become an interpretation of nature, and Darwin is still the chief interpreter; from being a modal interpretation it has advanced to the rank of a causal theory, the most convincing part of which men will never cease to call Darwinism.

III. THE SELECTION THEORY

By August Weismann. Professor of Zoology in the University of Freiburg (Baden).

I. THE IDEA OF SELECTION.

Many and diverse were the discoveries made by Charles Darwin in the course of a long and strenuous life, but none of them has had so far-reaching an influence on the science and thought of his time as the theory of selection. I do not believe that the theory of evolution would have made its way so easily and so quickly after Darwin took up the cudgels in favour of it, if he had not been able to support it by a principle which was capable of solving, in a simple manner, the greatest riddle that living nature presents to us,--I mean the purposiveness of every living form relative to the conditions of its life and its marvellously exact adaptation to these.

Everyone knows that Darwin was not alone in discovering the principle of selection, and that the same idea occurred simultaneously and independently to Alfred Russel Wallace. At the memorable meeting of the Linnean Society on 1st July, 1858, two papers were read (communicated by Lyell and Hooker) both setting forth the same idea of selection. One was written by Charles Darwin in Kent, the other by Alfred Wallace in Ternate, in the Malay Archipelago. It was a splendid proof of the magnanimity of these two investigators, that they thus, in all friendliness and without envy, united in laying their ideas before a scientific tribunal: their names will always shine side by side as two of the brightest stars in the scientific sky.

But it is with Charles Darwin that I am here chiefly concerned, since this paper is intended to aid in the commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of his birth.

The idea of selection set forth by the two naturalists was at the time absolutely new, but it was also so simple that Huxley could say of it later, "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that." As Darwin was led to the general doctrine of descent, not through the labours of his predecessors in the early years of the century, but by his own observations, so it was in regard to the principle of selection. He was struck by the innumerable cases of adaptation, as, for instance, that of the woodpeckers and tree-frogs to climbing, or the hooks and feather-like appendages of seeds, which aid in the distribution of plants, and he said to himself that an explanation of adaptations was the first thing to be sought for in attempting to formulate a theory of evolution.

But since adaptations point to CHANGES which have been undergone by the ancestral forms of existing species, it is necessary, first of all, to inquire how far species in general are VARIABLE. Thus Darwin's attention was directed in the first place to the phenomenon of variability, and the use man has made of this, from very early times, in the breeding of his domesticated animals and cultivated plants. He inquired carefully how breeders set to work, when they wished to modify the structure and appearance of a species to their own ends, and it was soon clear to him that SELECTION FOR BREEDING PURPOSES played the chief part.

But how was it possible that such processes should occur in free nature? Who is here the breeder, making the selection, choosing out one individual to bring forth offspring and rejecting others? That was the problem that for a long time remained a riddle to him.

Darwin himself relates how illumination suddenly came to him. He had been reading, for his own pleasure, Malthus' book on Population, and, as he had long known from numerous observations, that every species gives rise to many more descendants than ever attain to maturity, and that, therefore, the greater number of the descendants of a species perish without reproducing, the idea came to him that the decision as to which member of a species was to perish, and which was to attain to maturity and reproduction might not be a matter of chance, but might be determined by the constitution of the individuals themselves, according as they were more or less fitted for survival. With this idea the foundation of the theory of selection was laid.

In ARTIFICIAL SELECTION the breeder chooses out for pairing only such individuals as possess the character desired by him in a somewhat higher degree than the rest of the race. Some of the descendants inherit this character, often in a still higher degree, and if this method be pursued throughout several generations, the race is transformed in respect of that particular character.

NATURAL SELECTION depends on the same three factors as ARTIFICIAL SELECTION: on VARIABILITY, INHERITANCE, and SELECTION FOR BREEDING, but this last is here carried out not by a breeder but by what Darwin called the "struggle for existence." This last factor is one of the special features of the Darwinian conception of nature. That there are carnivorous animals which take heavy toll in every generation of the progeny of the animals on which they prey, and that there are herbivores which decimate the plants in every generation had long been known, but it is only since Darwin's time that sufficient attention has been paid to the facts that, in addition to this regular destruction, there exists between the members of a species a keen competition for space and food, which limits multiplication, and that numerous individuals of each species perish because of unfavourable climatic conditions. The "struggle for existence," which Darwin regarded as taking the place of the human breeder in free nature, is not a direct struggle between carnivores and their prey, but is the assumed competition for survival between individuals OF THE SAME species, of which, on an average, only those survive to reproduce which have the greatest power of resistance, while the others, less favourably constituted, perish early. This struggle is so keen, that, within a limited area, where the conditions of life have long remained unchanged, of every species, whatever be the degree of fertility, only two, ON AN AVERAGE, of the descendants of each pair survive; the others succumb either to enemies, or to disadvantages of climate, or to accident. A high degree of fertility is thus not an indication of the special success of a species, but of the numerous dangers that have attended its evolution. Of the six young brought forth by a pair of elephants in the course of their lives only two survive in a given area; similarly, of the millions of eggs which two thread-worms leave behind them only two survive. It is thus possible to estimate the dangers which threaten a species by its ratio of elimination, or, since this cannot be done directly, by its fertility.

Although a great number of the descendants of each generation fall victims to accident, among those that remain it is still the greater or lesser fitness of the organism that determines the "selection for breeding purposes," and it would be incomprehensible if, in this competition, it were not ultimately, that is, on an average, the best equipped which survive, in the sense of living long enough to reproduce.

Thus the principle of natural selection is THE SELECTION OF THE BEST FOR REPRODUCTION, whether the "best" refers to the whole constitution, to one or more parts of the organism, or to one or more stages of development. Every organ, every part, every character of an animal, fertility and intelligence included, must be improved in this manner, and be gradually brought up in the course of generations to its highest attainable state of perfection. And not only may improvement of parts be brought about in this way, but new parts and organs may arise, since, through the slow and minute steps of individual or "fluctuating" variations, a part may be added here or dropped out there, and thus something new is produced.

The principle of selection solved the riddle as to how what was purposive could conceivably be brought about without the intervention of a directing power, the riddle which animate nature presents to our intelligence at every turn, and in face of which the mind of a Kant could find no way out, for he regarded a solution of it as not to be hoped for. For, even if we were to assume an evolutionary force that is continually transforming the most primitive and the simplest forms of life into ever higher forms, and the homogeneity of primitive times into the infinite variety of the present, we should still be unable to infer from this alone how each of the numberless forms adapted to particular conditions of life should have appeared PRECISELY AT THE RIGHT MOMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE EARTH to which their adaptations were appropriate, and precisely at the proper place in which all the conditions of life to which they were adapted occurred: the humming-birds at the same time as the flowers; the trichina at the same time as the pig; the bark-coloured moth at the same time as the oak, and the wasp-like moth at the same time as the wasp which protects it. Without processes of selection we should be obliged to assume a "pre-established harmony" after the famous Leibnitzian model, by means of which the clock of the evolution of organisms is so regulated as to strike in exact synchronism with that of the history of the earth! All forms of life are strictly adapted to the conditions of their life, and can persist under these conditions alone.

There must therefore be an intrinsic connection between the conditions and the structural adaptations of the organism, and, SINCE THE CONDITIONS OF LIFE CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY THE ANIMAL ITSELF, THE ADAPTATIONS MUST BE CALLED FORTH BY THE CONDITIONS.

The selection theory teaches us how this is conceivable, since it enables us to understand that there is a continual production of what is non- purposive as well as of what is purposive, but the purposive alone survives, while the non-purposive perishes in the very act of arising. This is the old wisdom taught long ago by Empedocles.

II. THE LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE.

Lamarck, as is well known, formulated a definite theory of evolution at the beginning of the nineteenth century, exactly fifty years before the Darwin- Wallace principle of selection was given to the world. This brilliant investigator also endeavoured to support his theory by demonstrating forces which might have brought about the transformations of the organic world in the course of the ages. In addition to other factors, he laid special emphasis on the increased or diminished use of the parts of the body, assuming that the strengthening or weakening which takes place from this cause during the individual life, could be handed on to the offspring, and thus intensified and raised to the rank of a specific character. Darwin also regarded this LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE, as it is now generally called, as a factor in evolution, but he was not fully convinced of the transmissibility of acquired characters.

As I have here to deal only with the theory of selection, I need not discuss the Lamarckian hypothesis, but I must express my opinion that there is room for much doubt as to the cooperation of this principle in evolution. Not only is it difficult to imagine how the transmission of functional modifications could take place, but, up to the present time, notwithstanding the endeavours of many excellent investigators, not a single actual proof of such inheritance has been brought forward. Semon's experiments on plants are, according to the botanist Pfeffer, not to be relied on, and even the recent, beautiful experiments made by Dr Kammerer on salamanders, cannot, as I hope to show elsewhere, be regarded as proof, if only because they do not deal at all with functional modifications, that is, with modifications brought about by use, and it is to these ALONE that the Lamarckian principle refers.

III. OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY OF SELECTION.

(a) Saltatory evolution.

The Darwinian doctrine of evolution depends essentially on THE CUMULATIVE AUGMENTATION of minute variations in the direction of utility. But can such minute variations, which are undoubtedly continually appearing among the individuals of the same species, possess any selection-value; can they determine which individuals are to survive, and which are to succumb; can they be increased by natural selection till they attain to the highest development of a purposive variation?

To many this seems so improbable that they have urged a theory of evolution by leaps from species to species. Kolliker, in 1872, compared the evolution of species with the processes which we can observe in the individual life in cases of alternation of generations. But a polyp only gives rise to a medusa because it has itself arisen from one, and there can be no question of a medusa ever having arisen suddenly and de novo from a polyp-bud, if only because both forms are adapted in their structure as a whole, and in every detail to the conditions of their life. A sudden origin, in a natural way, of numerous adaptations is inconceivable. Even the degeneration of a medusoid from a free-swimming animal to a mere brood- sac (gonophore) is not sudden and saltatory, but occurs by imperceptible modifications throughout hundreds of years, as we can learn from the numerous stages of the process of degeneration persisting at the same time in different species.

If, then, the degeneration to a simple brood-sac takes place only by very slow transitions, each stage of which may last for centuries, how could the much more complex ASCENDING evolution possibly have taken place by sudden leaps? I regard this argument as capable of further extension, for wherever in nature we come upon degeneration, it is taking place by minute steps and with a slowness that makes it not directly perceptible, and I believe that this in itself justifies us in concluding that THE SAME MUST BE TRUE OF ASCENDING evolution. But in the latter case the goal can seldom be distinctly recognised while in cases of degeneration the starting-point of the process can often be inferred, because several nearly related species may represent different stages.

In recent years Bateson in particular has championed the idea of saltatory, or so-called discontinuous evolution, and has collected a number of cases in which more or less marked variations have suddenly appeared. These are taken for the most part from among domesticated animals which have been bred and crossed for a long time, and it is hardly to be wondered at that their much mixed and much influenced germ-plasm should, under certain conditions, give rise to remarkable phenomena, often indeed producing forms which are strongly suggestive of monstrosities, and which would undoubtedly not survive in free nature, unprotected by man. I should regard such cases as due to an intensified germinal selection--though this is to anticipate a little--and from this point of view it cannot be denied that they have a special interest. But they seem to me to have no significance as far as the transformation of species is concerned, if only because of the extreme rarity of their occurrence.

There are, however, many variations which have appeared in a sudden and saltatory manner, and some of these Darwin pointed out and discussed in detail: the copper beech, the weeping trees, the oak with "fern-like leaves," certain garden-flowers, etc. But none of them have persisted in free nature, or evolved into permanent types.

On the other hand, wherever enduring types have arisen, we find traces of a gradual origin by successive stages, even if, at first sight, their origin may appear to have been sudden. This is the case with SEASONAL DIMORPHISM, the first known cases of which exhibited marked differences between the two generations, the winter and the summer brood. Take for instance the much discussed and studied form Vanessa (Araschnia) levana-prorsa. Here the differences between the two forms are so great and so apparently disconnected, that one might almost believe it to be a sudden mutation, were it not that old transition-stages can be called forth by particular temperatures, and we know other butterflies, as for instance our Garden Whites, in which the differences between the two generations are not nearly so marked; indeed, they are so little apparent that they are scarcely likely to be noticed except by experts. Thus here again there are small initial steps, some of which, indeed, must be regarded as adaptations, such as the green-sprinkled or lightly tinted under-surface which gives them a deceptive resemblance to parsley or to Cardamine leaves.

Even if saltatory variations do occur, we cannot assume that these HAVE EVER LED TO FORMS WHICH ARE CAPABLE OF SURVIVAL UNDER THE CONDITIONS OF WILD LIFE. Experience has shown that in plants which have suddenly varied the power of persistence is diminished. Korschinksky attributes to them weaknesses of organisation in general; "they bloom late, ripen few of their seeds, and show great sensitiveness to cold." These are not the characters which make for success in the struggle for existence.

We must briefly refer here to the views--much discussed in the last decade --of H. de Vries, who believes that the roots of transformation must be sought for in SALTATORY VARIATIONS ARISING FROM INTERNAL CAUSES, and distinguishes such MUTATIONS, as he has called them, from ordinary individual variations, in that they breed true, that is, with strict inbreeding they are handed on pure to the next generation. I have elsewhere endeavoured to point out the weaknesses of this theory ("Vortrage uber Descendenztheorie", Jena, 1904, II. 269. English Translation London, 1904, II. page 317.), and I am the less inclined to return to it here that it now appears (See Poulton, "Essays on Evolution", Oxford, 1908, pages xix-xxii.) that the far-reaching conclusions drawn by de Vries from his observations on the Evening Primrose, Oenothera lamarckiana, rest upon a very insecure foundation. The plant from which de Vries saw numerous "species"--his "mutations"--arise was not, as he assumed, a WILD SPECIES that had been introduced to Europe from America, but was probably a hybrid form which was first discovered in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, and which does not appear to exist anywhere in America as a wild species.

This gives a severe shock to the "Mutation theory," for the other ACTUALLY WILD species with which de Vries experimented showed no "mutations" but yielded only negative results.

Thus we come to the conclusion that Darwin ("Origin of Species" (6th edition), pages 176 et seq.) was right in regarding transformations as taking place by minute steps, which, if useful, are augmented in the course of innumerable generations, because their possessors more frequently survive in the struggle for existence.

(b) SELECTION-VALUE OF THE INITIAL STEPS.

Is it possible that the significant deviations which we know as "individual variations" can form the beginning of a process of selection? Can they decide which is to perish and which to survive? To use a phrase of Romanes, can they have SELECTION-VALUE?

Darwin himself answered this question, and brought together many excellent examples to show that differences, apparently insignificant because very small, might be of decisive importance for the life of the possessor. But it is by no means enough to bring forward cases of this kind, for the question is not merely whether finished adaptations have selection-value, but whether the first beginnings of these, and whether the small, I might almost say minimal increments, which have led up from these beginnings to the perfect adaptation, have also had selection-value. To this question even one who, like myself, has been for many years a convinced adherent of the theory of selection, can only reply: WE MUST ASSUME SO, BUT WE CANNOT PROVE IT IN ANY CASE. It is not upon demonstrative evidence that we rely when we champion the doctrine of selection as a scientific truth; we base our argument on quite other grounds. Undoubtedly there are many apparently insignificant features, which can nevertheless be shown to be adaptations-- for instance, the thickness of the basin-shaped shell of the limpets that live among the breakers on the shore. There can be no doubt that the thickness of these shells, combined with their flat form, protects the animals from the force of the waves breaking upon them,--but how have they become so thick? What proportion of thickness was sufficient to decide that of two variants of a limpet one should survive, the other be eliminated? We can say nothing more than that we infer from the present state of the shell, that it must have varied in regard to differences in shell-thickness, and that these differences must have had selection-value, --no proof therefore, but an assumption which we must show to be convincing.

For a long time the marvellously complex RADIATE and LATTICE-WORK skeletons of Radiolarians were regarded as a mere outflow of "Nature's infinite wealth of form," as an instance of a purely morphological character with no biological significance. But recent investigations have shown that these, too, have an adaptive significance (Hacker). The same thing has been shown by Schutt in regard to the lowly unicellular plants, the Peridineae, which abound alike on the surface of the ocean and in its depths. It has been shown that the long skeletal processes which grow out from these organisms have significance not merely as a supporting skeleton, but also as an extension of the superficial area, which increases the contact with the water-particles, and prevents the floating organisms from sinking. It has been established that the processes are considerably shorter in the colder layers of the ocean, and that they may be twelve times as long (Chun, "Reise der Valdivia", Leipzig, 1904.) in the warmer layers, thus corresponding to the greater or smaller amount of friction which takes place in the denser and less dense layers of the water.

The Peridineae of the warmer ocean layers have thus become long-rayed, those of the colder layers short-rayed, not through the direct effect of friction on the protoplasm, but through processes of selection, which favoured the longer rays in warm water, since they kept the organism afloat, while those with short rays sank and were eliminated. If we put the question as to selection-value in this case, and ask how great the variations in the length of processes must be in order to possess selection-value; what can we answer except that these variations must have been minimal, and yet sufficient to prevent too rapid sinking and consequent elimination? Yet this very case would give the ideal opportunity for a mathematical calculation of the minimal selection-value, although of course it is not feasible from lack of data to carry out the actual calculation.

But even in organisms of more than microscopic size there must frequently be minute, even microscopic differences which set going the process of selection, and regulate its progress to the highest possible perfection.

Many tropical trees possess thick, leathery leaves, as a protection against the force of the tropical rain drops. The DIRECT influence of the rain cannot be the cause of this power of resistance, for the leaves, while they were still thin, would simply have been torn to pieces. Their toughness must therefore be referred to selection, which would favour the trees with slightly thicker leaves, though we cannot calculate with any exactness how great the first stages of increase in thickness must have been. Our hypothesis receives further support from the fact that, in many such trees, the leaves are drawn out into a beak-like prolongation (Stahl and Haberlandt) which facilitates the rapid falling off of the rain water, and also from the fact that the leaves, while they are still young, hang limply down in bunches which offer the least possible resistance to the rain. Thus there are here three adaptations which can only be interpreted as due to selection. The initial stages of these adaptations must undoubtedly have had selection-value.

But even in regard to this case we are reasoning in a circle, not giving "proofs," and no one who does not wish to believe in the selection-value of the initial stages can be forced to do so. Among the many pieces of presumptive evidence a particularly weighty one seems to me to be THE SMALLNESS OF THE STEPS OF PROGRESS which we can observe in certain cases, as for instance in leaf-imitation among butterflies, and in mimicry generally. The resemblance to a leaf, for instance of a particular Kallima, seems to us so close as to be deceptive, and yet we find in another individual, or it may be in many others, a spot added which increases the resemblance, and which could not have become fixed unless the increased deceptiveness so produced had frequently led to the overlooking of its much persecuted possessor. But if we take the selection-value of the initial stages for granted, we are confronted with the further question which I myself formulated many years ago: How does it happen THAT THE NECESSARY BEGINNINGS OF A USEFUL VARIATION ARE ALWAYS PRESENT? How could insects which live upon or among green leaves become all green, while those that live on bark become brown? How have the desert animals become yellow and the Arctic animals white? Why were the necessary variations always present? How could the green locust lay brown eggs, or the privet caterpillar develop white and lilac-coloured lines on its green skin?

It is of no use answering to this that the question is wrongly formulated (Plate, "Selektionsprinzip u. Probleme der Artbildung" (3rd edition), Leipzig, 1908.) and that it is the converse that is true; that the process of selection takes place in accordance with the variations that present themselves. This proposition is undeniably true, but so also is another, which apparently negatives it: the variation required has in the majority of cases actually presented itself. Selection cannot solve this contradiction; it does not call forth the useful variation, but simply works upon it. The ultimate reason why one and the same insect should occur in green and in brown, as often happens in caterpillars and locusts, lies in the fact that variations towards brown presented themselves, and so also did variations towards green: THE KERNEL OF THE RIDDLE LIES IN THE VARYING, and for the present we can only say, that small variations in different directions present themselves in every species. Otherwise so many different kinds of variations could not have arisen. I have endeavoured to explain this remarkable fact by means of the intimate processes that must take place within the germ-plasm, and I shall return to the problem when dealing with "germinal selection."

We have, however, to make still greater demands on variation, for it is not enough that the necessary variation should occur in isolated individuals, because in that case there would be small prospect of its being preserved, notwithstanding its utility. Darwin at first believed, that even single variations might lead to transformation of the species, but later he became convinced that this was impossible, at least without the cooperation of other factors, such as isolation and sexual selection.

In the case of the GREEN CATERPILLARS WITH BRIGHT LONGITUDINAL STRIPES, numerous individuals exhibiting this useful variation must have been produced to start with. In all higher, that is, multicellular organisms, the germ-substance is the source of all transmissible variations, and this germ-plasm is not a simple substance but is made up of many primary constituents. The question can therefore be more precisely stated thus: How does it come about that in so many cases the useful variations present themselves in numbers just where they are required, the white oblique lines in the leaf-caterpillar on the under surface of the body, the accompanying coloured stripes just above them? And, further, how has it come about that in grass caterpillars, not oblique but longitudinal stripes, which are more effective for concealment among grass and plants, have been evolved? And finally, how is it that the same Hawk-moth caterpillars, which to-day show oblique stripes, possessed longitudinal stripes in Tertiary times? We can read this fact from the history of their development, and I have before attempted to show the biological significance of this change of colour. ("Studien zur Descendenz-Theorie" II., "Die Enstehung der Zeichnung bei den Schmetterlings-raupen," Leipzig, 1876.)

For the present I need only draw the conclusion that one and the same caterpillar may exhibit the initial stages of both, and that it depends on the manner in which these marking elements are INTENSIFIED and COMBINED by natural selection whether whitish longitudinal or oblique stripes should result. In this case then the "useful variations" were actually "always there," and we see that in the same group of Lepidoptera, e.g. species of Sphingidae, evolution has occurred in both directions according to whether the form lived among grass or on broad leaves with oblique lateral veins, and we can observe even now that the species with oblique stripes have longitudinal stripes when young, that is to say, while the stripes have no biological significance. The white places in the skin which gave rise, probably first as small spots, to this protective marking could be combined in one way or another according to the requirements of the species. They must therefore either have possessed selection-value from the first, or, if this was not the case at their earliest occurrence, there must have been SOME OTHER FACTORS which raised them to the point of selection-value. I shall return to this in discussing germinal selection. But the case may be followed still farther, and leads us to the same alternative on a still more secure basis.

Many years ago I observed in caterpillars of Smerinthus populi (the poplar hawk-moth), which also possess white oblique stripes, that certain individuals showed RED SPOTS above these stripes; these spots occurred only on certain segments, and never flowed together to form continuous stripes. In another species (Smerinthus tiliae) similar blood-red spots unite to form a line-like coloured seam in the last stage of larval life, while in S. ocellata rust-red spots appear in individual caterpillars, but more rarely than in S. Populi, and they show no tendency to flow together.

Thus we have here the origin of a new character, arising from small beginnings, at least in S. tiliae, in which species the coloured stripes are a normal specific character. In the other species, S. populi and S. ocellata, we find the beginnings of the same variation, in one more rarely than in the other, and we can imagine that, in the course of time, in these two species, coloured lines over the oblique stripes will arise. In any case these spots are the elements of variation, out of which coloured lines MAY be evolved, if they are combined in this direction through the agency of natural selection. In S. populi the spots are often small, but sometimes it seems as though several had united to form large spots. Whether a process of selection in this direction will arise in S. populi and S. ocellata, or whether it is now going on cannot be determined, since we cannot tell in advance what biological value the marking might have for these two species. It is conceivable that the spots may have no selection- value as far as these species are concerned, and may therefore disappear again in the course of phylogeny, or, on the other hand, that they may be changed in another direction, for instance towards imitation of the rust- red fungoid patches on poplar and willow leaves. In any case we may regard the smallest spots as the initial stages of variation, the larger as a cumulative summation of these. Therefore either these initial stages must already possess selection-value, or, as I said before: THERE MUST BE SOME OTHER REASON FOR THEIR CUMULATIVE SUMMATION. I should like to give one more example, in which we can infer, though we cannot directly observe, the initial stages.

All the Holothurians or sea-cucumbers have in the skin calcareous bodies of different forms, usually thick and irregular, which make the skin tough and resistant. In a small group of them--the species of Synapta--the calcareous bodies occur in the form of delicate anchors of microscopic size. Up till 1897 these anchors, like many other delicate microscopic structures, were regarded as curiosities, as natural marvels. But a Swedish observer, Oestergren, has recently shown that they have a biological significance: they serve the footless Synapta as auxiliary organs of locomotion, since, when the body swells up in the act of creeping, they press firmly with their tips, which are embedded in the skin, against the substratum on which the animal creeps, and thus prevent slipping backwards. In other Holothurians this slipping is made impossible by the fixing of the tube-feet. The anchors act automatically, sinking their tips towards the ground when the corresponding part of the body thickens, and returning to the original position at an angle of 45 degrees to the upper surface when the part becomes thin again. The arms of the anchor do not lie in the same plane as the shaft, and thus the curve of the arms forms the outermost part of the anchor, and offers no further resistance to the gliding of the animal. Every detail of the anchor, the curved portion, the little teeth at the head, the arms, etc., can be interpreted in the most beautiful way, above all the form of the anchor itself, for the two arms prevent it from swaying round to the side. The position of the anchors, too, is definite and significant; they lie obliquely to the longitudinal axis of the animal, and therefore they act alike whether the animal is creeping backwards or forwards. Moreover, the tips would pierce through the skin if the anchors lay in the longitudinal direction. Synapta burrows in the sand; it first pushes in the thin anterior end, and thickens this again, thus enlarging the hole, then the anterior tentacles displace more sand, the body is worked in a little farther, and the process begins anew. In the first act the anchors are passive, but they begin to take an active share in the forward movement when the body is contracted again. Frequently the animal retains only the posterior end buried in the sand, and then the anchors keep it in position, and make rapid withdrawal possible.

Thus we have in these apparently random forms of the calcareous bodies, complex adaptations in which every little detail as to direction, curve, and pointing is exactly determined. That they have selection-value in their present perfected form is beyond all doubt, since the animals are enabled by means of them to bore rapidly into the ground and so to escape from enemies. We do not know what the initial stages were, but we cannot doubt that the little improvements, which occurred as variations of the originally simple slimy bodies of the Holothurians, were preserved because they already possessed selection-value for the Synaptidae. For such minute microscopic structures whose form is so delicately adapted to the role they have to play in the life of the animal, cannot have arisen suddenly and as a whole, and every new variation of the anchor, that is, in the direction of the development of the two arms, and every curving of the shaft which prevented the tips from projecting at the wrong time, in short, every little adaptation in the modelling of the anchor must have possessed selection-value. And that such minute changes of form fall within the sphere of fluctuating variations, that is to say, THAT THEY OCCUR is beyond all doubt.

In many of the Synaptidae the anchors are replaced by calcareous rods bent in the form of an S, which are said to act in the same way. Others, such as those of the genus Ankyroderma, have anchors which project considerably beyond the skin, and, according to Oestergren, serve "to catch plant- particles and other substances" and so mask the animal. Thus we see that in the Synaptidae the thick and irregular calcareous bodies of the Holothurians have been modified and transformed in various ways in adaptation to the footlessness of these animals, and to the peculiar conditions of their life, and we must conclude that the earlier stages of these changes presented themselves to the processes of selection in the form of microscopic variations. For it is as impossible to think of any origin other than through selection in this case as in the case of the toughness, and the "drip-tips" of tropical leaves. And as these last could not have been produced directly by the beating of the heavy rain-drops upon them, so the calcareous anchors of Synapta cannot have been produced directly by the friction of the sand and mud at the bottom of the sea, and, since they are parts whose function is PASSIVE the Lamarckian factor of use and disuse does not come into question. The conclusion is unavoidable, that the microscopically small variations of the calcareous bodies in the ancestral forms have been intensified and accumulated in a particular direction, till they have led to the formation of the anchor. Whether this has taken place by the action of natural selection alone, or whether the laws of variation and the intimate processes within the germ-plasm have cooperated will become clear in the discussion of germinal selection. This whole process of adaptation has obviously taken place within the time that has elapsed since this group of sea-cucumbers lost their tube-feet, those characteristic organs of locomotion which occur in no group except the Echinoderms, and yet have totally disappeared in the Synaptidae. And after all what would animals that live in sand and mud do with tube-feet?

(c) COADAPTATION.

Darwin pointed out that one of the essential differences between artificial and natural selection lies in the fact that the former can modify only a few characters, usually only one at a time, while Nature preserves in the struggle for existence all the variations of a species, at the same time and in a purely mechanical way, if they possess selection-value.

Herbert Spencer, though himself an adherent of the theory of selection, declared in the beginning of the nineties that in his opinion the range of this principle was greatly over-estimated, if the great changes which have taken place in so many organisms in the course of ages are to be interpreted as due to this process of selection alone, since no transformation of any importance can be evolved by itself; it is always accompanied by a host of secondary changes. He gives the familiar example of the Giant Stag of the Irish peat, the enormous antlers of which required not only a much stronger skull cap, but also greater strength of the sinews, muscles, nerves and bones of the whole anterior half of the animal, if their mass was not to weigh down the animal altogether. It is inconceivable, he says, that so many processes of selection should take place SIMULTANEOUSLY, and we are therefore forced to fall back on the Lamarckian factor of the use and disuse of functional parts. And how, he asks, could natural selection follow two opposite directions of evolution in different parts of the body at the same time, as for instance in the case of the kangaroo, in which the forelegs must have become shorter, while the hind legs and the tail were becoming longer and stronger?

Spencer's main object was to substantiate the validity of the Lamarckian principle, the cooperation of which with selection had been doubted by many. And it does seem as though this principle, if it operates in nature at all, offers a ready and simple explanation of all such secondary variations. Not only muscles, but nerves, bones, sinews, in short all tissues which function actively, increase in strength in proportion as they are used, and conversely they decrease when the claims on them diminish. All the parts, therefore, which depend on the part that varied first, as for instance the enlarged antlers of the Irish Elk, must have been increased or decreased in strength, in exact proportion to the claims made upon them,--just as is actually the case.

But beautiful as this explanation would be, I regard it as untenable, because it assumes the TRANSMISSIBILITY OF FUNCTIONAL MODIFICATIONS (so- called "acquired" characters), and this is not only undemonstrable, but is scarcely theoretically conceivable, for the secondary variations which accompany or follow the first as correlative variations, occur also in cases in which the animals concerned are sterile and THEREFORE CANNOT TRANSMIT ANYTHING TO THEIR DESCENDANTS. This is true of WORKER BEES, and particularly of ANTS, and I shall here give a brief survey of the present state of the problem as it appears to me.

Much has been written on both sides of this question since the published controversy on the subject in the nineties between Herbert Spencer and myself. I should like to return to the matter in detail, if the space at my disposal permitted, because it seems to me that the arguments I advanced at that time are equally cogent to-day, notwithstanding all the objections that have since been urged against them. Moreover, the matter is by no means one of subordinate interest; it is the very kernel of the whole question of the reality and value of the principle of selection. For if selection alone does not suffice to explain "HARMONIOUS ADAPTATION" as I have called Spencer's COADAPTATION, and if we require to call in the aid of the Lamarckian factor it would be questionable whether selection could explain any adaptations whatever. In this particular case--of worker bees --the Lamarckian factor may be excluded altogether, for it can be demonstrated that here at any rate the effects of use and disuse cannot be transmitted.

But if it be asked why we are unwilling to admit the cooperation of the Darwinian factor of selection and the Lamarckian factor, since this would afford us an easy and satisfactory explanation of the phenomena, I answer: BECAUSE THE LAMARCKIAN PRINCIPLE IS FALLACIOUS, AND BECAUSE BY ACCEPTING IT WE CLOSE THE WAY TOWARDS DEEPER INSIGHT. It is not a spirit of combativeness or a desire for self-vindication that induces me to take the field once more against the Lamarckian principle, it is the conviction that the progress of our knowledge is being obstructed by the acceptance of this fallacious principle, since the facile explanation it apparently affords prevents our seeking after a truer explanation and a deeper analysis.

The workers in the various species of ants are sterile, that is to say, they take no regular part in the reproduction of the species, although individuals among them may occasionally lay eggs. In addition to this they have lost the wings, and the receptaculum seminis, and their compound eyes have degenerated to a few facets. How could this last change have come about through disuse, since the eyes of workers are exposed to light in the same way as are those of the sexual insects and thus in this particular case are not liable to "disuse" at all? The same is true of the receptaculum seminis, which can only have been disused as far as its glandular portion and its stalk are concerned, and also of the wings, the nerves tracheae and epidermal cells of which could not cease to function until the whole wing had degenerated, for the chitinous skeleton of the wing does not function at all in the active sense.

But, on the other hand, the workers in all species have undergone modifications in a positive direction, as, for instance, the greater development of brain. In many species large workers have evolved,--the so- called SOLDIERS, with enormous jaws and teeth, which defend the colony,-- and in others there are SMALL workers which have taken over other special functions, such as the rearing of the young Aphides. This kind of division of the workers into two castes occurs among several tropical species of ants, but it is also present in the Italian species, Colobopsis truncata. Beautifully as the size of the jaws could be explained as due to the increased use made of them by the "soldiers," or the enlarged brain as due to the mental activities of the workers, the fact of the infertility of these forms is an insurmountable obstacle to accepting such an explanation. Neither jaws nor brain can have been evolved on the Lamarckian principle.

The problem of coadaptation is no easier in the case of the ant than in the case of the Giant Stag. Darwin himself gave a pretty illustration to show how imposing the difference between the two kinds of workers in one species would seem if we translated it into human terms. In regard to the Driver ants (Anomma) we must picture to ourselves a piece of work, "for instance the building of a house, being carried on by two kinds of workers, of which one group was five feet four inches high, the other sixteen feet high." ("Origin of Species" (6th edition), page 232.)

Although the ant is a small animal as compared with man or with the Irish Elk, the "soldier" with its relatively enormous jaws is hardly less heavily burdened than the Elk with its antlers, and in the ant's case, too, a strengthening of the skeleton, of the muscles, the nerves of the head, and of the legs must have taken place parallel with the enlargement of the jaws. HARMONIOUS ADAPTATION (coadaptation) has here been active in a high degree, and yet these "soldiers" are sterile! There thus remains nothing for it but to refer all their adaptations, positive and negative alike, to processes of selection which have taken place in the rudiments of the workers within the egg and sperm-cells of their parents. There is no way out of the difficulty except the one Darwin pointed out. He himself did not find the solution of the riddle at once. At first he believed that the case of the workers among social insects presented "the most serious special difficulty" in the way of his theory of natural selection; and it was only after it had become clear to him, that it was not the sterile insects themselves but their parents that were selected, according as they produced more or less well adapted workers, that he was able to refer to this very case of the conditions among ants "IN ORDER TO SHOW THE POWER OF NATURAL SELECTION" ("Origin of Species", page 233; see also edition 1, page 242.). He explains his view by a simple but interesting illustration. Gardeners have produced, by means of long continued artificial selection, a variety of Stock, which bears entirely double, and therefore infertile flowers (Ibid. page 230.). Nevertheless the variety continues to be reproduced from seed, because in addition to the double and infertile flowers, the seeds always produce a certain number of single, fertile blossoms, and these are used to reproduce the double variety. These single and fertile plants correspond "to the males and females of an ant-colony, the infertile plants, which are regularly produced in large numbers, to the neuter workers of the colony."

This illustration is entirely apt, the only difference between the two cases consisting in the fact that the variation in the flower is not a useful, but a disadvantageous one, which can only be preserved by artificial selection on the part of the gardener, while the transformations that have taken place parallel with the sterility of the ants are useful, since they procure for the colony an advantage in the struggle for existence, and they are therefore preserved by natural selection. Even the sterility itself in this case is not disadvantageous, since the fertility of the true females has at the same time considerably increased. We may therefore regard the sterile forms of ants, which have gradually been adapted in several directions to varying functions, AS A CERTAIN PROOF that selection really takes place in the germ-cells of the fathers and mothers of the workers, and that SPECIAL COMPLEXES OF PRIMORDIA (IDS) are present in the workers and in the males and females, and these complexes contain the primordia of the individual parts (DETERMINANTS). But since all living entities vary, the determinants must also vary, now in a favourable, now in an unfavourable direction. If a female produces eggs, which contain favourably varying determinants in the worker-ids, then these eggs will give rise to workers modified in the favourable direction, and if this happens with many females, the colony concerned will contain a better kind of worker than other colonies.

A reference to Kant (See Brock, "Die Stellung Kant's zur Deszendenztheorie," "Biol. Centralbl." VIII. 1889, pages 641-648. Fritz Schultze, "Kant und Darwin", Jena, 1875.) should come in historical order after Buffon, with whose writings he was acquainted, but he seems, along with Herder and Schelling, to be best regarded as the culmination of the evolutionist philosophers--of those at least who interested themselves in scientific problems. In a famous passage he speaks of "the agreement of so many kinds of animals in a certain common plan of structure"...an "analogy of forms" which "strengthens the supposition that they have an actual blood-relationship, due to derivation from a common parent." He speaks of "the great Family of creatures, for as a Family we must conceive it, if the above-mentioned continuous and connected relationship has a real foundation." Prof. Osborn alludes to the scientific caution which led Kant, biology being what it was, to refuse to entertain the hope "that a Newton may one day arise even to make the production of a blade of grass comprehensible, according to natural laws ordained by no intention." As Prof. Haeckel finely observes, Darwin rose up as Kant's Newton. (Mr Alfred Russel Wallace writes: "We claim for Darwin that he is the Newton of natural history, and that, just so surely as that the discovery and demonstration by Newton of the law of gravitation established order in place of chaos and laid a sure foundation for all future study of the starry heavens, so surely has Darwin, by his discovery of the law of natural selection and his demonstration of the great principle of the preservation of useful variations in the struggle for life, not only thrown a flood of light on the process of development of the whole organic world, but also established a firm foundation for all future study of nature" ("Darwinism", London, 1889, page 9). See also Prof. Karl Pearson's "Grammar of Science" (2nd edition), London, 1900, page 32. See Osborn, op. cit. Page 100.))

The scientific renaissance brought a wealth of fresh impressions and some freedom from the tyranny of tradition, and the twofold stimulus stirred the speculative activity of a great variety of men from old Claude Duret of Moulins, of whose weird transformism (1609) Dr Henry de Varigny ("Experimental Evolution". London, 1892. Chap. 1. page 14.) gives us a glimpse, to Lorenz Oken (1799-1851) whose writings are such mixtures of sense and nonsense that some regard him as a far-seeing prophet and others as a fatuous follower of intellectual will-o'-the-wisps. Similarly, for De Maillet, Maupertuis, Diderot, Bonnet, and others, we must agree with Professor Osborn that they were not actually in the main Evolution movement. Some have been included in the roll of honour on very slender evidence, Robinet for instance, whose evolutionism seems to us extremely dubious. (See J. Arthur Thomson, "The Science of Life". London, 1899. Chap. XVI. "Evolution of Evolution Theory".)

The first naturalist to give a broad and concrete expression to the evolutionist doctrine of descent was Buffon (1707-1788), but it is interesting to recall the fact that his contemporary Linnaeus (1707-1778), protagonist of the counter-doctrine of the fixity of species (See Carus Sterne (Ernest Krause), "Die allgemeine Weltanschauung in ihrer historischen Entwickelung". Stuttgart, 1889. Chapter entitled "Bestandigkeit oder Veranderlichkeit der Naturwesen".), went the length of admitting (in 1762) that new species might arise by intercrossing. Buffon's position among the pioneers of the evolution-doctrine is weakened by his habit of vacillating between his own conclusions and the orthodoxy of the Sorbonne, but there is no doubt that he had a firm grasp of the general idea of "l'enchainement des etres."

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), probably influenced by Buffon, was another firm evolutionist, and the outline of his argument in the "Zoonomia" ("Zoonomia, or the Laws of Organic Life", 2 vols. London, 1794; Osborn op. cit. page 145.) might serve in part at least to-day. "When we revolve in our minds the metamorphoses of animals, as from the tadpole to the frog; secondly, the changes produced by artificial cultivation, as in the breeds of horses, dogs, and sheep; thirdly, the changes produced by conditions of climate and of season, as in the sheep of warm climates being covered with hair instead of wool, and the hares and partridges of northern climates becoming white in winter: when, further, we observe the changes of structure produced by habit, as seen especially in men of different occupations; or the changes produced by artificial mutilation and prenatal influences, as in the crossing of species and production of monsters; fourth, when we observe the essential unity of plan in all warm-blooded animals,--we are led to conclude that they have been alike produced from a similar living filament"..."From thus meditating upon the minute portion of time in which many of the above changes have been produced, would it be too bold to imagine, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of years before the commencement of the history of mankind, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament?"..."This idea of the gradual generation of all things seems to have been as familiar to the ancient philosophers as to the modern ones, and to have given rise to the beautiful hieroglyphic figure of the proton oon, or first great egg, produced by night, that is, whose origin is involved in obscurity, and animated by Eros, that is, by Divine Love; from whence proceeded all things which exist."

Lamarck (1744-1829) seems to have become an evolutionist independently of Erasmus Darwin's influence, though the parallelism between them is striking. He probably owed something to Buffon, but he developed his theory along a different line. Whatever view be held in regard to that theory there is no doubt that Lamarck was a thorough-going evolutionist. Professor Haeckel speaks of the "Philosophie Zoologique" as "the first connected and thoroughly logical exposition of the theory of descent." (See Alpheus S. Packard, "Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution, His Life and Work, with Translations of his writings on Organic Evolution". London, 1901.)

Besides the three old masters, as we may call them, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck, there were other quite convinced pre-Darwinian evolutionists. The historian of the theory of descent must take account of Treviranus whose "Biology or Philosophy of Animate Nature" is full of evolutionary suggestions; of Etienne Geoffroy St Hilaire, who in 1830, before the French Academy of Sciences, fought with Cuvier, the fellow-worker of his youth, an intellectual duel on the question of descent; of Goethe, one of the founders of morphology and the greatest poet of Evolution--who, in his eighty-first year, heard the tidings of Geoffroy St Hilaire's defeat with an interest which transcended the political anxieties of the time; and of many others who had gained with more or less confidence and clearness a new outlook on Nature. It will be remembered that Darwin refers to thirty-four more or less evolutionist authors in his Historical Sketch, and the list might be added to. Especially when we come near to 1858 do the numbers increase, and one of the most remarkable, as also most independent champions of the evolution-idea before that date was Herbert Spencer, who not only marshalled the arguments in a very forcible way in 1852, but applied the formula in detail in his "Principles of Psychology" in 1855. (See Edward Clodd, "Pioneers of Evolution", London, page 161, 1897.)

It is right and proper that we should shake ourselves free from all creationist appreciations of Darwin, and that we should recognise the services of pre-Darwinian evolutionists who helped to make the time ripe, yet one cannot help feeling that the citation of them is apt to suggest two fallacies. It may suggest that Darwin simply entered into the labours of his predecessors, whereas, as a matter of fact, he knew very little about them till after he had been for years at work. To write, as Samuel Butler did, "Buffon planted, Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck watered, but it was Mr Darwin who said 'That fruit is ripe,' and shook it into his lap"...seems to us a quite misleading version of the facts of the case. The second fallacy which the historical citation is a little apt to suggest is that the filiation of ideas is a simple problem. On the contrary, the history of an idea, like the pedigree of an organism, is often very intricate, and the evolution of the evolution-idea is bound up with the whole progress of the world. Thus in order to interpret Darwin's clear formulation of the idea of organic evolution and his convincing presentation of it, we have to do more than go back to his immediate predecessors, such as Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, and Lamarck; we have to inquire into the acceptance of evolutionary conceptions in regard to other orders of facts, such as the earth and the solar system (See Chapter IX. "The Genetic View of Nature" in J.T. Merz's "History of European Thought in the Nineteenth Century", Vol. 2, Edinburgh and London, 1903.); we have to realise how the growing success of scientific interpretation along other lines gave confidence to those who refused to admit that there was any domain from which science could be excluded as a trespasser; we have to take account of the development of philosophical thought, and even of theological and religious movements; we should also, if we are wise enough, consider social changes. In short, we must abandon the idea that we can understand the history of any science as such, without reference to contemporary evolution in other departments of activity.

While there were many evolutionists before Darwin, few of them were expert naturalists and few were known outside a small circle; what was of much more importance was that the genetic view of nature was insinuating itself in regard to other than biological orders of facts, here a little and there a little, and that the scientific spirit had ripened since the days when Cuvier laughed Lamarck out of court. How was it that Darwin succeeded where others had failed? Because, in the first place, he had clear visions--"pensees de la jeunesse, executees par l'age mur"--which a University curriculum had not made impossible, which the "Beagle" voyage made vivid, which an unrivalled British doggedness made real--visions of the web of life, of the fountain of change within the organism, of the struggle for existence and its winnowing, and of the spreading genealogical tree. Because, in the second place, he put so much grit into the verification of his visions, putting them to the proof in an argument which is of its kind--direct demonstration being out of the question--quite unequalled. Because, in the third place, he broke down the opposition which the most scientific had felt to the seductive modal formula of evolution by bringing forward a more plausible theory of the process than had been previously suggested. Nor can one forget, since questions of this magnitude are human and not merely academic, that he wrote so that all men could understand.

AS REGARDS THE FACTORS OF EVOLUTION.

It is admitted by all who are acquainted with the history of biology that the general idea of organic evolution as expressed in the Doctrine of Descent was quite familiar to Darwin's grandfather, and to others before and after him, as we have briefly indicated. It must also be admitted that some of these pioneers of evolutionism did more than apply the evolution- idea as a modal formula of becoming, they began to inquire into the factors in the process. Thus there were pre-Darwinian theories of evolution, and to these we must now briefly refer. (See Prof. W.A. Locy's "Biology and its Makers". New York, 1908. Part II. "The Doctrine of Organic Evolution".

In all biological thinking we have to work with the categories Organism-- Function--Environment, and theories of evolution may be classified in relation to these. To some it has always seemed that the fundamental fact is the living organism,--a creative agent, a striving will, a changeful Proteus, selecting its environment, adjusting itself to it, self- differentiating and self-adaptive. The necessity of recognising the importance of the organism is admitted by all Darwinians who start with inborn variations, but it is open to question whether the whole truth of what we might call the Goethian position is exhausted in the postulate of inherent variability.

To others it has always seemed that the emphasis should be laid on Function,--on use and disuse, on doing and not doing. Practice makes perfect; c'est a force de forger qu'on devient forgeron. This is one of the fundamental ideas of Lamarckism; to some extent it met with Darwin's approval; and it finds many supporters to-day. One of the ablest of these --Mr Francis Darwin--has recently given strong reasons for combining a modernised Lamarckism with what we usually regard as sound Darwinism. (Presidential Address to the British Association meeting at Dublin in 1908.)

To others it has always seemed that the emphasis should be laid on the Environment, which wakes the organism to action, prompts it to change, makes dints upon it, moulds it, prunes it, and finally, perhaps, kills it. It is again impossible to doubt that there is truth in this view, for even if environmentally induced "modifications" be not transmissible, environmentally induced "variations" are; and even if the direct influence of the environment be less important than many enthusiastic supporters of this view--may we call them Buffonians--think, there remains the indirect influence which Darwinians in part rely on,--the eliminative process. Even if the extreme view be held that the only form of discriminate elimination that counts is inter-organismal competition, this might be included under the rubric of the animate environment.

In many passages Buffon (See in particular Samuel Butler, "Evolution Old and New", London, 1879; J.L. de Lanessan, "Buffon et Darwin", "Revue Scientifique", XLIII. pages 385-391, 425-432, 1889.) definitely suggested that environmental influences--especially of climate and food--were directly productive of changes in organisms, but he did not discuss the question of the transmissibility of the modifications so induced, and it is difficult to gather from his inconsistent writings what extent of transformation he really believed in. Prof. Osborn says of Buffon: "The struggle for existence, the elimination of the least-perfected species, the contest between the fecundity of certain species and their constant destruction, are all clearly expressed in various passages." He quotes two of these (op. cit. page 136.):

"Le cours ordinaire de la nature vivante, est en general toujours constant, toujours le meme; son mouvement, toujours regulier, roule sur deux points inebranlables: l'un, la fecondite sans bornes donnee a toutes les especes; l'autre, les obstacles sans nombre qui reduisent cette fecondite a une mesure determinee et ne laissent en tout temps qu'a peu pres la meme quantite d'individus de chaque espece"..."Les especes les moins parfaites, les plus delicates, les plus pesantes, les moins agissantes, les moins armees, etc., ont deja disparu ou disparaitront."

Erasmus Darwin (See Ernst Krause and Charles Darwin, "Erasmus Darwin", London, 1879.) had a firm grip of the "idea of the gradual formation and improvement of the Animal world," and he had his theory of the process. No sentence is more characteristic than this: "All animals undergo transformations which are in part produced by their own exertions, in response to pleasures and pains, and many of these acquired forms or propensities are transmitted to their posterity." This is Lamarckism before Lamarck, as his grandson pointed out. His central idea is that wants stimulate efforts and that these result in improvements, which subsequent generations make better still. He realised something of the struggle for existence and even pointed out that this advantageously checks the rapid multiplication. "As Dr Krause points out, Darwin just misses the connection between this struggle and the Survival of the Fittest." (Osborn op. cit. page 142.)

Lamarck (1744-1829) (See E. Perrier "La Philosophie Zoologique avant Darwin", Paris, 1884; A. de Quatrefages, "Darwin et ses Precurseurs Francais", Paris, 1870; Packard op. cit.; also Claus, "Lamarck als Begrunder der Descendenzlehre", Wien, 1888; Haeckel, "Natural History of Creation", English translation London, 1879; Lang "Zur Charakteristik der Forschungswege von Lamarck und Darwin", Jena, 1889.) seems to have thought out his theory of evolution without any knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's which it closely resembled. The central idea of his theory was the cumulative inheritance of functional modifications. "Changes in environment bring about changes in the habits of animals. Changes in their wants necessarily bring about parallel changes in their habits. If new wants become constant or very lasting, they form new habits, the new habits involve the use of new parts, or a different use of old parts, which results finally in the production of new organs and the modification of old ones." He differed from Buffon in not attaching importance, as far as animals are concerned, to the direct influence of the environment, "for environment can effect no direct change whatever upon the organisation of animals," but in regard to plants he agreed with Buffon that external conditions directly moulded them.

Treviranus (1776-1837) (See Huxley's article "Evolution in Biology", "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (9th edit.), 1878, pages 744-751, and Sully's article, "Evolution in Philosophy", ibid. pages 751-772.), whom Huxley ranked beside Lamarck, was on the whole Buffonian, attaching chief importance to the influence of a changeful environment both in modifying and in eliminating, but he was also Goethian, for instance in his idea that species like individuals pass through periods of growth, full bloom, and decline. "Thus, it is not only the great catastrophes of Nature which have caused extinction, but the completion of cycles of existence, out of which new cycles have begun." A characteristic sentence is quoted by Prof. Osborn: "In every living being there exists a capability of an endless variety of form-assumption; each possesses the power to adapt its organisation to the changes of the outer world, and it is this power, put into action by the change of the universe, that has raised the simple zoophytes of the primitive world to continually higher stages of organisation, and has introduced a countless variety of species into animate Nature."

Goethe (1749-1832) (See Haeckel, "Die Naturanschauung von Darwin, Goethe und Lamarck", Jena, 1882.), who knew Buffon's work but not Lamarck's, is peculiarly interesting as one of the first to use the evolution-idea as a guiding hypothesis, e.g. in the interpretation of vestigial structures in man, and to realise that organisms express an attempt to make a compromise between specific inertia and individual change. He gave the finest expression that science has yet known--if it has known it--of the kernel- idea of what is called "bathmism," the idea of an "inherent growth-force"-- and at the same time he held that "the way of life powerfully reacts upon all form" and that the orderly growth of form "yields to change from externally acting causes."

Besides Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, Treviranus, and Goethe, there were other "pioneers of evolution," whose views have been often discussed and appraised. Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772-1844), whose work Goethe so much admired, was on the whole Buffonian, emphasising the direct action of the changeful milieu. "Species vary with their environment, and existing species have descended by modification from earlier and somewhat simpler species." He had a glimpse of the selection idea, and believed in mutations or sudden leaps--induced in the embryonic condition by external influences. The complete history of evolution-theories will include many instances of guesses at truth which were afterwards substantiated, thus the geographer von Buch (1773-1853) detected the importance of the Isolation factor on which Wagner, Romanes, Gulick and others have laid great stress, but we must content ourselves with recalling one other pioneer, the author of the "Vestiges of Creation" (1844), a work which passed through ten editions in nine years and certainly helped to harrow the soil for Darwin's sowing. As Darwin said, "it did excellent service in this country in calling attention to the subject, in removing prejudice, and in thus preparing the ground for the reception of analogous views." ("Origin of Species" (6th edition), page xvii.) Its author, Robert Chambers (1802- 1871) was in part a Buffonian--maintaining that environment moulded organisms adaptively, and in part a Goethian--believing in an inherent progressive impulse which lifted organisms from one grade of organisation to another.

AS REGARDS NATURAL SELECTION.

The only thinker to whom Darwin was directly indebted, so far as the theory of Natural Selection is concerned, was Malthus, and we may once more quote the well-known passage in the Autobiography: "In October, 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on Population', and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long- continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species." ("The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin", Vol. 1. page 83. London, 1887.)

Although Malthus gives no adumbration of the idea of Natural Selection in his exposition of the eliminative processes which go on in mankind, the suggestive value of his essay is undeniable, as is strikingly borne out by the fact that it gave to Alfred Russel Wallace also "the long-sought clue to the effective agent in the evolution of organic species." (A.R. Wallace, "My Life, A Record of Events and Opinions", London, 1905, Vol. 1. page 232.) One day in Ternate when he was resting between fits of fever, something brought to his recollection the work of Malthus which he had read twelve years before. "I thought of his clear exposition of 'the positive checks to increase'--disease, accidents, war, and famine--which keep down the population of savage races to so much lower an average than that of more civilized peoples. It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also; and as animals usually breed much more rapidly than does mankind, the destruction every year from these causes must be enormous in order to keep down the numbers of each species, since they evidently do not increase regularly from year to year, as otherwise the world would long ago have been densely crowded with those that breed most quickly. Vaguely thinking over the enormous and constant destruction which this implied, it occurred to me to ask the question, Why do some die and some live? And the answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies the strongest, the swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self- acting process would necessarily IMPROVE THE RACE, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain--that is, THE FITTEST WOULD SURVIVE." (Ibid. Vol. 1. page 361.) We need not apologise for this long quotation, it is a tribute to Darwin's magnanimous colleague, the Nestor of the evolutionist camp,--and it probably indicates the line of thought which Darwin himself followed. It is interesting also to recall the fact that in 1852, when Herbert Spencer wrote his famous "Leader" article on "The Development Hypothesis" in which he argued powerfully for the thesis that the whole animate world is the result of an age-long process of natural transformation, he wrote for "The Westminster Review" another important essay, "A Theory of Population deduced from the General Law of Animal Fertility", towards the close of which he came within an ace of recognising that the struggle for existence was a factor in organic evolution. At a time when pressure of population was practically interesting men's minds, Darwin, Wallace, and Spencer were being independently led from a social problem to a biological theory. There could be no better illustration, as Prof. Patrick Geddes has pointed out, of the Comtian thesis that science is a "social phenomenon."

Therefore, as far more important than any further ferreting out of vague hints of Natural Selection in books which Darwin never read, we would indicate by a quotation the view that the central idea in Darwinism is correlated with contemporary social evolution. "The substitution of Darwin for Paley as the chief interpreter of the order of nature is currently regarded as the displacement of an anthropomorphic view by a purely scientific one: a little reflection, however, will show that what has actually happened has been merely the replacement of the anthropomorphism of the eighteenth century by that of the nineteenth. For the place vacated by Paley's theological and metaphysical explanation has simply been occupied by that suggested to Darwin and Wallace by Malthus in terms of the prevalent severity of industrial competition, and those phenomena of the struggle for existence which the light of contemporary economic theory has enabled us to discern, have thus come to be temporarily exalted into a complete explanation of organic progress." (P. Geddes, article "Biology", "Chambers's Encyclopaedia".) It goes without saying that the idea suggested by Malthus was developed by Darwin into a biological theory which was then painstakingly verified by being used as an interpretative formula, and that the validity of a theory so established is not affected by what suggested it, but the practical question which this line of thought raises in the mind is this: if Biology did thus borrow with such splendid results from social theory, why should we not more deliberately repeat the experiment?

Autobiography (1881); "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin", Vol. 1. page 107.

PREFACE

At the suggestion of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Syndics of the University Press decided in March, 1908, to arrange for the publication of a series of Essays in commemoration of the Centenary of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the Fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species". The preliminary arrangements were made by a committee consisting of the following representatives of the Council of the Philosophical Society and of the Press Syndicate: Dr H.K. Anderson, Prof. Bateson, Mr Francis Darwin, Dr Hobson, Dr Marr, Prof. Sedgwick, Mr David Sharp, Mr Shipley, Prof. Sorley, Prof. Seward. In the course of the preparation of the volume, the original scheme and list of authors have been modified: a few of those invited to contribute essays were, for various reasons, unable to do so, and some alterations have been made in the titles of articles. For the selection of authors and for the choice of subjects, the committee are mainly responsible, but for such share of the work in the preparation of the volume as usually falls to the lot of an editor I accept full responsibility.

Authors were asked to address themselves primarily to the educated layman rather than to the expert. It was hoped that the publication of the essays would serve the double purpose of illustrating the far-reaching influence of Darwin's work on the progress of knowledge and the present attitude of original investigators and thinkers towards the views embodied in Darwin's works.

In regard to the interpretation of a passage in "The Origin of Species" quoted by Hugo de Vries, it seemed advisable to add an editorial footnote; but, with this exception, I have not felt it necessary to record any opinion on views stated in the essays.

In reading the essays in proof I have availed myself freely of the willing assistance of several Cambridge friends, among whom I wish more especially to thank Mr Francis Darwin for the active interest he has taken in the preparation of the volume. Mrs J.A. Thomson kindly undertook the translation of the essays by Prof. Weismann and Prof. Schwalbe; Mrs James Ward was good enough to assist me by translating Prof. Bougle's article on Sociology, and to Mr McCabe I am indebted for the translation of the essay by Prof. Haeckel. For the translation of the botanical articles by Prof. Goebel, Prof. Klebs and Prof. Strasburger, I am responsible; in the revision of the translation of Prof. Strasburger's essay Madame Errera of Brussels rendered valuable help. Mr Wright, the Secretary of the Press Syndicate, and Mr Waller, the Assistant Secretary, have cordially cooperated with me in my editorial work; nor can I omit to thank the readers of the University Press for keeping watchful eyes on my shortcomings in the correction of proofs.

The two portraits of Darwin are reproduced by permission of Messrs Maull and Fox and Messrs Elliott and Fry. The photogravure of the study at Down is reproduced from an etching by Mr Axel Haig, lent by Mr Francis Darwin; the coloured plate illustrating Prof. Weismann's essay was originally published by him in his "Vortrage uber Descendenztheorie" which afterwards appeared (1904) in English under the title "The Evolution Theory". Copies of this plate were supplied by Messrs Fischer of Jena.

The Syndics of the University Press have agreed, in the event of this volume being a financial success, to hand over the profits to a University fund for the endowment of biological research.

It is clearly impossible to express adequately in a single volume of Essays the influence of Darwin's contributions to knowledge on the subsequent progress of scientific inquiry. As Huxley said in 1885: "Whatever be the ultimate verdict of posterity upon this or that opinion which Mr Darwin has propounded; whatever adumbrations or anticipations of his doctrines may be found in the writings of his predecessors; the broad fact remains that, since the publication and by reason of the publication of "The Origin of Species" the fundamental conceptions and the aims of the students of living Nature have been completely changed...But the impulse thus given to scientific thought rapidly spread beyond the ordinarily recognised limits of Biology. Psychology, Ethics, Cosmology were stirred to their foundations, and 'The Origin of Species' proved itself to be the fixed point which the general doctrine needed in order to move the world."

In the contributions to this Memorial Volume, some of the authors have more especially concerned themselves with the results achieved by Darwin's own work, while others pass in review the progress of research on lines which, though unknown or but little followed in his day, are the direct outcome of his work.

The divergence of views among biologists in regard to the origin of species and as to the most promising directions in which to seek for truth is illustrated by the different opinions of contributors. Whether Darwin's views on the modus operandi of evolutionary forces receive further confirmation in the future, or whether they are materially modified, in no way affects the truth of the statement that, by employing his life "in adding a little to Natural Science," he revolutionised the world of thought. Darwin wrote in 1872 to Alfred Russel Wallace: "How grand is the onward rush of science: it is enough to console us for the many errors which we have committed, and for our efforts being overlaid and forgotten in the mass of new facts and new views which are daily turning up." In the onward rush, it is easy for students convinced of the correctness of their own views and equally convinced of the falsity of those of their fellow- workers to forget the lessons of Darwin's life. In his autobiographical sketch, he tells us, "I have steadily endeavoured to keep my mind free so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved...as soon as facts are shown to be opposed to it." Writing to Mr J. Scott, he says, "It is a golden rule, which I try to follow, to put every fact which is opposed to one's preconceived opinion in the strongest light. Absolute accuracy is the hardest merit to attain, and the highest merit. Any deviation is ruin."

He acted strictly in accordance with his determination expressed in a letter to Lyell in 1844, "I shall keep out of controversy, and just give my own facts." As was said of another son of Cambridge, Sir George Stokes, "He would no more have thought of disputing about priority, or the authorship of an idea, than of writing a report for a company promoter." Darwin's life affords a striking confirmation of the truth of Hazlitt's aphorism, "Where the pursuit of truth has been the habitual study of any man's life, the love of truth will be his ruling passion." Great as was the intellect of Darwin, his character, as Huxley wrote, was even nobler than his intellect.

A.C. SEWARD.

Botany School, Cambridge, March 20, 1909.

CONTENTS

I. INTRODUCTORY LETTER TO THE EDITOR from SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, O.M.

II. DARWIN'S PREDECESSORS: J. ARTHUR THOMSON, Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen.

III. THE SELECTION THEORY: AUGUST WEISMANN, Professor of Zoology in the University of Freiburg (Baden).

IV. VARIATION: HUGO DE VRIES, Professor of Botany in the University of Amsterdam.

V. HEREDITY AND VARIATION IN MODERN LIGHTS: W. BATESON, Professor of Biology in the University of Cambridge.

VI. THE MINUTE STRUCTURE OF CELLS IN RELATION TO HEREDITY: EDUARD STRASBURGER, Professor of Botany in the University of Bonn.

VII. "THE DESCENT OF MAN": G. SCHWALBE, Professor of Anatomy in the University of Strassburg.

VIII. CHARLES DARWIN AS AN ANTHROPOLOGIST: ERNST HAECKEL, Professor of Zoology in the University of Jena.

IX. SOME PRIMITIVE THEORIES OF THE ORIGIN OF MAN: J.G. FRAZER, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

X. THE INFLUENCE OF DARWIN ON THE STUDY OF ANIMAL EMBRYOLOGY: A. SEDGWICK, Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy in the University of Cambridge.

XI. THE PALAEONTOLOGICAL RECORD. I. ANIMALS: W.B. SCOTT, Professor of Geology in the University of Princeton.

XII. THE PALAEONTOLOGICAL RECORD. II. PLANTS: D.H. SCOTT, President of the Linnean Society of London.

XIII. THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON THE FORMS OF PLANTS: GEORG KLEBS, Professor of Botany in the University of Heidelberg.

XIV. EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF ENVIRONMENT ON ANIMALS: JACQUES LOEB, Professor of Physiology in the University of California.

XV. THE VALUE OF COLOUR IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE: E.B. POULTON, Hope Professor of Zoology in the University of Oxford.

XVI. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS: SIR WILLIAM THISELTON-DYER.

XVII. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS: HANS GADOW, Strickland Curator and Lecturer on Zoology in the University of Cambridge.

XVIII. DARWIN AND GEOLOGY: J.W. JUDD.

XIX. DARWIN'S WORK ON THE MOVEMENTS OF PLANTS: FRANCIS DARWIN.

XX. THE BIOLOGY OF FLOWERS: K. GOEBEL, Professor of Botany in the University of Munich.

XXI. MENTAL FACTORS IN EVOLUTION: C. LLOYD MORGAN, Professor of Psychology at University College, Bristol.

XXII. THE INFLUENCE OF THE CONCEPTION OF EVOLUTION ON MODERN PHILOSOPHY: H. HOFFDING, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Copenhagen.

XXIII. DARWINISM AND SOCIOLOGY: C. BOUGLE, Professor of Social Philosophy in the University of Toulouse, and Deputy-Professor at the Sorbonne, Paris.

XXIV. THE INFLUENCE OF DARWIN UPON RELIGIOUS THOUGHT: REV. P.N. WAGGETT.

XXV. THE INFLUENCE OF DARWINISM ON THE STUDY OF RELIGIONS: JANE ELLEN HARRISON, Staff-Lecturer and sometime Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge.

XXVI. EVOLUTION AND THE SCIENCE OF LANGUAGE: P. GILES, Reader in Comparative Philology in the University of Cambridge.

XXVII. DARWINISM AND HISTORY: J.B. BURY, Regius Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge.

XXVIII. THE GENESIS OF DOUBLE STARS: SIR GEORGE DARWIN, Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in the University of Cambridge.

XXIX. THE EVOLUTION OF MATTER: W.C.D. WHETHAM, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.

INDEX.

DATES OF THE PUBLICATION Of CHARLES DARWIN'S BOOKS AND OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN HIS LIFE

1809:

Charles Darwin born at Shrewsbury, February 12.

1817:

"At 8 1/2 years old I went to Mr Case's school." (A day-school at Shrewsbury kept by the Rev G. Case, Minister of the Unitarian Chapel.)

1818:

"I was at school at Shrewsbury under a great scholar, Dr Butler; I learnt absolutely nothing, except by amusing myself by reading and experimenting in Chemistry."

1825:

"As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took me away at a rather earlier age than usual, and sent me (Oct. 1825) to Edinburgh University with my brother, where I stayed for two years."

1828:

Began residence at Christ's College, Cambridge.

"I went to Cambridge early in the year 1828, and soon became acquainted with Professor Henslow...Nothing could be more simple, cordial and unpretending than the encouragement which he afforded to all young naturalists."

"During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school."

"In order to pass the B.A. Examination, it was...necessary to get up Paley's 'Evidences of Christianity,' and his 'Moral Philosophy'...The careful study of these works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part of the academical course which...was of the least use to me in the education of my mind."

1831:

Passed the examination for the B.A. degree in January and kept the following terms.

"I gained a good place among the oi polloi or crowd of men who do not go in for honours."

"I am very busy,...and see a great deal of Henslow, whom I do not know whether I love or respect most."

Dec. 27. "Sailed from England on our circumnavigation," in H.M.S. "Beagle", a barque of 235 tons carrying 6 guns, under Capt. FitzRoy.

"There is indeed a tide in the affairs of men."

1836:

Oct. 4. "Reached Shrewsbury after absence of 5 years and 2 days."

"You cannot imagine how gloriously delightful my first visit was at home; it was worth the banishment."

Dec. 13. Went to live at Cambridge (Fitzwilliam Street).

"The only evil I found in Cambridge was its being too pleasant."

1837:

"On my return home (in the 'Beagle') in the autumn of 1836 I immediately began to prepare my journal for publication, and then saw how many facts indicated the common descent of species...In July (1837) I opened my first note-book for facts in relation to the Origin of Species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased working for the next twenty years...Had been greatly struck from about the month of previous March on character of South American fossils, and species on Galapagos Archipelago. These facts (especially latter), origin of all my views."

"On March 7, 1837 I took lodgings in (36) Great Marlborough Street in London, and remained there for nearly two years, until I was married."

1838:

"In October, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement 'Malthus on Population,' and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here then I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it."

1839:

Married at Maer (Staffordshire) to his first cousin Emma Wedgwood, daughter of Josiah Wedgwood.

"I marvel at my good fortune that she, so infinitely my superior in every single moral quality, consented to be my wife. She has been my wise adviser and cheerful comforter throughout life, which without her would have been during a very long period a miserable one from ill-health. She has earned the love of every soul near her" (Autobiography).

Dec. 31. "Entered 12 Upper Gower street" (now 110 Gower street, London). "There never was so good a house for me, and I devoutly trust you (his future wife) will approve of it equally. The little garden is worth its weight in gold."

Published "Journal and Researches", being Vol. III. of the "Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of H.M.S. 'Adventure' and 'Beagle'"...

Publication of the "Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. 'Beagle'", Part II., "Mammalia", by G.R. Waterhouse, with a "Notice of their habits and ranges", by Charles Darwin.

1840:

Contributed Geological Introduction to Part I. ("Fossil Mammalia") of the "Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. 'Beagle'" by Richard Owen.

1842:

"In June 1842 I first allowed myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my (species) theory in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844 into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and still (1876) possess." (The first draft of "The Origin of Species", edited by Mr Francis Darwin, will be published this year (1909) by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press.)

Sept. 14. Settled at the village of Down in Kent.

"I think I was never in a more perfectly quiet country."

Publication of "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs"; being Part I. of the "Geology of the Voyage of the Beagle".

1844:

Publication of "Geological Observations on the Volcanic Islands visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. 'Beagle'"; being Part II. of the "Geology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle'".

"I think much more highly of my book on Volcanic Islands since Mr Judd, by far the best judge on the subject in England, has, as I hear, learnt much from it." (Autobiography, 1876.)

1845:

Publication of the "Journal of Researches" as a separate book.

1846:

Publication of "Geological Observations on South America"; being Part III. of the "Geology of the Voyage of the 'Beagle'".

1851:

Publication of a "Monograph of the Fossil Lepadidae" and of a "Monograph of the sub-class Cirripedia".

"I fear the study of the Cirripedia will ever remain 'wholly unapplied,' and yet I feel that such study is better than castle-building."

1854:

Publication of Monographs of the Balanidae and Verrucidae.

"I worked steadily on this subject for...eight years, and ultimately published two thick volumes, describing all the known living species, and two thin quartos on the extinct species...My work was of considerable use to me, when I had to discuss in the "Origin of Species" the principles of a natural classification. Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was worth the consumption of so much time."

"From September 1854 I devoted my whole time to arranging my huge pile of notes, to observing, and to experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species."

1856:

"Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or four times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in my 'Origin of Species'."

1858:

Joint paper by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace "On the Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection," communicated to the Linnean Society by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker.

"I was at first very unwilling to consent (to the communication of his MS. to the Society) as I thought Mr Wallace might consider my doing so unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble was his disposition."

"July 20 to Aug. 12 at Sandown (Isle of Wight) began abstract of Species book."

1859:

Nov. 24. Publication of "The Origin of Species" (1250 copies).

"Oh, good heavens, the relief to my head and body to banish the whole subject from my mind!...But, alas, how frequent, how almost universal it is in an author to persuade himself of the truth of his own dogmas. My only hope is that I certainly see many difficulties of gigantic stature."

1860:

Publication of the second edition of the "Origin" (3000 copies).

Publication of a "Naturalist's Voyage".

1861:

Publication of the third edition of the "Origin" (2000 copies).

"I am going to write a little book...on Orchids, and to-day I hate them worse than everything."

1862:

Publication of the book "On the various contrivances by which Orchids are fertilised by Insects".

1865:

Read paper before the Linnean Society "On the Movements and Habits of Climbing plants". (Published as a book in 1875.)

1866:

Publication of the fourth edition of the "Origin" (1250 copies).

1868:

"I have sent the MS. of my big book, and horridly, disgustingly big it will be, to the printers."

Publication of the "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication".

"About my book, I will give you (Sir Joseph Hooker) a bit of advice. Skip the whole of Vol. I, except the last chapter, (and that need only be skimmed), and skip largely in the 2nd volume; and then you will say it is a very good book."

"Towards the end of the work I give my well-abused hypothesis of Pangenesis. An unverified hypothesis is of little or no value; but if anyone should hereafter be led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could be established, I shall have done good service, as an astonishing number of isolated facts can be thus connected together and rendered intelligible."

1869:

Publication of the fifth edition of the "Origin".

1871:

Publication of "The Descent of Man".

"Although in the 'Origin of Species' the derivation of any particular species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in order that no honourable man should accuse me of concealing my views, to add that by the work 'light would be thrown on the origin of man and his history'."

1872:

Publication of the sixth edition of the "Origin".

Publication of "The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals".

1874:

Publication of the second edition of "The Descent of Man".

"The new edition of the "Descent" has turned out an awful job. It took me ten days merely to glance over letters and reviews with criticisms and new facts. It is a devil of a job."

Publication of the second edition of "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs".

1875:

Publication of "Insectivorous Plants".

"I begin to think that every one who publishes a book is a fool."

Publication of the second edition of "Variation in Animals and Plants".

Publication of "The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants" as a separate book.

1876:

Wrote Autobiographical Sketch ("Life and Letters", Vol. I., Chap II.).

Publication of "The Effects of Cross and Self fertilisation".

"I now (1881) believe, however,...that I ought to have insisted more strongly than I did on the many adaptations for self-fertilisation."

Publication of the second edition of "Observations on Volcanic Islands".

1877:

Publication of "The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same species".

"I do not suppose that I shall publish any more books...I cannot endure being idle, but heaven knows whether I am capable of any more good work."

Publication of the second edition of the Orchid book.

1878:

Publication of the second edition of "The Effects of Cross and Self fertilisation".

1879:

Publication of an English translation of Ernst Krause's "Erasmus Darwin", with a notice by Charles Darwin. "I am EXTREMELY glad that you approve of the little 'Life' of our Grandfather, for I have been repenting that I ever undertook it, as the work was quite beyond my tether." (To Mr Francis Galton, Nov. 14, 1879.)

1880:

Publication of "The Power of Movement in Plants".

"It has always pleased me to exalt plants in the scale of organised beings."

Publication of the second edition of "The Different Forms of Flowers".

1881:

Wrote a continuation of the Autobiography.

Publication of "The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Action of Worms".

"It is the completion of a short paper read before the Geological Society more than forty years ago, and has revived old geological thoughts...As far as I can judge it will be a curious little book."

1882:

Charles Darwin died at Down, April 19, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, April 26, in the north aisle of the Nave a few feet from the grave of Sir Isaac Newton.

"As for myself, I believe that I have acted rightly in steadily following and devoting my life to Science. I feel no remorse from having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures."

The quotations in the above Epitome are taken from the Autobiography and published Letters:--

"The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin", including an Autobiographical Chapter. Edited by his son, Francis Darwin, 3 Vols., London, 1887.

"Charles Darwin": His life told in an Autobiographical Chapter, and in a selected series of his published Letters. Edited by his son, Francis Darwin, London, 1902.

"More Letters of Charles Darwin". A record of his work in a series of hitherto unpublished Letters. Edited by Francis Darwin and A.C. Seward, 2 Vols., London, 1903.

I. INTRODUCTORY LETTER

FROM SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER,

O.M., G.C.S.I., C.B., M.D., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., ETC.

The Camp,

near Sunningdale,

January 15, 1909.

Dear Professor Seward,

The publication of a Series of Essays in Commemoration of the century of the birth of Charles Darwin and of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of "The Origin of Species" is assuredly welcome and is a subject of congratulation to all students of Science.

These Essays on the progress of Science and Philosophy as affected by Darwin's labours have been written by men known for their ability to discuss the problems which he so successfully worked to solve. They cannot but prove to be of enduring value, whether for the information of the general reader or as guides to investigators occupied with problems similar to those which engaged the attention of Darwin.

The essayists have been fortunate in having for reference the five published volumes of Charles Darwin's Life and Correspondence. For there is set forth in his own words the inception in his mind of the problems, geological, zoological and botanical, hypothetical and theoretical, which he set himself to solve and the steps by which he proceeded to investigate them with the view of correlating the phenomena of life with the evolution of living things. In his letters he expressed himself in language so lucid and so little burthened with technical terms that they may be regarded as models for those who were asked to address themselves primarily to the educated reader rather than to the expert.

I may add that by no one can the perusal of the Essays be more vividly appreciated than by the writer of these lines. It was my privilege for forty years to possess the intimate friendship of Charles Darwin and to be his companion during many of his working hours in Study, Laboratory, and Garden. I was the recipient of letters from him, relating mainly to the progress of his researches, the copies of which (the originals are now in the possession of his family) cover upwards of a thousand pages of foolscap, each page containing, on an average, three hundred words.

That the editorship of these Essays has been entrusted to a Cambridge Professor of Botany must be gratifying to all concerned in their production and in their perusal, recalling as it does the fact that Charles Darwin's instructor in scientific methods was his lifelong friend the late Rev. J.S. Henslow at that time Professor of Botany in the University. It was owing to his recommendation that his pupil was appointed Naturalist to H.M.S. "Beagle", a service which Darwin himself regarded as marking the dawn of his scientific career.

Very sincerely yours,

J.D. HOOKER.

II. DARWIN'S PREDECESSORS.

By J. ARTHUR THOMSON. Professor of Natural History in the University of Aberdeen.

In seeking to discover Darwin's relation to his predecessors it is useful to distinguish the various services which he rendered to the theory of organic evolution.

(I) As everyone knows, the general idea of the Doctrine of Descent is that the plants and animals of the present-day are the lineal descendants of ancestors on the whole somewhat simpler, that these again are descended from yet simpler forms, and so on backwards towards the literal "Protozoa" and "Protophyta" about which we unfortunately know nothing. Now no one supposes that Darwin originated this idea, which in rudiment at least is as old as Aristotle. What Darwin did was to make it current intellectual coin. He gave it a form that commended itself to the scientific and public intelligence of the day, and he won wide-spread conviction by showing with consummate skill that it was an effective formula to work with, a key which no lock refused. In a scholarly, critical, and pre-eminently fair-minded way, admitting difficulties and removing them, foreseeing objections and forestalling them, he showed that the doctrine of descent supplied a modal interpretation of how our present-day fauna and flora have come to be.

(II) In the second place, Darwin applied the evolution-idea to particular problems, such as the descent of man, and showed what a powerful organon it is, introducing order into masses of uncorrelated facts, interpreting enigmas both of structure and function, both bodily and mental, and, best of all, stimulating and guiding further investigation. But here again it cannot be claimed that Darwin was original. The problem of the descent or ascent of man, and other particular cases of evolution, had attracted not a few naturalists before Darwin's day, though no one (except Herbert Spencer in the psychological domain (1855)) had come near him in precision and thoroughness of inquiry.

(III) In the third place, Darwin contributed largely to a knowledge of the factors in the evolution-process, especially by his analysis of what occurs in the case of domestic animals and cultivated plants, and by his elaboration of the theory of Natural Selection, which Alfred Russel Wallace independently stated at the same time, and of which there had been a few previous suggestions of a more or less vague description. It was here that Darwin's originality was greatest, for he revealed to naturalists the many different forms--often very subtle--which natural selection takes, and with the insight of a disciplined scientific imagination he realised what a mighty engine of progress it has been and is.

(IV) As an epoch-marking contribution, not only to Aetiology but to Natural History in the widest sense, we rank the picture which Darwin gave to the world of the web of life, that is to say, of the inter-relations and linkages in Nature. For the Biology of the individual--if that be not a contradiction in terms--no idea is more fundamental than that of the correlation of organs, but Darwin's most characteristic contribution was not less fundamental,--it was the idea of the correlation of organisms. This, again, was not novel; we find it in the works of naturalist like Christian Conrad Sprengel, Gilbert White, and Alexander von Humboldt, but the realisation of its full import was distinctively Darwinian.

AS REGARDS THE GENERAL IDEA OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION.

While it is true, as Prof. H.F. Osborn puts it, that "'Before and after Darwin' will always be the ante et post urbem conditam of biological history," it is also true that the general idea of organic evolution is very ancient. In his admirable sketch "From the Greeks to Darwin" ("Columbia University Biological Series", Vol. I. New York and London, 1894. We must acknowledge our great indebtness to this fine piece of work.), Prof. Osborn has shown that several of the ancient philosophers looked upon Nature as a gradual development and as still in process of change. In the suggestions of Empedocles, to take the best instance, there were "four sparks of truth,--first, that the development of life was a gradual process; second, that plants were evolved before animals; third, that imperfect forms were gradually replaced (not succeeded) by perfect forms; fourth, that the natural cause of the production of perfect forms was the extinction of the imperfect." (Op. cit. page 41.) But the fundamental idea of one stage giving origin to another was absent. As the blue Aegean teemed with treasures of beauty and threw many upon its shores, so did Nature produce like a fertile artist what had to be rejected as well as what was able to survive, but the idea of one species emerging out of another was not yet conceived.

Aristotle's views of Nature (See G.J. Romanes, "Aristotle as a Naturalist", "Contemporary Review", Vol. LIX. page 275, 1891; G. Pouchet "La Biologie Aristotelique", Paris, 1885; E. Zeller, "A History of Greek Philosophy", London, 1881, and "Ueber die griechischen Vorganger Darwin's", "Abhandl. Berlin Akad." 1878, pages 111-124.) seem to have been more definitely evolutionist than those of his predecessors, in this sense, at least, that he recognised not only an ascending scale, but a genetic series from polyp to man and an age-long movement towards perfection. "It is due to the resistance of matter to form that Nature can only rise by degrees from lower to higher types." "Nature produces those things which, being continually moved by a certain principle contained in themselves, arrive at a certain end."

To discern the outcrop of evolution-doctrine in the long interval between Aristotle and Bacon seems to be very difficult, and some of the instances that have been cited strike one as forced. Epicurus and Lucretius, often called poets of evolution, both pictured animals as arising directly out of the earth, very much as Milton's lion long afterwards pawed its way out. Even when we come to Bruno who wrote that "to the sound of the harp of the Universal Apollo (the World Spirit), the lower organisms are called by stages to higher, and the lower stages are connected by intermediate forms with the higher," there is great room, as Prof. Osborn points out (op. cit. page 81.), for difference of opinion as to how far he was an evolutionist in our sense of the term.

The awakening of natural science in the sixteenth century brought the possibility of a concrete evolution theory nearer, and in the early seventeenth century we find evidences of a new spirit--in the embryology of Harvey and the classifications of Ray. Besides sober naturalists there were speculative dreamers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who had at least got beyond static formulae, but, as Professor Osborn points out (op. cit. page 87.), "it is a very striking fact, that the basis of our modern methods of studying the Evolution problem was established not by the early naturalists nor by the speculative writers, but by the Philosophers." He refers to Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, Hume, Kant, Lessing, Herder, and Schelling. "They alone were upon the main track of modern thought. It is evident that they were groping in the dark for a working theory of the Evolution of life, and it is remarkable that they clearly perceived from the outset that the point to which observation should be directed was not the past but the present mutability of species, and further, that this mutability was simply the variation of individuals on an extended scale."

Dirk, he decided, had given him one good tip which he would follow at once. Dirk had said that no man ever got into trouble by keeping his mouth shut. Bud closed his for a good half hour, and when he opened it again he undid all the good he had accomplished by his silence.

"Where does that trail go, that climbs up over the mountains back of that peak?" he asked. "Seems to be a stock trail. Have you got grazing land beyond the mountains?"

Dirk took time to pry off a fresh chew of tobacco before he replied. "You mean Thunder Pass? That there crosses over into the Black Rim country. Yeah--There's a big wide range country over there, but we don't run any stock on it. Burroback Valley's big enough for the Muleshoe."

Bud rolled a cigarette. "I didn't mean that main trail; that's a wagon road, and Thunder Pass cuts through between Sheepeater peak and this one ahead of us--Gospel, you call it. What I referred to is that blind trail that takes off up the canyon behind the corrals, and crosses into the mountains the other side of Gospel."

Dirk eyed him. "I dunno 's I could say, right offhand, what trail yuh mean," he parried. "Every canyon 's got a trail that runs up a ways, and there's canyons all through the mountains; they all lead up to water, or feed, or something like that, and then quit, most gen'rally; jest peter out, like." And he added with heavy sarcasm, "A feller that's lived on the range oughta know what trails is for, and how they're made. Cowcritters are curious-same as humans."

To this Bud did not reply. He was smoking and staring at the brushy lower slopes of the mountain ridge before them. He had explained quite fully which trail he meant. It was, as he had said, a "blind" trail; that is, the trail lost itself in the creek which watered a string of corrals. Moreover, Bud had very keen eyes, and he had seen how a panel of the corral directly across the shale-rock bed of a small stream was really a set of bars. The round pole corral lent itself easily to hidden gateways, without any deliberate attempt at disguising their presence.

The string of four corrals running from this upper one-- which, he remembered, was not seen from nearer the stables- was perhaps a convenient arrangement in the handling of stock, although it was unusual. The upper corral had been built to fit snugly into a rocky recess in the base of the peak called Gospel. It was larger than some of the others, since it followed the contour of the basin-like recess. Access to it was had from the fourth corral (which from the ranch appeared to be the last) and from the creekbed that filled the narrow mouth of the canyon behind.

Dirk might not have understood him, Bud thought. He certainly should have recognized at once the trail Bud meant, for there was no other canyon back of the corrals, and even that one was not apparent to one looking at the face of the steep slope. Stock had been over that canyon trail within the last month or so, however; and Bud's inference that the Muleshoe must have grazing ground across the mountains was natural; the obvious explanation of its existence.

"How 'd you come to be explorin' around Gospel, anyway?" Dirk quizzed finally. "A person'd think, short-handed as the Muleshoe is this spring, 't you'd git all the ridin' yuh want without prognosticatin' around aimless."

Now Bud was not a suspicious young man, and he had been no more than mildly inquisitive about that trail. But neither was he a fool; he caught the emphasis which Dirk had placed on the word aimless, and his thoughts paused and took another look at Dirk's whole conversation. There was something queer about it, something which made Bud sheer off from his usual unthinking assurance that things were just what they seemed.

Immediately, however, he laughed--at himself as well as at Dirk.

"We've been feeding on sour bread and warmed-over coffee ever since the cook disappeared and Bart put Hen in the kitchen," he said. "If I were you, Dirk, I wouldn't blister my hands shovelling that grub into myself for a while. You're bilious, old-timer. No man on earth would talk the way you've been talking to-day unless his whole digestive apparatus were out of order."

Dirk spat angrily at a dead sage bush. "They shore as hell wouldn't talk the kinda talk you've been talkie' unless they was a born fool or else huntin' trouble," he retorted venomously.

"The doctor said I'd be that way if I lived," Bud grinned, amiably, although his face had flushed at Dirk's tone. "He said it wouldn't hurt me for work."

"Yeah--and what kinda work?" Dirk rode so close that his horse shouldered Bud's leg discomfortingly. "I been edgin' yuh along to see what-f'r brand yuh carried. And I've got ye now, you damned snoopin' kioty. Bart, he hired yuh to work- and not to go prowling around lookin' up trails that ain't there--"

"You're a dim-brand reader, I don't think! Why you--!"

Oh, well--remember that Bud was only Buddy grown bigger, and he had never lacked the spirit to look out for himself. Remember, too, that he must have acquired something of a vocabulary, in the course of twenty-one years of absorbing everything that came within his experience.

Dirk reached for his gun, but Bud was expecting that. Dirk was not quite quick enough, and his hand therefore came forward with a jerk when he saw that he was "covered." Bud leaned, pulled Dirk's six-shooter from its holster and sent it spinning into a clump of bushes. He snatched a wicked-looking knife from Dirk's boot where he had once seen Dirk slip it sheathed when he dressed in the bunk-house, and sent that after the gun.

"Now, you long-eared walrus, you're in a position to play fair. What are you going to do about it?" He reined away, out of Dirk's reach, took his handkerchief and wrapped his own gun tightly to protect it from sand, and threw it after Dirk's gun and the knife. "Am I a snooping coyote?" he demanded watching Dirk.

"You air. More 'n all that, you're a damned spy! And I kin lick yuh an' lass' yuh an' lead yuh to Bart like a sheep!"

They dismounted, left their horses to stand with reins dropped, threw off their coats and fought until they were too tired to land another blow. There were no fatalities. Bud did not come out of the fray unscathed and proudly conscious of his strength and his skill and the unquestionable righteousness of his cause. Instead he had three bruised knuckles and a rapidly swelling ear, and when his anger had cooled a little he felt rather foolish and wondered what had started them off that way. They had ridden away from the ranch in a very good humor, and he had harbored no conscious dislike of Dirk Tracy, who had been one individual of a type of rangemen which he had known all his life and had accepted as a matter of course.

Dirk, on his part, had some trouble in stopping the bleeding of his nose, and by the time he reached the ranch his left eye was closed completely. He was taller and heavier than Bud, and he had not expected such a slugging strength behind Bud's blows.

He was badly shaken, and when Bud recovered the two guns and the knife and returned his weapons to him, Dirk was half tempted to shoot. But he did not--perhaps because Bud had unwrapped his own six-shooter and was looking it over with the muzzle slanting a wicked eye in Dirk's direction.

Late that afternoon, when the boys were loafing around the cabin waiting for their early supper, Bud packed his worldly goods on Sunfish and departed from the Muleshoe--"by special request", he admitted to himself ruefully--with his wages in gold and silver in his pocket and no definite idea of what he would do next.

He wished he knew exactly why Bart had fired him. He did not believe that it was for fighting, as Bart had declared. He thought that perhaps Dirk Tracy had some hold on the Muleshoe not apparent to the outsider, and that he had lied about him to Bart as a sneaking kind of revenge for being whipped. But that explanation did not altogether satisfy him, either.

In his month at the Muleshoe he had gained a very fair general idea of the extent and resources of Burroback Valley, but he had not made any acquaintances and he did not know just where to go for his next job. So for want of something better, he rode down to the little stream which he now knew was called One Creek, and prepared to spend the night there. In the morning he would make a fresh start--and because of the streak of stubbornness he had, he meant to make it in Burroback Valley, under the very nose of the Muleshoe outfit.

CHAPTER NINE: LITTLE LOST

Little Lost--somehow the name appealed to Bud, whose instinct for harmony extended to words and phrases and, for that matter, to everything in the world that was beautiful. From the time when he first heard Little Lost mentioned, he had felt a vague regret that chance had not led him there instead of to the Muleshoe. Brands he had heard all his life as the familiar, colloquial names for ranch headquarters. The Muleshoe was merely a brand name. Little Lost was something else, and because Buddy had been taught to "wait and find out" and to ask questions only as a last resort, Bud was still in ignorance of the meaning of Little Lost. He knew, from careless remarks made in his presence, that the mail came to Little Lost, and that there was some sort of store where certain everyday necessities were kept, for which the store-keeper charged "two prices." But there was also a ranch, for he sometimes heard the boys mention the Little Lost cattle, and speak of some man as a rider for the Little Lost.

So to Little Lost Bud rode blithely next morning, riding Stopper and leading Smoky, Sunfish and the pack following as a matter of course. Again his trained instinct served him faithfully. He had a very good general idea of Burroback Valley, he knew that the Muleshoe occupied a fair part of the south side, and guessed that he must ride north, toward the Gold Gap Mountains, to find the place he wanted.

The trail was easy, his horses were as fat as was good for them. In two hours of riding at his usual trail pace he came upon another stream which he knew must be Sunk Creek grown a little wider and deeper in its journey down the valley. He forded that with a great splashing, climbed the farther bank, followed a stubby, rocky bit of road that wound through dense willow and cottonwood growth, came out into a humpy meadow full of ant hills, gopher holes and soggy wet places where the water grass grew, crossed that and followed the road around a brushy ridge and found himself squarely confronting Little Lost.

There could be no mistake, for "Little Lost Post Office" was unevenly painted on the high cross-bar of the gate that stood wide open and permanently warped with long sagging. There was a hitch-rail outside the gate, and Bud took the hint and left his horses there. From the wisps of fresh hay strewn along the road, Bud knew that haying had begun at Little Lost. There were at least four cabins and a somewhat pretentious, story-and-a-half log house with vines reaching vainly to the high window sills, and coarse lace curtains. One of these curtains moved slightly, and Bud's sharp eyes detected the movement and knew that his arrival was observed in spite of the emptiness of the yard.

The beaten path led to a screen door which sagged with much slamming, leaving a wide space at the top through which flies passed in and out quite comfortably. Bud saw that, also, and his fingers itched to reset that door, just as he would have done for his mother--supposing his mother would have tolerated the slamming which had brought the need. Bud lifted his gloved knuckles to knock, saw that the room within was grimy and bare and meant for public use, very much like the office of a country hotel, with a counter and a set of pigeon-holes at the farther end. He walked in.

No one appeared, and after ten minutes or so Bud guessed why, and went back to the door, pushed it wide open and permitted it to fly shut with a bang. Whereupon a girl opened the door behind the counter and came in, glancing at Bud with frank curiosity.

Bud took off his hat and clanked over to the counter and asked if there was any mail for Bud Birnie--Robert Wallace Birnie.

The girl looked at him again and smiled, and turned to shuffle a handful of letters. Bud employed the time in trying to guess just what she meant by that smile.

It was not really a smile, he decided, but the beginning of one. And if that were the beginning, he would very much like to know what the whole smile would mean. The beginning hinted at things. It was as if she doubted the reality of the name he gave, and meant to conceal her doubt, or had heard something amusing about him, or wished to be friends with him, or was secretly timorous and trying to appear merely indifferent. Or perhaps----

She replaced the letters and turned, and rested her hands on the counter. She looked at him and again her lips turned at the corners in that faint, enigmatical beginning of a smile.

"There isn't a thing," she said. "The mail comes this noon again. Do you want yours sent out to any of the outfits? Or shall I just hold it?"

"Just hold it, when there is any. At least, until I see whether I land a job here. I wonder where I could find the boss?" Bud was glancing often at her hands. For a ranch girl her hands were soft and white, but her fingers were a bit too stubby and her nails were too round and flat.

"Uncle Dave will be home at noon. He's out in the meadow with the boys. You might sit down and wait."

Bud looked at his watch. Sitting down and waiting for four hours did not appeal to him, even supposing the girl would keep him company. But he lingered awhile, leaning with his elbows on the counter near her; and by those obscure little conversational trails known to youth, he progressed considerably in his acquaintance with the girl and made her smile often without once feeling quite certain that he knew what was in her mind.

He discovered that her name was Honora Krause, and that she was called Honey "for short." Her father had been Dutch and her mother a Yankee, and she lived with her uncle, Dave Truman, who owned Little Lost ranch, and took care of the mail for him, and attended to the store--which was nothing more than a supply depot kept for the accommodation of the neighbors. The store, she said, was in the next room.

Bud asked her what Little Lost meant, and she replied that she did not know, but that it might have something to do with Sunk Creek losing itself in The Sinks. There was a Little Lost river, farther across the mountains, she said, but it did not run through Little Lost ranch, nor come anywhere near it.

After that she questioned him adroitly. Perversely Bud declined to become confidential, and Honey Krause changed the subject abruptly.

"There's going to be a dance here next Friday night. It'll be a good chance to get acquainted with everybody--if you go. There'll be good music, I guess. Uncle Dave wrote to Crater for the Saunders boys to come down and play. Do you know anybody in Crater?"

The question was innocent enough, but perverseness still held Bud. He smiled and said he did not know anybody anywhere, any more. He said that if Bobbie Burns had asked him "Should auld acquaintance be forgot," he'd have told him yes, and he'd have made it good and strong. But he added that he was just as willing to make new acquaintance, and thought the dance would be a good place to begin.

Honey gave him a provocative glance from under her lashes, and Bud straightened and stepped back.

"You let folks stop here, I take it. I've a pack outfit and a couple of saddle horses with me. Will it be all right to turn them in the corral? I hate to have them eat post hay all day. Or I could perhaps go back to the creek and camp."

"Oh, just turn your horses in the corral and make yourself at home till uncle comes," she told him with that tantalizing half-smile. "We keep people here--just for accommodation. There has to be some place in the valley where folks can stop. I can't promise that uncle will give you a job, but There's going to be chicken and dumplings for dinner. And the mail will be in, about noon--you'll want to wait for that."

She was standing just within the screen door, frankly watching him as he came past the house with the horses, and she came out and halted him when she spied the top of the pack.

"You'd better leave those things here," she advised him eagerly. "I'll put them in the sitting-room by the piano. My goodness, you must be a whole orchestra! If you can play, maybe you and I can furnish the music for the dance, and save Uncle Dave hiring the Saunders boys. Anyway, we can play together, and have real good times."

Bud had an odd feeling that Honey was talking one thing with her lips, and thinking an entirely different set of thoughts. He eyed her covertly while he untied the cases, and he could have sworn that he saw her signal someone behind the lace curtains of the nearest window. He glanced carelessly that way, but the curtains were motionless. Honey was holding out her hands for the guitar and the mandolin when he turned, so Bud surrendered them and went on to the corrals.

He did not return to the house. An old man was pottering around a machine shed that stood backed against a thick fringe of brush, and when Bud rode by he left his work and came after him, taking short steps and walking with his back bent stiffly forward and his hands swinging limply at his sides.

He had a long black beard streaked with gray, and sharp blue eyes set deep under tufted white eyebrows. He seemed a friendly old man whose interest in life remained keen as in his youth, despite the feebleness of his body. He showed Bud where to turn the horses, and went to work on the pack rope, his crooked old fingers moving with the sureness of lifelong habit. He was eager to know all the news that Bud could tell him, and when he discovered that Bud had just left the Muleshoe, and that he had been fired because of a fight with Dirk Tracy, the old fellow cackled gleefully

"Well, now, I guess you just about had yore hands full, young man," he commented shrewdly. "Dirk ain't so easy to lick."

Bud immediately wanted to know why it was taken for granted that he had whipped Dirk, and grandpa chortled again. "Now if you hadn't of licked Dirk, you wouldn't of got fired," he retorted, and proceeded to relate a good deal of harmless gossip which seemed to bear out the statement. Dirk Tracy, according to grandpa, was the real boss of the Muleshoe, and Bart was merely a figure-head.

All of this did not matter to Bud, but grandpa was garrulous. A good deal of information Bud received while the two attended to the horses and loitered at the corral gate.

Grandpa admired Smoky, and looked him over carefully, with those caressing smoothings of mane and forelock which betray the lover of good horseflesh.

"I reckon he's purty fast," he said, peering shrewdly into Bud's face." The boys has been talking about pulling off some horse races here next Sunday--we got a good, straight, hard- packed creek-bed up here a piece that has been cleaned of rocks fer a mile track, and they're goin' to run a horse er two. Most generally they do, on Sunday, if work's slack. You might git in on it, if you're around in these parts." He pushed his back straight with his palms, turned his head sidewise and squinted at Smoky through half-closed lids while he fumbled for cigarette material.

"I dunno but what I might be willin' to put up a few dollars on that horse myself," he observed, "if you say he kin run. You wouldn't go an' lie to an old feller like me, would yuh, son?"

Bud offered him the cigarette he had just rolled. "No, I won't lie to you, dad," he grinned. "You know horses too well."

"Well, but kin he run? I want yore word on it."

"Well-yes, he's always been able to turn a cow," Bud admitted cautiously.

"Ever run him fer money?" The old man began teetering from his toes to his heels, and to hitch his shoulders forward and back.

"Well, no, not for money. I've run him once or twice for fun, just trying to beat some of the boys to camp, maybe."

"Sho! That's no way to do! No way at all!" The old man spat angrily into the dust of the corral. Then he thought of something. "Did yuh BEAT 'em?" he demanded sharply.

"Why, sure, I beat them!" Bud looked at him surprised, seemed about to say more, and let the statement stand unqualified.

Grandpa stared at him for a minute, his blue eyes blinking with some secret excitement. "Young feller," he began abruptly, "lemme tell yuh something. Yuh never want to do a thing like that agin. If you got a horse that can outrun the other feller's horse, figure to make him bring yuh in something--if it ain't no more'n a quarter! Make him BRING yuh a little something. That's the way to do with everything yuh turn a hand to; make it bring yuh in something! It ain't what goes out that'll do yuh any good--it's what comes in. You mind that. If you let a horse run agin' another feller's horse, bet on him to come in ahead--and then," he cried fiercely, pounding one fist into the other palm, " by Christmas, make 'im come in ahead!" His voice cracked and went flat with emotion.

He stopped suddenly and let his arms fall slack, his shoulders sag forward. He waggled his head and muttered into his beard, and glanced at Bud with a crafty look.

"If I'da took that to m'self, I wouldn't be chorin' around here now for my own son," he lamented. "I'd of saved the quarters, an' I'd of had a few dollars now of my own. Uh course," he made haste to add, "I git holt of a little, now and agin. Too old to ride--too old to work--jest manage to pick up a dollar er two now and agin--on a horse that kin run."

He went over to Smoky again and ran his hand down over the leg muscles to the hocks, felt for imperfections and straightened painfully, slapped the horse approvingly between the forelegs and laid a hand on his shoulder while he turned slowly to Bud.

"Young feller, there ain't a man on the place right now but you an' me. What say you throw yore saddle on this horse and take 'im up to the track? I'd like to see him run. Seems to me he'd ought to be a purty good quarter-horse."

Bud hesitated. "I wouldn't mind running him, grandpa, if I thought I could make something on him. I've got my stake to make, and I want to make it before all my teeth fall out so I can't chew anything but the cud of reflection on my lost opportunities. If Smoky can run a few dollars into my pocket, I'm with you."

Grandpa teetered forward and put out his hand. "Shake on that, boy!" he cackled. "Pop Truman ain't too old to have his little joke--and make it bring him in something, by Christmas! You saddle up and we'll go try him out on a quarter-mile--mebby a half, if he holds up good."

He poked a cigarette-stained forefinger against Bud's chest and whispered slyly: "My son Dave, he 's got a horse in the stable that's been cleanin' everything in the valley. I'll slip him out and up the creektrail to the track, and you run that horse of yourn agin him. Dave, he can't git a race outa nobody around here, no more, so he won't run next Sunday. We'll jest see how yore horse runs alongside Boise. I kin tell purty well how you kin run agin the rest--Pop, he ain't s' thick-headed they kin fool him much. What say we try it?"

Bud stood back and looked him over. "You shook hands with me on it," he said gravely. "Where I came from, that holds a man like taking oath on a Bible in court. I'm a stranger here, but I'm going to expect the same standard of honor, grandpa. You can back out now, and I'll run Smoky without any tryout, and you can take your chance. I couldn't expect you to stand by a stranger against your own folks--"

"Sho! Shucks a'mighty!" Grandpa spat and wagged his head furiously. "My own forks'd beat me in a horse race if they could, and I wouldn't hold it agin 'em! Runnin' horses is like playin' poker. Every feller fer himself an' mercy to- ward none! I knowed what it meant when I shook with yuh, young feller, and I hold ye to it. I hold ye to it! You lay low if I tell ye to lay low, and we'll make us a few dollars, mebby. C'm on and git that horse outa here b'fore somebuddy comes. It's mail day."

He waved Bud toward his saddle and took himself off in a shuffling kind of trot. By the time Bud had saddled Smoky grandpa hailed him cautiously from the brush-fringe beyond the corral. He motioned toward a small gate and Bud led Smoky that way, closing the gate after him.

The old man was mounted on a clean-built bay whose coat shone with little glints of gold in the dark red. With one sweeping look Bud observed the points that told of speed, and his eyes went inquiringly to meet the sharp blue ones, that sparkled under the tufted white eyebrows of grandpa.

"Do you expect Smoky to show up the same day that horse arrives?" he inquired mildly. "Pop, you'll have to prove to me that he won't run Sunday--"

Pop snorted. "Seems to me like you do know a speedy horse when you see one, young feller. Beats me't you been overlookin' what you got under yore saddle right now. Boise, he's the best runnin' horse in the valley--and that's why he won't run next Sunday, ner no other Sunday till somebuddy brings in a strange horse to put agin him. Dave, he won't crowd ye fur a race, boy. You kin refuse to run yore horse agin him, like the rest has done. I'll jest lope along t'day and see what yours kin do."

"Well, all right, then." Bud waited for the old man to ride ahead down the obscure trail that wound through the brush for half a mile or so before they emerged into the rough border of the creek bed. Pop reined in close and explained garrulously to Bud how this particular stream disappeared into the ground two miles above Little Lost, leaving the wide, level river bottom bone dry.

Pop was cautious. He rode up to a rise of ground and scanned the country suspiciously before he led the way into the creek bed. Even then he kept close under the bank until they had passed two of the quarter-mile posts that had been planted in the hard sand.

Evidently he had been doing a good deal of thinking during the ride; certainly he had watched Smoky. When he stopped under the bank opposite the half-mile post he dismounted more spryly than one would have expected. His eyes were bright, his voice sharp. Pop was forgetting his age.

"I guess I'll ride yore horse m'self," he announced, and they exchanged horses under the shelter of the bank. "You kin take an' ride Boise-an' I want you should beat me if you kin." He looked at Bud appraisingly. "I'll bet a dollar," he cried suddenly, "that I kin outrun ye, young feller! An' you got the fastest horse in Burroback Valley and I don't know what I got under me. I'm seventy years old come September--when I'm afoot. Are ye afraid to bet?"

"I'm scared a dollar's worth that I'll never see you again to-day unless I ride back to find you," Bud grinned.

"Any time you lose ole Pop Truman--shucks almighty! Come on, then--I'll show ye the way to the quarter-post!"

"I'm right with you, Pop. You say so, and I'm gone!"

They reined in with the shadow of the post falling square across the necks of both horses. Pop gathered up the reins, set his feet in the stirrups and shrilled, "Go, gol darn ye!"

They went, like two scared rabbits down the smooth, yellow stretch of packed sand. Pop's elbows stuck straight out, he held the reins high and leaned far over Smoky's neck, his eyes glaring. Bud--oh, never worry about Bud! In the years that lay between thirteen and twenty-one Bud had learned a good many things, and one of them was how to get out of a horse all the speed there was in him.

They went past the quarter-post and a furlong beyond before either could pull up. Pop was pale and triumphant, and breathing harder than his mount.

"Here 's your dollar, Pop--and don't you talk in your sleep!" Bud admonished, smiling as he held out the dollar, but with an anxious tone in his voice. "If this is the best running horse you've got in the valley, I may get some action, next Sunday!"

Pop dismounted, took the dollar with a grin and mounted Boise--and that in spite of the fact that Boise was keyed up and stepping around and snorting for another race. Bud watched Pop queerly, remembering how feeble had been the old man whom he had met at the corral.

"Say, Pop, you ought to race a little every day," he bantered. "You're fifteen years younger than you were an hour ago."

For answer Pop felt of his back and groaned. "Oh, I'll pay fer it, young feller! I don't look fer much peace with my back fer a week, after this. But you kin make sure of one thing, and that is, I ain't goin' to talk in my sleep none. By Christmas, We'll make this horse of yours bring us in something! I guess you better turn yore horses all out in the pasture. Dave, he'll give yuh work all right. I'll fix it with Dave. And you listen to Pop, young feller. I'll show ye a thing or two about runnin' horses. You'n me'll clean up a nice little bunch of money-HE-HE!-beat Boise in a quarter dash! Tell that to Dave, an' he wouldn't b'lieve ye!"

When Pop got off at the back of the stable he could scarcely move, he was so stiff. But his mind was working well enough to see that Bud rubbed the saddle print off Boise and turned his own horses loose in the pasture, before he let him go on to the house. The last Bud heard from Pop that forenoon was a senile chuckle and a cackling, "Outrun Boise in a quarter dash! Shucks a'mighty! But I knew it--I knew he had the speed--sho! Ye can't fool ole Pop--shucks!"

CHAPTER TEN: BUD MEETS THE WOMAN

A woman was stooping at the woodpile, filling her arms with crooked sticks of rough-barked sage. From the color of her hair Bud knew that she was not Honey, and that she was therefore a stranger to him. But he swung off the path and went over to her as naturally as he would go to pick up a baby that had fallen.

"I'll carry that in for you," he said, and put out his hand to help her to her feet.

Before he touched her she was on her feet and looking at him. Bud could not remember afterwards that she had done anything else; he seemed to have seen only her eyes, and into them and beyond them to a soul that somehow made his heart tremble.

What she said, what he answered, was of no moment. He could not have told afterwards what it was. He stooped and filled his arms with wood, and walked ahead of her up the pathway to the kitchen door, and stopped when she flitted past him to show him where the wood-box stood. He was conscious then of her slenderness and of the lightness of her steps. He dropped the wood into the box behind the stove on which kettles were steaming. There was the smell of chicken stewing, and the odor of fresh-baked pies.

She smiled up at him and offered him a crisp, warn cookie with sugared top, and he saw her eyes again and felt the same tremor at his heart. He pulled himself together and smiled back at her, thanked her and went out, stumbling a little on the doorstep, the cookie untasted in his fingers.

He walked down to the corral and began fumbling at his pack, his thoughts hushed before the revelation that had come to him.

"Her hands--her poor, little, red hands!" he said in a whisper as the memory of them came suddenly. But it was her eyes that he was seeing with his mind; her eyes, and what lay deep within. They troubled him, shook him, made him want to use his man-strength against something that was hurting her. He did not know what it could be; he did not know that there was anything--but oddly the memory of his mother's white face back in the long ago, and of her tone when she said, "Oh, God, please!" came back and fitted themselves to the look in this woman's eyes.

Bud sat down on his canvas-wrapped bed and lifted his hat to rumple his hair and then smooth it again, as was his habit when worried. He looked at the cookie, and because he was hungry he ate it with a foolish feeling that he was being sentimental as the very devil, thinking how her hands had touched it. He rolled and smoked a cigarette afterwards, and wondered who she was and whether she was married, and what her first name was.

A quiet smoke will bring a fellow to his senses sometimes when nothing else will, and Bud managed, by smoking two cigarettes in rapid succession, to restore himself to some degree of sanity.

"Funny how she made me think of mother, back when I was a kid coming up from Texas," he mused. "Mother'd like her." It was the first time he had ever thought just that about a girl. "She's no relation to Honey," he added. "I'd bet a horse on that." He recalled how white and soft were Honey's hands, and he swore a little. "Wouldn't hurt her to get out there in the kitchen and help with the cooking," he criticised. Then suddenly he laughed. "Shucks a'mighty, as Pop says! with those two girls on the ranch I'll gamble Dave Truman has a full crew of men that are plumb willing to work for their board!"

The stage came, and Bud turned to it relievedly. After that, here came Dave Truman on a deep-cheated roan. Bud knew him by his resemblance to the old man, who came shuffling bent- backed from the machine-shed as Dave passed.

Pop beckoned, and Dave reined his horse that way and stopped at the shed door. The two talked for a minute and Dave rode on, passing Bud with a curt nod. Pop came over to where Bud stood leaning against the corral.

"How are you feeling, dad?" Bud grinned absently.

"Purty stiff an' sore, boy--my rheumatics is bad to-day." Pop winked solemnly. "I spoke to Dave about you wantin' a job, and I guess likely Dave'll put you on. They's plenty to do-- hayin' comin' on and all that." He lowered his voice mysteriously, though there was no man save Bud within a hundred feet of him. "Don't ye go 'n talk horses--not yet. Don't let on like yore interested much. I'll tell yuh when to take 'em up."

The men came riding in from the hayfield, some in wagons, two astride harnessed work-horses, and one long-legged fellow in chaps on a mower, driving a sweaty team that still had life enough to jump sidewise when they spied Bud's pack by the corral. The stage driver sauntered up and spoke to the men. Bud went over and began to help unhitch the team from the mower, and the driver eyed him sharply while he grinned his greeting across the backs of the horses.

"Pop says you're looking for work," Dave Truman observed, coming up. "Well, if you ain't scared of it, I'll stake yuh to a hayfork after dinner. Where yuh from?"

"Just right now, I'm from the Muleshoe. Bud Birnie's my name. I was telling dad why I quit."

"Tell me," Dave directed briefly. "Pop ain't as reliable as he used to be. He'd never get it out straight."

"I quit," said Bud, "by special request." He pulled off his gloves carefully and held up his puffed knuckles. "I got that on Dirk Tracy."

The driver of the mower shot a quick, meaning glance at Dave, and laughed shortly. Dave grinned a little, but he did not ask what had been the trouble, as Bud had half expected him to do. Apparently Dave felt that he had received all the information he needed, for his next remark had to do with the heat. The day was a "weather breeder", he declared, and he was glad to have another man to put at the hauling.

An iron triangle beside the kitchen door clamored then, and Bud, looking quickly, saw the slim little woman with the big, troubled eyes striking the iron bar vigorously. Dave glanced at his watch and led the way to the house, the hay crew hurrying after him.

Fourteen men sat down to a long table with a great shuffling of feet and scraping of benches, and immediately began a voracious attack upon the heaped platters of chicken and dumplings and the bowls of vegetables. Bud found a place at the end where he could look into the kitchen, and his eyes went that way as often as they dared, following the swift motions of the little woman who poured coffee and filled empty dishes and said never a word to anyone.

He was on the point of believing her a daughter of the house when a square-jawed man of thirty, or thereabout, who sat at Bud's right hand, called her to him as he might have called his dog, by snapping his fingers.

She came and stood beside Bud while the man spoke to her in an arrogant undertone.

"Marian, I told yuh I wanted tea for dinner after this. D'you bring me coffee on purpose, just to be onery? I thought I told yuh to straighten up and quit that sulkin'. I ain't going to have folks think----"

"Oh, be quiet! Shame on you, before everyone!" she whispered fiercely while she lifted the cup and saucer.

Bud went hot all over. He did not look up when she returned presently with a cup of tea, but he felt her presence poignantly, as he had never before sensed the presence of a woman. When he was able to swallow his wrath and meet calmly the glances of these strangers he turned his head casually and looked the man over.

Her husband, he guessed the fellow to be. No other relationship could account for that tone of proprietorship, and there was no physical resemblance between the two. A mean devil, Bud called him mentally, with a narrow forehead, eyes set too far apart and the mouth of a brute. Someone spoke to the man, calling him Lew, and he answered with rough good humor, repeating a stale witticism and laughing at it just as though he had not heard others say it a hundred times.

Bud looked at him again and hated him, but he did not glance again at the little woman named Marian; for his own peace of mind he did not dare. He thought that he knew now what it was he had seen in the depth of her eyes, but there seemed to be nothing that he could do to help.

That evening after supper Honey Krause called to him when he was starting down to the bunk-house with the other men. What she said was that she still had his guitar and mandolin, and that they needed exercise. What she looked was the challenge of a born coquette. In the kitchen dishes were rattling, but after they were washed there would be a little leisure, perhaps, for the kitchen drudge. Bud's impulse to make his sore hands an excuse for refusing evaporated. It might not be wise to place himself deliberately in the way of getting a hurt--but youth never did stop to consult a sage before following the lure of a woman's eyes.

He called back to Honey that those instruments ought to have been put in the hayfield, where there was more exercise than the men could use. "You boys ought to come and see me safe through with it," he added to the loitering group around him. "I'm afraid of women."

They laughed and two or three went with him. Lew went on to the corral and presently appeared on horseback, riding up to the kitchen and leaving his horse standing at the corner while he went inside and talked to the woman he had called Marian.

Bud was carrying his guitar outside, where it was cooler, when he heard the fellow's arrogant voice. The dishes ceased rattling for a minute, and there was a sharp exclamation, stifled but unmistakable. Involuntarily Bud made a movement in that direction, when Honey's voice stopped him with a subdued laugh.

"That's only Lew and Mary Ann," she explained carelessly. "They have a spat every time they come within gunshot of each other."

The lean fellow who had driven the mower, and whose name was Jerry Myers, edged carelessly close to Bud and gave him a nudge with his elbow, and a glance from under his eyebrows by way of emphasis. He turned his head slightly, saw that Honey had gone into the house, and muttered just above a whisper, "Don't see or hear anything. It's all the help you can give her. And for Lord's sake don't let on to Honey like you--give a cuss whether it rains or not, so long 's it don't pour too hard the night of the dance."

Bud looked up at the darkening sky speculatively, and tried not to hear the voices in the kitchen, one of which was brutally harsh while the other told of hate and fear suppressed under gentle forbearance. The harsh voice was almost continuous, the other infrequent, reluctant to speak at all. Bud wanted to go in and smash his guitar over the fellow's head, but Jerry's warning held him. There were other ways, however, to help; if he must not drive off the tormentor, then he would call him away. He ignored his bruised knuckles and plucked the guitar strings as if he held a grudge against them, and then began to sing the first song that came into his mind--one that started in a rollicky fashion.

Men came straggling up from the bunk-house before he had finished the first chorus, and squatted on their heels to listen, their cigarettes glowing like red fingertips in the dusk. But the voice in the kitchen talked on. Bud tried another--one of those old-time favorites, a "laughing coon" song, though he felt little enough in the mood for it. In the middle of the first laugh he heard the kitchen door slam, and Lew's footsteps coming around the corner. He listened until the song was done, then mounted and rode away, Bud's laugh following him triumphantly--though Lew could not have guessed its meaning.

Bud sang for two hours expectantly, but Marian did not appear, and Bud went off to the bunk-house feeling that his attempt to hearten her had been a failure. Of Honey he did not think at all, except to wonder if the two women were related in any way, and to feel that if they were Marian was to be pitied. At that point Jerry overtook him and asked for a match, which gave him an excuse to hold Bud behind the others.

"Honey like to have caught me, to-night," Jerry observed guardedly. "I had to think quick. I'll tell you the lay of the land, Bud, seeing you're a stranger here. Marian's man, Lew, he's a damned bully and somebody is going to draw a fine bead on him some day when he ain't looking. But he stands in, so the less yuh take notice the better. Marian, she's a fine little woman that minds her own business, but she's getting a cold deck slipped into the game right along. Honey's jealous of her and afraid somebody'll give her a pleasant look. Lew's jealous, and he watches her like a cat watches a mouse "It's caught and wants to play with. Between the two of 'em Marian has a real nice time of it. I'm wising you up so you won't hand her any more misery by trying to take her part. Us boys have learned to keep our mouths shut."

"Glad you told me," Bud muttered. "Otherwise----"

"Exactly," Jerry agreed understandingly. "Otherwise any of us would."

He stopped and then spoke in a different tone. "If Lew stays off the ranch long enough, maybe you'll get to hear her sing. Wow-ee, but that lady has sure got the meadow-larks whipped! But look out for Honey, old-timer."

Bud laughed unmirthfully. "Looks to me as if you aren't crazy over Honey," he ventured. "What has she done to you?"

"Her?" Jerry inspected his cigarette, listened to the whisper of prudence in his ear, and turned away. "Forget it. I never said a word." He swept the whole subject from him with a comprehensive gesture, and snorted. "I'm gettin' as bad as Pop," he grinned. "But lemme tell yuh something. Honey Krause runs more 'n the post-office."

CHAPTER ELEVEN: GUILE AGAINST THE WILY

Bud liked to have his life run along accustomed lines with a more or less perfect balance of work and play, friendships and enmities. He had grown up with the belief that any mystery is merely a synonym for menace. He had learned to be wary of known enemies such as Indians and outlaws, and to trust implicitly his friends. To feel now, without apparent cause, that his friends might be enemies in disguise, was a new experience that harried him.

He had come to Little Lost on Tuesday, straight from the Muleshoe where his presence was no longer desired for some reason not yet satisfactorily explained to him. You know what happened on Tuesday. That night the land crouched under a terrific electric storm, with crackling swords of white death dazzling from inky black clouds, and ear-splitting thunder close on the heels of it. Bud had known such storms all his life, yet on this night he was uneasy, vaguely disturbed. He caught himself wondering if Lew Morris's wife was frightened, and the realization that he was worrying about her fear worried him more than ever and held him awake long after the fury of the storm had passed.

Buddy uncoiled his rope and ran with his mouth full to do as he was told. He did not think he was scared, exactly, but he made three throws to get the horse he wanted, blaming the poor light for his ill luck; and then found himself in possession of a tall, uneasy brown that Dick Grimes had broken and sometimes rode. Buddy would have turned him loose and caught another, but the horses had sensed the suppressed excitement of the men and were circling and snorting in the half light of dawn; so Buddy led out the brown, pulled the saddle from the sweaty horse that had twice made the trip up the creek, and heaved it hastily on the brown's back. Dick Grimes called to him, to know if he wanted any help, and Buddy yelled, "No!"

"Here they come--damn 'em--turn the bunch loose and ride!" called Bob Birnie as a shrill, yelling war-whoop, like the yapping of many coyotes, sounded from the cottonwoods that bordered the creek. "Yuh all right, Buddy?"

"Yeah--I'm a-comin'," shrilled Buddy, hastily looping the latigo. Just then the sharp staccato of rifle-shots mingled with the whooping of the Indians. Buddy was reaching for the saddle horn when the brown horse ducked and jerked loose. Before Buddy realized what was happening the brown horse, the herd and all the riders were pounding away down the valley, the men firing back at the cottonwoods.

In the dust and clamor of their departure Buddy stood perfectly still for a minute, trying to grasp the full significance of his calamity. Step-and-a-Half had packed hastily and departed ahead of them all. His father and the cowboys were watching the cottonwood grove many rods to Buddy's right and well in the background, and they would not glance his way. Even if they did they would not see him, and if they saw him it would be madness to ride back--though there was not a man among them who would not have wheeled in his tracks and returned for Buddy in the very face of Colorou and his band.

From the cottonwoods came the pound of galloping hoofs. "Angels NOTHING!" Cried Buddy in deep disgust and scuttled for the cabin.

The cabin, he knew as he ran, was just then the worst place in the world for a boy who wanted very much to go on living. Through its gaping doorway he saw a few odds and ends of food lying on the table, but he dared not stop long enough to get them. The Indians were thundering down to the corral, and as he rounded the cabin's corner he glanced back and saw the foremost riders whipping their horses on the trail of the fleeing white men. But some, he knew, would stop. Even the prospect of fresh scalps could not hold the greedy ones from prowling around a white man's dwelling place. There might be tobacco or whiskey left behind, or something with color or a shine to it. Buddy knew well the ways of Indians.

He made for the creek, thinking at first to hide somewhere in the brush along the bank. Then, fearing the brightening light of day and the wide space he must cross to reach the first fringe of brush, he stopped at a dugout cellar that had been built into the creek bank above high-water mark. There was a pole-and-dirt roof, and because the dirt sifted down between the poles whenever the wind blew--which was always--the place had been crudely sealed inside with split poles overlapping one another. The ceiling was more or less flat; the roof had a slight slope. In the middle of the tiny attic thus formed Buddy managed to worm his body through a hole in the gable next to the creek.

He wriggled back to the end next the cabin and lay there very flat and very quiet, peeping out through a half-inch crack, too wise in the ways of silence to hold his breath until he must heave a sigh to relieve his lungs. It was hard to breathe naturally and easily after that swift dash, but somehow he did it. An Indian had swerved and ridden behind the cabin, and was leaning and peering in all directions to see if anyone had remained. Perhaps he suspected an ambush; Buddy was absolutely certain that the fellow was looking for him, personally, and that he had seen, Buddy run toward the creek.

It was not a pleasant thought, and the fact that he knew that buck Indian by name, and had once traded him a jackknife for a beautifully tanned wolf skin for his mother, did not make it pleasanter. Hides-the-face would not let past friendliness stand in the way of a killing.

Presently Hides-the-face dismounted and tied his horse to a corner log of the cabin, and went inside with the others to see what he could find that could be eaten or carried off. Buddy saw fresh smoke issue from the stone chimney, and guessed that Step-and-a-Half had left something that could be cooked. It became evident, in the course of an hour or so, that his presence was absolutely unsuspected, and Buddy began to watch them more composedly, silently promising especial forms of punishment to this one and that one whom he knew. Most of them had been to the ranch many times, and he could have called to a dozen of them by name. They had sat in his father's cabin or stood immobile just within the door, and had listened while his mother played and sang for them. She had fed them cakes--Buddy remembered the good things which mother had given these despicable ones who were looting and gobbling and destroying like a drove of hogs turned loose in a garden, and the thought of her wasted kindness turned him sick with rage. Mother had believed in their friendliness. Buddy wished that mother could see them setting fire to the low, log stable and the corral, and swarming in and out of the cabin.

Painted for war they were, with red stripes across their foreheads, ribs outlined in red which, when they loosened their blankets as the sun warmed them, gave them a fantastic likeness to the skeletons Buddy wished they were; red stripes on their arms, the number showing their rank in the tribe; open-seated, buckskin breeches to their knees where they met the tightly wrapped leggings; moccasins laced snugly at the ankle--they were picturesque enough to any eyes but Buddy's. He saw the ghoulish greed in their eyes, heard it in their voices when they shouted to one another; and he hated them even more than he feared them.

Much that they said he understood. They were cursing the Tomahawk outfit, chiefly because the men had not waited there to be surprised and killed. They cursed his father in particular, and were half sorry that they had not ridden on in pursuit with the others. They hoped no white man would ride alive to Laramie. It made cheerful listening to Buddy, flat on his stomach in the roof of the dugout!

After a while, when the cabin had been gutted of everything it contained save the crude table and benches, a few Indians brought burning brands from the stable and set it afire. They were very busy inside and out, making sure that the flames took hold properly. Then, when the dry logs began to blaze and flames licked the edges of the roof, they stood back and watched it.

Buddy saw Hides-the-face glance speculatively toward the dugout, and slipped his hand back where he could reach his six-shooter. He felt pretty certain that they meant to demolish the dugout next, and he knew exactly what he meant to do. He had heard men at the posts talk of "selling their lives dearly ", and that is what he intended to do.

He was not going to be in too much of a hurry; he would wait until they actually began on the dugout--and when they were on the bank within a few feet of him, and he saw that there was no getting away from death, he meant to shoot five Indians, and himself last of all.

Tentatively he felt of his temple where he meant to place the muzzle of the gun when there was just one bullet left. It was so nice and smooth--he wondered if God would really help him out, if he said Our Father with a pure heart and with faith, as his mother said one must pray. He was slightly doubtful of both conditions, when he came to think of it seriously. This spring he had felt grown-up enough to swear a little at the horses, sometimes--and he was not sure that shooting the Indian that time would not be counted a crime by God, who loved all His creatures. Mother always stuck to it that Injuns were God's creatures--which brought Buddy squarely against the incredible assumption that God must love them. He did not in the least mean to be irreverent, but when he watched those painted bucks his opinion of God changed slightly. He decided that he himself was neither pure nor full of faith, and that he would not pray just yet. He would let God go ahead and do as He pleased about it; except that Buddy would never let those Indians get him alive, no matter what God expected.

Hides-the-face walked over toward the dugout. Buddy crooked his left arm and laid the gun barrel across it to get a "dead rest" and leave nothing to chance. Hides-the-face stared at the dugout, moved to one side--and the muzzle of the gun followed, keeping its aim directly at the left edge of his breastbone as outlined with the red paint. Hides-the-face craned, stepped into the path down the bank and passed out of range. Buddy gritted his teeth malevolently and waited, his ears strained to catch and interpret the meaning of every soft sound made by Hides-the-face's moccasins.

Hides-the-face cautiously pushed open the door of the cellar and looked in, standing for interminable minutes, as is the leisurely way of Indians when there is no great need of haste. Ruddy cautiously lowered his face and peered down like a mouse from the thatch, but he could not handily bring his gun to bear upon Hides-the-face, who presently turned back and went up the path, his shoulder-muscles moving snakishly under his brown skin as he climbed the bank.

Hides-the-face returned to the others and announced that there was a place where they could camp. Buddy could not hear all that he said, and Hides-the-face had his back turned so that not all of his signs were intelligible; but he gathered that these particular Indians had chosen or had been ordered to wait here for three suns, and that the cellar appealed to Hides-the-face as a shelter in case it stormed.

Buddy did not know whether to rejoice at the news or to mourn. They would not destroy the dugout, so he need not shoot himself, which was of course a relief. Still, three suns meant three days and nights, and the prospect of lying there on his stomach, afraid to move for that length of time, almost amounted to the same thing in the end. He did not believe that he could hold out that long, though of course he would try pretty hard.

All that day Buddy lay watching through the crack, determined to take any chance that came his way. None came. The Indians loitered in the shade, and some slept. But always two or three remained awake; and although they sat apparently ready to doze off at any minute, Buddy knew them too well to hope for such good luck. Two Indians rode in toward evening dragging a calf that had been overlooked in the roundup; and having improvidently burned the cabin, the meat was cooked over the embers which still smouldered in places where knots in the logs made slow fuel.

Buddy watched them hungrily, wondering how long it took to starve.

When it was growing dark he tried to keep in mind the exact positions of the Indians, and to discover whether a guard would be placed over the camp, or whether they felt safe enough to sleep without a sentinel. Hides-the-face he had long ago decided was in charge of the party, and Hides-the- face was seemingly concerned only with gorging himself on the half-roasted meat. Buddy hoped he would choke himself, but Hides-the-face was very good at gulping half-chewed hunks and finished without disaster.

Then he grunted something to someone in the dark, and there was movement in the group. Buddy ground his growing "second" teeth together, clenched his fist and said "Damn it!" three times in a silent crescendo of rage because he could neither see nor hear what took place; and immediately he repented his profanity, remembering that God could hear him. In Buddy's opinion, you never could be sure about God; He bestowed mysterious mercies and strange punishments, and His ways were past finding out. Buddy tipped his palms together and repeated all the prayers his mother had taught him and then, with a flash of memory, finished with "Oh, God, please!" just as mother had done long ago on the dry drive. After that he meditated uncomfortably for a few minutes and added in a faint whisper, "Oh, shucks! You don't want to pay any attention to a fellow cussing a little when he's mad. I could easy make that up if you helped me out some way."

Buddy believed afterwards that God yielded to persuasion and decided to give him a chance. For not more than five minutes passed when a far-off murmur grew to an indefinable roar, and the wind whooped down off the Snowies so fiercely that even the dugout quivered a little and rattled dirt down on Buddy through the poles just over his head.

At first this seemed an unlucky circumstance, for the Indians came down into the dugout for shelter, and now Buddy was afraid to breathe in the quiet intervals between the gusts. Just below him he could hear the occasional mutters of laconic sentences and grunted answers as the bucks settled themselves for the night, and he had a short, panicky spell of fearing that the poles would give way beneath him and drop him in upon them.

After a while--it seemed hours to Buddy--the wind settled down to a steady gale. The Indians, so far as he could determine, were all asleep in the cellar. And Buddy, setting his teeth hard together, began to slide slowly backward toward the opening through which he had crawled into the roof. When he had crawled in he had not noticed the springiness of the poles, but now his imagination tormented him with the sensation of sagging and swaying. When his feet pushed through the opening he had to grit his teeth to hold himself steady. It seemed as if someone were reaching up in the dark to catch him by the legs and pull him out. Nothing happened, however, and after a little he inched backward until he hung with his elbows hooked desperately inside the opening, his head and shoulders within and protesting with every nerve against leaving the shelter.

Buddy said afterwards that he guessed he'd have hung there until daylight, only he was afraid it was about time to change guard, and somebody might catch him. But he said he was scared to let go and drop, because it must have been pretty crowded in the cellar, and he knew the door was open, and some buck might be roosting outside handy to be stepped on. But he knew he had to do something, because if he ever went to sleep up in that place he'd snore, maybe; and anyway, he said, he'd rather run himself to death than starve to death. So he dropped.

It was two days after that when Buddy shuffled into a mining camp on the ridge just north of Douglas Pass. He was still on his feet, but they dragged like an old man's. He had walked twenty-five miles in two nights, going carefully, in fear of Indians. The first five miles he had waded along the shore of the creek, he said, in case they might pick up his tracks at the dugout and try to follow him. He had hidden himself like a rabbit in the brush through the day, and he had not dared shoot any meat, wherefore he had not eaten anything.

"I ain't as hungry as I was at first," He grinned tremulously. "But I guess I better--eat. I don' want--to lose the--habit--" Then he went slack and a man swearing to hide his pity picked him up in his arms and carried him into the tent.

CHAPTER SIX: THE YOUNG EAGLE MUST FLY

"You're of age," said Bob Birnie, sucking hard at his pipe. "You've had your schooling as your mother wished that you should have it. You've got the music in your head and your fingers and your toes, and that's as your mother wished that you should have.

"Your mother would have you be all for music, and make tunes out of your own head. She tells me that you have made tunes and written them down on paper, and that there are those who would buy them and print copies to sell, with your name at the top of the page. I'll not say what I think of that--your mother is an angel among women, and she has taught you the things she loves herself.

"But my business is with the cattle, and I've had you out with me since you could climb on the back of a horse. I've watched you, with the rope and the irons and in the saddle and all. You've been in tight places that would try the mettle of a man grown--I mind the time ye escaped Colorou's band, and we thought ye dead 'til ye came to us in Laramie. You've showed that you're able to hold your own on the range, lad. Your mother's all for the music--but I leave it to you.

"Ten thousand dollars I'll give ye, if that's your wish, and you can go to Europe as she wishes and study and make tunes for others to play. Or if ye prefer it, I'll brand you a herd of she stock and let ye go your ways. No son of mine can take orders from his father after he's a man grown, and I'm not to the age where I can sit with the pipe from morning to night and let another run my outfit. I've talked it over with your mother, and she'll bide by your decision, as I shall do.

"So I put it in a nutshell, Robert. You're twenty-one to-day; a man grown, and husky as they're made. 'Tis time you faced the world and lived your life. You've been a good lad--as lads go." He stopped there to rub his jaw thoughtfully, perhaps remembering certain incidents in Buddy's full-flavored past. Buddy--grown to plain Bud among his fellows--turned red without losing the line of hardness that had come to his lips.

"You're of legal age to be called a man, and the future's before ye. I'll give ye five hundred cows with their calves beside them--you can choose them yourself, for you've a sharp eye for stock--and you can go where ye will. Or I'll give ye ten thousand dollars and ye can go to Europe and make tunes if you're a mind to. And whatever ye choose it'll be make or break with ye. Ye can sleep on the decision, for I've no wish that ye should choose hastily and be sorry after."

Buddy--grown to Bud--lifted a booted foot and laid it across his other knee and with his forefinger absently whirled the long-pointed rower on his spur. The hardness at his lips somehow spread to his eyes, that were bent on the whirring rower. It was the look that had come into the face of the baby down on the Staked Plains when Ezra called and called after he had been answered twice; the look that had held firm the lips of the boy who had lain very flat on his stomach in the roof of the dugout and had watched the Utes burning the cabin.

"There's no need to sleep on it," he said after a minute. "You've raised me, and spent some money on me--but I've saved you a man's wages ever since I was ten. If you think I've evened things up, all right. If you don't, make out your bill and I'll pay it when I can. There's no reason why you should give me anything I haven't earned, just because you're my father. You earned all you've got, and I guess I can do the same. As you say, I'm a man. I'll go at the future man fashion. And," he added with a slight flare of the nostrils, "I'll start in the morning."

"And is it to make tunes for other folks to play?"Bob Birnie asked after a silence, covertly eyeing him.

"No, sir. There's more money in cattle. I'll make my stake in the cow-country, same as you've done." He looked up and grinned a little. "To the devil with your money and your she-stock! I'll get out all right--but I'll make my own way."

"You're a stubborn fool, Robert. The Scotch now and then shows itself like that in a man. I got my start from my father and I'm not ashamed of it. A thousand pounds--and I brought it to America and to Texas, and got cattle."

Bud laughed and got up, hiding how the talk had struck deep into the soul of him. "Then I'll go you one better, dad. I'll get my own start."

"You'll be back home in six months, lad, saying you've changed your mind," Bob Birnie predicted sharply, stung by the tone of young Bud. "That," he added grimly, "or for a full belly and a clean bed to crawl into."

Bud stood licking the cigarette he had rolled to hide an unaccountable trembling of his fingers. "When I come back I'll be in a position to buy you out! I'll borrow Skate and Maverick, if you don't mind, till I get located somewhere." He paused while he lighted the cigarette. "It's the custom," He reminded his father unnecessarily, "to furnish a man a horse to ride and one to pack his bed, when he's fired."

"Ye've horses of yer own," Bob Birnie retorted, "and you've no need to borrow."

Bud stood looking down at his father, plainly undecided. "I don't know whether they're mine or not," he said after a minute. "I don't know what it cost you to raise me. Figure it up, if you haven't already, and count the time I've worked for you. Since you've put me on a business basis, like raising a calf to shipping age, let's be businesslike about it. You are good at figuring your profits--I'll leave it to you. And if you find I've anything coming to me besides my riding outfit and the clothes I've got, all right; I'll take horses for the balance."

He walked off with the swing to his shoulders that had always betrayed him when he was angry, and Bob Birnie gathered his beard into a handful and held it while he stared after him. It had been no part of his plan to set his son adrift on the range without a dollar, but since Bud's temper was up, it might be a good thing to let him go.

So Bob Birnie went away to confer with his wife, and Bud was left alone to nurse his hurt while he packed his few belongings. It did hurt him to be told in that calm, cold- blooded manner that, now he was of legal age, he would not be expected to stay on at the Tomahawk. Until his father had spoken to him about it, Bud had not thought much about what he would do when his school days were over. He had taken life as it was presented to him week by week, month by month. He had fulfilled his mother's hopes and had learned to make music. He had lived up to his father's unspoken standards of a cowman. He had made a "Hand" ever since his legs were long enough to reach the stirrups of a saddle. There was not a better rider, not a better roper on the range than Bud Birnie. Morally he was cleaner than most young fellows of his age. He hated trickery, he reverenced all good women; the bad ones he pitied because he believed that they sorrowed secretly because they were not good, because they had missed somehow their real purpose in life, which was to be wife and mother. He had, in fact grown up clean and true to type. He was Buddy, grown to be Bud.

And Buddy, now that he was a man, had been told that he was not expected to stay at home and help his father, and be a comfort to his mother. He was like a young eagle which, having grown wing-feathers that will bear the strain of high air currents, has been pecked out of the nest. No doubt the young eagle resents his unexpected banishment, although in time he would have felt within himself the urge to go. Leave Bud alone, and soon or late he would have gone--perhaps with compunctions against leaving home, and the feeling that he was somehow a disappointment to his parents. He would have explained to his father, apologized to his mother. As it was, he resented the alacrity with which his father was pushing him out.

So he packed his clothes that night, and pushed his guitar into its case and buckled the strap with a vicious yank, and went off to the bunkhouse to eat supper with the boys instead of sitting down to the table where his mother had placed certain dishes which Buddy loved best--wanting to show in true woman fashion her love and sympathy for him.

Later--it was after Bud had gone to bed--mother came and had a long talk with him. She was very sweet and sensible, and Bud was very tender with her. But she could not budge him from his determination to go and make his way without a Birnie dollar to ease the beginning. Other men had started with nothing and had made a stake, and there was no reason why he could not do so.

"Dad put it straight enough, and it's no good arguing. I'd starve before I'd take anything from him. I'm entitled to my clothes, and maybe a horse or two for the work I've done for him while I was growing up. I've figured out pretty close what it cost to put me through the University, and what I was worth to him during the summers. Father's Scotch--but he isn't a darned bit more Scotch than I am, mother. Putting it all in dollars and cents, I think I've earned more than I cost him. In the winters, I know I earned my board doing chores and riding line. Many a little bunch of stock I've saved for him by getting out in the foothills and driving them down below heavy snowline before a storm. You remember the bunch of horses I found by watching the magpies--the time we tied hay in canvas and took it up to them 'til they got strength enough to follow the trail I trampled in the snow? I earned my board and more, every winter since I was ten. So I don't believe I owe dad a cent, when it's all figured out.

"But you've done for me what money can't repay, mother. I'll always be in debt to you--and I'll square it by being the kind of a man you've tried to teach me to be. I will, mother. Dad and the dollars are a different matter. The debt I owe you will never be paid, but I'm going to make you glad I know there's a debt. I believe there's a God, because I know there must have been one to make you! And no matter how far away I may drift in miles, your Buddy is going to be here with you always, mother, learning from you all there is of goodness and sweetness." He held her two hands against his face, and she felt his cheeks wet beneath her palms. Then he took them away and kissed them many times, like a lover.

"If I ever have a wife, she's going to have her work cut out for her," He laughed unsteadily. "She'll have to live up to you, mother, if she wants me to love her."

"If you have a wife she'll be well-spoiled, young man! Perhaps it is wise that you should go--but don't you forget your music, Buddy--and be a good boy, and remember, mother's going to follow you with her love and her faith in you, and her prayers."

It may have been that Buddy's baby memory of going north whenever the trail herd started remained to send Bud instinctively northward when he left the Tomahawk next morning. It had been a case of stubborn father and stubborn son dickering politely over the net earnings of the son from the time when he was old enough to leave his mother's lap and climb into a saddle to ride with his father. Three horses and his personal belongings had been agreed upon between them as the balance in Bud's favor; and at that, Bob Birnie dryly remarked, he had been a better investment as a son than most young fellows, who cost more than they were worth to raise.

Bud did not answer the implied praise, but roped the Tomahawk's best three horses out of the REMUDA corralled for him by his father's riders. You should have seen the sidelong glances among the boys when they learned that Bud, just home from the University, was going somewhere with all his earthly possessions and a look in his face that meant trouble!

Two big valises and his blankets he packed on Sunfish, a deceptively raw-boned young buckskin with much white showing in his eyes--an ornery looking brute if ever there was one. Bud's guitar and a mandolin in their cases he tied securely on top of the pack. Smoky, the second horse, a deep-chested "mouse" with a face almost human in its expression, he saddled, and put a lead rope on the third, a bay four-year- old called Stopper, which was the Tomahawk's best rope-horse and one that would be missed when fast work was wanted in branding.

"He sure as hell picked himself three top hawses," a tall puncher murmured to another. "Wonder where he's headed for? Not repping--this late in the season."

Bud overheard them, and gave no sign. Had they asked him directly he could not have told them, for he did not know, except that somehow he felt that he was going to head north. Why north, he could not have explained, since cow-country lay all around him; nor how far north,--for cow-country extended to the upper boundary of the States, and beyond into Canada.

He left his horses standing by the corral while he went to the house to tell his mother good-by, and to send a farewell message to Dulcie, who had been married a year and lived in Laramie. He did not expect to strike Laramie, he told his mother when she asked him.

"I'm going till I stop," He explained, with a squeeze of her shoulders to reassure her. "I guess it's the way you felt, mother, when you left Texas behind. You couldn't tell where you folks would wind up. Neither can I. My trail herd is kinda small, right now; a lot smaller than it will be later on. But such as it is, it's going to hit the right range before it stops for good. And I'll write."

He took a doughnut in his hand and a package of lunch to slip in his pocket, kissed her with much cheerfulness in his manner and hurried out, his big-rowelled spurs burring on the porch just twice before he stepped off on the gravel. Telling mother good-by had been the one ordeal he dreaded, and he was glad to have it over with.

Old Step-and-a-Half hailed him as he went past the chuck- house, and came limping out, wiping his hands on his apron before he shook hands and wished him good luck. Ezra, pottering around the tool shed, ambled up with the eyes of a dog that has been sent back home by his master. "Ah shoah do wish yo' all good fawtune an' health, Marse Buddy," Ezra quavered. "Ah shoah do. It ain' goin' seem lak de same place-- and Ah shoah do hopes yo' all writes frequent lettahs to yo' mothah, boy!"

Bud promised that he would, and managed to break away from Ezra without betraying himself. How, he wondered, did everyone seem to know that he was going for good, this time? He had believed that no one knew of it save himself, his father and his mother; yet everyone else behaved as if they never expected to see him again. It was disconcerting, and Bud hastily untied the two led horses and mounted Smoky, the mouse-colored horse he himself had broken two years before.

His father came slowly up to him, straight-backed and with the gait of the man who has ridden astride a horse more than he has walked on his own feet. He put up his hand, gloved for riding, and Bud changed the lead-ropes from his right hand to his left, and shook hands rather formally.

"Ye've good weather for travelling," said Bob Birnie tentatively. "I have not said it before, lad, but when ye own yourself a fool to take this way of making your fortune, ten thousand dollars will still be ready to start ye right. I've no wish to shirk a duty to my family."

Bud pressed his lips together while he listened. "If you keep your ten thousand till it's called for, you'll be drawing interest a long time on it," He said. "It's going to be hot to-day. I'll be getting along."

He lifted the reins, glanced back to see that the two horses were showing the proper disposition to follow, and rode off down the deep-rutted road that followed up the creek to the pass where he had watched the Utes dancing the war dance one night that he remembered well. If he winced a little at the familiar landmarks he passed, he still held fast to the determination to go, and to find fortune somewhere along the trail of his own making; and to ask help from no man, least of all his father who had told him to go.

CHAPTER SEVEN: BUD FLIPS A COIN WITH FATE

"I don't think it matters so much where we light, it's what we do when we get there," said Bud to Smoky, his horse, one day as they stopped where two roads forked at the base of a great, outstanding peak that was but the point of a mountain range. "This trail straddles the butte and takes on up two different valleys. It's all cow-country--so what do yuh say, Smoke? Which trail looks the best to you?"

Smoky flopped one ear forward and the other one back, and switched at a pestering fly. Behind him Sunfish and Stopper waited with the patience they had learned in three weeks of continuous travel over country that was rough in spots, barren in places, with wind and sun and occasional, sudden thunderstorms to punctuate the daily grind of travel.

Bud drew a half dollar from his pocket and regarded it meditatively. "They're going fast--we'll just naturally have to stop pretty soon, or we don't eat," He observed. "Smoke, you're a quitter. What you want to do is go back--but you won't get the chance. Heads, we take the right hand trail. I like it better, anyway--it angles more to the north."

Heads it was, and Bud leaned from the saddle and recovered the coin, Smoky turning his head to regard his rider tolerantly. "Right hand goes--and we camp at the first good water and grass. I can grain the three of you once more before we hit a town, and that goes for me, too. G'wan, Smoke, and don't act so mournful."

Smoky went on, following the trail that wound in and out around the butte, hugging close its sheer sides to avoid a fifty-foot drop into the creek below. It was new country--Bud had never so much as seen a map of it to give him a clue to what was coming. The last turn of the deep-rutted, sandy road where it left the river's bank and led straight between two humpy shoulders of rock to the foot of a platter-shaped valley brought him to a halt again in sheer astonishment.

From behind a low hill still farther to the right, where the road forked again, a bluish haze of smoke indicated that there was a town of some sort, perhaps. Farther up the valley a brownish cloud hung low-a roundup, Bud knew at a glance. He hesitated. The town, if it were a town, could wait; the roundup might not. And a job he must have soon, or go hungry. He turned and rode toward the dust-cloud, came shortly to a small stream and a green grass-plot, and stopped there long enough to throw the pack off Sunfish, unsaddle Smoky and stake them both out to graze. Stopper he saddled, then knelt and washed his face, beat the travel dust off his hat, untied his rope and coiled it carefully, untied his handkerchief and shook it as clean as he could and knotted it closely again. One might have thought he was preparing to meet a girl; but the habit of neatness dated back to his pink-apron days and beyond, the dirt and dust meant discomfort.

When he mounted Stopper and loped away toward the dust-cloud, he rode hopefully, sure of himself, carrying his range credentials in his eyes, in his perfect saddle-poise, in the tan on his face to his eyebrows, and the womanish softness of his gloved hands, which had all the sensitive flexibility of a musician.

His main hope was that the outfit was working short-handed; and when he rode near enough to distinguish the herd and the riders, he grinned his satisfaction.

"Good cow-country, by the look of that bunch of cattle," He observed to himself. "And eight men is a small crew to work a herd that size. I guess I'll tie onto this outfit. Stopper, you'll maybe get a chance to turn a cow this afternoon."

Just how soon the chance would come, Bud had not realized. He had no more than come within shouting distance of the herd when a big, rollicky steer broke from the milling cattle and headed straight out past him, running like a deer. Stopper, famed and named for his prowess with just such cattle, wheeled in his tracks and lengthened his stride to a run.

"Tie 'im down!" someone yelled behind Bud. And "Catch 'im and tie 'im down!" shouted another.

For answer Bud waved his hand, and reached in his pocket for his knife. Stopper was artfully circling the steer, forcing it back toward the herd, and in another hundred yards or so Bud must throw his loop He sliced off a saddle-string and took it between his teeth, jerked his rope loose, flipped open the loop as Stopper raced up alongside, dropped the noose neatly, and took his turns while Stopper planted his forefeet and braced himself for the shock. Bud's right leg was over the cantle, all his weight on the left stirrup when the jerk came and the steer fell with a thump. By good luck-- so Bud afterwards asserted--he was off and had the steer tied before it had recovered its breath to scramble up. He remounted, flipped off the loop and recoiled his rope while he went jogging up to meet a rider coming out to him.

If he expected thanks for what he had done, he must have received a shock. Other riders had left their posts and were edging up to hear what happened, and Bud reined up in astonishment before the most amazing string of unseemly epithets he had ever heard. It began with: "What'd you throw that critter for?"--which of course is putting it mildly--and ended in a choked phrase which one man may not use to another's face and expect anything but trouble afterwards.

Bud unbuckled his gun and hung the belt on his saddle horn, and dismounted. "Get off your horse and take the damnedest licking you ever had in your life, for that!" He invited vengefully. "You told me to tie down that steer, and I tied him down. You've got no call to complain--and there isn't a man on earth I'll take that kinda talk from. Crawl down, you parrot-faced cow-eater--and leave your gun on the saddle."

The man remained where he was and looked Bud over uncertainly. "Who are you, and where'd yuh come from?" he demanded more calmly. "I never saw yuh before."

"Well, I never grew up with your face before me, either!" Bud snapped. "If I had I'd probably be cross-eyed by now. You called me something! Get off that horse or I'll pull you off!"

"Aw, yuh don't want to mind--" began a tall, lean man pacifically; but he of the high nose stopped him with a wave of the hand, his eyes still measuring the face, the form and the fighting spirit of one Bud Birnie, standing with his coat off, quivering with rage.

"I guess I'm in the wrong, young fellow--I DID holler 'Tie 'im down.' But if you'd ever been around this outfit any you 'd have known I didn't mean it literal." He stopped and suddenly he laughed. "I've been yellin' 'Tie 'im down' for two years and more, when a critter breaks outa the bunch, and nobody was ever fool enough to tackle it before. "It's just a sayin' we've got, young man. We--"

"What about the name you called me?" Bud was still advancing slowly, not much appeased by the explanation. "I don't give a darn about the steer. You said tie him, and he's tied. But when you call me--"

"My mistake, young feller. When I get riled up I don't pick my words." He eyed Bud sharply. "You're mighty quick to obey orders," He added tentatively.

"I was brought up to do as I'm told, "Bud retorted stiffly. "Any objections to make?"

"Not one in the world. Wish there was more like yuh. You ain't been in these parts long?"His tone made a question of the statement.

"Not right here." Bud had no reason save his temper for not giving more explicit information, but Bart Nelson--as Bud knew him afterwards--continued to study him as if he suspected a blotched past.

"Hunh. That your horse?"

"I've got a bill of sale for him."

"You don't happen to be wanting a job, I s'pose?"

"I wouldn't refuse to take one." And then the twinkle came back to Bud's eyes, because all at once the whole incident struck him as being rather funny. "I'd want a boss that expected to have his orders carried out, though. I lack imagination, and I never did try to read a man's mind. What he says he'd better mean--when he says it to me."

Bart Nelson gave a short laugh, turned and sent his riders back to their work with oaths tingling their ears. Bud judged that cursing was his natural form of speech.

"Go let up that steer, and I'll put you to work," he said to Bud afterwards. "That's a good rope horse you're riding. If you want to use him, and if you can hold up to that little sample of roping yuh gave us, I'll pay yuh sixty a month. And that's partly for doing what you're told," he added with a quick look into Bud's eyes. "You didn't say where you're from----"

"I was born and raised in cow-country, and nobody's looking for me," Bud informed him over his shoulder while he remounted, and let it go at that. From southern Wyoming to Idaho was too far, he reasoned, to make it worth while stating his exact place of residence. If they had never heard of the Tomahawk outfit it would do no good to name it. If they had heard of it, they would wonder why the son of so rich a cowman as Bob Birnie should be hiring out as a common cowpuncher so far from home. He had studied the matter on his way north, and had decided to let people form their own conclusions. If he could not make good without the name of Bob Birnie behind him, the sooner he found it out the better.

He untied the steer, drove it back into the herd and rode over to where the high-nosed man was helping hold the "Cut."

"Can you read brands? We're cuttin' out AJ and AJBar stuff; left ear-crop on the AJ, and undercut on the AJBar."

Bud nodded and eased into the herd, spied an AJ two-year-old and urged it toward the outer edge, smiling to himself when he saw how Stopper kept his nose close to the animal's rump. Once in the milling fringe of the herd, Stopper nipped it into the open, rushed it to the cut herd, wheeled and went back of his own accord. From the corner of his eye, as he went, Bud saw that Bart Nelson and one or two others were watching him. They continued to eye him covertly while he worked the herd with two other men. He was glad that he had not travelled far that day, and that he had ridden Smoky and left Stopper fresh and eager for his favorite pastime, which was making cattle do what they particularly did not want to do. In that he was adept, and it pleased Bud mightily to see how much attention Stopper was attracting.

Not once did it occur to him that it might be himself who occupied the thoughts of his boss. Buddy--afterwards Bud--had lived his whole life among friends, his only enemies the Indians who preyed upon the cowmen. White men he had never learned to distrust, and to be distrusted had never been his portion. He had always been Bud Birnie, son and heir of Bob Birnie, as clean-handed a cattle king as ever recorded a brand. Even at the University his position had been accepted without question. That the man he mentally called Parrotface was puzzled and even worried about him was the last thing he would think of.

But it was true. Bart Nelson watched Bud, that afternoon. A man might ride up to Bart and assert that he was an old hand with cattle, and Bart would say nothing, but set him to work, as he had Bud. Then he would know just how old a "Hand" the fellow was. Fifteen minutes convinced him that Bud had "growed up in the saddle", as he would have put it. But that only mystified him the more. Bart knew the range, and he knew every man in the country, from Burroback Valley, which was this great valley's name, to the Black Rim, beyond the mountain range, and beyond the Black Rim to the Sawtooth country. He knew their ways and he knew their past records.

He knew that this young fellow came from farther ranges, and he would have been at a loss to explain just how he knew it. He would have said that Bud did not have the "earmarks" of an Idaho rider. Furthermore, the small Tomahawk brand on the left flank of the horse Bud rode was totally unknown to Bart. Yet the horse did not bear the marks of long riding. Bud himself looked as if he had just ridden out from some nearby ranch--and he had refused to say where he was from.

Bart swore under his breath and beckoned to him a droopy- mustached, droopy-shouldered rider who was circling the herd in a droopy, spiritless manner and chewing tobacco with much industry.

"Dirk, you know brands from the Panhandle to Cypress Hills. What d' yuh make of that horse? Where does he come from?" Bart stopped abruptly and rode forward then to receive and drive farther back a galloping AJBar cow which Bud and Stopper had just hazed out of the herd. Dirk squinted at Stopper's brand which showed cleanly in the glossy, new hair of early summer. He spat carefully with the wind and swung over to meet his boss when the cow was safely in the cut herd.

"New one on me, Bart. They's a hatchet brand over close to Jackson's Hole, somewhere. Where'd the kid say he was from?"

"He wouldn't say, but he's a sure-enough cowhand."

"That there horse ain't been rode down on no long journey," Dirk volunteered after further scrutiny. And he added with the unconscious impertinence of an old and trusted employee, "Yuh goin' to put him on?"

"Already done it--sixty a month," Bart confided. "That'll bring out what's in him; he's liable to turn out good for the outfit. Showed he'll do what he's told first, and think it over afterwards. I like that there trait in a man."

Dirk pulled his droopy mustache away from his lips as if he wanted to make sure that his smile would show; though it was not a pretty smile, on account of his tobacco-stained teeth.

"'S your fun'ral, Bart. I'd say he's from Jackson's Hole, on a rough guess--but I wouldn't presume to guess what he's here fur. Mebby he come across from Black Rim. I can find out, if you say so."

Bud was weaving in and out through the herd, scanning the animals closely. While the two talked he singled out a yearling heifer, let Stopper nose it out beyond the bunch and drove it close to the boss.

"Better look that one over," He called out. "One way, it looks like AJ, and another way I couldn't name it. And the ear looks as if about half of it had been frozen off. Didn't want to run it into the cut until you passed on it."

Bart looked first at Bud, and he looked hard. Then he rode over and inspected the yearling, Dirk close at his heels.

"Throw 'er back with the bunch," He ordered.

"That finishes the cut, then," Bud announced, rubbing his hand along Stopper's sweaty neck. "I kept passing this critter up, and I guess the other boys did the same. But it's the last one, and I thought I'd run her out for you to look over."

Bart grunted. "Dirk, you take a look and see if they've got 'em all. And you, Kid, can help haze the cut up the Flat--the boys'll show you what to do."

Bud, remembering Smoky and Sunfish and his camp, hesitated. "I've got a camp down here by the creek," He said. "If it's all the same to you, I'll report for work in the morning, if you'll tell me where to head for. And I'll have to arrange somehow to pasture my horses; I've got a couple more at camp."

Bart studied him for a minute, and Bud thought he was going to change his mind about the job, or the sixty dollars a month. But Bart merely told him to ride on up the Flat next morning, and take the first trail that turned to the left. "The Muleshoe ranch is up there agin that pine mountain," he explained. "Bring along your outfit. I guess we can take care of a couple of horses, all right."

That suited Bud very well, and he rode away thinking how lucky he was to have taken the right fork in the road, that day. He had ridden straight into a job, and while he was not very enthusiastic over the boss, the other boys seemed all right, and the wages were a third more than he had expected to get just at first. It was the first time, he reminded himself, that he had been really tempted to locate, and he certainly had struck it lucky.

He did not know that when he left the roundup his going had been carefully noted, and that he was no sooner out of sight than Dirk Tracy was riding cautiously on his trail. While he fed his horses the last bit of grain he had, and cooked his supper over what promised to be his last camp-fire, he did not dream that the man with the droopy mustache was lying amongst the bushes on the other bank of the creek, watching every move he made.

He meant to be up before daylight so that he could strike the ranch of the Muleshoe outfit in time for breakfast, wherefore he went to bed before the afterglow had left the mountain- tops around him. And being young and carefree and healthfully weary, he was asleep and snoring gently within five minutes of his last wriggle into his blankets. But Dirk Tracy watched him for fully two hours before he decided that the kid was not artfully pretending, but was really asleep and likely to remain so for the night

Dirk was an extremely cautious man, but he was also tired, and the cold food he had eaten in place of a hot supper had not been satisfying to his stomach. He crawled carefully out of the brush, stole up the creek to where he had left his horse, and rode away.

He was not altogether sure that he had done his full duty to the Muleshoe, but it was against human nature for a man nearing forty to lie uncovered in the brush, and let a numerous family of mosquitoes feed upon him while he listened to a young man snoring comfortably in a good camp bed a hundred feet away.

Dirk, because his conscience was not quite clear, slept in the stable that night and told his boss a lie next morning.

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE MULESHOE

The riders of the Muleshoe outfit were eating breakfast when Bud rode past the long, low-roofed log cabin to the corral which stood nearest the clutter of stables and sheds. He stopped there and waited to see if his new boss was anywhere in sight and would come to tell him where to unpack his belongings. A sandy complexioned young man with red eyelids and no lashes presently emerged from the stable and came toward him, his mouth sagging loosely open, his eye; vacuous. He was clad in faded overalls turned up a foot at the bottom and showing frayed, shoddy trousers beneath and rusty, run- down shoes that proved he was not a rider. His hat was peppered with little holes, as if someone had fired a charge of birdshot at him and had all but bagged him.

The youth's eyes became fixed upon the guitar and mandolin cases roped on top of Sunfish's pack, and he pointed and gobbled something which had the sound speech without being intelligible. Bud cocked an ear toward him inquiringly, made nothing of the jumble and rode off to the cabin, leading Sunfish after him. The fellow might or might not be the idiot he looked, and he might or might not keep his hands off the pack. Bud was not going to take any chance.

He heard sounds within the cabin, but no one appeared until he shouted, "Hello!" twice. The door opened then and Bart Nelson put out his head, his jaws working over a mouthful of food that seemed tough.

"Oh, it's you. C'm awn in an' eat," he invited, and Bud dismounted, never guessing that his slightest motion had been carefully observed from the time he had forded the creek at the foot of the slope beyond the cabin.

Bart introduced him to the men by the simple method of waving his hand at the group around the table and saying, "Guess you know the boys. What'd yuh say we could call yuh?"

"Bud--ah--Birnie," Bud answered, swiftly weighing the romantic idea of using some makeshift name until he had made his fortune, and deciding against it. A false name might mean future embarrassment, and he was so far from home that his father would never hear of him anyway. But his hesitation served to convince every man there that Birnie was not his name, and that he probably had good cause for concealing his own. Adding that to Dirk Tracy's guess that he was from Jackson's Hole, the sum spelled outlaw.

The Muleshoe boys were careful not to seem curious about Bud's past. They even refrained from manifesting too much interest in the musical instruments until Bud himself took them out of their cases that evening and began tuning them. Then the half-baked, tongue-tied fellow came over and gobbled at him eagerly.

"Hen wants yuh to play something," a man they called Day interpreted. "Hen's loco on music. If you can sing and play both, Hen'll set and listen till plumb daylight and never move an eyewinker."

Bud looked up, smiled a little because Hen had no eyewinkers to move, and suddenly felt pity because a man could be so altogether unlikeable as Hen. Also because his mother's face stood vividly before him for an instant, leaving him with a queer tightening of the throat and the feeling that he had been rebuked. He nodded to Hen, laid down the mandolin and picked up the guitar, turned up the a string a bit, laid a booted and spurred foot across the other knee, plucked a minor chord sonorously and began abruptly:

"Yo' kin talk about you coons a-havin' trouble-- Well, Ah think Ah have enough-a of mah oh-own--"

Hen's high-pointed Adam's apple slipped up and down in one great gulp of ecstasy. He eased slowly down upon the edge of the bunk beside Bud and gazed at him fascinatedly, his lashless eyes never winking, his jaw dropped so that his mouth hung half open. Day nudged Dirk Tracy, who parted his droopy mustache and smiled his unlovely smile, lowering his left eyelid unnecessarily at Bud. The dimple in Bud's chin wrinkled as he bent his head and plunked the interlude with a swing that set spurred boots tapping the floor rhythmically.

"Bart, he's went and hired a show-actor, looks like." Dirk confided behind his hand to Shorty McGuire. "That's real singin', if yuh ask me!"

"Shut up!" grunted Shorty, and prodded Dirk into silence so that he would miss none of the song.

Since Buddy had left the pink-apron stage of his adventurous life behind him, singing songs to please other people had been as much a part of his life as riding and roping and eating and sleeping. He had always sung or played or danced when he was asked to do so--accepting without question his mother's doctrine that it was unkind and ill-bred to refuse when he really could do those things well, because on the cattle ranges indoor amusements were few, and those who could furnish real entertainment were fewer. Even at the University, coon songs and Irish songs and love songs had been his portion; wherefore his repertoire seemed endless, and if folks insisted upon it he could sing from dark to dawn, providing his voice held out.

Hen sat with his big-jointed hands hanging loosely over his knees and listened, stared at Bud and grinned vacuously when one song was done, gulped his Adam's apple and listened again as raptly to the next one. The others forgot all about having fun watching Hen, and named old favorites and new ones, heard them sung inimitably and called for more. At midnight Bud blew on his blistered fingertips and shook the guitar gently, bottom-side up.

"I guess that's all the music there is in the darned thing to-night," he lamented. "She's made to keep time, and she always strikes, along about midnight."

"Huh-huh!" chortled Hen convulsively, as if he understood the joke. He closed his mouth and sighed deeply, as one who has just wakened from a trance.

After that, Hen followed Bud around like a pet dog, and found time between stable chores to groom those astonished horses, Stopper and Smoky and Sunfish, as if they were stall-kept thoroughbreds. He had them coming up to the pasture gate every day for the few handfuls of grain he purloined for them, and their sleekness was a joy to behold.

"Hen, he's adopted yuh, horses and all, looks like," Dirk observed one day to Bud when they were riding together. And he tempered the statement by adding that Hen was trusty enough, even if he didn't have as much sense as the law allows. "He sure is takin' care of them cayuses of your'n. D'you tell him to?"

Bud came out of a homesick revery and looked at him inquiringly. "No, I didn't tell him anything."

"I believe that, all right," Dirk retorted. "You don't go around tellin' all yuh know. I like that in a feller. A man never got into trouble yet by keepin' his mouth shut; but there's plenty that have talked themselves into the pen. Me, I've got no use for a talker."

Bud sent him a sidelong glance of inquiry, and Dirk caught him at it and grinned.

"Yuh been here a month, and you ain't said a damn word about where you come from or anything further back than throwin' and tyin' that critter. You said cow-country, and that has had to do some folks that might be curious. Well, she's a tearin' big place--cow-country. She runs from Canady to Mexico, and from the corn belt to the Pacific Ocean, mighty near takes in Jackson's Hole, and a lot uh country I know." He parted his mustache and spat carefully into the sand. "I'm willin' to tie to a man, specially a young feller, that can play the game the way you been playin' it, Bud. Most always," he complained vaguely, "they carry their brand too damn main. They either pull their hats down past their eyebrows and give everybody the bad eye, or else they're too damn ready to lie about themselves. You throw in with the boys just fine--but you ain't told a one of 'em where you come from, ner why, ner nothin'."

"I'm here because I'm here," Bud chanted softly, his eyes stubborn even while he smiled at Dirk.

"I know--yuh sung that the first night yuh come, and yuh looked straight at the boss all the while you was singin' it," Dirk interrupted, and laughed slyly. "The boys, they took that all in, too. And Bart, he wasn't asleep, neither. You sure are smooth as they make 'em, Bud. I guess," he leaned closer to predict confidentially, "you've just about passed the probation time, young feller. If I know the signs, the boss is gittin' ready to raise yuh."

He looked at Bud rather sharply. Instantly the training of Buddy rose within Bud. His memory flashed back unerringly to the day when he had watched that Indian gallop toward the river, and had sneered because the Indian evidently expected him to follow into the undergrowth.

Dirk Tracy did not in the least resemble an Indian, nor did his rambling flattery bear any likeness to a fleeing enemy; yet it was plain enough that he was trying in a bungling way to force Bud's confidence, and for that reason Bud stared straight ahead and said nothing.

He did not remember having sung that particular ditty during his first evening at the Muleshoe, nor of staring at the boss while he sung. He might have done both, he reflected; he had sung one song after another for about four hours that night, and unless he sang with his eyes shut he would have to look somewhere. That it should be taken by the whole outfit as a broad hint to ask no questions seemed to him rather farfetched.

"Ezra!" cried mother fiercely. "It's Frank Davis--they've got him down, somehow. Climb over the backs of the cattle--There's no other way--and GET HIM!"

"Yas'm, Missy!" Ezra called back, and then Buddy saw him go over the herd, scrambling, jumping from back to back.

Buddy remembered that always, and the funeral they had later in the day, when the herd was again just trail-weary cattle feeding hungrily on the scanty grass. Down at the edge of the creek the carcasses of many dead animals lay half-buried in the mud. Up on a little knoll where a few stunted trees grew, the negroes dug a long, deep hole. Mother's eyes were often filled with tears that day, and the cowboys scarcely talked at all when they gathered at the chuckwagon.

After a while they all went to the hole which the negroes had dug, and there was a long Something wrapped up in canvas. Mother wore her best dress which was black, and father and all the boys had shaved their faces and looked very sober. The negroes stood back in a group by themselves, and every few minutes Buddy saw them draw their tattered shirtsleeves across their faces. And father--Buddy looked once and saw two tears running down father's cheeks. Buddy was shocked into a stony calm. He had never dreamed that fathers ever cried.

Mother read out of her Bible, and all the boys held their hats in front of them, with their hands clasped, and looked at the ground while she read. Then mother sang. She sang, "We shall meet beyond the river", which Buddy thought was a very queer song, because they were all there but Frank Davis; then she sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Buddy sang too, piping the notes accurately, with a vague pronunciation of the words and a feeling that somehow he was helping mother.

After that they put the long, canvas-wrapped Something down in the hole, and mother said "Our Father Who Art in Heaven ", with Buddy repeating it uncertainly after her and pausing to say "TRETHpatheth" very carefully. Then mother picked up Dulcie in her arms, took Buddy by the hand and walked slowly back to the wagon, and would not let him turn to see what the boys were doing.

It was from that day that Buddy missed Frank Davis, who had mysteriously gone to Heaven, according to mother. Buddy's interest in Heaven was extremely keen for a time, and he asked questions which not even mother could answer. Then his memory of Frank Davis blurred. But never his memory of that terrible time when the Tomahawk outfit lost five hundred cattle in the dry drive and the stampede for water.

CHAPTER THREE: SOME INDIAN LORE

Buddy knew Indians as he knew cattle, horses, rattlesnakes and storms--by having them mixed in with his everyday life. He couldn't tell you where or when he had learned that Indians are tricky. Perhaps his first ideas on that subject were gleaned from the friendly tribes who lived along the Chisolm Trail and used to visit the chuck-wagon, their blankets held close around them and their eyes glancing everywhere while they grinned and talked and pointed--and ate. Buddy used to sit in the chuck-wagon, out of harm's way, and watch them eat.

Step-and-a-Half had a way of entertaining Indians which never failed to interest Buddy, however often he witnessed it. When Step-and-a-Half glimpsed Indians coming afar off, he would take his dishpan and dump into it whatever scraps of food were left over from the preceding meal. He used to say that Indians could smell grub as far as a buzzard can smell a dead carcase, and Buddy believed it, for they always arrived at meal time or shortly afterwards. Step-and-a-Half would make a stew, if there were scraps enough. If the gleanings were small, he would use the dishwater--he was a frugal man--and with that for the start-off he would make soup, which the Indians gulped down with great relish and many gurgly sounds.

Buddy watched them eat what he called pig-dinner. When Step- and-a-Half was not looking he saw them steal whatever their dirty brown hands could readily snatch and hide under their blankets. So he knew from very early experience that Indians were not to be trusted.

Once, when he had again strayed too far from camp, some Indians riding that way saw him, and one leaned and lifted him from the ground and rode off with him. Buddy did not struggle much. He saved his breath for the long, shrill yell of cow-country. Twice he yodled before the Indian clapped a hand over his mouth.

Father and some of the cowboys heard and came after, riding hard and shooting as they came. Buddy's pink apron fluttered a signal flag in the arms of his captor, and so it happened that the bullets whistled close to that particular Indian. He gathered a handful of calico between Buddy's shoulders, held him aloft like a puppy, leaned far over and deposited him on the ground.

Buddy rolled over twice and got up, a little dizzy and very indignant, and shouted to father, "Shoot a sunsyguns!"

From that time Buddy added hatred to his distrust of Indians.

From the time when he was four until he was thirteen Buddy's life contained enough thrills to keep a movie-mad boy of to- day sitting on the edge of his seat gasping enviously through many a reel, but to Buddy it was all rather humdrum and monotonous.

What he wanted to do was to get out and hunt buffalo. Just herding horses, and watching out for Indians, and killing rattlesnakes was what any boy in the country would be doing. Still, Buddy himself achieved now and then a thrill.

There was one day, when he stood heedlessly on a ridge looking for a dozen head of lost horses in the draws below. It was all very well to explain missing horses by the conjecture that the Injuns must have got them, but Buddy happened to miss old Rattler with the others. Rattler had come north with the trail herd, and he was wise beyond the wisdom of most horses. He would drive cattle out of the brush without a rider to guide him, if only you put a saddle on him. He had helped Buddy to mount his back--when Buddy was much smaller than now--by lowering his head until Buddy straddled it, and then lifting it so that Buddy slid down his neck and over his withers to his back. Even now Buddy sometimes mounted that way when no one was looking. Many other lovable traits had Rattler, and to lose him would be a tragedy to the family.

So Buddy was on the ridge, scanning all the deep little washes and draws, when a bullet PING-G-GED over his head. Buddy caught the bridle reins and pulled his horse into the shelter of rocks, untied his rifle from the saddle and crept back to reconnoitre. It was the first time he had ever been shot at--except in the army posts, when the Indians had "broken out",--and the aim then was generally directed toward his vicinity rather than his person.

An Indian on a horse presently appeared cautiously from cover, and Buddy, trembling with excitement, shot wild; but not so wild that the Indian could afford to scoff and ride closer. After another ineffectual shot at Buddy, he whipped his horse down the ridge, and made for Bannock creek.

Buddy at thirteen knew more of the wiles of Indians than does the hardiest Indian fighter on the screen to-day. Father had warned him never to chase an Indian into cover, where others would probably be waiting for him. So he stayed where he was, pretty well hidden in the rocks, and let the bullets he himself had "run" in father's bullet-mold follow the enemy to the fringe of bushes. His last shot knocked the Indian off his horse--or so it looked to Buddy. He waited for a long time, watching the brush and thinking what a fool that Indian was to imagine Buddy would follow him down there. After a while he saw the Indian's horse climbing the slope across the creek. There was no rider.

Buddy rode home without the missing horses, and did not tell anyone about the Indian, though his thoughts would not leave the subject.

He wondered what mother would think of it. Mother's interests seemed mostly confined to teaching Buddy and Dulcie what they were deprived of learning in schools, and to play the piano-- a wonderful old square piano that had come all the way from Scotland to the Tomahawk ranch, the very frontier of the West.

Mother was a wonderful woman, with a soft voice and a slight Scotch accent, and wit; and a knowledge of things which were little known in the wilderness. Buddy never dreamed then how strangely culture was mixed with pure savagery in his life. To him the secret regret that he had not dared ride into the bushes to scalp the Indian he believed he had shot, and the fact that his hands were straining at the full chords of the ANVIL CHORUS on that very evening, was not even to be considered unusual. Still, certain strains of that classic were always afterward associated in his mind with the shooting of the Indian--if he had really shot him.

While he counted the time with a conscientious regard for the rests, he debated the wisdom of telling mother, and decided that perhaps he had better keep that matter to himself, like a man.

CHAPTER FOUR: BUDDY GIVES WARNING

Buddy swung down from his horse, unsaddled it and went staggering to the stable wall with the burden of a stock- saddle much too big for him. He had to stand on his boot-toes to reach and pull the bridle down over the ears of Whitefoot, which turned with an air of immense relief into the corral gate and the hay piled at the further end. Buddy gave him one preoccupied glance and started for the cabin, walking with the cowpuncher's peculiar, bowlegged gait which comes of wearing chaps and throwing out the knees to overcome the stiffness of the leather. At thirteen Buddy was a cowboy from hat-crown to spurs-and at thirteen Buddy gloried in the fact. To-day, however, his mind was weighted with matters of more importance than himself.

"The Utes are having a war-dance, mother," he announced when he had closed the stout door of the kitchen behind him. "They mean it this time. I lay in the brush and watched them last night." He stood looking at his mother speculatively, a little grin on his face. "I told you, you can't change an Injun by learning him to eat with a knife and fork," he added. "Colorou ain't any whiter than he was before you set out to learn him manners. He was hoppin' higher than any of 'em."

"Teach, Buddy, not learn. You know better than to say 'learn him manners.'"

"Teach him manners," Buddy corrected himself obediently. "I was thinking more about what I saw than about grammar. Where's father? I guess I'd better tell him. He'll want to get the stock out of the mountains, I should think."

"Colorou will send me word before they take the warpath," mother observed reassuringly. "He always has. I gave him a whole pound of tea and a blue ribbon the last time he was here,"

"Yes, and the last time they broke out they got away with more 'n a hundred head of cattle. You got to Laramie, all right, but he didn't tell father in time to make a roundup back in the foothills. They're DANCING, mother!"

"Well, I suppose We're due for an outbreak," sighed mother. "Colorou says he can't hold his young men off when some of the tribe have been killed. He himself doesn't countenance the stealing and the occasional killing of white men. There are bad Indians and good ones."

"I know a couple of good ones," Buddy murmured as he made for the wash basin. "It's the bad ones that were doing the dancing, mother," he flung over his shoulder. "And if I was you I'd take Dulcie and the cats and hit for Laramie. Colorou might get busy and forget to send word!"

"If I WAS you?" Mother came up and nipped his ear between thumb and finger. "Robert, I am discouraged over you. All that I teach you in the winter seems to evaporate from your mind during the summer when you go out riding with the boys."

Buddy wiped his face with an up-and-down motion on the roller towel and clanked across to the cupboard which he opened investigatively. "Any pie?" he questioned as he peered into the corners. "Say, if I had the handling of those Utes, mother, I'd fix 'em so they wouldn't be breaking out every few months and making folks leave their homes to be pawed over and burnt, maybe." He found a jar of fresh doughnuts and took three.

"They'll tromp around on your flower-beds--it just makes me SICK when I think how they'll muss things up around here! I wish now," He blurted unthinkingly, "that I hadn't killed the Injun that stole Rattler."

"Buddy! Not YOU." His mother made a swift little run across the kitchen and caught him on his lean, hard-muscled young shoulders. "You--you baby! What did you do? You didn't harm an Indian, did you, laddie?"

Buddy tilted his head downward so that she could not look into his eyes. "I dunno as I harmed him--much," he said, wiping doughnut crumbs from his mouth with one hasty sweep of his forearm. "But his horse came outa the brush, and he never. I guess I killed him, all right. Anyway, mother, I had to. He took a shot at me first. It was the day we lost Rattler and the bronks," He added accurately.

Mother did not say anything for a minute, and Buddy hung his head lower, dreading to see the hurt look which he felt was in her eyes.

"I have to pack a gun when I ride anywhere," he reminded her defensively. "It ain't to balance me on the horse, either. If Injuns take in after me, the gun's so I can shoot. And a feller don't shoot up in the air--and if an Injun is hunting trouble he oughta expect that maybe he might get shot sometime. You--you wouldn't want me to just run and let them catch me, would you?"

Mother's hand slipped up to his head and pressed it against her breast so that Buddy heard her heart beating steady and sweet and true. Mother wasn't afraid--never, never!

"I know--it's the dreadful necessity of defending our lives. But you're so young--just mother's baby man!

Buddy looked up at her then, a laugh twinkling in his eyes. After all, mother understood.

"I'm going to be your baby man always if you want me to, mother," He whispered, closing his arms around her neck in a sturdy hug. "But I'm father's horse-wrangler, too. And a horse-wrangler has got to hold up his end. I--I didn't want to kill anybody, honest. But Injuns are different. You kill rattlers, and they ain't as mean as Injuns. That one I shot at was shooting at me before I even so much as knew there was one around. I just shot back. Father would, or anybody else."

"I know--I know," she conceded, the tender womanliness of her sighing over the need. In the next moment she was all mother, ready to fight for her young. "Buddy, never, never ride ANYWHERE without your rifle! And a revolver, too--be sure that it is in perfect condition. And--have you a knife? You're so LITTLE!" she wailed. "But father will need you, and he'll take care of you--and Colorou would not let you be hurt if he knew. But--Buddy, you must be careful, and always watching--never let them catch you off your guard. I shall be in Laramie before you and father and the boys, I suppose, if the Indians really do break out. And you must promise me--"

"I'll promise, mother. And don't you go and trust old Colorou an inch. He was jumping higher than any of 'em, and shaking his tomahawk and yelling--he'd have scalped me right there if he'd seen me watching 'em. Mother, I'm going to find father and tell him. And you may as well be packing up, and--don't leave my guitar for them to smash, will you, mother?"

His mother laughed then and pushed him toward the door. She had an idea of her own and she did not want to be hindered now in putting it into action. Up the creek, in the bank behind a clump of willows, was a small cave--or a large niche, one might call it--where many household treasures might be safely hidden, if one went carefully, wading in the creek to hide the tracks. She followed Buddy out, and called to Ezra who was chopping wood with a grunt for every fall of the axe and many rest--periods in the shade of the cottonwood tree.

At the stable, Buddy looked back and saw her talking earnestly to Ezra, who stood nodding his head in complete approval. Buddy's knowledge of women began and ended with his mother. Therefore, to him all women were wonderful creatures whom men worshipped ardently because they were created for the adoration of lesser souls. Buddy did not know what his mother was going to do, but he was sure that whatever she did would be right; so he hoisted his saddle on the handiest fresh horse, and loped off to drive in the remuda, feeling certain that his father would move swiftly to save his cattle that ranged back in the foothills, and that the saddle horses would be wanted at a moment's notice.

Also, he reasoned, the range horses (mares and colts and the unbroken geldings) would not be left to the mercy of the Indians. He did not quite know how his father would manage it, but he decided that he would corral the REMUDA first, and then drive in the other horses, that fed scattered in undisturbed possession of a favorite grassy creek-bottom farther up the Platte.

The saddle horses, accustomed to Buddy's driving, were easily corralled. The other horses were fat and "sassy" and resented his coming among them with the shrill whoop of authority. They gave him a hot hour's riding before they finally bunched and went tearing down the river bottom toward the ranch. Even so, Buddy left two of the wildest careening up a narrow gulch. He had not attempted to ride after them; not because he was afraid of Indians, for he was not. The war-dance held every young buck and every old one in camp beyond the Pass. But the margin of safety might be narrow, and Buddy was taking no chances that day.

When he was convinced that it was impossible for one boy to be in half a dozen places at once, and that the cowboys would be needed to corral the range bunch, Buddy whooped them all down the creek below the home ranch and let them go just as his father came riding up to the corral.

"They're war-dancing, father," Buddy shouted eagerly, slipping off his horse and wiping away the trickles of perspiration with a handkerchief not much redder than his face. "I drove all the horses down, so they'd be handy. Them range horses are pretty wild. There was two I couldn't get. What'll I do now?"

Bob Birnie looked at his youngest rider and smoothed his beard with one hand. "You're an ambitious lad, Buddy. It's the Utes you're meaning--or is it the horses?"

Buddy lifted his head and stared at his father disapprovingly.

"Colorou is going to break out. I know. They've got their war paint all on and they're dancing. I saw them myself. I was going after the gloves Colorou s squaw was making for me,--but I didn't get 'em. I laid in the brush and watched 'em dance." He stopped and looked again doubtfully at his father. "I thought you might want to get the cattle outa the way, he added. "I thought I could save some time--"

"You're sure about the paint?"

"Yes, I'm sure. And Colorou was just a-going it with his war bonnet on and shaking his tomahawk and yelling--"

"Ye did well, lad. We'll be leaving for Big Creek to-night, so run away now and rest yourself."

"Oh, and can I go?" Buddy's voice was shrill with eagerness.

"I'll need you, lad, to look after the horses. It will give me one more hand with the cattle. Now go tell Step-and-a-Half to make ready for a week on the trail, and to have supper early so he can make his start with the rest."

Buddy walked stiffly away to the cook's cabin where Step-and- a-Half sat leisurely gouging the worst blemishes out of soft, old potatoes with a chronic tendency to grow sprouts, before he peeled them for supper His crippled leg was thrust out straight, his hat was perched precariously over one ear because of the slanting sun rays through the window, and a half-smoked cigarette waggled uncertainly in the corner of his mouth while he sang dolefully a most optimistic ditty of the West:

"O give me a home where the buff-alo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play, Where never is heard a discouraging word And the sky is not cloudy all day."

"You're going to hear a discouraging word right now," Buddy broke in ruthlessly upon the song. Whereupon, with a bit of importance in his voice and in his manner, he proceeded to spoil Step-and-a-Half's disposition and to deepen, if that were possible, his loathing of Indians. Too often had he made dubious soup of his dishwater and the leavings from a roundup crew's dinner, and watched blanketed bucks smack lips over the mess, to run from them now without feeling utterly disgusted with life. Step-and-a-Half's vituperations could be heard above the clatter of pots and pans as he made ready for the journey.

That night's ride up the pass through the narrow range of high-peaked hills to the Tomahawk's farthest range on Big Creek was a tedious affair to Buddy. A man had been sent on a fast horse to warn the nearest neighbor, who in turn would warn the next,--until no settler would be left in ignorance of his danger. Ezra was already on the trail to Laramie, with mother and Dulcie and the cats and a slat box full of chickens, and a young sow with little pigs.

Buddy, whose word no one had questioned, who might pardonably have considered himself a hero, was concerned chiefly with his mother's flower garden which he had helped to plant and had watered more or less faithfully with creek water carried in buckets. He was afraid the Indians would step on the poppies and the phlox, and trample down the four o'clocks which were just beginning to branch out and look nice and bushy, and to blossom. The scent of the four o'clocks had been in his nostrils when he came out at dusk with his fur overcoat which mother had told him must not be left behind. Buddy himself merely liked flowers: but mother talked to them and kissed them just for love, and pitied them if Buddy forgot and let them go thirsty. He would have stayed to fight for mother's flower garden, if it would have done any good.

He was thinking sleepily that next year he would plant flowers in boxes that could be carried to the cave if the Indians broke out again, when Tex Farley poked him in the ribs and told him to wake up or he'd fall off his horse. It was a weary climb to the top of the range that divided the valley of Big Creek from the North Platte, and a wearier climb down. Twice Buddy caught himself on the verge of toppling out of the saddle. For after all he was only a thirteen-year Old boy, growing like any other healthy young animal. He had been riding hard that day and half of the preceding night when he had raced back from the Reservation to give warning of the impending outbreak. He needed sleep, and nature was determined that he should have it.

CHAPTER FIVE: BUDDY RUNS TRUE TO TYPE

One never could predict with any certainty how long Indians would dance before they actually took the trail of murder and pillage. So much depended upon the Medicine, so much on signs and portents. It was even possible that they might, for some mysterious reason unknown to their white neighbors, decide at the last moment to bide their time. The Tomahawk outfit worked from dawn until dark, and combed the foothills of the Snowies hurriedly, riding into the most frequented, grassy basins and wide canyons where the grass was lush and sweet and the mountain streams rushed noisily over rocks. As fast as the cattle were gathered they were pushed hastily toward the Platte, And though the men rode warily with rifles as handy as their ropes, they rode in peace.

Buddy, proud of his job, counting himself as good a man as any of them, became a small riding demon after rebellious saddle horses, herding them away from thick undergrowth that might, for all he knew, hold Indians waiting a chance to scalp him, driving the REMUDA close to the cabins when night fell, because no man could be spared for night herding, sleeping lightly as a cat beside a mouse hole. He did not say much, perhaps because everyone was too busy to talk, himself included.

Men rode in at night dog-weary, pulled their saddles and hurried stiffly to the cabin where Step-and-a-Half was showing his true worth as a cook who could keep the coffee- pot boiling and yet be ready to pack up and go at the first rifle-shot. They would bolt down enormous quantities of bannock and boiled beef, swallow their coffee hot enough to scald a hog, and stretch themselves out immediately to sleep.

Buddy would be up and on his horse in the clear starlight before dawn, with a cup of coffee swallowed to hearten him for the chilly ride after the remuda. Even with the warmth of the coffee his teeth would chatter just at first, and he would ride with his thin shoulders lifted and a hand in a pocket. He could not sing or whistle to keep himself company. He must ride in silence until he had counted every dark, moving shape and knew that the herd was complete, then ease them quietly to camp.

On the fourth morning he rode anxiously up the valley, fearing that the horses had been stolen in the night, yet hoping they had merely strayed up the creek to find fresh pastures. A light breeze that carried the keen edge of frost made his nose tingle. His horse trotted steadily forward, as keen on the trail as Buddy himself; keener, for he would be sure to give warning of danger. So they rounded a bend in the creek and came upon the scattered fringe of the remuda cropping steadily at the meadow grass there.

Bud circled them, glancing now and then at the ridge beyond the valley. It seemed somehow unnatural--lower, with the stars showing along its wooded crest in a row, as if there were no peaks. Then quite suddenly he knew that the ridge was the same, and that the stars he saw were little, breakfast camp-fires. His heart gave a jump when he realized how many little fires there were, and knew that the dance was over. The Indians had left the reservation and had crossed the ridge yesterday, and had camped there to wait for the dawn.

While he gathered his horses together he guessed how old Colorou had planned to catch the Tomahawk riders when they left camp and scattered, two by two, on "Circle." He had held his band well out of sight and sound of the Big Creek cabin, and if the horses had not strayed up the creek in the night he would have caught the white men off their guard.

Buddy looked often over his shoulder while he drove the horses down the creek. It seemed stranger than luck, that he had been compelled to ride so far on this particular morning; as if mother's steadfast faith in prayer and the guardianship of angels was justified by actual facts. Still, Buddy was too hard-headed to assume easily that angels had driven the horses up the creek so that he would have to ride up there and discover the Indian fires. If angels could do that, why hadn't they stopped Colorou from going on the warpath? It would have been simpler, in Buddy's opinion.

He did not mention the angel problem to his father, however. Bob Birnie was eating breakfast with his men when Buddy rode up to the cabin and told the news. The boys did not say anything much, but they may have taken bigger bites by way of filling their stomachs in less time than usual.

"I'll go see for myself," said Bob Birnie. "You boys saddle up and be ready to start. If it's Indians, we'll head for Laramie and drive everything before us as we go. But the lad may be wrong." He took the reins from Buddy, mounted, and rode away, his booted feet hanging far below Buddy's short stirrups.

Explicit Liber Secundus

Incipit Liber Tercius

Ira suis paribus est par furiis Acherontis, Quo furor ad tempus nil pietatis habet. Ira malencolicos animos perturbat, vt equo Iure sui pondus nulla statera tenet. Omnibus in causis grauat Ira, set inter amantes, Illa magis facili sorte grauamen agit: Est vbi vir discors leuiterque repugnat amori, Sepe loco ludi fletus ad ora venit.

If thou the vices lest to knowe, Mi Sone, it hath noght ben unknowe, Fro ferst that men the swerdes grounde, That ther nis on upon this grounde, A vice forein fro the lawe, Wherof that many a good felawe Hath be distraght be sodein chance; And yit to kinde no plesance It doth, bot wher he most achieveth His pourpos, most to kinde he grieveth, 10 As he which out of conscience Is enemy to pacience: And is be name on of the Sevene, Which ofte hath set this world unevene, And cleped is the cruel Ire, Whos herte is everemore on fyre To speke amis and to do bothe, For his servantz ben evere wrothe. Mi goode fader, tell me this: What thing is Ire? Sone, it is 20 That in oure englissh Wrathe is hote, Which hath hise wordes ay so hote, That all a mannes pacience Is fyred of the violence. For he with him hath evere fyve Servantz that helpen him to stryve: The ferst of hem Malencolie Is cleped, which in compaignie An hundred times in an houre Wol as an angri beste loure, 30 And noman wot the cause why. Mi Sone, schrif thee now forthi: Hast thou be Malencolien? Ye, fader, be seint Julien, Bot I untrewe wordes use, I mai me noght therof excuse: And al makth love, wel I wot, Of which myn herte is evere hot, So that I brenne as doth a glede For Wrathe that I mai noght spede. 40 And thus fulofte a day for noght Save onlich of myn oghne thoght I am so with miselven wroth, That how so that the game goth With othre men, I am noght glad; Bot I am wel the more unglad, For that is othre mennes game It torneth me to pure grame. Thus am I with miself oppressed Of thoght, the which I have impressed, 50 That al wakende I dreme and meete That I with hire al one meete And preie hire of som good ansuere: Bot for sche wol noght gladly swere, Sche seith me nay withouten oth; And thus wexe I withinne wroth, That outward I am al affraied, And so distempred and esmaied. A thousand times on a day Ther souneth in myn Eres nay, 60 The which sche seide me tofore: Thus be my wittes as forlore; And namely whan I beginne To rekne with miself withinne How many yeres ben agon, Siththe I have trewly loved on And nevere tok of other hede, And evere aliche fer to spede

For Supplant with his slyhe cast Fulofte happneth forto mowe Thing which an other man hath sowe, And makth comun of proprete With sleihte and with soubtilite, As men mai se fro yer to yere. Thus cleymeth he the bot to stiere, 2380 Of which an other maister is. Forthi, my Sone, if thou er this Hast ben of such professioun, Discovere thi confessioun: Hast thou supplanted eny man? For oght that I you telle can, Min holi fader, as of the dede I am withouten eny drede Al gulteles; bot of my thoght Mi conscience excuse I noght. 2390 For were it wrong or were it riht, Me lakketh nothing bote myht, That I ne wolde longe er this Of other mannes love ywiss Be weie of Supplantacioun Have mad apropriacioun And holde that I nevere boghte, Thogh it an other man forthoghte. And al this speke I bot of on, For whom I lete alle othre gon; 2400 Bot hire I mai noght overpasse, That I ne mot alwey compasse, Me roghte noght be what queintise, So that I mihte in eny wise Fro suche that mi ladi serve Hire herte make forto swerve Withouten eny part of love. For be the goddes alle above I wolde it mihte so befalle, That I al one scholde hem alle 2410 Supplante, and welde hire at mi wille. And that thing mai I noght fulfille, Bot if I scholde strengthe make; And that I dar noght undertake, Thogh I were as was Alisaundre, For therof mihte arise sklaundre; And certes that schal I do nevere, For in good feith yit hadde I levere In my simplesce forto die, Than worche such Supplantarie. 2420 Of otherwise I wol noght seie That if I founde a seker weie, I wolde as for conclusioun Worche after Supplantacioun, So hihe a love forto winne. Now, fader, if that this be Sinne, I am al redy to redresce The gilt of which I me confesse. Mi goode Sone, as of Supplant Thee thar noght drede tant ne quant, 2430 As for nothing that I have herd, Bot only that thou hast misferd Thenkende, and that me liketh noght, For godd beholt a mannes thoght. And if thou understode in soth In loves cause what it doth, A man to ben a Supplantour, Thou woldest for thin oghne honour Be double weie take kepe: Ferst for thin oghne astat to kepe, 2440 To be thiself so wel bethoght That thou supplanted were noght, And ek for worschipe of thi name Towardes othre do the same, And soffren every man have his. Bot natheles it was and is, That in a wayt at alle assaies Supplant of love in oure daies The lief fulofte for the levere Forsakth, and so it hath don evere. 2450 Ensample I finde therupon, At Troie how that Agamenon Supplantede the worthi knyht Achilles of that swete wiht, Which named was Brexei5da; And also of Crisei5da, Whom Troilus to love ches, Supplanted hath Diomedes. Of Geta and Amphitrion, That whilom weren bothe as on 2460 Of frendschipe and of compaignie, I rede how that Supplantarie In love, as it betidde tho, Beguiled hath on of hem tuo. For this Geta that I of meene, To whom the lusti faire Almeene Assured was be weie of love, Whan he best wende have ben above And sikerest of that he hadde, Cupido so the cause ladde, 2470 That whil he was out of the weie, Amphitrion hire love aweie Hath take, and in this forme he wroghte. Be nyhte unto the chambre he soghte, Wher that sche lay, and with a wyle He contrefeteth for the whyle The vois of Gete in such a wise, That made hire of hire bedd arise, Wenende that it were he, And let him in, and whan thei be 2480 Togedre abedde in armes faste, This Geta cam thanne ate laste Unto the Dore and seide, "Undo." And sche ansuerde and bad him go, And seide how that abedde al warm Hir lief lay naked in hir arm; Sche wende that it were soth. Lo, what Supplant of love doth: This Geta forth bejaped wente, And yit ne wiste he what it mente; 2490 Amphitrion him hath supplanted With sleyhte of love and hire enchaunted: And thus put every man out other, The Schip of love hath lost his Rother, So that he can no reson stiere. And forto speke of this matiere Touchende love and his Supplant, A tale which is acordant Unto thin Ere I thenke enforme. Now herkne, for this is the forme. 2500 Of thilke Cite chief of alle Which men the noble Rome calle, Er it was set to Cristes feith, Ther was, as the Cronique seith, An Emperour, the which it ladde In pes, that he no werres hadde: Ther was nothing desobeissant Which was to Rome appourtenant, Bot al was torned into reste. To some it thoghte for the beste, 2510 To some it thoghte nothing so, And that was only unto tho Whos herte stod upon knyhthode: Bot most of alle of his manhode The worthi Sone of themperour, Which wolde ben a werreiour, As he that was chivalerous Of worldes fame and desirous, Began his fadre to beseche That he the werres mihte seche, 2520 In strange Marches forto ride. His fader seide he scholde abide, And wolde granten him no leve: Bot he, which wolde noght beleve, A kniht of his to whom he triste, So that his fader nothing wiste, He tok and tolde him his corage, That he pourposeth a viage. If that fortune with him stonde, He seide how that he wolde fonde 2530 The grete See to passe unknowe, And there abyde for a throwe Upon the werres to travaile. And to this point withoute faile This kniht, whan he hath herd his lord, Is swore, and stant of his acord, As thei that bothe yonge were; So that in prive conseil there Thei ben assented forto wende. And therupon to make an ende, 2540 Tresor ynowh with hem thei token, And whan the time is best thei loken, That sodeinliche in a Galeie Fro Romelond thei wente here weie And londe upon that other side. The world fell so that ilke tide, Which evere hise happes hath diverse, The grete Soldan thanne of Perse Ayein the Caliphe of Egipte A werre, which that him beclipte, 2550 Hath in a Marche costeiant. And he, which was a poursuiant Worschipe of armes to atteigne, This Romein, let anon ordeigne, That he was redi everydel: And whan he was arraied wel Of every thing which him belongeth, Straght unto Kaire his weie he fongeth, Wher he the Soldan thanne fond, And axeth that withinne his lond 2560 He mihte him for the werre serve, As he which wolde his thonk deserve. The Soldan was riht glad with al, And wel the more in special Whan that he wiste he was Romein; Bot what was elles in certein, That mihte he wite be no weie. And thus the kniht of whom I seie Toward the Soldan is beleft, And in the Marches now and eft, 2570 Wher that the dedli werres were, He wroghte such knihthode there, That every man spak of him good. And thilke time so it stod, This mihti Soldan be his wif A Dowhter hath, that in this lif Men seiden ther was non so fair. Sche scholde ben hir fader hair, And was of yeres ripe ynowh: Hire beaute many an herte drowh 2580 To bowe unto that ilke lawe Fro which no lif mai be withdrawe, And that is love, whos nature Set lif and deth in aventure Of hem that knyhthode undertake. This lusti peine hath overtake The herte of this Romein so sore, That to knihthode more and more Prouesce avanceth his corage. Lich to the Leoun in his rage, 2590 Fro whom that alle bestes fle, Such was the knyht in his degre: Wher he was armed in the feld, Ther dorste non abide his scheld; Gret pris upon the werre he hadde. Bot sche which al the chance ladde, Fortune, schop the Marches so, That be thassent of bothe tuo, The Soldan and the Caliphe eke, Bataille upon a dai thei seke, 2600 Which was in such a wise set That lengere scholde it noght be let. Thei made hem stronge on every side, And whan it drowh toward the tide That the bataille scholde be, The Soldan in gret privete A goldring of his dowhter tok, And made hire swere upon a bok And ek upon the goddes alle, That if fortune so befalle 2610 In the bataille that he deie, That sche schal thilke man obeie And take him to hire housebonde, Which thilke same Ring to honde Hire scholde bringe after his deth. This hath sche swore, and forth he geth With al the pouer of his lond Unto the Marche, where he fond His enemy full embatailled. The Soldan hath the feld assailed: 2620 Thei that ben hardy sone assemblen, Wherof the dredfull hertes tremblen: That on sleth, and that other sterveth, Bot above all his pris deserveth This knihtly Romein; where he rod, His dedly swerd noman abod, Ayein the which was no defence; Egipte fledde in his presence, And thei of Perse upon the chace Poursuien: bot I not what grace 2630 Befell, an Arwe out of a bowe Al sodeinly that ilke throwe The Soldan smot, and ther he lay: The chace is left for thilke day, And he was bore into a tente. The Soldan sih how that it wente, And that he scholde algate die; And to this knyht of Romanie, As unto him whom he most triste, His Dowhter Ring, that non it wiste, 2640 He tok, and tolde him al the cas, Upon hire oth what tokne it was Of that sche scholde ben his wif. Whan this was seid, the hertes lif Of this Soldan departeth sone; And therupon, as was to done, The dede body wel and faire Thei carie til thei come at Kaire, Wher he was worthily begrave. The lordes, whiche as wolden save 2650 The Regne which was desolat, To bringe it into good astat A parlement thei sette anon. Now herkne what fell therupon: This yonge lord, this worthi kniht Of Rome, upon the same niht That thei amorwe trete scholde, Unto his Bacheler he tolde His conseil, and the Ring with al He scheweth, thurgh which that he schal, 2660 He seith, the kinges Dowhter wedde, For so the Ring was leid to wedde, He tolde, into hir fader hond, That with what man that sche it fond Sche scholde him take to hire lord. And this, he seith, stant of record, Bot noman wot who hath this Ring. This Bacheler upon this thing His Ere and his entente leide, And thoghte more thanne he seide, 2670 And feigneth with a fals visage That he was glad, bot his corage Was al set in an other wise. These olde Philosophres wise Thei writen upon thilke while, That he mai best a man beguile In whom the man hath most credence; And this befell in evidence Toward this yonge lord of Rome. His Bacheler, which hadde tome, 2680 Whan that his lord be nihte slepte, This Ring, the which his maister kepte, Out of his Pours awey he dede, And putte an other in the stede. Amorwe, whan the Court is set, The yonge ladi was forth fet, To whom the lordes don homage, And after that of Mariage Thei trete and axen of hir wille. Bot sche, which thoghte to fulfille 2690 Hire fader heste in this matiere, Seide openly, that men mai hiere, The charge which hire fader bad. Tho was this Lord of Rome glad And drowh toward his Pours anon, Bot al for noght, it was agon: His Bacheler it hath forthdrawe, And axeth ther upon the lawe That sche him holde covenant. The tokne was so sufficant 2700 That it ne mihte be forsake, And natheles his lord hath take Querelle ayein his oghne man; Bot for nothing that evere he can He mihte as thanne noght ben herd, So that his cleym is unansuerd, And he hath of his pourpos failed. This Bacheler was tho consailed And wedded, and of thilke Empire He was coroned Lord and Sire, 2710 And al the lond him hath received; Wherof his lord, which was deceived, A seknesse er the thridde morwe Conceived hath of dedly sorwe: And as he lay upon his deth, Therwhile him lasteth speche and breth, He sende for the worthieste Of al the lond and ek the beste, And tolde hem al the sothe tho, That he was Sone and Heir also 2720 Of themperour of grete Rome, And how that thei togedre come, This kniht and he; riht as it was, He tolde hem al the pleine cas, And for that he his conseil tolde, That other hath al that he wolde, And he hath failed of his mede: As for the good he takth non hiede, He seith, bot only of the love, Of which he wende have ben above. 2730 And therupon be lettre write He doth his fader forto wite Of al this matiere as it stod; And thanne with an hertly mod Unto the lordes he besoghte To telle his ladi how he boghte Hire love, of which an other gladeth; And with that word his hewe fadeth, And seide, "A dieu, my ladi swete." The lif hath lost his kindly hete, 2740 And he lay ded as eny ston; Wherof was sory manyon, Bot non of alle so as sche. This false knyht in his degree Arested was and put in hold: For openly whan it was told Of the tresoun which is befalle, Thurghout the lond thei seiden alle, If it be soth that men suppose, His oghne untrowthe him schal depose. 2750 And forto seche an evidence, With honour and gret reverence, Wherof they mihten knowe an ende, To themperour anon thei sende The lettre which his Sone wrot. And whan that he the sothe wot, To telle his sorwe is endeles, Bot yit in haste natheles Upon the tale which he herde His Stieward into Perse ferde 2760 With many a worthi Romein eke, His liege tretour forto seke; And whan thei thider come were, This kniht him hath confessed there How falsly that he hath him bore, Wherof his worthi lord was lore. Tho seiden some he scholde deie, Bot yit thei founden such a weie That he schal noght be ded in Perse; And thus the skiles ben diverse. 2770 Be cause that he was coroned, And that the lond was abandoned To him, althogh it were unriht, Ther is no peine for him diht; Bot to this point and to this ende Thei granten wel that he schal wende With the Romeins to Rome ayein. And thus acorded ful and plein, The qwike body with the dede With leve take forth thei lede, 2780 Wher that Supplant hath his juise. Wherof that thou thee miht avise Upon this enformacioun Touchende of Supplantacioun, That thou, my Sone, do noght so: And forto take hiede also What Supplant doth in other halve, Ther is noman can finde a salve Pleinly to helen such a Sor; It hath and schal ben everemor, 2790 Whan Pride is with Envie joint, He soffreth noman in good point, Wher that he mai his honour lette. And therupon if I schal sette Ensample, in holy cherche I finde How that Supplant is noght behinde; God wot if that it now be so: For in Cronique of time ago I finde a tale concordable Of Supplant, which that is no fable, 2800 In the manere as I schal telle, So as whilom the thinges felle. At Rome, as it hath ofte falle, The vicair general of alle Of hem that lieven Cristes feith His laste day, which non withseith, Hath schet as to the worldes ije, Whos name if I schal specefie, He hihte Pope Nicolas. And thus whan that he passed was, 2810 The Cardinals, that wolden save The forme of lawe, in the conclave Gon forto chese a newe Pope, And after that thei cowthe agrope Hath ech of hem seid his entente: Til ate laste thei assente Upon an holy clerk reclus, Which full was of gostli vertus; His pacience and his simplesse Hath set him into hih noblesse. 2820 Thus was he Pope canonized, With gret honour and intronized, And upon chance as it is falle, His name Celestin men calle; Which notefied was be bulle To holi cherche and to the fulle In alle londes magnified. Bot every worschipe is envied, And that was thilke time sene: For whan this Pope of whom I meene 2830 Was chose, and othre set beside, A Cardinal was thilke tide Which the papat longe hath desired And therupon gretli conspired; Bot whan he sih fortune is failed, For which long time he hath travailed, That ilke fyr which Ethna brenneth Thurghout his wofull herte renneth, Which is resembled to Envie, Wherof Supplant and tricherie 2840 Engendred is; and natheles He feigneth love, he feigneth pes, Outward he doth the reverence, Bot al withinne his conscience Thurgh fals ymaginacioun He thoghte Supplantacioun. And therupon a wonder wyle He wroghte: for at thilke whyle It fell so that of his lignage He hadde a clergoun of yong age, 2850 Whom he hath in his chambre affaited. This Cardinal his time hath waited, And with his wordes slyhe and queinte, The whiche he cowthe wysly peinte, He schop this clerk of which I telle Toward the Pope forto duelle, So that withinne his chambre anyht He lai, and was a prive wyht Toward the Pope on nyhtes tide. Mai noman fle that schal betide. 2860 This Cardinal, which thoghte guile, Upon a day whan he hath while This yonge clerc unto him tok, And made him swere upon a bok, And told him what his wille was. And forth withal a Trompe of bras He hath him take, and bad him this: "Thou schalt," he seide, "whan time is Awaite, and take riht good kepe, Whan that the Pope is fast aslepe 2870 And that non other man by nyh; And thanne that thou be so slyh Thurghout the Trompe into his Ere, Fro hevene as thogh a vois it were, To soune of such prolacioun That he his meditacioun Therof mai take and understonde, As thogh it were of goddes sonde. And in this wise thou schalt seie, That he do thilke astat aweie 2880 Of Pope, in which he stant honoured, So schal his Soule be socoured Of thilke worschipe ate laste In hevene which schal evere laste." This clerc, whan he hath herd the forme How he the Pope scholde enforme, Tok of the Cardinal his leve, And goth him hom, til it was Eve, And prively the trompe he hedde, Til that the Pope was abedde. 2890 And at the Midnyht, whan he knewh The Pope slepte, thanne he blewh Withinne his trompe thurgh the wal, And tolde in what manere he schal His Papacie leve, and take His ferste astat: and thus awake This holi Pope he made thries, Wherof diverse fantasies Upon his grete holinesse Withinne his herte he gan impresse. 2900 The Pope ful of innocence Conceiveth in his conscience That it is goddes wille he cesse; Bot in what wise he may relesse His hihe astat, that wot he noght. And thus withinne himself bethoght, He bar it stille in his memoire, Til he cam to the Consistoire; And there in presence of hem alle He axeth, if it so befalle 2910 That eny Pope cesse wolde, How that the lawe it soffre scholde. Thei seten alle stille and herde, Was non which to the point ansuerde, For to what pourpos that it mente Ther was noman knew his entente, Bot only he which schop the guile. This Cardinal the same while Al openly with wordes pleine Seith, if the Pope wolde ordeigne 2920 That ther be such a lawe wroght, Than mihte he cesse, and elles noght. And as he seide, don it was; The Pope anon upon the cas Of his Papal Autorite Hath mad and yove the decre: And whan that lawe was confermed In due forme and al affermed, This innocent, which was deceived, His Papacie anon hath weyved, 2930 Renounced and resigned eke. That other was nothing to seke, Bot undernethe such a jape He hath so for himselve schape, That how as evere it him beseme, The Mitre with the Diademe He hath thurgh Supplantacion: And in his confirmacion Upon the fortune of his grace His name is cleped Boneface. 2940 Under the viser of Envie, Lo, thus was hid the tricherie, Which hath beguiled manyon. Bot such conseil ther mai be non, With treson whan it is conspired, That it nys lich the Sparke fyred Up in the Rof, which for a throwe Lith hidd, til whan the wyndes blowe It blaseth out on every side. This Bonefas, which can noght hyde 2950 The tricherie of his Supplant, Hath openly mad his avant How he the Papacie hath wonne. Bot thing which is with wrong begonne Mai nevere stonde wel at ende; Wher Pride schal the bowe bende, He schet fulofte out of the weie: And thus the Pope of whom I seie, Whan that he stod on hih the whiel, He can noght soffre himself be wel. 2960 Envie, which is loveles, And Pride, which is laweles, With such tempeste made him erre, That charite goth out of herre: So that upon misgovernance Ayein Lowyz the king of France He tok querelle of his oultrage, And seide he scholde don hommage Unto the cherche bodily. Bot he, that wiste nothing why 2970 He scholde do so gret servise After the world in such a wise, Withstod the wrong of that demande; For noght the Pope mai comande The king wol noght the Pope obeie. This Pope tho be alle weie That he mai worche of violence Hath sent the bulle of his sentence

For who these olde bokes rede 2140 Of suche ensamples as were ar, Him oghte be the more war Of alle tho that feigne chiere, Wherof thou schalt a tale hiere. Of Falssemblant which is believed Ful many a worthi wiht is grieved, And was long time er we wer bore. To thee, my Sone, I wol therfore A tale telle of Falssemblant, Which falseth many a covenant, 2150 And many a fraude of fals conseil Ther ben hangende upon his Seil: And that aboghten gulteles Bothe Deianire and Hercules, The whiche in gret desese felle Thurgh Falssemblant, as I schal telle. Whan Hercules withinne a throwe Al only hath his herte throwe Upon this faire Deianire, It fell him on a dai desire, 2160 Upon a Rivere as he stod, That passe he wolde over the flod Withoute bot, and with him lede His love, bot he was in drede For tendresce of that swete wiht, For he knew noght the forde ariht. Ther was a Geant thanne nyh, Which Nessus hihte, and whanne he sih This Hercules and Deianyre, Withinne his herte he gan conspire, 2170 As he which thurgh his tricherie Hath Hercules in gret envie, Which he bar in his herte loke, And thanne he thoghte it schal be wroke. Bot he ne dorste natheles Ayein this worthi Hercules Falle in debat as forto feihte; Bot feigneth Semblant al be sleihte Of frendschipe and of alle goode, And comth where as thei bothe stode, 2180 And makth hem al the chiere he can, And seith that as here oghne man He is al redy forto do What thing he mai; and it fell so That thei upon his Semblant triste, And axen him if that he wiste What thing hem were best to done, So that thei mihten sauf and sone The water passe, he and sche. And whan Nessus the privete 2190 Knew of here herte what it mente, As he that was of double entente, He made hem riht a glad visage; And whanne he herde of the passage Of him and hire, he thoghte guile, And feigneth Semblant for a while To don hem plesance and servise, Bot he thoghte al an other wise. This Nessus with hise wordes slyhe Yaf such conseil tofore here yhe 2200 Which semeth outward profitable And was withinne deceivable. He bad hem of the Stremes depe That thei be war and take kepe, So as thei knowe noght the pas; Bot forto helpe in such a cas, He seith himself that for here ese He wolde, if that it mihte hem plese, The passage of the water take,

STALEY FLEMING'S HALLUCINATION

OF two men who were talking one was a physician. 'I sent for you, Doctor,' said the other, 'but I don't think you can do me any good. Maybe you can recommend a specialist in psychopathy. I fancy I'm a bit loony.' 'You look all right,' the physician said. 'You shall judge--I have hallucinations. I wake every night and see in my room, intently watching me, a big black Newfoundland dog with a white forefoot.' 'You say you wake; are you sure about that? "Hallucinations" are sometimes only dreams.' 'Oh, I wake all right. Sometimes I lie still a long time, looking at the dog as earnestly as the dog looks at me--I always leave the light going. When I can't endure it any longer I sit up in bed--and nothing is there! ''M, 'm--what is the beast's expression?' 'It seems to me sinister. Of course I know that, except in art, an animal's face in repose has always the same expression. But this is not a real animal. Newfoundland dogs are pretty mild looking, you know; what's the matter with this one?" 'Really, my diagnosis would have no value: I am not going to treat the dog.' The physician laughed at his own pleasantry, but narrowly watched his patient from the corner of his eye. Presently he said: 'Fleming, your description of the beast fits the dog of the late Atwell Barton.' Fleming half rose from his chair, sat again and made a visible attempt at indifference. 'I remember Barton,' he said; 'I believe he was--it was re- ported that--wasn't there something suspicious in his death?' Looking squarely now into the eyes of his patient, the physician said: 'Three years ago the body of your old enemy, Atwell Barton, was found in the woods near his house and yours. He had been stabbed to death. There have been no arrests; there was no clue. Some of us had "theories." I had one. Have you?" 'I? Why, bless your soul, what could I know about it? You remember that I left for Europe almost immediately afterward--a considerable time after- ward. In the few weeks since my return you could not expect me to construct a "theory." In fact, I have not given the matter a thought. What about his dog?" 'It was first to find the body. It died of starva- tion on his grave.' We do not know the inexorable law underlying coincidences. Staley Fleming did not, or he would perhaps not have sprung to his feet as the night wind brought in through the open window the long wailing howl of a distant dog. He strode several times across the room in the steadfast gaze of the physician; then, abruptly confronting him, almost shouted: 'What has all this to do with my trouble, Dr. Halderman? You forget why you were sent for.' Rising, the physician laid his hand upon his pa- tient's arm and said, gently: 'Pardon me. I cannot diagnose your disorder offhand--to-morrow, per- haps. Please go to bed, leaving your door unlocked; I will pass the night here with your books. Can you call me without rising?" 'Yes, there is an electric bell.' 'Good. If anything disturbs you push the button without sitting up. Good night.' Comfortably installed in an arm-chair the man of medicine stared into the glowing coals and thought deeply and long, but apparently to little purpose, for he frequently rose and opening a door leading to the staircase, listened intently; then resumed his seat. Presently, however, he fell asleep, and when he woke it was past midnight. He stirred the failing fire, lifted a book from the table at his side and looked at the title. It was Denneker's Meditations. He opened it at random and began to read:

'Forasmuch as it is ordained of God that all flesh hath spirit and thereby taketh on spiritual powers, so, also, the spirit hath powers of the flesh, even when it is gone out of the flesh and liveth as a thing apart, as many a violence performed by wraith and lemure sheweth. And there be who say that man is not single in this, but the beasts have the like evil inducement, and--'

The reading was interrupted by a shaking of the house, as by the fall of a heavy object. The reader flung down the book, rushed from the room and mounted the stairs to Fleming's bed-chamber. He tried the door, but contrary to his instructions it was locked. He set his shoulder against it with such force that it gave way. On the floor near the disor- dered bed, in his night-clothes, lay Fleming, gasping away his life. The physician raised the dying man's head from the floor and observed a wound in the throat. 'I should have thought of this,' he said, believing it suicide. When the man was dead an examination disclosed the unmistakable marks of an animal's fangs deeply sunken into the jugular vein. But there was no animal.

A RESUMED IDENTITY

1: The Review as a Form of Welcome

ONE summer night a man stood on a low hill over- looking a wide expanse of forest and field. By the full moon hanging low in the west he knew what he might not have known otherwise: that it was near the hour of dawn. A light mist lay along the earth, partly veiling the lower features of the land- scape, but above it the taller trees showed in well- defined masses against a clear sky. Two or three farmhouses were visible through the haze, but in none of them, naturally, was a light. Nowhere, in- deed, was any sign or suggestion of life except the barking of a distant dog, which, repeated with me- chanical iteration, served rather to accentuate than dispel the loneliness of the scene. The man looked curiously about him on all sides, as one who among familiar surroundings is unable to determine his exact place and part in the scheme of things. It is so, perhaps, that we shall act when, risen from the dead, we await the call to judgment. A hundred yards away was a straight road, show- ing white in the moonlight. Endeavouring to orient himself, as a surveyor or navigator might say, the man moved his eyes slowly along its visible length and at a distance of a quarter-mile to the south of his station saw, dim and grey in the haze, a group of horsemen riding to the north. Behind them were men afoot, marching in column, with dimly gleam- ing rifles aslant above their shoulders. They moved slowly and in silence. Another group of horsemen, another regiment of infantry, another and another --all in unceasing motion toward the man's point of view, past it, and beyond. A battery of artillery followed, the cannoneers riding with folded arms on limber and caisson. And still the interminable procession came out of the obscurity to south and passed into the obscurity to north, with never a sound of voice, nor hoof, nor wheel. The man could not rightly understand: he thought himself deaf; said so, and heard his own voice, al- though it had an unfamiliar quality that almost alarmed him; it disappointed his ear's expectancy in the matter of timbre and resonance. But he was not deaf, and that for the moment sufficed. Then he remembered that there are natural phe- nomena to which some one has given the name 'acoustic shadows.' If you stand in an acoustic shadow there is one direction from which you will hear nothing. At the battle of Gaines's Mill, one of the fiercest conflicts of the Civil War, with a hundred guns in play, spectators a mile and a half away on the opposite side of the Chickahominy Val- ley heard nothing of what they clearly saw. The bombardment of Port Royal, heard and felt at St. Augustine, a hundred and fifty miles to the south, was inaudible two miles to the north in a still at- mosphere. A few days before the surrender at Ap- pomattox a thunderous engagement between the commands of Sheridan and Pickett was unknown to the latter commander, a mile in the rear of his own line. These instances were not known to the man of whom we write, but less striking ones of the same character had not escaped his observation. He was profoundly disquieted, but for another reason than the uncanny silence of that moonlight march. 'Good Lord! ' he said to himself--and again it was as if another had spoken his thought--'if those people are what I take them to be we have lost the battle and they are moving on Nashville!' Then came a thought of self--an apprehension --a strong sense of personal peril, such as in an- other we call fear. He stepped quickly into the shadow of a tree. And still the silent battalions moved slowly forward in the haze. The chill of a sudden breeze upon the back of his neck drew his attention to the quarter whence it came, and turning to the east he saw a faint grey light along the horizon--the first sign of return- ing day. This increased his apprehension. 'I must get away from here,' he thought, 'or I shall be discovered and taken.' He moved out of the shadow, walking rapidly toward the greying east. From the safer seclusion of a clump of cedars he looked back. The entire column had passed out of sight: the straight white road lay bare and desolate in the moonlight! Puzzled before, he was now inexpressibly aston- ished. So swift a passing of so slow an army!--he could not comprehend it. Minute after minute passed unnoted; he had lost his sense of time. He sought with a terrible earnestness a solution of the mystery, but sought in vain. When at last he roused himself from his abstraction the sun's rim was visi- ble above the hills, but in the new conditions he found no other light than that of day; his under- standing was involved as darkly in doubt as before. On every side lay cultivated fields showing no sign of war and war's ravages. From the chimneys of the farmhouses thin ascensions of blue smoke signalled preparations for a day's peaceful toil. Hav- ing stilled its immemorial allocution to the moon, the watch-dog was assisting a negro who, prefixing a team of mules to the plough, was flatting and sharp- ing contentedly at his task. The hero of this tale stared stupidly at the pastoral picture as if he had never seen such a thing in all his life; then he put his hand to his head, passed it through his hair and, withdrawing it, attentively considered the palm--a singular thing to do. Apparently reassured by the act, he walked confidently toward the road.

2: When You have Lost Your Life Consult a Physician

Dr. Stilling Malson, of Murfreesboro, having vis- ited a patient six or seven miles away, on the Nash- ville road, had remained with him all night. At day- break he set out for home on horseback, as was the custom of doctors of the time and region. He had passed into the neighbourhood of Stone's River bat- tlefield when a man approached him from the road- side and saluted in the military fashion, with a movement of the right hand to the hat-brim. But the hat was not a military hat, the man was not in uni- form and had not a martial bearing. The doctor nodded civilly, half thinking that the stranger's un- common greeting was perhaps in deference to the historic surroundings. As the stranger evidently de- sired speech with him he courteously reined in his horse and waited. 'Sir,' said the stranger, 'although a civilian, you are perhaps an enemy.' 'I am a physician,' was the non-committal reply. 'Thank you,' said the other. 'I am a lieutenant, of the staff of General Hazen.' He paused a moment and looked sharply at the person whom he was addressing, then added, 'Of the Federal army.' The physician merely nodded. 'Kindly tell me,' continued the other, 'what has happened here. Where are the armies? Which has won the battle?' The physician regarded his questioner curiously with half-shut eyes. After a professional scru- tiny, prolonged to the limit of politeness, 'Pardon me,' he said; 'one asking information should be willing to impart it. Are you wounded?' he added, smiling. 'Not seriously--it seems.' The man removed the unmilitary hat, put his hand to his head, passed it through his hair and, withdrawing it, attentively considered the palm. 'I was struck by a bullet and have been uncon- scious. It must have been a light, glancing blow: I find no blood and feel no pain. I will not trouble you for treatment, but will you kindly direct me to my command--to any part of the Federal army--if you know?' Again the doctor did not immediately reply: he was recalling much that is recorded in the books of his profession--something about lost identity and the effect of familiar scenes in restoring it. At length he looked the man in the face, smiled, and said: 'Lieutenant, you are not wearing the uniform of your rank and service.' At this the man glanced down at his civilian attire, lifted his eyes, and said with hesitation: 'That is true. I--I don't quite understand.' Still regarding him sharply but not unsympatheti- cally, the man of science bluntly inquired: 'How old are you?' 'Twenty-three--if that has anything to do with it.' 'You don't look it; I should hardly have guessed you to be just that.' The man was growing impatient. 'We need not discuss that,' he said: 'I want to know about the army. Not two hours ago I saw a column of troops moving northward on this road. You must have met them. Be good enough to tell me the colour of their clothing, which I was unable to make out, and I'll trouble you no more.' 'You are quite sure that you saw them?' 'Sure? My God, sir, I could have counted them!' 'Why, really,' said the physician, with an amusing consciousness of his own resemblance to the loqua- cious barber of the Arabian Nights, 'this is very in- teresting. I met no troops.' The man looked at him coldly, as if he had himself observed the likeness to the barber. 'It is plain,' he said, 'that you do not care to assist me. Sir, you may go to the devil!' He turned and strode away, very much at ran- dom, across the dewy fields, his half-penitent tor- mentor quietly watching him from his point of van- tage in the saddle till he disappeared beyond an array of trees.

3: The Danger of Looking into a Pool of Water

After leaving the road the man slackened his pace, and now went forward, rather deviously, with a dis- tinct feeling of fatigue. He could not account for this, though truly the interminable loquacity of that country doctor offered itself in explanation. Seating himself upon a rock, he laid one hand upon his knee, back upward, and casually looked at it. It was lean and withered. He lifted both hands to his face. It was seamed and furrowed; he could trace the lines with the tips of his fingers. How strange!--a mere bullet-stroke and a brief unconsciousness should not make one a physical wreck. 'I must have been a long time in hospital,' he said aloud. 'Why, what a fool I am! The battle was in December, and it is now summer!' He laughed. 'No wonder that fellow thought me an escaped luna- tic. He was wrong: I am only an escaped patient.' At a little distance a small plot of ground enclosed by a stone wall caught his attention. With no very definite intent he rose and went to it. In the centre was a square, solid monument of hewn stone. It was brown with age, weather-worn at the angles, spotted with moss and lichen. Between the massive blocks were strips of grass the leverage of whose roots had pushed them apart. In answer to the challenge of this ambitious structure Time had laid his destroy- ing hand upon it, and it would soon be 'one with Nineveh and Tyre.' In an inscription on one side his eye caught a familiar name. Shaking with ex- citement, he craned his body across the wall and read:

      HAZEN'S BRIGADE                  to     The Memory of Its Soldiers             who fell at     Stone River, Dec. 31, 1862.

The man fell back from the wall, faint and sick. Almost within an arm's length was a little depression in the earth; it had been filled by a recent rain--a pool of clear water. He crept to it to revive himself, lifted the upper part of his body on his trembling arms, thrust forward his head and saw the reflection of his face, as in a mirror. He uttered a terrible cry. His arms gave way; he fell, face downward, into the pool and yielded up the life that had spanned another life.

A BABY TRAMP

IF YOU had seen little Jo standing at the street corner in the rain, you would hardly have admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm, but the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly old enough to be either just or unjust, and so perhaps did not come under the law of impartial distribu- tion) appeared to have some property peculiar to itself: one would have said it was dark and adhesive --sticky. But that could hardly be so, even in Black- burg, where things certainly did occur that were a good deal out of the common. For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had fallen, as is credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding with a somewhat obscure statement to the effect that the chronicler considered it good growing-weather for Frenchmen. Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is cold in Blackburg when winter is on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There can be no doubt of it--the snow in this instance was of the colour of blood and melted into water of the same hue, if water it was, not blood. The phenomenon had attracted wide attention, and science had as many explanations as there were scientists who knew nothing about it. But the men of Blackburg--men who for many years had lived right there where the red snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good deal about the matter--shook their heads and said something would come of it. And something did, for the next summer was made memorable by the prevalence of a mysterious disease--epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows what, though the physicians didn't--which carried away a full half of the population. Most of the other half carried themselves away and were slow to re- turn, but finally came back, and were now increasing and multiplying as before, but Blackburg had not since been altogether the same. Of quite another kind, though equally 'out of the common,' was the incident of Hetty Parlow's ghost. Hetty Parlow's maiden name had been Brownon, and in Blackburg that meant more than one would think. The Brownons had from time immemorial--from the very earliest of the old colonial days--been the leading family of the town. It was the richest and it was the best, and Blackburg would have shed the last drop of its plebeian blood in defence of the Brownon fair fame. As few of the family's mem- bers had ever been known to live permanently away from Blackburg, although most of them were educated elsewhere and nearly all had travelled, there was quite a number of them. The men held most of the public offices, and the women were foremost in all good works. Of these latter, Hetty was most be- loved by reason of the sweetness of her disposition, the purity of her character and her singular personal beauty. She married in Boston a young scape- grace named Parlow, and like a good Brownon brought him to Blackburg forthwith and made a man and a town councillor of him. They had a child which they named Joseph and dearly loved, as was then the fashion among parents in all that region. Then they died of the mysterious disorder already mentioned, and at the age of one whole year Joseph set up as an orphan. Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had cut off his parents did not stop at that; it went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownon contingent and its allies by marriage; and those who fled did not return. The tradition was broken, the Brownon estates passed into alien hands, and the only Brownons remaining in that place were underground in Oak Hill Cemetery, where, indeed, was a colony of them powerful enough to resist the encroachment of surrounding tribes and hold the best part of the grounds. But about the ghost: One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, a number of the young people of Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a wagon--if you have been there you will remember that the road to Greenton runs alongside it on the south. They had been attending a May Day festival at Greenton; and that serves to fix the date. Alto- gether there may have been a dozen, and a jolly party they were, considering the legacy of gloom left by the town's recent sombre experiences. As they passed the cemetery the man driving suddenly reined in his team with an exclamation of surprise. It was sufficiently surprising, no doubt, for just ahead, and almost at the roadside, though inside the cemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could be no doubt of it, for she had been personally known to every youth and maiden in the party. That estab- lished the thing's identity; its character as ghost was signified by all the customary signs--the shroud, the long, undone hair, the 'far-away look' --everything. This disquieting apparition was stretching out its arms toward the west, as if in supplication for the evening star, which, certainly, was an alluring object, though obviously out of reach. As they all sat silent (so the story goes) every member of that party of merrymakers--they had merrymade on coffee and lemonade only--distinctly heard that ghost call the name 'Joey, Joey!' A mo- ment later nothing was there. Of course one does not have to believe all that. Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascer- tained, Joey was wandering about in the sagebrush on the opposite side of the continent, near Winne- mucca, in the State of Nevada. He had been taken to that town by some good persons distantly related to his dead father, and by them adopted and ten- derly cared for. But on that evening the poor child had strayed from home and was lost in the desert. His after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps which conjecture alone can fill. It is known that he was found by a family of Piute Indians, who kept the little wretch with them for a time and then sold him--actually sold him for money to a woman on one of the east-bound trains, at a station a long way from Winnemucca. The woman professed to have made all manner of inquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless and a widow, she adopted him herself. At this point of his career Jo seemed to be getting a long way from the condition of orphanage; the interposition of a multitude of parents between himself and that woeful state promised him a long immunity from its disadvantages. Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleve- land, Ohio. But her adopted son did not long remain with her. He was seen one afternoon by a police- man, new to that beat, deliberately toddling away from her house, and being questioned answered that he was 'a doin' home.' He must have travelled by rail, somehow, for three days later he was in the town of Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long way from Blackburg. His clothing was in pretty fair condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable to give any account of himself he was arrested as a vagrant and sentenced to imprisonment in the Infants' Shel- tering Home--where he was washed. Jo ran away from the Infants' Sheltering Home at Whiteville--just took to the woods one day, and the Home knew him no more for ever. We find him next, or rather get back to him, stand- ing forlorn in the cold autumn rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg; and it seems right to explain now that the raindrops falling upon him there were really not dark and gummy; they only failed to make his face and hands less so. Jo was indeed fearfully and wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an artist. And the forlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, red, and swollen, and when he walked he limped with both legs. As to clothing--ah, you would hardly have had the skill to name any single garment that he wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon him. That he was cold all over and all through did not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there that evening; but, for that reason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be there himself, he could not for the flickering little life of him have told, even if gifted with a vocabulary exceeding a hundred words. From the way he stared about him one could have seen that he had not the faintest no- tion of where (nor why) he was. Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation; being cold and hungry, and still able to walk a little by bending his knees very much indeed and putting his feet down toes first, he decided to enter one of the houses which flanked the street at long intervals and looked so bright and warm. But when he attempted to act upon that very sensible de- cision a burly dog came browsing out and disputed his right. Inexpressibly frightened, and believing, no doubt (with some reason, too), that brutes with- out meant brutality within, he hobbled away from all the houses, and with grey, wet fields to right of him and grey, wet fields to left of him--with the rain half blinding him and the night coming in mist and darkness, held his way along the road that leads to Greenton. That is to say, the road leads those to Greenton who succeed in passing the Oak Hill Cemetery. A considerable number every year do not. Jo did not. They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, but no longer hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate--hoping, perhaps, that it led to a house where there was no dog--and gone blundering about in the darkness, falling over many a grave, no doubt, until he had tired of it all and given up. The little body lay upon one side, with one soiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the other hand tucked away among the rags to make it warm, the other cheek washed clean and white at last, as for a kiss from one of God's great angels. It was ob- served--though nothing was thought of it at the time, the body being as yet unidentified--that the little fellow was lying upon the grave of Hetty Par- low. The grave, however, had not opened to re- ceive him. That is a circumstance which, without actual irreverence, one may wish had been ordered otherwise.

THE NIGHT-DOINGS AT 'DEADMAN'S'

A Story that is Untrue

IT was a singularly sharp night, and clear as the heart of a diamond. Clear nights have a trick of be- ing keen. In darkness you may be cold and not know it; when you see, you suffer. This night was bright enough to bite like a serpent. The moon was moving mysteriously along behind the giant pines crowning the South Mountain, striking a cold sparkle from the crusted snow, and bringing out against the black west and ghostly outlines of the Coast Range, beyond which lay the invisible Pa- cific. The snow had piled itself, in the open spaces along the bottom of the gulch, into long ridges that seemed to heave, and into hills that appeared to toss and scatter spray. The spray was sunlight, twice reflected: dashed once from the moon, once from the snow. In this snow many of the shanties of the aban- doned mining camp were obliterated (a sailor might have said they had gone down), and at irregular in- tervals it had overtopped the tall trestles which had once supported a river called a flume; for, of course, 'flume' is flumen. Among the advantages of which the mountains cannot deprive the gold-hunter is the privilege of speaking Latin. He says of his dead neighbour, 'He has gone up the flume.' This is not a bad way to say, 'His life has returned to the Fountain of Life.' While putting on its armour against the assaults of the wind, this snow had neglected no coign of van- tage. Snow pursued by the wind is not wholly unlike a retreating army. In the open field it ranges itself in ranks and battalions; where it can get a foothold it makes a stand; where it can take cover it does so. You may see whole platoons of snow cowering behind a bit of broken wall. The devious old road, hewn out of the mountainside, was full of it. Squad- ron upon squadron had struggled to escape by this line, when suddenly pursuit had ceased. A more desolate and dreary spot than Deadman's Gulch in a winter midnight it is impossible to imagine. Yet Mr. Hiram Beeson elected to live there, the sole inhabitant. Away up the side of the North Mountain his little pine-log shanty projected from its single pane of glass a long, thin beam of light, and looked not altogether unlike a black beetle fastened to the hillside with a bright new pin. Within it sat Mr. Beeson himself, before a roaring fire, staring into its hot heart as if he had never before seen such a thing in all his life. He was not a comely man. He was grey; he was ragged and slovenly in his attire; his face was wan and haggard; his eyes were too bright. As to his age, if one had attempted to guess it, one might have said forty-seven, then corrected himself and said seventy-four. He was really twenty- eight. Emaciated he was; as much, perhaps, as he dared be, with a needy undertaker at Bentley's Flat and a new and enterprising coroner at Sonora. Pov- erty and zeal are an upper and a nether millstone. It is dangerous to make a third in that kind of sandwich. As Mr. Beeson sat there, with his ragged elbows on his ragged knees, his lean jaws buried in his lean hands, and with no apparent intention of going to bed, he looked as if the slightest movement would tumble him to pieces. Yet during the last hour he had winked no fewer than three times. There was a sharp rapping at the door. A rap at that time of night and in that weather might have surprised an ordinary mortal who had dwelt two years in the gulch without seeing a human face, and could not fail to know that the country was impass- able; but Mr. Beeson did not so much as pull his eyes out of the coals. And even when the door was pushed open he only shrugged a little more closely into himself, as one does who is expecting some- thing that he would rather not see. You may observe this movement in women when, in a mortuary chapel, the coffin is borne up the aisle behind them. But when a long old man in a blanket overcoat, his head tied up in a handkerchief and nearly his entire face in a muffler, wearing green goggles and with a complexion of glittering whiteness where it could be seen, strode silently into the room, laying a hard, gloved hand on Mr. Beeson's shoulder, the lat- ter so far forgot himself as to look up with an ap- pearance of no small astonishment; whomever he may have been expecting, he had evidently not counted on meeting anyone like this. Nevertheless, the sight of this unexpected guest produced in Mr. Beeson the following sequence: a feeling of aston- ishment; a sense of gratification; a sentiment of pro- found good will. Rising from his seat, he took the knotty hand from his shoulder, and shook it up and down with a fervour quite unaccountable; for in the old man's aspect was nothing to attract, much to repel. However, attraction is too general a property for repulsion to be without it. The most attractive object in the world is the face we instinctively cover with a cloth. When it becomes still more attractive --fascinating--we put seven feet of earth above it. 'Sir,' said Mr. Beeson, releasing the old man's hand, which fell passively against his thigh with a quiet clack, 'it is an extremely disagreeable night. Pray be seated; I am very glad to see you.' Mr. Beeson spoke with an easy good breeding that one would hardly have expected, considering all things. Indeed, the contrast between his appear- ance and his manner was sufficiently surprising to be one of the commonest of social phenomena in the mines. The old man advanced a step toward the fire, glowing cavernously in the green goggles. Mr. Beeson resumed. 'You bet your life I am!' Mr. Beeson's elegance was not too refined; it had made reasonable concessions to local taste. He paused a moment, letting his eyes drop from the muffled head of his guest, down along the row of mouldy buttons confining the blanket overcoat, to the greenish cowhide boots powdered with snow, which had begun to melt and run along the floor in little rills. He took an inventory of his guest, and ap- peared satisfied. Who would not have been? Then he continued: 'The cheer I can offer you is, unfortunately, in keeping with my surroundings; but I shall esteem myself highly favoured if it is your pleasure to partake of it, rather than seek better at Bentley's Flat.' With a singular refinement of hospitable humil- ity Mr. Beeson spoke as if a sojourn in his warm cabin on such a night, as compared with walking four- teen miles up to the throat in snow with a cutting crust, would be an intolerable hardship. By way of reply, his guest unbuttoned the blanket overcoat. The host laid fresh fuel on the fire, swept the hearth with the tail of a wolf, and added: 'But I think you'd better skedaddle.' The old man took a seat by the fire, spreading his broad soles to the heat without removing his hat. In the mines the hat is seldom removed except when the boots are. Without further remark Mr. Beeson also seated himself in a chair which had been a bar- rel, and which, retaining much of its original char- acter, seemed to have been designed with a view to preserving his dust if it should please him to crumble. For a moment there was silence; then, from somewhere among the pines, came the snarling yelp of a coyote; and simultaneously the door rattled in its frame. There was no other connection between the two incidents than that the coyote has an aver- sion to storms, and the wind was rising; yet there seemed somehow a kind of supernatural conspiracy between the two, and Mr. Beeson shuddered with a vague sense of terror. He recovered himself in a moment and again addressed his guest. 'There are strange doings here. I will tell you everything, and then if you decide to go I shall hope to accompany you over the worst of the way; as far as where Baldy Peterson shot Ben Hike--I dare say you know the place.' The old man nodded emphatically, as intimating not merely that he did, but that he did indeed. 'Two years ago,' began Mr. Beeson, 'I, with two companions, occupied this house; but when the rush to the Flat occurred we left, along with the rest. In ten hours the gulch was deserted. That evening, however, I discovered I had left behind me a val- uable pistol (that is it) and returned for it, passing the night here alone, as I have passed every night since. I must explain that a few days before we left, our Chinese domestic had the misfortune to die while the ground was frozen so hard that it was im- possible to dig a grave in the usual way. So, on the day of our hasty departure, we cut through the floor there, and gave him such burial as we could. But before putting him down I had the extremely bad taste to cut off his pigtail and spike it to that beam above his grave, where you may see it at this mo- ment, or, preferably, when warmth has given you leisure for observation. 'I stated, did I not, that the Chinaman came to his death from natural causes? I had, of course, noth- ing to do with that, and returned through no irresist- ible attraction, or morbid fascination, but only be- cause I had forgotten a pistol. That is clear to you, is it not, sir?' The visitor nodded gravely. He appeared to be a man of few words, if any. Mr. Beeson continued: 'According to the Chinese faith, a man is like a kite: he cannot go to heaven without a tail. Well, to shorten this tedious story--which, however, I thought it my duty to relate--on that night, while I was here alone and thinking of anything but him, that Chinaman came back for his pigtail. 'He did not get it.' At this point Mr. Beeson relapsed into blank si- lence. Perhaps he was fatigued by the unwonted exercise of speaking; perhaps he had conjured up a memory that demanded his undivided attention. The wind was now fairly abroad, and the pines along the mountainside sang with singular distinctness. The narrator continued: 'You say you do not see much in that, and I must confess I do not myself. 'But he keeps coming!' There was another long silence, during which both stared into the fire without the movement of a limb. Then Mr. Beeson broke out, almost fiercely, fixing his eyes on what he could see of the impassive face of his auditor: 'Give it him? Sir, in this matter I have no inten- tion of troubling anyone for advice. You will par- don me, I am sure'--here he became singularly persuasive--'but I have ventured to nail that pig- tail fast, and have assumed that somewhat onerous obligation of guarding it. So it is quite impossible to act on your considerate suggestion. 'Do you play me for a Modoc?' Nothing could exceed the sudden ferocity with which he thrust this indignant remonstrance into the ear of his guest. It was as if he had struck him on the side of the head with a steel gauntlet. It was a protest, but it was a challenge. To be mistaken for a coward--to be played for a Modoc: these two ex- pressions are one. Sometimes it is a Chinaman. Do you play me for a Chinaman? is a question frequently addressed to the ear of the suddenly dead. Mr. Beeson's buffet produced no effect, and after a moment's pause, during which the wind thundered in the chimney like the sound of clods upon a coffin, he resumed: 'But, as you say, it is wearing me out. I feel that the life of the last two years has been a mis- take--a mistake that corrects itself; you see how. The grave! No; there is no one to dig it. The ground is frozen, too. But you are very welcome. You may say at Bentley's--but that is not important. It was very tough to cut; they braid silk into their pig- tails. Kwaagh.' Mr. Beeson was speaking with his eyes shut, and he wandered. His last word was a snore. A moment later he drew a long breath, opened his eyes with an effort, made a single remark, and fell into a deep sleep. What he said was this: 'They are swiping my dust!' Then the aged stranger, who had not uttered one word since his arrival, arose from his seat and de- liberately laid off his outer clothing, looking as angular in his flannels as the late Signorina Festo- razzi, an Irish woman, six feet in height, and weigh- ing fifty-six pounds, who used to exhibit herself in her chemise to the people of San Francisco. He then crept into one of the 'bunks,' having first placed a revolver in easy reach, according to the custom of the country. This revolver he took from a shelf, and it was the one which Mr. Beeson had mentioned as that for which he had returned to the gulch two years before. In a few moments Mr. Beeson awoke, and seeing that his guest had retired he did likewise. But be- fore doing so he approached the long, plaited wisp of pagan hair and gave it a powerful tug, to assure himself that it was fast and firm. The two beds-- mere shelves covered with blankets not overclean-- faced each other from opposite sides of the room, the little square trap-door that had given access to the Chinaman's grave being midway between. This, by the way, was crossed by a double row of spike- heads. In his resistance to the supernatural, Mr. Beeson had not disdained the use of material precautions. The fire was now low, the flames burning bluely and petulantly, with occasional flashes, projecting spectral shadows on the walls--shadows that moved mysteriously about, now dividing, now unit- ing. The shadow of the pendent queue, however, kept moodily apart, near the roof at the farther end of the room, looking like a note of admiration. The song of the pines outside had now risen to the dignity of a triumphal hymn. In the pauses the silence was dreadful. It was during one of these intervals that the trap in the floor began to lift. Slowly and steadily it rose, and slowly and steadily rose the swaddled head of the old man in the bunk to observe it. Then, with a clap that shook the house to its foundation, it was thrown clean back, where it lay with its unsightly spikes pointing threateningly upward. Mr. Beeson awoke, and without rising, pressed his fingers into his eyes. He shuddered; his teeth chattered. His guest was now reclining on one elbow, watching the proceedings with the goggles that glowed like lamps. Suddenly a howling gust of wind swooped down the chimney, scattering ashes and smoke in all di- rections, for a moment obscuring everything. When the fire-light again illuminated the room there was seen, sitting gingerly on the edge of a stool by the hearth-side, a swarthy little man of prepossessing appearance and dressed with faultless taste, nodding to the old man with a friendly and engaging smile. 'From San Francisco, evidently,' thought Mr. Bee- son, who having somewhat recovered from his fright was groping his way to a solution of the evening's events. But now another actor appeared upon the scene. Out of the square black hole in the middle of the floor protruded the head of the departed Chinaman, his glassy eyes turned upward in their angular slits and fastened on the dangling queue above with a look of yearning unspeakable. Mr. Beeson groaned, and again spread his hands upon his face. A mild odour of opium pervaded the place. The phantom, clad only in a short blue tunic quilted and silken but covered with grave-mould, rose slowly, as if pushed by a weak spiral spring. Its knees were at the level of the floor, when with a quick upward impulse like the silent leaping of a flame it grasped the queue with both hands, drew up its body and took the tip in its horrible yellow teeth. To this it clung in a seeming frenzy, grimacing ghastly, surging and plunging from side to side in its efforts to disengage its property from the beam, but uttering no sound. It was like a corpse artificially convulsed by means of a galvanic battery. The contrast between its su- perhuman activity and its silence was no less than hideous! Mr. Beeson cowered in his bed. The swarthy lit- tle gentleman uncrossed his legs, beat an impatient tattoo with the toe of his boot and consulted a heavy gold watch. The old man sat erect and quietly laid hold of the revolver. Bang! Like a body cut from the gallows the Chinaman plumped into the black hole below, carrying his tail in his teeth. The trap-door turned over, shutting down with a snap. The swarthy little gentleman from San Francisco sprang nimbly from his perch, caught something in the air with his hat, as a boy catches a butterfly, and vanished into the chimney as if drawn up by suction. From away somewhere in the outer darkness floated in through the open door a faint, far cry--a long, sobbing wail, as of a child death-strangled in the desert, or a lost soul borne away by the Adver- sary. It may have been the coyote. In the early days of the following spring a party of miners on their way to new diggings passed along the gulch, and straying through the deserted shanties found in one of them the body of Hiram Beeson, stretched upon a bunk, with a bullet hole through the heart. The ball had evidently been fired from the opposite side of the room, for in one of the oaken beams overhead was a shallow blue dint, where it had struck a knot and been deflected downward to the breast of its victim. Strongly attached to the same beam was what appeared to be an end of a rope of braided horsehair, which had been cut by the bullet in its passage to the knot. Nothing else of interest was noted, excepting a suit of mouldy and incongru- ous clothing, several articles of which were after- ward identified by respectable witnesses as those in which certain deceased citizen's of Deadman's had been buried years before. But it is not easy to under- stand how that could be, unless, indeed, the gar- ments had been worn as a disguise by Death himself --which is hardly credible.

BEYOND THE WALL

MANY years ago, on my way from Hong-Kong to New York, I passed a week in San Francisco. A long time had gone by since I had been in that city, dur- ing which my ventures in the Orient had prospered beyond my hope; I was rich and could afford to re- visit my own country to renew my friendship with such of the companions of my youth as still lived and remembered me with the old affection. Chief of these, I hoped, was Mohun Dampier, an old school mate with whom I had held a desultory correspond- ence which had long ceased, as is the way of cor- respondence between men. You may have observed that the indisposition to write a merely social letter is in the ratio of the square of the distance between you and your correspondent. It is a law. I remembered Dampier as a handsome, strong young fellow of scholarly tastes, with an aversion to work and a marked indifference to many of the things that the world cares for, including wealth, of which, however, he had inherited enough to put him beyond the reach of want. In his family, one of the oldest and most aristocratic in the country, it was, I think, a matter of pride that no member of it had ever been in trade nor politics, nor suffered any kind of dis- tinction. Mohun was a trifle sentimental, and had in him a singular element of superstition, which led him to the study of all manner of occult subjects, al- though his sane mental health safeguarded him against fantastic and perilous faiths. He made daring incursions into the realm of the unreal without re- nouncing his residence in the partly surveyed and uncharted region of what we are pleased to call certitude. The night of my visit to him was stormy. The Californian winter was on, and the incessant rain plashed in the deserted streets, or, lifted by irregular gusts of wind, was hurled against the houses with incredible fury. With no small difficulty my cabman found the right place, away out toward the ocean beach, in a sparsely populated suburb. The dwelling, a rather ugly one, apparently, stood in the centre of its grounds, which as nearly as I could make out in the gloom were destitute of either flowers or grass. Three or four trees, writhing and moaning in the torment of the tempest, appeared to be trying to escape from their dismal environment and take the chance of finding a better one out at sea. The house was a two-story brick structure with a tower, a story higher, at one corner. In a window of that was the only visible light. Something in the appearance of the place made me shudder, a performance that may have been assisted by a rill of rain-water down my back as I scuttled to cover in the doorway. In answer to my note apprising him of my wish to call, Dampier had written, 'Don't ring--open the door and come up.' I did so. The staircase was dimly lighted by a single gas-jet at the top of the second flight. I managed to reach the landing without dis- aster and entered by an open door into the lighted square room of the tower. Dampier came forward in gown and slippers to receive me, giving me the greeting that I wished, and if I had held a thought that it might more fitly have been accorded me at the front door the first look at him dispelled any sense of his inhospitality. He was not the same. Hardly past middle age, he had gone grey and had acquired a pronounced stoop. His figure was thin and angular, his face deeply lined, his complexion dead-white, without a touch of colour. His eyes, unnaturally large, glowed with a fire that was almost uncanny. He seated me, proffered a cigar, and with grave and obvious sincerity assured me of the pleasure that it gave him to meet me. Some unimportant conversation followed, but all the while I was dom- inated by a melancholy sense of the great change in him. This he must have perceived, for he sud- denly said with a bright enough smile, 'You are disappointed in me--non sum qualis eram.' I hardly knew what to reply, but managed to say: 'Why, really, I don't know: your Latin is about the same.' He brightened again. 'No,' he said, 'being a dead language, it grows in appropriateness. But please have the patience to wait: where I am going there is perhaps a better tongue. Will you care to have a message in it?' The smile faded as he spoke, and as he concluded he was looking into my eyes with a gravity that distressed me. Yet I would not surrender myself to his mood, nor permit him to see how deeply his prescience of death affected me. 'I fancy that it will be long,' I said, 'before hu- man speech will cease to serve our need; and then the need, with its possibilities of service, will have passed.' He made no reply, and I too was silent, for the talk had taken a dispiriting turn, yet I knew not how to give it a more agreeable character. Suddenly, in a pause of the storm, when the dead silence was almost startling by contrast with the previous up- roar, I heard a gentle tapping, which appeared to come from the wall behind my chair. The sound was such as might have been made by a human hand, not as upon a door by one asking admittance, but rather, I thought, as an agreed signal, an assurance of some one's presence in an adjoining room; most of us, I fancy, have had more experience of such communications than we should care to relate. I glanced at Dampier. If possibly there was some- thing of amusement in the look he did not observe it. He appeared to have forgotten my presence, and was staring at the wall behind me with an expression in his eyes that I am unable to name, although my memory of it is as vivid to-day as was my sense of it then. The situation was embarrassing; I rose to take my leave. At this he seemed to recover himself. 'Please be seated,' he said; 'it is nothing--no one is there.' But the tapping was repeated, and with the same gentle, slow insistence as before. 'Pardon me,' I said, 'it is late. May I call to- morrow?' He smiled--a little mechanically, I thought. 'It is very delicate of you,' said he, 'but quite need- less. Really, this is the only room in the tower, and no one is there. At least--' He left the sentence incomplete, rose, and threw up a window, the only opening in the wall from which the sound seemed to come. 'See.' Not clearly knowing what else to do I followed him to the window and looked out. A street-lamp some little distance away gave enough light through the murk of the rain that was again falling in tor- rents to make it entirely plain that 'no one was there.' In truth there was nothing but the sheer blank wall of the tower. Dampier closed the window and signing me to my seat resumed his own. The incident was not in itself particularly mys- terious; any one of a dozen explanations was pos- sible (though none has occurred to me), yet it im- pressed me strangely, the more, perhaps, from my friend's effort to reassure me, which seemed to dig- nify it with a certain significance and importance. He had proved that no one was there, but in that fact lay all the interest; and he proffered no explana- tion. His silence was irritating and made me resentful. 'My good friend,' I said, somewhat ironically, I fear, 'I am not disposed to question your right to harbour as many spooks as you find agreeable to your taste and consistent with your notions of com- panionship; that is no business of mine. But being just a plain man of affairs, mostly of this world, I find spooks needless to my peace and comfort. I am going to my hotel, where my fellow-guests are still in the flesh.' It was not a very civil speech, but he manifested no feeling about it. 'Kindly remain,' he said. 'I am grateful for your presence here. What you have heard to-night I believe myself to have heard twice before. Now I know it was no illusion. That is much to me--more than you know. Have a fresh cigar and a good stock of patience while I tell you the story.' The rain was now falling more steadily, with a low, monotonous susurration, interrupted at long intervals by the sudden slashing of the boughs of the trees as the wind rose and failed. The night was well advanced, but both sympathy and curiosity held me a willing listener to my friend's monologue, which I did not interrupt by a single word from be- ginning to end. 'Ten years ago,' he said, 'I occupied a ground- floor apartment in one of a row of houses, all alike, away at the other end of the town, on what we call Rincon Hill. This had been the best quarter of San Francisco, but had fallen into neglect and decay, partly because the primitive character of its domes- tic architecture no longer suited the maturing tastes of our wealthy citizens, partly because certain pub- lic improvements had made a wreck of it. The row of dwellings in one of which I lived stood a little way back from the street, each having a miniature garden, separated from its neighbours by low iron fences and bisected with mathematical precision by a box-bordered gravel walk from gate to door. 'One morning as I was leaving my lodging I ob- served a young girl entering the adjoining garden on the left. It was a warm day in June, and she was lightly gowned in white. From her shoulders hung a broad straw hat profusely decorated with flowers and wonderfully beribboned in the fashion of the time. My attention was not long held by the exqui- site simplicity of her costume, for no one could look at her face and think of anything earthly. Do not fear; I shall not profane it by description; it was beautiful exceedingly. All that I had ever seen or dreamed of loveliness was in that matchless living picture by the hand of the Divine Artist. So deeply did it move me that, without a thought of the im- propriety of the act, I unconsciously bared my head, as a devout Catholic or well-bred Protestant un- covers before an image of the Blessed Virgin. The maiden showed no displeasure; she merely turned her glorious dark eyes upon me with a look that made me catch my breath, and without other recog- nition of my act passed into the house. For a moment I stood motionless, hat in hand, painfully conscious of my rudeness, yet so dominated by the emotion inspired by that vision of incomparable beauty that my penitence was less poignant than it should have been. Then I went my way, leaving my heart behind. In the natural course of things I should probably have remained away until nightfall, but by the middle of the afternoon I was back in the little garden, affecting an interest in the few foolish flowers that I had never before observed. My hope was vain; she did not appear. 'To a night of unrest succeeded a day of expec- tation and disappointment, but on the day after, as I wandered aimlessly about the neighbourhood, I met her. Of course I did not repeat my folly of un- covering, nor venture by even so much as too long a look to manifest an interest in her; yet my heart was beating audibly. I trembled and consciously coloured as she turned her big black eyes upon me with a look of obvious recognition entirely devoid of boldness or coquetry. 'I will not weary you with particulars; many times afterward I met the maiden, yet never either addressed her or sought to fix her attention. Nor did I take any action toward making her acquaintance. Perhaps my forbearance, requiring so supreme an effort of self-denial, will not be entirely clear to you. That I was heels over head in love is true, but who can overcome his habit of thought, or reconstruct his character? 'I was what some foolish persons are pleased to call, and others, more foolish, are pleased to be called--an aristocrat; and despite her beauty, her charms and grace, the girl was not of my class. I had learned her name--which it is needless to speak--and something of her family. She was an orphan, a dependent niece of the impossible elderly fat woman in whose lodging-house she lived. My in- come was small and I lacked the talent for marry- ing; it is perhaps a gift. An alliance with that fam- ily would condemn me to its manner of life, part me from my books and studies, and in a social sense reduce me to the ranks. It is easy to deprecate such considerations as these and I have not retained my- self for the defence. Let judgment be entered against me, but in strict justice all my ancestors for genera- tions should be made co-defendants and I be per- mitted to plead in mitigation of punishment the imperious mandate of heredity. To a mesalliance of that kind every globule of my ancestral blood spoke in opposition. In brief, my tastes, habits, instinct, with whatever of reason my love had left me--all fought against it. Moreover, I was an irreclaimable sentimentalist, and found a subtle charm in an im- personal and spiritual relation which acquaintance might vulgarize and marriage would certainly dis- pel. No woman, I argued, is what this lovely creature seems. Love is a delicious dream; why should I bring about my own awakening? 'The course dictated by all this sense and senti- ment was obvious. Honour, pride, prudence, preser- vation of my ideals--all commanded me to go away, but for that I was too weak. The utmost that I could do by a mighty effort of will was to cease meeting the girl, and that I did. I even avoided the chance encounters of the garden, leaving my lodg- ing only when I knew that she had gone to her music lessons, and returning after nightfall. Yet all the while I was as one in a trance, indulging the most fascinating fancies and ordering my entire in- tellectual life in accordance with my dream. Ah, my friend, as one whose actions have a traceable rela- tion to reason, you cannot know the fool's paradise in which I lived. 'One evening the devil put it into my head to be an unspeakable idiot. By apparently careless and purposeless questioning I learned from my gossipy landlady that the young woman's bedroom adjoined my own, a party-wall between. Yielding to a sudden and coarse impulse I gently rapped on the wall. There was no response, naturally, but I was in no mood to accept a rebuke. A madness was upon me and I repeated the folly, the offence, but again in- effectually, and I had the decency to desist. 'An hour later, while absorbed in some of my in- fernal studies, I heard, or thought I heard, my signal answered. Flinging down my books I sprang to the wall and as steadily as my beating heart would per- mit gave three slow taps upon it. This time the re- sponse was distinct, unmistakable: one, two, three --an exact repetition of my signal. That was all I could elicit, but it was enough--too much. 'The next evening, and for many evenings after- ward, that folly went on, I always having "the last word." During the whole period I was deliriously happy, but with the perversity of my nature I per- severed in my resolution not to see her. Then, as I should have expected, I got no further answers. "She is disgusted," I said to myself, "with what she thinks my timidity in making no more definite advances"; and I resolved to seek her and make her acquaintance and--what? I did not know, nor do I now know, what might have come of it. I know only that I passed days and days trying to meet her, and all in vain; she was invisible as well as in- audible. I haunted the streets where we had met, but she did not come. From my window I watched the garden in front of her house, but she passed neither in nor out. I fell into the deepest dejection, believing that she had gone away, yet took no steps to resolve my doubt by inquiry of my landlady, to whom, indeed, I had taken an unconquerable aver- sion from her having once spoken of the girl with less of reverence than I thought befitting. 'There came a fateful night. Worn out with emo- tion, irresolution and despondency, I had retired early and fallen into such sleep as was still possible to me. In the middle of the night something--some malign power bent upon the wrecking of my peace for ever--caused me to open my eyes and sit up, wide awake and listening intently for I knew not what. Then I thought I heard a faint tapping on the wall--the mere ghost of the familiar signal. In a few moments it was repeated: one, two, three--no louder than before, but addressing a sense alert and strained to receive it. I was about to reply when the Adversary of Peace again intervened in my affairs with a rascally suggestion of retaliation. She had long and cruelly ignored me; now I would ignore her. Incredible fatuity--may God forgive it ! All the rest of the night I lay awake, fortifying my obstinacy with shameless justifications and-- listening. 'Late the next morning, as I was leaving the house, I met my landlady, entering. '"Good morning, Mr. Dampier," she said. "Have you heard the news?" 'I replied in words that I had heard no news; in manner, that I did not care to hear any. The manner escaped her observation. '"About the sick young lady next door," she babbled on. "What! you did not know? Why, she has been ill for weeks. And now--" 'I almost sprang upon her. "And now," I cried, "now what?" '"She is dead." 'That is not the whole story. In the middle of the night, as I learned later, the patient, awakening from a long stupor after a week of delirium, had asked--it was her last utterance--that her bed be moved to the opposite side of the room. Those in attendance had thought the request a vagary of her delirium, but had complied. And there the poor pass- ing soul had exerted its failing will to restore a broken connection--a golden thread of sentiment between its innocence and a monstrous baseness owning a blind, brutal allegiance to the Law of Self. 'What reparation could I make? Are there masses that can be said for the repose of souls that are abroad such nights as this--spirits "blown about by the viewless winds"--coming in the storm and darkness with signs and portents, hints of memory and presages of doom? 'This is the third visitation. On the first occasion I was too sceptical to do more than verify by natural methods the character of the incident; on the sec- ond, I responded to the signal after it had been several times repeated, but without result. To-night's recurrence completes the "fatal triad" expounded by Parapelius Necromantius. There is no more to tell.' When Dampier had finished his story I could think of nothing relevant that I cared to say, and to question him would have been a hideous imperti- nence. I rose and bade him good night in a way to convey to him a sense of my sympathy, which he silently acknowledged by a pressure of the hand. That night, alone with his sorrow and remorse, he passed into the Unknown.

ONE dark night in midsummer a man waking from a dreamless sleep in a forest lifted his head from the earth, and staring a few moments into the black- ness, said: 'Catharine Larue.' He said nothing more; no reason was known to him why he should have said so much. The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives now is uncertain, for he is dead. One who practises sleeping in the woods with nothing under him but the dry leaves and the damp earth, and nothing over him but the branches from which the leaves have fallen and the sky from which the earth has fallen, cannot hope for great longevity, and Frayser had already attained the age of thirty-two. There are persons in this world, millions of persons, and far and away the best persons, who regard that as a very advanced age. They are the children. To those who view the voyage of life from the port of departure the bark that has accomplished any considerable dis- tance appears already in close approach to the far- ther shore. However, it is not certain that Halpin Frayser came to his death by exposure. He had been all day in the hills west of the Napa Valley, looking for doves and such small game as was in season. Late in the afternoon it had come on to be cloudy, and he had lost his bearings; and al- though he had only to go always downhill--every- where the way to safety when one is lost--the ab- sence of trails had so impeded him that he was overtaken by night while still in the forest. Unable in the darkness to penetrate the thickets of man- zanita and other undergrowth, utterly bewildered and overcome with fatigue, he had lain down near the root of a large madrono and fallen into a dream- less sleep. It was hours later, in the very middle of the night, that one of God's mysterious messengers, gliding ahead of the incalculable host of his com- panions sweeping westward with the dawn line, pronounced the awakening word in the ear of the sleeper, who sat upright and spoke, he knew not why, a name, he knew not whose. Halpin Frayser was not much of a philosopher, nor a scientist. The circumstance that, waking from a deep sleep at night in the midst of a forest, he had spoken aloud a name that he had not in memory and hardly had in mind did not arouse an en- lightened curiosity to investigate the phenomenon. He thought it odd, and with a little perfunctory shiver, as if in deference to a seasonal presumption that the night was chill, he lay down again and went to sleep. But his sleep was no longer dreamless. He thought he was walking along a dusty road that showed white in the gathering darkness of a summer night. Whence and whither it led, and why he travelled it, he did not know, though all seemed simple and natural, as is the way in dreams; for in the Land Beyond the Bed surprises cease from troubling and the judgment is at rest. Soon he came to a parting of the ways; leading from the highway was a road less travelled, having the appearance, in- deed, of having been long abandoned, because, he thought, it led to something evil; yet he turned into it without hesitation, impelled by some imperious necessity. As he pressed forward he became conscious that his way was haunted by invisible existences whom he could not definitely figure to his mind. From among the trees on either side he caught broken and incoherent whispers in a strange tongue which yet he partly understood. They seemed to him fragmentary utterances of a monstrous conspiracy against his body and soul. It was now long after nightfall, yet the intermi- nable forest through which he journeyed was lit with a wan glimmer having no point of diffusion, for in its mysterious lumination nothing cast a shadow. A shallow pool in the guttered depression of an old wheel rut, as from a recent rain, met his eye with a crimson gleam. He stooped and plunged his hand into it. It stained his fingers; it was blood! Blood, he then observed, was about him everywhere. The weeds growing rankly by the roadside showed it in blots and splashes on their big, broad leaves. Patches of dry dust between the wheel-ways were pitted and spattered as with a red rain. Defiling the trunks of the trees were broad maculations of crimson, and blood dripped like dew from their foliage. All this he observed with a terror which seemed not incompatible with the fulfilment of a natural expectation. It seemed to him that it was all in expi- ation of some crime which, though conscious of his guilt, he could not rightly remember. To the menaces and mysteries of his surroundings the consciousness was an added horror. Vainly he sought, by tracing life backward in memory, to reproduce the moment of his sin; scenes and incidents came crowding tumultuously into his mind, one picture effacing an- other, or commingling with it in confusion and ob- scurity, but nowhere could he catch a glimpse of what he sought. The failure augmented his terror; he felt as one who has murdered in the dark, not knowing whom nor why. So frightful was the situa- tion--the mysterious light burned with so silent and awful a menace; the noxious plants, the trees that by common consent are invested with a mel- ancholy or baleful character, so openly in his sight conspired against his peace; from overhead and all about came so audible and startling whispers and the sighs of creatures so obviously not of earth-- that he could endure it no longer, and with a great effort to break some malign spell that bound his faculties to silence and inaction, he shouted with the full strength of his lungs! His voice, broken, it seemed, into an infinite multitude of unfamiliar sounds, went babbling and stammering away into the distant reaches of the forest, died into silence, and all was as before. But he had made a beginning at resistance and was encouraged. He said: 'I will not submit unheard. There may be powers that are not malignant travelling this accursed road. I shall leave them a record and an appeal. I shall relate my wrongs, the persecutions that I endure-- I, a helpless mortal, a penitent, an unoffending poet!' Halpin Frayser was a poet only as he was a penitent: in his dream. Taking from his clothing a small red-leather pocket-book one half of which was leaved for mem- oranda, he discovered that he was without a pencil. He broke a twig from a bush, dipped it into a pool of blood and wrote rapidly. He had hardly touched the paper with the point of his twig when a low, wild peal of laughter broke out at a measureless distance away, and growing ever louder, seemed approach- ing ever nearer; a soulless, heartless, and unjoyous laugh, like that of the loon, solitary by the lake- side at midnight; a laugh which culminated in an unearthly shout close at hand, then died away by slow gradations, as if the accursed being that uttered it had withdrawn over the verge of the world whence it had come. But the man felt that this was not so--that it was near by and had not moved. A strange sensation began slowly to take posses- sion of his body and his mind. He could not have said which, if any, of his senses was affected; he felt it rather as a consciousness--a mysterious mental assurance of some overpowering presence--some supernatural malevolence different in kind from the invisible existences that swarmed about him, and superior to them in power. He knew that it had uttered that hideous laugh. And now it seemed to be approaching him; from what direction he did not know--dared not conjecture. All his former fears were forgotten or merged in the gigantic terror that now held him in thrall. Apart from that, he had but one thought: to complete his written appeal to the benign powers who, traversing the haunted wood, might sometime rescue him if he should be denied the blessing of annihilation. He wrote with terrible rapidity, the twig in his fingers rilling blood without renewal; but in the middle of a sentence his hands denied their service to his will, his arms fell to his sides, the book to the earth; and powerless to move or cry out, he found himself staring into the sharply drawn face and blank, dead eyes of his own mother, standing white and silent in the garments of the grave!

            2

In his youth Halpin Frayser had lived with his parents in Nashville, Tennessee. The Fraysers were well-to-do, having a good position in such society as had survived the wreck wrought by civil war. Their children had the social and educational opportunities of their time and place, and had responded to good associations and instruction with agreeable manners and cultivated minds. Halpin being the youngest and not over robust was perhaps a trifle 'spoiled.' He had the double disadvantage of a mother's assiduity and a father's neglect. Frayser pere was what no Southern man of means is not--a poli- tician. His country, or rather his section and State, made demands upon his time and attention so ex- acting that to those of his family he was compelled to turn an ear partly deafened by the thunder of the political captains and the shouting, his own included. Young Halpin was of a dreamy, indolent and rather romantic turn, somewhat more addicted to literature than law, the profession to which he was bred. Among those of his relations who professed the modern faith of heredity it was well understood that in him the character of the late Myron Bayne, a maternal great-grandfather, had revisited the glimpses of the moon--by which orb Bayne had in his lifetime been sufficiently affected to be a poet of no small Colonial distinction. If not specially ob- served, it was observable that while a Frayser who was not the proud possessor of a sumptuous copy of the ancestral 'poetical works' (printed at the family expense, and long ago withdrawn from an inhospitable market) was a rare Frayser indeed, there was an illogical indisposition to honour the great deceased in the person of his spiritual succes- sor. Halpin was pretty generally deprecated as an intellectual black sheep who was likely at any mo- ment to disgrace the flock by bleating in metre. The Tennessee Fraysers were a practical folk--not practical in the popular sense of devotion to sordid pursuits, but having a robust contempt for any qualities unfitting a man for the wholesome voca- tion of politics. In justice to young Halpin it should be said that while in him were pretty faithfully reproduced most of the mental and moral characteristics ascribed by history and family tradition to the famous Colonial bard, his succession to the gift and faculty divine was purely inferential. Not only had he never been known to court the Muse, but in truth he could not have written correctly a line of verse to save him- self from the Killer of the Wise. Still, there was no knowing when the dormant faculty might wake and smite the lyre. In the meantime the young man was rather a loose fish, anyhow. Between him and his mother was the most perfect sympathy, for secretly the lady was herself a devout disciple of the late and great Myron Bayne, though with the tact so generally and justly admired in her sex (despite the hardy calumniators who insist that it is essentially the same thing as cunning) she had always taken care to conceal her weakness from all eyes but those of him who shared it. Their common guilt in respect of that was an added tie between them. If in Halpin's youth his mother had 'spoiled' him he had assuredly done his part toward being spoiled. As he grew to such manhood as is attainable by a Southerner who does not care which way elections go, the attachment be- tween him and his beautiful mother--whom from early childhood he had called Katy--became yearly stronger and more tender. In these two romantic natures was manifest in a signal way that neglected phenomenon, the dominance of the sexual element in all the relations of life, strengthening, softening, and beautifying even those of consanguinity. The two were nearly inseparable, and by strangers ob- serving their manners were not infrequently mis- taken for lovers. Entering his mother's boudoir one day Halpin Frayser kissed her upon the forehead, toyed for a moment with a lock of her dark hair which had es- caped from its confining pins, and said, with an ob- vious effort at calmness: 'Would you greatly mind, Katy, if I were called away to California for a few weeks?' It was hardly needful for Katy to answer with her lips a question to which her tell-tale cheeks had made instant reply. Evidently she would greatly mind; and the tears, too, sprang into her large brown eyes as corroborative testimony. 'Ah, my son,' she said, looking up into his face with infinite tenderness,' I should have known that this was coming. Did I not lie awake a half of the night weeping because, during the other half, Grand- father Bayne had come to me in a dream, and stand- ing by his portrait--young, too, and handsome as that--pointed to yours on the same wall? And when I looked it seemed that I could not see the features; you had been painted with a face cloth, such as we put upon the dead. Your father has laughed at me, but you and I, dear, know that such things are not for nothing. And I saw below the edge of the cloth the marks of hands on your throat-- forgive me, but we have not been used to keep such things from each other. Perhaps you have another interpretation. Perhaps it does not mean that you will go to California. Or maybe you will take me with you?' It must be confessed that this ingenious interpre- tation of the dream in the light of newly discovered evidence did not wholly commend itself to the son's more logical mind; he had, for the moment at least, a conviction that it foreshadowed a more simple and immediate, if less tragic, disaster than a visit to the Pacific Coast. It was Halpin Frayser's impression that he was to be garroted on his native heath. 'Are there not medicinal springs in California?' Mrs. Frayser resumed before he had time to give her the true reading of the dream--'places where one recovers from rheumatism and neuralgia? Look-- my fingers feel so stiff; and I am almost sure they have been giving me great pain while I slept.' She held out her hands for his inspection. What diagnosis of her case the young man may have thought it best to conceal with a smile the historian is unable to state, but for himself he feels bound to say that fingers looking less stiff, and showing fewer evidences of even insensible pain, have seldom been submitted for medical inspection by even the fairest patient desiring a prescription of unfamiliar scenes. The outcome of it was that of these two odd per- sons having equally odd notions of duty, the one went to California, as the interest of his client re- quired, and the other remained at home in com- pliance with a wish that her husband was scarcely conscious of entertaining. While in San Francisco Halpin Frayser was walk- ing one dark night along the water-front of the city, when, with a suddenness that surprised and dis- concerted him, he became a sailor. He was in fact 'shanghaied' aboard a gallant, gallant ship, and sailed for a far countree. Nor did his misfortunes end with the voyage; for the ship was cast ashore on an island of the South Pacific, and it was six years afterward when the survivors were taken off by a venturesome trading schooner and brought back to San Francisco. Though poor in purse, Frayser was no less proud in spirit than he had been in the years that seemed ages and ages ago. He would accept no assistance from strangers, and it was while living with a fellow survivor near the town of St. Helena, awaiting news and remittances from home, that he had gone gun- ning and dreaming.

            3

The apparition confronting the dreamer in the haunted wood--the thing so like, yet so unlike, his mother--was horrible! It stirred no love nor long- ings in his heart; it came unattended with pleasant memories of a golden past--inspired no sentiment of any kind; all the finer emotions were swallowed up in fear. He tried to turn and run from before it, but his legs were as lead; he was unable to lift his feet from the ground. His arms hung helpless at his sides; of his eyes only he retained control, and these he dared not remove from the lustreless orbs of the apparition, which he knew was not a soul without a body, but that most dreadful of all existences in- festing that haunted wood--a body without a soul! In its blank stare was neither love, nor pity, nor intelligence--nothing to which to address an ap- peal for mercy. 'An appeal will not lie,' he thought, with an absurd reversion to professional slang, mak- ing the situation more horrible, as the fire of a cigar might light up a tomb. For a time, which seemed so long that the world grew grey with age and sin, and the haunted forest, having fulfilled its purpose in this monstrous cul- mination of its terrors, vanished out of his conscious- ness with all its sights and sounds, the apparition stood within a pace, regarding him with the mind- less malevolence of a wild brute; then thrust its hands forward and sprang upon him with appalling ferocity! The act released his physical energies with- out unfettering his will; his mind was still spell- bound, but his powerful body and agile limbs, endowed with a blind, insensate life of their own, re- sisted stoutly and well. For an instant he seemed to see this unnatural contest between a dead intelli- gence and a breathing mechanism only as a spectator --such fancies are in dreams; then he regained his identity almost as if by a leap forward into his body, and the straining automaton had a direct- ing will as alert and fierce as that of its hideous antagonist. But what mortal can cope with a creature of his dream? The imagination creating the enemy is al- ready vanquished; the combat's result is the com- bat's cause. Despite his struggles--despite his strength and activity, which seemed wasted in a void, he felt the cold fingers close upon his throat. Borne backward to the earth, he saw above him the dead and drawn face within a hand's-breadth of his own, and then all was black. A sound as of the beat- ing of distant drums--a murmur of swarming voices, a sharp, far cry signing all to silence, and Halpin Frayser dreamed that he was dead.

            4

A warm, clear night had been followed by a morning of drenching fog. At about the middle of the afternoon of the preceding day a little whiff of light vapour--a mere thickening of the atmos- phere, the ghost of a cloud--had been observed clinging to the western side of Mount St. Helena, away up along the barren altitudes near the sum- mit. It was so thin, so diaphanous, so like a fancy made visible, that one would have said: 'Look quickly! in a moment it will be gone.' In a moment it was visibly larger and denser. While with one edge it clung to the mountain, with the other it reached farther and farther out into the air above the lower slopes. At the same time it ex- tended itself to north and south, joining small patches of mist that appeared to come out of the mountain-side on exactly the same level, with an in- telligent design to be absorbed. And so it grew and grew until the summit was shut out of view from the valley, and over the valley itself was an ever- extending canopy, opaque and grey. At Calistoga, which lies near the head of the valley and the foot of the mountain, there were a starless night and a sunless morning. The fog, sinking into the valley, had reached southward, swallowing up ranch after ranch, until it had blotted out the town of St. Helena, nine miles away. The dust in the road was laid; trees were adrip with moisture; birds sat silent in their coverts; the morning light was wan and ghastly, with neither colour nor fire. Two men left the town of St. Helena at the first glimmer of dawn, and walked along the road north- ward up the valley toward Calistoga. They carried guns on their shoulders, yet no one having knowledge of such matters could have mistaken them for hunters of bird or beast. They were a deputy sheriff from Napa and a detective from San Francisco-- Holker and Jaralson, respectively. Their business was man-hunting. 'How far is it?' inquired Holker, as they strode along, their feet stirring white the dust beneath the damp surface of the road. 'The White Church? Only a half mile farther,' the other answered. 'By the way,' he added, 'it is neither white nor a church; it is an abandoned schoolhouse, grey with age and neglect. Religious services were once held in it--when it was white, and there is a graveyard that would delight a poet. Can you guess why I sent for you, and told you to come armed?' 'Oh, I never have bothered you about things of that kind. I've always found you communicative when the time came. But if I may hazard a guess, you want me to help you arrest one of the corpses in the graveyard.' 'You remember Branscom?' said Jaralson, treat- ing his companion's wit with the inattention that it deserved. 'The chap who cut his wife's throat? I ought; I wasted a week's work on him and had my expenses for my trouble. There is a reward of five hundred dollars, but none of us ever got a sight of him. You don't mean to say--' 'Yes, I do. He has been under the noses of you fellows all the time. He comes by night to the old graveyard at the White Church.' 'The devil! That's where they buried his wife.' 'Well, you fellows might have had sense enough to suspect that he would return to her grave some time! ' 'The very last place that anyone would have ex- pected him to return to.' 'But you had exhausted all the other places. Learning your failure at them, I "laid for him" there.' 'And you found him?' 'Damn it! he found me. The rascal got the drop on me--regularly held me up and made me travel. It's God's mercy that he didn't go through me. Oh, he's a good one, and I fancy the half of that reward is enough for me if you're needy.' Holker laughed good-humouredly, and explained that his creditors were never more importunate. 'I wanted merely to show you the ground, and arrange a plan with you,' the detective explained. 'I thought it as well for us to be armed, even in daylight.' 'The man must be insane,' said the deputy sheriff. 'The reward is for his capture and conviction. If he's mad he won't be convicted.' Mr. Holker was so profoundly affected by that possible failure of justice that he involuntarily stopped in the middle of the road, then resumed his walk with abated zeal. 'Well, he looks it,' assented Jaralson. 'I'm bound to admit that a more unshaven, unshorn, unkempt, and uneverything wretch I never saw outside the ancient and honourable order of tramps. But I've gone in for him, and can't make up my mind to let go. There's glory in it for us, anyhow. Not another soul knows that he is this side of the Mountains of the Moon.' 'All right,' Holker said; 'we will go and view the ground,' and he added, in the words of a once favourite inscription for tombstones: '"where you must shortly lie"--I mean if old Branscom ever gets tired of you and your impertinent intrusion. By the way, I heard the other day that "Brans- com" was not his real name.' 'What is?' 'I can't recall it. I had lost all interest in the wretch. and it did not fix itself in my memory-- something like Pardee. The woman whose throat he had the bad taste to cut was a widow when he met her. She had come to California to look up some relatives--there are persons who will do that some- times. But you know all that.' 'Naturally.' 'But not knowing the right name, by what happy inspiration did you find the right grave? The man who told me what the name was said it had been cut on the headboard.' 'I don't know the right grave.' Jaralson was ap- parently a trifle reluctant to admit his ignorance of so important a point of his plan. 'I have been watch- ing about the place generally. A part of our work this morning will be to identify that grave. Here is the White Church.' For a long distance the road had been bordered by fields on both sides, but now on the left there was a forest of oaks, madronos, and gigantic spruces whose lower parts only could be seen, dim and ghostly in the fog. The undergrowth was, in places, thick, but nowhere impenetrable. For some moments Holker saw nothing of the building, but as they turned into the woods it revealed itself in faint grey outline through the fog, looking huge and far away. A few steps more, and it was within an arm's length, dis- tinct, dark with moisture, and insignificant in size. It had the usual country-schoolhouse form--be- longed to the packing-box order of architecture; had an underpinning of stones, a moss-grown roof, and blank window spaces, whence both glass and sash had long departed. It was ruined, but not a ruin --a typical Californian substitute for what are known to guide-bookers abroad as 'monuments of the past.' With scarcely a glance at this uninterest- ing structure Jaralson moved on into the dripping undergrowth beyond. 'I will show you where he held me up,' he said. 'This is the graveyard.' Here and there among the bushes were small en- closures containing graves, sometimes no more than one. They were recognized as graves by the dis- coloured stones or rotting boards at head and foot, leaning at all angles, some prostrate; by the ruined picket fences surrounding them; or, infrequently, by the mound itself showing its gravel through the fallen leaves. In many instances nothing marked the spot where lay the vestiges of some poor mortal --who, leaving 'a large circle of sorrowing friends,' had been left by them in turn--except a depression in the earth, more lasting than that in the spirits of the mourners. The paths, if any paths had been, were long obliterated; trees of a considerable size had been permitted to grow up from the graves and thrust aside with root or branch the enclosing fences. Over all was that air of abandonment and decay which seems nowhere so fit and significant as in a village of the forgotten dead. As the two men, Jaralson leading, pushed their way through the growth of young trees, that enter- prising man suddenly stopped and brought up his shotgun to the height of his breast, uttered a low note of warning, and stood motionless, his eyes fixed upon something ahead. As well as he could, obstructed by brush, his companion, though seeing nothing, imitated the posture and so stood, prepared for what might ensue. A moment later Jaralson moved cautiously forward, the other following. Under the branches of an enormous spruce lay the dead body of a man. Standing silent above it they noted such particulars as first strike the attention-- the face, the attitude, the clothing; whatever most promptly and plainly answers the unspoken ques- tion of a sympathetic curiosity. The body lay upon its back, the legs wide apart. One arm was thrust upward, the other outward; but the latter was bent acutely, and the hand was near the throat. Both hands were tightly clenched. The whole attitude was that of desperate but ineffectual resistance to--what? Near by lay a shotgun and a game bag through the meshes of which was seen the plumage of shot birds. All about were evidences of a furious strug- gle; small sprouts of poison-oak were bent and denuded of leaf and bark; dead and rotting leaves had been pushed into heaps and ridges on both sides of the legs by the action of other feet than theirs; alongside the hips were unmistakable impressions of human knees. The nature of the struggle was made clear by a glance at the dead man's throat and face. While breast and hands were white, those were purple-- almost black. The shoulders lay upon a low mound, and the head was turned back at an angle otherwise impossible, the expanded eyes staring blankly back- ward in a direction opposite to that of the feet. From the froth filling the open mouth the tongue pro- truded, black and swollen. The throat showed hor- rible contusions; not mere finger-marks, but bruises and lacerations wrought by two strong hands that must have buried themselves in the yielding flesh, maintaining their terrible grasp until long after death. Breast, throat, face, were wet; the clothing was saturated; drops of water, condensed from the fog, studded the hair and moustache. All this the two men observed without speaking-- almost at a glance. Then Holker said: 'Poor devil! he had a rough deal.' Jaralson was making a vigilant circumspection of the forest, his shotgun held in both hands and at full cock, his finger upon the trigger. 'The work of a maniac,' he said, without with- drawing his eyes from the enclosing wood. 'It was done by Branscom--Pardee.' Something half hidden by the disturbed leaves on the earth caught Holker's attention. It was a red- leather pocket-book. He picked it up and opened it. It contained leaves of white paper for memoranda, and upon the first leaf was the name 'Halpin Fray- ser.' Written in red on several succeeding leaves-- scrawled as if in haste and barely legible--were the following lines, which Holker read aloud, while his companion continued scanning the dim grey confines of their narrow world and hearing matter of apprehension in the drip of water from every bur- dened branch:

'Enthralled by some mysterious spell, I stood In the lit gloom of an enchanted wood. The cypress there and myrtle twined their boughs, Significant, in baleful brotherhood.

'The brooding willow whispered to the yew; Beneath, the deadly nightshade and the rue, With immortelles self-woven into strange Funereal shapes, and horrid nettles grew.

'No song of bird nor any drone of bees, Nor light leaf lifted by the wholesome breeze: The air was stagnant all, and Silence was A living thing that breathed among the trees.

'Conspiring spirits whispered in the gloom, Half-heard, the stilly secrets of the tomb. With blood the trees were all adrip; the leaves Shone in the witch-light with a ruddy bloom.

'I cried aloud!--the spell, unbroken still, Rested upon my spirit and my will. Unsouled, unhearted, hopeless and forlorn, I strove with monstrous presages of ill!

'At last the viewless--'

Holker ceased reading; there was no more to read. The manuscript broke off in the middle of a line. 'That sounds like Bayne,' said Jaralson, who was something of a scholar in his way. He had abated his vigilance and stood looking down at the body. 'Who's Bayne?' Holker asked rather incuriously. 'Myron Bayne, a chap who flourished in the early years of the nation--more than a century ago. Wrote mighty dismal stuff; I have his collected works. That poem is not among them, but it must have been omitted by mistake.' 'It is cold,' said Holker; 'let us leave here; we must have up the coroner from Napa.' Jaralson said nothing, but made a movement in compliance. Passing the end of the slight elevation of earth upon which the dead man's head and shoulders lay, his foot struck some hard substance under the rotting forest leaves, and he took the trouble to kick it into view. It was a fallen head- board, and painted on it were the hardly de- cipherable words, 'Catharine Larue.' 'Larue, Larue!' exclaimed Holker, with sudden animation. 'Why, that is the real name of Brans- com--not Pardee. And--bless my soul! how it all comes to me--the murdered woman's name had been Frayser!' 'There is some rascally mystery here,' said De- tective Jaralson. 'I hate anything of that kind.' There came to them out of the fog--seemingly from a great distance--the sound of a laugh, a low, deliberate, soulless laugh which had no more of joy than that of a hyena night-prowling in the desert; a laugh that rose by slow gradation, louder and louder, clearer, more distinct and terrible, until it seemed barely outside the narrow circle of their vision; a laugh so unnatural, so unhuman, so devilish, that it filled those hardy man-hunters with a sense of dread unspeakable! They did not move their weap- ons nor think of them; the menace of that horrible sound was not of the kind to be met with arms. As it had grown out of silence, so now it died away; from a culminating shout which had seemed almost in their ears, it drew itself away into the distance until its failing notes, joyous and mechanical to the last, sank to silence at a measureless remove.

THE SECRET OF MACARGER'S GULCH

NORTHWESTWARDLY from Indian Hill, about nine miles as the crow flies, is Macarger's Gulch. It is not much of a gulch--a mere depression between two wooded ridges of inconsiderable height. From its mouth up to its head--for gulches, like rivers, have an anatomy of their own--the distance does not exceed two miles, and the width at bottom is at only one place more than a dozen yards; for most of the distance on either side of the little brook which drains it in winter, and goes dry in the early spring, there is no level ground at all; the steep slopes of the hills, covered with an almost inpenetrable growth of manzanita and chemisal, are parted by nothing but the width of the watercourse. No one but an occa- sional enterprising hunter of the vicinity ever goes into Macarger's Gulch, and five miles away it is un- known, even by name. Within that distance in any direction are far more conspicuous topographical features without names, and one might try in vain to ascertain by local inquiry the origin of the name of this one. About midway between the head and the mouth of Macarger's Gulch, the hill on the right as you ascend is cloven by another gulch, a short dry one, and at the junction of the two is a level space of two or three acres, and there a few years ago stood an old board house containing one small room. How the component parts of the house, few and simple as they were, had been assembled at that almost inac- cessible point is a problem in the solution of which there would be greater satisfaction than advantage. Possibly the creek bed is a reformed road. It is certain that the gulch was at one time pretty thor- oughly prospected by miners, who must have had some means of getting in with at least pack animals carrying tools and supplies; their profits, apparently, were not such as would have justified any consider- able outlay to connect Macarger's Gulch with any centre of civilization enjoying the distinction of a sawmill. The house, however, was there, most of it. It lacked a door and a window frame, and the chimney of mud and stones had fallen into an un- lovely heap, overgrown with rank weeds. Such humble furniture as there may once have been and much of the lower weather-boarding, had served as fuel in the camp fires of hunters; as had also, prob- ably, the kerbing of an old well, which at the time I write of existed in the form of a rather wide but not very deep depression near by. One afternoon in the summer of 1874, I passed up Macarger's Gulch from the narrow valley into which it opens, by following the dry bed of the brook. I was quail-shooting and had made a bag of about a dozen birds by the time I had reached the house described, of whose existence I was until then un- aware. After rather carelessly inspecting the ruin I resumed my sport, and having fairly good success prolonged it until near sunset, when it occurred to me that I was a long way from any human habita- tion--too far to reach one by nightfall. But in my game bag was food, and the old house would afford shelter, if shelter were needed on a warm and dew- less night in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where one may sleep in comfort on the pine needles, without covering. I am fond of solitude and love the night, so my resolution to 'camp out' was soon taken, and by the time that it was dark I had made my bed of boughs and grasses in a corner of the room and was roasting a quail at a fire that I had kindled on the hearth. The smoke escaped out of the ruined chimney, the light illuminated the room with a kindly glow, and as I ate my simple meal of plain bird and drank the remains of a bottle of red wine which had served me all the afternoon in place of the water, which the region did not supply, I ex- perienced a sense of comfort which better fare and accommodations do not always give. Nevertheless, there was something lacking. I had a sense of comfort, but not of security. I detected myself staring more frequently at the open doorway and blank window than I could find warrant for doing. Outside these apertures all was black, and I was unable to repress a certain feeling of apprehen- sion as my fancy pictured the outer world and filled it with unfriendly entities, natural and supernatural --chief among which, in their respective classes were the grizzly bear, which I knew was occasionally still seen in that region, and the ghost, which I had reason to think was not. Unfortunately, our feelings do not always respect the law of probabilities, and to me that evening, the possible and the impossible were equally disquieting. Every one who has had experience in the matter must have observed that one confronts the actual and imaginary perils of the night with far less appre- hension in the open air than in a house with an open doorway. I felt this now as I lay on my leafy couch in a corner of the room next to the chimney and per- mitted my fire to die out. So strong became my sense of the presence of something malign and men- acing in the place, that I found myself almost un- able to withdraw my eyes from the opening, as in the deepening darkness it became more and more indistinct. And when the last little flame flickered and went out I grasped the shotgun which I had laid at my side and actually turned the muzzle in the direction of the now invisible entrance, my thumb on one of the hammers, ready to cock the piece, my breath suspended, my muscles rigid and tense. But later I laid down the weapon with a sense of shame and mortification. What did I fear, and why?--I, to whom the night had been a more familiar face Than that of man--

I, in whom that element of hereditary superstition from which none of us is altogether free had given to solitude and darkness and silence only a more alluring interest and charm! I was unable to com- prehend my folly, and losing in the conjecture the thing conjectured of, I fell asleep. And then I dreamed. I was in a great city in a foreign land--a city whose people were of my own race, with minor differences of speech and costume; yet precisely what these were I could not say; my sense of them was indistinct. The city was dominated by a great castle upon an overlooking height whose name I knew, but could not speak. I walked through many streets, some broad and straight with high, modern buildings, some narrow, gloomy, and tortuous, be- tween the gables of quaint old houses whose over- hanging stories, elaborately ornamented with carv- ings in wood and stone, almost met above my head. I sought some one whom I had never seen, yet knew that I should recognize when found. My quest was not aimless and fortuitous; it had a definite method. I turned from one street into another with- out hesitation and threaded a maze of intricate passages, devoid of the fear of losing my way. Presently I stopped before a low door in a plain stone house which might have been the dwelling of an artisan of the better sort, and without announc- ing myself, entered. The room, rather sparely fur- nished, and lighted by a single window with small diamond-shaped panes, had but two occupants. a man and a woman. They took no notice of my intrusion, a circumstance which, in the manner of dreams, appeared entirely natural. They were not conversing; they sat apart, unoccupied and sullen. The woman was young and rather stout, with fine large eyes and a certain grave beauty; my memory of her expression is exceedingly vivid, but in dreams one does not observe the details of faces. About her shoulders was a plaid shawl. The man was older, dark, with an evil face made more forbidding by a long scar extending from near the left temple di- agonally downward into the black moustache; though in my dreams it seemed rather to haunt the face as a thing apart--I can express it no other- wise--than to belong to it. The moment that I found the man and woman I knew them to be hus- band and wife. What followed, I remember indistinctly; all was confused and inconsistent--made so, I think, by gleams of consciousness. It was as if two pictures, the scene of my dream, and my actual surroundings, had been blended, one overlying the other, until the former, gradually fading, disappeared, and I was broad awake in the deserted cabin, entirely and tranquilly conscious of my situation. My foolish fear was gone, and opening my eyes I saw that my fire, not altogether burned out, had revived by the falling of a stick and was again lighting the room. I had probably slept only a few minutes, but my commonplace dream had somehow so strongly impressed me that I was no longer drowsy; and after a little while I rose, pushed the embers of my fire together, and lighting my pipe pro- ceeded in a rather ludicrously methodical way to meditate upon my vision. It would have puzzled me then to say in what re- spect it was worth attention. In the first moment of serious thought that I gave to the matter I recog- nized the city of my dream as Edinburgh, where I had never been; so if the dream was a memory it was a memory of pictures and description. The recognition somehow deeply impressed me; it was as if something in my mind insisted rebelliously against will and reason on the importance of all this. And that faculty, whatever it was, asserted also a control of my speech. 'Surely,' I said aloud, quite involuntarily, 'the MacGregors must have come here from Edinburgh.' At the moment, neither the substance of this re- mark nor the fact of my making it surprised me in the least; it seemed entirely natural that I should know the name of my dreamfolk and something of their history. But the absurdity of it all soon dawned upon me: I laughed aloud, knocked the ashes from my pipe and again stretched myself upon my bed of boughs and grass, where I lay staring absently into my failing fire, with no further thought of either my dream or my surroundings. Suddenly the single remaining flame crouched for a moment, then, springing upward, lifted itself clear of its embers and expired in air. The darkness was absolute. At that instant--almost, it seemed, before the gleam of the blaze had faded from my eyes--there was a dull, dead sound, as of some heavy body fall- ing upon the floor, which shook beneath me as I lay. I sprang to a sitting posture and groped at my side for my gun; my notion was that some wild beast had leaped in through the open window. While the flimsy structure was still shaking from the impact I heard the sound of blows, the scuffling of feet upon the floor, and then--it seemed to come from almost within reach of my hand, the sharp shrieking of a woman in mortal agony. So horrible a cry I had never heard nor conceived; it utterly unnerved me; I was conscious for a moment of nothing but my own terror! Fortunately my hand now found the weapon of which it was in search, and the familiar touch somewhat restored me. I leaped to my feet, straining my eyes to pierce the darkness. The violent sounds had ceased, but more terrible than these, I heard, at what seemed long intervals, the faint intermittent gasping of some living, dying thing! As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of the coals in the fireplace, I saw first the shapes of the door and window looking blacker than the black of the walls. Next, the distinction between wall and floor became discernible, and at last I was sensible to the form and full expanse of the floor from end to end and side to side. Nothing was visible and the silence was unbroken. With a hand that shook a little, the other still grasping my gun, I restored my fire and made a critical examination of the place. There was nowhere any sign that the cabin had been entered. My own tracks were visible in the dust covering the floor, but there were no others. I relit my pipe, provided fresh fuel by ripping a thin board or two from the inside of the house--I did not care to go into the darkness out of doors--and passed the rest of the night smoking and thinking, and feeding my fire; not for added years of life would I have permitted that little flame to expire again.

Some years afterward I met in Sacramento a man named Morgan, to whom I had a note of introduc- tion from a friend in San Francisco. Dining with him one evening at his home I observed various 'trophies' upon the wall, indicating that he was fond of shooting. It turned out that he was, and in re- lating some of his feats he mentioned having been in the region of my adventure. 'Mr. Morgan,' I asked abruptly, 'do you know a place up there called Macarger's Gulch? ' 'I have good reason to,' he replied; 'it was I who gave to the newspapers, last year, the accounts of the finding of the skeleton there." I had not heard of it; the accounts had been pub- lished, it appeared, while I was absent in the East. 'By the way,' said Morgan, 'the name of the gulch is a corruption; it should have been called "MacGregor's." My dear,' he added, speaking to his wife, 'Mr. Elderson has upset his wine.' That was hardly accurate--I had simply dropped it, glass and all. 'There was an old shanty once in the gulch,' Mor- gan resumed when the ruin wrought by my awk- wardness had been repaired, 'but just previously to my visit it had been blown down, or rather blown away, for its debris was scattered all about, the very floor being parted, plank from plank. Between two of the sleepers still in position I and my companion observed the remnant of a plaid shawl, and examin- ing it found that it was wrapped about the shoulders of the body of a woman; of course but little re- mained besides the bones, partly covered with frag- ments of clothing, and brown dry skin. But we will spare Mrs. Morgan,' he added with a smile. The lady had indeed exhibited signs of disgust rather than sympathy. 'It is necessary to say, however,' he went on, 'that the skull was fractured in several places, as by blows of some blunt instrument; and that instru- ment itself--a pick-handle, still stained with blood --lay under the boards near by.' Mr. Morgan turned to his wife. 'Pardon me, my dear,' he said with affected solemnity, 'for men- tioning these disagreeable particulars, the natural though regrettable incidents of a conjugal quarrel-- resulting, doubtless, from the luckless wife's insub- ordination.' 'I ought to be able to overlook it,' the lady re- plied with composure; 'you have so many times asked me to in those very words.' I thought he seemed rather glad to go on with his story. 'From these and other circumstances,' he said, 'the coroner's jury found that the deceased, Janet MacGregor, came to her death from blows inflicted by some person to the jury unknown; but it was added that the evidence pointed strongly to her hus- band, Thomas MacGregor, as the guilty person. But Thomas MacGregor has never been found nor heard of. It was learned that the couple came from Edin- burgh, but not--my dear, do you not observe that Mr. Elderson's bone-plate has water in it?' I had deposited a chicken bone in my finger bowl. 'In a little cupboard I found a photograph of MacGregor, but it did not lead to his capture.' 'Will you let me see it?' I said. The picture showed a dark man with an evil face made more forbidding by a long scar extending from near the temple diagonally downward into the black moustache. 'By the way, Mr. Elderson,' said my affable host, 'may I know why you asked about "Macarger's Gulch"?' 'I lost a mule near there once,' I replied, 'and the mischance has--has quite--upset me.' 'My dear,' said Mr. Morgan, with the mechanical intonation of an interpreter translating, 'the loss of Mr. Elderson's mule has peppered his coffee.'

ONE SUMMER NIGHT

THE fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead: he had al- ways been a hard man to convince. That he really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit. His posture--flat upon his back, with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation--the strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil. But dead--no; he was only very, very ill. He had, withal, the invalid's apathy and did not greatly con- cern himself about the uncommon fate that had been allotted to him. No philosopher was he--just a plain, commonplace person gifted, for the time be- ing, with a pathological indifference: the organ that he feared consequences with was torpid. So, with no particular apprehension for his immediate fu- ture, he fell asleep and all was peace with Henry Armstrong. But something was going on overhead. It was a dark summer night, shot through with infrequent shimmers of lightning silently firing a cloud lying low in the west and portending a storm. These brief, stammering illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery, so the three men who were there, digging into the grave of Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure. Two of them were young students from a medi- cal college a few miles away; the third was a gigan- tic negro known as Jess. For many years Jess had been employed about the cemetery as a man-of-all- work and it was his favourite pleasantry that he knew 'every soul in the place.' From the nature of what he was now doing it was inferable that the place was not so populous as its register may have shown it to be. Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds farthest from the public road, were a horse and a light wagon, waiting. The work of excavation was not difficult: the earth with which the grave had been loosely filled a few hours before offered little resistance and was soon thrown out. Removal of the casket from its box was less easy, but it was taken out, for it was a perquisite of Jess, who carefully unscrewed the cover and laid it aside, exposing the body in black trousers and white shirt. At that instant the air sprang to flame, a cracking shock of thunder shook the stunned world and Henry Armstrong tranquilly sat up. With inarticulate cries the men fled in terror, each in a different direction. For nothing on earth could two of them have been persuaded to return. But Jess was of another breed. In the grey of the morning the two students, pallid and haggard from anxiety and with the terror of their adventure still beating tumultuously in their blood, met at the medical college. 'You saw it?' cried one. 'God! yes--what are we to do?' They went around to the rear of the building, where they saw a horse, attached to a light wagon, hitched to a gatepost near the door of the dissecting- room. Mechanically they entered the room. On a bench in the obscurity sat the negro Jess. He rose, grinning, all eyes and teeth. 'I'm waiting for my pay,' he said. Stretched naked on a long table lay the body of Henry Armstrong, the head defiled with blood and clay from a blow with a spade.

THE MOONLIT ROAD

1: Statement of Joel Hetman, Jr.

I AM the most unfortunate of men. Rich, respected, fairly well educated and of sound health--with many other advantages usually valued by those having them and coveted by those who have them not--I sometimes think that I should be less un- happy if they had been denied me, for then the contrast between my outer and my inner life would not be continually demanding a painful attention. In the stress of privation and the need of effort I might sometimes forget the sombre secret ever baffling the conjecture that it compels. I am the only child of Joel and Julia Hetman. The one was a well-to-do country gentleman, the other a beautiful and accomplished woman to whom he was passionately attached with what I now know to have been a jealous and exacting devotion. The family home was a few miles from Nash- ville, Tennessee, a large, irregularly built dwell- ing of no particular order of architecture, a little way off the road, in a park of trees and shrubbery. At the time of which I write I was nineteen years old, a student at Yale. One day I received a tele- gram from my father of such urgency that in com- pliance with its unexplained demand I left at once for home. At the railway station in Nashville a dis- tant relative awaited me to apprise me of the reason for my recall: my mother had been barbarously murdered--why and by whom none could conjec- ture, but the circumstances were these. My father had gone to Nashville, intending to re- turn the next afternoon. Something prevented his accomplishing the business in hand, so he returned on the same night, arriving just before the dawn. In his testimony before the coroner he explained that having no latchkey and not caring to disturb the sleeping servants, he had, with no clearly defined intention, gone round to the rear of the house. As he turned an angle of the building, he heard a sound as of a door gently closed, and saw in the darkness, in- distinctly, the figure of a man, which instantly dis- appeared among the trees of the lawn. A hasty pur- suit and brief search of the grounds in the belief that the trespasser was some one secretly visiting a servant proving fruitless, he entered at the un- locked door and mounted the stairs to my mother's chamber. Its door was open, and stepping into black darkness he fell headlong over some heavy object on the floor. I may spare myself the details; it was my poor mother, dead of strangulation by human hands! Nothing had been taken from the house, the serv- ants had heard no sound, and excepting those ter- rible finger-marks upon the dead woman's throat-- dear God! that I might forget them!--no trace of the assassin was ever found. I gave up my studies and remained with my father, who, naturally, was greatly changed. Always of a sedate, taciturn disposition, he now fell into so deep a dejection that nothing could hold his atten- tion, yet anything--a footfall, the sudden closing of a door--aroused in him a fitful interest; one might have called it an apprehension. At any small surprise of the senses he would start visibly and sometimes turn pale, then relapse into a melancholy apathy deeper than before. I suppose he was what is called a 'nervous wreck.' As to me, I was younger then than now--there is much in that. Youth is Gilead, in which is balm for every wound. Ah, that I might again dwell in that enchanted land! Un- acquainted with grief, I knew not how to appraise my bereavement; I could not rightly estimate the strength of the stroke. One night, a few months after the dreadful event, my father and I walked home from the city. The full moon was about three hours above the eastern horizon; the entire countryside had the solemn still- ness of a summer night; our footfalls and the cease- less song of the katydids were the only sound, aloof. Black shadows of bordering trees lay athwart the road, which, in the short reaches between, gleamed a ghostly white. As we approached the gate to our dwelling, whose front was in shadow, and in which no light shone, my father suddenly stopped and clutched my arm, saying, hardly above his breath: 'God! God! what is that?' 'I hear nothing,' I replied. 'But see--see!' he said, pointing along the road, directly ahead. I said: 'Nothing is there. Come, father, let us go in--you are ill.' He had released my arm and was standing rigid and motionless in the centre of the illuminated road- way, staring like one bereft of sense. His face in the moonlight showed a pallor and fixity inexpressibly distressing. I pulled gently at his sleeve, but he had forgotten my existence. Presently he began to re- tire backward, step by step, never for an instant removing his eyes from what he saw, or thought he saw. I turned half round to follow, but stood ir- resolute. I do not recall any feeling of fear, unless a sudden chill was its physical manifestation. It seemed as if an icy wind had touched my face and enfolded my body from head to foot; I could feel the stir of it in my hair. At that moment my attention was drawn to a light that suddenly streamed from an upper window of the house: one of the servants, awakened by what mysterious premonition of evil who can say, and in obedience to an impulse that she was never able to name, had lit a lamp. When I turned to look for my father he was gone, and in all the years that have passed no whisper of his fate has come across the borderland of conjecture from the realm of the

unknown.

2: Statement of Caspar Grattan

To-day I am said to live, to-morrow, here in this room, will lie a senseless shape of clay that all too long was I. If anyone lift the cloth from the face of that unpleasant thing it will be in gratification of a mere morbid curiosity. Some, doubtless, will go further and inquire, 'Who was he?' In this writing I supply the only answer that I am able to make-- Caspar Grattan. Surely, that should be enough. The name has served my small need for more than twenty years of a life of unknown length. True, I gave it to myself, but lacking another I had the right. In this world one must have a name; it prevents confusion, even when it does not establish identity. Some, though, are known by numbers, which also seem inadequate distinctions. One day, for illustration, I was passing along a street of a city, far from here, when I met two men in uniform, one of whom, half pausing and looking curiously into my face, said to his companion, 'That man looks like 767.' Something in the number seemed familiar and horrible. Moved by an uncon- trollable impulse, I sprang into a side street and ran until I fell exhausted in a country lane. I have never forgotten that number, and always it comes to memory attended by gibbering obscenity, peals of joyless laughter, the clang of iron doors. So I say a name, even if self-bestowed, is better than a number. In the register of the potter's field I shall soon have both. What wealth! Of him who shall find this paper I must beg a little consideration. It is not the history of my life; the knowledge to write that is denied me. This is only a record of broken and apparently unrelated memo- ries, some of them as distinct and sequent as brilliant beads upon a thread, others remote and strange, having the character of crimson dreams with inter- spaces blank and black--witch-fires glowing still and red in a great desolation. Standing upon the shore of eternity, I turn for a last look landward over the course by which I came. There are twenty years of footprints fairly distinct, the impressions of bleeding feet. They lead through poverty and pain, devious and unsure, as of one staggering beneath a burden--

Ah, the poet's prophecy of Me--how admirable, how dreadfully admirable! Backward beyond the beginning of this via do- lorosa--this epic of suffering with episodes of sin --I see nothing clearly; it comes out of a cloud. I know that it spans only twenty years, yet I am an old man. One does not remember one's birth--one has to be told. But with me it was different; life came to me full-handed and dowered me with all my facul- ties and powers. Of a previous existence I know no more than others, for all have stammering intima- tions that may be memories and may be dreams. I know only that my first consciousness was of ma- turity in body and mind--a consciousness accepted without surprise or conjecture. I merely found myself walking in a forest, half-clad, footsore, unutterably weary and hungry. Seeing a farmhouse, I approached and asked for food, which was given me by one who inquired my name. I did not know, yet knew that all had names. Greatly embarrassed, I retreated, and night coming on, lay down in the forest and slept. The next day I entered a large town which I shall not name. Nor shall I recount further incidents of the life that is now to end--a life of wandering, always and everywhere haunted by an overmaster- ing sense of crime in punishment of wrong and of terror in punishment of crime. Let me see if I can reduce it to narrative. I seem once to have lived near a great city, a prosperous planter, married to a woman whom I loved and distrusted. We had, it sometimes seems, one child, a youth of brilliant parts and promise. He is at all times a vague figure, never clearly drawn, frequently altogether out of the picture. One luckless evening it occurred to me to test my wife's fidelity in a vulgar, commonplace way fa- miliar to everyone who has acquaintance with the literature of fact and fiction. I went to the city, tell- ing my wife that I should be absent until the follow- ing afternoon. But I returned before daybreak and went to the rear of the house, purposing to enter by a door with which I had secretly so tampered that it would seem to lock, yet not actually fasten. As I approached it, I heard it gently open and close, and saw a man steal away into the darkness. With mur- der in my heart, I sprang after him, but he had vanished without even the bad luck of identification. Sometimes now I cannot even persuade myself that it was a human being. Crazed with jealousy and rage, blind and bestial with all the elemental passions of insulted manhood, I entered the house and sprang up the stairs to the door of my wife's chamber. It was closed, but having tampered with its lock also, I easily entered, and despite the black darkness soon stood by the side of her bed. My groping hands told me that although disarranged it was unoccupied. 'She is below,' I thought, 'and terrified by my entrance has evaded me in the darkness of the hall.' With the purpose of seeking her I turned to leave the room, but took a wrong direction--the right one! My foot struck her, cowering in a corner of the room. Instantly my hands were at her throat, stifling a shriek, my knees were upon her struggling body; and there in the darkness, without a word of accusa- tion or reproach, I strangled her till she died! There ends the dream. I have related it in the past tense, but the present would be the fitter form, for again and again the sombre tragedy re-enacts itself in my consciousness--over and over I lay the plan, I suffer the confirmation, I redress the wrong. Then all is blank; and afterward the rains beat against the grimy windowpanes, or the snows fall upon my scant attire, the wheels rattle in the squalid streets where my life lies in poverty and mean employment. If there is ever sunshine I do not recall it; if there are birds they do not sing. There is another dream, another vision of the night. I stand among the shadows in a moonlit road. I am aware of another presence, but whose I cannot rightly determine. In the shadow of a great dwelling I catch the gleam of white garments; then the figure of a woman confronts me in the road--my mur- dered wife! There is death in the face; there are marks upon the throat. The eyes are fixed on mine with an infinite gravity which is not reproach, nor hate, nor menace, nor anything less terrible than recognition. Before this awful apparition I retreat in terror--a terror that is upon me as I write. I can no longer rightly shape the words. See! they-- Now I am calm, but truly there is no more to tell: the incident ends where it began--in darkness and in doubt. Yes, I am again in control of myself: 'the captain of my soul.' But that is not respite; it is another stage and phase of expiation. My penance, constant in de- gree, is mutable in kind: one of its variants is tran- quillity. After all, it is only a life-sentence. 'To Hell for life'--that is a foolish penalty: the culprit chooses the duration of his punishment. To-day my term expires. To each and all, the peace that was not mine.

3: Statement of the Late Julia Hetman, through the Medium Bayrolles

I had retired early and fallen almost immediately into a peaceful sleep, from which I awoke with that indefinable sense of peril which is, I think, a com- mon experience in that other, earlier life. Of its unmeaning character, too, I was entirely persuaded, yet that did not banish it. My husband, Joel Het- man, was away from home; the servants slept in another part of the house. But these were familiar conditions; they had never before distressed me. Nevertheless, the strange terror grew so insupport- able that conquering my reluctance to move I sat up and lit the lamp at my bedside. Contrary to my expectation this gave me no relief; the light seemed rather an added danger, for I reflected that it would shine out under the door, disclosing my presence to whatever evil thing might lurk outside. You that are still in the flesh, subject to horrors of the imagi- nation, think what a monstrous fear that must be which seeks in darkness security from malevolent existences of the night. That is to spring to close quarters with an unseen enemy--the strategy of despair! Extinguishing the lamp I pulled the bedclothing about my head and lay trembling and silent, unable to shriek, forgetful to pray. In this pitiable state I must have lain for what you call hours--with us there are no hours, there is no time. At last it came--a soft, irregular sound of footfalls on the stairs! They were slow, hesitant, uncertain, as of something that did not see its way; to my dis- ordered reason all the more terrifying for that, as the approach of some blind and mindless malevo- lence to which is no appeal. I even thought that I must have left the hall lamp burning and the grop- ing of this creature proved it a monster of the night. This was foolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, but what would you have? Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated. We know this well, we who have passed into the Realm of Terror, who skulk in eternal dusk among the scenes of our former lives, invisible even to ourselves, and one another, yet hiding forlorn in lonely places; yearning for speech with our loved ones, yet dumb, and as fearful of them as they of us. Sometimes the disability is re- moved, the law suspended: by the deathless power of love or hate we break the spell--we are seen by those whom we would warn, console, or punish. What form we seem to them to bear we know not; we know only that we terrify even those whom we most wish to comfort, and from whom we most crave tenderness and sympathy. Forgive, I pray you, this inconsequent digression by what was once a woman. You who consult us in this imperfect way--you do not understand. You ask foolish questions about things unknown and things forbidden. Much that we know and could impart in our speech is meaningless in yours. We must communicate with you through a stammering intelligence in that small fraction of our language that you yourselves can speak. You think that we are of another world. No, we have knowledge of no world but yours, though for us it holds no sunlight, no warmth, no music, no laughter, no song of birds, nor any companionship. O God! what a thing it is to be a ghost, cowering and shivering in an altered world, a prey to apprehension and despair! No, I did not die of fright: the Thing turned and went away. I heard it go down the stairs, hurriedly, I thought, as if itself in sudden fear. Then I rose to call for help. Hardly had my shaking hand found the door-knob when--merciful heaven!--I heard it returning. Its footfalls as it remounted the stairs were rapid, heavy and loud; they shook the house. I fled to an angle of the wall and crouched upon the floor. I tried to pray. I tried to call the name of my dear husband. Then I heard the door thrown open. There was an interval of unconsciousness, and when I revived I felt a strangling clutch upon my throat-- felt my arms feebly beating against something that bore me backward--felt my tongue thrusting itself from between my teeth! And then I passed into this life. No, I have no knowledge of what it was. The sum of what we knew at death is the measure of what we know afterward of all that went before. Of this exist- ence we know many things, but no new light falls upon any page of that; in memory is written all of it that we can read. Here are no heights of truth over- looking the confused landscape of that dubitable domain. We still dwell in the Valley of the Shadow, lurk in its desolate places, peering from brambles and thickets at its mad, malign inhabitants. How should we have new knowledge of that fading past? What I am about to relate happened on a night. We know when it is night, for then you retire to your houses and we can venture from our places of con- cealment to move unafraid about our old homes, to look in at the windows, even to enter and gaze upon your faces as you sleep. I had lingered long near the dwelling where I had been so cruelly changed to what I am, as we do while any that we love or hate re- main. Vainly I had sought some method of manifes- tation, some way to make my continued existence and my great love and poignant pity understood by my husband and son. Always if they slept they would wake, or if in my desperation I dared ap- proach them when they were awake, would turn toward me the terrible eyes of the living, frightening me by the glances that I sought from the purpose that I held. On this night I had searched for them without success, fearing to find them; they were nowhere in the house, nor about the moonlit dawn. For, al- though the sun is lost to us for ever, the moon, full- orbed or slender, remains to us. Sometimes it shines by night, sometimes by day, but always it rises and sets, as in that other life. I left the lawn and moved in the white light and silence along the road, aimless and sorrowing. Sud- denly I heard the voice of my poor husband in exclamations of astonishment, with that of my son in reassurance and dissuasion; and there by the shadow of a group of trees they stood--near, so near! Their faces were toward me, the eyes of the elder man fixed upon mine. He saw me--at last, at last, he saw me! In the consciousness of that, my terror fled as a cruel dream. The death-spell was broken: Love had conquered Law! Mad with exulta- tion I shouted--I must have shouted,' He sees, he sees: he will understand!' Then, controlling myself, I moved forward, smiling and consciously beautiful, to offer myself to his arms, to comfort him with en- dearments, and, with my son's hand in mine, to speak words that should restore the broken bonds between the living and the dead. Alas! alas! his face went white with fear, his eyes were as those of a hunted animal. He backed away from me, as I advanced, and at last turned and fled into the wood--whither, it is not given to me to know. To my poor boy, left doubly desolate, I have never been able to impart a sense of my presence. Soon he, too, must pass to this Life Invisible and be lost to me for ever.

A DIAGNOSIS OF DEATH

'I AM not so superstitious as some of your phy- sicians--men of science, as you are pleased to be called,' said Hawver, replying to an accusation that had not been made. 'Some of you--only a few, I confess--believe in the immortality of the soul, and in apparitions which you have not the honesty to call ghosts. I go no further than a conviction that the living are sometimes seen where they are not, but have been--where they have lived so long, per- haps so intensely, as to have left their impress on everything about them. I know, indeed, that one's environment may be so affected by one's personality as to yield, long afterward, an image of one's self to the eyes of another. Doubtless the impressing personality has to be the right kind of personality as the perceiving eyes have to be the right kind of eyes--mine, for example.' 'Yes, the right kind of eyes, conveying sensa- tions to the wrong kind of brains,' said Dr. Frayley, smiling. 'Thank you; one likes to have an expectation gratified; that is about the reply that I supposed you would have the civility to make.' 'Pardon me. But you say that you know. That is a good deal to say, don't you think? Perhaps you will not mind the trouble of saying how you learned.' 'You will call it an hallucination,' Hawver said, 'but that does not matter.' And he told the story. 'Last summer I went, as you know, to pass the hot weather term in the town of Meridian. The rela- tive at whose house I had intended to stay was ill, so I sought other quarters. After some difficulty I suc- ceeded in renting a vacant dwelling that had been occupied by an eccentric doctor of the name of Mannering, who had gone away years before, no one knew where, not even his agent. He had built the house himself and had lived in it with an old servant for about ten years. His practice, never very extensive, had after a few years been given up en- tirely. Not only so, but he had withdrawn himself almost altogether from social life and become a recluse. I was told by the village doctor, about the only person with whom he held any relations, that during his retirement he had devoted himself to a single line of study, the result of which he had expounded in a book that did not commend itself to the approval of his professional brethren, who, in- deed, considered him not entirely sane. I have not seen the book and cannot now recall the title of it, but I am told that it expounded a rather startling theory. He held that it was possible in the case of many a person in good health to forecast his death with precision, several months in advance of the event. The limit, I think, was eighteen months. There were local tales of his having exerted his powers of prog- nosis, or perhaps you would say diagnosis; and it was said that in every instance the person whose friends he had warned had died suddenly at the appointed time, and from no assignable cause. All this, however, has nothing to do with what I have to tell; I thought it might amuse a physician. 'The house was furnished, just as he had lived in it. It was a rather gloomy dwelling for one who was neither a recluse nor a student, and I think it gave something of its character to me--perhaps some of its former occupant's character; for always I felt in it a certain melancholy that was not in my natural disposition, nor, I think, due to loneliness. I had no servants that slept in the house, but I have always been, as you know, rather fond of my own society, being much addicted to reading, though little to study. Whatever was the cause, the effect was dejec- tion and a sense of impending evil; this was espe- cially so in Dr. Mannering's study, although that room was the lightest and most airy in the house. The doctor's life-size portrait in oil hung in that room, and seemed completely to dominate it. There was nothing unusual in the picture; the man was evidently rather good looking, about fifty years old, with iron-grey hair, a smooth-shaven face and dark, serious eyes. Something in the picture always drew and held my attention. The man's appearance became familiar to me, and rather "haunted" me. 'One evening I was passing through this room to my bedroom, with a lamp--there is no gas in Me- ridian. I stopped as usual before the portrait, which seemed in the lamplight to have a new expression, not easily named, but distinctly uncanny. It inter- ested but did not disturb me. I moved the lamp from one side to the other and observed the effects of the altered light. While so engaged I felt an impulse to turn round. As I did so I saw a man moving across the room directly toward me! As soon as he came near enough for the lamplight to illuminate the face I saw that it was Dr. Mannering himself; it was as if the portrait were walking! '"I beg your pardon," I said, somewhat coldly, "but if you knocked I did not hear." 'He passed me, within an arm's length, lifted his right forefinger, as in warning, and without a word went on out of the room, though I observed his exit no more than I had observed his entrance. 'Of course, I need not tell you that this was what you will call a hallucination and I call an appari- tion. That room had only two doors, of which one was locked; the other led into a bedroom, from which there was no exit. My feeling on realizing this is not an important part of the incident. 'Doubtless this seems to you a very commonplace "ghost story"--one constructed on the regular lines laid down by the old masters of the art. If that were so I should not have related it, even if it were true. The man was not dead; I met him to-day in Union Street. He passed me in a crowd.' Hawver had finished his story and both men were silent. Dr. Frayley absently drummed on the table with his fingers. 'Did he say anything to-day?' he asked--'any- thing from which you inferred that he was not dead?' Hawver stared and did not reply. 'Perhaps,' continued Frayley,' he made a sign, a gesture--lifted a finger, as in warning. It's a trick he had--a habit when saying something serious-- announcing the result of a diagnosis, for example.' 'Yes, he did--just as his apparition had done. But, good God! did you ever know him?' Hawver was apparently growing nervous. 'I knew him. I have read his book, as will every physician some day. It is one of the most striking and important of the century's contributions to medi- cal science. Yes, I knew him; I attended him in an illness three years ago. He died.' Hawver sprang from his chair, manifestly dis- turbed. He strode forward and back across the room; then approached his friend, and in a voice not altogether steady, said: 'Doctor, have you any- thing to say to me--as a physician? ' 'No, Hawver; you are the healthiest man I ever knew. As a friend I advise you to go to your room. You play the violin like an angel. Play it; play some- thing light and lively. Get this cursed bad business off your mind.' The next day Hawver was found dead in his room, the violin at his neck, the bow upon the string, his music open before him at Chopin's Funeral March.

MOXON'S MASTER

'ARE you serious?--do you really believe that a machine thinks?' I got no immediate reply; Moxon was apparently intent upon the coals in the grate, touching them deftly here and there with the fire-poker till they signified a sense of his attention by a brighter glow. For several weeks I had been observing in him a growing habit of delay in answering even the most trivial of commonplace questions. His air, however, was that of preoccupation rather than deliberation: one might have said that he had 'something on his mind.' Presently he said: 'What is a "machine"? The word has been va- riously defined. Here is one definition from a popu- lar dictionary: "Any instrument or organization by which power is applied and made effective, or a desired effect produced." Well, then, is not a man a machine? And you will admit that he thinks--or thinks he thinks.' 'If you do not wish to answer my question,' said, rather testily, 'why not say so?--all that you say is mere evasion. You know well enough that when I say "machine" I do not mean a man, but something that man has made and con- trols.' 'When it does not control him,' he said, rising abruptly and looking out of a window, whence noth- ing was visible in the blackness of a stormy night. A moment later he turned about and with a smile said: 'I beg your pardon; I had no thought of eva- sion. I considered the dictionary man's unconscious testimony suggestive and worth something in the discussion. I can give your question a direct answer easily enough: I do believe that a machine thinks about the work that it is doing.' That was direct enough, certainly. It was not al- together pleasing, for it tended to confirm a sad suspicion that Moxon's devotion to study and work in his machine-shop had not been good for him. I knew, for one thing, that he suffered from insomnia, and that is no light affliction. Had it affected his mind? His reply to my question seemed to me then evidence that it had; perhaps I should think dif- ferently about it now. I was younger then, and among the blessings that are not denied to youth is ignorance. Incited by that great stimulant to con- troversy, I said: 'And what, pray, does it think with--in the ab- sence of a brain?' The reply, coming with less than his customary delay, took his favourite form of counter-interroga- tion: 'With what does a plant think--in the absence of a brain?' 'Ah, plants also belong to the philosopher class! I should be pleased to know some of their conclu- sions; you may omit the premises.' 'Perhaps,' he replied, apparently unaffected by my foolish irony, 'you may be able to infer their convictions from their acts. I will spare you the familiar examples of the sensitive mimosa, the sev- eral insectivorous flowers and those whose stamens bend down and shake their pollen upon the enter- ing bee in order that he may fertilize their distant mates. But observe this. In an open spot in my garden I planted a climbing vine. When it was barely above the surface I set a stake into the soil a yard away. The vine at once made for it, but as it was about to reach it after several days I removed it a few feet. The vine at once altered its course, mak- ing an acute angle, and again made for the stake. This manoeuvre was repeated several times, but finally, as if discouraged, the vine abandoned the pursuit and ignoring further attempts to divert it, travelled to a small tree, farther away, which it climbed. 'Roots of the eucalyptus will prolong themselves incredibly in search of moisture. A well-known horti- culturist relates that one entered an old drain-pipe and followed it until it came to a break, where a section of the pipe had been removed to make way for a stone wall that had been built across its course. The root left the drain and followed the wall until it found an opening where a stone had fallen out. It crept through and following the other side of the wall back to the drain, entered the unexplored part and resumed its journey.' 'And all this?' 'Can you miss the significance of it? It shows the consciousness of plants. It proves that they think.' 'Even if it did--what then? We were speaking, not of plants, but of machines. They may be com- posed partly of wood--wood that has no longer vi- tality--or wholly of metal. Is thought an attribute also of the mineral kingdom?' 'How else do you explain the phenomena, for example, of crystallization?' 'I do not explain them.' 'Because you cannot without affirming what you wish to deny, namely, intelligent co-operation, among the constituent elements of the crystals. When sol- diers form lines, or hollow squares, you call it reason. When wild geese in flight take the form of a letter V you say instinct. When the homogeneous atoms of a mineral, moving freely in solution, arrange them- selves into shapes mathematically perfect, or par- ticles of frozen moisture into the symmetrical and beautiful forms of snowflakes, you have nothing to say. You have not even invented a name to conceal your heroic unreason.' Moxon was speaking with unusual animation and earnestness. As he paused I heard in an adjoining room known to me as his 'machine-shop,' which no one but himself was permitted to enter, a singular thumping sound, as of someone pounding upon a table with an open hand. Moxon heard it at the same moment and, visibly agitated, rose and hurriedly passed into the room whence it came. I thought it odd that anyone else should be in there, and my interest in my friend--with doubtless a touch of unwarrantable curiosity--led me to listen intently, though, I am happy to say, not at the keyhole. There were confused sounds, as of a struggle or scuffle; the floor shook. I distinctly heard hard breathing and a hoarse whisper which said 'Damn you!' Then all was silent, and presently Moxon reappeared and said, with a rather sorry smile: 'Pardon me for leaving you so abruptly. I have a machine in there that lost its temper and cut up rough.' Fixing my eyes steadily upon his left cheek, which was traversed by four parallel excoriations showing blood, I said: 'How would it do to trim its nails?' I could have spared myself the jest; he gave it no attention, but seated himself in the chair that he had left and resumed the interrupted monologue as if nothing had occurred: 'Doubtless you do not hold with those (I need not name them to a man of your reading) who have taught that all matter is sentient, that every atom is a living, feeling, conscious being. I do. There is no such thing as dead, inert matter: it is all alive; all instinct with force, actual and potential; all sensitive to the same forces in its environment and susceptible to the contagion of higher and subtler ones residing in such superior organisms as it may be brought into relation with, as those of man when he is fashioning it into an instrument of his will. It absorbs some- thing of his intelligence and purpose--more of them in proportion to the complexity of the resulting ma- chine and that of its work. 'Do you happen to recall Herbert Spencer's defi- nition of "Life"? I read it thirty years ago. He may have altered it afterward, for anything I know, but in all that time I have been unable to think of a single word that could profitably be changed or added or removed. It seems to me not only the best definition, but the only possible one. '"Life," he says, "is a definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and suc- cessive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences."' 'That defines the phenomenon,' I said, 'but gives no hint of its cause.' 'That,' he replied, 'is all that any definition can do. As Mill points out, we know nothing of cause except as an antecedent--nothing of effect except as a consequent. Of certain phenomena, one never oc- curs without another, which is dissimilar: the first in point of time we call cause, the second, effect. One who had many times seen a rabbit pursued by a dog, and had never seen rabbits and dogs otherwise, would think the rabbit the cause of the dog. 'But I fear,' he added, laughing naturally enough, 'that my rabbit is leading me a long way from the track of my legitimate quarry: I'm indulging in the pleasure of the chase for its own sake. What I want you to observe is that in Herbert Spencer's defini- tion of "life" the activity of a machine is included --there is nothing in the definition that is not ap- plicable to it. According to this sharpest of observers and deepest of thinkers, if a man during his period of activity is alive, so is a machine when in opera- tion. As an inventor and constructor of machines I know that to be true.' Moxon was silent for a long time, gazing absently into the fire. It was growing late and I thought it time to be going, but somehow I did not like the notion of leaving him in that isolated house, all alone except for the presence of some person of whose nature my conjectures could go no further than that it was unfriendly, perhaps malign. Leaning toward him and looking earnestly into his eyes while making a motion with my hand through the door of his workshop, I said: 'Moxon, whom have you in there?' Somewhat to my surprise he laughed lightly and answered without hesitation: 'Nobody; the incident that you have in mind was caused by my folly in leaving a machine in action with nothing to act upon, while I undertook the in- terminable task of enlightening your understanding. Do you happen to know that Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm?' 'O bother them both!' I replied, rising and laying hold of my overcoat. 'I'm going to wish you good night; and I'll add the hope that the machine which you inadvertently left in action will have her gloves on the next time you think it needful to stop her.' Without waiting to observe the effect of my shot I left the house. Rain was falling, and the darkness was intense. In the sky beyond the crest of a hill toward which I groped my way along precarious plank sidewalks and across miry, unpaved streets I could see the faint glow of the city's lights, but behind me nothing was visible but a single window of Moxon's house. It glowed with what seemed to me a mysterious and fateful meaning. I knew it was an uncurtained aper- ture in my friend's 'machine-shop,' and I had little doubt that he had resumed the studies interrupted by his duties as my instructor in mechanical con- sciousness and the fatherhood of Rhythm. Odd, and in some degree humorous, as his convictions seemed to me at that time, I could not wholly divest myself of the feeling that they had some tragic relation to his life and character--perhaps to his destiny--al- though I no longer entertained the notion that they were the vagaries of a disordered mind. Whatever might be thought of his views, his exposition of them was too logical for that. Over and over, his last words came back to me: 'Consciousness is the creature of Rhythm.' Bald and terse as the statement was, I now found it infinitely alluring. At each recurrence it broadened in meaning and deepened in suggestion. Why, here (I thought) is something upon which to found a philosophy. If Consciousness is the product of Rhythm all things are conscious, for all have mo- tion, and all motion is rhythmic. I wondered if Moxon knew the significance and breadth of his thought--the scope of this momentous generaliza- tion; or had he arrived at his philosophic faith by the tortuous and uncertain road of observation? That faith was then new to me, and all Moxon's expounding had failed to make me a convert; but now it seemed as if a great light shone about me, like that which fell upon Saul of Tarsus; and out there in the storm and darkness and solitude I experienced what Lewes calls 'The endless variety and excite- ment of philosophic thought.' I exulted in a new sense of knowledge, a new pride of reason. My feet seemed hardly to touch the earth; it was as if I were uplifted and borne through the air by invisible wings. Yielding to an impulse to seek further light from him whom I now recognized as my master and guide, I had unconsciously turned about, and almost before I was aware of having done so found myself again at Moxon's door. I was drenched with rain, but felt no discomfort. Unable in my excitement to find the doorbell I instinctively tried the knob. It turned and, entering, I mounted the stairs to the room that I had so recently left. All was dark and silent; Moxon, as I had supposed, was in the adjoining room--the 'machine-shop.' Groping along the wall until found the communicating door I knocked loudly several times, but got no response, which I attributed to the uproar outside, for the wind was blowing a gale and dashing the rain against the thin walls in sheets. The drumming upon the shingle roof span- ning the unceiled room was loud and incessant. I had never been invited into the machine-shop-- had, indeed, been denied admittance, as had all others, with one exception, a skilled metal worker, of whom no one knew anything except that his name was Haley and his habit silence. But in my spiritual exaltation, discretion and civility were alike for- gotten, and I opened the door. What I saw took all philosophical speculation out of me in short order. Moxon sat facing me at the farther side of a small table upon which a single candle made all the light that was in the room. Opposite him, his back toward me, sat another person. On the table between the two was a chess-board; the men were playing. I knew little of chess, but as only a few pieces were on the board it was obvious that the game was near its close. Moxon was intensely interested--not so much, it seemed to me, in the game as in his antago- nist, upon whom he had fixed so intent a look that, standing though I did directly in the line of his vision, I was altogether unobserved. His face was ghastly white, and his eyes glittered like diamonds. Of his antagonist I had only a back view, but that was sufficient; I should not have cared to see his face. He was apparently not more than five feet in height, with proportions suggesting those of a go- rilla--a tremendous breadth of shoulders, thick, short neck and broad, squat head, which had a tangled growth of black hair and was topped with a crimson fez. A tunic of the same colour, belted tightly to the waist, reached the seat--apparently a box--upon which he sat; his legs and feet were not seen. His left forearm appeared to rest in his lap; he moved his pieces with his right hand, which seemed disproportionately long. I had shrunk back and now stood a little to one side of the doorway and in shadow. If Moxon had looked farther than the face of his opponent he could have observed nothing now, except that the door was open. Something forbade me either to enter or to retire, a feeling--I know not how it came--that I was in the presence of an imminent tragedy and might serve my friend by remaining. With a scarcely conscious rebellion against the in- delicacy of the act I remained. The play was rapid. Moxon hardly glanced at the board before making his moves, and to my un- skilled eye seemed to move the piece most con- venient to his hand, his motions in doing so being quick, nervous and lacking in precision. The response of his antagonist, while equally prompt in the incep- tion, was made with a slow, uniform, mechanical and, I thought, somewhat theatrical movement of the arm, that was a sore trial to my patience. There was something unearthly about it all, and I caught myself shuddering. But I was wet and cold. Two or three times after moving a piece the stranger slightly inclined his head, and each time I observed that Moxon shifted his king. All at once the thought came to me that the man was dumb. And then that he was a machine--an automaton chess-player! Then I remembered that Moxon had once spoken to me of having invented such a piece of mechanism, though I did not understand that it had actually been constructed. Was all his talk about the consciousness and intelligence of machines merely a prelude to eventual exhibition of this de- vice--only a trick to intensify the effect of its mechanical action upon me in my ignorance of its secret? A fine end, this, of all my intellectual transports --my 'endless variety and excitement of philo- sophic thought'! I was about to retire in disgust when something occurred to hold my curiosity. I observed a shrug of the thing's great shoulders, as if it were irritated: and so natural was this--so entirely human--that in my new view of the matter it startled me. Nor was that all, for a moment later it struck the table sharply with its clenched hand. At that gesture Moxon seemed even more startled than I: he pushed his chair a little backward, as in alarm. Presently Moxon, whose play it was, raised his hand high above the board, pounced upon one of his pieces like a sparrow-hawk and with the exclama- tion 'check-mate!' rose quickly to his feet and stepped behind his chair. The automaton sat mo- tionless. The wind had now gone down, but I heard, at lessening intervals and progressively louder, the rumble and roll of thunder. In the pauses between I now became conscious of a low humming or buzz- ing which, like the thunder, grew momentarily louder and more distinct. It seemed to come from the body of the automaton, and was unmistakably a whirring of wheels. It gave me the impression of a disordered mechanism which had escaped the re- pressive and regulating action of some controlling part--an effect such as might be expected if a pawl should be jostled from the teeth of a ratchet- wheel. But before I had time for much conjecture as to its nature my attention was taken by the strange motions of the automaton itself. A slight but continuous convulsion appeared to have possession of it. In body and head it shook like a man with palsy or an ague chill, and the motion augmented every moment until the entire figure was in violent agita- tion. Suddenly it sprang to its feet and with a move- ment almost too quick for the eye to follow shot forward across table and chair, with both arms thrust forth to their full length--the posture and lunge of a diver. Moxon tried to throw himself back- ward out of reach, but he was too late: I saw the horrible thing's hand close upon his throat, his own clutch its wrists. Then the table was overturned, and candle thrown to the floor and extinguished, and all was black dark. But the noise of the struggle was dreadfully distinct, and most terrible of all were the raucous, squawking sounds made by the strangled man's efforts to breathe. Guided by the infernal hub- bub, I sprang to the rescue of my friend, but had hardly taken a stride in the darkness when the whole room blazed with a blinding white light that burned into my brain and heart and memory a vivid pic- ture of the combatants on the floor, Moxon under- neath, his throat still in the clutch of those iron hands, his head forced backward, his eyes protrud- ing, his mouth wide open and his tongue thrust out; and--horrible contrast!--upon the painted face of his assassin an expression of tranquil and pro- found thought, as in the solution of a problem in chess! This I observed, then all was blackness and silence. Three days later I recovered consciousness in a hospital. As the memory of that tragic night slowly evolved in my ailing brain I recognized in my at- tendant Moxon's confidential workman, Haley. Re- sponding to a look he approached, smiling. 'Tell me about it,' I managed to say, faintly-- 'all about it.' 'Certainly,' he said; 'you were carried uncon- scious from a burning house--Moxon's. Nobody knows how you came to be there. You may have to do a little explaining. The origin of the fire is a bit mysterious, too. My own notion is that the house was struck by lightning.' 'And Moxon?' 'Buried yesterday--what was left of him.' Apparently this reticent person could unfold him- self on occasion. When imparting shocking intelli- gence to the sick he was affable enough. After some moments of the keenest mental suffering I ven- tured to ask another question: 'Who rescued me?' 'Well, if that interests you--I did.' 'Thank you, Mr. Haley, and may God bless you for it. Did you rescue, also, that charming product of your skill, the automaton chess-player that mur- dered its inventor?' The man was silent a long time, looking away from me. Presently he turned and gravely said: 'Do you know that?' 'I do,' I replied; 'I saw it done.' That was many years ago. If asked to-day I should answer less confidently.

A TOUGH TUSSLE

ONE night in the autumn of 1861 a man sat alone in the heart of a forest in western Virginia. The region was one of the wildest on the continent--the Cheat Mountain country. There was no lack of people close at hand, however; within a mile of where the man sat was the now silent camp of a whole Federal brigade. Somewhere about--it might be still nearer--was a force of the enemy, the num- bers unknown. It was this uncertainty as to its numbers and position that accounted for the man's presence in that lonely spot; he was a young officer of a Federal infantry regiment and his business there was to guard his sleeping comrades in the camp against a surprise. He was in command of a detachment of men constituting a picket-guard. These men he had stationed just at nightfall in an irregular line, determined by the nature of the ground, several hundred yards in front of where he now sat. The line ran through the forest, among the rocks and laurel thickets, the men fifteen or twenty paces apart, all in concealment and under injunction of strict silence and unremitting vigilance. In four hours, if nothing occurred, they would be relieved by a fresh detachment from the reserve now resting in care of its captain some distance away to the left and rear. Before stationing his men the young officer of whom we are writing had pointed out to his two sergeants the spot at which he would be found if it should be necessary to consult him, or if his presence at the front line should be required. It was a quiet enough spot--the fork of an old wood-road, on the two branches of which, prolong- ing themselves deviously forward in the dim moon- light, the sergeants were themselves stationed, a few paces in rear of the line. If driven sharply back by a sudden onset of the enemy--the pickets are not expected to make a stand after firing--the men would come into the converging roads and naturally following them to their point of intersection could be rallied and 'formed.' In his small way the author of these dispositions was something of a strategist; if Napoleon had planned as intelligently at Water- loo he would have won that memorable battle and been overthrown later. Second-Lieutenant Brainerd Byring was a brave and efficient officer, young and comparatively inex- perienced as he was in the business of killing his fellow-men. He had enlisted in the very first days of the war as a private, with no military knowledge whatever, had been made first-sergeant of his com- pany on account of his education and engaging manner, and had been lucky enough to lose his cap- tain by a Confederate bullet; in the resulting promo- tions he had gained a commission. He had been in several engagements, such as they were--at Phi- lippi, Rich Mountain, Carrick's Ford and Green- brier--and had borne himself with such gallantry as not to attract the attention of his superior of- ficers. The exhilaration of battle was agreeable to him, but the sight of the dead, with their clay faces, blank eyes and stiff bodies, which when not unnat- urally shrunken were unnaturally swollen, had always intolerably affected him. He felt toward them a kind of reasonless antipathy that was something more than the physical and spiritual repugnance common to us all. Doubtless this feeling was due to his unusually acute sensibilities--his keen sense of the beautiful, which these hideous things outraged. Whatever may have been the cause, he could not look upon a dead body without a loathing which had in it an element of resentment. What others have re- spected as the dignity of death had to him no exist- ence--was altogether unthinkable. Death was a thing to be hated. It was not picturesque, it had no tender and solemn side--a dismal thing, hideous in all its manifestations and suggestions. Lieutenant Byring was a braver man than anybody knew, for nobody knew his horror of that which he was ever ready to incur. Having posted his men, instructed his sergeants and retired to his station, he seated himself on a log, and with senses all alert began his vigil. For greater ease he loosened his sword-belt and taking his heavy revolver from his holster laid it on the log beside him. He felt very comfortable, though he hardly gave the fact a thought, so intently did he listen for any sound from the front which might have a menac- ing significance--a shout, a shot, or the footfall of one of his sergeants coming to apprise him of some- thing worth knowing. From the vast, invisible ocean of moonlight overhead fell, here and there, a slender, broken stream that seemed to plash against the in- tercepting branches and trickle to earth, forming small white pools among the clumps of laurel. But these leaks were few and served only to accentuate the blackness of his environment, which his imagina- tion found it easy to people with all manner of un- familiar shapes, menacing, uncanny, or merely grotesque. He to whom the portentous conspiracy of night and solitude and silence in the heart of a great forest is not an unknown experience needs not to be told what another world it all is--how even the most commonplace and familiar objects take on another character. The trees group themselves differently; they draw closer together, as if in fear. The very silence has another quality than the silence of the day. And it is full of half-heard whispers--whispers that startle--ghosts of sounds long dead. There are living sounds, too, such as are never heard under other conditions: notes of strange night-birds, the cries of small animals in sudden encounters with stealthy foes or in their dreams, a rustling in the dead leaves--it may be the leap of a wood-rat, it may be the footfall of a panther. What caused the breaking of that twig?--what the low, alarmed twittering in that bushful of birds? There are sounds without a name, forms without substance, transla- tions in space of objects which have not been seen to move, movements wherein nothing is observed to change its place. Ah, children of the sunlight and the gaslight, how little you know of the world in which you live! Surrounded at a little distance by armed and watchful friends, Byring felt utterly alone. Yielding himself to the solemn and mysterious spirit of the time and place, he had forgotten the nature of his connection with the visible and audible aspects and phases of the night. The forest was boundless; men and the habitations of men did not exist. The uni- verse was one primeval mystery of darkness, with- out form and void, himself the sole, dumb questioner of its eternal secret. Absorbed in thoughts born of this mood, he suffered the time to slip away unnoted. Meantime the infrequent patches of white light lying amongst the tree-trunks had undergone changes of size, form and place. In one of them near by, just at the roadside, his eye fell upon an object that he had not previously observed. It was almost before his face as he sat; he could have sworn that it had not before been there. It was partly covered in shadow, but he could see that it was a human figure. Instinctively he adjusted the clasp of his swordbelt and laid hold of his pistol--again he was in a world of war, by occupation an assassin. The figure did not move. Rising, pistol in hand, he approached. The figure lay upon its back, its upper part in shadow, but standing above it and looking down upon the face, he saw that it was a dead body. He shuddered and turned from it with a feeling of sickness and disgust, resumed his seat upon the log, and forgetting military prudence struck a match and lit a cigar. In the sudden blackness that followed the extinction of the flame he felt a sense of relief; he could no longer see the object of his aversion. Never- theless, he kept his eyes in that direction until it appeared again with growing distinctness. It seemed to have moved a trifle nearer. 'Damn the thing!' he muttered. 'What does it want?' It did not appear to be in need of anything but a soul. Byring turned away his eyes and began humming a tune, but he broke off in the middle of a bar and looked at the dead body. Its presence annoyed him, though he could hardly have had a quieter neigh- bour. He was conscious, too, of a vague, indefinable feeling that was new to him. It was not fear, but rather a sense of the supernatural--in which he did not at all believe. 'I have inherited it,' he said to himself. 'I sup- pose it will require a thousand ages--perhaps ten thousand--for humanity to outgrow this feeling. Where and when did it originate? Away back, prob- ably, in what is called the cradle of the human race --the plains of Central Asia. What we inherit as a superstition our barbarous ancestors must have held as a reasonable conviction. Doubtless they believed themselves justified by facts whose nature we can- not even conjecture in thinking a dead body a malign thing endowed with some strange power of mis- chief, with perhaps a will and a purpose to exert it. Possibly they had some awful form of religion of which that was one of the chief doctrines, sedulously taught by their priesthood, as ours teach the im- mortality of the soul. As the Aryans moved slowly on, to and through the Caucasus passes, and spread over Europe, new conditions of life must have re- sulted in the formulation of new religions. The old belief in the malevolence of the dead body was lost from the creeds and even perished from tradition but it left its heritage of terror, which is transmitted from generation to generation--is as much a part of us as are our blood and bones.' In following out his thought he had forgotten that which suggested it; but now his eye fell again upon the corpse. The shadow had now altogether un- covered it. He saw the sharp profile, the chin in the air, the whole face, ghastly white in the moonlight. The clothing was grey, the uniform of a Confederate soldier. The coat and waistcoat, unbuttoned, had fallen away on each side, exposing the white shirt. The chest seemed unnaturally prominent, but the abdomen had sunk in, leaving a sharp projection at the line of the lower ribs. The arms were extended, the left knee was thrust upward. The whole posture impressed Byring as having been studied with a view to the horrible. 'Bah!' he exclaimed; 'he was an actor--he knows how to be dead.' He drew away his eyes, directing them resolutely along one of the roads leading to the front, and re- sumed his philosophizing where he had left off. 'It may be that our Central Asian ancestors had not the custom of burial. In that case it is easy to understand their fear of the dead, who really were a menace and an evil. They bred pestilences. Children were taught to avoid the places where they lay, and to run away if by inadvertence they came near a corpse. I think, indeed, I'd better go away from this chap.' He half rose to do so, then remembered that he had told his men in front and the officer in the rear who was to relieve him that he could at any time be found at that spot. It was a matter of pride, too. If he abandoned his post he feared they would think he feared the corpse. He was no coward and he was unwilling to incur anybody's ridicule. So he again seated himself, and to prove his courage looked boldly at the body. The right arm--the one farthest from him--was now in shadow. He could hardly see the hand which, he had before observed, lay at the root of a clump of laurel. There had been no change, a fact which gave him a certain comfort, he could not have said why. He did not at once remove his eyes; that which we do not wish to see has a strange fascination, sometimes irresistible. Of the woman who covers her eyes with her hands and looks between the fingers let it be said that the wits have dealt with her not altogether justly. Byring suddenly became conscious of a pain in his right hand. He withdrew his eyes from his enemy and looked at it. He was grasping the hilt of his drawn sword so tightly that it hurt him. He observed, too, that he was leaning forward in a strained attitude-- crouching like a gladiator ready to spring at the throat of an antagonist. His teeth were clenched and he was breathing hard. This matter was soon set right, and as his muscles relaxed and he drew a long breath he felt keenly enough the ludicrousness of the incident. It affected him to laughter. Heavens! what sound was that? what mindless devil was uttering an unholy glee in mockery of human merriment? He sprang to his feet and looked about him, not recogniz- ing his own laugh. He could no longer conceal from himself the hor- rible fact of his cowardice; he was thoroughly frightened! He would have run from the spot, but his legs refused their office; they gave way beneath him and he sat again upon the log, violently trem- bling. His face was wet, his whole body bathed in a chill perspiration. He could not even cry out. Distinctly he heard behind him a stealthy tread, as of some wild animal, and dared not look over his shoulder. Had the soulless living joined forces with the soulless dead?--was it an animal? Ah, if he could but be assured of that! But by no effort of will could he now unfix his gaze from the face of the dead man. I repeat that Lieutenant Byring was a brave and intelligent man. But what would you have? Shall a man cope, single-handed, with so monstrous an alliance as that of night and solitude and silence and the dead--while an incalculable host of his own an- cestors shriek into the ear of his spirit their coward counsel, sing their doleful death-songs in his heart, and disarm his very blood of all its iron? The odds are too great--courage was not made for so rough use as that. One sole conviction now had the man in posses- sion: that the body had moved. It lay nearer to the edge of its plot of light--there could be no doubt of it. It had also moved its arms, for, look, they are both in the shadow! A breath of cold air struck By- ring full in the face; the boughs of trees above him stirred and moaned. A strongly defined shadow passed across the face of the dead, left it luminous, passed back upon it and left it half obscured. The horrible thing was visibly moving! At that moment a single shot rang out upon the picket-line--a lone- lier and louder, though more distant, shot than ever had been heard by mortal ear! It broke the spell of that enchanted man; it slew the silence and the solitude, dispersed the hindering host from Central Asia and released his modern manhood. With a cry like that of some great bird pouncing upon its prey he sprang forward, hot-hearted for action! Shot after shot now came from the front. There were shoutings and confusion, hoof-beats and desul- tory cheers. Away to the rear, in the sleeping camp, were a singing of bugles and grumble of drums. Pushing through the thickets on either side the roads came the Federal pickets, in full retreat, firing back- ward at random as they ran. A straggling group that had followed back one of the roads, as instructed, suddenly sprang away into the bushes as half a hundred horsemen thundered by them, striking wildly with their sabres as they passed. At headlong speed these mounted madmen shot past the spot where Byring had sat, and vanished round an angle of the road, shouting and firing their pistols. A moment later there was a roar of musketry, fol- lowed by dropping shots--they had encountered the reserve-guard in line; and back they came in dire confusion, with here and there an empty saddle and many a maddened horse, bullet-stung, snorting and plunging with pain. It was all over--'an affair of out-posts.' The line was re-established with fresh men, the roll called, the stragglers were re-formed. The Fed- eral commander, with a part of his staff, imperfectly clad, appeared upon the scene, asked a few ques- tions, looked exceedingly wise and retired. After standing at arms for an hour the brigade in camp 'swore a prayer or two' and went to bed. Early the next morning a fatigue-party, com- manded by a captain and accompanied by a surgeon, searched the ground for dead and wounded. At the fork of the road, a little to one side, they found two bodies lying close together--that of a Federal of- ficer and that of a Confederate private. The officer had died of a sword-thrust through the heart, but not, apparently, until he had inflicted upon his enemy no fewer than five dreadful wounds. The dead officer lay on his face in a pool of blood, the weapon still in his heart. They turned him on his back and the surgeon removed it. 'Gad!' said the captain--'It is Byring!'--add- ing, with a glance at the other, 'They had a tough tussle.' The surgeon was examining the sword. It was that of a line officer of Federal infantry--exactly like the one worn by the captain. It was, in fact, Byring's own. The only other weapon discovered was an un- discharged revolver in the dead officer's belt. The surgeon laid down the sword and approached the other body. It was frightfully gashed and stabbed, but there was no blood. He took hold of the left foot and tried to straighten the leg. In the effort the body was displaced. The dead do not wish to be moved--it protested with a faint, sickening odour. Where it had lain were a few maggots, manifesting an imbecile activity. The surgeon looked at the captain. The captain looked at the surgeon.

I wept silently, my friend, at all these reflections which I had so often made, and which, in the mouth of your father, took a yet more serious reality. I said to myself all that your father dared not say to me, though it had come to his lips twenty times: that I was, after all, only a kept woman, and that whatever excuse I gave for our liaison, it would always look like calculation on my part; that my past life left me no right to dream of such a future, and that I was accepting responsibilities for which my habits and reputation were far from giving any guarantee. In short, I loved you, Armand.

The paternal way in which M. Duval had spoken to me; the pure memories that he awakened in me; the respect of this old man, which I would gain; yours, which I was sure of gaining later on: all that called up in my heart thoughts which raised me in my own eyes with a sort of holy pride, unknown till then. When I thought that one day this old man, who was now imploring me for the future of his son, would bid his daughter mingle my name with her prayers, as the name of a mysterious friend, I seemed to become transformed, and I felt a pride in myself.

The exaltation of the moment perhaps exaggerated the truth of these impressions, but that was what I felt, friend, and these new feelings silenced the memory of the happy days I had spent with you.

"Tell me, sir," I said to your father, wiping away my tears, "do you believe that I love your son?"

"Yes," said M. Duval.

"With a disinterested love?"

"Yes.

"Do you believe that I had made this love the hope, the dream, the forgiveness--of my life?"

"Implicitly."

"Well, sir, embrace me once, as you would embrace your daughter, and I swear to you that that kiss, the only chaste kiss I have ever had, will make me strong against my love, and that within a week your son will be once more at your side, perhaps unhappy for a time, but cured forever."

"You are a noble child," replied your father, kissing me on the forehead, "and you are making an attempt for which God will reward you; but I greatly fear that you will have no influence upon my son."

"Oh, be at rest, sir; he will hate me."

I had to set up between us, as much for me as for you, an insurmountable barrier.

I wrote to Prudence to say that I accepted the proposition of the Comte de N., and that she was to tell him that I would sup with her and him. I sealed the letter, and, without telling him what it contained, asked your father to have it forwarded to its address on reaching Paris.

He inquired of me what it contained.

"Your son's welfare," I answered.

Your father embraced me once more. I felt two grateful tears on my forehead, like the baptism of my past faults, and at the moment when I consented to give myself up to another man I glowed with pride at the thought of what I was redeeming by this new fault.

It was quite natural, Armand. You told me that your father was the most honest man in the world.

M. Duval returned to his carriage, and set out for Paris.

I was only a woman, and when I saw you again I could not help weeping, but I did not give way.

Did I do right? That is what I ask myself to-day, as I lie ill in my bed, that I shall never leave, perhaps, until I am dead.

You are witness of what I felt as the hour of our separation approached; your father was no longer there to support me, and there was a moment when I was on the point of confessing everything to you, so terrified was I at the idea that you were going to bate and despise me.

One thing which you will not believe, perhaps, Armand, is that I prayed God to give me strength; and what proves that he accepted my sacrifice is that he gave me the strength for which I prayed.

At supper I still had need of aid, for I could not think of what I was going to do, so much did I fear that my courage would fail me. Who would ever have said that I, Marguerite Gautier, would have suffered so at the mere thought of a new lover? I drank for forgetfulness, and when I woke next day I was beside the count.

That is the whole truth, friend. judge me and pardon me, as I have pardoned you for all the wrong that you have done me since that day.

Chapter 26

What followed that fatal night you know as well as I; but what you can not know, what you can not suspect, is what I have suffered since our separation.

I heard that your father had taken you away with him, but I felt sure that you could not live away from me for long, and when I met you in the Champs-Elysees, I was a little upset, but by no means surprised.

Then began that series of days; each of them brought me a fresh insult from you. I received them all with a kind of joy, for, besides proving to me that you still loved me, it seemed to me as if the more you persecuted me the more I should be raised in your eyes when you came to know the truth.

Do not wonder at my joy in martyrdom, Armand; your love for me had opened my heart to noble enthusiasm.

Still, I was not so strong as that quite at once.

Between the time of the sacrifice made for you and the time of your return a long while elapsed, during which I was obliged to have recourse to physical means in order not to go mad, and in order to be blinded and deafened in the whirl of life into which I flung myself. Prudence has told you (has she not?) how I went to all the fetes and balls and orgies. I had a sort of hope that I should kill myself by all these excesses, and I think it will not be long before this hope is realized. My health naturally got worse and worse, and when I sent Mme. Duvernoy to ask you for pity I was utterly worn out, body and soul.

I will not remind you, Armand, of the return you made for the last proof of love that I gave you, and of the outrage by which you drove away a dying woman, who could not resist your voice when you asked her for a night of love, and who, like a fool, thought for one instant that she might again unite the past with the present. You had the right to do what you did, Armand; people have not always put so high a price on a night of mine!

I left everything after that. Olympe has taken my place with the Comte de N., and has told him, I hear, the reasons for my leaving him. The Comte de G. was at London. He is one of those men who give just enough importance to making love to women like me for it to be an agreeable pastime, and who are thus able to remain friends with women, not hating them because they have never been jealous of them, and he is, too, one of those grand seigneurs who open only a part of their hearts to us, but the whole of their purses. It was of him that I immediately thought. I joined him in London. He received me as kindly as possible, but he was the lover there of a woman in society, and he feared to compromise himself if he were seen with me. He introduced me to his friends, who gave a supper in my honour, after which one of them took me home with him.

What else was there for me to do, my friend? If I had killed myself it would have burdened your life, which ought to be happy, with a needless remorse; and then, what is the good of killing oneself when one is so near dying already?

I became a body without a soul, a thing without a thought; I lived for some time in that automatic way; then I returned to Paris, and asked after you; I heard then that you were gone on a long voyage. There was nothing left to hold me to life. My existence became what it had been two years before I knew you. I tried to win back the duke, but I had offended him too deeply. Old men are not patient, no doubt because they realize that they are not eternal. I got weaker every day. I was pale and sad and thinner than ever. Men who buy love examine the goods before taking them. At Paris there were women in better health, and not so thin as I was; I was rather forgotten. That is all the past up to yesterday.

Now I am seriously ill. I have written to the duke to ask him for money, for I have none, and the creditors have returned, and come to me with their bills with pitiless perseverance. Will the duke answer? Why are you not in Paris, Armand? You would come and see me, and your visits would do me good.

December 20.

The weather is horrible; it is snowing, and I am alone. I have been in such a fever for the last three days that I could not write you a word. No news, my friend; every day I hope vaguely for a letter from you, but it does not come, and no doubt it will never come. Only men are strong enough not to forgive. The duke has not answered.

Prudence is pawning my things again.

I have been spitting blood all the time. Oh, you would be sorry for me if you could see me. You are indeed happy to be under a warm sky, and not, like me, with a whole winter of ice on your chest. To-day I got up for a little while, and looked out through the curtains of my window, and watched the life of Paris passing below, the life with which I have now nothing more to do. I saw the faces of some people I knew, passing rapidly, joyous and careless. Not one lifted his eyes to my window. However, a few young men have come to inquire for me. Once before I was ill, and you, though you did not know me, though you had had nothing from me but an impertinence the day I met you first, you came to inquire after me every day. We spent six months together. I had all the love for you that a woman's heart can hold and give, and you are far away, you are cursing me, and there is not a word of consolation from you. But it is only chance that has made you leave me, I am sure, for if you were at Paris, you would not leave my bedside.

December 25.

My doctor tells me I must not write every day. And indeed my memories only increase my fever, but yesterday I received a letter which did me good, more because of what it said than by the material help which it contained. I can write to you, then, to-day. This letter is from your father, and this is what it says:

"MADAME: I have just learned that you are ill. If I were at Paris I would come and ask after you myself; if my son were here I would send him; but I can not leave C., and Armand is six or seven hundred leagues from here; permit me, then, simply to write to you, madame, to tell you how pained I am to hear of your illness, and believe in my sincere wishes for your speedy recovery.

One of my good friends, M. H., will call on you; will you kindly receive him? I have intrusted him with a commission, the result of which I await impatiently. "Believe me, madame,

"Yours most faithfully."

This is the letter he sent me. Your father has a noble heart; love him well, my friend, for there are few men so worthy of being loved. This paper signed by his name has done me more good than all the prescriptions of our great doctor.

This morning M. H. called. He seemed much embarrassed by the delicate mission which M. Duval had intrusted to him. As a matter of fact, he came to bring me three thousand francs from your father. I wanted to refuse at first, but M. H. told me that my refusal would annoy M. Duval, who had authorized him to give me this sum now, and later on whatever I might need. I accepted it, for, coming from your father, it could not be exactly taking alms. If I am dead when you come back, show your father what I have written for him, and tell him that in writing these lines the poor woman to whom he was kind enough to write so consoling a letter wept tears of gratitude and prayed God for him.

January 4.

I have passed some terrible days. I never knew the body could suffer so. Oh, my past life! I pay double for it now.

There has been some one to watch by me every night; I can not breathe. What remains of my poor existence is shared between being delirious and coughing.

The dining-room is full of sweets and all sorts of presents that my friends have brought. Some of them, I dare say, are hoping that I shall be their mistress later on. If they could see what sickness has made of me, they would go away in terror.

Prudence is giving her New Year's presents with those I have received.

There is a thaw, and the doctor says that I may go out in a few days if the fine weather continues.

January 8.

I went out yesterday in my carriage. The weather was lovely. The Champs-Elysees was full of people. It was like the first smile of spring. Everything about me had a festal air. I never knew before that a ray of sunshine could contain so much joy, sweetness, and consolation.

I met almost all the people I knew, all happy, all absorbed in their pleasures. How many happy people don't even know that they are happy! Olympe passed me in an elegant carriage that M. de N. has given her. She tried to insult me by her look. She little knows how far I am from such things now. A nice fellow, whom I have known for a long time, asked me if I would have supper with him and one of his friends, who, he said, was very anxious to make my acquaintance. I smiled sadly and gave him my hand, burning with fever. I never saw such an astonished countenance.

I came in at four, and had quite an appetite for my dinner. Going out has done me good. If I were only going to get well! How the sight of the life and happiness of others gives a desire of life to those who, only the night before, in the solitude of their soul and in the shadow of their sick-room, only wanted to die soon!

January 10.

The hope of getting better was only a dream. I am back in bed again, covered with plasters which burn me. If I were to offer the body that people paid so dear for once, how much would they give, I wonder, to-day?

We must have done something very wicked before we were born, or else we must be going to be very happy indeed when we are dead, for God to let this life have all the tortures of expiation and all the sorrows of an ordeal.

January 12.

I am always ill.

The Comte de N. sent me some money yesterday. I did not keep it. I won't take anything from that man. It is through him that you are not here.

Oh, that good time at Bougival! Where is it now?

If I come out of this room alive I will make a pilgrimage to the house we lived in together, but I will never leave it until I am dead.

Who knows if I shall write to you to-morrow?

January 25.

I have not slept for eleven nights. I am suffocated. I imagine every moment that I am going to die. The doctor has forbidden me to touch a pen. Julie Duprat, who is looking after me, lets me write these few lines to you. Will you not come back before I die? Is it all over between us forever? It seems to me as if I should get well if you came. What would be the good of getting well?

January 28.

This morning I was awakened by a great noise. Julie, who slept in my room, ran into the dining-room. I heard men's voices, and hers protesting against them in vain. She came back crying.

They had come to seize my things. I told her to let what they call justice have its way. The bailiff came into my room with his hat on. He opened the drawers, wrote down what he saw, and did not even seem to be aware that there was a dying woman in the bed that fortunately the charity of the law leaves me.

He said, indeed, before going, that I could appeal within nine days, but he left a man behind to keep watch. My God! what is to become of me? This scene has made me worse than I was before. Prudence wanted to go and ask your father's friend for money, but I would not let her.

I received your letter this morning. I was in need of it. Will my answer reach you in time? Will you ever see me again? This is a happy day, and it has made me forget all the days I have passed for the last six weeks. I seem as if I am better, in spite of the feeling of sadness under the impression of which I replied to you.

After all, no one is unhappy always.

When I think that it may happen to me not to die, for you to come back, for me to see the spring again, for you still to love me, and for us to begin over again our last year's life!

Fool that I am! I can scarcely hold the pen with which I write to you of this wild dream of my heart.

Whatever happens, I loved you well, Armand, and I would have died long ago if I had not had the memory of your love to help me and a sort of vague hope of seeing you beside me again.

February 4.

The Comte de G. has returned. His mistress has been unfaithful to him. He is very sad; he was very fond of her. He came to tell me all about it. The poor fellow is in rather a bad way as to money; all the same, he has paid my bailiff and sent away the man.

I talked to him about you, and he promised to tell you about me. I forgot that I had been his mistress, and he tried to make me forget it, too. He is a good friend.

The duke sent yesterday to inquire after me, and this morning he came to see me. I do not know how the old man still keeps alive. He remained with me three hours and did not say twenty words. Two big tears fell from his eyes when he saw how pale I was. The memory of his daughter's death made him weep, no doubt. He will have seen her die twice. His back was bowed, his head bent toward the ground, his lips drooping, his eyes vacant. Age and sorrow weigh with a double weight on his worn-out body. He did not reproach me. It looked as if he rejoiced secretly to see the ravages that disease had made in me. He seemed proud of being still on his feet, while I, who am still young, was broken down by suffering.

The bad weather has returned. No one comes to see me. Julie watches by me as much as she can. Prudence, to whom I can no longer give as much as I used to, begins to make excuses for not coming.

Now that I am so near death, in spite of what the doctors tell me, for I have several, which proves that I am getting worse, I am almost sorry that I listened to your father; if I had known that I should only be taking a year of your future, I could not have resisted the longing to spend that year with you, and, at least, I should have died with a friend to hold my hand. It is true that if we had lived together this year, I should not have died so soon.

God's will be done!

February 5.

Oh, come, come, Armand! I suffer horribly; I am going to die, O God! I was so miserable yesterday that I wanted to spend the evening, which seemed as if it were going to be as long as the last, anywhere but at home. The duke came in the morning. It seems to me as if the sight of this old man, whom death has forgotten, makes me die faster.

Despite the burning fever which devoured me, I made them dress me and take me to the Vaudeville. Julie put on some rouge for me, without which I should have looked like a corpse. I had the box where I gave you our first rendezvous. All the time I had my eyes fixed on the stall where you sat that day, though a sort of country fellow sat there, laughing loudly at all the foolish things that the actors said. I was half dead when they brought me home. I coughed and spat blood all the night. To-day I can not speak, I can scarcely move my arm. My God! My God! I am going to die! I have been expecting it, but I can not get used to the thought of suffering more than I suffer now, and if--

After this the few characters traced by Marguerite were indecipherable, and what followed was written by Julie Duprat.

February 18.

MONSIEUR ARMAND:

Since the day that Marguerite insisted on going to the theatre she has got worse and worse. She has completely lost her voice, and now the use of her limbs.

What our poor friend suffers is impossible to say. I am not used to emotions of this kind, and I am in a state of constant fright.

How I wish you were here! She is almost always delirious; but delirious or lucid, it is always your name that she pronounces, when she can speak a word.

The doctor tells me that she is not here for long. Since she got so ill the old duke has not returned. He told the doctor that the sight was too much for him.

Mme. Duvernoy is not behaving well. This woman, who thought she could get more money out of Marguerite, at whose expense she was living almost completely, has contracted liabilities which she can not meet, and seeing that her neighbour is no longer of use to her, she does not even come to see her. Everybody is abandoning her. M. de G., prosecuted for his debts, has had to return to London. On leaving, he sent us more money; he has done all he could, but they have returned to seize the things, and the creditors are only waiting for her to die in order to sell everything.

I wanted to use my last resources to put a stop to it, but the bailiff told me it was no use, and that there are other seizures to follow. Since she must die, it is better to let everything go than to save it for her family, whom she has never cared to see, and who have never cared for her. You can not conceive in the midst of what gilded misery the poor thing is dying. Yesterday we had absolutely no money. Plate, jewels, shawls, everything is in pawn; the rest is sold or seized. Marguerite is still conscious of what goes on around her, and she suffers in body, mind, and heart. Big tears trickle down her cheeks, so thin and pale that you would never recognise the face of her whom you loved so much, if you could see her. She has made me promise to write to you when she can no longer write, and I write before her. She turns her eyes toward me, but she no longer sees me; her eyes are already veiled by the coming of death; yet she smiles, and all her thoughts, all her soul are yours, I am sure.

Every time the door opens her eyes brighten, and she thinks you are going to come in; then, when she sees that it is not you, her face resumes its sorrowful expression, a cold sweat breaks out over it, and her cheek-bones flush.

February 19, midnight.

What a sad day we have had to-day, poor M. Armand! This morning Marguerite was stifling; the doctor bled her, and her voice has returned to her a while. The doctor begged her to see a priest. She said "Yes," and he went himself to fetch an abbe' from Saint Roch.

Meanwhile Marguerite called me up to her bed, asked me to open a cupboard, and pointed out a cap and a long chemise covered with lace, and said in a feeble voice:

"I shall die as soon as I have confessed. Then you will dress me in these things; it is the whim of a dying woman.?

Then she embraced me with tears and added:

"I can speak, but I am stifled when I speak; I am stifling. Air!"

I burst into tears, opened the window, and a few minutes afterward the priest entered. I went up to him; when he knew where he was, he seemed afraid of being badly received.

"Come in boldly, father," I said to him.

He stayed a very short time in the room, and when he came out he said to me:

"She lived a sinner, and she will die a Christian."

A few minutes afterward he returned with a choir boy bearing a crucifix, and a sacristan who went before them ringing the bell to announce that God was coming to the dying one.

They went all three into the bed-room where so many strange words have been said, but was now a sort of holy tabernacle.

I fell on my knees. I do not know how long the impression of what I saw will last, but I do not think that, till my turn comes, any human thing can make so deep an impression on me.

The priest anointed with holy oil the feet and hands and forehead of the dying woman, repeated a short prayer, and Marguerite was ready to set out for the heaven to which I doubt not she will go, if God has seen the ordeal of her life and the sanctity of her death.

Since then she has not said a word or made a movement. Twenty times I should have thought her dead if I had not heard her breathing painfully.

February 20, 5 P.M.

All is over.

Marguerite fell into her last agony at about two o'clock. Never did a martyr suffer such torture, to judge by the cries she uttered. Two or three times she sat upright in the bed, as if she would hold on to her life, which was escaping toward God.

Two or three times also she said your name; then all was silent, and she fell back on the bed exhausted. Silent tears flowed from her eyes, and she was dead.

Then I went up to her; I called her, and as she did not answer I closed her eyes and kissed her on the forehead.

Poor, dear Marguerite, I wish I were a holy woman that my kiss might recommend you to God.

Then I dressed her as she had asked me to do. I went to find a priest at Saint Roch, I burned two candles for her, and I prayed in the church for an hour.

I gave the money she left to the poor.

I do not know much about religion, but I think that God will know that my tears were genuine, my prayers fervent, my alms-giving sincere, and that he will have pity on her who, dying young and beautiful, has only had me to close her eyes and put her in her shroud.

February 22.

The burial took place to-day. Many of Marguerite's friends came to the church. Some of them wept with sincerity. When the funeral started on the way to Montmartre only two men followed it: the Comte de G., who came from London on purpose, and the duke, who was supported by two footmen.

I write you these details from her house, in the midst of my tears and under the lamp which burns sadly beside a dinner which I can not touch, as you can imagine, but which Nanine has got for me, for I have eaten nothing for twenty-four hours.

My life can not retain these sad impressions for long, for my life is not my own any more than Marguerite's was hers; that is why I give you all these details on the very spot where they occurred, in the fear, if a long time elapsed between them and your return, that I might not be able to give them to you with all their melancholy exactitude.

Chapter 27

"You have read it?" said Armand, when I had finished the manuscript.

"I understand what you must have suffered, my friend, if all that I read is true."

"My father confirmed it in a letter."

We talked for some time over the sad destiny which had been accomplished, and I went home to rest a little.

Armand, still sad, but a little relieved by the narration of his story, soon recovered, and we went together to pay a visit to Prudence and to Julie Duprat.

Prudence had become bankrupt. She told us that Marguerite was the cause of it; that during her illness she had lent her a lot of money in the form of promissory notes, which she could not pay, Marguerite having died without having returned her the money, and without having given her a receipt with which she could present herself as a creditor.

By the help of this fable, which Mme. Duvernoy repeated everywhere in order to account for her money difficulties, she extracted a note for a thousand francs from Armand, who did not believe it, but who pretended to, out of respect for all those in whose company Marguerite had lived.

Then we called on Julie Duprat, who told us the sad incident which she had witnessed, shedding real tears at the remembrance of her friend.

Lastly, we went to Marguerite's grave, on which the first rays of the April sun were bringing the first leaves into bud.

One duty remained to Armand--to return to his father. He wished me to accompany him.

We arrived at C., where I saw M. Duval, such as I had imagined him from the portrait his son had made of him, tall, dignified, kindly.

He welcomed Armand with tears of joy, and clasped my hand affectionately. I was not long in seeing that the paternal sentiment was that which dominated all others in his mind.

His daughter, named Blanche, had that transparence of eyes, that serenity of the mouth, which indicates a soul that conceives only holy thoughts and lips that repeat only pious words. She welcomed her brother's return with smiles, not knowing, in the purity of her youth, that far away a courtesan had sacrificed her own happiness at the mere invocation of her name.

I remained for some time in their happy family, full of indulgent care for one who brought them the convalescence of his heart.

I returned to Paris, where I wrote this story just as it had been told me. It has only one merit, which will perhaps be denied it; that is, that it is true.

I do not draw from this story the conclusion that all women like Marguerite are capable of doing all that she did--far from it; but I have discovered that one of them experienced a serious love in the course of her life, that she suffered for it, and that she died of it. I have told the reader all that I learned. It was my duty.

I am not the apostle of vice, but I would gladly be the echo of noble sorrow wherever I bear its voice in prayer.

The story of Marguerite is an exception, I repeat; had it not been an exception, it would not have been worth the trouble of writing it.

Augury--that is, the art of divination by observing the behaviour of birds--was extensively cultivated by the Etrurians and Romans.[1] It is still used, I believe, by the natives of Samoa. The Romans had an official college of augurs, the members of which were originally three patricians. About 300 B.C. the number of patrician augurs was increased by one, and five plebeian augurs were added. Later the number was again increased to fifteen. The object of augury was not so much to foretell the future as to indicate what line of action should be followed, in any given circumstances, by the nation. The augurs were consulted on all matters of importance, and the position of augur was thus one of great consequence. In what appears to be the oldest method, the augur, arrayed in a special costume, and carrying a staff with which to mark out the visible heavens into houses, proceeded to an elevated piece of ground, where a sacrifice was made and a prayer repeated. Then, gazing towards the sky, he waited until a bird appeared. The point in the heavens where it first made its appearance was carefully noted, also the manner and direction of its flight, and the point where it was lost sight of. From these particulars an augury was derived, but, in order to be of effect, it had to be confirmed by a further one.

[1] This is not quite an accurate definition, as "auguries" were also obtained from other animals and from celestial phenomena (e.g. lightning), etc.

Auguries were also drawn from the notes of birds, birds being divided by the augurs into two classes: (i) oscines, "those which give omens by their note," and (ii) alites, "those which afford presages by their flight."[1] Another method of augury was performed by the feeding of chickens specially kept for this purpose. This was done just before sunrise by the pullarius or feeder, strict silence being observed. If the birds manifested no desire for their food, the omen was of a most direful nature. On the other hand, if from the greediness of the chickens the grain fell from their beaks and rebounded from the ground, the augury was most favourable. This latter augury was known as tripudium solistimum. "Any fraud practiced by the pullarius'," writes the Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, "reverted to his own head. Of this we have a memorable instance in the great battle between Papirius Cursor and the Samnites in the year of Rome 459. So anxious were the troops for battle, that the pullarius' dared to announce to the consul a tripudium solistimum,' although the chickens refused to eat. Papirius unhesitatingly gave the signal for fight, when his son, having discovered the false augury, hastened to communicate it to his father. Do thy part well,' was his reply, and let the deceit of the augur fall on himself. The "tripudium" has been announced to me, and no omen could be better for the Roman army and people!' As the troops advanced, a javelin thrown at random struck the pullatius' dead. The hand of heaven is in the battle,' cried Papirius; the guilty is punished!' and he advanced and conquered."[1b] A coincidence of this sort, if it really occurred, would very greatly strengthen the popular belief in auguries.

[1] PLINY: Natural History, bk. x. chap. xxii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 495).

[1b] Rev. EDWARD SMEDLEY, M.A.: The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana), ed. by ELIHU RICH (1855), p. 144.

The cock has always been reckoned a bird possessed of magic power. At its crowing, we are told, all unquiet spirits who roam the earth depart to their dismal abodes, and the orgies of the Witches' Sabbath terminate. A cock is the favourite sacrifice offered to evil spirits in Ceylon and elsewhere. Alectromancy[2] was an ancient and peculiarly senseless method of divination (so called) in which a cock was employed. The bird had to be young and quite white. Its feet were cut off and crammed down its throat with a piece of parchment on which were written certain Hebrew words. The cock, after the repetition of a prayer by the operator, was placed in a circle divided into parts corresponding to the letters of the alphabet, in each of which a grain of wheat was placed. A certain psalm was recited, and then the letters were noted from which the cock picked up the grains, a fresh grain being put down for each one picked up. These letters, properly arranged, were said to give the answer to the inquiry for which divination was made. I am not sure what one was supposed to do if, as seems likely, the cock refused to act in the required manner.

[2] Cf. ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE: The Occult Sciences (1891), pp. 124 and 125.

The owl was reckoned a bird of evil omen with the Romans, who derived this opinion from the Etrurians, along with much else of their so-called science of augury. It was particularly dreaded if seen in a city, or, indeed, anywhere by day. PLINY (Caius Plinius Secundus, A.D. 61-before 115) informs us that on one occasion "a horned owl entered the very sanctuary of the Capitol; . . . in consequence of which, Rome was purified on the nones of March in that year."[1]

[1] PLINY: Natural History, bk. x. chap. xvi. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S trans., vol. ii., 1855, p. 492).

The folk-lore of the British Isles abounds with quaint beliefs and stories concerning birds. There is a charming Welsh legend concerning the robin, which the Rev. T. F. T. DYER quotes from Notes and Queries:--"Far, far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by day does this little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. So near the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are SCORCHED; and hence he is named Brou-rhuddyn (Breast-burnt). To serve little children, the robin dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. He shivers in the brumal blast; hungry, he chirps before your door."[2]

[2] T. F. THISELTON DYER, M.A.: English Folk-Lore (1878), pp. 65 and 66).

Another legend accounts for the robin's red breast by supposing this bird to have tried to pluck a thorn from the crown encircling the brow of the crucified CHRIST, in order to alleviate His sufferings. No doubt it is on account of these legends that it is considered a crime, which will be punished with great misfortune, to kill a robin. In some places the same prohibition extends to the wren, which is popularly believed to be the wife of the robin. In other parts, however, the wren is (or at least was) cruelly hunted on certain days. In the Isle of Man the wren-hunt took place on Christmas Eve and St Stephen's Day, and is accounted for by a legend concerning an evil fairy who lured many men to destruction, but had to assume the form of a wren to escape punishment at the hands of an ingenious knight-errant.

For several centuries there was prevalent over the whole of civilised Europe a most extraordinary superstition concerning the small Arctic bird resembling, but not so large as, the common wild goose, known as the barnacle or bernicle goose. MAX MUELLER[1] has suggested that this word was really derived from Hibernicula, the name thus referring to Ireland, where the birds were caught; but common opinion associated the barnacle goose with the shell-fish known as the barnacle (which is found on timber exposed to the sea), supposing that the former was generated out of the latter. Thus in one old medical writer we find: "There are founde in the north parts of Scotland, and the Ilands adjacent, called Orchades [Orkney Islands], certain trees, whereon doe growe certaine shell fishes, of a white colour tending to russet; wherein are conteined little liuing creatures: which shells in time of maturitie doe open, and out of them grow those little living things; which falling into the water, doe become foules, whom we call Barnakles . . . but the other that do fall vpon the land, perish and come to nothing: this much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of the people of those parts...."[1b]

[1] See F. MAX MUELLER'S Lectures on the Science of Language (1885), where a very full account of the tradition concerning the origin of the barnacle goose will be found.

[1b] JOHN GERARDE: The Herball; or, Generall Historie of Plantes (1597). 1391.

The writer, however, who was a well-known surgeon and botanist of his day, adds that he had personally examined certain shell-fish from Lancashire, and on opening the shells had observed within birds in various stages of development. No doubt he was deceived by some purely superficial resemblances--for example, the feet of the barnacle fish resemble somewhat the feathers of a bird. He gives an imaginative illustration of the barnacle fowl escaping from its shell, which is reproduced in fig. 12.

Turning now from superstitions concerning actual birds to legends of those that are purely mythical, passing reference must be made to the roc, a bird existing in Arabian legend, which we meet in the Arabian Nights, and which is chiefly remarkable for its size and strength.

The phoenix, perhaps, is of more interest. Of "that famous bird of Arabia," PLINY writes as follows, prefixing his description of it with the cautious remark, "I am not quite sure that its existence is not all a fable." "It is said that there is only one in existence in the whole world, and that that one has not been seen very often. We are told that this bird is of the size of an eagle, and has a brilliant golden plumage around the neck, while the rest of the body is of a purple colour; except the tail, which is azure, with long feathers intermingled of a roseate hue; the throat is adorned with a crest, and the head with a tuft of feathers. The first Roman who described this bird . . . was the senator Manilius.... He tells us that no person has ever seen this bird eat, that in Arabia it is looked upon as sacred to the sun, that it lives five hundred and forty years, that when it becomes old it builds a nest of cassia and sprigs of incense, which it fills with perfumes, and then lays its body down upon them to die; that from its bones and marrow there springs at first a sort of small worm, which in time changes into a little bird; that the first thing that it does is to perform the obsequies of its predecessor, and to carry the nest entire to the city of the Sun near Panchaia, and there deposit it upon the altar of that divinity.

"The same Manilius states also, that the revolution of the great year is completed with the life of this bird, and that then a new cycle comes round again with the same characteristics as the former one, in the seasons and the appearance of the stars. . . . This bird was brought to Rome in the censorship of the Emperor Claudius . . . and was exposed to public view.... This fact is attested by the public Annals, but there is no one that doubts that it was a fictitious phoenix only."[1]

[1] PLINY: Natural History, bk. x. chap. ii. (BOSTOCK and RILEY'S trans., vol. ii., 1855, PP. 479-481).

The description of the plumage, etc., of this bird applies fairly well, as CUVIER has pointed out,[2] to the golden pheasant, and a specimen of the latter may have been the "fictitious phoenix" referred to above. That this bird should have been credited with the extraordinary and wholly fabulous properties related by PLINY and others is not, however, easy to understand. The phoenix was frequently used to illustrate the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (e.g. in CLEMENT'S First Epistle to the Corinthians), and it is not impossible that originally it was nothing more than a symbol of immortality which in time became to be believed in as a really existing bird. The fact, however, that there was supposed to be only one phoenix, and also that the length of each of its lives coincided with what the ancients termed a "great year," may indicate that the phoenix was a symbol of cosmological periodicity. On the other hand, some ancient writers (e_.g_. TACITUS, A.D. 55-120) explicitly refer to the phoenix as a symbol of the sun, and in the minds of the ancients the sun was closely connected with the idea of immortality. Certainly the accounts of the gorgeous colours of the plumage of the phoenix might well be descriptions of the rising sun. It appears, moreover, that the Egyptian hieroglyphic benu, {glyph}, which is a figure of a heron or crane (and thus akin to the phoenix), was employed to designate the rising sun.

[2] See CUVIER'S The Animal Kingdom, GRIFFITH'S trans., vol. viii. (1829), p. 23.

There are some curious Jewish legends to account for the supposed immortality of the phoenix. According to one, it was the sole animal that refused to eat of the forbidden tree when tempted by EVE. According to another, its immortality was conferred on it by NOAH because of its considerate behaviour in the Ark, the phoenix not clamouring for food like the other animals.[1]

[1] The existence of such fables as these shows how grossly the real meanings of the Sacred Writings have been misunderstood.

There is a celebrated bird in Chinese tradition, the Fung Hwang, which some sinologues identify with the phoenix of the West.[2] According to a commentator on the 'Rh Ya, this "felicitous and perfect bird has a cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is of five different colours and more than six feet high."

[2] Mr CHAS. GOULD, B.A., to whose book Mythical Monsters (1886) I am very largely indebted for my account of this bird, and from which I have culled extracts from the Chinese, is not of this opinion. Certainly the fact that we read of Fung Hwangs in the plural, whilst tradition asserts that there is only one phoenix, seems to point to a difference in origin.

Another account (that in the Lun Yu Tseh Shwai Shing) tells us that "its head resembles heaven, its eye the sun, its back the moon, its wings the wind, its foot the ground, and its tail the woof." Furthermore, "its mouth contains commands, its heart is conformable to regulations, its ear is thoroughly acute in hearing, its tongue utters sincerity, its colour is luminous, its comb resembles uprightness, its spur is sharp and curved, its voice is sonorous, and its belly is the treasure of literature." Like the dragon, tortoise, and unicorn, it was considered to be a spiritual creature; but, unlike the Western phoenix, more than one Fung Hwang was, as I have pointed out, believed to exist. The birds were not always to be seen, but, according to Chinese records, they made their appearance during the reigns of certain sovereigns. The Fung Hwang is regarded by the Chinese as an omen of great happiness and prosperity, and its likeness is embroidered on the robes of empresses to ensure success. Probably, if the bird is not to be regarded as purely mythological and symbolic in origin, we have in the stories of it no more than exaggerated accounts of some species of pheasant. Japanese literature contains similar stories.

Of other fabulous bird-forms mention may be made of the griffin and the harpy. The former was a creature half eagle, half lion, popularly supposed to be the progeny of the union of these two latter. It is described in the so-called Voiage and Travaile of Sir JOHN MAUNDEVILLE in the following terms[1]: "Sum men seyn, that thei hen the Body upward, as an Egle, and benethe as a Lyoun: and treuly thei seyn sothe, that thei ben of that schapp. But o Griffoun hathe the body more gret and is more strong thanne 8 Lyouns, of suche Lyouns as ben o this half; and more gret and strongere, than an 100 Egles, suche as we hen amonges us. For o Griffoun there will bere, fleynge to his Nest, a gret Hors, or 2 Oxen zoked to gidere, as thei gon at the Plowghe. For he hathe his Talouns so longe and so large and grete, upon his Feet, as thoughe thei weren Hornes of grete Oxen or of Bugles or of Kyzn; so that men maken Cuppes of hem, to drynken of: and of hire Ribbes and of the Pennes of hire Wenges, men maken Bowes fulle strong, to schote with Arwes and Quarelle." The special characteristic of the griffin was its watchfulness, its chief function being thought to be that of guarding secret treasure. This characteristic, no doubt, accounts for its frequent use in heraldry as a supporter to the arms. It was sacred to APOLLO, the sun-god, whose chariot was, according to early sculptures, drawn by griffins. PLINY, who speaks of it as a bird having long ears and a hooked beak, regarded it as fabulous.

[1] The Voiage and Travaile of Sir JOHN MAUNDEVILLE, Kt. Which treateth of the Way to Hierusalem; and of Marvayles of Inde, with other Ilands and Countryes. Now Publish'd entire from an Original MS. in The Cotton Library (London, 1727), cap. xxvi. pp. 325 and 326.

"This work is mainly a compilation from the writings of William of Boldensele, Friar Odoric of Pordenone, Hetoum of Armenia, Vincent de Beauvais, and other geographers. It is probable that the name John de Mandeville should be regarded as a pseudonym concealing the identity of Jean de Bourgogne, a physician at Liege, mentioned under the name of Joannes ad Barbam in the vulgate Latin version of the Travels." (Note in British Museum Catalogue). The work, which was first published in French during the latter part of the fourteenth century, achieved an immense popularity, the marvels that it relates being readily received by the credulous folk of that and many a succeeding day.

The harpies (i.e. snatchers) in Greek mythology are creatures like vultures as to their bodies, but with the faces of women, and armed with sharp claws.

"Of Monsters all, most Monstrous this; no greater Wrath God sends 'mongst Men; it comes from depth of pitchy Hell: And Virgin's Face, but Womb like Gulf unsatiate hath, Her Hands are griping Claws, her Colour pale and fell."[1]

[1] Quoted from VERGIL by JOHN GUILLIM in his A Display of Heraldry (sixth edition, 1724), p. 271.

We meet with the harpies in the story of PHINEUS, a son of AGENOR, King of Thrace. At the bidding of his jealous wife, IDAEA, daughter of DARDANUS, PHINEUS put out the sight of his children by his former wife, CLEOPATRA, daughter of BOREAS. To punish this cruelty, the gods caused him to become blind, and the harpies were sent continually to harass and affright him, and to snatch away his food or defile it by their presence. They were afterwards driven away by his brothers-in-law, ZETES and CALAIS. It has been suggested that originally the harpies were nothing more than personifications of the swift storm-winds; and few of the old naturalists, credulous as they were, regarded them as real creatures, though this cannot be said of all. Some other fabulous bird-forms are to be met with in Greek and Arabian mythologies, etc., but they are not of any particular interest. And it is time for us to conclude our present excursion, and to seek for other byways.

V

THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION

OUT of the superstitions of the past the science of the present has gradually evolved. In the Middle Ages, what by courtesy we may term medical science was, as we have seen, little better than a heterogeneous collection of superstitions, and although various reforms were instituted with the passing of time, superstition still continued for long to play a prominent part in medical practice.

One of the most curious of these old medical (or perhaps I should say surgical) superstitions was that relating to the Powder of Sympathy, a remedy (?) chiefly remembered in connection with the name of Sir KENELM DIGBY (1603-1665), though he was probably not the first to employ it. The Powder itself, which was used as a cure for wounds, was, in fact, nothing else than common vitriol,[1] though an improved and more elegant form (if one may so describe it) was composed of vitriol desiccated by the sun's rays, mixed with gum tragacanth. It was in the application of the Powder that the remedy was peculiar. It was not, as one might expect, applied to the wound itself, but any article that might have blood from the wound upon it was either sprinkled with the Powder or else placed in a basin of water in which the Powder had been dissolved, and maintained at a temperate heat. Meanwhile, the wound was kept clean and cool.

[1] Green vitriol, ferrous sulphate heptahydrate, a compound of iron, sulphur, and oxygen, crystallised with seven molecules of water, represented by the formula FeSO4<.>7H2O. On exposure to the air it loses water, and is gradually converted into basic ferric sulphate. For long, green vitriol was confused with blue vitriol, which generally occurs as an impurity in crude green vitriol. Blue vitriol is copper sulphate pentahydrate, CuSO4<.>5H2O.

Sir KENELM DIGBY appears to have delivered a discourse dealing with the famous Powder before a learned assembly at Montpellier in France; at least a work purporting to be a translation of such a discourse was published in 1658,[1] and further editions appeared in 1660 and 1664. KENELM was a son of the Sir EVERARD DIGBY (1578-1606) who was executed for his share in the Gunpowder Plot. In spite of this fact, however, JAMES I. appears to have regarded him with favour. He was a man of romantic temperament, possessed of charming manners, considerable learning, and even greater credulity. His contemporaries seem to have differed in their opinions concerning him. EVELYN (1620-1706), the diarist, after inspecting his chemical laboratory, rather harshly speaks of him as "an errant mountebank". Elsewhere he well refers to him as "a teller of strange things"--this was on the occasion of DIGBY'S relating a story of a lady who had such an aversion to roses that one laid on her cheek produced a blister!

[1] A late Discourse . . . by Sir KENEEM DIGBY, Kt. &c. Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathy . . . rendered . . . out of French into English by R. WHITE, Gent. (1658). This is entitled the second edition, but appears to have been the first.

To return to the Late Discourse: after some preliminary remarks, Sir KENELM records a cure which he claims to have effected by means of the Powder. It appears that JAMES HOWELL (1594-1666, afterwards historiographer royal to CHARLES II.), had, in the attempt to separate two friends engaged in a duel, received two serious wounds in the hand. To proceed in the writer's own words:--"It was my chance to be lodged hard by him; and four or five days after, as I was making myself ready, he [Mr Howell] came to my House, and prayed me to view his wounds; for I understand, said he, that you have extraordinary remedies upon such occasions, and my Surgeons apprehend some fear, that it may grow to a Gangrene, and so the hand must be cut off....

"I asked him then for any thing that had the blood upon it, so he presently sent for his Garter, wherewith his hand was first bound: and having called for a Bason of water, as if I would wash my hands; I took an handful! of Powder of Vitrol, which I had in my study, and presently dissolved it. As soon as the bloody garter was brought me, I put it within the Bason, observing in the interim what Mr Howel did, who stood talking with a Gentleman in the corner of my Chamber, not regarding at all what I was doing: but he started suddenly, as if he had found some strange alteration in himself; I asked him what he ailed? I know not what ailes me, but I find that I feel no more pain, methinks that a pleasing kind of freshnesse, as it were a wet cold Napkin did spread over my hand, which hath taken away the inflammation that tormented me before; I replied, since that you feel already so good an effect of my medicament, I advise you to cast away all your Plaisters, onely keep the wound clean, and in a moderate temper 'twixt heat and cold. This was presently reported to the Duke of Buckingham, and a little after to the King [James I.], who were both very curious to know the issue of the businesse, which was, that after dinner I took the garter out of the water, and put it to dry before a great fire; it was scarce dry, but Mr Howels servant came running [and told me], that his Master felt as much burning as ever he had done, if not more, for the heat was such, as if his hand were betwixt coales of fire: I answered, that although that had happened at present, yet he should find ease in a short time; for I knew the reason of this new accident, and I would provide accordingly, for his Master should be free from that inflammation, it may be, before he could possibly return unto him: but in case he found no ease, I wished him to come presently back again, if not he might forbear coming. Thereupon he went, and at the instant I did put again the garter into the water; thereupon he found his Master without any pain at all. To be brief, there was no sense of pain afterward: but within five or six dayes the wounds were cicatrized, and entirely healed."[1]

[1] Ibid., pp. 7-11.

Sir KENELM proceeds, in this discourse, to relate that he obtained the secret of the Powder from a Carmelite who had learnt it in the East. Sir KENELM says that he told it only to King JAMES and his celebrated physician, Sir THEODORE MAYERNE (1573-1655). The latter disclosed it to the Duke of MAYERNE, whose surgeon sold the secret to various persons, until ultimately, as Sir KENELM remarks, it became known to every country barber. However, DIGBY'S real connection with the Powder has been questioned. In an Appendix to Dr NATHANAEL HIGHMORE'S (1613-1685) The History of Generation, published in 1651, entitled A Discourse of the Cure of Wounds by Sympathy, the Powder is referred to as Sir GILBERT TALBOT'S Powder; nor does it appear to have been DIGBY who brought the claims of the Sympathetic Powder before the notice of the then recently-formed Royal Society, although he was a by no means inactive member of the Society. HIGHMORE, however, in the Appendix to the work referred to above, does refer to DIGBY'S reputed cure of HOWELL'S wounds already mentioned; and after the publication of DIGBY'S Discourse the Powder became generally known as Sir KENELM DIGBY'S Sympathetic Powder. As such it is referred to in an advertisement appended to Wit and Drollery (1661) by the bookseller, NATHANAEL BROOK.[1]

[1] This advertisement is as follows: "These are to give notice, that Sir Kenelme Digbies Sympathetical Powder prepar'd by Promethean fire, curing all green wounds that come within the compass of a Remedy; and likewise the Tooth-ache infallibly in a very short time: Is to be had at Mr Nathanael Brook's at the Angel in Cornhil."

The belief in cure by sympathy, however, is much older than DIGBY'S or TALBOT'S Sympathetic Powder. PARACELSUS described an ointment consisting essentially of the moss on the skull of a man who had died a violent death, combined with boar's and bear's fat, burnt worms, dried boar's brain, red sandal-wood and mummy, which was used to cure (?) wounds in a similar manner, being applied to the weapon with which the hurt had been inflicted. With reference to this ointment, readers will probably recall the passage in SCOTT'S Lay of the Last Minstrel (canto 3, stanza 23), respecting the magical cure of WILLIAM of DELORAINE'S wound by "the Ladye of Branksome":--

"She drew the splinter from the wound And with a charm she stanch'd the blood; She bade the gash be cleans'd and bound: No longer by his couch she stood; But she had ta'en the broken lance, And washed it from the clotted gore And salved the splinter o'er and o'er. William of Deloraine, in trance, Whene'er she turned it round and round, Twisted as if she gall'd his wound. Then to her maidens she did say That he should be whole man and sound Within the course of a night and day. Full long she toil'd; for she did rue Mishap to friend so stout and true."

FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) writes of sympathetic cures as follows:--"It is constantly Received, and Avouched, that the Anointing of the Weapon, that maketh the Wound, wil heale the Wound it selfe. In this Experiment, upon the Relation of Men of Credit, (though my selfe, as yet, am not fully inclined to beleeve it,) you shal note the Points following; First, the Ointment . . . is made of Divers ingredients; whereof the Strangest and Hardest to come by, are the Mosse upon the Skull of a dead Man, Vnburied; And the Fats of a Boare, and a Beare, killed in the Act of Generation. These Two last I could easily suspect to be prescribed as a Starting Hole; That if the Experiment proved not, it mought be pretended, that the Beasts were not killed in due Time; For as for the Mosse, it is certain there is great Quantity of it in Ireland, upon Slain Bodies, laid on Heaps, Vnburied. The other Ingredients are, the Bloud-Stone in Powder, and some other Things, which seeme to have a Vertue to Stanch Bloud; As also the Mosse hath.... Secondly, the same kind of Ointment, applied to the Hurt it selfe, worketh not the Effect; but onely applied to the Weapon..... Fourthly, it may be applied to the Weapon, though the Party Hurt be at a great Distance. Fifthly, it seemeth the Imagination of the Party, to be Cured, is not needful! to Concurre; For it may be done without the knowledge of the Party Wounded; And thus much hath been tried, that the Ointment (for Experiments sake,) hath been wiped off the Weapon, without the knowledge of the Party Hurt, and presently the Party Hurt, hath been in great Rage of Paine, till the Weapon was Reannointed. Sixthly, it is affirmed, that if you cannot get the Weapon, yet if you put an Instrument of Iron, or Wood, resembling the Weapon, into the Wound, whereby it bleedeth, the Annointing of that Instrument will serve, and work the Effect. This I doubt should be a Device, to keep this strange Forme of Cure, in Request, and Use; Because many times you cannot come by the Weapon it selve. Seventhly, the Wound be at first Washed clean with White Wine or the Parties own Water; And then bound up close in Fine Linen and no more Dressing renewed, till it be whole."[1]

[1] FRANCIS BACON: Sylva Sylvarum: or, A Natural History . . . Published after the Authors death . . . The sixt Edition ?. . (1651), p. 217.

Owing to the demand for making this ointment, quite a considerable trade was done in skulls from Ireland upon which moss had grown owing to their exposure to the atmosphere, high prices being obtained for fine specimens.

The idea underlying the belief in the efficacy of sympathetic remedies, namely, that by acting on part of a thing or on a symbol of it, one thereby acts magically on the whole or the thing symbolised, is the root-idea of all magic, and is of extreme antiquity. DIGBY and others, however, tried to give a natural explanation to the supposed efficacy of the Powder. They argued that particles of the blood would ascend from the bloody cloth or weapon, only coming to rest when they had reached their natural home in the wound from which they had originally issued. These particles would carry with them the more volatile part of the vitriol, which would effect a cure more readily than when combined with the grosser part of the vitriol. In the days when there was hardly any knowledge of chemistry and physics, this theory no doubt bore every semblance of truth. In passing, however, it is interesting to note that DIGBY'S Discourse called forth a reply from J. F. HELVETIUS (or SCHWETTZER, 1625-1709), physician to the Prince of Orange, who afterwards became celebrated as an alchemist who had achieved the magnum opus.[1]

[1] See my Alchemy: Ancient and Modern (1911), SESE 63-67.

Writing of the Sympathetic Powder, Professor DE MORGAN wittily argues that it must have been quite efficacious. He says: "The directions were to keep the wound clean and cool, and to take care of diet, rubbing the salve on the knife or sword. If we remember the dreadful notions upon drugs which prevailed, both as to quantity and quality, we shall readily see that any way of NOT dressing the wound would have been useful. If the physicians had taken the hint, had been careful of diet, etc., and had poured the little barrels of medicine down the throat of a practicable doll, THEY would have had their magical cures as well as the surgeons."[2] As Dr PETTIGREW has pointed out,[3] Nature exhibits very remarkable powers in effecting the healing of wounds by adhesion, when her processes are not impeded. In fact, many cases have been recorded in which noses, ears, and fingers severed from the body have been rejoined thereto, merely by washing the parts, placing them in close continuity, and allowing the natural powers of the body to effect the healing. Moreover, in spite of BACON'S remarks on this point, the effect of the imagination of the patient, who was usually not ignorant that a sympathetic cure was to be attempted, must be taken into account; for, without going to the excesses of "Christian Science" in this respect, the fact must be recognised that the state of the mind exercises a powerful effect on the natural forces of the body, and a firm faith is undoubtedly helpful in effecting the cure of any sort of ill.

[2] Professor AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN: A Budget of Paradoxes (1872), p 66.

[3] THOMAS JOSEPH PETTIGREW, F.R.S.: On Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery (1844), pp. 164-167.

VI

THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS

THE word "talisman" is derived from the Arabic "tilsam," "a magical image," through the plural form "tilsamen." This Arabic word is itself probably derived from the Greek telesma in its late meaning of "a religious mystery" or "consecrated object". The term is often employed to designate amulets in general, but, correctly speaking, it has a more restricted and special significance. A talisman may be defined briefly as an astrological or other symbol expressive of the influence and power of one of the planets, engraved on a sympathetic stone or metal (or inscribed on specially prepared parchment) under the auspices of this planet.

Before proceeding to an account of the preparation of talismans proper, it will not be out of place to notice some of the more interesting and curious of other amulets. All sorts of substances have been employed as charms, sometimes of a very unpleasant nature, such as dried toads. Generally, however, amulets consist of stones, herbs, or passages from Sacred Writings written on paper. This latter class are sometimes called "characts," as an example of which may be mentioned the Jewish phylacteries.

Every precious stone was supposed to exercise its own peculiar virtue; for instance, amber was regarded as a good remedy for throat troubles, and agate was thought to preserve from snake-bites. ELIHU RICH[1] gives a very full list of stones and their supposed virtues. Each sign of the zodiac was supposed to have its own particular stone[2] (as shown in the annexed table), and hence the superstitious though not inartistic custom of wearing one's birth-

Month (com-Astro- mencing Sign of the Zodiac. logical 21st of Stone. Symbol. preceding month). Aries, the Ram . {} April Sardonyx. Taurus the Bull . {} May Cornelian. Gemini the Twins . {} June Topaz. Cancer, the Crab . {} July Chalcedony. Leo, the Lion . . {} August Jasper. Virgo, the Virgin . {} September Emerald. Libra, the Balance . {} October Beryl. Scorpio, the Scorpion {} November Amethyst. Sagittarius, the Archer {} December Hyacinth (=Sapphire). Capricorn, the Goat . {} January Chrysoprase. Aquarius, the Water- {} February Crystal. bearer Pisces, the Fishes . {} March Sapphire. (=Lapis lazuli). stone for "luck". The belief in the occult powers of certain stones is by no means non-existent at the present day; for even in these enlightened times there are not wanting those who fear the beautiful opal, and put their faith in the virtues of New Zealand green-stone.

[1] ELTHU RICH: The Occult Sciences (Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, 1855), pp. 348 et seq.

[2] With regard to these stones, however, there is much confusion and difference of opinion. The arrangement adopted in the table here given is that of CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (Occult Philosophy, bk. ii.). A comparatively recent work, esteemed by modern occultists, namely, The Light of Egypt, or the Science of the Soul and the Stars (1889), gives the following scheme:--

{}=Amethyst. {}=Emerald. {}=Diamond. {}=Onyx (Chalcedony).

{}=Agate. {}=Ruby. {}=Topaz. {}=Sapphire (skyblue).

{}=Beryl. {}=Jasper. {}=Carbuncle. {}=Chrysolite.

Common superstitious opinion regarding birth-stones, as reflected, for example, in the "lucky birth charms" exhibited in the windows of the jewellers' shops, considerably diverges in this matter from the views of both these authorities. The usual scheme is as follows:--

Jan.=Garnet. May =Emerald. Sept. =Sapphire, Feb.=Amethyst. June=Agate. Oct. =Opal. Mar.=Bloodstone. July =Ruby. Nov.=Topaz. Apr.=Diamond. Aug.=Sardonyx. Dec. =Turquoise.

The bloodstone is frequently assigned either to Aries or Scorpio, owing to its symbolical connection with Mars; and the opal to Cancer, which in astrology is the constellation of the moon.

Confusion is rendered still worse by the fact that the ancients whilst in some cases using the same names as ourselves, applied them to different stones; thus their "hyacinth" is our "sapphire," whilst their "sapphire" is our "lapis lazuli".

Certain herbs, culled at favourable conjunctions of the planets and worn as amulets, were held to be very efficacious against various diseases. Precious stones and metals were also taken internally for the same purpose--"remedies" which in certain cases must have proved exceedingly harmful. One theory put forward for the supposed medical value of amulets was the Doctrine of Effluvia. This theory supposes the amulets to give off vapours or effluvia which penetrate into the body and effect a cure. It is, of course, true that certain herbs, etc., might, under the heat of the body, give off such effluvia, but the theory on the whole is manifestly absurd. The Doctrine of Signatures, which we have already encountered in our excursions,[1] may also be mentioned in this connection as a complementary and equally untenable hypothesis.

[1] Cf. chap. iii., "On Nature as the Embodiment of Number," of my A Mathematical Theory of Spirit, to which reference has already been made.

According to BERGSON, life--the reality that can only be lived, not understood--is absolutely continuous (i.e. not amenable to numerical treatment). It is because life is absolutely continuous that we cannot, he says, understand it; for reason acts discontinuously, grasping only, so to speak, a cinematographic view of life, made up of an immense number of instantaneous glimpses. All that passes between the glimpses is lost, and so the true whole, reason can never synthesise from that which it possesses. On the other hand, one might also argue--extending, in a way, the teaching of the physical sciences of the period between the postulation of DALTON'S atomic theory and the discovery of the significance of the ether of space--that reality is essentially discontinuous, our idea that it is continuous being a mere illusion arising from the coarseness of our senses. That might provide a complete vindication of the Pythagorean view; but a better vindication, if not of that theory, at any rate of PYTHAGORAS' philosophical attitude, is forthcoming, I think, in the fact that modern mathematics has transcended the shackles of number, and has enlarged her kingdom, so as to include quantities other than numerical. PYTHAGORAS, had he been born in these latter centuries, would surely have rejoiced in this, enlargement, whereby the continuous as well as the discontinuous is brought, if not under the rule of number, under the rule of mathematics indeed.

PYTHAGORAS' foremost achievement in mathematics I have already mentioned. Another notable piece of work in the same department was the discovery of a method of constructing a parallelogram having a side equal to a given line, an angle equal to a given angle, and its area equal to that of a given triangle. PYTHAGORAS is said to have celebrated this discovery by the sacrifice of a whole ox. The problem appears in the first book of EUCLID'S Elements of Geometry as proposition 44. In fact, many of the propositions of EUCLID'S first, second, fourth, and sixth books were worked out by PYTHAGORAS and the Pythagoreans; but, curiously enough, they seem greatly to have neglected the geometry of the circle.

The symmetrical solids were regarded by PYTHAGORAS, and by the Greek thinkers after him, as of the greatest importance. To be perfectly symmetrical or regular, a solid must have an equal number of faces meeting at each of its angles, and these faces must be equal regular polygons, i.e. figures whose sides and angles are all equal. PYTHAGORAS, perhaps, may be credited with the great discovery that there are only five such solids. These are as follows:--

The Tetrahedron, having four equilateral triangles as faces.

The Cube, having six squares as faces.

The Octahedron, having eight equilateral triangles as faces.

The Dodecahedron, having twelve regular pentagons (or five-sided figures) as faces.

The Icosahedron, having twenty equilateral triangles as faces.[1]

[1] If the reader will copy figs. 4 to 8 on cardboard or stiff paper, bend each along the dotted lines so as to form a solid, fastening together the free edges with gummed paper, he will be in possession of models of the five solids in question.

Now, the Greeks believed the world to be composed of four elements--earth, air, fire, water,--and to the Greek mind the conclusion was inevitable[2a] that the shapes of the particles of the elements were those of the regular solids. Earth-particles were cubical, the cube being the regular solid possessed of greatest stability; fire-particles were tetrahedral, the tetrahedron being the simplest and, hence, lightest solid. Water-particles were icosahedral for exactly the reverse reason, whilst air-particles, as intermediate between the two latter, were octahedral. The dodecahedron was, to these ancient mathematicians, the most mysterious of the solids: it was by far the most difficult to construct, the accurate drawing of the regular pentagon necessitating a rather elaborate application of PYTHAGORAS' great theorem.[1] Hence the conclusion, as PLATO put it, that "this [the regular dodecahedron] the Deity employed in tracing the plan of the Universe."[2b] Hence also the high esteem in which the pentagon was held by the Pythagoreans. By producing each side of this latter figure the five-pointed star (fig. 9), known as the pentagram, is obtained. This was adopted by the Pythagoreans as the badge of their Society, and for many ages was held as a symbol possessed of magic powers. The mediaeval magicians made use of it in their evocations, and as a talisman it was held in the highest esteem.

[2a] Cf. PLATO: The Timaeus, SESE xxviii--xxx.

[1] [1] In reference to this matter FRANKLAND remarks: "In those early days the innermost secrets of nature lay in the lap of geometry, and the extraordinary inference follows that Euclid's Elements, which are devoted to the investigation of the regular solids, are therefore in reality and at bottom an attempt to `solve the universe.' Euclid, in fact, made this goal of the Pythagoreans the aim of his Elements."--Op. cit., p. 35.

[2b] Op. cit., SE xxix.

Music played an important part in the curriculum of the Pythagorean Brotherhood, and the important discovery that the relations between the notes of musical scales can be expressed by means of numbers is a Pythagorean one. It must have seemed to its discoverer-- as, in a sense, it indeed is--a striking confirmation of the numerical theory of the Cosmos. The Pythagoreans held that the positions of the heavenly bodies were governed by similar numerical relations, and that in consequence their motion was productive of celestial music. This concept of "the harmony of the spheres" is among the most celebrated of the Pythagorean doctrines, and has found ready acceptance in many mystically-speculative minds. "Look how the floor of heaven," says Lorenzo in SHAKESPEARE'S The Merchant of Venice--

" . . . Look how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold: There's not the smallest orb which thou behold's" But in his motion like an angel sings, Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins; Such harmony is in immortal souls; But whilst this muddy vesture of decay Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it."[1]

[1] Act v. scene i.

Or, as KINGSLEY writes in one of his letters, "When I walk the fields I am oppressed every now and then with an innate feeling that everything I see has a meaning, if I could but understand it. And this feeling of being surrounded with truths which I cannot grasp, amounts to an indescribable awe sometimes! Everything seems to be full of God's reflex, if we could but see it. Oh! how I have prayed to have the mystery unfolded, at least hereafter. To see, if but for a moment, the whole harmony of the great system! To hear once the music which the whole universe makes as it performs His bidding!"[1] In this connection may be mentioned the very significant fact that the Pythagoreans did not consider the earth, in accordance with current opinion, to be a stationary body, but believed that it and the other planets revolved about a central point, or fire, as they called it.

[1] CHAREES KINGSLEY: His Letters and Memories of His Life, edited by his wife (1883), p. 28.

As concerns PYTHAGORAS' ethical teaching, judging from the so-called Golden Verses attributed to him, and no doubt written by one of his disciples,[2] this would appear to be in some respects similar to that of the Stoics who came later, but free from the materialism of the Stoic doctrines. Due regard for oneself is blended with regard for the gods and for other men, the atmosphere of the whole being at once rational and austere. One verse--"Thou shalt likewise know, according to Justice, that the nature of this Universe is in all things alike"[3]-- is of particular interest, as showing PYTHAGORAS' belief in that principle of analogy--that "What is below is as that which is above, what is above is as that which is below"--which held so dominant a sway over the minds of ancient and mediaeval philosophers, leading them--in spite, I suggest, of its fundamental truth-- into so many fantastic errors, as we shall see in future excursions. Metempsychosis was another of the Pythagorean tenets, a fact which is interesting in view of the modern revival of this doctrine. PYTHAGORAS, no doubt, derived it from the East, apparently introducing it for the first time to Western thought.

[2] It seems probable, though not certain, that PYTHAGORAS wrote nothing himself, but taught always by the oral method.

[3] Cf. the remarks of HIEROCLES on this verse in his Commentary.

Such, in brief, were the outstanding doctrines of the Pythagorean Brotherhood. Their teachings included, as we have seen, what may justly be called scientific discoveries of the first importance, as well as doctrines which, though we may feel compelled--perhaps rightly-- to regard them as fantastic now, had an immense influence on the thought of succeeding ages, especially on Greek philosophy as represented by PLATO and the Neo-Platonists, and the more speculative minds--the occult philosophers, shall I say?--of the latter mediaeval period and succeeding centuries. The Brotherhood, however, was not destined to continue its days in peace. As I have indicated, it was a philosophical, not a political, association; but naturally PYTHAGORAS philosophy included political doctrines. At any rate, the Brotherhood acquired a considerable share in the government of Croton, a fact which was greatly resented by the members of the democratic party, who feared the loss of their rights; and, urged thereto, it is said, by a rejected applicant for membership of the Order, the mob made an onslaught on the Brotherhood's place of assembly and burnt it to the ground. One account has it that PYTHAGORAS himself died in the conflagration, a sacrifice to the mad fury of the mob. According to another account-- and we like to believe that this is the true one--he escaped to Tarentum, from which he was banished, to find an asylum in Metapontum, where he lived his last years in peace.

The Pythagorean Order was broken up, but the bonds of brotherhood still existed between its members. "One of them who had fallen upon sickness and poverty was kindly taken in by an innkeeper. Before dying he traced a few mysterious signs [the pentagram, no doubt] on the door of the inn and said to the host: Do not be uneasy, one of my brothers will pay my debts.' A year afterwards, as a stranger was passing by this inn he saw the signs and said to the host: I am a Pythagorean; one of my brothers died here; tell me what I owe you on his account.' "[1]

[1] EDOUARD SCHURE: Op. cit., p. 174.

In endeavouring to estimate the worth of PYTHAGORAS' discoveries and teaching, Mr FRANKLAND writes, with reference to his achievements in geometry: "Even after making a considerable allowance for his pupils' share, the Master's geometrical work calls for much admiration"; and, ". . . it cannot be far wrong to suppose that it was Pythagoras' wont to insist upon proofs, and so to secure that rigour which gives to mathematics its honourable position amongst the sciences." And of his work in arithmetic, music, and astronomy, the same author writes: ". . . everywhere he appears to have inaugurated genuinely scientific methods, and to have laid the foundations of a high and liberal education"; adding, "For nearly a score of centuries, to the very close of the Middle Ages, the four Pythagorean subjects of study--arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music--were the staple educational course, and were bound together into a fourfold way of knowledge--the Quadrivium."[1] With these words of due praise, our present excursion may fittingly close.

[1] Op. cit., pp. 35, 37, and 38.

III

MEDICINE AND MAGIC

THERE are few tasks at once so instructive and so fascinating as the tracing of the development of the human mind as manifested in the evolution of scientific and philosophical theories. And this is, perhaps, especially true when, as in the case of medicine, this evolution has followed paths so tortuous, intersected by so many fantastic byways, that one is not infrequently doubtful as to the true road. The history of medicine is at once the history of human wisdom and the history of human credulity and folly, and the romantic element (to use the expression in its popular acceptation) thus introduced, whilst making the subject more entertaining, by no means detracts from its importance considered psychologically.

To whom the honour of having first invented medicines is due is unknown, the origins of pharmacy being lost in the twilight of myth. OSIRIS and ISIS, BACCHUS, APOLLO father of the famous physician AESCULAPTUS, and CHIRON the Centaur, tutor of the latter, are among the many mythological personages who have been accredited with the invention of physic. It is certain that the art of compounding medicines is extraordinarily ancient. There is a papyrus in the British Museum containing medical prescriptions which was written about 1200 B.C.; and the famous EBERS papyrus, which is devoted to medical matters, is reckoned to date from about the year 1550 B.C. It is interesting to note that in the prescriptions given in this latter papyrus, as seems to have been the case throughout the history of medicine, the principle that the efficacy of a medicine is in proportion to its nastiness appears to have been the main idea. Indeed, many old medicines contained ingredients of the most disgusting nature imaginable: a mediaeval remedy known as oil of puppies, made by cutting up two newly-born puppies and boiling them with one pound of live earthworms, may be cited as a comparatively pleasant example of the remedies (?) used in the days when all sorts of excreta were prescribed as medicines.[1]

[1] See the late Mr A. C. WOOTTON'S excellent work, Chronicles of Pharmacy (2 vols, 1910), to which I gladly acknowledge my indebtedness.

Presumably the oldest theory concerning the causation of disease is that which attributes all the ills of mankind to the malignant operations of evil spirits, a theory which someone has rather fancifully suggested is not so erroneous after all, if we may be allowed to apply the term "evil spirits" to the microbes of modern bacteriology. Remnants of this theory (which does-- shall I say?--conceal a transcendental truth), that is, in its original form, still survive to the present day in various superstitious customs, whose absurdity does not need emphasising: for example, the use of red flannel by old-fashioned folk with which to tie up sore throats--red having once been supposed to be a colour very angatonistic to evil spirits; so much so that at one time red cloth hung in the patient's room was much employed as a cure for smallpox!

Medicine and magic have always been closely associated. Indeed, the greatest name in the history of pharmacy is also what is probably the greatest name in the history of magic--the reference, of course, being to PARACELSUS (1493-1541). Until PARACELSUS, partly by his vigorous invective and partly by his remarkable cures of various diseases, demolished the old school of medicine, no one dared contest the authority of GALEN (130-circa 205) and AVICENNA (980--1037). GALEN'S theory of disease was largely based upon that of the four humours in man--bile, blood, phlegm, and black bile,--which were regarded as related to (but not identical with) the four elements--fire, air, water, and earth,-- being supposed to have characters similar to these. Thus, to bile, as to fire, were attributed the properties of hotness and dryness; to blood and air those of hotness and moistness; to phlegm and water those of coldness and moistness; and, finally, black bile, like earth, was said to be cold and dry. GALEN supposed that an alteration in the due proportion of these humours gives rise to disease, though he did not consider this to be its only cause; thus, cancer, it was thought, might result from an excess of black bile, and rheumatism from an excess of phlegm. Drugs, GALEN argued, are of efficiency in the curing of disease, according as they possess one or more of these so-called fundamental properties, hotness, dryness, coldness, and moistness, whereby it was considered that an excess of any humour might be counteracted; moreover, it was further assumed that four degrees of each property exist, and that only those drugs are of use in curing a disease which contain the necessary property or properties in the degree proportionate to that in which the opposite humour or humours are in excess in the patient's system.

PARACELSUS' views were based upon his theory (undoubtedly true in a sense) that man is a microcosm, a world in miniature.[1] Now, all things material, taught PARACELSUS, contain the three principles termed in alchemistic phraseology salt, sulphur, and mercury. This is true, therefore, of man: the healthy body, he argued, is a sort of chemical compound in which these three principles are harmoniously blended (as in the Macrocosm) in due proportion, whilst disease is due to a preponderance of one principle, fevers, for example, being the result of an excess of sulphur (i.e. the fiery principle), etc. PARACELSUS, although his theory was not so different from that of GALEN, whose views he denounced, was thus led to seek for CHEMICAL remedies, containing these principles in varying proportions; he was not content with medicinal herbs and minerals in their crude state, but attempted to extract their effective essences; indeed, he maintained that the preparation of new and better drugs is the chief business of chemistry.

[1] See the "Note on the Paracelsian Doctrine of the Microcosm" below.

This theory of disease and of the efficacy of drugs was complicated by many fantastic additions;[1] thus there is the "Archaeus," a sort of benevolent demon, supposed by PARACELSUS to look after all the unconscious functions of the bodily organism, who has to be taken into account. PARACELSUS also held the Doctrine of Signatures, according to which the medicinal value of plants and minerals is indicated by their external form, or by some sign impressed upon them by the operation of the stars. A very old example of this belief is to be found in the use of mandrake (whose roots resemble the human form) by the Hebrews and Greeks as a cure for sterility; or, to give an instance which is still accredited by some, the use of eye-bright (Euphrasia officinalis, L., a plant with a black pupil-like spot in its corolla) for complaints of the eyes.[2] Allied to this doctrine are such beliefs, once held, as that the lungs of foxes are good for bronchial troubles, or that the heart of a lion will endow one with courage; as CORNELIUS AGRIPPA put it, "It is well known amongst physicians that brain helps the brain, and lungs the lungs."[3]

[1] The question of PARACELSUS' pharmacy is further complicated by the fact that this eccentric genius coined many new words (without regard to the principles of etymology) as names for his medicines, and often used the same term to stand for quite different bodies. Some of his disciples maintained that he must not always be understood in a literal sense, in which probably there is an element of truth. See, for instance, A Golden and Blessed Casket of Nature's Marvels, by BENEDICTUS FIGULUS (trans. by A. E. WAITE, 1893).

[2] See Dr ALFRED C. HADDON'S Magic and Fetishism (1906), p. 15.

[3] HENRY CORNELIUS AGRIPPA: Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap. xv. (WHITEHEAD'S edition, Chicago, 1898, P. 72).

In modern times homoeopathy--according to which a drug is a cure, if administered in small doses, for that disease whose symptoms it produces, if given in large doses to a healthy person---seems to bear some resemblance to these old medical theories concerning the curing of like by like. That the system of HAHNEMANN (1755--1843), the founder of homoeopathy, is free from error could be scarcely maintained, but certain recent discoveries in connection with serum-therapy appear to indicate that the last word has not yet been said on the subject, and the formula "like cures like" may still have another lease of life to run.

To return to PARACELSUS, however. It may be thought that his views were not so great an advance on those of GALEN; but whether or not this be the case, his union of chemistry and medicine was of immense benefit to each science, and marked a new era in pharmacy. Even if his theories were highly fantastic, it was he who freed medicine from the shackles of traditionalism, and rendered progress in medical science possible.

I must not conclude these brief notes without some reference to the medical theory of the medicinal efficacy of words. The EBERS papyrus already mentioned gives various formulas which must be pronounced when preparing and when administering a drug; and there is a draught used by the Eastern Jews as a cure for bronchial complaints prepared by writing certain words on a plate, washing them off with wine, and adding three grains of a citron which has been used at the Tabernacle festival. But enough for our present excursion; we must hie us back to the modern world, with its alkaloids, serums, and anti-toxins-- another day we will, perhaps, wander again down the by-paths of Medicinal Magic.

NOTE ON THE PARACELSIAN DOCTRINE OF THE MICROCOSM

"Man's nature," writes CORNELIUS AGRIPPA, "is the most complete Image of the whole Universe."[1] This theory, especially connected with the name of PARACELSUS, is worthy of more than passing reference; but as the consideration of it leads us from medicine to metaphysics, I have thought it preferable to deal with the subject in a note.

[1] H. C. AGRIPPA: Occult Philosophy, bk. i. chap. xxxiii. (WHITEHEAD'S edition, p. 111).

Man, taught the old mystical philosophers, is threefold in nature, consisting of spirit, soul, and body. The Paracelsian mercury, sulphur, and salt were the mineral analogues of these. "As to the Spirit," writes VALENTINE WEIGEL (1533--1588), a disciple of PARACELSUS, "we are of God, move in God, and live in God, and are nourished of God. Hence God is in us and we are in God; God hath put and placed Himself in us, and we are put and placed in God. As to the Soul, we are from the Firmament and Stars, we live and move therein, and are nourished thereof. Hence the Firmament with its astralic virtues and operations is in us, and we in it. The Firmament is put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in the Firmament. As to the Body, we are of the elements, we move and live therein, and are nourished of them:--hence the elements are in us, and we in them. The elements, by the slime, are put and placed in us, and we are put and placed in them."[1] Or, to quote from PARACELSUS himself, in his Hermetic Astronomy he writes: "God took the body out of which He built up man from those things which He created from nothingness into something . . . Hence man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements, and so he is their quintessence.... But between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that the form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse therefrom. In man the earth is flesh, the water is blood, fire is the heat thereof, and air is the balsam. These properties have not been changed but only the substance of the body. So man is man, not a world, yet made from the world, made in the likeness, not of the world, but of God. Yet man comprises in himself all the qualities of the world.... His body is from the world, and therefore must be fed and nourished by that world from which he has sprung.... He has been taken from the earth and from the elements, and therefore, must be nourished by these.... Now, man is not only flesh and blood, but there is within the intellect which does not, like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars. And the condition of the stars is this, that all the wisdom, intelligence, industry of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained in them. From the stars man has these same things, and that is called the light of Nature; in fact, it is whatever man has found by the light of Nature.... Such, then, is the condition of man, that, out of the great universe he needs both elements and stars, seeing that he himself is constituted in that way."[1b]

[1] VALENTINE WEIGEL: "Astrology Theologised": The Spiritual Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ, ed. by ANNA BONUS KINGSFORD (1886), p. 59.

[1b] The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of PARACELSUS, ed. by A. E. WAITE (1894), vol. ii. pp. 289-291.

It is not difficult to discern a certain truth in all this, making allowances for modes of thought which are not those of the present day. The Swedish philosopher SWEDENBORG (1688-1772) reaffirmed the theory in later years; but, as he points out,[2] the reason that man is a microcosm lies deeper than in the facts that his body is of the elements of this earth and is nourished thereby. According to this profound thinker, FORM, spiritually understood, is the expression of USE, the uses of things being indicated by their forms. Now, the human form is the highest of all forms, because it subserves the highest of all uses. Hence, both the world of matter and the world of spirit are in the human form, because there is a correspondence in use between man and the Cosmos. We may, therefore, call man as to his body a microcosm, or little world; as to his soul a micro-uranos, or little heaven. Or we may speak of the macrocosm, or great world, as the Grand Man, and we may say that the Soul of this Grand Man, the self-existent, substantial, and efficient cause of all things, at once immanent within yet transcending all things, is God.

"Some Characteristics of Mediaeval Thought," and the two essays on Alchemy, have appeared in The Journal of the Alchemical Society. In others I have utilised material I have contributed to The Occult Review, to the editor of which journal my thanks are due for permission so to do. I have also to express my gratitude to the Rev. A. H. COLLINS, and others to be referred to in due course, for permission here to reproduce illustrations of which they are the copyright holders. I have further to offer my hearty thanks to Mr B. R. ROWBOTTOM and my wife for valuable assistance in reading the proofs. H. S. R.

BLETCHLEY, BUCKS, December 1919.

CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE . . . . . . . .ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . . .xiii 1. SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDIAEVAL THOUGHT . . . 1 2. PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY . . . . . . . . . 8 3. MEDICINE AND MAGIC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 4. SUPERSTITIONS CONCERNING BIRDS . . . . . . . . 34 5. THE POWDER OF SYMPATHY: A CURIOUS MEDICAL SUPERSTITION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 6. THE BELIEF IN TALISMANS . . . . 57 7. CEREMONIAL MAGIC IN THEORY AND PRACTICE .. 87 8. ARCHITECTURAL SYMBOLISM . . . . . . . . 111 9. THE QUEST OF THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE.. . . . . 121 10. THE PHALLIC ELEMENT IN ALCHEMICAL DOCTRINE 149 11. ROGER BACON: AN APPRECIATION . . .183 12. THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONISTS . . . . 193

BYGONE BELIEFS

I

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF MEDAEVAL THOUGHT

IN the earliest days of his upward evolution man was satisfied with a very crude explanation of natural phenomena--that to which the name "animism" has been given. In this stage of mental development all the various forces of Nature are personified: the rushing torrent, the devastating fire, the wind rustling the forest leaves--in the mind of the animistic savage all these are personalities, spirits, like himself, but animated by motives more or less antagonistic to him.

I suppose that no possible exception could be taken to the statement that modern science renders animism impossible. But let us inquire in exactly what sense this is true. It is not true that science robs natural phenomena of their spiritual significance. The mistake is often made of supposing that science explains, or endeavours to explain, phenomena. But that is the business of philosophy. The task science attempts is the simpler one of the correlation of natural phenomena, and in this effort leaves the ultimate problems of metaphysics untouched. A universe, however, whose phenomena are not only capable of some degree of correlation, but present the extraordinary degree of harmony and unity which science makes manifest in Nature, cannot be, as in animism, the product of a vast number of inco-ordinated and antagonistic wills, but must either be the product of one Will, or not the product of will at all.

The latter alternative means that the Cosmos is inexplicable, which not only man's growing experience, but the fact that man and the universe form essentially a unity, forbid us to believe. The term "anthropomorphic" is too easily applied to philosophical systems, as if it constituted a criticism of their validity. For if it be true, as all must admit, that the unknown can only be explained in terms of the known, then the universe must either be explained in terms of man--i.e. in terms of will or desire-- or remain incomprehensible. That is to say, a philosophy must either be anthropomorphic, or no philosophy at all.

Thus a metaphysical scrutiny of the results of modern science leads us to a belief in God. But man felt the need of unity, and crude animism, though a step in the right direction, failed to satisfy his thought, long before the days of modern science. The spirits of animism, however, were not discarded, but were modified, co-ordinated, and worked into a system as servants of the Most High. Polytheism may mark a stage in this process; or, perhaps, it was a result of mental degeneracy.

What I may term systematised as distinguished from crude animism persisted throughout the Middle Ages. The work of systematisation had already been accomplished, to a large extent, by the Neo-Platonists and whoever were responsible for the Kabala. It is true that these main sources of magical or animistic philosophy remained hidden during the greater part of the Middle Ages; but at about their close the youthful and enthusiastic CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1535)[1] slaked his thirst thereat and produced his own attempt at the systematisation of magical belief in the famous Three Books of Occult Philosophy. But the waters of magical philosophy reached the mediaeval mind through various devious channels, traditional on the one hand and literary on the other. And of the latter, the works of pseudo-DIONYSIUS,[2] whose immense influence upon mediaeval thought has sometimes been neglected, must certainly be noted.

[1] The story of his life has been admirably told by HENRY MORLEY (2 vols., 1856).

[2] These writings were first heard of in the early part of the sixth century, and were probably the work of a Syrian monk of that date, who fathered them on to DIONYSIUS the Areopagite as a pious fraud. See Dean INGE'S Christian Mysticism (1899), pp. 104--122, and VAUGHAN'S Hours with the Mystics (7th ed., 1895), vol. i. pp. 111-124. The books have been translated into English by the Rev. JOHN PARKER (2 vols. 1897-1899), who believes in the genuineness of their alleged authorship.

The most obvious example of a mediaeval animistic belief is that in "elementals"--the spirits which personify the primordial forces of Nature, and are symbolised by the four elements, immanent in which they were supposed to exist, and through which they were held to manifest their powers. And astrology, it must be remembered, is essentially a systematised animism. The stars, to the ancients, were not material bodies like the earth, but spiritual beings. PLATO (427-347 B.C.) speaks of them as "gods". Mediaeval thought did not regard them in quite this way. But for those who believed in astrology, and few, I think, did not, the stars were still symbols of spiritual forces operative on man. Evidences of the wide extent of astrological belief in those days are abundant, many instances of which we shall doubtless encounter in our excursions.

It has been said that the theological and philosophical atmosphere of the Middle Ages was "scholastic," not mystical. No doubt "mysticism," as a mode of life aiming at the realisation of the presence of God, is as distinct from scholasticism as empiricism is from rationalism, or "tough-minded" philosophy (to use JAMES' happy phrase) is from "tender-minded". But no philosophy can be absolutely and purely deductive. It must start from certain empirically determined facts. A man might be an extreme empiricist in religion (i.e. a mystic), and yet might attempt to deduce all other forms of knowledge from the results of his religious experiences, never caring to gather experience in any other realm. Hence the breach between mysticism and scholasticism is not really so wide as may appear at first sight. Indeed, scholasticism officially recognised three branches of theology, of which the MYSTICAL was one. I think that mysticism and scholasticism both had a profound influence on the mediaeval mind, sometimes acting as opposing forces, sometimes operating harmoniously with one another. As Professor WINDELBAND puts it: "We no longer onesidedly characterise the philosophy of the middle ages as scholasticism, but rather place mysticism beside it as of equal rank, and even as being the more fruitful and promising movement."[1]

[1] Professor WILHELM WINDELBAND, Ph.D.: "Present-Day Mysticism," The Quest, vol. iv. (1913), P. 205.

Alchemy, with its four Aristotelian or scholastic elements and its three mystical principles--sulphur, mercury, salt,-- must be cited as the outstanding product of the combined influence of mysticism and scholasticism: of mysticism, which postulated the unity of the Cosmos, and hence taught that everything natural is the expressive image and type of some supernatural reality; of scholasticism, which taught men to rely upon deduction and to restrict experimentation to the smallest possible limits.

The mind naturally proceeds from the known, or from what is supposed to be known, to the unknown. Indeed, as I have already indicated, it must so proceed if truth is to be gained. Now what did the men of the Middle Ages regard as falling into the category of the known? Why, surely, the truths of revealed religion, whether accepted upon authority or upon the evidence of their own experience. The realm of spiritual and moral reality: there, they felt, they were on firm ground. Nature was a realm unknown; but they had analogy to guide, or, rather, misguide them. Nevertheless if, as we know, it misguided, this was not, I think, because the mystical doctrine of the correspondence between the spiritual and the natural is unsound, but because these ancient seekers into Nature's secrets knew so little, and so frequently misapplied what they did know. So alchemical philosophy arose and became systematised, with its wonderful endeavour to perfect the base metals by the Philosopher's Stone--the concentrated Essence of Nature,-- as man's soul is perfected through the life-giving power of JESUS CHRIST.

I want, in conclusion to these brief introductory remarks, to say a few words concerning phallicism in connection with my topic. For some "tender-minded"[1] and, to my thought, obscure, reason the subject is tabooed. Even the British Museum does not include works on phallicism in its catalogue, and special permission has to be obtained to consult them. Yet the subject is of vast importance as concerns the origin and development of religion and philosophy, and the extent of phallic worship may be gathered from the widespread occurrence of obelisks and similar objects amongst ancient relics. Our own maypole dances may be instanced as one survival of the ancient worship of the male generative principle.

[1] I here use the term with the extended meaning Mr H. G. WELLS has given to it. See The New Machiavelli.

What could be more easy to understand than that, when man first questioned as to the creation of the earth, he should suppose it to have been generated by some process analogous to that which he saw held in the case of man? How else could he account for its origin, if knowledge must proceed from the known to the unknown? No one questions at all that the worship of the human generative organs as symbols of the dual generative principle of Nature degenerated into orgies of the most frightful character, but the view of Nature which thus degenerated is not, I think, an altogether unsound one, and very interesting remnants of it are to be found in mediaeval philosophy.

These remnants are very marked in alchemy. The metals, as I have suggested, are there regarded as types of man; hence they are produced from seed, through the combination of male and female principles--mercury and sulphur, which on the spiritual plane are intelligence and love. The same is true of that Stone which is perfect Man. As BERNARD of TREVISAN (1406-1490) wrote in the fifteenth century: "This Stone then is compounded of a Body and Spirit, or of a volatile and fixed Substance, and that is therefore done, because nothing in the World can be generated and brought to light without these two Substances, to wit, a Male and Female: From whence it appeareth, that although these two Substances are not of one and the same species, yet one Stone cloth thence arise, and although they appear and are said to be two Substances, yet in truth it is but one, to wit, Argent-vive."[1] No doubt this sounds fantastic; but with all their seeming intellectual follies these old thinkers were no fools. The fact of sex is the most fundamental fact of the universe, and is a spiritual and physical as well as a physiological fact. I shall deal with the subject as concerns the speculations of the alchemists in some detail in a later excursion.

[1] BERNARD, Earl of TREVISAN: A Treatise of the Philosopher's Stone, 1683. (See Collectanea Chymica: A Collection of Ten Several Treatises in Chemistry, 1684, p. 91.)

II

PYTHAGORAS AND HIS PHILOSOPHY

IT is a matter for enduring regret that so little is known to us concerning PYTHAGORAS. What little we do know serves but to enhance for us the interest of the man and his philosophy, to make him, in many ways, the most attractive of Greek thinkers; and, basing our estimate on the extent of his influence on the thought of succeeding ages, we recognise in him one of the world's master-minds.

PYTHAGORAS was born about 582 B.C. at Samos, one of the Grecian isles. In his youth he came in contact with THALES--the Father of Geometry, as he is well called,--and though he did not become a member of THALES' school, his contact with the latter no doubt helped to turn his mind towards the study of geometry. This interest found the right ground for its development in Egypt, which he visited when still young. Egypt is generally regarded as the birthplace of geometry, the subject having, it is supposed, been forced on the minds of the Egyptians by the necessity of fixing the boundaries of lands against the annual overflowing of the Nile. But the Egyptians were what is called an essentially practical people, and their geometrical knowledge did not extend beyond a few empirical rules useful for fixing these boundaries and in constructing their temples. Striking evidence of this fact is supplied by the AHMES papyrus, compiled some little time before 1700 B.C. from an older work dating from about 3400 B.C.,[1] a papyrus which almost certainly represents the highest mathematical knowledge reached by the Egyptians of that day. Geometry is treated very superficially and as of subsidiary interest to arithmetic; there is no ordered series of reasoned geometrical propositions given--nothing, indeed, beyond isolated rules, and of these some are wanting in accuracy.

[1] See AUGUST EISENLOHR: Ein mathematisches Handbuch der alten Aegypter (1877); J. Gow: A Short History of Greek Mathematics (1884); and V. E. JOHNSON: Egyptian Science from the Monuments and Ancient Books (1891).

One geometrical fact known to the Egyptians was that if a triangle be constructed having its sides 3, 4, and 5 units long respectively, then the angle opposite the longest side is exactly a right angle; and the Egyptian builders used this rule for constructing walls perpendicular to each other, employing a cord graduated in the required manner. The Greek mind was not, however, satisfied with the bald statement of mere facts--it cared little for practical applications, but sought above all for the underlying REASON of everything. Nowadays we are beginning to realise that the results achieved by this type of mind, the general laws of Nature's behaviour formulated by its endeavours, are frequently of immense practical importance-- of far more importance than the mere rules-of-thumb beyond which so-called practical minds never advance. The classic example of the utility of seemingly useless knowledge is afforded by Sir WILLIAM HAMILTON'S discovery, or, rather, invention of Quarternions, but no better example of the utilitarian triumph of the theoretical over the so-called practical mind can be adduced than that afforded by PYTHAGORAS. Given this rule for constructing a right angle, about whose reason the Egyptian who used it never bothered himself, and the mind of PYTHAGORAS, searching for its full significance, made that gigantic geometrical discovery which is to this day known as the Theorem of PYTHAGORAS--the law that in every right-angled triangle the square on the side opposite the right angle is equal in area to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.[1] The importance of this discovery can hardly be overestimated. It is of fundamental importance in most branches of geometry, and the basis of the whole of trigonometry--the special branch of geometry that deals with the practical mensuration of triangles. EUCLID devoted the whole of the first book of his Elements of Geometry to establishing the truth of this theorem; how PYTHAGORAS demonstrated it we unfortunately do not know.

[1] Fig. 3 affords an interesting practical demonstration of the truth of this theorem. If the reader will copy this figure, cut out the squares on the two shorter sides of the triangle and divide them along the lines AD, BE, EF, he will find that the five pieces so obtained can be made exactly to fit the square on the longest side as shown by the dotted lines. The size and shape of the triangle ABC, so long as it has a right angle at C, is immaterial. The lines AD, BE are obtained by continuing the sides of the square on the side AB, i.e. the side opposite the right angle, and EF is drawn at right angles to BE.

After absorbing what knowledge was to be gained in Egypt, PYTHAGORAS journeyed to Babylon, where he probably came into contact with even greater traditions and more potent influences and sources of knowledge than in Egypt, for there is reason for believing that the ancient Chaldeans were the builders of the Pyramids and in many ways the intellectual superiors of the Egyptians.

At last, after having travelled still further East, probably as far as India, PYTHAGORAS returned to his birthplace to teach the men of his native land the knowledge he had gained. But CROESUS was tyrant over Samos, and so oppressive was his rule that none had leisure in which to learn. Not a student came to PYTHAGORAS, until, in despair, so the story runs, he offered to pay an artisan if he would but learn geometry. The man accepted, and later, when PYTHAGORAS pretended inability any longer to continue the payments, he offered, so fascinating did he find the subject, to pay his teacher instead if the lessons might only be continued. PYTHAGORAS no doubt was much gratified at this; and the motto he adopted for his great Brotherhood, of which we shall make the acquaintance in a moment, was in all likelihood based on this event. It ran, "Honour a figure and a step before a figure and a tribolus"; or, as a freer translation renders it:--

"A figure and a step onward Not a figure and a florin."

"At all events, as Mr FRANKLAND remarks, "the motto is a lasting witness to a very singular devotion to knowledge for its own sake."[1]

[1] W. B. FRANKLAND, M.A.: The Story of Euclid (1902), p. 33

But PYTHAGORAS needed a greater audience than one man, however enthusiastic a pupil he might be, and he left Samos for Southern Italy, the rich inhabitants of whose cities had both the leisure and inclination to study. Delphi, far-famed for its Oracles, was visited en route, and PYTHAGORAS, after a sojourn at Tarentum, settled at Croton, where he gathered about him a great band of pupils, mainly young people of the aristocratic class. By consent of the Senate of Croton, he formed out of these a great philosophical brotherhood, whose members lived apart from the ordinary people, forming, as it were, a separate community. They were bound to PYTHAGORAS by the closest ties of admiration and reverence, and, for years after his death, discoveries made by Pythagoreans were invariably attributed to the Master, a fact which makes it very difficult exactly to gauge the extent of PYTHAGORAS' own knowledge and achievements. The regime of the Brotherhood, or Pythagorean Order, was a strict one, entailing "high thinking and low living" at all times. A restricted diet, the exact nature of which is in dispute, was observed by all members, and long periods of silence, as conducive to deep thinking, were imposed on novices. Women were admitted to the Order, and PYTHAGORAS' asceticism did not prohibit romance, for we read that one of his fair pupils won her way to his heart, and, declaring her affection for him, found it reciprocated and became his wife.

SCHURE writes: "By his marriage with Theano, Pythagoras affixed the seal of realization to his work. The union and fusion of the two lives was complete. One day when the master's wife was asked what length of time elapsed before a woman could become pure after intercourse with a man, she replied: `If it is with her husband, she is pure all the time; if with another man, she is never pure.' " "Many women," adds the writer, "would smilingly remark that to give such a reply one must be the wife of Pythagoras, and love him as Theano did. And they would be in the right, for it is not marriage that sanctifies love, it is love which justifies marriage."[1]

[1] EDOUARD SCHURE: Pythagoras and the Delphic Mysteries, trans. by F. ROTHWELL, B.A. (1906), pp. 164 and 165.

PYTHAGORAS was not merely a mathematician. he was first and foremost a philosopher, whose philosophy found in number the basis of all things, because number, for him, alone possessed stability of relationship. As I have remarked on a former occasion, "The theory that the Cosmos has its origin and explanation in Number . . . is one for which it is not difficult to account if we take into consideration the nature of the times in which it was formulated. The Greek of the period, looking upon Nature, beheld no picture of harmony, uniformity and fundamental unity. The outer world appeared to him rather as a discordant chaos, the mere sport and plaything of the gods. The theory of the uniformity of Nature--that Nature is ever like to herself--the very essence of the modern scientific spirit, had yet to be born of years of unwearied labour and unceasing delving into Nature's innermost secrets. Only in Mathematics-- in the properties of geometrical figures, and of numbers-- was the reign of law, the principle of harmony, perceivable. Even at this present day when the marvellous has become commonplace, that property of right-angled triangles . . . already discussed . . . comes to the mind as a remarkable and notable fact: it must have seemed a stupendous marvel to its discoverer, to whom, it appears, the regular alternation of the odd and even numbers, a fact so obvious to us that we are inclined to attach no importance to it, seemed, itself, to be something wonderful. Here in Geometry and Arithmetic, here was order and harmony unsurpassed and unsurpassable. What wonder then that Pythagoras concluded that the solution of the mighty riddle of the Universe was contained in the mysteries of Geometry? What wonder that he read mystic meanings into the laws of Arithmetic, and believed Number to be the explanation and origin of all that is?"[1]

[1] A Mathematical Theory of Spirit (1912), pp. 64-65.

No doubt the Pythagorean theory suffers from a defect similar to that of the Kabalistic doctrine, which, starting from the fact that all words are composed of letters, representing the primary sounds of language, maintained that all the things represented by these words were created by God by means of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But at the same time the Pythagorean theory certainly embodies a considerable element of truth. Modern science demonstrates nothing more clearly than the importance of numerical relationships. Indeed, "the history of science shows us the gradual transformation of crude facts of experience into increasingly exact generalisations by the application to them of mathematics. The enormous advances that have been made in recent years in physics and chemistry are very largely due to mathematical methods of interpreting and co-ordinating facts experimentally revealed, whereby further experiments have been suggested, the results of which have themselves been mathematically interpreted. Both physics and chemistry, especially the former, are now highly mathematical. In the biological sciences and especially in psychology it is true that mathematical methods are, as yet, not so largely employed. But these sciences are far less highly developed, far less exact and systematic, that is to say, far less scientific, at present, than is either physics or chemistry. However, the application of statistical methods promises good results, and there are not wanting generalisations already arrived at which are expressible mathematically; Weber's Law in psychology, and the law concerning the arrangement of the leaves about the stems of plants in biology, may be instanced as cases in point."[1]

[1] Quoted from a lecture by the present writer on "The Law of Correspondences Mathematically Considered," delivered before The Theological and Philosophical Society on 26th April 1912, and published in Morning Light, vol. xxxv (1912), p. 434 et seq.

Similar despondency attacked Pascal Ferailleur when he awoke for the first time in the abode where he had hidden himself under the name of Maumejan. A frightful slander had crushed him to the earth--he could kill his slanderer, but afterward--? How was he to reach and stifle the slander itself? As well try to hold a handful of water; as well try to stay with extended arms the progress of the poisonous breeze which wafts an epidemic on its wings. So the hope that had momentarily lightened his heart faded away again. Since he had received that fatal letter from Madame Leon the evening before, he believed that Marguerite was lost to him forever, and in this case, it was useless to struggle against fate. What would be the use of victory even if he conquered? Marguerite lost to him--what did the rest matter? Ah! if he had been alone in the world. But he had his mother to think of;--he belonged to this brave-hearted woman, who had saved him from suicide already. "I will not yield, then; I will struggle on for her sake," he muttered, like a man who foresees the futility of his efforts.

He rose, and had nearly finished dressing, when he heard a rap at his chamber door. "It is I, my son," said Madame Ferailleur outside.

Pascal hastened to admit her. "I have come for you because the woman you spoke about last evening is already here, and before employing her, I want your advice."

"Then the woman doesn't please you, mother?"

"I want you to see her."

On entering the little parlor with his mother, Pascal found himself in the presence of a portly, pale-faced woman, with thin lips and restless eyes, who bowed obsequiously. It was indeed Madame Vantrasson, the landlady of the model lodging-house, who was seeking employment for the three or four hours which were at her disposal in the morning, she said. It certainly was not for pleasure that she had decided to go out to service again; her dignity suffered terribly by this fall--but then the stomach has to be cared for. Tenants were not numerous at the model lodging- house, in spite of its seductive title; and those who slept there occasionally, almost invariably succeeded in stealing something. Nor did the grocery store pay; the few half-pence which were left there occasionally in exchange for a glass of liquor were pocketed by Vantrasson, who spent them at some neighboring establishment; for it is a well-known fact that the wine a man drinks in his own shop is always bitter in flavor. So, having no credit at the butcher's or the baker's, Madame Vantrasson was sometimes reduced to living for days together upon the contents of the shop--mouldy figs or dry raisins--which she washed down with torrents of ratafia, her only consolation here below.

But this was not a satisfying diet, as she was forced to confess; so she decided to find some work, that would furnish her with food and a little money, which she vowed she would never allow her worthy husband to see.

"What would you charge per month?" inquired Pascal.

She seemed to reflect, and after a great deal of counting on her fingers, she finally declared that she would be content with breakfast and fifteen francs a month, on condition she was allowed to do the marketing. The first question of French cooks, on presenting themselves for a situation, is almost invariably, "Shall I do the marketing?" which of course means, "Shall I have any opportunities for stealing?" Everybody knows this, and nobody is astonished at it.

"I shall do the marketing myself," declared Madame Ferailleur, boldly.

"Then I shall want thirty francs a month," replied Madame Vantrasson, promptly.

Pascal and his mother exchanged glances. They were both unfavorably impressed by this woman, and were equally determined to rid themselves of her, which it was easy enough to do. "Too dear!" said Madame Ferailleur; "I have never given over fifteen francs."

But Madame Vantrasson was not the woman to be easily discouraged, especially as she knew that if she failed to obtain this situation, she might have considerable difficulty in finding another one. She could only hope to obtain employment from strangers and newcomers, who were ignorant of the reputation of the model lodging-house. So in view of softening the hearts of Pascal and his mother, she began to relate the history of her life, skilfully mingling the false with the true, and representing herself as an unfortunate victim of circumstances, and the inhuman cruelty of relatives. For she belonged, like her husband, to a very respectable family, as the Maumejans might easily ascertain by inquiry. Vantrasson's sister was the wife of a man named Greloux, who had once been a bookbinder in the Rue Saint-Denis, but who had now retired from business with a competency. "Why had this Greloux refused to save them from bankruptcy? Because one could never hope for a favor from relatives," she groaned; "they are jealous if you succeed; and if you are unfortunate, they cast you off."

However, these doleful complaints, far from rendering Madame Vantrasson interesting, imparted a deceitful and most disagreeable expression to her countenance. "I told you that I could only give fifteen francs," interrupted Madame Ferailleur--"take it or leave it."

Madame Vantrasson protested. She expressed her willingness to deduct five francs from the sum she had named, but more--it was impossible! Would they haggle over ten francs to secure such a treasure as herself, an honest, settled woman, who was entirely devoted to her employers?" Besides, I have been a grand cook in my time," she added, "and I have not lost all my skill. Monsieur and madame would be delighted with my cooking, for I have seen more than one fine gentleman smack his lips over my sauces when was in the employment of the Count de Chalusse."

Pascal and his mother could not repress a start on hearing this name; but it was in a tone of well-assumed indifference that Madame Ferailleur repeated, "M. de Chalusse?"

"Yes, madame--a count--and so rich that he didn't know how much he was worth. If he were still alive I shouldn't be compelled to go out to service again. But he's dead and he's to be buried this very day." And with an air of profound secrecy, she added: "On going yesterday to the Hotel de Chalusse to ask for a little help, I heard of the great misfortune. Vantrasson, my husband, accompanied me, and while we were talking with the concierge, a young woman passed through the hall, and he recognized her as a person who some time ago was--well--no better than she should be. Now, however, she's a young lady as lofty as the clouds, and the deceased count has been passing her off as his daughter. Ah! this is a strange world."

Pascal had become whiter than the ceiling. His eyes blazed; and Madame Ferailleur trembled. "Very well," she said, "I will give you twenty-five francs--but on condition you come without complaining if I sometimes require your services of an evening. On these occasions I will give you your dinner." And taking five francs from her pocket she placed them in Madame Vantrasson's hand, adding: ' Here is your earnest money."

The other quickly pocketed the coin, not a little surprised by this sudden decision which she had scarcely hoped for, and which she by no means understood. Still she was so delighted with this denouement that she expressed her willingness to enter upon her duties at once; and to get rid of her Madame Ferailleur was obliged to send her out to purchase the necessary supplies for breakfast. Then, as soon as she was alone with her son, she turned to him and asked: "Well, Pascal?"

But the wretched man seemed turned to stone, and seeing that he neither spoke nor moved, she continued in a severe tone: "Is this the way you keep your resolutions and your oaths! You express your intention of accomplishing a task which requires inexhaustible patience and dissimulation, and at the very first unforeseen circumstance your coolness deserts you, and you lose your head completely. If it had not been for me you would have betrayed yourself in that woman's presence. You must renounce your revenge, and tamely submit to be conquered by the Marquis de Valorsay if your face is to be an open book in which any one may read your secret plans and thoughts."

Pascal shook his head dejectedly. "Didn't you hear, mother?" he faltered.

"Hear what?"

"What that vile woman said? This young lady whom she spoke of, whom her husband recognized, can be none other than Marguerite."

"I am sure of it."

He recoiled in horror. "You are sure of it!" he repeated; "and you can tell me this unmoved--coldly, as if it were a natural, a possible thing. Didn't you understand the shameful meaning of her insinuations? Didn't you see her hypocritical smile and the malice gleaming in her eyes?" He pressed his hands to his burning brow, and groaned "And I did not crush the infamous wretch! I did not fell her to the ground!"

Ah! if she had obeyed the impulse of her heart. Madame Ferailleur would have thrown her arms round her son's neck, and have mingled her tears with his, but reason prevailed. The worthy woman's heart was pervaded with that lofty sentiment of duty which sustains the humble heroines of the fireside, and lends them even more courage than the reckless adventurers whose names are recorded by history could boast of. She felt that Pascal must not be consoled, but spurred on to fresh efforts; and so mustering all her courage, she said: "Are you acquainted with Mademoiselle Marguerite's past life? No. You only know that hers has been a life of great vicissitudes--and so it is not strange that she should be slandered."

"In that case, mother," said Pascal, "you were wrong to interrupt Madame Vantrasson. She would probably have told us many things."

"I interrupted her, it is true, and sent her away--and you know why. But she is in our service now; and when you are calm, when you have regained your senses, nothing will prevent you from questioning her. It may be useful for you to know who this man Vantrasson is, and how and where he met Mademoiselle Marguerite."

Shame, sorrow, and rage, brought tears to Pascal's eyes. "My God!" he exclaimed, "to be reduced to the unspeakable misery of hearing my mother doubt Marguerite!" He did not doubt her. HE could have listened to the most infamous accusations against her without feeling a single doubt. However, Madame Ferailleur had sufficient self-control to shrug her shoulders. "Ah, well! silence this slander," she exclaimed. "I wish for nothing better; but don't forget that we have ourselves to rehabilitate. To crush your enemies will be far more profitable to Mademoiselle Marguerite than vain threats and weak lamentations. It seemed to me that you had sworn to act, not to complain."

This ironical thrust touched Pascal's sensitive mind to the quick; he rose at once to his feet, and coldly said, "That's true. I thank you for having recalled me to myself."

She made no rejoinder, but mentally thanked God. She had read her son's heart, and perceiving his hesitation and weakness she had supplied the stimulus he needed. Now she saw him as she wished to see him. Now he was ready to reproach himself for his lack of courage and his weakness in displaying his feelings. And as a test of his powers of endurance, he decided not to question Madame Vantrasson till four or five days had elapsed. If her suspicions had been aroused, this delay would suffice to dispel them.

He said but little during breakfast; for he was now eager to commence the struggle. He longed to act, and yet he scarcely knew how to begin the campaign. First of all, he must study the enemy's position--gain some knowledge of the men he had to deal with, find out exactly who the Marquis de Valorsay and the Viscount de Coralth were. Where could he obtain information respecting these two men? Should he be compelled to follow them and to gather up here and there such scraps of intelligence as came in his way? This method of proceeding would be slow and inconvenient in the extreme. He was revolving the subject in his mind when he suddenly remembered the man who, on the morning that followed the scene at Madame d'Argeles's house, had come to him in the Rue d'Ulm to give him a proof of his confidence. He remembered that this strange man had said: "If you ever need a helping hand, come to me." And at the recollection he made up his mind. "I am going to Baron Trigault's," he remarked to his mother; "if my presentiments don't deceive me, he will be of service to us."

In less than half an hour he was on his way. He had dressed himself in the oldest clothes he possessed; and this, with the change he had made by cutting off his hair and beard, had so altered his appearance that it was necessary to look at him several times, and most attentively, to recognize him. The visiting cards which he carried in his pocket bore the inscription: "P. Maumejan, Business Agent, Route de la Revolte." His knowledge of Parisian life had induced him to choose the same profession as M. Fortunat followed--a profession which opens almost every door. "I will enter the nearest cafe and ask for a directory," he said to himself. "I shall certainly find Baron Trigault's address in it."

The baron lived in the Rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. His mansion was one of the largest and most magnificent in the opulent district of the Madeleine, and its aspect was perfectly in keeping with its owner's character as an expert financier, and a shrewd manufacturer, the possessor of valuable mines. The marvellous luxury so surprised Pascal, that he asked himself how the owner of this princely abode could find any pleasure at the gaming table of the Hotel d'Argeles. Five or six footmen were lounging about the courtyard when he entered it. He walked straight up to one of them, and with his hat in his hand, asked: "Baron Trigault, if you please?"

If he had asked for the Grand Turk the valet would not have looked at him with greater astonishment. His surprise, indeed, seemed so profound that Pascal feared he had made some mistake and added: "Doesn't he live here?"

The servant laughed heartily. "This is certainly his house," he replied, "and strange to say, by some fortunate chance, he's here."

"I wish to speak with him on business."

The servant called one of his colleagues. "Eh! Florestan--is the baron receiving?"

"The baroness hasn't forbidden it."

This seemed to satisfy the footman; for, turning to Pascal he said: "In that case, you can follow me."

II.

The sumptuous interior of the Trigault mansion was on a par with its external magnificence. Even the entrance bespoke the lavish millionaire, eager to conquer difficulties, jealous of achieving the impossible, and never haggling when his fancies were concerned. The spacious hall, paved with costly mosaics, had been transformed into a conservatory full of flowers, which were renewed every morning. Rare plants climbed the walls up gilded trellis work, or hung from the ceiling in vases of rare old china, while from among the depths of verdure peered forth exquisite statues, the work of sculptors of renown. On a rustic bench sat a couple of tall footmen, as bright in their gorgeous liveries as gold coins fresh from the mint; still, despite their splendor, they were stretching and yawning to such a degree, that it seemed as if they would ultimately dislocate their jaws and arms.

"Tell me," inquired the servant who was escorting Pascal, "can any one speak to the baron?"

"Why?"

"This gentleman has something to say to him."

The two valets eyed the unknown visitor, plainly considering him to be one of those persons who have no existence for the menials of fashionable establishments, and finally burst into a hearty laugh. "Upon my word!" exclaimed the eldest, "he's just in time. Announce him, and madame will be greatly obliged to you. She and monsieur have been quarrelling for a good half-hour. And, heavenly powers, isn't he tantalizing!"

The most intense curiosity gleamed in the eyes of Pascal's conductor, and with an airy of secrecy, he asked: "What is the cause of the rumpus? That Fernand, no doubt--or some one else?"

"No; this morning it's about M. Van Klopen."

"Madame's dressmaker?"

"The same. Monsieur and madame were breakfasting together--a most unusual thing--when M. Van Klopen made his appearance. I thought to myself, when I admitted him: 'Look out for storms!' I scented one in the air, and in fact the dressmaker hadn't been in the room five minutes before we heard the baron's voice rising higher and higher. I said to myself: 'Whew! the mantua-maker is presenting his bill!' Madame cried and went on like mad; but, pshaw! when the master really begins, there's no one like him. There isn't a cab- driver in Paris who's his equal for swearing."

"And M. Van Klopen?"

"Oh, he's used to such scenes! When gentlemen abuse him he does the same as dogs do when they come up out of the water; he just shakes his head and troubles himself no more about it. He has decidedly the best of the row. He has furnished the goods, and he'll have to be paid sooner or later----"

"What! hasn't he been paid then?"

"I don't know; he's still here."

A terrible crash of breaking china interrupted this edifying conversation. "There!" exclaimed one of the footmen, "that's monsieur; he has smashed two or three hundred francs' worth of dishes. He MUST be rich to pay such a price for his angry fits."

"Well," observed the other, "if I were in monsieur's place I should be angry too. Would you let your wife have her dresses fitted on by a man? I says that it's indecent. I'm only a servant, but----"

"Nonsense, it's the fashion. Besides, monsieur does not care about that. A man who----"

He stopped short; in fact, the others had motioned him to be silent. The baron was surrounded by exceptional servants, and the presence of a stranger acted as a restraint upon them. For this reason, one of them, after asking Pascal for his card, opened a door and ushered him into a small room, saying: "I will go and inform the baron. Please wait here."

"Here," as he called it, was a sort of smoking-room hung with cashmere of fantastic design and gorgeous hues, and encircled by a low, cushioned divan, covered with the same material. A profusion of rare and costly objects was to be seen on all sides, armor, statuary, pictures, and richly ornamented weapons. But Pascal, already amazed by the conversation of the servants, did not think of examining these objects of virtu. Through a partially open doorway, directly opposite the one he had entered by, came the sound of loud voices in excited conversation. Baron Trigault, the baroness, and the famous Van Klopen were evidently in the adjoining room. It was a woman, the baroness, who was speaking, and the quivering of her clear and somewhat shrill voice betrayed a violent irritation, which was only restrained with the greatest difficulty. "It is hard for the wife of one of the richest men in Paris to see a bill for absolute necessities disputed in this style," she was saying.

A man's voice, with a strong Teutonic accent, the voice of Van Klopen, the Hollander, caught up the refrain. "Yes, strict necessities, one can swear to that. And if, before flying into a passion, Monsieur le Baron had taken the trouble to glance over my little bill, he would have seen----"

"No more! You bore me to death. Besides I haven't time to listen to your nonsense; they are waiting for me to play a game of whist at the club."

This time it was the master of the house, Baron Trigault, who spoke, and Pascal recognized his voice instantly.

"If monsieur would only allow me to read the items. It will take but a moment," rejoined Van Klopen. And as if he had construed the oath that answered him as an exclamation of assent, he began: "In June, a Hungarian costume with jacket and sash, two train dresses with upper skirts and trimmings of lace, a Medicis polonaise, a jockey costume, a walking costume, a riding-habit, two morning-dresses, a Velleda costume, an evening dress."

"I was obliged to attend the races very frequently during the month of June," remarked the baroness.

But the illustrious adorner of female loveliness had already resumed his reading. "In July we have: two morning-jackets, one promenade costume, one sailor suit, one Watteau shepherdess costume, one ordinary bathing-suit, with material for parasol and shoes to match, one Pompadour bathing-suit, one dressing-gown, one close-fitting Medicis mantle, two opera cloaks----"

"And I was certainly not the most elegantly attired of the ladies at Trouville, where I spent the month of July," interrupted the baroness.

"There are but few entries in the month of August," continued Van Klopen. "We have: a morning-dress, a travelling-dress, with trimmings----" And he went on and on, gasping for breath, rattling off the ridiculous names which he gave to his "creations," and interrupted every now and then by the blow of a clinched fist on the table, or by a savage oath.

Pascal stood in the smoking-room, motionless with astonishment. He did not know what surprised him the most, Van Klopen's impudence in daring to read such a bill, the foolishness of the woman who had ordered all these things, or the patience of the husband who was undoubtedly going to pay for them. At last, after what seemed an interminable enumeration, Van Klopen exclaimed: "And that's all!"

"Yes, that's all," repeated the baroness, like an echo.

"That's all!" exclaimed the baron--"that's all! That is to say, in four months, at least seven hundred yards of silk, velvet, satin, and muslin, have been put on this woman's back!"

"The dresses of the present day require a great deal of material. Monsieur le Baron will understand that flounces, puffs, and ruches----"

"Naturally! Total, twenty-seven thousand francs!"

"Excuse me! Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-three francs, ninety centimes."

"Call it twenty-eight thousand francs then. Ah, well, M. Van Klopen, if you are ever paid for this rubbish it won't be by me."

If Van Klopen was expecting this denouement, Pascal wasn't; in fact, he was so startled, that an exclamation escaped him which would have betrayed his presence under almost any other circumstances. What amazed him most was the baron's perfect calmness, following, as it did, such a fit of furious passion, violent enough even to be heard in the vestibule. "Either he has extraordinary control over himself or this scene conceals some mystery," thought Pascal.

Meanwhile, the man-milliner continued to urge his claims--but the baron, instead of replying, only whistled; and wounded by this breach of good manners, Van Klopen at last exclaimed: "I have had dealings with all the distinguished men in Europe, and never before did one of them refuse to pay me for his wife's toilettes."

"Very well--I don't pay for them--there's the difference. Do you suppose that I, Baron Trigault, that I've worked like a negro for twenty years merely for the purpose of aiding your charming and useful branch of industry? Gather up your papers, Mr. Ladies' Tailor. There may be husbands who believe themselves responsible for their wives' follies--it's quite possible there are--but I'm not made of that kind of stuff. I allow Madame Trigault eight thousand francs a month for her toilette--that is sufficient--and it is a matter for you and her to arrange together. What did I tell you last year when I paid a bill of forty thousand francs? That I would not be responsible for any more of my wife's debts. And I not only said it, I formally notified you through my private secretary."

"I remember, indeed----"

"Then why do you come to me with your bill? It is with my wife that you have opened an account. Apply to her, and leave me in peace."

"Madame promised me----"

"Teach her to keep her promises."

"It costs a great deal to retain one's position as a leader of fashion; and many of the most distinguished ladies are obliged to run into debt," urged Van Klopen.

"That's their business. But my wife is not a fine lady. She is simply Madame Trigault, a baroness, thanks to her husband's gold and the condescension of a worthy German prince, who was in want of money. SHE is not a person of consequence--she has no rank to keep up."

The baroness must have attached immense importance to the satisfying of Van Klopen's demands, for concealing the anger this humiliating scene undoubtedly caused her, she condescended to try and explain, and even to entreat. "I have been a little extravagant, perhaps," she said; "but I will be more prudent in future. Pay, monsieur--pay just once more."

"No!"

"If not for my sake, for your own."

"Not a farthing."

By the baron's tone, Pascal realized that his wife would never shake his fixed determination. Such must also have been the opinion of the illustrious ruler of fashion, for he returned to the charge with an argument he had held in reserve. "If this is the case, I shall, to my great regret, be obliged to fail in the respect I owe to Monsieur le Baron, and to place this bill in the hands of a solicitor."

"Send him along--send him along."

"I cannot believe that monsieur wishes a law-suit."

"In that you are greatly mistaken. Nothing would please me better. It would at last give me an opportunity to say what I think about your dealings. Do you think that wives are to turn their husbands into machines for supplying money? You draw the bow-string too tightly, my dear fellow--it will break. I'll proclaim on the house-top what others dare not say, and we'll see if I don't succeed in organizing a little crusade against you." And animated by the sound of his own words, his anger came back to him, and in a louder and ever louder voice he continued: "Ah! you prate of the scandal that would be created by my resistance to your demands. That's your system; but, with me, it won't succeed. You threaten me with a law-suit; very good. I'll take it upon myself to enlighten Paris, for I know your secrets, Mr. Dressmaker. I know the goings on in your establishment. It isn't always to talk about dress that ladies stop at your place on returning from the Bois. You sell silks and satins no doubt; but you sell Madeira, and excellent cigarettes as well, and there are some who don't walk very straight on leaving your establishment, but smell suspiciously of tobacco and absinthe. Oh, yes, let us go to law, by all means! I shall have an advocate who will know how to explain the parts your customers pay, and who will reveal how, with your assistance, they obtain money from other sources than their husband's cash-box."

When M. Van Klopen was addressed in this style, he was not at all pleased. "And I!" he exclaimed, "I will tell people that Baron Trigault, after losing all his money at play, repays his creditors with curses."

The noise of an overturned chair told Pascal that the baron had sprung up in a furious passion "You may say what you like, you rascally fool! but not in my house," he shouted. "Leave--leave, or I will ring----"

"Monsieur----"

"Leave, leave, I tell you, or I sha'n't have the patience to wait for a servant!"

He must have joined action to word, and have seized Van Klopen by the collar to thrust him into the hall, for Pascal heard a sound of scuffling, a series of oaths worthy of a coal-heaver, two or three frightened cries from the baroness, and several guttural exclamations in German. Then a door closed with such violence that the whole house shook, and a magnificent clock, fixed to the wall of the smoking-room, fell on to the floor.

If Pascal had not heard this scene, he would have deemed it incredible. How could one suppose that a creditor would leave this princely mansion with his bill unpaid? But more and more clearly he understood that there must be some greater cause of difference between husband and wife than this bill of twenty-eight thousand francs. For what was this amount to a confirmed gambler who, without as much as a frown, gained or lost a fortune every evening of his life. Evidently there was some skeleton in this household--one of those terrible secrets which make a man and his wife enemies, and all the more bitter enemies as they are bound together by a chain which it is impossible to break. And undoubtedly, a good many of the insults which the baron had heaped upon Van Klopen must have been intended for the baroness. These thoughts darted through Pascal's mind with the rapidity of lightning, and showed him the horrible position in which he was placed. The baron, who had been so favorably disposed toward him, and from whom he was expecting a great service, would undoubtedly hate him, undoubtedly become his enemy, when he learned that he had been a listener, although an involuntary one, to this conversation with Van Klopen. How did it happen that he had been placed in this dangerous position? What had become of the footman who had taken his card? These were questions which he was unable to answer. And what was he to do? If he could have retired noiselessly, if he could have reached the courtyard and have made his escape without being observed he would not have hesitated. But was this plan practicable? And would not his card betray him? Would it not be discovered sooner or later that he had been in the smoking-room while M. Van Klopen was in the dining-room? In any case, delicacy of feeling as well as his own interest forbade him to remain any longer a listener to the private conversation of the baron and his wife.

He therefore noisily moved a chair, and coughed in that affected style which means in every country: "Take care--I'm here!" But he did not succeed in attracting attention. And yet the silence was profound; he could distinctly hear the creaking of the baron's boots, as he paced to and fro, and the sound of fingers nervously beating a tattoo on the table. If he desired to avoid hearing the confidential conversation, which would no doubt ensue between the baron and his wife, there was but one course for him to pursue, and that was to reveal his presence at once. He was about to do so, when some one opened a door which must have led from the hall into the dining-room. He listened attentively, but only heard a few confused words, to which the baron replied: "Very well. That's sufficient. I will see him in a moment."

Pascal breathed freely once more. "They have just given him my card," he thought. "I can remain now; he will come here in a moment."

The baron must really have started to leave the room, for his wife exclaimed: "One word more: have you quite decided?"

"Oh, fully!"

"You are resolved to leave me exposed to the persecutions of my dressmaker?"

"Van Klopen is too charming and polite to cause you the least worry."

"You will brave the disgrace of a law-suit?"

"Nonsense! You know very well that he won't bring any action against me--unfortunately. And, besides, pray tell me where the disgrace would be? I have a foolish wife--is that my fault? I oppose her absurd extravagance--haven't I a right to do so? If all husbands were as courageous, we should soon close the establishments of these artful men, who minister to your vanity, and use you ladies as puppets, or living advertisements, to display the absurd fashions which enrich them."

The baron took two or three more steps forward, as if about to leave the room, but his wife interposed: "The Baroness Trigault, whose husband has an income of seven or eight hundred thousand francs a year, can't go about clad like a simple woman of the middle classes."

"I should see nothing so very improper in that."

"Oh, I know. Only your ideas don't coincide with mine. I shall never consent to make myself ridiculous among the ladies of my set--among my friends."

"It would indeed be a pity to arouse the disapproval of your friends."

This sneering remark certainly irritated the baroness, for it was with the greatest vehemence that she replied: "All my friends are ladies of the highest rank in society--noble ladies!"

The baron no doubt shrugged his shoulders, for in a tone of crushing irony and scorn, he exclaimed: "Noble ladies! whom do you call noble ladies, pray? The brainless fools who only think of displaying themselves and making themselves notorious?--the senseless idiots who pique themselves on surpassing lewd women in audacity, extravagance, and effrontery, who fleece their husbands as cleverly as courtesans fleece their lovers? Noble ladies! who drink, and smoke, and carouse, who attend masked balls, and talk slang! Noble ladies! the idiots who long for the applause of the crowd, and consider notoriety to be desirable and flattering. A woman is only noble by her virtues--and the chief of all virtues, modesty, is entirely wanting in your illustrious friends----"

"Monsieur," interrupted the baroness, in a voice husky with anger, "you forget yourself--you----"

But the baron was well under way. "If it is scandal that crowns one a great lady, you ARE one--and one of the greatest; for you are notorious--almost as notorious as Jenny Fancy. Can't I learn from the newspapers all your sayings and gestures, your amusements, your occupations, and the toilettes you wear? It is impossible to read of a first performance at a theatre, or of a horse-race, without finding your name coupled with that of Jenny Fancy, or Cora Pearl, or Ninette Simplon. I should be a very strange husband indeed, if I wasn't proud and delighted. Ah! you are a treasure to the reporters. On the day before yesterday the Baroness Trigault skated in the Bois. Yesterday she was driving in her pony-carriage. To-day she distinguished herself by her skill at pigeon-shooting. To-morrow she will display herself half nude in some tableaux vivants. On the day after to-morrow she will inaugurate a new style of hair-dressing, and take part in a comedy. It is always the Baroness Trigault who is the observed of all observers at Vincennes. The Baroness Trigault has lost five hundred louis in betting. The Baroness Trigault uses her lorgnette with charming impertinence. It is she who has declared it proper form to take a 'drop' on returning from the Bois. No one is so famed for 'form,' as the baroness--and silk merchants have bestowed her name upon a color. People rave of the Trigault blue--what glory! There are also costumes Trigault, for the witty, elegant baroness has a host of admirers who follow her everywhere, and loudly sing her praises. This is what I, a plain, honest man, read every day in the newspapers. The whole world not only knows how my wife dresses, but how she looks en dishabille, and how she is formed; folks are aware that she has an exquisite foot, a divinely-shaped leg, and a perfect hand. No one is ignorant of the fact that my wife's shoulders are of dazzling whiteness, and that high on the left shoulder there is a most enticing little mole. I had the satisfaction of reading this particular last evening. It is charming, upon my word! and I am truly a fortunate man!"

In the smoking-room, Pascal could hear the baroness angrily stamp her foot, as she exclaimed: "It is an outrageous insult--your journalists are most impertinent."

"Why? Do they ever trouble honest women?"

"They wouldn't trouble me if I had a husband who knew how to make them treat me with respect!"

The baron laughed a strident, nervous laugh, which it was not pleasant to hear, and which revealed the fact that intense suffering was hidden beneath all this banter. "Would you like me to fight a duel then? After twenty years has the idea of ridding yourself of me occurred to you again? I can scarcely believe it. You know too well that you would receive none of my money, that I have guarded against that. Besides, you would be inconsolable if the newspapers ceased talking about you for a single day. Respect yourself, and you will be respected. The publicity you complain of is the last anchor which prevents society from drifting one knows not where. Those who would not listen to the warning voice of honor and conscience are restrained by the fear of a little paragraph which might disclose their shame. Now that a woman no longer has a conscience, the newspapers act in place of it. And I think it quite right, for it is our only hope of salvation."

By the stir in the adjoining room, Pascal felt sure that the baroness had stationed herself before the door to prevent her husband from leaving her. "Ah! well, monsieur," she exclaimed, "I declare to you that I must have Van Klopen's twenty-eight thousand francs before this evening. I will have them, too; I am resolved to have them, and you will give them to me."

"Oh!" thundered the baron, "you WILL have them--you will----" He paused, and then, after a moment's reflection, he said: "Very well. So be it! I will give you this amount, but not just now. Still if, as you say, it is absolutely necessary that you should have it to-day, there is a means of procuring it. Pawn your diamonds for thirty thousand francs--I authorize you to do so; and I give you my word of honor that I will redeem them within a week. Say, will you do this?" And, as the baroness made no reply, he continued: "You don't answer! shall I tell you why? It is because your diamonds were long since sold and replaced by imitation ones; it is because you are head over heels in debt; it is because you have stooped so low as to borrow your maid's savings; it is because you already owe three thousand francs to one of my coachmen; it is because our steward lends you money at the rate of thirty or forty per cent."

"It is false!"

The baron sneered. "You certainly must think me a much greater fool than I really am!" he replied. "I'm not often at home, it's true--the sight of you exasperates me; but I know what's going on. You believe me your dupe, but you are altogether mistaken. It is not twenty-seven thousand francs you owe Van Klopen, but fifty or sixty thousand. However, he is careful not to demand payment. If he brought me a bill this morning, it was only because you had begged him to do so, and because it had been agreed he should give you the money back if I paid him. In short, if you require twenty-eight thousand francs before to-night, it is because M. Fernand de Coralth has demanded that sum, and because you have promised to give it to him!"

Leaning against the wall of the smoking-room, speechless and motionless, holding his breath, with his hands pressed upon his heart, as if to stop its throbbings, Pascal Ferailleur listened. He no longer thought of flying; he no longer thought of reproaching himself for his enforced indiscretion. He had lost all consciousness of his position. The name of the Viscount de Coralth, thus mentioned in the course of this frightful scene, came as a revelation to him. He now understood the meaning of the baron's conduct. His visit to the Rue d'Ulm, and his promises of help were all explained. "My mother was right," he thought; "the baron hates that miserable viscount mortally. He will do all in his power to assist me."

Meanwhile, the baroness energetically denied her husband's charges. She swore that she did not know what he meant. What had M. de Coralth to do with all this? She commanded her husband to speak more plainly--to explain his odious insinuations.

He allowed her to speak for a moment, and then suddenly, in a harsh, sarcastic voice, he interrupted her by saying: "Oh! enough! No more hypocrisy! Why do you try to defend yourself? What matters one crime more? I know only too well that what I say is true; and if you desire proofs, they shall be in your hands in less than half an hour. It is a long time since I was blind--full twenty years! Nothing concerning you has escaped my knowledge and observation since the cursed day when I discovered the depths of your disgrace and infamy--since the terrible evening when I heard you plan to murder me in cold blood. You had grown accustomed to freedom of action; while I, who had gone off with the first gold- seekers, was braving a thousand dangers in California, so as to win wealth and luxury for you more quickly. Fool that I was! No task seemed too hard or too distasteful when I thought of you--and I was always thinking of you. My mind was at peace--I had perfect faith in you. We had a daughter; and if a fear or a doubt entered my mind, I told myself that the sight of her cradle would drive all evil thoughts from your heart. The adultery of a childless wife may be forgiven or explained; but that of a mother, never! Fool! idiot! that I was! With what joyous pride, on my return after an absence of eighteen months, I showed you the treasures I had brought back with me! I had two hundred thousand francs! I said to you as I embraced you: 'It is yours, my well-beloved, the source of all my happiness!' But you did not care for me--I wearied you! You loved another! And while you were deceiving me with your caresses, you were, with fiendish skill, preparing a conspiracy which, if it had succeeded, would have resulted in my death! I should consider myself amply revenged if I could make you suffer for a single day all the torments that I endured for long months. For this was not all! You had not even the excuse, if excuse it be, of a powerful, all-absorbing passion. Convinced of your treachery, I resolved to ascertain everything, and I discovered that in my absence you had become a mother. Why didn't I kill you? How did I have the courage to remain silent and conceal what I knew? Ah! it was because, by watching you, I hoped to discover the cursed bastard and your accomplice. It was because I dreamed of a vengeance as terrible as the offence. I said to myself that the day would come when, at any risk, you would try to see your child again, to embrace her, and provide for her future. Fool! fool that I was! You had already forgotten her! When you received news of my intended return, she was sent to some foundling asylum, or left to die upon some door-step. Have you ever thought of her? Have you ever asked what has become of her? ever asked yourself if she had needed bread while you have been living in almost regal luxury? ever asked yourself into what depths of vice she may have fallen?"

"Always the same ridiculous accusation!" exclaimed the baroness.

"Yes, always!"

"You must know, however, that this story of a child is only a vile slander. I told you so when you spoke of it to me a dozen years afterward. I have repeated it a thousand times since."

The baron uttered a sigh that was very like a sob, and without paying any heed to his wife's words, he continued: "If I consented to allow you to remain under my roof, it was only for the sake of our daughter. I trembled lest the scandal of a separation should fall upon her. But it was useless suffering on my part. She was as surely lost as you yourself were; and it was your work, too!"

"What! you blame me for that?"

"Whom ought I to blame, then? Who took her to balls, and theatres and races--to every place where a young girl ought NOT to be taken? Who initiated her into what you call high life? and who used her as a discreet and easy chaperon? Who married her to a wretch who is a disgrace to the title he bears, and who has completed the work of demoralization you began? And what is your daughter to-day? Her extravagance has made her notorious even among the shameless women who pretend to be leaders of society. She is scarcely twenty-two, and there is not a single prejudice left for her to brave! Her husband is the companion of actresses and courtesans; her own companions are no better--and in less than two years the million of francs which I bestowed on her as a dowry has been squandered, recklessly squandered--for there isn't a penny of it left. And, at this very hour, my daughter and my son- in-law are plotting to extort money from me. On the day before yesterday--listen carefully to this--my son-in-law came to ask me for a hundred thousand francs, and when I refused them, he threatened if I did not give them to him that he would publish some letters written by my daughter--by his wife--to some low scoundrel. I was horrified and gave him what he asked. But that same evening I learned that the husband and wife, my daughter and my son-in-law, had concocted this vile conspiracy together. Yes, I have positive proofs of it. Leaving here, and not wishing to return home that day, he telegraphed the good news to his wife. But in his delight he made a mistake in the address, and the telegram was brought here. I opened it, and read: 'Papa has fallen into the trap, my darling. I beat my drum, and he surrendered at once.' Yes, that is what he dared to write, and sign with his own name, and then send to his wife--my daughter!"